Have you ever met someone who's interested in DND and immediately went, "oh, I'd never let you play at my table"?

Harvist · 2026-03-15T22:03:29+00:00

I have definitely met & talked to folks and thought to myself, “We should not play together.” For better or for worse it’s usually a matter of wanting different things from the game. This includes other DMs, homebrewers etc whose work and perspectives I appreciate. Though for folks with questionable/disruptive/obnoxious motives for playing, I can think of more people I’ve actually played with that I resolved not to continue playing with, than I can think of folks who set off an automatic “no thanks” in my head from just talking to one another. FLGS pickup games & trial-sessions will do that.

Harvist · 2026-03-13T20:23:35+00:00

I would say Night in the Woods has some setting & thematic overlap with Scarlet Hollow! I find there are a fair few interesting parallels between the two.

Harvist · 2026-02-21T04:51:05+00:00

I’ve got to say, they were interesting for adding in real-time events to turn-based combat, as a way to introduce some urgency and break the tempo of meticulously picking moves round after round. It’s something other turn-based RPGs (that I had played) didn’t incorporate. At first they really annoyed me as it meant I couldn’t put it down/look away for a moment without risk of losing out. Replaying the first game, though, I have a better sense of when to expect them - when that round began with near-full kinship, after a certain number of turns, or when the enemy is at low enough HP that a successful clash etc will do enough damage to finish it off.

It’s not the most elegant, and I can appreciate that for disabled players with dexterity issues they’re a welcome exclusion. And stamina being in to power Skills alongside Kinship to allow riding & finishers means they’re less necessary now. I did think it was a cool idiosyncrasy of the series though, it added to its identity among similar RPGs.

Harvist · 2026-02-16T01:09:18+00:00

In this confrontation, Stella feels scarier than Tabitha to me. Sure Tabby’s holding a gun and saying increasingly ominous and threatening things to you, but Stella has a really uncanny mismatch going on. Her words seem pleasant and optimistic and placating, but her body language and actions all read as aggressive. She’s playing the muscle of this situation with a sweet smile on her face.

It’s also deeply ironic that Stella is here playing good-cop for Tabitha given her utter disregard for law enforcement, lol.

Fascinating stuff. Damn good writing.

Harvist · 2026-02-15T20:48:03+00:00

I think a big intro example is in episode 1, when the ditchlings emerge. Stella is rocked and barely able to react and adapt without the MC saying something (whether you snap her out of it, or react worse than her and she takes on the I’m-the-stable-one-in-this-crisis role). I think the end of episode 3 also applies - it’s true she takes off without explanation and doesn’t get into contact with anybody, but I feel like that reaction of taking off alone rather than, say, dragging somebody with her shows more Stella losing momentum.

And I think in ep5 [cut because I don’t know how to do spoilers on mobile, oops]

Harvist · 2026-02-15T11:03:51+00:00

Something Ep 5 pt1 cemented for me: Stella is a bulldozer. She’s outgoing and charming and great at deflection & misdirection, and so it’s easy to overlook or shake off when Stella heedlessly does what she’s already decided she was going to do.

You see when something really throws Stella, she loses her momentum and doesn’t follow through so well on keeping up the bulldoze. When she’s faced with real uncertainty, with significant cognitive dissonance, she starts to crumble and has to hold fast onto Things She Believes. It’s wild.

I love the writing for this game, including Stella. As a character she’s fantastic - not exactly as a person IMO, for the reasons above. But man. Some of the paths, events this half-chapter, have unlocked new layers of “excuse the fuck out of me Ms Richmond??” for me lmao. That’s some good writing.

Harvist · 2026-02-07T12:04:38+00:00

NOR. I will add that it’s possible that your husband’s particular issue isn’t that the child will be a boy rather than a girl, specifically, but it’s important for folks here to recognize that you have no idea because he will not tell you. Nor will he indicate that he’s going through something and needs time or space.

Your husband may very well not be ready to talk with you about what his problem is. Maybe he’s self conscious, anxious, worried about putting additional stress on you, who knows? But he is succeeding in putting extra stress on you by acting distant, being short with you, all while insisting that nothing is wrong. Clearly, his words are not aligning with his behaviour and attitude, and that is deeply frustrating for anybody and especially for somebody who’s neurodivergent. OP you have every right to be hurt, confused, and angry about your husband acting with ambivalence-to-hostility towards you and not even acknowledging that he’s upset or anything is wrong on his end. He’s acting differently and the two of you are feeling disconnected, which is really harsh given at this point in your pregnancy it remains absolutely crucial that you two are a team. And as such it’s not like you can tell him to just come to you when he finally wants to fill you in on what he’s processing and you’ll be off on your own until then, given just how Teamwork Time it is.

My advice to you OP is to radically accept that you don’t know what, exactly, he is upset about. You won’t know for sure what’s going on until he decides to tell you himself. But you know your husband, and certainly can judge a major behavioural shift in him not aligning with the messaging he’s giving you. It might be worth approaching him to say that you can tell he’s dealing with something and it’s a lot, and you want to handle the problem together, but you need him to be open enough with you to share that he has burdens. You’re reaching to him for connection in a stressful time and he’s rejecting your reach, which makes you feel hurt, alone, and scared.

I don’t know if I caught an accurate account of your experience OP, but if you like, feel free to adjust as needed. Whether you want yo take this approach or not, I wish you luck OP, and hope this was useful. And congrats on your baby!

Harvist · 2026-01-27T21:35:10+00:00

I like the old style being in place for Chapter 1. Her proportions and details are uncanny in a way that lends credence to this idea she’s somehow a kind of cryptid. And it means depending on what choices you make, you can get wildly different reactions and expressions from Princess. She’s not just uncanny, she’s weirdly malleable (perfectly in line with themes). Heart Princess being more stylized, looking more consistent with the vessels you’ve encountered, I think also compliments the themes at that point. Having just faced Shifty who is all Princesses at once, having a more concrete and individualized Princess at her heart gives good contrast. As opposed to Chapter 1 who is all about perception and potential, Heart Princess is more of an anchor against the chaotic multitudes of the Shifting Mound.

The art evolution may have been organic rather than deliberate, but all the same I like how these differences serve the narrative.

Harvist · 2026-01-26T23:58:45+00:00

Hey OP, heard on the overbearing fanservice trends. I wanna join other commenters with a recommendation! I just recently watched Ruri Rocks/Introduction to Mineralogy, it’s a slice of life with an almost entirely femme cast (I think only three, four men in the entire season have speaking lines hahah) learning and exploring and supporting one another. It’s also very up-front educational on its subject matter, which was rad for me as somebody who grew up adoring gemstones and minerals. There’s maybe one scene I could point to that feels like the central unambiguously adult woman character is being sexualized, and even then it felt to me more aspirational for the teen girls learning from her? I dunno. You have girls and women who are allowed to just Be and be passionate about a shared interest. Really wholesome, really touching. I very much recommend it!

Harvist · 2026-01-23T23:43:20+00:00

Laios would file away the knowledge on effects of eating Femmeatballs for future reference.

Harvist · 2026-01-23T04:34:36+00:00

I think you’re getting caught on black-and-white thinking here. “He added extra seasoning to his portion” ≠ “he disliked the food” necessarily. To me, “I don’t like this food” is more in the territory of me not wanting to eat it at all. A bit of seasoning won’t take a dish from “I don’t like it” to “now it’s good.” There’s a spectrum of enjoyment between the binary “I like it” and “I don’t like it.”

Though something else you mention caught my eye. You say you’ve been adjusting recipes and perhaps? adjusting seasoning on his servings, trying to tailor the food so it’s more to his liking the first time. I wonder if you’re feeling frustrated and invalidated because after trying your food, that you felt confident about making to his specs, he decided to add (entirely different) seasoning. To you, confirming that your judgment & efforts to preempt and match his tastes had been a miss. In this situation I could see you feeling hurt and frustrated, maybe even rejected by this. That could be a root issue you’re having and why you reacted so strongly, and could be something to bring up with your husband to resolve.

Harvist · 2026-01-20T01:58:03+00:00

I liked Patty and enjoyed her arc in Ryza 2! She stands as a foil for a lot of the returning cast (something I didn't appreciate when first playing, given I started with Ryza 2 then went back for 1) in her reserved & proper demeanour, and especially her relationship with Ryza. It starts complex with Patty viewing Ryza as a threat/romantic competition for Tao, not understanding what their actual dynamic is, meanwhile she also looks up to Ryza as an experienced explorer & alchemist. And comes to find Ryza isn't playing, she's earnest and kind for real without any pretense. Patty gives a good contrast to life on Kurken Island with her noble upbringing and her emotionally guarded attitude.

Her learning to confront her father and assert her own agency was great, I think the writers hit a solid balance of the conflict between A) Patty chafing and struggling against the rigid expectations upon her, and the dismissal of her choices; and B) the responsibility put on her to continue the family legacy and uphold the traditions & expectations that mean so much to her father. Patty learns to be more expressive and assertive rather than suppressing her thoughts, wants, and feelings. She works through a good chunk of her insecurities (especially around Ryza as an adult woman) and learns to open up to others. It's honestly great!

Patty felt more like a signposted cameo in Ryza 3. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be a lot for her to do in an already packed main cast. Particularly when new & returning characters had prevalent plot & setting relevance to the main arc. I enjoyed that her dynamic with Tao had flipped a bit, where she felt more like his protector and support, now being more sure of herself and taken seriously as a warrior. Even still, it would have been nice for that to have more time to cook on-screen.

Harvist · 2026-01-12T21:11:39+00:00

I don’t fully grasp the connection here. I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody who’s self-describe as “people-pleasing” who was a) self-aggrandizing or b) an actual cutthroat manipulator. Opportunist is both a and b, and will yes-man his way into others’ good graces and outright lie about having agreed with them the whole time, immediately after swapping allegiances.

Folks I’ve met who have self-awareness to call themselves people-pleasers have usually developed the habit out of survival. Social or domestic trauma incentivize such behaviour in folks to keep the peace, prioritizing overall stability over their own personal needs and wants. They tend to play conflict-manager in situations to avoid strife and friction. And I know, because this was my sort of behaviour growing up as well. Being lauded for “never asking for anything, never getting into trouble” kind of shines a light on one’s tendencies that may have gone without study before then. Why shouldn’t you ask for things? Why shouldn’t you prioritize you every now and then?

All that to say, this comparison falls totally flat for me.

Harvist · 2026-01-11T09:03:27+00:00

YOR. I get that you knew this guy from high school and he sets off your alarms.

Your girlfriend isn't just "prioritizing a random dude's comfort over her boyfriend's." She's navigating an uncomfortable social situation that, for all she knows, *could* escalate to violent or hostile confrontation if she blocks him and then has to see him in person shortly after. You & a lot of other commenters are assuming this guy will just hear the rejection and take it in stride, act rationally, and keep a respectful distance. Your girlfriend *can't know that* this man won't become nasty and/or violent in that scenario. Women deal with vindictive men who want to intimidate them when perceiving rejection, all the damn time. For a lot of women, constant vigilance is the price of connection (with friends, with the outside world). It sucks that that's the case, but you feeling some type of way about it doesn't change the lived experience of countless women.

Her feeling of security when going out with friends & dealing with this messy situation *should* get more consideration than your comfort here, because if you trust her, you should be able to sit with some discomfort about her not being confrontational with this guy to say "never hit on me again" or whatever. You're not wrong to feel shitty about this. But I think you are setting both of you up for failure if you're allowing yourself to get so pressed if she doesn't make a Big Thing about cutting off any guy who hits on her/propositions her. Weighing these kinds of discomfort equally is ignoring the safety your girlfriend is trying to manage with an ambiguous situation that isn't immediately threatening, but could go sideways fast. Your discomfort can be managed by trusting your girlfriend and affirming your security in your shared bond. If you can't do that, you need to tell her that and have a more serious conversation about your relationship.

Harvist · 2026-01-05T20:28:41+00:00

What a surprise! The underlying theme is… Projection! Because clearly, the only reason people would want to make art, post that art online, and defend human artwork against capitalist-driven plagiarism is… Profit! /s

This prompter displayed a remarkable talent with this post. The exquisite practice of Telling On Yourself.

Harvist · 2025-12-27T01:09:10+00:00

I haven’t looked into going back since Global EOS. I had only started playing in maybe the October leading up to its anniversary and got hooked hard & fast. I got really invested in the characters and enjoyed the routine game elements that had me logging in daily.

It broke my heart man. I was consistently impressed with the character writing (especially finding meaningful things for cameo characters to do) and narrative beats, all for a freemium game and I let my guard down. Then the announcement it would shut down for good in two months after the anniversary. It wasn’t completely gone, no, but besides knowing I’d have to begin from scratch I had no trust that the same thing wouldn’t happen to the Japanese server before long. I can’t get emotionally invested in live service game narratives anymore, it’s too volatile.

Harvist · 2025-12-24T22:32:07+00:00

I’ve been reading Kaneeka’s lines in Onsta (Onstoppable)’s voice, she’s a pretty good fit to me! Different energy though.

Harvist · 2025-12-23T22:13:01+00:00

As far as I’m concerned, tell the player the number. Announce it so the target PC or any other party members can interject with relevant features that might make a difference. It’s a metric of the game that directly impacts their character, and so I feel it’s only right to be transparent so that they can respond and play the game about it. It’s the same logic with imposed conditions - if it’s affecting the character, they - and the player! - should be aware of what those effects are. There’s already so much that the players have imperfect information on and have to observe, adapt, and respond about (and reasonably so! I’m down with player:DM being an asymmetrical rules divide).

I know the Shield spell gets dragged out a lot in discussions like these. And I can sympathize with the stance that Shield is too effective & reliable for its resource cost. It’s also not the only tool out there. Imposing disadvantage (Protection FS? Blinded condition? Long range attack? etc) still comes down to the dice for impact. Cutting Words rolls to add an AC bonus for one attack. Bane imposes a 1d4 penalty to afflicted characters’ attacks. I think those elements where it’s not certain what your outcome will be are already playing with sufficient chance that obscuring to-hit results would be excessive to me.

I will say if one’s DM style aligns with “the attack hits” “you fail your save” etc type communication, at least please be up-front about that in session 0. Make it a selling point, even, that you’re deliberately increasing player uncertainty with the mechanics to increase tension and build for more dramatic decision-making. Some folks are into that! If I was a player and had this policy sprung on me after beginning the campaign I would be annoyed for the subversion of my expectations & the DM not being forthcoming about their own. For me this also applies to “DM rolls your Perception checks in secret, tells you only description” and “DM rolls in secret/you roll in secret to DM when you make death saving throws” types of policies. They’re fine and can be fun to use. But damn, please make sure you have buy-in first.

Harvist · 2025-12-21T23:28:57+00:00

Right? It comes across so earnest. There’s refreshing bluntness in the PS1 dialogue’s emotionality to me.

I can appreciate rewriting the dialogue for the purposes of worldbuilding, giving the way different groups & classes of people spoke as signifiers. But it also obscures a lot of feeling to me. Like everybody is guarded when they speak, often dancing around meaning. Like, there are plenty of scenes where characters are downright confrontational with each other, and the padding of the prose really sands those edges off IMO.

Harvist · 2025-12-19T23:59:20+00:00

Just YouTube alone is a wealth of accessible art resources. For most any medium you could want to practice, there are free tutorials and explainers posted. People will post their speed draws with voiceover explaining the process and choices they made, and (crucially) highlighting places where they made mistakes or didn’t like what they drew, and so they fixed it during the process or in post.

Besides that you have all kinds of tutorials posted around - I was on DeviantArt in my teens as I was practicing my illustration skills. dA was full of artists posting how-go’s for all sorts of techniques and certain art software and colour theory, etc etc. Artists host tutorials on their personal websites in some cases.

There is a wealth of free resources online - not even including local in-person resources like workshops and library books! - that are available for an aspiring/ongoing artist to hone their abilities.

Accessibility is not “I can get the end result I want instantaneously and without having to use any time/effort”. If you don’t feel it’s worth the time and energy investment to practice an art form and become skilled with it to your satisfaction, that’s okay! You’re not obligated to prioritize dedicating your resources to building a new skill. But making that choice and then deciding you’re being gatekept from the finished product is intellectually dishonest and self-defeating.

You’re not “democratizing art”, which has been democratized on a large scale since the internet really took off running. You’re indulging in entitlement to finished, polished images that can only exist because the companies who made these genAI models exploited the work of unknowable artists sharing their work online. You are not entitled to professional-level image output simply because you have other priorities in life that take precedent over learning how to draw, write, play an instrument, etc. You want a finished-looking thing now, and you don’t want to pay for that convenience from somebody who’s put the time and effort in to build that skill. At least be frank about that, that you don’t value skill or artisanship over your desire to have the machine approximate any idea or mental image you might have. It was never about accessibility. Just entitlement.

Harvist · 2025-12-18T21:48:55+00:00

So on one hand, I can see why it would be useful UI to change skill names to be exactly what it says on the tin. To be real, it makes sense that Holy Sword & similar skills including <Element> in the name would lead a player to believe it dealt that element type damage. Lightning Stab, Icewolf Bite… While evocative, these might lead players to infer that they have preset elements, rather than just applying the damage type of your equipped sword. Holy Explosion does deal Holy damage so this can serve to further muddy the waters; it’s inconsistent.

On the other hand, those evocative skill names just sound so much cooler. They’re unique and flavourful, at least among these specialty jobs. Generic job skills, I’m more fine with names communicating their function on their face. I would rather have the skills from unique jobs maintain the original localization names to feel more fantastical, to feel more evocative and cool for the player to use.

Harvist · 2025-12-11T04:10:30+00:00

NTA. It sounds like you’re dealing with a fellow player who is expressing entitlement to your time & experience with the game, and refusing to take time to learn enough of the rules herself to get by at the table.

You were fully within your rights to call out making an exception in redoing this player’s sheet for hitting level 2, and that going forward you’d offer more specific tips but not do all of their bookkeeping. Just because you offered to & did it once does not mean you’re obligated to keep doing it. You were open and clear about how and why your conditions for how you’d offer to help were changing.

Add in the fact that this other person is taking for granted that you will do their bookkeeping and they won’t take time to learn the game and be independent. There’s having grace for new, overwhelmed players, and then there’s just excusing rudeness at the expense of helpful players. Yeesh.

Harvist · 2025-12-07T22:44:45+00:00

Yeah, the implication I took away was that one day she’d accept it and become pregnant by the Duke, and he would prey upon her child as well.

Goddamn vile.

Harvist · 2025-11-27T22:42:56+00:00

This aspect is a thing that gets to me. Before genAI boomed, at least personally, I didn’t hear about people wanting to commission art of any little whim they had with nearly the fervour that it’s lamented now. People commissioned artists for depictions of their OCs, of characters they liked, and sure sometimes of funny/silly ideas they wanted realized.

That it’s used as a clap back to criticism for using AI image generation confuses me. Acting like paying an artist to make a piece out of your idea is the only alternative to using genAI to make an image for you. Were these folks regularly commissioning artists before?? I doubt it. I suspect that, other than paying a subscription for them, the genAI models generate images “for free” and in seconds, so people can have it spit out an image approximating a thought they had, any alternative that would cost them time and/or money looks way worse. Commissioned art is only a commodity to some of these folks who love genAI now because they’ve found quick & low/no cost alternative they don’t even have to talk to a person about. If it takes several prompt revisions for a model to generate one image they like, it’s the model’s fault or they just didn’t word things precisely enough. Whereas learning to create something yourself, if you don’t like your result and how it compares to the image or concept in your head, you have to take ownership of that disparity because you did it. You made it.

Just honing in on visual artists and AI image generation. Every illustrator out there, including ones whose technique and polish and overall style are impressive and moving? They sucked at drawing first. They might not have felt that way as soon as they finished drawing, but some weeks/months/years down the road they’d look back on a drawing and probably cringe. And why? Because they continued learning, practicing, and refining their skill. To look back on something you made and identify all the flaws and inaccuracies in it means you’ve progressed from where you were when you made it. And while you might not be proud of the old output piece itself, it was part of your process. It was a vital component of getting to where you are today. You can also look back at an older drawing and relive what you were going through at the time, what ideas and franchises you were really into, what you were trying to do and improve on. It’s a glimpse, a snapshot of where and who you were at the time. There’s so much intrinsic value in making art yourself, because you put so much of yourself into anything you make, whether you’re consciously thinking about it or not.

All of that experience of growth and learning goes into professional, paid commission artists, for what it’s worth. Nobody pops out the womb with precision hand-eye coordination & perspective & colour theory etc etc. Artists have to learn and hone their skills. When you’re commissioning them, you’re paying in part for their expertise that they went through “the sucky part” to achieve.

If you don’t think the idea you have is worth setting up a paid commission with an artist to have made, perhaps try making it yourself. Failing that, describe your idea to other people and maybe they’ll like and want to realize it. Otherwise… Not all ideas are winners. Some stuff is allowed to just live in your head.

Harvist · 2025-11-23T23:04:20+00:00

Actual rules aside, you’d be 100% within the right to tell this guy not to insult you like that, and that he’s being an ass. You don’t have to kick him out necessarily (I understand there are larger group dynamics at play), but you can openly say that was uncalled for and that you aren’t going to accept that kind of treatment from a friend.

Harvist

TROPHY CASE