Hoidwithaspaceship - Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship

Welcome to Dragon of the Day, where I give you your daily dose of dragons. Here’s todays dragon. My favorite, Paarthurnax.

God I love Paarthurnax so much. I love that dulled golden color of his scales. I bet they’d be soft if I hugged him. Speaking of hugs, I bet being wrapped up by his wings would be nice…

Anyways, Paarthurnax is from the hit 2011 game, Skyrim. He does cool stuff like debate philosophy, teach you a new language, and get you to kill his brother. He is pretty epic, I give him a 10/10. Screw you Delphine for trying to make me kill him.

That’s all for today’s dragon. I would say come by tomorrow, but you probably shouldn’t.

I think we're finally finding the issue here, which is that dnd has pulled from so many different forms of media and archetypes, and often from different ones that are entirely different in set up and power scaling and magic and such. To simplify, we pulled wizards from things like myths and fancy magic users and the fighter is basically "well its medieval, gotta have a plate wearing sword guy" . And unless you set up a world to accomdate that, to either figure out the neccesarily limitations on magic to have a fighter make sense as being somewhat practical, or expand the magic (non-real elements) to include martial prowess and toughness, the fighter and the wizard basically come from different realities.

Anyway this is why wotc should publish more individual setting books with actual different rules that don't actually work together across settings. Because if you want different themes to your game world, the way players understand that is through the mechanics, and therefore how you define the theme. And if they want to have some big way it all works, they need to stop holding onto these fragments of tradition that say random things about how the rules should be, from earlier editions, that no longer actually work in the setting and world they're trying to build, but are just holdovers.

I doubt that will ever happen. But it would be nice, if they said "these rules are how greyhawk works, this is how eberron works, this is how the forgotten realms works." But at that point the ideal would be to have a different rpg for each one. Which won't happen.

I suppose a compromize could be to establish a firm setting, admit that the rules are unique to that setting and probably shouldnt be one to one ported elsewhere, and then make conversion kits galore for any kind of theme and setting, rather than trying to shoehorn them all into the original setting.

oh but as an aside: in terms of giving classes stuff to do outside their central domain of expertise, you don't really need to look for esoteric stuff for fighters, they've got, like, "being scary", "being beefy", "being good at smashing or moving things", "being athletic", and that's fine? Like if those aren't coming out as useful in a dungeon crawl, or if spellcasters are matching them just on the basis of some handwavey "magic can do anything!" explanation, maybe that's the problem and not that fighters need broader domains of built-in competence. those seem like things that should be useful and character-defining outside of fights, don't they?

I will never reveal my secrets.

Started reading Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Every time Hoid narrates a story I just assume he's got Kaladin cornered somewhere and refuses to let him go.

It was made by those who were dead

01/07/3309 The Pleiades

The way is shut.

This reminds me of something i think i saw on the 17th shard, of a stormlight prologue being me stuck in a bathroom, trying to get out, for the entire prologue. At the end, I resort to Awakening, resulting in my exit, in front of guards, right after the assassination, dressed in white.

More Ways for Hoid to be Tortured

[Includes a spoiler for Tress!]

Hoid has sure had it rough lately. He’s had his memories siphoned off, gotten cursed, even spent some quality time as a coatrack. As @kingjasnah points out in this post, Sanderson is setting a precedent here: we’re all expecting ever new and more hilarious shit to happen to Hoid.

So here are some ideas for ways that Hoid might suffer in future Cosmere books.

1. Trapped in a dimension full of talking bananas…who don’t care about stories

Hoid: And that was the story of the banana who looked up.

Banana 1: [yawning]

Banana 2: Sorry, did you say something? I was thinking about radishes.

Banana 3: I feel so neutral about everything you said!

Hoid: …I may have found a place nearly as unpleasant as Komashi. 

Hoid: Nearly.

2. A new and ever weirder food craving every day.

Hoid: Well, it seems that today I can stomach nothing except mayonnaise-topped pickles.

Design: And you’re sure you’re not pregnant?

3. Trapped on a planet during a time of no plot relevance 

Design: Hey, will you look at that!

Design: According to the town newspaper, old lady Dennis FINALLY figured out who’s been eating her lettuce. 

Design: Get this–it was a rabbit!

Design: That’s something, right?

Hoid: W-Was it an invested rabbit?

Design: Nope! Just a normal one.

Hoid (sinking further into his turtleneck): I have GOT to get my Luck back.

4. Can only communicate via song…after losing his perfect pitch 

Hoid (singing): And thus you should learn, / that if I must, I will let this planet buuuuuuurn!

Design: Your pitch is off by a mere .0005%!

Hoid (singing): And it’s really not fair–this much is true, / that my perfect pitch, went straight to yooooou!

5. Turned into a rat

Rat-Hoid: The worst part is…it’s not even original.

6. De-Aged into a Child

Hoid: It’s not so bad, really.

Hoid: People perhaps don’t take me the most seriously, but then, I was the King’s Wit for a while so I’m used to that.

Hoid: …I do hear the word “precocious” a lot. 

7. De-Aged into a Baby

Hoid: (furiously signing with his fat baby hands) What is this, an isekai?!

Design: Hmmm…I should start a babysitting business. 

8. Unable to respond to anyone unless his response rhymes

Design: I love it, to be orange.

Design: If I ever need some peace and quiet, I just end every sentence with “orange.” 

Hoid: Once again I must ask you to act a bit less like a poison-filled sporange. 

Design: It’s fun to watch him incorporate that word into all of his sentences!

9. Grows to the size of a mountain

Hoid: It’s not (ouch) that I mind (ouch) the mountain-climbing business that Design (ouch) is running.

Hoid: But the constant (ouch) pick-axes driving into my shins (ouch) does get a tad…distracting.

Hoid: (ouch)

10. Handcuffed to Kelsier, ala Light & L

Kelsier: [eyes gleaming]

Kelsier: And this time you can’t escape me, Drifter!

Hoid: Hey, is that a spike in your eye, or are you just happy to see me?

Kelsier: …

Kelsier: T-That doesn’t even make any sense!

Hoid: …This might actually be fun.