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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 1d

It's got some systems with resolving multiple skill challenges via montages and a negotiation system with NPCs that's about finding out and appealing to personality traits, but the combat engine is very much the main draw (steel...).

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 1d

If you like fantasy super heroics via high octane tactical combat based on using big flashy abilities, it seems like it's really good, but it's not meant to do too much beyond that.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 1d

I saw that exchange on the other site and that guy annoys me to no end

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 1d

No matter how you play DND there's always the underlying assumption that you'll be able to do violence competently. That's just not true of so many games and once you play any of them you quickly realise how flimsy the rhetoric about DND is.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 1d

Coming back to running Pathfinder 2e after years of mainly world of Darkness and indie stuff has really shown me how even in low combat games, that non combat play is largely just preludes to combat

Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 2d

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 · 2d

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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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

(again putting aside how lackluster levelling up feels in 5e).

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

That's why I'd put this syle of advancement under pacing (putting aside 5e's wonky level curve). They're getting XP not because they did things the best way, but so they have an external goal to work towards and don't feel like they're time's wasted as they'll get cool new tools soon regardless

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

stuff like PBTA and FitD. It's just what is being rewarded that's the main difference.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

I think in the more gamey, tactical combatty ones like modern D&D, Pathfinder, Lancer, etc. where interparty balance is ostensibly balanced, it's the latter. That's what I was assuming when you said gamist. That said I think the modern successor to the more xp as reward style is often found in

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

I backed it on kickstarter without realising this and when I read the book it felt like there was just whole chunks missing. I think FabUlt more faithfully replicates the gameplay and storytelling of JRPGs writ large whereas BREAK feels more like an OSRish pointcrawler with really good JRPG vibes

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

Tangential to the fruitful void thing but I've more come to view advancement and development in those games less in terms of reward and more in terms of pacing

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

It's too OSR for my own tastes. It captures a lot of the vibes, but doesn't do a great job of providing the tools to play like a JRPG imo

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

So in other words, using craft to inspire people to interpret art.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

I'm sure every artform has an equal amount of navel gazing, but I think people's truest mistake here is trying to look for some unique essence of TTRPGs rather than realising that, like every other form, they emerge from a unique combination of non-unique factors.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

I mean, I don't know if that's the vibe I get from the fandom given all the racism and constant drama. That said I think that's true of every big fandom these days. Maybe back in the pre 2020 times, but even then I'd have said the no-bad-vibes toxic positivity fandom was way more a McElroy hallmark.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

I mean the RPG scene is full of people disguising trivial observations as innovative design/concepts. Like fruitful void is from the same lineage as rules elide.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

negotiation.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

I just saw someone describe fruitful voids as how you fill the negative space between game mechanics, e.g. the actual tactics part of combat and that made sense, but as you say a lack of an explicit mechanic is just giving way to an implicit one (or one that's a meta-mechanic from the play culture):

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

This genuinely might be the first time I've seen someone give examples of fruitful voids that aren't just lazy excuses for not doing game design. Thank you.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

Something that's kinda interesting is while people talk about the impact of APs on this particular aesthetic, it's almost entirely pulling from just one, TaZ Balance. Like, Critical Role is Shrek but ultraviolent, this is all TaZ inspired.

cavegirl @cavegirl.bsky.social · 2d

What does any of this shit have to do with D&D, which is a game about going somewhere dangerous (eg dungeons) to fight scary monsters (eg dragons)?
What relevance does all the twee art like this Hasbro keeps churning out have for a game that is fundamentally about peril, violence and adventure?

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

Not a new observation but that D&D art that's the subject of all the discourse recently has made me realise that what a huge portion of the D&D fanbase wants is to replicate the JRPG experience. D&D is obviously a terrible fit and they should just use Ryutama or Fabula Ultima.

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 2d

Marketing is psychological warfare and at the bare minimum, regulations should be way way stronger.

Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 6d

Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?

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Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 5d

I remember trying to explain to a reasonably big vtm youtuber that the whole point of VTM is that vampires are for all intents and purposes human and they are constantly lying to themselves by acting like their utterly human foibles are what make them inhuman monsters. He didn't get it.

Oisin Duffy @oisinduffy15.bsky.social · 5d

Not to mention that a lot of German heritage in Argentina came from people fleeing the Nazis

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Reposted by Oisin Duffy

Ishmael, The Transition Will Not Be Televised @comradeishmael.bsky.social · 5d

Significant numbers of Nazis were recruited by the United States and moved to the United States or worked overseas on the CIA's payroll. Americans love the "Argentina was a Nazi haven" meme because it means they don't have to look at who their own government was in bed with.

Cake or Death @johngcole.bsky.social · 5d

The reason Trump is bailing out Argentina at the expense of the American taxpayers and farmers is because they know where all the OG nazis ended up 70 years ago.

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