happyroach.bsky.social
Kinda creaky. I work at a desk under a garage. Fan of TTRPGs, science, Anthropology, speculative fiction, webcomics...too many interests.
1,464 posts
165 followers
367 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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You're a couple decades late.
Below the Root by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, 1975.
People of the Axe, Jay Williams, 1975.
Children of Morrow/Treasures of Morrow, H M Hoover 1973
The Forgotten Door, Alexander Key, 1966
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Honestly, because it's so common? Ford 150. A truck with the bed so short it's useless, jacked up so it won't fit in your average garage and shorter people have to use stepladders to get in. Outfitted with a mass of incomprehensible electronics, and lights that won't turn off. So stupid.
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As far as I can tell, there's no evidence for a long term decline. So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Are there any actual metrics to base any of this on?
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Well there
was the Core World background, which was pretty much in every way inferior in a gaming sense to the colonist background.
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Oh, is Bluesky demising again? Must be a month with a vowel in it.
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I recently watched the CW Supergirl episode where Kara introduced and talked about Streaky. It was seriously the sweetest thing I'd seen all month. Granted it was the 2nd, but still.
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Yeah, but which one's which?
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There was nothing like having to find a place to stop so you could frantically try to make out the tiny little street description, then try to find out the area on the map.
I remember a time I was driving in San Francisco late at night and got 10th St. confused with 10th Ave. Such fun.
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I'm pretty sure a techbro is reading about the Azi now, and getting a wonderful idea for a biotech startup...
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That's kind of the weird thing about fans in the Internet Hell age. They think they know much more about people than they do, and 99% of it is self delusion.
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We have a picture of our past cat Dorothy, wearing the Cone of Shame, sitting in a closet with her head to the wall. It's kind of sad and hilarious.
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Yeah, I've been expecting the inevitable "Democrats should avoid social issues in favor of the economy” takes.
Thing is, it's almost certain the next Democratic Pres candidate will be a socially conservative, economic populist, white male from the South. Because that's the "safe" choice
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The most grim take is that Democrats lost because a majority of Americans would never allow a woman, much less a black woman, to be president. Can't wait to see the Third Way's take on that.
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I didn't remember ever playing it, because just TRY finding Tribe 8 players. I just remember it was there, and kinda weird.
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I'm sorry, you're saying all this salacious gossip, and all I can see is Dedra Meero saying "Turn out the lights."
....yuck.
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Well, AI is a scam whose basic purpose is to put downward pressure on wages, via "replacing" workers with AI, and then rehiring the workers to actually do the job at a lower wage.
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Name 3 reasons folks may dislike your fave TTRPG:
Fate Core
1. Character creation: where are my character classes? Where's my levels?
2. Fudge dice? Why can't they use D20s?
3. Aspects are hard. You gotta define them yourself. They may always be true, but you gotta spend Fate points for a +2.
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Tribe 8 was Silhouette, and it had a magic system. Though not exactly a bog-standard "fireballs and magic missiles" one
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The lack of improv is basically why I quit the Pathfinder Society. I felt like I was running an Excel spreadsheet rather than a character.
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It's traditional. Go back to the ancient Eastern European legends where they were dead parents say I. It also comes straight from Anne Rice to Vampire.
Honestly, "Vampires are just humans with powers and a weird diet" seems like lazy writing to me.
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Technically, "Hot Ace Goth", but I don't know that the writers really knew the term back in the 90s.
Maybe they got the idea of vamps that don't have sex from Anne Rice. Not that she was an influence or anything...
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I suppose the modern update would be they are just incredibly vanilla at sex. "In, out, repeat" level of norm.
You want horror? Your incredibly handsome Toredor boyfriend takes three minutes tops then turns on the rugby match. How do they even GET midnight rugby in Chicago?
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They work pretty much like Vampire as it's always been written. First edition had "Vampires don't actually enjoy sex, but will pretend they do to get prey."
Part of the whole "You're actually just a corpse pretending to be human" thing.
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FWIW, I've known a couple webcomic creators who shut down their comment sections, simply because of the amount of harassment they were getting in them.
Comment sections are also yet another time sink comic creators have to deal with, so an artist has to consider if they're worth it.
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What’s the cover art that got you started in the TTRPG hobby? Here’s mine:
I'm actually not sure if that was the first book, it was so long ago. It was something in that range though.
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This is like the inverse of "A Few Good Men":
*Tells the truth*
"WE CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”
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You know, for all that people complain how much they hate metaplots, the time when WoD games was most successful was when they were metaplot heavy.
And gah, look at WH40K- I hate the setting, but nerds will spend tens of thousands of words arguing details of the setting.
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I had a fair success with a map that was more medieval than modern. And with labels like "Centipedes!" in otherwise blank areas.
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I mean he's really a magicpunk Tony Stark: Genius scientist engineer craftsman entrepreneur philanthropist politician warrior.
I mean one of the main things about Jace is he just CAN'T be one thing. He'll probably take up guitar and form a band next.
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I mean there are games where it could be simple and straightforward. Take Fate: roll Stealth as an Overcome to be unnoticed, roll Stealth to create an advantage (say, "Ready to pounce"), spend that advantage to get a bonus to the attack roll. But D&D is a tactical game based around complex rules.
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Part of the problem is that so much of the rogue's ability to contribute in combat is based on their ability to backstab. Which is based on sneaking. So in that case, why shouldn't sneaking be as complex as spellcasting? Spells have what, a hundred pages of special cases devoted to them?
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FWIW, in the Warden series by Daniel Ford, the job of necromancers is to make sure the dead stay dead, and don't bother the living.
Of course I'm also wondering when Necromancy stopped being a form of divination, and became manipulating the dead.
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I can't help but think my ideal for a character sheet is one that fits on a 3x5 card. Classic Traveller was great for that.
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I think of an analogy that Gene Roddenberry used for Star Trek, where in a police show you don't have a cop say "This is a .38 revolver, the bullets go in here, the hammer hits the firing pin, causing the gunpowder to..."
We don't explain guns or cell phones- so why do we need it for magic?
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The thing to do is start doing character variations and submitting them to the DM. One per day. Until they start texting you "stopit stopit stopit stopit stopit stopit STOP IT!!!"
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You obviously haven't spent time in r/magicbuilding. "Here is my 40 paragraph (with diagrams) description of my magic system, which totally is not just elemental magic with mana. This is the short version, I'll post the long version tomorrow."
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Now thinking about the D&D games I played in the early 80s where parietal had two or three character sheets or in front of them. With 2-3 henchmen and hirelings each, we were more looking at a small mercenary company than a party.
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Damn. I just have to say your comic is absolutely beautiful.
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But...but...which of the guards actually says that?
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Ah, Nostalgia. In fact, I was thinking of the possibilities of a Cyberpunk 2020 have actually set in the year 2020. Just assume that cybernetics have been advanced by about 40 years. And Netrunning world be a scam designed to minimize the impact of hackers, promoted with the same vigor AI is.
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You can be honest about what it means: whites only, men preferred.
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Ah! Of course! THAT explains the bed!
..no wait, no it doesn't.
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So you're in favor of the dismantling the scientific grant process and the agencies overseeing them? You approve of the current assault on universities? Perhaps you love the idea of transferring all engineering expertise to H1 Visa holders? You're thrilling to the current FDA leadership?