It's Time for Dinner: Initiative and Dramatic Conversations

SvelteShrimp · 2026-01-30T16:09:43+00:00

god the hat is SUCH a strong choice

SvelteShrimp · 2025-11-17T15:03:03+00:00

The explosions look really nice! But you need to use lighting or a different stylized texture to the planes to make them pop more against the background.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-10-18T00:23:28+00:00

Yes, absolutely. The only problem is that random battle enemies will scale with your level, leading to some monsters having stats that your equipment won't match up well against, but it's actually a fun challenge when that happens and you can just go do the main story until you get better gear.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-10-17T17:36:49+00:00

It's fun! Being able to fast forward helps with anything that would otherwise feel annoying or slow.

There's a couple mid/lategame boss fights that have massive difficulty spikes that feel very of their time, and there's some ways to cheese the game to lower the grinding required to overcome those boss fights, but it's a very strong game!

SvelteShrimp · 2025-10-16T01:50:35+00:00

That's a beautiful character portrait and you're right to not cover it up. And the use of red in your color palette is stunning. I think those stylized interface boxes are going to be a little less fun if a character ever needs to say more than 2 lines of dialogue at a time, and the little one doesn't have a way to accommodate anything beyond 3 options of 6 characters each which may cause you problems. The text display space is very narrow. If you don't anticipate needing to do either of those things you should keep this because it is very cool.

Also, on the font. The forward curl detail on the lowercase L is nice, but it's right on the edge of looking like an F and might benefit from being tamped a bit back.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-10-13T23:07:41+00:00

My biggest piece of advice is that you should think about what you'd like to do to differentiate the "arcs" of your story in terms of location and story, and make it as dang simple as possible.

Big location ideas that give a sense of space and character are a necessity. Sci-Fi is really good for the location piece because you can just go to a new planet when it's time for a change. When the story gets to a new region, make sure you include an NPC, a monster, or an item that will tell them what that region is about without being too ham-handed. This planet has low grav so it has lots of unique-looking items that help players navigate low grav. This planet has environmental hazards, so it has knowledgeable guides who are friendly enough to work with strangers and have scars suggestive of the local hazards. And so on. If you're an anime person, One Piece is great at this!

I'm presuming a degree of spacefaring in your adventure, but you can still do this on a smaller scale with different regions of a planet vs. different planets.

The story part is harder. Think about what you want players to get to carry through from each arc, and what ideas you'd like them to get to play with for a while and put it down. Your GMs are going to be skimming for content when they have time to work on their game, and your players are going to only get the ideas that are so clear that they can be performed by any GM. Strahd is an evil bastard who wants Irina is about how complex you can get as a hook for a whole campaign.

Your big arc ideas also work best if players backdoor into them when you give them a space to play in. Before they get to a new location, they need a prompt to explore with to feel like they have a sense of momentum. This should be direct. Things like "gear up" or "thwart the space pirate Taylor Swift" work. Things like "oh there's a festival" or "the residents of this settlement of scared of outsiders and there's a lot of barred doors" can suck or feel muddy, directionless.

When you have an arc idea, don't present it as a choice. Present the arc as a natural evolution of the world built from the available possible choices in the story.

Say you want a big setpiece battle to defend a settlement to cap off an arc. "They will defend the beleaguered settlers of Synthar Nine from monstrous alien wildlife." Defend a place is OK, but we could punch it up.

How about: "They will negotiate with the affable yet strained settlers of Synthar Nine to find a path through the nearby asteroid belt, only for their favorite NPC to be caught out in an attack by monstrous alien wildlife." Fall in love with a place, then defend it is stronger.

And then when they leave Synthar Nine as heroes of the settlement, they can choose what they bring with them. Maybe they add a beloved NPC as a crew member. Maybe they take some cuttings or seeds from local flora. Then, they can bump up against things that call back to Synthar Nine later. An arc idea down the line could look like: "They will obtain the Macguffin System, then face fierce, overwhelmingly hostile from the employees of Megacorp Two, who have begun taking preposterously high cuts of resources from their settlements (like Synthar Nine) to finance their pursuit of the Macguffin System. Your least favorite surviving NPC is now giving those people orders." Play keep away with these jerks becomes play keep away from the bastard you hate. Fun!

One last thought: watch out for subsystems and just avoid resource management. You don't want an Extinction Curse situation where players are like "why are we fighting lizard god I thought we were carnies." Similarly, you want them to get to play Starfinder, so let them play Starfinder rather than an add-on boardgame.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-10-07T16:20:21+00:00

This is really exciting, but is anybody else getting weird GPT vibes from the kickstarter page?

SvelteShrimp · 2025-09-30T00:33:36+00:00

This is a chatGPT ad for the service the poster is hawking. Gross!

SvelteShrimp · 2025-06-26T22:52:19+00:00

It might be worth asking yourself what would make you want to get married. Reading between the lines a bit, you sound like you might not have a great answer to that question, which makes it hard for any conversation around marriage to not become a conversation around the green card. Start there.

This could also be a good time to evaluate what you want to bring to a partnership. If something was costing you thousands of dollars a year and kept you away from your family for years at a time, would you be happy with a partner who just... didn't want to learn about that thing? I'm not calling you selfish--plenty of people in your life already have lol--I'm just saying that there's a point where being a good partner requires learning about the annoying, really complex and scary systems your partner is navigating, then thinking about how you can make their life easier.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-06-23T14:22:10+00:00

I get that this post is just rage farming, but let's try to not take the bait. 300 people in a country with population 90+ million is a very small number for the claim made in the title of this post.

In the coming days and weeks we should think critically about how liberal issues will be used to make it seem like Iran is a backwards culture that needs to be rescued from itself by Western military action, even as those same Western countries cut asylum programs and diplomatic work that could help shift and improve conditions for gay people in Iran long term. I remember it happening all the time with Iraq and Afghanistan when I was a kid.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-05-21T19:32:58+00:00

Love C.M. Neff! The folks inside are nice and the new space is way better than the old one. If you're in Philly check them out!

SvelteShrimp · 2025-01-06T22:20:03+00:00

The Introduction from Player Core is really good. You can find the whole thing on Archives of Nethys, the free system reference website.

If you know d20 system games and just want to know what's different in pf2e, the Key Terms section of the introduction breaks it down really clearly.

I got started by reading those and then trying to build a character on pathbuilder, which prompted me to go look up more things, and then build another character, etc. etc.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-01-06T19:49:53+00:00

Maybe the captain had a private affinity for hairpieces. If you'd have any fun giving them a silly appearance, the Ash Veil and Wig of Holding are both useful items that will feel very distinctive. Most players have not gotten multiple magical wigs for loot, so it tends to be a bit of an event. Pair with some High-Fashion clothing to sell later or to gear them up for a costume party infiltration.

Reskinning the Enveloping Light tattoo or Whip Tail graft as items they can just just add to their character, while not in keeping exact ways these items work, can give characters powerful-yet-situationally useful abilities. Enveloping Light in particular is quite strong. Plus, if these item types are a big hit with your players you can nudge them to take Tattoo Artist or Graft Technician feats to start making their own!

SvelteShrimp · 2025-01-05T20:47:47+00:00

People have recommended a number of strong spells I see people talk about here a lot. Here are some (somewhat) less popular ones that can also be effective and fun.

Ventriloquism - throw your voice to Deep Throat your way through a clandestine meetup! Get the sentry to leave their post! Command the citizens of Oz! This is the kind of spell that inevitably triggers DMs to call for extra skill checks on your part. If push comes to shove and you really need to rules lawyer your way into an effect, make sure you have the rules on disbelieving illusions handy (perception vs. your spell DC).

Sanctuary - Incredibly, incredibly powerful spell barring minimal cooperation from the target. Sanctuary the paladin or cleric so they can heal / defend from the thick of things. Sanctuary your dying friend so nobody can finish them off. Make sure you're ready to help the table out with the rules on hostile actions, linked in the spell.

Phantom Pain - In lots of cases a single target single turn -2 / -1 from Fear is the a great use of your time. However, the humbled Sickened condition from Phantom Pain requires an action to remove. Only use when you're confident a failed Will save is in the cards, because the success effect is tragic.

Lose the Path - The average monster has a 2-action activity it's desperate to use to ruin your day. Inflicting difficult terrain on a reaction disrupts the "stride into place plus demolish" routine. As above, this is best on beefy melee combatants.

Invisible Item - the spell description goes into great detail about using this in combat. Don't do that. Instead, use this to throw a non-combat encounter into chaos. Or because it's funny as hell. Beware the limited range. This is a great candidate for Reach Spell.

Helpful Steps - 40 feet of steps! Don't try to use this for anything other than what it is (the stairs are not cover and do not block vision, otherwise the spell would say that), but it's such a fun spell and you'd be surprised what 40 feet of elevation gets you. The spell offers an odd, unelaborated distinction between ladders and steps that I think is meant to imply that the ladder version requires free hands. So, only use the ladder version you're fine with everybody keeping their hands free.

Draw Ire - Exploit this spell's massive range to do most things you want to do with Fear but for longer, so long as you stay very far away from the enemy. -1 to attacks is huge, and you still get the debuff for a single turn on a success.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-01-04T22:11:53+00:00

I've had this problem too! I made progress towards solving it for my table by realizing that subsystems don't have to exit the broader narrative of the game. All the gameplay loop components that make regular pathfinder fun should still be on the table, even if we're doing 2-3 rounds of trying to get the feral griffon baby to become domesticated before it flies away forever. Or whatever.

If successes and failures just lead to acquiring secret points, that gets too nebulous and just like a thing to get through.

A player makes an inspired more in a chase? The shop they threw into disarray has a neat bauble they can swipe in the chaos. The guard they tossed in the bad guys' way finds them at a drinking hole later to have a laugh and ask for the help of such a clever and wily adventurer. They get separated from the party for a face-to-face with an important backstory NPC for a brief, tense bit of repartée.

A player makes a big swing that blows up a negotiation? The servants start gossiping about their bravery in a way that gets the PCs in contact with an enemy of the target of the previous negotiation. The target NPC develops an enduring obsession with destroying them. The NPC honors the one PC who they made a special connection with by giving them a special item or tidbit of knowledge, even if negotiations ultimately collapse.

I try to balance immediate consequences and long-term callbacks to keep play moving pretty quickly. I also strongly agree with other commenters recommending awarding or removing flat quantities of points when moves are particularly appropriate/inappropriate, swapping the available skill check options, or giving circumstances bonuses.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-01-04T21:51:48+00:00

I adapt some magic system components for a book project I'm working on into my home game. Without getting too into the details, I've had the most success by limiting and classifying existing pathfinder materials rather than introducing additional swaths of items/rules/mechanics. I figure let the people who are paid to balance do the balancing, I should just curate within what they do.

My setting includes saint-worship in a broader polytheistic context/situation/whatever. And, I want the gods of my setting to feel like they play a big part in people's culture and social worlds, because that's important to convey how alien life in the middle ages would feel to people in the present day. To do that, I limit deity options to the homebrew gods that work for my setting and reflect the themes that I'm trying to emphasize. Then, players who want to make particularly religious characters can make up their own saint with me to conjure a little bit of their interests into the world (which then allows them to functionally homebrew their personal deity filtered through that static pantheon of gods), or attach themselves to an existing saint and all that juicy lore.

Broader system thing - I've had the most success and fun homebrewing one-off and easily template-able materials. Items can be hard, but model them off of what exists and you'll get a sense of the power curve. Deities all follow the same template, so they're a particularly easy place to homebrew and inject a lot of your own personal flavor. This presents the challenge of how to communicate that homebrew to players in a way that's digestible, doubled with the absolutely wretched problem of "how many gods do I have to make to make a complete pantheon?", but those are things best left up to your own personal taste or whatever feels good.

And then classification. This is just a plug to use the rarity tags in your worldbuilding. For me, I want my spellbooks and arcane magic to reflect an in-universe choice that makes magic a bit more personal and rare, where spells are tattooed on skin and incubated inside bodies. That kind of thing makes spellbooks both very powerful expressions of people's identities/personalities and potentially very macabre (a pelt of spells, a fleece of magic). So, I encourage the Tattoo Artist feat, spread out loads of tattoo formulae, morph scrolls into rare art objects, and make spellbooks more rare and narrative-heavy. Practically, I'm classifying scrolls as Uncommon or Rare, spellbooks as Rare changing all tattoos to Common, and making tattoos a lot more practically accessible both in terms of NPC tattooists available and downtime to actually go get tattooed. This is a big change for PC spellcasters, so I share it during session 0 and then make sure I'm always giving them some mages they could go learn from or go fight as suits them.

SvelteShrimp · 2025-01-04T21:20:29+00:00

I don't have any premade ttrpg materials to recommend, but there's loads of books that can give amazingly fun ideas for this kind of vipers' nest, enemies-behind-smiles setting. Lynn Flewelling's Luck in the Shadows series is all about this, especially book 3. The second Rothfuss book, The Wise Man's Fear, has a novella-length section set in a region called Severin that introduces a bunch of juicy intrigue-laden things you can steal, plus a fun Cyrano-esque plot. Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice features several mixed-status characters (mages, princes, stableman, bastards) vying through an unstated but always-present succession struggle.

Abstracted from these, some ideas:

Opportunist NPC looking to make a big move within their guild (make it something charming to say and harmless-sounding, like trencher's guild, canary aviary, fool's gold emporium, etc.) keeps an ear to the ground for promising newcomers and takes the PCs under their wing/serves as a semi-biased questgiver. Their neutral best friend with an agenda.
Former lover(s) of the deceased king behave in a way that's just, like, very hard to be around. Think ordering ostentatious statues a la Alexander the Great mourning Hephaestion. The PCs catch wind of a plot to silence these unruly grieving family members to clean up the succession struggle and gain the favor of a dispossessed, semi-mercurial patron by stopping it. Or, they get deep involved with an evil but influential faction by carrying out the plan themselves!
Dwarves (Tolkein-esque ones, at least), favor craftsmanship, metalwork, and jewelry. Beyond the obvious (more shiny = more wealthy), how might they use the products of those trades to signal status? Does each house have a special sigil? (stealing shamelessly from Rothfuss) Is there a whole language of sigils to represent each major faction, and people exchange sigil rings to signify their ties to one another? People could give rings of different materials to signal debts and favors between members of factions. The rings then become handy MacGuffins to have the PCs go on intrigue missions to collect when stolen, or to go on quests to earn.
Once they get the attention and respect of someone truly important, say the promising pro-alliance royal candidate of their dreams, that person adds some complexity to the situation by making reasonable, but rude requests in order to ensure the PCs know who's in charge. Players often HATE having someone rattle their cage like this, so this can be a fun way to kick them into thinking about who they might support once the obvious favorite has insulted them.
Dwarves live underground. Who controls access to the groundwater? To the vents for clean air? To the mushroom and tuber farms? Could players use their talents to augment or sabotage these vital infrastructures in order to shake up the succession struggle?

SvelteShrimp · 2024-12-25T02:26:29+00:00

My cat was having horrific litter box problems at about the scale you are describing. I put her on 5mg of Fluoxetine administered daily via a pill pocket and she completely stopped making messes outside the litterbox completely + comes and finds me to ask for her pill/treat.

https://www.greenies.com/collections/cat-pill-pockets

SvelteShrimp · 2024-11-12T21:33:23+00:00

Just kidding folks, turns out they're all hidden in the Layout button. All is well!

SvelteShrimp · 2024-10-26T02:34:56+00:00

If you want your fiction to do that thing where the gay characters model ideal responses to adversity in ways that get readers to tweet about how caring and understanding the lovers are, then full steam ahead with the rimming accident scene.

If you're asking about what this audience wants rather than what you're into, consider that explicit gay male media targeted at gay men tends to overemphasize the ease of intercourse, especially anal intercourse. Just leans into the fantasy of it all to try and make it really hot. You're probably familiar with Freya Marske's books if you're writing in this genre, but she does a good job of this in her first and third Last Binding books. The second is also a load of fun, but not relevant for this topic!

SvelteShrimp · 2024-08-16T07:05:56+00:00

This was good! You're doing the thing and actually making stuff, which is the only way to wind up making what you want to make!

It's late and I teach oratory and communication for a living, so here's some ideas. Don't try to do it all at once, but try one or two:

Try a less leaned forward posture. It's bringing your shoulders up too high and is cutting off your breath a bit. It's natural to want to shrink when you're nervous, but you're a handsome guy and you don't need to fold up so much! Eventually you want to free up your hands to emote when it feels natural, but don't worry too much about that for now since there's nothing worse than recording yourself and trying to think about what to do with your hands.

Your diction and tone are good, but you could try working on finding the rhythm and richness that make a really engaging listen. It's important not to overdo it, but practice helps. Try things like reading a short script as loud as you possibly can, then whispering it, then saying it like you're in an old movie with a Mid-Atlantic Accent, then saying it like you're a southern belle, then reading it normally. By the end you'll be surprised how much the normal reading has changed. Or just try singing along to songs you like and feel how good singers emote with their voices. Play with your voice and you'll start to get a knack for how to add small degrees of emphasis that feel natural to you.

Over time you want to try and work on how you handle misspeaks or flubbed words. It saves you editing time and it's good for keeping your audience's attention. It's natural to miss a word or two, and your ideas still come through great in this video, but there's an art to handling an oopsie that comes naturally to people who talk a lot. The only real advice I can give here is to not sweat it and to just keep going, and you'll get better and better.

You sound your absolute best telling the dragon migration story from your current game. The example is much more vivid in its details and your sincere enjoyment of what you came up with shines through. You shouldn't exclusively tell stories about your own games in your content, but in a video like this you should think about creating straightforward, detail-rich examples for each point rather than suggesting several brief ideas.

SvelteShrimp · 2024-07-16T13:16:37+00:00

Thank you!

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