#pn

Back on my Psychonauts grind y'all.

Found the file that holds all the pre-rendered cutscenes in my PC port and decided to sift through them to get some random little Raz poses! Wanted to do things I hadn't seen many or any redraws of as well.

TRANSPARENT BOW PNGS

Listened to a podcast the other day about Strahd that Cursed module for DnD 5e. I've never played it, the podcasters have, but thankfully it wasn't about the mechanics. Honestly wouldn't have listened to it for long if it was just about that, unless it was a learning thing. (maybe)

It was (mostly) about player participation and public reception esp since it's been 10 years (almost, 2016) since it came out and the 5e has had a new update (2024) since then. BUT ALSO....the podcasters and guest are all (Elite) members of VTM actual plays, a very specific one called LA by Night. Joey Rassool, Jason Carl, and Alex Ward all band together for the first time (to my knowledge and well...that's all that matters) since the departure of NY by Night.

Ahem....(speaking of which; if you want a NY by Night S3 ya'll gonna have to hunt down White Wolf or Paradox Interactive and YELL LOUDER!!)...ugh.

With deets outta the way; Aside from being a very entertaining podcast and showing off how Jason is his own type of vampire (he hasn't changed a bit), they touched on a few views and ideas that I loved. The curse of Strahd takes the typical combat system of DnD and does more than just stick a pare of Spirit fangs, white makeup and cape on while calling it 'horror'. The module (apparently) takes all that you know about regular DnD; rips apart your expectations, pulls the insides out, and wears the skin as a new urban camo jogging suit named Edgar. But before that amount of ravaging mutulation, DnD hardly had anything close to good horror, before and since because it's a module that not only has stood the test of the better part of a decade but is constantly being revisited again and again.

Combat systems are great for stories that carry external themes of man vs man, man vs nature, man vs god (if you're lvl 20); but how do you give your own shadow stats? (besides making it a literal shadow person from the shadow planes)

Critical Role has become a huge success mostly due to the bond of the friends it is centered around but the column B of the formula is that they're all performers in one fashion or another. Performers can't help but come across a multi-universe of stories that overlap in the same basic hero's journey way. Derived from many culture's histories (mainly greek) Joseph Campbell made the unified formule that Hollywood depends on to sell it's major product line. The journey begins with either an acceptance to the call of adventure or a rejection of it and then being thrust into it anyways. 'They meet in a Tavern' is usually the acceptance of it; looking for work to pay the tavern for a room or having the luxury of helping someone in need via the verbal bulletin board, bartender style. Again Critical Role plays a combat system, of which they then tell stories of outward Heroes from. They then choose, (much emphasis on the word 'CHOOSE') to explore the ideals of personal struggle, moral decisions, and interpersonal ethics; these are not written in the guide and can be ignored by the average player altogether. (and often is)

(I think I lost the plot again....one sec)

Vampires are people who were ripped from their own reality and placed into another that seems simliar but is so very different, just like a shadow world; in it they both exist and don't exist. Their problems have simultaneously both become simpler and more complicated; Strength, Dexterity, Constitution....less of a factor now but sanity, morals, humanity? A much bigger issue. Vampire the Masquerade is quite the yin to DND's yang; it combats nothing and yet still grips players in a Command word: (choke) hold.

(Also don't @ me; I know there's an ability in VTM that's simliar but I can't remember off the top of my head cuz I've never played, only watched. Dominance?? idk.)

In VTM the hero's are more thrust into the adventure after the rejection; their 'meet in a tavern' becomes 'you wake up in a morgue'. Yet here we get to explore the areas of man that are less frequent in a combat system. Do we maintain our humanity or go for power? Do we continue the masquerade hiding ourselves from those we love, or keep them around for some selfish personal comfort? Preservation is less about survival of the body and more about the mind and heart of the individual. Theoretically it's what happens when we take Maslow's pyramid sche- I mean hierarchy of needs and flip it on it's head. Self Actualization becomes the prime directive for vampires once they figure out (and get accustomed to) their basic needs having once been the large, wide, (and flared? ) base being shrunk to just an iceburg tip: shelter.

Speaking of flipping; I'm sure I've lost a few notes while being upsidedown. (new bat who dat?)

Within iconography, the adventure seekers are usually represented by someone going off down a road. In Tarot this is the fool, at the beginning; while it's valid for both game play systems, it feels disingenuous to apply it to Strahd, VTM or horror in general. That feels more like the Hermit; long sullen face of deperivation, from an individual seeking, with a lit lantern against a backdrop of an abyss poised as a journey with no clear direction except perhaps inwards.

I know what you're thinking....Why would I compare two game systems when I've only ever played one? Because it's not about the systems, it's the genre. One roars into the sky with a flying leap and soars around looking for excitement in the form of danger, while the other slumps and slythers into the the swamp waters, hissing a warning of being that danger to all around both to maintain it's isolation but hypocritically also as a call to others to join it's misery. It does love company afterall. (whispers: come play with us)

It's just very interesting to see how the systems are manifested to accomodate the very subjects and aesthetics they each represent. Cause sure you can fight a ghost in the form of a Wraith in one, but fighting the ghost of your past requires a different set of rules and features. And one 'could' argue that DnD once had ethics and humanity intertwined within the system but a moral code is much more complex than an alliance punnett square. You would literally need a system within a system. ... No one's got time for that; if we did, we'd all be playing GURPS.