Marcia's Old URL

edit: fixed!! instead of having THAC0 values which you use by basically rolling d20 >= that number and adding the opponent's AC (a table is usually included to be helpful), whitehack works by giving each player a specific attack value (AV) to roll d20 <=. to account for AC, you also have to roll > whatever value is indicated for the opponent's armor. in a way, it's "THAC9". anyway i like it better than THAC0 and i wanted to see how it would work in b/x or OSE or whatever. here is the table to convert from ose-style AC to whitehack-style AC. here are the AVs for clerics and thieves: for fighters: for magic-users (why not 'mages'???): yeah!

this has been on my mind, and i woke up in a mood so i looked at what i had been writing about it. however, i didn't want to bring more negativity and instead wanted to make something more productive. i am a random person on the internet but maybe this is something interesting/useful for someone else. here i revaluate some definitions for words like 'transgender' and 'trans-sex' to call specific attention to fundamental differences between individuals who are altogether called 'trans' (i myself fall under the 'trans-sex' category [1]). i also talk about how certain discussions surrounding gender diminish the experiences of individuals who experience dysphoria, by treating gender as essential while simultaneously treating its relationship to the body as arbitrary. overall, i hope to develop a view of gender which distinguishes two things: gender as the categorization of individuals according to their sexual characteristics, and the essentialization of...

i want to start this by saying that a critique of games does not really matter, and anyone who says otherwise has something in it for them (whether that's money, influence, or plain ol' enjoyment). at best, we should engage in criticism of the 'field' because it's a way to sharpen our minds towards other more important topics. there is a sort of irony in this attitude, in that our criticism of games itself becomes a sort of play, insofar as play is the emulation and practice of social forms. bearing this in mind, let's play critics and see how we can flesh out our understanding of tabletop games and the modes in which we play them. "Therefore it is necessary that this terror and darkness of the mind be dispelled not by the rays of the sun nor by the bright beams of day, but by the appearance and law of nature." a good central question to ask is, "why do we play games?" or "why do we play [specific game]?" this question will reveal t...

i meant to write this post a week or two ago but i got so busy! my friend Liber Ludorum ( twitter , blog ) pointed out this game to me one day to ask my opinion as an overzealous lacanian. here are my thoughts on LIKE-A-ROGUE ( link ) by @4illeen ( twitter ). ohmygoshthisissocool. LIKE-A-ROGUE has you play the role of a linguist investigating the Forbidden Library, a dungeon "filled to the brim with dust-covered books and beasts of horror and myth". throughout the game, you scry  letters: roll for a letter from the d66 table (if there is not a letter at the index, create a new one or reroll) interpret the letter given the context in which you have rolled it for example, the letter D might stand for "Dance" when you are scrying for one of your character's skills. however, it might also stand for "Dragon" when you are scrying for a monster that appears in the dungeon. this is such a creative way to handle randomization, by relying on the linguistically-g...

soon after the anti-civilization organization of evil monsters introduced accessibility features into their dungeons, they realized that it was also kind of weird that they would measure their projects according to some human king's foot. in collaboration with the adventurers' guild, they invented new architectural standards along with new guidelines for traversing dungeons. whereas before the dungeon was segmented into 5' by 5' squares, future dungeons will be segmented into 2m by 2m squares. this move also slightly widens the average hallway and will allow for more traffic into the dungeon. it is recommended that adventurers crawl at intervals of 40m instead of 120', twice per 10 minute turn. some officers of the adventurers' guild are considering redefining the turn as 5 minutes, in order to remove the ambiguity of "two moves of 120' [now 40m] per turn". however, this has not yet been agreed upon. the standard adventurer's torch will shine a...

you like pokemon ? how about megaten ? well i sure hope you do! here is the sort of bloated system i came up with in small town gothic to support fights between monsters of all (metaphorical or literal) sizes. let me, like, acclimate you first using small numbers. let’s assume that the strength of an average human being is represented by a level of like 3 or 4 (rounding down to 3 just cause). what other “power levels” are reasonable to expect? an angry dog a keebler elf behold, a man maybe a warthog or a puma a black bear (?) elephant how do you decide who wins in a fight? first, add up the scores of the opponents. then divide the attacker’s score by that sum. let’s try this using the angry dog as an example: angry dog has 50% against another dog angry dog has 33% chance against a keebler elf angry dog has 25% chance against a human being angry dog has 20% chance against a puma (or a warthog) angry dog has a 17% chance against a black bear angry dog has a 14% chance against an elephant...