D20 Iron Age: Preliminary

[shadzar]

If Divine is what comes from godly patronage, and Shadow is underworld-based and distinct from that, then the god(s?) of the underworld is either double-dipping or fundamentally different from the more usual gods.

Why not just have them different side of the same coin?

That way you can only get from one side of the coin and NOT double-dip.

Pick a god of the light or a god of the dark...east twain east, and west twain west and n'ere the two shall meet.

[angelfromanotherpin]

If we're going to tie the Races to the power sources, then dwarves should be Shadow. The Underworld is under the ground, and as such tied to all the under the ground stuff, including precious metals, and if those two things don't say dwarf, I don't know what does. I mean, some dwarf legends don't even depict them with beards, but they all delve under the ground for wealth.

The Underworld is also tied to dreams, because dreams are where you see dead people. Between that, Hades' invisibility theme, and the very name Shadow; I think there's a good argument to be made that Shadow should have at least some illusion-based abilities.

[Grek]

Primal:- Has non-mortal parents and is distinctly non-mortal looking.
- Gets super strength, speed, fortitude, etc.
- Is really really really scary. Honor decides if this is good for them or not.
- Gets claws, horns, hooves, extra arms, fire breath, etc.

Divine:
- Has non-mortal parents but looks like an exceptionally good mortal.
- Gets super strength, speed, fortitude, etc.
- Is awe-inspiring to behold and is a mighty leader of men.
- Receives the occasional present from their non-mortal parent if they are honorable.

Destiny:
- Fate/The Gods/??? has selected this person to be awesome.
- Not overtly powerful, but Fate intervenes to help them survive.
- Always in the right place at the right time with the right thing to do the job.
- Is really really lucky when they are honorable, but just as unlucky when they aren't.

Death:
- Has gone down to the Underworld and escaped/been released.
- Can talk with the dead and get prophetical insight.
- Possibly skeleton warriors, or possibly healing powers. I don't know.
- Honor gets them authority as an oracle, dishonor gets stuff trying to rekill them

Skill:
- Has power because of knowledge above and beyond that of a normal person.
- Makes Icarus style wings/wooden horses/armies of bronze men.
- Gadgets are their powers. If the item is destroyed, they make another.
- Honor inspires them to make awesome stuff, dishonor makes them go Daedalus and fail.

Arcane:
- Has magic powers and is a sorcerer or an enchantress or something.
- Can turn people into animals/curse them/make illusions/enchant stuff.
- Can turn themselves into animals/fly/enchant people with magic powers.
- Honor/Dishonor is inverted; They get power from breaking taboos not for following them.

---

Races should not exist as a major character choice, full stop. Instead, you get a tribe. If you are an orc, you get an orc tribe. Your tribe gives you bonus languages, skills, knowledges, etc. and decides what honorable and dishonorable means for your character.

[Orion]

Dwarves aren't associated with death in any mythology I know of.

[Orca]

'They may have has a strong assiociation with death ...'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf

[MGuy]

Destiny is a bad choice for a power source. I'd suspect that all PCs are part of the "destined/fated" crowd.

[Username17]

Dwarves aren't associated with death in any mythology I know of.

The Dunkalfar of Helheim are very strongly associated with death. "Drow" is a real word and is actually the same word as "Derro." Magical, evil, black skinned little people who live under ground and have sinister magic and poisons. It is the providence of Gygaxianism that two different spellings of the same word would be translated as two entirely separate races - one a subrace of dwarf and the other a subrace of elf. But even so, you realize how similar the Drow and Derro are.

In any case, I would like it if I never had to answer the question "how come your fighter isn't a Dwarf?" ever again. In that spirit, my suggestion would be to give races standard stat arrays rather than stat modifiers. If you want to be a spindly Orc with a high Intelligence, you should just do that. Maybe that makes you more exceptional for your race than the spindly nymph with a high Intelligence, but how unlikely it was for you o be born has no bearing whatsoever on how powerful you are.

-Username17

[Orion]

Hmm. I still prefer emphasizing the part where they're sneaky bastards who make shit for the aesir over necromancy. Give me necro-elves any day. Blood drinking vanir or some shit.

And yeah, decouple race from stats or if you MUSt connect them, use racial stat minimums.

[Username17]

As for races and power sources, I would like to see them tiered up. That is to say that you've got Mortal races (who only get to become player characters or major villains if they are "special") and you've got Fantastic races (who are all special to the point of being heroic tier or higher, but who also have their power sources pre-chosen for them). Any species that is supposed to produce hordes of mooks at any point should probably be a Mortal Race.

Now, D&D traditionally has too many races. If you didn't think that there were too many in the original MM with its Pixies and Hobgoblins and Kobolds and Minotaurs and Orcs and Gnolls and Medusae and Bugbears and so on, you are still going to admit that it had jumped the shark by the time we got to Rhino Goblins, Quaggoths, and Witch Knives. We can partially obviate that problem by going back to source material and having a lot of the fantastic races auto-generate. Once a minotaur can "just happen" and we don't need to posit true breeding villages of minotaur women and children in order to create a new generation of bull warriors, the existence of a minotaur champion here and there isn't much of a strain on the world.

However many mortal races there are, and I think even a reductionist model would posit "small," and "fanged" mortals in addition to Humans. And probably an "aquatic" one as well. There can be a practically limitless number of fantastic races, save that eventually it'll get confusing.

---

Certainly a possibility for handling the racial component of your character is to have a "two adjective hero." That is to say that you actually select two templates, one of which is roughly speaking your job (such as "assassin" or "illusionist") and the other is some descriptor of your origin (such as "barbarian" or "orc"). The key is that if you're an orc character you actually can decide to be a cosmopolitan city character rather than an "orc" character. Heck, you can even choose to jump ship later in life to a different origin archetype that you qualify for. This lets you tell the kinds of stories where Worf is spurned for having turned his back on his Klingon Heritage (since he bailed on "Klingon" as his origin archetype for "Starfleet Officer" he no longer gets the bullshit powers of being a Klingon). And it also allows people a fair amount of leeway in character creation.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

since he bailed on "Klingon" as his origin archetype for "Starfleet Officer" he no longer gets the bullshit powers of being a Klingon

Is that why his only special ability seems to be the punching bag to make the new guy looks good?

Oh-HO! Zing!

[Mask_De_H]

since he bailed on "Klingon" as his origin archetype for "Starfleet Officer" he no longer gets the bullshit powers of being a Klingon

Is that why his only special ability seems to be the punching bag to make the new guy looks good?

Oh-HO! Zing!

awesome.jpg

So Frank, when you speak of the two adjective hero, are those adjectives chosen by what abilities you pick at chargen? Like if you took an Orky skill and a Barbarian skill, you become an "Orc Barbarian." If you decide to take more Illusion skills for whatever reason, you could then switch to "Orc Illusionist" or "Illusory Barbarian" or something.

Or would it work like Black Forest/D&D where you are an "Orc Barbarian", so you unlock the Barbarian and Orc skill sets. Once you advance, you get bored of being an Orc, so on the next tier-up you switch adjectives to "Illusory Barbarian", lose the Orc type, but gains access to the Illusion set.

On the race point, couldn't we just give them two adjectives like with the hero thing based off of their power source and general look? If we have

Aquatic
Fanged
Small
Human

and

Shadow
Primal
Arcane
Divine

then we could make a Mortal Shadow Fanged a Ghoul/Goblin/Steve and Fantastic Shadow Fanged an Oni/Troll/Bob, for example. That does make 16 basic choices for mortal and fantastic race tiers, which might be a bit much.

[Manxome]

I am in favor of going to four base stats: Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence.

I feel I have a pretty clear picture of what it looks like for a PC to be strong or dexterous. But "wise" makes me think of some sage that sits around dispensing quests and plot points, and "intelligent" makes me think of a bunch of divergent archetypes (trickster, scholar, leader, etc.). In fact, almost all protagonists I can think of (and most antagonists, for that matter) are portrayed as reasonably clever, unless it is a plot point that the hero is phenomenally stupid and lucky (e.g. Inspector Clouseau) or that the antagonist is nothing but a monster. Someone who gets outsmarted, but wins anyway through sheer power doesn't seem like the heroic archetype.

How about Strength, Dexterity, Willpower/Spirit and Knowledge?


Of course, before finalizing any attribute list, you should give some thought to what the attributes are going to do mechanically.

If you tie each attack to a single attribute, you're going to encourage hyperspecialization--and if you further allow the attacker to choose the attribute the target defends with, you have high attack attributes and low defense attributes most of the time, and you further encourage specialization (since defending requires every stat and attacking just takes one). If people attack and defend with half the attributes (e.g. with 2 attributes from a set of 4), as in SAME, those tendencies are diminished, but you still can't expect all attribute spreads to be equally good unless you're very careful. If you make attacks independent of attributes and just use the attributes for skills or something, then of course combat balance just worries about the abilities, but it makes attributes less important.

And really the only reason to tie attributes to skills is if you want to encourage people to be good at related skills, or for people who need a certain stat for their abilities to tend to have certain skills to go along with it. From that angle, you should maybe think about what categories of skills you want to have and derive a set of attributes from that, rather than the other way around.

Though I seem to recall having a "why have attributes?" discussion at least once before on this forum...

[CatharzGodfoot]

Someone who gets outsmarted, but wins anyway through sheer power doesn't seem like the heroic archetype.

Heracles.

I'd be willing to bet that pretty much everyone has her own attribute system she'd like to use. I'm a fan of [Strength|Muscle|Physique], [Dexterity|Agility|Grace], Perception, and Willpower as an array. IMO it's an interesting division that can capture pretty much every non-comedic heroic archtype. It also chops things up a little differently than most games inheriting from D&D, which is a good thing.

A no-attribute system also has its appeal. This is probably one of those things that should be decided upon quickly and stuck with as much as possible. Perhaps we should actually put it to a debate and vote.

[Manxome]

Someone who gets outsmarted, but wins anyway through sheer power doesn't seem like the heroic archetype.

Heracles.

I actually know almost nothing specific that Heracles did in the original mythos (lit classes forced me to read about some of the Greek heroes, but not him). However, I seem to recall something about tricking Atlas into taking the world back onto his shoulders after he'd had been holding it for a while...unless that's purely a modern rewrite.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Someone who gets outsmarted, but wins anyway through sheer power doesn't seem like the heroic archetype.

Heracles.

I actually know almost nothing specific that Heracles did in the original mythos (lit classes forced me to read about some of the Greek heroes, but not him). However, I seem to recall something about tricking Atlas into taking the world back onto his shoulders after he'd had been holding it for a while...unless that's purely a modern rewrite.

Yeah, he tricks Atlas, but only after stupidly agreeing to take up Atlas's burden.

Heracles is portrayed as one of the dumber of the Greek heroes. He does stupid things (often because he has anger management issues, but sometimes because he's just dumb). Then he has to 'fix' them, usually by using his extraordinary strength, but also be actually coming up with good ideas (like diverting a river to clean some stables) which would only work with his strength.

Greek heroes appear in a lot of stories, and take on different roles in them. Odysseus, for example, is usually a real asshole in the Iliad--the kind of guy who kills people in their sleep, kills hostages he promises to release, and betrays friends. None of which is really 'clever', it's just getting ahead by being a jerk. In the Odyssey, he morphs into the heroic trickster people like to think of him as. Similarly, Heracles can be a heroic trickster but he's more often a tragically dumb/emotional hero. In comedies he's almost always an oaf.

[Edit]
Note, however, that the attribute system I suggest doesn't really allow for 'stupid' characters. It does allow for oblivious or easily manipulated characters, but pretty much anyone can be clever. As coming up with good ideas is an important part of roleplaying, the possibility of a player not wanting to 'break character' by coming up with something clever is best to avoid.
[/Edit]

[Username17]

You could indeed simply and easily use any set of attributes you wanted to. There are good strong reasons to use any particular set of names for them that strike your fancy. But you know what? Intelligence and Wisdom are traditional. If it's supposed to be a d20 jump-off point, using those 2 is better than using some other mental stat array that you happen to like better.

---

Or would it work like Black Forest/D&D where you are an "Orc Barbarian", so you unlock the Barbarian and Orc skill sets. Once you advance, you get bored of being an Orc, so on the next tier-up you switch adjectives to "Illusory Barbarian", lose the Orc type, but gains access to the Illusion set.

It is similar enough to Black Forest that much of the same system can be reused. Here are the main differences:

• In Black Forest you don't have a power source. Everyone is, at least initially, a mortal child. In D20 IA, you start with a super charger that segregates you from the other party members and sets you above mortal humans.
• In Black Forest you are expected to grab your new abilities in the middle of play according to what you have "foreshadowed." As such, in Black Forest your current class template is important for your potential character advancement, because while you're a Shepherd, all the shepherd abilities are automatically considered foreshadowed (and thus available for advancement selection). In D20 IA, players grab whatever abilities they want from within their power set between sessions, so the current adjectival templates don't constrain advancement at all.

But in either case, taking the various abilities gives you various tags that you use to "buy" your templates. So if our Black Forest Shepherd took enough abilities that had the [Curious] tag (either because they were also Shepherd listed or because he foreshadowed them other ways), he could jump ship to another template that better fit what his character development had made him into. And if our Ork Paladin grabbed enough [Philosopher] relevant abilities he could jump ship to Philosopher Paladin. And if he grabbed enough [Oracular] abilities, he could then jump ship to Philosopher Oracle.

The one thing that I think is really important about that, is that Dwarves and Naiads (or whatever) should have some kind of key ability that is required from them to take at first level. Dark Vision and Water Breathing would be obvious for them. The key is that those signature things they keep would be selectable (and mandatory) abilities rather than the bullshit abilities they got for having a Dwarf hero template.

-Username17

[Koumei]

I glimpsed over some of the thread but I'm in too much pain to be bothered reading the rest.

1. I'm in
2. Four stats are nice and compact, and we're saying "Fuck the traditionalists up their sacred bovine asses"
3. The basic power level of the ancient Greek stuff sounds good, but ancient Greece itself actually makes a shitty setting. For starters, Greece didn't even have women (apart from scary monsters that exist to remind you not to sleep with them and to return to man-on-man action). And shut up, they didn't invent democracy.
4. Dorfs are shit. I'd like a game that for once just said "No. All short, fat, violent bearded alcoholic stingy bastards can fuck right off. YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO PLAY."
5. There may be some problems with debate as, for instance, I'm not going to unignore Shadzar just to listen to his bullshit, and if others are like this with other people, there could be a great deal of people talking past each other.

Races I like the idea of: humans (because whatever, they're standard and we understand them more than other things), elves (because they're like humans but usually prettier - we could throw the general basket of fey in here so that if someone wants to be a Dryad, Naiad or Nymph, they take "Elf" and now they are what they wanted to be), orks (I'm all for giving them more respect in this than they usually get), lizardmen (they are awesome. Serpentfolk as well. Could say "scaled ones") and maybe bug people.

[CatharzGodfoot]

You could indeed simply and easily use any set of attributes you wanted to. There are good strong reasons to use any particular set of names for them that strike your fancy. But you know what? Intelligence and Wisdom are traditional. If it's supposed to be a d20 jump-off point, using those 2 is better than using some other mental stat array that you happen to like better.

Intelligence and Wisdom are traditional, but that does not mean that they're good. At the very best they'll be misleading: players who want to have 'strong willed' characters will have to take "intelligence" and players who want perceptive characters will need to boost "wisdom". Or vice versa! The names have so little relation to what they represent that there's really no way of knowing.

At the worst they'll constrain what characters can think up ('sorry, you wouldn't have been able to think of that with an Intelligence of 2') or act ('you have a low wisdom, so stop playing all tactfully'), and keep magic in the hands of the wimps.

Although I'm willing to get behind just about any reasonable attribute system, those are two names which should go the way of THAC0. They're pretty much hands-down the worst names for attributes you could use. Although "Moxie" and "Elan" don't really mean anything, at least they don't carry any baggage.

[Edit]

As far as character races go, the Dead Man's Hand was a great exploration of fantasy tropes and folklore, although it doesn't shy away from the bigotry and stereotypes of the myths and the era it's set in. I think that we could do worse than 'short steel-working people who live together in huge cave villages they build of stone' (dwarves) and 'tall animist nomads who fear iron' (elves) as two of our main starting points. I mean, people ahead of the tech curve and people behind the tech curve are pretty broad sources to draw on.

[Quantumboost]

4. Dorfs are shit. I'd like a game that for once just said "No. All short, fat, violent bearded alcoholic stingy bastards can fuck right off. YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO PLAY."

According to Wikipedia's entry, mythological dwarves are a lot more like "magical subterranean craftsmen-goths who are short". The alcoholism and beardedness is a Tolkein-distillation artifact. With enough flavor and pictures, we could totally bludgeon away that notion from the game while keeping them "dwarves".

Besides, it's the Iron Age. Everyone is probably alcoholic because that's the only stuff that's safe to drink.

[shadzar]

So dwarves are actually bearded drunk gnomes with smaller noses?

[DeadlyReed]

I support Myrmidones being a playable race.

[Username17]

If the intention is to have something that is recognizable as D&D, then adding new races is problematic. Already, a great many races are going to be removed. For example, even without all the sapient critters (like Cloakers and Dragons) or outright Demons, here are the sapient races from Official D&D:

1. Aarakocra
2. Abeil
3. Angel
4. Aquatic Elf
5. Archon
6. Arenea
7. Armand
8. Astral Stalker
9. Azer
10. Bacchae
11. Barghest
12. Blackscale Lizardfolk
13. Bladeling
14. Boggle
15. Braxat
16. Breathdrinker
17. Bugbear
18. Bullywug
19. Catfolk
20. Centaur
21. Changeling
22. Chaos Gnome
23. Choker
24. Chraal
25. Chuul
26. Dark One
27. Deep Dwarf
28. Deep Halfling
29. Demodand
30. Demon
31. Derro
32. Desmodu
33. Devil
34. Doppelganger
35. Dracotaur
36. Drow
37. Dryad
38. Duergar
39. Durzagon
40. Dwarf (hill)
41. Eladrin
42. Elf (High)
43. Ethereal Doppelganger
44. Ethereal Filcher
45. Ethergaunt
46. Ettercap
47. Ettin
48. Fensir
49. Firbolg
50. Flind Gnolls
51. Forest Gnome (Paper)
52. Forestkith Goblin
53. Formian
54. Fossergrim
55. Galeb Duhr
56. Gargoyle
57. Genie
58. Giant
59. Githyanki
60. Githzerai
61. Glaistig
62. Gnoll
63. Gnome (Rock!)
64. Goblin
65. Goliath
66. Gray Elf
67. Grig
68. Grimlock
69. Guardinal
70. Gulgar
71. Hag
72. Halfling (Stout)
73. Harpy
74. Harssaf
75. Hobgoblin
76. Ibixian
77. Illumian
78. Immoth
79. Inevitable
80. Invisible Stalker
81. Jackal Lord
82. Jermlaine
83. Justicator
84. Kaorti
85. Keeper
86. Kenku
87. Khaasta
88. Kobold
89. Kopru
90. Kuo-Toa
91. Lamia
92. Lhosk
93. Lillend
94. Lizardfolk
95. Locathah
96. Loxo
97. Lumi
98. Maelephant
99. Magmin
100. Marrash
101. Maug
102. Measel
103. Medusa
104. Meenlock
105. Mephit
106. Merfolk
107. Mind Flayer
108. Minotaur
109. Mongrelfolk
110. Myconid
111. Needlefolk
112. Neogi
113. Nerra
114. Nixie
115. Nycter
116. Nymph
117. Ogre
118. Ogre Magi
119. Ophidean
120. Orc
121. Oread
122. Ormyrr
123. Phoelarch
124. Pixie
125. Poison Dusk Lizardfolk
126. Protean Scourge
127. Quaraphon
128. Ragewalker
129. Rakshasa
130. Raptoran
131. Redcap
132. Rilmani
133. Rotweaver
134. Sahuagin
135. Salamander
136. Sarkrith
137. Satyr
138. Seafolk
139. Selkie
140. Shadar-Kai
141. Shifter
142. Sirine
143. Skindancer
144. Skulk
145. Skullcrusher Ogre
146. Slaad
147. Spell Weaver
148. Splinterwaif
149. Spriggan
150. Svirfneblin (Scissors)
151. Sylph
152. Tallfellows (Ale)
153. Thorn
154. Thri-Kreen
155. Triton
156. Troglodyte
157. Troll
158. Umber Hulk
159. Vaporighu
160. Varrangoin
161. Vermin Lord
162. Vine Horror
163. War Forged
164. Wendigo
165. Witchknife
166. Wild Elf
167. Wood Elf
168. Wood Woad
169. Xill
170. Xorn
171. Yak Folk
172. Yuan-Ti
173. Yugoloth
174. Yurian

And note: that's without delving into the madness that is the Monster Manual IV or V or the setting books with all their extra races and shit. Paring the races down to something vaguely manageable is a huge task.

Part of it can be done simply by relegating some of them to other planets. It's not that much of an imposition on the setting if you can go to Gehenna as some sort of evil alien dimension and it has entirely different fauna and sapient inhabitants. But really, lots and lots of shit - from Aarakocrae to Yurians are going to be shoved out of the world.

While combining Formians and Thrikreen and Abeil all into a Myrmidon race is entirely plausible, remember that that's only a reduction of 2, which isn't a great stride towards comprehensibility.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Okay, watch as I used my arbitrary powers to decide. Bold is a "this race is abundant on the standard world and is meant to be played" race.

Humans
Myrmidons/Bug People (includes Formians and whatever, rolled into one)
Angels & co. (another dimension, with voyeuristic intentions)
Arenea (monster or maybe playable, they are kind of cool after all)
Astral Stalker (monster that travels Astral Plane)
Barghest (monster found in lower planes)
Lizardfolk (include serpentfolk like the Yuan-ti)
Choker (monster)
Demon (lower planes)
Devil (see: demon)
Elf (any. Also includes fey)
Ettin (monster)
Gargoyle (monsters/guardians)
Genie (trapped planar critters)
Giant (they have their own world full of big things)
Gnoll (monster)
Goblin (monster, maybe playable if people beg)
Hag (monster, often dwells in lower planes or confined to a swamp)
Harpy (sea monster)
Invisible Stalker (planar monster)
Jackal Lord (sure, why not? Monster. Includes other jackal things too.)
Kuo-Toa (sea monster)
Lamia (monster)
Medusa (monster, renamed "Gorgon")
Mephit (planar monster, even if I think they'd be cool to be playable)
Merfolk (sea monster)
Mind Flayer (monster)
Minotaur (monster - or maybe the playable big race?)
Ogre (monster)
Orc
Rakshasa (planar monster)
Sahuagin (sea monster)
Salamander (planar/fire monster)
Slaad GIANT FROG! (planar monster)
Troglodyte (monster)
Troll (monster)
Umber Hulk (monster)
Vine Horror (monster)

There. I chopped it down to five playables, a couple of maybes, and a bunch of monsters, many of which come from other worlds. People have 3 seconds to argue, otherwise it's set in stone. Starting now.

Edit: Too late!

[CatharzGodfoot]

Alright, so elves are short, stocky people who live in 'caves', have large scale mining and smelting operations, and like to drink mushroom beer. Their traditional weapons are hammers and crossbows (if we're doing that sort of thing).

Orcs are a nomadic, animist people that are slowly being marginalized by encroaching civilization. They tend to be taller and more beautiful than humans or elves (smaller disease pools and better nutrition), but are also much less organized (being primarily anarchocommunists) and populous.

Lizardfolk (not their own name) are actually amphibious, traditionally calling brackish coastal marshes their homes, although they live also further inland in freshwater swamps. They're the remnants of a once great civilization which crumbled during some geological cataclysm (the drying out of a shallow inland sea and with the majority of their habitat). The lizardfolk never recovered, and the humans (or elves) rolled in just around then to take over the newly arable land (this is pretty much D&D canon).

Humans usually live in small towns ruled over by "kings". As elven settlements tend to be centered around mines, lizardfolk live in swamps, and orcs roam the vast inland plains and forests, humans tend to live on the coast. They have a maritime culture, although wide-scale exploration an colonialism hasn't really been a thing yet.

The bug people...I've got nothing.

[Koumei]

I hate you.

Can we at least pass a rule where it's written into the core rules that if anyone plays what is basically a typical dwarf, everyone else gets to violently punch them in the throat, and by joining a game of it, people automatically agree to those terms and waive their right to not be violently punched in the throat?

Because if you're going to force those shites in, the least we can do is have a rule that says "You won't enjoy it any more than I will, and I won't have to put up with you saying anything annoying."

Not sure what to do with online games. Possibly a disclaimer saying I'm allowed to just ignore anything and everything they say or do, with the rules backing it up. So that I can just skip their posts or actually set it to ignore and it becomes their problem, and the game can only benefit from that.