OP
I did up my game. So many others jumped on the AI train here I needed to stand out still... I just may have been a touch excessive with demonstrating that...
Still trying to settle on a good style for going forward with the D&D stuff. I wanna make the final bit as epic as I possible.
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Looks like Food Grade Stuff to Aims
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You know me so well! I DO like these. Very, VERY much.
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Yeah, kind of. It's the lack of ears, but ED-209 doesn't really have ears, so...They look like aliens the last couple
Now canonically Boltzmann can't go down stairs.
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Word. I think everyone needed a brief break (I did), so no worries.
I'm just over here making badass Metal Gear Boltzmanns.
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Linkin Bark over here
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It just amused me too much not to use that one.
Same with Short's wonky-eye. I could have run it a few more steps to clean that up, but... hilarious.
But fiiiiiiine, here's a cool one for Nac.
And a dumb one for Zesty.
And alternate Short. It's hard to get him looking like a gnome, while not looking like a chibi character.
I picked that one just because I can't explain the face pendant, or the voodoo pirate or whatever the fuck... Love AI.
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You sure I didn't get the characters mixed up, and Boltzmann is the tiefling?
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I think I was going for the kilt intimidation angle, so yeah basically.Nac rolling up in his undies must give some + to intimidation or some shit.
Like: 'Sup Sparkrender, whatcha gonna do?
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Still trying to get this back off the ground.
I find myself in the continually shitty situation where I'm trying to NOT let myself stay up until 2am every night only to have to wake up at 7am, but when my kids don't go the F to sleep until 9:30, I feel guilty trying to do anything for myself and not spend time with my partner. Except then she doesn't go to bed until 12am, so I either just don't do shit for myself (this) in order to try and sleep, or I'm left sitting here at a stupid time--like right now--trying to put at least some work into this.
My mental and physical health have been whack for a while, and I feel like I already jumped off a cliff to say hello to the jagged rocks at the bottom, let alone just feeling like I should do that. I told myself I had to back off trying to be on GWF all the time so I wasn't disassociating from real life, but that just results in me having 0 friends to talk to, so... Rock|Ben|Hard Place.
But that minor-breakdown-vent aside, I have been trying to find time to chip away at it and build up the world information, so that this CAN truly be continued beyond this campaign and it's not a chore to do so. It's basically putting a ton of work into it now to make it easier to run going forward, trying to stop having to screenshot maps and post initiative trackers all the time, etc. Plus, getting beyond the published adventure content, I've already found it hard to keep track of the random lore bits I've just pulled out of my ass. The four names of the scholars those statues in the observatory represent? No fucking idea what I'd said their names were... I'll have to go dig through the thread to find it. But when I do, I could add it into the information on World Anvil and be able to find it much faster.
I did at least also manage to get a grasp on how the whole final boss arc could pan out. In part because I bought another new sourcebook on D&D Beyond, which has a ton of new/adjusted monsters in them, as well as some new mechanics/rules. In short, it gave me a bunch more Kobold "types" to use, as well as rules for actually implementing "minions", "retainers" and "companions".
Basically a minion is a weak foe, designed to allow me to create combat encounters with hordes of enemies. Retainers are sapient beings who adventure alongside the party, as a less experienced adventurer who a player character can take under their wing. A companion is a wild creature ally who adventures with characters.
So I can now 100% feasibly allow Moonsprout to actually bring Mister Owlbear along into combat, without me worrying that it'll make things way too easy, etc.
Long post is long, all to just say "we'll get back at it ASAP, and I'll go hard." I'm going to try to carve out an hour to myself every day to keep chipping away at it, so... Fingers crossed.
In the mean time, I do have a lot of stuff up already and I even managed to import all of the character sheets from D&D Beyond. It's got some option for me to turn the "character" over to a player, so I assume it'd then let you adjust things or at least use the statblocks to roll. I should have a ton more flexibility in how I can set up the magic items, etc. too.
This link should let you join the campaign itself; http://www.worldanvil.com/epic/dragons-of-stormwreck-isle/join/PAjS-NNtV-l53tJx
I think Jon and Nae already clicked the link I dropped before, but it didn't stick you in the actual campaign, so I'd just say click the above link again and hopefully that'll work.
This is just the link to the campaign page in general; https://www.worldanvil.com/epic/dragons-of-stormwreck-isle
And this one is to the world page; https://www.worldanvil.com/w/gwfaerun-teawrecks
Aight, now I'm out.
I find myself in the continually shitty situation where I'm trying to NOT let myself stay up until 2am every night only to have to wake up at 7am, but when my kids don't go the F to sleep until 9:30, I feel guilty trying to do anything for myself and not spend time with my partner. Except then she doesn't go to bed until 12am, so I either just don't do shit for myself (this) in order to try and sleep, or I'm left sitting here at a stupid time--like right now--trying to put at least some work into this.
My mental and physical health have been whack for a while, and I feel like I already jumped off a cliff to say hello to the jagged rocks at the bottom, let alone just feeling like I should do that. I told myself I had to back off trying to be on GWF all the time so I wasn't disassociating from real life, but that just results in me having 0 friends to talk to, so... Rock|Ben|Hard Place.
But that minor-breakdown-vent aside, I have been trying to find time to chip away at it and build up the world information, so that this CAN truly be continued beyond this campaign and it's not a chore to do so. It's basically putting a ton of work into it now to make it easier to run going forward, trying to stop having to screenshot maps and post initiative trackers all the time, etc. Plus, getting beyond the published adventure content, I've already found it hard to keep track of the random lore bits I've just pulled out of my ass. The four names of the scholars those statues in the observatory represent? No fucking idea what I'd said their names were... I'll have to go dig through the thread to find it. But when I do, I could add it into the information on World Anvil and be able to find it much faster.
I did at least also manage to get a grasp on how the whole final boss arc could pan out. In part because I bought another new sourcebook on D&D Beyond, which has a ton of new/adjusted monsters in them, as well as some new mechanics/rules. In short, it gave me a bunch more Kobold "types" to use, as well as rules for actually implementing "minions", "retainers" and "companions".
Basically a minion is a weak foe, designed to allow me to create combat encounters with hordes of enemies. Retainers are sapient beings who adventure alongside the party, as a less experienced adventurer who a player character can take under their wing. A companion is a wild creature ally who adventures with characters.
So I can now 100% feasibly allow Moonsprout to actually bring Mister Owlbear along into combat, without me worrying that it'll make things way too easy, etc.
Long post is long, all to just say "we'll get back at it ASAP, and I'll go hard." I'm going to try to carve out an hour to myself every day to keep chipping away at it, so... Fingers crossed.
In the mean time, I do have a lot of stuff up already and I even managed to import all of the character sheets from D&D Beyond. It's got some option for me to turn the "character" over to a player, so I assume it'd then let you adjust things or at least use the statblocks to roll. I should have a ton more flexibility in how I can set up the magic items, etc. too.
This link should let you join the campaign itself; http://www.worldanvil.com/epic/dragons-of-stormwreck-isle/join/PAjS-NNtV-l53tJx
I think Jon and Nae already clicked the link I dropped before, but it didn't stick you in the actual campaign, so I'd just say click the above link again and hopefully that'll work.
This is just the link to the campaign page in general; https://www.worldanvil.com/epic/dragons-of-stormwreck-isle
And this one is to the world page; https://www.worldanvil.com/w/gwfaerun-teawrecks
Aight, now I'm out.
Don't stress about it dude. Real life should always be a priority. Any pressure you feel to get this thing moving is internal only, I promise you. DnD is fun, but we have all the time in the world. Besides, it's good to take a break from it every once in a while. Maybe I'm just projecting, but I think we needed it. At the very least, you and I needed it.
This part though... This is good.
OP
I feel you, buddy. Trying to balance family, friends, work and time for yourself is a herculean task sometimes! Just know that we are here whenever you need us.
And also, the World Anvil page is looking hella good!
I appreciate all of you fuckers.
And you're right, the break after 4 months of powering through isn't an entirely bad thing. I just wish I'd handled it a bit better so the break came after the conclusion of the story. Oh well.
I'm actually pretty excited to try the companion feature out. In essence it makes them act akin to Boltzmann/Ur'kokk, where the it takes evasive actions by itself but needs a bonus action command from the handler to make it attack or whatever. Only one player commands it at once, and command of the companion can be traded off between players over a short/long rest.
There's also the tiny additional mechanic of ferocity which, should it stack up too high, makes the companion rampage and attack whatever is closest to it, friend or foe. But it also gives additional moves that use up the ferocity for bonus effect, so it's got a lot of potential.
I think the owlbear gets to leap half it's movement distance and knocks things prone where it lands. Something like that. I have a (currently hidden) statblock for the owlbear on World Anvil, and can add in the extra stuff to it I'm sure.
I also think it attached my Nac character article to Nae correctly, so that's cool. There's more room for backstory building, like family trees and relationships, etc. We can work on fleshing that out, so I have things like Nacs dead parents explicitly defined and referenceable.
I have a number of maps in development and tried to link them together so you can generally punch down from the entire Sword Coast to the battlemap level with characters on it. I should be able to make the character icons draggable by you guys, too, so you can move yourselves around. I'll have to play around with that more though.
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My other option, and what I'd mostly been doing the past 4 months, is working on all this while on the clock. But I don't relish anyone working out that they're paying me while I write about dick-daggers and dragons, so...
I can't add anything others haven't already said, but I'll say again, take care of yourself! This will be here, and balancing is a tremendously hard thing as an adult. I miss when we were 15 and this was easier lol.
Everything looks great, too! I'm thrilled with the way this turned out so far, so you should be too! I may have added Zesty twice though, and I'm still getting used to that site, so if I screwed up, do what you gotta lol.
Everything looks great, too! I'm thrilled with the way this turned out so far, so you should be too! I may have added Zesty twice though, and I'm still getting used to that site, so if I screwed up, do what you gotta lol.
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Cheers, dude(s).
It's all good. It seems linking characters is a little clunky, as it added new ones for both yourself and Moonsprout, but I just copied the statblock over to the "second" profile and unpublished the one I'd made myself. Hopefully that fixed it, as it does show these articles as linked to yourself and Kelly.
D&D&DD - Dungeons and Dragons and Dick Daggers?My other option, and what I'd mostly been doing the past 4 months, is working on all this while on the clock. But I don't relish anyone working out that they're paying me while I write about dick-daggers and dragons, so...
OP
@Nae'blis Did it give you some option as to which character to play in the campaign? I can't work out why it actually linked YOU to the character, where as the characters Kelly and Jon joined with are showing as blank with the actually named characters as "other characters".
I could try just booting everyone and setting it up again once the player profiles actually exist, but if it's just a toggle somewhere on your end that I can't adjust, that'd be easier.
I could try just booting everyone and setting it up again once the player profiles actually exist, but if it's just a toggle somewhere on your end that I can't adjust, that'd be easier.
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weird.Have some AIrt; I went a little big dragon with this to where I'm not actually using it in the campaign, but want to share anyway as it came out with a particular Mortal Kombat vibe I thought @Advocate for Ants! Mouth would appreciate. Trying to continue leveling up my AI skills while building out the world, too.
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I couldn't work out what the hell was going on with the campaign setup and how it was showing blank profiles for everyone but Nae, so I did the most rational thing and nuked everything (campaign-wise)
So... To try this again...
www.worldanvil.com
Now, I have two options for inviting people which is... Helpful (not).
I think this one invites you to just join the WORLD. It had the blank characters in here too, which I expelled trying to start fresh. It now only has Nac and Zesty, which I'm guessing you guys had edited since they've got images I didn't upload to them.
www.worldanvil.com
Then there's a second link, which I believe invites you to the actual campaign itself. I'd deleted the "Dragons of Stormwreck Isle" campaign and just made it "GWFriends", since it'll extend beyond just this one campaign anyway.
It tells me to;
www.worldanvil.com
So... Try joining the world first using this link, and then this link second to join the actual campaign..? I'll see what comes up on my side and just try to work off of that, rather than forcing some link to an existing article I made...
Sorry it ain't straight forward.
So... To try this again...
Player Workflow Guide
This link should give you instructions on how to make your character, which apparently you've got to do yourself and this might have been where I made things confusing by having already plugged in articles for you. I think if you've got multiple characters under your own profile, you can probably delete extra so there's only 1, which might help.Player Workflow Guide
A suggested workflow to using World Anvil as a roleplayer for campaigns or character development.
www.worldanvil.com
Now, I have two options for inviting people which is... Helpful (not).
I think this one invites you to just join the WORLD. It had the blank characters in here too, which I expelled trying to start fresh. It now only has Nac and Zesty, which I'm guessing you guys had edited since they've got images I didn't upload to them.
Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management | World Anvil
Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management tools for all Storytellers, Dungeon Masters and fiction Authorss
www.worldanvil.com
Then there's a second link, which I believe invites you to the actual campaign itself. I'd deleted the "Dragons of Stormwreck Isle" campaign and just made it "GWFriends", since it'll extend beyond just this one campaign anyway.
It tells me to;
1. Make sure your players have a World Anvil account
2. Get them to create their character
3. Send them the link below to join your campaign
Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management | World Anvil
Worldbuilding and RPG Campaign Management tools for all Storytellers, Dungeon Masters and fiction Authorss
www.worldanvil.com
So... Try joining the world first using this link, and then this link second to join the actual campaign..? I'll see what comes up on my side and just try to work off of that, rather than forcing some link to an existing article I made...
Sorry it ain't straight forward.
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It did! I have you and @Nae'blis joined to the world, and you joined to the campaign.
So it seems, create a character and join the world first, then join the campaign? I'm guessing before I only shared Yung campaign link and it didn't prompt you to create the character or anything.
I had "created" the character when I did the account. But last time it didn't let me select that character to join the campaign. This time it did.It did! I have you and @Nae'blis joined to the world, and you joined to the campaign.
So it seems, create a character and join the world first, then join the campaign? I'm guessing before I only shared Yung campaign link and it didn't prompt you to create the character or anything.
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In one of many lapses of impulse control, I just subbed to the pro-level of Roll20, on top of World Anvil. It was a Virtual Table Top that WA let me link to, and after trying it I was sold on how easy (I think) it'd make shit. I'm claiming the $65 I just dropped on this is an early father's day gift to myself.
Unfortunately the two things aren't linked directly so you'll end up having to make a profile there, too, but it does everything from dynamic lighting controlling what you can see given your token position, as well as letting you access all of your abilities/etc straight from the map. There's a text chat, and it does support video/audio if we ever did decide to try to play in real-time. I was also able to find an existing module for Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, so it already has all the maps, the walls prebuilt for the lighting, all the associated tokens (like ones for Tarak, Myla, etc.) Furthermore, I purchased the Flee Mortals! addon there, too, so it'll have access to the owlbear companion statblocks, and all the various Kobold types I planned to use.
I could have gone with the slightly cheaper tier, but the top-level one gives me the ability to code in various API things to it as well... I saw a script to make tokens automatically patrol along a path, ones that will automatically adjust the tokens to reflect being blow 50% health (bloodied) or 0% (dead), plus whatever I write myself. It also has features for music/sound-effects, particle effects, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm sure I didn't need to go this hard with anything, but... Hard is my middle name.
It's not. It's John. But with a hard H.
There's also a better functioning phone-app for it, although I haven't tried it since getting the maps installed and so on. It looked like it had the fully interactive character sheets on there, and I'd assume access to the maps and moving tokens, too. I'd have to play with it some more though.
It may end up being something I need to start the session for, much like D&D Beyond, but I'll work out how to best make that work. I think worst case, I can pop this open whenever I'm at my desk, and for times I don't have it running, the persistent maps on WA will let you at least look around the world freely.
Link below should let you join roll 20 and access everything I've got shared.
https://app.roll20.net/join/17234819/Iaa4Xw
(It does let me run multiple campaigns, and I think there was some option for a guest GM to piggyback on my subscription too, so once I get this set up and working I'll see if Vash wants to pull his campaign into it too.)
(Oh fuck it's 3am. Lol work will be fun.
)((Note to self; I gotta resize the tokens up to actually fill the 5ft square.
))
I have a Roll20 account already. Friends and I tried doing a Pathfinder campaign once before switching to trying Shadowrun (because me loves the cyberpunk aesthetic). Neither took off, but I should have an account somewhere. I liked Roll20.
It's ok. You're dropped to being on 85% perfect as a result, but I'll allow it. You're now officially a Game of Thrones character Benjohn (yes, I know it was Benjen).
This I didn't try. I honestly am a sucker for a good phone app. It's why I moved my fantasy football league from Yahoo to Sleeper and convinced my dynasty league commish to move from awful Fleaflicker to Fantrax.
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I didn't finish, nor do I remember, Game of Thrones enough to recall who that was. But weirdly, my daughter took to calling me "Benjin" for a while because she couldn't say "Benjamin"... So that's weird.
Omg samesies!
Roll20 didn't work super good on phone, so an app might be good!