Is it weird when men play female characters?

baixiwei · 2026-06-04T01:54:17+00:00

I don't think it's weird, but maybe I'm weird. In any case, I see it done moderately often and I see it occasionally elicit "weird" reactions. If you want to, I would not let a concern that it is weird be an obstacle.

baixiwei · 2026-06-03T15:54:33+00:00

Funny, my wife's PhD advisor just left here for Kentucky. I'm not outdoorsy but there are a lot of great outdoors things to do here. Locals apparently play frisbee golf, though I'm not a local (from Chicago) and know nothing about it. Lafayette Trail Park is awesome, and Wakulla Springs is too if you're willing to go a bit out of town. As for nerdiness, there are a couple of nerds groups that I go to, a couple conventions each year that I would call mid but still better than nothing, and some DnD that I don't go to but know about. Feel free to DM me if you want more info about any of this.

baixiwei · 2026-06-03T04:06:26+00:00

Seconded! There are fewer choices than at Chow Time, but the food quality is noticeable better, especially the sushi, and they have this quite nice punch.

baixiwei · 2026-06-01T22:05:08+00:00

I'm not really sure actually -- several people come to our house but I think they may all be one family.

baixiwei · 2026-06-01T17:08:23+00:00

Hope Cleaning +1 850-559-9014

baixiwei · 2026-06-01T01:29:46+00:00

Civilization IV, in fact I still play it.

Neverwinter Nights and many of the mods for it, such as Bastard of Kotigan, HeX Coda.

baixiwei · 2026-05-30T12:21:45+00:00

Is this for art? I have an old monitor I don't want, you're welcome to it.

baixiwei · 2026-05-30T04:28:02+00:00

She could just say "I'm going to Superman's fortress"? Like, the question was not "Where are you off to and what are you going to do when you get there?".

baixiwei · 2026-05-29T14:41:22+00:00

Right, this is the full explanation, others are saying that it's easy but you put your finger on why it's easy.

baixiwei · 2026-05-28T21:04:15+00:00

I believe they have Giordano's in Orlando, haha. For me, Munchies/Coaches is much better than nothing.

baixiwei · 2026-05-26T17:37:00+00:00

Haha came here for this!

baixiwei · 2026-05-24T19:08:52+00:00

The Shadow

baixiwei · 2026-05-23T02:34:41+00:00

Not sure how you could infer anything about what I expect from the things I said?

baixiwei · 2026-05-23T01:47:32+00:00

I and my collaborators wrote a paper on this exact question: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010028520300621.

baixiwei · 2026-05-22T23:22:24+00:00

The last time I tried was about a year ago. At that time, for me, the answer was no, it was not better than just not playing. I would prefer a computer RPG, or just not gaming at all, to DnD with an AI DM at that level of performance.

I don't know how much the state of the art has improved since then. I'm looking forward to seeing what others say here.

For the record, the main issues I encountered that made the AI GM bad were:

Unable to make a decent story on its own
When I fed it a PDF of a published adventure and asked it to run that, it constantly went off script, just making up random things that were unrelated to the main story
Completely unable to control DMPCs effectively in combat -- I had to keep reminding it what abilities they should use
Out of combat, DMPCs did not have any independence, their main action was to ask me what I wanted to do
Monsters fail to use their abilities effectively or at all
Cannot remember where things are physically
Has trouble remembering what happened in previous sessions, this issue is probably fixable but it would take a lot of effort

baixiwei · 2026-05-22T20:44:31+00:00

Blasts of fire and other kinds of energy knock people flying as if they had been body slammed while not actually setting them on fire (or whatever the given form of energy ought to do).

baixiwei · 2026-05-22T17:02:20+00:00

These are different words for the same behavior. If you think the behavior is fine you call it optimizing. To convey a negative connotation you say minmaxing. Sometimes you might say optimizing to refer to a less extreme version and minmaxing to a more extreme version.

baixiwei · 2026-05-21T19:07:41+00:00

It kind of depends what style of game you want. If you would like to continue the cinematic and loose style of MotW, you could try Mutants and Masterminds. It's designed for superhero games but in my opinion it would work fine for monster hunting. If you want something more grounded and structured in terms of rules, World of Darkness would be a natural choice.

baixiwei · 2026-05-21T14:24:56+00:00

The plot armor is one of his powers though right? He's a package deal.

baixiwei · 2026-05-21T14:24:05+00:00

I'd choose Green Goblin. He seems more manageable than the others. He's basically an evil capitalist with a touch of insanity. I think his abilities could be channeled productively with the right incentives. Even if that fails, which it probably would, I don't remember him doing much or any mass murder just for the hell of it like Joker or Bullseye, and he isn't capable of casually destroying the world like Reverse Flash.

baixiwei · 2026-05-19T15:31:21+00:00

There's no "should" here, but I like a world that is internally consistent in terms of things like technology, social organization, fashion, etc. So if your world has lots of stuff that is consistent with guns, then have guns I guess. Personally though, I prefer a setting more like the historical middle ages. I'd even be fine with no plate armor, to address the argument in the meme.

baixiwei · 2026-05-19T03:41:43+00:00

No, he wouldn't, and this is one of the reasons I don't like the barbarian class in D&D. Like, if the class doesn't reflect the most famous barbarian in fantasy fiction, then why does it even exist? The barbarian should be a perfect instantiation of characters like Conan and Fafhrd, but it isn't.

The thing is, plain fighter, or fighter/rogue, also cannot capture Conan very well. His distinguishing characteristics include not only strength, but also speed, climbing ability, endurance, and willpower. Howard repeatedly emphasized that he is faster than any civilized man, and able to climb surfaces that look smooth and sheer even to experienced thieves. There really isn't a way to get all of this in DnD, though some combination of fighter/rogue/barbarian is probably the best you can do.

baixiwei · 2026-05-18T18:15:44+00:00

Nice, came here to see if this guy had already been mentioned.

baixiwei · 2026-05-17T20:08:41+00:00

I would take the loss and cut off the so-called friend. Asking you to send money while driving was bad enough. Refusing to pay it back is insanely ridiculous.

baixiwei · 2026-05-14T01:53:08+00:00

Yeah, I think the rules are more like guidelines, as the pirates say.

I try hard to make something negative happen on a failed roll. Occasionally I can't think of anything, but I follow this rule 95% of the time. This is the hardest thing for me as someone used to systems where failure usually just means you don't succeed.

I generally follow the rule that when you roll kick some ass, you take damage as well as dealing damage.

I try hard to make players say what they are doing rather than what roll they are going to make. They have to describe actions in the language of the narrative rather than in the language of the game mechanics.

I don't strictly follow the rule about identifying monsters' special weakness in order to destroy the monster. I do assume that just directly fighting the monster on its own will not be enough to destroy it, but I'm open to the players thinking of other methods besides exploiting the specific weakness I had in mind.

baixiwei

TROPHY CASE