#using a robust framework

[bimboficationblues]

for some reason it’s not enough to be like “some people might be gaming/on social media/jorkin’ it too much and it seems to be making them unhappy”, there is a weird fixation on making sure that behavior gets filtered through the medical framework of “addiction” (which already is not some super robust or useful framework that I feel must be deferred to always)

[transandrobroism]

an observation from several posts/conversations that could really help in avoiding a lot of misunderstandings: often when people talk about 'transmisogyny', they are using the term 'transmisogyny' to mean at least three different things simultaneously and conflating different meanings of the term in discussions. in general usage i've seen 'transmisogyny' used to mean:

transmisogyny-as-phenomena - i.e. 'transmisogyny' as a term for the intersection of transphobia and misogyny, a common feature of transfems' experiences;

transmisogyny-as-framework - in which transmisogyny is elevated to the level of a conceptual framework for understanding all transphobia. under this meaning everyone is encouraged/expected to conceptualise their experiences of transphobia through the lens of transmisogyny and run it through a filter of "how does this relate back to transmisogyny as the primary driving force for all transphobia"

on top of this both uses of the term are also conflated with the TMA/TME framework that divides people into two neat categories of those affected or primarily targeted by transmisogyny (transmisogyny affected, or TMA) and those exempt from transmisogyny and only accidentally impacted by it (transmisogyny exempt, or TME).

conflating all these meanings with each other is how you end up with soggy takes like "rejecting the label of TME is denying transfems the right to define and discuss their own oppression" which is a real thing that someone (transmasc) said to me. treating these concepts as all interchangeable meanings of the term transmisogyny contributes to a lot of the discourse and (frankly) animosity about discussions of transandrophobia, because when someone says something like "idk i just don't think transmisogyny is adequate as a robust framework for understanding how all transphobia works" or "dividing the world into TMA/TME is a flawed way of viewing transphobia and replicates the gender binary we're all trying to dismantle", that's a critique of transmisogyny-as-framework, but is read as a rejection of transmisogyny-as-phenomena, and thus is viewed as invalidating transfems' experiences.

add to that the fact that i've seen some people insist that transmisogyny is not just an umbrella term for the ways transfems experience transphobia but just means the intersection of transphobia and misogyny - but at the same time people insist that AFAB (trans) people are all exempt from transmisogyny by default and that our experiences should be discussed as 'misdirected transmisogyny'. which renders the de facto meaning of the term 'transmisogyny' an umbrella term for transfem experiences from which anyone not transfem is exempt.

the conflation of terms and definitions means any critique of transmisogyny or TMA/TME is taken as a denial of transfems' experiences. it also means that when transmascs propose a term like 'transandrophobia' - meaning the intersection of the identity positions of 'trans' and 'man', or more broadly a term for commonly-shared experiences of transmascs - that's read as an argument that all men are systemically oppressed for being men (it's not) and/or that transmascs are proposing transandrophobia-as-framework (again, not the case). but because 'transmisogyny' can refer interchangeably to both transphobic phenomena and experiences and a proposed conceptual framework for transphobia in general, the term 'transandrophobia' is misconstrued as a conceptual framework. we say "we've come up with a term to describe our experiences as transmascs" and people hear "you need to conceptualise all your experiences with transphobia in terms of the oppression of transmascs and centre our experiences in your discussions about your own marginalisation".

the reality is that most people discussing transandrophobia are not denying that transfems experience transphobia or denying that transmisogynistic phenomena happen. objections to the TMA/TME distinction are objections to a conceptual framework that treats all transphobia as just transmisogyny in a trenchcoat, and not a denial that transfems experience transmisogyny or are 'not oppressed' or whatever else.

for the record, i have no beef with transmisogyny either as a term for the intersection of transphobia and misogyny or as a term for shared transfem experiences. my critiques of transfeminst thinking are theoretical, namely:

transmisogyny-as-framework presupposes that the major driving force of all transphobia is a desire to target/punish trans women and that everyone else is caught in the crossfire. i don't think that's adequate as a conceptual framework because transphobia is better understood as a result of a gender-essentialist society punishing all non-normative performance of gender. it also relies on a lot of faulty assumptions about the transphobia that transmascs experience. transphobia experienced by transmascs is treated as a category-typical experience of transphobia (i.e. trans men get the 'just transphobia' version, whilst transfems get the 'transphobia plus' version)... but also transmasc oppression must be framed in terms of 'misdirected (trans)misogyny'. you can't treat trans men as having the most typical, 'basic' experience of transphobia whilst also insisting all transphobia is actually a form of transmisogyny misdirected at other trans people. those two positions are mutually contradictory. if all transphobia is actually about transmisogyny then transfems are getting the default transphobia experience and transmascs/trans nonbinary people/etc are all getting variations of that, not the other way around.

if you want to use transmisogyny as a framework for understanding all of transphobia, you cannot label anyone as exempt from transmisogyny. if transmisogyny is the proposed framework for understanding all transphobic discrimination of any trans person of any gender, then you are saying we all exist in a system of transmisogyny. therefore none of us are exempt from it. and if you're proposing transmisogyny-as-framework for all trans experiences, then all trans people get to weigh in on it, because you're applying it to all of us. i get to disagree with the framework being coercively applied to my experiences and i should be able to do that without being called transmisogynistic, because critiquing a framework you're asking every trans person to submit to is not synonymous with hating on trans women or denying their lived experiences or saying they're not oppressed. you can't insist that transmascs are TME by default whilst also insisting we only ever discuss our experiences as 'misdirected transmisogyny'. and you definitely can't label all transmascs as exempt from transmisogyny whilst simultaneously insisting we use transmisogyny as the conceptual framework within which we understand our oppression. that's trying to have your cake and eat it.

the TMA/TME framework is just reinventing binary gender but with extra steps. especially since in practice determining whether someone is TMA or TME seems to involve an awful lot of focus on people's assigned gender and what genitals they were born with.

a lot of this theorising follows a very radfem pattern of dividing everyone into two gendered categories, labelling one of those categories to Privileged Oppressor Class, and then heavily policing who gets to belong to the Oppressed Victims Class based on their genitals and socialisation. at which point you're just doing TERFism from the other direction. any framework that proposes we can understand gendered experiences in terms of a strict binary is automatically throwing intersex and nonbinary people under the bus. a comprehensive theory of trans experiences must have space for nonbinary identities and intersex experiences otherwise it is incomplete.

i'm making this post in good faith and i'm not denying the impact of transmisogyny on transfems. but i do think theorising around transmisogyny and TMA/TME as a framework have a number of flaws and i'm not going to use those frameworks to talk about my own experiences because they are theoretically inadequate. a robust theory of transphobia and trans experiences must have room for all trans experiences within it, as well as overlapping experiences of gendered oppression such as intersexism, misogyny, butchphobia etc. TMA/TME ain't it.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The industrial world is aging, and the sheer quantity and geographic extent of transportation, water and energy infrastructure presents an unprecedented challenge at the exact moment that climate change forces us to rethink material use. More robust maintenance practices could help preserve modernity’s finest achievements, from public transit systems to power grids to insulated homes. But first maintenance has to be valued outside of austerity, and right now it’s unclear if our current economic system is capable of that.  Maintenance could serve as a useful framework for addressing climate change and other pressing planetary constraints that, if left unaddressed, could recreate on a global scale the localized austerity of a cash-strapped transit agency. Indeed, maintenance as a concept could encompass both the built environment and the so-called natural world. Perhaps maintenance, rather than sustainability, is the more useful framework for a green transition, because it can account for how human infrastructure is now deeply entangled with the environment in the age of the Anthropocene. 

[...]

Maintenance is about keeping things — sometimes large, intensively built things like skyscrapers and subway cars that might be difficult to imagine in the biodegradable utopias of the most gung-ho environmentalists. Ultimately, reduction is prioritized. We must not hold onto things. We must let go like good Buddhists, as industrial civilization becomes merely a painful, transient phase in human history, passing out of us like bad karma.  There is tension in the question of whether to build objects more intensively, so that they last longer, or to recognize that some things cannot endure and thus should be designed that way. There’s no hope for a paper plate in the long run, for example. It’s designed to enter the waste stream as cheaply and easily as possible. Conversely, a toaster could last for decades if maintained properly, assuming the manufacturer hasn’t built obsolescence into it (as is often the case).  More complex objects and built environments, like a transit system or a housing development, compound questions over what should last and what cannot. How do we create systems that can address these questions on their own terms? 

[grey-sorcery]

[Title]: Magical Potency: Improving the Efficacy of Magic

Suggested Reading

Finding Balance Threshold Theory Correspondences  Conceptualization Vs. Visualization Visualization: Effective Implementation Basics of Energy Work Basics of Spellcasting Spell Logs Intro to Gnosis Bias in Witchcraft The Subtle Body Axioms of Energy Work The Wellsource Energy Work & Spoon Theory Shadow Work: First Steps Intro to Grounding

Introduction

Magical potency refers to the efficacy and strength with which a spell is executed. This encompasses the accuracy with which the ritual is performed, the precision of the elements involved, and the intensity of focus and energy channeled into the endeavor. In simpler terms, it's about increasing the likelihood of a spell's success, assuming all other requisite and advantageous factors are adequately addressed. 

The significance of magical potency cannot be overstated. For practitioners, the objective is not merely to perform rituals but to execute them in a way that yields measurable results. In the same manner that a scientist would aim for exactness and reliability in an experiment, a magical practitioner should aim for a high degree of potency in their workings. Achieving this standard is more than a matter of personal pride or skill; it is about the responsible wielding of one's abilities to bring about change. When potency is elevated, the outcomes are more predictable, thereby enhancing the reliability of the magical practice as a whole. Moreover, it minimizes the risk of unintended consequences, which can range from inconsequential to potentially hazardous.

The Magical Potency of a Vast Majority of Publications, From Tumblr to Books

Candle Magic

Candle magic serves as an excellent entry point for neophytes in magical practice. Its allure lies in its straightforward design and uncomplicated mechanics, making it accessible for beginners. However, the simplicity that makes it attractive also serves as its Achilles heel. A plethora of publications, ranging from social media posts to books, frequently omit crucial details that are indispensable for ensuring the spell's effectiveness. For instance, many resources neglect to delve into the nuances of "intent," often misconstrued as mere desire, even though it is actually  one's personal truth. Furthermore, these publications have a tendency to reduce the complexity of the practice to mere lists of correspondences, thereby overlooking the intricate mechanics that govern how a spell functions. This dearth of comprehensive information is a disservice to newcomers who seek a robust understanding of the practice, and it impedes their ability to enhance the efficacy of their spells.

Candles & Twine "Cord Cutting"

Another practice that has gained considerable attention is the use of candles and twine for what is commonly referred to as "cord cutting." On the surface, this practice provides valuable insights into personal relationships. However, a closer examination reveals significant shortcomings. Most notably, the ritual fails to fulfill its purported function of severing emotional or psychic connections—what is commonly referred to as "cord cutting." Instead, it remains an exercise in symbolic action that lacks the mechanics necessary to bring about real change. The information provided in popular publications often restricts itself to symbolic associations, failing to offer a comprehensive guide to the mechanics or other vital elements that could make the practice genuinely effective. Consequently, any results are likely psychological in nature, rather than stemming from genuine magical activity, unless utilized as a tool for divination.

Sigil Magic

Sigil magic enjoys widespread popularity due to its accessibility and the relatively common understanding of its mechanics—albeit mainly within the framework of the psychological model. Its versatility is another strong suit, capable of serving as a supplementary element in various other magical practices. However, it's crucial to scrutinize the limitations of this method. The preponderance of popular sigil crafting techniques derives from, or modifies, the Spare method, which operates solely within the psychological model. In essence, this approach amounts to subconscious suggestion rather than authentic magical action. As a result, practitioners may find themselves constrained by a limited scope of magical efficacy. Furthermore, the lack of accessible information on alternative methodologies exacerbates the problem, leaving practitioners with a narrow, and sometimes misleading, understanding of what sigil magic can achieve. The ubiquity of this practice also means that misinformation and misinterpretation are rife, further muddying the waters for those seeking to deepen their understanding and improve their skills.

Increasing the Magical Potency of Common Practices

Candle Magic

To augment the efficacy of candle magic, a considerate approach is essential. First, it's crucial to identify the traditional symbolic associations of various elements involved in the spell and consider whether your own personal correspondences might be more effective. Next, identifying a central point of focus, or state of gnosis, can serve to concentrate your energy more efficiently. This focus should align with your own deeply-held beliefs or personal truths to maximize the spell's efficacy.

Another vital step involves contemplating the specific means by which the spell will manifest its effects. This doesn't merely involve wishing for a particular outcome, but rather planning out the logical steps and mechanisms that will make it happen. This also involves doing conscious energy work that goes beyond mere mental imagery. Instead, one should focus on manipulating energy via the subtle body and energetic senses, perhaps using breath work, gestures, and/or vocalizations as aids.

Identifying the emotional state that will best serve the spell is another significant aspect. This emotional state should be in harmony with your personal truths and can serve to fuel the spell's energy. Additionally, writing out the specific mechanics of how the spell will function can provide clarity and enhance focus during the actual performance. Memorizing all actions or incantations can also prevent disruptions that might break your concentration during the ritual.

Cord Cutting

For those looking to enhance the efficacy of cord-cutting rituals, a complete overhaul is likely required. 

Before the working, contemplate the means through which the spell will manifest its effects as to avoid any negative or harmful outcomes. Utilizing twine and a knife—or scissors, for those concerned about safety—can create a strong symbolic action that aids the spell. It's also beneficial to use correspondences, either mental or physical, that are directly connected to the target individuals. This requires either a strong personal knowledge of the individuals involved or a potent taglock to symbolize them.

Conscious energy work is again advisable, and this should be done without relying solely on mental imagery. Maintaining a state of focus, or gnosis, throughout the entire working is essential. To deepen your understanding and improve the potency of the ritual, you might also study various philosophies or religious teachings concerning the concept of fate or destiny. 

Identifying an emotional state that aligns with your personal truth can also serve to fuel the energy of the ritual. Once the primary cord-cutting action has been performed, the common chords and candles approach can be employed as a form of divination to gauge the likely effectiveness and manifestation of the spell.

Sigil Magic

For those looking to venture beyond the well-trodden path of the psychological model in sigil magic, a multitude of avenues are worth exploring. To start, one should consider researching or contemplating how sigils could function within different paradigms or frameworks. This might involve developing an entirely new method of sigil crafting that deviates from the commonly used Spare method.

Contemplating the mechanics of how a non-psychological sigil could function is equally important. This might involve studying different cultural practices or philosophies to gain new perspectives. Researching various methods of charging and activating a sigil can also yield valuable insights. Different modalities might be more effective depending on the specific nature of the application in which the sigil will be used.

When incorporating a sigil into another spell, it's crucial to think critically about how the two will interact and complement each other. Drawing the sigil while in a state of deep focus, or gnosis, can enhance its accuracy, If this state is backed by strong emotional energy that aligns with your personal truths, its momentum will increase. The precision of a sigil can also be highly increased by performing energy work consciously while drawing the sigil. Finally, selecting a method of charging and activation that complements both your own capabilities and the specific nature of the working can serve to greatly enhance the overall potency of the spell.

General Practices and Methods to Improve Magical Potency

Research, Study, Experimentation, and Recording

The cornerstone of enhancing magical potency lies in a rigorous approach that involves research, study, experimentation, and detailed recording. When conducting research, it's imperative to look beyond sources that merely resonate with you on a personal level; instead, aim for a diverse array of reputable sources to avoid cognitive bias. Subsequently, study these materials assiduously, revisiting them often to consider ways you might expand or refine the practices described.

The use of experimentation, formulating and documenting predictions about how a spell will manifest is invaluable. These predictions should be dated and revisited to assess the spell's effectiveness. Sharing these predictions with other practitioners can serve as a check against confirmation bias. Conducting low-stakes spells can also serve as a useful methodological testbed, helping you refine your approach based on outcomes.

Maintaining a log of your spells is an essential practice. This archival process will facilitate a retrospective analysis, enabling you to discern which variables contributed to or hindered a spell's effectiveness.

Being Critical

Critical thinking should permeate your magical practice, although it's best applied either before or after a working, not during, so as not to disrupt your focus. Discernment in planning a working can preemptively address potential issues. After the spell's completion, seek feedback from anyone aware of the working but not of its projected outcomes. In your analysis, consider mundane factors that could have influenced the result, recognizing that magical outcomes often manifest through seemingly ordinary means. Keep a record of both successes and failures, and understand that setbacks are educational opportunities, not indicators of personal inadequacy.

Helpful Practices

Regular meditation can serve as a foundational practice for enhancing focus and understanding your inner landscape. Additionally, action flow states can be achieved through rhythmic, lyric-free music coupled with physical activities in sync with the beat. This can facilitate a trance-like state beneficial for magical work. Shadow work, while in no way is necessary, can help you uncover deeply rooted personal truths, while the development of personal symbolic associations can facilitate more potent states of focused awareness.

Energy Work

Contrary to popular misconceptions, energy work is neither a form of mental imagery nor a misapplied concept often referred to as "intent." It involves a nuanced understanding of one's subtle body and its energy centers. Identifying your Wellsource—the origin point of your energy—can further deepen your practice. Mastering the art of manipulating this energy effectively can be a powerful tool in improving magical potency.

Appropriation and Decolonization

It's crucial to recognize the importance of decolonizing one's magical practice. This entails a conscious effort to eschew cultural appropriation and to respect the origins and contexts of various magical systems. While learning from diverse traditions can enrich your practice, it should never involve taking elements out of their cultural context for personal use without proper understanding and initiation. Decolonizing your magical practice is a significant endeavor that requires sustained commitment, self-awareness, and active engagement. Here are some steps to help you in this important journey:

Educate Yourself: The first step in decolonizing your practice is to become knowledgeable about the histories, cultures, and traditions from which various magical practices originate. This will help you understand the contexts in which these practices were developed and how they have been affected by colonization.

Acknowledge Origins: Always give credit to the cultures, traditions, and communities from which certain practices and tools originate. This is not only a matter of respect but also a way to counteract the erasure that often occurs when practices are appropriated.

Assess Your Sources: Evaluate the materials you are using to learn about magical practices. Are they written or produced by individuals from within the tradition? Do they provide historical and cultural context? Are they respectful and do they avoid exoticizing or commodifying the practices they describe?

Reflect on Motivations and Entitlement: Examine your reasons for incorporating specific practices or tools into your own practice. Are you doing it because it's "trendy" or because you feel entitled to pick and choose from other cultures? Such motivations can be indicative of a colonizer mindset.

Avoid Cultural Cherry-Picking: Engaging deeply with another culture's practice means more than just adopting its magical or spiritual elements. It involves an understanding and respect for the culture as a whole, including its history, struggles, and contributions.

Engage in Dialogue: If you are interested in a practice that originates from a culture different from your own, try to engage in a respectful dialogue with individuals who belong to that culture. Seek their perspectives and listen to their experiences, and ask for their insights into ethical engagement with their traditions.

Prioritize Marginalized Voices: Elevate the voices and teachings of individuals from marginalized communities who are sharing their own traditions. Their perspectives are often sidelined but are crucial for a genuine understanding of these practices.

Financial Support: Whenever possible, support practitioners from the culture of interest by paying for their services, buying their products, or donating to causes they recommend. Economic empowerment is a form of reparative justice.

Revise and Reassess Continually: Decolonization is not a one-time action but an ongoing process. Keep updating your practices as you gain more knowledge and understanding. This may mean abandoning practices or tools that you now recognize as inappropriate for you to use.

Be Accountable: If you make a mistake—and most people do when they are learning—own it. Apologize, learn from it, and make amends if possible. Then take steps to ensure you do not repeat the same mistake.

Advocate and Educate: Use your platform, however big or small, to educate others about the importance of decolonizing magical practices. Share resources, engage in conversations, and challenge instances of appropriation you encounter.

Practice Humility: Recognize that the process of decolonization involves continual learning and that you won't have all the answers. Be open to criticism and willing to change your viewpoints and practices accordingly.

How Appropriation Negatively Affects Magical Potency

The act of appropriation in magical practices not only raises ethical concerns but also has deleterious effects on the potency of the rituals involved. One of the most glaring issues arises from the isolation of a practice from its original cultural context. Traditions, rites, and spells often have deeply ingrained cultural meanings and histories. When extracted from their native milieu, these practices lose the richness and nuance that contribute to their efficacy. The symbols, words, and actions employed in a ritual are often deeply tied to the specific geography, language, and folklore of its origin. Stripping away this context can dilute the ritual's power, rendering it a mere simulacrum of its original form.

Another significant concern pertains to the connections with spirits and ancestors that are inherent in many magical systems. These relationships are often built over generations and are rooted in specific cultural narratives, myths, and practices. When one appropriates these systems without a genuine link to the cultural lineage, the connection to these spirits and ancestors becomes tenuous at best. In some cases, this could even be seen as a form of spiritual trespassing, which not only questions the ethical standing of the practitioner but also diminishes the effectiveness of the ritual. These ancestral and spiritual links act as conduits for magical energy, and without them, the practice becomes hollow.

Lastly, the issue of alignment with one's personal truth cannot be ignored. Each individual has a unique set of beliefs, experiences, and perspectives that inform their magical practice. When one adopts practices from another culture without proper understanding or respect, there is a high likelihood that these borrowed elements will not align well with one's personal truths. This dissonance can create an internal discord, which in turn weakens the potency of the magical working. A harmonious alignment with one's core beliefs and experiences often serves as the bedrock upon which effective magical practice is built.

Implementation of the Concepts Discussed

The efficacy of magical practices can be significantly bolstered by adeptly incorporating cognitive techniques related to memory and repetition. One such method involves capitalizing on short-term memory. After assimilating beneficial information, executing a straightforward magical working immediately afterward can aid in embedding the newly acquired knowledge. This rapid recall and application essentially serve as the anchoring of the information more firmly by immediate utilization. This technique leverages the brain's natural propensity for retaining recently processed information and puts it to practical use, thus enhancing the likelihood of a successful magical outcome.

Subconscious memory plays a similarly pivotal role in the refinement of magical practices. The consistent and repeated consumption of relevant information can precipitate a subconscious framework that thereafter influences your methodologies. Over time, this reservoir of deeply ingrained knowledge becomes an almost instinctive guide during magical workings. The more frequently you engage with this material, the more it seeps into your subconscious, ultimately serving as an internal compass that steers your practices toward greater potency. Hence, the diligent study of reputable materials can lay the groundwork for a more effective and nuanced magical practice.

Repetition, both cognitive and practical, stands as another invaluable tool in solidifying one's magical practices. Repetitive engagement with the material, whether it's through written summaries, vocal articulation, or mental rehearsal, can fortify the neural pathways associated with that specific information. Furthermore, the regular enactment of magical workings that incorporate these concepts can engender a form of habituation. These practices, through repetition, become ingrained behaviors, thereby increasing the ease and fluidity with which they can be executed. This habitual nature, in turn, contributes to an overall enhancement of magical potency.

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Cosmicaquamarie

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This post was reviewed and edited for easier reading by ChatGPT.

[thydungeongal]

You've stated repeatedly that D&D 5e doesn't possess the mechanics to enable the heroic-fantasy adventure that a lot of DMs/Players seem to think it's meant for. What mechanics would a game designed to cater to that manner of play and storytelling have? Care to offer any recommendations?

In my opinion for a game to really support the genre of heroic fantasy it should have at least some of the following:

Some way of character motivations affecting gameplay in a robust manner. D&D 5e has inspiration which can be rewarded for acting according to a character's bonds, ideals, or flaws, but it is so poorly integrated into the system it might as well be "your DM grants inspiration when they feel like it."

Meaningful nonlethal consequences. D&D 5e gives characters limited means of handling situations nonlethally, including combat, but for the most part combat defaults to lethal and the game provides very little actual concrete guidance as to how characters losing an encounter should be handled. Death remains the most meaningful, clear consequence in D&D, which means there's a risk of losing narrative continuity in pretty much every encounter.

Doing heroics should be tied into the game's incentive structures and in-game reward mechanics. D&D 5e by the book mostly rewards overcoming obstacles (with defeating monsters as the most clearly mechanically defined example!) and before anyone says "milestones" shut up, that's just putting more work on the DM instead of the game defining its own reward mechanics.

There should, in general, be a framework for handling more types of activity than just combat, and combat shouldn't necessarily need to be handled as a blow-by-blow affair, but this is something I think there can be a lot of variation on.

Games that I think fit the bill to varying degrees:

RuneQuest/Mythras: Character ideals like Passions are very well integrated into gameplay. While combat is lethal the game does a lot of the work of telegraphing that to players and GMs and since the game assumes that most opponents will be intelligent creatures with thoughts and feelings there's no expectation of "the orcs will fight to the death" which is a sentence I hate in modern D&D adventure design. While I personally think Passions could be better integrated into the game's advancement system, the way the game handles advancement through actually doing things and membership in organizations (integrating characters into the setting) works very well!

Against the Darkmaster (VsD for short): While mostly a very trad game in the same general wheelhouse as D&D mechanically, its lethal combat system can actually disincentivize engaging in combat for fun (not exactly heroic imo) and it actually provides lots of mechanics for integrating character motivations and doing heroics into the system, including its advancement structures! Hell, it even provides methods for corrupting character ideals and it has a clear campaign structure of fighting against a BBEG!

Fellowship: A game that very much approaches the same genre of fighting against a BBEG as VsD but from an indie direction, once again rewards actual heroics and building connections with the world over just killing monsters, and I mean that this stuff is already implemented into the rules. Also provides a framework for handling social situations, including making friends!

QuestWorlds (formerly HeroQuest): Probably one of the first "narrativist" RPGs (I'm only using that as a shorthand: GNS sucks), QuestWorlds is a very much a trad type of RPG but that approaches the act of gameplay from a very different perspective. Basically, the game has narrative convention built right into its mechanics. It is a very neat game and I heartily recommend checking it out!

Fate: I don't particularly like Fate but even I must admit that it fits almost all of my criteria there! It is more of a toolkit game system so some assembly is required, but I do believe one could easily run a heroic fantasy game using it!

The Shadows of Yesterday: Is a good game. I'm losing steam right now but like TSoY is a pretty good game and I like it. I think y'all should Google it, it's out there on the internet and you can just. Read it.

[mangionebabymama]

Before we get too into memes about Luigi obtaining work detail status, I just want to remind people of this:

Prison labor is the only form of salvery that is still constitutional in the US. This doesn’t mean it’s the only legal form, just that it’s the only form slavery that our constitution protects (yes, the word they use is “protects”). This is abysmal legal framework when you look into the criminal justice/sociological side of the prison system and realize how disproportionately black people/poc generally are targeted by police and, in turn, incarcerated by our courts and thrown into prisons. It should be emberassing for our country. This is a foundationally corrupt country (specifically speaking of the criminal justice system) that has managed to maintain largely race-based slavery on a larger scale than any other country in the world. And all while managing to keep a large amount of prisons privately funded. (I implore you to look into the sources of this funding and get back to me - it’s horrifying).

While maintaining normality and forms of structure in incarceration is important to giving prisoners normality and a chance at reintegration into the “outside world”, it’s clear what the pretext of it all is. Work detail is seen as a privilege when it is truly a further means of control and a way to avoid the cost of maintaining such a corrupt and robust prison system. If it was truly a mechanism of the structure for prisoners, the majority of jobs would be more valuable than janitorial and maintenance duties, all for less than a dollar an hour.

It’s also important to acknowledge that Luigi is a wealthy, handsome (hot), educated, and WHITE man, which is a huge part of why his case has attracted so much attention and support. And why he probably will fend much, much better in the prison system than most others. No other politically charged cases in the last 10 years have been followed so closely for so long. And it’s clear that Luigi (allegedly) wanted people to educate themselves on systematic issues.

I know this isn’t really about Luigi and I rarely hop on anon, but I’m largely invested in this case because of its potential for systematic reform and I just saw this as an opportunity to educate people who may not be informed! I haven’t seen anything horrible on tumblr on the subject (love my tumblr bbys), but I also haven’t seen many people talking about this and I just think these reminders are important.

Anon, I greatly appreciate you for shedding light and bringing attention to all the points you made clear, bc I genuinely couldn’t agree more with everything you said. To be honest, I don’t even know what else to add, bc you solidified so many important things so well here, but I wholeheartedly agree with absolutely everything you said here 🤍

[sophie-frm-mars]

Queer Culture is an orphan culture

Queer people aren't normally born into families of other queer people, so the way that for example the culture of racialised people can pass down intergenerationally, this doesn't happen for queer people. The advice for surviving as queer doesn't pass down to queer kids the way that advice for surviving white supremacy passes from racialised parents to racialised kids or advice for surviving patriarchy passes from mothers to daughters. The way that elders in racialised communities can guide the resolution of conflicts or harmful patterns or older women can advise younger women, we don't have that. We have an orphan culture.

Immediately we will say that this is what queer elders are for, and this is true, but it isn't the same. We aren't raised in families with any kind of consistent framework for what it means to be us, in fact we're often raised by families that try to actively stop us from being ourselves. There will never be as many elders (who are actively engaging responsibly in their roles as community elders) as younger queers and even if there were they can't be in those younger queers' lives in the way that a parent ideally is from birth.

I'm not saying this to undersell the value of found family, or the ways that found family relationships can be robust and long lasting and bigger than interpersonal turbulence the way family is supposed to be. If anything, I want to stress how important the role of queer elders is, because in a lot of smaller queer communities elders just don't exist. A queer elder isn't just a queer person who has been around a while, they're someone who chooses to take responsibility for the younger people around them by sharing the lessons they've learned and providing the benefits of greater life experience to others.

In smaller queer communities, older queers may choose not to act as elders because if they did they would be seen as responsible for everyone. There has to be a critical mass of older queers before all of them feel safe to engage with community as queer elders. I was outlining this to a friend in Seattle, talking about how barren of elder queers most UK queer communities are, and she said "oh yeah I live down the road from an LGBT retirement community. I know a bunch of queers in their 40s and 50s." In more queer friendly areas of the US, communities aren't just bigger: they contain more of our collective gathered knowledge and history.

In some places the orphan culture is more pronounced, and in some places it is partly remedied by the presence of elders. For many queers, we either learn the lessons about the patterns that shape our communities by reading about them in books and online, or we learn about them the hard way - by repeating them.

My dad had a brain tumour that was diagnosed when I was less than a year old. The effects of the tumour and the surgery to remove it completely transformed him as a person. Growing up I got to know about who he had been through stories that people told me. I identified ways that I was similar to him not by seeing him being like me, but from those stories. Seeing social media dissections of transmisogyny, advice columns from queer authors, endless discourses about mental health in queer communities, I feel the same way I felt learning stories about my dad before he was sick.

I think young queer people cling to queer people of note they see in the public sphere in that same way. It isn't an adequate substitute for a parent who can teach you about who you are, but it's often all we have. Even if those publicly visible queers aren't focussed on queer politics, even if they don't give the kind of support that elders provide to communities, even if they have no experience to draw from and no advice to give, they will inevitably be looked up to by a tonne of young queer strangers, because we're all orphans trying to raise ourselves and each other at the same time.

[tanadrin]

re-listening to season 10 of revolutions, since i never finished it the first time around, and the retrospective on the emergence of socialism in the 19th century is probably the most interesting part so far. it seems to me that 19th century "liberalism" (which was scarcely worth the name) is really a very different beast than 21st century liberalism, which has in its more left-liberal strains incorporated a ton of criticisms of 19th century socialists, and is in many ways actually a pretty good synthesis of both political heuristics. certainly not perfect, and certainly still wedded to capitalism.

but a lot of early socialists were, even if they were social scientists, first and foremost utopians. it was easier to dream what might lie in the possibility-space of useful ways of organizing an egalitarian society when very little of that space had been explored, and the burst of 19th century utopia-building was part of an attempt to explore that space and put many unabashedly utopian ideas into practice. but many of the most ambitious ideas like proudhon's anarchism just weren't super workable in the end, either in the conditions that then prevailed or in the conditions that have prevailed since. liberal democracy--especially as it was refined into something actually worthy of the name--proved both durable and flexible enough to be quite egalitarian in some respects (e.g., it supports universal adult suffrage just fine! and consolidated democracies are pretty robust and quite stable, compared to competing systems). it feels similar to the high-flying hopes of early science fiction becoming tempered as we learned more about what the possibility space of future technology would really look like across the 20th century, you know?

and so i think it's natural that a lot of that early revolutionary energy went into doing politics in a liberal-democratic framework; it turns out to be a very useful framework for liberatory social projects (much more useful than either the halfhearted liberal constitutionalisms of the mid 19th century or the reactionary monarchies they usually contrasted against). but it also seems to me that a ton of the discourse in the rump left that has resulted is stuck in a very early 19th century way of thinking.

and maybe some of this is ideological distillation, with those sufficiently convinced by the virtues of the modern liberal-democratic system naturally falling out of coalition with those who aren't, so the remainder is a concentrated nucleus most likely to see fundamental continuity between the proto-liberalism of the 1800s and the more fully realized liberalism of later eras like the 2000s. plus people who are simply never going to be on board with, say, any system that is capitalist in its arrangement, no matter how prosperous or free it manages to be otherwise. but also i wonder how much of this is because for like 70 years you had a major militaristic, hegemonic state, the USSR, which was really very like the militaristic, hegemonic system it was opposed to in important ways, but which for reasons of its legitimating ideology needed to portray what differences did exist in the starkest possible terms. and the solution to that was to portray liberal democracy as of the 20th century as being functionally indistinguishable from the liberal constitutionalism of the 19th, while making themselves out to be the sole inheritors of the more egalitarian thinkers from the left. despite the fact that the USSR was pretty conservative in a lot of ways, and was basically authoritarian in a way that i don't think any of those original utopian socialists would have endorsed.

so maybe you have to keep 19th century political categories static and unchanging in order to make the dichotomy that supports your state still have meaning. even if, once you have established yourself as the ruling class of a large, powerful state, you act in ways that are actually pretty darn similar to the ruling class of other large, powerful states. and of course trying to maintain those categories even as the world continues to evolve, including the faction you have opposed yourself to (and the third leg of what is really a trichotomy, the actual, unabashed reactionaries, also continues to evolve) leads to further tensions and absurdities, which is why the most ardent defenders of the USSR like the tankies tie themselves into knots of campism and conspiracism and even frequently back directly into bog-standard reactionary ideology, because the framework they are trying to use to understand the world hasn't been updated since the 1840s, and was already having to be heavily distorted by the 1920s to make it work.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Tableskills: Making a Game of It

Recently I learned a bit of an unspoken truth that I'd brushed up against in my many years of being a dungeonmaster that I'd never seen put into words before: If you want to liven up whatever's going on in your adventure, figure out a way to engage the players in some kind of game. It's simultaneously the best way to provide a roadblock while making your player's victories feel earned.

This might seem redundant, since you're already playing d&d but give a moment of thought to exactly what portions of d&d are gamified. Once you learn your way around the system, it becomes apparent that D&D really only has three modes of play:

Pure roleplay/storytelling, driven by whatever feels best for the narrative. Which is not technically a game, nor should it (IMO) be gamified.

Tactical combat with a robust rules system, the most gamelike aspect.

A mostly light weight skills based system for overcoming challenges that sits between the two in terms of complexity.

The problem is that there's quite a lot of things that happen in d&d that don't fall neatly into these three systems, the best example being exploration which was supposed to be a "pillar" of gameplay but somehow got lost along the way . This is a glaring omission given how much of the core fantasy of the game (not to mention fantasy in general) is the thrill of discovery, contrasted with the rigours of travelling to/through wondrous locations. How empty is it to have your party play out the fantasy of being on a magical odyssey or delving the unknown when you end up handwaving any actual travel because base d&d doesn't provide a satisfying framework for going from A to B besides skillchecks and random encounters (shameless plug for my own exploration system and the dungeon design framework that goes with it).

The secret sauce that's made d&d and other ttrpgs so enduring is how they fuse the dramatic conventions of storytelling with the dynamics of play. The combat system gives weight and risk to those epic confrontations, and because the players can both get good at combat and are at risk of losing it lets them engage with the moment to moment action far more than pure narration or a single skill roll ever could.

I'm not saying that we need to go as in depth as combat for every gamified narrative beat (the more light weight the better IMO) but having a toolbox full of minigames we can draw upon gives us something to fall back on when we're doing our prep, or when we need to improvise. I've found having this arsenal at hand as imortant as my ability to make memorable NPCs on the fly or rework vital plothooks the party would otherwise miss.

What I'd encourage you as a DM to do is to start building a list of light weight setups/minigames for situations you often find yourself encountering: chase scenes, drinking contests, fair games, anything you think would be useful. Either make them yourself or source them from somewhere on the web, pack your DM binder full of them as needed. While not all players are utterly thrilled by combat, everyone likes having some structured game time thrown in there along with the freeform storytelling and jokes about how that one NPC's name sounds like a sex act.

A quick minigame is likewise a great way to give structure to a session when your party ends up taking a shortcut around your prepared material. Oh they didn't take that monster hunter contract in the sewers and instead want to follow up on rumours about a local caravan? The wagon hands are playing a marble game while their boss negotiates with some local mercahnts, offering to let the party play while they wait. The heroes want to sail out to the island dungeon you don't have prepped yet? Well it looks like the navigator has gone on a bit of a bender, and the party not only need to track them down but also piece together where they left the charts from their drunken remembrances as a form of a logic puzzle.

Artsource

[theomeganerd]

The Witcher 4 Tech Demo Debuts

CD PROJEKT RED and Epic Games Present The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo at The State of Unreal 2025!

At Unreal Fest Orlando, the State of Unreal keynote opened with a live on-stage presentation that offered an early glimpse into the latest Unreal Engine 5 features bringing the open world of The Witcher 4 to life.

Spotlight:

Tech demo showcased how the CD PROJEKT RED and Epic Games are working together to power the world of The Witcher 4 on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, and bring large open-world support to Unreal Engine. The tech demo takes place in the never-before-seen region of Kovir.

As Unreal Fest 2025 kicked off, CD PROJEKT RED joined Epic Games on stage to present a tech demo of The Witcher 4 in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Presented in typical CDPR style, the tech demo follows the main protagonist Ciri in the midst of a monster contract and shows off some of the innovative UE5 technology and features that will power the game’s open world.

The tech demo takes place in the region of Kovir — which will make its very first appearance in the video game series in The Witcher 4. The presentation followed main protagonist Ciri — along with her horse Kelpie — as she made her way through the rugged mountains and dense forests of Kovir to the bustling port town of Valdrest. Along the way, CD PROJEKT RED and Epic Games dove deep into how each feature is helping drive performance, visual fidelity, and shape The Witcher 4’s immersive open world.

 Watch the full presentation from Unreal Fest 2025 now at LINK.

Since the strategic partnership was announced in 2022, CDPR has been working with Epic Games to develop new tools and enhance existing features in Unreal Engine 5 to expand the engine’s open-world development capabilities and establish robust tools geared toward CD PROJEKT RED’s open-world design philosophies. The demo, which runs on a PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second, shows off in-engine capabilities set in the world of The Witcher 4, including the new Unreal Animation Framework, Nanite Foliage rendering, MetaHuman technology with Mass AI crowd scaling, and more. The tools showcased are being developed, tested, and eventually released to all UE developers, starting with today’s Unreal Engine 5.6 release. This will help other studios create believable and immersive open-world environments that deliver performance at 60 FPS without compromising on quality — even at vast scales. While the presentation was running on a PlayStation console, the features and technology will be supported across all platforms the game will launch on.

The Unreal Animation Framework powers realistic character movements in busy scenes. FastGeo Streaming, developed in collaboration with Epic Games, allows environments to load quickly and smoothly. Nanite Foliage fills forests and fields with dense detail without sacrificing performance. The Mass system handles large, dynamic crowds with ease, while ML Deformer adds subtle, realistic touches to character animation — right down to muscle movement.

Speaking on The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 tech demo, Joint-CEO of CD PROJEKT RED, 

Michał Nowakowski stated:

“We started our partnership with Epic Games to push open-world game technology forward. To show this early look at the work we’ve been doing using Unreal Engine running at 60 FPS on PlayStation 5, is a significant milestone — and a testament of the great cooperation between our teams. But we're far from finished. I look forward to seeing more advancements and inspiring technology from this partnership as development of The Witcher 4 on Unreal Engine 5 continues.”

Tim Sweeney, Founder and CEO of Epic Games said: 

“CD PROJEKT RED is one of the industry’s best open-world game studios, and we’re grateful that they’re working with us to push Unreal Engine forward with The Witcher 4. They are the perfect partner to help us develop new world-building features that we can share with all Unreal Engine developers.”

For more information on The Witcher 4, please visit the official website. More information about The Witcher series can be found on the official official website, X, Bluesky, and Facebook.

[covid-safer-hotties]

A Comprehensive Analysis of COVID-19 Misinformation, Public Health Impacts, and Communication Strategies: Scoping Review - Published Aug 21, 2024

Abstract Background: The COVID-19 pandemic was marked by an infodemic, characterized by the rapid spread of both accurate and false information, which significantly affected public health. This infodemic led to confusion, mistrust in health authorities, noncompliance with health guidelines, and engagement in risky health behaviors. Understanding the dynamics of misinformation during the pandemic is crucial for developing effective public health communication strategies.

Objective: This comprehensive analysis aimed to examine the complexities of COVID-19 misinformation. Specifically, it sought to identify the sources and themes of misinformation, the target audiences most affected, and the effectiveness of various public health communication strategies in mitigating misinformation.

Methods: This scoping review used the MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, and Scopus databases to identify relevant studies. An established, methodical framework for scoping reviews was used to review literature published between December 2019 and September 2023. The inclusion criteria focused on peer-reviewed studies published in English that address COVID-19 misinformation and its sources, themes, and target audiences, as well as the effectiveness of public health communication strategies.

Results: The scoping review identified that misinformation significantly impacted mental health, vaccine hesitancy, and health care decision-making. Social media and traditional media were major conduits for spreading misinformation. Key misinformation themes included the origins of the virus, ineffective treatments, and misunderstandings about public health measures. Misinformation sources ranged from social media platforms to traditional media outlets and informal networks. The impact of misinformation was found to vary across different regions and demographic groups, with vulnerable populations being disproportionately affected. Effective strategies to counter misinformation included enhancing health literacy; using digital technology; promoting clear, authoritative communication; and implementing fact-checking mechanisms. In addition, community engagement and targeted health campaigns played a crucial role in addressing misinformation.

Conclusions: The review emphasizes the critical need for accurate and consistent messaging to combat misinformation. Cooperative efforts among policy makers, health professionals, and communication experts are essential for developing effective interventions. Addressing the infodemic is vital for building a well-informed, health-literate society capable of handling misinformation in future global health crises. The study provides valuable insights into the dynamics of misinformation and highlights the importance of robust public health communication strategies. These findings can guide future efforts to mitigate the impact of misinformation during health emergencies.

J Med Internet Res 2024;26:e56931

doi:10.2196/56931

[waitmyturtles]

I Know There Were a Lot of Flubby-Flubs in Our Youth, But It Surprisingly Moved Me Enough to Want to Muse On It and Write Something About It

I am behind on ALL MY SHOWS, so I know I missed the fandom's last breath on Our Youth (Miseinen: Mijukuna Oretachi wa Bukiyo ni Shinkochu). But I caught up with the last episodes and with @bengiyo's fantastic round-up of meta from around the Tumblr way, and I totally agree with the thematic center of the post -- the "uncertain melancholy" that the show gave us.

I was not expecting to actually feel as moved by the show as I ended up feeling vis à vis this uncertain melancholy (a feeling I love, by the way, the unsettledness of it all), because I know the last few episodes of the series had a few missteps, which I want to acknowledge and process in this post.

I feel like Minase's suit that he wore in the last two episodes is a great metaphor for how I feel about his characterization in the show.

Having a 20-year-old actor like Motojima Junsei play a graduated salaryman isn't necessarily uncommon in Japanese doramas -- but the juxtaposition of Motojima's actual age with the air he was supposed to carry as an older Minase didn't quite magnetically catch for what I think the show was trying to communicate about Minase's mindset. Minase clearly hadn't "grown" into the suit yet by the end of the show. And I think where we were left at the end of the series, was with a Minase who hadn't quite grown into the understanding or knowledge of how to live in and with his relationship with Hirukawa, which I think lends to the melancholic feeling the show ended with. (More on this in a second.)

I realize that this is an issue I had with the Minase character that actually started earlier in the series. I felt, after Minase's and Hirukawa's first trip to Hirukawa's mother's house, when the boys were splashing in the water, that I felt that I hadn't quite been fully taken into Minase's process of growth and change into wanting to be fully with Hirukawa. His change was a very quiet change, almost too quiet as juxtaposed against Hirukawa wearing his heart on his sleeve for the entire series.

Hirukawa wasn't a mystery to us: he let us into his whole cycle of growth and goal-setting, not wanting to end up like his dad, and emulating the standards that Minase was trying to live up to.

I was so happy to see Minase happy in the water with Hirukawa, and prior to that, in bed with him. But I'm not sure the script gave us as robust a process of growth for Minase as it did for Hirukawa.

I wonder, though, if this was done on purpose. I'm not sure yet, but I want to play around, in this post, with what I thought were the larger, macro-level themes of this show, to possibly help me understand why I felt a little underwhelmed on fully understanding Minase.

Let me acknowledge that all them damn sea metaphors were a lot. THERE WERE SO MANY OF THEM! Every beginning and end of each episode, the ocean! Water! Ships! Water connects us, we are the water, the seas are connected, we are connected like the water! I got it, I got it.

There was also the frame, at the beginning of the series, of the victim, the perpetrator, and the bystander, that I thought would be a thematic framework that we'd have explicit closure to. We didn't.

So let me do the work of analyzing these themes to what I think might be their cyclic closures, and add in the acknowledgment of themes that cropped up at the end of the series because I do feel like the show addressed the cycle of youthful growth to a lovely extent.

Since the show was called "Our Youth," and the series ended with Minase and Hirukawa very much in their early adult/professional stages, this show was clearly a story about, not a singular youthful moment in time, but a young life's worth of growth.

Minase and Hirukawa both close the gap of high-school-level immature miscommunication by acknowledging that they like each other, five years after Hirukawa walked out of Minase's life, penning his thoughts in a letter he didn't think would ever be read. It was a moment of noble idiocy on Hirukawa's part to leave Minase, one that he immediately rectified when he caught Minase on his university's campus.

Regarding the theme of growing up: damn, did Hirukawa ever end up being a winner. I fucking LOVED this for him. Not becoming his dad, pushing himself to the standards that he loved seeing in Minase, finding support in his mother, getting himself into university, becoming a filmmaker, being such a simp for Minase.

Minase, on the other hand, follows the path that his mother sets for him. He gets into his top university, he becomes a salaryman. He's, finally, ready to begin rebelling a bit -- literally by being in a relationship that can't end with marriage, as his mother pushes Minase towards her next preferred step in Minase's love life.

When the "victim/perpetrator/bystander" theme was introduced at the start of the series, I thought it was an immature framework. And I wondered, a lot, about how it connected with the many minutes of sea-related themes we also got in the show.

What I think I'd like to propose, is that the show may have been trying to prove that that "victim/perpetrator/bystander" framework was as immature as it seemed on paper -- by proposing, instead, that being human, and being connected to other humans, like a sea to an ocean, makes those kinds of imaginary boundaries simply arbitrary, just one person's framework to understand and judge the world.

I connect this back to Minase's mother's constant setting of expectations, all while she herself fails at being a present and complete mother. She's a perpetrator of contradictory standards, and Minase is at first a victim to her expectations -- but, by the end, becomes a bystander to her vision, almost ready to begin fighting with her (but he's not quite there yet).

Minase's recounts and repeats this framework at the beginning of the series while he's acknowledging Hirukawa -- who knows, maybe he got this thematic understanding from his mother or auteur father. And we then see Hirukawa being both a victim and a perpetrator himself -- thus rendering these boundaries useless and arbitrary once more.

I think it was an incomplete flub of the show to not close the story on this thematic framework, and to move the show only towards the sea metaphors at the end.

But the sea metaphors -- the story of two humans moving together and apart from each other like waves, but always being connected like water -- ended up handling the closure of the victim framework, by erasing those boundaries through the growth of Minase and Hirukawa. It wasn't done gracefully, but I think I've glommed onto and understand where the script wanted to end up with that framework: that the victim/perpetrator/bystander framework ultimately doesn't matter, because we are all of these concepts, all at once, at every moment in our life, depending on who we're interacting with.

So, then, Minase and Hirukawa are connected like an ocean. Minase is still following his mother's orders, though. And Minase ends up in a relationship that is similar to that of his mother's before her divorce -- with a partner who is often absent while filming.

Here's where Hirukawa's growth comes in again to break up the risk of intergenerational trauma on the part of Minase. He shows up for Minase, and he starts to care for Minase in a way that neither of Minase's parents ever did for him. Hirukawa cooks for Minase, eats meals with Minase, and gives Minase the sense of family that Minase was missing.

Hirukawa's and Minase's relationship, then, is shown to have meant to happen, like a sea meeting an ocean. But Minase still feels a little empty to me at this point, like his spacious and oversized suit, and I still wonder why.

I think we're left with a Minase that's both underwritten, and also still in a kind of growing contemplation about where he wants to move forward in his life -- the uncertain melancholy of the show. He wants to marry Hirukawa, and he can't. He's not able to confront his mother yet. He's in a "I'm just here right now" state -- and he has a model of growth in his boyfriend, Hirukawa, to look up to for future growth. Hirukawa, who was inspired in his own growth by Minase himself. I think that bit is just so nicely cyclical.

The character of Minase, in the end, I think suffers from the common ailment of unspoken communication that afflicts so many characters in Japanese doramas (a syndrome that was delightfully challenged in the amazing show, I Cannot Reach You, in which characters talked to each other). Besides the sea metaphors, I really needed just some basic internal dialogue to help me understand where Minase was at in not wanting to get a little risky and frisky in seeking out marriage somewhere else with Hirukawa (I think the subs of that marriage conversation in the car were off), and in retreating from confronting his mother about her own love life.

I think the reason why I've been sitting on this for as long as I have in this post is that, if Minase had not been underwritten, we would have ended up with a potentially spectacular show. The cinematography of this show was out of control. It was SO beautifully shot, lovingly, giving homage to the fictional filmmakers that the show honored in Minase's dad and in Hirukawa. I wish the script of the show did the cinematography equal justice.

And Hirukawa was just written so well. We got him, we understood where he wanted to go in his life. Yes, he was a weenie for walking away from Minase in high school -- but he had also suffered massive trauma, a trauma he wanted to tackle himself. I'll give that to him.

I needed more explicit growth and less metaphors from Minase. I am perfectly happy being left with the melancholic ending we got from the show -- I think that's the right feeling for where the show needed to end. But I think I ultimately needed a few more words from Minase to help me get fully to that conclusion myself.

[thehomelybrewster]

How Much Do Systems Matter?

This post is directly inspired by the video "You shouldn't use DnD for narrative campaigns." by Questing Beast (aka Ben Milton) about the Polygon article "Worlds Beyond Number is teaching me things that no D&D book can" by Charlie Hall.

The video and article basically posit the following:

TTRPGs can use concretely designed procedures for certain types of challenges and scenarios while having much looser procedures for other types of challenges or scenarios

Just because a TTPRG has less thorough rules on a type of challenge or scenario than a different RPG tackling the same subject matter doesn't automatically make the former worse at being used for these scenarios than the latter

Depending on the preferences of the table, having a robust mechanical framework for one element of gameplay while lacking that for other types of gameplay may be preferrable than having robust mechanical frameworks for both

Having distinct game mechanics for narrative progression and character interactions is uncommon in D&D and derived games, but is very common in story games, e.g. most Powered by the Apocalypse games.

The Polygon article includes this quote by Worlds Beyond Number's Brennan Lee Mulligan: "[People say that] because D&D has so many combat mechanics, you are destined to tell combat stories. I fundamentally disagree. Combat is the part I’m the least interested in simulating through improvisational storytelling. So I need a game to do that for me, while I take care of emotions, relationships, character progression, because that shit is intuitive and I understand it well. I don’t intuitively understand how an arrow moves through a fictional airspace."

This intuitive knowledge on handling emotional beats, narrative, and characters of course stems from years of experience Brennan has as a writer, actor, improv teacher, comedian, camp counsellor, and professional TTRPG GM and player.

Using Ron Edwards design language (s. his 1999 essay "System Does Matter"), Brennan wants to run primarily narrativist games, while 5e would fit Edwards' idea of a Gamist system, i.e. one which involves the pursuit of "winning" against NPCs.

Now let's look at 5e: it's generally agreed upon that 5e is opinionated on combat, while also being vocal that exploration and social encounters, while less fleshed-out, are still part of its pillars alongside combat, meaning the game is still encouraging you to pursue these types of play.

Combat is a very fleshed-out series of systems. The action system is centered on combat, both in terms of time and types. Spellcasting is very distinct and allows for casting mostly offensive or defensive spells. Class progression usually focuses on improving one's combat capabilities.

Exploration and social interactions are much more bare-bones.

On the social side, a few more recent supplements have reintroduced the classic Attitude table present in earlier editions and which are a mainstay of the OSR community. Additionally the DMG spends merely three pages on how to run NPCs, mostly using fairly general advice instead of concrete game mechanics. Interaction between player characters is also barely discussed in 5e rules.

Exploration is similarly simple, mostly related to the omnipresent but simple skill system, as well as some relatively simple rules on weather, hazards, overland travel speed, and tracking rations.

5e's shift towards simplified rules for these two pillars, including simplifying the skill system into a mostly binary failure-success affair is a shift away from earlier D&D editions and some of its direct competitors, e.g. Pathfinder, Rolemaster, GURPS, and The Dark Eye, which often would involve subsystems for various aspects of social or exploratory encounters, s. Edwards' "System does Matter" essay and his point on simulationist games.

So if Brennan wants to run a narrative game where we can realiably use his knowledge of narratives and character writing to create a compelling story while having a set system as his backup to run situations where violence becomes a factor... Using a game like 5e is a decent choice.

Of course other systems might be even better for that. Shadowdark for example may just be the perfect fit for someone wanting to run a narrative game with occasional combat. The combat rules are thorough enough to cover the fundamentals. Sure, you may just need to get rid of real-time torches, the key mechanic which sets Shadowdark apart from other OSR games, but subtracting a mechanic, instead of modifying it, is a relatively uninvasive procedure.

Personally I too like it when my TTRPG, especially stuff intended for medium- or long-term play, doesn't touch social and narrative elements much mechanically.

Meanwhile games like Ironsworn and Heart - The City Below, which are much more narrative-focused, do have issues where their resolution mechanics clash with the fiction in ways that would pull be out of the story we're trying to tell. Heart has the issue with the Supplies resistance not being shared within the group, and Ironsworn's fulfillment of vows can be glacially slow (s. A. A. Voigt's "Ironsworn: A Narrative Dilemma" video essay).

Ultimately, it all comes down to preference. Personally, if I wanted to run a fantasy game with magic and a strong narrative (like Worlds Beyond Number), with the clear goal of not getting bogged down in combat or minis, I'd legit use Shadowdark as described above. If I knew I wanted to tell a specific type of story and knew of a game that was designed for these types of stories, I'd definitely give it a read and talk about it with my players before we adopt it.

However, I do implore folks to not Ship of Theseus a game with tons of homebrew and houserules so that it's no longer recognizable as its original game. If you ever feel compelled to do that, ask other players what systems might be a better fit for your needs.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the Department of the Interior:

The Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Parks Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada and Mexico's Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources recently signed a new agreement to strengthen cooperation and coordination for the conservation of the American bison across its range in North America. Through a Letter of Intent, the countries will work to pursue bison conservation, restore ecological processes, and support traditional human use of natural resources with a particular focus on the unique historical connection between bison and Indigenous peoples.  

This Letter of Intent was worked on at the recent Canada/Mexico/United States Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation and Management held in San Diego, California and outlines additional collaboration across national borders towards the United States, Mexico and Canada’s shared goal of domestic bison conservation. The Trilateral Committee began in 1996 as a pioneering initiative among the three countries to align efforts safeguarding North America’s wildlife and ecosystems. The committee’s Species of Concern Working Table brings together state, federal and Tribal resource managers and non-governmental organizations to share their expertise and coordinate conservation of species that span the continent.   

The recently signed Letter of Intent outlines the various ways that the three North American nations will work together, including by:  

Improving collaboration on regional activities to promote policies, practices and effective methods in support of the ecocultural conservation of bison; 

Promoting joint work plans within the Trilateral Committee’s Species of Common Conservation Concern working table; 

Fostering transparency about the technical information that is developed jointly; and 

Streamlining reporting on activities conducted under the Letter of Intent with the Executive Table of the Trilateral Committee for its review.

These international efforts will continue to build on the Interior Department’s domestic bison restoration efforts, including the Grasslands Keystone Initiative. In 2023, Secretary Haaland issued a Secretary's Order and announced a $25 million investment to empower the Department’s bureaus and partners to use the best available science and Indigenous Knowledge to help restore bison across the country. The Order formally established a Bison Working Group (BWG) composed of representation from the five bureaus with bison equities: the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and U.S. Geological Survey. The BWG is developing a Bison Shared Stewardship Plan, which will establish a comprehensive framework for American bison restoration, including strengthening long-term bison conservation partnerships. Central to the development of that plan will be robust engagement with Tribes, including prioritizing Tribally led opportunities to establish new large herds owned or managed by Tribes and Tribally led organizations.   

The American bison once thrived across the largest original distribution of any native large herbivore in North America, ranging from desert grasslands in northern regions of Mexico to interior Alaska. After North America’s European settlement, bison populations were reduced from an estimated 60 to 80 million to a mere 1,000 animals. These surviving bison were saved from extinction and became the founders of several protected populations that put the species on a path of recovery and conservation.  

Today, bison remain absent from nearly 99 percent of their historic range. Most of the bison in North America are in herds that are constrained by fences, isolated from each other, and have fewer than 1,000 individuals, raising concerns about their genetic integrity, wildness and long-term viability of the species.   

Approximately 31,000 bison are currently being stewarded by the United States, Canada and Mexico with the goal of conserving the species and their role in the function of native grassland systems, as well as their place in Indigenous culture.  

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The current economic system makes extractive mining cheaper and easier than urban mining. Extractive mining involves the purchase of cheap land, often in developing countries. That land gets dug up, pulverised and processed in a simple flow that is amenable to capital-intensive operations. Urban mining by contrast is often labour-intensive and requires a complex and state-enforced regulation of waste streams. Urban mining suffers from the refusal of governments to shift taxation from labour to “the use of non-renewable resources”, as Walter Stahel, an originator of the circular economy concept, recommended in 2006. Until robust regulation and taxation is introduced, all forms of circular economy risk unleashing rebound effects. So, throwing more materials onto the market lowers prices, which tends to expedite economic growth, raise energy consumption, and proliferate environmental harms. In short, there is nothing intrinsically “green” about urban mining or the circular economy. The progressive potential of all such engineering programmes is governed by the political-economic framework.