|
Joe Slowboat posted:Ah, thanks. I mean a person living on one of Mammon's open worlds is just like working for Walmart on a galactic scale. All wealth flows out and up to a literal magical dragon's vault.
|
# ? Sep 5, 2023 22:39 |
|
|
# ? May 27, 2024 07:54 |
|
And here's my take on incubus Maya and meti: I don't think meti gave a poo poo. I think she was looking for someone to poison with sword law and kill her. I think the blade had so thoroughly worked itself into her soul that she couldn't even kill herself since she was already dead. She taught both Maya and incubus because she could probably have turned literally anyone into a disciple of the sword given sufficient motivation, and it just so happened that they were each other's motivation. Incubus because he saw someone throwing away a golden opportunity for the sake of their hair and Maya because gently caress if a street rat will get the better of her. Meti hated and mocked everything about the world and could see no way to escape it. She died the way she lived, pointing out the fragile and imaginary shell that everyone builds on. It could've been Maya who killed her if the question pissed her off enough, but it was Incubus because of the way she'd trained him. She didn't care, and both of her students are convinced they're right and thus failed to learn her true lesson. We just like Maya more because her current delusion has her on the side we cheer for.
|
# ? Sep 5, 2023 22:44 |
|
That's because swords are cool <Zaid perks up> My bad, almost all swords are cool
|
# ? Sep 5, 2023 22:47 |
|
Benagain posted:And here's my take on incubus Maya and meti: I don't think meti gave a poo poo. I think she was looking for someone to poison with sword law and kill her. I think the blade had so thoroughly worked itself into her soul that she couldn't even kill herself since she was already dead. Meti had to SOMEWHAT give a poo poo or she wouldn't have trained anyone. As to why she trained Incubus as well as Maya, well, people aren't rational and don't make the right decision always. She might have hoped Incubus would turn out better, or that Maya would best him before he became too powerful, or that training Incubus alongside Maya was the ONLY way to actually train Maya. Maya failed anyway though, she just became another demiurge for a time before finally learning her lesson. Would she have learned it without all the bad poo poo Meti caused by training Incubus? Maybe, maybe not. The world is a land of contrasts. I am very deep.
|
# ? Sep 5, 2023 22:53 |
|
Meti decided becoming a life lesson eventually was simply the best way to get some noodles in the here and now.
|
# ? Sep 5, 2023 22:55 |
|
Rotten Red Rod posted:Meti had to SOMEWHAT give a poo poo or she wouldn't have trained anyone. As to why she trained Incubus as well as Maya, well, people aren't rational and don't make the right decision always. She might have hoped Incubus would turn out better, or that Maya would best him before he became too powerful, or that training Incubus alongside Maya was the ONLY way to actually train Maya. she trained disciples because she was miserable and lonely and didn't have anything to talk about except killing people. There's nothing to really suggest she had any kind of grand plan in mind and she pointedly didn't actually teach anyone her ultimate murder techniques the way her master and master's master etc. did
|
# ? Sep 5, 2023 23:02 |
|
A Wizard of Goatse posted:she trained disciples because she was miserable and lonely and didn't have anything to talk about except killing people. There's nothing to really suggest she had any kind of grand plan in mind and she pointedly didn't actually teach anyone her ultimate murder techniques the way her master and master's master etc. did I’m with this. Meti’s the Diogenes of the sword, famously called ‘Socrates but insane’ by contemporaries, and Socrates ‘knew only that he knew nothing.’ Meti told her disciples everything she knew (the sword and how awful the sword is) because they insisted they wanted to learn, and she was a lonely old woman with nothing else. That they both became unstoppable violence-monsters shows that she knew the sword, and that Maya and Incubus both live their lives completely shaped by her philosophy of the swords shows that she had real insight… but she had a question. Not an answer. And Allison’s answer was “well, despite that question and my total lack of a concrete answer, I’m still going to try.” And that might have to be enough! There’s no solution to the problem of power, only attempts to solve it here and now, for some time, and keep forging ahead.
|
# ? Sep 5, 2023 23:43 |
|
I finally binge read this today Comic is good, tha blunderbrains I take it updates are not necessarily very consistent though?
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 02:58 |
|
Car Hater posted:I finally binge read this today They're pretty consistent actually! Every Friday for the most part.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 03:09 |
|
And if there’s a skip with mention of something art-wise that needs more time we all rejoice because the next pages will be absolute bangers.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 03:59 |
|
Meti could have picked up a different hobby tbh
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 06:42 |
|
Car Hater posted:I finally binge read this today Updates are consistent as hell, unless Operant needs to take longer to do a full-spread page or something and then gently caress yeah it’s gonna rock. The first only real long pause was at the end of the last book, what with his son being born and all.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 07:54 |
|
YaketySass posted:Meti could have picked up a different hobby tbh She tried to take up knitting, there were no survivors
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 08:45 |
|
reach heaven through purling
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 11:28 |
|
Her parents actually wanted her to "reach heaven through violins," but this was even more ethically horrifying than violence so she kind of willfully misunderstood.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 13:03 |
|
And with just impeccable timing, Abaddon's computer died so no page this week: https://killsixbilliondemons.com/computer-has-chosen-violence/
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 14:28 |
|
Kill Six Billion Hard Drives
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 14:32 |
|
Kassad posted:Kill Six Billion Hard Drives
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 14:46 |
|
Benagain posted:This guy later on got broken out of special hell by someone who hated the lunar empire more than he loved not unleashing the ultimate ravening conqueror on all creation again. Glorantha loving rules. e: Updates are very regular, and Abbadon has noted when he's taking time away for other things and when updates will resume. Very little actual schedule slippage. The big difference is that he's gone from posting a single page 2 times a week to posting usually multiple pages on Fridays since his paternity hiatus. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Sep 6, 2023 |
# ? Sep 6, 2023 14:58 |
|
While still finding the time to complete 3 RPG projects. Dude's a machine
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:05 |
|
Rotten Red Rod posted:And with just impeccable timing, Abaddon's computer died so no page this week: https://killsixbilliondemons.com/computer-has-chosen-violence/ Wait, does this mean he's not working off a backlog and actually pumps these out every single week??
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:07 |
|
I went back and looked at some other bits and I think I was brain-dumbing based on the dates of people's comments? Was not at all focused on it as I hyperfocused on reading all afternoon, thanks for correcting me
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:09 |
|
There Bias Two posted:Wait, does this mean he's not working off a backlog and actually pumps these out every single week?? yes, his patreon will show the unfinished page on a Thursday or Friday and by the time it's posted for real it has both coloring and sometimes speech bubble/art changes.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:10 |
|
shirts and skins posted:yes, his patreon will show the unfinished page on a Thursday or Friday and by the time it's posted for real it has both coloring and sometimes speech bubble/art changes. I figured he just held those in reserve for weeks at a time
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:15 |
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:"reach heaven through violins," The Hydrogen Sonata (2012)
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:30 |
|
Rotten Red Rod posted:While still finding the time to complete 3 RPG projects. Dude's a machine I love Kill 6 billion demons but for real Lancer is his best work imo.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:36 |
|
Rohan Kishibe posted:I love Kill 6 billion demons but for real Lancer is his best work imo. Lancer seems to get a lot of poo poo in the TTRPG community for being poorly written, from what I've seen.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:38 |
|
If you mean in terms of technical writing then yeah, there are a lot of rules ambiguities in LANCER that require piecing together the intent from context elsewhere in the book or, on occasion, through a third-party semi-official errata website that's basically an index of things the dev has said on Discord. It's a good game that could desperately use an editing pass. If you mean in terms of setting and narrative, I think that's mostly just people ruffled by the game's explicitly leftist politics. There are critiques of LANCER from the left as well but they're hyper-specific problems that only make any sense at all if you're already invested (when they aren't just semantic nitpicking about the words "utopia" and "fascism"). e: it's also hard to overstate how bad technical writing is in TTRPGs in general. even the giants of the medium are mostly poo poo at it. so while i don't want to act like LANCER is perfect in that regard it's also, like, comparable to if not better than the efforts of companies who have exponentially more experience, money, and manpower and still gently caress it up Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Sep 6, 2023 |
# ? Sep 6, 2023 15:49 |
|
also tbf writing a exception-based tactical game with as many options as Lancer is hard as balls and what they did with a small team is legit impressive
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 16:03 |
|
There Bias Two posted:I figured he just held those in reserve for weeks at a time dude likes to live dangerously
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 16:08 |
|
Royalty doesn't do contigency plans. That's too much like believing your actions to be wrong.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 16:30 |
|
Apparently he has another drive that does hourly backups. Even Royalty takes pains not to suffer total data loss.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 17:16 |
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:If you mean in terms of technical writing then yeah, there are a lot of rules ambiguities in LANCER that require piecing together the intent from context elsewhere in the book or, on occasion, through a third-party semi-official errata website that's basically an index of things the dev has said on Discord. It's a good game that could desperately use an editing pass. Lancer is one of the best tabletop games Ive played and one of the clunkiest written rulebooks Ive read. The order it introduces information in doesn't really make sense, where you'll get rules referencing other rules that won't be explained for dozens of more pages, meaning you have to jump back and forth in a pdf with ctrl-f just to piece together what the rules are. The last time I talked about this it was the example of, my mech was destroyed as a rule keyword. It was not EASY to find what "your mech is destroyed" actually meant, because there's a ton of rules that list that as an option like 40 pages before it ever actually says what that means. It does that a lot--talking about rules and systems and effects before they're introduced, meaning the rules only make sense when you read the book twice. The lore section does the same thing, talking about a slurry of acronyms and organizations pages before they're ever explained--so you have an entire paragraph talking about so-and-such's relation with galsim, as if you should KNOW what galsim is, but galsim itself isn't actually explained until 4 pages on. It also takes a lot of time describing how the in-game Utopia works, despite the game mostly taking places on the edge of its domain in areas that the utopian dream hasn't reached yet--which means a lot of what you read ends up not being relevant to most campaigns. THAT SAID the robustness of the game is wonderful, the mix-and-match way you build your character each mission is a delight after playing so many games that demand you commit to a Single Guy or some weird hyperspecific multiclass--nah here you can just pick and choose from anything everywhere and make whatever ridiculous combo you want with as much synergy with your friends as you like. The setting is cool as hell where AI are actually infinitely-minded cosmic omniconsciousness shards held inside boxes pretending to be AI and you can install them on your mech and I am trying to install several of them at once onto my mech so I can achieve psychedelic transcendence divine supermajesty where my mech is screaming and hovering in place blasting everything with mindlightning. Also that it is aggressively, from an authorial level, not friendly to people who want to play as space neo-nazis and whatever and it takes great pain to make its politics clear is also a big welcomed point in this weird modern times we are in.
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 17:31 |
|
saw this about a game in development, made me think of the comic https://twitter.com/LithPyro/status/1699497883064500712
|
# ? Sep 6, 2023 23:37 |
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:e: it's also hard to overstate how bad technical writing is in TTRPGs in general. even the giants of the medium are mostly poo poo at it. so while i don't want to act like LANCER is perfect in that regard it's also, like, comparable to if not better than the efforts of companies who have exponentially more experience, money, and manpower and still gently caress it up A lot of people (developers) don’t realize that technical writing is basically a whole separate skill set from actually making the game up, and it’s always worth hiring someone with the skill to help your final product. This isn’t a dig at Abbadon, I have no idea how small the team is and it’s easily possible they just couldn’t get a dedicated person. Like you said, the standard of writing in tabletop and ttrpgs is bad even from top companies is all over the place, and almost every game has a cabal of fans aggressively reformatting game documents into a readable form.
|
# ? Sep 7, 2023 00:42 |
|
The other thing, speaking as someone with experience doing editing for RPGs, is that pretty much nobody can afford to hire an actual editor.
|
# ? Sep 7, 2023 00:50 |
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:The Hydrogen Sonata (2012) 10/10, perfect, no notes or rather many unplayable ones
|
# ? Sep 7, 2023 01:14 |
|
the design team for lancer is me by the way
|
# ? Sep 7, 2023 02:25 |
Ashcans posted:This isn’t a dig at Abbadon, I have no idea how small the team is and it’s easily possible they just couldn’t get a dedicated person. Two people and a mouse.
|
|
# ? Sep 7, 2023 03:07 |
|
|
# ? May 27, 2024 07:54 |
|
Operant posted:the design team for lancer is me by the way genuinely, when do you sleep on the seventh day, I suppose
|
# ? Sep 7, 2023 03:14 |