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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • Great! Then either talk to her to come up with ideas, or if you’re determined to ask the internet, telegraph your united front in your question so that we don’t assume that the primary reason is that you are a shitty partner. Read your question again, just the words, and see if it sounds like the author actually likes their partner, or wants help from the internet changing them to make this game more fun for themselves?

    Anyway.

    A live session with just voice chat is already a heavy mental toll for some people. Players and DM alike are filtering and translating ideas through one or more layers (what should be done? would this PC/NPC think to do X? How does doing X look like in this setting? Do they have the materials necessary? Would they countenance doing X based on their personality? What would they say alongside it, with what accent and affect?) in real time. Imagine trying to also type while thinking through those thoughts, and wanting your words to be well written, and your grammar and syntax to be correct, and your immortal words to be self-consistent across multiple posts? AND while you are working on all those things there is also distracting crosstalk? Or worse, you’re in a quiet room typing by yourself, but you know that three or more people are talking about what you’re typing in a little huddle? There is no consistent human response to this situation.

    It’s an objectively complex format. Some people may find it easy. Some people may be able to ignore or eschew some of their own internal requirements that are consuming their mental energy and game time. And some people may not, and then external pressure to do so can make them stressed, which makes all of what I wrote harder to manage.

    You could go text-only, with multiple text channels (roleplay vs ooc vs initiative) and strict timers, e.g. 5 minutes (which, speaking from personal experience, is also draining) just get rid of the voice chat. Or as others said, go with truly async play-by-post with 24 hour timers. Sure, a single combat may take a week to resolve, but it gives everyone plenty of time to do all of the mental load required to play, without all the pressure of realtime translation.


  • “Hey, GF, what did you think of this format? I want you to have fun, but I’m worried that you’re not enjoying it. It also seems like there are some unspoken expectations from the others, and I think it’d be good for us to discuss them together to see if we agree with them, and then maybe take our thoughts to the group.”

    And then be ready to either defend your GF, as well as open to potentially leaving the group with her if the other players refuse to accommodate.

    Just because you think the right solution is for your GF to increase her pacing does not mean that your GF will agree with the premise, and even if she agrees, it doesn’t mean that she can achieve whatever arbitrary standard the group expects.


  • I haven’t read all of this (short attention span), but the thing that caught my eye was Horrible Scar. I really like the combination of Disadvantage on some cha cheks, balanced with Advantage in others.

    I think the reality of detrimental and debilitating lingering injuries disagrees with the power fantasy of TTRPGs for some players, myself included, so I am unlikrly to want to subscribe to a system that is mostly “unfun.” However, if the mechanical aspects of these temporary or permanent effects include some upsides, I as a player will be more likely to consent to the implementation of such a system.

    No one wants the reality of a lingering injury, e.g. blindness, yet Daredevil makes us yearn for the superhuman echolocation that he exhibits. Something like “You permanently have the blinded condition, but your other senses are heightened. You have advantage on perception checks made to smell or hear. You also have blindsight to a rafius of 5ft. For every year that you have this condition, your blindsight increases by 5ft, up to a maximum of 30ft. You temporarily lose this sense for 1d4 rounds after taking thunder damage.” As a DM, I would immediately add a Ghost encounter to my todo list, because someone afflicted in this way getting aged up would be a boon!







  • I enjoyed watching Harmonquest, the episodes of which have parts video of the table and parts animated story. It’s a comedy show, for the most part, which genre appeals to me. Past, that, I enjoy a good actual play podcast, sans video, like BomBARDed or NaDDPod, both of which are also comedic stories.

    Just watching a group play a game can indeed be boring. But if that game is just a format for the genre of entertainment you already enjoy, that’s the appeal.