#and how everyone will jump in and develop and play npcs

[voxphantasma]

just started relistening to skyjacks from the top and yall. im so in love with how character secrets are brought up in this show. theres something so magical about how things are just brought up as if the audience already knows but we dont. theyre just like hey. sun has started to go down. the thing that travis does every sundown is happening. and its so casual and familiar and it makes me feel like im in on it too. fuck i love skyjacks

[IMAGE ID’S: four screenshots of episode transcripts of campaign: skyjacks. the first one is from episode 1 and reads:

JPC: Exactly. He’s currently hunched over captain Orimar Vale. Orimar is kind of like sitting there like staring straight forward, he is holding Orimar’s jaw in his hand which has completely separated from, the bottom part of his jaw- Liz: Wuah. JPC: -has completely separated from his mouth. Orimar, by the way, looks very much human, looks very much alive but is very much missing his jaw and doesn’t appear to be worried by it. As Gable comes in, Dref turns. Dref: Don’t worry, I can fix this. This- this will be fine, I, I can fix this. Gable: What do you mean you can fix it, it’s not attached to his head. Dref: Yes, um and, and I can explain that. Gable: What did you do? Dref: I had to take it off.

the second one is from episode 3 and reads:

JPC: As we are talking, the sun has started to go down. James: What does it look like, Johnny? [music begins: soft, mystical, acoustic, slightly eerie] Johnny: I think it's kind of horrible. You can hear it. It's bone crunching and— Liz: Ugh! JPC: Does it hurt? Johnny: I think, probably, yeah. Tyler: Every single night.

the third one is from episode 3 and reads:

You raise this dart up. You line it up with the board. [mystical music begins] You breathe in; you breathe out; and your eye opens beneath your headband. And in front of you, the divine light of the universe, you can see in this moment. It's not something you can ever voluntarily do, but here, feeling the warmth of the liquor in your belly, the warmth of the woman at your side, and the weight of the dart, everything is connected.

the fourth one is from episode 4 and reads:

Travis: Interesting. Hmm. Of course, it could be nothing. They're just cards, after all. Gable: You talk a lot, don't you? Travis: Me? Gable: Yes. James: You're looking at each other, now, standing across this war board, and you've got these divination cards between you two. And you also are the only two members of this crew that know about each other, that really know about each other. You don't know in detail, but you have a hint that both of you have been around longer than anyone else would imagine.

/ END ID’S]

[sanflawoah]

Black Myth: Wukong

More brainrot commentary because I'M NOWHERE NEAR DONE WITH GOING INSANE OVER THIS MONKE GAME.

Cursed texts and massive spoilers bellow. Lots of random bits and wee woo wee woo.

First of all, YEEESSS to everything well written big budget media with heavy cultural elements that isn't western centric. Love it 👏, a thousand more like this please.

HONESTLY can't get enough of the character designs. Watching the old tv show in my childhood got me imagining the JTTW characters as these cute human with animal ears. But since the game took a more serious and darker tone they took the character design to 1000. So many memorable characters with distinct style, drip, and combat.

Ok so whose idea was it to make some of the plants sentient and will beat your ass for daring to pick them up. I now have trust issues with ginseng and mushrooms

The toad bosses reminds me of Gamabunta. For a moment they also gave me a war flashback of Jedi Survivor's Oggdo-Bogdo, I want those things vaporised from earth 🔫🔫

Kang-Jin darkening the environment during her second stage, I legit thought it was a problem with my screen, until I found out other players had it too lmao. Also looove her design, silver loong with holographic glow, prettiest loong in the game

Boss musics are so LIT, I've been looping them for weeks

The Scorpionlord. First I saw him I was like HANZO HASASHI :DD??? But instead of hellfire, this time he uses venom. And the fact that the environments have autumn palette, connects me to MK 11 Shirai Ryu fire garden arena lol

an NPC called Starved Abomination. The name really sends me because ngl it's a relatable concept, I too became an abomination whenever I'm starving.

To punish Wukong for his lifetime worth of trash-talking, the game now choose The Destined One as shy and doesn't talk much except for when he screams during fights. All my grievances of expecting him to be chatty and noisy actually works out the more I understand the story. And turns out it was all part of his journey, you are meant to complete him by collecting Wukong's scattered senses. Lil introverted fur-ball of scream I love you so much. Since the NG+++ Wukong stance actually gave him voicelines, I'm guessing the Destined One is going to complete his development in actually becoming Wukong in the DLC.

Everyone and I mean EVERYONE had a beef with Wukong and now we gotta pick up after his mess. My poor Destined One walked into an area completely clueless and suddenly everyone is jumping on him because "REMEMBER THE THING YOU DID TO ME A FEW HUNDRED YEARS AGO??? WELL FUK YOU, NOW DIE."

~

🐱Yin Tiger🐱. First time I met him I was like ohhh who are you, you look so cool and kinda cute tho, look at those big boba eyes, pspspsps.

He's all busy with his hammer and zabuza sword, thinks you're so annoying for bothering his work. Then there's this "challenge" option and suddenly he rose and casually tossed his hammer to the ground, I was like wait I was just joking aYO I WAS JUST JOKING-, then proceeds to delete my HP in 30 seconds. Anyway I love how he appears big and heavy and yet moves so swiftly. Of ALL the tiger bosses in this game, imo he's the coolest and THE SANEST. I still can''t get over the Tiger Vanguard and Mad Tiger trauma, those orange cats are on a whole new level of insanity.

🕷️Fourth Spider Sister🕷️. I'm actually so INVESTED in her mystery, like why are you helping me? Why do you look so sad? Are those tear stains on your cheeks?? Why did the Immortal Crane said that I'm giving you "false hopes"? What were we in the previous life?

"Think about her, won't you? Should you feel like stirring trouble in your next life." WHAT DOES THIS MEAN, TELL ME. SHE SEEMS SO NICE THO, she's just a sad goth girl what did she do?? What did WE do?? And her journal entry is so interesting.

🐉Yellow Loong🐉. LISTEN.... I literally had to pause for a moment when I saw him. Cutscene plays and I was like Oohh it's going to be that type of charismatic character reciting monologue, and then I saw his name and it's THE YELLOW LOONG??? This suave horned man is The Yellow Loong??

Well damn I have to say that's one handsome loong. He's one of those elegant style fighters, my favourite genre, up there with Whiteclad Noble and Erlang Shen.

👁️Erlang Shen⚡. The way I turned up the volume when I heard Andrew Koji's Erlang voice.....It's just so.......pleasant to hear. Something about the way he did his voice, the smug taunts, the gentle almost-whispers, and the gROWLS???

I can't even with the entirety of Erlang's character design in this game, because dAMN BOI what a BEAUTY. I thought the game was going to make his appearance more mature looking, or even scarier, because that's just how it is with game character design formula, especially in games like this. But NOOOOO..... they made him ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. His face, his voice, HIS MOVESS, the way they designed his martial arts so elegantly. When you perfect dodge everything with him, it really feels like a dance. I have to note that when sometimes you tried heavy attack on him aND HE SIMPLY JUST-.... took one step to the side.... THE ABSOLUTE SLAYYY DISRESPECT💅💅. Welcome back Isshin from Sekiro.

Also I just found out that depending on what transformation you're using, he's going to react differently on each. Particularly interesting one was when you use Azure Dust. Most of the time, when you transform, he's going to transform too and chances are he's going to one-shot you out of the transformation. He doesn't do that with Azure Dust for some reason, instead he got amused because Lmao returning back to your origin?. And this line, "Walking his path is no easy feat, it will test you relentlessly". SOMETHING SOMETHING ABOUT ERLANG HAVING THIS HIDDEN BURDEN THROUGHOUT THE PLOT IS DRIVING ME INSANE, I NEED THE DLC TO EXPLORE HIS CHARACTER MORE I'M BEGGING YOU GAME SCIENCE. You can't leave me hanging with his journal entry please I want him to have some peace and closure.

Powerful quiet character with hidden struggle, the bane of my existence, my beloved.

☂️🐉The Four Heavenly Kings🎸🗡️. MAN I love these guys, their fight feels so rewarding somehow, because after all those struggles with Erlang, they feel more like a reward battle for visual entertainment.

Aside from being relatively easy, they're just so fun to watch. I keep wanting to stall the fight just to see what move sets they could perform because their coordinated attacks are just SO COOL.

South king throwing the sword at us, joined by the West king throwing punches, and then the West king passing the sword back to South king. That brief moment of them passing weapons, they need to do more of that, so sick.

The North king combo with every other kings. The West jumping up using the North's umbrella, summoned the dragon, the South yeeting the sword, and the East buffing up the umbrella thrust attack with his Pipa magic. I'd hate to be a normal human citizen under them during that scene GODDAMN. I'd say the West is the game's favourite king because he's the one with the most screentime. He's the one with distinct glowing eyes and he was the most visible behind Erlang during the opening. The North being the coolest because WTF WAS THAT TYPHOON UMBRELLA WITH THE WEST'S DRAGON ROLLING WITH IT, AND THE MUSIC QUE, ABSOLUT CINEMA. The East probably being the chillest of them all because my man was just serenading the fight yo, I like how his fingers actually moves accurately playing the BGM. I know they're on the heaven's side, but for some reason I want them to be on our side if it's possible in the DLC. If we could get Erlang, then surely we can get them? They're too epic not to have.

🐒THE GREAT SAGE'S BROKEN SHELL🐒

THE MONKEY, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND. SUN. WU. KONG. THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT WHEN THIS MF SHOWED UP ON SCREEN. TEARFUL CHEER AND AND UNIMAGINABLE TERROR. AND WITH THAT BITS OF THE OG TV SHOW THEME MOTIF PLAYING WHEN HE SUMMONED JINGU BANG.

Who would've thought that we're going to fight our former self as a literal your greatest enemy is yourself concept. Like yO IT'S THE G HIMSELF WUKONG but now FUK I HAVE TO FIGHT HIM?? Look, sir, Mr. Great Sage, I know I've been playing around as you and I don't even know what I'm doing, I'M SORRY.

So now we're fighting zombie Wukong. He's literally soulless inside and his voice sounds demonic. YET STILL he radiates that lively asshole energy. You try pillar stance to get away from him, he does the same but his pillar is TALLER than yours. You try to walk off calmly, he does the same but then taunts you for it, eats a peach and then flicks the seed to your head. Kicks you to the sky and transforms his jingu bang into a pillar and plants it to the ground with you under it. He cheats by summoning kintoun and body slammed you. He summoned his clones to kick you in all directions only for the original Wukong to wait on the side yawning, then he kicks your jingu bang back at you like "pick it up bitch", and taunts you with his hand gesture to come at him. Ok now you're raging and you tried to pillar stance heavy attack at him, he's like "shut yo bitch-" and GRABBED YOUR JINGU BANG WITH YOU STILL HOLDING ON TO IT AND STARTS USING YOU AS A FLY SWATTER. Just as you think that these suffering couldn't get any worse, you tried to heal and he IMMOBILISED YOU, SNATCHED YOUR GOURD AND TOOK A SIP, decided that it tastes like shit and threw it back at you. Now THIS is the little shit that I know and love.

The whole time you tried to do a move against him, he returned the favour but better. You think your staff extension is long? Ok he'll extend his staff to a kilometer, and that's STILL him holding back. You can do ring of fire? His is bigger in diameter and burns brighter. The game had to nerf out his lore accurate skills because it's just so atrociously OP.

Ok so you finally defeated him? Just as he got dusted away he still managed to croak a last laugh.

Que good ending animated cutscene with the JTTW plot in reverse serenaded with Celestial Symphony. Happy onions, happy onions tearing up the eyes. Crank the volume up, it's all coming together. That's Ba Jie, that's Sanzang, that's Wujing, that's horse.

MMMMMMM MONKE.

[jq37]

FH Junior Year Post-Season Thoughts

With another season of Fantasy High in the books and my recaps all finished, I wanted to do an overview of my thoughts on the season as a whole. Even though I feel generally positive about my experience with the season, there are a few things I think maybe could have been done differently narratively or mechanically. This isn't to criticize the way the season went down or to backseat DM/Play. More my combined ten years of college for textual analysis and storytelling bleeding through, haha. 

I first want to start with the things I thought worked really well.

Fantasy High has "High" right in its title but, in past seasons (and especially Sophomore Year), not as much time as you'd think was spent actually at school and even if it was spent at school, there wasn't much time spent in class or engaging with the realities of being a student. This season really dug into the academic consequences of skipping your classes all the time and the realities of needing to do a ton of extra stuff to try for a scholarship and I think that was a refreshing thing to highlight for a change. Being more scared at flunking out than the dragon that's trying to eat you feels very emotionally resonant. Real "High School Is Killing Me" vibes for anyone who's a fan of NPMD. 

Even though Fantasy High is a show that has some deep emotional beats and strong character arcs, it's first and foremost a comedy show. From the jump, everyone was generating bit after bit that had me cracking up as usual. "Little girly dog collar" is one of the funniest combinations of words I can think of. I think it was Siobhan who said that this was the goofy season and, having seen it, I'd have to agree with her. It never failed to make me laugh and it was always a highlight of my week.  The cast just has great table chemistry that I love to watch no matter what they're doing. 

Watching some of these high level combat encounters is as close as I'll get to understanding people watching sports. Even though combat is generally my least fave part of D&D, I think the cast really killed it this season with how cleverly they played and Brennan came up with some really great combat encounters. Special shout outs to Baron's Game and The Last Stand for their unique mechanics.  

This is going to be one that's on the other list as well because my feelings are mixed, but I genuinely do like the downtime mechanic and how it forces hard choices. I think it's an interesting way to connect a mechanic to the story and cultivate stressful atmosphere for the season.

I have problems with the execution but I love the Rat Grinders in concept. I think as early as season 1 I was hoping that we'd meet a party that was like the Bizarro Bad Kids and the idea of a party that's farming XP instead of going on crazy adventures is a strong concept. Likewise, I think a character that's jealous because of your "cool" (read: tragic) backstory is also a fun trait for an unhinged antagonist in this kind of setting.

This is me absolutely showing my bias but I adored the Abernant Sisters content this season. I dunno if Siobhan specifically asked Brennan to not put her on a bus with the other beloved NPCs or what but I'm so glad she stuck around and we got the development we did. It was almost entirely ancillary to the plot but there was this clear pattern of Aelwyn getting softer and sweeter towards Adaine over the course of the season, from the guarded, "Enjoy the nemesis ward," to, full I love you's and, "I'd take them to get you." It was way more focus than I expected considering that Aelwyn completed the bulk of her arc last season and a lot of the time, a redemption arc basically ends after the big gesture (in this case, Aelwyn taking a magic blast for Adaine in Sophomore Year). So the fact that we got to see all of these sweet moments of them reestablishing their relationship outside of do or die moments was such a pleasant surprise. Again, I fully admit I am extremely biased, but this was my top wishlist item and the season overdelivered so there's a baseline happy I'm always gonna be with Junior Year. 

OK, so moving on to things I things I think could have been tweaked.

Even though I liked the downtime system and the pressures it created, it also squeezed out the chance for more casual PC to NPC interactions that would usually be more common because they were semi-locked behind the relationship track and there wasn't an obvious benefit to roll for Relationships (as opposed to something like Academics which was crucial for not flunking out). Making the mechanical benefit more clear would have helped that (even if it meant Brennan didn't get his reveal--which he ended up just telling them anyway so might as well do it early). The other thing is that the consequence of a rage token was so bad that of course they spent all season avoiding getting one. Things might have gone differently if the consequences had been a bit more obscured, like in Neverafter. And it could have been a nice parallel to the Rat Grinders to take this unknown resource that makes things easier for you but is also having this negative effect. Then it could be like dang we did the same thing they did unknowingly. 

I mentioned this in my recap but I'll talk about it again. It is a little confusing to me that we did the Ankarna subplot right after we did the very similar Cassandra subplot. It took up so much time this season which I don't think is an issue in and of itself, it's just that we literally just went through some extremely similar beats last season. Why double up on this same storyline when there's so much new ground to cover? Or if we're going to raise a god, why not make it a different kind of god? One theory I had early on was that the Rat Grinders were trying to raise their own god to one-up the Bad Kids but instead of raising a chill, misunderstood Cass type, they accidentally raised a god who was erased for a good reason and got in over their heads. 

It's fun for there to be connections between seasons but sometimes it's like, OK that's a *lot* of coincidences. Like the god who your rivals is trying to raise *happens* to be the wife of your cleric's god and also *happens* to be the god of the fiend trapped in your friend's mom's chest and that fiend *happens* to be the relative on your bard's dad's side which is *also* the reason she is randomly cursed? That's a LOT of red string connecting plot points. As unhinged as Kipperlilly is about coveting Riz's backstory if I saw that go down I'd be like you have *got* to be kidding me.  

The mystery elements didn't feel like they clicked as well as they did in other seasons. I think that's partially because Porter's plan was so convoluted (seriously, I made another post about how haphazard his plan was) and had all these moving parts and we didn't get clear answers for a lot of mechanical things like how the rage crystals actually work and when they were implanted and stuff. You had stuff like Devil's Honey which I think is super cool as a thing that exists in the world but ended up being an element that just led the players down the wrong path and had a relatively small payoff (that Porter was using it to lie to Ankarna). I think it's plausible that a forgotten god would be willing to listen to anyone saying the right things without introducing this element. (As opposed to, for instance, Ambrosia which has a very clear connection to what's going on and is a solid clue that someone is flirting with aspirations of godhood.) 

The Porter reveal came so late in the season that even though it was a fun/challenging fight, there wasn't a lot of emotional weight behind killing him. It was basically just dunking on a teacher Fig has always hated who was also mean to Gorgug so screw him. Which, valid of course. But the Bad Kids were never going to react as strongly to Porter as they were to the Rat Grinders so putting Porter in the prime villain spot isn't necessarily what I would have done if I wanted the fight to be more than just a brawl--especially since we've done "School admin with student minions" already in S1. I don't mind the full circle callback but it would have been nice to pick something else for the sake of variety. We haven't had a child mastermind yet and I think Kipperlilly could have been a great candidate for that. My friend suggested that it would have been fun if Kipperlilly was trying to become a god instead of just being Porter's underling and I agree. "I'm not anyone's chosen one so I'll choose myself," is still within her established jealousy and Type A tendencies. If we want to keep Porter involved since that was Brennan's gift to Emily, maybe have it be that instead of Kipperlilly working for him, he's working for her. Like Artemis Fowl vibes! And the Rat Grinders can be varying levels of on board--from true believe to redeemable. I don't think Brennan planned for the Bad Kids to ever redeem her so might as well go full megalomaniacal mastermind with her and make her The Villain if she's not gonna be nuanced anyway. If My Little Pony can do it and send a literal child to Tartarus for pony treason (or whatever Cozy Glow did), Fantasy High can too. 

Continuing from the above, if we have the Porter fight in place of the Grix fight (a la Daybreak) and don't use Ankarna, that gives way more time for the Bad Kids to investigate the Rat Grinders throughout the season and it would mean that they would have their personalities developed a lot more. With the limited downtime, they Bad Kids didn't have a lot of time to spend on these kids who were just hating on them for no good reason (valid). But if you cleared their plate of the god hunt stuff, they'd have more time for this. And if they weren't all rage zombies to varying degrees, it would be easier to see them as characters. Besides Kipperlilly (and, funnily enough, Mary Ann) we don't really have a good read on what these kids are actually like. The little time we spent with them all season was kind of a wash if them breaking out of rage means their personalities got laundered too. Anyway, regardless of how their loyalties ended up shaking out, it would have been fun for them to be more than the minions that they were in canon. As funny as it is for them to just kinda be XP farming losers, they did have the potential to be more interesting in their own right if they weren't just Porter's minions. And again, we've done adults forcing or coercing children into being minions in Freshman and Sophomore Year already. Lemme see some self-created child maniacs! (Or, peer pressured child maniacs. That's cool too. The Lucy/Kipperlilly dynamic is way more interesting to me if it's like girl, I would take a bullet for you but I CANNOT walk this path with you any further in response to *I* will be a god and you can be *MY* champion.)

Anyway, those are my thoughts! Like I said, I have my points that I think could have been tightened, but overall an enjoyable season and I will be glued to my screen if they decide to close out with Senior Year! 

[selene-lunette]

Fumito Ueda's interview from the 5th issue of PSM (July/August 2024)

Interview done by John Kaminari for PlayStation Magazine (Italy). I translated it to the best of my abilities.

He who transformed video games into art. "PSM" had the great opportunity to interview Fumito Ueda exclusively, after a silence that lasted many years.

There are giants (colossi) of the video gaming industry who mass-produce games merely to fill a schedule increasingly saturated with cookie-cutter products, and then there are small giants (colossi) like Fumito Ueda who, with only three games under his belt, developed for Sony Computer Entertainment, can undoubtedly be considered among the most talented and innovative game creators of all time. After leaving Japan Studio, Fumito Ueda founded the independent studio genDESIGN which, in the upcoming months, will present us with something that could rewrite the rules of video games yet again, and make our favorite hobby even more similar to a work of art of inestimable value. When we interviewed him he spoke to us about him as a gamer, as a game designer, as an artist and as a person. And he told us many anecdotes that make us understand the reason for some of his choices along his path, even painful ones. Because Fumito Ueda isn't a game designer... he is an artist who makes video games.

When did your "first contact" with video games happen? I think it occured with Block Kuzushi or Space Invaders. I remember playing both around the same time. Back then my parents ran a café and they had these two arcade video games there. However, I only remember playing them a few times.

What was your first experience in the video game industry? I was a computer graphics animator at Warp Co., Ltd.. Before that I had an experience in the creation of computer graphics at a movie company, but that was my first time working on a video game. My first experience with Warp Co., Ltd. involved the movement of the main character Laura in the CG sequence added in the 3DO version of D's Dining Table Director's Cut. However, it consisted of only a few cuts. I later became the main CG animator for Enemy Zero.

What prompted you to start working as a game designer? The reason I left Warp Co., Ltd. was due to the fact I wanted to create works that I had designed myself. I was lucky enough to be able to do this at Sony Computer Entertainment (Sce) and I was assigned the role of game designer and game director.

Did you know from the beginning that you wanted to become a game designer or did you want to take up another career? When I was in college I wanted to become a contemporary artist. The reason I got into the video game industry was primarily to a earn a living. Obviously I loved video games and I was what everyone today would call an "otaku", but back then I wouldn't have thought of making it my career.

Simply put, what kind of person is Fumito Ueda? I'm someone who can't help but feel anxious if I'm not constantly creating, even if it's something small.

How did you get involved with Japan Studio? After leaving Warp Co., Ltd., I had started developing Ico as an independent production, but I was worried because I didn't have enough money. In 1996, while I was looking for a job as a freelance CG artist, I turned to Sony Computer Entertainment. At first I approached Sce with the intention of simply helping out with the CG production for their games, but I was asked if I wanted to continue developing Ico with them, no longer as an independent production but as an internal Sce project. I jumped at this opportunity and a production team was formed. Ico was completed in 2001.

How did the idea of Ico come about? The idea was to create an heroic fantasy game similar in setting to Resident Evil, which had just been released in that period and which adopted a fixed camera system. Furthermore, at the time, I wondered if it would've been possible to feature NPCs' animations (non-playable characters) using an artificial intelligence, like in Ganbare Morikawa-kun No. 2, Hello Pac-Man and Wonder Project J', which I personally liked a lot. Eventually Ico was born.

I think Shadow of the Colossus is the most pioneering game ever made. Can you tell us an anecdote about your production process? While producing the game, I imagined that the henkei collision technique would become common in future action video games. And this was precisely my strongest motivation: to reach the goal faster than anyone else.

[There's a little section explaining the henkei collision technique] What is the "henkei collision"? In Shadow of the Colossus the playable character Wander is able to cling to the bodies of gigantic bosses, which made the interaction with the colossal enemy very "intense" and required a very different method of management and control compared to other video games. In English the term could be translated to "deforming collision".

I heard that the development of The Last Guardian was long and difficult. Without giving too much away, could you tell us what happened during that time? The game development engineers wanted to create something overly sophisticated. Using those various technologies was very difficult (like Ico's hand-holding or the deforming collision from Shadow of the Colossus). I think there hasn't been much investment in the foundations that support that advanced engineering; on the contrary, they were rather neglected and the company management did not fully understand the importance of issues of this caliber.

What impact did the 2011 Fukushima tragedy have on Fumito Ueda's sensitivity as an artist? Immediately after the earthquake I couldn't help but feel a decline in power in the entertainment world... and I'm not just talking about video games. However, I felt that my mission was to continue to fulfill my role and in fact I continued to create. Regardless of the type of "unpredictable" difficulties that one may encounter in life, such as the Coronavirus for example, people adapt to the changing environment and little by little this becomes everyday life again. It is something very precious for us living beings, but also a little scary I would say.

What are your sources of inspiration outside of the video game industry? Are there any artists you particularly admire? I think there has been strong video games influences, but I'm convinced that movies, especially anime, have also greatly influenced my works. Not only by legendary Japanese animators, such as Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki and Yasuo Otsuka, but also by manga and anime artists, both national and international, such as Moebius, Katsuhiro Otomo, Paul Grimault and René Laloux.

Thinking back to the games you created, I can imagine that you have a great appreciation for European art and architecture. Do you also like Italy? I actually don't have much knowledge of European architecture, but I like Italy. I also really appreciate Italian food and have been riding a Vespa for about 35 years. I went to Rome once while I was a member of Warp in 1995 and I visited yet again in 2017.

What do you think is more important to be successful in the video game industry today: money or ideas? Ideas are a means to solve most problems, not just economic ones; I'm speaking in general, not just referring to the world of video games.

What games have you enjoyed in recent years? They are not exactly new releases, but some time ago I was very engaged in Humanity and PowerWash Simulator. The first game embodies the charm of programming, while the second is a game that extracts the principle of pleasure hidden in everyday life.

[Two of his top 3 were also added]

TOP 3: Fumito Ueda's favorite places in Tōkyō 1) Tōkyō Gate Bridge - Reiwa Island 2) Tōkyō's Museum of Contemporary Art 3) Daikanyama Tsutaya Books

TOP 3: best video games of all time according to Fumito Ueda 1) Prince of Persia (1989) 2) Virtua Fighter (1993) 3) Half-Life 2 (2004)

[justafoxhound]

The world of KCD feels so alive.

Introducing The Lads in the prologue, as well as some rivals, who all show up later. They have stories too, not just one quest, but several, or you'll find them in new locations and a new situation. I feel obligated to do their quests because they're mates!

NPCs we meet or see in passing, also have multiple quests and develop some kind of relationship with Henry I wasn't expecting. (Dont get me started on Herman the executioner. I took a pummelling trying to steal from him lol, later completed the quest differently and now we're pals. I was delighted to play match maker and see him practically jump for joy 🥹).

I can't tell when an NPC is 'done'. You know, you do their quest and they turn robot with no unique or new dialogue. (Every now and then Lady Stephanie calls Henry over and wants to talk... I tell you I stop by whenever in the area in the hope of some new happenings. It really feels like an ongoing friendship/ affair!).

It's the first game I feel you actually 'make friends' with NPCs! I'm so attached to some, dislike others. And you know, they'll see you passing and call "Henry's come to see us!" And you know what, yes, I have cone to see you. I wasn't just running to a quest objective. I come to drink with my frens.

Also, just how brutal the game begins... I find myself buying all my horse tack at Neuhof, to help out after how rough they had it. I don't fight bandits who attack me with nothing but farm tools. They seem like desperate peasants, it seems quite awful to cut them all down for 7 groschen and some linens.

The side quests feel linked to world events, a natural progression. The world is happening around Henry, he isn't the Main Character. You're just a sopping wet lad- and everyone in game knows it.

[jellisdraws]

My campaign has entered ACT THREEEEEEEEEEE

My players literally kick so much ass and I love them. We are now 75 sessions in. Act 1 took about 50 sessions, Act 2 took about 25- shorter but they were much more involved in the main plot of the campaign and the developments were HUGE. I fully anticipate Act 3 to take at least 70 sessions to get through. The party is splitting with plans to reconvene later so everyone is making a new character to have for the split arc and we’re jumping into the unknown together.

Things are coming together in such an exciting way, the future ofcthe game feels fresh and the bones I have laid out in the past two arcs are strong and allow for tons of flexibility on the part of my players and how they drive the narrative. And I feel like this is possible because I have “broken” some of the tacit rules of DMing. I’m not sure these things work without a group you’ve played with regularly for a long time but I’ll share what I can in hopes that it encourages other DM’s to cut loose a little bit.

1. I did not give them freedom when designing characters. When I proposed this campaign, the idea would be the main cast would all be kids who grew up together. The players and I sat around for multiple session 0’s designing the town these kids grew up in, as well as their families, their connections to each other and so on before they ever even had the chance to choose classes. They only were allowed to write their own backstories for the duration of a 15 year timeskip between the prologue and campaign start. On top of this I gave the players the mandate to make a second, high level character sheet that they couldn’t even name, characters whose purpose would become clear as a story within the story of the campaign. It was a whole lot of effort but it has paid dividends. The character backstories made for the 15 year gap we’re more tied to the world than any I have seen, and the players were more keen to know about the world in turn. The second characters allowed for them to experiment with other builds and feel powerful, while I could use the sessions involving them as a mechanic to reveal lore in a way that made sense, and have the actions of the players shape the narrative consequences their main characters are dealing with.

2. I have not told this story chronologically. As alluded to above, the higher level characters are powerful figures from a forgotten past that the main group is inexorably tied to. While the events of the main campaign have been in order the group has jumped around through time experiencing visions of the past in no discernible order (at first) though a pattern and timeline has emerged. As the group seeks the truth of a forgotten age I needed a way to give them lore they otherwise couldn’t access, this method has allowed for me to tell a story and expand and continue the mystery without lore/info dumping on my players too hard. Every truth or revelation feels earned: as they decipher the clues left behind with the information gained from their visions.

3. I’ve railroaded them when necessary. I’ve been DMing for about a decade now, and I can confidently say there are no hard and fast rules around railroading your players and letting them determine their own path. Imo, the best campaigns allow both the players and the DM to hold the narrative reins in their hands. While the players should always be leading the action, they should not always be leading the direction. It is necessary to give you the DM the time to bury leads, invest them in your villains and NPC’s and ensure they have a stake in the primary conflict outside of their character backstories. Once you have established what the heck is going on and given them some mile posts to achieve then you can let them lead themselves.

4. I’ve allowed and encouraged metagaming. In a campaign where I’m already doing a bunch of weird stuff to affect how the narrative is told and explored, I have happily allowed metagaming at the table and happily answered lore questions and given them information to clarify things I want them to know. My players excitedly discussing theories about my game? Crack, I want to encourage it! I’ve worked hard to craft a cool mystery into the campaign and if they have questions about their clues I want to answer them! I’ve Also ‘Metagamed’ consequences to certain actions, letting the characters fully know the stakes of certain rolls, or given context to a situation so the player can make an informed decision in character. Often they still choose to accept the dramatic irony, seeing how certain decisions will affect things. The degree of openness I’ve brought to the way the story is told has seen rewards again and again with interesting decisions and amazing plays being made that are all the more impactful because the players know the weight of those actions and decisions.

5. I’ve been downright mean. I have been mean as hell when it comes to fighting during the climactic sequences, counterspelling healing, taking out downed characters, ruthlessly using mechanics to my benefit and everytime it makes seeing them succeed by the skin of their teeth worth it. And it reinforces themes I care about and explained during session 0, the world is big and scary and they are a small and new part of it. Dnd campaigns work best when there are stakes. You don’t need to have those stakes be massive and life threatening all the time and not every combat should be a knockdown drag out slug fest, but your villains and antagonists should be smart, effective and fucking powerful. They should challenge or overwhelm your heroes at times. The stakes make those dice rolls and choices valuable.

6. I’ve played with a DM PC since session 1. I love having a DMPC. I know not everyone does, but to me it opens up so many more chances at RP. I can check in on my quiet players in game, I can reward my roleplayer characters with fun RP, and I can share little facets of the world the group might not otherwise get. The DM PC does their best to not take center stage, instead doing their best to let other characters shine and in both combat and RP I’ve found this to be an excellent tool and way to increase my enjoyment and feel connected to the story the way my players experience it.

All this being said, the most important thing I do is talk to my players. Communication is the most important thing in cooperative storytelling and knowing what they want and enjoy out of stories is most important to running a campaign that will see your players coming back for more every week and having a blast doing it.

So yeah, cut loose DM’s! Do that funky weird idea you have, talk about it to your players. Go ham. And play in the way that suits you and your players best! You’ll see dividends

[before-calamity]

CNJ/WHM Skills Overview P1: CNJ Spells

Read more for more CNJ spells from 1.0...

I believe this is the same order of the spells you learn in modern FFXIV. I really don't have a lot to comment on this - they have a longer cast time and non-instance recast time like we've seen in the THM spells because, well combat was slower.

Remember what they took away from us. But not really. I know that everyone missed Protect from modern FFXIV, and I guess this is a hot take, but it wasn't all that effective. It amounted to a 3% damage reduction, and when they cut Protect, they went ahead and adjusted stats so that you have a 3% damage reduction. So you basically always have a protect on nowadays.

While it is a cool spell for class flavor (which they kind of ruined by making it a role skill in SB), I don't miss it.

Cleric Stance had a bit of a history, and it's another spell people miss. It's funny because from what I heard, in ARR, it was a literal swap between your intelligence and mind values, and then later on before it was cut it was more like it's 1.0 counterpart. This is heresay though. AND apparantly when it swapped the values, you also got the Attack buff and Healing debuff. It was replaced with a Cleric Role role action in SB and ultimately removed in Shadowbringers.

This spell confuses me. You basically turn HP into MP, and you set it aside so that you can get a big MP jump in the future I guess? I guess it's useful for a burst, but FFXIV 1.0 wasn't really known to have such bursts like modern FFXIV.

Stonera continues a trait we've seen in some spell lines where by default it's an AoE.

Stoneskin is another spell people miss, and it's one that NPCs still cast from time to time. Unlike Protect which is a general damage reduction, Stoneskin acted more like Scholar's Adloquium spell.

This was in the game until Stormblood, and even featured a Stoneskin II, which was an AoE. Like Protect, Stoneskin I and Stoneskin II lasted for a long time, 30 minutes.

Turn everything into an AoE...it just takes longer to cast. Not sure if this is a good trade off.

This was another spell that was in modern FFXIV until Stormblood...and it was basically reborn into Lucid Dream. Even the hotbar icon for ARR Shroud of Saints looks like Lucid Dream, just recolored.

We've actually covered Repose in an earlier post. I'm still shock it's essentially the same spell as a THM spell that they get at lvl 42.

So that's the CNJ spells. Next we'll talk WHM actions and Traits.

My one takeaway is how the spells are very similar to what they were in ARR, and I have yet another one of my famous theories (tm) regarding how CNJ changed during the development of 1.0, due to some recent data I've come across.

Do you miss Stoneskin, Protect and Cleric's Stance? Tell me what I'm missing out on. I never got to use Stoneskin but I did play during Stormblood which still had Protect and Cleric's Stance.

[mercy-misrule]

Listen to Rude tales of magic.

I'm doing a relisten from the start and it's so fucking good.

Best npc names in the game. Phenomenal world building. Low fantasy that's more fantastical than classic high fantasy. A cohesion of cast and storyline like no other. Low combat, high narrative, and really wonderful character development.

Everyone meets at University, and they are studying their classes as university courses. It's such a clever jumping off point, especially because in the first episode the university disappears from the fabric of reality.

The way the story unfolds is so organic and strange and endlessly funny. And though they can get real silly, they aren't dismissive of the world or game or characters they are and meet.

All my favourite actual plays are done by improvisers and comedians, except critical role, who are all actors, so a similar skillset exists. (Idk if any of the Cr cast have done improv?)

Rtom's cast, having all worked together for years in different improv settings makes for this beautifully dynamic group, where you feel the bond and trust between players and DM, the way they vibe and build.

Also, rtom has the best aftershow pod discussion of any actual play. It's a Patreon show, and it's so good for diving into how editing guides the narrative, the real gifts that an edited audio medium brings.

I love learning about the technical nature of storycraft from them.

The characters are (this is them at the beginning of the series. They evolve so much)

Frederick de Bonesby, high level wizard who failed at becoming a lich, and reverted to level one and is now also an animated skeleton.

Cordelia Sasquatch, a Sasquatch and unwitting warlock who made a deal with a demon called Chedder who runs a diner in hell.

Albie, a monk Faun, who is nervous and kind and determined, dealing with both a crush and her devotion to a path of monkhood that has been outlawed.

Bellow, druid tiefling who is the chillest dude, extremely handsome, kind but not always the sharpest tool in the shed. Bellow isn't dumb, but definitely takes different leaping points off in conversation than others.

Stirfry, the kenku rogue who was gifted speech by de Bonesby, pre lich attempt. Stirfry is Frederick's devoted chef and dogsbody.

Stirfry is in my top ten of all actual play characters ever. A jittering ball of neediness and affection seeking, a bird who changes from a yes man to something wild. Also he's a little murderer. You too will love Stirfry.

And lastly, not to get too earnest, from a wierd personal standpoint, and I don't know if it's Tim as a player, or as a character choice, but I love the affect of Stirfry's speech. He regularly speaks too fast, and gets caught in the repition moment of a stutter.

I have that speech pattern, though it was worse as a kid. But there's something really charming and sort of affirming hearing it performed.

[c6jpg]

hrmmmmmeajsdfkjfd so i finally did the 3.3 interlude quest and i have mixed feelings on it

at the very least this really solidified how much i like wanderer as a character LMAO my favorite parts were really when he was just being a fucking bitch to everyone, like that whole segment during blue irminsul mode and when he and la signora were having that little spat. so i really enjoyed it in the sense i just really love seeing wanderer on-screen.

but in general the whole. hm. erasing yourself from history thing felt kinda idk. plot convenience. and how quickly wanderer jumped back into accepting it after seeing the memories and regaining also felt very. idk. forced character and plot convenience.

like good character writing is when you can really feel/understand the character growth but with wanderer it felt very much like a light switch like one moment he was going through all this denial and anguish and then suddenly he was like "actually yeah this is fine".

and i think a lot of this comes from the continued issue of we're forced to do everything through the traveler. i think it would have made a lot more sense for wanderer's own character development if HE was the one that kept his memories after the fact, and HE was the one who went around inazuma to find out really nothing had changed at all. it just felt dumb having the traveler do this and be like "okay here's the situation" and wanderer just being like "okay damn i did some fucked up stuff and it was all futile so you should actually give me my memories back so i can atone for my actions"

like i don't really know how to explain it just very idk. ??? flat. it feels like nothing really happened. we basically got retconned but nothing changed and i didn't really feel wanderer's road to acceptance. so like what was the point of all that. like i get the point ig was there wasn't a point like you can't change the past like that but it still felt rather useless because wanderer's character growth which would usually be the point felt equally unnatural and pointless.

that's a lot of ways to say the same thing i'm sorry ajfdklsd

also nahida out here playing 6D chess feels a bit :| when it's like "wow you had this planned from the start??!?!??@?$?@#??" like i get she's the god of wisdom but come on now

oh also the npc model they gave niwa was so jfdaklfjs it was even worse than takuya like it literally looks like they took some random NPC off the streets and gave him a kaedehara wig 😭

anyways i named him arashi because i'm uncreative like that :)

another aside actually, i know this is where his mental stability probably completely snapped but i love this expression

[razzle-zazzle]

does the terraria psychonauts crossover have a plot?

Yes! It's a little bare bones/not every aspect and detail is fully developed, but the basic gist of it is the party slowly spawning into the world and following basic game progression, with the ultimate goal of defeating Moonlord so they can go home.

Ramblings got a little long so I'm slapping it under a cut:

Dion and Morris spawn in the world. They take a while to get their bearings and start to establish a place for themselves, bickering all the while. They find out about the respawn function on the first night. It's not pleasant.

Morris figures out that his book allows him to research any crafting recipe, alongside offering the occasional hint on how to progress. He and Dion work together to build a little house and collect resources.

Adam spawns in, with just as little idea as to what's going on as the other two. He's subjected to Morris & Dion's constant bickering for the next few days before Sam spawns in. She accidentally destroys their base with explosives within hours of arriving.

Shenanigans continue to ensue as the group slowly explores the world and its mechanics. They step foot into the Corruption for the first time.

Adam and Morris have to clear out the graveyard biome that has manifested around spawn. They set all the grave markers in a chest for later.

Eye of Cthulhu spawns naturally. The group fails to defeat it. They spawn the Eye manually a few nights later, and manage to defeat it! Norma spawns the next morning and gets four very different explanations of what's going on. She would like to go home now, please.

Actual NPCs such as the Painter, Nurse, Arms Dealer, and Dye Trader spawn in.

A slime rain happens. Norma would like to be home now. Sam gets a Slimy Saddle from the King Slime.

Dion accidentally manages to grapple onto the head of the Eater of Worlds during the group's first encounter with it, resulting in him getting flung into the sky and onto one of the sky islands.

The Goblin Army invades! The group finds the Tinkerer a few days later. Morris buys rocket boots he doesn't intend to use because they made him think of Gisu.

The group slowly manages to collect more resources and defeat more bosses. Eater of Worlds goes down, as does the Brain of Cthulhu. Norma and Adam explore the Dungeon and find Gisu shortly after Skeletron is defeated.

The first Blood Moon happens that night.

Sam bugs the Zoologist from the moment she spawns in.

Sam's summons unintentionally destroy the larva in every hive the group finds. It isn't until the fifth that they actually manage to beat Queen Bee. Lizzie spawns the next morning.

Gisu and Morris make it all the way to the ocean and wake up the Angler.

Adam and Norma work together to create a neat and efficient pylon system for fast travel. Sam and Gisu ignore the fast travel system more than half the time.

Frazie spawns in a few days later. She gets seven different explanations of what's going on and immediately manages to drag Dion into a fight against King Slime, partially on accident ("WHY WOULD YOU USE A SLIME CROWN" "I thought it would summon a minion!")

(Sam was the one who handed the Slime Crown to Frazie. She never admits to this.)

Gisu plays around with wires and traps. She ends up booby-trapping the spawn.

The group manages to dig deep enough to hit the Underworld. The Voodoo Demons are carrying little Morris dolls. This information is not received well by the group.

More shenanigans. Dion and Morris have a stupid little competition over who can do the sickest flip/hit a harpy midair when jumping off of a sky island. Frazie, also being immune to fall damage, joins them. Adam makes personalized rooms for everyone using various materials collected and the paint tool. Sam stocks up on Explosive Bunnies. Gisu and Norma and Lizzie all stock up on Mana Crystals.

Everyone maxes out their hearts.

Frazie & Lizzie get to experience their first Blood Moon.

Gisu, Norma, and Lizzie find an Aether biome while mining. Gisu starts experimenting with transmutations, using pumps to give herself a small pool on the surface to work with. She accidentally shimmers Dion all the way to the Underworld doing this.

Even though they've all died multiple times at this point, nobody's charging ahead to summon the Wall of Flesh. They're masters of this world as it is—are they really willing to sacrifice one of their own just to progress?

Eventually, the need to get out of this world and go home convinces the group to go through with it. They gear up and prepare as much as they can.

Morris drops the doll. He dies, and the fight begins.

The ancient spirits of light and dark have been released!

[maguro13-2]

Justice For All ~ Origins of the Ink Demon Chapter 2 Pt.10 ~

[Subterranean Desert - Boss Area]

Ashley : Alright, we're here. This is it?

Ash Canaan : Yes, ma'am.

Kimial Diehl : [whistles] So, this is the only boss area in Ep4? A place big enough for one boss?

Ash Canaan : Well, the developer Sonic Team has created the one and only final boss to PSOBB, dubbing that this is the end to PSO for real, the original one that launch on the Dreamcast. This giant area where the Meteor struck into Ragol, is called the Meteor Impact Site.

Ashley : Quite the name for a boss area, this marks the end of the original PSO? It's only a matter of time that the private severs are still up and running since the officials of the company abandoned the original PSO.

Kimial Diehl : Quite So...I used to play PSO when I was this age. Yeah, I know your game alot. It was good times on the Gamecube, good times.

Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupre : Kinda like the sound of a gamer girl.

Ashley : So...This is the meteor that crashed landed into Ragol. And that green stuff outside of it's shell. Is it an egg or something?

Kimial Diehl : Well, whatever it is. I bet it's useless or something. (Knocks on the meteor) See? Nothing happened. It's just a rock as a shell for that green stuff. Well, case in point!

Rupika (as the Green Spirit) : Sorry, fools! Because that Green Stuff hidden inside the shell isn't useless, it is a source for all D-Cell users that is a use for power. I heard that it crashed landed on Ragol for a quite sometime after finding out that I was the only NPC to have the D-Cells within my body! And with that, I shall destroy anyone who gets in my way and burn everyone for the sake of my life!

Ash Canaan : (gasped in shock) Rupika! (Sees the Green Spirit (Rupika) flies down as it head towards into the meteor, causing it to power up)

[The Shell's Desert ~Last Boss~ - Kenichi Tokoi]

Rupika (voice heard) : You ready, guys? Cause this will be much fun as this game! I will show you the true meaning of PSO!

[DBZ SFX : LOUD Explosion]

Ash Canaan : Rupika, don't tell me you mutated into...[the rubble begins to collapse as Saint-Million awakens]

(Saint Million Roars)

Rupika (As Saint-Million) : Behold! I am the creature that lived within the depths of Ragol. I shall be the beast that lay upon my power as a D-Cells User! I am the Ragolian Sandworm... Saint-Million!

Ash Canaan : Rupika! You don't know what you're doing! This isn't the way about your life here on Ragol! Leo had nothing to do with something about your family! Even everyone thinks you're born on Ragol, but you're the one that I can ever trust you as one of my best friends! Please, Rupika! Come back to us!

Rupika (as Saint-Million) : Never! (Jumps into the sand) I'll be like this and grant you the taste of my D-Cells power! (Laughs evilly)

Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupre : Okay, this NPC here...[outbursts] HAD HER MIND GONE OVER THE EDGE!

Kimial Diehl : If it's a boss fight you wanted, then it's a fight! Here we come, you Sand Landing freak!

Ashley : Watch out! It's spreading those axe-like spinning things!

Kimial Diehl : Yikes! Whatever those things are, it's going to cut us into pieces! Find the ones that will slow this thing down and then hit it's weakspots! That's how things work in PSO!

Ash Canaan : Got it! Yellow's the weakest, Orange is not the brightest, but Red will do just fine!

Rupika (As Saint-Million) : I hunger for the crying souls that devours everything I need, I happened to ever care that any of you can dish out the pain that lies within me. No matter how much I've grown stronger, I will make you all draw your last breath! You and me, Ash! I'm gonna make it to the top...until the very end!

Ash Canaan : (attacks the red spinner) Comeback to your Senses, Rupika! Everyone needs you back, everyone knows that it is not the way of who you really are, you are my friend, a friend with a big heart. There's no point in fighting against someone to avenge your family by becoming a monster like that! You're the only friend I've know you in my life since the days of Highschool!

Rupika (As Saint-Million) : Why should I care? Why does everyone knows about me?! The people, the races, the Chao that I've known and love, they mean nothing to me now! Being Saint-Million is the power that I've know a lot since I was a kid!

Ash Canaan : Well, I hope that you got alot of guts putting your luck into this! (Destroys the red spinner, causing Saint-Million to stop)

Rupika (as Saint-Million) : Gah! No! What are you doing?! This is a delicate body I am using! Don't go near it!

Ash Canaan : Now guys! Attack the crystals on the creature's tail!

Gang : Roger!

Rupika (As Saint-Million) : Please! I'm begging you! I'm begging you to stop!

Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupre : You guys step aside! I got eyes on this mutated f***ker! [destroys each of four crystals on Saint-Million's tail] This is wearing him down! Burn, wormy, burn!

[Saint-Million roars]

Rupika (as Saint-Million) : Yeouch! That hurts! Now you've done it! But I got something for you four! Here, take this!

[DBZ SFX : CRASH!]

Ash Canaan : Hey, no fair! Where did you go this time!?

Rupika (voice heard) : [chuckles] See if you can find me in one of these spots that I am hiding. The one over there is on the left, and the other is on the right.

Ash Canaan : And let me guess, you're in the middle of where you are.

Rupika (voice heard) : Now then, let's have a good look on you that is having a real battle this time! I want you to show me how great PSO is, Ash! This is truly my moment to shine on!

Ashley : You're on, Rupee! Let's see if you can go against us! Time to give us the main access, or face the might of me, Ashley!

~ Twenty-Fifth Scene : Battle in the Underworld Pt.1 ~

[zeropro]

Y Run Away (+Fire) - A pkmn gijinkalocke comic - Episode 001 part 1 Prologue [feat. Pikachu]

Nuzlocke Rules:1. Catch the first Pokemon in each area 2. If it dies it dies 3. Dupes clause, cannot catch a pokemon you already caught before

Thanks for reading everyone! I've been developing this gijinka style for a while and I'm really happy with how it came out, been practicing my figure drawing and everything for it! Really hope you like it as much as I do!

This is my first time working on a gijinka comic, it's a real challenge to design a world where the pokemon are people. In this world, every pokemon is an individual, there are no two people who are the same pokemon species. The pokemon's name is just their species name! This is why I'm playing with dupes clause even tho I usually dont, and I'm going to have to pay attention to which pokemon I use as NPCs as they cannot be the same as any pokemon I've caught. I have in fact finished this run so I know what all my team members will be~ I wanted to pay homage to gijinka comics that have come before me. It helped give me a creative springboard to jump off of in terms of themes and plot points. I really wanted to play up the classic tropes of gijinka comics, such as having a fennikin protag who runs away from home, and a dad character that dies later. Woops! Haha, spoilers I guess...OR IS IT? Maybe I'm just misleading you, you'll have to keep reading to find out~! Of course, the fact that I picked a fenniken was totally coincidental since I always pick the fire type. XD

Part 2 | Part 3

[interact-if]

Day 2 of the Black History Month Featured Author Interviews, featuring Summore! 

Summore, author of A Trial of Horror

Black History Month Featured Author

All you wanted was a break. Just a day when your life wasn’t filled with worrying about when your next essay was due or if you had a night shift with your sleazy co-worker who just won’t take no for an answer. Hell, you were so desperate for some downtime that you would be happy with just an HOUR of peace.  

One day, your friend Tama recommends an experimental VR game called “Little Trails of Horror” to destress. As someone who survived their very own horror movie, you figure that there isn’t anything that you haven’t seen that would shake you to your core. It also helps that there is an incentive of 10,000 dollars for participating. You decide to sign up, imaging that there were worst things that you could be doing on a Friday night. What you anticipated was cheesy graphics, with too much gore and too many jump scares. Not a darkness that seems too natural and a breath on the back of your neck that feels too warm.

Now stuck within these games with no way to leave without completing the objectives, your only worry now is to survive and find a way to break this vicious cycle. But every time you get even close to doing that or finding someone with answers, they die on you. Will you be able to escape for good or continue to be dragged from mission to mission, or worse?

Read more about A Trial of Horror [here]

A Trial of Horror Demo TBA | Discord | Beta Testing Application

Tags: 18+, Dark Fantasy, Thriller

[INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!]

Q1. So, tell us a little bit about the projects you're working on!

So, I have two projects that I’m working on currently. The first is A Trial of Horror, that's my baby! The one that I’m currently putting all of my proverbial eggs into. I wanted to take some of my favorite troupes from various horror movies that I’ve watched and prose the story in a ‘what would YOU do?’. Of course, the answer to that question is going to have consequences, some good, some bad depending on which route you go. I want readers to recognize that there is an underlying reason underneath every action. And when they do, I hope that they'll start asking themselves: Why is this happening? Can I trust this NPC or RO? What is everyone’s game and how does the MC fulfill or fit into the bigger picture. If I had to put it in one sentence: Evil Dead meets the tired as hell Lemony Snicket protagonist.

My second project is still being developed, I haven’t gotten a title for it yet, nor do I have a definitive plan of action. With that being said, I've decided that its going to be a re-telling of the Trojan War. I want to explore the Greek myths surrounding the myth and add a bit of funkiness into it. What I have so far is that you will be able to play a character from either the Spartan side or the Trojan side and follow the events of the war from opposing sides. I don't want it to be TOO heavy hearted but I doubt it'll stay that way, cause war is a bitch and too many atrocities were committed on both sides. But I'm gonna mute those as much as I can. I hope.

Q2. What inspired you to start writing your current project(s)? Why in Interactive Fiction?

I love horror, honestly, I’ve probably been a horror nut since I was 17. So when I was thinking about creating fiction, I wanted my first experiment to be in IF. It offers so much flexibility, and I think you, as a reader, can fully immerse yourself into the work. Reading horror novels is cool, but sometimes it's hard to put yourself into the shoes of the protagonist. Whether it's because of social identity or cultural differences. So, I wanted to create something where people could relate, or see themselves inside of the story. I think that really amplifies the fear factor when you immediately think, "God, that could be me."

For the second IF, it's a shorter reason. I'm actually an Ancient Mediterranean major, so my whole college career was based upon reading Greek myths and tales. My favorite was Medea  but slowly but surely I grew a love for the Iliad. (It really took a while for that to happen…). But I wanted to write an "what-if fic?" For this story. What if circumstances were different? What if you could save Achilles and Patrocilies? What if you could save Hector? I really want to explore those options within this IF! But my thought process can change, and I could want to look at it from a different lens,  either way I hope it's gonna be dope.

Q3. What is the most rewarding part of creating for you? The most challenging?

The most rewarding part would have to be seeing how much of an impact your work can have on people. There really is such a gratifying feeling from seeing someone say, "Your characterization is so detailed, I can totally relate to XYZ!" or "God, this passage hit me right in the heart! It moved me to tears!". When you get messages like that, I feel like you were able to reach out and connect to someone, despite the miles of distance between you two.

Now, the most challenging part would have to be the writer's block. Those things are UGLY and they really come from nowhere! You could be on a role, and then all of a sudden BOOM, blocked from creative juice.

Q4. Does your heritage have a lot of influence in your work? How?

Hmmm, that’s a good question, and I’d have to say no and yes. I know that’s a little bit of a cop-out, but I say that because my heritage is truly embedded in almost EVERYTHING that I do. Whether it comes from the jargon or slang that I use or the old slave folktales that may seep into the stories that I tell. With that being said, I try my hardest to exclude some parts of my heritage. To be specific, I try to avoid writing anything that is embedded in black trauma or as my friends call it trauma porn. In case anyone is asking what ‘s ‘trauma porn’ or black trauma. It’s typically any form of media or consumable information that is emphasized around the pain and suffering of either a POC or the black community experience. For example, whenever we see black films or black horror there’s always some form of old-school Jim Crowe cruelty that’s the underlying plot. Now, I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be there, because if you can execute it well, then execute it. But how many films do we have to watch that are essentially reiterations of the previous one? How many times do we as black consumers have to be retold the same story with the same antagonist, and the same message? It can be so grating because I feel like anything that’s involved with Black culture and horror it MUST deal with slavery. Like there are so many other themes, folktales, and other topics that can be utilized. So, I’ve tried to avoid leaking that into anything that I write. And if it does somehow show up? I try to dial it down or remove it altogether, some people can’t handle it, and I try to go by a case-by-case basis. But just to be clear, it is important for us to talk about these issues, such as Jim Crowe and discrimination, because unfortunately, we are still dealing with redlining and other issues. But do we as black consumers need to have another ‘12 years a slave’, or ‘Them’ every year?

Q5. What is something you would like to see more of in IF works and in the community?

I think I'd like to see more inclusion and diversity in IF works. However, if they aren't executed well, I feel that it can be a huge problem. So, maybe more resources for non-POC who are trying to write POC? Although the blog writing with color gives you pretty much ALL the resources you would need.

Q6. Describe something that you love about your work or are excited about sharing in your story.

Hmm, I'm honestly excited about almost everything! The plot is something that I’m working with every day, and it changes or grows little by little. I'm excited to see how it's going to look a year from now! An aspect or I should say character, that I am most excited about sharing is the Magdalene’s lore, because who doesn’t love a good tragic backstory ? Her involvement in how MC gets trapped within the game impacts the plot in a major way and I'm interested to see how many people gravitate towards her or hate her, in the end!

Q7. Any advice to give to your fellow writers?

Keep going guys, you got this! You all have wonderful and amazing stories to be told, and we all can't wait to read them.

[fontasticcrablettes]

Ended up thinking about Xillia 2 for the first time in ages and wrote a very long ramble about my problems with the structure and ideas for how to fix it.

Heads up because I haven’t talked about X2 in a while on this blog, but I’m generally not a fan of it so this is pretty critical and I put it all under a read more if you want to skip over negativity.

So I’ve often said that Xillia 2 would be better as a stand-alone game rather than an Xillia sequel.  I feel this way because I like a lot of the new concepts and plot ideas they brought in, but don’t like the way they used the Xillia cast.

But... actually that wouldn’t work.  The idea of a game where the party hops between alternate universes to destroy them, and the ethical considerations that come from destroying entire universes, is very interesting.  A big part of the appeal of these alternate universes, though, is that they’re built on Xillia, so we’re seeing different ways that scenarios and characters we’re familiar with could have gone down.  How would this work as a stand-alone game?  I think you’d have to introduce universe hopping later in the store, perhaps after an Act 1 climax, to spend the first act building up the world and characters so we can later see those distorted into AUs.    It just wouldn’t have as much to work with.

So then, if the universe jumping plot has to be a sequel to Xillia, how do we fix it?  One of the biggest problems in the game was party bloat.  The party was simply too big, leading to there not being enough time to develop relationships.  Characters were just left behind for important scenes and never given a chance to react to them.  Everyone got paired off with one other person to have all their character development with, so all those interesting relationships from the first game got ignored. 

Perhaps adding Gaius and Muzet to the party was a mistake.  I love the idea of the antagonist from the last game being a playable character in the sequel, and I adore Gaius, but they added them to the party but then stuck them together so that most of their scenes were with each other.  The fun of seeing Gaius become friends with the first game’s party was diminished by severely reducing the screen time they have together. 

The cast was just too big.  We’ve got the 6 characters from the original, plus Gaius and Muzet, plus Ludger and Elle (who isn’t playable but has the same amount of screen time in cutscenes and skits as a party member).  That’s ten characters to wrangle!  11 if you count Teepo!  12 if you count Alt!Milla, who is never in the party at the same time as OG!Milla but still adds to the total number of characters in the story.  Plus the relationship between Ludger and Julius as a prominent NPC.  That’s simply too many relationships to juggle and too many characters to give each relevance to the story and character development.  Alvin had such interesting relationships with everyone else in the party, but we only ever get to see the one with Leia develop because there simply wasn’t time for anything else. 

I have to assume that’s why they also gave you locked parties for so many sections, limiting you to only a fraction of the cast for major plot points because writing all ten of them into each major development would be too messy.  Economical decision, but it means we don’t even get to see how half the cast reacts to major plot points which is... very underwhelming. 

Xillia 2 hinges on being a sequel so that we have an entire previous story to play around with in AUs. But it being a sequel is what caused the entire character mess because they had to fit the entire old cast alongside the new cast, leaving them no time to full flesh out either. 

How can this be fixed?  Honestly, getting into “just take this concept and make an entirely new game” territory, but does a sequel need a new protagonist?  Or, what if the New Protagonist was simply Gaius.  How interesting to take the previous game’s Final Boss and make him into the Hero this time!  It would at least ensure we get plenty of scenes developing the relationship between Gaius and the party, rather than just Gaius and Muzet.  If Gaius and Muzet were the new party members and we didn’t also need to focus on the Kresnik family drama, there would only be 8 characters to focus on, which is much more manageable. 

(Tales has already proved they work best with 6 because the games with larger parties always have the last few get neglected and not be as relevant like Regal and Presea or Flynn and Patty, but the fact that the original 6 are already established should help.)

And yeah dropping all the Kresnik stuff does just turn this into an entirely different game!  But the whole drama with Ludger and Julius and Elle and such is the stuff that I’ve previously said would have worked fine as a stand-alone game rather than an Xillia sequel. 

Basically, I think a sequel should take the original and continue those characters’ stories, or else focus entirely on a new cast and plot with the original cast only appearing in brief cameos or references.  Trying to do both leaves the game in a limbo that does neither successfully. 

And it ALSO doesn’t help that Ludger is a silent protagonist.  The party gets paired off with their designated Person They Are Allowed To Have Character Development With, but then also they have a relationship with Ludger.  Except... the relationships with Ludger are all very shallow because Ludger doesn’t have actual conversations with anyone.

I’ve heard Ludger feels more alive in a NG+ when his voice is unlocked and that’s... stupid.  I shouldn’t have to play a game twice in order to get a feel for the main character’s personality (just like I shouldn’t have to read the in-game recaps to learn what the main character feels about anything).  And also, I’ve heard the reason for this is that they didn’t want people to notice that he and Victor sound the same, which is a bullshit excuse.  I trust his voice actor can, y’know, act, he would make the characters sound distinct by the way they talk.  I know that Tales knows how to make two characters who are voiced by the same actor and are technically the same person sound distinct because Luke and Asch!!!!

Whew ok, I haven’t put serious thought into X2 in years and it all came spilling out of me.  Now back to my regularly scheduled Ignoring Everything About This Game and Pretending Xillia Has No Sequel.

[jimmyandthepulsatingmass]

Jimmy Day 2021 and the Upcoming Project

Jimmy’s 3rd anniversary kind of snuck up on me this year, probably because of the persistent feelings of doom and frustration over the pandemic.  I hope everyone who reads this is doing well in spite of everything.

Anyway, let’s talk about Jimmy!  I want to take a second to thank those of you who have treasured this game.  It never found a wide audience, but it did find an audience who cares for it deeply, and that means a lot to me.  I don’t have a lot of Jimmy-related news, but I do want to touch on a few things.  First, the vinyl is, as far as I’m aware, still being produced on schedule.  Hopefully, we’ll have pre-orders up in September which is next (!) month.  I’ve also been putting off updating Jimmy for a while, but I do plan on taking the time to do so once I reach the next stage of development on the next game.

Speaking of the next game, let’s talk about it a little (or a lot)!  I’ve been holding details close to my chest on it, but I want to give a few generalities on what to expect from this one.  It’s going to be another RPG, but the look and feel are going to differ from Jimmy.  It’s set on a planet inhabited by insectoid people who are mostly sociopathic, so the vibe is going to be way different.  I was inspired really heavily by the Lennus series on this one.  Like in Lennus, most of your characters are mercenaries, so they have their own motivations and self-interest, meaning they might turn against you, rob you, extort you, etc.

Although Lennus was the primary inspiration, the actual gameplay is going to be way different.  The level design, for instance, is going to be more like Chrono Trigger, where enemy encounters are on the screen and can mostly be avoided.  I’ve been playing a lot with the encounters, so I hope that their variety will keep people engaged.  Inside of battle, they’ll vary from Chrono Trigger--basically it’s going to be a combination of FF10′s visible turn order with Breath of Fire 3′s Ex turn system--with a few other wrenches in the works that I don’t want to get into yet.  But, this is one of the reasons I’ve been really excited to get away from RPG Maker.  Combat’s going to be deep with a lot of room for strategy, and I’m giving players a lot of options on how they form their parties and equip their characters.  If you thought Jimmy had a lot of interesting equipment options, this game’s going to blow you away!

The story structure is also going to be unique.  I’ve always been fond of the SaGa games, and I’m taking a page from their book and having multiple playable characters--four.  They’re all going to have their own stories and functions in the world, and their stories are broken into two parts.  The player will get a chance to play all of their first acts in a more linear, guided way (although there will be room for exploration for sure), and, after that, the player will be able to select a character to finish the game with.  Their final chapters will be much more open, like the World of Ruin in Final Fantasy 6, and, after beating a character’s game, the player can go back to the halfway point and select again if they would like.  Each character’s late game will contain some unique dungeons, variances on a lot of the dungeons shared between characters, and a unique plot and dialogue (including town NPCs).

It’s a large, ambitious game, which is why it’s taking so long to get out there.  The amount of planning I’ve done here is insane.  I have composed an 87 song soundtrack (this count will likely get larger), 600+ pages of dialogue for the main script, 750 pages (and counting) of dialogue for NPC dialogue, spreadsheets of data about equipment, monsters, magic, skills, etc., and around 60 levels (and counting) mapped out.  Actually, here’s a little visual aid about how I’ve been mapping out levels:

This is an optional late-game level called Nightmare Garden.  Each of the squares isn’t a room so much as it’s an area, and the rectangles that connect them just show that these areas are connected.  Each area will vary in terms of size and layout--this is just a rough plan for the mechanics of the level.  The lines indicate that you’ll go through a doorway or some other type of entrance, and the dotted lines means that there’s a secret path or a situational means of getting through a path (like a gate that opens from one side, for instance).  There’s also a staircase in the upper left and a little arrow near the middle top that represents a one-way jump.  The T’s represent treasure, the M’s represent monster encounters, and the S’s represent special notes--they might be some kind of field hazard, an interactable object, and so on.  I have a key in a spreadsheet that gives detailed descriptions of what’s going on at each of these points of interest--not going to share that, as it would be spoilers!

All that’s just to show you the level of planning I’m going through now and why this is taking so long.  As I’m working on this, my life-long friend and now business partner Jason is working on getting the essential systems coded.  You might remember his name from Jimmy’s credits--he helped test the game and also coded the system that allowed me to animate the battle backgrounds.

The time frame on this game is really hard to judge.  I imagine I still have 2-3 months left on level design, but, after that (or maybe before), I’m going to start looping artists in so that we can get enough art for a trailer, a demo, and promotional materials, and then, after that, we’ll be able to launch a Kickstarter and Steam page, which is when you’ll really get to see this game’s potential.  I’m sorry that I don’t give regular updates on this kind of thing, but it’s such a lengthy process and, without art done, I can’t really show you the GOOD STUFF yet.  But, I hope that this blog gives everyone a clearer understanding of what to expect and why this is taking forever.

Anyway, this was the least Jimmy-focused Jimmy Day blog I’ve written, so I’m going to stop talking, but I know that fans of Jimmy have been looking forward to news about this, so I wanted to get everything I can out.  Thanks for playing Jimmy, and thanks for your patience with this new game.  I appreciate y’all so much!

[utilitycaster]

Actual Play: How it works

This is a collection of how I think of actual play as a medium, because TTRPG actual play is a unique one - a combination of improvisation, a rule set, and randomizing elements. This isn’t fully comprehensive, and I may add to it in the future as I come up with more ideas. I’m also thinking of providing some examples/more in-depth stuff for the items in separate posts, so please let me know if that’s something you would want.

Most of the observations here heavily skew towards D&D and Pathfinder actual play, as they are what I know best. Other systems I’ve listened to (PbtA, Cortex, Savage Worlds) fit in here as well, but this may not apply to all actual play, particularly GM-less games or games that are primarily played as one-shots.

Finally, and I say this only because it is a recurring problem on the social media that I happen to find incredibly irritating: you are also welcome and encouraged to have other opinions, disagree with me, dislike all of this, etc. If you have things to say, my inbox is the best place; this is too long for multiple reblogs and this is a sideblog so replies are tricky. However, if you are the kind of person who is inclined to say things like “Actually, there was an exception to this rule! It’s in the backmasked audio at 06:59:32 in the outtakes of episode 192c of Dungeons and Discotheques! :)” I would like to provide you with this actual play line quote from Adaine Abernant in Fantasy High: I think that you feel like you have a lot to offer, and please take this the right way... you don't.

Onto the thoughts, below the jump!

On narrative devices and rules and the random element:

Foreshadowing is possible, but limited to specific circumstances. A GM can (and should) foreshadow! The point of foreshadowing is to set expectations, and GMs should have hints that indicate things about the world that the party may encounter later, provide potential plot hooks, or otherwise provide the party with information. Similarly, players can do things that nod towards as of yet unrevealed elements of their backstories. However, it is impossible to deliberately foreshadow plot resolutions, because it is unknown what they will be. That doesn’t mean that in retrospect things may happen that echo back to earlier events, but the intent to foreshadow was not there - it’s a happy accident.

I don’t want to say normal narrative rules don’t apply because what are the normal narrative rules, really? However, I think an important thing to emphasize is that narrative satisfaction is not guaranteed. This is especially true if the cast has agreed character death is an option, but even beyond that, an unlucky or lucky roll can seemingly cut an arc short or take things in a weird and unforeseen direction. Because there is an element of randomness, randomness will occur. This, along with the character agency I discuss later, is one of my favorite things about actual play. It strips out the need for a moral or message or specific beats - not that those can’t arise, but they can’t be forced - and as such it can make for unusual, creative, and very true-to-life stories even in a fantasy setting.

On character role, viewpoint and agency:

Actual play stories have an ensemble of viewpoint characters (the PCs). This is perhaps the clearest restriction that exists, at least in all of the game systems I’ve mentioned. There is no good way to depict NPCs acting on their own unless the PCs have a way to observe them, unseen (magical or mundane). It is extremely difficult to have one player play multiple PCs, and if a player leaves there is not a good way to recast their PC. This doesn’t mean NPCs can’t do things with each other offscreen that have implications for the story, nor that PCs can’t come and go or become NPCs, but it does mean a good GM is very careful about NPC interactions because it gets very boring and non-collaborative very quickly to watch someone talk with themselves.

The PCs hold a level of agency that characters in other media do not. Statements about how the characters have a mind of their own in original fiction aside (sidebar: I am team ‘they don’t, you just didn’t realize that the way you wrote their personality and the way you wrote your plot conflicted until you actually started writing it out, which is very understandable’) PCs do in fact have a mind of their own separate from the GM and from each other.

Something I like about this is that unless you are coming up with conspiracy theories regarding the interpersonal dynamics of the players themselves (in which case I think you’re both a creep and a weirdo (derogatory)) or if the GM is not respecting player agency (which I feel is usually very easy to see; see below for more on that) you do not get cases of “these characters are together simply because the author felt like pairing them off” as can happen in scripted media. Any romantic relationship is, inherently, a mutually agreed choice between the originators of these characters, and more generally any plot or relationship necessarily needs to have something that appeals to all characters involved. It may be as simple as “these are my friends and I want to keep hanging out”, but, despite this being improv, it’s a medium where saying “no” is always an option.

With that said there is still room for players to be uncooperative or selfish. It’s rare, but it does exist, and I’m personally of the opinion that it’s in part the GM’s responsibility to have a conversation with that player and to not play into their attention grabbing. That said, with one notable exception, all the accusations I’ve seen about this have seemed to me to be more “I don’t like this player/character/ship/arc and I am going to claim they are stealing focus, despite it being justified,” and not genuinely about a player being obnoxious.

Agency separate from the person who creates the world is perhaps the most unique element of actual play and at this point I’m going to talk a little about how a good GM fosters that.

I’ve said before that when a GM has things happen that are not at least mostly a direct response to character actions, they are typically either world-building or a hook, and can be both. I think of this sort of as a variant on Chekhov’s gun, actually; the gun doesn’t have to go off, ultimately, in actual play, but it is saying the following:

This is a world where there are guns hung on the wall sometimes.

Someone else might do something with this gun.

You can attempt to do something with this gun before they do.

And then the players decide how they want to interpret it and what they want to do, and the dice indicate the level of success in doing so.

A good GM should encourage the players to explore and be creative, and more than anything, reward agency. This doesn’t mean rewarding it with success; rather, it means if someone explicitly indicates they want to interact with an element of the world, you should give them the tools such that eventually, they can try to do so. You can also give them reasons in-game why they should change their mind, or make it so that it’s almost certain to fail if that is reasonable, but if you are trying to flat-out shut it down without providing an in-world reason why, the cracks will almost certainly show.

One important thing to remember about GM-ing: GMs will probably come into the game with some ideas of what’s going on in the world, and some level of understanding of what the world looks like. That will be influenced by the players, both in terms of the consequences of their actions and choices, and also by what the players are interested in. Which is to say: even if there is a session zero, and the GM states a specific premise, that can change! Characters develop, player interests change, dice rolls do weird things, and so a good GM absolutely must if not kill their darlings at least remove, recycle, and adapt them based on the direction of the game and motivations of the characters. Even in a plot-driven campaign, the players and GM and what makes them happy needs to drive the story, because fundamentally, this is a game that should be fun. Which brings us to...

On the Watsonian and the Doylist in actual play:

Stepping back for a second: the context in which people are creating fiction influences them. End of sentence. It’s ridiculous to think it doesn’t. This means everything from political events and worldwide trends, to the media the creator is consuming or has consumed, to personal life events. There are always going to be in- and out-of-universe explanations for choices in fiction.

In actual play, the players and GM know the underlying rules of the world, and it’s difficult to truly split the party and have everyone not involved leave in a way that feels fun, so everyone always has information that they can’t really use in-game. Also it’s a fully improvised medium that is primarily theater of the mind, so unconscious choices, misunderstandings, and accidents are frequently not edited out, and people are human. Which is to say I think it’s important to take this into consideration in one’s analysis; it’s not that you can’t incorporate a Watsonian reason for something that happened, but Doylist reasons are given a weight that they may not have in an edited work.

Three of the Doylist reasons beyond the misunderstandings and accidents I wanted to cover are metagaming, awareness that this is for an audience, and character knowledge.

Metagaming exists in many TTRPGs, and it’s not actually inherently bad. When a DM in D&D says “that just hits” you get an idea of the AC of the creature, and you know your own attack rolls, and you can make decisions based on that, when, in a ‘real’ fantasy battle scenario, you probably wouldn’t gain all that insight from a single hit. The rules of the TTRPG are considered part of normal acceptable metagaming. There’s also the more general one; if you start the first session in a tavern, there is an unspoken expectation that the PCs will interact and form an impromptu group and not just quietly drink their ale and leave - basically, the rules of improv still apply. This is a good thing. And finally, there’s the acknowledgement that you are people with feelings and this is a game and so if someone is upset you stop, or you have discussions about consent between sessions that inform actions in-game. Metagaming just gets obnoxious when someone rolls a nat 1 and then argues that this is obvious information and they should know, or looks up every monster in the manual when you encounter it instead of playing true to the character’s knowledge.

In actual play, the ‘hey fellow tavern-goers, would you like to be a group’ form of metagaming, the “oh right this is a story and we should move the story forward,” is even more important than in home D&D games. This is where I recommend listening or reading some Q&As or watching some after shows, because you’ll hear players talk about this. A 5-hour shopping episode or extensive foraging can get boring to watch or listen to (and unlike accidentally boring or frustrating things, are pretty easy to predict and avoid). On the flip side, a risky choice might seem more appealing when you know there’s an audience who would love the payoff.

I am personally, perhaps unsurprisingly given what I said about player dynamic conspiracy theories and randomness (or, outside of this post, my strong dislike of certain popular fan theories), not a big fan of creators catering to audiences’ every whim...but it’s unavoidable that they will take the audience experience in mind.

Finally, character knowledge, which is the opposite of metagaming - when a character knows something the player doesn’t. This is sometimes covered with, for example, GM statements like “you would know, as a person with history proficiency, that this country is actually in a regency period.” If the character had, in improv, before the GM had a chance to say that, mentioned the king, that’s just because the player did not know that and had made an assumption.

Personally I find going deep down the rabbit hole with things like this - “why doesn’t this character, who CLAIMS to be from this country, not know this?”, or clearly OOC statements - tends not to actually spark any interesting theories, but that is, ultimately, an opinion.

A few final thoughts on different formats of actual play

True livestream/live-to-tape (Critical Role, Into the Motherlands, and the second season of Fantasy High): the main thing to keep in mind is Doylist explanations are even more important because there is quite literally no editing. Also, there will possibly be some of those more boring stretches or even a little OOC metagaming discussions within the structure of the game, because there’s no way around it.

Editing, but primarily just to remove long explanations/math and doing soundscaping (NADDPod, Rusty Quill Gaming): Pretty similar; a lot of them even make the choice to leave in OOC metagaming discussions, so it’s mostly that there are fewer cases of people slowly adding numbers.

More extensive editing and possibly some predefined other elements (TAZ, most Dimension 20 shows): this may fall into a more traditional story structure. It’s not to say that there won’t be surprises, because the players do still have agency, but the ‘rails’ might be a little more apparent; there might be some DM monologuing done after the fact (beyond just cleaning up the audio) or choices that were not scripted per se, but not exactly improvised either (think how D20 tends to have pre-set battle maps and earlier seasons had a pretty strict RP/Battle structure.

Somewhat relatedly there are broad story structures, which is more of a spectrum, ranging from sandbox (Critical Role) to very clearly GM-driven missions (TAZ Balance and, to an extent, Amnesty); nearly all of the other shows here fall into a structure of “here is your overall goal, how precisely you get there is up to you although, like any GM, I will provide in-story information on where it may make sense to go that will often funnel you towards specific places.”

I do have a theory that since TAZ Balance in particular was an entry point for so many people, it takes them time to adjust to the more sprawling, unpredictable, and difficult-to-organize stories other actual play can have, but ultimately it is a matter of personal preference and all of these still fall into the category of actual play.