#unless there’s a creative spin on the trope itself

[rubywolf0201]

Making Amy the Mum Friend™️ is not only disgusting and sexist nor is it an ‘improvement’ to Amy but it also goes against the concept of Amy’s creation: Someone who is a girly girl and have a gentle heart but also someone who can and will face the dangers of adventures if it meant bringing her joy and excitement from them.

[atarahderek]

How to "diversify" Scooby-Doo without sucking out its entire soul--and the audience's souls with it

So as the entire internet already knows, HBO's Velma was a major flop. The only views it's getting are hate views. Conservatives find it hilarious because leftists are trolling themselves by accusing the show creators of being secret right-wing trolls. Well, if they are, they're bloody brilliant.

The premise of the show was never, "What if Mystery Inc. were more diverse?" It was always, "What if Mystery Inc. were super woke? Also, what if we sexualized characters aged 15-17 and targeted exclusively audiences over 18?" So really, the show's creators shouldn't be so baffled as to why even their target audience hates their show. I guess this goes to show that when you buy the lie that reason is "too white" to be permissible, you predictably start to act like an idiot.

But what if I told you that there was already a canonically established means of "diversifying" the cast in a way that actually retains the spirit of the original show?

The series finale of Mystery Incorporated revealed that that show and every previous iteration of Scooby-Doo is canon to the others (yes, this does include the live action films, so take that as you will). It also implied that all future iterations of the franchise will be canon as well. This provides the single most perfect opportunity to explore what Mystery Inc. would be like if they were from other races, ethnic backgrounds, nations and even planets. It would present different reimaginings of the characters in a natural, creative way that the audience would just eat up. All you would have to do is create a series where Mystery Inc. explores the multiverse and meets a variety of alternate selves. Just think of it. You could have...

a Japanese or Korean Mystery Inc. that flanderizes the heck out of every anime trope (and they 100% have permission to turn the tables on us)

an African, Afro-Caribbean or African American Mystery Inc.

a South/Southeast Asian Mystery Inc. with a MUCH less sexualized and angry version of the above woke Velma

an alien version of Mystery Inc., with lots of opportunity for worldbuilding

a version of Mystery Inc. from a completely different time period, such as the Victorian era

a Rule 63 version of Mystery Inc.

a version of Scooby that corresponds to the largest dog breed in each of the above cultures/universes

There would be no need to make each iteration of the gang particularly diverse within the gang itself, unless they were temporarily mixing up members across the multiverse to accomplish a mission (e.g. the Japanese team swaps out their Daphne for the original, or the alien team borrows the original Shaggy and sends theirs with another team). No one cares if a particular AU team is comprised of only black members, and in fact it helps sell the idea that this is the same team from a completely different universe. To reiterate, the Scooby gang does not need tokens!

Of course, the real key to making a good Scooby-Doo show is simple:

Absolutely NO virtue signaling!

It won't kill you to simply tell good stories with good humor and beloved characters. In fact, you'll probably find people actually love your work. If you do it right, audiences might even start begging for a spin-off focusing on one of the guest teams.

[rainy-day-coffee]

hi... how about head cannons about the dorm leaders with a magical girl mc from either the puella magi magica madoka, magical girl site, magical girl raising project or princess tutu universe please?

I'll be doing Magical Girl Raising Project for this one! I’ll be using the abilities found in the anime since I’m not creative enough to think of any myself. The personalities of the characters themselves have nothing to do with the abilities I chose, they’re their own person! This is written as platonic! I hope this is alright!

As an extra note, this was a really interesting topic to write about. I enjoyed it! I actually just binge watched this anime for this request! It was quite good, I might pick up the light novels!

Warning: Mild mentions of gore; spoilers for Magical Girl Raising Project(?)

Dorm leaders reacting to a Magical Girl Mc

A new game has been released! Customize your own Magical Girl and work hard to defeat monsters!

Granted a 1-in-10,000 chance to be a real-life Magical Girl, the unfortunate souls who agree to the contract are unknowingly pulled into a world of bloodshed. All Magical Girls are expected to collect Magical candies through acts of helpfulness. Whomever is at the bottom of the ranking list by the end of the week is greeted by death. That is, if they can even make it that far.

Magic: Swimming through objects as if they were water - the objects do not affect the user as they pass through them.

He’s never heard of an ability quite like yours! It isn’t teleportation--it’s literally going through objects, ignoring any kind of barrier. It sounds impossible. Understandably, he doesn’t believe you until you show him.

Please refrain from popping out of random places in an attempt to scare him. He doesn’t want to be on edge everyday, the stress he has now is more than enough.

He’s curious about the whole situation. Just how and why did these “people” wrap you (and others) into such a terrible contract? How is it possible to grant these special abilities onto otherwise magicless people? Unfortunately, you most likely don’t have answers for those questions.

Sadly, Riddle doesn’t know of a way to help you out of this. The library may have some information, but the chances are slim nonetheless. He can offer assistance in candy collecting instead!

Something always seems to be going on at his dorm, it would help him greatly if you were to keep an eye on everything and everyone. He knows it isn’t much, but every little bit counts. You have his full support.

Magic: Entering the dreams of others - the ability to pass through the Dream World, granting access to the dreams of those who are currently sleeping.

He’s extremely annoyed. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He’s only seen you a couple times before, so why do you seem to plague all of his dreams?

In his dreams, you move so vividly and in-character, it baffles him. Dream versions of people can be accurate, but never to such an extent each time. He’ll confront you about it soon enough. He has no evidence of what you’re doing, however vivid memories of dream-you push him to demand answers anyways.

Highly uncomfortable to know his dreams, his usual safe place, can be invaded by a person. He demands that you stop. You can go bother someone else, he doesn’t need that kind of help. If he sees you in there one more time, he may have to resort to other methods to get you to stop.

In regards to earning candies, unless you ask him specifically for help, there isn’t much he can do. You can always help Ruggie out with chores around Savanaclaw and you’ll be set. It’s a good deal for both sides, you can earn some candies and Leona can finally sleep comfortably again.

He finds the system you’re stuck in deplorable. Unfortunately, he can’t get you out of it, but if you ever need extra help he can always have Ruggie find one or two ways to get you those extra candies you need.

Magic: Hearing the thoughts of those in need - with enough training, the user can pinpoint the location of a person. Additionally, they can hear thoughts apart from cries for help.

Your special magic interests him greatly. He already has a good pool of information of all the students, but being able to hear their most inner thoughts is something truly amazing. No amount of research could easily give him those kinds of details.

He has the twins watch over you for a bit, gathering as much information as they can about your situation and what you go about doing.

Given the circumstances, he doubts he can rob this ability of yours through a contract. This does however present an amazing opportunity.

This could blossom into a wonderful partnership. You need to collect candies, and he’s always willing to accept requests from those “poor” souls who need help. By helping him, you can meet your quota! The rules never did mention what kind of help you were limited to offer after all.

He pities you, nothing can be done about your situation at the moment. You can rest assured though, you’ll never be at the bottom of the leaderboard with him around!

When time allows it, Floyd and Jade will be busy poking their noses where they don’t belong. The mascot that appears when you’re around seems to come from that phone you use. If they can see it, then that means these beings have made a mistake somehow. Is it possible to find a way to free you from this through that?

Magic: Transforming into any biologically living being - the size and shape of the creature do not matter, anything is fair game.

When he first discovers your special magic, he’ll be amazed! Transformation magic isn’t exactly easy, so being able to turn into whatever creature you want sounds like a lot of fun!

He’ll be begging you to turn into a wide variety of animals. Can you please turn into a tiger? How about an elephant? Maybe an alpaca? This could go on for hours if you don’t stop him.

Upon learning the darker side of the Magical Girl world, he starts to cry. He knows the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but this is too cruel. You didn’t know you would suffer this way. They should have at least given you all the information beforehand. Better yet, they shouldn’t be doing something so awful in the first place.

Because he finds it hard to keep secrets from Jamil, he ends up telling him about you. He then needs to convince Jamil that you aren’t trying to get him killed.

He goes around asking if people need help. He wants to do everything he can to ensure you survive. Money can’t get you out of this game, he’s tried to use it but that mascot that follows you around always refuses it.

Kalim doesn’t want you to die. Just thinking about it makes his head spin and worry bubble. It wouldn’t be his fault if you died in the first place, but the guilt would consume him entirely.

Magic: Freely manipulating sound - the user can generate sound from anywhere and even recreate the voices of others. As an added result of this ability, the user has enhanced hearing.

Vil won’t forgive you if you decide to mimic Epel’s voice so he can escape. He may be evading his lessons for now, but Vil will find a way to drill them into him later on.

He never would have thought such a thing was possible. This terrible fate you’ve had forced onto you makes no sense. The beautiful power you’ve been given is nothing compared to the price. He doesn’t blame you, he blames whatever is doing this. 

If such a game exists in the world of Twisted Wonderland, he’ll use his influence to dissuade people from playing. Vil will do this behind the scenes of course, his public image has to remain intact.

He actively requests your assistance. For example, helping his dorm improve their instrument playing--your impressive hearing can detect small mistakes they need to work on. Apart from this, he regrettably can’t offer more help.

Hone your abilities and work with what you have. He knows you can prevail. Please take care of yourself as you move forward.

Magic: Receiving one futuristic tool a day - the ability to randomly pick one useful tool out of 444,444,444. The tool breaks down and is no longer of use after a day passes.

He’s in awe. A real life Magical Girl! To think they could really exist outside of anime! Just what kind of world did you come from? Forget living in a world where magic is common, Magical Girls are on a different level entirely! Curiosity gnaws at him, but given how shy he is he won’t approach you with questions himself. Ortho is more than happy to ask any questions for him in his place though!

Once he finds out you’re one of those Magical Girls, he feels a tad sympathetic. You really got the short end of the stick in life didn’t you? He knew the possibility was there, that trope is not uncommon, but a small piece of him wished it wasn’t the case.

He supposes your special magic can be compared to gacha luck. You never really know what you’re going to get. Unfortunately, in your case you can’t even calculate rates for good rolls.

If you’re willing to let him, he’ll happily take apart the tools and gadgets you get from your daily pull. One of those future items should help him create even better machines than he can now! And even they can’t, disassembling and reassembling objects he’s never seen is a thrill in and of itself

If you happen to hear a small tip from Ortho or someone else about an issue occurring around campus, it may or may not have been Idia. He has eyes all around the school, spotting problems is quite easy.

He’ll be rooting for you from the sidelines. You’re a protagonist in this story, he hopes you can make it through to the end.

Magic: Extreme regeneration - being able to recover from any wound so long as a portion of the user’s body is left.

Mortified when he finds your body all mangled and bruised after a rough “accident.” Malleus is ready to destroy whoever or whatever did this to you. He cares about you greatly, the very thought of seeing you in such a state makes his stomach churn and pure rage wash over him.

Once you explain your situation, he can grasp enough to understand the major gist of it. He doesn’t quite know what a “Magical Girl” is but obviously it isn’t something good. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in such a terrible situation.

To know that you can take care of yourself in the face of danger, makes him relieved. Although he doesn’t like the idea of you getting hurt at all, a healing ability is always wonderful to possess.

While you earn candies, Malleus will be working on a way to free you.

Even if these beings who granted you this ability are “all-powerful,” his magical capabilities are among the top in all the world. Perhaps, he can start by politely asking for answers from the leader of this group. If that seems to fail, killing off that mascot seems like a good place to start instead.

[tempestshakes01]

idea dump (i.)

I spend a lot of High Thots™ on how I’d turn VM’s story into a movie. 

It’s hard because there’s just so much and all the different eras have particular nuances and spectacular climaxes; I can’t see how you could squish their history into a 2-3 hour film without resorting to the worst of the tried and true biographical/sports movie tropes and flattening their “characters”. I figured their story would have to be turned into a miniseries...a 10-13 episode run maybe...in order to dive deep.

I had fun daydreaming about what sort of miniseries I’d make. Maybe make it utterly dramatic and darkly cheeky in tone (see: I, Tonya) because I’d never want things to get too cloyingly saccharine. I’d probably want to play with the idea of the fairytale vs reality (narrative truth...constantly shifting to suit VM’s needs) and a nice sprinkle of skating politics. The network would probably want to push the soapy aspects of the relationship, but I’d want to make it well-rounded and truly about the partnership and their career, and the natural drama of all of that shit. Finally, the trailer would OBVIOUSLY be set to “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge. 

Like, start at 3:50 and imagine a supercut of super DrAmA moments that steadily increases in speed before ending on a shot of...[insert best moment you can think of here].

BUT THEN, a while back--yeah, during some High Thots™--I had a personal creative epiphany: my VM movie would be a pretentious A24 drama detailing the after of an Olympic fairytale. 

LMAO.

What. An. Asshole. 

Am I taking gossip, hearsay, and one Genna Buck interview and spinning it into a painfully tragic portrait of a woman undone by her quest for excellence? 

You’re fucking right I am. 

WHAT AN ASSHOLE, HAHAHAHAHAHA. 

So, yeah, this would be the VM film that I could never, ever make unless they both died at early enough age that it left me enough time to make this shit before I met my own demise. 

...Just think about it though. We start at Pyeongchang. We begin at the end of an era. We enter our story with bright lights and joy and hope, and it slowly crumbles as the reality of After makes itself clear. Tessa’s choices drive the narrative and “ruin” a partnership as her personal brand grows and she goes through character transformations (at one point becoming the antagonist to her own story) and ultimately must discover what she wants out of life...or not. Scott’s, while not driving the narrative as much as Tessa, can’t be a Prince Charming who gets wronged. He also goes through various character beats, trying to love his friend who’s imploding, and struggling to find himself outside of their bubble and separating himself from her for what he thinks...is for good. 

I would include some context building flashbacks, stuff that they’d be reflecting on, moments that would stretch as far back as their first meeting, to teen Tessa alone in her room post-1st surgery, to angsty Carmen era sex, to drunk Scott after Sochi, and of course a Comeback era moment where Scott admits to Tessa that she’s his best friend. 

Obviously, there’s no ending to this story yet because we’re still in the thick of the post-Olympic haze and it’s a sad era (on the personal front), but. Yeah. 

The trailer music for this would be Bird Song by The Murder of Crows. 

It would start with just clips of Tessa (tiny Tess to grown A24 dramatic character Tess) as Gaelynn sings and then when Alan’s voice comes in is when Scott shows up (a la the Comeback video where it’s just Tess and then Scott’s hand comes into frame).  As a dork, I can specifically see Tessa laugh-crying when Gaelynn goes: 

bird, why do you sing?

and then a cut to a collapse when she sings:

fate has clipped your wings

cut to: a frustrated cry at the second:

bird, why do you sing?

cut to: a close up up tessa going up into a lift on:

you make me feel like a bird in the sky 

and more, but my cannabis is starting to really run through my veins, so my brains gonna stop working into my fingers in a moment and I’m gonna have an awesome head-high ‘cause this strain is so good. 

That’s what I hate about myself and weed--I can’t smoke AND do a creative project. My mind imagines wild things that I want to paint or write or build, but my body is like, duhhhhhhhh. It’s frustrating and pretty much why I only smoke at night.

Anyway. That’s my idea dump. 

Night. x

[noblecrumpet-dorkvision]

Narrating Combat in D&D

Combat descriptions are always difficult to come up with on the fly. Here is a guide with some tips and tricks to make your combat more interesting and dramatic!

image credit: Michael Komarck

Hit Points

When a creature or player gets hit by an attack, think about the situation surrounding the attack. Has the creature already taken damage? Figure out how much damage is being dealt before describing the attack. Is it a lot of damage or a little? How tough is the defender? is it merely a pinprick to them or a grievous wound? No matter how you slice it, hits always come back to one thing: Hit Points.

So something important that you should know about Hit Points: just because you subtracted "Hit Points" and they took "damage" doesn't necessarily mean you actually drew blood. Most people always default to "you stab them in the face/chest/neck." Well that's a pretty gruesome and very lethal hit. Most creatures would probably just flat-out die from that. This isn't a Tom & Jerry cartoon where creatures squash and stretch to absorb the damage.

To help ease into a creature's eventual demise over a large span of Hit Points, try describing nonlethal ways that creatures and players "take damage." Have each attack wear down the creature. Only draw blood when a player lands multiple blows or rolled a high attack or damage roll (basically when the player feels good about their attack) or when they fall below half hit points. That's why we use the term "bloodied," after all! Here are some examples of some pre-bloodied attacks:

Your deft swordplay is wearing out the defender as they struggle to parry your strikes!

The creature is backed into a corner, its options for defenses running thin!

Their weapon is buffeted by your blows and knocked away. Now's your chance!

The horseman is knocked from their mount, leaving them battered and bruised as they roll back to their feet!

Your ambush forces the orc to deflect your dagger with their bare hand to save itself. It yowls in pain!

Your mace clobbers the knight upside its head, dazing them as a metallic sound reverberates through their helmet! Backpedal in confusion.

The wizard wrinkles their brow as they deflect your attack with a hasty shield, this one weaker than the last. Their concentration seems to be failing!

Once a creature is bloodied, then you can start with the more lethal attacks. Save the head, neck, chest, and femoral artery hits for when the creature is about to die. But by all means, stab them in the kidneys, flay some muscle from their arm, chop off one of their antennae or extra limbs. Don't be afraid to impart status debuffs for certain hits (even if the attack wasn't necessarily a crit). For instance, if they take a leg wound they might have slightly reduced speed as they limp around the battlefield. Perhaps you cut off their hand or shot out an eye, rendering the part useless until they receive magical healing. Here are a list of almost-lethal places where I like to describe hits that works for most humanoids:

Hit Table (1d10):

1: Eyes: blind them for 1 round if just one eye, or permanently if both.

2: Ears: deafen them for 1 round if just one ear, or permanently if both.

3: Hand/Fingers: deny them the use of that hand. If they wield a two-handed weapon, they do so with disadvantage.

4: Arms: if just a wound, give them -1 to attacks with that arm. If the limb is chopped off, obviously they can't use it.

5: Legs: half their speed. Reduce their speed to 5 ft. if the limb is chopped clean off.

6: Belly: reduce their speed by 5 ft. and give them the Poisoned condition.

7: Lower Back: no major negative impact, but they shouldn't lift any heavy objects for 6-8 weeks.

8: Side Torso: no major negative impact, but they should definitely have that looked at for internal damage.

9: Shoulder: no major negative impact. Make sure they wear a sling so it heals properly.

0: Butt: hilarity ensues. They can't sit down without immense pain.

Misses

Yes, it's really fun to hit with an attack and roll high damage dice, but people oftentimes will remember a great missed attack just as fondly. In fact, a DM that doesn't describe a miss could risk making that player feel left out or frustrated if they miss often. So make the misses memorable and dramatic.

Keep in mind what sort of weapon they were using when they missed, or what sort of things in the environment maybe got hit instead. Heck, maybe a miss might help their situation if they break something that puts them on the advantage! Maybe they hit a support beam instead of the gnoll. You have them roll for damage, and it's a huge amount! The support beam snaps and rocks from the old mine start to cave in a 20 ft. radius! Have everyone roll DEX saves!

Something like that works especially well on a critical failure. Always describe a critical failure in a special way, maybe imposing a debuff on the person who missed or changing the situation somehow. A comical gaffe is always welcome here, as well.

Critical Miss Ideas:

Attacker strikes a nearby object instead

Attacker's weapon becomes damaged or broken (unless it's a magical item)

Attacker's weapon becomes stuck or disabled for their next turn (maybe a sword stuck in a log or a jammed crossbow)

Defender knocks the weapons from the attacker's grasp

Attacker accidentally strikes themselves for half the normal damage

Defender rolls out of the way, repositioning themselves behind the attacker.

Personality

Accentuate the creature’s personality by characterizing HOW they perform certain actions. A duelist might stab precisely for your thigh, but an ogre might swing a club clumsily. This can lead to comical gaffes, like the duelist yelling “ha-HA! ...oh?” as their sword slips past you and they fall on their face, despite you just calling their strike precise. The ogre can easily miss their swing and because of the clumsiness you described causing them to follow through and spin around, getting dizzy and confused for a turn.

Consider how the creature is reacting to their current Hit Point status. Do they clutch at their wound? Do they punch their wound and roar at their attacker? Are they unphased by their wound like an undead? Are they on the ground writhing in pain?

Diving into the character of an enemy will help you guide both their combat decisions and how you narrate the action. Here are some common fighting personality tropes:

Cocky: A cocky creature is fearless, but to an extent where they may make mistakes. They will also likely taunt their enemies.

Clumsy: Big, dumb creatures or drunken brawlers will not pay any heed to their surroundings, maybe even be easier to fall prone or fall for combat tricks.

Stoic: A stoic creature is likely able to notice everything in combat as they approach the battle logically and without emotion. Think highly-trained warriors like knights or samurai.

Fearful: A fearful attacker is actively trying to get away from or avoid combat.

Fearless: A fearless creature is what you typically see of a heroic attacker.

Gleeful: A gleeful attacker delights in violence and will do whatever they can to cause pain.

Angry: An angry attacker will fight recklessly without regard to their surroundings.

Hungry: A hungry creature is looking for a meal. If they get seriously hurt, they will likely just leave to find easier prey.

Confused: A confused creature will be on the defensive. It wasn't planning on fighting today.

Environment

Use the environment to guide combat. Even if your players aren’t clever enough to utilize the environment, that doesn’t exclude the enemies! And hey, if players witness what the enemies are doing, maybe they will learn to follow suit or just be inspired to fight more creatively. I actually had an NPC fighting alongside the players one time. They went into a cave with some bugbears around a smoldering campfire. He first kicked some of the embers up into one of the bugbears’ eyes, blinding them for a turn. Then he kicked a bugbear over a log and face-first into the fire. The other players were simply on autoattack mode, but were thankful for the debuffs provided by the creative use of environment.

I can't really provide a complete list for this, as there are nigh-infinite combinations of generic objects that can be used to gain an upper-hand, but here is a link to one of my older posts about using environmental factors in combat!

For more content on narrating spellcasting in combat, check out this post!

[theoutsidenormal]

Hunger and Thirst Meter Mechanics in Games Need to Have More Gameplay Impact

Tacked on hunger and thirst meters with no real tangible gameplay value are threatening the design and continuing success of games in the survival genre. In this post I attempt to show examples of good and bad implementation of the practice of so-called 'protagonist-babysitting', and discuss possible ways to continue improving on and innovating in an over-saturated survival game market.

Not long ago, I watched an interesting video by Jim Sterling, an entertaining and unique YouTube game journalist with some fascinating insights into some of videogames’ most prevalent modern tropes. The video in question, a rant on the trend of ‘protagonist babystitting’, raised some interesting thoughts.

For the uninitiated, ‘protagonist babysitting’ is the practice of tracking a videogame character’s needs in arbitrary bars such as ‘hunger and ‘thirst’, and having such bars become essentially timers until the player is to feed himself. If you’re thinking about The Sims, you’re not far off the mark, except in a lot of modern games, particularly those where the themes are centred on survival, give you direct control over the character you are babysitting.

At its best, protagonist babysitting can reinforce an important theme of survival gameplay and could offer greater immersion into the gruelling nature of survival in a hostile environment. On the other hand, at its worst, it is a shameless example of unoriginal thinking as developers attempt to be on trend by pasting in hunger bars where they are not needed in the interest of simply having something that other popular games have.

While games like Minecraft and Don’t Starve can get away with their protagonist babysitting mechanics, thanks to their status as early trend-setters in the survival genre, I would say the implementation of the hunger bar is still a better implementation than some more recent survival games.

In Minecraft, the meter is basically a timer that counts down until you need to eat; however this issue is mitigated somewhat by the gameplay integration of the meter; once it has been depleted enough the player is significantly slowed and unable to sprint, and when the bar is full, health is slowly regenerated. Using such mechanics as a way to gain power-ups through positive reinforcement is one way that I feel makes the balancing act of using a hunger meter in a survival game work better, while at the same time being more immersive as it makes sense that one’s strength would be diminished when suffering from starvation.

Don’t Starve’s implementation is, on the other hand, even more acceptable, because the whole game is centred around the theme of managing hunger in a hostile environment, and so it makes sense that the hunger bar would be an ever present threat in such a game. However, an even better innovation comes from the fact that there are craftable items that can slow the depletion of the hunger bar, giving further freedom to the player to reduce the looming threat of starvation.

I think that what these examples show is the importance of integrating a hunger bar into the gameplay itself, not just having it as an additional meter to which the player should be paying attention. In the aforementioned early survival games, the hunger meter offers tangible gameplay benefits that help the player survive rather than just being a babysitting requirement that will kill the player if they ignore it.

A bad example of this takes place in Subnautica. While I truly love the game for being a unique and enjoyable spin on a tired-out genre with its focus on biology, underwater tech and base building, it is difficult to defend the hunger and thirst meters in the game.

My first complaint is that the bars offer no tangible benefit or restriction to the player in gameplay terms, except for simply killing the player if they are allowed to deplete completely, meaning that the meter is completely arbitrary and not integrated into the gameplay whatsoever. Immediately, player engagement with these bars feel simply like they are satisfying an arbitrary complaint set upon them for no real reason beyond ‘other survival and crafting games have this’. The frustrating thing is, it would be so easy to enable some kind of mechanical change as a result of starvation, such as tying swimming speed to how close the hunger bar is to 100%, or even setting gameplay benefits to eating and drinking regularly, such as being able to see further in the water (which I think would be an excellent benefit considering the limited draw distance that comes from setting the majority of the game underwater).

My second complaint with the implementation of protagonist baby-sitting in Subnautica is that it tears the player right away from some of the best aspects of the game, where you are exploring deep underwater cave systems and becoming truly immersed in its excellent sense of place and exploration, suddenly there’s this annoying little beeping noise to remind you that it’s time to eat, which usually requires tearing yourself away from your beautiful surroundings to go back to base to cook food, as while you can gather and eat food in its raw form, it really only works as a temporary solution to help the player’s meter last a few more moments so they have time to get back to base. This is further exacerbated by the fact that drinkable water is impossible to craft without using a fabricator. In this case, the hunger and thirst meters seem to just take the form of padding, to make the player take longer to gather resources explore around the map, which is a shame because it is astonishingly beautiful.

Perhaps the previous complaint, however, could have been justified as simply an inevitable issue given the game’s status as a survival game, but my third complaint is what propels the issue into a real problem; the meters simply deplete too fast. Using a protagonist-babysitting model is a difficult balancing act to be sure, because if hunger depletion is set too slow, then the game’s difficulty is set too low and integration of the mechanic with the gameplay systems becomes more difficult, because unless there is a very significant benefit of constantly feeding your player when not needed, most players would be content to ignore the bar until they are absolutely desperate. On the other hand, setting hunger depletion too fast, as it is in Subnautica, gives the player a sense of being pestered by the protagonist. You truly do get a sense of artificial babysitting, not unlike an actual baby constantly crying for something, be it food, nappy changes or attention. We want our games to be fun, not more stressful than looking after a constantly crying baby, after all.

I think that Subnautica, for all its strengths, represents a poor implementation of the hunger and thirst bars, simply because no real gameplay consequences or benefits seem to come from keeping the meters topped up, apart from death from neglecting them for too long, and because the protagonist-babysitting model tears away players from the really good parts of the game as what feels like a needless distraction, which is made worse by the meters depleting so quickly that it just feels like the player is being pestered by a real life baby for arbitrary reasons. It is a shame, because Subnautica otherwise is an excellent and enjoyable game. However, I think that due to its status as an Early Access game, as development continues this issue may be addressed in a satisfactory way, and I only hope that the developers of Subnautica will see the negative attention that is coming to the protagonist-babysitting model as more and more mainstream games tack it onto their gameplay as an afterthought, so that they can make this change before the game is ready for full release.

The most important thing about protagonist babysitting however is not that it is always bad, but it is a balancing act, much like any other creative choice in game design. If the survival game genre is to continue going from strength to strength, developers must be careful to set this balance just right so that their games aren’t accused of simply having a tacked-on survival element for the sake of it. I think that the way ahead is to look at what early adopters of the trend have and haven’t done in their implementation and trying to come up with innovative ways to make the player feel less like they are babysitting and more like they are engaging with a hostile environment in a desperate fight to survive.

[theconservativebrief]

For a while now, the most succinct takedown of the smug self-satisfaction of South Park at its worst has been a screencap of a Reddit comment.

Its central paragraph reads:

It’s a show that teaches its audience to become lazy and self-satisfied, that praises them for being uncritically accepting of their own biases, and that provides them with an endless buffet of thought-terminating cliches suitable for shutting down all manner of challenges to their comfort zones.

The comment itself is hard to find an exact date for — the earliest reference to it that I can find is from 2015 — but its general tenor speaks to a shifting understanding of South Park: What was once a fun, snarky takedown of America’s worst tendencies now reads to many as a TV series that taught an entire generation of kids that it’s stupid to care about anything, let alone engage with it politically.

And nothing underlines the comment’s sentiment better than its mention of “ManBearPig,” the subject of a 2006 South Park episode of the same name, from the show’s 10th season, in the very first line.

Released in the buildup to the premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore-featuring documentary on the devastating potential of climate change to remake the face of the planet, “ManBearPig” is a very 2006 take on the topic, with Gore enlisting the kids of South Park to hunt through some caves in search of the clearly made-up beast. Instead of capturing ManBearPig, Gore only makes things worse, and the episode subtly presents the argument that Gore is a hypocrite about climate change because he doesn’t live in a yurt or something.

Now, 12 years after “ManBearPig,” South Park has abruptly revisited the subject, in something of a surprising reversal. In the show’s latest episode, “Time to Get Cereal” (which aired November 7) ManBearPig is real, ManBearPig is angry, and everybody’s a little sad they made so much fun of Al Gore. It’s just the latest half-apology made by the show in an era when its “caring is for losers” ethos feels emptier and emptier.

Our friend. Our hero. Our ManBearPig. Comedy Central

The single most pointed segment in “Time to Get Cereal” involves a blowhard dude eating at a Red Lobster with his wife and kid. The wife is insistent that ManBearPig is a big problem, that it’s going to keep ravaging the countryside if something isn’t done. The husband says, first, that it’s made-up, and, well, if it is real, then what can we possibly do about it now? How can we know the Chinese will help us solve the problem, huh?

And all the while, ManBearPig — who’s smashed through a window into the restaurant — devours other diners, until he finally devours the husband as well. Notably, this sequence of footage is also the sequence that replays over the episode’s closing credits — which creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to reserve for moments of the episode they find particularly funny or pointed or both.

This is as close to an outright acknowledgment of ManBearPig as a stand-in for climate change as the episode gets. As such, it’s easy to interpret the scene as a mild repudiation of the 2006 episode. The arguments the husband makes before he gets eaten are the sorts of arguments a South Park hero might have made 12 years ago. They boil down to, “Why should I be forced to care? I don’t know that other people will.” But in the face of something that will cause massive death and devastation, those arguments pale just a bit.

This slight soberness also extends to how the episode treats Gore, whom South Park still sees as a figure to mock, but for a very different reason. In “Time to Get Cereal,” he’s become insufferable, because he was right about the threat of ManBearPig, when nobody else would listen. So before he’ll help the kids send ManBearPig back to hell — for that is where the beast issues from — he forces them to admit he was right and apologize. (It should be noted that Parker’s spin on Gore is one of his funnier impressions.)

But the joke here isn’t on Gore’s smugness, or his wrongness, or anything like that. It’s a joke about what happens when you finally convince people you were right all along, even if it takes more than a decade. Gore is still petulant and sniveling, but by the episode’s logic, he has a right to be — and that’s the main difference between “Time to Get Cereal” and “ManBearPig.”

Now, South Park is always gonna South Park. For one thing, “Time to Get Cereal” openly ends on a cliffhanger. It teases the upcoming November 14 episode “Nobody Got Cereal?” by putting the show’s main characters in jail with ManBearPig on the loose, so it’s possible the show will reverse at least some of what happened in “Time to Get Cereal.”

For another, most of the episodes in this young 22nd season (which began at the end of September) have been excuses for the kids to go on weird journeys. There might be political plots sprinkled in alongside those journeys, but the point is that the kids are having adventures, not that they’re learning important lessons about America along the way.

And that’s all in keeping with what the show has been doing since the election of Donald Trump. South Park wrote off Trump as a ridiculous buffoon when he was running for president, portraying him not via Trump himself, but via South Park teacher Mr. Garrison, who became Trump-esque. It’s as if the series isn’t sure how to live in a world that governs itself by South Park logic.

Yet that’s the larger conundrum South Park finds itself in. For a TV show driven by the same rationale as an internet troll — that provoking a reaction from those who care about literally anything is funnier than anything else on the face of the planet — it’s also become a show that increasingly seems uneasy about living in a world where the trolls have their way.

The kids went trick-or-treating this year too. Comedy Central

The animated sitcom can, theoretically, run forever. The only thing stopping it from doing so is the fact that it might eventually become unprofitable, because ratings will inevitably slip considerably. But considering that The Simpsons debuted (as a sitcom) in December 1989 and will turn 30 in a little over a year, it obviously takes quite a lot for a hit animated sitcom to become unprofitable.

A show like The Simpsons or South Park (which debuted in 1997) or Family Guy (1999) is really only limited by how long everybody involved wants to keep making it. That’s especially true for South Park, which is much more driven by the whims of Parker and Stone than their long-running animated peers. But it’s not as though the two couldn’t hand off the show to a new creative team if they ever wanted to. (Note: This will never happen.)

Regardless, the thing about animated TV shows is that they don’t really change, while the world around them does. If you’re familiar with The Simpsons’ beginnings, to watch an episode of the show in 2018 is to be instantly amused by how it was once the most subversive show on television. And though South Park maintains some degree of its bad-boy cred, a recent campaign for the show hinged on how babies born when it debuted are now old enough to be in college.

And all these shows are enmeshed in modes of storytelling that seemed entertaining when they premiered but now feel a little out of date. The Simpsons made a splash by pulling apart the tropes and ideas that TV had been built on for decades, taking a sledgehammer to the structure of the family sitcom. Now it’s just another institution.

Family Guy leaned into the sorts of ironically racist and sexist humor that was popular in the late ’90s, part of a wave of entertainment that lampooned what its creators perhaps saw as liberal overreach. Now it feels ever more like the “ironically” never modified “racist and sexist” as sharply as the show might have liked.

But no series has been as affected by the passage of time as South Park. On one hand, the series has been able to pivot more successfully than others, thanks to Parker and Stone’s continued involvement in every aspect of its production. On the other, it has never quite shed its status as TV’s most libertarian show, built atop the ethos that you shouldn’t bother caring about what other people do, unless they try to make you do something for the greater good, in which case, you should make fun of them.

In the 2010s, South Park has occasionally grappled with this element of its legacy. A whole season wondered if maybe people advocating for political correctness aren’t entirely wrong (just mostly wrong). And in a series of episodes that aired before and after the 2016 election, the show ended up turning Hillary Clinton into a more sympathetic figure than it typically let national politicians be. (It seemingly only did so because she lost, but there was something almost tender about the way the show portrayed her after the election, a marked contrast from her prior appearances.)

And yet South Park is still trapped, to some degree, by having launched in 1997, amid a booming American economy, where the issues that got Americans most worked up too often amounted to trivial bullshit. Even if you disagreed with South Park’s central “caring is stupid” ethos, it was a lot easier to let the show have its fun back then, without worrying about its cultural impact.

Now even Parker and Stone seem to wonder sometimes what South Park’s legacy might turn out to be. And what’s weirdly intriguing about episodes like “Time to Get Cereal” is the chance to watch the two of them look at who they were, who they are, and who they might become. They might still want to mock Al Gore, but in 2018, they know that doing so shouldn’t invalidate everything he says.

Original Source -> 12 years after mocking Al Gore’s fight against climate change, South Park reconsiders

via The Conservative Brief