ahdok

joined 2 years ago
[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The villains in question were running a business at a street faire in Waterdeep. We had pegged their group as suspicious in general, and figured this was some kind of cover to pass on covert messages or meet with other villains that we were tracking. Wanting to get an opportunity to get a good look at them, and stake them out to see who they were meeting, we showed up and spent some time hanging around keeping an eye on their activities. (They had not met us and we had no reason to think they would suspect us of foul play.)

After a couple of hours of not much happening, we started passing shifts around keeping an eye on them, and Konsi went on a walk around the stalls at the faire, where some gnomes from the temple of Gond were making candyfloss with some kind of contraption. Faelys has a massive sweet tooth, and Konsi (who was magically disguised as a gnome so as not to cause concern in the streets of Waterdeep) figured it'd be really cool to learn to make candyfloss, so she asked the gnomes how the machine worked. They refused to tell her, but she was determined to figure it out, so she watched them operate the machine for a while to try and learn what she could about it.

As a part of this investigation, she cast detect magic, to see if the machine was in any way magical (it wasn't, it was purely mechanical) - so, a little despondant, she returned to the group staking out the villains, only to discover that all of them had magical illusion auras - as they were all wearing magical disguise amulets.

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 12 points 3 days ago

Thanks so much, it means a lot to artists to hear this kind of thing :)

It's going to be hectic in the next few months, so I may be a bit sporadic, but everything will be back to normal by the end of October, and I should be able to knuckle down and focus on drawing a lot more!

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 15 points 3 days ago

Heraldry be like that sometimes.

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Generally speaking, this is something that an experienced GM can handle in session zero. An important part of session zero is establishing expectations for the style of game to be played: Things like "are the player characters friends?" "Is PvP encouraged or discouraged?" "Do I as a DM want the characters to stick together?" etc etc.

Generally when running DnD, I request of my players to design characters who:

  1. Have a disposition to get along well with their companions. (this can be for any reason: because they're like that with everyone, or because they're loyal to the group, or because they view it as useful to have some friendly scapegoats nearby or any other motivation.)
  2. Be the kind of person who will go on adventures and take risks. (This can be because they're a daredevil, or because they're desperate, or because they're devoted to their duty, or any other motivation.)

Fundamentally, most DnD games are the story of a group of friends going on adventures together. If your DnD game is the story of a group of friends going on adventures, then it's extremely beneficial for your players to build characters who will be friends, and who will go on adventures. Together.

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 23 points 3 days ago (3 children)

It's going well, I think. We're on top of it. I'm not panicking.

There's a Konsi in the invitation art. I'll colour her in so y'all can spot her.

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The drawing prompt was "existential dread" The runic scribble around her is actually just all her negative thoughts - they're more readable in the light version.

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 6 points 3 days ago

I like that kind of thing in a lot of settings, especially more philosophical or metaphorical settings.

DnD always feels to me like it's a world where the metaphysics are defined by the players having an hour long argument at the table about "what RAW says", while people look up rules in books. Back in my 3.5 days, someone would manage to find a ruling in an obscure 3rd party book, in 4th edition, you'd find some hard definition in the source material. In 5th edition, someone will find a tweet from Crawford, and the table will agree it's stupid and decide the opposite is always true.

For my experiences in D&D, the question of "whether x counts as y" is a definition that sticks to the universe itself - there aren't many examples of metaphysics in D&D where the answer varies by intent. (I'm sure there are some though!)

Caveat: As with everything I say about D&D rules and definitions, this is not advice, just how I think of things, and the objective correct answer is always "whatever works at your table."

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 19 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Konsi did once break the plot of an adventure wide open by having the right detection magic running, for entirely unrelated reasons. Just realized the plot-twist 10 sessions early...

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 32 points 4 days ago (10 children)

Oh yes, although with roleplaying setting metaphysics, it's probably good to define this to be true if you're using it in your game. (To make sure it interacts with the rules correctly and has the right keywords etc etc.)

For example if you cast "detect poison" do you detect bottles of alcohol, or a hidden wine cellar, etc etc. If your DM has never considered whether or not alcohol is a poison it probably wouldn't occur to them to mention it, but if they have then they might!

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 2 points 4 days ago

While I have not drawn a comic of it, I can say that Konsi would have previously provided Razira permission to pick her up, for any reason whatsoever. (Also she's secretly enjoying herself here.)

[–] ahdok@ttrpg.network 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ah, I've been super busy with planning a wedding! The Konsi is continuing though, just slooow...

I also recently transferred all my notes from my 10 year old, completely full, notebook to a new one, and... I think I might have enough plans for about 100 Konsi comics... (There are 11 plotlines I have ideas for.) Here's a picture of what my new ideas notebook looks like.

This part of the notebook is for generic comic ideas - the ones I draw in the in-between weeks, so there's no worry of plot spoilers in this image. My notebook is a constant companion, and ideas for jokes go into it whenever they come to me. Some are fully formed and ready to go, some are half-formed and need workshopping before I could make a comic out of them. Some of them are probably so bad I'll never use them, but sometimes seeing the note at a later date inspires a new idea.

 

“Alcohol is a mild poison” has been a house rule within my extended roleplaying circles for a long time. It fits well into almost any setting or metaphysics, and allows you to do interesting things with intoxication.

This comic follows on from the Previous comic which will almost certainly provide context.

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I didn't hear no initiative roll!

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I'll be back posting comics soon, I promise, but this older one is topical enough to post.

 

But what if one of these sidequests has a good reward?

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It's not easy, having a divine mission.

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Konsi doesn't make the rules, she's gotta use those slots.

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This one isn't much of a joke, it's instead providing opportunity for some upcoming character exposition.

 

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Part 1:

 

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You can follow this comic series from the start Here. Make sure to start at the bottom (oldest comic) and work upwards.

Some people suggested that breaking up tall comics into two images within the post body would help readability in their client, so here's that.

We're over the exposition hump now, so hopefully following comics will have smaller/fewer speech bubbles.

 

Apologies for tall comic again, I don't see a way in the lemmy interface to let me upload multiple images in one post (which would let me break it up.) - in the web interface, if you keep clicking on the image it'll become full size eventually, or you can open in a new tab and zoom in, or look at it at one of my other places

This comic follows on from the Previous comic which will almost certainly provide context.

 

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The spell Konsi's talking about is "Fortune's Favour" - it's level 2, consumes a 100gp pearl to cast, and lets you re-roll a single D20 within the next hour. It's in Explorer's Guide to Wildmount.

It's been a little while due to drawtober, and my website is (mostly) functional again, so if you want to read all the Konsi comics from the beginning, you can do so on my website at this link. Please be advised that these posts are presented in reverse chronological order, so start at the end and work backwards.

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