video | un: furuderika

[miiraculous]

 [Near the end of the month, after playing Jumanji more times than she cared to, Rika is able to face some realities. Those being that her house is more empty than before and that she's feeling lonely. She's never lost a friend in the way that she has lost Rena. There's no way to flip a switch and have her back, and that has been weighing heavily on Rika's mind.

And yet, the matter for which she makes a network call is rather childish and unimportant in comparison.]

Is the Trench always like this..? I never expected that a game board would be so mean... Games are supposed to be fun, not like that.

[She sounds more disappointed than traumatized. Perhaps a sign of maturity? Or being numb to so much suffering.]

Where I am from, my friends and I had a club where we played games together. Games let us leave our troubles behind for a few hours and spend time together, in a piece of the world where everything was fun. It makes me sad to think that games might have been ruined for the people here, because one of them was naughty. So I...

[Rika's voice trails off. She briefly imagines a cheerful Rena and how she would react to this. As part of her grieving, Rika tries to follow in the imaginary Rena's footsteps. This is more proactive than Rika's used to, so she can't help but sound uncertain.]

I want to make a game board that isn't mean and play it with everyone here. Does anyone know where I can find some paint? And a biiig piece of wood, or something similar, for the board? I've never tried this before, but... I would quite like to try. I do not wish for the fun of games to be taken away too.

Comments

video: un; an.observer

[thisislife]

I hate playing games in hard mode. For me, I'm in it for the story and characters, so I like to be able to focus on that and not on who had however many hit points left.

[and her expression softens. this young girl looks like she's really young, too young to have to deal with this bullshit]

They are supposed to be fun. Fun without a catch.

That's a really good idea, to create a fun game instead of, uh. That. There should be someone selling paint in Willful Machine somewhere. As for the wood...maybe they'd have some of that, too? So that would be a start.

[miiraculous]

A challenge should be something that everyone agrees to , yes~ Stories and characters, though... I have never heard of games with such things, but that sounds interesting! How does that work, may I ask?

[thisislife]

Yeah. Instead of oh, hey, here's some weird puzzle trap thing which has to be solved or else. It might be easier to go with just plain game pieces, like in Monopoly and Clue. That way, people could still pretend to be their own character without having to fill out something like Dungeons and Dragons stat sheets?

[miiraculous]

[Rika tilts her head curiously,] Mii? Dungeons and Dragon... stat sheets? What are those?

[thisislife]

--oh! Sorry! It's like a list of character traits and abilities for role-playing games. But that's a little out there. Are you looking for more of a traditional board game?

[miiraculous]

I was, yes. But only because I did not know of other things.

Is Dungeons and Dragons fun? I have never heard of a role-playing game, you see.

[thisislife]

Wow, I can think of a couple of stores I would love to take you.

I haven't played it since I was in junior high and it was entirely online but, yeah, it's fun. I played a half-elf mage who looked exactly like Taylor Swift. The whole self-insert thing, right down to her being named Briana Featherfrost and being in unrequited love with a human hidden prince. God, I was embarrassing.

[miiraculous]

Nihe~ I think that dreaming of romance is a very mature thing~

[Rika thinks it's cute. Then again, she is a child who mainly knows romance from a child's perspective.]

Someday, I would like to try it. Maybe I can show Satoko too! Satoko and I used to play all sorts of games together in Hinamizawa. What do you need to play Dungeons and Dragons? Can I make it?

[thisislife]

Yeah, it's fun. Though, I haven't had much luck with romance? But I'm working on it.

[and she's sweet. if anyone tried to hurt her, Lexi's already prepared to fight them]

You'll get your chance. And gee...quite a bit of stuff. There's the general lore book which tells you what you can and can't do when creating a character and gives you a general idea of what the settings can be like, the monster guides, the spell guides...maybe the archives have them?