iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

My top 5 RPGs that are Dungeons & Dragons: 1. Pathfinder 2e 2. Pillars of Eternity 3. Shadow of the Demon Lord 4. Draw Steel 5. D&D 4e

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Abrams’s failures in world-building in the sequel have been well documented, but even other video games consistently fared worse. Other games featured you fighting the Empire’s leftovers and handwaved away how enemy Sith appear. But KOTOR answers these questions well and explores the implications.

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The answers to questions such as, “Why is there a big evil army,” “Why are there Sith to fight,” and “Where did all these ships come from” are all interesting and grant the story moral quandaries worth pondering over. It doesn’t just give easy answers so you can skip to familiar beats.

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More Star Wars thoughts: I’m not sure KOTOR gets enough credit for its phenomenal world-building. It exists in a world very familiar to classic Star Wars, but it takes the time in its world-building to explain how we got here instead of just going, “Well it’s Star Wars.”

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Happy to report that my BlueSky feed has been completely clear of the “Malfoid” art trend except to complain about it. (But seriously, I don’t know how anyone can genuinely enjoy anything related to Harry Potter nowadays without also being a transphobe)

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I was worried that I was being targeted here but then I realized it said “spreadslop” and not “spearslop” so I’m safe.

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I like using “Resolve” because that feels more like an active choice you make. It feels very Captain America, which is a much more exciting example to me. In my game, I also got rid of Charisma, and the Diplomacy move instead uses Resolve to represent how committed you are to the other party.

I know 2e probably won’t be your jam either but I’ll be very happy when, one day, the Owlcat games aren’t the thing that comes to mind when people say “Pathfinder” or “Golarion.”

This is fixed in 2e. They don’t have blanket resistance to Cold. There’s only one Fire demon, and it does have weakness 20 to Cold. Other demons are weak to acts against their nature. Like dousing an arson demon in water or preventing a gluttony demon from eating causes automatic mental damage.

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I was the weirdo who really enjoyed how Pillars of Eternity 1 put pressure on me to conserve my spells when resting at reasonable rates. I thought it had very sensible balance on being able to consistently do cool things while also being conscientious of your overall resources.

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*trailer to Wildwood comes on* Me: “That’s a movie we’re going to have to make sure to see.” Wife: “Why? You’re just going to cry the whole time.” Me, already thinking about sibling love so strong that you’ll go to the ends of the earth and beyond: “… okay rude.”

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I will say that, as a fan of Vancian magic, it works 1,000x better in a tabletop environment because your characters aren’t adventuring 100% of the time and time passing is easy to handwave. In video games, day/night cycles are largely arbitrary and it breaks down way faster.

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Wait I had an Eternal Ferrystone in my storage this entire time?

I’ve heard it gets better but early on is rough. It just feels like I’m not making many choices. I’m hoping unlocking more interesting spells will change that.

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*combat begins, casts the same spell 5-6 times* “Man this combat is repetitive.” *levels up, now combat is casting the same spell 1-2 times* “I guess this is technically an improvement.”

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It also probably speaks to the whiplash he must’ve felt idolizing iconography and heroes from WWII, arguably the most moral war in human history, to living during Vietnam, where the cries to enlist and serve your country were a lot more obviously hollow and unjustified.

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Possibly, but I think it was also Lucas exploring the tension that naturally arises when you mix together all your favorite things from wildly different sources. Like Obi-Wan had that, but he also was a veteran and ends the film coaching Luke on how to blow up a station and kill tons of people.

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lol always. Like obviously the force of your attack is a lot more important when you use a weapon that has to penetrate armor, so the downsides of wielding two weapons are less relevant with sabers. But I’d be lying if I said that was the primary reason my brain treats them differently.

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Then ROTJ went further by having Luke again go against the orders of the Jedi and not kill Vader. He rejects the violence of the Jedi and subverts the war between the light and the dark side. These motifs became accepted as part of the canon of Star Wars, but it was deliberately subversive.

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Many look at the deconstruction present in KOTOR II and TLJ as being anti-Star Wars, but Star Wars has been deconstructing itself since ESB. I think a lot of people forget how that movie blurred the lines between the good and the bad, and how Luke’s big choice was going against his Masters’ wishes.

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The Acolyte has its problems but it also has the sauce because, like all great Star Wars media, it’s built on deconstruction. It asks a lot of really interesting questions about the Dark Side and the Light and then takes the time to explore them.

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Me when a character wields two swords: This is such a joke. Not a real fighting style, wouldn’t actually give you any advantages, totally impractical. Me when a character wields two lightsabers: This is totally awesome and, for some reason, completely different.

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There’s also the medium comparison. Like Soulsborne death and respawn mechanics are really punishing *in comparison to other video games.* But, compared to most TTRPGs, they’re incredibly forgiving. So the same mechanic creates a very different feel in the different mediums.

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Meanwhile the next game I’m working on is, like, a full tactical combat game but also an existential crisis that you deconstruct as you play. So the good news is that I’ve learned nothing.

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“You’re heroes, you all like each other already, here’s a bad guy, go do hero stuff.” “And here are some combat encounters built on mechanics that have way more design and playtesting than I’m able to afford right now. And if you don’t like it, I didn’t write it.”

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Schedule + health issues meant I had to end my Cleave campaign prematurely. Also, running Cleave was more mentally taxing than I had planned. I put a lot of pressure on myself as a GM and a designer. When I’m up for it, I’ll have to run something simpler. Maybe a lvl 1-2 adventure in PF2.

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If I were a trans woman, I’d definitely be tempted to make an Itch “game” that’s just a PDF that says, “I got permission from one (1) trans woman that says I’m allowed to watch the Harry Potter show as long as I pirate it and also stfu about it,” and sell it for $1,000.

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Tolkien’s ACTUAL reaction: Oh good just like I asked.

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I’d like to lean toward support, especially because offensive magic is currently just casting the same spell over and over again. But the heal takes so long. To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg, sometimes, I’ll start a heal even if no one needs it. By the time it finishes, who knows?

Will Mage or Sorcerer get me there faster?

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In DD, I somehow ended up accepting an escort quest I need to do now and it’s taking me across the map to an area that might be higher level than me. That is, assuming I’m even going the right way, which I’m not sure of. Plus I decided to be different and focus on magic, and it’s so boring.

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I always pick all the wrong quests to prioritize, get lost in all the worst places, and become committed to the most mundane grinds. Like I made like 30 iron daggers in Skyrim before visiting my second dungeon.

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Picked up Dragon’s Dogma again to give it another honest try before moving onto the sequel, and I remembered my big problem with open world RPGs, especially ones with a lot of freedom. I always end up finding the least interesting way to play it.

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When you go to make a Commander deck but accidentally make a Cube.

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It sucks that poverty can be a death trap in America and someone losing their career will threaten their ability to generally live as a person and maybe their ability to live at all but none of that makes what you say here untrue. It just makes it sadder.

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“The world actually is simple and less interesting” type racists are just the worst.

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“Deck as a resource” is such a neat piece of design tech. Neither Combo Fighter nor Pathfinder Card Adventures are, like, prestige game design, but I really like how it worked in both of them.

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I know that the account was probably racist in a fantasy-related way but my brain just conjured up an image of the most out-of-left-field racism, like, “Yeah Italians suck at Oblivion.”

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Obviously everything about this is a trainwreck but naming it “Skydance” is the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae. As if David Ellison’s trust fund studio has more prestige than two studios that have been around basically as long as movie studios have been a thing.

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It has a d7 resolution mechanic (which, as you know, are d14s divided in two… and d14s are d20s except 15-20 are rerolls). Also they’re dice pools.

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It was so wild to check out the fun fantasy anime with the cute elf and then realize it’s fantasy Mein Kampf.

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I thought about this earlier this year when Mixtape, a game whose whole deal is using game design and game feel to convey emotion and meaning in ways that cannot be recreated in other media forms, got accused of not being a real game because it didn’t have a fail state.

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This whole thread is great but this mindset shift in particular is so important. I think a lot of people look at games as if teaching and testing skills is the end goal of game design, as if it’s the sum total of why games are fun, and that’s such a limited and insular view of games.

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