So I've read the latest beta watched a session, and I have thoughts.

[editing]

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMThe biological essentialism that informs fairy tales of evil dragons and goblins,

The thing that people who compare the idea of evil orcs to biological essentialism can't grasp is that fantasy worlds do not necessarily follow biological or evolutionary principles.  Things can be as they are for other reasons.  The supernatural is real and evident.  Races can be created by gods or other supernatural beings, not evolved.  Dragons didn't evolve in LotR.  They aren't biological organisms.  They were magical creatures created by Morgoth to be weapons.  Orcs weren't naturally occurring organisms.  They were twisted things made to be foot soldiers.  Biology was not a factor.     

I think the weapon differences can be fun, but difficult. I always like 3e's method of varying weapons by giving them different abilities. So, for example, the ability to wield a longsword with one or two hands, and the difference is either being able to use your off hand or getting a damage bonus. The only downside is that it might favor some weapons. Then again, there's a reason some weapons were so common in real life. A spear is easy to use, can set against cavalry, and you can support over the guy in front of you.

Another example is the billhook: you can poke, slash, and chop. It can be used to support allies, and you can use it to drag cavalrymen off their mounts. I think having abilities tied into the weapon for this make them unique, but then again it makes stuff like a shortsword look meek in comparison. At the end of the day though if players flock around a handful of weapons it makes it easier to stock magic weapons you know they'll use.

Bonuses vs. specific armors is really cool but really unwieldy. It makes sense that a mace gets +2 vs Plate, but a sword has -2. However, it really can slow down combat. I liked AD&D 1e's approach where weapons get a bonus/penalty vs. a specific AC, but that loses out on some of the realism since a high DEX thief with leather can have a 3. Why would a mace get a bonus against that? Either way, I think it's neat but I will say I think you either gotta go whole hog with realism, or nothing at all.

Either way, if I found a Billhook +1, I'd be a happy Fighter.

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMCorrect me if I'm wrong: Tolkien was the one who introduced anthropological realism into fantasy literature. Before that we had legends and myths and fairy tales, but the grand idea of a Secondary World complete with legendarium, songs, languages, lineages, religions (of a kind), creation myths, and verisimilar histories, didn't exist until he literally wrote the book on it.

TRPGs trace their ancestry to D&D, which was heavily influenced by Tolkien, as we all know. But, there the seeds of their destruction were sown. By making fairy tales anthropologically realistic, the stage was set for inserting Boasian anthropology and Wokism into the literature. The biological essentialism that informs fairy tales of evil dragons and goblins, the ontological reality of good and evil, and the ignorance of ecological ramifications of fantasy elements, we must count down to destruction, as the real-world, contemporary opinions of these things arrogate all gamerdom.

That is, by making our TRPG worlds as, or more, realistic at Tolkien's in their ecologies, and ontological and anthropological assumptions, we open the door to the presently fashionable political agendas on these things that end up removing their fairy tale underpinnings.

I generally avoid the world of Lit-Crit if I can, so you'll have to pardon me if I misread the terms here.

If by "anthropological realism" you mean writing fantasy as if it was history, that goes back to at least Robert E Howard. As early as the late 1920s and early 30s he was already casting his Thurian and Hyborean ages as a prospective or alternative history of prehistoric Earth. The word "Legendarium" rarely gets used for anyone other than Tolkien, but the first one in modern literature is almost certainly the Cthulhu Mythos as created by Lovecraft, Derleth, Howard etc. in the 30s.

If you mean applying that realistic approach to fairytale creature like elves, trolls and so forth, then it's a stronger attribution to Tolkien, but it's worth noting that other authors were moving in the same direction at the same time. Poul Anderson is the obvious example. Three Hearts and Three Lions (1953, expanded/republished in 1961) casts elves and dwarfs in science-fiction terms, with nebulous scientific reasons for why they are the way they are. The Broken Sword (1954) keeps more to fairytale/mythic logic, but still takes what could be argued to be a relatively realistic approach by delving into the politics and culture of elves and trolls. But even C.S. Lewis could be argued to have been moving in that direction with the way he treats creatures like fauns and dwarfs in the Narnia series. I haven't read Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter (1924), but from what I've heard, it's possible the approach has its roots that far back.

This is relevant, because both the 20s/30s pulp witers like Lovecraft, Howard and Derleth, and the 50s/60s ones like Poul Anderson are inspirations expressly cited by the creators of D&D. It's highly speculative, but I think it's reasonable to say that even without Tolkien's influence, D&D might have emerged in a substantially similar form to the one we actually got.

I also think it's a bit unfair to Tolkien to assert that Middle Earth is anthropologically realistic. Middle Earth is highly detailed, but its style and themes are still firmly grounded in the fairytale and mythic traditions. This is more clear in The Hobbit and The Silmarillion than it is in The Lord of the Rings, but even then it's still the case. Tolkien's background was as a professor of languages with a specialty in Anglo-Saxon literature. He famously despised allegory and was not charitable when asked about realist writers like Frank Herbert.

The development of a "realist" perspective on things like elves and orcs is I think more fairly laid at the feet of writers that followed Tolkien without understanding him. Though he doesn't use elves in his books, the best example is George R.R. Martin asking what Aragorn's tax policy is, obviously not understanding why the question is entirely irrelevant. Sadly, I have to say that Gary Gygax and Ed Greenwood are probably major contributors to this, as the needs of developing a game world require that you look at things like social organization and economics, where a novelist doesn't need to.

At the end of the day, Wokists are going to find an entry point into anything. The non-Tolkien school of fantasy novelists generally come from a more science-fiction or historical-fiction influenced background. That approach is, if anything, even easier insert a Woke crowbar into, since it has a greater implied grounding in real world logic. Absent Tolkien's influence, I think it likely that fantasy literature develops more heavily into a rationalist approach rather than a fairytale one.

More often than not, I'll describe the really big combats with some details but I never get out of hand. My usual friend group keeps it light, but we won't just roll dice. It'll go something like:

Player describes their action: "I swing my sword at the goblin" or perhaps "I loose an arrow at the goblin"
DM describes its outcome: "...and you strike it!" or "...it whizzes past it."

I've gotten quite good at describing different ways a monster/pc/npc can be struck with various attacks and spells. It's enough to give them a good mental image, but I don't have to monologue either. Nothing ground-breaking, but it works.

There's different ways DMs can make combat interesting, or boring, for different groups of players.
#dnd #ttrpg #osr

Quote from: SHARK on April 21, 2024, 11:08:21 PMGreetings!

Yep! Man, Avalon Hill was the greatest! I actually went to some game conventions way back, when I was on leave in the Marines, and at one convention I was playing Third Reich. It's actually "Rise and Decline of the Third Reich"--but somehow, it always got nerfed to just "Third Reich". Anyhow, some buddies went with me, and on one day, we were taking a break, and went into the game hall next to us--they had several enormous tables set up for miniatures wargaming. This one table, probably 12 x 12, it was enormous! It had this fantastic scene of the beaches at Normandy, with this little  village inland, hedgerows, trees, everything! They had weird netting set up like a foot or two higher than the board, with occasional Christmas lights. Then there were all these painted miniatures, infantry troops, artillery, tanks, half tracks and trucks. It was pure awesome! About a dozen older men gathered around, playing this game. The leader of the German side was this large, older black man, dressed in full Waffen SS Officer uniform, including a patch over one eye! *Laughing*

I found out he was a retired US Army Master Sergeant, a veteran of like, 30 years in the Army. His buddies were all Army, Marine, and Air Force veterans, as well. It was a spectacle! They definitely made an impression on me with miniatures wargaming!

But yes, the old Chit-style of wargame! *Laughing* I played Third Reich, Squad Leader, Russian Campaign, Russian Front, Panzer Blitz, and Panzer Leader! I had all the modules for Squad Leader, and Advanced Squad Leader. Yeah, and that big orange binder!!!! Tabbed rules and notations and everything. Rule 162.56. *Laughing*

Yeah, fun games! I don't think I could convince anyone near me to play them though, so I have them stashed away on my bookshelves. Hanging out, nice and pretty. I have kept them all in mint condition, too.

Have you made up your forces all awesome? Do you use any of the unit decals?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Man that scene of Normandy sounds familiar. I've seen some large displays, but probably nothing of that size. As for those Avalon Hill games, they could be a marathon but damn if they aren't fun! I'll have to check out that Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I've been wanting to get a really big WWII game for a few years now, but I haven't found anything yet. Actually want to get a WWIII game by Compass Games but it's a monster. But for those games on your shelves, I hope you can find someone to game with them. Those things are practically gems.

As for my own forces for Bolt Action, most of them are painted. I've got a few platoons for Soviets, Germans, and a single Japanese platoon. I tend to stick to Soviets vs. Germans just because I find that theater so interesting to study. I only use unit decals on my tanks and vehicles, however. I've tried like hell to use the helmet decals for my Germans but it is way too difficult at that scale. I'd like one more platoon, but it'll either be Australians, Brazilians, or Italians. Not sure yet.

Quote from: Fheredin on April 22, 2024, 04:27:28 PMDark Souls would need a custom system to do it justice because the "Hollowing as a metaphor for the player quitting the game" metaphor is unique to Dark Souls. I actually can't think of a good way to embed this into a TTRPG, which makes me think the definitive version of Dark Souls will forever remain the video game, even if someone does manage to make a TTRPG out of it. It is a work of art which uses the video game medium as a choice.

I've put a bit of thought into this, albeit without coming up with a satisfying solution. Because of the way Hollowing affects NPCs and the general themes of the game, I think you can fairly interpret it that Hollowing sets in when you lose your sense of purpose. The difficulty then becomes coming up with a "purpose" mechanic. Just spit-balling, but one way might be to require players to assign a grand goal to their character, and deduct Humanity points when they suffer a significant setback. That unfortunately smacks a bit too much of story game mechanics and DM fiat, though. You could also introduce some kind of "Hollowing Save", based on a willpower-like stat, which occurs whenever they die. That'd be more workable and fair, but loses a lot of the thematic purpose of hollowing.


So yeah, you're probably right. It's a mechanic which serves videogames much better than any other medium.

Ed Piskor's suicide note where he names the people who killed him.  This is being memory holed as we speak.  There have been no real consequences for what they did.

I'm so sorry for being so stupid. I definitely should never have talked with Molly D. The language and optics look real dumb at best but I promise my innocence. Especially out of context it looks terrible. It was the height of Covid with no end in sight and I was alone through most of it . I was just happy to have the internet to talk to people with common interests. The way that I noticed her was when she would like a bunch of my picture at once. I wasn't trolling Instagram randomly but I definitely shouldn't have chatted with her when I found out how young she was. Seeing someone younger representing r crumb and GG Allin gave me hope for the next generations and made me curious. Curiosity killed the cartoonist. There was no way I'd have a 17 yr old stay at my place. Maybe not 18 even. I was forward projecting to some unknown future where Covid lockdowns were finished and we could see people again. And it wasn't even with sex in mind but simply saying that there's a bed here to crash like the kindness that was given to me a bunch of times when I was starting out. "Zine fair in town? Come crash". Ask Liana Finck or anyone else who's come to visit. It doesn't mean sex. When I asked if she could keep a secret it was because I was sharing some red room pages before announcing the book and was just trying to sound cool. Tone is missing. When I said "naughty girl" it was sarcastic after she told me some simple crime or infraction she committed. The whole pile of my dms she collected to show is just awful to look at. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to offer professional favors to anybody or use my "position" (what a joke) to get into anyone's pants. We're all in the art game so why not introduce new friends to old friends? When I was bringing up any professional stuff to anybody it was just common ground conversation.

 Then seeing these dms even further out of context on other news outlets and media sites. Matt P at the Pgh city paper, you know what you did to skew your narrative. Fuck you. But they surely gave themselves their own plausible deniability by asking me for comments right as I'm trying not to jump off a bridge or something.

 Molly Wright is a conundrum to me and her actions border criminal. He said/ she said never looks good but none of what she said happened and I can't believe she'd be so malicious and pile on like this. Now that I'm officially checked out I think my family has a civil lawsuit and she should be held accountable. She pushed this over the edge into "multiple women" territory. It's so corny. I absolutely never asked for a blowjob in trade for anything ever. She successfully made me look stupid and everybody accepted her word as fact. Citizens of the internet are playing such dangerous games with people's lives. I never had anyone lined up for an open relationship with her. I never was interested in a relationship with her. We had sex twice and she initiated both times. The first time was a surprise. When we were done watching a movie or just hanging out (I don't exactly remember the circumstances 4 years ago) she jumped on me and started kissing me, telling me how comfy I made her feel. We quit hanging out during Covid lockdown but kept in touch here and there and I thought things ended naturally. Thankfully her post including the piece about me dissing Jim Rugg , super emotional "fuck Ed Piskor" type language, and the Red Room sales stuff portray she's a petty woman scorned. Punitive and false. My house was burning and she threw gasoline on it. There needs to be recourse for my loved ones. I'm dead. I don't have a reason to lie. Hold Molly Wright accountable, please. Reputation destruction is her form of aggression and there were very real consequences. My lawyer is Harris Miller. Is it possible to subpoena all texts and dms I had with her?

 Big titty Taff? Yeah, I would draw you naked all day and never apologize for wanting to. I like drawing tits and tattoos when I'm not drawing comics.

 I'm a solitary guy and I've put every ounce of my time and life into my work for around the past 20 years. I never felt satisfied with my skill so I constantly worked really hard and tied it all to my identity and self worth. Every waking moment was spent working and ideally I thought it would be best to have all friends who share the same passion. It's why I offered to introduce them to my friends. It's like my cherished Japan trips introducing Koenji Shawn to Bryan Moss and Moss to Skeme and Skeme to Danika. I was the only person who knew everybody on the trip and by the end of it, we were all friends.

 Social media was how I met people. My greatest relationship began at the end of Covid thanks to meeting on Instagram. A rocky but amazing 3 year relationship with someone who taught me true love. That said, I'm so glad we broke things off when we did so that she doesn't get any slack. She's way better off. Hope you're well, Clam. I never stopped loving you. This all happened before I knew you.

 Now it's all gone. Art show evaporated. Was about to sign a $75k deal for Switchblade Shorties with Abrams, Cartoonist Kayfabe ends with Jimmy's "shocking revelations" statement (those words hurt). I have no friends in this life any longer. I'm a disappointment to everybody who liked me. I'm a pariah. News organizations at my door and hassling my elderly parents. It's too much. Putting our addresses on tv and the internet. How could I ever go back to my small town where everyone knows me?

 Some good people reached out and tried to help me through this whole thing but I'm just not strong enough. The instinctual part of my brain knows that I'm no longer part of the tribe. I'm exiled and banished. I'm giving into my instincts and fighting them at the same time. Self preservation has lost out. From the sound in everybodies voice I think we all knew this was the conclusion. Jim Rugg came to my house unsolicited and gave me a hug and told me he loves me. If you know Jimmy, you know how huge that is!

 I'm sorry to my family for making such a mess (no pun intended) and for creating this hassle. I wasn't trying to be a creep. I'm also sorry to everyone who got this note and the baggage that may or may not come with it depending on how well we knew each other.

 I knew I wasn't going to be able to survive this. Comics is beyond a profession to me. It's everything. That might sounds sad and pathetic to some, but this culture and medium gave me the greatest joy in life.

 No public statements would do. Nobody against me would be convinced. Maybe this drastic move will convince a few? Maybe it will get a couple more people to consider not joining online lynch mobs over gossip? Doubt it will have much of a blip. I'm not doing this out of guilt though, once again, it was super dumb chatting with Molly D. My intentions were never nefarious with her or anybody. Im doing it out of intense shame. We're not built to have hundreds (maybe a few thousand?) people judging and/or harassing us at once. A private and solitary mind can't take it.

 There were so many out there waiting in the wings for something like this to emerge. Daryl Ayo Braithwait called it a kill shot. You all got your wish. You were waiting for something to blow out of proportion and it got served to you on a silver platter. Ramon Villalobos, Cam Del Rosario, JB Roe, Molly Wright, congratulations. You got your pound of flesh. Evan Dorkin, I hope skeletons from your closet get revealed someday. Alex DeCampi, may you continue to have zero success no matter how hard you continuously leverage other people's business from your bully pulpit.

 The very next morning after Molly D posted the screencaps I put my last will in testament together. Freewill.com. Great service in a pinch. These are the papers I was trying to hide from you, Jimmy, when you came by with soup. I actually found a nice lady and witnesses who notarized it and made it official on a Sunday morning. How's that for efficiency? It's sitting on my brown desk in the corner.

 Mom, Dad, Bob, JP, and Bri, I'm sorry. Mom, dad, get this will of mine straight and move into a nice home that doesn't have many stairs. Leave whatever you don't use the rest of your lives to my siblings. Daddy hit me up this morning and wanted me to come home but it's just too far gone. It was great hearing your voice today also, mama.

 The shame will never go away. Please make good use of what I've built up and take comfort for the rest of your years. This will give my life and this tragedy of events some positive meaning.

 These are the files for Switchblade Shorties. Please download it and maybe a book deal can be made for my heirs. Bob Mecoy was my agent and we were supposed to sign a $75k contract with Abrams. Maybe in death, after I explain myself, it will be something they won't balk at. Then again, the culture is sick enough that maybe a bidding war among publishers will push the price up even higher. Bob, can you try to get my folks a sweet deal? My family can use the money. Please download these files asap while my Google drive exists but they are also on the portable hard drive in my backpack that I had with me during my final act. Don't let the cops keep it forever. I brought my data with me so that it would be easy to find.

(Redacted)

 There's a black hardcover sketchbook full of autobiographical comics on my brown desk, standing up, in the hutch next to drawing tablets, that I intended to see print when I passed away. I didn't put anything in my will where that's concerned but hopefully it can find a publisher and get released. It was what we were gonna do with Fantagraphics under the title "Mudfish". I didn't sign any paperwork on that with Fanta so Bob, maybe you can help my parents there too?

 I realize that I didn't make any notes in the will about my authored books and intellectual properties. Jim Rugg, can you maybe help make sure my people don't get jacked by the publishers? I haven't gotten my HHFT omnibus royalties so my family should be getting a good check soon. Can someone make sure to hold Fantagraphics accountable with my royalties and perhaps an audit of their accounting books is in order also, to see if I got all that was coming to me. Eric Reynolds gave me no benefits of doubt and I don't know if fanta'd be tricky about my stuff in death. His suspicions of me make me suspicious of them. That's the thing that sucks about going through this. You don't know who your friends are.

 Jimmy, can you also post our unlisted videos and make our private streams to Patreon live to the public. That's the perception I wanna leave. A dude having fun talking comics with his brother. Please keep cartoonist Kayfabe up and monetized and share half the loot with my family each year. Maybe schedule the vids each day as we did for years until our roster is complete. Don't dissolve the llc but split the take with my heirs.

 Oh yeah, and I was avoiding the internet as much as possible, mostly relying on some friends who relayed me info here and there. I was not making/using burner sock puppet accounts to try to defend or attack. Hopefully those accounts will still tweet a bit so that you guys believe that, at least. Maybe someone can dig up ip addresses to confirm.

 What a week. I wouldn't wish this shit on my worst enemy. Leave it to me to get into trouble without ever leaving the house. I don't have email addresses for any of my family. Please get this message to them. My phone is fully charged and it's on so I'm sure it can be pinged and tracked by first responders. I have a battery pack case so the phone should be on for a few hours at the very least. My phone number: 412-915-4501, license plate: JFA8859

Im wearing a black hoodie. Maybe a black peacoat, black dickies, terrex continental boots.

 Hey mom and dad. Liz's rent is $675 and she just paid up through April. Let her move her man in with her if they take that step. Keep the house. It's not too shabby and will bring in a trickle of income each month.

 Anastasia James, please hook my parents up with that artwork from the show. I didn't watch the news reports but I guess you can get their address right off the video. These represent some of my best pieces for hip hop family tree and if I salvaged my name at all they will be worth good loot on the market. Don't sell the cover to volume 1 for anything less than $25,000

 Once again, I'm guilty of being stupid. No doubt. But, that's all. I never thought in a million years that I'd take this step but I also never in a million years thought that something so Orwellian would ever happen to me. Ya never know in this life.

 I was murdered by Internet bullies. Massive amounts of them. Some of you out there absolutely contributed to my death as you were entertaining yourself with gossip. I wasn't AI. I was a real human being. You chipped little bits of my self esteem away all week until I was vaporized. Maybe I'll be able to haunt you dorks as a ghost. I come from Gypsy heritage and I'm definitely cursing a lot of you.

 This is the calmest I've felt all week. It's over for me. I'm sorry for the hurt it'll cause my family and closest buds. I hope it makes people think twice when joining an internet feeding frenzy. There you have it. Control freak 'til the last. Peace out.

 Ps. There's $852 in my wallet,

cash, in case the Jake's get sticky fingers and steal my shit

Eddie P

1982-2024 

Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on April 22, 2024, 03:17:00 PMThe biological essentialism that informs fairy tales of evil dragons and goblins, the ontological reality of good and evil, and the ignorance of ecological ramifications of fantasy elements, we must count down to destruction, as the real-world, contemporary opinions of these things arrogate all gamerdom.

The difference is that nothing in Middle Earth that had its origins in the thought of Eru Ilúvatar COULD be inherently evil (aka Biological Essentialism). Not even 'Satan', aka Melkor, was evil in his beginning. The only creatures that probably were inherently evil were Ungoliant and her spawn (Shelob, etc). That means Orks were not inherently evil since there is enough evidence they were a combination of lesser Maia, Drúedain (Woses) and other Men from their very inception. This partly gets into Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth and The Tale of Adanel which explains a version of the Fall of Man, as recounted in Morgoth's Ring.

Ungoliant is one of the most mysterious of the beings in Middle Earth since she was obviously not a Maia (despite how Iron Crown Enterprises wrote her up), but more an 'Anti-Tom Bombadil', who is himself probably the living embodiment of The Music of the Ainur. Ungoliant (as the best theory to date) is the Discord of Melkor given form, but lacking a Fëa (ie - a soul).