#but also yes go play something else because TTRPGs are fun!

[tonysdumplings]

I swear if I see another "go play something else" person on my dash I will get violent because y'all are so fucking annoying, how about you get a life and stop telling people what to play, you high horse riding jobless elitists?

am I going to buy any WoTC resource? no, they can go fuck themselves. but you know there is an option of... not paying for shit? like not a single dime?

so stop hiding your annoying elitism behind being "anti-capitalist" and "anti-corporation". there are people literally sharing free resources on this hellsite. I run an entire game with none of my players owning a single official thing from WoTC, neither do I.

shut up <3

[toskarin]

A question of curiosity - assuming you play them due to your involvement with a bunch of them, what are your favourite kinds of characters (be it mechanically or narratively) to play in TTRPGS? And do you have any associated anecdotes to go with them?

courtesy readmore

mechanically kinda depends on what's on the menu, but if it's combat-focused, I personally really enjoy characters who "deny" things

not really the kind of character who I'd ever expect a GM to put in their element on purpose (I usually make a conscious effort to remind the GM of things I'm capable of so that I don't trample on any fun setpieces) but definitely the kind of character who modifies objectives just by being in play. I also like magic-users in concept, but that's more of a flavour thing

I think that's reflected a good bit in the kind of narrative play I enjoy, too. when I make a character, I prefer to do it with the rest of the party in mind, less to make the character "compatible" and more to make them sharply contrast in ways that encourage the other characters to have moments where they can reaffirm who they are (both in narrative and out of narrative)

there's a fine balance to strike here. on one end of things, you risk yes-manning so hard that the party quickly becomes a problem solving engine with a single striking surface. on the other end of the things, you risk being The Chaotic Neutral Guy

the space in the middle there represents the characters that people often want to regularly interact with, but rarely want to play. the sort of character who isn't actively disruptive, but raises a lot of red flags when they suddenly show enthusiastic agreement for what you're doing. the kind of character you almost need a diminished sense of discomfort to play without getting in your own feelings about

I adore playing characters who are catered to find plot hooks in other players' characters and tug them just enough to pull them to the surface

most parties have characters who disagree on things that aren't easily resolved. that's always fun, but (because people courteously tend to avoid conflict) it's very rare for those conflicts to come up without GM prompting, and "create productive conflict between two characters without leaving out the rest of the characters or starting a fight between players" is often an equally uncomfortable situation for a GM

lots of fun directions to take it!

have an arc that would benefit from a character taking charge but their player doesn't feel comfortable just Doing That? it helps to have someone else try to take charge who obviously should not be allowed, just to get everyone behind the alternative

have someone with a pure heart who doesn't really get to show that in a party of players who don't want to be mean? maybe someone who's a little more morally-compromised could give them a window for explaining what they actually believe

have a character who's part of some mysterious cult that nobody else is going to find the time to look into? the party could benefit from having a nosy character to justify cracking open that backstory

GM needs to fuck something up to remind the party of how dangerous things are? why not add to the mood by showing what your often-cold character looks like when something manages to actually upset them

[WARNING: DOING ANY OF THIS WALKS THE PRECARIOUSLY THIN LINE BETWEEN BEING COMPELLING AND BEING ANNOYING]

observant readers (well, those who have followed for a while) might have noticed I periodically go on rants about the much-maligned "evil character in a good party" and how both sides of the argument represent a communication and courtesy breakdown. that also very much ties into this sort of thing. I won't go over Tolerable Villainy 101 again, but you get the idea

distilled, I like playing the sort of thoroughly worldly bastards who often end up important in their own right, but mostly on accident, by virtue of being important to what makes other characters compelling

[theresattrpgforthat]

hello!! i hope you are well!! i have a bit of a time sensitive question so deepest apologies for that. but i just found out Today that i am going to be teaching college freshman starting Next Monday (8/21) and so am scrambling to pull together some stuff to get our class started off well!! im theming my class on ttrpgs so my first (probably not the last) question is - do you have any recs for ttrpgs for 3-5 players that could be run in like 10 minutes as an icebreaker? silly games would be awesome. im deep in the bible belt and theres still a Wee Bit of satanic panic here so hopefully nothing like. too dark or demon-y. if you are able to give me recs before monday i will be so forever in your debt ToT thank you!!! -psychhound

Theme: Quick Silly Games

@creacherkeeper Hello friend! I hope you find this helpful! Whipped it up in an afternoon so the summaries may be abbreviated.

ImproVeto, by Plotbunny Games.

ImproVeto is a GM-less mini storygame that lets you tell absurd, fun stories together with at least one other person. It's also a game to help you practice improvisation in collaborative storytelling and the use of the X-card and similar calibration tools for role-playing games.

Impro Veto is quick, GM-less, and doubles as an opportunity to build the idea of safety tools into a game’s mechanics. It’s basically a big game of collaborative storytelling, and players are encouraged to change the direction of the story by vetoing random elements and changing them to continue the story as they tell it. It requires no dice, and can probably be played pretty quickly if you are playing with a small group.

Clown Helsing, by Planarian.

Clowns. We've all seen them… riding their unicycles, blowing up balloons at parties, piling in garish hordes from tiny cars, waddling around in bulbous red shoes, passed out in a dumpster stinking of booze and regret. For what do these martyrs of mirth sacrifice themselves? The answer is they do it for us. Not just to fill our need for laughter and merriment, but because they defy the doom of mankind! Clowns are man's only salvation against… Vampires.

Clown Helsing played closer to an hour for me but I think if you’re putting it before the students in a less casual setting, it might speed play up quite a bit. I’d recommend a) knowing the rules really well before starting play, b) providing students with roll tables so they can quickly create a clown, and c) starting the game in the middle of the vampire fight. I’d also recommend reducing the number of Dignity boxes significantly than what is recommended in the book, especially if you, like me, are absurdly good at Rock Paper Scissors - because yes, RPS is how you solve conflicts in this game!

Theme wise, this is exactly on tone. Your clowns humiliating jerk vampires. Let the buffoonery commence!

The Goose of Grillner Grove, by Jenn Martin.

A  tabletop roleplaying game for 3+ players for 15+ minutes. Play townsfolk attempting to warn a newcomer about the goose that's lived in the area for 20 years, and plagued each of you personally. 

Take turns telling stories about that time when you saw the goose doing something outrageous, but don't violate the two truths of the game- the goose isn't supernatural, and the goose doesn't die- lest you be honked at by the other players.

At the end, decide if the newcomer heeds your warnings...

Anyone who has played the Untitled Goose Game is probably going to have a fun time playing this. This game will probably go longer if you have a larger number of people, but it certainly gives you a chance for people to get used to the improv side of games.

The Octopus Shipwreck Explorer, by SassWrites.

An octopus is exploring a shipwreck. The shipwreck is full of treasure, but the octopus doesn’t care. It’s looking for something else, known only to it and its eight arms. The only hitch is, each arm has its own brain! How will they all work together to survive?

One of the biggest assets of this game is that it can be played with a larger group of people. To speed this game up, you could present some options of goals for the players to choose from, and give each player one action to do before wrapping up the game.

Spin the Fishblade, by Marshall Bradshaw.

Spin the FishBlade is the GMless, diceless storygame where players control one fish with a knife by spinning a knife. It's meant for three to five players to play for one to two hours, telling an outlandish story with some stylized violence. Imagine if Finding Nemo were mixed with an action movie, like Taken, Kill Bill, or Snatch.

You can see in the description above that this Fishblade game is also a bit over the time limit but with some adjustments you might be able to at least introduce the game to folks. You could create a pre-established premise, and provide a number of items for the students to choose as loci. The tone can vary with this game, so establishing a premise that is clearly humorous in it’s intent might get you where you want to go.

Please Act Like A Human, by Eden Reese Potts.

Inspired by Octodad and sitcoms about aliens pretending to be human, you are an extraterrestrial creature with nonhuman anatomy who has crash landed on planet Earth and until you can escape, you have to blend in with the local life forms.

This game is just one page with rules, and requires a number of (different) d6’s. I think this is one of the fastest games on this list; the rules are simple, and all you really need to do is introduce an obstacle that allows each player to improvise and roll once! Octodad is pretty humorous and light, so I can see this being pretty silly!

[fatmaclover]

12, the whole gang. would love to hear every head canon you have tbh!!

oh gosh thats gonna be a lot. im gonna be excluding anything that would make this blog more personal or less tame than i want it to be but you really arent missing much there

well. first and foremost UNFORTUNATELY its a hc that im a joyce kelly truther. shes so unbelievably transfem to me at this point its hard to see her as much else. genuinely forget its not canon sometimes. oops

i also must say all of @pariskim's joyceverse tag is canon in my mind and i really recommend you go through it even if you dont see joyce the same way i do, genuinely some of my favorite fan content to consume period. yes i am also sending you over there to become a joyce truther. go.

honestly if mac and dennis could be responsible pet owners (theyll never be.) i think theyd LOVE having a snake. i know theyd go for a ball python because theyre more stereotypically "snake" than some other pet trade species, but frankly i think theyd do best with a hognose. theyre pretty social (with humans. dont keep hognoses together in a tank) idiots with huge attitude and they look god damn adorable. hognoses would also be great for them because they tend to be more food motivated! its also good for snakes to just take them out and like. set them on your bed n just chill or talk with em for an hour or so. thatd be great for mac.

i personally think that mac will only hook up with you as a fellow man if you a) can pass as older than him or b) look like dennis. yeag i think he, consciously or not, goes for people that have similar traits to dennis, physically or personality wise. if dennis let himself accept that he cares a bit too much about who mac is dating, that little fact would single-handedly make macdennis canon. dennis would tell mac to just date him if he wanted to date him so badly

not entirely a headcanon but i imagine almost all of the gang besides maybe frank has methods for getting dennis to regulate his diet a bit more instead of eating like 1 meal a day. i think mac can get dennis to eat or drink just about anything by just giving it to him in conversation. he'll just let dennis talk his ear off and continually hand him chips or fruit or even drinks or nearly any drug at all. having a small bite or drink or hit during conversation is such a reinforced habit that its natural to the both of them now.

i think dee does it by purposefully playing into her status of being "below" dennis. she'll complain about being too weak to open a peanut shell or something and he'll snatch it and do it to prove hes better and out of habit maybe has a little bite. though i imagine if theyre inebriated in any way its as easy as genuinely just feeding it to him. dennis will never admit it, because he hates his sister, but he trusts her.

joyce i think can get dennis to eat just by getting alone with him. she provides a bubble of decompression and a lack of worry for him. its also insanely easy for her to just offer dennis a huff of whatever inhalant shes been having fun with that day and i imagine that makes things easier as well

i think you could pretty easily get mac into nerd shit. just have some pretty boy be a little nerdy. get him to watch star trek itd be life changing for him even if i think a good amount of it would fly over his head at times. ttrpgs and roleplaying in general i think would be big for him

also bringing back my hc of him joining the philadelphia gay mens chorus ohhhhhh my god i need him to sing more i need him to embrace his love of singing

unngh thats not all of em but i my brains starting to lag a bit here. ill happily rb this post with more and make it a sorta masterpost for hcs eventually

[syekick-powers]

honestly. being real. ive looked into a lot of various indie ttrpgs that haven't spoken to me, and i end up just coming back to D&D over and over. and i think i finally fully understand why that is.

D&D is very heavy on rules for what can happen in combat, but fairly light on rules for when it comes to story structure and roleplay. as a result, roleplay scenes feel a bit more natural and flowing, with the only mechanical aspect being the occasional skill check for like, intimidation / deception / persuasion / etc. but then, unlike the roleplay, the things that can be achieved in combat are pretty strictly regulated. this is fun for how i like to roleplay, as someone who used to do a lot of freeform RP--the problem with freeform RP style combat sometimes is that if you're RPing combat with someone who gets really wound up about making their characters always win, it can be really fucking hard to counteract the shit they have their characters pull out of their back pocket. having a VERY clearly defined and strict set of rules for specifically combat makes it so that when combat DOES happen, people can't just Say Shit about what they have their characters do--they have a limited character framework to work in and a limited set of tools that they can work with, and enjoyable combats come from using those tools in that framework creatively, effectively, and excitingly. this makes combat feel like it has genuine stakes, and when done right can be very intense and exciting. and then when you do actual like, character interaction and story building? there's just not a lot of strictly defined rules for what can and can't be done in those realms, both for a player and the DM. there aren't any constraints on the structure of the narrative that the DM presents, which means it's fairly easy to rip out the pre-packaged D&D lore, re-fluff a few things that heavily reference that lore, and just homebrew your own story structure and lore and world and characters and pantheons and the like.

my problem with a lot of indie TTRPGs is that a lot of them are married to either a very specific story structure that the system mandates that you follow, or a very specific pre-made world that the system is mechanically built to form around, and that level of pre-determination doesn't interest me either as a player OR as a GM. like these are fundamental rules in these systems that would gut it if you tore them out and replaced them with something else, which means that if you tried to go against those premade structures/settings, you would basically have to homebrew the entire goddamn thing from scratch anyway. D&D's relative rules-heaviness of combat and rules-lightness of roleplay makes it easier for D&D to provide me the kinds of stories that i actually want to participate in, even if people insist it's not as "flexible" as many people think it is. like. yes. don't run a regency romance game in D&D, obviously. but if ur running a high fantasy type of game focused on adventuring, D&D can be adapted pretty well to a homebrew setting and world with minimal effort.

and tbh, i really think that's why it has the cultural dominance that it does, and why i personally keep engaging with it as a ttrpg even as people yell from all sides to play something else. "just do freeform RP!" ive done freeform RP. it's good for character building and dialogue and intrigue and sex but it fucking sucks when characters have to fight. i fucking hate it when im trying to RP fighting in freeform RP and whatever person im fighting against just keeps fucking kicking my ass no matter what i have my character do because my RP partner is so invested in forcing me to lose or give up that they just pull whatever the hell they can think of out of their back pocket to beat my character into submission. at least with an incredibly well-defined set of rules for how combat works, your opponents are also working in a limited framework with limited tools, so even if they do fucking kick your ass, it doesn't feel completely stupid and arbitrary, and since opponents' attacks are governed by dice rolls almost as much as players' attacks are, the amount of arbitrariness in the combat is not wholly stacked against you unless you're fighting against something that's WAY out of your party's league--and even then, those creatures and people are still going to be bound by their dice rolls as much as you are, they might just have better bonuses and/or fewer penalties to make things a bit more favorable for them. that horrifying fucking monster you're fighting may have an insane bonus to attack, but it could still roll a critical fail when it tries to attack you, just as much as you might roll a critical fail to attack it in turn. everyone operates under the same rules and will have similar limitations placed on them by those rules, and participants have much less leeway to make their characters' combat prowess be whatever the hell they want whenever anything even mildly threatening happens.

[thessalian]

Thess vs More Next Fest 2024

Still hacking through the demos. Because the demos are fun. There were a few I had to just pitch because while they looked good on paper, as it were, the implementation was ... eh. This always happens towards the end of the Next Fest, for me - it's like I pull all the really good ones out in the first couple of days and then end up with the frustrations when I persist. But because I persist, I did find a few gems.

Tactical Breach Wizards: Turn-based strategy, some really interesting mechanics, and a brilliant sense of humour. Like it says on the tin, it's wizards doing ... well, sort of a cross between law enforcement, PI work, and SpecOps. And ours go rogue, obviously. And with jokes and the kind of Sahara-dry humour you'd think would get old after awhile but somehow doesn't? It's the kind of banter I get when playing TTRPGs with friends most of the time. It's got a very strong Shadowrun-played-for-laughts feel and I MUST OWN IT YES.

Coffee Talk: This is more the series than anything else, and my playing the Coffee Talk 2 demo wasn't so much a Next Fest thing as a "Lemme clear out the demos I haven't played yet" thing. But it turned out to be almost exactly what Tavern Talk is - mixing drinks and telling / hearing stories - just with different graphical styles. So I could stand to have a few more of those in my life. So they went on the list too. (Gods, Steam is going to have so much of my money in the next little while...)

When The Past Was Around: Looking into Coffee Talk got me looking at Toge Productions, and they as a publisher are very into the various ways of storytelling available in video games. When The Past Was Around is sort of a messing-with-the-set-dressing hidden object game which was unexpectedly beautiful even in the prologue.

A Space For The Unbound: I'm not entirely sure what this one's actually about? But it's cute and pixely and the gameplay is slightly janky but pretty intuitive and there are definitely fantasy elements and the story is ... one I really want to experience further, is all I'll say. Looks worth having.

She And The Light Bearer: Another sort of hidden object / messing with the set dressing kind of game, and really cute.

Honestly, while I'm loving the turn-based set-up of Tactical Breach Wizards in terms of gameplay, I've also been getting into the interactive story stuff more lately. I think it's because I don't watch many things. Video games have spoiled me; I like my stories to be interactive and I don't deal as well with being a passive observer as I did. And honestly, I was never very good at that to begin with. I was always the one sitting in front of the TV with a book or a crossword puzzle or something in front of me and letting "I am paying more attention to what's on the TV than I am to the other thing" be my judge of how much I like the thing on TV.

Also did some gardening - mainly repotting some of my plants, and spraying my poor valerian for aphids. I don't know how the aphids are getting up here when I haven't had my windows open lately (though I have today, because it's sunny and 20 degrees), but they are, and they seem to love valerian. But anyway, my dill, marjoram, lemon bergamot, cinnamon basil, echinacea, and thyme (which I had to regrow because this winter killed my other thyme) all got new homes. Probably going to do the lemongrass and the Egyptian mint next week.

And it's D&D night tonight. So a very good Sunday all told so far.

[valkblue]

[Altair: 2, 26] ; [Elara: 7, 42] ; [Vespera: 5, 25] ; [Vivian: 33, 35] ; [Zak: 13, 15]. 🕴️

😍

— Altair

2- Do they wear perfume/cologne? If so what scents do they prefer?

No, not really. Just plain soap is his favourite. And now, he spend too much time in the wild with horses, dogs and campfires to even think to bother with anything else anymore.

The scent he would prefer would be soap with milk and herbal tones, though.

26- Have they met any of their heroes? Did they regret it?

I'm not even sure he has a hero outside of all the war veterans in his family so, I'd say no. And regretting it? Well… does having to hear the endless angry rants of highly intoxicated 'retired' general Molivar counts??

— Elara

7- Do they have any unusual fears?

She has pretty rational fears in general but, an unusual one would be any scrapping sounds she can't locate. In space or on the ground.

42- Can they speak multiple languages? If yes which all do they speak and why?

Yes, she does! Quite a few, actually!

Basic: it's her mother tongue.

Huttese: it's almost her second mother tongue. Her parents started to teach her that one so young that she's as fluent as any Hutt or Twi'lek.

Jawaese: if it's not about trade, she'll be struggling a little more with this one.

Binary: she used to understand it very well as a child but she forgot almost everything about it by lack of practice. She still gets bits here and there according to the droid that speaks to her but it's rudimentary.

… and a touch of Mando'a because she heard enough of it during childhood to be able to pick up a few words and sentences, idioms and sayings that are all typically Mando even translated to Basic. And she has no idea that they are, most of the time.

— Vespera

5- Do they have any tattoos? If so what are they and do they have any special meaning?

She has just a little one. 👀

25- Do they have a daily/nightly routine?

In that aspect, and when she isn't running for her life under the cover of dubious military ops, she has a pretty comfortingly boring routine; wake up early, do her little things around a light breakfast, work (or enjoy life if it's a day off), get home, enjoy a hot shower or bath, cook something light, read or watch TV in couch or bed (which happen to be the same in her studio) and then fall asleep like that.

Rinse and repeat.

— Vivian

33- Do they play ttrpgs? If so what kind of characters do they play? Or are they more likely to GM?

She used to!! And she tried many kind of characters but in the end, stuck to Mage in Fantasy contexts. (Magic is fun! Fireball!!!) But in other games she's been more adventurous and played quite a few one shot, huninged characters she had a ton of fun with.

But she also stuck to a player role. She's a shit GM.

35- Do they believe in fate or do they believe they are in charge of their own destiny?

As I said here, she'd have reasons to be greeting Fate (should she exists) with a baseball bat sometimes. But, honestly, she doesn't believe too much in all that. So, she's more of a 'in charge of your own destiny' kind of person actually. (But she's going to keep the baseball bat close to her hands, just in case…)

— Zak

13- Do they enjoy poetry?

Oh yes, very much. Blaher poetry is especially good too, so it helps… and it's part of all the kids first experiences with reading in school so, it's also ingrained really young.

Currently, he's reading Bohrs and Nain poetry a little more in depths and he likes very much what he's discovering!

15- What kind of sense of humor do they have? Or do they have one at all?

A very light one. Kind of an opportunistic sense of humor. He used to prank people with his friends when he was a boy but now, he likes more tamed jokes and funsies.

But in general, he's ok with any kind of humor as long as it isn't cruel, actually.

[veeranger]

can you maybe talk about Va-11 Hall-A? you talking about it a little made me remember i had to play it so i did and I liked it a lot and would like to hear your opinions as I respect you

its only been a few days but i think ive reached all the conclusions about the game i need to. i think VA-11 HALL-A is a really good game and a great visual novel yes its a visual novel dont @ me im right. actually i think its funny the game tells you to curl up with a blanket and snacks like its gunna be a chill relaxing experience because like tonally speaking its kind of not. theres some heavy shit in the game especially near the end and its not the kind of light chatting simulator you might think it is. not saying i think its a stressful game or anything but i alwys thought that was funny. 

anyway heres my real thoughts. im gunna put it under a readmore for spoilers after a certain point

oh also make sure you play the prologue chapter and the anna demo. those are extremely important despite being hidden behind a nondescript menu icon that the game makes no effort to tell you about. thats genuinely my only complaint about the game 

there’s a quote by mike pondsmith, the creator of the cyberpunk ttrpg about how cyberpunk “...can not be about saving the world. You’re saving yourself or your community. The stakes have to be something that involves the player. You can’t just say, ‘The world is craptastic and you can’t do anything about it.’ No. You don’t have to save the world, but you need to be able to save your mother or the apartment you and your friends live in.” 

and i think that ideology was, intentionally or otherwise, probably otherwise because im pretty sure pondsmith gave this quote a few years after VA-11 HALL-A came out, very clearly captured in this story. Jill and her friends live in this terrible shitty city in a terrible shitty world but thats just the setting yknow. glitch city is a backdrop to tell a series of small scale personal stories, not about “surviving in a hellish dystopian” but just...living in the real world. thats just real life for these people you know. every story told in the game is very personal. nobody is blowing up corporate buildings or igniting a revolution its just like, dorothy reconciling her anxieties about being close to her mother, alma’s family troubles, stella and sei’s mutuals traumas and their close relationship, Jill’s grappling with her own life choices. its nothing crazy its very pedestrian and lowkey, its not exactly something you’d expect from a game with CYBERPUNK stamped on the subtitle but it fits the genre extremely well. 

if nothing else VA-11 HALL-A is extremely well grounded in the reality its set in, everything feels lived in and real, like glitch city is a real place you could go to or something. all those newspaper articles about big events right next to articles about some lilim idol or reruns of a nostalgic anime and the danger/u/ posts about weird conspiracies and arguments about stupid weeb shit it just creates a wholesale sense of realism. i once saw someone complain that in persona 5, you only ever hear other students and people in the streets of tokyo talk about whatever is currently happening in the story and at the time i dismissed it as nitpicking but after VA-11 HALL-A i understand that a little better, it creates a game world that only revolves around the player’s actions and story as opposed to a world that keeps turning on its own that your character just so happens to live in. the story of the game might be about Jill and her friends but the world itself is not centered on them, it doesn’t even know they exist. that’s just excellent worldbuilding imo. 

now at this point i want to talk about Jill’s story and please if you haven’t played  VA-11 HALL-A yet and are reading this and you have any thoughts about playing the game please stop here and go play it first I don’t want to spoil this really good story for you.

man i really liked Jill’s story. i had no idea it was coming so the whole thing sidelined me as much as it did Jill when she heard that Lenore died. the way every aspect of the story was handled was so good. i felt the same way Jill did when she lashed out at Gaby for lashing out at her, i felt the same regret she did after she calmed down and realized she screamed at a grieving little girl and i felt the same kind of anxiety she felt when she had a second chance to talk to Gaby and make things right. every note of the story hit for me and it was just good good good. i liked that Jill was able to come to terms with her own poor choices without hoisting all the blame on herself or absolving herself of any wrongdoing either, i liked that she was able to move on and free herself from feeling shackled to her past but was still able to say that she loved Lenore and still does. i liked that it was a gay story even if it was tragic, it was respectful and well written. i also just love love loved how she was able to reconcile with Gaby and start being her big sister again. obviously if you know me you know that’s something i love and so i was extremely pleased with how they were able to continue that relationship. 

just yknow...its like pondsmith said. you cant save the world but you need to be able to save your mother or the apartment you and your friends live in. Jill is able to save herself, save Gaby, not from dying or anything but just like...just from pain yknow. she helps Dorothy save herself and commit to wanting to be with her mother and that in turn helps Anna. she helps Stella and Sei find closure for a traumatic experience in their lives. But even then she can’t save the bar, or save everyone she loves from living in a horrible world. VA-11 HALL-A still closes down in the end but hopefully if you mixed your drinks right everyone you love is able to move forward a little better than how you found them and i think thats pretty damn cool. VA-11 HALL-A is a really good story and its a neat little game. 

oh also i loved Anna she was such a fun presence. make sure you play the Anna chapter after you beat the game!

[utilitycaster]

So, to keep dunking on Pathfinder/3.5e and also for lack of a better term...indie, looser systems, I do have a handful of reasons why the systems themselves don't sound like things I'm into but more generally the reason I keep making cheap jokes is because the way people sell these systems is so antithetical to what I want out of TTRPGs. Which doesn't mean they're not good, or that they're not right for other people! But god...you are not superior for liking something other than D&D 5e, you are just a person who isn't into that particular experience and if you want to get people to play other games...learn to fucking sell it.

The crunch of pathfinder has some appeal, because I do love math and rules, but it always feels like the arguments go like this.

"I can't figure out how DCs in 5e get set!"

"well, the DM sets it based on a rough estimate of difficulty, using their brain; the DM's Guide gives a scale broken down by 5-point increments that you can use."

"What? You mean I, an inveterate metagamer cannot find it by adding up 8 numbers based on the weather, my class, my feats, active spells, and the migration patterns of nearby birds in a process that brings the narrative to a screeching halt?"

Or else it goes like this (this is a literal screenshot from a reply on a shitpost I made about paladin archetypes):

Well, in 5e you are allowed to ride things without being good at dex on the grounds that the average normal person in a pre-industrial society would probably be able to sit on a horse (animal handling is also an option). You can play a halfling paladin by playing a halfling whose class is paladin, and if you cast summon steed a reasonable DM will allow you to flavor said steed as a celestial wardog. You do not need special abilities to...turn around? in 5e? damn you lived like this? and sure, you can have a spear or lance as your weapon. I guess charging doesn't do much in 5e (the charger feat exists but isn't amazing) but like, you could do it.

Like, seriously, so many posts are like "I don't see a ruleset for how I can confirm I was able to drink my coffee without dropping it on the floor? 5e seems bad" and in general 3.5e/Pathfinder appear to treat your character as a Sim or something, where if the ladder disappears from the pool you're just like "guess I'll die" [note: I haven't played either 3.5e, Pathfinder, nor the Sims but like. I'm right.] And if you want to play this that's fine! Crunch can be very fun! but god it's unnecessary and it seems like there are too many rules for the sake of just like, having rules.

Moving on to the looser systems, the "just a d100" or "just a d6" ones that "foster more RP": so many of these "foster more RP" by having systems that actively corral the conversation, or PC emotions, instead of just...letting people talk. I actually find things like Monsterhearts "turn someone on" mechanic or the sanity mechanics in Call of Cthulhu really off-putting! I'd rather be allowed to respond to things genuinely, in character.

"But M," you say "that's kind of the point of Call of Cthulhu, the sanity slippage." And you know what? You're absolutely right! Because that is where my point is leading:

The TTRPG game you pick should be mostly based on the kind of story you want to tell, and anyone who ignores that in their considerations can themselves be ignored.

I happen to enjoy Dungeons & Dragons because I enjoy that particular form of fantasy in a quasi-early renaissance* setting, and I would, perchance, like to explore a dungeon and maybe even fight a dragon. I do not want to be dealing with horrors beyond comprehension**, except in the sense that I'd like to smite/disintegrate/viciously mock them. I do not want to pretend I am in high school again, under literally any circumstances, even if I can hex people. I like fantasy combat because I am both simmering with incandescent range basically always and yet I cannot typically act on it*** and I'd like to be able to save the world through hitting things with a sweet-ass sword or casting. Hyping up a system because it lacks combat is absolutely the wrong tack with me.

And if you don't like that it's fine! But I have yet to see someone actually make an argument, to me specifically, for a different system, that actually accounted for even a whiff of my own personal preference and honestly at this point the damage, while not irreversible, is pretty severe; my attitude towards anyone trying to steer me from D&D 5e is pretty cynical.****

*look I will pick many battles on any hills wagering that ultimately I will only die on one and this is on the list. Anyway if printed books are available and gunpowder has reached your vaguely European-in-flavor society? It's Renaissance.

**always thought this quote was from Lovecraft but it's from Tesla, objectively a much better dude despite a shitty dude using his name to sell cars.

***Yes. I am an eldest daughter. Why do you ask.

****This is also the root cause of why I adamantly refuse to watch either Titanic or Finding Nemo.

[noassallclass]

And while some thinks Liam is a great rp'er, I think he's more of an actor. Usually his rp is him monologuing while the others have to sit in silence for 10 minutes lol, and whenever he talks with other ppl it is usually to make a point about his own character. And I think that is why Laura and Marisha has such good chemistry,they talk with each other instead of ~at each other~ as it seems a lot of them do imo,they listen,ask questions and they give room for the convo to go wherever.

Yes I think Liam is a great actor and can be very engaging to watch, but I would never want to play a TTRPG with him because he takes up the spot light a lot and when he is in the spotlight he doesn't try to get other people involved in the rp, he is there for the drama of his own character which is fun in a show but not fun in a game. I mean he also tries to insert himself when other people are in the spotlight, though sometimes he knows when to keep quiet. I definitely don't think he's "one of the quiet ones"

Laura and Marisha are the best at being part of a TTRPG as they are very good at bringing others into their spaces and playing with others in the game. I think that's why their characters in both campaign always had chemistry because they just know how to have the characters interact so well with others. They also both take the time to understand other people's characters to make the rp even better, thats why the most praised relationships in the shown involve the two, I.e. The Empire Kids, The Brjeaus, and Chaos Crew

And this really shines through with Beaujester. They get each other fundamentally in ways no one else in the group does. They have taken the time and care to understand and appreciate each other characters and how to play off of each other that is organic and genuine. Its not that they just know about each others past trauma and sympathize with them. They understand how they reacted to the trauma, how that trauma is affecting them in the present. They actually see where in the healing process the other is at at the moment, either progressing and regressing.

That's whats so great about them, they have gotten to know each others characters as three dimensional people with their own complexities and contradictions, rather than a character to feed off of for their own story.

Which like most rpers do, like you don't have to understand the very minutia of all the other characters to be a good player or have a good time, its just that Laura and Marisha's rp skills are so god tier

But it is also why Beaujester outshines all the other ships for me. I just don't think any of the other characters have the same deep connection and understanding in regards to the other characters.

Like there is a version of Jester inside each players head, and just seeing how people like Fjord and Caleb interact with and talk about Jester makes it seem like their idea of who Jester is does not line up with the reality of Jester as a person if that makes sense?

Like I think the 2 admire Jester greatly, I just don't think its the real authentic Jester that they love, just a version of her in their heads. I really have seen no examples of Fjord thinking Jester is more than a cooky tiefling girl with a big imagination and likes to fib (but can also be sad sometimes)

Like them babying Jester through the vakodo/travelercon arc (or anytime they talked to her about the traveler) was cringe. Beau was the only one who was able to voice her actual opinion and also push back against Jester's bad plans. Everyone else was too afraid to say something mean and huwt jestew's feewings.

I think the only pairings/relationships that could work almost as well as beaujester would be Beau of Jester with an NPC because Matt, as the DM, also has a very good understanding of each person's character and would know how to make a compelling romance with that

[dmsden]

What Is Wanting and What Is Owed

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Since I’ve been given the rare gift of a 5th Monday this month, I get a freestyle article. And, although I don’t often like to get on a soapbox, I’m going to do so a little. If you don’t want to hear me pontificate, you may want to skip this article and come back on Thursday.

During its recent D&D “Live” event, a few products were announced. Rime of the Frostmaiden was announced as the new adventure. While I’m personally meh about the whole Drizzt/Icewind Dale storyline, books, etc, I recognize that they’re an incredibly popular property, and I’m looking forward to seeing new monster stat blocks and so on. In proximity to this announcement came three other announcements, all of which I thought of as very positive, but which, to my surprise, brought a ton of venom from other D&D players.

Beadle & Grimm’s announced a Platinum Edition of the mod. No surprise there.

WotC announced Heroes’ Feast, the official D&D cookbook, from the same team that did the beautiful Art & Arcana book.

And finally, WotC made an announcement, which I will not go over again here, about how they wanted to show more sensitivity when presenting cultures based on real world cultures. You can read this in full at https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd

I was pleased with all these announcements, but I was shocked (I guess I shouldn’t be any more?) about the level of venom I saw online about all three of them.

The B&G announcements was met with comments like, “$500? For that, the adventure had better run itself for me!” “Does it actually cast the spells?” and so on. For full disclosure, I have bought everyone of the Beadle & Grimm’s products. I ordered Waterdeep: Dragon Heist with a lot of trepidation, because $500.00 is a decent chunk of change for me. After receiving it and being blown away by what it contained, I knew we’d be buying other products as they came down the line.

The fact is that I am the target audience for B&G products: I’m a huge D&D fan, as is my husband, and we have a decent amount of disposable income to spend on our major hobbies, which includes TTRPGs. If you’re not in that target audience, then of course you’re not going to buy it, but I don’t see the value in tearing down others who make that decision. I guess, if anything, it’s likely motivated by jealousy. That’s a pretty natural human emotion, but it would be nice to see the honest reaction behind it.

The reactions to the cookbook seem to range from “I won’t waste my money on this” to “Well, they’re gonna lose money on this one” all the way to “Why is WotC wasting time with all-fluff products like this? They should be working on XXXX, because I’ve been waiting years for it.” I can understand not wanting to spend money on something you don’t want or need; that’s sensible. I’m personally charmed by the idea of an official cookbook, because I love to cook, so I’ll be grabbing this. I was actually pondering a fantasy-based cookbook project myself, but now I’ll wait to see what this looks like and if it scratches the itch I have for such a product.

So is WotC wasting talent on this? No, they’re not. The people who are writing this are the same freelance team that worked on Art & Arcana, so no WotC authors were dragged away from valuable work for this. Also, this isn’t one of WotC’s normal books that they release in a year. We’ll still be getting all the fluff and crunch this year that we normally would, but those of us who like the idea of a cookbook will get one.

Oh, and as far as losing money goes, I’d like to tell you about a book called Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home. When the Dragonlance novels and modules came out, they were incredibly popular. They were so popular that the demand for more material about that world prompted TSR to publish Leaves. It was all fluff and no crunch. You got everything from astronomy notes to sheet music to...oh, gosh...recipes. And it was a massive seller. It sold so well that they ended up making two sequels to it. So I think WotC will be okay with this one. And if not, they just won’t do another project like this down the line.

I think what bothers me about this one is really the sense of entitlement. Way too many posts seemed to boil down to, “This isn’t what I want; I want XXXX. WotC owes it to me.” Like, really, no they don’t. Every time WotC has a product announcement, I cross my fingers for Spelljammer, because I have an irrational love of its silliness and the imagination that went into it. But it would NEVER occur to me to think that WotC somehow owes me Spelljammer. WotC is a company, and the core principle of every company is to make money. I’m sure that, if WotC eventually thinks Spelljammer will make it money, that it’ll happen, but they know that Forgotten Realms is their bread and butter, so I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve been going on for a long time, but the last one is the one that cuts me deepest to the quick, so I can’t ignore it. It’ll probably come as no surprise to anyone that, as a very liberal/progessive gay man, I was disgusted to see so many comments condemning WotC for bowing to political correctness or for doing this “just to make money”.

As far as making money goes, I have already said, that’s what a company wants to do. I think you’d have to be blind not to see the surging tide of people in the U.S. and across the world who are sick and tired of inequality. The fight for equal treatment for people of color, for women in general, for gay people, for trans people...it’s still raging. For every victory, like the Supreme Court case that said workplaces couldn’t fire people for being of LGBTQ+ status, there’s a crushing setback, like President Trump’s executive order to allow hospitals to discriminate against trans people. But things seem to be shifting again, and people are more and more stepping up to declare their dedication to the fight. So yes, if I were running a company, I would be taking notice, and I would be taking actions in this direction.

What I do not and will not understand are people who are somehow going to claim to be upset that WotC is going to take steps to try to not offend people in the future. It bothers me that people can’t say, “Well, I’m not personally offended, but I’m not black/Romani/gay/Asian/Native American/whatever. I think it’s great that WotC is trying to make sure D&D is more inclusive for everyone.” I don’t understand how anyone can play a game like D&D...a game that literally makes you walk in someone else’s shoes...and yet have so little ability to do it in your actual life. D&D literally shows you how different people with different abilities have to work together to help each other achieve a goal, and it’s sad to see that some who play it have so little regard for people who are different from themselves.

If you’ve stuck through this article this far, I wish I could offer you some great wisdom at the end. I guess I’ll just caution you to spend a moment thinking about what you’re going to say online before you say it. Once your words are out there, they’re very hard to take back, and that can have consequences. I try my best to make most of my interactions online with people positive ones. Even when I don’t agree with people, I try to be positive, and to educate them as to my side of the argument, rather than just blasting them with “No, you’re wrong for thinking that.” I thought long and hard before writing this article, and I thought long and hard before publishing it. I may lose readers over it, and, if so, that would be a shame, but I would rather be honest about who I am and what I believe.

So be kind to one another. To borrow a quote from Critical Role, “Don’t forget to love each other.” Roll those 20s. And we’ll be back on Thursday with a fun question about running a campaign that begins before Session Zero. Whaaaaat? You heard me. See you then!

[thedragonagelesbian]

Get to Know Meme - What Makes You Happy?

thanks to @dea-marte for tagging me this is absolutely the kind of energy i need in my life rn

Rules: List 15 things that make you happy, then tag 10 more people.

1. my housemates!! i lived in a program house at my university before shit got shut down, but 3 other members and i decided to sublet an apartment near campus so we could stay together through the end of our senior year, and i love them all so much and i’m so so so so happy to be here with them

2. animal crossing!!! i’m playing on one of my housemates’ switch and they’re out here doing real work on the island and then i come on afterwards and im just. vibing. hiding godzilla statues in the woods. planting pitfall seeds. causing a little mischief :3 (but also just having fun lol)

3. i’m almost done with undergrad!!! and i’m going to grad school!!!!!!!! like shit i did that and i have plans for the next two years of my life! love that!!!!!!

4. cooking. i’ve been doing it so much more in quarantine and it’s really validating to see my skills & intuition develop, and also i get good food out of it!!

5. star wars: the clone wars. the siege of mandalore is f u c k i n g me uppppp like damn this really is the most beautiful & heartbreaking piece of star wars content ever made huh. they really decided to do that with our emotions huh.

6. d&d!!!!! shit y’all i love dming SO M U C H and i love all my players & their characters and their m e m e s also we’re getting to a really exciting point in the campaign which has my HYPED

7. role-playing in general. i l o v e ttrpgs i love character creation. i love lore. i love worldbuilding. i love participating in worlds. i will compulsively create d&d characters, and any time i hear ANYTHING about a friend running a campaign im like ‘yes. hello. i made a character in the 5 minutes since you made this announcement now you HAVE to let me play’

8. personal writing. i say ‘personal’ instead of like writing generally bc my general relationship with writing is rlly complicated and not worth getting into rn because it actually upsets me a lot lol but when i’m just writing for me? when i don’t have to care about audience or making sense or producing something enjoyed by someone other than myself?? love that shit.

8a. i’ve been doing some fiction writing in spanish which is closely related to point 8 but deserves its own mention bc i’m really excited about how far my spanish has come in the past two years

9. viola playing!! in a v similar vein as personal writing; i really just enjoy being able to do this for myself. if i’m better today than i was yesterday, then that’s enough to make me happy. also music Pretty.

10. my original characters. if i don’t have anything else to do/think about, you can bet your ass i’m thinking about belladonna hawke or ariadna espinoza or gwendolyn trevelyan or my myriad of d&d npcs or any of the other fictitious people who are living in my mind rent-free

11. dragon age!! love this shit series so much. i’ve been replaying inquisition during quarantine!!!

12. Knowing Things. this is rlly vague but i just generally enjoy knowledge?? like i cannot tell you how happy it makes me to be able to talk about certain topics in depth.

13. my family bc im a Sap

14. my pets whomst i miss very very much and every time my mom sends me a picture of one of them it warms my heart sooooooooo much

15. uhhhhhhh chocolate? love chocolate.

tagging: @theangrytori, @adhdryujisakamoto, @neserem, @arishok-s, @onebadlich, and anyone else who wants to do it!!

[thedeadflag]

Hey, question, I've only ever heard of Vampire the Masquerade, but are there other World of Darkness games? 'cause I know there are other supernaturals, like changelings, and mages and werewolves, and I'm curious if you have to play another game to play those creatures, or if they are just NPCs, or something else. Also, if there are multiple games, are they compatible? Could I play a Changeling, from the changeling system (if there is one), or a werewolf (from it's system), on a VtM game?

There’s a whole bunch of other games, yeah.

I know the old head evangelists might hate me for saying it, but you should check out the ‘Chronicles of Darkness’ era of WoD games. The “Old World of Darkness” games can also be found for cheap, generally, but IMHO the rules are wonkier and don’t really align too well with the kind of mainstream TTRPG dynamics we’re seeing today in DND 5e, Pathfinder 2E, V:tM v5, etc.

I loved Chronicles (or, New World of Darkness, as I knew them back when they were released) for the gameplay dynamics that were ahead of their time. They scrapped a set-in-stone universal lore for a more modular approach that a lot of the main WoD fanbase hated, but I loved how plug and play things got to be. Sure, it was imperfect, and you had to do a bit of a feeling out process to make it work, but you could mix and match. I ran a few WoD campaigns mixing in Vampires, Werewolves, Changelings, Hunters, Ghosts, etc. and it wasn’t too hard to figure out after a few attempts at finding a method for balancing and gearing the player group to a certain tone and understanding of power differentials (as in, human mortal hunters tend to be waaaaay more vulnerable and weaker than supernaturals)

Chronicles has a generic system core book, World of Darkness. It then branches out into specific supernatural core books to expand upon the system. If you’ve ever played Monte Cook games like Numenera, or any of the FATE Core-related games,  you’ll be familiar with this sort of approach.  Essentially, if you know the WoD rules, you can jump into just about any of the other source books without much difficulty, and won’t need much time/effort to get things up and running.

In oWoD, and in newer editions of Vampire and whatnot, there’s no way to really accomplish that that’s not through massive homebrew edits, and it would require tossing the basic lore in the trash (in which case, why even go with oWoD/classic since that’s what it has going for it and nothing else). V5 is new, so while Werewolf is on the way, and probably Changeling and Mage afterward, the older settings are where you’ll find the diversity and capability for what you’re looking for.

And FWIW, it’s easy to get the best of both worlds. You can grab some of the lore from the oWoD books (I did a lot of this in my campaigns), and use the mechanics of Chronicles/nWoD. 

One thing to note, though, as an exception:

Do NOT merge Mage with any of these. Yes, it’s possible, but Mages are game-breaking in multi-source games even when people don’t try to make it that way. There’s no real way around it. Vampires and Werewolves in the same group? Yeah, that can work, there’s a sub-book or two with balancing details specifically for that, I think it had to do with a Mexican locale/setting. Adding CHangeling in on top of Vamps and Werewolves could prove a little trickier, but that’s more in a  narrative sense, so you’d really want to be comfortable with all the source materials so you’d know how to manage all of those threads. 

But it’s 100% possible to run multi-source games, and the game system makes room for that. 

I recommend checking out:

Chronicles of Darkness/World of Darkness (important to understand the core mechanics and the spirit of the system)

Vampire: The Requiem (if you want to run a vampire character, you’ll need this)

Werewolf: The Forsaken (ditto for werewolves)

Changeling: The Lost (ditto for changelings)

Hunter: The Vigil (if you want to run hunters, or even just have organized mortal antagonists facing your coterie of supernaturals, make sure you read this so you’ll know how to manage those)

Also, watching L.A. by Night on youtube for a few episodes (or the Twin Cities by Night podcast, or the Seattle by Night liveplay also on youtube) could give you an idea on the feel of the game, if you’re unfamiliar.

And if you feel it’s a good fit for you, I suggest grabbing up some of the additional material within each subset, because they expand a lot lore-wise and add in funky new stuff in a bunch of those extra books. Lots of fun stuff to play with. Some of those books are still restricted to 1st edition Chronicles vs the newer 2nd edition, but the meat of the system didn’t really change much (if you’re familiar with D&D, think 3rd edition vs 3.5e), just how morality’s handled, merits, and a few other mechanics. Not much in terms of a workload/effort level when it comes to managing crossover balancing, just something to be aware of. 

Best of luck,and feel free to hit me up with any questions if you have them!

[fluidityandgiggles]

Sleep Is For The Weak - Chapter 17

Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 5, Chapter 10, Chapter 15, Last Chapter

Writing Masterlist - for previous chapters not otherwise linked, Read on AO3

Notes (I guess): Happy school year in two weeks, folks.

Not gonna lie, I actually had a plan for this chapter, and then forgot it. So... yeah, not the most cohesive or best chapter, but I got it out, and it’s nice, and I like it this way because it’s a break from the wave of panic attacks and mild transphobia the last chapter or two.

Yes, I’m back home now, and I’m doing actually much better mentally and physically than I have since September till June. But the chapters are gonna take a while longer to write from now on, because I’m about to join the scary world of job searching for the unstable ADHD brain, not to mention being involved in three regular ttrpg campaigns (where I play a halfling sorcerer, and a half-elf bard, and also DM the third one), so... my brain is busy. But I promise this fic isn’t going on hiatus! I’m still extremely dedicated and excited to be writing this fic. I love it so much. Honest.

As per every chapter, thanks go to @whatwashernameagain for KHS and for generally being a wonderful human, to @broadwaytheanimatedseries for putting up with my fangirl-levels of excitement over everything (and coming up with the original idea), to @winglessnymph, @asleepybisexual and @anony-phangirl - who, while I know they’ve all fallen out of the loop, continue to have long-lasting effects on this fic as a whole - and new to this list, to @ilovemygaydad, who I’ve asked to beta this fic for me and I hope they’d have time for that starting with the next chapter.

Happy start of college and good luck, my darling dear child. I love you.

Tag list (sort of): @bunny222, @ab-artist, @sweet-and-sour-shadowling, @your-username-is-unavailable, @virgilcrofters, @violetblossem, @maybe-i-like-the-misery, @book-of-charlie, @thatsanswitch, @thatrandomautist, @thebiggestgaypirate, @marshmallow-the-panda

(Wanna be tagged? Lemme know!)

Trigger warning: period appropriate transphobia (the early 00s were not exactly trans-friendly). This chapter is light on the transphobia, but includes aphobia, deadnaming, panphobia (yes, pansexuality was a term in the early 00s, as I learned just half an hour ago) and vague mentions of child abuse.

—————

Sunday, July 27th, 2003

Incoming call: 218-357-5555

"Ye—"

"Remy? I didn't forget your number? Oh good!"

"...Emile?"

"Yeah?"

"...what's this phone number, darling?"

"Oh! Yeah, I… my phone died, so I got a new one! Sorry I didn't tell you sooner… but, umm, I'm gonna get to the point, yeah okay, happy birthday!"

"Thank… you…? Em, you shouldn't have—"

"Ah, but see, that's where you're wrong! Because I had to, because I said that I have to! You're my best friend in the whole world, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't at least call you to say happy birthday?"

"You're precious, darling."

"Thank you! Oh, did you get my gift yet? I sent it to you in the mail last month! Did you—"

"I did, it was… well, it was unexpected, I'd give you that. Where did you even find a Jack mug anyway?"

"Disneyland…?"

"...you know what, that's fair."

"Yeah! So, happy birthday! I'll be in Manhattan next week, so like… do you wanna go see a show or something…? I haven't seen the Gypsy revival yet…"

"...it's a date, then. But you're paying."

"Yes, yes of course! It's gonna be alright, okay? You trust me?"

"With my life."

"Yay! Okay, okay, umm… yeah. I miss you! Happy birthday!"

"Thank—"

"I gotta go right now at this second it's my cousin's bat mitzvah in two days and I need to get my suit and everything but I'll call you tomorrow evening too okay?"

"Sure… have fun, darling."

"Thank you! Okay, bye!"

—————

"India M—"

"Why didn't you tell me Emile has a new number? I cannot fucking believe you!"

"He wanted to do it himself, peach. On your birthday."

"Okay… okay, I guess that's fair…"

"Happy birthday, too."

"Thanks, mom…"

"So… how'd you spend the week?"

"Nothing big happened… my dad took me to see Nina West last night. It was the fucking best."

"I'll bet. Did you have fun?"

"So much fun! She's fan-fucking-tastic. Honestly. I'd give anything for her to either do me or spare a bit of her funny to me."

"Wow… gay much?"

"Shut up."

"Don't worry, it's fine. I still need to take Jenna to a drag show sometime. Did anyone hit on you…?"

"You'll be surprised how many people hit on my dad, actually. But no. I actually broke up with Chris today because of this."

"Oh? Do tell."

"It wasn't… much. He called me a couple hours ago to say happy birthday, which is fine if you ask me but I just… it ended in him trying to talk me into not talking to Emile again. And that's normal, okay, ain't something I can't handle. But he said ‘sure he's asexual, when he isn't spreading his legs to everyone he's asexual'."

"...did he seriously think he can get away with it?"

"India, no—"

"I don't give a fuck anymore, peach. I'm not going to beat him up, you have nothing to worry about, I just… this shit is so fucking infuriating!"

"I know. But hey, look at the bright side. Ulysses and Mandy said they'll take over next year, I'm gonna let them know. He won't be back."

"That's… that's true. I'll call Mandy later. Don't worry about it. Just… what then?"

"Then I told him that it wasn't his choice, he didn't choose any of it, so he said ‘just like you couldn't choose to stay a girl, Rebecca'."

"...oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. I'm telling Mandy. She'll deck him for sure next time she sees him."

"Thanks, mom. I just… I so wanted to deck him right then! So I gave him a piece of my mind, broke up with him and hung up and deleted his number. Now we wait and see what's gonna happen."

"Good boy. I taught you well."

"Thanks… again… he also said that asexuality isn't real, and—"

"I'm flying down to Texas right now to sock him. I took karate for three years. I can do this."

"India, no… hon. Babe. You need to get settled in DC. You need to—"

"I'm buying the plane tickets right now, Remy! Watch me!"

"—You need to get your life together and get your master's degree. You do not, however, need to go break the nuts of someone who doesn't deserve your attention—"

"Who's the older and wiser one of us?"

"Right now? Not you. You told me this very thing when I wanted to kill that asshole who made a joke out of Emmy, I'm telling you this now. Don't."

"...fine. But if I ever do get the opportunity, I'm doing it."

"Good for you."

"Nobody plays my kids dirty like that."

"You go, mom."

"I will! Oh shit, I have to go!"

"What? Why—"

"I forgot Jenna's parents are coming over today and I need to go pick them up from the airport. I'll call you later to keep catching up, okay peach?"

"Okay, but—"

"Awesome, happy birthday, we love you! See you in two weeks!"

"...see y—"

—————

"...Remy?"

"Good evening, Linda… where's Leah?"

"...and here I thought you called to talk to me. But I suppose I'm only your mother, nothing—"

"Mom, please, I'll talk to you after I tell Leah something really important."

"Alright, I'm sorry. But you got the package we sent you, didn't you?"

"I did, I… I just don't understand. You painted that…?"

"Who else would sign my name on a canvas, Remy?"

"You're… right. I'm sorry. It's very nice. Thank you."

"Happy birthday, son."

"Thank… you…"

"...hello?"

"Leah…? Leah, sweetie, can you hear me?"

"Remy! Oh, oh oh oh Remy I told you I'd tell you about my camp and—"

"And how was your time at camp? Take a breath and then tell me."

"Okay! Okay, so, so we were in the woods, and in cabins, and I kinda wanted to sleep in tents but it didn't happen and it was kinda disappointing but I can always do that later, and…"

—————

August 2003

There was a blackout as Remy was trying to write an essay Dr. Gilliam asked of his class.

So his dad put him on a bus to Georgia, which is why he's making do right now at doing his schoolwork with two children running around.

"We gotta go bowling too!" Leah whispered excitedly. For the fifteenth time this hour. "And then we need ice cream, and, umm, I know where the puppies are, and—"

"Leah, love, I need to finish this essay for school right now. Give me a couple minutes, about twenty, and I'll be with you, okay?"

"Okay!"

Remy couldn't be happier to be there at that moment. He had a plane ticket booked to Boston, his rooming was already set at Lowell, the papers have all been set and he was about to room with Emile, Mandy called him the other day to ask if he'd like to help her run the queer society meetings (and of course he said yes)...

And then there was a crashing sound. And a crying toddler sound. And he had to put his laptop aside to go check on Rachel.

More like run to the kitchen to check on Rachel, who was now standing in front of broken pieces of cheap china and bawling her eyes out.

"No, sweetie, it's okay…" he picked her up and started playing with her hair, hoping to calm her down. "We're gonna clean this, okay? What were you doing with the plate?"

"Tea party!"

"You wanna have a tea party?" She nodded, hiding her face in the crook of his neck. "Okay… okay. Let's wash your face, then pick up the pieces, and then make some tea and have a tea party with your dollies. Okay, love?"

She nodded again, and he kind of had no choice. So he did what he said he'd do, sitting Rachel down in her high chair as he cleaned the broken pieces, and for a moment, he felt like an absolute idiot. He felt like he was his mom.

Well… like Rachel was his mom, and the plate was him, and he was his dad, and holy fuck Emile's show analysis habits have definitely had an effect on him and he really should stop thinking about all this ridiculousness right now.

"Remy?" Leah whispered from behind him as he was picking up the shards. Rachel was entertaining herself, rather unaware of what's going on. "Is daddy gonna be mad?"

"I—" He had to stop. And think before answering. "I don't think so, honey."

"But a plate broke…"

"...he doesn't have to know. It was just a plate. He doesn't count the plates in the cupboard, now does he?" She shook her head, her hair flying everywhere. "So he won't know. Because we won't tell him."

"Okay. I can do that."

"I know you can do that, hon. Now, how about you get your roller skates and we'll go to the park?"

"But you said tea party…"

"We can have a tea party after the park. Rachel, do you wanna go to the park?"

Rachel, who up until then mostly minded her own business, looked over and started nodding with a big smile on her face.

"So we can go to the park and then have a tea party. Where's your roller skates?"

—————

Saturday, August 30th, 2003

"It's always nice to see new faces at the queer society meetings," Mandy said with a huge smile on her face as she balanced the clipboard on her knee, Remy holding her iced coffee. "I'm glad you all could make it today. Now, let's do a name round. Everyone state your preferred name - please no dick jokes, we have people who are very uncomfortable with those in this group as well - and what brings you here, and a small fact you'd like people to know about yourself if you'd want to."

Remy just kept looking over the room. Mandy had this all under control, already having printed out a list to put everyone's names and contacts in for if they need to. India trained her well.

From the corner of his eye, Remy could see Emile bouncing in his seat.

"I'll go first. Hi, I'm Amanda, I go by Mandy, I'm pansexual—"

"That's not a real word," someone called out. Remy did his best not to glare at the person.

He was pretty sure it's Chris.

"Pansexual is a word, Christian," Mandy replied, not even looking at him. "It was coined before your grandmother was even born. Anyway, I'm Mandy, I'm pansexual, and I'm in this wheelchair today because I have fibromyalgia and today is a very bad pain day. Who wants to go next?"

It was the same old sharing circle. Some people elaborated more, some people chose not to. Emile went ham on sharing, telling everyone he was gay and asexual and talking about his bunnies at length, looking as proud as he can be.

And then it got to Remy. And he wasn't nearly as anxious as he was last year.

"I'm Remy, I'm gay and transgender, and my therapist said I can start hormone therapy this year."

[geejaysmith]

Wolf 359: A running list of things I have a heightened appreciation on second listen, pt. 2

Part one here. 

SEASON 3:

Pan-Pan: Still a little miffed they didn't explicitly do the "we have to huddle to conserve body heat" trope. Yes, it's corny, but also shut up, let my touch-starved space disasters cuddle.

So Eiffel stopped Hera and Minkowski arguing in season 1 to address an emergency, and now with Eiffel absent, the team starts arguing again. The fact he doesn't exactly have much Pride In His Own Self-Sufficiency to get in the way of "hey! Guys! Remember, imminent death? More important priorities happening?" tends to defuse situations like this aaaaaand now he's absent.

"Cutter will send a squad of psychos to come up here and kill us faster!" ...she's not wrong.

"Pick a corner and relax! Hop to it!" I just like this line delivery.

"The entire station is a SPACE YUKON and this thing is overheating!" I know, it's like it's symbolic or something.

Episode 29: "we all feel responsible for losing Eiffel and are lashing out because we're scared and sad and grieving and fear getting backlash while we're vulnerable if we admit we need help, and we don't know what to do but keep going because the alternative is breaking down and possibly never getting back up again." Alternatively:  "It's Metaphors All the Way Down."

Mayday: Eiffel's frustrated screaming.

Brain Ghost Minkowski showing up like "Yeah, we know I'm a hallucination, or Weird Alien Shit, or maybe just a clever metaphor representing the abstract process of thought, but who gives a crap, this is more interesting than listening to you talk to yourself for an entire episode."

BGM: Hi, I'm your thought processes externalized using a face and personality that you subconsciously think you need to hear from in this situation, possibly because you think so little of yourself you need to hear it from somebody else first. Eiffel: Oh hey cool, this is just like this one web comic I kept up with sometimes back on Earth- BGM: Not another word.

Eiffel getting slapped by Brain Ghost Lovelace, who is a projection of his thoughts.

What is that whispering in his head that reminds him of the Hermes' name supposed to be anyway? Score one for my Weird Alien Brain Shit theory. Having Lovelace's alien juice in your system comes with such fun side effects.

"I dunno, I only know what you know." "Shut up, don't go meta on me." / "Hilbert wouldn't know that word! He's never even heard of Empire!" Yeah, toldja: it's Brain Ghosts.

Brain Ghost Hilbert may represent the realist in Eiffel and the brutal, calculating reality he doesn't want to confront, but Brain Ghosts Minkowski and Lovelace are his cooler head and ingenuity, working him through staying calm and devising a way to survive, and Brain Ghost Hera, who appears when Hilbert tells him it's hopeless, telling him that against all the odds he will be okay, is his stubborn determination to never, ever quit. They're all his determination to live when Doug might want to just stop trying. They're the better parts of himself, reflected in the voices of his friends.

And Hilbert. But I digress- HOLY FUCK, I just realized the brilliance in the one-two punch of the Brain Ghost Brigade contrasted with the previous episode's Stress Fracture Argue Crew, it's The Sound And The Fury all over again.

Paging the Wolf 359 incorrect quote blogs: "Save my friends! And Zoidberg Hilbert!"  

Sécurité thru Don’t Poke the Bear: Maxwell! I've missed you! (':

"And I build pretty awesome battle drones on the weekends." ...Does Maxwell have her own souped-up version of one Jamie Hyneman's Blendo?

Eiffel, realizing he's starting to sound like Minkowski: My god, what have I become.

Eiffel mumbling to himself in general. "This is hell and I'm in it."

Is it just me or is Kepler's pig story not as agonizingly drawn out to listen to the second time around?

A Matter of Perspective: Funzo: 12 different board games, three of them TCGs and maybe at least one TTRPG, all tossed in a blender, because Pryce and Cutter are psychopaths.

The Funzo manual is the size of the actual Bible and don't try to convince me otherwise.

How into the game the girls all get.

Headcanon: Minkowski and Lovelace are both the types to get stupidly competitive over any kind of game regardless of their initial level of investment.

Eiffel keeps a photo of (it's implied) him and his daughter taped to the underside of his console...

"He looks so... happy." shUT UP

"I had no idea Eiffel had a-" daughter. Was it "daughter" you were going to say Minkowski. Well, no one else knew you were married til you brought it up, so turnabout's fair play.

"You think you know me? You know the artist formerly known as Warren Kepler, you've met my job. Aside from that, there's no one left for you to know." In light of the series finale, I, uh... I don't if I like this, Scoob. Also, stop reminding me all these people are human persons underneath all the desensitization to horror and violence.

"Happy birthday, Eiffel." They remembered! Hope this one is less traumatizing than the last, Doug.

"Happy Kwanzaa!" "Lovelace."

"Long Story Short, that's the last time I saw Maxwell's feet" wh. What. What happened involving Maxwell's feet. What's. why-

And to make a long story short, that's where my "Maxwell has hands for feet" headcanon came from.

Need to Know: Minkowski's dreams, apparently, include both creating musicals and commanding a deep space mission. She's gotten the latter way the hell off the bucket list, somebody with actual songwriting skills want to get in and write the former with me?

Lovelace overindulging on painkillers for her broken arm after losing Officer Fisher... "It was a difficult time." ):

Aaaand serious implications of the above are immediately headed off by Lovelace quacking aggressively at Jacobi.

Fire and Brimstone: where is my fanfiction about Lovelace overseeing Minkowski during her solitary confinement?

The Backstory Episodes: Zach Valenti wrote all the backstory episodes! I just find that kind of sweet.

Once in a Lifetime: Small detail I only noticed on my second listen, after a fanfic put the thought in my head: Minkowski's parents are only referred to in the past tense. Oof.

"Thank you for coming in on such short notice. We had a hiccup in staffing for this upcoming quarter."  So... according to the wiki's timeline, the launch for the second Hephaestus mission was some time in late March 2013. The beginning of this episode (and Eiffel's) states it takes place in 2013, with 3 months of training, meaning they were probably brought on board in January and the whole thing moved *ridiculously* fast. Everything points to them wanting to get people up in space as quickly and with as little fuss as possible, giving the newcomers no time to think it over or do additional research. Once they start the training program, they're probably too busy to look further into Goddard's deep space missions, and are likely in an environment where Goddard Futuristics can cut them off from other information sources. The people they select are relatively isolated (Minkowski and her husband being an exception) - the easier to make them disappear. Even Lovelace has been stationed at "a lot of very isolated, very quiet outposts", the implication being her superiors wanted her somewhere out of the way. Kind of makes me wonder about the rest of the Hephaestus 1.0 crew...

Greensboro: Nice ominous foreshadowing you've got there vis a vis Captain Lovelace and "are you an alien?"

Decommissioned: "We're not about to force anyone to do something they don't want to do!" ...Marcus Cutter deserves to have his trousers ablaze constantly.

All Things Considered is still a bit confusing (because I somehow keep listening to it while doing something else) and I'll need another listen to figure out what probably actually happened, but it is also hilarious.

"Eiffel had engaged the machine, but that's why I build in extra safeguards. My mistake, clearly, was to assume that would be enough to stop the slapstick routine."

“All Things Considered”: Did you have fun with this over-the-top romp of hilarity and and hijinks, dear audience? Good! Because that was us burning off our comedy quota for the rest of the season. Get ready for six whole episodes of nonstop emotional gut-punches!

MEMORIA.

Just... Memoria.

Putting this quote here because of Reasons: "Three years... Three and a half years... I've had this thing in my head breaking me, and making me think it was all my fault, that there was something wrong with *me!*"

So Memoria is still one of the best episodes and the last five minutes fuck me up in a special little way.

Time to Kill: "Or the one outside is the real Jacobi... and the alien is already in here with us." The funny thing, Maxwell, is that you were half-right and didn't even realize it, and you *were* just speaking to Lovelace.

So... do alien duplicates only get reloaded from the singular "snapshot" of the person, or does getting flare-scanned once give them a continually updated source of info? What I'm getting at is: if another Jacobi shows up post-finale, would he need to be filled in on events between his horrible, terrible death and the present?

Persuasion: Maxwell switching to First Name Basis to get Jacobi to be honest with her.

I always forget until the scene after that Hilbert is totally setting up the Space Telephone to manipulate her, but of all the ways he could've gotten Minkowski around to "we are disposable and need to act *now* before these people decide they're done with us", it still kinda touching that this is the method he chose.

Desperate Times/Desperate Measures are just a blur of "oh god oh god oh god" and it's just as nailbiting the second time around. One thing I love about this podcast is how comfortable it is with (for its medium) long stretches of silence, which can feel a LOT longer when you have no other forms of feedback except dialogue to know the first gunshot was just a warning.

So you really *do* feel Minkowski breaking out into laughter when Eiffel tries to invoke Air Force code is a release of the tension that's been building for multiple episodes. Like he's finally gotten through to them just how far this has all gone and how much further it could still go. I keep saying this: when the situation starts to threaten violence, he's got an amazing gift for keeping the rest of the crew in touch with their common humanity when the rest get far too used to a world that runs on self-interest and subterfuge. Hell, he even gets Hilbert and *Kepler* opening up over the course of the story (presuming Kepler is being honest when he talks about being a shell of himself, but even though he was trying to manipulate Eiffel, that doesn't exclude there being a kernel of truth in those words).

Speaking of Kepler: he's definitely riding the adrenaline high of the situation and it turns him into a monster with a manic streak. It makes Jacobi's and Maxwell's relative calm all the eerier by contrast. Those two really do make you forget that all of this is... pretty horribly routine for them.

Until they meet their match, that is, when the women of the Hephaestus refuse to stand down, and each of them is unspeakably badass in their own way. What Kepler didn't account for is that they're ready and willing to die together rather than sacrifice one another for their own survival.

Although again, the irony of the situation is that just dropping the station into the star could have let them avoid, /gestures at season 4. BUT I'm not gonna rain on the Badass parade here.

Bolero, aka "The podcast kicking me in the feelings while I'm down."

The way Minkowski orders everyone else out of the room before Brain Ghost Lovelace conversates with her.  ...did she pop up in the middle of that conversation, I wonder? And all this when psi-wave radiation is spiking, apparently. Coincidence?

Oh come on Hera, war is no reason to end a friendship- Look, I came here from Metal Gear. I see folks dunking on Hilbert and I'm just over here like "he's still not as revolting as Huey Emmerich."  

Listen I've seen enough of Warren Kepler and Marcus Cutter in this fandom to know y'all aren't above liking a bad guy, you just prefer the ones who're having fun with it.

"You're gonna come to my funeral! And you're gonna like it! ...I mean you're gonna feel really sad! And cry! And stuff! GOT IT??" Ah, good ol' Eiffel.

THE COMPUTER ALSO HAS BRAIN GHOSTS

"If I'm not your doctor, then what are we?" "We're... complicated?" Listen, Eiffel, if you're not careful, I'm going to start shipping you and Hilbert ironically For The Lulz, and we all know where shipping things ironically always leads.

Errybody gets brain ghosts this episode. Again: I accept that this is a device that's more interesting than an alternative method of expressing these same ideas, but the ambiguity of a Watsonian explanation (is it all in their heads? Do they really see an apparition of some kind?) lets me do my Weird. Look, I once wrote in a joke in a fic about Death from Discworld complimenting a Quirky Miniboss Squad member from Metal Gear Solid 3 on his taste in interior decorating arena design, and that spawned entire subplots in projects for two different fandoms, and eventually roped in a third fandom to elaborate further on their now-intertwined cosmology. Do not underestimate how much I can give myself to work with.

The last ten minutes of Bolero also fuck me up in a special way, partly because We Are Dealing With the Hard and Unavoidable Fact of Death but also the aliens are about to throw a curve ball that'll... alter that last part a little.

Like, words cannot describe the "Dead Man's Curve in the wet" hard right turn of going from being in mourning for several beloved characters (including my favorite) to SURPRISE, SHE'S BACK! I love it.

I'd have to check the scripts to be sure exactly because some words got lost in Lovelace's respiratory spasms but I do like to imagine the her head wound closing up in front of a horrified Eiffel and Minkowski, with a side order of glow-y shit. I've drawn too many Homestuck god tier revivals I guess.

Update: I DID check the recording script's stage directions to see just how disgustingly physical the whole event is and okay, so no weird glowing shit (I reserve my right to depict it that way anyway) but I'm delighted to report that the gross anatomical-ness I was picturing? It's worse! It is so much worse!

The goddamn AGONY that is the Special Episode being TWO HOURS LONG when it comes right after the BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER IN THE SERIES.

You have NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TEMPTATION IT WAS TO SKIP THIS AND COME BACK TO IT LATER

LOVELACE 1.0 I LOVE YOU BUT ALSO I WANNA TO SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING TO FUTURE-YOU RIGHT NOW

Change of Mind: love the framing device placing this episode as within Lovelace's mind during her successful cranial reconstruction saving throw.

"Buncha nerds, gonna crash my-"

Just how familiar she is in this place, with these people... Hera was installed in her sister's grave (as another post put it), but Lovelace lives in the gutted cadaver of her home.

Zach Valenti's Lambert voice *does* sound like a bad Minkowski impression.

"I have a physicist to put the fear of *me* into." That's my girl. She kind of was more of an ass pre-Total Party Kill, though? Like come on, Isabel, how necessary *is* all this arguing with Lambert?

Fourier's voice is very nice, also. Very soft, very easy on the ears.

I'm now appreciating how it sounds like Fisher is the older and calmer mediator among the crew.

Also the image of Isabel just floating out in space and listening to some chill tunes is sooooo good.

Hey Doc, did it turn out Fisher was too perceptive to live. Was getting caught outside in that meteor shower really an accident. Hey. Hey Hilbert. Answer me. 

Also goddamnit, has EVERY character in this series has read Harry Potter?

Did the Fishers always differentiate each other by audio channel? I had to rewind the scene when I realized Lovelace's questions in my right ear weren't getting an answer.

"Say you're a big pink elephant!"

*gunshot* *gross biological dissolving noises* WHY

"Just because somebody made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be - you can be more!" I wrote this line down prior to the end of the episode's confirmation that it's a Big Thematic Point.

Aaaand we're back to the framing device, and with that, season 3 wraps. Or maybe season 4 kicks off? Either way, hell of a way to kick it off.

Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs had a hand in writing this episode? Aw... that's sweet...

So, yeah, headcanon: Alien resurrection does the weird glowy thing to close any obviously fatal maladies, then the gross biological viscera part kicks in, hence Lovelace sounding like she's trying to hack up her lungs as soon as she starts using them again.

Listen, sometimes the gross biological viscera parts are my favorite parts, okay? Okay.

[critical-analysis]

Consent in TTRPGs: How to Implement It in Your Game

I wrote a few weeks ago (maybe longer) about why consent in TTRPGs is important and why GMs who are against it are going against the very spirit of role playing games. I thought that this week I'd write something up about how to go about gaining and giving consent, from both a GM and a player perspective.

Here's my previous essay about this topic. If you're not sure what I mean when I'm talking about consent in regards to TTRPGs, go ahead and read that one first.

I'll start with the GM side of things. Making sure you know that your players are completely aware of what they're in for and what kind of game they're going to be playing is important. Even before we get to the point of consent in the way it's been discussed lately, just making sure that your game is the kind of game they want to play is important in making sure they, and everyone else is going to have as much fun as possible. One player not enjoying themselves can really drag a group down and ruin the enjoyment for everybody. So make sure that your players, whether it's an entire group starting a whole new campaign, or an individual player coming into an already running game, know the kind of game you're running. Some people don't like heavy role play. Some people don't like more battle based games. Some people don't like horror. Some people don't like modern settings. Make sure everyone playing knows exactly which game/system you're using, what the genre will be, how RP heavy it will be, how "hack 'n' slash" heavy it will be, etc.

You also need to make sure you and all of your players can agree to a general schedule. Not necessarily down to planning the exact dates ahead of time, but coming to a general agreement about how often you'll play (will you play every week? More than once a week? A couple of times a month?) will help people know if this is a game they can fit into their schedule. Someone with a lot of responsibilities might not be able to play more than once a week, or even every week. Making sure you get schedule stuff cleared up ahead of time can be a big help in ensuring the longevity of your campaign because it will minimize the chances of schedules not matching up and people getting frustrated about not being able to schedule a game.

Those are all just general things that aren't even necessarily "consent", but they're important things GMs should be doing, and they do set the precedent for gaining consent from your players, because it shows them early on that you care about what they need and what matters to them. It will likely make players who do need concessions when it comes to certain things feel more comfortable in letting you know.

Now, lets get into the actual matter of consent. There are different ways to start the conversation, but there should ALWAYS be a conversation.

DO NOT just sit around the table with the whole group and say "does anyone have anything they need to let me know about before we start so that I know what things to avoid?" For one thing, your players might not entirely know what you're talking about. There are players, especially newer ones, who don't really think about the fact that a role playing game could be triggering to them, so they wouldn't even know to ask. There's also the matter of privacy, and players who do need these concessions might not want the other players to know about their traumas and experiences that have led them to need these concessions.

It's just a good idea, even if we were ignoring the need for consent, to have a one-on-one with each of your players before the first session. It will help them feel more comfortable with as GM, it gives you the opportunity to talk about things like what kind of game they're most interested in playing, and you'll have the chance to talk to them about their character, get ideas about how you can fit that character into the world, and help them out with any character building problems they might be having. So you should already be having a private conversation with each player anyway. This is where you start talking about consent.

Some people use consent forms that their players can fill out. If you look around online you can find a few different versions available that have been made by GMs that you can download. Monte Cook Games has one that you can download from their store for free. 

These forms can be very helpful, but they should not be the end of it. You still need to have a conversation with them. Most forms don't allow for much detail that can be incredibly crucial for you to know exactly what you need to avoid and how to craft your story. However, be sensitive to the fact that some people struggle when it comes to talking about their traumas/phobias/etc., and that some people CAN'T. Don't make them. Don't say anything like "well if you won't tell me how do I know exactly what I can use and how can make a story?" And certainly don't threaten them with something like "if you won't talk more about it then I might end up putting something in my story that triggers you without knowing and then I won't be able to do anything about it."

To start with, if you don't need any clarifications at that time, then you don't need to ask about them. But let them know that you obviously don't have the entire campaign completely planned, so their consent/consent form will remain relevant throughout the entire campaign as you plan. If you need clarifications now, ask if that's okay. If you don't, ask if it's okay for you to ask for clarifications in the future as you're planning. Be flexible with how the clarification discussion happens. Present different ways to go about it than them just opening up about their traumas and phobias. Offer "yes or no" questions as a possibility. Tell them that they don't have to explain their experiences or phobia to you, that they can just answer your questions and if a question is too much they can just say "pass".

But be prepared for the possibility that they won't want to talk about it at all. This can be difficult, but it doesn't have to be a roadblock. It's important that you let them know that without clarification you might come up on something in the story that triggers them without realizing it WITHOUT making it sound like a threat or like you're blaming them. Make sure they know that it's important to you that you don't do anything in the storytelling that upset or triggers them, so that you two need to be able to establish some kind of signal in case you do start to come up on something like that, a signal that lets you know you need to bail out.

If they are willing to discuss it, then that's great! But it's still important to remember not to push and to be aware of their body language and behavior to make sure they're not getting to uncomfortable. If you sense they are getting uncomfortable, pull it back. Let them know it's okay if they don't want to discuss it anymore. Let them know that there are ways you can work around it if they don't want to elaborate.

But if they are open to the discussion, the first thing to focus on is what you need to do to make them comfortable and to make sure they feel safe. A lot of it is going to be clarifying whether what they've checked/listed applies just to them or to other characters (PCs and NPCs alike). Make notes on EVERYTHING so that you don't forget a single thing. Some things are going to be about clarifying the levels as to which something is excluded. If they check/list "sex", clarifying whether that means graphic depictions or any mention of it is important, as it clarifying if it applies only to their character or to other characters as well. If someone lists "car accidents", you'll want to clarify if mentioning them at all is a problem, or if it's okay as long as there are no graphic descriptions.

Never, ever, ever, EVER ask them to explain why they listed/checked a certain thing. NEVER ask them to describe their experience. NEVER make them feel like they have to in order for you to agree to what they're asking. They do NOT have to explain themselves. If they want to share, they will. Do not make them feel like they have to.

Figuring out how all of the players, each person's consent, and what everyone wants out of a game can be where it gets tricky, because you might end up in a place where one players wants and needs are in conflict with another player's wants and needs. And that can be tough to navigate.

Now, some of it can be easy. If someone is of the mindset that they need graphic descriptions of blood and gore in order for a game to be fun... quite frankly that's ridiculous. Graphic depictions of blood and gore are not things that play a major role in storytelling and characterization/development. Now, they might be important things if you're playing a certain kind of horror game, but that's something that should be covered in that first discussion before you even get to the consent conversation. If someone says they need graphic descriptions of blood and gore, or that they need graphic descriptions of murder, or that they need eyeball trauma in order for the game to be fun for them, that is unreasonable.

But when it comes to things that have to do with the way the other players write their characters and their backstories, the way they develop those characters, etc.... it can get a little trickier. Because for a lot of players role playing in these games is very personal, and they put a lot of themselves in those characters. They use their characters to work out their own personal struggles. There are things they can pursue in the game that can be empowering for them, or that can be important wish fulfillment. So if you have players with character aspects that might clash with what a person has listed on their consent form, then there could be a problem. These problems usually come in two forms: conflicting with something in a player's/multiple players' backstory, and prohibiting from everyone else in the game from doing a certain thing for the entire game.

You should be familiar with at least the generalities of all of your players characters and backstories before you have the consent discussions so that you know if something on someone's consent list clashes with someone's character. Here are just a few ways this could happen:

A player lists "homophobia" on their consent list, one of the player's backstories has to do with escaping the homophobia of their family/hometown

A player lists "sexual assault" on their consent list, one of the players backstories has to do with surviving a sexual assault

A player lists "harm to children" on their consent list, one of the players backstories has to do with having been abused as a child

If this happens, let the person with these things on their consent form know that there are players who have these as a part of their planned backstory, but that you're going to talk to them, and then you guys will figure out where to go from there.

Go to the players who have these things in their backstories and ask them if it's really important to them that it's there. As I said, some people work things out through their RP characters, so it could be really important to a player to have that as their backstory. And it can be easy to say "well, they can just do it in a different game where this other person isn't playing." But not everyone has another game, and it isn't fair to tell someone flat out that they're not allowed to play the game in a way that would be meaningful to them, just as it wouldn't be okay to tell someone that they just have to deal with something that triggers or upsets them in a game. As them if they'd be willing to make changes to remove this thing from their backstory. Maybe suggest figuring something out that could work as a sort of metaphor or stand-in.

If they say no, be very delicate in how you move forward. Let them know, without naming names, that this thing they're including in their backstory could be triggering to someone else (everyone should have been given the option of filling out a form or having the consent discussion with you, so they should all be aware that it's a thing). Without demanding they tell you their story, ask them if the reason they want to keep it in their backstory is personal and important to them. If they say no to that question, then it's becoming more and more likely that you're just dealing with someone who wants their way no matter what. If they're saying it's not an important personal thing for them AND they're unwilling to adjust the backstory to use something that could work as an analog, then they're definitely approaching the point of being selfish and unreasonable.

But if they it is important for them to have this thing as a part of their backstory and they're unwilling to change it to something else that could symbolize it, this is when you need to start looking to bringing them together, in some way, to compromise. Obviously, the easiest way to do this is to have a sit down with both of them to discuss it. Ask them both if they would be comfortable doing that. Again, do not frame it or phrase it in any way that would make it feel like if they say no they're not going to get what they're asking for. Accept the fact that on both sides you're going to be dealing with very personal subjects, and that they might not want any of the other players knowing about these particular things.

If either one says no to getting together to discuss it, you're going to have to act as a go between.

Either way, the next step is to go to the person with the consent for and explain that this is an aspect of the other player's backstory that's important to them and ask if there's some way a compromise can be reached where they can both get what they want. Perhaps propose a situation where the other player is allowed to have this thing as a part of their backstory as long it's things aren't explained in detail, or maybe even where there's a signal given when they're going to be talking about this part of their backstory so the player with the consent for can excuse themselves. Or ask if it would be okay if it's a part of the player's backstory as long as there are not further depictions of it in the story.

If the person with the consent form says no to compromise, and the person with this thing in their backstory is unwilling to change it, then you're in a situation where you either have to tell one of them "too bad", which might result in one of them not playing in your game. That's a possibility you have to be prepared for.

So your question is 'which one do I tell no to'? This is tough, because either way, you're going to feel like and asshole because you're going to be telling someone they can't have something that's very important to them. For you it might come down to who you feel was the most unwilling to compromise, and that's a completely valid way to go. I don't think there's an answer that's going to be correct 100% of the time. For me, personally, I would probably in most cases tell the person with the thing in their backstory that they have to change it. It sucks for them that they won't be able to put this personal thing into their character and maybe work out some things they need to work out through it. But the truth is, there are still ways that they can play the game where they can enjoy it and have a safe and happy experience. That wouldn't be true if the situation were reversed, if the one being told no was the one with the consent form. If this thing is triggering for them so much that it can't even be in a character's backstory, then there's no version of the game that's going to be a safe and fun experience for them if it's there.

But that might not always be the answer. You might feel that one party is refusing to compromise not out of what they need, but because they just want what they want and don't care about anyone else's needs. You might not like the way one of them behaved during the whole thing. There's not one, single answer to this question, and you'll have to on how you feel. It's definitely important to take their behavior and attitude into account (if they're unwilling to compromise on this they might be unwilling to compromise about other things, make concessions for other players, and generally work together once the game is going), but it's really important that you look at the situation and consider which one would still be able to find enjoyment in the game if you told them they couldn't have what they're asking for, and which one wouldn't be able to have a safe experience if you told them they couldn't have what you're asking for.

Then there are the times when what's being requested would majorly impact the way the other players are allowed to play the game. Now, you might decide to honor the person with the consent reform's request and just cut that thing out of the game. And that's a perfectly valid choice. But if you're going to do that, you have to let your other players know about it. All of your players need to be aware of what kind of game they're getting into, what is and isn't allowed, so they can make an informed choice about whether they want to play or not.

Usually this type of situation comes down to things like romance/sex. A player might put on their consent form that they're not comfortable with romance or sex in games. And that's one of the big topics you need clarification on. If they just say that they're uncomfortable with those things for just their character, then great! Not a problem. The only problem you might run into is that one of the other players might get it into their head that their character has a thing for this other player's character. In which case you're left with the options of either having the player that is uncomfortable about it letting everyone know beforehand so that doesn't happen, or privately approaching the "pursuing" character once it starts happening to ask them to stop.

But you might find yourself in the situation where they say that they're not comfortable with romance or sex happening at all.

A tiny tangent here as we talk about approaching the matter of sex itself, because it's a little more complicated than just romance. "Sex" is kind of vague when it comes to talking about consent in these games, so before you even get to the point of asking about whether they're just referring to their own character, or if they're referring to everyone, you need to try to establish what they mean by "sex." Obviously, refer back up to the paragraph about how to approach asking them for further detail. If they're willing to discuss it, you need to clarify if they mean no sex, ever, not even mentioned, or if it's okay if it's mentioned but just not shown or implied to be happening, or if they're okay with the "fade to black" type of thing. After you've established that, then you can get into how broadly they expect it to be applied.

If they say that they expect it to be applied to every character, which means that none of the other players can pursue romantic relationships or sex at all, then you're in a situation where you're going to have to ask the other players to completely eliminate something that many consider a major part of the game. Like I said, if you want to just do it, make that decision and make all sex and relationships off limits, that's perfectly find. But  you have to let your other players know before you start the game. Both so that they don't try to do it, only the get shut down, but also so that they can make an informed decision about whether or not they want to play. Removing something that big as a possibility from the game is a big thing, and you very will might end up with people who decide they don't want to play. That's something you have to be ready for if you're going to make that kind of decision.

If you're not going to make that decisions right away, then you're going to want to ask your players if they're okay with it. The best thing to do would be to ask one by one so that they don't feel pressured by anyone else, and so that they can't single out the person who made the request. Do not start by saying "would you be okay with this not being in the game, because it would be triggering for so and so". You don't need to bring the consent form into it right away. Just start by asking how they would feel if you made it off limits. Ask them if it's something they really consider essential to the enjoyment of the game. If they're resistant to the idea, then you might want to appeal to their empathy by bringing up that removing it for the game would hel pin making the player with the consent form feel safe playing the game. (Remember though, don't name names).

Be prepared for the possibility that at least one of them say no, that they consider this thing an important part of the game and they wouldn't be okay with it not being an option. I know in reading these things it's easy to see those people as being unsympathetic and unfair, but I would urge you not to think that way, at least not right away. A lot of people have very specific ways they like to play these games, and for some people the wish fulfillment aspect that they get out of these specific things can be incredibly important and meaningful to them. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to side with them, and that doesn't mean that they're necessarily the right fit for your game. It just means that they're not a shitty person just because they're very attached to this aspect of the game.

If you end up with players who say no, they would not be okay with this thing being removed from the game, then you once again have to make a decision about which way you're going to go. And again, that's going to come down to what you think is fair and reasonable. You might decide to eliminate this thing from the game in order to give the player with the consent form what they need. You might decide that if they need this thing that is an important part of the game to other players gone, then your game and group just isn't the right one for them. Again, it's up to you, what you feel is right, how you feel your players behaved when discussing these things.

It is important to remember that not every game is for every person, and that it's okay if that's the case. If someone doesn't like to be scared or they're triggered by horror, then a Call of Cthulhu game probably isn't for them, and you're not being insensitive for saying so. You're not being insensitive for not choosing another game or removing all the horror elements just so they can play. It's okay to just explain that this game probably isn't for them and that they probably want to find another group. (If you have the resources and ability to do so, help them find a new group as much as you can.)

I think that SOME of the things that might come into question when it comes to discussing consent with your players fit into that. Like the above mentioned issue with romance. I've actually been in this situation before. It's one thing if they just don't want their character involved in any sort of romantic situation. But ask all of the other players to also give up that aspect of the game is a big thing. Some might be willing to do that, but some might not. I had a player who had been in some very bad relationships and romantic situations, and she was still at the point where seeing romantic relationships, even healthy ones, was incredibly difficult for her. So her request was that the option for romance be eliminated entirely. But I had players in that game for whom being able to have romantic relationships was a really important element of the game. One of my players in particular had written a husband into her backstory. All of my players looked forward to the chance to have some fun, in-game romantic relationships that they were in control of, and I just didn't think it was fair to take that away from them, so I told the player with the consent form exactly that. That I didn't feel okay doing that, that I was more than happy to make sure her character was off limits for romance and romantic storylines, but I didn't feel okay doing that to the rest of the players. I told her that if she thought she could handle that she was more than welcome to play, but that otherwise our group wasn't a good fit for her.

And that's okay. Not every person is going to fit in every group, and there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make the group or the player that doesn't fit bad or wrong. It just means there's a different group or a different game out there for them.

However, there are some things, a LOT of things, when it comes to matter of consent in TTRPGs where that's not the case, where asking players not to include certain things, or not including certain things in your game, is perfectly reasonable, and where not doing so when someone needs it is entirely unreasonable. There are things that games do NOT need, that players should NOT need in order to have an enjoyable experience. A game does NOT need sexual assault, a game does NOT need graphic descriptions of abuse, or graphic descriptions of gore. A game does NOT need depictions of genocide. Yes, there are absolutely areas where compromise is a possibility. I've talked about a few possibilities of that here. Compromising on things like allowing a player to have a certain thing that's triggering for another player in their backstory as long as it doesn't actually occur within the game, agreeing not to graphically describe the blood and gore happening in battle, agreeing not to give graphic description of certain kinds of accidents or physical trauma. Yes, someone seeking to play a game like D&D and requesting no violence might be unreasonable. But requests that graphic descriptions are avoided is not, and nobody NEEDS those things in order to enjoy a game. You shouldn't NEED to include bugs, you shouldn't NEED to include a challenge where a character gets buried alive,  you shouldn't NEED to include rats, and neither should your players.

And this is especially true when it comes to what you are including in your story. As I say extensively in the first essay I did on this topic, part of being a GM is being flexible with your storytelling, because it's not YOUR story, it's a collaborative story, being told by you AND your players. You should be able to be flexible so you can give your players what they want, what will make them most happy, to let them explore the stories they want to explore. That also goes for giving them what they need to have a safe and fun experience. If rats are important to your world building, there's no reason you can't swap out rats for another kind of animal if a player has a rat phobia. If you've included sexual assault as an important piece of one of your story thread, there should be no reason that you can't swap it out for something else if one of your players is triggered by sexual assault.

The ONLY time you should be thinking about whether or not you should honor a player's consent requests is if what they're asking for would limit or effect the things the PLAYERS get to do in the game. As the GM, you should ALWAYS be able and willing to change things in your story in order to allow the players to feel safe and have fun.

Once you've made all your decisions about your players' consent requests, you need to make sure your players are aware of what's okay for them to do and what isn't. You don't have to say "because this person needs this thing". You don't even need to tell them that any of it is because of the consent requests. You just need to, before you start playing, go over the rules that are specific to your game.

It's important that you don't just worry about consent at the beginning of the game and then treat it like that's it, don't have to worry about it again. You should be doing check ins every few months. Sometimes people will realize that they needed a concession that they weren't aware of until the gameplay actually started. Sometimes people will go through things or have experiences after they originally talked to you before they started playing. You need to make sure that you're constantly checking in to make sure that everything is okay, that all of your players are safe and having fun. You can't always trust that they're just going to come to you if something happens. You need to take the initiative and check in with them. That's one of the most important parts of being a GM.

Dealing with your players' consent requests can sometimes be really easy. But sometimes it can be really tough, and you'll have to deal with other players and you'll be forced to make difficult decisions. But part of being a GM is dealing with the tough things that happen between players, and getting your players what they need. A lot of people think that being a GM is just making up the story and telling the players what they need to do. But a HUGE amount of being a GM happens outside of the game. It's not just about telling a story. You're responsible for your players and giving them what the need, and that takes a lot of interpersonal work. If you're not comfortable with that, or if you're not willing to do that, then being a GM probably isn't for you, and you'd be better off just writing your stories and putting them up online. Being a GM is a responsibility. Role playing games can be an incredibly vulnerable experience, and your players are trusting you to take care of them. Don't put people who are in a vulnerably position at risk just because you don't want to deal with the interpersonal, out-of-game part of the job.

If you have any further questions, let me know. There's a whole other essay in HOW to implement changes into your game and story based on players' consent requests, stuff all about how to figure out different things that can send the same message or different ways to get events moving, etc. If anyone is interested in reading that, let me know and I'll add it to the list!