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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 56m

I ended up having to do a gender/pronoun style guide for all my deities/supernatural entities. Including a war god who prefers to identify very specifically as a big intimidating non-gendered suit of armor and a they (fem. plural) who was an eldritch gestalt hive mind of Cthulhu angels

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 1h

I think this is a good argument for phased boss design w/separate hit point tracks. Makes alpha feel significant but lets bosses stick around and be significant. It might also encourage holding on to some alpha abilities in case you need to quickly shut down a more dangerous phase later

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 1h

I'll definitely be using this concept if it isn't what's going on. A subclass/order of religious folks who externalize their temptations, fears and sins into literal demons and try to reform them sounds metal AF

Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 2h

That was sort of how I had felt from like age 8 to a few years ago but I started reading the IDW comics and I was like "This is amazing"

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 3h

And maybe their names reflect the principle temptation of their Bond. So Tyranny is rude, drunken, indecent and gluttonous because it's all the things Wicander is avoiding. But she's Tyranny because his temptation is ultimately going to be to exercise violence power and control.

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 3h

Don't think it's true cause it'd be a weird player dynamic but it'd be fascinating if the demons in #CriticalRole Campaign 4 are actually the excised & unrestrained temptations of their bond
Wicander has "light" magic because all of his darkness has been externalized as Tyranny
#ttrpg #dnd #spoilers

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 4h

I just felt like there was a gap between campaign themes and the interest/engagement level from the PCs/players. Like they had to get to this question of the gods and what to do about them whether the characters wanted to or not

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 4h

I enjoyed it quite a bit so far. I just hope he doesn't fall back into some of those late C3 themes and vibes

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 5h

I was frustrated enough with the weird Greco-Roman-Protestant-1st year Philosophy student approach to religion in D&D that I wrote a whole book to try to give people tools to do better. We'll see how well it helps/is received

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 5h

I definitely feel the tension w/religion in C3 & how it could skew badly here as well
I love BLeeM but I haven't forgotten (or perhaps fully forgiven) the protagonist's dragon that only eats the hearts of religious people in a certain season of D20 or some of the caricaturing in Fantasy High

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 5h

The fans keep giving church vibes 😅

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Reposted by Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist)

Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 1d

On a related note I'm working on our first thirst trap NPC and it's definitely a PC's dad 😂
#ttrpg #dnd #godfall

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Reposted by Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist)

Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 1d

A world full of custom tailored plot hooks, active themes and interesting backstory adjacent NPCs is my love language for my players 😅

#ttrpg #dnd

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Reposted by Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist)

Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 1d

Whoops, one of my players is babysitting tomorrow. Almost left all my notes open on my Desktop 😅

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Reposted by Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist)

Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 22h

At the phase of dev for this homebrew Divinity system where I really need to sit down w/spreadsheets & roll to stress test the system & check resource gen over time & it sounds soo boring
I just wanna jump ahead to unleashing my little Godling players on an unsuspecting world...
#ttrpg #dnd #godfall

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 16h

Apparently the ick just beneath the surface in this speech was very much operating as intended. You can't be a beloved, wealthy celebrity upholding and benefiting from an evil world and deny all responsibility for it
#Peacemaker #PeacemakerSpoilers

James Gunn social media post
Auggie's speech is important not only because it reveals who Auggie is but also how it speaks to Harcourt and Economos, who have truly spent a lot of their lives as cogs in a corrupt system, rarely fighting it. Vey (misspelling) very very much like Auggie 2

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 16h

Absolutely B. I'm like a kid in a candy store right now because I'm doing campaign prep and I'm organizing and fleshing out all the bombshell NPCs and situations from PC's backstories so I can drop them in later and see how they explode 😁

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 18h

This is the "Ya Boy, Kongming" spin off I didn't know I needed 😂

zoraal ja's psychoanalyst @zoraalja.bsky.social · 19h

remember this phenomenal fucking post

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 19h

I don't know if the joke is going to hold up for a whole season but "May I Ask for One Final Thing?"'s first episode is absolutely hilarious and very cathartic after a glut of abandoned fiance tropes in #anime recently

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 20h

So most mechanics of D&D are constrained & combat facing & most applications outside of combat are improvisations outside the system
But in something like VtM, actions are more fluid & mechanics interact with intangibles like character bonds, emotional states & even PC personality (like beast rolls)

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 20h

I feel like support is a tricky word. I think of something like "narrative actions trigger mechanics" or "mechanics lead to narrative results"
Differentiated from something more mechanistic where mechanics directly interact with other mechanics (like combat in a lot of d20 games).

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 22h

At the phase of dev for this homebrew Divinity system where I really need to sit down w/spreadsheets & roll to stress test the system & check resource gen over time & it sounds soo boring
I just wanna jump ahead to unleashing my little Godling players on an unsuspecting world...
#ttrpg #dnd #godfall

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Reposted by Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist)

Keith Ammann 🔜 Gamehole Con @themonstersknow.com · 1d

TODAY'S THE DAY! Making Enemies: Monster Design Inspiration for Tabletop Roleplaying Games, with cover illustration by @kroovv.bsky.social and interior illos by @jencmars.bsky.social, is now on shelves!

Get it at your friendly local game store or through one of these links: spyandowl.com/making...

A hardbound copy of Making Enemies on a wooden dining table. On the cover, a huge, pearlescent arthropod bursts out of a subterranean crevice and drives one of its large barbed claws through a dwarf fighter's abdomen, while another dwarf cowers in fear. The book is surrounded by blue and red polyhedral dice.

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 22h

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Colby Whittaker (Hagiologist) @hagiologist.bsky.social · 23h

I feel like in a lot of ways live action kid, pre-teen, teen programming was allowed to be a lot weirder and experimental. I also remember "Space Cases" which was a great nick kids riff on space station/lost in space sci-fi that fed neatly into Star Trek and Babylon 5

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