Scribe, Backwoods Artificer
@backwoods-artificer.xyz
28 | he/him | platform fighter enthusiast | serial distro-hopper
It's fun how there are entire classes that are magical in nature but don't use spells. Kinda feels like a throwback to D&D 3.5's alternate spellcasting systems (something 1e mostly avoided for the sake of not stepping on Dreamscarred Press' toes)
November 28, 2025 at 7:36 AM
It's fun how there are entire classes that are magical in nature but don't use spells. Kinda feels like a throwback to D&D 3.5's alternate spellcasting systems (something 1e mostly avoided for the sake of not stepping on Dreamscarred Press' toes)
It's definitely a problem in the tabletop RPG space. To the point that, like, one of the lead designers of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition was covering for a known domestic abuser
November 20, 2025 at 8:41 PM
It's definitely a problem in the tabletop RPG space. To the point that, like, one of the lead designers of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition was covering for a known domestic abuser
and I wonder how much the comparatively narrow idea that "JRPG" represents compared to the full breadth of the actual Japanese RPG market kinda comes from the fact that for a long time, the games that actually got localized and sold well weren't representative of the Japanese market as a whole
November 18, 2025 at 8:08 AM
and I wonder how much the comparatively narrow idea that "JRPG" represents compared to the full breadth of the actual Japanese RPG market kinda comes from the fact that for a long time, the games that actually got localized and sold well weren't representative of the Japanese market as a whole
like... basically all of it can be traced back to Wizardry and Ultima, but Dark Souls and Monster Hunter can be traced to different branching off points compared to e.g. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, the Tales series, etc.
November 18, 2025 at 8:08 AM
like... basically all of it can be traced back to Wizardry and Ultima, but Dark Souls and Monster Hunter can be traced to different branching off points compared to e.g. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, the Tales series, etc.
though I think with the specific circumstances that led to "JRPG" as a genre label feeling like more and more of a misnomer, it's less like the various canids that people call foxes even though they aren't true foxes, and more like how whales and dolphins are actually ungulates
November 18, 2025 at 8:08 AM
though I think with the specific circumstances that led to "JRPG" as a genre label feeling like more and more of a misnomer, it's less like the various canids that people call foxes even though they aren't true foxes, and more like how whales and dolphins are actually ungulates
like... terms like action-adventure kinda make sense if you trace the genre back to stuff like The Legend of Zelda, and then even further back to Adventure for the Atari 2600 and Colossal Cave Adventure before it. They do share roots with adventure games - they just branched off hard really early on
November 18, 2025 at 8:08 AM
like... terms like action-adventure kinda make sense if you trace the genre back to stuff like The Legend of Zelda, and then even further back to Adventure for the Atari 2600 and Colossal Cave Adventure before it. They do share roots with adventure games - they just branched off hard really early on
I think a lot of genres make a lot of sense if you look at them as, like... design lineages. like, looking at what prior games and contemporaries a given game is in conversation with, and the genre's roots and key branching off points
November 18, 2025 at 6:54 AM
I think a lot of genres make a lot of sense if you look at them as, like... design lineages. like, looking at what prior games and contemporaries a given game is in conversation with, and the genre's roots and key branching off points
There's a very specific reason for no HDMI 2.1: it's currently unsupported on Linux, since the HDMI Forum has blocked any attempts by hardware manufacturers (iirc AMD in particular) to make open-source drivers with HDMI 2.1 support
November 12, 2025 at 7:11 PM
There's a very specific reason for no HDMI 2.1: it's currently unsupported on Linux, since the HDMI Forum has blocked any attempts by hardware manufacturers (iirc AMD in particular) to make open-source drivers with HDMI 2.1 support
... actually now that I think about it, the Mystic is an interesting case because flavor-wise it's a spellsword, but it's accomplished purely using fighter mechanics
November 8, 2025 at 7:05 PM
... actually now that I think about it, the Mystic is an interesting case because flavor-wise it's a spellsword, but it's accomplished purely using fighter mechanics
Now I'm thinking about some of the times I've actually seen interesting things done with the idea, and the big thing is usually, like, magically-enhanced melee attacks. see: Magus in PF, a good chunk of Draw Steel's classes, the Mystic in the Path of War Expanded 3pp supplement for PF1e
November 8, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Now I'm thinking about some of the times I've actually seen interesting things done with the idea, and the big thing is usually, like, magically-enhanced melee attacks. see: Magus in PF, a good chunk of Draw Steel's classes, the Mystic in the Path of War Expanded 3pp supplement for PF1e
Yes, these screenshots are from a week and a half ago. I kinda just... forgot to post them here.
November 5, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Yes, these screenshots are from a week and a half ago. I kinda just... forgot to post them here.
I got to play a Psychic Armory Soulknife // Knight-Chandler Mystic in a gestalt game once and it was fun as all hell. He was basically a fucked-up bootleg sorcerer
November 4, 2025 at 7:58 PM
I got to play a Psychic Armory Soulknife // Knight-Chandler Mystic in a gestalt game once and it was fun as all hell. He was basically a fucked-up bootleg sorcerer
between this and your recent Tumblr post about 5e combat, I'm now thinking about how WotC made a class structured like a 3.5 Tome of Battle martial as an olive branch to 4e players after 5e's return to a more 3.x-esque class structure... and made it a caster
November 4, 2025 at 7:51 PM
between this and your recent Tumblr post about 5e combat, I'm now thinking about how WotC made a class structured like a 3.5 Tome of Battle martial as an olive branch to 4e players after 5e's return to a more 3.x-esque class structure... and made it a caster
fuckin mood
I also miss so much of the old Dreamscarred Press 3pp stuff for pf1e but they're basically defunct at this point and I don't really have the bandwidth to homebrew some pf2e ports
I also miss so much of the old Dreamscarred Press 3pp stuff for pf1e but they're basically defunct at this point and I don't really have the bandwidth to homebrew some pf2e ports
November 4, 2025 at 7:44 PM
fuckin mood
I also miss so much of the old Dreamscarred Press 3pp stuff for pf1e but they're basically defunct at this point and I don't really have the bandwidth to homebrew some pf2e ports
I also miss so much of the old Dreamscarred Press 3pp stuff for pf1e but they're basically defunct at this point and I don't really have the bandwidth to homebrew some pf2e ports
Xyz are pretty similar to Synchro, but you're matching levels instead of adding them up. Also the monsters used as summoning naterial go underneath the Xyz monster instead of to the graveyard, and are often used as a resource for effects.
November 4, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Xyz are pretty similar to Synchro, but you're matching levels instead of adding them up. Also the monsters used as summoning naterial go underneath the Xyz monster instead of to the graveyard, and are often used as a resource for effects.
where does analyzing the text as a response to (and failure to respond to) prior editions' cultures of play fall here?
November 4, 2025 at 4:19 PM
where does analyzing the text as a response to (and failure to respond to) prior editions' cultures of play fall here?
now I'm thinking back to the dispute between Disney and Spectrum from back in 2023, and how Spectrum's CEO was just like "fuck it, the cable TV side of our business has been unprofitable for over a decade anyways, so if Disney refuses to budge, we're just gonna discontinue that service entirely"
November 2, 2025 at 12:05 AM
now I'm thinking back to the dispute between Disney and Spectrum from back in 2023, and how Spectrum's CEO was just like "fuck it, the cable TV side of our business has been unprofitable for over a decade anyways, so if Disney refuses to budge, we're just gonna discontinue that service entirely"
tbh even Team Cherry's numbers aren't all that atypical nowadays. They were just particularly high profile.
meanwhile Heart Forth, Alicia was announced all the way back in 2006 and is still in development. That was back when the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 were still considered next-gen hardware!
meanwhile Heart Forth, Alicia was announced all the way back in 2006 and is still in development. That was back when the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 were still considered next-gen hardware!
October 29, 2025 at 3:18 PM
tbh even Team Cherry's numbers aren't all that atypical nowadays. They were just particularly high profile.
meanwhile Heart Forth, Alicia was announced all the way back in 2006 and is still in development. That was back when the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 were still considered next-gen hardware!
meanwhile Heart Forth, Alicia was announced all the way back in 2006 and is still in development. That was back when the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 were still considered next-gen hardware!
ngl I thought the lights were arcade cabinet buttons at first and was very confused
October 26, 2025 at 2:42 AM
ngl I thought the lights were arcade cabinet buttons at first and was very confused
I was about to say that it'd be funny to imagine a pokemon game where vibes are both the step forward and one of the steps back but then I realized that's literally just FireRed and LeafGreen in comparison with Ruby and Sapphire
October 22, 2025 at 11:14 PM
I was about to say that it'd be funny to imagine a pokemon game where vibes are both the step forward and one of the steps back but then I realized that's literally just FireRed and LeafGreen in comparison with Ruby and Sapphire