Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 7h

There’s a bit of a learning curve to it all, but now that I’ve used it for a few campaigns I wouldn’t go back to the before times.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 7h

I recommend this community. They do a lot more complicated things than I need, but yeah. Obsidian makes life much easier.

obsidianttrpgtutorials.com

Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials - Obsidian TTRPG Tutorials

Fighter Gemmy.png ColumnObsidian TTRPG Tutorials ColumnGetting StartedPlugin TutorialsCommunity Supported GamesTemplates ColumnPatreon (Starter Vault(https://www.patreo

obsidianttrpgtutorials.com

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 7h

It does. I pay for the Sync feature so that I can have it on multiple devices. It’s great because I can write notes whenever they come to me. It lets you hyperlink notes together, has a cool data map that shows all the connections between notes, and you can even import stat blocks if you’re fancy.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 7h

Quirks has been useful for times when my players decided an NPC collected something, a mistake I made created a verbal tick, or the scene required some weird improv that then became “a thing.” Thank god for having Obsidian to keep track of the notes! Having them link to each other is a godsend.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 7h

As a research archivist, this makes me happy. I love the truly bizarre requests that come into my inbox. They make my job so much more fun!

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 7h

My NPC notes include: Voice, Role (how they are tied to the PC and plot), Quirks, Faction, and Location. I have this for every major NPC and Villain so I can refer back to them as needed. Adding Motivation now as we speak! Great advice!

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Reposted by A. Lynn Evenson

Grant Howitt @gshowitt.bsky.social · Aug 26

Writing a GM section is hard.

So instead I wrote down every role I could imagine that a GM might play and instructed the reader to kind of figure it out themselves as they go

WHAT DOES BEING A GAMESMASTER INVOLVE?
As Gamesmaster, you’ll have a lot of different roles to play. Here are some of them in no particular order; you’ll adopt all, some, more, or none of these during every single session.

You don’t have to be all of these things all at once, nor do you have to do all of them yourself - when you’re starting out, as long as players are getting the chance to roll dice and mess around they’ll probably still have fun. As you play more, you’ll find which ones you enjoy and which ones you don’t, and you’ll find your style.

FUN ADMINISTRATOR
If it wasn’t for you, this game would never happen. You arranged a time and date. You reserved the back room in the pub to play. You helped everyone make their characters. You’re the first person they talk to if they can’t make it to a game, and you’re the final judge as to whether a session goes ahead as planned or must be rescheduled. You’re taking responsibility for all the background details that let the foreground details - the game - work.

PETTY GOD
This is your world. We just described it in loose terms - it’s coming out of your mouth, and you’re making all the decisions. You can adjust numerical values up and down as you wish. You can wipe cities, countries, concepts off the map entirely if you don’t like them. You alone determine whether things are possible or impossible, and you can dictate how dangerous a given task is with ease. Nothing happens unless you want it to. The player characters are scrubbing about in this world of yours, and you graciously let them do so, because they’re having fun. And so are you; you call the shots, you set the boundaries, you show them the fantastic world you’ve dreamed into being.

ORACLE
You are the sole focus of interaction that the players have with the game. In one direction, you are the source of all information about the fiction at the table: so if they want to know what colour a non-player character’s eyes are, they have to ask you and you’re beholden to tell them, or tell them how their characters could find out. In the other direction, you are the fuzzy authority that stands between every player and us, the designers of the game, and therefore the interpreter of the rules. All fictional and mechanical action goes through you.

A CAST OF THOUSANDS
You are everyone else in the world that isn’t a player character. You invent and then adopt their mannerisms, you spin together obvious motivations and secret desires, and you flip between your charges with ease. Sure: many of their voices might sound …

TOUR GUIDE
We’ve written a guidebook for a world that doesn’t exist, and you’re the tour guide who’s leading slack-jawed holidaymakers around that world. You know everything there is to know about the game world - and if you don’t know, you can make it up, and that’s just as good. You’re relentlessly enthusiastic, you give evocative descriptions, and you clue the players into what’s interesting or important - and you know all the best places to take them, too, so they’ll experience the world as best they can.

WET COMPUTER
At the core of every roleplaying game is a set of rules that power the experience, and you are the fallible, non-silicate computer on which these rules run. You know the rules, you enforce them (or ignore them, as you see fit), and you remind players of how best to interact with them. Players might use some bits themselves - rolling to hit, for example, or keeping track of their character’s health - but you’re the ultimate authority on what rule to use when.

CON ARTIST
Players? Bunch of feckless rubes. Look at them, wide-eyed and open-mouthed: they think this is a living, breathing world. They think that you’ve got this all written down, like some kind of Tolkien; they couldn’t be more wrong. You’re just making it up on the fly. There’s nothing behind the curtain, no master plan, no wheels within wheels: just you, regurgitating some half-remembered details about Bloodborne and talking about bones breaking a lot because that makes them wince. They’ll buy anything you sell ‘em.

WORKSHOP LEADER
You don’t have all the answers, but you know where to find them: inside the players’ heads. You ask them questions like “Who are we meeting here?” “What’s the most dangerous thing that awaits you on your journey?” “Which one of you does this guy hate the most?” and then you listen to the answers and incorporate them into the story. You love it - it saves work, saves time, and means that the players are more involved and engaged than ever. Involved and enga…

DRUMMER
The drummer sets the pace. In a band, they dictate the song’s tempo. In a regiment, they dictate the marching speed. (In a marching band they do both, presumably.) You’re in charge of saying when things begin and end, how long a scene takes to play out, how long a non-player character waffles on about their problems, how descriptive an average description is, and so on. You can cut away from situations and cut back later, you can put the pressure on players to make a decision, or you can leave them to chat to one another unobstructed as the hours roll by.

ABSOLUTE BASTARD
You’re going to kill them. You’ve trapped them in your lair. They dared to step up and try to defeat your monsters, overthrow your villains, and now they’re on the back foot. Smash them to fucking bits. Throw ‘em through a window, rip off arms and legs, take grim pleasure when their luck turns against them. No-one gets anywhere by being nice all the time - and the players don’t want you to be nice all the time. They want their characters to get beaten up, humiliated, murdered, hung-drawn-and-quartered. You know that this is a masochistic endeavour and you are happy to indulge them.

TORTURED ARTIST
You always wanted to be creative, and this is your outlet. You’ve spun a world of torment and tragedy (or light-hearted slapstick, depending on the game) for your players to explore - or crafted a complex story within someone else’s, full of betrayals and comeuppances and juicy details. You’ve taken the time to make something clever and you can’t wait for your friends to admire it; what matters most is getting the artistic intent of your world across to the players so they can react appropriately.

OBSESSIVE FAN
Oh my god. You love the player characters so much. Like your favourite character in your favourite TV show, you’re fascinated to see what they’ll do next - and you can probably take a good guess at what it’ll be, because you know them so well. You get a bit sad when bad things happen to…

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 7h

I’ve found that writing a few bullet points for location or NPC descriptions or the information they have is usually enough. Then 1-3 potential paths for players to take, that can all be tied back to my main plot if they do something unexpected. That way I can improvise along with my players.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 1d

Same. I'm loving the prep work for Daggerheart and the play style lets me be much more responsive. Now I'm basically writing an outline, with a few plot paths to follow depending on PC choices instead of overwriting.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 1d

That was my thought, I’m hoping to get them to a point where our in person session starts with a level up, has a big backstory reveal, and then a decent battle. I have adversary minis already and thought I could reveal their PC minis.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 1d

I GM an online #Daggerheart game for a group of friends who are spread out across the country. Amazingly, we will all be in the same city and I’m hosting a session in person! So, do I splurge and buy and paint minis for their PCs, knowing they will be a single use thing? Or is that me being extra?

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 1d

I’m just learning about medlars! We don’t really have them in the US, so it was a fun wander down a “Trees of Antiquity” list. I’m very excited to find a place that ships to Texas.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you for this! I’m looking into medlar and jujube trees right now. Might be hard to grow here, but it’s something I can baby and care for. And yes, next Saturday would be perfect!

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 1d

Mold and bookworm throughout.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 4d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 1d

The world feels particularly terrible today. I probably shouldn’t self-soothe by buying rare fruit trees and original artwork, but here we are. My little, sadly urban, witchy heart just wants something to feel peaceful. Growing things and finding beauty is a good thing, right?

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 2d

*People have often asked my husband what he thinks of my “look.” He invariably responds “She can look however she wants, I adore her. But if you ask me, she looks like she could kick your ass.”

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 2d

See also: having short hair (in conventionally masculine cuts) and lots of piercings.

Karie Ghoulish @kariebookish.bsky.social · 2d

I am someone with blue hair and a rose ring. This is empowering on a daily basis.

It is the power to reject societal expectations of what "pretty femininity" looks like; it is power to sit in my own Self without catering to the male gaze.

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell @hottycouture.bsky.social · 2d

As a fashion historian, I will die on this hill: the point of having blue hair and nose rings (or spiky nails or stripper heels or tattoos or an all-black wardrobe) is not to look pretty or cool. It's to look (and feel) powerful--something many young American women crave right now. And it's working.

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Reposted by A. Lynn Evenson

Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 3d

Happy Friday afternoon folks. Here be some leaf sheep wishing you a lovely day 🌊

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 3d

Okay friends - I’m looking for a tarot deck, but I’m so sick of finding so much AI-generated art. Seemly like everything on Etsy and Kickstarter is AI slop. I’m looking for something natural and/or darker gothic vibes Can you help?!?
#tarot #witchsky

The hanged man tarot card from the Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards. Features a blond man wearing a white shirt and green trousers hanging by his left foot.

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Reposted by A. Lynn Evenson

The Whimsical Muse @whimsicalmuse.bsky.social · 4d

It may not solve all of problems currently facing the world, but I think we can all agree that bringing back gargoyles, mixtapes, and handwritten letters with wax seals would be an important first step.

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 5d

Perkins being open 24 hours was a godsend. Late night coffee and banana cream pie got me through my undergrad. I was there so often, the staff knew me and saved me a piece of pie. They started plating it up when they saw me walking through the parking lot. Usually at midnight.

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Reposted by A. Lynn Evenson

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 6d

I cannot understand what these people think the purpose of human life is?

It is *not* "pursue joy, deal justly, love well, try to understand as much and see as much of this beautiful world and of the deepness, richness and variety of human culture and experience as you can before you die"?

Tim Worthington @outonbluesix.bsky.social · 6d

How is this repeatedly made into a policy issue - by *all* parties - when the blunt fact of the matter is that grown adults who are obliged to pay for their own education, and relentlessly pursued to repay their loans, should be able to study whatever the fuck they want.

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Reposted by A. Lynn Evenson

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 6d

#WarRavagedPortland

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 6d

This is why I don’t often attend church. The phrase doesn’t bother me-I like being able to question things (thanks super conservative upbringing) but the “you must belong” to come here thing is what gets me. I want faith, not a group that immediately thinks we’re besties because of the Lord’s Prayer

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A. Lynn Evenson @wanderingyeti.bsky.social · 6d

I want to be included, not the newest item up for show and tell. The aggressive evangelism of “oooh new person! Come & be involved in everything! And I want your personal contact info so you can stay in the loop” is too much out of the gate. It’s about building trust. I’m basically a wounded stray.

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