@Solstice I will second Mob Psycho 100, and I will do it having never seen it. I have had friends and coworkers rave about it, and it occasionally gets suggested as the Greatest Shonen of All Time by reviewers.

I have hesitated to post anything in this thread, because I very much do not appreciate being drafted into the role of OP for this particular topic. Anyways…

@ProperPenguin said in AI PBs:

Hi, tech writer here.

I am job hunting (as I left a toxic work environment right before the AI obsession began in corporations). I have been job hunting.

The work disappeared for a good while. And reports from people who weren’t laid off basically came down to them being piled on so high with work they couldn’t manage. One person even reported that her coworkers had nicknamed her AI. ‘Send it to AI.’
Which was hugely demoralizing (understandably) to her.

I know a developer who runs a team: he was made to lay off his tech writer and told ‘just use AI.’ Except he’s in the financial sector. They cannot use it (for security, accuracy, etc.) and when he pointed it out, was told ‘it’s just writing, do it yourself.’

And this is the core issue, the lack of appreciation and respect to a profession from other professionals and industries. “Anyone can write. Anyone can draw. Anyone can take a photograph. Anyone can shoot film. Anyone can work an assembly line.” No, anyone can’t, and no a robot cannot give you as good a quality, yet. If you need specialized, expert, professional work done, you need to pay for a specialist, expert, and professional.

I like AI for hobbyists, people who don’t have the cash or the level of personal investment into whatever hobby it is to pay for a professional. “I want a PB that isn’t a photograph of a real person, I don’t have any artistic talent at all, and I don’t want to pay $150 for an image I am going to slap on a wiki and never really think about again.” “I need a desc, but I hate writing them. I’ll just have an AI write one over and over until I get one I like.”

And I am now going to exit the thread again. Have fun, y’all.

I will second @Pavel’s recommendation of Cells At Work. It’s educational and fun!

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Review: https://youtu.be/FJ8-7LXa-8A?si=UXumBlMrWU1TNZOE

Rundown: My significant other hates anime (a combination of a dislike of the art style and certain aspects of Japanese culture) and she watches this one. She likes the theme of friendship combined with the Fellowship of the Ring vibe. It’s a cozy fantasy with slice of life and occasional shonen elements (fighting demons, a sort-of “chuunin exam” arc, etc.) that becomes more frequent as the series progress, but it still keeps the cozy episodes.

Frieren is a Tolkein-esque (extremely long-lived, only dies to disease and trauma) elf mage who was one of the four members of the hero’s party that slayed the demon king and brought peace to demi/human-kind. The show starts with said party returning to the capital city they originally set off from to celebrate their victory and have a few episodes set 50 years after that. Then we skip ahead 80 years after the defeat of the demon king which is where the meat of the show is, which is how this elf woman comes to terms with losing her friends, missing out on romance because she failed to realize the hero had romantic feelings for her, making new friends, helping the next generation of adventurers come into their own, and dealing with keeping up with a world that keeps changing.

Pros: There is slice of life, heartwarming moments, heart wrenching moments, shonen action, and some really good humor (Mimics have Frieren’s number. She will die by Mimic, and it will be deserved.) This is an anime that can hit different between age groups. It might be a little slow to start for those under 30, but, if you sit with it, you get to the shonen action. For those of us who qualify as “olds” and have experienced some life and loss, it resonates on an emotional level, and you get some funny bits and shonen action to break it up. Also Frieren tends to be interpreted as being somewhat autistic and people like the inclusion of neurodiversity.

Cons: Loss, grief, the memories of those who we have lost, and dealing with the world changing around us is a central theme of this. If you’re currently in the midst of similar emotions, it could be cathartic for you, or it could be very much not. Also, you said you are coming off of Jujutsu Kaizen and are currently watching Chainsaw Man, so this show may be lacking the action you are wanting from anime.

Apothecary Diaries

Rundown: Do you like Sherlock Holmes? Do you like House M.D? Do you like Game of Thrones, Shogun, or Chinese palace dramas full of intrigue? Then this is the show for you! This is a historical fantasy intrigue/drama, mystery solver, shoujo romance show.

The protagonist, Maomao, is a medicine woman that works in the red light district of the capital of similar to but legally distinct from (seriously every episode has a “this is a work of fiction and any similarities are pure coincidence” line at the beginning) Tang and Quing dynasty not-China, when she gets kidnapped and sold to the imperial palace as a maid (“families” who send their “daughters” to the imperial palace get 20% of the money they earn). She proceeds to figure out why the concubines in the rear palace (the 2,000 woman and 1,000 eunuch strong, walled off area of the palace where the Emperor’s concubines are kept) are getting sick and the recently born crown prince just died. Recognizing her awesomeness, she becomes the unofficial medicine woman/detective for the rear palace, solving medical mysteries, murder mysteries, and thwarting sinister political intrigue, while also having a slow burn romance with that eunuch who runs everything and is so beautiful that even some lesbian women and straight men would be willing to let him do whatever he wanted with them, if he, you know, wasn’t a eunuch. Unfortunately for him, because he is intrigued by her, Maomao is one of the few that is immune to his charms.

Pros: This show has another strong female protagonist who also tends to get interpreted as being slightly autistic. This one sucked me in, even if my girlfriend hates it for reasons in the cons. The mysteries are solvable by the audience, meaning there are no ass pulls or ridiculous deductions or inferences that no one but Sherlock Holmes would make and only after snorting his entire supply. Only a couple of the mysteries kept me guessing, which is great, because if I solved all of them I would probably get bored. The romance is nice too. It doesn’t dominate the show, as the maga author isn’t trying to write a romance manga but her family members who read her work keep pushing for more romance, and it’s a slow burn. The palace intrigue is really good, too. They leave clues for plots in motion in early episodes, tying in previous mysteries to overarching plots. It’s well paced, intelligent, and the art is fantastic. The setting and the intrigue is influencing a lot of my ideas on the silly MU* server I suggested a few months ago. It also deals with gender roles, sexual exploitation, and other such themes in a mature manner rather than handling it like a bull in a china shop like a lot of other anime and American shows do.

Cons: Did you read that last sentence? Yeah, all sorts of trigger warnings on this one. This is pseudo Tang/Quing dynasty China. A progressive, egalitarian setting it is not. If women and the lower classes being exploited sexually and economically doesn’t squick you out of this anime, maybe the fact that suicide is discussed, threatened, and occurs will. Oh, and the previous Emperor was a pedophile. That’s not me calling him one; that is what the characters in the show refer to him as with disgust. The mother of the current Emperor was 10 when she became pregnant. Yeah. These things aren’t the focus of the show (well, the gender roles and sexual exploitation are because it’s set in a harem), but they are a part of the setting and so come up occasionally. Also, there is no shonen in this one, if that’s what you’re after.

Review: https://youtu.be/ZtTYc14IUm8?t=1092

I recommend Mother’s Basement and Gigguk for covering the anime released in a season:

https://m.youtube.com/@mothersbasement

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC7dF9qfBMXrSlaaFFDvV_Yg

@somasatori said in General Video Game Thread:

It’s so funny and very well written.

…Did…did the demons also tell you to write that review? Blink twice if you need holy water.

@MisterBoring I don’t play WoD servers, but I would play that.

@somasatori Yeah, I hate abstract economic systems as well. Fluff needs crunch to support it. Without the crunch, it’s all just “I shot you with my laser. Nuh-uh, because I had my laser deflector field up!”. The only abstract money I have been somewhat OK with was based on cascading dice, where items had a cost and you had to roll over the cost with the die your current money die. If you failed, you still bought it, but you dropped a die size. If it was impossible to roll over the cost (so costs equal to or higher than your current die size), you simply couldn’t buy it. It made you somewhat take into consideration the economics of things. “Hmmm, I have a d10 money die. Do I want to risk buying that cost 8 item?”

@catzilla Who gave you permission to access my MU* TS logs?

Belated reply. Put me in the “prefer the grid” group. I very much dislike off-grid RP rooms. Why even log into a server? You might as well just be RPing on Discord or by email at that point. I am fine with small or large grids, but I prefer location based.

@Cygnus said in Numetal/Retromux:

Will we ever get a WOD game that isn’t run by weirdos?

That’s like asking if we can get a WOD game that isn’t run by humans. This is a weird hobby. All of us are weirdos. You’re only ever going to get weirdos running a MU*.

@Dreampipe How old was the surge protector? I lost some things to a surge that were plugged into a surge protector, looked into it, and found out that the damned things have a lifespan of 3-5 years. After that, it’s just a fancy extension cord.

@MisterBoring said in System for Mech Game:

Not sure about the integrating with Ares part, as I’m a noob to Ares.

• Lancer + Lancer: Battlegroup - In my opinion, this is the new hot mech game. Where the tech in Battletech is a product of its time (the 1980s), Lancer updates that tech stuff to make more sense given current tech (Mechs are 3d printed, people can be backed up onto a hard drive type thing and restored to life if they die) along with a more anime art style.

Awesome game in an awesome setting (especially the Karrakin Trade Baronies) by an awesome creator. Unfortunately, it is probably compatible with FS3. FS3 is a rather unique skill/resolution system that I don’t think is really compatible with most TTRPGs without heavy modification to either the code or the overall TTRPG’s mechanics.

@catzilla That’s clever and a good use of AI for MU* purposes.

Honestly, I am coming more and more around to the idea that all PBs should be custom created art and/or AI generated images. The use of images of real people who didn’t agree to be used for such purposes has been making me more and more uncomfortable over the years.

So, as I was riding home from my Friday happy hour binge after a completely shit week, (God, I hate laypeople who think they can argue law. Which is hypocritical, because I am a layperson, a well trained layperson, but still a layperson who argues law) and I came up with a “rule.” It’s kind of like some states where you have to inform a home invader you’re about to blow their head off if they don’t leave, before you’re allowed to blow their head off. I drunkenly call it the Duty of Informed Consequences. If your character is going to take offense, hold enmity against, try to ruin, whatever another PC because of something they just did or posed, you MUST OOCly inform them that their character has “done fucked up” and give them the chance to retcon, repose, whatever. You do not have to specify what the exact problem is, but you have to go “Hey. You done fucked up. You get one re-do.” After that, if they go “Nah, I am good,” or the try to make a new pose but still do the fucked up thing again, you get to ICly hammer them or at least try to hammer them for their shit.

@Pavel said in World Tone / Feeling:

@Ominous said in World Tone / Feeling:

if the consequence of failure isn’t already clear

I think this point here is often a point of contention. What’s obvious to the person running the story isn’t always obvious to those of us playing the story, especially if it hasn’t been communicated accurately. Sure, some of the responsibility is on the players to ask follow up questions, but I’d really advocate for those telling the story to go that extra half a mile in making hazards and risks more explicit.

Well, my example was from OSR D&D. What I was meaning was cases like “I attack the orc with my longsword.” In that scenario, the player, unless they’re new to D&D, should know the roll and what the consequences of failure are (not hitting said orc). Basically, anything that isn’t a standardized action in the rules should be clarified between the GM and the player. For MU*s, pretty much every action is not standardized, so the GM should always be informing the player what failure looks like. I will note, though, there are cases where there is no GM but failure is still possible. In a L&L game, a PC might make a speech or whatever and staff reviews it later, makes them roll, and decides because they did a terrible job a mob has formed, and this decision takes place obviously after the player has already taken their action. I’m not sure how to address that.

EDIT: Drunken spelling and grammar. Then again, this is a drunken edit, so maybe the spelling and grammar were right the first time.

@real_mirage said in World Tone / Feeling:

I think the issue is so often when the consequences come around those consequences are out of the player’s control. Which can be completely reasonable/logical! But they feel helpless and more easily feel slighted/pissed/unaccepting of the outcome. Especially if there is a hand behind the outcome such as a GM/Staff telling them what happened.

When bad results happen, I think you have to push it back on the player and let them make a choice. I was recently watching Critical Role’s new campaign and their use of their new system Daggerheart and I thought it was perfect for handling the scenario of a bad outcome/consequences in a MU*.

As an OSR GM, when my players tell me what action they want to take, if the consequence of failure isn’t already clear, I try to make it clear and confirm that they still want to take the action.

"Player: My character is going to jump the chasm to get to the other side.

Me: That’s going to be a d20 roll under strength with a -2 for they length of the jump. If you succeed, your character will be on the other side of the chasm. If you fail, your character will fall into the chasm and, while your character can’t determine the exact depth, it’s enough that there is a strong potential for their death. Do you wish to continue?"

GMs should treat action declarations more like hovering over the options in a Paradox Interactive strategy game story event. Tell the player what the odds of success and failure or what die their going roll, the difficulty number or whatever, and whatever bonuses or penalties they have. Tell them what success looks like (because what they’re attempting may not get them what they’re actually after), and tell them what failure looks like.

@real_mirage said in World Tone / Feeling:

Also I want a Grimbright/Nobledark sci-fi/fantasy with mechs and lords and ladies and dragons.

Allow me to introduce you to Lancer. You’ll want the Dune-esque Karrakin Trade Baronies setting. Though, it’s mostly a D&D 4e style game, e.g. a miniatures wargame focused on tactics with very few mechanics for out of combat stuff.

@dvoraen said in World Tone / Feeling:

I never thought I’d see “sex worker” meaning “tax collector” in even a fictional government, but here we are.

Do…do I even want to know what it is they’re collecting as “taxes?” I suspect I would want to refuse any tax refunds.

@Tez said in World Tone / Feeling:

• Everyone loves to see their actions reflected in game-wide updates and announcements. Firan and Arx both featured that to greater or lesser degrees. It’s cooler still in my opinion to see an actual shift of culture or laws. I’ve been working on my long-dreamed generational game where the ability to shift an in-game culture is a mechanic, somewhat modeled off Crusader Kings.

@Pyrephox and I are both hankering for a city-state setting centered around the politicking of the various guilds, noble families, what have you. This sounds like it would work well with those mechanics.

• I like temporary room descriptions that can be updated on public spaces to reflect events that have happened, but sometimes people forget and it loses its impact. Still, I like that as an idea: a grid that updates to reflect actions people have taken.

I have recently taken up looking into the FutureMUD Engine, because I have found that I am more of an RPI guy than a MUSH guy. Anyways, in the engine Creator’s YouTube Video on room building, he talks about how the engine has overlays for zones that are basically different instances of the same zone. While people are playing in one, you can building in the other. Then when you want to switch which one is publicly accessible, it’s just a toggle. In the example he gives, he talks about one zone having an after a disaster overlays that they switched on to replace the normal zone to represent all of the damage down to the area by the disaster. Such a system seems like a great way to manage updates over time that reflect the effects of the PCs actions

@bear_necessities I am surprised you hadn’t encountered it before. It’s been a bit of meme in tabletop gaming since Brighthammer and Midhammer

The grim/noble dark/bright alignment system might be helpful: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/bB0gvqrwjL

I am firmly on the Noble side of settings. I am down for anything on the Bright-Dark setting with slight leaning towards Bright, but I don’t have Grim in me anymore. As @DrQuinn said, if I want Grim I’ll look at the damned window, and I’ve been in that state for about a decade now.

EDIT: After thinking about it more, I’m going to take it back. I’m down for anything but Grimdark. I’ll take Grimbright. Arx felt Grimbright to me.

@Pavel Norm!