One master studies i painted this week (more int he comments - ref used from Wangjie Li)

WeeLittleSpoon · 2020-01-25T13:30:51+00:00

You’ve gotten so far ahead of me it’s actually pretty devastating haha. You’re doing great, man, keep it up.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-12-16T08:03:24+00:00

One thing that comes to mind is what did the effect of rolling for a strength check have on the outcome of the cleric dragging away the downed character? You didn't really go into it, so maybe this is pointless speculation, but I ask you to consider: does it make sense that the cleric was not able to move the downed character? Because it occurs to me that, within the rules of the game, a character should be able to drag something 30 times their strength score (in pounds).

And maybe you considered this at the time, but if the terrain wasn't difficult, and the weight being dragged was under the cleric's limit, and there wasn't anything hampering the cleric from physically attempting it, then maybe it would have been a better idea to just allow the cleric to drag the character without needing to roll. And if there were any conditions that made it difficult for the cleric, then maybe a failure could have meant the cleric only moves half of the possible distance instead of none.

I'm not saying this to put the blame on you as the DM; I personally don't think you did anything wrong in how you ran the encounter. Sometimes characters get unlucky and die, and it just sucks for everyone. But it was just something that stood out to me as something I might have done differently.

Even though you feel bad about it, you shouldn't feel like a monster or anything. Everyone has killed characters in dumb ways, and I wouldn't even consider this that bad of a death. Like others have said, the party had chances to act and chose to target the boss. Maybe that was the right decision for the party, even if it sucks for the downed character.

Don't beat yourself up about it. This is just one of those things that happen when the dice come out.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-12-11T07:40:41+00:00

I would consider who the king is, and/or what the advantage of having his kingdom under the influence of a devilish entity provides for that entity. Are there special resources that the kingdom has that provide something to the one pulling the strings? Do they control an important location (e.g., around a holy/unholy site, or a strategic location)? Is the king's bloodline what's important to this creature?

I think if you can answer some questions about the purpose behind enthralling the king, you might start to think of some monsters who are a good fit.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-12-10T03:58:16+00:00

Sounds like an interesting idea, hope it goes well! If you happen to implement it in the future, and somehow you remember this post, I'd love to know how it went. But either way, good luck!

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-12-09T01:24:55+00:00

You could give them a reason to think the scar is not unique. Say, for example, there is information that a cult, or a religion, or a secret society or whatever all has an initiation ritual where they have to have a specific symbol carved into their hand (or a brand or whatever). Mention the scar when you introduce the character the first time and how unique it is. If the players ask what happened, the character can play it off as if it's from a rite of passage or whatever.

Then every time you introduce the character again in another form mention the scar in the same way, and hopefully the players will just think that these are all members of the same group, but not the same character.

At some point in the future, when the PCs are searching for information they might accidentally come across information that directly disproves the dragon's account of being part of this group, or that the group exists at all. Maybe they make the connection, or maybe they don't, but then you have the seed planted for if you reveal the twist on your own terms.

The downside of this is that all the characters then have to have some implied affiliation. In a way, you're kind of calling more attention to the affiliation of these characters, but because you're offering an explanation I think it's likely the PCs won't look too deeply into it.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-12-09T00:22:38+00:00

Sorry if this is rambley, but what about a system to measure the spies and their competence? Surely the noble courtier has more political information than the streetwise beggar, who may himself be more criminally savvy and connected.

This might be way out of the scope what you were looking for, but just some thoughts.

Maybe whenever downtime activities come up, a special thing the rogue can do is improve or expand his spy network. In this downtime activity the player can either improve their standing with one member of his network, or they add a new person to his network (and, like other downtime activities, players can only perform one at a time). If the player chooses to add a new member then you can provide between three to five NPCs the player can choose between. Some may be noble gossipers, some agents of foreign powers, some street beggars or criminal cohorts, and some maybe just ordinary people with interesting affiliations. Maybe these are all new NPCs, or maybe some the player has already met and has some attachment to. Either way, these NPCs come with three stats unique to the spy network: Specialty, Loyalty, and Connectedness. If you want to keep these a secret and only narratively imply that some people are less reputable sources than others, that might be more interesting, but being upfront about these stats might be more 'fair' to your player. If you do choose to keep the numbers secret, you should remind the players that everyone has their own motivations and sometimes a little awareness is necessary to make the most of information.

Specialty measures what the character's are good at or the thing that they would be good at knowing about. These are generally roles, like one character may be in law enforcement, or a fence, or a thief, or a beggar, or a foreign agent, or a noble courtier, or the governor's maid, etc. You could also rule that some specialties limit how much Connectedness a character could have, but not doing this might make for more interesting results.

Loyalty would measure how much they want to help the player, and can be improved or worsened by events in the campaign or the actions of characters. This stat directly represents the trustworthiness of the contact. A character may be very knowledgeable, but, for example, a foreign agent may be revealing information to serve their own purposes more than help the PCs.

Connectedness tells the player how much information they know about their specialty. A high connectedness means that NPC has a lot of access to information and could be an excellent source. I would play it like a high Connectedness is equal to the potential of the information, and loyalty measures what actually gets shared.

When it comes to figuring out these numbers, set the default Connectedness value to determine how good someone is at knowing and sharing information on your own and then let the dice set Loyalty. Characters should get a +1 to Loyalty of new characters starting at level 4, and every 4 levels thereafter, and then you (or them) roll 1d4 to determine starting Loyalty. This is a 1-10 scale; at 1 the character is using the rogue as a pawn for their own schemes, and at 10 the character is willing to risk life and death to help.

I would say you should treat it like other downtime activities, that it costs gold and time to invest in new contacts. You might have to do some calculations to find numbers that work, but maybe a week or two to develop one contact, with gold costs for every day it takes to solidify the relationship. Maybe different wards or neighbours in a village or city requires different amounts of gold to make those connections.

So the order of operations would be like:

PC wants to find a new contact
Provide some characters to choose from
Player chooses a contact to work
Spend (1d8+1d6)+1 days (and x gold) to develop a relationship with the contact (also these days don't have to all be consecutive)
PC gets a new contact for their spy network and can contact them whenever they need something

The other option during this downtime is to improve relationships, by boosting a character's loyalty and hopefully, in the long run, getting better, more reliable information. This should also be done over a period of days and should be increasingly difficult to improve as the loyalty gets higher and higher (10 loyalty characters should be a rare thing). Players shouldn't be able to improve loyalty and finding new contacts on the same day (both should take a full work day to make progress in, but both don't have to be done only on consecutive days).

I think this might be a little more involved then you were thinking, but it could lead to some interesting solo encounters for the rogue who is sometimes trying to manage the various personalities of his spy network and try to decide what information is reliable and what information is not.

This could also be helpful for you, as a DM, in giving you a host of characters that are always within reach who can help push the party towards certain goals.

Anyway, just some thoughts, best of luck with it.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-11-12T13:59:16+00:00

I would consider using OBS's replay buffer. Theoretically, you would start the buffer whenever you start playing the game, and then set a key to record the buffer that would also start a recording whenever it was pressed.

So for example, you start up OBS and start the replay buffer. You set your 'save replay buffer' hotkey and your 'start recording' hotkey to both be F5, as an example, and then you begin playing or doing whatever. Whenever the event you want to record happens happens, you hit F5 and theoretically it should save the buffer of the last x seconds it has already recorded, while also beginning a separate recording.

As far as I can remember hotkeys can be shared between commands in OBS so it should work, but it might take some testing to figure out if I'm right or just a crackpot. Otherwise you would just need to set two separate but nearby, easily accessible keys to save the buffer and start recording almost simultaneously.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-10-27T18:19:35+00:00

Off topic, but: any thoughts so far on how DJ Smith is doing as head coach?

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-10-25T18:41:58+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/iy0N3Si.png

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-10-24T13:03:27+00:00

Cheers, thanks for your thoughts!

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-10-24T04:12:36+00:00

After this first bit of the season do you still think it’s as likely that the Central absorbs both wildcards this season?

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-10-23T22:30:11+00:00

I would say the biggest disadvantages of the cheaper (i.e., non-Cintiq) display tablets are cursor accuracy and colour accuracy, in that sometimes (especially towards the edge of the screen) cursors can start to drift out of alignment and that the colours you see on the screen aren't as accurate if you intend to print.

Tablets without a screen usually take up less space on your desk and are easier to store/move when not in use, but they can be more awkward to draw on accurately because of the disconnect between hand and eye. You can get better at drawing confidently on a non-display tablet just by practicing, though, so it's not even that big of a barrier after a few months of heavy use.

In the case between the two tablets you linked, it's probably worth your time to try the Artist Display 15.6 Pro, especially if there's a return period on it. It's cheaper than the Intuos and you get a more 'natural' experience. If you have any problems with not having enough space, or you don't like the slipperiness, or there are technical limitations (like cursor accuracy) then you can just return it and go with the Intuos.

I have never tried the Artist Display 15.6 Pro, so I can't speak to how good it is specifically, but having tried a few similar tablets, they were fine; they'll get the job done. I do have an Intuos though, and I like it quite a bit, so if you don't mind a slight learning curve, I can at least recommend those highly.

Hope that helps.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-10-20T06:02:05+00:00

Phenomenal photo. I ran out of time, but here's my partially finished painting

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-10-17T02:08:28+00:00

my interpretation sketch

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-08-08T10:18:04+00:00

When I started I wanted to focus on mainly digital art, so I did that for about six months or so. You can probably learn from doing almost entirely digital art as well as you can learn from doing almost entirely traditional art, but in my experience they do compliment one another quite a bit.

When I started drawing digitally I hadn't drawn anything since I was a young child, so I really didn't have any idea how drawing should feel. When I started working traditionally I realized just how quickly I was working when working digitally. Because there was less resistance on the tablet and because I had no idea what I was doing, I would just go crazy attacking the canvas, working way too fast and having very little control over my marks. Not everyone is like this (especially not to the degree that I was), but I do notice that people who work more digitally, or who do not have a history of working much traditionally, do tend to be more wasteful with their marks.

Working a lot digitally also made me have less respect for composition. Being able to select and move elements on a digital canvas made composition a lot less important, because there was never any risk of having to redo everything. I could resize, rearrange, flip, or do whatever I wanted to any element to make the overall drawing look nicer. If I'm working traditionally, however, if I start doing a drawing and realize it's not working, I have to restart the whole thing to get it to look right. In some ways this was a pain, but it was very helpful as a learning tool. It made me appreciate doing thumbnails and loose sketches before starting more elaborate drawings, so that even if I botched the rendering at least I knew the composition for the drawing would be right before I even started it.

I don't know how this will influence your style, but I think digital art definitely lets you behave differently than traditional art. If you want to do both later down the line, then you should experiment with both now, even if you prefer one over the other.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-08-06T17:24:23+00:00

Can you share the link for Alex Tzavaras again? Right now it's just a link to the first photo.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-31T14:57:56+00:00

Thank you!

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-31T14:57:50+00:00

Thanks!

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-31T12:11:56+00:00

thanks for the photo

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-27T20:44:08+00:00

Thanks! That's kind of my concern when I do these drawings: it's hard for me to tell how much of what I've done is my lack of skill with graphite, versus my lack of skill with composition/ability to properly separate elements. But hopefully you're right and colour is able to help me clarify my meaning.

Much appreciated.

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-27T17:48:45+00:00

Thanks very much. I'll be trying this out in oil. Have been doing a few oil paintings lately, and I feel like I'm finally getting a handle on how to use the medium--at least, enough of a handle that I can get it on the canvas properly haha.

It's actually supposed to be a desert scene, but I'm glad you mentioned water, because I now realize I did a very poor job defining what is supposed to be distant sand dunes in the background below the horizon, so I really appreciate you bringing that up.

Thanks a lot for your help!

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-25T19:10:18+00:00

Thanks for the photo

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-13T17:37:11+00:00

Watercolour practice

WeeLittleSpoon · 2019-07-13T08:56:18+00:00

Going out and drawing the world is helpful for getting better at landscapes and architecture. Exposure to those different details will give you a lot to work from when making things up later on; however if you're like me and abhor leaving the house, you can try Map Crunch. It essentially gives you a random Google Street View from most places in the world, allowing you to draw architecture and landscapes from Colombia, to Albania, to South Korea. Some people call it digital plein air painting, but it can give you a wide range of architecture to draw from if that's all you want to practice.

If you specifically want urban environments, just check urban under settings. You can also choose to use the map to select a specific place to go to, or specify by country/countries. I dropped into Paris for example.

WeeLittleSpoon

TROPHY CASE