#and i also kind of hate the metagaming aspect of it like i loved it as a teen but now its like man i wanna play funny guys

[thisgodwontforgiveyou]

temple of elemental evil may be literally unplayable bc its giving me the headache response eu4 did but i fixed eu4 by changing settings no option nor mod for toee possibly could

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E121 (Jan. 19, 2021)

Aaaand we're back! The epic pet montage at the start is still the greatest thing ever.

Tonight's guests? Matthew Mercer and Marisha Ray!

We begin with an extensive discussion of waffle farts. As you do.

Matt is asked what it's been like to get to build out the characters in the Tombtakers. Lucien is Matt's favorite, but they've all got some fun traits to them. "It's one of those rare experiences as a dungeon master where you get to watch your players combat with the necessity of playing along. The instinct is: fuck these guys, I want to fight them, we'll take their shit... or I guess we have to play nice. And they begrudgingly grit their teeth and I smile internally."

On the Lucien accent: "You guys are all so mean to Taliesin!" Matt knew his own take would be a "weird mutation" of Mollymauk's accent anyway.

How's Marisha feeling about a lot of her predictions panning out? "Aw, I mean, gee, me? What? Noooo. It's definitely vindicating, I'm not gonna lie, and rewarding, but I also know that I write a lot of shit down in that notebook that's never relevant ever again. It's definitely a good feeling to know that I didn't go on that fifteen-minute deep dive and was utterly wrong about everything I said." Matt: "I was super proud. I was just silently cheering you on as you went on these long tangents."

What does Lucien think of the Mighty Nein? "Lucien is definitely curious about why they're getting involved in his shit and what they're planning alongside them. One, he hates Beau because he doesn't like people who challenge his authority. He gravitates towards Jester to an extent because she's the most open, which from his standpoint makes her easiest to manipulate. He loves toying with curiosity, and so between Jester and Caleb, those are the two people that he's the most comfortable interacting with. Caduceus makes him feel a little weird. He's amused by them. Fjord to Lucien is one of the more guarded and less accessible at the moment."

Is Beau enjoying getting under Lucien's skin? "Beau's picking and poking still kind of stems from her defensiveness and guardedness and her feelings, in a lot of ways, and the way that she's coping with things. It's a few steps removed from her default and what she often resorts to when she starts throwing up those barriers. She still has in the back of her head that she's looking at her dead friend. It's her way of protecting herself if she can go, fuck you, I don't care about you. This isn't too dissimilar to the way she reacted when Yasha was brainwashed." Matt: "It's a unique social sparring match the whole time they're traveling side-by-side. It's unique to have an antagonistic force that you're--" Marisha: "That we're going camping with."

Navigating the Tombtaker/M9 relationship as a DM is "challenging. At any given moment, a wrong statement could escalate matters one way or the other. It's having to pay attention to a lot of things at all points in time to be ready for how those chain reactions can happen and where it might go." He likens it to trying to follow and participate in two different conversations simultaneously at a party.

On the note from Yasha: "Oh man, you guys. Oh, it was so sweet. I don't think Beau was expecting Yasha to be so forthcoming with everything, and so complimentary and eloquent. Beau is awkward with healthy relationships, so she doesn't know how to handle them. She's still processing that and wants to not ruin it. No, it was magical." Ashley told Marisha after the episode that she was trying to think of what to say and wound up basing it on what she would say about Marisha.

Cosplay of the Week: an amazing Vax (by stormfeather_cosplay, photograph by travi_b, both on Instagram)!

On using variations on the Wild Magic table: "I wanted to give it some variation to consequences. They took some of the tooth out of it from earlier editions. I knew it would be fun once I gave them the specifications of when these things would happen - players are just waiting for someone to roll a 20 or a 1 at all times."

Why is it so important to Beau that she and Yasha have a proper date? Part of it is a fresh start. "So much of Beau's past relationships have been rooted in some toxic behavior. Beau feels like, well, maybe we should just start from the beginning in the most us way possible: fighting through the tundra with our dead-ish friend."

The sci-fi-ish theme came toward the end of developing Aeor, but it mostly comes from rationalization. Matt is intrigued by how all these different societies want to usurp the gods... which has parallels with modern society. He notes that focusing more on the science of the magic means the aesthetics pull away to "instead facilitate the utility or the most direct route to the answers you want. You streamline as opposed to focusing on the aesthetics."

Beau’s reaction to all the weird magic stuff? “I think Beau’s just so focused on the pragmatic aspects of it all right now. There are greedy people with motives and the will and want to corrupt across all spans of cultures and times. She’s trying not to get lost in the magic, both proverbially and literally, of it all, and just trying to focus on the motives of these people at hand.”

In some ways, Matt was surprised by Caduceus’ strong reaction to the creepy woods. “It was the first major reveal that there are some other sides to the coin that he hadn’t learned about. I had no idea how he would react. It pushed him away more in ways than I expected.”

Fan art of the week: an amazing Lucien! (by oratorkayla on Twitter)

What’s Dagen’s motivation? “He’s definitely a man of his word when it comes to fulfilling a contract and getting the other half of his pay, but it’s not hard to see they’ve grown on him a little bit. He’s really good at getting around the tundra unseen and unnoticed.”

Brian: “In true Sam fashion-” Marisha, instantly: “OH MY GOD.”

Marisha: “Here’s the thing. Here’s the tea, okay? If I ever hear one more fucking person trying to claim that I’m ruining things by metagaming, I’m going to point to Sam. I’m expected to respond accordingly to Veth being a Sam troll. Gods damn him! Raven Queen curse upon him! Let chaos reign! He made me pull out my earphones, I can’t hear anything you’re saying. It’s frustrating because I’d be mad at it if it wasn’t so god damn funny.” Matt notes that at a different table this wouldn’t be great behavior, but they all know each other well enough (and check in with each other enough) that it’s comfortable teasing.

With a bit of a deeper pull, Matt is asked whether he knew Avantika would return someday? “I knew she was a fun, interesting option out there. The M9 still have in their grasp the single most important artifact, in Uk’otoa’s opinion, at the moment. As long as they carry that artifact, his eye of Sauron is upon them.” Matt notes that he has more encounter tables going, so a lot of the time even he’s not sure what’s going to happen.

Caduceus suggested contacting Essek, but Beau and Caleb nixed that idea. Does Beau trust him? “Gods no. Absolutely not. She can like Essek personally. As a person, he’s fine, I guess. But I think a lot of people might be forgetting that he’s kind of a war criminal and kind of set off a lot of bad things in motion with this war with the Empire and the Dynasty, because he wanted power and to know things. So now here he is, also in Aeor. Yeah. Just kinda putting two and two together there. It is another one of those things of, you’re walking that line on trying to keep him on your good side and having a mutually beneficial relationship before it could easily go completely south.”

On the Star Razor being a Vestige: “I don’t want this to be--- the Vestiges aren’t always a thing where it’s like, you get a Vestige and you get a Vestige! I want them to be still considered special and rare. This is one that had to be earned, it had to be reforged. I didn’t know the circumstances that would involve it coming about.” He based it on the circumstances of Fjord’s evolution into a paladin. “In essence, not only did he finish the creation of the sword, but he Awakened it at the same time as he made this transition. It is Exalted at this point, it’s in its final form.”

What does Beau think might lie ahead? “I have no idea. I am trying to abandon expectation when it comes to that. I know what we don’t know, and that’s it. Beau is trying to compensate for the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. I hope we can keep this tenuous relationship through to Aeor, because we need more answers before it explodes in our face. Beau, and Marisha, is hoping for a little more information before shit hits the fan.”

[gwisingegooli]

Yooo I should write down all my crazy Tinder stories

Honestly at this point I’ve definitely met at least like 50 people from Tinder. Even though a lot of it was crazy, sometimes cringe, it’s also a lot of fun. I’m sure people would’ve enjoyed combing through my weird developments & relationships

Anyways I dated two young boys (19 year olds, first years) and here it is

1) just*n - he’s rly cute I hate him. He ghosted me and I’ve never been one-sided ghosted before like that :’o. Anyways we had good times and it’s okay, he should go live his baby life.

2) j*hn - this kid was an immature spoiled baby but he doesn’t even know it. Good kid actually, really fun & funny. But definitely doesn’t know how to take care of anyone else. And our families are friends... Lol nope!

X

I feel like recently I’ve seen so many cute couples and it aways makes me siiiighhhh after.

I don’t even want to be in a relationship. I think even if I found my hot macho tall rich (asian?) man I wouldn’t be able to stay in it if there were any complications. I got shit I wanna do, bro.

X

Dating in the modern age can kinda hurt sometimes, what with the ghosting and texting styles, but I actually like super love it. For me it’s as long as I’m participating, tbh. Like when I have multiple hoes it’s like security padding for my sensitive widdle heart.

Cause ultimately we just want to feel special, right 🥺.

Jk lol but I always do that. Nowadays I wanna use men as body pillows and for their hot bodies. But my old habits/beliefs in love come back and I get all uwu and gushy and feelings-y.

It’s annoying tho bc people think I’m actually just “uwu baby who needs help” in relationships. I can disassociate & drop people so fast. Even if I’m sad, I’m not gonna crawl back or try to text someone again LOL. I only get “uwu” because it’s fun to play with that line, and be a cute ideal gf type.

I think for the just*n boy, he was playing that shit too, and that’s the only reason why I played along with it. I’m just never gonna make contact with him again cause I deleted his number (his contact kept showing up on my phone in different contexts). But he was supposed to be my white knight smh. I’m just a little disappointed but we’ve all moved on already

X

I also wanted to mention my potential blooming career as a fan fiction & smut writer. Idk why I haven’t been doing this already, just writing more. But as my shame is truly now nonexistent & my sexual prowess is growing, I have newly found this skill of writing terrible, sinful things :-)

X

If I had to try to organize my potential income sources / aspects of my future career

1) Main esports / gaming job

2) twitch streaming (donations, subs, sponsorships)

3) selling commissions - art & writing

4) merch

5) Onlyfans / premium snapchat

6) other fun things - modeling, acting, helping ppl make content, collabs

let’s not pretend being an influencer is more complicated that LOLOL. Not that it isn’t like a ton a ton of work to constantly churn out quality content regularly. Doot doot

X

Listen I love being single, but for me it’s because then I can always choose myself first without ever having to worry about someone else. And then I also get to have multiple boys. And someone to cuddle with at night, someone to drunk text, people who are sweet to me.

It’s how it is in this zoomer world. I’m still in college smh. College hook-up culture has honestly evolved & advanced, I feel like. It’s just become like such a set metagame that’s figured out, and plays out so efficiently nowadays. It’s all so clean cut with the ghosting and the blocking & you guys just hover around on social media.

X

Who’s good at taking rejection, anyways? It feels bad. It makes me want to default to just closing myself off and never talking to anyone ever again.

But also that’s some pussy shit LOL. And I refuse to ever be disillusioned because then I’ll be bitter and a hater. And we hate that.

So I’ll take it gracefully, figure out what happened and play it better next time. Adapt, improvise, overcome. Be quicker at reading cues and people’s mindsets. Make men work waaay harder for me and my extremely valuable attention. Stay polite, kind and soft, but handle shit with an iron fist. Also choose better men. And if something’s a bad idea, then it is a bad idea.

I’m just too impatient. I have a hasty nature because I’m a pokemon apparently. Maybe feisty nature too. I’ve just been working on being patient. Give people chances, give people time, forgive and forget. I’ve always been good at forgiving and forgetting though. :)

Anyways I’m glad everything still has shape and structure. I’m so ready to leave college and get all the things I have started rolling , balls 2 the wall , eskettit

[mtganddesign]

A Theory of Format Health

What do players mean when they say a format is good or bad? How do players evaluate formats? What do those comparisons tell us about metagames in games in general?

Here's a "quadrant theory" of format health:

Strategic Diversity: Are different kinds of decks being played?

Card Diversity: Are different cards seeing play?

Archetype Balance: Do decks feel even?

Play Value: Does the format lead to good games of Magic?

Strategic diversity is a pretty uncontroversial idea. Almost every discussion of format health will bring up whether the format supports aggro, combo, and control; or, in smaller formats, aggro, midrange, and control. Limited formats with "sideways" strategies like Spider Spawning are often better liked than Limited formats where the only option is to play a straightforward creature deck. A classic example of a format with bad strategic diversity was Innistrad-Return to Ravnica Standard, a format where very good mana bases and a lot of powerful rate cards led to a "midrange mush" environment where there were a lot of different decks, but they were all three-color goodstuff decks of some kind.

Card diversity is a little more subtle: It's not enough that there are different strategies being played, but those strategies should represent a diversity of cards. What illustrates this distinction is a format like Legacy: You can play aggro with Deathrite Shamans, Force of Wills, and Brainstorms; or you can play control with Deathrite Shamans, Force of Wills, and Brainstorms. Or you can play any of the Lion's Eye Diamond combo decks. This kind of format makes deck construction less interesting - no matter what you're trying to do, some of your slots are taken by the "good cards" in the format. Vintage has a big diversity of strategies being played, but those strategies all fit within three "clusters": Island decks, Mishra's Workshop decks, and Bazaar of Baghdad decks. This makes those formats feel more narrow, and while Standard arguably has less different strategies being played, Standard decks still represent a broader variety of Magic's colors and mechanics.

Archetype balance comes down to this: How close is the best deck in the format to the second-best deck? How close are the "tier one" decks to the "tier two" decks? How close to 50-50 are typical matchups in the format? A format can be diverse but unbalanced - when you have a "top deck" with 30-40% of metagame share, and a crowd of "rogue decks" that are really antagonist decks for the top deck, that's unbalanced even if there's diversity. One frequent complaint leveled at Modern is that it has a lot of skewed matchups; I don't think this is as true as people say, but it does indicate that people value feeling like most of their matches are close to 50-50.

And finally, we have the subjective "fun factor" aspect of it: Is it good Magic? For all of a format's faults, some people will just love the kinds of games they engender. Legacy is a deeply flawed format, but if you like casting brainstorm or char-belching people out, it's just going to be the format for you.

And this is well and truly subjective. Some people hate the idea of a format with turn 1 kills in it, while other people love Vintage. Some people hate playing with "filler cards," while other people love Limited. The other three quadrants are pretty universal: Pretty much nobody wants a format made up of one broken top deck and nothing else, but people appreciate different styles and patterns of play.

Oh, also: I think these ideas apply to pretty much any competitive game, not just Magic. Consider a fighting game, and ask similar questions: Does the roster of characters support different playstyles? Are people playing a diversity of characters? Is there a huge gulf between "tier one" characters and the rest? Are matchups between different characters very skewed? And, most of all, does the metagame that emerge when the dust settles lead to fun matches to play and watch?