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If you only have 1 GM and 1 player, then I highly recommend you look into Ironsworn. It is very similar to Dungeon World (and IMO a better adaptation of some of the PbtA principles) and is explicitly designed for solo or co-op play with a small number of folks. It's a slightly different dice mechanic, but still very simple. Also, it's free.
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Mar 25, 2020 18:21
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There's also a discord channel for Ironsworn where people have several homebrews active. One is called Ironcrunch and adds a bit more fine-grained character progression and crunch to the system. https://discord.gg/vcV9Au
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Mar 25, 2020 18:24
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Overemotional Robot's post reminded me: A long time ago I made a bunch of custom playbooks inspired by the Sigil factions for a Planescape DW game. My group and I played several sessions with them and made some refinements. I had intended to polish them further and release them online but then became distracted by other projects. Here's a link to all of them, hope you enjoy! If I recall correctly this covers every faction except the Indeps and Anarchists. It was my intent to use Compendium Classes for those.
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Mar 25, 2020 18:28
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Yeah, we're playing it in our regular weekly gaming group now and I'm considering running it for my kids during the shutdown. My 9yo son wants to play some kind of fireball-slingin' sorcerer, so I'll probably come up with a couple of custom Assets for the game to accommodate that.
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Mar 25, 2020 18:30
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:I'm looking into DW (just got the rulebook yesterday), and am really liking what I'm seeing especially coming from 5e DnD. The hard part will be convincing some of my more crunch-minded players to give it a shot. One of my players would be totally on board, and I've been thinking of running a small DW thing just with him so we can familiarize ourselves with it. If you're running a one-shot with somebody, I've had success with just asking somebody to fill in a bond and associated character backstory if they come up 1 short.
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Mar 26, 2020 03:26
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Just have them chose one or two bonds to fill in with NPCs. That should pick up the world-building slack you're missing from not having other players. If this is just a one-shot preparation for another game, really stress that you can go hogwild with it. "Where did you get your sword?" "Uh, from my father" "Okay, and what was he the God of before he died?". Get this player into that mind set and it should really juice up world building for the full group. Do also note that you can play crunch heavy in DW. A lot of moves explicitly build on each other mechanically. Things like stacking armor on a fighter or damage on a thief definitely apply here. The best part is that because it's Dungeon World, the GM has to be a fan of the characters! So it doesn't become this D&D puzzle of "how do I hold up my end of the bargain, i.e. lower this fighter's hit points most effectively? uh, incorporeal enemies, ability drain, etc etc". Instead you just take for granted that this fighter is a walking tank - and that that's awesome - and tell stories about that. Put him up against 20 enemies that don't have a chance of dealing any damage through armour. What does that look like? (a fuckin Frank Frazetta painting).
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Mar 26, 2020 09:50
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Ilor posted:Yeah, we're playing it in our regular weekly gaming group now and I'm considering running it for my kids during the shutdown. My 9yo son wants to play some kind of fireball-slingin' sorcerer, so I'll probably come up with a couple of custom Assets for the game to accommodate that. I found the Immolator in the standard playbook to be really bad at actually making being a crazy fire-slinging motherfucker fun. The Dragon Mage does it way better.
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Mar 26, 2020 10:55
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Red Shoe posted:Overemotional Robot's post reminded me: A long time ago I made a bunch of custom playbooks inspired by the Sigil factions for a Planescape DW game. My group and I played several sessions with them and made some refinements. I had intended to polish them further and release them online but then became distracted by other projects. Whoa, this is really cool! Now that all of us are trapped there's no reason not to organize some play online.
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Mar 26, 2020 18:21
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If I wanted to run a virus outbreak on a cruise ship pbta game, which engine would you suggest?
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Apr 1, 2020 23:24
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Gerdalti posted:If I wanted to run a virus outbreak on a cruise ship pbta game, which engine would you suggest?
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Apr 2, 2020 00:32
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Gerdalti posted:If I wanted to run a virus outbreak on a cruise ship pbta game, which engine would you suggest? This is literally the sample adventure from Spirit of 77! Available for free from the monkeyfun website.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:34
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Booyah- posted:There's also a discord channel for Ironsworn where people have several homebrews active. One is called Ironcrunch and adds a bit more fine-grained character progression and crunch to the system. This link doesn’t work, FYI. http://bit.ly/ironsworn-discord does, though!
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Apr 2, 2020 23:31
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I'm running an actual second game after years of onesies and I feel like the front sheets are a little inadequate. Anyone have a nicely organized adventure template that includes fronts, monsters, impressions, etc?
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Oct 2, 2020 19:57
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PerniciousKnid posted:I'm running an actual second game after years of onesies and I feel like the front sheets are a little inadequate. Anyone have a nicely organized adventure template that includes fronts, monsters, impressions, etc? I recall someone else having this issue a while back... ah! Here we are. Glazius posted:Did some googling around, found this which is kind of an autofill spreadsheet for managing dangers, NPCs, and places. You'll need to make a copy for your own use but it'll autopop some common things for you. Glazius posted:I found an aggregator page here, but it seems to be down at the moment. Google's cache or the wayback machine should still be good for it, though. Happily, not only do they still both exist but the aggregator page is back up!
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Oct 3, 2020 16:29
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Thanks! Too bad about all the stuff that disappeared with G+.
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Oct 3, 2020 20:58
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So did we ever talk about this whole thing?
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Oct 7, 2020 18:44
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Lurdiak posted:So did we ever talk about this whole thing? Seems like a play session went (very) bad. Koebel likely violated the trust of one of his players, and he made others (and some viewers) uncomfortable. He then apologized and promised to change his behavior and implement safeguards in the future. The specific post you linked appears to be written by someone who already disliked Koebel, and he spends much of it justifying why he doesn't (and will likely never) accept an apology. So, grain of salt for me. I am not dismissing the incident. Someone was legitimately negatively affected, and it needed to be called out and corrected, especially since it happened in a public forum. But it also didn't seem overtly malicious or predatory; and I take the apology at face value. I only have enough energy to maintain so much outrage, I guess. Everyone who considers watching/buying Dungeon World stuff will have to follow their own conscience.
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Oct 7, 2020 20:20
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WhiteHowler posted:I saw it mentioned in other threads. This is basically my take also. It was a lovely move on his part, doing that was absolutely not okay...but it also hasn't been a pattern of behavior in any of the games I've watched, and I felt like his apologies were legit. It's worth knowing about, and it's worth making a call about, but mine isn't "cancel him forever". YMMV.
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Oct 7, 2020 20:46
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I've decided to DM my first RPG using the Dungeon World system and will begin next week with a session 0. So far I've read the goon guide to being a GM, and I think I understand now the story progression mechanics and the combat mechanics at a basic level. I think I now need to understand the specifics of each class so I know the right questions to ask (eg: I understand that I must ask the Cleric about the wider religious world, their religion). The next thing I want to do is understand how fronts, tags, grim portents, and holds work. I wondered if someone could just check I'm doing everything correctly. Am I overthinking at this stage? Is it okay to just get going with a limited grasp on the finer details? Finally, I'm starting with 2 groups of 4 players each and I have a secret ambition to make their campaigns interact without them knowing it. Has anyone ever done this before? Do you have any cool ideas to share?
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Jan 19, 2021 03:00
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I would let them know they’re interacting with other people, but not exactly how. Otherwise it’s just for your benefit, which is weird. Portents and fronts are a GM organizing tool. It’s best when players know that stuff is transpiring in the world, and have ways to interact with it before it destroys their favorite continent.
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Jan 19, 2021 05:29
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Discern Realities has a tutorial series on YouTube that covers some of this stuff. In general I would say DW doesn't benefit from overthinking. It works best when you let the players' suggestions, backgrounds and failures drive the plot. I feel like if you're going to have two groups you should get them all together for session 0, otherwise group 2 is going to have less narrative control. However, if it were me I would just run them separately so each group can fully own their game.
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Jan 19, 2021 06:10
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So, the kickstarter for a new PbtA game, Stonetop, recently caught my eye. I backed it because I'm a sucker for anything that looks even vaguely like King of Dragon Pass, but I was tentatively encouraged to see that it seems to be most closely descended from Dungeon World. That being said, I mostly know DW by reputation and my only PbtA experience is with Legacy: Life Among the Ruins. I'd be gratified to hear the opinions of any thread denizens who wanted to take a look at the game.
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Mar 18, 2021 04:09
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It's closely descended from Dungeon World, yeah; the creators are coming off a DW adventure and expansion. Maybe too closely. DW eats a lot of justified flak for the damage roll and the prismatic defy danger; I see they've put the "make sure no other move makes more sense" in front of defy danger which is a promising sign, but really this is going to live or die based on its GM advice. If they actually give whole-rear end GM advice, including advice on individual playbook move adjudication, instead of the half-rear end "you guys remember Apocalypse World, right?" job Dungeon World did it'll turn out okay. Though the playbooks they've shared are neat wrinkles, and the steading mechanics look pretty promising from here. Glazius fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Mar 18, 2021 |
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Mar 18, 2021 18:24
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Dungeon World was basically trying to do D&D as PBTA, whereas most people here would argue it should be trying to do a specific sort of fantasy narrative to make PBTA really work properly. I say this because, whatever it may inherit from Dungeon World, Stonetop does seem to be doing a much specific sort of fantasy narrative.
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Mar 18, 2021 20:42
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I've been DMing various games forever and have bounced around between systems, AD&D, D&D 3rd, 3.5, Pathfinder, D10 White Wolf, etc. Recently played Blades in the Dark and while I struggled to adapt to some of it, the change in approach to rules was really fresh and got me really excited. Talking to goons about it, lots of them suggested Dungeon World. Well here I am and finally my group decided to go back to a fantasy game so we're playing Dungeon World. Last week was character creation and the first session, and tomorrow will be the 2nd. I ran the first without the rulebook and it seemed to go pretty good, I only missed a few details like gaining XP on 6- rolls. I've got the rulebook now and plugged the holes of my understanding. I think in my experience lots of groups want to pretend they're the hardcore D&D nerds who will numbers crunch and defeat the tough dungeon, but in practice, especially as adults with a day job and lots of other things to do, most players barely spend any time on their character sheet between sessions. And as such in games like D&D you either just let things be forgiving or otherwise the game can potentially be punishing if people didn't invest the min/max time. You also have the issue where one player can steal the spotlight because they did min/max and the other players don't have the time or aren't as interested in digging into the rules. Dungeon World is much more what most people want from D&D, I think. The actual part people always get excited about; the stories. I'm a big fan of D10 Mage because of the freedom that improvised spellcasting gives you in roleplaying. Feels like it really lets the players do what they want, instead of having to figure out how to do it within the rules and the moves your character is given. Dungeon World (and other PBTA) seems to really get to the heart of that, but for more than just magic. Even a warrior can be totally creative in DW. Fiction first, rules later. Anyways  but DW seems cool and good.
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Mar 20, 2021 17:13
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Zaphod42 posted:I think in my experience lots of groups want to pretend they're the hardcore D&D nerds who will numbers crunch and defeat the tough dungeon, but in practice, especially as adults with a day job and lots of other things to do, most players barely spend any time on their character sheet between sessions. And as such in games like D&D you either just let things be forgiving or otherwise the game can potentially be punishing if people didn't invest the min/max time. People rag on the D&D holdovers in dungeon world and yeah as far as PBtA goes it's not perfect, but it does hit such a sweet spot for exactly the type of person you describe here (which is also me). Well said!
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Mar 20, 2021 18:29
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Zaphod42 posted:Anyways Glad to hear you're having fun with it. If you run into problems, toss a post up, there's some parts of running the game that can trip you up your first time out.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:51
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Second session went well, and I've got lots of ideas for things written. The hardest thing in my experience so far is improving an answer for the 7-9 results sometimes. If its 10+ I just let them do the cool thing, if its 6- then they fail and I can make them take damage or whatever, but sometimes with 7-9 its like, how in this circumstance do I create a drawback? It depends upon the action, and some times its real easy to do. But just other times it really puts you on the spot as a GM. But I think I'm doing fine. One thing that occurred to me is that with DW a larger party should be pretty okay? With D&D I usually have a hard cap at 4-5 PCs because growing the party past that means rounds take forever and people check out during combat when they aren't going, which creates negative feedback as people then take longer to take their turn when it comes around since they weren't paying attention, which makes it take even longer to get to their turn, so more people check out. But with Dungeon World having no hard turns or initiative order, you're free to have a few people play who aren't as experienced that could be like your Merry and Pippin who hang around and make jokes but don't necessarily participate in all the battles. Or maybe they do and they mess something up, or they get taken hostage or whatever. I could see having a larger table and it not being such a big deal, although you do still have to keep track of people's character backgrounds and bonds and such.
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Mar 24, 2021 01:24
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Zaphod42 posted:Second session went well, and I've got lots of ideas for things written. 1. Watch Indiana Jones movies. The truck scene from the first one is a long string of 7-9s. In fact, I don't think he gets a 10+ result before the very end. 2. Large groups is where "GM as DJ" of "GM as director" comes into play. For everyone to have the maximum amount possible of the kind of fun they wanted, you have to keep an eye on the less-active people and prompt them for a move before they start getting bored watching the action. I'd try and split it up into sub-groups of 2-3 players, each dealing with a separate problem, and try and set them up with, and bring to resolution all of their cliffhangers at once. You've got to work your way up to that though. Look at the Star Wars series. Each movie has more things going on at the big finish than the one before until in Phantom Menace you've got starfighters, Padme raiding the palace, the Jedi duel, and the Gungan/Droid battle. Notice that you really only have one PC in 3 of those scenes, and only 2 in the 4th. Compare that with Rogue One. 3 PCs on the planet stealing the data. Three more in the ground battle holding the door open to transmit the tapes, and a framing sequence of space combat acting as a big ol' countdown clock. More PCs, fewer simultaneous scenes, this gives you room to actually kill a PC or two without cutting off a major plot thread. Or, if it's a one-shot, you've got built-in permission for a TPK. As a GM you should indulge those, you won't get many chances where it won't break the group in regular play styles.
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Mar 24, 2021 05:40
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Zaphod42 posted:Second session went well, and I've got lots of ideas for things written. It helps to consider what might happen on a 6- before you let a roll happen, as it makes sense in terms of your prep and the things the players are doing. Then you'll have an idea what to do on those 7-9 results that put people in a spot and such - just "pull your punch" from what you intended on a 6-. It's also important to keep making moves even on a 10+ as the situation progresses. Otherwise, if you let people just clear out threats on a 10+, your following players will just see an empty space with less to react to. As far as player count, I've found that actually balancing an entire situation across a party has started to break down my focus at 5 or 6 engaged players. But if you have some people who just want to hang on the periphery (and are still okay with answering questions like "where did you grow up?" "how do you open the lock?" "where do you recognize the bandit from?") an easy option is to bring in The Guest Star, a playbook about being useful and disposable.
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Mar 24, 2021 05:46
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Where are most games for this usually run?' How alive is this game? DnD6e can learn so much from DW imo.
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Jul 22, 2021 02:39
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I mean, it’s alive, not as popular as a few years ago.
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Jul 22, 2021 03:51
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Golden Bee posted:I mean, it’s alive, not as popular as a few years ago. Supporting it also supporting a extremely gross guy has definitively taken some shine off it.
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Jul 22, 2021 13:06
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I'm still waiting for Freebooters on the Frontier 2e to materialize in the public sphere. Always liked the vibe of it and apparently the new edition does some cool stuff.
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Jul 22, 2021 14:06
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Supporting it also supporting a extremely gross guy has definitively taken some shine off it. I read that whole saga and felt like it was a bad mistake made during the moment (unfortunately live-streamed to a whole lot of people) rather than the guy being irredeemably toxic. I mean, use your own judgment, but unless something else has happened in the last few months, it seemed like he owned his mistake, apologized for it, and put measures in place to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
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Jul 22, 2021 18:36
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kneelbeforezog posted:Where are most games for this usually run?' In person? On Roll20? IDK however you do tabletop games. Its... played? It does feel like most of the custom content was made by goons, but people do play it. That said, I think a lot of people either aren't into DW and stuck with D&D, or if they're willing to try PBTA systems and DW, then they ended up moving on to other games that are less trying to re-create D&D and more embrace a roleplaying-first setting.
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Jul 22, 2021 18:59
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WhiteHowler posted:I read that whole saga and felt like it was a bad mistake made during the moment (unfortunately live-streamed to a whole lot of people) rather than the guy being irredeemably toxic. I dunno dude if I was actually sorry for something I did I probably wouldn’t let my buddy sneak me into his Kickstarter, which he neglected to tell anyone else who worked on his anthology Kickstarter about until it launched, making it seem like everyone was all cool with me being there.
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Jul 22, 2021 19:33
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Mr. Maltose posted:I dunno dude if I was actually sorry for something I did I probably wouldn’t let my buddy sneak me into his Kickstarter, which he neglected to tell anyone else who worked on his anthology Kickstarter about until it launched, making it seem like everyone was all cool with me being there. Huh. Didn't hear about all that. I dunno.
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Jul 22, 2021 19:38
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Zaphod42 posted:That said, I think a lot of people either aren't into DW and stuck with D&D, or if they're willing to try PBTA systems and DW, then they ended up moving on to other games that are less trying to re-create D&D and more embrace a roleplaying-first setting. I still play more DW than anything else, because it uses familiar DnD tropes that are easy to explain to people who played DnD 20 years ago, or who play computer RPGs. But I mostly play with new people.
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Jul 22, 2021 19:43
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WhiteHowler posted:I read that whole saga and felt like it was a bad mistake made during the moment (unfortunately live-streamed to a whole lot of people) rather than the guy being irredeemably toxic. Counterargument, his "bad mistake" was roleplaying a sexual predator and roleplaying sexually assaulting a player live on stream and his apology amounted to bupkis.
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Jul 22, 2021 19:44
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