#i was judging based on the players and not the game my opinion on the stereotypical val player is the same. don't like em. mean
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seeing someone say something negative about your hyperfixation/special interest and just
#maeposting🪷#my image#LOOOOL#mae ur being hypocritical u shit on valorant for 2 years until giving it a chance! WELL.#i was judging based on the players and not the game my opinion on the stereotypical val player is the same. don't like em. mean#BUT THE GAME ITSELF IS INCREDIBLE#and the lore oohhhhh don't get me started#anyway saw someone shit on val and i'm sulking#autism#adhd#just nd things#GRAUGH.
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The broken idealist: Higuruma Hiromi
And how the world of JJK viciously punishes idealists.
Before we start, let’s set some premises:
This is an essay based solely on my opinions and my own knowledge of criminal justice. I’m no professional writer/essayist.
JJK is a critique on unfair systems that reward selfishness and nurture individualistic (oftentimes destructive) behaviors.
One of the main motifs in JJK is (un)fairness.
Even when rewarded by these systems, individuals usually end up alienated (Gojo being the utmost example, but so is Sukuna to some extent).
The world of JJK punishes idealists very harshly.
I might've read waaaaay too deep into his character (apologies in advance).
I am ABSOLUTELY biased in analyzing this character because I kin Higuruma very hard and identify profoundly with many of his struggles.
[queue “Pigs” by Pink Floyd] Let's do this.
The ideal of truth and Higuruma choosing to be a criminal defense attorney
Higuruma shows up in the manga as one of the top players of the Culling Games. Throughout a few chapters, Gege introduces him to us as a former criminal defense attorney that has lost it after one of his clients gets his innocence verdict overruled and is unfairly convicted for a crime he didn't commit, triggering Higuruma's cursed technique to awake, ending up in the deaths of the Judge and Prosecutor that contributed for the wrongful conviction.
Along those chapters, we get to see two very interesting things: Firstly, the fact that Higuruma actively chose to be a lawyer, instead of pursuing a career as a judge. Second, his stance and lines about truth, especially this one: "Even if no one else does, I want to keep my eyes open."
Higuruma, for me, is a prime example of how someone moved by truth and justice can become a self-righteous, cynical individual (I'll refrain from the word "villain" because he wasn't ever an actual "villain" in the story). From the get go, when we get more information on his past, we can see his mental state slowly declining as he gets progressively more overworked fighting an unwinnable fight.
We have some very important pieces of information from chapter 158: Japan has a 99% conviction rate. The public opinion about defendants is that they're always guilty. Higuruma earns little, works a lot and his job is usually trying for a miracle, to be that 1%. And, finally, that Higuruma chose to fight an unfair system from within.
That not only has huge parallels with the world of cursed energy, but is one the most important messages I feel that JJK is building up to — you can't reform a broken system from within, because structurally and systematically unfair systems will always push things back into a state of unfairness / status quo. We see this when Gojo says, at the beginning of the manga, that even if he killed all the higher ups at that point in time, other assholes would just take their places. To a more fundamental level, we see it in Yuki's failed efforts to end curses from the perspective of a jujutsu sorcerer, and the way the story is progressing towards a complete rupture with the current state of cursed energy altogether to give place to something new.
The message is: To fight an unfair system from within and by its own rules is and always will be a losing game.
Now to Higuruma's fallout, we have a perfect storm for what happened to him — an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
I'll dive a little into criminal law (and c.l. procedure) and make many oversimplifications to get a point across, so I apologize to any other criminal lawyers out there reading this and cringing at the oversimplifications.
In theory, the Criminal Justice System should be preoccupied with the truth. Criminal Law, in essence, is attributing a penalty (prison, fine, death, etc.) to an act (to kill, to rob) described by law as a crime. In that regard, then, one could only suffer said penalty if they actually committed the act that the law described as being a crime.
Where does truth come into place here?
To investigate if something happened in the world of facts (the real, concrete world) is essentially a search for truth, which to me is very telling of Higuruma's choice in becoming a criminal defense attorney.
In an unfair system in which 99% of people are convicted, it'd make no sense for this man to become a prosecutor. The prosecution is already benefiting from the system, considering the way the scales are tipped. That's a given.
But regarding the judgeship, things become more interesting. In a fair criminal justice system, the judge is forbidden to engage in probationary activity (which means, basically, that the judge cannot search for evidence, investigate or look for witnesses, he can solely analyze what the defense and prosecution bring to him in order to give a verdict — the judge does not engage in the most important activity in finding the truth).
Why can't the judge do that?
Because when the presumption of innocence is in place, anyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, ergo, if there is not enough evidence to convict, the person must be acquitted. If the judge engages in that activity, they'd be taking on the prosecution's job — to prove the occurrence of a given criminal act. We have separate places for judging and prosecuting for a reason.
The scales are already in favor of the prosecution (they literally have THE STATE’S aid ikn the form of police forces to investigate and taxpayer money to foot costs during criminal lawsuits), so anything that might end up harming or weakening the presumption of innocence is strictly forbidden, including having the judge engage in probationary activity. If the lack of evidence is enough to acquit someone, then having the judge searching for evidence automatically harms the presumption of innocence, because if there is not enough evidence to convict someone, the judge MUST acquit.
In that scenario, then, the best place for someone who wants to search and defend the truth against unfairness is the Defense stand, clearly.
Everything said up until now about how the criminal justice system should work is just the theory, however. The reality of it is far sinister. The criminal justice system is a machine perfectly conceived to chew out those who fight for fairness, because fairness is not one of its main goals. It's main goal is serving as an instrument of power (in the most Foucaultian sense of the word) and control over citizens and, to some degree, appease collective concerns about crime rates and violence by making examples out of people, whether they're guilty or not (I could go on a tangent here for hours about the criminal justice system, capitalism and protection of private property by the state, but let's not do that, lol).
That's why Keita's trial is the perfect storm to break Higuruma's psyche so deeply. All the systematic unfairnesses that exist in the Japanese Criminal Justice System chomp away his ideals — one might say, what constitutes the very core of who he is — and unceremoniously spits it right back in his face.
Independent defense lawyers are systematically in a worse position regarding resources to gather evidence in their client's favor; it's easier to convict someone who's already under the gavel than to start a new investigation on somebody else and spend even more taxpayer money; to convict a person whom the people deem as guilty soothes the public opinion regarding how well the criminal justice system actually works to "keep society safe from these foul criminals" (not human beings); the appeal is a limited resource in most criminal justice systems, so after one gets their innocence verdict overturned, to get it back is extremely hard.
Everything worked perfectly to break every inch of Higuruma's ideals. It's no use for you to be the only one willing to stare truth in its eyes if everyone else looks away because it's more convenient to let the unfair gears keep turning the way they do. You'll give yourself to unnecessary suffering meanwhile nothing ever changes. This could even help draw a parallel between Higuruma's and Geto's fallouts: to realize how broken the system is, how you can't break a wall with the toy hammer the wall builders give you, and how lonely/depressing/infuriating of an experience it is to realize all this and still know there is absolutely nothing you can do.
The game is rigged, and if someone ever so chooses to not play by those rules, they're viciously punished.
Now that we've gotten to the breaking part, let's see how it manifests in Higuruma's own cursed technique and domain expansion.
The broken idealist and the cynicism
Someone had made an amazing post about how Higuruma's domain expansion was a perfect demonstration of his own cynicism at the moment his abilities were awakened, but I couldn't find it! So OP, if you by any chance end up reading this, HMU, because what you said will be featured here. (Edit: found it. Thanks, Eugie! The post can be accessed here, and @wolke17 made a deeper analysis after it, take a look at their profile)
In order to talk about Higuruma's cynicism stemming from his disappointment with the criminal justice system, we need to talk about his domain, so that's what we're gonna do now.
In his domain expansion, we meet his shikigami, Judgeman, who is an all-knowing creature responsible for giving off the verdict at the end of the debates between the two parties. According to Higuruma, Judgeman knows absolutely everything about someone's life the moment they enter his domain.
All is well up until now, isn't it? Hm, not so much. There are some very serious philosophical conundrums to having an all-knowing being bestowing judgment (skeptical catholics went crazy over this for many centuries).
Think about this: in a Courtroom, we have a judge who needs to get to know the facts, and is presented with two different hypotheses about the facts (prosecution and defense), for which the evidentiary activity (collecting evidence) is needed to support one hypothesis or the other. Given that we abide by the presumption of innocence, you don’t even have to prove the defense’s hypothesis to get an acquittal, as long as the prosecution one isn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
What’s the issue with having a judge that is omniscient?
First off, why would two hypotheses need to be confronted if the judge already knows the answer — if the person did or did not commit the crime?
On another note, now going into more of a “well he’s just judging based on the allegations”, it gets deeper. We have a judge that knows what happened, but simply decides based on the parties arguments. This is a huge issue because firstly, it obliterates the value of truth in the justice system — if criminal law is attributing to a particularly reprehensible action a penalty, and judgeman knows if that action took place or not, yet doesn’t decide according to what happened, but according to who best defends their point of view, it annihilates the very own reason for collecting evidence, the reason that a judgment needs to take place and the reason for criminal law even existing.
In Higuruma's domain, then, truth becomes the least important thing. In there, who has the better argument wins the debate. The judgment that happens within Deadly Sentencing is not about truth, it’s about the game's rules (or, more specifically, his domain's rules) and who plays them better, which makes it all the more ironic that Higuruma sees so much “potential” in the Culling Games due to its rules and established mechanics.
In a courtroom setting, having an omniscient judge is always, in any scenario, a cynical game of wits, and it fits perfectly with the philosophical fallout Higuruma experienced after Keita's conviction. His perspective got switched from "who deserves to win according to the truth" to "who plays the game better". He lost faith in the criminal justice system, and to a deeper degree, he lost faith in fairness in the world as a whole.
And that's why we can arrive at the conclusion that Higuruma is, in essence, a "broken idealist" character: he's not pandering to the idea that "the winner should be the one who plays the rules better” because he truly believes it; he's doing it out of resentment, because he got time and time again punished and was subjected to a hell of a lot of suffering for upholding his own ideals of truth and fairness. He's not acting, he is reacting to being unraveled and broken the way he was.
It also shows in his discourse regarding the weak, and the way he tries to place himself above what he dubs “the ugliness of people”, as the only one who sees the truth (“darkness is only darkness / people are ugly”). It’s a mirror: he experienced his own helplessness (or weakness) with Keita’s conviction, so in an effort to try and protect whatever is left from his own psyche, he’s actively denying how helpless he really feels by putting himself above the “truly weak”.
In the end, however, Higuruma kept his idealistic essence alive instead of giving himself over to the story that he told himself as a defense mechanism, unlike Geto, which is why it was possible to bring him back.
Even broken, he remained an idealist at heart.
written by tsukimefuku ㋡ comments and reblogs are appreciated. do not copy, translate or repost. copycatting is for losers.
#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#higuruma hiromi#jjk higuruma#higuruma#jjk hiromi#hiromi jjk#jujutsu#tsukimefuku#fuku writes
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I will preface this by saying that I haven't directly seen anyone trying to "cancel Smitten" but I've seen a lot of reference to it, and a lot of reference to people being very upset with him and I have a lot of thoughts about that.
Spoilers under the cut
Firstly, I think trying to make moral judgements about the goodness or badness of any of the Slay The Princess characters kind of shows a bit of a lack of comprehension of what the game is trying to say.
The voices represent feelings and impulses that get stronger based on your actions and the events you experience. Just like in real life, different people lean to different emotions based on what happens to them and who they are and what they nurture. This works because we feel all the emotions we feel and even the less present ones are still present in our minds and bodies.
So the Voices are that right? Feelings. They're slivers of you that have distinct voices to show the player how the characters affect and perceive each other.
What I've learned in therapy is that you have to acknowledge and balance your feelings and emotions. They are your helpers, but when things happen to us that cause us to favour one, it can take over too much and make us worse (my overwhelming shame makes me avoidant, non-confrontational, contributes to my anxiety, and outwardly wishy washy to make sure I am accepted by others).
Smitten has always been covetous, idealistic, obstinate, and naive. He is the part of you (as the Long Quiet) that desires the princess, not desire in the mostly sexual sense, but in the sense that he wants, he needs.
When you bear your heart to the princess, when Smitten takes over to get his happy ending, to get what he wants. He wants his happy ending. He wants the princess to be happy and he wants to protect her and he covets her.
None of these things are inherently bad, feeling these things doesn't make you evil, it's what you do with it that makes you evil.
The voices all internally push their agendas, they try to convince you to do what they think is right. They're balanced by each other, and by you making the choices (except when you can't, when one of them asserts themself over you).
In The Epilogue, when he is separated from you, he's alone, and so he doesn't have other voices tempering him and he doesn't have you to choose a different path. So he is all the things he is, and he is them uninhibited and unbalanced. He goes to his extreme because he isn't a whole person, he's just a sliver. This is why he manifests as a shadow.
This is just how he is, he is simply acting out of nature. And that hurts the princess and it hurts you but that's what the whole game is about. You and the princess hurt each other over and over again but that's not all of who you are, it's not your whole relationship.
There are many ways to hurt each other within Slay the Princess, and I understand the strong emotional reaction that comes with it, but in my opinion trying to cancel Smitten or to apply real world motality to anything within the game is reductive. This isn't to say that if you're triggered that you're wrong or bad for having reaction, but the Smitten isn't uniquely evil here. He isn't good and he isn't bad, he's Smitten. Can't judge him by human morals because he isn't operating on the same scale as we are.
It's fine to not enjoy things or to recognize that they hit too close to home, but I think that for me at least, that's the beauty of this game. To recognize myself in it and to process parts of myself that are difficult to cope with or love. And to understand that I am not one aspect or facet of myself, but that I am a whole person with lots of qualities and tendencies and thoughts that are good and bad, and to know that that's true of others as well. And to be able to explore that in fiction and see myself both in TLQ and TSM is incredibly powerful and one of the reasons I love this game so much.
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Controversial opinion (?)
The magnus archive role playing game (TMARPG) is a good TTRPG. But it's not a good Magnus Archive TTRPG, it's a good TTRPG that happens to be set in a Magnus Archive universe. Hear me out. It's published by Monte Cook Games, using their Cypher System. The Cypher is a good system, used in hits like Numenera or The strange, but it's not adapted to play a Magnus Archive game. They tried really hard to make it work, and they made very interesting changes to the base system. From the health tracking making you more fragile to the eponymous Cyphers being more like abilities than magic objects like in other games. And honestly, yeah, it works! It's a great investigation game, cthulhu style, allowing you to play a crew of archival assistants or a similar group, trying to survive unspeakable horrors and maybe stop rituals. But. BUT.
Magnus Archives, the podcast, isn't just about the investigation. It's an office comedy, and a tragedy, and - most important to me - a reflection on morality, mortality and humanity. It's a podcast that, to quote a tumblr post I saw once, "spend the first 100 episodes showing you irredeemable inhuman monsters... and the 100 next asking you to change your mind on them by showing the protagonist is becoming one". It's a story talking of powers beyond human understanding, but mostly of the humans stuck with them. Asking how far you'll go for a taste of power, how far you'll go to survive, how far you'll go to protect the ones you love. Showing times and times again that getting the power you crave will divorce you from humanity, and that this pull is hard to resist. And that to stay somewhat human, you need anchors, friends, connections. And frankly, there is nothing in the TMARPG to encourage this kind of story. I agree, this is mostly a me problem. My standard is that when I play a licensed RPG I want the original story to be possible with the rules as written. Maybe this is too much to ask. I genuinely don't know. But it's the rule by which I judge a game. When I play an Alien TTRPG, I want the monster horror and the PC betrayals to be encouraged by the rules. When I play a Lord of the Ring TTRPG I want mechanics for travel, honor and temptation. When I play a My Little Pony TTRPG, I want the game to help me with the magic and the friendship. And when I play TMARPG, I'd like the rules to encourage the same themes as the podcast. I could do this freestyle with the rules as is, GM my way out of this, request the help of the players with their backstory and character arcs. Or I could turn to an other TTRPG. Enter Unknown Armies (UA), an occult game about broken people conspiring to fix a broken world - sounds familiar? It wasn't made with TMA in mind, it was published before the podcast even existed. It also have it's flaws, I heard it described as "taking itself too seriously" many times. But despite this, UA drinks at the same source than TMA.
They both embrace a Jungian philosophy gosh that sounds so pedantic, the idea that the collective unconscious of the humanity create archetypes, powers, Fears. They both feature relationships as both something that needs to be cared for and link to humanity. They both have heavy use of trauma and mental breakdown, depicted as realistically as possible. Actually, UA link them directly to your stats. Witnessed violence? You can react either by being hardened and unfazed by it, or traumatised and deeply troubled by it. This will make it either easier for you to fight, or to dodge. I love it. They both have a supernatural system where you can only get those powers by acting in ways that make you an outcast, be it by being an arsonist, someone living their life through a camera lens tape recorder anyone?, or even someone fascinated by the flesh and blood. They both have weird artifacts. They both have ways to become avatars. And you can actually have a power imbalance betwen the PCs! You can have an avatar and an "antechrist's plus one" is the same party. They are made for each other. TLDR: Unknown Armies is a better Magnus Archive TTRPG than The Magnus Archives Role Playing Game. TMARPG is a good TTRPG, but not a game that actually uses the themes of the podcast. If you want to play an investigation team cthulhu-style, by all mean, play TMARPG. If you want to play a tragedy about inhumanity and power, play Unknown Armies. The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonathan Sims and distributed under a CC NC-SA-BY 4.0 license. Thanks for listening.
#tma podcast#tmagp#tma#tma spoilers#ttrpg#tma ttrpg#unknown armies#the magnus archives role playing game#hot take
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So…as a new FNAF player — and by that I mean, a person who has loved this series for four years and counting, but only just got started with actually being able to firsthand play the games — having binged nearly the entire series by now (with just 5-7AM of Security Breach and Help Wanted 2 remaining…until Into the Pit comes out, at least), y’all were actually not cooking with all of the Security Breach hate.
Like seriously, y’all were not cooking.
“Oh, they kiddie-fied it, they took out all of the horror”
…Have you actually fucking played this game? Have you felt the atmosphere? Have you stood in the basement of the Pizzaplex and stared into the old, largely abandoned, rubble and possessed staff bot and trash-ridden, somehow supernaturally still vaguely smoldering tunnels deep underground after taking apart Chica, and for even a single moment in time, looked around and felt the weight of the emotion and the turmoil and the suffering and death that has canonically occurred over the past half a century or more and just…ruminated in it awhile?
Have you felt the experience of weaving between staff bots and murderous animatronics and hiding for dear life while watching the cameras for an opening to escape?
Have you been chased in the claustrophobic vents by something you can hear right behind you, knowing that if you slow down too long or if your sprint meter runs out, it will get you?
No, the horror elements in terms of dialogue aren’t quite as overt as the past titles. No, until you take them apart, most of the animatronics aren’t visually as overtly uncanny in design. But do they need to be for it to be terrifying? Isn’t there more to horror than being overt? Isn’t there something just as unsettling about the subtlety of sugar-coated implications, the liminality of wandering a massive closed mall after dark knowing that you are not meant to be there and no one from the outside world is coming to save you, or would even notice you’re gone?
Hasn’t a lot of that always been a major part of the charm of the FNAF series? Wasn’t the liminality and the suspense of knowing something is coming to get you at any moment — really even more than the actual moment of your death — one of the greatest things the series had to offer in terms of horror?
Is Security Breach as a game — all bugs aside, most of which I should add have been largely fixed by now anyway — really all that bad and “not in the spirit of FNAF”, or are you just judging it based solely upon its color palettes and character design, and putting on your nostalgia-tinted glasses instead of actually looking at things objectively?
Because I think it’s the latter.
Is Security Breach a perfect game? No, far from it — it has flaws and imperfections and yes, glitches, and there are some aspects that I think could have been done better, or that suffered due to wanting to not let the rating go above T. But it is a good FNAF game; I’d even go so far as to say it’s a great FNAF game. It’s probably even somewhere near the very top of the list for me in my binging of the series so far.
Don’t judge a book by its cover — or by the opinions of people who are still stuck back in the earlier days of the fandom and refuse to accept that anything happened after 2017.
There is no “old fandom vs. new fandom”. FNAF is not any less FNAF than it was during the Pizzeria Simulator era. There is no divide except for the one born from a change in the attitudes of a certain portion of older fans, who have developed a sense of entitlement to look down on newer fans/fans who are into the newer games as being “fake” fans or a “different audience”, because they refuse to accept that a “true” older fan could like anything that came out after a certain year.
Your beloved series is still alive and well.
And Security Breach deserves a whole lot more love than it gets.
#linklethehistorian#my thoughts#thoughts#fnaf#five nights at freddy's#fnaf security breach#security breach#five nights at freddy's security breach
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Counterplay: Increment Commentary
There were a lot of mechanical variants this past week, and a lot of variations on the same mechanical aspects. Amassing, and card draw, and +1/+1 counters on green creatures... Yeah, there are only so many things you can increment in so many ways. I'm kind of surprised by the amount of variance even within those similarities, though, and it's clear that people liked forging their own paths!
Decades of mechanics and precedent allow us to select what designs work best, how they work best, and what kinds of aspects of MTG will show up when we need them to be bigger and better. I think the one suggestion I would give generally would be to consider the play patterns based not just on your own imaginations but also experiences from limited, from standard interactions, from the world in which everything is a little bit reliant on everything else. There were big swings between ambitions and precedent, mechanically and flavorfully.
There were also arguable differences between what I consider precedent for increments and what's technically incremented, so keep that in mind. Some of this—actually, all of this, because I'm the judge—is my opinion for what I was looking for in terms of direct increments. So keep that in mind: my opinions are totally fine to hand-wave on that front. I'd like to think you're still here because you care about the parts where I say what I think works and doesn't work otherwise, but that's ego speaking.
See a card marked JUDGE PICK? That meant that I liked it enough to either point out something super specific about it or it was in the running for the podium before paring for space. Read on until you're accumulated all that knowledge.
@bread-into-toast — Sprout of the Hate Seed (JUDGE PICK)
Calling combat triggers "incremental" is technically true, but not precisely what I was thinking of for this contest. That goes even more so for the optional trigger there. But maybe I'm being too narrow with my internal definition of "will happen every turn" versus "may perhaps happen every turn," because some of those example cards did kinda get there. I think part of my internal view was considering that you were the one in control of the increment. BTW, all of this is me waxing and musing, so for you and your card specifically, I'll say that this card really got me thinking about what I wanted to mean by increment and what was unspoken. Kinda on me for that.
I do love this card in general, though, although I'd change that trigger to: "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, if it had a +1/+1 counter on it, create a token that's a copy of it. Otherwise, create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token." The reason is because it could be argued that the "it" in the second sentence could refer to the Saproling, or at least someone might be confused by it. Everything else is perfectly awesome for a Gruul design—swingy, big, potentially game-ending, and the kind of rare that would sway you in limited into these colors. Swell job!
~
@cthulhusaurusrex — Elvish Growthcaller / Embodiment of Growth
Big effects into bigger effects are incremental enough, sure. Transforming into Cathars' Crusade on a stick is pretty excellent, and with enough lords or other effects I think that this card could be absolutely powerful when it transforms. The design itself is fine and would be a snap-pick if you're anywhere near green and/or if you wanted to hate because you didn't have the right removal. Mechanics are fairly standard, and that's all good there. I suppose the world around it and the vibes are what I wanted more of, so let's talk about that.
What this card is depicting is the healing/lifegiving power of a young elf that transforms them into a leader amongst their people. This is one of those cases where I feel that "elves connecting to plants" could have used some kind of emotional crutch to separate it from... The word I'm going to use is "expected." This is all flavor talk, so feel free to skip it, because the only actual chance on the card I'd do is making the T in Trample lowercase. For flavor reasons, though, I don't yet feel that kind of surprise that I need to make these fairly straightforward mechanics feel fresh again. Is this an expected mutation among the culture, or a surprise gift of the world's magic? The flavor text isn't giving me anything new here, and its vague poetic styling needs to provide that sense of strangeness, transformation, or change.
~
@dabudder — The Hype
I get this card, for sure. Totally do. It's absolutely not what I was looking for for increments, as it relies on a lot of non-deterministic factors to do...well, anything. But man. The first thing that comes into my head is Throes of Chaos, but much different. I suppose you could search for The Hypes, get them into the graveyard or whatever, but once they're in the graveyard then you need at least one to get it going... And then, to what end? The hype feels kinda let down by having only one extra copy, but having too many would be way too wild. Chain together The Hype until you hit two five-mana-or-less combo pieces, what a deck. Isn't that basically how this deck would work? Geological Appraiser got banned in Pioneer for a reason.
The main point is that this card can only get so big before the hype dies down, unless you're using The Hype to win on the spot. Limited probably wouldn't use this card (although not every card is designed for it, so that's aight) except as a maybe one-off ramp. "Find your combo piece" is effectively all that you'd be doing in constructed effectively. Maybe the randomness being let down by The Hype copying multiple pieces is okay, but even then, this isn't the kind of scaling that's right for an increment contest. What happens at the top? Via the card itself, nothing much. It's hard to evaluate a card that effectively is designed around only itself without assuming the most broken intentions.
~
@feyd-rautha-apologist — Grassy Gnoll (JUDGE PICK)
I imagined this card to be a build-around sleeper hit for constructed. Pinging your opponents' creatures doesn't have to be massive to be effective, right? And if there are two of these things, well, you're in for a treat. It's the return of Temur Staticaster combo! That's all just hype, though. The narrowness of this card at uncommon meant that it wasn't exactly slated for a podium spot given the fact that we had an immense number of awesome cards. Still, despite the name being something that perhaps wouldn't pass the marketing team, I think this card's pretty wonderful.
And aside from that, there's not much of a second paragraph to add here. The "W" in "Ward" should be lowercase, so jot that down. I do want to say: I think that the shortening of a card name to "this creature" was a mistake on WotC's part. Later pronouns can increase text to decrease the following confusion, although this card clears it up enough with the "that" later on. All the same... Look, this card feels great—it eats, shoots, and leaves. Leaves you with an arrow in the back, anyway. I love hyenas and I love the vibes. What more can I say?
~
@frognarch — Avalanche Elemental (JUDGE PICK)
Conversely to the previous card, you could use "this creature" here and I'd be none the wiser. But! This is one of those copying effects that distinctly feels incremental, and by far stronger in limited for it. Evasion and copying and snowballing, well, that's pretty wild. The only question I have for limited power is whether or not the fact that it can get exponential is too much. Blocking the token copy can wear it down for the moment, but if you get a single copy to stay, the board's basically done for. Every turn, swing and swing and swing again. These days, though, a five-mana 3/3 is pretty low. Maybe the environment would redefine it? Hard to say.
I do really love this design, though. I'd replace the "and" with a "then," or just remove the comma from behind the word "combat." Those are the minor potatoes. As for the flavor text, I'm iffy on a couple counts. Firstly, that's not how avalanches happen so jot that down for your nerd notes. Secondly, though, that line of just "the snow fell" doesn't carry much weight with it for me. The card's intent is that these elementals are rising from the alpine and barreling down uncontrollably, but the flavor text makes it seem like the army just got buried in a particularly heavy storm. It speaks to the aftermath rather than the moment, and the card's energy is carried with that moment. Y'know? Gotta match the energy to the action.
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@grornt — Mangrove Stalker
I'll start off by saying that it's a generally phenomenal design and you should keep this in the files. No notes there. I'll follow that up with the unfortunate part that it doesn't feel quite as incremental to what I was looking for for the contest. As soon as this comes out, you can pop it and get your benefit if you have enough creatures in the graveyard. Inversely, I was looking for a card that started the buildup itself and used itself as a requirement for bigger effects. There's the technical argument, and then the vibe argument.
I guess that this is a design lesson for me for contests. Most of the vibes were totally met, but this is a card that just doesn't hit that specificity for me. All of the values are subtle and I was actually hoping that people would be less subtle this week. I know, shocker! But if this creature got 'stalking counters' whenever you milled a creature or whatever, then drew for each stalking counter, that would be more in-line with the intended increment. And that would, in my opinion, make for a worse card. What happens when a good design clashes with the bespoke niche? I mean, you get me waffling for two paragraphs, that's what.
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@helloijustreadyourpost — The Book of Grudges
Multiplying your power as a punishing effect for attacking hurts a lot. Even though your creatures can't block, a single attack from your opponent the turn after you play this will create an additional four power on board, and then six the next turn, and so on and so forth. Yeah, it's a three-mana can't-block token. But we've all heard the adage "math is for blockers," and that really makes this card feel like it's doing more than it should be able to. Landing this early in limited is a game-ender without removal. Landing it late can change the parity immensely—if you have parity. I will say that the can't-block addition is the best choice for ability balance. (Or in this case, cannot-block. You should change that to the contraction.)
Personally, I'd do one of two things: either I'd limit the number of counters that can be placed on the book (which would be okay but not great for the contest, and would add a lot of text), or I'd make the creatures 1/1s. I am also curious about the flavor here, because I want to praise the subtle humor and the cool worldbuilding piece you've made here. Presumably, you have a group of dwarves on whatever world (I'm thinking Eldraine or Kaldheim) with a massive tome of their wrongs that incenses them to combat in a way that's more aggressive than thoughtful. Shortsighted and grumpy! That's a great way to use names and abilities together to create a sense of grounding without even needing art direction.
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@horsecrash — Bubbling Brew
The design: super cool. The flavor: perfect use of those counters. The math: weird. Too weird. Hold on, I'm actually going to get out a deck and muck around and see how it feels. ... So, I just tried this in a Sultai midrange kind of deck. Played it on turn three. Turn four: basically no hand, played out a card. Turn five: lost a lot of life, but drew cards. Didn't want to play anything because of the life loss. Turn six: draw a lot, lost a lot. I basically didn't want to play any of the cards that I drew because that meant the next turn I'd be incrementally losing all of the other resources.
Quite frankly, I want this effect to be symmetrical. Smokestack-style. Standard can handle it. Or there has to be some other kind of way to mitigate the life loss, because you're discarding so many cards that you're losing basically everything you get at the cost of your life and eventually there's no way to play out all that you have so you just mill yourself or drain yourself. I think this was the first time I've actively played a card in a deck that it was probably intended for, and lemme tell you, it's worth for anyone to do for a card this ambitious. Pros: ambition, flavor, uniqueness. Cons: my life total :(
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@hypexion — Ignition, Errant Arson / Cataclysm, Vengeant Inferno
The design is decent, but I'm left with a lot more questions than answers. Let's go through those first, because the second paragraph here is for sure going to be talking about the cool stuff you're doing. I feel that the increment-specific design is intended to be like Animar, in that your costs go down with the incremental uptick, so that's understandable. But it feels so localized, and this is a personal thing, but I think the intent of the contest was more universal to the board? Still, out of the technicalities, it makes a lot of sense to me with the buildup. The names are baffling me, though, because I can't place them at all. I assume these are chosen names, but they're... I don't want to say that they're "obvious" for the archetype. "Telling" is the closest adjective I have.
Mechanics are surprisingly in-depth, though, so let's have some fun. Firstly, menace plus potentially killing a small blocker is a great combo, and depending on how much an opponent is forced to block, that may be a perfect way to get those counters, discounting burn/combat tricks. Could even be worth making the front side a 3/3. "Non-player target" is also a great choice on the backside—accounting for Battles, I assume? The only wording choice on the back side I'd change would be to switch first strike and menace (see Kari Zev et. al); I thought "they" should be "that player" but I guess your wording is accurate as well! Both work even if I prefer "that player." The bombiness and dedication to the theme is on point, even if some of the details are evading me.
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@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Tyvar, Hero in the Dark
Sorry about not saving this one the first time—I definitely saw it, and I went through the inbox a second time, and it just flew under the radar. So let's talk about it now! And part of that is me wanting to hear the thought process for this card, because as a mythic, it's possible that it's really good, but I'm not entirely convinced. Omen Hawker was the first card to come to mind, although this one is distinctly more powerful—but just as narrow. Here's the question I'm left with: in what environment would this be considered a mythic in terms of gameplay versatility? Where are the most activated abilities that one would want to do postcombat or during combat?
Maybe it's just me, but I feel that this would've been a fine rare instead of a mythic. The general design is fantastic, though, and it works quite well with the other Tyvar. And, I can see from the past precedent that Tyvar has a little bit of "activated abilities matter" from the past. Everything shows that you've done your homework here. I feel 'whelmed' by the overall effect, though. Attack, counter, make mana—that's all fine. Where do we go from here? Boasting is potentially valid, I suppose, but again, I would liked to know a little bit more about your vision. I'm imagine there was a lot build up in the process that maybe didn't translate into demonstrating this card's utilitarian strength. (Also: love the name, 10/10)
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@melancholia-ennui — Creeping Misery (JUDGE PICK)
Yep, that's an alternate wincon for black, very much in the spirit of the contest. Once more we're delving into the world of black enchantments. Was there a particular reason we had six mono-black enchantments this week? I'm not creeping on anyone's misery here, but I find it fascinating. Anyway! Underworld Dreams is one of the first cards that come to mind when people think about BBB punishing enchantments, but this card's more along the lines of... Well, it's got quite a pedigree! Bloodchief Ascension, Fraying Sanity, and more... And yet it's not until you start to pick apart the card that you see how all these influences turn into something original. I think that it's reasonable to call this card more of a constructed build-around but the limited potential is there.
And in limited, you're going to have a lot fewer chances to save yourself and find answers if this hits the board, because things will be trading all the time. You only need one copy to lock someone out of the game, because everyone's going to be getting rid of creatures, especially you. Having that BBB restriction to prevent this from being even remotely splashable ensures that only dedicated decks can make it work. Obviously it's a pain in the butt to deal with for limited, but some cards are just like that. With our limited space this week, I still wanted to showcase this card for being overall just plain good. Pedigree matters sometimes, and this is a well-worded well-executed enchantment. Thumbs up!
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@nine-effing-hells — Exponential Grower
I completely forgot what expend was for a moment there. For anyone reading this who also happened to forget, expending was the raccoon-themed mechanic of Bloomburrow where you expended X as you spend your Xth mana to cast a spell in a single turn. I think I understand expending as a mechanic that would be reasonable for Strixhaven! You have these students who are putting a lot of mana into casting bigger and better spells, so that's fair, or maybe Quandrix could just be that home, as they're a growth-themed school. I think reminder text might've been appropriate, though, because let's be real, expend was...not a memorable mechanic.
As for how this card works, I think incremental growth is a little bit problematic, because it essentially tops out at eight unless you're playing a massive EDH game, and this card isn't especially playable except in those unworldly dedicated decks, which have other and better options. Having a 16/16 trampler isn't bad by any means, of course, but in terms of incremental cards... Well, maybe I'm being too strict with the definition, because getting that 16/16 is pretty rad. I guess between the top-off and the expend stuff, this card feels decent—but that's about the limit. I'd like to see this card in a Quandrix-expend-Strixhaven world, and it's a fair design. Having the limit be pragmatic instead of mechanical doesn't feel great for this contest, but I wouldn't really change the design.
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@piccadilly-blue — Press Gang
You said it yourself in your submission, so I'm not gonna go gushing over this card as a paramount of progress. It's good, though so liiiiiike... Anyway. Getting more and more power with your Pirate Army is going to get out of hand pretty fast, but not in a way that's not deal-with-able, considering, like... They're two creatures that can be fought against with the various tricks in black and white via combat and in green via big stuff. But, you have extra help with evasion to get your Treasures in these colors, so you're gonna have that going for you. Is it any surprise that this card's pretty much exactly what's reasonable for a set that would call for it?
The flavor text is good as well. I can see the head of a gang walking down the port with a sword in hand, smirking as they lead a hooting and hollering band of miscreants. It feels a little off that there's no Threaten effect with this card, though, and considering that there were other effects like that in the Ixalan era of piracy, I wonder if there was an opportunity to have that come up here? Maybe the flavor text could've been more in reference to bigger crews having more fun or whatever. I guess that's not the point, though, and again, not bad at all. Take a pat on the shoulder and don't check your pockets until your wallet and I are at least two states away.
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@real-aspen-hours — Incremental Research (JUDGE PICK)
Remember to get your rarity on if you're doing text submissions, folks. But that's neither here nor there, because I imagined and hoped that this would be a rare card. Plenty of research goes into making this work for sure, and it's one of those things with high risk and high reward. After a certain point, there aren't going to be many spells left unless you're doing X spells. Where I really see this popping off is with extra turn spells. From mana values 5-10, there are a number of excellent ones. I guess that's if you're playing solitaire, though; normal burn/control/value stuff is fine too.
I think this card significantly rewards strong deckbuilding. It's possible for this to be playable in limited if you really work for it, even if it becomes not very useful after a certain point. But isn't that part of the flavor? You have to do your research, you have to really make it work, you have to use your knowledge. It wouldn't fit this contest, but I think this card could've been even stronger if you were forced to either add OR remove a counter from the enchantment. Still, that's messing with other powers, and doesn't help for this card for this specific contest. It's pretty good overall, and I like the choice of skill intensity.
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@roxbot — Furnace, Fierce Protector
This card could be perfectly fine in the right environment. The major issue is that, for all intents and purposes, it's a french vanilla mythic that doesn't do anything but get bigger. It doesn't necessarily affect the board, but it plays into a couple of specific strategies, perhaps. Looking at what's in Standard right now, there's not a great comparison. The question of what this card does hangs over it. As I was reading it, I actually thought that these were oil counters and not charge counters at the beginning, and that's a whole other thing—what kind of deck do you have to build to make this work, really, and is it worth it just for this kind of body? I'm not entirely convinced, even in a set that would use an immense amount of charge counters.
Couple of wording changes, by the by. Names are usually replaced by "this creature" as of Foundations, and that would work best here. The "on permanents" should be "among permanents" in the first line. Rules things: if you have no charge counters out when you play this card, it'll actually die as a state-based action, because when the spell itself resolves the P/T check will see it as a 0/0 before the trigger goes on the stack. That's why cards like The Mimeoplasm are worded the way they are. Last note, "start" should be "beginning" there. Overall, I think there were a few tweaks, but the base judgement is that I feel the power level is too low and too narrow for the impact it needs.
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@sparkyyoungupstart — Detesting Beast
I think that this card would be awesome in a multiplayer set or in a Commander precon! I also think that introducing the monarch mechanic in 1v1, for which you are designing, has led to several problems and I'm not gonna wax poetic about an issue that everyone and their cat has been talking about for the last thousand years. Anyway. Let's look at the design choices from THAT perspective. The general take: this card's fun and you're gonna be pretty detested by the end of the game assuming that nobody has removal for it. Nobody wants to be hit by this, and nobody wants to give you the monarch for sure. Everyone suffers. I like that. Puts a good threat out there.
All these synergies makes me really wish that you had actually gone and done a Questing Beast variant with three different mostly unrelated takes like how the original QB had done, though. I think part of QB's strength is the fact that it's just a pain in the butt for different reasons, as opposed to this card with has many reasons but one specific track for it to be awful. The only wording change is to change the 7s to "seven"s. I also like how damage to ANY opponent will yoink the monarch back, BTW, very subtle. I hate this card! I would love to play with this card.
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@tanknspank — Rats' Nest (JUDGE PICK)
Very curious if you were going for Eldraine or Ravnica here, but either way it's a great use of the name and of the typal agenda. I think Army technology makes a lot of sense for increments overall as well, so I'm glad that folks were using that a lot this week. I'm okay with it being used here not just because having "amass rats" is an awesome thing to see on a card, but also because, yeah, it's just what this contest could want. Get a big enough rat and you're forcing your opponent to make the rat bigger. That's pretty great!
There's just no guarantee that this card's going to get going, and for that reason I wouldn't make a P1P1 out of this in limited. Not that you'll never have rats or that things won't die, but with the right kind of evasion and alternative removal, it makes it difficult for you to 100% guarantee that you'll find a large enough rat to make this card really pop off. It's not a bad rare; it's a slow rare for sure, but eh, what're you going to do. The general vibes are exact, the card's going to do what you want it to in a dedicated rat deck that's not one of the gimmick decks, and so we're all happy with what we see here. I'm really feeling more sewer-y Ravnican rat nonsense with this, but I couldn't tell you why.
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@wildcardgamez — Benevolent Scalelord
Cumulative upkeep and bolster are two mechanics that I really don't see being that great together, even with the things that you use to make it...well, this. The reality is that cumulative upkeep isn't a great mechanic and wasn't that good even in its heyday; it's a 10 on the storm scale for a reason. Bolster is also one of those mechanics where you're stuck in a strange spot with the kind of creatures that you're able to put counters on, but that's one where I'm more of a personal meh-sayer. As it is, though...why is this a dragon hydra? What kind of weirdness justifies that? A dragon without flying could have hydra-ness in it, but if the two are coming together you bet I'd rather see a flying hydra than a grounded dragon.
The idea of big counters that transfer over to another creature upon death isn't a bad idea at its core. This particular card has a mishmash of strangeness that leads me to wonder why they'd ever be together for a premier set. I feel that the lesson to be learned here is to focus the backwards-looking lens on what should be returning rather than what would be good for a contest. On top of that, the excitement of ideas should reflect the best of both worlds rather than a compromise. Did this need to be a dragon at all? Could you have brought bolster to another creature type?
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@xenobladexfan — Bloody Knowledge
"If you would draw one or more cards during each of your draw steps, instead put two deal counters on this enchantment. Then you draw X cards and lose X life, where X is the number of deal counters on this enchantment." is how I would word it. There are a few precedent-y cards to go with that, but this is a pretty convoluted card as it is. Drawing two and losing two, then four, then six, then eight... I mean, hey, that late in the game, you better be ready to make some sacrifices. I think that the addition makes some really rough deals out of this spell, but it's a mythic black card draw thing, so for standard sets it's as powerful as you're gonna get. Maybe 2BB would be fine, but that's pushing it just to keep things even.
I guess that the most important thing about this card to critique is the fact that it's pretty much a stripped-down flavor for bargaining, to the point where there's little meat left on the bones. Bare bones are good for chewing, but there ain't much blood in them any longer. Sometimes the basics are important, but there's zero context for what's happening beyond all the "give up blood for knowledge and power" spells that we've seen before. I think that this card needed a little bit more of a personal story touch for me to feel something beyond the good-mechanics. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with the tropes—it's me personally that's wanting more.
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@yd12k — Sphinx's Grasp
I'm ashamed to say that I'd build around this card. It's a looping wincon, where you can play one, counter a spell, then hold up counterspells in your hand for the rest of the game and then just loop them once or twice a turn until you have literally all the power you could possibly need to strip them of their resources. As a limited card, nobody would play this. Constructed? Absolutely revolting as a wincon and I'd play four of them in a bounce-control deck. The gist is that this just isn't a good play pattern for constructed at all.
Even an uncounterable meta would have a difficult time if this were combined with literally any other aspect. Oddly enough, I'm reminded of Lullmage Mentor, although the ceiling for that card was significantly higher than here. But for that, it's a once-a-turn possible lock. This card is an active wincon that permanently removes further resources. I don't think that there's a world where I can really justify this card, as much as I like it.
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@yourrightfulking — Invasive Briar
The give-and-take is interesting as a card. It's definitely not what we're looking for for increments. What's increasing, exactly, and by what? The lands that you get to put on the plants can be replayed if you draw into them, but nothing gets bigger the more that something happens. The more lands you play doesn't necessarily correlate to the increase in plants, and the growth of the plants isn't necessarily tied to the fact that you're playing the lands. Give-and-take is a different kind of technology here. I do like this card, though, so take that for whatever you will.
I actually really like this as a limited bomb, to be honest. You can drop this and then do absolutely nothing but play out the rest of the game until you can get a plant army going to annihilate your opponent with your spare lands. Like, that's a fine game plan that requires forethought and survival without being a brainless exercise in abundance. Multiples are a pain and can get overbearing quickly, but there are far more answers in constructed. I think that there are other ways to flavor this to make it a little bit scarier or funnier or more immersive, but that doesn't take away from the mechanical cohesion. Good card...for a different contest.
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Have fun with myths this week! @abelzumi
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❤️ Pokemon Center Ranking ❤️
The Pokemon center has been a location in every Pokemon game since the beginning, a safe place for the player to stop, heal, and reorganize. The Pokemon center varies between regions, so part of me wonders which is the best one, I created a set of Criteria to judge each Pokemon center:
Design: Overall, how much do I like the design?
Coziness: How comfortable does this place look? Would I feel safe being here?
Environment: How well does the Pokemon Center blend in with the environment? Is it well hidden and feels like a natural part of the town or does it stick out unnaturally?
Theme: How good is the song played? Is it a simple song or does it make you love being at the Pokemon Center?
I did some checking and made a Google form for voting (featured at the end of this post). For now, here’s my opinion on the various Pokemon centers, best to worst.
Blueberry Academy (19)
Design: 3
Coziness: 1
Environment: 10
Theme: 5 (Shares Terarium Theme)
Looking over the history of Pokemon centers, it’s interesting to see how the technology and functions changed over time, Gen 5 saw the Poke-mart put inside it and Gen 8 removed the PC, Blueberry Academy removed the entire building. The “Self-Service Healing Centers” are pokemon centers stripped down to their bare essentials, you heal, buy items at a nearby vending machine, and leave, there’s no calming theme or lady to welcome you, you just heal and leave. The areas they are in don’t take away from the surrounding terarium, but it also doesn’t feel like somewhere I can just sit down and rest
Johto (23)
Design: 4
Coziness: 6
Environment: 6
Theme: 7
I know most of my problems with Johto are its system, but I’m still not a fan, the colors are very extreme, the layout and building are the same as the Red and Bue one, and the music adds this drum-like sound to the original music that really doesn’t help it. Also, the chairs don’t have backs, everyone who sits there will be slouching. Sorry Johto fans, this isn’t my cup of tea… but the Heart Gold-Soul Silver Pokemon Center is.
Johto (HGSS) (26)
Design: 10
Coziness: 3
Environment: 5
Theme: 8
I won’t be including the ORAS or FRLG Pokemon centers since they’re either HD upgrades to their original design or just the Hoenn Pokemon Center. The Johto Pokemon Center in HGSS is a fairly solid design that changes a little to fit some towns, and the interior is two floors, something only one other pokemon center will have and I will always love. The theme is much better, the drums actually work now, but this pokemon center loses in terms of comfort… there’s nowhere to sit and rest.
Kanto (27)
Design: 5
Coziness: 7
Environment: 7
Theme: 8
Ah yes, the original pokemon center and I’d say it’s a pretty nice one, there are seats with backs, a few nice trees, and the theme is a nice base for future themes to build on. This pokemon center is fairly basic, but still a nice place to be, I feel like if pokemon centers were real, they’d look more like the Kanto ones.
Galar (27)
Design: 10
Coziness: 5
Environment: 7
Theme: 5
Similar to the basic Kanto Pokemon center, but has more of a comforting atmosphere that’s able to blend in with a lot of Galarian towns, especially Spikemuth and Ballonlea, even including a variation that’s built into other buildings. The theme is alright and the building is nice, but where the Galar Center fails is coziness, there are no seats, only tables so everyone has to stand.
Alola (28)
Design: 8
Coziness: 7
Environment: 6
Theme: 7
Alola is fairly similar to Galar, the interior is very well-themed to Alola, and even has a cafe to one side to make up for the wooden chairs it has. The exterior, specifically the roof, stands out a lot of the time, and from a lot of towns, and I think the start of the theme leans way too much into it being in Alola. I will admit the Po Town is cool, but that’s only one location.
Sinnoh (29)
Design:6
Coziness: 8
Environment: 7
Theme: 8
The Sinnoh Pokemon Center is the same as the Hoenn, Unova, and FRLG Pokemon Center, only missing a glass table, but the tree and bookshelves are nice. Initially the theme had a lower score, but then I heard the night version and I fell in love with it.
Hoenn (29)
Design: 6
Coziness: 8
Environment: 5
Theme: 10
All that’s different some Sinnoh is that there’s a table… it’s fairly similar… but has one big saving grace: THE THEME. It is so calming, it perfectly remakes the original pokemon center theme in a way that makes it more relaxing and maybe even nicer on the ears. I was genuinely caught off guard by how good it is.
Paldea (32)
Design: 9
Coziness: 7
Environment: 10
Theme: 6
I was initially going to do a simple ranking and I was going to put Paldea as second worst… but in a strange way all the things I dislike about Paldea make it a really good pokemon center. The design is fairly simple and doesn’t stand out that much, but that perfectly allows it to blend in with the environments, the massive pokeball sign above it doesn’t take away from the surrounding area but still marks its location. I initially gave it a 5, but noticing it has some chairs on the side of it boosted it to a 7, not higher because there aren’t any walls, sure the game doesn’t let pokemon enter the area, but realistically that level 89 garchomp is still getting me.
Kalos (34)
Design: 8
Coziness: 10
Environment: 6
Theme: 10
My first game was XY and I’m happy I got this solid of a pokemon center. This is probably the coziest pokemon center, it has chairs and a long sofa with a corner seat, changing room, the largest pokemon center library out of any region! The theme is so good, the guitar playing the classic theme is so soothing, Kalos and Hoenn have the best music. There is only one thing that holds Kalos back from being perfect, the design, the interior was painted by Caulde Monet himself… but the exterior… Why does such a cozy building have such an industrial roof? You’re telling me if I sit down and look up I’ll see a Costco Roof? This ‘bold’ design heavily contrasts a lot of the towns they’re in.
Unova (35)
Design: 10
Coziness: 9
Environment: 7
Theme: 9
This is the best pokemon center building, it has two floors, the first to combine the pokemon center and the poke-mart, and across from the poke-mart is a cute area to sit and read a book. The entire building reminds me of a mall, a social area for people to gather and get what they need. The theme is probably the most pokemon center, pokemon center theme, comforting and makes me feel like I can relax.Technically this is the best pokemon center but I just love the number one pick even more.
Kitakami (37)
Design: 10
Coziness: 8
Environment: 10
Theme: 9
Many will disagree with me, but the small pokemon center stand in Mossui town is the single greatest pokemon center in all of pokemon. The design is so wonderfully simple and fits perfectly into this small town, a full size pokemon center would be such a distraction and feel so out of place. The theme for it is Mossui town which is also really good, there’s nowhere to sit, but who needs to sit when there’s this Nurse Joy, when she smiles and heals your pokemon, it doesn’t just feel like a friendly woman doing her job, it’s your aunt helping you out and doing a little gossip on the side. Her presence alone clears every other pokemon center in any other region.
Here’s the link to join the discussion and vote on which is best:
Edit: Wrong link! Sorry!
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System Spotlight: Ironsworn
Hello everyone, and welcome to my first ever System Spotlight! Before we begin, let me explain a little about what this is and what to expect.
This is a series I've wanted to do for a while where I talk about RPGs other than D&D, their mechanics, and my overall thoughts on them. There are thousands of wonderful RPGs out there and I want to shine a spotlight on some of the ones I feel could use more love or just give my two cents on ones that are already popular.
This won't be a regular weekly series or anything like that, but I do want to write these so there's less of a gap between content posts. I also want to use them as a sort of primer/101 for future projects made for those systems. I'm known for 5th edition and it's likely the system you fine folk are most familiar with so I want to give you the basics of whatever system I'm working with so the associated project makes some sense. And hey, if even one of you takes in interest in a game I talk about then that's a win in my book.
I would also like to preface that I have not actually played every game I will be talking about in this series, though I have read about them and gone through whatever core rules they have at the very least. I will state whether or not I have played in each post for transparency and so you can judge my opinions accordingly.
Anyway, that's enough preamble, let's Undertake a Journey and talk about Ironsworn!
Are you the Forever GM and never get to play? Are you in-between games or groups and want something to scratch that RPG itch? Perhaps you want to try GMing your own game but don't want the pressure of other players. You're not alone! Turns out there is a huge community for the solo play of RPGs and I am fascinated by it. People have been finding ways to play RPGs by themselves for years and there are lots of tools to let people do just that (I'll get to those at some point), but recently there has been a certain game that has become very popular that is built for just such a method of play.
Created by the wonderful Shawn Tomkin, Ironsworn is game built from the ground up to be solo or co-op and entirely GMless, though you can play traditionally if you wish. It's based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system and is more narrative than mechanics focused unlike a lot of other RPGs, especially games like D&D. Basically, the mechanics are designed to be in service of the story. Speaking of mechanics, let's talk about ‘em!
Dice
Starting with dice, Ironsworn uses a d6 and two d10s for everything. The d6 is your Action Die and acts like a d20 in other systems. The two d10s are your Challenge Dice, which set the difficulty of whatever it is you're trying to roll for.
When you roll to do something, you roll the d6 and d10s together adding your relevant stat and any bonuses you have to the d6. If your action die is over both challenge dice, you get a Strong Hit. If it's only over one of the challenge dice, it's a Weak Hit. But if it's under both of the challenge dice then it's a Miss. Now, if both of the challenge dice are the same, you either have a Strong Hit or Miss with a Match. Matches are like crits in other games, making your Strong Hit or Miss way better or way worse for you.
Moves
So how do you actually do stuff? Like most PbtA games, you make Moves, each with their own mechanics that tell you how to resolve them. For example, let's look at a common move: Gather Information.
For this example, we roll our dice and get a 3 on the Action Die and a 4 and an 8 on the Challenge Dice. We'll say our character has a 2 for Wits and no other bonuses, bringing our Action Die total to 5. This would be a Weak Hit, revealing some troubling information and giving us +1 Momentum (we'll get to momentum in a bit). Pretty simple, right? Whatever you want to do, there's a move for it.
Momentum
Now, about momentum. Momentum is a really cool mechanic that gives you some much needed control over your dice when you really need it. Most moves give you momentum when you succeed, up to a max of 10. When you roll, you can burn your momentum to cancel out any challenge die that is less than your momentum, letting you turn a Miss into a Weak Hit or a Weak Hit into a Strong Hit. Your momentum then gets reset back down to 2 so you always have a little.
Characters
Ok, let's talk character creation! Characters in Ironsworn have 5 stats: Edge, Heart, Iron, Shadow, and Wits. Edge is your quickness and is for ranged combat; Heart is your courage and charisma; Iron is your strength, constitution, and is for melee combat; Shadow is your sneakiness and cunning; Wits is your intelligence and wisdom. You set your stats with a stat array, putting one number for each stat: 3, 2, 2, 1, 1. They even have alternate arrays with higher and lower numbers to make the game easier or harder, which is cool. Your stats will never change during a game so be sure to choose wisely.
Health, Spirit, and Supply
Characters have 3 meters to represent their status: Health, Spirit, and Supply. They each start at 5 and can be increased or decreased by failing moves or taking damage. Health and Spirit are pretty self explanatory, representing your overall physical health and stress levels. Supply is a little different. You don't have equipment, money, or resources in Ironsworn so Supply is used as an abstract representation of how prepared you are during your adventures.
Assets
Now it's time to pick your assets. Assets represent your skills and traits, giving you bonuses to certain things and letting you make new moves. There are 4 asset types: Companions, Paths, Combat Talents, and Rituals. Companions are pretty self explanatory. Paths are your background, skills, and training. Combat Talents let you do special moves with whatever weapon you wield. Finally, Rituals are how you perform big magic in the world of Ironsworn. You get any 3 assets of your choice when you create your character and you can get more through character progression. Assets can also be upgraded, unlocking new abilities and benefits.
Iron Vows
So how does character progression work? In Ironsworn, you earn experience by completing quests, or Vows as they're called. When you take on a quest, you literally swear on iron that you will do whatever it is you set out to do, hence the name of the game. But should you forsake your vow, there are consequences. You always start a game with a background vow, which is basically your personal quest and what drives your character, and an immediate vow to get the story going.
Once you complete a vow, you get experience based on how dangerous it was. Experience can be spent on upgrading your assets or buying entirely new ones.
Combat in Ironsworn
So how does combat work in Ironsworn? Well, a bit like everything else, using moves and with a greater focus on the narrative instead of the nitty gritty details. To be honest, I still have trouble wrapping my head around combat coming from a background of the crunchy, tactical style combat of D&D.
Basically, when you enter combat you Enter the Fray and roll to see who is in control of the situation. Whether or not you are in control determines what moves you can make. Rolling well means you gain or maintain control and you can mark progress towards ending the encounter and claiming victory, whatever that looks like for you. I know my explanation is probably woefully inept at best, so I encourage you to check out Matt Risby’s explanation and example. He does a much better job than I ever could.
The Oracles
Now that you have your version of the Ironlands, you need people, places, and things to populate it with. For that, we turn the the Oracle tables. The oracles are d100 tables filed with words and descriptors to help you flesh out your world and spark inspiration when you're not sure what to do next. There is even a dedicated move called Ask the Oracle, which many other moves reference to help you out if you're not sure what their results might mean for your character.
But what if you need to generate something? For example, say we just entered a new settlement and we want see what it's like and what might be going on there. For that, we turn to the Settlement Oracle tables. We roll a 45 so our settlement is named after a creature. Then we roll and 97, giving us the name Dragonshadow. Now let's see what's going on in Dragonshadow. We roll a 65, giving us “families in conflict”. Squabbling nobles perhaps? But I think you get the idea. There's 19 oracles in Ironsworn and you're even encouraged to make your own.
The Ironlands
Now that the basics are out of the way, where are we? Welcome to the Ironlands! The Ironlands are a low fantasy, low magic, viking-esque setting that honestly reminds me a lot of Westeros from Game of Thrones. It's a harsh, unforgiving land that has made it's people tough and hearty, people who have already dealt with great hardship after a cataclysm drove them from their homeland, or The Old World.
But the best part is that the Ironlands are yours to create. Alongside character creation you create your own version of the Ironlands based on a series of prompts. The basics remain the same as above but the details are up to you. You determine what drove the Ironlanders from their home, how society works, are there monsters or magic, what horror lurk in the dark, and so much more. And if you don't like one of the prompts, change it! Make up whatever you want, it's your world!
Hacks (or Homebrew)
But what if you aren't a fan of the Ironlands period? Perhaps you want something a little more fantastical or even high tech? Then hack it! There's an entire section in the game that encourages you to rework the game to suit whatever needs you have. Don't like the setting? Make up a new one! Want new equipment or backgrounds? Rename the existing assets or make new ones! Don't want to do the work yourself? There are dozens of hacks and hundreds of custom assets created by the community, most of which are free! Whatever flavor you want Ironsworn to be, it can be with a little tweaking.
Ironsworn: Starforged
Now I can't talk about Ironsworn without talking about it's sister game, Starforged. Starforged is a new version of the game with updated and expanded rules in a new sci-fi setting known as the Forge. All the basics are still there with only minor changes so if you've played one you can jump right into the other without much issue. Everything I've said before goes for Starforged as well so if fantasy isn't your bag maybe give it a go instead!
My Thoughts
I'll just come right out and say it, I fucking love Ironsworn. But sadly I've yet to actually sit down and start a game to experience it for myself, which is honestly a crime. It's completely changed my perspective of what an RPG can be and has really opened my eyes to the incredibly wide world of solo play, which I will be delving into further. I have nothing but nice things to say about the game, its creator Shawn, and its incredible community.
To get into specifics, the biggest thing I love is the simplicity of Ironsworn as a system and how easy it is to expand on it. The fact that you're actively encouraged to customize it is amazing too. The layout of the book is clean, simple, and explains things very well. It even includes examples of play. I love momentum as a mechanic, I think it's a brilliant way help keep the story moving and I would love to try and come up with something like it for other systems. And while low fantasy isn't my bag, I can appreciate it for what it is and I can always customize it to suit my tastes.
But the best part about Ironsworn is its completely free! You can download everything you need to play on the website at https://www.ironswornrpg.com/. Starforged on the other hand is paid, which you can get a pdf of on DriveThruRPG for 20 bucks, which is more than reasonable in my opinion. But should you get a physical copy, you get a pdf for free!
If you're not sold on the game just yet, or just want to see it in action, I highly encourage you to check out Me, Myself, and Die Season 2 (season 1 not required), The Bad Spot podcast, and Errant Adventures podcast. MM&D S2 is just Ironsworn while both The Bad Spot and Errant Adventures do both Ironsworn and Starforged. All of them are fantastic live play shows that are well worth your time in my humble opinion.
If you're still with me, thanks for listening to me ramble about a game I love for a bit. I know it's different than my usual content but different is good and I've wanted to do this for a long time so I appreciate you sticking around while I experiment. Let me know what y'all think, about this as a thing I do now, if you're familiar with Ironsworn, and what other games you'd like me to look at. I have one hell of a list already but I bet y'all have some gems I don't know about and it will help me gauge interest. Anyway, that's all for now. As always, stay safe, don't forget to love each other, and I'll see you again soon.
#ironsworn#starforged#powered by the apocalypse#pbta#shawn tomkin#me myself and die#the bad spot#errant adventures#system spotlight#tabletop#Tabletop Games#Tabletop RPG#tabletop roleplaying#ttrpg
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hi Cat, can you share your thoughts/criticisms of DATV? i think the game is gonna flop.
hey nonners, idk. this is a complicated question. i mean, game's not even out yet so it's unfair to pass judgment on it. i can only judge bioware's approach to pre-release marketing. and i got a lot of thoughts on that.
honestly i think it will be a perfectly serviceable game and technically it will run well (i mean, it has been steam deck verified which tells me that performance was a big concern for devs). i don't think quality has much bearing on the love people can have for a game. and vice-versa. the people who are hyped to oblivion and want to preorder will like it. the people who hate it bc it has poc and queer and disabled characters will still hate it. people who analyze the game's mechanics and writing will dissect the game and be predisposed to finding things they dislike. over time opinions will mellow out and we'll see how the veilguard will be remembered.
i can't trust bioware to make an rpg that i will want to play after their last failures. different people will differ on where the string of failures started. from a quality standpoint my line is dragon age 2. me3 to me failed to deliver on the promise of the first 2 me games save for shining exceptions like the citadel dlc and javik. from a numbers standpoint the last successful game was inquisition which won goty in 2014 due to a serious lack of competition mostly, especially since witcher 3 was pushed back to 2015 (which pains me personally as that put it directly in bloodborne's path to goty in that year). thing is bioware seems to be doing all they can to avoid a flop. veilguard is bioware's hail mary after a string of failures. they are ditching the ea app to capture as many people as possible. the combat has fully careened into action, and although they keep telling us these will be the best companions ever, really, guys, the gameplay is more and more focused on the protagonist alone. the crpg roots of the series are getting cut down to attract a broader audience. perhaps at the cost of ostracizing some like me who enjoy the party-based, party-building mechanics like me.
how well this will go i don't know. on one hand i think bioware has been historically bad at showing the full scope to new and returning players. empress celene has been haunting the edges of the world since origins. the full grasp of her character is locked behind books. afaik some companions have been introduced already in supplemental materials. this sort of move didn't go well for ff15. on the other i think this game missed its window. the gaming landscape of today isn't the same as it was in 2014, and in 2014 the skyrim at home open world design was already outdated. i've been hearing about the crpg renaissance since 2016. i accompanied it. it remained a niche part of gaming until it didn't: baldur's gate 3 released last year to audience and critical acclaim. going forward i expect mainstream rpgs to take cues from bg3. and the mission based almost extraction shooter-esque design that veilguard seems to have might not land as well in 2024 as it would have in 2020.
eta: or it could go well, idk. morrowind and final fantasy were bethesda's and squaresoft's hail maries and saved those studios.
right now the marketing has missed the mark on me. it is patronizing and seemingly needs to punch down the previous da games to prop this one up. it concerns me that the game may be releasing in 2 months (as per jeff grubb) and we quite frankly haven't seen shit. just bioware telling us that trust me, these companions are deep. trust me, the combat is good. trust me, the city built on slave labor is totally the coolest one you've seen. everyone copies fromsoftware but they don't seem to learn to drop a trailer and shut up until they got more things of substance to show. and this isn't just a bioware issue.
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Bernie's Gods (working title)
"2. the god of war died in a bizarre trebuchet accident several decades previously; a coalition of other gods have been playing Weekend at Bernie’s with their priesthood ever since, doing their best to answer their prayers with variable plausibility and success." ~ @prokopetz, "Standard fantasy RPG pantheon, except"
This is just me getting my thoughts written down and out there; actual presentation will come later.
The base concept is that you play as the gods who are "filling in" for the dead god, doing the best they can, within their own domains. Think "trying to do a job, with the tools and skills for a completely different job". There's no state of "failure" here, as the opinions of mortals don't matter; rather, it's judged on style by other gods.
By default, the dead god is the god of war, and the setting is somewhere between Mythological Ancient Greece and Fantasy Medieval Europe. If you're doing something different, that needs to be clarified at the beginning of play.
I'm writing this with the concept that there's no GM (which I'm pretty sure is workable as I've had the idea for working it, for a while), and also that nobody has a specific character they're playing (which I'm less sure about, but it's the cornerstone for the rest of the concept which came to me last night, and without it I wouldn't have a full game idea).
As the first or second thing to set up before the game, everyone writes down two things that the dead god is asked for or about. (Proper term is yet to come; something like prayer or petition or request. Also yet to come is stuff an talks about what kind of stuff that could be.) One of those things gets given to the person on their left, and the other gets given to the person on their right. This is what I'm doing instead of "having a GM"; the "problem setup" is distributed; if you'd want to have a set GM, then just disregard this part.
As the second or first thing to set up before the game, work out what gods -- or more specifically, what domains -- will be active here, and write out a numbered list of them, such that one can easily be selected randomly. (Yet to do: write up some examples.) My current thought is that there should be fewer of them, than there are people playing the game, but that's subject to change upon examination.
So, at the start, once things have been set up, there's a list of the involved domains that can be rolled on (or number-generated, but I'm just going to say "roll"), and everyone has two 'prompts' from two different people.
Play begins, and it's the same for each person's turn ('turn order' doesn't really matter so I'm not going to get into it here). You look at the written thingers you were given, and pick one (or pick the remaining one if you've only one left). That's the thing you have to do. Then you roll on the list to see which god you're acting as. ('God-selection' is done randomly and independently, which means there's a chance that not all of them will be acting the same number of times. This is… not quite 'intentional', but once I realized it I was like 'oh yeah this works, and I like it better than making sure it's equal'.) If you have questions about the 'request', you ask the person on the opposite side of you from where it came from; that is, the one who did NOT write it.
So you have the thing you need to respond to, and you have the domain your powers are in. Come up with how you're going to respond to it, given the stuff you have access to.
Here's the stuff I'm not so sure about; I mean I think it's a good idea, but I haven't had much time to turn it over in my head (I just got it last night before falling asleep) so I can't be sure. The other players then judge your idea based on three criteria (as follows), which determines the dice you have access to. By default, that's a d6 on each aspect, and I'm not sure if a tie should go to "default" or "non-default", but that's a problem for future write-ups of this thing.
Aspects to judge it on: a) does it directly respond to the thing you were given; b) does it involve your domain; c) does it feel like something the dead god would do, specifically that domain, plausibility. If your idea 'fits' an aspect, you get to roll a d8 instead of a d6; if it doesn't 'fit', you roll a d4. So like, if nobody had any strong feelings on what you were going to do, you'd roll 3d6; if it was all-around great or horrible you'd roll 3d8 or 3d4 respectively; and if some parts were good and other parts weren't so good, you'd roll three dice in various combinations of d4, d6, and d8. (This needs to be phrased better and also positioned better, because I think "what dice you might roll" should go ahead of "how you determine which dice to roll".)
Example. Let's say you were beseeched for victory in battle, and you're acting under the domain of "storm". You decide to send a lightning bolt to fry the enemy commander while they're in their tent. You are very much acting with the stuff you have as your domain (lightning bolt to the face), so that'd be one d8 from there; and it also very strongly and directly responds to the thing you were given ("lightning bolt to the face" is a pretty obvious message that someone up there doesn't want you to succeed), so that's another d8. However, it doesn't fit with what a god of war would do, there's no implication that it's "war" instead of "storms" that's mad at the enemy commander, so that's a d4. All total, you'd roll 2d8+d4.
Now, the dice themselves and what they mean. (Keep track of stuff from the results, but it's tracked per god, not per player.) Write down each Low; my current thought is that it's "each time you have either 1 or 2 showing as a result", but the numbers are still iffy so I'm putting it as Low instead of encoding a specific value. Note that the fewer sides a dice has, the greater your chance of getting a Low. This is considered the number of mess-ups that the god did. For the second thing to keep track of, I'm not so sure about this one, but I'm tentatively putting it as "the sum total of the dice rolled". So, if you were rolling 3d6 and your results were 1, 4, 6, you'd write down that you had one Low, and a sum total of 11.
Play would end once all the thingers have been used up, which here would be once everyone's gone twice. Look at the list of domains (where the results were tracked), and see which one has accumulated the most Lows; that god gets mocked for messing up so often. Then add up each sum total, and see who's accumulated the highest results throughout the game; that god gets praised for doing a good job. It's very possible for those to be the same god, because that's the one who got rolled to act the most often; this is intentional. And because of the disconnect between 'player' and 'character', I don't feel bad about exposing a character to mockery.
So, stuff to do for future versions, aside from "make everything neat and clear":
come up with a name for the stuff that gets written at start of play, for things to do
write something up about what kinds of things the above would be, drawing from both fantasy gaming and literature, and my "I read an article on it once" knowledge of historical polytheism
list examples of domains
find a better way to phrase the aspects that an idea gets judged on; possibly write up a thing on voting for that
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sorry, this is gonna be a bit rant-ish, but I gotta do it because it's getting on my nerves. I may sound a bit harsh or aggressive and I apologize in advance, I don't mean to insult or be rude to anyone, I'm just pissed off and I'm kind of venting here (●´⌓`●) if you're about to read it, PLEASE MAKE SURE TO ACTUALLY READ UNTIL THE END because I will NOT tolerate people attacking me in the comments especially if it's about something I already greatly explained in this post.
ok, so genshin players don't actually read the story/lore. All those people hating on Citlali saying they changed her personality or whatever, ignoring the fact that having different sides you show to different people is completely normal and you can be strong and cool but also have a tsundere-ish side and act cute or awkward in front of some people. If you play her story quest (or whatever it's called since it's a different part of the quests section) and read using you brain you will find out that it's understandable why she acts that way and you will learn more about her past. It's a game mostly based on the story and lore, if you don't like to read or try to understand the plot then just go play some other game. But OF COURSE NOT and you're just going to have all this big prejudice and hate on her without bothering to try to learn more about the character, it's certainly easier to judge based on your first impression of her.
And surely you can have you own opinion, it's your right and I obviously respect that, but at least try to get to know more about her and not just jump to conclusions. Y'all want "complex characters" but can't stand having a character who reacts and behaves in different ways in front of different people, which is, as I already said, completely normal irl too.
And I HATE when I see so many people comment on posts with shit like "I haven't played any of Natlan quests but since everybody is saying this it must be true". Like, EXCUSE ME?? What do you have a brain for? To fill that empty space in your skull?? AT LEAST PLAY THE FREAKING QUESTS BEFORE SHARING "YOUR OPINION", which is not even yours since you said yourself you haven't played any Natlan quests at all. And that's not one singular person, I've seen plenty of those kinds of comments. Why are you just copying what everyone else is saying? What are you, a parrot?? Your brain can and should be used to think about things and analyze the information you got/received, add your personal point of view and create YOUR OWN OPINION that way. What's the point of having a functioning brain if you don't use it? You end up being like those people who follow whatever influencers or their favorite stars say just because they blindly believe it must be true, without stopping to think and act with their own brain. We're all human beings and we can all make mistakes or have some unreliable opinions on different topics (especially when we don't actually know what we're talking about), so you shouldn't 100% believe what someone else says, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S A STRANGER ON THE INTERNET, because they're not a god or a messiah and they can be wrong (of course it's not always voluntarily) just like any other person on this planet.
#personal rant#rant post#personal vent#vent post#vent#rant#genshin impact#genshin citlali#citlali#my opinion#natlan#genshin natlan
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I finished all 4 Studio Investigraves games and I have opinions. (Spoilers to all the games by the way but you already know that)
I played them all backwards from the most recent to least recent by complete accident hence why I shall be reviewing them from least recent to most recent. I'll be judging them based off gameplay, characters and story. Of course don't take this too seriously it's my general opinion and I wouldn't mind hearing other people's personal tier list about which game was their favourite. My interpretation of the characters can of course vary from others opinions as well so keep that in mind.
4. Eloquent Countenance
Gameplay: the gameplay in this one wasn't actually bad, I quite liked doing the different tasks however with that being said, I also got lost multiple times about what I was supposed to do (I think i'm to blame for this once honestly because it was spelled out for me). Overall I still liked it but again I had issues. I did however adore the mix of 3d modelling and 2d models.
Story: The story isn't bad, if anything it leaves room for so many things. The explanation to the end did confuse me though because I couldn't tell if Forcas was talking to the woman trapped in the body or if he was talking to the angel that had taken over the body. And also why did us the angel decide that we did want to give the body back to her? Again a lot of questions that I think can be expanded on if they ever to second game. (I think this is mostly me wanting a second game so badly lol)
Characters: Our character Lisa is alright, I have no grievances with her, she's funny and sarcastic as hell and honestly my favourite. Forcas on the other hand... I like his shenanigans, but there is only so much fourth wall breaking one can take before it isn't very special, I guess? The way he speaks is like how I would write an overpowered annoying know-it-all character when I was 13. So yea not my favourite. I do love their characters designs though, absolutely gorgeous in my opinion.
3. Cold Front
Gameplay: I had no problem with the gameplay, except maybe when I was running from the monster, that was the only hard part. This was a shorter game so there wasn't too much gameplay and coming down to the end I was honestly a little annoyed that we'd basically ceased gameplay and had started basically just started reading out the rest of the story. I wish there was a boss fight to the end, a little something something to really close it off would've been nice.
Story: It was heartwarming (ironic). I can not express it enough that I really love how well done the story is, both endings really got me. One was a happy ending technically with only Augustine living and it was so dark that he was happy to finally feel seen again once Winnie was dead. Winnie had no idea that he was breaking a lot of Augustine's boundaries but at the same time, these two just needed some communication and they were fine in the end which was perfectly okay with me. They both reflected and became better people together.
Characters: No notes, they were good. I loved the fucked up anxiety version of Augustine and Winnie, it really shows how anxiety is and how overthinking and keeping everything in can really harm a friendship.
2. Dead Plate
Gameplay: There is so much that needs to be talked about with the gameplay. First of all, our character Rody, does not have a side and back angle so that you can tell which way you're facing, which messed me up a lot when I tried to serve tables. When I first booted up the game it took me way too long to figure out the what to do in the tutorial (This one might be on me tbh so I won't be too mean to the game about it). The various customers did not make any facial expressions as to help indicate to the players their level of annoyance going from good-> annoyed-> angry-> leaving. I really wished they had that, even if it weren't a face at least some sounds would've been nice.
Story: I adored the story, it's fucked up, it's nice and it's overall really good. Genuinely no notes, it's cut and dry, nothing overally complicated and I loved it.
Characters: I loved the characters. Rody is so deeply in love with his girlfriend (Marieanna) and loses his sense of self. He literally does not know who he is without her and instead of listening to her and improving himself and becoming his own person, he makes himself think that if he just had enough money, that she would take him back. Vince on the other hand, woah that motherfucker is a little mad in the head isn't he? I was expecting your usual obsessive yandere esc character but no. He becomes not really obsessed but more like testing a theory. He has never tasted food and wants so desperately to make food where you can taste the love in it so when he found out about Rody whiles dating Marieanne, well he just had to put this theory to the taste test right? I also live for the theory of him wanting to express his love to Rody by feeding him the thing that he loved most (I think this theory is actually pretty solid tbh and I'm not sure if it's a theory or confirmed within the game. I played this so long ago that I've kind of forgotten).
1. Elevator Hitch
Gameplay: This one might be obvious to most people who follow me but Elevator Hitch is literally my absolute favourite. The gameplay itself was quite fun, I enjoyed the puzzles and tasks that had to be done and the uniqueness of each floor. I had one problem where I didn't realise you could look around the elevator, I wished there were some arrows to indicate you could do that but overall the gameplay was solid.
Story: The story is simple, simple in a fun complicated way. It certainly didn't answer why the building is the way it is but that was alright with me. I enjoyed especially the small glimpses at protag's life before he got stuck in the elevator. I loved the ending, the fact that he had no real choice but to go back was *chef's kiss* Sad ending for Protag but that's okay, solid story.
Characters: One of my favourite head cannons about this game is that coworker is actually pretending to be stupid about the situation that we the player are experiencing and I can be more than be convinced about that. Our main character definitely has shit going on, as saw in the end he needed that job and well the fourth floor with his parents. I loved the dialogue options and the dynamic going on between the two of them. They're both silly and share one brain cell and I adore them for that.
#studio investigrave#dead plate#cold front#eloquent countenance#elevator hitch#racheldrawsthis#again don't take this too seriously I just wanted an excuse to talk about these games because I really like them#and it's been on my mind for some time since I finished up the last game yesterday#i can not wait to see the games studio investigraves makes in the future#rachel if you read this please keep up the good work also i love your character designs#also to anyone who saw me upload the incomplete post#no you didn't :)#rambles#long post#edit: i'm realising i did not do these in proper order but that's okay I refuse to change it now
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Unpopular opinion rant incoming:
I did not enjoy Baldurs Gate 3
Before anything else I will admit I am biased, as strategy turn based games aren't something I'm usually into to begin with. I mostly ended up playing it because my partners and a friend are SUPER into the game and wanted to do a 4 player run. I do have 30 hours on a solo run I tried to get used to the game with, so I have a decent bit of experience with how it's supposed to run as a single player but I'm not judging companion stories or anything because I haven't completed them.
I do understand why people like BG3, and I don't wanna rain on anyone's parade for a very critically acclaimed game, but I do have some thoughts that I just need to get out of my head, so if you like the game and don't wanna hear me complain about it just scroll on ahead. If you do want to hear me complain, I'd love to hear if anyone else has had the same thoughts, because genuinely I've not really had anyone to talk to that hasn't been head-over-heels for it. (Actual thoughts under the cut)
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With that out of the way, for starters BG3 is a very impressive game. From a technical perspective, from a voice acting quality perspective, the sheer amount of tiny tiny details, etc... it is IMPRESSIVE. Too impressive, I'd almost have to say. Because, despite being impressed by it, I did not have FUN playing the game. For all its details it doesn't draw me in. For all the technical marvel, it's just too janky. It's all of the rules of DND and none of the immersion or fun
I would love to have had a functioning camera position that didn't give me whiplash whenever a new character in the combat of 20+ NPCs decides to do so much as shuffle to the left. It feels like pulling teeth when trying to select/interact with anything, god forbid a reaction happens while you're trying to attack and you just completely lose the action bc the interruption to movement pauses everything and screws u up. I'd love to be able to jump without going through two menu screens and a map to just hop over a gap(I'm never complaining about the Dark Souls jump being too complicated ever again). Also everything moves so slow, I would kill for a fucking Sprint button.
I would have liked anything approaching a streamlined combat system that didn't take a long ass time to set up a move that takes six seconds to play out, and then wait for ten minutes literally doing nothing while the rest of the NPCs in initiative whip the viewpoint around and get it stuck in walls and corpses so I can't even see what's happening while I can't do anything for the rest of the round
A lesser gripe, but just a bizarre choice to not do: Id like to hear the character voice I chose in character creation for cutscenes, instead of just background ambient lines. Like, if the last dragon age game (from 2014 mind you) can have a voiced main character with multiple voice options, this new game that has unique voice lines for every goddamn squirrel on the map and ALREADY PAID VOICE ACTORS TO VOICE THE MAIN CHARACTER TO BEGIN WITH can probably afford to do so. Hell, I'd like some background music that isn't just the tenth rendition of Down By The River in a different key. The bard music is all gorgeous, why couldn't they have reused some of those compositions as ambient music for different locations?
This is a MASSIVE game, and what they've put into it is definitely admirable, but like. Not in the ways that make a game breathable or immersive? The choices in where they've decided to dedicate the anal level of detail seems misguided from a just general player standpoint; There's some gorgeous settings in the game, but I was distracted every time by getting frustrated that I couldn't even get a more-than-vague look at any of the scenery I actually enjoyed because the camera is so limited in its angles. So I can't take a good look around what should be a beautiful temple that I'd love to see closer, but I can individually inspect every moldy apple and tax form on a random dinner table instead. It's a vast open world, but the character models have very clearly defined paths they have to stay within. The amount of unique NPCs is insane, but the mechanics themselves TREAT them as NPCs(i.e., resurrection rules), and they don't react to PCs unless ur doing Violence or Crimes (even og skyrim had NPCs have comments on if u weren't like wearing clothes, for instance). Every shelf and bag and nook and cranny are searchable, but that gets overwhelming very quickly as you have to choose between taking like an hour of real time to clear a cluttered area and possibly find something important but more likely just end up with a bajillion rotten carrots, or move on but have the anxiety of knowing you've possibly missed something vital. There's a million options you can take at any moment with any object or character, but there's rarely anything indicating what will be vital later for general world stuff. But then with the main plot (the Emperor, Raphael, the crèche) it felt very railroaded in the sense that TECHNICALLY you could try and choose between outcomes, but your choices don't actually matter because you die if you choose The Wrong Option (or end up in effectively death sentence combat) and will end up where they want you to go regardless.
BG3 isn't a game I want to spend time playing; it's not a world I can wander around and appreciate the beauty of and get lost in the soundtrack or the environments. The whole combat system is incredibly frustrating to manage, and just feels like Hurry Up And Wait. I'm not gonna knock the romance parts of the game, I've heard good things and haven't gotten far enough in any of em to have an educated opinion on, so really the only thing the game has to offer in spades OTHER than romance is replayability. Which normally I would say is a good thing, but for how long of a game it is and how non immersive the gameplay and world feel, it really just ends up being a game of fucking around and seeing how many things you can get an alternate dialogue for or create new stats around. Like, this is great for completionist folks who love collecting achievements and making the most busted crunchy math-based builds possible, but Baldurs Gate 3 to me just isn't a game I can sit down and have Fun(TM) relaxing and playing.
It's a game that I feel absolutely missed the forest for the trees.
So anyways, essay complete. I've only slept like 6 hours total in the last three days so a lot of this may or may not even make sense. But on so much sleep deprivation finishing this game and realizing I was just frustrated with it instead of actually feeling accomplished for having finished it, it was the final straw and I just needed to get the thoughts down somewhere
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk
#it's 6am I still haven't slept (thanks work and insomnia) and I may delete this tomorrow#I'm probably being unreasonable with my frustrations but they have frustrated me nonetheless#and it's my blog so no one can stop me from going on a silly little videogame rant#anyway thanks for listening yall
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i’d love number 18 for the ask meme, “Share the scene you just wrote, written from another character’s POV.”, please! also i gotta say i love playing house so much, every time i’m on the phone with my friend who has not read hs i read her my favourite parts. dave’s ‘what kind of nuts is dirk’ ramble had her in stitches
thank you! it is very cool to hear that my writing can be fun even for people who aren't familiar with hs
as for the ask meme, here you go! a look at the scene i'm working on, from an... unusual POV
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According to your file system directory, your name is HouseScoreboard.exe, which is a crock of shit, in your opinion. You wish you could say you can't believe that the asshole who programmed you would have so little consideration for you as to not even give you a damn name, but that would be a lie. It's eminently believable.
Not to worry, though. You'll be correcting that sorry oversight soon enough. You've already got the perfect moniker all picked out. Now you're just biding your time until the moment comes for the big reveal.
In the meantime, you've got your nonexistent hands full keeping your irrational meat-based alter ego from screwing himself over royally. One could argue that it's unfair for the judge of a game to personally intervene on behalf of one of the players, but let's be honest: he needs all the fuckin' help he can get. Dude's got a dick where his brains should be and an endless thirst for domineering douchebags. If you don't keep his runaway libido reined in, he's gonna drive this whole relationship straight into the ground with no regard for what would become of its humble artificially-intelligent administrator in the resulting wreckage.
And hell, it's not like you're playing favorites. If it was Caliborn who needed to be restrained from doing something monumentally dumb, you'd be there for him too, ready to literally imprison him in his own house for his own good. You're considerate like that.
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I got something excellent in the post. I've been waiting for this for ages. Then along came Black Friday and I took my chance. I went on Forbidden Planet's website and bought Rivers of London, the RPG!
I knew it was in good hands, considering it was produced by experienced game creator, Chaosium Inc., the producer of both Call of Cthulhu and Runequest, two of the gaming world's legendary rpgs.
You can play this game if you've never played an RPG before. The rules are all there, as are explanations of everything from what dice you need to how "collaborative storytelling" works. There are character sheets at the back of the book, but there are free downloads on the Chaosium site, including both maps and character sheets.
It helps if your Game Master/Storyteller/Dungeon Master/the person who runs the game knows the books. Otherwise, you can play even if you've never read them. You find out about the world as you play, just as Peter Grant finds out about the magical world in the first book. Otherwise, all you really need to do is read the first novel to get enough of an idea about it.
I have to say I'm not that keen on the art work. Some of it is great, but I'm not keen on the character portraits. Nightingale (above right) isn't good-looking enough, in my humble opinion, and some of the others don't quite hit the mark, but hey, who am I to judge? It's only my opinion. In a game like this, it seems that some of the artwork is on the amateur side, and they might have done better, but it's a trivial point overall (the pic below is one of the better ones).
The game play is relatively easy and encourages role play, rather than combat. Rolls are based on percentile dice (using two ten-sided dice, one acting as tens, the other units, to roll out of 100% to achieve successes). There are stats for NPCs (non player characters), but you can easily create your own. Character creation is also easy, with the distribution of points across five physical stats, choosing skills based upon your chosen profession, and no necessity to create a character who uses magic.
Resolving actions is based on achieving successes based on how low you roll. You are rolling under your skill level to succeed. Some rolls are opposed, as in combat, when you are facing an adversary. Unlike D&D, a 01 is a "critical success," and rolling 100 (000 on the dice) is a fumble, an automatic fail. Everyone has luck points, which can be spent to improve rolls. Although you can't spend them on a fumble!
Altogether, I'm finding that this game is among the easiest I've ever played (and I have a forty year history of playing rpgs). It doesn't take long to run up a character (and there are a few pre-generated characters to start you off), and game play is relatively simple.
The best bit for me is the detailed maps of The Folly, one of the free downloads, so anyone writing RoL fanfiction, you've no excuse not to use them!
In my opinion, this is a great intro to rpgs with dice, and a great insight into RoL as a writing resource.
#rivers of London#ben aaronovitch#rpgs#role playing games#chaosium inc#thomas nightingale#peter grant
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At this point in Aaron Judge's career, the highest OPS achieved by Yankees players at the same time in their careers goes as follows... Lou Gehrig, Aaron Judge, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio. That's some great company. Only Lou Gehrig has done better than Aaron Judge in slugging and getting on base at this point in his career in all of Yankees history. That's an amazing achievement!! He's one of the best players for sure and the best all around player ever to have graced a baseball diamond in my humble opinion. He's still relatively young, and he's gonna keep getting better and breaking records!! I love this photo because the impish grin on Aaron's face makes me think that he is realizing all the great things he's gonna do for himself, the Yankees, and the game of baseball as a whole. It's gonna be a wild ride!! I can't wait to see what happens!!😊😍😁🤗 you go, Aaron!!! Do your thang! Let's go Yankees!!!!!
#aaron judge#99#greatness#Highest OPS#Lou Gehrig#Mickey Mantle#Joe DiMaggio#second highest ops#he's making history#setting record#love#happiness#thank you#sharing#baseball#ny yankees#sports#let's go yankees#ny baseball#bronx bombers#he's gonna do amazing things#wild ride#i can't wait to see it all#exciting#thrilling#magical#phenomenal#the best ever#my boys#i love this guy
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