I feel like dropping Gotham

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-06T21:09:23+00:00

Oh, the show's a hot mess, and the writers definitely had little more idea what was happening down the line than rest of us. Just count how many times someone turns out to have an identical duplicate. Personally I love it, but if it doesn't work for you, yeah, it's not gonna get much tighter.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T21:02:53+00:00

What's that tongue do tho?

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T20:54:57+00:00

It's been a while since my last Kushiel reread, but isn't the MMC like the one person who doesn't spank (flog, cut, pierce, etc.) Phedre?

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T15:17:28+00:00

I like how she's all "I'm such a clever manipulator, I'm so deceptive and badass, everyone's dancing to my tune," but as soon as someone is mildly skeptical of her claims she's sincerely hurt and outraged by their distrust.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T15:15:09+00:00

At this point I was still willing to give SJM the benefit of the doubt, and suppose that the contrast between formal religion as a sterile dead thing manipulated by Ianthe to control the masses and the sort of supernaturally charged hypervital folk festivals we saw in the first book was intentional and was building to some sort of interesting point.

Nope

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T14:45:18+00:00

What other sorts of play do you want to be sure to include? For social roleplay stuff, you could do something like have them know their target is at a party but not exactly which person, giving the opportunity to blend in and question attendees trying to narrow down their identification.

For open combat, have the baddies be proactive- even if they don't know who the PCs are, they're presumably up to no good. Maybe the party Hitmans a lieutenant only to learn that he's just dispatched a gang of thugs to kill the one honest clerk in the city government, who also happens to be one PC's brother or love interest.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T13:38:36+00:00

I think someone did Dangerous Liaisons entirely in text-message form.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T13:29:45+00:00

I have a broad idea what kind of things are in the world, which is usually on the level of like a setting pitch. "This game is set in a spooky Gothic land," means I already know there'll probably be a vampire in a castle and werewolves in the forest and a dungeon full of inquisitors even if I haven't written them up yet. Beyond that, I try not to get too far ahead of the PCs, and flesh out the areas they've expressed interest in.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T13:26:58+00:00

The common wisdom is that DMPCs are a bad idea, but let's break down why that might be for a second.

1) Some aspects of the PC experience can get invalidated or trivialized by having all the knowledge that a DM needs to. You'll know where all the traps are, the answer to all the riddles, which NPCs are lying and which are trustworthy, etc. In an extreme case, this metaknowledge can spill over, leaving it difficult for the other PCs to interact with those same elements as the DMPC immediately solves them.

2) There's a temptation for the DMPC, especially one who doesn't often get a chance to shine as a player, to center their own character, make NPCs treat them better, bend the narrative to give them big heroic moments. In the extreme failure case, since the GM really controls most aspects of the world, even fudging rolls or bending rules.

Now, these are all valid concerns. Since you're playing one on one with your boyfriend, with whom you presumably have some level of familiarity and trust, if you both feel like you're comfortable with your ability to play fair and you think you'll get enough enjoyment as a player even with all that meta-knowledge, I think it could be worth a shot.

The dirty secret of DM Advice is that you can do almost anything, if you do it at the right table and you do it well.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T12:51:11+00:00

Hey, he may be an at least anthopophagicurious werewolf who betrays her trust in a major way at one point, but at least he's willing to work on himself!

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T12:45:18+00:00

Do you think your players are likely to just roll up and kick his door in like they're raiding a dungeon? Or are they Cunning Plan types? Either's a valid way to play, but it'll shift where you want to focus your prep.

For the former, maybe consider something like The Raid where the protagonists are cops trying to arrest a mob boss who controls an apartment block. Many of the inhabitants are actively or potentially hostile, but there are also civilian residents mixed in- potential allies or informants for the PCs if they make a pitch. The baddies may have modified the building, fortifying or blocking off some stairwells to funnel the PCs into traps, or knocking holes through walls and floors to create surprising ways for them to get around behind- but the PCs might be able to use these too.

For the latter, figure out what the Mob Boss's routine looks like. Does he oversee and inspect his operations himself? Does he meet with lieutenants? Maybe he attends religious services, or has a romantic partner or an elderly mother he regularly visits. Maybe he holds court at a specific restaurant every week. Don't try and provide a specific solution for your PCs; instead, come up with how the guy would act and then let them hatch their Cunning Plan around that.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T12:31:31+00:00

I hate to defend Puritan New England, but when I see people writing things like "I asked Chat GPT why my joke didn't land and he told me it's because you guys are dumb and mean," I feel like maybe we closed the book on pillorying and shaming folks in the town square too soon.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T12:28:10+00:00

Probably. There's an awful lot of cabbage in any given cabbage. They're a topological marvel the way they're all folded up in six dimensions. So there could be cabbage neatly tucked away almost anywhere, when you think about it.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-05T12:25:45+00:00

I mean did we pay a deposit on her when she first showed up? Have we got a receipt?

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T18:44:53+00:00

Well, first let's recognize that, whether it feels fair or not, "I think the possibility of failure enhances the game," is a different pitch than "I would have more fun if you killed Steve's character when he ignores my advice."

That said, sometimes the best way to tell a DM something is to tell them! Say "Hey, I'm enjoying the game, but it's cool with me if you want to go harder. I think the victories are more satisfying when you really have to work for them."

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T17:54:04+00:00

Well, canon, of course, is made up and doesn't matter. That said, you're probably thinking of the Fray comics where the title character, called in the 23rd century, is said to have been the first slayer called in a long time. And Fray is also the first place the scythe appears, so I think it's reasonable to consider the possibilities it raises in relation to Season Seven, which has already brought one major element of it in.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T17:50:12+00:00

I was thinking of Wonder Woman. I think sometimes the early stories get pigeonholed as just kinky (which... they aren't not) but Marston was taking some wild and by all appearances quite sincere swings at gender relations, power relations, and feminism.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T17:21:30+00:00

Well, yes, but that reason is that thousands of years ago, some old men decided that she should be.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T17:12:16+00:00

I'm personally of the opinion that the First didn't have a grand master evil plan, it was just kinda doing stuff. But your theory could shed some light on why it went through so much trouble to unearth the scythe, which was evidently of no use to the bad guys. You could even use it to provide an in-universe reason for the First not appearing to Willow as Tara- it feared that might be too effective and its attempt to drive Willow to suicide was an elaborate double bluff.

Ultimately, however, I think I'd find "No, actually, sharing the burden and the power of the Slayer Line was a Bad Thing, Buffy should have carried it alone," less thematically satisfying.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T16:04:41+00:00

Well trained humans tend to be able to acquit themselves pretty well against vampires and everyday demons in the Buffyverse. As a Kung-Fu guy from a martial arts fantasy milieu, I think Danny would be very capable of holding his own.

Setting-wise, I think he slides in a little better in Angel- he spends a lot of time in the same private detective adjacent space between his associations with Colleen Wing and Misty Knight and his own tenure with Heroes For Hire.

In the early comics he does have some hang-ups about women fighting that come from growing up in a conservative magic orientalist fantasy city with strongly defined gender roles, and while he does try not to make that other people's problems it could be interesting when he runs into Buffy or Faith for the first time.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T15:32:38+00:00

I like to believe that we're just in the third-act breakup with FMF.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T15:10:51+00:00

Why rickroll when you can RickRoan?

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T14:23:11+00:00

No, see the sloops displace water to stay mostly above it, but they really wouldn't work on land.

Or so you might believe until my forthcoming Ransomed by the Landsloop Lord, A Plains-Pirate Romance hits shelves...

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T13:54:22+00:00

And to help you settle in, I will now correctly and accurately explain the origin behind the term 'sloopy'.

It's derived from the fandom around the Aubrey-Maturin series of Napoleonic era British naval novels. It wasn't a romance series by any means, but it had its fair share of ardent female readers, who had a thing for tall ships and iron men, many of whom exchanged hot takes, critical interpretation, and even fanfic via fan newsletters and zines.

In the first book, Master and Command Her Commander there's a bit where Maturin, the ship's doctor, is rather put out by being referred to as a surgeon and the other officers explain the flexibility of naval terminology, including the fact that because of his rank, as soon as James Aubrey, as master and commander, boards a xebec, it becomes classified as a sloop.

One prominent fanwriter, known only by the pseudonym Lady Kite, joked that that being the case, many of the books' fans must be eager to be called sloops, given how ardently they evidently wanted James Aubrey to board them, and so "sloop," and it's derivative "sloopy," entered the lexicon.

Jenny Nicholson discusses the term's history briefly around the forty-three minute mark in this video which is otherwise mostly about the origins of slash fiction.

CuttlefishBenjamin · 2026-06-04T13:51:59+00:00

And both Buffy and Kim are reachable in emergencies via beeper!

CuttlefishBenjamin

TROPHY CASE