ttrpgs

what are ttrpgs?

ttrpgs, or tabletop role playing games, are a form of collaborative storytelling. if you've heard of D&D, that's one of the most popular ttrpgs! i don't play it though. too many numbers. i play games like Monster of the Week and Masks with a regular playgroup, as well as in quarterly campaigns run by the tabletop club at my school.

most of my art in the last year or two has been inspired by the tabletop games that i play in. it's fun to play as a character, and then get to draw them and the situations they get into as a way of visualizing the story i'm telling with my friends.

some keywords:

campaign: a long-running story told in several parts
session: a single part of a campaign, usually a 3-4 hour event where we roll dice, eat snacks, and talk a whole lot
PC: player character, a character in the story played by one of the players
NPC: non-player character, a character played by the GM
GM: game master. it tends to be called something different in every system, but it's the person who runs the story and creates the world that the PCs exist in
system: the game that's being played. the set of rules and structure you follow as you tell your story. sorta like a framework for your storytelling. examples include Monster of the Week and Masks

⭐ STARLESS ⭐(fall 2019)

starless was my first campaign. It was in the Monster of the Week system. it was a great campaign! i played as Riley Vandergaard (they/them), using the Mundane playbook. they're a average 20 yr old in a third rim suburb of Detroit. they play hockey, work at a coffee shop and an ACE Hardware, and bike to community college classes in the next town over. oh, and fight monsters, of course.

also featured in a lot of the Riley art is Leah (she/her), Riley's high school crush and the sole member of their high school hockey team to go professional. they had quite the rivalry back in high school, but now that they're graduated, Riley's trying to work up the courage to ask Leah out. (it works)

🌌 DREAMSCAPE 🌌(summer 2020- fall 2021)

dreamscape was the first time i played a campaign outside of the tabletop club. it was also in the Monster of the Week system. my character is Aster Chung (they/them), using the Searcher playbook. they're a grad student studying astrophysics at Northwestern University and, at the beginning of the story, looking for their missing twin sister who fell into a mysterious portal when they were 13 or so. since then, they've fallen into a number of portals themselves, but always managed to find their way back home. they managed to stumble across a pair of vampires on the train once, and things haven't been the same since.

Aster is joined in their monster hunting adventures by the other two PCs, Alan and Amy, as well as a cast of NPCs, like their partner and roommate, Ashe, a resident of the secret magical district of Chicago, Gary, and Alan's mysterious aunt, Karina, who's an author by day and an arcane researcher by night. also featured are Andie, Aster's returned twin, and Rachel, Aster's closest friend (and eventually Andie's partner).

🌠 SKY HIGH 🌠 (summer 2020 - winter 2023)

sky high (yes, in reference to the disney channel original) was another campaign, this time in the Masks system, which is all about teen superheroes and their emotions. my character is Taika Nguyen (she/her) (aka Runestar), who is the Scion. her playbook is all about respect and trust, as she's the daughter of the most powerful villain in the city. their name is Fabian (aka Runesmith) and they love their daughter dearly, but sometimes their need to never be boring can be a tad worrisome for her. Taika has magical knowledge, allowing her to fight with spells in the form of circular runes drawn in the air or a mimicry spell that is tattooed on her shoulder.

besides her parent, Fabian, there a couple of other important people in her life. her team consists of the PCs, Ezra, Vicente, and Luxin (and later Watcher). she has a sibling, Tess, who's also a villain, though it's mostly just to hang out with their crush. she spars with Rhea, another young hero, on the weekends as a way to get better at being a hero, but also because she thinks Rhea is cute. her dad, David, went missing a few years back, but when he was still around, the family would all bake bread together and sell it at the farmer's market. now that's mostly just Fabian's job.

🐈 WORLD TOUR 🐈(fall 2020 - early winter 2021)

world tour was a campaign i was in through the tabletop club. it was an experimental design for a campaign, taking place in a different system every session. i played as Cass Jimenez (she/her), carpenter, loving wife to Claire, and monster hunter extraordinare, who got sucked into a portal that took her from dimension to dimension, along with the rest of her team.

the systems we played in were Monster of the Week, Casket Land, Masks, Dungeon World, Alas for the Awful Sea, Action Movie World, and Urban Shadows, which all use the Powered by the Apocalypse framework.

🔮 CHILDREN OF BENEATH 🔮(winter - spring 2021)

children of beneath was another campaign i played in through the tabletop club in the Monster of the Week system. i played a Hex, Briar May (they/them). Briar is a mischevious witch who likes to drink tea, collect debris in mason jars, and set things on fire.

they and their team saved their town from impending doom via an underground menace in mid-2021.

🦸 PHOENIX ACADEMY 🦸(spring 2021 - fall 2021)

phoenix academy was another tabletop club campaign that i played in. it was in the Masks system, and i played as Fig Polaski (she/they) (aka Persephone), a Nova. her story is all about power, as the Nova playbook is about a hero with more power than they know what to do with, and it can get uncontrollable at times. Fig has biokinesis, which for her, means she can grow and ungrow plants, as well as influence the energy and lifeforce of humans.

⛰️ Boulder, Mountain State. 1978. ⛰️(winter - spring 2022)

Boulder, Mountain State was my final campaign while in undergrad. it was in Monster of the Week, and i played as Hawthorn (they/any/none), a mysterious fae oddball who left the fae community to live in human society. They live it up in a studio "apartment" above Lloyd's garage, while working for Radio Shack and causing all sorts of problems for those around them. Hawthorn's teammates included Lloyd, a middle-aged accountant with a habit of gambling away abstract things to faeries, Ellie, Lloyd's niece and owner of a hellhound, Fido, and Geane, a heavenly exile sleeping on Lloyd's couch.

☁️ Cloud Harbor ☁️(winter 2023 - present)

Cloud Harbor is my first campaign as a GM. It's in the Monster of the Week system, and takes place in Cloud Harbor, a small, sleepy town cloaked in fog with plenty of mysteries, not to mention the bizarre locals. The campaign focuses on four main characters: Ling, an old guy who's older than he should be and carries around a platypus who may or may not be some sort of manifestation of a godly power, Matija, an ex-YouTuber now using their paranormal knowledge to tap into their own magical powers, Ros, an mischevious old lady with a knack for making things go wrong, and Truman, a monster hunter by trade... but what kind of company pays people to hunt monsters?