ą̙̲̲̼͍͎̖̪̦̱̗̫̍ͥͦ͂̊ͥ̄ͪ͛̐͐͂͑̏̚͢a̾̈ @sirobvious - Tumblr Blog

Welcome to tumblr page of The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery (A.N.I.M.)!

We are a small independent team of LGBT and disabled individuals who make innovative and well-polished tabletop roleplaying games that have a lot to say, best known for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.

Combined, our team has over 20 years of experience.

Continue reading for more information about us, our games, and more!

cheaphalloweencostume

damn. writing parodic literature on your own blog is bullying i guess! wish someone had told me earlier!

squishysphealgirl

One of the most frightening things I've ever heard is when somebody pointed out that the existence of flinching away when you touch something hot implies that at some point there was an evolutionary reason to be afraid of scary fire monsters that attacked people 😨

sreegs

i dont think this is a tumblr user exclusive problem but i do see it here more than elsewhere. and if you're learning english as a second language this does not apply to you: if you find out you're pronouncing something wrong, using the wrong word for a different meaning, or just don't understand what a word means, just quietly learn and correct yourself in the future. "language is evolving, you're a prescriptivist!!" is something that matters to groups of language speakers at large, and takes place over long periods of time. it does not apply to when you don't know the difference between "yay", "yea", and "yeah"

latinotiktok

escarabangel

Translation: "Chancho! I'm leaving now dude, i'm leaving to go work now dude."

"If someone breaks in dude, you beat the ever-loving shit out of them real hard dude, you beat the shit out of them, Chancho, you hear me?"

"You just beat the shit out of anyone who breaks in!"

translation notes:

The dogs name is 'Chancho', a slang word for a pig. Basically, its like the dog is named 'piglet' 🥺

aspec-woomy

I fucking can't with his little face

anim-ttrpgs

Eureka Modern Mystery Game Jam Announcement

A game jam from 2026-06-01 to 2026-07-01 hosted by Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery. Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is an innov

Submissions open: June 1st 2026

Submissions close: June 30th 2026

(But do not wait until the submission window to sign up for the jam or start working on your submission!)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is an innovative investigative TTRPG about amateur detectives from all walks of life solving “fair play” mysteries with fixed truths, while also often dealing with interpersonal conflict.

The rulebook is available (for free) at this link.

Eureka needs more mysteries for parties to solve, and this game jam is a community event to encourage fans to come together and write mystery modules.

This game jam is non-competitive, but any submissions the developers like will likely receive free editing consultation from the Eureka developers themselves and may be “canonized” with a link within future versions of the Eureka rulebook itself.

While you're working, and especially if you have questions, join us on the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club Discord Server. It's a club for discussing and playing all kinds of RPGs, not just Eureka, run by the creators of Eureka. You can also join our "Top Secret" Patreon Discord server and further support the A.N.I.M. team by subscribing for any amount to our patreon. We'll be happy to answer your questions about this game jam or Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy either way!

Here are the rules for submission:

1. It’s Okay to Submit Unfinished Work: Eureka mystery modules take a lot of work, and we don’t expect basically anyone to be 100% finished before the deadline. Submit your work, and then keep working on finishing it up even after the deadline is passed.

2. Working in Groups is Encouraged but Not Mandatory: This game jam is non-competitive and there is no monetary prize on the line. It’s perfectly okay to work solo or in groups. In fact, working in groups is recommended.

3. Follow the Guide in Chapter 5 of the Eureka Rulebook: Chapter 5 in the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook contains extensive advice, guidelines, best practices, and rules for the creation of Eureka mystery modules. Do not start working before you read it.

4. Modern, Mundane, and “Kolchakian”: One thing the library of available Eureka mystery modules lacks right now is a strong foundation of “baseline” adventures to which weirder, more unconventional mysteries can be contrasted. One of the main purposes of this game jam is to help rectify that. To this end, every submission to this game jam must fulfill at least two out of the following three criteria.

4a. Be “Modern”: It is often recommended, but not required, that Eureka adventure modules not take place within a specific year unless necessary. Whether the module takes place in a specific time period such as a decade or a specific year, it must take place in the “present.” That is, the 2020s.

4b. Be “Mundane”: Investigating a mystery is in and of itself of course an extraordinary circumstance, but by “mundane” here we mean the mystery does not involve uncovering elements which would be considered “paranormal” or “supernatural.”

4c. Be “Kolchakian”: This is a specific Eureka rulebook term that you will find a better definition of in Chapter 5 of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook, but in short it means that the investigation will take the investigators across a relatively broad area with multiple distinct locations rather than all taking place within one location, and will typically utilize the Travel rules (found in Chapter 1 of the Eureka rulebook) for investigators moving between locations. Kolchakian mystery modules will always use the Ticking Clock rules found in Chapter 1.

5. Don’t Overdo It: Be careful of being too ambitious, especially if this is your first time writing a module like this! One murder or missing person already typically provides more than enough mystery solving to fill an entire multi-session adventure module. It is tempting to write about a serial killer or some other phenomenon with many victims, but if you do that then you’re looking at having to write multiple modules worth of information for just a single module. In the last game jam, many first-time mystery module writers started too big and burnt out before they were able to finish their work. Don’t bite off more than you can chew!

6. Consider Optional Rules and Expansions: You can consider this rule optional too, I just thought it would be a good idea to put it here and remind everyone that Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy has multiple optional rules and expansions. Consider utilizing the Heat rules if police are likely to be a factor for instance. Eureka: Extreme Conditions also provides rules for modules taking place outside of conventional civilization. You might also find inspiration by looking at Eureka: The Fanservice Files or Eureka: The XXX-Files.

7. Submissions Must Be Adventure Modules and Be Compatible with Eureka: This game jam is for mystery adventure modules to be run with Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. If you're unfamiliar, an adventure module is a guide for game masters to running a specific scenario for their gaming group. You can find an example of one made for Eureka alongside the rulebook linked above.

8. Third-person Verbiage: Avoid saying "you" when referring to player-characters.

9. Separation of Player and Character: Ensure that your module says "investigators" when it is referring to the player-characters, and "players" when it is referring to the real people sitting around the table, and don't get them mixed up. More information on following rules 8 and 9 can be found in Chapter 1 of the rulebook.

10. Characters Can Be Bigoted, but We'd Rather You Weren't: NPCs in your module may express hateful attitudes, but we do not approve of hateful attitudes from submitters themselves.

11. Stay Grounded in Eureka's Lore: Please keep your module within the bounds of what the world of Eureka offers. You can read more about this within Chapter 5.

12. Submissions Must be 5,000 Words Minimum: There is no upper limit, so be careful not to overdo it, as long as your submission has at least 5,000 words. This is the bare minimum size. Most good Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules are about 50-100 pages, as Eureka really stresses providing detailed information to the GM and players alike.

13. No Generative AI: Do not submit anything that has been created in whole or in part through the use of generative "AI."

14. We Don't Own Your Submission: Your submission is still your property. You can even sell it after the game jam is concluded if you want. Though if you do, we recommend you keep working on it a bit to polish it up, since one month is plenty of time to get a first draft out, but even the best submissions will benefit from some critique and further refinement and editing!

Additional Advice and Inspiration: Here are links to a few resources that might help you find inspiration. First, here is a tumblr post containing links to a variety of “mystery module pitches” that include as much advice and scaffolding for writing a particular idea for a mystery module as possible. Second, here is a link to a YouTube playlist containing videos that might provide inspiration for writing Eureka mysteries.

If you are already in the process of writing a Eureka mystery module, and that module does not fit within the guidelines set for this particular jam, don't worry! There will be other mystery jams in the future, and it's not like you even need a mystery jam's permission to make a module. It is recommended that you finish your current module before you attempt to participate in this jam, as working on two at once just increases the likelihood that neither gets finished.

Finally, don't wait until June 1st to sign up for the jam or start working on your submission! You can, and probably should, start working now so you have something to submit for the jam. The submission window is just a formality, you should work on your module before it opens and still after it closes.

tormenty

Big congratulations to the ANIM team for finally releasing the alpha version of their Dark Souls inspired TTRPG, Death Bed! It's still very much a work in progress, but it's in a playable state now. Check it out here.

I was inspired to draw one of the monsters from the rulebook, a crossbow hollow who lives in a coffin carried by living roots/rot. He technically doesn't have stats yet, but I think he'd make a good miniboss.

Ask for rumors:

smilepre

mortalityplays

whether they're Good Media™ or whatever aside, I think mainstream liveplay ttrpg shows have been a fucking disaster for the hobby. it's hard to imagine anything that could have fucked the expectations:results differential for people more than having celebrities do college improv with dice (and an entire media production team behind them) and telling a generation of new players that's what tabletop gaming is like

iamjojobean

I was the president of a ttrpg university club 2018-2019 (which is 8-7 years ago YIKES) and was very focused on getting more diverse players into the hobby, so this topic is so interesting to me. The experience you describe was not my experience when I got into the hobby about 10 years ago, but I haven't interacted with new players for the last 6 or so years. Most of the people I play with now are people I met at the ttrpg club in college, or their only exposure is through me (because I dragged them to my game lol). Your opinion makes sense given how much more polished and popular mainstream liveplay ttrpg shows have become.

I apologize in advance for the long paragraphs below detailing my personal experience. I want to explain how liveplay shows looked 10 years ago and the impact they had on me.

I started watching some of the liveplay shows on the Geek and Sundry youtube channel circa 2015 like early Critical Role. Some weren't liveplay, but edited, such as Titansgrave and The Adventure Zone. They did have professional actors with improv training and production teams behind them, but they weren't nearly as polished or as much of a phenomenon as they are now.

At the start, Critical Role appears to have been filmed in one of the Geek and Sundry meeting rooms. They had 4 static cameras. They usually had 1 on the DM, 1 on each side of the table, which appears to be a pretty similar to what it looks like now.

Occasionally they would switch to the 1 focused table when looking at maps. The maps looked like this in episode 1:

There would be frequent bouts where they would pull out the sourcebooks and look for a rule, and discuss interpretations of it. I feel like they would go on random tangents sometimes, but these might have been in-character jokes, I don't remember super well.

For me, these shows were a great intro into the hobby. They provided a way to see people play and see them use the rules live. After a couple of hours of watching I thought "hey, I get it. I could try that". I wasn't as afraid of trying them out anymore.

It was also nice to see that the games weren't just focused on combat and finding loot. It was inspiring to see them so character focused and the players so friendly with each other.

Another factor is that ttrpgs at the time had a reputation for being overwhelmingly for white cis straight men. Media representation solidified this: If there was a girl at the table, there was only one, and she was typically sexually harassed or treated way differently than anyone else. This reputation really prevented me from getting into the hobby. I was afraid of sticking out. I was afraid of the men treating me strangely for being there, either negatively or positively. I was nervous about being talked down to as the rules were explained. I was afraid that if I messed something up, they would accuse all girls of being bad at ttrpgs. Liveplay shows not only let me learn the rules and social expectations to feel more comfortable, but they let me see women in these games, and they were interacting with men who treated them respectfully. It is so much easier to do something after you see someone like you do it.

When I first joined my college's ttrpg club in 2016, the club was overwhelmingly cis straight white men. I did experience some amounts of weird treatment that made me a little uncomfortable, but knowing that people like me did belong helped me power through it. Within the next couple of years, the diversity of the club greatly increased. There were a lot more women and queer folks (a few more non-white folks, but not as diverse in that regard as I would have liked). Although I'd like to take complete credit for this change as the president of the club, I feel like that change in part because of liveplay shows and other ttrpg media.

I did not experience anyone expecting the game to be like these liveplay shows. I think most people at the time had a good understanding of what a normal game might look like: shorter games, no minis, regular people with ok improv skills, just a buncha friends screwing around.

Again, this was 10 years ago, things are different today. I'm not a new player anymore and don't interact with new players. I'm curious for those of you who feel like the liveplay shows fucked your expectations, what your specific experiences have been like? I would love to compare and contrast now vs 10 years ago.

lianarias

Iamjojobean, you have some really good points that are still relevant today. I mostly watch Critical Role, so I havent seen some of the behavior that OP is talking about (since CR epeisodes arent edited down and still involve character conflict and rules look ups), but personally I believe the actual difference in expectations comes down to what a player personally wants out of a TTRPG. I have been playing Pathfinder since 2017 but only got into CR a few years ago. I really enjoy storytelling and character driven games, even before I started watching CR. I've had various DMs and have played various systems and habe even DMd my own games for about 2 years.

All that is to say, even I was disappointed the first session I rejoined a local group this year because they were so combat focused and lacked a lot of roleplay. Once I adjusted my expectation, I had more fun, but I still wish that I could play in something with more roleplaying, like the tables I run.

I think that CR and other live play shows specificially attract people interested in roleplay and character driven stories and thats just not everyone who plays TTRPGs. There are plenty of people there just for the rules or structure. This creates conflict when the live play fan joins a group with these other people and their priorities dont mix. But this was always going to be an issue eventually, the live play shows just give new players more understanding of what they enjoy before joining.

Apologies for the also long ramble. The tl;dr is that I disagree with OP that live play is harming the normal TTRPG playing, just that it is appealing to a very specifc type of player who might not get along well with other player types.

amechyofsorts

But look chief, combat and dungeon crawling are "roleplaying". Like, those are the primary modes of play games like dnd and pathfinder are based around. They aren't roleplaying games just because sometimes you just have long conversations in-character without rolling any dice to swing sword. Combat and dungeon crawling are still a roleplaying experience, if of a specific kind of "role". To seperate combat and dungeons entirely from the supposedly more "character based" storytelling, and only call the latter "roleplaying" is exactly the kind of false image of the medium op, and more generally a lot of ttrpg discourse on here these days, is talking about. Stating that the "game" and "roleplaying" are opposing forces is a misunderstanding of the medium, perpetuated by a lot of these liveplay shows.

Those "rules and structures" you say only appeal to specific kind of players are what drive roleplay in the game. If you ignore those rules or seperate them out entirely, are you really playing the roleplaying game you say you are playing? You might as well just be doing improv theater instead of playing dnd. Or to go for a less hyperbolic example: play a different ttrpg that's not primarily focused on combat and dungeon crawls.

lianarias

It is true that the term "roleplaying" is very all-encompassing and typically is defined differently be each person. It's hard to see combat and dungeon crawling as roleplaying when players are just like "oh my exploration activity is hide" instead of trying to be in character and be more "I think I'll be hiding under the blanket in the cart, ready to jump out at a moments notice". When players are just like "I'm going to Strike, here is what I rolled, okay here is damage" instead of even saying what weapon they are using. It is true, that combat and dungeon crawling can be roleplaying if you are actually reacting and describing actions your character takes, but just playing the stats or mechanics just doesn't make it roleplaying to me. That's like saying I'm roleplaying while playing the game Clank! because I'm dungeon crawling. I never said that roleplaying has to be "long conversations in-character".

I have played different TTRPGs that aren't focused on dungeon crawls, like Candela Obscura which is a rules-light system. It can be a lot of fun for people looking for a more roleplaying driven narrative. Pathfinder, especially 1e, is usually considered to be way more rules-heavy than DnD 3.5e or 5e. Typically Pathfinder Society scenarios try to balance NPC interaction equally with combat. It's a little disingenuous to try and say those who prefer character roleplaying should be playing a different TTRPG when the actual scenarios created by Paizo are intended to appeal to both types of players.

tldr: Both types of players (character roleplayers or rules lawyers) are valid at a TTRPG table, and character roleplayers who specifically joined because of their interest in live play shouldn't get flack for not being the same as the rules lawyers.

amechyofsorts

It is true that there are people who get into the game and interact with it in a language based around mechanics, rolls and numbers. I've done that, and play with people who do that, and consider it a bad habit that can be bad for immersion. For some people it can just be difficult to stay "in character" for a lot of the interactions through the game. People can be shy or just not good at coming up with things their character would say on the spot. However, whether or not a person does that or speaks in more "in character", in-story describtive manner, both players are roleplaying. They are both engaging with a system of game rules in order to create the roleplaying experience.

You say that you regard both player types as valid, but seperating them out in the first place as people who "just play" and people who "roleplay" is a false dichtomy. Both of them are playing a roleplaying game, and in fact, the former type of player seems be the one actually actively with all the rules of the game, which are there to create the intended experience of the roleplaying game. Maybe the latter type of player is too, but if they aren't and are there just to act out the personal character drama they thought out before the campaign even really started, and only detachedly engage with the combat and other game mechanics, rolling lazily when the dm tells them to and refuses to even learn their own characters mechanics, it's absurd to give them the label of "roleplayer" out of these two types of players.

Now if that example sounds hyperbolic again, it kinda is, but it's also very much a real thing that people in the ttrpg sphere have begun to have to deal with since the rise of these liveplay shows.

Also, the comparison to a dungeon crawling card game isn't fair. Obviously you aren't roleplaying when you play one, because it's not a roleplaying game.

"It's a little disingenuous to try and say those who prefer character roleplaying should be playing a different TTRPG when the actual scenarios created by Paizo are intended to appeal to both types of players", this is fair. It was a bit presumptious of me to label you, or the hypothetical roleplayer in this scenario, as someone who wouldn't enjoy dnd and pathfinder. Both games do have some rules for character interaction (though somewhat mechanically lacking to warying degrees. That's a whole different conversation), but again, these are still ultimately games about going to dangerous places, killing things and getting loot. Any character stories that told in them should ultimately be informed and involved in that premise, because if they aren't, the players ought to playing something more befitting of what kind of experience they want. It's not a value judgement of the players, but rather just advice for them to find the kind of game they would enjoy more.

"tldr: Both types of players (character roleplayers or rules lawyers) are valid at a TTRPG table, and character roleplayers who specifically joined because of their interest in live play shouldn't get flack for not being the same as the rules lawyers." Again, this framing is a false dichtomy. Both type of players are "roleplayers" if they are playing a roleplaying game, but they just have differing specific interests and skillsets in the game. These usually overlap, and both players can potentially learn to be more like the other. If they can't, or don't want to, maybe they should be playing different games from one another.

(I also really take issue with conflating these two broad groups as "rules lawyers" and saying that the "roleplayers" are the people were brought into the hobby in the first place by liveplay shows, but this post is way too long as is.)

Sorry for the wall of text. And this is not meant to be any kind of attack or argument for the sake of arguing. It's and worthwhile topic to discuss for those in the hobby I think.

rogersandclarke

halondrus

Grabbing an elf by the ears like handlebars and riding them but not like in a sexual way i just crash into a wall killing us both

boobachu

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.

mortalityplays

whether they're Good Media™ or whatever aside, I think mainstream liveplay ttrpg shows have been a fucking disaster for the hobby. it's hard to imagine anything that could have fucked the expectations:results differential for people more than having celebrities do college improv with dice (and an entire media production team behind them) and telling a generation of new players that's what tabletop gaming is like

mortalityplays

liveplay ttrpg shows are not 'professional gaming', that's the whole problem I'm talking about. they're entertainment products which make format, content and form choices that would be nonsensical or obstructive at an ordinary table. it's not just "oh if only 'hobbyist' gaming groups (🤮) could pay for all that kit and lighting and professional writers and voice actors".

liveplay production involves story meetings aimed at making the narrative maximally entertaining to a watching audience (not the players, who are also professionals who are there to entertain that audience!). It involves editing (trimming out downtime, uninteresting mistakes, technical issues, moments where the vibe is wrong or there's friction in the room). it involves a room full of production crew watching every move the GM and players make, sensitive to wastage of their time and effort if things don't go to plan. and not for nothing, it involves an entire team of people who need to keep game publishers happy by playing and displaying their products correctly and certainly never criticising them or openly adapting around their shortcomings for the sake of the group's enjoyment.

I've played at tables where we've been lucky enough to have fun props and miniatures and printed maps and sound systems and even a bit of lighting, and where everyone in the group was a seasoned player with writing and performance backgrounds, and the experience was still full of normal natural constructive frictions that are largely if not completely absent from entertainment liveplay shows. player disagreement is normal. stopping mid flow to argue about a rule and look it up and help each other with system technicalities is normal. the music just not working today is normal. the party choosing a direction the GM didn't prepare for and having to adjust their in-character choices a little and tolerate some hastily cobbled together fluff to meet them halfway is so normal it's a running joke. someone finding a scene a little too much and asking for a break or redirection is normal. someone saying something a little ill judged in the moment and having to walk it back with as much grace as possible is normal. storylines not going to plan and petering out without major dramatic resolution, or npcs being ignored and cast off with a shrug is normal. all this shit and more is normal because a normal table is structured around the organic decision-making of a bunch of players who are primarily in it for their own fun and sense of transport, not for an invisible imaginary fandom slash consumer market. which are all the things that make ttrpg play inherently a pretty bad vehicle for storytelling, incidentally!

someone else in the tags expressed their frustration at these shows 'professionalising' the hobby, and while I do recognise and sympathise with the feeling that these shows normalise a level of polish and commercial buy-in that's destructive to the diy culture of tabletop gaming, I still have to push back on the idea that these shows are representative of 'professionalised gaming'. they're not. they're sports anime.

anim-ttrpgs

I added "essays/discussion on TTRPG design" to the bio of this tumblr page, because when people see an opinionated post coming from this account they tend to shit themselves because for some reason nobody expects somebody who makes TTRPGs for a living to have really strong opinions about their design. Hopefully that will happen very slightly less in the future.

k-simplex

Someone should make a Disco Elysium successor where you play as a futuristic supersoldier who comes across an ancient ringworld and has to stop the Covenant from using it to destroy all life in the galaxy

deadlinejon

anim-ttrpgs

Redefine Victory - Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy OST

Try listening to this on loop while the investigators come away with only their lives, or when they have to deliver heartbreaking news to someone. It can also work in more "generic" investigative scenes.

Composition by @imsobadatnicknames2

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