T w e n t y S i d e d
Then they will grumble about the threadbare nature of the campaign.
If you prevent them from doing this, they will accuse you of railroading them.
From The Archives:
Dear Hollywood: Do a Mash Reboot
Since we're rebooting everything, MASH will probably come up eventually. Here are some casting suggestions.
The Strange Evolution of OpenGL
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
Silent Hill Origins
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
Push the Button!
Scenes from Half-Life 2:Episode 2, showing Gordon Freeman being a jerk.
MMO Population Problems
Computers keep getting more powerful. So why do the population caps for massively multiplayer games stay about the same?
I actually remember way back in the early D&D editions, they actually had rules and encounter tables for players who just wanted to go romping off the beaten path (like, “OK, you pass into the next hex, which is a forest tile. There is a 30% chance of encounters… Which is confirmed. Now we see WHAT you encountered… 63! You have encountered a band of centaurs that appear to be migrating to their summer hunting grounds. They eye you warily and finger their bows, but do not attack. What do you do?”) This kind of fell by the wayside as D&D evolved into a more story-telling/driven system, but I always kind of appreciate that they thought of ways to cater to players who just wanted to go gallivanting across the countryside and see what lay out there. :)
So basically, a modern dungeon-crawler boardgame…
Nothing wrong with a good dungeon crawl. Can be a really fun play-style if the entire table is OK with the raw combat!
But yeah. It’s a style currently not in favor. Even the PC games don’t do it much. For good and ill, a lot more focus on characters & story.
I just want to say that I’m so glad you’re redoing these comics. They’re just as hilarious now as they were before, and the ones around the end of Two Towers and beginning of Return of the King were some of the best.
Railroad goes ever on and on
To the only place that you can go
If you want to choose another way
You know the answer, it is NO.
When you get right down to it, Middle-Earth is a desolate and empty place overall.
In the story there was a lot of danger in the world that needed heroes or community for safety so not a lot of people braving the wilds. In the real world New Zealand has a lot of places too far from electricity, stores, and cell towers