MonkeMischief

Not gonna lie I kinda respect people who can do that. I, the forever-GM, am also always "the funny one" and didn't really grow up with positive associations with expressing "deep, moving, dramatic, or sorrowful" emotions.

If I made people sniffly at my table I'm afraid I'd get concerned and everyone would feel awkward. Or maybe I'd feel the most awkward and feel forced to make something goofy happen like a Marvel movie writer lol.

If I got wrapped up in it and made myself emotional? Ahh! It's like that "I showed up to school/work with no pants" nightmare!

But that's like, human, right? Being moved by stories. I worry I won't be able to tell impactful tales with depth beyond "beer, pretzels, and Monty Python jokes" unless I can get get past that personal block. =\

TL;DR: Anyway, not afraid to go dramatic and your players keep coming back. That's really fascinating and I genuinely mean that. Power to you!

corpos bring a real army and then hit you with an orbital particle weapon

(Credits Roll)

🎵

[Verse 1] I couldn't wait for you to come and clear the cupboards But now you're gone and leaving nothing but a sign Another evening, I'll be sitting reading in-between your lines Because I miss you all the time

[Chorus] So, what do you wanna do? What's your point of view? There's a party, screw it, do you wanna go? A handshake with you, what's your point of view? I'm on top of you, I don't wanna go 'Cause I really wanna stay at your housе And I hopе this works out🎵

If ya know, ya know. 😭 Lol

Thematically this is just a tone to set for running an RPG, but system wise...

If sticking to Sword and Sorcery...

I want the consequences to be so real that a decent player might need 2 or 3 backup characters, where a happy ending isn't garunteed in the slightest and the DM is fine to end the campaign in total tragedy.

...You might like Dungeon Crawl Classics. Uses funky dice (optional), and you start with a few "level zero" characters that go through a deadly dungeon known as a "funnel." The survivors end up as your level 1 character(s).

Maybe thematically it's not about pull-no-punches storytelling or anything, but the system itself is brutal and rewards player cunning, wit, and luck, to overcome challenges. (And no, the DM isn't required to be an adversarial psycho lol.)

Never played it myself but it falls into that category of "OSR" kinda games that try to revitalize the spirit of classic "Player smarts vs. Consequences" gameplay over theatrical plot-beats.

Apart from fantasy, my favorite system is Savage Worlds. It can run any genre, the game by default is "cinematic" and favors the players as heroes, but many mechanics make the numbers "swingy" so nothing is ever "not dangerous." With the right rolls, a squire can behead the Orc war chief, or a lowly thug's .38 caliber could put your spec-ops commando in critical condition!

It's also heavily customizable. You want pulp adventures where heroes shrug off bullet wounds with sheer grit? Easy!

You want what you described up there where every victory is won tooth and nail? Try adding an optional rule where every wound causes a potentially permanent injury in a setting like "War of the Dead" or "Weird Wars Rome / I / II / Vietnam" and things are gonna get real tense, real quick.

Players have lots of tools at their disposal, but dice also "explode" both ways. Sometimes an inconsequential attack can one-shot you into bleeding out, but I guarantee the whole table erupts when a player goes for broke and the dice just keep poppin'! Love that system.

It's very quick and easy for GMs to run too, I'd say. Great balance between narrative flexibility and tactical "crunch." :)

Hahaha sorry for taking so long to reply!

Thanks for making my day bro. What an unusually goofy thing to connect over. This is why the Internet can be great. :)

Show this to yer Pa!

Man, I can't tell you how much I really wish I could. Thanks for re-unlocking this treasured memory for me, bro. I mean it! 🥲

Please do me a huge favor and give your Ol' Man a big bear hug for me, kay? Or give him a call or whatever. Bet it'll make his day. :)

Haha maybe you can bond over Innerspace too, if you haven't seen it. We liked that one too. XD Martin Short is a legend hahaha.

Do people also ask you if it's Pingu or something from club penguin?

I also get asked if he's like, a hockey team mascot or something. (I have a Tux patch on my hat haha)

I would say "... Definitely into a sandbox" except that might dry out the bread even more. :(

Do they at least have a fun shiny mid-2000's GUI and sweet chiptunes??

That was absolutely glorious and insanely witty. I've been called witty before and this had me feeling joyfully outclassed. I thought I was in for some crazy copy pasta but it just ended up further educating me on WHY dragonflies are so cool.

(And yeah damselflies, psh. Bugs. Seeing a dragonfly is a GOOD day.)

I hope this becomes a copy pasta. It was legit hilarious and awesome to read.

Dang it I'm really hoping you're having like *a really good day. * Thanks for writing this. :D

Well the wing itself isn't supposed to deform so we're good! :P

Seriously funny seeing this after trying repeatedly to retopologize simple objects, but making myself stick to quads to build the skills and "poly-perception"...It's truly maddening and un-fun lol.

Thanks for linking that site further down, by the way. :D

WAIT IS THAT ORDER OF ECCLESIA BEING OFFICIALLY RESPECTED AND ACKNOWLEDGED?!?

This is awesome!

I loved that game so much. Shanoa is so cool, and that "plot twist boss fight" will always stand out as being so ridiculously cinematic for a sidescrolling DS game.

I should play the other one too. I bet it's great. :D

I'm not 100% sure I'm getting this one. Is emergency room coffee:

• Super crazy strong because the staff's gotta commit to being so inhumanly wired at all times?
• Heinously putrid because chaos doesn't allow for regular cleaning and replacement?

I miss that feeling a little bit. My undiagnosed-ADHD highschool self with like 18 characters hovering around level 20, never maxing one out because the ~30-40 slog was real, just chatting up strangers for fun while hopping around various towns' mailboxes and occasionally actually doing game content. (Remember when Barrens chat was a meme for basically being like the /b/ of WoW? LOL)

... And it didn't feel like impending doom or that I was somehow wasting my life away. It's just what I did after school and that was alright.

It's how I met my wife though, so it all worked out. :)

I could go on for days but WoW's peak was a neat way to build social skills while being behind an avatar kept you from being too vulnerable.

I feel like online gaming now has gotten so anti-social and that the mere fear of potential toxicity just has everyone locked up and suspicious; Afraid to talk to anyone they don't already know. Thanks to, what, basically Discord? Game chats are completely dead.

I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(