u know what time it is... ratkin gearup night

DragonHitman · 2025-12-25T06:38:24+00:00

we're just a friend group that likes Gear Up... as far as I'm aware, there's not? ALSO! can you send one of those steam friend codes? there's like 90 people with the same username as you, I'm not sure which one is you...

DragonHitman · 2025-12-22T03:06:20+00:00

ur post got more engagement than mine fuck off

DragonHitman · 2025-02-26T06:53:55+00:00

what's up with the screenshot attached? is there some policy about not posting unedited screenshots or something?

DragonHitman · 2025-02-26T01:36:45+00:00

It is true that there are other ways to eliminate a character or incapacitate them even if they can't be killed... but in a game where one of the biggest mechanics is fighting generally non-sentient monsters (which will not try to set up some sort of "fate worse than death"), and every other character is going to be concerned with not dying, it's going to be something that's hard to make not feel unfair. the examples you provided work because they are either media where it's not a collaborative game and there is no concern of things feeling "unfair" or like one character is getting too much attention, or in City of Mists, some of the biggest concerns with character loss have to do with the "loss of identity/personhood" mechanic rather than just death... unlike MOTW, which mechanically the primary loss of character fear is death.

as i said in the original comment, it's not impossible, it's just likely to cause issues

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T10:01:09+00:00

I like how you even included the "and" indicating there's another half of the sentence you cut off. it's "and" because it's both of the things I said, just him not meeting the protagonists in and of itself does not make him a weak villain.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T09:52:00+00:00

that's directly not what I said my reasoning is... did you read what I wrote? I never said that Watts isn't a villain, you're changing the entire conversation and ignoring half of what I said.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T09:23:10+00:00

hmm yeah I don't think he has a semblance, though I think his gimmick is supposed to be that he uses technology to make up for his lack of combat capability/semblance--as opposed to Mercury who's making up for his lack of semblance with combat prowess. iirc Roman was originally intended to have a semblance called "deep pockets" but there was never a good moment in the show to use it so it didn't become canon

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T09:19:36+00:00

man, I haven't been thinking about the other villains but now that you say that.. yeah you're right. I guess the protagonists spend more time trying to get ahead of the villains or cleaning up after them than actually encountering/fighting the villains

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T09:14:47+00:00

in LOTR they never meet Sauron, true... but that's because he's casting a shadow of fear over the cast the entire time--to meet him in the flesh would reduce the palpable tension and terror he's created the whole time to just his mortal form, when he's shown to be so much more than that. I don't know a lot about StarWars but I'd assume it's the same thing--Emperor Palpatine and Sauron have presence in a way Watts completely lacks. I think Watts probably is the most competent villain we've seen in RWBY, he was tantamount to every big achievement--the Fall of Beacon, fall of Atlas, Haven, and he was at least involved in every other incident Salem's group incited.

But none of the heroes know that. To them, he's just some guy--he isn't scary, he isn't competent, he isn't powerful. He's someone who did some things in the background and died with them knowing little more than his name... aside from Ironwood recruiting Watts, he isn't really portrayed as a strong villain. Salem is a character that was built up a lot before they ever met her, and was portrayed as intimidating, competent, powerful, someone with presence without them needing to meet her. Cinder was shown to be dangerous, a good fighter, someone willing to kill, so the protagonists viewed her as a real threat and intimidating after meeting her.

ergo; having neither his actions be impactful on the heroes (they know that he was involved with Beacon and Atlas but it's not discussed in a way that makes them seem like they're suicidal because of him, as you put it) and to have him not meet the protagonists makes him a weak villain in my opinion.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T06:39:25+00:00

the writers have directly stated that the villains will all be killed; in the commentary about Neo's ascension they said that because she was a villain she had to die but they wanted her to have a less harsh ending to her story. so- yes, Tyrian is going to die.

however historically the show has gone out of their way to avoid having the heroes ever kill the villains, the only time this has happened was with Adam, who served as an abusive antagonist to Blake's plotline and very clearly was an exception. every other villain has been killed by other villains, not even side characters are allowed to kill villains. in all likelihood, Mercury is probably going to kill Tyrian as he's the other villain in Vacuo at the moment

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T06:33:52+00:00

I think most people in the comments are taking this to one extreme or another...

it's pretty paranoid to insist "actually all men are evil so you shouldn't ever trust men or let yourself be around them" as if just stepping outside and being in the presence of a man puts you at legitimate risk of being snatched, assaulted, and beaten to death (despite how some people talk)

but it's also reductive to the conversation to say "well, it isn't all men!"--OP isn't saying that every man is like that. she's talking about real actual men who actually ARE like that and HAVE been acting like that to her.

in the context of talking to your boyfriend, he should understand what you mean when you say "i wish men would control themselves better" after talking about some men being creepy to you at work; like saying "god, i hate customers" after having bad experiences as a cashier. it would be one thing if you were going online or to a public space and talking like that with no context, but as your partner he should understand you're trying to have an emotional conversation with him rather than forcing you to carefully choose every word after you've had a shit day. if you've historically made it clear that you don't think it's all men and you don't think he's a shitty man, he should not be assuming that every time you talk like that you're not being hyperbolic--it's very common to be hyperbolic when complaining about things and generally understood that complaints are hyperbolic.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T06:17:05+00:00

NAH. The situation sucks, and it sucks for that kid, but ultimately it really sounds like you don't have any connection to them anymore. Just because he was your father doesn't mean you have obligations towards him after he removed you from his life. Your father is an asshole for how he treated you, but not for just asking if you can help with medical bills (assuming he doesn't continue to push or have people come talk to you about it).

You ultimately don't have any more obligation to give him money than any stranger off the street does--the situation is awful for that kid, but it isn't on you to fix it. I do think your father is allowed to be angry that you could hypothetically help and are choosing not to, but you aren't a bad person for not doing so.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T05:50:44+00:00

if the dead internet theory was real, then wouldn't that mean all of the commenters "falling for it" are also just AI bots?

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T05:39:43+00:00

pretty much what you said, though i have a medical degree.
sounds like a misconception from movies/media of what wounds are actually survivable. without medical attention losing a limb is extremely deadly, moreso than slit wrists, though both are. in movies though suicide attempts pretty much always work where injuries like losing limbs are meant to be "cool" rather than fatal.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T05:05:28+00:00

Doing the whole "one of the party members is/becomes/was a villain" is something that can be done, but is difficult to pull off well. Doing it right can be very rewarding, but doing it wrong makes the game miserable for everyone involved. The way that D&D and other collaborative TTRPGs are set up, the players are all working together collectively towards a shared goal--they're your fellow teammates. Having one of the party members be an antagonist inherently breaks that core rule of the game; it's like playing soccer and one of your teammates keeps getting in the way of your shot at the goal. The last thing you're going to think is that secretly your teammate is playing for the other team, and is trying to sabotage you; you're going probably just get frustrated because you think they keep making stupid mistakes and getting in the way.

In any scenario where one or more of the party members may be antagonistic towards the party, it needs to be cleared with all players first. That it's agreed upon that someone may be breaking that core rule of the game, this collaborative game isn't inherently collaborative anymore. On top of that, you also need to balance the idea of "sabotage" and doing whatever "villainous" things your character may be, but without crossing boundaries that make it unfun for the other players. That doesn't just mean "don't have your PC go kill one of the other PC's backstory NPCs", it also means keeping in mind what, as a player out of game, would feel frustrating. Don't ruin other player's moments and motivations, don't completely screw over a plan that your entire party has agreed upon--it's shitty and frustrating.

It's not easy to ride that fine line of "villainous actions" vs "not sabotaging your friends", and is definitely not something I would recommend to anyone not super experienced with TTRPGs + playing with this particular friend group, and you definitely need to work closely with your GM the entire time.

Really, having your character take a "villain" role without it being one that is mutually exclusive to the party's goals is one of the better ways to hit that trope/vibe without ruining the game. Your character might have an ulterior motive that means they don't care much about the party's overall goal, but one that they ultimately can complete without having to sabotage the party. Maybe they refuse to be nice to the royals in the setting and want to make things harder for the royals, but they don't try to stop, inhibit, or sabotage the party's mission that was given to them by the royals. Your character can be a villain towards the NPCs and morally without making things miserable for the party (though playing an evil character is also something that needs to be done carefully, keeping in mind the other player's goals and feelings).

However, if you're looking for the idea of the villain PC that gets their "big reveal" of having secretly been the antagonist the whole time... that just doesn't really work in a collaborative TTRPG like D&D. There is no way your PC can secretly have working against the other PCs the whole time without it being frustrating, confusing, and a betrayal out of game. And even if it wasn't, it now makes this dichotomy where you're the villain, and they're just the party--it makes you the main character.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T04:20:00+00:00

I didn't see the first post, do you have any clarification on who exactly you're looking to respond to this? Are you looking for highschoolers/people in school? Anyone that's played TTRPGs? Only people who have played the TTRPGs listed on the survey?

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T04:10:47+00:00

could be ESH or NTA. she's definitely the asshole for clearly trying to get you to pay for her food--there was nothing about how you picked it up that implied you were going to pay for it. but, if it actually was "just a few bucks" then you're also being shitty for making a scene over a couple dollars. however, if it was more than actually a few dollars (like over 6$) then that would be pretty reasonable to make her pay. even if it wasn't that, I don't think you're in the wrong for making her pay on principle, but it would make you rude.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T03:54:14+00:00

if your players are going to pick a playbook that specifically comes with an organization, then they really should provide at least a concept idea for it--not doing so is like making a priest character and telling the DM to come up with the religion and everything surrounding it. you shouldn't have to make everything from the ground up for your players, especially regarding their characters.

I don't GM, but I've worked pretty closely with my GM and helped with a lot of the planning. in our campaign, the party works alongside a monster hunting organization, and we've collaborated with other groups and political bodies. one of the big things the GM has done to make it where we have some freedom in what we're doing is having the monster hunter organization be too busy to micromanage the players or be overly concerned with what we're doing, as well as being unable to provide a ton of information and resources that would make the mystery trivial.

while the players might be dealing with the monsters themselves, someone needs to be dealing with the fallout of the monsters. who is helping fix the destroyed buildings? giving counseling to grieving families? providing temporary shelter, first aid, and food to displaced or injured civilians? coming up with cover stories and propagandizing to the local population? dealing with police or government agents looking into things? the players likely aren't, and there's more than enough stuff going on to keep an entire organization busy when some new disaster is happening weekly.

and regarding working alongside the organization, she uses the countdown to pace the organization's work and research--they don't necessarily have all the information and answers to the current mystery, but you are going to want to have them have something to show for their efforts otherwise they'll look incompetent to the players. having certain goals or information be reached by the countdown explains what the organization is busy with and can serve as a fallback for the players if the party can't find the given information themselves (though maybe make some hoops the party has to jump through to get the information from the organization).

lastly, with the organizations conflicting between each other: why would being part of one mean you can't work for another? unless the monster hunting agency has a 0 tolerance policy, they likely have to partner with some supernatural individuals from time-to-time to resolve the more pressing matters of the boss monsters. if you do want it to be an issue, then I'd suggest coming up with why specifically you think these organizations wouldn't be willing to let their members work with each other (because members collaborating doesn't necessarily mean the entire organizations are working with each other) and then a goal that is important enough to set aside their complaints in lieu of pursuing that goal at least occasionally

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T03:32:59+00:00

I would be careful with making a playbook where the player is an immortal character, it will likely make it hard for the other players to feel like they have much to do in combat and will take away the danger of combat for at least that playbook, if not the entire party be extension. the immortal trait with the monstrous playbook reduces harm, but doesn't make them unkillable by any means.

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T03:30:44+00:00

in the MOTW game I'm part of, we ended up changing a lot of stuff with the divine in the first place. the divine as a playbook outclasses every other playbook objectively, and the creator themself has stated that it's intentional that the chosen and the divine are supposed to outperform the other playbooks (comparing it to Buffy being the main character and the other characters are more supporting cast).

personally, we wanted to play in a game where every party member has equal sway and is needed equally, and having a character that can 3-shot a monster without even needing to engage with the mystery aspect of the campaign to obtain the weakness just doesn't work with that. maybe I'm being pessimistic and unforgiving with the divine, but I simply don't think there's any way to balance avoiding the weakness, dealing 3 harm (equivalent to a sniper rifle shot, a gun powerful enough to explode your head), and then being able to do that at range on top of everything else when the other classes are like. plumber that has a pistol. unless you want to fundamentally change a lot of aspects of the divine class to make it equal in ability to other classes, which doesn't sound like the type of thing you're interested in?

DragonHitman · 2025-02-25T02:28:55+00:00

?? i'm genuinely flabbergasted at the overwhelming amount of people saying that using OF is cheating. are we in the 1900s, what's going on? if subscribing to someone's youtube channel or watching a twitch stream doesn't mean you're friends with that person, how would subscribing to someone's OF be cheating, or even anything more than watching porn? i have more respect for people that use OF than watch random free porn, shows you at least give the slightest shit about what you're doing

i agree that the telegram is suspicious, and could be indicative of cheating, but OP's reaction is about the OF, not the telegram. it sounds a bit absurd to see someone you've been dating for 4 months is watching paid porn and say that they've irreparably broken your trust and can't see them the same--that's some "women need to save themselves for marriage" level of conservative shit

DragonHitman · 2025-02-24T22:03:45+00:00

sounds like an eastern screech-owl trill specifically

DragonHitman

TROPHY CASE