I know that in solo dnd technically I could ease up at any moment by pulling back and not screw myself over, but honestly, where's the fun in that?

Anyhoo. Point is, one PC wizard, one expert sidekick, one warrior sidekick against five demobats was not enough. Granted, for some reason I absolutely could not roll above an 8 for the party while the bats consistently rolled 13 or higher. And damage from 2d6 averaged 11 per round (normally should be 7), taking out the wizard very quickly. So. Yeah. That was a thing.

No, I didn't get a chance to cast fireball. Or Web. Or Dragon's Breath. Or Suggestion. I probably should have, but given how shit the rolls were, it probably wouldn't have helped anyway.

Point is. Am in a bad mood atm, even if it's self inflicted.

Kthxbai.

So. Was playing a bit of Solo D&D. (My set up includes one full PC + 2 NPC sidekicks. Think of NPC sidekicks as the pen-and-paper equivalent of AI party members. Except instead of being limited by having dumb AI, NPC sidekicks are limited by having about half of the normal resource of a PC.)

Anyhoo, long story short, my PC failed three Survival checks in a row (rolled 2, 4, 3 in that order, no joke), so the party walked straight into the green dragon wyrmling's lair. The two sidekicks managed to both go down into death saving throws and I had to get them back up with healing potions using my PC. Then, while trying to fend off the dragon wyrmling, I managed to walk the party into a den of blights despite reading ahead and knowing this was going to happen. Because narrative logic says my character doesn't know shit thanks to failing the survival check three times and definitely would just...run into the nearest looking cave. So that was a thing. And then a freaking snake monster joins the fray, trying to charm my sidekicks then grapple my PC.

I was definitely convinced this was going to all end up in a TPK (again, my PC was down to 8HP, my sidekicks were down to death saving throws, it was not looking good). And in my infinite wisdom/desperation, I leveraged fucking Minor Illusion, a ha-ha spell that makes illusory objects which fit inside a 5-foot cube and, being a faerie and only 2 feet tall, I created an illusory cloud of darkness to block line of sight, thus blocking magic spells being able to target my PC and hoodwinked the wyrmling with blindsight (because blindsight cannot see through illusion magic according to rules as written), so this gave me the ability to...shock... survive long enough to use Mage Hand to force feed health potions into my dying sidekicks, bring them back up to an unreliable 6HP, then finally turn the battle around.

The entire battle lasted 8 rounds. I would like to mention that combat normally average three to six rounds. Point is, holy fuck, I was 8 hit points away from a TPK. Anyone who says D&D 5/5.5e can't reasonably threaten a well prepared team past level 2 is bullshitting. Also, fuck save or suck spells. Why is it that enemies are able to save against my spells every time?! My poor sidekick ate two critical multi-attack hits in the face. No amount of HP buffer was going to save it.

Also complaints about low level flying races being overpowered is absolute bullshit. Fuck that noise. My entire party could fly and it did nothing for us other than make us even more of an easy target because there's nowhere to hide in the air. Even with Minor Illusion filling the spaces with chunks of illusory cloud, it did nothing against the wyrmling's breath weapon.

So yeah. Solo D&D. Somehow still better than AI dungeon masters.

So, in my solo D&D adventures experiment, I've thoroughly experienced how the vibes of a campaign, more than system, can throw off whether a game is enjoyable. This also further cemented my belief that truly, system doesn't matter. Not really. A TTRPG system is merely a game engine, a collection of procedural rules on the matter of settling disputes that occur in the game world.

The real game is the vibe at the table and that's determined by the adventure module, not core rules set. And having run multiple different adventure modules in the D&D 5e collection, I've come to the conclusion that I hate Westerns. I absolutely loathe the frontier setting and I hate playing in a tiny village with a singular sheriff. Give me a megacity, or an absurd fairy realm, or even a survival horror story of crawling in the subterranean catacombs. Anything but the "Wild Wild West" aesthetic.

In other words: give me the political messiness of civilization or pristine brutal wilderness. None of this middling BS. Pick a side, you cowards!

In health news, apparently I got too excited too early, as immediately after crowing about feeling like a normal human being, I came down with some terrible infection that had me dripping phlegm for days, sweating feverishly and cramping. I'm tentatively recovering from whatever that was, though I still can't breathe properly through my nose.

I'm recovering from physical and mental exhaustion. Long story short, due to having anxiety and travel policies constantly changing, I had a hell of a time hosting. Along with physical exhaustion, I'm also mentally drained, on top of premenstrual cramps (apparently my body decided the week before menstruation is also an acceptable time to become inflamed and painful), I'm a bit nonfunctional at the moment.

So.

I'm writing shit on my phone because what else am I gonna do amirite?

International politics is crazy at the moment and I don't have the mental space to worry about anyone outside of my immediate circle at the moment. So instead, I'm watching DND-tube to distract my brain. Except this past week was Monster Week and the theme was Fey and I have... annoyances.

So much of DND is Anglo-/Euro-centric that it's honestly sometimes off-putting. When I'm playing solo, I can at least forget about how much of the space is dominated by this "White" centric culture. (I use "white" in the American understanding that, while there are still very much ethnicities, there is also a general schmear of Judeo-Christian influence with healthy dusting of Greco-Roman aesthetic that kind of all blends together into the concept of "universality" slurry referring only to the shared Western Civ roots rather than any actual human species universality.) But when I'm watching videos, it gets a bit hard to take the self-congratulatory "aren't we so inclusive" tones. Which is only mitigated by how much of the remaining communities don't even have that amount of awareness.

So I should probably get a bit more specific.

DND, despite going through roughtly 8 editions at this point (OD&D, AD&D 1e/2e, D&D 3e/3.5e, 4e, 5e/5.5e, plus however you count the BECMI versions), still very much adheres to the basic concept of "4-6 individuals go into known hostile territory to loot treasure." Very, very few DND written adventures have not followed this particular formula. One that comes to mind is the Strixhaven material (a magic school adventure that got panned widely) and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (an urban fantasy that garnered praise).

The point I'm trying to make is that DND at its heart, despite its push to present itself as a flexible system, is a game that participates in imperial colonialist values, albeit using the excuse of "they're the bad guys/monsters" as the justification for why it is heroic and completely reasonable for 4-6 plucky individuals to go traipsing in territory owned by clearly hostile groups of sapient creatures for the sake of taking other people's valuable items as their own. Concepts such as social contracts, collective action, institutional authority, interstate diplomacy... are meaningless. Apparently nothing is more efficient than a fireball. Well, other than upcasting the fireball, of course.

While DMs in the community try their best to come up with better ways to massage the "violence first ask questions later" mentality, exactly zero DMs consider it acceptable to end a campaign without an epic boss fight. (Which is only further reinforced by videogame RPGs, because combat is easy to code, diplomacy much less so.) And with the world as it is at the moment, yes, there's something comforting about escaping into the fantasy that all the world's ills can be curbstomped with a magical nuke. Yet, at the same time, it also feels bland AF and a bit disturbing when you consider just briefly that this further reinforces the idea that taking ill-gotten goods for oneself is totally acceptable if it's taken from the "bad guys." (Also, the "bad guys" are never "just some random rich dude who profits off of the exploitation of the poor." Oh no, it's always a lich or demon or cultist or some monstrous individual rather than, y'know, mundane human levels of evil like war profiteering or healthcare denials. Anyway.)

For me, personally, the most fun I had when playing a pre-written module was Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Because it was the only module where there was no fighting. Instead, the entire adventure was cleared through heavy roleplay and deal-making (albeit of the fey magic type), where the most helpful skills were not determined by how much damage you could do, but by the ability to put on magical disguises or find the right answers to inconvenient questions. Looting was discouraged and players are encouraged to find ways to barter and trade favors instead. In other words, diplomacy over violence.

So. I'm both escaping into DND and getting annoyed at the community's tonal blandness that lacks perspectives outside of the Anglo-/Euro-centric world view. Also getting tired of this "inclusive" posturing which doesn't question how the Western liberal values stem from a post-hoc justification for their imperial colonialist history and the maintenance of a world order that privileges the American-led political bloc by disadvantaging other nations and cultures.

Anyway. Thoughts.

Just realized I've been off... uh... doing stuff. Anyway, I had a rough month and a half or so, now I'm dealing with preparing to host along with a mild fever.

So. I'm probably not going to be around much, again.

Meanwhile, am getting way, way too into D&D for my own good. At least I haven't started buying minis! No, instead I'm just like...working on homebrewing. Which is like... I don't even know how to explain y'all. That's it. Peace out.

Context: I was reading an article on tabletop RPG design philosophy regarding crunch (aka number crunching, a short hand for "complex rules" in the TTRPG space) when I ran across some examples being given and suddenly have to headdesk as I realized the person is missing the point in terms of the literary difference between all the "Chinese kung-fu movies." Ok, let me explain a little more.

In the section titled "Different Rules for the Same Fictional Activity can be Completely Different" (scroll down or use Ctrl+F to find the section), the article uses three different games to illustrate how martial arts is mechanically different in three different games. The three examples are:

1. Rivers & Lakes, a game that focuses on using mechanics to generate tactical decisions during a fight that encourages learning the opponent's moves and devise a tactical move that leverages your strengths against an opponent's weakness.

2. Wushu, a game that rewards players mechanical benefits to encourage narrating complex choreography of fight scenes by handing out more dice for each detail the player includes in their "attack".

3. Hearts of Wulin, a narrative game that resolves fights in a single roll because it's more concerned with the narrative drama/consequence of the fight than the technical aspects of the fight itself.

Now, the article sums up this discussion with this:

Personally, I take a bit of issue with this (to me this combat system would be ideal for something like samurai fiction, westerns, gangster and crime fiction, etc. but is terrible for most forms of wuxia)... A Knight at the Opera

So my problems with this pointless aside is many. At the forefront, it speaks to a lack of understanding about Chinese martial arts movies. specifically a lack of nuanced understanding of the Wuxia genre. In fact, the three games listed as examples actually captures the three core engagements of the sub-genres of Chinese martial arts movies.

Allow me to get into the weeds a bit:

Chinese martial arts movies can be largely categorized into three sub-genre's:

1. Wushu (武术): in this genre, the movie's main theme is to communicate, ostensibly, anti-war messages. For you see, one of the unifying philosophy in Chinese martial arts schools is to stop war by improving one's self-defense strength. The belief is that military/martial strength is in service of defense and only defense. Expect some lesson about "self improvement to ward off bullies" to show up at some point. And if they fail on the philosophical aspect, the movie at least hopes to educate the audience a little bit on the actual design philosophy of a school of martial art, such as how Taiji was invented.

2. Kung-fu (功夫): this genre of movies is less concerned with the philosophy and more interested in showcasing awesome technical ability. Kung-fu (功夫) literally translates into "effort". In other words, the goal is to showcase the actor's ability to pull off stunts that took decades of training to perfect. This is the main type of "martial arts movies" that makes it into the West.

3. Wuxia (武侠): movies in this genre are less interested in the martial arts itself and more interested in the heroism and the interpersonal/political drama. The martial arts is more of a framing device to focus on the character rather than any interest in the actual fighting. And the books that inspired these movies often handwave away the nitty gritty details of the actual martial arts stuff.

So this is my very long winded way of explaining no, actually choosing the narrative focused resolution system when mimicking Wuxia is actually very appropriate. The game Wushu is inaccurately named and should have been called Kung-fu (or Gong Fu if you want to be culturally sensitive). Finally, Rivers & Lakes is more of a "Wushu"-esque game because it intends to use actual martial arts philosophy in the game design.

Aaand... yeah. That's my rant over.

Apparently "becoming Chinese" is a meme/phase now?

My feelings are... "Huh?"

I mean, sure, whatever I guess. I'll just be over here enjoying my high speed rail and door-to-door grocery deliveries (with free delivery because my bank gave me a VIP membership) while y'all drink goji steeped hot water.

(Confession: I'm drinking goji steeped rose tea with dragon's eye daily because something something "good for skin and menstruation". So, y'know. I'm living the stereotype.)

Is this the promised Chinese century? Because it's a lot more banal than it was propagandized to be.

BTW, if anyone wants to visit China, I've just learned that there are 38 countries with Visa Free tourism for up to 30 days, and an additional 50-something countries that get Visa Free transit for up to 10 days. (I only know this because I'm preparing to host some friends who are planning to take advantage of the visa free travel.)

In other news, I had to replace my cabinet, because the bamboo material deformed under constant pressure from my PS3 sitting on it and now my muscles hate me. I don't even know how I pulled something, but I definitely pulled something.

I've been trying to get a satisfying result from AI and so far, it's been bleh. I mean, it's possible that I'm just expecting something that isn't possible with AI, or it's just that AI requires more programming to network together modules/agents/whatever the term is so that it can actually do what AI Dungeon is proposing it does.

Long story short, I'm trying to reproduce a TTRPG experience with AI, with AI running the story, world lore, NPC characters, party members, and me roleplaying an adventurer in a typical D&D setting. I'd thought leaning on D&D IP could maybe help the AI to be more creative about its responses, but I'm finding it difficult to generate meaningful progression.

For example, the context fed to the AI contains information that my character's spellbook (which is necessary for casting of spells) is inside a magical hand purse that is bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. Yet, the AI insists on writing that the spellbook is retrieved from or put away into a satchel. Or in another example, a major bullet point in the context states that my character is an elf fostered and raised by humans, yet the AI insists on having characters in the story speak to my character as if she grew up in elven society. It's as if the concept of adoption by a different culture is completely foreign to the AI.

I often see people try to brush this off as "minor details" which is infuriating. I don't know if gamers are just terrible at understanding narrative or if AI has degraded people's understanding of how world building works. No, if a character is raised in a foreign culture that's a pretty fricking huge part of the characterization. I also can't figure out if "elf" is just has too much valence for the AI and anything else that come after is swamped out by all the training data on the "ethereal elf" trope that's all over fantasy or something. (Good luck trying to get the AI to associate elf with a Keebler elf, despite feeding it description after description. No, an elf must be graceful, WTF. Despite D&D wood elves being far more inspired by a brownie than a Tolkien-esque elf.)

And then there's the issue of AI not being able to create anything new. Tell AI to avoid A, B, C elements in the next section of the narrative and it will inevitably come up with nothing other than rephrasing and repeating A, B, and C elements. Tell it to pick an option between A or B and it will inevitably pick both.

At this point, I'm a bit annoyed at the company for releasing a product that over-promises and under-delivers. If I wanted to be in the driver's seat dictating the success and failure of every turn attempt and describing to the AI what is an in-character response and also managing the pacing of a scene while keeping track of world lore and overall plot progression, then I'll go write a story or play solo TTRPG.

So, I've been doing some solo D&D (maybe I'll have the energy to write up on the hobby at some point), but anyway, point is, I have issues with the Wizard.

The biggest problem balancing D&D wizard is the fact that, in this game, every other spell casting class faces significant spell casting limitations.

Before I go through each class, a quick primer on how spell casting works in D&D:

( Vancian Magic )

So, let's run through the list of full spell casters (aka the classes that can cast level 9 spells) and see how they stack up:

( Read more... )

So, we've identified the wizard's problem. It's got the power of a sorcerer, the selection variety of a bard, the flexibility of a druid, and the ... OK, see, I'd say that a wizard and a cleric fulfills two very different niches until you realize WISH exists. See, the thing about WISH is that it is effectively a spell that replicates any spell (even 9th level spells if you are willing to take the stress).

And that's only getting into the core wizard without touching on all the subclass bonuses that comes along.

It really becomes a case of why play anything else other than wizard when everyone else is effectively a down grade of wizard? (Again, with maaaaaaaybe an argument made for cleric due to wizards having to resort to necromancy when it comes to restoring the team in early levels, but that poofs away in late game when there are many, many other ways negate damage.)

And all you really need to do is see this optimization video to realize oh, akshually, fuck playing anything not a wizard.

Yes, yes, there is the basic fantasy of "but I just wanna swing a big sword", but beyond the narrative reason, game mechanics doesn't really offer a compelling reason to try something else out.

So. Here's my very simple proposed fix:

( Just. Limit. The. Wizard. More. )

(Am sick, so brain rambling.)

D&D and TTRPG design thoughts

( Read more... )

Honkai Star Rail - quick thoughts

And speaking of lore... Well, what can I say? It's been a while since I've dipped into HSR but what I've read has not filled me with much enthusiasm. Such is the unfortunate fate for those of us who have a tendency to prefer side characters. It's really a bit dispiriting to see HSR drop the opportunity to push more Chinese-cultural framing into their storytelling. If you can't rely on a Chinese company to incorporate Chinese themes, then...well.

And I'm also a bit annoyed at the Wuxia/Xianxia genre becoming the international "representation" of Chinese culture. Mostly because for me, I always found the political imperial dramas (such as the Three Kingdoms/Water Margins in the classics and 《汉武帝》/《唐太宗李世民》 for the more modern representatives) to be more defining of Chinese media. And I don't mean that it has to be a period piece, but political maneuvering and machinations always makes its way into most Chinese stories, regardless of whether the story is modern or a period piece or futuristic science fiction.

So I was really hoping to see more political machinations, deal making, treaty negotiation (but y'know, on a stellar level given HSR's sci-fi setting), yet we keep getting the same old same old "adventurers on a journey and beat up baddies" type of story. And the abandonment of the traditional aesthetic for the bog-standard "Western" aesthetic when it comes to basically well...everything.

Anyway, am disappointed in HSR. Not sure what else to really say at this point.