#doing a pc every 20 npcs

[npcproject]

PC 01-1 Darryl Wilson

[lurvness]

nerd!jo and fem!reader playing video games together <3

just fluff and dramatic antics hehe

°‧⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Satoru loves spending time playing video games with you. well, not exactly with you. You both rarely ever play together due to your vastly different preferences in that aspect—but he rarely ever minds. Not when you’re seated at the desk right beside him, playing on the PC setup he begged insisted on building for you, looking so comfortable and content as your little avatar sprite runs about the bright and colorful world that is your cozy video game. His heart flutters every single time without fail, knowing and witnessing how at peace you seem to be with him. And maybe (definitely), he enjoys interrupting your peace just as much.

He forgets about simply enjoying your presence when he decides to glance at your screen. You’re interacting with an npc in your game, a man. Looks to be in his early 20s, his dark hair cut and styled so there’s longer strands framing the right side of his face with short strands sitting on his left, all white sporting a black hoodie. Nothing to really make note of until he catches the redness on his cheeks. he’s blushing. Blushing at the love of his life, looking at her as if she’s hung the stars in the sky just for him. You did. You do. But not for him— whatever the name of his new mortal enemy is.

He didn’t think any npc could mirror the expression he most often wears with you. But it’s possible. It’s happening right in front of him. And he swears there’s hearts in his eyes.

“baby.”

you turn, a quizzical look on your features, and he pouts. Dramatically, like a child. Because how could you not see what’s wrong? The world has flipped upside down, his vision of your future together going up in flames, and you’re acting as if it’s a regular tuesday afternoon.

“He’s blushing.” His gaze flicks to the character on screen and he glares, as if doing so will make him combust into pixelated flames.

Your gaze follows his, and you realize what he’s referring to. “Oh, yeah. he likes me.”

“what? What do you mean he likes you?”

You look back to him, and suddenly the adorable pout on his face makes sense. Not that it’d take any genius to figure out. He’s practically throwing a fit. Or he’s close, at least, and all over some npc in your farming game.

You can’t help but roll your eyes. Fondly. “I mean I have eight hearts with him, so he likes me. probably waiting for a bouquet, too,” you shrug, attempting to hide the grin beginning to form on your face. You couldn’t help throwing in that last bit, just to rile him up a little more. If he’s going to interrupt your gameplay over childish jealousy, he might as well make it worth your while.

satoru falls for it, of course. he’s appalled at the mere idea of your implication. A confession. “A bouquet? From you? but you don’t give me bouquets..” you didn’t think his pout could grow deeper, but it does. And you love it.

A beat passes. he stays silent, leaving you practically at the edge of your seat. He’s considering something as he stares at your screen once more. Maybe plotting on ways to recode the game to make a certain npc disappear, or to get rid of the possibility of bouquets in the game altogether. You wouldn’t put it past him.

“I want one,” he finally says.

you blink. “what?”

“A bouquet. I want one,” He repeats himself, as if it’s obvious. he crosses his arms, already set on it. His baby is going to get him a pretty bouquet, even better than the one that degenerate of a character is expecting. He’s going to love it, and he’ll rub it in that emo’s face so damn hard he’ll turn sentient just to feel Satoru’s taunts.

“You’re ridiculous.”

You both end up at the nearest flower shop anyway, searching for a bouquet to match your nerdy boyfriend’s newly acquired sophisticated taste. He examines the petals of each bouquet with utmost precision—and a strange gentleness. You’re almost jealous of it.

Eventually, he decides on a rather colorful bouquet, oddly reminiscent of the one found in your game. The grin from earlier peeks its way through your expression once more.

“I’ll pay,” you say, taking the bouquet from him before he can protest, carrying it to the front counter.

Despite the revulsion he usually feels at the thought of you paying for anything, he lets it slide just this once. A smirk grows on his face instead, utterly giddy that his pretty girlfriend is bending to his entirely reasonable whims.

“You’re into this, huh?” he teases, grinning like a child who just manipulated his way into getting a sweet treat.

“Into what?” You hum, almost innocently, handing him his bouquet. “Gifting guys bouquets?”

He hums his assent, not caring too much in correcting your choice of words in favor of sniffing your gesture of love towards him. Take that, he thinks to himself, imagining a look of horror and jealousy on a certain pixelated face.

You shrug. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He freezes. the words ring in his ears, piercing through his heart; any sign of his earlier happiness is completely gone. You walk ahead, seemingly unaware of his inner spiraling.

“What?” He manages to get out, unmoving, shock and betrayal painted on his face.

You stop, smiling to yourself before turning around. sometimes, satoru forgets that you’re capable of playing with him just as much as he is with you.

“Oh no, I mean in game, baby,” you clarify, as if that’ll reassure him, but you know better.

“what?!”

°‧⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

eee first post! this idea came to me while I was playing my cozy little farming gsme ! I made it pretty obvious but if you know what game reader is playing AND the character Satoru is going crazy over you get a pat on the head and a little kiss (maybe)

[txttletale]

hello...what is this "eidolon playtest". i thought it was perhaps some kind of MTG since you like that and "playtest" but then i keep seeing like.....random character art. is this a tabletop thing. is it mtg and i just dont understand mtg. i know i can probably google this but jt seems like something you wnjoy and id like to hear you talk about it :^)

eidolon playtest is an actual play series in which the creators of the ttrpg 'eidolon: become your best self' and their friends -- as the name implies -- playtest aforementioned TTRPG. it has a pretty interesting format in which the same GM runs two separate campaigns for two different parties which slowly become more and more intertwined until they start crossing over directly. so far they have two pairs of campaigns finished, eidolon POP and ROCK (seasons 1 & 2) and eidolon SKA and DISCO (seasons 3 & 4), and season 5 (eidolon VGM and EDM) currently ongoing. they also have a couple of short mini-campaigns of 3-4 sessions each, which i'm not going to list all of because there's a lot.

eidolon playtest is really good for so many reasons i can't possibly provide a comprehensive account but here's some:

the tables are really, really good at taking something and running with it. the number of goofy, seemingly one-off jokes that get called back to and built up and end up becoming extremely serious and plot-critical has to be in the double digits by now

there is very much a lack of... for want of a better word 'preciousness' to the play -- like, one of the things i really don't like about dimension 20 is that because there is an entire production staff making all these little minis and sets, right, there is an investment and a need to put the money in front of the camera, it's basically impossible for e.g. combat encounters to be skipped or for anything to go too 'off the rails'. meanwhile in eidolon everyone will get excited when someone pulls a fucking insane plan out of nowhere that radically reshapes an encoutner, or when someone rolls/draws badly and something awful happens -- i fucking love that kind of play, where everyone is excited to see cool shit happen whether it's bad or good, and the eidolon playtest team do it really well

the characters are really good and bounce off each other really well. something i commented recently is that i love diska for the fact thaqt nonoe of the players are afraid to have their character just be a huge cunt sometimes. every campaign has some amount of interpersonal drama and it always seems like the players are really excited to have it, too. there are conflicts, some get resolved, some don't, some spiral into irreconcilable differences, some pave the way for extremely close bonds.

eidolon, the system (especially the 2e version that's used for diska onwards) is a great system which encourages fun and cool things to happen. every character has a jojo-style extremely specific power, which means that fights aren't boring slogs of people rolling dice (i hate combat in actual plays that use wargames, lol, even games with well-balanced combat systems that are fun to play often make horrible audio) but instead wacky and consistently dramatic encounters where the players make clever and creative use of their powers to take on a freak-of-the-week

the cast is just really damn good! i mentioned how the characters on all the shows have ineresting and complex dynamics, but even apart from that there's just so many characters on this show that i'm genuinely attached too, so many memorable and interesting pcs and npcs.

the show is funny as fuck!! constant laugh out loud bits throughout every campaign, often alongside the extremely heartfelt or dramatic ones. i've been refernecing a bit from eidolon disco so much recently it's been driving oen of my gfs crazy (you can buy rat poison for free at the store)

i, yknow, go back and forth on whether to mention this when recommending it bc i'm sure that the eidolon playtest folks don't, like, want to be pigeonholed as A Trans Podcast or whatever, but, like, when it feels like every AP podcast that advertises itself or is advertised as 'super queer' is like, two cis gay people and maybe one transmasc if you're lucky at an otherwise super cishet table -- it is such a breath of fresh air to listen to an actual play with a legit preponderance of transfem and nonbinary players playing all kinds of trans and queer characters.

tldr: its like homestuck but good

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 1D, MATCH 1 OUT OF 16!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Dimension 20:

Knight in invisible glass armor who turned the heel of her slipper into a spear and impaled the Fairy Grandmother with it to escape her false happy ending. Part of a team of princesses who want to destroy the entire fairy tale world to spare themselves and everyone else from eternally suffering. Gives weirdly good life advice.

A badass warrior in glass armor who stabs her fairy godmother with the heel of her glass slipper

Neverafter sweep!!!! Also, she is cool. Wears glass armor, tried to kill her fairy godmother with a spear, also tried to kill her stepmother.

She wears armour of glass and fights against a prewritten destiny

This Cinderella's story takes place in a world where all the fairytale characters exist but their stories have all gone wrong. It's a horror Dnd campaign, and there's also a multivariate concept where if people die, they're basically just reborn in a worse version of the story. Cinderella here is an NPC and is part of a faction called the Daughters of the Crown, which is a group of rebel nialaistic princesses who want to destroy the Neverafter to be free. She stabbed her fairy godmother in the chest with a glass shard from her shoe and she's a crazy powerful fighter. She wears full plate armor made of reflective glass so that she's essentially invisible when standing still. She's super badass but still is caring and funny. In the final battle when the PCs are fighting the Daughters of the Crown and other bad guys, she turns to their side after the other princesses are defeated and other giant villains come in, including her step mother, who became an eldritch horror. She stabs her stepmother through the heart with a shard of glass after dismissing the stepmother statement that she hurt her because it was destiny, saying that it doesn't matter if it was free will or destiny, she didn't like it. TLDR: She's a badass black woman/princess/knight

This woman has been through so much Shit. She has to go through the usual suffering of Cinderella (dead parents, abusive step-family) and then find out her entire life is a lie, just a story where she has no agency over her life? Her suffering is for someone else's amusement? So she's doing bad. Her stepmother also tries to destroy the ENTIRE universe after snapping. And okay. Maybeeee Cinderella tried to kill some people (mainly the campaign's party) but after she lost everything I can't help but feel a little bad for her. Thank you for your time.

shes ANGRY shes a WARRIOR she has GLASS ARMOR THAT SHE NEVER TAKES OFF she’s trying to END THE WORLD AND KILL EVERYONE she’s EVERYTHING to me

Once Upon a Time (in Space):

She spent decades searching every moon and planet trying to find her wife (Rose), who was kidnapped on their wedding day. Eventually, she found Rose, and they embraced, only for Rose to die in Cinder's arms. And so Cinder killed the king who had kidnapped Rose by punching through his chest and into his heart.

And then Cinder got a somewhat happy ending, in which she met Rose's clone who had Rose's memories.

What if Cinderella was a Sci-Fi lesbian? Well here she is. She has a whole love song about searching the stars for her girlfriend after their wedding was interrupted and she was taken away. She spends years searching only to when she finally finds and embraces her watch her be shot. Cinders is so devastated by this that she plunges her wedding ring into the heart of the man who shot her love killing him.

Lesbian space princess who elopes with the terrifying soldier who was previously conquering her planet and spends decades searching for her when they're separated. Listen to her song https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6w9V-gMgBF4

I think the way she punches the evil king through the heart as revenge for her wife is pretty neat.

She’s a revolutionary married to a woman, what’s not to love? From Cinders’ Song: “ When I was a little girl, my mother always told me / "Someday your prince will come, my love" / But as I grew, I knew it was a princess who would hold me”.

her girlfriend got cloned and most of said clones were brutally slaughtered in war and she searched for her girlfriend all throughout the galaxy and when they were finally reunited on the battlefield her girlfriend died. and a clone of her girlfriend who due to technical errors retained her memories, so does that count as the same girlfriend? theseus's girlfriend? anyway vote for cinders she's been through hell

Lesbian!! Has to search for her lost love Rose with her glass wedding ring that changes color when its near its partner!! Gets to embrace Rose once again for one final moment before the villain kills Rose right in front of her!! So Cinders kills him in return!! And she's left as (almost) the only surviving main character from her own album but!! She is eventually reunited with a clone of Rose, and while they cannot have a truly 'happy ever after' together they are the ones graced with the closest thing to it

SPACE LESBIANS (she's in love with Rose Red, who gets kidnapped on their wedding day and Cinders searches the galaxy to find her, waiting for her white ring to turn crimson, indicating that its twin was near) She took her name from the ashes of her burning planet <3 She also killed Old King Cole >:)

shes a tragic lesbian and killed a violent dictator shes literally the best

shes gay shes traumatized she dates both rose red and sleeping beauty. badass space wanderer looking for her wife

Her wife Rose gets kidnapped on their wedding day and Cinders spend the next thirty years looking for her. She finds her (:D) and then Rose dies (D:) and then Cinders kills the guy who killed Rose (girlboss).

shes a lesbian. she lost her wife, Rose (yes, as in sleeping beauty) the day they got married bc she was kidnapped. she spent 20 YEARS looking for her. as soon as she found her wife, Rose DIED IN HER ARMS. Cinders has gone through Too Much to lose this poll

(Her info from the wiki) the Princess of a planet burnt by King Cole's army, after it is ceded by her stepmother. She is imprisoned, meets Rose and plans to marry her. She is released by her godmother for the wedding, then flees when the attack happens, spending thirty years looking for Rose. Her half of the wedding ring will light up when she finds Rose.

"When I was a little girl, my mother always told me 'Someday your prince will come, my love' But as I grew, I knew it was a princess who would hold me I looked to the stars for you, my love" She's lesbian Cinderella IN SPACE. She fell in love with her wife in prison and they ran away to have a secret marriage but the empire kidnapped Rose on their wedding night and Cinders had to leave her behind. She searches for Rose for decades with the glass ring that guides her to its twin on her wife's finger. She finally reunites with her love after Rose rips three supersoldiers to pieces with her bare hands (hot) but then then the evil king kills Rose so Cinders fucking punches through his heart. And then a clone of Rose (who is also lesbian Sleeping Beauty IN SPACE) finds her cradling her wife's body and they have a happy reunion(?) and maybe they didn't have a happy ending BUT WHAT IF THEY HAD EACH OTHER? HUH? AAAAAH

she’s everything. she’s a princess from a long since conquered planet. she was imprisoned to make a statement of the brutal reign of old king cole. she met her wife while she was in prison, a beautiful brutal soldier covered in scars from battles. cinders and rose fell in love, so cinders’ godmother in white broke her out of jail so rose and cinders could be together. they were going to be married, except that OLD KING COLE intervened and kidnapped rose to make her the genetic base of his unholy army. so cinders spends THIRTY YEARS searching the galaxies for her love (and sings a really cool song about it called “Cinders’ Song”) until finally she arrives during the final battle just in time to see old king cole SHOOT ROSE DEAD. so cinders punches the king so hard (with her wedding ring) that he just Crumples Into Dust. the end! (no we do not talk about the fiction.)

lesbian, for one, and for two i don't really care i just think it'd be cool if she got in/if she made it past the first round

[monstersdownthepath]

I'd like to talk about Razmir, He Who Isn't.

I'm going to be creating stats for him - as I do with most Paizo-creatures I find fascinating whether needed or not - and would greatly appreciate your input!

Firstly, what kind of wizard is he? We know he's 19-th level, and can safely assume given his fear of mortal death, is planning on taking the arcane discovery Immortal upon reaching 20-th level. But what would you imagine is his specialty? Both transmutation, illusion, and divination can all be argued for, but so could universalist. So what's your thoughts?

Secondly, what kind of gear would he have? We can assume as God-King of his own nation, he'd have access to much more gear than an NPC of his level, and possibly even more than a PC of his level. But what kind of gear do you think would be useful for him?

Thirdly, his stats. Obviously a wizard wants Int as his primary, and given Razmiran is 47 years old and he came to shore a powerful wizard already, I feel we can safely assume Razmir is of venerable age. But arguments can be made across the board for his stats needing to be good (with the possible exception of Str). So assuming a base starting point for a level 1 wizard with typical powerful NPC 25-point buy, what would you imagine his stats being?

Finally, what's your opinions on the Razmir I'm thinking of building? For me, he's obviously very sharp mentally, and not just because Int would be his primary stat. I'm planning for Razmir to be one of the few in Golarion who has mastered the art of Trompe O'loeil's, specifically two of himself. This allows him to not only a) appear godly by stretching his spells per day through painted wizard versions of himself but b) hide his much more frail mortal body somewhere secure and safe and let his paintings take the heat and danger, also allowing him to appear to reincarnate and appear immortal.

In addition, I'm thinking of giving him a minor artefact of my own design - a Ring of True Wish. Basically, it's a ring of three wishes, but once per year, it regrows a diamond, effectively granting the user one wish per year. In the beginning, Razmir would have used this to great effect, but now as he grows older and more feeble he's been using it to try and extend his life. Sure, wish is powerful, but in this instance a wish only grants him 1d4+1 months youth, so slowly but surely he's creeping to that old age death mark.

------

My expertise lays in monsters, not character building, so my additions probably won't be as up to snuff as you're hoping! But, to answer each in order:

--Razmir relies on mortal agents to keep him informed of the goings-ons in his city, thus he likely is not a Divination specialist. Were he a master Transmuter, very little about him would make sense in my mind. Illusion and Evocation are actually the most likely to me, the former because most of the tricks in his clergy in imitating divine magic involve misdirection, fading cures, and fantastic spell effects that are rarely as powerful as the spell they're imitating; and the latter because his first display of power was a fiery Evocation spell so mighty that it destroyed an entire city in a single cast, something which even level 20 casters struggle to do.

--This, I'm not entirely sure about. At his level, with the wealth of an entire nation at his backing, he can have pretty much whatever he damn well pleases. He's likely gotten ahold of numerous Manuals of [ABILITY SCORE IMPROVEMENT] to bolster his lower stats, and his staff is obviously a creation of his own--possibly a unique Staff of the Magi--and the importance his faith places on masks makes me believe his own is an Artifact of incredible power... perhaps one that connects in some way to the lesser masks his clergy wears.

--None of his stats are below 20. As mentioned and as will be mentioned, he's likely used the various Manuals of [ASI] and his own access to Wish and the like to grant himself anywhere from +5 to +10 in every stat.

--The Trompe O'loeil is adorable, but the way I see it, he wouldn't create something that could potentially usurp him, as the Trompe can and will often try and kill their originals, especially if they have an Evil alignment. If he wished to keep himself safe, he may use Simulacra controlled via a mask, which would also fit into the idea of him being a powerful Illusionist.

--I like the Ring of True Wish! And also, him desperately using Wish spells to extend his own life makes complete sense in-universe as well; every casting of the spell demands a sacrifice of 25,000gp per use, so his desperate greed for as much wealth as possible to keep the Wishes flowing makes infinitely more sense.

[fantasyfantasygames]

Combo review: The Dark Room and Pitch-Black Time Machine

The Dark Room / Pitch-Black Time Machine, Rob Knight, 2016/2018

In 2016, Rob Knight released a thoughtful, investigative RPG entitled The Dark Room (TDR). In 2018 he released an extremely different game entitled Pitch-Black Time Machine (PBTM), using the exact same rules word-for-word. I figured I'd review both of them in one post.

In TDR each of your characters have walked into the titular room and found themselves with each other, despite entering the room in different years. When you exit the room, you're at one person's era. You try to resolve someone's issues (external and internal), and then walk back into the room and do it again in someone else's era. Once everyone's issues are solved, people can finally go back to their own eras. The mystery of the room's how and why is never resolved.

PBTM, on the other hand, is a party horror. Your inebriated characters cram themselves into a darkened closet on a combination of "seven minutes in heaven" and a phone booth stunt. When they tumble back out it's into a weirdly fractured universe where one of their issues has gone rampant, causing horrible trouble for everyone. Every time they confront one successfully, the world rearranges, until they finally end up in a world better than they left it and burn down the house with the closet. Tone-wise it's a mix of Buffy and Harold & Kumar.

There are three "layers" to the rules, and to the characters you build with them. The Issues layer deals with problems in the character's lives. It's the most innovative part of the system. Rather than just a description or a rating, Issues have mechanical hooks that let the GM generate opposition dice pools and relevant NPCs. They also provide the PCs with tainted bonuses, building negative effects even as they provide dice Success doesn't erase Issues, but instead transmutes them, turning down the negative side effects, healing weakness and building resilience.

Talents and Statistics provide more standard systems. You could run the game with just Issues, but Talents provide your character's background and anything that would fall under Advantages and Disadvantages in GURPS. Statistics provide the usual six modern attributes (str/agi/sta/int/cha/per) on a 20-80 rating and some percentile skills. The Statistics layer is either extremely phoned in, or is a reasonable case of whipping up a generic system when you don't need anything more complex. Honestly, you could run a game without the Issues layer and have a very typical older modern-era game, but that would be like using Unknown Armies without the shock gauges or Rolemaster with no crit tables. Issues are what make this system sing.

Overall I'm impressed by the difference in tone between the two games despite using the exact same system. The art does a lot to help reinforce that. Both are black and white line art, but TDR is thin-lined historical sketches and PBTM is thicker-lined and more cartooney, kind of caricature-ish. (I talk art good.) A little research revealed that it's the same artist at different points in their career, and pre/post transition, which is kinda cool. Even without the art, the text really conveys a very different game, and Rob did a great job finding two settings that precisely fit the same set of rules.

x

[gunpowderraven]

critical role: by someone that hasn’t seen any of it

hi so we recently got into dimension 20 and our friends have been tugging us towards critical role for a very long time at this point but we still haven’t watched any of it nor do we know all that much about anything that actually happens in it. however we do intend to actually start watching soon so we decided it was the perfect opportunity to make one of those ‘all the things i know about this thing i haven’t watched’ posts, show it to our critrole friends, and then actually get into critrole and be able to look back and laugh about it later

also the images are all sourced via friend so this is all one hundred percent no wiki no google knowledge, just from tumblr and discord convos and stuff. and some cast compilation videos that were very funny

update: we are now watching cr3! liveblog tag for silly lb -> #cr3 lb

vox machina

from left to right:

- i have literally no idea who the two halflings are. i’ve never seen them before in my life. what. uh. paladin and bard? im literally just guessing. who plays these characters. what

- grog? grug? this is travis’ pc maybe. also hypothesizing hes a half-orc barbarian or something similar? ive seen like one clip of him

- percival frederick von something something de rolo i think there’s a iii in his name as well, his name is long and very german but he does not have a german accent. or a french one. at separate times i have thought this character was german and french and then i heard him talk and was like. What. anyway i know he’s taliesin’s pc and he invented guns and is also possessed sometimes by big bird demon, and he has a nifty plague doctor mask. also tragic backstory. his entire family is dead i think. no mercy percy! he has a thing with vex? also his hair did a wilbur. the gay people on tumblr love this twink. i also think i love this twink

- vax’ildan! i think i may have actually spelled that right! half-elf? vex is his twin? and he’s... liam’s pc i think. yeah that’s it. he gives me angsty boy energy tho. not as much as percy but this boy has seen some shit. also he might be a rogue or a ranger who even knows. he looks like gay jon snow

- vex’ahlia which i definitely didn’t spell right. i think the next one is marisha’s pc so this one is... uh... laura? i think she’s the ranger actually. i think she has a bear. not like a gay bear like an actual animal bear. though it could be gay too i dunno. she has a think with percy. or everyone wants her to have a thing with percy. i genuinely can’t tell. anyway get that traumatized twink girl

- keyleth... marisha’s pc. some kind of spellcaster? maybe sorcerer? wild magic? she Also has a thing with percy maybe. or vex. or both. who even knows. everyone wants that twink. one time she threw herself off a cliff and turned into a goldfish and almost died and it was hilarious

anything else i know about this:

- there are evil bitches called the briarwoods and they might be vampires

- this is the one that got a tv show and might have also been the first critrole campaign idek

- d. ragons? chromia something. dragons. i hope i haven’t been lied to about the dragons. i hope there are actually dragons in this. there’s like a chromium something with dragon symbols tho

mighty nein

from left to right:

- mollymauk! ...tealeaf? another taliesin pc. the trans people like this one. i don’t know what their pronouns are. but theyre slaying every time i see them at any time. no idea what class but maybe a spellcaster?

- ...beau? i know her exclusively through lesbian ship art so i know her name is beau something bc that’s the ship names but i don’t know if that’s short for something. monk? no clue. also no clue who plays her either. maybe marisha?

- i have seen this character but i do not know their name. or anything else about them

- oh this is the sad wizard boy caleb widogast. he’s gay for essek thelyss (or something. i didnt spell that right) who is a npc i think. yeah. sad wizard. every time i see him he’s just being a wizard and sad. the gays love him too but he’s more of a distraught otter than a sad twink. maybe he and percy should start a club tho. also i think he’s played by liam

- i KNOW this character’s name i think it starts with s but i can’t remember for the life of me. scriv? scrat? no thats the rat from ice age. possibly a menace? i think im getting them mixed up with someone else. they look cool as hell though

- jester!! laura pc i think perhaps. i want to get drunk with her and tell her about all of my problems. yeah. i dont know anything about her actually. beaujester exists tho i know that

- YASHA. CRUSH ME HOLY FUCK. sorry im normal ? her voice makes me a little crazy insane. ive seen a few clips of her. mostly gay shit with beau. uh she’s played by ashley and she could kick my ass very easily

oh my god there’s another photo

- i think there’s only one character different here and it’s caduceus clay fun fact i hated this mfer for really dumb shitty personal reasons for a while before deciding it was very stupid to blame a fictional character for interpersonal drama and now im fine with him. wait does mollymauk die or something. wait a second. no, wait, fuck—

- ALSO WHO’S THAT FUCKER IN THE BACKGROUND I JUST NOTICED THAT

anything else i know about this:

- yeah i got nothing. no idea about the lore or the plot or anything bc i pretty much exclusively see gay ship art of these pcs. love wins i support it

bells hells

from left to right, one more time:

- look my brain is just saying gertrude from dungeons & drag queens but obviously that’s incorrect. so i don’t know who this is

- or this! but she looks very pretty and i love the little... monkey... bird? pls tell me these two characters have some kind of wild opposites dynamic they look like they do

- LITTLE ROBOT GUY . fcg? fgc? i think it was the first one. uh. liam pc? ?????? i think he gets bitches

- orym...? i know one of these characters is named orym. and i think it’s this one. i also see gay fanart of him

- i don’t know who the guy underneath him is

- or the lady with the purple hair god i really don’t know shit about this campaign sorry

- ashton greymoore, taliesin pc, my friend luna loves this guy, he’s. rocks? he’s rocks. groovy.

- someone in this campaign is named like dorian or something and im guessing its this one bc idk who they are either

anything else i know about this:

- flying.......... ship?

- this is the ongoing one i think

thank you for coming to my ted talk, i can’t wait to look back at this in a few months and laugh my ass off. hope u enjoyed this mess

[darachbeo]

Dimension 20 seasons that used D&D5e and the other systems that would have served them better.

I'm mostly just making this to vent because, while I do enjoy D20, I am a WotC/5e hater and think that the platform that Dropout has with D20 could be better used to uplift smaller designers/publishers rather than just homebrewing/redesigning the dragon game published by the cartoonishly evil, multi-billion dollar corporation every other season.

Be warned that the only two seasons/series here I have actually watched are Fantasy High and Dungeons & Drag Queens because I simply cannot be bothered to watch that many hours of a game i don't even like. Most of this is gonna be based off of trailers and summaries and vibes.

Fantasy High (and associated spin-offs)

Starting off strong with the flagship, this series is a pseudo-urban fantasy, with only one nation in the world of Solace having technology comparable to modern day and the rest being more classically high-fantasy. Because the setting and story is very much typical of a fantasy game, I think another fantasy game would be good to use here. Perhaps even one that also includes high-tech stuff like automatons and androids, even space ships! That's right, I think Fantasy High would be better as a Pathfinder 2e game. Given how much the PCs play with their builds and use more customized content, as well as how diverse the NPCs are, a game with more character options to support that natively is what I would look for here and Pathfinder 2e does that very well. Pathfinder is also already very similar to DnD in how it plays, so the transition for both players and the audience wouldn't be too jarring either, with only some terminology differences and slightly different maths being the biggest gap.

Pathfinder 2e is published by Paizo, who are a unionized company as opposed to WotC sicking the literal Pinkertons on people, and all of the rules for the game are available legally and for free online on the Archives of Nethys.

Dungeons & Drag Queens

This series is also high-fantasy, but far more focused on the camp than anything else. The players here in the all-drag queen cast also don't appear to be all that familiar with the game either, so a game that is more rules-lite and rewards camp would be the ideal system here. For those reasons, while it is not a fantasy game, I believe that QUEERZ! would be the best system for this series.Not only is this systems specifically about playing queer characters in a world of ignorance, it also utilizes a system of easily understood tags and descriptions rather than numbers and hard calculations, allowing it to be more fluid and quickly learned by people new to it. The creativity for how this system works also lends itself very well to rewarding and encouraging campy behavior, which would play very well with the all-drag queen cast.

QUEERZ! is published by ISA, a queer mangaka, and Son of Oak Game Studio.

Starstuck Odessy

A season about a space-ship faring group of misfits. Very sci-fi but in a very grungy way. Yes I know it is technically not DnD 5e but Star Wars 5e instead, but that is still using the same bones and contributes to WotC. I was originally going to put Paizo's other game, Starfinder here, but in light of recent (late June 2025) events in the TTRPG sphere, I'm going to say Rebel Scum instead. Rebel Scum is an explicitly anti-facist system that takes big inspiration from Star Wars. It includes "giant lasers and space magic" so I think the Intrepid Heroes, as well as Brennan and the audience, would absolutely love this system.

Rebel Scum is published by 9th Level Games and can be purchased on itch.io.

A Crown of Candy/The Ravening War

This season is strongly inspired by Game of Thrones, but with a candy coating. The high-lethality and court drama of this series are what makes it stand out, in addition to everything being food. I think the best system to use here would just be MÖRK BORG and applying the same everything-is-food aesthetic to it. There are also a bunch of other games compatible with MÖRK BORG to add-in additional options and flavors of narrative if need be, like CY_BORG or Punk is Dead. The dark nature of this game would play itself well into the role-play of this high-lethality setting and let it use that to thrive.

MÖRK BORG is published by Free League Publishing and is available in both Swedish and English.

Escape From the Blood Keep

This is a very heavily Lord of the Rings inspired campaign, which makes the decision here very easy. Just play The One Ring, which is explicitly an LotR TTRPG. It has rules for combat, traveling, and diplomacy which would work great with the workplace comedy themes here while also retaining much more of the Tolkein-esque flavor.

The One Ring is also published by Free League.

The Unsleeping City

An urban fantasy setting set in NYC that has a lot of supernaturally charged politics? This sounds like the exact kind of game Urban Shadows was made for. While the game is generally written for the supernatural elements to be unknown to the average citizen of the world, that can be changed much more easily than trying to make a high-fantasy game fit a modern setting. Being a Powered by the Apocalypse game, it is pretty easy to pick up on mechanically and allows for a lot of narrative play-space.

Urban shadows is published by Magpie Games and recently had a very successful Kickstarter for a second edition.

Tiny Heist

A campaign about a bunch of little folk and toys come to life going on a dangerous heist. I'm gonna get real indie here and say that the best system for this would be Goons in Toyland, a game where imagination brings things just like this to life, but can also make things that go bump in the night real as well. It is a very simple system and I think it would have served both this campaign and its crew and audience very well.

Goons in Toyland is an indie game made by the wonderful @mrrayrpg, who is a friend of mine and also has a podcast, $2 Creature Feature.

Mice & Murder

This season appears to be a furry murder mystery game, which I fuck with as a concept. I would fuck with it even more if it used a system like Brindlewood Bay, which takes inspiration from Call of Cthulhu and Murder She Wrote. The blend of horror, mystery, and camp here would have served this season very well, though it was not published until almost two years after this season was filmed (but if there's a second season....).

Brindlewood Bay is published by Gauntlet Publishing and is an ENnie Award winner.

Coffin Run

This is a vampire season where the PCs have to recover Dracula's coffin for him. I think this would have been better served by Vampire: The Masquerade for obvious reasons. I do not think further explanation is needed here. Yes there is a non-vampire character, but since VtM is a World of Darkness game, compatible with others in the same universe, non-vampire characters could be made from one of those systems, like Hunter: The Reckoning.

Vampire: The Masquerade has multiple editions and publishers, so you have choices here depending on the compatibility you want.

A Court of Fey and Flowers

This game is already half not 5e, using Good Society for a lot of the courtly aspects of the game, but the bulk of it is still 5e with extra steps homebrew in it. The Good Society bits can stay I guess, but I think the rest would have been better suited by Faery's Tale, which is explicitly an RPG about such fairy tales and the creatures in them and plays with those themes very well.

Faery's Tale is published by Green Ronin and was nominated for multiple ENnies and an Origins Award.

Neverafter

More fairy tale than the previous season, but in a very Brother's Grimm dark style. This makes me think of dark folklore, which leads me to the system of Vaesen, a game about confronting monsters from Scandinavian folklore that are often metaphors for social and environmental issues. I haven't watched this season, but I feel like that would also fit this season really well based on what I do know about it.

Vaesen is another Free League game and has a supplement that brings in some Celtic folklore as well.

Burrow's End

This season is about little critters going on a deadly and dangerous adventure.Very Watership Down.Because of that, I think the best system for it would be The Warren, which is also very Watership Down. Rules as written, player characters are all rabbits, but that can be narratively adjusted with ease. It's also a PbtA game, so the mechanical aspects are fairly easy to pick up on, especially for those who have played other PbtA games.

The Warren is published by Bully Pulpit Games and a PDF only version is available on itch.io.

Titan Takedown

Wrestling with a Greek mythology coat of paint. If it were just a mythological fantasy campaign, it would be easy to say Scion for this one, but since they went hard with the wrestling aspect, I think the best choice for this campaign would have been World Wide Wrestling. WWW covers the drama, the wrestling, and the whole good versus evil plot this season likes to go for and honestly seems like it would be a flawless choice.

World Wide Wrestling is and indie game by Nathan D. Paoletta and often has free community copies available on itch.io.

Cloudward Ho!

A steampunk adventure focused around a mystery to locate a missing person? This just screams Blades in the Dark to me. Blades is very Dishonored-esque, with the supernatural being very real but vague and unknown for most people, and centered around a gang of scoundrels trying to make it in the world. This season is currently still airing, but I have seen the clip compilation where Siobhan solves the little riddle Brennan gave the players and that only reinforces my choice here.

Blades in the Dark is published by Evil Hat and recently had a crowdfunding campaign for an expansion called Deep Cuts.

anyways those are my thots on the subject. no i will not be accepting criticism. good bye.

[astrumavis]

So far I've played through low rank and the whole main story line of mhwilds. My thoughts are mixed to say the least.

My thoughts are spoiler free of course

Surprisingly, I actually liked the heavy story focus. I found myself actually caring about the characters by the end. I enjoyed having them always there and basically participating, unlike in world where it constantly felt like these npcs were pretending to have been there, all the while I was literally the one doing the work.

The fights are great, I love the animations and all the little interactions you can have with your surroundings. The armor sets are beautiful. The music? Definitely getting added to my playlists. Whether or not the game is difficult "enough" is a discussion I don't care about and refuse to participate in. For me it was great.

However. What the fuck is that performance and what the fuck are those textures. The sheer amount of stupid bugs, intense lag and even crashes I experienced is ungodly for a game that had many years of development and TWO public beta-tests. I played the beta test and it ran better there than now on full release. The textures don't load in properly and are often a blurry, jarring mess. It's not every texture, just some, particularly on clothes and some environmental details and that makes it all the more jarring. Especially when the game has moments where it is absolutely stunning, followed by scenes that look like they were taken out of a game made 20 years ago. Genuinely what the fuck Capcom.

(and yes I did fiddle with the options trying to minimize it, but alas that only made the game look uglier, and not run that much better)

And look I'm no tech expert. I can't really tell you what my PC specks are, though I was told it's fairly beefy, but I still think we can all agree that this amount of performance issues is unacceptable.

So overall positive when it comes to the actual content of the game, but they really dropped hard on standards when it comes to performance, despite that being a main issue even during the beta's and them promising to work on it. Disappointing to say the least.

[essektheylyss]

Re: Essek's spell levels, he did mention having a ninth when he said he could make them all invisible so I think we can assume he's level 20.

Full spellcasters get a ninth level spell at level 17! The main change in spells after level 17 for the wizard table is getting a second seventh level spell slot at level 20, and the issue with the upper level wizard features is that they're things that Matt wouldn't narrate for an NPC, e.g. signature spells. We could probably track it if we stick with Essek for a full day and he totally maxes out on spell usage, since there are a few other differences in mid-level spell slots, but that gets harder to track with upcasting and general leeway for GM shenanigans—I don't expect Matt to be one hundred percent following every stat block to the letter since he's got so many things to track, and also because we can't know for sure what's in his stat blocks unless he shows them.

So the simplest confirmation for Essek being level 20 (or rough NPC equivalent) would be if he casts four spells over level 7 within a day, which he hasn't thus far.

I do also have to note that this is really purely academic, since Essek's character sheet is not going to be strictly the same as a PCs (we already know it isn't), which is also why I'm going off of spell slots rather than known spells to narrow it down—that's the roughest equivalent we can get for levels for NPCs without seeing the complete stat block, but even then, there's no real way to confirm unless Matt says it outright.

[morrigan-sims]

women of the fifth crusade

I'm still going strong on my P:WotR obsession, so take some sim-ified versions of my PC Reda, Ember (& Soot!!), Seelah, and Arueshalae.

(Reference art for the 3 NPCs plus my ramblings under the cut.)

Ember's turned out by far the best and is nearly perfect, but I don't think any of them are bad per se. I couldn't find a hair that was perfect for Arueshalae, and something about Seelah's face shape / facial features is bugging me, but I can't figure out exactly what it is. Reda's not perfect either but I don't really have a reference pic for her, so this is the best I can do, seeing as I can't really visualize things in my head at all.

I was gonna make Woljif and Queen Galfrey too, if not also Camellia and Sosiel, but I ran out of steam. I'll probably make them eventually, though. I also want to make full edits of them. (Maybe tarot card edits?!?!) I wish I that I could do Lann justice in the sims, but given his appearance that's more or less impossible. Which is sad, since Reda married him in my gameplay.

For people who aren't familiar with the game, here's a quick rundown with minimal spoilers:

Ember: child/teenage witch who nearly got burned at the stake, but still wholeheartedly believes that anyone and everyone can be good, even demons. Tries to convince a Demon Lord that she can redeem herself. Absolute sweetheart, must be protected at all costs, but also can be slightly terrifying.

Seelah: human paladin who started out as an orphan thief. Saw a paladin die saving people and decided to devote her life to the Crusade. Calls herself dumb and good for nothing, carrying immense amounts of guilt and refuses to acknowledge her successes.

Arueshalae: succubus ranger who turned her back on the Abyss, leaving behind an abusive relationship in the process. (Heavily implied former sex worker, also.) Wants to do good. Gets excited about gaining the ability to dream, seeing it as a sign that she's losing her evil for good.

Oh, and Reda is turning into an angel, hence the wings and halo. (Both of which she actually has in-game at this point.)

I can't express my love for this game. In some ways I like it better than bg3. If you've finished bg3 and you're looking for something else to play, give P:WotR a try, I beg you. It's SO GOOD. The graphics aren't as beautiful as bg3, and there's not nearly as much character customization, but the story is amazing, the NPCs are awesome, and the gameplay is very interesting!! The Mythic Path system blows me away and I wish more games had something like it. Also, if you wish bg3 was longer, you're in luck! P:WotR goes all the way to level 20 (technically level 30 if you count the 10 mythic levels), and a completionist playthrough could take you 200 hours. Also, there's I think 7 or 8 basic difficulty settings, plus the ability to customize literally every setting under the sun. If you're a fan of the real-time combat in something like Dragon Age, that's an option too. I am on my knees begging people to play this game, but I'll shut up for now.

[kaahmbem]

the way i personally like to run insight checks is not to give the players straightforward answers like "they're lying" or "you think they're being honest", i like to factor in body language, "you noticed they did hesitate before answering", "they're avoiding eye contact". sort of like you're a body language / tone analyst. the better you roll, the more you notice that helps you come to a more accurate conclusion.

if the roll is average, i like to point things out but leave a certain space of uncertainty, "their brows knit together briefly, as if something about what you said troubled them, but you're not sure what."

average rolls mean you get a bit of insight, but it's not quite There yet. an average roll — "occasionally, their eyes stray and they glance over at something in the distance." — lets you pick up on certain things, but not quite what it means. is it a suspicious glance? a bitter one? a better roll might produce something like, "their eyes constantly stray towards that person in the distance. there's a bit of wistfulness to their expression." a natural 20, and bam, that's the look of love. "a gaze that cannot help but tend towards them like sheep flocking towards their shepard, or a harvest blooming under careful palms. it's the gaze of someone deeply in love."

lower rolls of course indicate that you can't read said person that well at all, "for a moment, you thought you saw a flash of an expression, but you didn't really catch what it was", "this person is a closed book. you can't glean anything about their reaction."

insight rolls are for insight, they serve to provide more guidance on how to read a certain character's body language / intentions. sometimes, there's nuances to it ! i can say, "they believe what they're saying", but does that necessarily mean that it's true? no !!! or a, "you do detect an element of honesty in their statement." what does that mean!!! does it mean that the npc is conflicted and doesn't quite know what the truth is, or does it mean that they're half lying, half telling the truth to you on purpose? who knows !!!

i will also always roll opposed for npcs in cases of deception. if an npc is actively trying to lie or hide something from you, it's your insight vs their deception (if they aren't lying or trying to hide anything from you, i will still roll anyway, just so the players can't go HEY YOU ROLLED THAT MEANS THEY'RE LYING!!!! i roll for show, i just don't use the result that i got !) this is partially because i'm not good at gaging DCs and i will often overshoot, but i also just enjoy that factor of variability in social interactions. it allows me to base a certain character's ability to lie in their stats rather than eyeballing it every time, and it allows for the concept of "sometimes people succeed at lying, and sometimes, they're just horribly bad at it at a given time". and what you glean from them depends on the difference between their roll and yours.

if the npc succeeds at lying / the PC fails at distinguishing a lie, i take low rolls not as a "well, you believe them, they're being honest" because that gives away the fact that they're lying, but more of a, "they paused a bit before speaking, but their answer sounds honest." why did they pause? was it because they were hesitating on telling the truth, but ultimately told it, or was it because they're lying to you?

the only time i really like to just flat out tell the pcs that they believe something incredibly stupid is if one of the pcs rolled like a natural one and the other rolled a natural 20. then i can start with the high roll, "they're definitely lying. you've seen this exact phony, bright, not meeting the eyes smile of con-men and salespeople trying to convince you to buy something at a ridiculously inflated price. it's a scam," before turning to the nat 1 and going, "you have never. ever. believed something more. 10000 gold pieces is definitely such an affordable price for this rock that was definitely not picked up from the ground just now. and by the way, this person reminds you a bit of your kind grandfather."

playing around with responses to rolls is so very fun and whimsy !!

[thathomestar]

dragon's dogma 2 thoughts so far, roughly 7 hours in:

out in the field, performance is mostly fine. it dips for me sometimes but it stays around 60 fps for the most part. being in the big city is rough, there's like 150 npcs all walking around doing their own thing and it makes the game chug, on my pc it drags it down to 30 fps average, sometimes 20 fps at the lowest points. they really need to clean that up.

i've just been playing fighter so far, and i'm enjoying the new combat system. it feels a lot looser than dd1, the soft lockon from dd1 is even softer. getting staggered and stunlocked by enemies is a real threat, you take much longer to recover from getting knocked over than you did in dd1. the revamped heavy attack button being more used for dealing decisive high damage hits on staggered or stunned enemies is such a good idea.

they swapped the buttons for block and special sword attacks and that kept throwing me off at first lol. perfect parry timing feels about the same as it did in dd1. you can actually use your heavy attack while mounting a monster without instantly jumping off, it's great. my pawn is an archer and honestly i think she does more dps than me sometimes, she's come in clutch so many times already.

the main kicker i've been feeling is the how they treat your health pool. in dd1 you could just spam consumables to cure your health back to maximum at any time, but they've changed how it works here in dd2. now, whenever you take damage, you lose a tiny bit of your max hp. whether a mage casts a heal or you drink a potion, you can't get all the way back up to full until you rest at an inn or a campsite. so now you play a longer-term game of "do i go find a camp and rest to full or do i go fight this ogre at 50% max hp". i enjoy being stupid so i tend to not rest until i absolutely have to lol.

you can actually preview which vocations have what augments now, which saves a trip opening up a browser and searching for that info. you do have to unlock warrior and sorcerer as well as the other new vocations, but warrior and sorcerer was literally "go to a cave, kill some goblins, get the stolen weapons back, ok you're good to go now". took like 30 mins after reaching the big city.

i have encountered every single microtransaction item within the first 5 hours of playing. they mostly either cost gold or rift crystals, and are relatively cheap. i got a camping kit for free for reaching the first oxcart. i got the harpy lure for free by helping a random person out and about. i've gotten four wakestones already. the microtransactions are stupid and so obviously mandated by some dinosaur executive but you're an even bigger moron if you think any of this stuff is meaningful or locked-off content.

uhh what else. turning your lantern on and off is nice and quick. your pawns actually talk amongst each other now. i don't know how different the inclination system is yet so i don't know if doing the d-pad pawn commands changes them. those commands seem to actually work properly now though. ran away from a fight and told my pawns "to me!" and they actually disengaged the fight and ran with me, so that's nice. don't like the music as much as the first game so far, we'll see how it fares once i actually fight a monster bigger than a cyclops.

[karmathenightowl]

Since TAZ Steeplechase is almost over, I have something to get out of the way

In the Ephemera arc, there's an in-universe NPC name Justin, which is literally Justin McElroy (the DM of this campaign) playing as himself (?) as part of a bit for the PCs to interact with. He mentions two things about this character:

A. He likes podcasting

B. He would like to get into podcasting but is "not great with voices."

I'm pretty sure he's joking, but if this truly was a personal jab on himself, that's not true.

So for fun, here is a list of amazing characters that Justin "I'm not great with voices" McElroy has done (from the top of my head)

Taako (The Adventure Zone: Balance)

Amelie (Mbmbam)

Duck Newton/Beacon-Tim Curry basically (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty)

Firbolg (The Adventure Zone: Graduation)

TROLLS WORLD TOUR

Rick Diggins (Dimension 20: Tiny Heist)

Mr. Boogey (the Qcode horror podcast BAD VIBES)

(Quick side note: Justin doing an Appalachian accent is always the GOAT no question. That's not a Justin you get to hear that much but when he does it, it's great. Duck is the second character with this accent that I could think of that he nails)

Amber Gris (The Adventure Zone: Ethersea)

Richard Stink (Mbmbam)

Count Donut (Mbmbam)

Literally every NPC, with Gravel, Sticky Fingers Paul Pantry, Poppy, Darla Davis, the Nanofather, and Shlabethany being a few of my favorites (The Adventure Zone: Steeplechase)

Comment if I'm missing any others

All I'm saying is keep it up J-man, you're doing great

[luvtonique]

Blizzard Lead Dev: "I just don't get it. People don't like our games anymore. We have over 45 gay NPC couples in Dragonflight, we have lesbians ride off into the sunset awkwardly in Diablo 4 and even Lorath finds it awkward when it happens, we have vitiligo options, we have multiple gay and multiracial characters in Overwatch 2, we changed the names of male and female to body type 1 and body type 2, turned all the sexy paintings into fruits, added green hair to humans, made the Night Elf heritage armor kind of not sexy, put a transgender dragon in the game, what the fuck do people want from us?"

Blizzard Forum Dev: "Well, I've been looking at the forums. Players want tails on worgens and-"

Blizzard Lead Dev: "I've GOT IT! Let's make a follow-up to that quest where the two centaur dudes want to get married, let's make the player prepare their wedding and they do this gay little talking-at-the-same-time and giggling moment, the gays do that stuff right? At least 4 people will find it cute!"

Blizzard Forum Dev: "Sir, it really seems like all of this pandering might be just a thinly veiled attempt to make people forget about that unfathomably disgusting sexual harassment lawsuit by catering to the loudest people on social media in hopes they'll start loudly advertising how PC we've become and we'll somehow rebuild our dwindling fanbase from new players who are suddenly creating accounts just to watch gay dragons talk about how much they love their mate. I think instead of trying to pander to people who hate our game and our company and always have and always will, perhaps a better option is to cater to the dwindling player base we have left, and to the people who left because of these stupid-ass politically correct things we keep doing. We can't just make people forget what our company did by pretending we're good people. What we CAN do is listen to our players. They don't want more gay NPCs in WoW, they don't want frumpy unattractive characters in Diablo 4 like forced fat druids, they don't want the Amazon's butt to be covered up in Diablo 2 Resurrection, they don't want Overwatch 2 to emphasize the importance of a character being gay or autistic above any semblance of personality or relevance to the story they might have. What they want is what they loved for the last 20 years. They want the company they grew up with back. The company that made Alexstrasza, Kerrigan, Whitemane, Sylvanas, the Eredar Twins, Mercy, Widowmaker, Tracer. Not the company that made a Thai femboy and made the crafting tutorial NPCs in Dragonflight absolutely offensively and objectifyingly flamboyant gay guys."

Blizzard Lead Dev: "You're... you're right... ... You're right, man. I dunno what I was thinking. You're right. People want the old Blizzard back."

Blizzard Forum Dev: "That's the spirit, man! We can turn this around, it's not too late. We can bring back the game that every really hot girl at every Blizzcon loved making skimpy cosplays for!"

Blizzard Lead Dev: "Orisa is transgender now"

Blizzard Forum Dev: "God fucking dammit sir"

[heliza24]

I'm kind of confused about how you feel about Lydia, I didn't think there was anything negative about the portrayal. You say she was just there for a lore dump but the way I see it, she was talking about her own life, an adventure she'd been on before. I didn't see it as dismissing her as a character

The short answer is that there isn’t anything hugely wrong with that scene. But because it’s the only real scene we’ve gotten with her so far, and because she is the most developed physically disabled character in all of D20, it is not enough.

To expand on that: Sure, she was telling the Bad Kids about her life and her previous adventures. But let’s think about why she was doing that in that moment. She was there because the Bad Kids needed to know more about her embedded crystal/metaphorical chronic illness in order to solve their own personal mysteries. She is a (very) supporting character in their narrative. We don’t get to see her go on a character arc, or change, or learn more about her desires as a character. Her disability story, which is very interesting, is in the show only because it serves the story needs of the nondisabled PCs.

Now of course all stories need supporting characters/npcs, and I am happy some of them are disabled. The problem arises when there has never been a physically disabled PC in Dimension 20. So the only disability narrative we see is in service of nondisabled characters. The problem is not Lydia; the problem is that she is alone.

You might recognize this problem with other media and other marginalized groups. To use a kind of simple example, I spent a lot of my childhood frustrated that the only women seemingly allowed in fantasy or action movies were the romantic interests of male protagonists. These love interests existed to serve the story of their male counterpart (often by dying dramatically and sending the male protagonist on some kind of revenge quest). There are still plenty of movies and shows that follow these tropes, but it bothers me way less now in 2024 because we also have a ton of tv and movies with complex female protagonists. The abundance of representation is what has changed.

I think this problem is extra clear on Dimension 20 because they have gotten SO many chances to center a disabled narrative and have not. They get up to six protagonists every season, which is way more than most tv or movies get.

Compared to a lot of other pieces of media that try to add in disabled characters, Dimension 20 is doing a good job with Lydia. They haven’t hired a nondisabled actor to play her (super common in tv and movies unfortunately) and they’ve clearly worked with consultants on her. I really like, for instance, that her persistence with the crystal prevents her being magically cured, which is one of my least favorite tropes. However, there is a huge trend in Hollywood of hiring disabled consultants when they want to tell a disabled story but never actually hiring a disabled writer for a full time, credited writing gig in a writers room. The players on D20 are the writing room. Why has a disabled person never been invited there?

Imagine, for a second, that we got a Fantasy High prequel season. All the adults we know in Fantasy High are teens, and they’re PCs. Imagine a really talented performer, who uses a wheelchair, playing Lydia. Imagine the emotional scenes we would see! Imagine the insight into her psyche we would get, the way her relationship to the Crystal would be developed. That’s what the scene with Lydia in Junior Year made me long for.

(I do have some frustration about the way Kristen reacted to Lydia, and the way that fandom reacted to Kristen. I did find Kristen offering empathy to Lydia in the form of the help action sweet, but being nice to a disabled person doesn’t deserve outsized praise, because we are not objects of pity. I also think the way that Kristen touched Lydia’s neck without permission is reminiscent of the way many wheelchair users are touched and pushed without permission, which is very violating. I don’t think Kristen would have had that same reaction to Sandra Lynn, for instance. Kristen is really Going Through It right now, so I’m not particularly mad at her for doing that. But it is irritating to see fandom singing the praises of the help action without acknowledging the touching without consent that followed).

Thank you for the question! I appreciate the opportunity to have a dialogue about this.