[HN Gopher] Dungeons and Dragons taught me how to write alt text
___________________________________________________________________
Dungeons and Dragons taught me how to write alt text
Author : ohjeez
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-07-24 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ericwbailey.website)
(TXT) w3m dump (ericwbailey.website)
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I have heard that a DM is a full-time job, and I agree full
| heartily after reading this.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| As a DM, it's certainly something that's very easy to sink time
| into. And rewarding, too!
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I agree! I'd expect my DM to have knowledge of multiple
| worlds so that he can pull out things such as Solamnia
| knights got caught up in a time-space torrent and appear in
| Greyhawk.
|
| I guess it takes a lot of reading and planning.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Oooh, you'd be disappointed by my style, I think.
|
| I know the broad strokes of the D&D "canon", but I have no
| idea who the Solamnia knights are, I can name maybe five of
| the gods of the pantheon, and not much else.
|
| I prefer to run homebrew games, personally - let the
| players inform, decide, and deduce the world.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Nevermind, everyone has their own style.
| jamesponddotco wrote:
| I've to write alt tags daily and I still suck at it, since I suck
| at describing things (which is weird, since I write documentation
| every day). I might start attending my friend's D&D sessions just
| to improve on that.
|
| For now, I wrote a tool[1] that uses AI to do the job for me.
|
| [1]: https://git.sr.ht/~jamesponddotco/allalt
| RyanAdamas wrote:
| D&D taught me how to worship SATAN!!!!! EL DIABLO...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-leYc4oC83E
|
| Shout out to the greatest indy film and by far best D&D
| representation.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gamers_%28film%29
|
| Good write up, very helpful - KISS principle.
|
| Edit: Downvoted immediately? Wow, the pettiness here never ceases
| to amaze me.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| I think the CoC says ixnay on the arkisness-ay. I also get
| downvoted for similar reasons sometime. No point complaining.
| It's not your circus, you don't get to pick the monkeys.
|
| [note, however, as a conniseur of fine s*rk, I did not downvote
| you.]
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Related, but for me it was Dwarf Fortress. The item descriptions
| aren't exceptionally good per se, they're auto-generated after
| all. But they employ particularly poignant verbs[1] over more
| adjective-heavy descriptions. Taking a cue from that style
| dramatically improved my alt text.
|
| 1. like encrusted, encircled, adorned
| nealmueller wrote:
| The author says in the first paragraph that he used to play a lot
| of D&D (dndbeyond.com) and now prefers Dungeon World (dungeon-
| world.com; PDF is $6). Does anyone know why he might prefer the
| latter? As context, I play D&D weekly, love it, and am always
| interested in learning more. Dungeon World is designed to focus
| on creativity and shared storytelling with simpler mechanics to
| make the game more fluid. However, there's nothing simpler than
| having a clear D&D rule for something like fall damage, instead
| of having the party debate if a player survived the fall. Dungeon
| World doesn't have fall damage calculator and instead relies in
| the narrative, presumably from the pre-written story or DM.
| ipsi wrote:
| Most people who prefer DW would say that D&D _sometimes_ has
| clear rules for something, but often has no rules, boring
| rules, or rules that aren 't necessarily "fun". Combat, while
| tactical, tends to be slow and can frequently consume a lot of
| time in a session, plus the majority of rules and character
| powers are focused on combat.
|
| If you're playing sessions with a lot of RP, DW will have a
| much better balance of rules:session-time, it's much easier to
| prep for, and given how rules-lite D&D really is outside
| combat, will probably have about the same amount of narrative
| input. Note that it's not necessarily the "group debating if
| the player survived", but typically the GM giving the player a
| choice when they fail to climb the wall, like "you fall and
| take a little damage, or you slip a little, cursing loudly and
| alerting the enemies at the top to you".
|
| Done well, it gives the players a lot more agency, and much
| better buy-in for the story as they're now shaping it, instead
| of just being along for the ride. I would also say that pre-
| written narratives aren't really a thing for DW (at least, as
| far as I know!), so it's really down to what the DM sees as an
| appropriate penalty or choice, often phrased as "you succeed,
| _but_ <thing>".
|
| It's not really better or worse than D&D overall, I'd just say
| that it's _much_ better suited for certain play-styles. If you
| enjoy tactical gameplay and using miniatures, then D &D (or
| maybe Pathfinder) are much better options. If the thought of
| _yet another fight_ makes you want to gouge your eyes out, I 'd
| recommend giving DW a try.
| Retric wrote:
| D&D has rules for fall damage that make no sense, worse they
| encourage people to jump from extreme heights because the risks
| are well understood.
|
| In 5e players fall at 500 feet per round which works out to 56
| MPH and take the same damage falling 30 feet onto a stone
| floor, pile of hay, or a lake and ignore what you're carrying.
| By comparison 'No Rules' just means do something reasonable for
| the situation, arguing about it is more an issue for your table
| not the game.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _However, there 's nothing simpler than having a clear D&D
| rule for something like fall damage, instead of having the
| party debate if a player survived the fall._
|
| It's _simpler_ , but it's not necessarily _easier_. I don 't
| remember the rules for fall-damage, off-hand - and it's
| certainly easier to just say, "you take 2 HP of damage" than it
| is to dig out or start googling around for a rule.
|
| I play a lot of D&D as well, and to me, it's a great framework
| for collaborative storytelling - but that's because I'm
| familiar with the flow of the game. That's not true for
| everyone, and for some people, it's more fun to have fewer
| rules and a more collaborative decision-making process.
| hinnisdael wrote:
| Great advice: describing things in order of importance.
|
| Most people intuitively describe images from foreground to
| background or left to right, a bit like they are mentally
| completing a checklist of all the things to describe. As
| correctly noted by the author, describing by importance first has
| the added benefit of allowing screen reader users to skip
| irrelevant/uninteresting images early.
|
| Compare:
|
| Torn-up painting in a gallery, observers standing in front of the
| work.
|
| vs.
|
| Gallery interior, people standing in front of a painting with
| visible damage.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| The first sentence leads me to imagine a torn up painting and a
| group of people clustered around it.
|
| The second sentences leads me to imagine a large gallery space
| with high ceilings with a smattering of people in front of one
| of the paintings.
|
| Both ways have their pros and cons. Describing the space first
| lets the reader paint a setting for the eventual object of
| interest.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-24 23:00 UTC)