Surveys and self hate

Spanning the entire history of tabletups, which one would you say is your favorite?
VeloCITY was probably my magnum opus.
Similarly, which PC of yours did you most enjoy playing?
Innsma was probably my only PC I got to play for a significant amount of time that I didn't absolutely loathe, and it was fun messing around with her gimmicks.

Which PC played by another player did you find the best? Pls explain why
God damn me, you may as well ask me who my favorite child is. Uuuuh....I'd probably say Charlotte honestly. Particularly her interactions with Darius were something I really would have liked to see expanded on. Also, I commissioned a pic of her from a much better artist for a reason I guess.

Between two exaggerated extremes of an action-packed and crunchy game and a slower story-based one, which would you prefer?
Action-packed, since I infamously have trouble following games heavy on the plot...which is why those are like the main ones I run, orz
How important is the chosen system in regards to the quality of a game?
I'm kind of torn on this, because while I WANT to say it's not very important, it's undeniable that the choice of system weighs a lot on my psychological process for any given game. Obv I want to avoid systems that give me too much trouble during combat or prep time, but I also think a system can be the deciding factor of a lot of my creative decisions when it comes to encounters...and obv the setting itself lmao

How important is challenge to you in a tabletop setting?
This is difficult considering I mostly GM, but I'll just say I'd like to start having some real challenge in my games, be it purely mechanical or creatively challenging if that makes any sense.

Is it important to stick to the rulebook or are you okay with frequent fudging?
EEEH it depends, I do enjoy myself some fudgery, and would probably fudge a lot more of people would let me get away with it, but I understand the importance of having set rules and consistency in place; without it, the game would feel a lot more meaningless! Maybe.

As a player, what do you most look forward to in any new tabletop campaign? What are your expectations and ideals?
Whenever I play really all I want to do is do cool shit like a Jojo's character and pull off epic mindgames but I'm not anywhere near smart enough to do that.

If you were to GM, how would you try to go about it?
Try and do your own thing and work with what's most comfortable/fun for you and hope everyone else likes it

As a player, what do you think about getting involved with the GM's prep time?
I enjoy helping the GM during their prep sessions and am willing to actively shape the game even if it means spoiling some things for me.
I like to have some input and I'll do what the GM asks of me
I'd rather the GM has his vision unspoilt by my tainted hands and I'll let them do them.

What do you think the role of the GM should be?
The MC, the one responsible for putting on a show for everyone and to best cater to the needs of the players


Of these 3, which of these time frames do you prefer the most?
Modern/Near-Future/Urban Fantasy

Would you try to build the setting/story around the players first, or build it beforehand independent of whatever the players initially want?
A little bit of both really, but heavily weighed towards the latter, since I don't think I'm very good at adapting to the tastes of everyone else in the group. I too often run the risk of just hating whatever I'm running if I'm not feeling passionate about it.

How important are PC first impressions to you? Do you think a game with a few boring PCs can be salvaged?
Yeah I think they can easily be salvaged, at least on the GMs end, but for players that's another story; As a GM you feel like you have enough power to throw in something spicy to liven up any boring PCs, but to the PCs, their contribution to the games mostly begin and end there, so a sucker PC feels a lot more like a downer when that's the entire hand you've been given to work with.

Do your prefer your PC to have an extensive pre-written background or to just make it up as you go along?
As i go along; I do like having some backstory but it's not terribly important. Any backstory can just be made up as I feel like it, tho this can obviously lead to some consistencies along the way.

In your experience, do the best ideas come from long-form planning or spontaneous improvisation?
Well once again, I'm kinda torn, since while I have had a lot of good ideas come to me on a whim, I think I operate much better when I've planned things out for my games. Which yeah is kind of contradictory to the above answer, but w/e. I tend to lack courage when it comes to making things up on the fly, out of fear of just completely FUCKING!!!! UP!!!! my game.

If you were to equate tabletops with one other medium, what would you say it's closest to? Video games? Literature? Movies?
I used to run my games like Video Games before, but now I think of them more like anime.

What kind of inspiration do you look to when making your PCs or campaigns?
I look for inspiration just about everywhere, tho by default a lot of my ideas come from games, anime, and movies since that's the main media I consume outside of Death Grips. Maybe I should make a game inspired by that....

How do you handle music during tabletop games? Be honest!
I click the link and listen to the music as much as I can during the intended scene

What qualities do you look for in an enjoyable NPC?
BOY this is a surprisingly hard question, mostly because I rarely get the chance to appreciate other people's NPCs, but I guess I myself really like "quirky" or gimmicky NPCs, followed very closely by edgy rival-type characters. Yes, deep down inside, I still can't erase my inherent love for dickhead rivals, especially when they get smacked the fuck up later on.

Who is your favorite NPC?
Of mine? Definitely Chase. Probably my most shamelessly self-indulgent NPC yet, he's kind of a hodgepodge of various NPC types I really like, partially combining the DNA of the edgy rival guy with the benevolent "best friend" character who regularly helps you out no matter how dumb the situation is. Pretty much any scene he was in was pretty much a good time.

How do you feel about NPCs talking to eachother, independent of any player input?
This is kind of an infamous quirk of mine, and I'm being honest when I say I just can't help it. My style of humor is very improv-based, so I tend to just write whatever sounds realistic/funny for each character, and more often than not they tend to bounce off one another, like how they would if they actually existed IRL. I mean, doesn't it feel kinda creepy if literally every line of dialogue was directed at the PCs? That shit just ain't right yo.

How do you feel about reading scenes that are completely independent from what your PC should know in-character?
I don't mind it, and I'd like making more to flesh out the worlds and characters of my games, tho if I was a player, I don't think I'd have much drive to read any of that, so I guess i'm just a hypocritical little bitch huh.

What's your opinion on extreme violence/gore in tabletop games? Can it go too far?
Eeeeh....I'm surprisingly an opinionless robot when it comes to this stuff, but I guess I'm ok with gruesome gibs flying everywhere, tho it really depends on the game itself. I'll also just say I pulled a lot of really edgy shit in my earlier games that i kinda regret.

Similarly, what about sexual content/fanservice? Do you dare enter the magical realm?
Y'know it'd be easy to like, plop down a joke answer here or post a funny emoji or something, but I've actually been pretty silent when it comes to this topic so here goes:...eh? I don't really care one way or another, tho pretty much every instance of sexual content in my previous games makes me wanna die by hornet overdose. There were moments back then that I really should have just said "nooooooo" to but didn't because I'm just too tired for my own good.
Big boss fights with multiple turns, health bars, and frightening unique abilities. Yay or nay? Explain why pls.
Well the only reason why I put this question here was because I wanted to feature them in any upcoming games I have (tho they were already featured in Youkai). Myself, I really love em because, and I'll be honest here, I don't find battles against multiple mooks very exciting, thematically. If you want to establish an enemy character as a big badass and have their fight satisfying enough, they probably shouldn't go down as easily as everyone else. Tho this can easily get sketchy with boss-only abilities and other game-breaking mishaps, as well as potentially having the fight drag on for wayyyy too long. I guess it's just a matter of how it's pulled off.

How do you feel about 1 on 1 battles?
I dig em yo. For games like Pokemon or Fight, these are pretty much a must-have, tho I guess they're much less fun in PathfinD&Der

Out of the following types of fights, which do you prefer?

All the PCs up against one epic threat
What kind of environmental hazards would you like to see and take advantage of in the future?
I want something that has to do with an exploding train...somehow. I'll figure it out later.

Between these two setups, which do you prefer?
Fewer battles against really significant and powerful opponents

How would you feel if a single epic fight took up multiple sessions?
Well for one, it shouldn't play out like any other sort of combat. It should feature just as much fluff as it does crunch....basically play it out like a shonen anime or something. Actually, let me go in depth with something, DBZ had a lot of really memorable fights, even for the smaller characters, but this was mainly because, back then, each fight was an -event- that could take who knows how many episodes to finish. There was something about the shitty pacing that made everything count that much more, and allowed the villains more time to sink into the viewer's minds, which made their downfall all the more satisfying. But maybe I'm just a crazy ass motherfucker.

What kind of victory is sweeter?
Outsmarting the opponent by thinking outside of the box

Do you think setpieces are vital to having a memorable battle?
No, but they're a nice addition. It can really spice things up when you're fighting the environment just as much as the enemies.

Overall, what do you think makes for an exciting encounter?
For whoever we're fighting to be amusing enough, or at least someone we love to hate, speaking strictly from a player standpoint. As a GM, I'd like to have more exciting and cinematic battles and setpieces straight out of Hong Kong.
Out of all the fights you remember, what would you say is your favorite?
Of mine, probably the entirety of the Sansukumi arc in Youkai. So much shit was going on there it was insane. Also there was a lot of really cool fights in Shiokaraiken but that's neither here nor there.

Do you find the visuals in a tabletop game to be important?
Yea kinda. Its no secret that i tend to really stress out over what I want my tokens to look like, especially when I'm not skilled enough to draw my image of the character for myself. My extensive library of maps and tokens are the stuff of legend.

How good are you at visualizing everything that happens in-game?
Extremely well, which is kind of a disadvantage sometimes because i also have trouble actually conveying that through text. I'm not a very descriptive person u see. I take most of my influence from visual media, and I just straight up can't read novels, so I'm kinda fukt there.

What do you prioritize; The speed and flow of a game, or ensuring everything is as detailed as it needs be? Are you willing to make sacrifices for the sake of keeping things snappy?
Speed and flow, most certainly. My current tabletop writing style is kinda inspired by old 80s action manga and silver age comics, where I try to make things as quick and snappy as possible. I try not to say more than a paragraph at a time, as well as keeping sentence count to a minimum...but I still would like to convey epic pieces of action and dramatic moments as well.

Games over mic. Yay or nay?
Eeeeeeh....I'm currently in a mic-based game rn and basically I want to fucking die all throughout it, but I guess it's kinda useful for keeping sessions quick. Things just tend to fly by when you're put on the spot to say something. But on the other hand, it tends to favor people who are good at talking over others, and frankly im just FUKT when it comes to that.

What's one thing you've always wanted to do as a player in tabletops?
Completely outsmart a big opponent and maybe even the GM, Jojo's style...I'm still waiting for that day.

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As briefly as possible (or not idk), tell me 1. The Good 2. The Bad 3. The Ugly of the following campaigns (Skip over any you didn't play)
Tirkfinder 1
HOOOOO BOY, HERE WE GO.  1. This was my first "real" campaign, when I was nothing more than a chat leech shithead and for some reason wanted to run my own game. Looking back on them, the first sessions of TF1 didn't age -quite- as well as I would have liked, but we didn't give a shit back then. I remember the first sessions just blowing my entire audience of two people away because I just had a weird amount of passion for the whole thing that wasn't really held down by "standards" or "critical thinking." Something new and exciting was happening in just about every session....Then Kilad happened. Actually, I really liked this arc myself, tho it had a lot of really dumb and edgy shit that I really wouldn't blame others for not being able to look over. It had drama, action, shenanigans, you name it. Things picked up even further during the Doring and Island arcs, even if the pace itself started slowing down, there were still a lot of great moments such as the time travel shenanigans as well as Jack's entire thing.
2. Everything after the island though was a piece of shit. I just ended up getting waaaaaaay too ambitious and tried fleshing out the world far, far beyond the reasonable expectations that any of it would get explored whatsoever, and a significant amount of time was dedicated to an arc that was basically one giant meaningless gauntlet of random encounters that was thankfully cut short but the damage was done. I was kinda sick of the campaign by that point.
3. Ok well going back a bit, Kilad was infamous for a bunch of edgy shit that I really had no business tackling, but i mean 2012 tirk was a complete shithead hopped up on 4chan, so I can't expect any better.

Grognard
1. Grognard was kind of a weird break for me, as it was kind of made on a whim because for some reason I REALLY wanted to run a "traditional" fantasy game with minimal anime bullshit and basically a really western feel to it. I guess it pulled its retro stylings off well enough, and there were some interesting plot threads involving MT's characters that I would have loved exploring
2. Despite my best intentions, the whole super-western thing really didn't gel well with everyone else, and soon super anime bullshit elements were thrown in, albeit kinda conservatively. Still what was done was done and as the result a lot of characters were kind of flat and unmemorable compared to my usual meme worthy flair. And of course, there's the fact that it really didn't go anywhere, which wasn't helped by the slow pacing. Shame, because I like to think I actually had some great plans for this one later on.
3. It may surprise you, but I didn't actually care all that much about Ciel's...curiosities. I mean weirdness aside, it wouldn't feel all that out of place in any hypothetical story about a gynoid trying to discover herself while living in a medieval fantasy world, obligatory tragic lesbian/bury-your-gays ending included because for some reason that's absolutely fucking required aaaaaa.
Tangents aside, my ugly moment has to be when MT found out I was just rippin off Dragon's Dogma in one scene like the stupid fucking fraud GM I am.


Rocket PTA


Fight/Shiokaraiken no Densetsu
    1. So I remember the inception of this game was brought about after MT and I guess others I dont know my memory is hazy wanted to play a game about a band or something. So logically I ran a game that's a hybrid between fighting games and Jojo's bizarre adventure because I'm sure that's the same fucking thing. Actually, most of this campaign was more inspired by the system I settled on, Fight: The Fighting Game RPG, and quite frankly it absolutely -blew my mind- at the time because I had never before seen a system that could just combine freeform abilities with strict rules in such a coherent fashion. As for the campaign itself, SnD was the start of what I like to call the "2nd generation" of tirk Tabletops, which was defined by realistic, urban characters and a breakaway from traditional rules for more freeform styles of play. In addition to the very obvious JJBA inspiration, I also threw in a lot of other shit to make this feel like an actual living city, albeit a super exaggerated one that feels like something out of a 90's fighting game come to life. It even had a straight up ninja school.
So actually, I bring up JJBA a lot, but it wasn't always meant to be that way. The -enemies- were supposed to have the stand equivalents that the PCs had to fight and outsmart their way through, tho I really should have expected the PCs to also want to get in on that hot ora ora oraction as well. At this point, I don't think much of the group outside of MT had a good grasp on JJBA and how it's supposed to work, but I guess we made out well enough.
         There were a lot of very memorable fights and character interactions in this game, some of my favorite being the interactions between Cheryl, Casey, and Glenn, as well as Charlotte's excellent adventures with Darius. Alloces too had some great interactions, particularly his complex relationship with Marona. It was also one of the most structurally sound campaigns of mine, while at the same time being one of the most open. I really liked it, tho it started becoming really painful to run....
2. Ok so like, I really enjoy Fight as a system, tho I think it's one that's really, really reliant on the entire group being on the same page at all times, or else fights can become disastrous. I'm not even talking about people messing up with the system either, this is a game where having a really strict rules-lawery guy like Thrice was an absolute fucking NIGHTMARE. I just COULD NOT just brush things aside going "whatever, move along" without this nigga opening his yap going "WAYL, AKCHULLY," and slowing the game down considerably, and getting really fucking mad whenever i told him to just not bother. While it may seem overly confrontational, it's probably no secret to anyone that this game just made me want to straight up strangle the shit out of Thrice through the monitor on multiple occasions, and was a really stressful time for me overall.
Anyway, when it comes to regrets, SnD is just full of them for me. For one, I probably shouldn't have bothered with the default method of combat in Fight, instead opting for dramatic battles 4 everyone. That mode has a much more faithful Jojos feel to it, but for some reason I shied away from it....maybe there was some reason for that, but i can't remember. I also felt like I never really explored the concept of Jojo style battles as much as I could have, as most of them were actually kinda straightforward brawls.
3. Like I said before, this was absolutely the most stressful game of mine to run, and trying to keep my playerbase sated was absolute hell. The later sessions it was getting obvious I was running low on steam and was powering the game entirely from my life span so it ended with little dignity left. Shame...

Velocity Trial
1. This was basically an improvement on Fight in just about every conceivable way save for the actual system itself, but I'll get to that. I say this game was pretty much my magnum opus, and that still rings true. This game pretty much had everything, and moved at a really good pace. The PCs were fun, the NPCs were memorable, the fights were over-the-top, it was pretty much as close to perfect as a tirk game could get. Compared to other games, there was a LOT of variety going on here, as the challenges could be absolutely anything, from a tagging race against the clock, to surviving a haunted house, to making a movie, to cooking, surviving an alien invasion, punching out Kaiju tamagochis, delivering a pizza while in a bear mascot costume and being harassed by other rival company mascots, to fucking challenging a robot Abraham Lincoln to a skating race through a museum. It was pretty much my peak, one that I'll have trouble topping in the future.
2. This was all in spite of the system itself...kinda. While it did have a lot of good ideas that helped make Velocity as great as it was, it was also missing a considerable amount of things....like idk, actual rules for -racing-? It had to be tweaked a lot because the system was very easy to exploit and at times was basically just freeform. Basically i really didn't like it, but i guess it worked out...
3. My behavior near the end. For some reason, I began to absolutely HATE running Velocity, mostly because of the system, and I began publicly lamenting my entire existence running the game. This was kinda because I really wanted to run something that had actual mechanics and could reasonably challenge the players, instead of just letting them run hog wild over everything...which in hindsight, was a big mistake. Mechanics don't really make a game, and challenging battles just ain't all that appealing to my playerbase I guess, so I should have just grin and beared with velocity. But sadly the campaign was never concluded right when it was about to end.

Garkodia
You know I never really got to properly articulate my feelings towards this game in a closed environment, so I actually have a lot to say.
1. Gark has been a game that has continuously haunted me even long after I stopped playing it. Something about it is just a constant looming shadow over my head that puzzles me to this day. There's something about the game that was just strictly...unique in a way that I don't think any other tabletop since has ever replicated.
That being the fact that Gark was an absolutely terrifying campaign. It's weird, but after a while, playing a session of that game just got my heart running and my palms shaking. I was constantly feeling a weird mix of emotions that made me act, OoC, in very unpredictable and haphazard ways. While I guess if you strictly tried to read my feelings at the time, they'd be overall negative, it'd still be negative in a unique way that I still find utterly fascinating to this day.
For one, the world was downright chilling. You were basically NEVER safe, no matter what you tried to do or where to go. Boss battles were numerous and relentless, the stakes were high, any wrong move in a battle could result in a humiliating death, it got to the point where, believe it or not, I -actually did not care about the REAL DEMONS reveal- because being honest, it actually felt like a BREATH OF FRESH AIR compared to the stress of the campaign itself, that bout of goofy bullshit was pretty welcoming in a weird ass way. This was the only campaign I played that I would legit lose sleep over (well yknow outside of staying up real late to play, you know what the fuck I mean) I ended up getting pretty attached to my character there because I just felt so bad she had to live in such a fucked up world of things that were so Bad and Wrong they could only be described as Badong. I was determined to be the opposite of badong, the gnodab that got my stupid fictional character through another night of being alive....tho she ended up dying after I left the campaign so I guess it was all for naught.
But anyway even tho this all might sound negative, it has left me fascinated over the years because of how unique this feeling of despair and dread is. It genuinely made me want to carry on (until you know, I didn't) just because I was determined to plant the seeds of hope in these depths of despair...or at least just beat the sources of despair dead or leave it crying for mommy. The bosses were total bullshit, but it felt so much more satisfying being able to pull a victory and beat them to an inch of their life. It wasn't really worth dealing with, but I could totally understand the appeal of it, and it's a feeling I'd like to one day salvage for my own games if my other players would let me.

2.&3. I never actually got to play the game at the point where it supposedly got "good", and I mean, I guess I can see that, as aside from the forboding dread of it all, there were still a lot of flaws that kept me from fully enjoying it. HOWEVER, weirdly enough, I was personally at odds with Thrice and Agi throughout this campaign for reasons I can't entirely remember, but I know that I was kind of peeved that TirkPTA was lambasted for shit that Gark arguably worse, yet they still loved this campaign for some reason. I mean, don't get me wrong, TirkPTA was a piece of shit and Gark was mos def a better constructed game than the shaky foundation TPTA was built on, but the hypocrisy still pissed me tf off. Maybe it's a case of the grass being greener, etc, but I felt like Warlord got a lot of free passes from Thrice that I could never get away with myself and I just never understood that. Well you know, up until the REAL DEMONS but that's neither here nor there.
I think this game did weird things to me, because I was kind of an asshole all throughout it. Perhaps I was just misremembering my beef with Thrice and Agi then because i was just weirdly testy throughout the entire run of this game that i wouldn't be surprised if I just lashed out at anyone who looked at me wrong.

Iornia
1. Thrice's best campaign without a doubt, and one that lasted surprisingly long. At this point I was a far cry from my 2013 self and was basically looking to kick back and relax for this campaign, and it did not disappoint. Iornia was a very uniquely "relaxing" experience that felt like an extended Pokemon-themed vacation, though I'm sure this wasn't the intention, I just view things really weird. The pacing was slow enough to take in the world and atmosphere, and the PCs were pretty fun; Innsma is undoubtedly my favorite PC of mine, and I worked hard on her interactions with her Pokemon to keep them interesting, tho perhaps i could have afforded to give some under GM control instead of myself. Rivi and Tauuuggghh were fun characters to have around, and I think TWILT's playstyle was very well suited here. This was about as purely pokemon as a pokemon campaign got, still having a uniquely girly feel to it that felt nice to unwind to after a long day. While it still had a decent amount of challenge, it still felt like the anti-Gark in just about every way. It's like relaxing to a nice Shoujo manga outside while sipping some bubble tea. Once again, probably all ENTIRELY unintentional on Thrice's part, but that's what I took from it. Boy, I really feel like going to Mitsuwa now....
2. I actually find it really weird Thrice liked Innsma as much as he did because I always felt like i just straight up couldn't follow whatever the fuck the main plot was and just decided to do my own thing. And I mean, while others think the whole Sal thing slowed things down too much, I actually really liked it and was totally invested in the whole thing. Was that somehow more interesting than whatever you were doing with Rivi and Tadgfhddh?
I also have to bring up the actual premise of the game, which was about capturing some uh...unique pokemon or something, I can't remember. Absolutely nobody gave two shits or a nickel about this premise and it kinda just ended up becoming a chore whenever we bothered paying attention to it.
3. That Riolu SNEAK FUCK! Nah I liked him, lmao.

Youkai Busters
My last real game, this was my first real stab at a PTU campaign and boy...I liked it. I don't know why I fumbled so hard with TirkPTA but for some reason was sailing just smooth enough when it came to this game, but I guess the lord works in mysterious ways.
1. This was the first Pokemon campaign to break away from the traditional Pokemon setting, this time taking place in a medieval japanese setting, and let me tell u, I absolutely dig this kind of shit. Ancient Japan/Asian shit is like my lifeblood, and I could go on and on when it comes to including nods to old Japanese myth and literature in this game. This was also the first time I got to get really serious about my encounters, and while I think the first sessions got off to a pretty shaky start, the game really starting coming onto its own once Tsunade and the other Sansukumi started being introduced. I had really big plans for this one beyond that, too bad they'll never be seen again....hmm...*evil smirk*

2. I really enjoyed the PCs for this game, but i guess my enjoyment wasn't shared by everyone since, for some reason, literally everyone wanted to switch out later on. I also felt pretty bad about the lack of NPC interaction, as I feel like I really skimped out on that department, which should be absolutely embarrassing since this was after Velocity, which had some of my favorite NPCs. Did I just lose the magic? I don't think so. I think it was just poor planning on my end.

3. I recall there being some other drama involving this game, but I seemed to have mentally blocked it out. I feel like somewhere along the way I ended up losing the trust or scaring away Emergency, as while he did eventually come back, he never really showed his face to me. Makes me feel like I done fucked up hard somewhere.
Whatever tf we did with D&D
It sucked ass, so I'll use this space to also lament about my breakdown at the end of 2015. Hot off the heels of my quarter life crisis, I began running an ill-fated game that I collabed with Dave and Sundance on for its inception, tho they really didn't help out much after that. About 2 sessions into that, I had a complete meltdown after I realized tabletops were eating up way too much of my time and I wasted so much precious time I could have spent bettering myself. Of course, I now feel like this is wrong, and the reasons for my lack of motivation were entirely separate from my tabletopping hobby, but the damage was done. Similarly to how I probably scared away Emerg, TWILT too left without a trace and only left a message to MT about how he wanted a break or something. He never really responded to any messages I sent to him since, and removed me from any and all social media and forms of communication. I know it's kind of a huge assumption to believe that he left entirely because of the way I acted there, but if he did, I wouldn't blame him. I haven't stopped feeling like a fraud since, and I really wish he'd just respond once so I could talk to him to clear up the doubts in my mind, but do I deserve it? Honestly, no. Best to just move on.

Okay last question; How do you feel about more oneshots like the halloween campaign?
I'm actually not as crazy about it as you'd expect. I think it's really hard to do anything I want within like, 3 or 5 sessions, but perhaps one day I'll think of something.