#planescape shenanigans

[quitefair]

First Planescape session yesterday DMed by @penatsial !!!

Our team of intrepid recently-re alived heroes include:

My amnesiac Dragonborn/Hollow One Warlock of the Raven Queen, Corinth. So far absolutely out of their comfort zone. Terrified that the cleric is gonna clock them as undead. (Cleric probably already knows lmao). Has been roped into a puppet show where they cast Infestation as part of the act.

@edenzom’s kenku sorcerer, Nod. Meera out of character loves this little guy. Corinth is vibrating between severely amused and severely annoyed. Doesn’t help that the gremlin looks like a fkin raven. History modifier of +5 and uses it to recite Wikipedia articles of stuff we find. Has an AC of 9, but is always the first to rush into battle. (as I have said in character - go la. gi lagi la.)

Mia, human cleric of Gond. Probably the only sane person in this crew. Is probably gonna kill Nod at some point out of sheer annoyance. Also is the one that’s probably holding everybody together lmao… poor girl needs a break.

Honsifer/Hansipher/whatever, Dragonborn rogue/wizard who can’t remember how to spell his own name. Has never disengaged in his entire life. Fuck it, we ball.

Lilandra, drow bard. Has both the planes largest piano AND the planes smallest violin. And also maracas. Has in fact bitch slapped a necromancer in our first battle. Has also performed that one Snoop Dogg nursery rhyme to a bunch of very entertained skeletons.

- we also apparently survived an encounter that was supposed to kill us, and ended up levelling up by the end of the first session??? Hell yeah

[bbaked-beans]

explodes. I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH AHSHHDHSJABDBF

I'm gonna miss them :(( I can't believe it's over whaaa! I've been listening to rolling with difficulty since the very beginning and it seems like it started just yesterday, absolutely wild to me that we've reached the finale!

I'm excited to see what awaits us in the next campaign!

[ourstochoose9]

Just read through my psychotic ramblings notes from yesterday and here's a list of C1 finale fanart I need on my desk by Monday (under the break because Spoilers):

Dani (in character) calling DX-TR "an evil hot topic son of a bitch"

"There's no gods here, just me"

"I'm the ghost of your fucking past, present, and future, and I'm here to god damn haunt you"

Mystra promoting VR-LA to Magister (in front of the whole Planescape)

Miscellaneous party shenanigans (Cressida stealing Roy, Dani talking to Davion, Vhas talking to a coat rack he thinks is VR-LA, the real VR-LA chatting with Maxim and his old crew, the current Per Aspera crew at the very end, etc)

Also thinking about writing something brief about the floor time moment myself tbh, maybe stay tuned for that?

(Gonna tag some people I know make art to worm these ideas into yalls heads: @caliburn-not-calculator @billiamdoor @kathbunny )

[y-rhywbeth2]

I wonder if Planescape's' 'a belief in the afterlife is required to have one, and a person determined to believe that there is nothing after death can't go to one and just dissolves into oblivion' lore wins out against the Realms'; 'all souls have to go the Fugue - which might be on Hades - to decide what we're doing with it.' I mean if the soul dissolves because no plane can connect to it (outer planes being shaped by belief itself and powerless without it...)

I mean it's a DM choice about which one gets priority, but I'm just picturing people trying really hard to unlearn the belief in the afterlife to get our of DnD, and particularly FR's, postmortem shenanigans.

[erisacolyte]

My adorable plasmoid, Mercury, is now a Rogue due to *shenanigans*. I am living my best life in this Planescape campagin.

Like what I do and want to support me? Why not become a Patron: patreon.com/joephilliactheblack Or buy me a coffee: ko-fi.com/A2581GB3

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[ettawritesnstudies]

Thinking about doing some short character study stories or prose novelizations of my various games but not sure where to start

[catraven]

SKSKSKKSSKSK YES RWD x MECHANISMS AU IS FLOATING IN MY BRAIN RN ITS NOT RLLY WRITTEN YET BUT IT EXISTS IN MY BRAINWORMS

its mainly just silly shit not much angst (thats what the psych au is for) but just wholesome fighting wnd friendship (?)

mechs and the aurora get thrown in the Planescape, meet the crew and first fight cuz yk how the mechs are they just fight but then dani notices the special ship and starts rambling and nastya is like WAIT DONT KILL THEM THIS BLUE THING I WANNA TALK WITH HER ABOUT SHIPS. and nastya forces the crew to be friends because she wants someone just as ship obsessed as her to yap to and also the ships have similar names vibeways. shenanigans ensue, Ashes shows Dani Space Weed tm, Finbar is being a dad because none of the mechs have one, dani is basically the star of the mechs because she likes to blow shit up, small vrla angst section maybe because hes scared dani will go with the mechs qnd leave him, kyana just looking at everyone with big round eyes yappin

thats the snippets i have rn but again its very much just brainworms yet

Reblog if you write fanfic and would be totally down with your followers coming into you askbox and talking to you about your fic

[druidgroves]

friend is running a planescape game & we have 2 make 2 alternate versions of our pc but my main one is a human fey warlock with the feylost background that tripped into a portal to the feywild through a laurel hell, stayed a while, but when she fell back out in the city of sigil, she had no memories of her time in the feywild, just a strong feeling that she had left behind something or someone. we were also allowed one uncommon magical item so i gave her an amulet that wards against divination magic to locate her to give my friend some fun shenanigans to work with :>

[rpgbot]

Gen Con 2023 Con Report - PF2, Starfinder 2e, Planescape, and More!

I got into some serious shenanigans, and I have some early details about upcoming products.

[serigruh]

I just found your blog and whohhh so pretty! Dragons, GW2 even DnD! I already love your work <3

Mind if I ask who is your current personal favourite campaign character, and what are they like?

Heheh, thanks you, and thanks for the ask, you are my very first one ! :D

I'm on two campaigns at the moment, one of Curse of Strahd and the other of Planescape ( we're starting a short Spelljammer one soon but since we haven't started yet I won't count this character ). For my favorite Id's say…it depends, actually. Both campaign have started a few years back, during lockdown in 2020 so I've played Kulta ( planescape ) and Matei ( CoS ) for a very long time, and I'm very attached to them both. If I'm on a mood for more serious and dark themes, I'd lean towards Matei. In a setting where almost everything is against our party, and despite being litterally cursed ( he's a werewolf. He started the campaign as a werebear, got cured, and then got bit by a werewolf on his own will to help fight the leader of a werewolf pack and help save his village ) he's trying his best to keep hope that his friend will be able to escape ( he is from Barovia, the land where the setting takes place, so escaping himself is not his main goal ) and that maybe, they'll be able to deliver the land from Strahd. On a pure mechanics view, he's a druid and I LOVE playing this class. It's a ton of fun, as access to a lot of cool spells and different transformations, so I've been having a blast. On the other hand there's Kulta, my sorcerer on Planescape. This campaign is way more lighthearted and our party is very chaotic and fun. We're a bunch of adventurers living in Sigil and are accepting (ofter dangerous) missions from a lof to very different people. We're far from lawful so our missions can range from helping find someone's cat to stealing a dangerous dark magic tome from demons to give it to an equally dangerous fiend. We always found ourselves in a lot of shenanigans and have caught the attention of certains powers we should have avoided. Kulta is not nearly as loyal and caring to the party as Matei is, but they're still like…his weird found family that all came to live at his place. He's a bit vain on some aspects, love riches and rare magic artifacts to a point that got him in trouble on several occasion. On a more personal standard , he also is the character that I like drawing the most, so for this point alone, he can count as a favorite !

[zenosanalytic]

I have Completely Loved This since the first time I saw it uwu

Honestly and Obviously: Paladins and Warlocks are the same thing, just expressed a bit different(and some warlocks are the children of spirits they have pacts with, and some Paladins are more Avatar than servant so they can both be kinda Sorcerery... It's a Spectrum u_u u_u).

Like: I like that they've widened Paladins to not HAVE to be deitycentric(tho that was actl something that already existed in 2ndE via planescape and the Athars especially), but a deitycentric Paladin is operating through a Pact just as much as a Warlock is. I think it'd be pretty cool to explore that by making Paladin/Warlock(and mybe Sorcerer?) a sort of ADDITIONAL Class -like not a multiclass that you splitlevel but one you gain xp in at the same time and amount as your normal one- you have on top of some other class; the potential "negative" being additional "restrictions" on how you Roleplay them(the sarcasm quotes cuz Pact Shenanigans are such good storyseeds and opportunities for exploring a character).

I am sharing the funniest dnd character idea I’ve ever had bc I know I’ll never get to play them and I refuse to keep a joke to myself

[end-area]

Have you played dnd? And if so, what character(s) have you played as? :D

Ahhhh yes! :D

I’ve always had an interest in playing since I love dnd based games like Baldur’s Gate/Planescape Torment/NWN. I first played as a guest in the campaigns of my uni friends, but I can’t say I remember much from the 3-4 sessions we had :’)

BUT! 2 years ago I joined a campaign ran by someone at work, and me and a few coworkers have played ever since. I am still playing the character I’ve started with, surviving several of my DM’s attempts to kill me asfghsda

I play as a half-elf guy called Vesper, who’s multiclassing as a fighter/rogue (specialising as a gunslinger and arcane trickster)

Yeah, I have a Charisma dumpstat of 14 :))) I initially thought to spec as a swashbuckler but I was always partial to range combat so I gave up on the idea. I also enjoy high persuasion for social shenanigans (tho I normally roll extremely poor in any instances that actually count)

a few bits of info about Vesper:

his intelligence is on par with that of his drake mount, he is an arcane trickster purely for the utilitarian spells (that he barely understands)

he once snorted a dead mage’s ashes, which gave him the ability to cast prestidigitation temporarily. used this newfound power to make a new party member soil himself, since they said he ‘wasn’t funny’.

a murder mystery at a fancy auction? vesper to the rescue! while logic implied that the murderer was one of the 10 people standing in the closed room, ive decided that the culprit must be hiding in the massive, stone sarcophagus. literally everyone disagreed with me but this didnt stop me from opening the sarcophagus and releasing into the city a evil lich who rampage-murdered hundreds and turned out to be the villain in our next campaign arc

established an inn in what previously used to be the warehouse of an infernalist cult. hands out business cards for the said inn to every npc encountered

decided to shake hands with some dubious undead dudes, who ended up branding him with some sort of magic glyph. apparently the mark makes me partially dead, and the usually aggressive undead mobs simply do not see me??

locked in a temple dedicated to a god of ice, i thought the best way to show devotion and get free was to ‘strip naked’. this just caused me to go unconscious faster than everyone in the party

met a mysterious fey being while planar-hopping. gave some of my luck and a magic sword for some weird sparkling ashes (yes, i know, its ashes again!!) these turned out to be a phoenix ashes, and i revived the creature by placing its remains in a forge. now its my SECOND baby

my first baby is a kobold called Tiv that we rescued from a dragon cult. one of our party members was a bit...unhinged and decided she wanted to murder the little dude but i stepped in front of a fireball and nearly died saving him. the kobold turned out to not be very receptive of my dotting and loving behaviour and got brainwashed by our lizardfolk paladin into being his glorified manservant

vesper often attempts to flirt his way into discounts or someone pants - this ends up poorly, almost every time. he has no preference in terms of the race or gender of his target  romantic interest (NO ONE IS SAFE FROM HORRIBLE FLIRTS) 

most recently, the party found a creepy featureless statue in an abandoned Underdark temple. i obviously decided to touch it before any investigation was done - it turns out the thing has a propensity to copying an individuals liking and then creating a doppelganger of you.........while also turning you raving mad. lmao we’ll see the aftermath of this bullshit tomorrow evening :’)

on a more serious note, he is a reasonable person who tries to help when its possible, often for none to little recompense (which is at odd with his smuggler past - but he is constantly working on proving himself a true hero). he is very loyal to his companions, and any person that proves themselves a friend. on the flipside, he has no qualms with breaking kneecaps to get a job done and behind his jokey facade lies someone capable of a great deal of violence when wronged

Thank you for the ask anon!! And sorry for the long response omg :)))))) i do so love dnd :))))))))

[enddaysengine]

Anhur & Montju (Planescape. Egyptian Powers)

Anhur — or Onuris, if you prefer Greek — is interesting simply because he is such a deep cut into Egyptian mythology. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of references to him in names and spells, but ancient history being incomplete, we don’t know much about him. We do know he journeyed south to either capture or rescue the lion Goddess Mehit. Anhur was also a sky and war God who patronized Abdju (Abydos) and Tjenu (Thinis). The Greeks syncretized him with Ares, and the Roman emperors were depicted with some of his aspects, such as when Egyptian carvings of Tiberius wear Anhur’s distinctive four-plumed crown. That’s about it.

What interests me about  Anhur in Planescape is one of his Proxies, Montju. According to On Hallowed Ground, Montju is a human fighter who competes with Anhur for the right to be the Kemetic war god. The two Powers have made each other their Proxies to keep an eye on their rival’s scheming. They are both chaotic good, so killing each other would be unlikely (and is called out as being impossible), but there are definitely shenanigans going on in Netaph.

You’ll note that I just called both Anhur and Montju Powers. Montju (or Montu if you are Wikipedia) is another Kemetic war God, this time the patron of Waset (Thebes). Rather than being human, at the very least I would say Montju is an Aven or Minotaur, but more likely he is an out-and-out Demigod. If Montju defeats Anhur, they switch positions with Montju becoming the God and Anhur becoming the Demigod. In Pathfinder 1e, we can represent this change with the number of domains each Power gets. As a Demigod, they posses four domains and five subdomains. I’d propose the following:

Anhur

Domains: Air, Animal, Chaos, Good

Subdomains: Cloud, Feather, Fur, Lightning, Wind

Montju

Domains: Animal, Chaos, Good, Sun

Subdomains: Day, Feather, Fur, Light, Thirst

Similar, but not quite the same. Whoever is the deity at any given time then adds the War domain and the Tactics subdomain. Now you have a massive intrigue between two good deities who occupy the same area and has the potential to break out into actual violence. Want to know the best part? Their Domain is on Ysgard, so any minions (or PCs) who died in battle can potentially resurrect. It is a great excuse to fight some celestials without running an evil campaign. 

Anhur and Bast have never been on speaking terms. No one is quite sure why, as there doesn’t seem to be any animosity between them, but greybeards in Netaph and Merratet speculate that the tension arose from Anhur betrothal to Mehit. The two Goddesses quarrel over whose sphere of influence lions fall under. When their shared earthberg comes under attack from jotun forces, however, the three powers will need to find a way to set their differences aside. 

Two-Faces-Of-The-Rising-Sun is Anhur’s high priest among the Revolutionary League — just as she is also Montju’s. Rising-Sun believes that the Anarchists’ work will never be done, proselytizing what she calls the Revolutionary Dilemma. Society inevitably grants individuals power over other individuals, inherently corrupting even the most well-intentioned soul. If the League ever overthrows the other Factions, they will face the same problem — and they too will fail to solve it, leading to a revolution against the former revolutionaries. She has faith that her divine patrons recognize this paradox as well and responded by engineering their mutual conflict. As long as one Power constantly works to overthrow the other, Anhur and Montju limit their exposure to systemic corruption, ensuring both can work toward a free, fairer multiverse. Rising-Sun’s unique blend of theology and Faction philosophy is (unsurprisingly) unpopular amongst other Kemetic priests, but her door is always open to her co-religionists, even those who hate her.

An adventuring party arrives in Asgard at the same moment as proxies from Anhur and Montju beseech Thor for allegiance in their never-ending war. Each God believes that with Thor’s might at his side, he can crush his rival once and for all. The Æsir are unwilling to anger either divinity and bestow the party with the unenviable task of determining which envoy has the stronger claim to Thor’s aid. 

Notes: Real update time! 

I started writing this a while back, but like I said in my last update, life got busy. In truth, I chose to write Nile War Gods for the Nexus simply because I already had researched Anhur and Montu for Planescape. If you want to know a bit more about them, go pick it up!

Also, don’t ask about 2e domains yet, there’s still more I need to read before I can give an opinion.

[junkrats]

this character has so much weird shit happen to her that i never settled on a decided design or palette but atm she has ping hair that also functions as a portal in our planescape dm roulette ‘campaign’. currently shes got 6 levels in wild magic sorcerer and 3 levels in glamour bard....... shes supposed to be an air genasi but her appearance has been altered a lot in game due to torture and.... wild magic shenanigans.....................

[st33d]

All These Worlds Are Yours (Except Europa)

It’s been a while since my last CRPG report and I have played quite a lot of CRPGs in the meantime. I’m going to keep it brief. It’s by no means all the games I played over the past year or so, but it is all the games that are worth playing in some fashion or another.

Yet again I didn’t really bother to get decent screenshots so you’ll have to endure some tangentially related Shutterstock photos.

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk

It’s like Etrian Odyssey but made by horny 14 year olds. Monsters take the form of purple-black eyes that move only when you do. Colliding with them triggers a JRPG battle with your team. You must conquer around a dozen or so dungeons to defeat a mysterious evil whilst learning about your protagonist’s horny hubris.

I like how it automatically fills in the in-game map, only drawing tiles you have stepped in. Stairways also connect perfectly on most dungeons, leading to some detective work to solve them. The combat is passable. The story is PG13 with random suggestions of poop and sex without really showing any. It’s… a good game with a lot of simple mechanics that it layers up over time to make something quite complex. I really enjoyed solving the dungeons but it’s such a multilayered ball of weirdness that I hesitate recommending it. 

Dragon’s Dogma

It’s like Skyrim but with less items, less map, and decent fights. Like, really decent fights. You can climb on the back of beasts and hack pieces off of them or shoot magic arrows that do a host of cool things. The story is pretty anime - I can’t get into why without some major spoilers. Safe to say that after the first (and honestly entertaining) chunk of the game you get an overlay of falling ash pinned to your screen and the monsters become hit point sponges. That’s around when I stopped playing because it felt like I’d reached “an” ending and the rest was about beating as many dead horses with whatever sticks I could upgrade enough to hit them with. Last time I fired it up I got in an hour long fight with an off-brand beholder that basically respawned all its limbs eight times because of its egregious hit points.

You’re joined by some enthusiastic AI companions called pawns who have no story and just kinda throw themselves at enemies whilst repeating the same phrases over and over. I’m not really sure if they’re a blessing or curse. The game overall is pretty jank with terrible traversal (don’t explore, the quests will send you to every corner of the map anyway - twice). Despite all my complaints it’s a lot of fun - at least until the 1st ending. It’s cheap and I recommend it.

Sky Rogue

It’s like a lot of aircraft dogfight games but a bit random. I’ve played this a bit on single player and it’s alright. However I have played many, many, missions in the 2 player mode with a coworker. It’s just very satisfying doing the whole Top Gun team thing taking on a bunch of enemy planes whilst working on upgrades.

Disco Elysium

It’s like Planescape Torment but without the tedious combat or problematic writer behind it. There’s a video of one of the devs explaining how the dialogue is laid out like Twitter in tabloid format for easy reading. This is revolutionary. I want every computer text game to use this format from now on.

I cannot stress how important it is to enter Disco Elysium unprepared. To have no grasp on just how far you will be allowed to explore, who you will meet, who you will travel with, or what you are expected to do. It is a game about amnesia and becoming someone new - if that is at all possible.

I have two pieces of advice however:

Don’t start with Psyche or Physique stats below 2, they’re both your health and the game will surprise you with damage to either in the most unexpected places.

Do every quest. Explore every nook and cranny. Not knowing is the very essence of the game. You’ll have lost that feeling after the ending.

I don’t need to tell you how good the game is. Just look at most reviews.

Everspace

It’s like Descent (that 1st person spacecraft game on the PSX) but in space and it’s a roguelike. Everspace has you mine, salvage, fight, trade, and quest - but you do it all from the comfort of a spaceship that has responsive controls and interesting weaponry. I had a lot of fun skulking round wrecks to salvage parts whilst avoiding patrols of hostiles until I had enough kit to take them on.

It has a substandard storyline but great meta-progression, asking you to grind cash from each run to unlock parts for a better ship on the next. I put in a great deal of hours into this game and I’m looking forward to what the studio does with the sequel.

Horizon Zero Dawn

It’s like Shadow of Mordor but good. My only major complaint was how constant use of the bow had the camera staying uncomfortably close to Aloy’s arse and burying itself in grass during frenetic combat. When the camera wasn’t trying to kill me the combat was astoundingly good. You fight lumbering robo-dinosaurs with special weak spots and various attacks. The quests are also good with a surprising amount of cutscenes and dialogue for a lot of completely optional content.

I was also amazed at how they managed to pull off an almost believable backstory for a world full of robot dinosaurs. Despite some frustrating combat encounters I had a good time exploring its large and very pretty world.

Pathfinder Kingmaker

It’s like Baldurs Gate but not as good. Only on my 3rd attempt at playing the game with the newly patched in turn based mechanics did it start to make sense. It uses Pathfinder’s rules which are deep and tactical - as tactical rules go they’re pretty good. However when those rules fly by at real time speed you don’t learn how opportunity attacks work (they’re more complex than modern D&D) or how to utilise charge and positioning.

The story is pretty forgettable and the encounter design is relentlessly dull. A lot of areas are just simply fight after fight after fight. In turn based mode the fights are pretty good but too many of them are identical. The ones that weren’t I found inscrutable and impossible to pass. If you like min-max fighting and little else then have at it - but I warn you that the UI is lagging behind most popular CRPGs. You can’t even check the world map whilst in a town.

Metal Gear Solid V

It’s like an RPG. Despite not having a main character with stats, in this open world game of hide and seek you kidnap soldiers who in turn become your stats. Through them you gain access to new abilities. Through them you are drip-fed the resources you steal, only becoming able to spend all that you’ve stolen by having enough accountants to do your taxes. It is a brilliant work of roleplaying economics and a thoroughly enjoyable open world game. One where I can completely ruin a mission yet chuckle at my attempts to save what’s left of my dignity.

It also fails to stick the landing. At around the 20th mission the game starts committing to its plot and the rot sets in. Bit by bit it becomes worse to play. There was trouble at Konami when the game was made and it feels like the end of the game was hit the hardest. This was the part that was tested the least and had the worst ideas thrown into it. Metal Gear Solid V is still worth it for the 1st half of the game.

Final Fantasy 8

It’s like the other Final Fantasy games but poorly paced and balanced. The junction system is incredibly interesting in that it tries to sidestep the whole issue of items by gluing your characters to guardian angels. It’s built in card game Triple Triad is simple and engaging. The story is kinda interesting with some time travel shenanigans going on...

But it’s pacing is dreadful with endlessly copypasted rooms. The magic draw system is miserable (and yes I know you can get GFs to convert items to magic but then it’s more tedious busy work to upscale all the magic into something work attaching). The world map is shockingly empty. And the characters are just yawn, yawn, yawn.

Pick it up on sale.

Torchlight 2

It’s like Diablo 2 but not quite as good. Still worth playing though. I got it on the Switch and found that playing it with a gamepad was a pleasant experience.

It has a few balance problems with the Engineer class being ridiculously overpowered compared to any of the others (and way more fun). And there’s some annoying bugs that prompted a few reloads. Still pretty entertaining however.

Pokemon Shield

It’s like every other Pokemon game (surprise surprise) but easier. As much as I like how they’ve removed a lot of busywork from this entry, it makes it feel like the only challenge in the previous titles was the busywork. When really it was the busywork that held you back from just kerb-stomping everything in your path.

It’s not until the final DLC that you’re given some pokemon that are needlessly tedious to catch and some group battles using randomly selected pokemon that test your knowledge of the game’s systems. The only real challenge in the game is in the online multiplayer against humans where your pokemon level is normalised and encyclopedic knowledge of the title’s history is required.

My internet is terrible so the online gameplay is dead to me. It’s a very fun game, but also a very disappointing one.

Burnout Paradise

It’s like a sandbox game for cars. Except that you’re not really driving a car, it’s more like you’re driving a bobsleigh with a rocket attached to it. Unlike most driving games you aren’t given terrain that slows you down. Even if you hit a wall you’ll skate off it so long as you collide sideways. The game just wants you to drive like an arsehole and go faster and faster - to the tune of Epic by Faith No More (literally).

I mean yeah, it’s not an RPG by any stretch but it’s one of the best sandbox games I’ve played. Even when you’re not doing a “mission” you can just drive around the city finding back alleys and ramps to fly off of. It’s just a massive playground with very little negative feedback.

Cyberpunk 2077

It’s like a bunch of different games you’ve played before but not quite as good. The story is the best bit. I really liked the characters I got to hang out with. I guess I would have enjoyed the gun fights if I hadn’t been playing Doom 1 before I played it. And I would have enjoyed the stealth if I hadn’t already played Metal Gear Solid V with its superior A.I. It has cool Obra Dinn style brain movies to explore for detective work but I enjoyed the spectacle of them more than the execution (though I did enjoy them more than Obra Dinn which I found tedious to navigate or understand).

I saw one review say it was the most backwards view of the future. Not imagining what could be but endlessly paying homage to cyberpunk stories of the past.

I see other reviews say play it when it’s fixed. When the myriad of bugs (and I experienced enough to impact gameplay) are solved.

I say play the sequel. It’s worth experiencing but there’s too much going on that’s playing catch up to other titles.

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate

It’s like Rogue. I first played Shiren 2 on the Nintendo DS and was amazed by its deep systems and story meta progression - various tales progressing in the game only after each death and subsequent replay.

This entry is technically Shiren 5. Holy shit the content in this thing. There are 15 optional dungeons with different rules. Over a hundred block pushing puzzles using various mechanics of the game that you can just walk up and play in the 2nd village you enter. A minesweeper minigame. Loads of tutorial levels. All of these give you rewards which you can take on your main adventure which is a wholly different set of dungeons. I’ve unlocked several companions to adventure with and the game is hinting there are even more later on. It is obscene the amount of value there is packed into this title. And it’s fun. A little unfair at times, but as with all roguelikes the later depths require knowledge and a lot of caution. Strong recommendation for roguelikers.

Dicey Dungeons

It’s like Dream Quest but with dice. I played the prototype of this at the 7DRL after party. Terry was quite bashful about his creation and didn’t want to submit it. I honestly didn’t see why he shouldn’t as many of us had made far worse in the past.

I put off playing this until it finally landed on the Switch as complete as any roguelike can hope to be. It’s quite different to Dream Quest in that it requires a bit of math to do well in. If you’re not prepared to do basic sums then it’s hard to make progress. Also unlike Dream Quest it’s very balanced. There’s definitely some cheesy tactics you can pull off to get cheap victories but not without some thought and planning.

In a sea of deck building roguelikes, Dicey Dungeons is quite simply refreshing. There’s a lot of good ideas in here you won’t see elsewhere - give it a go.

[brightephemera]

Favorite Video Game Sequences (minimal spoilers)

I have strong opinions on a lot of games. A lot of games. Here we go:

Planescape: Torment: The tomb. Absolutely. What a payoff wrapped in such an enigma. Moridor’s Box and the curse of hiccups were pretty good, too. And the Circle of Zerthimon was good, too...and the night hag...and...

Neverwinter Nights 2: The trial. The combination of skill checks and influence checks boggles the mind.

Mask of the Betrayer: Talking to the dead god. One of those “Oh, so that’s the scale of these shenanigans” moments.

Knights of the Old Republic: Everything about your permitted reaction to that discovery. Everything.

Knights of the Old Republic 2: Droid factory. Pretty sure that’s the only droid factory I ever enjoyed. (Or was it just a warehouse?)

Dragon Age: Origins: The prelude to the Landsmeet. I’ve been wanting to stab that guy since my original Human Noble. And Fort Drakon is as hilarious as waking up naked in a cage in a blood-spattered dungeon ever gets.

World of Warcraft: The WraTHGATE AAAAHHH