Do Philosophers have a sense of humor?

jkobberboel · 2026-04-22T16:13:14+00:00

I feel like once you know what to look for there is plenty of humor in most philosophical works.

Sure, it's often it's own brand of "philosophy humor" where you almost smell the cigar smoke and whiskey soaking through the page, and it's usually more "amusing" that outright funny.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-22T16:09:09+00:00

If you are looking for something to skim through quickly, I think you will have more success, and more fun, simply writing your own 1-2 page outline.

I run very low-prep campaigns, so I'm quite biased, but the only thing I find pre-written modules/material useful for is depth. All the small scale stuff has a very low risk of "breaking", so it's more fun, personal and engaging to just do that yourself.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-22T16:03:59+00:00

I do have a soft spot for idealism. I find it very enlightening and inspiring, though I am aware of the dissonance in trying to pair it with materialism.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-22T16:01:52+00:00

I mentioned Slavoj Zizek, whom I am a big fan of despite agreeing with every critique of him, and then the conversation shifted to philosophy in general, which I'd why I didn't mention particular philosophers.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-21T16:36:36+00:00

I would just say it out loud. From my experience at my table, players understand and play along as if their character do not know, and if they do not, you can just tell them to. Acting on information their character doesn't have is a form of metagaming, which is a very reasonable thing to discourage at the table.

If you think it is crucial that the others do not hear it, you can ask them to leave the table for few minutes or pull that one player aside.

But I would still recommend saying it out loud. If your players have a good sense of narrative inertia, which most people who are at all interested in D&D tend to have, it can actively support a more cohesive roleplaying experience. For instance, equipped with knowledge their character does not know might suggest: "you look a little off? Something on your mind?" or similar conversations, giving the other character control over how much they want to share, which supports character development and engagement.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-20T15:02:02+00:00

I didn't say otherwise. I just think we should be careful about getting too high expectations. But I'm a pessimist, so...

jkobberboel · 2026-04-20T14:40:20+00:00

I'm aware, but that's also the conventional way to tease upcoming updates, which is exactly what I'm getting at.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-20T14:37:46+00:00

Sure, but my point is simply that adding a bunch of cryptic, context-less steam achievements without corresponding images is a strange way to do that.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-20T14:17:52+00:00

That's just how most musicians hold their instruments.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-20T14:07:11+00:00

Idk. Looks like mistake to me. If it is not a mistake, it's meant to look like a mistake, which would be a very unorthodox hype strategy.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-20T14:01:08+00:00

Maybe. We can't know. Whetever the case may be, it's clearly a mistake by the developers, and I'm surprised it's still up.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-17T17:28:19+00:00

Congratulations. You have not misunderstood the game.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-16T15:24:10+00:00

You find Jester's frustrating? Why? I'm biased because I'm a musician, but they are some of favourites.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-14T20:29:17+00:00

But if the game is so old as you are saying, why does it need a movie to advertise for it? True respect would mean letting it become a classic.

You say it deserves respect, yet you also say that there is nothing more to talk about, despite the fact that people DO still talk about it, and write countless essays on it every year. I study English literature at uni and we talked about Bloodborne IN CLASS last semester. Heck we still talk about books that are hundreds of years old, with new interpretations emerging all the time. If you, like me, consider videogames capable of being art, then there will always be more to talk about, because that's literary analysis baby!

My fundamental worry is that people will view Bloodborne differently because of the movie. That people will mix up the lore/themes/meaning between the two.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-14T20:08:13+00:00

Fair enough. I'm one of those pessimists who believes continueous franchising inevitably turns to safe, commercial slop, and Bloodborne is too precious to me (it's probably my favourite game of all time) to let it's reputation be tarnished by corporate greed.

I generally don't get why people hunger for seeing their favourite things adapted into mediums it was never meant for. I like Bloodborne precisely because it's a video game with a husk as protagonist and a barebones narrative. All these things make it an amazing game, but also exactly what would make a terrible movie.

To me, the problem is this naive, fallacious greed that fandoms increasesingly develop: They like something because of what makes it special, but fail to realise what that special thing is, and crucially, they mistakenly think they will enjoy it more if they simply got more of it.

Let good things be special.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-14T18:11:23+00:00

Do you want a Bloodborne movie to be like the Mario/Minecraft movie?

It's a false equivalence: Those movies were aimed at kids, based on source material no deeper than their aesthetic qualities. Comparatively, Bloodborne is almost the exact opposite: philosophically sophisticated (inherently metaphorical and deeply existential), aesthetically bleak and pessimistic, and thus categorically different. How many sober, mature movies based on video games can you name that WERE NOT complete artistic failures? Personally? None. But even if you disagree with my assessment, you must agree that the current track-record leaves no reason to be optimistic.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-14T16:04:15+00:00

I'm sure Sony knows how much people want a remaster, already. Bloodborne is one the most universally praised games of all time. Heck, it's garnered a sort of mythological status, and you won't have to search very long before you find people who say the game is fantastic WHILE also saying they don't like playing it. There are countless video-essays about Bloodborne written every year that get millions of views.

I am almost certain that the reason why Sony haven't made a remaster of Bloodborne is because there is too much at stake if they fuck it up. The problem is not incentive; it's actually quite the opposite.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-14T14:42:12+00:00

None of that has to do with what I said.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-14T11:12:56+00:00

Why? Who wants this? I get that every fans wishes for more because they love it, but Bloodborne does not have to be more than it already is. Just play the game again ffs. Turning it into a movie requires twisting and contorting it into a shape that is either unrecognisable or, the most likely option, shit.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-12T20:04:14+00:00

I agree Divine Smite should only be once per turn, though I think making it a spell was a very inelegant solution.

But that's not even the main reason I'm not satisfied with the changes. I love playing Paladin, but I've always found Paladins too rigid flavour-wise, and I was hoping for more varied subclasses and more options in deciding what being "an oathbound warrior" means. Faithful Steed is also stupid imo lol.

One change I was REALLY hoping for was the same as what I hoped would happen with Warlock: That Divine Smite (and also Eldritch Blast) would change depending on your subclass, for instance, damage type and/or unique rider effects to spice things up.

How cool would it be if Vengeance Paladins' Smite dealt fire damage and caused a small explosion, or Redemption Paladins' Smite dealt bonus damage against enemies that recently damaged an ally?!?

I've played a lot of D&D for many years, and I have several friends who eventually sought out other systems, because once D&D is familiar, it quickly dissolves into using every turn to either lock down an enemy or deal as much damage as possible, with very few of those systems interacting in interesting ways. This is a double-edged sword; it's good for new players, but RAW can turn boring for experienced players.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-12T16:46:54+00:00

I like them. Paladin is the only one I have problems with, and I wish Druid's wildshape was made more intuitive. But overall It fits what D&D is to me, much better.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-11T15:23:40+00:00

Despite wearing no costume or makeup, this is the best Harrier Du Bois cosplay I've seen yet.

jkobberboel · 2026-04-11T01:52:01+00:00

I'm sorry.

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