Definitely a well deserved GOTY. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but my friends have been raving about it!

Lots of indie games nominated this year. Really feels like we're in a golden age of indies.

Let me define a campaign as an episodic story with a clear hook, rising action (or actions), climax, and ending. It would ideally be a story that goes for multiple (at least 4 or 5) play sessions so as to distinguish it from a one shot.

How do you, as a DM, develop and run these?

Over the years in my group we've all taken turns running campaigns, one shots, sessions, etc and what's always fascinated me most is how everyone's planning style is so different. Some get into ridiculous detail, while others (guilty...) tend to improv.

Ive been playing nonstop for the past two weeks basically, took last week off work so I could play. Lvl 67 as of this morning and I’m a little behind my clan mates who are 80s pushing 90s

Thoughts in general? Thoughts on salvaging nerf this am?

Haven’t played in years and think it sounds neat? It is. Bond up and play, sailing is a meta skill so you can lvl up while you level up but watch out for random crates of alcohol in the sea cause while you get xp from sampling…. Sometimes they tele you to the abyss cause Jagex is pro troll

While I ate breakfast, I watched a YouTube video speaking to how death becomes an inconvenience in D&D 5e as early as 5th level, despite the amount of weight that people generally put behind it in the moment. Here's a relevant transcript.

Well, the obvious answer to this is to ban the spells that take away the permanence of death; that way there's stakes staying all the way through 20th level. The problem with this answer is that D&D isn't balanced around those spells not existing at later levels.

I love Risk of Rain 2 but my biggest problem with that game is being 30 minutes into a run and getting one-shot, dying, and having to start all over. I couldn't imagine having that same feeling after playing FOUR YEARS in a campaign.

I don't necessarily disagree with the first paragraph, but the second one is wild to me for two reasons.

• First, Risk of Rain is a roguelike whose entire game loop is "do stuff, die, unlock/purchase meta progression, do more stuff, die, etc. etc.".
• Second, the idea that you've been playing four years in a 5e game that's presumably weekly and somehow haven't hit 20th level. For context, 5e wants you hitting 20th level after 36-52 typical 4-hour sessions.

This kind of sentiment really does highlight how distant the way I ran the game those eight years I spent with 5e and how the game wants to be run is to the way people appear to be running the game, and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to square that circle. Not to imply any kind of superiority to it, it just continues to be extremely weird/interesting to me how the culture surrounding D&D is so different from the expectations laid out by the very rules text people don't read.

I dream with a new mainstream handheld console that is neither an extension of a regular console experience, a smartphone, or a wine-powered Linux machine

When I was a kid in Brazil, we had a manga and anime club in my town. It was somewhat official. At our gatherings, there were lots of manga and VHS tapes that we exchanged and duplicated when possible. There were always two or three kids, each with a Nintendo DS. Sometimes more. For us, they were the rich kids. Back in 2005, it was unimaginable for most kids to own a DS, or even a Game Boy for that matter. They connected their devices and played some kind of Pokémon. I pretended I did not care and did not pay them overt attention. My envy knew no bounds.

At least a decate later, when the PSP was already going out of fashion (and was therefore much cheaper), I managed to get a PSP Go. It came fullly cracked with hundreds of games. I loved that cheap little thing. I eventually graduated to a PS Vita, which I believe was the finest piece of hardware I ever had in my hands. But the proprietary memory card was pricey, and so were the games. I didn't have lots to play. It's a bittersweet memory.

Seeing how the Vita became an emulation powerhouse makes me regret selling it.

I never owned a Nintendo DS, but a friend of mine lent me his for several years. I loved that too, but the stylus felt like a gimmick, and I would have gladly swapped it for regular controls. I was not a fan of the dual screens either. But at least it was interesting, you know? They were trying to do something different, and I respected them for that.

Now I have two retro handhelds, the Miyoo Mini Plus and the RG35XX H (Anbernic). Cheap Chinese products, but decent enough. Setting them up correctly was not hard, but it was laborious.

Maybe I am crazy, but I still think handheld consoles could work in the mainstream. It won't happen, of course. But it would be awesome to be excited by hardware once again. Something unique that is not a phone or a way to play Windows games on the go. With games that are developed explicitly for handhelds, with UIs that are adequate for small screens and crazy features that wouldn't make sense in the living room. A sturdy piece of tech that is always there for you, suggesting nothing but escapism.

One can only dream.

Party

• Lee, Grey Elven Fighter 5, Magic-User 5, Thief 5 (~70k XP)
• Moya, Halfling Thief 7 (~47k XP)
• Oryn, High Elven Magic-User 5, Thief 6 (~73k XP)
  • Henchman Takeshi, Human Ranger 4 (~16k XP)
• Varda, Human Cleric 6 dual-classed into Magic-User 6 (~75k XP)
  • Henchman Rudy, Halfling Druid 3, Thief 4 (~12k XP)
• Vordt, Half-Ogre Cleric 4, Fighter 5 (~56k XP)

Looking over their map of the dungeon of the Temple, they realize there's a couple of rooms in the Water Cult's area that they never investigated, so they start by prioritizing those rooms. The first appears to be some kind of salon, for there are themed carpets, draperies, couches, serving dishes, and a... fishy-smelling incense burning. As they turn the room over, they find an embroidered cloak depicting a decapod sewn in with gold thread, among other things.

They entered from the east, and see a door heading south. Entering, they see a bedroom of sorts, with a writing desk, bronze chest, and an ornate trident hanging from the wall with a massive aquamarine set in it. Upon the desk is a tome that appears to be some rituals the Water Temple would engage in. Rudy notices and accidentally triggers a needle trap within the lock of the bronze chest, but is deftly able to avoid it (between being a druid, a halfling, having a ring of protection, and a high Dexterity, Rudy tends to pass poison saves on anything other than a 1). Well worth the risk, however, as in the chest was a coral box containing many small pearls.

Lee lifts the trident from the wall and then believes it to be a good idea to go for a swim. As a matter of fact, he must go submerge himself right now and begins to walk off. The party exchange quick glances and spring into action; Vordt blocks the door with his robust frame as Moya pulls out her rope of entanglement and commands it to hogtie Lee. After some discussion, the party resolves to finish exploring the last couple rooms and then leave to deal with Lee's presumed curse.

Back in the hall outside the first room, they move to the other door across from it, and it's locked. Moya is unable to pick it, but then Rudy comes along and gets it open. Within is a lounge furnished similarly to the salon, though (thankfully, some said) without the incense and with a desk covered in writing materials. They found a hidden compartment in the back of the desk's drawers containing a scroll with three cleric spells on it: resist fire, neutralize poison, and true seeing.

Similar to the salon, there is a door on the southern wall that they enter through, containing another bedroom. Flanking the bed are a couple of chests, which Moya and Rudy work on picking. Moya fails to pick her chest, while Rudy gets through theirs. Within Rudy's chest was a handful of platinum and a vial with liquid labeled as a potion of water breathing with two doses. Oryn attempted the chest Moya failed at, also failing. Rudy, confident in his ability to come in under the other two and succeed in their stead... also failed. Vordt approaches with a crowbar and pries the hinges off. Within are some books and miscellaneous treasure items.

Done exploring the second floor, they leave the Temple and drag Lee back to town to try and fix his curse. Most of the time he's spent tied up he's been begging the party to just let him take a quick swim, and he even suggested a few times they allow him to use the potion of water breathing. They tried a remove curse and dispel magic on him, but neither freed Lee from his compulsion to submerge himself in water, nor were they able to pry the trident from his hands. They try letting him enter a nearby pond and waiting a few moments before levitating him out, but this did not cure him either. Intending to enlist the help of more powerful clerics, the party packs up and gets ready to travel a couple of days to a nearby city; Vordt sits next to a hogtied Lee and begins to read the ritual tome they found in the Temple. By the end of the day, Vordt learned what the trident is, how the curse works, and how to remove it. It is a trident of yearning, and the curse is removed either via wish or by having some effect of water breathing put upon the affected while they are submerged.

The party reverses course back to town and, at about 2200, are standing near the pond, illuminated by many active continual lights. Varda enters the pond with Lee and allows him to submerge himself while supported. Varda quickly administers the potion of water breathing to Lee and then pulls him back above water as Lee roughly tosses the trident away from himself. They retrieve the trident with a grapnel and Rudy spends about a half hour carefully picking and prying at the gem with their tools, avoiding touching the trident itself, until they've pried the gem free. Oryn then tests whether the trident is still cursed. It is. Another dose later, Oryn is also fine. Unsure of how to dispose of the trident safely, they take it to the local temple of Rook (LG deity) and leave it with them.

All of that handled, the party returns to the Temple dungeon, intending to breach the third floor. They work their way down and enter into a room whose entire floor is coated in fertilizer and mushrooms of varying shapes, sizes, and colors. An armor-clad woman immediately calls out that they should stay still and check on their companions, as some of these fungal growths can cause insanity, and she begins making her way through a winding path towards Lee and Vordt, the ones who opened the door. Unbeknownst to them, Lee failed his resistance to charm, as well as the saving throw, against a charm person she wove into her words, though Vordt succeeded against a suggestion. The woman, glowing short sword drawn, attacks Lee from behind and lands a touch across his head, draining a point of Wisdom, breaking the charm on Lee. She then turns to Vordt and does the same, but between Vordt's retaliation and Moya's timely backstab, the true form of the lamia appears dead before them.

This is where we ended the session, with the date now being Rose 24; we'll pick back up there next week. Notable treasure: trident of yearning, potion of water breathing, a cleric scroll, and some miscellaneous high-value items. Gold shares were about 2.5k each.

This post is full of spoilers of Silksong

I’m a married, working person so the time I can allocate for gaming is not much. I’ve been enjoying silksong very much and tried a spoiler free gameplay, having played hollow knight before and knowing how much team cherry loves secrets.

I’ve followed the normal gameflow and beat the boss. After that I wanted to keep playing and following leads I had before the ending.

Investigating missing parts, the boss runback in bilewater destroyed my nerves so I looked up if there was a bench closer to the fight - there had to be one since this was outright ridiculous. Turns out there’s a secret bench that’s so hidden I don’t know if anyone other than the most determined secret hunters could find. The boss was also as hard as it gets, felt kinda unfair.

Looking up bilewater opened a can of worms for me. I kept seeing spoilers and continued looking up info. After a day I found out there are 3 other endings, a whole another act, and bunch of unlockables.

I love when a game doesn’t handhold you and forces you to enjoy it. I get it. But I think this is too much, too obscure. It requires meticulous backtracking and there’s never an indication when you’re capable of taking on a new quest. Finding new items, you don’t know who should it be given to. You don’t even know if there are still areas you haven’t been to.

I guess team cherry wanted the player to have a play log each session and we should’ve kept logs of weird stuff we’ve seen along the way so that we remember to go back. Well, as fun as that might’ve been, I did not keep a log and forgot a lot of early game stuff.

I believe they should’ve prepared a guide themselves, spoiler free, which could include some info the game does not offer so the player can keep unlocking new stuff and would’ve known generally what to expect. Existence of act 3 honestly shocked me, and I don’t think I’m someone who doesn’t pay attention.

In their quest to be anti-handholdy gaming, I believe team cherry went too far. Onerous backtracking and note taking shouldn’t be the solution.

I loved the game and it’s easily GotY for me. I’ll keep playing it even after seeing spoilers but I can feel half the fun being gone now that I’ll just be chasing objectives I’ve seen online. If I hadn’t looked stuff up, I’d have switched to bananza or hades 2.

AD&D 1e the other night. Two sessions being packed into one report.

Party

• Jeff, Half-Elven Druid 6, Fighter 4, Magus 4 (~50k XP)
• Lee, Grey Elven Fighter 5, Magic-User 4, Thief 5 (~46k XP)
• Moya, Halfling Thief 6 (30k XP)
• Oryn, High Elven Magic-User 5, Thief 6 (~58k XP)
  • Henchman Takeshi, Human Ranger 4 (~13k XP)
• Varda, Human Cleric 6 dual-classed into Magic-User 4 (~47k XP)
  • Henchman Rudy, Halfling Druid 2, Thief 3 (~8k XP)
• Vordt, Half-Ogre Cleric 4, Fighter 5 (~38k XP)

The party sets out on the 23rd, arriving at the Temple the night of the 24th. On an impulse, they decide to check out the Elemental Earth's main place of worship. It is a fairly massive room filled with dirt, the center containing a square pyramid with steps leading up to a stone pillar that has bronze manacles attached. As they enter the room, four Earth Elementals appear in the four corners, still and waiting. They discuss a game plan; Lee puts protection from evil on himself and then moves forward to the pyramid. On the other side of it is a stand with a small bronze box. Lee moves in to check the box for traps and the elementals move closer, to the four corners of the pyramid. He proceeds to check the box for traps, finding none, and his spell expires right as the elementals attack.

(1st round) Two are close enough to try and smash him immediately as the others move in, and he takes a heavy blow. Oryn, Moya, and Jeff let off bows and slings while Rudy prepares their staff of slinging to hurl a boulder and Varda prepares to levitate Lee, who is trying to withdraw as Takeshi charges in. Missiles bounce harmlessly off the elementals, though the boulder does a solid chunk of damage to the elemental. Takeshi ends his charge early, opting to keep the ones firing missiles and casting spells safe. Lee backs away, but is followed, and then levitate goes off, lifting Lee ten feet into the air. (2nd round) Oryn begins casting protection from evil on himself, Jeff casts magic missile, Varda lifts Lee another ten feet up, who is trying to cast mirror image on himself, and Rudy throws another boulder. One of the elementals manages to strike Lee, disrupting his spell, but then he is lifted to a safe height. (3rd Round) Oryn rushes towards the box, Lee is levitated a further ten feet, putting him in contact with the ceiling, at which point he maneuvers himself along towards the exit, Rudy throws another boulder, Jeff catches some in a web, and Takeshi begins ushering the other members out of the chamber. Turning their attention towards Oryn, a couple of the elementals try to smash him but are wholly prevented from making contact due to the protection from evil surrounding him. (4th Round) The elementals continue to fruitlessly whale on Oryn as he snatches the box and leaves with the rest of the party; the elementals do not follow beyond the limit of the chamber.

The party casts some curatives on Lee and decide to travel back to the second floor. They encounter some ghouls on their way but quickly dispatch them. They make their way into a large octagonal chamber with exits in each cardinal direction, some crystal braziers hanging from the ceiling, an altar with a crystal bowl and knives, and a shallow pit built almost like an inground pool. After some investigation, they locate a secret door in the southeast corner that they cannot find the mechanism for. Lee opens it with a knock, revealing what appears to be a wraith, but was actually a drelb. Either way, it gets hit with a barrage of magic missile, has amplify damage put upon it, and is put down in the first round. The hidden chamber it was in appeared to be empty, but after some further prodding, they find a loose bit of floor hiding a censer that they later learn is a censer of controlling air elementals. Moya takes the crystal knives and bowl. The party then comes up with a plan to remove the crystal braziers from the ceiling to bring home, albeit one at a time given their size and weight; worth 8k gold each if sold (they were). Though out of reach normally, Oryn having been polymorphed into a gargoyle hybrid by a curse helped out here. After the second brazier is brought out, they rest until dawn to reprepare spells and allow for some of Lee's health to regenerate through a magic item of his. Oryn throws an invisibility, 10' radius on everyone and they re-enter the dungeon.

They eventually find themselves in another chamber with a sheet of crystal embedded into the wall, which lights up to reveal Lawful Good-aligned outsiders that ask some questions about the party's purpose and suggests they leave their magic items near before leaving the room, as these celestials intend to bless the items, but their method will sear flesh and blind eyes; however, this must be done quickly, as their ability to peer through the window is short-lived. Between their own suspicions and Varda's patron tulani whispering in their ear that something seems off, the party moves on.

The party wanders into the living quarters of the Elemental Fire priests; the first thing they run into is a captain with a couple of bugbears, whom they surprised, partially due to the invisibility. Varda targets the captain with levitate and he fails the save, so up he goes. Between the surprise segment and their captain being immediately removed from the fight, the bugbears surrender, but are killed anyways for being bugbears. The captain begs for surrender and is told to drop his weapons. He does so, save for one sword that he claims is a family heirloom. One detect magic later, Rudy notes that his armor, sword, and a rope at his belt are radiating magic, so he's killed and looted. At this point, only Varda, Lee, and Takeshi are visible.

They move on into another chamber where a singular priest is lounging. Varda happens to be wearing older Elemental Fire regalia, so with a positive reaction roll, he considers Varda to be part of the faith, that Lee/Takeshi are his entourage, and has an exchange with him. Varda reveals that the army of Good being gathered some sixty miles away is ready to march and will descend upon the Temple soon, leading him to try and take Varda to the head priest. Before this can happen, however, Moya, Oryn, and others lead an attack on him and are able to cut him down before he can raise the alarm or get a spell off.

They're unable to move into the head priest's quarters without alerting him, however, but this ended up not mattering as initiative dictated the win goes to the party. One bout of looting later, they find a path they think will lead back to an area they've been to before, and lo, it does, albeit straight into the arms of a troll that they... kill quickly. A problem arises, however. They try to burn it, and it's not burning. Quick pat down in a mild panic reveals its wearing a ring. A dirty, filth-encrusted ring, but a ring nonetheless. One good pull later, it's off and they're able to burn it, and then they take their leave to head back to town. They decide to force themselves to march so that they can get back ASAP, and they arrive at dawn on the 27th.

Notable treasure: censer of controlling air elementals, flametongue, ring of fire resistance, rope of entanglement, along with some magic armor, couple scrolls, and another ring. Gold share was about 6k each.

There was a lot of interest in a Retro Video Game Club. I'm thinking it would be cool to get it off the ground!

Use this topic as brainstorming/planning for how we think it should run.

1. We need a facilitator/emcee.

• Is anyone interested in stepping up and running this?

2. We need to figure out logistics.

• Schedule
• Game selection process
• Parameters on what counts as "retro" (if necessary)
• Maybe a name for the club?

3. Anything else?

• Is there anything else we need to consider?

The Party

• Jeff, half-elf Druid 6 / Fighter 4 / Magus 4
• Lee, gray elf Fighter 4 / Magic-User 4 / Thief 5
• Oryn, high elf Magic-User 5 / Thief 6
• Rudy, halfling Druid 2 / Thief 3
• Takeshi, human Ranger 4
• Varda, human Cleric 6 / Magic-User 4
• Vordt, half-ogre Cleric 4 / Fighter 5

Ran the group through some werewolf hunting the other day. Thanks to the local army scouts, they knew where the hideout was; a chapel on a hill in the badlands, about ten miles from town. The party arrives, takes a look in one of the side windows, climbs the bell tower for a vantage point around the thing, including the graveyard and mausoleum, and then pushes their way into the building.

There's no light inside, but Takeshi has a broadsword with continual light on it, as well as a ring that increases the radius of light sources he commands, so the hall and sanctuary ahead are well lit through the 80' of luminescence in his hands. As they enter the sanctuary, three people materialize behind the altar, outlanders in appearance, claiming to be using this building as protection from the elements. Some players noted the lack of a "lived in" feeling here, no bedrolls or typical litter you'd expect of a temporary living space, and these people appeared well-fed and hale. Sensing that the party is about to lash out, the werewolves attack pre-emptively and gain surprise.

(Round 1) Takeshi and Lee ended up targets between these three werewolves. Four more tried to ambush from behind, but Vordt was in the back filling up the hallway, blocking their way. Oryn casts amplify damage at one while Varda fires magic missile and Jeff fills the hallway with web as Takeshi and Lee retaliate in melee; Rudy provides missile support with their sling. (R2) Oryn and Varda wait for an an opportunity to capitalize on while Takeshi and Lee continue trading blows, with Rudy continuing to provide missile support and Jeff casting a magic missile; Vordt is 5' deep in the web begins to leverage his obscene Strength to break free of them. One werewolf lies dead. (R3) Varda continues waiting, confident in their allies' abilities as Oryn charges in, Rudy provides missile support, Jeff supplies another magic missile, Takeshi and Lee continue trading blows with the two remaining werewolves, and Vordt is working himself free of the webs. Three werewolves lie dead.

Over the next couple of minutes, Vordt breaks free from the web. Not wanting to try and jump through windows, the party opts to wait for the spell to expire, as the remaining four werewolves trapped in it yell muffled requests for mercy. Their progress was much slower than Vordt's, and they had to go through 8' of web rather than 5', but after about an hour they'd all suffocated. During the wait, both Takeshi and Lee ate some belladonna to stave off potential infection.

The party finds a trap door to a cellar and checks it out. There's a wight hiding in the shadows, but it doesn't surprise them. It still slaps Lee and eats about 5k XP off his thief levels, but it dies by the end of the first round. In exchange, they found an iron chest, within which was 21k gold, 13 gems, a scroll of protection from magic, dwarf-sized field plate +1, and a pouch of dust of dryness.

Then Takeshi and Lee both vomit up their lunch and pass out on the floor. Lee is no longer breathing. Ingesting belladonna does a few things: (1) small chance of curing lycanthropy if taken quickly after infection, (2) incapacitates you for 1d4 days, (3) has a 1% chance of killing you. Lee is the 1%.

They get both of their bodies and the treasure out and back to town, then broker a deal with the local lordling MU to get Lee poked with a rod of resurrection, which drops him from 20 to 19 Constitution, removing his natural regeneration. Takeshi remains incapacitated for a day and Lee for a week, due to resurrection sickness.

Kingmaker was last night. Some minor spoilers to follow.

Party, Level 3

• Marisiel, Elf Witch
• Nok-Nok, Goblin Rogue
• Linzi, Halfling Bard
• Amiri, Human Barbarian
• Titus, Human Fighter
• Valerie, Human Fighter
• Stik, Kobold Monk

Variants in Play: Ancestry Paragon, Free Archetype, Gradual Ability Boosts, Slow Leveling, Stamina. I also allow Hero Points to adjust the degree of success on a check by one step rather than re-roll; this primarily gets used to either mitigate a crit fail or turn a failure into a success.

Realizing they had just under a week before the Stag Lord's bandits tried to strong-arm Oleg's Trading Post for goods again, the party stopped their trip towards the tatzlwyrm lair and immediately turned around to return to Oleg's to stock up and then head towards the fort.

On the way back, they encountered yet more bandits and, on one evening, an owlbear and its mate. Once at Oleg's, they spent a day turning in their quests and buying some of the goods available at the trading post. When ready, they set out. About twelve miles from the fort, they were about to start cooking dinner when some of the Stag Lord's bandits showed up in a neutral manner, presuming the party to be aspiring recruits. Linzi takes the opportunity to try and get some information out of them by indulging their fantasy.

Titus eventually gets bored and challenges one of the bandits to a duel. The bandit rightfully declines, but Titus begins pushing forward with intent to attack him anyways. Linzi threatened to force him to spend his night in a laughing fit to get him to back off, and he calmed down. Unfortunately, after dinner was taken care of, the bandits took their leave, not wanting to be shanked in the night by the crazy man.

The next morning they stop a few hundred feet from the fort and Marisiel sends her familiar, Youmu, forward to scout the hills since the bandits don't seem to be paying them much mind. Youmu returns shortly and informs Marisiel that something's off about the hill; he suspects undead. Armed with that information, the party decided to waltz up to the front door and just infiltrate by providing the password.

Once inside, introductions are made, stories are shared, and after the party learns that there's a late shipment of alcohol and the Stag Lord loves the stuff, Stik taps into their knowledge of alchemy (via dedication) to create a bottle of booze. The Stag Lord quickly comes out and snatches the bottle before returning to his chamber.

Stik is quickly inducted as the brewmeister, but instead of delivering alcohol to the other bandits, they deliver lightning. In a bottle. One Extreme encounter later (as they triggered the entire compound, including the Stag Lord, and the owlbear was let free at some point), the Stag Lord lies dead on the ground along with most of his lieutenants.

PF2, Kingmaker tonight. Minor spoilers re: names of potential companions and side-quest details.

Party, Level 3

• Marisiel, Elf Witch
• Nok-Nok, Goblin Rogue
• Linzi, Halfling Bard
• Amiri, Human Barbarian
• Titus, Human Fighter
• Valerie, Human Fighter
• Stik, Kobold Monk

Variants in Play: Ancestry Paragon, Free Archetype, Gradual Ability Boosts, Slow Leveling, Stamina. I also allow Hero Points to adjust the degree of success on a check by one step rather than re-roll; this primarily gets used to either mitigate a crit fail or turn a failure into a success.

The group had set out at the end of last session with the intention of picking some radishes and hunting two local monsters of some renown, a boar called Tuskgutter and some tatzlwyrms. Amiri was especially excited about going after Tuskgutter.

They arrive at the radish patch to find four kobolds suffering from The Itis™ that quickly scramble to protect their patch, but the monk eases tensions and ends up receiving an entire basket of the spicy radishes.

They spend a few days following the edge of the forest, crossing a rickety old bridge, disturbing some hunting spiders but dispatching them quickly. One evening, just after a meal, several of the Stag Lord's bandits had managed to sneak up on them, which turned out to be the last thing any of them did. Another afternoon saw Stik, Amiri, and Valerie attacked by thylacines while out foraging for ingredients, but by now they're used to that kind of thing.

They get into the general area of where they expect Tuskgutter's lair to be and spend the day searching for it. They eventually find it and have themselves their third proper Solo encounter since starting the game; I took the base profile for Tuskgutter and scaled it to be a Creature 7, so as to make the anticipation set up by the bounty poster and Amiri's vibrating in place worth it. With some good use of debuffing actions/spells and Hero Points, they take it down within a couple of rounds, albeit Titus did fall to an attack routine. One lesser healing potion and a soothe later, along with a short breather, and he's fine.

Trophy in hand, they make camp. As they're breaking camp in the morning, a hunter approaches the group to warn them of the dangers of Tuskgutter, only to be offered bacon.

Next stop, the tatzlwyrm lair.

Party hit level 3 at the end of the last session. Started tonight's session with an encounter with three hunting spiders (Low threat). Barbarian got inflicted with the poison and managed to stay on stage 3 (2d6 poison, clumsy 2, off-guard) for the majority of the six-round duration, which ran its full course.

Still on the way back to the trading post, they encountered more thylacines (Moderate threat), but they push through that just fine. A wolf approached them as they were walking alongside the great forest and was beckoning them to follow. They did, and were led to a man bleeding out and trapped under a couple of boulders. In the distance they hear crashing and bellowing as something big approaches them. They get the guy out from under the boulder and put an elixir of life in his mouth, which wakes him up. His immediate suspicion of the party allayed, he quickly fills them in on the fact that a troll is approaching and tells them to use fire or acid. Also don't let it get its hands on you.

The fight ended up being a bit of a slaughter due to dice rolls. I kept rolling low, they kept rolling high, so the troll went down at the very end of the second round despite being Creature 6. They nab the cold iron kukri and +1 light hammer from the troll's sack, and the man, a ranger, accompanies them back to the trading post.

They spend a week here doing various things; retraining, crafting, Earning Income. At the end of the week, they get their 70 gold reward from the quests they turned in, as well as the +1 striking bastard sword they'd ordered from a relatively distant city.

After spending some time going over their plans going forward, such as what quests to tackle, they head southwest to pick some radishes for the wife of the tradesman. We ended the session after wrapping up a bandit encounter during the camping portion of the day.

The party tonight consisted of

• Jeff, half-elf Druid 5 / Fighter 3 / Magus* 4
• Lee, gray elf Fighter 4 / Magic-User 4 / Thief 5
• Oryn, high elf Magic-User 5 / Thief 6
  • Henchman Takeshi, human Ranger 4
• Varda, human dual-class** Cleric 6 -> Magic-User 3
  • Henchman Rudy, halfling Druid 2 / Thief 3
• Vordt, half-ogre Cleric 4 / Fighter 4
  *Magus is a custom subclass of Magic-User I created.
  **Varda intends to become an occultist, another custom class of mine; becoming one functions similarly to bard, where you begin as Cleric, transition to Magic-User, and then finally become a proper occultist.

To recap the prior session, the party went into the dungeon again and explored a new direction, finding a long hallway with bas reliefs in brass decorating the walls. Behind a set of brass double-doors was a 90' by 40' chamber with four major points of interest.

• An oblong, 4' tall x 10' wide altar with a basin filled with water and treasure.
• A fountain streaming endless water without overflowing.
• Four pillars with gargoyles atop them, unmoving.
• A drape along the south wall covering something.
  After a cursory search, Rudy set to looting the basin, which triggered the entire altar to begin rolling forward and the marine life carved into it to animate. Rudy jumped out of the way as several combatants closed in. Many attacks and spells were slung its way, and it lashed out with teeth, tentacles, and pincers as it slowly rolled to face individual combatants. As Lee was caught by the fury of the altar, the gargoyles animated and began flying in to harass the party. Though the altar was defeated, the gargoyles seemed keen on taking Takeshi out, as by the end of that round he is bleeding on the floor. Varda then invokes a chant and uses a limited wish to revive Lee and transport everyone to a safe location. As everyone blinked, they found themselves in the domicile of the two old clerics hiding out in Woodpine, sage and incense filling their noses rather than the brine of the altar chamber.

They spend a week licking their wounds and allowing the clerics to tend to them, then set out again. Oryn casts invisbility, 10' radius on the party as they leave town and travel to the Temple dungeon. They work their way back to the altar room and have an easier time clearing out the gargoyles, afterwards noticing that these appear to be zombies wearing cloaks. All but one of the cloaks were too damaged to be of any use or value, so they remove the one and continue on.

They enter a room whose main attraction is a pool with a triton in it. The triton telepathically connects with the party and pleads for assistance before a kraken is summoned through his sacrifice and they all die. Varda, through knowledge granted by their patron, is slowly becoming suspect of the situation. The triton pleads individually with several party members, attempting to suggest they enter the pool and remove his chains, unbeknownst to them; I am rolling their saves in secret and they're passing them. Lee attempts to shoot it with an arrow, and the arrow dissolves before reaching the triton.

Finally, its gaze meets with Vordt's, who was ready to leave, and he fails the save. Vordt begins removing his armor to jump into the pool. Lee (4'9" 191 lbs accounting for gear) attempts to stop Vordt (7'8" 441 lbs accounts for gear) via grappling. He gets a lucky waist cinch that is immediately broken by Vordt as he lands a knee to Lee's jaw, dealing a staggering 11 points of subdual damage to him, but he takes it like a champ as he sits out, stunned from the blow.

Jeff casts web in a wall between Vordt and the pool as they figure out how best to handle him as Oryn and Takeshi move to open the door behind them. Varda, in a desperate attempt to save Vordt, utilizes a clerical dispel magic and fails to remove the charm from Vordt. Varda then utilizes their anything item to turn it into a rope of entanglement, which then hogties Vordt.

The party drags Vordt out of the dungeon safely and regains his senses the following day, shortly before the rope returns to its original form, t hen makes the several-day journey back to town to split the loot. Varda will receive no XP this go around, but the gems the party found elsewhere amounted to the PC shares totalling about 3700 gold each. Oh, and Oryn is now partially gargoyle, as they put on that cloak I mentioned earlier and then took it off.

I don't have a pulse on this like I used to, but are there still big new arcade games being developed and made?

If I went to an arcade, could I play new stuff from the past few years, or is it going to be primarily old cabinets that have been maintained?

How many arcades are still out there anyway? Have they been able to survive against the widespread proliferation of consoles, phone gaming, home VR, etc.?

I'm curious as to whether arcade gaming is still alive or if it's a dead or dying art.

I'm in the planning stages of a custom setting for a new campaign I'm aiming to start next year with my current table. We're doing PF2's Kingmaker and AD&D's Temple of Elemental Evil in the meantime.

The game is to be Viking themed, in that the starting locale and civilization will be structured in similar ways to the coastal Scandinavian settlements and there will be an on/off season. During the on season, they will board boats and sail many hundreds of miles across water to distant lands to find dungeons and ruins to loot, with a clock they have to keep an eye on; the expedition can only afford to be out for so long, and they need to ultimately make a profit. During the off season, they will be home and can spend time locally engaging in low-tier politics, explore the untamed parts of the continent, or both.

I'm intending for gods to play a more concrete and available part in this game and have been chewing on how best to represent that mechanically. I discovered that one of D&D 5e's supplements for a Magic: The Gathering setting, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, does something similar and has mechanics for tracking Piety with a given deity, which comes with boons at specific breakpoints. I liked the idea, though I'd be making my own boons for my pantheon rather than use these as-is, especially since I wouldn't be running this game in 5e, but rather in AD&D 1e.

I have a group chat with a few of my players that I can trust for this kind of thing to bounce ideas off of for various things, so I put this forth to them and got their thoughts. They universally thought the example boons from 5e were too personal and individual for the kind of stuff Norse gods would get up to, and there wasn't really a way to track a given deity's disdain of you in a similar manner. They also didn't like that you could track the Piety with a discrete score and could reliably measure when your next boon would be.

What we settled on doing is utilizing my custom tarot effects we're already doing in my regular AD&D campaign, but having it apply in certain regions or during certain stretches of adventure. This would allow for randomly coming across an avatar of a god and earning a minor boon or bane for assisting or denying them.

Hi everyone - we're closing in on the end of the tournament with only 4 games left. Questions for discussion:

• Did you make a bracket with Riot's Pick'Em?
  • If you did, how's your bracket looking?
• What games have you watched?
  • Which games have surprised you most?
• Are you enjoying the Fearless Drafts? (For those curious, Riot updated how teams draft during each Best of 5. After a champ has been played, it's banned for the remaining Bo5.)
• What team(s) are you cheering for?

Tonight is

If you haven't been keeping up, now is the perfect time to jump in if you enjoy watching pro-play League of Legends. The vods from previous games are available on Youtube (and I assume Twitch but I haven't checked). I don't really play much league, but watching is very fun with friends and we've been having nightly hang-outs on Discord to watch together.

I'm embarking on a new phase in my life and am frankly pretty darned excited about it. My only child is off in college now and I find myself with extra time I didn't used to have. As such, some younger friends of mine have been reaching out and asking me to join them for "shenanigans" in the form of online video games. Mind you, I haven't played games since the mid 90s, so while this sounds exciting, it also is quite intimidating.

So far I have gotten my hands on a ROG Ally X. It's a nifty looking handheld that I have been assured would allow me to play a lot of the games my buddies play, but my eyes aren't what they used to be and the screen, however nice, isn't quite big enough for my needs.

Time to get a dock!

I was able to find a one for this thing, which is very cool, but now I'm thinking I'm going to drive my wife crazy shouting at the device to talk to my buddies. I assume I need a decent headset, but which one? These things seem to run the range in prices. Do I need it to be wireless?

Also, I'm guessing it would be good to have some sort of controller so I'm not on top of the screen, again, what fits the middle of the road? Cordless? Do I want a trackpad? Is that even a thing?

I am overloaded with options.

Basically, I'm a dad who has discovered he has a lot more time on his hands than he expected and good (and patient) friends who want to spend time with him, but I'm way out of my depth trying to plot a modest path forward (without spending silly money).

Anyway, thanks for making an old guy coming to the hobby feel welcome!

Back in January I was tasked by my brother in law to create a murder mystery parlor game during our family reunion in an Irish castle. Well we just got back last night, and it ended up being one of the most fun vacations of my life.

This is a family of social over-achievers. Super engaged professionals and executives and teachers. A dozen of them would stay up every night drinking and laughing til 2am, sleep 5 hours, then do it all over again. I have trouble keeping up, so I'm glad the game I designed happened on one of the first nights. At first, the mastermind behind this whole trip only gave me 90 minutes for the middle of the day but he lost control of the schedule and I got my three hours in the dark as is proper for a game like this.

All 21 players absolutely committed, bringing vintage costumes and props across the Atlantic for this one night. I created a deck of character cards for each of them, as well as a number of other special prop and event cards, and as they were all getting dressed I texted them their roles.

This was the first hangup. The castle had very poor cell and wifi reception so the texts didn't go through. But all 22 of us had iPhones so I ended up AirDropping everyone's character and gave them personal, private notes. I wouldn't mention the tech glitch otherwise, but this absolutely changed my own strategy as the dead victim, Lord Reginald Springfield. I thought I would be in a kind of control room with my laptop receiving texts from the butler or others when they found certain props. But because they couldn't communicate like that, I had to shadow them through the rooms and sprint like the devil in anticipation of their next moves to certain parts of the castle and its grounds.

Having never done this, and certainly not at this scale, I was surprised by several of their own strategies. At the outset, the butler convened (most of) the group and announced the reading of the will. Then the cops showed up to tell everyone the will was missing, Lord Springfield was poisoned and dead in bed, and that they were all suspects. The Inspector and Constable then began interviewing the subjects one by one.

I'm aware that normal police procedure is to isolate suspects for interviews, specifically to compare notes and find the lies afterward. But I didn't think these two players were aware of that. Turned out I was wrong. Instead of interviewing everyone in front of each other, they squirreled each suspect away and gave them the business, taking copious notes that they shared with no one.

Taking their own cues from this, when the suspects began making their own conjectures and discovering clues, they shared them with absolutely no one unless forced. It was perfect game theory. I just didn't expect these competitive bastards to be so very competitive. It was fantastic. The chaos agents played their parts beautifully, muddying the waters, and the spiritualists spent all their time trying to find all seven of their number to convene a seance. Once they did, I raced into my room and put on a long white nightgown and drew a kind of kabuki corpse makeup on my face. They were racing around in the courtyard outside in the last of the sun and I tap...tap...tapped on the window until one of them saw me, an apparition in a castle window. Classic imagery. She pointed and screamed.

All seven spiritualists (except for the devilish Colonel, who only pretended to be one so he could eavesdrop on the seance) piled into the parlor and held hands. I started walking down the upstairs hall toward them moaning a very haunting melody line from an early Frank Zappa album over and over, then entered the parlor. They said their hair stood on end lol. I whispered my answers then disappeared and later, my widow Lady Eleanor found the burned note in the fireplace of that room.

Tremendous dramatic moment here: That's the note that revealed I wrote them all out of the will and left the entire estate to Madame DuBois. But Eleanor of all people found it and you could see her internal torment. Then she turned away from them all and didn't share it. For nearly another hour they labored to puzzle out the clues while she acted out very well the utter destruction of her life. Absolutely choice stuff.

The twist I had planned is that most of the clues pointed toward Vicar Atkinson and he himself only knew that he blacked out after an argument with the victim. So his card tells him that he is almost certainly guilty and if they accused him, to flee. The line of his card at the end is my personal favorite: But if they actually do accuse you, your only chance is to run. That Inspector is old and the Constable is a woman. How fast can she be? I don't think that Tyler (the vicar) knew that his west coast cousin Lena (Constable Wright) was a huge track star, 100 meters champion, crowned fastest girl in San Francisco two years in a row. I wanted to see her run his ass down like The Flash.

But alas, the real murderer, Hanne (Ingrid) is from Hamburg, Germany and although her card told her she had poisoned the victim while leaving no clues, and that all she had to do was keep a poker face and she was in the clear, she simply couldn't do it. Asking a proper German hausfrau to lie to the police, even in a FUCKING GAME, was too stressful for her and she broke down and confessed the entire thing. I'd hoped to finish this neat and tidy Agatha Christie affair with an accusation and arrest of the vicar, delighted by the idea that justice was NOT served and the wrong man was convicted. Very post-modern take on the whole thing. Two days later I shared all my notes as planned and that was when I'd expected them to realize they'd let the real killer slip away... But never count on duplicity from a Teutonic mind.

We took antique photos of everyone's insane costumes which I can't share for privacy. But they were perfect. It was an absolute smash hit, with people spending the rest of the week recounting the plots and sub-plots and attacking each other in character. The next night was a family trivia night. The following night was a filming of two musical scenes from Rocky Horror. The following night we rented a traditional Irish band and they gave us a concert in the 15th century hall. We took day trips to Dingle and Limerick and Cork and I hiked and biked and two days ago I was swimming in the Shannon River outside Killaloe.

An excellent trip all around. Thanks for reading. Happy to answer any and all questions and yeah now I guess I have a side hustle as a murder mystery game designer if anyone needs me.

I’m starting a new 5e campaign with some friends, and I think I have some performance anxiety. I’m not the most creative person, and the last thing I want to do is kill the fun. The only other time I've played a ttrpg was years ago in high school.

I’m curious what you all have found detracts from a session as well as any advice that enhances the experience for everyone.

I sometimes feel like I am the only person who loses interest in a video game as soon as I have to spend any amount of time consulting an online guide or wiki to figure out how to progress.

Maybe it’s because I grew up playing games like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, along with their equivalents and sequels on the Gamecube, and later the Wii. I got either to 100% completion or close to on those, without getting any outside help.

The games themselves made it very clear what the objectives were and what collectibles and unlockables were available.

But at some point in recent years, it just became impossible to play a video game without having to consult a guide or a wiki to figure out not just how to progress in it, but sometimes even how to play it. 💀

And a good year ago or so, I began to subconsciously fight against this, because it annoyed me to no end. I began to just take breaks from a game if I couldn’t figure out how to progress, rather than go online and read some guide or wiki, because it was making me feel like I was wasting my time reading about the game, rather than just playing it, taking me out of the immersion in the process.

You know what? I’m making this a resolution. If I can’t figure out how to progress in a game on my own, then I just won’t. I’ll go play something else.

I have recently played some indie games where I needed zero assistance, and boy did it feel good to figure those games out on my own. Those are the best games (for me), games that “explain themselves”.

Anyone else feel similarly?

Tangentially related side note: I hate, hate, hate “Fandom” wikis. They’re probably a big part of the reason why I began to hate consulting online guides. They’re impossible to navigate, are riddled with ads, and link to unrelated content, everywhere on their pages. There is a good alternative to these for some Nintendo franchises, which are independent wikis, in case anyone is as frustrated by the Fandom slop as I am.

I've been deep in learning how to rewire sections of my house, trying to understand the logic behind my older (1950s-era) electrical system. In the process, I came across a free game on Steam called Wired developed by the University of Cambridge's Engineering Department. It's a puzzle game that gradually introduces core concepts in circuitry and logical flow. It doesn't replace proper training, but it is an engaging supplement compared to reading electrical code books.

But anyways, I though I would ask about games that don't just entertain but also teach. Not strictly edutainment in the shallow sense, but games that impart understanding, intuition, or practical knowledge through their mechanics.

What are some games you've played that taught you something substantial? I'm thinking anything from real world skills, conceptual insights, functional knowledge, or anything that stuck with you after playing.

Inspired by my long-ago try at Witcher 3, during which I died in the tutorial by falling off a platform. Yeah, definitely one of the lamest deaths possible. Gotta wonder what the others present thought about the legendary Geralt of Rivia dying from a simple fall, like geez isn't this guy supposed to be a living legend who's faced giant monsters that could fell armies?? I'm pretty sure the tutorial was a dream of a memory so his death didn't matter, but since then I've wondered:

How screwed would various video game worlds be if the hero dies during the tutorial of all things?

Figured this might be a fun question to ponder since there's so many possibilities. So think of any game with a tutorial where you can die, and then think about the consequences! Maybe you did die, maybe you didn't or came close. And maybe those potential deaths were super lame and super anticlimactic, leaving the other characters to just stare blankly because this guy casually walked right off a cliff, as if expecting some invisible barrier to stop them.

It's just fun to think of how the rest of the cast moves on without the protagonist—you know, assuming they can actually survive the game's plot without you. Or maybe they'll actually be better off...

Everyone, proud to announce that after a week and nine hours the tildes archipelago is complete as of 6:51 AM ET! We, astoundingly, had only one release due to excessive backtracking and only one technical DNF out of sixteen games. (As a first-time host I'll take that as a win!) Otherwise two Radiances and the Hollow Knight said good night, the Ender Dragon ended, the Spire was (mostly) Slayed, Red ...'d, Bowser blasted big, Ganon's gone, Ganon's gone again, Rogues Legacied, John Darksoul prevailed, Doomguy doomed all over the place, and... Poker. Also we found that last strawberry. Jesus.

Big thanks to everyone who participated and hope you had fun! I'm thinking I'll throw a sign-up thread in a month or two to gather YAMLs and we'll trek through it again. Definitely excited to try some new games!

_{(FAQ for those out of the loop)}

How do my fellow KH fans on tildes feel? I'm honestly kind of relieved. Gacha is an inherently predatory business model, and the game by all accounts was extremely unfun. It's still the first KH game to be outright cancelled mid development, so I'm still worried about what this means for the series.

I'm hoping that the devs never return to the mobile space.

I'm in the planning stages of a Viking-themed game I'll be running sometime next year, and I'm noticing a nice little progression in the armor types that ends with chain mail. When combined with a silver-based economy that cares more about the weight of the silver over the number of coins you have, that puts a lot of emphasis on looking towards magic for your better AC values, as armor will generally be more expensive and the (typically) highest tiers of armor--namely, plate mail, but also things like splint and banded mails--are simply unavailable for sale or amongst the majority of the enemies you might face.

That magic will most commonly be from the runecaster, probably, since there's a rune available that can be worn like a necklace and improve AC, as well as another that can reduce damage taken. Magic armor will still be--likely even moreso--coveted and sought out by the players.

A PC with average Dexterity can reasonably hit AC 3 (or AC 17 if you're used to ascending values); this assumes chain mail, shield, and a protection rune. Normally AC 3 (banded mail and a shield) is the best a starting PC (with no adjustment from Dex) can hope for in a traditional game.

I just got back from the 'Nintendo Switch 2 Experience', so I though I'd share my thoughts on the console for those who didn't/won't get a chance to check it out.

The Console Itself - 8/10

The S2 is a decent amount larger than the original, which really helps with the ergonomics. Pretty much all the controls are bigger, and the rounder shape might alleviate fatigue when holding it (I never got to hold it for long, the demos were mostly on TVs). I think it looks a lot worse than the original, but that's neither here nor there. The pro controller was a huge upgrade from the (already great) original, super comfortable materials and nice buttons. The screen is not OLED, which I think is ridiculous for the price tag. It theoretically has HDR, but I could not tell. Overall, it's bigger and better, but nothing super special.

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour - 0/10

For the price of $10, Welcome Tour is a complete joke. There's absolutely nothing to say about it, it's basically an ad for hardware you'll already own. Should be free, don't buy it.

Donkey Kong Bananza - 5/10

This is the Mario Odyssey formula applied to Donkey Kong, you run around, collect bananas in some semi-open worlds. All the environments are destructible, which is super fun but adds one huge caveat: the game runs like shit. A nice 60fps when running around, but as soon as you try smashing stuff (the main gimmick of the game) the framerate jumps all over the place, and going to the world map tanks the fps to 20-30. I enjoyed surfing on chunks of the ground I pulled up, but I was constantly pulled out of the fun by performance hiccups. It looked about as good as Mario Odyssey (but at native 4k ~60pfs, of course).

Mario Kart World - 9/10

Okay, now I can start saying nice things! Mario Kart World is–as you might expect–awesome. It's a really fun twist on the formula that was perfected in 8 Deluxe. There's no more kart customisation, which I don't mind, but each kart looks really nice and detailed. I got a slight taste of free-roam mode before each knockout tour I played, and it was... fine? The open world looks great and plays well, but I'm curious to see how it's "gamified". The knockout tour was the main booth on the floor, with 24 people playing at once with the last placing racers getting eliminated at different checkpoints. It was chaos, but that classic Mario Kart chaos that works really well. I managed to come 2nd on my first race. It looks quite a lot better than 8 Deluxe, but that's mostly in the art style and animations.

Drag X Drive - 9/10

This is the gimmicky competitive game for this system (like Arms or Splatoon), showing off the mouse controls in the form of Wheelchair Basketball. I was super surprised by this game, the gimmick clicked with me instantly. I got dunked on like twice, but I also only had 5 minutes to prepare, so cut me some slack!

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - 7/10

Again, the mouse controls work super well. It all felt pretty simple and intuitive, but that might be because I'm a PC player most of the time anyway. I don't know anything about the Metroid series, so I can't comment on the story or gameplay beyond that. It looked pretty good and ran at (I think) the full 120FPS the whole time.

Cyberpunk 2077 - 4/10

Cyberpunk was... rough. It had that classic "really really upscaled" look, and dipped down to 10fps a lot in combat. I tried both "performance" and "quality" mode, but both looked and played about the same (which might be a bug).

Breath of the Wild: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - 2/10

I can't believe they're charging for this. It's literally just the original game running at 60fps with slightly better draw distances. You can get this look with CEMU. This is how I felt about all the "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" games that I tried.

Conclusion

While the games were pretty good and the experience was nice, I don't think the console has justified itself costing as much as it does, and so I'm not going to buy it on launch. I'll probably pick it up used when there's a reliable jailbreak, but the preview event really dissolved any feelings of FOMO that I might have had about it, which I'm glad about because now I can save that $800! I hope there's still people playing Drag x Drive when I get to it in a few years.

Feel free to ask me any questions, and hopefully I can answer them.

Hello tilderunners! Apologies for the delay on this thread, I was out of town and realized I hadn't posted last week. I'm posting to collect everyone's YAML for their intended Archipelago run and confirm if we have enough people to go.

For anyone out of the know, Archipelago is a large multiworld randomizer across multiple games. I made an FAQ over here with some details and info. If it sounds vaguely interesting, don't be intimidated and come on in! It's as crazy as it sounds, but not nearly as hard as you think it'll be.

Let's put a hard cutoff of 9 PM ET on the night of Thursday, May 8th to post your YAML(s) in this thread. The YAMLs have to bake in at the beginning - we can't add you later! So please try to get them in then, or let me know if you'll be a bit late so we can push the start a little bit. If a majority of people cannot make the Thursday night time, I can push the date, so please let me know - I'm thinking if we hit ~7 YAMLs posted and ready for the start time we'll go. There are often a lot of checks at the beginning, so it's typically best to be around for the start to be around for the opening chaos. It's still asynchronous, though - if you can start playing within the first 24 hours, that should be fine!

I'm not sure what the best way to attach the YAML would be, so I'm going to suggest posting a spoilered code block that I can throw into a text file. If anyone has a better idea, please throw it in here. I've also thrown a discord server together if you want to join and stream or chat while you play! Technically I've got a separate emojis one with Nitro if that's better for the audio quality boost, but this might be fine for now.

Message for Deimos or anyone else on Tildes development

I'm putting this here after writing the rest of my post, but could we please get an "expand edit window" option, unless there is one and I'm blind? The preview window's great but the edit window's locked to 6 lines and I would appreciate some more since it would make editing a long post like this much easier. Thanks.

The actual post

There has been a lot of gaming buzz regarding extraction shooters as of late, with the closed alpha of Bungie's Marathon currently underway, the second tech test of Embark Studio's ARC Raiders starting just now, and the recent news of the cancellation of a Titanfall extraction shooter from EA/Respawn. As someone who's played and enjoyed extraction shooters before I've been following these and observing the discourse surrounding them (except the Titanfall one, I didn't even know that was a thing til the news of its cancellation) and I've been somewhat dismayed to see a lot of confusion, mixed messaging, and general disdain for the genre. So I've decided to put my own thoughts and definitions of it down here, and clear up the most common misconceptions or falsehoods I've seen repeated ad nauseam elsewhere.

A brief introduction to extraction shooters

First off, what IS an extraction shooter, what makes it different from other shooters, notably battle royales, and which games qualify as extraction shooters? An extraction shooter, as its core gameplay loop, is a shooter where you enter a map with loot and AI enemies scattered about, and the goal is to gather loot and extract from the map with it. However, you need to get out alive - should you die, you will lose everything (with some exceptions) in your inventory, including the gear you went in with. On top of that, the most popular and successful extraction shooters are PvEvP - you will be competing with other real players for loot, and taking loot off their bodies can be just as profitable if not more so than taking it from PvE enemies. It is optional though, and it is entirely viable to play as a "rat", sneaking around and gathering loot without drawing attention and extracting without anyone noticing.

Not a battle royale

Extraction shooters are also frequently confused with battle royales as both games have players inserted into a PvP map where they scavenge gear. However, the similarities more or less end there. With battle royales, you do not risk losing your items on death as all players are dropped in with nothing and don't have a stash to draw from or store items in, so any "loot" found is merely a means of securing victory for the current round. PvP is also mandatory, as the goal is not to get loot but to be the last team/person standing. To facilitate this in a timely manner, battle royales have a shrinking map mechanic that forces the remaining players into a smaller playable area as time goes on to force them into a confrontation. Extraction shooters do not force PvP or have shrinking maps but do have their own ways of drawing players towards each other, through loot-rich points of interest and extraction zones. Some parts of the map will have greater quality and/or quantity of loot, which will naturally draw players in, and there are a few designated areas where you can actually leave with your loot which will also increase your odds of encountering other players either trying to take your loot before you can leave, or trying to leave themselves. Because it is not forced though, PvP encounters are a much more unpredictable and organic experience in extraction shooters.

What extraction shooters are out there?

So which games count as extraction shooters? The current leaders in the genre, which also happen to be some of the longest-lasting ones, are Escape From Tarkov (EFT) and Hunt: Showdown. EFT is a rather hardcore modern military FPS with a heavy focus on realism - guns are extremely customizable, ammo types and armor can make a huge difference, bullets are extremely lethal even from AI enemies, and a good headshot will drop even the most geared and armored player so there's always risk. It has a cult following but its hardcore emphasis makes it unapproachable for most. It also has periodic progression wipes where players have to start over from scratch to keep things fresh and more fair for newcomers, but is a major turnoff for players that don't like to lose what they've earned. Hunt is an FPS set at the end of the 19th century with a bit of dark magic/voodoo theme. Guns are reflective of the times and rather limited in terms of rate of fire and reload speed, which results in more drawn-out firefights where every bullet counts. For each round, the focus isn't to get loot around the map but rather to track and hunt down a bounty boss monster, then extract with that bounty. These two games are what will come to mind first when extraction shooters are mentioned, EFT more so.

I won't go over cancelled (Titanfall), discontinued (The Cycle: Frontier), or side game-mode (The Division's dark zone/survival) extraction shooters here, which is basically almost all of them sadly, so I'll talk about the two biggest up-and-coming ones instead, Marathon and ARC Raiders.

Marathon and the surrounding controversy

Marathon is a sci-fi FPS that uses the lore of Bungie's Marathon trilogy from the 90's as its setting. You play as a "runner" in a robotic shell scavenging the remains of the colony on Tau Ceti IV for scrap to fulfill contracts for the megacorporations involved in the colony's development who now seek to find out what went wrong. It checks the usual boxes for an extraction shooter - you go in with your own loadout, scavenge at points of interest to fill your limited inventory, defeat PvE enemies and other runners for loot opportunities, and try to extract alive before time's up. There are a couple things of note that have resulted in mixed opinions:

• The art direction for runners, gear, and architecture is a sort of mass-produced, neon-colored, smoothed plastic, blocky style, which is a "love it or hate it" kind of thing.
• The gunplay is very similar to that of Destiny, Bungie's last game, which in my opinion is very solid. However, they did make the decision to have mouse magnetism enabled for PC (your cursor will magnetize to targets) to give it more parity with console players, and that has been very unpopular.
• The only queueing option is teams of 3 and the devs have stood their ground on not having a solo or duo player queue, which is a turn-off for players that prefer solo, or don't want to play with randoms and don't have 2 friends to play with.
• Players do not have full customization of their runners but must choose from 6 runner archetypes that have a set of abilities and a specific look, which can be partially changed with a skin. This is also largely unpopular, as Bungie's past titles have featured high levels of cosmetic customization and this feels largely restrictive and monetization-focused instead.
• There is no option for proximity voice chat, which the devs have said was excluded to protect players from toxicity. This has also proved to be very unpopular.
• It will have seasonal progression wipes which will reset faction reputation and clean out player vaults, which is unpopular among players that like to hoard their loot, especially many Destiny players.
• Supposedly there will be more "raid-like" PvE experiences on an as-of-yet unreleased map that takes place aboard the Marathon colony ship, but how mechanically complex those are or whether or not that will be enough to attract PvE-oriented players is pure speculation at this point.
• It will not be free-to-play, but rather released at a "premium" but not full game price point, which most people are assuming to be $40 USD.

The game is set to release in September this year, but based on the feedback Bungie is getting from players in this very first alpha, they will need to take this feedback very seriously and make a number of changes in the few months they have left, or risk a very rocky release and potentially financial failure. Many players seem to want Marathon and Bungie to fail, notably vitriolic Destiny veterans that feel like they were snubbed out of Destiny 3 for this, but as someone with over 2000 hours in Destiny 2 myself I want it to succeed, whether I play it or not. I'd rather there be more fun and successful games than major failures, and wishing for something to fail just because it isn't what you want is incredibly petty.

ARC Raiders, the underdog

ARC Raiders is a third person shooter set in a post-apocalypse where robots called ARC have devastated the surface of Earth and humanity has retreated underground, sending "raiders" to the surface to scavenge for tech and goods. It's developed by Embark Studios, which is made up of ex-DICE (Battlefield) developers, and their other title is the well-received but niche PvP shooter The Finals. Mechanics-wise, there isn't anything particularly unique about this extraction shooter - limited mobility, limited inventory space, PvE enemies, points of interest, extraction points, etc. However, it seems to check all the boxes of what players want and it does it well while making the experience more casual and accessible:

• There are "safe pockets" where players can store a few loot items they won't lose on death (Tarkov does also have this, Marathon and Hunt do not).
• There is proximity voice, and also a quick emote menu for giving vocal commands, directions, and responses.
• The art direction is realistic post-apocalypse with high graphical fidelity and semi-futuristic robots, which is "safe", but still good looking.
• The audio design is phenomenal. Distant gunfire, supersonic cracks of rounds, bullets ricocheting off surfaces, large bots stomping around from blocks away, player footsteps on different surfaces and within enclosed spaces, quadcopter drones buzzing, larger bots with unsettling and deep "roars", and more.
• There isn't a solo or duo-only queue, but there is solo-matching priority at least, so you're more likely to be placed with other solo players.
• There is a clear progression path in the form of a workshop you can upgrade with scavenged materials, and a deep skill tree with multiple branches.
• Raiders are not class or hero-based and are freely customizable by the players in terms of loadout and appearance.
• Chaff PvE enemies are relatively easy to defeat but still dangerous. Aside from eliminating them as threats, they can drop materials or items to recharge your shields so they're not just a waste of ammo. Non-chaff PvE enemies can be significantly more dangerous and harder to defeat but will have valuable loot.
• There is already an example of a PvE "boss" robot guarding a point of interest which requires some mechanics to collect the loot within it. The boss itself is very challenging to defeat, even with multiple teams fighting it, but should reward top-tier loot.
• While the game was initially announced as free-to-play, the devs have since switched to selling it at at $40 USD.
• There are "battle passes" in the game in the form of shops players can unlock using a currency that is earnable in-game, or purchased with real money (like warbonds from Helldivers 2 for any helldivers reading this).

Overall, the game is shaping up to be a more accessible extraction shooter for the wider gaming audience and very serious competition for Marathon. No official release date has been announced but they are planning on releasing some time this year.

The stigma around extraction shooters

I've mentioned various things about extraction shooters that may be contributing to their unpopularity amongst the wider gaming audience throughout the post, but for the sake of cohesiveness and for all the folks that just want a TL;DR, I will collate and expand on those ideas here:

• Confusion with battle royales - I've seen some people confuse extraction shooters with battle royales and say "the market is oversaturated with extraction shooters, dead trend chasing game" or something along those lines. It's hard to call a market oversaturated when there's only 2 successful and very niche games in it, but if you incorrectly lump all the battle royales in that makes more sense.

• Escape From Tarkov is a bad poster child - When people do think of extraction shooters (and not mistakenly battle royales), they will default to EFT, which is notoriously hardcore and "sweaty". It would be the same as never having played an RPG, and being introduced to it with Dark Souls, which would understandably turn away anyone that isn't looking for that kind of experience.

• PvP and losing progress - The game always having a PvP element is already discouraging to PvE-focused players, and this is only made worse by the chance to lose your gear if you die. Many players are strongly opposed to losing progress, and losing multiple times in a row due to other players defeating them when they just want to do PvE and get some loot is an awful experience that they don't have to have in a different type of game.

• Progression wipes are anathema to hoarders - On top of potentially losing progress on a round-to-round basis, seasonal progression wipes also threaten to reset progress entirely between seasons, While they are effective at keeping things fresh, players that like to have 400+ items stored away in their vault that they will never use and just admire from time to time revile this concept. Less hoard-minded players may be concerned about their potential inability to max out their progression, the fear of missing out induced by temporary progression, or the pointlessness of even progressing if it gets wiped anyway.

I didn't read any of that, are extraction shooters for me or not?

Well, that depends. If you:

• Don't mind or enjoy a mixed PvEvP experience
• Are ok with the idea of loot and progression being temporary
• Like the higher stakes of potentially losing your inventory and gear, or taking someone else's
• Are ok with inventory management, even in the middle of a round
• Are not terrible at shooters

Then yes, extraction shooters may be fun for you! They certainly aren't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with not enjoying one or the genre in general, but if you do, they offer a very unique gaming experience. If you are interested, keep an eye on ARC Raiders and Marathon - they aim to be more accessible than previous extraction shooters and it's a lot easier to get in on a new game than join one with a veteran playerbase.

So I've been playing a lot of WoW lately and that includes a ton of raids, always with voice chat on discord. Just now I found out that someone is a streamer and broadcast a full raid + the voice chat.

I was not part of this particular raid thankfully. And as far as I can tell he doesn't have a lot if any viewers. But it still made me uncomfortable that someone has been streaming my voice without my consent, without my knowledge even. I do not feel that it is unreasonable of me to expect someone to ask for permission before doing this, but maybe I am just completely out of the loop about streaming?

Is it naive to expect privacy in this regard? Is this what one should expect from online gaming nowadays?

I believe a few of us have Steam Decks, thus I wanted to do this kinda public announcement.

TL;DR

• If your Steam Deck reports low battery health (low % of original capacity) drain the battery until it shuts down and then fully charge and check again
• Use your Steam Deck until it shuts down from time to time (say once every 6 months?) to keep your battery level indicator (and remaining time) precise

Long version

I have my Steam Deck since May 2022 and I put certainly over 1000 hours in gaming on it. I would believe if it was even approaching 2000 hours.

Lately I played demanding game and battery was discharging rather fast with remaining time on full charge being under 1:30 hours, which I wasn't used to just a few months ago when it lasted over 2 hours even in demanding games (I limit to 30 fps and I also limit TDP/power). This weekend I jumped into desktop mode and checked the battery life which showed me what I feared - 65% of original capacity.

I went on iFixit page and the price for new one is hefty 95€, but since Steam Deck got me so much enjoyment, I was ready to pay for it - if it was in stock, that is. I'm glad it wasn't!

Since I have a bit of electronics and software background (hobby level), I realized that the charging chip (or whatever keeps the info about state of charge) was running since day 1 on relative data. What I mean: I have never discharged my Steam Deck lower than 10% and most of the times charging anywhere between 30-80%. And since the charging chip likely measures last fully charged capacity (and thus battery health) based on, well, how much it was charged and discharged all over again, it probably skewed its measurements in those three years.

So I went on a "quest" to play until dead. And I was surprised when Steam Deck reached 3% battery and kept running for another hour (ligthweight game) until it was finally dead. Then I fully charged it and voila - battery health 90%!

I have already said how it likely happened, but once more and in short: the charging chip needs to reach both limits, 0% and 100% of battery, from time to time = You have to let it drain fully here and there if you want your battery level indicator (and remaining time) to be precise or if you want to get the real state of your battery.

A bit offtopic: I've had laptop that had 50% of original capacity. I have changed the battery cells inside the battery and let it fully discharge and charge again but the vendor locked the chip from "learning" the real capacity making the new cells useless because the chip still reported 50% thus telling me when I booted it up that the battery has to be changed and also telling me non-relevant remaining time based on this 50% battery health... I'm glad that Steam Deck is capable of re-learning this data and not playing dumb.

Hopefully the title says it all, I decided to make this generic because I think all game randomization is cool.

To be specific, this is not about games which have random elements, this is about games which have been modded to introduce some form of randomization.
The Pokemon games are reasonably famous for having fun randomizers.

I posted this because I recently started a Dark Souls 3 randomized run and got given a heap of really nice sorceries and miracles right at the start of the game. Luckily also a catalyst too. It was like it was begging me to be a mage, even though it's apparently hard as hell.