Quote from Quar1on >>

QotD: How do you name things? Do you stick some relevant words into Google Translate and find something that sounds good? Do you string together a bunch of random syllables? Do you steal from pop culture? Do you just describe the things?

 I do all the above. Sometimes I use relevant words from other languages, sometimes I string together a bunch of syllables randomly.

If I am naming a person that is inspired by a certain culture I might find names from that culture and use those. For example a hillbilly up in the mountains might be named Billy Backwater or Cash Davis.

I often keep a look out for words I might see in real life that could be a cool name. If I see a plaque beside the river giving information about the Logperch fish, I might steal that word for a future bullywug character. If I see a street sign for Hallahoosa avenue, I might steal that name for a city or town. 

Quote from BoringBard >>

Happy thanksgiving to all! :)

 Happy Thanksgiving!

I occasionally name things by looking through the etymology of related concepts and translating the root words into another language.

Happy Tanksgiving to all who celebrate.

These days I prefer to name things really straightforwardly, not bothering to spice them up with translation or anything like that. It's a big evil cave? Cave of Death. A dragon made of elemental fire? Fire Dragon. Some concepts speak for themselves, and I rarely find the addition of a "what does the DM mean by this" step to be a boon. You have to keep track of so many fictional concepts in a D&D game already, why would you pick a name where, when someone finds it in their notes from last week, they don't immediately understand what it's referring to?

For people, to be quite honest, I usually just use the 5e name generators. They're pretty good, as it turns out. One of the major benefits of using an established setting with tools like that is that things will feel consistent.

Question: What is your favorite fall season side dish?

Quote from Wysperra >>

Question: What is your favorite fall season side dish?

 
Is it possible to have just one?

Green bean casserole

Quote from Wysperra >>

Question: What is your favorite fall season side dish?

 
Stuffing. Piping hot and fresh and straight outta the bird.

Mashed Potatoes w/Gravy (ideally, made with heavy cream, butter, and parmesean cheese, then baked after mashing to get fluffy)
Corn (lots of butter,, salt, pepper, unless it is creamed corn, in which case just pepper).
Stuffing, if'n I like it. I am picky.

Been a few years, but my broader family all liked candied sweet potatoes (mashed, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a touch of molasses)
Green Bean Casserole (I've only made it a half dozen times, because I don't like green beans).
Eggplant Lasagna. Basically, ultra thin sliced eggplant used instead of lasagna noodles, with extra parm in addition to ricotta and other cheeses. kind of a deconstructed eggplant parmesan.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

Question: What is your favorite fall season side dish?

 
Stuffing. Piping hot and fresh and straight outta the bird.

100% agreed.

Accdent

oops sorry

Quote from Nothic2SeeHere2 >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

Question: What is your favorite fall season side dish?

 
Stuffing. Piping hot and fresh and straight outta the bird.

100% agreed.

 Also stuffing with gravy on top

yes!

welp, ain't gonna finish the character book on time. 

A rescrub through the Lore Book (setting, house rules) got me through to 1.0, so I don't have it to distract me anymore -- now I have to focus on the Player book.

I took several of the bits and pieces I had built and yanked them out as separate PDFs -- you can now have some fun with the ideas I used in the setting. 

So, I am late on my darn player book, and you can likely imagine the side eye I am getting, lol. So, gotta buckle down on that. Thankfully, my part at work is more or less on hold for the holidays.

Here's what's on my mind today: Where should you personally draw the line between mechanics and theme? For example, the Barbarian's Rage feature requires you to attack or get hurt, otherwise it ends -- that fundamentally limits the types of character concepts that you can tie to the Barbarian class. A more neutral version might strip that away, plus removing the reliance on Strength -- you could then more easily use it for more concepts (Sailor Moon, Kamen Rider, Winter Soldier, Moon Knight, etc) but if you wanted to use it for, well, a berserker fury, it wouldn't feel nearly as cool. You'd probably even end up adding some of those features back in.

I myself find a great deal of appeal in the way designers can teach you the overall setting, tone, and themes alongside the rules by tying them closely together. My favorite indie games do it even more than 5e does. There's something to be said for the freedom to create your own ideas, but idk, I think being able to really easily fall into a niche is preferable to me.

Quote from ChoirOfFire >>

Here's what's on my mind today: Where should you personally draw the line between mechanics and theme? For example, the Barbarian's Rage feature requires you to attack or get hurt, otherwise it ends -- that fundamentally limits the types of character concepts that you can tie to the Barbarian class. A more neutral version might strip that away, plus removing the reliance on Strength -- you could then more easily use it for more concepts (Sailor Moon, Kamen Rider, Winter Soldier, Moon Knight, etc) but if you wanted to use it for, well, a berserker fury, it wouldn't feel nearly as cool. You'd probably even end up adding some of those features back in.

I myself find a great deal of appeal in the way designers can teach you the overall setting, tone, and themes alongside the rules by tying them closely together. My favorite indie games do it even more than 5e does. There's something to be said for the freedom to create your own ideas, but idk, I think being able to really easily fall into a niche is preferable to me.

 
I'm all in favor of bending the mechanics to fit a theme. In the case you mentioned, you could easily make a subclass that nixes some of the requirements on raging. But you know what? It probably wouldn't break the game to just let the barbarian rage nonstop for a minute while within proximity of an enemy. I've bent rules like this all the time. For example: a character wants to dual-wield hand crossbows and picked up the crossbow expert feat? Let's let relax the loading property for them, as they've invested a feat into a strategy that isn't broken on the face.