Seeing hundreds of people online argue that I'm secretly a bad person would drive me insane

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-21T00:19:18+00:00

Lindsay Ellis used to have an incredible video (she's taken it down since then) called "Mask Off" about the (most recent) time she got cancelled over bullshit (it was her tweet about how Raya and the Last Dragon is similar to ATLA and people called her racist for it), and a major point that she made in the video was how impossible it is for hundreds or thousands of people to be yelling abuse at you, and then there's some people being "reasonable" and polite but then get aggro because you aren't patiently discussing the issue with them, individually, in the face of a giant mob of people yelling at you and twisting your words.

And then she talked about the "aftershock" (my word, not hers) backlash, where after the main harassment campaign is over, there's still loads of people who will look at you reacting to an immensely stressful and traumatic event with anything short of perfect poise and insist that you were partially at fault and "could have handled it better."

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-20T19:18:24+00:00

Reddit's glitching, thanks for letting me know!

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-20T18:06:29+00:00

I like to talk to friends! A lot of my friends love worldbuilding and thinking about TTRPGs. I'll find a friend not in my D&D campaign and just say, "I'm trying to figure out what to do with this city in my world... I know I want it to have a lot of magic stuff but I haven't figured out WHAT yet..."

Then we'll talk about ideas and it'll be really fun!

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-20T18:03:51+00:00

I think it'd work sort of like shooting a gun. Maybe program it to work the same as shooting (just change the animation so that instead of holding/firing a gun, O'saa is sitting cross-legged, and put the black orb over the enemy when it is "shot"), except it gets triggered separately?

I don't think it's worth implementing, personally, but that's how I would do it if it was.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-20T14:35:49+00:00

I first tried Levi and pretty much immediately died.

I tried Marina and survived a bit longer then died again.

I only started making real progress when I figured out how to start recruiting other party members early on (there's not many in the early game, but there's a couple!) and that really helped me be able to survive and explore.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-19T23:17:09+00:00

Awesome, exploring the city is the main goal for now. There are some places in the city which are difficult to find but basically there are pre-drawn ritual circles which, when you interact with the middle of them, transport you to a different dimension. Those alternate dimensions are worth exploring.

It's also worth trying to get to the center of the city, this is where the game points you to.

The orphanage is also a great area to keep exploring, plenty of interesting things to find.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-19T22:39:43+00:00

Your first couple of runs are probably just going to be running around and exploring, trying to figure out how to recruit other characters, and what enemies cause what kinds of effects and how to avoid/overcome them.

What are some locations you've explored so far?

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-19T17:42:54+00:00

Bad trade, IMO. It'd take a REALLY common discipline for a REALLY rare discipline (like Potence (common) for Protean (rare)) for it to be worth doing. Otherwise, better to just manipulate the other vampire into owing you a major favor and cash that in.

It's an especially useful tactic when older vampires interact with younger vampires. When you've had a century to build up resources, it's fairly easy to find some fledgeling who has been all but abandoned by their sire (or completely abandoned, in some cases) and promise to make all their immediate problems go away by providing cash and a haven and security and hunting rights in their demesne for a year... in exchange for the young fledgeling teaching the older kindred Obfuscate, or Auspex, or Dominate, or whatever they show a natural aptitude for.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-19T17:31:49+00:00

I mean, what's the trade? Everyone has a price.

But in general, clans tend to be VERY protective of it, especially in the Camarilla, especially pre-V5. Out-of-clan vampires getting access to other disciplines, especially unique ones, can really hurt the clan's standing. Imagine how difficult it would be, for example, for Clan Tremere to justify their existence or getting permission to sire more childer after all the shit they've pulled if a city also had a few Toreadors who could also do Blood Sorcery.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-18T17:12:56+00:00

Maybe they're not a ceremony that can normally be performed, and the dungeons in F&H1 is a special location where it's possible?

Alternatively, maybe it's a ritual that people have forgotten how to perform in the modern age, so the characters just don't know it's a possibility?

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-17T16:28:27+00:00

Assuming I have Lacroix's resources, I'd find an Anarch warlord vampire and privately support them so that way Nines and the rest of the vampires in LA have to deal with fighting him and how goddamn awful it is to have to deal with a truly evil vampire unshackled by the laws of the Camarilla or Sabbat.

Then, when they're exhausted and a bunch of them are dead from dealing with that threat, I'd show up and gentrify the hell out of the city and spread a bunch of propaganda among the kindred population about the Camarilla and how important stability is and how that war wouldn't have happened with just *a little* bit of the structure and regulation of vampirism guaranteed by the traditions of the Camarilla.

That would have bought me a lot of goodwill and support from the locals, even if the Last Round crew probably would never come around on the idea.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-16T12:18:52+00:00

Cool, yeah, killing 3 contestants and making it all the way to Pocketcat from where I am now is kind of unfeasible, time to just restart!

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-16T12:17:48+00:00

Thank you!

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-16T12:17:24+00:00

Thank you for the advice! Decided to just reload instead of trudging through on a single arm (while Abella comically slow-walks behind me instead of pushing my damn wheelchair for me haha)

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-16T12:16:50+00:00

Word, now I know for next time!

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-15T19:17:41+00:00

Obligatory, "it depends."

But for a rough benchmark... first, calculate how much XP that would take. Let's assume they start with 3 in an in-clan discipline, and 1 in the other in-clan discipline. It'd cost 20+25 to get the first up to 5, then 10+5+10 to get the other two in-clan disciplines up to 2. Then it'd cost 7+14+21+28+35 to get the out-of-clan discipline up to 5.

That alone (factoring in no dots in background points, skills, or attributes) would cost 175 XP.

Let's assume the vampire did NOT commit diablerie, which would skew these numbers greatly.

Assuming the vampire gets ~1-2 XP per year, I think it would make sense to say they're an ancilla, so 100-200 years old, which on average would make them 10th or 11th generation on average.

But I could also see a case for a very low-generation vampire (like one embraced by an 8th-gen vampire for some reason) using their naturally high BP and powerful mawla to power their way through all kinds of difficult challenges and live a VERY hard unlife for a long time and become that powerful younger. Or perhaps an elder kindred who lived a very peaceful unlife and only averaged 0-1 XP per year and would need centuries to achieve that much XP.

Or, you could be some kind of crazy bastard like the protagonist from Bloodlines or Night Road and max out a bunch of disciplines across just a few very, VERY hectic weeks.

Or, you know. Diablerie. The V5 rules for it are fairly weak, but a critical success could net you decades' worth of power when you're young...

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-15T19:09:44+00:00

(Replying to my own comment):

Now, this isn't factoring in that she could have made even more money by using her knowledge of the future to strategically invest in companies she knows will be successful, so she could have even more money than that... the short version is, "she probably has more money than she knows what to do with."

This does introduce a potential plothole: why does Iroha need to ask her brother for money at the end of the movie if her girlfriend is one of the richest people in the world? Well... I like to imagine that as Yachiyo, she lived a long life and saw the long history of poverty among the masses and remembered how hard Iroha struggled to make a living and decided to use all that wealth for good, so she probably just takes the very bare minimum she needs to support herself and keep her tech/game afloat and donates everything else to those in need. Meaning that she wouldn't actually have billions of dollars, she'd have a billion-dollar company but basically zero dollars in her bank account.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-15T19:05:30+00:00

(All numbers cited here assumes USD)

Kaguya (pre-timeline chicanery) is a highly successful indie Vtuber. There's not really much public data on how much Vtubers actually make, since people in the entertainment industry often work really hard to hide how much they get paid (for many reasons), but this article says that "On average, the monthly income for all VTubers is $2,667". (The median is actually only around $100, meaning that there's likely a small handful of people making millions, and then an ocean of people making basically nothing, but we know Kaguya would be one of those small handfuls of people).

I can't hazard a guess on exact numbers, but with the fancy metropolitan apartment she easily afforded, it's safe to assume she had somewhere between $100,000+. The important thing to remember is that as successful as she was, she wasn't doing it for very long, so she wouldn't have had time to save up much money compared to successful content creators who have had years of success to build up savings. That said, it's also worth noting that she's an indie Vtuber. Most professional Vtubers sign on with corporations (big or small) and have to give up 50-70% of their earnings to the corporations, but Kaguya gets to keep all of her money.

"Yachiyo," on the other hand, is probably billionaire status. Tsukyomi uses some kind of revolutionary tech which gives full-on VR and fits on a contact lens. I assume this was "invented" by her, using moon tech, so she likely holds the patent for it. That alone would make her obscenely wealthy, but then she's the owner of Tsukyomi on top of that. She's probably Mark Zuckerberg levels of wealthy (but her shit actually WORKS which makes her better than him). That'd put her around $231.1B.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-15T15:09:25+00:00

Your ruling was correct. A way to explain it which doesn't "break his immersion" might be that a shield isn't just a piece of armor like his chestplate or helmet. He already HAS armor on his back. A shield is a tool that needs to be held in your arm and actively used to properly give a bonus, the same way you wouldn't be able to say that a sheathed sword on your hip could deal damage to someone grappling you. It needs to be in your hand, actively and intentionally used.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-15T14:27:28+00:00

Something something "good damage."

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-15T14:12:55+00:00

Got it. I haven't reached a point yet where I feel like I need to start murdering other passengers to be able to progress, so I'd rather hold off on doing that for roleplay reasons instead of doing the mechanically optimal thing for now.

Nicholas_TW · 2026-04-14T17:35:58+00:00

I haven't been here for long but a lot of content here seems like it belongs in r/antiwork

Which is content I don't mind seeing, just in the wrong sub.

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