#i mean they did also say the roleplay is optional but like.

[theminecraftbee]

i think my favorite thing about the hermitcraft murder mystery party idea is that stress and iskall will be writing the roles for people. stress and iskall. those two. will have sat on a call or in dms wherever they have them, writing the murder mystery roles for their friends. iskall is literally already snickering about the idea of mumbo having a role and there isn't even actually a concrete plan yet. like we'd need to throw all fanon out the window for "what role the characters would play" and instead carefully pull back in the window "what would stress and iskall think is funny to force the other hermits to play" which is way funnier,

[littlepinksapphire]

I don’t know how anyone can be so staunchly against any of these characters. All of the companions have the potential to learn and grow throughout the course of the game depending on how you interact with them. Astarion continuing to be a manipulative asshole, for example, is a choice you actively encourage or not.

But yeah, if you decide you don’t like a companion and ignore them throughout the game or be a dick to them in the roleplay, no, they’re not gonna be a better person. I largely ignored Lae’zel’s personal quest during my first playthrough and she’s become quite the fanatic that I have little sway over. But I don’t hate Lae’zel and say, “See? See? Green lady bad.” That’s all on me.

I also think many of you are treating this like a bioware game. Approval isn’t so strict. You don’t need to do everything your companion agrees with to get them to like or respect (or romance) you. You can push back on them. You can disagree with them. They might even approve of you stepping in and stopping them from doing something reckless. I’m a little disheartened to see so many jokes about being a good person except when trying to get Astarion’s approval. Like, just be a good person babes, if that’s what you want to do. He’ll come around, I promise.

These characters were written with so much nuance and go on such a huge journey throughout the course of the game. To boil them down to one problematic trait (Lae’zel = mean, Gale = annoying, etc.) without context or empathy is frankly childish.

And if anyone gets in the comments and says “but x did y atrocity”, you can literally genocide an entire camp of goblins and that be considered the morally good option. Shut up, this is dnd, just have some fucking fun. Chat with the mean green lady

[indierpgnewsletter]

The 1980 Dallas RPG was a Soap Opera Wargame?

In 1980, SPI, a company known for its wargames did a strange thing and published an RPG based on the Dallas tv show. If you don't know anything about the tv show, don't worry, I will protect you. It's too late for me though. You go on ahead. Basically, it was a hit TV show of big money family feuding. Imagine Succession but it was written in the 1980s and instead of TV news, it was an oil company. Unlike the show, the RPG wasn't a hit. The art director of the game famously wrote that they printed 80,000 copies and that was 79,999 more than people wanted. That one person seemed to be this person's grandma who bought it for him to save his soul from D&D/Satan.

What is this game though? Well, James F Dunnigan, founder of SPI and designer of legendary wargame, Panzerblitz, seems to have applied his analytical mind to the internecine squabbles of Dallas and decided that, if you think about it, petty family drama isn't so different from CIA covert ops. And he was right.

As you'd expect from a wargame, the rules are dry and clinical to a fault. You start by picking one of the 9 characters from the show - JR, Jock, Sue Ellen, Pam, etc. They all have stats like Persuasion, Coercion, Seduction. And these stats have attack/defend values. For example, JR has a Coercion of 24 because he's a real jerk. Sue Ellen has a Seduction resist of 18, but it's 20 against JR, because again, he seems to have been a real jerk. This game genuinely went out of its way to make sure you know JR's wife really really doesn't want to go near him.

Each character starts the session ("episode") with a secret story-based objective. Jock wants to run an angry former employee out of town, JR wants to cheat an Arab oil magnate out of 100 million dollars, Sue Ellen wants to do a favour for an old boyfriend. Yeah, what can I say? Some of these objectives feel more important than others. Regardless, you achieve these objectives by controlling 4 or more specific minor characters and organisations by the end of the game. For example, to enact his 100 million dollar plan, JR has to control the Ewing Oil Company, Mustafa Quattara, Professor Bayard, the reporter Mary Cleef, and so on. But characters' objective overlap so Pam also wants Mustafa Quattara and Jock also wants Professor Bayard. These conflicting goals means players need to scheme, negotiate and attack each other so they can win.

The sessions play out in five rounds. Each round, the GM sets the scene. Then, the players can negotiate and make deals. Then, we enter the conflict phase where each player makes three moves - either trying to gain control of uncontrolled NPCs, or attacking another player to steal an NPC from under them, or protecting their own NPCs. And the game throws in little curveballs every round: Oops, some of JR's drinking buddies are in town and he can't say no to them, so his character is out of this round. Hopefully the player has some NPCs that they can use to act instead. Oops, Mustafa Quattara is being chased by assassins. Whoever controls his card has to give it up as he disappears for a bit and comes back uncontrolled. The end result is somewhere in between Vampire the Masquerade (or rather, Undying) and Blood on the Clocktower.

Sure, the math is dense (you roll 2d6 under the difference between the attack value and the defense value, plus or minus any currency spent). Sure, it takes 9 players to really sing. Sure, multiple people can complete their objective so you need to track victory points separately to decide the real winner. Sure, you have to take the homophobia out of the Seduction rules. Sure, roleplaying is completely optional. Sure, sure, sure. The game is a mess. But it's a very playable mess. I'd go so far as to say it's an electric mess. It's shockingly (sorry) fun to play. I think the secret lies in a very clear agenda for the players, a tight boardgame-like action economy, a premise that supports hilarious degrees of pettiness, and an inter-personal experience that demands everyone pay attention to what their friends are doing.

So. Am I planning a full 9 person play-by-post game of this? Yes. Am I thinking of changing the setting and the math? Yes. Is that basically designing a new game? Yes. Should this game be labelled "Powered by Dallas" or, as one of my players suggested, "Hornswoggled by Dallas"? YES.

(This was first published in the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

[yameoto]

how tf did you break the safe filters on c.ai??

please read my faq!

HOW DO YOU BYPASS THE NSFW FILTER ON CHARACTER AI? here and here are everything you need to know! it's essentially mix of using synonyms (for the love of god, do not come right out the gate saying "show me your tits") and immersive/detailed roleplaying, whilst tricking the bot into adjusting it's settings to let nsfw slide.

my personal note is you must put a little effort in your responses. just a little. even at least one paragraph! this is what i mean by immersive and detailed roleplaying; as if you're roleplaying with another person. the bot will see this!!! and get into it!!! the amount of times i see people reply with only three words and are dissatisfied with their experience is surprising. even the basics apply. if you reply with only dialogue, how will the bot know what you're doing? where your body is? where to put their body? it also makes it extremely easier for cai to find things to flag in your message, whereas if you put a tiny of effort in writing full sentences, it lowers the likelihood as potentially flaggable phrases will get lost in context. you need to put the bot in the mood. just act like you're roleplaying with a regular individual (equivalent exchange!) and it should just happen. if you need further help, google is a wonderful and time-tested invention.

this is just how cai is. i prefer it, because the llm is much better in terms of prose/memory compared to other ais and i enjoy plots supplemented by smut. especially bc i love writing tons in my responses! however, everyone is different, and if you dislike that, options like jai and spicychat seem like a good fit for you <3 hope this helped.

[deramin2]

(Spoilers for Critical Role Campaign 1)

I don't have any expectations for wherever FCG will stay dead or come back somehow because I've spent 9 years watching Sam Riegel totally subvert my expectations in a narratively compelling way.

But I will say that "FCG shouldn't come back because it would lessen the impact of a narratively perfect death" is EXACTLY what people were saying about Percy's first death after C1 E68. (The first televised character death.) If he had to have an end, it was a fitting end that, while tragic, neatly tied up the thesis of the story. Would Taliesin even want him to come back? With Whitestone saved and Ripply killed, was there even much left to explore?

They found Percy's death letter telling them he loved them all but please bury him in a ditch with all his designs so he could be forgotten by history. He was so sorry for all he'd done and he could never make it up.

But they tried anyway, having to wrest Percy's soul away from Orthax. The players knew what they said in the resurrection ritual was meaningful along with their rolls. But they did not know they were also having to convince Taliesin. If they'd tried to appeal to Percy's soul in the wrong way, dice be damned, Percy was going to refuse. What we got was really meaningful and powerful roleplay (especially from Marisha and Laura) that did convince Percy along with successful rolls.

Being brought back did not at all weaken Percy's own sacrifice or the impact of his death. It forced him to confront everything he'd been running from. It forced him to see that there were people who loved him and would not let him throw himself away for them. They didn't want a martyr, they wanted their friend. It utterly changed the trajectory of his character.

There's only four ways I can think of on the table to bring FCG back:

True Resurrection — Incredibly expensive high level spell. They would have to find the materials as well as someone who both can and is willing to cast the spell in the middle of a war to stop a second Calamity. None of this would be easy. The ritual could still fail. FCG could decline to come back and the other players would not know that until they went to all the effort. The Raven Queen views True Resurrection as heresy which is why they didn't try it on Vax. How would a second chance change them?

Reincarnate — Lower level and cheaper spell. FCG would come back as a fleshy being instead of an Aeormaton. Would the experience live up to FCG's fantasies about it? How would it change them to realize they are truely alive, and always were, but are now also mortal? Reverse Veth story? Wild ass Pinocchio retelling? What does it mean to get a second chance but everything about you is different?

Wish — I think this would count as duplicating True Resurrection. High component cost and requires a high level magic user. (If it's duplicating a spiral there's no risk of no longer being able to cast Wish.)

Hag Deal — They do know a fatestitcher Hag who likes them and limes making deals even more. Orym may be able to just extend his existing deal. What are the consequences for the deal marker as well as FCG? Would the robit feel responsible for that person's fate? How would that affect how they feel about coming back and the meaning they need to make from it.

I don't think there's a right or best option because whatever we speculate on, the actual result will be full of meaning and very poignant. I can't imagine that Bell's Hells won't try to bring him back. They've lost so much already. They couldn't bring back Eshteross or Bertrand or Will & Derrig. They couldn't live with not even trying. Maybe their method works, maybe it doesn't. But at least they tried.

And if FCG does come back, they have to live with knowing that even though they saved their friends and put an end to Otohan, they also hurt their friends by treating themselves as disposable. They forced their friends to confront that each of them might have done the same and that's deeply unhealthy. It will change the character development tremendously.

My favorite film and play genre is where the protagonist dies (or nearly dies) (usually self-inflicted) at the beginning and has to journey through purgatory to find themselves again before they can return to the living. Films like Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) or Castaway on the Moon (김씨 표류기 2009). Death matters because it reminds you to live. The journey is finding meaning in both life and death and coming back utterly changed.

[riacte]

🥁 Welcome to the first ever "Choose an unhinged Renchanting moment" ✨ALL STARS EDITION✨!!! 🥁

In which winners of the previous nine (!!) polls and the Last Life burning tower scene will battle it out for ULTIMATE UNHINGED RENCHANTING MOMENT!! Deliberately made to cross over from 2023 to 2024 to wish for a new year full of Renchanting <3

If you don't want to read my lengthy and dramatic sports guy commentary you can skip to the poll right at the end.

Now, let's introduce our beloved competitors! With some clips sponsored by @ani-craft, thank you as always <3

Starting from Round 1, the OG, the beginning of this series in Feb 2023— congrats to "Ren calling Maidtyn "very very sexy" completely unprovoked"!. Now, fellow Tumblr users, this is a historical moment because the Maidtyn trend was the Tumblr response to Martyn being active on Tumblr, and it snowballed into the Mint Mistletoes of MCC19 wearing skins of maid dresses (and a butler suit). This is the tangible impact of the Tumblr fan community on MCC. And of course it's about maid dresses.

Round 1 was quickly followed up by Round 2, and narrowly winning by FOUR votes is... [drumroll] "r/place (2022) when Martyn helped place a pixel of blush on RK Ren"!. Truly a chaotic moment that somehow became a highlight even in the overall chaos of those few days.

But the numbers really peaked in Round 3, aka. the Limited Life edition when Martyn's lore stream repeatedly dropped bombs on us. 100% of these moments are from Martyn, by the way. But which unhinged moment was the most unhinged? Which moment will win like Martyn? Unsurprisingly, the most popular option are those two words that basically sum it up— "UNGUIDED HAND". An unhinged moment that won with a whopping 404 out of 1913 votes.

Things did not calm down after Limited Life. Some might say the moments only became more unhinged. 2.5 months after LimLife ended, Round 4 began. Most of these moments are also from Martyn. Most unhinged of all: "Martyn declaring in a low voice: 'Third Life never ended for me'." Yeah it sure didn't, buddy.

Fast forward to September 2023. Treebark Week 2023! Surely the perfect moment for a poll! Also, I need to add that I was so excited about Round 5 that I posted it before TBW ended and... let's say it immediately got worse the day after I posted the poll. My hubris for assuming it was the end... Anyways, Martyn's Tumblr shenanigans kick in once again. Congrats to "Martyn saying nothing about an ask that claims his character is in love with Ren", which also ended up being a significant post to Scurvyblr. For reasons.

Two months after TBW, the pining gets exponentially worse. And I do mean exponentially. Enter Round 6, which has a lot of insane moments, but there was one clear winner, a moment that swept with 32% of the votes— everybody clap and cheer for "Martyn's 50 word 3L AU drabble - "Luck be with ye.... Hand"!! At the time of writing, that post has 4.1k notes. Martyn's just like us. He's writing fanfiction and that's so real of him.

Merely ten days later, fires are crackling, demons are giggling— it's the Decked Out open day! And we got a Renchanting feast! Round 7 emerged from That Iconic Burning Stone Box and was dedicated to moments the stream day. With 39% of the votes, the unhinged moment that swept was "Ren to Martyn: You have very fine lips there and a wonderful neck for kissing". Honorable mentions go to Martyn's Twitch chat (for surviving), Martyn's viewers (for clipping it with varying degrees of "what did he just say??"), and of course, False (for locking them in and kickstarting whatever the improv demon roleplay was).

A few weeks later, the flames have died down— or have they? Round 8 enters with a steel chair and Ren has more unhinged moments now. Martyn's Tumblr takes home another win with "Martyn reblogging a post that calls Ren his “Minecraft boyfriend”!! This is the third win that's from Martyn's Tumblr blog. You love to see it.

Last but not the least, Round 9 from last week! It's finally Ren's turn to dominate. Our winner is.... "Ren mentions going to sleep and dreaming of Martyn’s 'beautiful, beautiful eyes'"!! Appropriately clipped with the caption "Insane".

But that's not all! In Round 1 + 2, I purposefully excluded the altar scene and the burning tower scene because I felt those two would sweep. Now, I think the altar scene is still untouchable but the burning tower seems almost normal now. (As normal as an unhinged moment could be.)

A new unhinged moment has appeared! Challenger approaching! Last Life Ren purposefully sets his tower on fire after knowing Martyn is watching him and Martyn runs to save him while screaming "Ren, what are you doing to yourself! Stop burning yourself!".

Okay, okay, my dramatic commentary is done. Hey, I'm not a Renchanting fan for nothing. Here's the poll. Have fun :D

Much love to all of you <3 here's to another year of unhinged Renchanting moments!

(Also sorry the r/place should be in 2022 not 2021)

[sprintingowl]

TTRPGs As Terrariums For Blorbos

One thing that I think isn't covered enough in TTRPG recommendations is styles of play.

There's a lot of "this game has this tone," or "this game is this amount of crunchy," but less "what are you playing towards?"

In games like Microscope and I'm Sorry Did You Say Street Magic? and The Quiet Year, you're playing to see what happens to the setting.

In games like Mork Borg and Into The Odd and Mothership, you're playing to see how far your character can get.

And in a lot of games, you're playing to create a blorbo, an OC, just a little guy, and the soul of the gameplay is the story of who your guy is and who your guy becomes.

This is blorbo style play.

And the thing about styles of play is that you can apply them to any game, even games that aren't really built to enable them. So I wanted to take a moment to shine a spotlight onto some games that do specifically enable you to fully blorb out. (I'll try to cover a mix of genres and tones, but the rpg scene is vast so if you have a favorite that I missed please feel free to shout it out in the replies.)

-Golden Sky Stories. This is the English translation of the Japanese TTRPG Yuuyake Koyake. You play as shapeshifter kids and spirits in a small town and, instead of tracking EXP, the thing that you carry from session to session is your relationships with other characters. The tone of the game is heartwarming, and if combat happens, both sides lose. There can be emotional turmoil, but this isn't a game where you have to worry about bad things happening to your blorbo.

-New World Of Darkness. On the other hand, let's say you *want* bad things to happen to your blorbo. You want to play a guy that's really going through it. If you also like modern supernatural stories, New World Of Darkness was built for you. Characters in NWoD can be entirely non-combat, or a literal werewolf, or a noncombat werewolf. The game places a lot of emphasis on navigating through the setting socially, as its supernatural creatures tend to run in factions and starting a fight usually means making a bunch of enemies.

-Pasion De Las Pasiones. Of course, not everyone wants a fantastical setting. Sometimes good old melodrama is hearty and comforting. Pasion De Las Pasiones is a playable telenovela, and it encourages you to play your characters bold and recklessly. Every class even has a built-in Meltdown, where if you're pushed to the edge they become extra reckless, ensuring a broad fallout of messy drama when they do manage to calm down.

-Cortex System / Unisystem. Perhaps you want to drop your blorbo into an existing fictional universe? But you also want stats and meaty character creation instead of just freeform roleplay? There are easily a dozen games on the Cortex engine, including Supernatural, Firefly, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica, Marvel, and Leverage. And on Unisystem, there's Buffy, Army Of Darkness, as well as a somewhat rare I Can't Believe It's Not Planet Of The Apes.

-Lancer / Gubat Banwa. If you like blorb-y play but still want a heavy side of combat, both of these games have you covered. Lancer has a sprawling scifi universe focused on mech pilots, and Gubat Banwa has a violent and lavish mythological Philippines setting. Both of these games also have stunningly beautiful artwork, so if you like seeing a setting visually come to life, these are for you.

-Fabula Ultima. My final recommendation is also an extremely gorgeous looking game. Fabula Ultima is built on the bones of Ryuutama (itself an excellent travel-fantasy game) to enable meaty, blorby Final Fantasy style campaign play. Combat is a rich and deep option in Fabula Ultima, but so is everything from spellcasting to crafting, and players have built-in resources they can spend to affect the story. If a scene isn't quite going the way you want it to, you can spend a point to nudge it in the right direction. Fabula Ultima also feels extremely complete without being too complicated.

So there you go. Eight options, and that's barely scratching the surface of the sea of blorb-y games (Seventh Sea, Exalted, Blue Rose, Legend Of The Five Rings, Coyote And Crow, Timewatch, Nahual, and more!)

It's also not wrong to play non-blorb-y games in a blorb-y way. Do whatever you're comfortable with! But you might enjoy dipping into these titles.

Finally, if you've read this far and you're somehow still looking for MORE recommendations, I wrote this game about runaway changelings trying to find their place in the world, and it's probably the blorbiest in my catalog.

[kidnickgames]

Character Creation in HELLSITE

HELLSITE is a TTRPG all about, and using, feed-based social media like Twitter, Tumblr, etc. The creation of a social media account is a required bit of utility of the game, but it also features here as a discovery-based form of character creation.

First up is making the profile and bio, which is done by making a real-world Twitter/Tumblr/etc account, acting as both a live character sheet and means of summing your in-game Avatars.

As any of us who have spent enough time on a platform now, what is included and not included (ignoring even the content itself) tells you a lot about that person. The sheer amount that your character includes is a pretty handy indicator of their age- or at least of the age and era they came to discover the internet. Whether or not your character includes pronouns could say something about their political leanings or just the specific subcultures they exist in. Adding a DNI list tells you about their icks and dislikes, but also about their history as a citizen of the internet.

Next comes choosing who your character follows on their account. Quick caveat to the above teaser from the- it very much assumes that the player is using Twitter in their game. Trying to find political figures or even news outlets to follow on Tumblr is nearly impossible, and when it comes to celebrities, you have a whole 2 options. I'll be reworking this page with some more platform-specific recommendations in the final game (: But with that out of the way, the player is prompted to consider more specifically what their character is interested in, who they trust, what they want to be updated on, and what they find funny. These aren't set-in-stone decisions, rather, they're meant to be a series of breadcrumbs the player can use to learn more and more about their character.

My goal with this system is that players can "find" their character and jump into roleplay more easily by asking them a series of questions they ask themselves everyday: What do I want people to know about me when they visit my page? Did this post pique my interest? Do I want to know more about this person's life? Will following this account result in more posts that I like than posts that I don't care about? Does this account share my worldview? Do I care? I'll get into the utility of how the posts on your feed affect the game and the powers granted by your Avatar in another post, but for now, I hope this shed some light on a part of this game I'm really excited to create further! If any of this interested you, HELLSITE is currently live on Kickstarter!

[centrally-unplanned]

Something I do see a lot on discourse around Vicky 3 is a discussion of essentially "strategic decisions", people going "I want the game to always challenge me on what the right decision to make is and have meaningful tradeoffs and choices". And while for sure you need some of that - its inherent to diplomacy & war for example - I don't actually think that is true for the core mechanics. For one, Vicky 1 and Vicky 2 never had those! It did not, I am so sorry. In Vicky 2 if you want to move up the value you chain you "build factory in territory that has matching RGO", "research the pop growth, literacy, and research point techs before pivoting to key industrial techs" and "spam factories and railroads as long as they are profitable". Every country run was the same in pretty much every context from a strategic lens, your choices in this regard were not meaningful and you never needed to stop and think "hm...what do I build here, let me research the market..." or something, you learned a few tricks and applied them over and over. In Vicky 1 it was the same, but simpler, with a weirdly high punishment for imports (import costs were 100% paid by the government for some reason) so you try to avoid those, and also pop splitting as pure manual labor.

The Victoria games are simulation games, where "NPCs" have a ton of agency and therefore a lot is out of the hands of the player. That gameplay model actually conflicts with strategic depth, because if the simulations choices are meaningful then they need to be taking strategic options off the table. And its also a game simulating a 100+ countries and dozens of goods in a market economy, its operations are gonna be opaque as all hell. Because the simulation is expansive, to handle it as a player your actual decisions need to be simple and clear. Otherwise each decision would be a slog of digging through tables to figure out what to do, the game would drag down (and if the game just gives you a summary table of the data for you, well that is like a chess AI showing you your best moves isn't it?)

Instead what you want is the roleplay of meaningful tradeoffs. What is annoying is if every country feels like it industrializes and politics the same way, if you just "Build University - Build Steel Mill - Win" every time you lose the sense that you are roleplaying a leader of that country figuring out its challenges. You want multiple pathways - autocratic agrarian regime, liberal export powerhouse, communism autarky, etc - to all feel viable so you can play different roles. All of them being viable is anti-strategy in a way, right? It means your decisions kind of don't matter, anything can work out. Again you balance this, you have to do each path "right" and can screw up, but at its core its not meant to be hard the way chess is hard.

Vicky 2 for example did this a little bit with its RGO bonuses to factories - each province had its "best" factory, so if your country didn't have a great iron/coal province then maybe going for steel wasn't for you. Its an obvious decision right, not much strategy there, but it separates countries as an identity. But overall Vicky 2 wasn't amazing at this - one of the reasons event-heavy mods were so popular.

I see a lot of complaints online about Vicky 3 having that "sameness" to countries, but I also think those comments are rose-tinted about its predecessor games. I haven't played enough to say yet, so its what I am keeping an eye out for.

[elbiotipo]

I'm not asking for lack of violence in videogames though. There is much one can criticize as playing as the 'hero' in a videogame who wields violence, but the thing is, the hero stereotype is not going away as long as humanity exists. In fact, being 'heroic' in many contexts didn't even mean 'a good person', it meant someone who experienced extraordinary stuff and did great feats. Videogames allow you to replicate that. And they are art forms, so they should be analyzed and criticized, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with say, a videogame that allows you to rescue a town from bandits or slay a dragon. Those are things I could not do in real life, and they are fun to experience in a videogame.

What I do not find any enjoyment is in mowing down hordes of nameless enemies in an RPG. I do not mind violence in videogames, and I don't even mind playing as a bad guy. What I think is that if you're just giving me endless low-level enemies to kill and kill and kill, especially if they're people in the lore, I don't enjoy any of it. It's no longer the 80s where you get a better score by destroying enemies in a 8-bit game. I don't feel like a hero by killing Bandit 146, Raider 321 or Wolf 812. I feel like someone who did something extraordinary when I slay a dragon, or defeat an enemy army as a result of my skills.

What I want, in a roleplaying game, are roleplaying choices. If I want to play as a pacifist hero, I should be given the choice, and the choice to fail it. No, perhaps you could not negotiate with the leader of the pirates. Perhaps it's a bad idea to walk to a dragon lair equipped only with your knowledge. You were given the choice. But it also might work in many other cases. You might change things with your words. That's extraordinary too.

There is a lot of truth that many RPGs, from D&D onwards (and let's face it, Dungeon and Dragons looms large over everything) give you violence as the main gameplay, and other things as options. RPG videogames have replicated this once and again. Videogame design assumes leveled enemies, grinding, and combat-centric design as essential for RPGs. And I again, I don't mind combat. I just wonder, why it sucks so much? What pleasure is there in mowing down hundreds of wolves or bandits? When I play an RPG, I play it to be someone extraordinary, or someone regular in an extraordinary world, and I think games would be better if they focused on making an extraordinary, well crafted world where your choices make sense, and then make the gameplay fit around it, instead of endless grinding fights.

[copperbadge]

Oh god I got a discussion of therapy all over that poor person’s post about ADHD.....did not mean to spill quite that many personal beans but I queued it when I was tired and it posted before I noticed it was inappropriate. 

I wanted to reply to the comments individually but I felt like I’d be disjointed about it and maybe some people don’t want their comment on one post blasted to 30K people on another post, so in a general sense... 

I know there are different modalities to therapy -- I have no idea what mine were but I doubt it matters since it was twenty-five years ago and I was a child. Part of the problem is that the modalities which are clear-cut in theory seem unhelpfully loose in practice. I’ll look through a directory of therapists and a half-dozen will give different modalities from each other but talk about the same handful of therapeutic techniques, or address the same family of issues, or both. And most of the modalities both in the clinical and practical sense seem extremely unpleasant, so that is perhaps a Me Problem. 

I end up asking myself, “What’s my goal in doing this?” and I picture myself sitting down with a therapist who asks what I’m looking to address, because that would help narrow down my options. But I never have a good answer. So I think, “That seems like an hour a week that could be spent doing something less expensive” and close out of the search window. Then a few weeks later I think “Well, that might be useful, I’ll look around” and the cycle starts again. 

There are so many good uses for therapy, but a lot of what people say they use therapy for, I've done on my own for years, or am working on now and don’t feel like I need help. I don’t really have any problems identifying therapists who aren’t going to work for me for one reason or another, but it’s an issue if I can only tell a therapist what I don’t want to do. Saying “I’m not interested in doing roleplays” is fine as boundary-setting but if I can’t say “Because I want to accomplish this different thing” then all I’m doing is insulting someone’s profession, really. 

So what’s left? Just the vague sense that other people I like and admire find it useful, and my experiences were very much outlier, so maybe I should try it again. But if I can’t identify why I should try it again, and if I’m going to be aggressively combative about it (which...I don’t want to be but I do know me) then all I’m really doing is paying someone to be insulted by me for an hour, and I can do that to people who deserve it more, for free, on the internet. 

niennanir

The thing with therapy, speaking as someone who was a counselor for a period of years, is that it is a tool that supposes a baseline function. Going to Therapy when you have ADHD is very similar to being handed a hammer and told to use it when you have no arms.  

I did want to respond to this comment specifically because a) that’s very validating and b) it means that if I do want to continue looking I guess a good place to start would be asking my meds psych, because he at least deals with adults with ADHD on the reg and can be like “Well, first we gotta get you some robot arms.” 

I just like the idea of having robot arms, really. The hammer’s a bonus! 

...my meds psych is a very nice man but he’s also super earnest and will probably not understand why I find the robot arms thing so funny. 

[bludermaus]

[BG3 EPILOGUE SPOILERS AHEAD]

I greatly dislike how a Mind Flayer Tav was handled in the epilogue in regards to the Constitution Roll you gotta make to not nom on your friends' brains. I know it's supposed to be the "consequence for giving in to the tadpole" but hear me out

Every single other mind flayer but one in the ending was depicted quite well imo:

1) Karlach is a bit different and philosophical but she's still the same good self that she was, just with the added brain-hunger on top of it. And she made a deal with a hospital to give dying patients a dignified death and in exchange she gets her monthly dinner. Of course, not everybody can die every month but then she can go out on an adventure and kill a bad guy, she has a good deal setup for herself

2) The Emperor, if alive, also is handled quite nicely. If you've stayed human he says he's doing fine, if you're a mind flayer that didn't join him you're invited to come say hi, and if you're on the Knights route then he's warm towards you as his friend and partner (although I wish he'd show up at least on this one specific story branch). The only one he's very cold towards you and kinda sus is the one where a Tavflayer says "we're mind flayers we gotta think bigger", which just shows how much Tav can be a toxic influence to the people they meet

3) Omeluum is our favorite babygirl nothing to complain here

4) Tav is an idiot. According to the lore, mind flayers need to eat brains to function and they gotta do that at least once a month or two months. If they are over indulgers then a brain a week. So at worst Tav has only fed on 3-4 brains (counting Orpheus') before the party, and at best fed on about 24 brains. Either way, what I mean is... Why the constitution roll? Is Tav really that stupid that they haven't eaten for almost two months and then goes to a party full of people??? Tav really is canonically stupid after all????? Emperor moronsexual confirmed???????

Why even have the roll in the first place? Why not have it as a roleplay OPTION to eat the brains? Like, you have the option like I did to roleplay my Paladin Tavflayer as working in the Knights with the Emperor but without being shadowy about it, I had the option to say I was working with him but going on adventures because the shadows do not entice such a moral person... So WHY FORCE THE ROLL? IT'S SO OUT OF CHARACTER

It feels like Larian wanted to appease mind flayer lovers with the epilogue and dialogue, but also the haters with the roll, when it's pretty much inconsistent? Was the roll supposed to be a haha funny joke moment because you get to watch Withers yeet you out?? You can't please everybody in the Fandom, Larian, just make a nice delicious consistent cake and not feed us small slices and crumbles with slight different flavors

Rant done, just a bit upsetti about this in specific

[catnapanddogdaywhannah]

Hi! I'm a bit new to this blog, but I spent last night (and a bit of the mourning) scrolling through it all and I think both of you are lovely! As sort of a reverse welcoming gift, I have a bone chew toy for DogDay! And with all these blogs that you have to read I would say that's some good ol exercise time would be good soooo...FETCH!

(Waits a couple of seconds) Okay CatNap, I need to make this quick. I agree with you that we shouldn't inform DogDay on how... Puppies are made. I in fact think it is crucial for YOU to do so! You've already seen how bad it can get with us and I KNOW how these people operate. They won't stop until he knows. So I leave you with two options, let a bunch of random strangers on the internet explain it to him potentially traumatizing him, or let his own HUSBAND explain the concept to him in a way that he can properly understand and in a way where he won't fear it in the future. Even if you don't care to do "it", that's not why it's important! It's important because it's dangerous for DogDay to not be informed on this especially when there are so many people that know he doesn't know and want to fill in the gaps of YOU teaching him. (Potentially filling in those gaps with misinformation). Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how wholesome both of you are and I was sincere when I said both of you seem like lovely individuals, HOWEVER I am worried about DogDay safety.

I hope DogDay likes my present.

how about i choose the third option (did you know that i can delete those asks before Dogday sees it?)

also if you did scroll through all of the posts for the LOVE of GOD haven’t you realized this isnt a roleplay blog?? we are real and im suffering random people from tumblr breaking in our house and YOU just threw a bone chew toy inside leave us alonei mean yegah you broke the windoww lol that too

[egittae]

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Dewa/Dewba

Pronouns: She/Her

Birthday (no year): October 2nd, same as Rua!

Where are you from? What is your time zone? France, CEST

How long is your roleplay experience? I always say 10+ because I sincerely have no idea anymore just A Long Time

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? My Little Pony OC roleplay with my DeviantArt friends in Join.me art streams

How were you introduced to TOA? An ex-member kept talking about it to me until one day I decided to give it a go!

Do you have any pets? Two cockatiels!

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Winter...I love winter. I love snow.

What is your IRL occupation? I'm a design + marketing master student with focus on the luxury industry! I'm also a freelance artist.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? Sports, building scale models, drawing

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Pokemon, Metal Gear, Megaman

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Flying type. I love Cutiefly.

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! (Optional bonus challenge: if you filled this out last year, try not to repeat what you said back then!) My work was personally acknowledged by Hideo Kojima, and I was an advanced-level figure skater for 6 years doing public skating shows.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? Marth and Ike in Super Smash Bros Brawl was my first exposition to FE 😔 THO what got me into FE was 3H

What Fire Emblem games have you played? :) FE Warriors: Three Hopes and FEH EZGNFXGN

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: Just 3H for all options

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Dimitri, Constance, Dedue, Idunn, Lambert

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! Ingrid, actually! She was the first character in 3H who actually caught my eye, both because I find her design very pretty and because I liked the serious knight girl + pegasus rider combo.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 Mycen. I won't elaborate.

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? Three Houses Hopes: Ingrid

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Pegasus Knight!

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? After a bizarre chat with some friends I realized that my full IRL name's meaning literally translates to "cavalier messenger angel of the fortress" so I guess I'm your good ol' Pegasus Knight recruit who's a light magic user

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) What I want? Blue Lions. Realistically? Church of Seiros, considering my track record with being under religious learning institutions.

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boon: Flying, Authority Budding talent: Faith Banes: Gauntlets, Heavy Armor

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) What I want? Brodia. Realistically? I am brazilian. So I would be the brazilian equivalent of Elyos, aka Solm. Come to Solm.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) Toe

Current TOA muses: Lambert and Sylvain!

Past TOA muses? Dimitri, Seteth, Hapi, Idunn, M!Byleth, Percy

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Dimitri! Honestly, right now nope! Not only he'd clash with the fact I'm already playing Lambert, but he's also receiving much well deserved love from another mun right now. I'm happy like this!

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) Anything that's from Fódlan, good people who have gone through hell and haven't even begun their road to recovery, lil weirdos.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Smart characters. Because I'm not smart. Also characters who are canonly very verbose and have very flowery language, I don't have the vocabulary to make it seem natural.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I have no idea honestly....whatever brings joy at the moment.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? Lambert in his full kingly glory (softsmile), Sylvain showcasing his true, raw self to someone.

Favorite TOA-related memories? Byleth losing HP while fighting a fish with Arden's Frederick in order to impress fishermen, breaking his hand on a table, and then getting kicked in the nuts. All in the same event.

Present or past tense? I don't really keep track of this at all actually oops- past I suppose?

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I default to normal size.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 Mila. And every time I open 3Hopes I get Annette flashbangs. But mostly Mila.

[slavicafire]

Dear Żmija, I have just finished Inquisition that my dear friend that got me into DA is very fond of, and I just couldn’t explain to her why… it just doesn’t right with me. I loved Trespasser and ESPECIALLY the Solas romance but making Inquisitor a Mary Sue and overall focusing on her role in Thedas too much (as well as Corypheus being the villain… bleh) just felt like such a waste. What are your thoughts on the game? Because I remember you calling it „catholic”. (i’ll welcome a rant. Also hope you are well!)

ah. I have cast them away but alas, here come all my dragon age brain worms, happily returning to the fold like dozens upon dozens of prodigal sons.

quick foreword: i always play as humans, and i always play as warriors - I have played dai as a mage just once. so, in theory, I should be the one type of player the game caters to the most, lore-wise. alas.

inquisition is absolutely the weakest link in the da games - and it takes, for the lack of a more polite word, a giant shit on the lore and atmosphere set up by origins and expanded/played with by II.

and don't get me wrong, the first two games blundered and made a lot of mistakes, contained a lot of inconsistencies, contradicted their own set up plenty of times - but the expectation was (very much so) that inquisition would not only avoid fucking up in the same way but also! would fix some of those mistakes. add both proper gravitas to the story of the world - and allow for the return of the fascinating, genre-appropriate - again, for the lack of a more polite word - whimsy. it was supposed to be more comprehensive, more complex, more creative. heavy, again, yet funny. meaningful.

instead, inquisition made sure to make everyone bland, rather catholic and centrist in their convictions and beliefs - which, in a setting so fueled by the absolute injustice enacted on entire subgroups of people, simply means it made most characters bland conservatives, on the in-universe axis regarding chantry, mages, circles, elves, slavery, dwarves, the qun, and basically anything else you can think of. even characters who are supposed to be Hardcore Believers in whatever it is their convictions are end up being kind of undecided or confused about it all - see sera (love her as i might) or cassandra (no comment), or even bull when talking about the qun (which we are supposed to approach from a more liberal perspective now, diminishing its actual depth). don't even get me started on cullen, wannabe war criminal creep, who had a chance to become something interesting at the end of da II and then instead got wattpadded into the game as your trusty sidekick to prank instead of, you know, asking about how fucked up places starting with k get when he's there.

and then the game doesn't allow you to actually take a stance yourself - it just lets you choose the tone of expressing the one or two stances picked for you. you can't actually play as a meaningful character with proper agency - you must play as someone whose goal is to uphold the andrastian approach (not even faith, but approach), enjoy being the head of a giant religious militia, subdue mages at least partially, yield to accepting the apparent non-issue the grey warden order becomes, and then also give even less of a shit about elves and slavery than the previous games did.

I believe the only way to actually play the inquisitor without megatons of meta roleplaying in your head is to be kind of an evil cunt - and I don't mean choosing the asshole options in dialogue and missions, I simply mean accepting the fact that no matter what you do or what you say, you can't do or say anything all that meaningful. or good. nothing revolutionary, for sure.

the companions and advisors won't mind too much either way, after all.

[a-lonely-dunedain]

Ethedis for the LOTRO ask game?

(for this ask game where you send in one of my OCs, and I give you a synopsis of what it would look like if they were the main NPC in a tutorial quest)

o hmm, I think there's a way I could be a little mean about this heheh

so I think that I mentioned at some point that before the elf intro, Ethedis had actually befriended Amdir. I haven't fleshed out all that much of it up until now, but I'm thinking this could be a short adventure with Ethedis and Amdir where you could see them being besties (before The Horrors)

this will probably just have to be one instance, as it would flow best into the Elf or Human starting zones and we don't need to stack two entire intro questlines on top of each other lol

(under the cut bc How Did This Get So Long??)

I think it actually starts in Rivendell, with the Player Character (probably an elf/human only intro) preparing to leave on the expedition to Ered Luin, at which point you are introduced to Elrond's excited young apprentice Ethedis, and the Ranger Amdir who is going to tag along for part of the trip but plans to part ways in Bree.

Fast travel to somewhere in the wilderness of the Trollshaws, you Ethedis and Amdir are a little ways ahead of the group to make sure the road is clear. Surprise! wood-trolls! combat tutorial! After the fight Ethedis will remark that it was the first time she's actually had to put her combat training to the test against a real foe, which surprises Amdir, who says that he wouldn't have guessed it was her first real fight. One of them might ask the player character about their combat experience, which would allow you to pick from a few different responses (always a fun roleplay option and tbh I wish they would use it in more quests). I think if the PC says they're also inexperienced Amdir will mention that he's very glad you're both catching on quickly and didn't get hurt (bc he would not have fun explaining how he let two newbies get injured on his watch, and would feel very bad. classic protective Ranger moment)

Fast travel again to somewhere in the Lone Lands, you all are camped near Weathertop. Ethedis is talking about the history of the area (it sounds like she's been talking about this for a while now), and overall seems very excited to be here and see this historical site in person. Amdir smiles and says he's glad that she's interested in Dunedain history, as it brings him comfort to know that others still wish to keep his people's history alive. Your character might be prompted to give an opinion on Ethedis' loredump, either saying they found it boring (which Ethedis will simply laugh off and say that's probably why she's not a minstrel, but Amdir will just glare at you) or say it was interesting (which will prompt both her and Amdir to loredump even more)

Once you make it to Breeland, somewhere in South Chetwood, Amdir says that he must part ways here. Ethedis says she's sad to see him go but hopes to meet him again once the expedition to Ered Luin is done, and Amdir will tell her that he looks forward to it if such a meeting can be arranged, but tells you both to be careful in your travels (vaguely alluding to a growing danger in Breeland.

Then you can have two different outcomes depending on your race:

If you're a human, you part ways with the Ered Luin expedition at the same time as Amdir. He will bid you farewell and safe travels, and says that he has urgent business to attend to before disappearing into the woods without further explanation (as Rangers are wont to do). Your quest objective tells you to head to Bree-Town, but after you've been heading in that direction for a while you run into a large group of Brigands and get knocked on the head. Wake up in the Blackwold jail, human intro progresses mostly as normal from that point onward (but without the combat tutorial) although Amdir's quest dialogue would be different. If we want to get really mean, maybe one of the last things he says to you as himself is something along the lines of "I fear... I will not make it to see our friend again... tell... tell her that I tried"

If you're an elf, shortly after Amdir departs Ethedis will offer to explain to you the history of Edhelion as it was told to her by her mother before she left for the Havens. Then you get the old elf intro instance but cut down a bit and framed as a flashback, there will also be an elf woman there with a vaguely familiar face holding a baby in her arms (it's never explicitly stated, but that's Ethedis' mom and baby Ethedis), she will be there when Ethedis' dad Talagan brings down the library and she collapse to her knees in a sobbing heap when it happens. No one draws attention to her but she's still There. Anyway after that you arrive in Ered Luin, quests progress as normal but Ethedis is along for the ride. Like when you go to talk to the survivors of Edhelion, Ethedis will be in the ruins with some quest comments ("Even after all this time, I can sense the sorrow in this place..." "The land remembers it like it was yesterday, and I understand now why we still leave it abandoned" and "I think this may have been my parent's house. And to think, we all could have lived here together..."), she's also going to have Opinions about the Dourhand's borderline-worship of Skorgrim lol

After everything in Thorin's Hall is over with, she will disappear for a little bit but rejoin the story during the united elf/dwarf assault on Rath Tarag. When she hears that you're planning to go to Bree next, she will ask you to try to find Amdir and see how he's doing (surely you'll only have good news! surely!)

Later on you might run into Ethedis in Rivendell, and she'll have a short quest for you, talking about missing your fallen friend but finding comfort in your shared memories of him (very similar in tone to Gorwen's quest in Thornhad after finishing Before the Shadow) Amdir was the first mortal friend she knew, and she didn't realize how much this loss would sting. Overall it's a bittersweet reunion.

(man I really saw Ethedis and was like "the elf into didn't give her enough trauma. she's connected to the human one too!" someone please make me Give Her A Break)