T w e n t y S i d e d
Either you give them too much loot, and end up with a bunch of little millionaires running around buying anything that strikes their fancy. Or you give them too little and your poor party is scrounging around the earth for spare copper pieces to restock their food supplies. I’m sure out there somewhere there’s a magical equation to fair loot distribution, but unfortunately nobody at all in the entire world at large has figured it out yet. And perhaps never will.
Civilization VI
I'm a very casual fan of the series, but I gave Civilization VI a look to see what was up with this nuclear war simulator.
Joker's Last Laugh
Did you anticipate the big plot twist of Batman: Arkham City? Here's all the ways the game hid that secret from you while also rubbing your nose in it.
Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels
Deus Ex Mankind Divided was a clumsy, tone-deaf allegory that thought it was clever, and it managed to annoy people of all political stripes.
Silent Hill Turbo HD II
I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
The Gameplay is the Story
Some advice to game developers on how to stop ruining good stories with bad cutscenes.
I don’t know if it is just me, but I can’t see the comic.
It’s not just you. But if you want, the strip is located here: https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/images/DM%20of%20the%20Rings%20Page-78.png
I was wondering whether that was part of the joke. :p
Sorry, filename error. All fixed now! Thanks for the heads up
Hello.
I’ve started to post russian translation for ‘DMotR Remaster’ on comics-centered site: https://acomics.ru/~dm-of-the-rings-remaster/1
I’ve tried to contact you first via website email, but something probably went wrong (got no answer in two weeks), so I’ve just went ahead and released first few pages. The rest will go on twice a week until I make them to ongoing.
And this translation will be tribute not only to Shamus Young, but also to Dusker, who translated ‘DMotR’ and ‘Chainmail Bikini’ to russian back then in 2010–11; Dusker passed away in 2019 due to health issues.
What I always did with my party was give them a lesson in economics. When you come from the dragon’s lair with cart loads of gold, platinum, etc. and inject into a local economy, even a large local economy, the gold quickly loses any sort of meaning as the area experiences explosive inflation, followed by a total economic collapse. To chart a middle course, I allowed them to spend their money at 1 GP for 1 XP rate before arriving in town. (We played 1st Edition. Past about 9th level, it takes over 200,000 XP to gain even a single level in your class.) Most of their gold would be thus spent, and when they arrived in town, they’d have a sensible amount of loot.
By the same token, powerful magical items were not generally available, because nobody had the kind of money to buy magical items, so nobody had a stock to sell. Usually there were some common potions available, a traveling cleric, wizard, or bard might have some spell scrolls to sell, and you might find some +1 weapons (though usually non-magical +1 weapons; just really well made high-quality folded steel.) And you couldn’t sell the magic you found, because nobody had the money to purchase it.
It worked relatively well for us. And I usually fudged the magical loot table rolls to make sure that people in the party could make use of them.