User:Kydo
| “ | Homebrew is hobby slang referring to unofficial content produced by the people who play the game. By hobbyists for hobbyists. It usually refers to game content, while home made rules are typically called houserules, but in a general sense, houserules can also be considered homebrewed as well. The main thing is that it is home-made. Professionally produced content, even if it was unlicensed third party stuff, technically wouldn't really count unless it was a compilation of previously existing content which was not created for the purposes of publishing. The distinction is the intent behind creation. | ” |
| —--Kydo (talk) 00:19, 18 October 2015 (MDT) | ||
Playtest
I am currently running a playtest arena in which players can put their content to task and see what's what! Take a look! --Kydo (talk) 21:57, 16 December 2018 (MST)
Identity
I am also known as...
As a Former Administrator
I am a deeply flawed person. Mere months before my nomination, I had been temporarily banned for using profanity in a very minor edit war. I can be aggressive and rash. That said, I try my best not to be. I genuinely care about this wiki, this community, and the other users, and try my best to be kind and helpful to everyone.
You can read about my nomination here: Requests for Adminship/Kydo
I was nominated for adminship on June 6th, 2016, after participating on the wiki as a highly prolific editor for roughly 2 years. I was voted into the position by my peers on June 13th of the same year. I made some promises at the time, and some people said some very nice things about me. At first, I was just happy being able to delete my old garbage user subpages and excessive redirects. However, one day I accidentally stumbled across that page again, read what was said, and felt almost obligated. Not just to this wiki or the community, but to myself. I said I would do good. People said I could be trusted. So I set out to get serious about making this a better place.
I began actively greeting new contributors. I wrote myself a schedule and got proactive on reviewing content. I got over-active and used brute-force consensus to restructure the help portal, (which I'm pretty sure was the most impolite and intrusive way I could have done that.) I wrote design guidlines for various types of content, and wrote generic policies to set a standard for what they are based on. I became active in every community project and made a community portal for them. For all the good I have done, in my inexperience, I did these things in a brash, aggressive, and disruptive sort of way. There was little collaboration in the methods I used, so the current state of the help portal actually came about due to my flouting the intended nature of the community I wrote it for. Since then, I have done some rapid introspection, and have cooled my efforts, refocusing myself on building community by interacting with the community, rather than by bashing them over the head with blunt-force editing.
I eventually stepped down from adminship and the community due to struggles in my personal life. My career was unstable and my wife was unwell. I have been through a lot of hardship, but eventually things started to get back on track. I had time for hobbies again, and even started playing D&D again. I decided to return to the community. I do not have any current desire to return to administration. I have discovered that, generally speaking, the people who most desire authority are the people who least deserve it. I stand by that philosophy. When I have authority, I use it to express my own laziness and arrogance. I have no interest in being that person again. I can do all the things I did as an admin without the ability to ban and delete. So that is how I will operate.
As a Helper
I am a wiki helper. I help in all sorts of things. In general, I want to make this place as inviting, fun, and useful to you as possible.
Do you have questions about a policy, or how to interact with the wiki? Ask, and I will do my best to answer you or find a source for an answer.
Do you want help with a piece of homebrew? I'll do my best with my limited time to do so.
Having troubles with game rules? Fire away, I'll give you answers with citations!.
I'm also a user on RPG.SE, and I make an effort to answer anyquestions I can help with there as well.
As a Person
I am a married, (as of July 18th 2015) 30 year old man, and I have been playing RPGs since before I even knew what to call them. I am an artist specializing in freehand drawing media, particularly ink and silverpoint. I spent two years in college for the fine arts. I am a pseudo-intellectual with a love of aesthetic and artistic theories, and I see RPG theory, music theory, comic theory, and art theory as only small pieces of a grander, as-yet-undefined theory of human consciousness. I have an interest in theology and psychology, but my misspent youth has prevented me from pursuing those interests academically. I am a ravenous bookworm with a library containing over 400 books in my basement. I am an ASNT UT level 2, working in a steel mill for the oil and gas industry, and I hope to soon have my CGSB UT level 1 certification. Religiously, I am an atheist, and politically, I am an anarchist. I can be rather aggressive at times, and I apologize in advance if I come off as a bully. I don't intend to attack people.
As a Gamer
Prior to D&D, I had been role playing since as far back as I could remember. Games and sports were almost wholly unappealing to me. As a kid, that was fine, "let's pretend" was normal. As I got older however, people who were friends lost interest and moved on, while I began expanding on the idea of make believe as a game. By the time I encountered D&D, I basically had no friends, though I was already making primitive RPGs without even knowing what they were.
I was first introduced to the RPG hobby and D&D proper in the 7th grade. In the middle of class, a new friend of mine organized possibly the quietest session of 2nd edition ever performed, using no reference materials or dice. That is the environment in which I learned. I was enchanted. I wasn't alone any more, and what's more, my ideas weren't strange. I was right on track.
Since then, I have played many games, and even DMd some of them, not just D&D. I have played Mind's Eye Theatre, the Macross RPG, Traveller, Mutants & Masterminds, Amber, My Life With Master, Creeks & Crawdads, and a few others. I also take part in RPG design as a hobby and read on the theoretical side of things quite extensively.
My current group consists of family and friends of both genders, ranging between 15 and 60 years old. All of them are new to playing 5th edition D&D, but our oldest player was into 2nd edition, and one of us is well-versed in 3.5e. I am the only member of my group who has played in the adventurers league, and I am the only one who has any desire to DM.
As an Artist
Yes. I am an artist. Feel free to browse my random work at my deviant art page if you wish.
I am an art helper, so if you'd like a picture made for one of your pages, I can do that for you. Keep in mind that such works, being free, will be in black and white, likely be nothing more than an ink line drawing, and will be completed in under 30 minutes. You get what you pay for- but hey, it's custom art for free. (All such commissions will be uploaded to the wiki and licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0 and GFDL)
Do you want me to do personal work for you? Be prepared to be serious about it. It took me 20 years and 12,000$ to build these skills. Where I work today, I make over 300$ a day. If you want my time, effort, skills, knowledge, and concern, be ready to pay me what I am worth.
I will not make pornography or simple random requests. If your offer is not D&D related, please make the request on Deviant Art. If I make art without payment or request, it was for me. If I share it openly it's because I'm nice. I am not necessarily fair or polite. Insults are not money.
As a Blogger
I am also an indie game designer hobbyist. I have a blog on the subject. Its articles discuss my thoughts on game design and discussion of projects I've been working on.
Blog updates weekly on mondays.
- Current Post.
- My Table's Social Contract
As a Redditor
I am always active in the reddit scene. It's a good place to unwind after dealing with BS of any sort.
- My Activities
- I created a list of all spell components found in the PHB. You can find that here.
- I played an important role in the completion of a 381 page compilation of redditor-written monster lore, all entries based on the 5e MM. That can be found here.
In particular, the D&D subs I browse are,
/R/ADVENTURERSLEAGUE
/R/ASKGAMEMASTERS
/R/BEHINDTHETABLES
/R/CHARACTERDRAWING
/R/CHARACTERPROMPT
/R/DMACADEMY
/R/DMTOOLKIT
/R/DND
/R/DNDBEHINDTHESCREEN
/R/DNDNEXT
/R/DUNGEONPROMPT
/R/DUNGEONSANDDRAGONS
/R/FANTASY
/R/GAMING
/R/HEROFORGEMINIS
/R/IMAGINARYTAVERNS
/R/LFG
/R/LOREMASTERS
/R/RPG
/R/TABLETOPMASTERS
/R/UNEARTHEDARCANA
/R/WORLDBUILDING
/R/WORLDPROMPTS
My Cryptic Personal Stuff
Utilities (Just a page full of links directly to stuff I find useful while editing the wiki.)
Workspace (A page listing my creations which are not yet even close to being presentable.)
User:Kydo/5e Criticisms (Literally a list of what I dislike in the 5e system.)
Notepad (Literally random stuff I keep because I plan to use it for something some day maybe.)
My Contributions (A page listing, by category, pages that I have made a significant contribution to.)
Social Stuff (This is literally just me keeping track of other users I like. I guess you can go ahead and read it? I'm not sure why youd want to.)
DnD Discussion (I try my best to give at least 1 reply to topics that don't get answers from anyone else.)
Special:Chat
- Community Projects
- D&D Wiki Magazine (I try to make content for this when I can think of stuff. The themes have been kind of off-putting for me for the last 2 issues though.)
- Featured Articles (I am reinvigorating the project and keeping it active on a weekly basis.)
- D&D Wiki on Facebook (I am a contributor to the facebook page. My task is to keep it noisy so it keeps growing. My objective is to make sure at least 1 thing is posted there every single day. I fill the deadspace.)