#game's not playable the stats are for fun

[sabrebash]

I realized i hadn't posted all of the cards i completed last year, especially some of my favorites like the Rods and Mokole Mbembe, and since i didn't like the format i was posting them in anyway I figured i'd make a masterpost here. Sorry for the length! I'm not selling these at present since a 17 card deck is such an awkward length, but maybe i could add to it in the future? I love rods/skyfish so much man they're so dumb.

[prokopetz]

The way The World Ends With You handles equipment-gating ends up having some very fun implications.

First, equipment is level-gated, but rather than being tied directly to character level, it's instead tied to a levellable stat called Bravery (BRV) – which makes some narrative sense, since equipment in The World Ends With You consists of fashion items; in narrative terms, you're literally building the confidence to pull them off.

Second, equipment is also gender-gated, at least in theory – but since there's all of one playable girl in the original game (the sequel is better about this), rather than building in any special mechanics for this, the game just gives all of the "for girls" clothing inflated BRV requirements, and the sole playable girl a massive starting BRV score.

In practice, this achieves its objective, for the most part. The inflated BRV for girls' clothing means that even once a male character reaches the BRV level required to wear it, he'll usually have access to gender-conforming options with better stats.

... in the main game.

In the post-game, however, there are many more options for grinding BRV, and the stats for girls' clothing start to better reflect their elevated BRV requirements, to the extent that many post-game optimisation guides genuinely recommend putting your entire party in maid dresses if you can grind out the BRV to equip them.

I thought that was something this blog's followership would appreciate.

[attollogame]

CHAPTER 4: PARIAH (Patreon Release)

Hi everyone! It's been a long, long time LMAO. I'm pleased to say that the Pariah update is now ready to (tentatively) play through and sits at about 39k. Shorter then anticipated by 1k, but I think the playability (depending on your persuasion and anxiety stats) makes up for that. Public release will be announced once I have it run on Patreon for a while and I clean what I want to clean :)

Those who go to Patreon to play... make note that you will need to replay. So enjoy a reintroduction to the world!

This update includes:

Driving a car, or being chauffeured

Strange things are happening on old McDonald's Farm

An intimate look at the diet of livestock

An equally intimate look at what might happen to you nasty little slime eaters (finally)

Murder. The not so fun kind.

Other house business:

An absence of a year means there are things to clean. I will be editing Deadlocks text in the Chapter 2 scene, and then working out some of the other issues I found in terms of pacing of text and playability

I removed the music from the game to work on that

The back button is absent (I know, sad) so I'll be reinstating that

Attollo now sits at 530, 680 words. Next up will be Suha's route.

PATREON

[indierpgnewsletter]

The 1980 Dallas RPG was a Soap Opera Wargame?

In 1980, SPI, a company known for its wargames did a strange thing and published an RPG based on the Dallas tv show. If you don't know anything about the tv show, don't worry, I will protect you. It's too late for me though. You go on ahead. Basically, it was a hit TV show of big money family feuding. Imagine Succession but it was written in the 1980s and instead of TV news, it was an oil company. Unlike the show, the RPG wasn't a hit. The art director of the game famously wrote that they printed 80,000 copies and that was 79,999 more than people wanted. That one person seemed to be this person's grandma who bought it for him to save his soul from D&D/Satan.

What is this game though? Well, James F Dunnigan, founder of SPI and designer of legendary wargame, Panzerblitz, seems to have applied his analytical mind to the internecine squabbles of Dallas and decided that, if you think about it, petty family drama isn't so different from CIA covert ops. And he was right.

As you'd expect from a wargame, the rules are dry and clinical to a fault. You start by picking one of the 9 characters from the show - JR, Jock, Sue Ellen, Pam, etc. They all have stats like Persuasion, Coercion, Seduction. And these stats have attack/defend values. For example, JR has a Coercion of 24 because he's a real jerk. Sue Ellen has a Seduction resist of 18, but it's 20 against JR, because again, he seems to have been a real jerk. This game genuinely went out of its way to make sure you know JR's wife really really doesn't want to go near him.

Each character starts the session ("episode") with a secret story-based objective. Jock wants to run an angry former employee out of town, JR wants to cheat an Arab oil magnate out of 100 million dollars, Sue Ellen wants to do a favour for an old boyfriend. Yeah, what can I say? Some of these objectives feel more important than others. Regardless, you achieve these objectives by controlling 4 or more specific minor characters and organisations by the end of the game. For example, to enact his 100 million dollar plan, JR has to control the Ewing Oil Company, Mustafa Quattara, Professor Bayard, the reporter Mary Cleef, and so on. But characters' objective overlap so Pam also wants Mustafa Quattara and Jock also wants Professor Bayard. These conflicting goals means players need to scheme, negotiate and attack each other so they can win.

The sessions play out in five rounds. Each round, the GM sets the scene. Then, the players can negotiate and make deals. Then, we enter the conflict phase where each player makes three moves - either trying to gain control of uncontrolled NPCs, or attacking another player to steal an NPC from under them, or protecting their own NPCs. And the game throws in little curveballs every round: Oops, some of JR's drinking buddies are in town and he can't say no to them, so his character is out of this round. Hopefully the player has some NPCs that they can use to act instead. Oops, Mustafa Quattara is being chased by assassins. Whoever controls his card has to give it up as he disappears for a bit and comes back uncontrolled. The end result is somewhere in between Vampire the Masquerade (or rather, Undying) and Blood on the Clocktower.

Sure, the math is dense (you roll 2d6 under the difference between the attack value and the defense value, plus or minus any currency spent). Sure, it takes 9 players to really sing. Sure, multiple people can complete their objective so you need to track victory points separately to decide the real winner. Sure, you have to take the homophobia out of the Seduction rules. Sure, roleplaying is completely optional. Sure, sure, sure. The game is a mess. But it's a very playable mess. I'd go so far as to say it's an electric mess. It's shockingly (sorry) fun to play. I think the secret lies in a very clear agenda for the players, a tight boardgame-like action economy, a premise that supports hilarious degrees of pettiness, and an inter-personal experience that demands everyone pay attention to what their friends are doing.

So. Am I planning a full 9 person play-by-post game of this? Yes. Am I thinking of changing the setting and the math? Yes. Is that basically designing a new game? Yes. Should this game be labelled "Powered by Dallas" or, as one of my players suggested, "Hornswoggled by Dallas"? YES.

(This was first published in the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy October 17th Beta update has launched today on itch.io for free!

Happy Halloween! We pulled out all the stops just to get the update out in time for you to prep and play it for your group’s Halloween game! The free adventure module that comes with it, “Horror Harry’s Haunted House”, takes place on Halloween after all! In it, your investigators will solve a “murder mystery” in a charmingly spooky haunted house escape room. It serves as a sort of investigation and survival training ground for you and your PCs to learn the ropes before jumping into more Call-of-Cthulhu-esque adventures where death is around every corner. (You can even get two more adventure modules over on our patreon)

Download the new rulebook here on itch.io! Even if you download it for free, just checking it out, talking about it, reblogging this post, etc. helps us out immensely. We are a diverse, largely queer team setting out to slay a dragon, we’ve already been working on this for four years, and we need all the community support we can get!

If you’re wondering what Eureka even is, watch this trailer, or read this post if you don't wanna watch a video.

If you’ve ever tried to run a murder mystery in D&D, what you really needed was Eureka.

If you’re coming from the August beta release, which I assume you are, lemme tell you that a lot has been improved. I’ll go over some of the highlights, and post the full changelog under the cut. It’s still free, but if you could throw a bit of money out way on the itchio page, even if you’ve paid before, that would be a massive, massive help. We’re actually a bit over budget even with the relative success of the Kickstarter, plus for one of us this is their primary source of income.

Trait Overhaul

There’s a few new Traits, and nearly every single existing Trait has been redone to make them better and/or more interesting. Each Trait will now have an even more significant effect on your gameplay experience.

Combat Overhaul + World's Best Grappling Rules

Combat in Eureka is now better than ever, and it was already really good - plus, now you can actually comprehend the dang rules! The previous combat rules, I admit, were a dense and confusing slog to read through, even if they worked really well once you understood them. Now, thanks to our editor, you can understand them! Instead of being split across four chapters, it’s now just two chapters. One chapter explains weapons and is mostly just for stat reference, and the other chapter is focused on telling you everything your character can do during “dangerous situations,” which are not just combat, but really just any kind of scenario where a character can get hurt. As a special highlight to the combat overhaul, Eureka now boasts the first ever set of grappling rules that are viable, realistic, and fun to employ at the table! I’m serious when I say I have never seen them done like this before, and think they offer an actual leap forward in something that TTRPGs have struggled with since early editions of D&D! I also put a lot of my own judo and other martial arts experience to work here.

Monster Overhaul

A lot of what I said about the pre-overhaul combat sections of the rulebooks were also true of the monster PC rules. They were dense, hard to reference, and disorganized. Well not anymore! All six playable monsters in Eureka have been completely rewritten using the skills I have gained as a game designer since first writing them, and, like the regular Traits, they have all been at the very least tweaked to be more interesting and have a greater effect on gameplay, and some have been changed entirely with all new subsystems! Witches brew potions now, fairies actually have stuff to do with the names they collect, and more! Plus, speaking of Traits, every monster can have more regular Traits now, to really help flesh out their personality!

CHANGE LOG 

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 302. Half-ass copy-edited up to p. 322.

WHOLE BOOK

Stuck most of the $42+ kickstarter backer submission info into the very back of the book just to get it out of our email inbox and to allow the whole team to be able to more easily see it and work with it. Going to be doing more to integrate this stuff into the actual rulebook soon. 

Changed the headings to hopefully be more legible. Please give us feedback on what you think of this change.

CHAPTER 1

Changed the limitations on how Comfort is used to restore investigator Composure. 

Fixed a typo in the investigation example of play. 

Made it so that Composure rolls for fears in the “Ridiculous” category don’t even always need to be rolled when these things are encountered. 

Moved Character Health and Status, Grievous Wounds, Healing, and Healing Example sections to Chapter 1. 

Changed Partial Incapacitation to give -2 modifiers instead of -1. 

Overhauled the rules for injuries, incapacitation, and grievous wounds completely. A ton of it is changed. 

Added codified rules for medical facilities and what to do in the case of investigator death. 

Added “The Creeps” optional rule. 

Tweak to When is the Party “Split” section regarding how long to go before jumping between groups.

Lots of new art has been added.

Tweaks to Be Prepared to Lose section.

—---------------------------------------------------

Additions to the What is Eureka For section

Changed comforting factors and exacerbating factors for Composure rolls to be +/-2 instead of +/-1 so they make a real difference.

New snoop

Changed the font of the section headings in the Ticking Clock section. Let us know what you think of these headings compared to the other headings, because we are considering changing all the headings to be like this.  

Better clarified some stuff about how Ticks work when an adventure starts at some random time of day.

—-------------------------------------

More art has been added

Made travel take more time and matter more

CHAPTER 2

Changed the CQC skill to Close Combat, as this is more clear and obvious what that means at a glance

Made lots of copy-editing progress. Many paragraphs are shorter and convey the rules more clearly. 

Changed the way the Burnout Trait works. It now causes the investigator to lose flat Composure each day rather than affecting their Composure rolls. 

Changed the Death Wish Trait to not suck.

Changed the Elementary! Trait to use Visual Calculus instead of Social Cues.

Changed Go With Your Gut Trait to not suck. 

Added that wallets and like basic clothing and stuff have a WP cost of 0

Added glasses to item list

Added rope to item list

Added hand warmers to item list

Changed Arithmomania trait to where it only gives a +1 base bonus to Paperwork, and the bonus for having a lower Ignorance of Quantity Tiers of Fear rating is more investigation points. 

Changed Femme Fatale to add a +1 Seduce bonus instead of +2. 

Totally redid the Hardy Trait. 

Added -1 modifier to I’m Okay You’re Okay Trait

Redid the Just Built Different Trait. Now it allows a character “no sell” an incoming Superficial Damage attack once per Scene, reducing the damage to 0, among a few other things. 

Added Renaissance Man Trait. 

Removed Love Me Trait. Might try to reword it another time, but it was too similar to too many other traits and wasn't very interesting. 

Completely reworked Lover Trait. 

Many new snoops have been added.

Changed the Mad Genius trait to be called Lovecraft Protagonist and changed what it does. 

Removed the investigation point cap on Man of Action Trait. Also changed the name to Ask Questions Later. 

Changed My Glasses Trait to only provide bonuses to Knowledge Skill Investigative Rolls. 

Changed Nightstalker Trait so that it provides a bonus to all Interpersonal Rolls while trespassing 

Changed None of My Business Trait to suck less.

Changed Not Finished Yet Trait to suck less.

Changed Showboater Trait to suck less.

Changed Skeptic Trait to suck less.

Smalls is now a real Trait instead of just a joke Trait. 

Removed the +1 Bonus from the Unpredictable Trait.

Changed Wicked Trait to not suck. 

Changed Wizened Trait to suck less. 

Woo-Woo Trait no-longer based on Blacked Out Skill. 

Moved “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” here and changed the title to “Disabilities are Disabling”

Changed Basic Physical Therapy on the Wealth Point Item List from 3WP to 2WP. 

Added new section “People Change”

Made Blissfully Ignorant trait immune to “The Creeps.”

Made the Technically… Trait have a +2 bonus instead of +1.

Updated the Hard Boiled Trait to work with the new way that injuries and incapacitation works.

Moved the Hardened Hearts snoop to be the Wicked snoop instead. 

Changed “Empath” Trait to be “Empathetic” instead. 

Made “Did You Know…” a better and more usable Trait

Made Hard Under Pressure a better and more usable Trait.

Changed how the WP cost of an item affects the modifier for rolling for it in-adventure. The modifier is now half the WP cost rounded down. 

—--------------------------------------------------------

Gave a proper name to the Wealth modifier attached to certain homes and vehicles, it is now called the Property Modifier(PM).

Lowered the price of firearm ammunition by 1WP

Lowered the price of desktop computers by 1WP

Lowered the price of cameras by 1WP

Combined various hand tools into one entry on the item lists and moved them to Misc.

Made hotels something that is prepaid in WP similar to food budget. 

Made Large Apartment less expensive and Tiny Apartment more expensive

Moved Baseball Bat and Axe out of Weapons and into Misc. 

Changed how Food Budget works.

Removed Net Skill Limit mechanic entirely

Edit to the duration of the bonuses for Femme Fatale

Changed Ninja Trait to a +2 bonus instead of +1

—----------------------------------------------------------

Made “Sleep On It” Trait give 1D6-1 investigation points, and still give Composure.

Added “Real Capybara Hours.” Sometimes jokes are just for us.

Added animals to item lists

CHAPTER 3

Moved the section “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” into chapter 2. 

More art has been added.

Moved Character Health and Status, Grievous Wounds, Healing, and Healing Example sections to Chapter 1. 

—------------------------------------------------

Changed the name of Chapter 3 to “Dangerous Situations.” We are planning to put all the combat and other dangerous stuff into one chapter called “Dangerous Situations” and merge combat, chases, etc. into one thing rather than splitting it up and having it in a bunch of different chapters.

Made it so that the Speed mechanic works with Theater of the Mind as well, and removed that other awkward mechanic with rolling Athletics for how many turns it takes for a character to cross a large distance. 

Complete restructure of the way the mechanics for movement and action are explained, as well as defining things as both Movements and Actions. 

Created a Chapter 2.5. In the future when we are ready to shift the chapter numbers, Chapter 2.5 will become the new Chapter 3 and the current Chapter 3 will become Chapter 4. Chapter 2.5 currently houses the statistics of weapons and other combat items. The plan is that a first-time reader will read the weapon statistics in Chapter 2.5 before they read the combat rules in Chapter 3, which will inform the way they understand Chapter 3. 

Changed damage value and special attributes of pepper spray. 

Made brass knuckles do 1 penetrative damage. 

Made stun guns do 2 superficial damage.

Made it so that bulletproof vests do protect against 1-damage weapons. 

Moved and rearranged like everything from chapters 3-6. 

Close range bonus for guns is now +2 instead of +1

Simplified Stopping Power rules (the actual way it works has not changed, we just rewrote it so that it gives the same mechanics in like a tenth of the word count)

Separated open-faced helmets and full-face helmets, and made it so that wearing a helmet along with body armor gives a -1 penalty to incoming attack rolls. 

“Single Load” is now called “Internal Magazines”

Shotguns at extremely close range now have similar stopping power to a rifle, but at 5-10 yards they still have their double stopping power. 

Changed how Rate of Fire works for guns. Just making it a number instead of distinct actions. 

Made it so that Quick Cycling affects basically all guns except automatics, meaning characters with high Firearms skill can now fire semi-automatic pistols at 3 bullets per Action.

Streamlined Stabilization. It is no-longer a roll and instead a penalty that worsens the more bullets are being fired at once. 

Made Bipods give +2 Contextual bonus instead of +1 to single stationary targets.

Changed Reactions and made them more broadly applicable and usable as a rule.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overhauled Grabs, Throws, Holds, and Escapes to make them a viable option in a lot more scenarios.

Defined “On the Ground” and made it its own section.

Made knock out blows and throws ignore Armor. Knock-out blows are still somewhat penalized by helmets.

Added A Real John Woo Film Optional Rule

More art has been added

Hastily updated the random chase obstacle tables for the new Movement/Action system.

Updated the example obstacles to be more in line with how we designed obstacles for the obstacle tables. 

Redid how Poison works. We meant to make it less convoluted but accidentally made it more granular instead. We did write it better so it will at least feel less convoluted. 

CHAPTER 4

Merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 5

merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 6

merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 7

Added “Psychological Warfare” mechanic. 

—--------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER 8

The Blacked Out Skill has been changed in two major ways. First we made it more obvious that the Blacked Out Skill applies even to knowledge of the supernatural that is not necessarily true. And also rather than working the way that every other Knowledge skill works, the Blacked Out Skill now gives leads to where answers might be found rather than immediate concrete answers. 

THE GORGON IS FINISHED AND FULLY PLAYABLE!

Added that Alt. Witches have to make their supernatural ability composure rolls at +0 instead of +3. The +3 was a typo.

Started work on the complete monster overhaul.

Vampires have been completely rewritten. Most of their abilities and themes are the same, but the way the abilities work has been overhauled and improved in many cases, as well as now being formatted and structured in a sane and easily-referenceable way. 

More art has been added. 

Changed the +2 Contextual Close Combat bonus for the Werewolf Trait to a +1 Base Bonus

Wolfmen have been completely rewritten. Most of their abilities and themes are the same, but the way the abilities work has been overhauled and improved in many cases, as well as now being formatted and structured in a sane and easily-referenceable way. 

Fairytale Witch is currently being rewritten/overhauled. 

Changed Incredible Strength Mage Trait to have a +2 Close Combat bonus instead of +3.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clarified that gorgon blood does not heal gorgons.

Changed the way that monsters interact with Composure and their Tiers of Fear during the act of preying on other people. Instead of just ignoring it or having a bonus (i somehow left both of those conflicting rules in and no one told me), a relevant Composure roll is still made when a monster eats someone, but they do not lose Composure points from it even in the event of Partial Success or Failure. This keeps the narrative benefit of a Composure roll to show the monster’s emotional state, but without making hunting numerically pointless.

Finished the complete fairytale witch overhaul. 

Made the Close Combat bonus for superhuman strength be just +1 for the vast majority of instances. The only exception is wolfman forms. They get a higher Close Combat bonus because their transformations actually make them bigger and taller and this helps a lot in Close Combat.

Reduced Athletics bonus of Incredible Strength trait to +2. 

Merged the Alt. Witch with Mage, and made Mage a Misc. supernatural category instead of its own separate thing. This is going to be a really messy transition for chapter 8 so please bear with us. I am making a brief run though the chapter to clean up the biggest discrepancies this change creates, but I probably won’t get them all until the editor and I have time to actually go through and copy-edit it. 

“Mage” is now its own trait, and what were previously called “mage traits” are now called “mage powers”. Mages now have between 1 and 6 mage powers as part of their mage trait, with worse composure rolls the more powers they have. 

When they engage in their True Nature, monsters now have a chance to recoup some or all of the Composure they lost as a result of using their powers to hunt prey. 

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fully overhauled the fairy rules. Just one more monster to overhaul! Woo! 

Changed the Curse of Slumber to take effect the next time the victim falls asleep rather than knocking them out spontaneously.

Overhauled the changeling rules to go along with the overhauled fairy rules. 

Clarified something about the vampire’s In Lizard Fashion ability, they wouldnt be able to use this to stop a speeding truck.

Removed the hard limit on how many people a wolfman could eat at once, and also added rules for what happens if they shift to a smaller form with people in their stomach. Made similar tweaks for vampires. 

More art has been added 

Fully overhauled the Thing from Beyond, and that completes the full monster overhaul. All Monsters now consist of a single Trait, rather than needing a pair of Traits. 

Gave vampires’ “wearing the evening” ability a maximum distance of 50 yards and also it is a Movement now 

Made a few more adjustments to some of the monster sections to bring them up to date with the new Movement/Action mechanics. 

Adjusted all instances of poison in the monster sections to account for the new poison rules.

[alt-wannabe]

MCSR D&D

silver r(ogue) runs

silver r(anger) runs

Soulknife Rogue 10 / Fey Wanderer Ranger 5

we're back! ik this one took a little longer compared to the last few i've just been real busy with lab stuff! planning on having reign's sheet made next :3

I went for rogue for the general unbothered energy they tend to have, which silverr seems to have in spades. Rogues also have extremely high dex which we determined was gonna be silverr's highest ability score. I picked up ranger because the adept terrain knowledge is something that's really fitting for a speedrunner. I picked half elf for the race because they get a boost to charisma and that was voted as silverr's second highest ability score (note the charisma score of 18 that has exactly zero benefit to either of his classes lmao)

Ranger spell choices are extremely minimal so this is what we ended up with. Cure Wounds and Hunter's Mark for general playability, Longstrider for the SPEEDrunning joke, Locate Animals or Plants as a dupe for finding spawners.

Equipment time! Some smaller items of note include 20 obsidian (in 2 stacks of ten because dndbeyond is weird), navigator's tools for routing, pearls, a potion of healing, a fire resistance potion, and a pearl of power. To be fully honest Gray Bag of Tricks is entirely a joke based on gray=silver. The Eyes of Minute Seeing basically make you see better and give advantage on intelligence checks within an area around you and that was fitting to me bc silverr is pretty damn observant. The Ivory Goats were a pick entirely based on his old MC skin with the horns. Then I hope the Boots of Speed, Dragon Scale Armor, and Dragon Slayer Sword are fairly obvious connections.

Class featuresssss. Favored enemy was humans because that's just straight up other players and the dragonborns as a joke about the ender dragon. Speaking of the end, I chose Underdark for favored terrain as sort of a dupe for the End. Then two weapon fighting is the style I chose basically entirely thinking about the off-hand mechanic in minecraft.

This is a fun feature of the Fey Wanderer subclass that would legitimately give him horns in game.

Primeval Awareness is another D&D dupe for finding spawners or the stronghold in my eyes. A huge part of why I chose the Fey Wanderer subclass is because of the Otherworldly Glamour giving a huge boost to charisma checks. The common consensus of a lot of people is that silverr would have a really high charisma stat FULLY without realizing or having it be intentional and I figured that having him fey adjacent would be a realistic way of implementing that.

Finally here are his feats! Both of these picks were motivated by getting a plus one in the strength and charisma ability scores respectively. Slasher fits both because silverr is a strong pvper and because the soul blades from his rogue subclass can deal slashing damage. Shadow Touched seemed really helpful for a rogue with the invisibility spell, and also gave me access to False Life which kinda makes me think of the extra hearts given by a golden apple (and also silverr NEEDS those extra hit points he has a very low constitution score).

Again I hope y'all are liking these! Reign should be coming next but it may take me a little while to figure out what his deal is lol.

[demi-shoggoth]

2024 Reading Log, pt 2

006. Gardening Can Be Murder by Marta McDowell. I honestly thought that this book was going to be about something else. With the subtitle “how poisonous plants, sinister shovels and grim gardens have inspired mystery writers”, I thought it was going to be about, you know, that. True crime themed to gardens, discussions of poisonous plants, that sort of thing. The book is actually about the mystery books that have gardening as a theme. And while the author’s dedication to not spoiling anything (seriously, anything, even 150 year old stories like The Moonstone or “Rappacini’s Daughter”) is admirable in its own way, this leaves the book feeling like endless buildup without any payoff. Big fans of murder mysteries might enjoy this—especially the last chapter, which interviews writers about their gardens—but I found it more boring than anything else, and finished it only because it was very short.

007. Antimony, Gold and Jupiter’s Wolf by Peter Wothers. This book is about how the elements got their names, and most of it deals with the early modern period, as alchemy transitioned to chemistry and then into the 19th century, when chemistry was a real science, but things like atomic theory were not yet understood. The book goes into fascinating detail, and has a lot of quotes from primary sources, as scientists then were just like scientists now, that is, opinionated and bickering with each other over their preferred explanations. And names! Many of the splits between elements and their symbols (like Na for sodium) are due to compromise attempts to appease two different factions with their preferred names. A book covering arcane minutia of history always has the risk of feeling like a slog, but this is a fast and fun read.

008. Doctor Dhrolin’s Dictionary of Dinosaurs by Nathan T Barling and Michael O’Sullivan, illustrations by Mark P Witton. This book is an odd concept, but one that I was immediately on board with—a D&D book written by paleontologists with the intention of bringing accurate and interesting stats for prehistoric reptiles to the game. The fact that it’s mostly illustrated by Mark Witton definitely clinched my backing that Kickstarter. And this book is a lot of fun. So much so, that I read it all in a single sitting. I don’t know how accurate the stats are (like, a Hatzegopteryx has a higher CR than titanosaurs or T. rexes), but they seem like they’d be fun in play, and the writing does a good job of combining fantasy fun with actual education. Even for someone not running a 5e game, the stuff on how to run animals as not killing machines, and the mutation tables, could be useful. There are multiple types of playable dinosaurs, all of which seem like they’d work well at the table and avoid typical stereotypes, and a lot of in-jokes and pop culture references (like the cursed staff of unspared expense, which looks like Hammond’s cane in the Jurassic Park movie).

009. Romaine Wasn’t Built in a Day by Judith Tschann. I’m a sucker for books about etymology. And this one, on food etymology, is a pretty breezy read. I had fun with it, and it even busted some misconceptions that I had, etymologically speaking. Like, there’s no evidence that “bloody” as an explicative originated from “God’s blood”? Wild. Etymology books tend to be written in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, where talking about one word may lead down a garden path to the next one. The book also has a couple of little matching quizzes, which is something I haven’t seen in a book since like the 90s.

010. The Lives of Octopuses and their Relatives by Danna Staaf. I was previously a little disappointed in The Lives of Beetles, another book in this series, but I knew I liked Staaf, who wrote the excellent book Squid Empire about cephalopod evolution and paleontology. I’m pleased to report that this book is also excellent. Staaf takes the “lives” part seriously, and the book is arranged by ecology, looking at different marine habitats, the challenges that they pose to living things, and the cephalopods that live there. Cuttlefish get slightly short shrift in this book compared to squids and octopuses, but that’s about the biggest complaint I had. I like how the species profiles cover more obscure taxa, and information about the best studied (like Pacific giant octopus and Humboldt squid) is kept to the chapters.

[kawareo]

what were some of your fav scenes/fights in bg3?

also completely unrelated, but what were Strike’s pre-tadpole stats?

oh boy okay stats first, then the ramble under cut ^-^

I said before that his stats as Durge would be pretty op, and I do know that they are, but I think the fact that he devolves so much before the events of the game evens him out lol - he was also multi-classing into a Fighter. I was trying to think of him more of in a 'what if he was the miniboss instead of Orin' way, rather than as if he were a playable character

After tadpoling, his stats have nearly halved, except Charisma which is still pretty high (like 17 at the start, i think)

I really like the Nere fight for some reason, especially if I made a deal with the duegar and also am trying to keep the gnomes alive!

And the entire part in the Ilithid colony, i love parts where you can clean out a place room by room, and then the big fights, once I figure out the strategies for them (for example, the Moonrise towers, creche, or protecting the grove, love when I learn how to beat them). Also in my evil Durge run every fight is fun because I have Lae'zen, Minthara, Shadowheart's spirit guardians and my sorcerer who can deal two level five spells per round if needed, so we kind of just power through every fight lol

All of the romance/sex scenes are lovely and I could stare at them forever, personal favorite is the Halsin one. The dance scene with Wyll is super cute. The entire tiefling party slaps absolute ass I love that section. Haarlep scene, too! Genuinely scary! That thing scares the shit out of me but their scene is so fun to watch.

Some of my all time favorite scenes are also Ketheric's introduction, Gortash and Orin talking (orin's va fucking killed it there with the "yes so no sir rip and cut your throat sir", i can quote that entire scene from memory), Minsc' introduction! Dame Aylin and Isobel kiss! The coronation scene! Anything where Auntie Ethel shows up! Rolan!

Lmao it might be shorter if I just tell you things that I dislike tbh, the list is shorter; i love Lae'zel but after act 2 I kind of really don't care about her storyline? I dont know why but the political coup and the githyanki drama just isn't that interesting to me. I couldn't care less about Orpheous, either. Genuinely fuck that Lorroakan fight I hate it form the bottom of my heart. Haven't found the dragon yet and I'm scared in advance because I heard some scary shit. I haven't had to fight any of the Thorm family yet because I always charisma my way through them but in my new run I'll try them, the fights look like a bitch though. It's mostly the gityanki stuff (besides Lae'zel herself) that i don't care that much for , almost everything else I can find interest for

[lorz-ix]

Dawn of the Monsters (2022)

Ah yes, one of those flavor of the month, indie beat 'em ups. This one has a theme that I happen to enjoy a bunch, I'm sure it could be fun.

I know the phrase gets thrown around a lot, but this is a love letter to kaiju and tokusatsu media. The story and world building hit every note and they hit it right. I absolutely adored learning about the setting bit by bit, and I fell in love with the cast of characters. It's wonderfully done. You love to see the environmentalist message, very adequate for the genre, and the effort put into making the conflict feel global, with most of the key characters originating from a completely different part of the world, each adding different human perspectives.

As for the playable characters, they give off this impression of "knockoff Godzilla or Ultraman", but the fact that they're not tethered to those franchises lets them put their original spin into the formula, while also paying homage to the icons. Each of them has a ton of alternate color palettes with even more fun references to other media. In combat, they're all very distinct, which is a treat, since it brings a lot of variety between the few of them.

That combat though. It's not my favorite beat 'em up whatsoever, but it's still relatively unique. RPG vibes, with emphasis on equipped passive skills, stat boosts and status effects. Each character has at least one non-damaging ability, or at least some sort of effect that incentivizes thinking about how you use said abilities, giving you buffs and the like. I particularly enjoyed mixing and matching the equipments to come up with strong combinations or new strategies.

Overall, this is a bit of a highlight for the end of the year. I never imagined a game like this to capture me so much, and especially not when I considered the moment to moment gameplay to be good, but not top tier. If what I already said sounds enticing, then I enthusiastically suggest you play it.

[theoretical-tactician]

Hey! So, I said I might make a list of Fire Emblem modding links, so here it is! Before anything, be sure you have a hacked 3DS so you can mod your games. You can load mods directly onto a hacked 3DS OR you can use a hacked 3DS to dump your games and play them on an emulator.

If you haven't hacked your 3DS yet, follow this guide to do so! It's easy and super safe!

As for if you want to emulate, you can download the citra emulator here. Just be aware that the emulator can be demanding and not all games function great (all the Fire Emblem games are functional, though).

Now, as for game modding, here are a few of my favorite things to use as well as some interesting mods others enjoy. Feel free to share mods you enjoy and I'll add them to this list.

General Modding

Paragon - This in and of itself is not a mod. However, if you're interested in dipping your toes in trying to create your own mods, this is a good starting point! This tool provides you with a friendly user interface to mess with the code of the game and create your own custom mods (don't worry, you don't need to know how to code).

Fire Emblem Awakening

Unofficial Gay Awakening - As the name says it adds gay supports in Awakening. I can't really add anything here.

Project Thabes - This is an overhaul of Awakening, akin to a sort of remix. The idea is fixing up some issues with story, rebalancing, and remixing maps. Definitely an interesting project to check out if you want a fresh experience with the game.

Awakening HD - This is just mod to upscale textures. Really meant for people playing the game on citra, not hardware.

Twin Morgans - Y'know. If you want double the Morgan. :)

Reverse Recruitment Order - Excluding Chrom, Robin, and Lucina, all units are obtained in reverse order. Something fun to mix up your game.

Fates Stances - If you came to really love the stance system in Fates, good news! This mod implements the stance system into Awakening. Yeah, it's less broken, but way more fun.

Gender-Lock Removal - You want male pegasus knights and female barbarians? Here they are. Need I say more?

Fire Emblem Fates

Unofficial Gay Fates - It's as the name says: a mod to add gay supports to Fates. Though it's not just gay, it also generally adds additional supports between characters.

Ignis - This is a Fates randomizer that allows you to customize your own experience. This can randomize recruitment order, chest/village items, skills, classes, stats, and so on. I've been using this for years, so I can vouch for its fun and stability.

Fates HD - Just a mod to upscale textures. Meant for people playing the game on citra, not hardware.

Before Fates - This mod is currently a work in progress, but it's meant to expand the backstory in Fates. While it's incomplete, it's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Fates Retranslation+ - If you kinda hate the translation of Fates, good news! This mod retranslates the entire game to better match the original Japanese version. It also adds some minor patches, but the idea of this mod is to fix the English translation.

Princess Personals - Legendary weapons for the princesses. Because they earned it. :)

Non-Binary Corrin - For all my non-binary pals out there, someone made a mod to make all references to Corrin gender-neutral. (Note: the mod creator is remaking the mod due to some issues.)

Playable Lilith - Do you love Lilith? Sad that she's stuck being killed off in routes and is otherwise unplayable? Well, this mod adds her as a playable character. Do it for her.

Face-Lift - This mod does some edits to characters to update things like skin tones and eye colors to look more natural/better match parents (like giving Benny darker skin rather than grey skin). It has a regular version for hardware and HD version for citra users who like having the HD mod.

Fire Emblem Echoes

Route Swap - Just a funky little mod that swaps the two parties. So now Celica and crew are on Alm's journey and vice versa.

Installing Mods

3DS

Assuming your 3DS is hacked, you should be using luma to mod games. Once you have your mod files, installing them is extremely easy. Load up your SD card and go into luma > titles and create a folder with the corresponding title id to your game.

Once you have a folder for your game, drop the mod files within (remember to unzip them, and they should be a romfs folder). If done correctly, it should look something like this.

There's one final step before you run your modded game, though! Reinsert your SD card in your 3DS and then hold SELECT while powering the console on. The luma config menu should come up. Select "Enable game patching" then press START to save.

You only ever have to do this luma step once. So once you've enable game patching, you can freely switch out mods on your 3DS and they'll run automatically. If you want to disable mods, either delete them from your SD card or disable game patching.

Citra

Just like with hardware, modding games on citra is extremely easy. All you have to do is open citra, right click the game you want to mod, and click "Open Mods Location" from the menu like below.

This will create/open a mod folder for the title you selected. Just like on the 3DS, all you have to do is insert your mod folder here. It should be inside a romfs folder like below.

If you did everything correctly, then your mods should take effect when you next run your game on citra.

[heinousactszx]

i finished echoes of wisdom a week or so ago, and i wanted to let my thoughts on it settle a little before i wrote my final thoughts.

overall, really good! i'm so happy they made a top down zelda in 2024 at all, let alone one of this quality.

the gameplay does take a bit of adjusting, especially for a series veteran. the ability to jump at all times, along with the echoes providing you extra height, adds a level of verticality to the game that the series has really never had before. in link to the past, the only way to scale a wall was to trek around and find a path that would lead you up there. in echoes of wisdom it's as simple as building your own path. in a lot of ways it feels more like a 3d platformer than a traditional zelda game. the way you move through it contrasts greatly with previous 2d zeldas. if you saw something on a cliff in say link to the past, you knew you needed to find path to get up there, whether through a cave or a warp. echoes of wisdom will just let you straight up build to it immediately, and as long as you have enough tri pieces, it won't stop you

this dovetails into the biggest fear i had for the game: using the echoes for puzzle solving, although in this case, perhaps problem solving is the better term. it is true that you can rely on the same echoes for much of the game. the bed is one of the first you get and it will frankly carry you in almost every scenario. however, despite my fears, i had a lot of fun with the puzzles. i definitely solved a few in ways that were not "normal", but the flexibility of the game allowed me to do it how i wanted, so long as i had the imagination for it. i wish they had done a few puzzles were you were forced to just use bind though. there's nothing wrong with a puzzle with only one solution

they did have some of the classic 2d zelda stuff. i prefer the exploration in topdown than 3d just because it's way easier to travel around and keep it all straight in your mind. unfortunately, because the echoes are basically your items, there wasn't as much to find as a typical topdown game. plenty of heart pieces and crystals to upgrade the sword, and smoothie ingredients, but not much else. there are the accessories zelda can wear that give her different stats, but i prefer something i can use, not just passively wear

combat was unfortunately a bit of a drag too. i know some people have fun with the summoning, and the automatons allow you a little extra agency, but if you don't have energy for the swordfighter form it can take a while. i really wish the spin did even a little damage, just to give zelda something to attack with in an emergency. especially because i think the swordfighting in this game is really good, almost up there with link between worlds as the best. i think they did realize it was an issue, because there's definitely less fighting overall in this game. i just wish they had made more puzzle bosses like smog, the game is perfect for them!

finally zelda herself. at long last she got the starring role in this game. i'm happy she's playable, i really am, and i like that the story frames her as being active in bringing people together. i think the echo summoning is a fun playstyle and does distinguish her from link. but it can't be ignored that the first time she's directly playable in a main game is the one where you can't fight directly. and made worse by that final boss where link does most of the work. it's a problematic aspect of the game that can't be simply explained away. the easiest way to ease the blow is of course to make zelda playable again in a future game, and i really hope that will be the case, but there's no guarantee nintendo will

overall though, it's an excellent game, both by itself and as part of the series. I don't have a real ranking of my favorite zeldas (though maybe when i'm done with them all), but this would definitely be high up there on the list. strongly recommend it

up next, although in theory i should return to oracle of ages, i'm actually taking a detour into the spinoff world with cadence of hyrule!

[strawberryblondebutch]

Let's talk contract incentives

Or, how the Pittsburgh Pirates burned bridges over $200k

This is Ryan John "Rowdy" Tellez. Up until yesterday, he was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball. Two days ago, the team designated him for assignment. When no other team wanted to pick him up, he was released from his contract.

The decision baffled fans, analysts, and other front office staff. Tellez was by no means a star -- his 91 OPS+ was slightly below average (OPS+ is normalized to 100), but his advanced analytics showed he was still playable. More importantly, there were only six games left in the regular season, and the Pirates had already been eliminated from playoff contention. They had nothing to play for, and Tellez would have been a free agent at the end of the year anyway.

Then Ethan Hullihen found something interesting.

Tellez, prior to his release, had 421 plate appearances on the season for the Pirates. At 425, he would receive a bonus -- if he came to the plate four more times in those remaining six games, he gets $200k. Rather than shell out for him, the Pirates simply said goodbye and good luck. Well...

So... what exactly are contract incentives?

For starters, they're about the one thing players and teams can agree on. Teams like them because, unlike your base salary, incentives don't count against the salary cap or luxury tax. It's a way of stashing money under the table -- sure, officially you might be making $3 million, and as far as the league is concerned, that's what you're making. But if you hit the marks we both expect you to, here's a little something on the top. Players like them because it's a way to bet on yourself. Extra money for being good at your job! Who doesn't want that!

Common incentives are:

Awards. Most Valuable Player. Cy Young Award. Defensive Player of the Year. Most Improved. Rookie of the Year. These awards don't come with any money of their own... not from the league. But if you win one, your team will give you a little walkin' around money for it. Some contracts also offer a smaller bonus if you finish in second or third place for these awards.

"Counting" stats. MLB has mostly phased these out, but other sports still have them. Unlike "rate" stats like points per game, these are exactly what they sound like. NFL players trigger incentives on numbers of touchdowns or receiving yards. An NHL player who hits a certain goal threshold will get a payout. Occasionally you see rate stats get incentives, but this requires more math and is less fun for the player involved.

Just showing up. Did you spend X number of minutes on the ice or on the court? Did you come up to the plate X number of times or pitch X number of innings? Hell yeah, brother. These incentives are often (but not always) reserved for bench players and players that are often injured. In the former case, hitting those appearance milestones means you played your way into regular time and are rewarded for that. In the latter, it's the team's way of saying, "Look. You're great when you're healthy. Prove you can be healthy."

This last point is important in Tellez's case, because he was signed as the Pirates' starting first baseman. If you play a 162-game season and receive a minimum of three plate appearances per game, that's 486 PAs right there. Now, that's an oversimplification of how many PAs Tellez could expect to have: he might miss games, he might come to the plate more than three times in a game. But a 425-PA incentive for a guy you expect to start? That's low. When the Phillies signed Aaron Nola to a seven-year extension last November, they explicitly did not include any incentives for innings pitched. Why? Because Nola is expected to pitch 200 innings a year. That's automatic money. All his bonuses are for awards.

Now, as I said earlier, Tellez isn't exactly a star. He probably won't make any of those awards. (Notably, "DS MVP" is an award that doesn't actually exist, but it's a standard player incentive in case MLB decides to start offering that as an award). But he probably expected to have 475 plate appearances. That's an extra $400k.

Instead, the Pirates decided to save themselves $200k. Which, in baseball terms? That's pocket change. Minimum salary is $700k a season. Bob Nutting, the owner of the Pirates and the guy who would be signing that bonus check, is worth $1.1 billion.

This is a different case than when the Chicago Cubs released Hector Neris earlier in the year, for a few reasons.

The Cubs released Neris on August 20, when they were still competing for a Wild Card spot... and with enough time for another team (in this case the Houston Astros) to sign him.

While Tellez was only a below-average player, Neris was effectively unplayable at the time of his release. For a reliever, you want a WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) below 1 -- in layman's terms, "less than one baserunner per outing." Neris was sitting at a 1.5 WHIP, and the eye test said that he was untrustworthy in high leverage situations.

Unlike Tellez, who would be a free agent anyway, once Neris reached his innings threshold, he got a vesting option: another year on his contract and another $9 million. That's significantly more money and a lost roster spot for a guy you can't trust in the clutch.

Now, I'm not blinded by loyalty to a team I like. How the Cubs went about the release was wrong. They did it quietly and appeared to blindside Neris with the decision. But from a business perspective, you have one team deciding to cut their losses on an employee they no longer trust. The other team is emptying out the tip jar just before closing.

So, why does this story matter? Because people are seeing it. Players are seeing it, and you bet their agents are. The Pirates need a new first baseman in 2025. Let's say, for the sake of it, Garrett Cooper is exploring his options and the Pirates come calling. Cooper's agent has a real incentive (see what I did there?) to say, "I can't be sure you won't be screwing my client out of $200k, so go ahead and add that to his base salary or we're taking our talents elsewhere." Players who have the decision between another team and the Pirates will take the team that doesn't have this newfound reputation for screwing over their role players.

Pittsburgh has not, in recent history, been an attractive free agency destination. They're a cheap team with no clear path to competing. They draft well, and then those players hit free agency and go to greener pastures. Now? Now they're screwed. All because Bob Nutting didn't want to cut off some scraps.

[skunts-own-truth]

Got myself a copy of the 1st Ed 40k Rulebook! Spent an evening going through the thing, and you know, it's goofy as hell but it really is a cool book. I really appreciate how much work they put into this thing, not only selling the concept of 40k as a setting for the very first time, but making the entire game standalone and very playable. Seriously, there are few things in the 1st ed core book that doesn't have some kind of stats.

For instance, it mentions Custodes and within a few pages it has Custodes stated out. Most of everything has at least one block of stats and some kind of rules to field them, maybe not as a competitive army as we understand today, but as something playable for the sake of narrative. You can explore so much in one book, and honestly I wish modern 40k books gave that much love to their universe.

I think it would be amazing if modern GW published a core rulebook that could be played without anything else for 40k. Human stats, aeldari stats, Necron stats, chaos, kroot, random xenos and warp entities, charts to make your own, and standard weapons profiles for everything. So you have a game, a solid game that is playable by itself with a skew towards narrative play and making one's own characters- then releasing Codices and supplements for army building, special military units and rules pertaining to what a specific xenos race looks like as a military force rather than just a random band of them.

I do think modern 40k is very fun, but man, reading through this it does make me beg for a time where fun was the focus. I hate shit like meta play, tournaments, and balancing. It just isn't my jam. The way 1st ed is set up? I want a modern take on that. Even include the concept of having a GM for a campaign of it! I loooove that shit, I love the idea of having a GM for a 1v1 tabletop war game. Oh yeah, your list rocks, but did you expect the GM to have a renegade titan wander onto the map? My goodness.

I really dig it. When Dorothy and I move in two months, I'll try and trick some of my pals into playing 1st ed. I'll let you folks know how it goes! Who knows, maybe it'll be my favorite edition of 40k yet. I've played most of them at this point. Got in at the start of 5th, went back and played 3 and 4, and have been playing every edition up till now as they come out. Haven't touched 1 and 2, but I am very excited to do so!

[wingboundwarrior]

TOA Anniversary Munday

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don’t reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here’s to many more years spent together.

Name: Serena

Pronouns: she/hers

Birthday (no year): February 3rd

Where are you from? What is your time zone? US, EST!

How long is your roleplay experience? I’ve been roleplaying as long as I can remember... I have vivid memories of creating characters with my friends as a small child and pretending to be them. From there, I moved to forums, paper and pencil RP, texting and email RP, and the like! I’ve been roleplaying on Tumblr specifically for over 10 years.

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? I think it really just came naturally to me and my few friends as a kid, haha! My first forum was a Harry Potter one as a child... and then I got into Tumblr RP with my introduction to Star Trek!

How were you introduced to TOA? I found TOA while in the “fe rp” tag, as they’re really frequent in there!

Do you have any pets? I have two cats, a 4 year old gray cat named Jasper, and a less than a year old black cat named Jacinth! They don’t get along 💖

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Winter by far! I grew up in a humid environment, and I find the colder weather and environment so magical! Even though I’ve moved, I still do 💖

What is your IRL occupation? I’m disabled!

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? I love crocheting, playing farming sims, and watching anime!

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Fields of Mistria is my favorite game rn!! I’m also a sucker for a game I’ve been playing since I was young called Mabinogi! But a good rule of thumb is, if it’s a farming sim available on the computer I’ve heard of it and have an opinion on it.

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: I never really got too much into Pokemon buuuuut my favorite TemTem is Vulffy 💖

Tell us some fun facts and trivia about yourself!

How did you get into Fire Emblem? I met Havoc in another roleplay space and when we moved away from that space I wrote with his Fire Emblem characters, and then I was curious about the source material, so!

What Fire Emblem games have you played? FE7 and a little tiny bit of Three Houses! 👍

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: FE7 for both JKLFAJKL

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Ohhhhh I mean. Definitely Serra and Fiora but also Florina? And Erk? And Heath? And... ohhhh tbh it’s so hard. They’re all so good.

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! The first time Serra opened her mouth she had reached through the screen and grabbed me by the throat.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? I’d marry Eliwood tbqh....

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? Wheezes.... I haven’t.... ever gotten that far :softsmile:.....

Favorite Fire Emblem class? I actually love Mages sooooo bad.... But I do rely on my Cavs for. Everything ,

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? I’d be a healer!!! Probably a mounted healer actually!!!

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Probably Church of Seiros!!

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Faith Banes: Everything else 😅 Budding Talent: Maybe Reason?.... ha ha.... Deep down I want it to be Bows, though

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) I really have no clue but I’ll say Lythos for fun 🙏

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) Separate letters!

Current TOA muses: Fiora and Serra!

Past TOA muses? I wrote Limstella for about seven seconds but actually still muse them in another server!

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Serra! Yes, I still got her!

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? YES I write Sunshine Girls or Melancholic Girls. Sometimes both at once. 🙏

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Honestly not really, I think I could figure out how to write other muses but these are the ones I enjoy most!

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I really love delving into emotionally or physically charged things... I’m a little angst demon.... I really want our characters to feel and feel deeply....

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? For Fiora, I hope to confront her feelings of failure and sorrow over her losses. I want her to be called out!!!! For the self-sacrificial shit she does!!!! I want her to be honest and emotionally vulnerable!!!

Favorite TOA-related memories? I feel like every thread I write is my new favorite thread 🫶

Present or past tense? Present tense recently, honestly!

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I actually like small text the most but I’ll do anything!!

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 Nope! I’m happy. 😌

[polaris-stuff]

OKAY so since your confused, a bit more of an in-depth of dandy's world gameplay explanation

you said you watched some videos on it but were still confused, but im GUESSING you at least saw the elevator that the player(s) came out of, yes? so, player(s) spawn in there (and fun fact! there are two possible locations for the elevator to open in per map. Neat) and then they have to travel around the map looking for the Machines. im also gonna guess you saw one (a machine) in the game play, but if you didnt, theyre very easy to see. theyre long, have a wheel on them, and a bright glowing red button on top.

so. as for the actual toons, each playable toon character has 5 stats, in which they have stars that tell you how good they are at each stat. the stars can range from 1-5. that sound confusing? dw, here's a pic

ofc there's their health (some toons have 2 hearts [normals], others have 3 [mains]), but after that, those stats are "Skill Check" (while on the machines, you get skill checks. if you miss them, the twisteds are alerted to your location. the higher your skill check star amount is, the easier they are), movement speed (explanation not needed), stamina (explanation also not needed), stealth (the higher it is the harder it is for the twisteds to spot you. with the highest stealth, you could be just a few feet away from em and they cant see you), and extraction speed (the higher it is, the faster the toon is at fixing machines)

normal toons have 15 stars to spend, and the "main character" toons have 16. heres the normal toons, and the mains .D.

so yes. assemble a team of toons, go onto the floors, fix the machines, dont die, read the lore hidden across the walls and tiny notes in each map, and go as far as you can!!!!

and also this isnt gameplay explanation this is just me gushing but. my favorite toon? astro <3

you couldnt possibly guess why <3<3<3

OOH OKAY AJSJA THATS BETTER, I did saw someone doing the skill check, I did understood that part, it doesn't look too complicated! Sounds fun! (ﾟ⁠οﾟ⁠人⁠)⁠)✨✨ THAT'S THE CHARACTER I LIKE!! I looks like Moon!

So basically it's a survival game? But in Roblox. I'll have to take a look myself someday (⁠ㆁ⁠ω⁠ㆁ⁠) TYSM PEACHYYY

[amitieos]

toa anniversary munday!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Nic

Pronouns: they/them

Birthday (no year): 14th July

Where are you from? What is your time zone? UK, GMT (or BST but don't get me started on daylight savings I'll explode)

How long is your roleplay experience? Does playing A Bug's Life on the playground when I was 5 count? If not, I started with rping HP characters with my friends when I was like 11-12 over MSN after school and whilst there have been breaks it's something I've always found myself coming back to.

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? As above, I made a couple of friends on (unrelated) forums and we all just thought it'd be fun.

How were you introduced to TOA? I thought I missed rp and looked for an FE based rp.

Do you have any pets? Yes, all hail Catcat the Great.

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Summer. I hate the heat and humiditiy but once there's no daylight the seasonal affective disorder bass boosts my chronic mental health issues and it's just a bad time really.

What is your IRL occupation? I've gone back to uni to study Law :)

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? I love reading, I'm fascinated by linguistics and astrophysics, enjoy DnD and playing video games in my spare time. I'm a particular sucker for the Sims franchise.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Recently I've been playing BG3, Stardew Valley, The Sims & Fields of Mistria but I'm a big fan of the Persona series and really, really excited about Dragon Age The Veilguard

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: I don't really play Pokemon much anymore but I'll just say Sylveon I guess

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! I met the fourth Doctor when I was 11 and he complemented my vocabulary lmao. I once got published in a poetry anthology with a poem about Shadow the Hedgehog and my parents we so proud of me.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? I think I saw a review on TV

What Fire Emblem games have you played? I've attempted to play every game except 1/2/3/5/11, although I've really wanted to play Thracia I just *need* some QoL updates and controls. I haven't finished every single one because of lost/deleted saves and stuff but I've watched playthroughs and read up on scripts on everything I haven't actually played myself.

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: My first was Fates but Jugdral, Magvel and 3 Houses are my favourite

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Elincia, Mercedes, Franz, Myrrh and ughhhh I can't choose between Chole/Yunaka/Sylvain so I'm cheating

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! I saw Ryoma in all that red armour and it grabbed my attention.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 Miss Mercedes if you're free Thursday night

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: Chrom, originally be accident but now on purpose :D - Fates: My first was Takumi and I didn't know what an S support was and was very confused. Nowadays usually Kaze or Laslow if playing F!Corrin and Orochi, Nyx or Charlotte if playing M!Corrin. Niles for either. - Three Houses: Mercedes. She's still my go to ofc but I'm also fond of Dorothea, Dimitri and Sylvain. If I'm playing M!Byleth Yuri or Ingrid - Engage: Yunaka was my first and now it's either Yunaka, Diamant or Chloe. Or Mauvier maybe hahfsdgfsd

Favorite Fire Emblem class? I love Pegasus Knights!!!!!!!

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? Probably a reluctant recruit who accidentally gets involved. Weirdly magic based armoured character.

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Either unaffiliated civilian or Blue Lions probably

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Lance, Reason, Heavy Armour Banes: Bow, Faith Budding Talent: idk Axes or Flying?

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) No idea! Probably Elusia or Firene. The Solm heat would literally kill me.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) TOA ;) (like Noah)

Current TOA muses: Elincia & Mercedes

Past TOA muses? A lot but most memorable to me are Sylvain and Julia, though I'm so excited to see Sylvain in good hands <3

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Elincia and I still have her.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? White magic girlies though I'm trying to change things up.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Hm, I wish I felt I could write more of the male characters I enjoy effectively. In most other fandoms I've written in most of my muses have been men but it's just not so in FE. I'd also love to write a villain okay I once genuinely considered Hilda FE4 lmao

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I like writing dialogue and characters bonding but I'm starting to like more action oriented scenes too.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? For Mercedes in particular I get excited to write her steel and strength, especially when it's combined with her gentleness rather than opposed to it.

Favorite TOA-related memories? Every thread I've writen with Elincia and Rua's Byleth <3

Present or past tense? I tend to default to present in TOA but usually past tense. I'm flexible though and will try and match my partner.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I actually find small text easier to focus in on and read (I can find normal a bit too cluttered and it can send my eyes wandering lmao) but I'm perfectly happy to use normal text, it just takes me a bit longer to comb through.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 I can't see a shake up happening soon but... Zephia or Chloe are probably forerunners. I've thought about Palla and Astrid too but I'm not sure if I can see the longevity. Also Neimi, Myrrh and Rodrigue have sparked.... ideas. For muses I've written before, Julia is the most likely but I think she's having a nice break right now :)