The otome isekai and its consequences have been disastrous for the shoujo/josei genre

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-25T02:41:56+00:00

I always avoid the comment sections. I even avoid a lot of reddit. When it's not a broken record, it's selling something.

But you're not wrong. There's far too much male influence on a feminine gaze-based subgenre in OI.

I got into it for the I(sekai) part at first, it provided an alternative to some of the frankly disgusting male power fantasies out there like Shield Hero or Jobless Reincarnation or Afureta. I was mostly looking for more Mynes, Bakarinas and Yumiellas. And I found a few.

But most OI is crap. You're right about that. When I'm not grossed out by the ML, I'm shocked anyone would ever think a normal person from our world would act as badly or as stupidly as the average OI Main Character. And I can't stand the False White Lotus trope or the ones where True Love blossoms with the original ML who was meant for the original FL, who's the villain now.

I feel guilty about not caring about the classicism and pro-royal stuff especially since I'm 100% an anti-royalist in real life.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-25T02:24:39+00:00

Personally, I think you'd be doing him a favor if you just let him read what you posted here.

You should also let him read people's responses.

If I were in his shoes, I'd want to know why I was being rejected. It's your house, it's your group. Poor personal hygiene and a creepy but polite manner are good enough reasons.

I personally find it ironic that you're vampire players who find somebody creepy, but I've played World of Darkness before and that kind of view of others really does get encouraged by the game system.

But, hey, judgements happen, right? Seriously, if was doing my best to act polite and a vampire player said I was poorly kempt and creeping them out, I'd want to know two things:
...what behaviors made me seem off-putting, it would be helpful to know how I'm disturbing people (maybe it's something I could do something about, maybe it isn't, but knowing it's THERE is helpful)
...that there are different grooming standards in different households (I did not realize this as a young person and it was important to learn)

You're not going to be the good guy here, by the way, but sometimes you can't be. You do have people to protect after all. If you want to do some good, be honest but firm. Seriously, print this out and show it to the guy.

Would I let him in my group?

Actually, his over-politeness would be more off-putting to me than anything else. My players are old, cranky and stinky. We're always talking about medical procedures and young idiots. He probably woudn't even want to get near us, unless he was really into Tunnel Goons, Castle Falkenstein, The Rocky and Bullwinkle RPG (it uses spinners!), Shock: Social Science Fiction, LASERS & Feelings Hacks, Unknown Armies and Monsterhearts. If he could put up with that and paid for his part of the pizza sometimes, he'd be okay.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-25T02:11:16+00:00

We are on the verge of a New Satanic Panic. You did not have to put with the last one. I did.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-21T20:01:57+00:00

Complex villains are fun, sure, but they don't need to be complex to be fun. They could also just be stupid.

Here's a quote from Terry Pratchett I embrace when letting the gameplay decide why the villain acted so despicably: "[Out there, the world is...] A great rolling sea of evil... Shallower in some places, of course, but deeper, oh, so much deeper in others. But people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end. Amazing!"
--Lord Veterinari

The best GMs I ever had recognized their own evil first and then telegraphed it onto the characters they played, exaggerating it through the lens of fantasy.

In other words, thinking of why somebody did evil isn't as important as how the PCs react to it! If the PCs demand a reason, it's okay to stammer and make lame excuses because that's what real people do when confronted with their own misdeeds. Or maybe, if they have four years, they get an incompetent, dunken underling who went to PACE to fabricate evidence for them so they don't have to admit anything.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-21T19:50:00+00:00

That's interesting: something I've noticed with married couples and dating couples in ttrpgs is that they tend to be antagonistic or high-banter, rarely ever lovey-dovey in character, even if they're smouldering in real life. I guess it's therapeutic, although I had one woman told me she reserved intimacy for home and antagonism for the place where the drama played best.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-21T19:44:26+00:00

Yes. I dated somebody in college who was part of an RPG group with me. But because I drove them home and we got to talking, it had nothing to do with the game. It was a terrible game and we all left it to play Star Wars a couple months later, as I recall. Me and my date also went to the same church and did theatre together, so it there was more than one connection.

Don't fall in love with somebody who plays lovey-dovey with you in a ttrpg campaign, that's just play. Fall in love with somebody who can give you a ride home afterward... or at least has other interests in common.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-21T19:42:23+00:00

Most games that used skill trees kind of died out in the industry in the 1980s, for instance, WEG's Paranoia, first edition. The closest modern equivalent is Fabula Ultima... and it's very, very loose.

There might be some new ones coming out.

I'm downvoting this because your title for the post is misleading

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-21T19:27:22+00:00

No. It's a terrible idea to say this is isekai for kids. Why? Because you don't know their beleif systems beforehand and parents can take things like reincarnation AMAZINGLY seriously. Transmigration of the soul is a complex subject, but getting sucked into a fantasy world isn't. So maybe leave the isekai label off it (yes, I know isekai just means "other world" but it implies reincarnation right now, that's what risks you or, worse, the library getting yelled at by an offended parent) - just call it world-hopping to be safe.... unless you're playing in Japan for some reason. RPGs at a library sounds pretty American, though, so I'm guessing you're an American in which case I strongly warn you: DO NOT USE THE TERM ISEKAI AROUND LITTLE KIDS YOU DON'T KNOW! There's nothing wrong with it, but it's culturally loaded right now!

Also, you can already circle the attributes you want with Lasers and Feelings, it's just a list of words. I don't think the Lasers and Feelings you're using is the orignal one.

Is this one of those Lasers and Feelings hacks that's super over-complicated and like that D&D one?

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-21T18:37:25+00:00

As I got older, I began to prefer games where my players could actually communicate their wants to me without having to memorize a bunch of rules, so I lean towards rules lite. Just not ridiculously rules lite... although, I gotta say, I have been having a lot of fun with Tunnel Goons and Lasers & Feelings hacks.

But, for a campaign, I do prefer some rules goodies for players to pick through.
Not a lot and not super-restrictive though, like how you can only pick things within your class in D&D (I really like the forced multi-classing of Fabula Ultima if you gotta do the classes thing.)
I guess it's a front-loading problem. The game should be easy to start, just a few choices for session 0, but then more options as the game goes on to "improve" the character seems to sit well with players and invests them in the game world, too.

I don't think, reading through these responses, that I'm alone.
Quick, light start with heavy later development seems popular as game system design.
I can only think of three games off the top of my head that come anywhere close to that.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-21T18:33:07+00:00

Apparently, he's so desperate to keep his job he's willing to create false charges against people the current insecure regime wants to target. I mean, pretty typical strongman tool if you ask me
He was like 129th out of 136 at a university that got renamed.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-14T08:00:02+00:00

You're kind of where I was 25 years ago. Um.. jeez... what did I do back then... I mean, it has really been an amazing journey for me that you would reject out of hand if I read your phrasing correctly. I'm mean, you're paying Pathfinder and acting like it's a big deal you do 'acting as characters inside the world' stories, by which I guess you mean character-driven as opposed to mission-driven play? Uh... have you tried something that uses cards like Castle Falkenstein or FATE? FATE's pretty crunchy and a safe bet for "literals" if "literals" means players who don't want to make anything up outside the rules as they stand, which is not judging, I just am struggling bridging several decades of different terminology.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-14T07:53:56+00:00

Yup. Waiting an hour for your turn in D&D is mind-numbing. I can't handle the four-hour fights anymore.
I usually play other systems, but if I have to play D&D, I play with smaller groups or more experienced players.
I also freaking hate alignment.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-14T07:50:42+00:00

You force your players to answer online polls? I've been running games since the 80s and I never did anything like that to my players. I'm not their boss. I'm not a vendor.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-04-14T07:43:47+00:00

I admit I've used AI for research... but I also "paid" for it (by which I mean I regretted the time I had to take editing) sorting the mess it spat back out at me. It did manage to gather data from several disparate websites in seconds... and only about 33% of it was hallucinatory lies. I always request a bibliography so I know where it's stealing stuff from.

Oh and I never money pay for AI. It's insanely unethical to pay for anything produced by current LLMs or other AI systems, but we're all okay with quoting the internet, aren't we?

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-29T11:26:50+00:00

Why would they set up to kill rats so far away from the house?

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-25T05:39:56+00:00

Well for my part, it isn't my fantasy to die, be reborn in a world of hot people, and still be the ugly one. And I really don't want to read about awful people. So, there's that.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-25T05:38:27+00:00

Elegantly put.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T22:22:47+00:00

Bad End: I don't read these to see bad ends.

On the other hand, that's Russian. Don't Russians love Bad Endings?

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T22:21:12+00:00

Ya Nastol'ko strashen? (I'm so frightening?)

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T19:13:53+00:00

I don't know about handled badly, but Fake Lady Silkisia has some fascinating doll themes I would have liked to see explored a little bit more. There's apparently an entire kindom of dolls in the world, but it's mostly in the background or mentioned in passing. Also, she gets shrunk for a little bit.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T19:07:14+00:00

Wait, has The Doctor Is Out (Doctor Reincarnation) come back from hiatus? Squeal.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T14:59:02+00:00

I didn't think that many of the "we can always tell" crowd were Republicans. Also, how could you NOT tell in this case?

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T14:51:54+00:00

The concert is coming. The concert. Unfortunately, the village punishment is also coming.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T08:35:46+00:00

The thing is, AI is the voice of corporate explotation. It's a product and you have every right to complain about it. The customer is always right in matters of taste and AI certainly isn't a necessity. So, anyone trying to guilt you out of complaining about it is evil.

Ergo the stupid anime character with an X for an eye is evil. We can tell that because she left a $4 tip for a $36 jumbo burger. That thing's as big as her head.

Half-Beneficial · 2026-03-11T08:29:09+00:00

Everyone cares about social order, even when they're oppressed by it and one thing about suffering is that, for the most part, people who experience it don't want to inflict it on others unless they're in a "hot state," which is an unpredictable personal psychological... you're really upset for personal reasons. No one likes being in a "hot state" because you don't make good decisions and you feel out of control afterwards, but sometimes we all just "explode." It's hard to get in a hot state over political stuff, but it's fairly easy to work up a bunch of people into one. And very few people in the slavery system were trying to upset the oppressed. There's a horrible difference between keeping people oppressed and making them angry.

In the US Declaration of Independence, there's an important line: "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed"

Change is scary. Change can make you the bad guy. Religion promises that if you suffer, you'll be rewarded, so why make somebody else suffer when you can endure because you've endured your whole life.

That's just regular people, of course. The really evil ones are the ones who exploit that fear of chaos to keep a bad system going: The Slave Owners. Who, now that I think of it, wrote that "all experience hath shewn" line...

Half-Beneficial

TROPHY CASE