#extreme and unpredictable

[bluetreeonloudrun]

Heading in one direction, more extreme and more unpredictable weather. 🤐

[evilherehotel]

ok admittedly they are startign to grow on me

[heybiji]

ialso love playign superhero ttrpgs can i ask what the Masks ttrpg is? i love finding neww hero themed ttrpgs ^-^ yay!

Ohhh!! Hey! i love getting to talk ttrpg stuff thanks for the question!

MASKS: A New Generation is a superhero ttrpg about teenagers all trying to figure out who they are in a world filled with people constantly telling them who they are and how the world works. It's less about the powers and the fights and more about the emotional journey of the PCs with mechanics that support that. It's a really narratively driven game!

tldr: try it out! it's fun! it's simple! and it's low-prep (apparently, just not for me, but i'm always just gonna do Too Much). you want a system with mechanics that revolve around telling a story? around your character's emotions and how they view themselves? this is the one for you! it's great and i've really been enjoying it!!

First of all, it's a fail-forward system, so the way your character levels (advanced) is by missing rolls. I like this a lot.

There are ten core playbooks that are essentially the classes you can choose from. They each come with their own powers, some intentionally more impressive than others, but it's not about the powers; it's about the core conflict that comes with each of the archetypes. Here are a few playbook examples:

The Delinquent: You've got these cool powers. But everyone keeps telling you how to use 'em. You know what they need? Someone to give them trouble, to make sure they don't always get their way. And hey! You're the perfect her to do it.

The Legacy: You're the latest in a storied heroic lineage, a family that shares a name and a cause. Now, everybody is watching and waiting to see if you've got what it takes to uphold that tradition. No Pressure, right?

The Nova: You're a font of power. Channel it, and you can remake the world into exactly what you want. Unleash it, and you can do miracles. It's wonderful... and terrifying. Lose control for even a second, and other people get hurt.

Your stats are your Labels. They're how you see yourself, and how others see you. The Labels are DANGER, FREAK, SAVIOR, SUPERIOR, and MUNDANE. Different stats help with different Moves/rolls, so for example a high DANGER stat helps you Directly Engage a Threat, while a low MUNDANE stat makes it harder for you to Comfort or Support Someone. Your Labels are constantly being shifted around throughout the game as your character's self-image changes (and that self-image changes a lot, basically the NPCs are just label shifting machines).

The mechanics are fun! Instead of traditional damage, the PCs have Conditions that they take on, and what conditions a character has affects their rolls. The Conditions are Afraid, Angry, Guilty, Hopeless, and Insecure. So if you're Angry you take -2 on your roll to do the move Comfort or Support Someone, if you're Afraid, it's -2 on Directly Engage a Threat, etc. There are multiple ways to clear your conditions but the most straightforward way is to take a particular action, so if you're Angry you have to hurt someone or break something important, and if you're Afraid you have to run from something difficult. These actions lead to some awesome and surprising story beats!

There's some other stuff as well, but that's the gist!

Coming from DND, it took me some time to adjust to something so wildly different in terms of the system, but I've been enjoying it! I haven't gotten to play it as a PC, but running it has been an interesting challenge. I think it's a pretty simple system to work with, and I at least hear it's low-prep (again not for me tho lol). It's mechanically looser than the only other ttrpg I've played (dnd) and requires a lot more decision making from the whole table, so I think in a way it asks more of its players in that way. And the GM role is constantly on in a specific way, because it's up to the GM to listen and call out when a Move is being triggered and a roll should be made based on what the characters are doing in any particular scene.

anyway I can always have more to say but MASKS has been fun. I recommend giving it a shot! And then you should tell me what you thought about it!!

[ruins-of-tragedy]

I just watched the bonus animatic RWBY ending. And it boggles my mind how much good their actions left behind. They just don't know it yet.

Nora may be taking on the weight of the world, but it is helping her come into her own. She is becoming the person she wants to be. Oscar and Ozpin are trying their best to fight the merger. Though the former isn't sure who he is, he hasn't allowed the confusion to take over his kind heart. Lie is moving forward with great empathy and extending it to all those around. Holding on and holding it for everyone. Winter can't shrug off the survivor guilt. Yet is being the best maiden she can be. Emerald is always there in the background. Lending a hand where they need it. Qrow has grown and is assisting Willow with her alcoholism. Misses them all terribly, but has hope now.

There's still the bad. Of course there is. Emotions are going haywire. People are suffering. The kids are working themselves to the ground. Tyrian and Mercury paid the jails a visit and broke some prisoners out. Winter has passive martyr ideation tendencies. Vale is no more. Oobleck isn't hyper now. Some folks defaced the memorial stone. The grief is debilitating.

Throughout it all though, they are still trying. Together. To build again and do more. Following into the footsteps of the people they lost. It just makes me wonder; how many folks in our own lives don't know they changed us for the better?

I have been seeing posts like these a lot. One of our life's greatest tragedies is, we will never truly know how much we are loved. What forever bothers me? It's a revocable slight.

Seldom do people return from a fall RWBY and Jaune experienced. Heck, Rubes herself almost didn't. All of this to say, tell the people you love how much you love them. It will be too late someday. And someday can be a lot closer than we realise.

We may only die once, but more often than not it's permanent. People have their own personal battles and demons to combat. We never know who might need the kind words we do think, but still keep locked inside our heads.

Forces like Salem are ever present in our world as well. Just waiting around the corner to strike. Lighting fires where they weren't before. Let's never forget what matters most.

We all have the potential to live anew with each passing second. For ourselves, and for others. That, I think, can be our saving grace. Cheers!

PS: Raven gets our heroes to their friends and Qrow. So, she must have been the figure from the cliffhanger the creators decided to cut. Does this mean Ruby already interrogated her over what happened with Summer?

[aroaceleovaldez]

we're all in agreement Jason just totally bit Krios, right? "unarmed, 1v1 combat" Jason bit that guy. chomp chomp.

[basedonconjecture]

I think it’s less that Lucanis dislikes planning or does not plan (I think he quite likes having A Plan, actually, if only to riff off of and even if that plan js extremely simple a la stabbing a cloud) so much as he enjoys looking for and/or leaving himself room for improvisation. He is a professional who has been doing practically the same job for years. If you believe he’s been taking contracts since he was at least 18, and that he’s 35ish by the time of Veilguard, that’s nearly two decades of working as an assassin, with an unknown chunk of that time dedicated to specializing in mage-killing. Long enough to know even the most well-thought out plan will go awry in his line of work simply for who his targets often are. Long enough to have gained the level of experience necessary to be able to improvise as successfully as he does. It’s the difference between a professional athlete/musician/artist and a hall of famer. It’s the thing that sets him apart from any other Crow and makes his particular set of skills needed by the Veilguard team.

We know that he’s good at his job, enough to have a reputation outside of the Crows for his work, and part of that is, yes, presenting as bit of a wild card to would-be enemies so that he doesn’t become predictable. Which… does actually require a level of forethought to keep from unintentionally falling into the same patterns. We see in WMJ how much pre-planning went in to getting inside the party—unless you believe he just has enough latent knowledge of Vyrantium’s layout to be able to use the aqueducts or that all elves just inherently trust him with their secret passages or that he dragged Illario along with him and gave him access to the dossier he wrote on the target for no reason. Also, too, if you believe said dossier does not contain anything he would have had to spend time gathering and compiling and only info he got… passively? I guess??

Most of his behavior in Veilguard reads to me as someone who is internalizing enough failure to doubt all of his abilities and also is reacting to the reality they know too little about what they’re up against—improvisation is really all he’s able to do. Setting aside the fact that he’s not the boss of this job and consistently offers his thoughts during team meetings, the whole team is flying by the seat of their pants and relying on their skills to carry them through. This is reinforced over and over again as the plot progresses. More to the point, it’s consistently highlighting how high the stakes actually are and how skilled the team is that they’re able to keep adapting.

Idk it’s just more interesting to me that Lucanis seems to be someone who thinks in terms of variables (to say nothing of what the unpredictability of his childhood likely endowed him with irt how he approaches the world) and leans into his ability to pivot and adapt (which is not a skill many people have or understand irl tbh and it is a skill), not because of an allergy to planning or inability to stick to a plan, but because he does plan enough and is so confident in what he does that he intentionally leaves himself room to go off script when it becomes necessary— and for him it is a when, not an if. Something something his rebellions against Caterina. It makes his self-doubt in VG hit harder, tbh. The one thing he’s been raised to be good at and he’s failing at it. It’s gifted child burn out in extreme mode while he’s working under conditions he legitimately cannot plan for in the way he would any other contract. Which the team keeps having to remind him of.

It is additionally more interesting to me that Lucanis is someone who has earned his ability to improvise over some… natural ability at winging it and keep coming out alive bc idk assassin prodigy.

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 192

a break from artfight for some good news! i have finally scheduled a surgical consult to have my enemy (read: uterus) removed. this is a bit of a scarier prospect than my breast reduction was, but i think it will be an equally impactful quality of life improvement when all is said and done!!

anyway those of yall who have been here since the beginning may remember me posting through that whole process so i figure why stop now.

[designernishiki]

it’s kinda funny to me how that dumb scene in kiwami 1 of majima getting shot and left for dead in the harbor was basically just added as a half-assed way to explain majima not being around for a bit of the plot, but they accidentally(?) just made it seem like start of a chain reaction where majima ended up feeling slighted and heartbroken after being abandoned like that and then lashed out about it via smashing a big truck into the building kiryu was in. and yeah that isn’t inherently a romantic thing as-is but then they go and add the part where majima grabs a hostess and performatively hits on her as in-kiryu’s-face as possible, she says she’s already in love with someone, and majima lets her go immediately, no questions asked, making a big fucking point of it just to say see THAT kiryu? I appreciate when people are HONEST about their FEELINGS. people who won’t just BACKSTAB someone who CARES about them to save themselves. is that so crazy kiryu?? huh??? anyway make it up to me get down here and fight me right fucking now

[tgirlschlatt]

fitting merchant schlatt into existing canon is rly funny and also easy when you just take into account that in the haunted mansion stream he couldn't even be straightforward about wanting to have a party. largely with ppl who didnt even know him back then and he still has to perform some layer of something before admitting he's lonely and wants company. so it's like. ok. his ghoul is here and so are all his past connections. he is NOT. taking that damn hood off but he DOES still want to see them a little. so their asses are getting the weirdest slivers of contact in the world before he's going back to his cave entirely pleased w himself. for nothing. like it's nothing. fundy refuses to ask quackity about a specter and tubbo is like yeeeurrrppp. guess im haunted. and doesnt even care to think about it further

[phightingconfessions]

confession ID DIE FOR HIM I DIDNT CARE ABOUT HIM BEFORE BUT NOW I DO I LOVE HIM

HES NOT BALD 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 AND HIS HELMET HAS HORN HOLES 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 UNLIKE BANHAM AND HIS HORNS THAT PHASE THROUGH HIS BLINDFOLD

[memezs-corner-of-the-osc]

Drawing a oc daily until I get through them all 69:

[noahtally-famous]

can't believe this hasn't been said before but unhinged!scarlett and unhinged!dave would be an iconic duo. shame pi didn't get a second season bc these two in an alliance would basically succeed in destroying the island, they'd wipe everyone out

the fact that they're both versions of the nerd character so they're already smart in their own ways, the fact that they have absolutely zero fucks to give anymore, their individual darker sides have come out (whether it was hidden consciously (scarlett) or unconsciously (dave)), and they've each attempted to kill/seriously injure one or more contestant(s) (and mess up the island in the process) just to reach their end goal. imagine if these two found a common goal somehow, literally nothing could get in their paths (except possibly each other)

[deathbydarkelves]

I may have mentioned kaldorei berserking in my AU in passing before, but here's a more in-depth post about it.

Very few kaldorei (like <5% of the population), depending on genetic chance and circumstance, can enter a berserking state like their troll cousins. It manifests differently in everyone. Some are lucid in this state, some aren't; some can enter it by choice, some can't. For some it lasts only minutes or until the perceived threat has disappeared. And an unlucky few will enter it only once in their lives, leaving it when the overwhelming stress on their body takes them to the grave.

In 'proper' kaldorei society, it's taboo in all its forms. Without a troll's regeneration, it's only a liability. You are to keep your head in combat, or you will get yourself or your allies killed.

Due to its similarity to the madness experienced by the first worgen, many believe it to be a sign of Goldrinn's displeasure. Him cursing the children of those who have offended him. Expecting parents may shower his shrines with gifts as a preventative measure, especially if one of their relatives has showed signs in the past. This belief is the origin of the condition's Darnassian name: Thor'drinn, or "wolf's fury." Those with thor'drinn are called "wolf-touched", though that's also used as a derogatory by more unpleasant types for anyone prone to violent outbursts, impulsivity, or just anyone they want to insult. "Are you wolf-touched, boy?", that sort of thing.

Usually this condition is noticed in childhood -- though plenty go years without knowing, only learning this about themselves the first time their lives are truly at risk -- and every self-respecting parent is expected to take extensive measures to keep their child from ever entering that state again. This, of course, means no one with thor'drinn who was raised this way knows how to manage it when it does happen again.

Tarinne is one of those people. She's only done it a few times in her life, and never intentionally. The most recent time was when she escaped the Alliance encampment in which she'd been imprisoned for ~2 weeks during the Third War.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

god, the post gig blues are hitting hard tonight 😩 time for a hot water bottle and yet another reread of @gasdancer’s joie de vivre i think

[bat-the-misfit]

sei não

[gojonanami]

me: this weekend I’m gonna write prof geto (5) and my nanami fic

my brain: yakuza fiance

me: but—

my brain: *writes over 1K of yakuza fiance*