T w e n t y S i d e d
Here is my third and final wrap-up post on the D&D campaign. Hopefully this will answer the last remaining questions anyone might have.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “D&D Campaign: Unanswered Questions”
Sidequesting
(The following is a little gruesome.)
Nilus left a comment here, talking about looting companions after they die when playing a tabletop RPG:
At least in D&D most lootable items are not surgically implanted in the player characters. I remember a Shadowrun game where we spent several hours debating how many times you would have to slam a car trunk in order to decapitate a person with it. This was because the party Decker, who had several million dollars in cyberware in his brain, just died and the rest of the party felt it a waste to let all that expensive equipment get buried with him. Of course no one thought it was a good idea to carry his whole body around and no one had a blade large or sharp enough to cut his head off easily. So thus we used a car trunk.
I’ve never played Shadowrun, but I’ve read Neuromancer and seen a few cyberpunk movies, so I think I get the idea.
Just for fun (fun for me, I don’t know if anyone else will enjoy this) I thought I’d detail how I would handle something like this. This is not to knock on Nilus’ GM – everyone has their own style, and there is no right or wrong way to play this game as long as everyone is having a good time.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sidequesting”
DM of the Rings LII:
I Specialize in Ranger-ing
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When dealing with railroading DM’s, never waste skill points on the tracking skill. If it’s part of the plot, you’ll find it no matter what you roll. If it’s not part of the plot, then it doesn’t exist anyway.
The Real Sixth Sense
On Friday I had an inner-ear infection. I’ve never had one before. I’ve heard people complain about these, but I always figured it was like an earache, only – I dunno – maybe it hurt more or something? Turns out inner ear infections don’t hurt at all. At least mine didn’t.
What happened was that my inner ear (both ears, I guess) stopped working, and I lost all sense of balance. And I do mean ALL.
Every kid has spun around in circles until they were so dizzy they couldn’t stand. This was the same feeling, only it was more intense, and it was constant. It was actually kind of scary, since I couldn’t stand or sit up. I wasn’t sure how long it would last.
The slightest movement would make me nauseous. It was like my ear was telling me I was spinning, but my eyes were telling me I wasn’t. I found that if I lay on my side in the dark and didn’t move, and if I had a fan blowing on me, then I wouldn’t be nauseous. It was like my inner ear was saying, “Hey, we’re spinning!” and because I could feel the moving air and I couldn’t see the room, I could just go with it. “Yup, we’re spinning. Whee.”
It only lasted about 12 or 16 hours. Once I was able to stand up without throwing up it got to be sort of amusing trying to get around the house. I thought, “I don’t need my inner ear. I can just judge balance by looking at the floor.” Sadly, this doesn’t work. I walked in a weaving side-to-side motion, and more than once made a left turn into a wall for no reason.
Which brings me to the following question:
Taste, Touch, Smell, Sight, and Sound. Why isn’t balance included in our list of senses? I promise you, life without balance is more debilitating than life without hearing. It’s way worse than life without smell. I would put balance just behind sight and touch in order of importance.
Flash TD: Analysis
This is getting unhealthy, but here is some more in-depth stuff on the game:
Most of my strategy from yesterday was based on intuition. I decided to run some tests and see if I could prove what I’d been thinking. The very first level is great for running these kinds of tests, so I played the first level several times with differing tower configurations.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Flash TD: Analysis”
Flash TD: Ever-Changing
The author is still mucking about with this game, which keeps changing the highest posible score. While playing today, he added one more level. That means one more level of interest, which can really change your ending score.
For example…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Flash TD: Ever-Changing”
D&D Campaign: Alternate Solutions
I designed the Mordan quest to have multiple possible solutions. Here are the ones I had in mind, and the ones suggested by others, along with my own thoughts on how well they would have worked, and what would have happened.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “D&D Campaign: Alternate Solutions”
From The Archives:
Dead Island
A stream-of-gameplay review of Dead Island. This game is a cavalcade of bugs and bad design choices.
What is Piracy?
It seems like a simple question, but it turns out everyone has a different idea of right and wrong in the digital world.
The Truth About Piracy
What are publishers doing to fight piracy and why is it all wrong?
PC Gaming Golden Age
It's not a legend. It was real. There was a time before DLC. Before DRM. Before crappy ports. It was glorious.
Good to be the King?
Which would you rather be: A king in the middle ages, or a lower-income laborer in the 21st century?
The Terrible New Thing
Fidget spinners are ruining education! We need to... oh, never mind the fad is over. This is not the first time we've had a dumb moral panic.
Self-Balancing Gameplay
There's a wonderful way to balance difficulty in RPGs, and designers try to prevent it. For some reason.
Why Batman Can't Kill
His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.
Patreon!
Why Google sucks, and what made me switch to crowdfunding for this site.
Are Lootboxes Gambling?
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?