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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • sirblastalotMAtorpgWhat is Troika?
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    2 months ago

    Science Fantasy is usually a fantasy story in a setting typically associated with scifi. The classic example is Star Wars; it’s it a world with spaceships and lasers, but it’s about space wizards having swordfights.



  • Every custom, every belief, every fashion, every turn of speech?

    No, of course not. Why would anyone waste effort on infinite irrelevant details? But everything there is to know, I know.

    I do believe that player should be able to gain a basic understanding of the cultures their characters come from. The question is how much information can they get, and process?

    You give them an overview at the start with the information you guess might be relevant or interesting to them, and supplement it during the game as necessary.


  • Part of the fun of DMing for me is in homebrewing cultures…or, more accurately, homebrewing factions that have a culture.

    Besides which, there are some fundamental flaws in your premises:

    You assert that a counterpart culture is easier to understand than an original one. I 100% understand any culture I make up, definitionally. On the other hand, neither I nor anyone else at my table can say the same about any IRL culture. Even members of a given IRL culture can never fully understand the totality of it.

    You also say

    [if] you create fantasy ancestries from scratch, you need to convey all that information to the players.

    And I don’t think that’s true. Players don’t need to know everything about a culture to interact with them. In many cases, the player characters are themselves unfamiliar with that culture, in which case any mystery, mistakes, miscommunications etc are valuable in-character roleplay. And when the PCs would be familiar with a relevant aspect of a given culture, you can simply tell them that detail, no need to loredump everything. (Eg “I beg for mercy” “Your character knows that The Southern Pirates are notorious for never taking prisoners, are you sure you want to try that?”)













  • Depending on your field, your business may already have a cybersecurity department. There’s an endless parade of thankless grunt work to be done like patching (often after hours), following up with users whose machines didn’t patch for whatever reason, and so on. (With your manager’s permission) you may be able to reach out to them and volunteer to help with some of those tasks, as a way to dip a toe into that world and start learning.


  • sirblastalotAtopathfinderFirst-Time DM Advice?
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    3 months ago

    If you don’t want to do a one-shot, I still recommend keeping it short. 3-5 sessions perhaps. Just to dip a toe in and even out the kinks, and be able to feel good that you completed something. Decide if you want to commit to a big sprawling campaign after the first little demo campaign.









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