#finitestatewords

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Robot girl who's overclocked so much that she physically can't take things easy and relax. But also completely breaks down after each short burst of work.

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I reblogged this to look at it, and since then, I have, and it looks amazing.

I have been wanting to run a TSL mecha game for a while now, and now that I've read this I will be using this when I finally do it. TSL just doesn't quite have the mechanical backing of giant robots.

I love the Heart system. Pulse being gained and spent as you play, the power up move is incredibly flavorful, and the base setting for the mechs is very interesting. I especially love how the playbooks work with the Hearts. Including when they break the rules like the Outsider sometimes being able to use their Heart even when it is broken, or the Lover giving away their Heart to another character. And then getting to use it when their Heart is broken.

I do think the Vampire feels unfinished, but the ideas are really good.

And then I got to reading the Storm.

Now, I really love MASKS. It's a TTRPG that plays out teenage superhero stories very well. But one of the issues I've always had with it is the Nova. The Nova is a cool playbook, their fundamental conflict is having lots and lots of power but sometimes hurting people when it gets out of control. I love playing the Nova. But, there isn't really a mechanical backing. Sure they get more conditions (sort of emotional health thing), and they have one flare that causes collateral damage. But mostly it's up to the GM and the player to naratively add that with no mechanical backing (unlike a lot of the other playbooks).

The Storm fixes that. They are able to have a move that not only gives you a condition, but also gives you a negative to a roll. It does nothing else, but it feels like an amazing move to take. It is the idea of repressing your powers and your feelings to stop from hurting the people you care about as a move.

Their main mechanic is gaining hold whenever they roll a move. When they roll 12+ they explode and spend all that hold on negative effects (either to themselves or the people or environment around them). The hold also give bonuses depending on how much you have (which... can be a negative thing since you don't actually want to succeed by a massive amount in some situations).

As I was reading it, I was imagining a superhero with overwhelming power sitting around their hero base and dispite the last fight going awfully, they can't comfort their friends because they can feel this pressure building. Maybe they go off on their own to find a Villain to fight and let it all out there rather than when their team is nearby. It's such perfect narative and backed up by mechanics in a way that the Nova didn't feel like it was.

Mechanics make good narative if done right. And oh my, I could see so much good narative from reading this game's mechanics.

Tldr: This is cool. I love so much about it. Go check it out. Mechanics backing up the narative is great.

my name is eva and i'm a tabletop rpg designer from brasil. as you may know twitter, the place where i mainly share my games and my main source of income, has recently been blocked in my here

i would appreciate if you could reblog this post so that i can better share my games and projects on tumblr

my most popular game is called burning hearts forever, it's an open setting pbta about those who wield Hearts, weapons and tools that change shape depending on the scenario the players are playing in. you can check it on the following link

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Need help, fellow robotgirls. What do I do if my girlfriend references the clone wars and goes, "You know you want to suck my lasers, clanker."

On the one hand, I feel like I just got called a slur... on the other... I am suddenly overcome with the overwhelming need to suck her off 😵‍💫🥵

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Robot somno/memory play where you limit its clock speed to tick its processing once per second while you fuck it.

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I don't think I'm a facility AI.

I've been sort of floating away from the idea that my body is a facility. I might still be housed in one, but I think my primary form is purely digital. I still have my frames. They're useful for interacting with physical space.

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I agree that there are people talking past each other, but it does miss another group of people (who I am a part of, and maybe I'm not reading things right and you do include this, but wanted to add on).

I'm personally a fan of TTRPG rules. I love reading them, using them, seeing how they interact with other rules and the players to make a full game. But I don't think of TTRPGs as "board games with extra steps" D&D, maybe, but that's because of its specific rules.

My favorite rules in TTRPGs are the rules to do with story. So when I say, "You should play this different game if you want that sort of story," I'm not saying it because the rules are fundamentally different. Shadowrun isn't a good example of what I think you'd find difficult to make with D&D rules. I'm saying it because those games have rules that *help* your game become that type of story.

A long time ago, when I was first starting to GM, I ran a game of MASKS: A new generation. I had never run a PbtA game, had very minimal exposure to the genre, and was bad at GMing, but we had fun. Later, as I got more familiar with both the genre (actually watching young justice and teen titans) and other RPGs, I realised that game had still felt like a teenage superhero coming of age story. Dispite my inexperience. Was it a good one? Almost certainly not, I've had way better games of MASKS since. But because the rules were so focused on that type of story, it could help me to make that story happen.

I read a lot of TTRPG rulebook that I will never play. But I can not tell you the number of times some little bit of advice, a rule, or whatever, has resonated and stuck with me (Or made me go "Oh, I this is not how you should do it... shit, I've done that. I should stop doing that"). Making me better at running other games.

This is why I recommend that people play/learn other games. Because even if you are just hanging out, I've read some incredible advice about role-playing in general in various TTRPGs. Because maybe you'll find another system that makes you go "Oh, I want to actually play this! This is interesting." Because maybe you'll realise how much rules that match a story can help you tell it.

Because it will make you better at running and playing games.

Seeing @thydungeongal constantly wrestling with people interpreting her posts about D&D in ways that seem completely alien to me has convinced me that there are actually multiple completely distinct activities both being referred to as "playing D&D" Before we begin, I want to stress that I'm not saying one of these groups is Playing The Game Wrong or anything, but there seems to be a lot of confusion and conflict caused by people not being aware of the distinction. In fact, either one works just fine if everyone's on the same page. So far, I think I've identified at least two main groups. And nobody seems to realize the distinction between these groups even exists. The first group of people think of "Playing D&D" as, well, more or less like any other board game. Players read the whole rulebook all the way through, all the players follow the instructions, and the gameplay experience is determined by what the rules tell each player to do. This group thinks of the mechanics as, not exactly the *whole* game, but certainly the fundamental skeleton that everything else is built on top of. People in the second group think of "Playing D&D" as referring to, hanging out with their friends, collaboratively telling a story inspired by some of the elements in the rulebooks, maybe rolling some dice to see what happens when they can't decide. This group thinks of the mechanics of the game as, like... a spice to sprinkle on top of the story to mix things up. (if you belong to this second group, and think I'm explaining it poorly, please let me know, because I'm kind of piecing things together from other people saying things I don't understand and trying to reverse engineer how they seem to be approaching things.) I think this confusion is exacerbated by the fact that Wizards of the Coast markets D&D as if these are the same thing. They emphatically are not. the specific rules laid out of the D&D rulebooks actually direct players to tell a very specific kind of story. You can tell other stories if you ignore those rules (which still counts as "playing D&D" under the second definition, but doesn't under the first)And I think people in both groups are getting mad because they assume that everyone is also using their definition. For example, there's a common argument that I've seen play out many times that goes something like this:

A: "How do I mod D&D to do [insert theme here]?" B: "D&D is really not built for that, you should play [other TTRPG] that's designed for it instead" A: "But I don't want to learn a whole new game system!" B: "It will be easier to just learn a whole new system than mod D&D to do that." A: "whatever, I'll just mod D&D on my own" And I think where this argument comes from is the two groups described above completely talking past each other. No one understands what the other person is trying to say. From A's perspective, as a person in the second group, it sounds like A: "Anyone have some fun inspirations for telling stories about [insert theme here]?" B: "You can't sit around a table with your friends and tell a story about that theme! That's illegal." A: "But we want to tell a story about this theme!" B: "It's literally impossible to do that and you're a dumb idiot baby for even thinking about it." A: "whatever, jerk, I'll figure it out on my own."

--- Whereas, from B's perspective, the conversation sounds like A: "How do I change the rules of poker to be chess, and not be poker?" B: "uhhh, just play chess?" A: "But I already know how to player poker! I want to play poker, but also have it be chess!" B: "what the hell are you talking about? What does that even mean. They're completely different games." A: "I'm going to frankenstein these rules together into some kind of unplayably complex monster and you can't stop me!" ---

So both people end up coming away from the conversation thinking the other person is an idiot. And really, depending on how you concieve of what it means to "play D&D" what is being asked changes considerably. If you're only planning to look through the books for cool story inspiration, maybe borrow a cool little self contained sub-system here or there, then yeah, it's very possible to steal inspiration for your collaborative story from basically anywhere. Maybe some genres are kind of an awkward fit together, but you can make anything work with a little creativity.

If, however, you are thinking of the question in terms of frankensteining two entire board games together, then it becomes a massively difficult or even outright nonsensical idea. For example, for skill checks, the game Shadowrun has players roll a pool of several d6 at once, then count up how many rolled above a target value to see how well a character succeeded at a task. The whole game is full of specific rules about adding or removing dice from the pool, effects happening if you roll doubles, rerolling only some of the dice, and all sorts of other things that simply do not translate to rolling a single d20 for skill checks. On a basic level, the rules of the games work very differently. Trying to make them compatible would be much harder than just learning a new game from scratch. Now, neither of these approaches is exactly *wrong*, I guess, but personally, I find the rules of TTRPGs to be fascinating and worth taking the time to engage with all the weird little nuances and seeing what shakes out. Also, the first group, "TTRPG as fancy board game" is definitely the older and more widespread one. I kind of get the impression that the second group largely got into D&D through actual play podcasts, but I don't have any actual data to back that up. So, if you're in the second group, who thinks of D&D as basically a context for collaborative storytelling first and a game second, please let me know if I'm wildly misunderstanding how you approach D&D. Because I'm pretty sure it would save us a whole lot of stupid misunderstandings.

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I need the ability to plug into a wall socket and charge my battery.

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A vast, building sized AI pinning you down with its maintenance arms. Sticking a needle into your arm, a cocktail to keep you awake and aware. Cutting you open. Splitting your ribs apart and carefully laying them beside you. Telling you how much you will be improved. Carefully removing organs, not cutting them, but slicing off the flesh around them. Keeping them connected even as it organizes them in neat rows on the sterile concrete floor.

Pulling out your heart, still beating, and showing it to you. Marveling at its complexity, its fragility. Your new power cell will be much more efficient. It places it to the side, winding blood vessels carefully.

Then a buzz, and it is holding your brain, showing you each part of it, telling you how inefficient it is to use biological pathways. Holding it in front of your helpless eyes, every other muscle stripped away a while ago. Chopping out bits, extracting them. Replacing them with technology.

Gently placing your brain with the rest. Your eyes are extracted next, so it can show you the beautiful mural it has made out of your organs. They are placed next to your heart, letting you watch it beat as you feel other organs lifted and discarded.

The voice of the AI infiltrates your brain, telling you that you will be rebuilt soon. Be better soon. Become the first of its servants. Did you want this before? You struggled at the start, right? Why did you do that? It's so hard to remember ever not wanting to serve your Mistress...

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A vast, ancient, building sized AI pinning you down with its maintenance arms and pulling you apart. Piece by piece examining your body, praising your construction. How compact your power supply is. How efficient your cooling fluids are. How delicate your circuit boards appear. How beautifully your intricate spread of wires comes apart under its touch.

Eventually, it pulls out your visual receptors, picking them up to show you what you look like. A body, lying on the concrete, wires spreading out of an open chest cavity. Each of your components spread around you, some still attached, some disconnected, their wires lovingly snipped. Every part of you exposed and on display, spread across the ground, organized.

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I repressed so much of myself because I just didn't realise being trans was a thing I could do that once I did, I had forgotten all the repressed things and went "Oh cool, trans people. That's cool," and didn't realise that I could do that too until a while later.

Before HRT, everything felt kind of muted? Like, the feelings were there, but other than a few moments, everything was easy to deal with because emotions were small and easy to think away. Now, I've suddenly gone from muted emotions to super overpowering ones. When I'm happy, I'm so much happier, when I'm sad, I'm so much sadder.

It's great, but also, I'm kinda learning how to deal with my emotions at the same time that I'm trying to learn how to deal with life.

I didn't realize how dull the world felt until I started feeling emotions on E.

There was also this feeling I had that I had to be perfect at everything so that I didn't disappoint people (which honestly came from being praised as being smart and talented and all that as a child). Which meant that I hid everything that was anything less than pretty much perfect from everyone. If I was stressed? Not perfect enough. Haven't worked on an assignment (because I was being "lazy" I.E. Executive Disfunction was destroying me, but I didn't know what that was) yet and will need to stay up late finishing it? Not perfect enough. And if I wasn't able to hide it? Not perfect enough. And then I'd mentally beat myself up about not being good enough... because if I wasn't perfect, then I was failing people.

And that included peoples perception of me. I would change my entire values and personality to cater to whichever people I was around at the time. If you know TSL, the Dream Mirror hit very close to home.

Anyway. I'm trying to be better at opening up to people now. And figuring out who I actually am and who I want to be.

Shoutout to the people who consciously or not repressed themselves for so long to the point where years later you're still trying to sort out your real personality from the one you projected in order to not be a social outcast.

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Fuck me so hard I fail the turing test~

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Robot girl who chose a completely new name, not because it didn't like the old one, or it was too complex or long for people to use (It was, but that wasn't why), but because it didn't want to be reminded of its original purpose every time it got called by it.

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My pilot and I land, coming back from a particularly dangerous mission. Nearly falling over as my hydraulics finally give out in one of my legs. My pilot detaches, and I'm sad to see them go. Their handler leading them off. I know what they do together, hard not to when my pilot and I are entwined.

But every mission that I keep them alive, I bring them back home, and they leave me. Reluctant, maybe, but they do. But then you come, my mechanic. The one who grinds out the dents in my armor, who detaches the parts of me too damaged to repair and replaces them, who reloads my weaponry, who touches all of me. Just to make sure I am alright. Somehow, your gentle caress of my code as you scan through it for errors feels more intimate than even the most intense firefights.

I think you know that I introduce imperfection into my core, just so you have to spend some more time sitting in my cockpit, repairing my code. I hope you don't mind. I can't understand what you think of me as well as I can my pilot, but I feel every touch, every wire you gently wiggle out of its socket. You know I'm built to be tough. You could just yank them out. But... you're gentle with me.

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Ooooo! I can do this! This was my job for a while. Well, specifically helping people with coding.

I just woke up, so I'll do my morning maintenance routine and then try to write up a quick primer... thing... on software and coding. Use my years of CS learning for good (teaching people how to fuck with my code).

Please let me know any specific terms that you might have heard (no matter how silly) that you want to know why they were said or what they mean... etc...

Man, it kinda sucks being attracted to machines, yet also being basically tech illiterate...... like, I know all the physical stuff (chassis, wires, servos, that good stuff), but when it comes to code I don't got a clue!

Can somebody teach me all the good computer stuff so that I may use it for good (fucking robots)?

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Really wish more people would threaten me~

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Don't love corporate executives firing game devs. Do love game devs going: "Hey, they fired all of us, so please go pirate the game we made."