#I love love love that about ttrpgs/actual plays

[thelonelywhale]

No you don't understand how important it is to me that Caleb and Essek have this soft, deep, profound love for each other. These two people who were so broken and saw themselves as so damaged and irredeemable and utterly damned, having the chance to heal together and cultivate this sweet, gentle relationship with each other. The fact that they can now carve out moments of joy together, that they proved you can change and better yourself, with time and effort and love.

Matt taking the time to show that even in just a few little ways, to let Essek express his love so casually and with so much reverence and care is just AUGH. That's how you do redemption arcs. He understood the assignment. That's not only respecting the players for the time they put in to creating these characters and their pathways for growth, but also saying to your players (and viewers), "it's possible. Everyone deserves a second chance at happiness."

They redeemed themselves, together.

[dragonanne4fun]

.

[ghostinacardboardbox]

Pippin McKeel is a character that makes me so sad honestly and that’s kind of always true but the way the fact that Guy has said in every Stop at The Depot that’s currently on the main feed that Pip is a bad person “who doesn’t deserve nice things,” and also that time they said it in response to the idea of Pip having a romantic relationship with Candace always makes me think about the tragedy that is Pippin McKeel more than usual.

Because it’s not WRONG that Pip is a bad person. This is a man who canonically called a hit on a nine year old and this was well after meeting people that kind of force him to be better. But he doesn’t have to be like that. He can be better, he just doesn’t see the point. His tragic past made him a person who is bitter and cynical and will put himself first while simultaneously self-destructing 24/7. So the point of his character arc is healing from that and deciding that passively letting the world be shit, passively letting himself exist in misery and ignoring everything he can, isn’t what he has to do. And he’s already had a lot of character development even while still being that apathetic asshole! When at the arcane fortress and they commit to working to kill the emperor, it’s Pippin who tells Andrel that this is not how the world should be, that this can’t just be it, and somebody has to actually do something if there’s ever going to be hope of it getting better. This is literally the reverse of the argument they had about saving the hollows. Pip is a coward and a hypocrite, but he’s also capable of growth and healing and change. He can be better. We’ve seen it.

He is both a bad person and an incredibly sympathetic, tragic figure and he may not “deserve” nice things, but I want that for him. Frankly I don’t think it’s even about whether or not he deserves it, it’s that Pip would not know what to do with himself in a peaceful situation. He would literally not be able to handle being loved. He doesn’t think he deserves it, and will always sabotage himself as a result. And he makes me sad :(

[elftwink]

saw a video about 2 player ttrpgs and one of them was like "this one's about a pretend marriage" and i was like oh? and i looked it up on itch (eyes on the prize, fyi) and it's 50% as of right now and i was like OH? and i bought it immediately & ive read most of it and i am a big fan. and i KNOW that i have friends who would have fun playing it (it's a 2 player or 4 player game; the 4 player variant has 2 fake couples) but asking them is going to be so cringe. yeah we're gonna make up people and pretend to be them and then pretend to pretend to get married and the characters when they start their pretending they're gonna be like "oh we don't have any romantic feelings towards each other this is strictly plot" but then (get this) they will start to develop real feelings for each other. and we're gonna act it out together and pretend to be them but don't worry! we have no romantic feelings towards one another. this is strictly plot. when WE (irl) pretend to be in love it's actually platonic, unlike the people who we are pretending to be to each other. so do you have like 2-5 hours you wanna dedicate to that next week

and the worst part is that's 100% what i want. like i have roleplayed romance before with friends it is literally not a big deal because the whole point of roleplay is that the character ISN'T you. but with a fake relationship the crushing weight of dramatic irony hovers behind me

[incommunicably]

i cant stop thinking about how even though everyone stood up for Tula so that Ava could learn and finally grow, no one comforted her when she said she just laid down to die, in fact she’s the one who went right back to comforting, saying “i love you too” at the gesture that implies apology and ohhhhh

too close to home!! pay my therapy bill!!!!

[theo-winterwood]

Joshua Hamilton Barnes III, Lord Witherby (aka “Ham”)

My partner’s character in our two-player Good Society campaign. I love this character a lot--Kind but stubborn, caring but proud; a little too ready to believe he knows what’s best for others, but comes by it (somewhat) honestly as the person everyone’s piled responsibilities onto his entire adult life. Maybe about to crack under the pressure of having too many people depending on him for too much and never having a chance at thinking of what he wants.

[transdimensional-haboob]

Wistfully thinks of Spellwind, I should make a headcanons up to ep 31 list its just my equivalent of like Skyrim or lotr where theres so much going on and so dense but god damn one of my favorite episodes was when two of my favorite characters became trees and the entire experience was like...they were tripping on shrooms but also one with the shrooms? Its like episode 8

and I love the dms orc captain that hates going on land and is there for the in between transportation from sea to sea land to land ferryman (not really I feel like its mostly hard to narrate and have a character at the same time) I just love captain buttocks' (yeah I'm pretty sure thats his name) humor and how him and djett ('jet') were closer in the beginning

I love ty and varsha together but I also ship smith with them as time went on, I can't tell who I want to joke as the third smith and varsha are friends to lovers, ty and varsha are irritated assholes to lovers, smith is just a jaded old fuck that loves his morons (he respects varsha a lot and thinks ty is an entertaining idiot)

Varsha and Djett are siblings they love each other like family and share different spells and potions and knowledge of interest notes

I feel like the only person really thinking too deeply about this tabletop story and wanted to drop a few lines of appreciation, I like listening to it to go to sleep since its so slow paced and gently spoken and the music and sound efx is so sweet

[caliconimbus]

Man… it really takes the wind out of my sails when I try a new FVN and I just don’t like it. Like. I only download stuff that looks promising, and I’d been keeping an eye on this one prior to release for a while, so I was so sure I would like this one, too. And the art’s great! I already knew that! The menus are good and there’s solid QoL stuff built in… but the actual writing just felt sooooo clumsy it completely put me off. Just aggressively mood-dampening

[mimi123meg]

Spiritually I'm a performer, physically I am a shaking chihuahua

[cavegirlpoems]

You know another thing that fucking sucks? I actually really enjoy RPGs that basically boil down to 'you're in a hostile unknown environment with lots of weird shit, dangers and potential rewards, go explore and try not to die'. Like survival-horror-ttrpgs, right? And, in theory, this is what D&D is meant to do. Hell, in the early editions - from the original little white books to probably early AD&D 1e - it's actually pretty tightly designed around doing that (with occasional interludes into flabbergasting racism, that we all quietly excise). The problem is that because D&D is marketed as, like, the everything-ttrpg that lets you tell big dramatic stories and have character arcs, the D&D-o-sphere thinks it's too good for that style of play. Like "here's a spooky hole full of traps, try not to die" is somehow looked down on as being unsophisticated reactionary dreck for grognards. And "here's a spooky hole, try not to die" is the only thing D&D is any fucking good at! You want big character drama and an epic narrative and emotional beats? You're on your fucking own, sunshine, D&D won't help you with that. But if you want to get killed in a cave by a spike trap or eyeball monster? D&D's great at that, it loves things that try to kill you. (This is, I think, a distinction between type-1 and type-2 D&D). (D&D 5e is also noticably worse at being D&D-as-survival-horror than earlier editions - except spiders 4e who is a statistical outlier adn should not have been counted - because in their effort to market it as an everything-game, they stripped out a lot of the stuff that actually cared about creating that experience, because some people don't like dying in holes what with taste being subjective and god forbid they play something else instead) And it kinda sucks because in theory if I want to go play a survival horror rpg where I go into a hole/ruin/alien spaceship/haunted house/heist/evil gameshow and try not to die, despite the fact that this is in theory how you're meant to play D&D, in practice that's not how it's gonna go down because 75% of the player base is ignoring the type of game D&D is actually written to be and desperately trying to beat it into the vague shape of a narrative game. Anyway this is why I like OSR stuff, it's like if D&D dropped the facade and stopped pretending to be stuff it's not. (I should note, to avoid pissing on the poor, that I play a whole bunch of stuff, from VtM to a bunch of PbtA hacks, to weird indie things, to larps, to shit I wrote myself. Die-in-a-cave-D&D is part of a healthy varied ttrpg diet)

[nellasbookplanet]

In the wake of FCG' fate I've been thinking about death in ttrpgs, and how it kind of exists on three levels:

There’s the gameplay level, where it only makes sense for a combat-heavy, pc-based game to have a tool for resurrection because the characters are going to die a lot and players get attached to them and their plotlines.

Then there’s the narrative level, where you sort of need permanent death on occasion so as not to lose all tension and realism. On this level, sometimes the player will let their character remain dead because they find it more interesting despite there being options of resurrection, or maybe the dice simply won’t allow the resurrection to succeed.

Then, of course, there’s the in-universe level, which is the one that really twists my mind. This is a world where actual resurrection of the actual dead is entirely obtainable, often without any ill effects (I mean, they'll be traumatized, but unless you ask a necromancer to do the resurrection they won’t come back as a zombie or vampire or otherwise wrong). It’s so normal that many adventurers will have gone through it multiple times. Like, imagine actually living in a world where all that keeps you from getting a missing loved one back is the funds to buy a diamond and hire a cleric. As viewers we felt that of course Pike should bring Laudna, a complete stranger, back when asked, but how often does she get this question? How many parents have come and begged her to return their child to them? How many lovers lost but still within reach? When and how does she decide who she saves and who she doesn’t?

From this perspective, I feel like every other adventurer should have the motive/backstory of 'I lost a loved one and am working to obtain the level of power/wealth to get them back'. But of course this is a game, and resurrection is just a game mechanic meant to be practically useful.

Anyway. A story-based actual play kind of has to find a way to balance these three levels. From a narrative perspective letting FCG remain dead makes sense, respects their sacrifice, and ends their arc on a highlight. From a gameplay level it is possible to bring them back but a lot more complicated than a simple revivify. But on an in-universe level, when do you decide if you should let someone remain dead or not? Is the party selfish if they don’t choose to pursue his resurrection the way they did for Laudna? Do they even know, as characters, that it’s technically possible to save someone who's been blown to smithereens? Back in campaign 2, the moment the m9 gained access to higher level resurrection they went to get Molly back (and only failed because his body had been taken back by Lucien). At the end of c1, half the party were in denial about Vax and still looking for ways to save him, because they had always been able to before (and had the game continued longer it wouldn’t have surprised me had they found a way). Deanna was brought back decades after her death (and was kind of fucked up because of it). Bringing someone back could be saving them, showing them just how loved and appreciated they are. Or it could be saving you, forcing someone back from rest and peace into a world that's kept moving without them because you can’t handle the guilt of knowing you let them stay gone when you didn’t have to. How do you know? How would you ever know?

[room-surprise]

New Ryoko Kui Interview from Anime Expo 2024 (Summary/Commentary)

This interview is unintentionally hilarious. It's much shorter than the other interview, and every question was met with either a polite non-answer or a flat-out "No." Kui embodied this elf lady she drew for the entire thing:

Kui really wasn't having any of it. Every time the interviewer tried to ask a leading question about things the fandom thinks are extremely central to the manga, Kui basically answered no/I don't care/You're overthinking it/I wasn't suggesting what you're assuming I was suggesting.

My summary/commentary of the interview under the cut.

Please keep in mind these are my opinions, based on my knowledge of Japanese social conventions, and how I personally read the interview!

Q: Dungeon Meshi is about the power of eating in groups/family, do you have any food memories or recipes you can share with us that are important to you? A: No. (In other interviews Kui has stated that she doesn't like eating, other people seeing her eat, or watching others eat, and that she used to eat her meals in the toilet to avoid being around other people during meals. This is a common thing people who are shy, bullied, or socially avoidant do in Japan.)

Q: What meal in DM do you want to eat? A: None of them, I'm a picky eater.

Q: You obviously love TTRPGs. A: Uh...Not really... I've never played one, I just read about them for research purposes. (In other interviews Kui has stated she's never played a TTRPG because she doesn't have friends she can do it with. The fact that so many people in the world do have that many friends they are that close to was very shocking to her. She was amazed that people would actually role-play in front of other people. This, plus other things Kui has said in the past ("I'm not good at human relationships"), suggests that she's not very socially active.)

Q: Your fantasy ecosystem is so complex, how did you build it? A: I though about it, and then I used my imagination. (This is kind of an ice-cold burn. Like a writer saying "I wrote one word, and then another, and then I kept adding words until the book was done.")

Q: Do you love monsters as much as Laios? A: No. But I do like them a lot, and I've loved them since I was a kid.

Q: How'd you design Laios' ultimate monster? A: I used the childhood memory of wanting to design the coolest, strongest monster.

Q: A lot of fans think Laios is autistic, especially because of his fight with Toshiro. A: I wrote him to be a normal guy that anyone can relate to. I don't think he's special or unusual. Both he and Toshiro have problems and they both need to work on communicating better. (Kui saying she didn't write Laios as autistic doesn't mean you should shit on other fans who read him as autistic. All it means is that he's not canonically autistic, and you can't say "Laios being autistic is the foundation of the entire manga." Kui saying that she didn't intentionally write Laios as autistic doesn't invalidate the interpretation, it just means saying Laios is autistic is an interpretation, and not a concrete fact. Also worth noting that labeling Laios as autistic might come across as very rude for a Japanese person. Kui may not want to call Laios autistic due to social stigma.)

Q: Tell us about the Senshi fanservice. A: Calling it "fanservice" feels wrong to me. He's just an older man who doesn't care if people see his underwear, something I've experienced in real life. It might make some people uncomfortable but Senshi's just living his life, I thought that was funny. Laios is a bit uncomfortable seeing people in their underwear. (Holy shit. This answer is the equivalent of Kui firing a shotgun directly in the interviewer's face and screaming "it's not fucking fanservice." She's being VERY direct for a Japanese person, and implying that she doesn't like people calling the Senshi pantyshots fanservice, that she sees them as comedy.)

Q: But Senshi's handsome isn't he? A: All dwarves are handsome :) (This is a complete non-answer, and after that previous answer, it's very likely Kui is trying to brush the interviewer off. This is most likely Kui saying "Please stop this line of questioning/I don't want to talk about this anymore.")

Q: What inspired Marcille's dungeon lord dress? Her friends all make fun of her but I thought it looked nice. A: There's no specific reference. I made it up to look like her mom's dress and added a childish head covering. The dress is totally normal, her friends making fun of Marcille is a joke. They're just not used to seeing Marcille in that kind of clothing, so it seems weird to them. They don't actually think the dress is that strange or uncool.

Q: Did you expect the strong fan reaction to Marcille and Falin's relationship? A: I don't think about how the fans will react when I'm writing. (Another complete non-answer. She doesn't want to discuss the topic of Farcille and avoids it like a landmine. Honestly, good for her. She wants fans to feel free to think what they want and have their own interpretations.)

Q: Will you write a spin-off about Izutsumi getting revenge on the person who made her? A: Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. I think Izutsumi's pretty happy as she is and just wants to live her life.

In short, Kui's reaction to a lot of the fandom opinion questions was:

EDIT: Also, looking at the headline/page summary for the article, it's uh...insanely misleading.

"We sat down with Kui-sensei at Anime Expo 2024 to discuss the community of food, why Senshi is so sexy, seeing neurodivergence in Laios, and more." Kui literally said no in response to all of those questions, this summary of their own interview implies that there was anything discussed, and not just Kui telling them "no" to each question.

[amysky21]

I am devastated that I don’t have any friends that listen to Worlds Beyond Number, because the new episode (ep 33 The Witness) is the single best episode of a ttrpg actual play I think I’ll ever see (figuratively, because it’s a podcast).

The insane amount of trust between all of them to be able to let loose on each other’s characters in such an (understandably) volatile way was just awe inspiring. It evoked so much feeling, and such complex feelings. The characters are having a rough time (understatement) and to finally have the horrible emotional catharsis of release was horrible and beautiful. It had the vibe of ‘my parents are fighting’ in all the right ways.

Also the sound design was phenomenal. Taylor worked some kind of magic with all of the details, and (vague spoilers) Suvi’s identify spell was such an amazing experience to hear. It almost felt like the magic of seeing the scene in the boat from the old Charlie and the chocolate factory movie, just a torrent of feelings and sounds.

@quiddie’s rp was breathtaking. Literally, I had chest pain from how stressed I was (affectionate). Suvi is the most intricately complex character I’ve ever had the pleasure to obsess over and I adore her because of how humanly real she feels.

I literally don’t have the words to explain how much I loved this episode. This image just about sums it up.

Ps, I’ve watched all d20 seasons and some other stuff and don’t think I’d ever heard Lou raise his voice seriously before (“you lied” from Ravening War is the closest but that didn’t have the same vibe because it was about being slammed down big style) and I fully put my hand over my mouth like a shocked Victorian woman. God, they’re all just such good actors, storytellers, improvisers aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[ghostinacardboardbox]

The huge contrast between how Pip shuts down at any mention of his parents vs how he talks about his brother in the Sunfall layover. Pip doesn't remember a lot about his family, mostly by choice, but he gets so wistful remembering his brother. "He seemed to know everything."

[dumpster-fire-sapphic-failgirl]

Some more thoughts about Dungeons and Drag Queens (D20), especially Brennan’s presentation as DM

Brennan spent a large chunk of his life attending or working at a LARP camp. He’s no stranger to dressing up for games. He played a space wizard on Ultramechatron Go. He’s no stranger to dressing up on camera.

But in Dimension 20, he is resolutely Some Guy™️ and honestly it feels like he is doing that to make D&D and other TTRPGs as approachable as possible. You don’t have to go over the top. You don’t have to dress up. You can just be Some Person™️ and let your imagination do the heavy lifting

Which brings us to D&DQ. Brennan is full glam. And people are Horny™️ for it. But I think a lot of people might be missing the point. Doing an all Drag Side Quest is a political statement in America right now. And if Brennan was just Some Guy™️ he could potentially give fuel to folks (who don’t actually know anything about him) to say “look at what the dropout sjws are forcing on this poor cis-het dude”

So Brennan cheerfully dons A Lewk™️. For the first time, Denise the super talented makeup artist gets a crack at his face. And yes, he’s meeting his players where they are. And he’s doing his best to let the spotlight shine on the Queens. But. He’s visible. He’s (intentionally or not) telling the world “If you want to come for them you’ll have to come through me”

Don’t get me wrong, I love the “Brennan hotboi!” takes. And maybe I’m reading too much into it. But I love the feeling that this cis-het white boy got sprayed with glitter, tossed on Eursulon’s pauldron, and said “I got y’all. It’s safe here.”

In a world where it is very much not safe to be trans right now, that means a fucking lot

[leidensygdom]

Despite how WOTC/Hasbro have sworn off using AI several times (and then got caught using it, like here or here), and then casually firing +1000 employees this year (many of them being artists), their CEO is predictably musing about how to incorporate it, and readily making use of the technology for some other products, and testing how it may be of use for DnD/MtG.

I had mentioned it was just a matter of time, and even when some people were very eager that WOTC would never, well. Who would've thought. It's the same company that showed again and again no respect for its audience, their creators or even the biggest fans. (The OGL mess was about a year ago. They sent the Pinkertons to a fan less than a year ago). Because delivering a quality product isn't really their goal, nor is it to actually compensate artists fairly.

I don't think this is breaking news, but I'm mostly bringing it up in case people wonder where they stand. They also have a poll where you can tell what you think about them (no actual written feedback, only "pick from these 5 options"). And as a final note Margaret Weiss (creator of the Dragonlance, who had some big disputes with them- Including a lawsuit towards WOTC) has come forward to tell how little WOTC has respected her series. Not long ago a book set in the setting (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons) got released, and it cared very little about being respectful towards the world or her work. Which tracks with their usual behaviour, because Eberron was also mangled quite badly.

Just, as a reminder, there's many wonderful TTRPGs that are far more worth to support monetarily, or even available to play for free. (Recently all of the PF2e remaster has been posted on Archives of Nethys- A page that has all the mechanics from all the books for free, which is endorsed by the company itself.)

But yeah. As a small creator and artist, it's surely lovely to see how much the biggest TTRPG company out there respects us.