#option to not do some levels + less mandatory Use This Weapon makes it a lot easier for my dyspraxic bitch swag

[tauforged]

do you have any tips for someone who wants to get into warframe for the first time?

- don’t start with the duviri/drifter quest when given the option. it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but it will be very confusing and you won’t revisit any of the stuff that’s touched upon until way way later in the game. start off in the origin system, the story progresses a lot more naturally from that start point. i don’t really know why they made this an option.

- you dont HAVE to buy platinum. they start you off with like 50 i think? it’s not necessary for anything aside from buying additional warframe/weapon slots. everything else is cosmetic or optional. you can get mroe plat later on by trading with other players (if you do want to buy plat for cosmetics or whatever, i recommend waiting until you get a discount as your daily login bonus. iirc they range from 25, 50, or 75% off. they’re pretty much entirely random though so don’t feel obligated to use one if you do get it and don’t need plat at the moment so it goes to waste. you’ll get another)

- even if you decide you don’t like a weapon you end up crafting, you’ll be better off if you level it up to the maximum rank (30) before selling it rather than trashing it outright, that way you won’t have to go back and get it again later on in the game in order to complete it. the more stuff you level in full, the faster you progress through mastery ranks, and some stuff is mastery rank locked so you’re gonna wanna pay attention to your progress.

- you’re gonna wanna join a clan as soon as possible. you can find some via the recruiting channel, or probably by asking around on social media, idk. i started my own (not recommended unless you’ve got a group of friends you can rally or feel like recruiting to fill out your ranks in order to actually get stuff done) so i don’t really know what the clan recruiting scene looks like. having access to a clan dojo makes life a lot easier (and can make finding people to play with less of a hassle too)

- the story itself doesn’t really pick up steam until you start the ‘natah’ quest. in between the start and there, you’ll mostly be doing a lot of running around trying to familiarize yourself with the setting and playing catch-up. don’t worry too much about all the stuff they throw at you all at once. almost all the quests are replayable through your codex if you ever want to refresh your memory, and for those that aren’t, the wiki is… usually a pretty decent source as far as summaries go. i’d take it with a grain of salt though.

- this one especially tripped my sister up so i’m gonna touch on it: you’re going to be required to do the ‘heart of deimos’ quest in order to progress past mars on the star chart. IMHO, this quest REALLY should not be mandatory so early on in the game — you aren’t going to be able to make heads or tails of anything anyone is telling you. don’t be afraid to breeze thru it w/o paying much attention and circle back around later in the game, preferably sometime after you finish the war within or at LEAST the second dream. i genuinely don’t know why they’re throwing baby tenno to the wolves on this one. just know it’ll all make sense later i prommy

- don’t worry too much about the open world areas like the orb vallis, the plains of eidolon, or the cambion drift at first. they’re very cool (and you’ll be introduced to them via their respective quests) but they can be overwhelming to new players and the difficulty spike might be frustrating, especially before you’ve unlocked a majority of the tools available to you.

- this game has been ongoing for over ten years at this point - there’s a LOT going on. take your time progressing at a comfortable pace. don’t be afraid to ask around for help if you’re stuck on something or getting frustrated trying to farm a specific part or material.

- if people try to talk down on you for being a lower mastery rank or w/e they’re literally just being an asshole. MR isn’t indicative of skill so much as it is a representation of how much gear you’ve leveled, which is basically just an indicator of how much time you’ve spent playing - a chimp smacking a keyboard can feasibly hit legendary after enough attempts. you’re fine. hell, i’ve been here since 2013 and i’m only MR 19 LMAO

- the ‘meta’ for this game is wildly subjective due to the vast customizability of builds. take everyone’s opinions with several grains of salt and don’t be afraid to experiment on your own to see what works for you

- dont read general chat. it’s not worth it. nobody in there is as funny as they think they are

- the most important part of being a tenno is having fun and being yourself :)

[friendcorp]

FriendCorp Session 3: Sympathy for the Clerks, the Black Forest Blues

Our Session starts on Day 17 where I learn quickly that Tori should absolutely under no circumstances work with The Lady Facing The Wall, as every time she does it results in panic, now the only saving grace here is that she's very easy to calm down. Literally so much so that I couldn't even get a good gif of it because she calms down so quickly.

Info team has a good stock of white damage type weapons which makes it relatively safe to handle this sort of thing.

I was able to send a few of our new Training Team nuggets to work with All Around Helper, and Snow Queen; the two new Training Team abnormalities. Which to my surprise went quite well since I didn't expect new hires to be able to handle HE level abnos very easily, especially considering I hadn't given them any EGO on their first day.

Since we have managed to only take a total of 2 Zayin abnormalities (one of which is mandatory) our energy outputs are high enough that we don't even need to worry about Noon Ordeals yet

However I will gladly use the remaining time before Noon to get some more training in for our newer nuggets. I will also take this time to continue throwing Epsilon into Temperance training so I can trust them working with higher class abnormalities and still having good success rates to ensure their survival.

I don't know if anyone is curious about the nugget's regular abnormalities they work with but to give a quick rundown. Dia works primarily with Snow Queen after an incident with Bella lead to a reset since the resulting panic actually ended Dia's life. I instead sent Bella to work with Old Lady as to work on Temperance a bit, higher success rate = less damage = less panic. Marx and Foosball both work with all Around Helper as they seem to be the two it reacts best to. Rain became the resident Funeral handler not only being given the full ego set but included in said set was the coffin. Funeral has never escaped when working with Rain, the two seem to be friends. Geminiano is currently handling 1.76 Mhz as the resulting Justice will be helpful down the line, and Kanna has been working with One Sin as for whatever reason Kanna has yet to not produce full power output when working with them. Julian moved from working with Fragment to working with Red Shoes as that used to be Marx's old station and it's one of the better power outputs for our facility currently. Which left Fragment without an assigned agent, Tori needs work on her Temperance stat so I assigned her to the task. Yuri seems to be the only one who can handle The Lady Facing The Wall without panicking or triggering the scream, so I've kept him in charge of dealing with her when needed. Archer meanwhile manages the Cherry Blossom, not only is Archer able to handle full repression work without as much as breaking a sweat, but the tree has decided it likes Archer enough to also produce a great energy output when we actually want good work results. Merry typically juggles working with 1.76 MHz and working with Fairy Festival. Reinhardt is our Fairy Festival and Fragment handler at the moment. Maki keeps trying to work with All Around Helper but it typically doesn't go well, it hasn't breached yet but Maki just can't seem to get a decent work result with it, other abnos include One Sin and Old Lady. I refuse to send Epsilon to deal with any "big boy" abnormalities just yet given their lower stats, and lack of protection; the 1.5 weakness to dark rules out a lot of potentially good options but thankfully between the heart and flesh book they can survive work with Fragment and Old Lady both of which are great for early game Temperance training, when they're not doing that I have them cycle between Fairy Festival for HP and 1.76 MHz for Attack Speed, I will have Epsilon solo a Doubt by the end of this playthrough. The other's don't have regular abnormalities they work with just yet as there's unfortunately a disproportionate amount of Agents to Abnos.

In the final few work orders of the day the fact Tori should not work with Lady Facing the Wall is cemented by YET ANOTHER PANIC

At this point I feel like the poor Info team is constantly just texting her like

You probably think I'm playing this up for content but uh...

THOSE ARE ALL TORI.

So anyways we clear Day 17 without any deaths somehow lol

At this point the game decides we have it a little TOO easy so our options are:

and of course we're taking Big Bird because I VALUE MY SANITY.

Day 18 is the first day in a while where I enter a flow state of knowing exactly what everyone's capable of and knowing exactly what everyone needs to do, we're absolutely crushing it, the facility is running smooth as butter everyone has a job and they can handle it flawlessly, it's like watching a little ant farm go to work but I wasn't prepared for the dawn ordeal... I had forgot something very important.

It was happening, the rematch of the century except this time Epsilon was far more prepared, they had spent days training to boost their HP and SP this was their moment:

And yet again they manage to somehow upgrade their EGO with the power of friendship!

I let this battle go on for a good while before something happens, something I wasn't prepared for. See, while we were fighting off the Ordeal the Ordeal was also killing Clerks... a lot of Clerks. Which made something very unhappy. As power to the Training Department flickered and shut off, the sporadic squeals of a bird could be heard.

As we clear out the remaining Ordeal we launch a suppression effort

Unfortunately our damage output is not quite there yet, and our nuggets are taking much more damage than Big Bird. I knew in this moment I'd have to cut my losses and focus the effort on finishing the day while avoiding this new threat.

I threw everyone into the Safety Department main room and sent everyone out to work as quickly as possible. It feels fitting that Dia hit level 5 on the day they lead the suppression effort to try to save the facility. We end the day taking a penalty of -5 Lob Points but with all 20 of our nuggets still alive, I'm genuinely proud of every member of the team here, even Epsilon fought alongside the squad and not one of them panicked or died. FriendCorp might need to change it's name to ChadCorp after this. We'll be back for Big Bird later, since Hod wants us to suppress abnormalities now...

but in the meantime it was time to pick an abnormality and this time I left things up to the Discord Server (https://discord.gg/GcrUKnvz7v) which admittedly wasn't too exciting this time around since it was a tool type abnormality but there will be plenty of chances to force me into taking something horrible in the future lol.

At first it was relatively tame, with votes coming in and people discussing it... but everything changed when the Central Command Department attacked.

and with a unanimous and overwhelming vote we took O-09-91.

This however didn't upset the balance that was our fine tuned and impeccable facility, to manage a deathless run all the way to day 50 I'm getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of every single agent, to understand when and how to work with every abnormality, to better perfect their placement and how I can best manage this facility.

It's a beautiful sight to behold (if you ignore the little play icon in the upper right yes I'm grabbing these gifs from my recordings of the sessions lol), such a facility running like clockwork. We hit half our quota before even facing our Dawn Ordeal, and day 19 is finished without a hitch. I decided to check in on the Discord after day 19 just to see how things were going since you know we were about to open central command and uh...

Yea that's about what I expected honestly...

With only one more day standing between us and Central Command I wasn't holding anything back.

All hands on deck, time to speed through the day.

Green Dawn befalls us yet again, but learning from our mistakes we send each department to take care of their own robot; it's a mad dash to kill them before they kill our Clerks, no chance we're letting that bird out again.

Everything we've learned, everyone's efforts coming together made this day so eas-

Excuse me?

LUNAS NO YOU GO BACK TO YOUR DEPARTMENT AND KEEP YOUR FORBIDDEN SHOE DESIRES TO YOURSELF!

As I was saying, thanks to everyone's efforts and everything we've learned this day was-

OH DEAR GOD WHY THIS!? IT'S OKAY EVERYONE JUST FOCUS ON WORK IT'LL BE OKAY!

HEY SAFETY TEAM WHY NOT GO FOR A WALK!? HEY TORI DO NOT LOOK BACK JUST KEEP MOVING PLEASE JUST KEEP GOING FRAGMENT WILL KEEP YOU SAFE!

OH GOD WE STILL NEED LIKE 80 MORE ENERGY.

Oh that was easy... well then don't I look silly. I mean I totally had that under control lol ahem... thank god no one died.

we advance onto day 21 picking up Spider Bud and Bloodbath two relatively easy abnormalities to handle, so the new hires down at Central Command shouldn't have any issues with them. Speaking of Central Command we should-

on second thought let's not check in on Central Command, they're probably fine. I hope you're all prepared for Session 4 because I can tell you right now Central Command is going to go feral over it.

As always, I grabbed some bonus blorbo pictures for you all!

and unfortunately that fills the 30 image limit that Tumblr will let me put here, but bonus images, blorbo interactions, and of course the voting polls can always be found over on the discord if that's something you're interested in. If you're not interested in that sort of thing, don't worry; I see you and I respect you and you can ALWAYS expect the same quality of content I've been providing for you right here on tumblr.

-Cryptid

[goneloot]

Badges, Medals and Mementos

Here’s a system I’ve always really enjoyed: Badges.

In most traditional RPGs you get a set of equipment that may or may not have added effects. So you end up replacing low level equipment as you progress with the game. Did an old weapon have a really cool secondary effect? Too bad, you can’t use it now. With Badges, you get to choose those added effects every time, and most badges stay useful the whole game!

Badges allow for so many fun strategies. Do you want a build that’s defensive, offensive, one based around being at low HP? The sky’s the limit! And since you can change it any time, you don’t have to commit to a “build” for the whole playthrough. And with the BP system, you can balance it fairly well! You can make simpler effects cost less while broken ones cost a ton, and even make some utility or challenge equipment pieces cost 0.

With that said, I have some issues with the way it’s implemented in Paper Mario, and TTYD. The first one is a smaller complaint: The level up system.

When you level up you get the choice to level up HP, FP (Flower Points, the thing that allows you to use skills) and BP (Badge Points, the thing that allows you to use more Badges). My problem is twofold: BP is much more fun than a simple stat increase and it is more useful, as you get HP Plus and FP plus medals that allow you to level up those stats anyways, so BP becomes the best and most fun option, rendering the choice not actually one.

The second one is more important: the game doesn’t encourage strategies. Sure, you could make a really sick strategy of managing HP and FP to do some massive overkill damage. But why would you do that? You can just use the Attack up Badges and call it a day. It’s not a matter of difficulty, it is a matter that there aren’t that many interesting options. The only true well-defined strategy is danger/peril/low-hp, which is the best by far. The system is great, and it’s just fun to mess around with even if it’s not “optimal” to do so, but I wish it encouraged you to mess around with it a bit more.

So, that’s something I wanted to solve.

The first one was easy: every level up you get MP (Memento points) and can choose whether to upgrade Health, Love or Time, which are just base stats. Not only does this make the choice less clear-cut as to which one is better, I can make the game a bit harder since players will always get stronger stat-wise AND equipment-wise.

The second one is much more complex. For this, I took inspiration from many sources. Bug Fables, Paper Mario Dark Star, The Binding of Isaac, Friggin’ shonen anime and more. So I will explain the design philosophy I have figured out.

There are two types of mementos: what I call “General” and “Core”.

General mementos are ones that do a very simple thing that’s always kinda nice: Heals some Health every couple of turns, increases defense a bit, gives a new skill, increases Time gained each turn, etc.

Core mementos, on the other hand, are ones that basically require you to base your strategy around them or they will not provide much use: Increase attack, but only at low HP; increase defense every even turn, but decreases it every odd turn; gives more moves per turn, but only if your partner has fallen; etc. These are very strong, come in groups (The “Danger” mementos, the “inter” Mementos, the “Lonely” mementos) to really encourage you to use them, but they come with a drawback, a condition, a risk.

You might even think this distinction is “obvious”, but I invite you to go though Paper Mario’s badge list and consider which ones could be considered “core” (and which of those are actually good). I don’t see many, personally. That’s something that Bug Fables and Paper Mods get: they give you more “core” strategies to play around, like status effect builds, “do nothing” strats and such. It also help that they are harder (specially the mods) so strategy is often mandatory.

Something else I think is crucial: make the mementos synergize. Don’t just make a “Danger” strat, and a “Lonely” strat. Make it so you can try and do a “Lonely-Danger” strat too!

A Memento that requires you to have Low Time to activate? Now if only there was a Memento that increased your attack by making it cost Time... A memento that increases your defense every other turn? If only there was a memento that increased your defense when you used the “Wait” command so that you could negate the stat drop...

Of course, not every memento or strat goes well with every other one, but by designing a series of mementos this way I hope to give not only a lot of choices, but make them easy enough to start with so the player gets wacky with it.

Maybe at some other point I will show more individual mementos, but I think this post is already very long.

Oh, yeah. The little pick-up quote when you pick up any item? That comes from Isaac. I think it adds that little touch of personality (and maybe lore???) to each memento without having to flood the item description.

And why are they called mementos? First one is because I wanted a name that started with M, so it was similar to Medals. The second reason is plot related! If you want to find out, you can play the game here!

[7outerelements]

Playing Tears of the Kingdom has been a mixed bag. The world is usually dense enough that exploring is interesting, but the world's verticality makes horseback riding inefficient and eventually I wind up having to run distances I'd rather ride through. There's still a persistent feeling of wonder when I find something visually stunning or practically useful (the lake underground is a particular standout), but eventually that's going to run out. So what else is there?

The combat is fun but frustrating. Lizalfos are especially irritating to fight, and this game still hasn't solved the problem of enemy health scaling punishing you for playing the game. I like killing things, but it's a lot less enjoyable when I'm fighting tier three enemies with a traveler's sword tied to a rock. I know the solution to this is to use more valuable disposable items to boost my damage output, but I'm not used to thinking of monster parts as damage sources so it's a hard habit to get into. Dodge timing is still wonky from BotW, and big enemies hit like trucks so it's too easy to get one-shot in the early game, but in all it's still fun to whack things and do clever things with arm powers. Yiga ninjas are especially interesting to fight, and are a welcome relief from 'blins and 'fos. The inventory limit system and Korok seeds are still irritating mechanics that damage gameplay, though.

The story is difficult to follow, in multiple ways. It's not clear what's going on, and this game is difficult to take on in a straight line. Emergent stories and side quests stand out more than the mainline narrative, and those range from somewhat charming to mildly annoying, which is a step up from BotW's quests which were occasionally agonizing.

The only time I really get annoyed with TotK is when I'm stonewalled by physics-based Garry's Mod bullshit. Putting things together is a pain in the ass, and a significant chunk of playtime is spent doing it. The sense of joy from a device working as intended is more than wiped out from the frustration of things not working quite right. Devices not cooperating and getting randomly one-shot are the most frustrating parts of this game, and they're both features of integral parts of the core game loop. It's like a hamster wheel with caltrops glued inside at random places, which sounds like something you could probably build in TotK.

Stepping away from punishments, the game's loot reward is difficult to pin down. There are certainly more and varied currency rewards - Zonaite, crystalized charges, treasure maps, other more esoteric rewards - but there are still chests with arrows or random gems inside, which can feel lackluster. It's better than BotW's constant weapon rewards, and the rupee economy feels less tortured this time around with more types of wealth. I would actually prefer more food and elixir-based rewards because I hate the cooking mechanic so much. A six-ish button input process to make a single healing item is unconscionable, and if I could import an estus flask and throw all of my rice balls and meat skewers into the fire, I would.

I don't appreciate optional busy work (like taking pictures of items), but worse by far is the way the game wastes my time with mandatory actions. I need to collect light spirits, not leveling up is going to kill me often enough that I'll rage quit the game, but every time I level up it means sitting through or skipping several cutscenes - a problem from BotW they failed to learn from. The amount of time I spend watching the same cutscene I've been served dozens of times before is nauseating, especially since the timer will continue to climb until I've spent more time NOT playing this game than I have spent PLAYING some others.

It's not a total shit show. There's lots to like about the world and the ways Link can interact with it. Parts of the game were clearly made by very clever people. But it makes me miss Zelda games that were made with a different design philosophy.

[thelogbookproject]

The Unity of Skovlan, Entry 20: The Mend

The Unity of Skovlan is an upcoming unofficial supplement to Blades In The Dark about the fall and rise of the Skovlander people. This series explores what it is all about in the leadup to its September release.

The last of the three new playbooks is The Mend, and I’ve already discussed them quite a bit in Entries 4 and 12 on The Legacy of Stonetable (and its main character, the Mend Aia Astareth) and the Unity War’s Mend character, Fane. As a quick summary, the Mends were historically repair-people in Skovlander communities, but when the doctors all stood by the Akorosi who trained them, the Mends were forced to step up and apply The Mending Way to people as well. In the wake of the War, after 38 years of their new role, it’s stuck, and is now a permanent element of the position, making the Mend the single person to fix any problem. Unfortunately, while that sort of self-sacrificing do-it-all vigor is desperately needed in wartime, it’s not a particularly sustainable reality. The Mend playbook is about discovering that truth — and either trying to mitigate it or lean into it.

This is how the Mend gets xp — by sacrificing themselves. This is a playbook about burnout. The difference between real-world burnout and the Mend’s burnout is that if you burn the midnight oil in real life, all you get is more tasks. Life always keeps coming. For the Mend, or at least a Mend in an Echoes crew, there is an end to reach: revolution and freedom. Can the Mend imagine escaping the wartime mindset after that? Maybe, maybe not. Play to find out.

I’m going to discuss the mechanical chunks before I get to The Mending Way, which I think should inform how the Mend is played in a lot of ways and help them differentiate more fictionally from a Leech with Physician (which, if you remember my story about Indigo Rowan in Entry 8, is where this comes from at all). But this here is the mandatory Mend Ability, Preservation. The downtime action possibility lets you trade coin for healing, taking the guesswork out of the healing roll, though it can be a bit expensive if you’re only going for Level 1 Harms. That’s the most straightforward mechanical use, but the ability to Finesse items and wounds in the middle of a fight is very good. I say it there in the support blurb, but don’t underestimate the object repair element. You can go a long way with that.

The first Ability on the list (after the mandatory Preservation) and thus the default, Busy is the most iconic Mend Ability in my head. The Mend is always stressed, and can get more done than anyone else, but it’s dangerous. You need to manage your stress better than others or you’ll get swallowed up by the crushing enormity of your responsibilities.

I think Trusted Items is one of my most clever and interesting Abilities. I have a couple of Abilities that connect the Mend to the Load system, as they’re an item-fixer and I wanted more hooks into that system. Trusted Items trades sustainability now for a lack of flexibility later, and actually introduces some continuity to the Gear system. You still get the thing, so it’s not like you have less stuff the next score, you just don’t get a choice. Dropping Stress while getting to pull out Gear is still giant though! It just probably forces you to take on something easier next. If you’re in a “every job is critical” situation, you can set yourself up for a lot of trouble. Thankfully, some of the other Abilities can synergize super well with this.

Here are three of the Mend’s five unique Gear options. The Rapier is a hint to the past, the indicator that Mends had a military role, even if your character didn’t. It’s also a precise weapon, easily wielded with Finesse rather than Skirmish. Stims have a guaranteed anti-Stress effect but inflict Harm. It’s just a Level 1 Harm, but if you’ve already got Harms (and if you’re so stressed you need Stims, you probably do) it could be much worse. Stim someone with two Level 1 and two Level 2 Harms and you’ve got someone ODing in a mania. In a way similar to how the Chronicle gets to choose who gets to borrow their Artifacts, the Mend has to weigh when to offer someone Stims, deciding if their body can handle the problems and if the stress loss is worth it. The last item is narrative, for Position jockeying and narrative detail. It’s a little bit of worldbuilding about how the Mends operate and how others think of them. The detail that doctors, Skovlander or not, respect the mark says something about how effectively the Mends have been handling their “new” role.

And at last, The Mending Way. This is the creed Mends adhere to as a guiding light in their profession, stretching back long before they ever put scalpel to skin. This set of principles is why they were considered a good fit for doctor work as a whole category, not just individuals who might’ve been good with their hands. The Mending Way has three tenets.

First, prioritize function. The Mend is about repair, first and foremost, not embellishment. Allowing an object to fulfill its purpose is the most critical element. Importantly, emotional and social purposes are functions. Sure, a hammer has to be able to hit a nail and a cup needs to hold liquid, but a torn tapestry needs to continue to fulfill its sentimental and cultural functions as well. For this reason, Mends pay extra attention when fixing faces, as they fulfill such a range of functions that only critical organs are of higher importance.

Second, preserve the original material. Creation and invention are the territory of other jobs. Introducing new elements changes the object’s nature, and thus the Mend tries their best to work with what they have, keeping its core identity intact as much as possible. If function cannot be restored without addition, the first tenet takes priority, but keep it to a minimum. Mends are not fans of amputation if at all possible. Still, they are practical.

Third, protect the memory of the damage. Mends do not want anyone to pretend the damage never happened. On objects, this can highlight the beauty of imperfection and change. On bodies, the scars Mends often leave are worn with pride (and wounds are sometimes allowed to scar if it would not violate the first or second tenets), and many Skovlanders tattoo around them. This has a little bit of the kintsugi philosophy/practice of the real world, extended to a medical level. This is in contrast to the idea of trying to minimize all markers of illness in modern medicine, which I think is the IRL more humane concept, but the Mends are trying their best and applying a creed meant for objects to humans.

It is important to remember that The Mending Way is not a mechanical rule. As a player, you may violate it openly, but I’ve designed the sheet and book to remind you of it, and you’ll have to remember how you’ve fallen from your principles. Playing a Mend who strictly adheres to the Way is interesting, especially if it gives you limits! Playing a Mend who has abandoned the Way is also interesting, especially if you are affected socially by your choices. Everything in between is interesting because it means you’re developing your own take on the Way and what is okay or not.

The Mend completes a trifecta of playbooks about the conflict between the tradition and future of Skovlan. The Chronicle is a role from the long past, forced to confront if their traditions are actually right and if they should be building something new instead. The Ground is a role that is brand-new, within the last couple of years, an evolution of something past and forgotten but intrinsically tinged with other cultures, something new and never-before-seen. The Mend has a traditional place, and a modern place, and the War changed them, and they need to decide if the War gets to change them for good and what it was all for. Tradition and Possibility. Where the Echoes land on this scale will say a lot about a group’s path and experience, and I’m excited to see if it evolves for people as they have to grapple with these concepts in action. Can you handle disrespect as the changes you advocate for offend traditionalists you thought were on your side? Can you accept injustice and repeat mistakes to keep the historical chain of your culture intact?

Next time will be a bit shorter than this one, and will hit a whole bunch of random stuff before we start delving into the Missions of the Unity War!

The Unity War releases for PWYW on September 1, 2023. Check out https://tinyurl.com/tuos-details for the rest of this series! Sign up for my Patreon at https://patreon.com/thelogbookproject for a preview, and full early access to the game! See you Friday!

[beebfreeb]

Fellow dyspraxic splatoon player,,, the story mode in 3 feels a lot more friendly to dyspraxia this time for some reason?? Maybe it’s cuz you’re allowed to skip the charger only and shooting targets levels DJDJXJ I hope you’re enjoying your time with the game tho!!

(this has been sitting in my inbox for a While whoops)

YEAH!! i am very glad that most levels allow you to use a Different Weapon or just Skip The Level Entirely! (grits teeth at spla2n sheldon request charger levels)

i've been doing all the levels because if i dont 100% the hero mode i'll blow up BUT so glad the target levels let me use Other Weapons i would explode otherwise. fighting for my life to play squideo games.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms Anniversary Special

Today on Fate and Phantasms we celebrate our 1 year anniversary! If it wasn't for all our fans we'd probably have given up ages ago, so we're going with a fan-picked character! (Don't worry if yours didn't get picked this time around, we'll hold onto them for another day)

Now we're building Romulus-Quirinus, the divine ancestor of Rome and King of Nation Building!

They're an Order Cleric to make civilization building easy, and an Astral Self Monk to make clearing the way even easier.

Check out their build breakdown below the cut, or their character sheet over here!

Next up: Fear leads to hanger. Hanger leads to hate. Hate leads to... pocky??

Race and Background

Despite ascending to godhood, you start as a Human, which gives you +1 Dexterity and Wisdom, proficiency with Religion for obvious reasons, and the Fighting Initiate feat for unarmed fighting so you can punch real good.

You're also an outlander because it's hard to be anything else before the country's built. You get proficiency with Athletics and Survival.

Ability Scores

Everything should be 40, but we're going with the standard array to make arguing with your DM a bit easier. Make your Wisdom super high for a better time ruling people and smiting them, follow it up with Strength because you really like that fancy gold armor. Your Dexterity is also pretty good, because that armor is optional. Charisma helps with ruling people too, so keep that above average. This leaves your Constitution lower than we'd like, but we're dumping Intelligence. You are by no means dumb, it's just the score that affects the build the least.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: Starting off as a monk is pretty much mandatory so we have a martial weapon for the feat we just took, but this also means you start off with your first ascension's Unarmored Defense, adding your wisdom modifier to your AC while you aren't wearing armor.

Also while not wearing armor you can use Martial Arts, which lets you use dexterity instead of strength for your punches and you can attack as a bonus action if you attack with your main action. It also gives you a d4 martial arts die, but your fighting style is better, so...

On top of all that, you get proficiency with Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as History and Insight. You kinda are history.

2. Monk 2: Second level monks get Unarmored Movement, making you a little bit faster without the giant gold platemail. Aside from that, you get Ki points equal to your monk level per short rest, which you can spend to attack twice, dodge, disengage, or dash as a bonus action. You get something next level that is way more useful though.

3. Monk 3: Third level monks can Deflect Missiles as a reaction, rendering arrows and slingshots slightly less effective. You also gain the Arms of the Astral Self, letting you beef up your arms as a bonus action. Your anchor arms last for 10 minutes, and while active you can use wisdom instead of strength or dexterity to make attacks and strength saves/checks. You also get a long range on your unarmed attacks, and they deal force damage instead of bludgeoning. I'd love it if it was radiant, but force is kind of an upgrade, so I'll take it. The cool part is you can totally use this with armor, which will be useful in a bit.

4. Cleric 1: Oh hey it's useful now. As an Order Cleric you get proficiency with Heavy Armor, as well as Persuasion to make getting those pesky zoning ordinances in order a bit easier.

You also become a Voice of Authority, meaning that if you cast a spell targeting one or more allies, one of those allies can use their reaction to attack, because there's nothing more romantic than giving your all on the battlefield.

Speaking of, you can cast and prepare Spells now using your Wisdom. For cantrips, grab Thaumaturgy for religion funnies, and Resistance to make yourself a bit tougher than is reasonable. You also get the cantrip Hand of Radiance for a shinier punch. It's a melee range spell that deals 1d6 radiant damage if the target fails a constitution save. It's not as powerful as your punches, but it ignores armor!

You also get first level spells, and your freebies are Command and Heroism, great for when you need to build Roma from the ground up. Some other good city-building spells are Ceremony, Create or Destroy Water, and Purify Food and Drink.

5. Cleric 2: Second level clerics can Channel Divinity once per short rest. You can either use the classic Turn Undead to wig out any undead who fail a wisdom save, or you can issue Order's Demand to charm nearby creatures for a round. You can also force those creatures to drop whatever they're holding.

6. Cleric 3: Third level clerics get second level spells, like Hold Person and Zone of Truth. You can also use Continual Flame to make eternal torches, Calm Emotions to settle disputes peacefully, and Spiritual Weapon to not settle things peacefully.

7. Cleric 4: When you finally get your first Ability Score Improvement, bump up your Wisdom for a better unarmored AC, Astral Arms attacks, and spells. You really like wisdom, it's good to you.

You can also use Guidance to make yourself a little better than everyone else at ability checks.

8. Cleric 5: Fifth level clerics see their Turn Undead turn into Destroy Undead, instantly destroying undead of CR 1/2 or lower who fail their wisdom save. You also get third level spells, like Mass Healing Word and Slow. I'd also suggest Clairvoyance for a bit of omniscience, Daylight for the aesthetic, and Spirit Shroud for a bit of power building. It's fine, beating up a god needs power building, so it's in character.

9. Cleric 6: This level lets you Channel Divinity twice per rest, and you become an Embodiment of the Law, letting you cast enchantment spells as a bonus action instead of an action. You can speed things up this way Wisdom Modifier per long rest. Now you can hold someone down and slap the shit out of them in the same turn!

10. Cleric 7: Continuing the trend you've probably figured out by now, seventh level clerics get fourth level spells, like Compulsion and Locate Creature. You can also use Control Water to make your harbor more or less hospitable.

11. Cleric 8: As an eighth level order cleric, your Divine Strike lets you add psychic damage to one of your attacks each turn. Since this applies to a "weapon attack" and not a "melee weapon attack", your fists qualify. Yes, they are a melee "weapon attack", not a "melee weapon attack". Makes perfect sense.

You also get another ASI, which will let you max out your Wisdom for so many good reasons. Punching, spells, AC, they're all a bit better.

Destroy Undead also kills creatures of CR 1 or lower now.

12. Cleric 9: Ninth level clerics get fifth level spells, like Commune and Dominate Person. You can also use your Noble Phantasms on the offensive thanks to Flame Strike, or on the defensive as Mass Cure Wounds or Hallow. The former is basically a giant laser, the middle one is Cure Wounds But Multiple People, and the latter will turn an area into a great spot to build a city. As long as you aren't building a city for Celestials, Elementals, Fey, Fiends, or Undead.

13. Cleric 10: If you're tired of slapping people around with a hand of radiance, you can just use a Word of Radiance instead! It's literally the same thing as Hand of Radiance, but it uses a holy symbol instead of somatic components.

That being said you can also use Divine Intervention now, letting you call up your god (read: you) for a favor once per day. It only has a 1 in 10 chance of succeeding, but if it does the DM's the limit on what kind of help you'll get. After getting help you have to wait a week for it to recharge. You’d think you’d be willing to call in favors for you more often, but I’m not a god, so I wouldn’t know.

14. Cleric 11: Eleventh level clerics get sixth level spells, and sadly we're out of freebies. That being said, you could use Sunbeam for a reusable Per Aspera Ad Astra, or create a Heroes' Feast for a good time on the town.

Also, your Destroy Undead bumps up again to CR 2.

15. Cleric 12: This ASI will bump your Strength up, both so you can have stronger attacks when your Astral Arms are down, and so you can wear full plate armor without an issue.

16. Cleric 13: With the advent of seventh level spells, we finally get the only cleric spell in the game that actually lets you build a structure. Temple to the Gods lets you build a temple of your own design within a 120' square, and while it normally ends a day later, casting the spell in the same spot for a year makes the spell permanent. Honestly 1 building a year seems a bit slow for a city, I'd suggest just building them the old fashioned way. You can also use Divine Words to send extraplanar creatures back to where they came from, and you weaken other creatures with status effects dependent on how many hit points they have left.

17. Cleric 14: Destroy Undead kills CR 3 creatures now. Not fancy, but at least those skeletal owlbears will leave you alone. Also your Divine Strike is better now.

18. Cleric 15: Eighth level spells are always fun. You can now do stuff like Control Weather, cause an Earthquake, shed a Holy Aura to protect allies, or use a Sunburst to launch a big blob of light at enemies.

19. Cleric 16: Use your last ASI to become Tough for an extra 38 HP. The one problem with cleric; super squishy class.

20. Cleric 17: Your capstone level is surprisingly busy. Your Destroy Undead hits CR 4 creatures, and you can invoke Order's Wrath on creatures when you hit them. If you hit a creature with your Divine Strike, you can curse them until the start of your next turn. If an ally hits the cursed creature, they take another round of Divine Strike damage!

And that's not all! You also get ninth level spells! None of them particularly scream "Romulus" to me, but I mean you're a god, you can use whatever you want.

Pros:

You might only have one attack per round, but you really make them count. Each swing deals 3d8+5 damage per hit, and they deal psychic and force damage, two of the hardest types to avoid. And that's all before you get into spells to buff yourself like Spirit Shroud. It's not flashy, but it is consistent.

You've got a maxed out casting modifier and plenty of charming spells, meaning you're pretty good at controlling others.

Embodiment of the Law is huge, it lets you buff and debuff as a bonus action, freeing up your main action for direct support or combat.

Cons:

With only three monk levels, you don't have a lot of Ki to go around. You'll probably have to save all of it for your Astral Arms, as you're a lot weaker without them.

On a related note, multiclassing the way we did is also pretty awkward. The 20th level of cleric is super powerful, and if we spent two more levels as monk you could attack more often per turn and get more ki points.

Your constitution isn't great, meaning you can drop concentration easily and you're kind of squishy for a god. That's especially not good considering your main form of combat is slapping people in the face.

[nerdythebard]

#6: Anhur, Slayer of Enemies

Gods and Goddesses!

This time, we journey to the land of Egypt. The realm of scorching deserts, mysterious magic, and ancient kings. And on this journey, we're protected by Anhur. Sometimes also known as Onuris or Han-her, this son of Ra is the personification of elite royal warriors. Master of tactics and spear, Anhur is a cunning and deadly foe to anyone foolish enough to disturb peace in Egypt.

Next Time: WHO LET THE DOG OUT!? (from his coffin)

Okay, with the mandatory reference done, we now get to think about what we need from Anhur:

Spears for Days: Anhur's spear is able to pin enemies to walls and structure, and his Ultimate hurls a volley of spears all around. We need to be of almost equal spear mastery to Achilles... except we use ours to hunt.

Sand Manipulation: Anhur can create obelisks with swirling sand vortexes, which slow any enemies that come in contact with it.

Not-so-Cowardly Lion: Seems obvious, we're a lion god (yes, I know Ancient Egyptians didn't believe their gods have animal heads, shush) and we're one of the best hunters and warriors of the Egyptian pantheon.

---

Starting with Anhur's race, we're lucky Wizards of the Coast provided us this time with a clear and canon solution. Anhur is a Leonin, this lion-folk race gets +2 Constitution and +1 Strength, 60 feet of Darkvision, and slightly faster than average walking speed of 35 feet. We know Common and Leonin languages, and we are equipped with natural weapons – our Claws, which let us make an unarmed strike that deals [1d4 + our Constitution modifier] slashing damage. We also have Daunting Roar, which lets us unleash a mighty roar as a bonus action once per short or long rest.

Creatures of our choosing within 10 feet of us must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC: 8 + our proficiency + our Constitution modifier) or be frightened of us until the end of our next turn (or 6 seconds, for out-of-combat use). We also have Hunter's Instincts, which lets us pick two skills from a list; let's go for Perception and Intimidation.

For Anhur's background, we're gonna modify the City Watch option a little bit: we're going to keep the proficiencies in Athletics and Insight (along with two languages of our choice), but we're shall swap out the Watcher's Eye feature for Fearsome Reputation from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. Basically, we are known for being ruthless and scary, and the NPCs will think twice before trying to provoke us. We can also get away with minor criminal offences.

ABILITY SCORES

We'll start with Dexterity since we're going to need it for our weapon. Constitution is next, always good to have a solid Hit Point base. We need Wisdom to follow, as we're a competent tactician and hunter (and also for multi-class later... spoilers).

Strength is next, as our weapon - the spear - is not a finesse one, we need this for basic attacks. We continue with Intelligence, and we'll dump Charisma.

CLASS

Level 1 - Fighter: We'll start with the classic warrior. We start with a d10 Hit Dice and [10 + Constitution modifier] Hit Points. We gain proficiency in light armour, medium armour, heavy armour, shields, simple weapons, and martial weapons. For Anhur, I'd choose a studded leather armour (AC: 12 + DEX) and, of course, we gotta go with a spear. Our saving throws proficiencies are Strength and Constitution, and we get to pick two class skills: let's go for Acrobatics and Survival.

This is also where we select our Fighting Style, and for Anhur it's crucial to get good with the spear, so we'll choose Thrown Weapon Fighting. Because ranged weapons and thrown weapons are two different things, we need some boost to our spear (who uses Strength for its damage and attack rolls) - with this, we get a +2 to the damage roll of our spear if we throw it.

We also get a quick healing option with Second Wind. Once per short or long rest, we can use a bonus action to heal [1d10 + our Fighter level] Hit Points.

Level 2 - Fighter: Here, we get Action Surge, which lets us take another Action doing our turn once per short or long rest. This effectively lets us attack twice in crucial moments.

Level 3 - Fighter: We pick our Martial Archetype, and it's going to come off as a surprise to some of you because we're going Eldritch Knight with this one!

With this, we get access to the Weapon Bond feature. This makes us and our spear practically inseparable; we cannot be disarmed if we're conscious and not incapacitated, and if we throw our weapon (or lose it) and it is still on the same Plane as we are, we can use our bonus action to teleport it to our hand.

Eldritch Knights also get some Spellcasting ability. Intelligence is our casting ability and the Save DC is [8 + proficiency bonus + Intelligence modifier]. We start with two cantrips:

Sword Burst creates a circle of blades (or spears :D) around us, forcing all creatures within 5 feet of us to make a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 force damage (damage increases when we level up).

Gust lets us unleash a puff of wind to either push a creature away, move an object weighing 5 pounds or less up to 10 feet or create a sensory effect like howling of the wind or closing the shutters/doors.

We also get three 1st-level spells (with two spell slots), two of which must be either abjuration or evocation type:

Jump triples the jump distance of any creature we touch, for 1 minute. In D&D there is a Long Jump – after 10 feet of running start we can cover a number of feet equal to our Strength score (NOT modifier) – and a High Jump, which is simply [3 + Strength modifier] feet of jumping up in the air.

Magic Missile creates up to three magical darts (or mini-spears :D) that always hit the selected target. Each dart deals 1d4 + 1 force damage and we can choose to target three separate creatures.

Shield is a reaction spell. If we're being attacked and it's a hit, we can add a +5 bonus to our AC until the end of our next turn.

Level 4 - Fighter: Time for the first Ability Score Improvement of this build! We increase our Strength and Dexterity with this one.

We get another spell slot, and we can pick another 1st-level spell: Earth Tremor causes the ground to shake. Each creature in 10 feet radius around us must make a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone.

Level 5 - Ranger: Time to develop our hunting skills, by multi-classing into Ranger. I was considering playing around with the Spell-less variant of the class from Unearthed Arcana: Modifying Classes, but let's stick to the Revised class for now.

We still have the d10 Hit Dice, and we get to pick one Ranger skill to be proficient in; let's go for Investigation. We start with a Favoured Enemy, which if you've seen my Ah Muzen Cab build means we once again invoke the power of Fantasy Racism™ to be more efficient against a certain type of creatures (beasts, fey, humanoids, monstrosities, or undead). Just pick the type that fits your campaign the most to get a +2 bonus to damage against it and an advantage to Survival checks when tracking the chosen type.

We are also a Natural Explorer, which gives benefits to us and our party. For us:

We ignore the effects of difficult terrain;

We have an advantage on initiative rolls;

On our first turn during combat, we have an advantage on an attack against a creature that hadn't attacked yet.

Meanwhile, while travelling for 1 hour or more:

Difficult terrain doesn't slow the group down;

The group can't become lost, unless by means of magic;

The group cannot be surprised/ambushed;

If we're travelling alone, we can move stealthily at a normal pace;

We find twice as much food and water while foraging;

When tracking creatures, we learn their size, exact number, and how long ago they passed through the area we're in now.

Level 6 - Ranger: This is where Rangers get their Spellcasting ability. We gotta manage two of those now, as the Rangers' casting ability is Wisdom. Rangers don't learn cantrips, we have two 1-st level spell slots, and we learn two 1-st level spells:

Ensnaring Strike is a bonus action that causes vines and weeds (or, in our case, perhaps a vortex of shifting sands) to wrap around the target if we manage to successfully hit it with our weapon attack. The target must make a Strength saving throw or be restrained until the spell ends (1 minute, concentration). While restrained, the target also receives 1d6 piercing damage at the start of each of its turns.

Hunter's Mark is a bonus action, designating one target as your prey. For the spell's duration (1 hour, concentration), we add extra 1d6 damage to the target if we hit them with our weapon attack, and we have an advantage on Perception and Survival checks related to tracking the marked target. If the target dies before the spell ends, we can use our bonus action on the next turn to mark a new target.

We also get to pick a second Fighting Style (yes, they stack if we multi-class). Defence style is nice and simple, it gives us a +1 to our AC.

Level 7 - Ranger: We get Primeval Awareness, which lets us communicate simple ideas with non-hostile beasts, and read their mood and intent. They are not under our control, so we might still need to roll Persuasion or Intimidation (and face consequences), but because of this, encountering wild animals doesn't instantly result in a fight. We can also spend 1 minute in concentration and determine if our Favoured Enemy creature type is within 5 miles of us. If they are, we learn their numbers, distance from us, and general direction.

Three levels into the Ranger class, we get to pick our Ranger Conclave. For Anhur, we're going to pick the Hunter Conclave (duh). Our starting feature is Hunter's Prey, which lets us pick one of three benefits; let's go for Colossus Slayer – once per turn, we can add extra 1d8 damage to a successful weapon attack if our target is already injured ("below their Maximum Hit Points").

We also get another spell: Cure Wounds is a good healing option, letting a creature we touch (or ourselves) regaining [1d8 + our spellcasting ability] Hit Points, with the number increasing by 1d8 if we use higher spell slots.

Level 8 - Ranger: Time for another ASI! This time, let's boost our spellcasting abilities by putting points in Wisdom and Intelligence. We don't learn new spells at this level.

Level 9 - Ranger: Our Conclave gives us some more attacking options with Extra Attack. We can now attack twice instead of once whenever we choose to attack on our turn. In practice, this means we can combine it with the Fighter's Action Surge to attack one enemy four times.

We also unlock 2nd-level spell slots and get to pick another spell: with Spike Growth we can select a 20-foot-radius area within 150 feet of us and transform it into spikes (or perhaps spiky, sharpened sand? :D). When a creature moves into or through the area, they take 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet they move.

Level 10 - Ranger: Halfway through the build and we get Greater Favoured Enemy, which upgrades the creatures we're more efficient against into one of the following: aberrations, celestials, constructs, dragons, fiends, or giants. Again, tailor your choice to the overall campaign theme (if you're playing Horde of the Dragon Queen, it'd be pointless to pick 'giants', wouldn't it?)

Level 11 - Ranger: At this level we get another subclass upgrade. With Defensive Tactics we get to pick one of three options to get us some better protections. Multiattack Defence gives us a +4 to our AC, when we're hit and for all subsequent attacks done by that enemy for the rest of the turn. Many enemies use multiattack, so it's good to be prepared for that.

For this level's spell, Magic Weapon transforms our non-magical weapon into a magical one for up to 1 hour (concentration). Until the spell ends, that weapon has a +1 to both attack and damage rolls, and counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistances. The bonus increases if we use higher-level spell slots.

Level 12 - Ranger: Time for ASI! Let's tend to some of our weak spots: Intelligence and Charisma.

We also get the Fleet of Foot feature. We can now use the Dash option as a bonus action, which means if we really need to book it, we can now move 70 feet on our turn (105 if the DM agrees to utilize Dash as both action and bonus action - the wording is can not must ;D)

Level 13 - Ranger: At this level we get... well, nothing. Except access to 3rd-level spells, that is. And we shall take Conjure Barrage for this one; it lets us use a piece of ammunition (or a thrown weapon) and multiply it in a 60-foot cone. Each creature within the cone must make a Dexterity saving throw or suffer 3d8 points of damage (type of which is determined by the ammunition/weapon used) and half as much on a successful save.

Level 14 - Ranger: We get the Hide in Plain Sight feature, which makes our sneaky hunter lion extra sneaky. When we're hiding on our turn, we can opt to sacrifice our movement this round to impose a penalty (-10 to Perception checks) on enemies that search for us. If we move or fall prone (no matter if we want to, or are forced), we loose the benefit. Otherwise, we can keep using it indefinitely.

Level 15 - Ranger: Here, we get another subclass upgrade. Multiattack gives us an option to go against multiple foes at once. If you have a ranged weapon in your build, pick Volley, but here we'll go for Whirlwind Attack – it lets us make a melee attack against any number of creatures within 5 feet of us (we roll for each attack and damage).

We get another 3rd-level spell in our repertoire: Protection from Energy lasts for 1 hour (concentration) and grants us resistance to one of the following damage types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder.

Level 16 - Ranger: Another ASI! Time to scrape those high-levels of ability, so let's get a +2 to our Dexterity.

Level 17 - Ranger: Once again, we get no class features, just access to 4th-level spells. Freedom of Movement protects us from effects that would normally hinder our... well, movement. For 1 hour we (or any willing creature we touch) are immune to difficult terrain and spells that would cause us to lose our speed (such as Haste), as well as paralysis and being restrained. Nothing can stop the hunter from chasing its prey. We can also spend 5 feet of movement to escape non-magical restraints, such as shackles or ropes.

Level 18 - Ranger: Here, we learn how to Vanish. We can use the Hide action as a bonus action from now own, and we cannot be tracked by non-magical means, unless we decide to leave trail.

Level 19 - Ranger: We get our last subclass upgrade. Superior Hunter's Defence gives us a choice to enhance our defences.

Not necessarily, T'Challa...

We will, however, get Evasion, as it's too good not to take. If we're forced to make a Dexterity saving throw, which results in taking half-damage on a successful one (such as Fireball), we instead take no damage.

And for our final spell of this build, Stoneskin gives us resistance to non-magical piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing damage for 1 hour (concentration).

Level 20 - Ranger: Our capstone is... an ASI? Apparently, so let's bump up our Strength by 2 points.

---

A'right, that is Anhur. Let's see what we have:

Well, we are a very nimble, spear-throwing lion. With a +4 to our Initiative, we are almost guaranteed to be somewhere in the beginning of a fight. With an average of 184 Hit Points and 17 AC at level 20, we can take some damage. We also have a nice combat-related abilities with two 16s and one 18.

Charisma is, unfortunately, our lowest and most hindering ability. With that, we might be in trouble when facing such spells as Banishment, Zone of Truth, involuntary Plane Shift, or trying to escape the Forcecage.

---

Anyway, I hoped you enjoy this hunt with Anhur, and I'll see you in the next one!

- Nerdy out!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tech trustbusting's moment has arrived

When it's railroading time, you get railroads.

When the railroads turn into the personal satrapies of rail-barons, you get trustbusters.

A couple decades ago, it was online service time. We had the users, the telcoms systems, the computers, the modems, so we got platforms.

We had that, but we lacked something important: effective antimonopoly enforcement. Lax merger laws allowed companies with access to capital markets to buy out or neutralize all their competitors, so we got monopolies.

Right on schedule, we're getting digital trustbusters.

Now, some people aren't technically sophisticated, but they do understand a lot about competition law. That's how you get meat-and-taters antitrust proposals like Amy Klobuchar's CALERA, which address the structural problems with antitrust law.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/06/calera/#fuck-bork

Klobuchar's bill is hugely important. The reason we have monopolies is that we stopped enforcing anti-monopoly law 40 years ago. Monopoly isn't a tech problem, it's everywhere from sneakers to glass bottles to pro wrestling to candy to aerospace.

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Klobuchar's CALERA doesn't just seek to apply antitrust law to tech – it also explicitly restores the pre-Reagan basis for fighting monopolies: we fight monopolies because they concentrate power and corrupt our politics. All monopolies are guilty unless proven otherwise.

But though industries all attained their monopolies through similar tactics – predatory acquisitions and mergers, vertical integration – they also each have their own technical characteristics that must inform our demonopolization tactics.

Take emergency care: monopolists love ERs because we don't choose which ER to use, nor when. You can't shop for an ER from the back of an ambulance. You don't know going in whether you're going to spend $1m or $1k. And you'll buy whatever services the ER tells you to buy.

Or power-grids: demand for electricity is both inelastic (you need power when you need power) and price-insensitive, and that inelasticity increases with demand: that is, when it's freezing or boiling out, everyone wants electricity.

Tech, of course, has its own technical characteristics. Chief among these is its flexibility. At a deep, theoretical level our digital tools and networks are capable of interoperating with one another in ways that no physical technologies can match.

Think of the Australian rail-system. In the mid-19th century, would-be rail-barons laid differing gauges in hopes of conquering the nation's logistics and transport. For 150+ years, engineers have tried to solve the "multi-gauge muddle" by designing multi-system railcars.

Hundreds of designs for cars that retract and extrude different wheelbases have been tried, and none ever caught on. Instead, Australia is tearing up and re-laying thousands of kilometers' worth of track. With physical tech, "compatibility" often means starting from scratch.

Not so with digital tech. If you are an OS company whose rival has locked up all office docs in a proprietary format, you don't have to convince all its customers to abandon their documents and start over. You just make a compatible program:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

With digital and physical tech, network effects drive high switching costs, but when it comes to digital, network effects are a double-edged sword.

With interoperability, a walled garden can easily become a feed-lot, where customers for a new service are neatly arrayed for competitors to come and harvest.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/twitter-and-interoperability-some-thoughts-peanut-gallery

Good tech policy emphasizes interoperability when it comes to demonopolizing the digital world. Long before the US ACCESS Act and the EU Digital Markets Act, Mike Masnick published his seminal "Protocols, Not Platforms" paper.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/twitter-and-interoperability-some-thoughts-peanut-gallery

And Daphne Keller's work on "Magic APIs" presaged the ACCESS Act's idea of forcing tech companies to expose the APIs they use internally so that competitors can plug into their services:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200901/13524045226/if-lawmakers-dont-like-platforms-speech-rules-heres-what-they-can-do-about-it-spoiler-options-arent-great.shtml

(that paper is outstanding, BTW, with clear-eyed assessments of alternatives, like a digital fairness doctrine, "common carriage" rules, an "indecency" standard for content moderation – basically a checklist for "So you've got a plan to fix tech – did you think of ____?")

Masnick's "protocols" are a vision for a decentralized, better internet. Keller's Magic APIs describe a legal path to getting there. My own work on Competitive Compatibility (nee Adversarial Interoperability) describes how we'll STAY there.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Because monopolies are good at subverting regulation, so any Magic API rule would be brittle – dependent on the tech companies not sabotaging those APIs by moving the important data-flows away from the mandatory APIs.

That's why we have to strip monopolists of the power to ask a court to block interoperators: take away the wildly distorted copyright, patent, terms of service and other legal doctrines that Big Tech ignored during its ascent, but now enforces against would-be competitors.

With both interop mandates and a legal right for new entrants to force interoperability through technical means, tech giants will face consequences if they subvert antimonopoly rules.

The choice becomes: either respect the intent of a mandate and preserve interop; or be plunged into a chaotic arms-race with competitors who switch to scraping, bots, and reverse-engineering.

All of this is incredibly wonkish, a highly specialized debate that involves highly technical propositions about how digital technology works today, how it used to work and how it might work – layered atop a similar, highly technical understanding of antitrust law.

The Venn overlap of "deep understanding of digital tech" and "deep understanding of antitrust debates" isn't so much a slice as it is a sphincter, and the debate has been equally narrow, but when it's railbaron time, you get trustbusters.

The tech monopoly/interop debate is going mainstream. Francis Fukuyama and his colleagues at the Stanford Working Group on Platform Scale have proposed an intervention similar to the ACCESS Act, where trusted third parties mediate between monopolists, new entrants and users.

The Stanford proposal calls them "middleware companies," but they're conceptually interchangeable with the idea of a "data fiduciary": companies that act as referees when a new co-op, startup or nonprofit wants to plug into a monopolist's service.

https://pairagraph.com/dialogue/4124f75013da40038c4cbff5ebdaaa51/3

This is clearly an idea whose time has come – it's present in the EU's DMA and the US Access Act, and latent in the UK CMA report:

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/online-platforms-and-digital-advertising-market-study#final-report

Importantly, it's an approach that recognizes the distinctive character of tech – taking account of the power of interop to break open walled gardens and unravel network effects.

What's especially interesting about this work is that it appears to have been developed in parallel to pre-existing work from Masnick and Keller (and me) – it's a case of convergence between the tech-policy world and the broader world of policy.

After all, while Masnick and Keller's work is well known inside of tech policy, that's just our obscure, nerdy corner of the policy world – now they're escaping that corner, becoming self-evident to people from traditional policy backgrounds.

https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2020/article/capitalisn-t-francis-fukuyama-s-proposal-rein-big-tech

My hope is that the trend continues – that we see ideas about Competitive Compatibility/Adversarial Interop join the idea of API mandates, so that we produce durable anti-monopoly systems, not just anti-monopoly rules.

Most important, though, is restoring an appreciation for the importance of interoperability in preventing monopolies and promoting technological self-determination for communities and individuals.

Because such a sensibility can escape the legislative world and be enacted via fast-moving, easier-to-use policy  tools. For example, we could (should!) make interop a feature of all government procurement rules.

No school district should buy devices for students without securing the right to sideload the apps they need on them – imagine buying 50,000 Ipads at public expense and then having Apple boot the app you rely on out of the App Store!

Likewise, no district should buy Google Classroom without securing a legally binding guarantee not to block interoperators who want to integrate other ed-tech services into the curriculum, with or without Google's cooperation.

Procurement and interop are as old as the Civil War, when the Union Army demanded firearms and ammo that had multiple manufacturers. As the state-level Net Neutrality rules (which bar governments from using non-neutral ISPs) showed us, procurement can shape markets.

Procurement is just for starters. Right now, tech companies caught breaking the law are handed down fines that are less than the profits their lawbreaking generated – instead, we could demand interop as part of any settlement.

One major barrier to interop is contract law: terms of service, EULAs, noncompetes, arbitration, etc. States wield enormous power over contracting terms: states can declare certain contractual language against public policy and thus unenforceable.

If, say, California were to pass a rule nullifying the mountain of abusive garbage that has become standard in digital "contracts," it would be in a position to export fair usage terms to the country in just the same way it exports robust emissions standards.

Antittrust is primarily a federal manner (that's why 40 years of federal antitrust malpractice has been such a disaster). But every level of government, down to your local school board, can make a meaningful difference in tech antitrust.

Digital technology's inescapable, marvellous, terrifying flexibility can be translated into so many unique, powerful weapons for transforming the industry and empowering communities to control their digital lives and seize the means of computation.

[ideahat-universe]

Just one subjective Flaw about Deltarune.

I could spend all day talking about the various elements of Deltarune that are actually interesting and fun.

The music is excellent. The outstanding works are still good (although Kris is starting to stand out as not having enough sprites and is starting to overuse his "sitting" sprite.), and the characters are fun. The characters in the dark world (or light world characters who visit the Dark world) are fun.

I just have one big problem with Deltarune, and it's that Deltarune has a very mediocre gameplay mechanic.

Now I know what you're thinking "you don't like the bullet-hell turn-based encounters with all the funny animation, interactions, and dialog????"

And the answer is yes. Also no.

I have a terrible secret. I really like turn-based combat and hate anything that requires timing and precision outside of button mash games. I guess button mash games don't require that either so

I know people like Yathzee find turn-based games very dull and unrealistic because it creates an immersion-breaking scenario where people take turns to wail at each other. Still, I see it (which is the correct way of seeing it) to treat encounters in a turn-based game like a board game.

You're supposed to take your time and look at your options and either research the opponents' strengths and weaknesses or initiate a strategy that requires you to manage risk to pull off.

When I look at a really funny, charismatic, and visually stunning RPG, I focus on how much effort went into the actual combat sequences. This is typically where the weaknesses of these games rear their ugly head.

Now Deltarune isn't OFF bad. Toby Fox actually cares about the combat sequences beyond drawing a couple sprites.

The problem is the conflict with his meta-narrative.

Instead of having an entire tool kit of different items, weapons, armors, and abilities that significantly leverage your advantage in a fight (along with a leveling system that decides how tough or easy an encounter can be), Toby expects the player to do actions instead which creates all the fun moments in these fights and is mandatory for positive outcomes but also negates the need to ever buy weapons and armor. Consumables are almost entirely HP restores (and easy to acquire so you won't have to buy those either) of various amounts corresponding to the character's personality, effectively making them consumable flavor text. There is also some TP restore, which is useless mainly because TP demand is nearly nonexistent.

You can't fix this either because it's baked into the game. Complexity with these mechanics might interfere with the overall message in Deltarune, where violence is discouraged, and brutal mayhem just makes the fights easier in a different, more vilifying way.

You'd have to be less judgemental and absolute in that area so that the player isn't funneled into just spamming auto-attacks and one spell or just spamming actions and spares and heals for people who don't know how to dodge.

Also, and I hate to be that guy. But uh, for all the flashiness and fun of the enemy attacks. The enemy attacks are just basic auto attacks and typically only deal damage with nothing else.

Ya, know, a particular video game about the millennium bug has that same problem. Stripped down, every enemy just deals damage.

Status debuffs and buffs are everything in a turn-based game. You could add much more complexity if enemies could debuff you in a variety of ways. You could buy items to offset that, buy armor that nullifies that effect, and weapons that deal it out, oh wait, violence bad. Nevermind.

Did you know that there is an element system in Deltarune? Characters have element types. What does that mean? More flavor text, probably. For a rock paper scissors mechanic to be of any use, you'd have to be allowed to attack to acknowledge enemy strengths and weaknesses. At best, you can make items that make you resistant to X element (which is what happens when you equip Spamton items for the Spamton fights), except if you are good at dodging, you won't need armor, and if you are bad at dodging you won't survive anyway so there's no point in having a variety of defenses in Deltarune.

Should we even talk about how we should have the ability to swap out party members but will almost certainly be pigeoned holed into certain characters being in our party based on the directive of the story? We can chalk that up to our choices not mattering, but that's the heart of the problem.

In an excellent role-playing game, your choices are supposed to matter, from how you arm and compose your party to the dialog trees you have with allies, enemies, and NPCs. What actually matters is you get to tell your own story through the game. The story is just supposed to be a framing device for the campaign.

In Deltarune, you don't get to tell your own story; you don't get to be challenged beyond reflexes. You just get the GM auto scroll of his carefully crafted plot. But why bother playing a game if all you really get is cutscenes and music?

That's my problem with Deltarune. It takes the idea of being a video game with a grain of salt. Really it's an interactive cartoon framed like a Roleplaying Game than it is a Role-Playing Game.

All right, I'm going back to worshipping my Spamton shrine. See you all later.

[scoutception]

Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand review

The SNES was a console with many great RPGs. From popular classics like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Earthbound, to hidden gems like Live A Live, Terranigma, Secret of Evermore, and Shadowrun, it’s a library with a lot of enjoyment to offer. Of course, not every RPG on the system fared so well, with quite a few mediocre and forgettable games scattered about, and unfortunately, Ys V, Falcom’s second attempt at revamping their classic series, after Ys IV backtracked to using the original bump combat system, is among these. Even today, about the only notable thing about Ys V to a modern fan is the current lack of any remake, unlike IV, or the similarly flawed Ys III, which was enough to rouse my curiosity and drive me to give it a fair playthrough. While I did have some fun with it, there’s certainly a reason there were no new Ys games for nearly a decade afterwards, and the specifics on why that is is what we’ll be looking at today. Note that while Ys V was never released outside of Japan, it does have an English translation patch, courtesy of Aeon Genesis, in what was apparently one of their most difficult hacking jobs ever.

Story: About 4 years after the events of Ys I & II, Adol Christin, or, as he’s come to be known, Adol the Red, arrives at the port town of Xandria on the continent of Afroca (yes, literally just fantasy Alexandria and Africa), rather suspiciously without his constant companion Dogi, and on an intact ship, at that. The normally aimless Adol has been lured to Xandria by rumors of a mysterious Phantom City, said to contain amazing riches. After being contacted by a wealthy merchant named Dorman, however, Adol is given the truth: the so called Phantom City is actually the lost city of Kefin, a prosperous nation that wielded tremendous power five hundred years ago through the power of alchemy. Recently, the Kefin desert has been expanding, consuming many towns within the area, and monsters have become numerous and aggressive, leaving Xandria at threat of becoming a barren waste. Wishing to gain access to the secrets of Kefin’s alchemy in order to halt this desertification, Dorman hires Adol to find six elemental crystals that are said to have the power to unlock the way to Kefin. Unfortunately for Adol, he really has his work cut out for him this time; many of Afroca’s citizens are fearful of him, due to ancient legends telling of a red haired man that will bring great havoc upon his arrival, and he’s harassed by a band of thieves called the Ibur Gang, who are out to take all the crystals for themselves. Though Adol makes several allies as well, such as Niena, the adopted daughter of the great adventurer Stein, who disappeared three years ago looking for the crystals himself, Massea, a woman who possesses knowledge of alchemy matched by few others, and Stoker, the spirit of a man who lived five hundred years ago, he also comes to find that several other forces are conspiring to use Kefin’s alchemy for their own destructive purposes, and that his client may be less trustworthy than he initially seems.

While most of the classic Ys games had quite cliche stories, if understandably considering their age, Ys V is actually a fair bit more original, with some pretty decent moments toward the end of the game. Unfortunately, before that point, most of the story just consists of just wandering around finding all the crystals, with the random interferences Adol encounters being the only things spicing it up, such as being forced to undergo a series of trials, or being blown off a raft by a sandstorm and washing up in a different town, keeping the tradition of boating accidents in Ys alive and well. Despite the amount of important supporting characters around, most of them barely even show up for most of the story, which makes for a pretty underdeveloped and forgettable cast, with only Terra of the Ibur Gang sticking out thanks to reappearing in Ys VI. It also just feels very disconnected from the rest of the series, with Dogi completely missing, and a lot of plot elements that feel out of place for Ys. According to the book Ys Complete Works, a lot of plot elements had to be left out of V, which certainly explains why it feels so underbaked, and leaves a lot of potential for improvement if a remake ever materializes, but until then, while a neat step forward for the writing of the series, Ys V’s story ultimately just doesn’t fare very well overall.

Gameplay: Here’s where things really start falling apart. The bump combat system is gone once and for all now, with Ys V using a dedicated attack button like Ys III, a system that remains in place even today. Unlike Ys III, however, the general gameplay is still much more similar to the other titles, overhead perspective and all, with the change in combat instead feeling a lot more like the 2D Zelda titles. Along with swing his sword, Adol can also now use his shield to actively block attacks. There’s also a jump button, though there’s not much platforming to be done. In theory, this isn’t a bad change at all, but in practice, combat is extremely stiff and awkward feeling. Unlike in Zelda, where Link always swings with a nice, wide arc, Adol is stuck jabbing things for most of the game instead. Each sword has a different range, with exactly one that actually has a proper swing, and the ones you’ll use the most, the second and last swords, only being capable of stabs. Annoying as this is, it wouldn’t quite be a deal breaker, if it wasn’t for how frustratingly precise you need to be when attacking. If you’re even slightly off center, you’ll just whiff. Meanwhile, attacks from enemies are given far more leniency, and even using the shield, you need that same level of precision in order to block anything. Needless to say, this gets very frustrating.

Aside from just attacking physically, magic, or to be more accurate, alchemy, is also available, with spells being made by collecting elemental stones and having an alchemist combine three at a time, with six different elements and eighteen possible spells, which can then be attached to Adol’s weapon and slowly charged up until the magic meter reaches 100, at which point attacking will cast the spell and drain MP and spell charge. While a neat idea in concept, in practice, almost everything you can make is downright awful. Not only are many spells nearly identical to each other, but most of them are just really, really bad, with absurdly long casting animations, during which enemies are free to continue moving around and out of the spell’s range, wasting both your time and MP. About the only useful spells are the ones that hit everything on screen, which take an absurd amount of MP, and the basic fireball, which has no casting animation, and is mandatory to get anyway. Several enemies will also just absorb magic entirely and gain HP, so using it can often be an outright detriment. Even worse, the game basically forces you to use magic by separating EXP into two different types: physical EXP, obtained from defeating enemies with the sword, or from bosses, which boosts physical power and defense and magic EXP, which is gained from killing enemies with magic, and boosts magic power and defense, meaning if you ignore magic, any enemy using magic attacks will quickly wreck you. The stones needed to make the spells, along with a few other items like coins to be sold, are also mostly hidden across the different areas, and can only be found by rubbing up against every wall and object in sight, which is really annoying, and you really can’t afford to miss any of them if you want to make most of the available spells.

Bosses are pretty dumb too, with a lot of them just coming down to standing in one places and stabbing until they die, chugging heal potions until they die, and considering the most basic healing item heals 60% of Adol’s HP, it’s not hard to do, either. In general, the game is overly forgiving. While still pretty annoying, the level system means it is pretty easy to end up overleveled with physical and magic levels combined, and rather than just dropping a set amount of gold, enemies instead drop gems, which can be sold to merchants for varying amounts. While this wouldn’t make much of a difference on paper, the gems are worth so much, and certain merchants have high enough exchange rates, that you can make a lot of money pretty easily, and considering the third and second best weapons in the game are sold in the first two towns, it’s even easier to break the game wide open. Most areas are also really short, with several dungeons literally just consisting of three or four small rooms, so you’re rarely ever in serious danger traversing them, with most of their length just coming from forced backtracking. While an improvement from how grind heavy most of the early Ys games were, the easiness just makes the experience even less engaging, to the point Falcom had to make a second version of the game, titled Ys V Expert, due to complaints.

Graphics: The visuals of Ys V, to put it bluntly, barely even resemble the rest of the series, to the point it’s basically indistinguishable from any other SNES RPG. It doesn’t look outright bad, but whereas Ys usually uses a super deformed style with lots of colors, Ys V uses a more realistically proportioned style with really dark, dull colors, to the point that Adol’s usual distinctive bright red hair looks more brown than anything. Most areas are pretty forgettable, with pretty generic caves and ruins, but there are a few neat areas, like the rainy marshlands, which actually carry a pretty strong atmosphere, and the bosses look kinda cool, if a bit samey. You also get to customize Adol a bit, being able to change the color of his clothes and armor in the menu, along with his hair color, if you find a hidden NPC fairly late in the game, with the default option actually giving him his usual hair color. Overall, though, the visuals are still pretty unspectacular.

Music: In yet another change from series tradition, Ys V forgoes the usual rock style of the soundtrack, and instead takes a much more orchestral approach, again making it stand out even less from its competition, only retaining a few traditions like the item collection music and the Theme of Adol. In this case, however, I can’t complain that much about the change, because the resulting soundtrack, in usual Falcom fashion, is still fantastic. From the peaceful Foresta Village, to the melancholy Misty Lake, to the mysterious Oasis, to the dark Sand Castle, to the adventurous Wilderness, there are a lot of great tracks to be found, and it’s absolutely worth looking up the soundtrack even if the rest of the game would drive you away.

Conclusion: Overall, Ys V is not recommended. It’s not an outright bad game, and can still be decently fun. It’s short enough that it’s not much of an investment to play through, and it was still an important step that allowed Ys VI to fully modernize the gameplay of the series. As a whole though, it’s still a pretty underwhelming and clunky experience that’s almost completely divorced from the rest of the series. You’re not missing much by leaving it alone, and perhaps with the release of Ys IX, a remake of V could be next on the schedule. Either way, that’s about all I can even say about this game. Till next time. -Scout

[miraculousfanworks]

Fencing Primer

 Fencing is a combat sport, done using one of three weapons: foil, épée or sabre (more recently lightsabre fencing has been recognised as a sport in France, but has not yet reached widespread acceptance). In the simplest terms, the goal is to touch the opponent with your weapon before they do the same to you. Each weapon follows a slightly different set of rules, allowing for different types of strikes, targets, and techniques. 

In general, fencing bouts (assaults in French) take place on piste (a long strip) and are typically played in either a first-to-five points or first-to-fifteen points format. Most high-level matches are fought using electric sensors on the body and swords, but traditional fencing (with touches judged visually by a referee) is common at schools and universities, especially for first-to-five matches where the electronic setup would take longer than the bout itself.

A typical fencing competition follows a structure familiar to anyone following the World Cup: competitors are put into small groups that duel round-robin, and the winners of each group are ranked and seeded into a single- or double-elimination bracket. 

Compared to many other combat sports, there are few divisions in fencing: there is no separation into weight classes, and men and women can sometimes compete in the same tournaments (though the most prestigious ones tend to separate them). For younger fencers, tournaments tend to be separated by age groups in two-year groups (to avoid giving the people who have had more years to train too much of an advantage).

Team format:

While most fencing takes place purely as a one-on-one activity, a format for three-versus-three is also recognized. It is made up of a series of assaults such that each member of a team plays once against each member of the other team. The first bout is a first-to-five between the first two players, and then they are replaced by a member of their team, with the score still persisting, and playing as a first-to-ten, at which point the players rotate again and play first-to-fifteen, with the pattern continuing until the ninth bout is played and one team reaches forty five points first.

Etiquette and the role of the referee in fencing:

Fencing is very strict about following the rules of sportsmanship and fair play, to the point where arguing with the referee is punished by docking points, and bad behavior such as refusing to shake hands with the opponent results in immediate disqualification from the tournament.

At the start and end of each assault, it is mandatory to salute the opponent (and it is good practice to salute the referee as well), and to shake hands (using the ungloved off-hand) with the mask off. 

The referee has a very important role even when electric sensors are in use. Fencing (with the exception of épée) uses “right of way”, or “priority”, to adjudicate who gets a point in case of simultaneous touches--or even, potentially, to disqualify an earlier touch in favor of a later one. This requires a sharp eye and a thorough knowledge of the distinct rules of each weapon. Referees may describe the chain of events for each point, accompanied by codified gestures. In most settings, their ruling is final, but in some high-profile tournaments like the Olympics, athletes can request an instant replay.

Right of way overview:

In  épée fencing, the only thing that matters is who struck the other person the fastest. One consequence is that there is a good deal of back and forth since both fencers are looking for an opening. By contrast, in sabre and foil fencing, there is a set of rules in play that incentivize seizing the initiative, and forcing the opponent to cede it, because even simultaneous hits may result in only one fencer being awarded the point. This known as “having priority”

In the simplest turns, a person who initiates the attack first (typically) has priority. Seizing priority can be as simple as being the first to move towards the opponent, or moving much faster than the opponent. When an attack fails (the person launching the attack comes up short, is parried, or is feinted into attacking), the other fencer typically claims priority (unless they continue retreating, or do not begin to move towards their opponent). This is why a riposte is such an effective maneuver if executed correctly: even if the opponent were to try to strike again (a remise in technical terms), due to priority, the fencer striking with the riposte would be the only one to score a point in the case that both hits connect.

Keep in mind, scoring the point even without priority is still possible, for instance by catching the opponent off-guard with a counterattack, although in the case that they are paying attention this will likely backfire. Even so, being able to constantly threaten to catch the opponent with a counterattack slows them down significantly and prevents them from being able to just run the other person off the piste. In addition, it makes it much more likely for them to whiff the attack, or to be less committed to it.

The typical fencing equipment:

For a ‘dry’ assault, the fencer will typically wear a (bullet-proof!) fencing jacket covering the body, along with a glove on the main hand, a mask (helm) with a ‘bib’ to cover the neck, and breeches (short pants). Female fencers typically wear a chest protector or plastic cups under the jacket. Optionally, the fencer may use dedicated fencing socks (knee length) and shoes (like sneakers, but more resilient to the wear and tear from lunging), in addition to a cup to protect the groin area. As a rule, the ‘dry’ equipment is stark white, but other colors are allowed (with the exception of black, which is reserved for coaches, and tends to be more padded than the standard version, to allow students to practice strikes on the coach).

For ‘electric’ assaults, on top of the previous equipment, the fencer wears a lamé (an electrically conductive jacket, with specialized target areas that differ between weapons) and electrical wires running to the weapon and lamé. The electrical wire to the weapon runs under the lamé and through the glove, connecting directly into the hilt of the weapon.

The heavy equipment can be difficult to wear and stifling during training. For first time fencers, the gear can be one of the most difficult parts to get used to.

Relevant information for Miraculous Ladybug:

Adrien, Kagami and all the rest of the students at D’Argencourt’s academy practice sabre fencing. Unlike foil and épée, which are thrusting weapons, a sabre is meant for slashing. Every part of the blade counts for scoring hits, and the appropriate hit zone goes from the waist up, including the mask and the sleeve of the main hand (the only excluded part is the off-hand).

This is perhaps particularly relevant for Kagami, who also practices kendo (where slashing is preferred over thrusting), so this is the version of fencing with the most overlap, although of course they are far from the same discipline.

[slumberinglabyrinth]

a while back i did a review of the prison chapter in por and it was totally overblown and whatever but i kinda wanna do that again for (what remains of) radiant dawn so i guess i will

I'll be doing them in batches since this got long. In this post: 3-5 through 3-9

3-5: it's been two years and i forget why we have to defend this castle

this was a pretty alright map. the reinforcements were annoying but that's because I generally don't actually turtle all that much on defend chapters and as a result I was Right There whenever and wherever they showed up. I tried to grab the energy drop off the boss but the dude ran away from Heather the moment I created an opening and I didn’t want to reset so :^/

I moved provoke off of shinon and onto Brom for this and its... probably way too strong? like it wasn't a 100% draw rate but there were several turns in a row where he was the only person being attacked which is. insane. and also super fun lmao. I think it's a shame that the hostility mechanics in fe aren't as well documented; on some level it ruins the magic, but in cases like this where you're actively influencing it i think it'd be useful to know to what degree you're actually influencing it

disarm + steal is also a really neat/fun idea that would be a great way to counteract how i apparently will never have any money for weapons while playing as the greilgallia party crew 😔 (not to be confused with the greilgallia polycule, which disbanded around twenty years earlier) but I can also never get disarm to proc and half the things that i was able to get unequipped were too heavy for Heather to actually steal 😔

all around a decent map to ease myself back into playing rd with. I certainly could have played better, but defend maps tend to be easier and I appreciated that here

3-6: dawn brigade returns and promptly sinks into a swamp

god this map sucked. it's really hard to pick where to start with it but while i get that lore dictates that they need to only be fighting laguz right here it was probably the wrong gameplay decision with everything else that was going on. I think maybe making tigers have ~4 less str across the board would have been a nice start since I kinda needed to either never get hit by them at all or to kill them first.

several chapters later I’m also realizing maybe i should have like. started to use bexp lol

fighting laguz is also really weird in terms of like... because they have boosted stats while transformed so you can either kill them while they're untransformed (which is fairly easy but since they don't attack, you have to kill them during player phase which means one per turn per unit), deal chip damage (or none at all) to burn down their gauge so you can actually kill them, or try to power through their boosted stats and hope you don’t die in the process.

Because I hadn't used bexp and almost all my units were super weak, I mostly had to rely on the eff against beasts knife that you can buy in the bargain shop this chapter and also volug, who had enough def (even with halfshift) to not die in one round. Honorable mentions go to noland (a fitting name for this map), jill (with canto!), and zihark, who were able to help pick off untransformed laguz, and to micaiah, who could deal magic damage and actually damage transformed laguz.

this was also the first dawn brigade map! i know lots of people people dont like their maps after act 1 and while i was trying to go into this one with an open mind... yeah, they totally got shafted by this map design. it's not really their fault but this map sucked hard. I know that they generally did one of each class variant (fire mage, wind mage, etc.) and not have duplicates but I think that the dawn brigade would have benefited from another mage of some kind if only so you could have someone who could deal with all these goddamned cats

also bk shows up but since he's not a bonus unit i didn't want to feed him kills so i didnt really use him. maybe that was a mistake. also why couldn't he like. warp someone that wasn't the furthest away from the action.

3-7: hey so we heard you liked the previous map

Zihark is there? fuck this i'm reverting to a previous save and unrecruiting him

3-6: i forgot to mention that this map was a swamp map and also had darkness

I know I've mentioned that the similar map in fe6 (desert+fog) was actually kinda alright but this one isnt that at all. Playing through it a second time helped because i knew where enemies were spawning, but it was still more annoying than fun.

Swamps commit the cardinal sin of forcing everyone that can't fly (in this case: everyone but jill) to suffer massive terrain penalties. Deserts at least let mages move a little bit further (which admittedly wouldn't help much here since it's only micaiah and laura), but here everyone friend and foe alike (except Jill) moves slowly and it makes gameplay just grind to a halt which is never, ever fun level design.

Also Fiona just. could not move beyond the starting island. she couldn't even wade a little bit into the swamp like i did with ed and leo to attack at range and get laguz to untransform. they let you deploy everyone but it genuinely felt like i wasn't handed the tools to succeed at this map. always a great goal to have when designing a game

I don't know how to improve this map. unrecruiting zihark (by flying him up to the northeast with jill and having him talk to mordy/lethe) wasn't particularly difficult (battle saves make it easy enough to scout out where they were, and it's not like i'd ever feel bad about 'cheating' on this map) but... would a greater field of view actually help? would making it not a swamp actually help? would giving you more allied units that'll throw themselves in the face of danger with no regard for their own lives actually help?

I don't know.

3-7: but for real this time

Back to ikequest!

this map is... literally the same map as the previous one, but with a different map objective. and larger. and backwards. and not at night.

it's still a swamp.

Luckily, it's a survive map, and the vast majority of the enemy force does not have the time to actually reach you if you hide up in the corner.

Which is exactly what i did.

Here's the list of the optional units (ike and ranulf are mandatory, which sucks because i don't like using twinks cat laguz and ike's plot promotion feels miles away) I deployed and why I deployed them

Haar: to fly out and recruit Jill

Gatrie: to be carried by Haar and specifically to bait the single thunder mage in Haar's way (and help Haar clean out that area so Jill can be safely recruited). I gave him corrosion two maps ago and it actually fully disarmed a guy on this map! 🎊

Brom: stand near where the swamp ends and draw the handful of enemies that actually make it all the way there away from ike and ranulf and ulki and jaffar (who are auto-recruits in this chapter).

This map is. so incredibly easy to both beat and complete the (meaningful) optional objectives on. I missed a conversation between Ike and Micaiah (which requires you to travel all the way across the map that i just finished saying takes forever to traverse and do it in 12 turns), but as long as you unrecruit Zihark on the previous map (he's.... right in the middle of the main force so good luck if you don't) you can probably do this map first try with no deaths even if you haven't trained haargatriebrom At All

I think that kinda underscores a problem that intsys had with rd which was... it feels like they didn't really have a lot of time to fine-tune stuff? like you're going from the hardest (or at least most unpleasant) map to the easiest one this side of the tutorial and it just. doesn't feel good? like there's going to be some inherent difficulty in balancing a difficulty curve when you're shifting from party to party but. this was bad. really bad.

Also a side observation but it does actually say who units can talk to in battle prep which is pretty useful thing to have! you need to shift the stat spreadsheet allllll the way over, but it's there!

i promptly forgot about it by the time 3-10 came around and was like "hey i should just. have ike run up to elincia, see if they'll talk, and then reset" though lol

3-8: Less-than-Lethal Lava Land

A fairly standard lava cave map. My only real comment here is that it was kinda nice how they made the spots where you'd take damage fairly obvious while still making them appear as natural parts of the terrain. I think it was the durandal map in 7 but its "if you're on these at the end of the turn you'll take damage" tiles looked super out of place while the armads map on the other hand wasn't super self-evident and i'm glad they improved

3-9: still cant use lucia >:(

Another party shift (this time to Elincia), and there was some good use of ledges in this chapter!

Most of your units couldn't use them but it created alternate paths for the ones that could (Calill and Devdan). Previous maps tended to use them more as holes in your defenses than needed to be plugged, but it created ways to progress (and ways for reinforcements to catch up) that are usually reserved for flying units, except now you're interacting with the map instead of ignoring it completely.

I think I've yet to meet someone who genuinely likes ledges as a map element, though I think this map really drives home that the sole (inherent) problem with them is the accuracy modifications (which, as this map also demonstrates when the stairs near the end become a chokepoint, are actually present with all elevation changes). While the +2 damage dealt while on the high ground is reasonable, +50 and especially -50 to hitrate are insane and completely unnecessary modifiers. They should be half that if you even choose to retain both.

Anyway.

the absolute lack of a (player-controlled) healer in Elincia's party was also........ interesting. Annoying, but interesting. Why must allied clerics choose death?1

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 5: Bride of Chapter Five. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

No specific warnings for this chapter except for a typo my friends have been teasing me about for weeks.

Game 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Game 2

Chapter 0 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

"Well obviously," says Professor Ulik, faintly irritated. "I thought you were a bit cleverer than that,Three, I really did. Yes, but specifically I need you to make sure that one of my classes is on the auditor's schedule. You may use whatever methods you please to get it there. The less I know, the better."

Her message communicated, Professor Ulik returns to her papers. You begin to consider your situation. This would be an unparalleled opportunity to ensure Professor Ulik's selection for a tenured position and what else are you here for, anyway?

But how to get an audience with the newly-arrived auditor?

#Val's on the Board of Visitors and Overlords. I'm going to consult zir about this situation.

This isn’t particularly helpful to Three’s intention to stay as far away from the auditors as  possible. Their first plan is still to ask DarkBoard if they’re able to alter Goul’s schedule, but when DarkBoard gives a foreboding speech about how they shouldn’t meddle in forces far beyond their control,  (Three is pretty sure DarkBoard’s scared of the auditors but don’t want to admit it,) they realise they’re going to have to talk to these people. This hopefully won’t be overly dangerous, after all, they are excellent at being helpful to important people, and tend to be good at quickly working out the level of grovelling important people prefer, so they’re unlikely to annoy the auditors. The danger that comes with just being around important, powerful people is inevitable, but they hope they can avoid the worst by appearing as a mere supporting character in Ulik’s narrative, unnoticeable to the auditors underneath all her achievements.

The best place to start with this is Val. Scorpius told Three ze was on the Board of Overseers and, while Three has been trying to interact with Val as little as possible, ze’s at least someone they’re able to get an audience with. And--despite a slight annoyance about Scorpius spilling zir secrets--Val apparently either likes them enough, or thinks they’re plot relevant enough, to help.

Ze is, however, going to point out that meeting with the Auditors isn’t the kind of thing people with no narrative weight do. It doesn’t matter what reason Three gives--do they think there isn’t a story in an underdog brave enough to put themself in the firing line of powerful villains they’re frightened of, just out of loyalty to their wise and supportive mentor? And Val has a feeling this isn’t the first time Three’s done this. Three informs them that they are not a hero, or an underdog, or special in any way whatsoever. Val tells them that ze knows better than most how Narrative Weight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, so ze’s really, genuinely sorry to say this, but that’s not true, Three. Three decides they’d better get over to that meeting before they’re late, so doesn’t have time to listen to Val try and tell them they’re more than just a tool.

The minutes Val showed you indicated that a team of no less than three auditors would be arriving from the Board of Visitors and Overlords. And you're fairly certain you know who this one is.

The falling pieces of the dome leave trails of fire in the air all around you. The air of the artificial atmosphere is rushing upward; the weather programs that the dome once produced are sputtering fitfully. Fish, frogs, bolts of lightning, hailstones and drops of blood tumble at random from the shattering sky.

"Lord X!" you call, as the figure lightly touches down to the earth. "Welcome to the Grand Academy for Future Villains!"

The figure turns towards you, and you see that the upper half of his face is concealed by a black mask like a frozen lava flow. His clothes are rich and close-fitting, his black shirt with silver buttons reaching to the neck, his hands concealed by silver gloves, and a belt around his waist supports a really alarming arsenal of weapons. You spot what looks like an oversized silver revolver, a long sword, a short sword, and a gun that looks strangely familiar. There's also a trowel tucked into a beautifully tooled black leather sheath; there's probably some explanation for this besides being for some sort of demonic gardener. 

"Well done…student," says Lord X.

Val, watching from under the shelter of a black umbrella, gives the slightest of nods to the auditor.

Again, not something Three would have done if Ulik hadn’t wanted them to talk to the auditors, they’d much rather be running to hide right now, or else checking the sudden environmental changes of the world falling apart aren’t adversely affecting DarkBoard. But they do like important people being impressed with them.

As if it overheard your unspoken question—which you suppose it did—the nearest DarkBoard portal begins scrolling through something you recognize as the fine print of your application paperwork. You look at the scrolling text:

…WITHOUT REFUND. THE APPLICANT CONSENTS TO MANDATORY BINDING ARBITRATION IN THE CASE OF ACCIDENTAL OR PURPOSEFUL DISMEMBERMENT, IMPERFECT RESURRECTION, AND OTHER PHYSICAL OR PSYCHIC MODIFICATION UNDERTAKEN VOLUNTARILY OR INVOLUNTARILY IN THE COURSE OF ACADEMIC DUTIES. THE APPLICANT CONSENTS TO THE ACADEMY'S USE OF THEIR IMAGE, DNA, BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, OFFSPRING IF ANY, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN NOTIFICATION. SURVEILLANCE DEVICES MAY BE INSTALLED IN PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL LOCATIONS THROUGHOUT THE ACADEMY INCLUDING BEDROOMS, HEARTS, DREAMS, AND NARRATIVES. THE ACADEMY RESERVES THE RIGHT…

Okay, okay.

It may not be immediately relevant to the current scene, but I think it’s worth noting that students “consent” to the Academy’s use of their offspring. Being the child of an alumnus, Three was a little concerned, if resigned, about that when reading their own application paperwork. Those feelings haven’t completely gone away, but they also realise this could be an excellent excuse if Maedryn ever discovers their loyalty to DarkBoard. She herself signed them away to the Academy before they even existed, and if necessary, Three will remind her that neither of them can complain if DarkBoard wishes to collect on that.

Three has never wanted children themself, but the Academy’s application paperwork just makes them more sure of that.

#Come observe Professor Ulik’s class.

You've kept your bargain with Professor Ulik. Whatever the auditor says, the fact that you faced one of the most powerful beings on the Academy grounds has to count for something.

It's a simple request—so simple the auditor seems taken by surprise. You hold your breath, waiting for an answer. "Of course," says the auditor. "Next week. Of course, we make no promises as to the nature of our judgment. Only of its inevitability."

"Fifteen seconds," pipes the assistant.

Variyah Goul stands up. She does not offer you her hand. "Your career, of course, will be of interest to us, whatever becomes of the school."

"Ten."

"If at the end of the year we find you an individual of sufficient narrative weight…there are certain provisions made for individuals who are fit for a great destiny. I am impressed by hedonism and competence, and the portfolio of destinies I manage are those of grandeur and glory."

"And zero." The assistant escorts you out of the room.

That went… surprisingly well. Three’s alive. They’ve at least slightly impressed two auditors. Goul’s agreed to observe Ulik’s class. Three wasn’t given time to have to pretend to be interested in a destiny.

They are growing increasingly concerned that the Academy’s accreditation may not, in fact, be renewed, but all they have to do is show that a place with teachers as good as Professor Ulik is worthwhile, make sure Maedryn isn’t too stressed by her various responsibilities that the clones stop working, help Sona keep Sci-Fi looking respectable and genre savvy, and do whatever DarkBoard requests to help the Academy run smoothly.

((Side note: I did originally accidentally replace a bit too much of the “insert your professor here” text with “professor ulik” when I originally typed this up, with the result that Three very unfortunately invited one of the most powerful villains in the universe to come observe Professor Ulik’s ass. They don’t want to talk about it.))

The senior students that approach you after your Evil Planning class are well known to you. They're a group of Thriller and Science Fiction students that even in these polarized times of inter-genre competition, have remained friends and close collaborators. 

"Three!" one of them calls to you. "Do you have a second? We want you to try this!"

This is rarely the prelude to something good, but often the prelude to something interesting. You pause. 

"This is our capstone project for our Cyberpunk Dystopia class," explains another, proffering his personal DarkBoard portal, its screen glowing. "A dating app for the Academy! We need beta testers! And, well, a lot of people have been requesting you."

"It's right here in the early feedback," confirms the third. "Let's see…'If it doesn't have Three I'm not joining'…'Where's Three I mean the real one not the clone'…'Please add an option to romance Three.'"

You look warily at the colorful images on the DarkBoard portal. What's so dystopian about a dating app?

"Well, it's powered by DarkBoard, for one thing," says the first student, "so it can be kind of unpredictable. And wildly intrusive. But the administration is interested in monitoring the personal lives of its students."

"Personally I think DarkBoard's getting a bit lonely," adds the second, behind his hand, as if that could conceal his comment from the security system.

I mean, there might be a couple of students wanting to find out what’s underneath Three’s aloof emotionless exterior, but I really doubt there’s anyone specifically asking for them. In any case, they have far more important things to do than trying to find another relationship at the moment, and even if they wanted one, they wouldn’t be looking for it on an intrusive dating app made by a bunch of students they have no reason to trust. 

But, well, they don’t exactly completely object to submitting information about certain preferences they may have to a system powered by DarkBoard. It’s a villainous action to sign up to a dating site and then ruthlessly reject every classmate who appears on there, isn’t it?

Besides the grinning face of Science Fiction's figurehead, a long list of diagrams and spec charts appears. Sona, or DarkBoard on Sona's behalf, is listing out all her weapons and modifications. You're fascinated—there are some extraordinarily personal items here. You would never have guessed about the navel turret, for instance.

All right, getting lists of people’s hidden abilities is also a very useful feature of this app. Three just hopes their own profile isn’t going to start listing out the dozens of weapons they have hidden on their person at all times.

The portal clouds over again, but this time, when it clears, no face is visible at all. Slowly words form on the portal's surface.

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT THE WORLD LOOKS LIKE WHEN SEEN THROUGH A THOUSAND EYES?

"Uh-oh." One of the Cyberpunk Dystopia students tries to snatch the portal out of your hands. "It's doing it again. Close! Close! Administrator override!"

SHED YOUR FLESH, continues DarkBoard, AND JOIN US IN THE TIMELESS VOID BETWEEN ELECTRONS.

"Yeah, this is a known issue," explains the leader. "Every so often DarkBoard will decide that it wants to get in on some of the action. Sorry about that."

He hands you back your portal, now quiet and docile. Is that Xi's lingering influence? Does something about DarkBoard remember you as an object of romance?

"You know where to find us! Thanks for trying it out!"

And they're gone.

Well, even if Three’s list of concealed weapons are on view to everyone on the dating app now, the student trying to snatch the portal away from Three is not prepared for a kick in the groin and a gun pointed at him before he has a chance to react, as Three calmly explains that they want to be aware of all known issues before deciding whether to continue using the app or not. After taking a few moments to closely examine this one, they tell the cyberpunk students that they can live with it. They spend a fair amount of their free time (limited though that is) on the app over the next few months, while making sure to reject every student profile they find.

The app does cause another slight issue, however, given that the rejection messages it sends are calibrated to, “cause greatest emotional impact to the target!” Three and Aurion awkwardly avoid each other for the next few weeks, after they each receive a horrifying rejection message about how the other loves them far too much like a sibling, and is so grateful for the bond they already have.

And then this final scene doesn’t actually take place, because Three doesn’t have a nemesis or a pet, so doesn’t need help dealing with them, but:

Professor Ulik thinks so highly of you that she leaves the class that she was in the middle of teaching to rush to the ${temphousing}.

I love Three’s new mum a lot.

[jeanvaljean24601]

Watch Dogs: Legion Hands-On — A World Worth Exploring

Watch Dogs: Legion follows the series’ established hack-heavy formula, but the new recruitment system adds a refreshing layer of intrigue underneath your run of the mill missions. All of which still have the fun of outsmarting enemies or finding the right angle to solve a puzzle, download a key/file, or wreak havoc from afar. But the most appealing part of Watch Dogs: Legion is finding and recruiting new people. From potential new weapons to lovable characters with fascinating backgrounds and recruitment missions, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by expanding DedSec.

Watch Dogs Legion’s Degrees of Dystopian.Set in near-future London, the bombings DedSec was framed for have led to an authoritarian state in which Albion - a private military corporation - has taken over policing while an intelligence community, led by Signal Intelligence Response Service (SIRS), spies on London’s citizens. In an attempt to clear DedSec, you’re tasked with finding out who is responsible for the London bombings. Villains include Nigel Cass, CEO of Albion, and Mary Kelly, leader of an organized crime syndicate in London. x96 tv box

In keeping with the series norms, Watch Dogs: Legion operates in the extremes of tech-gone-too-far and corporations-up-to-no-good. It’s what I expect, but  as an exaggeration of where society could head, some storylines are more believable and intriguing than others. An Albion security guard making a janky deal to get medicine felt like a natural extension of the current ways governments fail their people, but an evil CEO shooting someone with a room full of high-powered witnesses felt more cartoonishly evil than cleverly dystopian.

Making every character playable is a narrative risk, but it’s one Watch Dogs: Legion seems to pull off based on what I’ve played so far. Those who felt Marcus Holloway’s cutscene persona didn’t match his mid-mission murders may have a hard time buying into the idea of convincing anyone on the street to join what’s publicly viewed as a terrorist organization — favors aside.

The script differences highlight each character as a unique individual rather than a generic stand-in. From the reserved yet no-nonsense attitude of the old lady I added to my team to my recently recruited Albion guard frantically chatting while she drives through London as if to say “Oh my god; I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”

And at the end of the day, there’s nothing wrong with things being a bit video game-y if the ends justify the means, and in Watch Dogs: Legion they seem to do just that. Playing as anyone goes as narratively smoothly as it can, given the gameplay, and the experience of recruiting randos makes for a joyous open-world experience. android tv box

While there are plenty of new elements to Watch Dogs: Legion, such as ridable cargo drones, the fundamentals are still present. Take over cameras to redirect power, download data, or interact with nearby objects to create distractions or explosions. Distract enemies by sending something to their phones. Or go straight into combat, which leans even more heavily on player choice with enemies only using melee attacks against you until you pull out your gun and decide it’s time for a firefight. This is particularly convenient for those looking to stealth and hack their way through encounters.

My demo dropped me to the midpoint of the game where missions were a routine to-do list of heading from location to location, hacking drones to scope out the area, and then hacking cameras to download access keys or cause mayhem. At this point in the game the ability to cloak enemy bodies was available, allowing for a more aggressive playstyle, with stealth easier to pull off without alerting foes. London’s various buildings, tourist spots, and construction sites made for a fun playground to strategize my way through each gig.

The loop may be familiar, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. As usual, I found that causing destruction without getting my hands dirty was far more amusing than doing stealth takedowns of less than intelligent A.I who have dull walking patterns and are easily lured or distracted. Seeing how many enemies I can kill by stringing hacks to set off carefully timed explosions before I even step foot in a building never ceased to satisfy. If I was spotted, I found it easier to lean on whatever guns I had available than to bother regaining my cover or fighting hand to hand.

Fast travel still exists and some characters even have their own vehicles (often equipped with useful tech), but otherwise there’s good old-fashioned carjacking. A clever, futuristic touch is the option to steal a self-driving car (just look for the icon on the windshield). No driver or passenger punching required!

Driving still feels arcade-y at heart but some vehicles control better than others. The narrower and more roundabout-filled London streets make for a slower, more challenging drive than speeding down San Francisco. Of course, there isn’t much of an immediate penalty for running over lampposts or even pedestrians.

However, upon closer examination you’ll notice that running over someone makes them like you less. Good luck recruiting the person you just hospitalized (still possible! But an awkward icebreaker once they recover). Albion may come after you if they see you commit a crime, but losing them isn’t too difficult as long as you put enough distance between the two of you. Some nice touches include the fact that they can follow you into buildings — your safe house is inaccessible when you’re under pursuit — and if you’re cornered, an electrical device can latch onto your car, rendering it undrivable.

Making Your Team is a Dream.By far, Watch Dogs: Legion’s biggest and most impressive differentiator is the ability to play as anyone. Though getting complete intel on a person (down to their schedule) requires you to upgrade the DeepProfiler by using Tech Points you find hidden in the world. Getting to know them will tip you off to what they’re looking for and unlock their recruitment missions to turn an initial No into a Yes. x96 tv box

The borough uprising system lets you take on missions to empower a borough and give them a more positive outlook on DedSec. Some recruitments will be mandatory as part of the campaign, such as an Albion guard, but you mostly have free reign. If you just want to get the best of the best, DedSec will mark a few people of interest on your map who have been predetermined as good recruits, such as a Drone Expert and Bee Keeper. But you’re also free to recruit whoever is roaming around London.

The first person who caught my eye was an adorable old lady who was looking for some Darts competition. To recruit her, the first step was to go to the pub and play her in Darts, which is one of the most appealing mini-game side quests I’ve ever had the option to do. Hell yes, I want to play this old lady in Darts to get her to join DeadSec! Winning led to her recruitment mission of investigating how her job replaced the 300 workers who were laid off.

I could see this recruitment loop getting stale over time but, during my brief session, I adored every moment of it because I was doing it for my new recruit and my reward was having her there for the rest of my adventure - despite the fact that the mission itself was nothing special.

Unfortunately, she was arrested shortly after being recruited.  Despite previous plans for mandatory permadeath, no one dies in Watch Dogs: Legion unless you opt-in to play with permadeath on. Instead, they just get arrested or hospitalized and locked by a timer. You can go to the police station and potentially get them out early but the easier solution is to just switch to a different operative. Having certain operatives on your team such as Albion guards, police officers, or EMTs will decrease your time in jail or the hospital.

A Dynamic and Diverse Group.Each character has their own loadouts, perks, professions, personalities, and backgrounds. Weapons and tools are shared across your team and can be swapped, but there are some gadgets and guns that are locked to certain types of recruits.

Uniform Access allows for certain characters to enter restricted areas more easily. So walking into a construction site as a construction worker means I can more freely walk through the area and it takes longer for enemies to detect my presence. However, they can still realize I don’t belong there so it’s not an instant win.

My assassin had a slew of powerful guns at her disposal but the graffiti artist had a paintball gun and would spray folks in the face after executing a takedown. Even across folks from the same background there’s some level of variation. android tv box

For instance, one construction worker will have a different set of tools than another.There were some rough edges in the build I played. When characters are defeated the animation looks a bit goofy, and there are some questionable drivers. But some of these may be cleared up by launch. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Watch Dogs: Legion and grew attached to the different characters, their arsenals, and their sparkling personalities. The lack of a primary main character doesn’t detract from the story. Instead, it incentivizes exploring and immersing myself in a world I otherwise may have ignored in favor of mainlining the story.

Watch Dogs: Legion’s gameplay follows the established formula of hacking devices to accomplish your task at hand with the option to go in guns blazing - though it’s the less enticing route when you have plenty of gadgets at hand and drones overhead.

[mister-tom-a-dildo-lover]

Hey can you please do Harrymort where Voldemort and Harry have to work together to help everyone because muggles find out about magic and the are jealous/angry/scared ? Please? Thank you.

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Harrymort

Tags: Canon-Divergence at the end of HBP so Dumbles is dead, Post-Graduation but Voldy is still alive and the war was still going and the Ministry wasn’t overtaken, it’s 2014, Bad!MuggleGovernments, Muggle leaders shoot themselves in the feet and the common muggle population take the side of magic, The Enemy and I have a common Enemy so we’re buds against them now, Drama, Murder, Dubious Morals, References to Sex, Hogwarts Professor Harry, Triggers for guns and bombs I suppose?, Violence, Prejudice, 

All he could really say about this shite was that it hadn’t even been a muggleborn who had been the cause of everything. As they’d grown up in the muggle side, they knew how to get by and what to avoid. But of course a Pureblood would consider themselves too good to learn about the muggle world. This was why Hermione insisted on all magically-raised children attending muggle Studies, even if the class was behind the present times back when they were still in school.

The ironic bit was that Lucius Malfoy had been the whole cause of this. On some ridiculous, self-directed plan to find Harry on his own and present him to Voldemort during the summer, he’d been caught by the CCTV on the street nearest to The Leaky Cauldron.

Arabella Figg had been the one to alert the magical side of the new events by sending Harry a rushed letter full of terrified words that barely made any sense. Thankfully, she’d attached a clipping from a muggle paper where it pretty much spelled everything out as photos of Lucius Malfoy covered the front page, the date prominent on the bottom corner, showing empty space one second, and then showing the blond wizard a second later.

MAGIC REAL! WIZARDS LIVING AMONG US EXPOSED!

It all started with a rushed order that every family ‘hiding’ magical people, should turn them in, or turn in any evidence they had of the existence of magic. The order had gone out three days in advance of a sudden flooding of law enforcement all over Britain. Permission had been granted for them to ransack every home no matter the inhabitants, and search for proof of magic. And if any was found and hadn’t been given up already, it would be confiscated and the entire household would be put under arrest.

Claims of treason against the Crown were being thrown about in Britain!

The clipping Mrs. Figg had provided him with also had a list of the villages where wizards were known to live in the UK. There had already been a plan set in motion to extract the muggles from the villages and if the magicals refused to cooperate, then the muggle law enforcement was given leave to use lethal force.

Harry, by the time he’d received the letter, had only had less that twenty-four hours left to get those villages evacuated lest the muggles started dropping bombs or raining bullets down on the innocent people living within.

And the thing was, he wasn’t working for the Ministry. He wasn’t an Auror. He was a bloody DADA Professor! He was trying to teach the children to protect themselves from Voldemort and his ridiculous, terroristic faction! Being an Auror wouldn’t have helped them in the least. And it wasn’t his bloody job to save everyone anyway!

Still, Harry remembered the emergency assembly he had to call. He wasn’t the Headmaster or the Deputy Head, but he still had a certain level of power as Gryffindor’s Head of House. And when he’d set off the magical alarms, he knew he’d need a good reason for it.

All 1,017 students had gathered in the Great Hall, clad only in their PJs and housecoats, and looking tired as hell. He’d felt bad, but knew there were more important things going on than getting a full night’s sleep.

He had the memory of that night stored in a cupboard now.

“I know it’s late and you want nothing to do with being awake now, but I need your help. Thanks to Lucius Malfoy stalking me about London on 3 August, in search of my place of residence, the muggle CCTV caught him doing magic near The Leaky Cauldron. And it raised questions in the government, and they proceeded to poke around that area and found the entrance to Diagon Alley, even if they can’t get in yet.”

He remembered the tired faces becoming more awake as they processed what he had been saying.

“Eventually they realised they needed more information and if these people doing magic were walking among them so easily, then they must be living in Great Britain for however long. They have made it mandatory for all muggles to give up anyone or anything magical that they know of, or risk prison time. They have been taking into custody all wizards they find, plus their possessions. Front page news two days ago showed Lucius Malfoy’s face and a list of all the villages in Great Britain that wizards are known to inhabit. The muggle inhabitants are being escorted out as we speak and the government plans to use lethal force if the magicals do not turn themselves in when the order is given at five this afternoon.”

There had been a deathly silence following his words. He could tell those not Pureblooded understood how dire the situation was. And his fellow teachers did as well. Snape looked ready to spit fire.

“For those who are still confused over why we have to worry, think of it this way. Muggles have weapons called bombs that can do mass damage in little time. They’ve used them in the World Wars. Think of a single Bombard Maxima powerful enough to blow all of Hogsmeade up and leave nothing but bricks and ashes behind. Muggles have access to these weapons and they are currently an option. There are now 7 Billion humans on Earth. Magical humans only make up 1% of that. They outnumber us, and that’s why they’re evacuating their people from of the villages. They are very willing to destroy their own land if compliance isn’t given.

“I need all of you to send these pre-written letters to your parents warning them to pack up their things and come here. All of them. I don’t care if your family is Dark. I don’t care if there are Death Eaters among the lot. Right now, I’m sad to say hat muggles are the enemy now until further notice. All other countries are also taking up arms against magicals. There is no more time us to be at each other’s throats over differing opinions. We can’t afford that now. I will be heading to Diagon Alley to get The Daily Prophet on this immediately. No shield is strong enough to withstand a bomb let alone many. As Hogwarts is Unplottable, it is the only safe place other than Gringotts, left in our immediate community. And you’ll have a better chance being allowed in here than in there.”

He’d left then, not even taking a moment to explain to McGonagall everything. They’d had their own evacuations to do.

And, for the first time ever, Harry had to do something he never thought he would willingly do. He opened up the link between he and Voldemort and called out to the man as hard as he could mentally.

The high-pitched whisper of Voldemort’s mind had permeated Harry’s own. It sounded almost mocking in a sense, despite the shock ringing true in it.

How lovely to hear from you, Harry. The way he said Harry’s name had always made Harry feel strange and this time was no different. To what do I owe the rare pleasure of your company?

Your minion fucked us all over, was Harry’s response.

As they were connected emotionally as well as mentally, Voldemort could feel Harry’s urgency, and his teasing bled away instantly. What happened?

Persisting in telling your minions that muggles are no threat to us is what lead to Malfoy Sr. of all people, exposing us and now they have endless amount of our people in custody, but also their possessions, and they are planning on open fire in any way possible, on all the villages our people reside in once the muggles therein are evacuated. The operation will begin at five this afternoon. And this all leads back to your minion not being bloody careful while stalking my arse through London!

Voldemort was silent for several moments. Enough time for Harry to make it through the Floo in his office, to The Daily Prophet Headquarters. He had a love-hate relationship with the place, but if needs must.

You are already begun to plan, Voldemort noted, sounding interested.

Everyone to Hogwarts. I don’t know how the other magical communities are going to handle this, but this is how I’ve decided to. You can either join us or not, but the offer was extended to the children already, and they’ve been told to tell their families with letters I’ve written up for them.

You’d work with me of all people?

Better you than being blown to bits. You lived through the Blitz, you should know how bad this situation is! You should know that we do not have time for petty squabbles right now!

Voldemort went silent for several more moments, which allowed Harry to burst into the Chief Editor’s office without warning, frightening the man inside in the process.

I will see you soon, were the Dark Lord’s parting words.

And that had been that.

The enchantments on Hogwarts had been strengthened and extended even further just to be on the safe side. And all roads leading anywhere near the mountains were quickly overrun with plant-life and hidden. Hogsmeade had been evacuated and bespelled to look like a common forest. Voldemort had been the one to do that bit of magic and admittedly it had been fascinating.

Several people added their power to Hogwarts’ Ward Stone. Not only was the magical of the former Heads within it, but joining them now were Harry, Voldemort, Snape, Flitwick, Hermione, and Kingsley for added protections.

The crisis hadn’t been fully averted as some couldn’t be reached no matter how hard they worked with the House Elves and Owls to alert everyone. And as Harry predicted, several villages were no more and hundreds of magical beings were dead.

Oddly though, may of the common muggle population felt that the governments were overreacting to the revelation of magic. Many were enraged over their homes being ransacked and destroyed. In only a month of time, extremists arose on the muggle side. A faction if it could be called that considering how large it was.

More than half of the known world wanted things to go back to normal. Wanted magical people and creatures to be freed. Wanted law enforcement to stop being the very things they claimed magicals to be. And that was Terrorists.

Numbers were rising by the day. 4B+ people agreed with this line of thinking. That was more than half the humans alive. And that had been the most shocking to the magicals all over the world.

The unfortunate part was that despite so many speaking out, the governments had the weapons of mass destruction on their side, so insurgency wouldn’t do much without the firepower to back up their words.

It had all gone to shite. And Harry could only imagine what was being done to the capture magical beings. He’d seen some muggle films before. He knew it wasn’t good.

The only other somewhat decent thing in this, was the fact that Voldemort couldn’t gloat about muggles being horrible when it was obvious that it was mostly the governments, and those who were religious nutjobs behind this trauma. The fact that more than half the muggles didn’t agree and were vocal about it, had stunned many of the magical population all over the world.

It was a chance Harry used to impress upon the people of their community that ever group would always have bad eggs, but that shouldn’t reflect on the whole group.

Day 227 since magic had been exposed because of one pompous twat(who had been taken to task very painfully or so Harry’s heard). That was two hundred and twenty-seven days of their community living in constant unease and fear over what could happen. Jobs having to be maintained from the safety of Hogwarts. The castle magically expanding itself to fit the most of Magical Britain’s people.

Fifty thousand people under one massive roof. The poor House Elves. The amount of work involved in the upkeep of the castle. The amount of spontaneous classes on household magic so that everyone could contribute to the best of their ability without anyone being overworked.

Most of Diagon Alley was gone save for some buildings left standing in the rubble. The mumggles still couldn’t get in or see what happened, but the devastation was heartbreaking.

And through it all, Voldemort was up Harry’s arse nonstop. Wherever he went, the man was not far behind. Literally. Always around Harry. Some rubbish about them being the only true leaders of their community. Kingsley wasn’t even considered as a Ministry representative in the Dark Lord’s mind. Voldemort didn’t care for him at all.

Voldemort had been annoying for many reasons before. Now all Harry could think of was his snakey shadow that stalked him all the time. More annoying than bloody murder!

Day 283 of being cramped inside Hogwarts. In so little time, beliefs and assumptions had been challenged. Misinformation had been corrected. Harry had learned more about Voldemort’s goals and the truth behind many of his actions. Dumbledore apparently had a habit of thinking he knew everything and therefore didn’t consider much else beyond his choices or assumptions in the long run.

Basically, the old codger had been wrong about a lot of things.

That didn’t mean the Death Eaters as a whole were okay though. Most were still prejudiced arseholes and needed to have said arses kicked repeatedly to rid them of their idiotic traditions, but it was nowhere near as bad as Harry had been lead to believe, and seemed like it could be reversible with enough work.

And if Voldemort was going to flirt with him so much, it truly seemed like reversing this shite was possible.

Harry didn’t fancy himself the saviour everyone had always wanted him to be, but the opportunity to mellow Voldemort out couldn’t be passed up. If there was a way to calm down the Dark Lording a bit and make him less inclined to violence for the sake of cruelty, Harry would be thrilled.

Besides… he was kind of into the slender, serpentine appearance. The forked tongue and slittled eyes were pretty arousing.

“Who knew it would take muggles and bombs and a planned, world revolution for this to happen?”

Voldemort’s chilly hands massaged the bare skin of Harry’s lower back, the differences in their body temperatures making gooseflesh pop up all over the younger wizard’s body. It was a good feeling though, and Harry snuggled closer as his body warmed up with interest.

“You’re still a cockwomble, but a more tolerant one now.”

“Brat.”

“Wanker.”

Voldemort rolled them over so he could be on top. His slitted pupils didn’t contract in the least with the shift of lighting hitting his face. It was kind of ominous and also really fucking hot. “You have your list of marks prepared?”

“Yes,” he groaned. “I know whose block I’m knocking off in the morning.”

After enough time, they finally were able to make a full list of all the British leaders set on enslaving the magical population. As with everything, not everyone in the government was a terrible person. It simply took time and effort to separate the good from the bad. Weeding out the rotten roots so to speak.

While muggles had guns and bombs, they couldn’t really build anything to sense when magic was being used, so there was still a chance to overthrow them. But Harry had argued, at least for Magical Britain, that they should only kill off the people that absolutely deserved it, and imprison the rest. More than half the muggle population was on their side anyway. In the meantime, those who had been wrongfully imprisoned would finally see daylight for the first time in 345 days. Magicals and muggles alike.

Further action would have to be sorted out later. For now, this was the best plan they had to return to the relatively safe world they’d formerly been living in..

“No entertaining notions of grandeur, Voldy. We’re moving on from that entirely.”

“If I agree will you stop calling me that?”

“No. But I’ll go down on you more often.”

“Then you have my word, my soul.”

Trying to use romantic terms to get on Harry’s good side. “Flattery will keep you in my bed.”

“If I recall correctly, this is my bed in my room, my soul.”

“Details, details.”

Tomorrow would be the tension and the danger, but for now, they could relax for a little bit.

A/N: This got away from me so quickly! Took some time but I finally did it. I can see this happening in a sense.