Star Ocean Till the End of Time's @#$%! Plot Twist

If you never played Star Ocean 3 AKA Star Ocean Till the End of Time on the PS2, there's a plot twist. It's controversial apparently. It shouldn't be controversial; it should just be hated.

The plot twist in SO3 was unsatisfying for two reasons. It comes down to placement and how spontaneous it is. By placement I mean it's in the middle. The end of Act I (about 10%-15% mark) is a good spot for a twist b/c the audience hasn't committed to anything too strongly yet, and they're more open to a story pivot. By spontaneous I mean it wasn't set up or foreshadowed at all. The plot twist wasn't done well because it was abrupt, without satisfying reasoning, and at the expense of the investment of the audience; By audience investment, I mean by the midpoint of the story we are invested to the story in-progress. When you get the audience's investment and then THROW OUT the thing we're invested in, that's an absolute rug pull and that makes it a, ahem, Richard Relocation, for a writer.

I think that was really concise. Go me.

Hyper-Gratuitousness in Fiction and TTRPGs

I like Berserk and I liken my interest in its gratuitous violent imagery and dark themes as the literary horror-enthusiasts equivalent to adrenaline seeking behavior. Adrenaline junkies do not want to be in real danger because they can get hurt, but they want the sensation of it. They seek the sensation of it in a safe way. Similarly, I as a Berserk reader don't want to be a butcher. I have a passing interest in the macabre, but I don't want to work in a museum of horrors.

In case you don't know, Berserk is a long running manga (comic) that has been adapted into an anime multiple times. It's a dark fantasy about a man who kills demons with a massive sword. It is firmly in the seinen genre. Seinen means "young men", not boys. Its target audience is adults with male interests. It has mature themes; it has some nudity and lots of violence. It's horror. Some of the horror is very mundane; for example, the evil deeds of regular men include torture and various cruelties. Some of the horror is more cosmic. For example, the setting has a generic western religion like Christianity, but the religion is false within the setting. The god in Berserk is indifferent to human suffering, and there is no heaven. Further, God is responsible for the presence and empowerment of man-eating demons who's physical might far exceeds ordinary men. This is dark stuff.

One of my favorite parts is when they introduce Farnese. She's a young noble woman who was assigned to this symbolic position as a leader in an army that answers directly to the setting's equivalent of the Vatican. The story slowly reveals that she's a pyromaniac because they used to burn witches alive outside her bedroom window when she was a little girl and so now, she has a cruelty-streak because of it. As an adult, she thinks she understands God's divine order for the world - then she meets the hero who's perpetually stalked by things that should be an abomination to that divine order. This is tantamount to forbidden knowledge, and encountering demons causes her to go temporarily mad and lose her faith. I consider loss of faith a form of cosmic horror in a way that loss of a hand is body horror. It's interesting. There also may or may not also be a scene where she grinds her groin on the hero's sword which is neither here nor there. Don't worry about it.

The point is there's a lot of complex and inappropriate stuff in this series. Before you judge me, let me explain. Given all this wild stuff, it's done artistically. That is to say, there's artistry in the choices made for when and where and how to depict this stuff. It doesn't show nudity for its own sake. It's not used to please the audience. It doesn't show gore for the sake of it. It shows these things with an intent of evoking a sensation in the audience. Some scenes are intended to be disturbing or sickening. If doesn't show blood and gore insipidly, it's precise. There's a scene for instance where the hero stabs a very attractive, naked villainess thought the stomach and she derives sexual pleasure from this. It mixes the sensations of horror and sexual thrill. The result is a weird sickening sensation that you feel in your gut. This is why I liken the horror of Berserk to adrenaline seeking behavior. Berserk does the sensation of horror like skydiving does the sensation of adrenaline.

Like I said, the series does this with precision. It picks its moments. It does not indulge. If every panel had something horrifying, you would become desensitized and it would lose its effectiveness. There are quiet contemplative moments where characters sit around a fire and talk about their dreams. Real life years and years of content later, some of those characters get eaten alive and it's shocking. So, in summary, I read Berserk for this artistic use of this subject matter, not the (over) indulgence of it.

Now, would I put this subject matter explicitly in my TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons? The answer is a firm no. Why? Because I know that it's not for everyone. Also, even I would probably be uncomfortable. That said, I refuse to overly sterilize or over sanitize my setting as I believe this is infantilization and kitsch. I would be happy to say that some of these darker things exist in my setting, because their absence would be conspicuous. By conspicuously absent, I mean it would be distracting and immersion breaking if something wasn't present. In other words, how can you believe there is danger in the world if the world is too nice and safe? Therefore, some of it exists implicitly in the setting. Let me use a very safe metaphor to illustrate my point. Puppies die. When I say puppies die, this is code (or a euphemism) for any horrible thing you might imagine. Implicit means yes, there are puppies that die in the setting, but we don't need to show puppies die. Sometimes, it's good enough to hint that puppies die off-screen. We don't need to indulge in puppies dying, but they do. 

Even Star Wars, a franchise considered to be intended for children, has torture, sexy dancers, war, slavery, murder, dismemberment, brother-on-sister kisses, use of deadly poisons, no bras in space, and off-screen youngling slaying. In conclusion, we're not doing gore-fest, but you do need to pick moments in fiction to absolutely splatter someone.

Human-Centric Settings (No Monster PCs)

Here's the real reason for wanting a human-centric setting. Personal taste. This article is not about convincing you to agree because I don't expect to be able to. Persuasion doesn't work like that. This article is about giving you the perspective of people who don't want monsters as player races, among other features of generic fantasy. It's not about the right or wrong way to have fun; it's about why I can't have fun the same way you can.

Let's start with the strongest point before I peter out at the end. Monsters are not people; they're monsters. When you humanize the monsters by making them a player-race or by making them equal or similar to humans in mind or spirit, they cease to feel like monsters. I want monsters to be the things that go bump in the night. They are the things that hunt us. They lurk off the edges of the map. If you can play a monster (i.e. kobolt or goblin or half-orc player character), then monsters aren't monstrous; They're just exotic people. It trivializes what it means to be a monster. I want my fantasy monsters to resemble the monsters of the horror genre. You can't have a setting where monsters can be both monsters like in a horror genre but also exotic people like in modern kitchen-sink high fantasy. The exception is if you want to reestablish what is considered a "normal" race, but for me, this exception still spoils monsters because there is this imaginary line that distinguishes humans from monsters, and every exception blurs that line and diminishes the certainty of the distinction.

Second, it's about tone. Modern D&D feels like playing A Very Muppet Fantasy. I've heard and read criticisms that refer to 5e D&D as kitchen-sink fantasy because, like the kitchen sink, there's a little bit of everything. It lacks cohesion and consistency, like macaroni and glue on the Mona Lisa. There isn't a regard of how things fit or consideration for whether it belongs there or not, and the audience has to adjust their suspension of disbelief to accommodate it. In the last 5e gaming group I was in, I felt like Eddie Valiant in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but I would have rather felt like a character in Lord of the Rings or Berserk. In case you don't know, Eddie was the straight man in the sense of a straight-man silly-man dynamic, among a cast of silly-men. My experience with 5e is that the monsters as player races make the game feel cartoony. The cartoony-ness spoils the tone I would like. I didn't like it. It wasn't to my taste.

Speaking of tone, what is it? It's the mood or atmosphere. Think about the difference at a kid's birthday party vs a party for adults with depression. They have different moods. Some things don't mix. You shouldn't mix Lord of the Rings with Rick and Morty, for instance. The tone of Rick and Morty spoils the tone of Lord of the Rings. Tonally, they don't mix. Generic fantasy permits you to mix Peanut Butter and Pepperoni (I call it peanut-pepper butter-oni) and dip it in olive oil. One thing spoils the other thing.

Don't be insulted but kitchen-sink fantasy is plebeian fantasy because it is fantasy for everyone without discerning taste and people who don't know about the craft of acting or drama or of history. It tries to satisfy as many people as it can all at the same time. It's generic as opposed to specific. By generic, I mean it is "of the genre" in the broadest sense of the word genre, permitting everything under the fantasy category; but by specific fantasy I mean something curated and intended to create a more specific aesthetic, sensation, mood, theme, and style. Specific fantasy appeals to a narrower audience, not necessarily an audience with superior tastes but with specific tastes.

The definition of fantasy as a genre is "fiction plus magic or supernatural elements". That's it. Nothing about what kind of magic stuff or how much of it. So, imagine fantasy as a dial or slider. At the lowest setting of 1, you might get something like Liar, Liar with Jim Carry where a boy makes a wish on a birthday cake so that his dad can't lie. Crank it up to 2 and you might get Legend of King Arthur, where the quantity of magical elements is few and uncommon. There's one magic sword, one wizard, one lady of the lake, and one holy relic to find. There are no dragons and no potions of gaseous form. At the highest setting of 10, you might get Baldur's Gate 3 where you start off on an illithid spaceship and end up visiting hell, and one of your companions is a half-elf vampire. It's a mess and I don't like it.

Expectations are the hardest thing to establish for an TTRPG, and I think kitchen-sink fantasy makes this more challenging because not there's too many options. If I invite you to play in a game with me, I have no idea what your experience with fantasy is, and I have no idea what kind of fantasy you like. This is why D&D classically had an Appendix N which referred you to the works of fiction that inspired D&D.  If I tell you I'm running a low fantasy game, are you thinking that it's fantasy with the slider on a low setting, or are you thinking it's low fantasy as in the sub-genre low fantasy which has a more specific definition than fantasy. If I tell you I'm running a game using 5e D&D, then I think your expectations might immediately go to Baldur's Gate 3 even if I tell you "LOW, LOW fantasy". Are you thinking about a fantasy equivalent of the Marvel Avengers? Are you thinking about Adventure Time? Are you hoping for a western or a gangster movie? Appendix N may help you narrow people's expectations down.

Now let's break the fantasy elements down into their own sliders. Fantasy is a slider, magic is a slider, monsters is a slider. Lord of the Rings is high fantasy because it is set in its own fantastic, non-Earth setting with its own history and mythos, but on the magic slider it's low because only wizards can do magic and there's like five of them. Furthermore, on the monster slider, there might be a massive army of orcs, but the variety of monsters is limited; you can't put a 300-page monster manual together based on the monsters of Lord of the Rings, so, let's say it's in the middle. Lord of the Rings has epic stakes: the fate of Middle Earth. That's usually a feature of high fantasy. With low fantasy, the stakes tend to be more grounded. In Conan the Barbarian for example, the stakes are very local.

The last thing I want to give you is the concept of a hypothetical master checklist of all fantasy concepts. I'll call it the master fantasy checklist. It's got everything on there from magic wands that shoot jets of colored light to dragon shouts to magic gemstones made of condensed ether that let you cast spells to sticking bits of metal in your tummy and getting powers based on the type of metal. When you define your specific setting, you check off items include it in the setting. Let's say if you check off 75% or more of the boxes, that's kitchen sink territory. This is because the list is so massive. If you check off 10% or less, that's focused, specific, or niche. It likely qualifies as a dedicated subgenre. If you check off 30% - 49% (meaning you're excluding more than half of the list), that's a curated Variety Fantasy. I think you should aim for Variety Fantasy on any regular day. Less is more and keep it simple stupid are axiomatic; you might believe that getting rid of excess (bloat) leads to greater satisfaction, or you may believe that restrictions breed creativity. Maybe you agree?

Real vs Fantasy: Druids

Found this on the internet (might have been from Blizzard of all places) and thought it needed to be saved somewhere for future reference:

"Fantasy druids are depicted as wise, nature-bound mystics who can shapeshift and/or commune with nature. They are mediators between the natural world and the human realm, embodying a balance between destruction and renewal.

Real druids were high-ranking priestly classes in ancient Celtic cultures, known for their roles as legal authorities, adjudicators, lore keepers, medical professionals, and political advisors. They were also responsible for maintaining sacred groves and ritual sites, and their knowledge was often passed down orally due to their doctrine against writing."

The reason why this is valuable to me is because the portrayal of the druid by D&D players is generally nonsensical. Every D&D player who's been a druid plays them like a recluse or madman who lives in the woods and doesn't care about anything except their trees. The druid player learns that the villain is about to sacrifice a baby to summon a demon, and they ask, "but are they a threat to my forest?" They're missing the depth of the fantasy druid and they're missing the function of a real druid. They're playing their character like a joke character, or they use their class as an excuse to be weird.

At the end of the day, all fantasy classes that specialize in magic are the same except for flavor. Near as I can tell, there are two types of druids: Either Wizard or Cleric who has taken on a druid subclass or variant class. Some people suggest a cleric with a wizard spell list. The kind that exists in your setting is the kind that makes sense for your setting. The wizard-druid is a sort of a sage-like magic-user who specializes in nature. They use divination to translate the mysterious will of nature for the benefit of man. The cleric-druid is a wiseman and priest of a nature religion who takes makes sense of world and spirituality for the benefit people in their tribe or clan. An evil druid is someone who worships the destructive forces of nature and sabotages mankind. The D&D druid player shapeshifts into a dog, acts like Scooby-Doo, and ruins the mood of a scene.

D&D Alignments - How to Use Them!

Alignment describes the setting. There are forces of good and evil, and these two forces are opposed. There are forces of law and chaos, and these two forces are opposed. Your character's alignment may have been defined by the rules as a stance or an attitude, and is often treated like a personality type by players, but your character's alignment instead describes their alignment to these forces, or to neutrality if they're unaligned.

What is good? What is evil? Are these ideas up for debate? The higher powers in the setting (gods for example) decide. In other words, it's up to the GM to define these concepts for their setting as s/he is the designer and curator of the setting, and is the one who portrays these NPC higher powers. What if your character has the desire to be good, but lacks the knowledge of right and wrong or the willpower to act on it? That's also up to the higher powers of the setting.

If your setting does not contain these forces, then why use these alignments?

How to Convert 5e Players: The World Within a World Strategy

I'm going to lead with this: if someone is happy with 5e, they're going to stay with 5e. But, maybe, possibly, you can get them to TRY another game, and maybe they can learn to appreciate another game! I have had an epiphany!

I can't be the only person who has ever had the idea "what if our D&D characters made their own D&D characters and played D&D? How meta!"

The premise: You give the players characters (not the players) a situation in your game where they can play another TTRPG for a reward. A reward is better than avoiding a consequence, but you can layer both. Maybe a traveling magical stranger come along and offers the PCs a chance to play a magical game for fabulous prizes. Maybe they meet a mad wizard who got trapped in a secondary world, that is to say, a world within a world like the Matrix or some Isekai. That secondary world has different rules. To go into that world, the characters will have to play by those rules - like the Savage Worlds, Shadowrun, Shadowdark, or GURPS or whatever. I'm sure you can make up a situation that suits your own game.

Tips:

Use incentives! If their 5e D&D characters can complete the 1e D&D adventure you have prepared for them, their 5e characters can magically keep a magic item their 1e characters earned. Offer them something NICE like a +3 item.

Make sure it's a choice! Don't force it on them. But you could.

Split the party. Its magical wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey BS and it doesn't interfere with normal passage of time. Don't let a pesky thing like democracy stop willing players. Run a side-game for them. Work around the party-poopers so they don't feel spurred.

Make the medicine sweeter! Don't just give them a loser 1e D&D character sheet, give them a really impressed 1e D&D character sheet. Unless they'd be into a character funnel.

Justification: Maybe the players need a palate cleanser; Do this instead of a one-shot. Maybe they've just finished an adventure and you don't have the next adventure prepped yet. This is your excuse for delaying.

Have respect for their time: Structure this like a one-shot! Try to keep it to a one-session thing.

Leave them wanting more: At the end of the PCs brief stint into the secondary world, when everything feels wrapped up, you're going to give them another adventure hook! Like a treasure map to a ruin with a ton of treasure, or their own star ship.

Make it Easy: Hand out pre-generated characters. Don't spend game time making characters. Leave out some of the more complex options.

You're Doing Tieflings Wrong

Tieflings do not have a standard skin tone, and 3e did not assign them standard physical features.

Look up Tieflings online in the D&D 3.5e SRD. "Many tieflings are indistinguishable from humans. Others have small horns, pointed teeth, red eyes, a whiff of brimstone about them, or even cloven feet. No two tieflings are the same." Note the use of the word "or" in the list of physical features, not "and". And definitely note that the description reads "many tieflings are indistinguishable from humans". This is the full physical description and does not address skin color. This passage comes from the monster manual (where tieflings used to be) and the physical book provides an illustration of a woman who looks like an ordinary human.

For reference, even the description of tieflings in 2014 5e PHB, under the subheading "Infernal Bloodline" reads "Their skin tones cover the full range of human coloration, but also include shades of red." The red skin thing is new in 5e (or maybe it was 4e?) and it suits cambian demons, which are creatures with a human parent and an infernal parent like Hellboy.

In 3.5e, Tieflings are categorized with Aasimar under Planetouched in the Monster Manual. Quote: "Planetouched is a general word to describe someone who can trace his or her bloodline back to an outsider, usually a fiend or celestial." To reiterate, if you're a tiefling, you have a fiendish ancestor. That's bad. Here's why. Tiefling alignment is given as "usually evil (any)". The alignment of usually evil is the basis for discrimination against tiefliings. To quote 3e's definition of evil: ""Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master." THIS is this the bases for discrimination against tieflings. Evil alignment in 3e is traditional black-and-white-morality, objectively bad.

Story Structure in TTRPGs

TL;DR, never call Act I an introduction. That's massively underexplaining what Act I is. Also, I worked out a really good reason not to play 5e D&D.

In story structure, Act I is the set up, Act II is the execution, and Act III is the resolution. 

In Act I, you set up the story. By the end of Act I, the themes, major characters, setting, conflict, stakes, and the goal should be established for the audience (or participants in TTRPGs). Act I ends when an event or action forces the hero (or by choice of the hero, but usually it's not their choice) to put their normal life on hold to engage with that conflict and pursue that goal. The number of choices available to the hero are greatest in Act I.

Act II is where you execute that story set up in Act I. If you set up a mystery, you execute the mystery, etc.  Act II is the longest act. Act II is about the hero engaging with escalating obstacles and risks in the setting as he pursues his goal. Obstacles (AKA trials) prepare the hero for their goal, first by testing the hero's skills and revealing his weaknesses or flaws, then by taking away his resources or nullifying his strengths, and by giving him lessons that make him stronger or wiser. Obstacles force heroes to confront failure; they force heroes to change or grow. Throughout Act II, minor characters and subplots may be expanded on or introduced, and are resolved before the end of Act II. During Act II, the hero's choices are narrowed down. By the end, the hero commits to one path. Act II ends when the tested and tried hero has overcome the obstacles and has learned from them, and is finally ready to confront the main antagonist.

Act III is where you resolve the story set up in Act I. It begins with a final confrontation with the primary antagonist that shows the hero's growth and how that growth made them worthy of their goal. Act III ends showing the audience the consequences of the hero's choices on the world; the world is not reset.

In good TTRPGs, Act I looks a bit like this: You ask the players what they want, give them some opportunities to get it, establish the obstacles that each choice will force on them, let them choose their preferred opportunity, then set them loose. I might even suggest working this into the ending of the previous adventure so that you start the next adventure with momentum. In D&D 5e, you pick one pre-written campaign book with a preset path and story.

In TTRPGS, Act II depends on the game you're playing. In 5e, you smash things, level up, gain powers, smash bigger things, level and gain more powers, and smash bigger things. Repeat until the second biggest thing is smashed and the players get some McGuffin. All while following a story that's already been written and is intended for general audiences.

In TTRPGs, 5e specifically, Act III is an obligatory fight with a damage sponge and a whole lot of cheap powers. Then you win the D&D. Seriously, why are you playing 5e? Stories are fundamentally about showing a character growing from a state of immaturity to maturity and imparting a lesson (a theme). Ever wonder why they call the moral of the story a theme? Stories are satisfying when a need for the growth is established in Act I, when the growth is earned through struggle in Act II, and when Act III reveals the results of that growth in a way that reinforces the lesson of the story. This character growth themes the story.

The Problem isn't the Experts

If there's a pool of knowledge, e.g. medicine or fry cooking, an expert is someone with a higher degree of knowledge (or expertise) compared to others who have general knowledge (subject matter generalists) or no knowledge of the subject (an ignoramus, used affectionately). 

I have a profession where I am considered a subject matter expert. I prepare data and information for others without expertise so they can make decisions. The decision makers can be other experts or generalists, or ignoramuses with or without competency in other fields, and they have the ability to reject your expert recommendations. They can instead fish for different experts who can provide them with a recommendation that they prefer or that suits the decisions they want to make.

The problem isn't experts; it's the decision makers who present the experts as authorities to substantiate their decisions. In other words, it's not a matter of whether we should trust experts or not; we should be cautious of the people who tell us which experts to trust. Everyone is fallible. Even the experts. Please see the two screen captures of both Bing results and Google results for the definition of fallible below and a very appropriate example of its use in a sentence.

The solution is critical thinking, more high-quality information, and waiting for the high-quality information to beat the low-quality information before committing to a decision. Recognize that not all decisions need to be made urgently. If someone presents a situation to you and requests a quick decision, consider the actual urgency and recognize that this might be a manipulation tactic. Have higher standards for proof. Ask questions. Make people show their work and don't take their word for it. Scrutinize it. Have others who are knowledgeable scrutinize it.

How to Play a TTRPG

How to Play
The game is played through conversation. First, the Game Master (GM) describes the scene, setting, or situation. Second, either in turns or free form, the players describe what their characters do or say, and how. Players should track the position of their character in a room or scene. For example "I move from the doorway to the bookshelf" or "I stand in the center of the room under the chandelier." This helps us to track and even envision the scene. Third, the GM determines and describes what happens. Repeat until a scene is resolved, then the GM establishes a new scene.

How to Personify Your Character
You the player personify your character based on how you conceive them (with respect to the tone and setting of the game). Game mechanics and character statistics are just numbers. A low intelligence statistic does not mean you have to portray your character like an idiot, and nor should you portray your character as too dumb for self-preservation or as self-sabotaging. A low personality statistic does not mean you can't be effective in a conversation. It is OK to ask what you would do if you were in your character's place and do that.

How to Use Descriptions
Everyone should use deceptions like a narrator in a story. Avoid using game terminology. Use as much natural language as possible. For example, instead of saying "I use 30 ft of movement to move to the front of the troll and I use my action to attack him", say "I run across the room and swing my sword at the troll's head." Try to say everything you're doing on your turn in a single fluid sentence like reading a line from a novel.

How to Use Dice
Dice do not tell the story, we do. The setting determines the limitations of the fiction (of fantastic elements like magic). Once those limitations are established, the rest of the fictional world is assumed to default to realism as this is our common frame of reference. The difficulty of actions should therefore default to our expectations of believable reality and should not be arbitrary for the sake of game design or balance. In effect, if an action can reasonably succeed, it does. You don't need game rules, mechanics, or dice to tell you what happens. Just apply logic of a believable make-believe world. Dice are for combat and sometimes for traps.

Would my character know anything about the monster? A wizard might a few things, a ranger might know a few things, a county bumpkin might know a few things. You don't need a line item on your character sheet for this, it's all in how you can justify having the knowledge within the logic of the setting and the story. You may argue "my character is a ranger of this frontier, this monster is a common threat here, so I would know a little bit about their behavior and weaknesses." A wizard might know something about their history or lore. A country bumpkin might know a few local scary stories.

Interactions with non-player characters (NPCs) are resolved similarly, but through roleplay. Players should never say "I try to persuade him" or "insight check." Treat NPCs like real people. Say hi. Tell them about yourself. Ask about their troubles or services. Treat them as resources for news and rumors. Offer them something that will make them happy in exchange for what you want or find something that gives you leverage over them and threaten them with it. If you tell a lie, it should be a plausible one to avoid suspicion. You WILL earn a reputation that will follow you around.

There is no die roll to search a room. The GM describes the room, and additional information is revealed to the players as they describe how their characters interact with it. 

Danger Should Be Obvious
There should be no sneaky tricks by the GM. No gotchas. Danger should be obvious. If player characters get hurt, it should be due to their own decisions. Listen to GM descriptions. Ask questions.  You are entitled to any information that would be obvious to your character. Rely on your creativity and critical thinking.

Metagaming
Here's how I define metagaming at my table: Metagaming means thinking about the game like a game. Instead, approach the game like a roleplay exercise rather than a tactical exercise. Your character doesn't have a concept of game rules like "Sword skill +5" or "luck dice". Assuming game balance and making decisions based on that is also metagaming. Embody your character. Put yourself in their place.

"You pass through a heavy wooden door that wants to slam shut behind you and you enter a cold, cramped, stone room. The torch in your hand is your only source of light. You hold your breath and listen but hear nothing. To your left is an old dusty bookshelf with only a few dilapidated books. To your right is a small, worn looking table connected to the corner walls by cobwebs. Across the room is a messy desk with a few crooked drawers. The floor in front of the desk has new and old footprints in the dust. What do you do?"

You don't know if there are any traps or hidden dangers, and your character does not have a concept of saving throws to automatically avoid harm. Your character does not have a concept of random encounter checks either; Whatever you do, time is passing, and the longer you're in a dungeon, the more likely you are to encounter danger. Your torches are limited. They limit how far you can go. As they burn away, they give off light like a beacon and smell of smoke. So far, you think you've avoided detection by enemies, but they've left signs of their presence with their footprints in the dust on the floor. Consider that you don't know if they're already tracking you. Don't think about how many hit points you have and how much damage dice something might do. Think about the potential wounds or injuries your character wants to avoid. Getting ambushed does not mean the GM rolls a bunch of damage while you do nothing, it means you're getting shot and stabbed in the back and for a moment you're helpless. Combat might be fun for you, but for your character, it's deadly. It's not about winning or losing, it's about surviving and staying safe. Combat rounds represent a few seconds of time; Your character has to think fast and act fast to survive! Once you're in a fight, it's too late to talk strategy. Prepare ahead of time!

Rules Talk
Absolutely no rule books or rules discussion during the game. If you don't know how a spell or weapon or etc. works, the GM will tell you how it works this time. Game time is for playing. Learn or work out the rules outside of game time. All that being said, the GM is mortal and cannot guarantee rules mastery, and should use the honor code when in doubt. If a player declares and attack with a long sword and rolls a d8 for damage, we can trust they're being honest and we don't need to question that midgame. Do you have 30 feet of movement or 35 feet? Do you have a +1 or a +2? Does a torch burn for 6 exploration turns or does it burn for 1d6+2 exploration rounds? Who cares. Make a ruling and play.

No Do-Overs, No Ret-Cons
Once you declare your action, you can't change it. As they say in golf, play the ball where it lies. I know that your character would ordinarily have known to do something or not to do something, but this time, for some reason, they didn't. If you forgot something, maybe you'll remember it next time.

The Monsters Want to Win
Do not think that any fight or dangerous situation you find yourself in will be balanced and fair. That would be metagaming by the way. Assume the bad guys will fight dirty. Assume they will cheat and use every advantage. Assume no mercy. The bad guys want to survive, and they want to win with the least cost (wounds, injuries, and casualties). Fighting is deadly, and fighting fair is deadlier.

How to Make a Player Character
Character creation should begin with the character concept and end with choosing stats, mechanics and powers. Character concepts must suit the setting and tone of the game, so have a few character concepts in mind in case one doesn't work. Who was your character before becoming an adventurer, and how did they fit in the setting? Why did they give up their life to become an adventurer? Finally, what is their goal for adventuring? Some GMs consider it necessary for player characters to have goals! When in doubt, create an ordinary person who becomes an adventurer.

How to Set Expectations
General: GMs set the rules for their game, like table etiquette and general courtesy, but they also define the scope of the game. What genre, subgenre, setting, tone (mood), etc. Give an elevator pitch that sums up the kind of game you intend to run. Consider "I'm running a dark, low fantasy game in a grounded setting that is vaguely period and Mediterranean. Fantastic elements like magic and monsters are unordinary but present. Stakes are less epic and the conflict comes from diegetically occurring obstacles that appear on the player characters' paths as they pursue their own goals in play. Don't do anything you wouldn't do in real life. Play your character like you care what happens to them." Consider referring a movie or tv show that people can relate to.

Setting: Offer the players seven pieces of information their characters would know about the setting. They can be mundane, or they can be exciting or concerning news. "The King is dead. His heirs are fighting over who rules, and factions are forming among the nobility. The church has announced the appearance of a miracle worker for the first time in one hundred years. Monsters have been seen on the frontier by military scouts. Barbarian tribes who were once enemies of the empire are petitioning to join it. Rumors say that the merchant class is trying to create a revolution. Mages are leaving the empire without explanation." You don't need answers for these questions! All these ideas describe a setting where things are changing fast, and they make players wonder why. Wonder is a sensation, and it creates interest.

Create a central tension for your setting. This is an amazing tip from the Matthew Colville Youtube channel. It is a single dramatic conflict that is present in and affects your entire setting. For example, the king is dead, his heirs are fighting over who rules, and factions are forming in the nobility. Another example is that the kingdom has been conquered by another kingdom, and a new religion has been imposed on the people. Maybe the central tension is a natural disaster? This is the flavor of your setting that your players don't need to engage with. Every NPC everywhere has a different perspective on the central tension, and it forces you to consider these multiple perspectives which helps you create opportunities for conflicts. It creates a logic to your setting; All you have to do is understand this logic and worldbuilding easy and flavorful.

The Internet Accent

A while back I saw a Youtube short from an internet personality (link). She is a resident of Britain, but she has an American accent. One frequent question she gets is why. Her answer was that she grew up gaming online, and when you game online, you're gaming with Americans. Now, she just talks like an American when she is around Americans or when she puts on a headset. To me, it sounds like she's saying it's involuntary and she can't help it. 

I have encountered this phenomenon of involuntary accents before with a friend from South Africa who speaks with a perfectly American accent. One day he answered a phone call from his mom and his accent changed to his Afrikaans accent. He later explained to me that he can't help it; when he talks to his parents, he speaks in that accent.

Even more recently, I discovered Asmongold and I couldn't tell he was Texan at all until he started talking about something that was cozy and familiar to him in a relaxed mood. That means that even Americans with regional accents are subject to this phenomenon!

My mom is New England. My dad is from the American mid-west. I spent my youth in Florida. One day at work in a California-based call center about ten years ago, I took a call from a career military person who said she moves around a lot and is familiar with different accents. She said I had a very interesting accent, and she guessed that it was a mix of New England, mid-western, and Floridian. Now, here's an odd thing, I watch Canadian Youtubers enough and I now pronounce about as aboot. Not all the time, but enough.

One of the odd phenomena that I and other people in the call center discussed was that we start to involuntary imitate the accents of the person on the other line while we're on the phone with them. I can't do these accents on purpose, and I'm not doing it on purpose, but I've caught myself doing that. It stuns you for a couple of seconds the first time you catch yourself doing it, and then you have to choose to consciously reign it in.

Where is this going? Human beings are social animals, and part of that means were adaptable. Sometimes we change to fit in whether we realize it or not. The internet is accelerating this, and I think we're all converging on an Internet Accent. What's an internet accent? I think it's the average of all our collective accents from mutual conversation in one global forum, and I'm happy to announce that it sounds American! I'm calling it now, in 500 years, an American accent will be universal. Everyone get used to saying your R's like a pirate ("arrrrh!"). Can you imagine if one day there are different subsects of Internet Accents that give away what your internet interests are? I'm not going to begin to speculate on that.

I'm not even interested in the social sciences, but I'm very interested in learning more about this Internet Accent idea. There's a wikipedia page dedicated to Internet Linguistics that needs a new section. That's it. Thank you for reading.