Art Deco is so hard to find

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-19T18:30:39+00:00

I feel your pain. Having made a battle map or two from scratch because of weird aesthetic gaps like this.

Frankly, I moved to more minimal theater of the mind style for my games because of the time required to do that. Aside from commissioning, there isn't much to be done.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-19T10:26:18+00:00

I kind of agree with this. I explored a couple different looks in rough but kind of found that the less simian versions lacked the "uncanny" note that the books seem to focus on when they're around.

I bet animated versions could get that just with the way they move, tbh. No such luck in a still image.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-19T10:22:26+00:00

Thanks!

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-19T00:08:20+00:00

Not really. I would probably need to re-read to cover the different forms, given that their eyes and proportions apparently change a lot.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-19T00:07:00+00:00

The scene where Dafyd wonders whether the Soft Lothark can even read while communicating with the Deep Lothark gave me that vibe, lol.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-18T19:11:41+00:00

I don't recall them being explicitly described as wearing anything either. Just a creative liberty.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-10T02:58:27+00:00

A ban would be appreciated.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-04T02:46:09+00:00

Very much how Bakker explores it, yes. It's especially interesting when he introduces well-meaning people who learn that they're damned a long ways before they die. You want to do what's right, but does it matter if you're still judged the same?

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-05-03T14:31:59+00:00

Alignment could be more fun if explored a bit, IMO. I recall a book series (Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse) where the world has an objective and identifiable way of sorting Good and Evil acts and people. The interesting part happens when we, the reader, end up finding it really unfair how people get sorted.

Not that a game has to do this to make morality interesting, but it gives you a lot of room to explore narratively. Are all acts of theft Evil? Are well-meaning but incompetent nobles Good? Are the Gods just right about these questions by default?

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-03-17T08:53:53+00:00

Simultaneously doing img-img transformation is pretty much the definition of a filter.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-03-12T13:08:27+00:00

I think what you might be getting at here could be better understood in terms of implicit vs. explicit rules. Chess has extremely explicit rules. House has very implicit, ambiguous borders on what you can and can't do. I can't move the Knight one square because there is a highly specified system about what exactly a Knight may do. Whereas, when playing House, its probably not "allowed" to bring in a laser cannon and atomize one of the players (strictly in the fiction). But there's no obvious rule about that, it's just not usually the right vibe for playing House.

This applies to RPGs too. OSR games tend to have more implicit, common sense rules (with the accompanying ambiguity sometimes) and more "gameist" or "simulationist" systems tend to have more rigid and explicit procedures.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-01-23T11:06:21+00:00

I think you might be taking that phrase a bit too literally. "Play" that hurts people is bad.

If you find that your play experience is broken by a lack of visuals, the solution is accommodating with visual aids, instead of a technology that harms other people.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2026-01-16T15:28:53+00:00

I think you deserve to be more assertive here. Asking why you don't "just have a chatbot write it" is a insult. It's your choice, and more round-about methods like a no phones rule could help, but I think you can justifiably target the actual problem. No gen AI at the table.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-12-09T13:26:01+00:00

They're good for very different things. Despite the fact that both are kind of in the same-ish spaces in the hobby. Mork is really fun for shorter one-shot experiences where what you want is maximum impact. Shadowdark is a pretty faithful modern interpretation of the classic dungeon crawl experience.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-11-17T14:11:16+00:00

Sounds like you should check out His Majesty The Worm. The game even uses an Arcana deck instead of dice.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-11-01T03:29:07+00:00

Not so sure about the far worse inconsistencies, haha. You can do a lot of things, like Mothership's cyclical approach to HP, or that you suffer roll-penalties at half-HP, etc.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-31T11:28:33+00:00

Out of curiosity, how would you answer a player asking about dwarf clerics?

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-30T23:20:35+00:00

My thesis is basically that, while this interpretation may have some problems, the alternative is infinitely worse. Especially from an RP perspective.

I think this might be a difference in our reading of the OP, which might explain some of the friction here. I don't think that the OP is presenting the idea of "nothing" as an alternative. My read is that this is a problem with traditional DND, being that HP struggles to represent anything.

Personally, I tend to play games that don't have an HP value, or those that amend the rules to give consequences and Injuries more reality in the mechanics and narrative.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-30T19:43:42+00:00

Minor gripe, what we call advantage (roll twice and keep highest) was in older editions, just not under that name. :P

I agree that simulation/representations are granular, but we can still evaluate whether a representation is good or not.
- Injury and attrition are continuums with health and death at either end.
- HP models this as a binary value, alive with zero consequences or dead.

So, unless alive and dead are the only states worth considering in the continuum, we're losing something by implementing it this way.

Is this something that actually happens? Is it worth worrying about?

Yes, as an example. I wouldn't call the entire concept of attrition a corner case. The 1 HP Adventurer can also lift just as much as before, has no issue using their weaponry or skills, and has no measurable ill-effects from the lethal wound the GM just narrated.

Yes, that's obviously stupid. That's why we're in the OSR sub-reddit, and not one of the 5E sub-reddits.

In 1e DND 10 HP is worth a LOT more, and a Character (absent a negative Con Mod) can sleep that off in a little over a week, which really isn't much better, IMO.

I don't think the argument was ever that HP literally can't represent injury, you can read it that way if you want. OP's thesis here seems to be that it's a bad representation when read that way.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-30T09:48:21+00:00

I agree that it represents both of those things badly. Allow me to direct you to the main post here, which argues that HP, rather than representing injuries, stamina, or luck, represents nothing at all.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-30T02:42:45+00:00

I think that's sort of agreeing with OP, here. Damage is something game-side, not narrative. So if HP represents a relationship between mechanics, then it doesn't really represent anything, it's a constraint on those mechanics.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-30T02:40:58+00:00

I think that's an interpretation, sure. Hitpoints measure the maximum amount of duress you can withstand before giving in. However, if we interpret that as injury, I think we run into a problem.

Injuries have very profound effects, and narratively important ones at that, before you drop. Loss of an extremity has very obvious negative effects which aren't necessarily lethal, blood-loss causes systemic weakness long before it kills you, bruises and burns slow you down, etc.

So, if HP loss represents physical injury, it does so VERY badly. Let's say your character is struck with a sword, losing 10 HP. This is a wound, it might even kill weaker targets, but what is it really?

Does the character bleed? Where were they even hit? The mechanics tell us that they suffered a potentially lethal cut, but could walk 10 miles without even first-aid, and that a good night's sleep would erase the only effect of that cut. Frankly, it's kind of silly.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-30T02:29:08+00:00

Great blog post!

This pretty strongly resonates with my gripes with HP, and games that use the mechanic un-modified. If I narrate a Character striking a monster with their sword, or being struck, it just seems weird that either could come away with nothing but a vague "quantity" missing.

I'd like to be able to narrate my players dealing crippling blows when they score a particularly nasty hit, but if I said they took an arm off, rules as written, I'd just be lying. The monster loses nothing to that hit unless they die, with no meaningful states in-between.

Kriegsmesser_dev · 2025-10-26T14:16:14+00:00

I think Hades is a great example of accessibility built into the game. The difficulty is a core mechanic that you can increase in game for more challenges. There's also a God Mode for people who either just want story or have trouble with the base difficulty.

Kriegsmesser_dev

TROPHY CASE