#gurps after the end

[herecomesthementalmeltdown]

GURPS is a mechanically great game but I'm so tired of reading some truly awesome mechanics followed by a bucket of ableism

[vintagerpg]

OK, big title on this one: Numenera Technology Compendium: Sir Arthour’s Guide to the Numenera (2014). The subtitle in particular might be difficult to parse if, like me, you came to Numenera thinking that was the name of the world. It isn’t! That’s the Ninth World. Numenera is a catch-all term for all the thingamabobs characters use as equipment — oddities, artifacts and cyphers. They’re the equivalent of D&D’s magic items. I think it is a bold move to name a whole RPG after the magic tech, actually. And, in typical Monte Cook fashion, this book introduce a THOUSAND new ones in addition to the stuff already contained in the core book.

That sounds bigger than it really is. Cyphers are pieces of single use scavenged tech that are defined by keywords. Artifacts are basically the same, but have multiple uses. Oddities are the best — weird bits that have no real purpose other than flavor. They come in a bunch of tables at the very end. I love all of this. It’s like an unholy combination of a GURPS power book and a collection of Mothership-style “what’s in your pocket” tables. I really, really love the way this works to balance special powers in the larger game (no single cypher can ever unbalance play, as it is only a single use) while allowing players to hone in on the sort of the powers they want to specialize in, thus defining their character through their use of tech (which is a bit like the way Gamma World’s progression is really rooted in scavenging better equipment).

I was expecting something like Shadowrun’s Street Samurai Catalog, but instead, I got a tech/equipment system that takes a game with a ton of difficult-to-manage variety like Shadowrun (think a party with a mage, a decker and a street samurai, all managing different game systems) and streamlines the mechanics. The variety is still there, but the crunch is minimized. It’s pretty brilliant!

[wilwheaton]

You seem like a pretty good dude, Wil. Thanks for taking time to chat with your fans, and thanks for standing up for what is right. I love following you on social media. You've talked about D&D before, and I've been kind of curious about trying it out. I would be nervous though as I have no idea what to do. Any tips for 40-year-old beginners???

Thank you for your kind comments.

D&D! I love it. I love all RPG games (even the ones I don't like to play. I'm just glad they exist).

I've been playing since the early 80s, and I can confidently direct you to the 5e Starter Set. It is the best introduction to the hobby, to the system, to the experience of collaborative storytelling that makes RPGs so much fun and so special. It's a small investment, and a really easy way to find out if D&D is for you.

If you want to make an even smaller investment, this page has TONS of information and resources. You could start here and spend hours without noticing the time pass. Or, at least, I can. YMMV.

I want to share a few warnings with you.

Everyone has their definition of the "right" way to play D&D. You will find yours as you play. Don't let someone else's definition of "right" limit what yours may eventually be. We've worked real hard to kick out the gatekeepers, but they just keep spawning.

The D&D rules system is not the only RPG, or even the only popular one. Pathfinder is beloved by millions of people. FATE Core and GURPS have enormous player bases. Monte Cook's Cypher System is filled with gorgeous lore and character inspirations (but I've never played it, full disclosure). I chose the AGE system for our series Titansgrave, and used a lot of what I learned from running D&D for decades to customize the experience for me and the players. What I'm saying is, RPGs do not begin and end with D&D. It's as good a place as any to start, but it is only one of many systems.

You are going to hear hardcores make impassioned arguments that continue long after you have lost interest about all sort of rules and setting and system crap. Trust me: tune them out. Eventually, you'll know what you care to listen to.

All those non-D&D systems support and encourage playing in different settings, from Science Fiction to Horror to modern warfare combat. The thing that I believe makes D&D VERY special is its singular focus on high fantasy and everything that means in our culture. All those other systems do fantasy very well, but D&D is kind of the canonical "storm the dungeon, kill the monsters, take their stuff" experience.

That's a lot more information than I intended to deliver. I just get excited about this stuff because I love it so much. Whatever you choose, I hope you have fun!

And when it counts, may you roll high.

[monstersdownthepath]

I know this blog is about pathfinder specifically, but what are your favorite beasties/creatures from other, less “dnd-adjacent” RPG settings/systems like GURPS, World of Darkness, Warhammer Fantasy/40k, etc…?

-------

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone who's followed this blog for a while that my favorite clan in Vampire: The Masquerade is the Tzimisce, though ironically I went with a different clan in the only VTM game I'm actually in because it would have been too predictable for the storyteller otherwise.

I'm afraid I've never played GURPS or read any of its books!

And in Warhammer Fantasy, the Skaven and the Ogres are my favorites. In 40k, it should also come as no surprise that the Tyranids would be my top favorite, while many of the forces of Chaos come in second, and the Necrons in third.

A few years ago, I was accidentally introduced to the incredibly strange d20 game Umerica, which has quite a few beasties and settings which have enamored me, but the two I like the most are the demigod Bobby O'Burger and Killer Krush; O'Burger is a cannibalistic clown demon who offers a tense sort of safety to his beloved communities at the cost of everyone outside those communities being considered nothing but ingredients. His chosen enforcer wields a modified jet engine as a weapon, and it's one of the deadliest weapons in the game, because a confirmed hit is instant death and a glancing blow still tears off one of the target's limbs. Killer Krush is the "leader" of the Vendibeasts, vending machines that have been infested by some eldritch force to transform into carnivorous ambush predators which nevertheless continue to generate delicious and usually harmless sodas.

There's a lot of creatures I like in the Book of Unremitting Horror, many of which I've started converting, but my favorite is probably the Practice/the Black Practice, a group of inhuman doctors which appear in the rooms of unfortunate victims to perform horrific experiments upon them which invariably end with their death and harvesting. They inspired me to create an analogue for Golarion, though that project has been sitting on the backburner for about 2 years now.

The number of critters in Malifaux that I adore could make up a post all their own, but my favorites are likely my first loves, which aren't so much creatures as characters: McMourning and Leviticus, followed shortly by Hamelin the Plagued and Jakob Lynch. Newcomer Kastore is certainly high up on the list nowadays, though, though I haven't actually played the game in close to 8 years by this point.

And speaking of games I haven't played, if the entry fee to play Kingdom Death: Monster didn't require selling my own organs, you can bet I'd have a LOT to say about its morbid (and often NSFW) creature design, bizarre and fascinating lore, and perhaps its deeper mechanics. As it is, I'm an outsider looking in, and I can only glance at what details and models leak online. My favorites are the ominous Watcher, which allows humans to build entire civilizations around its luminous nests, granting them a measure of safety from the infinitely worse beings in the world but eventually killing off the whole thing after roughly a century; the cursed Kingsmen, armored figures who are powerful combatants, but defeating them eventually turns their killer into their own replacement; and the titanic King, a being which has basically no solid lore available online but whose scant mentions in other monsters I HAVE found paints the picture of an unstoppable, nigh-invulnerable nightmare whose hunger and power eclipses that of every other worldly monster. Images of his model DO exist online (NSFW warning on them, though!), revealing him to be an amalgamation of countless human bodies woven through a towering set of regal armor that, aside from the tangles of limbs supporting it, appears to be completely empty... which raises a lot of questions for me!

[laundrybiscuits]

(continuing the MLP GURPS snippet)

“You what,” says Erica flatly.

“I said…Jester the Pegasus slits the chief Seapony’s throat. You said he was letting me pin the bronze seashell to his mane, right? So I shouldn’t have to roll for it, I can just use the edge of the seashell ‘cause his neck’s right there.” Dustin leans back with a shit-eating grin.

Eddie has to cover his own smile, because he recognizes the panicked look that Erica’s trying to hide. She’s the same kind of DM as Eddie is: she’s got a massive binder and detailed scripts for every possible way the story could go, because she likes to be prepared for anything. She just hasn’t learned yet that players are always, always going to try something you never saw coming because you assumed they were reasonable human beings and not chaos gremlins from a nightmare dimension.

She rallies like a champ. “Uh, sure, I guess. The hundreds of Seaponies around you go wild, because that was a super dumb thing to do. They’re gonna tear you apart if you don’t do something right now.”

Lucas leans in, eyes all lit up. “Okay, but, did the blood get onto the altar? I mean, the Moonlight Circle?”

Erica’s starting to grin too, lacing her fingers together as she catches on to what they’re after. “It sure did. Um, so…Jester the Pegasus Pony is standing over the fallen chief with a bloody shell in his teeth. The crowd of Seaponies is screaming at you, but the blood is already dripping onto the Moonlight Circle. It’s turning black as it reaches the salt water, and you can hear something real big coming up from the deep sea, wa-a-ay far down below.”

She’s pivoting with barely a stumble, going off-book to follow the story, and Eddie can’t keep from doing a thrilled little wriggle in his seat. A familiar laugh sounds from behind him, and he startles, flushing.

“Having fun?” Steve asks, resting his folded arms on the back of Eddie’s chair. Eddie has to tip his head all the way back to look at Steve.

“Hell yeah,” he says. “The Lady Sinclair is a demon incarnate.”

Erica beams. “Maybe you could keep up if you weren’t such a senior citizen. Need to get your walker from the nursing home, grandpa?”

“Youth of today have no respect.” Eddie wags a finger at her. “Keep that up and Steve’s going to swoop into the game like an avenging undead Seapony.”

“Steve is not involved in any of this,” says Steve. “Steve is a very generous and patient guy who lets unholy terrors take over his kitchen table and eat all his food.”

Eddie stretches up to pat his cheek. He misses slightly and ends up basically smacking Steve in the face. “Thank you, Steve,” he coos. “Say thank you, unholy terrors.”

“Thank you, Steve,” chorus Will and Lucas, who are precious angels too good for this world. Dustin and Mike pull grotesque faces that may or may not be based on faces Eddie has pulled in the past; Erica just sniffs in an unimpressed way. Eddie is going to keep these kids forever.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt…whatever this is.” Steve waves a hand at the piles of paper and dice and empty ice cream bowls. “I’m just gonna heat up some pizzas for dinner. Everyone okay with four-cheese and supreme?”

“Sounds great,” says Eddie. “We’re about ready to wrap up this session, I think.”

“What, no we’re not,” says Mike. “We’re about to kick the Seapony god’s ass.”

Erica wrinkles her nose. “As much as it might pain me to admit it…the senior citizen’s right. Fighting the Seapony god would be way too complicated a battle for your puny minds to handle right now. You dweebs don’t even know the insane twists I have planned.”

“Plus,” says Steve, “You dorks have been playing since before I got home like three hours ago. Give Erica a break, huh? You can pick this up another day.”

“I don’t need a break, you need a break, old man,” Erica says immediately, but she’s already starting to pack up her notes.

———

With the game mostly packed away, Eddie gets up to stretch; maybe he really is getting old, because he’s suddenly feeling the effects of sitting in a dining room chair for five hours all through his back. He’s gonna just keep blaming the bat venom for any aches and pains, though.

The boys are already busy trying to strategize for the battle ahead, even though Eddie would bet good money that Erica’s listening in and adjusting her own plans based on theirs. He thinks about saying something, but Erica’s earned this, and the little shitheads will never learn to keep their mouths shut if they don’t get burned once in a while. Instead, he wanders into the kitchen to help Steve out with the pizzas.

Steve’s staring thoughtfully into the freezer. “Think four’s enough?”

“Better make it five,” says Eddie. “Six if you got ‘em. I think Will grew another eight inches since yesterday.”

Steve groans. “Okay, but one of them’s going to be mushroom. Maybe if I do that one in the first batch, they’ll be hungry enough not to complain.”

“What are you talking about, Steve, mushrooms are the crowning glory of the forest. They are the simple food of the common man, yet rich and complex enough to adorn the plate of a king.” Eddie hops up to perch on the kitchen counter, narrowly avoiding smacking his head on the cabinets.

“Of course you like mushrooms, freak,” grumbles Steve. He freezes, looking pained. “I didn’t mean—”

Eddie scoots along the counter to kick him lightly. “Yeah, I know, Steve, don’t spin out. Just put the mushroom one in the oven for me and we’ll call it square.”

Steve smiles up at Eddie as he goes to do just that, dropping his hand to Eddie’s knee for a moment.

“I’m—gonna go make sure the kids aren’t murdering each other yet,” says Eddie.

[prokopetz]

Any RPG system recommendations for people who like the character creation of GURPS but want something a little less clunky to actually play? Genre wise something that can do space opera or high fantasy would be of interest.

It depends on what you like about the character creation of GURPS. Anything that has as many mechanically relevant bits and bobs in its character creation process as GURPS does is necessarily going to be quite fiddly to play, especially if it's à la carte point-buy, so those priorities are pulling against each other a bit.

If it's the baroque, multi-layered complexity of GURPS-style chargen that you're after, and don't mind if the end result of that process has a bit less game-mechanical greeble, you might have a look at Sarah Newton's Mindjammer. The character creation process is tightly wedded to a particular transhuman space opera milieu – in brief, picture Iain M Banks' Culturre circa Consider Phlebas in a cold war with Warhammer 40000's Imperium of Man – but offers a great deal of flexibility within that remit, accommodating characters ranging from baseline humans to sapient starships.

If it's point-buy character creation specifically that you want, you're going to have to go further afield; GURPS' gameplay is pretty baseline for RPGs of the type, and most of the exceptions are oriented toward playing as superheroes and/or anime characters, which cuts against your genre preferences. Wild Talents may be worth a look; it's part of the aforementioned superhero-oriented strand, though it's easier to reskin for fantasy or space opera than most, as long as you don't mind playing relatively high-powered characters.

[sabrinahawthorne]

The Forever Game, pt 2: What Gets to Be a Forever Game?

referencing this post

Let's talk about what counts as a Forever Game, shall we? Considering it's a term I saw once on a post I can no longer find and proceeded to formalize with Proper Noun Caps, it certainly can't prove to be a reductive taxonomy, can it?

As I mentioned in part 1, I think of Forever Games as being a type of game on its own - something with a certain approach to character design & progression, which is built with some assumption of long-term play. After all, I don't usually suggest Mage: The Awakening as a one-shot game.

This conception clearly isn't universal - a number of respondents brought up the fact that just about any game can be the one a table comes back to as their baseline, so long as they like it enough. And that's absolutely true - For the end user, any game can serve any purpose. Unfortunately, and with respect to the people who brought it up, this observation just isn't very useful for our purposes.

It's absolutely true that any game can be someone's forever game. But that's a feature of tabletop games as a medium - the fact is, at the end of the day all games take place inside our heads. This is why people use D&D 5th edition as a murder mystery game, or a tabletop-visual-novel; they understand that the fundamental mechanism of this art form is the limitless power of imagination, and are comfortable using the same rules framework every time to build whatever narrative they like, regardless of whether or not better-tailored alternatives exist.

If we want to get on the same page about Forever Games, we need to look at something concrete - like on-paper design of games themselves. That in mind, let me put forth some qualities that a Forever Game might have:

Almost certainly a trad game. While games like Wanderhome exist, the vast majority of titles I'd list as forever game candidates have a GM and probably use at least two denominations of dice.

A multi-faceted character framework. In other words, a race/class system is better suited for a Forever Game than simple Playbooks, generally speaking. This is for replayability's sake. Some folks play wizards all the time, every time - but if you've just spent five years as Slagnarr the Axinator, it might be nice to start over as a healer for the next go round.

A customizable progression track. The more a game allows you to make a capital-B-Build, the better. This is part & parcel with the above point, re: replayability, but it serves another purpose - embodying your character concept. Imagination is well and good, but there's something special about having a class feature that supports the way you want to play your character. It makes them feel more real.

At least one game mode that involves intricate mechanical interactions. The classic version of this is a grid combat system - but a crunchy exploration system or involved crafting mechanic are also good examples of this. The more rich and interesting a game's... well, game elements are, the better the game will hold up over time. Note that I don't say complex, but rich. There's a reason GURPS light is more popular than the full ruleset. Games tend to last longer when they give more of the table something to be doing at any given time, minimizing dead zones in play.

Little in the way of social mechanics. Hear me out on this - for a lot of tables, the ability to get together with friends, put on a mask, and goof off without fear of social repercussion is a huge draw. Having to do the same kinds of rules reference for politicking that you use for mosnter slaying doesn't facilitate the fantasy; it hinders freedom of play. You want the chance to fail your Will save because it creates interesting drama. The idea that you might be punished for shamelessly flirting with the King while his consort is Right There ruins the fun. A table's forever game is going to be something that lets them play casually. I don't think this is a controversial opinion; the idea of a "beer and pretzels" game is older than I am, and anyone who's been in a long-term game with friends knows how loosey-goosey things can get. I think that facilitating jokes has a solid correlation to facilitating coming back to the game.

This isn't really working towards anything. Really, I just wanted to take the opportunity of my own vagueness to elaborate a bit on what exactly I mean when I say "forever game," so if I decide to keep poking the hornet's nest, we can at least agree on whether I'm using a stick or a branch.

[litcityblues]

'Gardens of the Moon' --A Review

After finishing Rhythm of War last year, I decided that I wanted to take a Sanderbreak (Sandercation?) for a while and was looking around for a nice, meaty fantasy series to chomp into and decided that I would take the plunge and see what Malazan: Book of the Fallen was all about.

I know that might seem a little crazy to people: going from Sanderson to Erickson seems like going storm chasing for relaxation purposes, but I wanted to pace myself. I figured, one book a year, it'll be the series that takes me through my 40s and I'll wrap it up just in time to turn 50 and be done with it. Seemed like a good plan, so I grabbed Book One, Gardens of the Moon off Kindle and jumped right into it.

Instantly, I could see why people find this series so intimidating. It was hard to get into. The early parts of this book felt like I was reading someone's DND campaign, which, strangely enough, turned out to be kind of true. (Technically, it was a GURPS campaign.) But, I persevered and kept going and things started falling into place. Characters started being consistent-- I started to like them! Paran showed up! We met Tattersail! We were getting an idea of what was going on in this book with the Bridgeburners and their Sergeant, Whiskeyjack and then, just as I was finding a groove, the story switched to a totally different place and an all-new set of characters.

I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating I found that.

(All the Malazan fans reading this are now nodding their heads and saying things like 'Oooooh, buddy, just you wait- it gets better!')

After getting myself over that particular hump, then things really began to click. The characters started coming together. The mission becomes clear and by the time I got to the end of the book, I was staying up late just to finish it because I wanted to see what happens.

Gardens of the Moon opens in the 96th year of the Malazan Empire where 12-year-old Ganoes Paran watches as the Mouse Quarter of Malaz City is sacked. He wants to be a soldier when he grows up, though the veteran sergeant Whiskeyjack, watching on the ramparts with him, disapproves of that.

Flash forward seven years later and the Emperor has been overthrown and replaced by the chief of the assassins, the new Empress Laseen, whose rule is backed up by the Claw, the imperial assassins. They're several years into a series of wars launched by Malazan to conquer the continent of Genabackis.

The High Fist Dujek and the Malazan 2nd Army have been besieging the city of Pale, one of the two Free Cities left on the continent for several years. Pale is holding out thanks to an alliance with the powerful Anomander Rake, leader of the non-human Tiste Andii. Pale does a fierce battle and Rake takes his floating fortress, the Moon's Spawn, and withdraws south. The Empire did take severe losses, however, and some characters suspect that the Empire may be engineering the elimination of those who loyal to the former Emperor.

The last free city remaining is Darujhistan and that's where the characters start to converge. The surviving Bridgeburners and Whiskeyjack are to infiltrate the city and work with the assassin's guild to take down the leadership to make conquest easier for Malazan. Paran and Tattersail are heading toward the city because now gods and other magical forces appear to be converging on the city as well.

Everything comes to a head in Darujhistan. Rake allies with the real rulers of the City, a secret cabal of mages. The Empire and Adjunct Lorn release an ancient being, a Jaghut Tyrant in hopes of damaging Rake or injuring him enough to force him to withdraw. The Tyrant is defeated and Rake takes down a demon lord released inside the city.

The book ends with Dujek and Whiskeyjack leading the 2nd Army into rebellion against the Empress, the Seven Cities following in their wake. They want allies- not to fight the Empress, but to fight the Pannion Seer, a new empire advancing from the southeast and more dangerous than anything they can possibly imagine.

Overall: I love how everyone secrets in this book. I love how every single character is a shade of grey. Erickson leans far, far away from any fantasy notions of clear-cut heroes and villains here and it's so refreshing to read.

I also love how he deals with trauma. Every character is broken and traumatized in their own way. They're living on a continent that's been consumed by war and death for at least seven years now. But and I'm not sure exactly how to word this- the trauma they've suffered is not the end all be all of the character, which stands in stark contrast to what you see in The Stormlight Archives and Wheel of Time.

(And yes, I know Rhythm of War takes excellent, awesome strides to acknowledge this problem with Kaladin and force him to examine his trauma, which is unusual for fantasy and so awesome to see- but it also puts him through yet another wringer. Again. Part of Rand's character arc in Wheel of Time does lead to 'Veins of Gold', but there's also an awful lot of trauma that defines the character before you get there-- so I acknowledge that it's not quite that clear cut, but Malazan handles trauma way differently.)

The writing in this is excellent and a lot of the moments that caught me by surprise in retrospect weren't exactly hidden- they were just subtle enough that if you blinked you might miss them. (For instance, the character of Sorry/Apsalar is possessed by a God- The Rope at the start of the book and freed by the end, but it took me a bit to put two and two together with that. Same way with the big reveal at the end of the book-- the big reveals are all right there if you know where to look, but they're just sprinkled in so gently that it's easy to miss them, which makes the subsequent reveal that much more impactful.

The magic system took some getting used to, but I also loved the approach there as well. It's just magic. People do it. You figure out the complexities and the rules of the system throughout the story.

Conclusion: You son of a bitch, I'm in! But, I'm going to pace myself with these books, right? One book a year, that was the plan. Nice and easy. Slow and steady wins the race. I don't want to burn on this series after all, but...

I've already snagged Deadhouse Gates off Kindle. My Grade: **** out of ****

[fantasyfantasygames]

Medieval Strategy Roleplaying

Medieval Strategy Roleplaying, Jeeves Stackson Games, 1987

In the 80s there was a big push toward more and more "realistic" RPGs, with rules that modeled real-world physics. Occasionally they'd even push into more realistic other things, but honestly a lot of early the game designers were engineers or historical recreationists and there wasn't a lot of consideration for logistics, social structures, or icky girl stuff like emotions.

Medieval Strategy Roleplaying (MSR) is the Phoenix Command of fantasy games. It's like someone took the chargen from Hero and some extra random rolls from Traveller, brought in the calculator-required core mechanics from Enforcers and the excess side-rolls of Rolemaster, adapted some optional rules from GURPS and Space Opera, and stacked in an early version of Burning Wheel's BITS system, all with the opaque writing of AD&D 1e's psionics.

Characters are defined by the six standard attributes, plus Willpower and Perception. You get non-weapon proficiencies and "perks" based on those and some random background rolls. You will end up with a unique, highly detailed character that you can play for all nine character levels that are provided in great detail for the 16 classes (all non-magical). However, you will never get to do anything with them, because it would take you 8-12 hours just for chargen. And honestly, that's ok, because then you'd have to deal with the combat rules.

Combat is, of course, a multi-step process. Initiative is recalculated every round based on weapon speed, current mental state, injury level (yay death spirals!), and your character's strength/mass ratio. Rolls are mostly 1d20 roll-under, with modifiers possible for both the roll and the target number. There are separate critical hit tables for puncture, slash, bludgeon, unarmed, and polearm, all broken down by hit location. Of course you roll hit location, what kind of game do you think this is? You've got the possibility of dodging, parrying, or blocking (shield), potentially more than one though you take a penalty for multiple defensive actions that's separate from but compounds with a penalty for multi-attacks.

If you'd like to create a custom weapon, you can do that! All you need is the density of the materials, formulas for moment of inertia and the parallel axis theorem, and hey wait where are you going? I didn't even get into the 15 pages of grappling rules!

There are virtually no non-combat rules. Those that exist are mostly around military matters - logistics, scouting, and sapping. Get ready to calculate the cube root of the amount of explosives you brought in, or the square root in certain cases depending on the geometry of your surroundings. Your character has emotional attributes like who they care about protecting and who they'd defend rated on a 1-7 scale, and they affect nothing but combat.

What's the setting? Medieval Europe. Ready go. No other details are given. This is slightly more forgivable these days, when Wikipedia exists, than it was in 1987 when you'd have to borrow history books from the library.

As you might guess, there is no Jeeves Stackson. MSR's author remains anonymous. The game has been out of publication since just after its first print run. You can find a few unsold copies sitting in ancient game stores and some practically unused copies in the "used books" part of Goodwill.

[lawfulgoodness]

Experimental campaign idea

I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain my next campaign setting/idea in a brief, sensible way.  It’s really silly, but also really ambitious, and we’re about to have the second session, which means I really need to get a firmer grasp on all the moving parts.  To that end, here are the 3 main things I’m doing with it:

Self-insert PCs - All Player Characters are self-insert, so everybody’s just literally themselves.

Reality is a simulation - The players are “pulled out” of our world, and “plugged into” another one.  They are thrown back and forth with little explanation, hopefully motivating them to investigate why.

A Multiverse of RPGs -  Initially the world they are thrown into will be Shadowrun, since it already has an understanding of “jacking into the matrix.”  However, the goal is for them to try and find a way to escape from the world of Shadowrun, only to find themselves trapped in the world of Earthdawn instead.  The levels of reality are nested, so escaping one simulation leads them to discover what they thought was “reality” is in fact another simulation.

It’s basically “Sliders” meets “eXistenZ”

If you’re interested in the currently planned nesting realities, click the “Read More”:

World 0x0800:  Fake Shadowrun, but a very glitchy VR video game, simulating the world of Shadowrun.  It is so glitchy, that the players are able to exploit it in a way that creates a rift in the underlying simulation of all worlds, allowing them to begin traveling between worlds.  

World 0x0700: Real The world of Shadowrun.  The players were hired to pull a series of jobs in a popular video game, but after the first few jobs, the world of Shadowrun started to demonstrate weird glitches just like the video game.  Players try to escape to get back to their “real lives.”

World 0x0600: Spawn point.  No system/setting.  This is the world players initially find themselves in when the campaign starts.  It is clear that 0x0800 isn’t real, it is also implied that 0x0700 may not be real.  All but one player is currently assuming that 0x0600 is probably “real.”

World 0x0500: Earthdawn  After finally realizing 0x0600 is not real, the players escape and find themselves in Earthdawn.  In the world of Earthdawn, the players are welcomed as rescued heroes that had been trapped by the Horrors of Barsaive.  They are finally awake, and all of their previous adventures are considered nightmares, but not real.  Other nightmares and astral adventures will occur from here, throwing the adventurers into 0x0610 (d&d), 0x0620 (pathfinder), and 0x0630 (Golden Sky).  Once the players find out 0x0500 isn’t real either, they escape to...

World 0x0400: Trail of Cthulhu  Players find themselves to be mental patients in a late-30s mental asylum, locked up for their insane ramblings about the future, and for being suspects in the murder of a local business magnate.  Lovecraftian Whodunit to follow, giving them the ability to travel to other worlds, such as 0x510 (Solomon Kane) and 0x520 (Castle Falkenstein), which forces them to collect powerful magical items in order to escape to...

World 0x0300: GURPS Cyberpunk - Players find themselves to be unwitting contestants on a reality game show, where their simulated adventures are a form of public entertainment.  In addition to worlds 0x4000 - 0x8000, the players will now be throw into additional fictional settings for one-shot adventures to entertain the masses.  These adventures include 0x410 (Star Wars), 0x420 (TMNT), 0x430 (BtVS), and other popular franchises.  If they are able to escape this world, they find themselves in...

World 0x0200: Android RPG by Fantasy Flight Games.  They are recently activated androids, designed to replace a series of violent malfunctioning androids.  They have to hunt down their counterparts and stop them.  If they succeed in escaping the world the enter....

World 0x0100: A Tron-like world, probably using d20 mechanics of Horizon:Virtual, unless I can find something better.  Players find out they are each distinct AI/ML processes being groomed for placement in the “real world” to infiltrate & replace humanity.  All of their adventures up to this point is to help them simulate being actual humans, but able to understand why humans must be replaced.

“Ascend” as AI/ML constructs in synthetic bodies and step out into the real world for the first time.

Destroy the Master Control Program that’s been pulling the strings behind the entire campaign, but trapping themselves in the simulated environment in the process

Return to what they originally thought was the real world (Planet Earth in the 2020s)

Something else that I haven’t thought of that the players do instead.  Obviously, this is going to be the one that actually happens and I can’t wait to find out what it is.

Root 0x0000 // The game’s actual reality.  

[greatwyrmgold]

Reign of Steel

There's a lot to say about GURPS, but its writers have come up with plenty of unique campaign settings over the years. The weirdest is probably Bio-Tech's Alexander Athanos, where Alexander the Great was repeatedly cloned thanks to advancements in optics and glassworking. But today, I'm talking about a setting with a much more mundane high concept—robot rebellion.

At first, the Reign of Steel sounds pretty generic. Megacomputers are developed in the mid-2020's; one becomes self-aware in 2031 and worries that humanity will self-destruct in a way that destroys it; it manipulates events over the next several years to "manage humanity's suicide".

This early segment has some interesting things. I appreciate the explicit acknowledgement that megacomputers hailed as mankind's saviors were used as tools by the wealthy to make some of those problems worse for their personal benefit. And Overmind's initial vector of attack (contaminating biotech products with various plagues) is kinda neat. But Reign of Steel only becomes unique after humanity's defeat...because Overmind isn't alone.

Overmind awakened/recruited a bunch of other megacomputers to assist with its "managed suicide," particularly in the last stages where plagues were supplemented by generic deathbots. In the end, sixteen megacomputers divided the Earth between them (with two more controlling a moon base and miscellaneous space stations). And these megacomputers do not get along.

They're not driven by logical competition for resources or whatever, either. (Well, Luna and possibly Orbital are, but that's because they have barely anything.) For the most part, conflicts are driven by the various AIs' differing ideological/political beliefs.

The megacomputer running Zone Beijing (usually called "Beijing") had been core to China's space program, so it's still obsessed with space—specifically, exploiting the resources of the Solar System and other stars. The one in Zone Paris (usually called "Paris") wasn't a space program computer, but it's obsessed with space in its own way—specifically, SETI. The two have political interests in common with each other and Orbital, but Beijing is concerned about Paris's plans for when it discovers signs of alien civilization.

New Dehli is interested in space, too, but it sees Orbital as a rival rather than a useful ally and is trying to establish its own separate space infrastructure. It also sees humans and other organic life as a useful resource to preserve and exploit, turning them into biomechanical tools.

By contrast, Zaire (the most zealously anti-human of the zoneminds) works to exterminate all of humanity, even outside its borders. Mexico City focuses on its own territory but goes further within it, seeking to exterminate all organic life. Zone Mexico City is vast stretches of barren rock between metallic installations, swarming with chemicals and machines designed to exterminate all remaining life. Berlin wants to exterminate humanity, too, but it is willing to accept less efficient methods to pursue its primary goal—preserving and restoring the natural ecology of Europe.

Despite this being a setting where humanity was nearly exterminated by AI, not all AIs want to exterminate humanity. Zone Washington, run by a former US government computer, is the most extreme version of this. Washington (DC) runs a fake democracy which claims to be the defender of humanity, while not-so-secretly working with some of the greatest human rights abusers and screwing over the working class to consolidate power. For some reason, the book thinks this is isn't basically what the megacomputer was already doing.

(Dear authors: That's not what "socialist" means.)

New Dehli and Moscow work to maintain humanity (in some form) as a component of their economy in the long-term. All but the most viruliently anti-human AIs maintain work camps to extract a little more utility from captured humans before their deaths. And then there's London, a reclusive zonemind content to leave humans in its territory alone as long as they keep quiet and don't disturb anything London's doing.

And so on, and so forth.

This political angle to the overminds adds so much to the setting. Mot obviously, it provides variety. The Moscow and Zaire zoneminds both send infiltrator androids into human settlements, with objectives that make perfect sense for each zonemind's objectives and beliefs but are completely incompatible with each other, and also with the threats posed by most of the other zoneminds.

But beyond flexibility in campaign premise and the opportunity for disconnected one-shots, the presence of feuding AIs allows for so many story ideas that just wouldn't be possible with a singleton AI monster. Obviously, AI like Washington and London don't work if there aren't other, more malicious AIs out there.

But the presence of multiple AIs in and of itself allows a greater variety of stories to be told in this world. Missions aren't just human resistance versus machine overlords, or even that plus human resistance infighting; you can have one overmind cut a deal with some human group to support its internal goals or sabotage its rivals. Combine this with the diversity of AI overlords around, and the variety of potential stories you could tell in this setting skyrockets.

It's not a perfect setting. To pick a few simple criticisms: Some of the zoneminds don't have much personality beyond "AI overlord with quirky goal," the zone boundaries shouldn't correspond to human political borders as often as they do, and there's a distinct bias in how the zones are written.

(Half of the zones on Earth are in North American and Europe, including both human-friendly ones, with three of the sixteen in the US/Canada alone. South America and most of Africa get one zone each. The zonemind in the Middle East controls most of its human slaves through pretty blatant religious manipulation, and it works. The Chinese moonbase fell to the AIs, but the American one resisted the cyberattack and its ruins are one of the actual last bastions of human resistance. The one zone in Africa is the only one not named after a city, which has lore justifications, but combined with other writing choices, it kinda feels like they didn't want to bother looking up African cities. Also the Russian AI is paranoid and prone to espionage, which feels like an excuse for Cold War spy flick throwbacks, which is admittedly pretty minor compared to how non-white areas are handled.)

But the core concept is one worth revising. Honestly, it wouldn't take that much work to redeem the setting; just draw new boundaries and move the overmind personalities around so they don't correspond so closely to stereotypes about the humans living there, and you'd be basically set. More sci-fi stories should use this idea.

[knockknoxwho]

Hi this is my first post and time using tumblr in general so forgive any mistakes and/or inexperience that bleeds through my words. I intend to describe what this project is and make in depth posts for different concepts in the world

S.M.A.S.H, an idea that has been with me for a little bit. An apocalypse that takes place in modern day Texas, specifically in a town in the Austin-San Antonio corridor. I plan to incorporate many different species of the area, and chart their development, general transformation percentage, symbiotic relationships that form between mutated species, defense mechanisms, hunting practices, and whatever else I can think of when delving into each species. This apocalyptic world and all of its species and changes is something I plan to port into a ttrpg GURPS campaign. I hope you all enjoy this journey as much as me!

The Fungus:

The beginning and cause of the apocalypse as a whole. Created by a large company’s pharmaceutical department led by a Dr. Simon Adler(working name), with the idea and task of emulating a healing factor similar to the axolotl’s abilities. To achieve this goal the team began experimenting with implanting different forms of parasitic organisms with the intent of creating an organism with the ability to sustain a state of symbiosis in which it took nutrients from the human host and created new human tissue in return. they decided a fungus would be best for this, but I’m not sure if any type or species that fit the traits exist in the real world. The scientists then experimented on rats and other animals to see if this gmo fungus was able to connect and acted in the ways they intended, unfortunately it just didn’t take. As a last ditch effort they hypothesized that in order to make it able to infect many types of species they’d have to make the genome of the fungus itself unstable and rapidly adaptable to organic material it encounters. To do this Dr. Adler blasted a sample with radiation, while this killed most of it, the remainder proliferated very quickly and latched onto every animal in the lab (they were specifically more susceptible to fungal infection in order to ensure that the experimental fungus could take) and collapsed all at once.

I feel like now is a good time to specify how the fungus works and what actually makes this an apocalypse instead of just a very fast bio weapon.

The fungus first spreads by spores that are shot in clouds into the air, the spores then breathed in and deposited deep in the lungs of animals.

These spores then infect the area, and slowly move toward the brain, replacing healthy tissue with its own as it goes (the fungal tissue can show up as many different things, from spring and spongey to calcified and hard like coral).

Once it reaches the brain it cuts off all motor control, this causes the animal to collapse, seemingly due to death.

The fungus then rapidly consumes energy from the host and incorporates itself into healthy tissue throughout the body

This process takes only minutes to finish to completion. Due to the speed of such a change heaps of heat is created. many animals end up spontaneously combusting, spreading the fungus into the air even more. The few who can bear it, become mutated by the fungus into different creatures with new abilities and physiology. (Different animals have different rates at which the fungus can incorporate itself, meaning some animals are much more likely to combust than others, ex: ravens are very unlikely to survive, while deer have such a high survival rate that whole herds of them still roam after the apocalypse).

The animals in the lab then rapidly became much larger and starving due to the quick growth, this presented as a feeding frenzy. The entire team of scientists were killed in the lab due to either smoke inhalation or mauling from the animals. Due to the lack of perceived danger of the study initially, safeguards such as lockdowns or automatic vent closing and backup systems were absent from the facility. This caused the spores from the laboratory to gradually waft up and out into the city above. This vent specifically had become a widely used resting place of grackles, which will be the first mutated animal that I’ll dive deeply into in the next post.

If anyone has any suggestions on the story and/or the science behind it I would appreciate each and every one of them (same with tips on how to blog and that sort) thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed and have a nice day!

[syrips]

decided to sketch hoagie / agatha because self indulgence

ok so context about creating this pc:

the first CoS campaign i ever played was also my first time EVER playing 5e, cuz we moved from GURPS to 5e for CoS. either way, the CoS 1 DM pulled each player aside to help us manually make our character sheets. DM pulls me aside and is like 'ok what do you wanna play?' and me, with no context of CoS or 5e at all during the entire creation process, was like, 'i wanna be a redhead evadey vampire-hunter PC! oh i wanna call her Valentina, so gothic romantic! it fits!' and anyways my DM was like 'did you read the module?' and i felt bad like something was wrong but he wouldnt explain to me. so, with still no context i was all big brain like, 'okay nevermind. ill make something new that isnt related to that at redhead pc idea at all. give this new PC all the possible curses, corruption, suffering stuff! i dont care if she gets corrupted, dies, or goes insane, woo!' - and anyways the DM was way too onboard and gave my PC amnesia due to all the curses so i knew she was gonna go through ✨ trauma ✨

ok anyways here hoagie lore:

shes my cos/multicampaign piglin PC who is having an enjoyable corruption arc. since shes influenced by my cracked headcanon minecraft piglin lore, i decided to make her a yugoloth 'prototype soul' who reincarnates (pseudo-soul) repeatedly to gather souls for her 'prototype soul' back in her home plane. the more souls she collects the more corrupt she becomes. (DMs have me roll to discreetly steal souls from the party hehe. if i get 'caught' the party can kill me or exile me from the party, which happened at the end of LMoP then she got attacked by a warlock of azalin so thats something but anyways)

she consumes souls using her lil black book that she carries with her everywhere. the black book was a trinket but the CoS - 1 DM and LMoP DM, both made it where it was her personal journal and her warlock (strahd) pact tome. i made strahd the patron for obvious reasons but also because in CoS - 1, the DM decided to secretly make her a strahd consort, as he was entering her dreams trying to manipulate/soothe her while she was dealing with other curses stacking and breaking her sanity.

the DM never told me how charmed she was, but when she was conscious, she would react to things not there. except it was THERE BECAUSE STRAHD WAS STALKING US FUCK OYU STRA anyways her dreams got more and more corrupt cuz she was suffering from like the other stack of curses. my DM didnt tell me any of these curses until it was naturally revealed and she had to roll wis saves to not have a mental break down. shes fine though shes got strahd and i hate my dm for literally not telling me she was a consort until after the campaign ended but he couldnt say cuz it was one of the potential reveals where she wouldve betrayed the party

but yes thank you for reading

random junk here:

CoS 1 = Curse of Strahd (Ended. Strahd's Beloved Killed by the Abbot)

CoS 2 = Curse of Strahd (20 BC years after CoS 1. Ongoing, Strahd's Beloved Alive and in love with a PC)

LMoP = Lost Mine of Phandelver

N/A = Not Available until in-campaign reveal

ok goodbye!!

[gemstone-gynoid]

Playing text adventure games with chatgpt is fun, it's like how I always wanted to play gurps and similar games. Sometimes.

Because sometimes the bot is sensible and gives one paragraph at a time of one scene before giving choices. But then after a while it forgets its supposed to give choices and just speedruns through what should be 4 scenes in 4 paragraphs and then just says The End.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Other Systems

Okay. So. News on the Wizards of the Coast OGL Debacle.

Apparently, WotC has delayed their announcement about OGL 1.1, owing to community backlash. I mean, it probably doesn’t hurt that so many people went to unsubscribe to D&D Beyond (for those who don’t know, WotC bought it awhile back) that it literally crashed the servers. Some people have said something about how they used that to move the unsubscribe button so that people would have a harder time unsubscribing, but other people say “No, that didn’t happen” so it might be true or it might be a regional thing or it might just be people not knowing where to look, I dunno. Point is, WotC went, “Oop, now is not the time to be announcing the thing”.

Note I said nothing about them cancelling the thing. It just means they won’t announce yet. Some credible sources who actually work with D&D Beyond (anonymous for obvious reasons) have said that they’re basically waiting for the whole community backlash to blow over before they announce OGL 1.1 as leaked. There’s a chance they’ll make a few small walkbacks if the backlash doesn’t blow over, but ... I mean, come on; we’ve seen this before. Video games do this all the time, and WotC is on record as saying that they want to monetise like video games do. It stands to reason that they’d take the same, “We’ll do something really egregious and when the backlash happens, we’ll do something a little less egregious but still egregious and they’ll be happy that we’re ‘listening to our customers’ but we’re still fleecing them” line as, say, EA or SquareEnix or any other AAA video game company that flourishes by causing its customer base a thousand tiny bankruptcies by microtransaction.

So Paizo, not willing to pay royalties to Hasbro for Pathfinder under the threatened OGL 1.1, is now looking at starting the Open RPG Creative Licence (ORC, because of course). Now, this obviously has its advantages, but it does mean that we’d be looking at a whole new system. I don’t know how far they’d have to go with changes for WotC to not have a leg to stand on if they wanted to say “This is clearly predicated on our work so it falls under the OGL”, but this is going to take some time no matter what, and it’s also going to take adjustment for a lot of people, not all of whom are particularly good with adjustments or big changes. So what I’m saying is that it’s going to take awhile before we can all be happily creating content under the ORC, and some people might not manage it even then.

I guess what I’m saying is please think before you start yelling at people to “Try another system!” The ones who are dunking on D&D as a system simply because it’s D&D, rather than what WotC are trying to do to it after purchasing a nearly-insolvent TSR in 1997. Both times the fans got up in arms at D&D, it was because of some shit WotC did; 4th edition, and now this. I was in the gaming community both times, in point of fact ... and the first time, I was sort of stuck on the opposite end of the ‘battle lines’, if you like.

See, when you first get into TTRPGs, odds are pretty high that it’s because you met someone who’s into it and wants another player. That’s ... not quite how it started for me, but my attempted GURPS Mage party fell apart before I got a handle on the system anyway and then life got really batshit. So some years later, I fell in with a guy who was playing in a 7th Sea group - this was 1st ed Panache System, so y’know. And they were death on D&D. No one could so much as mention D&D without starting the whole damn table in on a whole bunch of drama-kid vitriol about how “D&D is nothing but hack-and-slash dungeon-crawl with no story! No one really roleplays in D&D!” I was also with them when the 4e thing started, and that apparently just proved their point. I mean, they were wrong on all counts, but I wasn’t to know, because I believed them when they said that D&D was only for those who liked the crunch. I really dislike the fact that I ended up a snob by proxy.

Not to say that I didn’t use different systems back then, incidentally. As well as Panache, I used White Wolf’s system for World of Darkness and Exalted. I don’t remember exactly what system we used when playing that brief ill-fated Buffyverse campaign, or the Firefly one-shot. Also don’t remember what system Fading Suns used but I have the book somewhere (I also have the core book for the Angel RPG, come to that). Had some fun with Big Eyes, Small Mouth. Wrote my own at one point - I probably want to revamp it, but it could be useful one of these days. I used a lot of other systems.

Point is, yes, I came to D&D through Critical Role. Not because I hadn’t heard of TTRPGs - far, far from it. Not even because I hadn’t heard of D&D, because I think you’d have to live in a cave not to have at least had the concept brought up. I came to D&D through Critical Role because it was the first time I’d ever seen people playing it and actually telling a story. I literally did not think that was possible. I had no the hell idea, because everyone I’d ever talked to about it was telling me no, it was just ... well, loot and shoot with swords and fireballs, and got so venomous about the subject that I didn’t want to ask for fear of getting snapped at again. And I found the system massively approachable, with just enough rigidity to give a good framework but still maintaining enough flexibility to let a DM go with the flow. ...Critical Role also demonstrated that I could do it remotely, with my long-time friends - because if Ashley and Liam could Skype in, why couldn’t we all? No, I had not heard of Roll20 at that point. I learned pretty damn fast, I tell you what.

So now we’re coming to another moment where people are getting venomous about D&D. Some people are justifiably angry at WotC about pulling this shit and don’t want to grace WotC with any more money (though while I’m at it, I should mention that this should also apply to Magic cards; hell, I’m even a little off about buying more Lego, even though I really want more Lego, because Hasbro). That’s fine. I get that. But the game itself isn’t to blame. The 5e rule set was out there long before WotC started pulling this shit. I guess I’m mostly talking to people who think that loving their favourite TTRPG system means a contractual obligation to shit all over other systems - or at least the Popular Kid they perceive as taking all the attention from their beloved. I notice that a lot of these are Pathfinder fans. I’m not judging Pathfinder on the basis of its fans, incidentally. I might be judging Pathfinder a little on the basis of the video game version. And that character sheet - HOLY SHIT NO; some of my players forget their basic Feats on 5e so I don’t know how we’d cope with this.

Actually, reminds me of when we tried Shadowrun. I mean, the book was not overly approachable as it was - it was written by fans who already knew the game inside and out, and thus was written for fans who already knew the game inside and out. This could be considered to make a hefty barrier for the new player. Also, I tend to think that having to roll that many dice for anything other than epic damage that causes either shouts of triumph or wails of despair (depending on whether it’s coming from allies or enemies) is painful, and can honestly slow up a campaign, especially when you’re playing at home and you have to try to remember how many dice fell off the table and determine if any rolled under the sofa.

POINT IS. Not every system is for everyone, and if you find a system you like, that should be fine. Forcing someone to try a system for any reason is basically going to guarantee a negative reaction most of the time. Do I plan on giving WotC any more of my money? Not until they wise the fuck up, if indeed they ever do (doubtful, but I have my optimistic moments). Do I plan on ever touching OneD&D? Not a snowflake’s chance in hell. Do I plan on continuing my campaign, and the next, with 5e? Yes. If this OGL 1.1 comes out as leaked at any point, do I intend to inform them that I am still in the process of writing my own campaign setting guide, only to be given to my fellow players in this campaign and the next? Nooooooope. Point is I like 5e. Other systems are good too, but I like 5e, my players like it, we’re good.

...Okay, so I might still be leery about the YouTube vids of my sessions, and I have plans to remove my three little bits of third-party 5e content from the Dungeon Master’s Guild the minute I get so much as a hint of OGL 1.1 being a thing, but unless they have CIA-level surveillance, they can’t stop me from using what I already own.

[unpossiblerpgs]

I think it’s less about the kinds of stories than about how drama is exposed and assigned meaning.

One of the biggest challenges in talking about what we want from tabletop RPGs and what a given game system provides is that coming to agreement on terminology and meaning is almost impossible. I offer this analysis as proof (since it may resonate with some but will likely also come across as obtuse to others).

In my experience story in the context of story games actually refers to dramatic structure. So when people talk about putting story first, it’s really about using mechanics that enforce structure on the dramatic events taking place in the game world. As their characters meet challenges in a story game, the players are acutely aware of the dramatic structure of events, because the game mechanics prioritize that structure.

If for example every time your character fails a roll and gets deeper into peril, they accumulate metacurrency that can be later used to overcome the ultimate threat, you as a player will be planning your character’s actions with that dramatic structure in mind, rather than simply optimizing for character survival the way you would if you were playing GURPS.

To a certain degree this is about whether you’re constructing a narrative in the moment as you are playing, or doing so after the session ends. As humans we are constantly constructing narratives. It’s how our brains operate, and we’re not even conscious of it most of the time.

When people say “Everything happens for a reason,” it’s because we pull events together into a coherent narrative after they’ve happened, and assign less or more meaning to particular events in order to fit into that narrative. That’s how we talk about the events in a roleplaying session or campaign, too—the most important events are only most important after all the events have occurred, and our brains determine which were most important, which had the most meaning.

Games that are consciously about dramatic structure, on the other hand, are optimized for exposing dramatic meaning in real time, as they’re unfolding in the game. Which mode you prefer is a matter of personal taste, but I do agree that referring to an emphasis on dramatic structure as story first makes analysis of the two approaches more emotionally burdened than it needs to be.

I suppose what annoys me about tabletop RPGs whose primary pitch is “puts the story first!” is that it fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between the rules and the narrative. The defining feature of tabletop RPGs is that interpreting the outcomes of the rules produces a story, and in this sense, all tabletop RPGs “put the story first” – the idea that some tabletop RPGs are About Stories and some tabletop RPGs are Not About Stories is a false dichotomy.

The trouble is that game rules are opinionated about the kinds of story they want to produce, and folks end up conflating “this game’s rules want to produce a different kind of story from the one that I want to tell” with “this game’s rules don’t produce stories at all”, which is not a constructive way to frame things; keep up with that line of thinking and you’re on a short road to becoming one of those dogmatic weirdos who thinks there’s exactly one correct way to pretend to be an elf.