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I think "The Hangover" movies would work better as a whole movie genre. The beginning is always the same: group of friends wake up hungover as hell, to start figuring out what the hell happened last night. Turns out a lot happened. As a tradition of the genre, there's always an animal in the house that has no logical reason to be there.

But get this: The same premise every time, but in wildly different times and places. Victorian England, the gentlemen went fuckshit with some nice sherry, wrote some questionable letters, worked together to compose an absolutely idiotic thinkpiece essay and sent it to the local newsprint (the publishing of it must be stopped) and for some reason there's an ostrich.

A troupe of travelling performers in the late Kofun period wake up in the stables of an inn, and the main plot point is the little beast sleeping on someone's chest. None of them have ever seen a cat before, but one knows enough to tell that those are imperial pets, and whoever's fucking cat that is will both be capable and willing to kill whoever stole it. So they'd better fucking return it.

A Tepehuan group of youths find themselves way out of the place that they last remember they had been, for some reason someone's balls have been shaved and painted red, and the strange out of place animal sleeping at their makeshift campsite is some random swedish guy. The spaniards don't seem to know how the fuck he ended up there, either, but they clearly do not have a mutual language with each other.

pudelhaus-games

It is the perfect structure for a descended from the queen game

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prokopetz

BRB, writing an essay arguing that, since the number of people doing character build theorycrafting is anecdotally much greater than the number of people engaged in active group-based play at any given time, Dungeons & Dragons in its modern form should properly be classified as a solo journalling game.

prokopetz

Writing a followup essay arguing that the set of activities which have become institutionalised in D&D's contemporary culture of play as "GM prep" actually constitute a distinct solo game which is only peripherally related to the group-based game it's ostensibly preparing for.

prokopetz

Going on a tangent about how the deficiencies of 5E's GM tools can only fully be understood by recognising that, while previous iterations of the game at least dimly understand GM prep as a form of play, 5E as a text conceives of the GM not as a fellow-player, but as an unpaid employee whose job is to maximise the number of people playing D&D.

prokopetz

@nightmare-chaser replied:

Unironically made me reconsider how i was writing the gm side of things for my ttrpg

Yeah, "the GM is a fellow player, so if your game expects the GM to do prep, that prep must be understood as a form of play" isn't, like, rocket science – a great many RPGs manage to figure it out it intuitively – but laying it out explicitly like that can be a good reality check.

annelidarchive

house of leaves / goncharov esque project consisting of the paratext of a nonexistent text where the described-but-unseen source material is an 800 page rulebook for the worst tabletop game you've ever heard of and the paratext is a series of arguments and blog posts generated by insane forum users

toskarin

mansand

these army ants tend to move in groups of 4, with the line leader leading the expeditions. They have terrible eyesight, so rely on the sound of the Line Leader's bell staff, and the the pheromone map made by the previous expedition to know where they're heading.

txttletale

one thing i really hate about franchising & production of media under capitalism is how any franchise inevitably becomes completely incestuous, incapable of reflecting or remarking upon anything but itself and its own history

txttletale

like i don't like d&d in general, as my posts may indicate, but i do really have a special disdain for d&d 5e--because in my estimation, od&d through 2e are games about being amoral mercenaries plundering dungeons, and 3e through 4e are games about being high fantasy heroes on epic quests--but 5e is first and foremost a game about being "a d&d character" and to me that is the source of so many decisions that make it less interesting and substantial than any of its own predecessors even on its own terms

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secretsnowclub

TTRPG School: Required Reading

This is an alphabetical list of writing on tabletop games, video games, games broadly, and a few adjacent topics. It is required reading. I am not agreeing with anything by having it on this list. Some of the works feature bibliographies and links to other works which they are referencing or in conversation with. Read those if you can. There are works I wanted to include on here but have been taken off of the internet, and I was unable to find them elsewhere beyond my hard drive.

You should read the following (just one a day or one per week, and maybe write a little personal response to it):

About Games and Beings Serious & Why Do Things Have Outlines, Bateson - https://garadinervi-repertori.blog/post/639473512034222080/gregory-bateson-1972-metalogue-about-games, https://garadinervi-repertori.blog/post/166320033101/gregory-bateson-why-do-things-have-outline

Against Procedurality, Sicart - https://gamestudies.org/1103/articles/sicart_ap

Anti-Canon Worlds and the UVG, Rejec - https://www.wizardthieffighter.com/2019/anti-canon-worlds-and-the-uvg/

Avoiding Inapt Discussions in RPGS, Prescott - https://blog.trilemma.com/2023/07/avoiding-inapt-discussion-in-rpgs.html

Bleed: The Spillover Between Player and Character, Bowman - https://www.nordiclarp.org/2015/03/02/bleed-the-spillover-between-player-and-character/

Blorb Principles, snan - https://idiomdrottning.org/blorb-principles

Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice, Rutskarn- https://www.chocolatehammer.org/?p=5773

Don’t Incentivize Ethical Behavior, Siew - https://slowlorispress.com/post/742713305722961920/dont-incentivise-ethical-behaviour

Game Design is Mind Control, Crane & Sorenson - https://genesisoflegend.podbean.com/e/episode-21-%e2%80%93-game-design-is-mind-control/

Homo Ludens, Huzinga - https://merton.bellarmine.edu/files/original/b0899cfad820ab8ad7033952b7a022ba1d7cab9d.pdf

Inevitable Architecture, Woods - https://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/inevitable-architecture/

Libre Baskerville Jam - https://itch.io/jam/libre-baskerville-jam

Morality Play, Pokey - https://myfriendpokey.tumblr.com/post/183941596800/morality-play

Moralizing and Manipulating in TTRPGs, IdleCartulary - https://idlecartulary.com/2023/09/02/moralising-and-manipulation-in-tabletop-roleplaying-games/

New Simulationism, Sorenson - https://samsorensen.blot.im/new-simulationism

On Romantic Fantasy and the OSR, Manola - https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2015/07/on-romantic-fantasy-and-osr-d.html

Playing to Win, Maz - https://www.alicemaz.com/writing/minecraft.html

Revisiting GNS, Baker - https://lumpley.games/2025/04/07/revisiting-gns/

Rules Elide and its Consequences, Sinclair - https://web.archive.org/web/20230401204032/https://cohost.org/jared-sinclair/post/1211889-rules-elide-and-it

Sinistar or: How to Play Games Wrong, Joel - https://youtu.be/OFbhDs_8k1A?si=DGo4y1U3xr_8Qq0z

System Does Matter, Edwards - http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/system_does_matter.html

Systems of Relation, Dragon - https://possumcreek.medium.com/systems-of-relation-c3b27fc4cc99

Ten Manifestos, Harmony Zone - http://harmonyzone.org/ManifestoJam/TenManifestosForGroupsOfNoPeople.html

The Artist is Absent: Davey Wreden and the Beginner’s Guide, Danskin - https://youtu.be/4N6y6LEwsKc?si=DMFViwSTOOa4W6PY

The Big Three, Sorenson - https://memento-mori.livejournal.com/175828.html

The Forms and Fluidity of Game Play, Nguyen - https://gamephilosophy.org/pcg2014/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/C.-Thi-Nguyen-2014.-The-Forms-and-Fluidity-of-Game-Play-PCG2014.pdf

The Hidden Art: Slouching Towards A Critical Framework for RPGs, Laws - https://web.archive.org/web/20080625014524/https://www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/hiddenart.html

The Impermanence of Art, Bissette - https://web.archive.org/web/20241114224733/https://cohost.org/chrisb/post/2011604-the-impermanence-of

The Monomyth Thread, Libre, Kazumi & Udernation - https://bigstuffedcat.itch.io/the-monomyth-thread

Thinking About Formal Incentive, Marcia B - https://traversefantasy.blogspot.com/2023/09/thinking-about-formal-incentive.html?m=1

What are assumptions about how to play an OSR adventure that you think might not be commonly held as desired?, Scrap Princess - https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/LinksToWisdom/What_are_assumptions_about_how_to_play_an_OSR_adventure_that_you_think_might_not_be_commonly_held_as_desired%3f

What is a Game?, Suits - https://web.archive.org/web/20061010064123/http://www.stsintl.com/articles/whatisagame.html

What Should We Do With Our Games?, LeMieux & Boluk - https://alt254.itch.io/what-should-we-do-with-our-games

I put this list together in response to seeing a lot of the same arguments and discussions happening in regard to system-matters discourse, and it’s thinly veiled offshoots. The original goal was to ask people to understand both sides of the discussion and the reasons for pushback against both sides. After compiling, it now comprises more than just history and the goal is simply education and the sharing of ideas.

Hope you get something from it,

Snow

threedollarsdotcom

just tried "apple" for thje first time. i thought the only food was honey bun

pudelhaus-games

Dnd people when they play a chronicles of darkness game

tpwrtrmnky

GM advice: if you read the rulebook cover to cover and go "wow this is ass, I'm going to need to do a bunch of house rules and ignore half the text" you can just. Talk to the players like. "Hey I'd rather play something else"

lonelyelmtree

The rules are actually a recommendation. Not mandatory. Whoever says otherwise sucks dick (derogatory)

tpwrtrmnky

If the rules are so bad that you need to treat them like that to have a good time, choosing a different set of rules is a really good way to deal with that

prokopetz

Realistically, tabletop RPGs are no more capable of emulating the experience of playing a video game than video games are capable of emulating the experience of playing a tabletop RPG, but at least with the former it's fun to see how they fail.

rosstmcd

I remember a lot of heated discussions about the WOW-ification of 4th edition D&D.

prokopetz

People have done that for every new edition of Dungeons & Dragons – we just act like 4th Edition was an outlier because it's the only one most of the people engaging in that discourse are old enough to remember. 3rd Edition was dismissed as "just tabletop Diablo" when it was initially published in 2000. Hell, when 1st Edition dropped in 1977, it was roundly criticised by for contributing to the videogamification of a hobby which was at the time only about five years old, specifically on the grounds of making heavy use of random dungeon generation tables to automate parts of the GM's job – you can see letters in contemporary gaming periodicals groping for the phrase "tabletop roguelike", and failing to come up with it because the term "roguelike" had not yet been coined on account of the fact that Rogue would not be published for another three years.

(Given these examples, you might notice the trend that all of these criticisms are just picking a game or genre that happened to be popular at the time the edition in question was published, regardless of the aptness of the comparison. The comparison of 4th Edition with World of Warcraft is no different; the contemporary popular video game that 4th Edition's gameplay is actually attempting to emulate is Team Fortress 2.)

unseenphil

My favorite part of the "4e is WOW" thing is that in one of the early preview articles, when talking about the fighter's mark mechanic, they did mention looking at World of Warcraft's aggro mechanic...as specifically something they decided not to use for it because they didn't want GMs to be -forced- into having monsters attack the fighter, hence marking and punishment for ignoring it (Which, IIRC, they stated they borrowed the idea from basketball.)

This mention of glancing in the direction of a popular game and -deciding not to use it- became an early talking point claiming the exact opposite.

prokopetz

It helps to bear in mind that, just like every other edition war, the majority of the people engaging in 4E discourse had never actually played or even read it, and were basing their arguments entirely on a picture of 4E's mechanics game-of-telephoned to them via other discourse posts. A lot of them weren't being disingenuous there – they genuinely believed that 4E's marking mechanic did work exactly like MMO aggro.

prokopetz

Sometimes when I talk about Stupid Dice Tricks the replies make it extremely clear that a lot of the people reading those posts have never so much as glanced at anything other than Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, and their idea of an unimaginably esoteric "dice trick" is, like, rolling skill checks with percentile dice.

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academic-vampire

The biggest compliment ever is when someone sees your creative work and says that they’re now inspired to go out and create something, too

prokopetz

I don't mean this to be trivialising, but what really gets me about the bigoted attitudes on display in original flavour Vampire: The Masquerade is how antiquated those attitudes were even when the game was new. Like, yes, it's got all the usual suspects on display, but it also hates Italian people and has very peculiar ideas about the Irish. This is a game that came out in 1991.

anim-ttrpgs

As much as I rag on how totally dishonest most TTRPG marketing is, the fact that the average player or game master seems to know less than nothing about how TTRPGs work doesn't make honest marketing easy.

zigmenthotep

Dang, wouldn't it be great if there were some way to learn dice math and mechanics without going into debt for a fancy game design degree or apprenticing under a perverted wizard?

Oh wait, there is: The Goblin Guide to Advanced Dice Rolling.

You can still apprentice under a perverted wizard if you want though.

An introductory guide to dice maths and mechanics for all the goblins and goblins at heart

prokopetz

Imagine a person who only consumes Batman-related media. That is, they only watch movies and TV shows that have Batman in them, only read books that are novelisations of Batman media, only play licensed Batman video games, and so forth. This is not so absurd an idea; Batman-related media is sufficiently popular, varied and widespread that restricting one's media consumption in this way is completely feasible. However, I trust we can agree that if you actually do this, you will be left with very strange ideas about what popular media looks like.

The next step in this analogy is undestanding that if the only tabletop RPG you're acquainted with is Dungeons & Dragons, you have the same grasp of the tabletop roleplaying hobby as our hypothetical Batman Guy has of popular media.

qwertystop

rileyrose31

@rad-flaming-sword

imsobadatnicknames2

Not throwing shade here and I legitimately wish the best on you, but I can't NOT point out how "5e is just easier mathwise" is like, a perfect illustration of the point that being exclusively acquainted with D&D leaves you with some very strange ideas about what the wider tabletop hobby looks like.

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prokopetz

Honestly, I'm not even that into body horror, but being as it's apparently a binary choice between RPGs about unhinged women cutting each other up and self-labelled "queer friendly" RPGs that manage to be less transgressive than the G-rated cartoons for children they're based on, I'll take the first one any day.

prokopetz

All I'm saying is that maybe you should think twice about dropping the word "queer" in your promotional copy if a Cartoon Network show from 2012 represents an unnavigable degree of moral nuance for you.

silenced-uzi

pudelhaus-games

This shook me to my core they’re so right

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