@masukomi@dice.camp
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masukomi

@masukomi@dice.camp

👉 Senior Back-End Dev. Seeking Remote Position 👈

Autodidactic, Autistic, ADHD, Trans 🏳️‍⚧️, programmer who loves thinking about TTRPGs.

If you're interested in hearing my random thoughts about life, programming geekery, 3D printing, and cute pics of my dogs and cat, then follow my other account at https://connectified.com/@masukomi

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

danluu, to random
@danluu@mastodon.social avatar

"Unfortunately, a recent software update was not successful. Your vehicle cannot be driven.

Please call customer support"

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@OliverNoble @kentindell @nuthatch @danluu it depends on what the car was doing when it stopped being drivable.

Its been shown multiple times that you can maliciously alter the software of a car that’s actively driving (multiple manufacturers), which means a lack of protections against changes at “bad” times

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Something that I've noticed in Candela Obscura & other recent games is the decision to NOT include character sheets in the book, and instead just link you to the web-site.

THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA.

I have games that are over 30yrs old in my bookshelf. Do you really think your web site is going to still be around in that much time? Many of my books link to sites that no longer exist, or downloads that no longer exist.

1/2

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@thalskarth ... 🤦‍♀️ I don't do this for the games i have. I've just been downloading and 🤞 that my backups work. I REALLY should.

ugh. I've got a lot of printing to do.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@rivetgeek @Tim_Eagon 2nd game I grabbed of my shelf looking for a real world example. In 2020 Fantasy Flight Games announced "Keyforged: Secrets of the Crucible" a Genesys game setting. It, like the other ones, has specific character sheets with the default skills for that setting.

Try and download a character sheet for it. They do technically exist, BUT not in publisher or community hosted places. The only resource I found doesn't have "Keyforge" anywhere on the page because of licensing.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@rivetgeek @Tim_Eagon @james @NerdBurgerCraig There's no good excuse for not being able to afford the number of pages your game needs. If you can't get sufficient crowdfunding / pre-orders / whatever to pay for the physical printing there's not enough demand to bother with printing it in the first place. Games distributed electronically have ZERO excuse.

No-one should be gambling on printing games at this point in time without knowing if there's demand or being able to afford being wrong.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

3/2 (oops)

To be explicit "I uploaded it to itch.io or drivethru.rpg" or any equivalent is NOT sufficient. Companies go out of business all the time. Changing URL structure is pretty common too.

There is NO valid alternative to including it in the book. There are valid supplemental things you can do, like putting it on your site & itch and drive through and anything else... But including it IN the same book/pdf as the rules is the ONLY thing that guarantees people with your game have them.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@rivetgeek sure, but how does that help the random person 10-30 years from now who hears about great game X buys a used copy of it? What if X was an indie game that only 1000 people have copies of? What are the odds that you are going to find somewhere to ask where One will see it? How many of them kept good backups and kept transferring copies from computer to computer?

Even if you can find a Rando with a copy, there’s still time when you’re reading the book, but are missing a critical part

masukomi, (edited )
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@rivetgeek i have multiple books that can disprove your hypothesis. Of the top of my head, i believe many of the Genesys System resources are unavailable after FFG got bought and their TTPRG stuff sold off to a co that’s doing nothing with it.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@rivetgeek @Tim_Eagon and that's a game from 2020. It's nice to think that community people will host these things, and sometimes it does happen. D6 Star Wars is a great - and very illegal - example of this, but it's the exception not the rule. MOST games don't have huge fan bases. Ex. How many people do you know who've even HEARD of TSR's "Dragon Lance Fifth Age" RPG game that only uses cards? I was working for > 1yr as a web developer when it was released. Internet promo was alive and well.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@Lauberfen @rivetgeek @james YES this. For example: Blades in the Dark. It's regularly held up as a game design example to follow. Managing your "Stress" is a core mechanical element of the game.

Using ONLY the core book. Tell me how much stress a character has to work with.

You can't. Not confidently. The number is ONLY mentioned once in a sentence that clarifies one of the Hound's abilities.

Without knowing how much stress a character can have the game is functionally broken.

masukomi, (edited )
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@squishymage42 @rivetgeek Yeah, I'm 100% fine with the book including what's essentially just a conceptual representation so long as there's at least one version in it that has ALL the elements of a character sheet in one place visually representing how you tick off some resource or whatever.

The actual look / layout isn't nearly as important as the reference info, & tools & interactions that the game assumes folks will be having when using it.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Additionally, Every game reference the character sheet in the writing. You know what sucks? Having someone reference something that is important and also NOT in the book you're reading. I need to go download the character sheets a) while I still can b) just to know wtf they're talking about.

Yes, people are no-longer copying character sheets out of books. That's not the ONLY reason they used to be included.

2/2

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I received Age of Desolation earlier this week. If memory serves, I ordered it because they were doing something interesting with character creation / classes. The actual setting is a) violates physics with wild abandon b) as pitched, sounds like a 13yr old boy’s idea of “dark and edgy”

1st: the cards & other things came in a “box” bulging because it was too small.

🧵 1/?

A bulging black thing that exists somewhere in between box and envelope. It is too small for its contents.
A photograph of a two page spread that is all text. If you zoom in you can see just how thin the font is.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

"Awakened Mind" trait... "An innate mental focus lets you shrug off eldrich effects that would cloud your mind."

🤦‍♀️ THERE IS NO ELDRITCH ANYTHING IN THIS SETTING! There's no "Elder gods." or fishy tentacular horrors from the deep. There's no fucking Lovecraft here.

Yes, "eldritch" can be used to mean "supernatural" fine, but a) just say that b) in the RPG context it means @#%$@! Lovecraftian horrors.

Also, there's nothing "awakened" about this trait!!

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I need to stop.

This book is a cluserbomb to the brain of anyone capable of critical thinking.

The art is good, but they're 99.999% normal fantasy humanoids in a world that's supposed to be a mishmash of traits from different species.

Layout decent. Font choice terrible. Editing .... the stuff is grammatically correct but the actual collections of words have MANY problems as far as meaning, internal consistency, and basic understanding of what critical words like "pacifist" mean. 🤦‍♀️

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

There was an interspecies trade languagecalled common that is ancient… and somehow that’s spoken now too despite the aforementioned wtf re no-one alive knowing it and why would would you need something like that when literally everyone speaks draconic?!

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I don't feel like it requires a lot of thought to recognize that if literally everyone speaks Draconic you already HAVE a common interspecies language and any other attempt at making a competing one would fail miserably because ...duh.

But also, why would you want to try and convince everyone to adopt an ancient dead language with no living speakers, little to no surviving texts, and no religious, regional, or even species ties WHEN YOU ALREADY SPEAK A COMMON TONGUE?!

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Oh and the imperfect people who sometimes warred but often were at peace? Yeah, they all died before we learned anything about them, so it’s even more pointless .

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

All the old species died. Dragons gave birth to new species… you’re character is a descendant of those and are a weird mishmash of whatever physical traits you feel like. Want 6 arms? Go for it.

your language choices in addition to Draconic are “Dwarvish, Elvish, Gnomish…” the languages of the species WHO WERE WIPED OUT many hundreds of years (thousands ?) before you were born and before the planet was shattered into pieces.

How did anyone alive learn them?!?

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

It’s like some angsty teen saying “yeah, my so-called mom”

Listen you little 💩!

It tries to explain this by saying she is neglecting here “rulership”.

Like do you not know how monarchies & dictatorships work? They’re still your effing ruler even if they ignore you and spend all their days high on coke. And they will still have you effing executed if they feel like it. Arrrgh!

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Goddess is all “hey dragons. Each of you rule one realm now” and is describes how some are kind rulers and some are a-holes and when we get to the description of the first realm it says “…prospered under the eye of of the realm’s so-called ruling dragon…”

Holy fuck. The goddess explicitly put the dragon in charge AND the book describes how A) they each ruled and B) were parent to all of the people… how the eff are they now only “so-called” rulers.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I’m skipping ahead to character creation.

There’s a nifty monk tradition that involves ritual blinding and is called “Way of the Silent Scribe” . It has precisely zero words describing any single aspect of them that is silent, or involves writing literally anything.

I’m pretty sure you could take this tradition and be an illiterate chatterbox without bending a single instruction.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

Literally the next page starts with the heading “Ruling Dragon”

FML 🤦‍♀️

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

As part of character creation you need to take 3 combat traits.

One of the subclasses is the “Oath of Incarceration” paladin who is a fucking pacifist… who doesn’t incarcerate anyone. Not that they could anyway because FUCKING PACIFIST.

BUT they “peacefully subdue an enemy in combat” Arrrgh! Subduing someone against their will is literally a violent act!

“Killing is a last resort “

Omfg if you’re willing to kill someone you are most definitely not a fucking pacifist!

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

THEN all the dragons “went feral” except the white one.

I’m not making this up.

masukomi,
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

@soulcutter yeah, 15 yr old writing a book that big is a huge success. doubly so that it resonated with so many. Haven't read it, but know that many love it so... 🤷‍♀️ Congrats to him and I hope he improved with the following books.

So many authors put out poor good books, but just keep improving with each successive one.

masukomi, to random
@masukomi@dice.camp avatar

I updated my thread about Arora https://dice.camp/@masukomi/111592677559678854 but i have to admit my attempt to find something redeeming devolved rapidly into an increasingly frothy rant.

The illustrators and layout people are completely exempt from my complaints. They did good. Everything else..

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