#where is your GM

[runawaymun]

maybe i’m getting like, old or smth but I just got asked to submit to a 1-way interview and I was like ???? and it turns out that it’s just that the company can’t be arsed to sit down for an actual 3 minute phone call so they want you to essentially submit an audition tape

[public-trans-it-deactivated20240]

I'm already know for being very opinionated and having some Hot Takes, but I still usually keep it in line and fairly reasonable. Typical "Unpopular (but still somewhat safe to voice) Opinion" territory, where I might get some blocks and some scowls, but like, nothing major.

However I'm... gonna be posting an uncharacteristically rancid take this time.

I cannot fucking STAND vibes based design. Its become a trend lately to explain game systems by vibes, and it feels EXACTLY like the tropification of romance novels. A thing so many other people have complained about far more than I have, where so many works of fiction are now just being advertise as "Its a queer little slow burn, found family story that features enemies to lovers" OKAY, BUT WHATS THE FUCKING BOOK ABOUT?

And I feel like over the past 15-20 years, the TTRPG industry has been having the exact same issue. I can go through dozens of listings on itch.io for indie games and not see a single fucking game mechanic mentioned, and its frustrating. "This game is about gathering your friends to turn your local farm into a sustainable commune!" WHAT KIND OF FUCKING DICE DOES THE GAME USE? DOES THE GAME EVEN HAVE A GM?

And like, this isn't just about the feel good warm and fuzzy games. OSR is JUST as fucking guilty in this. "This game is a black metal death crawl through your worst nightmares." IS IT A RETROCLONE? IS IT A RULES LITE D6 SYSTEM? HOW THE FUCK DO I RESOLVE AN ACTION? DO ENEMIES USE STATBLOCKS?

If a video game showed absolutely no gameplay in any of its advertisements, only showing concept trailers and cutscenes and talking about its plot, you would probably shy away and think the game isn't worth playing if it can't even stand on the merits of its own gameplay. So why the fuck are we accepting that as the norm in TTRPGs?

[gristlegrinder]

aughhhhhh i hate writing character bios with a hard character limit. let me out of this prison of my own creation

[girlwonderers]

yesterday's session of my homebrew campaign took the party to a nightclub

[randomnameless]

Thoughts on the Eastern church?

Well...

thanks to a certain paralogue, we know what some people of the Alliance think mercenaries are used for :

Lorenz here is describing the job Knights should have (at least the knights from Faerghus and the Church do), but says mercenaries were hired for that job.

So, in the Alliance, at least for Nopes, it's perfectly acceptable for a noble to rely on hired swords, aka people who are in for the money, than to rely on a permanent force of knights.

And it's the same thing with the Eastern Church, they have no knights - and pride themselves on not having any permanent "military" force - and rely on a local noble (Nilsson? I forgot)'s troops to protect them when things are going wrong...

Except when that local nobles doesn't send them his knights, so they have to cry at the Central Church to please send the Knights of Seiros to help them protect their cities/people.

Bar their hypocrisy, there is also the... lack of presence in everyday/general Alliance/Federation life, like, in Nopes, apparently, no one in the Federation gives a fuck that their King wants to slaughter the Archbishop for "reasons" and no one seems to have any attachment to the Central Church or the Church in general, FE16 Lorenz reminds Billy that in the Alliance, Nobles only pay lip service to the Church.

So... what is their role? They're not spreading the faith or even making sure the randoms who parrot it get the right "version" of said faith, they do not protect their people/the faithful, and no one apparently gives a fuck about the Church of Seiros in the Alliance (if siding with the Empire and killing its Archbishop is any indication)...

At least they didn't try to kill the Archbishop and aren't as xenophobic as the Western Church members, so they won on that level.

Bar that, they're a pretty much souless organisation - even with Fodlan's standards that doesn't bother giving a fig about its own worldbuilding or lore/world elements : but I think we get a pretty picture in GW, when apparently the Bishop of the Eastern Church wanted to, uh, celebrate Clout's coronation to "ease the people" - who are later revealed not to give a fuck about the CoS - so what was even the point?

Is he representing his entire Church Branch, doing something useless, rather, pretending to have some importance when he has none? And banking on said "pretend importance" to have a sway on the new leader of the country? IDK.

The Eastern Church doesn't have anything meaningful to write about - bar, again, their hypocrisy - but imo, and maybe it's more hc than canon at that point, the Eastern Church is a church branch that forgot why it exists or what is its purpose (spread the faith or at least make sure it's not deliberatly misinterpreted/used by people who dgaf about it, provide relief/support/help to people, etc).

[runespoor7]

Exalted table going fine except for the fact that I am once again facing down the issue of "I'm going to have to play my WWX stand-in pulling a move on my JC-stand-in-NPC" and it is unspeakably cringe to consider

my friends who know just what my inspiration is are extremely lacking in compassion about me bringing it down on myself :(

[miabrown007]

manic girlfriend & impulse control boyfriend 🥰

[thecindercrow]

podcast rec! been listening to Pretending to Be People a lot recently and really enjoying it! I’m not quite caught up yet, I’m in the chunk of bonus scenarios between seasons but season 1 was a really fun ride and I’m looking forward to starting and catching up with season 2.

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Boss asks me if I can show up at 9 today. So I do. And no one's here. So I wait until about 9:15. Still no one.

So I leave and go to the gym. It's just across the street, so no harm, right? If he shows up, I can just run back across the street and hop on the truck.

But here the thing now: He never called me asking where I was. I'm not supposed to be in until 10:30, so I still have about 15 minutes until I'm due in. He's not here. No one is here but me and the other front of house guy. And sure, we can run the truck easy peasy. But there's one pretty big problem: Only two people have the keys to this truck, and neither of them is here right now. So we're just leaning against the truck hoping someone shows up.

Oof. Love work.

[mysweetoddbird]

theres a lot of baby gays at my work and i am constantly begging them to stop discussing which of the new hires might be gay in mixed company

[mazovian]

playing vampire the masquerade (ttrpg) feels like this

[greyywalll]

[prokopetz]

I think a lot of folks in indie RPG spaces misunderstand what's going on when people who've only ever played Dungeons & Dragons claim that indie RPGs are categorically "too complicated". Yes, it's sometimes the case that they're making the unjustified assumption that all games are as complicated as Dungeons & Dragons and shying away from the possibility of having to brave a steep learning cure a second time, but that's not the whole picture.

A big part of it is that there's a substantial chunk of the D&D fandom – not a majority by any means, but certainly a very significant minority – who are into D&D because they like its vibes or they enjoy its default setting or whatever, but they have no interest in actually playing the kind of game that D&D is... so they don't.

Oh, they'll show up at your table, and if you're very lucky they might even provide their own character sheet (though whether it adheres to the character creation guidelines is anyone's guess!), but their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice, then reporting what number they rolled and letting the GM figure out what that means.

Basically, they're putting the GM in the position of acting as their personal assistant, onto whom they can offload any parts of the process of play that they're not interested in – and for some players, that's essentially everything except the physical act of rolling the dice, made possible by the fact most of D&D's mechanics are either GM-facing or amenable to being treated as such.*

Now, let's take this player and present them with a game whose design is informed by a culture of play where mechanics are strongly player facing, often to the extent that the GM doesn't need to familiarise themselves with the players' character sheets and never rolls any dice, and... well, you can see where the wires get crossed, right?

And the worst part is that it's not these players' fault – not really. Heck, it's not even a problem with D&D as a system. The problem is D&D's marketing-decreed position as a universal entry-level game means that neither the text nor the culture of play are ever allowed to admit that it might be a bad fit for any player, so total disengagement from the processes of play has to be framed as a personal preference and not a sign of basic incompatibility between the kind of game a player wants to be playing and the kind of game they're actually playing.

(Of course, from the GM's perspective, having even one player who expects you to do all the work represents a huge increase to the GM's workload, let alone a whole group full of them – but we can't admit that, either, so we're left with a culture of play whose received wisdom holds that it's just normal for GMs to be constantly riding the ragged edge of creative burnout. Fun!)

* Which, to be clear, is not a flaw in itself; a rules-heavy game ideally needs a mechanism for introducing its processes of play gradually.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Partially related to the recent exchange about milestone leveling but. Something that kinda drives me up the wall is how whenever someone criticizes any mechanic from 5e one of the first comments they're inevitably bound to get is someone telling them that they probably only dislike that mechanic because "your DM probably just sucked". And then their description of the behavior of a DM who doesn't suck involves either ignoring the mechanic entirely in favor of rule of cool, or completely redesigning the mechanic from the ground up so that it works completely differently from how it's presented in the book.

Like first of all Idk where they get this urge to automatically assume that anyone who complains about a mechanic is probably a newb player traumatized by having a bad GM and not a GM themselves. It feels weirdly condescending.

Second and most importantly. Of course you aren't bound by RAW, you can hourserule and ignore rules till your heart's content, it's your table the world is your oyster do whatever you want forever etc. If a mechanic doesn't suit your table change it. But like. If using a game mechanic in the way presented in said game's rulebook automatically makes someone suck as a GM then it's the game design that it's bad!!! If the rules are written in such a way that running the game rules-as-written makes you someone who is considered bad at running it then the rules are bad!!! Following the rules of the game you paid for the way they are presented to you being seen as a mistake that sucky GMs make and not the default way to run a game is a clear indication that there's something seriously wrong with those rules!!!

[heart-bones]

guess who chickened out and didn't go to that club? me.

[thydungeongal]

GMing doesn't have to be a chore and can in fact be extremely fun and rewarding but there are certain learned behaviors and attitudes that make things harder on the GM. Here are just a few tips on how to make the job easier on the GM which also may have the side effect of making the game more fun for everyone:

Everyone should make an effort to learn the rules. The rules are not there to make the game unfun and they are not a necessary evil, they are there to help carry the game so the group doesn't have to do all the work. And everyone taking part in learning the rules means the GM doesn't always have to be the one to remember how a rule works.

To that end, drop the "GM is the final word on the rules" attitude. This places the GM on a pedestal and can actually run counter to the idea of players learning the rules. If the GM has carte blanche to run over the rules it disincentivices players learning the rules because they can't actually rely on the text, and now you're right back to the GM having to carry the whole game. It is entirely okay for players to remind the GM how the rules should work and the group should agree on a method for dealing with rules disputes, and spot rulings should not rely on the GM making a unilateral decision but should rely on some kind of consensus.

Communicate your desires to the group and be willing to compromise; respect each other's prep. You may want a game that focuses on a long-form narrative but the GM wants to run an episodic series of largely unrelated singleton adventures. The GM is the one who is bringing the game, so ultimately be willing to compromise on your vision of the game and respect their prep. Ultimately, if the GM does not want to run the exact type of game you want and you can't see yourself having fun in the type of game they want to run, you will be doing everyone a favor by recusing yourself from the game.

Related to the above, communicating your desires should be an ongoing process. End each session by talking about what you want to do next and where you think the game should go. This will also make it easier for the GM to prep ahead.

This relates to learning the rules: pick a game that actually supports the type of game you want to run. Trust me, whatever time you think you will save by sticking to a game you already know you will make back by not having to fight the rules all the time and actually letting the rules take an active part in carrying the game.

You can literally just use prewritten adventures. Not every campaign or adventure needs to be custom-tailored for your specific group. Using prewritten adventures means that someone's already done a lot of the prep for you.

And finally, don't prep any more than you need to: there is this persistent myth that GMs need to have the entire campaign and world planned from the word go to begin with. While there is nothing wrong with expansive worldbuilding as such, you don't need to prep anything beyond what is strictly necessary. If you're running a wide open sandbox you can get by with a rough sketch of the world and only write things in as they become relevant. If you're running a megadungeon your players don't have to know that you've only prepared the first level for the first session, as long as you have a cohesive broad strokes plan that is perfectly fine. If you're running an episodic campaign, well, you don't need to have anything beyond the next episode prepped at a time, but of course having a rough plan can help.

Of course a lot of this is very opinionated and game specific: some games actively resist authoritative GM prep and want to involve each player equally in setting up the situation, and that's actually great, and in those types of games you should remember that the game is explicitly telling everyone to be involved in the prep. And once again, listen to what the rules have to say: they're there to tell you what the game wants you to do.