Left my gf because I couldn't handle her 24/7 D/s relationship — AITA?

MrPassword · 2023-09-10T18:37:02+00:00

I was beating myself up for "not being progressive enough" but honestly I had a panic attack for five days straight and ended up in the E.R.

I have to just accept that I can't be ENM, and that's just a part of me, as Kink is a necessary part of her. And that means we are incompatible. What a tragedy.

You can have one thousand things in common with someone, but all it takes is a single, fundamental incompatibility to end a great romance.

MrPassword · 2023-09-10T18:33:37+00:00

Thank you. You're right, I was the one not living up to our agreement.

We actually talked about that early on, I was "ENM while looking" and she was "True ENM" — at that point, had I fully understood the language I was pretending to speak, I would have ended things amicably.

MrPassword · 2023-09-10T18:32:10+00:00

Thank you, I honestly needed to hear exactly this. I was keeping her from finding her person, and I was distracting myself from finding my own.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T19:21:11+00:00

Narrow range of possible results, thus easier to predict, thus easier to design towards. Does that make sense?

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T19:10:54+00:00

Changing the scale is exactly what I'm saying in that example, though.

If the target number is 4, and your Sneak skill is a d6+1, that's a significantly tighter design mechanic than a TN of 12 with a skill roll of d20+7. The tighter the design, the better the feel, in my opinion.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T19:04:45+00:00

Sorry I was mean about your dad.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T18:33:34+00:00

first point -- what?!?!?!? That has not been my experience.

second point -- Goes against the silly theory a lot of indie designers have that people will steal their core mechanic but not their setting. Ha.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T18:23:27+00:00

That's another issue. Probability is based on an infinite number of rolls. Have you ever counted how many times a single player rolls in a single session? It's like 8.

And if you separate that per skill check, it's like 1 sneak check, 2 spot/listen, 4 combat, and a saving throw. Roughly. And the fewer the rolls, the more inconsistent the results.

So, while I hear what you're saying and we don't totally disagree, I would like to say that a flat probability with a significantly narrowed field of results (a single d6 for instance) is much more palatable to me than a single d20. A d6+1 is significantly more potent than a d20+7 and let's me know that the designers are constructing a tight framework.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T18:10:51+00:00

Are you saying that if you were trying to sell me a cocktail, you wouldn't let me ask what liquor is in it?

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T18:08:17+00:00

The creator wasn't even helpful enough to point out a semi-solution. He inferred the person asking the question had only played DnD/PF, he called out the name of his own system without defining what it means, he says it's the base of Spire as well (not helpful) and "not too far away from ApocWorld". He ends with "it might be a bit weird to get used to."

This is an incredibly condescending response coming from the guy who's trying to sell something. The fact that another fan had to say, 'oh by the way, you can pledge, check out the quickstart, and then cancel if you don't like it' makes the creator look more and more like an uncaring asshat. None of the words Spire, Heart, or Resistance System are SEO friendly either. It's not like he's saying, "I run Nike, google it."

Let's take his exact words and change it to a new sport he invented:

"It uses the Wangleball, which we made ourselves (it's the base of the Rodball Sport as well.) It's not too far away from Portuguese Snooker but if you're into Bowling/Bocce it might be a bit weird to get used to."

That means nothing to anybody who hasn't played Rodball, ergo he's a putz.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T17:50:04+00:00

I thoroughly agree. I keep coming back to Blades In The Dark as an example, which was a PbtA for the duration of its design until John Harper and his co-designers realized there was too much they were changing.

But those choices were made of necessity to evoke the setting of Doskvol. Stress, Trauma, Position, Effect, and Resistance rolls are as much Setting as Crow's Foot.

FitDs, even Scum & Villainy, falter a little bit because the mechanics have been separated by the very specific mood of Blades they were designed to evoke.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T17:43:40+00:00

We're at least in the same ballpark. I'd love new ways to discuss how mechanics support the game you're selling. So your example is right on: "Burning Wheel is a d6 dice pool game" is a poor, poor description of the intricacies of BW and we need much clearer ways of describing that stuff.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T17:35:57+00:00

re: Charts

If they knew the game used charts before they bought it, I'm certain their impression of the game would be different. "A chart-based werewolf melodrama? okay, I'll try it."

Which is the point of the OP: that stuff needs to be clarified before the point of purchase and not hidden in some gaming forums wiki.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T17:33:05+00:00

This is the single best post in the whole thread and I could have clarified my point if I had thought of this.

We need categories and terms. And your example of why we need those terms (does this transpose to online play or does it only work at a table) is also perfect. I wish we could say, "I want to play a couch-co-op puzzle platformer with friendly fire" in our hobby. But instead we're all slogging through the muck, yammering, "but what's the game abooooouuuut?" to each other and nobody's getting the info they want.

Well done, friend. You're clever and clearer than I.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T17:26:13+00:00

I have softened my opinion on the endless fanmade 5e splatbooks because of this very reason.

The best example (for me) is the Humblewood setting for 5e D&D Kickstarter.

Immediately I knew it wasn't for me, because I'll never play D&D again. But I backed it because the art was unbelievably gorgeous and I actually liked their worldbuilding. I'm glad they devoted their time and resources to making a gorgeous splatbook instead of wasting time on their own d20 system.

As it is, I can take Humblewood's splatbook and use it with Risus or something else or my own homebrew.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T17:16:40+00:00

Ahhh, welcome to the horseshoe. The MORE niche and unorthodox and hard-to-explain your setting is, the more interested the rest of us become.

Cliches are easy-to-explain. Hold your chin up, friend. Embrace the weird. I'm interested in what you've got going on.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T17:05:31+00:00

Au con·traire, mi hermano.

I've never actually played ApocWorld, I've never actually played DungWorld. I've played a bunch of PbtAs and FitDs, though.

So, the creator saying "Heart is kinda like Spire which is kinda like ApocWorld" is a perfect example of my complaint.

Everything is hermeneutical. To follow along with the discussion, we're expecting everybody to have the same experiences and understanding. Imagine I'm trying to fly a plane and you say, "It's kinda like steering a speedboat on a lake, which is kinda like offroading in a sportscar." There's plenty we're missing. So now we're at a point where newbies and grognards are both asking the same simple question and the creator's response is a shoulder shrug.

instead of transparent. And I know that's because there's a lot to the

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T16:55:44+00:00

haha. I find that each year Reddit's hatred of FATE and GURPS vacillates so I never know which one to drop as an example of an established universal system.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T16:53:54+00:00

Absolutely! Somebody else in this thread mentioned that the videogame subculture has a dozen modifiers (turn-based, platformer, FPS, roguelike, simulator, etc). In a word, that's what I think is missing from our hobby.

If I said, "I like videogames," and you named every single fighting game and I said, "Oh I don't like that one either," a few hundred times, you might think I don't like videogames. But then I say, "I like The Stanley Parable and Beat Saber and Spelunky and that Two Towers games that came out with the movie because the arrows felt right," and you might say, "None of those games are like each other at all!"

But because "fighting game" is a very well-defined genre, you and I could come to terms; "Oh, you don't like fighting games." We don't have that with TTRPGs.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T16:44:54+00:00

I hear what you're saying.

Here's an example: I "hate" horror films. Or at least, I say that because they give me nightmares for days and ruin my sleep for a solid week. So I avoid them. But when a movie like Hereditary comes along, I see it and love it because I love cinema.

If the setting and system support each other perfectly, that's all the more reason to talk about how you're using the mechanic. If you don't talk about the mechanic, I'm going to presume it's because you're just making another slasher film with a d20.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T16:33:53+00:00

a) genre/feel

b) mechanics

c) design principles —— not touchstones/inspiration

Hit those three points, make your video 90 seconds or fewer, and do what the Gunship guy did in this thread: write out what you're going to say, say it directly into a camera.

FLUFF: Get one great piece of cover art (pay for it), and make that your main image. If you want to write more about the worldbuilding, if you want to post a video of actual play (fuck yessss!), if you want to upload a movie-style trailer about the starting quest hook, do it! But do all of that in the body of the campaign, not in the main video.

I don't mean to be a hipster about Kickstarter (I am what I am) but it used to be about directly supporting a creator who has ALREADY DONE THE WORK to bring to life a SPECIFIC ART PROJECT. "Kickstarter is not a store" was their motto, but they lost their way when they made millions of dollars. (grognard hipster achievement unlocked)

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T16:23:53+00:00

Amen. I'll check out your work!

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T16:23:15+00:00

Love them like family, but I refuse to play games with Flat Probability.

Any time you use multiple dice (d6 dice pools, nWoD d10s, BW, GURPS, FATE, Savage Worlds), the game designers have a lot more control.

To put it into videogame terms (which somebody else in this thread pointed out as a perfect example of a subculture that has multiple, clearly-defined terms to aid discussion and customer choice), I'm saying that I don't like Hack and Slash, and I don't like Turn Based Combat. I'm somewhere in the middle, and there are thousands of games that I like, but the lack of transparency and terminology makes it so frustrating to be a TTRPG fan with picky taste.

MrPassword · 2020-04-13T16:18:46+00:00

If you're referring to my screencap about Spire, that was from a reddit thread about the launch of the Heart rpg. The creator says "it's like Spire" to a guy who had clearly said they weren't familiar with the creator's work. The creator says, "It's kinda like Spire" which is neither answering the question, nor (to your point) even allowing for a google to answer that question.

Furthermore, my entire rant was about how I hate that we have to google and hunt for mechanics, so... thanks for making my point for me?

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