SFX: (RUMBLE RUMBLE)
PM: Stampeding towards the town is a thundering herd of cows!
Twilight Sparkle: Uh… mad and/or evil cows?
Fluttershy: I hope not!
Applejack: This ain’t like the last two… No mythical beasts or bloodthirsty creatures. It’s just a bunch of scared farm animals.
Fluttershy: Oh, good! So I should roll Diplomacy?
Applejack: My gut says no. They’re panicked. Words won’t stop ‘em. We’ve gotta… gotta…
PM: Yes? Heehee…!
Applejack: …gotta use Applejack’s day job skills. This calls for a corrallin’.
PM: Go get ‘em, cowgirl!!
Applejack: Ugh. How long were you waiting?
PM: Several hours.
When you get caught up in a whirlwind adventure, it's easy to forget a little of your character's backstory, which includes aspects of your character's actual day job before they started adventuring.
It's when those old responsibilities come back to haunt you that you know you're in trouble.
Notice: Guest comic submissions are open! Guidelines here. Deadline: February 20th.
I love how you've capturd AJ as such so as to have as few tired-lines as you can, while still having a few, so that she looks like she's just starting to wear down...
It was rare that any of my players had a day job to apply to their adventurers. "Adventurer" was pretty much their career role.
I miss my wizard character, he used to be a blacksmith's apprentice, so those smithing skills were useful in creating magic items and defeating certain traps made of metal. :)
I had a Shadowrun character who was a part time news journalist by day. So pretty much would make stories of her runs for additional money. All those investigative and social skills made good use too.
In my Ponyfinder games, I require everypony to have a dayjob (or suitable reason for none), and they do or will feature into skills, cutie mark abilities, and some events. ^_^
...I think the silliest so far has been the rock salespony (there are rock farms, so there are rock salesponies).
Day job, you say? Oh man. Have I got a day job for you!
When he's not fighting villains or messing with China, Raxon works as a beautician. He uses his biomancy in a chain of "aesthetic enhancement salons" where he can adjust your height/weight, skin/eye/hair color, add/remove hair or fur, and offer limited special additions, like a phosphorescent organ by the eyes to make them glow in the dark, and splicing animal ears and tails on.
Also, 'fantasy' skin colors are available. They can be set to be temporary, so a young businesswoman could come in on Friday afternoon, get the full feline mod(ears, tail, eyes, fur, full anthro.) So she can party over the weekend, and it will fade away by Monday morning.
He also goes to cons and sets up booths to sell stuff like feather falling rings, decanters of endless water, and other fun little enchanted goodies. He even puts minor enchantments on props for cosplayers. Nothing dangerous though. Special effects only.
I have a shadowrun charecter who I REALLY want to play. I made the fastest runner I could with mad parkour skills and kickboxing. He's got SURGE, cyber-legs, and is a troll. He can out-run most vehicles at their fastest speed and he isn't constrained to roads.
I was trying to think of a good day job for him and my first thought was pizza delivery guy
Can I use your character during some games with my sillier DM, it would be Hilarious! Send me his deets (and how the progress from level 1) at chaorexblau@gmail.com
Hm... only one I've had who had an actual "day job" was Irriel. And it wasn't really as much a dayjob, her master also happened to be the interrogator for the castle guard. So she learned a little of this and a little of that watching her master work.
This is, aside from thief characters who include it in their list as their dayjob.
Or the space one I posted a few weeks ago whose dayjob would technically be 'prison inmate' he occupied the brig so often.
A ranger I'm playing has Profession: Bounty Hunter
It's mostly from her backstory, but if/when I use it as a skill check, I can gain access to a "sidequest" involving collecting a bounty whose value is based off of how well I roll (With a corresponding increase in difficulty).
So, mostly fluff, but useful for a day where half the party is gone, and starting the next story arc seems like a bad idea.
I've got a medical researcher (Victorian era), a Quaker chef (believe me, I've already heard every oatmeal joke you can think of), an itinerant poet, a coffee-shop owner/art photographer, a Chinese punk rocker, and a martial arts supply store owner.
My current character is a dwarven druid. He learned to be a mineralogist and prospector before becoming a protector of nature and the earth.
Still useful skill, sometimes.
For some reason, I can't remember many of the dayjobs, former or otherwise, of my 4" thick binder of spare characters - I know there's a few bodyguards, chefs, carpenters, blacksmiths, scholars, etc. And whenever I make a Bard, there's a 30% chance he's a lawyer, because I prefer Perform (oratory) over instruments, in the inetrests of keeping hands free for stabbing dudes and surprising those at the table who expect a lute-playing spoony one. There's also the more adventure-ey ones, like a Favored Soul/Human Paragon who's a wandering priest (with maxed ranks in Tumble, a handful of prestige classes to pick up a ridiculous number of domains, including Repose & Sun, and optimistic cheerfulness that could rival Pinkie Pie's) or the ascetic (Vow of Poverty) green Half-Dragon Lizardfolk Barbarian... my orcish Favored Soul was basically a trainee of Spartanesque Orsinium orcs before being Chosen by Obad-Hai when he discovered the way of the hippie when he was sent away from home as a messenger... Ponies're easier to remember. Speaker Check is a roadie & technician, specializing in... well, speakers, but he's a fair hoof at pyrotechnics or fog too. There's also a low-ranking royal guard who's stuck guarding a minor royal and doesn't understand why she's never been assigned to guard the throne room when her buddies from training have (Celestia, for all that she's an ace at maintaining harmony, likes her eyecandy) and Red Alert, who's a prankster guard aboard a top-secret research submarine - think Red October meets Seaquest, and throw in boredom, impulsiveness and monstruous CQC ability. Clamor Bash is a drummer; his special talent is percussion. Not just in the musical sense, either, but in the 'hitting things' sense - you DON'T want to be standing behind a barred door when he's coming through. He was born Clatter Bash, on account of the noises that tended to follow his antics (his parents soon invested in shatter-resistant plates) and his drum kit is unorthodox, having a triangle and a massive church bell in addition to the usual; he plays the drums, plus cymbals, with his front legs, the the triangle with his mouth, the drum pedal with one hind leg, and the bell with the other leg. Oh! Shadow Rumble is a geologist! It defines him, really - his attacks mostly revolve around throwing rocks, he has crazy modifiers to knowledge where rocks or geologic processes are concerned, he has classes he has to teach occasionally to keep his expeditions funded (much to his frustration)... he also jogs, to keep his body in shape to match mind & spirit. He can be a bit isolationist when a villain shows up, but if they make it personal, he'll uncork a can o' whoopass and drop a boulder the size of Town Hall on them... or any number of other unpleasant ends. He's not very nice unless you get past his bubble. I guess I'll stop, before I lengthen the page anymore.
(Oh! Blaze Dervish distributes concert and/or rave flyers, and her cousin Gleaming Blade is a jeweler and silversmith who tries to rebel against the family's adventuring tradition and be sophistocated, with limited success... think Bilbo Baggins with a gem-studded ornate rapier and total mastery of it.)
Big Mac... mostly because I sometimes take a powergamer approach and judge characters by their combat ability. Dude can drag a house while bouncing.
Kinda have a crush on Applejack, though.
Oh, and my headcanon says that Caramel Apple is a bartender. No idea why.
I have a DevART that I'm trying to figure out what I can do with. The pony stuff goes on tumblr. Ah, but the tumblr's got all the personal posts on it as well.
Also, I don't actually normally draw like this in the slightest.
Any chance at all we'll have more of you're drawing the ponies around the gaming table? That's what that looks like to me, and it would be weirdly circular to visualize the ponies playing as themselves.
The pony fandom is spoiled by most of their artists trying to have as much of a public presence as possible. Coming out quietly, understated, with really nice art is kind of unheard of.
That is, until the DM "totally finds in the notes and didn't just make it up on the spot so you have to do stuff for real you guys" that the proper cure must be made from plants grown in a specific area. Because that's always totally in the notes. Swearsies.
While trying to take back a fortress from a group of ogres, we find one in the kitchen. One that isn't interested in fighting, oh no. In fact, he's torn up to hear that we killed a mess of his buddies on the way in. Now he thinks the meal he's been making will go to waste. Our team's leader, not one to miss an opportunity, decides he wants to recruit this ogre into a growing band of reformed villains that we've been collecting.
The ogre, however, refuses the invitation. Unless one of us proves that we're as good a chef as he is. Our team leader then starts bragging about how we have the best cook on the planet in our adventuring party. At first I'm thinking he's bluffing, but then he points right to my character.
It's then I remember that I'm a half-orc fighter. And that, as a side joke to my backstory, I have a rank of Profession (Cook) because I mad the meals for my old mercenary company before joining the current team.
And now I've just been volunteered to have a cooking contest with an ogre.
I don't know which is more frightening in the end. The fact that I only got a seven total on the roll... or the fact that I still won the contest.
Or maybe ogre cooking is naturally awful, and that by failing to make something good, the half-orc managed to make a dish that appealed to the ogre's tastes so much that he conceded victory.
The ogre tried, but ultimately failed to produce something as disgusting as what the PC made by mistake.
You know that blacksmith that's always in the starting town? The one with a ton of fighter levels and doesn't take backtalk from customers? I was that guy, Dorgan Eos. Took a couple levels of sorcerer too so I could make magic weapons and armor. Somehow I eventually ended up at the head of a rebel army against an evil emperor.
It's when those old responsibilities come back to haunt you that you know you're in trouble.