8bitMage

I had a similar idea for a wholesome Celestial Warlock recently. Remembering a bit form some stand-up comedian in the 90s; with schizophrenics, why do the voices always tell them to do bad things?

Character is an low-key Aasimar, but tries to hid it by being all goth. They were mostly ignored by their family, like 90a latch-key kid.

They try to act all dark and edgy, but they constantly have their bright and chipper Celestial patron whispering in their ear to do positive things. Played like the Bowler and her dad in Mystery Men.

“You should really help that orphan find their real parents.” “You HAVE to rescue the princess!” “Hey, help that old lady across the street.” “You don’t need all their gold as a reward, you should leave them at least half.” “Hey. Hey! Tell [party’s druid] that she really looks cute in that outfit.”

Could also work with Divine Soul Sorcerer, with their angelic ancestor whispering in their ear.

Yeah, I hate that DnD is such a resource management game too. (More so that is is the ONLY game my group will consider playing.)

I tend to horde any limited resource. TTRPG or video game.

Is this group of mooks big enough to justify using power/spell/item X? Is there a bigger group around the corner? Is this just a lieutenant or the BBEG? Oh, this guy is monologueing, he must be the BBEG. But does his fight have multiple phases? OR is he just a puppet and the real BBEG is waiting for us to blow all our abilities.

Doesn’t matter how narratively I’m engaged in the plot. I’ve got a tactically aware mind and these thoughts are always there.

“… a strong poison created in Sicily around 1630…”

“It was a colorless, tasteless liquid and therefore easily mixed with water or wine…”

Vizzini never had a chance.

Opportunities like that are why my bard stocks up on potions of damage resistance/invulnerability ^_^;;

MechWarrior: Destiny

BattleTech is originally a tabletop game, but MW: Destiny is their latest PRG ruleset and is designed to play like a narrative driven game like FATE system. No need for maps, minis, or anthing like that. The rules can also be blended with the various systems, Classic BattleTech tabletop, AlphaStike quick miniatures rules, and the various other MechWarrior RPG editions, to find a balance you & your players are looking for.

More importantly, the BattleTech universe has decades of lore development with hundreds of sourcebooks and novels spanning many, many, many different major eras of the universe.

One of the genius things the original authors did was write in many different mysteries into the lore. Many of those have been answered over the years of development, but some still remain and if you're players are not familiar with the universe, you can just utilize any of them as the center of a campaign.

And of course it has Giant Stompy Robots.

Off the top of my head I'd think a campaign where your players are MechJocks/Mercenaries for an Interstellar Expeditions team trying to track down the origins of the Minnesota Tribe in the deep Periphery would a good possibility.

The game also has ties art-wise back to the Macross/Robotech transformable Valkyries. They literally exist in BattleTech as the Phoenix Hawk, Wasp, & Stinger Land-Air-Mechs. They're not popular in universe, and generally poor units for tabletop, but there's nothing really holding them back in the MW: Destiny rules and I could see the flexibility they offer would make sense for an Interstellar Expeditions team.

“Scream loudly. Something will surely hear.” This could be epic while the players are trying to take a desperately needed long rest in a dangerous location. They encounter an otherwise harmless gnome or fey or kobold, that makes an outrageous demand. Like the players handing over one of their most valuable magic items. Otherwise they’ll scream.

I recently stumbled on the graph paper & colored pencil map my mom made while playing through the original Zelda on NES. One page per screen.