honestly. being real. ive looked into a lot of various indie ttrpgs that haven't spoken to me, and i end up just coming back to D&D over and over. and i think i finally fully understand why that is.
D&D is very heavy on rules for what can happen in combat, but fairly light on rules for when it comes to story structure and roleplay. as a result, roleplay scenes feel a bit more natural and flowing, with the only mechanical aspect being the occasional skill check for like, intimidation / deception / persuasion / etc. but then, unlike the roleplay, the things that can be achieved in combat are pretty strictly regulated. this is fun for how i like to roleplay, as someone who used to do a lot of freeform RP--the problem with freeform RP style combat sometimes is that if you're RPing combat with someone who gets really wound up about making their characters always win, it can be really fucking hard to counteract the shit they have their characters pull out of their back pocket. having a VERY clearly defined and strict set of rules for specifically combat makes it so that when combat DOES happen, people can't just Say Shit about what they have their characters do--they have a limited character framework to work in and a limited set of tools that they can work with, and enjoyable combats come from using those tools in that framework creatively, effectively, and excitingly. this makes combat feel like it has genuine stakes, and when done right can be very intense and exciting. and then when you do actual like, character interaction and story building? there's just not a lot of strictly defined rules for what can and can't be done in those realms, both for a player and the DM. there aren't any constraints on the structure of the narrative that the DM presents, which means it's fairly easy to rip out the pre-packaged D&D lore, re-fluff a few things that heavily reference that lore, and just homebrew your own story structure and lore and world and characters and pantheons and the like.
my problem with a lot of indie TTRPGs is that a lot of them are married to either a very specific story structure that the system mandates that you follow, or a very specific pre-made world that the system is mechanically built to form around, and that level of pre-determination doesn't interest me either as a player OR as a GM. like these are fundamental rules in these systems that would gut it if you tore them out and replaced them with something else, which means that if you tried to go against those premade structures/settings, you would basically have to homebrew the entire goddamn thing from scratch anyway. D&D's relative rules-heaviness of combat and rules-lightness of roleplay makes it easier for D&D to provide me the kinds of stories that i actually want to participate in, even if people insist it's not as "flexible" as many people think it is. like. yes. don't run a regency romance game in D&D, obviously. but if ur running a high fantasy type of game focused on adventuring, D&D can be adapted pretty well to a homebrew setting and world with minimal effort.
and tbh, i really think that's why it has the cultural dominance that it does, and why i personally keep engaging with it as a ttrpg even as people yell from all sides to play something else. "just do freeform RP!" ive done freeform RP. it's good for character building and dialogue and intrigue and sex but it fucking sucks when characters have to fight. i fucking hate it when im trying to RP fighting in freeform RP and whatever person im fighting against just keeps fucking kicking my ass no matter what i have my character do because my RP partner is so invested in forcing me to lose or give up that they just pull whatever the hell they can think of out of their back pocket to beat my character into submission. at least with an incredibly well-defined set of rules for how combat works, your opponents are also working in a limited framework with limited tools, so even if they do fucking kick your ass, it doesn't feel completely stupid and arbitrary, and since opponents' attacks are governed by dice rolls almost as much as players' attacks are, the amount of arbitrariness in the combat is not wholly stacked against you unless you're fighting against something that's WAY out of your party's league--and even then, those creatures and people are still going to be bound by their dice rolls as much as you are, they might just have better bonuses and/or fewer penalties to make things a bit more favorable for them. that horrifying fucking monster you're fighting may have an insane bonus to attack, but it could still roll a critical fail when it tries to attack you, just as much as you might roll a critical fail to attack it in turn. everyone operates under the same rules and will have similar limitations placed on them by those rules, and participants have much less leeway to make their characters' combat prowess be whatever the hell they want whenever anything even mildly threatening happens.
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HIIII MACKINTOSH goob morning,,, pd episode 11 update ASHE MOMENT hi. hi oh my god. everyone HAS to be obsessed with him right?? he has to be like a fandom favorite guy HES GOT A CURSED GRIMOIRE!!! awsome. awesome sick i love him.
REALLY chewing on all the dakota & william stuff this episode... what will said about his wisp form being kind of terrifying because he never knows if he'll really be able to return to his body... ohh man thats so good. kid who's soul is just kind of held in by a thread rattlin around in there... + also this ep was great re: the trivia point u mentioned last night ab dakota & will clashing morality!! bc yeah!!! wild that wiwi's hesitance to Torture People wasn't because of the Torturing People part but just bc he's afraid of himself... dakota just having to Leave partway through... aughh. vyncent also holy shit!! all of these guys are having such a bad time.
I LOVE ASHE oh my godd. such a specific type of alt kid i love him. type of guy i would befriend like a shy stray cat at orchestra camp after complimenting his red jumpsuit apparatus hoodie. also there HAS to be insane amounts of discourse re: wavelength (holy shit. mark. mark. shrieked at that. i feel like i cant call him that its too weirddddd) parenting methods?? there HAS to be people who r like well i can excuse the murders but i draw the line at homeschooling ur bound-to-a-demonic-book kid. yeah youre right he & tide r so divorced 2 me. single dad & single mom. why is he so intent on getting tide back hmm??!!
anyway... hghghbk. good episode i won't make this even longer & start talking ab the spirit world stuff (!!!???!!!?!!?!!) BUT i hope u r having a good dayyyyy <3333
FUCK YEAAAAAH IM SO EXCITED YOUVE FINALLY MET ASHE I LOVE HIM SOOOOO MUCH. I LOVE HIM SO VERYMUCH . AUAGHGHHH. ashe winters my boy forever... i KNEW u would like him i could feel it in my BONES. hell yes. love love love a grimoire guy :]
I CANT WAIT 2 SEND U THE TRIVIA FOR THIS EP i started writing it out at the beginning of my shift this morning and then had to go to like a billion meetings so you dont get it until i get home. but theres some TASTY behind the scenes characterization discussion. ohhh thays my favorite. esp irt dakota this ep :] i love him so much . i love all of them so much
ANYWAY. william ashamed of his powers mkment!!!! my boy he is made of catholic guilt. anyway. i fucking loved how he ghost shaped his spirit form for intimidation instead of actually using it. hes so smart hes so cool hes everything to me if i start thinking about william wisp for too long ill go fucking bonkers crazy.
MARK. MAAAAAAARK. DUDE IM SO FUCKING GLAD YOUVE FINALLY LEARNED HIS NAME BC IVE ALMOST CALLED HIM MARK IN UR NOTES SO MANY TIMES AND IVE HAD TO CORRECT MYSELF. wavelength who. this is my deadbeat dad best friend mark winters. HES NOT A DEADBEAT DAD. IM SORRY. ok ok ok. i cannot say much irt him rn but there IS a reason hes like this hes not just shitty for the sake of it. he does care very much hes just bad at it. uhhhhhhghdgdgdgggdgdrrrghg i love him. a lot . #1 mark winters apologist blog right here. im not even sorry. luckily..luckily i have not seen the discorse about him yet but i know its out there somewhwre. sigh.
u know whats funny. youll hear this a little bit but its mostly in the bts stuff. grizzly fucking HATES mark. and that bleeds into how he plays dakota which makes sense but its SO FUNNY in the rolleds just how much he gets mad at mark. which !!! understandable he sucks hes terrible. but im built different i love him.
AND TIIIIIIIIDE. hey. hey remember when william was interrogating mark the first time. in the holding cell. and he tried to use a ghost shaped tide at first but mark called bullshit right away because "tide's never spoken to me like that before" hey . fellas.
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i fucking hate my life.
one of the other tenants has been constantly turning the heat up to EIGHTY even though it hasn’t dipped below 40. this lead to the heating bill for the unit being like, $300 more than the rest of the boarding house.
so, since we are apparently untrustworthy children and not adults who can be reasoned with, the landlord came while tenant was at work and put one of those plastic locking boxes over the thermostat. tenant came home ranting and screaming, calling husband and me bitches repeatedly, yelling abt how he always gets the mail (?), screaming about how we went behind his back to the landlord (we didn’t), and then SLAMMED his door as hard as he could.
screaming and door slamming are so fucking triggering for me. i had a melt down verging on anxiety attack.
i absolutely Do Not Feel Safe Here.
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guess who just submitted a proposal to present at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association's 2024 convention!!!!!!!
....that being said, I didn't have time to have anyone proofread this thing, so who the fuck knows if it has a chance
.....yes, its about Supernatural. no, I will never shut up about this show's fucking FASCINATING relationship to N. European pagan/christian transitional mythology.
fandom aside
from an academic standpoint,.
ITS JUST SO FUCKING *COOL*
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people on twt are like. so genuinely mad about tyson being put on waivers (esp when they think rossi should be sent down instead) and my thing is just that. we weren't using him right. right? like he was good in the pre-season and when he's allowed to exist in a scoring role rather than a checking one, which dean isn't giving him (because, despite the state of our team generally at the moment, scoring forwards aren't supposed to be where our issues are) so waiving him/sending him somewhere else will at least give him the chance to get that? you know? he could go somewhere where he (a) gets to play consistently and (b) plays to his own strengths rather than what people keep deciding he should be doing.
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