probablygoodrpgideas:

pomrania:

wotenoise:

evelynatthecircus:

lauraharrisbooks:

Beyond this, consider how these professions might vary depending on who the customers are – nobles, or lower class. Are they good at their job or just scraping by? Do they work with lots of other people or on their own? City or village?

For younger characters:

  • Apprentice to any of the above
  • Messenger/runner
  • Page/squire
  • Pickpocket
  • Shop assistant
  • Student
  • Looks after younger siblings

(Images all from Wikimedia Commons)

Also consider:

Candlemaker
Ferryman
Factor (looks after business for an employer in another city)
Tiler
Cutler
Beekeeper
Apothecary
Interpreter
Furrier
Moneylender/Banker
Winemaker
Tinker (small trader who repairs stuff)
Nightsoil collector
Customs officer

Also a bonus for animal related professions:
Fowler (supplies game birds for eating)
Warrener (catches rabbits on your land for you to eat)
Ostler (looks after your horses)
Falconer (looks after your falcons)
Cocker (looks after your fighting cocks)

I need more fantasy rpg in my life that isn’t d&d-style. I think it’s time for some Sword & Backpack.

100 Jobs for Fantasy Characters (that aren’t knight or peasant)

((long list, so it’s below the cut))

Keep reading

Yes, this is good and important

mechanicalriddle:

heedra:

mechanicalriddle:

heedra:

god outta nowhere i just remembered the time i was in a game where the dm didn’t read one of the character’s backstories carefully enough and allowed someone to make it all the way to the final session with the hidden ability to turn into a motorcycle

lydia you cant just say stuff like this and then not explain exactly how this was performed

k so. one of the first big games i played with my current meatspace gaming group was a really excellent post-apocalyptic homebrew game. really excellent. but it was also wild as hell, had a lot of players, and was the dm’s first big game, so it was at times a real exercise in controlled chaos. and my good bro willie…my bro willie was kind of at the brunt of it. both in that he always to this day plays really chaotic characters that can’t avoid trouble, and also in that due to that and other misfortunes he died like every other session towards the end. he went through five or six characters by the time the campaign was over. one didn’t even last a full session. it was remarkable to witness actually.

but anyway, towards the end, the dm was fairly overwhelmed and dealing with a lot of other characters doing epic-level wasteland nonsense, and kinda threw reading willies backstories to the wayside. which was unfortunate for him, because willie hails from the ‘3 pages or more’ school of backstories, and by this time in the campaign was coping with his characters’ constant deaths by planning backup character well in advance, to the point where they all had intricate, complex connections to each previous character. so when he dies due to circumstances out of his control before the very last few sessions (the first but certainly not last character death he had due to betrayal: willie im still sorry) its not too suprising that he comes back as this brooding edgy darth vader guy with a five page backstory about how he had obtained a horrific nanosuit cyborg body, and the dm approves it, but sure as hell doesn’t read the whole thing bc he’s planning the final confrontation at this point.

cut to the middle of the incredibly serious final session, where his character and my character and my character’s children are fighting for their lives to escape the facility where they are currently caught in the crossfire between a raging, dying artificial intelligence and religiously zealous psychic juggernaut (long story). the dm is giving us a very bleak countdown of how long we have to get out before the whole place collapses but his character just turns to mine with a “don’t worry, just trust me” and willie smiles, looks up at the dm, and is like, “i activiate my nanite body and turn into a motorcycle”, which unfortunately was completely street legal with what he’d detailed in his backstory, so that’s exactly what he fuckin did, as the dm put his head in his hands.

end result: we survived.

this is my favorite 3 paragraphs ive ever read thank you lydia

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dndidiots:

angryvoiddetective:

firebirdeternal:

hey-pretty-mama-its-johnny-bravo:

What’s a player to a god, what’s a god to a DM, what’s a DM to a nat 20

this is funny but I’m going to be a Joke Ruiner here in hopes that this might be useful to anybody looking to run a D&d game sometime for the first time.

A natural 20 always ‘succeeds’ but does not always do what the player intended to do. If a player attempts to do something Impossible, then a Natural 20 cannot make it possible, instead, have the Outcome of their Attempt be helpful in an obvious way, without being necessarily a magical Super thing.
Greg the ranger attempts to climb an 80 foot smooth marble wall with no handholds? Greg is level two? Greg does not climb that wall with a Natural 20, however, while looking for good handholds Greg spies an important clue reflected in the mirror-like surface of the wall, perhaps finding a secret catch to open a hidden door in the wall granting the party entrance to the dungeon? 

Even though Greg didn’t search for the door, his incredible Luck granted him the opportunity to succeed anyways. Because that’s what a Natural 20 is. It’s Luck. A lucky swing catches an opponent off guard, even if they’re a seasoned fighter. No amount of luck will allow Susan the 1st level barbarian to shoot the God of War in the eye, but if she is Lucky enough, then he’ll be amused and impressed by her brash valor, and grant her a boon or a gift, rather than be insulted by her attack.

Keep in mind that a Natural 20 should align with what is best for the player, not necessarily what the player wants. If a player rolls a 20 while attempting to do something you know will end badly for them? Take advantage of your knowledge and have their roll instead indicate that not only does their attempt fail, it does so in a way that alerts the player to the danger of their attempt. 

For example, they try to shoot a guard under the assumption he’s alone and it will be a sneaky quiet attack? Have the shot miss in such a way that the guard tells his friends just around the corner to “knock off all that racket, some of us still have jobs to do tonight!”

This kind of thing helps create a believable, consistent world for your players. Something that has rules and laws of physics of it’s own, even if those physics are a bit more fast and loose with thermodynamics than ours are. If a Natural 20 Always Works, then the world quickly loses credibility, because in that world, not only can literally Anything Happen, it has a 5% chance to do so All the Time

A world like that doesn’t really make much sense, and wouldn’t look at all like our world, and is therefore really hard for players to get attached to.

This is really good. I’d just like to add that you also have the option of just saying “That’s not going to work.” So many tales of DM woe could be averted by just being aware that the DM can not let the players roll dice in the first place.

This. This. This. A million times this.

D&D Player Mods Hundreds Of Monsters Into Playable Characters

prince-atom:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

dr-archeville:

Your bread-and-butter Dungeons & Dragons party won’t include a manticore, a gargoyle, a hyena or a sentient fungi, but maybe it should.  One D&D player spent a year and a half converting every single creature in the D&D [5E] Monster Manual into playable characters, and now players can live out their dreams of being a great fire beetle who slays dragons.

There are hundreds of monsters in D&D’s Monster Manual, many of which don’t really lend themselves to the Lord of the Rings-esque adventures that traditionally star humanoids.  Most dungeon masters won’t let players stray too far from that model.  It’s hard to wrap a plot around a rag-tag team of dire bats and oozes, and it’s hard to make sure a party’s stats are balanced when it contains both a faerie dragon and a mastiff.

Creator Tyler Kamstra’s new 283-page homebrew mod “Monstrous Races” offers ways for players to embody any of D&D’s monsters using stats, role-playing notes and everything else you’d expect to see listed next to the “Human” race in the D&D Player’s Handbook.  To play a basilisk, for example, players can attempt to petrify a creature with their gaze as an action.  This is helpful, since basilisks don’t have hands, rendering them incapable of holding a sword.  To play a banshee, or an undead spirit of a female elf, Kamstra recommends that players covet beautiful objects and remain within five miles of anywhere the banshee lived while alive.

This “Monstrous Races” mod is the sort of wonderful thing that, back in D&D days of yore, would exist as a titanic document in some far-flung basement, only to be enjoyed by a handful of players.  We can at least thank the internet for giving us playable purple worms.

Oooh

😀

I am here for this

And this time you don’t have to pay $40 !

D&D Player Mods Hundreds Of Monsters Into Playable Characters