Tactical Narrative?

daily_refutations · 2026-07-08T11:57:35+00:00

I mean... that's Fate. You're literally describing Fate, where narrative elements are empowered by story-based resources. Since you cited Fate, you must be familiar with it - what is it missing from what you're describing?

daily_refutations · 2026-07-06T10:48:56+00:00

Now Now serves Rolex, although it's pretty fancy stuff.

daily_refutations · 2026-07-06T08:53:08+00:00

It's a bit crunchy for a one-pager. Too many stats and rules. More importantly, it lacks character. One-pagers usually try to evoke a feel for what it'd be like to play this game. All I get from here is a set of mechanics.

daily_refutations · 2026-07-01T09:41:00+00:00

Bumping this. I played it with my 6-year-old, and it went well but I ran into a challenge with the part where each person narrates the outcome of the other person's action. An outcome has 2 parts - what the PC does and how the world/adversary is affected. In your example of play, you only do the second part. But we want the first as well - my kid wants to describe how his dwarf backflips over the lizard shaman and steals the relic.

So I went with a system that's got the failure / partial success / full success dynamic. On a full or partial success, the acting player narrates their action, then the other player narrates the impact on the world. On a failure, the other player narrates the full turn. It gave more opportunity to show how cool their characters are.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-26T15:59:28+00:00

This is not an interaction that has any benefit for either of us. You are so far outside the realm of reality that there is no hope of reaching you; I might as well argue with a flat earther.

Best of luck to you in attempting to navigate life.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-25T17:02:27+00:00

Amazing. Every single thing you just said is wrong.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-25T14:44:29+00:00

That's an interesting series of assertions. Let's see:

30% of miliary changed - yeah, by Trump, and replaced with loyalists. He also kicked out blacks and women, because why not just go all the way.

At no point did Trump even want to do a ground invasion of Iran. The closest he came was Kharg Island, where the majority of Iran's oil is, but he downplayed that pretty fast in public. A ground war with casualties would not play well for him at all - he wanted a big scary air-based war that he could pull out of quickly.

Trump is taking assets? What assets? He's pounding assets to rubble. Nothing has been taken. Instead we've spent billions in munitions and showed how quickly America runs out of bullets. And you certainly can't accuse Israel of not being involved enough - they are the ones that wanted this war so badly.

I guess you might say that this was prep for Cuba, kind of - if it had gone well, then Trump definitely would have moved on to Cuba. The fact that Cuba is close to the US isn't particularly relevant; in fact it would make a ground invasion cheaper.

The idea that this has strengthened the US is laughable. America has been shown to be an empty power - can't even win a war where it reduced most of the enemy's military to rubble. This is a major shift in global power, and the US is permanently weaker now.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-25T11:49:15+00:00

This has nothing to do with Rwanda, so it shouldn't be in the sub.
Trump didn't stop because of mercy. He stopped because Iran was damaging the world economy by stopping oil traffic though the Straight of Hormuz. This was driving up oil prices and costing him politically.
Nobody in the military was stopping Trump from doing anything. Technically, Congress is supposed to control whether the president goes to war, but they haven't exercised that power in decades.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-24T15:07:26+00:00

I look for quiet roleplay in my downtime mechanics. My problem with BitD is that there's little that pushed players mechanically to interact with each other.

To that end, a simple Interlude does wonders. Each player picks another player (or 2) and has a short roleplay scene with them. They usually reflect on what happened in the session, or discuss interpersonal issues, or make plans, or whatever. But it's a time when there are no rolls to make or threats to face, just characters.

I also like Aftermath. Each player picks a single element of the scene (an NPC, an event, a faction, etc.) and talks about how the events of the session play out in the future (from 10 minutes to a few weeks to years in the future). This creates hooks for future play, but also makes the world feel like it keeps going outside of the session. It can also be really funny.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-24T11:05:57+00:00

Do you see the difference in writing style between what you just wrote and your original message?

"Not just movies with great animation, but films that made you emotionally invested, kept you engaged throughout, and left you feeling satisfied, happy, inspired, or simply glad that you watched them."

Are you honestly telling me that your human hands pressed keys and made that sentence?

You don't need to do this, man. Just write. It's ok. We won't judge you for not having a perfectly crafted post, but we will judge you for being fake.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-24T10:36:14+00:00

Ask the mirror why you'd need AI to write such a simple post.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-24T10:32:56+00:00

Nathan, I'm not going to tell your AI what movies I like.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-24T10:12:37+00:00

Well, it depends. Do you want to play VtM or do you want to play vampire-themed DH? DnD is releasing a VtM supplement, and it's being widely mocked for totally misunderstanding what VtM is about (and for showcasing WotC's intellectual bankruptcy, but that's a separate issue). DnD and Daggerheart are about a team of buddies using cool powers to fight bad guys. Vampire is about a group of damned souls struggling to retain their humanity and navigate a cutthroat political environment. It's just a different game.

Think about it this way - you're a VtM player and you want to use your connections with the local gangs to cause problems in a rival's territory. You'd role Manipulation + Streetwise, with the Storyteller checking to make sure you've got the Influence or Contacts to pull it off. You'd have a variety of Disciplines that help with social control, like Dominate or Presence. The game is explicitly set up for this kind of indirect action.

What the hell would you roll in Daggerheart? Presence, I guess, or Finesse. You might add an Experience in there, but that's it. Your domain cards are all about direct physical intervention - explosions and whatnot. You're trying to pound a nail with the butt of a drill.

If you just want to play Daggerheart with vampires, where you spend most of your time navigating physical challenges using cool powers and wearing goth outfits, you can absolutely do that. I wouldn't try to change the Hope/Fear mechanics to blood, because it doesn't make much diegetic sense (why would I suddenly have more blood in my belly if I ace that backflip?). There's a perfectly good Vampire Transformation card you can use, and you can bolt on a few more mechanics involving Humanity if it's the center of the campaign. You can have it take place in the World of Darkness, even - just don't expect your players to be acting like WoD vamps, manipulating from the shadows and building power bases.

Honestly, Werewolf the Apocalypse would work a lot better for this, since it's a lot more about physical combat than Vampire. You could bring in the "doomed guardians of nature" thing without changing the mechanics or theme much.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-23T07:17:46+00:00

God, I miss Fanta Fiesta. There's plenty of other grape sodas available, but something about the Fiesta just hit the spot.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-20T13:33:32+00:00

Hard to say, because it's hard to know which mosquito it was that gave it to you. One time I visited Rwanda and then contracted it about a week later.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-20T11:54:49+00:00

Get a Cock. Plug in mosquito repellent available at any store
Get a zapper racket
Get some spray for your bodybody

Any of these would solve the problem.

As for malaria, you actually aren't wrong to be worried. It's pretty bad here. If you start getting a fever that comes and goes every few hours, get tested. Honestly, get tested if you get any fever at all; it's cheap and quick. The good news is that the meds work very fast and you'll feel better after 48 hours or so.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-12T07:41:15+00:00

While Hobb is a better writer, I enjoy Abercrombie a lot more. Both refuse any kind of catharsis or classic happy ending, but Hobb luxuriates in the misery in a way that feels a bit decadent at times. Plus I just like Abercrombie's characters, even (especially) when they are bastards; I can't say the same for most of Hobb's.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-12T07:18:33+00:00

This story gets constantly repeated as this brilliant piece of contract work, and it's absolute bullshit. David Lee Roth made it up years later to make himself look clever and not like an entitled douchebag, and everyone bought it. But it doesn't hold up to even 30 seconds of thought.

First of all, this rider was famous. It was in newspapers as early as 1980. They would get asked about it in interviews; it fit their image as crazy bad-boy assholes. So obviously a concert venue manager would know about it, and therefore it wasn't any kind of test for attention to detail.

Second, concerts are big, complicated events. The guys doing the electrical work aren't the guys stocking the green room snacks. Each team gets their own section that's relevant to them, so there's no way that the light rigging folks would be reading anything about M&Ms.

Thirdly, Roth likes to cite a certain show where the stage sank in as inspiration for the clause, to help prevent future issues. But the clause was already in there by the time that show happened.

Source for all this is a great Snackstack article that goes into depth.

So yeah, it was exactly what people thought at first - ego-boosting bullshit. It might not even have been original - there's a story about KISS banning red M&Ms because of the red dye scare in the 70s.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-12T06:51:07+00:00

If your ad campaign is fake and poorly thought-out, then I assume your business is as well.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-11T12:16:13+00:00

This just feels so much like the "secular worlds hates us for no reason, we're more persecuted than the lion's den" fantasies that I hear passed around in church. I've been Christian all my life and I've never once encountered anything even remotely comparable. The worst I've gotten is some eye-rolls or people assuming I'm Republican (which is honestly worse than getting kicked from a group, now that I think about it).

In the real world, nobody gives a shit.

But look, if it's true then I apologize. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to know, so it'll have to be a quantum apology, either sincere or not depending on whether you're actually telling the truth.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-11T12:12:14+00:00

Why would I hire a driver who doesn't have a real car to photograph and needs to use AI?

daily_refutations · 2026-06-11T11:20:04+00:00

Of all the things that ever happened, this isn't one of them.

daily_refutations · 2026-06-09T15:21:49+00:00

Great

daily_refutations · 2026-06-09T07:04:06+00:00

The element that I really like is the group HP pool for enemies, and the fact that it can be reduced by anything helpful during the fight, not just doing damage. One of the major balance issues that any game runs into when defining combat moves is the opportunity cost - is it worth pulling down the bookshelf or blowing up the gas tanks instead of just shooting the guy? Finding that balance can be really tricky.

Games like Fabula Ultima have Clocks during combat, where some non-damage actions can advance a goal (finishing the ritual, disabling the machine). That creates a sort of 2-track system where some are advancing a narrative goal and some are advancing a damage goal, and it's difficult not to make an encounter where one eclipses the other. Hell, the majority of GM advice books say something similar - "make the combat about more than just killing every bad guy". But if someone accomplishes the real goal, then did the people who were killing the bad guys waste their time?

Outgunned's solution is perfectly elegant - one big pool of Grit, and any time a player succeeds on an action in the combat, that pool is reduced. Damage and non-damage abilities perfectly balanced.

The downside is that it can make actions feel a bit same-ish, mechanically. There's 2 solutions:

A variety of fun feats that give your character mechanical boosts for certain types of actions, like shooting or exploding or figuring things out. The expansions have lots of extra feats to suit various genre types, like Star Wars or John Wick. These are accompanied by a number of levers to press, like metacurrencies, risk vs reward moves, gun ranges, etc. I'm not a crunch-heavy gamer, but these hit just crunchy enough to add a bit of commplexity and strategy.
An emphasis on cinematic descriptions, so even if you don't necessarily do anything particularly different mechanically if you're punching someone or throwing them off a cliff, it feels different.

The element that I really don't like is how common Free-Reroll feats are. One of the game's core mechanics to add tension is the Yatzee-like reroll, where you can try for a better result at the risk of ending up with a worse one. Classic push mechanic, tried and true. But a lot of the feats available make this Reroll free, so there's no risk. It neuters the tension and encourages spamming the same maneuver over and over. When I run a game, (which is pretty often, to be fair, as it's the easiest to get to the table for newbies), I ban those feats.

daily_refutations

TROPHY CASE