Q:So... how do you determine “period clothing” for your worlds? I’ve done a lot of research and can’t figure out what would be historically reasonable. In particular, I want to play the d&d equivalent of a private detective, and want him to be kind of a fancy boy (with some sort of leather trench coat for his armor). I have no idea if that would entail a suit in a modern sense, a button up shirt, or what. How do you figure these things out?
Anonymous
probably the best way to do it is to try to figure out what the GM’s view of the “equivalent time period” is. Then figure out what someone from that time period, region and economic level would wear. If it’s full on medieval you’re probably looking at a cloaked character. Most “medieval fantasy” worlds are actually a hodgepodge, however, and you can get away with medieval, Elizabethan or even Edwardian fashion.
Q:I know you don't like 'what if' questions, particularly when it comes to critical hit but perhaps this being more of a DM question and less extremely plot relevant or revealing helps? I know you often let players help worldbuild, and sometimes go out of your way to give things player ask for, are there things you wish you hadn't let through/allowed after so long playing the campaign? I know you and Matthew kind of regretted the dog, just due it not seeing much use even after mechanical buggery
Sometimes you hand a player something that clashes with the way they see their character. It actually used to happen to me as a player all the time, especially in D&D since it’s so gear-oriented. Here’s a weird hat I rolled randomly, hope you envision your character as a thanksgiving pilgrim.
I don’t really have any regrets on that, most of the stuff the players do with their bit of the game is really solid. In fact, I often see things the characters are doing that I want to explore or heighten, but sometimes I don’t because I don’t want to sidetrack them too much.
You’re right, when the anniversary edition of this tier list comes out we will be fixing that error. We will also move Ganondorf to “leads” but Bowser stays in his current category and that’s final.
If you’ve ever hung out with a space mercenary, you know they’re a completely different person out of uniform.
Something I think a lot of fantasy roleplaying fans don’t pick up on is that the reason many games’ depictions of orcs and other “monstrous races” get criticised for being racist isn’t just because they’re dark-skinned and evil.
I mean, yes, there’s that, but it’s also that a lot of the tropes that are associated with orcs and such in fantasy RPGs are literally eugenicist rhetoric – and, more specifically, anti-Black eugenicist rhetoric – with the serial numbers lightly sanded off.
Like, you ever notice how common the following elements are?
Being capable of using complex tool and weapons, but relying on raiding and pillaging to obtain them, not because they’re incapable of making them, but because they’re simply too
congenitally
lazy to do so
Having an intrinsic drive to despoil and corrupt the fruits of civilisation, and in particular, taking pleasure in destroying beautiful things specifically because they’re beautiful
Being treated as childishly superstitious for believing in evil spirits, even though such treatment makes no sense from a worldbuilding perspective because they live in a fantasy setting and evil ghosts are objectively real
Reproducing rapidly and reaching sexual maturity quickly, typically at an age when a human would still be a child, with great emphasis placed on the danger of them “outbreeding” civilised peoples if left unchecked
Lusting for the women of other species, resulting in all manner of twisted half-breeds; “heroic” members of their kind are typically drawn from these half-breeds, who must struggle constantly with their base natures
Seriously, a lot of this stuff is copied and pasted directly from 19th Century eugenicist screeds about the intrinsic inferiority of the Black race – they basically just scratched out the n-word and wrote in “orc”.
(And no, you can’t pass it off as folks imitating Tolkien without realising what they were doing. While Tolkien’s orcs undeniably employ racist imagery and stereotypes, there it’s mostly anti-East Asian stuff, not anti-Black stuff. The incorporation of explicitly anti-Black tropes into fantasy fiction’s depiction of orcs is a more recent development, and at least some of the folks doing it absolutely knew what they were up to.)
Orc stats give you a -2 to your Intelligence stat, should you choose to build an Orc as a PC, which relies on the eugenicist belief that intelligence is innately linked to race/biology, and that some races are therefore inherently inferior.
Q:I was listening to some episodes of critical hit recently, and Shadowrun came up. You mentioned a desire to play (but not run) games of Shadowrun. Have you ever heard of Living Communities? What is your opinion of the format? If you really want to play but can't find someone willing to run the crunch heavy system, what about joining a living community and taking part in games that way? There are quite a few Shadowrun living communities on Reddit like Shadowpoint and RunnerHub. What about that?
I’m not very familiar, but I should really point out that I’m crushingly awkward and find meeting new people absolutely exhausting. So, even though I do like shadowrun, I wouldn’t put myself out there to play it. I appreciate you bringing these to my attention, though, I’m sure some of my Tumbltweetsters would appreciate knowing about them.
Fortunately a friend of mine recently started running a modded shadowrun game, so I’ve been getting my fix that way.
It’s based on the Fallout games. We’re playing vault dwellers who descend from soldiers and are about to retake the wasteland. Or that was the plan anyway.
Anonymous
