Gentle nerd freak of the pacific northwest. All nation states are vermin.

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  • 361 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 26th, 2024

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  • Hegar@fedia.iotoScience Memes@mander.xyzit's just science, i guess
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    14 hours ago

    Raw milk is way tastier though. The clearest memory I have from visiting the UK at 9 y/o was the milk from the milk rounds being unreasonably delicious. Like so much better i wasn’t sure it was milk.

    It’s obviously not the right choice to fulfill the nations milk needs, that’s a public health disaster. But I wish it was available in limited, risk-minimized contexts like in most of Europe.






  • I think that’s how human brains be. We’re already notoriously bad at correctly accounting for low-risk events (eg the lottery). Plus being constantly aware of the full myriad of threats we face would probably be debilitating.

    If you haven’t had or seen a kind of accident your brain probably sees no compelling reason to account for it. My partner was lax about flu shots until she started working at a funeral home and saw how many people of all ages die of the flu. Now it’s a threat she has the awareness to accurately account for.






  • Hegar@fedia.iotoRPGMemes @ttrpg.networkSkill checks
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    16 days ago

    what would you even expect to happen on an ability crit?

    Extra information, owed a favour, make a friend, get a small reward, get a clue to a larger reward, impress someone important, uncover a secret, get forewarning of a danger, hinder a rival, gain advantage on something, opponent is exhausted/confused/embarrassed and must pass a saving throw to act…

    Skill check crits would be just like combat crits except there’s way more scope for fictional as well as mechanical benefits.


  • Disagree. People misuse stuff constantly.

    Woah wait now. Sure people misuse things but designing with that in mind always produces a better thing than ignoring reality. A gun with a safety is a objectively a better design than a gun with no safety, even if the both have a manual that says not to play with the trigger and keep away from kids.

    on them for just not reading the rules

    The game trains you to expect a dopamine reward when you roll a 20. A game that consistently meets the expectations it creates would be a better game.


  • Elden ring absolutely does meet player expectations - challenge is the expectation of the souls-like genre.

    6 Charisma can roll a 20 and be able to convince whomever of whatever

    Certain people should never be able to make certain successes

    only as amazingly as they are capable

    I don’t disagree with any of this but I’m not talking about how the win should look in the fiction.

    It’s just that when you roll a crit but don’t get a crit, most players will get extra disappointed. That’s a fact of the human experience that no rules text will ever change.

    Good design accounts for the reality of how people actually use a thing.


  • Hegar@fedia.iotoRPGMemes @ttrpg.networkSkill checks
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    17 days ago

    what you believe should happen on a nat 20.

    Consistency.

    My point is that setting up the expectation of a moment of triumph and then diluting it with exceptions is going to create moments of disappointment at the table.

    If a nat 20 is going to be a big win it should always be a big win. That’s so intuitively true that most people just play that way despite the rules.


  • I disagree that 1% chance is a jackpot but 5% isn’t. I’m using jackpot as an analogy for the emotional impact of a rarer, higher tier win mechanic - I don’t think specifying a number is useful here. That feeling can happen with a range of different rarities.

    I’m not following your point about nat 1s, free gimmes or supply and demand.

    I think we’re using very different ideas of game design. Are you using good design in the sense of like “tactically balanced”? I think of good game design as setting up and meeting player expectations for fun while minimizing frustration.

    The game sets up rolling 20 and critting as a win big moment. To occasionally then deny players that fails to meet expectations and creates disappointment. That’s why I think it’s bad design. And why most people don’t play it as written.


  • Hegar@fedia.iotoRPGMemes @ttrpg.networkSkill checks
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    17 days ago

    I don’t mean that it’s ultra rare, just that it serves the same function as a jackpot - it’s the best possible outcome, the thing you’re always hoping will happen when you scratch the ticket, press the button or roll the dice.

    It’s your chance to have that YOU WIN BIG moment. Setting up that mechanic and then creating situations where it doesn’t apply is intentionally designing disappointment.


  • Hegar@fedia.iotoRPGMemes @ttrpg.networkSkill checks
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    17 days ago

    D&D has all the money in the entire hobby, basically, and they still make terrible design decisions like this.

    Rolling a nat 20 and getting a crit is the jackpot of d&d mechanics. Don’t design a system where sometimes you hit the jackpot but don’t win anything. That’s an objectively bad choice to make.