Dungeons and Nalkan

Hi! I'm Nalkan, an amateur ttrpg historian/designer who finds this hobby wonderfully fascinating! I work on a variety of games of various settings but none of them are out yet. My favorite games are Delta Green, Adnd(2nd Edition), BECMI dnd, and Mage the Ascension.

[dungeons-and-nalkan]

You know, part of being a ttrpg designer is realizing when you have to compromise the vision in order to make a more appealing game despite loving the mechanic. I have yet to learn this, I will be adding THAC0 to my game, and you cannot stop me

[anim-ttrpgs]

As you know I’ve been going through the inbox to answer asks and I have gotta say, the amount of antagonism directed at us for simple analysis of rules text as a thing that has meaning and even just responding to people who comment on our own posts is really egregious, like really shameful. Like, this is not acceptable or responsible social behavior from those of you commenting or sending us messages. If TTRPGs are really “just silly little games” to you, why do you get so fucking aggressive?

To me they’re art that someone made - and art that I make - its a machine that does something fun or interesting through the interaction of its parts. (Yes, a toy.) As someone who builds them and got into building them from playing with their functionality, I really like to examine their functionality and exercise and enact it, and it makes me sad to see a lack of appreciation - and even contempt - for the functionality.

What I’m observing and pointing out is that in the machine-that-does-fun-stuff fanbase there is a major zeitgeist of only buying these machines for the purpose of smashing them on the ground and doing a little dance on the pieces. It’s so pervasive that even people who make machines are starting to make them not to function but instead to be smashed apart, or making them with soft, brittle pieces with the expectation that they’ll be smashed apart anyway(meaning that for anyone who doesn’t want to smash it, it is likely to break down anyway).

I’m urging that you give these machines a try as a whole with their moving parts intact before you start smashing them, you might even find them more fun as toys when they’re being used as intended.

I’m telling you that if you wanted to do a little dance, you can do that without buying a machine and smashing it first, and your feet would even hurt less without chunks of plastic all over the ground.

To a not insignificant, and very vocal, subset of users, expressing this desire that my “silly little games” and the “silly little games” of my peers be used as intended, is tantamount to terrorism.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Actually a better metaphor than the deliberate smashing might be that people are trying to play with their toys wrong. Yes, it is possible to play with toys wrong. Trying to play football with a toy truck is a bad idea. At best you’re not utilizing or appreciating its badass suspension system and remote control functionality that I or someone else worked so hard on, and at worst you’re loudly declaring that toy trucks (or anything else with wheels) suck because they’re hard to throw and it hurts when you kick them.

[dungeons-and-nalkan]

WHAT DND SETTING IS YOUR FAVORITE?

Greyhawk

Forgotten Realms

Mystara

Ravenloft

Dragonlance

Planescape

Spell Jammer

Dark Sun

Birthright

Eberron

Exandria

Other

Voting ended onAug 5

Wanted to try and gage official dnd settings(plus Exandria cause critical role is important) popularity. If you don't like any dnd setting, choose the one you hate the least.

[dungeons-and-nalkan]

You know, I think THAC0 is over hated. It's a perfectly fine system to use compared to ascending AC. I learnt it in like 5 minutes and it's just subtraction instead of addition. Perfectly serviceable in my opinion.

[cosmichorrorlesbians]

ttrpg games are insane and make you insane in ways that are fundamental and irreparable. sometimes the best piece of fiction you will ever experience will happen to you and your friends over two to five years of your life. it will be your work and their work and yet somehow exist between and beyond you all. there will only be like three or five of you in the room and nobody else will ever be able to experience this in the way you did. it will be ephemeral and immediate and it will occasionally make you feel so bad you see hell. fuck. what a concept

[prokopetz]

Dungeon crawling game set in a domain where the law of the land states that all hoards, troves, sacred relics, cursed rings, talking swords, and other unclaimed treasures are the property of the Crown, with the retrieving party being entitled only to a modest finder's fee, and also it uses XP-for-gold advancement specifically pinned to the percentage of retrieved articles' value the character in question is able to legally claim; much of play thus consists of fabricating legitimate-seeming provenances for retrieved treasures in order to obscure the fact that they were pried out of a dungeon and thereby defraud the King.

[prokopetz]

(No, this is not "yet another tax fraud premise". Circumventing state ownership of unclaimed hoards is a different thing – more forgery and less math, for one!)

[prokopetz]

@sigiledpaladin replied:

Yeah this isn't tax fraud, this is commodities laundering.

Of course it's the paladin who understands the distinction.

[dungeons-and-nalkan]

I watched the new Dark Sun trailer, really didn’t expect Wizards to actually do that. I don’t necessarily have hope for it, but the newest Ravenloft book was good from what I read. I hope this means Wizards gives some love to Mystara and maybe make more modules outside the forgotten realms.

[dungeons-and-nalkan]

WHAT DND SETTING IS YOUR FAVORITE?

Greyhawk

Forgotten Realms

Mystara

Ravenloft

Dragonlance

Planescape

Spell Jammer

Dark Sun

Birthright

Eberron

Exandria

Other

Voting ended onAug 5

Wanted to try and gage official dnd settings(plus Exandria cause critical role is important) popularity. If you don't like any dnd setting, choose the one you hate the least.

[dungeons-and-nalkan]

I forgot I had this blog, I'm going to start using it now I guess

[gallusrostromegalus]

What limb arrangement do y'all imagine mothman having?

Just 2 wings (Paired wings like a bat or bird)

Just 4 wings (double wings like a moth)

Paired wings + 2 legs

Double wings + 2 legs

Paired wings + 2 arms + 2 legs

Double wings +2 arms + 2 legs

Paired wings + 4 arms + 2 legs

Double wings + 4 arms + 2 legs

Something else (will say in comments)

I don't have an opinion but I like pushing buttons

Voting ended onFeb 19, 2025

[dungeons-and-nalkan]

Mothman looks like this folks I do not make the rules but this is THE Mothman, anyone picking anything other than Paired Wings + 2 arms + 2 legs is wrong and should feel bad