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Good lord, I'd never even considered that audio books of litrpgs have to do all the number poo poo. I normally skim right past it when reading.
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Apr 26, 2023 16:50
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Audiobooks showed me how little impact they really have lol, thankfully they narrators put a bit of a boring robot voice on em so it's really easy to tell when you get past them while skipping every 30 seconds. Can you imagine Delve as an audiobook? Now that would be hell. I don't really know who all the text boxes in that are for? Do people even read them? I really like how outcast handles stat sheets by hiding them at the end under spoiler text on RR. Anyone listened to the audiobooks for them? I feel like they would drag on since they are so long and repetitive
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Apr 26, 2023 17:02
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imnotinsane posted:Can you imagine Delve as an audiobook? Now that would be hell. I don't really know who all the text boxes in that are for? Do people even read them? (did he fix his soul yet I am not going to slog through that bullshit if there's not payoff of actual plot at the end) (ideally about the isekai'd romans but I know they're not going to follow up on that ever again)
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Apr 26, 2023 17:18
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Oh the soul stuff really dragged on, I guess it's no longer the focus so it's kinda solved but It feels like it's always just treading the water even when it's moving forward. Personally i reckon the story probably benefits from reading it in spurts every 6 months instead of week to week.
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Apr 26, 2023 17:28
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I keep saying that I'll return to Delve now that it's been over a year since I last read it and I'll be able to just skim past all the boring parts, but I never seem to actually resume reading a story once I stop.
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Apr 26, 2023 17:48
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imnotinsane posted:Audiobooks showed me how little impact they really have lol, thankfully they narrators put a bit of a boring robot voice on em so it's really easy to tell when you get past them while skipping every 30 seconds. this is the case for every litrpg but i think the superflousness winner has to be small-time villainess, where the MC has done nothing but go from fire1/water1 to fire4/water4. i honestly just laugh whenever she opens her stat screen because why is it even there. even for people who like stat crap surely you cant get pumped when a character goes from least fire to lesser fire
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Apr 26, 2023 18:03
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Re: About 1/3 of the way through Book 9 in The Wandering Inn. Since it's clear, having just heard that Laken and his engineers are accompanying the humans in the march, that they are going to be using trebuchets to assault the walls. I can see this whole goblin march ending in a few ways : 1: The goblins just straight up fail to assault the walls. Narrative this wouldn't be terribly interesting, so I doubt this. 2: The goblins succeed in taking the city and the presumptive attack by the humans to retake it succeeds. This is plausible, though it would presumably get all the named characters killed, so I doubt this too. 3: The goblins succeed in taking the city and become its new rulers, repulsing the humans. Both the Reese and Rags want to take a city and have peace with humans, so it's conceivable the two of them would let the residents live. 4: Erin, her Redfang Goblins, and the cave goblins will interfere with the human's plan in such a way that all the goblins turn on the humans chasing them and drive them away. This could potentially tie in Erin's skill she got last book of "Natural Allies: Goblins" to provide a safe place for them to meet with the Liscor defenders. I think this is the most likely path it'll take. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Apr 26, 2023 |
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Apr 26, 2023 23:09
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One of the strangest conversations I ever read was a couple of litrpg fans discussing a normal fantasy book and going "I don't get it, the guy's a wizard but his powers don't have any numbers on them- how are you supposed to know if he's strong or not."
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Apr 26, 2023 23:10
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DACK FAYDEN posted:at least Delve has the excuse that in-universe the boxes are being programmed by the actual character you're supposed to be caring about Not only is the soul stuff still going on, but another character broke theirs and needs to fix it now.
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Apr 26, 2023 23:42
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mossyfisk posted:Not only is the soul stuff still going on, but another character broke theirs and needs to fix it now. Is it time for a main character coma? Might as well get all savage divinity if broken soul is contagious.
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Apr 27, 2023 01:48
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https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/66587/writeathon-shades-of-forever was recommended earlier and the blue boxes / litrpg elements in this one are weird. The boxes are used for communication between the AI and MC while poking fun at litrpg enthusiasts. On the other hand, the stats themselves seem to be fluff (which works for me since I skim all that anyway) but why do they even exist then? This isn't an MMO so 2% aspd or whatever is negligible. So far all that really matters is the active skill associated with currently equipped weapon and dash.
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Apr 27, 2023 03:19
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Omi no Kami posted:One of the strangest conversations I ever read was a couple of litrpg fans discussing a normal fantasy book and going "I don't get it, the guy's a wizard but his powers don't have any numbers on them- how are you supposed to know if he's strong or not." I hate this more than I've ever hated anything in my life, I think
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Apr 27, 2023 04:05
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Nettle Soup posted:Good lord, I'd never even considered that audio books of litrpgs have to do all the number poo poo. I normally skim right past it when reading. So I had a lot of fun when I first starting writing BTDEM, and I had a fun little passage where Elaine first unlocks here system and gets 8 years worth of general skills offered all at once. Made a template, copy-pasted it a TON, and filled it with all the skills. I figured readers would just skim the list of all things offered. I didn't even know audiobooks were a THING. .... According to people who've listened, you can hear the narrator's soul slowly leaving her body as she goes through the 30-60 full-message dings in that section.
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Apr 27, 2023 05:11
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I think the most fun I've seen between an author and a narrator is the noob town series, which mind you, is full of meta jokes to begin with. There was a whole section talking about how hard it would be to convey a word play joke out loud and how glad the character was that he didn't have to do that. The title always put me off the series but I wish I had jumped in sooner, it's similar to dungeon crawler carl, plenty of humour and written well enough.
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Apr 27, 2023 07:25
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Omi no Kami posted:One of the strangest conversations I ever read was a couple of litrpg fans discussing a normal fantasy book and going "I don't get it, the guy's a wizard but his powers don't have any numbers on them- how are you supposed to know if he's strong or not." you've made this up to troll us and succeeded shame on you SHAME
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Apr 27, 2023 08:29
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Kyoujin posted:https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/66587/writeathon-shades-of-forever was recommended earlier and the blue boxes / litrpg elements in this one are weird. unrelated to this comment, but i have just realized that the author of this serial is literally the former punter of the Minnesota Vikings Chris Kluwe 
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Apr 27, 2023 10:30
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Great Grandpa Axe Memoriam starts the story the same way every time, ok, starting off extremely strong.
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Apr 27, 2023 10:37
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A big flaming stink posted:unrelated to this comment, but i have just realized that the author of this serial is literally the former punter of the Minnesota Vikings Chris Kluwe
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Apr 27, 2023 11:59
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Selkie Myth posted:According to people who've listened, you can hear the narrator's soul slowly leaving her body as she goes through the 30-60 full-message dings in that section.
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Apr 27, 2023 12:49
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Latest Super Supportive: I think we're being Chekhov's Gun-ed but it's still not entirely clear to me how much this is going to be slice of life vs. have tighter plotting. Either way, chill chapter but continues to be compelling.
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Apr 27, 2023 16:18
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The story kind of feels like a Chekhov's armory to me. Whether the power systems are magical or political, the story does a great job of revealing just enough to tantalize, while making clear the full scope of how things work is mostly obscured to our idealistic teen hero. The result is that it feels like most anything could end up being a small piece of whatever much bigger thing will be crucial later. It rules. Also, gently caress the boater.
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Apr 27, 2023 16:57
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I'm just worried that once it gets to the actual superhero stuff, it will be over the top edgy where basically every superhero is secretly a giant rear end in a top hat if not outright evil because that seems to be the trend these days. Granted, I also think the story would work better as more of a straight sci-fi story without any superhero stuff at all.
IShallRiseAgain fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Apr 27, 2023 |
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Apr 27, 2023 17:13
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I would be really surprised if the story went that way. We've seen a number of powerful avowed, and while there has been pushiness and politics, no one has felt like a jerk just to be a jerk. I'm also not sure there will be much superhero stuff at all. The hero who the protagonist idolizes went MIA on her fourth ever mission. she had to have been avowed for like a decade too, given the timeline. Protagonist has been avowed for 24 hours and already been contracted twice. I think alien politics and superhero island politics are going to be a much bigger part of his life than straightforward superhero shenanigans. Also he still has to go to super hero training school. Timeline wise working as a hero seems like a long way off.
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Apr 27, 2023 17:27
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Megazver posted:you've made this up to troll us and succeeded Dude, I wish I was making this poo poo up. Feast your eyes and weep at the horror litRPG hath wrought: https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/12zanay/my_issues_with_the_captain_the_last_horizon_1_by/ Some reddit dude posted:the power levels felt a bit inconsistent. i had no idea what anyone could do and how strong their attacks actually are
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Apr 27, 2023 18:48
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Hmmm, people have been making similar-ish complaints about this book (Will Wight's The Captain) in this thread, though. (Or was it in the Kindle Unlimited one?) Apparently it's super inconsistent about what the heroes can do even for a regular soft-magic story. I choose to interpret this nerd goober's lament generously.
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Apr 27, 2023 19:14
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That's totally fair... honestly I've been so burned out by the genre and readership in general that figuring out what the heck they're talking about feels like archeology: I'm squatting in the ruins of Apple, staring at a broken iphone and going "I'll bet this was part of a fertility ritual." So I'm all in favor of generous reads.
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Apr 27, 2023 19:32
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Yeah, I don't think its a person asking "WHERE ARE THE LEVELS?!?!" more them being confused about what are the limitations of the powers and why they work in one situation but not another.
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Apr 27, 2023 21:43
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I reread some of Super Supportive and some things stood out to me. Earth population is much higher: 10.5 billion. The story does take place in the 2030s, but it still seems higher than real world. Given the contract requires explicitly that Earth breed a certain number of high value sentients (the language the contract uses), maybe the tech aliens have given has tended to support population increases. Gorgon cleared Alden getting his friends in the trade room with him by telling his boss they were like pets. Artoans have an easier time of understanding lower caste people as pets than as friends. The AI post box is insane. Holy poo poo bad things are happening. Alden got four word chains from the word chain family. I had forgotten because he got summoned ap quickly, but drat. I look forward to seeing him do word chains and feeling for himself that they're working.
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Apr 27, 2023 22:50
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IShallRiseAgain posted:I'm just worried that once it gets to the actual superhero stuff, it will be over the top edgy where basically every superhero is secretly a giant rear end in a top hat if not outright evil because that seems to be the trend these days. Granted, I also think the story would work better as more of a straight sci-fi story without any superhero stuff at all. We get a view into other superheroes via the Hannah POV stuff, and they basically seemed fine. I think what we're seeing with people like the boaters is just the natural result of the pressures low-rank heroes are placed under, where they don't have much choice other than to harshly compete for limited decent work (because Earth's system fucks over most Avowed in a way that probably isn't that visible to most non-Avowed, who only really see/hear about the higher-rank Avowed who make up the heroes). The protagonist is fortunate enough that he doesn't have to deal with that - he's B-rank (which is in the top 15% of heroes IIRC) and has a class that is extremely lucrative.
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Apr 28, 2023 00:37
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Megazver posted:Hmmm, people have been making similar-ish complaints about this book (Will Wight's The Captain) in this thread, though. (Or was it in the Kindle Unlimited one?) Apparently it's super inconsistent about what the heroes can do even for a regular soft-magic story. Yeah, the generous read of that reddit post is that they're complaining about a characters' powers being poorly defined (which can definitely be a problem in any series that involves people fighting with one another). Fights are usually more interesting to read when you have a clear idea of what abilities the POV character has access to. The main/only exception to this is a story where the fights aren't really an important element. The ideal of this sort of thing is something like the Hunter X Hunter fights, where you have two characters with clearly defined abilities that they have to use in creative ways against one another (or a situation where the POV character is ignorant about their opponent's abilities, which can also be interesting, as long as the opponent abilities are actually consistent and defined in the setting itself).
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Apr 28, 2023 00:48
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Yeah, I don't think its a person asking "WHERE ARE THE LEVELS?!?!" more them being confused about what are the limitations of the powers and why they work in one situation but not another. Yeah, and that's not even a problem which litrpgs avoid. Most of the time the numbers are very clearly just made up and don't mean anything, so regardless of what the numbers say the plot dictates what the characters can actually do and their capabilities are only as consistent as the author makes them be. A crunchier system where the numbers do actually mean something certainly limits how inconsistent things can be, but even then unless it's literally using a real game system and reporting the attack roles and such (which you basically only ever see in quests and is typically unreadable), it's not going to stop an author who wants to have cool moments that shouldn't be possible according to the rules they established.
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Apr 28, 2023 05:44
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quote:<”Thank you, bugger! Alien planet. Alien life. Got to fight off fauna that looks like a *^&**^&* hosed a horse and grew a stinger for good measure, got to do patrols through underbrush full of toxic mushroom-trees, always the possibility you forget to wear your perfume and your own bugs try to eat you-“>
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Apr 28, 2023 08:18
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Plorkyeran posted:A crunchier system where the numbers do actually mean something certainly limits how inconsistent things can be That got me thinking, HWFWM has a uniquely terrible system as far as litRPG goes. It's not because the system is incoherent or anything, but the way it's set up actively pressures fight scenes to be shittier. Past a certain point literally everyone has 20 unique powers, 4 themed sets of 5 abilities. Narratively that causes a whole pile of problems in fight scenes, and even the final boss fight of Book 1 was encountering issues with it. First off on the hero's side that's an absolute shitload of powers to keep track of, and can piss off readers if you don't remember to use them well. The author does not help himself either cause "practice with all your powers and remember to use them" is a constant piece of advice in the beginning. On the villain side it's even worse, cause that leaves so much room for rear end pulls. And it puts fights with a Big Bad into this awkward position of either a constant string of "haha! it is I who am behind you!" or readers are left wondering why this super powerful dude only used a fraction of their powers. So following the path of least resistance, the easiest way to write fights under this setup is to write curbstomps. Either the MC styles on his opponents and you don't have to think/write about dozens of abilities, or a Big Bad effortlessly crushes the MC with a few powers until he has a clever plan to end the fight instantly. And uh, oh look that's basically what happened. Book 1 ended with a boss fight of endless asspulls, then it was just curbstomps until I stopped reading.
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Apr 28, 2023 11:50
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Even worse, everyone is extremely durable starting at silver rank. Since everyone is so hard to kill, all the fights are huge slogs even if they're super one sided.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:54
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The main character in Super Supportive is very relatable. He calls his friends the minute he has free time, which is absolutely the same thing I'd do in that situation. I'm curious to find out what Manon's deal is. I think it's plausible that she's just being kinda nice/polite since there aren't really any meaningful financial stakes for her (though it's still not clear to me why she has the relationship she does with the boaters).
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Apr 28, 2023 18:59
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I think it's hierarchies all the way down. She founded the boater and in return she has those peoples loyalty. I bet it helps her hobnob with her rich Artoan clients if she has avowed on pseudo retainer. Avowed who keep an ear to the ground and look out for her interests. The boater was lovely to Alden because they were viewing him as a peer who was impinging on their territory. She is going to treat Alden better because she has correctly identified that he is her peer, not her D and F rank lackeys's peer. In a few years, Alden could be as connected and rich as she is, so why not play nice? In fact, Alden's power is extremely useful and he's learning things at an insane pace. He is going to be way richer and better connected than her. She doesn't know that, but she knows enough to judge it's better to play things friendly. I really like Alden's friends. I hope they continue to be part of the story.
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Apr 28, 2023 20:00
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Wittgen posted:I think it's hierarchies all the way down. She founded the boater and in return she has those peoples loyalty. I bet it helps her hobnob with her rich Artoan clients if she has avowed on pseudo retainer. Avowed who keep an ear to the ground and look out for her interests. Yeah, this is basically my read as well. I don't think she's trying to deceive him or anything, because there simply isn't a reason for her to do so. She's a rich Rabbit - there aren't really any threats to her career to speak of, and she can only benefit from networking with other up-and-coming connections (like a B-rank Rabbit in Alden's case). Plus, it's entirely possible that she's inferred Alden's connection to that famous family that paid him for her previous Chainer class. Alden is obviously not from the island, and his lab coat is obviously super expensive, so he had to have gotten that money from somewhere (and that's if she didn't just directly hear about that one girl giving her Rabbit class to Alden, which is possible given she's apparently rich and well-connected herself).
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Apr 28, 2023 23:18
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alternatively, she simply appreciates the impeccable fashion taste alden has shown with his bright red trenchcoat and wants to pick his brain for fit advice
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Apr 28, 2023 23:21
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Plorkyeran posted:Yeah, and that's not even a problem which litrpgs avoid. Most of the time the numbers are very clearly just made up and don't mean anything, so regardless of what the numbers say the plot dictates what the characters can actually do and their capabilities are only as consistent as the author makes them be. A crunchier system where the numbers do actually mean something certainly limits how inconsistent things can be, but even then unless it's literally using a real game system and reporting the attack roles and such (which you basically only ever see in quests and is typically unreadable), it's not going to stop an author who wants to have cool moments that shouldn't be possible according to the rules they established. The “numbers don’t mean anything” annoys me so much. Btdem numbers are hard as gently caress. I can tell you exactly what they all do. Now and then I do need to bend the rules a little, but not terribly much, and I can usually handwave it with “special skill has buy off”. Consistency in worldbuilding is critical to me/ once it goes out the window then the numbers don’t mean anything
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Apr 29, 2023 00:42
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Selkie Myth posted:The “numbers don’t mean anything” annoys me so much. Btdem numbers are hard as gently caress. I can tell you exactly what they all do. It doesn't really matter how consistent or crunchy the numbers are, cause in the end it's the author deciding whether the Lv10 hero is curbstomping a Lv3, has a tense fight against a Lv12, or is bullied by a Lv50. If the author is good, then reading a stat block is just reinforcing the events that happened and everything stays consistent. If the author is bad, then reading a stat block is an exercise in frustration cause the numbers are nonsense. And if the author is good, then I can safely ignore every stat block I see cause I can trust them to stay true to the system they have made. If the author is bad, then I can safely ignore every stat block I see cause the numbers are nonsense. So in the end, as a reader the actual numbers themselves barely matter. It's only the fact that they exist and how the characters react to them that really changes anything.
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Apr 29, 2023 11:21
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