@taichara@chirp.enworld.org cover
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taichara

@taichara@chirp.enworld.org

REALITY.SYS corrupt. reboot Universe? [Y/N/Q]

Over here, I'm mostly here for ttrpg things (thus on TableToot!), but if I get myself together and can branch out, there will be archaeology and nature and various dead/fossil things. Also videogames, but those might just be me grumping, lol.

Definitely tabletop stuff, though. "OSR", 2e AD&D, the "basic" D&Ds, and my own ramblings, mostly, but I'll poke everything from Cairn to Exalted to Traveller.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

Xenograg , to random
@Xenograg@dice.camp avatar

I read today that WOTC has revamped all dragon descriptions for edition, and has new art.

Sounds like bikeshedding to me.

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Xenograg The dragons have changed in the details between editions before; I'm looking forward to them getting freshened up again after stagnating for several editions.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Xenograg 2e dragons were just fine and even gave me two versions of the gold dragon that were nice, and then from 3e up I had an ugly catfish that is /finally/ being fixed (to say nothing of the ugly as sin 3e gem dragons; the 5e redesigns were/are weird but were still better than the 3e atrocities).

Also the blue dragon gets to look more like a dragon again and less like a skinned bulldog, bonus. lol.

taichara , to random
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

Success!!

32-page minizine -- 60 critters (the ones recently posted on Lone Knight) and 60 short NPC descriptions (or character inspirations or whatever) --

My stapling job is laughably off-centre and I should probably have tried to fix it before taking pictures but oh well, lol

I'll try to post up the pdf(s) some time today or tonight, I need to go yell about some things atm (nothing bad) --

a view of two pages of the mini zine, showing the header "Roll Call" and short (two or so sentences) descriptions of non-player characters
holding up a one-eighth-size mini zine; titled Wandering Wayfarers, it has a silhouette-style art of a hound and some strange creatures on the cover, and the subtitle "beasts and benedictions, friends and foes"

Tim_Eagon , to random
@Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar

I'm just checked to see where my 2e book was since it was in Chicago, IL as of this morning. It's in freaking St. Paul, MN? You have to pass Madison to get there from Chicago!

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon Mine is in the void between borders for days, but it did also spend a good week kicking off in Chicago and then taking a leisurely tour all around two other stops in IL before /returning to Chicago/ and finally moving on to get stuck in the void.

taichara , to random
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

And here are the dragons --

#ttrpg #osr #lindwyrm

https://loneknight.dreamwidth.org/65612.html

chgowiz , to random
@chgowiz@dice.camp avatar

Update on my dog that was attacked last nite - she's in good spirits this morning, and not bothering the stapled wound.

Had a long conversation with the animal control officer and there will be consequences to the owner of the aggressive dog, so there's that. Remains to be seen if he'll pay the medical bills voluntarily or if I'll need to take him to court. Just what I need in this new neighborhood. sigh

I'm struggling a lot more than I thought I would. Could not sleep. Very edgy today.

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz sends all the vibes to you and her

also kicks fedi for not showing me your first post DX

Tim_Eagon , to random
@Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar

I think it's kind of weird how front and center the 80s D&D cartoon characters are in the artwork for the 2024 revisions when the majority of 5e fans weren't even alive when they aired.

#DND #DND5e

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon It's an excellent way to seed the presence of the characters into new players' minds before launching new media that involves them.

And I can absolutely see WotC wonks having hatched the idea. After all, what's more "D&D-world D&D" than a set of characters and tropes that are visibly and pointedly D&D but not attached to a specific setting (read: FR)?

At this stage of WotC I'd bet on that kind of media expansion plan more than catering to us olds. They're seeding familiarity.

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@kenmarable @Tim_Eagon This, exactly!

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon @kenmarable They're owned by Hasbro, the same company that handed off Transformers to a halfassed indie comics publisher (Dreamwave) for the resurrecting of the franchise at the turn of the century (while what cartoons started filtering back were actually re-imports of the series Takara made).

Then to another indie publisher (IDW) before deciding to do the movie franchise and really exploding things.

They're simultaneously bad at this and following a pattern.

taichara , to random
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

My pointless personal enduring #D&D (esque) nitpicking issue rears its head once more, as I tick through the hours at work poking around listings of fantasy coins and rules reference cards and other such little props:

takes a deep breath

ELECTRUM IS NOT STEEL GREY

ELECTRUM IS MOST CERTAINLY NOT GODDAMN /BLUE/

deep breath

This has /annoyed the fuck out of me/ in the Realms since day one and its spread through later editions in general is just agsahdshfjjl

Yes it's petty.

Don't care.

taichara OP ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz It's a natural alloy! D: and varies from virtually silver through a nice grey-gold to a soft pale gold --

I knew it via dynastic Egypt/Bronze Age interests in general before I ever made it to D&D, but I'm also pretty sure the /blue/ thing came from 1e/2e FR specifically and only infected D&D-at-large around 3e D&D+ ...

It's really nice imo and deserves better than weird blue colours >.>;;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum

chgowiz , to random
@chgowiz@dice.camp avatar

My deer hide is finished!

I'm so thrilled how good this turned out, despite a big glitch at the beginning and a mistake or two that I made. This was my first hide ever, and a learning experience for sure.

This was only about a two week process (duration, not actual hours). I probably spent maybe 16 hours or so of actual work.

I will definitely do this again, so that means more of my deer harvests will be used.

This particular hide will become a handwarmer muff for my wife :)

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz Ohhhh that looks amazing <3

taichara , to random
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

As evidence that everything and anything will be turned against you in the end, I present this:

Creative Commons has declared that feeding everything to an AI to train it is "fair use".

I wish to /fuck/ I knew this before releasing any of my stuff CC instead of, oh, making up my own license or something.

God fucking dammit.

https://creativecommons.org/2023/02/17/fair-use-training-generative-ai/

taichara OP ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz Yeeeeeeeeep. That. -_-

vdonnut , to random
@vdonnut@dice.camp avatar

I'm not sure where i have found this post ( @Xenograg @kyonshi probably among link in some of your finds ) but I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel TEN YEARS after this idea came up to blogosphere. If that's not the perfect example of OSR perpetual archeology then I don't know what is.

Because my OSRish alignments/gods have their saints and aspects and stuff. And all of them may be (probably are) in conflict.

https://drbargle.blogspot.com/2014/03/fantasy-religion.html

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Xenograg @kyonshi @vdonnut

It can certainly be done that way, but it doesn't have to be -- dynastic Egypt is an excellent example of polytheistic hierarchies as well as rites-focus.

BrianBinh , (edited ) to random
@BrianBinh@dice.camp avatar

Owlbear issue of the day:

If to make a half bird/half spider creature, would it have eight legs or eight wings?

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@BrianBinh Four legs, four wings.

loren , to random
@loren@flipping.rocks avatar

as another platform fails remember to give your admin some money if you can so they don't

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@loren Which one is failing? :o

Tim_Eagon , to random
@Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar

Ugh, since I started watching more #TTRPG YouTubers last week, my recommendations are now filled with video after video with clickbaity titles and thumbnails talking about the Cynthia Williams resignation. One is over 2 hours long! There's no way anyone has more information than what Rascal News reported in like three tweets, and they certainly have no insight into the Hasbro C-Suite. I almost regret subscribing to more TTRPG YouTubers. The discourse sucks y'all.

#DND #YouTube #WOTC

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon My long-standing solution is to avoid discoursers, blocking if necessary, and not bothering with youtubers of any stripe (aside from Tasting History and videogame trailers).

I fully admit this isn't as practical for a lot of other people, though.

JVWest , to random
@JVWest@chirp.enworld.org avatar

Casual observations about my Mastodon feed:
-Lots of tech/coding posts I don't understand. Not sure how I plugged into that world.
-Lots of cats. This is, of course, the internet.
-Not nearly as many posts as I would have expected.
-Very few art posts.

Now, part of the reason for all this is I still am not good at finding and following folks over here. I just haven't put in the work.

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@bwebster @JVWest I wouldn't be surprised to discover a pile of folks decamped to Threads and/or Bluesky the instant they could in order to get more attention/traffic/activity/whatever.

I'm more than happy to stay here (with less rpg traffic than before but more flowers and random stuff) in a patch that's very nearly a discourse-free paradise compared to the above, let alone Twitter. I am tired.

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon @bwebster @JVWest I have no idea where the notion about Bluesky came from either, I only know I've had it said to me often enough by people heading over there, rpg and otherwise ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe it's just the call of the algorithm, don't know.

Tim_Eagon , to random
@Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar

If you're paying for shipping via Backerkit and your card expires before they charge you, does Backerkit send you an email asking you to update your CC info? Or do I have to figure out which projects I backed are impacted?

#BackerKit #KickStarter #CrowdFunding

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon When mine expired I went in and changed things manually before Backerkit tried charging, but I didn't have many open campaigns.

It was also a while back and I'm fuzzy on exactly what I did, or whether the site changed since then >.>;; You might want to see if you can just update once from your account settings first?

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon Eep! Fair ~

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@Tim_Eagon Yay! crossing fingers

chgowiz , to random
@chgowiz@dice.camp avatar

Back home after a wonderful GaryCon and seeing old friends and meeting new people! So much fun and ThePrincessWife loves her first GC!

But... Not even 30 min after leaving, a raging head cold hit me and I'm now 😭 and I'm now going to bed. Blah!

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz Feel better soon!

taichara , to random
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

Well I did it -- Lindwyrm, my crack at putting an "D&D" onto a sheet of paper.

(I mean it's in minizine format -- but one sheet of paper!)

I put the plaintext on a small nexus (my wordpress can just sit there for now while I decide what to do), and there's a link there to download the pdf also.

The last week and a half has been outdoing the weeks before it, but I still made a thing. That's not nothing.

https://taichara.smol.pub/ttrpg-lindwyrm

gemini://taichara.smol.pub/ttrpg-lindwyrm

A look inside the zine at the first pages, which are character creation. Black text on white paper.

taichara , to random
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

I pulled together the shorter set of Swordtember entries into a zine ...

https://taichara.itch.io/a-gathering-of-blades

chgowiz , to random
@chgowiz@dice.camp avatar

I having a rough go with news/social media at the moment, as well as feeling disconnected from the RPG community. This is fine, it'll pass, but that's why the blog/podcast are quiet and why I'm not posting as much to social media.

I'll be fine. Things are just so dark/doom/gloom right now in the world, I need to process and do things in my own way.

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz Oh, how I feel this. Commisserations.

chgowiz , to random
@chgowiz@dice.camp avatar

I miss LJ.

Reading Cory Doctorow's blog post about Memex's and blogging made me realize how much I missed writing & having my thoughts there to go back to, to build on concepts and things by writing (talking) it out.

In a way, I kinda treat social media almost like a blog. Although, between my participation in various discord servers, here, FB (kinda, more like 'what do I share w/family') I have a type of LJ.

But a central place where I can go back? Yea, I miss that. https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz There's a non-LJ (aka non-shitfire Russian mess) LJ alternative, but whether it would do it for you I don't know; dreamwidth is still a thing that exists, though, if you don't want your own setup yet.

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz Fair! X3

chgowiz , to random
@chgowiz@dice.camp avatar

Is that Doctor Doom?

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz Make sure you look up Marvel for this one, not DC ;3~ ducks ~

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz I'm helping ! ;3

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz Given the tangled mess that is the years of backlog for yon movie's two lead characters, possibly you might be better off just winging it anyway lol

taichara ,
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

@chgowiz :DDD

taichara , to random
@taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

I've been slowing down on my acquisitions lately (there's probably several reasons why, if I'm honest, and they aren't even terrible ones really), but this looks interesting --

Leading units and squads? Inspired by stuff /and/ -- more importantly -- Fire Emblem and Langrisser and Tactics Ogre?

And there's solo rules?

Fuck yes, sign me up yo

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1775185920/over-war-the-night-comes-down-monarch-edition

chgowiz , to random
@chgowiz@dice.camp avatar

That's an awesome cover!

Screenshot of the cover for the book "Your First Basic Program", by Rodnay Zaks, published in 1983. The cover art shows a fantasy meadow setting, with a green field, forest to the let. A small farm cottage is at the border of the forest and meadow. A large, many-spired castle is in the distance, clouded by faint mist. A road, made of a computer keyboard's keys stretches from the foreground and gently curves up to the castle.
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    • + Tim_Eagon
    taichara ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @chgowiz Hell yeah it is :D

    taichara , to random
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    In what has to be an all-new hilarious level of "I will never find that again now and more importantly how the hell would I ever start looking", I have been reminded -- somehow -- of a singular book from way back when but nothing useful like, oh, a /title/.

    And even though I think~ I could describe it, I certainly can't in any way useful for a websearch ... and the odds of just stumbling across one specific book online is zero.

    But it was a fun book D: Damnit, nostalgia!

    taichara OP ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @chgowiz Oh boy just the style of all the covers alone are stabbing me right in the nostalgia, omg ~ 83 Thankee very kindly for the links 8D

    The Basic book that's haunting me atm was a strange critter -- and it did have critters in it, kind of cartoonish characters (the one that lodges in my head was a hapless dragonish sod), but the book was firmly in the adult section of the old library back home. It was very fond of flowcharts, and was printed in black+white+kind of rosy red-pink.

    taichara OP ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @chgowiz Another kind soul also gave me links to different collections, and it was in there! I instantly recognized the cover 83 lol

    It's also on the Internet Archive so I can show you -- it's Rodnay Zaks' Your First BASIC Program ~

    https://archive.org/details/sybex-your-first-basic-program/page/n19/mode/2up

    Tim_Eagon , to random
    @Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar

    I’m reading stories (well, a story) that Tencent is looking to buy #DND from Hasbro. I’m not certain how reliable the news site doing the reporting is though.

    taichara ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @Tim_Eagon Well I just felt my guts turn to icewater.

    Tencent.

    Fuck I hope not.

    taichara ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @dungeonHack @Tim_Eagon They have a substantial stake in Larian, who made BG3.

    I'm mostly sitting here having flashbacks to Embracer devouring everything in sight which mostly meant videogame studios but also included the likes of Asmodee -- and Embracer's spent months killing those studios stone dead and the last few years "restructuring" (read: mangling) Asmodee and FFG.

    It may be unlikely but it's not impossible, especially if Tencent is looking at IP and not the ttrpg that goes with.

    taichara ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @dungeonHack @Tim_Eagon Something similar is what's made a weird tale of its own out of the whole White Wolf mess and the various xWoD games, Exalted and the like.

    Way back when White Wolf was bought up by CCP ("merged", lol) solely because they were ~planning to make a WoD MMO; the rpg lines struggled and were a mess behind the scenes because CCP didn't care.

    The game never happened after 8 yrs and CCP sold all the IP to Paradox, another videogame company. Paradox has ... its own problems.

    taichara ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @Tim_Eagon @dungeonHack I absolutely believe Larian could make another good videogame. I am far less convinced of any sense of them suddenly trying to add tabletop game development to their roster.

    Tim_Eagon , to random
    @Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar

    I haven't had a lot of time to read this week, but I have been reading a few pages of The Caverns of Thracia each night in memory of Jennell Jaquays. What are you reading?

    taichara ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @Tim_Eagon I haven't been very focused lately, currently ricocheting around between books on food history/techniques, Japanese architecture, and 1177 BC: the year civilization collapsed.

    Not a lot of ttrpg stuff, I reread some Planescape material over last weekend and have been nibbling on B/X post-bookbinding. Kind of taking it easy ttrpg-wise atm.

    kyonshi , to random
    @kyonshi@dice.camp avatar

    hmm, did just fall asleep? I haven't really heard anything about that project for a while

    taichara ,
    @taichara@chirp.enworld.org avatar

    @chgowiz @kyonshi I found kbin extremely awkward to use, let alone navigate, and I don't want to use lemmy. So, options a bit limited there (although I'm hoping kbin shakes off some of the awkward as development trundles on).

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