#pretty sure i am not normal

[solarflame33]

What's your favourite TTRPG?

someone asking about my hyperfixiation?

alright baby it's time, im going to answer that question in the longest way i can. I was going to try to structure it before i realized i have no idea how, so instead ill just infodump with whatever structure i make up as i go.

To preface this, i have a taste of course, and that is cool fight games, i like systems that really get into the nitty-gritty of character building and tactical choices in combat, I do not particularly care for roleplaying systems as me and my groups are very good at roleplaying on our own, we already make lengthy conversations between our characters, ask questions etc without really needing prompting, so i like systems that focus on the fighting since that certainly needs robust enough rules for my liking, i need to see damage numbers for my brain to buzz. I want to make big sword ladies that can split people in half and i need the system to support that.

Pathfinder 2e

So, as of now my favorite system is pathfinder 2e, its elegant 3 action system tickles my brain, it allows for interesting tactical choices (do i stride to flank the enemy even if I don't know whether it has attacks of opportunity or do I just take my chances with my strikes? do i make a second attack at -5 or do i try to aid an ally? etc) while still having a concrete and finite end to your turn, once you used all 3 actions that's that.

The problem a lot of people have with this system is that most things you could do in d&d 5e with an object interaction become one whole action, like drawing a weapon or opening a door, getting up from prone is also a whole action. To a certain extent i agree it is annoying, however I think the limitations imposed by the system can create much more interesting choices, especially when taking into account another great feature of the system, traits.

Pretty much everything in pf2 has traits, most of the time these traits are just tags like the fire trait which just tells you whatever has this trait has fire, while some have extra effects like the attack trait that means actions with this trait are affected by multiple attack penalty. Traits inform you of how stuff interacts with each other in a clean simple way, for instance some enemies (not all!) have an ability called attack of opportunity that lets them attack as a reaction when you take certain actions, how do you know which actions? simple, all actions with the move and manipulate trait (and ranged attacks).

On the note of attacks of opportunity I'll mention an example of one of my favorite moments of the system, I was playing a level 9 automaton barbarian, we were fighting a knight on a nightmare (hell horsey), we were in a hallway with the knight in front of me and our rogue behind me, i had just been brought back to consciousness by our rogue after the knight knocked me out, what that means is that im prone and my greataxe has been dropped while in reach of the knight, standing from prone and grabbing the weapon are both actions that trigger attacks of opportunity and I know this enemy has it, I consider my options since an attack of opportunity would likely knock me out again, my unarmed attacks arent great and being prone gives a penalty to hit, so i try to grapple (an attack that is unaffected by being prone as it is an athletics check rather than an attack roll) in hopes of getting the chance to use my remaining two actions to use my arcane slam feat (that only works on a grappled target) to knock him prone. However i fail my grapple attempt, so im left with two actions, still prone and without a weapon in hand, and then i remember at 8th lvl i took friendly toss, a feat that allows me to grab an ally and throw them, moreover, they get to make an attack as a reaction at the end of their movement. So i grab the rogue behind me by the leg and i yeet her on the other side of the knight, thus flanking the knight, granting sneak attack, and thanks to flanking she crits him and kills him.

Besides being a sick as fuck moment why did i tell you this? Well because i think this represents pretty well how it works, pf2 rewards versatility, most of your damage scales mostly automatically, especially as a martial character most of your choice of abilities will be about extra options that help you in certain situations, I've had the most fun building characters in pf2 when i was considering the actions available to them.

Especially with how the system works versatility is actually very easy to achieve, there's lots of feats within each class that allow you to be more effective in certain situations, a classic example being sudden charge, a feat that lets you stride twice and then strike using only 2 actions rather than 3, or friendly toss that i mentioned above. And outside of your class, since you HAVE to spread your ability scores at least a lil bit youll probably be good with at least one ability score that a different class focuses on. With the fact that feats are usually not direct power boosts it isnt as big of a deal to give certain feats for free or to use rules such as free archetype or ancestral paragon.

Now there's a lot to praise about pf2 and i could keep going about it like how encounter rating actually works, or all the sickass options available, or how it has so much LGBT representation including a deity that presents itself to mortals wearing their ideal body because "if a divine being has chosen to wear it, it must be perfect", but I think I've praised pf2 enough. Despite all the good pf2 is still not a perfect system and it has its flaws, some that should be mentioned even if I myself dont find them to be bothersome.

To start it should be mentioned that pf2 is pretty dense, it's a fairly crunchy system with a large amount of rules for a lot of different situations, which can make it a little difficult to approach but the main difficulty is really that a lot of the times rules reference other rules which can be clunky if you don't learn a good amount of rules before playing, i know a few DMs that like to come up with rules on the fly to fill in gaps or when they don't know the rules, and pf2 doesnt quite work well with that method as several rules have implications for other rules. At least tho most rules are one google search away thanks to them being free.

Another somewhat related issue is that pf2 can be overwhelming, it's not as bad as pf1 or d&d 3.5 however there is such a high amount of options that analysis paralysis is certainly an issue for some people.

Now these were issues that i dont really care about myself, i can work with a dense system and i love having tons of options, however pf2 isnt a perfect system for me either.

It's hard to find gripes with it but I do have a few, for instance while i love the trait system i do think it is unintuitive how so many traits are just tags with no effect on their own while so many others have extremely important effects like the flourish trait that means you can't use other flourishes that turn or the incapacitation trait that heavily holds back save or suck abilities by making them less effective on higher level targets, yet there is no differentiation between the two, you just need to always look at the tags, after a while it's not that big of an issue but still.

For this next one i wanna give a lil bit of context, d&d 5e has a rather large issue that all its players are aware of, the martial/caster disparity, as in 5e casters are just overwhelmingly better than martials, well pf2 fixed this, but went just ever so slightly overboard. In pf2 generally speaking martials have a few things they are good at and are REALLY good at them, usually hitting things hard, while casters are weaker but more versatile, there's exceptions like the kineticist which is mechanically similar to casters as its abilities mimic spells but is functionally closer to a martial as it is highly effective at few specific things, but exceptions aside this vaguely how they're functionally divided.

The problem is that because casters are both tied to resources and also slightly weaker there's time where it doesn't feel that great to play them, mainly with the fact that you also don't really get any items to increase your effectiveness, you get items like staves or wands that give you more versatility but nothing like a +1 potency rune that martials get to hit more often, and with the high defenses that enemies tend to have at your level or even a level lower it can be hard to break that first spell and apply a good debuff to get better odds with other spells, and unfortunately even tho pf2 added multiple levels of success to still have something happen when enemies succeed on spells it's still often negligible and doesn't feel good to expend resources like that especially cus you don't get a lot of them at low levels. Overall tho I do not think this is a terrible issue, there are ways to build around it like teamwork focusing on reliable options that lower defenses, and even without this i think a potency item to buff spellcasters like martials is enough.

Now, that's actually pretty much it for the issues I've got with pf2, but I'm not quite done yet, I think pf2 is an extremely solid system and the flavor of the available options is also fantastic, it has few flaws, however I have more issues with it, but they aren't really pf2 issues as much as they are issues with most d20 systems.

The first issue is not exactly an issue with the system itself but it is commonly found in d20 systems, and that's the null result, which is when you wanna do something, you roll poorly and nothing happens, you waited the whole round to do your cool thing but the math rock stopped on a 1 so that's that. Now pf2 is actually not as bad as some of its peers at this (lookin at you 5e), thanks to the 4 degrees of success, which I realize now is a good system pf2 uses that I haven't explained, thankfully it's very simple, whenever you roll there's a difficulty class you need to beat, like to shield yourself from the fireball you need to roll a 17 or higher, in 5e there's only 2 degrees, you either do it or you don't, in pf2 there's 4, you can succeed, fail, crit succeed or crit fail, and the crit results have two ways to happen, you roll 10 above or below the DC or you roll a nat 20 or nat 1 which increase or decrease the degree of success by one step (this is important! a farmer cannot hit an ancient red dragon because a nat 20 will turn a crit fail into a fail which is still a miss). With this system and the 3 action system it is less likely to do nothing in a turn, it is however still very possible, especially because on attack rolls you still miss on a failure not just a critical failure, the difference is that some and pcs have abilities that do something when they are crit missed.

As a DM i almost always consider lowering the defenses of my monsters and increasing the hp so that the players get to do cool stuff more often... and then the die rears it's face on an ugly little single digit number that says fuck you that we lovingly call a nat 1. Nat 1s are rolled shockingly often at the tables i play at and lowering defenses of enemies won't fix the frustration of seeing that number and saying "well, that's that".

The next issue then has to do with the actual dice, it's something that has become obvious as ive been thinking about it and especially playing pf2 as well as baldur's gate 3 (which while it isn't a ttrpg it uses the 5e core rules and boy does if highlight some big issues with those rules), and that is the swinginess of the numbers, having a result that is twenty times as likely as another result but just as likely is kind of crazy, but really that is especially apparent when we look at the damage dice, bg3 likes to show you numbers rather than dice and seeing the damage of a fireball be 6 to 36 damage really puts it into perspective, it's worse at higher levels because you have other spells like blight that deal 8 to 64 damage, and while average results are more likely because of the higher amounts of dice that swinginess is still there. In pf2 this is even more apparent actually because of the more frequent and actually wildly more meaningful crits, because while in 5e crits just double damage dice, in pf2 crits double damage period, including all modifiers which there is a lot more of, and crits often have special effects too. In a recent one shot I was playing a kineticist and I used an ability to target two enemies, they get to make a basic save (no dmg on crit success, half on success, full on fail and double on crit fail) the damage was 2d8, the first turn i used it i rolled a 3 and a 2, one of my enemies crit succeeded ans the other succeeded so I dealt a total of 2 damage, the very next turn i do it again, both fail and one of em is a crit fail, and I rolled a 7 and an 8, dealing a total of 45 damage. In another game we play our barbarian is using a giant scythe and regularly hits for like 15 or so damage and the crits for 40-50 damage because scythes deal more damage on crits.

While critting feels fantastic, both on hitting and enemies crit failing, it is extremely swingy and gives an overwhelming amount of power to let the dice decide how an encounter goes, this may be supposed to be a moderate encounter but your barbarian went first and immediately crit a core enemy of the formation and now its a trivial encounter, or the zombie went first and crit the healer and downed them immediately and now it's a severe encounter. Maybe this was supposed to be trivial but I keep rolling 15s and up and my players look like they're rolling on d6s to hit. The swinginess also links back to the null result because sure the different degrees of success help but a crit success on a save is still a null result and a success dealing 2 damage is more like a slap on the back of the head than a consolation prize. And while the null result is something that's maybe fixable the swinginess is something that I think requires too much effort to change for how pf2 is built, crits are just too infused in the system to change them and everything just messes with the math that is core to pf2 making it so much harder to balance everything.

While I think I can live with both of these issues the more time goes on the more I wanna do something about them. And that's roughly when a new ttrpg in the making caught my eye. I've been following Matthew Colville for a long time, he's a great DM and makes wonderful videos with system agnostic tips on how to be a better dungeon master, he's also a game designer and the game design director at MCDM, and since the d&d OGL debacle they've decided to take a crack at making their own unique ttrpg, and well im hooked, he's made several videos on the MCDM YouTube channel explaining more in detail and some of what I've said is in reference to that, watching those videos has allowed me to put into words the issues I've been having, namely the null result. I'm excited to see what they've put together, and so finally that is why I phrased the answer at the beginning like that, pf2 is currently my favorite ttrpg but with the MCDM ttrpg on the way that is prone to change. I think I will always love pf2, it is an extremely solid system and making homebrew for it really feels like making a neat cog to add to a well oiled machine. I could probably go on about pf2 especially if I were to get into the specific options available (don't get me started on the kineticist, I am in love).

So that's it then, I hope it was worth 2 fucking whole weeks of wait.

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) you guys even fuck w/ the flash on here???

[mumblesplash]

started actually lifting weights for the first time a little over 3 weeks ago and my biceps are already getting in the way of how i normally wash my hair chat am i some kind of freak be honest

[crikey01]

i keep being asked what i'm smiling at on my phone like i'm some smitten little teenage girl with a crush

my dudes i'm just smiling at these gay old men

[luna-loveboop]

Things I've called Time while trying to figure out numbers for his age:

- Child

- 'Age is a paradox' guy

- The Old Man who is Not That Old

- Wrinkles-not-shown

- HIM (while refusing to calm him time)

- Old bro

- Wrong age man

- Two-aged backstabber

- Time traveling brain hurting conundrum child

- Grumpled paradox of a man

- Tinker bell

- Adult

- That guy (/derogatory)

- Mr. 'I don't believe in having one age like normal'

- The sixty year old

.

...I've been really mad at him while trying to do math. Mean nicknames is how I've coped ':D These are all things I've said unironically irl, dms, posts, tags, etc. I promise I'm not that mean TT I just think Tinker bell needs to get a real, singular age like everyone else.

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

working on something rn and just. There are zero thoughts in four’s head

[rockpaperscissuhs]

HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH + BAND OF BROTHERS:

JOSEPH "JOE" RAMIREZ

Born October 5th, 1921, in Nebraska

Died April 8th, 1988 (age 66), in Martinez, California

Joe Ramirez enlisted in September 1942 (age 20) in San Francisco, CA, and he trained with Easy Company at Toccoa. Holding the rank of Private, he served in Normandy, Holland, and Bastogne. He was hospitalized in January 1945, and discharged in July 1945. After the war, he was married for many years, and had children and grandchildren. When he passed away he was buried with his wife, who had passed away 11 years earlier. Further information about him is scarce, but the brief character profile in the Band of Brothers series bible describes him as Mexican-American, and his personality as "sensitive and nervous."

Appears in Episodes 1, 3-8, and 10; portrayed by actor Rene L. Moreno

Sources below

A million thanks to @bleedingcoffee42 for tracking down this info for me!

[daily-selfship-questions]

Imagine going to Build-A-Bear(or any shop similar to it) with your F/O(s) and dressing up bears as one another, so you are always with them, and they are always with you, for every adventure or awaiting your arrival home! Maybe you or them get a special bear to represent one another, like the Time to Relax Bear, or Mondrian Composition? Or, is it even a bear at all? There are loads of other critters to choose from! And even some fun other options, like Sanrio, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Star Trek, and so on! Maybe one of you gets bribed into buying the Giant Sanrio Cinnamonroll plush, who knows.

And the little outfits is where all the personality and caricature is at! That's what really adds to making the plushie Them. So now they are always with you, ready for you to give them a squeeze or tag along some place.

[legendoftherisingtide]

it has occurred to me that there hasn’t been a kiss in the entirety of the bnha series.

now can you imagine,, if the only one in the entire series,,, is a gay one.

[hyohaehyuk]

Xfinity Hangouts: Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid

Clearly still not over it (1) (2)

Still wonder how Sam managed to make a hickey visible on Jacob giving he have dark skin 🤨🙃 i applaud the dedication 🤭

since they got nothing in season 2 i hope they can continuing with their hickies competition in season 3 🤭

[toffolola]

✨ it girl ✨

[vaguely-concerned]

I've been picking mostly only the essential flirt options with lucanis in the romance so far (I've personally found the dynamic much more natural and mutual when you do that, more like forming a solid friendship slowly and inevitably becoming something else and less like you keep pushing on him and getting little back b/c he seemingly just gets overwhelmed and goes into freeze instead), and I think rye is a pretty hard person to read at the best of times even though he's been Down Real Bad from pretty early on and their chemistry as people is naturally really good. so the way the almost-kiss plays out in this playthrough feels a lot like it has the added layer of lucanis realizing that no but for sure rook is flirting and not just being kind or a good friend* it IS actually happening it's not just wishful/fearful thinking!!! and then uh. maybe going a bit too hard a bit too fast in all the excitement at that revelation haha

*in lucanis' defense he has seemingly literally never had a friend who wasn't his cousin-brother before, under those circumstances I suppose some confusion is extremely natural if not outright expected lmao

[fangswbenefits]

Yeah.

I've definitely fallen in love....

[aiura-stan]

yeah if u think of the main cast as a neurodivergent bunch of kids who become friends because they’re drawn to saiki it totally makes sense. He’s a neurodivergent person who simultaneously fakes being normal perfectly and also doesn’t hide it at all

the ~ideal~ neurodivergent. lol. everyone can tell, and also no one cares and he isn’t judged for being weird. People get the strangest sense that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to saiki. other ND kids get that sensation twofold and find themselves inexplicably drawn to him.

he can and has literally rewritten reality so he appears less weird. and it isn’t always a good thing… but that’s discussion for another day I guess

[worstloki]

loki self harm scars is OUT thor showing off his clean arms is IN

[natgoodmans]

books read in 2025 🤍

books read so far: 78 reading goal: 100

as always, askbox + dms are open if have any questions or would like to chat about books! you can find me on goodreads here, and on bookstagram here. 🤍

♡ indicates any new favorites; ⊹ indicates a reread.

january ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1. writers & lovers by lily king 2. the art of memory collecting: 15 scrapbook, collage, trinket and zine projects for crafting treasured moments by martina calvi 3. tom lake by ann patchett (audiobook) ♡ 4. our town by thornton wilder ⊹ 5. beloved by toni morrisson 6. promise me sunshine by cara bastone (arc) ♡ 7. days at the morisaki bookshop by satoshi yagisawa & translated by eric ozawa ♡ 8. small things like these by claire keegan (audiobook) 9. beartown by fredrik backman ♡

february ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1. the fellowship of the ring by j.r.r. tolkien (audiobook) 2. i'll pretend you're mine by tashie bhuiyan (arc) 3. sense and sensibility by jane austen ⊹ (audiobook) 4. the lonely city: adventures in the art of being alone by olivia laing (audiobook) 5. everything i learned, i learned in a chinese restaurant by curtis chin (audiobook) 6. tiny moons: a year of eating in shanghai by nina mingya powles 7. sorcery of thorns by margaret rogerson (audiobook) ♡ 8. more days at the morisaki bookshop by satoshi yagisawa ♡ 9. mysteries of thorn manor by margaret rogerson

march ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1. an enchantment of ravens by margaret rogerson (audiobook) 2. white ice: race and the making of atlanta hockey by thomas aiello 3. lost and lassoed by lyla sage 4. holy terrors by margaret owen (arc) 5. swift and saddled by lyla sage 6. circe by madeline miller (audiobook) 7. a dark and drowning tide by allison saft (audiobook) 8. intermezzo by sally rooney (audiobook) ⊹ 9. my side of the river by elizabeth camarillo gutierrez (audiobook) 10. four weekends and a funeral by ellie palmer ♡ 11. the bell jar by sylvia plath (audiobook) 12. the break-up pact by emma lord 13. love lettering by kate clayborn 14. the partner plot by kristina forest 15. the rom-commers by katherine center 16. emily wilde's compendium of lost tales by heather fawcett (audiobook) 17. dolls of our lives: why we can't quit american girl by mary mahoney & allison horrocks (audiobook)

april ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1. you between the lines by katie naymon 2. my not so perfect life by sophie kinsella 3. a quantum love story by mike chen (audiobook) 4. the siren of sussex by mimi matthews 5. the love wager by lynn painter (audiobook) 6. you belong with me by mhairi mcfarlane (audiobook) 7. puck and prejudice by lia riley 8. swept away by beth o'leary 9. great big beautiful life by emily henry (arc) 10. second first impressions by sally thorne (audiobook) 11. i who have never known men by jacqueline harpman ♡ 12. the belle of belgrave square by mimi matthews 13. the kiss countdown by etta easton 14. lovelight farms by b.k. borison 15. the wedding people by alison espach (audiobook) 16. the ex vows by jessica joyce 17. deep cuts by holly brickley 18. remember me? by sophie kinsella 19. here we go again by alison cochrun (audiobook) 20. the most wonderful crime of the year by ally carter (audiobook) 21. mistakes we never made by hannah brown 22. when you least expect it by haley cass (audiobook) 23. pitcher perfect by tessa bailey (arc) 24. the next chapters: an on the same page novella by haley cass (audiobook) 25. on the same page by haley cass 26. it happened one fight by maureen lee lenker 27. hello stranger by katherine center 28. ps: i hate you by lauren connolly 29. the rose bargain by sasha peyton smith (audiobook) 30. out on a limb by hannah bonam-young 31. make the season bright by ashley herring blake (audiobook) 32. flirting with disaster by naina kumar 33. first-time caller by b.k. borison 34. welcome to the hyunam-dong bookshop by hwang bo-reum, shanna tan (translator) 35. funny story by emily henry ⊹ 36. the guest cat by takashi hiraide, eric selland (translator)

may ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚

1. evenings and weekends by oisín mckenna (audiobook) 2. the dragon's promise by elizabeth lim (audiobook) 3. the examiner by janice hallett 4. i want to die but i want to eat tteokbokki by baek se-hee, anton hur (translator) 5. the manor of dreams by christina li (arc) 6. lonely castle in the mirror by mizuki tsujimura (audiobook) ♡ 7. john proctor is the villain by kimberly belflower ♡