True Blue Geekery

21, artist, programmer, & writer who might someday finally get something out there.

[winampskinmuseum]

nice outfit LOSER. 1443 called but in a dialect of Early Modern English that hadn't experienced the Great Vowel Shift yet so i don't know what it said

[iz-robin]

One of these has the moral standing of a cartoon villain, the other might save the country.

Welcome to British politics.

[matthgeek]

Well that's not staying in the tags

[prokopetz]

The real problem with D&D's contemporary culture of play is that it's basically a worse version of what Paranoia was doing forty years ago. It's a faux pas for players to display knowledge of the mechanics and the GM is expected to maintain an elaborate kayfabe where they merely pretend to be moderating a game with rules while actually doing something completely different, and they're not even allowed to kill players with orbital laser strikes for talking back.

[prokopetz]

Like, I'm not keen on any framing of play where the GM is expected to do literally 100% of the work of making the game happen, but it seems to me that if you're going to do that anyway, the GM being both allowed and encouraged to kill you with lasers whenever they want is only fair compensation.

[prokopetz]

@danwhat replied:

The number of people willing to accept players who won't read the rules even though they come back week after week is bizarre - you wouldn't accept it for any other game, and RPGs are just a kind of game! If the rules of one game are 'too complex' just switch to a different game! If they claim they 'don't have time' - cancel one session. That 3 hour block is now dedicated game-learning time, and 3 hours is plenty. Easy.

See, "RPGs are [...] a kind of game" is where the disconnect lies. There's a large chunk of the present D&D fandom who don't think of tabletop RPGs as games; they think of them as performances being put on by the GM for the audience of the players, who – like any audience – are obliged only to be physically present. In this understanding, the "game-ness" of the activity is part of the performance – i.e., the GM is merely pretending to moderate a game with rules as an act of kayfabe; there's no point learning the rules because there aren't "really" rules to learn.

(Partly this is a product of folks coming to the hobby whose sole prior experience is with high-production-value podcasts, where the GM actually is an entertainer putting on a show for an audience, and often a professional actor to boot; partly it's a product of Hasbro attempting to market D&D as a zero-entry-barrier hobby by framing the GM not as a fellow player with special responsibilities, but as a volunteer service provider whose job is to facilitate other people playing D&D.)

The observation I'm gesturing toward here is that Paranoia is a game that actually, textually works this way – i.e., the GM is a performer putting on a show for the players, and the rules are fake and don't matter – but it does so within a narrative frame where the GM is both allowed and encouraged to demand that the players dance for their amusement, so at least the fuckery flows both ways. Contemporary D&D's culture of play doesn't even offer that (indeed, in many circles a GM who expresses any preferences at all regarding what kind of game they want to run would be regarded as an odious gatekeeper!), then has nerve to wonder why rapid GM burnout is such a massive problem.

[pukicho]

disk case I'm currently working on, made in blendow

[matthgeek]

I'd put my disk in that case

[corviiids]

was talking to a coworker and realised i could not for the life of me remember his name but i was too embarrassed to ask because we've spoken multiple times so mid-conversation i started concocting a plan to nudge the conversation towards the ID photos on our building passes so that i could be like oh my ID photo is awful haha the camera they use to take these has a real talent for making me look as unphotogenic as possible and then he would say oh yes me too haha everyone says that (because they do) and then i would be able to say well let me see yours it can't be as bad as mine! and he would show me his ID because we are coworkers and why wouldn't he and this would allow me to see his building pass which of course would have his name on it and then i would be able to say well yours is perfectly nice it must be me that's the problem! and then we would have a polite chuckle about it and i would have his name without needing to ask for it and he would be none the wiser and all would be well but then before i could execute this fine plan a little voice in my head went "so this is some light yagami bull shit you are about to pull" which was such a violent reality check it shocked me completely out of my embarrassment and i went "hey im so sorry your name has slipped my mind could you remind me" and he did and it was fine.

[lastoneout]

"This is some Light Yagami bull shit you are about to pull" <- Littany against avoiding small embarrassing/awkward moments that don't matter with over the top ass mind games.

[justcakethanks]

It's like they can see into my soul lmaoooooo

[matthgeek]

I think it says a lot about me that I read "light yagami bs" as a compliment at first. I may need to do some soul searching

[pukicho]

One, two, three, four, and even five, and even six.

[reallyreallyreallytrying]

(guy who doesn't really know how software updates work) i hope they keep the keyboard letters in the same order. i was just getting used to them

[prokopetz]

When you say "Shakespearean" you mean everybody dies at the end. When I say "Shakespearean" I mean interrupting the lead-in to the climactic scene to burn five solid minutes doing a 4/10 bit where two characters argue about the definition of a word.

[matthgeek]

it's a 10/10 bit in my heart

[chrisweedpiano]

one of my favorite posts of all time

[matthgeek]

everything is edible if you try hard enough

and you don't even have to try very hard for these

[russingon]

this is an absolutely horrible post that makes no sense but last night i told my roommate that trying to take the lord of the rings, the silmarillion, and the hobbit and explain the tonal and narrative difference and what it all means as a series is like if you only had three sources about what happens in england (a made up place, as we all know) and they were geoffrey of monmouth’s ‘the history of the kings of britain’, modern doctor who, and a singular episode of peppa pig. and you’re out here trying to force these to be part of a cohesive narrative

[what-even-is-thiss]

You know on the rare occasion that I do get a job interview the person interviewing me usually tells me that I interviewed really well in comparison to other people they’ve interviewed and that they like my answers to interview questions and yet they never hire me so tbh I’m starting to wonder what these people are looking for exactly

[what-even-is-thiss]

One time I was interviewed by I think about fourteen different people in one interview and they seemed to like me. Didn’t get the job. Still don’t know why that many different people needed to interview me.

[what-even-is-thiss]

No wait I just remembered it was about twenty people because it was for a university entry level admin position at their business school for a specific department and first they had all fourteen people in that major’s office interview me and then the six people in charge of the business school interviewed me.

[matthgeek]

"So-and-so seems awesome! They're very personable and great at coming up with solutions on the fly!"

"What about Mr. Other'Applicant?"

"Oh, they called me an NPC and said they just wanted this job for the employee discount."

"They also have three more years of experience. Hire 'em."

[gandalfsbignaturals]

what if instead of paying companies to delete our info off of databases periodically we like. idk. passed a law that said companies couldnt do that anymore. and set up some kind of task force to disband all the companies that do that. thatd be cool

[matthgeek]

ridiculous! Next you'll be suggesting the IRS tell you how much you owe, rather than making you guess or hire a company

[redstonedust]

biggest suspension of disbelief in TV and movies is when the narrative tells you that a character is plain/ugly/unattractive but theyre all cast with hollywood actors in perfect hollywood makeup so the actual gap between them and the 'hot' characters is a spot the difference game.

[matthgeek]

Even better is when whatever's been done to make them "ugly" is, in fact, extremely attractive. Oh no, not cute boxy glasses and neatly done hair! How hideous!

[cuppydogshane]

all the rights that come with marriage you should be able to have without marriage btw. you should be able to designate a person who can visit you in the hospital regardless of your relationship to that person.

[matthgeek]

How most governments manage marriage is a holdover from European states absorbing many functions of the church as the whole reformation thing was happening.

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but we're not doing the whole state+church wombo-combo anymore. If the state doesn't pick new bishops, they shouldn't be administering marriages as they do now.

Marriage is a very complex tradition that varies wildly across cultures and creeds. Our current solution forces all of that into an extremely antiquated and bureaucracy-ridden mold. Just give us some forms to designate emergency contacts and dependents, and let us figure out the rest.

I'm saying this as a Catholic, who finds it very strange that we can do a beautiful ceremony where the bride and groom profess their undying love before the whole church, and the thing still isn't "official" until the forms are signed

[nongunktional]

ive never wanted to send a death threat over a game before

[nongunktional]

tautological wordle answer

[nongunktional]

[minovskyy]

posts that make you open wordle

[minovskyy]

[chryza]

Oh boy better go try today’s wordle

[chryza]

WHAT THE FUCK

[chryza]

[oakskull]

posts that make you try todays wordle

screenie under cut bc I got it :D

[what-even-is-thiss]

Okay that was odd

[matthgeek]

Those two letters couldn't possibly go in that sequence! Why, there's only one word...

oh

Also turns out "pipas" is a valid word. The more you know

[bluehawk54]

This is the best email I’ve gotten all year

[bluehawk54]

Holy fuck I’m dying

[wholesome-animal-images]

[matthgeek]

I get this is super wholesome and everything, but a little color grading would turn this into an unholy abomination of flesh wrought in the Deep Forges by carnomages long dead