fourcornersoftime

[fourcornersoftime]

[fourcornersoftime]

mfw I'm ultra addicted to showers because I take one twice a day

This is not an addiction

[fourcornersoftime]

Watching old network shows like Stargate SG-1 and Chuck really drives home just how fun TV could be when we let it be. All these short seasons of "prestige" TV end up wasting so much time telling a story over 8 episodes that Stargate whips through in one compelling 40 minute episode.

Jack gets stuck in a time loop and needs to learn an alien language to help the team get him out of it? 40 minutes. Jack and Teal'c get stranded in space aboard an alien aircraft and the team needs to call in favors from their alien allies to have the barest shot at saving them? 40 minutes. Daniel's alien stepchild shows him a vision of the future wherein he uses the collective knowledge of the Goa'uld to careen down a path to world domination? You guessed it, 40 minutes.

Half of the show's episodes could easily be drawn out and strung into a 6 episode mini series, but damn if that wouldn't end up being a lot less fun.

i really could write an essay on how shit is that we’ve completely abandoned the monster-of-the-week episode format even when rebooting shows that relied on it to replace them with grimdark edgy plotlines where nothing feels good or accomplished at the end of the day

[fourcornersoftime]

Iron Kingdoms at least was, at one point, so based on the War Machine wargame rules that characters created in the TTRPG could become units in the wargame with essentially no conversion. Combat distances and movement are listed in physical inches as well.

This might not still be true, I haven't really kept up with the newer editions, but there's at least one out there

relative rpg noob, more experience with wargams here with not really a recommednations question but just a "whats out there" question. You mentioned getting into dnd from mordheim and I was wondering, are there any ttrpg systems that also explicitly use wargams style ground scale movement and terrain rules for their combat? Sort of the link from wargames with rpg elements like munda and heim as the mainstream examples and into rpgs with skirmish elements?

Sadly I haven't quite found anything exactly like that! In my experience most TTRPGs end up using a grid these days and opting for terrain rules that translate easily onto the grid instead of trying to translate actual physical terrain pieces into the fiction. Back in the day even D&D measured things in table inches.

Anyway the closest I have found are skirmish scale wargames that sometimes implement more RPG elements than one would expect. My current unhealthy obsession in that genre is Bladestorm: it's a skirmish wargame set in the world of Rolemaster's Shadow World campaign setting and it was originally published by Iron Crown Enterprises, creators of Rolemaster, but a new second edition has been licensed out to some German company and released within the last decade. Bladestorm is for the most part just a footnote in the history of Iron Crown but having recently gotten the second edition it has some ideas that make it genuinely interesting.

The game assumes a campaign mode of play where each player creates their own band and players play through scenarios against each other and in between scenarios players can use experience gained by their band to advance their units and money to purchase better equipment for them. But that's not where the RPG comparisons end: the game refers to the players' warbands as "adventuring parties" so the fictional framing is less "little armies fighting a war against each other" and more like "rival bands of adventurers competing for riches." In a way it's doing the same thing that D&D did but in reverse! Whereas D&D was like "what if there was a wargame where you only control one guy," Bladestorm is like "what if there was a D&D where you control a whole party of guys."

Besides that it also has professions (classes) that players can buy on their units to further customize them, and while the mechanics are nowhere near as deep as in most RPGs there is a surprising level of customization available. And the final RPG element: unlike most modern wargames that have moved away from refereed play, Bladestorm very much assumes that many of its scenarios will be played with multiple players, each in control of their own adventuring party, with a single gamemaster type of player in control of the various NPCs present on the battlefield.

But yeah, that's not really what you were asking for, but it's sort of like a step further towards RPGs from games like Mordheim and Necromunda. But it's pretty neat! :)

[fourcornersoftime]

Speed Racer is legitimately one of the best movies of the last 20 years. It's pure love for the source material that comes out in outrageous artistry that just needs to be seen to be believed

I'm tired of lukewarm movie takes, what's your most OUTRAGEOUS movie take? I don't wanna hear "Oppenheimer was boring" I mean GENUINELY outrageous

[fourcornersoftime]

Nothing quite like rocking up to a mining node and realizing it's about to kick your ass

Fantasy Life i is funny cause it has like. Resource gathering boss fights. imagine you're doing some fishing, playing the fishing minigame, when suddenly the game throws a boss tier fish at you which you must now fight using the mechanics of the fishing minigame. That frankly rules

[fourcornersoftime]

This is what I've always appreciated about character creation in FATE, and I've carried some of it over to my GMing for other games.

The simple idea of having a High Concept and Trouble does a lot for both the player and the GM. Now I know what's important to you, as a player, to address with your character. Throw in another three or so bullet points to fill them out and I can 100% work that into my game one way or another.

writing intricate backstories is the playerside equivallent of the gm prep burden

[fourcornersoftime]

The three kinds of bird species name

1. God’s Specialist Little Boy

2. Hot Breasted Milf

3. Grey Bird With Brown Head

4. Walter’s Fingernail

[fourcornersoftime]

i've been starting a collection

[fourcornersoftime]

Listen up liberals, it's really simple: Green-Flame Blade is an evocation cantrip with a casting time of Action. The spell has a range of self and as part of casting this spell the spell's target, the caster, gets to make a melee attack with the weapon (worth at least 1 sp) against one creature within 5 feet of them. Even if using a melee weapon with a reach longer than 5 feet. This attack is resolved as a melee attack with a weapon and not a spell attack, despite it being made as part of a spell, obviously. This should not be mistaken for the Attack action: the character is making an attack as part of the action to cast a spell (as stated in the spell's description, it has a casting time of Action), and that attack is a melee attack with a weapon and not a melee spell attack, but the action is not the Attack action, it's the Magic action. So if the character has multiple attacks they can make as part of an Attack action they can't make them as part of casting the spell.

D&D 4e:

[fourcornersoftime]

Projectile Translocation

Level 1 Conjuration

Casting time: 1 action Range: 120 ft Target: A target within range

Components: v s m Duration: Instantaneous

You fire a projectile into the Weave, only for it to reappear directly near your target, having bypassed all distractions between. This spell does not require line of sight or line of effect. Make a melee spell attack with a ranged weapon with Advantage.

It's really funny to me that D&D 5e has examples of both "melee attack with a weapon as part of casting a spell" and "spell attack made as part of casting the spell explicitly made with the weapon but resolved as a spell attack." This fucking rules, great job gang.

[fourcornersoftime]

Please know the chipper robot is not for you. The chipper robot is for the boomer calling to pay their bill when they could have just signed up for auto pay and saved everybody time. The robot is for the mother who could have just gone online to see that yes, their plan covers them in Florida too.

If you have a real issue please excuse chipper robot, it's doing its best so the person on the other end can have a real problem that needs real human intervention to solve

one of the most infuriating things about becoming an adult is when you realize that it actually is 10x easier to solve problems by making a phone call vs literally any other communication method

[fourcornersoftime]

No sorry my plan doesn't cover calls through the Rifts

Of course you have a bite attack and two claw attacks and two wing attacks and a tail slap and a breath weapon. And pronouns. 🙄

[fourcornersoftime]

[fourcornersoftime]

The biggest issue I have with Google apps is they haven't quite unified what's just called "App Name" and what's called "Google App Name" or even "GApp Name"

I get that you probably can't just call it Fiber or Fi but GFiber and Google Fi and GMail and Maps and Messages and Play Store all drive me a little batty

[fourcornersoftime]

a good DM is supposed to work with their players so that they can play whatever build they want, while a player can tune out anything the DM says about the world that they're not interested in, even if it's stuff about what classes, backgrounds, etc. are part of the setting's palette. in fact, a player should be able to treat the game as a single-player game starring their PC if they want to.

hey why are all our DMs burning out?

[fourcornersoftime]

Tome of Battle and Dragon Magic are some of the best splatbooks ever written easily

3.5's expansive number of rulebooks is better than anything they've produced since. no question