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Lemniscate Blue posted:I'd link the "Dungeons & Discourse" comic here but the artist kinda sucks so I'm not going to bother. Oh, really? I hadn't heard anything unsavory about Existential Comics.
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Jun 13, 2021 12:49
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Leraika posted:Oh, really? I hadn't heard anything unsavory about Existential Comics. I meant the Dresden Codak strips, I didn't know Existential Comics used the same name.
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Jun 13, 2021 13:43
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Lemniscate Blue posted:I meant the Dresden Codak strips, I didn't know Existential Comics used the same name. That's because they don't (now that I've gone and checked) and I lived in a blessed existence where I completely forgot Dresden Codak existed and that Existential Comics wasn't the only comic that had done philosophy-themed dnd parodying. Whoops!
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Jun 13, 2021 13:51
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Leraika posted:That's because they don't (now that I've gone and checked) and I lived in a blessed existence where I completely forgot Dresden Codak existed and that Existential Comics wasn't the only comic that had done philosophy-themed dnd parodying. Whoops! What's wrong with Dresden Codak? 
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Jun 13, 2021 19:26
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neonchameleon posted:What's wrong with Dresden Codak? Terrible panel layout and long delays between pages despite being paid so she can work on it full-time is the least of it, the author is extremely pretentious and believes any criticism is jealousy or a hit job. She makes it clear she has an extreme fetish for amputee women with how her main character's treated. Robindaybird fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Jun 13, 2021 |
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Jun 13, 2021 21:15
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Robindaybird posted:Terrible panel layout and long delays between pages despite being paid so he can work on it full-time is the least of it, the author is extremely pretentious and believes any criticism is jealousy or a hit job. He makes it clear he has an extreme fetish for amputee women with how his main character's treated. Entirely correct. However Diaz goes by She/Her now
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Jun 13, 2021 21:24
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Robindaybird posted:Terrible panel layout and long delays between pages despite being paid so he can work on it full-time is the least of it, the author is extremely pretentious and believes any criticism is jealousy or a hit job. He makes it clear he has an extreme fetish for amputee women with how his main character's treated. From someone who enjoyed reading it a long while ago, "slow, pretentious, and horny" sounds completely fair and accurate, and I'm kind of relieved/hoping there isn't something worse I missed.
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Jun 13, 2021 22:04
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The Beginning of the End The others have taken to shoveling cubic yards of coins into my portable hole. The sheer volume of Dragotha’s treasure is staggering and there’s no way, even assisted by telekinesis spells and the one semi-functioning stone golem, that we will be able to collect his entire hoard. I am sitting with my knees under my chin, rocking myself gently as Ospar tends to my burns. “What happened?” Ospar says, “Lashonna betrayed us in the end. She has stolen the obelisk and is probably preparing to release the Daughter as we speak.” “Then why do we dawdle?” “We are in no condition to travel. You are a mess, I am weary in body and spirit. Snakeeyes, Severance and Laenaya are not unwounded. Even Zulshyn is tired.” I watch the shoveling of loot continue as we all take a rest and Ospar and Severance tend to our wounds. I sit with my eyes closed and am full of fear. Fear that the Underworld is my destiny when my final end comes. Fear that my misdeeds have consequences. But I master myself and crush those feelings. Though the hells await, I vow silently to myself that I will not stop learning my craft until the Boatman learns to fear my arrival. Ospar, on the other hand, radiates a quiet contentment. His is a subtle yet discernable unshakeable faith that his cause is just and his path is true. After all, not everyone can ask their god directly for the gift of resurrection and have that god reply with that request granted. It just seems crazy that Hextor would intercede on my behalf. Am I grateful? Of course. Indebted? Probably not. We spend a day resting and recovering, pilling my portable hole to the top with loose coins, and then travel back through the canyon to the earthnode called Clawcairn. Here Zulshyn takes her leave of us. “I will await your return Th˙s, but do not tarry,” she says as she takes a hold of my hand on one of hers and cups my jaw in her other. “You year starts upon your arrival, not from our deal.” “I will return,” I promise as Snakeeyes rolls his eyes. “If I do not return, it is because we have failed at our task and the world is soon to be plunged in darkness. Be well!” We walk into Clawcairn and I transport ourselves to Rocktable and we make all haste across the wildlands towards Thalos. Our midnight arrival at Thalos reveals a city in bedlam. The main gate lies open and abandoned revealing a Caravan Street filled with a sickly green fog. Skeletal figures, lumbering zombies, and other fell creatures of undeath move about in chaotic frenzy. Above the city, in the gloom of the night sky, a massive vortex of greenish clouds swirls menacingly. Along the walls we can see the guardian fire elementals flaring and flickering from their torch sconces against some unseen menace. Laenaya comments on the building energy. “Can you feel it?” she asks rubbing her arms. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her looking nervous. “A strange energy builds like a rope under too much tension.” We hurry through the gate into the city and an overwhelming feeling of despair smashes into me like a blow from a hammer. Only Ospar is unaffected as the rest of us stagger and resist curling up into helpless children in the middle of the street. His strength carries us down the road, and repels undead hordes as we race to the Keep of the Overlord seeking an audience with van Neuman and Marja. His gates are also abandoned, but some unseen force keeps the area around the keep free from attack and they open silently at our approach. Within the foyer, the Overlord and his Consort are waiting for us. “What news Ospar? Th˙s? Severance?” Ospar greets the two. We give an account of our locating Dragotha’s phylactery, it’s destruction and our assault on Dragotha’s lair. As we tell our tale van Neuman is leading us up to the walls overlooking the city. “We were betrayed by Lashonna,” Ospar finishes. “We managed to destroy the creature Dragotha and plundered his hoard, but Lashonna spirited the portal stone away. “ Marja points out over the city towards the Noble’s Quarter. “There is your stone yonder. Atop the very ziggurat that Prince Zeech was building for Lashonna. ‘An homage to Hextor’ he called it. Seems Lashona had other plans.” Ospar brings his hands to his temple in frustration. “I knew that story about Hextor was a farce. I should have done more to learn more.” Van Neuman interrupts. “What I done is done and we must work from where we are. It is clear that Lashonna seeks to break open the seal and empty the prison and free the Daughter and it is also clear that we are the ones to stop her. We seven will do what we must to prevent the Age of Chaos.”
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Jun 13, 2021 22:51
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Hattie Masters posted:Entirely correct. However Diaz goes by She/Her now thank you, didn't know went back and corrected pronouns
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Jun 13, 2021 23:01
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Refreshing to see a genuinely bad person have a revelation of 'Wow, I'm a bad person and I'm going to have a wretched afterlife'. Then, of course, he shows his true colours by saying to himself 'Well, rather than not be a horrible person, I will just become so powerful that I can kill Death'.
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Jun 13, 2021 23:06
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Robindaybird posted:thank you, didn't know went back and corrected pronouns Welcome! Just wanted to make sure you knew As for my personal story, it comes from the game I am currently playing, Deep Carbon Observatory (using the Black Hack system) I am playing Searle the Green, a skeleton who is also a Fighter. My two companions are Clerics. A little while back, we came across a village filled with mind controlled cannibals. We decided that we were going to un-brainwash them. However, we can only do so one at a time. So we tied them all together in what has been deemed by our GM to be a chain gang, minus the chains. One of them, a child known as "Second Grinding Tooth" (hereafter called SGT) after a miniboss we'd fight, attempted to start stirring up discontent. At first one of the Clerics cast Silence on the group, but eventually we needed to actually solve the problem. Having stashed them in a place safe from the flying Roc looking for tasty food, SGT started his "there are more of us than there are of them." The same cleric as earlier attempted to talk him down, and it did not work. He was the charismatic one. I decided then to step in to try to help. Searle the Green has lived a long, long time, held on by his geas and oaths. He has seen psychology at work, and thus he crouched down, coming eye level with SGT. His eyesockets filled with the faint green light, he stared down the rebellious child and said, quietly but firmly, "Child, I know that you and the others here are victims of a foul magic that clouds your mind. However, as you saw in your village, I am more than capable of taking on your best fighters all at once, and have little compunctions against violence towards children who would seek to kill me. I have no desire to harm you and the rest of your village, but know this: if you attempt to break free, to harm us and return to your ways, to escape from this place of safety? I will be here, and I will end every single one of you, easily. I will not do so happily, but I will do so willingly. So you will all stay here, you will stay safe, and you will Not eat anyone." The child recoiled, clearly chided. And if it had failed I was entirely ready to hit some kids. And then I went on to kill a bunch of demon astronauts! and this is the GOOD party we played so far, the other one got a TPK and was nicknamed "War Crime Crew"
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Jun 13, 2021 23:32
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JustJeff88 posted:Refreshing to see a genuinely bad person have a revelation of 'Wow, I'm a bad person and I'm going to have a wretched afterlife'. Then, of course, he shows his true colours by saying to himself 'Well, rather than not be a horrible person, I will just become so powerful that I can kill Death'.
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Jun 14, 2021 03:50
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One of the 5e campaigns I play in has been going for a year plus, and we just got to level 5. I play a Light cleric with Elemental Adept so I was extremely looking forward to being able to toss fireballs around - been waiting for it since first level. The guy playing the Wizard also picked up Fireball at level up and told us he's been telling people how excited he is to start exploding poo poo too. So we level up, and immediately get contacted by some NPC allies about an emergency: the royal sacred beehive is in trouble, and we need to get shrunk down and cleanse it from within, Fantastic Voyage style. Cool! Unfortunately, casting any fire spells while in there will damage the hive, causing the mission to fail. I love the DM but it really seems like he gets into  FUN DETECTED mode sometimes.
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Jun 14, 2021 07:18
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Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:One of the 5e campaigns I play in has been going for a year plus, and we just got to level 5. 
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Jun 14, 2021 17:43
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Yawgmoth posted:That is a criminally slow rate of progression, holy poo poo. Add in the "oh you're excited to use your new fire spell? Well here's an entire series of encounters where you can't!" and it's a recipe for
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Jun 14, 2021 17:58
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Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:It's definitely not fast. It's the first time I've played 5e with normal XP rules instead of milestone leveling, and it's not like a heavy dungeon crawl or anything - more politics, discussion, etc., with a big battle every now and then. Pick one A) A game that is heavily involved in RP and politics with only occasional combat B) A game that ties character advancement to combat You can't do both. If you're going to have a RP heavy political game, use milestone leveling (or don't play D&D)
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Jun 15, 2021 01:03
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I don't know how sporadic your play schedule is, but in my current campaign the GM has had to take significant breaks and often had to cancel or shift due to a chaotic life situation, so I wouldn't be happy if he was chopping up XP based on combat encounters instead of tossing out a level after each mission. I haven't even killed anyone yet!
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Jun 15, 2021 01:25
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Kaza42 posted:Pick one
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Jun 15, 2021 01:37
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I’m in a Pathfinder campaign and the DM has taken the slow XP levels progression, which makes each level like twice the XP than normal. His reasoning is that he has a fuckton of Freeport modules and sourcebooks and wants to play them all so I get to slog through each level for ages. Freeport is fun and I’m having a good time but dammit if I would like to be fifteenth level by now.
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Jun 15, 2021 01:42
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I'm actually used to very slow progression. Our large group typically played for at least four hours a day every Saturday for most of the 90s, and in that time I only had 4 to 6 characters of any significance. This is 2e, of course, and milestone experience wasn't as endemic then, but I became used to the concept that a character is not going to go from baby to epic level in anything less than decades of in-game time and years of real time.
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Jun 15, 2021 02:16
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm actually used to very slow progression. Our large group typically played for at least four hours a day every Saturday for most of the 90s, and in that time I only had 4 to 6 characters of any significance. This is 2e, of course, and milestone experience wasn't as endemic then, but I became used to the concept that a character is not going to go from baby to epic level in anything less than decades of in-game time and years of real time. 
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Jun 15, 2021 04:12
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Kaza42 posted:Pick one Or award experience for roleplay encounters so that groups that like to RP or talk their way out of a fight can have meaningful progression. Navigating court intrigue or bypassing a fight deserves experience on the same footing as a combat encounter (hell, I'd even add bonus experience for being clever). I see experience points as a cheap, easy, yet meaningful resource to reward my players for doing cool poo poo on the spot and train their monkey brains into doing more cool poo poo. Milestone removes a lot of flexibility for such rewards, so I don't really care for it.
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Jun 15, 2021 05:36
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BurntCornMuffin posted:Or award experience for roleplay encounters so that groups that like to RP or talk their way out of a fight can have meaningful progression. Navigating court intrigue or bypassing a fight deserves experience on the same footing as a combat encounter (hell, I'd even add bonus experience for being clever). Sure, there's a lot of ways to avoid "A game that ties character advancement to combat" without abandoning XP entirely. For example, Chronicles of Darkness has each player come up with goals and awards XP for achieving them (use group beats for best results). Allows for smaller, more frequent rewards and still allows for advancement when avoiding combat or pursuing non-combat goals
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Jun 15, 2021 06:54
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Kaza42 posted:Pick one Sure you can, but probably not as the D&D rules are written. I'm running a campaign based in Menzoberranzan and the players are all Drow. Because they are mostly rogues and sneaky mages, I award experience points for any encounter successfully overcome or avoided. Being a bunch of thief-types, it makes no sense for them to have to kill everyone to advance but it also restricts creativity to have fixed goals that must be attained to receive XP. I encourage out of the box thinking and if you avoid the city watch after your heist by climbing up a building and leaping from rooftop to rooftop to escape I'm all for it. Of course it is tacitly understood that there won't be any XP farming by avoiding the same city watch over and over for the sake of simply avoiding them. But if they keep running into the same squad because they keep pulling jobs/investigating/scouting out the same area then so be it. On that thought, now I'm curious: How many of us play by the [game system of choice] rules as written vs how many of us pick and choose and alter and delete rules, turning [game system] into a more customized thing?
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Jun 15, 2021 15:04
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I think the more you play of a given system the more likely you are to start to hack it just because you're more familiar with its flaws.
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Jun 15, 2021 15:24
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BurntCornMuffin posted:Or award experience for roleplay encounters so that groups that like to RP or talk their way out of a fight can have meaningful progression. Navigating court intrigue or bypassing a fight deserves experience on the same footing as a combat encounter (hell, I'd even add bonus experience for being clever). Agrikk posted:On that thought, now I'm curious: How many of us play by the [game system of choice] rules as written vs how many of us pick and choose and alter and delete rules, turning [game system] into a more customized thing? Yawgmoth fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Jun 15, 2021 |
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Jun 15, 2021 17:40
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Yawgmoth posted:Or you could just make the "milestones" be "doing cool poo poo in a clever way" instead of "once a month IRL" or whatever. That wouldn't work with my style because levels in and of themselves are an extremely limited resource with dramatic effects on game play. I want to positively reinforce positive player behavior frequently and casually as it happens multiple times per session: basically every time a player makes me smile. Direct levels or milestones are by no means casual rewards, and would have to be saved for story beats and particularly profound events. Experience has little enough effect that it can be handed out frequently, yet is meaningful enough to be an incentive for players to do poo poo that makes me smile frequently.
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Jun 16, 2021 14:57
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Nothing notable yet, but this is the game my 7th Sea group is going to start playing in a few weeks... It's the '80s L.A. music scene meets Streets of Fire meets Bubblegum Crisis meets Miami Vice meets Trick or Treat (the horror movie with Skippy from Family Ties) meets Gloryhammer, and we're pretty much playing a mix between Gloryhammer, Motorhead, and Jem and the Holograms. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 19:33
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Brucato.... oh boy, someone tried to F&F review but quit because he kept fetishizing a sixteen year old character.
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Jun 16, 2021 21:04
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Robindaybird posted:Brucato.... oh boy, someone tried to F&F review but quit because he kept fetishizing a sixteen year old character. I was going to say remember that game from an earlier iteration of the F&F thread and the consensus on it was very 
Cooked Auto fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 21:15
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yeah, Brucato has a... certain reputation to where even other White Wolf writers seemed to be creeped out by him.
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Jun 16, 2021 22:17
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Brucato is also the guy who put a huge rambling screed in Mage: the Ascension about how people who want to play a nefandi (a mage that thinks the setting's cthulhu-alikes are good and cool) are worse than mechahitler and will actually cause reality to come apart at the seams. As in, our reality, IRL, will be permanently damaged and/or destroyed by playing a character in a role-playing game.  And that's probably the most normal thing about him.
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Jun 16, 2021 22:52
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And then pretty much everything in Changing Breeds. 
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Jun 16, 2021 22:54
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Is there like a writeup of all the  this guy does, cause this sounds like a ride and a half
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Jun 16, 2021 23:00
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Start here: https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/daeren/powerchords/ https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/kurieg/changing-breeds/ Not sure if the MtA writeup touches on what Yawgmoth mentioned before it was abandoned but here it is either way. https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/latwpiat/mage-the-ascension-20th-anniversary-edition/
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Jun 16, 2021 23:07
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F&F has the aborted write up on Power Chords, and a couple of his writings: Changing Breeds, Children of Gaia, some oChangeling and Mage stuff and it paints the guy who considers neo-paganism a license to gently caress whatever he wants, emphasis on the what.
Robindaybird fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 23:07
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Oh God drat it. I didn't know any of that. I just want to have nice things.
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Jun 16, 2021 23:27
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CobiWann posted:Oh God drat it. I didn't know any of that. You should know better by now. Content yourself with the three 3rd party sourcebooks about cute D&D 5e companion animals and familiars or something
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Jun 17, 2021 03:06
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Canuck-Errant posted:You should know better by now. Content yourself with the three 3rd party sourcebooks about cute D&D 5e companion animals and familiars or something According to my DM, I'm not allowed to refer to the Monster Manual as a Waifu Guide.
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Jun 17, 2021 03:20
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CobiWann posted:According to my DM, I'm not allowed to refer to the Monster Manual as a Waifu Guide.
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Jun 17, 2021 03:21
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