#and those wizardry players

[literallybyronic]

posts from people not old enough to remember bioware making BG1 & 2

Dragon Age being mostly dormant for a whole decade outside of a few novels, comics and Absolution is so funny because it means there's an entire generation of people who've never heard of it, and are now baffled as to why all their fellow Baldur's Gate 3 fans are 'jumping ship'.

They're not jumping ship, they're going home.

[lqveharrington]

The Alchemy | D.M.

summary: Although Draco promised that he would keep your relationship a secret just for you, he can’t contain himself after winning the Hogwarts quidditch cup.

pairing: draco malfoy x hufflepuff!reader

includes: FLUFF, established relationship (and a last name of Evergreen for the reader)

a/n: inspired by the olympics recently ❤️

When Draco asked you out in fourth year, you thought it was a joke. Sure, you were both acquainted due to your pure wizardry bloodline, but you were in Hufflepuff. The only time the other houses thought you were useful was when they wanted to sneak into the kitchen. So when he came up and sat down beside you when you were studying potions, you were disheartened.

“Malfoy, please don’t do this.” You sigh, rubbing your forehead. You were just starting to understand what ingredients made a truth serum.

“Do what? I’m asking you if you want to go to Hogsmeade together this weekend.” He spun the Malfoy signet ring adorning his hand.

You look up at him with tired eyes, “Did someone put you up to this?”

“What? No no, I—“ He cleared his throat, feeling his cheeks warm at how you were able to fluster him with even a small glance. “I’m really asking you to go on a date with me.”

You search his face for any indication of a lie, before biting your lip softly and looking down at your parchment. “Are you really?”

“I am.” Draco dropped his hand onto yours to stop your fidgeting with the quill.

You felt your own face heat up at the notion. He thumbed your palm softly as you stayed quiet, not minding his closeness. Finally, you looked up at him, “You have yourself a date, Malfoy.” He sent you a soft smile but before he could say anything else, you interrupted. “Please don’t let me down.”

Draco never let you down. Despite your earlier doubts, you saw how kind and thoughtful the Malfoy heir was underneath his hardened shell his father had built around him. In private, he was always attentive, loving, clingy — there wasn’t a moment where he was separated from you. In public, he had to rein in those feelings just for you.

Even when you started your seventh year at Hogwarts, you were still terrified what others at school would say about a Hufflepuff dating the Slytherin Prince. Sure, his parents and your parents knew, but not the entirety of Hogwarts. You had asked Draco to keep your relationship private until you were ready to face the reality of your relationship to the rest of the world. He begrudgingly agreed, respecting your wishes; but the need to kiss you in front of the entire student body to rightly claim that you were his was wavering.

Especially when it had been three years since you first started dating. And right now, you were currently hiding below the stands together as you greeted him with good luck kisses for his final quidditch match as a student in Hogwarts.

“I.” Kiss. “Love.” Kiss. “You.” Kiss. You say softly as he holds you close by your hips — smiling into all your kisses. “Good.” Kiss. “Luck.” Kiss.

“You’re killing me here, love.” Draco murmurs against your lips. He pulls away gently to look at your ever so loving gaze. He draws small hearts on you hip, “You done?”

“Never.” You kiss him again, hands cupping his jaw. “I want you to be stuck with me forever.”

He hums into the kiss as you thumb his cheeks softly, “I will after I win this game, my love.”

You separate again, grinning like a lovesick puppy. “Good luck, Dray. I’ll see you later.” You press one last kiss to his lips before leaving his arms and running up the Hufflepuff stands to cheer. You couldn’t deny that even after all these years he still made you giddy and red.

Draco shook his head with a soft smile only you could coax out of him. He walked out from the stands and hopped on his broom, ready in the air for his final match as Slytherin’s seeker. Cheers filled the stadium as the players took their place, captains shaking hands.

The final match for Slytherin and Gryffindor was probably the most anticipated all year round. Since it was also Harry Potter’s last game as seeker, and the two seekers were known as rivals, it was hyped up to be one of the best end matches of the season.

As the game progressed, Slytherin and Gryffindor were constantly tied. It was really up to the seekers to find the golden snitch to determine the winner. There were bets taking place in the house stands, mind fixated on earning a few galleons for the last time. For the Hufflepuff stands, they were a house divided. Many cheered for scarlet and gold while the other half cheered for green and silver.

You didn’t mind the division between your house. After all, you only watched the games for Draco. Your friends were cheering for the Gryffindors whilst you carried the small Slytherin flag in your hands — eyes trained on the blonde high above the game itself. The second you blinked from the blazing sun, Draco was soaring after the golden snitch, Harry close behind and eventually flying right next to him.

The shouts from the stands only fueled the seekers’ attention to the flying gold. Draco and Harry were chasing in circles after the snitch, attention focused on nothing else even as the bludger zoomed past them.

You held your breath as they both reach out for the snitch. Your friend held your shoulder in anticipation, watching the two closely. Before you could register what happened, she gasped and shook your shoulders in frustration.

“I lost ten galleons to that!” She sighed heavily as Draco flashed the golden snitch in the air.

The rush of the win made you scream happily with the other Hufflepuffs and houses cheering for the Slytherin team. You wear clapping your hands as the team began flying around in victory. You watched as Draco flew around the stands more as the rest of the Slytherin team settled on the grounds. His eyes scanned the stadium until they lit up when they saw you at the very front of the Hufflepuff stands — waving your Slytherin flag with pride.

“Seems like Malfoy is off showing the last snitch he’ll catch for the Slytherin quidditch team! But we all want to know where the trophy is!” The third year announcer spoke, voice casted across the stadium.

You smiled at Draco softly when you finally met his eyes. And before you knew it, he flew right over to you and cupped your face, kissing you senselessly. You grinned into the kiss as you held his cheeks, the shouts and screams from your housemates blending in your ears.

“Aw, quite a beautiful way to celebrate the win. Don’t you think so, McGonagall? Honestly, I wasn’t expecting Malfoy and Evergreen— Ow, sorry.” The third year announcer spoke once more, rubbing the spot the professor lightly hit them with a newspaper.

You part from Draco with a blinding smile, “I think I agree, this is a beautiful way to celebrate.” You say quietly only for him to hear, pressing quick kisses to his lips.

“I’m proud of you, love.” Draco nudges your nose with his to gently stop your kisses for a second — even though he did want more.

“Me? You just won the quidditch cup for your house!” You laugh while wrapping your arms behind his neck, careful in trying not to pull him off his broom.

He rubbed the apples of your cheeks, “You just let me kiss you in front of the entire student body… I think that’s more important.” He pulled you in for another mind searing kiss, making you smile helplessly.

“AGAIN?” The third year announcer shouted into the microphone once more. “Is there—“

“Alright, we’re done announcing, boys and girls.” Professor McGonagall spoke and shut the speakers off; although she was quite happy for the couple.

You giggled as he pulled you into a hug. “I love you.”

Draco pressed kisses to your cheek repeatedly, “I love you more.”

©lqveharrington - all rights reserved. do not copy, translate or share my work on other media platforms

[alongtidesoflight]

in wake of yet another wave of people being turned off by windows, here's a guide on how to dual boot windows and 🐧 linux 🐧 (useful for when you're not sure if you wanna make the switch and just wanna experiment with the OS for a bit!)

if you look up followup guides online you're gonna see that people are telling you to use ubuntu but i am gonna show you how to do this using kubuntu instead because fuck GNOME. all my homies hate GNOME.

i'm just kidding, use whatever distro you like. my favorite's kubuntu (for a beginner home environment). read up on the others if you're curious. and don't let some rando on reddit tell you that you need pop! OS for gaming. gaming on linux is possible without it.

why kubuntu?

- it's very user friendly

- it comes with applications people might already be familiar with (VLC player and firefox for example)

- libreoffice already preinstalled

- no GNOME (sorry GNOME enthusiasts, let me old man yell at the clouds) (also i'm playing this up for the laughs. wholesome kde/gnome meme at the bottom of this post.)

for people who are interested in this beyond my tl;dr: read this

(if you're a linux user, don't expect any tech wizardry here. i know there's a billion other and arguably better ways to do x y and/or z. what i'm trying to do here is to keep these instructions previous windows user friendly. point and click. no CLI bro, it'll scare the less tech savvy hoes. no vim supremacy talk (although hell yeah vim supremacy). if they like the OS they'll figure out bash all by themselves in no time.)

first of all, there'll be a GUI. you don't need to type lines of code to get this all running. we're not going for the ✨hackerman aesthetics✨ today. grab a mouse and a keyboard and you're good to go.

what you need is a computer/laptop/etc with enough disk space to install both windows and linux on it. i'm recommending to reserve at least a 100gb for the both of them. in the process of this you'll learn how to re-allocate disk space either way and you'll learn how to give and take some, we'll do a bit of disk partitioning to fit them both on a single disk.

and that's enough babbling for now, let's get to the actual tutorial:

🚨IMPORTANT. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS ON A 32BIT SYSTEM. ONLY DO THIS IF YOU'RE WORKING WITH A 64BIT SYSTEM. 🚨 (win10 and win11: settings -> system -> about -> device specifications -> system type ) it should say 64bit operating system, x64-based processor.

step 1: install windows on your computer FIRST. my favorite way of doing this is by creating an installation media with rufus. you can either grab and prepare two usb sticks for each OS, or you can prepare them one after the other. (pro tip: get two usb sticks, that way you can label them and store them away in case you need to reinstall windows/linux or want to install it somewhere else)

in order to do this, you need to download three things:

rufus

win10 (listen. i know switching to win11 is difficult. not much of a fan of it either. but support's gonna end for good. you will run into hiccups. it'll be frustrating for everyone involved. hate to say it, but in this case i'd opt for installing its dreadful successor over there ->) or win11

kubuntu (the download at the top is always the latest, most up-to-date one)

when grabbing your windows installation of choice pick this option here, not the media creation tool option at the top of the page:

side note: there's also very legit key sellers out there who can hook you up with cheap keys. you're allowed to do that if you use those keys privately. don't do this in an enterprise environment though. and don't waste money on it if your ultimate goal is to switch to linux entirely at one point.

from here it's very easy sailing. plug your usb drive into your computer and fire up rufus (just double click it).

🚨two very important things though!!!!!!:🚨

triple check your usb device. whatever one you selected will get wiped entirely in order to make space for your installation media. if you want to be on the safe side only plug in the ONE usb stick you want to use. and back up any music, pictures or whatever else you had on there before or it'll be gone forever.

you can only install ONE OS on ONE usb drive. so you need to do this twice, once with your kubuntu iso and once with your windows iso, on a different drive each.

done. now you can dispense windows and linux left and right, whenever and wherever you feel like it. you could, for example, start with your designated dual boot device. installing windows is now as simple as plugging the usb device into your computer and booting it up. from there, click your way through the installation process and come back to this tutorial when you're ready.

step 2: preparing the disks for a dual boot setup

on your fresh install, find your disk partitions. in your search bar enter either "diskmgr" and hit enter or just type "partitions". the former opens your disk manager right away, the latter serves you up with this "create and format hard disk partitions" search result and that's what you're gonna be clicking.

you'll end up on a screen that looks more or less like in the screenshot below. depending on how many disks you've installed this might look different, but the basic gist is the same. we're going to snip a little bit off Disk 0 and make space for kubuntu on it. my screenshot isn't the best example because i'm using the whole disk and in order to practice what i preach i'd have to go against my own advice. that piece of advice is: if this screen intimidates you and you're not sure what you're doing here, hands off your (C:) drive, EFI system, and recovery partition. however, if you're feeling particularly fearless, go check out the amount of "free space" to the right. is there more than 30gb left available? if so, you're free to right click your (C:) drive and click "shrink volume"

this screen will pop up:

the minimum disk space required for kubuntu is 25gb. the recommended one is 50gb. for an installation like this, about 30gb are enough. in order to do that, simply change the value at

Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB: to 30000

and hit Shrink.

once that's done your partitions will have changed and unallocated space at about the size of 30gb should be visible under Disk 0 at the bottom like in the bottom left of this screenshot (courtesy of microsoft.com):

this is gonna be kubuntu's new home on your disk.

step 3: boot order, BIOS/UEFI changes

all you need to do now is plug the kubuntu-usb drive you prepared earlier with rufus into your computer again and reboot that bad boy.

the next step has no screenshots. we're heading into your UEFI/BIOS (by hitting a specific key (like ESC, F10, Enter) while your computer boots up) and that'll look different for everyone reading this. if this section has you completely lost, google how to do these steps for your machine.

a good search term would be: "[YOUR DEVICE (i.e Lenovo, your mainboard's name, etc.)] change boot order"

what you need to do is to tell your computer to boot your USB before it tries to boot up windows. otherwise you won't be able to install kubuntu.

this can be done by entering your BIOS/UEFI and navigating to a point called something along the lines of "boot". from "boot order" to "booting devices" to "startup configuration", it could be called anything.

what'll be a common point though is that it'll list all your bootable devices. the topmost one is usually the one that boots up first, so if your usb is anywhere below that, make sure to drag and drop or otherwise move it to the top.

when you're done navigate to Save & Exit. your computer will then boot up kubuntu's install wizard. you'll be greeted with this:

shocker, i know, but click "Install Kubuntu" on the right.

step 4: kubuntu installation

this is a guided installation. just like when you're installing windows you'll be prompted when you need to make changes. if i remember correctly it's going to ask you for your preferred keyboard layout, a network connection, additional software you might want to install, and all of that is up to you.

but once you reach the point where it asks you where you want to install kubuntu we'll have to make a couple of important choices.

🚨 another important note 🚨

do NOT pick any of the top three options. they will overwrite your already existing windows installation.

click manual instead. we're going to point it to our unallocated disk space. hit continue. you will be shown another disk partition screen.

what you're looking for are your 30gb of free space. just like with the USB drive when we were working with rufus, make sure you're picking the right one. triple check at the very least. the chosen disk will get wiped.

click it until the screen "create a new partition" pops up.

change the following settings to:

New partition size in megabytes: 512

Use as: EFI System Partition

hit OK.

click your free space again. same procedure.

change the following settings to:

New partition size in megabytes: 8000 (*this might be different in your case, read on.)

Use As: Swap Area

hit OK

click your free space a third time. we need one more partition.

change the following settings to:

don't change anything about the partition size this time. we're letting it use up the rest of the resources.

Use as: Ext4 journaling system

Mount Point: /

you're done here as well.

*about the 8000 megabytes in the second step: this is about your RAM size. if you have 4gb instead type 4000, and so on.

once you're sure your configuration is good and ready to go, hit "Install Now". up until here you can go back and make changes to your settings. once you've clicked the button, there's no going back.

finally, select your timezone and create a user account. then hit continue. the installation should finish up... and you'll be good to go.

you'll be told to remove the USB drive from your computer and reboot your machine.

now when your computer boots up, you should end up on a black screen with a little bit of text in the top left corner. ubuntu and windows boot manager should be mentioned there. naturally, when you click ubuntu you will boot into your kubuntu. likewise if you hit windows boot manager your windows login screen will come up.

and that's that folks. go ham on messing around with your linux distro. customize it to your liking. make yourself familiar with the shell (on kubuntu, when you're on your desktop, hit CTRL+ALT+T).

for starters, you could feed it the first commands i always punch into fresh Linux installs:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install vim

(you'll thank me for the vim one later)

turn your back on windows. taste freedom. nothing sexier than open source, baby.

sources (mainly for the pictures): 1, 2

further reading for the curious: 1, 2

linux basics (includes CLI commands)

kubuntu documentation (this is your new best friend. it'll tell you everything about kubuntu that you need to know.

and finally the promised kde/gnome meme:

[utilitycaster]

Several of Matt's answers started with basically "I thought you guys would follow this thread and then you didn't!" about complete arcs and planned plots which is all D&D but also bears out the idea that Matt simply did not adjust to nudge the players/characters more early on when the signs were there that they were not going to pick these things up of their own volition. It felt like further confirmation of C3 critics' analysis.

yup I haven't finished it, and I may not get a chance for a while - I've got evening plans and work is taking longer than I'd hoped it would, but thus far there's been a lot of fun reveals but especially showing the early vs. late campaign clips it just feels like the plot went limp halfway through in a campaign that was entirely about plot.

Again, I really do think the biggest problem of all was that fundamentally, this was a campaign structured very differently than C1 or C2. Campaign 1 was a home game that grew from a one-shot that ultimately became Critical Role, but it was very much designed for the characters the party created. The world was very much built for and around them, as I think a homebrewed home game should be! Campaign 2 was both a campaign where the cast knew they had to prove they weren't just Vox Machina, and one where the goal was to flesh out a specific part of the world and some of the underlying cosmology, and so by requiring the players to be from Wildemount and tied to it as a place, they had the luxury of character study-focused plotlines rather than something big and overarching, because a character study into, for example, Caleb, allowed insight into understanding wizardry and the Dwendalian Empire. @mareastrorum also has some great tags on one of my posts about how the villains of those respective campaigns were either created or selected to fit the characters.

Campaign 3 was, as Matt intended, a campaign with a very specific plotline. That was not communicated to the players at the start nor like, later on, and I think most of them struggled, understandably, to pivot from character concepts that were profoundly ill-suited.

What gets me is that I think Matt's mentioned that he's run Curse of Strahd, and I know he was involved in Call of the Netherdeep, and fundamentally C3 functions as a module! I think because it's his homebrewed world with his friends who are familiar with the setting and he had two great campaigns under his belt he did not realize this was going to be a problem, but ultimately, it really was.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Games with an atypical division of Player/GM responsibilities? For example, in Fellowship, the players have final say in lore/world building questions, not the GM. (Not counting GMless games, which have atypical GM duties by default)

Alternatively, if that's too niche: any games explicitly designed for rotating GMs and/or 'West Marches' style campaigns.

THEME: Unique Player Responsibilities / Rotating GMs

Hello there! I hope to do your ask justice, although I feel more at home talking about the first half of your question than the second. I’ll ask my followers to supply some more suggestions in the tags/reblogs, and throw at you what I have!

Fae’s Anatomy, by Hebanon Games.

Fae’s Anatomy is a comedic storytelling RPG wrapped around a challenging logic puzzle, recreating the high-stakes melodrama of medical procedurals like Grey’s Anatomy, House, and General Hospital. 

Anybody can be an expert in Fae’s Anatomy. The game is set in a world where all forms of magic, spirituality, and mysticism are science. Science? Just another form of wizardry. Quackary, superstition, and pseudo-science work, but so does chemotherapy, antibiotics, and sound medicine.

In many ways, I’d say Fae’s Anatomy feels like a typical ttrpg: you have one person giving hints and clues to the rest of the players, who will use certain skills and abilities to solve a problem. But the closest role to the GM role - the Patient - is simply different from the doctors in what limits them. The Patient is suffering from some kind of mysterious illness, and while they have a little bit of information available to their general illness, the app presented to them to help them run through the diagnosis keeps the solution obscured enough to keep them on their toes. The Patient also has to role-play their symptoms well enough to help point the doctors in the right direction. In some ways, it feels like Fae’s Anatomy is an elegant form of charades - and if you want to hear how this game plays, you can check out the special episodes that Lawful Great Adventures recorded using this game!

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi @temporalhiccup

The Doomsday Clock is ticking down and emotions run high as you and your team of DIVISION agents struggle to find the Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring about the apocalypse.

As an Omen class monster, you are the only thing capable of holding back the apocalypse. Combat occult threats and investigate supernatural phenomena alongside your team of supernatural agents working for the shadowy DIVISION. But in a world that shuns monsters like you, only your deepest, most heartfelt bonds can grant you the power to stop those who seek to unlock Doom’s Door.

There are two ways in which Apocalypse Keys uniquely empowers the players in ways I consider slightly unorthodox. Firstly, there’s the fact that the lore of DIVISION, the shadowy government agency that holds your monsters leash, isn’t fully fleshed out at the beginning of play. It’s slowly uncovered with each mission and playbook advancement, with the players being presented with questions and workshopping the answers together.

Second is the mystery mechanic, which was popularized by Brindlewood Bay and The Between, and also made its way into games such as External Containment Bureau and Bump in the Dark. While the GM designs clues and thinks about what kinds of Harbingers might be responsible for this specific apocalypse, it’s up to the players to decide what the answer to the mystery actually is - and it’s the player’s roll that determines how accurate they are.

Brinkwood, Blood of Tyrants, by Far Horizons Co-Op.

Mask up. Spill blood. Drink the Rich.

The world is not as it should be. The rich feed, literally, upon the poor, as blood-sucking vampires who barely bother to conceal their horrific, parasitic nature. The downtrodden peoples of the world struggle under the burdens of rent, payable through the sweat of their labor or the blood of their veins. Evil has triumphed. Many have given in to despair. But all is not lost.

In Brinkwood, you take on the role of renegades, thieves, and rebels struggling for freedom and liberation in a castylpunk world controlled by vampires. Radicalized by tragedy, you have taken up arms and fled into the forests, where you were taken in by unlikely allies - the fae, forgotten creatures of myth - who offered a different path and the means to fight back against your oppressors. Masks, forged of old wood and older magic, are the final tool left to fight a war long ago lost. If you wear them, they will take their price, etching themselves upon your very soul. But they will also let you spill the blood of the rich and powerful vampires that now rule the land, and from that blood strengthen yourself and your movement.

There’s a lot of things about Brinkwood that I absolutely love, from the way the mask playbooks are meant to be swapped among the characters/players with every mission, to the slow but steady revolution that you build by fostering connections with various factions in the Bloody Isles. But for the purpose of this request, we need to talk about Your Exquisite Fae.

Your Exquisite Fae is the process by which the group collaboratively creates a faerie patron, otherworldly and uniquely powerful. It’s inspired by the game Exquisite Corpse, which has each player draw a piece of a drawing without knowing what the others have already created. In Your Exquisite Fae, the players receive answers to prompts written by other players but aren’t given hints as to what the context was - and then they elaborate on what those answers mean. For example, one player might state that the Fae has eyes that reflect the night sky, gleaming like a thousand distant starts. The second player might decide that those eyes see the deepest fears of the enemy, giving the group an advantage at finding weaknesses and secrets when spying on vampires.

Ars Magica, by Atlas Games.

Ars Magica is the award-winning roleplaying game by Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein•Hagen about wizards and their allies in Mythic Europe. This flexible, deeply built world can support games that are historically accurate or fantasy-based, epic or small scale, political or personal.

Players work together to tell the story of their covenant — all of the magi, their companions, and grogs. This history can span decades. It might be heroic, tragic, or both in turn. The covenant could influence the entirety of Mythic Europe or the fates of a small corner of the world.

Spells will be cast. Duels won and lost. Houses may rise and fall. But magic is forever.

The last time I talked about this game, one of my followers pointed out that this was an incredibly complex game that was designed to accommodate rotating GMs. The game styles itself as a troupe-style game, which means you’re not just responsible for your mages, but also your companions and servants. If you want a game with complex relationships and big-picture conflicts, this might be the game for you.

Slugblaster, by Mikey Hamm.

In the small town of Hillview, teenage hoverboarders sneak into other dimensions to explore, film tricks, go viral, and get away from the problems at home. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s got parent groups in a panic. And it’s the coolest thing ever.

This is Slugblaster. A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool.

It may look like a small thing, but during crew creation, each character playbook has specific roles in determining the crew’s resources and relationships. The Grit picks a faction that trusts the crew. The Guts chooses a faction that the crew has somehow annoyed. Each player draws a portal between the known multiverses, but the Smarts draws two. The Chill has final say over where you hang out when you’re not Slugblasting, and The Heart has final say over your crew name.

I’ve drawn direct inspiration from this setup in my own game that I’m playtesting, by giving each playbook final say over some element in the world, and I think it really boosts player agency and gives them control over the kind of story the group wants to tell.

Planedawn Orphans, by Sharkbomb Studios.

Planedawn Orphans is a campaign kit that helps you prepare a campaign for the fantasy role-playing game of your choice. It provides a flexible and versatile framework to start a campaign. The campaign kit will help you get started and provide structure and support, but some assembly is required.

Set in the Planar City, a strange melting pot that connects the vast diversity of the multiverse. You all play Planar Orphans stranded in this city, your original home worlds destroyed, corrupted or lost. A mysterious Patron has brought you together, provided you with a base of operations and tasked you to complete a Planar Key. This key will let you create a new plane for you and your fellow refugees. Your quest will bring you to exotic places filled with strange creatures and bizarre phenomena.

This isn’t a standalone rpg, but rather a campaign kit for whatever system you like - or even multiple systems! I’m recommending this toolkit because I’m actually planning to use it to run a series of rotating-gm games later this year, with a friend of mine. You’re building your own custom dimension by jumping into a series of vastly different worlds, and your home base is built collectively. There’s a lot of player agency and GM agency here, as players have plenty of control over their home dimensions (since they can’t ever go back) and the GMs can take turns designing custom worlds for the party to jump into. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Also Check Out

Asymmetrical Games Rec Post

[vintagerpg]

Late in the lifespan of the Thieves’ Guild line, Gamelords began issuing books expanding the campaign setting. Tyrant’s Demesne (1983) focuses on the city dhar Ankhes, part of a somewhat Middle Eastern flavored region north of the main city of Haven.

It’s…fine. The count in charge is corrupt tyrant, kept in power thanks to willingness to allow his allies to profit from criminal enterprises. There are, of course, many people who would like to see the count overthrown. There is also a guild of wizardry in turmoil and an external rivalry with local tribesmen (detailed in the next book) to contend with as well.

All of the information is as well thought out and presented as other Gamelords products, and it is nice to have a Point B for all those merchants to travel to and from so player bandits can pilfer them. But I do think it is a shame that we got these books rather than the final volume detailing Haven before Gamelords passed into history.

[thydungeongal]

I wonder if it's possible to have a game system that "tricks" unengaged players into thinking they're playing blackbox dnd but are actually playing something much simpler. not that it's a good idea but it would be funny

Older editions of D&D are actually really suitable for blackbox D&D because while they also reward system mastery there are fewer buttons to push on the character sheet so you kind of are forced to rely on this ancient art of "Ask the GM questions and then tell them what your character does" instead of "Chat, can I roll an Arcana check to figure out what's going on?"

Anyway so like in that new remake of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord there's like actual graphics and such, but if you look at the lower right corner of the screen there's actually a little representation of what the original game looked like and the exact situation you're in right now. So like hand your players one of those cool-looking 5e style character sheets and count on the fact that they'll refuse to read the rules anyway and just run a simpler game like Basic Fantasy Roleplaying under the hood.

[mayapapaya33]

I love the Mighty Nein but their allergy to nuance is deeply annoying. (I could stop there; that's a statement that covers a variety of sins lol). The particular thing I'm complaining about is their insistence that the whole Assembly and everyone in it is 100% evil when they had only met some of them and one member actively helped them and was actually really nice. Oremid Hass, the guy that really likes cute fuzzy animals and told Jester she was feeding Sprinkle the wrong food? Yussa's former student? That guy is a member of the Cerberus Assembly! I'm not saying he's flawless, he's probably got his skeletons, but the guy seems relatively ok. (And frankly, the M9 can only judge people so hard, their baggage is very big lol).

Ludinus and Trent are evil, but that doesn't mean they are ALL the same level of terrible! Yet Beau and Caleb seem to completely forget/ ignore this.

Also, they treated Astrid ascending to Trent's vacated position as some sort of mark of her dubiousness which was so incredibly irritating. Caleb declined the position for various reasons, some good ones based on his mental health, and some stupid ones like supposed integrity and honor or whatever when in fact if he took the position maybe he could have had access to the inner workings of the very corruption they wish to eliminate. I think that level of subterfuge would have been bad for his health so I'm glad he turned it down, but judging Astrid for it is ridiculous. Especially when you can be her friend and companion and help steer the decision making if you get involved. (Judging by the limited info offered by the Astrid& Essek interaction in C3, it's difficult to tell the level of interaction but it still seems deeply complicated and like they haven't spent much time together, which is so annoying.)

I think it's a decent example of the difference between reform vs tear it down, burn it to the ground and start over mentalities. I think Beau and Caleb (or maybe Marisha and Liam as DnD players) are stuck in anarchy mode and can't think about a more realistic painstaking reform of the Assembly rather than just tearing it down. Several different NPC's that we trust have mentioned infighting and not all of the members agreeing with Ludinus. Those are what we call in the business: Allies. At the very least for this situation if not longer.

Seriously, once they get rid of Ludinus, they have a real chance of making the assembly into a half decent organization. A big problem with it was that long lived bastard siting in the middle encouraging bad behavior. Part of the set up of the Assembly was supposed to be like a mini cold war of checks and balances of each member keeping the others in line, but Ludinus was too powerful, with him gone, the power structure would be more even, and the checks and balances might actually work. Now, they're still all wizards of various dubious natures, but at least that's something.

And there's a fresh crop of wizards in the world that have taken an ethics class via Caleb, the second wizard in the world after Allura to consider Ethics in Wizardry! So eventually there will be new blood in the fold and maybe some of them will have taken Caleb's classes!

[hellishfig]

i think the best part of seeing the twenty sided tavern with @quiddie as the dm last night was watching my dad see her as the dm.

for context, this was my fourth time seeing tst. the first time i went by myself bc aabria was the spellcaster and i wanted to see her in it, and she did not one, but TWO heel turns. it was magical. i wanted to talk to her but was too nervous.

the second time i went with my parents and my younger sibling bc erika ishii was the warrior, and we had a blast (it made my mom realize why the rest of us enjoy dnd!). the third time was me, my sibling, my dad, and his brother, and erika just so happened to be the warrior again! yet another fantastic time. both of these times, my sister and i went to speak to erika and got to take pictures with them and thank them for sharing their storytelling skills with the world.

but anyway. back to this time.

i went with my sibling and my dad once more. it was the last show that erika was going to be in with aabria as the dm, so everybody was tired and the sibling and i didn't end up talking to aabria, despite our desire to.

but the important thing is my dad. he'd only seen cassidy sledge as the dm, and she absolutely crushed it both times.

aabria iyengar though... aabria's dming style is fun bc it's adversarial. she's ready to be the bad guy bc she knows that it's more fun to win when you actually face terrifying odds. the warrior had 4 hit points by the end of the show! the trickster had 3!!! but they persevered! no one died! we completed the ritual!

the number of times my dad gasped or laughed out loud were so heartening. he played dungeons and dragons as a teen but hasn't played in many years, and it made me giddy to share something i love with him.

and it wouldn't have been anywhere NEAR as affecting without aabria pushing the players to explore the darker aspects of their characters. rj christian as the trickster had to grapple with whether the love spell he had knowingly allowed other characters to be subjected to (as well as himself) was pushing true feelings he had to the surface or creating them whole cloth. jasmin malave as the spellcaster used sinister magics to charm erika as the warrior to fall in love with her, only to be charmed in turn by the magics she utilized and realize it was wrong to induce those feelings in her friend.

and aabria was pushing and prodding the whole time, collaborative yet impish and full of mischievous purpose. she and the players (and the tavernkeeper, shoutout stomp <3) wove the story together.

it might have been the best version i'd seen yet.

and of course, all interspersed with uppies and kissing the homies!

i hope a lot more people get the chance to see this show, especially once it goes on tour. it really displays the thrill and silliness and beauty and community of playing this game together.

thank you @quiddie for your storytelling wizardry (😉). thank you erika, jasmin, rj, and stomp for your improv skills and instincts. you bring so much joy to so many people. ale and well met!

[overfedvenison]

Having looked in to Westmarsh-style D&D, and having read things like The Dying Earth and Three Hearts and Three Lions, and having gotten into first person dungeon crawlers/wizardry clones... I think we have perhaps misjudged random encounters as a mechanic They have a bad reputation, but I think you can certainly do something with these which is compelling. Wizardry clones in particular show this certain trepidation as you lurk through dungeons; they sorta elevate the random encounters to the core experience in a way that feels compelling and tense. You also have other ways it is played around with. Pokemon used tiles with random encounters - grass and water - to define your transversal. It also used patches with random encounters as stories and quests in and of themselves; Abra and Growlithe are both pokemon that disappear as soon as they are spotted, and so acquiring them becomes a puzzle. Legendary dogs and shinies become rare encounters. Over in Magi Nation, a core quest is tracking down a random enemy which only exists in one area, and only if you allow a weak enemy to live beyond the first rounds. These show how random encounters can deliver gameplay in an emergent, nuanced fashion. Then you have stuff like Undertale and Live a Live, where random encounters are used as a part of the narrative. The Medieval chapter of Live a Live, for example, is used to make the player feel more like a classic JRPG than the rest of the more experimental chapters. But you look at things like The Dying Earth and Three Hearts and Three Lions, and the bulk of their stories are essentially "Main character goes into an area and finds a random monster, repeat." You see this similarly with early D&D, where the random encounters are supposedly meant to add life to a place by simulating monsters moving around and emergent things. The problem is, a lot of that requires lateral thinking and a DM which was not really a thing in the early days of JRPGs, and some of those early emergent elements (Ie, random merchant encounters, random encounters you can choose to fight in accordance with your alignment) were weeded out over time rather than leaned into Still, we no longer have that limitation. We could add in random encounters with lasting effects. You could have, for example... Fairy encounter - Heal 50%, tell what next encounter will be 30%, give item 10%, join party 10% If the fairy joins the party, they will seek another random enemy in the area. They will either want you to kill it, heal it (Instantly ending the battle and giving you a reward,) or reunite with it (In which case it joins you as well until you leave the area) Something like that would not be the point of going somewhere, but could be the stuff going on in the background as you explore a dungeon... That could be super compelling.

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 17: It heal

I constantly have a growing number of questions for Chapman.

I finally remember one I want to ask, which I do so silently, by showing hir the screen of my tablet instead of hitting talk, “Why no human talk?”

We’re in the very back of a bar named Pooty’s. It’s on the same block as my building, right on the northeast corner, nearer to the Courthouse than the coffee shop is. The staff often go there after closing, but we’re here for dinner with those who are off. And the others aren’t sitting with us. Rhoda’s entertaining them at a table nearby, and we’re all watching the pool players.

Rhoda, Chapman, and Nathan, with the help of Seagull, have worked together to set something up for me that could seriously leverage any possible goodwill toward dragons that City Council might have.

County Council is going to have to come second.

Anyway, in preparation, Chapman has told the others that sie wants to confer with me alone for a bit and to make sure my tablet is in the best working order. Because I’m going to be relying on it.

Rhoda’s working with them to plan something else.

Chapman turns the tablet so it’s right side up for hir and considers my question.

When sie types something out and pushes it back, it says, “I cut corners for my prototype.”

We keep doing this for our whole conversation while drinking our own beers and eating a huge platter of fries that we’re sharing.

“Who for?” I ask. “Who people like me?”

“Trans people, like us,” Chapman replies.

“Prototype you? Or you prototype?” I hope that makes sense.

Chapman takes a little extra time, “I make prototype based on me. That way, spare clothes fit when someone tries it. Then we talk customizations.”

So, sie did make the prototype based on hir own body, but hir current body isn’t based on the prototype. That’s what I was curious about, briefly. Now I have another question.

“You make more?”

“Not yet.”

“Get easier with each?”

“A bit.”

I nod and ask, “Other dragons?”

“Can have. Not soon.” Chapman looks at me and says out loud, “We know we need to coordinate with them and prove that you can learn to be civil with each other. And we need to do it fast. And your discord server is a really good idea. So that’s what Rhoda’s talking about with the others. To figure out how to get their contact information so you can personally send invites. Our strategy, as you know, is two pronged. It has to be.”

I nod some more, like the human I resemble. This puts my bosom more into my lower peripheral vision and I see the second-hand Torrid dress I’m wearing. I am distracted by the novelty of this, but not necessarily in a good feeling way. I focus on the novelty and on Chapman’s words as best I can.

The TARDIS dress was destroyed in my demonstration to Seagull.

Chapman continues, “Your meeting with the Mayor, facilitated by the weekly, will help counter the alarmist propaganda the daily is publishing. The true locals are tuned to the weekly, even though it’s not on paper anymore. But the daily’s stories go right to the radio, as we’ve been hearing today. And that goes to the broader internet. And, on top of that, the local political establishment is currently behind the idea of running you all out of town.”

I nod once.

“The Mayor’s daughter is a dragon, though,” Chapman says. “Which is why we’ve got this interview. But we also absolutely need to rally the local dragons to cooperate. As quickly as possible. The Mayor’s daughter joining your discord might accelerate that. I feel it.” Sie considers me carefully for a moment, and then says, “Can I ask you a question this time? It’s really personal. I’ll keep it on the Tablet.”

I point at the tablet and nod.

“Can I scan your body when a dragon?” sie asks, then pushes the tablet toward me, initiating our ongoing silent exchange. The silence is for the wizardry stuff.

“Why?”

“Biology. Mating season. Important to know.”

That does make me feel a little weird in a mostly fun way. But, regardless, I answer, “Yes.” Because I want to learn what sie learns from that.

“See if you lay eggs,” Chapman says. “But also deeper.”

Ooh, “Yes.”

“I have theory.”

“What?”

“OK, so,” Chapman says out loud again. “There’s this idea, and I think it might be true, that dragons all work similarly to a set of salamanders when it comes to mating. Y - er, they might all be physiologically females. But these salamanders are really cool!” Sie pulls the tablet over to hirself and starts searching Wikipedia to bring up the relevant article. “They aren’t really a species. Scientists are calling them a bioform. Because what they do is they harvest DNA from a variety of other completely different salamanders. Each member of this bioform can collect spermatozoa from other salamanders and harvest just part of the DNA and store it for later. They can mix and match from all their off-species mates, and then have a clutch based on that.”

Sie looks at me to see if I’m understanding that. I hesitantly nod after a moment. More hesitant from the scrutiny than anything. What sie is saying makes a lot of sense and sounds really cool. I had no idea anything could do that, but why not, though?

“It’s not conscious, of course, and no one knows if there’s any logic to it, any rules or laws or if it’s random,” sie explains. “But, it happens and can be studied. And it results in a group of amphibians that are chimerical in a way that is only rivaled by one other set of bioforms on the planet now, that we know of. Dragons.”

“Beyond rad,” I reply with the tablet.

Chapman nods now, “Some people think that dragons can do this with a wider range of species, and that’s why y - they’re all so different. Of course, the sudden appearance of dragons seems to prove the presence of some kind of divine or magical power in the world, and a lot of people think dragons embody that power and use it to do otherwise biologically impossible things, too. And, I’m not exactly skeptical.”

“What do with Mayor and discord?” I ask.

Chapman glances at my question and tightens hir lips. “People who are aware of this theory, or who have the time to consider it – people who are not necessarily politicians – are concerned that this could make mating season, this Spring, particularly fraught. Of course, we may get our answers sooner, since mating season is just starting for the Southern hemisphere.”

“We fix before,” I say out loud, hitting talk.

“That’s what everyone hopes, yes. But if we can find out we can make better plans, and it behooves everyone to take the future into account while addressing the present. Fortunately, a lot of the people I know are very good at doing that.”

While I’m thinking about that and formulating a response or a question that could provoke more interesting revelations, we’re approached by a couple of men with pool cues in hand.

This is not a college pickup bar. Back in 2005 it was a bit of a music venue, but when stricter noise ordinances (which I do violate) got passed, Pooty’s stopped hosting shows. Now it’s what locals call an industry bar. A place where other food service workers collect to relax and commiserate with the staff. But we’re both vaguely feminine looking people who appear to be in our 30s, and I guess we’re cute? But cute to straight men? Really?

“Would either of you ladies like to join us in a game? We could play partners?” one of the men asks.

Oh, that’s easy. We could have fun playing, and we have a bunch of our friends here to watch out for us. So we could risk saying, “Yes.” But they’re not my type, and…

“Thank you, boys,” Chapman says in a lower register than I typically hear, dropping hir voice from a maple syrup tenor into a molasses and bourbon baritone. “She’s the only lady here. And while I’d normally take you up on it – I love pool – we’re here on business and have kind of a time crunch. You understand.”

I nod in Chapman’s direction when sie says, “business”.

“Ah, of course. Sorry to interrupt,” says the other guy, who then elbows his friend and gestures back at their table with his head.

Nice. No scene.

“You use magic?” I ask Chapman silently.

Sie takes the tablet and responds, “You didn’t feel it?”

“Not when human,” I reply. “I don’t think.” 

I’d been paying attention for the day, as we did things, and looking out for times I thought Chapman would be using magic. And I have yet to have felt a shift while wearing the pendant.

“Oh, really?” Chapman asks. “I will update notes. And we should test it for real. Didn’t use magic.”

“Nice guys.”

“Eh.”

We hear them laughing with each other, and both glance their direction to see them glancing back out of the corners of their eyes and elbowing each other.

OK. Maybe not.

The Pacific Northwest (or Seattle) Freeze, a standard of regional conduct, can really cut down on a lot of surface impoliteness when people are talking face to face. But the moment you turn your backs to each other, the knives do get sharpened sometimes.

I grew up here and never really noticed it before until Rhoda pointed it out one day. She’d been really frustrated by it, being a transplant from New York, herself.

Now I feel like I’m seeing it in action in stark relief to what I’m used to. But I wonder if it’s some kind of bias introduced by my new position in life.

I have a growing group of people who care about and support me, and I’m also hyperaware of my differences with humans, and how humans act around me. Especially since being targeted by the police.

On the other hand, I haven’t had much time to practice pretending to be human today. I’ve been so busy, and it’s my first day with the pendant.

I bet my mannerisms look really weird. Maybe cute, but really weird to those guys. It’s probably what got their attention. Maybe they mistook us for sisters. And then, based on our reaction, now I bet they think we’re queer, which would be right. And my weirdness becomes the subject of laughter.

Great.

“Let’s rejoin the others,” Chapman says.

Good idea, but I have one more question for hir.

“What your full name?” I ask.

Chapman smiles and almost breaks out in giggles, and then types it into the tablet, “Chap Man.” Then sie says, “In a phone book, I’d be listed as Man Chap. Which I think is funny. Chap is my first name and Man is my last. Legally. But I wanted a single word name, and that’s the easiest way to do it so that it still works with most databases. It’s really just Chapman.”

“Why Chapman?” I ask.

Sie shrugs, “I just really like the sound of it. It kind of subtly counteracts how femme I like to dress sometimes.” The sie asks, “Why’d you pick Meghan?”

“Not brave warrior. Though am,” I reply. “Real reason. Rhymes with dragon.”

“God, you’re such a trans girl.”

“Also. Meg short for Megabyte. Or Megalodon. Or Megnificent.”

“More damning evidence! Come on.”

—

Alone again with Chapman, it’s 2 AM and we’re back on the roof of my building.

I’m wondering once more where that first helicopter came from. None of us have found the answers to that. It wasn’t mentioned in any of the brief press releases the police chief issued earlier in the day. And I think we’re all hoping it will be made known by Monday night, just for curiosity’s sake. But maybe for legal reasons, too.

That said, my own reason for worrying about it is that it had directly targeted me. And now I’m standing on the place where it had done that, and I’m taking off my disguise.

Chapman got us up here through the lobby, the elevator, and the roof access, all without consulting property management. Of course.

Only Rhoda knows we’re up here, but she went to bed a while ago.

Since Chapman has obviously seen my naked human form, as sie had designed it based on what sie saw in the mirror before top surgery and hir queer makeover, I just take off my clothes and carefully fold them near the access hatch. And then I slip off the pendant, dropping it onto the roof in the process.

And stretch.

“Meg,” I say, like a cute cartoon animal voiced by an Angelina Joli impersonator.

“Oh, that’s a good thing to know how to say!” Chapman exclaims. “Your own name is important. OK.” Sie takes a gunfighter stance, with finger guns at hips, “You ready to be scanned?”

Sie had already just scanned me while I was disguised, and I didn’t feel a thing. This time I definitely feel the shift.

My sense of it is so discerning, I can pinpoint it to just behind Chapman’s sternum, right next to hir heart.

I’ve heard that people don’t perceive their center of consciousness to be in their head. They perceive it to be in or near their heart, and I wonder if Chapman’s one of them. But it’s not like I can scan hir.

“Theory supported!” Chapman declares. “You lay eggs, Meg. And you share that reproductive trait of those salamanders I was telling you about. It just remains to be seen what other dragons are like. Dammit, I love it when we all guess right, though.”

I lay eggs.

Yes!

Chapman walks around to face me more directly from my front, which isn’t ever strictly necessary for me, since I can look anywhere, and then says, “Thank you for consenting to that. It was a really invasive procedure. That’s intimate personal knowledge, and I swear I’ll keep your personal information secret. When it comes to body and mind, as opposed to actions and situations, I like to keep my scans based on full informed consent, if I can.”

I cat smile and say, “Yes.”

“In an emergency, though, I will probably do what I need to do to keep everyone safe,” sie adds. “That’s also something you should be fully aware of.”

“Okay,” I say. 

That was a complex one to learn. My first two syllable word. But it seemed important and really useful. It does sound a little less human when I say it, though. What would be the velar plosive in a human, the “k” sound, has an extra kind of record scratch noise to it when I render it.

“Oh, you know just enough words now you could make a simple sentence. Have you tried that yet?” Chapman asks.

“No,” I say. Then I select a couple other words to try to say in succession, and manage, “Now. Yes.”

It doesn’t sound like a sentence to my ears, but I know it can be one.

My verbal vocabulary is at eleven words, and I’m thinking of more I wish I could say right now. But I’ve got my AAC, which is fine for longer conversations. And, once I have that keyboard and computer set up, I’m going to write so much. The words I chose to learn are the ones I thought would be most useful to say quickly in critical moments. Words that might bring another dragon up short, so that I can take the time to pull out my tablet.

I huff.

I’m starting to realize just how much of my time is spent communicating.

I mean, it’s mostly what humans do most of the time anyway. But when you’re used to doing that so easily that you take it for granted, it can be a shock to lose most of that ability all of a sudden. And, by the third day, just before Rhoda had pointed me toward that app, the novelty of playing charades as a dragon was wearing off and I was so ready for something more.

I mean, I was mostly used to sitting around my apartment or my old corner of the coffee shop without anyone talking to me, before. But I still talked way more easily than I do now.

And then, after Rhoda gave me that app, things just got so intense so quickly.

But the only way to get a handle on it all without getting more seriously hurt or captured was to talk. And, sometimes to talk as fast as possible while being so impaired.

I think I’ve been doing pretty well, but I’m tired.

And it’s been a long day of talking, too. And I spent so much of it disguised as human and uncomfortable about it.

I go back to my purse, which I took off with my clothes, and hold it up and look at Chapman. I probably should have tried leaving it around my neck, but I didn’t want to risk hurting it.

Chapman obliges and comes over to help me put it back on.

Then, I pull out my tablet and put it on the roof, then curl up with it in front of me and hit, “Thank you.”

“Past my bedtime too. You’re very welcome, of course,” Chapman says. Sie looks up at the stars for a while, then says, “Don’t change anything. Do your thing in the morning, when you normally would. Keep the routine. Let’s see how the city responds. And… dammit. We didn’t do anything about that gash! We just hid it under my magic.”

Through the dull ache and occasional sting of my wound, I am amused that Chapman finally referred to hir art as “magic”. Sie will never do that with humans around.

For some reason, though, I’m not really worried about it.

“It heal,” I say.

“Uh-uh,” Chapman says. “I’m going to work with Rhoda to come back with a vet for you. We should at least suture it. I’ll do it myself if I have to.”

“Okay,” I reply. Then lie my head down on my wing claws, loafing with my other four limbs, and say, “Go.”

“Have a good night,” Chapman says and heads for the hatch.

I smile.

Sie pauses before opening up the access, and turns and says, “I wanted to be funny and hit you with some song lyrics, but I can’t think of any.”

I lift my head.

I haven’t listened to music for the past seven days. I’ve heard music at the shop and Pooty’s, but I wasn’t listening. And I used to wear headphones all the time.

What changed?

[thefluxsystem]

Welcome ✨

We go by The Flux System (TFS). We’re a mid-twenties aged DID system, and we created this blog for the express purpose of existing freely, so DID/systemhood & mental health are the main topics you’ll find here (not strictly).

We collectively rock with any/all pronouns though they/him are an easy default.

(No DNI, but man do I love that block button.)

We’re a writer by trade (it’s not as glamorous as it sounds), and recently returned to college as a psychology student.

Other than that, not much going on for us. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.

[Sideblogs & system members below the cut.]

We try to stay out of syscourse, as we have very differing opinions. However, we do scroll the tag. For those of us who do want to be involved, we post about it over on @sysconversationalist. Generally, we are not “pro” or “anti” anything as a whole. People are people.

The Flux System Members

(updated 12/2024. we never remember the emojis, they’re kinda just here for vibe purposes. had some system changes happen recently/dormant members return. Certain members aren’t listed for multiple reasons.)

Abella (Mums) 💪 - she/her

Aeshea 😈 - she/they/it @aesh-and-smoke

Alec 🏹 - he/him - @light-alexandria [Currently banned from the front]

“Allie Cat” ⚗️ - he/him

Aodhan 🧝‍♀️ - he/any

Ari 🛜 - he/him (trying out new pronouns)

Arlo 🐺 - they/them

Aze 👥 - they/them (subsystem)

Bailey 💅 - she/them

Balthazar 🥃 - he/fei

Bane (Mr. Oslo) 👨‍🏫 - he/him

Cadence 👗 - he/him

Casey 🐍 - he/him @snakeboi-casey

Celyn 👑 - he/him @forever-marshall

Coinflip (P.B.) 💃 - she/her

Dakota 🏋️‍♂️ - he/them

Despereaux 🐭 - xe/faer

Emery 🚬 - he/him @the-little-gray

Freddie 🦁 - he/him

Gwaine 🗡️ - he/any @thatknightcalledgwaine

(H.) Blu 🦋 - he/them

Isaac 📖 - they/them @isaacslibrary

Ivan 🏴‍☠️ - he/him

Jaime 🍬 - they/them @jai-jai-me

Jaise 💀 - he/him @the-price-of-mania

Jenny 💋 - she/her @jennysrealm (recently fused so blog’s out of date)

Jesse ☕️ - he/him

Jetta 🌌 - he/him @teen-mothman

Jonathan 👕 - he/him @daelee-news

Klaus 💊 - Klaus/him/any @cue-the-seance

Lev 🌖 - he/any

Lila 🌸 - she/her

Loranai 🔥 - he/zer @loranai

Lucifer 🪽 - Luci/him @fragment-come-luce

Merrick (50) 🐈‍⬛ - he/them @50nline

Minnow 🐠 - she/her

Nathan (The Kid) 🤠 - he/him @blog-of-the-kid

Nemo 🔷 - ze/xem

Nobody 🫥 - she/her

Paisley ☕️ - he/him @the-bigger-gray

Player 2 🎮 - she/him @ready-player-two

Rhea 💄 - she/her @teammom

Roxy 🪄 - she/her

Salem 🧹 - he/him @salems-witchcraft-and-wizardry

Sapphire 💎 - he/him

Scars ❤️‍🔥 - he/him

Serena 🤺 - she/her @seremont

Shiloh 📚 - he/them

Sirius 🐾 - he/him

Sothis 🕊️ - she/her

Sunshine ☀️ - he/him @sunshine-starshine

Teddy 👨‍🎤 - he/him

Tyler 👨‍🍼 - he/him @blackouttyme

Valiant (P.G.) 🕺 - he/him

Zane ✍️ - he/him @paging-major-z

[dreamingofthewild]

Hi there! I was just reading your post on Mystra grooming and I thought it was very well articulated I just had one question on it. You mentioned that Elminster reached out to Gale when Gale was 8 years old and I haven't seen that mentioned in the game or in other lore for the game. Would you mind letting me know where that was sourced? Mostly because I'm interested on reading on that more, thank you

Hello there kingtycoon13

SPOILER ALERT: EPILOUGE

The reference to Elminster reaching out to Gale comes from a letter that Elminster writes to Gale when he ascends to Godhood. The letter can be found in a basket full of letters the player can read in the epilogue.

More under the cut

In the Forgotten Realms Wiki, it does say that Elminster took on apprentices from time-to-time. Sometimes they were by Mystra's request.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Elminster#Apprentices

We do not know why Elminster appeared on Gale's doorstop when he was eight years old. We do know that Gale was a child prodigy who could summon rabbits when since he was toddler (I cannot find the dialogue for this on the web). If magic was unstable at the time this makes his power an even more impressive feat.

So Elminster had connection with the Blackstaff and was prominent in Waterdeep.

There is every potential that he heard about a boy prodigy who was living with non-magically inclined parents and rocked up to their doorstep to offer help. He might have been thinking about how Mystra will need more chosen when she returns, or he might have just decided that it was time for another apprentice.

On the forgotten realms Wiki it says that Elminster spoke to Mystra who possessed the body of a bear and asked him to find new candidate's to become her chosen. Gale would have been 22 at the time if we go with his cannon age of 35.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mystra_(Midnight)

I think that Elminster may have suggested Gale as a candidate when Gale was 22. Elminster has helped train her chosen before, such as Sammaster.

There is also a very interesting tidbit I found upon looking him up where he says he left the encounter feeling as though he and Mystra were in love;

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sammaster

I do not know to what extent Mystra's presence could be felt whilst she was gone. But Midnight was said to have felt a 'presence' and her spells which might've failed succeeded and she felt like she was being groomed, before becoming the next Mystra. I cannot find any evidence to support a theory that Mystra was behind Gale's ability to cast magic at such a young age. But it is an interesting theory nonetheless.

Anyway, back to my original point. When I said that Elminster had a part to play, I meant that he is a renowned wizard and former chosen of Mystra. And he inserted himself into Gale's life when he was 8. It is implied that he did help him, and potentially recommended him if she did not already have her eyes on him herself.

Elminster does mention making a mistake in his letter, so could that be the mistake he refers to?

We don't know if Mystra sought Gale out as her chosen because of Elminster or vice versa. She may have set her eyes on him regardless but perhaps at a later stage. Either way, Elminster had a part to play in Gale being selected as her chosen.

My idea also stemmed from a post a read a while back where someone wrote Meta's on each BG3 character;

The final point I wanted to make was that grooming does not always involve one person. It can be an organisation or an entire industry which is set up to suck the souls out of people who have talent. Be it academia, sports, the film and music industries or the fictional industry of Wizardry.

But in general the process of becoming a chosen is exploitative and manipulative. We witness that in game with Shadowheart and Lae'zel. They were all groomed in different ways.

[wetcatspellcaster]

7 and 8 for the Tav asks. :D and congrats on the thesis!

Thank you for the questions! Sorry for the long answer!

7. Describe their arc. How would a player help resolve it? What choices can be made? Can your Tav be turned down a dark path, or pulled to a lighter one?

So I thought about this a lot, the Good Ending for Rosalie is she's Just A Person, the Bad Ending is that she volunteers to become the mindflayer at the Orpheus decision for ENTIRELY THE WRONG REASONS (feeling like a liability, believing it's the only way to cure her mental illness, seeing herself as the weak link in the group, being depressed, etc. - this ending bought to you by me staring at that decision screen for an hour KNOWING she'd turn herself into a mindflayer in a heartbeat but feeling physically ill over her logic behind that decision). This is the 'exalted mind' ending.

So there is a bad path for her, but it's one bought about by being self-sacrificing to the point of absolute idiocy and self destruction. I think that Tav literally swerves her away from it by teaching her to be a little selfish and to value herself lmao. Literally the opposite of most of the other companions, and kind of what I wish you could teach Wyll in his storyline tbh!

Her arc would be her just generally being over-emotional and reckless, with lots of camp chats about morality in Act 1 (I would probably double down on the tropes that fandoms hate in female characters a la Katara in Avatar the Last Airbender just for the lols). I want her ending Act 1 feeling like a trite 'heart of the group', ridiculous Mary Sue, she talks to you a lot about how you're feeling, are you ok? Borderline annoying tbh, but with the EA Halsin Effect of "oh, you're the companion who's nicest to me!!". Then in Act 1/2 depending on approval she does something utterly stupid, like run into a fight alone unprompted (death to a wizard), or possibly have Ethel specific dialogue that pisses Ethel off if she's in your party, and the player starts thinking "god this girl is a bit weird and reckless and stupid at times actually", and calling her out on it gets the illithid tadpole as anxiety med drop.

Act 3, you start meeting people from her past (bonus comedy route for if you just enabled all her behaviour at this point to be nice to her and get her approval bc then the illithid tadpole drop happens here). Larroakan is like "aren't you that mousy little scribe who completed those commissions for me?", you can find Threnn, possibly did an infernal translation for Gortash (not canon just for story tie-in)???? and they're all like "who the fuck are you? why are you so different now". There would be a confrontation about lying about who she is, a camp conversation about the pressure they face as the 'heroes of Baldur's Gate" and how she feels inadequate. And then in the conversation with Threnn, and the final Orpheus conversation, Tav can encourage Rose to have an actually healthy relationship with her emotions and not see her every choice as a failing actually. Then you unlock real Rose personality and a final decision where she doesn't try and throw herself on her sword.

8. After Act 3, what does their life look like? What are they talking about at the reunion party?

Good ending Rosalie has rebuilt her relationships with her family, she's back at the Watchful Order but getting all their backlog of heroic deeds retroactively converted into a wizard qualification, and unromanced she'll mention that she's either considering going on secondment to Avernus or helping Halsin in the Shadowlands/feywild as her practical project for the final part of her grade. She will have visited every single companion in the six months (Wyll/Karlach as a projection). She will mention going to tea weekly with Gale given that she's fast-tracking wizardry/he needs a friend group and practice at being a normie and they live in the same city. She will name drop being friends with Tara very smugly.

Bad ending Rosalie is a mindflayer and will talk about the magic she's capable of and the power she's unlocking, now she's no longer letting emotion cloud her judgement. You can ask her about her parents and if she's gotten back in touch and she says, "oh, right. I used to have those."

tav ask game! :)

[atelier-slime]

DRAGON QUEST'S LOCALIZATION SUCKS, ACTUALLY. PART 3

I have a theory of a somewhat conspiratorial nature: Whoever came up with the localized names for DQ's spells started working on it 5 minutes before getting off work for a long weekend. It's the only thing that makes sense. The naming conventions and entire system seem so hacked together and poorly though out that it was either a rush job or someone didn't care, and neither one bodes well for the localization as a whole.

To understand why it's so egregious though, we need to look at how other RPGs handle their spell names first. Probably the most well known one is Final Fantasy:

There's a very clear and consistent pattern here. Even if you've never played Final Fantasy before, you can easily intuit what the names of the spells I've left out are. Individual entries in the series might have slight variations to this pattern, but generally this is what's used across the entire series as well as spinoffs and spinoffs of spinoffs.

SMT takes this a step further by including prefixes that denote the number of targets:

This time I can leave out an entire row of names and you can still correctly guess what they're supposed to be because of the consistency, even with the minor variations for individual spell lines.

There's tons of other games that handle their spells like this (Disgaea and Skies of Arcadia off the top of my head), because this kind of pattern has multiple benefits. When spell names have a clear hierarchy to them players can pick them up quicker, and even recognize what a spell will do before ever using it. If you've already seen zio, bufu, and mabufu you can reasonably assume what mazio will do when you encounter it for the first time in game without having to read the spell description.

Another benefit of these particular examples? They're the same between the English and Japanese versions. Everything up there is just the romanji spelling of the Japanese name. Fans from all over the globe have a shared point of connection that can be understood regardless of the speaker's language.

So how does Dragon Quest handle its spell names? Let's look at the Japanese names first (with romanji in parentheses.)

Turns out there is no pattern in DQ! Some names get longer when they get stronger, some get shorter, some get prefixes, some get suffixes, some get both. There's no clear rhyme or reason to how the spells are named. And guess what? That's intentional! There's a really great interview with Yuji Horii and Robert Woodhead (one of the creators of Wizardry) where he explains this.

So, before I get to how the English localization handled things, just a quick recap: Horii specifically wanted the spell names to be

-Something the player can't immediately relate to

-Not an actual word in Japanese or English

-Enigmatic sounding

-Based off of onomatopoeia

-Different for each stage of spell

This isn't fan speculation or something. This is the man who came up with those names saying "This is how I came up with the names and these are the feelings I wanted to invoke in the player with them."

Okay, let's look at the English names now and see how many of the criteria they manage to meet.

-Something the player can't relate to? FAILED

-Not an actual word in Japanese or English? FAILED

-Enigmatic sounding? FAILED

-Based off of onomatopoeia? Sorta? I'll give them half points for this one, but there are some issues*

-Different for each stage of spell? Yes! Good job guys, 1.5/5 stars.

Things already look pretty dire at first glance, but the longer you stare at this and the more you think about it, the more nonsensical it becomes. I've intentionally left out the full wind and heal spell line. Based on the initial pattern we're given, you might logically assume they go Woosh > Wooshle > Kawoosh >Kawooshle and Heal > Healle > Kaheal > Kahealle. Those don't really roll off the tongue though. Luckily, whoever came up with these names noticed that too, which is why I assume this was done out of apathy or haste instead of incompetence.

Given how poorly the heal line fits the naming scheme, they went with Heal > Midheal > Moreheal > Fullheal. Awesome! We've established that we don't have to be married to the initial pattern, especially considering in the original Japanese, there is literally no pattern. **Whoever came up with this is making it up from scratch. None of it exists in the original Japanese.**

Anyway, how does the wind line go? Well first they go Woosh > Swoosh. Strong start! What comes next? Kaswoosh? Why? You already established that you're fine with breaking the pattern, and the first two don't fit it anyway. What's the final one? Kaswooshle? WHY? You already broke from the pattern because the -le sounded weird! There are 9 different elemental spell lines as of the most recent DQ game (Dragon Quest Monsters 3) and of those, a third of them are given different names because adding "-le" to the end sounds really awkward. (Splish > Splash, Bang > Boom, Woosh > Swoosh) Again, **Whoever came up with this is making it up from scratch. None of it exists in the original Japanese.** If a full third of the spells in the game don't mesh well with the pattern you came up with, maybe you need to go back to the drawing board? Or you could just shove every peg through the round hole, I guess.

It gets dumber when you take the non-elemental spells into account too. There's a line of non-damaging spells that can prevent enemies from spellcasting called Fizzle and Kafizzle, which you might notice is a single letter difference from the fire spell line up there. If you have two spells that do completely different things with almost identical names, you fucked up somewhere! It literally took me ten seconds to come up with potential different names while I was sitting here typing this. Hush and Shush! Mute and Mutle! It's not rocket science. Trying to force a pattern onto the spell names in this manner is absolutely a failure from a design perspective.

And that's just talking about the pattern! Time for the issues*!

There's a bunch of extremely questionable choices when it comes to the individual words they picked. Here's an experiment for you: Go find someone who has no exposure to Dragon Quest. Tell them there's a spell in the game called "Crackle," and then ask them to guess what element they think it might be. Nobody ever says ice. I've done this like a dozen times, and the most common answer I hear is electricity, followed by fire.

English doesn't have anywhere near the amount of extremely specific onomatopoeia that Japanese has. In Japan, meramera is the sound a fire makes. English doesn't have a set sound for fire. Fire can crackle. It can woosh. There's a ton of different words you can pick from, but I've never in my life heard a fire described as "frizzling." Fizzling? Sure. But I don't think Frizzle is a word outside of Magic School Bus. When I see "Frizz," the first association that comes to mind is "Freeze." I can't be the only one either.

There's a really cool talk by Mark Rosewater at GDC about lessons he's learned over the years, and one of the points he brings up is that players have a prebuilt set of notions that you as a designer can use to help get them invested in your game. If you've chosen your spell names so poorly that people assume the fire spell is an ice one and vice versa, something has gone horribly wrong.

And the fun doesn't stop there! Did you notice what the third tier of the fire spell is called in Japanese?

Hmm... Sounds familiar. I wonder what game it was introduced in?

I see. I see. Who was the final boss in DQ 3 again?

Huh. I wonder if that's relevant.

I feel like this one is such a huge red flag for the localization as a whole. You have one of the most iconic spells introduced in DQ3, far and away the most popular one in the series, named after the final boss of said game. Clearly that was intentional! In game, you'll unlock the spell Merazoma/Kafrizz before you ever even learn that Zoma exists. It's an extremely cool piece of worldbuilding, realizing that the spell you've been relying on all this time is actually his. It also makes him incredibly intimidating. Just how powerful is he if the strongest version of one of the most fundamental spells in the game is named after him? All of that gets chucked out the window in the English version.

There's an adage I've seen before when people talk about translation, which goes along the lines of: "When you translate anything, you need to start with the knowledge that you have already failed." No matter how hard you try, you'll never be able to perfectly capture all the nuance of the original work and translate it to another language. Aside from differences in grammar or words that only exist in one language, there's an entire wealth of cultural context and history that is impossible to impart.

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly! That's part of the reason why I'm interested in linguistics and other languages to begin with. But even if you're going to fail, there are degrees of failure and degrees of effort that change the outcome. If I leave the oven on too long and burn my pizza, that's a failure. If I forget about my pizza and the stove bursts into flames and burns down my entire house, that's also a failure. That doesn't mean they're both equally acceptable outcomes.

Sometimes I feel like all this is pretty nit-picky, but the more I dig into it, the more it seems like DQ's current localization is nothing but millions of nits in a trench coat. At the end of the Day, Squeenix is an international corporation. They're going to maximize their profits while minimizing the amount of money they have to spend. That makes it extremely likely that the people they hire to do the job are going to be the ones who will do it as quickly and as cheaply as possible. And even then, they won't be happy. Given Horii's recent complaints about Squeenix making changes in the search of more sales it's not going to stop any time soon, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna stop bitching about it.

[self-loving-vampire]

While on the topic of Wizardry, did you know that game series is an extremely significant inspiration for both Dungeon Meshi and multiple types of computer RPGs?

Even as far back as the first game in the series (and even earlier PLATO games like Oubliette but significantly fewer people played those) it was common for a party to fall deep in the dungeon, at which point the game was not over. The player could create and send a new party to rescue and resurrect their dead comrades. Familiar situation, right?

And that's just one of the many tropes from this era of RPGs that made its way into the show (and anime that borrows RPG tropes more generally). Stuff like the mix of western fantasy with eastern character types like samurai and ninja, or the parts where the party relies on Chilchuck doing stuff like mapping the dungeon, are also coming from this type of game.

From the CRPG book:

If you are interested, I strongly recommend playing the SNES combination port of the first three games. It's called Wizardry I-II-III: Story of Llylgamyn.