Lump

RPG obsessed girlfailure. I draw sometimes. Find my speedpaints and support me at: https://www.patreon.com/c/LumpMeOut

[alurkerlieshere]

Woman who hasn't been held in a decade: oh I'm pretty low maintenance, yeah honestly I think I'd find that overwhelming or something, can I just hold your hand instead? If that's okay of course?

[alurkerlieshere]

Woman who feels ill at the notion of taking up space: yeah I can stand. Yeah honestly it's no biggie I like standing. Do you mind if I lean here? It's okay to say no.

[alurkerlieshere]

Woman who would rather die than be considered selfish: I'm really sorry to ask I'm probably just being annoying but could I ask for another pillow? Yeah there isn't one in the room. Yeah no worries I can just bunch up some towels if needed.

[alurkerlieshere]

Woman who's most outlandish and fantastical fantasies are a coffee date and seeing a movie with someone: oh I don't get out much. Yeah I don't really like being around people. I'm pretty much an introvert. Or something like that yeah.

[alurkerlieshere]

Woman who would break down screaming and crying if someone showed even a hint of affection in person, who would fall apart at the seams if you held her still and asked her if she was okay, woman who if allowed too would wrap herself around you and sob and weep until she became severely dehydrated: oh yeah sorry I spaced out for a second there. Yeah I'm doing alright.

[youtendtoforget-deactivated2025]

I’m ready to be transformed by the ibuprofen . I’m ready to be born again in its purifying light.

[communist-hatsunemiku]

Reference sheet for #FreeformMiku - l33oh

[communist-hatsunemiku]

Every Miku Is Canon - IronicnotSavage

[thydungeongal]

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[a-wa-c]

I think this also hurts group dynamics as well.

When you have people that have actually done some reading on the rules vs. people that just coast and foist the majority of the game onto the GM, it makes it appear like the more knowledgeable players are sweaty power-gamers or rules-laywers.

Best example I've got with asking players to make informed decisions was when I ran the Wilderfeast Quick Start. The GM has the info about what ingredients can be gathered in any of the regions, but the party then has to cook it. They know what the ingredient does and just have to make the decision on how they want to combine their ingredients as a party.

[thydungeongal]

#i just wanna play a silly game#i feel like. gatekept. while reading this#i don’t have the drive to read a several hundred pg game manual i just wanna play a game w my friends#like. it’s a game. play it how u want#jeeze

My point is not to say that people who don't want to learn the rules shouldn't play, only that people who don't actually know the rules aren't necessarily engaging with the game to its fullest, especially in the case of a relatively rules-heavy game like D&D, and that as the previous poster mentioned it can actually result in a bad rules dynamic where the DM needs to do more work due to player unwillingness to learn the rules as well as casting players who actually know the rules and can engage with them in unfavorable light. All of these are negative elements of the culture of play surrounding.

Like, there isn't anything meaningfully gatekeepy about saying "players who don't know the rules of the game aren't as good at playing the game as the people who know the rules of the game." Because playing games is a skill that can be cultivated and knowledge of the rules is an important part of that skill.

And respectfully, if the idea of learning the rules of D&D seems like an insurmountable task, you don't have to learn them, but you might actually gain something out of actually making an effort because it can make engaging with the game more rewarding for you. Or if the idea of learning the rules of a game that has hundreds of pages is an insurmountable obstacle, there are lots of games with much more modest page counts! D&D is actually relatively heavy as far as RPGs go but it's not the only RPG, and you can get rewarding mechanical engagement combined with cool stories for a much smaller time investment.

[cavegirlpoems]

I actually want to dial in on the phrasing here, which seems - insidious isn't quite the right word - but really weasely to me. There's this reflexive attempt to position the writer as the victim, from the way things are phrased to the actual sentiment. "I feel gatekept" (note that its not "I have been gatekept") is a pretty transparent attempt to claim victimhood, and gain the reader's sympathies. Likewise "I just wanna" and such. But then you have the sentiment of "I just want to play a silly game" and this carries this, like, baggage that game design is *not worth* taking seriously. Same with 'play it how u want', it's working to undermine the idea that you could *care* about this stuff, and it positions taking the artform seriously as an act of aggression against the poor victim who just wants to *not think about things.* Which is to say its classic anti-intillectualism. "It's just a [song/tv show/book/game] don't take it seriously" is like classic anti-intellectualism, and generally comes from a fairly regressive infantalised place.

Which is a long way of saying fuck this person and fuck their slimy lowest-common-denominator bullshit.

[theinstagrahame]

D&D is easy to learn because people expect the GM to know all the rules. They don't need to learn anything, just let one person be the sacrificial scapegoat who heads into the DMG and figures out how fall damage works and whether encumbrance would be annoying.

They can set up the scenarios and build the maps and run the world. They already know the rest of the rules, so why not? They also know the stats for all the NPCs too, so might as well let them play everyone else

It's kinda their world and their game, too. So they can handle scheduling. My schedule is crazy, but they can figure it out.

What do you mean "learn a new game?" I don't have the time to learn a new game. I'm busy and D&D is so easy. We can play it how we want to.

[filipfatalattractionrblog]

I really don't have patience to the whole way of thinking the whole argument is based on. I'm just going to leave here this video by Matt Colville about the book Ellusive Shift

The gits of it is - no one EVER knew how to play this fucking game, people had arguments before the official first edition, the white booklets era. Most people played based on their own interpretation, then arguet about it in zines. All the crunch in the AD&D onward was Gary Gygax's attempt to make the rule for everything because he grew greedy and wished to kill the competition that built careers on explaining his crappy rules better than he did (also, he made AD&D to screw Dave Arneson of his due money).

In any other context I would agree with the proposed argument, but in D&D calling in question anyone's merit as conversation participant because they didn't memorize the useless numbers for useless rule that is only in this game to appease people waxing nostalgic over Gary's horrible, spite and greed-fueled design, is not only anti-intelelctual, it is openly spitting i nthe face of the history of the hobby to declare yourself as only one who knows better. Fuck that.

[cavegirlpoems]

LBB D&D is only like that because it isn't a complete game: it assumes you already have and know Chainmail and Outdoor Survival at a bare minimum. Spiders LBB is an statistical outlier adn should not have been counted.

The first complete game - the Greyhawk supplement - is entirely straightforward and easy to pick up, and significantly simpler than modern D&D.

None of the early editions of D&D are hard to learn or obscure like you seem to think, so I assume you either have pudding for brains or are going entirely on hearsay rather than direct experience.

it is also fucking ridiculous for your argument to be "expecting people to read the source material is anti-intellectual".

[thydungeongal]

Yeah, that response is a mess. Like, the initial thesis of this post was "people don't engage meaningfully with the rules of D&D and thus fail to cultivate important player skills," and people have since elaborated on how this is an issue with D&D's culture of play, and even articulated that framing this conversation as "gatekeeping" not only lets that culture fester but it's also extremely anti-intellectual. To try and frame the conversation that says "engaging with game texts is good and not bad actually" as anti-intellectual is such a clumsy rhetorical trick it's baffling.

[valtharr]

Magic the Gathering is a game whose comprehensive rulebook is far, far, faaaaaaarrrrrrr bigger and more complex than the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player's Handbook.

I'd wager nobody in the entire world has ever read the full comprehensive rules of MtG as they exist today.

And nobody expects you to! If you go to a Friday Night Magic with a random deck you bought in a toy store, no idea what the rules are like, I'm sure you'll find people willing to teach you, even explain how to properly play your deck in particular.

If, however, you keep coming to FNM for weeks, if not months, and you keep asking basic questions, like what "Flying" means, or what a "+1/+1 counter" does, or how any of the cards in the deck you've been playing for months does, if you call someone who tells you you can't block with that creature because it's already tapped that they're a "rules lawyer" who's "gatekeeping your fun", if it becomes apparent that you're not making any effort to actually learn the rules of the game... nobody will want to play with you anymore. You'll be labeled annoying at best, an asshole at worst.

And that's the case in any dedicated gaming space. As an avid board gamer, there's nothing more infuriating to me than having to re-explain basic rules because someone doesn't listen, or explaining what certain cards/characters/units/items/whatever do because someone is too lazy to simply read.

And yet, somehow, in D&D, behavior like this is apparently not just accepted, but expected, nay, encouraged(!) by the player base!

And people wonder why we make fun of D&D players.

[starfieldcanvas]

"I just want to play a silly game" is such an insidious way to phrase a statement about a game that requires so much effort from the DM. You might as well say "I just want to have a hot dinner waiting for me when I get home, is that so much to ask? I feel like I'm being gatekept from eating dinner."

You may not like cooking dinner—I certainly don't—but I do know how to make cooking dinner easier for my partner. I can chop onions or grate cheese, I can grab things for them while their hands are busy, I can make a simple side salad, I can put away ingredients as they're used, I can set the table and pour the water, I can clean up the dishes after the meal is over. I'm aware enough of what's involved in making dinner happen that I know how to help even if I don't do the most difficult central activity.

Plus, if asked what I want for dinner, I don't respond 'ooh, let's have filet mignon! I want filet mignon!' when there's no steak in the house, because I maintain at least basic working knowledge of the ingredients we typically have on hand and I know filets are not among them.

I don't expect my partner to handle 100% of everything to do with dinner just because I don't like cooking. Why? Because having somebody make me hot dinners is better than the alternative, and I'm not an asshole who's going to take advantage of the fact that my partner would probably cook for us even if I didn't help. I can help, so even though I would rather have an extra 30-40 minutes of fanfic time, I get up and help.

This is the attitude you are being asked to bring to D&D. You don't have to have cooking skills or meal planning skills or hosting skills, but you do have to accept that those skills are important to making dinner. You don't magically become qualified to pronounce "making dinner is easy!" just because you know how to eat it.

[satanfemme]

[miraclemaya]

MADOKA - “I’m thinking I’ll order a beef udon bowl, since Sayaka-chan told me that they make those really good here. What about you, Homura-chan?”

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY - Food needs can be met with an expenditure of 1.23% of total magic. Proceed?

GRIEF SYNDROME [Trivial: Success] - MAGICAL GIRLS THAT IGNORE FOOD ARE OFTEN MORE PRONE TO GRIEF ACCUMULATION. MY ARMS WILL ALWAYS BE WAITING FOR YOU, HOMURA, BUT IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE HAPPY UNTIL THAT DAY. BESIDES, MADOKA WANTS TO EAT WITH YOU. DISAPPOINTING HER WILL FILL YOUR SOUL GEM WITH A HALF A GRIEF SEED WORTH OF DESPAIR.

TEA WITH MAMI-SAN [Legendary: Success] - Sayaka says the beef bowl is good? Maybe go for that. She knows Madoka’s tastes better than anyone — and if Madoka likes something, you will certainly like it too.

“I will have the same as you, Madoka.”

“I’m not feeling very hungry.”

[CALL AND RESPONSE - Medium 10] Come up with an order on your own

CALL AND RESPONSE - [Medium: Failure] - You’ve eaten here before, you’re pretty sure. Was it Loop 32… no, Loop 12..? No, wait, it was on the first Friday of Loop 68. No… that’s not right. You’ve never eaten here before. In a stunning display of incompetence, you have taken Madoka on a date to a restaurant that you have never experienced before.

THE ANGEL - It’s okay, Homura-chan! I don’t mind if you haven’t eaten here before. Remember what real me said, Sayaka thinks this place is good! And even if it’s not perfect, that’s okay, just spending time with you makes me happy.

THE CRAVEN MASSES - Sayaka has raised her blade against Madoka 16 times before. You should leave this restaurant and kill her. It would only take-

FALLING SAND [Trivial: Success] - 1528 seconds on average.

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY - It can be cut down to 1243 seconds with an expenditure of 2.7% of total magic pool.

THE CRAVEN MASSES - Exactly. Do it in front of her family and make it bloody. Kyoko would likely try and stop you, but even she isn’t immune to bullets. And if Mami comes for revenge, well, you know the exact words you could say that would destroy her, don’t you?

THE ANGEL - A-Ah, I think that’s a bit of an extreme reaction, Homura-chan!

HUMAN SHELL - Your heart rate is increasing. Stop that. You have absolute control over your flesh. Act like it.

MOE INSTINCT - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHAT ARE WE GOING TO ORDER MADOKA IS GOING TO LAUGH AT US

WITCH’S NIGHT - Is… is this a trap? Walpurgis may be defeated, but you know that the stage witch never truly ceases its show. Perhaps this restaurant is a part of the stage?

MADOKA - “Um, are you okay, Homura-chan?”

MOE INSTINCT - OH GOD SHE HATES US

“I’m going to kill myself.”

“I’m so sorry. Would killing myself make you feel more comfortable?”

Isn’t there anything else you can say?

YOU - Isn’t there anything else you can say?

THE DEVIL - Come on, Homura. It’s high time you do it. Really, this is just another in the long, long chain of failures that make up your life. The only way to fix it is to kill yourself.

CLOCKWORK PRECISION - Target: Located on right ring finger. Target is not moving. Chance to hit: High. Plan: Retrieve pistol. Aim pistol at ring. Pull trigger.

THE ANGEL - Oh my god, please do not do that!

"I am going to kill myself."

"I'm so sorry, I'll kill myself if it makes you feel better."

"I'm so sorry. Should I kill myself?"

There. There has to be better options than this.

YOU - There. There has to be better options than this.

MOE INSTINCT - I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE. THE ONLY RECOURSE IS IMMEDIATE SUICIDE. THAT’S THE ONLY WAY MADOKA WILL LOVE YOU AGAIN.

"I am going to kill myself."

"I'm so sorry, I'll kill myself if it makes you feel better."

"I'm so sorry. Should I kill myself?"

YOU - “I’m going to kill myself.”

MADOKA - Madoka’s face twists, her eyebrows raising slightly in shock. Whatever response she was expecting, it was clearly not this.

GRIEF SYNDROME [Challenging: Success] - IF MADOKA WAS A MAGICAL GIRL, HER SOUL GEM WOULD FILL BY A QUARTER HEARING YOU SPEAK THOSE WORDS. THAT WAS CRUEL, HOMURA.

MOE INSTINCT - WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?

MADOKA - “I’m so sorry, Homura-chan. Please don’t do that. I… I really care about you and so does everyone else.” Madoka’s eyes fill with tears as she speaks. She hugs you.

DAMAGED MORALE -4

CALL AND RESPONSE [Trivial: Success] - Quick, tell her you were making an edgy joke that didn’t land. You’ve gotten away with that before, you’re pretty sure.

SPACE-TIME MASSACRE - Twelve quarter shifts left and two up from your current space-time position, and there’s a Japan that it’s actually illegal to not commit suicide in.

FALLING SAND - You’ve been seated for 5 minutes and 32.5 seconds already and still have not ordered. Mami has requested your presence at her apartment in 3.4 hours from now.

TEA WITH MAMI-SAN - She wants to help you find a hobby. She’s really worried about you, you know.

STRINGS OF FATE - You can feel Madoka’s heart beat in sync with yours as she holds you. Everything will be alright, as long as you follow the beat.

THE ANGEL - Yeah! It’s okay Homura-chan. Just explain what’s been going on and Madoka will understand. And then order something, it’s important to eat a full meal!

YOU - “Ah, sorry Madoka. I was… overwhelmed with choice, and my… brain spit out the first thing it thought. I am not planning on killing myself.”

MADOKA - “Um, I think we should probably talk about this more, Homura-chan….”

CALL AND RESPONSE - Ask her a question to change the topic. It’s worked in three different loops, it should work here.

RATIONALITY COMPLEX [Trival: Success] - Ask her if she wants to try anything else and then order that for yourself. This will accomplish your goal of deciding on what to order, as well as showing Madoka that her desires are important to you.

YOU - “Is there anything else you’d like to try, Madoka? We can share our dishes.”

MADOKA - “Uh, okay Homura-chan. Maybe get some tempura?”

Order 10000 yen worth of tempura

Order 1000 yen worth of tempura

Order 100 yen worth of tempura

YOU - “Excuse me waiter, give me 10000 yen worth of tempura.”

HUMAN SHELL - Calories and magic are just two different types of fuel. Feed me and control me.

THE ANGEL - T-that’s probably too much, Homura-chan. Maybe you can sneak some into your cool shield, though!

MADOKA - Madoka doesn’t say anything, but her eyes do bulge out slightly. She gives you a gentle pat on the shoulder and smiles at you.

HEALED MORALE +1

RATIONALITY COMPLEX - Displays of wealth like this can broadcast value to potential mates. This will increase your value in Madoka’s eyes, furthering along one of your goals.

THE ANGEL - I think you should just focus on enjoying the food, Homura-chan. Take a break, everything is okay.

Thank you.

Why don’t you hate me?

YOU - Why don’t you hate me?

THE ANGEL - Because I care about you, Homura-chan! And besides, you hate yourself far too much already.

Thank you.

THE ANGEL - You’re welcome! Now, please, enjoy your meal with real Madoka. She loves you a lot too, you know.

[pocket-deer-belly]

many women are telling me that calling them dude is misgendering, but they forgot about a very important thing: i have personally decided that dude is gender neutral and therefore it is

[lumpout]

It's always important to remember that you personally will always better understand what is and isn't offensive to a minority group than a member of that group. If they get upset that's just a sign that they are irrational and oversensitive, unlike all of your racist friends who never get offended. So who's really the tolerant one here? That's right. The Racists.

[pocket-deer-belly]

many women are telling me that calling them dude is misgendering, but they forgot about a very important thing: i have personally decided that dude is gender neutral and therefore it is

[cheaphalloweencostume]

also we have GOT to collectively come to terms with the fact that me or any other stranger online disliking or even making fun of something you like is not saying “no fun allowed” “no one can ever enjoy this” you have simply got to grow a spine and be able to like the shit you like. you don’t even have to defend it! like 90% of the media i really enjoy is divisive and half my friends actively hate it. i really don’t give a fuck though because i like it. you can write whatever you want! you’re allowed! even if it’s MY least favorite genre or style of writing and i have active distaste for it!

[probuccalfat]

people will describe their incredibly nebulous sexuality to you that they’ve never been able to define and the whole time you’re thinking that sounds like bisexuality brother

[contemptible-scoundrel]

dude. bensons going to mercilessly punish our holes and throats for this

[contemptible-scoundrel]

must be one of those bugged no notes posts

[anxeious]

[lumpout]

Who up Hollowing they Mina?

[thydungeongal]

The thing is I'm literally nice :)

[ot3]

it doesn't matter that we live in an era of humanity with unprecedented ease of access to the highest volume of art and literature that has ever existed on the planet at once, if you ask people to pick a different set of keys to jingle in front of themselves until such a time as the victims of their creator have received restitution for his crimes against them, they'll act like this is some insurmountable task. which is why we need to make some network television grade migratory slash slop where the MC is abused by a famous creative nobody will publicly abandon. i think that's the only way some of these people will ever learn to reflect on their behavior. real women's feelings and mistreatment will never matter to them the way their own or that of their light hair x dark hair yaoi ship fiction dudes does, and im still just shy of wishing hideous abuse on these people firsthand. but im getting quite close to it since they clearly dont care when it happens to anyone else.

[thydungeongal]

So like. I've been on HRT for a bit more than six months now. And I feel despair.

Despair of sweet titties lmao.