Hagabao @hagabao - Tumblr Blog

sometimes you'll see a bird for the first time and when you look it up you learn that its name is the Common Dirt Bitch and its range is Everywhere and there are 400 million of them in your state alone

quixoticclown

Yes, these Muppets have taken Manhattan. The question now is can they HOLD it

maximumzombiecreator

It's often remarked how D&D 5e's play culture has this sort of disinterest bordering on contempt for actually knowing the rules, often even extending to the DM themselves. I've seen a lot of different ideas for why this is, but one reason I rarely see discussed is that actually, a lot of 5e's rules are not meant to be used.

Encumbrance is a great example of this. 5e contains granular weights for all the items that you might have in your inventory, and rules for how much you can carry based on your strength score, and they've set these carry capacities high enough that you should never actually need to think about them. And that's deliberate, the designers have explicitly said that they've set carrying capacity high enough that it shouldn't come up in normal play. So for a starting DM, you see all these weights, you see all the rules for how much people can carry or drag, and you've played Fallout, you know how this works. And then if you try to actually enforce that, you find that it's insanely tedious, and it basically never actually matters, so you drop it.

Foraging is the example of this that bothers me most. There's a whole system for this! A table of foraging DCs, and math for how much food you can find, and how long you can go without food, etc. But the math is set up so that a person with no survival proficiency and a +0 to WIS, in a hostile environment, will still forage enough food to be fine, and the starvation rules are so generous that even a run of bad luck is unlikely to matter. So a DM who actually tries to use these rules will quickly find that they add nothing but bookkeeping. You're rolling a bunch of checks every day of travel for something that is purpose built not to matter. And that's before you add in all the ways to trivialize or circumvent this.

These rules don't exist to be used, that is not their purpose. These rules exist because the designers were scared of the backlash to 4e, and wanted to make sure that the game had all the rules that D&D "should" have. But they didn't actually want these mechanics. They didn't want the bookkeeping, they didn't care about that style of play, but they couldn't just say, "this game isn't about that" for fear of angering traditionalists. And unfortunately the way they handled this was by putting in rules that are bad, that actively fight anyone who wants to use that style of play and act as a trap to people who take the rules in good faith.

And this means that knowing what rules are not supposed to be used is an actual skill 5e DMs develop. Part of being a good 5e DM is being able to tell the real rules that will improve your game from the fake rules that are there to placate angry forum posters. And that's just an awful position to put DMs in (especially new DMs), but it's pretty unsurprising that it creates a certain contempt for knowing the rules as written.

You should have contempt for some of the rules as written. The designers did.

jame7t

Oh I’m so sleepy… won’t you use !tuck to tuck me into bed?

cryptotheism

!cursedoak

jame7t

did anyone else have terrible dreams about a gnarled, twisted forest with one tree more terrible and hateful than all the rest

batgirlzine

LEGACIES: a Batgirl zine has come to a close. While it technically wrapped up in November, there were severe personal complications before the holidays that resulted in the late conclusion of this project, so I apologize immensely to anyone who might have been waiting on another round of leftovers that I had not already touched base with.

For those of you who I have not already spoken to via email this month: this is Kye's mother, and I am finalizing things on my daughter's behalf as she has not been fit for the responsibility. I apologize wholeheartedly for the delay and unfair communication issues this has resulted in.

All remaining physical leftovers were shipped out at the end of October, and have been safely delivered by mid-November at the latest, as far as tracking and communication with customers indicates.

Digital Bundles were emailed out at the start of November, so if you have not received it, check spam, junk or promotions folders for your goods.

If you have had issues receiving either of the above, do not hesitate to reach out at [email protected] with questions.

With that, the project is a wrap. It has been a long one, for which we cannot apologize enough, or thank you for your patience and sticking with it, and ultimately supporting this project and its showcase of the Batgirls.

Please remember to give all the writers and artists involved love on the pieces they have posted, and the incredible work they put into this. It would not exist without them, and they worked hard not only through the project itself, but through several months of a difficult wrap-up process wherein they were forcibly left to wait without updates as well. Please send them your kind words on their pieces, as you have done through the project's email or direct messages throughout its run.

Thank you for your time, and for your support.

lyssartandstars

Hey y'all! The contributors would like to give you all some full transparency.

First off, we apologize for the repeated stretches of radio silence. That was completely outside of our control.

Earlier in 2023, both mods Michi and Ari left the project (Ari in March, and Michi in April) due to a combination of personal reasons and utter frustration at the lack of communication between them and head mod Kye. Pings on discord, DMs, messages would go unanswered for weeks, and there was little that Michi and Ari could do for the zine, as the only thing left to do was ship items— a responsibility that fell to Kye. Both Ari and Michi offered multiple times to take over shipping, but were assured that Kye could handle it and would have help with mailing items out to customers.

June 12th, contributors received an update from Kye that 98% of orders had been shipped- minus 5 that were pending address changes- for a total of 230 shipped bundles. We were told that socials would be updated to reflect the status of shipping, but nothing was ever posted. Likewise, contributors were informed that their compensatory bundles would be packed and shipped the following weekend. That did not happen at that time. Between June 15, 2023 and September 12, 2023, no one was able to contact Kye.

Contributors set a deadline for Kye to respond before we shared this letter with all of you advising refunds. They showed up with one hour to spare, coming in with excuses and promises of maintaining communication and honesty. Leftover sales opened, contributors received their bundles, and we assumed everything would finish out without any other issues.

That was not the case.

Kye proceeded to disappear again, and we have not had any communication with them since October. We attempted to reach out multiple times both in the discord server and through DMs to try and get answers, to no avail.

This morning, we finally decided we were going to post the letter for full transparency. I had shared the google drive link in the server, about to post, when I got the notification that Kye's mother had shared the above post.

There's no way that was a coincidence.

Some contributors have finally started to receive their payouts, as this was a for-profit zine. Kye's mother sent all contributors an email with what their share would be and the finances breakdown. The Google sheet was only shared with contributors, but I have a copy downloaded myself if anyone wants to see numbers. I also have the digital PDF and bundles if anyone wants those, since sales were so touch and go. Please DM me and I'm happy to share. We were going to be giving them out for free with the original letter anyway.

We are so incredibly sorry for how this all went down. As a mod myself on numerous other projects, this is not how zines are supposed to go.

We appreciate all of the support we've received thus far, and thank you for sticking with us. We hope you'll support the contributors (lists and links are on the Legacies page) in their other endeavors, and most of all, we hope you don't run into a zine this messy again.

Please do not reach out to Mods Michi or Ari, as they have been parted from the zine for over a year. They had nothing to do with this.

To anyone wanting to partner with @lunaresolis, I highly advise you read this message.

Thank you for reading and understanding.

Sincerely,

The Legacies Contributors

hagabao

Thanks for everyone's work on this project. I was one of those unlucky buyers with no response from Kye via email or twitter, and when they DID respond months later they got my name wrong repeatedly.