Those Natural Ones: Butch's Blog

If you want to try be your own island sure you can try operate as 'I dont owe anyone anything' but then the reverse is also true, nobody owes you.

You want friends, then you have to give and recieve. Gotta open up some reciprocity. Gotta give a little, risk a little, create some responsibility, some owing, not manipulative but from choice. Do a favour so they feel inclined to do a favour back. Its more tit-for-tat in the beginning and it should be largely reciprocal/even but not, whats the word, contractual? Youre not counting who owes who three dollars, yknow.

But if you prefer not to owe anything youre setting yourself apart. Not truly independent bc thats impossible as a human. But apart.

Playing Curse of Strahd and making art of some of the NPCSs

You can freely use these for your own game!

Strahd von Zarovich:

Sergei von Zarovich:

Tatyana:

Ezmerelda d'Avenir:

Kasimir Velikov (I don't like the color one much...):

Davian Martikov:

Feed your loved ones!

Feed your neighbors!

whereas if you dont gaf and have the attitude of “now im a jerk and everyone loves me” it becomes true

Once again, ANIM traits are ridiculously good at making mechanical bonuses for in-character role-play and inspiring interesting and unique characters. Not many ttrpgs make playing your character as relevant to the actual game as Eureka or Death Bed.

The social class system is also extremely engaging and informs the social dynamics of the party really well. I've been enjoying it immensely.

A lot of people might be nervous about "troupe-style play", where each player controls multiple characters, but Aoife, Geoffrey, and Laurens have been really easy to distinguish from each other, both because what they're capable of is vastly different and because I've been easily grasping their personalities just from playing them. Playing all of them at once has also allowed for unique shenanigans, like having my characters talk or react to each other.

(I even offered to run some Old Gods of Appalachia, but whatever. Doesn't matter, since Scott couldn't handle me saying no to him, ever. Like, I'm sorry, but you can't just have whatever you want at any time in a resource-management survival horror mini-campaign. Yes, he treated me like crap until I quit. Then he was publicly confused as to why I left. As if three months of being mean, angry, and unpleasant to me wouldn't affect me.)

Once again, ANIM traits are ridiculously good at making mechanical bonuses for in-character role-play and inspiring interesting and unique characters. Not many ttrpgs make playing your character as relevant to the actual game as Eureka or Death Bed.

The social class system is also extremely engaging and informs the social dynamics of the party really well. I've been enjoying it immensely.

A lot of people might be nervous about "troupe-style play", where each player controls multiple characters, but Aoife, Geoffrey, and Laurens have been really easy to distinguish from each other, both because what they're capable of is vastly different and because I've been easily grasping their personalities just from playing them. Playing all of them at once has also allowed for unique shenanigans, like having my characters talk or react to each other.

(I even offered to run some Old Gods of Appalachia, but whatever. Doesn't matter, since Scott couldn't handle me saying no to him, ever. Like, I'm sorry, but you can't just have whatever you want at any time in a resource-management survival horror mini-campaign. Yes, he treated me like crap until I quit. Then he was publicly confused as to why I left. As if three months of being mean, angry, and unpleasant to me wouldn't affect me.)

liveplay ttrpg shows are not 'professional gaming', that's the whole problem I'm talking about. they're entertainment products which make format, content and form choices that would be nonsensical or obstructive at an ordinary table. it's not just "oh if only 'hobbyist' gaming groups (🤮) could pay for all that kit and lighting and professional writers and voice actors".

liveplay production involves story meetings aimed at making the narrative maximally entertaining to a watching audience (not the players, who are also professionals who are there to entertain that audience!). It involves editing (trimming out downtime, uninteresting mistakes, technical issues, moments where the vibe is wrong or there's friction in the room). it involves a room full of production crew watching every move the GM and players make, sensitive to wastage of their time and effort if things don't go to plan. and not for nothing, it involves an entire team of people who need to keep game publishers happy by playing and displaying their products correctly and certainly never criticising them or openly adapting around their shortcomings for the sake of the group's enjoyment.

I've played at tables where we've been lucky enough to have fun props and miniatures and printed maps and sound systems and even a bit of lighting, and where everyone in the group was a seasoned player with writing and performance backgrounds, and the experience was still full of normal natural constructive frictions that are largely if not completely absent from entertainment liveplay shows. player disagreement is normal. stopping mid flow to argue about a rule and look it up and help each other with system technicalities is normal. the music just not working today is normal. the party choosing a direction the GM didn't prepare for and having to adjust their in-character choices a little and tolerate some hastily cobbled together fluff to meet them halfway is so normal it's a running joke. someone finding a scene a little too much and asking for a break or redirection is normal. someone saying something a little ill judged in the moment and having to walk it back with as much grace as possible is normal. storylines not going to plan and petering out without major dramatic resolution, or npcs being ignored and cast off with a shrug is normal. all this shit and more is normal because a normal table is structured around the organic decision-making of a bunch of players who are primarily in it for their own fun and sense of transport, not for an invisible imaginary fandom slash consumer market. which are all the things that make ttrpg play inherently a pretty bad vehicle for storytelling, incidentally!

And I should have spent my own money to hire an artist for my own character, in retrospect. But I remember butting heads with him regarding the you tube thumbnails for each episode. I suggested we do what other channels do and have pictures of us players, maybe laid over the free to use art findable on-line, with some cool font names. My concerns were ignored.

When *I* was asked to DM over the summer of '25, I not only insisted on using real art for our you tube thumbnails but I designed each thumbnail myself to make sure it happened. I drew heavily upon pexels.com which was fabulous. And I did incorporate the players' little ai-computer drawn characters, as a compromise.

My art has all been removed sfaict, replaced with their own stuff. Mostly like to make the thumbnails be uniform, which is fair.

Anyway, for free to use art I recommend Pexels