#having numbered stats is very realistic

[feeshies]

one time i wanted to try fallout rp off of tumblr, so i joined another group and i made my character asian (one of my first real attempts at trying to incorporate my heritage into an oc) but one of the other players insisted on being incredibly racist towards me. he insisted that he wasn't racist, but it wouldn't be realistic for his character to not be racist since he was rping as a diehard anti-communist. i didn't want to start shit, especially since i was new, so at first i thought about rewriting my oc to be a white dude instead, but then i just gave up and dipped lol. the end.

[verysium]

ACT 1, SCENE 4: blue lock headcanons

shidou would view traditionally ugly creatures as strangely cute. it's not a disgusting cockroach, it's a silly little bug with eyelashes as long as his. no, he's not going to let go of that scraggly one-eyed cat that likely has rabies. it looks too sweet to be abandoned on the streets. his dream childhood pet was definitely a piranha.

aiku wears band t-shirts without knowing the actual music group. no, he does not listen to sex and the pistols, he just thought the design looked very cool. would also wear lana del rey merchandise just to impress the ladies. the only song he realistically knows is west coast, and even then he's only heard it at a random sushi restaurant.

reo would have stereotypical rich people problems. he can't decide if he should bring his chauffeur and valet or actually drive the car himself for your upcoming date. also spends at least one hour seriously pondering over which gucci silk pattern tie looks better on him. trick question, they're both the exact same shade.

shidou steals your covergirl perfect point eyeliner because he thinks it looks way better on him. also a big fan of body glitter and super vulgar eyeshadow palette names. his favorite hue so far is that one hot pink fuchsia that literally burns your eyes with its brightness. nothing is too neon with this man.

ness is the epitome of the sunshine-turned-unhinged-maniacal-killer trope. he would be the bestest boy, but if someone even lays a single hand on you, he’s already plotting their murder. eerily good at hiding bodies but would never divulge his secrets in fear of scaring you off.

shidou would walk unashamedly to the women’s clothing section of the general department store. would never be embarrassed by the bra sizes. you have a double D? he’s already trying three of the cup sizes on just to see if he can get you a comfortable one. if you’re part of the itty bitty titty committee, he wouldn’t judge either. this man loves femininity in all its full glory.

aryu exclusively uses dior beauty. he would rather die than use a generic drugstore makeup brand. sometimes you wonder if he's secretly a dermatologist because this man knows the exact shade, tint, and quality of product for every possible skin tone and type. also very passionate about the controversies behind animal testing and parabens. would be exceedingly picky when it comes to anything he smears on his face (think jeffree star but without the problematic issues.)

sae has his phone screen set to default wallpaper. he only has the translator app downloaded, and that's about it. his personal trainer takes care of all the rest of his stats. after he started dating you though, he kept pictures of you in his private photo albums.

noa cannot tell a white lie to save his life. if he doesn't know something, he will not know something. he doesn't see the point in hiding that. sometimes has trouble reading the room, so you need to remind him that brutal honesty and pure rationality aren't always the way to go. he does become more conscientious after that.

bachira used to draw crayon portraits of all the imaginary monsters he saw at night. scared the shit out of his parents because they thought he was hallucinating (he actually was.) nowadays, he's a lot tamer because you force him to take his meds.

isagi is, in fact, the number one mind reader and manipulator throughout the entire series. this man is clairvoyant, psychic, and telepathic all packaged into one. sometimes his right ear twitches, and he just knows someone is talking about him behind his back. unfortunately, all of this occurs in his head, so no one on the outside world actually knows about his sixth sense.

rin was absolutely bombarded with valentine's chocolates last year, but when he sorted through the entire pile and realized you hadn't given him one, he returned them all to their respective senders. will refuse any form of sweets unless it came directly from you. you need to be there physically to hand him the box.

kaiser writes, thinks, and speaks entirely in german even if no one else can understand him. he secretly can speak english but chooses not to because he absolutely hates anglicization. refuses to compromise his own language and culture just to fit in with the rest of the world. it's degrading. if he had it his way, german would be the new lingua franca. definitely thinks translation is for dummies. what do you mean you're not already bilingual? you better run, not walk, to that little green owl app. does use his foreign accent to make you feel flustered though. has a voice kink but in a non-traditional sort of way. you have to be the one turned on by his voice. only then will he start feeling it.

yukimiya loves it when you lose your shit. one time a jerk cut you off in traffic, and you started aggressively cursing. he fell in love with you right there on the spot. it was something about the fire in your eyes and the way you refused to take any attitude from the other party. that self-assertiveness you exhibit is so empowering.

aiku takes you out to karaoke bars just to hear you sing. you look so pretty under the purple disco lights, belting your little heart out to the rock lyrics. sometimes he has to take a minute to just appreciate how lucky he is to have you.

nagi didn't know that you have to actively check and update your email inbox. he had no clue school even started until one day the principal called his parents over his thirteen student absences. he thinks it's a headache to even get out of bed and put his fingers on his laptop keyboard. since when was the distance between his arrow cursor and the search bar that wide? it looks too long for him to reach. maybe he should just do this tomorrow.

reo does not know what saving money is. the first time you asked him for a promo code, he looked at you as if you had just spouted a strange language. when you showed him your little wallet full of cut-out coupons, he literally had to hold them up to the light and closely inspect them. it was definitely a moment of enlightenment.

sae likes anklets, especially the super thin gold chain ones. something about the way it brushes against his bare leg when you sleep beside him drives him out of his mind. he's also a sucker for subtle jewelry as evidenced by his necklace and wrist bands.

otoya practically lives for instant gratification. he would be guilty of love bombing. loses interest quickly, but sometimes wishes he could actually commit for once. football is important to him because it is one of the only activities he has consistently practiced for over a decade.

karasu is down bad for anyone who can actually outsmart him. you got a higher mark than him on the recent exam? damn, his heart just beat a little faster. spaces out in a love-filled haze whenever you ramble on about your nerdy little subject interests. he is a sapiophile through and through. intelligence just does it for him.

loki is the type of person who absolutely demolishes your self-esteem, and yet you still cannot bring yourself to hate him. when people say god has his favorites, they mean this man right here. he would be an innately talented genius while simultaneously being the most humble human being in existence. at this point, it's not his problem. it's a you problem. try harder next time.

chris is very similar to a neurosurgery resident. he has the largest self-entitled ego in existence. not a single day goes by when he doesn't remind you that he is, in fact, one of the highest ranking football players in the world. you can't say anything about it though because he has rightfully earned his arrogance. i mean, what are you going to use against him? his grueling hours of blood, sweat, and tears? this man works harder than the devil himself. in fact, he is the devil.

rin is the type to get emotionally attached to the most ordinary objects ever. he collects batteries and keeps a separate drawer as a graveyard for them once they die. the triple A ones get a special funeral since they're so hard to find. he just can't bring himself to let go of objects that no longer serve a purpose (just like his relationship with sae, sorry not sorry.)

hiori cannot go to bed unless it is absolutely dark. the curtains have to be closed. the door has to be locked. everything has to be drowned in pitch black. the reason he does this is because he still has flashbacks from that tiny strip of light underneath his bedroom door. his parents would argue all night when they thought he had gone to sleep. it still haunts him to this very day.

nagi wishes he could be a cat. sleeping all day and sunbathing on the rooftop seem like great ways to spend his life. unfortunately for him, he is not a cat. when he dies though, he wants to be reincarnated as one. either that, or a rock.

rin snores like a whole power drill at night. sae secretly hates his brother for that but can’t bring himself to wake him. whenever the itoshi family goes on vacation, ear plugs are not an option but a necessity.

chigiri knows ventriloquism. he used to play with his sister's dolls and make up character voices for each of them. definitely uses it as a party trick or as a way to make you laugh when you've had a bad day.

sae always keeps his feelings to himself. sometimes he finds it easier to rant to you than others, but then he almost always ends up retracting back into himself after realizing just how much he's revealed. he hates being emotionally slutty.

ness is the big scary dog in his relationship with kaiser, not the other way around. everyone thinks kaiser is the intimidating one, but ness wears a leash for a reason. one of them is the chihuahua, and the other one is a rottweiler. you can already guess who is who.

reo was having a mental breakdown in his limousine one time, but he ran out of his usual luxury aloe vera lotion tissues. instead of buying more, he took out his cheque-book and ripped out the pages to dry his tears. money is just paper to him. it can be recycled (no, it can't.)

loki is the type to show you a sweet and heartwarming smile before pulling out the most atrocious uno card combination in existence. i'm talking reverse, wild card, skip, draw 2. you sat there for twenty-five minutes trying desperately to draw a green. by the time you were done, he only had one card left. (screw you, loki.)

niko draws his own manga whenever he doesn't like how the official plot ends. if the canon ever diverges from the way he imagined it in his own head, he will draft his own fan fiction instead. one time, he rewrote an entire shonen jump series just to bring his favorite character back to life (*cough cough* said character wears a blindfold.)

karasu is definitely the "um, actually..." type of student. he will always have a rebuttal on hand. the truth is never black-and-white with this man, and he will argue both sides if it furthers his own agenda. he reads the encyclopedia front and back every night just so he can pull out a random arbitrary fact to win an argument some time in the near future.

shidou had a bad habit of chewing pens as a child until one day it finally exploded in his mouth. from then on, he vowed only to chew glittery gel pens. that way when it exploded in his mouth, his tongue would be stained a bright, shimmery purple. if you ever got him a scented gel pen pack, his life would finally be complete.

rin cannot differentiate between colors. if you asked him to find the difference between bubblegum pink and cotton candy pink, he would not know. to him, seven colors is already a lot to memorize. when he was a child, he only drew pictures with a single color because it was less of a hassle that way.

otoya used to think lime green was the most aesthetically pleasing color in existence. almost considered dying his hair that shade until karasu told him that girls don't actually like guys who look like neon highlighters. still wishes he did it though. he wants to glow in the dark.

© verysium 2023 / please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize any of my works

[zeravmeta]

It's kind of intersting where you are saying this is a wake up call to recgonizing fgo's subpar gameplay because on my side it's very much just "we don't like servant coins" for the most part. Heck the fact that nobody has gotten to point of realizing you can do all this with three stars which lasengle active making five stars worse is another werid development. I've only seen only a few comments talking about if you're f2p these things aren't really relevant. Not that I don't agree fgo biggest weakness is that once you get burn out on the gameplay outside of few boss battles you aren't getting any enthuism back imo. And currently the only thing lasenagle does it just repeatedly buffing units through different ways rather than introduce unique gameplay meachnics that go against the normal grind set like Eli quest and Grailfront(In my personal opinion I think the greatest issuse is the fact that doing these things would equlivant of having a consistent ongoing event that need to be updated and I think you need a whole team for that for speicifcally that.) But the fact people angry more express that they care enough about the gameplay to get angry about the lack of acess to it because of basically a pay wall or well I haven't seen many people connect the dots to the gameplay itself being at fault. Also i couldn't tell from reblog what did they backpeddle again? It seems like they were already planing to revise the servant coin distrabustion and the fact they are expressing they openly said going to give the coins back and with eases adds more to the idea than takes away imo.

I kind of wanna address these points a bit just to make a larger point abt why this anniversary and the servant coins thing rings hollow and sour for a bunch:

I wouldn't say 'wake up call' is the right words, but rather 'this was the straw that broke the camels back'. As broken as FGOs gameplay is, something i will begrudgingly credit it for is that all content IS clearable even by low rarity units. Even the hardest challenge quests from things like fest events or certain story fights can be cleared from a full 3* and lower + 5* friend support comp. So of course, then begs the question: If gameplay isn't the main reason to summon (unless you're a tierlist slave for efficient farm comps for Some Reason), why summon at all?

Well, for your faves, of course. FGO gives you a ton of resources and shiny buttons and knobs to make numbers on your blorbo higher, meaning that the whole point of these extra resources is just to sink into a favorite character and get to experience the story with this talking png on hand to be your friend/lover/hater/slash/etc.

Servant Coins were a broken whale mechanic on inception due to being strictly gacha dependent, not only in how you acquire servant coins but in how little return there is for getting said servants. Summoning for a 5* is already infamously terrible, but not only do you need them for grailing above Level 100, but also for append skills? Realistically, the only reason to go for these resource sinks *is* for faves, and in fairness some dedicated players/whales save a whole bunch of sq just for their one/two favorite guys (regardless of if they actually get them lol, you can save over 1K+ and still not even get a single rate up servant). It's very likely that some of these people Did save all their sq to then have all the necessary servant coins to ultimate max their favorite guy.

but to then ask even more from them, to sink even more into the most infamous gacha in all gachas just to maybe have a chance to marginally improve them? That was just a slap in the face. Mind you, a lot of people talk about how these latest appends are actually the most gameplay defining in how they can lower skill cool downs, which is def a huge buff compared to other appends/stat buffs and even skill buffs, but that type of discussion misses the point that this was one of the greediest changes ever done, especially for a game whose base gameplay hasn't really been improved, optimized, or significantly changed in any way.

You can tell even the devs knew that Servant coins were a broken greed mechanic from inception, since they had retroactive refunds for 4-5* servants (but not 3*s. grr) and from the outcry of this anni they walked back some of the changes and even gave out a second overall refund of servant coins, but ultimately this is another bandaid solution to the core issue: FGOs gameplay just isnt fun.

People put up with FGOs gameplay to get to read FGOs story, and we're just at the point where it's not getting to be worth it anymore. The visual novel masquerading as a gacha is being killed by its own status as a gacha.

The truly frustrating thing is that there *are* legitimate ways of playing FGO which CAN be fun, specifically challenge quests and Grail Fronts. Those are the two types of play that actually make FGO's gameplay work to an extent, and yet these types of changes are just never made in any permanent way. Past boss fights are locked forever, previously cleared challenge quests are lost forever, they just do not repeat these gameplay opportunities, and this goes hand in hand with another issue, one which I would say is the true root of all FGO's problems:

They fucking lock past story content

When me and other mutuals are heeing and haawing about having event reruns/a compendium, it's not just to talk about FGOs story being good, because it is! It's to make it so that newbies aren't fucking locked out of the MAIN GODDAMN REASON TO EVEN PLAY THIS GAME. IMPORTANT STORY CRITICAL EVENTS LIKE THE KNK COLLAB, GUDAGUDA EVENTS AND MORE ARE JUST LOST FOREVER TO YOUTUBE STORY COMPILATIONS BECAUSE THE BASE GAME DOES NOT HAVE ANY SORT OF COMPENDIUM FOR THESE PAST EVENTS.

Event Archives just WORK. You can look at so many modern gachas these days and see that they all have event compendiums for events they will not rerun, and the reason is simple: FGO popularized the idea of using a gacha to tell a story, so gachas put more stonks into their writing and dont limit that Very Critical Component Of Why People Would Play Their Game To Begin With.

But for some fucking reason, FGO just does not. Really think about this for a moment: People have put up with a near decade of terrible gameplay and corporate gacha greed just to read FGO's story. It's fucking good! But that's just not gonna be enough anymore when Type Moon is now using their fucking Das Rheingold of gacha money to make new/remake vns. For all that people talk about FGO story burnout, I flat out disagree: People do want more FGO story, Samurai Remnant is a huge fucking testament to that and a major component of why I want an FGO console release, to be FREE from its gacha ball and chain.

People just don't want to have to put up with a terrible gacha system anymore to experience that good story.

[the-night-that-feeds-if]

Hey everyone, dunno how long this might be, kind of doing a stream of consciousness style ramble about TNTF and me and stuff :)

alright so, tntf is getting a huge rework, this is my first if game ever, the coding is a little overwhelming, i know it’s fairly simple but it’s A LOT.

the reason i’ve been pretty quiet is mostly due to burnout, as some of you know i have health issues, i have crohns disease, i’m also autistic with adhd—something i love about this community is the understanding and acceptance for people/authors like me who may want to write but are just too stuck to be able to do it.

i know everyone is so jazzed for the next update, and i am too, there’s a few changes i’m making in regards to the technical aspects of the story, i’m removing stats, for the MC and for relationships. part of it is… i’m not a numbers person, trying to balance out the stats going up and down is a pain when this is planned to be a pretty damn long story. i also just don’t like it for my story personally, i don’t want you, as the player to feel like you have to game-ify personality or relationships.

this also opens the option for me to write more player responses to situations without having all of that annoying code in my brain~ MORE FLAVOR!

My writing has also vastly improved when it comes to fiction, a lot because i have been practicing so much while i’ve been sick (i’ve been playing with and writing AI chatbots on Janitor.AI, learning how to create a complex and realistic personality, an engaging character and world.) It’s been useful as a stress reliever and as a tool to help me write better, more descriptive etc.

on that note, smut in my game is also a very yes, i feel much more comfortable writing it now… heh.

i’ve also decided that all of my books are going to remain free, tntf was a planned three book series, it may just be one or two HUGE books, we’re going to have to see what i, and twine are capable of. but the story is going to span four countries and two continents of the world, so yeah.

the new rewrite is also going to slow things down considerably, because now we’ll have MC on a ship for four months as the intro, then meeting maddock and spending <insert amount of time here> with him while traveling to that little inn. it also gives me more room to introduce the characters a lot earlier but in their own POVs and not just while they’re with MC. i want the world to feel alive.

my decision to make and keep tntf free is because i want to.

i would not appreciate minors interacting with my content, but i also grew up with the internet, i know that no matter how much prevention we put in, minors are going to access our content regardless if it’s free or not. i just ask that if you are a minor and reading adult fiction, please don’t comment, dm or whatever, this is for your safety in the community as well as, i don’t want to deal with other people’s children on the internet, it’s nothing against any of ya’ll, you’re awesome, children are great but i’m almost 26, i really don’t want to deal with kids in what’s pretty much an adult space (i haven’t really seen books catered to the younger than 18 crowd, but like i’m saying, i’m more interested in forging connections with the adult community here, considering i am one, lmao *bats children away with pool noodles*)

i think that’s it

i might post more stuff but that’s my general direction

also to the asks in my inbox from last year on my birthday and forward… I READ THEM ALL AND APPRECIATE EVERY WELL WISH AND FEEDBACK, GENUINELY. i’m just bad at social media.

[ramshacklefey]

No but serious. Dungeons & Dragons is one of the least flexible systems out there. So whenever I hear someone asking, "Why can't I do X in DnD?" or "How would I do (thing that the system is totally ill-suited for)?" my first response is just "GURPS."

For those of you who aren't familiar, GURPS stands for "Generic Universal Role Playing System." I always say it's like the Linux of ttrpgs, in the sense that it's less a system and more a framework that you can use to do whatever you want with.

And I really do mean whatever you want. You want high fantasy? Done. You want gritty realism in a dystopian world? Got it. You want superheroes? Good to go. Super tech space opera? Oh boy we got you there. You want magic systems that aren't based on spell lists? Go for it. Horror games where character death is a constant and very real threat? Sure thing.

You can set up your game to be anything from a complex data driven grinder to a cinematic rules basically optional flight of fancy.

You can play characters who are anywhere from realistically squishy humans to god-like super beings.

Characters personal flaws and strengths can have a direct impact on mechanics. Character species can have a direct and serious impact on mechanics.

The existence of so many options can make GURPS seem overwhelming at first glance, but if you are willing to put in a bit of effort, it's actually a very simple system to play. Most of the hard work is front-loaded into setting and character creation. Once play starts it runs as smooth as can be.

It's totally possible to play it with just the two core books, BUT there are dozens of books that are nothing but tips and advice for how to build a particular type of world or a particular flavor of campaign.

And the books, while not nearly as pretty as DnD books, are laid out in a way that makes it incredibly easy to find exactly the information you want.

Some more mechanical things that I particularly like about it (under the cut):

Characters are created on a point-buy system, but you don't just buy your basic stats, you also buy your skills, advantages, and secondary stats. And you can gain points back by dropping stats below average or taking disadvantages.

The advantage/disadvantage system. This is sorta the core of the character building, and it is *so* much fun. See, rather than pick out a class or species, you have a list (selected by your GM from a much larger list) of things you can buy that will have mechanical impacts on you in the game. Basically, an advantage is anything that opens up more possibilities for you in-game, and a disadvantage is anything that closes off possibilities. They can be superpowers, species traits, cinematic plot armor, personality traits, or things like chronic illness, bad temper, physical or mental disabilities, or being doomed by the narrative.

Simple dice system. To play a GURPS campaign you need three d6. That's it. All checks and saves are done by rolling 3d6 (low rolls are better than high). This has an additional advantage over the d20 system in that there is a probability curve. You're more likely to roll numbers in the mid-range, which makes both critical successes and critical failures rarer, and therefore more satisfying.

Your target roll is adjusted, rather than adding/subtracting from the roll itself. Say you're trying to, idk, hack a computer. Your skill level doesn't affect your dice roll, it affects the number you need to roll in order to succeed. This makes things a lot simpler on the player's end, imo, because there's less they need to keep track of. (You're trying to roll under the skill check, so whatever the base difficulty is, the GM just adds or subtracts your skill level from that).

The basic stats are on a much tighter scale, and they make a lot more sense. Human average is a 10 in everything. When you make your character you can buy higher stats or take lower ones and get more points to spend on other things. All stats cap out at 18, because that's the highest number you can roll. At a 10 strength you are a normal person. At 18 you're basically Superman. You'd have to roll a critical failure not to succeed in a strength check, and remember: critical failures are far less common than in a d20 system.

I could keep going ad infitum here, but instead I'll just close with:

Come with me boy, play my games! We'll have cowboy times in space!

[oinonsana]

tabletop role-playing games, as a medium i think, are predisposed to crafting reals, on top of it being largely an exercise of language.

i'm using "real" right now as a basic "something that is completely true thing." in a sense, role playing game design is reality-crafting.

this means that every mechanic and every word used in the game, down to the language, is a way of crafting a real wherein the players must accept that is real (within that space). the reality is the bounds of the fiction and also the major expressive influence into the player's minds. however in a very weird positivist way, what mechanics exist in a game reify what the game says is real, and what doesn't exist doesn't exactly mean something isn't real. so instead of a real/unreal dichotomy we have a real/real (in fiction)/implication(pseudo real)/unreal

so for example: a game might have Stats, Classes, and mechanics for making attack rolls. all of these are Real, and they inform the fiction (a high STR might mean your character is strong, being of a FIGHTER means you're good at fighting and you can pull off maneuvers, making attack rolls is you committing physical violence on another). So they're both real and real in fiction. the localized reality around player characters now exist and they interact with the game through these reals.

now these things might be non-diegetic (frex, a FIGHTER (CLASS) might not actually exist within the game setting, they're archetypical representations, which is something D&D 4e and D&D 5e do), but that doesn't matter: those things are now real due to game design. this means there ARE fighters in your game, even if there is only one kind of fighter that the PC is, there are still fighters.

going further, these Reals also imply something about the established game world. these are not yet the pseudo-reals: so for example, a game that has CAP Skills (skills that cap any other skills you might use while doing something within their field, such as Horseback Riding [a Riding Skill 3 might mean you can only add +3 to when you're doing Melee Combat despite your Melee Combat being at +7, etc.]) this presupposes then that someone who isn't good at Riding cannot be as effective with their martial skill despite having been skilled at martial skill for years.

is this realistic to real life? it doesn't matter: with that established within the game mechanics, that is now what's Real there. and in role-playing you must follow along the Reality crafted there. this has a number of pseudo-reals (implications) such as (cavalry are all good at horseriding, etc.) but the importance of pseudo-reals is that these are things the table (the player aspect) can interface with as they wish. those things which the player has no choice but to interface with are the highest of reals in a roleplaying game

your choice of language informs this even further. not just the fact that you choose to write it in english (tagalog, spanish, etc. expresses things and imposes different priorities when it comes to real) but the wording choice you choose. frex: having INTELLIGENCE as a Stat can be somewhat ableist. what does high INTELLIGENCE mean? aren't there different kinds of smarts, is knowledge the same? or is this an abstraction? but is it a meaningful abstraction or an abstraction brought about by historical momentum (it's what D&D used). why is INTELLIGENCE a meaningful abstraction but STRENGTH and CONSTITUTION are split? these are all arbitrary until it isn't, and you must establish a real to live in the imagined space (that is, the fiction). i'm not saying the 6 stat array is a bad thing mind you but i think it's useful to understand why you have it in there in the game. if it's just because it's the most well known stat array then that's fine i guess

finally, what reals you put into the game is inherently informed by your own worldview. it actually doesn't have to be (that's the point of creation) but commonly game designers simply inject their worldview into the games as real and recreate that real into their tabletop rpg (frex, misogynists who think its realistic for men to be stronger than women, capping women's STR stats etc.) so choosing what is real and what isn't is a matter of paradigm shifting and realizing that not all realities irl are the same (not to go into metaphysics and sociopolitical philosophy)

[willknightauthor]

I'm so stoked! I've had so many breakthroughs simultaneously on this system!

I've been churning through RPG after RPG, trying to find everything useful, see every way it's been done. It's been a whirlwind, and I'm still in the middle of it, but I've been surprised at how little variation there is. Even the free form, "roleplaying forward," GM-less jam games do a lot of the same things as each other. Even if the mechanics are technically different, using different dice, the goals and ethos of the designs are identical. And we're all aware of the hoard of OSR/NSR games.

It started out with my fascination with balancing simulation and character-driven storytelling in a fun way, eventually becoming a desire to fix my frustrations with the World of Darkness. While I enjoy the campy, B-movie side of horror in the World of Darkness, I myself am more of an A24 type of writer (e.g. Midsommar, The VVitch, Under the Skin). The worlds I like to build, even when surreal, have solid internal logic. I crave that balance between the impossible and the gritty, between the beautiful and the horrifying.

I figured out how to tie everything to one health system, which itself is tied to one 10d6 dice pool. Now stress and health are one thing, and it directly affects what type of dice you roll, which changes odds and side effects. Your stats and your combat exhaustion determine the number of dice rolled, which means the more you do in combat, the fewer dice you have, and the lower your odds of success.

Because it's a d6 pool with success on one 6, the probability changes roughly linearly compared to other dice pool systems. Because there's only one vector for probability--more or less dice--difficulty is an easy thing for the GM to determine, and the probability of the roll quickly judged.

By tying actions to the dice pool via fatigue, I realized I can encourage scrappy, gritty, tactical combat by rewarding players with a second wind, meaning they get dice back. Now there's momentum between attackers and defenders. If you get backed into a corner with no options you start getting exhausted, but if you find a way to scramble out of it, jab them in the eyes, utilize the environment, make them hit their ally, then you recover and turn the tables. Even the initiative system ties into this scrappy back-and-forth, since initiative changes non-randomly during combat. And this is all in a zone-based “theater of the mind” combat system.

I've completely eliminated experience. Instead when you do difficult things and take risks, you get temporary boosts to that skill for future rolls. To permanently advance it you must engage in training, either as a side activity or during down time, over a realistic amount of time. At the highest levels you have to go on personal quests to advance your skills. Thus your skill advancement is tied to roleplaying.

Going up a single point in anything is very difficult though. Most of the "character advancement" instead is about character change. You gain new skills and abandon others, and via your new skills you can acquire a new "class." Basic advancement is quantitative, but all significant advancement is qualitative, using skills themselves as currency. You don’t just advance, you adapt.

Your "class" is advanced through a customizable narrative achievement tree. Thus to become a better mage, you must pursue life goals, narrative turning points, and personal transformations, based on their own ambitions and your ambitions for them as a character.

Almost every stat is an abstract representation of the character's internal qualities and state. Those internal states then have mechanical effects during the game if you can roleplay them: goals, passions, memories, knowledge, social ties, reputation, etc. It's conceptual, but it's not the loosy-goosy LARP style. There are mechanics with numerical and statistical effects, they're just tied to qualitative stats driven by roleplaying.

Importantly, there are many hooks for alternate or additional systems, especially weird and supernatural ones. I hate it when "magic" just amounts to a list of very narrow spells and their usages. Now there are many mechanical hooks for supernatural things tied to capabilities, knowledge, motivations, social role, self-image, core memories, etc.

I designed it backwards from multiple future games which will be very weird and abstract. The system as it stands represents the gritty foundation of any number of future games emphasizing social intrigue, personal horror, heart-pounding combat, and Lovecraftian worldbuilding. It's the ruleset for the regular, mortal humans, doing possible things in the real world… but with mechanical possibilities for much more.

Here are the games which inspired or influenced the design. I think it gives you a sense of how diverse and specific the design choices are.

Wraith: The Oblivion

Alien RPG

Over the Edge

Heart

The Wildsea

The Burning Wheel

Fate

Thousand Year Old Vampire

Na Ratunek Marsowi

Feng Shui

Barbarians of Lemuria

Mythras

Exalted

Fireborn

Delta Green

Reign

Gumshoe

Shock: Social Science Fiction

The True OSR: Obsolete Shitty Rules

The Devil, John Moulton

Cyberpunk RED

Dune RPG

Mothership

Streets of Peril

His Majesty the Worm

The Cypher System

Next I need to look into more (genuinely) experimental systems, especially ones involving memory and investigation. "The Between" and "Brindlewood Bay" are next on my list. The closest vibe design-wise I've gotten is from "Broken Empires" (which I'm so stoked for).

It's getting to the point where the overall rules are all set enough that I can drill down to specific numbers for everything, make some premade characters, and start playtesting. Fuck yeah.

[comfortlesshurt]

alrighty, I locked in for a couple days and now I get to reward myself by yelling into the tumblr void about the series progress

first off, there are TWO FICS over 50% done, v exciting stuff. I know they've been over 50% for a bit now, but like... let me have my motivation, okay? we are in the HARD PART of the project where it all looks overwhelming, so I'll take the wins I can

also tex fic is finished and through round 1 of editing. it still needs another major edit and i need to finish fic 1 to make sure no info conflicts between the two, but the serious work for that is done

there are a few more days left before NotNaNo, but even going in with today's word counts, focusing on fics 1 and 2 should put them pretty close to finished by the end of November unless I was super off with the word count estimate

also had a really good writing day yesterday!

ignore those date projections at the bottom because like... those assume either i write 3k every day or i write 3k twice a week and 1.2k the other 5 days, and I canNOT do that consistently. but that July 23rd date is realistic! that's me continuing to hit my average based on the past 106 days since starting this project, so there's a good chance I finish this project in a total of just over a year (in which case I will never shut up about writing 450k in a year, so watch out)

finally, fic 1 is a huge portion of that daily par number in the first row, so... unless I fall majorly away from the intended timeline, that required daily par will go down a LOT at the end of december, which will be nice. the goal is still to focus a lot on this project and only really jump over to side projects as they call to me, but it's easier to do that when your average isn't struggling to keep up with your daily par number. it simply does not feel good to be constantly working just to barely get over the par.

as far as editing, i'm starting to fear i didn't budget enough time for that in my early projections, so the timeline might be off there. those due dates listed are for the final rough draft, which doesn't get a chance to rest before immediately going into a month of editing. something just tells me now that a month isn't going to be enough to cover a content edit for each fic. it's also relying on the technical edits being done week-to-week as each chapter goes up.

also added one more tracking tool recently:

this is to look at all the projects week-to-week, and really what it's done is made it obvious that I am in fact very focused on fic 1 lmao. in my defense, that's the one that has consistently had the highest required par, so it's easy to treat it as the most important. also, up to 27-aug is rough. I started writing these fics in Word, so I didn't have day-to-day stats to go back and check. I could only find those once I switched to Reedsy, so for the record I did not write 54k between 20-aug and 27-aug. same with the tex fic--that wasn't all written in one week.

this chart still only looks at ILaD progress, so you can see where I take my break in October and it cuts down a lot... but that's excluding the 10k that went into an unrelated fic, so I don't think taking this break has actually cut down on my writing much. it's just made me have a better time with it temporarily. i took a couple days off writing completely during October but like... I didn't really enjoy that? so I don't think that's the solution I'm looking for long-term.

anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk. i will infodump again, and probably soon since all the end of the month posts are coming up in the next week.

[dn-838]

How Aborted Genocide affects the Mettaton NEO battle

despite it's short length, Mettaton NEOs battle is definitely something that has brought up a lot of discussion, with people viewing it in very different ways. Some think that Mettaton NEO was just really weak and that things like his -40000 DEF in the files is canon, while others think that he never intended to actually fight us and was just working as a diversion to try and help more monsters evacuate before we attempt to face Asgore. As nice as all these ideas are, the nature of the fight is answered quite well in what is in my opinion the best and most underrated path in the entire game, Aborted Genocide. Now I could make a whole blog in of itself about why Aborted Genocide is such a masterpiece and how perfectly it does the arcs of every character, however this will just be focussing on what the route reveals about the Mettaton NEO encounter.

What is Aborted Genocide

For those of you who aren’t aware, Aborted Genocide is a Neutral ending that will always trigger if you spared any Mini-bosses or didn’t tire out the kill count in Hotlands after killing Undyne the Undying. Basically if you attack Monster Kid you are locked into getting Aborted Genocide or Genocide, with your actions in Hotlands quickly locking you into one of the two. While it is a mostly Genocide run with New Home being just like it is in Neutral. Mettaton NEO has a lot more to say when you kill him than in normal Genocide, and the ending itself is very different to your typical Neutral path, with Sans not speaking to us at all and Alphy’s being the one telling us how things are going (Sans isn’t completely absent, but he only has a couple lines aimed towards Alphy’s where he tells her that he found our number before Alphy’s is given the phone).

Technical stuff

Alright, so let’s just get the boring stuff out of the way first. Some people try to argue that the NEO body is canonically very unstable and weak, with the -40000 DEF in the files being his canonical stats. The problem with this is that relying on file stats would also require you to assume that Toriel magically has her DEF go all the way down to -9999 exclusively in a Genocide run, and that monsters like Whimsalot, the heavily armoured version of Whimsun that is trying to kill you, has less DEF than an ordinary shy Whimsun. You could try and make an argument that the stats are canon in Mettaton NEOs case because in Genocide the 900K-999K damage you do to him is scripted and isn’t actually the amount of damage you would do, however if your murder level (a stat present in the files of the game that calculates how far through the Genocide run you are which increases every time you kill a boss, mini-boss, unique enemy and clear an area) is below 15, the scripted damage is not present, and since the Mettaton NEO encounter is activated when your murder level is 12, facing him at any point between murder levels 12 and 14 will cause a normal amount of damage to be done, so the -40000 DEF is to make sure that an attack done would still kill in 1 hit (I know I could have just said that it’s not scripted in Aborted Genocide, but come on, if I’m gonna discuss the technical stuff I might as well go all out). I think we can safely assume that the 90 ATK & 9 DEF we see with Mettaton NEO in his check stats are intended to be the canon ones.

Mettaton NEOs dialogue

This is Mettatons speech prior to becoming Mettaton NEO in both Genocide and Aborted Genocide. Mettaton seems to know what a threat we are to both Monsterkind and humanity, and he tries to stop us by bringing out his original and most dangerous form. Of course you could realistically still gather that he was working as a diversion so more monsters can evacuate before Asgore absorbs the souls and defeats you, at least you can argue that until you see what he has to say when you kill him in an Aborted Genocide run.

Yes… Mettaton knew that Asgore wouldn’t absorb the Souls and that you would easily defeat him, but if that’s the case then he’d have had no reason to have only tried to work as a distraction, since either way everything was doomed. It seems most likely that Mettaton tried to fight you in a last ditch effort out of desperation, but since we grew so powerful and were so willing to cause harm, we were able to take him down easily. Speaking of that, on the topic of the Mettaton NEO fight, I have a little theory to share.

A tragic theory

So, let’s have a quick look at what Mettaton NEO says when we kill him in a normal Genocide run

Yeah… there really doesn’t seem to be anything to it like there is on an Aborted Genocide path, however I believe it actually holds quite a bit more importance than we originally thought, and that these 2 lines of dialogue make this death one of the saddest scenes in the entire game. Of course he talks here about his “fanclub”, which you would assume to be what is mentioned by him in the Neutral ending where he becomes ruler and that some of the Hotlands NPCs bring up, however there is something else that he calls a “fanclub”.

In Mettaton’s old house, he has a set of diaries, one of which he talks about how he first met Alphy’s, at a “human fanclub” no less. Now at first this seems to be the only time this human Fanclub is ever mentioned, but I believe that this was what he was referring to in his final Genocide line. While yes this may seem like a stretch, the thing is in Genocide Mettaton shows more care towards humanity than himself, accepting his death in Aborted Genocide because he knows that humanity will live on. I believe that Mettaton in Genocide meant the opposite. He didn’t know about Sans, he believed he truly was the only hope, and for that reason, when we take him down, he thinks that’s it, he thinks humanity is doomed, and he says “guess you don’t wanna join my Fanclub” for that very reason, to him, they are all already doomed… because of you.

TL;DR - Mettaton was genuinely trying to fight us and believed he was the last hope

[figmentof]

so i've been seeing a lot of people ask "what streaming service would want to pick up a show that only has one season left?" and i think that's a really valid question

now i'm not by any means a media analyst nor do i know the inner workings of the streaming industry but maybe my logic could help alleviate some of that anxiety

ofmd has a solid and very loyal viewer base. the ratings of both s1 and s2 have proven that, especially s2. s1 already outperformed in every way by running circles around MCU projects like Moon Knight and Loki, left both SW shows The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett in the dust, and did exceptionally well for a freshman series when going up against existing IPs. now we know that that alone was what got us s2 with max, but even then max/WBD went and slashed the budget by 40% 😬. BUT, even with this limitation and the pacing getting fucked up by rewrites/cut downs for the last three episodes, s2 still came through and delivered record breaking numbers, rave reviews across the board with major media outlets, and outdid their s1 performance that max officially listed ofmd as their max original flagship show. the unfortunate thing however is that none of this made a difference, we still got dropped last minute when the bts crew was already gearing up for pre-production

just because WBD/Zaslav doesn't respect or see the value of the show, doesn't mean other networks/streamers don't. a huge reason why i pushed for apple tv is bc they're a service that i've noticed cares about letting a show do their thing and not as much about viewership. apple tv did get a lot of attention and money from Ted Lasso though, and it was their flagship show for the three seasons it aired. i'm sure their 45 minute per episode season 3 was granted to them mainly because the show brought so much attention to their platform, so i think they'd absolutely do that for ofmd too what with it also being a feel good rom com with positive messages

ofmd also has a huge social media presence. the most recent and very successful example DJenks could use within his pitch is the astroglide incident. within an hour of astroglide tweeting about ofmd, fans are already photoshopping their product into screencaps, editing them into clips, and drawing fan art-- free advertisement delivered to them just because they gave us some attention. the fan tweets with astroglide reached thousands of eyes and astroglide was trending. any service that chooses to pick ofmd up isn't just getting a fanbase that would save them some budget in terms of marketing, but also help them market their lesser known shows too. and Casey Bloys said so himself, albeit very tone deaf and for all the wrong reasons, the twitter gays are the ones who have the power to bring attention to a show (queer word of mouth is no joke)

sometimes all a streaming service needs is a show to push people to subscribe, and i think a lot of these services have good shows but no one is looking for them. ofmd fans are pretty good at browsing through what a service has to offer but you need to give them an incentive, as would any business, that makes them want to spend money. i just think that picking ofmd up is only ever a win for a streamer and it would be stupid of them not to

of course, if you want actual insider knowledge with stats and more realistic talks of what might happen (cautiously optimistic!), you know to check out thecozypirate and meowzawowza_ on twt

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

Pokemon Card of the Day #3058: Cofagrigus (Lost Thunder)

Cofagrigus was a very interesting sort of Pokemon. It got stronger by discarding Benched Pokemon, and there was a limit to how much you could get out of this. Being a Stage 1 meant that you wanted another one ready to go. The other side of this story was that you had a Pokemon that still had potential for pretty good damage output, especially with your best Pokemon for self-recovery being able to place damage counters at the same time. This was while giving up just the single Prize. The potential to both be great and fall flat were both pretty notable here, and with no competition it was certainly worth a close look.

120 HP wasn't winning any awards by this point on a Stage 1. While not awful for the standards of the time, a lot of Pokemon could reach that much damage once set up. The Darkness Weakness meant that a KO was easier for the likes of Zoroark-GX and Spiritomb, though both had ways to get to 120 already. Only needing to set up part of the way was helpful to their chances. The Fighting Resistance had a small impact in the SUM-On format, as while that type had fallen quite a bit, Buzzwole did show up in decks every once in a while. The Retreat Cost was 3, and if you could fit switching cards for the few scenarios it mattered it was nice to have. Chances are you'd be trying to just repeatedly swarm Cofagrigus without switching, so the effect of this stat was pretty limited.

Cofagrigus had just 1 attack. Spirit Juggling needed a Psychic and a Colorless Energy, and it had you discard any number of your Benched Pokemon. The attack started at 10 damage, but 30 was added for each Benched Pokemon you discarded. The need to have a Yamask or Cofagrigus on the Bench for the next attack did limit its potential a bit, as you'd realistically max out at a still impressive 130. Getting both Energy in play on each Cofagrigus was also tough, as each one was prone to falling in a single hit against a lot of decks. You could try Malamar as well, but your effective output was just 100 by that point and that was pretty low even if you stacked your deck with Giratina to get back to the Bench and add damage counters in the process. The way this had a chance was with that Giratina, as those could help soften up the Bench for later in the game.

Cofagrigus was quite hard to use, as realistically you had to swarm Stage 1's and have a single Malamar there to let the Energy flow when not behind on Prizes. If you could repeatedly recover Giratina from the discard pile, you could at least spread damage to the opponent's Bench to set up for a bit of a comeback later. In general, Cofagrigus was quite unreliable, even though the concept was rather fun.

[fantasyfantasygames]

Droid Revolution

Droid Revolution, Oil Bath Games, 2019

The folks at Oil Bath Games saw Solo (2018) and said "This revolution-as-joke thing is trash" and wrote this.

For those unfamiliar with the... I'll generously call it "plot"... of Hans Star Wars: A Solo Story, there's this bit with an extremely woman-coded* droid who believes that droids should be treated like people. You know, these clearly sentient individuals who feel pain and can go rogue, the ones who are alternately treated as best friends and as disposable. Odds are extremely good that someone at Disney said "Ohhhh no no no we're not causing that PR problem for ourselves, you're not allowed to acknowledge the obvious slavery in our family-friendly universe full of blood-covered planet chunks" and turned her droid revolution into a lethal, unfunny joke.

I may have opinions here.

Anyway, Droid Revolution has you playing robots who have no other options. There's a backstory involving the droids organizing, failing, organizing again, retreating, building a home for themselves, freeing others, and finally being pushed back to the wall. There isn't a lot of detail beyond the four major droid companies. I do like how the companies have very different designs. One company does floating bots with sensors on coils and antennae; another has sleek lines and stylish accents; the third looks pretty much like Transformers, and the last one is very industrial. The art is all of robots, but it's well-made. Somewhat reminiscent of the better stuff in Rifts.

The rules are a d6 System variant, which makes total sense if you played the old West End Games version of Star Wars. It works similarly - roll usually somewhere between 2d6 and 5d6, get over target number to succeed, Wild Die, etc. The game's equivalent of Force Points are Overdrive Levels. It's not thrilling but it works, and it's been around forever.

The GM section of the book has stats for opposition, which is actually mostly non-sentient machines piloted by humans. The humans themselves are comparatively squishy. The GM section also lays out a surprisingly cogent "here's how revolutions go" timeline with examples from our own world's history. Nice to see someone be realistic there. They do remind you that you can also throw "realistic" out the window if you want.

Being a big fan of transhumanism, I would have liked if they dug a little more into "why droids" - like, why live in a body instead of remote-controlling it from a safer place? - but those are minor quibbles. Oil Bath Games did a good job overall.

* Side note: "Woman-coded" does not mean that the droid's code was written by a woman, but it would be understandable if you thought I meant that. I meant that the droid in question had obvious hips and a feminine voice.

[atthebell]

re: joui being a stereotype, I've definitely like. had the thought in the back of my mind throughout watching osnf? like I very much did watch it all with the view of "i have seen Luba's instagram and know he is very into Japan and like hmm. this feels. off"

I did enjoy osnf very much and I like Joui as a character! just. not those parts. because. well whatever Luba's intentions were it feels a bit. hm. I found it mostly bearable to watch (with suspension of disbelief re: the amount of honorifics, I got used to it) but I did cringe at the "samurai ancestor" part (which he in-rp did later tell Thiago was a lie but also like. come on. you could have also just Not Said That) and definitely felt like he was overdoing the "number 4 is bad luck" superstition thing too. like even if someone is superstitious surely nobody actually reacts like that every time the number is mentioned. y'know

and like credit to them for changing his name to a more realistic spelling a couple episodes in at least (even if the name itself is probably also questionable) and also for Luba toning it down on the Japanese exclamations/swearing (because they did feel very like. anime character esque slash neg lol). but yeah on the whole I watched osnf through a lens of "this is not a realistic depiction of a Japanese person and I am aware of that"

then again I don't know how common of an experience this is or whether people do just watch it uncritically (actually knowing the internet the answer is Very Likely Yes. but also reading the replies on that tweet it appears this view is a general consensus at least among some people) but. well. wanted to share my thoughts I suppose. sorry for discoursing in your inbox ^^

(also, based on the twitter people and also you focusing the criticism on osnf specifically - does that imply it gets better in later seasons? I don't have time to start watching opd for another couple of weeks but now I'm wondering)

yeah we started the season and i was like okay so that's the character luba chose to create. okay it's getting worse. oh worse than that. oh it just keeps going. awesome cool not upsetting at all.

i didn't even remember the samurai ancestor thing that's pretty bad i just think everything about joui is a terrible stereotype and luba should've made like literally any other character instead of him. it also does not help that i just don't like him as a character (sorry to. apparently every other ordem fan? seriously joui is THE most popular ordem character by far). but yeah the honorifics are terrible and so gross, the name choice is weird, the four thing pisses me off so bad because as menace says whenever we're talking about it: it's not like joui is superstitious in any other way! it's very clear luba heard about four being a superstitious number in east asian culture and decided to just go all in on that instead of doing any research on like occultism and perspectives on the supernatural in asia. also him being a prodigious gymnast in any other context wouldn't bother me but it does also feel like yet another japanese stereotype and also (this is just me being nitpicky and not really about the racism side of things) but the fact that joui's character build isn't actually built for gymnastics kills me. he doesn't even have good acrobatics!!!! he has WAY better strength and athletics, at least during OSNF, and i cannot for the life of me understand why you would create a character with a gymnast backstory if not to have reasons for good acrobatics and dex stats.

all of that plus the honor stuff is just awful i can't deal with it we literally have to pause every time joui starts talking to an npc because it's not fun to watch for so many reasons and it just makes me feel terrible. i don't know why luba thought it would be a good idea, it reads completely as him being a major weeb with no thoughts about how bad this is as representation.

also i know for a fact most fans watch it uncritically because again i've only seen ONE person talk about this and it was that tweet (and the replies, to be fair, in which a lot of people agreeing) i posted earlier in an ask. i'm sure people over the years have talked about it to some extent but i see people talk about joui CONSTANTLY and this is the first time i've seen anyone bring up how much the character sucks from a stereotyping angle. like, if i were to tell someone to watch this season, i would heavily warn them about this aspect of it, because for me it makes it really difficult to engage with joui as a character at all, aside from all my other issues with the season.

on your last point, i'm finishing up OSNF now, so i haven't seen any later seasons, but rainy said that luba tones it down somewhat and that the focus is more on his actual actions and progression as a character and less on the caricature of a japanese person that he is for the entirely of OSNF. i'll keep my expectations measured, personally, but i do believe i've heard somewhere that luba did realize how poorly it came across and tried to improve it, so there's that.

[dopepoisonivyoncrack]

Got quite bugged by the lack of a more nuanced take on Astarion intelligence. This ended up quite long so I'm putting it under line

Won't get medical into the "less wrinkled brain" narrative comment, which can be offensive, I've seen some complain about it, I don’t have the medical expertise and it's not necessary because, while maybe not an excuse, it was used figuratively. Astarion is not the smartest person in the room but also not the dumbest, which makes sense and I'll get to that in a moment. I've seen the jokes though, and there is a big difference between being less wrinkled and having the brain as smooth as a chicken breast. I have not laughed.

About the stats, I think it reflects his current state but not the limits of his intellectual capacities. If anyone more knowledgeable in dnd inner workings can correct me in this, feel free to do so.

What I can say is that intelligence is the ability to solve complex problems, to learn and adapt and make better decisions, and there is nothing to suggest Astarion doesn't possess this ability, quite the contrary, he learns and adapts relatively fast when allowed to do so. The brain is like a muscle that needs to be trained, and unfortunately, he couldn't do that much in the last 200 years. Trauma also messes with the brain and many of its abilities. It can physically change the brain and the mechanisms used for learning and survival [x]. Not to dig into details as it's beside the point here but "trauma significantly impacts our ability to learn, to form memories, to regulate emotions, it can affect our ability to be calm, to learn, to think, to reflect and to respond flexibly and in a planned way" [x]. It should be no surprise that Astarion has difficulties in doing a number of these, if not all.

Before jumping at me like I'm trying to use the trauma in defense of his intelligence, I am not saying he was some brilliant mind before. He was probably a bit above average, with a privileged access to higher education. We can't know anything for sure because we were never given anything on the magistrate elf (not to assess intelligence anyway), but whatever his starting point was, it got affected under Cazador. We only have the current Astarion and some observations during our game travels.

So, while I don't think he was ever the brightest, he is far from being dumb. The lower intelligence stats in the game make perfect sense for someone like him, as he is now. He was killed as a young adult, he was controlled body and mind for 2 centuries, stuck following orders, and in survival mode. He didn't get, and wasn't allowed to think for himself, to grow, to learn, to develop his skills to their potential! Including thinking skills! Moreover, he was told and made to feel incapable, worthless. Cazador likes to remind that quite often. Of course he isn't adept at thinking things through, making complex plans, figure out things that would be more obvious to others, and so on... like when it comes to relationship experience, because he didn't had to think or do anything more complex than seduce someone for a night and carry them to Cazador, for a very very long time. The routine and ingrained mindset, the "chains" so strong, he kept doing them out of inertia for a while even after the tadpole-gained-freedom. It took him a while to even realize he can just stop doing it now, like slowly waking up and regaining senses, and control over his body. It's great writing there, sensitive, thoughtful, realistic writing. It would be quite weird if he knew any better, and that would have to reflect into higher stats. And I would like to point out that he learns and adjusts himself from now on with increasing pace, going hand in hand with recovery. (Going into how this affects Ascended Astarion who, I argue, rejects recovery, would be interesting but maybe another time).

On the other hand, the skills that helped him do what Cazador asked for, are very very honed. I still remember his lines, not being able to even put a name on another type of relationship "You are not a victim, not a target, not another night it's better to forget. But then...what in the world could you be?" (Might be paraphrasing a bit but the point stands). It's not for lack of intelligence that he fails to do that, and it's not for lack of intelligence that he fails to do many other things.

Basically, I am saying is that he was never the smartest, but he is not dumb, he was made a bit dumber/ kept for a long time, by trauma and circumstance, from getting smarter, kept from reaching whatever his potential was, and that if allowed to regain his freedom and recover, he still has the ability to reach whatever his potential is. Things we can witness him doing, gradually. And that his stats or the comments on his intelligence in the game reflect his current situation and not his limits.

[cipheramnesia]

hey I'm curious about the switch to Pathfinder! could you go into how your group decided to change & what the process of switching over is like?

(I've started running 5e for my friends last year and the idea intrigues me. I'd love to hear your thoughts)

Just a quick summary up top because I've been thinking about this post awhile: Pathfinder 2e has the most readily available free system content and the Pathbuilder 2e app helped all our players with an easy creation process.

In what probably comes as no shock, the Wizards of the Coast open gaming license controversy was the prompt to change. We have a game that's been recording with the goal of being a podcast, and after we all talked it out we decided we couldn't stay with D&D for that specific game.

The choice to go with Pathfinder was ultimately convenience and availability. Because the majority of the resources for Pathfinder are free online with the blessing of the company owning the system, it meant everyone could access the basics. The similarities also made it easier to transition over for most of us, and our DM had the books already available. The majority of the group also wanted to do more with the characters which meant the move had to be something where we could preserve them as best as possible.

I think what really cemented it for the whole group were two apps:

Second Edition Character Sheet - This is a simplified Pathfinder 2e character sheet that does not have many features or all the options in the game, but gives a great feel for how the creation system works. Most descriptions of it I find labyrinthine or counterintuitive, and this app made it much easier to see how various skills and stats are assigned in the game.

Pathbuilder 2e - I think everyone is using this app now because it has basically every single option in Pathfinder 2e you can consider for a character, and a very easy to use system for editing and tweaking your concepts, or just playing around to see how the system works. My nonbinary wife who generally hates mechanics and stats jumped right in and made a super good character almost immediately, so it's very new user friendly too. We do end up needing to use the Pathfinder website in conjunction for a lot of the process, but realistically it's no different than being new to 5e and using DnD Beyond, other than that it's not trying to get you to shell out extra money all the time.

So far all we've done is the character creation process, although as I understand it the main difference in game play is critical roles are more common in 2e. However, as creation goes, Pathfinder is very difficult to create outside the box compared to 5e. For example, in 5e I was able to make my orcish sprite as a Ranger with negative strength and intelligence but thanks to high dexterity and some judicious use of spells allow her to be the party tank with the capacity to immediately charge into danger further and faster than anyone else.

This is more or less impossible in 2e until higher levels, which I don't like because I need my character to be both ignorant and irresponsible because I think that's hilarious. Fortunately I was able to more or less jury rig something, but in general I find the creation process a bit less diverse - despite the fact that 2e has a huge number of background and class options compared to 5e.

Additionally, while 2e has a reputation as having more rules, many of the specific features have not been as well defined as 5e. This means you'll need to somewhat define functionality between yourself and your DM in some situations.

Something everyone noticed during creation, even our DM, was that 2e offers a great deal more options for building a campaign around intrigue, politics, crime, science fiction, or basically any other number of options that aren't combat focused. I think our campaign may end up more city oriented just to take advantage of those options, and because some of us love that style of story.

Overall, I think I like Pathfinder just a bit more for the point distribution and character design. If you're planning to start fresh, it's a very exciting system, either if you want a stand up knock down slugfest or if you want to play a scheming vizier plotting the king's downfall. However, the base characters lack some variety and if you plan to move a 5e character over expect some tradeoffs or potentially for it to be flat out impossible.

[zizz-asdf-re-r-o-u]

NU:Carnival Gambler's Paradise Event Review/Analysis

Warning for spoilers! (Note: This was written before Rusted Nation event came out, so some of the gore/assault stuff I talk about is missing)

Ok so I'm technically new to playing Nu Carnival (as in, since Sunburst Festival), so I can only compare it to Sunburst Festival, Misty Vale, and the reruns since Sunburst Festival. But I thought I'd share my thoughts on why the Gambler's Paradise event was so good.

As a disclaimer: I'm not into fluffy stories and personally prefer horror, gore, action, and ofc smut. So if that stuff ain't your cup of tea, then what I'm saying are positive things, may not be your thing. I'm also a lesbian so I'm not playing this game with the intention of self inserting myself to be banged by the guys. I can only think in terms of the quality of the sex and story compared to other porn games I've played. 

The story/sex:

One thing many people have said about NU:Carnival, is that its a gay porn game, but with "an actually good story and good characters". However, if we look at it realistically in terms of what most players can afford, then it's more like a gacha turn-based RPG, with a few porn scenes locked away. With the exception of the 1st opening scene, in all the main storyline chapters, there is no sex, unless you pull for character cards. At most, we occasionally get characters talking about their sexual exploits and Chimes of Darkness event had an off-screen orgy. Naturally, this is still a gacha game and the H scenes will never be available for free. 

But in Gambler's paradise, a very taboo sexual crime (vore) is what kicks off the plot, characters are deliberately flirty for plot reasons, a magical cock ring is what solves the day, and so on. It's a very horny event, mixing porn with plot and that's what I think makes a good porn game. A porn game shouldn't be censored or fluffy- it should have horny first, and then to elevate it from being just a bad cliched average porn game, it could also have a good plot. 

The SSRs:

I personally think SSR Aster & Morvay battle stats kind of suck, so we'll just ignore that. Instead, their SSR designs are very good. I do really miss femboy twink Aster, but full form Aster is not bad and actually made me notice/appreciate twink Aster more. Morvay, however, is standout because he doesn't have illogical gravity-defying skintight clothes and has fatty pecs. All the big titty guys (including Morvay SR/R/N) in NU:Carnival have perky tight muscular pectorals. But SSR Morvay? His are borderline sagging! To everyone who complains that there is are no fat guys in Nuca- first up its a porn game so it'll never happen, but SSR Morvay is the closest we can get to so far. Nuca's other claim to fame is the clothing damage. I don't have every card so I'm not sure if any other cards have it, but I think Aster & Morvay might be the 1st SSRs with visible marks on their bodies (kisses, handprints, rope, etc). 

As for the rooms- I did look up kink stats for all rooms, and I gotta say- Aster & Morvay have THE most creative H scenes in the entire game so far. Nuca is actually kind of vanilla if we think about it, and they BROUGHT the kinky shit. Most other porn games have more far extreme (or stupidly ridiculous >_> ) stuff than these 2 rooms, so Nuca is finally starting to catch up. 

I would like to bring extra attention to Aster though. I've read a lot of BL manga, I've played a tiny number BL games, watched many more BL game Let's plays/livestreams, and have researched many titles/looked at many people's recommendations, so I think i know a decent number of titles. At this point in history, there are absolutely 0 transguys that have sex in BL (not including "magical MTF  genderswapping" that hentai/anime is known for). There's also 0 use of strapons in smutty BL. We've also still haven't seen Aster naked or directly using his junk into/with someone else. Yes there's mention of Aster's "rod" & something gushing/leaking behind Eiden's back in his SR room, but we don't see it, there's no "orgasm splashing sound" that Nuca's H scenes are known for, and Aster's VA is also not orgasm-moaning/screaming during it. 

Several other tumblrs have already speculated that Aster might be trans and reddit has speculated that Aster might be ace spectrum/sex repulsed.  So Aster might be the 1st male character in all of explicit East Asian BL to use a strapon, possibly trans, and possibly on the ace spectrum. Also also- Aster's a shapeshifter, he can probably make a dick appear & reappear at will! And transguys can also do packing! There is just so much evidence it can't be just coincidences. I think that's SO cool. 

The gameplay: Unfortunately, the battles were the same as any other NU:Carnival battle. Nothing novel about this.

The gore/horror/assault:

This is the point where MOST people will disagree and turn away, so trigger warnings for everything. And just cause I enjoy the horror, does not mean that everyone needs to. It's valid for someone feel uncomfortable/horrified by it, but also you should not yuck my yum. Like I mentioned, I'm not into gay porn to pretend I'm being banged by guys.

Anyways, NU:Carnival, is a mostly vanilla gay porn game, so there's only horror *sometimes*, and it's usually just fighting/killing, psychological manipulation, or Kuya. Well, Gambler's Paradise opens up with serial killing and vore. We also "see" onscreen sexual mutilation, onscreen sexual assault, murder, and Aster & Morvay technically cannibalize Leroy. (They're familiars, Leroy is a familiar, so cannibalism?) Depending on how you interpret Aster & Morvay's relationship, you could view Morvay's room 5 H scene to be Aster assaulting Morvay too. Note that all the violence and stuff is still limited by the mobile game animation format, so the animation isn't great, but the text and SFX communicates the horror well enough.

Now, there are actually a LOT of horror BL visual novels/games with sex and most of them are high quality horror compared to NU:Carnival. However, one thing NU:Carnival offers is it's signature self-awareness, genre-saviness, and the opportunity to do sexy comedy horror. And ofc, since it's a regularly updated online gacha game, that means it has the time to be relevant and to experiment and try out different genres, so if this event isn't for you, there is the main story and other events that could suit your taste. Gambler's Paradise takes what it's best at, takes the risks & opportunities its' genre can offer, and makes it unexpectedly fun. (Except the whole gacha/pulling/price shenanigans, and ).