#part 4 especially

[concrete-3ater]

Jo-Jos bizarre Adventure really is one of those things where I think I’m over it and then I see one good fanart and suddenly I have the itch again

this is not a ride I’m on willingly it’s a plague that cannot be cured by modern day medicine

[silverior968]

Look, I know that Ratchet being so different in RiD15 than in TFP is a thing of like different genre and target audience or whatever but I think it's funny to come up with possible in-universe reasons, like:

[Image ID: Several digital doodles, accompanied by text. The first one in the top left is of TFP Ratchet, looking tired, with the text "Poster boy of mental health issues" written next to him. To his right is an arrow pointing to the right, with the text "like 5 years". At the other end of the arrow is a doodle of RiD15 Ratchet, smiling, with the text "joyful individual?". Below the first drawing of TFP Ratchet is the number 1. Accompanied by the text "He's been doing just as bad, he's just currently having a good time". To the right of the text is a drawing of RiD15 Ratchet shinjiposing (sitting on a chair with his head in his hands, top-down perspective). To his right is an arrow pointing to a drawing of RiD15 Optimus and Ratchet, both smiling and blushing with their eyes closed and with flowers floating around them, indicating happiness. Below the drawing of Ratchet shinjiposing is the number 2. With the text "spite" in big letters, and the text "for the government" in brackets. To the right of the text is a drawing of one of the councilmembers with a speech bubble that reads "Optimus Prime sucks and so do you so we're like banishing you or whatever". Ratchet is drawn looking bored with a thought bubble that reads "damn, now I have to get better". Below the drawing of the councilmember is the number 3. accompanied by text that reads "having a little buddy to hang out with is really good for your mental health". The text is accompanied by a drawing of RiD15 Ratchet and Undertow sitting next to each other, both looking deadpan. The text "dead silence" is placed above Undertow and the text "+1 Mental health" is placed next to Ratchet, repeated 12 times like how status updates are placed in video games. / End ID]

[baifengxis]

23.5 THE SERIES องศาที่โลกเอียง EPISODE 5

[oinonsana]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Difference Of Paradigm and Philosophies

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

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

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

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

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

The Violence Die: the Visceral Attacking Roll

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Mechanical Weight

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

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

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

[moonwoodhollow]

Griselda Oreolo - a vampire origin story in 5 parts (I-II-III-IV-V) a Venetian Aristocrat vampire for @thebramblewood

Transcript

unknown woman: [quiet sobbing]

unknown woman: Riposa in pace, Giovanni. (Rest in peace, Giovanni)

Griselda: As I left the crypt, the sweetest scent I had ever smelled drifted over to me and I couldn't help but follow it.

Strangely, I felt an ache deep inside me, something akin to hunger yet so much worse.

unknown woman: [shocked gasp]

Griselda: When I found the source of the heavenly scent, that clouded my thoughts, I stared at it in a daze. It was a woman, who smelled so delicious I wanted to sink my teeth into her neck.

For a split second, I realised what horrendous thoughts I was having, but then the monster inside me took over and only one thought echoed in my mind: I needed to feed.

[to be continued]

[themundanedumpling]

i can't stop laughing over some tiktok comments saying that they were expecting a sweet fluffy romance with korn and tonk LIKE THIS IS BOC AND SAMMON THEY DON'T DO FLUFF

if we're really making a comparison i would say kinnporsche is the most "wholesome" one boc has ever created

[royalarchivist]

Etoiles: [Reading Richarlyson's sign] "It looks so cute" it's really good. And what's your favorite? It's because my mother is doing- is doing them, like, she's doing crazy mkhabez, and like, when I eat it, I forget all my problems. I think it's like- it's like drug for me. It’s like cocaine. [Laughs] I never did cocaine in my life, but I think mkhabez is the same effect. It’s the same effect for me.

[Note: Mkhabez are a type of Algerian pastry.]

[daily-hanamura]

[felassan]

Hello! I know a lot of elven lore stuff has been shared with us and confirmed but I was wondering if any dwarf lore or titan stuff maybe has been glossed over or if I just haven't seen anything, thought you might know if so

hello! ◕‿◕ speculation about plotbeats aside, in the marketing/info for DA:TV they haven't really mentioned much dwarf or titan stuff. Kal-Sharok was mentioned here (unclear if that means we are going there or not). The Deep Roads are confirmed as a location that we will visit. this looks like Deep Roads concept art (this one is also interesting). Rook can be a dwarf. creatures that look to be darkspawn afflicted by red lyrium (lyrium being called the blood of Titans) are known to be monsters that we will fight and a problem that we will encounter in the game. Harding, a dwarf, now has unexpected magical powers. given what happened to Valta in The Descent DLC, I [speculation] wonder if this has something to do with the titans.

[thebramblewood]

The Vatores Present... A Decennial Vampire Bash: Part X

Featuring everyone in some poorly lit and questionably edited shots, I'm so sorry! Endless thanks one last time to you all! @sprout-sims @melancholicsimmer @moonfromearth @sueniia @sims4thehoes @loveryss @igotsnothing @sammyshuno @madebycoffee @simming-in-the-rain @deathtulips @eggysimblr @jaigny @sylvan-glade @forssims

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Helena: [slurred] I'm suddenly not feeling so hot, Lilith. Lilith? LILITH!!!

[VAMPIRE CHAOS ENSUES]

Lilith: Helena?

Helena: STAY BACK!

Lilith: What's wrong? Give me your hand. You're shaking.

HELENA: DON'T TOUCH ME! NO, GET AWAY! YOU'RE MONSTERS, ALL OF YOU!

Lilith: Helena, what are you talking about? It's only me, and I'm no monster.

Helena: [edgily scans the room, now silent and empty] Do you promise?

Lilith: You can trust me.

[mantequillabooks]

Sooooo it’s going to take 2 years to film and edit 8 episodes for season 4…………………

It took 2 years for season 3 to come out and that was disappointing for multiple reasons. I’m not a Polin girl but even I was like “who’s the main couple again???!”

Why are there sooooo many different storyline’s taking place at the same time? Yes, it’s interesting to see other people and things going on but the main focus is always supposed to come back to the main couple and this season I had to keep reminding myself that Polin were the main couple cause so many other things were going on. Like, is this not a romance show at the end of the day? Yes, it’s set in the regency period and touches on so many different topics BUT is this not a romance show at the core? I mean it’s literally adapted from a book called ‘Romancing Mister Bridgerton’ but was there really much time for romance between them with all the drama/arguing taking over.

Now Benedict…….don’t get me wrong, I liked him in season 2 but they kept recycling the same old things with him, this man is just the community bike atp. Like doesn’t this man have anything else to do besides people?

Where is artist Benedict?? What happened to wanting to make it on his own without Anthony having to buy his way into things? Having his own passions and interests?

Anyways……

[sn0wbat]

well what family doesn't keep a secret vampire family member hidden deep in in the basement /s

EDIT: Rest of the comic is now under the cut!

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BONUS:

[cakepoppresent]

Most artists who play the Tiny Desk leave behind a small memento to live on the shelves. Orange gave us the first microphone he used for his first-ever performance, an item that represents his journey as an artist.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

EPISODE 2 AND 3 HAVE BEEN SOOOO FUN im already so emotionally attached to each of these characters.. if anything bad ever happens to any of them im killing everyone and then everyone.

[pass3ra]

cressida's storyline was genuinely shameful tbhhh it's like they started rewriting it in the first half of the season then completely forgot about the changes they'd made to make it fit the book plot and it just ends up making everyone else look bad😐 every character in the second half got a "penelope did nothing wrong" lobotomy so we ended up with eloise completely ignoring cressida being sold off to an horrible man (when she made every effort to support her in the first half of the season) and for some reason resenting her for pretending to be lady whistledown? Then they somehow frame her ignoring colin's offensively bad pleas as it being her turning away from redemption when all she's trying to do is escape being trapped in the country with her likely abusive aunt... and it ends with her meeting her horrible fate and it still being framed as tragic only to immediately juxtapose it with the bridgerton family winning the idgaf war while gleefully seeing off francesca and her future dead husband. The bridgertons were the villains of the season frfr

[tricoufamily]

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