#I don't play Overwatch or watch critical role I just

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

So was someone gonna tell me that Matt Mercer is in Overwatch or

[goatmoy]

This is actually a good point to bring up. Going back to video games, the mechanic of reloading is simple. Press button to reload. Number of current ammo increase to maximum number of ammo available over a short period of time. On the surface, it's just a smaller number (usually 0) going to a bigger number (usually max amount of ammo) over a set amount of time (The time it takes to fully reload). The game feel is how it goes about it. Overwatch actually has a good example of this with many of their heroes loading animations. Some of simple while other wind up a bit, but the way Roadhog slams junk into his gun or how Mei refills the cryo liquid in her him with the knob twist feels satisfying to watch. Another aspect is the use of opening bottle noises for hit confirmation.

In board games, it's more tactile. One of my favorite examples is the use of different meeples, tokens, and how they feel. Root, the Board Game, has you take control of different factions of woodland critters vying for control of the forest. As an asymmetrical game, care was taken into how to make each faction distinct from each other but still a part of the same game we're playing. The meeples are different colors from each other, but they also come with distinct designs and shape to set each other apart and make them feel like a faction.

TTRPGs are in a tricky spot where a lot of the game feel must be placed on the mechanics, the players, and the game masters. Most, but not all, can be played with paper, writing utensils, the necessary medium to make decisions (dice, cards, tokens, etc.), and at least one person who has access to the rules, be that be a book or pdf (or making them up as they go).

This is also why gaming with friends is much better than gaming with strangers. Your friends are usually a huge part of the game feel of all TTRPGs. But that's all user side game feel. Mechanically, games have to do SOMETHING to contribute to the conversation. Game feel from a game come in the forms that makes the game appealing. That can come in a number of ways. That can come from using different systems, an engaging setting, the amount of lore about the setting, an interesting mechanic, tools provided to aid in play, how rigid or flexible the concepts can be, the aesthetics of the game, and the negative space (or the things that are not there but are implied, such as open ended lore bits, empty spaces between sheets, etc.)

A game can fall flat if you don't feel like you are a part of the story. This could be no fault of the game itself, as half of it is still cooperative story telling with the people you play with, but having a game that has a strong identity makes a world of difference when you are playing with friends. This is the part where I gush about my favorite TTRPG Shadowrun

In Shadowrun, it comes in STRONG with how much character this game has. It's a Fantasy Cyberpunk Table-Top Role Playing Game that comes in swinging. This game has lore like no tomorrow, a bright setting of chrome and mana, bleeds true to the cyberpunk aesthetic, and is very convoluted in it's mechanics. Are the rules any good? Honestly, not really. But that doesn't matter! This game charming in the fact that it OWNS the fact that it is Shadowrun. The flexible character creation allows you to make it extremely personal to you and make something really crazy. The clicky-clacky of throwing many d6s and seeing how many turn up as successes is much better (to me) than rolling a d20 and adding mods to see if you meet or beat a number or that nothing happens. The satisfying feeling of seeing a would be failure to a great success by spending a point of edge to reroll failed dice and coming up successful! That moment of stress when you roll your dice only to get a critical glitch! (Getting no successs AND getting more than half of your dice as 1s.) This is what makes Shadowrun more appealing (to me) then D&D ever could. No rigid classes, no target number system, and no Eurocentric Medieval Times setting that always left me slightly hollow since I can't really relate. (Especially when a lot of them exclude fantasy Italy or fantasy Spain)

So yeah. Game feel in all mediums that utilize some sort of user experience, whether that be pushing a button and getting a rewarding reaction from a game or rolling an ungodly amount of dice, is a very niche and personal experience. This can vary from player to player, but I sometimes find it most noticeable when it's missing. Some games click really hard without people taking notice, but when it's not there, people really start to notice that it's not there. Good game feel blends in. Bad game feel sticks out. That's why it's easier to explain why a game is bad, but it also explains why it's hard to say when something that isn't noticed feels good. I hope you can take away something from my ramblings. I also like the concept of Game Feel in TTRPGs. Maybe I could list more examples... Outside of Shadowrun. I can go on for hours about more things about Shadowrun feel.

For starters

I love talking about Game Feel in ttrpgs because

what even is Game Feel in ttrpgs.

Like, in video games game feel is a thing and you can point to specific elements of the animation, or feedback, or musical cues, etc etc.

But it is much more, amorphous, in ttrpgs because every table is going to be different. I can point to a mechanic and say it doesn't have enough chew or texture or that Game Feel is off, and just kind of shrug wildly when trying to pinpoint why lol.

Regardless, I think you gotta think about Game Feel in your games lmaoo.

[ouchmaster6000]

Do you mean the fanbase is "weird and cringe" or "toxic and hateful"

Because if it's the former I kinda agree. I hate the idea of "cringe culture" and think people should be able to be able to enjoy what they want. But to be frank, the female South Park fanbase (because let's face it, that's who most of the shippers are) has got to be the most BIZZARRE and baffling fanbase I have ever seen. Been watching South Park for years now, and how no idea how you could end up watching this satire focused on dark humor, about a group of foul-mouthed elementary schoolers trying to navigate a world run by some of the shittiest and stupidest adults in animation and come out thinking "what if this was a romance between bishie gay anime boys?" (The ZaDR shippers in the Invader Zim weird me out for similar reasons)

But that having been said ... I feel like they are far from the most toxic or hateful fanbases I've seen.

Like, maybe I just haven't been playing close attention, but I don't think I've ever seen the South Park fandom harass their creators like the fandoms of Steven Universe, My Hero Academia, Voltron, Tokyo Ghoul or Supernatural. The Harry Potter, Critical Role and Overwatch fandoms also always came across as EXTREMELY toxic compared to a lot of other fandoms including South Park.

Like funnily enough, it always seemed to me that the more wholesome shows (or at least shows about more traditionally heroic or "moral" characters - wouldn't really call Supernatural wholesome) tend to get some of the most toxic, entitled and argumentative fans out there.

Whereas, the schezuan sauce incident aside, most shows that are more edgy, offensive or "problematic" in content (always sunny, adult swim type shows, big tiddy anime) or with more antiheroic or villainous protagonists (Invader Zim, Billy & Mandy, Overlord etc.) tend to be relatively chill. (Granted, "relatively" being a key word here).

Reminisce about the unwholesome madness of bronies or homestucks or the rick and morty nugget sauce all you want, nothing about unhealthy adult fandoms can ever possibly beat the passionately vicious shipping wars I have seen off and on for DECADES over the following characters:

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