u/ArcadeBaron

Definitely the right move. DnD is supposed to be fun, it shouldn't involve the DM arbitrarily punishing you for good rolls

If this is a legitimate post...no this wasn't a reason to argue with the GM because there's no point in arguing with a person who is petty and vindictive. The correct course of action is "leave and never speak to them again"

I'd never heard of them before but now I'm kind of obsessed. I've been out of the BJD hobby for a while and I'm so delighted to see more variety in face sculpts these days. I can't wait to see how you end up styling her!

There ya go, now you're getting somewhere!

God this explanation was impossible to follow without names.

Anyway, this is a made up world with magic. Figure out a literal or figurative deus ex machina and move on with things.

Maybe the demi-god notices the magic item and recognizes it, but decides to let the PC live...for a price. Ruthless crime lords don't have to kill every single person who crosses them and paranoid maniacs don't actually build criminal empires because a person who is TOO lethally dangerous will not have anyone to work with because no one will take the risk of dealing with him. If they become too overt, people who are more powerful will simply put them down like the rabid dogs they are.

If the PC is pressed into service for the demi-god and has the threat of death hanging over his head if he disobeys, that can propel the plot forward. Eventually, if the PC makes it to high enough level, he and his party ought to be able to challenge a demi-god, which could make for a fun combat down the road if he wants to get out of this bad deal he finds himself in.

Or if you want to be precious about your setting or NPCs, sure, just kill this guy's character as the unintended consequences of actions that he didn't fully understand. You'll probably lose a player and you won't tell an interesting story.

Your choice!

1) Text based online RP is very different from table top RP.

2) Don't worry about fully "getting into character". If you want to speak as your character you can but you don't have to. You can also just narrate what your character does.

3) The only way to learn is by doing! Follow the lead of other people at the table.

4) The main thing to worry about is knowing how your character works mechanically - be able to keep things moving during combat is the best way to be a good player at the table.

Save money on the chair, get a gym membership or some dumbbells and start working on your deadlifts and squats. Your back will thank you.

Seconding this so much! I have my own version of Lou and she's been AMAZING.

I really do agree that for a lot of people, a personal trainer is what they need, not a PT. The only PT I had that was at all useful was a woman who saw me, did a mobility assessment, and was like "yeah, you're a bit hypermobile...we're gonna do some deadlifts and squats about it".

IMO, for a lot of people on the more mild end of HSD, what they actually need is help with coordination. If ALL your muscles are working together in a system like they should your joints stay in the correct range of motion. And to get that full-body coordination, you need to be doing exercises that utilize the full body.

Ah, a classic case of "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!" "Well, don't do that"

Oh, LOVE that head sculpt, she's going to be beautiful!

I think that's mostly normal - when I move my hand the same way, it does the same thing. Your S curve is more pronounced than mine though so perhaps it's related to the pain you experience but it may not be. I think you'd know - like the motion you did would either feel painful or not.

So this is less about growing glutes and more about TRULY finding glute activation but I find "good mornings" really helpful. You can give them a bit of weight to help force you to get those glutes on but focusing on correct hinge for with them and playing around till I can confidently say "yes, I FEEL my glutes engaged" has been very helpful in improving all my OTHER hinge and glute based movements.

Just doing normal, day to day business is probably gonna get old pretty quick. Rather than have something open-ended like "doing business", you as a player should figure out what in-game benefit you want to get out of doing business (extra money, meet new people and develop leads for quests, achieve some specific goal for the character) and then talk to the DM about that.

In terms of what I've done in game, we had a thriving sheep farm in one game, but that was mostly run by NPCs - the owners would come by to collect their profits (which I think we rolled for but I don't recall) occasionally and make administrative changes to the farm. This might be a good way to make it a mostly background thing that you can interact with occasionally but not be tied down to.

On the flip side, we once also opened what was essentially a food truck. This was largely set dressing - we really never worried about turning a profit there and had fun coming up with food and drink to stock the truck with. This sometimes lead to RP opportunities.

It's normal! You're going through a low point in your mental health. If you're a person who menstruates (which I assume yes, since you're in this sub) you may also just be hitting a particularly rough patch in that cycle due to stress or the season or whatever else. These things can compound pretty easily.

It may indeed also be a plateau. If you've been on an up swing for a while, hitting the breaks can feel really demoralizing, especially if you've been somewhat obsessively tracking everything. It's good to schedule in deload weeks but you can't actually perfectly schedule your own body. Sometimes your body will TAKE a deload week whether you intended to or not. Just roll with it - it's not forever.

Might also be a sign that you need some variety. Nothing big, just a little novelty to give you a sense of accomplishment while working on something slightly new or progressing with something that you've not worked on in a while.

I lean towards Essence because it's more self-contained. I love 3E but it is...a lot. It's sprawling. It's complex in ways that are interesting to me as a person who enjoys the process of figuring out a system and also really likes deep role play but for some people it may be too much.

Ultimately, there's no "right" answer. I'd suggest maybe picking a system and go through character creation with your potential group. Like don't even bother reskinning it yet, just go through character creation and see if the process is fun/inspirational or if they just find it annoying/overly complex. If you like it, proceed with reskinning. If you don't, try a different system.

3E is the most current and IMO has the most interesting/cinematic combat system. I really was surprised by how much I liked the combat system because it SEEMS quite complicated at first glance...But also it's been years since I played 2E and I don't remember it very well. I WILL say that 2E might be easier to reskin because it has fucking flow charts for the charms, something which I do not understand the lack of in 3E.

TBH the charms themselves are pretty setting agnostic. I think the only place you'd need to tweak them would be charms that interact with spirits and gods and the Wyld because those function in specific ways (so there's charms that can make ghosts or spirits physically materialize and so on, and charms that protect the user from the mutating effects of the Wyld, which may not be relevant to your setting)

Oh and I've never played Exalted Essence THOUGH it could be a good match for you because it's a little less convoluted than 3E and has a lot of "general charms" that every character can use, which may be helpful for the reskinning process. Plus it has full rules/charm sets for ALL the Exalt types.

Yep, I feel like medical subs in particular can become very doom and gloom. Gotta keep the positive in mind when you can!

Just play Exalted! Everyone should play Exalted!

Actually I feel like others probably have better suggestions. I just want more people to appreciate Exalted. I really think the combat system in 3e is something special and it really does a good job of simulating dramatic, cinematic combat.

I actually think homebrew would not be that difficult IF you're willing to simply reskin everything and not touch the mechanics of the system much.

I'm not actually sure if this is helpful or not because I am not a teen but as an adult who has been reflecting on my youth and why I didn't do certain things that would have been good for me later in life, I've often felt like the adults around me didn't actually present a compelling argument about why I should be doing something. They just told me it was good for me and I should be doing it.

For example, I never flossed because I didn't like doing it (in fact, it gave me anxiety and made my OCD flare because I didn't like sticking my fingers in my mouth). But I might have done it if someone had more directly made the connection between flossing and gum disease and explained HOW not flossing leads to pockets of bacteria under the gums.

So for exercise, sometimes going the extra mile to build the connection between "being active is good for you" and the specific benefits both short and long term might help?

Also, trying to remove hidden barriers. Like paying attention if they express trepidation/disgust/negative emotions in general. Sometimes those complaints might not be teenage malingering and may be an expression (sometimes unconscious) of a deeper anxiety or hang-up. You may not be able to dredge all of those up, but taking the expressions of discomfort seriously rather than just immediately dismissing them with a pep talk might also be helpful.

I think the issue is that you want to draw a hot lady in impractical clothing but don't want to ADMIT that you want to draw a hot lady in impractical clothing and tried to pass it off as practical when it clearly isn't! She looks like she's wearing a bathing suit and beach cover up!

Now, on the flip side...this isn't porn. It's quite tame, it's just silly fantasy clothing. But you also can't fall back on Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo in your own defense because they were indeed drawing women with sex appeal, on purpose, because they liked drawing sexy women. This is fine! They knew what they were about!

In terms of your art, you did a lovely job rendering the hair. I think that's my favorite part of the picture because it has a lot of life and movement to it. You also did a nice job rendering her weapons and belts, so it's kind of a shame those aspects are such a small part of the image as a whole. The lighting is also very good, her skin is especially nicely rendered.

Still, over all, the image is kind of boring because it feels like there's not much character or world. I don't believe for a second that a person who really lives in the woods would dress in those clothes and the clothes don't feel like they come from any particular fictional or real culture. They're just kind of...there. Honestly, I think if you pushed her MORE towards being sexualized it would actually be better because at least the viewer would understand what your intent was in making this image. Like, when I look at a Frank Frazetta image I know two things for certain: that man loved painting asses and some kind of ridiculous fantasy adventure is afoot.

Ahhhhhh this makes sense. I feel like you could totally have a double-decker car at least sometimes - this is a setting where magic exists after all!

But as to the maps - save yourself some effort and definitely copy-paste where you can. Not every car should be totally unique, but one or two should be for variety. IMO I'd focus on making the battle maps unique so that combat doesn't get repetitive. For the interactive/NPC maps, you probably don't need as much variety in the map so long as there's variety in the NPCs

Oh I TOTALLY get that! Being able to suffer minor injuries and normal inconveniences in life is actually so freeing. Like that's really a moment where you think "YES, all this work I'm doing MATTERS". This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about when I made this post.

I definitely second the idea someone had of making 2 level cars. This will give you more space to work in AND lets you do cool stuff like having someone break through the floor on the upper level and fall down to the level below.

Also don't forget that people might end up on TOP of the train cars (or wagons?) if they have a hard roof. And heck, you might even consider making a map that includes the bottom of the wagons/cars if your players want to try crawling around under there via magic or something.

For creating your own map, the main thing you need to keep in mind is the movement speed of your PCs and the monsters. I would personally lean more towards the 30x70 square map that was suggested, because it'll give a little more room to maneuver and allow characters and enemies to be out of range of SOME attacks/spells/etc.

Also, make sure you include things that can provide cover (support pillars, built in seats, stacks of cargo, etc), as well as items characters can interact with to change the environment (luggage, food trolleys, hanging light fixtures, etc).

Since this is a Snow Piercer type scenario, you can also include unconventional things like a car full of plants, manufacturing equipment that is actually functional (and can either be used in combat or be cover), storage cars for weird magical items or preserved monsters...without knowing more about the scenario it's hard to get specific but basically try to get as weird with it as possible!

In about 1 month we will be getting a 12 paragraph long post from another player in this campaign asking if they should quit an obviously terrible game.

An excellent thought! Most people (myself included) would have simply breezed past the trance/meditation aspect of elves and given them regular beds out of habit.

As others have pointed out, they CAN sleep but don't necessarily need to. Perhaps you could given them something akin to a Japanese futon set-up. Instead of an elaborate piece of furniture, futons can be folded away into a closet, leaving the room more clear for other activities during the day.

As for pillows on the ground - traditional Japanese furniture is pretty minimalist and low to the ground/on the ground so it might be good inspiration for Elven interiors as well. I'm sure there's other cultures that likewise tend more towards low/ground level furniture that could provide some inspo as well. When it comes to fantasy stuff, I often avoid over-using one specific real world culture for inspo.

I also kind of feel like the type of "pillows" found in both ancient Egypt and China - which are basically wooden or ceramic pedestals for the head might also make for an interesting addition to Elven bedroom decor. I've always been fascinated by those artifacts because they seem like the opposite of comfort but they do seem like they could be pretty ideal for a trance state.