How to Be: Samus Aran
The list of Samus Aran traits we have is a little bit like one of those ‘pick two’ triangles. Heavy armour works against mobility. Mobility tends to be paired with melee damage, not ranged damage. Ranged damage tends to not work with heavy armour. We’re kinda screwed on this one.
How to Be: Link
With Frame Fatales running, I wanted to talk about a character who has a strong presence in speedrunning, and a character that owns a special place in the heart of the community, and a character who helps people feel connected to something. I figured what better to do, than look at a Link.
How to Be: Inu-Yasha
Smooch month has rolled around and that means it’s time to, once again, break out the rulebooks and try to find a way to make another Ranma 1/2 character in 4th edition D&D. You know, considering that the guy’s a dog half-demon, there’d be all sorts of powers or complicated special abilities to cover. Funny thing is, not really! Inu-Yasha is a character whose powers can almost all be summarised as ‘stuff a human can do, but way better.’
How to Be: Cyclops
A long time ago, when I first started playing RPGs, a friend (hi BigAngry) said to me, the thing with RPGs is that once you play in them you’ll notice the way that literally every single piece of fan media presents you a list of toys, things you can always look at, then point to and say ‘I want that.’ And I thought about another friend who doesn’t care about RPGs, and I thought: Yeah. Let’s do Cyclops.
How to Be: The Very Best, Like No-one Ever Was (Dun Dun D-Dun)
You know, it might just be because I’ve been thinking about pets and subordinate characters, what if the inspiration for your character in a 4e campaign is being someone who has for some reason, a monster that works at their side? What kind of character can produce monsters out of nowhere – like they can just pull them out of their pocket?
How to Be: A Meguca
In this, a Dreadful Month, maybe you need a radiant light. Maybe you need something that makes you feel warm and fuzzy and happy in this time of long nights. In which case, let’s look to the most successful Monsters Inc fanfiction anime there is, and look at the magical girls from Puella Magi Madoka Magica as we ask […]
The Warlock is Alone
It’s a well-worn meme that Warlocks and Paladins are different only in that one has an employer, and one has a sugar daddy. Notably, recognise that the Warlock’s the one with a contract, but the Paladin’s the one with a code of conduct.
How to Be: Lalo Salamanca
I suspect for this one, I’ve given myself something of a tall task to try and justify this one. Because Lalo doesn’t necessarily strike many people as a character who’s a good fit for ‘a D&D game’ or even ‘a player character.’ After all, he’s a villain, and not just a villain, he’s probably going to be one of the iconic villains people are trying to replicate for decades.
How To Be: Bridget
We’ve talked about Guilty Gear before on How To Be, when I covered May, and in the intervening time since then the Guilty Gear universe has not gotten more sensible, more simple, or more coherent. It is a silly world, and in that world we get Bridget.
How To Be: Scorpia
One of my favourite things about media is the way that just because I don’t like a work or a show or a plot or whatever it doesn’t have to mean I don’t like or won’t have a reason to be interested in something in that. Moments, scenes, characters, dialogue, all sorts of small things […]