dartagnantt

[dartagnantt]

in the mission control room hearing my veteran pilot snarl "I won't go down to some nobody!" into the comms and putting my head in my hands because now that he said that he's absolutely going to die to this oddly skilled random upstart in a standard issue infantry mech

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The Princess has taken on a Death Knight as a retainer, which is exciting.

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Which is incidentally, how when I reached the three coloured choices for the first time and it resulted in nothing, it burnt me out on Mass Effect forever. It also doesn't help that when given the choice to have their own canon choices, I hate most of them

I know it's been said before but it really is hilarious how fake player agency became the selling point of BioWare RPGs.

Like, they figured out that players enjoy making "meaningful choices", so they went about creating games that were FIT TO BURSTING with opportunities to affect the story. That's to say nothing of the many,MANY scenarios built around a big THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT IN FUTURE GAMES billboard.

Thing is, BioWare was never really interested in carrying those choices over, both because they didn't really have an interest in doing one long, connected narrative, and because it would be a HUGE drain on resources to have to try to write/code for innumerable different worldstates. What they wanted to do was to dangle the IDEA of choice in front of their story/roleplay motivated gamers, while never actually delivering on the bulk of their promises.

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What gets me about the "it's bad that Deltarune made Undyne a cop" stuff is that, like, she is very much a cop in Undertale, too. That's basically the whole context of your initial confrontation with her. The Deltarune version just hasn't had her "what the fuck am I doing?" moment yet because she's never been called on to do anything more forceful than writing parking tickets.

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Shadowrought Origin | Use your powers to twist the actual shadows to your will

PDFs of this and more can be found over on at my Patreon here! I release everything for free, so your support makes this possible. I've also started making a new system based off of 5e, 6th Dawn! Become a patron and join the playtest.

Well, it was decided to rewrite things, so I've decided to rewrite the sorcerous origin that speaks to the edgy 12 year old that never left me. As an aside, was anybody else utterly disappointed by the utter cop out of a subclass name "Shadow Magic" and the new oneD&D "Shadow Sorcery" are?

Nah, if I'm making an edgelord subclass, I'm using all the edge!

Shadowmeld

Any similarities to a warcraft night elf racial trait are purely coincidental. Nah, you don't become invisibler in darkness, because that's redundant, instead you're just less there.

Gaze of the Abyss

This name admittedly doesn't work as well in a setting where 'the abyss' is an actual place instead of a deep dark pit. But I liked the reference I made here.

Shifting Darkness

This is the big thing I wanted for this.

This was originally going to be a 'grasping shadows' feature, but I've done that to death. Instead I wanted to really lean into the manipulating actual shadows, kind of like what Shikamaru in Naruto does. While a bit niche, you can pull off some interesting synergies with shadow step and the next feature.

Shadowy Hordes

How many times does an evil wizard make the shadows rise up turn into little creatures and attack the heroes? More than once definitely, and I wanted to make the shadows real.

Oh look! There's the grasping shadows feature!

Mold Reality

Okay, this is admittedly just the illusion wizard's capstone, but in my defense, it literally uses shadowstuff, how could I not?

And now to plug my stuff. I release homebrews weekly over on my Patreon. Anyone who pledges $1 or more per post don't have to wait a month to see them, and also help fund my being alive habit.

At the moment, they have exclusive access to the following:

Traps: Reset

War Domain: Redeclared

Light Divided

Gloom Stalker: Reshrouded

I also have four classes, and two splatbooks over on DriveThruRPG to check out:

The Rift Binder. A class specialising in summoning monsters and controlling the battlefield.

The Witch Knight. A class that combines swords and sorcery in the most literal way.

The Werebeast. A class that turns you into a half beast to destroy your foes.

The Beguiler. A spellcaster dedicated to illusions, enchantments, and general fuckery.

d'Artagnan's Adventurer Almanac. A compendium of races, subclasses, feats, spells, monsters and more!

d'Artagnan's Lycanthrope Survival Guide. A book of lore, stats, and werebeast subclasses for lycanthropes.

[dartagnantt]

"your identity and activities will be made public and once the public find your executives' they will hunt them to the ends of the earth like they did that Australian puritan group's"

While it's true that mandatory identity verification will inevitably be leaked on a massive scale, the thing you need to understand when framing these arguments is that a lot of the folks in favour of such measures don't see that as a bad thing. Full de-anonymisation of the Internet is their explicit goal. Like, the actual objective here is for everyone to have a public record of everything they say and do – online or otherwise – linked to their government ID. The universal panopticon is the good ending as far as these people are concerned.

[dartagnantt]

Room and Board | A good meal, and comfortable bed does wonders after you've been on the road ever since you met in a tavern that one time

PDFs of this and more can be found over on at my Patreon here! I release everything for free, so your support makes this possible. I've also started making a new system based off of 5e, 6th Dawn! Become a patron and join the playtest.

So, you know how the player's handbook (both of them) provides different types of room and food at different price points describe the living conditions, and then proceed to give no addition information. Well, I considered, good food and eats is good for you (or so Dungeon Meshi tells me). So, some benefits.

It also turns out that the only ways to get exhaustion in base 5e is to not eat or drink enough water, perform a forced march or be a barbarian. Which is fair, base 5e Exhaustion is awful.

And then, of course, the end of this is modifying some pre existing food and portable spaces to mention the mechanics I just added.

I considered putting a thing in of 'if you don't care for this sort of thing, then treat yourselves as poor' but then I remembered that I'm not (currently) writing official rules, and all of this is optional. Also, having spells scale is delightful, even if the scaling wasn't relevant to the mechanics most of the time.

And now to plug my stuff. I release homebrews weekly over on my Patreon. Anyone who pledges $1 or more per post don't have to wait a month to see them, and also help fund my being alive habit.

At the moment, they have exclusive access to the following:

Shadowrought Origin

Traps: Reset

War Domain: Redeclared

Light Divided

I also have four classes, and two splatbooks over on DriveThruRPG to check out:

The Rift Binder. A class specialising in summoning monsters and controlling the battlefield.

The Witch Knight. A class that combines swords and sorcery in the most literal way.

The Werebeast. A class that turns you into a half beast to destroy your foes.

The Beguiler. A spellcaster dedicated to illusions, enchantments, and general fuckery.

d'Artagnan's Adventurer Almanac. A compendium of races, subclasses, feats, spells, monsters and more!

d'Artagnan's Lycanthrope Survival Guide. A book of lore, stats, and werebeast subclasses for lycanthropes.

[dartagnantt]

I'm trying to imagine the whole "gacha game are Good Actually because the gacha business model enables narrative structures that wouldn't work in conventional games" thing applied to literally any other similarly predatory monetisation scheme. I want to see the story that can only be told through the medium of battle royale lootboxes.

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Superman isn't woke. You're just so evil that you see a man doing acts of kindness and you think it's a targeted political agenda

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i hate that "fantasizing" has a romantic connotation, like no. I'm not daydreaming abt kissing people, I'm daydreaming abt feathers sprouting from my back, completely enveloping me, and carrying me away from my mortal vessel

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"Aro/Ace person gets given a love potion" story but instead of them being immune or whatever, it DOES work, and they realize IMMEDIATELY that they've been fed a love potion because this feeling is so wrong and foreign but everyone keeps laughing off the idea of it being a love potion because "they were probably just a late bloomer" or "no, you just finally found the right person!" and it's just a horror story about how no one believes them even though they know, they KNOW this isn't right and they can't stand it.

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By the way, the prosecution just violated Luigi Mangione's HIPAA rights and I have not seen people talking much about it

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Irritated rn. Aroace characters aren't "allowed" to be canonically aroace without using the word in the same way a character attracted to the same gender is. If a character is very blatantly obviously a lesbian, fawns after girls, kisses girls, does lesbian coded stuff constantly, the fandom would throw a riot if she were paired romantically with a guy. But if you put that same exact amount of blatantly obvious aroace behaviors in, then people will not only NOT get upset when they're paired up romantically, but will make a million billion excuses on why shipping them romantically should be a normal mainstream position. "Oh they might just not be interested in sex", "oh you can't prove a negative", "oh some aroacespec people are in romantic relationships so it's okay" like do these people hear themselves. Why do they feel the need to dig through every single justification possible until the creators themselves use the words "asexual aromantic" to Word-Of-God it???

Like. Some lesbians date men too, for one reason or another. But it'd be fucking weird if all her popular shipping art was with a man, wouldn't it?

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"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

I fell asleep in my friends' arms. It was eleven at night, we were tired, curled up in a small pile on my tiny bed. I had my head buried in my roommate's side, and one of my closest friend's hand on my shoulder, steadying me. It was quiet and nothingness and peace and their heartbeats in my ears, my hands in their hair.

"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

We pack four people to that little bed, you know. Laps used as footrests, collarbones as pillows, little lights like moonlight in rustic yellow bathed on their faces. The TV plays an anime. The words are repeated by my dear friend on my shoulder, curled close. My legs are asleep; my roommate may be, too.

"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

The cat curls on top of our criss cross mess of legs and arms and heads on chests to absorb the warmth of us all. She purrs in contented peace. When my roommate and I are left alone in the quiet, she cries, and watches the door for our friends' return.

"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

I will never kiss them but the top of their heads. I will never touch but the warmth of their arms. I will never take more than what's freely given, and in return I put my glasses on the bedside table fashioned from a guitar amp, and when I lean into their sides, I pick up my vulnerability and place it in their capable, tender hands.

"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

I sing for them. I cry for them. I work and I run and I withstand the worst of the world for them, because some days I get to cradle their forehead on my shoulder and some days I get to see their shining eyes.

"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

Maybe to you. But look beyond explanation. I love them. With my heart in my unsteady hands, with my nose pressed to the side of their head, with the buzzing in my feet and the warmth all around Iike the sunset pushing into the window.

"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

Is it enough to say I love them? With no strings attached? With reckless abandon and utter devotion and freedom and kindness and fear?

"there is no platonic explanation for this--"

I cannot explain it any clearer. I love my friends. There is no more to say.

[dartagnantt]

hot take: the notable thing isn't having evil gods, those are normal. the notable thing is actually having good gods, which these settings manage … occasionally.

forgotten realms gods are all at least kinda evil because of how they all accept the whole Wall of the Faithless system instead of trying to put together something better. i'm also not impressed with how apparently the 'good' planes had a big stupid fight over avernus instead of negotiating an agreement, but maybe they've learned better these days.

torag in pathfinder has a paladin code including "Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag." and in 2e it sounds like they're having him do more sketchy stuff. iomedae in the WotR adventure path had a trumpet issue.

i have complained before about the dungeonomicon having celestials use 'unimportant' souls as building materials

but sometimes writers actually pull it off, and one gets to briefly imagine a cool world with worthwhile gods

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My favourite part was where I made the party pick up Meridia's Beacon and then lead them directly into the flesh dungeon™

being a GM is really fun because sometimes you can make your players go through some really traumatic Evangelion bullshit, but other times you can force them to go bowling for no reason