#because dnd is also real good

[schneiderenjoyer]

This part has provided and honestly confirmed an insight that's been implied occasionally, but never openly stated as much as this moment.

Arcanists are less durable.

It's mentioned a handful of times how it's important for combat between arcanists to be quick and efficient. While they can be physically strong even beyond human standards, their limits are far shorter in comparison. They're far more prone to taking physical and mental damage quicker with their quick healing/recovery to make up for it, but not change just how fragile they are.

This is very insightful too as to why arcanists would be more inclined to fight using arcanum instead of physically as much as possible. Their arcanum gives them an upper hand where their physical stamina is lacking.

[green-tea-lemonade]

squishy face :33

[tritoch]

i've seen posts before drawing parallels between FFXIV paladins and 5e oath of the ancients paladins since the name and principles of the subclass are fitting for the warrior of light

what i've never seen anyone point out before, however, is that this is not the only thing that makes it relevant, because it also has access to FFXIV's most impactful ability: the power to summon the Cutscene Chains

at long last...the power of the ancients, in your hands...

[rooolt]

I know it’s early days but I genuinely think the hardwon thing was so well done. On paper it sounds kinda cheap to be resorting to your old pc and it might bring up a whole host of concerns but I think it speaks to how good murphs been with balancing c1 drops as like fanservicey things and actual relevant stuff to the world and is definitely emblematic of the core message of naddpod which has always been “the story doesn’t just end after the big battle”. I think the hardwon thing does a good job of keeping him relevant while still interesting, and reminiscent of c1 hardwon while being a distinct character for this campaign. I don’t think who he’s become backpedal’s on development we saw from him but just goes to show that people don’t stay the same. Idk, naddpod good man

[flashhwing]

I hate when youre having a dream and your brain makes up a guy and goes “okay you have a strong emotional attachment to this guy” and you’re like okay cool I love this guy I’d do anything for him. and then he fuckin dies

[paging-possum]

Grits my teeth because I am NOT going to share a dungeons and daddies opinion right before I have to go work for 7 hours I won’t I won’t

[elftwink]

been learning to play ironsworn (gritty fantasy ttrpg which you can play with a gm but is mostly suited for solo or small group co-op gmless play) after having the rulebook pdf for several years (stars finally aligned to remove invisible thing blocking me from reading it idk) because i'm on another solo ttrpg kick & i don't know what took me so long to get around to this game because it genuinely is exactly what i was looking for. years ago when i was playing through solo 5e modules i should have just been playing ironsworn (believe it or not, 5e isn't very suited to solo play and is extremely clunky when you try lol).

also though i have dabbled in some other solo ttrpgs, a considerable amount of them are journaling games which is fun but imo considerably more work (usually by the time i'm a quarter of the way through the journal entry, i know how to entire scene played out and i want to move on to the next gameplay thing, so i get frustrated and bored quickly. it feels like when you solve a level in a video game but don't have the coordination to pull off the necessary move so you have to spend 20 extra minutes doing something you already figured out), so i really appreciate like not needing to write something for the game to progress (ive been taking notes for my own record since im playing solo and thus am not really out loud roleplaying the way you do in a group, but i definitely could do that instead and not take notes and the game would still function perfectly)

& ive been playing by myself but also in the past ive played a lot of ttrpgs in very small groups which has been other games but is mostly dnd and like. we also should have been playing ironsworn so that having a gm was not necessary. have definitely played games where we had to adapt the rules soooo much to do something that is just base game included in ironsworn. plus it's rules-light enough to do pretty complex moves that pose difficulties in bulkier games (ever introduced someone to dnd and they tell you they want to do a sick backflip and catch something and then attack and you have to tell them that will require several different consecutive rolls and some creative liberties with how the rules are 'supposed' to let you move? you can just Do That in ironsworn. use the strike move and describe it. done!)

the one thing is that although it's rules-light enough to theoretically play any setting or genre (some with more difficulty than others), ive found so far that like... the grittiness and sense of threat is very built into the mechanics so that would be sort of difficult to work around or change (but i think it's great from a game design perspective). what i mean is like, okay: you start with 5 max hp. there isn't really a way to raise this max hp, you just slowly gain abilities (assets) that make you less likely to have to lose the hp in the first place, or that make it easier to recover. when you encounter foes, you rank them on a scale of 1 -5, and enemies on the lowest side of this scale do one harm to you, while enemies on the highest side do five harm to you. so even though encountering an epic enemy won't always be deadly due to the assets you have, they are ALWAYS capable of taking you down to 0 hp with one good hit. so the feeling of threat is much more present compared to games where your character starts to be able to just tank and push through a failure or huge threat.

admittedly also i'm playing solo, im still learning how to balance combat, and also i built a character who has NO combat talents and iron (the close quarters fighting stat) is one of my lowest stats so i personally am under much more threat than if you built a character who knew how to fight or who could do deadly harm. but also the other thing about combat is it's extremely difficult to maintain control of the fight; you have to score a strong hit to do it on basically all moves, and there's a really limited pool of moves available when you don't have the initiative, and obviously none of them really favour you. i don't know that this makes combat genuinely more difficult, but it does make you feel like the fight is always about to spiral out of your control. every second you let it drag without decisive action feels like it brings you closer to dying. like i said, this is a feature of the game design and not a problem in any way. just thinking about it because when i was initially learning i was going to try to supplant it into a homebrew fantasy world of my own but the tone just wouldn't be right. and that it is somewhat difficult to replicate the kind of worlds that i typically play or run for dnd, which tend to lean somewhat sillier and definitely much higher fantasy

but i like to try new things and tbh especially in dnd i find that i very rarely feel that sense of threat and when i do feel it, it has nothing at all to do with the actual mechanics and reality of the combat and everything to do with how well the dm sells it to me and makes it sound and feel scary and dangerous. which is a testament to what a good gm can do for you but i do appreciate the threat feeling more built-in and also being actually real.

[gasstationclown]

just finished watching stardust rhapsody 9-10 and i

(some spoilers under the cut)

[blujayonthewing]

I'm really glad elyss came several years before melliwyk, because mel's alignment shift from chaotic neutral to chaotic good sometimes feels a little embarrassing in an 'I can't keep my own feelings to myself for the sake of committing to the bit' sort of way, but the counterpoint to that is that elyss, steadfastly true neutral, just simply Does Not Care about anyone other than her own loved ones or anything outside her own immediate interest no matter how much I sometimes wish she would

[possumkingluca]

still thinking about the time i did one of those hunger game simulation things with the characters being all the strixhaven student npcs, my strixhaven campaign's party members, and extus narr + one just labeled 'the rest of the oriq' it was actually so goofy because tell me how the oriq immediately set off a bomb killing 4 people INCLUDING THEIR LEADER??? tell me how all the party members died almost immediately except for my character who got tragically betrayed by one of his friends??? tell me how the last two people alive were the biggest fucking nerds in the entire school?? fucking URZMAKTOK and DRAZHOMIR??? tell me how the SOPPING WET CAT of a minotaur that is drazhomir won????? also quentillius died of dysentery on day 1 which is the death he deserves.

[dante-and-dragons]

Ough. Post-session fatigue is hitting harder than usual today.

[six-improbable-things]

out-of-context quotes from our last dnd session:

"stoned at the mining camp" (my current nickname in the party discord)

"the clucklefucks" (my most recent contribution to our quotes channel)

[im-still-a-robot]

INSANELY curious about what you mean by "if he dies the band becomes real" what does that mean that sounds so fucking cool

Oh lmao! Its for a backup character!

Our campaign is very much one where the threat of death is looming, so I have the bones of a character in the works in case I need to scramble together another one. I have to keep myself from coming up with too many ideas for him, but Dionysian Nightmare is supposed to be his band :]!

As long as Eddie is alive (which is hopefully the whole campaign o7) the band will just be a fun easter egg. However, if he does die, I will go full Band Development mode. It will be fun and sad. If the extra doesn't get used, I'll still probably recycle him for another campaign or release him from dnd and just have him as a standard OC

As a treat here is the better mockup of the album cover + notes

[syrinq]

thinking about the fact that i do like forgotton realms-adjecent (fantasy equivalent of star wars-sized ip) games but then i have to grab a broom and hit anyone appearing out of the shadows who goes "now play dnd (or any ttrpg) with me" extremely violently so they remain in the dark for another 5 million years

[hairmetal666]

After the Russians, Steve learns three important things about himself:

Robin is the best friend he's ever had; the uncontested other half of his heart. His soulmate, the platonic love of his life, his missing puzzle piece.

He's not in love with Nancy anymore. It's really saying something that hearing those words come out of his mouth is the shock of his life. Once the drugs wear off, though, he realizes they were absolutely true. A surprising win for the Russian truth serum

Her bathroom confession...he sits with it for days. Not--not because she's a lesbian, of course not, but because. Well, Robin knows herself in a way he's never allowed himself to. And he thinks that maybe maybe he likes boys in the same way. That he always has, but never let himself acknowledge it, the way his eyes wanted to catch in the locker room, the drunken, fumbling touches between him and Tommy.

The last one...he's not sure, is the thing. How can he be sure? Like, in his mind, his imagination, he's very into it, but what if it's different in real life? And how can he even find out? He tells, Robin, of course he does, and they go to Indy, right, to a bookstore and she throws a few zines at him and he sneaks some porn (he's definitely into the porn), but that's not--it's not practical experience. And he's not ready to go to one of the bars, for sure, so he doesn't--like what's he supposed to do?

It's around this time in his bisexual spiral that the kids start hanging out with Eddie Munson, that he starts thinking about Eddie Munson. He always noticed the long, dark curls and the bright, brown eyes; the slender cut of his waist; the wry slant of his mouth as he shouted insults at the jocks; the glinting silver of the rings on his fingers--fingers that were long and callused, fingers that could grip around Steve's--

Nope, he's not going there. Even though, a little voice in his head says, he cares for Steve's kids and maybe he's not good at school but he's smart and he's also so pretty, with his pale skin and his big eyes--

No. He doesn't have a crush on Eddie Munson. Absolutely not.

And when he picks up the kids from their little dnd club and sees Munson standing against his van, he doesn't feel an electric zing in his chest, the first stirring of butterflies in his stomach; that would be crazy. They hardly know each other. It goes like this every time, and he's almost able to believe he doesn't care.

Until Eddie trips over the threshold of Family Video, stumbling on an untied bootlace and gangling his way through the front doors. The clatter catches both Robin and Steve's attention.

"Welcome to Family Video," Robin says. Steve stares.

"Uhh." Eddie's eyes flit between them, his face getting redder by the second.

Fuck, he's so cute and Steve's saying--without thinking about it, he's saying--"let me help you find a movie, man."

"Yea--sure, yeah." Eddie's hands are stuffed in the tight pocket of his jeans.

Steve takes a few steps down the closest aisle. "So, what--uh, what are you looking for?"

"Horror? Nothing in particular."

They make their way to the horror section, and it's like some insane, deeply horny demon takes over. He starts grabbing movies off the shelf, no rhyme or reason, doesn't even know what most of them are.

Eddie's staring at him with wide eyes and a raised eyebrow, and Steve just keeps grabbing tapes, is sort of doing a running commentary on titles and tag lines, and he can't stop, why can't he stop? it's like smoke is coming out of his ears. Robin is watching him from the counter with her mouth hanging open, gummy worm dangling down her chin.

"You know," Eddie grabs something from the shelf, "I think I'll just do Friday the 13th again. Can't go wrong."

And he leaves Steve standing there with half the horror section collected in his arms. He stays there while Eddie pays, face burning. It's been--well, a really long time since he's struck out so hard, and he wasn't even really trying.

As Eddie's walking out the door, his sad pile of movies shifts, then tumbles to the floor.

"You have a crush on Eddie Munson." Robin accuses.

"No!" He ducks down to collect the tapes, hoping to hide the crimson of his face.

"You do." She points an accusatory finger in his direction. "I haven't seen you this pathetic since Scoops."

"It's nothing."

"You know," she crouches down with him, "you could just, like. Try to hang out with him."

"After that? Are you kidding? I'm surprised you don't already have a new You Rule/You Suck board going."

"Oh, I do, it's up front." She jumps to her feet. "But still. You should try. And you have an easy in with the kids."

He glares at her in response, starts re-shelving all the dumb movies, and then they get busy, so the topic is dropped. He thinks about it thought. He thinks about it and he--

Instead of waiting in the car for the kids to get done at Hellfire the next time, he goes in.

[blujayonthewing]

one problem with DnD is that I'll often say things like 'this tavern has a clockwork cricket that actually chirps' specifically because I want that in real life, but when it's something like that that doesn't actually exist but COULD and DEFINITELY SHOULD it starts to make me go 'how hard could metalworking be'