pathfinder 2e forever and ever

this is my blog where I tag my own ttrpg pcs in posts bcs I think its funie. if u dont want ur post on here tagged for my ocs just lmk! they/them lesbian

[omtai]

When you are brutally losing at chess implore your opponent to look inwards its called the little pony gambit

[gingik]

No theyre not disorders theyre winning conditions. Ill get 1.5x exp and 1.2x gold at the end of my life

[bebidocrim]

Who up tormenting they knight? Who up corrupting them? Who up tempting them into breaking their oath and indulging in their base desires?

[zereshq]

needless to say I am hopelessly dependent on The Character

[trsantoss-deactivated20220524]

I like mine nasty and obsessed with me.

[apas-95]

In cyberwigan, it's a perfect simulacrum of gravy.

[despazito]

[kitzenvoncatzen]

if you say something mean to me i will throw darts at you. and then if you upgrade me i will throw darts fasterand be able to detect camo

[geigercuntter]

(smiling serenely) i’m going to attack you now

[omegaversereloaded]

[cav-core]

Shoutout to characters that are both genuinely deeply kind and also genuinely terrifying and willing to spill buckets worth of blood to get something done. And neither of these are an act, they're just both very true.

[dogpuppy]

[despazito]

[drysqu1d]

i tend to avoid discourse because most of it is trite and pointless but just this once i feel like i need to state my opinion: i think everyone should bend to my dark and evil will

[flipchild]

Swagged out

[flipchild]

This is vibes

[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]

PbtA games will be like Brackets: Overcome Your Destiny

"The first game where you can overcome your destiny." - Indie Game Amplifier

4.99/5 stars 1,000 reviews

and then the rules are "on a Full Success, do something that overcomes your destiny."

[tenleaguesbeneath]

a good DM is supposed to work with their players so that they can play whatever build they want, while a player can tune out anything the DM says about the world that they're not interested in, even if it's stuff about what classes, backgrounds, etc. are part of the setting's palette. in fact, a player should be able to treat the game as a single-player game starring their PC if they want to.

hey why are all our DMs burning out?

[tenleaguesbeneath]

I'm seeing a lot of people tagging this "ttrpgs" and I wan to clarify that my use of the term "DM" is intentional here, because I haven't seen anywhere near this level of disrespect for people hosting games in anything but D&D