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It's like that old chestnut about how satire needs clarity of message and purpose, otherwise it's going to be mistaken for what it's satirizing, plus as a game, it also has to be an engaging, otherwise nobody's going to play it. Not necessarily fun, I'd never describe This War of Mine as fun, but it sure as hell is engaging.
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Jul 2, 2022 09:55
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The best way to handle D&D religion, if you insist on keeping Alignment, is clarifying that it's not what the universe objectively declares is Good or Evil, it's specifically the dogma of long-entrenched deities. Law and Chaos, Good and Evil aren't moral stances, they're factions in the gods' stupidly complex game of political chess. Yes, there are ways to use necromancy and the magic of creating undead for benevolent and even moral ends, but it will never be Good, because the Good gods say it skeeves them out. You have a problem with it, argue with Pelor, not me.
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Jul 5, 2022 06:18
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Xander77 posted:Why would you do that? What's the point of keeping Good and Evil, Law and Chaos around, but they're not really good and evil, don't worry about it?!
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Jul 5, 2022 14:28
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What could be said as a "to be fair" is that the prerelease 4e material clearly needed another couple passes in the design stage. I distinctly remember a map including a maze that was just cropped from something else, except in a way where it left the maze without a valid exit. Add that to early monster design being incredibly nonthreatening with about twice as much HP as necessary, and it gave a lot of people who were playing the game they were told to play a bad first impression.
girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Aug 5, 2022 |
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Aug 5, 2022 07:08
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I think where the conflation comes from is people defending Gygax and his politics. They of course also defend the versions of the game closest to his “vision”, but that has no more to do with 3.5e vs. 4e vs. 5e than anything else that makes them scream in fear of change.
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Aug 5, 2022 13:02
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Randalor posted:Do I get turned to salt if I spill my seed upon the ground, or just if I intentionally don't impregnate my dead brother's wife? What's the weapon stats for the tablets of the ten commandments? What bonuses do I get for knowing my own daughters? How sever is the strength penalty for getting a haircut? How many times am I allowed to sacrifice my son for the piety bonus? What kind of bonus modifier does having a Legion of demons inside you give?
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Aug 11, 2022 23:31
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Eh, don't worry about it. This whole conversation's noncanonical anyways.
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Aug 12, 2022 08:13
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Debate & Discussion > Tabletop Games Have Weird Politics: If the players bring about Jesus' death, great!
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Aug 12, 2022 21:47
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Thank you, mods. Good thread title.
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Aug 13, 2022 19:34
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Wanderer posted:and/or were hoping Wizards would drop a check on their heads to shut them up.
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Sep 16, 2022 10:15
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Mind, everything to do with its politics is kinda meant to be a disaster And BattleTech is full to the gills with BOTH kinds. Roadie posted:For those who don't know it, think of Game of Thrones, but with giant robots and without any Starks to serve the role of people you can more-or-less root for without feeling weird.  There have been a few periods where one nation or clan have been Good Guys for a little while, but that was usually because some hack writer at the wheel of the official canon novels wanted to make their job easier, and it only lasted until a different writer got their turn at the wheel. The most common group for this was Clan Wolf, which had this happen so many times with so many different writers who all had different ideas about what made someone The Good Guys that the only prominent aspect of their culture left is their tendency towards sudden and meteoric rises to glory, followed by equally meteoric falls from grace so they can be the scrappy underdogs again.Though in a weird way, the Canopans kind of ended up as, if not good guys, probably-not-too-awful guys because nobody wants to get accused of trying to undo a much-needed retcon. The Magistracy of Canopus started as an incredibly eye-rolling "WOMAN GOOD, MAN BAD" nation written by the kind of men who think feminists are plotting to make them wax their chests and wear chastity cages. Thankfully, someone eventually realized that was incredibly stupid, and they've since been soft retconned into a moderately matriarchal society of liberal hedonists with powerful entertainment and tourism industries but poor-to-mediocre public education. Basically, Space Californians. This maybe kind of sort of makes them not-bad-guys by default, if you squint, if only because they're not important enough to be major players, and nobody wants to open the door to being accused of writing a Cartoonishly Evil Man-Hater in 2022 by introducing a Canopan villain. Edit: They're also The Reasonable Major Power in the HBS Battletech video game, but that game is only very loosely canon and the Canopan's role in it is more to be a 'bigger fish' circling around the edges of the plot, rather than actually getting involved themselves. (Which is hilarious in the context of how minor the Canopans and Taurians are on a galactic scale. But that's a different post.) girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 10:08
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AtomikKrab posted:Canopus is a major periphery power, which compared to many many places in battletech is DOING REALLY GOOD all things considered. its just Major Periphery power is still small small potatoes before the big 5 of the inner sphere Which I guess in this extended metaphor would make the main plot of HBS BTech some kids playing stickball in an empty lot who're equal part excited and terrified because there are some 'actual pro players' watching who might decide to join in. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 11:17
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Josef bugman posted:I do prefer Lancer, where there are still complexities about how the universe works, and people just trying to get by, but there is a large ideological conflict going on. Though I don't think HBS BTech is a worse game for the small scope of its plot. Quite the opposite, really. Rather than try to introduce an entire universe at once, HBS decided to focus in on a digestible and archetypal story, letting the player get introduced to the conceits and tone a little at a time. It served them well with Shadowrun and I think it did the same for Battletech. Because yes, it's a game about a princess in exile and the ragtag mercenaries who joined her cause, fighting against her evil vizier uncle who stole the throne, and on a galactic scale it's basically a couple of kids throwing rocks at each other fighting over their favorite chair. But it's also a game about individuals with their own lives and goals being used to fight a proxy war by powers infinitely their greater, and if that's not a BattleTech story, I don't know what is. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 11:56
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The only difference between pretending your family’s nobility and your family actually being nobility is how long you’ve been able to keep up the shtick.
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Dec 8, 2022 13:17
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Terrible Opinions posted:You can just make a game about being terrorists or revolutionaries. Spire's an unironically really good game.
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Dec 15, 2022 09:49
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Lemniscate Blue posted:It's not universal by any means but it's a handy rule of thumb: If most members are born into it it's a religion. If most members join as adults it's a cult. 
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Aug 10, 2023 07:37
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AtomikKrab posted:We are not adults
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Aug 11, 2023 10:03
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Magnetic North posted:The third category is going to be smaller because plenty of people will just want to remain coy about their ideas to try and avoid offending others, not put themselves on a pedastal, or just to sell as many copies as possible. But I am interested in the ideas that a game can have a political idea. I mean, we've all heard about The Landlord's Game by now. Don't get me wrong, I adore Meltwater and its design is fantastic, but it's also extremely bleak. It's good, absolutely, it's extremely loving good, but I don't know if I could describe it as "fun" in the traditional sense. Engaging? Of course. Well-designed, absolutely. Worth playing, without a doubt. But, is it fun? ...ehhhhhh. (I feel the same way about This War Of Mine, the best game I've ever played and never, ever want to play again, and I’ve heard the board game is the same kind of experience.) girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2023 17:46
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Rappaport posted:Would Twilight Struggle fit into this category? It's a horrifying experience, but extremely well designed for it. And there is politics, sort of.
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Oct 6, 2023 18:00
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Raenir Salazar posted:Ah, I think this was the game! I assume they were inhabited and we as the spirits were like working through our worshippers though. Also my favorite little thing about SI is that there's not really many ways to undo pollution and it's a very common lose condition. You can push the invaders back, drive them into the oceans, send them screaming in terror, but it won't matter if they've done so much damage to your island already that your isolated peoples have just been doomed to a slow death instead of a quick one. It's not quite 100% permanent, there are a handful of ways to push it back and even one spirit who kinda eats pollution, but it feels like there's probably an alternate universe out there where Spirit Island is as unflinching as Meltwater and has an FAQ with 'Q: How do I remove pollution?' 'A: The same way you un-chop down a tree." girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Oct 8, 2023 |
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Oct 8, 2023 00:49
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I suspect it’s going to end up being a standalone expansion or even a full sequel game just because of how much it’s going to change the mechanics. When was the last time a board game did a good job adding a whole new independent faction dynamic after the fact? All I can think of is the Cylon Leaders from the BSG expansions. (I could mention Root but everyone’s independent in that game, so it doesn’t really count.) girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Oct 8, 2023 |
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Oct 8, 2023 03:55
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 00:58 |
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Schwarzwald posted:Orcs are just elves that fight for the other guy. Basically, they were the Resistenza Italiana.
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Oct 19, 2023 18:33
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