Alan of All Trades

@alanofalltrades

1914 Siguiendo663 Seguidores1769 Publicaciones

Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y alanofalltrades.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· 12d

None of these mean the same thing, therefore they won't be a fitting replacement to the Fighter class! You're not making anything better, Deathbringer, you're just showing the lack of vision for the entire project!!

Poll from the Deathbringer Backerkit:

"Fighter." A word for tax collectors and shoe salesmen. So we're retiring the name. Help us choose what replaces it.
"Fighter" is boring. Deathbringer deserves better. Which name hits hardest?
Options consist of:
Warbrute; Reaver, Bloodletter, Ironhide, Skullcrusher, Ravager, Warhound, Slayer, Butcher, Bonebreaker, Mercenary, and Sellsword.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· 12d

Help I haven't had a haircut in forever and I'm being Weird about it

Picture of Vincent Price (right) and a crow from a black and white movie

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· 14d

The "Somehow Palpatine Returned" meme, but the text instead reads "Our Age Of Bronze Is Collapsing"

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· 25d

cover them up you harlot

Wolverine's "fancy britches" from X-Men – The Hellfire Murder: a saucy little ensemble featuring a masquerade mask, a choker/medallion with three wolveriney blades going down, a black coat with red detailing and furry epaulettes and absolutely no shirt on his hairy hairy chest.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Jul 16

Same thing happened after I shared the cultist statblock, this one here specifically

An image from Deathbringer TTRPG's backerkit campaign, featuring an enemy called "Fungus-Licking Cannibal Cultists." The image depicts an almost naked man in a dark mask, dreadlocks, bone necklace, and a bone knife. His eyes, tongue, and fingers of the hand not holding the knife are green. The word "tribal" comes to mind.
The text reads:
"Wear masks made of tanned human faces. Their eyes are fully dilated, and their tongues glow fluorescent green", followed by stats. Text continues:
"Fungus Frenzy. When combat starts, cultist will go into a frenzy and perform one of these frenzied actions.
• Staring. Swaying side to side, they chew down a handful of fungi. In this state, the cultists ignore attacks, even rapturous if killed.
• Cough and Gag. Wretches up toxins, spreading droplets of pink goo everywhere. All characters within near must check CON 12 or DISADV on all rolls for 1 round.
• Frenzy. Wild-eyed and driven by hallucinogens, the cultist attacks twice with their bone club or knife."

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Jun 24

Oh yeah, and this

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· May 24

Like what are we even doing here

Poster for A Man Called Hawk. It depicts Avery Brooks, a bald Black man with a goatee, wearing the chunkiest sunglasses and the freshest coat 80s could provide. It's awe-inspiring.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· May 10

The quote of the day is "No. I did not mean to summon you. The summons came unbidden to my dying mind. I am happy to drown"

Quote from Goodman Games:
The Classic Era of Elric will include a line of sourcebooks, adventures, maps, and additional supplements, all designed for compatibility with both Fifth Edition and Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game systems.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Mar 5

Evergreen

Screen from Yakuza 0 (the good version). Kiryu asking "What's wrong? Is it the Billionaires again?"

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Feb 16

This is how we're talking about TTRPG game design from now on

An edit of Raphael's "School of Athens" showing Plato and Aristotle in an intellectual debate, but their garments have been edited to be black and read "Sickos" as in the Onion's Sickos comic.
source: https://www.tumblr.com/help-me-yes/803253548274139136/yes-ha-ha-ha-yes

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Jan 20

Playing Shadow of War. Everything is just how Tolkien would've wanted.

An enemy captain by the name of Az-Gang Runny-Bowels.
He's a level 43 Outlaw Tank. EPIC, no less.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Jan 20

A very worried cat, grabbed by a hand right next to the scene of their crime

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Jan 12

I kept talking about how much I've been enjoying Adrian Tchaikovsky's novels that my beautiful amazing partner @megueggu.bsky.social got me a physical copy of Empire in Black and Gold!

Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky laying on my desk

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Dec 26

The way I take control of my life is I make a delicious meal to share with people close to me

More of my pretty acceptable shepard's pie

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Nov 30

Post your favorite "Lord of the Rings" character. Wrong answers only.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Nov 28

Reading JSA got me reaching conclusions

The "I don't like sand" meme edited to instead show DC comics character Sand, with the text haphazardly changed to say "I like Sand"

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Nov 20

Honestly, they're onto something tho

Picture of a container of fish spread called "Paryś szczeciński", featuring an admittedly cute drawing of a young red griffin wearing a baseball cap.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Oct 10

brother, if we knew the answer the whole hobby would look differently

Ask on the r/rpg subreddit:
What is the point of the OSR?

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Oct 5

I love art, I love stories

Edited panel from Captain Atom Vol 2 Issue 53 by Dan Raspler, Michael Adams, and Sam De La Rosa.
It depicts Captain Atom saying "Someone is turning dolphins into zombies!". Another man looks dumbfounded in the background.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Sep 27

Screencap from an article titled "Fantasy Genetics II: Half-orcs in a variety of styles" by Roger Moore (not that one) from Dragon Magazine 44 (December 1980):
Genus Australopithecus
Kobold (Australopithecus boisei)
Goblin (Australopithecus africanus)
Hobgoblin (Australopithecus robustus)
Bugbear (Australopithecus giganticus)
The general description of all the goblin races, as to sloping brows, receding chins and flattened noses, corresponds strongly to skull specimens of Australopithecus, not an ancestor of mankind, but a collateral branch of humanoid evolution that coexisted with early Homo, but that died out in the real world. Had the australopithenes evolved in a separate area of the planet rather than in the same general area as hominids, they might well have toughened up and survived into recorded times, as appears to have happened in the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 29

You don't say

Screenshot from Behind the Name:
Panther Πάνθηρ m Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek name meaning "panther".

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 25

It's been suggested I stay home today

A tortoiseshell cat, not a care in the world, sitting on top of a bag set on a chair

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 21

Actually, what I promoted my own game for a bit. Hi, I'm Alan and I'm the author of RAYSHIRTS, a decently funny retro science fantasy TTRPG! The players take on the role of Redshirt-like security officers on a space ship. The big difference is that the fleet sucks way more than the one in Star Trek.

Itch cover for RAYSHIRTS, depicting a futuristically drawn man in a cape in a state of high inebriation.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 21

To Be or Not to Be, squarely because he and Anne Bancroft sing Sweet Georgia Brown in Polish at the very beginning. Also it takes place in Poland.

Poster for To Be or Not to Be (1983 film), starrring Mel Brooks (and Anne Bancroft)

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 13

Reminder of happier times (when I learned Alan Dean Foster gave Kirk a Klingon captain "roommate")

McCoy hesitated momentarily. "Jim, I asked you if you knew this Kumara . . . personally, I meant. You waved me off. Where do you know each other from so well that you immediately call each other by first names?"

"Is it that important, Bones?"

"Well, now, I don't know, Jim," McCoy said evenly. "When two enemy captains display a certain degree of familiarity unheard of in previous—"

"All right," Kirk broke in, turning to face the doctor. "Yes, Kumara and I know each other on an informal basis. Did you ever hear of the FEA, Bones?"

McCoy considered. "No . . . no, wait a second. The Friendship Exchange Action, wasn't it?"

Kirk nodded. "Remember what it was about?"

"Sure—it was well documented in all the psychology journals. Was set up during one of those brief friendly periods between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Some bright medical theorist thought it might promote understanding between peoples if academy cadets from both cultures spent some time in close contact with one another. The program was limited to command candidates, if I remember right."

"It was and you do," Kirk acknowledged as the lift doors slid apart.

"Do what?" Spock inquired politely, and Kirk was forced to explain as he and McCoy entered the Transporter Room.

"Gentlemen, Kumara is one of the sharpest, smartest individuals I've ever met, and we can be thankful the Empire hasn't another dozen like him. He's also the only Klingon I've encountered who wasn't so puffed up with his own importance that he ignored his opponent's capabilities. And he expects us to believe he's here for casual 'exploration'!"

"Begging your pardon, Captain," Spock commented, "but this still doesn't explain how you come to address each other in so familiar a fashion."

"Oh, that. We were roommates, Mr. Spock." He led them into the transporter alcove.

– from novelization of the Star Trek TAS episode "The Counter-Clock Incident" by Alan Dean Foster

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 1

Man, I'm not teaching you how calendars work.

Your calendar lets you know when everyone else is free at the same time? How is this done? By linking their email addresses?

I understand your feedback is quite negative, but I appreciate it all the same. What do you think we should tweak or build that would be more useful?

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 1

What's surpising is he has responded

Hello Alan, thank you for getting back to me. So what you have come across is one of our features yes. I can understand your confusion as you are a veteran of the game and are fully capable of creating character sheets at ease. We have found that many new players struggle with the mechanics of this at the beginning, and this can make the game not very accessible to for them. What that tool does is allow the user to focus on the creative side of their character and flesh that out, where as our software will handle all the mechanical side of things and ensure the user can easily carry that creativeness into an actual playable character. From a DMs perspective, there may be use in being able to quickly convert cool concepts for monsters and NPCs into playable sheets, but the feature is mainly aimed at making the game more accessible for new players.

The feature that we think is most helpful to DMs like yourself is the Scheduler feature. We have all faced issues around scheduling games and understand how tough it is to find a time where everyone is free. What we have built really solves this problem and way beyond anything else available. What do you currently use to try organise games?

I use a calendar for organizing games.
And please, feel free to send all these strugglers my way, I could use the traffic! It's my job to guide players through character creation anyway. Accessibility is a feature of the Game Master, not an app.
I can't see people actually using any of this.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 1

Some genAI startup schmuck has reached out to me on StartPlaying for feedback, and I'm doing my best to be so helpful you guys

Hello Alan,

I understand this message may be slightly different to what you usually receive on this platform so I appreciate you taking the time to read it.

My name is [Name] and I am the founder of an online D&D company called [Company]. We've built a few tools to make it easier and quicker to organise and play games.

I am currently trying to speak with DMs like yourself to get some feedback on what we are building and see if you have any recommendations. Would you open to learning more and sharing your thoughts on it?

If so, you can either message me here, or reach out via email at [email address]. Look forward to hearing from you.

Hi [Name],
I've done some googling and I'm struggling to understand what [Tool] actually is. At first glance it seems to be using genAI to build a 5e character sheet from prompts. But it couldn't be that, right? Because that would be completely worthless.
Everybody knows that designing your character and filling out the sheet is one of the most important parts of TTRPGs! To try to deprive players of that experience would be to fundamentally misunderstand what the hobby is about. Not to mention no GM or player (heck, no human being!) would actually want to use genAI for any creative purpose.
So what is it that [Tool] actually does? How could it help organizing play easier and quicker?

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Aug 1

post a random picture for good luck in August

a (fictional) cover for the novel Conan the Detective by L. Sproing the Whaa. It features Conan fighting a red-cloaked gorilla.

Alan of All Trades@alanofalltrades· Jul 18

If you see this, post a #Marvel cover you love.