Posts Tagged "tao-of-dnd" from 2020

Good god. When I got to "general" I lost my fucking mind.

I simply cannot understand how anyone could look at the portion of text you posted, and said, "Yeah, this teaches something." It barely bloody says anything, let alone performs a pedagogical function.

The person who made the twitter post which inspired you to kick off this series? What the hell did she think she learned from this, I wonder.

(I'm still here and still read you every day. I'm suffering an injury that drastically limits my typing ability - a form of RSI. Haven't done any proper writing, coding, editing, translating, etc. for weeks, months. Dictation software proving to be near total garbage. Trying everything I can to recover.)

I am happy to refile my $10 a month contribution from "patronage" to "greasing the guru." :) I get the same feeling of "yessss! this is right" from your wiki work as I do from your meta-level explanatory work. So, no matter what you incorporate into your game, I have faith that you will continue to effortlessly* out-innovate the industry.

*Not to imply you don't work hard -- you do -- rather, "effortless" as in, OMG you're one guy with 24 hours and WOTC could fund a whole crew of Alexises if they wanted, yet you're still putting them to shame. "Effortless" relative to the effort they could bring to bear -- if sufficient numbers of consumers would buy what you have to say. But most don't wanna hear it. That's why you have disciples...

Your step-by-step guide gave me a chortle. I'm putting my Sinologist education to use with 猴拳, Monkey Style -- which is to say, I do my flinging underarm.

I feel I'm stuck in the past. Why rely on arm power? We've gotta have catapults, and launchers, and explosive contraptions -- gotta put as much fertilizer downrange as we can!

Good decision, Alexis. Your butt will be supported as never before!

It looks like your monitor screen is displaying a quotation -- what is it?

[part 2/2]

"Every experienced player I enter into my campaign becomes a 'troublesome' hodgepodge of necessary clarifications, negotiations, detailing, training, lines in the sand and potential argumentative blow-outs because the company could not agree on the game's fundamentals."

I blame DMs, too. You said the other day that the company has been selling us a bill of bullshit goods for decades. YES, undoubtedly. But who buys those bullshit goods, and why do they keep buying them?

Some guesses:

(A) People who don't take D&D that seriously and will buy whatever as long as it strings their campaign out another couple sessions.
(B) People who treat the official rules as ineffable wisdom, as gospel, instead of as a starting point for developing their own game.

The post title got me. Good one, Alexis.

In real life, I try to avoid thinking of people as good and evil. This helps me communicate with people I disagree with. Sure, some people are just awful, but in general I find that I learn more if I assume people have good reasons for believing what they believe, and talking to them about it. Given that NPCs should be like real people, not like cutouts, is it a useful DM practice to try and avoid thinking of any NPC as a villain whenever possible?

Related: what are good ways to add some straight-up evil to an NPC without them becoming a caricature? Is it as simple as thinking, "They want XYZ thing like the players do - they're simply less scrupulous about what they have to do to get it"?

I hadn't heard of any "mystical Chinese cannon." You prompted me to look up Wikipedia pages on the development of cannons in China.

By "mystical weapons," it seems you're referring to devices like "the 'orifice-penetrating flying sand magic mist tube' (鑽穴飛砂神霧筒) which spewed forth sand and poisonous chemicals into orifices," or the "divine flying fire crow" illustrated on this page, or perhaps the "fire lance."

What I love about your sage system is that every belief, every cultural practice, every tradition that humans have ever followed, can be given rules. Now "home sweet home" gets its due. Very good, Alexis. I'm glad your latest experiment has roused some interest.

Many congratulations to you both, Alexis!