Reblogged winguontheweb
Mega audino and mega audino magical girl because I’ve been a lil obsessed lately
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Mega Gardevoir super mega post.
The 4th one belongs to @docsyonide
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In the last few days, I've now had two run-ins with people on this site regarding the idea of a TTRPG's mechanics and rules impacting the roleplay aspect of said game. And from what I can tell, these people - and people like them - have the whole concept backwards.
I think people who only ever played D&D and games like it, people who never played a Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark system, or any other system with narratively-minded mechanics, are under one false impression:
Mechanics exist to restrict.
Seeing how these people argue, what exactly they say, how they reason why "mechanics shouldn't get in the way of roleplaying," that seems to be their core idea: Rules and mechanics are necessary evils that exist solely to "balance" the game by restricting the things both players and GMs can do. The only reasons why someone would want to use mechanics in their RPG is to keep it from devolving into
"I shot you, you're dead!" "No, I'm wearing bulletproof armor!" "I didn't shoot bullets, I shot a laser!" "Well, the armor's also laserproof!" "Nuh-uh, my lasers are so hot that they melt any armor!" "My armor's a material that can't melt!" And so on. Because we have rules, the players can't just say "we beat this challenge", and neither can the GM say "you haven't beaten this challenge." Because the rules are clear, the rules are obvious, the rules tell you what you can and can't do, and that's it.
So obviously, when the idea of mechanics directly interacting with the roleplay - generally seen as the most free and creative part of a TTRPG - seems at best counterintuitive, at worst absolutely wrong. Hearing this idea, people might be inclined to think of a player saying "I'm gonna do X", just for the evil, restrictive mechanics to come in and say "no, you can't just do X! you first have to roll a Do X check! But you also did Y earlier, so you have to roll the Did Y Penalty Die, and if that one comes up higher than your Do X die, you have to look at this table and roll for your Doing X If You Previously Did Y Penalty! But, if you roll double on that roll..."
But like... that's not how it works. Roleplay-oriented mechanics don't exist to restrict people from roleplaying, they're there to encourage people to roleplay!
Let's go with a really good example for this: The flashback mechanic from Blades in the Dark (and games based on Blades in the Dark).
In BitD, you can declare a flashback to an earlier point in time. Could be five minutes ago, could be fifty years ago, doesn't matter. You declare a flashback, you describe the scene, you take some stress (the equivalent of damage) and now you have some kind of edge in the present, justified by what happened in the flashback. For example, in the Steeplechase campaign of the Adventure Zone podcast, there was a scene where the PCs confronted a character who ended up making a scandalous confession. One of the players declared a flashback, establishing that, just before they walked in, his character had pressed the record button on a portable recording device hidden in his inner coat pocket. Boom, now they have a recording of the confession.
How many times have you done something like this in a D&D game? How many times did your DM let you do this? I think for most players, that number is pretty low. And for two reasons:
The first, admittedly, has to do with restrictions. If you could just declare that your character actually stole the key to the door you're in front of in an off-screen moment earlier, that would be pretty bonkers. Insanely powerful. But, because BitD has specific mechanics built around flashbacks, there are restrictions to it, so it's a viable option without being overpowered.
But secondly, I think the far more prevalent reason as to why players in games without bespoke flashback mechanics don't utilize flashbacks is because they simply don't even think of them as an option. And that's another thing mechanics can do: Tell players what they (or their characters) can do!
Like, it's generally accepted that the players only control what their characters do, and the GM has power over everything else. That's a base assumption, so most players would never think of establishing facts about the larger world, the NPCs, etc. But there are games that have explicit mechanics for that!
Let's take Fabula Ultima as another example: In that game, you can get "Fabula Points" through certain means. They can then spend those points to do a variety of things. What's literally the first thing on the list of things Fabula Points let you do? "Alter the Story - Alter an existing element or add a new element." I've heard people use this to decide that one of the enemies their group was just about to fight was actually their character's relative, which allowed them to resolve the situation peacefully. I again ask: In your average D&D session, how likely is it that a player would just say "that guy is my cousin"? And if they did, how likely is it that the GM accepts that? But thanks to the Fabula Point mechanic making this an explicit option, thanks to rules explicitly saying "players are allowed to do this", it opens up so many possibilities for story developments that simply would not happen if the GM was the only one allowed to do these things.
And it's only possible because the mechanics say it is. Just how your wizard casting fireball is only possible because the mechanics say it is.
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DITHERING AND COLOR THEORY PROPAGANDA!!!
WE NEED MORE SPRITERS USING DITHERING FOR THEIR WORKS! I NEVER SEE IT ANYWHERE!!! SHIFT + G EVERYBODY! I WANNA SEE IT EVERYWHERE!!! USE CTRL + U ON SMEAR CELS!!!
GO ALL OUT!!! WE MUST SPREAD THE DITHERING AND COLOR THEORY AGENDA!!! IT MUST INFECT THE ENTIRE YOMI FANDOM!!!
Reblogged otiksimr
“all zelda games are bad” clearly you’ve never played horsequest
dontgobreakingmyfart
ok so explanation of horsequest:
9 months ago i figured out how to glitch majora’s mask 3D to let me remotely control epona; i then got epona into places they’re not supposed to be and posted pictures to miiverse claiming i was playing “horsequest”
Zelda Heritage Post
Now you can play horsequest too
(Fair warning: I haven’t tried this, so if you have issues, I will be of zero help. ✌️)
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Hey there. I've recently done a little reread of one of my favorite arcs in DB, The Android Saga(and by extension the Cell Saga, kinda impossible to read one and not the other)
And part of me couldn't help but notice this interesting reoccurring theme of Identity and Self Worth. After killing Gero and as they're about to leave the Androids state that they're probably gonna try to kill Goku anyways with 17 saying "us Androids still need a Purpose after all". And their entire little road trip really seems to be just that, them searching for a Purpose, for something to do with themselves. When they ask what 16 wants to do and he simply states "I was created to kill Goku" they remark how it must be nice to have such a simple purpose.
And then there's 17 Vs Cell. Where it's kinda obvious 17 has banked a lot of his self worth on how strong he is. He can't run away because that would mean he's not the Strongest, that what little identity he's built for himself doesn't mean anything. And at the end 18 is so baffled by Krillin using the wish on her and 17, why would anyone?
And it extends further. This entire arc is just an utter beat down of the one thing Vegeta holds closest to him as his measure of worth, his Pride. There's the whole Nameless Namekian thing and a lot of weight on what it means for the individual components of Piccolo and Kami to become one. A lot of the human cast, even Roshi, have remarks about how if only they weren't so powerless, so worthless. Roughly quoting Roshi "to think there was a day I was called the strongest".
And Cell is the big one. As you yourself have put it Cell once Completed is utterly lost, he doesn't know what to do with himself and is desperately grasping for something to do, to define himself by. And even before then he puts everything on his eventual perfection, that he will be important, worth something once he's perfect.
It's a lot of interesting stuff I think that struck me and I wonder if you, my favorite source of Dragon Ball Analysis, had any thoughts of your own on the subject.
That is interesting, especially for how it compares to the other protagonists.
For Goku, as I've often said, the Cell arc provides the final capstone on his journey. Goku is someone who's never had to question his purpose. His is a journey of self-improvement through the cultivation of his art. He's been growing both as a martial artist and as a person since the day we met him.
Unlike the Androids, he's never had to wonder what his strength is for. It's for him, earned and built brick by brick every difficult step of the way, as a reflection of how he's grown.
Goku is a master, while the Androids and even Cell are children with silver spoons in their mouths. They've been given incredible capability to shape the world without any discipline and with little to no direction on what it's even for.
Gohan, too, has never had to question himself. He knows who he is. He's known what he wanted to do with his life since he was four years old. And yet the road he has to walk in the Cell arc isn't the road that will take him there. This is not his path to success, to his sense of purpose. It's not his direction.
It's a difficult tightrope for Gohan to walk. He has to get good at this thing so he can live in a world where he can pursue his true ambitions. He knows what he wants, he knows his purpose, but the reality of the Androids bars his path.
And Future Gohan is in much the same boat. He's the same person as our Gohan. The same heart beats in him. But he's trapped. He's in a cage of the Androids' making, forced to live solely in reaction to them and for nothing else.
Gohan's is a life ruined by the Android apocalypse. Which. I mean. Join the club. It's the apocalypse. But still. He does his best to be the man his father was but he has neither Goku's passion nor the mentorship he needs to make the most of his own potential, so the most he can do ends up being simply to guide Trunks on the road to his own purpose.
Trunks, on the other hand, is born to meet this moment. Like Goku, he knows who he is and what he wants to do, and every setback along his journey is just another stepping stone in forging him into what he needs to become to fulfill his clear purpose.
IDK. You bring up an interesting point and I'm not sure what to do with it but it is interesting.
Thx so much for answering!
I really didn't even consider how the theme reflected on the 3 major protagonists of the two arcs so I am utterly enamored by the points you bring to the table. And frankly that's all I could have asked for.
Your analysis of the series is what started me on rereading through it on my own with a more observant eye. So I'm more than happy to just share my own observations I find interesting, even if there's really nothing "Big" to take away from it.
