Search results

Can’t say this was on my bingo card, no

By these definitions, my games are closer to Lego sandbox. Or, maybe a Lego sandbox within an open sandbox? I don’t actually limit my players to only selecting one of the hooks I offer that lead to prepared content, and even if they take a hook initially, there’s nothing stopping them from...

Physics doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m saying. I don’t care about “emulating disability accurately,” I care about acknowledging that disabilities are disabling. There’s often a tendency to “represent” disabilities in a way that diminishes the ways those disabilities actually hinder...

Then why would you give them blindsight?

Personally, and I know others will feel differently, but making a disability strictly a roleplaying choice with no mechanical impact comes across to me as a kind of erasure. Like, is it really representation of a disability if it isn’t, well, disabling? Not to shame anyone who does want to...

Call me crazy, but I feel like always-on blindsight defeats the entire purpose of playing a “blind” character. I get wanting a feat or fighting style or something that gives you some other advantages to compensate for the disadvantages of the Blinded condition, but I would think part of the fun...

The writing is not up to the quality of the previous games, certainly. Also, the reactionary crowd wildly over exaggerated the game’s shortcomings, to the point that a lot of folks didn’t give it a chance. Both of these things are true. I know the way the internet works discourages...

A lot of games are starting to include them now, which is great!

It has a ton of great accessibility features, for sure, and also hugely customizable difficulty - you can set aspects like enemy aggression, enemy health, enemy damage, the strength of elemental weaknesses and resistances, and even things like the range and duration of the glint on loot and...

I see what you’re saying, in that groups often run 1s and 20s as causing outcomes beyond mere success and failure, which often involve affecting the narrative in ways beyond the direct control of the character performing the action. It’s often not just “you performed this action exceptionally...

Veilguard doesn’t actually have an arachnophobia mode, because it doesn’t have any spiders in it.

Well, the problem with passive checks IMO is that they’re named so poorly, everyone assumes they work in a different way than what the rules actually described, just based on the name - even Jeremy Crawford’s advice on how to use them (specifically, as a floor for the corresponding check) is...

Solid analysis of the illusion rules in both books, I agree with your interpretations. I do have a bit of a nitpick though: D&D is an inherently asymmetrical game, so the rules for how NPCs interact with illusions don’t necessarily need to be the same as those for how PCs do, and in fact I...

I never said you said it was either Ok…? I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.

No, it used to be a pretty specific term before reactionaries co-opted it. Now it’s a dog whistle and a rhetorical tool that is vague by design, because to be specific about what it’s being used to mean would give away the game. Or, rather, it was that until like a year or so ago. The mainstream...

Thank you! I can’t take full credit for it. The phrasing is mine, but I got the idea of “get woke, go broke” as an incantation from a video by the excellent YouTuber Chariot. She does very good media analysis and dissections of the YouTube reactionary grift phenomenon.

That’s because “get woke, go broke” isn’t an observation of an actual pattern; it’s an incantation. It gets chanted with the intent that by repeating it, they will make it true. The neo-gamergate hate mill starts grinding a game as soon as there’s a cinematic trailer for it, as long as said...

Well, no accounting for taste I suppose 😅

Yeah, graphical fidelity is my lowest priority when it comes to what sells me on a game. Nice to have, but never going to be the factor that makes or breaks a sale for me, and I think a lot of players would agree. Unfortunately, it happens to be a factor that is easiest not draw a correlation...

Absolutely. The fact that publishers don’t seem to understand (or maybe don’t want to accept) is that you can’t analyze your way into a successful video game. There is some value in looking at trends and what has performed well or poorly, but there’s no formula that can guarantee a hit, and a...