LogFAQs > #896861859

shadowsword87 posted...

The next time I run a game, I may take you up on that offer.

Well, unfortunately the fact that we don't live near each other, along with my pathological distaste for online play via mic/cam/etc, means I can't really offer to be a traditional co-GM for you. But I'm always willing to brainstorm and offer advice or evil opinions to any GM who is looking for ideas.

Or, conversely, I'm always willing to act as a "player" in a sort of asynchronous sort of game where I'm fed information and can make decisions from an NPC perspective which affect someone else's game. Like, for example, I'm cast in the role of a stereotypical evil fantasy emperor who only ever receives reports from my underlings (who may be lying to me or omitting details deliberately), and I have to decide which neighboring kingdoms I want to declare war on, which ones I want to ally with (or pretend to ally with), and whether or not I should send assassins after this annoying group of mercenaries who seem to be stirring up trouble in the southern regions of the empire, and whatever I decide to do or commit to affects how various events play out in the campaign you're actively running for other PCs.

Or you could just say something like "I need half a continent's worth of kingdoms and their prevailing cultures, complete with at least three different gods and two new languages, and a dozen major NPCs to go with it" and I can help come up with ideas, because that's always been the part of world-building I enjoy most (there's a reason why I have dozens of kingdoms/realms/worlds and hundreds of NPCs who've never actually been used in a single game with actual players - I used to spend a LOT of time just doing that sort of thing for the fuck of it).



shadowsword87 posted...

You would also get 2 or so skills from your background, which you can use to grab stealth or whatever else. You just need to pick a background that gives you it.

Yeah, but I always start working out backstory in my head before I ever even consider race and class (let alone skills), so while I COULD theoretically pick a Dex skill heavy Background (like Urchin) to game the system, I'm pretty much psychologically incapable of ever doing so.

In the case of the semi-hypothetical Paladin, I basically wound up with Arcana and Insight via Sorcerer, then took Athletics and Religion from Paladin (and neither of those classes has a single Dex skill to choose from even if I wanted to), and got History and Persuasion from the Noble Background.

From a narrative perspective, I see it as a character who grew up as an elf noble and was thus schooled in history and rhetoric/noblisse, and then took higher level classes in arcane theory to supplement their inherent magical bloodline abilities (with Insight representing the more intuitive awareness that comes from mystic ability and Arcana being the more mechanical/practical/academic knowledge of magical theory). And then, upon becoming a Paladin, undergoing both rigorous physical training as well as doctrinal and theological education in their given god/belief system to prepare them for their duties.

If I had carte blanche to swap out any of those skills for Dex skills, about the only one that makes sense would be to potentially drop Athletics in favor of Acrobatics, but Athletics kind of works better thematically anyway.


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