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Dintiradan

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Posts posted by Dintiradan

  1. 21 hours ago, Damp Annals said:

    I wasn't sure Smaug was going to be dethroned, but you did it, Dinti.

    Pretty tough to think of anything worse than AM. Happy (?) to be proven wrong, though.

     

    Ancient Greece round:

     

    Socrates

    Plato

    Aristotle

    Diogenes

    Epicurus

    Archimedes

  2. 18 minutes ago, Damp Annals said:

    I'm also interested to note that there is now at least one person on the list whom I view identically to one of the current candidates.  Not only would I rank them together, I see them as having exactly the same strengths and weaknesses.

    Marianne Williamson and Genghis Khan, obviously.

  3. Billie Holiday, Ayn Rand, Julie D'Aubigny, Simone de Beauvoir, Olga of Kiev, Cleopatra, Elizabeth Báthory, Lady Gaga.

     

    EDIT: I suddenly regret putting down Cleopatra, because I kinda want you to rank not just the non-fictional Cleopatra but various fictional portrayals of her as well. Ah well, she can stay. Maybe if you're feeling bored and want some extra credits.

     

  4. Well, the usual advice people throw around is "there's no wrong way to have fun." So if you and your friends are having fun playing this way, more power to you. That said, there are probably ways to have the same amount of fun with less work on your part.

     

    Blades of Exile isn't designed for this kind of play, but there are games that are. RPGs with co-op multiplayer, with built-in support for a Dungeon Master to modify things on the fly; Bioware's Neverwinter Nights being one of the first big examples. Host a server and have your friends connect, while you play using the DM client. This way your friends will be able to control their own actions and you'll have an easier time modifying the game to do what you want.

     

    Alternatively, you could just play D&D, or another RPG like it. It sounds like your players already want a more traditional RPG experience, with them writing character backstories and using unconventional tactics like "pit filled with holy water". An online toolset like MapTool, Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20 will take care of a lot of the rules for you and your players, making it easier to learn. There are also a lot of alternatives to D&D out there, if you find D&D to be too rule-heavy, or otherwise not a good fit. Spiderwebbers played AIMhack, a homebrew d20 system, for years (search for AIMhack on these forums to see how the system evolved over time and for actual play logs). Finally, there are decades worth of pre-written adventures out there if you don't want to make your own (which sounds like the case, since you're effectively using BoE scenarios this way).

  5. I'm getting [[Template core/front/global/commentEditLine is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]] at the bottom of some posts (edited ones, I assume) when using the Compact and Convenient theme. Doesn't seem to impact anything else, and it's a minor issue, but if there's an easy fix, I'd appreciate it.

  6. For what it's worth, I was using 'fiction' in the way Alorael describes. I wouldn't use fiction to describe a sourcebook, though I admit that's what the definition includes. I apologize for all the digital ink that has been spilled because of my post.

     

    One Hundred Years of Solitude is interesting because every online acquaintance who read it has praised it, and every meatspace acquaintance who read it has disliked it. Clearly, I need to read it for myself so I can decide which group to cut off from my life forever.

  7. To put it another way, D&D (along with other tabletop roleplaying games) is make believe with rules. Stuff like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms is fiction inspired by those rules (which were in turn inspired by other fiction).

     

    On the topic of both roleplaying games and what I've been reading lately: Stars Without Number. Because reading new systems when I haven't actually gamed in years is a hobby in and of itself, I guess? Anyway, it's the first time I've read anything that's a part of the OSR. Liking it so far, and I haven't even gotten to the faction system (which by reputation is something I'll probably steal and modify at some point even if I never play SWN itself). I think Past Dintiradan would be horrified that I like something with this many random tables.

  8. What would you all think about a game that decoupled a quest hub from its physical location? Say a modern setting game that still locked locations/content based on quest progression, but all you had to do was check in via texting with NPCs?

     

    @Goo: I see stuff like that as an inevitable concession to the medium. That example could be done more organically; for example, dialogue would be as above if the player missed only one or two updates, but after missing n updates, you get an abbreviated synopsis. But that's a lot of extra writing overhead, when writing is already one of the more time-consuming parts of creating a game.

     

    (The other option is to simply allow the player to miss content if they don't talk to the right person at the right time. Some players like that, most don't.)

     

    Every once in a while you see someone complaining about the standard dialogue tree model. How silly, how inorganic, how immersion-breaking it is that you can ask the same question to an NPC one hundred times and it will give the same response a hundred times. And yeah, that would never happen with a tabletop game, or in reality for that matter. But with CRPGs there are time constraints. And sometimes you as the player miss something and need to reread it, or you return to an old save after a months-long hiatus and need to reacquaint yourself.

     

    (It would be neat to have a bespoke game master chained to my screen, but so far no one is offering.)

  9. Oh, hey, "are video games art". Haven't done one of these in a while.

     

    Are they art? Depends on how you define art -- I have nothing invested in my definition of the term, and most everyone else is unwilling to change theirs. If you think "experiences" count as art, then certainly video games qualify. On the other hand, once you start using terms like "sublime", then you've probably already decided for yourself. Then there's everyone who would say Rembrandt created art and Pollock did not, at which point you don't even bother bringing another medium into the discussion.

     

    One pitfall I see both sides of the debate fall into is comparing video games to film/television or novels. The usual examples cited as "artistic video games" tend to be highly cinematic or highly narrative or both, and the usual rebuttal is reductionist. Oh, the music might be artistic, the writing literary, the cutscenes as good as any film, but the game as a whole? Personally, I find the games that ape what makes film or novels successful to be the least indicative of what makes video games "artistic". The medium has a lot more in common with immersive theatre, or installation art. Or cuisine! And just as you can't judge a meal by looking at a picture without tasting it, you can't judge a video game without playing it (though many, most infamously Roger Ebert, have tried).

     

    Speaking of Ebert, one of his key criticisms of the medium, one that's overlooked by most rebuttals, is that art by definition requires authorial and directorial control:

     

    "... I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control."

    "I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist."
    "Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices."

     

    It's an odd place to draw the line, but there you go. In my mind, surrendering directorial control and even authorial control is what makes video games so powerful. With even the simplest "walking simulators", the player can pan the camera (and thus control the framing of a scene) and walk at their own speed (and thus control the pacing of a scene). The result is something far more immersive than most other mediums can aspire to. It's harder to truly surrender authorial control -- an RTS or FPS might have differing results based on mission performance, or a CRPG or visual novel might present the player with multiple choice questions periodically. But until we figure a way to put a miniature Game Master in every computer, it will have to do.

     

    Aaaand new post just as I'm about to submit this:

    As you might guess, I agree with the "movies shackled to crosswords" assessment.

    Papers, Please is a great example of video games doing something other mediums cannot. Other mediums might describe harsh circumstances forcing someone to be part of a totalitarian apparatus, but video games let you be that someone.

    And as for the rest: Sturgeon's Law. No lack of films being nothing more than crude melodramas with middling cinematography, and no lack of low effort, undiscerning reviewers.

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