TG Chat Thread 2017

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Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Flavivirus posted:

I plan on finishing and sending out a playtest draft of a new RPG within a month, get my Exalted game started again after a Christmas hiatus, deliver a kickstarter, and try to work out how to do all that while dealing with the demands of a 7-week old baby. Probably a little ambitious

Real advice: don't let yourself use the baby as an excuse for not doing the things you need to do. Babies are really, really easy compared to toddlers. They get consistently harder and harder for about 3 years before they finally plateau and eventually start to get easier. So instead of thinking of this as a uniquely difficult time, get used to thinking of this as the easiest time you are going to have for the next few years.

Sorry if that sounds bleak, but I've had 3 kids and that's how all of them have been for me. And the good news is that they also get more fun as they get more difficult. (Except for when they randomly turn into screaming monsters for a few months for no apparent reason. That part isn't fun, but it does end.) And one day you will have a smart little kid playing games with you and chatting like a real human.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2017 20:07

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 00:02

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

LongDarkNight posted:

Best Dark Elves are the one in Burning Wheel. None of that pesky racial stuff, just a regular Elf gone bad.

quote:
The Path of Spite is walked by those Elves who have turned their Grief and sorrow into Spite and bitterness. These dark souls see the world as coming to nothing but ruin and wreckage. There is no good left in it for them, nor will there be for anyone else in the end.

That's basically just goons ~~who spend too long reading politics threads~~ tho.

Edit: made my post more concise.

Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jan 26, 2017

# ¿ Jan 26, 2017 22:39

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Kwyndig posted:

I really wish they had released a ruleset for XCOM as a tactical board/mini game. They designed the game as one to start with and elaborated from there once it felt good. I mean, you could reverse engineer it fairly easily if you just wanted the rules, but I would also want some cool official minis of Sectoids and Mutons and stuff, you know?

You'd want to simplify some things about the calculations, but yeah, you could just port it to tabletop pretty directly. Having an official version would be super cool.

I wonder how you'd handle the whole discovering packs of enemies, though. Like the biggest risk you take in XCOM is when you go for a flank and might accidentally activate new enemies.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 17:30

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Error 404 posted:

This, but if you really need for there to be some kind of thing: Give enemy units a 'spaces per turn' move mechanic the same as your players, and start them at one or two spawn points, and move them yourself on the GM turn. Be your own AI.

No squad would ever survive any mission in xcom if the aliens were controlled by a human instead of being on patrols and stuff. Aliens could just take their time, surround the enemy, and destroy them by attacking all at once.

The "oops, now you are fighting two packs" mechanic is what makes XCOM fun. If you only ever faced one pack at a time, it'd be too easy, and if you always had to face two or more packs at a time it'd be too hard and you'd keep losing to attrition.

The game thrives on decisions like "If I run out there for the flank and I trigger those thin men I've been hearing, how hosed am I? Okay, now I just missed two 70% shots in a row. How hosed am I if I don't take that flank?"

And if you miss those shots and get forced to attempt the flank, and the flank triggers the thin men... That's XCOM! If you want to take out the "sometimes the RNG fucks you and you wipe" factor, then you aren't implementing XCOM faithfully (which is what we were talking about here). Losing dudes is legitimately part of the fun. That's why there is a memorial, that's why you run multiple squads, and that's why you can always recruit more dudes.

It's also why the game would only really work as 1 v 1 and not 1 v many.

Anyway, I need to look up what you guys are talking about with the "blips" because that sounds really interesting.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 02:58

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

gnome7 posted:

Hi, I spent like 3 months putting this thing together and here seems like the best place to post it.

SO YOU WANT TO PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, EH?

It might not be what you're looking for. Here's a big list of alternatives, to share with your friends.

Yo, this is great! Thanks for putting all this together.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 01:27

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Countblanc posted:

That's true but if the argument is that you don't make tactical decisions then "use the same power twice ASAP" doesn't really refute that.

The way I interpreted Ferrinus' posts was that he was saying that there were still more decisions to make even after your choice of power, whether power selection was obvious or not. E.g. how and when to move, who to target, how to apply any effects you have that give you choices (sliding around allies and enemies), how to use your Role Power, what order to use your powers. Plus any other decisions created by the actions of the enemies, the terrain, and the narrative situation.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 02:06

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Drone posted:

How are these? Seems like it'd be something interesting to read about.

I picked them up cheap in a similar bundle a while ago, thinking that. I found them very boring and stopped part way through the first one. But they are certainly well-researched and in-depth. They are good for what they are and if you have a strong interest in the history of the RPG industry, you will like them. Just don't go in expecting them to make RPG publishing interesting in the same way that, for instance, Jon Krakauer makes mountain climbing interesting even to someone who otherwise doesn't care about mountain climbing.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 16:20

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Countblanc posted:

This is ridiculous, Skiddo are much too small to ride.

Edit: gently caress, beaten.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 21:07

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Lichtenstein posted:

How many Magnetons does one have to detonate together for a military-grade electromagnetic pulse?

Asking for a friend.

That would cost a lot of TMs. Surely it'd be easier to use Electrodes who learn Explosion on level-up?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2017 22:59

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Yeah, Pathfinder courted a fan base of people who don't like edition changes and who want all their crap to be compatible with all their other crap. It has worked out pretty well for them, but it limits them in what they can do. A big new edition with substantial rules changes or setting changes is not possible - their fan base is made up of people who hate those things and thus wouldn't move to 4e or 5e.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 03:51

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Nuns with Guns posted:

I didn't realize taking a less unfortunate stance on slavery or whatever was a substantial setting change

In the minds of the grogs who got pissed off when the 4e version of FR got rid of the racist stereotype regions, that would probably be something they would be upset over, yes.

If you're asking my personal take, I think they should wholesale ditch all references to slavery, and anyone who objects can gently caress off.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 05:06

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Hey, when I want to play a game about aliens enslaving all of humanity, people are down. But when I want to play a game about aliens raping all of humanity, people look askance. What's the deal with that???

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 21:58

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Well, most RPGs are just an elaborate version of kill-gently caress-marry.

Kill-gently caress-marry: a beholder, a mind flayer, or a red dragon. Discuss.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 14:03

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

My 5 year old loves "the spaceship game" aka Galaxy Trucker. She makes her own ships and they usually only have a couple of mistakes (that I let slide or help her fix). So, you know, you don't really have to baby them. Carcassonne would be fine for that age, I think. Just be prepared to help them out a bunch with any game.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 17:30

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Scyther posted:

A sandwich is a food that uses one or more sliced, hollowed, or whole pieces of bread that have been baked prior to assembly (i.e: a pizza is not a sandwich as the toppings are added to the unbaked dough, nor are poptarts sandwiches) to hold one or more toppings.

Toppings can be placed between multiple slices of bread (conventional sandwich, burger, etc), between multiple individually baked flatbreads (e.g naan sandwich), it can be wrapped in a flatbread (e.g wrap, burrito), placed on top of a single slice (open-faced sandwich), inserted into a hollowed out bread (such as a pita) etc.

Are you telling me that clam chowder in a bread bowl is a sandwich?

# ¿ May 2, 2017 23:51

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

poo poo. Guys. I've gone too far down this sandwich rabbit hole and now I'm asking questions like "Is a quesadilla a grilled cheese sandwich?"

# ¿ May 3, 2017 02:37

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

ElegantFugue posted:

Who has some weird and wild magical items/spells?
I'm gonna be running a Dungeon World game for some people on Friday and I asked everyone what they wanted to see in it. One of the players requested "some weird magic - stuff that's more than just "shoot a fireball at people," but more like "the ability to put a comically oversized bathtub drain on any surface."

Anyone here have any fun obtuse magical things they've included in games or suggestions for same?

If I'm understanding the request correctly, just think of a normal, useful magic item, then make it stupider.

So a potion of telepathy turns into... A sleeve of lozenges that let you read minds, but only while your mouth is in contact with the target (e.g. licking, kissing).

A wand of wishes turns into... A bootstrap of wishes, which urges you to make your own wishes come true and blames you when they don't.

You could steal poo poo from Rick and Morty - they have lots of obtuse inventions that can be reflavoured for fantasy. Lots of high concept sci-fi stuff there.

# ¿ May 9, 2017 04:01

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Rand Brittain posted:

Unseen Academicals was great to me, except that because I have no familiarity with UK football culture none of the references made sense.

Yeah, Unseen Academicals was still very strong. Not his very best, but good nonetheless. Raising Steam was sadly no good - I couldn't get through it.

# ¿ May 13, 2017 22:35

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

occamsnailfile posted:

What do you mean by middle to low end? I've had good luck with ebay in the past, though my most recent experience was on the selling end and whoo boy what people will pay for old PSX and Saturn games, it's nuts.

I just looked on Ebay and apparently the going price for Mario Sunshine and F-zero GX are $40, smash bros melee and Paper Mario TYD are $55... Time to sell all my old gamecube games! I'm gonna make a couple hundred bucks to spend on cardboard!

# ¿ May 30, 2017 04:32

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

Tell him Charisma and Wisdom were bad choices for dump stats.

I like this plan.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 14:35

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Ominous Jazz posted:

That's the most boring thing anybody has ever said.

I think the point is that in Tolkien's world, the right to govern is based on inherited titles, racial superiority, and maleness, with no regard to whether or not the individual has any capacity to govern well or has any connection to the people to be governed. It's just expressed in the nerdiest possible way.

Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jun 2, 2017

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 19:46

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Kestral posted:

I run a game for a bunch of kids from ages 10 to 14. When we got together for our first "talk about the game and make characters" session, I gently tried to steer them toward Dungeon World. They were having none of that. D&D is what they'd heard of, and they wanted to play that. Marketing is powerful.

Oh yes. Kids are the biggest suckers for marketing because they have no critical thinking yet. They just accept the things they are told.

Evil Mastermind posted:

a post-AWorld edition of Dungeon World

What is this revisionist history? Apocalypse World predates Dungeon World by 2-3 years. Or is there some other system you mean by AWorld and I'm just not up on the lingo?

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 01:09

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I use the word "gently caress" a decent amount in my reviews? My workplace blocks the general index as "games", but individual reviews are often not blocked. (Something Awful is blocked as "tasteless".)

When I did a co-op at Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, there was clearly a goon in the tech department. Periodically, SA would get blocked, presumably because of an updated list of blocked sites, but it would always get unblocked within the day. I spent most of my co-op term browsing the forums, which was probably a lovely career move because that place could have paid me well, but I hated the job, so whatever.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2017 00:09

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Evil Mastermind posted:

e: Oh good lord I just checked the web site and on the stat table they show you the "1 to 199" thing is really just "1 to 20", because the stat mods happen every 20 points.

Do you mean "1 to 10"? Or do they happen every 10 points?

Cuz 20*20=400, not 200.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2017 18:36

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Splicer posted:

It's neither. Look at the 0 - 60 range. Look at it

gently caress. Why?! If they lumped by 20s for 1-19 and 20-39 before going to 40-49, 50-59, I'd at least understand that. What they have there is just baffling. It defies explanation.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 03:08

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Scyther posted:

I nearly went insane reading this:

http://blog.flashbackrpg.com/post/161634908806/design-diary-2

To sort of defend it, there could be some fun to be had there if the typing system was complex enough and if you encountered the same type of enemies often enough to make predictions and guesses.

Like "hmm, these plant zombies are taking normal damage from my Holy Bolt, which is a Divine Piercing Fire attack. Plants generally take extra damage from fire, so the Zombie template must resist Piercing, Fire, or Divine. Somebody try a Fire Burst or Fire Slashing type attack on it!"

# ¿ Jun 18, 2017 01:59

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

potatocubed posted:

I believe Fellowship does this with its set pieces.

I also remember that discussion and I included a few examples of that in Strike! (Including specifically Medusa.) I called them unfair enemies because if you go at them head-on, it'll be an unfair fight and you'll get owned. I didn't include a lot of details of how to solve the puzzle though, because that's not really how puzzles work in Strike! The players will come up with their own solutions and the rolls will tell you how well those work, rather than there being a specific fixed solution.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2017 12:40

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

So my friends and I just had an argument over whether pineapples have square grids or hexagonal. It turns out that they have both! When they are green and underripe youngsters, they have square grids, but then they age into beautiful golden fruits with hexagons briefly before turning into rotting garbage. It's nature's perfect metaphor for becoming a grognard.

Here's a picture illustrating the change: http://img2.21food.com/simg/product/2015/9/3/stdenissa-07230570.jpg Note that each segment on the golden one in the center of the shot has six adjacent segments, while on the dark green one next to it, each segment has 4 adjacent along an edge and 4 adjacent through corners.

I knew you folks would appreciate this.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 20:58

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

So I was just browsing facebook and it turns out the writer of Blood in the Chocolate is a friend of a friend. Normally I'd be inclined to say hi and congrats and network/make friends. But you guys have said real bad things about that adventure. So I could instead opt simply not to introduce myself.

So, uh, how bad is it? Not like how laughable and terrible would it be to run/play, since I don't have any interest in playing it in any case. Rather I'm asking how hateful and vile is it? You can rate it on a scale of 0 to 10 Desboroughs or something.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2017 05:11

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Cassa posted:

Strike! and FFG's 40k game both have the optionsfor being two people.

I think if you tried much more than that it'd become some sort of skirmish game.

I don't think that's what Alpha Dog wants. I think it's more like:

You have a hand of cards. Each card represents one person in your squad.

Each card has 2 special abilities, plus an attack strength, and a block strength.

You may play up to 3 cards per round. When you play a card, you can play it for attack, for block, or for an ability.

Cards played this round must don't return to your hand until the end of the next round (unless the ability says otherwise).

Enemy attacks of varying strength may force you to discard cards for 1 round, for the duration of the fight, or even trash them forever. Enemies can have other abilities, too, just like you. The enemy cards could be dealt out randomly one per player for GMless play.

I kind of want to design this game properly now.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2017 14:53

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Burning Wheel also has some elements of realism in it's combat, from the different maneuvers to the way it handles injury and recovery.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 14:25

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

mango sentinel posted:

Isn't Fragged an incredibly more complicated take on PBTA?

I know this has already been answered, but I want to emphasize just how wrong this is. Fragged is super loving trad when it comes to the non-combat stuff. You have skills and roll against target numbers chosen by the GM, plus they can give you a bonus/penalty for RP, and the results are pass/fail with no fail forward elements at all. There are some "strong hit" effects you can choose which act basically like a critical success system. Looking at just the skills system, Fragged is essentially akin to a d20 game from 15 years ago.

Please don't take this as me bashing Fragged - this is just an honest analysis of one element of a game which has other more important elements.

Serf posted:

Kits are also totally optional, so dropping them is super easy. Having run a game with Kits and a game without, I gotta say I prefer the game without them.

Kits are my biggest regret in Strike! I didn't present them in a way that motivates players to use them or explains why you might want to use them, and as a result everyone skips them. Which is fine, I wanted them to be optional and not for every game. But I was certainly hoping for more uptake then they have seen. I think they are mechanically sound - they aren't broken or anything. But they don't justify their presence.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I feel like Kits would probably be better replaced with some noncombat Feat system that operates parallel to normal Feat advancement, so you aren't locked into one specific concept.

I know getting locked in is part of the point, but they're effectively very loose Feat trees already.

This is very insightful. Mechanically, they are not much different from a set of noncombat feats and feat trees. Perhaps if I had presented them that way, it would have worked better. Presenting them as being like a non-combat class obviously didn't work.

How mechanics are presented in a game is as important as how they actually work. To present them as a group of feats would require nearly no alteration rules-wise. That's certainly something to think about.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 15:26

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

SirFozzie posted:

So Not-Japan, Not-India, Not-Polynesia.. and...

Man, if they have to go with "Oriental" settings, they could at least go with something less cliche. How about a not-Indonesia, a not-Myanmar, or a not-central-Asia?

A vast nation of islands incorporating dozens of disparate religions and cultures into one of the most diverse and populous nations on the planet, united primarily by their common history of exploitation and colonization by outsiders; a dangerous jungle ruled by drug-lords, fueled by illicit trade from richer nations; a land where high plains and chill deserts meet great mountains at the crossroads of the world.

Okay fine, that last one doesn't leave much room for sailing ships, but the other two would be great.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 00:12

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Lichtenstein posted:

Honestly, immediately recognizable cliches are kind of the point of 7th Sea nation building. It's all about pointing the finger at a big/key country on the map and asking what's the one fantastical gimmick bolted on top of it. Also a handy list of all of its recognizable historical figures with slightly changed surnames and what-ifs about them somehow all living at the same time.

Sure, that's true. My descriptions we're also essentially cliches/stereotypes too. I just think that they'd be more interesting than not-Japan for the billionth time. But I guess lots of players want to play as samurai and ninjas, so that's fair.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 13:07

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I'm not saying it's a particularly good reason, but because Temporary HP is a stat that existed prior to Starfinder (as a 3.x concept), so they probably didn't want to change the name to retain compatibility.

Like, D&D has HP, and Temp HP. Starfinder splits HP into HP and SP ... but Temp HP is still Temp HP because that's what it's always been called.

Yes.

When you hit zero HP, you are Dying.
Dying makes you lose 1 Resolve per turn.
If you're already at zero Resolve and you lose another Resolve for any reason (including the 1/turn from Dying), you die.

If you spend the 1-3 Resolve to Stabilize, then you're no longer Dying, but you're still not able to act.
You still have 0 HP, but at least you're not losing Resolve every turn (which is what kills you).

Staying in the Fight is when you're already Stabilized, and you spend 1 Resolve to heal yourself back to 1 HP, which lets you act again.

Okay so you have temp HP, then when you run out of that you lose SP, then when you run out of that you lose HP, then when you run out of that you lose resolve, then when you run out of that you still don't die until you lose one more.

That's... really a lot of effort to try make sure PCs don't die. Surely it's just be easier to say that PCs just don't die from taking damage in combat at all? Put in some conditions under which a PC can die and when those conditions are in play it's not hard for the PC to die, but without those conditions it is impossible. So you'll never die because of random loving kobolds but you might die heroically against the great wyrm. The conditions could be purely GM-determined, purely mechanical, or a mix of both.

Dying when you run out of HP (or double-extra-bonus HP or whatever) is the sacred cow that I was happiest to BBQ when I wrote Strike! and seeing D&D authors stack on multiple extra HPs in the hopes of basically fixing the problem without actually fixing it fills me with schadenfreude. Take the blinders off and the problem is easy to solve!

# ¿ Aug 19, 2017 05:16

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

gradenko_2000 posted:

* also, Resolve is used for a bunch of other effects besides just Stabilizing and Staying in the Fight. Specifically, you can spend a Resolve and a 10 minute rest to restore your Stamina as a kinda sorta Healing Surge Short Rest deal if you squint.

Oh yeah, by far the biggest reason to put in a SP/HP split in the first place is that the dummies who hated the idea of a PC being able to restore their own HP or a leader being able to inspire you to recover some HP will be totally ok with it now that it's called SP instead.

As I typed that, I realize I'm still hanging on to a little bit of bitterness over how ungodly stupid some of those arguments were. Dudes saying "so the warlord is just going to shout your guts back in?" As though they play where HP loss means you are literally fighting with your guts dragging on the floor and your guts just get reabsorbed after a good night's rest in their edition and this is all perfectly sensible.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2017 05:37

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Covok,

Don't play with teenagers. If these dudes weren't teenagers, then that's just repulsive. Teenagers can sort of be forgiven for having idiot views temporarily because they are sheltered and ignorant. Adults have no excuse.

Good job on how you handled it. Let them find another game - you don't need to tolerate that poo poo.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2017 23:58

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Somehow I don't think that including nonwhite queer pygmy rapist npcs is going to be successful at "respecting" and "appealing" to nonwhite queer customers.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 20:02

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

My take is that people should be free to publish creepy rape games and we should be free to call them pathetic and despicable.

I suppose it's technically possible that one day someone might make an RPG involving rape that I could play around my wife... but I'm not holding my breath. If you get 4 women in a room, the odds are very high that one or more of them has been sexually assaulted. Most women who have been assaulted are not interested in having that poo poo show up in their games. It's a topic that is off limits for me in my writing for just that reason.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2017 03:17

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 00:02

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Oh of course, one of those itinerant anaesthesiologists. Riding the rails, helping transient dentists perform root canals.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2017 18:53

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2017

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