Finally creating a pinned post of my games. I’ve included all titles I’ve been involved with in some capacity, not just ones where I’m the author; when I’m not the author, I’ll note my role in (parentheses).
This post will be updated over time to reflect changes in the status of these projects, so if you’re looking at a reblog, feel free to click through to the original and see if it differs.
Last updated: 2024-01-28
You get unreasonably worked up about anachronistic fabrics in historical costume design. I get unreasonably worked up about using the word “issue” to mean “problem” in media ostensibly set before 1990. We all have our crosses to bear.
Enjoy this collection of animated short films featuring lesser known but no less beloved classic characters, such as *squints* “frog that gaslights people”.
magnetoisright asked:
If people are being chiller about GURPS not being actually universal, what are the premises that GURPS is well suited for?
(With respect to this post there.)
The same things it’s always been good at: grimy sword-and-sorcery fantasy, logistically crunchy military science fiction, and the various intersections of the two. If that’s what you want, GURPS is aces; the further you stray from that comfort zone, the more awkward it gets.
(Those various intersections can be pretty broad, but you’ve gotta watch out for genre-versus-milieu mismatches. For example, you can totally do supers in GURPS, but if you’re playing to the system’s strengths, this will not produce four-colour comic book stories; it will produce military science fiction with superheroes in it. Luckily, due to certain specific media, “military science fiction with superheroes in it” is exactly what a large number of online nerds want these days.)
krozzus asked:
I think we need to go further actually. Which ttrpg is the best at producing gm burnout?
prokopetz answered:
(With respect to this post here.)
That’s a fairly tricky question. As outlined in the linked thread, D&D5E is more prone to produce GM burnout than many systems which are objectively more demanding of the GM’s time, energy and skill because of its toxic culture of play. There just aren’t a lot of other tabletop RPGs that have both the ubiquity and the right kind of perverse incentives built into their play culture to pull that off – indeed, many of the smaller indie titles lack discernible cultures of play altogether, owing to how fragmented their respective fanbases are – and it’s hard to produce GM burnout on the strength of a game’s rules alone, because rules alone have no power to compel anyone to do anything. You’ve gotta get the GM trapped in a dysfunctional social contract to truly fuck them up.
Back in the pre-2000s era, I might have said RIFTS, but these days? It probably is genuinely D&D.
Rifts is a great choice, but I gotta mention GURPS just because it's the only system that I played that caused burnout in the players, too.
But as you mentioned, that was back in the early 2000s.
Yeah, GURPS is a great example of a game that used to have a high burnout rate due to a toxic culture of play, but the read I get these days – and I grant that this is an outsider’s perspective – is that the GURPS community has mellowed out a lot about insisting that GURPS is genuinely universal, so you don’t get nearly as many GMs melting their brains trying to jam clearly unsuitable premises into it now.
I know folks who habitually swear in English even though it's not their first language because "English has all the fun swear words", and while I don't disagree that in terms of languages that are fun to swear in, English is pretty high up the list, I feel like some of these people desperately need to be introduced to Québécois French.
You can't just not provide examples
There’s a whole Wikipedia article on the topic, though it doesn’t fully do the matter justice, particularly with respect to the combined and extended forms. I once had a Québécois guy casually instruct me to go take a shit in the Holy Grail. Dude wasn’t even particularly mad.
I know folks who habitually swear in English even though it’s not their first language because “English has all the fun swear words”, and while I don’t disagree that in terms of languages that are fun to swear in, English is pretty high up the list, I feel like some of these people desperately need to be introduced to Québécois French.
Soulslike NPC who's clearly trying for the Creepy Jester Who Might Or Might Not Secretly Be God archetype, but their banter fucking sucks. Sometimes they fumble their Sinister Innuendo check and just say the evil thing completely literally, then they're like "wait, shit, ignore that".
"You're going to have a gas!"
(looks off camera)
"What? That's the next bit? Well what's here?"
(looks back)
"Ok forget that. You're putting your head in the lion's mouth. Well accepted idiom, get off my back."
Soulslike NPC who’s clearly trying for the Creepy Jester Who Might Or Might Not Secretly Be God archetype, but their banter fucking sucks. Sometimes they fumble their Sinister Innuendo check and just say the evil thing completely literally, then they’re like “wait, shit, ignore that”.
necromancelena