#'i don't like this game because of it's mechanics'

[elfwreck]

It's fine to just want to play a silly game with your friends! It's fine to not care about rules mechanics, not want to study a complex rulebook, not want to spend hours reading about the history of the world and its factions.

Honey Heist is right there for you! So is Lasers & Feelings! Tunnel Goons for dungeon-crawl adventures!

If you don't like complex rules, there are literally thousands of games that don't need them.

...For D&D, someone needs to know the rules. It doesn't have to be you - but if it's not you, someone else is carrying the weight of making sure you have fun by telling you which dice to roll when, what numbers to add to that roll, and suggesting which special abilities might be relevant to the situation.

And if your gaming group is happy with covering that, that's fine! Nobody here is telling anyone else how they have to play, or even how they should play.

They're griping about people claiming D&D is an "easy" system when what they mean is "I can have fun at it without learning the rules."

D&D is not easy. D&D has 50 years of community that created a huge pool of people who study the complex aspects of the rules so that new players have an easy time finding a guide to let them relax and have fun.

Fate's easy. Fate's often considered hard because it's nothing like D&D. Because there's nothing from classes-levels-attributes-hitpoints that translates to Aspects & Skills/Approaches. You have to unlearn hit points to play Fate.

But there are plenty (thousands) of games that don't clash with the existing common knowledge about how D&D works, that are simple & quick to pick up and suitable for either one-shot adventures or long campaigns. If you don't care about the D&D rules, there are plenty of other fun options - that might be worth looking into before your current Rules Person (likely the GM) hits burnout and you're stuck with five people who want to play and they can all rattle off the terminology but none of them actually knows how it fits together.

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[swamp-jello]

Six Thoughts on Neve x Rook

These have been rushing around my brain like feral animals so:

If you save Minrathous/romance Neve, DA:V is the story of how Neve begins to process past trauma. When she enters the game, she is the cynical detective with a heart of gold. By the end of the game, she's squishier - willing to let others in even if it means heartache. She's a softy at her core and I think it's important to remember that soft ≠ weak.

By the end of the game, Neve still has a lot of trauma to process. I mean hell, I'm in my 30s and I'll probably be processing mine the rest of my life.

The pace of the game makes it impossible for Neve to shore up her defenses. Whether it's another team member showing her kindness, Rook getting under her skin, or the way things come to a head in Dock Town, Neve's coping mechanisms are completely overwhelmed. I think the dock kiss was a slip up - something that would never have happened if they weren't running around, fighting a desperate struggle. But the aforementioned soft side is literally clawing its way out. It saw the opening in Neve's defenses and leapt at the chance.

Neve is a workaholic but not in the normal sense. For reference, I'm a workaholic - I just worked 25 days straight (12 hours a day at least) because I love my job and the work I'm doing. But, at the end of the day, I still felt some regret. I lost so much time I could've spent doing other things. If Neve was doing all of this purely out of her own curiosity - which seems to be her defining character trait - I'd say she was a simple workaholic. But the dock scene tells a different story. Neve is convinced that her efforts don't matter. That nothing she does sticks. So she fights. Works even longer hours. All in the hopes that someday, something will stick and she'll feel worthy of people's gratitude. She doesn't regret the time lost because she doesn't think she deserves it.

As @scripts4dreamers post pointed out, Neve isn't magically healed of her desire to run by endgame. It will probably continue to come out, and they (Rook and Neve) will have to work through it together. It probably won't be as dramatic as my fic makes it out to be, but there will be a lot of emotional blocks that Rook will have to fight through if she wants to stay with Neve.

This is my PERSONAL opinion but: some friends and I have a running joke about people who appear to be tops but are actually bottoms. We call them ATABs (Assumed Top, Actual Bottom). In all honesty, Neve is probably a switch, but I like the idea that Neve puts on an act so people don't know how soft she is - or, how touch starved she is. That she loves being taken care of. And for my service-top Rook, that's quite a treat. ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡° )

[bugslaststraw]

Ugh I explained this to Nat before but that was a vm and now I have to try to put it into text lol. Bear with me. Spoilers for Sonic 3 below...

So like Okay, original game Robotnik has that "machines are better than people and I love them and I hate people" thing going on. And movie universe Jimbotnik does the same thing right. Except his reasons for preferring machines are a little weird? To say the least.

When most people aspire to the perfection of the blessed machine they tend to focus on how machines are perfect because they aren't saddled with those pathetic human emotions, and how they're stronger and smarter and more perfect and all that. And like. There are elements of that with movie Robotnik don't get me wrong, he bullies Sonic for loving his friends, but we all know that's bullshit because his actual personality complex trauma thing stems entirely from being hurt that people don't like him? and nobody's ever genuinely cared about him enough to not betray/leave him, as we learned in movie 3. Daddy issues, et cetera.

The actual first reason he gives for why he prefers his robots, in movie 1, is that they do what they're told and they never need time off to go do stuff other than what they're told. What's worse is that he outright ignores the part about machines that don't line up with what he is. Machines are cold unfeeling things right? And Robotnik is a madman, just complete ditz entirely controlled by his emotions. He's all over the place. So obviously that isn't why he actually likes them. Nor does it seem to be because they're smarter or stronger.

Now all this wouldn't quite have clicked in my head and started forming a pattern, if I hadn't spent half a day getting ahold of reading the movie novelizations lol, they're not good exactly but they aren't bad either (not exactly) and they have this really interesting. Detail. Take. Choice, even, that stood out to me. In the novels we get exactly zero scenes written from Agent Stone's perspective. So he's entirely filtered through Robotnik as we see him. And, like. Robotnik ascribes? Robotic traits to him? That he straight up doesn't have?

This being the most infamous example... But it happens again at least once, which is a lot for the novels cus they're short as hell, where (from Botnik's pov) Stone takes on this more mechanical tone when talking to him or being around him, that he seems to like or prefer/speak positively of. Okay. Weird, homoerotic, but not entirely out of character.

It did make me think though. If Robotnik is kind of loose about why he actually likes machines. But is still adamant that they're good and humans are bad... And what he actually likes about them seems to be that they're... Loyal? I think. And they do what they're told. And they don't need time off to see their families and get laid and leave him alone I'm so sorry then. Well.

Those are traits a human being could very well have. For example, his actual human assistant, who's standing right fucking there as he says it. Right? Stone is still all that, he's loyal and he actually likes + is nice to him and he does what he's told and that's why he actually likes him, as we find out in movie 3, right? So.

What I'm saying is when. In the third movie when he says you were the only person who ever blah blah right. And, like, of course he was. Who would want to be loyal to? This dickhead who mostly wants to achieve world domination? Why would you want to do what a villain says? But Robotnik doesn't care about that, he likes being a villain and above that he's just hurt, right, by it all, and doesn't gaf if his own actions affect others so.

So he ascribes robotic traits to Stone not because they're actually there (Stone is professional when talking to others, but far from emotionless, and it is in fact his emotional connection to the dear doctor that makes him as loyal as he is) but. Rather because in his mind, Stone is on the same level as a robot, because he has the same traits that Robotnik actually. Likes about his robots. That mainly being loyalty, I think.

And, well. In the third movie granpappy Geralt hacks those robots of his and makes them stop obeying him, doesn't he. Not even they were entirely loyal by the end, much like Geralt himself, right?

You can't hack a human being, though.

Anyway. Keep your heads up, okay? I'm like. 99% sure Robotnik is fine (fight me in the comments I guess) and I tend to be good at predicting this stuff so he'll be back one way or another. Jim Carrey officially un-retired, the space station time travel thing is still an active theory, and they can't just fucking kill Eggman guys, come on. Cheers!🥂

[imsobadatnicknames2]

To my great surprise, one of my friends expressed interest in DnD, bringing the total people interested including myself to a whopping THREE! Now, I've only played DnD a few times at a game shop and literally no other TTRPGs, but I'd be open in checking out other stuff (and can hopefully persuade my friends)! Would you happen to have any recs for maybe a bit more of an intro/beginners game that one could run with three players total? (If you happen to know any that maximizes a player feeling badass, that'd be neat & appreciated, as I think that's the main draw for them lol). Anyways, thanks for your time :3

Hiiii thanks for your question! So have in mind that I haven't played any of these firsthand because I'm mostly into games that mechanically emphasize disempowerment (the games i run tend to go less for the Found Family of Heroic Misfits Go on an Epic Quest approach and more for the Gang of Amoral Treasure Hunters Get Themselves Killed While Looking For Treasure in a Dark Scary Hole one), so I'm going off mainly from the play experience implied by reading the rules themselves and by what I've heard other people say about them.

First of all Is Quest RPG

I've seen it recommended a couple times by @thydungeongal and after reading a bit of it I have to agree with her assessment that this is the game that most D&D players seem to ACTUALLY want to play when they start invoking Rule 0 and the Rule of Cool and playing fast and loose with mechanics. It's a game where the explicit design intention seems to be natively supporting the style of gameplay that most popular D&D Actual Play shows feature, without any of the negatives of trying to fit 5e's square peg into that particular round hole. It's also available for free, which is pretty nice.

I would also recommend Brighthammer: Rules Light High Fantasy (which is a hack of Sledgehammer: Rules Light Dark Fantasy)

It's a simple system with a d100 resolution mechanic which fits into two eight-page mini-zines, one for the players and one for the GM.

It leans into the heroic fantasy angle specifically by letting players continually accumulate advantage to rolls during combat encounters by performing heroic actions, such as defending an ally or an innocent bystander. This one is also free and it's a pretty quick read so you don't lose anything by checking it out.

Next up is The Basic Hack

This one is a slightly streamlined version of The Black Hack, which itself is a massively streamlined version of early editions of D&D. Just like The Black Hack, it uses D&D's classic six-attribute array and a lot of other mechanical elements that make it pretty easily compatible with a lot of D&D materials while still being a very distinct system of its own, but where it differs from TBH is that it simplifies a lot of its mechanics and overall has a less gritty and more heroic tone.

Lastly there is Break!!, which is the only game in this list that is going to cost you any non-zero amount of money

Break!! has some old-school sensibilities here and there (seems to take some inspiration specifically from games like Cairn and ITO) but aesthetically and tonally it takes most of its cues from fantasy anime and JRPGs. It has a pretty cool-looking setting, and some interesting twists on classic fantasy TTRPG races and classes. You get everything from "basically a D&D fighter with a different name" to "paladin meets magical girl" to "literally an isekai protagonist". Anyway one way in which it leans into making the players feel pwoerful and badass is that its initiative system rewards being proactive in fights: whatever side starts the fight gets to act first, with no checks or rolls required. Also, it handles health depletion on a per-encounter basis. Health regenerates fully imbetween fights, essentially ensures that players always start fights at full strength and gets rid of long-term resource depletion. Which, you know, i like long-term resource depletion for my games, but if what you want to do is feel like badass heroes this is definitely the way to go, and it still has some interesting long-term consequences for running out of health in a fight.

[bigclownshoes]

This!! Not to mention for those that aren't included in the (highly restrictive) physical limitations of MC and lose the immersion purely because they're not a petite, slim and delicate model, it's sort of the reason why the game has more intimate yet general stuff like dates! Stuff like Tender Moments, Secret Times and the other side stories allow you to insert yourself and experience that intimacy of having the character actually speak to you because it's really general! It doesn't really specify on physical characteristics! It's why I don't see myself as MC in the main stories at all even though I'm of fairly similar build and are east asian (and also the really stupid decision making lol sorry), but can really immerse myself into the side stories more. All this to say, let people enjoy the game how they want using the fairly diverse mechanics the game offers us!

Guys I may be mentally insane but ... Why do I low-key feel jealous of MC when I see clips of the upcoming cards... Especially the Sylus one..

IK SHE'S MEANT TO BE US BUT 😭😭

[simplysebby]

I got an ask saying "If narcissism isn't the 'bad person' disorder you're saying it isn't, then what is it?" and while I won't post the actual ask because they were rude and had a lot of underlying bigotry in their message, I did want to make a post.

What NPD looks like (for me, Tumblr user SimplySebby. I don't speak for all pwNPD).

1). I hate admitting when I do something wrong. I feel like I always need to be right. If someone confronts me for doing something wrong, my gut reaction is "No I didn't, you just don't understand." I'll sit alone and work my way through my thoughts until I find a way to rationalize my behavior as "good." I feel the need to be a beacon of moral purity. I must always have the "correct" opinions.

2). I hate myself. I see myself as a "bad person" even though logically I know that no such things exists. Nothing I do is ever good enough, no grade high enough, no achievement grand enough. I need to do better even when better isn't possible. And when I "fail," I fall apart and feel suicidal and depressed, like I'm worthless. Oftentimes I turn to self harm.

3). Similar to #1, but I have trouble apologizing. Saying the words "I'm sorry" can feel like "losing" or giving up at times. I always feel the need to "win" an argument even when I know I'm wrong.

4). I feel like I'm better than other people at times, but also worse. At the same time. It makes no sense but it still feels that way. Like on a scale of "amazing, beautiful, flawless person" to "worthless scum not worth the dirt on my shoes" I am on every point of that scale all at once.

5). I'm quick tempered. If I'm stressed or working through a problem and someone tries to offer advice or talks to me, I blow up at them and treat them like they're in the way. Oftentimes after doing this I feel guilty because I recognize I'm in the wrong, but I still have trouble apologizing because once I apologize I feel like the worst person ever. I did something I regret, which means I am not perfect, which means I am a horrible person who is incapable of redemption and I'm better off dead. It doesn't matter how small the issue is, either. Got told off for cussing in a place I shouldn't have cursed? Spiral to the point I end up sitting in my room alone sobbing and hurting myself. 100x worse when an "authority" figure is the one telling me off.

6). If someone doesn't like me, I panic and feel like shit. Sometimes I'll try and rationalize why they suck and they're wrong. It doesn't matter how small the dislike is. If somebody I don't know or don't have an opinion on or somebody I like so much as criticizes me, I fall apart. Sometimes I hate them for no other reason than they mildly dislike me.

7). I know all these thoughts aren't rational and don't make sense, that I'm being "over dramatic" and "blowing things out of proportion." I hate that I do these things and experience emotions like I do, but its not something I can control completely. I can try and wrangle it in using coping mechanisms like going to my room to calm down or counting, but it never fully disappears.

8). I have trouble empathizing with people. I have some empathy, but only in certain situations and its very selective. When someone I care about is upset, I want to make them less upset but I have trouble doing that. Sometimes people will vent to me and my gut response will be "I don't care. Please talk about something else."

9). If I don't like someone, I make it known. I won't put on the pretense of liking them. I've had people ask me to my face if I considered them a friend and have said "No, I don't like you" instead of phrasing it politely. I don't feel bad about this.

10). I'm very competitive. I hate losing and when I do lose my gut reaction is to find an excuse. Die in a game? Lag. Get hit in a game of dodgeball during PE? It didn't actually hit me, you just saw wrong. If I can't find an excuse, sometimes I just turn to cussing them out.

11). I'm argumentative. I'll scour comment sections looking for people saying bigoted stuff so I can tell them they're a bigot or tell them to stub their toe or tell them they suck or try and educate them or whatever the fuck else. It makes me feel better as a person. When I know/think I'm in the right and express my opinions, it makes me feel less like a horrible person. I always take things too far. Mild disagreement? I turn it into a full-blown argument. Fandom drama? I make a rant post about how these other people are wrong.

12). Some days, I don't feel real. I feel like I'm outside my own body, as if I was a reader reading a 3rd person book. I feel like my actions aren't my own. As if I'm a puppet getting paraded around by an unknown force. Like my body is outside my control.

13). When I'm upset or in a bad mood, I get violent thoughts. If I'm stressed or overstimulated (from my AuDHD or otherwise) and someone bumps into me, I spend the next three hours imagining myself strangling them or slamming their head into the wall.

14). I overshare and I like talking about myself. Teeheehee!! That's what I'm doing now!!

15). I lie. A lot. If I see a post and go, "it'd be funny if somebody replied with XYZ" I sometimes post that reply even if it isn't true. If somebody doesn't like me, I might make something up to make them like me more. If I'm arguing with someone and trying to make a point, I might bend the truth around to make my argument more convincing. 99% of my lies are little and don't really matter. Sometimes I start believing my own lies. A lot of times I don't realize I'm doing this until after the fact.

16). I'm scared! All the time! What if that person doesn't like me? What if that person saw me trip and now thinks I'm being "weird" for attention? What if people sees me make posts like this and posts me to r/FDC? What if I'm wrong about something and people think I'm doing things in bad faith? What if what if what if? Its exhausting. I'm tired.

I'm sorry I'm like this. I don't want to be like this. I want to change. I don't mean to hurt people. I promise I hate myself more than you hate me. Please cut me some slack when I display symptoms of the disorder I have publicly stated I have time and time again.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

This is a non-exhaustive list. This took me ages to write and I'm gonna go do something else now - though if I think of something else I might come add more.

I'll end this with what I am not: I am not lying, manipulating, and deceiving everyone I meet at every moment of the day. I am not doing the things I listed in this post every available moment (I do not lie every chance I have to lie, I do not escalate every single argument to full blown screaming matches, etc). I am not a monster in human skin. I am not trying to hurt people. I am not "unaware of the effects I have on others." I am not "out to get" anyone. I am not "just an asshole." I am not a lost cause not worth helping, I'm just a guy who's dad is really shitty and who's brain went and had a maladaptive response.

That is all.

[1moreff-creator]

I thought your speculation on potential survivors for DRDT was fun, so…thoughts on who will make it out of P:EG?

Hey there! Glad to hear you liked my predictions for Despair Time! I had fun writing that one, so I'm down for a redo for Eden's Garden!

Spoilers for all canon Danganronpa games and P:EG CH1

Preamble

Yeah, I need to do this. See, given how little EG content we have so far, a lot of my arguments for survivors use canon DR as examples of things that may happen in the future. However, the production team has said that they're going to stay away from DR tropes like the double victim in CH3. With that in mind, does it really make sense to use canon DR for reference? Well, it depends.

In my eyes, there's a difference between a "DR trope” and a "trope DR happens to use.” What I mean by the latter is a trope which exists as a result of fundamental storytelling principles, or in other words, something that happens in all DR games just because there's good reasons for it to happen in all the games. And because of that, it's entirely possible in my eyes that said "something” happens in EG too. 

For example, take the statement "the sillier characters like Ibuki, Hifumi and Gonta don't make it to CH5.” It's true of all DR games, so is EG going to stay away from it just because of that? Well, not necessarily, because there's a legitimate reason this happens. If you reframe it as "the sillier characters don't make it to Act III", you can see how it's probably a good idea to follow it. The end of any story with the level of tragedy of a killing game is usually pretty serious, so it's natural that you'd want the more serious characters to take the spotlight. And an easy way to make that happen is by killing the sillier characters before you reach the final stretch. Because there's an underlying narrative reason to follow this trope, I think it's fair to use it to argue, for example, that Jett or Cassidy might not be the best survivor guesses.

On the other hand, a "DR trope” is something that happens in all the canon games Just Because. For example, there's no underlying narrative reason for the CH3 killer specifically to have a breakdown at the end of the trial which completely redefines their character, and yet, it's something that happens in all DR games. This is the kind of thing that I don't think is a good way of predicting what may happen in a fangan; if there's no underlying storytelling principle that causes a trope to exist, there's no reason to believe it will happen in all fangans just because it happened in canon. 

The separation between "DR trope” and "trope DR uses” is very thin and extremely subjective, so if you disagree with the things I consider one or the other, that's fine. I just wanted to make this preamble to say that if I ever bring up canon DR in this post, it's only to illustrate a point about standard storytelling conventions using stories we're all familiar with, and not because I think fangans have to stick to the things DR does 1:1. 

---

With that out of the way, let's first establish how many survivors we're even picking. After all, any number of things, such as multi-murders, number of trials, suicides, etc., can really affect the number of survivors. I have no way of knowing, but since the creators have stated they're not doing a third trial double murder, I'm going to pick an optimistic estimate of six survivors. That's two deaths per standard trial, with five standard trials + Prologue Trial + Deathless Final Trial. If the final survivor count is lower, oh well, and if it's higher, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Let's start with the easy one: I think Damon's surviving. Protag privilege, and all. Sure, being the protag doesn't guarantee survival, but with how much room for growth this particular MC has, I'd be really shocked if he doesn't make it to the end. Hell, even the Pathos/Logos path split mechanic is entirely centered around the fact that the protagonist is the Ultimate Debater, since it's a reference to the rhetorical triangle. If the protag switched, the existence of that mechanic would suddenly make a lot less sense.

Alright, so we got one. I have no other good guesses :v I'm not kidding, I genuinely have no clue what to do with half the people in this fangan. But I have to predict a few people, so…

The only other character who, by themselves, gives me some amount of survivor vibes, is Toshiko. Quite literally a lot of room for growth, given how much of a child she is, there are many arcs she could go on that would make her a compelling survivor. Of course, that can technically be said about all the characters, but y'know. 

She's also decently connected to a good amount of the game's main themes (or, what I think are the main themes based on the little we have of the story). Particularly, she embodies both sides of the theme of "modernity/tradition" (seen for example in Ingrid's intro); her general attitude is that of a very traditional person, but she herself is the youngest in the cast, so in a sense she represents the "future".

Please ignore for this analysis that she's only three years younger than the next youngest of the cast, which is really not that big of an age gap :v

Speaking of her age, being an Ultimate at 14 would certainly give her an unique perspective on the topic of "talent", which is definitely looking like the theme of the game. Though the counter-argument here is that everyone and their mother has some kind of connection to talent, so.

Having her in the final trial also has a small benefit in that she can be a "Truth Bullet Target.” Basically, when you're making a dangan style game, you need to create reasons for minigames to exist. So unless there's a bunch of agree points in a given trial, you kinda need people to get things wrong pretty often for Nonstop debates to exist. Thing is, if your surviving cast is competent enough, you might struggle to believably make them get things wrong enough for the player to shoot truth bullets at. Thus, a talkative character with a tendency to get things wrong is a pretty useful thing to have around, to create weak points in Nonstops if nothing else. I don't remember the canon dangans very well, but from what I recall, Hiro and (to a lesser extent) Aoi in THH, as well as Himiko in V3, are good examples of what I mean. 

The EG gang is pretty smart all around, but Toshiko stands out as someone who can get a lot wrong on command. She pushes Diana as the culprit in Trial 1 when she's being accused, then switches to defending Eva when suspicion shifts to her. I can see a world where, if the rest of the surviving cast is made up of relatively competent characters, half or so of all Nonstops in the final trial end with you shooting down one of Toshiko's statements. 

To be clear, the whole “Truth Bullet Target” thing is just a possibility, and I don't think it's the best way to argue for Toshiko's survival. I'd more go for the things I said before as real arguments, but I did want to include that as well because why not. 

Finally, I should probably bring up the matter of masterminds. I currently don't believe Eden's Garden has an in-cast mastermind the way V3 had, as I don't think we've ever been given a reason to believe anything of the sort. However, if someone is involved in the killing game in some deeper way (be it by masterminding it or doing some kind of traitor-y work), then my bet's on Toshiko.

If you've been around the EG theorizing scene, you've probably heard the reasoning. Toshiko's the only character apart from Eva not to talk in the train scene, which is especially odd with how talkative Toshiko usually is. She also sits in the back of the train, near where the bag with the sleeping gas thing is found. Since she always covers her mouth, it's entirely possible she was wearing a gas mask during that scene, later removing it before everyone else woke up. The only other person who could have such a mask was Jett, but we actually see him fall unconscious, unlike with Toshiko. The girl also gets nervous when the topic of the other people in the train gets brought up during the Prologue: 

Grace [Prologue]: I passed a bunch of students on my way to the crapper. I didn't talk to them, though. Eva: They have to have heard the commotion in our car. Why didn't they help us?  Damon: Maybe they were also knocked out?

Toshiko [Nervous]: I-I doubt it's something we can answer right now. Can I just introduce you to the others already? 

Not to mention that she acts weirdly even after everyone wakes up. She runs away from the courtyard, locking most of the cast near the tree with a lock that Damon makes a point to say he didn't even realize was there at first.

Damon [Prologue, thoughts]: [Toshiko] turned to face the door, but instead of pushing it open…  …she reached for a lock I hadn't even noticed before.

This is especially notable because Toshiko's actions here are the sole reason everyone stays near the tree while the organizers set up the prologue's faux murder scene. If she hadn't ran into the building and locked the door, the people who woke up outside said building would have probably gone in to explore before Damon's group got out of it. I don't know why the hell the killing game organizers didn't just make everyone wake up near the tree with the door locked in the first place (assuming this isn't a "the Matchmaker wanted the Damon-Eva and Wolfgang-Grace pairs to wake up together and alone" situation), but it's undeniable that Toshiko's little stunt was quite convenient for them. Pretty notable when said stunt is a very strange thing to do, unless you're specifically trying to get everyone away from the building where Cara's dummy has to be set up.

Thing is, though, Toshiko seems to be genuinely perturbed by the killing game. I don't think she actually wanted anyone to die, so I think it's more likely she was tricked/coerced by the real mastermind(s), and thus would probably go on something akin to a redemption arc after this whole thing gets revealed. Since such an arc would require her to still be alive for a while after what seems like a pretty late game revelation, then I find it likely that she would survive if she really did have a hand in setting up the killing game.

Now we're done with Toshiko, so it's time to address something you probably noted as weird while I was talking about her. I said Toshiko gave me the most survivor vibes "by herself.” That's because all the arguments I've given for Toshiko's survival work in isolation from the rest of the cast. However, other characters give me some amount of survivor vibes when we take into account the dynamics currently present in the group.

See, it's common in this type of narrative where a bunch of people die (not just dangan) for characters to "pair up” in small groups, and for these groups to end up having either one or two characters who make it late game, or even some who survive. And I'm not just bringing it up because it could happen; it has happened. Wolfgang-Grace, Ulysses-Wenona, Desmond-Eloise, Mark-Jett, Ingrid-Toshiko, etc.

It happens because it's an easy way to make a death feel meaningful; even if most of the cast can't possibly get deeply attached to every single person who dies, if there's at least one or two people the person who dies is constantly is interacting with, then the reactions of these people can help carry the emotional impact of the tragedy. Now, these pairs don't always have a survivor, but it's relatively common. For dangan, think Aoi-Sakura, Makoto-Sayaka, Fuyuhiko-Peko, Hajime-Chiaki, Sonia-Gundham, Akane-Nekomaru, Shuichi-Kaede, Shuichi-Kaito, Maki-Kaito, Himiko-Tenko, Himiko-Angie, and depending on whether you count K1-B0 as a survivor or not, K1-B0-Miu. 

What I've noticed is that the pairings that don't have survivors always have one death relatively early. Think Mondo-Taka, Mahiru-Hiyoko, Kirumi-Korekiyo (though admittedly that one's not a very strong pair). The biggest exception would be Gonta-Kokichi, but that's because Gonta's death is not central to Kokichi's character arc, even if it is an important point in it. There is an underlying reason this happens; if a character's arc is kickstarted by the death of their "pair", and their pair dies early, the character has enough time to complete their arc and then die… you know, unless your name is Hiyoko. I'm still salty over 2-3. 

Which gets us to the first pair to discuss: Ulysses-Wenona. The girl with a great sense of smell, and the boy who can't smell. Truly, they complement each other. Both of these characters have a good argument for a late game run, and the pair itself is one that would probably need quite a bit of time to cook before either character can be genuinely impacted by the death of the other. And if both of them make it pretty far, then by the time one of them dies, it might make sense to let the other survive. The question is, then, who's gonna outlive who?

You might think Ulysses has the worst chance, given his potential "victim gimmicks.” Basically, his notebook and his lack of sense of smell could be used as evidence in a trial where he's the victim. Plus, you could argue Wenona's character has more to gain by having someone close to her die. And indeed, these reasons (and a few others) are why I think that if neither of them survive, then Wenona will likely outlive Ulysses.

However, if one of the two survive, I actually think it's more likely for it to be Ulysses. His notebook can be useful in other ways, and his sense of smell is a Checkov's gun that can be fired without killing the guy. For example, he might walk past someone's corpse without noticing, complicating a trial because he couldn't smell the blood and rot. Bonus points if he walks past Wenona's corpse specifically.

On the other hand, while Wenona seems like a good source of conflict and drama (her imitation piece calls her "a foe” for a reason), it might be strange to have her die too far from her thematic rival Cassidy. It can be hard (though not impossible!) to properly function as a character when your primary foil is out of the story, after all. And since I doubt Cassidy can make that late of a run, Wenona might be kinda cooked. 

Finally, Ulysses has standalone survivor arguments as well, and I find them stronger than Wenona's. Although both work with the theme of "talent" and "modernity/tradition", Ulysses has more connections with the third main theme I've noticed, which for lack of a better term I'm calling "historical repetition.” Basically, "history repeats", as claimed by the first EG trailer. It's a bit too long to really get into now, but trust me that it comes up quite a bit, such as in the second Tozu Theater. And obviously the Historian would know a thing or two about historical repetition, so he would work great as a final trial participant, and thus survivor.

Oh, uh, fair warning, the quality of the guesses is about to jump off a cliff. I have less of a read on the remaining characters than the ones I've already talked about :v

Next pair to look at is Jett and Mark! Jett's dying. So. Mark!Survivor it is! Listen, I'm running out of genuinely compelling arguments and I'm interested in getting this post out sometime this century, so I gotta cut a few corners. 

(Full explanation: I don't see Jett as a survivor in the slightest, but it's clear his death would have some sort of impact on Mark's character, and the arc Mark would go through, regardless of what it looks like, would probably take too long for him not to survive after completing it imo. I doubt we're gonna get a 1:1 repeat of Himiko-Tenko, but I do think there will probably be some similarities there, given Jett and Mark are already giving me those vibes. Additionally, Mark's crocodile motif is one of the only ones where the connection between the animal and the character isn't immediately obvious, so it presumably runs pretty deep and would require quite a bit of setup to work. That implies a late run, increasing Mark's overall chances imo)

Then, I wanna look at Desmond-Eloise. In a vacuum, I could easily see arguments for both of them to survive. Desmond clearly has some kind of trust issues to work through (assuming that his secret saying "he protects the only one he trusts” means he's protecting himself and doesn't trust anyone else, which I think is the implication), while Eloise has a few things going on, such as the Entirety of her FTEs. Both of them could make for interesting killers too, however.

Since I don't have any better way to go about this, I'm gonna have to rely on previous guesses, and invoke gender balance. While it's not necessary, I find it likely that the team behind EG will aim for a cast with a more or less equal number of girls and boys. I've already locked in Damon, Toshiko, Ulysses and Mark, which is three boys and one girl with two slots remaining, so... I guess that means Eloise is gonna be joining her fellow bird girl in my guesses! 

Following that line of logic, we're looking for a final girl to close out the prediction. A lot of you are probably expecting me to say Diana here, and I probably would, if I didn’t think she's gonna get killed by Kai in CH2. 

Okay, I'm not that confident on that one, but I do have my reasons for saying that. I already brought it up once, but one of the lines in Diana's second FTE makes me think she's not making it past CH2. It's this one:

Damon [Diana's 2nd FTE]: You'll see who your real friends are when you're face to face with a killer.

That line kinda implies Diana's never been face to face with a killer, which becomes obviously untrue as soon as CH1 ends, as she was face to face with Eva when she got sentenced to death for murder (they were roomates even!). Thus, this line only works in the context of CH1, possibly implying Diana won't have any more FTE opportunities, and thus would probably die in CH2.

There are ways around this, mind you. You could do what SDR2 did with Nagito, and lock Diana's FTEs in later chapters unless the player's already done two in CH1. That way you can lock Diana's 2nd FTE to CH1, where it works. Additionally, since this line isn't referenced in the report card, you could potentially change her FTE a little bit in later chapters, so that the main idea of the FTE and the things in the report card remain the same, but without the weird line in the way. You could also just, like, ignore it. Unideal, but it would work.

However, even with those possibilities, Diana having a gigantic role in the CH1 trial and already undergoing a character arc isn't exactly a great indicator of her survivability. Given who the CH1 deaths were, I think it's safe to say EG will try to give all the characters their own moments to shine, which might make the story too crowded to have a character like Diana constantly active in it. In other words, it's very possible Diana already had her 15 minutes in the spotlight, and is soon to give way to other characters, potentially as early as CH2. 

Why killed by Kai, then? Because of the "surviving cast” image thing. 

Now, this thing could change however the hell the developers want it to change, but for now, the only difference between the Prologue and CH1 versions of this image is that Eva and Wolfgang disappeared. Assuming the same can be said for the rest of the chapters, where characters only disappear and don't change pose otherwise, this image has to be made with the death order in mind to make sure it never looks ultra silly. For example, it'd be odd (though not impossible!) for Ingrid to outlive Toshiko, because then she'd be leaning over nothing (unless you argue she'd end up looking at Damon? Doubtful). However, if Ingrid disappears, then Toshiko would be staring at the sky in a pose very similar to one of her sprites, so it's perfectly possible for Toshiko to outlive Ingrid imo. This isn't super reliable and what exactly “looks silly” is extremely subjective, which is why I didn't bring it up before. 

Anyways, Kai. If Kai disappears, then Diana would be staring at Damon, which works. But if Diana disappears, then Kai would appear to be talking to Eloise… while being fifteen miles away from her. In my opinion, it's gonna look silly unless you move Kai closer to Eloise, but we've established the only changes might be characters disappearing. Because of that, we can speculate that Kai might not outlive Diana. And since I think she's dying in CH2, in CH2 he might go. Technically either he or Diana could be the killer with this reasoning, but I trust my girl Diana more than I trust Kai, so. 

I want to reiterate, after saying all that, that this reasoning is extremely weak and will most likely be proven wrong. I've already given ways to avoid the FTE line problem, which is the only genuinely solid reason to believe Diana won't make it far. I'm just doing what I can man. 

Back to the topic at hand, final girl. I have to pick between Cassidy, Ingrid, and Grace. 

Uh. I don't think any of them are gonna live. Am I allowed to reduce the number of survivors I'm guessing? No? I have to pick one? Alright, uh...

… Grace. Sure. We can go with that. Cassidy's my second answer. No actual logic's being used here, vibes only. I don't care if it contradicts stuff I said before on this post or others, that's how I'm feeling right now.

Anyways, that's the final answer. Damon, Toshiko, Ulysses, Mark, Eloise, Grace. To be absolutely clear, the first three are the only ones I would call actual predictions, the other three are near complete guesses. It's very possible all of these people die, I have no idea what I'm doing. 

Finally, I did want to offer an alternative guess based on a pretty unhinged theory, because I kinda like the idea. This is gonna sound like a non-sequitur, but you know the modes of persuasion? Those things the whole "Pathos Route” mechanic is founded on? Many believe these things will have a large role in the theming of the story, since they're a pretty important concept for rhetoric and our protag is the Ultimate Debater. 

The reason I'm bringing up these things is that you could theorize that the survivors will be chosen in a way that connects to the modes of persuasion. You could have a survivor each for logos (appeal to logic), pathos (appeal to emotion), ethos (appeal to authority), and the secret fourth mode of persuasion, kairos* (appeal to context). Adding in Damon, who as the Ultimate Debater would represent all these things in conjunction, you got yourself five survivors, which is the average amount (keep in mind six was the optimistic assumption). Let's be clear, this is an insane leap in logic and most likely horribly wrong, but I found it fun to think about so I'm sharing it.

(*Kairos is a strange case. See, the other three things are the Aristotelian triad of appeals, so they're more universally recognized as central to rhetoric, being known as the points of the rhetorical triangle. However, more modern takes on rhetoric include the context (Kairos) in what's known as the rhetorical tetrahedron. It shows up in the Wikipedia page of the modes of persuasion so I'm including it too :v

The idea of kairos is that the same statements can be more or less persuasive depending on the context in which it's said, including the historical moment, the audience it's said to, etc. For example, if I described something as "rad” to persuade you to buy it (which by itself is a pathos statement), it would be more persuasive if I said it in the 90s as opposed to now. I think. I wasn't alive in the 90s what were y’all doing)

You can probably guess that I only started thinking about this after I realized that my three actual predictions kinda fit this idea. I already said Damon would be included to represent the tetrahedron itself, but Toshiko and Ulysses are shoe-ins for pathos and kairos respectively. Toshiko is obviously themed around emotions, being the Ultimate Matchmaker and all that, while the Ultimate Historian would obviously be a great representation of the persuasive mode that relies, among other things, on historical context. I could also see Ulysses as logos or ethos in a pinch, but no one else can fit kairos quite as well as him.

Though, admittedly, putting Ulysses as kairos has the slight issue that, now that Wolfgang and Eva are dead, we've kinda run out of logic users. Which is very funny. 

I could see the Desmond logos - Wenona ethos argument (Wenona chosen to conserve gender balance), but personally, I think Eloise as logos is more compelling. I'm mainly basing that on a few of her lines during the trial, but primarily this thing she says in her intro:

Eloise [Prologue]: Acting brash may get you the first move, but it's a steady, analytical mind that secures the win.

Yeah sure. The reason one would have to put Eloise down as logos is that now genders are balanced and you can pick anyone for ethos. Wenona still works, but I don't think the duo with Ulysses would last to the end. No, if this thing about the rhetorical tetrahedron is true (which again, is an insane leap in logic and likely wrong), I'd say that Jean might have a chance. What better representation of ethos than a captain, after all? Again ignore what I may or may not have said on other posts I wasn't thinking too hard about this at that point :v

Thus, the “rhetorical tetrahedron survivor cast” I'll go with is Damon, Eloise (logos), Toshiko (pathos), Jean (ethos), and Ulysses (kairos). I'd say that looks decent! No idea how we get down to five survivors instead of six, but y'know. 

In any case, thanks for the ask! This was pretty fun to think about, even if my prediction/guesses probably sound insane. See ya'!

[theghostavocadoe]

The Remnants have a Nerf War. I feel like who wins is a foregone conclusion so instead I will ask if any of them get the idea to cut off the tips of the darts and put thumbtacks inside

In any normal situation, which is almost never for the remnants, Yazoo would've won because come on. Of course the gun man would win at gun game.

Kadaj gets the idea of shooting thumb tacks first. the night before their declared nerf war, he hordes nerf darts and spends the entire night cutting them off and gluing thumb tacks.

is it stupid? yes. is it dangerous? absolutely. but he's going to do it anyway because he has the grudge of a thousand suns against Yazoo winning for the past 10 nerf wars.

After the scandal, the three decide that rules don't exist. The weeks pass and they start finding more and more absurd things to fire out of their little nerf guns, should the mechanisms allow it. Hollowed out pencils and pretzel sticks are some of the funniest contenders.

In the end, it gets so out of hand that Yazoo ends up switching to his REAL gun. that's when they know to call it quits for the war and return to normal nerf darts.

[wolfofcelestia]

oh, i didn’t really think about that. but yeah judging by what we know from the main story, sylus seems well liked by people who know him.

the mechanic he takes MC to talks about how sylus is often scapegoated, and implies sylus is a much kinder man than the impression he gives

the fact that the defected branch of onichynus created unnecessary casualties and bombed civilian areas show that some of the criminals within the organisation didn’t agree with sylus’s management style, which suggests they just didn’t like how he sort of played by a code of honour and wasn’t actually greedy for more power. like they think he’s not doing enough to “dominate” the city.

sylus’s biggest asset is mephisto—who he uses to watch over the N109 zone like a protector. he’s just sort of in the shadows watching over everyone, making sure things are going smoothly while keeping an eye on the EVER group

which reminds me, i think he watches over MC for the same reason. like ofc that’s his soulmate he’s been searching for through space and time but i think he also does it because MC’s life truly is at risk and he keeps tabs to make sure she isn’t exploited or taken as a test subject like tobias was.

we’ve only ever seen sylus kill corrupt people. so he clearly is an antihero with a moral code. he killed the EVER guy to send a message because these people are literally enslaving and abducting innocent people (including the almost extinct lemurians) and doing experiments on them to prolong their lifespans. sylus has seen firsthand what happened to the twins and i’m sure he’s seen even worse. the other guy he kills was a defected member of onichynus who was double-crossing him and was using the onichynus name to bomb civilian areas. i don’t think he killed the man because of betrayal, but rather because he was a threat to innocent lives and was absolutely shameless about it. like you said, he’s not a cop so he takes justice into his own hands. very antihero behaviour.

sylus also repeatedly has said he doesn’t like picking on the weak. in his anecdote he frees the captive beasts and returns the treasures back to their rightful owners after killing a tyrannical overlord.

you’re definitely right. he’s not only distrusting of the law, he’s been burnt by the law system. he’s been treated unfairly and he knows the real criminals are the people in power (like the story he mentioned in Lost Oasis of the seven gods that were beheaded for being capricious and exploiting their followers). every aspect of his story is so heavily connected to corruption in power, greed, and exploitation of the weak by individuals and organisations who want to “play god”. and he’s at odds with such people because these people are the kind who wiped out his entire species in a genocide, trapped him in an abyss for centuries, are directly related to the EVER group who successfully managed to prolong human life and move to philos, etc etc.

i’d love more anecdotes on sylus and his life and yes! more companions. i’m almost entirely sure that he was imprisoned in the space-time prison for going against some corrupt person in power, or he was scapegoated.

Yeah, we don't actually know the reason why he was in that top security prison huh? I wouldn't be surprised if it was Ever behind it all, either using him as a scapegoat or sentencing him harsher than normal. Even in one of the first glimpses we saw of Sylus, when he deliberately walked past the flower struggling to grow in an unnatural environment, it was clear that he isn't one to hurt or destroy anyone/anything that didn't warrant it

Even though we have his myth, we still don't know much about him in the present timeline. They really need to step up with giving us his lore before he gets overshadowed by Caleb entering the game

He was definitely keeping tabs on MC to keep her safe. We know a lot of people are after her aether core, but I also like to imagine him letting her do her own thing to see how brazen and strong she can get without him. If she had failed to become a hunter, I feel like he would step in sooner when she began investigating her past. And I feel like he would train her himself so that she could protect herself from people tracking her down and so she could come along to some of his "deals"

[oceaniads]

i finished my first datv playthrough a few hours ago and now i want to share some thoughts about it.

it was... nice. i was fully expecting to be kind of shit because of all the criticism, even if i knew most came from the "anti-sjw" crowd. i don't think i could have loved it because i personally hate the whole "dalish gods actually evil" plot (the elves and my warden mahariel do not deserve this! they suffer enough already!) but it was an okay wrap-up. it was nice to be able to kick solas' ass.

that being said i really missed some things from the past games, especially from inquisition (the mechanics from which i like most of the series), like being able to play past the main questline, having more impactful choices on the world around me, seeing cameos from past games (datv has some, but in inquisition you get alistair! hawke themselves!). also the combat, but that's painfully obvious. datv combat sucks ass. and after inquisition, where you could position characters, play with the tactical camera etc that was a tremendous letdown.

all in all... 8/10? maybe 7.5/10, if i were to be honest with myself. i love dragon age too much for that, though.

and now i'll go back to it and make another rook. bellara, emmrich, harding and davrin, i love you and i will be seeing you again.

ps: i hate how they used the blight so indiscriminately. idk invent your own evil we fought the blight in da:o already.

pps: why is the inquisitor stuck using the shadow dragon's pjs? FREE HER.

[riftwirecrystal]

A follow up: Natlan's diversity.

While yes I do believe Natlan and Genshin overall are lacking in diversity, skin tone, and the portrayal of different cultures, I don't find myself too bothered by anything in particular. (As a former Hawaiian resident, as well as Southeastern Asian-American.) There are some definite oversights and deliberate stereotyping, but as someone who has experienced and seen and been a part of the culture first-hand, it doesn't do half-bad. People of the Springs might be the biggest offender but honestly it's just Genshin Waikiki. I can't really say anything about Waikiki but if you want the feel just... go to the People of the Springs. Yes Hawaiian culture is more than that, much more, but having researched Polynesian cultures while attending school there, I definitely can see a lot more niche references to cultural traditions. Even just the architecture of the area is very reminiscent to polynesian civilizations.

With the skin-tone problem, I'm not really too bothered. Would I prefer more accurate skin-tones? Yes. Are most of the fan-made skin tones equally as inaccurate by making them far darker than they actually should be? Also yes. Natlan tribes aren't based off of a singular culture with way dark skin tone. Scions of the Canopy, People of the Springs, and the Flower Feather Clan should have considerably lighter skin tones than people say from the Children of the Echoes (which still shouldn't be TOO dark.) As of Southeastern descent, even I don't have as dark a skin tone as a lot of people would draw if I gave them the prompt. Actually, Southeastern skin tones are fairly similar to Latin-American skin tones. A lot of the issues I see with redoing their skin tones is when they say they tried to make the skin tone more accurate, and then just make them completely dark without any regards to how the cultures' skin tone is supposed to look.

I honestly really like how the scenery and environment of Natlan is. It's interesting to explore, there's a lot of new mechanics, I can figure out puzzles when I skip the tutorials (unlike Fontaine and Inazuma, the stupid shit puzzles they are,) and it's visually pleasing; but if you compare to Fontaine, you can easily see the stark contrast. Going from a smooth, dark, architecture heavy city to the bright, sharp, and open nature of Natlan, it's sure to cause a big whiplash. But honestly, that's the difference you'll get crossing into every nation. It's just that this time it's a bit more noticeable. You SHOULD be able to see and feel the difference when traveling nations. It makes your immersion more solid. Don't hate because it's different. Take the opportunity and learn what makes it different.

TL;DR - Portrayal is mid (better than most portrayal though) Skin tones could be better (talking about both game and fandom portrayal,) and the environment is pretty neat

Why I believe Natlan's technologies aren't "out-of-place."

Just because Natlan isn't considered "technologically advanced" doesn't mean they would not be able to create or possess technologies that just seem "too modern" for the previously seen nations.

Natlan's technologies may not be considered "advanced" because most of their creations are solely for recreational purposes. Xilonen's DJ board, rollerskates, and Mualani's surfboard are all mainly for ease of use to to influence of their environments. (Kinich is an exception as he isn't really powered by technology nor is Ajaw.)

Even when most of the technologies seem too advanced, like Kachina's drill, and Chasca's gun, they were both originally created to imitate the Saurian counterparts. If all a piece of technology does is just provide ease of access and combine simple regional solutions, its likely not worth too much note to outside nations. which would likely happen with inventors like Xilonen experimenting with phlogiston and forging.

Xilonen is an extremely important factor to note. She has proven herself to be one of the most intelligent inventors in Natlan. Her skill with harnessing Phlogiston energy is crucial to how all these technologies' existence. It makes sense that learning how to create traditional works with Phlogiston would overlap into accidental new discoveries that Xilonen uses to her advantage.

This is further explored in the new Flower-Feather Clan Tribal Chronicles quest chain. Phlogiston Wings are specifically created to supplant and replace their saurians. However, it's not too far off to think that it would be a rather common idea, especially since Elemental Manipulation exists in the world.

Phlogiston and Ochkanatlan relics are the main power sources used in Natlan tech. With an abundance of phlogiston and the (suggested) immense power of the relics, creating their technology isn't that far-fetched. They put their resources and time into the arts, music, and changing traditions more than orderly improvements to the nation, and it shows.

Other nations definitely will beat out Natlan in their technological advancements; the ones that don't beat Natlan have reasons. Mondstadt is a poor anarchist state with no emphasis on any actual governing organization. The nation isn't very wealthy so it makes sense they wouldn't have much innovation and trade occurring within the nation. Liyue harnesses a special material called Plaustrite in the Jade Chamber, which enables it to fly. Inazuma doesn't have an abundance of technology due to the Shogun's rule effectively trying to stop evolution and innovation within the nation, as a pursuit of eternity. However, a number of innovations still happened before the Shogun's rule, like the Tatarasuna accident and the creation of a puppet for Ei. Sumeru and Fontaine is where differences really start to show. All of the desert's tech as well as the Akademiya's research shows what happens if a nation pours their innovation into education, not the arts. The existence of Akasha terminals, dreamscapes, mind control, and digital storage all exist in the game, yet no one seems to call it out. Fontaine isn't much better. Literal androids roam the streets, motorized boats sail around the harbor, and guns are a popular weapon.

Guns are already known throughout Teyvat, just Xilonen imitated their function while adding a custom one from Chasca.

Then there comes the big issue. Mavuika's motorcycle. However this argument is instantly able to be countered. It's said that Xianyun/Cloud Retainer has created a similar vehicle, a powered two wheel vehicle. Mavuika's simply takes the idea (which is probably also not a very hard concept to think up,) and gives it a Natlan remodel. The aesthetics are just a Natlan revamp, with the power source just being Phlogiston. (I can't speak for her bike fighting animations. They just look kinda goofy, but I like them anyways lol.)

All in all, I think people complain too much and you shouldn't nitpick something you don't like simply because you don't like it. (Especially if your argument can be countered.) Even if it is a little off-putting, with a little thinking, mostly everything can be explained or proven possible to exist.

If anyone has any objections to reasonings or information I've missed please tell me!!

[abluehappyface]

Man being sick makes you think about the stuff you "don't care about" just a tiny bit more than usual

[selenityshiroi]

Zelda travelling around Hyrule after the Calamity and people are tripping over themselves to tell her stories about the Hero because they love that feral cryptid mad man and are so proud of him

'I met him when I was about to get eaten by a Hinox...he jumped off a horse, fired 12 arrows in the blink of an eye and then got smacked in the face with a tree...but then he came back and hacked away at it's legs with this stupidly big sword until it finally died'

'He was wearing this weird patched together mask that looked like a monster but he made enough curry for everyone so we didn't like to ask'

'But...the hero was a girl? She wore these lovely green silks and every time she came out of the Gerudo Canyon she had a bag full of electric safflina to sell to Beedle over there. The Gerudo think she's an amazing fighter, which says a lot, and she always thanked me for looking after her horses when she went into the desert'

'I swear to Hylia that he ran through here wearing nothing but his underwear and a mask shaped like a leaf...claimed he was looking for the Children of the Forest. Sorry, Princess, but I'm not sure he was quite right in the head at the time'

'He used to creep in here silently wearing this grey mask and with enough lizards and beetles that we could make enough elixirs to last for a month. Not sure I ever saw his face without it'

And the entire time Link is stood neatly dressed, three steps away, listening to every word and no one pays him the slightest bit of attention. Because none of them cotton on that 'prim and proper Royal Knight' Link and 'I will defeat this Lynel with a stick, a pot lid and a bucket load of adrenaline' Wild Child Hero is the same man. Especially with how many masks he owned.

When they walk away and are out of sight and earshot Zelda just raises her eyebrow with a smile and he is like '...I can explain...it made sense at the time'

[kaasiand]

doing gamedev stuff rn because i think my brain struck gold :3

(you can't tell what the game's hook will be from this just yet and no i'm not telling you yet either. it's gonna be good trust me)

[rampagingpoet]

As someone who was on The Gaming Den a lot around the time of the "Bear World" memes, I can explain that one.

The bear-summoning meme arose from the combination of two criticisms of Apocalypse World: a thought experiment about perception-type checks and the way GM Moves can introduce threats.

On the perception-type checks front, "you found a bear / a bear found you" is a plausible response to literally any roll if you're in an environment bears live in. Succeeded a check? You know where the bear is because you succeeded. Partial success? You found signs that there's a bear in the area. Failure? Well maybe they got separated or dropped something... or maybe they realized they're two feet from a bear cub! That would put them on the spot!

The Principles don't contradict this. You're supposed to make sure the PCs lives aren't boring and respond with fuckery - and "you ran into a bear" is neither implausible nor boring. But on the flipside if they didn't roll anything there would not have been a bear. Sure there might be one in the woods, but it isn't onscreen until the results of a player or MC move put it onscreen.

(This is one of the reasons Apocalypse World doesn't actually have perception checks. Read A Sitch isn't a spot check or a search check, and it doesn't quite work when you try to use it as such).

On establishing threats, the rules of Apocalypse World explicitly state that the MC can make as hard a move as they like on a failed check. Several of the MC moves bring threats onscreen or otherwise establish that they are nearby: Announce Future Badness, Put Someone in a Spot, possibly some Threat Moves for Threats that have already been encountered, etc. And again the Principles explicitly state you're supposed to be looking for opportunities to disrupt the status quo and that you should be making things difficult for your players about two times out of three ("fuck with" rather than "fuck over", but that's a delicate balance).

The MC has license to introduce threats on any failure, and there are very few situations in which a threat appearing would be implausible. And game mechanically the cause and effect is very clear regardless of the fictional justification: someone failed a roll, and then a threat showed up. This isn't a wandering monster check where there are procedures that introduce threats over time regardless of PC actions - the PC taking an action and failing directly causes something bad to happen at an inopportune moment.

Sure you're not going to literally summon a bear every time someone rolls a 5, but maybe tense negotiations get disrupted by a rival gang striking the Hardholder's settlement. Maybe someone really needs their fix and pulls a knife on the Angel while they're with a patient. Maybe you're in enemy territory and failing to jimmy that lock open meant their next patrol caught up to you. The MC probably isn't going to introduce a new threat on literally every failed roll - but it would be within both the rules and the Principles to do so much of the time.

This is really weird from a "trad game" standpoint! In D&D the expectation is that the world (especially in a dungeon) has a definite state with which the players interact. Furthermore there are ways for the players to gain information (or fail to find information) about that world state without affecting it. If a D&D character searches for secret doors, their roll only affects whether or not they find any secret doors present. Any orcs that appear during or shortly after their search are unrelated.

Meanwhile in Apocalypse World, making checks to learn about the world state directly modifies the world state. Successful checks nail down something about the world that was previously nebulous. Failed checks allow the MC to introduce threats that were not previously present. If dice are being rolled, the state of the world is changing.

Combining these thoughts - any failed roll can summon a plausible threat, bears are a plausible threat in the woods - lead to the meme that rolling 6- summons bears.

TL;DR Bears were shorthand for "a plausible Threat". Using bears specifically was from a thought experiment about perception-type checks in Apocalypse World. The central disagreement was a matter of taste about how RPGs ought to model their world state.

I feel like maybe I'm out of the loop on this, and you are one of the most well-versed people I've ever seen when it comes to ttrpgs, so I'm hoping you might be able to enlighten me on this. I've played a good few games in my time, but I've been running into people who seem to have an almost feral hate for any "Powered By the Apocalypse" game. Now I can't say for certain all of them I've played (at least 3), but is there something about the system that just enrages people?

I know that some people dislike PbtA games for reasons that boil down to matters of taste. One of my good friends, the lead writer of @anim-ttrpgs does dislike PbtA games, and in his case it boils down to a number of reasons: he feels the structure of these games is often a bit too restrictive and ends up with characters who are defined largely by their narrative tropes; and another reason he tends to dislike them is that the popularity of the framework has led to a lot of lazy PbtA games that don't really do anything interesting with the framework and are kind of just lazy and bad. That's a surface level read of his points and he's actually written a long post about it, but especially on that latter point I do agree with him: it's nowhere near as bad as the proliferation of lazy D&D 5e hacks, but on the indie RPG side there are a lot of cases where someone feels that a PbtA hack would be perfect for their first TTRPG. The thing is, it's very easy to make a PbtA game, but it's extremely hard to make a good PbtA game. Some of the best games I've seen using the framework are actually quite involved and have lots of interlocking parts, but a lot of the ones I've seen are simply kind of. Meh.

But there's another strain of PbtA haters out there that I know of and this group of people is best characterized as "people with a grudge against certain types of games doing the worst faith reading of those games to find 'flaws' in them." I think the most visceral hatred of PbtA games I've seen was on The Gaming Den, where a bunch of dudes convinced themselves that PbtA games are bad because on a roll of 6- a GM could just make bears happen out of nowhere. So, you know, it was a bunch of guys who did a surface level read of Apocalypse World but never read the MC principles, because if they had they would have realized that "Make a move that follows" is one of the MC principles.

All of which is to say, it's more or less the same that's going on with pretty much any RPG: some people will read a game and give it a shot and decide it's not for them, and often come away with a way to articulate why they disliked it. Other people will go in wanting to find a reason to dislike a thing and do the worst faith reading possible. And a lot of people will simply never read a game and simply accept that the previous group's reading of it is true.

So none of this is to say that none of the people who you've encountered have actually read a PbtA game and played it and actually formulated their opinions through experience. But knowing what nerds can be like it's probably at least some of them.

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.