#plus 5ish more i didn't count

[badassbutterfly1987]

Title: Family Tree

Base source

almost every member of House Raith (excluding both generations before LR and any of Thomas' kids), both canon and OC

dashes for eyes means the character is dead in the main timeline, which in hindsight might be hard to see

i nearly forgot Madrigal and Madeline and had to add them in last minute XD

Row 1, back: Mircea (gray/red/black), Thomas (gray), Augustus/Ezra (blue), Blair (brown/white), Connor (gray), Elisa (black), Elias (gray/black), Inari (blue), Edith (purple/white), and Madrigal (black/white/blue)

Row 2, middle: Imogen (gray/gold), Gideon (green/brown), Andrea (blue/gold), Lord Raith (gray/black), Alain (yellow), Lara (gray/red), and Natalia (brown/orange)

Row 3, front: Astyanax (gray), Erik (black/white) Flora (blue), and Madeline (red)

[brehaaorgana]

Sorry I don't think I was clear with how I worded tha!t which then I think led you to confuse my mentioning growing up with mostly 3/3.5 as being the same as my criticism of modern D&D (current edition 5e).

I...didn't make the parallel/contrast there obvious in the way I had intended to.

My point was that modern 5e is nothing like the customization offered in 3/3.5/"3.75" which lets you both customize and optimize. I don't really feel like it was an options heavy edition in 5e.

Rereading everything I suspect we agree or might agree on some key points?:

The base rules/guidelines are necessary but the rest is to be added or removed as serves the fun/the game. Personally I do consider "base necessary guidelines" to be actual rules you have to use. I think there's some ymmv on what that means, but like. Obviously you can't play the game with fighting monsters on a d20 system without using any of the combat rules and expect it to be The Actual Game Anymore. (By contrast I don't care if you do or don't adhere to the guidelines any system gives you for encumbrance.) does that make sense?

5e suffers as a system because d&d is meant to be options heavy, but all the options feel the same (i.e. you can't optimize and feel good about it because everyone is more or less going to play the same, and the mechanical differences are also quite limited)

3 - pf1 had lots of fun choices and the ability to home brew even more.

I think my key difference here is that like. I don't expect everyone to know every rule for every situation, and I also don't expect that everyone had to adhere to RAW.

BUT if you are playing a rogue, I do absolutely expect you understand the sneak attack mechanic's core rules, even if you don't know every edge case. And while you don't have to play RAW 100% I do think the emphasis in that quote you provided should also include "once you understand the basics." The basics are basic rules. And there are a ton of players who never even try to understand the basics and refuse to use their players handbook as a reference, shoving that off onto the DM.

Also, The answer to your question (even though my language was unclear lol) is that my parents started me on AD&D at about age 4-5ish but I was obviously not a particularly skilled player, being like, five years old. I was more like a dmnpc at first, lol. This meant that rules applied to my character, my dad (the DM on this campaign) or my mom would manage the rules knowledge and basically just let me roll dice and count and ask if I did or didn't want to do something or wanted to help (ad&d). Shout out to my parents friends for being okay with this. But once my reading level was a little higher I started actually playing on my own. (I still had to learn rules.)

My family bought basically every single official D&D published book through v. 3.5 (rules/core books, lore/settings, campaigns, new options & rulesets... you name it, my parents bought it. I think we had a minimum of three dedicated bookshelves for all the ttrpg books. One was very tall, the other two covered an entire wall of our dining room in length. we also had subscriptions to both Dungeon and Dragon Magazines and every issue of those too, plus a variety of third party supplements/adventures built for d20 system or d&d specifically. My dad home brewed entire extensive prestige classes, made world binders, drew his own maps, and created all sorts of feats and shit from scratch.

But also I did have to know the basic rules to keep playing and had to be willing to look up answers to things once I was at a reading level where that made sense. I also have no doubt a lot of my vocabulary was learned from reading various d&d books.

As you said, the PHG says you should "refer to [the book] when needed," which for me, meant that as like, a 7/8/9 year old, I had my own personal copy of the PHG and was expected to reference it as needed while playing. and also was expected to know & manage my character sheet, my feats, the basic rules mechanics I would be using, and so on. I could still ask for help, but I wasn't going to be able to just sit there and not know anything about the rules of the game because we wouldn't simply ignore them if you didn't know what they were.

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[princess-pill-enjoyer]

#27

I took.. a lot. the night before all this went down i had already taken 700 but i topped that off with a 600 yesterday morning. I think I woke up at like 4 am-ish something annnd took pills at about 5ish. Tho yesterday I ALSO did 1.6k at 2. So i think for the day I took 2.2k. unless we're also counting the late night one from the day before. Though this'll probably be first and last I take a lot at once like that. I'm still feeling it 20 hours later

(wrote this late august 27th but didn't wanna proofread til now so keep that in mind when I mention days)

AFTERMATH

The first two doses were casualish to me. I used to go 600 at max but nowadays it ain't uncommon for me to do 850-1k. I was mostly the same so no one noticed. They never do tbh. 1.6 is the highest I've ever gone and I was still able to play it off.

As far as symptoms. I've kinda lost my appetite. I'm sure it'll be all back once my body's had the chance to get all the dph out my system but for now I don't really eat. Tho I'm blubbery soo it works out ig. That plus I get random sharp pains in my heart + in my stomach every once in a while. Those I already know why ofc but I also get a milder version in my arms and legs too. I think I've been pretty okay for me to have taken what.. 10 times the normal dose. lemme check

..

it was 32 doses worth

goddamn.. it's starting to freak me out nowadays. That'd be like me getting a perscription but guzzling all the pills for the month in one sitting. (tmi in advance sorry sorry) With me taking THAT much at once you think if somehow someway someone gets my blood they would get high off it? or at the very least treat their allergies. That'd be kinda cool tbh

Ah there was one more thing I noticed. My perception of time ain't the greatest when I'm high anyway. I'm sure it's cause how hyperfocused I am on staying awake plus dph making it hard to remember shit anyway. But on the 1.6.. shit went to the extreme. It was honestly like when I was taking that benadryl-tylenol mix. I'm sure it's mostly due to how much had to be floating around that but man..

When I first started feeling it feeling it I would just be losing my train of thought a lot which led to me forgetting what I was talking about mid sentence a good 70% of the time. Then shit progressed to where I was blacking out randomly. I don't know what exactly happens when I black out. I'm assuming I just continue doing what I was doing and it's really just me forgetting what I just did. But another part of me wonders if I taking mini naps or something. I didn't really get much sleep so maybe my body was forcing me to rest for a bit? I'd black out for anywhere from 30 mins to an hour and a half at a time. I even started hallucinating again which was weirdd.

They were all tame luckily. The most problematic one was me thinking R texted me. I coulda sworn I saw her say I love you on disc. I have a different color for her notifs so I was damn near CERTAIN since it got the color right as well. I still held off on talking to her just incase she tried to talk talk and put the pieces together once she saw how off I was being. I felt like an ass at the time but when I checked the next day I saw that my most recent convo was still the old friend I was otp with. Even if she had deleted it she would've been at the top regardless.

The only other notable hallucinations was the occasional phantom bug. 9 times out of 10 it was just a weird looking shadow but there was a few times where I thought I saw spider legs too. Tho that honestly wasn't toooo. I'd rather have that than texting R about some shit she never did lmao

NOTES/EMOTIONS

I will be mentioning self unaliving a lot in this section so don't upset yourself tryna read, alr?

Ah.. I kinda did say I'd explain my flakiness annnd the shit I'm upset about now semi relates so here we are.

It's hard to explain. You always hear people be yourself no matter. Not to say anything is wrong with that. I just.. I don't know how to interpret that if that makes any sense. I feel like atp I'm only still here to spare my family's feelings (with that including R of course) so it throws me in a thought loop

On one hand, I'm only alive to spare their feelings. I have no real goals, dreams, or plans as far as what I want to do next. So it really wouldn't matter if I just went with whatever they want me to do even if I hate it. Not like I have any better ideas. It makes me feel like I should take all the judgment I'm flung and change accordingly. If I'm alive for them, wouldn't that make the most sense? I'm gonna come back to rock bottom no matter what i do. I might as well just do it for appearance's sake

Tho on the other, if they want me to really do whatever I and only I wanted, would they be angry if I left? Would they understand the struggle and misery I've gone through trying to keep it together for them? It feels stupid to let myself be tethered to this place for people that don't even know me really. I'm sure they'll be hurt for a time sure but.. is that a good enough reason to still be here? I can only leech for so long. I have no plans to go back to college as I am. scared. going from effortless 3.75 to a barely gotten, struggle filled 1.7 killed that for me. I can't afford to keep trying and trying until I hit this magical brain switch that suddenly makes all that easy. Im already nearly 20k in debt from that single semester alone.

And what's so frustrating about this circle thinking is that i KNEW it'd go down like this. I've been wanting to kill myself since 3rd grade. Even with my reasoning being vastly different throughout all this time, at the end of the day, I've been treating my suicide as an inevitability. I get so worked up over any and everything, I have to push and fight myself every fucking day to do the bare minimum, and I never wanted to be in a position where I'm stuck doing something I hate just to get by every month. It's just too much.

I've set various age goals throughout the years to keep me from doing anything too stupid. Originally it was 14 so I could get a job and get better supplies for that sort of thing. Then it was 16 cause by then I was supposed to have a car and I would be allowed to date at that age. Then the latest one was 18 and 6mo. 6mo probably sees random but it made sense to me anyway. Seniors get out of school bout 2 week- a month earlier than everyone else. So I damn near had the house to myself for a little while. Then even once they went on summer break, I still was chilling since I didn't move into my dorm til early october. So I had damn near 5mo to do whatever I wanted with hella open house money to fund it. I figure, since I had all that money and have months and months to do whatever AND im finna be living by myself, if I still wanted to do it, it is what it is

But now look at me. 19 annd nearly 3 months and I'm worse than ever before. It makes my stress tolerance so much lower. Anytime I get upset I turn it back onto myself. If I had just got it over with back then, people wouldn'tve had to see me degrade into the person I am today. If I would have done it back then, I wouldn't need to stress about college, work, money, love, or whatever else. I never wanted any of this. I just wanted to do what was expected of me to keep the peace. But now even when I'm trying to do that, it's not working. It was bound to happen someday tbh. I wasn't gonna be able to half ass my way through life forever. Still.. it crashed and burned quicker than I thought

I feel so trapped. I don't know what to do anymore. Everyone is gonna see it all. My stepmom actually did just called me out for sitting around for this long lmao. I guess it has been a while. I came back for winter break in late December and here I am still. No money and no school. I keep replaying her words over and over again. It slightly pissed me off initially. I've withdrew so much within these last few months to the point where it's rare for either of them to see me more than maybe.. once a day. Plus I've TOLD her I've been struggling for years now and nothing has changed.

Told her I might be struggling with some form of adhd after seeing how hard my workflow was thrown off since quarantine started. Then like 2-3 mo later after radio silence on that stuff she asked me a few questions about therapy preferences then when I told her she told me to book it myself when I'm 18.. Then another time when I was arguing with my dad over something and she started screaming in my face which drove me to a panic attack that she ignored and continued to yell at me until my sisters butted in. She tried to yell at them to but I think I freaked them out with my crying so they didn't budge. Oh yeah. And that middle school thing where I ratted myself out anonymously for being suicidal and actively writing out drafts for it. I didn't like the therapist I had so I stopped going and it was never mentioned again.

Tangent. Sorry. I bring all this up to say it irritated me since I've been asking for help on and off for years now and no one listened. I'm always written off as overdramatic or whiney, or hormonal or whatever th and now I can see she just thinks I'm just a lazy fucking bum. It doesn't even make sense. I've said this was an issue of mine but since I wasn't failing in high school and I don't boohoo in front of them, it was never addressed so why is anyone shocked that this is how I turned out? Why am I now the failure of the family

Whatever anyway. i thought on it longer and I can't put the blame on them entirely. At the end of the day, I should've fought more to get the help I needed before shit hit the fan. I dunno. I've always been like this.

Ig it doesn't really matter now does it?

I feel like I'm at the end of my rope. I'm getting backed further and further into this corner and it's going to blow up soon. I know it. I don't want to be around for that. Too much to uncover. I've fucked myself so may times thinking it wouldn't matter because of xyz thing but all of its coming back. It makes me want to go even further tbh. It feels like my only choice. No one will take it seriously until then. Even then, I'd probably go for round 2 just to do it. I am genuinely.. tired.