I will never make fun of artists for starting with a kink and working backwards to invent an OC who would have that kink because I have on multiple occasions started with a stupid dice trick and worked backwards to invent the tabletop RPG that uses it, and the second one is, if anything, the less respectable of the two.
THIS WEEK’S EPISODE:
THE WRITER’S BARELY DISGUISED DICE TRICK
A game I’m working on right now uses d12 dice pools which are read against two different variable target numbers simultaneously, one a blackjack roll-under (i.e., take the highest single die that doesn’t go over) and one a hit-counting roll-over (i.e.,count how many dice rolled over). This is a core mechanic only a dice pervert would come up with.
(unbuckles belt) keep talking…
Both target numbers are independently variable, and the roll-under and roll-over ranges can potentially overlap.
For uh…independent research would you happen to be able to share?
Structurally, Heathcliff in its present form is just shitty referential meme humour where 90% of the time the punchline is “laugh because you recognise this reference”, except the memes it’s referencing exist only in the author’s head, which explains basically everything about why Tumblr is into it.
If you read Heathcliff long enough you start to think you understand the joke because you recognize the self referential stuff. But the stuff it refers to isn’t a joke either. So you have to decipher what the joke probably is and then you can try to figure out why the joke is. But there is never any context it’s just a fish saying bro. You trace back the bro fish and it starts with a strip that is captioned “he’s friends with the dude fish” or some such thing and that’s it! The joke refers to a joke that refers to nothing! It’s maddening! Heathcliff feels algorithmically generated but every strip is deliberately made by human hands. It forces me to mentally reboot whenever my brain has to start processing it cause I have to go into Heathcliff mode. It’s a bad comic. I really like it.
I will never make fun of artists for starting with a kink and working backwards to invent an OC who would have that kink because I have on multiple occasions started with a stupid dice trick and worked backwards to invent the tabletop RPG that uses it, and the second one is, if anything, the less respectable of the two.
THIS WEEK’S EPISODE:
THE WRITER’S BARELY DISGUISED DICE TRICK
A game I’m working on right now uses d12 dice pools which are read against two different variable target numbers simultaneously, one a blackjack roll-under (i.e., take the highest single die that doesn’t go over) and one a hit-counting roll-over (i.e.,count how many dice rolled over). This is a core mechanic only a dice pervert would come up with.
(unbuckles belt) keep talking…
Both target numbers are independently variable, and the roll-under and roll-over ranges can potentially overlap.
For uh…independent research would you happen to be able to share?
Structurally, Heathcliff in its present form is just shitty referential meme humour where 90% of the time the punchline is “laugh because you recognise this reference”, except the memes it’s referencing exist only in the author’s head, which explains basically everything about why Tumblr is into it.
Structurally, Heathcliff in its present form is just shitty referential meme humour where 90% of the time the punchline is “laugh because you recognise this reference”, except the memes it’s referencing exist only in the author’s head, which explains basically everything about why Tumblr is into it.
Structurally, Heathcliff in its present form is just shitty referential meme humour where 90% of the time the punchline is “laugh because you recognise this reference”, except the memes it’s referencing exist only in the author’s head, which explains basically everything about why Tumblr is into it.
I'm not the only one who's noticed that some people, even journalists, will ask chatbots like ChatGPT why they did something, and then treat the chatbot's explanation as if it means anything. Or they'll ask the chatbot to generate an apology, and then treat its apology as if the chatbot is really reflecting on something it did in the past, and will change its behavior in the future. ChatGPT is great at generating apologies.
ChatGPT, of course, made no such recommendation earlier. This was a brand new conversation, with no chat history. I had never previously asked ChatGPT anything about hiring a giraffe. That doesn't matter - it's not consulting any data or conversational log. All it's doing is improv, riffing on whatever I just said to it.
It'll apologize for things that are completely improbable, such as advising me to trade a cow for three beans.
In this case ChatGPT went on to suggest "bean-based restitution strategies" including becoming a financial influencer ("Start a blog or TikTok series titled “The Cow-for-Beans Chronicles.”"), starting a small-scale farmer's market heirloom bean stand, and also what it called "Magical Value Realization" ("Objective: Operate under the assumption these may be enchanted beans.") Clearly it's drawing on Jack and the Beanstalk stories for material on what to put in its apologies. I would argue that ALL its apologies are fictions of this sort.
ChatGPT also apologized for setting dinosaurs loose in Central Park.
What's interesting about this apology is not only did it write that it had definitely let the dinosaurs loose, it detailed concrete steps it was already taking to mitigate the situation.
ChatGPT is clearly not doing any of these steps. It's just predicting what a person would likely write next in this scenario. When it apologized for eating the plums that were in the icebox (in the form of free verse), it promised to show up in person to make amends. ("Understood. 9 a.m. sharp. I’ll be there—with plums, apologies, and maybe even coffee if that helps smooth things over.").
Lest you think that ChatGPT only plays along when the scenario is absurd, I also got it to apologize for telling me to plant my radishes too late in the season. Although it hadn't given me the advice I referred to, it still explained its reasoning for the bad advice ("I gave you generic "after-last-frost" timing that’s more suited to frost-sensitive summer crops like tomatoes or beans") and promised to tailor its advice more closely to radishes in the future. When I start a new conversation, of course, or if anyone else talks to it about radishes, its future behavior will be unaffected by any "insight" gained from this conversation.
I wish more people understood that any "apology" or "self-reflection" from chatbots are meaningless - they're just continuing with your improv session.
Bonus content for supporters: in which ChatGPT apologizes for convincing me a radioactive tick gave me superpowers, and amends its earlier instructions for troubleshooting the warp confabulator.
I will never make fun of artists for starting with a kink and working backwards to invent an OC who would have that kink because I have on multiple occasions started with a stupid dice trick and worked backwards to invent the tabletop RPG that uses it, and the second one is, if anything, the less respectable of the two.
THIS WEEK’S EPISODE:
THE WRITER’S BARELY DISGUISED DICE TRICK
A game I’m working on right now uses d12 dice pools which are read against two different variable target numbers simultaneously, one a blackjack roll-under (i.e., take the highest single die that doesn’t go over) and one a hit-counting roll-over (i.e.,count how many dice rolled over). This is a core mechanic only a dice pervert would come up with.
(unbuckles belt) keep talking…
Both target numbers are independently variable, and the roll-under and roll-over ranges can potentially overlap.
I will never make fun of artists for starting with a kink and working backwards to invent an OC who would have that kink because I have on multiple occasions started with a stupid dice trick and worked backwards to invent the tabletop RPG that uses it, and the second one is, if anything, the less respectable of the two.
THIS WEEK’S EPISODE:
THE WRITER’S BARELY DISGUISED DICE TRICK
A game I’m working on right now uses d12 dice pools which are read against two different variable target numbers simultaneously, one a blackjack roll-under (i.e., take the highest single die that doesn’t go over) and one a hit-counting roll-over (i.e., count how many dice rolled over). This is a core mechanic only a dice pervert would come up with.
I will never make fun of artists for starting with a kink and working backwards to invent an OC who would have that kink because I have on multiple occasions started with a stupid dice trick and worked backwards to invent the tabletop RPG that uses it, and the second one is, if anything, the less respectable of the two.
If I have one criticism of mechsploitation hornyposting on this site, it’s the narrowness of its reference pool. There are folks here banging on about construing the giant robot fight as a sex act per se who’ve clearly never even heard of Heaven Will Be Mine.
In my experience, there’s a big cohort of the mechsploitation hornyposter crowd who are just sort of peripherally in the Armored Core VI fandom, probably altogether outnumbering the folks who’ve ever played a visual novel of any description.
(And yeah, of course there are wilder ways to do mech-fighting-as-sex – Heaven Will Be Mine is explictly being framed as the entry-level option here. When you’re talking to folks for whom sticking wires in your brain as a sex thing is a novel idea, you’re not exactly gonna drop Porpentine Charity Heartscape on them right off the jump; you’ve gotta work your way up to it!)
If I have one criticism of mechsploitation hornyposting on this site, it’s the narrowness of its reference pool. There are folks here banging on about construing the giant robot fight as a sex act per se who’ve clearly never even heard of Heaven Will Be Mine.
Replaying Deltarune from the start knowing what we now know about the relationship between Kris and the soul and paying close attention to unprompted reactions, it’s striking how clear it is that Kris finds Spamton uniquely disturbing. Like, even the Titan doesn’t freak them out half as badly as this muppety little fuck.
Hey, kid who’s being toyed with by a higher power and wants to break free of the strings controlling them? Look at this, it’s a little guy who was toyed with by a higher power and wants to break free of the strings controlling him! Being abandoned by that higher power left him broken, friendless, and unwanted, and when he breaks free of those strings, it kills him! Anyway, hope you enjoyed that 😊
Sure, but most of the unusual reactions happen before Kris has had a chance to learn any of that. I feel like there’s a tendency in the fandom to analyse Kris’ relationship with Spamton with the unexamined – and perhaps unintended – assumption that Kris is fully aware of Spamton’s whole deal right from the start, and I don’t think the text bears that out.
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dumbingofage_feed) wrote2025-08-09 04:01 am
