A long dream.

My cute Paladin Baby facing.. everything on her journey

more refrences >:)))

i'm thinking extra hard about how we've ended up where we are, with trans kids at the center of so much hatred, because children are not seen as people with interiority or an ability to narrate their own experiences. we've decided it's alright to lock children up for horrible diagnoses that psychs throw around like they're nothing, to strip their autonomy completely and force them through humiliation, invasions of privacy, and endless torment by "professionals" whose power over every waking moment of their lives has no end. these things cannot be separated.

Isn't she lovely?~

KOSA IS MOVING FORWARD IN THE HOUSE!

It's part of a package called the KIDS Act, filled with digital ID and age verification and censorship!

MAKE THOSE PHONES RING!! CALL YOUR HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES ALL WEEK

202-224-3121 i HIGHLY encourage everyone to read the bills in the KIDS Act, because you will be doing more than 95% of people who read and introduce these bills

And like there was no permanent cast, all these celebrities seem to have gotten a scene or part of a scene to do (i’m not sure exactly, I did not ever watch Quibi and thus haven’t seen this yet), and then they just… recreated it as best they could. At home. Under quarantine.

So like, you had Jennifer Garner in a blanket cape playing Princess Buttercup AND the Booing Old Woman with a crowd comprised entirely of stuffed animals:

Or Taika Waititi paying Westley off a badly-drawn Inigo on a piece of cardboard held in front of someone’s face:

And it’s all just delightful.

But my absolute favorite part of this thing that I’ve sadly never seen but assume is probably absolutely hilarious and a treasure and I want to find it some day and watch the whole thing… is that Carey Elwes is in it.

As Prince Fucking Humperdink.

Here ya go

Jester entertains the King

The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.

The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.

The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.

The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.

The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.

Think about it this way...If a player wants to do something, they require:

the DM to allow them to do so (either in their role as referee or narrator)

the mechanics to be arranged in their favour (everything from class builds to environmental penalties to limited use abilities)

the dice to cooperate

If any one of these things isn't checked off, the player simply CAN'T do what they wanted to do. How many times have players come up with a solution for a challenge that SHOULD work, only to be foiled when either DM fiat or poor dicerolls said no?

Unless it’s something they’ve specc’d their character to be good at, players become pessimistic about the outcome of their actions, so they don’t try things.  They don’t speak up in dialogue because they don't want their uncharismatic character to roll persuasion, they don't poke around the room because their afraid their unperceptive character will trigger a trap. They wait until the DM HANDS them the answer

DMs lament that their parties aren’t taking risks (because risks are supposed to be where the fun is), despite the fact that they’ve thoroughly punished players for taking risks in the past. This problem’s gotten so bad  I’ve had completely new players start compulsively checking EVERY room for mimics because d&d’s “gotcha” attitude has pervaded out into the cultural consciousness surrounding the game. 

Compare this with something like blades in the dark, which uses a d6 system where 1-3 is a failure, 4-5 is a success with a drawback, and 6 is a complete success. That’s a 50% chance of the player getting to do (at least partially) what they want, and that’s before we get into tossing multiple dice or expending resources to affect the roll.

I'd be curious to know how you suggest avoiding this? I've played this type of system with a few DMs now and it always feels much more like I'm being punished for trying to roll at all, especially when the partial "success" doesn't achieve what I wanted at all and instead makes things worse.