#course my players IMMEDIATELY killed an npc

[buff-borf-bork]

tried to play my first ttrpg like 3 years ago but it never got past the first session and the first part i'd planned still lives in my head rent free so i'm putting it here (and hoping that like most things, once ive put it down somewhere, it will leave me alone and i can move on with my life lol)

i was using the monster of the week system which seems to lend itself better to investigation and role play, plus loved the idea of using character archetypes for character creation.

as any good motw series it was in a small town i named Empierced. the town had the look of an old stone work town being consumed by stale corporate modernism, like how people talk about Ottowa.

the PCs were just passing through and stopped for a fly over view of the area (a tourist attraction). Hours later when the pilot was a no show, one way or another they would get the news of the pilots death, turned out his body was inside the hanger they were waiting outside of the whole time.

at the same time the town had a college hosting a student art exhibition and the towns known to have a strong love of the arts.

one of the students, who is the pilots son, has a love for furbys and sculpture. he would make all these off furbys by constructing skeletons, sewing, ectre.

the monster of the story was going to be a demon which had possessed one of his creations (long furby with lots of metal spider like legs) and needed blood, this one had a taste for human.

one of its attacks was that it could poison targets attacking it with excess blood it was holding.

the way to defeat it would be to have it possess an unborn child because in this world, any human can be possessed by a demon and have no consequences as humans had free will and the demon would simply be trapped. the whole idea of humans being possessed in the way we think of it is a distortion of history. the players would learn this through various avenues and i also left other ways for them to get rid of the demon, but as per motw rules, in that case it would come back later.

so there, missing a lot of details and everything about the town and npcs but this is what the og idea was lol

[magpie-come-east]

Asking why the Hornsent characters are mean to justify their genocide is such a goofy non serious ass take. Well dude perhaps their mean because of said genocide!

It’s bad faith and frustrating to see again and again.

1) There are no ‘kind’ Omen characters. Morgott and Mohg are the only Omen in the Lands Between we have meaningful interactions with that aren’t base mobs. Morgott belittles and threatens the Tarnished. He hunts them down and kills them without pity. It is his duty but he enjoys it. As he dies he mocks the player because they will still fail to become Elden Lord. Mohg tries to immediately kill the player to- presumably- feed the cocoon your blood. And that’s not getting into the murder blood cult he leads.

They are hostile and brutal. But people still find Omen sympathetic. They can rationalize their behavior (Morgott’s, at least) and see how their tragedy shaped them. The Omen didn’t deserve to be killed as babies or banished to a sewer because Morgott and Mohg aren’t good men as their ‘sole’ representatives.

So the Hornsent should be allowed this same grace, too.

2) If one were to actually listen to dialogue from and about the Grandam and Hornsent (NPC), it’s very clear why they are the way they are. Grandam thinks the player- as a non-Hornsent- was sent by Messmer to kill her. Of course she isn’t going to greet you kindly. She thinks her life is about to end! She’s an old and infirm woman trying to protect her peoples’ holy city from a stranger that looks like her oppressor. Why are people so desperate for her to be demure and grandmotherly?

Hornsent (NPC) has deep sympathy from me, honestly. I get the impression that Miquella’s followers don’t take his peoples’ plight very seriously. Dane only suggests fighting Messmer to burn the concealing tree. Not to help his fellow compatriot. Freyja calls him a ‘dour little friend’ which is hideously condescending considering his family was all killed. Like his ‘grumpiness’ is a silly quirk and not a deep-seated wound for him. Leda says that the ‘Hornsent were never saints. They were just on the losing side of a war’. Which, while ultimately true, is a dismissive way to describe the genocide that war was/is.

I think these dialogues show us just how fraught and dire it is to be Hornsent in the present era. Their people are being slaughtered, their culture erased, and everyone around them either wants them dead or just doesn’t give a shit about their circumstances. Why should they perform niceness for anyone?

3) They aren’t even that mean imo. Not by Fromsoft character standards. Like, it’s amazing that Thiollier aggros if you try to tell him what Trina told you, but no one is writing think pieces about Thiollier’s irreedeemability. D’s brother calls Fia a rotten whore after he kills her, and no one is crafting essays about how problematic that guy is. Etc etc.

So, yes. It’s a brainless criticism in my opinion.

[okthatsgreat]

ok Idk if ur like hiding spoilers so don’t answer any of this if u can’t but if u CAN please please tell me why the dating sim girls hate & ur omnipotence so much they want you dead!!!!! is it the same reason they hated the first one or different? is there a reason tamsin wants you to stay on script, knowing she’s not interested and likely doesn’t like the dating sim format she’s stuck in? id kill to play this lee

ID KILL TO MAKE THISSSSSSSSS GOD I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS!!!!!! SO MANY IDEAS THAT ARE FAR TOO AMBITIOUS

BUT i can say this a lottt of it revolves around the medium of video games/dating simulators in general. if that makes sense. like the typical dating simulator is over the course of a few weeks(??) or something, which you AS THE PLAYER are able to pop in and out of as well as restart and redo to your hearts desire. if you want a different ending then you can simply restart the week and get a different ending!! if you want to date a different girl or see all of her reactions to everything you say to her then you can do that!! that’s definitely what the LAST guy did. but the thing that at some point these four girls became AWARE he was doing that. they are the only four people in this soulless world that are AWARE that they are stuck in an endless, one month cycle that all bends to one guys whim. they had no control whatsoever about what happened because they were not created to drive the narrative forward. and protag 1 was a very bored player with a lot of free time

so at one point the npcs finally actually for real talk to each other outside of their “pre-set” dialogue. the first protag has been repeating ellies route for a while now and the others were initially resentful of her just because they for real do Nothing when their route isn’t being played. but then one day ellie goes This Sucks. and the other girls go This Sucks. and the plan is formed to confront protag 1, and whether they MEANT to murder him or not they ended up killing him, at drowsy creek which is where ellie’s ‘final date’ is. and they don’t have that long to feel terrible or anything, because the timeloop STOPS. like they actually DID IT. which is why so many of them look different when YOU show up— they were actually able to explore the world and grow as people!!!!

but then here YOU are!! the second protagonist! you have the same ability as the first guy, and suddenly all four of them are stuck in the EXACT same cycle. which is why your decisions are really important here— IMMEDIATELY a lot of them are thinking about killing you, because that clearly worked for the last guy. pushing wayyy too hard about the murder is gonna make them even MORE hostile, especially tamsin who is quite defensive (hence why she’s telling you to BACK OFF BUDDY). a lot of the endings of this game are them taking you out lmao, only for you to come righhtttt back. if you go through the game just trying to do a normal romance route, it’s likely you’re gonna get killed!! ESPECIALLY if you do ellie’s bc she’s so over it lmfao

in my dream beautiful universe where i am able to make this game, the “true ending” of the game involves the four characters waving you goodbye before the game gets uninstalled from your computer entirely. bc that is truly the only way of ending the cycle. they have to be removed from the context of a video game and the protagonist simply can’t exist

[saika077]

Random HC:

The first years (+Ortho) playing DnD in Ramshackle Dorm

Yuu/MC is DMing of course

Player characters (I won't go too deep into their character details tho)

I feel like Ace'd be a Human Rogue, it kinda fits his personality imo. I personally don't see him as someone who uses brute force or blast magic, so Rogue it is. Specifically, I feel like he'd be an arcane trickster.

Deuce's character would be a Monk 100%. As for the race I can sorta see him being a Tiefling. Now you might be asking, "why a Monk and not a Barbarian?", While I do acknowledge his tendency to go apeshit at times, he actively tries to grow and change from his past habits. Perhaps his character could be an ex-barbarian who is training hard to be a Monk (multiclass)?

Jack's character'd be a Goliath Fighter, the only justification I have for this is that I feel like the competitive nature of a Goliath and their desire to push beyond new limits fits him like a glove, also the fighter class suits him just fine imo.

Given his background, I feel like Epel would be a Druid (they're basically magic farmers/gardeners). However, he'd give his character cantrips like Poison Spray, various spells but no healing spells (yea this party is pretty much fucked). You can fight me on this but post-character arc Epel would be a Halfling, he'd use his size as an advantage in combat.

As for Sebek, I can't see him being anything other than a Paladin. He'd most likely be an Aasimar... or maybe a half-elf? No? Too on the nose? Anyways, he'd give his character enchantment spells, and maybe some healing spells like Cure Wounds.

Ortho is the party's main support, with him being a tiny fairy bard (now you see why I had to bring Ortho in this otherwise the party won't even survive the winter). He's just a little lad who loves berries and cream :). He also provides bgm and sfx for the campaign.

I'm sorry but I have very little to no faith for this party. But I'm sure they'll somehow survive.

Together, the fate of the world somehow lies in the hands of these murder hobos.

Random shenanigans

Ace attempting to steal a treasure/sacred item from a monster's lair, only to miserably fail a stealth roll. Everyone had to haul ass out of there.

Deuce getting emotionally attached to an Npc with tragic backstories and/or noble goal, and then stubbornly tried to save that npc and getting upset at the DM for killing them.

something tragic happens and someone just says "this is so sad, Ortho play the acoustic rendition of Piece of My World"

Ace, to every barmaid bc he's broke: "hey (with rizz)" *rolls a Nat 1 Charisma*

With how hotheaded the NRC kids are it's only a matter of time until an npc taunted or look at them the wrong way and they'd be like "oh that's it, now you're gonna get it! I ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!" completely unprompted (like in the second half of the Halloween event bc I still find it insane how everyone immediately resorts to violence, even some of the more levelheaded students).

The one time Ortho and/or Sebek can't make it to a session, Jack gets knocked out by an enemy and the gang tried to heal him. Ace: "ok but can we try slapping him awake?" Deuce:"oh that's a good idea! Can we, Yuu/MC?" Yuu/MC:"...roll me a strength check" (they forgot that they have a healing potion)

The DM sitting there horrified while watching the party using the "power of friendship" on an NPC

I feel like half of them would brute force puzzles in a dungeon and it works like one out of three times or something.

"why do I hear boss music?"

Yuu, the DM, puts their hands together in front of them, a strange smile plastered on their face as they calmly said; "everyone, I want you to roll for initiative 🙂"

[luckthebard]

Ok so here's the second half of my meta thoughts on C3E51 and encounter design, focusing on the powerful NPCs (former PCs, if you will) (first half of this meta is HERE):

It's so fun and makes narrative sense for Caleb and Beau to be there but I don't think they were ever going to stop Ludinus, no matter how Liam and Marisha rolled. The low rolls meant they got captured as opposed to assisting the Hells more, but once they were captured I kind of breathed a sigh of relief? Not a huge one because I figured Matt wouldn't cross that line, but it was confirmation that they have some degree of plot armor. If Matt wanted Beau and Caleb to truly be in danger of dying without their players controlling them (imo, a breach in ttrpg etiquette unless there were serious conversations about it), Ludinus would have killed them right then. Instead we got a full: "Now Mr. Bond, it would be smarter to kill you, but you must be here to witness my triumph!" Which I love, to be clear - monologue your heart out, Ludinus!

So yeah we don't 100% know what happened to Caleb and Beau in the aftermath, but if they weren't killed earlier there's no way they were killed off screen. And the players are clearly thinking about checking in - Liam called out "who has the sending stone to Caleb" before the ended the episode so it's likely we'll get someone trying that out and rendering any speculation moot soon anyway.

Regarding the other former PCs, Keyleth's role in the encounter was very similar, in that of course she would be there, but this is not her story. So she was more of an encounter beat and an important piece of the narrative, and not as active of a presence. Same goes for the Champion of Ravens, who functioned more as a plot device.

And all of this, really, is related to how this is Bells Hells' story, and not any other party or character's. Keyleth and Beau and Caleb and Vax are there, sure, but they're there to raise the stakes or add texture and tension to the world or, in Vax's case, to be a plot device. They're not active in the way Bells Hells are, even though we know and love them. They're not centered here. It's like how Allura had her own history with Thordak, but even with that she was never the one leading the charge against the dragons, and Vox Machina spent a while not even knowing if she survived the initial attack on Emon.

What is centered in this encounter design and the narrative that comes from it is Bells Hells. They are the active movers in the narrative that unfolded, and they will be the most active pieces moving forward - because we're following them, even as the world continues around them! They did enough damage to somehow mess with Ludinus's plan. There has not been an immediate negative outcome on a planet-wide scale to the machine turning on, although one is surely coming. And Bells Hells are now taking a lot more information (what is powering the machine, the knowledge to target Otohan's Echo machine to weaken her, etc.) into future encounters.

[gorbalsvampire]

Do you have any general advice on involving human touchstones? (And, as a bonus round, any advice on how to handle touchstones that live somewhere other than your chronicle's city? How to make them matter, still bring the drama, etc.)

So I've had to sit on this one for (checks notes) ten days, because - OK, Red, you found my secret weakness. I am terrible at maintaining a mortal focus in my games. I am, on this occasion, the person V5 was designed to course correct. That said, I have made some progress since I first picked up the V5 books. Here's how.

One Touchstone per Conviction is bullshit. Coming up with Convictions is already a challenge, and now you have to ideate a whole person for each one? In theory this makes you create multiple mortals and really make you think about the World your characters live in and their roots. In practice it seems to result in part-baked NPCs who are there because the book says they have to be and never get used. So, turning to Requiem where the mechanic originates, and to VtM: Redemption (my beloved) which presents it as a plot beat, we have one Touchstone for each character.

Touchstones are not just Touchstones. Again, I get what the V5 devs were trying to do here - incidental, fleeting, arms-length, parasocial, parasitical, one-sided relationships - but I don't think it quite lands in terms of wanting to use the characters and having a purpose for them. Touchstones are at their best, IMO, if they rise out of Merits or Flaws, if they're associated with an advantage or disadvantage the character has to use or deal with. One could argue that for Finlay in the Wild Roses game, their Enemy Lucas is their Touchstone. Their rivalry has defined Finlay's life since before their Embrace, and ensuring Lucas doesn't get to join them in undeath is a constant drive for their actions. Cali's Touchstone is Mr. Morecambe, his family solicitor, who's locked into his Disliked and Destitute Flaws: Cali's quick mouth and quicker fists have landed him with multiple assault charges over the years, and the wealthier side of his family only relate to him through a legal intermediary. One could similarly argue that for SPC Kieron, his Stalker Sarah is his Touchstone. Sarah is a journalist - a theatre critic - who's trashed Kieron in print multiple times but still turns out to every show he directs, and Kieron's boyfriend Callum has remarked that someone needs to Embrace that woman because she has the vampire attitude down already. Kieron's had an opportunity to kill her - on the edge of hunger frenzy, he cornered her in a phonebox and fed from her - but he didn't kill her because, a) that would be wrong and b) he recognises he needs his most vituperative critic to tell him what he's doing wrong. I think Touchstones work as an incentive to not buy off Flaws with XP. You need this person, for some reason. They remind you that you could be worse, and need to be better. For a positive, tied-to-Merits example: Sister Alzbeta in the Dark Ages game has Sister Ruth as her Touchstone. A mentor figure who comes as part of the community in her convent Haven. Likewise, Mariam has Mendel, the son of her recently-deceased-in-mysterious-circumstances rabbi, and she's desperate to keep him safe from whatever Cainite nonsense is swirling around him - but he's a smart guy, he knows things, and he's known Mariam since they were kids, and he's going to work this out. Tension. TENSION! Their Coterie Type is Questari so investigating and learning about the secrets that threaten their communities is part of their whole deal and that's another hook to hang Touchstone relationships off. Your link to Humanity, capital-H, is also your link to your Domain Merits - I can never remember which one's which, I think it's Lien, the one that measures how integrated into the domain you are - anyway, to your little-h humans as well.

As for Touchstones who are outside the chronicle's immediate remit, I probably wouldn't - unless the player had a really cool idea. If that's the case, I trust the player to make the Touchstone relevant because it's theirs, and the kind of player that does this is going to bring their idea up.

So let's talk about Frankie's Touchstones. Frankie's lesbian aunties back in Finland, who raised them, and Frankie's daughter, who they were looking after while Frankie was studying in the UK (and never came back). This damaged goth MILF with a Past (loathsome ex, recovering from addiction, but a daughter she adores from afar) revealed her backstory over a few in-between nights and moments in the first two "seasons" of the chronicle, and it became part of her bond with Alistair as Coterie Mawla because he's had to raise a child at arm's length too. Their talk about that came at either the end of S1 or during S2, I forget now, but it was heartrending, and it's a big part of why they trusted each other going into the revolutionary activities of S3.

That sort of loops us back around to what I was saying earlier, though. By the Rules As Written, Touchstones are not necessarily linked to anything else on the character sheet, but if they are, they will be much more relevant to the players, and will become more present in play through reference and repetition. At least, that's what I've figured out so far.

[purseowner4thequalityanimation]

400 Follower Special - The Trial of Obtaining and Using Lucifuge

Thank you for your continued support of my blog. Normally I would just post a GIF set and be done, but the demon I had planned turned out to be a huge pain in the ass so I thought I would share the pain. All images under the cut. Spoiler warning and flashing/bright lights warning.

I wanted to make walking/running GIFs of Lucifuge, a high level Tyrant of the Dark-Chaos alignment. He was one of the few remaining unique models in the game. Interestingly NINE appeared to be his playable debut, similar to Gemori and Seth. All three originally appeared in Shin Megami Tensei II as NPCs and would only gain stats in later entries.

NINE, like the name suggests, has nine different potential routes. The usual Law-Neutral-Chaos alignments make up only one axis of endings, with the other being  comprised of Dark-Neutral-Light for a total of nine combinations. From what I can tell by following guides online, you must be on the Dark-Law path in order for Lucifuge to appear and fight you. I realized he had to be defeated to be fused when none of the supposed recipes to make him worked. (Notice the words that are bolded, they’ll come in useful later.)

So I loaded an earlier save from before the alignment lock and got to work getting to the Lucifuge fight, which involved threatening to kill my in-universe little sister to gain enough Dark points for the route change. Prior to fighting Lucifuge himself, I had to fight the ugliest NPC in the entire game who supported himself with 3 Legions and could instantly kill me with Budufyne. Cool. I forgot to take a picture of him. Once he died, Lucifuge showed up to fight me. He was also a pain, as I was down to one demon from the previous fight and he nuked them immediately. But eventually he died, and I was able to proceed.

Now, this is all taking place in the final chapter of NINE so obviously a lot of plot stuff is popping off. Raguel the angel shows up to throw an energy ball at NPC lady Feris, and to serve as the next boss fight. Raguel was much less difficult to defeat.

Raguel’s dead, but this priest isn’t here to deliver a eulogy. The next big player reintroduces himself by throwing an energy ball at Raguel in a bit of poetic justice for Feris earlier, then asks us to join him on the roof. Damn, everyone’s throwing energy balls in here. Here’s a WEBM version if you’re into that shit.

We witness the digital world going to shit on the rooftop and get offered a choice between siding with him or against him (& Sumire, who you can kinda see in the right-hand background).

I choose against and we begin another boss battle. This priestly fellow turns out to be Sariel, another angel, except he’s a fallen angel and at odds with his fellow Shin Megami Tensei II alumni Raguel. Neither of the fights after the Legion Guy-Lucifuge combo were nearly as difficult, so Sariel also goes down. I say “neither” but I forgot to mention I also killed a childhood friend, Baraki, inbetween the Lucifuge and Raguel fights. But that’s not important.

What’s important is I got through all the bosses, and got to a point where I could finally fuse Lucifuge. Which I did, easily.

Finding a place to take GIFs of Lucifuge walking would be tricky, because at this point in the game my first pick, Shinjuku, was no longer an option. Maria, the holy mother, is waiting there to take me to the domain of Yaldabaoth, the false god, so that I may kill him and bring about the reign of Law, and I really didn’t feel like doing that. Even if it would mean seeing her cool not-a-statue-with-dinosaurs-on-it design that never appeared again.

Instead I made my way down to Roppongi, which usually has great music but during this endgame bit is instead silent. I went to summon Lucifuge into my party and got a message I couldn’t. Oh, of course, you can’t have Law demons and Chaos demons in the same party. Doy. Duh. You could never have party that was mixed Law and Chaos in these old SMT games. So I removed the Law demons, set my Navigator demon to neutral and then tried to summon Lucifuge again.

The message remained. What could the issue be? Why was I unable to summon Lucifuge into the overworld? What was this last hurdle between me and Lucifuge? If you have your notes from paragraph 2 and 3, you may want to consult them now. There’s also a hint in the previous paragraph! Put on your thinking caps. Get out your detective pipes. Don’t scroll past Sukuna Hikona until you’ve made a guess. Are you sure of it? Really sure? Alright. Here’s the solution to this locked room murder mystery that robbed me of half an hour of my time:

YOU CAN’T SUMMON CHAOS DEMONS AS A LAW-ALIGNED PLAYER, EVEN IF THEY’RE LOCKED BEHIND THE LAW ROUTE. 

For some reason I guess I assumed this wouldn’t apply to me, and I continued down the Law path subconsciously knowing I wouldn’t be able to actually show off the demon I was dedicating so much time to obtaining. Thankfully, once I realized this I thought to redo this endgame stretch from ANOTHER back-up I had.

And it worked! Instead of fighting Sariel I gave him a disc, murdered Miranda and was able to summon Lucifuge.

Lucifuge offers to hug it out in apology for causing me such pain. I still couldn’t make gifs of him in Shinjuku because Maria is still there, but instead of trying to take me to Yaldabaoth’s realm she’s trying to kill me. And I really don’t feel like taking her on right now. Not when she’s throwing out chains and sefirots like this:

Shin Megami Tensei NINE is a game that exists. Thanks for enjoying my blog. Hopefully I’ll have some neat stuff by the time there’s 500 of you following me.

Also somewhere along the line I did a shooting-energy-ball-gesture at my little sister to disarm her, who was trying to kill me. Probably because I threatened to kill her earlier. Oh well. Get logged out, idiot.

[ashperiences]

Exploring, is it good? is it bad? Will it take you nearly two decades and 2 re-releases to actually finish this even though you were really into it every time?

Loved this little bundle of horrors, was going oooh at every new floor gimmick almost the whole way.

Getting myself a steamdeck drew me instantly back into the Labyrinth scribbling on the screen and running from enraged deer. There's a really gripping purity to this one that I don't think the later ones have matched, the amount that it allows its own quietness to hold it up is really admirable I think.

The arts evocative, the town does just enough to feel like a place and the obsessive explorer mentality is fed just enough little worldly connections to feel like you're part of some real process. Even little annoying things like forgetting an ariadne thread or switching your landsknecht between her axe and sword for different scenarios just feel like a connection to all the small maintenance and moments and expertise of taking on a profession.

Great and simple example of mechanics telling stories, illustrated perfectly in realising how you remember those desperate mad at yourself struggles back to the surface more than you ever would the successful instant teleport escapes.

All the room you have to get pulled into imagining your little guys internality or lose yourself in the flow of explore, discover, become stronger, push further mindset of it all pays off wonderfully towards the end too.

For all the simplicity on the face of this thing - just a dungeon crawler, just a few npcs to run into occasionally, a world of menus and dungeon tiles, kill monsters get stronger kill more monsters etc. I don't know that I've ever had a game make me so hesitant to accept a mission that I just left the menu and spent ages just wandering around trying to will an alternate path into existence or otherwise just avoid going back and acknowledging what I have to do to continue.

The way it takes your joyful explorer conditioned brain and your attachment to your imaginary friends and stamps on it is so sick. To progress you have to do something horrible, you're free to not accept the mission of course but once you do your image of all this becomes so immediately warped. It's honestly incredible because despite how jarring it is you can't say it isn't a logical progression.

The game takes the logic of killing as a profession and the drive to push on no matter your obstacles in the name of discovery and mastery and makes you confront the banality of actual cruelty that just stems from going with the flow, focusing on nothing but your own goals or just following orders.

The shock of it hits really well, the desire to reject it melting gradually into beleaguered acceptance that your party isn't who you thought they were, the knowledge that you are going ahead with this because you just need to know what lies beyond it, that your mindset as a player aligns with the force driving the adventurer (much as in real life) to atrocity lest they have to stop being who they are.

The game honestly barely lingers on it, to the men handing out these orders and their society this is another non-event, yet another successful expedition and victorious fighters. Its that coldness and suddenness that makes it work so well, the games not going to confront you with a moral question or judge you, mechanically it'll celebrate you even, but it knows that and it knows what it's asking you to do. Just like with your imagined characters the world of the game is willing to let you process and explain your own journey.

Hauntingly coldly present, left unjustified and uncommented on you are left only with dealing with the jarring disconnect between the fun low stakes heroism and the choice to quit or confront what a soldier for hire and a mastery of violence is ultimately for. Its one of my favourite little moments in video games and I think the people who quit the game cus they can't bear to go on with it are a real proof of its ability to tug on the players imagination. It's something that almost forces you to role play, every player reaction fits in as a part of the story. It never needs to harp on about big choices or morality, it doesn't need you to be important, it's your lack of freedom and the world's lack of interest in your dilemma that make it land.

It's evil as just another job to do going with the flow of the role you've found instead of evil as big decisions and uncomplicatedly powerful people's good or bad intentions.

While the game doesn't make much direct commentary, content to communicate without words, what it does go on to tell you is that your actions ultimately bring about the slow end of your own people too, dragons dogma ending style stuff about wrenching all the content out of a game leaving you in a lifeless world presented a little more economically.

I guess the true success of this one is that it left me just thinking about all the ways my party would've fallen apart, drifted into other things, ended up damaged people and etc. left as I was in the gap made in a world that allowed us to follow strength to its conclusion and never punished us with anything but our own quiet guilt.

Left to imagine those funny kids conditioned into killers and how everyone just gets away with it, how easily horror can be rendered down to just banal acceptance and how simple it is to push someone forward by offering something as a matter of course not to be thought about. Accept. Decline.

I love it, fuck that ice dragon also.

[i3utterflyeffect]

@violetthunderstormokay i'm not putting this all on the prev post because dear god i'm not bombarding op lgsdfkglsgjlfgslkgjfld

but! i've talked about it before (i THINK) at least once. quick disclaimer: i swear on god these guys were around before deltarune. me and mystic were just fucking around with this idea already because what if 'haha video game isekai was fucked up'.

ANYWAY Chaosverse mainly takes place inside a creepypasta-level virtual reality which may or may not be alive (it is and it has trauma because of course it does <3) and... well. B is not originally a moth! He is in fact a player, and ends up... maybe accidentally stealing a guy's body.

the person's body he stole? Hud! And the game has a sense of humor because guess where Hud gets stuck.

the hud. <3

Hud isn't normally that aggressive but between the game trying to suppress his emotions, the game not understanding that anger is also an emotion, and also having no sensation of contact with the outside world, he kind of goes a little bit mad. Especially since he's under the impression that B is fully an adult making these decisions despite Hud actively trying to tell him to get out of his body in the most direct way he can (which is unfortunately just creepypasta style)

Outside in the real world though, B is (approximately) 14 and has a very difficult home life and is completely unaware that he is very very very transgender. He uses the game as escapism from his real life, but unfortunately, at this point sentience is becoming a common thing!

You know who's cusping on the brink of sentience at the absolute worst time?

Birch.

Birch is aware that something is terribly wrong with his brother, but isn't sure what, and it drives them to become really really paranoid until they end up accidentally attacking B (and Hud) with a baseball bat after getting scared by them. Of course Birch immediately snaps out of it and calls the ambulance, but both Hud and B die.

WHICH IS WHERE THE TIME TRAVEL KICKS IN because apparently the game has savestates! i would say the game wasn't done with them but in reality the game has no fucking clue what happened either. it just tanked when the two of them died. that was when it resolved that it should maybe just Stop Fucking With The NPCs because somehow things KEEP GOING WRONG. it hates the styx family so much it will inconvenience them at any point possible.

also even though the savestate did load about maybe 10 years before B arrived, he ends up getting a body, this time separate of hud!

remember how i said the clones other than Chaos and Carnage have no brain activity? they were cloned from a player character, therefore they are registered as players even though no one is there.

after discovering B is also, in some sense, her kid, Jenna ends up taking them in. Hud isn't very happy about this, obviously, but B has become stuck in the game, so a lot more of his unhealthy coping mechanisms shine through, and eventually Hud finds out this is LITERALLY A KID and is absolutely fucking mortified. didn't mention this before but Hud was actually in college so he's horrified that he just. literally bullied a kid who already clearly wasn't doing that good mentally. the others don't know anything about this, and even though both of the Styx twins are dealing with their own issues (mr. 'i essentially bullied a kid who has infinite trauma already' and mg. 'HOLY SHIT I KILLED A PERSON HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD I'M JUST GOING TO PRETEND NOTHING HAPPENED AND HOPE THIS DOESN'T BECOME AN EMOTIONAL SAW TRAP' [it will]), B doesn't exactly have anywhere else to go so Jenna is taking care of them. this does culminate in a lot of issues but eventually after talking it out Hud essentially becomes a very protective older brother to B.

birch is fine don't worry about him. he's definitely not dealing with a nuclear bomb of repressed trauma 👍

[raven-quill-and-willow-wand]

It seems that the gods are trying to “accumulate champions,” so to speak, and given what we know about the history of Predathos’s imprisonment, I don’t think it is entirely inconceivable that the remaining Crown Keepers could come back later to assist in the final battle, whenever that happens. Either that, or they could be enemies Bell’s Hells fight if they side with Predathos instead, but I don’t see that as a likely scenario.

No matter what, even if they do eventually side with Predathos, that will be after taking down Ludinus because there’s no way they’ll join him after everything that’s happened. I would love so much for the Crown Keepers to come back one more time before the end of the campaign. I know they’re a polarizing group, but I love them and I enjoy Aabria Iyengar as DM (I know, also “controversial,” but I don’t give a fuck because if the cast were not okay with everything she does, she wouldn’t be invited back, and I think that’s the part that all the haters are missing. Besides, I just think she’s a fun and creative DM and brings such a fun and positive energy to the table even when she is actively trying very hard to kill the players; and there’s absolutely no reason to not play fast and loose with the rules.) and want to see the rest of them interact with the main cast in some capacity. They’re an important part of the world and the story, and I also enjoy that the majority of that group were beginners when they started on Exandria Unlimited Prime. How can someone say they honestly do not enjoy the creativity and daring of someone like Aimee at the table who has no concept of what “can” or “can’t” be done in the game?? I also don’t mind things like allowing geas to be cast as a single action spell under the circumstances in the episode because it was a cool moment. Then again, when I DM, I change rules all the time circumstantially, make up new spells and items and for certain NPCs or even occasionally player characters, I’ll “downcast” spells like Aabria MAY or may not have done with the infamous Cone of Cold during the finale of EXU Prime, meaning reduce the damage dice or the effect in some way because there is no lower level similar choice to some of the spells.

Overall, I was thrilled with the last couple episodes! After the intensity of 91, the immediate flood of relief and joy I felt when Aabria strolled in like, “I think I’ll take it from here,” was such a welcome change because I knew it was just going to be something most likely simple and easily contained to a single session or two, and it was going to be fun. I also just like having guests because they add different layer to the dynamic. I do wish we could have more recurring guests like how Zahra and Kash came back over and over throughout the first campaign, but we can’t have everything we want. That was really my only meaningful critique of The Mighty Nein. I hoped so badly to see some of the characters again, but the only one who came back again at a later time was Shakastë, who was fun, of course, but I would have loved to see the others again as well, like Twiggy! She was intriguing and cute but also possibly sinister all at the time, and I wanted to know more about her! Anyway, I’m so glad I caught up! I was behind for a few months.

[tauforged]

Could we learn more abour Seiber?

YESS ABSOLUTELY!!

tragically i’m at work rn and have much to be doing so i can’t go TOO too in depth rn, but i CAN give a quick summary of who he is and what his deal is and then link to some other posts i’ve made that go into more detail . he is my silly guy and i liek him :)

- Seiber Starwalker is a NPC in the dnd campaign i’ve been a part of for the past few years now, Feywild’s Folly! He’s an aasimar priest of Mystara*, Goddess of knowledge, who resides in the port town of Horton, which has been kind of serving as the party’s ’home base’ for the past few story arcs. While the chief deity worshipped in Horton is Njord (a god of the sea is going to be pretty popular in a place where a large amount of the population are sailors or dock workers), the religious district is home to a lot of different altars and tertiary places of worship for a myriad of other “””lesser””” deities

( *very early on in the campaign, every single one of us somehow managed to confuse ‘Mystra’ as ‘Mystara’, and it’s been so long that we’ve just rolled with the change. the entire campaign is homebrew anyway so it’s probably like the most insignificant difference from ‘dnd canon’ LMAO but it can cause confusion so i thought id clarify

- to help give our lovely DM a break here and there and also to better involve us all in the worldbuilding and give us chances to shake things up since this has been a very long and convoluted campaign, each of us players get to come up an additional NPC that we can RP as during the course of the campaign in addition to our actual PCs. seiber is mine! :3

- one of the most significant things about him is that, as a part of his vows to mystara, he cannot willingly say or suggest anything that he knows to be false — basically, he can’t lie, and also if anyone asks him a question he knows the answer to he’s compelled to tell them. this is unfortunate for him because despite being a holy man, he’s also not exactly on the up-and-up legally speaking a lot of the time, but if he ever got caught he would be compelled to confess immediately. also because the party uses this to ask him embarrassing questions that he has no choice but to answer because they find it funny to torment him. which is fair. it’s pretty funny to put him in situations

- mystara has no actual problem with any of his antics. she actively encourages him in most situations. he’s her favorite and she’s motivated by curiosity, so on top of egging him on to get into bar fights and send letter bombs to people (long story), she will occasionally physically compel him to do some impulsive thing to satisfy her curiosity. like putting a raw egg in his mouth or touching a hot stove. he’s capable of resisting her if he sees it coming, but he’s often deep in thought and doesn’t notice what’s happening until it’s already been done. there’s no malice on her end — she simply doesn’t always remember that mundane beings have bodies that can sustain permanent harm. he often has to gently remind her that people die when they are killed.

- on the topic of mystara, she knows Literally Everything which in turn makes her quite forgetful. even a god can’t possibly store all the knowledge in the known universe at once, so she’s in a constant state of forgetting and relearning things. this is why her preferred method of ‘worship’ is for her followers to engage in rhings like researching the world around them or learning new hobbies, and why her favorite offerings are academic papers or textbooks or personal anecdotes — she subsists on knowledge and the act of learning itself is what sustains her

- if you squint you might notice he vaguely resembles a certain erm. video game astrophysicist from a bad team shooter whom i still hold dear to my heart. he was originally meant to be a one-off joke reference character but we all got attached to him very quickly and hes just a part of the campaign now despite being a dollar store sigma ovw. it’s fine im better at writing than blizz will ever be. i’m treating him right.

here’s a few more posts about his background / personality / relationship with mystara as well as some art of him and his gf rilith (who is a WHOLE OTHER CAN OF WORMS but as much as i adore her i can’t possibly type any more rn. there’s more about both of them in their respective tags though)

[bradenthompson]

The Starfield Experience: Crimson Fleet

Never before have I been so mixed on a video game. And that's really something, bc I'm a little shit who isn't happy with anything.

I thought, rather than attempt to "review" Starfield, I'm just gonna catalogue my journey through the respective faction questlines, culminating in actually doing the main story. To star: Space Pirates. Yo ho hohohohohohohohohohhoohoohohohohooohoohhohohhhohohhhhh

Of course it's a pirates life

so two things motivated me going evil mode: for one thing, I like pirates already. Second thing is feeling out the game's morality system. Are we getting Skyrim-style slaps on the wrist or can I be, if you will, the king of the pirates? I had been talking in some Discord, doesn't matter which one, about morality choices in video games, and decided, since I was agnostic to Starfield, I would stress test the system by being the worst guy possible. And the Crimson Fleet, the game's premiere bandit faction, promised to get me there.

The way you initiate this quest is kind of funny and also immediately disappointing. I can accept having to join up in some way other than asking the first pirate who doesn't immediately open fire, but... okay so like--

The first time I was arrested in Starfield (it can be for literally anything) instead of being taken to jail I was instead taken to the UC Vigilance, a giant space cop flagship, and interred under Commander Ikande. He made me a deal: rather than serve my sentence, I can instead become a dirty filthy stinky RAT. He wanted me to join up with the Crimson Fleet and find out whatever they're up to because they were apparently real excited about something. You can refuse him, and I guess proceed to jail, but I wanted to be a pirate anyway and accepted, planning on cutting Ikande off the moment I could***************

What sort of crime did I pull? Failed a pickpocket check. Intentionally. Because by then I had already killed like three people unnoticed, one of which out in broad daylight trying to get caught but New Atlantis clearly doesn't do "see something say something." By then I just wanted to see what jail looks like, man. Now I did pick the "Gangster" trait at the character creation, a background picked up by Ikande in dialogue. So that was cool. Idk what he brings up for players who didn't pick that. "Based on your failed attempt to steal a lollipop, I think you're just who we need to infiltrate the Turbo Murder Gang."

Turbo Murder Gang

The Crimson Fleet initiation was deceptively simple. I first meet up with first mate Naeva Mora. She sends me off to kill a Crimson Fleet deserter named Austin Rake. Zooming off to his location, I discover Rake had shacked up with a civilian ship. Boarding, I ask for Rake, they say they don't have him, I say I'm going to shoot everybody (evil character), they say "oh nevermind he's right here," he shoots everyone, and then I shoot him. Yo ho.

After that, Naeva decided I was one cold sonofabitch and invited me to The Key, Crimson's Fleet main hideout. Here I met their leader, Delgado, and realized terribly quickly that things were gonna be a lot less violent than I was anticipating.

Before setting you loose, and constantly as you report back to his bitch ass, Ikande urged me to avoid killing anyone. Seeing as he was a space cop, I ignored this. I'm about to join a gang of space pirates whose canned NPC text is twenty four variations of "hmm I think I'll have murder for dinner." Odds are slim we avoid violence.

Delgado's grand plan is finding the Space One Piece. Legend has it an old banking ship crashed out in wildspace some years ago, and the credits (bc we're in space) inside would set us up for life. It's very pirate-y to be hunting for treasure, okay, I get it. But space pirates? We'd be robbing a bank with extra steps. We're really building to a bunch of credits? This is not a game where money is hard to come by; half the NPCs are walking about with 1000 bucks minimum, and baby I'm running a pickpocket build.

ugh, fine, okay, treasure hunt. But I better get to plunder a few ships along the way.

Ice Planet with a bunch of bug enemies

(I didn't take any screenshots and couldn't find any online, so here's a picture of Greenland)

Our first mission was to go to the ice planet The Key orbits in order to find some leads on the ultimate treasure. This ice planet prison does lead to some lore on the Fleet, but man I was pitching a fit the whole time. I wanna plunderrrrrrrrrruh. Suffice to say my first impression of space pirate questing was not too exciting. All the enemies here are native bugs you gotta aim at the floor to shoot. Felt very wimpy, even when the big one showed up for a boss fight later.

But that's ignoring this quest's diamond in the rough, a man named Mathis:

He's also a Crimson Fleet initiate, just like me. When we landed on ice planet the game started feeding me all these dialogue options to antagonize Mathis. Unprompted, mind you. It's always trying to underhand me some bad guy options, and this time they were all "fuck Mathis" flavored. I thought it was funny, so I picked them every time. This got Mathis quite heated with me, and to put the candle on this filler episode birthday cake, Mathis and I found ourselves on the other side of a cave in, separated from the rest of the pirates. Here's when he dropped all the antagonism and immediately dealt me into his plan: kill Delgado. Why he wanted to do this, I still don't know. Why he would invite me in on the plan, even though we hate each other, I wish I knew. But I wasn't exactly loyal to Delgado, by any means. That, and when Mathis brought this up I started to turn around on the guy. Thought "wow, Mathis doesn't fuck around. Maybe he's alright."

From then on, Mathis and I were pals. We killed bugs, found sick gamer loot, and he was over the moon when I told (lied to) Delgado he was one hell of a pirate. Not that killing bugs in a space prison would prove this, anyway. But Delgado was happy with our work, and from then on we were Crimson Fleet bona fides (the way I'm pronouncing that is a secret, oohohohohoho). Soon after this, Mathis pulled me aside and suggested we drop that "killing Delgado" business. It was never brought up again. Still dunno if I would've gone through with it or not. Probably would've.

Siren of the Snores

(not my screenshot)

I haven't been super clear on what this ultimate treasure is, and I have to be now for any part of this next mission to make sense.

Kryx' Legacy is the name. All I knew at the start was it's a bunch of credits. Come to find out, Kryx is the founder of the Crimson Fleet and Legacy is the name of a GalBank ship lost in an unknown nebula. I said this earlier but I wanna be super clear right now. A high ranking GalBank executive, with the credentials needed to get inside the bank's archives (housing the final known location of the Legacy) is currently lounging on a big space yacht. This is the Siren of the Stars and my goodness is it a snoozer of a quest. And it shouldn't be! It's perfectly in line with my character build! Even so! Even sooo!!!

It's a whole process just getting to this executive guy. Gotta talk to all the patrons until one of them decides to tell you something useful. Then you talk to his mistress, then you talk to some third guy, then you talk to... whatever his name was. It's talking in circles with one--maybe two--persuasion checks. On one save, I went postal. Killed everyone on the stupid ship and got the info I needed. Only to discover my Crimson Fleet contact inside the ship, guy by the name of Rokov, got scared(?) and locked himself inside a room I couldn't open??? Sorry, Rokov the space pirate, is this not your speed?

Ugh. Loaded a save and did the quest orthodox. After one lap of this damn boat I was sick to death of it. Seven laps later I was thinking of quitting the Fleet. They talk a big game. You're in for life or you're dead, sucker. Or else what, Naeva? You're gonna send three ships at a time every six hours? Execute this (picture me flippin her the bird. Hell yea).

Quick thing about Naeva Mora: she gave me an optional goal in this quest. Steal an expensive award set with precious space diamonds. Only one woman on board had access to the award. But I, the silver tongued devil of the stars, was able to persuade her into giving me the key to the vault. You ask, how. How did you, a space pirate dressed in rags, convince a stuffy lady on an expensive pleasure cruise to just give me her multimillion dollar trinket? I don't know. This is the most absurd persuasion check in the game, so far.

From there I jetted over to New Atlantis and snuck my way inside the GalBank archives. There was less money to steal than you would think but I suppose this isn't the vault. Killed some mercs, got the location.

How are we doing on heist missions over here?

So we've got the location of the Legacy, but no way to get close. See, it's in a hazardous nebula that'd fry any normal ship that dares approach. The cynical man would assume the game's solution was some novelty ship part that protects from the nebula and has zero function outside of this questline. And sometimes cynics are correct.

We need the ComSpike, dammit! What's a ComSpike? I forget. Protects ships from bad nebula juju. I'm not knocking the story for details that I forget, to be clear. Nor was I happy that the pirates were sending me off on another secret heist. In fairness, I didn't have to do these missions the way the game suggested. I could go postal on every facility I'm told to infiltrate (more on that later). But because I was so oddly punished for doing so on the last quest, that led me to assume some approaches were preordained. The Crimson Fleet has connections to uphold (WHY).

Whatever. I go to New Atlantis and talk to Huan Daiyu, pictured above. She's a smuggler, owns a pretty cool ship called the Jade Swan (am I a bad person for predicting her ship would be called the Jade Something?). I'm gonna bum a ride to her next dropoff, dropping off myself and sneaking aboard a research station that just so happens to be working on that ComSpike technology. In the opening steps of this quest, I encountered the first real Bethesda Moment of this game.

Picture this: I'm on the intercom with Huan. She tells me I need to find a keycard to get to the next level of this station. In her dialogue, explicitly, she suggests picking someone's pocket. Well, you read my mind, Huan. Just so happens I've been dumping skill points into pickpocketing...

Imagine my deflation when I had checked every pocket in that damn storage room, only to find the keycard was on a table and only accessible by talking to multiple guards in a specific sequence. Let's be really nice and say not all of Huan's suggestions are going to work. Dynamic world, indeed! I'm gonna throw myself out the airlock!

Throughout the infiltration I was only answering Huan's calls to be nice. Couldn't trust one bit of advice from her after that. She's not a reliable source. So I throw on a security uniform, talk my way into the engineering bay, find the ship fitted with the ComSpike, and perform a high-precision shipjacking outta there. Not an ounce of booty plundered, not a doubloon to be seen. What a life, the pirate's life.

We have Night City at home

It only occurred to me in this mission. Something that should've occurred to me about three heist missions ago.

The NPCs in this game are so fucking mean, all the time.

It's not even prompted. Mathis, I get. I was busting his chops something fierce. But everyone else is just off rip "wassup dickshit, I'm Suzy Cosmonaut, and you're dirt on my boot. Hows about you go find a USB stick but hey don't forget to kiss my ass on your way out."

What am I supposed to do? I say something rude back. What, I'm supposed to take that? My dream was to fill my ship with my best buddies in the galaxy but I think I mostly hate all of these people.

Ugh. I fly off to Neon. Great city name, guys. This must be the criminal underbelly. Where do you think they shack up? The part of Neon literally called the Underbelly? And what do you suppose this crime syndicate is called?

Neon is a city built out of placeholder names. Indistinguishable from any cyberpunk town in all of fiction. Uninspiring place. One of my character traits is being from here, which is more embarrassing than the city I'm actually from irl. But fuck it, whatever, let's ride.

Estelle Vincent is my contact in Neon. She knows where I can find the schematics for the conduction grid the Fleet will need to access nebula space. But she won't give that info for free! Nothing comes cheap in Neon, baby!

I was in full Fuck It mode by this point of the questline. My promise for this quest was to kill everybody I could get away with killing (more, on, that, later). So when Estelle wants me to go talk to Generdyne executive Ayumi Komiko about gaining access to their computers, well... sorry Ayumi. Victim of circumstance.

After Ayumi was super dead, I stomped over to Generdyne with her access card and opened fire. Terrible scene, no survivors, yo-ho-ing all the way. One must imagine justice served somewhere in this--no doubt cancelled out by the rest of the carnage. But whatever. This is the piratiest I've felt so far. I shoot my way to the top floor, where the brother of the CEO just gives up the computer. Turns out he hates his stupid CEO brother and I should probably kill him too. Noted.

When I go to meet back with Estelle, that Generdyne CEO is sitting in her place. He offers me a deal to sell out Estelle, which I refuse. Estelle was my test subject, to see if I could make someone less mean to me by sticking my neck out. I lied and said it was all me, he didn't believe me, I put a shotgun to his temple and realized he's an essential NPC and cannot be killed. Party's over.

After this, would you believe it, Estelle did like me! I only had to sell myself out in her place and pay her like 9000 credits for like no reason. But I turned someone around. Now it was time to finally get me treasure.

The One Piece Is Real

I'm gonna bring this up now before I forget. Periodically, after every heist or so, I was instructed (by the quest markers, not anyone else) to report back to the UC Vigilance and Commander Ikande. Because this is also Point Break and I'm technically a government agent. Despite me showing no loyalty, lying to his face every chance I had, insulting him and his crew, and straight up shooting his flagship twice, I was Ikande's spy on the inside and expected to give report. The whole questline I was looking for outs. Some reason to cut these dorks off and go full pirate. To my knowledge, there's scarce ways of doing this. Won't say there isn't one, just nothing immediately obvious.

Until now.

I'm called to the bridge and Ikande's super pissed about my Neon killing spree. Just steaming mad. So mad he's ready to terminate this deal and send me to jail. I give his crew the rope-a-dope and run back to my ship, just barely shootin out of there. Exciting! Felt appropriately climax-ey, and it's genuinely cool that was a moment I could orchestrate with my own choices.

No time to lose. I'm off to Kryx' Legacy while the rest of the Fleet at the Key gets ready for the UC Vigilance to come knocking. Should've guessed I'd also be getting the ultimate treasure alone. This was so far the most impressive setpiece of the game. The thundering of the space lightning outside while I navigated the dead stranded spaceship was sufficiently immersive. I was immersed, for the first time in this game, and I was savoring this moment. The flashlight was on, people.

It's sci fi, so all this treasure is loaded onto an external hard drive. Look, I didn't need a big wooden chest with gold doubloons spilling out but I shouldn't be able to fit a bajillion dollars in my backpack. As soon as I have the treasure, the ship is critically damaged and I gotta skedaddle. I'm always down for a "flee the facility" type mission and this one delivers. Hop back in my ship, make just enough distance to avoid the magnificent explosion of the Legacy, and now all that's left is to get the gold home. Easily the best quest in the Crimson Fleet, no contest.

And now, the worst quest in the Crimson Fleet

angry emoji angry emoji devil horn emoji angry emoji

Right when I get back to the Key, Delgado tells me the UC Vigilance is knocking at out doors. It's now or never, them or us. Turns out, had I not burned that bridge earlier, I would've had the choice of fighting for either the space pirates or the space cops. My decision had been made hours ago, and that aforementioned bridge was aforementionably burnt. We're fighting for the pirates, gah dammit.

Oh my god

Who playtested this. Still riding in the starter ship, I was now tasked with fighting off like a half dozen ships double my level and working off WWII flying ace AI. I died, and I counted, nine times. Half of which in the first two minutes. oooooh, gamer rage. By attempt ten, and sorry for breaking my own immersion, by I jumped outta that part of space, over to a shipwright, and got my weapons upgraded along with a new shield. I could barely squeeze out a win with this boost. No I did not lower the difficulty because I shouldn't have to, dammit, and yes this put and impenetrable stank on the final leg of this questline.

One silver lining to all this: I'm a reincorporation loving person, and was delighted to see all those pirates I had worked with across the questline suddenly swooping in for the final stand. Cinematic stuff, I loved it. Mathis was there, Rokov was there (who?), Huan was there, Estelle was there. Even Adler Kemp was there. I didn't even mention him, he seemed so inconsequential. But he showed up! Love that sort of thing.

We in tandem blow away the auxiliary space cops (not for lack of gamer rage) and board the Vigilance to kill Ikande. High energy firefight, this. I'm constantly impressed by the number of players in any one fight, in this game. Back in the Skyrim xbox 360 days, I remember doing the civil war questline and going "wow, there's like twenty NPCs in this thing." In Starfield, that number's the standard. Truly next gen, amiright guys.

Me and my friends blow our way through the Vigilance, I spend like ten minutes looking for a healing item of some sort, free some prisoners, and eventually we're at the bridge. The game even leaves in some briefs moments where I can chat with all the friends[citation needed] I made along the way. Me and Huan high five. There wasn't an animation for this or anything, but I imagine we did a jumping high five. Excuse me for roleplaying. Me and Mathis bump hips.

At the bridge, and really I should've seen this coming, there's a dialogue with Commander Ikande. The honorable man he is, Ikande calls for his crew to abandon ship and plans to self-destruct the Vigilance with all of us on it. There's precious little time to talk him out of this, and scarce options for doing so. But I'm a gangster, and have exclusive ganger dialogue options. So I have the option of telling Ikande "hey, cancel the self destruct or we're gonna torture your crew," thinking this would open up more dialogue.

But he chickens out right here. Goes "okay, fine, I'll cancel it just don't hurt my crew." And like, dude. We've been hurting your crew. They're all dead, actually. This is the most empty threat possible in this situation and this disciplined space cop chief buckles at my first threat. What a guy. We take him prisoner and the Vigilance is ours. Supreme Victory.

I deeeeed it

Here comes my favorite part of any Bethesda questline epilogue. When all the celebration dialogue is exhausted and all the NPCs just start to aimlessly wander away, throwing out a few more canned "wahoo we did it" lines. It's a joy, I'm so glad Starfield still does this.

Delgado gets me my cut of the Legacy: 200k credits. This feels like a lot of money for this point in the game. I have seen ships that cost twice this, but it's a decent reward all the same. That, and I had picked up plenty of paychecks along the way, so my ultimate takeaway is bigger.

Best of all, Naeva doesn't think I'm lower than dirt anymore. She gives me a cool Crimson Fleet jacket and a room on the Key. I promptly placed one chair down in the dead center of the room. Home. Naeva's a classic NPC who talks a herculean game and does jack shit the whole questline. I warmed up to her.

With my new credits, I bought a Crimson Fleet Phantom ship, and hired my first crew member. Finding him piss drunk in the Key's bar, I threw my arm around the shoulder of good ol' Mathis and offered him a place on my ship. He agreed, now my best buddy and no longer wishing to kill Delgado. I also tried to get Huan on my crew, but I guess she's got her own thing going on. I wished her well, Mathis and I cleared out bounties, and we took off for our next adventure.

Crimson Fleet: In Conclusion

Pretty mixed on this. While there's a pretty strong ending despite the awful awful HORRIBLE ship battle, everything leading up to this felt distinctly un-pirate. As if the game wasn't comfortable with me going morally undercarriage. Odd stance to take, with the space pirate questline, but this is the studio that watered down the Dark Brotherhood (I said it). While the gameplay loop is showing me some promise, I was always feeling like I had to fight the game to play it my way. Maybe I take this as a lesson: I gotta commit to the type of character I wanna be. The game will attempt to lure me away, but I gots to be evil.

My next questline is the Freestar Rangers, and only because that's the first major one I was introduced to apart from the main quest. See ya there, I say shooting away in my new spaceship which you're gonna have to imagine.

[melanie-ohara]

Gideon Souls 4

Undead Asylum Reprise, Blighttown and beyond

Now's as good a time as any to look at the loadout:

Clothes - who cares, beyond light rolling and wearing as much black as possible

Weapons - I did some grinding to have enough dex to wield the black knight great sword I found, so now it's that or the zweihander. Mostly the zweihander, because it hits harder. No shield, because Gideon would never take a hand off her sword

Rings - Favour and Protection, from kicking that guy off a cliff. It's great, no notes. Ring of the Evil Eye, because I I don't carry a shield and block with the weapon, so I still take a little bit of damage. Most of the time, I recover that after killing whoever had the temerity to hit me. This is when I find out that everyone thinks this ring is useless

Immediately upon arriving at the asylum I fell through the floor and got blown up by the Stray Demon. Solid start. I went back and knifed him, so I'm calling that one and a half attempts. Then the black knight for the creepy doll, and the rusted iron ring so I didn't have a fully horrid time in -

Blighttown, which is a horrible place full of misery and toxic dart assholes. I have essentially nothing to say about this place, except that it connects to Quelaag.

Bet you thought it was gonna be a titty pic, huh. No. Giant spider. Fuck you.

This one was harder because my usual tactic of just smacking them in the butt didn't work quite so well, but I persevered and smacked her in the butt four times and finally got her. I had very low health when I did it and was convinced she still had a sliver of HP left, so I was busy running for space and, again, missed the victory logo for a screenshot, so here's her eerie empty arena instead

Second bell of awakening! I was very happy when this happened because it meant progress. How sweet and innocent of me.

At this point, I horribly fucked up. @amethystasari told me about the false wall, and I arrived at the bonfire, whereupon I said the wrong thing to the eggy wife guy blocking the path. He was not happy.

So I squished him. What am I gonna do, not rest at the bonfire?

Oh dear. I squished her sister and her gross egg husband. The good(?) news is, @amethystasari informs me she's both blind and deaf. So that's just great. I feel great.

Anyway, she helpfully reinforced my estus with the fire keeper soul I found in a nightmare of toxic darts players, and I moved on to feeling bad about ceaseless discharge.

Selfie with the medical condition

He was chill, until I took some clothes from his presumably memorial altar. I get it buddy, that was very uncool of me. He squished me and I lost all of those souls when he squished me again. So I got a bit annoyed at this point, and gave up on trying to coax him out and went back to smacking him. This time I hid in a narrow channel where he could only do one attack, like a hero.

Lava cleared up, apparently for later

Unfortunately, now it's time for Sen's Fortress Circus of Hilarious Bullshit. I am having a genuinely appalling time here. I've fallen off, smacked two out of three titanite demons but cannot seem to deal with the last two, fallen off more, fixed the boulders, saved some NPCs, fallen off, lost cumulatively like 40,000 souls, been shot, squashed, impaled, and crushed, fallen off, fallen off, and fallen off. I am never getting out of here. No pics because it sucks here.

Back at Firelink we now have a cozy little camp going. We have the crestfallen knight, who I dislike, a pyromancer, Big Hat Logan, Griggs the whatever of Vinheim, and this cool and chill young gentleman

Selfie with my new bestie Frampt, who eats all the trash out of my inventory

I also meant Reah and the clerics, who left. Thorolund came back and said he lost them, so presumably I'll deal with that later. Griggsy says they're off kindling some bonfires, and I hope that's good news for me.

Of course, how could I forget my onion buddy Siegmeyer, who is constantly hmmming and ahhhhing wherever I want to be. What a nice chap. I either saved him from Sen's Bullshit Circus of Fuck You, or accidentally squashed him with a boulder. Only time will tell.

[annelidist]

im stuck thinking about bumpo's house of tricks bosses what bosses would you consider the bumpo for each game? and does anor londo as a whole count for a bumpo as well with the gwynevere part as a way to open the gwyndolin fight

okay so. i want to take a holistic view of what can be considered a palace of tricks in this post. however, with that in mind, i would not say that merely being a hidden or convoluted-to-reach boss qualifies as a Trick in and of itself. we need to maintain a high standard of bullshit here or things will get out of hand. anyway here's my comprehensive bumpo overview

DEMON'S SOULS

Fool's Idol. a fucking classic to start us off. not only does she have a bunch of clones cluttering up the arena. not only does she cover the floor in immobilising traps. NOT ONLY does she teleport. but she has an easily missable npc hanging out on a balcony above her arena who you have to locate and kill beforehand or he'll revive her repeatedly upon death. textbook shit. no notes

DARK SOULS

Pinwheel. the saddest, wettest, most pathetic of all bumpos, and this is a category that includes micolash. he's got the classic arsenal - the body doubles, the teleportation, the projectile attacks - and it just doesn't matter. he's fucked no matter what he does. sorry, buddy.

Dark Sun Gwyndolin. now, i know i made it sound like i wasn't going to include gwyndolin, but they're not here for the "giant big booby hologram of my useless sister" thing. they're here for teleporting indefinitely down an infinite hallway, like a Bitch.

Bed of Chaos. come on man

BLOODBORNE

Witches of Hemwick. a lot of people on that dog ass 10k note post that i wrote in 3 seconds and isnt even about a tweet i made are telling me the witches of hemwick aren't really that Bumpo. they're telling me they're not that big a deal. listen. Liten it's not just that this boss is invisible. it's not just that it summons a bunch of guys, multiclassing into "the gang is back together and they hate you ". it's not just the immobilising projectile attack. it's not just the respawning body doubles. it's the fake health bar. witches of hemwick is a boss fight with a fake health bar, and they're in my notes telling me that isn't double strength top ranking Clown Bullshit. Fuck Off

Micolash, Host of the Nightmare. a little undercooked as a bumpo on the individual level. but my god. what a palace of tricks he has

DARK SOULS II

i'm actually struggling to come up with a bumpo for this game. mytha, maybe? i don't know, i feel like my standards for tricks are a bit higher than just having a swamp in your arena. you need a little more panache than that, or at least need to be annoying in a less straightforward way. open to feedback of course but i just don't think anybody in dark souls 2 is the right kind of infuriating for this

DARK SOULS III

Crystal Sages. a comparatively restrained but still respectable bumpo. your common-or-garden fool. your workhorse shithead

Ancient Wyvern. as if by contrast, a most unconventional bumpo indeed! not only is the focus almost entirely on the palace of tricks, as with micolash, the ancient wyvern is also the only bumpo thus far who would not immediately die if struck by a moped

SEKIRO

Folding Screen Monkeys. a supremely Bumpo fight that also bears the unique honour of actually being, like, a good boss. i really like bosses in stealth-action games that test the player on their mastery of the stealth system rather than being action segments, and the folding screen monkeys are a great example of this! (my other favourite instances of the approach are izban from deadbolt and the boss from mgs3.) also they are part of sekiro's broader Monkey Subtheme, which rules

ELDEN RING

Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon.

[ATTACKS YOU WITH MY BEAM]

[ATTACKS YOU WITH MY BEAM]

[ATTACKS YOU WITH M

[christiansorrell]

Play-By-Blog #6: The Isle by Luke Gearing

Welcome to my ongoing play-by-blog of The Isle by Luke Gearing! We are playing this adventure with its original system, The Vanilla Game (adjusted somewhat to fit the format). You can check out the Play-By-Blog Repository to get all caught up if you wish.

How Play-By-Blog works:

I write up the situation, NPCs, and more, just like a DM.

You vote in the poll to help decide the character's course of action.

I roll the dice, resolve actions, and write them up next week.

So on and so forth for the rest of the adventure!

Notation:

[Text in brackets is out-of-character/GM text!] "Non-italicized quotes denote text from the original adventure!" "Italicized quotations denotes NPC dialogue."

Our character: Medon Girou - Magic Cutpurse

Our map: The Isle

[You can use the link's above to find Medon's Character Sheet and map of the Isle. On the map, you are currently at B.]

Now, back to the adventure!

[Our first tie vote! To adjudicate this, I went through and found that the majority of folks wanted to take a violent approach focused on attacking the monk (there will be options to not necessarily kill him, if the fight goes that well) so we'll be going with Option #3: Strike Now with your Katana, cast Sticks to Snakes when you are able]

This was not the reaction you were expecting, not from a supposed man of god anyway. You look down at the slash the monk drew across your side. Its not a flesh wound... yet. For a split second, your mind is torn between two courses of action, fleeing or fighting. No, you need to fight. There's no future where fleeing gets you inside that monastery.

You draw your katana and strike out at the monk, now at the top of the stairs between you and gently rolling waves of the cove below. You slash out, slicing easily through is robes, revealing an aging set of heavy sailor clothing beneath. He barely avoids a wound, but he's on the back foot now. Even just one well-placed slash could take him down [Attack Roll: 6 - Success, below AV of 11 and above enemy AC of 2] [Damage Roll: 5 - Monk has 5 Flesh, 0 Grit remaining].

You turn and run further up the raising path leading back up towards the isle proper and the monastery beyond, hoping to position yourself for casting Sticks to Snakes, if you are able. He may not allow you that luxury. He slashes at you as you go, but misses [Free Attack Roll: 19, Failure - over AV of 10].

[Next round begins! Initiative: 2 - Even, player goes first!]

Now's your chance. You look down at the monk, still standing near the top of the stairs overlooking the cove. Small shrubs, grown in the rough patches of dirt between the rocky outcroppings, have been torn away with the recent transport of cargo. Branches and small sticks litter the path.

With your offhand, you cast Sticks to Snakes, muttering a hurried incantation and gesturing with crooked fingers at the ground below the monk. You feel the arcane power welling up inside you and traveling down your arm and off towards the monk, but something's wrong. It's too much and it's not right, not focused in the form you needed. There's just too much [Spell Roll: 10 - Failure, over ST of 8. The spell is now Corrupted.] [Miscast Roll: 3 - "You cast a random spell on your original target, in addition to your original spell."] [Random Spell: Wizard Eye].

The energy leaves you. An ethereal floating eye, visible only to you, appears immediately to the side of the man's head [Wizard Eye miscast]. In the same moment at the monk's feet, five sticks [2d6 roll of 5, 2 of which are venomous] wriggle to life, turning into living snakes. They surround the monk, following your command - to attack! Four of the snakes strike out and land their bites along his calves and ankles [Attack Rolls: 6, 2, 3, 6, 6 - 4 successes (including 2 venomous)] [Damage: 1 each for 4 total] [Saving throw versus Death (due to venom): 4 - Success, 13 - Failure]

The monk cries out in pain, beginning to kick down at the snakes before his body quickly weakens and a bloody foam forms at the side of his lips as he coughs. He yells out once more towards the monastery, weaker than before. The knife falls from his hands and he looks to flee, his dying mind panicking, but loses his strength as he goes, falling down the stairs and lying still in a dead still heap at the bottom [XP Granted: 50].

There is just the sound of the waves against the rocks and the soft slithering of snakes at your feet.

After a moment, the snakes revert back to sticks and the Wizard Eye fizzles. You head down the stairs to check the body. Other than the fishing pole, sack of worms, and fish in the bucket, the monk has little of value on him. Around his neck is a piece of twine holding an unusual iron seal, you take it. It doesn't look valuable but it looks esoteric, specific - the kind of thing the right person may want very badly or that could get you into places you would normally be barred from. Lots of stories you could cook up around why you have this seal, why you should be let into the monastery.

Beneath his robes, you find his arms and chest to be covered in tattoos, the kind commonly seen on lifelong sailors. What brought this man to this monastery and to this god? Well, perhaps he's in his heaven now, after attempting to defend this holy place.

You find some old rope along the jetty and roll down a large stone from above the cove. You tie the rock to the monk's torso, after carrying both to the furthest end of the jetty, and push the rock over the edge. With a deep crack, the monk's body whips off of the wooden slats at your feet and out and down into the sea.

You rest for some time [Grit healed: 1d6 roll of 5 - fully healed] before venturing forth. The midday sun hangs high overhead.

[This was a fun one! I lot of interesting roll results leading to some unexpected outcomes, for sure. I was going to have options to keep the monk alive and question him which would have worked when he had 1 Flesh remaining but those venomous snakes back a big, deadly bite! See y'all next week! - Christian]

[PBB #7 is up now!]

[fluffypichu876]

SUNBRO FOR THE CHARACTER ASK

SUNBRO MY BELOVED!!!!!!! oh god i sure took my time to answer this one xD sorry for my terrible time management, dear mutual!

* favorite thing about him: he's the most friend-shaped man in the entirety of the not so friend-shaped land of lordran! he's so nice and kind and chill to talk to!

also, he's pretty much the face of the summon system, which is one of my favorite takes on co-op in video games. seeing that golden summon sign and immediately going "SOLAIRE MY BRO!" is the best :DDD (from now on that boss stands no chance lol)

* least favorite thing about him: THE WHOLE SUNLIGHT MAGGOT THING IS THE WORST. nothing feels worse than being forced to kill your truest companion :(

* favorite line: all of lines are memorable, but my personal favorite is:

"but i am a warrior of sunlight! spot my summon signature easily by its brilliant aura. if you miss it, you must be blind! hah hah hah!"

the laughter in the end is just so wholesome xDD

* brOTP: me and him, of course! 😎😎😎

xDDD jokes aside, sadly npcs don't interact much between themselves (and when they do it's offscreen), and solaire is one of the friendliest towards the chosen undead (the player) so their bro vibes feels the most natural for me.

* OTP: again, the npcs barely interact, so pretty much any ship could work? i dunno xD

* nOTP: just any problematic ships, really.

* random headcanon: i loved every post i saw of solaire being friends with lautrec, much to the latter's dismay xDDDD so i share that headcanon too now! (and in-game the few lautrec summon signs are always besides solaire's and i find that super funny)

* favorite picture: this fanart is so good! i love the colors and it has such a soft feeling to it. it encompasses solaire's friendliness really well! (also that painted sun lol)