I don’t want to throw the word enshitiffication around, especially when I’m not sure if I can spell it, but the platforms that people jump ship to when that happens are probably especially vulnerable to people jumping ship again.
I can’t imagine Mozilla effectively marketing Firefox as anything but the bullshit free browser, and when they lose that, people will just move to the next actual bullshit free option.
This is also probably off topic because I can’t load the YouTube video.
I was talking about the second Dune film a little while back and saying how much I enjoy a well realised world that doesn’t try to convey itself by comparing itself to ours. I get the same feeling watching Dune and Lord of the Rings as I do when I watch a film from a culture I’m not familiar with; a sense of needing to adjust to their way of storytelling.
Pairing this with what you mention which is basically extra subtle show don’t tell, and you end up with something I absolutely adore, which is a story in a fully realised culture I know nothing about, that understands that the bare minimum amount of that culture I need to understand to fully enjoy the story can be the best amount to have.
I was going to say how rare this is but thinking about it, it actually isn’t. Tolkien’s cosmology is fully realised and vast yet I learnt basically no fluff about the world that wasn’t necessary to the story. Sometimes I just had to make peace with the fact that I didn’t understand the cultural context, I could only measure it’s importance in the attitude of the characters.
That’s the shit I love.
Feign death every time. Most OP spell in the game.
Temporal Shunt already narratively does this I believe, although only for a round.
I suppose they’re all sent to the end of time, in a point that you’re unlikely to get to naturally.
Having all creatures thrown forward in time to the end of the current month would see a lot more use than the end of time.
I’ve read quite a few anecdotes and quotes about Gygax’s misogyny before but I agree with you, I don’t think there is nearly enough information I these gods to extrapolate that it’ embodies all powerful masculine forces as good and all feminine as evil, especially as the article mentions how this perpetuates pre-existing coomo themes in story and myth. Everything we know about Gygax would say he’d lift from myths with sexist themes without adjusting that, rather than add them with intention.
Do do think there is myriad evidence that Gygax believed femininity to be inherently inferior, but that’s different from evil. It’s still stupid and worth highlighting but by excessively demonising him to the point of nearly making things up, it’s just fuel for people to dismiss the valid points.
Studded leather, 20 Dex and Int, then something like haste is definitely possible.
Honestly I feel it was way more exciting in concept than execution anyway. Hell, I think it would make a fantastic TTRPG setting, since it’s strongest in premise and has strong ludo-narrative cohesion falling between a narrative game and a wargame.
A well roleplayed Marut is great. As a CR 25 construct, it’s going to be enforcing a universal law, such as attempting to stop a world ending threat.
It’s primary aim is normally to planeshift it’s quarry to court, rather than kill them, and may even prefer not to kill those who come between that goal.
Here’s The Monsters Know What They’re Doing’s blog post on them. It really telegraphs how helpless a targeted creature is to them.
Season 1 is also great because it did a great job having the kids be basically doing ET, the teens doing a camp horror and the parents doing a cold war conspiracy thriller.
Every season since of course needs to alter the group compositions, so we rarely get this again, although the elements are still there, they’re now shaken up enough that the show is often more focused on riffing on its own formula then emulating the media that inspired it. And that’s fine, it should probably be a good thing that it’s not in the shadow of it’s inspirations, but man do I miss that specific vibe.
It’s a shame that knowing average monster hitpoints is generally metagaming and there is no ranger option or similar to show you this.
It would be cool to follow a fireball. If you know the enemy you’re fighting has about 32 hitpoints for example, such as the thug, and a band of them got hit by a fireball for 30 damage, sleep is a perfect spell. But getting this combo off in game always feels a little metagamey in a way that just makes it ineffective.
I’d say the Rage beyond Death feature of the zealot is pretty major to how they’re played. A level 14 barb may have 150 hitpoints or more, plus their resistances, but people play the zealot in high level games for this feature.
The idea of getting to fight to 0 hitpoints, then keep fighting until you die and then still not relenting until the fight ends is rad. Hell I’d say that their level 3 and level 6 features, while cool, were designed after their level 14 feature and designed to let you get as much out of that final feature as possible.
Idk if anyone else follows the rule of thumb of “let the party pull the same trick 3 times before you make it backfire”.
In a story, it would fail on the third try, in a game, it would never fail. I find 4th time doesn’t leave many people dissatisfied but also doesn’t let every encounter be trivialised.
Bust out your fireball empowered cultists responsibly.
I find I really need to get over the hump into it feeling like a parasocial relationship, which is kinda a shame. The only time I’ve enjoyed actual plays is when I’ve seen people who I was already fond of from other internet content play, and on top of that, never in a gimmicky setting like a promotion one-shot.
Basically it’s not for the actual play, it’s for living through their friendship, then occasionally the drama of the game spills forth and gives it an extra kick.
2-3 years of pumping shit video games is 2-3 years that they aren’t fucking with the core product, which is the only part I don’t want ruined. The can make bad games, bad merch, bad brand tie-ins or anything else for all I care as long as they don’t harm the game.
If this is 5e, you could probably have done the first idea as a battlesmith artificer, flavouring your steel defender as the thrall.
I’m not particularly clued into the industry but I’m not shocked. From what I’ve seen, Cynthia Williams believed the most profitable direction for D&D was to monetise game game at a very granular level like microtransactions, as we saw in the OGL debacle, plus her focus on the VTT was likely going to manifest in a similar way.
I’d say the explosive success of Baldur’s Gate and the surge in WotC talking to practically all games companies possible, it’s clear they’ve set their sights on a hopeful path to continued revenue growth that does not offend any fans.
My assumption is that Cynthia simply centered her leadership on a path that is no longer the direction the company has deviated from.
Tome of beasts also has a little more bite than standard 5e, I think they’ve called their design 5e with teeth before, one of those books is also now available on D&DBeyond too if that’s to the person’s liking.
All that content is under various OGL / CC licenses too so it’s available on open5e.com
This is super cool. It makes me think of the current popular clone of the video game Lethal Company which is called Content Warning, about vloggers trying to get footage of monsters.
In 1958, Disney made a documentary called White Wilderness where they ‘documented’ Lemmings following eachother off cliffs, becoming a widespread fact. This was proved to be untrue decades later; The documentary crew herded them off the cliffs to their deaths for footage. In 2003, Timothy Treadwell and his partner were killed and ate by a brown bear after living with them for years. The 2005 documentary Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog uses a lot of his own amateur footage documenting his delusion, partial success and ultimate failure that he could live among grizzly bears. These are fantastic sources to derive characters from for this game.
Honestly the idea of using this to run a black comedy sci-fi horror documentary to basically do Blair witch in space is so appealing to me. The only thing I’d alter is that I’d make it a livestream with viewers, donators and sponsors who respond well to the gruesome and macarbe moments. Not just do I think that’s fun but also by being a livestream, the players would likely take a much better hand at pacing and seeking the fun than in typical games, where the GM must herd them to these moments, as the players believe they win by getting a lot of donators.
There’s a book called Tabletop Role-playing Therapy: A Guide for the Clinician Game Master by Dr Megan A. Connel that’s a really standout resource about this, she appeared on the official D&D podcast a year or so ago talking about it.
I’d say that this is more a resource for therapists to use TTRPGs than it is for DMs to act as therapists for their players. There’s a fine line between accommodating your players’ preferences and needs and providing unwanted therapy; if you want to actually put any therapy techniques into your game, ask your players approval first.