Hey, if D&D wasn’t created by a bunch of weird li’l guys to play weird li’l guys in their favorite story world (LotR), then I’ll find one that was inspired to do so. 🤪
All DnD characters are weird by definition. They are generally magic-weilding mercenaries in worlds that are populated almost exclusively with people who are not. They are the types of loons who hear, ‘There are monsters in that cave that will paralyse you, bind you, fill you with digestive juices, and then leave you to die slowly over the next few days, but there MIGHT be something of value in there, though there’s no reason to assume there is,’ and decide to run in so fast they forget their pants.
Jokes on you, this time a weird BIG guy!!!..
My weird lil guy was a gnome divination wizard whose last assignment before graduating from wizard school was to find a use for True Strike. Unfortunately he never graduated.
every party needs at least one weird little guy
Yes, but it does not need three.
Three is fine. Just not thirteen. If you’ve got thirteen weird little guys you’ve got to recruit a fourteenth.
What if you stack them on top of each other and cover them with a trenchcoat?
One’s on the bottom, strong is he
Two’s in the middle, carrying Three
Three’s pretending not to be
3 gremlins in a trench coat!
I’ve written two, too-long fiction books. After the second one, I realized I only have one story to write, and can’t think of anything else. I tried to start a third one, and it’s just turning into the same story–everything I like. So, I think I’m done writing.
Take a look at the Shonen anime community. There’s a huge market for the same story repeated over and over.
It’s all about whether you enjoy writing it.
Take a look at the Shonen anime community.
Oh my gosh. Or friggin’ isekai.
“I Was Dead and Now I’m in Another World That Works on JRPG Mechanics and I’m a _______ ???”
Step 1. Fill in the blank with something clever.
Step 2. Too late! Someone already made it, and it’s got an 11 episode anime on Crunchyroll that ends abruptly and will never see continuation.
… “Reincarnated As a Vending Machine” is legit good though, the way it leans into its ridiculousness. XD
It doesn’t matter if someone’s already done it, because they are all either stalled or cancelled. Even the good ones are never finished and can be blazed through in an afternoon.
Mandatory magic power classification orb that explodes when touched by the MC
Lol as well as a clever hook gimmick that stops being relevant by episode/issue 2 or 3. XD
Or, my personal least favorite, actually interesting premise followed through on then absolutely ruined by horny weeb nonsense.
As a horny almost-weeb it’s the nonsense I’m mostly offended by, to be clear.
This is basically what Brandon Sanderson does and they’re all good. It helps that his favorite thing is inventing new magic systems.
Try writing a story from randomly selected elements. You might surprise yourself when writing under constraints.
Literally! Restrictions make us more creative, I always loved writing prompts for this. You could come up with some elements and number them and roll a die to choose them
Michael Moorcock made a career out of writing the same story over and over again.
Just write the same story in a different setting. If you’re good at love stories, try a fantasy love story or a sci-fi love story or an occult noir love story.
Go look up the belgariad and then the other series by the same author. Wonderful writing and enjoyable story but every series is the same story with different characters.
And settings that, ten years after you get done with them and liked the whole thing based purely on the characters, make you go “wait, that was actually super racist and more than a little pedophilic”
Then you find out about the child abuse charges and some things start making more sense.
The same character living the same story in a different setting is way different like the classical white Knight war guy in Arthurian myth or the crusades or the us civil war or each world war are way different then you get past world war two or world war one if he’s Russian or Chinese and things get real real different
Like does that setting have a side that’s the good guys or both kind of have a point or the whole war is nihilistic stupid or its like a Hitler versus Dracula kind of situation and how does that character change when fights are long affairs with swords or industrial meat grinders with machine guns and chlorine gas like the last gasp of the noble knight guy was von Richthofen and arguably your chuck Jaeger’s with shreds of that cultural cachet spilling into civilian astronauts and now you have like sociopath spooky operator guys as the war expert people and how does your white Knight gut fit in with each of those and that’s just like stuff closely based on reality how does he cope with fighting a hive mind or giant robots or being a wizard or the same guy but he’s more a science hero macguyvering his way with science magic or breaching the warp core or whatever
You can write the same story again and it’s still good did you ever watch ‘samurai champloo’ it can totally work
My weird lil guy was a monk multiclassed with wizard, because he was obsessed with going fast. He also loved taking drugs. There may have been a couple sonic comparisons
Sometimes you just need to play a weird Lil guy.
My first one (while cliche) was an over the top positive eccentric gnome artificer who was quite naive and always saw the best in everyone, had so much fun playing that bloke that I think it actually improved my mental health and at least made me try to stop being pessimistic so much in RL
My favorite weird little guy was a halfling rogue, but he had an academic background. So he played like this overly optimistic nerd who just wanted to make the world a better place. I was playing him in a way that his optimism would fail when facing reality, but I kept rolling 20s. “Couldnt we all just get along?” Solved two conflicts. The best one was, “perhapse you have forgotten the power of love!” Convinced two dragons who hated each other to date. I miss that little guy. I still use his voice sometimes.
My over the top positive lil guy was a halfling bard who was a baker. All his instruments were pots and pans he would bang on. His vicious mockery was telling you ways that you let down people in your life and genuinely wanting to help you do better. His bags were full of homebrewed muffins that were infused with calm emotions which he would use to pacify and bribe NPCs. Whimble Buttercrust became the de facto party leader and turned our resident murder hobo into a struggling pacifist who would snap if anyone put Whimble in danger.
The other halfling in our party was a horny rogue, so I played Whimble asexual. The DM was also horny so they found it amusing to watch Whimble struggling to graciously excuse himself while remaining oblivious (until it was no longer possible and then becoming flustered).
Whimble Buttercrust became the de facto party leader and turned our resident murder hobo into a struggling pacifist who would snap if anyone put Whimble in danger.
Just got added to my favorite sentences.
Mine’s a Triton bard that plays 80s glam rock and dresses like he’s in Motley Crue. Nothing weird about him.
I hope you’re playing 'Dr. Feelgood" when you or someone else heals.
…well, I am now.
In my group there are at least these patterns:
- are you a moon druid?
- are you attacking everything, always, under the guise of protecting the party?
Uhh I would just excitedly say “Yep!”
