Lovable Sidekick

Man I forgot all about Dungeon World. I think I backed a kickstarter they did a long time ago. Never got around to playing it tho. I’ll have to dig it out and see if my game group is interested.

Very unconventional, but I’m going to allow it.

Text files used to be a thing.

Apparently pewdiepie still exists and wants attention.

Meta? You mean the holding company that owns that social media site I never use? Good luck getting it.

Yeah that’s a good parallel. Lately I’ve been watching Kaitlin Olson’s show High Potential. Even though she’s playing a super-smart crime solver, to me it’s the same character she played in It’s Always Sunny and The Mick. Not that there’s anything wrong with that lol.

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between factual knowledge and just cleverness. There’s no reason a bumpkin fresh off the farm can’t be curious about what makes something tick, so they look under it or break it open - and whaddya know, they find a hidden thing. It’s really up to the DM to say no, your character wouldn’t know to do that. The intelligence you show when you figure out a puzzle or a trap could make total sense as the same spark that made the naive character want to leave the farm and explore the big wide world.

Everybody plays RPGs differently, but it’s funny how some people don’t get the term “roleplaying” and are constantly, relentlessly playing their real selves in the game. So you get barbarians with the sensibilities of software developers.

Toddler with the sword, definitely.

LOL true. I love my in-person group so much - we’ve been meeting at my house since before Covid.

Now when you say “asks”…

These examples seem mutually exclusive, but I’m not sure why you’re asking that. I’m saying the RPG landscape is much more varied than two opposing edge cases - which is how memes tend to misrepresent the world.

A glance at this makes me happy to just keep playing my mp3s.

Dictators are always afraid of their own people.

Memes are good at presenting false dichotomies for people to nod knowingly and say yeah, that about sums it up.

Yes, the term “in-game racism” is pretty broad. Does it mean anything that’s not a human, elf, dwarf or halfling has a KILL ME sign on it? Or when elves and dwarves don’t get along? Or that character races are called “races” instead of “species”? Is it racism when character race influences stats?

Both of what are valid?

I don’t think DM is a trademark, but if you have other information feel free to provide it. Looking through older discussion forums on this topic, the only semi-definitive answer I’ve found is in this 2021 thread where somebody referred to a now-defunct US gov’t trademark search link, where they said they found a lot of "DM"s registered but none related to D&D. I’m inclined to believe it was a working link at that time and they weren’t just making shit up.

Personally I use the term DM because I’ve mostly played D&D, so to me it’s more natural.

Surviving any situation would be based on coolness, dopeness, freshness, smartbrain, and dancing ability.

Remember the one rule of D&D everybody forgets, no matter how much Gygax emphasized it: if you don’t like a rule, don’t use it in your campaign. In my game I allow any and all combinations of classes. I might even allow a Paladin/Assassin, but the player would have to come up with a really good in-world rationale for it.