d'Artagnan Tabletop

so uh. if you like fucked up magic that relies on narrative tension, if you like TTRPGs that focus on healthy practices for the tabletop space, or really earnestly if you're just curious about it, maybe stick around?

or, yknow, if you liked Madoka Magica, Sleepless Domain, Magical Girl Mechanical Heart, or Maidens Of The Fall, maybe hear us out? <3

Yeah I'd agree with that, it's just a lot bigger of an undertaking than I'm sure a lot of people realize when you're the only writer and juggling so many different departments at once. It would have required more episodes, time, and stamina. Something I wasn't exactly graced with, being only Glitch's second creator driven show. I would have needed more writers and co-directors, because writing and directing even just 9 episodes basically killed me.

extracting value from a small handful to a few dozen families in exchange for seldom delivered "services",

letting their lands fall into disrepair while living in fleeting luxury and toadying up to those with actual power,

constantly coveting the holdings of their neighbors and contriving schemes to increase what they own,

fully willing to ruin people's lives (incluidng hiring mercenaries/the authority of the state) if they think the land you live on would be more valuable used some other way.

Then just slap a fantasy filter over your own worst landlord stories and let your party deliver catharsis on your behalf. In my own example, there was the time that I and my fellow broke college students humble villagers were living in a cramped apartment with too many stairs fronteir logging settlement high up in the mountain valleys, which was probably illegal given that it wasn't up to code in any way left off the royal tax register so the lord could pocket all the money. When we had moved in settled there, it had been owned by one of the most widely known landlords in town most prestigious noble houses in the realm, but after a year or two few generations it got handed off to his shitass "handyman" brother who never fixed anything without explination an idolent second son who was denied his larger inheritence. The land lord never awnsered complatins about the mice monsters, the total lack of heating or cooling harsh seasons, or the mold problem creeping sickness and would only show up without warning every couple of months years to make changes no one had asked for. Things got very bad near the end when he alternated between not collecting the rents for months years at a time and trying to intimidate us into moving out for playing him... all because as he turned out he had forgotten how logging into his bank/email worked under the infuence of a minor demon of sloth.

The idea that system matters is reducible to recognising that toys have affordances; while there is of course no "wrong" way to play with a toy, no amount of open-mindedness will readily fit a bicycle through a basketball hoop.

It puts a line under one of the main objections to the "why not just freeform it?" thing; if folks are discussing how to make or modify a toy to achieve a particular set of affordances, blundering into the conversation going "why bother with toys when you can Use Your Imagination?" is unlikely to be well received!

Toby Fox miscomposed his stretch goals. He kept having to scramble for new ones.

Me: "They're ticking up?"

Me: "I see."

Both crowdfunded video games and crowdfunded tabletop RPGs are rife with personal passion projects where the lead developer(s) is/are essentially working for free; however, for a variety of reasons, independently published tabletop RPGs are more likely to be produced by people who actually depend on their game design work for income, which is going to result in targets that look inflated compared to projects whose principals are donating their time.

Crowdfunded video games often hugely lowball their initial targets, either because the "real" goal is hidden in the stretch ladder, or because they're using the campaign as a consumer interest poll, anticipating that doing well on Kickstarter will help them secure the game's real funding from publishers or investors. You know how some video game crowdfunding campaigns will easily blow past their basic target, then cancel the campaign at the last minute anyway for nebulously defined reasons? More often than not, this is why.