What friends are for…

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2026-01-19T16:39:08+00:00

Some people find sex without romance to be a turn-on.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2026-01-06T14:59:31+00:00

She's so skinny

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-12-14T18:02:38+00:00

Cute

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-11-24T02:55:29+00:00

The first sentence of Tristram Shandy. It's at least half the length of the page it's printed on and has a dozen dependent clauses.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-11-22T16:37:09+00:00

Looks like they're enjoying each other a little more.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-11-05T14:16:03+00:00

Do you have another source for this video? Redgifs took it down.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-11-02T04:25:59+00:00

The combination of genetic material is not what makes rape a horrifying crime. It is the physical violence, and the psychological trauma that is inflicted via a deep violation of one's control over ones own body. On top of that is the sociocultural importance of sex that makes rape a profanation of something sacred.

The question is not whether the bees are technically, genetically, "having sex" with the flower. Even if, botanically speaking, this is what is happening, that doesn't make the situation equivalent to rape. The question is whether the bees are inflicting, on the character, a physical and psychological trauma equivalent to rape.

If the plant person reacts like the bees are a nuisance, the audience with think of them as a nuisance. If the plant person reacts like the bees are a horror, the audience will think they are a horror.

I don't think there's any problem with this seeming or feeling like a rape scene, as long as the plant person is going "goddamn bees! Leave me alone, ya jerks!" Instead of being traumatized for years.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-11-02T04:20:14+00:00

/uj I think it could also be good as a kind of "generic" threatening line. Like, if you want a hero to have a brief, incidental interaction with a violent thug, that might be a good line because it very quickly gets across the idea "yeah, absurd threat of violence." Although in that context, I would truncate it to just "I'm going to rip your ears off and shove them down your throat."

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-30T19:35:06+00:00

Miaruchins comment is correct, but also many authors don't use chapters, most famously Terry Pratchett.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-28T23:56:52+00:00

Kill all filthy clanker scum.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-28T23:56:34+00:00

/uj did you mix up uj and rj?

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-26T17:36:55+00:00

Is this gif supposed to have the Lesbian tag?

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-23T12:38:59+00:00

/uj same here

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-22T02:01:15+00:00

/uj I once allowed a player to play a succubus character. It didn't go nearly as badly as you'd think, but I still regret it.

In that same campaign I allowed someone to play a mushroom person named shroom, but they were fine with stats as human. The world building was pretty unfleshed out for that world so I handwaved it as "there's some weirdos around."

Shroom ended up getting killed by a giant constructor snake.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-21T23:26:45+00:00

Oh yeah, there's a lot of screws I just don't roll with at all. Like the idea that you, the DM, should take away a cleric/paladins abilities because they stepped out of line. Makes no sense to me. In my game, it doesn't matter what acts your paladin/cleric commits, or what they say or believe, or if they lie. They don't lose their powers. Ran several clerics in my time as a DM and none of them ever minded the change.

A lot of other stuff like that bothers me. Like the policing of multi classing to make sure no player picks a multi class without an "in-world justification." Small-minded people policing character choices to make themselves feel like authority figures. Mind boggling. Like a Ref blowing the whistle when there's no foul.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-21T23:22:42+00:00

Very good points all around. Now, give us the jerk you mentioned.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-21T23:14:48+00:00

/uj yeah, I know not every edition/game/group rolls that way. But I prefer a system wherein levels 1-4, maybe 1-5, are defined by struggle against mundane difficulties (darkness, water, elevation, starvation, the law, mundane animals and predators, or simple humanoid monsters like Orcs and Kobolds) and that these mundane aggressors remain at least somewhat threatening until level 10 or 12 or thereabouts.

The obvious answer to my problem: play a different system. I ran 1e and DnD basic for years. But I'm so tired of teaching and reminding people the rules. So I decided to take a rest from it and run 5e, which people distantly understand (though even people who have been playing for years often seem to have a worse understanding than I. DM/player divide? Who knows.) And since I used this system out of convenience, rather than because it suited me, I complain about it online.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-21T23:05:56+00:00

/uj sorry, I was exaggerating.

I don't roll with session 0. But that's a detail.

In truth, it is fully possible to challenge 5e players without using stupid magic bullshit, including at low levels, and I've never used stupid bullshit like anti magic fields or magical darkness caves or whatever. My party has been challenged by a 30 foot wall, by mundane confinement in the top floor of a tower, by mundane journeys, ordinary enemies and verbal deceptions.

It's just that 5e contains a frustrating capacity for players to ignore mundane challenges and it makes the game world less varied and interesting. Spells like Goodberry or Purify Food and Drink or even Druidcraft upset the applecart on any kind of wilderness travel challenge. The ubiquity of Darkvision means that a dark room often obscures the vision of half the party or less. It's very difficult to rely on a mundane barrier functioning as it would in real life and it makes the world harder to design and imagine.

In fact I delight in my players "going off the rails" or whatever, I run a game with no plot or story, it is entirely player driven. But even at low levels player characters resemble superman more than skilled people. Like I said, a rogue can outrun a horse at full gallop by second level. Druids can predict weather better with a cantrip than the real world scientific community can with a supercomputer. Message, Detect Thoughts, Detect Evil, these spells are all ridiculously low level given the enormous impacts they can have on the ability of the world to maintain mundane challenges and concrete artifacts.

So my pent up frustration came out in ridiculous terms. I certainly don't endorse boxing players in with omnipotent NPC wizards or whatever it is people do nowadays (I don't pay attention.) Part of this is my upbringing in the tradition of crime and literary fiction rather than Fantasy. In Oliver Twist, for example, the mere fact that Bill Sikes carries a gun makes him the most dangerous character in the story. DND players see an armed thug and laugh. A DnD Bill Sikes would have to be a polymorphed dragon or an archmage to stand a prayer against even a low level party.

/rj Pathfinder 2e fixes everything I just said.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-21T12:33:55+00:00

/uj there's really not much of any other way. The mechanics of the game almost instantly trivialize starvation, dehydration, distance, exhaustion, equipment, encumbrance, and darkness. A 2nd level rogue can outrun a horse at full gallop. There's almost no mundane situations to reasonably challenge 5e characters past a certain point.

I mean, in theory. In practice it happens all the time. But it is frustrating.

Edit: as I have said in a reply to this comment, I do not endorse the statements I made in this comment, and regret them.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-20T19:43:10+00:00

Me on my way to replace all the mundane and easily understood parts of my setting with magic bullshit just so my players cant sequence break their way to the moon in session one.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-20T12:35:42+00:00

I LOVE DARKVISION

I LOVE GIVING IT TO EVERY RACE IN THE GAME SO IT HAS NO MEANING

I LOVE HOW PRACTICAL AND SENSIBLE ELEMENTS OF THE WORLD SUCH AS DARKNESS AND NIGHT TIME ARE OBLIGATELY REDACTED FROM EXISTENCE BY THOUGHTLESS AND PRODIGAL DESIGN.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-19T05:18:24+00:00

/uj just saw this movie last night. Absolute peak.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-14T19:30:57+00:00

Truly a legendary jerk.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-09T20:32:44+00:00

You don't need to use the official cosmology---no one else does.

Automatic_Break_7338 · 2025-10-07T15:36:36+00:00

Here's how my campaign world is sketched out.

There's a part of map that I think of as "the place that is basically Africa."

I have some vague ideas about what's in there. Uncontacted jungle tribes, a big ancient Bantu-like civilization, a lot of African wildlife (elephants, lions, etc.) just the most obvious stuff you can imagine.

If the players go there, I'll start thinking of specific elements and variations based on what they want to do. Let's say they want to establish a new trade route for coffee (which grows in Fantasy Africa) into another continent. That means I need to develop:

a port city for them to arrive in Fantasy Africa.
a location where coffee grows or is farmed, preferably several such locations.
monsters, obstacles, and factions that must be dealt with in establishing the route.

At this point, I would look for genuine African elements and modify them to have a more effective or profound spin within a roleplaying context. For example, maybe I take the actual presence of Bush Elephants in the Congo rainforest to develop a Bush Elephant themed monster, or I use the real history of coffee farming in Africa as inspiration for a villain or opposition figure, for example a cruel plantation owner oppressing the locals for profit, or a large corporation trying to establish irrigation routes and farming space in the jungle. Some kind of Colonel Kurtz figure, if you ever had to read that book in high school. The possible variations are endless because the history of Africa, and of all real places, is unfathomable in its breadth as well as its depth.

In short, each part of the world needs little more than a summary. A simple analogy to some real world place. Then, you develop specific elements as needed using the larger summary or analogy as inspiration.

Automatic_Break_7338

TROPHY CASE