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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5291757" data-attributes="member: 80487">I agree. Some focus is a good point when starting, and the original D&D game set that up with the (growing) dungeon - base of operations - wilderness (to be explored gradually) arrangement.Characters, including "some major NPCs...  who each have needs and organizations", are in my experience tremendously powerful tools. Establish interesting relationships, and interesting things follow naturally.It almost seems that the more the game allegedly gets concerned with "story", the more it tends toward stilted and straitened and ultimately hollow characterizations. It's as if all the attention goes into plot casings, and whatever scraps of offal may be lying about get forced in to stuff the "story" sausage. The more "organic" evolution of story from particulars of character and place is in my view much more satisfying than a mere run around to collect "plot tokens"./rantHowever,It is also one of the potential weaknesses that this is a skill. Developing a skill tends not to deliver maximal immediate gratification. It is much easier to play a CD than to learn how to play an instrument well enough to be a musician oneself. It is likewise easier to follow very clear-cut instructions, from a plotted scenario to comprehensive mechanics.I have often encountered the opinion that the effort put into making modern computer games like movies is at the expense of developing actual game-play elements. I can see how, even with desire to do more -- the lack of which is probably really key -- it might be easier to attain sophistication in some areas with more "primitive" demands in others. A picture really "worth a thousand words" can take a lot more words to code!Today's 3-d graphics are, I think, as a rule much more advanced over the wire frame graphics of Mercenary (1985) than are options along the lines of how to play off the factions one against another. There's probably an "If cars were like computers" line in there somewhere...</blockquote>

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