Dungeons and Badgers

Hi, I'm cpt-bagel/Badger and this is a repository for all my D&D/Pathfinder/TTRPG things!

[featherlight-ttrpg]

Featherlight Quick-Start Guide Live!

Just released the one-page Featherlight quick-start guide on itch.io for free!

This is a great resource if you're considering checking out the full rulebook for Featherlight (also on itch.io) but don't want to commit to reading more than a page for something that might not be what your table is looking for!

Check it out at: https://toothsome-games.itch.io/featherlight-quickstart

[ladytabletop]

6 Bites for 6 Princes by Role Over Play Dead

I have been known as a homebrew purist when it comes to adventures, but I've been reading a ton of modules and pamphlet adventures. I like this one in particular for the blank spaces it leaves.

[jp-nichts]

Show of Hearts

The back cover illustration for the Reactors & Romance one-shot adventure, Powercores & Polycules

[in-case-of-grace]

SEE FOR YOURSELF

GUTGUN by Incaseofgrace

A solo boomer shooter TTRPG

[thydungeongal]

There's a fundamental disconnect in how some people view critiques of media like. "This person thinks this piece of media has things that are in line with certain ideologies, therefore they must assume that anyone who enjoys this media must share that ideology." No, I actually don't think playing D&D, a game that comes with a lot of racist assumptions, will make you racist, even if you decide not to address those issues in your game, any more than playing D&D will make you believe that fairies are real or turn you into an elf.

[tredlocity]

[thydungeongal]

The first Shrek movie was kind of inspired in adding a sound effect of a shotgun being reloaded when those guys pointed their crossbows at Shrek, an action that doesn't actually make a sound but where it was necessary to have a sound to communicate a specific vibe to the audiences. I actually have a running gag slightly in the same vein where during the customary "The party meets in a tavern" scene I will always bring out the most stereotypical fantasy tavern music in the background and when the band eventually stops playing because something happens that disturbs the idyllic tavern scene I will also abruptly play a record scratch sound effect.

[grison-in-space]

you know what? I want dragons with ontogenetic niche partitioning.

niche partioning is a concept from ecology wherein groups within a species expand into different ecological niches so they're not competing with one another, right? so for example, sexual niche partitioning happens when sexual dimorphism means that one sex eats different things / occupies different spaces / etc. as another within the same species. you have one species that occupies multiple niches within the ecosystem.

ontogenetic niche partitioning is when this happens as a result of developmental changes. paternal care tends to obliterate this partitioning--hard to have your juveniles eating something different from your adults if the adults are feeding them!--so we just don't see it very often in mammals or birds, but it's quite common in other species, especially invertebrates. for example, a caterpillar and a butterfly are examples of classic niche partitioning, even though every butterfly will occupy both niches over the course of its life. you don't have to have a big fancy chrysalis transformation to engage in ontogenetic niche partitioning, but those transformations are a pretty big sign that it's happening in a given species.

anyway, it's most common in vertebrates among fish, lizards and snakes these days, especially monitor lizards, where juveniles will occupy a different (often arboreal or otherwise sheltered) niche from adults and hunt different prey until they get big enough that the juvenile niche. there are some good reasons to think that some dinosaurs might have engaged in ontogenetic niche partitioning, especially the bigger species, too. we think sea turtles might do it, although that's hard to say because we don't know very much about sea turtle development once the hatchlings go back to the sea.

the neat thing about ontogenetic niche partitioning is that it allows a given ecology to host a much larger population size for a given species than would otherwise be the case, because the total space occupied by that species is spread across a lot wider niche space. this is especially relevant for, say, a large carnivore that eats livestock.

basically, what if dragons are just the very oldest, reproductively mature members of their species, and the common wall lizard or whatever is just a juvenile that might or might not survive long enough to reproduce? imagine if dragon eggs are very small with big clutches of little insectivorous hatchlings that are eaten by anything that comes by, any of which might have the potential to become a great fire-breathing monster if it lives long enough.

imagine that dragon society. do people know that the hatchlings and the dragons are the same species? (they might not: there are real examples of people mistaking ontogenetically niche separated groups for independent species in their own right.) if dragons are sapient but the sapience takes time to develop, what does that say about the nature of sapience itself? how does a society work and transfer wealth if you remove parental care?

so many possibilities.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Rules Lawyering

There’s a term that has gotten thrown around since long before I even entered the space of TTRPGs, “rules lawyer,” and in the time I’ve been in TTRPGs I’ve seen it take a massive shift in how people use it and what they intend it to mean. I think that’s been a very bad shift, not because language or definitions can never be allowed to shift, but because the shift itself is downstream of a much larger issue of TTRPGs not being treated as art, Hasbro’s dishonest marketing, and game design not being treated as real.

I'm gonna go over the new definition i keep seeing, then explain the original definition, compare them, and explain why the new definition is bad.

How I Keep Seeing “Rules Lawyer” Used Now

“Rules lawyer” was always a pejorative term with very negative connotations, but super often in the past few years I’m seeing the term “rules lawyer” used pejoratively towards people for no other reason than they know the rules of a given TTRPG, want to play by those rules, and want to use the rules to their/their PC’s advantage. Here’s a few examples of where I have seen someone be called a “rules lawyer.”

Example 1

Like, saying in any context that you should try and understand and play by the rules of a game before you start modifying, overriding/ignoring, etc. the rules so that you actually understand what you’re modifying.

Example 2

Saying that people should find games whose rules natively support a certain type of campaign they want to play, and play by those rules, instead of changing all of D&D5e’s rules to sort of look like that concept.

Example 3

Saying that it’s good to read and be familiar with a TTRPG’s rulebook at all.

Example 4

A player reads the rules of [TTRPG with a heavy focus on combat] and figures out that by combining certain equipment and abilities, their PC can be very good at a certain aspect of combat. I.e. battle axes get bonus damage when used by characters with high Strength, so if they pick character options that maximize Strength, and pick a battle axe, their character can be very powerful with that battle axe.

Example 5

A GM says “If you want your PC to kick the gun out of [NPC]’s hand, they have to succeed on a Disarm Action because that’s what the rulebook says is the mechanic for when one character tries to knock a weapon out of another character’s hand. They can’t do it automatically just because it would be cool.”

Example 6

A character attacks another character in a game where this requires a roll, and the roll at first appears to be a success at the bare minimum number required to roll, and everyone starts going with that as the outcome. Then, the “rules lawyer” speaks up and says “Wait, since [character] was behind cover, according to the rulebook there should be a -1 penalty to the attack, so that would actually be a failure.”

What “Rules Lawyer” Means Originally

“Rules lawyering” or “being a rules lawyer” by the original meaning actually doesn’t even always have as much to do with knowing the rules as it does relying on other people not knowing the rules, to get away with cheating. “Rules lawyering” by the original definition describes a specific form of cheating.

It involves making spurious arguments you know are wrong or otherwise against the intent/spirit of the rulebook to gain an unfair advantage, and applying those spurious interpretations of the rules selectively rather than consistently. I.e. conveniently ignoring the rules interpretation you made just minutes ago now that it no-longer favors your character to interpret it that way.

I’m going to take the examples above and rewrite them to actually be examples of “rules lawyering” by the original definition. I'm going to skip examples 1 and 2 because there is no way to possibly twist them into fitting this definition.

Example 3

Saying “If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough.”

Example 4

A player reads the rules of a TTRPG with a heavy focus on combat and figures out that the rulebook says “A character can attack once per turn with each weapon held in their hand.” but it never specifies exactly how many weapons a character can fit in one hand. The player gives their character 20 swords and argues that because the rulebook doesn’t place a limit on the number of swords per hand, his character can make 20 attacks per turn by carrying 20 swords. (Extreme example for demonstration purposes, an actual rules lawyer would probably more realistically only try this with like 3 swords.)

Example 5

A GM enforces the rules arbitrarily and inconsistently, either relying on the culture of GM fiat and “rule 0” to get away with it or just getting by on nobody else at the table being familiar enough with the rules to argue, leading to the rules not actually mattering, since they only get brought up in defense or support of something the GM has already decided is going to happen no matter what. (Usually this will also be combined with the GM lying about their dice rolls or lying about the stats of NPCs/changing them arbitrarily in their head but that’s not really “rules lawyering” that’s just more conventional cheating.)

Example 6

When the rules lawyer’s PC is attacked, he says “The rulebook says ‘Cover’ is ‘any object a character could hide behind from an attack’ and [PC] was hiding behind the curtains when the bad guys saw him and started shooting, so the curtains should count as Cover and they should get -1 penalties to their attacks. Also, the rulebook says ‘Characters who are moving when they attack get a -1 penalty to the attack,’ and the bad guys had to move to draw their guns and pull the triggers, so they’re moving and should get another -1 penalty.’ Notably, earlier in the session when a character was getting shot at while hiding behind a small chair, the rules lawyer stayed silent and didn’t bring up the Cover section of the rulebook at all. Next turn after the bad guys miss their shots the rules lawyer has his character shoot back. (Even though his character would have also needed to “move” to draw a gun and shoot and so accounting to him would have a -1 penalty, he stays quiet and hopes nobody is paying enough attention to realize this.) When the GM says “Goon #2 is hiding behind the bed so he is in Cover and the attack has a -1 penalty,” the rules lawyer says “Oh come on, bullets can go straight through a feather mattress, there’s no way that counts as Cover.”

What is This Shift Downstream of and Why Should You Stop Using the First Definition?

Besides the regular Dunning-Kruger Effect of people having a couple of D&D5e rules explained to them and then thinking they know everything there is to know about TTRPGs as an artform, this is, like most things in the hobby right now, ultimately traceable to Hasbro’s dishonest marketing of D&D5e and its resulting toxic play culture.

This post

Reblog by @anim-ttrpgs · 1 link

💬 39  🔁 777  ❤️ 880 · I don’t know what’s more detrimental to the health of TTRPGs as a medium, D&D5e players who think that TTRPGs are “col

sorta gets into it with a lot more detail, but the short version is D&D5e wasn’t really created with a lot of thought put into how it would actually play by its rules, but that doesn’t matter to the shareholders as long as it makes money. To make more money, Hasbro/WotC has to maximize the number of people playing D&D5e. To do this, they market D&D5e as “the game that can be whatever you want it to be” and encourage a culture of play where if you don’t like the rules you can just change or ignore them (instead of playing a different game that already has rules that you would like following).[1]

[1. Sidebar] I promise that learning a different game’s rules is not as hard, time consuming, or expensive as you might think. D&D5e’s rules are at the upper end of all of these metrics. Even rulebooks which have twice as many pages are often easier to learn than D&D5e’s rules.

By treating any of the first set of examples as a faux-pas and subject of derision or mockery you are playing straight into the hands of a monopoly that has a deadly stranglehold on the TTRPG industry. Ironically by treating the rules text of D&D and by extension other TTRPGs as essentially meaningless, you’re actually more of a corporate bootlicker than you would be otherwise.

How Does this Affect People Who Enjoy Playing by the Rules? Can’t They Just Mind Their Own Business?

I am extremely aware of the fact that many people who play D&D(or some other popular TTRPGs but mostly D&D) don’t really care about the game part of D&D, but rather treat it as a sort of “social lubricant,” an excuse to hang out with friends more so than a specific activity. They would be just as happy (perhaps even more happy) if D&D was swapped out for any activity on earth, like bowling, sitting around a campfire talking about anything, watching a movie, etc.. To these people, being told to pay attention and understand the game they’re playing is an offense. After all, “it’s just a stupid game, who cares, aren’t we here to have fun?”

Yes, we are here to have fun, but have you considered that the fun of the people asking you to pay attention is being disrupted just as much? Would you have the same reaction to somebody leaning over and telling you not to talk or use your phone in a movie theater? Come on. Or even in a home viewing experience, your friend asks you to come over and watch this movie he really likes, and you’re just blowing it off as some stupid movie, not caring if you talk over all the cool scenes he wanted you to see. In simplest terms, that’s rude.

The shift of the pejorative “rules lawyer” from “cheater who makes spurious arguments about the rules to gain an unfair advantage” to “player who wants to play the game by a written-out and consistent set of rules” is making the guy who actually wants to do the activity everyone nominally said they would do into the bad guy. Imagine if it was the activity or piece of art that you were passionate about.

Convincing people that it’s not “just some stupid movie” becomes much harder for that person when it was already hard as hell because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Many people don’t realize that it can be anything more than “some stupid movie” because they never paid attention to a movie before. They are skeptical that paying attention might result in them having more enjoyment than just talking, and now getting them to pay attention is that much harder because the act of going “shh, don’t talk over the movie.” is the subject of mockery.

I am also extremely aware of the large percentage of TTRPG players who are passionate about D&D and other TTRPGs, but are passionate about the version that Hasbro marketing presents(this is completely synonymous with the “folkloric version of the game” that exists in oral tradition and “not letting the rules get in the way of the story”), not the version that actually exists in the rulebooks. This post has already gone on long enough and beyond this point I would just be repeating things I have already written other essays about so I’m going to just link a few posts. The TL;DR of these posts is that buying into this marketing of the rules not mattering supports Hasbro and disadvantages anyone else who wants to make it in the industry or even just cares about exploring and evolving the medium as it exists. As Hasbro’s marketing goes, if the rules don’t matter because you don’t let them get in the way of “the story,” then there really is no reason to move away from D&D5e.

Reblog by @anim-ttrpgs

💬 85  🔁 5158  ❤️ 7202 · I've had a couple of people ask for a digestible version of the whole "the real problem with Dungeons & Dragons is f

Reblog by @anim-ttrpgs · 1 link

💬 39  🔁 777  ❤️ 880 · I don’t know what’s more detrimental to the health of TTRPGs as a medium, D&D5e players who think that TTRPGs are “col

Reblog by @anim-ttrpgs

💬 39  🔁 777  ❤️ 880 · First of all thanks for the good faith response. The thing is you’re pretty much right, but I think it would be more

If you object to anything being said in the last paragraph, read these posts before arguing.

[another-normal-anomaly]

On playing clerics in DnD

I just realized why I always find playing clerics (and to a lesser extent, paladins) less fulfilling than it feels like it’s going to be at the start of a campaign. It’s because what appeals to me about the concept of being a cleric (and other people can have totally different, equally good reasons) is the relationship between a cleric and their god.

There’s a real foundation of loyalty and devotion to the god’s ideals, but at the same time, gods are embodiments of abstract principles and clerics aren’t, so there are going to be times when the cleric and the god want different things. And they need to negotiate that over the weird medium of prayers and powers and dice rolls and so forth. It’s an intensely personal relationship with a being you basically never interact with directly. And, not being a religious person IRL, it’s not the sort of thing I can get outside of games.

But the problem is, DnD gods are, you know, not real. Worse, they’re even less real than the PCs or even the NPCs, who at least get screen time and people controlling them directly. The real Great Powers of the game world are the GM and the other players, none of whom are going to be as interested in the embodiment of an abstract principle as the person who decided to play a cleric. So while the GM might be deciding your god’s reactions to things, their decisions will be based (and rightly so!) on what makes sense in the rules, makes for a good story, maintains PC power balance, etc. So there won’t really be any there there, and the cleric’s player ends up playing both ends of the relationship. Which, if you were looking to experiment with a new way of relating to a being other than yourself, is not really ideal.

[tadrinth]

Paging @theresattrpgforthat to provide some games where the god of a cleric is played by a different player.

[theresattrpgforthat]

@another-normal-anomaly What you are looking for is Godsend, published by UFO Press!

These are times of trouble: the days are numbered. Legends told us about them. We have names for them in our sacred scriptures: the Ragnarök, the War of Gods, the Apocalypse, the Arrival of Avatars, the Eternal Night, the Infinite Void.

The end of days.

But we are not alone, we are not powerless: the gods are walking among us. They are here to guide us, to save the world as we know it – or to help us reach the land of the Dead.

If we pray faithfully enough and prove our worthiness, perhaps we can be spared. In Godsend, each player embodies two characters - one is a God who has achieved a presence in their domain during the End of Days. The other is an avatar - but (and this is critical here) not your own God’s avatar. You play as the avatar of someone else’s God. Your avatars have the option to follow their deity’s wishes, or to forge their own path, although going their own way will certainly have consequences. That being said, depending on the choices you make, your Avatar might ascend into godhood themselves, thus changing the dynamic of the pantheon as this age ends and another world rises from the ashes.

Godsend is diceless, which is what sets it apart from the other games in its Legacy system family. I think this is meant to represent how when it comes to beings with this level of power, chance has nothing to do with it. Instead, the game is about when you decide to act, and how much you’re willing to commit to your actions in order to ensure what you want comes to pass.

Also, for a duet option, maybe check out Apotheosis, by paladinbaby.

[rascalnews]

First Dungeon Crawler Carl, now D&D Beyond: the time of the Drop has come

The age of supplements is over.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Fatigue and Combat Basics in Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game

Combat is just one thing that some Death Bed characters might engage with, but Fatigue is involved in almost everything physical the PCs do.

So, while NPCs in Death Bed do have conventional “HP,” Death Bed PCs do not. Instead of a number that goes down, they have a track of squares that get filled in from right to left when they take damage and gain Wounds. When they exert themselves, they gain Fatigue, which fills in the same squares from left to right. If all squares are filled, the character dies. (Yeah I stole this from the Dark Souls Board Game but that’s because it’s a genuinely good way to represent a “stamina” system in turn-based combat.)

Fatigue is gained from any action that the performance of - once or repeatedly - would be considered “exercise.”

Wounds are relatively difficult to remove from the track, but Fatigue is removed from the track gradually over time at a rate determined by how much Weight the PC is carrying.

Fatigue also gradually starts building up when the PCs have gone too long without eating or sleeping.

This system overall provides a gradual attrition to overexertion in the dungeon (even though just walking around the dungeon outside of combat does not cause Fatigue in and of itself) and while long-distance traveling. In a long hike, the pace is usually going to be set by whoever in the party has the lowest tolerance for Fatigue accumulation.

The Fatigue system is really interesting in combat, because movement and actions cause Fatigue, which fills in and shortens a PC’s health bar. At the same time, the more Wounds a PC gets, the less Fatigue they can afford to accumulate.

Finally, with very few exceptions, there is no actual limit on the amount of movement and actions that a PC can do on their turn. If a PC has 20 squares on their health track, and an attack with their weapon causes 3 Fatigue, they could attack 6 times in a single turn. The obvious tradeoff to this is that with each attack they are essentially reducing their HP, and making 6 attacks will leave them with the equivalent of 2 HP until their next turn when their Fatigue reduces by 1-4 points (depending on Weight carried), at which point they will then have the equivalent of 3-6 HP. (It is also worth noting that an “attack” in Death Bed represents many consecutive swings because rounds in Death Bed are more like a full minute instead of a few seconds like rounds in Eureka.)

Also since I mentioned combat, “hit” and “damage” rolls in Death Bed are the same roll, and based on the weapon being swung, with modifiers based on the PC’s skill and advantage/disadvantage based on the circumstances.

PCs use rolls for their attack and defense, most NPCs use flat numbers. Armor is damage reduction vs attacks, and HP values are overall very low. Most human-sized enemies will have only 1 HP, meaning their Armor(which often also has their skill at fighting wrapped into it) is just a number that the attacker must roll above to defeat them.

I want Death Bed to be really strategic in this way, where, pretty often a kill on any given individual enemy can be guaranteed (like if a PC has a sword with an attack power of 1D8 and +4 from their combat skills against a weak enemy that only has an Armor of 3 against the damage type of the weapon), but there will never just be one weak enemy. Does the warrior take as many of the guaranteed kills as possible in a single turn, causing a lot of Fatigue and potentially leaving him vulnerable from exhaustion, or does he fight defensively and pace himself? What if there is an enemy whose armor has a chance to protect against a light attack, but would have no chance against a heavy attack which does more damage but also causes much more Fatigue?

[tpwrtrmnky]

Taking the "like a vampire but toned down for game balance purposes" implementation of dhampir and doing it with succubi instead would be such an evil thing to put on a character like hey. you've got some weak Seduction Powers whether you're into that or not. do people actually like you or are you using the evil powers on them without knowing it? are your feelings genuine or do you want to feed on the people you think you care about? haha people think you're an evil sex demon and every interaction you have with others is going to have that lingering in the background

[tpwrtrmnky]

Not full shapeshifting but a body that subtly contorts itself according to local beauty standards. Noticing yourself looking up at a friend who's normally the same height as you like okay guess we're heading into "women need to be small and dainty" country. Sigh. It's never a place where the mainstream idea of an ideal woman is tall and muscular.

[corsairesix]

I'm happy to announce that the Masks: A New Generation Indesign template is up on itch! For making game books, 3rd-party content, and homebrew in the house style of Masks

Masks: A New Generation Indesign Template by Veil's Edge Games

A layout template for the Masks: A New Generation TTRPG.

[jburneko]

It’s getting to the point where the majority of RPG art is actively turning me off games.

[anim-ttrpgs]

What are some examples of RPG art that would be actively turning you off of a game? And maybe some examples of some that doesn't?

[jburneko]

So, I think about this a lot. Sometimes I think it isn't just the art by itself but the AMOUNT of it. Some of my favorite games have no art at all. I'm fond of using full page frontice pieces at the beginning of chapters with little to no spot art in my own work. But some games just have lavish illustrative layouts to the point of gaudiness. So, like, I really love the art in Raven or Shadows of Esteren but it is EVERYWHERE. And when I see that kind of book design I start to question whether you're actually selling game or if you're really selling an art book or illustrated work of fiction in game form. Paul Beakley refers to these as game-shapped-objects.

That said, there are a few art styles that are almost instant turn offs. There is a kind of web-comic/anime-adjacent style where the characters are either kids or all very young adults. Sometimes that's appropriate to the subject matter (Kids on Bikes) but sometimes I find myself asking "Why are all these lawyers and doctors under 25?" The second kind is stuff that looks like high-production concept art for a feature film. Like nothing says, "I'm building an IP, not a game" like lavish oil panting looking illustrations of static characters and empty set pieces. My Hot Take No One Will Like: There's a reason AI is very good at generating approximations of these styles. They are the most milquetoast, middle of the road, "marketable", in offensive, ubiquitously commercial styles out there. People call this stuff "soulless" when it's generated by AI. I call it "soulless" when it's generated by people too. (No offense to working artists who make this stuff for a paycheck to spec. I don't blame them. I blame their employers). I'm fond of saying is if your work can be satisfactorily illustrated with AI, the problem is your work, not the AI. </digression> Now there's a third category that's more a tragedy of commerce than an actual stylistic choice. Sometimes there's a game that when it is first released feels like the art really is a strong central vision for that game in particular. The art feels like part of the gameplay. But then a WHOLE lot of other people jump on the popularity of that game and start intentionally copying it. Then the art unfortunately shifts from "voice of the game" to "voice of the brand" to "voice of the genre." This has happened to poor Mork Borg at this point.

So what do I like? I like it when the art style feels entirely unique to the game. Like the game couldn't have been illustrated any other way. In some ways the art is an extension of the game design. I will be able to play the game better because the art is, itself, an extension or expression of the game's procedures. It helps if the art was drawn by a fan of the game who has actually played it (or least feels like it was). My top contender for this is @cavegirlpoems's Dungeon Bitches Jesus, fuck, I can't imagine trying to play this game without trying to live up to what's in these illustrations. They set the bar for play. You must be *this* emotional to ride. (or die trying). And, for what it's worth, this is also entirely achievable through the curation and manipulation of public domain or stock art. Some times I think it's MORE achievable because it's easier to curate a vision than art direct one whole cloth. An excellent example of this is Deep Nightly Fathoms entirely illustrated with the works of Gustave Doré.

In summary, use less art in your RPGs, and what art you do use, make it a direct expression of *how the game plays* not just its "content".

[corsairesix]

I'm a huge proponent of "the art (/layout/binding/paper/etc.) is part of the game" but that interpretation has to have space for that art being employed badly. A lot of how art is used in TTRPGs is the equivalent of a film student knowing that long takes or dutch angles are impressive and cool, but not knowing what they're for. And I don't even resent it when it's a film student! I hope they go back later with fresh eyes and learn what they were going for. But it's annoying when a big name director does it.

[thydungeongal]

The issue is manifold:

There is a large secondary industry that has emerged around D&D that produces content out of and for D&D. This includes third party rules and adventures as well as transformative content like actual plays as well as gaming video essayists and so on.

The most visible parts of this industry are the actual plays.

There is a clear financial incentive in using D&D for actual plays, because actual plays using other systems do not draw the same crowds as actual plays using D&D. There is no nefarious intent at play here, it's simply financial realities at play.

However, these people may wish to obfuscate those financial incentives and present them having arrived at D&D as coincidental. Since a lot of actual play content eventually wants to branch out from dungeon-killing fantasy monsters, this creates tension with the game mechanics.

What this creates is a lot of talk about how the fact that D&D chafes against this type of play is either a non-issue that can be fixed by the GM or actually inherent to the very medium of TTRPGs as well.

A lot of people are coming into TTRPGs with an a priori understanding of the medium like "it's okay that TTRPGs (D&D) can't handle all types of situations, the real power of TTRPGs (D&D) is that they can be modified by the GM on the fly."

This creates tension between these people and the people who actually think tabletop RPGs are worth engaging with as texts taken at their own word as well as the people who have a vested interest in their tabletop RPGs being treated as things worth engaging with on their own terms and not just as lesser versions of D&D.

Again, there is no nefarious intent at play here on any side, but it's simply in my personal interests to engage with RPGs as texts. Because the aforementioned cycle feeds and repeats itself and it doesn't actually result in a lot of interesting and good and cool new design. it just leads to more D&D with different numbers.

[nullandvoidgames]

PURSUIT, my endless game zine about being hunted by homophobic robot dogs, has been downloaded more than 300 times.

You can download and play it today for free.

PURSUIT by nullandvoidgames

an endless game