Matt Lichtenwalner

Mobile mapper for DMP - roaming the US and Canada constantly. Maybe a bit of art and/or writing here and there to spice things up.

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There's some events unfolding in my regular D&D group which mean that my character may soon be 'kidnapped' (sorta) and removed from the story. I'm in cahoots with my DM and I'm helping to build a pretty intriquing storyline with him. My character is... a major element, and I'm all in.

So with my character being away, my DM said I could play a new character, or an old character - whatever I like. I elected to bring back the first character I played with my current game group (and really, the first character I've played in 5e).

He's a half orc barbarian berserker named Wulfric. The character type (right down to his half orc-ness) is nothing shy of a cliche and I'm fully okay with that. I chose him in order to 'simplify' things for my first time learning 5e.

But here's the thing - he kinda grew on me.

What's more, I kept encountering moments when I felt like I could play Wulfric to the hilt, and it felt goooood.

Moments like when our group was fighting a collection of enemies and one of them had an imp as a familiar. It kept vanishing, attacking us, and then vanishing again. Wulfric reached out and grabbed it by the leg when it appeared (I rolled a nat 20, if memory serves) and he proceeded to beat the Imp's master with his own familiar!

I'm reworking an image I did of Wulfric back when I was first playing him. I'll add it to this post when it's done, but in the meantime, here's the original version (up top).

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4/11 '21 2 Comments
I've always found that attacking enemies with their own comrades is a fine way to break their morale. Go get 'em, Wulfric!
Indeed. If there's one thing Wulfric is good for, it's breaking the morale of your enemies. He just kinda has a way about him.
 

Just a little something I cooked up since I just finished the first dozen characters for one of my clients. It's nothing really, but I thought he might be able to use it for promotional purposes and the like. Figured I would share it here in case you guys were curious. 

If any of you find yourself curious enough to want to try the game out, it's available on DriveThruRPG:

Tall Tales! Core Rules (Note, this does not contain any of my art, but is required for playing)

Tall Tales! More Classes (Note: This is available as a Pay What You Want product, does contain some of my artwork, and is a supplement to the Core Rules.)

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1/24 '19
 

This morning it's been rainy here, so I'm off the road. Decided it was a good time/opportunity to do some work on a little project that I've had brewing in my back brain for several years.

It all started when I fell in love with a program created by rpg game master Bruce Gulke called Tablesmith ( http://www.mythosa.net/p/tablesmith.html ). If you're a gamer who is using a Windows system, I highly recommend it. It's basically begware and well worth the money he asks for it if you can swing a few bucks.

That said, it's Windows only. I asked him a couple years ago about any interest he might have in creating a mobile app, and that conversation didn't really go anywhere.

If I had the time / inclination to do it properly, I would learn enough code to create the app myself, but I've never been a programmer - not really on any 'true' level.

I can figure out Google Spreadsheets though, and I just knew that there had to be a way to do what I'm looking for in there.

I'm here to say that I've figured it out!

Okay, maybe it's better to say that I've figured out a lumpy, hacked together with duct tape means of effecting something similar with a bit more effort on the part of the user. (Tablesmith is still a far superior product.)

I really think this will be useful to not just gamers, but also writers once I build out some parallel versions (this is for fantasy npcs, but could easily be tweaked to work for modern characters filling the background/environment of any genre). The concept could also be used to build out any kind of 'random' description you want - rooms, environments, scene backdrops, groups (organizations, religions, governmental crews...) the list of possibilities are absolutely endless.

If you would like to check it out the link is: 

This is a 'public' copy, so you can feel free to edit to your heart's content. The results auto generate any time there is a change to the sheet.

That's probably my next project for the sheet - to find a way to get the sheet to create a new entry without having to edit anything. I'm currently just changing an empty cell and then doing an undo/redo until I get a satisfactory response from the sheet. A push button in a cell would be perfect.

One of my primary purposes is to help myself get past those times when I'm feeling 'artist block' by creating a place I can auto generate an interesting sounding character to draw. A way to make it 'mindless' so I can just start working and let the ideas start flowing later.

Anyway - as always, I welcome thoughts/opinions/suggestions below or using the comments function on cells within the sheet itself.

Some feedback I'm especially interested in:

  • Is this something you think you would use?
  • Would you be more likely to use it if I made it more pretty/refined?
  • Is there something you feel is missing from this version (the fantasy RPG character version)?
  • Would you use a different version - i.e. Not for rpg work, but for generating some other random data for writing or...?
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9/11 '16 4 Comments
I'm not smart enough for this.
You're a different kind of smart.
Thank you. Smart is relative.
Truth (well - the second two comments anyway - I don't agree with the first on any level).

Is there something I can help clarify? This is an admittedly TERRIBLE user interface, so it could be that's all the issue is.