walkthroughtheforest

[walkthroughtheforest]

Feeling a lot of feelings about how Hadestown doesn't present the story as "Orpheus turned around and everything fell apart and there was nothing anyone could do to fix it" and instead presents a story that says "he turned around, he doubted, he failed, but if we keep telling his story maybe one day Orpheus won't" and it's not just about Orpheus as a single character, it's a bout every Orpheus, everyone who runs up against a system they can't change and fails and everyone who sees that failure and gets back up and says "maybe I can change it now" and tries again. That Orpheus failed isn't the takeaway of the story. The takeaway is that one day he might succeed.

[walkthroughtheforest]

Miss Congeniality (2000) dir. Donald Petrie

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the spirit is not willing and the flesh it is not so into the idea either

[walkthroughtheforest]

God I'm tempted to change my URL to LiarFrumpyWrong

#fhjy spoilers #d20 #fhjy

[walkthroughtheforest]

We don’t bully Sauron enough for being such a FUCKING instagram villain that he’d only ever steal black horses from the Rohirrim, like he really in canon passed over herds of perfectly good load-bearing horses just for aesthetic fidelity

[walkthroughtheforest]

cleric class

#fhjy spoilers #fhjy #d20

[walkthroughtheforest]

Biology Class

#I'm not crying #you are #d20 #fh

[walkthroughtheforest]

I went to d20 live in London last night with a friend, and have managed to snag a Single ticket for this evening too. I'm going to try to be brave and and find some people to join on the discord.

#personal #d20 live

[walkthroughtheforest]

Ayda Aguefort is the girl who flooded hell because of the mere possibility her girlfriend might be hurt down there. When she comes back she is going to obliterate some folks I think.

#fhjy

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I'm at dimension 20 live in London and it's bringing me so much joy to be around so many other fans!!!!

[walkthroughtheforest]

we used to get prescribed a summer on the seaside. now we just get told to go touch grass. the economy is in shambles

[walkthroughtheforest]

This latest Adventuring Party really drove home my favorite aspect of Brennan's DMing style. He genuinely loves seeing his players succeed, even against odds he considered to be nigh insurmountable.

Let's take the Last Stand as an example. Now, Brennan made no secret out of the Last Stand encounter being very hard, and for people who do not play D&D it may even seem like he overhyped it, but from a mechanics standpoint, the CR, functionally the difficulty rating of this battle royale was sky-high. Yeah, none of the Bad Kids went down, but that is entirely thanks to a combination of excellent strategic play from the Intrepid Heroes and some choice luck.

To mention some of the game changer moves, the Scatter spell really re-defined the battlefield more favorably for the Bad Kids, the disguise self was a value proposition because it split the flying monsters, which was the greatest threat to the proctor by far, in two, functionally halving the threat to the squishy normie, not to mention dealing with the mega-mosquitos in combo with Spirit Guardians. Those little flying bastards would have been such a pain in the ass if Fig didn't bug zapper them to kingdom come. And the bless. Dear god, the Bless saved so many asses in this encounter.

This isn't to say magic was the only thing that defined the battlefield. The single-target damage dealers did some truly astounding numbers and managed their attention and abilities shockingly well. Yeah, Gorgug crit like a madman, but he also tanked like three or four non-barb PCs worth of effective HP damage without going down even once. If he had failed his saves and gotten eaten by the Purple Worm things would have gotten nasty for him, but again, the touch of luck (and bless) saw him through.

So, this is all to say that this was an encounter meant to kick the players' ass. Not an unwinnable one, evidently, but this was supposed to be a considerably worse experience even without getting into the non dice-roll exam questions. And how does Brennan react when the Intrepid Heroes put their game face all the way on, get really smart with their level 1 spell slots, and dismantle the whole thing? He's overjoyed, he's cheering for his strange adventure children, and we're cheering with him because frankly it's rad as hell.

This illustrates one nuance I feel sometimes gets glossed over about the DM-player relationship. A lot of people have talked about how Junior Year is the "Revenge of Brennan" or what have you, and I feel that kind of misses the central appeal of DMing and Brennan's style in D20 in particular. Yes, Mr Mulligan enjoys playing the heel on occasion. It's good fun to play the personification of everything going wrong and the inherent shittiness of the world, but like the wrestler heels, all that wicked charisma is meant to do one thing, and that is build up the faces, or the players in this case.

Now, the ghost of Gary Gygax may come after me for this, but I firmly believe it's not the DMs job to kill the player characters, or even to inconvenience or torment them. A good DM's job is to make it seem like they're going to kill the player characters, as to provide an environment for the players to succeed, a challenge for them to overcome. It's all one big improv exercise (or kink scene if you prefer to view it that way), where the DM derives their (near)absolute authority over the world the PCs inhabit from the shared understanding that they're going to show the players a spectacular, if not on occasion harrowing time.

This is Brennan's biggest strength as a DM I think. He genuinely wants to make a spectacular time for his friends, and he understands that to do that he must on occasion be the monster they oppose, and on occasion he must be their breathless cheerleader. On occasion, one imagines, he must also be both.

#d20

[walkthroughtheforest]

Yeah, I’d watch Muppets Lord of the Rings

[walkthroughtheforest]

would you put a discarded fruit sticker on my forehead in whimsical jest yes or no

[walkthroughtheforest]

a pod of selkies

(ID courtesy of tumblr user night-dark-woods) ID. painted flat wood sculptures, one side is a reclining gray spotted seal and one side is a naked woman. there are three photos of the set, showing both sides of them, and then a series of gifs of them being flipped over. each selkie has a different skin tone and hair color in human form, and a different coat pattern as a seal. End ID.

#do not lose

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and what if i cry?? what then?

RICK PERRY THE GENIUS YOU ARE

#fh #D20 #fhjy spoilers #fhjy

[walkthroughtheforest]

the bad kids x insta accounts bc brainrot is real ✨💫

#this is incredible #fh #d20