destronlok

[destronlok]

"Rulings over rules" does not absolve you of the sin of designing a game with too many rules to remember.

[destronlok]

In the middle of a small town, an asteroid fell to earth.

It struck the earth so hard it left a crater with a 25 meter radius, destroying a blocks worth of buildings, and leaving multiple people injured (though thankfully none killed). However, the object itself was barely the size of a fist! Because it was so small, it didn't register as dangerous to any nearby satellites while it was in orbit, nor to the people operating astronomical instruments on the ground. All that was initially known to the team of geologists and astronomists who came to the site of the crash was that the object had to be incredibly dense, denser than possibly any other fallen object of its size, and that all life on earth had to be so lucky that it was so small.

For a full 25 hours, teams of people worked tirelessly to determine the objects properties - when it wasn't determined as radioactive, or housing extraterrestrial bacteria, or otherwise detrimental to life, it was broken open to reveal... Beef. Petrified ground beef, with traces of oregano, parsley, garlic, breadcrumbs, egg, salt, pepper, and a dash of paprika. Each person at the site was completely baffled - how did such an object come to meet these circumstances? Could an alien civilisation somehow have the same access to all of these very earth-bound ingredients? Was it possible that the sum of the objects parts were being created deep in the heart of the universe? And how could it have created such a gigantic amount of collateral damage, with such little mass?

The truth was revealed when asking around the town. In a little red house a few streets over, a woman told one of the confused geologists about a story from her childhood. 25 years ago, during an intense windstorm, a little girl was engaged in an intense food fight with her brothers over a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. At the climax of the fight, the girl prepared to launch a meatball off of her fork, intending to hit her eldest brother in the face, but she instead became distracted by her mother, calling the children to knock it off before someone got hurt. In that moment, the meatball was shot through an accidentally open window, and completely blown away. When she went to try and find it the next day to clean up the mess, it was nowhere to be found. She concluded that the high winds must've carried it into the upper atmosphere through a series of incredibly coincidental updrafts and ricochets off larger objects. And there above the stratosphere it sat, waiting, catching cosmic detritus, watching over the earth like a hibernating angel, until the earth's gravity finally pulled it back home. Its protective shell of space junk must've been broken and burnt away as it plummeted faster and faster into the earth; and as it grew smaller and tighter, and it's velocity increased, it's mass must've also increased dramatically, causing such a huge impact.

"So it's not an asteroid at all?" The geologist, washed with clarity and relief.

"Nope," said the woman, "I guess it's a little meatier."

[destronlok]

btw if you’re fat and your partner doesn’t love you wholeheartedly, if they’re attracted to you “despite” your body, if they avoid touching you, if they look away from certain parts of you, you’re allowed to break up with that person. look at me. you can do better. you are not unloveable and you don’t have to settle i fucking promise.

[destronlok]

Most annoying thing to remember is that you're litterally just a homosapien. You're just a very smart animal. If you feel like shit, imagine you're an exotic pet for some alien species and do what they'd do to keep you healthy. You gotta be well cared for. Animal abuse is a crime for a reason

"My pet human, Greg, hasn't left his bed in a long time. He's just scrolling his phone all day" Greg needs enrichment. Add enrichment in his enclosure and take him on walks

"Greg has been super lethargic and sad recently for seemingly no reason" Greg need vitamins, take him outside for some vitamin D and fresh air. Perhaps a picnic

"Greg won't sleep even though he's been super lethargic" Greg needs a schedule, especially for the lights in his enclosure.

"Greg has been super distant recently and keeps crying to sad music" Humans are pack animals, he needs to hug another human and hang out. Perhaps pack bond with a rock together

"Greg has been flailing around and panicking, his breathing is way faster than it should be" Greg is overwhelmed. Take Greg out of the situation and give him time to calm down. Perhaps somewhere cozy with tea and a movie

"Greg won't do what he needs to do" Train him. Humans do great with positive reinforcement, give him little treats when he's doing good

"Greg he's been super anxious and tired, he can't seem to enjoy his days" Humans needs to move around. Give Greg something to exercise with. Things like stretching, weight lifting, walking, or even dancing will help

"Even though I've taken really good care of Greg, he still has been having issues" Greg is ill, take him to the doctor. You might need a specialist (therapist, optometrist, oncologist, etc)

I know it feels patronizing, and I know it feels embarrassing or that you're "just giving into the clichés", but you are literally just a creature. You need to sleep/eat on time, you need enrichment, and you need to take care of your social needs. Humans are complicated animals, but they are also beautiful and all deserve proper care. This obviously isn't a perfect analogy, nothing is, but if you saw your friend taking care of their pet the way you take care of yourself, would you be concerned?

[destronlok]

Here is my current set of tables for solo roleplaying.

You are free to use it for any genre and to include it in your games without giving me credit.

This is also the set I recommend to use with my games instead of what I written there!

You are welcome!

[destronlok]

It's honestly such a shame that we've made such a huge thing out of swimming and swimsuits and looking good in swimsuits and fat people not looking good in swimsuits. Swimming is actually the perfect exercise for fat people because it puts zero pressure on the joints, which is a much bigger concern for us than it is for skinny people, and lets you exercise basically every muscle group without straining too much and risking injury. Yet somehow this is one of the least accessible exercises to fat people due to nothing more than a culture of body shaming. The work to unlearn all the shame to be comfortable in a bathing suit in front of strangers is huge even for conventionally attractive people, but I could probably count on one hand the number of fat people I've met who were confident enough to get in a bathing suit and go swimming in public.

And what is the exercise that somehow everyone thinks they should do instead? Jogging. It's more accessible, sure, it's easy and costs nothing to go outside and run. But I need you to understand telling a fat person to go running is basically telling them to go destroy their knees. Not to mention it's probably one of the most physically uncomfortable exercises to do when you have a body that jiggles even with compression garments.

Imagine a world where everyone had the ability and equal access to whatever exercise fit them best and helped them be happy and healthiest. Imagine a world where fat people go swimming.

[destronlok]

[destronlok]

What tumblr fails to grasp is that I’m not interested in community groups for the things I like because fans of my favorite things are often very wrong about them

[destronlok]

[destronlok]

Umber Hulks, ADD77 from Citadel Miniatures' official AD&D line, 1985, sculpted by Nick Bibby, painted by Richard Scott

Ral Partha AD&D 11-404 Umber Hulk, 1988, sculpted by Dennis Mize (unknown painter from long-deleted online auction)

"Umberbulk," Grenadier Models Fantasy Lords #135, sculpted by John Dennett ca 1984, painted example from tabletop-fantasy.com

[destronlok]

Nice Shirt - Gator Days

[destronlok]

decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

[destronlok]

decentralize and clean up your life!!!

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

last updated: march 18th 2025

[destronlok]

The Ruins of Ancient Corinth, Greece

[destronlok]

So apparently they took orcs out of the new Monster Manual, and I get their reasoning. They’re in the Player’s Handbook now, and none of the others from that book, like elves or dragonborn, are in the Monster Manual.

But I think this was a mistake. There was actually another solution, something that literally every other edition of the game did. You want to be a return to the old ways, don’t you, 5e? I know you do you nasty little freak. So here’s what you should have done:

Put the other ones back in the Monster Manual.

[destronlok]

Tableskills: The Proactive DM Voice

One of the most fundamental lesions I learned over the course of becoming a great DM was that it was my job to push the story forward, not my players.  When I was younger I was terrified of taking any agency upon myself for fear of railroading my group, thinking that my job was merely to read out prepared text and design a playground for my players to explore as they saw fit. Needless to say, no matter how much planning i did or how big I made my campaign world it never made my party any more energized, instead bleeding out their attention until they became listless and the group/campaign dissolved. 

Once I made the change to DM driven play, things changed almost instantly. My once distracted players became excited collaborators, looking to steer the runaway engine that was my narrative. Where as before they were directionless, having infinite shallow options, they were now focused on the road ahead of them, trying to dodge upcoming hurdles while reacting to the unexpected ones.  

This change took some getting used to, but became most evident in how I narrated my games, cutting down on extraneous calls for rolls,  chaining together scenes until a big finale at the end of the session, using my infinite power as narrator to push receptive players into interesting situations that progressed both the story and their character arc. Over time I began to think of these changes and a bunch of others as “proactive DM voice”, a skill that I think players and dungeonmaters alike could benefit from learning. 

Lets look at an example, lifted from one of the very first modules I ever ran: The party stands at the edge of a tremendously large fissure, and has to lower themselves a hundred or more feet down to a ledge where they’ll be ambushed by direrats.  You could run this in a rules literal sense: reading out the prepared text then waiting for the party to come up with a solution, likely dallying as they ask questions. Have them make athletics checks to descend the ropes, risk the possibility of one of them dying before the adventure ever begins. Then you do it two or three more times as they leapfrog down the side of the canyon, wasting what was perhaps half an hour of session time before you even got to any of the fun stuff. 

Or you could get proactive about it: 

Securing your ropes as best you can, you belay over the side of the fissure, descending down in a measured, careful pace aiming for the most stable looking outcrop of rock, still a hundred or so feet above the canyon’s base. A few minutes and about two thirds of the way through your decent [least athletic PC] looks like they’re struggling, their hands are coated in sweat and they can feel unfamiliar muscles burning in complaint.  I need [PC] to make me an athletics check

Rather than waiting for the players and the dice to make a story for me, I took the extra step in my prep time to think of something interesting that might happen while they’re venturing through this section of the map. I specifically designed things so that happenstance wouldn’t kill off one of my heroes, but they might end up damaged and in a perilous situation should the fates not favour them that particular moment. 

Likewise, this planning has let me prepare a number of different angles that I could use to prepare the next scene: with an injured player ambushed by multiple rats while their allies dangle a few rounds away or with the party saving their friend and descending together, too much of a threat for the rats to tackle all at once, leading them to stalk the party through future encounters.

This is already getting a bit long, but for those interested in more ways you can adopt a proactive DM voice, I’ll give more examples under the cut

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