Endymion_Mallorn

Endymion_Mallorn, 13 days ago

It also means there will never be another F2P game. They have to make their money upfront from every user. They can't just turn it off when the profit slows and/or stops.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

You know, I'm not surprised about that, and not in a good way. CR is part of RPG culture I'm not good with, and I'm totally unsurprised that people who were part of 5e are joining them.

All I can hope is that seeing Hasbro lose people will draw attention to other systems - or for Hasbro to make a marketing push on the Essence20 system in addition to (or instead of) d20.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

The commodification and the desire for mass appeal are the top-level issues I have. I feel uncomfortable when I see the modern D&D branding on stuff in "normal" stores. It takes away the community and puts Hasbro in the central role, rather than the network of GMs who should be the majority influence. If I wanted a hobby with a company in charge, I would play Warhammer.

Now, on the community side, my biggest issue is with things I see as derived from CR. The lack of respect for simple theatre of the mind is a direct issue with the way I've always run and played since I left D&D. The tolerance and even acceptance of paid DMing also pisses me off in ways that make it very hard for me to remain civil.

Those are the big ones. There's also the fact that D&D doesn't seem to have the offramps it had since AD&D1 (and which admittedly went downhill when the Forge went out of the spotlight).

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

I'm sorry, I only feel like typing it once, please look up-thread, or here:

https://kbin.melroy.org/m/games@lemmy.world/t/995294/-/comment/7944352

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

Back on PC now, copying it:

The commodification and the desire for mass appeal are the top-level issues I have. I feel uncomfortable when I see the modern D&D branding on stuff in "normal" stores. It takes away the community and puts Hasbro in the central role, rather than the network of GMs who should be the majority influence. If I wanted a hobby with a company in charge, I would play Warhammer.

Now, on the community side, my biggest issue is with things I see as derived from CR. The lack of respect for simple theatre of the mind is a direct issue with the way I've always run and played since I left D&D. The tolerance and even acceptance of paid DMing also pisses me off in ways that make it very hard for me to remain civil.

Those are the big ones. There's also the fact that D&D doesn't seem to have the offramps it had since AD&D1 (and which admittedly went downhill when the Forge went out of the spotlight).

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

What do you mean by this?

I mean that every time I've tried to run a game, either on tabletop (exceedingly rare now) or online, the demands from players are ridiculous compared to my expectations and what I set out as my intentions. I am not a voice actor. I'm decent at improv, but sometimes do need a moment to contemplate. I do not use images, music, battlemaps, miniatures, or any other equipment. Just dice, words, and imagination. This has gone from being the standard mode of play in the communities I'm accustomed to into a very niche thing that no one seems interested in anymore.

[Defense of Paid DMs]

At best, we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm going to address the points I think I can without overcoming apoplexy first.

There are hundreds if not thousands of GM guides available. If you cannot or will not put in that level of investment, then run something GM-less, or work together to GM the game. Gary called DMs 'referees', and I think that model still holds up - no ref in a game is responsible for the whole field at every moment. Real referees switch up and have things like VAR or other systems. If one guy in the group is good at designing traps, let him design the traps and run them. If one person is good at storytelling, let them present the story. The person who knows combat best should adjudicate it. This is a game of cooperative fun. So, cooperate. Either that, or try something like Fiasco, Shadowrun Anarchy, Microscope, Space Bounty Blues, or something like that, and then move into refereeing a rules-light system like The Black Hack or a PbtA. Don't be hemmed in by modern D&D (note that this ties into the 'D&D has fewer offramps' point above).

As far as the paid DM part, it's very simple: This is a creative hobby. This is the time we have free together as friends, and RPGs have been some of the very few things in my life that has been an escape from the soul-crushing burden of working and money changing hands for every damn thing. Paid DMs turn it into a business, not a fun experience, and I consider their existence toxic to the community. Because after all, if some other schlub is making money doing a thing, why shouldn't I charge money to do that thing? Why should I be the one doing free labor? And that's the problem. It turns what should be creative, cooperative, storytelling with guard rails into a discussion of labor and capital and investment and all the crap that I want to avoid in the world via the escapism of RPGs. That paid person isn't my friend anymore, he's a paid service provider. But what KPIs is he measured by? 'Fun' isn't quantifiable (much to Friend Computer's chagrin), so, what? XP per session? Loot? Some other valueless measure which inevitably means nothing?

In short - no. I will reiterate, I believe that paid DMing is toxic to the community as a whole. It turns what should be an exercise in building and developing friendships into building and developing a business. It takes the party away from being a group of friends or fellow-travelers into a group of customers receiving shared service from a provider. It's no different from the people you meet at the big table of a hibachi restaurant.

That's before we get into how incredibly elitist it is by definition. Paid DMing takes away from the grassroots elements of the game. It puts a paywall between the player and the game. Any of the paid DMs I've seen have their players basically sign non-compete agreements, so they can't just turn into a normal group without that DM - which means those players don't join the larger community. So in every way I can oppose it, in every way I can hate it, I do.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

Nah, it was always cool. It just wasn't mainstream and turned into a business.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

I'm in a mood right now, so I'm just going to cherry-pick. I'll come back and give you a better response when I'm in a better mindset.

It's not very grassroots to use a system designed by an elitist corporation.

You're absolutely right. D&D past AD&D1 should never have been the center of our hobby.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

If I'm honest, Enroth is inferior to Xeen.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

Marche and the general lesson of FFTA are great, to me. I love the strategic map mechanics. And honestly, I think the Laws (except in the cases where they're intended to be screwy) are neat additions that make you have to think.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

Ah, I see. Let's just say that we'll have to agree to disagree. I dislike nearly all 3D games with free movement - I've never been able to tolerate TES, for instance. Give me tile-based movement any day.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

Joining the future zombies in abusing Mewt is the fastest way to get past the tutorial.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

Yep. It's terrifying when you really put together the story with that being part of what Marche does - but he escaped being made into a zombie (which is such a great piece of foreshadowing).

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

No. Just, please. No. Go back to just being the only place to pick up tested versions of abandonware titles. Not this pseudo-Steam crap.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

Oh hell no. Valve are evil, like any other corporate monstrosity. It's not that I want GOG to "stay in their lane" as a bad thing. I want them to stay away from the morasse of crap that other sites like them have become. There are game modding communities all over the Internet, we don't need an abandonware site that put on airs to become part of the "modern marketplace".

I want GOG to getback to what it was before CDPR.

Endymion_Mallorn, 1 month ago

We're going to have to settle for disagreeing on this. I just want a place to get stable abandonware, not a misstep into another place begging to take real money for digital data.

And I would assume so, since I'm not a YouTuber.

Endymion_Mallorn, 3 months ago

So we're back to the 80s. Now, can the US market pick itself back up?

Endymion_Mallorn, 3 months ago

CALL APOGEE SAY AARDWOLF

Endymion_Mallorn, 5 months ago

I used to have a USB floppy drive too. Now I just have disk images.

Endymion_Mallorn, 5 months ago

Tsuro is a very quick, Zen game. It's tile placement and stone movement.

Obviously if you don't like S.H., you probably won't like The Resistance or Avalon. But from the same publisher, there's Coup (a game of creative lying), and Grifters (an engine-builder made up of resource collection with a crime theme). I like them both and they're very quick.

I don't think Fluxx could lead to long term frustration, because it's just so wild.

Catan is a classic and it's never caused tempers in my group.

Endymion_Mallorn, 6 months ago

Krafton? Great. Another studio about to be thrown into the PUBG & New State mines.

Endymion_Mallorn, 6 months ago

Civvie is the best.

Endymion_Mallorn, 6 months ago

Hands down my favorite lately is Shadowrun (SNES) - the addition of SNES Mouse support. It makes the game so, so much better. That's been huge for me, since the game is a point-and-click adventure. It's such a quality-of-life improvement. If the mouse existed and was common when Shadowrun was written, I have to hope that they would have thought to allow it.

Also, obviously there's a huge community of SMW hacks, and pretty much anything well-reviewed on SMW Central, I'm liable to enjoy.

In line with yours, there's Pokemon UItra Violet, a great hack of Fire Red for GBA. Also Pokemon Naranja, another Fire Red hack that's based on the Orange Archipelago.

Endymion_Mallorn, 6 months ago

Having only touched it once, Emerald Rogue is a genuine roguelike in Pokemon Emerald, though I don't know if it works on a flashcart on real hardware.

Endymion_Mallorn, 6 months ago

I tried to avoid translations in my list. But anything by Aeon Genesis is also great, so is Mother 3 with the Tomato Ring. The SMT translations are a high point too.

Endymion_Mallorn, 6 months ago

Let's be honest, it's also everything CP2077 wanted to be.

Endymion_Mallorn, 6 months ago

It's a really fun game - and if you want a more typical action-RPG vibe, you should also seek out the Genesis Shadowrun game. The games are very different, but both are true to the Shadowrun experience.

Endymion_Mallorn, 7 months ago

So, how much is Funko or their "partner" going to willingly pay Itch for their lost income? Or is there going to have to be a lawsuit?

Endymion_Mallorn, 7 months ago

My worry is that without a lawsuit or other action, we'll keep seeing LLM slop companies taking down smaller websites for bogus reasons. This needs to be codified somehow that there were damages done to Itch's earnings (and more importantly the earnings of the independent creators on the platform who should start a class-action suit), and that what Funko's contracted LLM company did was wrong.

There's financial damages, loss of profit, emotional distress, reputation loss, and more. We need to take action against these companies for their wrongdoing. So either they need to willingly pay up and have that payment be known and public, or they need to be made to pay by the courts.

Endymion_Mallorn, 7 months ago

Yes, which is why we should make every one of those false positives cost an arm and a leg to the perpetrators.

Endymion_Mallorn, 7 months ago

Commenting so that I remember to look it up, is reckfull a word? Or maybe reckful, knowing how English is weird about double 'l"s?

Endymion_Mallorn, 7 months ago

I hope so. Maybe make it a class-action with all the independent creators and studios who had damages from this.

Endymion_Mallorn, 7 months ago

SOMA is such a kick in the nards.

Endymion_Mallorn, 7 months ago

I don't think this one is even vaguely possible anymore, but "I Wanna Be The Guy" would be my suggestion for this question. That first encounter with the game is one of the most special moments in all of gaming.