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  1. Swanosaurus

    AI/LLMs AI art bans are going to ruin small 3rd party creators

    As far as I am concerned, what's broken is the logic that you have to reproduce the complete production value package of a big company as an indie creator. Do what you're great at, wing the rest or just leave it out if it isn't strictly necessary. Upping the standard to "it must have art that...
  2. Swanosaurus

    D&D Jihad: People Who Are Unwell

    They were calling themselves the Sad Puppies, but Sick Puppies would have been so much more fitting!
  3. Swanosaurus

    Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer

    Jodorowsky could have done it (which doesn't mean that it would have been good, but at least interesting ...).
  4. Swanosaurus

    Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer

    "That chewing gum you like is coming back in style."
  5. Swanosaurus

    Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer

    Yes, that is kind of weird ... what they show in the trailer actually looks more like an "inquel" about the Jihad. Apart from Duncan, there's nothing there that I could place anywhere in Dune: Messiah, let alone Children of Dune. Not sure how much of CoD they will include, anyway. To be honest...
  6. Swanosaurus

    Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer

    Yes, the Duncan clones are actually pretty much the most prominent character(s) of the whole series (occasionally to a bleakly-ironic effect, as in God-Emperor: "Oh, crushed the last Duncan, I guess I'll have to order a new one ...").
  7. Swanosaurus

    Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer

    I can't quite say that I like God-Emperor of Dune (though I'm still not quite sure whether it's deeply homophobic or more kind of well-intentioned, but missing the mark - I'd have to read it again to even get an idea ...). But in terms of imagery, it left an enormous impression with me. and I'd...
  8. Swanosaurus

    Dune: Part Three | Official Teaser Trailer

    Well, at least he will live to a much greater age than his grandfather.
  9. Swanosaurus

    RPG Evolution: Why Paper Beats Pixels

    RE: Creating characters, there's also the question what you actually want to do. I prefer simply playing systems where I enjoy character creation. If we presuppose that everyone is doing character creation with some online tool, anyway, it's no wonder if it becomes bloated. I'd rather have my...
  10. Swanosaurus

    RPG Evolution: Why Paper Beats Pixels

    Well, to look at the upside, that would be the day I could finally stop following new releases and just keep playing happily with my printed books and my phyisical dice and pencils for the rest of me life, knowing that all that other stuff that's going on out there doesn't pertain to me anymore.
  11. Swanosaurus

    What is the single best science fiction novel of all time?

    Don't beat yourself up! It didn't connect with me the first time ... I've read it a total of four times, because I translated it into German (there was an older translation, but they wanted to do a new one, and I got to do it). It took me that many times to really appreciate it, and I only got...
  12. Swanosaurus

    What is the single best science fiction novel of all time?

    Samuel R. Delany, Nova. It's fun, it's intellectually satisfying, it prefigures tons of core concepts of later science fiction, it is supremely well written. I'm not sure if it is my favourite sf novel, but if I have to pick one single best one, it's Nova.
  13. Swanosaurus

    RPGs that you feel trip over their own cool ideas

    To get further sidetrecked: How do people feel about diegetic/extradiegetic metacurrency? Personally, I'm fine with metacurrency (though I prefer if there is only one, in player's hands), but I really don't like it if it's turned into something diegetic. I yet have to so an RPG where this...
  14. Swanosaurus

    Let's Talk About "Intended Playstyle"

    I found myself rotating back to the more "open" games I was used to in the nineties, the ones that didn't got totally overboard with the rules, but strived to provide you with a reasonable list of tools to create all kind of characters and resolve all kinds of adventurous situations within the...
  15. Swanosaurus

    RPGs that you feel trip over their own cool ideas

    That's one that I didn't get on the page, as well. So effectively, you just get a +6 in your primary attributes, right? But instead, they choose to express that as TNs differing between 12 and 18, depending on what you roll, and act as if that would be an innovation that changes everything ...
  16. Swanosaurus

    RPGs that you feel trip over their own cool ideas

    I think there are a few RPGs that come up with a cool, innovative idea that they love, build their system around it ... and then it turns out that while the system is solid, the idea is not so great after all. But they stick to it, because they love it and it's part of their core identity. Now...
  17. Swanosaurus

    Let's Talk About Core Game Mechanics

    Generally, I like roll-under, because it seems most straight-forward to me. My score directly tells me my success range, without any maths. But I am also a big fan of some roll-high-systems, their obvious advantage being exploding dice and how they make things more swingy, because I like swingy...
  18. Swanosaurus

    AI/LLMs Ryan Dancey & AEG Part Ways Following AI Comments

    Actually, that doesn't bother me that much ... they may be rounding errors, but they are there, which is sufficient for me. I'm not bitter about how it all turned out - it's more that the whole "let's see how the market works and do what is required to come out on top" approach is kind of...
  19. Swanosaurus

    AI/LLMs Ryan Dancey & AEG Part Ways Following AI Comments

    I won't claim moral superiority, but once you end up learning several languages - for whatever reason -, you realize how rewarding it is. And the same goes for RPG systems - they do things differently, and like languages, they do illuminate each other. So in the RPG market as well as in the...
  20. Swanosaurus

    AI/LLMs Ryan Dancey & AEG Part Ways Following AI Comments

    Possibly ... I'm in Germany, and I think d20 not had that kind of sway over the market here back then, so I kind of didn'gt really notice it. Actually, now with 5e it's a lot more extreme (also, I'm mainly looking at the English-speaking market these days).
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