The Gaming Den

Saying "this problem has been getting worse for a while now" is the opposite of saying "this isn't a problem." Claiming that Rey's ability to use what was otherwise a knight-level trick as her very first conscious use of the Force is okay because the Force is already "more ...

The force is objectively kind of bullshit though in the same way bending from Avatar is kind of bullshit or Magic in Harry potter is kind of bullshit. We get just enough explanation of how they work to make them seem like stable parts of the universe they exist in, but not so much explanation that t...

Ugh I always get them mixed up. Edited to the correct version.

Right but that's still not because Rey, in her own universe, is the best pilot. That's because of the doyalist reason that now that we have the budgets and the CGI for it, there's no reason not to animate cool intricate space flights as being cool and intricate. If the script had for some reason cal...

The winged tiefling is a racial variant that gives your tiefling wings. The improved pact weapon invocation gives you the ability to make ranged weapons with your summonable pact weapon. Build comes online at level 5, earliest you can take the improved pact weapon invocation, before then I assume yo...

There's the term "visual weight" which refers to the relative weight of two objects in the frame of the same image. If you have a picture containing one large brightly colored thing, and one smaller washed out thing, the large thing by default will have more "visual weight." Occa...

I feel like a lot of CW shows (with exceptions obviously) start out fairly strong, or at least passable, but devolve into chaos somewhere in the third or fourth season.

They're all structured like soap operas and soap operas have never been known for their narrative stability.

Maglag: Including glasses in Bayonetta's character design clearly played a significant part in the poor sales of both games because the tonal dissonance between action hero and nerd was too much for the player base to grok.

Chamomile: Wait she wore glasses?

You claim that the glasses stigma is "near dead among wider culture". Then I'll ask again, where are all the main characters wearing glasses all the time that don't fall in the dork/nerd stigma? Because if the character with X characteristic still doesn't get to be the main character, the...

Or has just never seen any of the Kingsman moves, or played Bayonetta, or hell even Harry Potter. I'd hesitate to call him an action hero, but the kid plays wizard football and outruns dragons on his sweet sports car broomstick. Hermione, who is notably glasses free, is the token nerd. Glasses WERE ...

Well video games also have the distinction of being able to save and reload relatively easily. If I bungle an encounter in a video game I can go back to my last save state and redo it in a matter of minutes. D&D and most of its contemporaries doesn't have this. Penalties to defenses vs attacks i...

I don't think resource management in game is so complicated, that you need to devote any extra time on it. how ever I am not a pro player. it is just my humble opinion. :D , :D This was less a 'how much time to devote' question and more a 'what would enforcing it actually do for the players' questi...

I've had several likes/interests/hobbies that took a sharp nosedive in quality post popularity boom, but upon self examination the reason for the nosedive had basically nothing to do with the community itself, and everything to do with the property in question being bought out by someone else and th...

Resource management is one of those things that gets included in a lot of games, and then promptly ignored by most of the players. The only resources that get paid attention to are the "big" ones. Spell slots, resting etc. Stuff like food, arrows, spell components and so on go largely igno...

Would it be easier to break down currently existing clan hats to help pinpoint where things could be expanded on or consolidated? Crab: - Warriors, Merchants, Low honor (bad at etiquette) Lion: - Warriors (Generals), High honor, Occasionally duels Mantis: - Merchants (pirates), Middle honor, Sailors...

Rules place limits on the conceptual space of the setting. If your game has rules about how to be a vampire or a werewolf and what those things can do, and does not contain rules for how to be a dragon, then the default assumption is that dragons are not playable in the game. Players might decide th...

Ink is probably one of my favorite indie films. There's just something so sincere about it. The scene where the father is walking down the hospital corridor completely unaware of the literal battle for his soul going on around him on a different layer of reality just gets me for reasons I can't even...

PCs have found themselves in <Hostile Location> because they've been <Method of involuntary transportation> there by <Evil Faction> for <Nefarious Purposes> and must find a way to return to their home <Destination> safely.

If it's a PvE game and you're not good at subtle then the easiest and most cooperative thing to do is to make yourself the useful one. That is, your character has less goals, and more loyalties. Namely to the party member(s) good at the sneaky stuff. Basically before the game starts ask two players ...

I think one of the more interesting bits of Lolth fiction probably came out of 4E. I can't remember if this was official though of a bit of fan canon that I read somewhere. Basically Drow schismed from the elves and went underground with their spider goddess, but the two factions have very different...

I don't know if it's just the places I've frequented on the internet or what but I see the Drow always catch a lot of flack for the racism and significantly less flack for the misogyny. I mean don't get me wrong dark skin = bad/savage/unintelligent is lazy problematic world building that any halfway...

The spheres do have a halfway decent shifter in their line-up, or at least I've been told, I'm not a huge fan of Spheres really. The discussion on the Shifter is still going on, with the only official stance I can see from paizo is the same customer service manager popping it to try and keep contro...

I don't know enough about the subjects to offer useful insight bit if I were attending a gaming workshop/class some topics I might personally be interested in learning more about are: - Different dice probabilities and how they affect the feel of the game. The difference between 3d6, counting hits, ...

Shinimasu, your first case (list of explicit options for players to choose) is the most common type of move in PbtA games. The example I usd though, uses the more open move "Acting under Pressure", which all games use for solving situations outside of the other moves. It's like this: Acti...

Appreciate the clarification. That sounds so bizarre though. I was perfectly happy to be allowed to choose what my own consequences were from a neat little list of options. I can only imagine being infuriated if it were A) out of my control and B) not even defined by the rules.