I'll make a small village and my head defaults to videogame scale like "oh this is a handful of houses close together" and then a GM guide or a town gen tells me "sure this is uhhh 5 thousand people" and my brain gives me the equivalent of "You're telling me a shrimp fried this rice?"

Matt Colville and Bob over on YouTube have given me a lot of brain food over the years to enrich my GMing style. On the practical side, I've grown used to Fantasy Town Generator to do a baseline for my settlements to build upon, especially things I don't grasp too well like population and trade.

From the last systems I tried, anything that helps differentiate characters beyond numbers and stats. Aspects as descriptors for skills, notable feats as narrative devices, even customization with skill pools. Anything that helps characters feel unique and play different immediately has me drooling.

Adding to this, I make it *personal*. My last villain was responsible for killing an NPC the party was invested in, and then used illusion magic to make them live out their worst fears. They were out for his blood. One even interrupted his villain monologue to sock him in the face. Great stuff.

Absolutely Symbaroum! I love playing it as well, but the write-ups and the setting are absolutely enthralling, and the art in the sourcebooks is downright gorgeous.

Oh my word this upsets me on a deep level. Excellent work.

Players and narrators alike all bring something deeply personal to the table, aware or not. A little bit of us seeps through the cracks of even the goofiest of characters. It's fascinating once you realize and keep an eye out for it. Took me years to realize most of my campaigns had a kind granny.

Similar to how others have already mentioned virtues, a system I once played had you use a keyword (Like Fate's aspects) for each of your stats as a descriptor, to better differentiate and characterize. Willpower could be stuff like "Determined", "Zealot", "Foolhardy", even with the same score.

Leaving aside all the less-than-savory elements, this is one aspect I found to be clever in The Chronicles of Narnia. I think sentient horses would, in fact, serve as battle mounts, ONLY for important battles, and considered equal to their riders. Fuzzy on the details, I read those books long ago.

I've never engaged with social media at all, bar an Awkward Teenager Phase where I would just post my thoughts out loud on Facebook and never check again. This site's the first time I've ever felt like posting/replying, much less with people I didn't know beforehand.

It's -weird-. But pleasant.

I barely ever have my phone with sound on, let alone pay attention to unknown callers at night, I'd have never even noticed. How'd you end up knowing it was for the job?

One of my favorite instances of this is actually the Primals in FFXIV, with what is called Tempering- essentially enthralling mortals into servitude and worship. The degree to which this happens depends heavily on the Primal in question, and it's a great exploration of the concept.

There used to be a recurring thing with my former roommate where I'd have to ask her "Hey so I remember taking my meds here at my desk early in the morning but I'm not sure if that was *today*" and she would have to tell me whether it was that day or some other day and it's JARRING to not know that.