the year is 2025

scientists are still scrambling to figure out what “zigazig ahh” is so that they can give the spice girls what they really really want

the spice girls are getting impatient

war is upon us

posts that are funnier if u have the dates from posts enabled

It's so nice being on tumblr because you don't even have to make your own post but people would still follow you anyways if you're good at rebloging posts they like

In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio called Tybalt "Prince of Cats" because there was a book, popular at the time, with a cat prince named Tybalt in it. He was making a pop culture reference. Therefore, I move, that in a modern Romeo and Juliet retelling, Tybalt should be named Garfield.

Putting all tabletop players into a college level ethics class and forcing them to turn in a paper on moral philosophy before buying a new book

This is…. An interesting thing to say… on this post in particular….

I think a lot of people reblogging this from @probablybadrpgideas are interpreting this as “this would be such a funny wacky way to make the table soooo complicated” but I mean this as a complaint about the way that so many tabletop players seem to just. completely lack an understanding of ethics. what it actually means to behave ethically and treat others ethically. and i dont mean this as "why do people want to be mean and play as villains? :(" i mean "why are there so many tabletop players that sympathize with outright fascist factions to the point of wondering why theyre listed as 'Lawful Evil' in the book"

can you talk me through why this was a particularly bad or challenging thing for your party to have done

Goblins were in fact, for me, a turning point on this concept. I had a player who wanted to be a goblin, and I forgot about this fact up to the point that the party got a quest to kill goblins. As soon as I was announcing the quest I realized it would be a problem, though I didn't have anything else ready so I went with it. And it was! The players immediately questioned why the mayor was paying mercenaries to kill goblins, and then further questioned his justifications, at which point I realized it would be a better story if the goblins were a scapegoat and not an actual villain. This turned into a terse interrogation where the mayor threatened to put them in jail once their questions got pointed enough that he would have to either field accusations or lie; they then went CSI on the situation and drilled through his political cabinet to get answers. I had to improv pretty much all of it and I don't remember the actual ending (I know they sided with the goblins and the mayor was guilty), but this helped me realize that the Gary Gygax writing style of "certain races are just BAD and that's why they hang out in dungeons" was very short-sighted.

D&D writing, by and large, encourages a lack of questions. The surface runs deep. "Go into a cave and chop up goblins." Why are we doing this? "Goblins are bad." All goblins? "Yes."

I think the question of "why are there players comfortable siding with fascist factions and wondering why they're called 'lawful evil'" is pretty easily answered with... because D&D itself is inherently kind of fascist. And it's the most insidious kind of fascist, too- its villains are fascists, so how could you point fingers at the book?

Fire Giants are dwarf slavers. Drow are a megalomaniacal theocracy who hate men. Orcs are violent tribes of marauding killers. Illithids want to destroy all life and keep an entire civilization to scrub their floors. But these narratives still push the idea that "evil" is a racial trait. The players are not only justified in their campaign to destroy these cultures, they're encouraged to do it.

They let the cat out of the bag by making these playable races; because now, they're not cut-and-dry villanous societies. They're people. There are Drow accountants whose lives are about balancing taxes, not worshipping Lolth. There are Yuan-Ti who don't sacrifice babies on altars, and much prefer playing the lute or sewing blankets. Yet we're still expected to read "Chaotic Evil" under the Monster Manual entry for a bugbear and take it seriously.

Reblogging again to add a quick take: as a DM introducing ethics makes your game so much better.

I had an intro to my campaign that involved a mad scientist kidnapping someone and turning them into a wererat. I didn't think much of it and I spent way more time fleshing out the other NPCs, I just wanted to use that wererat as a boss fight.

Once the party encountered him though they immediately saw what I totally missed: the guy who became the wererat was absolutely the victim of this story. I did my best at thinking on my feet and made the wererat this defeated guy who only followed the mad scientist because he felt like his life was ruined. So they, through good rolls, convinced him to help them fight the mad scientist and it made for such a better story.

The moral I'm trying to convey is that you need to treat every NPC in your game as a world within themselves. And I mean EVERY NPC. Why are the wolves attacking people? Are they desperately hungry? Mind controlled? Territorial due to poachers? Why are the goblins working for the wizard? Extortion? Promise of riches? If the bandits see that everyone is in armor, why wouldn't they just let the party pass and wait for easier prey? If one of the bandits die, why wouldn't the rest of them run for the hills?

here’s a couple of articles on the history of racism + xenophobia in tolkien & how that influenced dnd

anyone interested in the subject should definitely also check out the whole Three Black Halflings podcast, which talks about being black in nerdy spaces. a lot of times they’ll have on guests talking about their intersections and experiences in nerdy spaces. they have an episode with the author of the articles above.

they’ve also played a ttrpg based on african mythologies rather than mostly european ones like most mainstream fantasy.

highly recommend!!

[Image descriptions:

2. Tumblr tags from "grad-school-fool" that read: "do you know how hard it is to DM a party with MORALS"; "their first dungeon they unionized the goblins"; "because thats what happens when you treat sentient species as sentient". /End ID]

if you have an opinion that you cant argue without resorting to its just gross or obviously thats disgusting etc then maybe you should rethink it

this is my favourite thing ever

Look I love unconditional devotion love stories as much as the next person, but there's really something so deliciously raw about conditional devotion.

I have served you and I have loved you for decades, but I will not give up my principles for you. You cut out part of my heart and took it with you down that path that you insist on walking, but you walk it alone. Even when the bleeding, gaping hole you left in my chest kills me, I will not follow you.

me everytime one of my seemingly non-specific homoerotic text posts breaks containment

Can't believe I just watched Grian read a ransom letter and then put it back in his mailbox and pretend he hadn't read it.

I remember seeing a different post pointing out that Native Americans are basically already living a post-apocalyptic world.

The apocalypse happened here in 1620.

There’s a really well done graphic novel anthology by Indigenous Canadian writers and artists that is based off this concept.

this is an all-time etho laugh for me

A Comedy of errors, in which Gem misses Impulse and has to drag him back from Exile

he did not miss a beat

This animatic is one of my FAVORITES ever to the point that I showed my non MCYT sister over a year ago and we quote bdubs’ “freakin NO” ALL THE TIME!!!! And then LOOK WHAT SHE MADE ME :,,,,))))

Thank you for making such a funny animatic that really captured the comedic timing of this moment and making a memory that lasts FOREVER

Well those are allllmost done

question. why do you have 7 featureless grey monoliths in your driveway

There's eight actually but the last one is still in the garage

question. why do you have eight featureless grey monoliths

They're actually a really dark purple

question. why do you have seven featureless really dark purple monoliths in your driveway and an eighth in the garage

Some of them do have features though. There's holes and hinges and stuff, so I can put secrets in em

question. why do you have 8 really dark purple occasionally featureful monoliths

The heart wants what the heart wants

this reads like a muppet sketch

see? See!??!

You're not wrong

so my apartment building got a notice board to post fire alarm tests and maintenance announcements and such. the building is pretty well-maintained, so we rarely get notices. the board is big and grey and to think it would be empty like that 99% of the time was a bland boring sin i just couldn't bear, so i vandalized the corner of its empty canvas with a teeny tiny Guy

and within a few days, there was a sudden addition from my one of my neighbors along with a Bunch of thumbtacks. this was an unexpected, but welcome surprise!

well there was still so much space, i figured i'd add another crumb to the art hoard. i'd been playing genshin that day so i drew my favorite grandpa

and like clockwork, new art manifested!! this person is gonna grow to be a great artist i know it. the detail in those stones? hell yeah that's cool.

we're two weeks into it. more neighbors have joined in with their artwork. who knew there were so many artists in my building?? we're onto somethin great here i just know it.

update: ONE OF MY NEIGHBORS DREW VENTI TO GO WITH MY GENSHIN GRANDPA I'M —

WHO DID THIS

i am retaliating i NEED to know who did this

JOJO HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

This is what 'living in a community' is supposed to mean

i actually never ever want AO3 to be censored bc nothing is more fun than reading the tags on a fic and going “huh. didn’t know there was a market for that.”

“I’m having my son in 2 months and I’m jealous of how cute baby girl clothes are” you can put your newborn son in a little strawberry print romper, I swear. he won’t mind. he won’t develop a complex over it, I promise.

It’s so interesting how heavily gendered baby clothes are an extremely modern phenomenon like even in the midcentury period baby clothes were often the same cut and color for baby boys and baby girls but now you can’t put your son in a pink romper and you have to use baby glue to affix a flower to your daughter’s head so everyone knows she’s a little girl.

Return to androgynous baby. Nobody needs to know what that thing has going on except you.

Let the baby decide when they’re good and ready. Tbh.

Baby's gonna poo and drool and yuck up most day to day outfits anyway

I have friends who did this (let the baby decide) and when he was about 5, he decided he's a boy. I have no idea what's going on under that kid's clothes, and I think that's fucking great. That's so very Not My Fucking Business. And the kid has worn whatever he wants to pretty much from moment one.