#and I think that is why with the exception of 2-3 players (depending on if you count Sophie as a starter or not) our whole bench changed

[the-physicality]

.

[simplydnp]

Do you think the recording of TIT (bc it has to be getting recorded at some point tbh) will be a dvd release or a youtube upload this time around? I forget if Dan said any specific reason why WAD ended up being free on YT, but I feel like after setting that precedent, there's almost no going back. Ofc, there is the precedent of the two actual dnp tours being dvd or YT Red/Premium releases, but do you have any thoughts?

oh anon i'm so happy you asked. bc i did so much research for this about WAD before we knew what would happen with it.

so. the problem with dvds is storage capacity. with TIT being 2 hours, that is a lot of footage to put on a singular dvd at the resolution that they'd currently want to. dvds come in 2 sizes: 4.7 gb and 8.5 gb. you can fit a 2 hr movie onto a single layer (4.7) but any longer, and you need the double layer (8.5). thus, TIT would have to be on a double layer, unless they don't plan on including anything else except the 2 hr recording. a dvd can't play high resolution footage, only standard definition (480p). so there'd be a picture quality difference.

this is where blu-rays come in. they can store and play 1080p footage. they also hold significantly more space (a single layer blu-ray can hold 25 gb, a double 50 gb). part of the trade-off here though is that higher resolution footage takes up more space. a single layer can store 2.25 hr of HD video; a double 3 hrs. they could get away with a single layer, and that includes room for 2 hours of standard definition BTS video.

problem is, not everyone has a blu-ray player (not like everyone has dvd players either). but the main issue is that DVD players won't play blu-rays--and this includes disc drives for laptops and PC's. you need a special external driver to do it.

we'd be wading into contracts and companies being interested in selling physical copies, and given how discs in general are sort of becoming obsolete, i would be surprised if they put it on disc.

our next option would be streaming. i don't really see them wanting to attach it to any larger corporation--especially given they're physical media guys. the thought of just losing something simply because a streaming service doesn't want it anymore, or the company goes under, would be enough to keep them away from that.

people pitched the idea of nebula or dropout, but i don't see them posting a single video on nebula and then nothing else. and since i don't see them as patreon guys, i don't think they'd want to do incentives for subscription style stuff. dropout would be more of a possibility, but they'd probably want to do more with dropout in terms of guest starring before entirely handing their baby over, y'know? like hank did a whole d20 season before he did his special there.

i do think they might just upload it to dapg. genuinely. because of what happened with WAD--both rights wise and precedent wise. but also, could be extremely good for them if they can actually monetize it. their longer videos on dapg do very well, and since WAD happened before TIT was fully ironed out, i bet they've included the prospect of doing so into their scripting, so it has the ability to be monetized on their channel. plus, the desire to make it accessible for everyone (even though they are trying to tour in more countries). depending on how that goes, it may be delayed in being released online.

a lot of technical talk but i am so glad you asked anon, i love logistics discussion!

[intheupside]

What's the secret to Sidney Crosby's success?

Always eat a strawberry PB&J on game day… and have unwavering dedication, unparalleled work ethic, and exceptional talent.

With Sidney Crosby appearing in his 1,200th NHL contest on Saturday in San Jose, I wanted to ask how his game-day routine has evolved in the years since that first one to help keep him playing at such an elite level.

Because as Mike Sullivan said, that’s not an easy thing to do – and it's a testament to Crosby’s drive, his will to win, his desire to be the best, and his willingness to put the time in and make the sacrifices so that he can continue to sustain that type of play.

At first, Crosby laughed good-naturedly – because we all know how superstitious and routine-based the captain is – and half-joked that there might not be much there. Most of it has stayed the same, particularly his on-ice warmup routine heading into puck drop. "Whether it’s preparing for a game or just a typical game day, (my routines) just allow me to feel good about going out there and doing what I need to do," he said.

But there has been a tweak here and there to the captain’s preparations now that he’s 36, particularly when it comes to what he does in the mornings. Unless the Penguins have the day off before a game, the morning skate is always optional – and in recent years, Crosby has chosen to stay off the ice.

“You look to conserve that energy a little bit more,” he said. “As much as I like getting on the ice in the morning, it’s good if you can just take that opportunity to do other things and still get a little bit of sweat – get ready for the night, but still conserve some energy at the same time. It's always a balancing act.”

Instead of skating, Crosby will take his stick and gloves and find a quiet area of the rink to do some solo stickhandling, which helps him loosen up a bit. He’ll also take part in the first soccer game of the day with Bryan Rust, Jake Guentzel, Erik Karlsson, Marcus Pettersson, and Rickard Rakell. Sometimes, Noel Acciari will join them, depending on if they do 3-on-3 or 2-on-2.

“We’re just kicking it around, but it can get pretty intense,” Crosby said before adding with a grin, “Sometimes, I wonder if I expend more energy in soccer than I would in morning skate. It just depends on the day, maybe.”

After grabbing lunch to go, when he gets home in the afternoons, Crosby’s nap has gotten shorter as he’s gotten older. “I used to sleep like, two and a half hours when I was younger. But a little harder to do that now,” he smiled. But Crosby still isn’t a big coffee drinker, since natural adrenaline gets the job done when it comes to waking up. “I feel like I get pretty amped up, so I don't need that. I’ve had some caffeine before, and I don’t think it’s good for me,” Crosby laughed.

When it comes to the food Crosby fuels himself with, on a game day the players have the same menu available to them both at home and on the road for their breakfast, lunch, and pregame meal/snack, so he sticks to his routine for those … down to the strawberry PB&J that HBO filmed him making during their 24/7 Penguins/Capitals Road to the Winter Classic series.

But Crosby doesn’t eat as much steak the night before games compared to his early years in the league, especially on the road. “That changed a little bit. Other than that, as long as it's somewhat healthy, I just try to make sure I get a good meal,” Crosby said.

There’s obviously a lot more that goes on behind the scenes, both inside and outside of a game day, that Crosby does to set himself up for success.

“All the subtle things he does – for me, that's the most impressive aspect of his overall body of work. A lot of it goes unseen,” Sulivan said. “That's why I've always said on so many occasions that it's not by accident this guy's as good as he is. Yeah, he's talented, he's gifted, and all of those things, but he maximizes every opportunity that he has to be at his best. I think that commitment, in my experience of being around the game, has been unmatched by any other player I've seen.”

And that’s because Crosby’s passion for the sport is something else that’s remained the same.

“I love it just as much as I did Game 1,” he said. “It’s a lot of hockey, and just grateful I’ve been able to play this long.”

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Wibta if I told my friend, upfront, I do not want his toxic partners in my campaign party without specifying why?

Everyone in this is 22+

So I (22NB) have been working on a campaign for at least 3 years now. I used dnd as a base and built off it to make my own world, races, mechanics, massive maps, religions, languages etc. This will be a massive campaign with highlights on religion and dealing with gods as a mortal etc and I've put so many hours into it it isn't even funny. I mean shit, I picked music for different areas depending on if it's day or night.

I made a discord server to house most of the basic info my players would need from table rules to the races and beyond. I mainly had the idea that the party would consist of my dmnpc guide (he doesn't fight or break the game, his only action during fighting is the help action and guide the party. Im not an asshole dm who makes my guide the protagonist. If its important, death doesn't really exist in my campaign due to demi-god race stuff, the party just gets sent back to its last save point with my grumpy man guide saying I told you so.), my partner's character (24f)(she dosent get preferential treatment. We've been together for 8 yrs) and my best bud's character (22tm. Been friends for 8 yrs). I never said I specifically only wanted my partner and friend to be party members but it was implied due to the fact I never invited my friends partners to the discord. I just don't really have many friends and this is the first time I've ever dm-ed period, let alone dming my own homebrew. We're all pretty novice newbie players and I think it'll be fun for us to stumble through the game together in a much less complicated form of DND without seasoned players "um actually-"ing us the whole time.

My partner is excited to try and my friend is ecstatic and about 2 years into development (last November) he asked if I could let his partners join the campaign. There're a few issues with this beyond me not really knowing them and not wanting to run a large party (it's hard for seasoned dms to run a 4+ party, let alone I, a fresh infant of a dm). My friend has 3 partners of his (he has 4 total) he wants to introduce to my campaign, this includes (fake names): Mel(24nb), Sandy (mid 20s f) and Rue (23 tw). I have issues with each individual present and it all stems from me sitting in on a different campaign for a single session. See, my friend has his own campaign (much smaller, follows one story in one town on an island instead of my entire continent) and he tried to run it by those three partners (and 2 friends. Names and genders unnecessary, they were our age) while I quietly sat in the session (it was over a discord call, were all in differnet states except for me and my partner) and watched it run just to see how my friend dmed and how the groups chemistry was. They had a 3 hour session.

It was the most socially awkward, intense and passive aggressive 3 hours of my life. Mel barely paid attention and as a result, had to have things explained to them when they weren't listening. They would then would talk over the person explaining things, pick apart their language and get irritated to the point of telling them (mostly rue) to shut up. Mel was quite litterally looking for a fight constantly. Sandy was relatively quiet but also not paying attention and talking over other players actions. She also would come up with random "icks " and one minute was telling everyone to keep all sexual jokes and comments to themselves because it made her uncomfortable then the next said her character was literally blowing a guy in the back of tavern.(btw this is not a fetish campaign or anything, it was out of left field for everyone and my friend shut it down because of that) Rue was the "uhm actually" type who pointed out inaccuracies, broken rules and lack of realism (it's a pirate fantasy magic campaign. There isn't much to focus on realism). Rue was clearly the most seasoned player but the nicest all things considered. She was mostly just condescending and treated my friend like he was stupid for not having every single detail mapped out. The party also had 2 of his friends but they were just as quiet as me and also either not paying attention or listening to the shit show. The session litterally ended with Sandy and Mel having the tiniest argument, mel pulling a crying running away anime protagonist "I'm sorry for being just a fucking terrible person! Ill leave so you all can have fun!!" Then hanging up all dramatically. Safe to say, their party was literally every red flag I was warned about by dm guide content.

My friend then came to me and said they broke up with Sandy that night but were still friends and I was still in shock from the sheer toxicity. Did I mention I had only met Sandy and the two other friends that night? And had only spoken over the phone to Mel once in a group call and met rue in person 2 times? Safe to say, I do not want litterally any of his partners in my party for various reasons and I feel as if just one of them at my table would make my patience end on sight. I consider myself to be very flexible and want to do my very best to be a fair but strong dm who doesn't get their story absolutely trampled by players intentionally trying to ruin my story and watch me scramble (mel and sandy openly did that). These players would disrespect my table rules for fun. Even my friend said they never respect him and his story as a DM and he won't run a game with them again and he thinks they'll respect my rule? As a baby dm? Nah fam.

He wants to bring rue and Mel into my campaign and I haven't answered him yet. I've mostly dodged the question with "I'm not sure how big of a party I feel comfortable dming for, I'll know later down the line." And he's asked again, still curious. I don't wanna judge my friends relationships because he and Mel have been together for 5 years and rue has been with him for 2 (they were together previously before rue came out and rue tried to control and physically abuse him. Thats another reason I don't want her in my campaign. Fuck abusers) but the toxicity they would bring would probably poison me. If I bring these things up, idk how my friend would react and he can be a bit... Extreme when he gets defensive. Cutting people off permanently at a moments notice then coming back crying or confused. He has BPD which explains it but I don't obviously wanna say " your partners are low-key toxic and abit abusive and I don't want them at my table or in my life for the most part and although I love you bro(/platonic) I do not want living blowfish at my table that you might not even speak to tomorrow.".

Obviously I wouldn't word it like that but mainly I just plan on saying "Ive never dmed before and I'm nervous about the functionality of my campaign so I want to keep my party nice, small and intimate and only between you, me and my partner for now. Maybe we can incorporate them later." Without mentioning all the... Other stuff and side stepping if he's like "but what if just mel/rue?". Me, my partner and him have been friends awhile so it's not like he'll feel like he's third wheeling or anything and I get he wants his partners to take in his interest, I just do not want them at my table and I wanna know if I'm a dick if I dont specify why and avoid the question. I dont wanna rock the boat and hurt my friends feelings but I'm not gonna ruin the first full run of my pet project so a passive aggressive asshole and a know it all almost abuser can participate. He deserves to know why his partners can't join and I'm not technically lieing, even if they were cool, I don't know if I'd want them there. But they definitely aren't cool and that just seals the coffin for me.

(obviously I'm wording this in a comedic way but everything here actually happened and I mostly just wanna focus on supporting my friend despite his choices. I do not have to like his partners to tolerate them but it's my table and my years of work, if i dont want them there, they dont get to be there. I'm just wondering if I'm a dick for kinda lieing kinda not if I don't give the actual reasons for why I don't want them at my table and never plan on allowing them there. I would happily accommodate 1 or 2 more people at my table in this case if they were close to me like my sister or older brother but I dont know his partners well at all and even though they are passive to me, I dont feel safe around people like that. Wibta?)

What are these acronyms?

[tarbuchyloewenthal]

i loved and hated dragon age: the veilguard???

apologies for the extended rant i'm about to go on.

i loved being back in thedas after 10 years, and i loved that final scene with solas. the emotional beats hit just right in that moment.

i loved to absolutely annihilate groups of enemies with arcane bomb popping off every five seconds.

i loved almost all of my companions' arcs. they had so many moments of genuine pathos.

yet all these barely made up for my growing frustration throughout the game at the dialogue and dialogue system, the repetitive quest design, and narrative focus.

this game shares pretty much all the features that i hated when i first played mass effect 3 all those years ago. from the opening of the game skipping everything except the most minimal story set up in favor of bombastic cinematics to the extensive use of auto dialogue taking away the feeling that i had control of my player character.

bioware has apparently gotten into the bad habit of thinking the set up at the beginning of a story is unimportant. i hated starting off with a bang in mass effect 3. i hated it in inquisition. and i hate it now in veilguard. to me it feels like narrative malpractice to forgo the most vital part of the story. only getting a slickly animated cutscene to set the scene in the story instead of any actual attempt to know rook and their relationships with varric, harding, and the world at large really put me off.

the large amounts of auto dialogue only exacerbated my frustration. mass effect 1 (and 2 to a slightly lesser extent) made the dialogue wheel and voiced protagonist feel like an actual evolution of their previous dialogue systems in kotor and jade empire (and origins even though that came out after). i felt like i had actual input. conversations flowed like rpg conversations had always flowed. but in veilguard conversations feel way too passive, only needing my input when the game wanted me to add a small dash of emotional flavor to the conversation or the ever present binary choice for major story moments.

that's not to say bioware didn't write in a lot of reactivity. there's an absurd amount of unique dialogue depending on lineage and faction choices, but i, as the player character, never felt like i was in the drivers seat for any of it.

it made my rook feel completely disconnected from the story they were ostensibly the protagonist of, like they manifested into existence mere seconds before showing up to the bar in minrathous.

and the quests, individually well paced, all mainly followed the same formula of walk down a path, grab loot from side paths, fight some enemies, and listen to your companions talk all the while. part of why i like rpgs is the feeling that i'm inhabiting a world that revolves around more than combat and puzzles for loot. even if that's mostly what video game rpgs boil down to at the end of the day, it's the illusion of that which sells me on the game world. when all your quests involve that same formula, it flattens the game world to nothing but a combat arena. which, to be fair, i felt was a problem all the way back in mass effect 2, as well.

i also didn't like how all the lore reveals flatten nearly all the setting's mysteries down to solas and the evanuris. they were really neat in isolation, but taken together they kind of hollowed out the world.

ok, so i'm tiring even myself out by now, so i'll just mention in passing the relentless and unnecessary expository dialogue, as if the writing team didn't trust the cinematics team to get across literally any information (i'm looking at you bellara on the approach to d'meta's crossing).

this rant gives off the impression that i didn't really enjoy veilguard, but i did. it's just that the things it does well are what you expect from bioware, and the things i find issue with have become a bit of an unfortunate pattern from the studio. the game was so good, but it could have been so much better.

[homestuckreplay]

kill them with bladekindness

(page 575-586)

9/3/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: It’s The Background Texture

9/4/2009 Wheel Spin: Long Pesterlog Verdict: Dave Should Pester John About This

Not much actually happens in these pages, just picking things up and putting them down, so I re-read all Dave’s POV sections so far to experience his uninterrupted slow descent into puppet madness. And it was actually very enlightening and is probably a good way of re-reading for character development/analysis now that character switches are happening so regularly.

But today I was just trying to figure out how the fuck hash map works.

Dave brags to John a couple times about being a super hardcore genius sylladex user, and he’s exaggerating, but not totally lying. As well as already having his strife specibus allocated, on p.576 he does a smooth box catch after seeing the fireworks ejected out the corner of his eye, and on p.579 he shows off by intentionally ejecting and then dodging about ten shurikens. Even though there’s way easier ways he could have accomplished that – such as GENTLY GATHERING (5) the shurikens to free up card 5, then taking the box.

Except, it makes sense if we assume Dave is practicing. In the past we’ve seen Dave mess with his sylladex in his room and in the bathroom, but this is the first time he’s used it in the public areas of the house – and with the Dude Dodge and demonstrations of using different words for the same item and dealing with collisions, it’s almost like he’s putting on a performance. On p.386, he tells John: ‘you should look into weaponizing your sylladex. my bro is always getting on my case about it but man its not as easy as it sounds.’

We’ve now learned that Dave’s bro stocks the kitchen with weapons, which could be there specifically for sylladex practice. Dave’s bro, who it’s been implied also uses hash map, could have been practicing the shuriken-dodge maneuver for years, to use if he ever gets into a real fight. (Or is there a league? Is sylladex usage a sport and Dave’s bro is like a former high school football player who’s trying to train up a younger family member to relive their glory days)?

These kitchen violence pages pair well with Dave reading the Midnight Crew on p.329-331. ‘A familiar feeling stirs. That feeling is overwhelming, soul-blackening rage. It's the sort of rage that'll make a man feel totally justified in sporting an unnecessarily elaborate assortment of fancy blades’ is a line referring to Spades Slick, but Dave lives with a man who sports an unnecessarily elaborate assortment of fancy blades, so I wonder what soul-blackening rage Bro is feeling and why. It makes me think about how a hyperviolent character in a piece of media can be very fun and likeable, but that same trait in a real person, especially one you live with, is terrifying, and certainly gets different reactions from Dave.

Page 585 shows some different options for hash map point scoring, and I wonder which is most user friendly. Scrabble points is fun, but only helpful if you’ve memorized the Scrabble score system. 2-point consonants and 1-point vowels, which Dave has been using, is pretty easy to calculate numbers for, but certain cards seem like they come up a lot more than others. A short, 3-5 letter word will probably occupy cards 5 through 9, and it gets harder to fill up those low numbered cards when calculating in a hurry. The system where A=1, B=2, C=3, etc, probably solves that issue, but involves working with much bigger numbers, which (if playing TTRPGs has taught me anything) lots of people struggle with. A good hash map needs to be easy to calculate and leave items naturally well distributed among cards.

The most effective hash map, I think, wouldn't depend on function but would have a standard set of 20-30 items that you regularly captchalogue and know the values for, along with ways of retrieving them. So when leaving the house, I could have my KEYS in card 6 and use them to OPEN the front door, plus my WALLET in card 0 to EXCHANGE MONEY for goods and services, but when I go home I can switch them out for a BAKING TRAY (6) that I could use to COOK dinner, and a LAPTOP (0) to easily BROWSE the internet. (If I wanted to leave the house with my laptop, I could captchalogue it as a PORTABLE DEVICE (2) for SURFING THE WEB). Getting to know these items really well, and the ways they might be used as weapons, would probably be way easier than just figuring it out as you go.

Of course, when losing a sylladex battle, you can just hit that eject button for a near guaranteed win. It’s possible this counts as a forfeit or is just bad conduct, but with a sylladex full of shurikens it might just be worth it. ‘detect collisions,’ in this context, feels like using training wheels on a bike or those railings over the bowling lane gutters. You should do it to learn, but some assholes will look down on it, and it’s totally not allowed in competitions.

I also noted on this reread how it’s very common for Dave to have the tiny flashing exclamation point above his head when he gets a sudden shock. This might have happened once or twice with John or Rose, I’d need to reread more to check, but it’s definitely a lot more common with Dave. He could be easily startled, it could be an artistic way of showing his emotion when he wouldn’t show it on his face like other characters do, or this could be where Dave stores his unused exclamation points that he’s too cool to put in chat messages.

Finally. I love the bit on p.581 when the picture of Sweet Bro or Hella Jeff gets knocked off the fridge and slowly floats to the floor.

[freakinator]

Freakinator freakinator freakinator. I'm shaking you. I'm really interested in your opinion on Wemmbu's video when you're done watching it.

hiii im finally done watching the vid so heres my Honest Review™

im sure a lot of ppl hate the length but i personally dont mind it cause pacing is really important to me (too slow i get bored and antsy, too fast i get bored and overwhelmed) and with the kind of storytelling wemmbu does i think it works pretty well, can it be divided into less intimidating time chunks? yes and honestly he probs should do that ngl lol like theres some downtime moments where cutting it would be acceptable imo and its not like unstable where you risk having the overall story flow break if you cut a vid in half, will i mind if it stays this way tho? not really and i could always come back to it later if i had to stop watching for whatever reason

also the latter half of the vid was more interesting imo cause of the fact that his pov is a lot more unique there which i think wemmbu was aware of considering he put less cuts and narration for the later days vs the earlier ones ---- tho it could have also just been because the more interesting parts of the earlier half are more spaced out and context-dependent compared to the latter

i think most of the seeds for how wemmbu became the menace that he is today were planted After his hiatus so i wasnt surprised at there not being a lot of ✨foreshadowing✨ shown in the video, but the few that Were there were really juicy such as wemmbus zambook-related shenanigans, wemmbu referring to the wemmbu head above the frat house as a parasitic infection seeping into the roof which pangi notes as being like him living rent free in their heads, and wemmbu saying that revenge has consumed him already after zam said not to let it consume him

i said it in one of my liveblogs but i think its fascinating how trusting wemmbu is, like youd expect him not to be considering the kind of person he is and the kinds of things he likes to do but he it seems he just. wholeheartedly believes the other lsers wouldnt make his life miserable if they could which is interesting considering even at that point he was considered as one of the serverwide opps, he also extends that trust onto their skill level ie trusting other ppls decisions before his own and thinking that other ppl are more skilled than they are

i think its interesting how his tussle with the empire was a little less... direct??? for lack of a better word compared to his teammates, like they fought sure but he has yet to have a 1 on 1 problem with any of them with the exception of jepexx who his problem with is just that he combatlogged and even then that conflict was resolved really quickly ---- wait nvm i just remembered the daycare fight lmao, but even then that was less an empires moment and more a loserduo moment tbh, otherwise all his conflict with the empire has been pretty team-based rather than individual-based

im a big fan of how he kept coming across zam considering theyve got basically nothing to do with each other at this point and yet hes still one of the more consistent presences in wemmbus vid which is something of note considering all the other consistent presences in his life are either his teammates or his enemies (mainly mapicc), not even pangi is a consistent presence despite the fact hes also a spawn camper (could just be a timezone thing tho)

im also a big fan of the wemmflower, shoutout wemmbus inclination towards tulips lol. im curious how its doing rn tho, like i doubt any player touched it cause its quite the niche area but at the same time it Is located in an unlit cave full of mobs such as creepers so it getting destroyed is a non-zero chance (hoping it stays safe forever tho)

overall i gotta say im a big fan and also that was p much what i expected out of a wemmbu lifesteal vid lol, granted the fact it was 3 hours long was a lil unexpected but also that explains why it took him like 2-3 months to edit it

[slotumn]

I've said before that I like Silver Snow as the bittersweet for Fódlan/outright bitter outcome for Byleth, and because I love making my faves go through it, here are ways I would personally make it Even Worse™

1. The Eagles all side with Edelgard by default.

Most of them have strong familial/financial/political connections to Adrestia, and that doesn't change just because they personally found Edelgard's methods pre-TS unsavory or w/e. Defecting isn't that easy, and defecting after hanging around within Adrestia for 5 years (as most of the Eagles apparently do during SS, according to their bio...?) really isn't easy! You can recruit them back on maps depending on support levels, but by default you start post-TS only with Church members (+AW, maybe)

So yeah already you get Byleth having to fight, and potentially kill, even more of their former students. And if you do manage to recruit some of the students back, it's repeatedly emphasized how bad the risk is for them; they defected from the Imperial army and if Byleth's army loses this war they're 100% getting executed as traitors.

2. You get the battle at Gronder Field, but it's a defend/survive map

Basically the situation is that Byleth's army gets news of the tristate clash at Gronder, and they go there in an attempt to curb the bloodshed. But it doesn't work, and Byleth can only watch as they beat each other to death.

You also get to see in this battle just how badly the war damaged the continent and its people, because the three nations are insanely hateful and bigoted to each other as they fight. People who were former schoolmates are straight up calling each other subhuman beasts who should be exterminated, and it hits Byleth and the player that even after the war is over, that's what you will have to pick the pieces up from.

The "subhuman beasts" rhetoric is also foreshadowing of how the Agarthans may have been involved in stoking the ethnic/national bigotry and tensions— although the lords also bear responsibility for letting all that fester to propel their own goals and/or maintain power.

3. Full flashback/cutscene that actually shows the massacre at Zanado at some point after rescuing Rhea

I think one of the problems around the writing of Rhea/Nabateans in the game is that despite the Zanado massacre being very important to the game's worldbuilding and lore as well as characterization, the way you find out about is very underwhelming. And if I remember correctly you don't even hear it in SS, just VW, as infodump. I think actually showing the event would both make SS stand out from other routes, and do it justice as Byleth's route by connecting everything about how they came to be.

If you put the scene in before Shambhala, hearing the Agarthans call Nabateans subhuman/beast in the flashback also connects the dots from what you heard at Gronder, and further solidifies why Byleth has to go kick Slither ass. They've not only ruined Fódlan society from Zanado massacre to now in their arrogant, selfish pursuit of power, they were in fact directly responsible for the worst things Byleth had to go through.

4. Proper coronation scene for Byleth right before the final battle

Again, if Silver Snow is the Byleth route, I think they should get to have this one. Edelgard gets her coronation scene pre-TS, Dimitri gets his return to Fhirdiad scene, and Claude... okay he's kind of an exception because his coronation would be in Almyra but yeah. This would be good for a couple reasons.

First, coronating Byleth being the last thing Rhea does before she possibly dies is a good way to wrap up her character arc, especially if you get a CG that's a clear parallel to Byleth sitting on the throne in White Clouds. Byleth isn't Sothis, but Byleth has accepted their role to lead Fódlan to a better future as all of them wanted.

Second, it's more emphasis on the bittersweetness, because while Byleth did agree to be king, a large part of why they did is because there is literally no one else suitable left. They killed Edelgard, Hubert, and possibly other Eagles with their own hands. Most of the Lions and Deer died screaming bloody murder at Gronder. Rhea's health is in decline. The war shredded the administrative capabilities and functions of the entire damn continent, and Byleth has to pick up the scraps.

A good way to visually represent Byleth being the only one left would be having a CG where they're standing alone in their royal robes (Enlightened One outfit) with Aymr, Areadbhar, and Failnaught hung up on the walls. That's the legacy of the three kids they met that fateful day: three weapons that maim and kill, three razed (former) countries, and countless dead.

It also gets even more tragic that the first thing you have to do after becoming king is (possibly) killing Rhea. Like holy shit Byleth genuinely cannot catch a break.

5. Unique post-final battle scene instead of S-support scene if Byleth doesn't choose anyone to S-support

Actually I think this would be good in all routes, not just SS, but again if SS is Byleth's route then I think this would make the narrative the strongest there. Basically, we get to see a cutscene that hints at what Byleth does on their own when everything is over.

It doesn't need to be too explicit about what they get up to— just the hint that, despite everything, time marched on, and despite everything, life continued. Maybe even a book ends thing where they wake up from dreaming about all the events that happened through the game (Awakening-style lmao)

Tl;dr Silver Snow could have gone much harder if it let Byleth be even more miserable

[galedekarios]

First of all, thank you for your never-ending dedication to creating content about our beloved Wizard.

After having played much of Act I at my best friend's house, part of me is eager to try the game in its entirety and experience the romance with Gale at my own pace, but after seeing your very accurate analysis of the lack of content and the disparity in terms of his character's story, I was quite disappointed. Rose, do you think I should buy the game considering the plot hole that Larian reinforced? I'd be lying if I said Gale isn't the reason I want to get a copy of BG3, as silly as that might be. I trust your opinion, that's why I'm asking.

you're very welcome, thank you for your message! 🖤

i don't feel comfortable saying what you should be spending your money on.

what i can say from my own personal experience is that i still had fun playing the game, despite my many criticism of the game itself and larian as a company.

the combat is very fun to me, so if that is something that you also had fun with while you played act 1 then that could be a plus for you. if you are playing on pc, the mods that are out there also add a lot of variety and quality of life stuff.

i think what is important to keep in mind from my personal perspective as someone who has played early access and the full release of the game: act 1 is the most polished part about the game. there are no buts or ifs here. it's where the most interactions happen, between you, your companions and the world around them. it's where most of the secret areas are to be explored and where many quests, small and big, happen.

i'm saying this because act 1 can't be used as a fair metric of what to expect from the rest of the game.

act 1 has been polished largely by early access player feedback over several years. the other acts didn't have that advantage. act 2 is still good because the atmosphere is great and ketheric is an amazing antagonist, but it lacks all those little secrets you can find and the quests there are minimal. i also still maintain my opinion that act 3 is an unstructed narrative mess and one that i doubt will ever be fixed, unlike what larian did for dos2 with the definitive edition. in both of these acts interactions with the companions grow very rare (with the exception of as*trion across all 3 acts and shadowheart in act 2), the quests are often bugged, and the choices you make just... cease to matter most of the time.

if you are only interested in gale's story, i might actually advocate waiting for a sale if you have the patience to spare. because sadly, the reality is depending on which companions you prefer, with larian, you do get less content for the same money. larian does those sales very rarely, but i've seen it happen. so i would wait until the game drops in price. i've seen a sale recently which dropped the price to something around 40-50 bucks for the standard edition, which is still expensive but i think more justified.

[shephar]

It came to me in a vision (hah).

Furina (Genshin Impact, what else did you expect at this point) x Persona 3 (Reload, specifically).

It's under the cut, seriously what do you expect. Spoilers for P5's Black Mask, and P3 in general, and the end of P2

Warnings: Canon-typical suicidal imagery, death, the everlooming concept of death being inevitable and unstoppable even with supercool magic powers : )

"Come! Typhon!"

Furina's a special case in terms of Persona Users, she's much like the Black Mask in that she has two Personae, except she's not a Wild Card, Furina's just fucked up.

Her main, damage dealing Persona is Oceanus, the Greek Titan of Seas(hah) and Waters. This form mainly uses Aquas*, Mudo/Ei, and Buff skills. Oceanus favors Attack and Speed.

Her secondary, support Persona is Poseidon, the Greek god of the Sea. This one uses Aquas*, Hama/Kou, and healing skills. Poseidon favors Defense and SP, having higher HP and SP stats than Oceanus.

*Aquas is actually a damage type from the Persona 1 and 2 games, which was later taken out for reasons I didn't know.

Side note, the Bless and Curse skills are blatantly just in reference to the Ousia and Pneuma blocks in Fontaine.

"Well, I'm going to die anyway, so why not join SEES?"

Furina, because I hate myself, is basically just dying throughout the story of P3. In the story it's theorized that it's because she has the two Personae and that normal, non-Wild Cards normally aren't able to handle more than one Persona at a time*.

However, that's completely incorrect the player will learn during her S.Link, she has two Personae because she's just fucked up and possibly because she's dying**.

*I HC this came to be because of the world split after P2 and thus the people in general left their original souls behind, only leaving with unknowingly a fragment of themselves after the Split.

**I've thought about what would happen if a P3 Persona User was literally just dying, completely unrelated to their Persona, and I've thought that they just get stronger, in this AU it may or may not have affected her ability to summon two Personae.

Or, maybe, the knowledge that even if shooting herself with the Evoker doesn't kill her, she will die due to whatever illness she has anyway. Who knows : ).

"Furina, a third year at Gekkoukan High, suffers from an unknown illness."

Her ultimate Persona is Odysseus. I was going to do Focalors but that's obvious so I didn't. Odysseus, instead of having Bless or Curse skills, has stronger Buff and Healing skills, like P5R's Neo Cadenza but it also heals 15 SP.

Odysseus has a high SP stat but lacks HP, instead favoring hitting incredibly hard with Aquas skills and making sure not to die with their Dia skills.

"Things are getting interesting! Let the show go on!"

Her Arcana is The Actor, which is much like the Jester in P4 in that it's another name for the Fool, in this AU, at least. Or the Star, depending on which you like more.

Her Tarot card is meant literally in that she's putting on an act of being happy all the time, because, you know, she's dying and fighting literal monsters from hell itself.

She's putting on a Persona, you could say. I'll see myself out-

"So what! If the world ends either way, I'm going out fighting. I won't keel over like an animal!"

When the Choice during Christmas comes around, she's very vocal and ready to fight Nyx even before anyone else gets the chance to contemplate it. She's been fighting for a happy ending her entire life, so of course she's going to fight even when it's hopeless.

If the player chooses to kill Ryoji, even after she loses her memory the S.Link will be permanently reversed unless you reload (hah) or do NG+

To her, not putting up a fight when both outcomes are equally terrible makes not a lick of sense.

"Truthfully, I thought Nyx would be... A lot scarier?"

Choosing to fight Nyx Avatar is how her Persona is evolved, her will to fight is fully realized.

"I feel a little stronger, but I think it's the adrenaline talking?"

The Ultimate Persona of the Actor Arcana is Focalors.

"It's strange, it feels like this year flew by. What... What did I do this year, anyway?"

She doesn't remember the Dark Hour immediately, however she remembers quicker than most. This is because she is Just Like That, AKA her natural affinity for both Curse and Bless/Light and Dark elements and her dual Persona is what makes her just a little less susceptible to her mind being messed with than the others.

She remembers after the P3 Protagonist, but a day or two before the other party members, basically.

"Close your eyes, we'll be here when you wake up."

Extras:

She is banned from the kitchen.

Her S.Link is night time only, and it's unlockable fairly quickly, not requiring any Social Stats, even raising the players Social Stats so they're optimal playthrough for Orpheus Telos isn't interrupted.

If her S.Link is done before completing Akinari's, they have an interaction where they chat about dying at a young age. Teehee.

She dies like a week after the Protagonist.

This took six hours since I'm working and easily distracted.

[samueldays]

Another aside from reading PTHCE and the Honest Plea Charm (TLDR: roll to prove honesty) is thinking about the difficulty of getting lie detection rolls to work in a game system. Insight, Sense Motive, Judge Intentions, or whatever you call it has some issues.

One issue that the GM calling for a roll leaks information, and a player seeing the result of his Insight dice leaks more.

This can be somewhat suppressed by the GM rolling secretly on behalf of the player characters, but that has other issues with agency, especially if the characters have some optional skill buff that the players should be choosing whether to use. (It's also more stuff for the GM to remember, that the players would usually remember better.) If the skill buff costs a resource to use, secretly spending that resource for them is unfortunate interaction, asking whether they want to spend it leaks info again!

Another approach is that players decide when to express doubt and can roll Insight at any NPC statement, which reduces leakage but now you have the problem of depending on player skill which might fail to roll at what was supposed to be an obvious lie that the more-skilled character should catch.

So ordinary rolling seems to me the least bad of several basic options, and can be mitigated somewhat by the GM calling for insight rolls regarding honest statements to reduce the information content of calling for a roll.

Which brings me to my second issue: how much information should the roll reveal about where you are in a 2x2 grid of possible outcomes? The speaker is lying or honest, and the PC rolled well (enough to detect a lie) or badly on the Insight check.

Quadrant 1 (speaker is lying, PC rolled well) should reveal a lie for what it is. What should the GM have in the other quadrants?

The simple option is that all 3 other quadrants are simply "You sense no lies". This seems somewhat uninformative, but I think it sucks the least, and the diagram is going to be a helpful reference for explaining the complexities of why.

Consider this layout of possible comments from the GM.

Each entry makes intuitive sense on its own as spoken, but the combination results in a situation where the utterance from quadrant 4 is the one that carries a meaning of honesty - you do know, because only when listening to an honest person will you hear "you don't know"! Vice versa, the "definitely a reliable guy" utterance is ambiguous.

(Insert discourse on OOC knowledge and metagaming. Even with goodwill, it's hard to play along with pretending to believe lies and keeping track thereof.)

So having GM utterances mean the opposite sucks. What else can we do?

Well, if a player suspects a lie where there is none, what is the bar for rolling well or badly against an honest statement? Maybe we should just have that column be vague for entries 2 and 4, since the roll was grinding at nothing.

Except... what do we now put in (3)? If it's the same thing, we're back to the original plan. If it's something else, then that something else leaks the fact of an attempted lie.

So having 2+3 match doesn't work, and having 2+4 match doesn't work. They can't all differ, or the roll will be pointless. What about having 3+4 match, and quadrant 2 is something else? Rolling well gives true information about lies or honesty, rolling badly gives you "unclear" regardless of the speaker's intent.

This creates a very odd situation where no amount of skilled lying can ever be mistaken for a definitely honest statement inside the mechanics, because a honest statement has a unique possible outcome in quadrant (2) that lies cannot duplicate.

And now we're back to the question of what constitutes "rolling well" on Insight checks against an honest statement. What promotes your outcome from quadrant 4 to quadrant 2?

If it's for example DC 15 in D&D-speak, you roll a 16 and get told "you don't know" because the liar rolled 18 to lie, then you do know where you are: Quadrant 3.

Thus my resigned suggestion that only quadrant 1 should be distinguished from the other three, which are identical.

Honest Plea will be a special case to me, "convincing" people that you are really honest in a way which is mechanically more similar to magical mental influence than to detecting truth/lies.

[oddvanilla]

Im looking to get into football. Your the only person i know whos into it. Whats some stuff you think is important to know?

OMG OMG OMG AAAA I LOVE YOU SM *drops down to knees*

OKAY LISTEN...YOU WONT UNDERSTAND FOOTBALL IF YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THE RULES!! YOU WONT BE ABLE TO FIND NEYMAR ROLLING FUNNY IF YOU DIDNT UNDERSTAND WHATS A PENALTY AND WHY EVERYONE WANTS ONE SOO BAD

Cough cough visual representation ^

ILL TRY TO EXPLAIN TO YOU AS MUCH AS YOU NEED TO KNOW AS A BEGINNER LMAO

Okay so uh,, every team is made up of 11 players. 1 goalkeeper—a goalkeeper is like someone who stands at the goal net trying to not let the rival team score,, but you can just call them a goalie in slang!!! Depending on your formation, aka how you organise the rest of the players, you might have different numbers of defenders or strikers or middlefielders. Defenders are people near the goalkeeper trying to not let the opponent get past them and score, just like a goalkeeper, except the goalkeeper can hold the ball with their hands and throw it around (but according to FIFA rules, aka the Federation Internationale de Football Association who basically organise anything football, have like a 6 second rule on how long you can hold thr ball) AND ALSO. there's something called a box.

THE box is basically your limit on how far the goalkeeper can hold the ball to. Like once they get outside that box they need to put it back on the ground and kick it like any other player because you can't just be overpowered and hold it and run scoring a goal to the other side like you're playing basketball. Also YES goalkeepers CAN get out of that box area and play normally but that's like close to impossible just because you can doesn't mean you should...your goal is very vulnerable. Also the box is where we also do penalties which I'll get to in a second

Anyways,, besides defenders there's something called a middle fielder, staying at the middle of your side of the field. Obviously you saw that photo the stadium is split into 2 for 2 teams, each team has their own side and basically going into your rival's side is a counter attack, you're about to go score a goal and stuff. But the person who does the scoring is called a striker, basically your job is to make it through your opponent's defense and SHOOT into the goal. pretty lit tbh. To be a striker you need to be PRETTY fast to get through defense,, and have very good shooting skills (obviously) and probably a lot of training..

Random stock image for example of a line up,, goalie in yellow at the GOAL, above that is the defense, and above that is the middle, and the ones at the top are strikers/wingers

now for my favourite part:

Imagine you're a striker or whatever and while trying to score your rival's defense tackles you into the floor. Usually that's fine because hello?? That's their job?? BUT sometimes when it's very dangerous that it caused an injury or actually aggressive you get either 1) a yellow card, like a warning. If you get 2 of these in the same match you're out and suspended for this match. Or 2) a red card. Just a straight exit and thank you. Your tackle was so dangerous I'm afraid you don't need a warning. And in most cases, 3) a penalty.

Just you and the goalkeeper pretty much and you're so close to the net but it's also hard because the goalkeeper can play mind games and just catch it... THERE'S ALSO OTHER STUFF LIKE FREE KICKS AND OFFSIDE RULE THATS COMPLICATED SO YOU MIGHT NEED TO WATCH A VIDEO INSTEAD..but players wise like there's many footballers legends so let's just avoid that because I'm not doing the Messi or Ronaldo debate today. But for goodness sake just watch 1 video and you'll understand it easily.. favourite club and favourite player comes later when you learn game strategies and stuff🙏🙏

anyways. DID YOU KNOW THAT'S MY FAVOURITE QUESTION???? IM SO EXCITED I HOPE YOU LIKE THE SPORT I NEED FOOTBALL FRIEBDS DUDE

[moose-mousse]

I work for insane people

So… I started work a few months ago and...

I keep being impressed with corporations lowering my expectations.

Like. EVERY time I think "Surely, this is as incompetent as it gets".

The boss is nice, the workers are nice, every PERSON is great so far. But the firm is just… fucked in ways that makes it hard to not scream with laughter.

It is like working in the ministry of silly walks by Monty Python. Insane things are happening, and everyone just acts like it is normal.

A dude was stating to someone else near me, that despite the costumers saying they did not want it, his code that crashed the application once a day, was NECESSARY, because writing code without memory leaks in C is basically impossible. Like… I just have all these small moments of insanity. Completely disconnected from each-other

My boss showing me and the other 3 new hires the coffee room, where a big screen proudly shows that not a single software product have 100% code coverage… as in, not a single person in this entire building filled with software people knows how code coverage works. He then points out an empty bowl, and declares "Twice a week, there is a fruit event". By which he means, fresh fruit is provided, and people can just grab some…. just said by a alien who is pretending to be human. Badly.

He then explained that the 2 coffee machines in here makes bad coffee. He then takes us to the copy room, showing us that THIS is where the GOOD coffee machine is. Which only takes coffee beans from a SPECIFIC vendor (Is… is the coffee machine… sponsored????)

He briefly pets the Foosball table (Again, in the copy room), which is jammed up against the wall so you can only reach the controls on one side ( Because, again, it is a copy room, and there is not enough space for it ) and he exclaims "Ahhhh… Not enough people are using this"

Suggesting, that he is trying to promote the little known sport "Single-player Foosball">

I start setting up my work PC and... Whenever any of the developers in this place wants to install things on their PC's, including compilers and testing frameworks, they have to either use the "SOFTWARE CENTER" program, which installs it FOR you… or in 10% of the cases, fails, without giving you any context for why it did that, and no tools for fixing it. Is it missing a dependency? Not working with the OS? Who knows!

Some programs cannot be installed like this though, because the SOFTWARE CENTER is not updated a lot. And when you want to install something the normal way… You get a popup, where you must provide a written explanation for why you need to have temporary admin rights to your own dang PC … you then submit that, and your screen will then be watched remotely by a worker from India, for a varied amount of time you are not told…

Or at least it says so. Maybe the Indian dude watching me is just an empty threat. Who knows. But they get to see me running absolutely… BONKERS .bat files

Like, I CHECKED them, and a good 80% of them calls a Power-Shell script in the folder above it, called "YES_OR_NO.ps1" which opens a windows 95 window informing you that DURING INSTALLATION YOU MAY NOT USE THE KEYBOARD OR MOUSE, AS IT MAY DISTURB THE SCRIPT THAT WILL INSTALL THE PROGRAM. A normal installation wizard then runs, except the developers are not trusted to click the buttons, and instead the script does it for you by moving and clicking the mouse.

All of this is documented. In markdown like reasonable people? Of course not! It is in ENHANCED markdown. Which is markdown in the same way javascript is java.

ENHANCED markdown requires browser and visual studio code extensions to be read. Completely missing the point of markdown being readable both raw and encoded… And sometimes word documents And sometimes power-point presentations left next to another bat file… this one calling the .exe file… right next to it…. I later found out is because the idea USED to be that all documentation MUST be made with Microsoft office tools.

I had to read the code of conduct today. And it was actually very well written.

I then watched a interactive animation telling me about the code of conduct… which it not only got a fact wrong about, it also broke it once.

I repeat. The introductory course in the code of conduct… broke the code of conduct'

After I watched that, and read the safety material…. which literally just said "Wear safety boots in the production floor"… I was then show the testing room.

I was lead to a different building, saying hello to the Vice CEO who was walking the other way, we walk into the production floor, ignored the fact that none of us have safety boots on, and walks into a room, with a 3*2 meter wide machine, several meters tall.

We edge around it, quietly hoping no one turns it on, since we would get slammed by it if they did, and walk down some stairs into the basement. Casually walk over a small river in the floor from a pipe that is leaking… what I really hope is water, and over to a shelf rack FILLED with the most MacGyver shit you ever did see.

Including, but not limited to, the 3D printed plastic block, with a piston that repeatedly smacking half a aluminum nameplate over the device it is testing. You see, it is a capacitance button, and it is testing it by simulating a human finger pressing it many thousands of times, a saws off antenna which is the end of a cable that is attached to it via a nice thick bolt, so it can send fake signals into it.

And of course the 24 volt, 5 amp system that is turning a circuit board on and off again, until it will crack.

We walk back out, remembering to step over the small river, which never even got a comment, and walk back to my department It is SO great. It is like working in the ministry of silly walks by Monty Python Like… Do I think I can bring value to this company? Like, making it better and more efficient? Yes. It would be hard not to!

And his is the largest pump manufacturer in the world! A super serious company with 4 billion dollars of revenue a year. And it is just… a NUTHOUSE

Like… NEVER believe the myth that corporations are competent.

[in-case-of-grace]

TTRPG Devlog- Qet & Progression in Horror RPGs

So, as probably previously mentioned, my bronze age eldritch horror game— Qet— originally began life as a 5e module. There's a LOT of design poison that came from those origins, and I think I've hit upon another one: progression.

What does character progression look like in a horror game? Typically, progression in an RPG means that your character grows more powerful, which I think is antithetical to horror— unless you can balance it with particularly compelling difficulty spikes to compensate. There's a balance to strike between player agency and hitting the tone of a horror story— you can't empower the main characters too much, or tension begins to fade. If you make it easy for your players to die, and lose their characters forever, they become jaded and easily detached from future characters— or they lose complete interest in continuing the campaign. (This is a problem in Call of Cthulhu, and one that is much more pronounced in many horror video games...which have their tension and mystery dissipate upon subsequent deaths.) Death isn't particularly interesting of a consequence, but it is still important to maintain some form of consistent tension. In Qet, you can come back to life a limited number of times-- exactly how many times that is depends on your choices, and some luck. Every time you come back to life, you have to sacrifice something to the Thought of Death— typically parts of your body, but things like strong memories, Quality scores, and entire Skills can be sacrificed as well. You also have a connection to the Thought which degrades (via dice roll) each time you return to your body. So, you're steadily growing weaker and weaker over the course of a campaign...except... ...at current, Qet has a levelling system (Tiers). You develop Skills to reach higher Tiers, higher Tiers let you access better Skills, and allow you to increase your Quality scores. Granted, there are a grand total of 4 Tiers. (Which is why I didn't call them Levels. Feels different.) Needless to say, this feels...weirdly out of touch with this being a horror game. It's something I hadn't mulled over back in 2019 when I started, and never questioned when looking back, until now. So, how can I have players explore and grow their characters mechanically, without undermining the game's tone and tension? Here's the thing— Qet already has other methods of progression that don't create a power fantasy; 1- Alchemy. You can mutate your body with alchemy, adding new body parts and changing those you have-- at risk of things going very, very wrong, and getting stuck with negative mutations. (Like, trying to gain sharp teeth...and instead of growing them in your mouth, growing them in your stomach.) 2- Manipulative Magic. While you become more powerful as you gain access to stronger spells, you have to uh...cannibalize people to gain this power in the first place. This corrupts you steadily as you transform into a qepluezet olxlikliz (blood sick). Which not only has your body begin to betray you as the souls of those you've consumed coalesce and rebel, but it also attracts the Qrol-- a cult who's well-trained members hunt down the blood sick. (And this is a game where getting into a fight is rarely desirable.) 3- Eldritch Magic. Again, you gain access to stronger spells as you progress through this. However, it first requires a certain amount of eldritch Insight, and it requires that you find a source that you can borrow power from. Sources can be from eldritch entities, objects, and even cosmic diseases. Each requires a particular sacrifice for their power, and further beyond this-- each branch of eldritch magic then requires a different risk/reward to actually cast their spells. Some use your health, others give you temporary curses, some give you body horror transformations. I will probably rework Eldritch Magic to instead come from the Thought of Death, just to streamline things a lil. Narratively make it that players are borrowing the memories, skills, and strengths of those who have passed into the Thought for themselves-- at the risk of weakening their consciousness' ability to return to their body. Or something like that. I'll figure it out.

---------- Now, you might be able to guess what I'm thinking here. None of these progression systems are linear, each has a cost. Risk/reward is always more interesting than pure reward. I'm thinking, if I remove Tiers, make Skills simply part of character creation, and somehow put these other systems up front more clearly-- then we'll have a much more engaging "progression" arc. As players weaken over the course of a campaign, they will be pushed further and further into making tough decisions. Do they still have limbs, memories, and Skills to give up? Just how much are they willing to part with? They need a leg up-- something to compensate for what they've lost and gain a chance at survival. As they grow weaker, as they gain more Insight into the cosmic forces around them, as their circumstances become more and more harrowing-- the less horrible the costs of power might seem. How I will actually execute this will take some time to mull over. I will most likely have take a big ol hammer to each of them and cut down their power levels by...a lot. Reduce the number of spells, make them more akin to sidegrades-- new tools for the belt-- rather than linear power growth. The exact risks for each may need to be adjusted. There's potential in making spells specifically scoped to single lives or something. Maybe limiting how many times they may be obtained, so you have to think carefully about which you use and when. Who knows! Stay tuned!

[trevel]

For reasons that don't make that much sense to anyone except me, I have been trying to calculate how many different "setups" there are for the game Spirit Island.

Now for this I am explicitly *not* counting the order of shuffled decks, but rather things that players can actually choose. I'm also not counting mechanic-less changes like "what color tokens", it doesn't matter. The game with blue tokens plays exactly the same as with yellow or green. I'm also deliberately ignoring spirit/board combinations where you get to decide where to place presence; I don't think it comes up enough to make a huge difference and seems more like the first strategic choice rather than part of setup.

Okay? Okay.

So, let's start with the base game. It came with 8 possible spirits, 4 game boards, 3 potential adversaries, and 4 scenarios. For a single player game, that would _seem_ like 8*4*3*4 = 384 different games, which pleases me because the result number contains all the digits from the multiplication, but displeases me because it is incorrect. You can play without a scenario; you can play without an adversary; each adversary has 7 possible difficulty levels. ALSO each game board can be flipped over, to the "thematic" side, so that's 8 board possibilities instead of 4.

So we have 8 spirits * 8 boards * ((3*7)+1) adversaries * (3+1) scenarios. = 5632 possible single player games using the basic setup for Spirit Island.

For two player, *most* of that math stays the same; We now have 8 spirits * 7 spirits * 8 boards * 3 boards * 22 adversaries * 4 scenarios = 118 272 possible two-player games.

"But wait," you might ask, "why are you multiplying by 7 spirits for the second player but by 3 boards?" -- simple. Because the boards offer a choice between standard and thematic, we're going to assume that we're not going to MIX between standard and thematic boards. (If we would, then we'd just double our available choices -- but we don't really stand to gain much for that additional complexity, so I'm leaving it out for now.)

Actually, wait. That's still wrong. The thematic boards have specified arrangement AND you need to pick two adjacent board for it to make sense. Let's break it down; we can either play with 4*3 standard boards OR 2 possible arrangements of thematic boards, which means 4*3+2 boards = 14 possible boards. 56 spirit pairs * 14 possible board setups * 22 adversaries * 4 scenarios = 68 992 possible 2-player games.

For 3 players, we now have 8*7*6 for the spirit choices, 4*3*2 standard boards + 4 thematic choices, and still 88 adversary/scenario options = 827 904 options.

For 4 players, 8*7*6*5 for the spirit choices, 4*3*2*1 for the standard boards (because order still matters), only 1 thematic choice now, which means we only increase to 1680 * 25 * 88 = 3 696 000 different game set ups.

Total ALL of these together, and we get 4 598 528 possible different games of Spirit Island using only the base game.

Now this is assuming that a game with Ocean and River on boards A and B is different from a game with River and Ocean on boards A and B, is different from a game with Ocean and River on boards B and A, is different from a game with River and Ocean on boards B and A, and I'd say that's a fair critique. It would be absolutely fair to NOT care about minutia like that. So let's redo the math! 1 player doesn't change: 5632 2 player is now 8*7/2 * (4*3/2+2) * 88 = 28 * 8 * 88 = 19712 3 player is now 8*7*6/3/2 * (4*3*2/3/2+4) * 88 = 56 * 8 * 88 = 39424 4 player is now 8*7*6*5/4/3/2 * 2 * 88 = 12320

For a total of 77088 different games, which is a HUGE difference compared to the 4.6 million we have when we counted every permutation.

Which is correct? IDK, it all depends on what you consider a different game to look like. I'm inclined to prefer the larger number, where arranging the boards differently matters and which spirit is on which board matters, but I'm not going to complain if anyone prefers the other choice.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Devs' Intentions

I read an article yesterday (I think it was GameRant) about a whole bunch of stuff that was cut out of Baldur's Gate 3 before official release. I don't remember all of them, but that's probably because they weren't very important to me one way or the other. However, there were a few that, for better or for worse, caught my attention. And ... well, I'm me. Before I start liveblogging the ridiculous cuteness that is the start of the Shadowheart romance (because whatever multiverse she lives in, Alisaie apparently goes for the dark-haired, mostly-serious, adorkable-when-allowing-herself-to-be-vulnerable godly ones), I wanted to talk about a few of them.

Exhaustion Mechanic: Oh dear sweet fucking gods, I'm glad they scrapped that one. Apparently that whole bit where the companions remark how tired they are is a holdover from that, but it used to come with a decrease to stats, just like the exhaustion mechanic in the PHB. Except ... I'm not sure they could have implemented that without it being ridiculously punishing. Encumberance is bad enough; don't hit my stats because I want to keep playing without taking a long rest, okay?

More Crafting Than Just Potions: Apparently at one point they were looking at allowing people to make and enchant their own weapons and armour. This is why you tend to find gems and metal ingots all over the place. While I'm a little sad about the lack of a crafting mechanic, I can see why they left it out - having a herbalism kit in the TTRPG version is one thing, but carrying around a fucking forge is something else again. And at least now I know this, so I can actually sell off the stupid metal ingots (except the infernal iron, obviously) because I don't actually need them.

Minsc: Apparently he should have been introduced earlier in the game, with a much more comprehensive character arc. I'm not sure why they went with the "rushed in Act 3" introduction to him in party, mostly because I haven't got that far yet, but I would imagine it has something to do with party management.

The Entire Upper Level of Baldur's Gate: Apparently there's an entire section of Baldur's Gate the city that was just ... excised from the game. Maybe they didn't have enough time to finish it, or maybe it just made the game too unwieldy, but apparently data mining indicates that there were a few things tied to the upper city that ... well, were really, really important to varoius characters' endgame states. So if you're dissatisfied with some characters' endings? It's probably to do with that. (And I won't go any further because spoilers.)

The Dark Urge: Now, here's the one I look at and really think, "Larian learned some lessons from Divinity: Original Sin 2" as regards player agency and going too far on the grimdark. Because apparently? Originally, the only way you could have an original character was to take the Dark Urge. There was no Tav / Dark Urge divide; if you wanted your own character instead of playing one of the origin characters? You were stuck with the Dark Urge, whether you wanted it or not. Now, don't get me wrong; if someone wants to play that, more power to them. Just, from what I've read about it, it does involve a certain loss of agency dependent on your stats. If you have to resist that Dark Urge, you're going to need saving throws, and if that's your dump stat because you wanted to play a strength-based character, that's just ... yeah. I don't mind the option being there; it's interesting on the conceptual level. I just wouldn't want that to be my only option. So I'm glad that Larian pried themselves out of Grimdark Valley long enough to go, "Okay, some people might not want to spend all their time fighting blind murderfrenzy just to play a good character", and make a separate, non-Dark Urge Tav. I also figure it has something to do with the issues in Divinity: Original Sin 2 where you'd want to take a specific course of action only to have one of your companions slaughter the quest objective before you could talk to them. (Still never forgiving them for that.)

So ... yeah, some things I'm really glad they stripped out. Others I wonder why? And some, while I enjoy them as mechanics (look, I am a crafting fiend, okay?), I can accept that they wouldn't have added much. I guess I wonder the thought processes that were going on in dev meetings where they came to those conclusions. I imagine the Dark Urge thing and the exhaustion mechanic thing both got, "Look, we can't stick them with this; they will riot", but ... what happened to that whole section of Baldur's Gate?

Maybe I've been dealing with too much bullshit from various AAA game companies*, but if they sell that shit as DLC I am going to set something on fire.

* - YES I AM LOOKING AT YOU, BIOWARE, WITH YOUR SELLING OFF THE ACTUAL ENDING AND/OR KEY ELEMENTS REQUIRED TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT GAME IN THE SERIES AS DLC. I AM NOT FORGIVING YOU FOR LEGACY, AND I AM CERTAINLY NOT FORGIVING YOU FOR TRESPASSER. DLC IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN ADDED EXTRAS, LIKE SOLDIER'S PEAK! YOU USED TO UNDERSTAND THIS, EVEN IF YOU DID STICK A FUCKING AD FOR IT IN CAMP.