THE TOURNAMENT!

Simple, basic, 2 stage.

Stage 1: Qualifiers. we'll be polling each monster to see who makes the cut. Stage 2: Make a Tournament and see who wins! Then do a poll for what system/book to do next, and hopefully repeat! Starting with the 5e Monster Manual, as that's the meme that started this idea. I'm using "#not tournament" if it's not directly important to the tournament, and #answers for answering asks, in case you don't care about extra stuff. For a quick list of the poll results so far, Click Here!

Because I’m curious, I wanted to make a couple of polls. This one is essentially a poll version of a post by @mookybear12404

Please reblog for sample size!! And feel free to tell me about your first characters!!

ok wait so

isekai about a nyc apartment block getting teleported into a fantasy realm, and how this group of people who previously have only had incidental contact with one another come together to build a vibrant community in their new circumstances. there's a season-long arc about introducing bagels and pizza to the fantasy world that gets into the details of sourcing ingredients, developing new technologies, and learning how to work with supernatural substitutions.

Clarifying question: just the people or the buildings and animal life too?

And does it include random people on the street at the time of the transfer?

oh the whole thing for sure, im picturing the whole city block with a crust of sidewalk just dropped onto the outskirts of a small medieval village. im thinking theres probably a corner store and a couple other things included too, so youve got the people who work there or were shopping at the time of the transfer too.

i hadnt thought of animals but having a whole thing w pigeons would be awesome too; have new york feral pigeons meeting with tamed messenger pigeons of the era, a raccoon that was sleeping in a trash can eats a magical necklace and starts talking. love it.

fucking love this. an army of monster rats descend upon the kingdom, led by a single subway rat under the banner of a half-eaten pizza crust

But they do not anticipate the rise of the Hero, their one, true, and most worthy foe—

THE BODEGA CAT

#Tumblr's “Yes and” game remains strong and on-point

Challenge accepted.

First, let’s skip the charcoal. A cuisine is not based on food color. I feel like our primary flavor is a combination of Sweet and Bitter. This is common in all the most popular gothic drinks; Coffee, Red Wine, and Absinthe. It would favor elaborate, ornate, near Victorian presentation and plating.    People’s values are also expressed in food so I feel that handcrafting, niche and novelty, as well as authenticity would come through. Cooking methods would probably prefer open flame and aging.

So okay, with that in mind here are some ideas. 

Some more suggestions:

Not to be all One Weird Trick This Ex-Tumblr Employee Discovered About Garlic, but I saw someone commented on my paprika post that garlic and onions make them sick.

My wife has an allium intolerance. If she eats garlic, shallots, scallions, chives, or raw onions she gets an upset stomach, etc. Cooked onions are fine, though. For the longest time I just had to omit those ingredients from the food I cooked for her.

One day we were at a bar and we ordered some food and asked for no garlic in one of the dishes. The bartender put in the order and asked if garlic makes us sick, and my wife said yes, and explained the allium thing. The bartender said his wife has the exact same thing, and he found out that freezing garlic first seemed to alleviate her symptoms.

So I went and tried it. I was cooking a polenta and put some frozen garlic in it. My wife came home and I asked, "Are you sure you want to try this? It's pretty garlicky." and she tried it and said "This doesn't taste like garlic at all." And I knew that it definitely did. I could smell and taste the distinct flavor of garlic, but to her there was a complete absence of any garlic flavor that she knew of. It makes me wonder if freezing garlic breaks down a compound that I don't even notice because I've never had issues with garlic.

Anyways, I freeze my garlic and shallots now, and my wife can eat those without issue. Sure it's not the same as fresh, but we can both enjoy it this way.

On a lighter note.

The main reason I ever wanted to write a Hungarian mythology-based urban fantasy is that I needed to see someone do Bread Magic in a mundane modern setting.

Bread Magic shows up in a variety in Hungarian fairytales. It works like this: when someone evil, usually the devil, sometimes a dragon, wants to come into your house and hurt you, usually by taking your children, what you do is put a loaf of bread on the windowsill. It will speak for you.

When evil demands admission, the bread will say: First, they buried me under the ground, and I survived. When I sprouted, they cruelly cut me down with sickles, and I survived. They threshed me with their flails and I survived. They ground me to flour with their millstones and I survived. They put me in a bowl and kneaded me, then they put me in a hot oven to bake me, and I survived. Have you done all these things? Until you do all these things and survive, you have no power here.

This is pretty powerful magic I think, and it makes sense in a country where wheat is the staple crop and bread is the staple food. If you have bread, you are alive, if you have no bread, you are dead, therefore bread is life. It was customary to refer to wheat as “life” well into the twentieth century, and not in high literary circles either: rural seasonal workers negotiated their wages in so and so many sacks of life.

And I totally want someone to do bread magic with a shitty store-bought muffin.

“They filled me full of toxic preservatives, and yet I can still nourish. They left me under harsh florescent lighting, and yet I can still bring comfort. The one who baked me will never see the one who eats mez and yet I can still convey some sense of love, of care.

Until you can have your nature so twisted, yet remember and hold to it still, you have no power here.”

I'M TENTATIVELY FUCKING STOKED AT THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

To those of you expressing skepticism and a lack of trust in WotC, you're RIGHT. Wizards ruined a lot of good will, and it's gonna take time and effort to earn that back. But here's the other end of the stick that's gonna get me accused of bootlicking:

You gotta be open to letting them earn your patronage and trust again. I'm not saying jump back in with both feet immediately. What I AM saying is that if they suffer all this backlash, make the objectively correct decision to walk it back, and then see ass-all result from them apologizing, (in a very corporate way, but still, it's something, and this time backed up with additional action,) there's nothing stopping execs next time. They'll just see it as, "well, when we tried to fix it, it didn't help, so let's just do the profit thing"

I said I'm tentatively stoked. I'm less angry now. I'd say I'm not even angry at wizards. It's like I just had a big argument with them, and they finally said, "sorry, you're right." The anger is gone, but there's still a lot there for me to process. But I'm open to them earning my trust again.

I love how all of the Batman villains are like “ah he’s not at the manor, it’s defenseless! and then alfred just racks an AK-47 and is like pull up bitch

Batman’s Villains: The butler will be easy prey!

He’s just an old man…he doesn’t have any of the Batman’s gadgets or training or fighting skills!

Alfred: Oh my you’re right

There’s something else of Master Bruce’s I don’t have as well

(Cocks a shotgun) A CODE AGAINST KILLING

Batman’s Villains: Wayne isn’t here to save you old man!

Alfred:

Alfred is the original “Call an ambulance — but not for me”

@dragonpuppies I spent way too long on this

Bruce: I have a code.

Alfred: And I have a gun.

Bruce: time to remove the guns.

Alfred: good fucking luck.

I’ve peer reviewed @ebonyheartnet’s addition and found that it deserves a reblog.

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #310 - “Finale” (2018)

Here is a free pdf of the players handbook

Here is a free pdf of xanathars guide to everything

Here is a free pdf to monsters manual

Here is a free pdf to tashas cauldron of everything

Here is a free pdf to dungeon master’s guide

Here is a free pdf to volo’s guide to monsters

Here is a free pdf of mordenkainen’s tomb of foes

For all your dnd purposes

ok but if bruce wayne somehow came upon zuko fresh out of banishment he would lose his mind.

black hair? check. bad parent(s)? check. trauma? double check.

bruce: how’d you get your scar?

zuko: my dad got mad at me for saying that killing people is wrong so he lit my face on fire and banished me.

bruce, vibrating with excitement, already pulling adoption papers from his utilility: that’s terrible. how do you feel about capes.

Zuko: Do you mind if I wear this blue demon mask?

Bruce: *sniff, tear in his eye* Not at all.

*Zuko fighting the Joker*

J: "wan na kno w h ow i go t thes e sc ar s"

Z: *rips off mask* i don't give a fuck

I’m still stuck at the “batman has adoption papers in his utility belt”.

“Quick, it’s time to use the Bat-adoption papers!”

Bat-option papers

Okay, but you’re missing the best part of this.

Alfred and Iroh complimenting each other on tea while they discuss their overly dramatic children.

iroh: once, i told zuko that he needs to work on his inter turmoil. he screamed at me that he had no such inner turmoil, and then proceeded to go to a cliff during a thunderstorm to scream at God to strike him with lightning

alfred: master bruce and i have that interaction at least three times per week.

@absentlyabbie​

I see your "Alfred and Iroh as tea bros" and raise you "Alfred and Iroh as tea rivals"

Consider

(later)

excellent addition

hey bruce spent a lot of his bat-study abroad in the far east and has kind of a weeb weapon collection so proposal, what if Bruce appreciates Iroh’s tea

while Zuko is enthusiastic about cream and sugar

further fueling their dad-figures’ passive-aggressive rivalry?

You had me at Zuko vs. Joker, I was crying by the Eastern vs. Western tea service

Wait a minute. Batman and Zuko have the same arch-nemesis.

Mark Hamill

Saw the last comment and my brain would not rest until it happened

this post has everything

this was an enjoyable ride. i liked the scenery very much. smooth suspension, nice height, several fascinating loops. 10/10 would go again.

Idk even as someone who likes 5e some stuff like this is just kinda silly

Like if you dislike so many things about the way 5e is made just try a different game, there's SO many ttrpgs out there now I'm sure you can find another one that fits what you want

You can tell who doesn’t have a full time job and/or kids cause they’re like “simply learn an entirely new system and also convince a handful of your friends to make time to do the same, what’s the big deal”

The massive idle couch potato privilege of *checks notes* having the time to read 20-ish pages of text.

I think a lot of people get intimidated to learn a new RPG because they think it's always going to be as intense as learning DnD.

DnD is a lot. There are other RPGs that can fit in a png.

Here is Swords & Scrolls

This is 100% of the game. Every piece of published material is right here. It is also entirely free. If you do not have time to try other, bigger RPGs, but you have the general grasp of how the flow of play works (DM describes a thing, you respond in character, etc.), then Start Here.

Scrolls & Swords is going to fit very well with the same kind of classic fantasy settings that you see in DnD, but it's going to be much more flexible to your group. If you really like homebrewing DnD (which it sounds like you do), Scrolls & Swords is robust yet small enough to be an excellent starting point for that. It lends itself well to Rule of Cool styles of play, but also a focus on common sense play ("Of course you know how to saddle a horse, you used to be a stablehand," and so on), depending on which your group leans into more. Additionally, these rules don't just apply to combat, but anything your DM decides would be an interesting challenge. That means you use exactly the same rules for combat as you do for seducing a guard or haggling a better price or riding in a horse race.

If you decide to download that image, you now own a copy of a full RPG system to the fullest extent that you can own anything and can then use it to run your next campaign.

Learning DnD can be an expensive and genuinely massive undertaking, especially if it's your first RPG (which it sounds like it is). What a lot of people don't realize is that most RPGs aren't like that. The majority of them are going to be a single novel sized book for half the price of one DnD book. And I mean that novel is everything: rules, character stuff, GM reference, and even a few starting adventures, for less than the price of the Player's Handbook.

The thing is, if you currently have time to play DnD, you have the chance to pause it for two sessions and spend that time reading a new game. Keep in mind, if you do pick a novel-sized game, that includes everything that the three core books of DnD covers, so you will not even need to read the whole book (your GM will, or will at least need to read a bit more than other folks in your group). I know that DnD is huge, but the majority of these other games simply are not that; you really can get everything in the same time as two DnD sessions.

I'll list some that I really like, and I'll make sure to only include shorter rulebooks with a low-ish price point.

Mouse Guard

Monster of the Week

Crash Pandas

I hope these can get you started. DnD is massive so if it's the first RPG you've played, it can make all RPGs seem equally daunting. If you take nothing else from this, know that other RPGs are far more accessible than DnD might make them seem.

I think there's been some talk about how one of the design goals of One D&D seems to be a focus on making the digital tools more important and given that there's talk inside Hasbro along the lines of D&D having more potential for monetization I wouldn't be surprised if WotC were to try some kind of "D&D as a service" thing.

Now is a great time to remind people that there are so many good RPG systems out there. Just because D&D is the biggest name in the industry doesn't mean it's the right system for your game, even if you are running some high fantasy type stuff. Take time to explore and see what's out there.

Yeah. And like, as much as I like playing D&D the fact is that besides it not being the perfect system for every type of game, I feel its overwhelming market dominance isn't necessarily a net positive for the hobby.

They all laughed when I kept hyping up Rolemaster. Well, who's laughing now? Well, it's still them, but nevertheless,

While you won't ever hear me wag my finger at someone suggesting people pirate D&D books because they are expensive as fuck and you need like three of them at minimum to have the "core game," I think more people should just play other RPGs. While by pirating D&D books you're not directly supporting the cultural behemoth that D&D is, if you have any interest in the hobby in general then I feel it is more productive to actually tangibly support other games.

Cause here's the thing: D&D is actually one of the few games out there where you need to buy three $50 books to play the game, most games will give you a full game at the price of a single book costing $50 or less depending on the game. Paying $150 dollars for the core rules of a game (which you have to buy separately if you want them to be available digitally) is absolutely not the norm. (For an example, Free League's The One Ring RPG costs 518.00 kr which comes out to approximately $50, while something slimmer like Blades in the Dark will only set you back like $30, and that's for the physical editions which come with PDFs included. Most publishers these days are involved in some program where even if you bought the game physically at a brick and mortar store, you can still get the PDF for free.) That's a full game for one-fifth to one-third the price of D&D's core rules, and that's not even taking into account the fact that a lot of these games are available for even cheaper in digital formats.

(Sidenote: one of the large profile D&D alternatives, Pathfinder, also follows the multiple books strategy, but its approach isn't quite as egregious imo as D&D's: firstly, you only need two books, the actual core rulebook and a bestiary, and secondly, all the rules are available online for free, yes you heard that right, all the rules, not just some Basic rules to get you started)

And then of course there are a bunch of indies. There are way too many good indie RPGs out there but here's a little sample:

Again, all of these games will set you back a fraction of the cost of D&D's core rules, each is a complete game in one book, and you know the money will directly support the author.

ICON is a fantasy rpg with amazing tactical combat and it's literally just free

Chefs are just a divergent subspecies of Witches.

They both go to lengths to gather ingredient for their various brews and potions. Keep all their various knowledge in a sacred tome (spell book and cook book)

Both cook in a large pot and most notably both wear large hats to signify who they are.

cooking baking

you’re the only person who gets it