Arnwyn's page

I'm not a big Kickstarter fan (just buy at retail when/if it releases)...

... but I backed this. Absolutely.

I love FGG.

FF7 and Shenmue 3 were the big E3 announcements that I took the most notice of.

(And, of the main series, FF 6, 7, 4, and 9 is where it's at.)

because SOOO much about RPGs is about being someone or something your not,

Only for some people, and only to some degree.

I, for one, think how much RPGs are about "being someone you're not" to be vastly overstated.

I mean... we don't require every player at the table who plays the mighty barbarian to perform feats of strength each time she wants to smash down a door or swing an axe. Why would we require the player at the table who's playing the Intelligence 20 bard who's got skill focus in all the Knowledges to rely on the player's likely less-impressive knowledge in order to solve a riddle? Makes no sense to me.

Then why do you allow the player at the table to choose a wizard's spells? They aren't wizards, can't cast spells, and aren't (necessarily) super intelligent. Why do you allow the player at the table to choose a fighter's tactics? They're not (necessarily) tactical soldiers.

(There's lots of good reasons for groups to not use riddles - but the above examples aren't actual reasons... as they're entirely inconsistent. I'm having a bit of fun here, but the above is inconsistent - and everyone will draw the line somewhere... differently.)

The players deviating from a set adventure to pursue what entertains them, does not make them 'dicks' no matter how much cash one spends on a pre-packaged adventure.

Yes it does, if they all agreed on the set adventure.

(Of course, the degree of "deviation" - and how they communicate that deviation - is really what matters here.)

Just saw it recently... and I liked it way more than the first Avengers.

I particularly liked the sense (and scenes) of camaraderie, which is very much appreciated for an actual team.

It was also funny throughout - and that's what I'm looking for in most of my action movies these days (especially superhero action movies like this one).

Ultron was one of the best villains ever. Interesting and - again - funny... and the fact that it was a robot/AI made it even better. (Though I admit, Loki is no slouch: "If it's all the same to you, I'll have that drink now.")

Black Widow and Hawkeye still suck and are boring - but I will concede that Hawkeye was made way better in almost every way in this one (not hard to do, admittedly) - humor up a notch, and the family part was really great as well.

I was okay with Captain America being blasted (at the truck scene, right?). It just made him look more badass, and that's what I want to see out of my superheroes.

My curiosity about this thread is the trend of some number of players who seem to be uncommunicative gits... and the suggestion that such a thing is common.

Huh.

8 bit? Probably Final Fantasy I. (Honorable Mention to Dragon Quest II.)

16 bit: Chrono Trigger, for sure. (Honorable Mention to FFVI.)

Every single time they announce an AP, no matter what it is, people say "I'm cancelling my subscription!" By the time they've announced it, it's already way too late for them to change it because a few forum denizens threaten to cancel. I don't know what people are attempting to accomplish.

LOL. You don't possibly think the messageboards are actually for accomplishing things do you? LOL again.

Even the hint of trying to stifle the expression of opinion on an internet messageboard is bad form - and reflects poorly on you. Stop that.

...and remember that imaginary people doing imaginary evil things doesn't hurt anything in reality.

Turns out, that's not an excuse. (And even Paizo admitted there are actual lines, and they wouldn't cross them.)

Cheliax again? Hell again? Bad guys?

Big load of meh.

I'm wondering here - was I in the wrong for speaking up?

Absolutely not. Everyone in the group is playing in the game, and players need to 'police their own' - the DM isn't solely responsible for that (and may not even need to be responsible for it at all), since everyone is playing the game. Everyone might have different views on the matter. (And, I'll reiterate: IMO, players need to step up to the plate and be just as responsible about things in general.) AFAIC, you were right to do so. (Though it still might not be "cheating" - some people really are that incompetent.)

With that said, the group dynamics could be different, so it might work differently for your group (doesn't sound like it though - just because a single player thinks something "was the job of the DM", doesn't mean it actually is).

So I decided to bring it up to my friends, and when one responded with "if someone has to cheat to have fun, then so be it," I decided to bring the question to the forums to see if my anti-cheating attitude is antiquated.

I doubt your view is antiquated.

'Murica!

Or, if you prefer:

'Doran!

(graywulfe - are you American? That might explain your response. To a number of non-Americans, Andoran is pretty hilarious.)

I... didn't like it that much.

First, the cliffhanger. Cliffhangers suck. If it ended one episode before, it would have been far superior.

And, the entire episode's storyline didn't make sense.

The fight near the end in the accelerator was cool, though. And it felt "super-hero-y / comic-book-y", so I really appreciated that. And hey - helmet! Awesome visions! That stuff was really great.

(Oh, and fantastic observations, Damon Griffin.)

My solution would always be to buff the martials instead of nerf the casters. But that's just because I like stuff.

Yeah... not me.

AFAIC, nerfing the casters is the way to go, not buffing martials. Casters are already problems - moving more things to the level of 'problems' is a bad solution, IMO.

1) Casters can already 'solo' or 'one-shot' encounters. Moving more classes to be able to do that simply makes it a race now as to who can one-shot an encounter first. (And, one-shotting encounters on even an uncommon basis sucks.) Bad.
2) Because of the above, the CR system would have to be entirely rebuilt.
3) Because of the above, a significant number of monsters would have to be entirely rebuilt. Bad.
4) Niche protection. While some people (inexplicably) don't care about that, it's still a problem. Most people don't like other people stepping on your toes, and that's what casters do. If that happens regularly, why bother with certain classes? Just have one class. Bad.
5) Campaign-type changes at higher levels. As noted earlier, the types of campaigns that can be run change significantly at higher levels (caused by casters) - one might even say the number of possibilities is reduced. That's bad. (I'm not sure where I, personally, stand on this one. On one hand, I think it can be good to have varying types of problems to overcome at different levels; on the other hand, some groups really like sticking with a certain 'style'...)
6) Related to the above, casters can make it difficult (or time-consuming) for DMs to come up with encounters/stories/games at higher levels. ALWAYS ALWAYS BAD.
7) Casters can potentially reduce world verisimilitude, making world-building more difficult, mess with player expectations, and make decision-making for players more difficult as they try to interact with a world. Bad.
8) Casters are more likely to be the ones able to put characters right out of the action (so the player sits there on his/her thumbs and waits). Suck.

For the may-or-may-not-be-inevitable PF 2.0? Nerf casters (or, rather, nerf their tools). HARD. Into the ground. In many ways. Often. Twice on Sunday.(Outright removal of certain problematic spells, and weakening others, wouldn't even be noticed much, and wouldn't even be considered the 'slaughtering of sacred cows', AFAIC.)

Uh... is my post wildly off-topic? Or do nothing but contribute to the 'caster-martial disparity' debate? Sorry... :(

1) Macross (whole saga)
2) Ghost in the Shell (all of it)
3) Cowboy Bebop
4) Record of Lodoss War (OVA & TV)
5) Evangelion
6) El-Hazard
7) Howl's Moving Castle
8) Gundam (UC only)
9) Full Metal Alchemist
10) Bubblegum Crisis (and Crash and AD police files)

Honorable Mention:
- Darker Than Black
- Samurai Champloo
- Magic Knight Rayearth
- Tenchi (TV & movies only)
- Spirited Away

(I have not yet seen some of the 'newer' stuff, like Psycho Pass and a number of others mentioned here.)

I haven't started the game just yet, I am just getting them to create characters. He already stated his character would sit in the bar, depressed and drink and nothing else.

I read the craziest things on the internet.

Ah, you mean someone kept the hack from killing a puppy just because he wanted a cheap emotional shock Fromm the audience and doesn't know how to get one otherwise?

Yeah, no wonder he's pissy.

I like Whedon, and even I agree with this.

Whedon: It's getting old, man.

I don't know... Maybe because some people are interested in playing a game of heroic fantasy rather than a game of fantasy dynamic entry?

"Some people" being the operative words.

Don't pretend everyone likes to play the same way you do.

What possible purpose does that serve other than getting your jerkholery on?

That's pretty much a textbook example of how not to design an adventure.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

Again: Don't pretend everyone likes to play the same way you do.

That was one of the issues with 3.5's splat explosion. A lot of new material that all got no/minimal support past the book it was released in.

I highly doubt that was any "issue" at all - at least, not a material one.

In fact, it was probably a benefit - TSR-then-WotC learned fairly quickly that forcing people to own other books to make use of a new book was fantastically stupid.

In fact - the only way Paizo is getting away with this right now is because the majority of their rules are free, on the internet. Without that, you'd see things very differently from what they are right now.

Except it does affect what we have available, because the "realism" restrictions on martials are why martials don't have tools.

I instead chalk it up to: martial's tools are fine... it's the wizard's tools that were badly designed (and they didn't have to be).

Nice to see a mention of Cyclopean Deeps 2!

I ordered/paid for that one on FGG's subscription thingy ages ago...

It's not an issue if you own everything from the beginning and keep on top of stuff,

Nah. I'm a big fan of the Realms (still run 2e-era Realms [in 3.x] to this day), owned/read everything, and it was still an issue. I like the Realms despite all that timeline-advancement nonsense, not because of it. The timeline advancement damaged the setting, no question.

Timeline/campaign advancement is the DM's job, not the setting's.

But in any case, the dumb has been strong in this show for the last little while (well... stronger than usual).

Everything from the previously-mentioned-in-this-thread Arrow's return, to the hilarious comment from Slade (paraphrased) "You're growing apart from Thea - I can see it in your eyes". Ah, the most overused CW nonsensical quote, used yet again. Especially hilarious when it's abundantly clear in the show that - due to events/skills - Oliver has never been as close to Thea as he is right now. But... CW.

Oh, and the city seems to be filled - entirely - with the worst investigators the world has to offer. Ray: "Hood! Arrows! The Arrow must now be EVIL!" Right. Because no one else in the world can wear a hood and shoot arrows.

Gah.

- Is PC backstory sacred and purely the domain of the player? Does the GM have a right to decide what may or may not be in the PCs backstory?

For us - the GM absolutely has the right (though generally only in the "may not be in the backstory" direction). If the player creates a backstory for the PC in which they know, personally and friendly, every noble in the land... mehhhh. No.

Both the player and GM must agree.

I'm not sure about those other items - I'd probably need examples. (They seem a bit vague and undefined for me to say anything about them.)

Some of the best news I ever heard in quite a while. (But I don't truly understand the article heading "ignore Aliens 3 and Resurrection", because everyone knows there's only 2 Aliens movies.) ;)

And I'm further excited about Blomkamp, as I consider both District 9 and Elysium to be among the best movies I've ever seen.

Pa Kent was usually an amazing father, and it was something I looked up to. (NOTE: I have not seen the Smallville series past the first season, so, I dunno what he's like there.)

Just so you know: He was absolutely awesome, AFAIC.

Carry on!

...do you think the subject of sexuality should be explored?

such as with a pathfinder Campaign Setting book?
Does sex ever come up in your games?
What do you want to see in the future related to sexuality?

No.

(But then, that's just our group.)

"Sell me on X" isn't an insult to X; it's just a request. If I was trying to sell someone on Mummy's Mask, I wouldn't just tell them to get hyped about fighting mummies or GTFO (which appears to be the common response re: Giantslayer); I'd tell them /snip/

I'd tell them /snip/
I'd tell them /snip/

Would you have told them all that before the product was released?

(Heck, the updated AP descriptions for Giantslayer aren't even out yet.)

Your expectations are interesting... but premature.

Hmmm.... I won't cheat and I'll take movies only:

1-3. LotR Trilogy (Extended)
4. Blade Runner
5. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
6. It's a Wonderful Life
7. Howl's Moving Castle
8. Aliens
9. Spaceballs
10. Despicable Me

Who thought that putting Ogres who are large sized creatures in a medium sized fort was a good idea.

Well, to be fair, it was a human fort that the ogres took over.

So... the idea was fine.

I hate time travel in almost every possible way...

... and then somebody has to go and mention Chrono Trigger.

When I first saw the movie, I made a guess that the Engineer on Earth was some rogue 'martyr' who decided to create life on his own, unauthorized. (So, when the other engineers found out, they got upset and wanted to 'get rid' of the potential(?) problem.)

Now... I don't care. I decided the movie wasn't good enough for me, personally, to analyze any further.

That being said, Paizo is still WAY behind WOTC in terms of big-book-bloat.

Separating out "big-books" is an artificial (and probably unhelpful) distinction, AFAIC.

and it's done more to create a dynamic game in 15 books than 3.5 did in 30.

Arguable. I, for one, don't think this is even remotely true.

This thread is already scaring me more than any horror book/movie has.

Dragon Knight wrote:

And the game emphasis roleplaying over roll playing.

How? Or more specifically, where?

I think he's sort of saying it in this statement:

If I want my character to wield his grandfather's warhammer, he can do so without worrying about being underpower and overwhelmed later is his career.

2) The action scenes are good. They aren't amazing, but they are done well. They're also filmed in a style that actually lets you see the action, instead of covering up crappy choreography with intense close-ups and shaky-cam.

And thus already has a leg up on most action movies from the past 10 years.

There can never be enough! NEVER!

One person's bloat of class bloat threads is another person's increased options of class bloat threads!

I read something about this show to the effect of 'the cops think they're in nolan batman and the villains think they're in adam west batman' which I think is extremely on point

Yeah, actually I totally agree with this.

And I like it. (If it was all Nolan Batman, I'd probably drop Gotham. Boring and dreary. Bring on at least some camp, AFAIC.)

So play Call of Cthulhu. Why try to develop a set of house rules to make Pathfinder into CoC instead of just playing CoC in the first place?

Because some people might like the core 'chassis' underlying d20. d20 + modifiers vs. AC or a DC, cyclical initiative, move/standard/full-round actions, easy to use movement system, a class-based system, straightforward and easy to understand/implement multiclassing... that sort of stuff.

Some people (inexplicably) forget that the above stuff has value to some people. The ubiquitous magic doesn't have to go along with the rest of the basic mechanics of d20. Why learn a whole new action/resolution/movement/etc system when the basic core works exactly how you want it to... and when WotC did close to no analysis of the impacts of magic when they released the 3.0 PHB?

(With all that said - is there a CoC d20? I thought I heard that that might exist...? If that is a real thing, then yeah, I'm with Orfamay Quest - why not play CoC d20?)

Why do so many people

I think your beginning premise is false.

My group would consider all your examples to be asshat players.

Pirate captain in a dwarven underdark campaign? Bugbear thug in a human courtly intrigue campaign? C'mon.

While I don't know about "don't like", those gamers who I don't like to play with is mostly:

- Those who will not conform to a particular group's dynamics.

... And that's about it (admittedly, the above covers a huge number of smaller items).

I mean, it's cool if you want your speculative fiction and games to be escapist fun. But if that escapism means erasing or ignoring the parts of history where white imperialism destroyed, exploited, and stole from other people around the world, then that's not something that I'm interested in.

*shrug* Everyone's entitled to their preferences.

I certainly don't share yours.

Dude. The show is for kids.

So was Gargoyles. Your statement is neither a reason nor an excuse.

Actually, by taking the stance of "if an author does not finish a series that she no longer wishes to work on, folks should no longer purchase her work", you are in essence forcing the author to continue a path she does not want to follow or lose her source of income. It is not holding a physical gun to the head, but it still is a means of force. So, explicitly no one has said anything about forcing an author to do any such thing, but implicitly, yes, yes it was said.

And this is a very good thing. Nobody is entitled to money from the consumer market if consumers don't want to give it to them. Nobody.

And no, there is no "force". The author chose his/her vocation, and chose the consumer market. They will meet market needs, if they want money. No "force"... they can decide. But they're not entitled to money, or do 'what they want' and expect money.

(I have to say... your statement above sounds suspiciously like: "Oh no! I'm somewhat beholden to the people who give me money!" Uh huh... You don't say?)

Granted, people should vote with their wallets.

And there you go - you said it yourself. That's all that needs to be said.

Now, with all that said, I do think it is foolish for fans to 'demand' authors to finish what they started. It's closing the barn after the horses have fled. If authors not finishing stories becomes prevalent in the industry, fans should simply smarten up and quit purchasing series until they are complete... that'll smarten up the authors pretty fast once that happens even over a short term. Might properly shake up the industry a bit.

Fantastic read, James. And absolutely correct. I found this statement particularly cogent:

If we as authors want to take a no-strings approach, then we can hardly turn around and beg readers to support the early books in our series. And if we instead want to ask people to be our patrons-to have the faith to invest both emotionally and financially in a series before it’s complete-then we need to keep our side of the bargain and do our damnedest to see things through.

Exactly so.

Now, I'm not sure I like the word "owe"... I don't think the author necessarily "owes" the consumer anything.

But then - does the author want to take consumers' money and make a living? Oh, he/she does? Well, then. I don't have to spend a red cent on anything the author releases until the entire series is out.

And good luck making a living, dear author, if a certain number of consumers begins to think that way.

I'm going to be sticking with themes, because music overall is just too much. (I'll arbitrarily choose 10, but I can't possibly number them...!)

- Inner Universe (GITS:SAC)
- Seventh Moon (Macross 7)
- Tank! (Cowboy Bebop)
- Yakusoku Wa Iranai (Escaflowne)
- Kiri (Ergo Proxy)
- Sea of Miracles (Lodoss)
- I'm a Pioneer (Tenchi Muyo)
- Cruel Angel's Thesis (Evangelion)
- Full of Memories (Ranma)
- Mad Machine (BGC)

*Lynn Kaifun* that claims FIRE BOMBER!! is a rip off of their original music. If you know who that is, I'll give you a million internets.

You mean Minmay's cousin/erstwhile manager? Where's the hard question (unless I missed it)? ;) (Reading the liner notes in the various CDs are great fun, especially the Galaxy Network Charts.)

Lord Synos:

LordSynos:

2e: Guy makes an Athasian halfling (with all the Dark Sun rules) to play in the Forgotten Realms.

"Here's my backstory: I wake up on the ground, and I'm wearing a helmet with the word 'spelljamming' inscribed on it."

/sigh/