#BUT LIKE thats not what D20 is trying to be

[booksandwillowtrees]

I don't see why people are upset at the IH/TBK for how the ratgrinders ended up. They TRIED to redeem and connect with the RG it never panned out. They are playing a game and telling a story. If a path doesn't pan out they have to move on.

If TBK try and fail to connect with the RG and then the world is going to end in 1 hour, they might kill them (not always permanent btw!) in pursuit of stopping the end of the world. And you know what. They might be assholes about it, because the RG are also assholes about it. Like IDK. I like the RG. But also like if you're upset when the performers are excited about having defeated their enemies in a battle-game-based show, like I feel like you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

[marinecanary]

I love the fact that Fig had a deep ancestral mistrust of Porter through Bakur (Athenriel)

[dex1o]

I think about this quote a reasonable amount

[thebubblemaster]

Sometimes I go to reblog a post with a counter opinion but then I realize that it is not worth it and people will continue to interpret media the way they want until the end of time and i should just make my own post.

Anyways I do think it's important to remember that they film these seasons in quick succession. The PCs have not had 5 months to grow attached to the NPCs like the audience has. It's been like 2 weeks for them. Also yall are acting like this was the finale. The season isn't over until it's over, we still don't know what will happen. They could lose for all we know, Brennan has been prepared for that in past seasons.

[pagesofkenna]

i wanted to make a post about a thing but the more i think about it the more i want to say and it's just going to end up being a big ramble essay, so instead i'll just give the thesis statement, thusly:

as the #1 Ratgrinders Apologist (self-appointed), of course they're the final boss fight to the death. i expected nothing less and the people trying to make discourse about it are ignoring the entire context of this being a Dungeons and Dragons game

[atticcreationz]

We've reached the point in the season where I don't want to watch the Adventuring Party episodes until AFTER the ending, but good lord the physical restraint I will have to exhibit if any of the last few APs have even a whiff zoom energy...

[hamable]

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh mY GOD OH MY GOD OHMY GODOHMYGOD

[orcgoth]

I don't know what ttrpg enthusiast needs to hear this but you will not encourage people to try out new systems by yelling about how bad dnd is to people who so far only play and enjoy dnd

[ghostampede]

[before you scroll please note i am in desperate need of opinions so at the very least vote randomly if you do]

okay i don’t know how big the dimension 20 fandom is on here but i just gained access to a dropout tv account (thanks gully) and am trying to get through every dimension 20 show there is. i already watched season 1 of Fantasy High + Escape From The Bloodkeep and have just finished a Court of Fey and Flowers and have no idea if i should just start season 2 of fantasy high immediately or try out another different series because as much as i love it i have spent so much time with just fantasy high over the years.

like with all good decisions im making others choose for me, please vote on whichever one you think i should try next and if you don’t know what they are but have found this poll just pick whichever name you want. you make the rules i just play by them!! tyyy

the two fantasy high spinoffs are being left until after fantasy high. also ravening war is obviously gonna happen after acoc so thats no on there either. literally just want to know where the fuck to go from here cause everything looks amazing.

also if im missing one somehow. whoops. just vote with whats here idk

UPDATE: oh my god holy shit tysm everyone?? was NOT expecting ti get over 500 votes but very happy to not only get input on this but also know that the d20 fandom is alive and thriving!!

im probably going to watch the unsleeping city, fantasy high s2, and then the other intrepid hero campaigns (and i will be watch m&m + mentopolis during a strastruck odyssey), but now im more excited to watch all of them just by hearing everyone’s opinions (except shriek week apparently) (a acoc but only because it seems amazing but i WILL cry)

ty again for the input, appreciate it sm <3

[betteramelon]

Here are some ADHD tips that genuinely changed my life

-You are allowed to have more than one trashcan in a room. Put trashcans where ever trash accumulates. Lot of trash on top of your desk? Put one next to your desk. A lot of trash on your night stand? put one next to that as well. Hell get 3 or 4 trashcans, you make the rules

-If your trashcan has a lid and thats stopping you from using it as often, just take it off. 

-When you are feeling under stimulated, like you want to do something but you dont know what and its making you want to explode, the best thing you can do is exercise. Not even a lot, just a little bit. Under stimulation happens when there is a lack of  dopamine in your brain. And even doing a very quick amount of exercise releases some dopamine. Normally i just do like 15 sit ups and i instantly feel so much better. 

-If you take medication, use one of those daily pill things. I forget if ive taken my medicine like,,, 15 seconds after i do it. So those help a lot

-i sometimes have a hard time brushing my teeth. One thing that helped was putting a dice (a d20 for me) in my bathroom. Every time i brush my teeth i roll the dice. If i get the highest number on the dice, i get to reward myself. Which for me means i buy something frivolous. 

Another thing that helps with this is if you live with someone else, try to brush your teeth around the same time they do. If someone else is reminding me to do it its easier.

I may add more in the future. Feel free to add on yourself :] 

[captainofthetidesbreath]

okay so like. i saw your d20 discussion and i feel like it’d help to have some context on how it works in production! when a company professionally puts a trigger warning, they can’t make those with ‘middle ground’ as the base. think of it like speed limits. they have to start at 0-10 mph. just because 40 mph is slow compared to someone who regularly takes highways, doesn’t mean they don’t put up the speed limit. 40 mph is still enough that if the car hits something or someone, (i.e. sets off a trigger) it can do serious damage. so yeah, an semi-realistic opened up animal carcass to the average person has to be marked as HEAVY body horror. even made of foam? thats still a graphic image of a corpse. they’re not thinking about someone who is more casually used to seeing that level of gore, they have to think of the levels for the person it would actually trigger.

I am a production professional, and someone who has talked an extensive amount about warnings and content warnings, both the benefits and the failings in many people's approaches to standardizing them. I already know this.

As I said, I am complaining as a Me Issue and I am not actually criticizing or saying there is anything wrong with the processes, I am saying—as I stated twice in the post—that this is a Me Thing.

On top of that, most of my post and discussion isn't specifically about the official content warnings in the description, but rather the marketing and commentary and coy warnings (in the standard sense of the word) on Twitter building hype by constantly posting comments and videos of reactions of the cast (Erika running out of the room, discussions of how Much it is, adding in the ick reactions in the episode preview). These are not the "content warnings" — which are not the focus of my post or discussion — but are part of the marketing and tone-setting. This is about me complaining about myself as someone who ended up with certain expectations from all that due to that level of focus and was disappointed. Which is a me issue, and I'm just whining about it.

It's not about whether they're overtagging in the official warnings (bc I don't think they were incorrect at all to warn for the gore), it's more about the focus the concept got in other materials that aren't the warnings and the ways that they talked about it and my general musings about what expectations that ultimately sets in terms of genre and content that it isn't actually necessarily matching up on—for me—and how this has been disappointing it's happened in the past too.

But, while on the topic, I do think trailer and the general setting of the tone going INTO the series failed to prepare the audience in terms of expected content, which is also important and should work in tandem with content warnings to help set expectations. I've seen a lot of people say that they expected more Redwall—and that does not prepare anyone for semi-realistic animal guts on the table in episode two, not even WITH the proper content warnings.

I mean, I have a whole thing about precision in content warnings and levels and the ways that the way some content warnings either official and fannish fail even when they are beneficials in other avenues, but that's technically a tangent since my post wasn't actually about content warnings but about general marketing and ambient production commentary.

I also know you're trying to be helpful, but I find it EXTREMELY condescending that you felt the need to explain how warnings work by analogizing it into speed limits instead of just saying that they're tagging for the most sensitive hypothetical person.

[sigmabateman]

thank you so much @velvetcrowbar444 for tagging me to talk about 5 things im obsessed with at the moment!!

this got longer than i anticipated so im putting it under the cut, but for simplicity's sake i'll tag people up here: @nights-decay, @boycentriccplot, @flaming-tsunami, @sourgelatin no pressure though of course!

persona 5... ok i have to be honest ive been really reluctant to talk about this on here and its why ive been quiet the past at least week or so. no idea why. i guess cause its so different from the stuff i usually post about that i feel like, embarrassed? but i started playing persona 5 royal around may and really liked it but i didnt have the time to properly get into it until now and it has completely taken over my life entirely without me even realising. to be honest i could obsess over like a rock on the ground if i saw it at the right time in my life but hands down persona 5 is one the best if not the best game ive ever played in my life. the story is engaging, the characters are distinctive and realistic and i really really care about all of them, the gameplay is so much fun and combat is buttery fucking smooth like nothing ive ever played before, the music is top tier and what got me interested in the game in the first place, and the ART DIRECTION. it speaks for itself to be honest ESPECIALLY compared to the older games. i was shocked starting persona 4 because of how different it is to persona 5 like, persona 5 has SUCH a distinct visual identity as well as tone, themes, imagery etc it is all just so stunning and perfect and i want to live in it. but i think about it so often like literally 24/7 that i may as well be. i <3 persona 5 and i <3 YUSUKE KITAGAWA. he's definitely my favourite character and he came out of NOWHERE but hes actually everything in the world to me. one of the characters ever.

persona 4 is it a copout to say that? i did try and condense both games into one bullet point but 1. they're such a mainstay in my life right now i was struggling to think of more points and 2. it kind of lost its precision and didn't effectively convey just how personapilled i am right now. i originally wasn't gonna play 4, all i knew is that it was more difficult and less good so i thought i should stay away. but if you go anywhere persona-related on the internet (which i would warn against, the fandom is a fucking cesspit the likes of which i havent seen in a long time as an obscure-shit-enjoyer) you'll quickly run into adachi. and as a lover of men with high-pitched voices and sexypedia entries... i couldn't stay away. before even starting the game i had made a d6 and d20 with different adachis on each face so really it was just a matter of time. and you know what... it's not that bad. the graphics were a SHOCKING step down but i find the low(er) poly style really charming. the adachi model is too cute T_T whenever i see it in the game world i just wanna sit with it for ages. i wonder if i could get it like 3d printed so i could keep him on my desk with me at all times... its bad for me ! the combat is fucking clunky espeically compared to 5 and i kind of hate it but that just makes it more rewarding when i can finally stop LOL. some of the characters (especially the main few (yosuke, chie, yukiko)) took a bit to grow on me but its kind of sweet.. its like authentic.. our relationship is growing as i get to know them better... but dojima and nanako ive loved since i first set eyes on them. too cute. it makes me feel so fatherless. its like.. a lot more magnetic than i expected it to be. i love it even with all its flaws. i saw a meme about it being like twin peaks and thats kind of so real. and you know i love a murder mystery... so yeah tldr i like persona now. but its hard to talk about it on here because it is such a big fandom but not like an active one like spiderman or like good omens or whatever slightly more normal people are watching so its kind of intimidating. maybe ill get over myself, maybe ill go silent for 3 months until i get into something new. we'll see i guess LOL

my gender identity TUMBLR MOMENT I KNOW but i dont know.. ive had a lot of time to myself recently and its kind of brought things to the surface that i just didnt have time or space to think about before. turns out there was a LOT OF STUFF i was repressing without even knowing. like that tweet 'im probably nonbinary but i have a job so idrc about that rn'. i posted on instagram "gender around cis people: boy, gender around trans people: girlboy, gender by myself: computer program" and that kind of sums it up i think. can i coin like.. complicatedgender. where your answer to the question "whats your gender?" is "it's complicated..." cause thats me. its just COMPLICATED okay!!!! but my pronouns havent changed or anything so its chilllllll

going to bed at a reasonable time. i phrased that like a joke answer but its true. i downloaded pokemon sleep and now i go to bed at 11:30pm cause at 11 i get a notification saying my pokemon are sleepy and shit i gotta take care of my pokemon!! i dont even know if its doing me any good to be honest like i dont feel much better when i wake up but making myself get into bed and shut my eyes means more thinking time and to be honest my favourite activity is thinking. even if as silly as it sounds i never give myself time to do it. its playing a weirdly big role in my life rn so yeah id say im obsessed with it!!!

this asmr video. im secretly always posting about asmr so really i could just say that, but like, ASMR | The Mortician (No Talking – You're Dead) specifically is such a mainstay i can feel its influence seeping into my life like an infection. this video would actually show up in my recommended for YEARS but i never watched it. gave me a major ick for some reason. but then i got into this guys stuff and saw it again and thought id give it a go and now its like an extra limb. fuck my 3rd bullet point, this is my gender identity. i could not articulate in words what it is about the mortician that i love so much, but i really really do. i am certifiably obsessed. cant believe i made it through this whole thing without mentioning alex. but there you are. yay this was fun :D

[thydungeongal]

I feel like there's no good place for me to add to the Fiction First discussion:

Im not 100% sure how my group reached this idea. We started back in like 2011 on 4e from the Red Box they did for it. Our understanding of the gameplay was you roll for everything that wasn't basic body functions, more or less. I don't think the books necessarily say to do it this way, but that felt like what we were suppsoed to do to play D&D.

I can't find my red box books, but the 4e players handbook i still have (full of notes and post its and such) says "Decide what you want you're character to do and tell the DM. The DM tells you to make a check and figure out your chance of success."

I think that's the part that we leaned on. As DM, I decided what success looked like and what it required. And to the players, that felt like they didnt have as much say in the story. That's why when i first read Monster of the Week i was blown away. The success parameters, or potential outcomes of the action, were already decided! I couldnt just arbitrarily say "thats impossible, so dont even try to roll for it" about something (17 year olds have strong opinions about a fantasy world).

But here's the the thing. We we're still doing the fiction. After two sessions of making plans and trying to follow D&D to the tee, i gave up on that. My player killed an important NPC immediately, and i didnt have the guts or anything to like have real consequences. Our game, which lasted like 30+ sessions probably, just turned onto a group of us goofing off and improvising a story while also using skills and rolling d20. We just naturally starting doing fiction first, and I've never really thought about that til this moment if im being honest.

D&D just has always felt like this game where your playing in the DM's story, which maybe speaks more to how i learned to DM than anything else (which was just by playing and reading tumblr posts in the year of our lord 2011). Nothing ever made me think of roleplaying as fiction first until i started branching out into other TTRPGS. And now your post made me reevaluate my thoughts on playing 4e as a teenager.

I think what's interesting here is that while I do see myself in a lot of this (although I started out with D&D 3e after first playing Rolemaster a bit, we still hadn't developed a good idea of how these games are best played) what stands out here is the idea that D&D is the GM's story, which does seem like the default way to run D&D these days, even though it's not the only way! I'm always a bit leery about claims made by people in the old-school scene that a totally emergent sandbox was basically the true way to play in those early days of the hobby (I think that while some groups may indeed have played the game like that, there were also an equal number of heavily authored campaigns where the DM simply presented their players with the dungeon of the week, week after week), but I do think it's good that people have been rediscovering older editions of D&D which are full of potential for emergent narratives as well as being introduced to games that encourage those emergent narratives.

Because, again, I don't think what's at play is D&D being any less "fiction first" (although I do agree that PHB 4e kind of leading with the idea that the player describes an action and the GM always demands a check isn't great) than MotW, but that the latter was more supportive of the type of play you wanted, where the focus is on an emergent narrative shared among the whole table instead of a GM-authored story.

But that's the thing, at least for me: that emergent narrative isn't in any way at odds with D&D (although the process of finding that shared narrative does look different in D&D) and certain editions of D&D are full of tools for creating emergent narratives.

And yeah, this is as good a time as any to clarify my intentions: my intention is not to pass judgement on either D&D or the various games that have been touted as "fiction-first." I know what I've written could be easily read as "these stupid indie games are actually no different from D&D" (that's simply not true, they are very different in their mechanics and approaches, but the way they sometimes get presented is like they're almost an alien language), but it's more to assuage D&D-players' fears that outside of their weirdly idiosyncratic dragon game lies a wasteland of games that are completely incomprehensible to the dragon gamer.

Anyway why did I write all that. Oh well.

[system-of-a-feather]

Bro honestly? Like this isn't necessarily a tip for other systems to apply cause it can become self destructive and hurtful if it doesn't work and this is a highly experimental thing that works for *us* but a while ago Riku noticed trends and came up with a whole concept of self fulfilling prophecies and how that probably works with DID and its all like, human brain correlation shit and not actually research based

But our system has been operating fully with that concept / model in mind and how that shit impacts how our DID works and crap and in short and very very butchered version, we think DID and your symptoms / changes in the system will inherently reflect what you feed it as DID works on a very subconscious level of trying to make sense of a crazy world with a shit ton of trauma and amnesia, so making sure you keep the shit you feed your DID clean is important

And so that expands to a lot of moments of uncertainty - whether we have a new part, whether a thing will work, whether or not XYZ is one thing or the next - if we are in a place where its subjective and/or up in the air, we can work within the realm of the realistic place we are in and just play into whatever fucking narrative we'd like so long as it isn't OOC for whatever story the DID Dungeon Master is DMing

So like we are tackling the driving issue our system has and that is primarily banking on me not being affected by the anxiety-dissociation loop Riku and most other parts experience (a based hypothesis since I don't really experience anxiety properly and I'm more "grounded") and that checked out and honestly I kinda like it

So an on going system meme was "watch we go from being disabled and unable to drive out of mental illness and anxiety and dissociation to it being one of our largest coping mechanisms cause XIV gets addicted to driving; then we change our disability to a monetizatable coping mechanism" and Riku over there was just like "wait but what if it doesn't work like that" and Im just like "Nah of course itll work like that because thats how XIV brain operates and XIV just is. Why WOULDNT it work that way?"

And I originally made the DnD reference as a joke that was meant to be a one off, but with the theory in mind its literally just like living our life with an anonymous DM piloting our lives and thus we play our ideal symptom presentations like a player character rolling for checks of what they want to do. If you put it out there and dedicate to the bit, you can roll and have a chance of it going your way or going AMAZINGLY better than your way; and theres a chance itll be rejected but like

I just look at our brain and I go "I'm going to end up addicted to driving as a coping mechanism" and the DID brain will roll a dice

It helps if its already in character cause my trait of "prone to movement based coping" adds +3 proficiency to coping by driving and that my car is made to get me attached and grounded which is +1 proficiency and then my tendency to get extremely attached and positively triggered by inanimate objects adds a +1 proficiency as well and THEN you add the fact I can listen to music loudly is a +3 boost so like.... thats a +8 to whatever I roll.

So long I don't completely choke my D20 roll for being addicted to driving, then this is OBVIOUSLY gonna work this way.

So like... *shrugs*

Also yes this derailed entirely and I will not apologize.

-XIV

[dysaniadisorder]

In regards to the "paladins and bards are at their core xyz", I'd love to hear your opinions on the rest of the classes as I struggle to have individual options about things and my ideas about classes are just a chaotic collage of things I've seen and read which can lead me to only being able to think of common tropes.

And I like having a springboard to come up with other ideas especially cos I'm coming up with a DnD PC and I liked what you were putting down.

yeah ofc !! to be fair i get a lot of my thoughts on dnd classes through d20 because they have so many cool genre twists (warlock pacts being marriage pacts, a druid whos a total stoner & environmental activist) but generally i just think people have kind of small minded ideas about dnd classes?

ive noticed something strange which is. weirdly enough, people who dont know almost anything about dnd are likely to have some of the most fun campaigns. and i think its because they dont have an already preconceived notion of like... what a wizard can and cant be, what a barbarian can and cant be, ect

subclasses are some of my favorite things in the WORLD and i think they contribute sooo much to the character. Like- yeah, Barbarian has Berserker or whatever, but theres also a subclass that can make you summon wind and snow, theres a subclass that gives you animal traits, theres a subclass that connects you to giants and makes you huge, theres even a wild magic barbarian subclass !!!

and i think adding that one more level of depth to a class just breaks way to a billion other ideas- i have a friend right now writing a character whos family are total hippies, and hes kind of a skater kid, but hes a cleric of peace.

the stereotypes are SO frustrating because no ones having fun anymore, and suddenly you have a dozen elf wizards who are tall and quiet and elegant, and suddenly you have a dozen half orc barbarians who hit hard and dont like having friends. I currently play an Artificer Alchemist, largely acclaimed to be thee most boring class, and theyre fun as hell. i cant do much but what i can do has helped me & the party immensly. my friends and i found charts of all the least popular classes & subclasses, and all the ones least used were cool as hell.

i currently have so many ideas for characters its not even funny !!! my favorite is a cleric who doesnt know theyre actually a warlock. not to mention- theres plenty chance a warlock was some other class before they were a warlock. i love in The Seven, Sam Nightingale has some Bard levels because she was a tv show star and had to take some Bard training because of the program. and like,, yeah! Bards that are not just about music but other points of charisma, honestly you could probably make a Bard politician crazy easily.

to be honest while i said passion is at the core of paladins and bards i think passion may just be at the center of all of them, but it could easily Not Be. Barbarians who hate being angry and struggle with it, Clerics who struggle with their religion (these are both d20 tropes), Monks have all SORTS of junk that I love,, look. when it comes down to it the stereotypes arent bad, they just end up making fairly 2d or boring characters most of the time, which they dont have to. alot of the (annoying) comments on that post are people talking about their characters that ARE this or that stereotype, and thats fine, they clearly love their character and it sounds like they do all sorts of fun stuff with them. but they can do sooo muuuuch moooore

i fun exercise thing i like to do is take characters from other things, either my own or a tv show or game or something and try to spec them as a dnd character. its incredibly fun

my personal favorite classes are Druids and Monks, especially bc i think Monks dont get enough love (also Druids are kind of overpowered) and multiclassing is also so so fuckign fun. my best advice is just like. i dont know. think outside the box & try to be weird about it. i had a friend with a character who was a barbarian bc he had anger issues, but his passion was in food, and as such he was literally a cleric of food. he would level up his classes based on how he had acted in the time sicne he last leveled up and it was always fairly sad when he'd gain a level of barbarian because he didnt want it. i hope this all helps i really love dnd classes

[snow-and-saltea]

been thinking about some stuff. kinda have a direction of where i want to go, at least in terms of what i want to be able to do. i have a lot of things i want to do but i think it focuses to a point in singularity which is wanting to be resilient and being capable of solving problems. not others, but my own.

some stuff that's been on my mind:

+ being able to be Adult enough that i can help parent my nephew (he's extremely spoiled and my parents - his grandparents - don't know how to handle him other than placating him; they're also very tired and don't have much patience so they want him to stop tantrums immediately which means giving into what he wants)

+ manage anxiety attacks / spikes (get more useful coping skills) as an aside, i feel like its not that my feelings are the issue but the thoughts that come when the feelings arise are so chaotic and vaguely threateningly overwhelming that i cant make a sound judgement solely through my instincts or intuition anymore (when normally thats how i make decisions, and i have a lot of trust in myself when i do so. but i see that its not a useful mode of operation to have all the time)

+ get a sustainable income so i can make my own health decisions without guilt / fear and to pursue hobbies

+ rekindle my passion for writing and creating things. which i actually have been spending a lot of time doing because ive been listening to a lot of videos about d20 seasons and seeing so many cool people make cool stories and characters really inspired me a lot

+ overall i just want to be able to be hopeful without feeling like im just lying to myself. that is, i suppose, what coping is? or at least that's how i cope. lotsa lying to myself that its okay (while thinking that it won't) and everything is fine (while believing its not actually fine). i also rely a lot on hard stances to solidify my thoughts into a straight orderly line, which ends up becoming black and white thinking. and it narrows my vision a lot of the perspective of what is viable possibility that can be good / productive / useful and what am i "buying into" that i hazardously undermine the negative aspects of.

+ i guess i just want to slowly figure out who i am. i think i was in a rush to figure things out that made me cast a wide net of all variables and perspectives that shaped my experience and then putting a magnifying glass under each individual factor, but it made me lose the forest for the trees and it paralysed me because if i look too closely into things, ill realise the weight of it and its not something im equipped to handle right now atm. i think its just something i have to bookmark but not put away, like its something to come back to when im able. i dont have to figure it all out right now, especially when im not able to put things into the right contexts and perspectives yet

+ i want to have more energy for things i like. i left off a lot of things because i didnt have the energy for it bc i was so Afraid of not having enough energy to escape out of bad situations. but i think ill just have to try and trust my body that if im in true danger ill be able to handle it when the time comes.

sits down. thats all i have at the moment