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Back in college we came up with the idea that "the party" was a subset of a mercenary company, so each "arc" (for wont of a better word, since it could be a one-shot or a mini-campaign or whatever), we'd swap GM's. This also had the added bonus that you could try a different character for a bit if you wanted to while your "main" character was off doing something that we can specify later if we care to. This came at the same time when we realized XP was dumb bullshit so we'd also jump around in the time-line and do flash back/flash forward games ; so it was totally normal for someone to have a cool idea for a level 8 game when everyone had been at level 3 and the next game we go back to level 5 and fill in the gaps. It was a very simple narrative framework that massively increased the flexibility.
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Jan 5, 2021 02:45
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Yeah I just own Band so I don’t know how it plays and it could suck for all I know or care, but all those points seem like intentional emulation of the books. Might still suck butts idk, never got it to the table, but the points you bring up sound as an outsider more like not liking what the game wants to be rather than it failing in its goals.
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Jan 5, 2021 13:05
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SkyeAuroline posted:
I mean, the obvious answer is, quite a bit to people who want to play in that specific subgenre? Again, I have not actually gotten Bands to the table so I won't defend it per se, but your objections so far seem to be based more on what it's doing rather than how it's being done. Which is fine and good ; everyone has preferences and their entitled to them. But like it's one thing to not like horror movies and a totally different thing to not like a specific horror movie cause it's scary ; if The Descent was too ookily spookily for you that's totally cool, but not really a criticism of the film since that was the whole point. Am I wildly misreading you? I'm totally down with everyone having their preferences but this seems like someone ordering a vindaloo and complaining it's spicy. Well, yeah, it's vindaloo. And?
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Jan 5, 2021 16:27
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SkyeAuroline posted:"Fantasy XCOM RPG" is something I'm interested in, though less "troupe play" and more "roll a new character if yours dies, otherwise keep a running cast" because the latter allows for running stories much better. "Force a fantasy tactical combat game into an intentionally loose narrative framework & break fundamental mechanics to get where you want to go" is not, and that's all that Band of Blades is. Some really good setting writing and ideas shoved into the absolute wrong framework for its goals. It could have been done well in a system that actually supported combat-heavy play. I'm sorry but I still can't understand your argument. Again this really sounds like your disagreement is with what the game set out to do and not how it was done. Which is cool and good because everyone can like different things, but it's a totally separate kind of criticism getting into subjective tastes.
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Jan 6, 2021 00:37
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SkyeAuroline posted:I guess I'm completely incapable of communicating my thoughts so I'll just shut up about the game already. Sorry if I seemed to be brow-beating you! I legit just don't understand. aldantefax posted:Also, I need some appropriate music for both Sword World and just generic fantasy tunes in the classical music space in general. Suggestions? I've been having a renewed love affair with sea shanties lately, so depending on genre that might be right up your alley. Youtube is god drat full of hour-long compilations of them.
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Jan 6, 2021 01:01
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Yeah that's exactly what I was trying to go for with my vindaloo analogy but probably failed. It's totally cool to not like a caustic, molten assault of spice on your mouth, it's not everyone's idea of fun. But if your primary problem with a particular vindaloo is that it's too hot... uh I think the problem isn't the recipe, it's just that you don't like vindaloo. (God drat it now I want Indian food.)
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Jan 6, 2021 01:31
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Very well said. Fundamentally, if you're talking about how a hammer doesn't dig good holes we're not really discussing how to make a good hammer and are just having a conversation about your lack of shovel.
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Jan 6, 2021 01:51
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Yeah but that's about marketability, not game design. People like different things and making niche games is cool and good. Some of my favorite games are really hard to get to the table cause they're basically designed with specifically someone like me in mind. So they might not having a rousing commercial success but they speak to me specifically and how much money something makes has nothing to do with how good it is. There's nothing wrong with making a game for weirdos and I'd argue that's actually a good goal. I'll take ten weird-rear end indie games that use a knife as their resolution mechanic over a single page of 5e D&D.
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Jan 6, 2021 02:03
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Yawgmoth posted:I just had chicken vindaloo and I ordered it Indian Spicy™, it was extremely good. Wisdom. When I get a really good curry as take-out, sometimes a cat will come and want attention. Then they get within 6 feet of the curry and just yeet the gently caress out. That's how you know it's the good stuff.
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Jan 6, 2021 02:29
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It's a dumpling.
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Jan 6, 2021 03:04
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Aniodia posted:
I can’t imagine translating a document that was neither fish nor fowl. Hell yeah go you. It owns bones. Would there be a rights problem if I wanted to read the original? I’m down to pay money of course.
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Jan 6, 2021 10:18
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These are all very, very good kitties and I want to nuzzle them all. Makes me miss our cats.
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Jan 8, 2021 06:07
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aldantefax posted:Does anybody have suggestions for effectively sorting and storing RPG books? I'm guessing via context you're not amenable to building them yourself because of space reasons or something?
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Jan 8, 2021 07:01
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O word. I can totally see not wanting to build shelves in an apartment. I did it loads of times but I already had the tools. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.
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Jan 8, 2021 12:56
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Sub-sorting by genre/type of book makes perfect sense, but don't forget our old friend the alphabet. It's boring, but it's very functional and has become a standard for a reason.
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Jan 8, 2021 14:11
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SkyeAuroline posted:This a cat thread now? Got 14 I work with, take your pick. Pics or it didn't happen. Also : http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_15/
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Jan 8, 2021 16:05
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drat it now I'm looking up how to volunteer at the local ASPCA.
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Jan 8, 2021 16:48
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SkyeAuroline posted:Just not a Humane Society. I have a personal grudge. Nah don’t worry. I used “ASPCA” like you would “kleenex” or “band-aid” when I actually meant “local no kill shelter”. My bad for being vague. I just gotta watch out that it doesn’t become like when I’d foster cats, nominally for a month, and then I just had all the cats. (I only was supposed to take care of Lilly for a bit but she’d notice when I was brushing my teeth and knew it was bed time and she’d climb under the covers and be the little spoon. I can’t give someone else that cat.)
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Jan 8, 2021 18:42
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drat, the bowing on them shelves. Like Atlas holding up the sky.
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Jan 8, 2021 20:42
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Leperflesh posted:Poker in the Rear has been re-opened: it can be found as a sub of Sports Argument Stadium, or by clicking this link: Can I or can I not poo poo-post about my sister and I high hustling people in bars for beer money with weird-rear end German card games by pretending to be tourists.
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Jan 11, 2021 02:21
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Leperflesh posted:IMO you can and should, but I will defer to the PitR mods. I can't imagine it'd be a problem though? Nah, I was just joshing cause it's kind of a funny story to me. We're the kids of German immigrants so we got mainlined all these card games that only exist in rural Bavaria before we could even read. So we liked to go to the pub when we went back there and pretend to be a couple that was just visiting and ask them to teach us the game... and then once money was on the table we're talking actual German and we're raking in cash. We were basically doing the "It's my family label" scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I just liked the counter-grift of people who clearly thought they could get money out of us and then them going, "Wait, why are they suddenly using the correct dialect words for the cards." But it was always just beer-money and we'd spend most of it buying rounds so no hard feelings. This was usually our ancestral village of like 50 houses so it pretty rapidly turned into Haha you fell into the trap of Mannfred's niece and nephew you idiot! Like 9 years ago I made a thread for non-traditional card games where I described some of these. Maybe I should revitalize that. Watten is kind of a bitch to teach cause it's basically Satan's bridge with different numbers and suits.
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Jan 11, 2021 05:43
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O no, I'm sorry. We're not communicating. That was all I had and was just making a lovely joke. My bad.
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Jan 11, 2021 07:35
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I can try it again. I'll have to look into if you can even get the German cards in the US. In Germany they just hand them out when you go to the bank or whatever, and it's trivial to just pretend the suits and numbers and different, but the actual cards are a different shape and are different suits in full color of hell yeah let's have some acorns that look like dongs.
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Jan 11, 2021 08:03
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Okay, so I'll start it here and if people care enough for there to be a "card games that don't involve a traditional Marseille deck" I'll spin it into an OP for that thread. So before I can talk about any of the games I gotta talk about the actual cards. Which are a different shape, have different suits and only some of the numbers and the face cards are different. Here's a wiki article that has pictures of the cards in question : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schafkopf. (That game is actually a weird old man thing that I've never seen anyone play and I don't even know someone who might know the rules.) So the numbers go 7, 8, 9, 10 and then the face cards are Unter ("under"), Ober ("over"), Koenig ("king") and the Sau ("sow" but it means "ace" and there's a real word for "ace" but no one uses it). Then the suits are hearts (Hertz), bells (Schellen), acorns (Eichel) and leaves (Grass). No that doesn't make any sense but neither do clubs and diamonds and poo poo. Finally as a meta set-up rule there are 3 magic special cards that come up a lot in various games. Not all of them but enough that they get special names and they're gonna be relevant here. The first and the Big Boss is the Maxi, the king of hearts. Literally best card in the game, can't be countered, you just eat poo poo if someone plays it, basta. After him there's the Welle, the 7 of bells, which demolishes everything besides the Maxi. Below that is the 7 of acorns, the Spitz. These cards are always trump and count as super, super trumps. They're literally just the best three cards in the game ; if you manage to get them all in your hand you basically won the game and can't gently caress up so the combo is called the Maschien (yeah guess what that means). So with that left aside, I'm gonna teach y'all how to play Watten. There are two big kinds, one a more casual thing and the other is a cut-throat team game that's kind of like drunk bridge. I'll do both but I'm gonna start with the less complicated one for obvious reasons. Boemisch Watten : ("Bohemian Watten" ; I have no idea if it has anything to do with Bohemia, this was made up by drunk people 500 years ago.) 3 to 5 players each start at 20 points. The dealer gives them each 5 cards and flips over a card that is going to be the trump suit for the round, e.g. if it's the 9 of acorns or whatever acorns rule and everything else is garbage. Players can then discard and get more cards dependent on how many people are playing (32 card deck, do the math). The dealer, cause this is a very unfair game, gets to keep the revealed the trump card and gets one fewer card than they discarded meaning the dealer is always guaranteed one trump card. In addition, once everyone has their cards, the dealer gets to look at the top 3 cards of deck that haven't been dealt (if they exist) so they can do weird card-counting nonsense (the German is if the cards "schlafft" are asleep). You really want to be the dealer. Play goes clockwise with the person to the left of the dealer leading. You can lead whatever you want, but after that you have to follow suit if you have it, so even if you could take the trick, if you have some random low acorn you gotta play it and get hosed. The person who takes the trick then leads the next round. Continue five times until everyone is out of cards. For every trick you take in a round, you go down that many points : the goal is to be the player that reaches 0 first. (Yes, this is a weird and unintuitive way to design a scoring system, but, again drunk people 500 years ago.). However if you don't get any tricks you're "burned" (gebrentt) and actually go up 5 points. After a round the deal rotates clockwise and you keep going until someone wins. Finally a couple of side rules : 1) when the dealer is shuffling the deck before they give the cards out, they have to let the person to their right cut the deck. This person gets to look at the card on the bottom and if it's one of the magic super cards they get to keep it and are dealt one fewer card. Also then the dealer gets to look at the next card and could possibly also get a wonder card. I'm not kidding about how broken it is to be the dealer. 2) if the trump suit is hearts all points are doubled, both from getting tricks and from getting burned so if you do well you can basically set yourself up way in the lead or you can get nothing and be turbo-hosed. 3) Those mega cards? They always count as trump for purposes of following suit and if one of them is the flipped card to determine trump it's always a hearts game. 2 and 3 and just how the dealer role works means that if the dealer flips the king of hearts the whole table is going to very, very elaborately swear. I hope that made sense cause now we're gonna talk about real Watten which is kind of like the above with a dash of a German dude telling bridge to hold their many, many beers. 4 players in teams of two. Rotating deal again. You sit across from your partner so in order it's XYXY. At the beginning of every round, the dealer gives out 5 cards to the player to their left and themselves and they look at their cards. Note : the other players don't get cards yet. The non-dealer player then gets to decide which number will be trump (yes there are numbered trumps in this game) and then the dealer picks a suit to be a trump. This determines the card values for the round. Then the other players get cards. (Cue elaborate signaling about what your hand is.) It's probably best to give an example : imagine that Georg is dealing and Seppl is to his left. Seppl looks at his hand and sees he has a pair of tens so he says tens are trump. Then Georg picks acorns to be the trump suit because he has 3 of them or whatever. That means that for that round the hierarchy of cards is the Maxi > the Welle > the Spitz > the ten of acorns > the other tens (first played wins) > ace of acorns, king, etc. in descending order > everything else is basically hot garbage and only matters in the unlikely event that no one plays a trump in which case it's highest of whatever suit was lead. And everything that's trump counts as trump for purposes of following suit. If you have the right hand, opening with a really low trump is a classic dick move/pro strat. The team that manages to get the majority of the tricks gets 2 points. The teams are competing to get to 11. (No these numbers don't make any sense, deal with it.) There's the additional wrinkle that at any time a player can, as part of their turn, when they're playing a card lay it face-down which means they want to up the stakes and make the round worth 3 points. The other team then has to go with it or forfeit the round and hand the other team 2 points. Or they also have the option of calling the possible bluff and raising it to 4. Which then gets kicked back to the first team and it repeats so this can totally end up turning into a dick-waving contest where the whole game's on the line. There's also a totally buck wild sigil thing you use for scoring that looks like something out of Mage the Awakening but I'm too lazy to upload a picture since this post is already huge. And there's a betting mechanic over all of this but it's basically just "there is a kitty and the winner gets it" with some weirdness about point distribution. So yeah. Those are the two big kinds of Watten. There are other games, obviously, but those are the biggest. My Oma actually taught my older sister and me Boemisch while we were in the hospital when my little sister was born. She cheated. A lot.
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Jan 12, 2021 01:32
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LatwPIAT posted:Ah, so it's a trick-taking game. Hey I like trick-taking games and the fact that they're unfair but it moves around is part of the charm! It leads to cool scenarios where you're in the worst spot at the table but otherwise in the lead and you're just sweating bullets because o god I just need one trick please o no why are my cards coupons for a deli that closed in 1923 ffffffuuuuuuuuck. (But a totally fair criticism.) Leperflesh posted:Thank you, that is fascinating. Also a post that could totally fit in PitR, should you feel like slapping it down over there somewhere. I doubt I ever would. I basically have never played with French cards and it's just something I know from media. Not being a weird hipster about it but I can't suddenly grow up differently and we always played with German cards. I'd feel awkward posting in a forum of people who know a lot about something I've barely ever done. But I hope at least one person inflicts Boemisch on some people.
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Jan 12, 2021 06:42
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LatwPIAT posted:I've had lots of fun playing Hearts with friends and I've had some fun with Skat, but I have a particular loathing in my heart for President, which is just the worst. Here's roughly how it goes. I've never heard of this game, but it sounds like if Dracula sucked all of the fun out of The Great Dalmuti. (Which I won't exactly stan but my family played that with various silly hats and special chairs for the roles so it's waist-deep in nostalgia). So no wonder you hate it. In Watten you can totally get hosed over, but since the deal rotates and how strong the position is is relative to the dealer that means that every round is a whole new ball game. Unless you're like me and have more balls than brains, a usual game goes 8-9 rounds so the dealer role passes around. And you can't be turbo-hosed outside of the aforementioned being bad at bluffing. Also there's a thing that's kind of like Hearts but waaaaaaaaay more complicated that I can't even know if I can spell. Kataraxen? It's kind of like Hearts but the rules on what not to take change every round. I can cover it if there's interest. Xiahou Dun fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 07:30
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I have a very, very, very weird question. So you know how people often ask what games are best to play with kids? I have the exact opposite problem. I've been slowly corrupting my parents up to the point where now they're seasoned board-gamers who chewed through Gloomhaven and all of the Pandemic Legacies like champs. I turned some 60+ year olds into god drat turbo nerds (with the help of my little sister ; with the quarantine we've been getting together and board-gaming/day drinking a lot). Now they want me to run an RPG for them and I'm totally stumped. I'm not worried about the mechanics over-whelming them because, you know, they've played through all of Gloomhaven (although I wouldn't run like D&D or Shadowrun anyway just cause I don't like them), but I am worried about tone and genre. They were fine with Gloomhaven but in general more for the mechanics than the genre. My dad's an old-school sci-fi grog, but my mom isn't really into genre fiction. I'm thinking something PbtA but I can't immediately come up with something that'd appeal to them. They also said they'd be down for Blades but I'm worried that'll either go really well or really badly. tl ; dr : what's a good game for olds?
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Jan 13, 2021 18:43
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The King’s Dilemma is probably my new favorite board game. Just so much hilarious arguments and backstabbing.
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Jan 16, 2021 22:25
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I’m lucky and my bubble plays board games, so we just spent the day drinking wine and mead and arguing medieval politics and holy poo poo it owned. My left hand is actually bruised from high-fiving my little sister since we both picked rear end in a top hat evil houses. “gently caress yeah we’re gonna execute a guy!” We also made Rouladen. It was a good day.
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Jan 17, 2021 00:49
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Yeah sorry you gotta wait, but I'll tell you that the dream is out there and the dream is good. I played it with my 5 person nuclear family (we're nerds, yeah), and as people who already love to bicker and drink and make dumb jokes and bicker and eat food and also bicker, it did everything it said it would. My dad gave me an IOU that said, "I won't give you a noogie," which I then traded to my older sister so she'd vote with me on how to fund a joust. It's that kind of game. That sentence probably should make you decide exactly how you feel about this game.
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Jan 17, 2021 01:52
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Glutes Are Great posted:Hey tg leperflesh reminded me to post here, so uhm how's it hanging with you guys How on earth did you get that reg-date?
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Jan 20, 2021 00:54
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I'm just surprised the forum's software even lets that happen. I wonder if you could have one that's like before the fall of Rome or something. (But seriously, welcome, hoss.)
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Jan 20, 2021 01:14
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Glutes Are Great posted:You won't believe what the forums software let's happen, I mean, we are lucky that this year when updating the copyright date the site didn't go down for another three days Gloomhaven god drat owns, but it's like a full day and it took me most of a day to get all of the bits into some kind of organization. Like, by around 2PM I'd spent so much time putting little things in piles on a table to be bagged that my back started to hurt and I cracked a beer. And deffo get the Gloomhaven Helper app. But the game itself is amazing in terms of a well-designed little beat-em-up dungeon crawler.
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Jan 20, 2021 01:44
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Leperflesh posted:Sweet. I give you permission to randomly append “butts” or something to my posts at your whimsy cause it’s funny. butts -sincerely, dwarf74 Somebody fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Jan 22, 2021 |
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Jan 22, 2021 04:02
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Boba Pearl posted:The best reason to have warforged in any fantasy setting, is to have a villainous bard use their detached skulls to play Prototyperaptor songs while giving all of his minions combat advantage. Hard disagree. The best reason to have war-forged in any given setting is that they're really, really cool.. There doesn't need to be any other justification. butts Somebody fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jan 24, 2021 |
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Jan 24, 2021 02:20
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Countblanc posted:yes i know gnolls are hyenas which are closer to cats than dogs but everoyne plays them like dogs Much closer to mongooses and the like, but we're quibbling at this point. Edit : Leperflesh, did you give me a "BUTTS" redtext? Because that is very funny. butts Somebody fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 01:51
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Blockhouse posted:I really hope that as part of the de-evilifying of D&D races they make gnolls cool again I loving love hyenas If you haven't at least glanced at how they're treated in Spire, you really should. butts
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Jan 25, 2021 02:22
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Plutonis posted:I think removing inherent morality/alignment from D&D races is good but Hyenas are the shitheads of the Savannas. They're actually a pretty loving and affectionate species that gets a bad rap for no reason. They're better than lions at least. Also +5 points for matriarchy.
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Jan 25, 2021 02:40
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Yeah it's one of those weird culturally-ingrown things but hyenas are actually super cool.
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Jan 25, 2021 03:50
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Yawgmoth posted:The most British name ever. I think they might have made it up for comedic effect. But who can tell with them drat tea-sodden football hooligans.
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Jan 25, 2021 04:20
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