#i actually really like fighters

[rottenshotgungames]

Alright, let’s start with discourse, shall we?

Gatekeeping Combat

Three days ago, the Gorgon Bones blog made this post about fighters in TTRPGs (particularly the OSR): https://gorgonbones.blogspot.com/2024/02/choosing-fighter-means-choosing-violence.html?m=1

I recommend reading the post, it’s fun (and the comments are hilarious). But, for those who don’t have the time or attention span (trust me, I’m lacking in spoons right now too), this is a relatively short joke that suggests protecting the Fighter class’ niche by making it the only class able to participate in combat. This, on its face, seems like an inherently silly idea—because it is—but people have been interacting with it as a serious suggestion. This comedic concept has spawned a legitimately interesting design discussion. So, let’s engage with it as a thought experiment. How would one make this function in a fun and reasonable way? The simple answer is that you have to start with conflict.

Conflict in RPGs, particularly in Dragon Game derivatives (such as the OSR), is often violent in nature. This presents the first hurdle: How do we centralize combat to 1 class when it’s a major source of conflict, conflict that people inherently want to engage in? As I see it, there are two approaches:

Decentralize Combat.

Redefine “Engaging in Combat.”

Decentralizing combat is kinda just what it says on the tin; make combat a less important source of conflict and means of resolving it. The two biggest examples of this—to me—are Investigative Horror Games and Stealth Games, both of which rely on central conceits that CAN involve violence but don’t necessarily rely upon it. A non-OSR example would be John Harper’s Blades in The Dark, in which combat is resolved the exact same way as every other conflict: through a series of dice rolls that result in ticking and unticking a clock (with possible complications).

Redefining what it means to “engage” requires a bit more definition than the prior approach. “Redefining” can be subcategorized into two somewhat disparate techniques: Redefining goals and redefining interactions.

In any TTRPG combat, the party tends to have a list of goals that exist in a hierarchy of priority. For example, in a traditional D&D or Lancer combat the hierarchy of party goals might look like this:

The Contest (express martial superiority, wipe out the opposition, or otherwise win the combat)

The End State (survive the combat and prevent as much harm to yourself or other party members as possible)

The Barrier (achieve the exploration or narrative goal that’s being hindered or prevented by the combat)

“Redefining” these goals is more accurately described as a re-ordering of their hierarchy based upon whether you are or aren’t the Fighter, usually through gameplay incentives. An incredible example exists in the form of Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk 2020, in which the Solo role (through virtue of acting first and being generally able to specialize heavily into combat) can almost singlehandedly decide the outcome of any fight in which they are present. If there is one Solo on the field, their side is probably going to receive a swift victory; your job, as the non-Solo, is simply to not die and accomplish what you actually came here to do. If there are two Solos on opposing sides of the combat, their goals change to winning their private fight; your job, as the non-Solo, is to survive the surrounding combat until the Solo is free again (or to run if they lose). In almost every combat, the Solo will prioritize the Contest while the rest of the party will prioritize either the End State or the Barrier, something aided by Cyberpunk’s lethality and its nature as a heist game.

“Redefining combat interaction” is . . . actually found everywhere. This is your basic class differentiation taken to a greater extreme than you may find in most tactical RPGs. For example, let’s look at the Combat relevant difference between the Thief/Rogue/Mercenary and the Fighter in a majority of games that use such classes:

The Fighter - Deals a lot of damage with consistently accurate attacks (sometimes also makes multiple attacks on their turn). Has high health.

The Thief - Deals a lot of damage with one really powerful attack made from stealth, sneaky (sometimes good at dodging). Has low health.

The differentiation is there, but it’s not really significant (for the purposes of this thought experiment). Both classes focus on damage output, but one makes multiple attacks and one makes a strong attack that requires setup. Let’s try to take this difference and expand it (with a little help from our dear friend Tolkien), particularly by focusing on what makes the Thief unique in comparison to the Fighter:

The Fighter - Deals a lot of damage with consistently accurate attacks (sometimes also makes multiple attacks on their turn). Has high health.

The Thief - Subverts direct combat through the use of trickery and cunning, plays support for the Fighter (sometimes good at dodging). Has low health.

“Subversion,” in this context, simply means fighting dirty. The Thief shouldn’t be engaging in a head-on fight, they’re a Thief. Their interaction with hostile entities should always be tinged by deceit, their goal should always be to throw their enemy off balance, to create openings for others and themselves to use. If your Thief isn’t constantly throwing pocket sand and disarming opponents and knocking chandeliers on top of them and pulling cloaks over their eyes and poisoning them and . . . are they really living out the Thief fantasy? By strengthening the Thief’s core identity, leaning fully into the trickster aspect, we have redefined how both classes interact with Combat in such a way that has made direct, head-on-head violence the apparent specialty of the Fighter.

Conclusion

As much as the original Gorgon Bones blog post is a joke, Jenx does point out a real issue that’s plagued class-based games for a while: a weak niche makes a weak class. Not necessarily mechanically weak (although that can also happen, looking at you CP2020 Cop), but weak in the sense of fundamental design. Strong niches, even if every class has the ability to participate in combat, are born of purposefully and carefully built interactions with the conflicts presented by a game’s rules and environment. If combat is too great of a focus, everyone is going to want to be able to play the guy who’s good at combat; if winning combat is the sole goal of any given encounter, everyone’s going to play the guy that’s good at winning combats; if every class gets good tools for dealing damage . . . well, I don’t really have to spell that one out, do I?

If you’re designing a tactical, class based game: don’t make the Fighter the only class able to engage in combats. It’s lazy, it’s silly, and it won’t be fun for very long. You may notice that, while the two games mentioned here have classes that EXCEL at direct combat, neither of them fully limit it. Instead, the proper lesson of this thought experiment is a far more common one in our field: keep in mind the incentives you’re building into both your game and your classes, and be aware of how all these moving parts interact with and affect each other. After all, the Solo wouldn’t be nearly as good if Cyberpunk wasn’t so lethal, and the Cutter would be far more ubiquitous if Blades in The Dark had a dedicated combat chapter.

Self Promo

Hey! Thanks for reading. Sorry to leave ya with Baby’s First Game Design Lesson, but I hope ya enjoyed the journey there. If you’d like to see my recent attempt at a class based fantasy game, you can click here to check out Hollow Halls. Otherwise, I hope y’all have a great night and a great day!

[sillyfairygarden]

traffic series designs of the world’s most beautiful man 🫶 (1/2)

[washiinmachiine]

drew this in like 2 hrs after i saw primordian briar for the first time before swarm got put on the pbe and forgot to post it here whoops.. riot i need her Now......

[starboysbrainrot]

“so happy the gaang got their happy ending”

what mf happy ending are we talking about exactly ?

you mean the happy ending where aang gets to live forever with the constant reminder that he is alone, that the genocide of his people happened and there is no going back ? where he has the responsibility to assure that the air nation doesn’t die off with him after his death ? where he has to forever live with the fact that he disappeared for 100 years and that the world he lives in now isn’t his. he’s a relic of the past, the testament of a forgotten culture, the last remaining of what is left of the air nomads. he’s alone, forever, at least a part of it died with his people, forever lost.

or you mean the happy ending where Katara & Sokka go back to their tribe, scarred forever by war and loss, having to rebuild the southern water tribe after 100 years of war ? having to rebuild their culture, forcefully destroyed by all those fire nations attacks ? forever living with the urge to cradle between their mom’s arms, but never quite being able to do it. Katara will forever see her mother in her brother, his face, his eyes, everything reminding her of her mom, how she misses her. and Sokka being unable to remember his mother’s face, always ending up picturing Katara instead. even with their dad on their side, Kya will always be missing.

or you mean the happy ending where Toph goes back to her toxic parents that really couldn’t care less for who she really is ? and leaving the gaang, the only family she ever really had, who have to take on various missions around the world to rebuild it after the war ? and let’s not forget how scarred and terrified she could be after barely surviving their last battle.

or maybe you mean the happy ending where Zuko, after living a childhood made of lies, abuse, neglect and grief, has to become fire lord at 16, with no idea on what he is doing ? after having half his face burned by his own father, for defending his nation, will experience numerous assassination attempts as a new ruler and have to rebuild the whole world because of the wrongdoings of his ancestors ? his hands are tainted red by blood that his swords didn’t shed, but the crown on his head now is his, and that’s all that matters in everyone’s eyes. that’s all that will always matter.

or you mean the happy ending where Suki, after months in prison, simply has to go on with her life as if nothing ever happened ? as if she hadn’t rot in prison for months ? as if she hadn’t experienced the war firsthand by helping the refugees in Ba Sing Se ?

or maybe you mean all those other kids, that the gaang met during the series.

characters like Haru, who saw his dad being imprisoned, fearing for his life and the life of his mother everyday.

character like the freedom fighters, orphans, who had to become child soldiers in order to survive, who built a family around the hope that they were doing something right. only for it to be washed out by the destroying of a village, and the splitting up of their group.

characters like Jet, who never even got to see a life after the war, who was born in a world scarred by flames and loss, forced to become a parental figure to dozens of orphans, and who died by the hands of his very own country, forgotten forever under a lake, among other forgotten bodies.

characters like Mai or Ty Lee, that never really got to choose what they wanted to do, forcefully put into a role maintained by fear and violence. in a world that asked only thing from them : to fight.

characters like Azula, who got her whole life taken away by one cruel man, forced to become a weapon. who’s forever scarred by the way she grew up, by the way no one saved her, no one helped her, by the way she lost her mom and her brother, because of one, very, cruel man.

or Yue, who sacrificed herself for the wrongdoings of yet another man, who never got to experience adulthood, never got to experience the joy of growing up.

y’all can’t even comprehend that they are all DOOMED. they will never have a normal life after the war, never. their whole lives are forever scarred by the mistakes made by thousands of people before they were even born. they are born with tragedy, loss and war in their blood. ALL OF THEM. nothing will ever change that, no matter how good their future could be. even Aang, who was born before the war, was ultimately tainted by the horrors of it. after experiencing, seeing, all the suffering, all the wrongdoings.

they got the weight of the world and the hopes of long gone generations on their shoulders. not a single one of them got to be kids. not a single one of them got to experience a normal childhood. not a single one of them will live freely after the war. some of them won’t even live after the war.

because how. how can you forget, how can you forget 100 years of pain and suffering ?

(I know this all sounds pretty pessimistic but they all make me so, so sad… I love all of these characters so much. all of them. they make me sad in the best way possible and the tragedy of their story will forever make me cry.)

[szmaciarz-pospolity]

REPO! the genetic opera x ATLA season 1 ep 10

This old amv inspired me but I got Sokka instead of Zuko to fit the episode more :3

Also ref for last slide

[fighting-these-demons]

Divorce Saga Domon - A Haunted Honk Prequel

Hello Internet Stranger looking up G Gundam on Tumblr dot com!

This is an idea for a fic set in an Alternate Universe involving Queer Non-Canon Relationships between the characters of the series.

If you are not looking for this content please scroll on.

If you ARE looking for this content - and you're ok with reading my and other's Headcanons for this Alternate Universe I've haphazardly spun up -

Then go ahead and feel free to:

Check The Tags Of This Post For The Pairings

and click the Read More below!

--------------------------------------

Ended up outlining a completely different fic as a Segway for an explanation instead of making progress on the Royal Flush Haunted Honk AU's Clown Motel Fic like I wanted to but uh....

For y'all's review for the AU: A Prequel Outline - Divorce Saga Domon

--------------------------------------

Hey real quick - I'm thinking of maybe changing the timeline to 2 years post canon as opposed to 3 years and change post canon.

The reason being: I had a thought that this scene could either be part if the fic or if it's getting to big then it could be a stand alone tie-in prequel fic as part of this AU but - like

Immediately Post Divorce Domon Needs Space and runs off. As one does. And he runs to Earth because he just wants to Get Lost for a while.

He has Argo smuggle him out to avoid detection.

Argo has Andrew help stow Domon in a storage hanger of a Neo Canadian supply ship that's returning to the US - they have trade often enough and share agricultural resources - which leads to Domon ending up in New York when he hits Earthside pavement.

He's privately worked on his English the last couple of months and after being dropped in New York with a different hairstyle, outfit, and accent he's unrecognizable. 

He considers making his way west to get some solitude in the wilderness, but something about that initial plan feels off now that he's on the ground.

Chibodee is also Earthside for a special series of prize fights aimed at raising charitable appeal for the US in the eyes of Neo Americans.

Domon decides to hit up Chibodee for a fight on a day between matches hoping it'll clear his head and give him the clarity to decide on a course of action. What ends up happening is an unexpected heart to heart via blows and a breakdown.

Domon is happy for Rain and Kyoji, and he knows it's not true; but he feels like he lost a piece of himself when his relationship with Rain fell apart.

Domon's instinct is to run after that but Chibodee knows this city and Domon doesn't hide out for long before Chibodee drags him back to his place to stay and just "Chill out and breathe. You don't have to be anyone but yourself here. You can take as long as you need to find out what everything changing means for you." Friends and teammates stick together.

So Domon spends a few weeks with Chibodee sparring and hanging out in New York. Chibodee does a frankly awesome job at containing his feelings because he's focusing on Domons feelings and being a good friend first and foremost. Whatever he's feeling can wait until after Domon is done going though it.

There's a bit of a twinge in Domon's heart as he leaves that he can't really place.

After he returns to Neo Japan and gets settled back into life with his family, The Dreams start.

They're mainly set in New York. Small things first like noticing Chibodee's smile and his eyes. Then sparring sessions that begin to turn lurid.

He thought these kinds of dreams would stop after he was married.... he doesn't know what to do about this.

I just figure it gives more clarity and sense of time for the journey from Comphet Marriage Dissolution to Feelings to Confession. Idk.

But I got stuck on a bit and then had this thought and needed to get it down before I lost it and it was so long it made sense to make it its own post as opposed to several replies.

The Maize and Clown Motel will probably still be 3 years and change post canon for clarification.

@thedragonchilde @amplexadversary @youreaclownnow

[bacchuschucklefuck]

I don't think I've seen you mention it, but for your class!swap au, do you have any idea of what you'd turn the other Bad Kids into?

genuinely love the way this ask is worded first of all. I am like a great magician ur right and the bad kids are my victim. I am like their joker if you will. anyways I do! I've definitely brought this up on this blog before (in nonrebloggable untagged text posts so I don't blame you for not seeing them lol (I don't blame you regardless of that tbh bc that's a weird thing to do)) but the rundown is: kristen -> sorcerer, gorgug -> cleric, fig -> barbarian, adaine -> artificer, fabian -> rogue

[stellardeer]

I know lots of people are pointing this out but it's just so odd to me that it feels like society is more anti kink now than it has ever been.

Like I remember learning about strange fetishes when I was younger and thinking some things were gross or odd but I just kind of accepted that some people were into things that I don't understand and it's fairly normal.

But like that post explaining the back pocket flag culture of gays in the late 20th century was kind of wowing to me, like you mean there used to be a time where people would literally publicly advertise to others in the know that they were into scat?? And now people are getting callouts just for having fairly vanilla NSFW alt accounts?? Hello????

I mean like I wasn't there I might be wildly overestimating the portion of the queer community that was cool with certain kinks, but it's so insane to me to see how demonized fetishes are these days.

[zestyderg]

Attempts at BB Bandit battle forms

[waterghostype]

a bit of an unconventional post but here is rosel!!! struggling princess and novice of void she is my ninjago oc bc ive been infected with deadly oc brainrot disease…

oc ramblings under the cut lel

she is a princess with a tragic backstory . super original i know

in all seriousness she basically conjured up in my head while i was thinking “what could they ever do to recover harumi’s character from crystalized in dragons rising” and it all went downhill from here

she’s super energetic, lively, dramatic, basically a cringe theatre kid who doesnt shut up at all. she loves animals and nature and life and being elaborate and performing and all that jazz.

she’s basically harumi’s surrogate little sister. after being on her own for a bit and traveling all across realms she landed in this weird magical realm (one that i made up. lol) and was taken in by the royal family as a knight (basically) after she brought back rosel when she got lost in the forest. she’s having a terrible time in there BUT she’s staying because… there is a freakazoidal organization trying to take them down. super original once again.

harumi feels like shes sort of called to do something about it to somehow atone for her wrongdoings but she doesn’t want to do any more than she has to aka she doesn’t want to get close to rosel bc shes obviously very Not right in the brain and also because of her past

rosel originally had an older sister who was supposed to be the actual heir to the throne and she was totally chill with that! she liked to just have a second say in important stuff and do a lot of commercials like that was her whole thing and she enjoyed it. then her sister got assassinated so now she has to be the one to worry about everything and just be an heir all of a sudden. this is part of the reason why she got very easily attached to harumi and harumi knows this and understands what’s going on in rosel’s brain because a losing family then getting badly attached to someone bc you think they can fill that hole in your heart?? yeah not cool

doesnt help that harumi currently hates herself and thinks shes the worst person in the world (tbf she did do All that.) but the difference is when she was being unhealthily attached to garmadon he mistreated her BAD but here harumi actually tries protecting rosel and gets unfortunately attached as well which sucks! it’s like that grumpy old man adopts daughter trope except it’s a ~20 yo girl and a little sister

before she died rosel swore she hated her sister and they would fight allll the time. older sister (havent decided on a name) is really strict and pressured to do all her work as an heir and the oldest princess and i could go into more detail abt their relationship but just think oldest sibling vs youngest sibling shenanigans. theyd fight abt how rosel would never understand the pressure of being the heir in their political cilmate thing (yeah the made-up realm is going through it) but too bad so sad she got executed in front of literally the whole kingdom.

after a surprisingly short while rosel gets back on her feet after her sister’s death but shes just fakering oops. she has a bunch of bottled up issues but it’s ok! it’s ok!

also shes the elemental master of void. oops

this one is fucky wucky complicated but BASCIALLY my bs reason for her little mary sue op power is bc time twins were stuck in that weird time vortex all throughout everything And then the merge happened and the merge’s weird elemental energy whatever caused the time vortex and the twins’ elemental powers to get weird and because time is being messed up reality can be messed up and so this basically broken version of the time element gets transferred onto my girl rosel as if it was a regular degular elemental power which sucks bc it’s even harder to use and control and she doesnt even know how to fight so shes just struggling

she finds this out while on a journey with the ninja and harumi. like if it was a season itd be like episode 15+ she finds out. this is because she accidentally caused an important artifact to disappear out of nowhere, got sad about it bc she messed everything up, and then she accidentally makes a whole bunch of stuff (including living things) disappear too. yikessss

she doesnt want to hide it she tells the ninjarumi right away and theyre all like What the hell and shes freaking out but after some help she can at least keep herself from destroying literally everything.

until she messes up gets mega emotional loses control of her everything and starts voiding a bunch of stuff so she gets even more stressed which makes her void even more stuff and now shes basically destroying the kingdom shes been trying so hard to be able to rule. ooooopsies

after a whole thing with the power of siblingship and empathy harumi snaps her out of it and now shes absolutely baffled with what shes done and is a bit crazed abt the whole thing. bc of this she decides it’s best to train with the ninja (idk if she actually becomes one) so she can use her power better. btw harumi was able to snap her out of it and give her a hug without being voided because a) power of friendship and b) overlord resurrection she’s literally dead inside She basically is already voided in a way

so thats basically what goes on very sorry this is too long but i hope it all makes sense… i swear her story is better than the way i explained it (or maybe it’s not idk) i just have many MANY MANY thought abt her! i might ramble even more in the future so be cautioned. thx

heres zoomed in ver of the notes in case u need it

[solisvalentine]

miscellaneous sketches of different street fighters :)

[coldarena]

i think mota has hammered home how expendable (air)men were in war much more than the other series, from the bomber boys being used as bait for german fighters, to the borderline suicide mission of the red tails who are bluntly told to just 'blend in' if they don't make it back, to constant streams of new recruits and upping the mission counts. they really didn't care if they killed them all.

[rooolt]

Not to like say “everyone should listen to naddpod” again, but everyone should listen to naddpod. I know it’s a more rules based dnd podcast with combat in honestly probably every episode, and that’s not some people’s thing, but it just doesn’t drag at all because 1) as I’ve said Brian Murphy is an encounter design god and 2) the players clearly love the game and are having so much fun throughout and it’s just such a joy to listen to and it just helps me fall in love with it all over again. For me, it has the perfect mix of knowing they’re an entertainment podcast and what that means in terms of pacing and in character decision making, while it still being clear that these people aren’t just doing this because it’s a hole they dug themselves into, but because it’s a genuinely enjoyable thing for them

[aqours]

3E Ireena: Who are you? 5E Ireena: I'm you but weaker. 3E Ireena: 5E Ireena: 3E Ireena: Take me to the castle right now so I can kick his fucking undead ass right this instant.

[worstloki]

you are a disgusting piece of shit like kill yourself or die along with those terrorists

Hope this helps 👍

[snowberry-pie]

my thing is that bull doesn’t even want to fuck dragons he just gets off on the idea of beating one in combat which is like equally as weird . honestly