|
I want to thank roleplaying for saving my life. Hokey, I know. But it's true. Maybe not in the sense of 'helping me not die', but it certainly allowed me to realize what I was. And helped me realize that the way I was holding back was doing nothing but destroying me. I'm trans. I know, shocker, it's a well-kept secret. But I didn't know, for a very long time. I'd been saying it since I was at least fifteen, but I missed it despite all kinds of little hints. I had this idea in my head - planted, perhaps unfortunately, by a person Ettin gamed with like ten years ago - that my idea of what being a woman was...well, wasn't valid. Oversexualized, ignoring extant realities, that sort of thing. It was about...four years ago, now? That I started running a 4e campaign. It wasn't anything fancy, I just wanted to play D&D with guns, and with human history and gods and that sort of thing - traditional campaign settings didn't really appeal to me. I told some people in a chat PixelScum lurks in to this day, and one of the players - ironically the biggest problem - got five people together in a jiffy. And for over a year afterward, I ran my alt-history D&D setting, making a lot of awkward mistakes along the way, constantly feeling like I was doing something wrong. And part of that? By playing female NPCs. I was scared, constantly scared, that people would find me weird for these female NPCs. Just two, to start, the 'mission control'. Then later more, and more, increasingly...charged, each time, with the encouragement of a couple of my players. Of course...the most fun, most thematic, smoothest adventure where everything finally clicked...well, those were the two when I was playing a whip-wielding enchantress cultist with delusions of grandeur, and a scheming lesbian duchess pulling the strings to frame the party for murder. It was...nice. I mean, roleplaying girls in general was nice, but despite my terror at being seen as weird or sexual or anything like that, people liked it when I pushed my interests into the game. Turns out that when you have passion for what you're playing, you do better at GMing. Who knew? Despite all those holy grails - 'don't split the party', 'don't use GMPCs or any NPC more powerful than a porter, unless they're a villain' and especially 'no romance or sex ever' - I broke them, and things were all the better for it. Better for me playing girls. It was around the tailend of the campaign that I started getting really worried about this last villain - fantasy GLaDOS, essentially. Now, I loving worship GLaDOS, she's one of my big inspirations and all, and I kind of...love how she talks and does things. She's so...controlling, teasing, sensual, perfect. So naturally, I worry that this will make things weird, and I ask my one friend if it sounded weird. And you know? He had no idea. It was around this time it all started to fall together. It was...so much easier to be a girl. So much easier to be, to play, to act...to make things feel good for me and others. People liked me more, enjoyed me more, when I wasn't trying to force myself into the awkward, non-sexual adorkable cute boy person mold. When I was myself, even if myself was a bit charged. I applied my lessons to future roleplaying sessions, which all instantly went better the moment I was just myself, just what I wanted, without fear. People love me for it, and told me, showed me what I was. And since then, I haven't looked back.  It's been a while, but I'm starting a new campaign set in the same universe, and doubling down on the Sapphic Factor. I hope that people around here like reading about it. It means a lot to me, and the friends I've made here (and the wife! ) mean so much. I'd love to share some of the stuff that's in my head with everyone, okay?So, Traditional Games, how has roleplaying changed your life?
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2015 16:54
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 00:32 |
|
|
Ningyou posted:My favourite edition of d&d is Not D&D. Well, you're hardly alone there. D&D relies on a bunch of base assumptions of What Roleplaying Should Be that really chafe on...well, lots of people. Including a lot of the people who play it, who seem like they'd be happier playing something else! And this applies even in the case where fantasy, combat-centric murderhobo RPGs are an enjoyed pasttime of the theoretical player! It's kind of a mess, but it'd be less of a problem if it weren't the RPG, and people weren't so hostile toward trying new systems. Seriously, people are really loving hostile. There's ample evidence of it in the various trials and tribulations people on this board have been through. Mind you, I try my best to break the mold, so I hope you can still come up with something nice for my campaign 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2015 17:33
|
|
|
01011001 posted:Nier is worth playing, but definitely not the others. Ningyou and I were enjoying Drakengard 3, except for the part where she had to play it. 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2015 23:18
|
|
|
Ningyou posted:YEAH PRETTY MUCH It feels like they made a game specifically to make me happy, because Tara Platt always makes me happy (eeeeeeeeee Mitsuru), as does holy poo poo tons of other stuff, but then the gameplay happens. I feel like I'd enjoy it more than Ningyou, but I wanna play Nier first and ehhhhhhhhhhhhh  Zarick posted:D&D is (and always has been) what you make of it. I mean, your game is 13th Age, which is pretty much just fancied up D&D. Mostly the base assumptions of D&D are about What D&D Should Be, which is probably fine for its own thing. I've just never understood the animosity towards it just as I've never understood the animosity within of people who don't want to try new systems. Neither really makes sense. Is it fun? Good. Play it. Is it not fun? Play something else, or mix it up, change things to be fun for your group. Easy. All games are defined by their core assumptions, whether one breaks them or not. It's not unhelpful to discuss these assumptions, and where they might cause problems either at the individual game level, or the broader cultural level. It's easy to say 'change things up', and it is indeed a thing people do. But there are people who don't do this, and the framework you create has an effect on every change you make. My own 13th Age campaign, for instance, is seeing characters of substantially higher 'power level' (in terms of uniqueness, flashiness, etc rather than 'they're not dirt farmers ugh') than I originally imagined. Now, it's not bad or anything, and I'm working with it because it's producing a lot of interesting and brilliant apps, but the choice of 13th Age shaped the game's characters in a different way as compared to the other systems I was considering, even when my specific changes are taken into account. This becomes extremely important when the entire hobby is defined by a single game's brand, so, y'know. Your argument is fine in a context-free vacuum, but we live in a world where things have meanings and connotations past their stated intent. It's an especially poor argument when it's been a go-to answer to shut down any kind of criticism or higher-level analysis of a system, which, surprise surprise, is usually D&D. FactsAreUseless posted:Because you're afraid to talk to people like an adult? Please do not insult my good friends. If your friends don't want to play the games you like, that can be an issue - and people can still be your friends even if you're annoyed that all they play is X system. Confrontation can be difficult, and getting together a game and teaching a new system isn't particularly easy. (I should know!) Also, don't insult my friends. Lightning Lord posted:This too. Listen if people in your area just want to play D&D and you don't tell them "No thanks, I'm not a fan" and look for someone who wants to play a game of your choice. Don't insult my friends. This is like the argument of avoiding harassment on Twitter by not using Twitter. I mean, sure, you could probably find a new group in the area, but getting to know new people is hard and full of pitfalls, and those pitfalls only increase with the matter of gender and queerness. The fact that I had a lasting RL group from a pickup game was a loving miracle, and people shouldn't be expected to not be unhappy that their friends don't play the games they want. New friends are hard to make. I suppose if you treat a game as something completely disposable and interchangeable, that attitude makes more sense, but some of us like to make friends and interact with the people we game with besides Other People Who Play This Game. RPGs aren't like card games or miniature games where the other player doesn't matter so much, or at least I would hope they aren't. Investment in the story is investment in the group, end of line.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2015 01:22
|
|
|
unseenlibrarian posted:The best part about TORG's name is that it started as an internal company shorthand for "The Other Roleplaying Game" (As opposed to Star Wars d6, their moneymaker) and they just never found a better title. Ah, yes, the same logic that gave us 'Thedas', THe Dragon Age Setting. (I will never get over this.) Evil Mastermind posted:You are completely wrong and I hate you. Well, as a title, it tells me literally nothing but that it has a funny name that's fun to say - it doesn't even evoke a proper mood beyond Caveman. Not that other Traditional Game names are great! I mean, Dungeons & Dragons has dragons, but there's no particular focus on medieval prison facilities. (I'm so sorry.) Real talk, though, that setting sounds kind of lame and...overextended? That's a lot of different genres mixing together, like some really bad mash-up T-shirt. (Or RIFTS.)
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2015 02:16
|
|
|
Potsticker posted:last time I used something like that it was pretty bloated and loaded ads everywhere. Which is why I'd rather host something myself. I use this to host a copy of DokuWiki for some of my projects and campaigns. Assuming your total traffic is small (and for a personal campaign wiki, it will be), it gives you total control and a decent amount of resources for free.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2015 22:58
|
|
|
DokuWiki's...not actually that great, if you ask me. It's fairly lightweight, but it's got a lot of weird legacy issues and bad plugin support. I mostly use it because this one RP site I was on used its syntax and demanded gigantic wiki pages for anything you wanted to add to the setting, so it's pretty much burned into my brain. I mean, it's usable, but it's by no means pretty. Ettin, Cirno, and pals use Wikidot for their hosting, and the wiki syntax and presentation there seems pretty okay. Alternately, if you can code (I can't), you can probably customize DokuWiki's theme structure into something usable.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2015 23:06
|
|
|
Potsticker posted:That wouldn't happen to be a sci-fi game featuring a major faction comprised of android catgirls in Star Trek inspired spaceships, would it? Yeah, it's funny, but the amount of grief given to me (including sexual abuse, sexual ideation of IRL minors including myself, and a fairly unsurprising chunk of sexism and racism) makes the reminder uh...less than pleasant. Suffice it to say that my entire development and philosophy in RPGs and life has been to not be that site or those people as much as possible.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2015 23:22
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 00:32 |
|
|
Potsticker posted:At first I was excited we may have met before, but reading that made me realize who some of the disgusting shitheads are you've talked about previously. I don't exactly have a lot of fond memories of that place. The only person from there I still talk to was my friend long before. Really, letting it lie is probably for the best.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2015 00:35
|
|