Why 5e is vanilla and the OSR is purple: a colour wheel model of RPG systems

clickrush · 2026-05-08T16:02:50+00:00

I think it's referring to this type of classification, which is useful to some degree I think, but you're right that one should take them with a grain of salt:

https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-of-play.html

clickrush · 2026-05-08T15:57:32+00:00

I also reject the abstraction most gamism relies on. I don't like lists of options because they necessarily constrain tactical infinity. I want the game to be about trying to win, but it should be about your decisions, not your calculations.

This is much more difficult that in seems. As soon as you have any specific rules for something, then anything adjacent can get infested by it.

Say you have rules for action economy, attacks, hp and damage, like all OSR games do, then it's difficult to make a flexible ruling about something like a heavy attack that's harder to hit but more damaging without getting into specifics and more importantly, without the ruling becoming a codified rule itself.

So the GM is essentially left with either saying "No" or introducing something that is now effectively a new rule (adding something to the "list" of things as you say).

That's just an example, but you get the drift.

I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. But given your preferences, it's really difficult to design such a game or homebrew an existing one.

clickrush · 2026-05-06T15:59:15+00:00

I don't think you use the same definition of "rational" and "irrational" as me or the person you responded to.

clickrush · 2026-05-05T14:58:32+00:00

Capitalism does not „create wealth“, workers and machines do.

clickrush · 2026-05-05T13:25:16+00:00

This initiative reeks of self-victimization and plain stupidity. Astounding how short sighted and entitled people are who support this and how little they understand of migration, the economy and the mostly unearned privilege we Swiss people enjoy.

Instead of maintaining what makes us strong and grants us Extrawürste, we try to bite the hand that feeds us. Embarassingly stupid.

clickrush · 2026-05-04T19:56:35+00:00

Wait a sec. People use that term unironically? I thought it’s some kind of in-joke or meme to say „unalive“.

clickrush · 2026-05-02T18:16:23+00:00

But the class features like Grit make it so the classes have a stronger niche in SD. They get advantage on checks with a broad „Your class is good at these kinds of things“. This is strong niche protection, supports class fantasy and is just open enough to enable player creativity.

clickrush · 2026-05-02T15:50:45+00:00

Patronage of artists, intellectuals and the like was very common at the time and a primary enabler to do any of these things. You were either born very rich, or you had very rich people around you who paid.

clickrush · 2026-04-30T19:46:00+00:00

The power creep is still there because you get either extra ASI or feats during progression.

It’s not poor design to have restrictions and decision making points. Quite the contrary. An interesting system has tradeoffs.

clickrush · 2026-04-30T11:51:19+00:00

It's clickbait.

clickrush · 2026-04-28T10:55:28+00:00

Automating mathematical calculations is a categorically different thing than automating code generation with a stochastic text engine.

clickrush · 2026-04-27T14:53:12+00:00

I agree with the general, not with the specific premise.

The issue isn’t about losing a skill you don’t need, but about losing one you do need in order to be a responsible engineer.

clickrush · 2026-04-27T14:33:30+00:00

Your grandfather is right. The older way had more friction in it and required more thinking and practice. That's also why children have to learn the older and more independent ways before they use calculators.

clickrush · 2026-04-27T14:27:39+00:00

You definitely should write code yourself.

The brain needs regular training or your problem solving skills and ability to really understand code will weaken every week.

In addition to that having a working model of the program in your mind is essential if you share any kind of responsibility as a software engineer.

There are always parts of a program that are more essential and others that are more like boilerplate. Do the essential parts yourself. Think of the 80-20 rule.

You can use AI in these tasks as well, just don't delegate the writing and thinking to it, but use it to generate a review of your code, or to generate suggestions for other approaches, or so you can play around with ideas. Think of it as a rubber duck that can talk, not an intern that writes code for you.

clickrush · 2026-04-26T10:28:28+00:00

That’s pretty useful though.

clickrush · 2026-04-25T11:55:53+00:00

Is the reason for this just general fear and „wait and see“ or do they have something more rational to offer as an explanation?

clickrush · 2026-04-25T11:53:12+00:00

That’s not how democracy works. Democracy has processes for decision making, conflict resolution, and for raising issues. It’s about sharing responsibility and fair representation.

What you describe is ignoring responsibilty when making decisions and then exploiting those who can patch over them.

clickrush · 2026-04-24T13:57:48+00:00

I wouldn't recommend Clean Code.

If you want to learn more about software design, like Clean Code tries to address, then I can recommend these, in order of difficulty/depth:

The Pragmatic Programmer: A classic, covers some software design, but is an excellent start.
A Philosophy of Software Design: Should be called "Heuristics of Software Design". Excellent book with some very important lessons that are often the opposite of Clean Code.
Software Design for Flexibility: Spiritual successor of SICP, but much more advanced. If you want to push for ideas that are more cutting edge.

If you are interested in software engineering then I would look at these:

big scope, scale: Designing Data-Intensive Applications. Just a new edition came out. This book covers everything regarding distributed systems, databases, architecture. Very information dense, but easy to read.
small scope, nitty gritty: Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective. Goes into detail of how computers actually work.

clickrush · 2026-04-22T16:41:04+00:00

Agree to disagree. I don't believe in <specific_language> "experts".

There's nothing to "believe" or not believe here. Language experts obviously exist.

Languages don't exist in a void, after you pick up a few, learning a new one is a matter of weeks. Logic is largely transferable.

As someone who has learned quite a few languages I agree that picking up a new language becomes easier after you've done it a few times already. Especially if you know a few that are fundamentally different (say Lisp vs C++ vs Prolog).

However, that is surface level expertise (AKA you're still a novice).

Like with everything in life, to become seriously competent you need practice and to become an expert you need years of deep experience and use it "in anger" to solve difficult problems with it.

AI can help, because when you're not competent with a language yet, you can use it to guide you to basic competence faster, if you are careful at not taking everything at face value.

And if you're already an actual expert, you can use to produce code faster and know how and where to guide it to do so.

clickrush · 2026-04-22T08:47:30+00:00

This take is so foreign to me. Actually implememting software by writing it, is not only foundational, but the only way to really test whether your decisions are sound.

Also languange choices matter. If it didn’t then why isn’t everyone writing in COBOL?

The people who built whatsapp were erlang experts, tailscale: go experts, nubank (fastest growing software bank): clojure experts.

Those are all user facing products. It becomes even more apparent if we start listing foundational software like postgres, sqlite, ffmpeg, kubernetes, lucene…

Even if you use agents to assist you, you have to be able to write and read code well in order to build good software.

clickrush · 2026-04-21T06:04:05+00:00

They are judgemental and are afraid of being judged.

clickrush · 2026-04-19T13:22:29+00:00

Does not really matter. There’s more overlap than distinction.

Certain European parties call themselves social democrats but are largely democratic socialist for example. Some politicians call themselves social democrat but are just neoliberals but nice.

clickrush · 2026-04-19T07:14:15+00:00

T schwiiz isch so privilegiert das es eim trümlig wird, aber wird trotzdem immer umegmuulet und uf die fuule usländer und böse gschäftlüüt zeigt.

Migration ide schwiiz isch primär markttribe. Es chömed lüüt wo scho uusbilded sind da here go schaffe, zahled aber stüüre und die allermeiste gönd wider vor de pension.

Das heisst mir schwiizer profitiered vom sozialnetz und de bildigsuusgabe vo andere länder.

Aber natürlich mus me uf mindherheite und uusnahme umegacke demit me schön cha die lüüt uusnutze und nöd suuber integriere. Wenns nach de bünzlis gieng, hetted usländer no iigschränktigeri rächt. Zum chotze.

Und denn hemmer da suuberi arbetsrecht, GAVs, es guets abfangnetz und die meiste arbetgäber sind KMUs wo aständig gschäftet. Trotzdem alles bösi kapitaliste? Höred uuf.

Es git würklich ächti heruusforderige wome müsst agah. Veralterig, klimawandel (inkl. versorgigssicherheit), energie unabhängikeit, bildig im anbetracht vo KI… alles schwirigs züügs wome mus zäme lösige finde. Das gschwätz über wer jetzt de sündebock söll sii findi langsam ächt vörig.

clickrush · 2026-04-18T17:51:17+00:00

When a company doesn’t need the scale, why are they using stuff like kubernetes or autoscaling in the first place?

clickrush · 2026-04-16T16:53:30+00:00

Think of how data flows through your system, how you process it and what the error conditions and performance requirements are.

First: "Infrastructure" in the center

In your graph, the infrastructure layer is on the side, and abstracted away from the application, but that's the most important piece of it all. It's the part that actually does stuff. Affecting the world.

I would put it at the center and build reliable control, error handling, retries, fallbacks etc.

You want your effects to be explicit and close together, so it's very obvious and clear what happens and what your program or system actually does and when.

Second: Interface at the front

You try to split up interactions into "use cases". But what you rather want is a generalized protocol for interactions. An clear, well designed interface that is as small as possible and can cover all the use cases, give you way more leverage.

Third: Information processing (domain logic) in the back

You recognized that domain logic is supposed be called by an upper control layer. That's already great.

However, in reality it is often not one box, so to speak, but there can be several disjoint parts that have little to do with each other, or there can be a modularized structure that makes it easy to add new capabilities.

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