@SwampCreature Oh yea I am big on character customization lol. The more I can do with appearance, backstory, race, profession, morality, etc the better. I generate characters based off ideas, names I like, or even a couple of people I know lol. I firmly believe that most millennials are big into customization and this is the hill I will die on lol.

@Alexander-Salkin

Wow that sounds awful.

I will say I do find modules constraining, both as a DM and as a player. WIth a homebrew, you get the ability to improvise on the fly and that facilitates interest. But I get the draw of having someone else provide the materials.

That being said I can't imagine not leaving a room over the course of several hours. That seems like a nightmare. Finding the right ambiguity for clues is rough, I'm constantly second guessing myself about whether my players will get what I'm putting down. But as a DM you have to move it along, and give in if people aren't getting it.

@Ezra
well said. and again... i use this in my stories too. I've just played a lot of tables where the DM wants us to be emotionally tormented by the struggles of conflicts my character may have trouble relating to by design.
i think personal development of player characters hits home more for me. be it an insect hack and slash, or a complex motive campaign, i kind of just want to focus on my own bonds/flaws/ideas, and the story lies in the conflict of the party learning that they may be different, but they all want the same thing. When I'm forced to learn a lesson from outside influences, i get turned off. my life and the people in it are complex enough... and I'm pretty empathic, even in real world drama, i can almost always see the justification of both sides of a coin. sometimes i just want roll dice and bask in the glory of victory over my enemies, and it doesn't matter if i am the oppressor or the oppressed. I want to explore the character, not explore myself; the separation of art and artist, performer and performance. does that make sense?

@Ezra Ok Thank you Faye:)

For mine, I had planned on all the playable characters to be the underdogs so no one would be in the oppressor role. With any game plot, there has to be some kind of conflict to overcome I think. My original story focused on humanity being the odd ones out in a new environment with habitants who felt humans were less evolved.

I'm at peace with mine and felt they gave a reasonable idea of the scenarios without over explaining things. I feel if anything is specifically lacking, it might be due to my incomplete understanding of how to use the formatting on this forum. I had an awful time trying to do my first submission with it, so I redid it without as much formatting.

I feel it's important not to get too anxious about things, at least not as far as my side of this goes. I'm no stranger to failure and getting disregarded in popularity vote situations, but I figured I'd still try. It's almost always better than doing nothing.

I did read some other submissions and I saw some interesting ideas. It was also fun to observe who was coming at the project from certain mindsets. I could see those who wrote in the style of a tabletop RPG game or that of a fictional story/encyclopedia hybrid ala The Silmillarion, whereas others took the approach of a video game plot or a project made off the cuff for the contest.

Most of what I saw by content was around what I expected, I think. I did try to limit my exposure though, at least until I was done with mine. I believe that idea contamination is a thing and that it wreaks havoc with one's developed style, for better or worse.

@Ezra I am part of the reason for society to be like this 😂 I find that my peak productivity is from 7am to lunchtime. It feels amazing to have finished something really productive at noon and there's still most of the day left, so it's a great positive feedback loop.

I replay Final Fantasy VII at least once a year, every year. It's like re-reading a favorite book. I also play Tetris and Dr. Mario when I just need to turn off my brain for a minute.

I wanted a little chibi Clamp-style wing on my right shoulder when I was younger, a little homage to my love of anime and also the one-winged angel himself, Sephiroth. I'm not sure I'll ever end up getting it now, and like with most things, now that I'm trying to think of something else I would get, my brain has gone blank 😂ccs.jpg

@Mariano I started with Mistborn too! I keep wanting to get into the Stormlight Archives but they are just so massive that I feel like I never have the time to just read for large blocks of time like I want to lol.

@mianngu Omg I remember renting this movie from Blockbuster thinking it was going to be related to the seasons I was watching on TV and understanding 0% of it

@Mariano TLOU part two is SO good, my partner and I played through the first game a couple of months before the second one dropped, and we were really impressed by how well the second one holds up to the first. It had a lot of controversy surrounding it because of the antagonist, which I personally think was completely unwarranted, and a symptom of how toxic the gaming community can be. The 'plot twist' that happens partway through was completely unexpected and an incredible mechanic for a game imo. It had never been done before, and I found it so captivating.

I don't know if I have ever cried harder watching something than during episode 3 of that show, lol. I was full on sobbing by the end. I also liked how they used the infected sparingly, I think the scenes that did show them showed how absolutely destructive and terrifying they were when encountered. If you run into them, expect that someone will die.

@GooseRune Very cool concept! I like the insectoid character art. I got a giggle out of "The Shroom Room" - very smart wordcraft there.

@ghostly_reverie

Thank you! I spent three or four days digging through various stock art sites to find pieces that were a good fit for my entry.

@Lynx316 Happy to help. If you have any other questions, send them along. Wishing you some happy writing!

@Mariano

I have the honor of saying that I don't think I have this problem. If they are cheating, they are doing it wrong. Notoriously bad rollers the lot of them.

I'm late to this, but I also love dice with tiny things inside. I'm always seeing unique dice sets come up on IG; I've recently seen some cool nature-y ones. I also like glow-in-the-dark, glitter, or hollow core ones filled with colored water. I think my perfect set would depend on my character and the game I was currently playing. In my current game, I think I'd love some transparent dice flecked with gold, with small leaves and vines swirled within (or carved into them), with a little deer inside, representing my character. 🦌

Oooh, I've been meaning to answer this one!

I've had a lot of perfect birthdays since mine is in the height of summer. I went to Mackinac Island in Michigan for one, to an aquarium, zoo, and Mammoth Caves in Kentucky for one, I spent two of them at Yellowstone National Park when I worked there, I had a party up north camping a few years ago, and I've had countless parties with my friends at home. Last year was incredible, I had a Leo-themed birthday (lol), and all of my friends came, several brought their dogs, and they (the humans) brought me the most thoughtful presents. We had a homemade cake, played in the pool, and watched Jurassic Park on a projector.

Either have a party with friends or go with one or two friends on an adventure to somewhere I love or somewhere new.

Ooh, what about renting an island for a week and bringing all of my friends to hang out, drink pina coladas, go snorkeling, and relax in the sunshine. I know that's super basic, but I think that would be so fun, and I love the ocean. I also like the idea of a haunted mansion that @SwampCreature said, OR renting a castle in Ireland and having a LARP with friends. Maybe that would be my actual one, I have always wanted to visit Ireland, and I know I would love it.

@Mariano

THIS. My occupation is trainer? Yes, please.

@SwampCreature Agree 100%; for such a polished show to have someone so unanimously steal every scene they're in, it really speaks volumes of how perfect Britton was as Kemper.

Also seconding your thoughts on LMOE, pandemic-wise probably fortunate to have ended it in 2018, but I still quote that show to this day. "It truly was a Shawshank Redemption" will live rent-free in my head forever.

I know he's not technically dead dead, but The Doctor is probably the one I still think about and struggle with. Specifically the 10th Doctor. Too much of Tennant's performance was just an emotional whirlwind to begin with, so naturally his "passing" left a huge impact on the fans.