Lianodel

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Lianodel,

Hold on, a brioche bun can totally work! Toast the bun, put a little mayo on it, put the veggies on the bottom (at least the lettuce), and a regular-sized burger will hold up just fine.

Not saying it can’t go wrong, especially in a place that just wants the decor and the food to look good on Instagram even if it’s disappointing when you bite into it. But for burgers I’ve made, a brioche bun can be a nice option. :P

Lianodel, (edited )

Also, can we appreciate how desperate and nonsensical that entire argument was?

Okay, lots of them are Japanese. So… what about the ones that aren’t? Why isn’t that person concerned about the one who absolutely understand what it means?

And secondly… it’s still a huge red flag that Japanese customers were going so far out of their way to buy extremely obscure music from racist bands from an overtly Nazi music seller. If an American specifically imported music from a Japanese shop only racists know or care about, covered in Axis power imagery, that’d still point towards being a huge racist.

That user is seriously turning themselves in knots to defend people who buy Nazi music from the Nazi store.

Lianodel,

That user was cowardly from the jump. It’s why they wouldn’t outright make their point, but “just ask questions.”

Lianodel,

Also, just to see if they have even the tiniest bit of plausible deniability, I checked out Midgard’s shop. There’s overtly white supremacist shit ALL OVER the place.

It’s not like these people accidentally supported a band with reprehensible beliefs behind the scenes. It’s not like a totally normal music shop turned out to be a front for white supremacists. There’s note even any serious argument about “separating art from the artist.” The leak includes what people bought, and you can tell when someone bought overtly white supremacist music. And even if they didn’t, and the band or album name doesn’t give anything away, what’s it doing at the Nazi store? Why isn’t it streaming, or on Bandcamp, or self-distributed? These customers still had to know there’s an obscure Nazis music store, what it’s called and where to find it, confirm that it’s a Nazi store the moment they went there, and still give them money and their address to place a mail order. Oh, some of them aren’t native English speakers? Then that just makes it even more damning that they did all this with a language barrier in place!

Plus, just look at the apologists in this thread. They’re fucking cowards. They can’t just come out with their beliefs, so they’re just asking questions, deflecting from the topic. One is concern trolling for the fundamental humanity of literal Nazis, despite the fact that the main fucking problem with Nazis is that they considered marginalized groups subhuman. Where’s the concern there? Why the focus on the people who oppose Nazis rather than the Nazis themselves? Another one could barely resist giving the game away by saying they’ve been called a Nazi before because of their anti-immigrant positions.

The people defending this shop and its customers aren’t serious people. They’re dishonest, cowardly, and stupid.

Lianodel,

Yeah. I’m usually not one to accept “The DM can fix it” as an excuse for bad rules, but it absolutely applies here. It’s an extremely specific set of circumstances that can only happen if the players are trying to break the game and the DM lets them. It’s not a broken rule in practice so much as it is a fun thought experiment for people to talk about.

I think there are much better examples of broken rules out there.

Lianodel, (edited )

Hoo boy. Against my better judgment, I’ll wade into this pool.

  1. If voting for either party gets you the same result, fascists wouldn’t be so focused on elections and trying so hard to take the vote away.
  2. Withholding your vote doesn’t do anything. When has losing an election pushed either party left?
  3. Voting doesn’t prevent you from engaging in other forms of direct action.

Both parties suck. People will needlessly suffer and die no matter who wins. But there are also people who will suffer and die under one party but not the other, and the same can’t be said the other way around. Our democracy is fundamentally flawed, but voting is a tool at our disposal, and we’re in no position to turn anything down.

Lianodel,

If you think it would help, sure thing!

Lianodel,

Also, to be blunt… we’ve seen this before. We know from recent history what happens when the DNC nominates the safe, centrist, establishment candidate, who fails to appeal to voters and loses to a Republican. That was 2016. Hillary Clinton lost to Trump. And who did the DNC rally behind right before Super Tuesday? That’s right… Joe Biden.

Lianodel,

Thanks! I actually took time to make my comment shorter, so I’m glad I successfully got straight to the points. :)

Lianodel,

I started reading Jhereg by Steven Brust, and it takes resurrection magic into account with the world building. Part of assassination involves hiding the body until the resurrection window passes. IIRC, the legal penalties for murder are also much less severe if you just kill someone, rather than make sure they’re permanently dead.

There are also “Morganti” weapons. They’re pretty much the Black Blade from Elric, so they eat souls. So not only do they make resurrection impossible, but the victim is extra dead, not even existing in an afterlife. As a result, using one is a high crime, punishable by death… by Morganti blade.

Lianodel,

That would also lead to some interesting questions if you give it a divine aspect.

If it’s all arcane magic, obviously sure, that all works.

But what if they need a cleric? That means there’s a god out there who condones this sort of thing. And that god can do this with the souls of unbelievers… unless they prepare the condemned by making them believers, possibly through gruesome means.

Honestly it’s more grimdark than I’d usually run a game, but it’s entertaining to think about. :P

Lianodel,

Fair, I guess it depends on what the afterlife looks like in the fictional world. :P I actually didn’t get that far in the series, what with real life getting in the way, but I enjoyed it and mean to return to it.

Lianodel,

If course! That’s always the number one choice, when possible. Sadly, it’s just not an option as frequently as I (and plenty of others) would like.

Those minis and terrain look rad, too! I also like that part of the hobby in and of itself. I could spend hours just painting minis and making terrain while watching or listening to something.

Lianodel,

My experience with FitD games is the same. I appreciate them, I’m glad they’re there, but after trying them out a bunch, realized it just wasn’t the experience I wanted, nor what my group wanted.

Obviously for a lot of people that isn’t the case, and if they’re having a fantastic time, great! It’s just a personal preference.

Lianodel,

Yeah, it’s such a frustrating conversation.

Yes, as long as people are having fun, that’s all that matters.

But it’s also fair to point out that hacking D&D to do something fundamentally outside of what it’s designed to do is going to be a lot of work for little pay off. Take it from people who are familiar with other games, it would honestly be easier to learn something new. (And most games aren’t as hard to pick up as 5e!) That’s not gatekeeping, that’s just advice based on experience. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze, so unless you like the squeeze for its own sake, maybe try something else.

Also, to speak on the system not mattering if you have a good DM: sure, that’s technically correct. That also doesn’t invalidate criticism of a set of rules. Yeah, a skilled and experienced DM can fix things, even on the fly, but maybe the entire system shouldn’t rely on that. 5e has notoriously bad DM-facing material, and after years of running it, I got burnt out. The DM is playing the game, too, and their time, effort, and fun matter just as much as anyone else’s. I’m sick of 5e’s approach that the DM will either figure it out or take the blame. The fact that it’s so hard to be a new DM is, in my opinion, the likely reason there’s a DM shortage. You don’t get the same problem with other games!

So yeah, like you said. System matters. Even if you don’t use a system per se and go FKR, that’s a choice you made on the structure of the game.

Lianodel,

I’m just afraid that Hollywood execs will take exactly the wrong lessons from it, as they usually do. They won’t see it as a successful fantasy adventure movie that underperformed because it came out between Mario and John Wick, but as a failure because it wasn’t mostly a carbon-copy of modern Marvel movies, and trusted its audience even a little bit.

Lianodel,

The conversation around this topic always seems directly or indirectly framed around a zero-sum framing: what’s better and what’s worse? Which side wins? Even if you disagree with the premise, that’s what’s shaping the conversation. I don’t think the article suggested there’s a “correct” answer, but it was clearly inspired by people who think the author was doing things wrong.

It can simultaneously be true that there are successful long-term campaigns with and without high character turnover due to death. It’s a mater of personal preference and successful execution. The only thing categorically false is the idea that character deaths, in and of themselves, are inherently bad for long-term play.

Lianodel,

Off, mixed feelings here.

On the one hand, it shows how antagonistic DMing is silly. The DM can just make stuff up, and the reason we’re all playing is to have a good time. If you want a competitive game that’s (at least ostensibly) balanced, you can play one of those instead, like a board game or a war game.

On the other hand… modern D&D is built around ostensibly balanced set piece encounters, usually combat, usually intended to tax but not kill the characters. So the fact that it absolutely sucks at being a balanced game is an absolute nightmare to DM (assuming you want the game to be fair & fun).

Lianodel,

More surprising is the confirmation that Diablo: The RPG will be built on a new “unique” gameplay system, rather than slapping a Deckard Cain mask over Dungeons & Dragons 5E or something.

At least there’s that. It might still be terrible, but I immediately lose interest in any game that’s just reskinning “The World’s Most Popular Role-playing Game.”

Lianodel,

Oh for sure! It’s really just treating D&D as the default that I have a problem with, not using an existing system per se. Sometimes it works, but a lot of the time making D&D support a radically different style of play is a bad idea. It also tends to suggest that either the designer doesn’t really know that much about RPGs, or the publisher doesn’t care and just wants to cash in on what’s popular. If they picked even another existing system, that at least suggests they’re aware of other games, and probably picked something they thought was a good fit.

Again, this is just speaking in generalities. There are good games based on 5e. It’s a red flag, but not a deal breaker.

Lianodel,

Fair point. I think it would still take a lot of work, though, since Diablo includes a lot of fast-paced, high-powered stuff, while 5e kind of falls apart and turns into a slog at higher levels. To put it another way, it handles up to the heroic level fine, but the epic levels can feel like a drag, and WotC’s solution was to mostly publish adventures that stop at level 15. Cutting HP would be a part of it, maybe streamlining some stuff, creating a different inventory system…

So it can be done. But the fact that it’s not D&D also means there’s a higher floor to how much thought was put into the game, you know? Sometimes designers put the work in, but sometimes they just pick D&D to be lazy or as a cash grab.

Speaking of Adventures in Middle-Earth, I haven’t played it, but I heard the 5e edition is actually pretty good. You’re right in that Tolkien’s fantasy is way different from the high-fantasy superheroics of 5e, but I heard it had great rules for going on a journey, which 5e mostly glosses over (at least in practice).

Lianodel,

I guess as the devil’s advocate, the publisher put out both. So it seemed like it was the high-effort way to both create a bespoke system, and appeal to the people who are completely stuck on D&D.

Lowering HP would absolutely go a long way, you’re right. I think limiting or disabling multiclassing would also help, but that would be an extremely unpopular change that most people would ignore anyway. :/

Lianodel,

You’re right that multiclassing an optional rule, but in practice, I think nearly every player assume it’s in use unless the DM says otherwise (and they will likely complain if the DM says otherwise). So I’d bet that if a ruleset basedo n 5e disabled multiclassing, people would either complain about it, or ignore that part and then complain when it breaks the game.

Lianodel, (edited )

I love that, in a competition between a corporation worth hundreds of billions of dollars and a FOSS project, all Google managed to do was annoy uBlock Origin users for like a week. I just had to manually update the extension and restart my browser a few times.

Lianodel,

In case you want the good faith counterargument (I know, I know, socialist wall of text):

I’d be willing to bet you have a different definition of “capitalism” compared to socialists. For most people, capitalism is just trade, markets, commerce, etc. None of that is incompatible with socialism (broadly speaking). When socialists talk about capitalism, they’re referring, specifically, to private ownership of capital. It’s not the buying and selling, it’s that ownership of companies is separate from labor.

We don’t owe technological development to capitalists, we owe it to engineers, scientists, and researchers. We owe art to artists, performance to performers. Socialists want those people to be the primary beneficiaries of their own work, not someone who may or may not even work at a company, but whose wealth means they can profit off of other people’s labor by virtue of owning the property those people need to do their jobs.

And you’ve probably been bothered by enshittification in one form or another. Some product or service you like has probably gotten worse over time. That’s not a decision made by the people who take pride in their creation, or the laborers who want long-term security. It comes from the capitalist class that doesn’t really give a shit about any of that, they just want quarterly profits, long-term survival be damned. That’s capitalism, as the meme was getting at.

Lianodel,

Absolutely. While I can be convinced on markets for some things (with regulation to protect consumers and prevent monopolies), it completely falls apart in others. Necessities absolutely should not rely on free markets because capital holders hold an extortionate amount of power, most people have little to none, and if it’s more profitable to let some people die, then the profit motive will let those people die.

Lianodel,

My dad died recently.

He was definitely a flawed man, and there were tons of problems between the two of us over the years. But I also heard plenty of stories about how he grew up, and about his parents—both from my dad and from other family members. Without a doubt, he managed to be a better person than his parents, and a better parent to me than his parents were to him. They were straight-up cruel to him, whether physically or simply using him for the family’s gain.

That doesn’t absolve everything, and I’ve still got plenty of my own issues. But what I respect most of him, in hindsight, is that he played the hand he was dealt and managed to be a better man. Not perfect, but better. I want to do the same.

Sorry for being sappy, it’s only been a couple of weeks. I also know that this doesn’t apply to everyone, since some parents are indefensibly cruel and abusive. In general, though, I hope people can be easy on each other, easy on themselves, and stop letting “perfect” be the enemy of “good.”

Lianodel,

Thank you. The grieving has actually been both smooth & intense, with ups & downs, but I’m gradually doing better, as is my mom.

But anyway, the meme is accurate. :P I just have a more sensitive feeling about it given recent events.

Lianodel,

See, one of the things holding me back is getting overwhelmed by character creation. There’s just so much to go through!

What makes me want to try GURPS is that it seems flexible (even light) in play, would adapt to just about any genre, and allows for incremental advancement. But since I’d be the one bringing it to the table, I’d have a heck of a lot to do to make it an easy entry, despite not having played the game yet.

Lianodel,

Ah, that reminds me of City of Mist, where leaning too hard towards your mundane or supernatural side would do the same.

I’ve also found it interesting how vibrant the Japanese tabletop RPG scene seems to be, but how little of it makes its way over here. It seems like there’d be a huge market for it.

Lianodel,

I’ve had the change to play Paranoia, actually! It was a ton of fun, and one of my favorite gaming memories. It ran great as a fun one shot.

Lianodel,

Shadowrun really has been mishandled by Catalyst. :/ You also get big Shadowrun fans who genuinely love the setting actively discouraging people from using the rules sometimes. “Shadowrun is great, but it sucks, so if you want to play Shadowrun (which you should!) avoid using Shadowrun.” :P

I’ve also heard Amber come up a bunch over the years. I keep meaning to check it out.

Lianodel,

Ah, Ars Magica is another one. I found it as a teenager browsing the internet. I even downloaded the free PDF they offered and started printing it out, before realizing just how much paper that would be. :P

Lianodel,

It also kind of sucks that 5e apparently makes it mandatory to be bad guys. One of the announcements pretty much said that if you’re not playing miserable and truly irredeemable monsters, you’re having bad wrong fun.

For what it’s worth, apparently the older editions can be played as “goth superheroes.” You’d still grapple with dark themes, but get to, you know… succeed against them.

Lianodel,

I actually want to check that out too, since it’s in the Burning Wheel orbit. :P

That and Torchbearer, but as much as I loved the books, I think it’s the last among the three. (Though I still really want to play it.)

Lianodel,

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but I find it wild how few Japanese RPGs make it over with a translation. It seems like there’s a vibrant tabletop RPG scene there, and I’d bet there’s a huge market here, but it just rarely happens.

Lianodel,

Ah, on the topic of templates, they’re also in Dungeon Fantasy, which helps a lot. Though I do wish the “default” settings on DF were a bit lighter.

I know that GURPS Lite is secretly the real core rulebook. :P It’s easier to build off of that than go through the Basic Set and sift through everything. How to Be a GURPS GM, IIRC, also helps with things like skill lists.

I think if I ever get a chance to play it, I’d probably start super simple, maybe even with Wildcard skills and some GURPS Action rules to smooth things out, then dial up the complexity until it’s at a point I’d like. I appreciate modular systems that let me do that.

Lianodel,

I’m not an expert on the three either, but here’s my understanding:

  • Burning Wheel is the oldest of the three, the most complicated, and geared towards dramatic fantasy stories. It’s replicating classic fantasy novels and the like.
  • Mouseguard came out next, is significantly simpler, and obviously made to evoke the feeling of the comics it’s based on.
  • Torchbearer is the newest of the three, is an intermediate level of complexity, and geared towards dungeon crawling and the like. Think old-school RPG with a Burning Wheel chassis.

I still haven’t got my hands on Mouseguard, and I’d love to try all of them at some point. It just breaks towards Burning Wheel for me, to begin at the beginning—but they all have a unique appeal. :)

Lianodel,

I did find a Burning Wheel LP with that name, so I’ll have to check it out!

There’s also a podcast I loved called Campaign, and since a lot (all?) of the cast were improvisers, they would hop into scenes as NPCs quite often. (I’m pretty over that podcast, but when I liked it, that was one of my favorite parts.) I tried that in other games, but it was a bit hard to get non-improvisers to get into it. I’ll have to try again!

Lianodel,

Huh, I hadn’t thought of that, since PF2e is mostly poised as a D&D alternative rules system, but the setting must be popular given the existence of Savage Pathfinder… I’ll have to do more digging into the lore!

I’ve also had this thought that I was burnt out on crunchier RPGs, before reading PF2e and realizing, no, I’m just tired of fighting against a rules system. :P I’d love to get in some crunchier games, too, so long as they work properly and deliver on their design goals.

and I’ll have to check out Me, Myself & Die! I think I’ve heard the name before.

Lianodel,

I got the game, mostly for the things you mentioned. A lot if it is familiar D&D, in an old-school style, with some tweaks I like. It seems really flexible, and probably compatible with a lot of OSR stuff I already have. Plus the box set seems like it’d be a great kit for on-the-fly games.

So I’d also love to get it to the table sometime!

Lianodel,

Yeah! I also like that he hasn’t Flanderized his content. If anything, it got just slightly toned down, which IMO felt just right.

And he does longer-form content on his YouTube, which is surprisingly very chill. I actually prefer it, but that’s just me. :P

Lianodel,

Granted, I’m already burnt out on 5e, but the idea of running it RAW is particularly unappetizing. Aside from shutting down a lot of creativity, a lot of the rules are straight-up busted or missing entirely.

Lianodel,

I generally prefer playing with all die rolls out in the open, so this is a really handy way to still freak out the players every so often for no reason. :P

Lianodel,

Is there a trope for roughing up the person giving the call, and then all Hell breaks loose?

Asking for a friend. That bastard. :P

Lianodel,

Yeah, that drove me absolutely up the wall. Russia’s economy was liberalized after the fall of the Soviet Union, and China even invited Milton Goddamn Friedman to consult on their economic plans.

Lianodel,

I used to think I was low maintenance with dice, until I needed to buy emergency dice to run a game. The store didn’t have the regular Chessex ones, but I’m not a brand loyalist, so I grabbed whatever.

The numbers weren’t laid out properly. You know how opposite sides (apart from the d4, obviously) sum up to one more than the die size? I.e., opposite sides on a d6 add up to 7, and opposite sides of a d20 will add up to 21. They didn’t do that. Bugged the hell out of me, and I still consider them cursed.

So yeah. Even though I’m not as particular about my dice as most players, but there are some dice I find unsettling and will not play with. :P

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