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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)NI
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What are some video game quotes that is stuck in your head?
  • "In the room ahead is a spider artifact. Take it! We will need it to reach the Santieri Crystal." Also "There is but one gift I can offer that is equal in value to an Elder Scroll and my daughter: I offer you my blood. Take it and you will walk as a lion among sheep, men will tremble at your approach, and you will never fear death again."

  • Why do gamers encourage this kind of behavior?
  • I think you are taking that post the wrong way. For context every character in Star Rail falls into 3 (iirc) categories: short, medium, or tall, and every character within a category has the exact same body type, just with different accessories and textures. What that post is saying is that this is a character is in a category (medium/maiden) that does not have the exact same body as other characters in the same category, which might mean that in the future the characters will have more diverse models/body types.

    That's not to say that some people don't get unduly angry over how their characters look, but that's not what is happening here.

  • In the Mouth of Madness - "I'm not the one who changed!"
  • I have never understood the grease argument. People seem to hold it up as some sort of ideal for creativity and playing outside the written rules, to the point that it has basically become a sort of shibboleth to sort who is a fun person and who isn't (like in this blog post), but most people I've seen know about the combo because they heard about it somewhere, not because they came up with this awesome original idea by themselves.

    And, while the grease spell doesn't say it is flammable, it also makes no sense from a real-world application. Cooking grease at room temperature does not burn. the whole thing is more like the example of the flanking rule that is mentioned in the post. Everyone knows about the "setting fire to grease" thing, so obviously it's an actual rule.

    And as for it's use as a shibboleth, I must admit that it works in my case. I am indeed, a no fun person. I like having rules to look up and will not allow much "creative" use of spells outside of what is written in them at my table. But, in my defence, I'd say that it is infact the other side, this strawman that I am now constructing, that is in the wrong. I feel like people at this point are basically treating spell slots as "plot tokens". "Hey, can I do this thing that normally I wouldn't be able to do? I'm willing to give up a 3rd level plot token spell slot for it." And there's nothing wrong with plot tokens, plenty of games use them to great effect. But spell slots aren't designed to be used like this in 5e, and it shows. It is (I think) one of the reasons why people think martials suck: They don't have any plot tokens to bargain with. If everyone had them it would be fine (Oh, hello, DnD 4e), but they don't.

    No, I think spells should do what they say they do. Playing "outside your sheet" is fine and good, but you have to keep in mind what you are allowing when you do (and allowing creative ideas to be a great boon, but you can't repeat the same creative idea more than one is a good compromise).

  • "A book that will shock the conscience of a nation" [Too Much Coffee Man]
  • The short text at the back of the book/cover that is usually a summary of what the book is about, I believe. Also often had some short reviews, like the op title refers to. (The stuff you look at when you are deciding if you want to read the book or not, generally.)

  • Biology rule
  • If someone gets angry at "my female friends" that sounds like a them problem, tbh. I've never met anyone that cared about that use, but your mileage might vary, I guess.

  • Biology rule
  • It's equally, or more, correct to say "female/male people". It's just like "poor people" is ok, but "the poors" makes you sound like an asshat. Including "people" makes the difference.

  • Re-enactors in full kit showing use of a 1st-2nd century AD Roman Testudo formation to allow troops to mount a wall
  • That would make sense, yeah. I suppose you can see that on the picture too, he's standing on the shield boss of one shield and the edge of another. It still seems like it would be very heavy for the guy at the top, but I suppose they don't spend that long standing there, maybe.

  • Re-enactors in full kit showing use of a 1st-2nd century AD Roman Testudo formation to allow troops to mount a wall
  • The way they are currently set up the bottom shield is in front of the shield above it, so that when it gets pushed on it is supported by the next shield (which is again supported by the next shield, and so on).

    It feels more intuitive that the shield should overlap the other way (instead of the top of your shield being supported by the next shield, the bottom of your shield would be supported by the previous shield) because the final shield in the row has to be the heaviest to hold and the first one is supported by the ground.

  • A cool guide of commonly believed myths
  • Sure, but it seems odd to be picky on the use of the word "tree" to refer to the banana tree rather than a herb, but then make the general statement that cows are "colour blind" when they can actually see colour.

  • A cool guide of commonly believed myths
  • Except cows can see colour. They only have 2 types of colour receptors in their eyes, compared to humans 3, (missing the red one, from what I gather with 30 sec of googling?) so their colour vision is much more limited compared to ours, but they are not colour blind.

  • [Map] 99 in different languages
  • Norway as well. 90+9 is the official way, 9+90 is the way from when the Germans occupied the country. Both are still used. The map also says Georgia and Finland also use two variations.

  • Every race gets one cool ability
  • Surprisingly, I think I disagree with most of what you've said in this comment.

    While I understand that it can be discouraging for a creator to have the species and cultures that they have worked on not really be explored by the majority of players I don't think it is an issue most of the time.

    It also seems a bit odd to me to lump elf, half-elf, and presumably also dwarves in with humans, given that they usually make for the hard core of fantasy races. If those aren't considered distinct then I'd wager that maybe the issue isn't that they are less distinct and cool compared to other races but something else. Either that races that are seen as "distinct" actually lean into some sort of "gimmick", or that people simply pick what they think looks good, and they aren't into how Gith look, for example.

    While I know there is a large group of people playing Human mainly, I feel like that reflects the fantasy that is being set up by most games that I have engaged with. Humans are the "standard" and other races are exotic, deeply different, and usually rare. At least that's what seems to me like the most common fantasy setting type (and also my preference). That's why I don't mind when the majority plays humans, as that does reflect the story of the game. It seems more odd to me when the party strolls into town and they have a tiefling, drow, aasimar, and lizardfolk. When all those races are stated to be unique, strange, and alien to most people and those players don't really get a chance to shine with their "weirdness" in the party because there is no baseline that they can compare themselves against. After all: when everyone is super, nobody is.

    The only time I can recall this creating a ludo-narrative dissonance is in Guild Wars 2, where humanity is supposed to be a dying (alien) race with few members left. By all accounts the people of the land should be a majority of charr (cat-people, basically). But of course, the "human female meta" as it is called (meaning people playing conventionally attractive human, female characters with "the sexy outfit") is greater, and as it turns out most people are playing humans. The result being that what you see when walking around is mostly humans when it "should" be mostly charr. A lot of people just play characters they think "look good".

    As for why people are playing humans. I think there is a reason that you haven't touched on. I, for example, will play a human for almost every one of my characters unless I have a good reason not to. This is because I base my characters around a theme or a story and I want the focus on the character to be on that theme or story, and not on their species.

    I also don't think designers make humans boring or bad on purpose to discourage players from playing them. They could just not include humans if that is what they wanted (Plenty of good examples of this. Mousegard and Humblewood for RPGs. Deep Rock Galactic, Dwarf Fortress and a ton others for video games). I think most often it comes down to people not knowing what to do with humans. Most fantasy races tend to be "human but x", so when you are making a human you don't really have anything "but", meaning that you usually end up is a situation of "humans, well, we all know what a human is, don't we? I can't see anything special about humans that one of these other races don't embody in a greater capacity.". (Side note: I like how GW2 handled this. The 5 races have fairly good and distinct themes. Charr are militaristic, Asura are obsessed with knowledge, Sylvari are young and still figuring out the world, Norn are shapeshifting and spiritualistic, and Humans are devoted to their gods who brought them to this world.)