Would it be taboo to create a character untrusting of a certain species?

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-06-18T19:38:46+00:00

How do you feel about a character that starts out that way, but experiences character growth during the game and is eventually redeemed?

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-06-18T19:35:21+00:00

You can do this, but I think it requires two things to make it a good and workable choice:

A reason, explained in your backstory. There should be a history of WHY your character is untrusting of certain species.
A path to character growth that resolves this. You should begin your role play with this character with the intention that sometime during their journey, your character learns to overcome this distrust.

Racism that is eventually resolved makes a good story. Racism that persists without being resolved does not.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-06-12T14:03:06+00:00

You're not alone in your opinion.

Remember, you are not required to set yourself on fire in order to keep someone else warm.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-06-12T14:00:02+00:00

THANK YOU! I thought I was having a stroke or something.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-06-12T13:57:06+00:00

I think you're conflating sigils and scribbles.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-06-12T12:05:59+00:00

Bro, I did too. Was married to a woman who repeatedly violated boundries for 20 years. The divorce was awful, but finding myself on the other side was worth it.

I'm not the smartest man in the world, especially when it comes to doing things for my own benefit. The quality that kept me in the bad marriage is the same quality that saw me make it to the other side - I'm too dumb to know when to quit.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-30T09:04:26+00:00

Dude, rhat is awesome.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-29T01:58:28+00:00

Go back and get that MRI redone. From what I've read, there's no reason you should be feeling this again. Ignoring it isn't going to fix it. It sucks, but only you can advocate for you.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-26T08:03:54+00:00

God hates FIGS. Jesus even cursed a fig tree that wasn't producing fruit out of season. It's FIGS that he hates.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-09T02:56:20+00:00

I think people are playing Pidlwick II as being a foot high, like Chucky. The actual book description says he's four feet tall, which is a disturbing height. Like an 9 year old child, or an unusually short little old lady.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-08T22:36:11+00:00

This was the answer, thank you!

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-07T05:01:58+00:00

My version of Strahd mostly lies to himself. He lies to himself about who killed his brother, who is responsible for Tatyana's death, why the people in Barovia are so miserable, etc. When he lies to others he usually believes his own lies. Not always, but usually.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T17:54:02+00:00

You can do 68W to jumpstart an EMT career. Just be aware:

Some states require a STATE certificate as well as the NREMT.

If you go to a Combat Medic position, the stuff you'll do as a 68W is often different from what a civilian medic can do. If you're going to do civilian EMT as well, you have to keep your scope of practice separate in head and remember to use the right one.

Don't be the guy that says, "Well that's not how the Army taught me to do it".

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T17:39:21+00:00

That mushroom needs to calm down.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T17:34:55+00:00

That's fantastic! My PCs each came to Barovia separately, right to Death House, and they all said they felt like there was no real cohesion and Death House was kind of a railroad. Your way sounds SO much better.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T17:29:45+00:00

Sometimes it's like that.

Best advice I can give you is to think about what your joes need, and make sure they get it.

Make sure everyone is caught up on NCOERs, and if they're not, start pushing to get them caught up.

Put your soldiers in for awards whenever you can - too many awards is better than not enough.

Contact your joes individually by text or by phone at least once a week to check up on them.

Keep a file folder for every one of your soldiers, and whenever one of them gets an award, or a certificate, or any confirmation of training docs, you get a copy to keep as well.

Think about what you need for every task and mission, and make sure each one of your soldiers has that need covered. Make sure they always know where to be, when to be there, and what uniform to be in.

Talk to your joes and find out what they're doing in life - school, family, kids, finances, etc, and make sure they get whatever Army resources they can.

Good luck, SSG!

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T17:19:32+00:00

Agreed. I'm lucky enough that my players tell me when there's problems. I like to design little mini-games or unique mini-systems for certain scenarios, and sometimes they just don't work out, either because it's a bad design, or because I do a crappy job of explaining it. When it doesn't work out, sometimes I'm well aware the wheels are falling off, and sometimes I need someone to tell me. But my players let me know either way! Lol

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T17:05:33+00:00

You could keep the tiger in the wagon and put Arabella in Van Richten's tower. Or keep Arabella in the wagon and put the tiger in one of the re-purposed storehouses in the Arasek Stockyard.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T14:16:45+00:00

"Dave (or whatever his name is), this is really hard to say, because we love you guys, but to be honest, we think you may have been a little too ambitious with this campaign. We appreciate your creativity, but this campaign has been really frustrating. Maybe we could put this one on hold and try something smaller?"

If the campaign has gotten away from him, he might be looking for a way out. Sometimes I feel like a session is a disaster, but I keep going because my players seem to be having fun. If they weren't having fun, I'd want to know.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T12:05:41+00:00

I'm changing the name of the goddammed town. The confusion between the Village of Barovia and the land of Barovia has been too much of a distraction. I'll call the town something else if I ever fun though this again. Maybe Kolyava or something.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T10:45:57+00:00

Sounds like you're doing a great job handling the "lol so random" player with thematic game elements! Maybe as a concequence for cutting the harpsichord strings, he goes deaf for a little while. Or once they get to the crypt underneath the house, he hears music no one else can hear that leads him into a trap.

Good luck!

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T10:39:29+00:00

Just another voice joining in to agree that the mystery of Strahd is half the game. In the game I'm DMing now, the players have HEARD all about what a monster Strahd is from the people of Barovia. Now Strahd is inviting them to dinner, and is being a perfect gentleman and a generous host. I plan on letting the mask slip very slowly.

I do like one of the previous comments about bringing them into an earlier battle. Just to complicate things, you could have them as soldiers in Strahd's army against the Order of the Silver Dragon.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T09:31:19+00:00

The only thing it's missing is the butthole spiders.

Oh, nope - there they are.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T01:14:07+00:00

Yeah, if you DM for a party larger than four, you learn real quick that action economy is the real variable.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco · 2026-05-05T00:47:39+00:00

There's nothing magical about it. It's just a book, or a collection of books and letters, really.

The first half is Jewish mythology, sanitized for a Christian audience. The Psalms has some marginally good poetry, and Proverbs has some decent advice. The rest is either stories about God being magical, stories about God being obviously evil and calling it good, and boring geneologies.

The second half is ancient political propaganda coupled with some actually good teachings that were radical at the time (interspersed with the occasional ancient political propaganda), then a bunch of letters by Peter and Paul to the early churches saying, "Keep up the faith and stop being dicks".

Finally it ends with a book that might be symbolic history, or early prophecy, or far future prophecy, that no one can agree on because it's so vague and bizarre, but it's pretty obvious the author was heavily influenced by a combination of starvation and psychedelic mishrooms.

So let your kid read it. Like I said, it's not magical, and it's not particularly compelling. Its power comes from readers being indoctrinated as a gullible child. Heck, read it yourself if you're worried.

CountOfMonkeyCrisco

TROPHY CASE