#posts from discord

[gumy-shark]

uncontrollable emotion based magic powers but the only thing they can do is Summon Horse

[abislwise]

ever wondered why dming is so hard and why your players just sit there staring?

The reason is the same for both, and it's also why players never learn how to play their characters. This is long, though, so the answers are after the cut.

Okay, this is the "How to Play" section from the introduction of the 5E Player's Handbook. I cut out a small bit listing some examples, but otherwise this is almost all of the section.

HOW TO PLAY The play of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game unfolds according to this basic pattern. 1. The DM describes the environment. The DM tells the players where their adventurers are and what's around them, presenting the basic scope of options that present themselves (how many doors lead out of a room, what's on a table, who's in the tavern, and so on). 2. The players describe what they want to do. … The players don't need to take turns, but the DM listens to every player and decides how to resolve those actions. Sometimes, resolving a task is easy. If an adventurer wants to walk across a room and open a door, the DM might just say that the door opens and describe what lies beyond. But the door might be locked, the floor might hide a deadly trap, or some other circumstance might make it challenging for an adventurer to complete a task. In those cases, the DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action. 3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions. Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1.

This looks totally fine to most of us, until you notice something. Let me rephrase this a bit:

1. The DM describes every single thing that happens in or around a given scene, up to the point where they prompt the players for input. 2. The players state an input. 3. The DM describes all of the consequences of that input and all other events until it's time for another input.

Do you see how much work this is?

And look, it's work we're good at and used to. Especially now that I use Mike Shea's techniques, my prep is down to practically nothing. But it is a learned skill. Not everyone knows how right away.

And this leads to the other problem I mentioned: players are, by and large, trained by D&D to passively wait until a prompt comes up and then respond accordingly. It's to the point that the D&D community even reacts aggressively to the idea of players rolling skill checks that the DM has not explicitly called for.

DMs in D&D are expected to create entire worlds, plotlines, dozens of characters, and more while also arbitrating a woefully incomplete rules system and managing the personalities of the people at the table. That's a lot to ask. Meanwhile, players are explicitly instructed by the book not to do anything until the DM asks them to, and the mechanics themselves discourage active play. Yeah, you can houserule around this, but that just adds the hat of "game developer" to everything else the DM is doing.

Compare this to--and I'm going to the classic here--Apocalypse World. In AW2E, you are explicitly instructed by the book to create a character that has a vision for a better world. If your character doesn't have a clear idea in their head of what they're doing next when nothing else is going on, you're not doing it right. Many moves also resolve themselves without the MC's input, meaning that players can proactively move the game forward by choosing moves that already do so. In that world, an MC doesn't have to carry so much of the load. The players can help out too, and are frequently incentivized to do so.

This also touches on the cultural permissiveness towards simply not knowing the rules of D&D. Why bother? The DM will just tell you what you need to roll, when you need to roll it. There isn't even much of a point in learning your character, because in most cases the DM has to tell you what to do in order for the game to work anyway.

And again, this also is why many players that start with D&D consider other games to be harder or more effort despite often having one-tenth of D&D's rules and complexity: because in those systems, they're expected to actually know the rules and actually help the game advance. They can't just wait until something happens, push the appropriate button on their sheet, and then go back to being passive observers.

Can you have better experiences than this in D&D? Sure! But you're fighting against the most basic assumptions of the system the entire time.

[shadowpeachyuri]

tripitaka and swk on the journey but it’s my little pony season 4 episode 21 Testing, Testing 1 2 3

[t4t4tclethian]

*points to traffic grian and esmp s2 joel* these cubitos have NPD and there's nothing you can do about it

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's just guys night talk! Don't worry about it!

(Read Tiger Tiger and shake this man awake so he can finish that thought!)

[umblrspectrum]

3 years of this godforsaken show

[doctorsiren]

I wonder what younger me would think of who I am now

[dapper-lil-arts]

If Fluttershy had Whatsapp 🤣🤣🤣

[mh2o29]

any scott pilgrim enjoyers in chat

(inspired by that one panel yk the one)

[buttercupshands]

Accidentally created a semi-comic (not connected as much) with melt Frin because of isat ss discord

@starry-night-sky6, @a-weepin-willow, @fastrainbowdas, @gosteon, @kitcats-1-braincell to let you all be as happy as you can be about being bubbled on Tumblr too teehee

[abislwise]

gonzalez v. trevino, and why you should care.

SCOTUS has ruled on Gonzalez v. Trevino in an 8-1 vote. Per the ruling, when suing the police for retaliation, the person suing does not need to provide precise instances when others were not arrested on the same charge. General evidence that they would not be likely to be arrested is enough.

The story behind this case is wild, and this ruling is pretty important. Hit Keep Reading for both.

Gonzalez in this case is Sylvia Gonzalez, a 77-year old woman who, it must be said, was the first Latina elected to the city council of Castle Hills, TX (pop. ~4,000). Edward Trevino is the mayor of Castle Hills. If this is starting to raise alarm bells for those of you involved in local politics, you're absolutely right.

Gonzalez was a local resident who ran for office because she and many, many others felt that the city manager, Ryan Rapelye, sucked at his job. She ran on the promise of getting rid of him. Well, she got elected. Then the city attorney and the rest of the city council tried to claim that, since the sheriff who swore her in wasn't technically qualified to do so, her votes didn't count. A judge threw that out. Then Gonzalez got started on circulating a non-binding citizens' petition to get rid of Rapelye.

Here's what happened next: after Gonzalez submitted the signed petition (at which point it became a government document), at the end of a meeting it was sitting among some documents on top of a podium. Gonzalez put all the documents in her binder.

Now, before we all get excited here: a key point in Gonzalez's case which this decision does not cover is whether she did this intentionally or not. There are questions about whether all the signatures are legit; some residents have said she coerced them. On the other hand, that could just be the council's faction talking. That part is going back to trial, so no answer here.

HOWEVER. What's clear is what happened next: weeks later, Gonzalez was arrested on the charge of tampering with a government document. She was thrown in jail overnight, and her mugshot was released. The charge was almost immediately dropped, but she wound up paying I think over $10,000 in legal fees and her reputation was hurt. Because of this, Gonzalez then sued the police, claiming retribution.

What's retribution? What it sounds like: if you engage in protected First Amendment activity, and the police arrest you, that's retribution if you can prove that they didn't have probable cause. In that case, you can sue them.

Wait a second. Sue the police for arresting people? That's right, darlings, this is a qualified immunity case!

Now, in 2019 SCOTUS added a second way to prove retribution. Instead of showing they didn't have probable cause, you can sue the cops if you can prove that someone doing the same thing without the message you were stating wouldn't have been arrested. For example--and this is the example SCOTUS used when it was argued--if you shout "FUCK THE POLICE!" and then jaywalk, and you get arrested and jailed for jaywalking, you have a pretty fucking good case for retribution.

Tampering with a government document is, basically, a ridiculous charge in this case. Gonzalez showed that at trial by citing stats saying no one has been arrested for picking up a petition ever. The trial court agreed, but an appeals court ruled that no, she had to cite specific examples of people picking up petitions and not getting arrested. Thus, SCOTUS.

So… what the hell happened?

This ruling is a per curium ruling. There are a number of things that can mean, but in this particular case it means that no Justice's opinion got the five votes necessary to be the majority opinion. Thus, this is another case where we have a bunch of concurring opinions.

Alito's concurrence actually gives some reasons for why they ruled what they did. They're technical, but they amount to, basically, saying that you can't decide whether evidence counts for this exception at the same time you're trying to figure out if there's enough of it. Kavanaugh's is the--technical term here--weakest shit ever, literally saying that this ruling is fine because it "does no harm." Jackson's concurrence (Sotomayer joining) says you should allow all kinds of evidence for this!

And the lone dissenter? That's right, iiiiiiiiiiiiit's Thomas! His dissenting opinion says that this exception shouldn't exist at all and you should always have to show probable cause, likely because he's a bitter old man who hates goodness and joy.

Okay, why does this matter?

One, because it protects free speech from retribution and makes it easier to fight back if that happens. Two, because this is a (very, very) small chink in the armor of qualified immunity, which should die in a fire. (For those who don't know: qualified immunity is what makes it so you can't sue cops.) Those two together make this a big deal to me, narrow as the ruling is. It's a good day for protesters and objectors everywhere.

It's also interesting just how much this fractured the court, especially given how often that seems to be happening. The conservative supermajority we've all been fearing is--ever so slowly, bit by minuscule bit--weakening. I'm still extremely worried about many upcoming decisions, but this has given me some hope.

[shadowpeachyuri]

i dont really think abt spicynoodles much but to me the ideal spicynoodles dynamic is:

mk: [tries to do something cool and instead trips over his own feet and falls cartoonishly onto his face] red son (so overcome with homosexuality that he feels physically nauseous): i think i hauve covid

[theriverbeyond]

It's sooooo interesting how in Harrow the Ninth, Harrow is constantly noting all the ways Ianthe is failing at femininity: the awful frilly nightgown, the clothes that don't fit (in the bust, in the hips), her hair, her attempts at flirtatious behavior, the specific way she is sucking up to Augustine etc. And like, this is a weird house for Harrow to be throwing stones from, sure, but I think it makes way more sense after The Unwanted Guest gave more context to soul permeability wrt the status of Naberius Tern, because it is now arguable that Ianthe is essencially being forcemasc'd throughout the entierty of HtN -- we just dont know about it bc Harrow dgaf. And this is doubly interesting to me because when we next see her in Nona the Ninth, she is now Ianthe Naberius, a Tower Prince in masculine dress and leather trousers and boots, and she no longer has any of that sort of gender failure going on.

[riotshotguns]

let’s lay on mama

[egbluh]

holding onto the remains of my innocence.

[go-against-fate]

thinks about concentric and proceeds to spontaneously combust