"some cops are good people" factoid actualy just statistical error. commander samuel vimes of the anhk-morpork city watch, duke of anhk, blackboard monitor, who lives on the discworld & resists over 10,000 temptations each novel, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
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I wrote somewhere over three thousand words yesterday. I'm not doing words goodly again yet.
So I'm going to slightly modify my own list criteria to be the top 5 songs I listen to my own brain play at me regardless of activity or mood or what may be actually playing in my headset!
"Happily Ever After Soundtrack" for the eponymous fireworks show at WDW Magic Kingdom, performed by Angie Keilhauer and Jordan Fisher, score arranged by Tim Heintz.
"Wand'rin' Star" from Paint Your Wagon, originally written by Alan J. Lerner (lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music), but what I keep hearing is either the performance by Lee Marvin, or else @cbairdash and I belting it out at nine o'clock at night as we walked from the front bus stop of Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort through a slightly chilly night to our villa.
"I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" from The Muppet Movie, anthem of my nostalgia for places that probably no longer exist, written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher, performed by Gonzo the Great (with assistance from human Dave Goelz)
"Re: Your Brains", written by Jonathan Coulton, performed in September 2007 by Stephen Granade and the entire audience for the DragonCon Masquerade all singing so loudly that it was impossible to distinguish any one voice
"Raise Your Glass", written by Pink, Max Martin and Karl Schuster, overlain across one of the first fanvids I ever saw -- this one showing many cosplayers at DragonCon singing along.
Apparently in the month of December, my brain has decided that the happy chemicals come from adventuring. Gee thanks, brain, that's actually kind of sweet of you.
I 'unno if I can tag ten people off the cuff?
@cbairdash, @wookieegunner, @oxymoronicromantic, @tacobusart, @blumineck, @prinnay, @nevertheless-moving, @jimhines : any of you folks feel like taking a try at this? Either the original concept as posted by triscribe, or my "Gee Thanks, Brain" edition of the songs that keep playing in your head this month?
So let's see what my five current ear worms are:
1) The Dr. Who Christmas special song.
2) "Spice up your life" by the Spice Girls from Dr. Who episode The Giggle.
3) "Apologies" from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
4) The live version of 'The Family Madrigal' from Encanto at the Hollowood Bowl.
5) The live version of 'Under Pressure' from Encanto at the Hollowood Bowl.
Unfortunately, I don't know 10 people on here so I guess my line will end here.
In my gaming group, the DM traditionally plays a song to indicate to the players that the game will begin soon and it's time to wind down non campaign related discussions. It's a fun way to transition into gaming and set up the vibes.
Some DMs play the same song every time (like a theme song for their campaign) and others will just go with whatever they're feeling. The last campaign I ran, I meticulously chose songs to fit with certain characters/subtext.
For my current campaign, for the first session I played September, because it was right after September 21. My second session I played Happy (Pharrell Williams) because it was my friend's birthday and I know he likes that song.
So I think I'm going to continue playing aggressively cheerful songs like those because my game is pretty heavy on horror and I think it's a great way to keep my players off balance. Like, today I'm going to play Mr. Blue Sky and then immediately segue into a florid description of acid rain ravaging the party and the local ecosystem. Fun stuff.
Pro tip for world building: if you have an entity designed for the players to fight in combat, don't name it "pirate", "raider," "soldier" or something equally generic. And ESPECIALLY don't name their faction that!
It's much more characterful to give them a place or people that they come from.
Easy example: Fallout 3 vs Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3 has raiders, raiders, and more raiders.
New Vegas has Great Khans, Fiends, Powder Gangers, Jackals, Scorpions, Vipers, and Greasers.
All of the above are effectively "raiders" but New Vegas offers 7 different (or at least theoretically different) raider cultures with their own histories, while Fallout 3 has 1, maybe 0, raider cultures.
Even just naming these NPC groups will develop the world because it'll either make the players or YOU, the designer, ask questions about why they are named that.
In short: every NPC has a group they belong to, so at least name the groups.
PS: if you want more game design thoughts from me, my Patreon is here.
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One thing I've been hired to do a lot lately is to write a dungeon that's meant to fit into a larger adventure/product. For example, I wrote the Ivory Tower for Sarah Morris's The City Lost to Dream. I'm writing another one now, for [redacted], and I thought it'd be cool to talk through my process as I build the outline.
You can find a Notion template for my dungeon outline here! But this blog post will talk through it.
First, a disclaimer: This isn't the definitive way to make a dungeon! In fact, not all dungeons need to tell stories in this way. But the vast majority of mine do, because they're attached to one-shots, and I like the narrative completeness this style of dungeon creation affords. There's a narrative throughline to this kind of dungeon, where each room serves a purpose and allows the players to piece the story together. At the climax, the characters can use this information to make an informed decision about how to proceed.
This style is heavily inspired by the environmental storytelling found in games I've enjoyed like Bioshock and Pokemon. Every bit of the environment, down to the smallest aesthetic choice, links back to the main idea in some way. When you put all the pieces together, the image becomes clear.
So let's dive into it:
The Dungeon Thesis
The Dungeon Thesis is the story told by traversing the dungeon. What happened here? What will the party learn from each of these rooms? Every room in the dungeon should be a supporting argument for this thesis.
If you've read my adventure The Workshop Watches (get it here for free!), then you'll recognize the strong thesis there: S.A.M. is a sentient workshop who accidentally killed its creators. Every room inside S.A.M. supports this thesis, by providing more insight into Illumar's research and S.A.M.'s actions since its creation.
The Dungeon Background section can help you with this thesis. Who lives in this dungeon now? Why was it originally created? What conflict is created by the disparity in the answer between those two questions?
While your final draft probably won't have a section labeled "Dungeon Thesis," the entire thing should have echoes of what you put here in your outline throughout.
The Dungeon Gimmick
Not every dungeon needs a gimmick, but it is a great way to make this encounter stand out. Maybe the corridors shift, or the characters are running on a timer. Maybe your dungeon is sentient and very, very curious. When coming up with a dungeon gimmick, also consider the other overarching features of the dungeon. How are the halls lit (and who made it that way)? Are there doors? Do they lock?
When adding a gimmick to your dungeon, make sure you introduce it right away. I'll cover this more in the entryway section, but it's a good idea to establish the gimmick as soon as possible, and keep reinforcing it, so it sticks in the GM's mind (and therefore their players' minds). Here's the gimmick from The Workshop Watches:
Individual Rooms: Purpose, Challenge, and Reward
The meat of a dungeon is, of course, its rooms. I have a three-pronged approach to coming up with the rooms: purpose, challenge, and reward.
Purpose
Why is this room important to the overall dungeon? What can the characters learn from traversing this room that will lead them closer to the thesis? Does it establish the ruthlessness of the villain, betray a secret weakness of your enemy, or provide more context for what's going on here?
You don't always have to come up with the purpose first. Sometimes you look at your dungeon layout and say, "I need more combat." So build your combat encounter, and then retroactively determine why that's necessary to the story.
That's what I did for The Workshop Watches. I added the greenhouse fight because the dungeon needed more combat. I asked myself, "what kinds of rooms would exist in a wizard's laboratory?" and settled on a greenhouse full of magical plants. Later on, I came up with the temperature control mechanic, where S.A.M. would counter cold damage with fire damage and fire damage with cold damage. A burnt section of the greenhouse suggests that S.A.M. has incinerated something-or someone-before.
Challenge
What are the characters meant to do in this room? This one is the most straightforward, but writing it out can help you keep track of the balance between different types of challenges. Combat, exploration, social, trap diffusion, puzzle solving, etc.
Reward
What do the characters get for completing the challenge in this room? Sometimes the reward is just "passage to the next room." Sometimes it's as explicit as "treasure!" But think outside the box for things your players would appreciate inside a dungeon: new tools, the opportunity for a rest, more lore, a role play opportunity.
There can be multiple Purposes, Challenges, or Rewards in one room, but try not to overdo it! Conversely, you can cheat a little bit and have them overlap or omit one ("The purpose of this room is simply to be a place for the characters to rest -- a reward! The challenge is in whether they'll recognize it or not")
Examples
The template has more questions for special room types. I won't go through all of them, but I do want to share some examples from my outline for The City Lost To Dream. Here's the entryway example:
Later on, I realized that there wasn't enough in the entryway. The final draft has a statue of the tower's founder and clues to suggest you should rub the bottom of her robe, which grants you a boon on a check. A fun reward for a History challenge.
Another example, one of the Laboratory floors:
You can see there's multiple challenges here, but no concrete reward yet. In the final draft, the aboleth can help you in a later encounter, but it also grants you three "knowledge" wishes (basically, three castings of legend lore).
The Climax
The climax of the dungeon - the final confrontation. Most dungeon delving games consider some kind of confrontation to be a great cap to the adventure. Combat is especially popular here. Give your characters something to fight!
But almost as important as the fight is the choice. A question I am constantly asking myself is, "The Characters learned all that information you gave them; now what are they going to do about it?" This is a roleplaying game, after all! When the characters learn the full truth of the dungeon and uncover its thesis, it may change their minds about how to proceed. Maybe they must choose between two potential adversaries, or choose whether or not to fight, or choose whether or not to use lethal force.
And that's the outline! I hope it's helpful to folks who are interested in creating this style of dungeon. Definitely pick up a copy of The City Lost to Dream if you haven't already; it's a fun 5e adventure! And let me know what you think of this method.
Look over your shoulders and behold the great abyss that lies yawning in the depths of time beyond your wee little gaps. And past the abyss, to its far side⌠to the times when fanfic fandom was conducted by mail.
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Madames and Monsieurs. Poirot has seen much evil in the world, but the evil of this man is in a category all itâs own. His crimes are those of which Poirot cannot speak of in polite company, and they stretch the limit of discretion and manners. And he flees his persecution but cannot resist to remind the world of his existence. To brag about the money his filth has brought him. To try and, how you say, âflexâ on a girl whoâs concern is for the future of this planet by touting his many fast cars. But she is not so easily cowed and came back strong against his crude message with one of her own. Poirot may not condone the language, but he cannot deny it may have been called for. And there, there he let his hubris lead him to make his mistake. In his video, there, there is his pandoraâs box. It does not look like much, it is after all a pizza box and such food is popular among the masses today. But this boxâŚthis box proved where he was hiding away. What hole this rat crawled into!
I claim no deductive prowess on my part, Watson. Our quarry is a braggart and a fool and he has proclaimed his location for all the world to see. But the prey is still afoot, dear doctor, and we must be swift. Bring your pistol.
Archie, one must, if one has the cranial and philosophical capacity to do so, always beware of the Devil. A simple jackass can blunder through crime after crime for a lifetime, depending only on the fatuity of the police, which he might well receive, so long as he is taciturn about it. This man, this Mr. Tate, has neither the discretion nor the patience to be a criminal worth investigating since he is above all else an infantile buffoon who announced his location to the world in a fit of pique baited by a woman he himself called upon to annoy. No doubt he deserves to get arrested and tried and imprisoned but that is not the sort of work that may supply me with fee, so stop badgering me about it. One cannot focus on every charlatan of the world no more than one can count the grains of sand in it, now as to the Brassolaeliocattleya âŚ
Dear, dear, not a nice boy at all. Pride, you know, itâs always pride with such men. Reminds me of the postmasterâs youngest son, William, always bothered the girls horribly, read their postcards at first, then their mail, then started to demand things of them because of what he learned. Not a very nice boy and grew up to be a very unpleasant man. His father shielded him many times, they had money you know. Sent him away so Switzerland, but in the end it was no good he got into trouble there too. Just like this Andrew boy. So many young men think leaving to a different place will make things easier. Oh dear, and he was very foolish taunting that child, the girl activist, so many of them today and sheâs just like Mattie from the flower shop you know, you donât step on her toes on no! She poked him and he flared up and of course announced his location in the silliest way. But of course criminals often do, oh human nature is much the same everywhere isnât it?
Jack, we already knew he was a cad. The real trouble was actually tracking him down. And for all his money and connections, he couldnât control that fragile male ego. Accidentally giving away his location with a simple pizza box because Miss Thunberg embarrassed him in front of his idiot fans. Nothing could be more satisfying. Well⌠Almost nothing.
Musk is begging for cash because he made the stupidest purchase in internet history.
Zucky Wucky is hemorrhaging cash because the Metaverse goal of becoming the NFT successor of real estate speculation was met with the deserved mockery at how stupid it was.
Trump is finally being properly prosecuted for crimes he unquestionably and very inconspicuously committed.
Alex Jones owes a billion dollars to Sandy Hook victims.
The Tories are imploding in a schism that might actually result in the collapse of the British empire.
Putin has ran out of army and crawled pathetically to the corner a tiny insurgent army pushed him towards, decades of military propaganda burnt away in months.
Prime Minister ShinzĹ Abe died with no glory.
The GOP is so confused after the Trump era they don't even know how to run their grifts anymore.
Rings of Power was such a mediocre release Amazon could potentially drop Prime Video altogether.
Turns out 2022 was really the "find out" year. It took a while but I'm loving this season finale so far.
ID: Tweet form Bad DND Advice @nat1advice
DnD advice: At a loss for a last-minute holiday gift for your players? Pick them up a book theyâve never read. Iâm getting each of my players one titled âPlayerâs Handbook.â
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Checking in on my depression nest buddies out there. If you're currently burrito-ed in bed or peeking out of the blankets like a couch goblin, keeping up with the mess is probably the last thing you want to do. However, if you can muster up a tiny bit of energy for a few minutes, taking care of your immediate environment or yourself a little really can make such a difference. Can you try one, part of one, or more than one of these?
Clear some dishes/trash from the immediate area
Take a shower and/or change your clothes
Clear some stuff off the nearest flat surface (nightstand/coffee table/etc.)
Change out your bedding
Put 5 things near you away
Eat something and have some water
If you can only do one or a small part of one, that's great! Every little bit helps you get through and makes things easier on yourself once you're coming out of it. Be kind to yourself and remember that taking care of yourself is important and worthwhile.
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