#especially for ttrpg's and fantasy in general

[yew--berries]

Its so hard to properly articulate and even harder to find other places that are talking about it too but i feel like a big issue ive been facing recently, specifically with "Dungeons and Dragons" and "Minecraft" is that they both to me at least have been having very similar problems lately, namely that they are so big that they A. Cannot appeal to everybody and B. Are desperately attempting to

This then comes into a split where I feel with mojang its more the constant push to churn out more new things is bloating the game with stuff that has very few use cases, while D&D is suffering more from a place of the inspiration of the setting being so steeped in decades of not only iterations of the game but also the works that inspired it in a way that it is effectively incapable of shaking off any of the unfortunate tropes of the era of fantasy it was born in without disrupting the subsets of its playerbase that demand those aspects of the game go unchanged

Also within D&D specifically there tends to be a bunch of things on top of all that that make a hand at fixing the issues dnd has, but only really starts building the bridge it expects each individual game to complete, not that its always a bad thing to do that but in this case it just ends to make contradictory rulesets and solutions that dont actually really solve the inital problem in the first place

[larperwithastaff]

PROMPT: Home

Time: 20 minutes (1 extra)

~

[Set some time in the future, around a year or so after Arissa joins their new warband. Arissa has begun to relax around their new companions, seeing them as good friends now]

Sudenburg. What an exciting place to visit.

Arissa had come to call it a second base of sorts. There was always something happening in the market town. Someone was dying, a battle was to be fought, a trade show or town market to be held that week. If Arissa ever felt like they had hit a writer's block, they knew to take a trip to Sudenburg, to find more inspiration.

Yet, through all the noise of the border town, Arissa knew where to find some peace. Their warband's coffee house.

Market Week in Sudenburg had become Arissa's favorite time of year.

The comfy pillows, the brilliant rugs, jewelry hung from the beautiful scarves pinned to the canvas walls, the smell of coffees and teas being brewed behind the counter, it was all-too familiar by now.

Customers came in and out as the day passed. Arissa had taken to a front corner, sitting on a comfortable pillow, their notebook on a small table, their left hand writing notes on a new script, their right hand periodically touching the side of a teacup, waiting for it to cool down.

A few steps away, Arissa could hear the conversation between one of the warband leaders, and a customer. This person had taken a liking to a necklace for a lady-friend of his. Arissa kept their head down to stiffle a laugh, as he tried to barter down the price for the piece, begging the leader to see his "poor man's fight for love!".

Behind the counter, one of the other leaders were talking to another guest, making small talk as she made their order. The conversation was light, happy and full of joy. A talk of the upcoming talent quest. That evening always brought Sudenburg together. At first, Arissa dreaded it, thinking *someone* would appear out of Azyr and force them to perform.

Now, Arissa looked forward to it. The stories people would tell, they'd always inspire Arissa to keep writing. They knew now, their comfort on stage came from their own designs.

The chaotic shop was not-so-different to the environment Arissa had grown up in, but Arissa noticed the weight that they'd grown acustomed to at home had been lifted in the past year or so.

"No, that place is not home anymore. This is home. I choose where my home is." Arissa thought fondly.

"Home is where my heart is."

[snuurp]

introduction to the WORMS IN MY BRAIN jk this is a modern fantasy au for baldurs gate 3 plain text and more info under the cut

intro to the au, forewarning i haven't done much research, and my first playthrough of the game isn't done yet (I AM in act three tho I swear 2/3rds of the three guys r dealt with and so is cazador.) keep in mind i have no idea what i'm doing.

the mindflayer stuff is like. an experimental implant they all dubiously agreed to without all the info. extra enhancements (like the other tadpoles in game) are like drugs, and they appear once weekly at everyone's doors whether they want it or not. initial implant stabilizes Karlach's engine, helps with Astarion's vampire stuff, etc. etc. and the extras just feel good to use, it's addictive.

all of them are in a support group together meant to encourage them to stay clean from the extra tadpoles. time they've spent with the group varies.

there WILL be more detailed posts for them later, i have a lot of thoughts on Karlach and Wyll especially. implied/possible shadowzel and wyllstarion. my tav will be present, this is very self indulgent and i am in lesbians with Karlach.

plain text for images:

KARLACH

6'11" - 7'

construction worker.

her first job was disastrous.

foreman Goretash pushed her into dangerous situations that she felt pressured to be in because she was the newbie.

things went wrong with the electrical on the job site, landing her in the hospital with a near-fatal heart problem.

but good* news! avernus co. offered her a mechanical heart for the low, low price of a ten year work contract! (strings attached.)

she's out of the contract now, and avernus co. is refusing to maintain her heart (and the other "upgrades" they gave her without consent.)

still in construction, unionized and a loud advocate for workers rights.

can't do caffeine. her coffee order is a creamy chocolate chill from TImothy Horthingtons.

favourite board game is ticket to ride or uno, surprisingly mean and competitive in games.

SHADOWHEART

5'6"

works at hot topic (emo)

just got out of the commune, full swing edgy phase and does NOT know how un-niche her music is yet (please don't tell her)(she might cry)

"adopted" by Shar's cult when she was little, doesn't remember much before or after that beyond what other members told her.

dissecting her faith.

roommates with Lae'zel. (they hate each other)

"roommates" with Lae'zel also. (they still hate each other) (kinda)

rps her fursona COOL CAT CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL online.

very afraid of wolves which does include sparkledogs and makes rp super difficult.

her favourite board game is catan or any ttrpg.

if asked, her coffee order is "black, like my tortured soul" but she actually gets a vanilla latte with extra syrup and sweet foam. (oat milk because regular makes her tummy hurt)

LAE'ZEL

5'7" and gods does she ever hold that extra inch over Shadowheart.

works as a personal trainer, her clients are scared of her which makes her VERY effective for the right people.

insults clients, perfectionist.

mommy issues x100

the creche has a very community/it takes a village style of raising but they do a really bad job.

she wants to be the BEST of her siblings, doesn't take failure well.

loves competitive solo sports, hiking, marathons, bouldering, boxing, etc. etc.

delights in pushing Shadowheart's buttons.

she doesn't drink coffee, her order is a smoothie.

willingly drinks the ones with kale like a CRAZY PERSON.

favourite board game is chess and while she is good at it she is a SORE loser.

WYLL

6'1"

used to work for avernus co. and now works a much quieter, mostly Mizora-free job at an elementary school.

the students favourite gym teacher.

estranged from his dad after a huge, explosive misunderstanding re: the very un-HR Mizora incident(s)

likes Go Fish and cribbage, but he's happy playing any board game the others suggest.

generally just happy to be here.

coffee of choice is an americano with a shot of apple cinnamon syrup.

loves knitting.

definitely not crushing on Astarion whaaat crazyyyy.....

his watch is from his dad. he looks at it when he misses him.

misses him a lot.

ASTARION

5'9"

former troubled teen kicked out by his rich parents.

Cazador was a "pastor" that took him under his wing and adopted him into his group home (for a price)

in debt to him now and can't outrun it.

has two jobs.

works at Olive Garden, HATES IT.

works at (insert coffee shop chain here) ALSO HATES IT.

somehow has a very popular aesthetic tumblr blog in the year of our lord 20XX

coffee order is an iced caramel latte (sometimes gets strawberry/cherry/raspberry syrup to make his pictures cooler)

his favourite board game is monopoly (he steals from the bank) but he DESPISES cheaters edition because that "takes all the fun out of it"

Wyll's feelings are mutual and he knows about them but he's too insecure to talk to Wyll about it (nerd)

GALE

5'11"

unemployed, formerly university librarian/professor.

is not over his ex, will not be over his ex for the foreseeable future.

eventually goes to a new university to teach tho.

zero rizz, this man uses mage hand to play wizard wonderwall while concentrating very hard and that makes him look constipated sorry Gale likers.

has a part time job at a Barnabus and Noblemans before going to the new university.

commissioned Wyll to make his sweater vest in affront-to-the-gods purple.

wrote some very prolific papers in the wizard community.

coffee order is matcha or a mocha

favourite board game is clue. he gets really into it.

[makapatag]

Tactical Combat, Violence Dice and Missing Your Attacks in Gubat Banwa

In this post I talk about game feel and decision points when it comes to the "To-Hit Roll" and the "Damage Roll" in relation to Gubat Banwa's design, the Violence Die.

Let's lay down some groundwork: this post assumes that the reader is familiar and has played with the D&D style of wargame combat common nowadays in TTRPGs, brought about no doubt by the market dominance of a game like D&D. It situates its arguments within that context, because much of new-school design makes these things mostly non-problems. (See: the paradigmatic shift required to play a Powered by the Apocalypse game, that completely changes how combat mechanics are interpreted).

With that done, let's specify even more: D&D 5e and 4e are the forerunners of this kind of game--the tactical grid game that prefers a battlemat. 5e's absolute dominance means that there's a 90% chance that you have played the kind of combat I'll be referring to in this post. The one where you roll a d20, add the relevant modifiers, and try to roll equal to or higher than a Target Number to actually hit. Then when you do hit, you roll dice to deal damage. This has been the way of things since OD&D, and has been a staple of many TTRPG combat systems. It's easy to grasp, and has behemoth cultural momentum. Each 1 on a d20 is a 5% chance, so you can essentially do a d100 with smaller increments and thus easier math (smaller numbers are easier to math than larger numbers, generally).

This is how LANCER works, this is how ICON works, this is how SHADOW OF THE DEMON LORD works, this is how TRESPASSER works, this is how WYRDWOOD WAND works, this is how VALIANT QUEST works, etc. etc. It's a tried and true formula, every D&D player has a d20, it's emblematic of the hobby.

There's been a lot more critical discussion lately on D&D's conventions, especially due to the OGL. Many past D&D only people are branching out of the bubble and into the rest of the TTRPG hobby. It's not a new phenomenon--it's happened before. Back in the 2010s, when Apocalypse World came out while D&D was in its 4th Edition, grappling with Pathfinder. Grappling with its stringent GSL License (funny how circular this all is).

Anyway, all of that is just to put in the groundwork. My problem with D&D Violence (particularly, of the 3e, 4e, and 5e version) is that it's a violence that arises from "default fantasy". Default Fantasy is what comes to mind when you say fantasy: dragons, kings, medieval castles, knights, goblins, trolls. It's that fantasy cultivated by people who's played D&D and thus informs D&D. There is much to be said about the majority of this being an American Samsaric Cycle, and it being tied to the greater commodification agenda of Capitalism, but we won't go into that right now. Anyway, D&D Violence is boring. It thinks of fights in HITS and MISSES and DAMAGE PER SECOND.

A Difference Of Paradigm and Philosophies

I believe this is because it stems from D&D still having one foot in the "grungy dungeon crawler" genre it wants to be and the "combat encounter balance MMO" it also wants to be. What ends up happening is that players play it like an immersive sim, finding ways to "cheese" encounters with spells, instead of interacting with the game as the fiction intended. This is exemplified in something like Baldur's Gate 3 for example: a lot of the strats that people love about it includes cheesing, shooting things before they have the chance to react, instead of doing an in-fiction brawl or fight to the death. It's a pragmatist way of approaching the game, and the mechanics of the game kind of reinforce it. People enjoy that approach, so that's good. I don't. Wuxia and Asian Martial Dramas aren't like that, for the most part.

It must be said that this is my paradigm: that the rules and mechanics of the game is what makes the fiction (that shared collective imagination that binds us, penetrates us) arise. A fiction that arises from a set of mechanics is dependent on those mechanics. There is no fiction that arises independently. This is why I commonly say that the mechanics are the narrative. Even if you try to play a game that completely ignores the rules--as is the case in many OSR games where rules elide--your fiction is still arising from shared cultural tropes, shared ideas, shared interests and consumed media.

So for Gubat Banwa, the philosophy was this: when you spend a resource, something happens. This changes the entire battle state--thus changing the mechanics, thus changing the fiction. In a tactical game, very often, the mechanics are the fiction, barring the moments that you or your Umalagad (or both of you!) have honed creativity enough to take advantage of the fiction without mechanical crutches (ie., trying to justify that cold soup on the table can douse the flames on your Kadungganan if he runs across the table).

The other philosophy was this: we're designing fights that feel like kinetic high flying exchanges between fabled heroes and dirty fighters. In these genres, in these fictions, there was no "he attacked thrice, and one of these attacks missed". Every attack was a move forward.

So Gubat Banwa removed itself from the To-Hit/Damage roll dichotomy. It sought to put itself outside of that paradigm, use game conventions and cultural rituals that exist outside of the current West-dominated space. For combat, I looked to Japanese RPGs for mechanical inspiration: in FINAL FANTASY TACTICS and TACTICS OGRE, missing was rare, and when you did miss it was because you didn't take advantage of your battlefield positioning or was using a kind of weapon that didn't work well against the target's armor. It existed as a fail state to encourage positioning and movement. In wuxia and silat films, fighters are constantly running across the environment and battlefield, trying to find good positioning so that they're not overwhelmed or so that they could have a hand up against the target.

The Violence Die: the Visceral Attacking Roll

Gubat Banwa has THE VIOLENCE DIE: this is the initial die or dice that you roll as part of a specific offensive technique.

In the above example, the Inflict Violence that belongs to the HEAVENSPEAR Discipline, the d8 is the Violence Die. When you roll this die, it can be modified by effects that affect the Violence Die specifically. This becomes an accuracy effect: the more accurate your attack, the more damage you deal against your target's Posture. Mas asintado, mas mapinsala.

You compare your Violence Die roll to your target's EVADE [EVD]. If you rolled equal to or lower than the target's EVD, they avoid that attack completely. There: we keep the tacticality of having to make sure your attack doesn't miss, but also EVD values are very low: often they're just 1, or 2. 4 is very often the highest it can go, and that's with significant investment.

If you rolled higher than that? Then you ignore EVD completely. If you rolled a 3 and the target's EVD was 2, then you deal 3 DMG + relevant modifiers to the DMG. When I wrote this, I had no conception of "removing the To-Hit Roll" or "Just rolling Damage Dice". To me this was the ATTACK, and all attacks wore down your target's capacity to defend themselves until they're completely open to a significant wound. In most fights, a single wound is more than enough to spell certain doom and put you out of the fight, which is the most important distinction here.

In the Thundering Spear example, that targets PARRY [PAR], representing it being blocked by physical means of acuity and quickness. Any damage brought about by the attack is directly reduced by the target's PAR. A means for the target to stay in the fight, actively defending.

But if the attack isn't outright EVADED, then they still suffer its effects. So the target of a Thundering Spear might have reduced the damage of an attack to just 1 (1 is minimum damage), they would still be thrown up to 3 tiles away. It matches that sort of, anime combat thing: they strike Goku, but Goku is still flung back. The game keeps going, the fight keeps going.

On Mechanical Weight

When you miss, the mechanical complexity immediately stops--if you miss, you don't do anything else. Move on. To the next Beat, the next Riff, the next Resound, think about where you could go to better your chances next time.

Otherwise, the attack's other parts are a lot more mechanically involved. If you don't miss: roll add your Attacking Prowess, add extra dice from buffs, roll an extra amount of dice representing battlefield positioning or perhaps other attacks you make, apply the effects of your attack, the statuses connected to your attack. It keeps going, and missing is rare, especially once you've learned the systematic intricacies of Gubat Banwa's THUNDERING TACTICS BATTLE SYSTEM.

So there was a lot of setup in the beginning of this post just to sort of contextualize what I was trying to say here. Gubat Banwa inherently arises from those traditions--as a 4e fan, I would be remiss to ignore that. However, the conclusion I wanted to come up to here is the fact that Gubat Banwa tries to step outside of the many conventions of that design due to that design inherently servicing the deliverance of a specific kind of combat fiction, one that isn't 100% conducive to the constantly exchanging attacks that Gubat Banwa tries to make arise in the imagination.

[utilitycaster]

In thinking about the new information we've recently learned about the gods of Exandria, I started thinking about epic fantasy novels. The thing is, Exandria's deity lore is not actually terribly unique. This isn't a bad thing! But the idea of an idyllic age when gods were not just powerful but present and united; the fall of one (or many) gods and an ensuing devastation this causes; and the gods subsequently withdrawing or diminishing is a very, very common one in fantasy (and, to be totally honest, world religion). Similarly, the idea of a much more advanced age that has since passed into distant memory is also an extremely common trope. I think it's less common to have both of these tropes working in tandem though certainly not unheard of (hello, Wheel of Time), and the nature of the storytelling method in effect here means that the fallen advanced civilization is more thoroughly developed in the worldbuilding than it is in many other stories, but none of this is a wildly new concept.

I want to talk about genre, medium, and actual play, which is sort of both and sort of neither. I think people talking about actual play tend to mash all three of these things together when they really shouldn't.

(this is a long one so it's under a cut to not wreck your dash)

The genre of Critical Role's main campaigns is heroic fantasy, which I know I've covered in the past, and of epic scale. This is honestly pretty typical of D&D. NADDPod (especially Bahumia) and TAZ Balance and Graduation are also arguably within this same broad genre, just more comedic and looser with aspects of the worldbuilding.

Despite the fact that Brennan is very well-versed in fantasy novels, D20's main deal is that it's not classic heroic fantasy. I think this is actually a bigger factor in why people prefer CR to D20 than many people think. The shorter length is definitely another factor (though that too feels almost related - the critically acclaimed indie comic run to Critical Role's series of doorstopper novels) but Dimension 20, while it comments on classic heroic fantasy with Fantasy High and Escape from the Bloodkeep, only ever dips into anything actually approaching that genre with the Game of Thrones-inspired low fantasy seasons and, funnily enough, with the Dungeons and Drag Queens miniseries. Otherwise, it's telling school stories, urban fantasy, space operas, heists, murder mysteries, comedies of manners, and action-adventure. Similarly, TAZ Steeplechase and Amnesty very much aren't of this genre. Critical Role meanwhile touches on supernatural horror with Candela Obscura.

Actual Play is a means of telling a story, and typically the system at least puts in place the general expectations of what can be done within the improv. Some systems (such as Candela Obscura or Blades in the Dark) set a particular genre; others, like D&D, favor one but permit a good degree of flexibility. Actual Play is not really the same as genre, as discussed above; D20 genre hops quite readily, as does The Adventure Zone, even while using the same TTRPG systems.

Finally, there's medium. This one is easy. Critical Role and D20 are filmed shows (though are available as podcasts); so is, to give a non-Actual Play example, The Bear. NADDPod and TAZ are podcasts. So are (for example) The Silt Verses and Midst.

The reason I've outlined all of the above is to say that I think people tend to assume simply being actual play is somehow closer than sharing genre. This is also to an extent true for longform fiction podcasts (though it is less true for TV and books). I think this has led to an influx of fans of actual play (and, tbh, podcasts) who aren't familiar with the genres within which actual play shows are working.

I do not say this to gatekeep (though honestly, gatekeeping is both not inherently bad and also, not possible in this context). It's more of an exploration of what I think may be a reason why, particularly in the Critical Role fandom, it feels some of the Campaign 3 opinions feel somewhat half-baked.

You can be a fan of heroic fantasy and enjoy actual play but not actually be terribly into actual play that isn't heroic fantasy. I think some people who loved Critical Role Campaign 1 but nothing after that and no other actual play fit into that category. I think Campaign 1's fandom was, indeed, heavily skewed towards fans of fantasy and fans of D&D (as a venue to roleplay one's own fantasy story and as a game itself heavily shaped by heroic fantasy fiction) more so than anything else. If you like, say, The Kingkiller Chronicles or the Stormlight Archives or the Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings? You might like Critical Role.

By 2018, and definitely by 2019-2020, the landscape had changed, and the attitude was much more one of "if you like this actual play, you'll like this one" which is actually...nowhere near as true, in my mind, as recommendations based on genre. I think this is also when people started folding in "longform speculative fiction podcasts in general" which to be honest was already an issue with the medium of longform fiction podcasts. Wolf 359, The Silt Verses, Midst, The Penumbra Podcast, and any season of NADDPod are all longform, plot-based speculative fiction podcasts with queer representation, but that doesn't actually mean someone who likes one will like another. (Also? Queer rep? Gets treated like podcasts or actual play, to be honest. It's extremely possible to love only one of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, The Woods All Black, and The Priory of the Orange Tree despite all of these being novels with queer relationships, yet a lot of the time Queer Rep is treated as a genre, an "if you like this, you'll like that!")

I think it is true that there are people who enjoy actual play on a fairly general level (myself included), and with podcasts especially I think there are people who enjoy fiction delivered in this manner and people who have some difficulty with it. But I think there's a tendency to push people who like one actual play towards other actual play when they may be more interested in longform audio fiction, scripted or not; or might be inclined towards a particular genre. To go back to the examples I've given, someone who likes Candela Obscura might find The Silt Verses and The Woods All Black more appealing than, for example, Fantasy High, despite that also being filmed actual play, because the latter two are also supernatural horror with exploration of class.

Because actual play, in its weird not a medium, not a genre, but kind of both space is, well, in between spaces, it gets treated as the most specific element of works of fiction when that's not always true. The consequences, therefore, end up being twofold. You get people who come to AP series because they liked another one that doesn't actually have a ton in common, and it ends up hit or miss (this is one of my theories why the D20 fandom can be extremely weird about Critical Role; because it was pushed on them when it's really not what they're into, which is neither their nor CR's fault); and you get people coming to specific actual plays and enjoying them without much familiarity with their genres, which I think is behind some of the weirder C3 takes since C3 is arguably the first campaign that truly began after Actual Play began to be treated as a genre.

[canmom]

Comics mini-Comints: Dungeon Meshi

reread dungeon meshi through to the end. still such a great manga. here are immediate thoughts - if I end up having time and energy I hope I can write something that goes deeper!

ironically i was only a few chapters from the end when I stopped keeping up, but I was struggling to remember all the characters and context, so reading it through in one go was definitely an ideal way to achieve maximum impact there.

ryoko kui does a very elegant job of handling a transition from 'silly antics' to 'big dramatic fantasy' while still keeping the central thematic throughline - eating and being eaten, belonging to an ecosystem, the significance of sacrificing others to achieve your own desires. a lot of setups pay off in a way that feels meticulously planned - and of course the crux of the final showdown revolves around characters attempting to eat each other, of course the big payoff is a huge feast that symbolically unites all the conflicting factions. it is maybe a bit too neat and happy for my taste, but it's undeniably tightly executed - it never loses sight of what it's about. especially compared to something like Frieren, it's an incredibly coherent serialisation, up there with e.g. Fullmetal Alchemist.

kui's art style deserves all kinds of praise - it feels effortlessly simple, but it clearly communicates all sorts of different shapes and body types and it's really fun to see her play around with remixing the different visual elements when she switches the races around. in general Laius's autistic monster loving ways clearly reflect kui's own deeply felt appreciation for all the ways people and animals live (accentuated further by all the extra sketches the scanlators tuck in). in a way you could kinda call it like Parts Unknown the fantasy manga.

the stakes of the final conflict are interesting - there is much to be said about the framing of 'desire' and its fulfilment, of this occult idea of 'the infinite'. lots you could put in relation to other manga, and also buddhism. (in particular I really want to develop a comparison to Made In Abyss, there are so many parallels, it just might be too spicy for tumblr lmao).

one thing I really like about it is how much its fantasy dungeon-exploring setting owes to D&D and other TTRPGs, rather than videogames. monster ecology has been a fascination of that game since the early days of Dragon magazine, and Kui sharply zeroes in on some of the intrinsic conflicts baked in to that fantasy milieu, notably the lifespan thing, while smartly avoiding the traps of 'evil races'. there's some really fun nods to the weirder monster manual entries. and in a story with so many characters and factions, it does a genuinely incredible job of furnishing everyone with understandable, reasonable motivations, conflicts drawn from their context just like the monsters are explained by their ecology.

and one thing that I particularly appreciate is like... how much it is able to simultaneously understand and sympathise with a character and also show us how and why they'd rub others the wrong way. it's impossible not to like our main group, they're all such charming dorks and the manga leads you along with all the crazy rpg party shit they do, but at the same time you definitely find yourself thinking 'guy's got a point' in the kabru chapters lmao. I'm projecting hard bc i don't really know a thing about ryōko kui but laius def feels like the sort of depiction of having an autism that you can only do if you've lived it.

but yeah, it's a fuzzy ending where it all turns out well. but what's the deeper thrust of it all? there's a funny moment where marcille is like 'maybe in the end our journey is about learning to accept death' and the grouchy old gnome guy completely laughs this off as naive, because death doesn't mean anything. and indeed their big plan pays off, and falin does indeed come back just fine. but still, through all of this it asks you to bite the bullet that being a living creature means eating to survive, at the cost of other creatures, with the other side being that one day you too will be eaten. in contrast to this honest way of being is the beguiling fantasy of infinity, where all your desires are immediately fulfilled - this is shown as a dangerous path of corruption that produces madness and manipulability. having limits and rubbing up against the wishes of others, or 'doing things you don't want to do' as izutsumi's arc puts it, becomes necessary for having some kind of definition as a subject. the thing that makes the demon concrete as an entity is a desire, or appetite, that can't immediately be fulfilled.

of course we can connect this to the idea of narrative conflict. a standard advice for putting together a plot is to ask what each character wants and why they can't get it. wanting something implies movement. and indeed over the course of this story, we see that while having too many desires fulfilled too readily leads to incoherence and callousness, equally a character who is left catatonic as their desires have been eaten by the demon must be reawakened to activity by finding a new desire.

it's kinda Buddhist innit. neither the opulence of the palace nor asceticism. desires are what tie you to the world. but mixed with ecology: what a creature does to find the energy to live is what defines its lifestyle, its form.

this is probably where I'd start talking about entropy gradients and shit if i wasn't typing this on a phone at 1:30am lmao.

but yeah - it's a powerful move to go from 'D&D monster recipe show sendup' to 'living with the inherently violent nature of being an organism fated to live in a finite sum game' and yet Dungeon Meshi makes it feel natural and convincing, while remaining tremendously charming and funny throughout. ryōko kui is definitely some kind of genius, and I can't wait to see what her next act is gonna be. it's all definitely making me appreciate the act of eating a lot more.

next story on my plate is probably The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, which sounds like it will present a very gnarly thematic contrast.

[jettermelon]

I think this is a week or two late, but there was some fantastic discussion happening on TTRPG Tumblr earlier this month about incentive systems in rpgs - @thydungeongal, @imsobadatnicknames2, and @cavegirlpoems all have good posts that you should read. I’m here though to talk about incentive systems in games more generally. I’m seeing a lot of confusion in the notes of those posts about why they’re used in the first place (and also because I’m trying to articulate my own thoughts about them! I’m still a baby designer trying to figure out how all this works).

So real quick, let’s all get on the same page. Games are a voluntary limitation of agency, right? While playing the game, participants agree that certain arbitrary actions are off limits, while other actions are desirable. Which actions are off limits and which are desirable then create a certain experience. Go Fish and Texas Hold ‘em play fundamentally differently, and create a different emotional experience in their players, despite literally using the same components. The only difference is which actions are off limits, and which are desirable. We then play those games because the emotional space that play creates is... well fun. The whole point of rules in games is to put players in a specific emotional space. 

This same idea can then be applied to more complex or thematic games. For example classic board game Clue loosely simulates the experience of being an old school mystery novel detective. It drip feeds you clues, and because the first player to correctly guess whodunit wins, players are encouraged to make their guess before they’ve mathematically “proven” the solution. Winning at Clue, then, requires some deductive reasoning skills, and when everything’s working it makes you feel like the hero in an Agatha Christie novel. That feeling is the goal of Clue’s design.

Okay, sweet, so we all agree that systems when voluntarily engaged with can create certain emotional states in the player - and those systems can be deliberately designed to invoke specific fantasies (this is what folks mean when they say “game design is real” btw!). Now I want to take a look at incentive systems specifically. So far the games I’ve used as examples all have the same, very simple incentive system: do a specific Thing and you win. Even with such a simple system, you can get a lot of mileage. Again, to win at Clue you have to name the murderer before anyone else. That “before anyone else” bit is key here. It encourages the player to be risky - to try and deduce what the other players know. That way they can make a call before anyone else has the chance to gather enough clues to solve the puzzle through process of elimination. That single incentive system contains most of the game’s fantasy. Change how you win a bit, and the game no longer fulfills its fantasy. If multiple players could win, you would no longer have incentive to make a call before you had literally all the information and therefore no deduction would be necessary. 

Now obviously “winning” doesn’t have to be the only incentive, especially as your game gets more complex. Let's take a step out of the tabletop realm for a sec (there are other board games I could use here, but all that’s coming to mind are fucking Nerd Games™ and I want to keep my examples accessible) and take a look at the most recent Legend of Zelda games. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have incentive systems a lot closer to your typical TTRPG than something like Clue does. Sure, there’s the main quest to win the game (kill Matthew Mercer), but that’s really difficult to do at the start. And also like... not really the fun part of those games. The fun part is exploring Hyrule. And whether you realized it or not, the Zelda designers bribed you into engaging with the fun part of their game. 

Imagine for a second if Breath of the Wild was missing its Shrines, Korok Seeds and sidequests. Literally the exact same game, same level geometry, same backstory, same enemy placement, just no rewards out in the wild. It would kind of suck yeah? You’d get tired of exploring right away, and just play it like an action game. Even if you added back in the parts of the game most of us consider fun (Shrines, Korok puzzles, actual content to find out in the wild) but withheld the rewards which make Link stronger (loot, Spirit Orbs, Korok seeds, etc), only completionists would bother doing any of that. The rewards are what lured us into the fun part of the game - without the rewards the game would have been less fun. Not only that, but it would have lost its core fantasy. It would have stopped being a game about exploring the wild, and turned into a game about killing an evil pig. All you had to change was the incentive system.

I think you're seeing how this applies to TTRPGs now. The things which make a player character stronger (that is to say, gives them more agency over the gameworld) are the things your players will gun for. A smart designer is going to make sure their incentive system rewards play which guides players to the game’s core fantasy. If your game is about being a badass monster hunter, XP for killing monsters is a fine reward structure. If the game is about making your and your friend’s OCs kiss, then you need a reward structure that incentivizes OC smooching. 

Now some of you are protesting “but my friend’s OC and my OC smooch in D&D sometimes! What gives Lucy?” What you’re doing there is called playing pretend (a fantastic pastime, this is not meant as a knock on playing pretend. I do it all the time actually), but you shouldn’t give D&D or its designers credit for that. YOU AND YOUR FRIEND are responsible for that cool story - not WotC. Take credit for the cool shit you and your friends make, don’t give it to some corporation. 

Idfk how to end this uhhhh.... Game design is really cool, and it can incentivize real neat stories when properly utilized. If you’re ignoring your game’s designed reward structure, then the cool stories that come out of it are a result of you and your friends being good at telling stories (seriously go give your GM a big ol’ hug if you haven’t already), not the game. If you are the GM and regularly ignore your game’s incentive systems, there are probably other games which better reward the style of play you want. Love yourself more than you love D&D and life is good. Or whatever

[austinramsaygames]

Put an opera in your campaign!

Put an opera in your TTRPG and make a reason why the player characters MUST attend. There are many reasons to do this!

It's fancy so the PCs have to come up with formal wear that their characters would bring to the opera (this is one reason it should be an opera). Let them wear whatever weird shit they want so long as their character LEGITIMATELY believes the outfit is appropriate. Let them get Met Gala with it. Other guests may stare and make snide remarks, but the staff should only offer token resistance if the outfit interferes with the performance or audience, or is dangerous to the people around them.

It forces the PCs into a social situation they may not have the mechanical skills for. Fish out of water stories are lots of fun, especially during the intermission when they have a chance to mingle with the NPCs. Make part of their task at the opera to get to know the wealthy folks in the audience, either generally or specific ones. Even better if they have to get *something* from them (political support, a specific item, information, etc). If things seem to be stalling, here are two tricks to help keep things flowing: a) have someone powerful pointedly insult the most hot headed PC in a very upper class manner. Comments about their outfit and upbringing are classics. This heats things back up as the hot head tries to get violent while the other PCs try to keep the peace, and can lead to a duel the next morning when the dilettante turns out to be a renowned duelist. b) once things have completely stalled or if you need to cut things short (in or out of character), have the intermission end and the audience called back into the auditorium. This can be used as a cliffhanger for whatever was about to happen!

The opera house can be a very interesting location! There's the lobby, auditorium, and possibly concessions, but if the PCs start going where they shouldn't, there's a lot of behind (and under) the scenes spaces for them to explore. Do they go to the changing room and harass (or even replace!) the actors? Maybe they go to the props department and replace a stage knife with a real one! There could be a weirdo living in the basement who is obsessed with the lead actress and plans to kidnap (or rescue?) her. There are all kinds of interesting spaces for plots to happen!

The opera itself is an opportunity to tell the players about the past, present, or even future! What is the plot of the opera? This is key information! The opera will be telling a story that is important to the majority of the audience. It could be about the past of the nation (mythical or historical). Maybe it's about events the PCs witnessed themselves but told from a different point of view than theirs and this might be unflattering towards them or those they care about. You can even foreshadow future plot points by having the play be a fiction that thematically or narratively parallels later parts (or even the next) of the story arc. If there's a great evil that's going to return, you can combine the past AND the future by describing the terrors of the "defeated" evil, then later show those signs happening as hints that the evil returns!

There are some great examples of how an opera (or play if you must) can be inserted into a story to great effect. The Ember Island Players episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender recaps the entire show from the perspective of the antagonist Fire Nation.

Final Fantasy 6 has a famous opera scene where one of the heroes has to replace an actress who has been threatened with being kidnapped by the mysterious man whose help they need! The hero must then remember her lines while the rest of the party protects the show from getting derailed by monsters.

These are just a few ways that you can use an opera in your TTRPG campaign and I highly recommend giving it a whirl!

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Hi! Your blog is awesome. I don't know if I'm allowed to ask non-atla questions, so I hope this is okay. I'm working on a non-avatar ttrpg campaign that takes place both in a (fictional/fantasy) northern tundra region AND during a magical endless winter. The people in it aren't based on any specific culture but, given that they're successfully living in similar environments & have for countless generations, I want to draw as much inspiration & knowledge from real-life circumpolar cultures & native science as much as possible. Do you have any advice or even just fun, underappreciated ideas for winter tundra survival, things someone who grew up in a desert like me wouldn't think of on my own? If you need/want more direction: I'm particularly looking for clothing, shelters, resource gathering-practices for non-food (esp what kinds of resources would be valuable), as well as like, any fun details that evolve naturally in a culture that formed in the tundra that you'd want to see represented. I hope that makes sense ^^; Thanks so much if you decide to answer, have a good day either way <3

[I am SOOO sorry this took so long! Tumblr kept not saving my progress when i tapped "save draft" so i had to rewrite a few of these passages a few different times]

Don't worry about asking, friend, i get cultural questions all the time and i'm happy to share.

Note: my knowledge is almost entirely based on coastal tundra peoples with access to marine mammals. That's not to say it's impossible for people to live farther inland, just that it's not my area of expertise.

Clothing

Just about everything you wear is going to come off of a dead animal. This doesn't necessarily need to be the case if your fictional culture has a means of raising hardy livestock for fiber and a history of woven textiles, but even then skin clothes are warm and generally quite hard-wearing and are a good fit for living in these circumstances.

This amount of fur means lice are a perpetual problem. If you want to make that an immersive part of the game, you can work in a mechanic for checking scalps and clothing and bedding for lice.

Bird skins can also be used for clothing and waterfowl specifically has the benefit of water resistance. Fish skin can also be used for similar properties. Animal intestines can be made into a waterproof material if sewn with sinew and soaked before finishing.

On that note i'd recommend making a list of available animals and what qualities and textures their skins and furs have. Even if you don't intend on being incredibly descriptive with clothing, it's something better to have and not need than need and not have. And if you do anything else creative in a similar setting you have your nifty little source to consult.

When it comes to the actual construction of the clothes, you want a loose fit. Trapped air ia a great insulator and you want clothes to be easy to move in. Another benefit for loose-fitting upper body garments in cold weather is you can pull your arms in and keep them by your much warmer core. Not only will this option keep you comfortable, it can also prevent muscle injury or getting frostbite

Mittens can be worn on a string yoke. This doesn't have to be exclusive to children either. Wind can pick up out of nowhere and lost mittens means fingers exposed to arctic cold which can mean gangreen and amputations down the line.

Swimming or running to deliver a message may involve stripping nude, even in cold. Clothes soaked in water or sweat are deadly in the cold.

Clothes may be stored in bags outside when not in use. The low temperatures can kill bugs and bacteria. On a similar note, boots and coats are best to be hung to dry as soon as one is indoors for the day. This may mean it's normal for people to be topless indoors.

Boots should never have holes or tears. Frostbite and resulting gangreen is already bad enough but you especially do not want it on your feet

Shelter

You're going to want dwellings to have as few rooms and windows as possible and small doors. The fewer walls you have, the easier it is for heat to circulate throughout the whole dwelling. You'll probably want one room separating the door and where you sleep. Remember: trapped air is a great insulator.

The culture I've reconnected with is semi-nomadic so the permanent houses are not always occupied and a village can seem abandoned when it's just on its "off season". You can take that or leave it depending on what you're going for.

Even if the dwelling is not a tent, you're probably still going to have poles serving as a supporting frame.

Sod houses are common due to the availability of sod (the grass and the dirt its roots are tangled in). Tents made of warm, waterproof skins (like walrus skin) are also an option.

An easy way to insulate such a dwelling is to build a wall of packed snow around and fill the gaps with loose, airy snow. This traps air the same way down feathers do.

Non-Food Resource Gathering

While I imagine you meant obtaining resources outside of hunting, in a tundra or tundra-like setting, a lot of your resources are going to come from dead animals. Your garments and shelters and bedding are likely to be made of animal skins, with hollow and/or fluffy fur for warmth, or smoked intestine or fish skin, sewn with tiny stitches and soaked to keep everything flush, for waterproof boots and overlayers. Antlers and tusks are good carving materials for things like spoons and closures and slabs for armor and handles and also talismans and smoking pipes and beads and art. Baleen is good for art too, as well as boot soles and smaller sleds and beautiful baskets. Sinew and rawhide are good for thread, ties, and rope. Bones have a near infinite amount of uses from tiny wing bones to make sewing needles to huge whale bones used to build houses.

For the purposes of working this into a roleplaying game, i'd second the recommendation of keeping a list of animals in your universe and their properties, as well as the things that can be gathered from or made of them. A sort of crafting recipe guide would allow all kinds of quests and sidequests.

There are, of course, non-animal resources to gather for non-eating purposes. Soapstone is the traditional material for oil lamps. Grasses can be woven into baskets for any number of purposes, including supports to give the uppers of one's boots more structure. Wood, in the form of slices of tree trunks, can be hollowed out into bowls and small tubs and buckets or, as logs or slats, can make up flooring. Sturdy branches can be used for frames in houses, boats, and drums, and tree resin makes both good glue and antibiotic salve for closed wounds. Sod, also called turf, makes a good building material and moss is exellent insulation in boots. You can make a list of these too, if it helps.

If your fictional culture has a strong tradition of metallurgy, then they'd also mine for metal that can be used for knives. If not, slate is another option that requires significantly less fire. You could even have both and make the metal a status symbol.

Fun Details to Represent

There are so many lovely little things that show up in arctic cultures

First, a gift economy. Where a cash economy relies on a fairly individualistic culture where you work for someone else to earn capital and exchange that capital for goods and services, a more collectivist and interdependent culture natural to the harsh conditions of the tundra tends to result in a gift economy. The currency in a gift economy, to perhaps oversimplify, is favors. Someone does you a good turn, you remember that, and when you're in a position to help, you return the favor. Usually this means basic material things like hospitality and food, but the "gifts" exchanged can also be luck! King Islander boys would often wish hunters setting out at dawn good luck, with a slab of driftwood as a token of that luck, and if the hunters were successful, they'd give the boys who wished them luck a share of their catch. I believe it was Frank Ellana who remenised that this was what the world was like before money.

Another thing that would be nice to include is parenting practices considered fairly gentle to a Euro-American perspective. Physical punishments are traditionally treated as abuse and scolding a child is not only seen as wrong but something an adult ought to be ashamed of. Discipline is instead a series of moral lessons, teaching children why what they did was wrong and using stories as examples of the consequences. Given the amount of stories about the dangers of abusing a spouse or child, i'd say a lot of these lessons were proactive and preventative. Knowing someone will be hurt by it is considered enough of a deterrence to stop bad behaviors. Traditional potty training, for example, is also gentler in comparison; starting at a younger age (about six months) with more emphasis on praise and encouragment than routine. The goal here is to teach the baby to signal when they need to go so they can be taken out of mama's atigi and relieve themself in a hygenic manner instead of holding it until they get permission. Even our take on kissing is based on inhaling instead of pecking with the lips. This kind of gentleness is usually overlooked to instead focus on the badass hunter image or overall "cuteness" so it would be nice for it to be referenced.

Oral histories would be pretty neat too. I think the idea of learning to be a historian of oral histories is an interesting one and i think it has a lot of potential plot hooks for an rpg.

That's all i have for now. Sorry for the delayed response time. Happy gaming, and i'm always up for further discussion if you would like ^-^

[frantic-fuck]

Hey there!

You can call me Frantic. In my 20's, they/them pronouns.

Ever since I was a young child, I ~mysteriously~ loved torturing my characters. I've recently discovered that there's a whole community of people into the same things as me, so I thought it'd be fun to join in!

I like to draw and write, but I'm a bit out of practice with both, so I'm probably gonna start with just writing for now. I'm going to be trying to use August of Whump as a starting point, but we'll see how consistent I am, lmao.

~

A few examples of whump things I like, just off the top of my head:

Restraints

Capture

Dehumanization

Manipulation

Torture (physical, psychological, etc.)

Lab whump

NSFWhump

Carewhumper

Intimate whumpers

Hurt/comfort (eventually)

Giant/tiny (fairies my beloved)

Nonhuman whumpee (especially mashing creatures together apparently)

Fantasy/magical settings in general

Not a whole lot of squicks, but I do avoid needles and extreme realistic body horror.

~

The characters I'm most obsessed with writing about are from one of my ttrpg campaigns, so that's mainly who you'll be seeing on this page.

Whumpee: Ziri Kai (true name: Koios Pan)

A winged snampire (snake vampire) satyr who just wanted to make the world a better place.

Caretaker: Zop

Ziri's siblings Zip and Zap, a sea elf and a lightning drake, fused together after trying to save him, and later imprisoned with him to keep him happy-ish and obedient.

Whumper/Carewhumper: Janessa Vurbone

The heartless empress of Canafillion and inventor of denim; absolutely obsessed with Ziri, to his utter dismay.

Other Whumpers: Nerium and Co.

A pixie who's fallen into poor company after tragedy, who decides "Ziri hasn't been kidnapped enough" and makes it his problem

~

Snakelet Masterpost

~

Also, if you send prompts or requests for my blorbos I will love you forever.

That's all! See you around! :D

[alpaca-clouds]

Thinking about Power Fantasies and Wishfullfillment

I am thinking about Wishfullfillment and Power Fantasies a lot recently. Mostly because someone has shamed me for writing exactly that. Power Fantasies. Or, let's be more honest, for me writing a rather unusual kind of Power Fantasy. The one, where the power that I fantasize about is not a physical, violent power.

Technically speaking, there are technically like two acceptable types of Power Fantasy within fiction:

Punch real good and get to punch all the bad guys.

Get the hot gal/hot guy.

Genre fiction is usually where this can be found - and yeah, it always is a variation of this. Generally media that is focused more on a male audience will usually go more for the "get to punch stuff real good" power fantasy, while maybe putting in a little "hot gal" for the visuals. Meanwhile, a lot of media focused on a female audience, will focus on "get the hot guy (and fix him)" as the power fantasy, with maybe a bit of "get good at punching". (And yes, this has less to do with "what gets written", but more with "what gets published/made into movies/films/games by big publishers/studios".)

What is noticable about it: Obviously for the most part the romantic power fantasies are very much heteronormative. And yes, the other part of the power fantasy is almost always about physical violence, and about being the strongest, and most influencial person there is.

And here is the thing: That is not really the power I fantasize about. I do not want to use violence to kill the bad guy real good. Sure, if someone handed me a Death Note, you'll bet, that I would see what would happen if I noted down "Elon Musk" and "Donald Trump". But in general it is not the kind of power I would want.

My power fantasy is "to be able to talk people into being fucking reasonable for once". Or rather: "Be able to talk and have people just listen, gods darn it." Which is, yeah, why ever since I started playing TTRPGs more than half my life ago, I had the tendency to play the charisma heavy classes. And which also is the reason why my DnD standard class is the bard.

So, yes, whenever I currently write about my BG3 Tav and he is talking sense into some BBEGs (like Gorts, or Emps) and stuff... Yeah, that is very much my own sort of power fantasy. Just as his "I am gonna make friends with everyone" is very much a power fantasy of mine.

Again, there is a reason for me to play bard.

Yet, a former friend wrote a whole ass essay shaming me for it and how unrealistic it was and how the character "forced his morals" on everyone else. (All my questions on how the person's own characters killing their villains were not forcing their morals on said villains were ignored.) And it created a whole ass discussion, where even more folks then kept shaming me about this - and about my love for Solarpunk with worlds, in which again the world is actually a peaceful one.

And... I think this is really sad, right?

Like, how is it that the only viable variations of writing power fantasies seem to be "violence" or "get to have straight sex"? I find it especially kinda sad, that violence especially is the thing people can fantasize about and it is considered "normal".

Sure, you can say: "Well, some forum discussion is not saying much." But something that I keep thinking about: "Well, I am writing those stories for myself, because there is not a whole lot of that avaible in media." Because most mass media is about characters punching real good and then punching their problems. Sure, I can think of a couple of animated kids media in which the BBEG is in fact defeated by words. Steven Universe comes to mind. And, I mean, ATLA kinda tried, though they still needed to have the big bad battle in the end. But in general it really is the exception to the rule.

Mass media tends to focus on violence to tell stories. Alternatives to it are rarely even considered. If you look at the blockbusters and what not, pretty much all involve a finale that does centrally feature a fight or battle.

Yet, especially in terms of movies I cannot think of a single one, where the main character goes in there: "Okay, bad guy, let's just talk about this", and then does exactly that.

And the same goes about the worldbuilding. Why (outside of the normatilization of the entire "western narratives" thing) do so many people struggle with the idea of a Solarpunk world, where the world itself is fine? Why do they struggle to imagine a utopia where there is no sinister plot hiding and Soylent Green is in fact not people? Why do they actually get super angry at you, when you write stories like that?

Because it is so fucking normalized.

But, like... How is it that you can write a wishfulfillment world where the wishfulfillment is based around how very much at war everyone is - just so that the MCs can be the biggest, most badass heroes there are! Why shouldn't people be able to write a wishfulfillment world, where the wishfulfillment is actually that the world is nice and peaceful and the heroes are just really good at science and politics?

And let's face it: This is very much all about capitalism. It is very much about having a very strange relationship to both violence and anti-violence. And... Yeah, no, we need to move past that.

So, that said? I am going back to writing self-indugent power fantasies about my dumb bard going around, talking people into joining the good side for hugs and cookies, and also having a lot of queer sex. *coughs*

[dailydemonspotlight]

Slime - Day 59

Race: Foul

Arcana: Chariot

Alignment: Dark-Chaos

June 20th, 2024

...What is there even to talk about here? It's- it's just a slime, man!

Vee-ho, come on! There's gotta be something there! Just look beneath the surface!

I'd rather not?! Look at this thing! It's disgusting!

cOme OooN mAn.. yoU doN'T gotTA Do mE liKe thaT...

Don't you dare insult my friend, ho! Look, even with all generic monsters, there's stuff to dig into, right? Besides, this skit is get-hee-ng annoying! Vee-ho, just go ah-hee-d and start!

...Jesus Christ, okay. How do I even begin with this? SMT has plenty of classical monster tropes that it has its own spins on- whether it be werewolves, vampires, or, well... slimes. Especially in the earlier games in the series, when the concepts of demons were far less well refined, fantasy monsters that some would call generic were dime-a-dozen, and slimes were no exception. In fact, they were everywhere! Sludge Slimes! Green Slimes! Blobs! However, as the series went on and the identity of a demon was given far more thought, most of these extra slime variants began to fade, leaving us only with the classic Slime and his big brother, Blob.

The thing is, nobody is really sure where the concept of Slimes came from, as there has been no single mythological mention that can definitively trace to the idea of a slime itself. This leaves us with a big issue, though! What the hell is this things deal?! I think I have an idea, but it's a bit strained. Slimes as we know them today originally appear all the way back in the first edition of D&D, back in 1974, but it's believed that the idea can be traced back even further, into the 1930's.

In fact, I think I have an idea that has been attested to by... Reddit. Yeah. Slimes may be based originally off of a type of monster described in the Lovecraft book 'At the Mountains of Madness' called a Shoggoth, combined with ideas of slime mold, and a general need for a generic enemy type. Shoggoth are described as massive amoeba-like creatures that glow gently and have eyes blinking all over them, able to form any organs and limbs they need at will. To quote,

It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.

This idea can be further traced back to the idea of the Demiurge in the Hyperborean cycle, a series of short stories written by Clark Ashton Smith, but... that's when the trail runs cold. Clark was good friends with Lovecraft at the age, and they took many cues from each other, and I couldn't even find a good date for the original story that Ubbo-Sathla, the deity I'm referring to, originates from. What makes this even more frustrating is that I can't find a good hook to go into with this! What do I focus on? What do I circle around?!

Just think! C'mon!

You're not helping... but okay.

Slimes could also be based on the classic movie 'The Blob,' and combining that idea with Shoggoths could have given rise to this classical idea, but the thing is, linking an actual origin is difficult. It's incredibly possible that slimes are just the brainchild of a bunch of nerds who wanted to come up with an enemy for their very first TTRPG, and it stuck around ever since, becoming a staple of the fantasy genre for years upon years to come. Shit, slimes are insanely popular everywhere you look! There are entire manga revolving around them, the Dragon Quest series's main mascot and icon is a slime, the first boss in Terraria is a slime, and it's the most popular enemy type- shit, Gelatinous Cubes are some of the first things most people think of when they think of D&D! I gotta respect the fact that, in spite of the frustrations in researching these things, they're both cute and incredibly popular.

OoOoooO, dO I haVe faAns?

I'm getting a headache... I'm gonna go lay down.

She-hee left her computer on... I guess I'll wrap this up.

Overall, in the see-hee-ries, Slimes actual-hee have a rather unique disposition, especially in the Devil Summoner games! I really do enjoy the fact that they don't look too fri-hee-ndly in a lot of the games- as opposed to the marketable mascots of several other series, slimes in Megaten can be downright gross looking. Sorr-hee for the BTS drama in this one, I promise we'll get right back to it soon! Slimes are just a bit hard to look into, y'know.

...dO I gEt My caNdY noW?

Yeah, gimme a sec.

[vexwerewolf]

Hi! I'm working on a TTRPG by the name of Starburn: Asclepias (I'd be honored if you checked out my post about it, but no pressure, this isnt a self promo thing). What I was wondering is, once I finish the damn thing, what next? Should I go find a publisher, or just drop it on itchio? Should I run a kickstarter? How do I get people to hear about it??? I'm sending this ask to a couple people, so it may not be 100% your field, but I'd love to hear any thoughts/suggestions!

So the problem about giving advice is that the things that worked for me were quite specific to me. I had a very strong presence on Twitter and Tumblr prior to launching my Kickstarter, was well known in the Lancer community as the Lancer Ransom Note Meme Guy, and was well known in the furry fandom. I was well-connected and that meant that my Kickstarter got a lot of exposure and support.

My advice based on that would be:

Work out a succinct description by which your product can be easily explained: IGF is Borderlands But In Space With Mechs. Of course there's way more to it than that, but this makes it easy to explain to people. With that description, most people who hear it will understand right away whether or not it's for them.

Do NOT be generic. Establish a very distinct and specific brand for your product and take that shit as far as it will go. For me, IGF has consistently performed better the weirder I make it. It is, as I have described it, "a serious story told in a fundamentally unserious world" and the more goofy off-the-wall shit I add to it, the more people seem to enjoy it. In these times, the indie RPG scene is consistently churning out totally bizarre power fantasies like INFINITE REVOLUTION where you are a superhero with a nuclear turbine for a heart and you can love humanity so much you explode. That game knows precisely what it wants to be. Do NOT need to water down your creative vision for the sake of mass-market appeal because You Will Never Outsell D&D But You Also Don't Have To. Make the game you want to make. Make it as weird and specific and idiosyncratic as you want. I guarantee you someone out there is going to be into it and they will be more attracted to a game that is bizarre but unashamedly authentic than a compromise version of the idea that looks a bit like everything else.

Build an online presence.

Promote your game as part of a complete social media presence. It shouldn't be the only thing you talk about, but you should talk about it, consistently and frequently. Project confidence - assume that people will want to hear about your ideas. If you seem confident that your ideas are worth hearing, it's more likely that others will as well!

When drawing up a Kickstarter budget, work out how much everything that needs to be in the final release will cost, and then add about 20%, because Kickstarter is going to take about that much off of what you make.

Ideally, your Kickstarter should start on a Tuesday at between 12 noon - 5PM Eastern Standard Time, run for 30 days and neither its first or last 72 hours should overlap any major holidays. Promote it consistently and respectfully, especially during its first and last 24 hours, which are the times in which you will make the most money.

If you're going to distribute on itch.io, get your itch.io mass mailer authorization WAY in advance, WAY WAY WAY in advance, like at least a week to two weeks off your release date. It takes a while.

There are probably more things I could give advice on but I have COVID right now so I hope this suffices.

[supercantaloupe]

What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

[utilitycaster]

To expand that point about queerphobia (also, to an extent, gender equality) from the tags on someone else's post and sort of tying it back to my post yesterday about wanting to see characters work through similar experiences: I think it makes a lot of sense in the case of Exandria and Hale to build a world that does not have queerphobia and to allow people to choose to insert it if that is something their table wishes to explore. It's very much a case of wanting to build a diverse but non-utopian world that is welcoming to a wide variety of players.

I think it's a very understandable urge to want to see characters deal with the same challenges we face, and I think there are TTRPG settings that have done a good job depicting homophobia or transphobia; it's present though not common in Fantasy High, and The Unsleeping City is very close to the modern-day real world and has, well, period-typical attitudes.

The reason I get frustrated when it comes up in discussion of Exandria, and now Hale is that it's almost always used for one of two reasons: explaining why people (either specifically or generally) don't like a character; or even more frequently, explaining hesitancy between two characters in a ship. It's a convenient way to say "this person is oppressed or afraid for reasons that are objectively in no way their fault and which make the people who dislike them objectively bigoted and wrong". The problem is, while that's a valid story to tell it's often really not the story the cast is telling with these characters. Even more frustratingly, it often is used to steamroll other stories that may place those characters in just as innocent a position.

Some good examples in which this has happened in the fandom are Jester and Dorian. Jester lives on the Menagerie Coast, which is referred to a pretty wide variety of materials as being a place that is especially trans friendly (in a world where trans and nb characters already frequently occupy prominent positions and are not depicted as experiencing pushback). Her mother, a courtesan, indicates that she takes clients of varying genders. The biggest influences on her life are her mother and an otherworldly fey entity who famously can shapeshift. There is absolutely no canonical evidence that Jester would be unaware of the broad range of genders and sexualities in the world nor that she would feel obligated to embrace one that she is not; in fact there is quite strong evidence to the contrary. But if you claim that she's experiencing compulsive heterosexuality, it excuses you from having to consider that Jester is genuinely not interested in Beau, or at the very least is genuinely interested in Fjord.

Similarly, it was, at least prior to the reveals of early Campaign 3, common to headcanon that Dorian had run away from his parents because he was trans and they were transphobic. A trans reading of Dorian is still obviously entirely valid, but he left because his parents were suffocating and overbearing and often pit him against his brother. Dorian is still absolutely the victim in this! It's a valuable thing to relate to for people who have experienced parental abuse and impossible expectations. But it does still force you to think about Dorian's parents as complex people who came to this conclusion of childrearing (even if they are still in the wrong) and not just mindless bigots to be disregarded. And I think the former is nearly always a better story than the latter.

What also frustrates me is that this rarely works through the ramifications. The systemic queerphobia that would be required to put compulsory heterosexuality in place still exists once someone overcomes that and comes out; but that never comes into play when people are talking about the ship, because it's only ever used to explain why the ship hasn't happened yet, never as a significant part of the world that would affect the characters throughout their entire lives.

These are only two examples; there are countless others, some particularly egregious (*cough* Essek comes from a society that explicitly believes in reincarnation across bodies of varying genders and the queen for eternal life is in a lesbian relationship, I promise you his fraught relationships with his parents are way more complicated than simple homophobia or transphobia) but all of which seek to incorporate bigotry not as the destructive and deadly phenomenon it is, to be explored in the safe space of fiction, but as an incredibly lazy shortcut to be discarded as a continuity error once it's served its purpose.

[canmom]

what's the book for? part 1

[here's an intro where I talk about the three hour video essay that inspired me to do this]

This is a part of a series about TTRPGs! I'm looking at the relationship between the book and the thing you do, the play.

That forum, the 'Forge', was founded on the premise that, in Edwards's pithy slogan, 'System Does Matter' - which is to say Edwards believed that the formal and, perhaps especially, informal procedures you follow when you play a roleplaying game have a large effect on what kind of experiences you can have there. Kind of tautological, but I'll let him have that. It is true that there are many different activities that fall under the heading of 'tabletop roleplaying'.

Edwards and his pals wanted to have a more explicit and intentional 'creative agenda' when playing a game. In general this is something that the players were supposed to get on the same page about when they sit down to play a game. To the Forge mindset, the ideal is for everyone to be pushing harmoniously to the same thing; the root of 'dysfunction' in TTRPGs was seen as arising from an unacknowledged clash of these agendas.

The solution found by the Forge was to design new game systems which put their preferred agenda, 'narrativism', front and centre.

Many more words could be written about the Forge, a lot of them quite mean, but let's bring this back to game design. What is it good for?

Why do we buy all these books anyway?

What is 'an RPG'? On the shelf to my right are... hold on let me count... some 27 different D&D books, mostly from 3.5e. Also a couple other TTRPG books (including Apocalypse World). On my hard drive are... some 94+ other games accumulated from various Humble Bundles and similar. I have played only a small fraction, and honestly, read only a slightly larger fraction.

What is a 'game' in this context? Generally speaking there's a book, and maybe some other tools like character sheets, which theoretically provide what you need to get together with some friends and do an activity that it defines. Sort of like a recipe. But the book itself is not the game; the book anchors the game, which is something rather nebulous, into a thing that can be bought and sold. The game is an activity, which 'exists' when it gets played. However, consulting the book is (usually) part of the game!

I rather vaguely say 'what you need', because it's more than just 'rules'. Lancer, for example, is full of colourful, vivid pictures of giant robots; these pictures do a lot to get players' imaginations thinking about what sort of giant robot they might pilot - how cool it would look and what sort of sicknasty shit it would do. I doubt Lancer would be even a fraction as popular if it didn't have these artworks to get you on board with its fantasy. The pictures are a very load-bearing part of creating the 'game' here.

We could say the aim of the TTRPG book is to convince you that the game "exists" in a concrete enough way that you can actually play it. Much like the Golden Witch, BEATRICE. Then you can gather your friends and say, 'hey, do you want to play Sagas of the Icelanders', and they will say 'yeah, what's that?', and you'll show them the book and sit down and attempt to follow whatever idea the book has imparted of 'how to play Sagas of the Icelanders'.

So, the relationship between TTRPG book and play is rather nebulous. This is something of a problem if you are an aspiring auteur designer who would like to impart something specific to players. Who knows what they're going to do with that book?

let's talk D&D - on the 'proper' way of playing the game

D&D is the oldest roleplaying game, and still by far the biggest. Many TTRPG players will only ever play D&D. Many others will play games derived from some version of D&D, like all the different games belonging to the 'OSR'. It's a point of endless frustration for indie game players, who have to deal with being a satellite to this juggernaut, which they see as poorly designed. If only these players would recognise how could they could have it!

But the interesting thing about D&D - and TTRPGs in general, really - to me is that it's folklore. It's not a product you buy.

How do you learn to play D&D? You could go and buy the 'core set': the famous Player's Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide, a tripartite division that has existed since the days of AD&D. However, for all their glossy art and flavour text, these books still do a pretty dire job of actually getting you up to speed on how the game is played, especially for the Dungeon Master.

No, what you actually do is: you join an existing D&D group. Or, in the modern day, maybe you listen to an 'actual play' podcast such as Critical Role. This furnishes you with a direct example of what D&D players say and how that results in a story, far more vividly and concretely than you'd ever get from looking at a book.

Once you're convinced that you wanna join this weird little subculture, then perhaps you go and grab some books, run a published module, create a character, whatever. Maybe you go on D&D forums and read endless arguments about the best way to play the game, which all the while serve to define what that game actually is in your head.

A lot of critics of D&D complain that the rules of D&D as written do a pretty terrible job of facilitating many of the purposes that D&D is put towards. They tend to argue that there are games better suited to it, often from the story-games milieu. If people say 'sure, but we change the games in x, y and z way', this is seen as a bit of a joke - "well you're not really playing D&D at that point, are you?"

If you view 'D&D' as defined by what's printed in the books printed by Hasbro, sure. However, D&D is not really that. D&D is the label we apply to a huge nebulous body of lore, from the Dread Gazebo and Tucker's Kobolds to weirdly endearing monsters derived from knockoff tokusatsu figurines. It is all the ideas you've received about what it looks like to play D&D from listening to a podcast. It's arguing about what Chaotic Neutral means. It is 50 years of material - of frequently dubious quality, mind you! - that exploded out from that time some nerds in the States decided to explore a dungeon in their wargame.

If whoever had the rights to use the Dungeons & Dragons trademark never printed another book, that would not kill D&D. In fact, there's even a condescending nickname, courtesy of Edwards, for people who cook up their own slightly-different spin on D&D and try to sell it - the 'fantasy heartbreaker'. The concept of D&D has considerable inertia.

It's pretty, but is it D&D?

In this perspective, defining what D&D 'is' with a strict demarcation is kinda impossible. Gygax himself was very inconsistent on this front, favouring strict adherence to rules at times (declaring of houseruled games that 'such games are not D&D or AD&D games - they are something else'), and encouraging changing them at others - rather depending on whether he had the rights at the time, and his conflict with Dave Arneson.

"Since the game is the sole property of TSR and its designer, what is official and what is not has meaning if one plays the game. Serious players will only accept official material, for they play the game rather than playing at it, as do those who enjoy "house rules" poker, or who push pawns around the chess board. No power on earth can dictate that gamers not add spurious rules and material to either the D&D or AD&D game systems, but likewise no claim to playing either game can then be made. Such games are not D&D or AD&D games- they are something else, classifiable only under the generic "FRPG" catch all"

In this he sounds rather a lot like Ron Edwards declaring that only his perfect design is the true and correct version of Sorcerer! And to both these fellows, we should say, who gives a shit.

So at this point, beyond the (so far) 11 'official' versions of the books published by TSR and later Hasbro, there are hundreds of offshoots that bear a heavy amount of D&D in their lineage and function almost identically even if they don't bear the trademark... and an uncountable number of small variants, whether explicitly houseruled or just different habits forming from 'who speaks when' or 'what rules we ignore' to the focus of the game.

So. Imagine a person who was inspired by the D&D milieu, gradually figured out their own taste of what they like to see in a TTRPG over many games of 'D&D', and is now having a good time playing a game of 'D&D' about tense feudal politicking, even though they almost never look at a D&D sourcebook and frequently defy the rules printed in there. Is this person 'playing D&D'?

How about someone playing an OSR game derived from early D&D, that can't legally use the D&D trademark, but still uses THAC0 and maybe the occasional Mind Flayer(R)?

Now let's try someone who read Apocalypse World sometime and got inspired to try DMing in its style - asking players leading questions, acting to separate them, applying a cost to a desired thing or rearranging things behind the scenes when a roll goes bad... but they still consider what they're doing to be D&D, and they're strictly speaking playing by the book? After all, D&D doesn't say a thing about whether you should do that stuff or not.

Bit of a tough question imo! Maybe we should call Wittgenstein.

the scope of the book

There are so many different kinds of TTRPG book.

Some are very specific - a game like Lady Blackbird, The King is Dead or Hot Guys Making Out overlaps heavily with something like an adventure, giving you just one very tightly defined scenario and mechanics that only make sense in that context. This isn't a new thing, either - a game like Paranoia (1984-) is designed with a specific game structure in mind, where the characters each have a variety of explicit and secret objectives that are all at odds with each other.

D&D was originally a game like this, though it didn't last long. The earliest editions of the rules instruct the referee to draw out 'at least half a dozen maps of his "underworld"' filled with monsters and treasure, representing a "huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses". As far as I understand the history of the hobby, though, people almost immediately started getting into character and using the game for other things than exploring a dungeon.

Other game-products leave larger gaps to be filled in by the player...

a game like Shadowrun or Eclipse Phase, or D&D settings like Dark Sun or Eberron, will give you huge amounts of information about its setting, but leave 'what you do it in' to the GM's discretion.

a game like D&D gives you various setting elements, and there are many adventures and modules you can elect to 'run', but it is the GM's task to pick and choose some subset of those pieces and build them into a custom setting for that game.

a game like Apocalypse World gives you quite explicit instructions for how to set up a first session, and works very hard to set a vibe with the many examples and general style of its rules, but it tells you next to nothing about a predefined setting.

a game like Fiasco or Microscope offers only a loose structure, that your job is to fill with content over the course of the game.

All of these games market themselves with the same type of promise: with our book, you will be able to have this kind of experience. Like all marketing, they will tend to overpromise! But the marketing is, vexingly, itself part of what makes 'the game' happen.

In the video, Vi Huntsman roughly argues that this marketing is the core of what Root: The RPG is actually doing, trying to sell you on Forge ideology rather than provide anything helpful for running a tabletop game; and that the way it attempts to provide this experience is through crude 'buttons' which are inherently limiting, belonging more to the mechanistic worlds of computer games or board games than TTRPGs.

I kind of agree, but the problem is that... to some extent every game does this exact kind of marketing. For example, here's the Bubblegum Crisis RPG (yes, there was a Bubblegum Crisis RPG, published by Mike Pondsmith's company R Talsorian Games in 1996) which announces:

Those words are lyrics from several songs from the Bubblegum Crisis soundtracks, and they encapsulate the kind of action and drama you'll find in the Bubblegum Crisis Boleplaying Game. With this book, you'll enter the world of MegaTokyo and the oppressive megacorporation Genom—a world where monstrous Boomers, desperate AD Police and the mysterious Knight Sabers battle for the future of civilization.

This copy serves as a promise of what the game will bring, but also a prompt that tells you what kind of game you should use its tools to make. It's attached to exactly the sort of licensed game that Vi Huntsman criticises, applying an existing framework to a licensed RP as if to imply you need this book in order to tell a Bubblegum Crisis-inspired story.

Why? Huntsman called it 'reproducibility'. If every game that ever runs is a uniquely circumstantial snowflake, there is nothing to sell. But if you can offer someone the tools that they surely need to do that thing they heard about...

The problem is that what makes an RPG memorable is something that arises when you get a group of friends (or strangers!) to sit down together and make up a story, and that kind of definitionally can't be reduced to instructions in a book - it's too personal, too specific to the people involved. But we live in the era of capitalism, so... RPG companies and independent designers alike need to have a product to sell to this 'RPG player' subculture-identity.

The drive to somehow make reproducible experiences dates back all the way to the very first time people heard about that crazy game that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were doing at their wargames club and Gygax and Arneson decided to print a book to help people do that at home.

And with many RPGs on the market, they need further to differentiate themselves: to tell you that they're offering something you can't get elsewhere.

So what is that something? In the next post I'll get into that!