#You are a super player fable

[sha-brytols]

embrace durge was also really stupid to me because. again. alongside the Primary Conflict being completely absent from that route. if you're not particularly bothered by doing evil playthroughs your character is literally just having the best time of their life like durge is having a fucking ball

[meraki-sunset]

having a hard time explaining grimdark and trickster to a friend

think you can help?

they get godtier just fine but the other two keep confusing them because right now they think

grimdark = chaos in anarchy sense, but trickster = chaos in haha funny meme sense

Sure, let me see…

GRIMDARK mode is described by Doc scratch as “going completely off the deep end in every way”.

It turns your skin an unnatural dark gray, and in rose’s case to be surrounded by a dark aura, while jade had a spacey green aura.

It’s basically a black magic power up deeply connected to the horroterrors, a state of mind that comes from letting them influence a broken mind. For Rose, it was the death of her mother, and then trying to reveal the horror terror’s secrets. For Jade, she was heartbroken, but also she got mind controlled into entering the grimdark state by the condesce, who is also connected to the horrorterrors.

As an extra, Hussie described Eridan as also going into grimdark when he began murdering people, tho his case must’ve been more symbolical, as he presented the perfect scenario to become grimdark, the complete loss of hope, waiting for Jack to kill them all (due to his title being prince of hope, ergo Destroyer of hope) added to Feferi breaking their moiraliance talking with Sollux, being the detonator for his broken mind, and him being a Derse player, so his dream self was around the horroterrors and had interacted with them prior, he was also interested in magic like rose, had a wand just like her and sought for answers about, like her. He just lacked the connection to the horroterrors in that crucial moment.

So Grimdark is basically when the horroterrors cause the player's most primal and violent tendencies to be pushed to the forefront

The grimdark is also described a “the fabled blackdeath trance of the woegothics”. So a dark trance that people like Rose and Eridan are inclined to fall victim of (in my opinion)

TRICKSTER mode, in the other hand, is described by Calliope as something that brings out your full potential, that brings all your walls down and puts all your inner thoughts in the outside and all your creative power in your hands. It strips you from all social and mental barrier.

It gives you reality altering Powers, allowing you to jump from place to place, probably dimension hopping, manifest objects and makes you super happy and candy colored to the point of losing grip in reality

The problem is that cherubs are very different from humans. For a cherub, who is supposed to fly around in the endless space protecting/destroying a certain part of the void, and its inhabited planets, feeding of black holes, fighting entities to death to ultimately mate in the shape of a big ass snake, a juju that’s basically drugs that can make you forget every wall you built up floating around space alone, and move forward as a happy missile ready to find a mate sounds good. But humans are social creatures, and cherubs are not. Cherubs don’t answer to anyone and don’t have Friends, they don’t need to follow any social cues. Humans built their relationships carefully, and they have secrets and barriers to protect themselves and others. They hide things like crushes and resentment and problems, because well, for the sake of peace, for the sake of not braking every relationship they have. That’s something that Calliope and Caliborn never fully grasped and understood why the kids came to hate the juju when they woke up

So that’s all I could gather. Essentially they are different kinds of power ups, opposite to one another at their core, BUT in both the person isn’t fully there and is being guided by primal instincts, be it rage/sadness or Hope/happiness and they both have consequences in the user because neither is supposed to be used on humans or even trolls.

[punkitt-is-here]

im a huge sucker for Real Time Combat but I will never get behind thinking its the natural evolution of Turn Based Combat. What!! these are different styles!!! i genuinely think the turn based influence is explicitly what MAKES FF7s real time combat INCREDIBLE for me. without it, it would be just a kind-of mid action game.

FF16 just has me thinking about that and it kind of reminds me of how we had a 2D platformer drought for a while because of 3D being seen as inherently better but we've ALREADY gone through the whole loop of realizing these are two different styles with pros and cons to those. The thought that goes into designing both styles vary greatly and they both accomplish different things.

like, being able to just mash X and kill a guy in real time is not inherently better than carefully strategizing and experimenting to kill a guy in a couple turns!! these are two unique stances in gameplay with strengths and weaknesses and its weird to see one treated as better. and i admit, im a fucking sucker for real time, i like at least some real time elements in most game's combat, but i think FF7R's combat is incredible BECAUSE it's not just purely real-time. You can swap around, go through menus, plan stuff!! its such a cool synthesis!! Real Time Combat can offer the thrill of really BEING in combat, dodging and weaving, getting gritty with your foe, but Turn Based allows you to strategize and plan and have MUCH easier access to a potentially HUGE arsenal of moves without having to fiddle with menus while you're scrambling to avoid getting hit. These styles are different and can bring a lot to the other, but acting like one is somehow better beyond just preference is very silly to me.

When you play a game with turn-based combat that sucks, know that it's probably because the balancing/design itself is not fun, not the actual genre. Super Lesbian Animal RPG has no real-time elements at all in combat, but it's some of the most engaging and fun and well-balanced turn-based combat I've had the pleasure of experiencing. And it has a deep focus on teamwork and friendship, and I think that's genuinely very hard to instill in Real-Time games because the player is forced to control only one character at a time in linear, progressively flowing time. I love KHII, but it rarely feels like you're working together because aside from your Limit attacks, you can't really collaborate with your party members or strategize. It's still a FANTASTIC game that I love playing, but the element of teamwork is lacking in comparison to a turn-based game, like, say, Bug Fables, which has you control all three members of Team Snakemouth. It allows you to have a myriad of attacks and moves that all influence each other, and because you can control all members, it feels really good and rewarding! And you all feel like friends, not just in cutscenes, but explicitly in gameplay because teamwork is highly incentivized to make things work!

i guess if ur a dev or just someone who appreciates games remember that there's no objectively better style for gameplay; it's all about context!! what is the GOAL of combat? What choices does it have the player make? Would one style work over the other for achieving this goals? That's how you pick what style you want to use! That's how you can analyze why or why not a game's style is working for you! rghaGHHHH GAME DEVELOPMENT IS COOL ARRHGHGHGHHGFJG

[psychiclounge]

novelty/bizarre/experimental thief fms & demos

you decide what i mean by that title. some of these you will likely enjoy, a few you may already know. several of these you're probably going to find unfun, boring, frustrating, etc… and depending on your grievance, i probably agree, but something about them fascinated me still & that's why they're here. i love weird shit made by strangers on the internet. my most subjective rec list yet, this one is for meeee. sorted alphabetically to not give away what my favorites are lmao. some of these aren’t available for download on thiefguild, if it links to komag instead just ctrl+f for the name of the mission

tdp/gold:

the baron’s provisions

fps demo

thief: brainchild (photosensitivity: strobing/flickering lights in a few rooms)

tma:

4th planet

a nice game of chess

the acid trip

doom

dreamslide (photosensitivity: strobing lights throughout)

fables of the penitent thief

five nights at dayport

ganbatte thief-san

the good samaritan

the harlequin

incubus

jetpack demo (link is to a youtube video, download link in description)

journey into the underdark

kill factory 1

kill factory 2: escape from the planet of the robots

kill factory 3: strain 7 demo

masque of the red death

melancholy in porto

night’s recourse

nvgizmos

one man's trash

ten little taffers

the sun within and the sun without (make sure you poke around in the files)

thief 2 ctf

to the end with nothing

umbelina

upside down

extra links:

thief fm walkthroughs

darkhook for cheatengine (turn off ai player awareness, turn off collision, fly mode, super speed... some of these are not very fun to play as intended)

[axolator]

"Script"-A-Day #-5: Storyteller's Waste of Time by Chiz and Gambling

zzzz... huh? oh, yeah, it's night three and 2 hours have passed

Featured characters: Cult Leader, Gossip, Evil Twin

Fabled characters: Bootlegger, Doomsayer, Duchess, Hell's Librarian, Sentinel

The Bootlegger rules are as follows:

The Amnesiac must have an ability related to publicly claiming things

The optional rule to limit Alsaahir guesses to 3 people per day may not be used.

The Doomsayer is to be introduced only once the game has gone on for over 90 minutes, which will probably be the start of day 2.

The presence of the Hell's Librarian means that the Storyteller cannot call for silence, since something bad is already happening.

Complexity: I can't really give this one, to be honest. Do you actually think you'll be solving the game? Oh, but Super Expert for STs.

Jinxes and such below the cut, because it's long.

Jinxes:

Cannibal / Juggler: If the Juggler guesses on their first day and dies by execution, tonight the living Cannibal learns how many guesses the Juggler got correct.

Widow / Alchemist: The Alchemist can not have the Widow ability.

This jinx has since been updated to “If the Alchemist has the Widow ability, they do not see the Grimoire.” For simplicity with the Widow/Damsel jinx, it’s probably easiest to just use the (outdated) hatejinx.

Widow / Damsel: If the Widow is (or has been) in play, the Damsel is poisoned.

This means that Minions don’t learn a Damsel is in play if it’s Djinn-poisoned.

Marionette / Damsel: The Marionette does not learn that a Damsel is in play.

Marionette / Plague Doctor: If the Demon has a neighbor who is alive and a Townsfolk or Outsider when the Plague Doctor dies, that player becomes an evil Marionette. If there is already an extra evil player, this does not happen.

Evil Twin / Plague Doctor: The Storyteller cannot gain the Evil Twin ability if the Plague Doctor dies.

Cerenovus / Goblin: The Cerenovus may choose to make a player mad that they are the Goblin.

Goblin / Plague Doctor: If the Plague Doctor dies, a living Minion gains the Goblin ability in addition to their own ability, and learns this.

Writeup below!

Storyteller's Waste of Time isn't a new script. It was originally a solo-Alhad script, but with new characters the script has evolved to what it is today: a script fully designed to waste the ST's time. It got robbed from its rightful place as the winner of TPI's Alsaahir script contest in favor of scripts that are actually good, and as such has fallen to just be a massive meme.

...Look, you can probably do just about anything when bagbuilding this script. The Gossip has a terribly hard time parsing any of their info due to the arbitrary kills of the Yaggababble , so if you're putting it in stack the rest of town — it's basically an Outsider. The static evil team actually makes Alsaahir fit pretty well here, so don't sleep on it — and similarly don't sleep on the Cult Leader! The Yaggababble's kills being ST-decided means it's a bit harder for the evil team to lock the Cult Leader in as an extra evil — they have to go via Psychopath or, God forbid, Doomsayer to kill the Cult Leader while they're evil. This means that, most of the time, the CL will live to get some decent info about their neighbors' alignments and might just get a win.

Actually, that reminds me: limit ability recycling and duplication with the Cult Leader in the bag. There's no Spirit of Ivory, so a Philo-CL, Pixie-CL, and CL can all independently turn evil and make things rough for good.

Some notes:

If you're running this script, you know that the only virtuous Pixie choice is the one that makes your life the hardest (so, Savant or Amnesiac. Maybe Philosopher or Cult Leader, since there's no Spirit of Ivory).

Public Amnesiac abilities - there's a lot to work with here. If you need some jumping-off points, each day guesses a la Alsaahir can be fun (Each day, if you publicly guess which Minion characters are in play, learn the Demon player's name that night), or stuff involving other players claiming Amnesiac, too (Each night*, learn how many players who publicly claimed Amnesiac yesterday were evil). Or, if you want to suffer, give the Amne a phrase like the on-script Yaggababble (You start knowing a secret phrase: for each time you said it today, gain the corresponding S&V Townsfolk ability tonight).

Don't use the Yaggababble ability to fake a Slayer kill. There's no Recluse nor Scarlet Woman, so it's just obviously the Yagga killing a good player.

God help you if you have multiple Philosopher abilities, and/or the Philo goes for something that isn't Artist. I don't actually have much to say about this, just... godspeed. Maybe don't show the Pixie Philosopher unless you're a masochist or the evil team is stacked.

Alchemist: you can't give them the Widow ability and Alch-Marionette is stupid, so your options are:

Alch-ET: Not great for the good team, but it lets them know an evil player in exchange for effectively giving the Alchemist-Evil Twin the Saint ability. Don't show them the Demon!

Alch-Cere: They can fish for evils or otherwise make people mad as their own characters to prove themselves. It's a little odd as an ability, but knowing there isn't an actual Cerenovus in play is invaluable info so it's not bad.

Alch-Goblin: Is really funny, and a potential way out of this hell. So don't do it if you actually want your players (& you!) to suffer. Also, the Doomsayer means they might get an easy win if you kill someone who's a goodie — so consider selfkilling an Alch-Goblin who doomsays.

Alch-Psychopath: Super super busted. But: it's also really really funny. Would your group find it fun? Can that Alchemist be framed as a Yaggababble with "I claim Psychopath and" as their phrase? Definitely a group thing.

If, like on Trust, you somehow end up in the situation where you have a Pixie-Philo, the Philo gets executed, and the Pixie-Philo goes Cannibal, remember that it's still the Philo's turn in the night order, so the Pixie-Philo-Cannibal-Philo gets to choose another good ability (and potentially drunk another player) for that night until someone else gets executed (use other editions' Drunk reminders, like the Sailor's, or the blank reminders to notate). Then they're just the normal Pixie-Philo-Cannibal after someone else gets exed.

Half of these roles can figure mechanically out if they're droisoned in some respect (like the Alchemist, Philosopher, Cult Leader, etc). Be careful when you put the token down.

Remember that a good player who gets the Widow ping and then turns evil (via PD-Marionette jinx or their own ability) no longer satisfies the Widow's ability, so if the Widow is alive the ping has to move to another good player. It's like on Catfishing when the widow ping recipient gets Fang Gu jumped.

That's about it from me. And, no, you don't get a grim pic. You think I've subjected people to this??

[hvackisser]

♡ PINNED POST ♡

My name is Jane (I also go by Brie!) And I'm a 26 year old lesbian self shipper that ships with both male and female fictional characters!

I'm taken irl by @/cherry-bomb-ships who you should also follow I love them very much! 💗💗

I have lots of interests (including Star Wars, The Muppets/Fraggle Rock, cartoons, broadway musicals, and many more that I may post about from time to time!)

My main f/o forever and ever is Captain Rex from The Clone Wars! (full f/o list under the cut) here is a WIP lore document of my self insert's story with him if u care to read 🥺🫶 but full f/o list is under the cut!

🌟 Commissions: CLOSED 🌟

✨️ EXAMPLES/PRICING ✨️

✨️ TRACK PROGRESS ✨️

Proship do not fucking interact!!

That's it really! I love interaction even if I get tired sometimes and go nonverbal I still lurk and love supporting fellow self shippers whenever I can!! ^ w ^

Follows from @ihaterossfromfriends

❤️ Romantic F/Os ❤️

Captain Rex (Star Wars: The Clone Wars etc.) ship tag: 💙 oh captain my captain 💙 (keep in mind Rex is the ONLY f/o I'm uncomfortable with sharing!)

Crosshair (The Bad Batch) ship tag: 🎯 baby shot me down 🎯

Arthur Claus (Arthur Christmas) ship tag: 🎄 my christmas wish 🎄

Ambrose 'Flycatcher' (The Wolf Among Us/Fables) ship tag: 🐸 hop into my heart 🐸

Wallace (Wallace and Gromit) ship tag: 🧀 will you brie mine? 🧀

Jayce Talis, Viktor, Mel Medarda (Arcane): ship tag: 🔵 hextechule 🔵

Erma Shepherd (Pikmin 4) ship tag: 🐶 puppy love 🐶

Toshinori Yagi/All Might (My Hero Academia) ship tag: ❤️ scars and stripes l💙

Sportacus (Lazytown) ship tag: 🍎 apple of my eye 🍎

Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation) ship tag: 💛 love makes us human 💛

Bradward Boimler (Star Trek: The Lower Decks) ship tag: 💜 ensign boytoy 💜

Jacob Holland (The Sea Beast) ship tag: 🌊 how deep is your love? 🌊

Luigi (Super Mario Bros.) ship tag: 💚 two player game 💚

Dell Conagher/Engineer (Team Fortress 2) ship tag: 🛠 my boy builds sentries 🛠

N. Tropy (Crash Bandicoot) ship tag: ⏳️ time on my side ⏳️

Dororo (Sergeant Frog) ship tag: 🌸 romance blooms 🌸

Queen Barb (Trolls 2 World Tour) ship tag: 🎸 hard rock hearts 🎸

Aran Ryan (Punch Out!! For the wii) ship tag: 🍀 lucky love 🍀

Charles Foster Offdensen (Metalocalypse) ship tag: 🍞 my bread and butter 🍞

Professor Utonium (The Powerpuff Girls) ship tag: 🔬 starkissed scientist 🔬

Wyll Ravengard (BG3) ship tag: 🗡 The heart is mightier than the blade 🗡

Sloan Cameron/Venture (Overwatch 2) ship tag: 🪨 I wanna rock with you 🪨

💛 Platonic F/Os 💛

Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars: The Clone Wars/Prequel movies) ship tag: 🔥 general hothead 🔥

Ahsoka Tano (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) ship tag: ✂️ sister snips ✂️

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars: The Clone Wars/Prequel movies) ship tag: 🌌 space dad Jesus 🌌

Kepler Quinn (Star Wars OC) ship tag: 🪐 kepler quinn 🪐

Luke Skywalker & Leia Organa (Star Wars: The OG Trilogy/various) ship tag: 🌟 stars and son 🌟

Omega + The Bad Batch (The Bad Batch) ship tag: ❤️ 99 reasons i love you ❤️

Jeremy 'Scout' Willis (Team Fortress 2) ship tag: ⚾️ strike out siblings ⚾️

Izuku Midoriya (My Hero Academia) ship tag: 💚 melon head 💚

Little Mac (Punch Out!! For the wii) ship tag: 🍔 cheeseburger family 🍔

Toki Wartooth (Metalocalypse) ship tag: 🎸 toki time 🎸

Bubbles (The Powerpuff Girls) ship tag: 💙 sugar 💙

Buttercup (The Powerpuff Girls) ship tag: 💚 spice 💚

Blossom (The Powerpuff Girls) ship tag: 🩷 everything nice 🩷

🩵 Crushes 🩵

Pearl Houzuki & Marina Ida (Splatoon) crush tag: 🦑🐙

Millions Knives (Trigun/Tristamp) crush tag: 🔪

Meryl Strife (Trigun/Tristamp) crush tag: 🤍

Corvus (The Dragon Prince) crush tag: 🪶

Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad) crush tag: ☢️

Rosalina (Super Mario Galaxy/Nintendo) crush tag: 🌠

Trixie Lulamoon (MLP:FiM) crush tag: 🪄

Rarity (MLP:FiM) crush tag: 💎

King Thorax (MLP:FiM) crush tag: 🪲

Julie Joyful (Welcome Home ARG) crush tag: 🦋

Secret Crush tag: 🐛

Bulldog ‘Beebs’ Browns (Monkey Wrench) crush tag: 🪓

Honey (Space Dandy) crush tag: 🌟

Miss Pauling (TF2) crush tag: 👓

Samurai Jack (Samurai Jack) crush tag: ☯️

Ashi (Samurai Jack) crush tag: 🐞

Frankie Foster (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) crush tag: 🍪

[eldritchlittleblackdragon]

God I love the Fable series.

It's funny.

The music goes hard.

You get a dog (in Fable 2/3).

It's a fantasy series where society isn't stagnant and it's only in the medieval era in the first game. (Fable II takes place in an Enlightment Era -esque period, and III during the Industrial Revolution)

You can be gay (even in the first game where you can only play as a dude).

In the third game you can adopt kids, and don't have to be married to do so.

Sometimes the morality choices are very binary and very Christian mindset, but there are moments when the games have a surprising amount of nuance. I feel like this tends to shine most with major npcs, but the players get moments like that at times too.

You can be evil. Very evil. Or just silly evil if you so choose.

The second and third game are more friendly to people who aren't super into mechanics.

The voice acting is awesome!?!?!?

I am once again asking for a pc remaster bundle (and maybe a remake for the 3rd game since it's unfortunately bug riddled and rather linear+short due to being rushed out the door because of pressure from higher ups. Which is a shame because there's obviously the potential for an amazing game and as it is I still like it in spite of it's flaws. It deserved better and so did the devs who made it and the people who worked on it.)

I AM ONCE AGAIN ASKING FOR A PC REMASTER BUNDLE. IF THEY CAN DO IT WITH BIOSHOCK THEY CAN DO IT WITH THE FABLE GAMES.

[theperfectquestion]

ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, DEAN

The Venture Bros. approach to God Almighty is in line with its approach to all authority: one more rubber mask on one more old weirdo.

A revelation hit me during a recent rewatch of adult swim's long-running animated pastiche of adventure fiction, The Venture Bros. It is such a large scale Biblical relevation that I can't believe I didn't notice it before: Yahweh, the Lord of the Old Testament, is a recurring minor character, voiced by Archer and Bob Burger's H. Jon Benjamin.

For the uninitiated, one of the supporting players in The Venture Bros. is Doctor Orpheus, who rents rooms from Doc 'Rusty' Venture, the father of the titular twins. Doctor Orpheus is one of my favourite characters in the show, because he is a protagonist of a whole other pulp fiction genre who is comfortable being a secondary character in the world of The Venture Bros.

Orpheus is a mix of Doctor Strange any number of Christopher Lee's characters from Hammer Horror films. He looks like Vincent Price in those occasions when he is being chummy with Kermit the Frog. And this Sorceror Supreme, who guards the very fabric of reality from unfathomable peril, who commands his own super-team with its own villains and long-term plots, serves the sitcom role of kindly but wacky neighbour, and the father of young Dean Venture's hopeless love interest, Triana.

A brilliant recurring joke is that, although magic is definitely real in the universe of The Venture Bros., and that Doctor Orpheus unquestionably has talents that bring the entire nature of reality into question, Doc Venture refuses to acknowledge or respect magic. As a former boy adventurer, he has seen so many supernatural threats pulled out from under their rubber masks that, as an adult, he simply doesn't waste a microsecond of his time considering magic as anything other than a cheap trick. Doctor Orpheus is often torn between defefending his professional pride and placating his often unkind landlord.

There's a lot to Doctor Orpheus, but the aspect I'd like to focus on is the fact that he regularly visits an extradimensional entity in his daughter's closet. Orpheus' command of spatial dimensions is dealt with matter-of-factly: his rooms are physically located elsewhere, and the abandoned arachnid research centre he rents on the Venture property is just a convenient place to warp space so that he can access them from Colorado. You see, Doctor Orpheus is recently divorced, and retains full custody of his teenage daughter, Triana. One has to read between the lines here, but presumably the Venture Compound is close to where Triana's mother has moved, and this extradimensional trick is a way for Triana to be able to visit her mother while being legally resident at his address. The fact that this is treated so casually is a joke in itself, and is another Definitely Magical thing that Rusty completely ignores, though there may be some connection between Doctor Orpheus' rooms and the reason why Rusty, who is a notoriously workshy and light-fingered kind of super-scientist, is able to produce the world's first functional teleporter later on in the series.

So with all this malarky being commonplace, it is only a small elaboration to say that, within Doctor Orpheus' house, there is a portal to another dimension. But due to some magical snarl he can't straighten out, the portal is located inside his daughter's wardrobe. Orpheus goes inside the closet to talk to the Master.

The Master, all all-knowing, shape-shifting entity who lives beyond time and space and who mentors Doctor Orpheus in the magical arts (though, in practice, we see him act more of a life coach), is presented without ceremony or occasion. Even his flat voice which, as mentioned, is from the proudly rangeless but reliably hilarious mouth of H. Jon Benjamin, undercuts the enormity of his presence. The Master seems to spend most of his mental energy coming up with live-action productions of custom Aesop's Fables for Orpheus using his shape-shifting abilities and, occasionally, a put-upon assistant. These morality plays seem to always, by accident or design, lead to the Master getting his rocks off in some way or another. The Master's horniness seem to cast him in the mold of a Tibetan vajrācārya - after all, if Orpheus is Doctor Strange, then the Master is his Ancient One, who is vaguely Tibetan in origin. The joke is that rather than being enigmatic, the Master blurts out the morals and meanings of his koans almost immediately. But then in the Season 4 episode, 'The Better Man,' the Master shows that he may have origins further West.

So in that episode Triana, Doctor Orpheus' daughter, enters her closet and unexpectedly encounters the Master. We have established before that only Orpheus can enter the Master's realm. The Master of course was expecting her and has assumed a form to deliver a parable. In the form of an adult Dean Venture, the Master reveals that Dean is an artificially produced clone, insists that his genes are therefore polluted, and expresses profound disgust at the fact that Dean is uncircumcised. He outright tells Triana to leave the Venture Compound to live with her mother and claim her birthright as her mother's pupil.

To me, all this feels very unlike something a Tibetan Tantric Master would say. All this talk of bloodlines, foreskins and abominations makes me suspect that the Master is actually Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, in one of his burning bush moods. Now, in any other show, the existence of God Almighty living in a character's wardrobe might be more of a big deal. You could certainly build an entire series around that exact premise. But it is perfectly consistent for The Venture Bros. to present the ultimate authority of the Universe as a funny side character who appears in four episodes and has only a small bearing on the plot. That's all in a day's work for The Venture Bros., a show that shares Rusty's deep-rooted skepticism of any and all authority figures and the structures that support them.

For example, we meet the President of the United States on one occasion and he is a crass, childish buffoon who spouts out reheated Clinton jokes. That's fairly run-of-the-mill, but the secret agent characters of The Venture Bros. often invoke the Secret President. We never meet Secret President, and the character who is most likely to have encountered them in person, General Timothy Treister, talks about Secret President in the tone of voice a 13 year old would use to brag about their girlfriend in Canada. As it is, we're given no reason why there should be a Secret President or what function they serve, except to give spies something to brag about. In the United States of The Venture Bros., the fake President is an idiot and the real President doesn't do anything.

The pattern repeats: the diabolical Guild of Calamitous Intent, which dominates the world of professional villany, is governed by a board of shadowy figures who, once we get to know them, are all either has-beens or senile and I've of them is literally a clown. Their leader, The Sovereign, appears either as an intimidating floating head like The Wizard of Oz or as David Bowie, though we learn later he is just a shapeshifter who takes the form of David Bowie because he wants to be cool. The Guild goes through a few changes of management throughout the series, but it doesn't really matter who is at the top - the whole operation is run by two admin goofuses who are perfectly content to prop up a desk and pee in bottles.

Even when we meet the Illuminati, the chosen powerful few who work behind the scenes to keep the torch of civilisation alive by managing technological progress, they turn out to be a VR simulation designed to allow intelligence agencies to hoard the best gizmos for themselves.

When Doctor Orpheus detects the presence of a malicious evil so great that he nearly suffers a panic attack - Doctor Orpheus, who routinely travels to Hell and back without too much trouble - an unholy entity that turns out to be a vintage AI built by Rusty's father, this unspeakable Satan is easily distracted by a roll of old videotape projected onto her camera.

This is a world where it is rubber masks all the way down. Anybody who presents themselves as an authority is invariably mistaken. Doomsday devices are easily defused, or revealed to have never been anything of the sort. Secret are kept by braggarts, heroes are hollow, crowns are held by those who couldn't find a chair when the music stopped, and power is a ball that is always fumbled. So why wouldn't God Almighty live in a teenager's closet, licking his balls, obsessing over foreskins, while the world muddled along without Him?

[loupy-mongoose]

Did you make any fanart for Bug Fables? (Also secondary bug related question- thoughts on Hollow Knight?)

I'll answer the second one first. I've never played Hollow Knight myself, but watched a playthrough of it. I never got into it as much.

I've done a fair bit of Bug Fables art, some of it for MasaeAnela when she played through it on Twitch.

Now, a lot of the art contains spoilers, big and small, so I'm gonna put a Read More. (It also ended up being super long lol)

You've been warned.

I'll try to order it from least to most spoilery so it's harder to accidentally see them.

*Note for the art, the character Leif, the blue guy, refers to himself in plural. Saying "We/us" instead of "I/me". Just so you're not confused. X3

First I'll share a little Bug Fables version of a bug I saw at work one day.

This was made in response to Masae getting endlessly distracted by sidequests in her playthrough. XD

Leif has ice powers, and one of his moves requires the player to hit a button as it pops up. If they fail, the power backfires and Leif does a little animation where his hand freezes. Masae kept pressing the wrong button, so this came to mind. XD

At some point I decided to draw them as dragons. There are a few more down below, but there's a spoiler bit of text, so it goes in the depths lol.

Based on a bit of optional dialogue in the game. X3

I still like this artwork. :>

And a few comics I've done.

Fetch gone wrong~

The following arts relate to massive and/or end-game spoilers, so continue at your own discretion!

More dragons~

Very spoilery comic

Mood Music

Uh oh

And some existential dread.

Hoo! Okay, that's all that I have to share! A lot of this probably makes very little sense without context, lol.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed that! It was nice to look back at all these. Some are good memories, and some I completely forgot about. X3

[theshepherdshound]

i never know where to start so i used my game idea generator if you have thoughts about what the direction should be pls vote

i have 2 doors in and one door out so it'll be all meaningless choices for how the player leaves

other contenders but i don't feel as strong for are;

A legal thriller art game about listening your a death rattle.

A distopian unchangable choice game about gouging out your eyes.

A dramatic reenactment installation about going deeper and deeper into the void.

A magical realism art game about feeding ducks bread.

A sitcom twine about a wandering storyteller.

A super hero origin story visual novel about curling into a lover's arms and the immediate sense of calm that follows. A black comedy choices DON'T matter about the breath of the ocean.

A traditionally animated platforming survival game about drawing comics about the strange adventures of your friends

A cyberpunk point and click adventure game about a speculative world where everyone repsects each other.

A paranoia rogue like about going on a drive without destination because you don't know what else to do.

okay tyty

[aardvaark]

Leverage character asks: 1,3,17,45 (your choice on character)

thank you for the ask & for fueling my leverage obsession lol <3

1. Canon I outright reject

honestly i love the character development on leverage, even when it means the character has some negative traits or weaknesses or something. hmm… i think one thing i disliked was hardison being a super bad tipper (some ep in s5). he doesn’t care about workers? particularly after five years of leverage? idk.

i also wish eliot didn’t seem to like cops so much, but thats more of a gripe with the show’s/showrunners’ attitudes towards police.

3. Obscure headcanon

sophie: that she’s trans! love that hc. shout out to @transsophiedevereaux. also that sophie had a drunken one night stand with maggie, which is actually (word of god) canon rather than a head canon, but seems to be rarely mentioned.

nate: nate x sophie x sterling… it’s happened at least once.

parker: so many!! but the one i’ll share is that. uh. she’s probably killed someone. pre-leverage, she’s known to be dangerous for a reason, and she’s been in a lot of awful situations unfortunately. she would probably have done so out of necessity, it might even have been self defense, but yk. it’s still killing someone. and no, i don’t mean the pilot flashback - according to word of god (ie john rogers) she probably didn’t kill her foster parents when exploding their house. anyway, i’ve seen some cool fics about this idea and discussed this topic w @laser-tripwires and i think it’s really interesting for a variety of reasons, but i won’t list them here bc this is already getting so long lol.

hardison: that he still secretly adds to nana’s income somehow (he canonically paid off her medical bills), that he plays D&D, that he likes [insert media beloved by geeks that i don’t really know much about, but i love that people hc him as enjoying the things they enjoy so much].

eliot: my own silly hc that many of his scars are actually from kitchen accidents rather than fights lol

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

gonna answer this one for sophie only, cause i have quite a few answers just for her!

1) i saw a gif set of sophie once with the lyrics of "thief" by imagine dragons, and it was a really gorgeous gif set and the lyrics fit very well.

2) yk the fable "the scorpion and the frog"? at the end of s1, she seems to excuse her actions (conning the team) like the scorpion - that it’s just in her nature, lying is who she is, she’s a thief and this is what thieves do, etc. additionally, it’s what sterling says about her, that her behaviour was predictable because it’s "who she is".

3) the gambler by kenny rogers. bc the chorus is canonically her life philosophy lmao (according to the last dam job).

45. Their favorite celebrity

sophie: canonically, db cooper. she idolises him in the db cooper job lol. poster above her bed as a teenager etc etc.

nate: man, his would be oddly specific im sure. like he reads war strategy books, maybe sun tzu. or perhaps a chess grandmaster, like bobby fischer. i don’t know much about war strategists nor chess players, so if anyone does, then maybe you can suggest a more specific person.

hardison: i know he loves star trek, doctor who, star wars - im simply not pop culture savvy enough to know who his fave actors from those shows might be. BUT. i think it would be funny if his fave celebrity was wil wheaton (who was in star trek, and who, of course, played cha0s in leverage). also, wil wheaton is famously into D&D, video games, comics, and other "geek" stuff that hardison proudly enjoys too. hardison does not see the resemblance btwn wheaton and his nemesis, no idea what you’re taking about.

eliot: i think he would have people he looks up to or thinks are incredible, who are celebrities but only in a very specific field. like a renowned chef, but not a "celebrity chef" as in one who’s on tv. i mean like a chef who is famous among chefs, for being one of the most talented in the world.

parker: i feel her definition of celebrity would be somewhat different to most people’s. plus, her knowledge of the world is deep but narrow - she knows everything possible about thievery and anything even tangentially related (probably a decent amount of physics, for example), but pop culture? not so much. she later gets into stuff like dr who via hardison though, so perhaps the actor of the current doctor, ncuti gatwa. now, there’s also famous thieves, BUT they’re generally only famous because they eventually got caught. parker does not get caught. she would not idolise someone who ended up caught. maybe the thief of an unsolved heist. honestly, parker is famous in the leverage crime world. so. herself? not that she enjoys being a celebrity lol.

[heartofsparrow]

[If I may ask, can you share any details about your Fable DnD game? that sounds fun!]

oh of course!!! i am SO glad someone asked me about this because i am thoroughly insane about this

so i’m the dm, and it’s currently set in between fable 2+3 (closer to 3 in the timeline). a lot of this is based on my personal interpretation of canon/my headcanon

our pcs have been dubbed The Queen’s Guild, as they have been enlisted by queen Sparrow as a kind of special forces of albion

ronin [balverine shifter, paladin/barbarian]: originally from bloodstone, aforementioned son of reaver. a very angsty teen, who has very quickly befriended logan.

rowan [human dweller, bard/wizard]: an apprentice of sabine and his scribe. utterly insane /pos. his chosen bardic instrument is a yamaha keyboard, which simultaneously entrances and baffles the citizens of albion (because it’s MEDIEVAL ENGLAND)

val [kalashtar, sorcerer]: from samarkand, raised in the monastery where garth lives. his patron quori/spirit is the last dragon in albion, who he lives to avenge. bless this man, pure of heart dumb of ass

cirella [tiefling, archon’s bloodline hero (homebrew class lol)]: as tieflings don’t really exist in fable, she is the product of one of her ancestors making a deal with a demon door. she was raised hidden, apart from society as her parents were ashamed of her appearance. she is the sweetest girl in the world actually

there’s SO much more to this campaign but this is just like. a basic intro to it. all the characters have their own ties to sparrow and the crown, and i’m super blessed to have awesome players who work with my crazy ideas and bring these characters to life in such amazing ways @cazyjo @iblogabout-stuff (rowan and ciri, respectively)

i’m so eager to talk about this campaign lol

[randomnameless]

Beating a dead horse but seeing a post this morning (and an earlier fanart) made me think about it -

In good or in Bad, Nopes has characters mentionning how having a crest makes them “monsters” (in good it’s when Miklan supports someone and calls them super rad, in BaD it’s when Uncle Rufus insults Dimitri).

But it’s also, more or less, the same thing happening in the Momo paralogue - we have mentions of how Momo was “turned into a beast” due to his Crest power :(

We also the biggest fuck you - if the player knows everything about the lore though, where Marianne goes :

The Wandering Beast's eviscerated body... Only human bones and this sword remaining.

This “sword” is also a bone, but not a human one so we don’t give a fuck?

Anyways, more about the inital point to make : 

Many times in the Fodlan games’ script, we see the association that Crusts or Relics make people “monsters” and not “humans”.

And while we can muse and legit angst about the crested humans who are basically “insulted” because of their blood, what about Nabateans themselves?

In a verse where Supreme Leader and the Mole People keep on calling them beasts/creatures/other beings without “humanity” or capable of “human feelings”, how do they react to someone, maybe Miklan meaning it as a praise, calling a crested peep a “monster”?

Nabateans have crests, of course, and aren’t humans. Does this automatically make them monsters? Can’t they coexist with humans or even live with them, because they are “monsters” and not “humans”?

Are they still “monsters” when they are the one who look after humans abandoned by their own kin ?

Marianne ultimately goes :

The blood of a beast no longer flows through me. I feel human for once.

But what should Flayn or Seteth (or even Billy) think about this line? What does it mean to “feel” human? Seteth is a “beast” but writes fables for children, are his feelings “human”?

They are not bio-humans, so are their feelings automatically “not human”? Or something that is removed or cannot be understood by “humanity”?

(this reminds me of something in a certain route...)

Of course a positive point can be inferred from Marianne’s paralogue, who says this last line after having put an end to Momo’s sorry life who uwu “suffered for his murderous past” (nothing about Jack the Nabatean of course, it’s not like the games give a fuck about them, nor like Marianne reacts to Rhea’s infodump about her shiny sword and Momo’s sin) - was Momo a beast because of his “murderous past” and not because of his appearance/nature ? 

I’d love to believe it...

But FE16 reminds us that Miklan “turned into a beast” after using the Relic - or at least that’s what we’re told. Miklan was still “human” when he did his thief things, pillages and, in FE16, seduced women - but the second he transformed that’s when he became “a beast”.

We know how transformation in a demonic beast happens - when a human holds a crest stone or uses a relic - but in a way, Rhea’s lies also made sense : transforming in a black beast is a sort of punishment because the human who transforms, naturally, aka not Waldified, was in both instances we see, someone who was already a “monster”, albeit not biologically, but someone who killed/pillaged/did bandit things.

Something like “you act as a monster, then your body shall reflect it”.

Tldr : in a game where there are non-humans, what does it mean to be human? When so many characters angst about not being “humans” due to crests and whatnot, why does it matter at the end of the day?

Yes, Flayn is not human, but she has more compassion than the entire cast reunited given how she “died” to heal everyone once. Is she a monster because - assuming she has one - she can enter a bestial form, even if she has “human” feelings ?

Imagine Marianne or Claude telling a Nabatean, like Seteth, Momo turned into a Monster because of over usage of his relic, and Seteth being in a better game, reacting with something like “Maurice became a monster the day he participed in the genocide of a tribe of people living in mountains, feasted on their corpses and descrated them to craft a weapon, regardless of his outer appearance”.

No wonder after 1000 years of humans angsting about “no i have a crest i am not a human i am a monster :( :( :(” Rhea was afraid Billy would reject her after knowing she is not a human, having witnessed her “other form”.

And again, sure, Dimitri, Uncle Rufus, Miklan and the student cast (save for maybe Claude but the “humanity” nonsense was added by Pat) don’t know about Nabateans or the fact there are “non-humans” living with them, but Doylist wise, we’re still playing a game where Nabateans are “othered” and treated like “abominations” for the sin of not being humans, and humans feeling like “monsters” for having nabatean blood... and Nabateans themselves are never allowed to react to this.

As cute as Flayn’s supports with Dimitri were, we don’t have something where Flayn tries to ask him - in a roundabout way - if he would still be her friend if he knew she was not human but a “beast” (and Dimitri laughing at her because come on, Flayn, being a beast/monster? and then what, she roars? Monsters are people who slaughter others and love violence, even if she was made of, say, sugar cubes, or could transform in a giant wolf, she’d never be a monster!). 

Is it because of Earl Grey, or because this question trumps everything about “we want to tell a story about a 3 way war” and makes everything else pointless?

[axolator]

Script-A-Day #10: Pearly Gates by Hannah

Worlds abound as information circles and Minions lurk

Featured characters: Balloonist, Savant, Vortox

Fabled characters: Sentinel

Jinxes:

Spy/Damsel: If the Spy is (or has been) in play, the Damsel is poisoned.

This means that the Minions don’t learn that a Damsel is in play, and the Damsel can’t be guessed.

Complexity: Advanced. Recommended for Storytellers who can craft false info precisely, and for players who enjoy bluffing big and can use their social reads to help narrow down who's who.

Database link (find the PDF and JSON for running it there!)

Writeup under the cut!

Pearly Gates was a script designed around long-form text Clocktower, in a context where many info-heavy scripts like Sects & Violets can get hard-solved easily due to the good team having perfect recall. That being said, it still translates incredibly well to live BotC, with plenty of bluffing opportunities and tons of information to puzzle through.

Use the Sentinel as a balancing tool here. The Sentinel is meant as the only form of Outsider modification: do not use the Balloonist to modify the Outsider count. If the evil team can spread a ton of misinformation or if the Minions are relatively quiet (No Dashii + Scarlet Woman, Vortox with a Spy, etc), then consider removing an Outsider from the bag. Likewise, if the evil team is relatively loud and/or can’t spread tons of misinformation, consider adding an Outsider with the Sentinel. Even a Djinn-poisoned Damsel can be terrifying for a good team that doesn’t know a Spy’s in play. There are a lot of neat interactions here with the script’s info landscape. Get creative with Savant information and Fisherman advice - shed some light on what the quieter Minions are up to, or maybe help the good team identify one of the hidden Outsiders. 

Some notes:

Remember how the Monk interacts on this script. The Monk makes players safe from the Demon, so can protect against No Dashii poison or a Vortox making everything false.

Be aware of the Puzzlemaster's role! Don't be afraid to put it in a Vortox game - even if it drunks a role like the Farmer or Soldier, people building worlds that it's a different Demon and the Puzzlemaster has drunked someone can spin things around for an evil team.

The misregistration with Recluse and Spy can get weird, so a quick primer:

The Balloonist cares about the type of character they saw at a moment in time before considering who to show next. This means that Spy/Recluse misregistration only matters once - when the Balloonist sees them.

The Savant can get fooled by Spy/Recluse misregistration, but it’s typically super mean to do so - do it sparingly.

The Slayer can kill the Recluse, yes, but like on TB, really only do it if the Recluse is a genuine Demon candidate in a possible Scarlet Woman game, since this hard-confirms the Slayer.

Can the Recluse/Spy misregister to the Vortox, letting characters like the Empath and Chef get true info in a Vortox game (e.g. an Empath neighboring the Recluse and a good player getting a 0)? Storytellers rule both ways. I personally do (as do many folks at TPI, like Edd), but some might not, since misregistration is already false. Let your players know how you rule it beforehand.

We're three for three on Mathematician scripts this week! Here, a math “ping” is +1 to their number.

If a player gets misinformation due to Spy/Recluse misregistration, No Dashii/Puzzlemaster poison/drunkenness, or the Vortox, it pings the math.

The Mathematician never detects their own ability failing, so won’t take themselves into account when falsifying their number for a Vortox.

If the No Dashii is failing to poison a Monk-protected player or a Soldier, it pings the Math (in the latter case, once for every night the Soldier is alive and unpoisoned when they should be).

If the Monk causes someone to get true information in a Vortox game, the Vortox malfunctions, pinging the Math.

STs differ on this one, so feel free to rule differently: The Minions not learning a Damsel is in play due to the Spy jinx pings the Math once for every night the Damsel is alive and the Minions are uninformed.

If you rule that the Recluse/Spy can misregister to the Vortox, then such registration causing someone to get true information causes the Vortox to malfunction due to the misregistering ability, pinging the Math.

That's about it from me! This is one of my favorite scripts to run in async text formats, since it's got a ton of info while being resistant to hard solving, but even IRL it's led to some super super close games. I hope your groups have fun with this one!

[open-hearth-rpg]

#RPGaDay2024

Amazing Adventure

One of the most challenging things for game designers is offering a solid, easy to get into, slowly building, and comprehensive starter adventure. Back of the core book ones have the additional pressure of being there forever. I’ve seen some that have become classics– which many people can bond over. Isle of Dread for Expert D&D back in the day was one of these. I’ve also seen ones that aren’t great– with broken rules references, dropping in too many systems, railroading, or focusing too narrowly. 

The original Coriolis quickstart adventure which came out before the game had some of these problems. It listed several things on the character sheets which weren’t in the rules presented. But more importantly it offered a sci-fi bug hunt scenario which a) was boring and b) did absolutely nothing to sell the actual setting. The earliest Modiphius Conan 2d20 qs adventure, despite being based on a Howard story, was insanely boring: basically a series of linear fights, no social interactions, little other skill use, and almost no choices on the players’ part. 

But there’s one intro adventure which I love. I’m recycling from an #RPGaDay prompt from back in 2015, but my answer still holds: Auspicious Beginnings. 

What is it? A tutorial adventure for Weapons of the Gods, the wild wuxia system. WotG is, IMHO, a hot mess but I love the vibe of it. There are legendary stories, tales of factions, explanations of philosophies, discussions of gender, and descriptions of nations throughout the book. They contain a mix of fiction and description.

But more importantly players can buy connections to those ideas and stories. You can purchase a link and become part of these fables- creating a destiny, showing the GM what you want, and encouraging you to play within those archetypal elements. It’s cool and something worth stealing for other games.

But I had a hard time following the system beyond that. It uses the kind of dice tricks I’m not fond of- pattern matching and the ability to flow dice out of your pool to the side and then back again later. Fireborn and some other games have done that and "it's not my bag." (tm) And the combat’s super involved, though I suspect it does simulate the feel of a legendary encounter. 

But forget all that. Ignore what I just said, because Auspicious Beginnings is wonderful.

The PCs heroes arrive at Only Two Devils, a frontier city with a reputation for the exotic. The city has several striking key NPCs and factions associated with them (like Ironhand Nan and the Sheathed-Blade Empty-Hand Prosperity Society). The Governor has elaborate rituals for city entry and stiff requirements to access the more interesting spots. One or more members of the group need to get to the secret markets to secure a special lost item. To do so, they need a sponsor. Therefore they have to participate in a grand contest- not of fighting, but tests of skill. Like leaping from spear point to spear point carrying a flag while avoiding arrow fire. If the group can succeed, they’re adopted by one of the factions- which leads to a fight and a jump off for further adventures.

The contest’s brilliant and colorful. It’s intended to showcase and ramp up the use of the game mechanics. That holds true for other systems besides WotG. You can use this as a model to show how to do cool stuff. The characters are awesome- the Pre-Gen PCs, the rival contestants, the leaders of the faction. The setting’s vivid and full of amazing hooks. It has twists, ways to buy into the setting, and great advice for running any Wuxia game.

I’ve used this set up straight or in modified form about a half dozen times. I’ve come up with all kinds of crazy new contests. My favorite is racing hungry monkeys to gather fruit from a private garden. There’s a ton of inspiration here and it’s fun to come up with new ones tuned to the players’ builds. Use Auspicious Beginnings for any fantasy game with stunting concepts and athletic tricks for the players (like Exalted or Hearts of Wulin).

[jakedaerfmp2]

Flock is an upcoming co op gamewhere players take on the role of flying shepherds, each tending to their own unique herd of adorable flying creatures.

Will you find all the creatures? Even the super rare and elusive ones? Will you keep them to yourself or share them with your friends? Will you knit the longest scarf ever seen? Will you find the fabled Golden Bewl?