Me post-transition is literally my very first dnd character from ten years ago

That's also a mood

My shadowrun character transitioned before I did XD

i always played female dnd characters, took until around PC #6 to realize i’m trans

@@aduckinlingerie SAAAAME. My first character in 3.5 accidentally put on a "cursed" item, which happened to be a "Belt of Gender Change". Needless to say it awoke something in me, and my character decided to stay a girl. 10 years later, real life caught up to me and I also transitioned

Brennan really just dropping the impromptu "manufacturing consent + capitalist realism"

Philosophy Brennan is so powerful, I feel like he'll single handedly help rehabilitate the image of philosophy as stuffy and all hypothetical, and that's awesome.

@@MarkusAldawn Applied ethics is the bridge between philosophy and the real world, and it's beautiful.

The best part of being Lawful Evil is being able to craft the laws that bind your actions. That way you're able to game the system and have the ability to commit as much evil as possible, while _always_ acting within the confines of that law. And if your evil ever exceeds it? Find a loophole, or create a new law that doesn't make it evil.

@@OJtheModerator One of. It's a big bridge, with tourist signs and sidewalls with wheelchair ramps. Art, science, and religion are the other three.

Honestly I wonder what flavor of leftist Brennan is? If I had to guess I think he’s probably some form of anarcho-syndicalist.

woah dude

I thought exactly this while watching the video!

Been GMing for about 5 years now and this is always how I explain it -- both kink and rpg are communities based around consent and mutual satisfaction. The appearance of a power imbalance comes from the communication of clear desires, boundaries, and goals.

D&D is mental BDSM

oogh.

I legitimately enjoy this concept.

That's adorable

Pretty much that “when a villain accidentally is really helpful” skit by prozd 💀

_Rimuru from That Time I Reincarnated As A Slime._

That's amazing

Totally. The reason it gets put that way is, generally when someone has to get to the point of defending their actions by saying that, it's because something's gone wrong; they made such a character. Those words don't need to be uttered usually, if you made a character who works with the group.

Full agreement. I actually was playing a Lawful Neutral Bard in the Tiamat campaign who had a strict moral code that he followed that my DM knew but my fellow players did not. One of the codes was Protect your Allies like a Smith's Hammer. Violence is only to be resorted to when the timing is right, but when you do strike with no regrets. This came up surprisingly when the party was captured by some cultists. They knew of the Druid's shapeshifting abilities so they kept him in a cage with two guards posted instead of chained to a post like the rest of the party. My bard knocked the guards out with a well placed sleep spell and freed the party in the dead of the night. My character however knew the spell would wear off soon and we wanted to be far from the camp before the alarm was raised, so my character who had been mostly a support class player with spells like fearie fire and such, seemed to pull a 180 when he went to kill the gaurds in their sleep. It wasn't out of malice or cause he liked killing, but instead it had the greatest chance of seeing his allies to safety. Was still funny to see the other players reactions though

I like to play evil characters... But absolutely would not play a character that went against the party like a jerk. My last evil character was a Warlock his motive was essentially a conversation between me and the DM. "whoever your BBEG ends up being, my patron is worried about them, I'm thinking the patron plans to take over the continent, not in my lifetime, but he's playing the long game, if your BBEG succeeds it will ruin my patrons plans, so he must fail... Is there a cleric or paladin in the party, or whoever is the most good and noble of the other PCs let me know... My patron has shown me a vision of this other PC and believes they will save the world, I will find this PC and pledge my life and service to protect them, help them grow in power, and destroy whatever major threat faces the world. Not for noble reasons, but to clear the board for my patron to enact their plan a hundred years from now." So my character was evil, what they wanted was for their patron to take over the world and bring about a new age of darkness... But they would serve the party and service the plot and adventure with zealotry and gusto to ensure that paladin slayed the BBEG at the end of the campaign.

@@ashleyhoughton8592 You could even take it a bit further and be a missionary for your patron. Not only will you help the cleric/paladin, you might even trick them into working for your patron directly. Obviously depends on the context of whether the cleric/paladin has a special god, whether your patron is a known malevolent entity or not etc, and the patron would probably have to set up the cleric/paladin to fail before they start doing evil shit they would obviously object to. Maybe it could be a cool one-shot in the future, where the cleric/paladin survives an assassination attempt, and now they are out for revenge or to fight back against this entity they served. Many great story threads to be associated with evil players and entities in good parties.

"If my character met someone who would do that, they'd probably react similarly to my IRL reaction to what you just did Why are YOU upset that I'm reacting to your actions this way?" Turn their behavior back on them Not in a malicious way, just like a mirror

Acsgshdjfjf not _the shirt_

and this is The shirt indeed

Just try and stop her lol.

😂😂 I'm so glad I wasn't the only one thinking it I know I'm a straight man so I am far away from being fashion forward but common dude I love you but even I have Date night shirts lol

Love that! My stepdaughter's 4th grade teacher started an after-school Magic The Gathering club every other Friday afternoon, and this year they want to expand it to D&D. I might have to volunteer to run some games for them!

You're awesome.

Four years before I was born too. I'm running games for everyone who wants to learn.

That's really cool! I see so many young people getting into it now, but the confirmation that older people still can is great to see; there are certainly so many less avenues into it as an adult. And don't beat yourself up for dumb things teenage-you did. We were all assholes to some extent at that age. I forgive you, on behalf of those kids, as someone who's been in their shoes. Though i was a punk rocker as well as a nerd, so maybe i coulda lured you in better. Alas.

@@bismuthcrystal9658 I'm a high school teacher and I can confirm: kids are sociopaths.

@@HollowGolem Yyyyeeeaaahhh pretty much. Also thank you for your service. That's not even *remotely* a joke: educators, especially these days, face great danger, with less thanks than those who invade foreign nations, perpetuating cycles of violence, but without the benefit of massive resources behind them. Rather the opposite. I was a dick of a teenager. I still struggle to forgive myself for minor things. Even when i know... yeah, kids are sociopaths. Like... scientifically; yes. Any former-kids out there: 's coo'.

@@HollowGolem Thank you for your service. Wouldn't wish that on anyone.

@@bismuthcrystal9658 Yeah, one thing that helps me deal with the kids is remembering how bad I was at their age. If I ever forgot that, my job would become miserable

As a person for whom storytelling is the biggest and most important aspect of dnd, regardless of the sex gender or pronoun preferences of the players and their characters at my table, I see a cognitive dissonance between disability and the deadly, dangerous activity that is adventuring. While there are certain literary tropes that exist surrounding disability, like a blind martial artist, or a mute character who doesn’t speak, I feel that there’s a point where having someone disabled in your party to be immersion breaking. I am signing up for a quest to slay a dragon, Logically, I a fighter who will be in immediate danger from the dragon threat, would not be happy if the healer that the adventuring guild assigned into my party was, say, paraplegic. That doesn’t ….work for adventuring .? It seems absurd for someone in a wheelchair to sign up for a quest to ascend the tallest mountain in the realm and fight an overgrown murder lizard. Just like it would be absurd for me, a fighter to agree to something like this which will certainly put the lives of everyone in even greater risk. Now, i the player have no issue with disability or anything like that. That’s an insane sentence to even write out. But, what do you say to someone like me, and how would you marry your idea and the necessity to not trudge over the enjoyment of other players at the table and their immersion in their story, while making dnd more accessible and acceptable to disability? The only way I personally can think of is mechanically find ways to work around the disability to the point of it not really affecting that characters ability to do their job, like stacking blindsight on a blind character, or saying that the paraplegic wizard is always floating on a tensers floating disk. Both of those feel wrong in that they sidestep the disability completely, but I can’t think of anything better. What thoughts do you have on the topic.

@@er4din903it’s not great that seeing someone physically disabled doing hero stuff breaks your immersion, but I want point out the wizard using outside aid to move kinda normally analogy you mad because wouldn’t that just be a motorized wheelchair without the wheels

You’re focusing primarily on physical disability, but I’m not sure how plugged into the community you are so I’ll try to explain this as best I can. A lot of people argue that being deaf doesn’t really have that severe an impact on your life if you just surround yourself with people that know sign language. Other PCs can be the ones to notice a suspicious noise, while they focus on the weird flashing lights, etc. NPCs can also be the disabled ones. Maybe that could explain why they aren’t going after the monster that killed their family - because they literally can’t. It also makes worlds that were created without modern medicine more realistic, and could reinforce the immersion. Like at least one old veteran you meet along the journey has to be an amputee, right? There are also a lot of player choices that could be added on to easily to make characters mentally disabled/neurodivergent. (Disorders are often traits that ‘normal’ people display, that are turned up to eleven, or start to interfere with their lives fyi.) People often play half orcs/barbarians that have limited vocabularies all the time, or elves that are very socially unaware. If you decide to take the traits that people already give their characters and expand them out then sometimes you naturally hit on a mental disability, so that could probably easily fit into a DND game. Fantasy High gave one character a panic attack mechanic. In a similar vein, you could add disadvantage or other limits to a character based upon their abilities just like a class/background, or a race. Maybe have an autistic character who has to roll for understanding social interactions, or an ADHDer who has to roll for history more often than you as the player need it. Maybe have a dyslexic character who was never taught to read properly, and always hands off important papers to other people when they find things. It doesn’t have to impact their fighting at all, and it can just add to your experience while role playing.

Woah what course was that for? I'm guessing Acting or maybe Management?

@@eoincampbell1584 Not OP but I played a role-playing exercise for a Roman History course. We basically were given roles of major personages in the first century and start3ed RIGHT AS Julius Caesar was assassinated. We basically did a sort of alternate history thing. I (Octavian) managed to deliver an empassioned enough speech that I saved Cicero from Antony's proscriptions. I also banged Cleopatra (both in and out of character. That was a good year.)

Cool. How'd it go? ♥️

What does this mean?? Wasn’t homeschooled

We just have a vibe, we can sense each other.

Sure! My philosophy for rp is just as long everyone involved in this thing is having fun, why not? This is make-believe there aren't any actual rules.

Yeah why not! There are many more kinds of stakes that can be present at any given moment in a campaign. So as long as there's still some kind of challenge/cost of failure, I think that's totally fine.

I wouldn’t fudge rolls. If it doesn’t matter, just don’t roll death saves when they fall unconscious. Just let them be auto-stabilized, and then don’t have enemies target them. If they don’t want the risk, there’s no need for dice. EDIT: Reading back I realize this sounds dismissive, and I don’t mean it that way. I feel very strongly that dice should only be used when the results matter. If you roll dice and then ignore the results, you weaken their power as a tool for storytelling.

I think in regards to character death, it's one of the strongest narrative tool that can elevate the experience of role playing. As a DM, of course, I would have the pre-game talk where consequences are real in our game as this is my personal belief. And I may not play in a game where I know I'll be okay until the fight with the big bad because that takes away the thrill of adventure for me. But the key thing here is the pre-game talk. And no hard feelings should be felt when a player or DM says, "Sorry, I don't think this game is what you are looking for" or "Sorry man, I don't want to play in this kind of game.". However, just talking like this can be hard.

I'm the exact same way. Character Arc's are a big part of my campaign and my players love them. They might get damaged so bad to the point of immobilized for days, but they will not die before you get to the point where you're content with them perishing.

I legit spend... 15-18 years explaining to parents, why their autistic (and adhd ect) kid was growing so much and got so much better at interacting with other kids, from playing LARP (and table top ect).... cut to me... at 30.. realizing that I am the autistic kid 🤷‍♀️😆

As an autistic dm it's so valuable as exploration of ideas and interactions.

That whole bit about safe words was making me think about my Domme lmao

Some people claim that Venn diagram is a circle... A theory they will never be proven or disproven 😄

I thought Brennan was going to say it for a second and then he compared to playing pretend as a kid instead, so I had to stop and consider if I was just being wierd.

@@davidprince6877 Brennan's very quick, I think he considered the space and changed tacks lol.

5 years later, was that the smart choice? I assume skipping one night of homework wouldn't ruin your life but you never know.

@Blasted2Oblivion im on my way to a masters degree in my dream field, so I'd say so :)

@@gigo1822 I'll call that a win and a half. Well done.

Vampire is pretty cool. It really stretch the rules as story instruments thing. Also GURPS 4e is perfect and it really is the ultimate system for absolutely every type of story if you understand what the system is proposing.

Ducking God Canned Shadowrun, never trust an elf

There are some TV shows that you can just tell was made by people who play dnd. Legends of Tomorrow, for one

was it Chronicles of Riddick?