Sir Poley's Blog, page 58

I read your RP guides recently and thought of a question. Do you have any advice for people who have trouble separating their characters from themselves and end up practically with a self insert? (Love Milo's story, btw. :))

Two suggestions.

The first is, go for it. In a D&D game, it’s easiest to accurately RP if your character is similar to yourself. I find it really hard playing evil characters even in video games for that reason—I just like rescuing people in games. Create good reasons for why your character would have traits similar to those you find easiest to play (similarly, I tend to play characters who are rash, take risks, and are impulsive, just because that’s how I tend to strategize, as well).

My other idea to help keep your character separate from yourself is to make them different in ways that are largely set in stone that you have to deal with. The most effective way I’ve found is to play a character of a different gender, or one who is really, really prejudiced against elves (or dwarves, or whatever). By making your character’s starting position very different from your own, it will compensate, in part, for your natural tendency to make your character more like yourself.

Still, this is a problem I grapple with as well. Optimizing the numbers, and leading the party into comedic and/or epic situations, comes to me much more naturally than roleplaying.

You know, one thing I love about HPN20 is that even a relatively minor, at least at the time, subplot is still of such amazing quality. I mean, if the adventures of Fiona were released as their own fic with no relating to D&D, I'd still probably read it an

Thanks! Just between you and me (and everyone else reading this, of course) I think that Fiona’s subplot features some of my best writing to date (it was also some of the most exciting to write). The trick now is to figure out what brought that out of me, and channel it in other areas of writing, as well.

You know, one thing I love about HPN20 is that even a relatively minor, at least at the time, subplot is still of such amazing quality. I mean, if the adventures of Fiona were released as their own fic with no relating to D&D, I'd still probably read it an

Thanks! Just between you and me (and everyone else reading this, of course) I think that Fiona’s subplot features some of my best writing to date (it was also some of the most exciting to write). The trick now is to figure out what brought that out of me, and channel it in other areas of writing, as well.

How come you don't post to Ao3? It's so much easier (well, IMO) to read on that page than on FF

Largely because I was introduced to FF first, but not because I have any particular loyalty to it. Theoretically I could probably publish on both, but it’s already such a hassle making corrections and edits, between the .pdfs, various ebook formats, and the one on FF, that I probably won’t do that.

Not to mention all the tears you could mass produce out of Ron's face

Now you’re thinking like a munchkin. Secondary utility, even if it is marginal, is always a thing to keep an eye out for.

Of course you must also then know that hairy spiders are both a valid +0 LA player race and fine sized.

I don’t actually have that rulebook. Can they speak? Do they get int/wis/cha penalties or bonuses? +8 AC and to attack on a caster? Yes, please!

After reading your review of 5th edition rules, I thought it might be interesting if you wrote a sample encounter, telling the same story using version different rules, to give an idea of how the rules affect actual game play..

The reason my 5th edition review has been so delayed is because, until very recently, my rulebook was in a different country from me (I moved recently, and some things were left behind). As a result, I haven’t actually played yet, something that’s been irritating me to no end.

Now that I have the book again, though, I hope to finish off my much-delayed review and maybe get a chance to finally play it.

Did you know that Hairy Spiders (Monsters of Faerun) are only 1/8th hit die? Even more effective than undead squirrels if one needs to control masses of them...

Did not know that, but with that knowledge, I can do some serious mass-production.

Thanks for the tip!

http://pencil-monkey.tumblr.com/post/...

http://pencil-monkey.tumblr.com/post/101435279378/since-halloween-is-also-harry-potters-birthday:

pencil-monkey:

Since Hallowe’en is also Harry Potter’s birthday, let’s celebrate with a few quotes from some of the best HP fanfics on the market:

"There was a time when October 31st had been called Halloween in magical Britain.

Now it was Harry Potter Day. […] But to Harry, October 31st would always be…

AWESOME. Beautiful art, fantastic quotes, great fics too. Well done! +100XP!

Happy Harry Potter day, AKA Halloween! Thanks for all the great fanfic. PS: I'm not sure whether Tumblr permits direct links in these ask boxes, but if you check out the top post of my Tumblr, there's a little bit of HP+Nat20 lovin' that might interest you

AWESOME! I’ll reblog it ASAP, or whatever it is that makes it pop up on my page. To my knowledge, you’re only the second piece of HPN20 fanart. If anyone has a secret cache that they know about, point me to it. I love this stuff.