Roar Cat Reads

Category: Tabletop and Video Games

  • Final Fantasy 8 – Rinoa is a Sorceress

    Final Fantasy 8 – Rinoa is a Sorceress

    Read the earlier sections of my FF8 replay:
    From Balamb to Timber
    From Galbadia to the Assassination
    From Prison to a Floating Garden
    From Fisherman’s Horizon to the Battle of the Gardens

    The Orphanage

    • When confronted at the orphanage, Cid says he ran away because it was a no-win situation for him, which is…pretty fair. I can’t imagine what it would have been like for him to see his wife possessed, taking over the world, and know that she wants you to send some teenagers to murder her.
    • Edea lays out a lot of plot exposition: She was possessed by Sorceress Ultimecia, who lives in the future. This sorceress wants Ellone and her power to transport people through time (how Ellone has this power is not explained). Edea fears that Ultimecia has abandoned her body to jump into Sorceress Adel, former evil ruler of Esthar. Ultimecia wants to compress time, seemingly for shits and giggles as far as I can tell.
    • Cid lectures Squall on how to be a good leader, and c’mon man. I was empathizing with you earlier, but this is a bit rich. Also, maybe Garden should consider choosing a leader who isn’t emotionally compromised by a sorceress.

    I’m very annoyed at everyone in this scene. They’re all like, “We care about Rinoa, but everyone else matters too!” As if they weren’t JUST giving Squall such shit about prioritizing the lives of other students over immediately running off to save Rinoa when she was hanging from a cliff, like, a couple hours ago.

    • We get another FLASHBACK to Laguna’s stint as an actor (sure, whatever!). He is a very bad actor, but hot people are allowed to be talentless. However, everyone is incredibly dumb. I cannot believe that anyone thought that huge ass dragon was Kiros.
    • Laguna sees a flying ship! Then Ellone tells Squall that she will use him a little longer, and suddenly Laguna is at the orphanage looking for Ellone, who was kidnapped by Esthar soldiers.
    • Things get very sad when Ellone reveals that she has been trying to change the past in these little flashback jaunts, but has now realized it’s impossible. She can’t change the past, which means that Ellone will always be kidnapped, Laguna will always go after her, and Raine will always die alone while he is away. Presumably after giving birth to Squall, who will always be an orphan. Depressing!

    White SeeD Ship

    • I always have to cheat to find this thing.
    • Zone and Watts are on the White SeeD ship! However, Ellone is not. She went willingly with Esthar soldiers who came to get her. Seems weird, since we just learned that she was kidnapped by them as a child!

    Great Salt Lake

    • Squall takes Rinoa from the infirmary and carries her from Fisherman’s Horizon across the bridge to the continent that was impossible to explore until now. This is a really great map expansion technique!
    • The party somehow meets Squall on the other side, and Edea is with them. I had totally forgotten that you can play with Edea as a party member!!
    • This is such a fun little place to explore – snow and undead monsters! I remember the first time I played through this, not knowing that you can use healing spells and potions to cut through undead easily. It used to be a lot scarier!
    • At the edge of a cliff, a glitching techno door reveals itself! The entrance to Esthar is a perfect sequence. It is utterly different from anything else we’ve seen.

    Esthar

    • We start with another flashback. I assume Ellone is just now providing Squall with helpful information? We get to see Laguna imprisoned in the Lunatic Pandora Laboratory. He helps a moogle, and a guy is like, “You’re nice. You should be the next leader when we rebel against Sorceress Adel!” Talk about white guys falling upward!

    Laguna saves Ellone and it is super sweet. I feel like something is missing though…how did Squall know Ellone/sis? Was he born before Ellone was kidnapped, which means Laguna left his son and never went back? Was he born after (which I assumed) and Ellone was sent to an orphanage AFTER Laguna rescued her? What is the timeline here??

    • Esthar is…fine. For being high tech, it’s pretty underwhelming.
    • At the Lunar Gate, Angelo says goodbye, which hurts my heart!
    • A party of three has to go to the moon for some reason (the plot is getting REALLY weird by this point), and Edea stays behind with Zell, who is the newest wannabe sorceress’s knight. The Galbadians have salvaged Lunatic Pandora, which appears at the city. Zell won’t let Dr. Odine tell us where it came from or what it is, which is very frustrating! We do learn that monsters just sometimes fall from the moon…all of this new plot information is dropped here at the end of the game without buildup, and it is very weird.
    • The gang races across the city to get aboard the Lunatic Pandora, but they’re magically expelled. The thing/place hovers over Tear’s Point, and Zell gives up for some reason.

    Space!

    • There are a few scenes where you get to play with gravity, and recovering the pods is a fun introduction to a new space (hah!).
    • Seem like Sorceress Adel is being kept in space. So is Ellone, who tells everyone that sending them into Laguna’s past was helpful because she saw how much she was loved. I mean, several of the first flashbacks had nothing to do with her, but okay! Then she gives us some pretty good advice: “The past doesn’t change. You do.”
    • They have somehow decided to take Rinoa, a woman possessed by a sorceress, to the place where another sorceress is held captive, and SURPRISE! A sorceress uses a sorceress to free a sorceress! Too bad no one anticipated this.

    Panicky Gentleman: Why is everything happening at once?

    • We get to see President Laguna doing his motions while in an astronaut suit! This slow reveal is done really well.
    • As they escape, Ellone sends Squall into Rinoa’s past. We get to see her demand that Irvine return to the prison for the others, ask Zell for Squall’s ring, and be possessed by Ultimecia and order Seifer to find and raise the Lunatic Pandora.
    • In one of the best sequences of the entire game, Rinoa runs out of air in her spacesuit, drifting in inky blackness. Squall tries to reach out to her, first telepathically, then physically. It makes her remember to push a button to get more oxygen (?), and Squall thanks Ellone and goes to find her. Navigating your way into her path is so simple but so moving. And then they spoon in space!!
    • Deus ex Ragnorak.

    “The space suit was in our way before. Give me a hug. A real tight one!”

    • It’s very annoying that Rinoa can’t get EXP fighting all of these propogators.
    • I will handwave away the miracle of Ragnorak successfully making contact with Esthar after 17 years because ROMANCE SCENE. Rinoa sits on Squall’s lap, and he opens up about feeling alone and pushing people away. She assures him, “Squall, you’re the one who gives me the most comfort. Comfort and happiness. And disappointment, too!” It’s so freaking adorable.
    • Rinoa knows she is a sorceress, so she thinks they can’t be together. Squall comforts her when she says she’s scared! She knows that Ultimecia wants to achieve time compression (still…why?) because Ultimecia is the only one capable of existing in such a world. I guess she just really wants to be a loner?

    Let’s Wrap Things Up

    • When Ragnorak lands, Rinoa is taken away to be imprisoned, and the rest of the gang shows up. Quistis reveals that Ellone has been kidnapped…again!! Gah.
    • Quistis reveals that she has had no character growth, because she’s still hung up on Squall and being passive aggressive about it. “You weren’t thinking about anything but Rinoa when you jumped into space, huh? I wonder if anyone would do that for me? So where’s the princess who changed you?” C’MON QUISTIS, you’re a hot teacher! You can do better than lusting after your student-brother!
    • Squall decides to save Rinoa again, and they get a dramatic CGI embrace.

    “Even if you end up as the world’s enemy, I’ll. I’ll be your knight.”

    • Back in Esthar, we finally learn that Laguna is the President and Dr. Odine explains the plan to take down Ultimecia. It’s very timely wimey and weird, but Laguna sums it up as “It’s about love, friendship, and courage.” I…don’t think it is, man.

    This whole final plot is so tacked on and ridiculous. I’m glad for the romance stuff, but these final discs are not necessary. Ending with a battle between the Gardens and against Edea would have been way more emotionally satisfying.

    Oh well, we’ve still more to go! Next up: All the weird side plots and the final confrontation!

  • Nerdy Allies : Meet Jessy Boros

    Nerdy Allies : Meet Jessy Boros

    Jessy Boros

    Jessy Boros (he/him) is co-host of the podcast DMs of Vancouver and is part of the Cave Goblin Network.

    You can find Jessy on Twitter @jessyboros or follow @dmsofvancouver.


    As a co-host of the podcast DMs of Vancouver, you have interviewed a lot of D&D players and DMs. Has your experience of D&D changed as a result of the podcast?

    Yes, and for multiple reasons. Making the show and talking to people is a really valuable experience because you get to hear people talk about how they run a game. I always try to approach each episode with the perspective that there are very few wrong ways to run a game, other than “Don’t be terrible to your players” and “Don’t abuse your players.” I try to come in with an open mind. It helps that when we started the show, I really wanted to learn from people, both how to play and how to DM.

    Of course, sometimes I learn useful skills from our guests that I would never want to put into practice. One of our guests (Jane Perella, episode here) is a school teacher who runs a D&D Club for fifteen children! I never want to do that exactly, but I still learned a lot from her. In fact, that’s one of my favorite episodes, and she is going to be on a follow up episode soon!

    The other reason my experience of D&D has changed is because I’m on social media so much for the podcast. I keep track of the TTRPG Twitter sphere, and I see a lot of different generational differences. I once saw someone say, “If your DM ever says no to you, that’s bad.” I don’t agree with that, but I also tried to look at it, consider it, and figure out where they were coming from.

    Are there any specific examples of things you’ve changed in your D&D style over time?

    I learned to use online tools from Sean. Honestly, it’s hard to know how I’ve changed, because I don’t notice when it’s happening. I’m starting a new campaign after a long pandemic pause, so maybe I’ll notice that I’m a completely different DM because it’s been a while.

    I do still think about something that Milo Applejohn said about representing neurodivergent characters in your games. They said to include those characters but don’t make that characteristic the whole character. Especially if you’re not a part of that group, make it a detail, but don’t play it a stereotype. Always keep in mind that people are much more than just being neurodivergent, LGBTQ+, etc.

    You are a straight white cis man, but you have included many LGBTQ+ guests on DMs of Vancouver. I have been very impressed with how you intentionally create safe and welcoming spaces for queer people. How did you cultivate this attitude and awareness?

    Honestly, when Sean and I interviewed our friends for early episodes, we sometimes didn’t know they were queer. As people come out as trans, I try to go back and change their dead names in the episode titles. I also became friends with people who are openly queer as my wife Haley and I became involved with the Vancouver comics community.

    When it comes to creating a safe space, we really just want the podcast to be welcoming to everyone who isn’t a raging asshole. We are constantly trying to do better. For instance, during the Black Lives Matter movement, we took a look through our list of guests and realized that we don’t have many POC guests. We want to change that moving forward. It’s funny, when we mentioned this in an episode, someone messaged and asked if we were called out. We weren’t! I’m just on Twitter in leftist spaces, and I paid attention to the conversations people were having. It’s a joke that the old guard of D&D are all straight white cis guys. We are straight white cis men, but we always want to be improving.

    What advice do you have for other DMs about how to create safe spaces for queer players at their tables?

    I never want to do anything homophobic or transphobic anyway, and most of my regular players are queer. If I do something shitty, I hope that they’ll tell me, “That sucked. Don’t do that.” I think DMs should listen to their players, both verbally and nonverbally. Pay attention if they’re obviously uncomfortable. And if you’re a straight white cis guy, do your research! Find trans or queer creators and read and watch their stuff. People think it’s harder than it is. Just listen, learn, and try.

    Specifically, I recommend Kienna Shaw and Lauren Bryant-Monk’s TTRPG Safety Toolkit.

    In general, what are some of your favorite DM tips and tricks?

    Like I mentioned earlier, I’m starting a new campaign. For the first time, I sat down with my players beforehand to create the world together. I gave them some general details and big picture stuff, but we made the setting as a group. That won’t work for everybody, but if you’re open, I think you should give it a try! You get some really interesting ideas.

    Our campaign will be in a post-apocalyptic setting where magic faded with the advancement of technology, but that fell apart and now magic is re-emerging. It’s mostly a desert, but there is a single snowy mountain in the middle of it all. They really helped me put together a complex interesting world. Because it’s the desert, we decided most people would live underground, and someone had the idea that people would live in abandoned parking garages, with property divvied up by the lines there.

    When we were creating together, there were a lot of moments when I was thinking, “I’m mad I didn’t think of that; that’s amazing!” I would have come up with something more like a stock fantasy town, and now it’s going to be way more interesting. Of course, I still have a lot of work to do to tie together some disparate ideas, but now my players are already invested in the campaign.

    DM Advice from Jessy:

    • Talk to your players and ask if they’re enjoying the game. If no one is having fun, it’s okay to just stop the campaign! It sucks, but it’s better than dragging on too long. My first campaign ended with me being super burnt out and not wanting to play or DM again. That feeling ended pretty quickly, but there’s no need for it to get to that point.
    • If you hear an idea that everyone seems to use or love, but you don’t like it, don’t feel like you ought to. I don’t like critical fumble/hit tables, so I don’t use them.
    • If you are going to use homebrew rules, let your players know before you begin the session or campaign. If you make something up on the spot while playing, talk to the players to agree and then give everyone a grace period to get used to the new rule.

    What can we expect from DMs of Vancouver in the future?

    Our 100th episode will air in late October. We’re still deciding how we want to celebrate, so stay tuned!

    As we move forward, one of the things we want to focus on is playing more games and reviewing them. It’s been a lot of fun when we’ve done it in the past, but they take a lot of work.

    Recommendations:

    Thank you for taking the time to share your stories with Roar Cat Reads, Jessy! Everyone should head over to DMs of Vancouver and check out their nearly 100 episodes.

  • Adventure Queers: Meet Chad Charest!

    Adventure Queers: Meet Chad Charest!

    Please welcome Chad Charest (he/him)! He is a geek of all types, master of none, and he is in the running to become World’s Coolest Uncle. You can hear more from him in his podcast interview with DMs of Vancouver, and stay tuned! He is writing an urban fantasy series; it will hopefully be on your bookshelf in the future.

    Chad, when did you first play Dungeons and Dragons?  What was the experience like?

    My experience with roleplaying games actually started with MSN role play chat with friends. We made stuff up with no material or oversight, just one person acting as gamemaster and the rest of us reacting. When I was 12-13 years old, I would go to a local Chilliwack game store (now Bastion Games) to play Yu-Gi-Oh!. Another teenager invited me to play D&D, and actually, we still play together! For years, I was mostly playing with people older that me, usually with straight cis men. I would love to play with a more diverse group, but queer female nerds tend to live outside of Chilliwack.

    Nowadays, I usually split my time between DMing and playing 50/50. DMing is more work, but I like trying to force people to role play. A normal group is very hack and slash based, so I will give them prompts during character creation to expand a little. The one I usually use is the prompt “You are lost, either physically, mentally, or emotionally. Why?” Then in a twelve-session campaign, each character gets three sessions of focus to find the thing that is lost.

    As a player, my characters have changed a lot over time. I used to like paladins a lot, then I went through a charisma character phase. Right now I’m obsessed with intelligence based characters like wizards and artificers. I recently played gnome wizard inspector, and it was really fun.

    I hear that you’ve introduced your nephews to D&D. How did that go?

    Yeah, I recently taught my two nephews (aged 11) how to play D&D! The system allows for people to play at any age. Some handholding is necessary at first, and having an experienced player other than the DM at the table is helpful. But let them do what they want, and don’t guide them or be too helpful. Make suggestions and remind them what they’re capable of, but let them make decisions on their own.

    When I was starting with my nephews, I gave them a walkthrough of every class and where they typically end up focusing, but I also gave them flexibility if they changed their minds. I think it’s also important to base the game on things they’re already interested in, like Minecraft. And sometimes it’s important to change how to play to fit their style. I usually play D&D with theater of the mind, but I bought them miniatures because I knew they’d love it. Now they’re playing by themselves, and they give me regular updates. I’m usually like, “That’s definitely not following the rules, but you’re having fun!” It feels so good to have passed this on to them.

    How do you bring your asexual identity into D&D and roleplaying games?  Has D&D played a part in exploring or understanding your sexuality?

    Honestly, not really. I only figured out that I am asexual when I was 27 – about seven years ago. My D&D characters have just never been sexual, and usually I was playing with cis dudes who weren’t going to role play flirting with each other, and if they did romance an NPC, the scene would fade to back.

    I love playing bards, but contrary to popular stereotypes, they don’t flirt. Instead, they’re cocky and fun, and they make great friendships with other characters.

    What makes a D&D table a queer-friendly atmosphere to you?

    I haven’t had much trouble with that. When I came out as asexual, my friends were accepting and it was fine – not a big deal. I do like to play with queer people; when I have it’s awesome. You get a lot less of the hack and slash role play, and you get diverse characters who care about more things and have more in-depth identities (though of course cis people sometimes do too). Izzy introduced non-binary characters into their campaign, and that was awesome. I want more of that! For now I seek out that representation and community in literature or TV shows.

    What would you like to see done differently in D&D (either the culture surrounding the game or the mechanics of the game itself)?

    Wizards of the Coast have made some good steps recently; Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything no longer forces stats based on race. We need more things like that! We should also moving away from stories based in imperialism and be more creative by telling different kinds of stories. I try to bring that into my campaigns when I can.

    Are there TTRPG systems that you enjoy other other D&D?  What are they, and what do you like about them?

    I love Warhammer RPGs. It’s a well-established world. Even though it is very imperialistic, they’re fun! There is a wealth of history and lore that gives you a lot to work with, so you can lean away from imperialism and play from other alien species perspectives to get into more interesting content. Orcs grow from mushrooms, so let’s have asexual orcs!

    I also like Clockwork and Chivalry. In fact, my queerest experience happened in that game…with non-queer people. There is a table you can roll to determine how you know the other characters. The one woman in the group was in love with my character, and everyone else was in love with another character. It led to this great scene where everyone spent the night sneaking to someone else’s tent, only to find it empty because the other person was sneaking off to someone else’s empty tent!

    Of all the TTRPGs I’ve played, though, I think Rolemaster is my favorite. It is a little bit like D&D but it’s complex; there are 270 skills. In D&D, your characters are badasses too easily. In Rolemaster, you have to be really careful in combat situations. A group of goblins can take out a level 10 character if you aren’t strategic about your location or defenses.

    Do you have any recommendations of asexual representation done well in a nerdy property (TV show, podcast, book)?

    I actually got to sit on a panel at Emerald City Comic Con about asexual representation in media. We talked about Todd Chavez in Bojack Horseman and Jughead from Archie comics. Often in media, male representation of asexuality leads to characters that are infantilized and treated like children. On the other hand, there is a lot of amazing female representation. There is a drama podcast called ARS Paradoxica with a lead who is asexual, and it’s the best time travel anything that I’ve ever experienced. Elizabeth Moon’s fantasy novel The Deed of Paksenarrion has a main character who doesn’t use the word “asexual” to describe herself, but she does talk about not being interested in sex or romance.

    Thank you for coming on Roar Cat Reads to share your experience with us, Chad!

    Are you an Adventure Queer? Do you love to play D&D? Email us at roarcatreads@gmail.com to let us know you would like to be interviewed!

  • Adventure Queers: Meet The GM Tim

    Adventure Queers: Meet The GM Tim

    DC 10 Wisdom (Perception): From Vancouver, Canada, The GM Tim is a busy gaymer: He dungeon masters private games for multiple roleplaying groups. In the before-time he hosted the Quests + Queers board game nights, and DMed Fierce Adventures – a monthly live D&D Drag show which is on hiatus until COVID19 restrictions end. The GM Tim currently streams Star Trek Online and Star Trek: Lost Voyages.

    DC 15 Intelligence (History): Through years of gaining experience and levelling up with the D&D Adventurers League, this Theatre of the Mind Game Master has multi-classed. Now an adventure writer, The GM Tim continues to run games at conventions, like Winter Fantasy, for Baldman Games, playtests for the League and Dungeons & Dragons, and is a featured DM at D&D in a Castle.

    GM Tim, how did you become the GM that you are today?

    I was lucky to have a DMing Yoda who taught me to play at the table. We played TTRPG Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Gate…all the Stars! Star Trek was my favorite – that’s my nerd jam.  I ran my own Star Wars game with him, and he coached me through it, showing me how to listen to players and roleplay.  

    I started DMing two groups in Vancouver many years ago; they were weekly games that grew bigger and bigger. The players trusted me enough to – well, not screw around, but to dive into their characters’ backgrounds.  One had a whole story created that his mom was evil, and his dad had trained him. I later built up a huge Darth Vader reveal that his dad was the one who was evil and had killed his mom. There were tears at the table! But you can’t do something like that without trust. I have a table rule that I call The Golden Box. Anything players put on their character sheet is untouchable, but if they share anything about their characters in game, like memories, I’m allowed to twist that into a story if I want.

    The other group was all women, a mix of cis and trans women. I was super lucky and really honored to run this group for them. It was one of the big wake up calls for me. It was enlightening in how different the sessions were. The dynamics at the table, the way they interacted with NPCs and monsters – it was so different from typical grognard BS. The experience allowed me to be more narrative and creative as a DM.

    What do you love about D&D?

    When I first started playing, it was total escapism. It was a way to not be me. Today it’s a little bit of that, but I just love it. I don’t know that there is One Thing. The power for storytelling is incredible. Maybe the thing I like most is that you realize you’re more creative than you think you are. You can play with tropes and twists of tropes, and people love when you do that. It’s like someone who thinks they don’t have a mind for math, but soon they’re pulling off complex equations! It showed me that I can write and conceptualize things, and it’s opened a lot of avenues for me.

    Have you experienced any differences playing D&D with queer people vs predominantly straight groups?

    Oh yeah!  In 2017, right as I became “The GM Tim,” I had a group of all queer guys.  It’s the most diverse group I’ve ever had, and we all met through Grindr of all places. It was a lot of fun with a lot of jokes and great interplay. The best thing about it was that it was unapologetically gay. There was a complete normalization of queerness with zero worries or concern. We didn’t have to think or second guess ourselves. We didn’t have to worry that the straight guy across from us thought we were hitting on them. There was no body shaming or ageism.  In fact, we had a recurring NPC called Mondo the bugbearian (a bugbear barbarian) who wound up dating a player’s rock gnome character. There were a lot of top/bottom jokes. They got so attached to him that when they thought he was dead they went on a quest to find a wish spell to bring him back to life!

    I have another group that’s been playing with me for 4 years that is a group of straight cis guys. With all of my groups, I am unapologetically gay, and I make that known on the first night. If you’re not okay with that, the game is not going to go beyond that night. I will make just as many jokes about hot guys as they make about hot girls. Honestly, one of the things I’ve noticed is that straight cis players are less likely to get into relationships in the game if they’re dating someone in real life. Their monogamy extends into fiction. But gay or straight, any group can be just as good at story, and the trust factor between GM and players should exist no matter what. The vibe is just different.

    Tell me about the D&D Drag Show you ran before the pandemic. It sounds amazing!

    Matt Baume, a colleague in Seattle, started the concept with Queens of Adventure, first in bars and now a podcast. I asked him if I could do something similar in Vancouver.  Fierce Adventures is mix of drag show with D&D starring four queens. A couple weeks before the event, we sit down to go over plot outline.  We’ve only got two hours to perform, so as a group we agree that we need this and that to happen by this time, and by the end, we have to be there. Then we decide what numbers they want to do.  We theme the numbers to what is happening in the game, so they can use the number as a way to defeat a monster, play into a joke, solve a trap, or reveal what the character is thinking.  

    There is heavy audience interaction. We charge cover, but queens are largely dependent upon tips, so we let the audience purchase bonuses throughout the game.  We have someone walk through the audience to sell +2 and -2 cards. Throughout the game, a queen will yell out “I need a two!” and someone can boost their roll. But early on, it changed to applying any time I say a number. “There are five trolls, no three trolls. Okay, there is one troll; nope, negative one trolls…the trolls have joined your group.” The audience can also decide on voices. Once when I asked what draconic sounds like, someone said, “Bad Swedish,” so that’s what happened.

    We hope to restart soon, but we’re waiting for venues to open up. Hopefully by the end of the year we’ll be performing again.

    How do you create safe nerdy spaces for queer players?

    I learned a lot when I did Quests & Queers at Stormcrow Alehouse and Tavern. It was a queer board game night, and everyone working there understood that for the night, the bar was a gay bar. It was hands down a safe space. All the servers wore pronoun tags and we introduced ourselves with our pronouns to normalize it.

    What does “safe space” mean, though? It’s very individual. I think it just means making a space comfortable, welcoming, and supportive. I do that for all of my games, even with a bunch of straight guys. If you help someone feel safe, you can teach someone or encourage them to grow as an individual because they’re not on the defensive. When someone is on the defensive, their guard is up and they won’t have an open mind.

    Representation can also create safe spaces. When I normalize nonbinary NPCs in my adventures, it makes it easier for players to normalize nonbinary people away from the table. I created a polyamorous relationship between two nonbinary characters with they/them pronouns and a third whose pronouns were he/him for the Adventurer’s League, and one of the nonbinary characters was so popular that they’re in other adventures now! I hope that anyone who is questioning their gender identity feels welcomed and safe because that character exists.

    What advice would you give to someone who wants to try playing or DMing D&D?

    If you want to start playing D&D, there are a lot of DMs for hire [like The GM Tim himself]. You can also look for D&D podcasts with discord channels for “looking for games.”

    If you want to DM, try to remember that it is not some mystical role. DMs are players in the game too. Like with all games, you play and get better as you go. If you think you need to be ready for anything, there’s no way that’s going to happen. Just grab an adventure in Adventurer’s League – they’ve got everything you need to get started.

    If you want to create your own adventure, grab a piece of paper and write down a couple of encounters. The easiest hook is to just “collect the thing from the forest.” What are they going to fight? Maybe it’s the ghost of the last person who tried to get the treasure. Throw in some traps – quicksand is a good one – and maybe some monkeys who cause havoc and try to steal your stuff as you go by. The process doesn’t have to be complex.

    Tips and Tricks from The GM Tim!

    • If a character gets knocked out during a battle, give them something to do. Usually I give them the monster’s stat sheet and a note with a plot point that needs to happen and let them go! This accomplishes two things: it keeps them invested in the game, and it gives them a small taste of being a DM. Of course, if they don’t want to, they can just roll death saves and wait.
    • Subtly take notes of what your players think is going to happen in the campaign and adjust accordingly. If you’ve planned for the Big Bad to be an Umber Hulk but they’re convinced a Black Dragon is behind everything, they’ve just given you a storyline that they are invested in. Give someone the opportunity to say, “I KNEW IT!”
    • A good test to see whether you like creating adventures is to use the charts on pages 99-101 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide to create a dungeon. As you roll for Dungeon Location, Creator, Purpose, and History, a story will probably start to take form. [Note: The GM Tim walked me through this exercise, and we created a dungeon stronghold beneath a mesa, ruled by elves who had moved there to escape an ancient green dragon who had corrupted the nearby forest. It was a surprisingly easy way to create the foundation of an entire adventure or even campaign.]

    You run a book club for gamers: How does it work? What queer nerdy books do you recommend?

    I wanted to have more ideas for my adventures, so I went to books for inspiration.  I started re-reading the Dragonlance Chronicles.  While it has a special place as my first foray into fantasy and the catalyst for all this, they are a product of their time, and it’s an inherently white story. For so long, white men (J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, A.A. Milne) told us what fantasy is.  I wanted to change that, so I made a list of books called Appendix Lit and formed a book club around them.  Our first book was The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad, a Canadian author. Ten months in, we are reading our first white male author with Agency by William Gibson.  I made the list 50% female identifying, 50% BIPOC, and at least ⅓ Canadian. The next list I make will be even more diverse.

    We read speculative fiction, historical fiction, and science fiction. My hope is that the stories we read inspire you as a DM or player to come up with different ways to see the world. One of my favorites that we’ve read so far is Stealing Thunder by Alina Boyden. The author is a trans woman with an anthropology doctorate in Indian/Pakistani studies, and the book has a trans main character.

    If you want to join us, you can check out the dates for our book club conversations here and join the discord to chat here.

    Thank you so much for a fun conversation, The GM Tim!
    I’m reading Agency and looking forward to the book club on August 14th. I hope some Roar Cat Reads readers will join in too!

  • Making a One Page Dungeon

    Making a One Page Dungeon

    by Rachel

    One page dungeons are a great source for low preparation, one session adventures, and there is a wealth of them to be found thanks to the annual one page dungeon contest. It can be quite a challenge to cram an entire adventure onto one page, but limits enable creativity and there is no shortage of creativity in this contest!

    The deadline for entries is July 31st, and I am going to put together an entry for the contest this year while sharing the process of making an adventure and getting it into the one page format.

    I find the hardest thing is to look at a blank page and hope for inspiration, so the first thing I will do is randomly generate some features that the adventure could include by randomly flipping through the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide to find things that intrigue me. I came up with the following:

    Monsters

    • Medusa (MM 214)
    • Doppelgänger (MM 82)
    • Will-o-wisp (MM 301)

    Magic Items

    • Cape of the Mountebank (DMG 157)
    • Folding Boat (DMG 170)
    • Iron Flask (DMG 178)

    Rooms/Dungeon Features

    I used the roll charts in Appendix A of the Dungeon Master’s Guide to create dungeon feature ideas. I chose three from each category.

    • Planar Gate: classroom for use by initiates learning about the portal’s secrets, Armoury used by the portals guardians, Crypt when the remains of those guarding the portal are kept
    • Stronghold: a waiting room where guests are held before receiving an audience, a library with an extensive collection of rare books, bath outfitted with marble floor and other luxurious accoutrements
    • Shrine: workshop for repairing or creating weapons, religious items and tools, divination room inscribed with runes and stocked with soothsaying implements, trophy room where art celebrating key figures from mythology are displayed
    • Tomb: chapel dedicated to the deities that watch over the dead and protect their resting places
    • Current state: Furniture wrecked but still present
    • Obstacles: Blade barrier, Flooding, Antilife aura (can’t regain HP)
    • Traps: hidden pit, steel or stone jaws that restrain, clanging noise that attracts attention
    • Tricks (pertaining to objects): contains an imprisoned creature, Confusion targeting all creatures within 10 ft, Induces greed

    NPC

    • Gnoll
    • Deep Gnome
    • Drow

    Other rewards

    • Blessing of Valhalla
    • Charm of animal conjuring
    • Boon of immortality

    I don’t need to use every thing on this list but will try to include as much as I can. 

    What are your thoughts? What kind of adventure would you make out of these elements?

    My initial idea:

    Medusa is the primary monster and the thing the players have been sent to destroy. I imagine the adventure starts at a broken planar gate. Perhaps it’s been forgotten; the last surviving member of the order tasked to keep the medusa from escaping is dying and seeks help. There is a puzzle to fix the gate to get access, with clues in the classroom and armoury about what faces them and maybe some weapons that help. I will put the Iron flask here as a way to contain the medusa. However, it already contains a creature.

    Through the gate is Medusa’s prison. It’s nice, but she is short tempered and has wrecked some areas in a rage. She has a workshop deeper in the area where the folding boat can be found. Medusa will bargain for her freedom; she has the cape and if the players refuse to set her free, she will use it to escape and release the doppelgangers to hunt the party. The party will find the stone remnants of the NPCs (Gnoll, Deep Gnome and Drow) around the prison area. The area is trapped with things that aid the medusa’s hunt. 

    Upon killing the medusa, the deity of the protection order bestows a blessing of Valhalla – they can call forth the fallen warriors to aid them in battle in the future. If they agree to set the Medusa free she will backstab the party so anyone who knew about her prison is dead and she can never be made to go back there.

    Next, I will sketch a quick layout of the various parts of the adventure without worrying too much about space yet. The adventure will change quite significantly from my initial idea as I start laying it out and get a better idea of how the elements fit together.

    This is the side of the gate still on the material plane. A hero of the order of Aegis is petrified in the main entrance hall, and I have the idea for the puzzle to open the gate mostly worked out.

    On the other side of the gate is Medusa’s prison. The petrified NPCs are now members of the order who did not survive Medusa’s last escape attempt. 

    Next, I will get the adventure text written. I will try to be as concise as I can, but this will definitely need revision once I start laying it out on the page. 

    When I know how much text I have and how it divides up into sections, I sketch out a couple of ideas for layout. There is an ancient Greek theme here, so I tried to include something Greek to structure the adventure.

    Now that I have an idea of what I want the page to look like, I will move into GIMP (a free version of Photoshop) to put everything together. I’m going to try streaming the process on Twitch Monday July 26th and Tuesday the 27th so drop in and see how the adventure is shaping up!

  • Reviewing White Plume Mountain, a D&D 5e Dungeon

    Reviewing White Plume Mountain, a D&D 5e Dungeon

    History

    White Plume Mountain is a 13-page dungeon crawl adventure for a group of level 8 characters. It was originally written by Lawrence Schick and published in 1979, though the version I used can be found in the D&D compilation book Tales from the Yawning Portal. Ranked the 9th greatest Dungeons and Dragons adventure of all time by 2004’s Dungeon magazine, it is a game that requires brute force and creative solutions in order to find three very cool sentient weapons.

    Rating: 5 out of 5.

    A DM’s Perspective

    Highlights

    As a DM, I strongly prefer working from pre-existing material, and I was excited to run a tried-and-true dungeon from Tales of the Yawning Portal. This adventure is not a one-shot (it took my group 4 sessions at 3 hours per session), but it is contained enough to be a nice breather in between campaigns or as a single adventure if you don’t want to commit to more, which I didn’t!

    I loved how creative the dungeon is; it is full of riddles, puzzles, and traps to navigate. It really brought out the creativity in my players, and they used their skills and spells in unique ways to survive. Sometimes TOO unique! They refused to enter the Room of Glass Globes (#4) and instead blasted all of the orbs from outside, releasing three shadows, an air elemental, and a gray ooze all at once! Since they had already found Wave, one character created a Cube of Force around the group the size of the corridor, which they used to body slam the monsters into submission. It was not how I expected the encounter to run at all, but it was amazingly creative and fun!

    Changes Made

    The one significant piece that is missing is a final fight with the wizard Keraptis. My players made it clear early on that they were interested in defeating him, so I made some alterations to the campaign to make that happen. I gave Sir Bluto a key that could be used to unlock the way to his santcum from the Pool and Drain (#9). I threw together a random dungeon chamber in which they could fight a lich (though I didn’t use its level 7-9 spells so that they had a hope of defeating him).

    My players were very invested in socializing with any characters they met along the way, so I made all humanoids in the dungeon former treasure seekers who had been forced to guard the weapons they once sought. Some were tricked out of their treasures (they gave the vampire Ctenmiir a footrub so good that he didn’t realize they stole Whelm from him), others were fought, and others were invited to join the cause. In particular, they really latched onto the flesh golem in the Numbered Golems room (#5). They named him Dusty, and a really sweet romance developed between his strong silent arms and one of the players! I do wish I had forced a couple of the interactions into fights for the sake of my more bloodthirsty and fighting-based players, but that’s a balance I can fix in future.

    What I Would Do Differently

    I wish I had done more preparation for the three sentient weapons that characters are meant to find throughout the dungeon. I could have given them much more depth, almost to the point of NPCs, if I had invested more time in preparing them. Because this was a one-shot separate from an overarching campaign, I would have made them more useful for this dungeon in particular so that the party could enjoy the weapons once they had them. One character (Adelin) got Blackrazor just in time to fight the lich…which is undead and therefore doesn’t work! On the fly, I had Blackrazor tell Adelin that it would attack the lich and deal appropriate damage only if he agreed to sacrifice half of his hit points. The player got very into this, stabbing himself with the sword to gain further advantages. It was a fun character moment, and I very much wish I had thought of similar things for Wave and Whelm!

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    Let’s Hear from the Players!

    Rachel AKA Kreeth the Aarakocra Fighter

    This was the first time I had played a higher level, purely martial character. I chose this class partially out of curiosity and partly to round out the party; it was possibly not the best choice since I didn’t have a lot of ways to really help out the party. I went with a dex-based fighter, so I wasn’t able to heft things out of the way or force sticky levers, and because we socialed our way out of most combat encounters, I think I only used my +9 attack once or twice. 

    I was able to utilize the features from my race much more effectively than my class. I went with an aarakocra, so being able to fly was great (if a little limited) and getting into the bird mannerisms made it fun to roleplay. I found myself in a support role – when someone would trigger a trap or fail a dex check, I was able to swoop in and save them which was nice.

    I got the magical weapon Wave, but unfortunately, this did not gel well with my dex build (it did not return to your hand if thrown, unlike Whelm). However, its cube of force feature did allow me a brief glimpse into the magic user’s view of the dungeon, but I quickly burned through all the charges and was back to more passive play. 

    Overall I think this is a good dungeon. It was certainly challenging for our group and felt deadly! The only thing I would change is my character choice.

    Anne AKA Cinder the Fire Genasi Artificer (armorer specialty)

    This dungeon has a mix of combat and puzzles. I’d recommend it for people who are less interested in kicking down the door and murder hoboing as much as collaborative, varied paced campaigns. It’s not a hex crawl and there isn’t the frustration of just not being able to figure out which way to go to progress the session. There are enough potentially deadly encounters to keep it interesting.

    The one big flaw with having the goal being to recover magic weapons is that you might have a group that can’t make use of them. I think the DM either needs to communicate this during character creation or be willing to hand wave this aspect of the mechanics. Or enjoy giving your players a bunch of fun loot that they can’t use!

    Allonté AKA The Professor the Human Bard

    I loved my delve into the be-trapped abyss called White Plume Mountain! The beautiful thing about any adventure is that it is not just the setting, mechanics, or build, but it’s the table that makes it wondrous. I feel as if I hit the jackpot in this one-shot!

    DM Tricia, word of the mountain, was everything I wanted in a DM and didn’t know it. There was so much freedom to play in ways that were offbeat, fun, guilt-free, and rewarded us for ingenuity! Going in to this, we were warned this would be a no-holds-barred slog, and the impetus was to explore traps as a DM. I have fun into too many folk who would trigger the trap regardless of the creative ways one could maneuver. Initially I was mildly apprehensive, but that feeling quickly dissolved. This challenge, much to the credit of our DM, became a great experience. My favorite trap-dodging was Mold Earthing monkey bars across the roof while being caressed ‘n’ carried by a flesh golem! Just as importantly, there was also safety to purposefully fail for fun! Adalin, in this same session, explored this trap we were dodging. This resulted in having the entire team enjoy and work together saving them from a very, shall we say, tetanus-y fate. Moreover, I was impressed by how often resolving something in a non-combat way through role-play (not just dice numbers) was encouraged throughout. Let this be a lesson from the Professor to you, foot rubs are the Holy Grail and may one day save your life!

    Hear from Professor Mythalwulf about the adventure:

    I also cannot forget my other delver-in-arms friends, Cinder and Kreeth! All the players at this table made a this a beautiful experience. From the beginning, Cinder brought the realism with the reactions to the environment, really selling me this mini-world, which made me want to role-play more and get more reactions out of them, even if they were love-jabs. I also nominate them for the best Mold-Earth-Bridge Inspector of the Year. Kreeth also gave really great development throughout, whether it be inter party, inner-self, or against opposition; this enthusiastic incorporation made me, as a player, wait on bated breath for what they would do or how I could enhance them or bring more out of them. Kreeth, you will always be the best bird-voicebox-using-in-a-bear-body-sea-worshiping-being in my book. For my last award, I also need to commend Adalin, from one play to another, on playing chaotic in all the right ways: respecting everyone’s autonomy, never inflicting unjust harm in the name of random, and always playing the balance of trying to bring control to the chaos.

    I think the moniker of a good adventure, group, or in this case one-shot, is how it leaves you feeling. This left me wanting more in all the best ways! White Plume Mountain (via our group) left me wanting to explore all the stories that brought us here and all the stories that will take place after! As a fledgling DM, I think this is the perfect adventure both if you are not sure how to make a whole campaign-world OR if you want to add some dungeon-spice to your existing worlds.

    Common Sense and Sensibility: A Regency Lady TTRPG

    “It is exceedingly well known that the life of a lady is far from easy. Death raises its grisly visage at every turn: whether from shawl insufficiency or too many novels, a Regency-era lady can never be too cautious.”

    In Roar Cat Reads’ original TTRPG character funnel, Regency ladies will test their delicate mettle and try to stay alive. This handbook lays out the game’s core rules, character creation instructions, and a list of the surprisingly mundane events that can test a lady’s constitution.

    Download your FREE copy at our Ko-Fi shop.

  • Adventure Queers: Meet Izzy Braumberger!

    Adventure Queers: Meet Izzy Braumberger!

    Izzy Braumberger (they/them) is an armchair historian and philosopher as well as an avid player of TTRPG games and a developing system designer.

    Izzy, you’ve been playing D&D for over 15 years, and during that time you’ve seen some of its limitations, like the way its mechanics and history create a colonialist focus on combat and looting.  What keeps you playing the game despite this, and what kind of changes would you like to see to the system?

    D&D is a very popular system with wide-spread appeal. I think that’s mostly because it has the crunchy mechanical stuff that people enjoy while also being loose enough to leave room for people to make it their own.

    I find D&D to be very transactional and video game-like. The default is a system model that rewards the story “go out, find a problem, kill the problem, loot the room.” This model makes it easy to track people’s success and determine when and how they level up, but it’s also limiting and celebrates a particular kind of playing. Even in parties that try to value equality, the distribution of wealth and power still tends to be dependent upon who killed the most enemies.

    I would like to see the system emphasize rewards based on nonviolent participation. I have seen other systems like Exalted create mechanics to track political and social relationships; it would be as if the bonds and relationships in D&D were put to mechanical use. Instead of always rewarding players with treasure, parties can be rewarded with allies and stronger relationships. This would create room for more kinds of stories and characters.

    In a previous conversation, you mentioned that you’re a history nerd.  Roleplaying games often take place in a liminal space between history and fantasy that is often defaults Eurocentric.  What historical facts would you like to see acknowledged in D&D campaigns?  What is your dream setting for a campaign?

    When I GM, I like to throw in historical facts that have no societal baggage. I don’t want to bring up real world struggles, consciously or unconsciously, but adding little known details to the adventure can make the world feel richer. For instance, let’s say your party is traveling by wagon pulled by a team of oxen. I would include the fact that the one on the right has a two syllable name and the one on the left has a one syllable name – that way the oxen know which one is being talked to.

    My dream campaign would be one that is so grounded in actual history that it seems alien to players. I would like to see a game set in pre-Enclosure England, when the structure of land use was centered on families, and there was no concept of “going to work” because you worked where you lived.

    D&D isn’t very accurate, really. The typical tavern/inn that parties go to would have looked very different historically! There weren’t rooms or subdivided spaces, because there was no way to heat everything. There also weren’t roaring fires, because fireplaces didn’t exist until much later than most people think. Privacy was not a thing until very recently. Even royal houses were just a line of rooms that people had to walk through; hallways weren’t common for most of history. Industrialization changed everything worldwide, so setting an adventure before then would be my preference.

    Roleplaying in D&D provides the opportunity to explore your identity in myriad ways.  For queer people, this can be a really liberating experience.  How have you been able to explore your identity through D&D?

    I have found that role playing games are a wonderful mirror to hold up so that you can figure out what sort of person you would be if you could be anyone. You get to be any kind of person you want and experience how it feels when people react to you in this different way. Self-exploration is expected in these spaces. You can be the manliest man who plays a 4’2″ elf with a high-pitched voice who flirts with guys. No one automatically assumes that’s what you’re into in real life – it’s play. And play is a valuable teaching space.

    For the longest time, I thought it was just play, and I didn’t really take to heart what I was experiencing. I knew I felt free, happy, and more myself, but I didn’t quite get what was going on. It took me time to piece together disparate behaviors and thoughts to figure out what made me feel happy and comfortable. Really, embracing my trans identity was about finding comfort. There were both disphoric and euphoric elements to finding out what I do and don’t like – all together it paints a picture to your route toward happiness. I asked myself a lot of questions: Can I live with this? What do I need to change or give up? What is the fluctuating baseline that I want to rest at?

    The valuable thing about role playing games is that you don’t have to wrestle with all of these variable judgments all the time. I don’t actually play non-binary characters very often. I lean into masculine characters because I don’t get to be that in real life. It’s an interplay of wish fulfillment and that mirror to see who you could be. I’ll be honest, I’ve used some DMs as therapists over the years – it’s always a bad idea, but we do it anyway!

    Self-exploration is a vulnerable process.  In your experience, what makes a D&D group safe to explore or live out your queerness?  

    When you play a roleplaying game with people, you enter a social contract to be cool with whoever your party members are. A good DM will stop people from imposing their will or view of your character on you. If someone says, “Why are you flirting with that girl? You said your character was gay,” a DM should guard and support nuance. Don’t let people police people’s expressions of sexuality or gender identity.

    I think it’s most important to show enthusiasm for people who are exploring new things. Show active positivity, ask questions with the desire to know more rather than judge. Focus on understanding people, not being disappointed or uninterested in what they’re doing.

    When DMing a game, it can sometimes be hard to fight the cisheteronormative culture in which we were raised and populate the world with diverse NPCs.  How do you prioritize representation of trans people in D&D?  What tips do you have to convey the complications of gender identity in role playing games?

    Exploring gender identity is an in depth, nuanced process, and this doesn’t translate to D&D very well if NPCs aren’t given the space or time to explore that nuance (and most of the time NPCs are one and done). When introducing characters, it’s easy to rely on shorthand descriptions to indicate trans people, and that usually means perpetuating potentially harmful stereotypes. The easiest thing to do is to make these NPCs central characters that are returned to throughout the campaign. You can have more meaningful representation when players are emotionally invested in characters and want to learn more about them. That’s when you can have those more nuanced conversations and experiences over multiple interactions.

    Introducing MtF or FtM characters into your campaign can be tricky. How do you alert characters to the NPC’s trans identity without some kind of gross skill check that amounts to “You can tell this character is trans”? In a campaign that I’m playing in, the DM took us into an NPC’s memories, where we saw her experiencing abuse as a child for being trans. It was such a smart way to reveal this fact about an NPC we all really cared about!

    I personally have no problem with straight cis GMs role playing trans characters, so long as they aren’t fetishizing anyone or perpetuating harmful stereotypes. At the stage we’re in culturally, visibility is really important, and it’s a great opportunity to practice they/them pronouns and get in the headspace of people who have had different experiences from you. Having diverse characters can also help communities surrounding property more inclusive.

    Are there any resources you recommend for players or GMs who want to work to create a safer, more inclusive gaming table?

    In general, I recommend you look into TTRPG horror games. Horror has a unique contract regarding the creation of a safe space at the table. You have to lay everything on the table beforehand – your fears, your expectations, your limits – so that you can create a safety system, and you’re expected to check in after the session to make sure people are okay. There is an overlap with the BDSM community, actually. Playing horror games helped me learn how to engage with other people more sensitively, which I think transfers to all kinds of games.

    Specifically, I want to recommend the podcast DMs of Vancouver. They intentionally interview diverse guests and value showcasing a variety of perspectives. [Note: Izzy was a guest on DMs of Vancouver. Check out their episode here!]

    Roar Cat Reads is a blog for queer nerdy content.  What is something queer and nerdy that you would like readers to know about?

    • League of Ultimate Questing – an amazing podcast with a pretty diverse cast of characters. They do a great job of normalizing inclusivity.
    • Chilling Adventures of Sabrina – the mechanics of the world support the gender identity of the character Theo in some really cool ways.
    • Philosophy Tube – the trans host of this YouTube channel has one of the best coming out videos I’ve seen.
    • Inn Between – another podcast with great representation AND one of the most interesting handlings of a body swap episode I’ve ever encountered! 

    Thank you for spending some time with us at Roar Cat Reads, Izzy! If anyone would like engage in more of their content, you can check out their episode on DMs of Vancouver. And stay posted! They’re in the early stages of an actual play project that we can’t wait to learn more about.

  • My Dream D&D Party of LGBTQ+ TV Characters

    My Dream D&D Party of LGBTQ+ TV Characters

    A couple months ago, I created 5 LGBTQ+ Book Characters I Want in My D&D Party, and I had so much fun! I couldn’t stop with books when there are so many excellent queer TV characters that I would love to throw together into a D&D party.

    To start with, I must (of course) choose Captain James Flint from Black Sails, my favorite character of all time! I see him as a Lawful Neutral Battlemaster Fighter. He’s a brilliant tactician and a pirate captain, so the “lawful” part of my decision might seem strange. But one of the best parts of the show is the slow unveiling of his military background. Although occasionally chaotic (especially in season 3, yikes!), I believe he is fundamentally lawful. I wanted to give him the “good” alignment because he is my very good boy, but let’s be real, he does some seriously bad stuff. Committing evil for the sake of good balances out to neutral.

    [SIDE NOTE: It is a testament to Black Sails that I could have made an entire queer D&D party from its characters alone. Please know I desperately wanted to include Anne, my other favorite angry queer redhead.]

    Every captain needs a first mate, and there’s none better than Pearl from Stephen Universe. Can you imagine this tall slim alien gem enforcing Captain Flint’s orders? I CAN, and it is beautiful. I would cast my favorite anxiety lesbian as a Lawful Good Paladin, so long as we agree that her adoration of Rose counts as worshipping a deity. I’ve got to move on, because now I’m picture Pearl and Flint in a fusion dance, and my brain can’t stop being delighted by this weird mashup.

    Let’s get some magic in this party! Who better to include than the recently official bisexual (in the MCU anyway)… Loki! I barely have to try with him, as he is obviously a Chaotic Neutral Sorcerer. The true joy here is imagining Flint and Pearl desperately trying to keep his machinations from derailing their plans. But you just KNOW that Flint would come up with the perfect plan to unleash his charming chaos onto the world.

    Just in case Loki double-crosses everyone, I’m adding Perfuma from She-Ra to the group for some Lawful Good Druid magic. I am not sure if she is canonically queer, but she’s definitely dating Scorpia, right?? Anyway, I’m claiming her. The group might be a little intimidating to her at first, but Perfuma grew a lot during the series and learns to embrace all kinds of people. I enjoy the thought of her hugging the other people in this D&D party and the pained faces they would make at such a display of affection.

    The person making the most uncomfortable face? Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, our Chaotic Good Barbarian! We definitely need a non-cartoon woman on this team, and she is just the person to mop up all the baddies whilst also engaging in stone-faced office pranks during their time off. She would be especially useful at anticipating and thwarting Loki’s mischievousness since she’s had a lot of practice with Jake and Gina.

    There we are! Captain James Flint, Pearl, Loki, Perfuma, and Rosa Diaz are my dream team of queer TV characters. Who would you include?

  • How to Find Source Material for D&D Adventures

    How to Find Source Material for D&D Adventures

    by Rachel

    If you want to DM a D&D adventure but don’t know where to start, I’m here to help! It can feel daunting, but the first step is to decide on the source of your material. In my experience, there are three common ways people get started: Published Materials, Creations from the Internet, and Homebrew Content. Keep reading to find out which ones have worked for me and why!

    Published Materials

    Examples: Lost Mine of Phandelver, Curse of Strahd, Tales from the Yawning Portal

    This is how I started DMing, and it gave me the foundation to run games of my own soon after. Published materials hand you fully formed adventures with all the resources you will need to run them. (Note: With the exception of the D&D Starter Set, published materials might assume that you have other books or resources available like the Player’s Handbook or the Monster Manual. However, this material is available online if you search for it, so you don’t need to buy them until you’ve DMed a few times and decided the books are worth the purchase.)

    The quality of published materials is reliably good, and because it is widely distributed, there is often a lot of supplementary material available online that can give you examples of how it plays. Before running Lost Mine of Phandelver, I listened to The Adventure Zone podcast that loosely covers the same material. It was very helpful to see how the game ran and how easy it was to add my own twist to the existing material.

    One of the biggest drawbacks to published material is that it requires you to read and absorb the adventure as is. While there is room for your own creativity, the plot is already laid out for you. When your players veer off to a location that you haven’t read about yet or don’t remember fully, there is often a moment of panic where you hope you don’t mess anything up that you can’t retcon later – published materials make it possible for the DM to feel like they have ‘made a mistake’.

    The most important thing you can do is find the right material that you want to run, like finding a good book. Yes, you could read (or run) anything, but finding the right book that draws you in and makes you excited to share with others will make running it more enjoyable for both you and your players. It’s also worth considering the fact that published materials can be expensive, so it’s worth doing a little research to choose the one that is right is for you.

    Speaking of expense – the price of published materials is a big drawback. When there is so much out there for free, why would you want to pay for it?

    Creations from the Internet

    Examples: Feudal Attraction, Into Wonderland

    People love making D&D adventures and many people make them available to others for a modest price or even free. DriveThruRPG offers a huge selection of adventures ranging from one or two-page dungeons to full on campaigns (and a bunch of supplementary material). Need a quick adventure last minute? Searching for ‘one page dungeon’ will bring up a ton of short, easily digestible adventures for your session that starts in an hour. There is so much content out there!

    The sheer volume of content is both the great and terrible thing about other people’s creations. There is so much to wade through, it’s hard to know what is going to work for you. Is it in a genre you like? Is it written in a way that is easy to understand? It can be difficult to search for what you want. Occasionally you will find a great adventure, and you can look for more by that author or more on that website, but there is no guarantee. You might end up reading through 3 or 4 or more different adventures before finding one that suits you.

    These adventures are usually not as polished as published materials. They might include made up monsters that are unbalanced, have plot holes your players will inevitably find or just don’t make sense to you. On the other hand, they might be great! I’m currently running Into Wonderland, a 240-page adventure set in the Feywild, and it is amazing. I found it on ‘pay what you want’ on DriveThruRPG after seeing it recommended in a blog post. If you’re willing to wade through a lot of subpar adventures, you will occasionally find a gem.

    Homebrew Content

    Do you want to avoid all that research and reading? Do you want the perfect adventure that’s exactly your style? Make it yourself! But be prepared to spend just as much time-if not more-in the process. 

    Lots of DMs make homebrew adventures (that’s where all those internet creations came from), and if they can do it, so can you. You don’t need to know every rule or think of every possible outcome to make your own adventure, but it will take time to mold your ideas into something comprehensible. Luckily, there is a lot of advice out there about how to make adventures yourself. Perhaps I will even get around to writing on the topic! The bottom line is you need to find it fun and enjoyable to write an adventure. You’ll be spending a lot of time on this project, so if you are not having fun making it, go ahead and try one of your first two options above.

    Conclusion

    I think there is a time and place for all of these methods to finding your D&D source material. In fact, you could mix and match. Perhaps you take an adventure you found on DriveThruRPG and add it as a side quest to your published campaign, or maybe you take that same found adventure and use it as a basis for your own creation. Drawing from different sources improves your DM skills as you expose yourself to new ideas and spark creative inspiration. Have fun!

  • D&D ONE SHOT | School Sucks! A High School Horror Adventure

    D&D ONE SHOT | School Sucks! A High School Horror Adventure

    If you are a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you will love this D&D adventure created by Rachel and Tricia full of nods and winks to the Buffyverse. Set in Cleveland, Ohio, the Robert Flutie Memorial High School is having a strange Halloween – vampires have overrun the school hallways, and it’s up to your group of plucky teenagers to find the ritual items that will stop the master vampire from rising!

    This adventure is available to download on our Ko-Fi shop
    FOR FREE or Pay What You Want.

    Rachel wrote this story in 2018. Take it and enjoy!

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  • Meet Victoria Fraser, the Woman behind the Board Game B*tch Podcast

    Meet Victoria Fraser, the Woman behind the Board Game B*tch Podcast

    Victoria Fraser (she/her) is a freelance writer and podcaster.  She has worked on several podcasts, most notably Boardgame B*tch where she reviews board games and has all sorts of fun board game badassery.

    I recently had the privilege to be a guest on Boardgame B*tch to discuss one of my favorite table top games: Wingspan! Check out the episode now on the Podcast delivery site of your choice: Apple | Spotify | Google Podcast. I wanted to get to know Victoria a little more, and she kindly agreed to chat with me about her history playing games and some recommendations of board games that I’m eager to try out!

    Victoria, you host the podcast Boardgame B*tch where you discuss the rules and playability of table top board games. What prompted you to create Boardgame B*tch?

    I got into podcasting during university through the UBC Creative Writing program. We had to focus on three different genres; although I mostly took classes in children’s writing, comics, and poetry, during the last semester I took a podcasting class.  Honestly, I hadn’t really listened to a podcast before that class! I knew about radio plays and radio dramas, though, so I thought it would be fun. 

    That class made me fall in love with podcasts! My classmates recommended some of their favorites, like “Spirits,” “Serial,” and “The Adventure Zone.”  We had to make practice podcasts for school, which made me want to start a podcast of my own. From the very beginning, I wanted to host a podcast about board games because they’re one of my favorite things to talk about. But it wasn’t the right timing at that point. Instead, two years ago, my friend Allie and I started I Like Your Dress where we reviewed Vancouver-based restaurants, festivals, and other things. That’s how I became connected to the Cave Goblin Network.

    A year ago I started freelancing and focusing on my business, and that left less time for our podcast. I stepped away, but couldn’t stop dreaming about that original idea of a board game podcast. When my life felt a little more balanced, I decided to give it a try. Boardgame B*tch was on Patreon for a few months before going fully live in April 2021, and I’ve just started my second season!

    It sounds like board games have been important to you for a long time. What is your history with board games? 

    I like to say I’m a third generation gamer! My grandmother played bridge, and my mom loves playing games. In fact, she bought a bunch of D&D books in the 80s but couldn’t find anyone to play with. I taught her how to play a couple years ago as a Mother’s Day present! I grew up playing cards, poker, board games, and Euro games with my family all the time. I have a picture of myself when I’m 2 or 3, and I’m rolling dice, looking super fucking pumped; I still play “Dice” (a simplified version of Yahtzee) with my family.  Every Christmas we all get board games as gifts and then we spend Boxing Day playing them.  

    That’s amazing! And what would you say is your favorite board game currently?

    I’m glad you said “currently”! It changes all the time, but right now I would say Tokaido. It’s this great game set in Japan where players are tourists traveling the Tokaido road taking pictures and buying souvenirs. It’s a very peaceful board game that is artistically very lovely and has cool mechanics and movements.  

    I also love party games!  Even if they’re mechanically simple, they’re so much fun socially.  Rules are great, and I love a complicated game, but sometime you just want some quick fun with your friends.  I especially love Superfight, a game where you create fighters in a ring with weird traits and Cult Following, where you’re all cult leaders trying to start a cult. You have to create a story and recruit more players to join your cult than someone else’s.

    I have not heard of any of those, but I’m definitely going to check them out! If someone wants to get into the world of board games and table top games, what are 2-3 options you would suggest as starter games?

    I think it’s important to introduce people to games with something simple and fun. You want a little bit of complexity, but not too much!

    1. Citadels.  It’s an easily transportable card game that only takes about an hour to finish, and it doesn’t take up much space.  It’s a game with a lot of player interaction, and it’s set in a Medieval setting, so people can easily latch on to that. It’s not new, but it holds up!   
    2. Betrayal at the House on the Hill.  This is a game that is good for storytelling.  It’s one of the best co-op games, so it’s great for people who are learning and want to work together.  It’s a good middle game – not so complex that it’s impossible, but it’s not so easy that it’s boring.
    3. King of Tokyo.  This is a dice game that is pretty simple but gets more complicated with expansions, which makes it great to slowly build up for people.

    I love all of your recommendations! If someone wants to hear more of your thoughts on board games, which podcast episode would you suggest people start with if they want to start listening to Boardgame B*tch (other than my episode on Wingspan, obviously)?

    I really love the “Hive” episode.  It’s a two player game, and my guest and I had a really fun conversation goofing off and talking about bugs.  Otherwise, scroll through the options and choose the one that resonates with you!

    What can we expect to see from Boardgame B*tch in the future?

    When I first launched my podcast, it was a solo show. Now I am focusing on board game interviews and board game conversations with guests. I’m branching out a beyond just reviews to have episode about things like board game design and D&D etiquette.  I would also like to someday do episodes about conventions outside of Vancouver!

    One last question: Roar Cat Reads is a blog for queer, nerdy content.  What’s your favorite nerdy book of the moment?

    Welcome to Mina’s: A Diner Comic Anthology by Cloudscape Comics. It’s a Kickstarter project that I backed because I know Haley Boros, one of the creators, and the premise sounds really cool. It takes place over time but always centered on the same diner in Vancouver. A couple of the chapters focus on queer couples!

    I also really like Sidequesting, a fantasy podcast about avoiding the main plot. It’s not queer, I don’t think, but it is very nerdy and fun.

    Thank you so much for talking board games with me, Victoria!

    If you would like to see more of what Victoria is up to, check out her Bio and her Podcast. Listen, subscribe, and share it with a friend!

  • Final Fantasy 8 – From Fisherman’s Horizon to the Battle of the Gardens

    Final Fantasy 8 – From Fisherman’s Horizon to the Battle of the Gardens

    Read the earlier sections of my FF8 replay:
    From Balamb to Timber
    From Galbadia to the Assassination
    From Prison to a Floating Garden

    Fisherman’s Horizon

    Rinoa is good for Squall, getting him out of his head and going for a walk around Garden. He’s good for her too, with his tendency to think things through rather than act impulsively. Video game romances rarely read as relatable to me, but Squall and Rinoa totally do! I love them.

    • The mayor of Fisherman’s Horizon lives in the middle of a giant solar panel? …Okay. If that weren’t bad enough, he’s made out to look ridiculous for wanting to talk to the Galbadian soldiers who have appeared looking for Ellone. Squall gives him a bit of credit, saying it would be great if fighting weren’t necessary, but this is a game about mercenary children. It was never going to be pacifist.
    • Zell, Selphie, and Irvine pop out of the machine that was just trying to kill Squall, Rinoa, and Quistis (from my group alignment, anyway), which is strange! Were they pranking us?? Why does no one ask why they attacked?
    • Squall is internally happy to see them, and Rinoa calls him on it. It is great!

    Squall is then named leader of the mobile sorceress-hunting Garden without his consent. A student was given control over a war school over all of the teachers. There is a lot happening right now that requires significant suspension of disbelief! However, I’ll give it a pass, because being thrust into leadership triggers all of Squall’s fears. He doesn’t want to be responsible for everyone in case he cannot protect them. He’s just a big squishy marshmallow, and I adore this game for revealing that their taciturn loner is not actually cool – he’s just scared.

    • The amateur band performance is such a fun mini-game.
    • Lesbian Irvine (this is now canon in my mind) is very invested in setting up Squall and Rinoa, and it’s so cute! Something else that is cute is Rinoa telling Squall that his friends know he’s going to take on this responsibility by himself, but that he has to remember that they are here with him.
    • It’s a new era with a mobile Garden that allows playing in a bigger world map! Xu suggests they check out Balamb, where the Galbadia Garden is…also floating. Copy cats.

    Balamb

    • Finding “the captain” is such a runaround, and I spent way too much time figuring it out. Thank goodness it turns out to be Raijin (with general Fujin)! We have to fight them again, and they are hard! Squall further reveals his inner softie by letting them go when they say they’re going to stay with Seifer because he’s their friend.
    • Selphie then brings up a storyline that feels ages ago…remember those other bombs that Galbadia set off? The ones that hit Trabia Garden? She wants to go there.

    Trabia Garden

    • Many of the students are still alive, trying to restart their lives in the crater of a school that’s left. The trauma is understated, but hit me hardest when I found the graveyard, and one of the tombstones had a jacket draped over it.
    • When Rinoa says she wishes there were a way to end this without bloodshed, Squall goes deep into inner monologue. She continues to win my heart by telling him, “If you don’t voice your feelings, I can’t understand.”

    Orphanage reveal! When I was a kid playing this game, I thought this reveal was SO COOL. They all grew up together! But forgot because their connection to Guardian Forces eats away at their memories! Whoa!

    As an adult, I cannot help fixating on how weird this is. Why would Irvine not say something before this, even accidentally? Quistis says her love for Squall was about being his big sister, which….okay. When they realize the GFs are affecting their minds, they SUPER QUICKLY agree to keep it up. Guys! You might someday forget this very conversation! This is not sustainable! And Sorceress Edea is Matron, aka their mom, but they’re soldiers so they’ll still kill her. (This revelation makes Irvine’s inability to shoot her in Galbadia make so much more sense!)

    Shumi Village

    • Also on the Northern continent, this little village is super cool. I love the weirdness of going down an elevator to a lush forest landscape with advanced technology.
    • There is a draw point that costs 5,000 Gil to use, but it’s Ultima so okay!
    • There is a statue of Laguna, and we learn that moombas (aka fire dogs) are the final form of Shumis, which is just so weird and delightful.
    • Continuing the weird theme is the scavenger hunt for stones that winds up in a prize of…seeing the elders hands! Wah wah.

    Galbadian Garden

    • It’s too easy to just find the orphanage and get some answers…instead we have to fight Galbadia, flying garden against flying garden! It actually is super cool, with some great cutscenes of flying ramp motorcycles and attacking soldiers as Seifer watches with a grin.
    • Zell decides the middle of a battle is the right time to ask for Squall’s ring, and then everyone is SO WEIRD about Squall prioritizing the safety of an entire school over Rinoa. “You’re the one that has to save her.” Um, why!? He’s kinda busy, and it’s his literal job to take care of everyone; a role that you guys all JUST SAID you would help him accomplish.
    • I just realized that Squall has a cropped leather jacket.
    • Squall DOES rescue Rinoa, though, and the mini-game of punching a soldier while floating over a battlefield was pretty cool! They then flirt over lions, and this relationship is heating up, omg omg! Squall says it’s so obvious that everyone wants them together that even he noticed.
    • We have to run, run, run all over the garden to get keys that lead us to our final Raijin and Fujin interaction. They’re done with Seifer and all the chaos he has caused.
    • Seifer continues to be very gay (no wonder I shipped Squall/Seifer as a wee one) and demands that Squall kneel before him.

    The final battle with Sorceress Edea is pretty easy, but that’s because it isn’t the final showdown like everyone thought! Instead, she regains her sanity and Rinoa gets woozy. She heals Seifer before passing out, which is very alarming! Edea asks if she succeeded in saving Ellone, which is very strange! Everything is topsy turvy, and unfortunately, it seems like “sorceress” is a possessing spirit who is now in Rinoa. Dun dun dun!!

  • Adventure Queers: Meet Allonté Barakat!

    Adventure Queers: Meet Allonté Barakat!

    Allonté Barakat (he/they) is a burgeoning content creator, GM/DM, player, and voice actor. When they grow up they hope to meld the power of gaming with the healing of therapy. Best known as Kryst Z’Grande, he evolved his talents in pursuits of elevating more voices. Be sure to look out at their social media for a new upcoming podcast and audio drama!

    @ThatBearKat across all social media platforms.

    Allonté, we first got to know you when you played in Rachel’s D&D session for Andrea’s Adventurers Charity RPG Livestream.  You were enthusiastic, smart, and your character had a mechanical cat – obviously we liked you! 

    I liked you too! Also, I had fun with the party! I feel like I lucked out with your DM/GM style. Early on I remember you saying, “The collaborative aspect is my favorite part, if as the GM I haven’t spoken in 20 mins because my players are planning a talent show to boost the morale of their pirate crew, I am happy!” This is such a beautiful and refreshing sentiment, you gave us the freedom to be weird. If one is not weird, they might be boring, at least that’s my personal philosophy. So much platinum coins to you and/or maybe some churu for the kitten!

    https://clips.twitch.tv/SwissManlyLionArsonNoSexy-ggHtGkhelAEc572o?fbclid=IwAR37BocBkIkv1-V0zLiJY5vRfookwE_stJWhjE-7SRxOQgtBP5waj5ij23Y

    When did you first play Dungeons and Dragons?  What was the experience like?

    I played Dungeons and Dragons in the late 3.5 era… for a class! I dreamed of being a game designer and in the pursuit of an Interactive Media and Game Design degree, I found myself in a fun storytelling class. Until then, I didn’t know what it was or what it could be. The experience as a whole was interesting. I honestly can’t say I enjoyed it until a story moment just seemed to align like a constellation of badassary! Through an obscuring fog, facing imminent death from a plague rat in the musty murky sewers, a single, last-ditch spinning keen-edge of a dagger seemed to part this occlusion sea. This desperate edge pierced the skull of the mammoth plague beast and one-hit-K.O.’d it, saving our party (and our session). I walked away from that experience changed, knowing that a TTRPG has the power to evoke emotions in an ever-lasting way.

    I went on to try to reclaim and recreate this experience but I have often gone up against huge gate-keeping walls. So many people like to tell others the “correct way to play” or hold on too strong to strict ideals that somehow a world where literally and figuratively anything could happen has to be a carbon copy of the real one with all its woes. No thanks. So I took a long break until about 2-3 years ago where I performed, or live-played, a character in 5e for an audience!

    What is your favorite part of playing D&D?

    I don’t know if I can just pick one thing! There is something so attractive about embodying, exploring, and experiencing a world that is (hopefully) so much better than our real one. I am gay. I am a person of color. This world is not, shall we say, often kind. Being in these worlds gives me hope. In that hope, I have seen the loving power to change people, to slay demons within and without, and have some fun! From all these experiences I want to see us bring these ideals back to the real world.

    In a slightly less existential way, I would have to say I love pushing the boundaries of what things could happen, using my character and abilities in ways that are unexpected. As some would put more succinctly, the rule of cool. Say we were on a boat. The night is a heavy backdrop of deep night, with a single pale light source in the sky. Fog rolls in from all sides making it neigh impossible to decipher East from North from South-West. Why can’t I, as a Sorcerer, use Absorb Elements in a ritualistic dance to bring that fog into me as my compatriots light the way forward and steer? Or perhaps we should do a one-on-one duel, against a mighty wizard. My back against the wall, the arena engulf in flames, and I am inches away from death. I steal their prized tome, with a lifetime of lifeworks inside, and threaten to burn it unless they surrender. Are these ways of existing and playing bad D&D? I for sure don’t think so! (P.S. I’ve done all those things in previous games!)

    Have you experienced any differences playing D&D with queer folx vs. predominantly straight groups? 

    I. Need. To. Play. With. More. Queer. Beings! It is a massive difference. So many straight groups come with this baggage-notion that there is one path, one right way to play, and/or one way to be. There may also be the dreaded, I’m going to play as [insert marginalized group or proxy] without understanding the depths or doing the work. Don’t even get me started on the dangerous implicit biases we have all seen or experienced firsthand. This is not why we play!

    There may be that living and fighting for a life that is different from the majority of others gives us marginalized individuals an emotional superpower. I have had more fun, connected with, been accepted by, and every other positive and loving attribute possible by other queer gaymers! Queer people bring the love and space for you to be you at whatever stage of being you are at and willing to pull you towards the light. We are guardians of the ideal world. I love that prejudice has no place in our spaces, or at least not without proper talking beforehand and aftercare.

    What makes a nerdy space feel safe to you as a queer person?  Are there any (positive or negative) signals that you look for?

    A quick visual cue for me is, how homogenous does space looks from the outside? Are there wonderfully out loud queer folk? Are there people of color? Are there women? If none of these exist, you should probably run away screaming. Well, use your best judgment. I have, a countless many times, had to be a pioneer of various spaces so that others can feel comfortable.  I also say for joining a new group, or even looking at various content, look at the legacy. If women, people of color, or queer people are being cycled through or do not wish to come back to the game, while other more “palatable” people remain, there are core issues there that do not deserve your awesomeness.  

    So this is the part where I have to confess to you, that when I joined the charity stream, you were my absolute first choice in being my GM/DM! I distinctly remember making an audible sigh of relief when I got in your game, I naively knew, well hoped, that the wall of “this is what this is” didn’t exist. That let me be free to be the Fyrrin Brande possible in our game. By the way, my question to you is one unanswered in game, what does transmutation magic taste like? 

    It’s like eating a handful of every flavor beans – you don’t know what you’re going to get, and it changes as you eat them!

    That being said, the positive signals are always openness, understanding, and making good decisions that keep our human need for connection strong. If people are making non-selfish choices, are being inclusive, and can recognize your human needs, then set some gaming roots!

    You were a part of a live-play podcast. How did you become involved in that project?  What were the highlights and lowlights?

    I was, indeed. Truth be told, it was a bit out of the left field. A friend of mine I played card games with suggested I try out for this project that started from nothing. I never thought of myself as charismatic or anything but I figured why not try. I didn’t think I’d end up being first-choice casting. In my tenure as the Crystalline Sorcerer + Creation Bard, Kryst Z’Grande, I set out to tell a story that means something, so that even if the project failed, I did something that maybe someone out there could connect to and not feel alone. From the onset, I wanted to tell a story about trauma, that you, the listener, can know in the back of your mind that no matter what was done to you, you can and will overcome. It was also important to play a queer person of color because our stories don’t get told. We do not get to be heroes, just sacrifices. I also confess I played an idealized self. I think in some way everyone does that, they bring a lot of themselves into whatever they play.

    My highlight is experiencing the power this story had. There were so many beautiful messages from many beautiful souls about being inspired, heard, seen, that I got to help people through tough times being someone they could reach out to. In that, I think there exists my lowlight, that even throughout all the good, through what was a great character performance (I hope), in my opinion, reality became just another sad tale-reflection of issues marginalized people face to this day.

    Do you have any tips or advice for people who want to try playing D&D? Any tools that you recommend?

    Dive. Right. In! There is no true right or wrong way to play! If you are new, grab your friends and do a one-shot amongst yourselves. You can also hire an understanding GM to run a game for you if that seems daunting. Be willing to have conversations before and after the game, not just about expectation but about actions that happen in game. Give kiddos the rule of cool or have a conversation about why a choice was harmful to others. A party of adventurers in a TTRPG is most often a reflection of the real-life relationship connections at the table, so if you want a strong party, build strong friendships.

    For the more experienced folk, go out and play more games, more TTRPG, more everything! D&D is great but by no means perfect. Remember this is a world where literally anything can happen, so make it happen. Dust off those mechanics where you can, for example, fail a roll but with some advantage!  There are some great tools out there like DnDBeyond to make characters, monsters, NPCs, and see other homebrews. Foundry or Roll20 for playing the game with, quite literally, all the bells and whistles. Check out r/dndmaps, Inkarnate, Watabou, to find or make maps. MyNoise.net to play around with ambient music/noise to get the room feeling like your scene or setting. 2MinuteTabletop is also great for tokens. 

    So to all you wonderful, beautiful, creative souls, get out there and get gaming!

    Thank you, Allonté! And thank you for leaving us a picture of you with your oldest kitten, Sir Winston. If you want more of Allonté, check out their linktree.

    A

    If you are a queer person who plays or DMs/GMs Dungeons and Dragons and you would like to be interviewed, please send me a message at roarcatreads@gmail.com.

  • D&D ONE SHOT | Owlbears: Fierce Foe or Fearsome Friend?

    D&D ONE SHOT | Owlbears: Fierce Foe or Fearsome Friend?

    This 19-page D&D 5e adventure is perfect for a party of level 3 adventurers who want to save an adorable owlbear cublet.

    You can download the PDF for “Pay What You Want” on our Ko-Fi page.

    If you have (gentle, kind) feedback on what works and what doesn’t, please email us at roarcatreads@gmail.com. It will help us create better content in the future! Thank you.

  • Adventure Queers: Meet Diana Gaeta aka Superdillin!

    Adventure Queers: Meet Diana Gaeta aka Superdillin!

    There has never been a better time to be a queer Dungeons and Dragons fan, but let’s be honest: not all groups are safe or inclusive. In this blog series, I ask queer D&D fans about their experiences playing TTRPGs and what they think could be done to make the gaming experience better for all.

    I first discovered Diana (she/they/he) in the Adventuring Academy podcast episode “Give People More Room (with Diana Gaeta).” I loved their unapologetic preference for story and character over gaming rules, and when I learned that they had a podcast of their own, I immediately binged the entire catalogue of Femsplained (my particular favorites are the episodes on Dragon Age, Indie TTRPGs, and of course, Black Sails!). I’m so honoured that Diana agreed to be interviewed for Roar Cat Reads, so without any further ado:

    Welcome, Diana!

    I’m Diana Gaeta aka Superdillin, a tabletop RPG creator, entertainer, and event organizer. I published a 5e compatible setting based on Neverland from Peter Pan and stream LOTS of tabletop games.

    Diana, when did you first play Dungeons and Dragons?  

    I first saw a game being played when I was in middle school, but was told it was boys only, so I angrily avoided the game for years after that. I think the first time I played D&D specifically was when I was just out of college.

    Do you currently play D&D? What is a recent memorable moment that you would like to share?

    I do still play D&D with my home game group that’s been going for about 3-4 years now. Every moment with them is special, but one in particular is the first time I ever saw this group get deeply invested in their characters. They were all new to TTRPGs in general, and in the beginning everything was very silly and loosey-goosey. Then I reintroduced a character from someone’s backstory, and for the first time saw them start pacing around my living room, trying to figure out what to do, and what to say. It was like a light switch flipping on.

    Have you experienced any differences playing D&D with queer folx vs. straight groups?

    In general, yes. I don’t love being fully openly queer or playing characters that are in groups where I’m the only queer person. It feels too vulnerable and uncomfortable, even when I love and trust the folks I’m playing with. 

    When you DM, how do you create a queer-friendly atmosphere in your group? 

    Step one is being loud and upfront about my own identity, that tends to drive away people that won’t contribute to a safe table. Next is including pronoun introductions as a normal part of the character creation process for everyone. Safety tools and checklists also help.

    What is your favorite aspect of playing D&D?

    Getting to explore new parts of myself and to create stories with people.

    What is your favorite aspect of DMing?

    Seeing the excitement on people’s faces when you surprise them with something cool, or when you say yes to the cool-as-hell thing they just thought up, or when they figure out the mystery you put together.

    Do you have any tips or advice for people who want to try playing or DMing D&D? Any tools that you recommend?

    Random generators got me through my first year of DMing. Donjon.bin.sh is the greatest thing on earth. 

    And finally, if you could change one thing about Dungeons and Dragons culture, what would it be?

    Wizards of the Coasts entire upper management team needs an overhaul, and they need to actually vocalize dissent against the “old guard” who harass people in the hobby (and in the MtG hobby as well).

    Thank you, Diana!

    If you are a queer person who plays or DMs/GMs Dungeons and Dragons and you would like to be interviewed, please send me a message at roarcatreads@gmail.com.