#the one in power now. or because playing by that systems rules is the only way you can live.

[frootbyethefoot]

you know i would LOVE to learn more about calebs childhood bullies if hes 50-60 years old and hes STILL thinking about them and thinking about killing them and getting his revenge.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[NewYorkTimes is Private US Media]

Over the past month, we’ve watched an astonishing, high-stakes global drama play out in The Hague. A group of countries from the poorer, less powerful bloc some call the global south, led by South Africa, dragged the government of Israel and, by extension, its rich, powerful allies into the top court of the Western rules-based order and accused Israel of prosecuting a brutal war in Gaza that is “genocidal in character.”

The responses to this presentation from the leading nations of that order were quick and blunt.

“Completely unjustified and wrong,” said a statement from Rishi Sunak, Britain’s prime minister.

“Meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the United States National Security Council.

“The accusation has no basis in fact,” a German government spokesman said, adding that Germany opposed the “political instrumentalization” of the genocide statute.

But on Friday, that court had its say, issuing a sober and careful provisional ruling that doubled as a rebuke to those dismissals. In granting provisional measures, the court affirmed that some of South Africa’s allegations were plausible and called on Israel to take immediate steps to protect civilians, increase the amount of humanitarian aid and punish officials who engaged in violent and incendiary speech. The court stopped short of calling for a cease-fire, but it granted South Africa’s request for provisional measures to prevent further civilian death. For the most part, the court ruled in favor of the global south.[...]

The court was not asked to rule on whether Israel had in fact committed genocide, a matter that is likely to take years to adjudicate. Whatever the eventual outcome of the case, it sets up an epic battle over the meaning and values of the so-called rules-based order. If these rules don’t apply when powerful countries don’t want them to, are they rules at all?

“As long as those who make rules enforce them against others while believing that they and their allies are above those rules, the international governance system is in trouble,” Thuli Madonsela, one of South Africa’s leading legal minds and an architect of its post-apartheid Constitution, told me. “We say these rules are the rules when Russia invades Ukraine or when the Rohingya are being massacred by Myanmar, but if it’s now Israel butchering Palestinians, depriving them of food, displacing them en masse, then the rules don’t apply and whoever tries to apply the rules is antisemitic? It is really putting those rules in jeopardy.”[...]

The military campaign has “wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II,” the report quoted researchers as saying. The researchers, hardly some raving left-wing activists, are experts cited in one of the most respected news organizations in the world, The Associated Press.[...]

The International Court of Justice issued a nonbinding opinion in 2004 that the security barriers Israel was erecting in the West Bank violated international law, but that ruling has had no effect. The walls still stand.[...]

Indeed, what is a rules-based system if the rules apply only selectively and if seeking to apply them to certain countries is viewed as self-evidently prejudiced? To put it more simply, is there no venue in the international system to which the stateless people of Palestine and their allies and friends can go to seek redress amid the slaughter in Gaza? And if not, what are they to do?

For the cause of Palestinian statehood, every alternative to violence has been virtually snuffed out, in part because Israel’s allies have helped to discredit them. The most recent example is the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that has, in many places, been successfully tarred as antisemitic or even banned altogether. Efforts to use the United Nations Security Council have drawn U.S. vetoes for decades. Is seeking redress at the appropriate venue for alleged violations of international law also antisemitic, as Israel’s defense minister said on Friday? Does no law apply to Israel? Are there no limits to what it may do to defend itself?[...]

The Biden administration has made the shoring up of the international rules-based order a centerpiece of its foreign policy but, unsurprisingly, has struggled to live up to that aspiration.[...]

Occasionally straying from your principles because circumstances require it is very different from being seen to have no principles at all, and that is precisely how much of the global south has come to regard the United States.

It seems especially shortsighted in these times that the Biden administration elected to wave away the carefully documented case prepared by South Africa. One of the biggest threats to the rules-based international order is the growing consensus in the poor world that the rich world will apply those rules selectively, at its discretion, when it suits the powerful nations that make up the global north, such as when Russia invaded Ukraine.[...]

As far as the rules-based order is concerned, when it comes to crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, it simply does not matter who started it. [...] The best way to shore up the rules-based order is to be seen, in word and deed, as committing to the institutions and moral commitments of that order.

28 Jan 24

[probablybadrpgideas]

THINGS I AM UNREASONABLY ANNOYED ABOUT BY GAME SYSTEM

D&D: Please put a disclaimer that you are not a universal system. Every time I see someone try to do a political mystery game in D&D, I take 3d10 psychic damage and have to make a death saving throw.

Pathfinder: Look. If i wanted to play a game about fighting Cthulhu there is an extremely famous game specifically designed around doing that. Literally no-one is ever going to say "Wow, I want to play a Cthulhu themed game! Time to stat up a musical halfling from a magical fantasy land!".

Chronicles Of Darkness: Just admit no-one uses any of your rules. You have Social Door Rules and Integrity Conditions and Corruption Levels and I bet at most 50% of COD players could tell me which of those I made up. Just admit people aren't dressing up as Alucard The Bringer Of Shadows because they want to sit down and do calculus.

World Of Darkness: You know that old guy who's still doing his job even though he is way too old to do it any more, but he's now an institution so you can't get rid of him? Like that. The 90s called and they want literally everything about this back.

Call Of Cthulhu: I appreciate the commitment to authenticity, but maybe stop hiring actual disgraced mental asylum directors from the 1920s to design your sanity system?

GURPS: Look. Look. Listen. We both know that you just want to write history textbooks. These are history textbooks with a few stat blocks begrudgingly put in. If you just give me a book on early Chinese history I will read it and go "ah, very interesting!". You don't need to put in a list of character choices. We're all nerds. We'll read them. Live your best life.

Powered By The Apocalypse: I actually can't think of anything wrong with PBTA. That's not a bit, this is literally the perfect system. Take notes everyone else.

Mutants and Masterminds/Heroes System: Your systems have probably the most customizable character creation in the world and you both just make reskins of the Justice League over and over again. Maybe we only need one "thinly veiled copyrighted characters" setting? You can fight over it once you decipher your combat mechanics.

FATE: Ok I won't lie, I have no idea how the fuck FATE works. I have read the rules repeatedly and played three games and I still have no idea what invoking an aspect means. I don't know why. I grasped the rules of fucking Nobilis but this one just psychologically eludes me. This is more a problem with me I guess, but I'm still annoyed.

Warhammer 40k: Have you considered spending less on avocado toast? Then you might be able to afford to charge less for things?

Exalted: Apart from the lore, the setting, the mechanics, the metaplot, the character creation and the dodgy narrative implications, I can't think of anything to improve here.

[risuola]

IV — EPIPHANY // Sukuna thought nothing can break him. He's powerful, he has influence and means to always come on top – or at least that's what he thought, because now he realized that he's nohing but weak.

contents: angst, blood, usage of weapon, reader discretion is advised — 2,6k words

a/n: in this part i wanted to give you a little insight into Sukuna's persona. show the menace in him, show the threat and how he is when he's not influenced by weakness that is our precious y/n (aka when he's not confused as hell by what's happening in his heart). i rewrote this part four times before i was finally somewhat satisfied with it.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅʟʏ ᴀᴛᴛʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ | masterlist

You are safe with me.

Sukuna thought about the words with hilarity. The sentence so simple and kind, it felt foreign to realize that his own mouth allowed it out of his system. An odd sort of disdain washed over himself and he found it laughable that throughout his entire career of blood and murder, what made his blood pressure raise up was a lie he told you. A strangely comic amalgamation of letters and syllables that each time he thought of them made him more angry and more amused.

You were safe, technically, or maybe that’s what he wished to believe when he replayed the events of one very unlucky Sunday evening in his memory. It began lovely, too lovely in fact, but he chose to actively ignore the oddity of it – he came to terms with how easily you were able to render his senses useless whenever you came into the field of his view wearing something as pretty as the dress you picked for the date that day. It was in a shade of pink that you deemed similar to the color of his hair, a dusty rose, you called it, and Sukuna wasn’t sure exactly how much truth was that, but he couldn’t care less about it when you looked so drop dead gorgeous. When he watched you walking next to him through the crowded alleys in the park nearby your apartment building, he couldn’t help but notice only you in the mass of people around him. He felt like a teenager in a way, with his heartbeat drumming against his ribcage with pace similar of this after sprinting for long time. You were capable of triggering reactions in his body that he thought were long gone with the days of his youth but he was fine with it. As long as he could witness your beauty, he was fine with everything.

Sukuna laughed gravelly as the sequence of memories played in his mind – the dark sound of his voice causing two police officers outside the bars of his cell to tremble. Oh, how much he hated you and your stupidly breathtaking face for whatever the hell you did to him. If he could, he would tell you what he thinks of it right now and if not careful enough, he might tell you a little too much. Confess maybe. Yeah, he might do that someday. And maybe move out somewhere where you’d truly be safe. Where he wouldn’t feel like a fucking idiot for saying words that are so damn obviously a lie.

Moving out felt like a good idea. In couple of years, when he’s done ruling the criminal forces, he could take you out of Japan, somewhere far away and protect you from any harm. He’d take you somewhere warm, where he could shamelessly admire the way your skin tone looks under the golden rays of sun and the way your eyes shine and glisten like the most expensive and rare gemstones. The thought of you brought a wide smile to his face, as the picture spread in front of his closed eyelids. In the cold of his cell, he could almost feel the burning touch of your fingers tracing the shapes of his body.

* * *

Sixteen days.

It’s been over two weeks since you last saw Sukuna and it was getting harder and harder to go about your days. You missed him. You missed his face, his strong arms that manhandled you around despite your playful taps and tugs. You missed the huskiness of his voice, the low purrs he made in the morning whenever he’d nuzzle his nose against your temple inhaling the scent of your skin that he swore he was addicted to. And above all, you were worried and restless, and scared.

Whenever you closed your eyes, your mind was flooded with memories of the Sunday date you went on with Ryomen. He picked you up and handed you a little bag filled with your favorite mochi – the ones stuffed with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, a delicacy made in only one place in Tokyo and you remember how your heart swelled with warmth and love when you realized he had driven to that shop on the other side of the city just to get you few pieces of sweets. He was wearing his usual, black dress pants and a leather belt, perfectly polished boots and a dark grey sweater that made him look both casual and dangerous, with the tattoos around his wrists exposed under the rolled-up sleeves and his sharp features, that somehow whenever were turned towards you seemed a little bit softer.

You felt like a princess next to him, you felt loved and protected with his large hand enveloping your smaller one in his warm embrace. It was perfect. It was perfect until–

You didn’t exactly pick up what happened and how it happened. Even now as you think of it, you can’t truly recall how that tale-like evening turned into a mess that led you to lose your sleep every night that followed. It was a flash. One second you were leaning into Sukuna’s palm, greedy to steal his warmth and love and next one you were pushed tightly against his chest behind a bench. His hand, that was embracing you with as much delicacy as one would use to touch a doll made of porcelain was suddenly pressed harshly to the side of your head, covering your ear. Someone was shooting, Ryomen was shooting. You felt the impact of each bullet being extracted from his weapon. Each one of the subtle shakes of his muscular body reverberated throughout your smaller frame. You heard guns, despite his effort to protect your eardrums, but the loud explosive sound mixed with screams of people around was loud and clear in your head. An echo of danger and violence that you witnessed firsthand even though the man that held you did everything he could to protect you from the event.

You remember vividly the moment Sukuna groaned and cussed lowly. It followed a soft tremble of his large body and at first you didn’t realize what happened, but then you felt the unexpected wet warmth on one of your hands. “It’s fine, don’t worry,” he was telling you over and over again as your eyes began to water at the realization that one of your palms was covered in blood. His blood.

“It’s just a scratch,” he was lying to you, but you didn’t know it was a lie until you saw him later. The magazine in his gun was empty sooner than you thought it will be and the foreign shooting continued. It seemed like there were few attackers, but you couldn’t tell where all of it was coming from. All you remember was that you stayed hidden in the large body of your lover for the entire time until the police sirens broke the scene.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered to him, doing everything in your power to hold back sobs, as he kept you close to himself. You knew that police couldn’t be good for him and if not for you, he would most likely run away somehow, but he stayed there, behind the bench, holding you tightly and making sure not a single bullet could land on your fragile body.

He didn’t look mad, not even annoyed, when he was telling you what to do next and how to act in the face of what was to come, and even though you had the hardest time registering it through the immense fear you felt regarding his future, you were nodding. He was calm, and you thought that he stayed calm for you because the scene of shooting was enough of a distress for you already. And then, you saw him in handcuffs, with his hands shackled behind his back, guided towards the police car. Cops that were responsible for escorting him looked almost funny next to his towering frame and if he only wanted, he would quite easily throw those officers away. But he didn’t. And he didn’t do it to save you.

You remember the last time you saw him he sent you a smile, more so a smirk, when one of those cops harshly pushed his head down, making sure he got into the car. Few moments later, he was gone and you were left with the mess of the crime scene and the burden of a witness.

Later, you were informed by one of his pawns that it’s not gonna take long, but you knew that things were serious because few days slowly turned into a week and then two weeks and he still was in jail. And you couldn’t go visit him because he said so. You stayed in his house, safe and sound in the bed you always shared with him, except now you were alone and cold. You missed him. And you were worried.

It killed you inside to think Sukuna might face charges. A life sentence, most likely. There was only so much that you knew about his criminal past and you were sure that he kept many secrets from you, that he wanted to save you from the heavy burden of his misdeeds and cruelty. You knew how dangerous his lifestyle was, how dark was the path he chose to fallow and you knew that even someone as strong as him couldn’t escape the jurisdiction forever. But why now?

You couldn’t shake off the devastating feeling of emptiness whenever you wandered between the luxurious interiors of his mansion. It felt like you couldn’t stop worrying, day in and day out you were thinking if he was alright. Was he properly fed? He told you that he won’t contact you while in jail to protect you, but all you wished for was just to hear his voice. You were worried about the way authorities treat criminals of his sort. What will they do to him? The mere thought of torture or interrogation filled you with dread and anxiety. You never felt so alone and helpless.

* * *

It took too long.

In fact, detention took much longer than Sukuna anticipated but time behind the bars was nothing but an entertainment for him. It was amusing, it allowed him to let loose. Surrounded by an air of sadistic satisfaction he didn’t get to experience in years, he played game of pushing and pulling, a game of power. Despite being enclosed and surrounded by dozens of officers and guards, Sukuna had a sense of control over his situation, and it amused him. He was enjoying the misery that he caused others, relished in the fact that he was feared and hated. It made him almost giddy. There was a twinkle in his eye and a playful grin on his lips, he relished the experience.

“I’ve got few questions to you.”

He smirked, sitting smug and relaxed. For the nth time he was questioned; a futile attempt of getting information out of him, yet another display of the illusionary power that authorities thought they had but lacked severely. It made Ryomen laugh out loud each time he sat against a new face, it pleased him, he loved the feeling of having the interrogator’s full attention. Detectives that tried to enforce the law onto him looked tough, each one of them, until they dropped their weight onto the metal chair in the interrogation room. The heaviness of the sinister aura was unnerving to anyone who dared to approach and the criminal enjoyed breaking them one by one.

“Do you?” Sukuna spoke, his voice low and menacing, but bearing a thrill of amusement and excitement. The heavy chains that grounded his frame clinked as he moved just slightly and the shiver that went down the spine of the man in front of him did not escape his watchful eye. “Afraid?”

“Hardly,” a tone of false confidence responded to the question and Ryomen chuckled. To him, this was a game, and he was winning. He found joy in annoying the interrogator, knowing that he couldn’t get anything out of him. It was stimulating, it was fun. It was a game of cat and mouse. It felt euphoric to answer the questions, knowing that his words were confusing, that he was able to mess with the man’s head, make him question his own judgement.

Years and years of being on the top of mafia managed to clear his memory of being vulnerable and the caricature of it that he was now experiencing served for a nice refresher. He felt excitement to play with the law and as he sat there, restrained by metal bounds, he realized why he became a criminal in the first place. The constant chase of thrill and power was what made him who he was.

As the detective sat there, intimidated more and more with each passing second, Sukuna watched the disaster unraveling with a dark glint in his eyes. He enjoyed every moment of the tension and knew that chills were running down the spine of his current opponent. He was imposing, savoring the fear and the exquisite feeling of danger that surrounded him. It was intoxicating, it made him feel alive. He played with the interrogator as if the predator would play with its pray, he stared at him with a small grin of pure evil.

“You’ve been stubborn this whole time,” the officer said, clearing his throat and straightening his spine to make himself appear bigger but to Ryomen, he was merely a source of amusement. The criminal stayed relaxed and leaned forward, slowly closing the distance between his own face of death and the eyes of the person in front of him.

“Was I stubborn?” He questioned, his tone low and menacing and his lips stretched slowly, baring the teeth. “You’ve got me all chained up and still, you can’t get your job done?”

“You’re chained up because of the potential threat you might pose.”

Sukuna laughed. A raspy and low chuckle came from his throat; a dark omen that hung heavy in the air as if signifying the upcoming danger. It was cold and malicious, an ominous showcase of his real persona, of someone who has no compassion and knows no mercy. He felt a twisted sense of satisfaction at the sight of sweat running down the face of the man in front of him. He exuded an aura of fear, leaving everyone in the room unsettled.

“If I only wanted to, I could rip out your throat with my bare teeth.” Ryomen’s voice was low, it was quiet and nearly whisper like but the message it carried was more than enough to freeze the blood inside the veins of the interrogator.

“I assume you’re familiar with the idea of good cop bad cop method,” the man spoke again after a moment of dread. He cleared his throat once more, squared up his jaw.

“And which one are you?”

“Oh, I’m neither, but allow me to show you something,” interrogator reached to the inside pocket of his coat, pulling out a phone with his sweaty palms and pressing down few buttons.

The moment Sukuna looked down on the screen, his expression changed. A ghost of anger washed over his features as he took in the picture. Suddenly, he felt a wave of burning hot filling his veins and reaching his face; a dizzying sensation of dread and rage and then he realized that the power he wielded was nothing. With his eyes fixed on the little phone and his jaw clenched, shaken by the rush of adrenaline and with his knuckles white, Sukuna Ryomen experienced acknowledgement. An epiphany of sorts. The illusion of might and influence burst like a bubble made of soap and slowly he realized that he’s nothing but–

“Seeing something familiar?”

–weak.

taglist: @yihona-san06 @tiredscavengerskeleton @son4aras @vixorell @cecesharktales @isleqt @thickmacandcheese @captainchrisstan @bbylime @sad-darksoul @shartnart1 @kiki17483 @grimreaqueer @phoenix-eclipses @fan-of-encouragement @valleydoll @aleeeeeeees-stuff @marifujioka @going-to-californiaxx @just-pure-trash @edenofeve @impulsivethoughtsat2am @thigh-o-saur @heyohalie @matchat3a @bubblearts @littlemisspropaganda @aconstructofamind @lawislife18 @rzcnlb @sunukissed @b3llair3 @lzaj19 @sanzusforeverwife @annshz, @mrs--imperfect @kaminari-no-ritsusha @gojos-princesa @burpzz

[valtharr]

In the last few days, I've now had two run-ins with people on this site regarding the idea of a TTRPG's mechanics and rules impacting the roleplay aspect of said game. And from what I can tell, these people - and people like them - have the whole concept backwards.

I think people who only ever played D&D and games like it, people who never played a Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark system, or any other system with narratively-minded mechanics, are under one false impression:

Mechanics exist to restrict.

Seeing how these people argue, what exactly they say, how they reason why "mechanics shouldn't get in the way of roleplaying," that seems to be their core idea: Rules and mechanics are necessary evils that exist solely to "balance" the game by restricting the things both players and GMs can do. The only reasons why someone would want to use mechanics in their RPG is to keep it from devolving into

"I shot you, you're dead!" "No, I'm wearing bulletproof armor!" "I didn't shoot bullets, I shot a laser!" "Well, the armor's also laserproof!" "Nuh-uh, my lasers are so hot that they melt any armor!" "My armor's a material that can't melt!" And so on. Because we have rules, the players can't just say "we beat this challenge", and neither can the GM say "you haven't beaten this challenge." Because the rules are clear, the rules are obvious, the rules tell you what you can and can't do, and that's it.

So obviously, when the idea of mechanics directly interacting with the roleplay - generally seen as the most free and creative part of a TTRPG - seems at best counterintuitive, at worst absolutely wrong. Hearing this idea, people might be inclined to think of a player saying "I'm gonna do X", just for the evil, restrictive mechanics to come in and say "no, you can't just do X! you first have to roll a Do X check! But you also did Y earlier, so you have to roll the Did Y Penalty Die, and if that one comes up higher than your Do X die, you have to look at this table and roll for your Doing X If You Previously Did Y Penalty! But, if you roll double on that roll..."

But like... that's not how it works. Roleplay-oriented mechanics don't exist to restrict people from roleplaying, they're there to encourage people to roleplay!

Let's go with a really good example for this: The flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark (and games based on Blades in the Dark).

In BitD, you can declare a flashback to an earlier point in time. Could be five minutes ago, could be fifty years ago, doesn't matter. You declare a flashback, you describe the scene, you take some stress (the equivalent of damage) and now you have some kind of edge in the present, justified by what happened in the flashback. For example, in the Steeplechase campaign of the Adventure Zone podcast, there was a scene where the PCs confronted a character who ended up making a scandalous confession. One of the players declared a flashback, establishing that, just before they walked in, his character had pressed the record button on a portable recording device hidden in his inner coat pocket. Boom, now they have a recording of the confession.

How many times have you done something like this in a D&D game? How many times did your DM let you do this? I think for most players, that number is pretty low. And for two reasons:

The first, admittedly, has to do with restrictions. If you could just declare that your character actually stole the key to the door you're in front of in an off-screen moment earlier, that would be pretty bonkers. Insanely powerful. But, because BitD has specific mechanics built around flashbacks, there are restrictions to it, so it's a viable option without being overpowered.

But secondly, I think the far more prevalent reason as to why players in games without bespoke flashback mechanics don't utilize flashbacks is because they simply don't even think of them as an option. And that's another thing mechanics can do: Tell players what they (or their characters) can do!

Like, it's generally accepted that the players only control what their characters do, and the GM has power over everything else. That's a base assumption, so most players would never think of establishing facts about the larger world, the NPCs, etc. But there are games that have explicit mechanics for that!

Let's take Fabula Ultima as another example: In that game, you can get "Fabula Points" through certain means. They can then spend those points to do a variety of things. What's literally the first thing on the list of things Fabula Points let you do? "Alter the Story - Alter an existing element or add a new element." I've heard people use this to decide that one of the enemies their group was just about to fight was actually their character's relative, which allowed them to resolve the situation peacefully. I again ask: In your average D&D session, how likely is it that a player would just say "that guy is my cousin"? And if they did, how likely is it that the GM accepts that? But thanks to the Fabula Point mechanic making this an explicit option, thanks to rules explicitly saying "players are allowed to do this", it opens up so many possibilities for story developments that simply would not happen if the GM was the only one allowed to do these things.

And it's only possible because the mechanics say it is. Just how your wizard casting fireball is only possible because the mechanics say it is.

[auriidae]

LIFESTUCK ?!?! (pt 2 here!) (pt 3)

i was sick a couple days ago and spent like 12 hours straight doing nothing but classpecting life series characters and then was like Yeah i have to draw this now. so here's some sillies 👍 (super long classpect ramble under cut because i spent far too long on it not to share hfshjf)

quick note: i really really love @/classpect-navelgazing's theories and used them for a lot of the ideas here. go check their blog out it rules :]

ok you guys flower ranchers (scott tango jimmy) are making me so insane for this au specifically because of this idea i had about doom/life players. doom in true canon is related to inevitability, fate, and knowledge of the specific rules that keep the characters trapped within their story, right. and life is sort of related to healing, physically and mentally, within the confines of the game. so within this au, the aspect of life refers to the rules within the game that the players can see and are aware of (last life’s trading lives system + boogeyman, third life’s soulmate mechanic, secret life’s tasks, etc.). life players have some amount of dominion over these elements (depending on their class, of course). doom on the other hand refers to everything surrounding the games (stuff like admin powers, the world barrier, and whatever happens to the players after they die). 

as a mage of doom, scot (his name is so funny to me. like yeah he sure is) has a bunch of intrinsic knowledge about the way the games function on a logistical level. he’s like a guy who read the script a while ago and forgot all the characters’ names but knows the basic plot and how it’s going to end. or who knows all the ins and outs of tech crew and for whom the apparent magic of the show for the audience is lost on, since he knows how it’s being done. the thing is, scot isn't especially able to act on this knowledge during the game. what director wants someone in the audience — or one of the actors — taking all the magic out of the show, spoiling how it works and how it ends? no, it’s best if they keep that knowledge to themselves — and so scot’s narratively unable to affect the stories of those around him, even his close friends who he’d want to help. he’s aware of this, of course, which makes him more than a little depressed, as he can see the futility of it all and can’t even explain to anyone what’s going on and how the game works. (the only story he’s able to affect, of course, is his own. which. depressed doom player + mage martyr complex + guy who Really cares about his friends is not necessarily a good combination.)

the amount of stock i put in the idea of gendered classes is close to zero so tangoe gets to be a maid of life because ohh my goodness. i like the theory (thanks classpect-navelgazing) of life as “the aspect of affluence,” where life players usually enter the game with some kind of material wealth or status that helps their position in some way. i also like the idea that maid players start the game with a surplus of their aspect but often end up feeling as if they’re only seen as a provider of that specific thing as a result of this, and so end up longing for something else instead. this primarily applies to last life tango because that’s the season i’m most familiar with lol, but i thought the way he started out with so many lives there and quickly dwindled as a result of everyone taking from him and only him was Really interesting. mans has all the luck of the game he could need, but only wants friends to actually be able to live with. being a life player also ties into his little gambling games and things (again, dominion over stuff within the overarching game/story, but nothing beyond that).

then we get to jimi (again fantastic name). the basic premise of an heir is that they’re played by their aspect, right and Oh Boy is jimmy played by life in the life series. i don’t personally know much about anything he’s done other than heehoo canary guy but along with the previously stated points it’s So fun to see him as a life player because it allows for some really clearly contrast between the way he interacts with tangoe and scot based on their aspects. i really like the idea of scot being like “you’re a life player jimi. it's in your name. the game is not going to let you die” and jimi like “you really think so? aw thanks man” neither of them knowing that dying as a life player in this game is literally like in the job description. (ok. i kind of feel like i’m letting jimi down by basing his story so far around other people.. but this is just for fun and i can always change it later)

(also i could easily have put tangoe and jimi as doom players too but for the fact that i don’t think they necessarily see through the game as much as scot does (or at all). and so life it is.)

feel free to ask me questions abt them!!! i have so many thoughts about this bro 

[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.

[toskarin]

Since Bethesda was so insistent on moving away from Morrowind's combat system for Oblivion and Skyrim, what would you have replaced it with?

contrary to what it might seem, I don't think replacing the skyrim combat system wholesale with sekiro or dark souls is really a viable solution to the problem, because it's fun for a mod load order, but it definitely makes the game feel unskyrim

so I'd approach this more from the angle of "what needs to be added to fill the void left behind by the simplified combat"

design rambles below the break. this is less of me offering actual solutions and more of me just saying what I'd do if I were given all the resources and executive power in the world for it, from an armchair. and it goes without saying these are all just Opinions

one of the largest basic design issues with modern bethesda melee combat is that it's tied really hard into melee being a single button input. if they want to stick with that, they should at least implement directional attacks and blocking (which I'll mention now is not something new for TES) with a simple aiming scheme, possibly similar to mount&blade's

stealing something else from m&b while I'm at it, two attacks colliding from the same direction within a tight frame window should clash

enemies need to have attacks you don't want to get hit by. somewhere in their list of moves, enemies need to do something different that necessitates either dodging, blocking, or otherwise reacting in any way. they also need to gapclose, but that's a given

healing consumables need to have a cooldown. as funny as cramming items in your face by the stack during combat is, it's a bandaid to an enormous design flaw in melee combat not being interesting. if you really wanted, you could keep some of that flow by having a skill for mixing preexisting potions together into single doses

addendum to that previous point, players should have a hotbar that allows lower cooldown consumption of certain items, which cannot be reconfigured in combat

magic needs to be stronger and riskier. heavy armour should eat into your damage and efficiency significantly, medium armour should do it just a little bit, and casting past your magicka pool should start consuming health at twice the rate it consumes magicka

blocking should have a higher damage reduction cap (it is currently 85%-95% DR depending on armour) but scale depending on how precisely you block an attack and eat into your stamina much more (with a stagger at zero, to steal another mechanic)

as they are, the entire shout system is a symptom of bad design. having a cooldown-based system that gives non-magic characters spells removes the strongest incentive to play magic characters. I'm actually not sure what to even do about this one that doesn't involve cutting all of the overlapping skills and keeping its focus on weird utilities? as a rule, I kind of hate every gameplay concept that uses "this is something only the player can do" as its skeleton, so this is a tough one for me to poke at

hitstop

[molinaesque]

Okay I mentioned that I had a bunch of Raphael thoughts and basically made a whole essay (in literally no actual format, this is just me vomiting out parsing thoughts and using it when lore dumping onto my friends). This is written based off of stuff you find in the game, some Wiki diving and my own thoughts.

Feel free to hit me up with some topics that we can talk about. And remember, these involve are my own thoughts and headcanons at the end of the day, so please act normally and don't come at me with pitchforks just because I have something that doesn't align with your specific HC.

A Prince's Tale: The Story of Raphael

In the universe of Faerûn, there exists a heaven and hell, or in this case the Heavens and the Hells. There are the Nine Hells of Baator, all ruled and lorded over by various archdevils. Raphael is the son of the ruler of the eighth circle of Hell, the archdevil, Mephistopheles. Raphael is a cambion which consists of a fiend and a mortal. Cambions then are considered "results of unnatural and unholy communion". In Raphael's case it's a bit more complicated because the fiend in this equation isn't just some lower being like an incubus or some other demon but a true Devil, making Raphael leagues above, both in power and rank, other typical Cambions, just purely due to his association and blood of being Mephistopheles' offspring.

The system in the Hells is extremely rigid and hierarchical (it's a system that has been upheld for eons. Many of the systems that make up the universe of D&D are as deeply rigid and rooted). Many of the themes of the characters of Baldur's Gate 3 consist of them either repeating the cycle or breaking its hold, which in the D&D verse is an extremely hard thing to do because of how long standing these systems are. In regards to the Hells, it works like a pyramid. The top of the food chain and order are the archdevils. There are many archdevils that reside and rule over each circle of the Hells, one however rules all and lives in the Ninth circle, Nessus; Asmodeus.

So what does Raphael want? The integral key item and centerpiece of the main plotline of BG3 dubbed only as 'The Crown', created by Karsus. Karsus was a very powerful, most would say perhaps THE most powerful wizard who ever lived. An archwizard/demi-god responsible for creating and casting a spell that would steal the power of a deity and transfer it to the archwizard who casted it. Eventually, this was a mistake, for one of the responsibilities of the deity of magic was to regulate the flow of magic to and from all beings, spells, and magic items in the world. He did not have the ability to do so properly, causing magic to surge and fluctuate, threatening that balance. This caused the flying cities of Netheril to plummet to the earth. The last thing Karsus sees is his entire civilization being destroyed because of his actions. This will be known as 'Karsus' Folly'.

Raphael tells you about this story and how he was there to witness it happen all those years ago. He wanted the Crown to himself but it was stolen and put into hiding. He later finds out that Mephistopheles, his father was the one responsible for stealing it. Now, here's a way to explain the fucked up power levels and why it plays so much of a factor especially in the Nine Hells. I mentioned how Raphael is not a typical Cambion, BUT even though he is technically a prince by birthright and a half true devil, it doesn't make a difference under the likes of archdevils like his father (who doesn't help at all with Raphael's behaviour because Mephistopheles is a MEGA asshole. I mean, there's a reason why Raphael never utilised his name to invoke influence and power, doesn't even call him father, that's how much he hates him. You only find out about it through Haarlep. He even had another child, a daughter, who he cared more about by making her a trusted double-agent against one of his rivals. Meanwhile, he treats Raphael like nothing and acts as if he doesn't exist for the most part). Basically, unless you are an archdevil in the Hells, you are never TRULY free. As power, literally = freedom in the Hells. Raphael realises this and so began his lifelong ambition to get that power. That came with the events of Karsus' Folly. Realising that this is the opportunity and power Raphael needed, he attempts to steal it only for it to be taken by none other than his own father. Now, you think "ah Mephistopheles wants that power for himself, right?" No. Here is how far apart the levels of power are between beings like Mephistopheles (beings such as archdevils/archwizards/demi-gods/gods/etc) and beings like Raphael, who is already a pretty substantial and powerful Devil by his own right.

Raphael has been coveting the Crown and its power for 10 centuries, a thousand years, essentially. It's his one source that can possibly give him the chance of taking even more control of the Hells and ultimately make him TRULY a free devil. It's his life's mission that has been going on until he's practically in his middle age in devil years (his human appearance showcases this, and we also see a younger Raphael in his devil form with Haarlep). Half of his (immortal) life. It is very crucial and important to him.

And yet… to Mephistopheles, it's just a souvenir. A trinket. Or as Raphael puts it, "a museum piece".

This, undoubtedly angered Raphael so much and made his hatred towards his father even more so (Raphael mentioned how he raged for a decade, understandably). The fact that not only does his father treat him as if he doesn't exist, but to add insult to injury, did this while mocking him by not taking him seriously. One of the things he did was to send an incubus, Haarlep, made and glamoured to be an exact copy of Raphael, to distract him. It could also be seen as a message of "here is my gift to you and it is one of the only few things that will ever be 'truly' yours; a copy of yourself". Raphael would have been the first image that Haarlep acquired, thus why the constant form that you see him with is of Raphael (Haarlep tells you this if you kill him and speak to his corpse). Haarlep's corpse also tells you that "Raphael only loves himself." I wonder why. Haarlep also has a contract that requires him to obtain 1000 souls (the runes on his harness have been translated to the number '1000') in order to be free. This is why the archivist in House of Hope tells you that special guests can reside in the boudoir, as this is a primary way for Haarlep to collect more souls. If you sleep with him, and allow him to have your heart and soul, you die. If you promise your body only, you live but he now has a full copy of you entirely. Additionally, we know Gortash was sold to be in Raphael's services when he was a boy. We know that Gortash and the other Chosen eventually stole the Crown from Mephistopheles' vault. What's interesting is if you explore the House of Hope, you can find a portal to the eighth circle of Hell, Cania, where Mephistopheles resides. I believe that Gortash utilized this to obtain the Crown. Imagine the sheer rage and embarrassment Raphael had to endure because of this. Not only did the Crown get snatched from under him once but TWICE. Once by his father, and then later by a boy who was under his charge. I can completely imagine Mephistopheles utilising that as additional ammo and lording that over Raphael's head.

In pertaining to Raphael's character and behavior, all of this explains additionally as to why Raphael is the way he is. It's selfish, insecure behavior that also explains the portraits he surrounds himself with. Notice how all the paintings are of his true form. He also has many lines of dialogue depending on what you pick during your various meetings where he truly gets angry. One of these lines is him shouting "I AM NO MORTAL" when you simply ask why he would succeed where Karsus had failed (which is ironic because, my guy, you are part mortal, so was Karsus but he was very powerful for many other reasons other than pure association and blood. Raphael even tells you how foolish of a notion it would be if you suggest that you could take the Crown for yourself, telling you that archdevils, wizards, and gods have worn the Crown, "it would tear you apart" he warns you). The portraits of his Devil form in House of Hope surrounding him is a way of constant reminder to himself of what he wants to be associated with. He HATES that he is part mortal (he has showcased his disdain for the mortal realm very clearly during your encounter in House of Hope) and wants to see himself as only a Devil. To say that dude's got major issues and complexes is a huge understatement. He's a deeply insecure being who's controlling and manipulative (most of it stemming from his father and his predicament of essentially living a half-life), but he's also a pragmatic, self-aware character. He's very much the epitome of Lawful Evil. If the players choose to only see him as a one note character who's just "self-centered and evil", you can. That's the beauty of Baldur's Gate. These things are true,but you can also add on top of that when you choose to find out and explore for more lore and characterization.

Interestingly, the way he treats someone who opposes him compared to those who don't are very stark in contrast. You see it with the prime examples of Hope (naming the house after her due to her being the one soul who he cannot convert and have on his team completely) and of her sister Korilla, who has mentioned that she loves being in service of Raphael completely as he has treated her with respect and given her more freedom than her previous master ever did, who in her own words, "constantly would beat me and feed me scraps". "Better to be free in the Hells than go begging in the Heavens", she tells you. She's also not blindly following Raphael or under any thrall. In fact she makes light of him and his antics to you completely of her own volition. She made a bet with Raphael whether you would survive and get to Baldur's Gate (which Raphael bet FOR you to succeed btw). You can find the Five Soul Coins they bet for in the safe hidden behind the portrait in HoH. And she doesn't sing his praises completely, saying that she's more skeptical of you than Raphael is and is fearful of how wrong he would be banking everything on you, saying "Raphael can be so very wrong". She basically tells you that Raphael won't shut up about you. She also tells you that Raphael is, in her own words, "by no means altruistic" and argues that Raphael truly wants to not have the world destroyed because it would simply mean, as she puts it "the boss did the balance sheets. No world, no souls". In fact, she BEGS you to reconsider if you didn't take the deal in the first place.

One could argue that Raphael residing in Avernus and having him in proximity of mortals more in comparison to the deeper levels of the Hells, gave him more perspective. He even tells you he doesn't want Baldur's Gate to be destroyed. He tells you, fondly, he couldn't possibly want that to happen because the city is "an object lesson of moral excess". Why would he want a huge primary source of deals and contracts for him gone. If you explore the House of Hope, many of his deals range from complex, twisted deals to simple, straightforward ones with no caveats (for example there is a debtor who tells you that he sold his soul for enough money to keep his family well fed. Done. No trickery. That was the end of it. Even the architect of Moonrise Towers attested to Raphael keeping his word and defeating Ketheric's forces way back then). In Raphael's own words, "I'm a man of my word" and he wasn't lying. There's a reason why he has practically a 99.9% conversion rate (his one big failure being Hope and why he's so obsessed with converting her is because he truly cannot understand how one can be so pure of a soul. She's a puzzle, and Raphael HATES it when he can't figure something out). If you're wondering why can't Raphael (or any other devil) force or lie about the contracts they have made, well that's literally by design. Asmodeus created a law that bars devils from doing so, and devils will get punished severely would they ever take advantage of that. That's also why devils have to be extra sneaky when being contractors because if they die, it doesn't matter. The contracts they made while still alive still stays intact until they are completed. Meanwhile, the contract just gets given to another devil. When Raphael tells you in HoH if you asked him for no more bloodshed, he tells you "you've given me no choice". He means this, as it would mean both you AND he would be punished regardless if he were to let it be.

Mol is another example of a straightforward transaction. He wasn't lying when he said he'll keep Mol safe from harm in exchange for becoming her patron. It's not for something nebulous like "she has to become the leader of the guild in the next 20 years" or something extreme, it was just "I'll be your patron in return for your safety and security". He sees her as a long standing investment. Raphael mentioned that he hates children, but there is ONE thing he values above all else and admires when he recognizes it. "Ambition." He tells you he sees that in Mol during the meeting at Last Light Inn. It's also believable that he sees himself in Mol (especially his younger self) and thought "I respect it and I get another easy contract. Win-win". The dude loves underdog stories since his own is practically one as well. In fact, Mol doesn't like it when you treat her condescendingly. If you remember the chess scene in Last Light Inn, there are ways she can lose but also various ways she can win (and no, you don't have to only pick helping her cheat for this to work). If you help her cheat, she wins. If you help her by giving her an offensive strategy, she wins (in fact Raphael knows that she cheated, and if she won legitimately, even comments about the move and stating that it's a legit maneuver in chess and praises Mol for it saying that it's "exactly what I would've done"). Either way, Raphael praises your suggestions when Mol leaves. If however, you don't offer advice, or tell Mol to be defensive, she looses, prompting Raphael to comment on how being non committal or weak will not help Mol in the long run. If you stole her contract, she doesn't mind it too much BUT if you killed Raphael and told her about it, she will HATE you. Hating how you killed her patron, "Big Raph" as she calls him, that would ensure her safety and security as long as she's under contract. It's another additional interesting subplot that doesn't really have anything to do with the grand scheme of the game, but adds even more layers to already fascinating characters.

This dichotomy is what makes Raphael a very complex and interesting character. He's a devil who wants Ultimate Power, make no mistake, but he also is pragmatic enough to realise that he does not want another "Karsus' Folly". In fact, he could have easily just done an Emperor to gain your trust wholeheartedly and then turn on you the moment you have the Crown. It would have been easier for him. But he chose to bank on you being a long term investment maybe even beyond the Crown, meeting you head on and reveal his true nature to you from the first meeting. If you listen to everything he tells you, he never actually lies, he omits things here and there, but he never lies to you (in fact if you become even more on his team, there is a line where he straight up tells you that he "likes you"). It's a similar relationship with Korilla, in that she has complete free will but is for his team. He mentions that he does not like it when people beg or kiss his ass (there are many examples of this, his conversation with Voss for one and also whenever you choose dialogue options that make you seem like a spineless whimp). He even tells you at points that he likes the way you do things (even if they're a bit unorthodox), and if you took his contract but chose to break it (or just stole the hammer, it's the same regardless), it makes it even more personal because he genuinely was shocked to find that you were the one breaking into his house. This is one of the few times we see Raphael truly angry. No fancy words, no charm, no smarmyness. Just anger and even sheer disappointment that you chose to, in his own words, "become like Karsus, disregarding everything and burning your world to ash" (remember, Raphael truly believes that his method with the hammer and Orpheus is the ONLY way to defeat the brain, that's the unfortunate part of obsessing and planning for this goal for so long that he truly believes there are no other alternatives. He mentions in one of his diaries that he has planned a dozen ways to obtain the Crown, but he concludes that there is only one way for it to actually work and it involves Orpheus, hence the creation and naming of "The Orphic Hammer". There's even a book about its creation in HoH). Hell, even one of the dialogue options where you say "there's no need for more bloodshed", you would think he'd just be like "HAHAHA evil dialogue, i planned this all along, you're nothing, blah blah" but instead he actually says in his own words, "I have no choice" because we know that breaking contracts means death, and death means he has to collect your soul. Even if you didn't sign the contract and break in, he still genuinely did not think you would go so far as to do such a thing especially with the offer he made to you. He basically blames you for being too proud to do such a thing.

Even when you don't take his contract at all, when you meet up with the Emperor again in the Astral Prism during the battle against the Netherbrain, choosing to betray the Emperor will cause Raphael to appear for a final time. Does he just offer you the contract again? Yes. But not before scolding you for being an idiot and genuinely being pissed off at you for not taking his deal to free Orpheus. He even tells you in his own words, "we could have been allies, partners… FRIENDS!" If you try to beg him for help, he shouts at you, saying how you are in no position to make demands anymore because of your reckless actions. You made your bed, you have to recognise it. If you still refuse his offer, he doesn't try to force you, or twist your arm in any way… he just tells you, quote, "Goodbye. It's been unforgettable" (which is his way of saying "i won't forget you… but i also won't forget how much of a fucking blind idiot you were) and then leaves you forever. If you take the deal, he tells you it's no longer as equals anymore, you are now considered a lowly servant to him. He genuinely wanted you to be partners, but doing all of this basically leads him to conclude that you aren't worth it anymore. The way the writers chose to have the Emperor and Raphael parallel each other but in different ways is genius. They are two sides of the same coin. Both want true freedom, both try to manipulate Tav, the main characters for their own cause, both are extremely pragmatic and set in their own ways and goals. The irony is that instead of portraying Raphael as this pure scheming, one note character - is flipped on it's head by making him honestly, one of the most truthful characters in the game. It's just that he's a Devil. As Korilla states when you ask her back at the brothel, "why can't Raphael just be clear with me if we are on the same team?" she tells you as if explaining that the sky is blue…

"He's a Devil. It's in his nature. He has to make his dues."

This speaks of how ancient and deeply rooted these laws and systems work in their universe. Typically, characters says stuff like this to be hyperbolic/dramatic. But in the case of Raphael as a Devil, she means this literally, as souls keep the Hells functionable, and as we know by now, souls = power, and more power = more freedom.

Now, to address the epilogue and what happens if you do make the pact with him and delivered upon your promise. He comes to you and tells you that he and his forces are already taking over Avernus and overthrew Zariel. He tells you that he has various archdevils already coming to him to make concessions, his father included. He also tells you that he'll be knocking on your door soon. This is open to interpretation, but remember he has sworn to you during your deal that he would never use the Crown on a mortal (trust me, with his obsession with the Hells and how he envisioned on ruling it, in his own words "more order, efficiency, and control", he is definitely more interested in dominating the Hells only, it's too much work anyhow to be interested in anything else. Also he swore to you as part of the contract, he literally cannot break this, if he does, it's immediate punishment for him, so he's not lying). So, more than likely, he finds you to be a very important potential ally to further work with in the future. Also, depending on how early you signed the contract, his tone/line can be interpreted VERY differently.

Now here's the most interesting part… if you aren't familliar with D&D lore, that epilogue would lead you to believe "oh damn he's going to be ruler of the Nine Hells just like he wanted, good for him", but that's easier said than done. Because not only the deeper the Hells go, the more powerful these archdevils will be. I have no trepidation about him defeating them or them conceding to him, that's already happening. The one obstacle he truly needs to worry about… is the keeper of the Ninth Hell, the ruler of all the Nine Hells of Baator, Asmodeus. The creator and overlord himself. Just to give you a concept of how the power levels work in D&D… level 12 and above, are almost levels of godhood. Think the likes of Hercules. At the level Asmodeus is at, however, a former deity (speculative) and creator of the laws and system that permits the balance of life and the universe itself, Raphael even with the Crown will have… a VERY slim chance of overruling him. At the very least he could take over the other realms or instill his way of order and control, and appeal to Asmodeus, because funny enough, Asmodeus' personality and behaviour and goals is VERY similar and akin to Raphael's (Asmodeus is the primal embodiment of Lawful Evil and a supreme strategist of unparalleled skill. He's good at warfare but even better at words, planning, and subterfuge). Another thing is Raphael might even change his own mind, because Asmodeus isn't just the ruler of the Hells, his primary existence is to keep the balance of life and death and the existing universe in check. I personally don't see Raphael being interested in such a huge responsibility but that's another topic for another day.

Another fun fact, many of the characters in D&D are existing characters in various cultural stories/mythologies. Many of the archdevils included with the likes of Mephistopheles, Baalzebub, Mammon, and yes even Asmodeus. The writers most likely looked to biblical texts for inspiration of Raphael, but the irony is they took the one famous character in Christian biblical text, Raphael, who is not a devil, but an archangel and then flipped that character on its head. One of archangel Raphael's most famous stories is literally called, 'the Battle Against Asmodeus', where Raphael fights against Asmodeus, a fallen cherub and dubbed, "personal adversary" of Raphael. What's even cooler? The battle was not one of might, but of intelligence, wisdom and influence. Exactly like how D&D's own Raphael and Asmodeus operate. Raphael certainly takes more after Asmodeus than he does his own father.

Speaking of which, what about his father? Raphael mentions that he was there amongst the midst of other archdevils coming to Raphael to make concessions. Raphael is smart enough to know, though, that his father is not there solely out of "you did it, my boy" or anything like that, or perceiving him as a true threat still. Besides knowing how Raphael is seen by Mephistopheles, back at the diabolisk shop, there is an orb charmed to keep an eye on Raphael at all times. If you had defeated him in House of Hope, you will witness Mephistopheles holding the broken body of Raphael over his mouth and eating him. It's a nod to 'Saturn/Kronos eating his son(s)'. Basically, if you chose this ending for Raphael, you close the circle and end this story of Jacobean tragedy of an underdog prince who has been seeking validation and freedom from the sheer inescapable nature of the Hells and it's systems. In a way Raphael also has the same themes of your other companions who are also trying to navigate their fates. Whether to repeat that cycle in perpetuity or break free of it, it all hinges upon your choices throughout this journey of Baldur's Gate 3. Basically, Mephistopheles is just waiting patiently to witness his own son's downfall should he become overzealous and overtly ambitious, before swooping in to consume his son and all that additional power for himself, power that he doesn't even need, mind you. He's just there for the vibes, and to add even more pressure on his son. Parents, amirite?

If you're on team Raphael (like me) and gave him the ending he wants, the only thing I can really say is "Good luck, little prince. I'm actually rooting for you. You're going to need it."

Will our little princeling be able to break out of his own cycle and come out on top? Will Raphael be able to even get to the ninth circle let alone confront Asmodeus? Will Raphael finally get one over his dear ol' dad? Will Raphael ever get to finally make due on his promise ("I'm a man of my word"), and have that wine with Tav?

Hard to say, for his journey is just beginning.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hey happy to see your back, what might you have for living among dinosaurs?

Theme: Dinosaurs

Oh my gosh answering this request is going to be so much fun! I’ve been hoping to do a dinosaur request for a while!

24XX Predators, by Dice Ghosts.

DINOSAURS ROAM THE EARTH! A terrible earthquake has struck the biggest city in the world, releasing prehistoric creatures that were trapped beneath the earth. After quarantining the area, a team of experts has been assembled to enter the city and meet this ancient threat.

Play as a team of uniquely skilled individuals venturing into a ruined city that has become overrun by dinosaurs. Using your unique skills and training, you will need to work together to survive this metropolis of prehistoric predators and complete your mission.

An homage to Jurassic Park, 24XX Predators brings dinosaurs to the big city, in a post-apocalyptic kind of adventure that pits the player character specialists against roaming giant lizards while trying to help hapless bystanders as best as they can. Like many 24XX modules, Predators includes some special rules about being hunted by dinosaurs - are you prepared or ambushed for them? - as well as team mechanics that allow the group to do something called Scatter. When you Scatter, each player thinks of a number between 1-3. If all of the players are in sync, they’re able to help each-other. If one player disagrees, their action is hindered.

If you want a game that has your players feeling confident and you also like picking up small toolboxes with a few neat pieces in them, I recommend 24XX Predators.

Predation, by Monte Cook Games.

Welcome to the Cretaceous. Our ancestors won’t climb down from the trees for another 66 million years, but here we are now. Time travel seemed like a good idea. Exploring the ancient world. Building. Creating an entire society here in the jungles of our primordial Earth. Until those SATI guys messed it all up.

We’ve got gear. We’ve got guns. We’ve even bio-engineered a few dinos to our liking. And that’s good, because we’ll need it all to survive. History says there’s an asteroid headed our way, and there’s no one left alive who knows how to get back to the future.

Predation uses the Cypher System, which means that includes all of the typical neat tricks like spending points to increase chances of success, and one-time use items that are super powerful yet hyper-specific. It also has a really neat addition in the form of Dinosaur Companions - which are played by other people around the table.

That’s right, you’re making your own character and playing them, but you’re also responsible for portraying someone else’s dino pet - and someone else in turn is embodying yours. I find that this keeps everyone at the table more engaged as you play, because they have to keep track not just what their character is doing, but also what their dinosaur’s companion is doing, and it encourages players to interact with each-other whenever your dino decides to stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.

If you want adventure, a stunning setting, and friendship, then you want Predation.

Escape From Dino Island, by Sam Roberts and Sam Tung.

Escape from Dino Island is a thrilling adventure game about intrepid heroes trapped on an island overrun with creatures from a lost age—dinosaurs!

Players take on the role of everyday people who are brave and competent, but also in over their head. The game is designed to help you create the kind of stories that are full of action and suspense, but in which fighting is rarely a good option.

Will you escape with your life? And what kind of person will you become in your quest to survive? There’s only one way to find out…

This game isn’t so much about living among dinosaurs as it is about escaping them, true to form for media like Jurassic Park. The game is a PbtA short-form game, designed for 1-2 sessions. Setup is quick and streamlined, providing you with a map and a number of roll-tables to help you make choices about what can be found here and what is known about the island. You also have character playbooks and basic moves, two more tried and true elements of PbtA design. There’s a some really good resources for GMs here, including GM principles and moves, and a number of rumours and reasons for NPCs to be on the island, both nefarious and helpful.

Overall what I really like about Escape from Dino Island is that it knows exactly what it wants to be and uses all of its tools to aim directly at that experience. It’s meant to be punchy, adventurous, and full of mystery, but concise enough to play once or twice before you call it a day.

Sauritopia!, by The Griffin’s Typewriter.

Inspired by half-remembered episodes of Dinotopia, that 2000 movie Dinosaur, the Lindworms from Walter Moer's Zamonia series, and a peculiar cultural osmosis of spacefaring dinosaurs, herein lies the Lost Sphere of SAURITOPIA! Explore the streets of the Meteoric City! Argue with lumbering professors at the Volcanic Colleges! Or just add these intelligent dinos to your vision of the multifarious Spheres, hung delicately across the hump-backed sky!

You’ll need the Troika rulebook in order to use this supplement, which is mostly a series of dinosaur characters that players can choose from and some neat items and skills to use in a dinosaur-centred game. If you want to mix dinosaurs into an acid-fantasy setting, you can allow the player characters to choose from Sauritopia alongside the standard backgrounds, but you could also create a party of dinosaurs and then send them on a mission in the Troika sphere to see how they fare. As a personal fan of the boardgames Dinosaur Tea Party, I think it might be fun (or funny) to combine the characters of Sauritopia with the Troika module An Invitation to Dinner.

Diesel and Dinosaurs, by BasiliskOnline.

Is a rogue tyrannosaurus inciting panic in a local settlement?  Have velociraptors wandered into a neighborhood causing a safety hazard? 

Did an earthquake spook a herd of triceratops which are stampeding towards a local settlement?

Ride into the Parazoic!

Diesel and Dinosaurs is a powered by Charge RPG combining dinosaurs and post apocalypse settings and inspired by the cartoon Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and the comic Xenozoic Tales. Humanity has spent the last 600+ years in bunkers while the planet recovers from a massive climate crisis. Those bunkers began to breakdown beyond the mechanist's abilities to keep them running and eventually humanity began to return to the surface. They found a world once again reclaimed by dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, and began working to settle this untamed land.

Powered by Charge, Diesel and Dinosaurs contains plenty of nods to Forged in the Dark, including action ratings, dice pools, and the use of Stress. It’s designed for high action scenes in dangerous situations, flexible in tone from Saturday Morning Cartoon to high-adrenaline action film to gritty survival. The game comes with a series of roll-tables for the GM for a number of different kinds of dinosaurs that might be out there, as likely threats, pieces of backdrop, and maybe even new friends!

I’d probably pick up a game of Diesel and Dinosaurs if I’m in the mood for a high-action cheesy 80’s flick or something in that ballpark.

Preshistoric Portals, by Harper Jay.

The portals opened a few months ago. Nobody knows who to blame - scientists? The military? Dark wizards? But it doesn't matter now. What matters is the dinosaurs came through and destroyed life as you knew it. This city, built by a massive life-giving lake, was like a beacon for the prehistoric predators. Only the sturdiest skyscrapers remain fully intact, but even they threaten to fall to the might of the dinosaurs!

Built on Breathless, Prehistoric Portals drops you into a ruthless world of survival and small moments of reprieve. You’ll move between moments of action and danger, throwing everything you have and the kitchen sink into getting from point A to point B. Then you’ll take a break, refresh your resources, and the GM rolls for or creates a new complication - and then you’re on the run again. A great pacing mechanic for high energy games, while still demanding that you keep track of your resources.

Dinosaurs & Man, by Cilindro Cubico.

Humanity faces a crisis when dinosaurs escape from the Triassic Safari zoo due to a corporate espionage operation.  Now, humanity must survive in a world where it is no longer at the top of the food chain. 

Players take on the roles of brave men and women who must confront dangerous dinosaurs and unravel corporate intrigues to save humanity. 

Get ready for an exciting and epic odyssey of survival and adventure!

This is another game inspired by Jurassic Park, so once again, while the dinosaurs are living among you, they certainly aren’t friendly. Task resolution comes in the form of a percentile roll, using a percentage to determine how likely success is going to be, and the player rolling 2d10 with the hopes of rolling at or under the target number.

What I think the neatest thing is about this game is the way it determines your inventory. You have to take everything you have in your pockets out and place it on the table. Those items are your inventory. Your characters might be specialists, but that doesn’t mean they have specialist gear on them - they’ll have to use a combination of their skills and their wits in order to get them out of sticky situations like a rampaging pack of velociraptors, or a hungry t-Rex.

Rex Arcana, by Five Points Games.

The West is a Wild Place and it's about to get even more Wild. You are a band of Drifters out to make your claim on the open Plain, spell slinging outlaws on the run from the law with hearts of gold and teeth as sharp as kitchen knives. You and your fellow T-Rexes will travel the high plains and prairies, fighting corrupt oil tycoons, train-robbing bandits and devouring innocent townsfolk along the way.

This is a game where you play as the dinosaurs, rather than the people running from them. Not only that, you’re rootin’, tootin’ shootin’ defenders of the people, fighting off train robbers and the big fat cats profiting off of oil. If you want goofy, gonzo, and gigantic lizards, you want Rex Arcana.

You Might Also Want To Check Out….

This 2022 Dino Jam.

The Cavemaster RPG and it’s supplement, Dinosaurs of the Lost Valley, by UNIGames.

Camp Cretaceous, by Zozer Games.

Dinos and Lasers, by TassAllgood.

[gaslightgatekeepgirlbosscombat]

Quarterfinals, Poll 4

Propaganda under the cut

John Gaius, The Emperor Undying, God

Gaslight: When he resurrected his best friends he took away all their memories and gave them new names. He never reveals to them that he was the one who killed everyone on earth in the first place. He really plays up the "benevolent God" act Gatekeep: As a God, everyone is vying for his Favour and he is the one who gets to decide who gets it. He also doesnt share his knowledge of how to become immortal without killing your best friend. Girlboss: Literally made himself God. Never strayed from his ten thousand year old plan of Revenge. Rules an entire solar system and is colonizing more.

Jod is a frequent gaslight and gatekeep, however he falls more under the girlflop the girlboss. All of his plans go wrong but goddamn if he's not trying. Horrible ideas from an even worse person. Whent above gasligting and just straight up wiped his friends memories. Gatekeeping the knowledge of the universe. Had a child he didn't know about for 18 years and only found out cause she showed up dead(she's fine now(mostly)), girlboss move. Had a threesome with two of the gaslit friends, this would be less gross if he wasn't middle-aged. Gatekeeping the planets(I cannot explain this one). Ressurected humanity but also killed a lot of cows(girlboss). Put the soul of the earth in a woman and then put her in prison(but not before killing half of the amigos). Anticaptalist, bisexual, father. He has babygirl energy

Killed entirety of humanity and the whole solar system save a handful of billionaires and their victims, then resurrected the sun and a select handful of humans, wiped their memories, and established a religion in which he is god for over ten thousand years. Also an ex-tumblrina (probably) and goth twitch streamer (definitely).

Killed almost all of humanity, the sun and the solar system and then resurrected some of them deliberately without their memories and didn’t tell them that he killed them in the first place, and also told them that he was god. Renamed his friends after killing and resurrecting them. Set up imbalanced and toxic power dynamics among his inner circle that led to half of them either killing themselves or being killed by the other in each pair in order for half the group to become immortal saints, something he didn’t tell them wasn’t actually necessary to reach that sort of state. Lied to the surviving friends about why the ghosts of the planets in the solar system were hunting them, he told them they were after all of them because of the way they’d become saints which meant they could never go home, but they were actually only ever after him. Also because of this lie he was able to manipulate them into fighting the ghosts and dying in the process, saying that they would kill him which would destroy the sun, when actually they couldn’t kill him and also the ghosts were after just him so everybody would be fine if they just stopped hanging out with him (this is true in a LOT of senses actually). When he decided to get new immortal saints he specifically asked for the heirs of the houses, who were mostly younger in the 16-22 range and therefore easy to manipulate especially after killing their best friend (again, he knows that isn’t necessary and is asking it of a group of teens/young adults). When one of the people who was successful appears to have done it wrong, he pretends to be a mentor or father figure to her face (knowing that that is something extremely important to her) while having one of his surviving original friends try to kill her without her knowing he was behind that. On the girlboss front, I think he kinda thinks he’s a girlboss more than he actually is one, but he’s so good at the gaslight bit he’ll have you believing that too.

Ianthe Tridentarius

She is trying so hard to be the main character by lying and manipulating her sister, her cavalier, her mentor, her ?love interests? (Spoiler???) And also god. Not sure how it's working out for her but she does love to lie and manipulate

Worstie Ianthe is the DEFINITION of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. She is one of a set of necromancer twins that are the heirs to their houses rule. Except wait, only she is a necromancer and she has spent their entire lives doing necromancy for the both of them. She is constantly mean to their cavalier, Naberius, who she occasionally nibbles on like a chew toy, before eventually killing and eating him to ascend to sainthood. She goes to gods spaceship with another woman who ascended to sainthood who she has a crush on, this other woman is like…. Both incredibly mentally unwell and also haunted by at least 211 ghosts. Ianthes method of flirting with her? Gaslighting her about the corpse that keeps moving around and hiding under her bed. For no real reason tbh. She is clearly plotting to overthrow god, and at the moment that consists of her manipulating him while he’s too sad about his long term partners betraying him and subsequently exploding to really care. She dresses in terrible outfits and makes soup by burning onions to the bottom of a pot, putting meat in and some vegetables and then it doesn’t taste like anything so she puts in a few teaspoons of salt so it tastes like a few teaspoons of salt. She had her crush amputate her arm and regrow her a new one out of bone and it’s one of the horniest things I’ve read in my life.

"Gaslight = told her lobotomized (she helped), schizophrenic girlobsession that there was no corpse under their bed, even tho there totally was. Gatekeep = girl did NOT share the secret to god-like ascension. She kept that shit to herself until it was time to eat her boytoy, and by then everyone knew already. Girlboss = she has a non-necromancer twin sister, and literally Everyone thinks they r both necromancers because Ianthe is so good at it. She reverse engineered ascending to the aforementioned ascension without even completing any of the supplementary tasks. She held her own in a fight against a 10k year old lyctor. She becomes the figurehead of her entire empire. "

She uses a man as a chewtoy in the first book, literally gaslights the protagonist of the second book about a corpse, and elder-abuses God when he gets depressed in the third book. Nobody is doing it like her.

Dives headfirst with no regrets while basically laughing and covered in blood into murdering her cavalier once she realizes what the gothic locked room mystery/competition leads to while everyone else is questioning it, helps perform lobotomy on harrow so she doesn't remember the person she loves, manipulates everyone to get to the top

idk just everything about her

her relationship with her sister is incredibly Bad, she fosters codependency and views Corona(the sister) as an extension of herself. This does not stop her from keeping up the con that Corona actually has magic (She doesn't, it was always just Ianthe) for 22ish years and every single person who interacts with them falls for it. She killed a man against his will (most dying for this purpose specifically go willingly) and she consumed him and she will be burning his soul for eternity. She's completely repulsive and still somehow incredibly hot.

she takes advantage of the fact that the main character is prone to hallucinations. at one point she gaslights the mc into believing that the corpse under her bed isn't real just because she can. she reverse engineered a set of very complex trials on her own without anyone realizing she had the skills to complete them normally. she's also babysat god through his drunk and pathetic era.

Artist: @midnightcrows

[talenlee]

Why Is Druid?

Say that like ‘where is Wizard Hut?‘

I love the 4e Druid. This is a marked change from how much I liked the 3e druid, or how often you might see me playing a druid in a Baldur’s Gate game. Back in 3rd edition, the druid, despite being very powerful, never really engaged me, in part perhaps because I was always trying to find something exploitative and powerful rather than merely accepting the juggernaut of a toolkit the game just left in the Player’s Handbook. You couldn’t get clever with the Druid, you just had to pick it up and use it, like some sort of society of creative anachronisms where one of the anachronisms available to the players was has gun. Valid, but hardly sporting.

The Druid in 4th edition is different. Wildly different. Weirdly different, and different in one of those ways that shows what I think of as a seam in the design between 4th and 3rd editions of D&D.

The Druid was one of 3rd edition’s great mistakes, a full spellcasting class with healer capacity to serve as a pinch-hitter healer in a group that wanted things a little more varied, addressing an enormously complex potential build from its earlier edition, 2e, and all in the process, resulting in some deeply confused mash up of abilities that attempted to address confusion with volume. The druid of 2e had a special unique set of rules compared to the Cleric — for example, at a certain level, you passed into a specific category of Druidic ability and now you were technically a Hierophant, and Hierophants had seven extra spells of every level. Of course there was a limited supply of Hierophants in the world, so there was a question of if you could level up if another one existed, and maybe there’s a one-in, one-out policy? First in, first fired?

Anyway, I can’t speak to how it played, but I am at least aware, on the edges of it, that the 2e druid was odd. It had a lot of things it could do, but much of how it worked, reading the books, seemed to be interesting but challenging to manage. You could wild shape, you could heal, you could cast utility spells, you could even fight with some melee weapons — personally, I didn’t see any of it worth it, because none of the things it could do it could do very well.

3e addressed this seeming difficulty by instead taking all those different options and bringing them all up to the same level. Wild Shape worked by checking traits of monster units, which meant that you weren’t limited to specific reinterpretations of animals and instead could do what a druid feels like it should do — you know, turn into an animal. The spells were rebalanced and shared across different classes, which meant that they tended to work in a more standardised way. Armour rules were aggregated, and weapons were made less terrible.

The result was that the 3e druid went from being ‘decent’ at a bunch of things to ‘good’ at everything it wanted to do. The problem of the druid then became about picking the thing you wanted to at every opportunity, and doing a good job of it — you’d have druids carrying wands of healing so they could dedicate their spell slots to more important tasks, like Flame Striking opponents, or messing up the battlefield with roots. You’d also see druids keeping the ‘best’ list of animals on hand, and every new monster book presented a new chance for druids to develop a new best form.

It also created the strange question of What does the druid do?

The answer was ‘everything.’

The 4e Druid, in comparison and contrast to these designs is something very different that touches, at best, on the periphery of what the 3e Druid could be. I mean it stands to reason, you can only ever touch on doing everything when something you’re working from is so powerful. 4e with its role system of Defender, Striker, Leader and Controller, and its reliable, reusable balance math suddenly was confronted with fitting an elephant into a shoebox.

How do you represent something busted that could do everything in the context of a new system that sought to explicitly prevent that? I joked when the game was new that the four roles were Defender, Striker, Leader and Miscellaneous. That any class too powerful, with too much stuff it could potentially do, got thrown to the Controller role as suggested by the first Controller we ever saw being the Wizard. Oh and back in Player’s Handbook 1, the Wizard had a few builds that were pretty ridiculously pushed — the pinball wizard, I’ll talk about it sometime — and that meant that it was easy to feel like the Controller Does Everything.

That impression diluted through experience, of course, and eventually it came to that while yes, the Controller sure has some Miscellaneous vibes, the core of what the Controller was there to do was to attack the enemy action economy. Nice and obvious to a non giga-nerd, right? Okay, how about this: The leader lets you do more things, the controller stops them from doing more things?

And into this space, they poured the druid.

It works beautifully, for my tastes; the druid needs to do lots of things to feel properly druidy, but you need to make sure the doing lots of things doesn’t unbalance the game. Controllers have the widest variety of things they can do and ways they can do them – inflicting status conditions, changing enemy position, preventing specific action types, making areas on the battlefield inaccessible, these are all ‘controllery’ things, and that means there’s a lot of different ways you can flavour them. The Invoker is most famous for making zones in the play space hard to deal with, the Wizard has a build that slides things all over the place, and the psion controls people with immense penalties to their damage rolls.

Obligatory pause where, while reading this aloud, for either Fox or I to comment on how amazing it is that Dishearten is an AOE power.

Anyway, the druid was designed to be a mode switcher class. That is, there are two ways a druid can do things. One is a melee controller that makes a single target’s life harder, the other is a ranged controller that makes a large group of enemies’ lives harder. This mode switching then adds a new element to the class that your powers can interact with, where you now have control powers that can add a mode switching element to them as well. This is your Wild Shape – you transform into some kind of nonspecific beast, which can use your Wild Shape powers. Each form has fewer powers to manage, and you can build your druid to specialise in one or the other or do a mix.

This lets the druid do the ‘a lot’ without letting them actually do everything. You have a lot of choices and a lot of ways to play with those pieces, but even just how often you use the mode switch is part of what the druid does to control the battlefield. When I first played a druid, it was not uncommon to start a fight out of wild shape, use the first turn to make some kind of area control power, then shift into wild shape for the rest of the fight kicking people into that area control power. There are druids builds that work like wizards and only ever shapeshift to get away from problems, and make a hit while scuttling away, or to sit on a specific type of problem. There were druids who focused on summoning monsters and using them as kind of turrets on the battlefield, positioning allies in a way that benefitted them around those summons.

Lone artillery combat encounters, where you have a bunch of stuff in front of a long-ranged attacker? Druids love those. Even at level 1, that artillery is spending their days completely stuck underneath a Fire Hawk power.

Problem is, of course, that if you want to do Everything doing a Lot is going to miss something. That was what led to the subclasses of the druid, the ones that added healer elements to the druid, because the druid back in 3e could do that. It added animal companions, because the druid back in 3e could do that. Now I don’t worry too much about these things because if I wanted an animal companion on my Druid, I’d take a theme for that, but also because these changes were introduced in an Essentials book.

Which is to say, they’re crap.

They’re not crap crap, like I try to defend Essentials as giving players a choice for simplified character builds, but in the specific case of the Essentials Druids, in order to work with the simplified choices, these Essentials druids with their animal companions and their healing powers have to look at all other Druid powers and not use them. The only use they get out of their animal companion is using the specific subset of powers that make them work, and that makes combat more samey. But again: That’s a thing you probably want if you want a simplified build.

Still, it gives rise to my favourite joke – I mean like, funny thing, not really a joke, there’s no subversion of reality or anything here – about the Healer Druid. See, every Leader in the game gets an encounter power, usable twice a combat at level 1, that heals an ally with a bonus. Every class gets their own version that lets them distinguish their class specifically and add some interesting detail that shows how this Leader differs from other Leaders.

The Healer druid build gets Healing Word.

The Cleric power.

Literally, the same power, same name, listed as a Cleric power.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[carionto]

Pressure and Release

Human: *hmm-ing at a set of dials and gauges*

Alien: What seems to be *translation unit catches up with the information they're displaying* OH MY GOD IT'S GOING TO EXPLODE!!! GET TO THE ESCAPE PODS NOW!!!!

H: Shh, it's fine, I'm just experimenting.

A: OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY!

H: Hey! Rude. *turns a dial causing a loud hissing noise* It's just air compressors and hydraulics.

A: *due to not dying, is beginning to relax* Why do you need up to 200 atmospheres running through these systems. We have invented alloy-specific magnetization mechanisms. Please, why do you keep insisting on these volatile and explosive means?

H: *turns the dial up* Because... *releases the pressure again, loud sudden hissing sound again* That's a cool sound.

A: Just because you think something is 'cool' doesn't make it-

H: *interrupts with another air build up and release sound without breaking eye contact*

A: *leaves*

H: *continues to play around*

_________________________________________

Okay, so I wanna get this off my chest. I find myself now for the fourth time starting a fun little activity, doing it for months on end, having a blast, and then almost suddenly dropping it entirely. First time I wrote some short stories or something every day for about six months and put it on deviantart. Then some longer form stuff started cropping in, sort of continuous narratives or whatever, and I stopped. Second was running a open D&D campaign with a persistent world but ever changing party, each session a sort of one-shot with a decision that would impact the whole world and what future sessions would exist. Not even 10 sessions in I felt under pressure to continue and build upon what I had already and just couldn't and stopped. Third was another kind of TTRPG, this time running my own server for Lancer. Again, open one shots, but less connected and I would hopefully get some of the players to want to run their own games within this freeform framework that I directly lifted from a D&D server I was in, even had some of the same people join as players. Few months later, I felt this massive pressure from myself to run games and come up with new scenarios that I just froze up. I cancelled game after game and just eventually abandoned the server and the resources I had made. Fourth time was here on tumblr itself. Back to writing some short form stuff on a fairly regular basis, almost daily for some time even. Had a blast, and then longer form content started creeping in. I thought I wanted to write some stories with an overarching plot and recurring characters and connected storylines, build up and pay off, that sort of thing. Again, I created this massive pressure by myself for myself of myself to do something I apparently can't. I created this sense of expectation of myself "Well, I started this, I should finish it, but where do I go, what do I do, how can I connect this?" And then this self-inflicted pressure got to me, again. And I stopped.

What I have known for a while, but couldn't put into words is that I don't want to tell a big long epic story or anything like that. I don't have one of those in me and forcing something like that only makes me shrivel up and run away. I have a world, several in fact, in my mind. Entire continents of a low fantasy character driven political intrigue and drama based world with tons of rules and restrictions, thousands of years of history, strong personalities for the main actors and so many individual scenes with them and the supporting cast, and a timeframe for when the overarching story happens and how it ends. But no story itself. Just scenes. I have a high fiction sci-fi world, again, with very distinct factions and races, most of the details I have written out back when I was a teen in a physical notebook with pen and pencil. Lots of historical points and events, how the races work, their domains if you will, near magical powers I try to explain with plausible science. Tons of specific details. Even drew each of their common symbols, how one of the languages is structured, schematics of how their cities are planned, and details on other planets in the system and how those might be important later. But, not a single individual character or story. Just dry facts. And then we have the loose sci-fi world I've created here. Bunch of different angles and perspectives, some comedic, some more serious, even put Cthulu in there. Many short and mostly self-contained stories and episodes of various humans doing things an exaggerated version of humanity would do. There is potential for a number of expanded and longer form stories here, some I attempted, and as mentioned, what ultimately made me stop. I don't have a book in me, and I don't want to write one. I just like to write little snippets and I want to get myself to accept this idea that, no, it does not need to become more than that. Because every time I start going down a path where it feels like it should be more than a one page thing, I seize up, start thinking that I need to do this, panic when I can't come up with anything, go silent, and give up. It just does not work for my brain. And that's fine.

[prokopetz]

I have a pinned post for my games in development, but it doesn't really describe what they're about, and apparently this is something we're doing today, so:

My games in development, in rough order of priority:

(Note: all of these have public playtest drafts behind the links.)

Eat God

A game about weird little anarchist muppets with reality-warping powers themed after classic Looney Tunes gags wandering around a classic sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting stirring up trouble. Roughly 50% character creation rules by volume, with provisions for randomising every part of it; the linked draft, above, includes an online character generator if you want to play with it. The mechanics are a sort of elaborated spiritual successor to Costume Fairy Adventures, a game whose development I headed up about a decade ago.

Current status: actively writing, hopefully zeroing in on a feature-complete playtest draft within the next month or two.

Tiny Frog Wizards

One of my customarily literal titles, this is a game where you play as wizards who are tiny frogs. Features elaborate semi-freeform rules for casting spells, lots of big stupid random tables for when spells go off the rails, and absolutely no mechanics for anything that isn't casting a spell; it's a very focused sort of game. Narratively, it's a game about being an overpowered little twerp sticking your nose into other people's problems and offering solutions no-one asked for. Portions of the rules crib shamelessly from @jennamoran's Nobilis 3rd Edition, for which I offer acknowledgement but no apologies.

Current status: development of the text has been set aside for the moment to work on visual identity, with an eye toward crowdfunding an expanded hardcover edition later in the year.

Space Gerbils

A tactical mecha combat game with a very silly twist: the entirety of the tactical positioning occurs inside the mecha, because the game's premise is basically "what if instead of the Big Reveal at the end of Metroid (1986) being that Samus Aran is secretly a girl, Samus Aran was secretly 3–5 small gerbil-like creatures operating a person-size mech suit?" Players engage in positional jockeying and resource management to determine which stations they're crewing within the suit, which is boiled down to a single roll of the dice to determine what happens outside the suit. Includes papercraft minifigs.

Current status: essentially feature-complete, apart from some character creation options and a planned random mission generator; this will likely be the next game I crowdfund after Tiny Frog Wizards.

Indie RPG Prompt Generator [working title]

Essentially a joke that got out of hand, this is a big set of random tables of common indie RPG tropes that you can roll on to generate a description of a hypothetical game, complete with specific rules toys and setting beats. I probably could have finished this up already, but I decided to include examples of each rolled element, which turned into this big hairy research project I'm not able to give adequate attention to right now. If you've got a game of your own that you think would be a good fit for a presently unfilled example slot, please, let me know!

Current status: plugging away at it in bits and pieces as I'm able.

Three Raccoons in a Trenchcoat

This is an anthology consisting of three minigames: the eponymous Three Raccoons in a Trenchcoat, which is self-explanatory; Unfamiliar, in which you play as uncooperative wizards' familiars; and System Crash, in which you play as malfunctioning robots. More a series of formal experiments in character creation and group composition than proper full-featured games, all share the same core mechanics, with milieu-specific addons of varying practicality; for example, System Crash has specific rules for which senses each player is allowed to use when asking the GM for information, because it's completely possible to have a group in which only one of the robots can see. Large portions of Unfamiliar were later re-used in Eat God, above.

Current status: I have a list of notes as long as your arm on planned changes to integrate into the text, and I'm confident I'll get around to doing so one of these years.

Gone to Hell

Literally a Doom (2016) pastiche as a Belonging Outside Belonging game, which is just as silly an idea as it sounds; grown out of an earlier 24-hour RPG called Doomguy. The central conceit is that there's only a single player character, with players taking turns assuming the role of the Slayer, while everyone else takes ownership of the various hostile factions comprising the game's conspiratorial twelve-car pileup of a plot. Lots of pontificating about the implicit power structures of tabletop RPG groups. This one probably needs a full rewrite in order to lend a bit more formal structure to the "one player character, many GMs" conceit than out-of-the-box BOB offers.

Current status: I have not looked at this game in three years, which is actually a really long time for me.

Rotate Bird

Another of my "is this a formal experiment or a real game" titles, this one revolves around constructing characters out of abstract symbols, which are interpreted during play to retroactively define what your character is actually capable of doing. Even the title seen above is an interpretive approximation; strictly speaking, the game is called 🔄🐦. Possibly the most shitposty game I've ever written, which is saying something, but based on playtest feedback it seems functional.

Current status: the only reason this is listed as lower in priority than Gone to Hell is because I genuinely don't know what to do with it. It's probably publishable, with some cleanup editing and graphic design, but it feels like there's something missing. I'm open to suggestions!

Get in the Fucking Robot

A pamphlet-size, competitive, GMless title that's at least as much a board game as it is a tabletop RPG, this one is about a bunch of dysfunctional candidate mecha pilots competing to be the first to pilot the titular giant robot. The game is played under misère conditions: while each character's IC goal is to pilot the robot, each player's OOC goal is to avoid that fate, with the player whose character actually Gets in the Fucking Robot being accounted the loser.

Current status: playtesting suggests the current framework of play doesn't actually work – like, at all – so this one needs to go all the way back to the drawing board; I don't feel like doing that any time soon, which puts it squarely at the bottom of the list.

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Actual Patreon Post: You can get a PDF copy of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy right now for only $5.

As many of you who already follow this tumblr page have no-doubt already seen, after some difficulty, we have finally been able to set up a functioning Patreon page. Those of you who already follow this tumblr page have also no-doubt already seen that we have been working for several years on an original TTRPG called Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. This is a robust, rules-medium TTRPG that is designed to run mystery, horror, and even action adventures in any time period between about 1850 and the present day.

More info about what makes Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy so unique as a TTRPG can be found

Here (Introduction/Summary)

Here (The Eureka! System)

Here (What is Eureka for?)

Here (The Woo Roll)

Here (Lore)

Here (2D6 System)

Here (Gameplay and Design Philosophy)

But for a quick summary, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is a 2D6 system(NOT PbtA) that puts the players in charge of relatively mundane investigators as they attempt to solve puzzling mysteries, both ordinary and supernatural in nature. Investigators are flawed, vulnerable people who must rely on their wits more than heroic skills to overcome adversity and dig for the truth, even when it may not be enough. Combat is deep and tactical, but very realistic and deadly, with overconfidence easily able to land a character on the ground.

Eureka takes a rare approach to party dynamics and TTRPG narrative, where the PCs are on a mostly even playing field with NPCs, and playing their cards wrong could easily have a new group of PCs showing up to not only solve the original mystery, but the unsolved murders of previous party as well.

Additionally, it is not discouraged for PCs not to 100% trust the other members of the party, with betrayal being a real possibility. Even in the absence of an intended betrayal, in some cases a PC may actually be some kind of supernatural creature passing for a regular person, who can reveal this to neither the rest of the party nor the actual players sitting around the table. If your character is a vampire, that’s between you, the character, and the GM. No one else can know, or else. What supernatural characters gain in overall power and often durability, they make up for with the added challenge of utilizing their powers and avoiding their supernatural weaknesses while attempting to solve the mystery without tipping off anyone else to their true nature.

Now for a few quotes from those who have had the opportunity to playtest and preview this game:

“The most stress-free character creation I’ve ever seen.”

“The Eureka! system is something that really sets this apart from other mystery games.”

“This approach to investigation is the right way to do it.”

“I love the Woo Roll.”

“[The monster dynamic] is one of the most interesting things I’ve ever played with.”

So, why am I telling you all this again? Because Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is, basically, being soft-launched right now. The official Kickstarter is still several months away, but the actual game is 99% done. You can pick up a PDF of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, along with three pre-written adventure modules to go with it, for $5 right now on our Patreon page.

For official and top-secret reasons, I can’t actually speak about how much we intend to Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy for when it actually goes up for official sale, but I can say that this is a very, very good deal for what amounts to almost 500 pages of material.

[chaosnojutsu]

Who *Should* Have Died From The Konoha ~12 Instead Of The One Who Did

rules:

we’re assuming they die under the same circumstances as the other guy

each one listed would have a complete storyline and their death would further the immediate plot as well as the overall narrative

i’m not “just picking characters i don’t like”

i do not condone killing characters for the sake of shock value but am considering shock as a legitimate tool in generating impact of a character’s death

miss me with “[redacted]’s death was a tragic result of the shinobi system” because no it was not. if that were true you could sub out [redacted] for any other child soldier and get the exact same impact. we know exactly why they were chosen and it’s got an (insufficient) explanation irl and in-universe.

#3. Sai

Motivation: Friendship

First of all, imagine the shock value from killing one of THE Team Kakashi members.

Cool. Now imagine Naruto’s shock at Sai sacrificing himself for him.

Sai overanalyzes normal human interaction to the point of not understanding it. He reads books about how to befriend people. He still doesn’t understand it all the time but friendship is coming more naturally to him these days. What he does understand is that Naruto is the only chance of winning this war, and he’s down, and the enemy is aiming for him, and Hinata is trying to stop them but she’s on the ground, the spears are in the air and so is Sai, and Naruto is his friend.

He doesn’t need to think about it much deeper than that.

Now imagine Sasuke “What Does ‘Friend’ Mean To You” Uchiha witnessing this, witnessing Naruto’s reaction, and the further effects this may have on his character. After all, Sai was his replacement. If Naruto feels this strongly about losing someone who was decidedly not him but his friend and teammate nevertheless then… maybe.

#2. Rock Lee

Motivation: Youth

Regardless of *how* this one plays out, no one wants to watch the determined, precious, comedic relief die; no one who’s watched this far into the show wants Rock Lee specifically to die. Huge impact already. But we can make it super duper sad because he deserves a memorable death. I see it going one of two ways.

One: Hinata doesn’t even have the time to try to shield Naruto because Rock Lee is faster. Ten-Tails barely launches the attack and Lee’s already taken/attempted to counter the hit. Perhaps this is his eight gates moment. Similar to Sai, Rock Lee would cite the power of friendship in his dramatic death speech, but he also was just… doing his duty. Truly, if you’re in the “Neji was just another tragic child soldier” camp, Rock Lee is the prime example of what I mean when I say you could sub in any child soldier, which I know sounds paradoxical but stay with me. Rock Lee’s entire personality is training harder than anyone else to benefit a system that will ultimately result in his death. If you want to make a point about child soldiers and needless lives lost, Rock Lee is the one to kill.

Two: Rock Lee doesn’t shield Hinata. He shields Neji. But not necessarily on purpose. The scene plays out exactly as written up to the moment Neji activates his byakugan, and the next frame isn’t him falling to the ground, it’s Rock Lee. The usually-somewhat-reserved Neji is devastated, probably in tears, demanding to know why he would do something like this. Rock Lee coughs up a bit of blood. “I was faster than you.” Smile. “I finally beat you…” Serene eyes fall shut. “…rival.”

And now imagine Naruto’s reaction to losing Bushy Brow. Imagine him watching Gai be brought to his knees by a blow that didn’t physically touch him. Imagine Madara incorrectly perceiving that. The implications. The foreshadowing.

#1. Shino

Motivation: Legacy

I’m gonna be real, the writers were never gonna kill off Rock Lee like that, which is the biggest reason Shino has taken the crown as Most Worthy Of A Tragic Death in my book.

This dude has a connection to both Naruto and Hinata (making him equally as good a sacrifice as Neji if that’s the canon criteria). However, unlike most other (male) characters, Shino isn’t shown to have a particularly close friendship with Naruto. The one recurring joke around Shino is that he’s so irrelevant even Naruto can’t remember his name.

But he is good friends with Hinata. And he knows she’ll spend the rest of her life miserable if Naruto dies, and that if she dies right now she will never have gotten her life’s greatest wish.

So Shino goes out in a blaze of glory, and we’ll probably insert something about how Naruto has somehow secretly inspired him all along— or maybe something cynical about how he always wanted to be included by Naruto but never was unless Kiba or Hinata were around, so he’s sacrificed himself to maintain the livelihood of everyone else while not “losing” that friendship himself— and we of course get the touching moment with Hinata (oh just imagine the drama if Shino lay dying and told Hinata “Why did I protect you? It’s simple. The reason is… for the same reason you protected him.” and we find out that the huge secret crush of the show was not Hinata toward anyone, but Shino toward Hinata, never confessing because he knew it would be futile).

Good luck forgetting his name now, Naruto. Now no one will ever forget about Shino Aburame.