At some point, in a few years, someone’s gonna launch an Ares with a few AI players on async, and see how long it takes for someone to notice.

@sao said in D&D alternatives:

maybe i’ll go to pathfinder 2.0, i’ve heard it’s more slick, but mostly I’m probably just going to whine and cry a lot.

2e is wildly different to 1e, for what it’s worth, and essentially every change is an improvement. It’s still customizable and fun, but the three-action economy is such a huge leap forward in streamlined play that it makes it basically impossible for me to go back to pf1e or 5e.

Plus, archetypes. Being able to suplex a dragon (if your rolls are good enough) is supremely cool.

If Hasbro had any brains, they’d have WotC’s writers come up with a wargaming ruleset for GIJoe and Transformers. And hawk the existing figures and stuff to use in game. In a huge middle finger to Games Workshop.

Jazz getting jiggy

@KarmaBum said in Balance between socialization and performance:

Ultimately, even when the hard-core players sort of forked off to make their own Free Company about 18 months into the game (so they could get the raiding buffs), we stayed close with them as a group, and we all did a lot of “social” stuff together.

The way this has worked for my guild over time - but over years of play, so the effect is fairly consistent - is that once the more hardcore players splinter off to do their own thing the overall activity plummets.

It’s both because the roster is segmented (how many raids are you going to run in one week, after all) but also because, once the better performing players become unavailable the rest can’t clear the existing content either any more. Many folks, if made to choose between lowering their expectations or doing something else with their time, will do the latter.

Godzilla Minus One was the live-action Grave of the Fireflies/Kaiju film mashup I never knew I needed in life.

It’s wonderful but also a gut punch.

@RedRocket Andor is the only one of the series recommend to a skeptic. The others have some good moments, but Andor breaks the mold.

There are points in the first season where I ugly cry (“one way out” iykyk), and the end of this week’s three episode drop had me crying and cheering out loud. The whole show is just very well executed.

It is dark and romantic and scary and hopeful.

@Arkandel

I know of an instance of that that’s in development right now (outside of muds, where that’s included out of the box).

@Jennkryst said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:

Tangentially related, FLGS had their annual Great Pumpkin sale, where I picked up the One Ring core book, so now I am almost REQUIRED to gripe about how we need a Middle Earth MU. Preferably with the lewdest of Elves, to annoy @Arkandel.

I’ve played on Shang, so I shall say no more.

@Coin said in House of the Dragon - Discussion:

I mean, Joffrey spoils the end of House of the Dragon in Game of Thrones.

Will that fucker’s evil never end?

I read lots of things, mostly fantasy and SF, but also poetry, literary fiction, trashy pop romances, history, non-fiction. I love a smart style and a voice that brings out an interesting character. The last couple years, I’ve been able to read nothing but comfort reads. I’ve given a lot of thought to what makes these comforting to me, and I think it’s some message of “No matter what the rest of the world says, you have a place here. This is your home.” A couple favorite series that I’ve found recently have been Victoria Goddard’s Greenwing & Dart, and Martha Wells’ Books of the Raksura. And then there’s Everina Maxewell’s Winter’s Orbit, a book I’ve read 5 times since last October, and I almost never reread anything. For comfort reads, I also recommend reading cook books. Just slowly wander through the stories, ingredients, and instructions, and really enjoy the pictures.

@shit-piss-love said in How long should characters last?:

I love this topic so much, because I have learned over the years that I seem to be on one extreme of the spectrum for how one enjoys PC play.

…

I strongly suspect that I love this pattern because I’ve been the Forever GM since the 90s. Playing a character, for me, is less about the story I am experiencing and more about being the hand behind experiences that others enjoy. I also really like being a Conflict-driver because there is truly no one a character is closer to than the people they are at odds with. It’s a kind of intimacy that, done in a positive and collaborative fashion, is unique to the medium.

Forgive the follow-on to thread necromancy, but I love this response. I’m at least a decade removed from a MU* career, but share similar instincts and hadn’t fully internalized the “Forever-GM” aspect as a possible root cause.

This is one of the reasons I prefer games that have generous character roll-over policies that are tied to players vs. characters.

-r

@Wuff That was awful!