Recent content by Celebrim

  1. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    It does and I don't think that is coincidental, but my point is that it manages to speak on the same theme without undermining in anyway what happens in the original trilogy but rather being a complement to it. Whereas the sequels reboot the setting and characters to the state that they were in...
  2. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    Each of the three sequel movies were philosophically different and even at times internally inconsistent owing to the complete lack of planning or coherence in the writing team, but one of the themes developed by 'The Last Jedi' specifically and by the ending of 'Rise of Skywalker' was that...
  3. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    Rogue One hits even harder after watching the two seasons of Andor, and I consider this a mark of good story telling in that you can increase the story without detracting from or harming the story around you. Compare with the sequels and their overtly destructive take on the characters of the...
  4. Celebrim

    Which summer movies are you looking forward most to?

    In its prime, Hollywood used to make 4 or 5 movies a year I enjoyed. Now it's down to zero to one. This year will probably be a zero for me.
  5. Celebrim

    OOTS 1328: Facing Rules

    Bringing Nale back is I think the first big narrative misstep in the OotS. I feel like this final "book" is dragging out too long and the pacing is slowing to a crawl, and Nale already had a story with good closure. Bringing him back feels extraneous as it's time now to be bringing the PC's...
  6. Celebrim

    Do you remember your first RPG purchase?

    First thing I owned was the Basic red box, the first printing. First thing I actually bought with my own money was the 1e AD&D Unearthed Arcana.
  7. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    Wasn't the word I was thinking of.
  8. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    A guy whose story arc begins because he can't follow orders and who spends all of the 1st season breaking the law and refusing to take orders from anyone is the poster child for just following orders?
  9. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    That's not my reading of him at all. Exactly when do we ever see him motivated to "cause others pain"? Syril is a man living a fantasy of being a hero, of doing a good work, of establishing justice, of protecting people. He's not really competent to do that job especially at first, but he...
  10. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    I think that's ridiculous. This was just realization of the advice she gave to Krennic. She knew what the end game was the whole time. She fell apart because Syril fell apart and didn't accept her rationalization of her behavior. Syril, not Deedra, actually believed in the work he was doing...
  11. Celebrim

    Spoilers Star Wars: Andor season 2

    That's my biggest problem with season two. No one really gets narratively satisfying plot arc. A lot of plots literally go nowhere with no indication why this story had been chosen to be told. And many of the characters feel like they are dying for meta reasons rather than reasons driven by...
  12. Celebrim

    Should PCs Be Exceptional?

    Batman's biggest superpower is he was born wealthy, and not just comfortable but preeminently wealthy. That and he apparently has an 18 in every stat. It's not at all clear that you get smarter or stronger just because you want to be smarter or stronger. Maybe a little, but you already had to...
  13. Celebrim

    Should PCs Be Exceptional?

    Well, one answer might be that ability scores don't obey a bell curve in the general population. If there were a general lack of ability scores below 8 in the general population, then it would stand to reason that there would need to be a super abundance of characters with scores only slightly...
  14. Celebrim

    Should PCs Be Exceptional?

    But that's only because Rand doesn't know he can cast "burning hands". The first time Rand crosses blade with in a Heronmark, he levels up to a Heronmark in like 45 seconds just because he always has been, he's just forgotten that he is. The guy starts out, "This guy is a fraud" and before the...
  15. Celebrim

    Should PCs Be Exceptional?

    Rand al'Thor was NEVER normal. Rand just thought he was normal. Rand's story arc is about figuring out just how not normal in any respect he really is - not normal birth, not normal origin, not normal spirit, not normal potential, not normal life, not normal anything.
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