Author | Lightnews

Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 1d

What's a little carrier group redeployment to the other side of the world among friends?

Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 2d

Dingbats represent 🙌

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 3d

Yeah, Henry definitely would risk his life to protect Hans. You would too if he was your only true and fully genuine friend in the world. I know I would. Definitely a+ romance material.

Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 3d

Hans works the best because he is Henry's peer (in terms of age and approximate life experience, though Henry is ahead of him on that last point). He is, quite literally, Henry's closest and most genuine friend aside from Teresa

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 3d

Teresa makes sense because both are (.ore or less) childhood friends, with a deep bond rooted in extraordinary trauma. Their relationship is based on that pain and pre-existing friendship.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 3d

I have nothing against the girls in KCD 2, but they cannot compete with hans as such a thoroughly established character and dynamic relationship with Henry.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 3d

I'm increasingly convinced that KCD 2 should have had only three "romance" options: 1) no romance, 2) faithful to Teresa, 3) Hans.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 3d

Are you the drongo or the Dingbat?

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 4d

I'm pretty sure I do, in fact, have to kill them.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 4d

All of which include extensive system information and narrative context on how to kill them, and why you should.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 4d

It's a strange kind of dissonance in the popular fan base of Drongos and Dingbats that decrys the games violence every time it is mentioned.

"You don't have to do that"

One third of the games core rules is literally an exhaustive list of all the people and things you are expected to kill.

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Reposted by Adam

cavegirl @cavegirl.bsky.social · 4d

shockingly, I actually think that games that are designed to be about exciting adventures and fighting scary monsters are very fun, and I enjoy playing them.
I also think that the best way to play that kind of game is not to fight its design and instead use it for action and adventure.

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Reposted by Adam

cavegirl @cavegirl.bsky.social · 4d

a crudely-edited meme parodying Kung Pow Enter The Fist, reading "I must apologise for the D&D fandom. He is an idiot. We have purposely trained him wrong, as a marketing strategy."

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Reposted by Adam

Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 5d

You can roleplay in anything, you can roleplay in fucking Monopoly if you want, and if you see that and go "well that sounds dumb" then congrats, you know what it's like to be told that a game can have 200 pages about combat and two paragraphs for Diplomacy checks and not "be about violence" somehow

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Reposted by Adam

Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 5d

"The roleplaying is the stuff the game DOESN'T need rules for, idiot" is such a ridiculously illiterate stance (in multiple senses) to hold in 2025, an era in which we have a veritable cornucopia of designer TRPGs to showcase that elfgames can be more than a combat engine draped in vibes

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Reposted by Adam

Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 5d

The fundamental disconnect I am starting to put together here, which I'm sure someone else has long since beat me to, is people keep conflating what you CAN do with a game versus what the game itself actually IS, and do not seem capable of separating the two out from one another

Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 5d

You can roleplay in anything, you can roleplay in fucking Monopoly if you want, and if you see that and go "well that sounds dumb" then congrats, you know what it's like to be told that a game can have 200 pages about combat and two paragraphs for Diplomacy checks and not "be about violence" somehow

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 4d

Introduction a lot of people to the words "drongo" and "dingbat" today I see.

a close up of a kangaroo looking at the camera

ALT: a close up of a kangaroo looking at the camera

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Adam

Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 5d

My stance has long been that games are about something and what that something is is defined by the game as it exists, not the aspirational game that might be imagined between the lines, D&D as a game is a tactical combat dungeon crawl engine with rules for fireballs and longswords, not cozy romance

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Reposted by Adam

Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 5d

That still doesn't make this sort of ad actually representative of what D&D is as a game. "You can do whatever you want in the ephermera that the game doesn't touch on" isn't anything, it's like advertising Monopoly as a gripping serial thriller just because you can imagine one while you play it

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 5d

If there is the impression of a division between these two concepts in a game, it is the result of a poorly designed/implemented system.

Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 5d

I fundamentally disagree with the premise that in trpgs there is a 'combat' part and a 'role play' part.

Systems within an rpg exist to facilitate rp by structuring it within the game.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 5d

These problems will never be addressed because they are part of the games design on an atomic level. Its design will never change because they aren't selling on the basis of its design. They will not sell the game on its design because the current strategy is massively more successful.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 5d

Dnd has tons of problems inherent to its design and the enduring dogshit politics that underpin it.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 5d

Time has proven that it is vastly more beneficial to Hasbro wotc to misrepresent the game's identity that it ever could be to meaningfully design it to fit that identity.

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Adam @ajtperson.bsky.social · 5d

I think a lot of people to this day don't realise that the original (and subsequent) OGL was a very successful corporate tool to steal space away from potential competitors in the space, not a tool of benevolent creativity.

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