Loot Fatigue: When Less is More

Description

In this episode of No Plot, Only Lore, DMs Josh and Kris tackle the psychological toll of the "plus-one sword." Starting with a debate over One Piece live-action aesthetics and the "immaculate beard game" of Garp, the conversation shifts to a deep dive into Loot Fatigue and the dangers of hyper-progression.

The guys break down:

• Leveling Too Fast: Kris shares feedback from a campaign where players felt overwhelmed by new powers, proving that "milestone leveling" can sometimes feel like a treadmill.

• The "Sting" Standard: Why the best magic items aren't just stat sticks, but tools with history and niche utility (like a hat that contains a permanent six-dragon-sized apartment).

• The Spider Incident: Chris recounts the most broken homebrew item he ever possessed—an amulet that granted mental control over all spiders within 100 feet—and the "living cloak" of nightmares that followed.

• Benefit or Curse?: Exploring the fun of flawed items, from armor that smells like brimstone to swords that hum theme music loud enough to ruin a stealth check.

• The Metagame Problem: How classic items like the Berserker Axe or the Deck of Many Things lose their magic when veteran players spoil the surprise for the table.

Whether you're looking for a Hat of Rope Trick or just trying to figure out the mechanical inverse of a gender-fluid character, this episode is a masterclass in making rewards feel rewarding again.

Transcript

You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we play them at. Your DMs tonight and every

night are Josh and Chris. You can find us on all podcast platforms or check us out at

noplotonlore.com. If you like what you hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've

ever met. Chris, let's talk about loot

fatigue. I have just bestowed upon you a plus one

sword. Are you grateful? Well, I didn't have one before, but I have one now. So, I guess yeah. I I I did happen to skim

through the DMG, though, and I saw that like could this be like a plus one sword of like something like is this just like

a regular plus one sword? Cuz I see there's a lot of these other kind of variants that sound more interesting.

I don't understand. It's a plus one sword. Well, no. And that's better than like not a plus one sword, but like what

can I have a plus one sword of like giant slaying?

Why would you need that? It's just a plus one sword, man. Well, I guess, but like in this in this campaign, charge of

the giants, I feel like maybe a sword of giant slang is going to come in handy.

No, that would be super OP. Uh I just got a plus one sword. Oh, and uh right

beside that is a plus one sword. Oh, okay. Um, can I actually have like a a

like a cloak of protection? It's sort of critical for the character build I have planned out.

Okay. So, I will see your cloak of protection and raise you a plus one

sword. Okay. Well, I only have two hands, so I guess I just I'm not really

sure what I'm supposed to do with this third sword. Uh, have you seen One Piece? Because we

know that you love anime. No, I I see the people who play the One Piece card game every Monday and that is I kind of

lied. I saw the live action. I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." And then I found out there was a thousand episodes.

I was like, "There's no there's no chance. I'm not doing that." Okay. One thing to note about the live action is

that like the live action smashed together like a hundred episodes. Good.

The pacing is significantly I have watched a few episodes of the anime and

I am not a fan admittedly. I watched the first episode and hated the blonde

child. I really liked the live action. Okay. Yeah,

that there is um kind of going back to a conversation we were having before the mics were turned on. They they really

embraced the weirdness Yeah. of the anime and they did it in a way that

feels very genuine. Yeah. I I liked how like cartoonish the world was. Like the

the outlandish colors, the extreme costumeuming, the Yeah. the the

obviously the wonky like special abilities and and even just like the the

fundamental structure and lore of the world was so just like alien and bizarre, but they treated it so

seriously. How far did you get in the uh the live action? I finished it. I watched the whole thing. Oh, okay. Uh the dog

admiral's beard, huh, is [ __ ] goals. Yeah,

that guy's beard is immaculate. I have never seen beard

game like the fake turned up mustache beard that was obviously painted on but

like for a real ass beard that guy's beard game is some of the best I've ever seen. Yeah. It's wonky. It's It's so It

looks like the kind of thing that you like you get those like YouTube compilations of like international beard

competitions and like you see what they're going for, but it's kind of sparse and weird. And then his is just

like the perfect like sculpted version of that.

Crisp, clean lines, full in every like portion of his face, just long enough,

very nautical. It's the beard Will Reker wishes he had.

Anyways, we're not here to talk about beard fatigue. Anyways, we're not talking about beards

today. Off on a [ __ ] tangent. Um, no, we're talking about loot fatigue today.

And part of the reason that we're doing this is because I actually got some feedback about one of my previous games

that I found interesting. Okay. And it was that progression was a little too

fast. That's wild. So, like you're not like

you're are you doing like milestone leveling or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Doing milestone leveling. And admittedly, the

uh the pace of that leveling was pretty quick. Like we were we were doing a level every like two three sessions.

Okay. Um, and one of the complaints for that was that they didn't have enough time to

acclimate to the new powers and the new gear and the stuff that they had. And suddenly it was feeling overwhelming

their character sheets. Okay. But like was this part of a plan where like, hey, I need to get you guys up a couple

levels before this next session happens because if you're not level five, you're going to get totally stomped. like or

was this just like you're just running your thing without a real plan and like oops you did too many levels?

Um like a relatively free form, but I knew where we were going. Okay. Right. So, like a

lot of the time when I'm planning my sessions, I have an end point in mind,

like an endgame for what we're going to be doing with the campaign. And I an

idea of how we're going to get there, right? And how my players interact with the

world is going to determine like how quickly we get there, I guess. But a lot

of the times like the the stuff that I'm throwing at them is going to be um matching the overall arc of the plan.

Okay. So yeah, it it wasn't willy-nilly. It

wasn't something that I was just like, "Yeah, have a level, I guess." Um but it was admittedly at a pretty quick

clip cuz I was anticipating us getting up to around level 12, 13. Okay. before

we hit like the end game. Okay. On that session. Um but yeah, that I was

overrewarding my players and they were starting to feel like levels didn't matter. H that is an interesting piece

of feedback. And I wonder if cuz were these new players? Like you you said

before you play with a lot of new players. Um cuz I feel like veteran

players probably wouldn't have felt the same way like um there I know that I got the

feedback kind of like blanket like it it came from both veterans and new players.

So that that's part of why I was like I don't always take the feedback that my players give me as like canon. And it

isn't something that I have to like keep in mind necessarily, but when I get it from a wide range of my players, I

usually pay more attention to. Okay. So, yeah, cuz I know like there you can fall into that trap um of a veteran player

where it's like, yeah, the first couple three levels like don't really matter. You just kind of like get through them

until you start getting like the interesting stuff that defines your your class. Um Oh, we started at level three,

so Oh, okay. Well, yeah. Um, that's an interesting an interesting take. Like

I've always been someone who is excited by character progression and character advancement. I don't really feel the

need to like inhabit a particular level to understand a class or a character

because like I I've done the homework ahead of time. I kind of know roughly what they're supposed to be doing at

those levels anyway. So it's just like I the level is irrespective of like the

the story or role playing beats that are going to be hit. So who cares what level

you're at? You can talk at any level. So yeah, for me like as a player I find

that my levels are a little bit like cards in a deck. Okay. Right. Like I I

get new abilities, my numbers go up. Um, but the the overall plan for the

character as far as like combat stuff is concerned doesn't really change. Okay. Yeah. And so it's just like I I open up

some new abilities and then which ones do I have at my disposal at any given time? Those are the ones that I'm going to play with. Yeah. But I think that

part of that just comes from experience in the game. Like I've been playing for 30 plus years and not everybody has been

and I've played several different editions of Dn D and I've had to learn completely different uh skills and

spells and things that are named the same thing because of like tech debt,

but not everybody has had that same breadth of experience with it. So I guess like having a bunch of new stuff thrown

at you all the time could get a little overwhelming. And then the other part of it, I I think the part that I I took

home about it was that levels didn't feel like they mattered. Sure. Right.

And that that's kind of what brought me to the idea of like loot fatigue because it isn't just levels. It is also like

the gear that you get. And when you just get a plus one sword every goddamn treasure chest, you can throw it in with

your collection of other plus one swords, right? And it it doesn't feel like a special thing anymore.

It's so interesting that you say that. So, uh, the game I'm playing in right now that's almost done has been like for

most of its length fairly loot light. Um, I've got a couple items now and

frankly like I kind of forget to use them sometimes because I'm so used to not having anything special going on

other than like oh well I have a plus one want or whatever, right? Um, so it's interesting that there's people out

there because this feels to me closer like the idea of even Loot Fatigue feels

closer to the experience of playing fourth edition where loot was a lot more

intrinsic to the character and a lot more plentiful and a lot more varied. Um, the idea of just getting a basic

plus one sword was kind of like why the hell would you do that? because at the same level you give them a plus one

sword of frost, a plus one sword of ice, a plus one sword of acid, something like that, right? Um, and have a lot more

variation within the types of equipment that you're giving people and understand that like, yeah, you might give them,

you know, gear that deals extra uh, fire damage because you're know

they're going up against a bunch of ice elementals or whatever, right? And then you just right loot was a little more I

don't want to say disposable but like you you kept interchangeable. Yeah.

Yeah. You kept extra sets around for specific encounters, you know. Um which

I mean also led to one of the the few things that I consider to be a problem with fourth edition, which was the like

overthet metagaming of, oh, we're going up against a troll. Better load up on all of our fire and acid weapons. Yeah,

let's go into the bag of holding and get those specific items cuz we know a troll is coming. Um, so like that was one of

the few things that I found in fourth edition was a little more prevalent just because of

the the tabletop game feel of it. Right. Right. Like the board game feel of it.

Um, you ended up with a bit more midmaxing with your loot. Sure. and

trying to like get the eek the best advantages that you could out of it, which I mean not necessarily a drawback,

but it kind of detracted from like character play and discovery and that sort of thing. Sure. So, what's the best

piece of loot any of your characters has ever gotten?

Oh, good question. Trying to think of stuff that I've had and that's been

useful or interesting. Um, okay, never mind. I know the answer.

Uh, the best piece of loot I ever got was a homebrewed amulet that was given

to a character of mine in a game. Uh, and he so he it was an amulet of like

essentially like spider control. The idea was you had this red gem spider on

you that became like a little companion. It could sneak around and it could bite

people and weaken them. Um, but then there was a one little

tagline that was at the bottom of the the description. Well, not just

description, the mechanical effects. says, "You control all

spiders within a 100 foot radius." O

yeah. Um I don't know if anybody knows anything about spiders and their

population density, but there's a lot of [ __ ] spiders out there. Um, did I ever tell you about Okay,

another tangent, but did I ever tell you that like when I moved in, the person that I was getting the apartment from

like took me aside and said, "Christopher, the spiders were here

first. It is their house. You are a guest here."

Um, we have bamboo just outside of my apartment door. And my house is

constantly full of spiders. Okay. Uh we we've got like little orb spiders. We've

got like the the huge uh wolf spiders. Uh they get to be like dinner plate size

and kind of scuttled across the floor. Um I saw a black widow not too long ago.

That's That one freaked me out. Yeah. Yeah. Um I I am not a person who fears

spiders, but I was real careful putting that one in a cup and throwing it outside. Oh yeah, I would have stepped

on that one. I would have really liked an amulet of spider control. Yeah, in

that scenario. So, um, after confirming that it did what it said he said it did,

I was like, "Cool." Uh, have you seen Big Hero 6? I have. Yeah. Yeah. So, you

know those little microbots that uh Oh, gross. Yeah. So, just turn those into

spiders. And that is how my character conducted himself for the next six months. Um, I That is super gross. Yeah.

I uh I basically had a living uh like

cloak/walking carpet of spiders that I used to like move myself around. And uh

I like had them run up into a tree and like spell out a message like uh like

Charlotte's web to scare off some bandits. Uh and then we were interrogating a guy and he didn't want

to talk so I sent a spider up his urethra and Yeah. Gross. Yeah. Yeah. I

super duper abused that ability for a long time because I had absolute mental control of all spiders in a radius and I

just wandered around for a while in the woods collecting spiders until I had this I am unstoppable tsunami.

I am so sad I asked. Yeah, that that was the best item I ever got. Oh, I once

drained a like a cow like a like a Capri son. I just I sent all of my spiders

over there to feed just um and mine is possibly the most mundane

item that anybody has ever gotten, which was a hat of rope trick. Hat of rope

trick. Yeah. Are you familiar with the rope trick spell? Yeah, I'm familiar with the rope trick spell. Yeah. So, in

third edition, you could make magic items out of spells for a gold and

experience cost. Yeah. And so, I had my wizard buddy enchant a hat with the rope

trick spell. Okay. Which uh the hat was just flavor, right? Like it it didn't

actually have like a an effect other than it was kind of like a portable hole. Like wherever I put the hat, that's where the portal would be. The

rope trick spell for people who don't know. You create a space that's up a

rope. So you like climb up the rope and then you have like a space that'll fit six creatures. Yeah. What the

description doesn't say is how big those creatures can be. Yeah. And so we made it six dragons big.

And then I built an apartment in it. Okay. And so like it was a permanent rope

trick spell. I built an apartment. Anytime we needed to like piece out from a dungeon and like have a long rest,

then I could like put the hole somewhere that was inconspicuous, we would all go through it. We would like have dinner.

Yeah. Take our long rest in like bunks and real beds and then we'd be fresh and

happy for the next day. You had infinite safety. Not infinite cuz part of the the thing

with rope trick is that the hole is still enterable, right? So, there isn't a way to lock it. So, you do have the

opportunity for like wandering monsters to show up and like come into your apartment and now you've got goblins and

that's gross. Um, so like that that was like the the only real drawback to the thing. But if you

were able to get into a weird spot, like a spot that was hard for like other critters to get into, then uh it it

presented an awful lot of like safety and comfort while adventuring. Useful in

a different way. And then Yeah. useful in a different way. And then um another one that I really liked like the the

runner up for that one was earrings of message. Okay.

So that whenever we were uh in any kind of like espionage scenario, all of us could hear one another uh and send

messages to one another as though we were using the message doll. That's Yeah, that's just like useful

[ __ ] Useful [ __ ] But like also like it it added to the espionage feel of just

like you put your finger up on your ear and be like, "Okay, I'm in." Right. And I don't know. I liked it.

Yeah. Um what's the worst item you've ever

been given? H

um you know what mine is the deck of many things. Oh, I hate the deck of many things, but I've never been given one. I

was going to say like I I have a magic Well, it was a wondrous item that I had, but like I wasn't like given it per se.

I was just told like, "Hey, you're going to start with something that fits your character. It just can't be like useful." So, I had um this like flask of

eternal coffee. Uh, that's nice. Just always had warm coffee. Um, but like I

want in real life. Yeah. Like I could chug from it, but I could never like pour it out. It would just disappear.

So yeah, it was like fine. It just You can't do anything useful with coffee

that vanishes the second it leaves the vessel. That's the whole thing about like magic

that would be great in real life versus magic that's great in Dn D. Yeah. Right. Like magic that's great in D and D is

like a fireball spell where you do a bunch of damage to a whole bunch of creatures. Magic that would be great in real life is unseen servant. Yeah,

exactly.

Yeah, just like unseen servant go do my dishes. That's it. That's all I want is

some fantasmal force that is going to go and do my chores. It literally makes your life better every single day at no

cost. How many times are you going to cast a fireball that's really going to improve your life situation? And if you're in a situation where fireball

improves your day-to-day life, like you're already on a downward trend. Well, like it it's a little bit like the

uh the superpower conversation. Like the superpower that I daydream about having

the most is Wolverine's claws. I have zero use for Wolverine's

claws. I imagine myself like walking down the street or like walking by a fence and like cutting the fence open.

But I wouldn't actually do that cuz that's vandalism and it would hurt somebody's feelings that their fence is ruined now. Yeah. Like zero use for

Wolverine's claws, but that's the one that I daydream about the most. The one that would be most useful to me would be teleportation. Right. Yeah. I see like

for similar reasons I think a lot well the the one I think about the most is probably just invisibility cuz I just

like I just don't want to be noticed a lot of times. Um it's difficult for you.

Yeah. I just want to be left alone, right? But then the other one that would like probably be the most useful day is

just like flight. Like for similar reason teleportation is just like no I just I want to move between areas in a

literal straight line. I Yep. Yeah. I I

do not want to cross any of the space between here and there, but I want to be there now. Yeah. Is my whole thing with

teleportation. Yeah. Right. Like I don't want to go to work. I just want to be at work. Yeah. Yeah. Um anyways, yeah.

The one of the things that I you kind of have to balance as a DM is like how much

loot you're giving out over the course of your game. Yeah.

And like obviously there's like game-breaking aspects for that. Like you don't want to give a a group a party of

first levels like plus three weapons across the board or whatever, right?

Um but that kind of gets into like the reward inflation side of things where like if you give everybody a plus one

sword, if you want a sword to feel special now, it has to be a plus two or higher, right?

as like we like we had kind of a the opposite problem too where like for a long time nobody had a plus one sword.

So, it was just like, "No shit." Like, "These encounters are a little more dangerous than they should be or taking

a little bit more time because we just like can't hit things." Like, you you there it's such a tricky balance to run.

Like, you need to give out plus one swords eventually. And I feel like you kind of hit on like

one of the ways to make plus one swords more interesting was like the the plus

one sword of giants bane or plus one sword of spider killing or the plus one sword of whatever the heck it does.

Yeah. Um cuz like they are a little bit modeled after

um like Tolken is obviously the model for basically all things D and D and we

have Sting. Yeah. Right. Sting is a plus one sword that has goblin detection.

Yep. And it also has like a long elf in history that has poems written about it

and a whole bunch of other stuff. Um but those are the things that make it unique. Yeah. Is that it is a slightly

better than ever sword that is also able to tell if goblins are around. Yeah. and

having those like cute little abilities attached to them is a huge deal I find

when giving out loot. I really do like leaning into like the niche functionality of items. Like this thing

is going to have one time where it gets to be super cool and then like every other time it's just like fine. Um the

problem I run into Do you do a lot of charges? No. No, I don't. Okay. Uh, the problem I

run into a lot is like there are certain things I want to give out

that are only a certain weapon type and for various reasons people just

don't want to use that weapon type or they've built into a we specific weapon type that to use anything else would be

an active detriment. Like with a lot of the new weapon focus and weapon specialization stuff, it's like, yeah, I

went I I spent 12 levels. I got like four feats in like making me super good at axes. What am I going to do with this

sword? Right. And if you just give them axes all the time, then that a little bit

breaks world cohesion. Yeah. Yeah. Like every chest can't have an axe in it. Like this isn't just an entire country

full of axe users. Yeah. Um, we're not all could be, I guess. So,

yeah, I was watching a video about using axes in the offh hand earlier today.

Don't do it. It's a bad idea. It was okay. Don't do it. Yeah, they're they're heavy and difficult to to work around. Y

um, how do you feel about flaws on items? I

like Yeah, I don't want to say like, oh, I like every item should be cursed. Like, that's super cool. No, that's not

what I'm saying. But I am saying like there should de every item is not perfect. There should definitely be odd

things about them or like a potential weakness. Like I super love the idea

from Dark Sun where weapons can break uh if you [ __ ] up badly enough. And I feel

like if you sort of extrapolate that idea into magical properties, you can usually find a way that like, hey, if

my, you know, if if my uh sword of of giant slang ever touches a lizard or

something, it just like implodes. Like, speaking of Scandinavian, that sounds

like an incredibly Scandinavian type curse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. where it's just like this sword is indestructible lest

it touch a lizard. Yeah.

Well, one of the examples that I have here is that a sword hums whenever danger is near. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Which you could take to just be like Yeah. Yeah. But I immediately took it to

be like humming its own theme music. Yeah.

Dude coming down the hallway and suddenly the Halo theme kicks on. He's

like, "Oh no, Jeff, I just stay." The worst version of the Halo theme

though, cuz it's just some guy like humming it. Yeah. No, it's

just or uh yeah, I've got like armor that makes you smell like brimstone here as well, just like walking into church.

What? Well, even like even taking something as simple as sting like that glow can get real bright and maybe you

don't want that to happen when there's goblins around because you are hiding. Yep. Yep. And it's playing with the

benefit also being a flaw is one of the funnest ways to make your items

interesting. Yeah. Without making them like overpowered or underpowered. It's

like having a glow whenever goblins are around. That can be a huge deal, right? Like if you're outside and your sword

starts glowing, you're like, "Oh [ __ ] goblins." But again, like if you're hiding or if you're at an inn and

suddenly your sword is being kind of racist. Yeah. Like,

hey, bud. Why is your sword doing that? Every time the server comes by, it like glows a little brighter. Like, oh, cool.

Server doesn't look like a goblin at all. Not at all. What did I I gave someone

a hammer that like vibrated uh and what they didn't know is that the

intensity of the vibration would like increase as there were what was it a

hammer? It was something that like shoot I can't remember now. There's something in the dungeon where like basically what

happened was like they they would be near a wall and it started vibrating so violently that it was like knocking on

the wall behind them. Oh yeah. Uh

shoot. H whatever. This was years ago. But yeah, like just dumb little things that can catch you off guard are always

a fun drawback or again like kind of fun. I like the the minor curses like

the the personality manipulation. Yeah, that's a fun role playinging

opportunity. Yeah, sometimes like you kind of have to negotiate that with your with your players. Like if I'm going to

give somebody a curse that has personality manipulation in it, I'll

usually give my player the opportunity to choose what's being manipulated. Yeah. Because it it gives you a clue

into like the type of character that they're looking to play. Um Well, like

Go ahead. Obviously, you don't want the like character personality flaw to be

like he's too heroic. Um, but like sometimes that's a great like

character flaw as well where it's just like he's he's too [ __ ] heroic. You you have to make a saving throw right

now or you're going to rush into combat. Yeah. Like, and I will say this, this is super goddamn frustrating, but um we a

couple weeks ago uh had like this was I think just like

part of the as written uh adventure, but there was a uh what are they called? A

berserker axe in a room and I didn't

know what that was. wasn't know it was like a classic item, but one guy at the table super [ __ ] did. And so

everything that happened for the next while was sort of colored by his like,

"My [ __ ] it's a Berserker axe. Like, you better not, you know, you better not touch it, blah blah blah." And it just

like it metag game and ruined the whole kind of fun of a berserker axe, you

know, especially for a table with like right two more or less brand new players who had never encountered one before. Um

at a, you know, a situation where it's like how do we restrain our friend who wants to just murder all of us, you

know? Um, yeah. I mean, that's so hard to get

around with any of the classic items in general, right? Like you find a mysterious deck of cards wrapped in silk

in a dungeon and people are going to start making assumptions, which can be fun to play with, right? Where if you're

like, "Yeah, here's a deck of cards. Um, you know, it's wrapped in wrapped in

silk and it's emanating a magical aura and then it's not a deck of many things." Yeah. that that can be fun sometimes like

subverting that expectation but like sometimes you want it to be a deck of many things. Yeah, that's the thing like like a deck of many things everyone

knows what it is and that's kind of the fun of it is that it's like yeah this could be anything. It could even be a

boat. Like we kind of know what as a players we know what the consequences are of pulling cards

and that's just like a flavor element that's getting laid over our campaign

because at the end of the day every draw of those cards is a choice. Um, and

sometimes you pick up the berserker ax. Well, but that's the thing like the drawing from the deck is a choice that a

character is going to make actively. And it feels like finding a item that obviously like looks to be useful

uh that we know is magical. When you don't have a magic item, like a character's just like, "Oh, cool. I need

a magic axe." It's just like a plus one axe or whatever, right? So that feels a little more involuntary,

which is like fine. Like that's the purpose of the, you know, a cursed item in general is just like, hey, there's

surprising downsides and how are you going to overcome this difficulty? and it it gets taken

away by metagaming. Whereas like metagaming, the deck of many things really kind of ends at I know it's a

deck of many things because there's that random element. Like a Berserker X is a very defined thing. It's a fixed item

that does a very specific function. That function when metagamed becomes useless,

right? Yeah. I'm trying to think of like an equivalent type of item and the one

that I'm kind of coming back to um I think they've taken it out of D and D in more recent editions, but it was

the um girdle that changed your gender. Okay.

Um where like it was a pretty good armor item. like it gave you a plus one to

your AC for like a belt magical slot. Okay. But now you're a different gender than

you were before. Yeah. Um and like the earliest version was um it turned men

into women because haha, now you're a girl, right? Um, and then later on I I think that

there were like equivalent items for women and then when gender became more

complicated than that in the public consciousness, they were like, "We don't want to make a magic item for every one

of those." Yeah. Um, which would be hilarious though, considering how many genders there are now. I I like the idea

of just like making a generalized like belt of gender inversion and then having to figure out what the opposite of your

gender is. Yeah. And like then having to define exactly what your gender is, right? Like

mechanically determine like especially if you're like a weird species like a [ __ ] era. Yeah. Define your gender.

Give me the inverse. What is the inverse of gender fluid? Like

Yeah, that could be a lot of fun. But yeah, like that that's kind of the the

same thing where it's just like, oh, you better not put on that girdle. Um because it's going to turn

you into the woman folk. Yeah. Um and it kind of takes away some of the the fun

of like the discovery Yeah. of your items, which and I mean that discovery is so important to

avoid loot fatigue, right? like the the discovery of cool

new fun things that you can do that isn't just a plus one sword. Yeah. Is so

important. And if you have somebody at the table who's taking that away, it kind of sucks.

Yeah. And that's I mean that's kind of the conclusion we came to is that like this guy kind of sucks. Uh so

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