#like. i don't actually play dnd so. i'm twisting the lore

[seagullcharmer]

besties for the resties

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not roleplaying with someone?

I (19F) started a dnd-type roleplaying server with my friend (also 19F). She's the one in charge so she invited her online friend, Crow (I don't know his age but I know he's a few years younger than us) along with a few others. It's pretty fun although I can't always be there (health and school reasons).

However, me and Crow do not get along. We used to be in other servers together when we were younger and he would constantly say or do things to piss me off (sometimes I also did it back, though). Usually our mutual friends diffuse our arguments and things go back to normal.

From the start it felt like Crow really didn't give a shit about his character and kept making up excuses not to use him (creating other ocs, having him go missing, etc) so I was really shocked when he dm'd me to plan out a scene he wanted to do with my character.

Surprisingly, we put our differences aside pretty well, until it came down to writing the actual scene, where he completely ignored all of our planning and did what he pleased. He claimed it was because I introduced a plot twist (which we did briefly mention in our planning) and was just following the flow. I wasn't mad until he said I shouldn't be mad at something that could have been avoided had I just read his characters' lore (in my defense, he constantly creates new characters and writes pages and pages of info for them, it's hard to keep up when I'm really busy and specifically just want to play with our original cast of characters).

In the aftermath of that conversation I may have offended him because he kept acting all stand off ish but he claimed it was because he was autistic and couldn't really understand what I was trying to say (which I understand because I'm also some sort of neurodivergent who has trouble understanding subtext but it didn't really feel necessary in that conversation)

Cut to a few months later in which he's sort of just gotten really compliant and barely participates anymore, until he just straight up disappears for two weeks (he's done this before on other servers for attention so I just leave him be until he comes back on his own)

Finally, he does come back with like a whole essay on how we've been mistreating him and how terrible he's felt being left out (*cough* self isolating *cough*) I try to reason with him but it feels lile he's just being dismissive and interruptive. And again, he's typing very stand off ish, almost like he's writing a corporate email. I explain that none of us are purposefully leaving him out- he just didn't take the hint that we wanted to write something other than what he liked or thought was fun. I still don't understand what he was trying to say but we agreed to compromise and he went to sleep since it was late.

Now that he's back it's sort of awkward facing him after that night so I try my best to ignore him and do my own thing. He still has fun and writes with the others but I stay out of his way and he stays out of mine. I don't know if that's the right thing to do since he originally got mad at me for ignoring him, am I the asshole, though?

TLDR: I ignored a mutual friend who I can't get along with and then he wrote a vent post (indirectly) about me, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

Resolution Mechanics and You

Last post, I promised to talk about the dice mechanics in Prima Materia and why they exist the way they do. I also promised this would be a shorter post, so let's get this road on the show.

There were a few things I kept in mind when designing the resolution mechanics. Firstly, it had to involve dice, and a respectable amount of them. I enjoy rolling the click clack rocks quite a bit, and rolling more dice for me seems like a fun time. Secondly, it had to feel right. Feeling right is unfortunately very ambiguous, but I knew I wanted the dice system to feel like Attributes and Skills both mattered and contributed to a roll. I also wanted the system to be able to account for someone being abysmally bad at something, as well as very competent; with measurable steps along that path that feel distinct.

At the start, the only reference I really had was DND, so I researched different dice systems, what their pros and cons were, and branched out to play some other games. It's partially thanks to this that I got introduced to Star Wars D6, Warhammer Fantasy, and LANCER (excellent games, all of them).

After a month or so of this, I decided that no dice mechanics were up to snuff with the image in my mind of the dice system that struck the "correct balance." I didn't want to use a d20 system because there wouldn't be much variety in dice, and it's too swingy. I've never particularly liked d6 dice pools, partially because of the lack of dice variety. Other than that, I just don't subjectively like d6 dice pools in the games I've played that have them. d100 systems seemed interesting to me, but I felt they didn't allow for the kind of nuance I was looking for between the Attributes and Skills.

Regardless of whether or not my assumptions were correct, I decided to make my own dice system. Ironically, it turned out being fairly similar to d6 dice pools with a twist. This also ties in with how the Attributes and Skills work; but the simple version is that every roll comes down to what kind of dice you're rolling, and how many you're meant to roll. Attributes have a dice assigned to them; d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12; that represent how honed that attribute is. Skills have a number of pips that tell you how many dice to roll. For example, someone with a Vitality of d8 and endurance of 3 will roll three eight sided die when rolling endurance.

I think this system, if nothing else, is at least interesting. I'm in the process of playtesting to make sure it's actually fun to engage with and to see how much I need to tweak the math (particularly now that Character Creation mechanics exist), but so far it seems to be working nicely.

Thanks for reading, next time I'll post about some lore. I don't want to overload the blog with mechanics; the setting is just as important to this project (and I have art in the works for it!)

[illegiblewords]

Heavy stuff, venting.

I'm having a really, really awful time right now and it just sucks a lot. Things have been tough offline on a lot of levels lately. I don't share much of my creative stuff with people IRL, but it's one of the things that can give me a lot of joy through the day even when things are hard. Creative stuff can mean stories, or designs, or analysis. Even just poking around seeing what other people have done will cheer me up. I've been taking a break from FFXIV for a bit. I didn't play the most recent patch or holiday stuff. Some of the pacing and directions feel like missed opportunities. I might try again in Dawntrail but at this moment I'm taking a break to do BG3 for a bit. I've been interested in DnD for years, and I actually have a million ideas and things I find exciting tied to the Forgotten Realms. Haven't gotten to do more than the very beginning of a campaign because schedule hell but I'd really love to. BG3 has been a chance for me to actually interact with the world on my own terms a bit and it's been a big source of joy for me lately. And I love that Larian put as much thought and layering for the characters psychologically, overall. I love that they generally haven't shied away from stuff either. If I try to look at tags for say, Gale though? Mostly instead of other people making things, I've been getting people who are absolutely furious about how devs talked in a recent interview. I've dealt with characters I love to bits being treated in horrifying ways before. People who were with me when I did Spidey stuff will probably remember some of it. Shit was genuinely incredibly upsetting. I don't think the things people are mad at Larian about are intentional by Larian in the way they're being interpreted. I think this could probably be resolved just by explaining concerns assuming it was unintentional, without rage or accusation. They seem to really care about their fans and given the story told I think they care about their own characters too. Business bits aside. I haven't talked about any of this on tumblr or twitter because like... right now people seem to be a kind of angry where if you aren't angry the way they are, then fuck you you piece of shit basically. But if I'm just trying to make things, or find other people making things, or do analysis? I've just been wading through the anger from other people. It's more stress when I just don't need it. I've tried to find BG3 or DnD discords. I haven't found one for BG3. The DnD ones, I think there's a combination of them being kind of dead and... not really a place for what I do or how I talk. I have two homebrew monsters and a homebrew item I'd love to keep refining but I have no idea how stats work, and I can only really go so far on my own not having done a campaign in any way. Someone suggested I make my own discord community, and I could try, but idk if anyone else would be interested and being in-charge makes me anxious. Same time I'd be really nervous about whether discords run by other people are chill. I desperately, desperately want to avoid drama.

And stupidly I went to the official forums for lack of knowing where else to go. I was surprised that people were nice initially but one person came in and has been making weird personal attacks, backhanded compliments, talking like they're the authority on all things (lore, morality, storytelling as a whole). If you have a different opinion you are wrong and a bad person and stupid too. I genuinely think this person might be a narcissist and they are setting off every possible warning bell with me. Like I'm actually freaked out by how out of touch with reality they are. This person is making shit up that was never discussed, gaslighting like crazy, twisting words, and going into rages claiming I went nuclear when my whole point was 'why the fuck are you being mean to me and trying to boss me around???' I was very much not happy with the person but I was fucking careful not to insult them. And now I think this person doesn't want to leave me the hell alone. And like, I straight up said I don't want to talk to them further. When the user had a MASSIVE GODDAMN TANTRUM full of personal insults and accusations, I didn't reply. I thanked one other person in the forum for mentioning they read the message as hostile too, mentioned my 'leave me alone' message wasn't taken in its intended spirit, and touched briefly on why the accusations hit a particular sore spot. Then I apologized for derailing and switched to discuss character interpretations again.

Lunatic is like 'oh these replies to my message are so interesting, I'm going to answer you all once the website stops glitching'. And I swear to fuck I can hear the strings from Psycho going off.

I don't really trust that forum moderators will intervene. It's been a whole day since my first attempt to report, when the initial message happened. The second message was much worse. I generally don't trust people to take it seriously if harassment like that is happening. My assumption is if it's criminal I need to go to the police but otherwise like... no one is watching out for shit. And there is no block system on those forums.

I AM JUST TRYING TO MAKE CRAP MAN. I CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTERS. I CARE ABOUT AND INTERPRET CHARACTERS IN A WAY NOT EVERYONE ELSE DOES. I DON'T NEED PEOPLE TO AGREE BUT FOR FUCK'S SAKE LET ME MAKE AND TALK ABOUT SHIT IN PEACE. If I touch on a heavy topic, it's because I think it's warranted or adds a layer to the narrative that explains things or otherwise makes sense. I'm going to navigate heavy topics with care and empathy because I am very aware people get seriously hurt by that shit, a LOT of creators are actively cruel to victims, and! I love the characters! People are allowed to tell stories that cover the darker parts of human experience, not just the ones a single specific person approves of! And if you don't fucking like how someone else interprets or makes shit, DON'T READ IT AND MAKE YOUR OWN CRAP.

This was probably horrible interneting in the sense that I shouldn't have replied at all, but what the everloving fuck. How do you go up to random strangers and lead with condescension like that? How do you go through life just assuming everyone different from you has something wrong with them? EDIT: Person has escalated. Not sure what to do. Have reported a lot but no action yet. FURTHER EDIT: Mod showed up and said 'people are allowed to disagree, be nice, there's a hidden ignore button on a separate webpage'. The personal attacks are allowed to stand and TOS seem to be meaningless. Another user pointed out that the lunatic had been recognized as aggressive by two people and that my analysis wasn't unreasonable or uncommon even if they didn't subscribe themselves. Person private messaged with me and was pretty reassuring. I'm just on the page of 'fuck those forums I am never coming back' at this point, with the added understanding that if I tried to talk again at all the lunatic would 5000% continue trying to harass me. I just hope they get distracted and move on/forget basically. Fuck that shit.