dresdenshat
dresdenshat
I don't even really exist
108 posts
Really I just browse
Last active 3 hours ago
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dresdenshat · 2 days ago
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dresdenshat · 3 days ago
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In case you think the writers on strike aren't making good use of their time, think no more!
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Only click the read more if you're fully prepared. I'm taking no responsibility past this point.
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Help a guy out. He's stuck. Who's got 18 brothers who all wanna cook. (source)
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dresdenshat · 14 days ago
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Something I've really come to appreciate about Stargate (SG-1 specifically in this case but it applies at least to Atlantis too) is that, along with the breathing room 20+ episode seasons allows them, there's a certain lived-in-ness to the world that modern shows just don't have.
My favorite example to give for this is that characters in the show often just... pronounce certain words differently. Uniquely in-universe words, specifically, stuff that would be so tightly controlled in modern series because they're party of the ever-ubiquitous BRAND.
Stuff like Goa'uld, Tok'ra, and Jaffa all have two or three pronunciations that different characters will tend to prefer and it just goes wholly unremarked on. And this isn't a characterization thing - like the people pronouncing Goa'uld "goold" aren't supposed to be the dummies or uneducated - it's just people saying a funny space word different ways sometimes.
And I love that. I have no idea how intentional it is but it makes things feel so much more real that there are these little wrinkles here and there and the job just carries on regardless. It's less clean and perfectly crafted to be Product. Just a wonderful, stupid little detail I appreciate every time Teal'c says "Toh-KRAH" while everyone around him is saying "Toke-reh."
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dresdenshat · 16 days ago
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yknow i dontr fully agree with the anim post thats like a game without modules is like a console without games... mostly beause i think phrasing it specifically in terms of 'advernture modules' i think is a very narrow and limiting horizon... but i do actually kind of vibe with the core idea being expressed there, like... i Do think that your game should be playable out of the box and not require someone to go and do hours of homework just to like have a setting and plot hooks to play with
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dresdenshat · 17 days ago
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The Fact that Baldur's Gate 3 is a good game means 5e is fucking boring
Incendiary, I know, but god if it isn't true.
And yeah, this is way, way too late to matter, but fuck it, let's kick some hornet's nests. BG3 is an incredibly well made, exceptionally fine video game. It's fine. Good, even, if I pretend it's its own product instead of representative of TTRPGs in the video game space. And honestly, it represents 5e really, really well.
Which means 5e FUCKED. UP.
4e was all but designed from the ground up to be easy to turn into a video game. But no one managed, because at the end of the day, 4e was still trying to do enough that once locked into the few possible options a video game can provide to players it would feel extremely limiting in comparison.
But BG3 fucking nails 5e because 5e just doesn't have enough for players to grab on to. This is me ignoring bounded accuracy (for all that has mattered.) This is me ignoring the general lack of ability to just... push one number sky high. 5e fundamentally lacks the ability to be interesting because it doesn't provide anything fucking weird for players to do.
That's why it's so easy to video game-ify 5e. Because at the end of the day, nothing challenges an extremely basic list of possibilities.
But let's talk 3.5 for a hot second.
Neverwinter Nights 2 was a really solid game but never really lived up to 3.5 because, quite frankly, 3.5 offered possibilities that weren't easy to emulate digitally. 5e doesn't challenge the programmers at all. Everything is some combination of range, targets, damage, and type. 3.5 didn't have that kind of limitation.
Which means that basically any basic 5e build is probally just fine... but 3.5e had builds that could be really good at ONE PARTICULAR THING and kind of suck at other things but still able to cast spells or whatever...
Basically 5e says everyone is basically competent at anything that matters. 3.5 says that hey, you'll need to build for what you want to be halfway good at.
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dresdenshat · 17 days ago
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The average 5e playe sees themselves as a temporarily embarrassed Critical Role
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dresdenshat · 19 days ago
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Because of all the times he's depicted as a kitchen cleaning sponge in the "real world" segments I guess? The suds seems like an affliction that mostly applies to non sea sponges
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just one of those days ∠( ᐛ 」∠)_
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dresdenshat · 19 days ago
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dresdenshat · 19 days ago
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For some reason armor has hit points and breaks all the time, but only armor - no other equipment has degradation mechanics
You get a title, keep, and followers at a certain level just like in AD&D but there's still no actual rules around all of that
A rough approximation of DnD's stats with some renamed but never Strength. Strength is always Strength even when your other stats are Agility, Toughness, Intellect, Wiseliness, and Presence
Oh and Comeliness. Comeliness is in but still has no rules around it
An important element of every fantasy heartbreaker is:
You can clearly read between the lines that the author had this feeling of "Why did the creators of D&D do it like this? Were they stupid?"
The way the fix is implemented is not necessarily even bad
It could even be argued to actually be a fix to a perceived flaw of D&D
But due to the author's narrow view of the TTRPG medium it's a "fix" to an "issue" that has been addressed much more elegantly in a number of RPGs elsewhere
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dresdenshat · 20 days ago
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OSR at least has the courtesy to keep weird abstract consequences out of basic things you'll do all the time. When a dragon breathes fire at you, you take some damage and maybe stuff catches fire. Admiral Zhao throwing a fireball at you might make you mark Afraid and move one step away from Duty.
most 'no-prep'/'low prep' systems just have bad GM sections that elide 'well you'll figure it out just like I did.'
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dresdenshat · 20 days ago
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Some of these spinoffs make themselves so much harder to run by their insistence on bending over backwards to not include a Harm track when combat is 100% going to be a huge component of the stories told.
Masks *mostly* makes it work but still ends up making the GM generate huge amounts of complications on the fly and factor in strangely abstract consequences like oh you think of yourself as slightly more Mundane or the public considers you marginally more dangerous now.
But Avatar PBTA really just needed Harm.
most 'no-prep'/'low prep' systems just have bad GM sections that elide 'well you'll figure it out just like I did.'
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dresdenshat · 21 days ago
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There is truly no activity invented by humans which is viewed through the same lens as some people see Dungeons & Dragons through. And I do basically mean this as an insult.
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dresdenshat · 25 days ago
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dresdenshat · 27 days ago
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Hell, beyond safety tools it's why so many DMs seem horrified at the idea of resolving an in game issue with out of game communication. Just talking to a problem player about the issue is wrong and bad to a level that goes beyond social awkwardness - it has to be resolved in game because that player has to be allowed to play, and play what and how they want. It's your job to punish them into not wanting to do that anymore
So many 5e players have such a hatred for anyone playing another game, that only really makes sense when you realize that 5e culture instills the expectation that you should be able to show up to any table with a character you made without input from the GM and be 100% included.
It's such a toxic mindset to just expect that you have a right to be included in the game of anyone you meet without putting any work in yourself, it's literally just entitlement to other people's art and fun. And it's so common in 5e centric spaces. It's why there's also a weird taboo in 5e circles about banning character options like species or classes, because they don't want to go through the legwork of having to get input from the party before making a character.
It's why they complain about being "forced to learn new systems" because they feel entitled to every table, so the idea that a table isn't playing the exact game they want makes them feel like something is being taken from them. It's not that they can't learn a new system, it's that to a lot of them they feel that they have a right to have your table be a place where they can play 5e. It's the exact same mindset that leads to certain cishet men hating afab people who get top surgery or go on T and/or who don't have sex with men, it's that they feel something they're entitled to from someone isn't available to them.
That's one of the main reasons why 5e fans will be so weird if you mention you play another game to them. It's this "No don't switch to pathfinder you're so pretty" mindset. They've been socialized to feel that they have a right for you and your group to play 5e with them.
Fuck Hasbro for creating such a toxic culture around their dragon game I guess.
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dresdenshat · 27 days ago
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So many 5e players have such a hatred for anyone playing another game, that only really makes sense when you realize that 5e culture instills the expectation that you should be able to show up to any table with a character you made without input from the GM and be 100% included.
It's such a toxic mindset to just expect that you have a right to be included in the game of anyone you meet without putting any work in yourself, it's literally just entitlement to other people's art and fun. And it's so common in 5e centric spaces. It's why there's also a weird taboo in 5e circles about banning character options like species or classes, because they don't want to go through the legwork of having to get input from the party before making a character.
It's why they complain about being "forced to learn new systems" because they feel entitled to every table, so the idea that a table isn't playing the exact game they want makes them feel like something is being taken from them. It's not that they can't learn a new system, it's that to a lot of them they feel that they have a right to have your table be a place where they can play 5e. It's the exact same mindset that leads to certain cishet men hating afab people who get top surgery or go on T and/or who don't have sex with men, it's that they feel something they're entitled to from someone isn't available to them.
That's one of the main reasons why 5e fans will be so weird if you mention you play another game to them. It's this "No don't switch to pathfinder you're so pretty" mindset. They've been socialized to feel that they have a right for you and your group to play 5e with them.
Fuck Hasbro for creating such a toxic culture around their dragon game I guess.
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dresdenshat · 1 month ago
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Voltron or Speed Racer. Can't say for sure which was first first.
My first relatively modern anime (that I actually understood to be anime as something distinct from other cartoons) would be Yu Yu Hakusho.
That post about death note being "everyone's first anime" (untrue statement) made me curious and now I want to gather data for science
Can you reblog this and tell me where are you from and what was your starter anime?
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dresdenshat · 1 month ago
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The issue with this plan is that there are no rules for how to *stop* drowning so while RAW you did bring them back to zero, there's also now no way to save them RAW.
I don't know what the rationale behind nerfing the darkness spell between 3e and 3.5 was (darkness had always created a bubble of impenetrable darkness: this was ruled to be too effective for a second level spell so it was ruled that darkness would only create a zone of shadowy illuminatoon) but it also resulted in one of the funniest emergent interactions of the rules: in absolute darkness (like that found inside, say, a dungeon) one could actually give oneself the ability to see at least to some extent by casting the darkness spell. Because the darkness spell didn't reduce the amount of light in an area. It simply changed the amount of light in an area from the previous amount to "shadowy illumination."
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