#combat offload

[lesser-vissir]

Having just read Reactors and Romance, I think I've come to the opinion that we have evolved past the need for rules-lite TTRPGs.

Every single self described "rules-lite" TTRPG I've read is only able to have a small ruleset because it banks on being a GM Theme Park.

Like,,, what they do is strip out all setting guidance, strip out most mechanics, strip out characterization and other important tone setting rules, then make the scope of the type of story played HUGE.

Wedding Crasher: A bride's ex has shown up to her wedding with mechs committed to win her back by any means. What is each PC’s role in the wedding?

The only rule that exists is combat. Nothing regarding story mechanics, nothing regarding how to handle story arcs between missions. Just vibes.

Which ultimately means the GM has to handle all of that and design rules for it themselves. This is especially so because players are strapped into the proverbial rides. The only control they have is combat so the GM must pick up the rest of the slack.

Honestly, if you're going to be rules-lite you NEED to give the players certain creative controls cause otherwise you're just recreating the worst aspect of D&D.

And even beyond that, you need to drastically shrink your scope if you're going to add, I cannot stress this enough, a SINGLE rule.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good and interesting rule, but it doesn't fit the announced scope.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

You once said you mostly like playing Dwarf Fortress in adventure mode nowadays, right? Any adventure mode tips you can give for a total noob?

Okay I'm not any kind of expert by any means, but...

For combat, there are weapon skills (e.g. Crossbowman, Swordsman, Hammerman, Bowman) which determine how good you are at using a specific weapon, but there are also two I like to call "parent skills": Fighter, which determines how good you are at using melee weapons in general, and Archer, which determines how good you are at using ranged weapons in general (as well as attacking with thrown objects). Attacking with a sword uses (and trains) both your Fighter and Swordsman skills. For character creation I think it's better to put points into Fighter and/or Archer, and train in the use of specific weapons during play. That way, if you ever need to switch to a different weapon from the specific one you're trained in you'll still be able to use it competently.

Always put one point into the Reader skill, otherwise your character will be illiterate. Since the only way to train skills in game is by using them, there is no in-game way to ever learn to read if you start with an illiterate character.

There is currently no implemented in-game way to fulfill the needs to be with family, be with friends, or make romance in adventure mode, so you should avoid creating a character with a personality and set of values that gives them these needs, otherwise they will inevitably become distracted from being unable to fulfill them. Also, the need to eat a good meal is technically possible but extremely hard to fulfill (since it requires either eating an extremely valuable meal, or a meal made with one of your character's randomly selected preferred ingredients) so you should probably avoid it too.

For purposes of trading, carrying small high-value items such as gems or high-quality crafts is a lot more useful than carrying coins around, since coins don't have any monetary value outside of the civilization that minted them, so you can only use certain coins for trade in certain sites.

However, with a high Thrower (or Archer) skill, coins make for a surprisingly decent and easily replenishable thrown weapon.

In certain climates, the water in your waterskin may freeze at night, or even stay frozen all the time. This took me a while to figure out back in the day, but: If you need to drink but your water is frozen, you'll need to interact with an adjacent empty space to make a campfire there, and then interact with the campfire and select the ice to heat it (or, in pre-steam versions, press g and then choose the option to make a campfire, and then while standing next to it press I to open advanced interactions with your inventory and then select the ice and choose the option to heat it)

If you find it annoying to constantly have to find food and water, play as a goblin, since goblins don't need to eat or drink.

I haven't tested if it works the same way in the post-steam versions, but in iirc performing anything at a tavern and then talking to the tavern keeper about your performance would get them to give you a discount on your room and drinks, regardless of the actual quality of the performance. I don't think this has been changed, but still.

Offloading a site by moving in travel mode will instantly heal you of all temporary damage, such as wounds, broken bones, bleeding, etc. If you're bleeding out during combat you can avoid dying by running away from your enemies until you're far away enough to initiate travel mode and then moving in any direction.

The only way to heal permanent damage such as lost body parts or severed nerves is to become a werebeast, since your body will be completely restored every time you transform. You can become a werebeast by getting bitten by one and surviving (the bite has to tear at least one tissue layer or it won't pass on the curse), or by getting cursed either by toppling a statue at a temple dedicated to a deity you worship, or by rolling one of the divination dice found at shrines three times (although when you get cursed it's randomized if you become either a vampire or a werebeast). However, being a werebeast will make you vulnerable against a random metal, and transforming will unequip and drop all your worn items (including backpacks and pouches) unless the size of your werebeast form is relatively similar to your normal size (plus destroy all non-leather clothing you're wearing regardless of size change)

If you don't start with a high Armor User skill, wearing a full set of armor can actually be more harm than good, since a low Armor User skill makes you more susceptible to the armor's encumbrance penalty, and makes you tire more easily while wearing armor, making it harder to dodge attacks and get attacks in.

However, any leather clothing counts as armor for the purposes of training, and doesn't have encumbrance penalties. So if you don't have a high armor user skill you should equip yourself with maybe a metal helmet, gauntlets, and or/boots, and then put on as much leather clothing as you can, so you can avoid the penalties while you train the skill to the point that you can wear a full set of metal armor.

[nyktomorphia]

I admit this is mostly based on how I would redesign a human body to run on batteries, but I did try to keep certain things I remembered in mind. (e.g. Murderbot is obviously bionic, it has to pretend to eat, it can't visually distinguish a combat-grade SecUnit at a glance.)

Additional senses are stored in the face. It's conveniently close to the brain (which is why humans put augments there too), and there are a lot of spare nerve endings there since a SecUnit doesn't need nearly so many in its tongue.

Murderbot's ears (and voice, partially) are electronic, which requires another organ to provide a sense of balance - hence, gyroscopes. Mounting the gyroscopes close to the centre of mass would allow SecUnits to reorient themselves in microgravity without having to push off against another object. That would be one of the recalibrations necessary after its height adjustment.

Murderbot explicitly has to section off part of its lung in order to pretend to eat, which implies a diaphragm as well as a circulatory system (which is an elegant solution for many other things), but its organic components need nutrients for normal function. I'm not sure if it's been said where those come from but I'm assuming some kind of non-digestive injection, which frees up a lot of space for more computers. Murderbot's organic memory seems to be closely linked to its cognition, so it'll probably still die from decapitation, but another processor closer to the physical core would offload subconscious background programmes and greatly improve reaction time by physically shortening the neural pathways. Murderbot also uses it to store its massive media library.

It's hard to improve on a complex appendage like an opposable thumb without making it obviously artificial. The other fingers are less obvious - independently-articulating joints are useful for things like delicate technical work or dismantling firearms one-handed, but even classical musicians rarely do more than have their tendons separated.

SecUnit forearms have only one 'bone', which looks slightly uncanny when twisted but isn't especially distracting unless it draws attention to them by using its energy weapons. The number of humans who have prosthetic forearms and combat enhancements is vanishingly small. Who loses a limb and then plans to keep putting themselves in violent situations anyway? That's what SecUnits are for. (The weapons are mounted in a way to minimise the risk of putting fingers in the path of the beam, as well as cushion against impacts that might otherwise damage the rest of the limb.)

[saphira-approves]

Okay no I’m not done talking about swords, and their names, because sword names are IMPORTANT okay and they MEAN THINGS—

I rambled in the tags of this post about Eragon and Murtagh naming/renaming their swords to be positive, compared to their fathers’ respective negative sword names, but I want to go further into it.

First is the obvious one, Morzan’s Zar’roc, Misery, and Murtagh’s Ithring, Freedom. I’m almost certain Morzan names his sword as an offensive measure—and I don’t mean offensive as in insulting, I mean it in the combat sense. It’s a curse, almost, upon his enemies: any opponent he faces with this blade will be struck by misery, literally. But one thing we know about Morzan: he’s not particularly wise, and even his best works backfire on him. We see it with Selena, and his confidence that she loves him too much to betray him, so he never warded against her. He named his sword Misery, and Misery is all it brought him: he joined Galbatorix, brought the downfall of the Order, and lost his dragon to nameless madness; he killed Brom’s dragon, making an enemy of the man who once had idolized him and sealing his own demise by Brom’s hand; he threw Misery at his own child and pushed his wife to betray him, which ultimately led to the downfall of everything he had ever worked for. Talk about a curse. He upheld Misery, and Misery came right back to bite him in the ass.

And then Brom took Misery from him, and sequestered it away, and eventually gave it to Eragon without telling him its meaning; and Eragon wielded it without knowing its meaning or history, trying his best to do good with it, and even when he did learn its history and its name he resolved to work to give it a better legacy. After all, a good sword is a good sword. But Murtagh, Morzan’s son and heir, was not done with Misery, bore too painful a scar from Misery to let it go—he took Misery from Eragon and claimed it as his own, claiming his birthright, yes… but taking Misery away from Eragon, in the very same moment that he also protected Eragon from capture and forced servitude, the fate that had befallen Murtagh himself. Complicated as feelings all around may have been, intentional as the act itself may or may not have been, Murtagh here is very much intentionally shouldering that burden. He fully believed that Eragon was another son of Morzan, he could have easily justified rejecting that part of his history and his father’s legacy and offloading it on his younger brother, and yet he didn’t. He took it for himself and declared it his own.

And then he called it Freedom.

After enduring torture and enslavement and a hundred other humiliations, he took Misery in hand and said, no. I do not uphold you. I do not fight for you. I fight for Freedom, for my own and my loved ones’, and for the Freedom of all. He looked at the horror of his past and refused to let it define him. He looked at his father’s mistakes and refused to be bound to them. He took a name of offense, of attack and hostility, and changed it to a name of preservation, of defense, of peace.

And then there’s Eragon, with Brisingr, Fire, and Brom’s mysterious Undbitr, Void-biter. At first glance it may seem that they have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but I would not be here if I wasn’t going to loudly and fervently declare otherwise.

My guess for Brom’s reasoning of naming his sword Undbitr would be somewhere between edgelord teenager antics (look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have wanted a sword name Void Biter at twelve years old) and his admiration for Morzan, who named his sword the simple yet devastatingly clever Misery. Void-biter, bite of death, the bite that would send his opponents to the void. To darkness, to nothingness, to anti-life and anti-hope. A sword lost after his dragon’s death, never seen again, and yet Brom himself succumbs to the bite of his own personal void: he dedicates himself to vengeance, throws everything he has of himself into orchestrating Morzan’s downfall, and the downfall of Galbatorix and the rest of the Forsworn for good measure. It’s implied, from Brom’s own admission of fearing his son would hate him and Oromis’s discussion of his near-suicidal madness after Saphira’s death, that revenge is all Brom lived for until he met Selena—and even after he met her and fell in love with her, I suspect his need for vengeance is what ultimately decided the events leading both to Morzan’s death and Selena’s doomed reunion with Murtagh. Brom may have lost Void-biter, but the void consumed him anyway.

And then there’s Eragon. Yes I’ve said that already but if anything can sum up these books, it’s And then there’s Eragon. The first spell he learns is fire. A dangerous force, certainly, one that can easily break control and wreak untold havoc and destruction, but what force of nature doesn’t fall into that category? He could easily have learned, and thus be represented by, wind or ice or lightning, or even just pain or break. But he didn’t, and he’s not. He wields fire. A force of nature, a destructive weapon… but also the foundation of a home, fire in the hearth; the fuel of invention, to shape metal and glass; and most importantly, a light in the dark, the hope of dawn in the long cold night. Eragon names his sword Brisingr, and it’s not merely a weapon: it is a beacon. His father was consumed by darkness, but Eragon is the one who guided him back to the light, who gave him something to live for after he had defeated his enemy and lost his love; Eragon was the figurehead of the rebellion, the spark that drove a passive resistance into the blaze of true revolution; and now Eragon builds the new hearth of the Dragon Riders, to tend and defend it for future generations.

What a change from misery and the void.

Fire, and freedom. Hope, and peace. Family, and love.

I think Selena would be very proud of her sons.

[cleolinda]

Silent Hill 2 commentary: Western South Vale (2)

PREVIOUSLY ON: James gets roasted by an eight-year-old who knows too much; Special Places, statues with stories, hidden music, and MARIA. 

Spoiler policy: Just about anything but That One Big Thing near the end of the game, particularly information about characters, their motives, and their dynamics. The game’s eight endings may also be discussed. Content notes are below the cut.

Content notes: The premise of the game involves mentions of terminal illness and suicidal ideation, but it's subtle and not graphic. For this video as a whole, the combat involves the usual bloodshed, acid vomit (no explosions), monster body horror, plank and now pipe melee, and handgun shooting. In the last post/half hour of the video, there's a discussion of alcoholism at a bar, with allusions to alcohol abuse throughout the game. In this post, I have pictures of a handwritten note smeared with blood and some of the monsters; there's a brief discussion of suicidal ideation with that note.

1:02:33: I hate that I say exactly the same things to Maria that every other Let's Player does, but it's hard not to snap one-word answers back at her. "I'm almost getting used to you smashing windows. "GOOD, MARIA." "Again?" "YES, MARIA." "Can you warn me next time?" "SMASH, MARIA."

Another great Silent Hill 2 Remake tradition is shouting, "GET OUT OF THE WAY MARIA!" For whatever reason, she is constantly running into you, or in your path, or between you and the monster you're trying to save her from. That being said, I don't think I say that once in this video, despite usually yelling it a minimum of ten times. 

1:04:40: Maria: "Wrong way, we already passed the motel." "OOPS!" Our first fight of the day is a mannequin hiding in a vehicle repair shop next door. It comes at you from around a post at an unideal angle, and I have ended up battling it all around the courtyard at times. Also, my dog (offscreen) is now upset because he doesn't like it when he hears me fighting. 

Bonus: We see a workout-themed pinup girl with only the legs visible, because James never gives it a rest, ever. 

1:06:30: Again, I've offloaded some of the length of this post into a rundown of various billboards we see along the avenue. But I need to point out one for the Neighborhood Cafe that has some Choices in the design, including tall skinny rainbow letters for ESPRESSO, and the tagline "come to the cafe and taste the heaven." Which is significant because, after the release of the "Born from a Wish" DLC, the main game we're playing became known as "A Letter from Silent Heaven," where Mary presumably is now. As I've mentioned before, that turn of phrase also makes me wonder if Mary experienced a purgatorial Silent Hill of her own to get there. 

This is also the point where I make the really bad strategic decision to stay on the right side of the road rather than zig and zag as I usually do. This means that I totally forget to go ahead and fight everything at Octantis Fuels sooner rather than later. 

1:07:34: Billboards for the Silent Hill Historical Society (we'll pass it soon, and unlock the door much later in the game), the Pet Center (Eastern South Vale, has half of the key for the dog ending), and T's Italian Restaurant (the source of the pizza Eddie loves so much).

1:08:05: Reaching this area triggers dialogue where Maria asks, "Your wife, what was she like?" I think Maria is fishing for information: what could she and Mary have already had in common, and what was different about Mary that Maria could copy? James offers that Mary liked to play the piano. "I'm not sure if you're really that much alike," he adds awkwardly. (Now you understand why I had you look at the picture of Mary first.) "Oh? I don't strike you as the pianist type?" Maria teases him.

1:09:50: I asked Ian to talk about Midwich Elementary as a setting in the first game and movie when he passed these ruined schoolbuses; he picks up that discussion again at 53:00 on his stream. "People thought she [Alessa] was a witch" sounds very Jennifer Carroll and "women throughout history," by the way.

1:10:20: The billboard for Lakeside Amusement Park, which is a major location in SH3: "Come On! Funny Shinny Night Party!" Well, sure. Side note, Maria starts calling James "big man" at this point, even though the game has established that they're close in height. My theory is that James' masculine ideal is a lot more muscular, and he's imagined a woman who would make him feel "big"--even if, in practice, it comes off as potentially mocking.  

1:13:14: Here's the Historical Society. Maria: "Um, I'm all for taking the scenic route, but we're not getting any closer to where we want to be. Just so you know." Which in-game is a way of guiding you towards your objective, admittedly, but also, I KNOW, MARIA. Hesitantly, because this makes no sense, James explains that he thought Mary might be around here for some reason (Maria, amused: "Did you, now?"), because he is struggling to justify my choices as a player. 

You really have to stop and stand there to get that entire dialogue, because getting too close to the Historical Society door will trigger a superseding dialogue about how the building is locked, and how Maria isn't sure what's in there, or even the last time anyone was inside. 

1:14:33: A billboard for Giga Computer (a reference to the Giga Store in the original game), and then a billboard for the Baby and Kids Super Store. When we were at the store itself, I talked about the context--confirmed, but never explicitly mentioned in-game--that James and Mary had wanted to have kids. Hilariously, Maria keeps popping up in the extreme foreground while I talk about Not Her having a baby with James. In the endings where Maria herself is the final boss, she'll make her pitch to James as to why he should choose her over Mary, and she says, "I can give you what she never could." I had never been able to figure out what that might be--some kind of unnamed fantasy?--until it finally occurred to me: is Maria saying that she could have a child with him? Because she's a psychological manifestation, so I don't know how she'd manage that, but I can't think of any other explanation. 

1:16:25: A Silent Hill Fresh Meats billboard just before we reach the end of the line: Nathan Avenue just ends in a sinkhole. Just at the edge, there's a body, to Maria's distress: "Oh, God... did the monsters get him?" Clearly, she is not accustomed to seeing Dead Time Loop Jameses the way we are. 

As per usual, there's a bloody note beside this one. Here's the thing, though: the note you pick up on New Game+ is very different from the one you get on your first playthrough. On an early run that I also recorded, I picked the note up at night, because I think it's wonderfully creepy to find it when James is alone in the dark: 

All it says is, 

I can leave by not leaving. I can ONLY leave by not leaving.

With no other context, I read this as, "Dying—leaving life, while your body remains—in Silent Hill may be the only way to escape Silent Hill." I also think of Angela saying, "It's easier just to run": the only way to run, this note seems to say, is to leave your body here. 

That being said, I wanted to pick the note up in daylight so Maria could react to it, and I wanted to come by the Bowl-O-Rama code honestly:

I can leave by not leaving.  I can ONLY leave by not leaving. The deal is done.  He said he left it for me.  where they once were 1887

Okay, so this is a completely different proposition now; there's a second party involved (who?) and a "deal" of some kind. The number "1887" is the code to a safe at Pete's—I'd wanted show y'all how you get it, and it's so much simpler to get it here and then go to the Bowl-O-Rama. It'll turn out that you need what's in the safe for the "Bliss" ending: the only way to "leave" Silent Hill and/or James' grief/guilt is to stay in an alternate world within it (more on that shortly). 

You'll then hear two thumping sounds, and you'll find two dead mannequins on the road who definitely were not there before. This is Bloober Team's way of calling back to a pair of mannequins in the original game who are somehow... catapulted?... onto the road, without actually going full slapstick. 

Side note, the first time you look into a chasm in the road (there are several) while Maria's with you, she'll quip, "You think it'll stare back?" Meaning, of course, the famous Nietzsche lines, "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." There are several references to voids and abysses throughout the game, both verbal and visual. 

1:20:00: Finally, Pete's Bowl-O-Rama, a fan-favorite location.

What you can hear in the video above (an older run, but I like the way I told the story better): in the original game, Maria's like, UGH I'M NOT GOING IN, I HATE BOWLING, and James is like, what is your deal, I'm not going in here to bowl? But, you see, he encounters Eddie and Laura in the Bowl-O-Rama, and we never see Maria successfully interact with anyone who's not James; I don't think she can. So she has to stay outside. In the remake, Eddie and Laura have been moved to a theater, and so there's no reason for Maria to balk. Thus, when you get inside the abandoned Bowl-O-Rama this time, you get this exchange:

JAMES: You know, you can wait outside if you want. I'll just look around the place.  MARIA [utterly disdainful:] Why would I want to wait outside? JAMES: I... I thought you might not want to... MARIA: James... if you don't want me around anymore, you can just say it. JAMES: No, it's not that. Just a... stray thought. 

James himself sounds confused, as if to say, Wait, why would I think that? I think a previous time loop is bleeding into this one; he's remembering what they said before. Which turns this moment into more than just an in-joke.

As I recall, there's two ways into Pete's, and if you walk in through the double doors, there's a door to a back room directly on your left; this is the most efficient path to get New Game+ extras. There's a note back there referring to cloth stuffed into one of the ball returns; when you come out to the front counter, there's a safe that requires the "only leave by not leaving" code. (There's also ammo to pick up even if it's your first time.) 

In the safe, you get a Rusted Key and this note, from whoever our most recent Dead James made a deal with:

I did not acquire it nor will I be able to do so. However I can direct you to where it is. You will find it in a place of care. An island of respite in a sea of suffering. I warned you before, this is a commitment. I hope you can see this now.

So, the "Bliss" ending: this key is actually a step towards getting a bottle of White Claudia. Remember the PTV drug epidemic I mentioned (V2 39:00)? Yeah, White Claudia is the plant PTV is derived from. The note makes it sound like a previous Time Loop James made a "deal" of some kind (with who?) to get a drug that--I'll go ahead and spoil this--allows him to return to a world in which he and Mary were happy, and she may not have gotten sick at all. It's very Twilight Zone in its execution, and while it's not that compelling unto itself, I like how it adds to the endings as a collective: it's another step in the cycle of delusion and avoidance that James goes through in order to face what he's done, finally, in the "Leave" ending. 

I have a lot to say about the endings, but the short version is, I think all the endings together are "the ending"--watching James go through this process until he gets it "right"--and it's why I'm committed to getting all of them. I think this is why I have a certain amount of affection for this sad terrible pixel man: in some ways, I'm the guardian angel/federal escort who's going to make sure he gets to his reckoning. I mean, I'm also going to usher him to some pretty terrible endings and get him killed twenty times, but he kind of deserves it, so. We'll talk about it later. 

1:26:53: This is probably the most beloved Glimpse of the Past: a famous line from the original, when James finds Eddie eating pizza in the bowling alley: 

"Ugh, this town is full of monsters. Who could just sit here and eat pizza?" Which Original James says to Eddie's face; now that Eddie and Laura's scene has been moved to a different location, it's more a quiet bewilderment. Again: I am not sure where Eddie is getting fresh pizza in Silent Hill, other than mannequins delivering out of T's Italian Restaurant, but this is why there was a stack of pizza boxes in the apartment where we found Eddie throwing up his entire life. You get the achievement "Leftovers" for this glimpse. 

1:27:20: There's another easter egg on the wall--I didn't even notice it the first three or four times I played this area. Among photos of random people bowling and having a good time, there's a very gothic picture of a girl holding a trophy that, in the darkness, looks like the Obsidian Goblet you'll need for the "Rebirth" ending. 

1:27:54: As for the note about the cloth--I have an entire post complete with screenshots about this (of course I do), but the long and short of it is, this leads us to fabric the same color as Maria's jacket wadded into the third ball return (not the third lane). I feel like it foreshadows the "Maria" ending, in which the cycle of Mary's illness and death may repeat, including the dead bedroom situation (the frustration of the note and its mention of balls and a pin reads as sexual to me), and Maria may be discarded once she can't be a fun sexy dream girl anymore. 

While you're here, you can walk down to the end of the sixth lane and pick up some ammo. 

1:31:10: Back out on the road! I'm having to unstitch the Unvideo Writeup I nearly had finished and sew it back together in a different order, because I made the brilliant decision to stick to the right side of Nathan Avenue rather than zig and zag. As such, we're about to deal with every monster in this entire area all at once. But first, something important on Carroll Street: 

Here's another Glimpse of the Past: the entrance to the Heaven's Night club from the original game. But this time it's Maria having déjà vu. It makes sense that Maria would appear in James' time loops (if you subscribe to Time Loop Theory), but she seems to have a consciousness separate enough from James that she can remember this even when he doesn't. Is this meant to be a new development, or has Maria always been separate enough for this kind if discrepancy to show up? I don't know the original game well enough to say.

As a side note, since I like to point out the author namesakes of the streets (as confirmed by Lost Memories: Silent Hill Chronicle): Jonathan Carroll is a contemporary fantasy (specifically, "slipstream") author. What caught my eye, in light of SH2's dog ending, is that The Land of Laughs involves an author and his biographer who both seem to create reality through their writing... and a talking dog.

1:32:50: We reach Octantis Fuels, which I usually deal with way before now. I didn't know what "Octantis" meant, but it didn't sound like a gas station kind of word, so we ought to look it up:

Polaris Australis (Sigma Octantis), the southern pole star, is a magnitude 5.4 star just over 1 degree away from the true south celestial pole

And you see here that the logo involves a star-shaped compass:

I have two possible interpretations for this:

1) Mary is James' North Star, his "guiding light," and Maria is the opposite of that—the South Star—leading him astray. 

2) Maria, who is trying to guide us somewhere, is the North Star in this situation, and for us to be at "Octantis," we are going the opposite of where she wants, like the cussèd contrarians we are. 

This is from the video I had to scrap, but the way the timing played out, Maria made my point for me:

1:34:40: This area will kick your ass, but I really enjoy it. This is where you get the jack handle you'll use to open the garage way over by Rosewater Park. Remember how I've said you often have to "pay" for quest items? You will get jumped by one mannequin, two lying figures, and three (four?) creeper bugs. I mean literally jumped. 

They will target Maria, so you have to keep everybody off her—protecting her is important if you want the "Maria" ending, and she can be killed by monsters. There's a scripted moment in the game coming up soon where she's attacked, with a little "thank you for saving me" dialogue afterwards, but I found out the hard way that there's multiple versions of that exchange after a lying figure here got to her. I ended up apologizing that all the dry cleaners are closed, let's put it that way. 

(There is also an extra lying figure out by the fuel pumps.) 

1:37:00: I am speechless with rage for a full two seconds as Maria chides us for breaking yet another car window. MARIA!! DID YOU NOT JUST SEE HOW MANY MONSTERS TRIED TO KILL YOU!!! LOOTING CARS IS HOW WE STAY ALIVE MARIA!!!!!! 

1:37:35: My notes read, "YOU WILL GET JUMPED ON THE WAY BACK." The last time I came this way, I had a mannequin come up from behind to punch James, then do a full flip and a back-bend dodge. And I was on Light Combat. One of the things I love about this game is that streamers will get the hang of the remake combat and start complaining that it's too easy... and right about that time, every time, the monsters start getting faster and smarter. Lying figures, mannequins, and nurses will be your bread-and-butter enemies through the game, but just when you start getting comfortable, somebody explodes or gets a new weapon or starts skittering up the walls. Just watch a player say, "This isn't all that scary," and then shriek two minutes later, like clockwork. Even I got to an area where I knew what was about to happen, and two mannequins in a row made me shriek. I love it. 

Anyway, we pass a Dry Cleaner billboard and then one for the Dance Company (as mentioned: I think the mannequins' ballerina-style feet connect to this), and we have to deal with sundry lying figures and creeper insects. My dog gets upset and tries helping me (or stopping me) play. I mention a mannequin that sneaked up on me one time, and on a different run, it tried to hide behind a stop sign. Please see Great Moments in Monsters for visual evidence. It never actually shows up on this run, somehow.

Maria, by the way, is completely useless. You can yell at her to pick up a weapon all you want. It doesn't matter that she had a cleaver and a revolver in the DLC; she's apparently turned into a pacifist now. I'm actually impressed that she's cowering behind James like a sensible person (see below), because usually she's running right at you ("GET OUT OF THE WAY, MARIA!").

EXTRA: Now, I forgot to return to the jack handle garage on this run (I am furious about that). I'm going to go back and pick it up at the beginning of the next commentary by cleverly utilizing saves, but until then, here's a side post with some outtakes and descriptions of what you find there. You don't want to miss it because there's a Strange Photo, an article about Brookhaven Hospital--and a poster of Maria.

Next post: No-tell motel secrets; Baldwin Mansion and “Born from a Wish”; White Chrism and the secret dog key; a brand-new weapon and chaos in the backyards of Silent Hill.

(SH2R commentary master post)

[demontouched]

perhaps i'm living in the past, but why have i seen so little of kaminari denki as a close combat fighter? his quirk is electricty. he's a human stun gun. give that boy a pair of metal nunchucks or smth and teach him how to whoop ass. as long as he doesn't go over a certain voltage, he's fine. give him some high tech batteries to offload his extra electricty into and he can power a whole host of cool ass tech. let that boy live up to his potential!

[quirkwizard]

Hey wizard! There was an expansion to my favorite tabletop game, Lancer, while I know there isn't any way to adapt the weird hacking, but do you think anything from one of my favorite mechs, the goblin, be adapted?

I'm so happy you asked for this. Lancer is one of my favorite things ever. I have never had more fun playing any other TTRPG. If you have any interest in mechs or tabletops, I highly recommend it. Now, for the Goblin, that's tricky. The Goblin is more of a general hacker and controller. It doesn't have any real unifying gimmick to the systems. and translating it to a human framework would be difficult. And I've actually done a lot of hacking shenanigans with "Operator". So I'll cover the symbiotic aspects of it, like the Meta Hook and core power.

I see it working as a Transformation type Quirk that allows the user to form an armor-like rig around their body. This can grow out a series of ten organic cables that stretch over ten meters. When attached to other people, the user can jack into their body and act as a living central operating system for them. In effect, this lets the user improve their target's mental and physical computation. This lets them think and react faster in combat, as well as offload some of the strain that comes with combat. This works to offload information to the user and let them perceive what the target is perceiving. The more wires placed inside of another target, the more pronounced the effect and link become. This gives the user an invaluable tool in support, able to link and protect their allies from the strains of work. They can increase allies abilities in combat, act as a second pair of senses for someone, pull themselves to allies in a jam, work to share information, or just keep themselves close to people. Aside from being so focused on support, the Quirk is limited to the cables. Unplugging or damaging them will result in the Quirk failing. The user is also an easy target, so taking them out will make the Quirk fall apart. A possible name for the Quirk could be "Biosystem".

[hartlines]

TUMBLR TEXT POST PROMPTS

@riiese: "Vulnerability is so hard. If I told you anything sappy know that I had a hand to hand combat with seven layers of embarrassment and repression." (From Hilda)

The Terminator doesn't move. It barely even looks at her except to catalog her face, voice, posture, and surroundings. The statement has no tactical relevance, identifiable objective, or connection to Sarah Connor. And yet, she's saying it to it.

The Terminator has learned that humans often offload emotional data when they're still, especially in bars. It is inefficient. It does not say this.

Instead, it turns his head slightly, the servomotor in it's neck making a faint but inaudible click under the background music.

"You are describing an internal conflict as a physical fight. That is not possible. Embarrassment and repression are not tactile enemies."

A pause. Then, like it's testing out a theory:

"Do you expect sympathy? Or are you attempting to initiate bonding?"

[technicallylovingcomputer]

How to create Dynamic and Adaptive AI for Mobile Games

In the competitive world of mobile gaming, creating an experience that keeps players coming back requires more than just stunning graphics and intuitive controls. Today's gamers demand intelligent, responsive opponents and allies that adapt to their play style and provide consistent challenges. Let's dive into how dynamic and adaptive AI can transform your mobile game development process and create more engaging experiences for your players.

Why AI Matters in Mobile Game Development

When we talk about mobile games, we're dealing with a unique set of constraints and opportunities. Players engage in shorter sessions, often in distracting environments, and expect experiences that can be both casual and deeply engaging. Traditional scripted behaviors simply don't cut it anymore.

Dynamic AI systems that learn and evolve provide several key benefits:

They create unpredictable experiences that increase replayability

They adjust difficulty in real-time to maintain the perfect challenge level

They create the illusion of intelligence without requiring massive computational resources

They help personalize the gaming experience for each player

Building Blocks of Adaptive Game AI

Behavior Trees and Decision Making

At the foundation of most game AI systems are behavior trees - hierarchical structures that organize decision-making processes. For mobile games, lightweight behavior trees can be incredibly effective. They allow NPCs (non-player characters) to evaluate situations and select appropriate responses based on current game states.

The beauty of behavior trees in mobile development is that they're relatively simple to implement and don't require excessive processing power. A well-designed behavior tree can give the impression of complex decision-making while actually running efficiently on limited mobile hardware.

Machine Learning for Pattern Recognition

While traditional AI techniques still dominate mobile game development, machine learning is making inroads where appropriate. Simple ML models can be trained to recognize player patterns and adapt accordingly:

"We implemented a basic ML model that tracks how aggressive players are during combat sequences," says indie developer Sarah Chen. "What surprised us was how little data we needed to create meaningful adaptations. Even with just a few gameplay sessions, our enemies began responding differently to cautious versus aggressive players."

For mobile games, the key is implementing lightweight ML solutions that don't drain battery or require constant server connections.

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment

Perhaps the most immediately valuable application of adaptive AI is in difficulty balancing. Games that are too easy become boring; games that are too hard lead to frustration and abandonment.

By monitoring player success rates, completion times, and even physiological indicators like input force or timing patterns, games can subtly adjust challenge levels. For example:

If a player fails a level multiple times, enemy spawn rates might decrease slightly

If a player breezes through challenges, puzzle complexity might increase

If a player shows mastery of one game mechanic, the AI can introduce variations that require new strategies

The trick is making these adjustments invisible to the player. Nobody wants to feel like the game is "letting them win," but everyone appreciates a well-balanced challenge.

Implementation Strategies for Mobile Platforms

Distributed Computing Approaches

Mobile devices have limits, but that doesn't mean your AI needs to be simple. Consider a hybrid approach:

Handle immediate reactions and simple behaviors on-device

Offload more complex learning and adaptation to occasional server communications

Update AI behavior parameters during normal content updates

This approach keeps gameplay smooth while still allowing for sophisticated adaptation over time.

Optimizing for Battery and Performance

When designing AI systems for mobile games, efficiency isn't optional - it's essential. Some practical tips:

Limit AI updates to fixed intervals rather than every frame

Use approximation algorithms when exact calculations aren't necessary

Consider "fake" AI that gives the impression of intelligence through clever design rather than complex computations

Batch AI calculations during loading screens or other natural pauses

"Our most sophisticated enemy AI actually uses less processing power than our earliest attempts," notes mobile game developer Marcus Kim. "We realized that perceived intelligence matters more than actual computational complexity."

Case Studies: Adaptive AI Success Stories

Roguelike Mobile Games

Games like "Dead Cells Mobile" and "Slay the Spire" have shown how procedural generation paired with adaptive difficulty can create nearly infinite replayability. These games analyze player performance and subtly adjust enemy compositions, item drops, and challenge levels to maintain engagement.

Casual Puzzle Games

Even simple puzzle games benefit from adaptive AI. Games like "Two Dots" adapt difficulty curves based on player performance, ensuring that casual players aren't frustrated while still challenging veterans.

Ethical Considerations in Game AI

As we develop more sophisticated AI systems, ethical questions emerge:

How transparent should we be about adaptation mechanisms?

Is it fair to create different experiences for different players?

How do we ensure AI systems don't manipulate vulnerable players?

The mobile game community is still working through these questions, but most developers agree that the player experience should come first, with adaptations designed to maximize enjoyment rather than exploitation.

Looking Forward: The Future of Mobile Game AI

As mobile devices continue to become more powerful, the possibilities for on-device AI expand dramatically. We're already seeing games that incorporate:

Natural language processing for more realistic NPC interactions

Computer vision techniques for AR games that understand the player's environment

Transfer learning that allows AI behaviors to evolve across multiple play sessions

The most exciting developments may come from combining these approaches with traditional game design wisdom.

Getting Started with Adaptive AI

If you're new to implementing adaptive AI in your mobile games, start small:

Identify one aspect of your game that could benefit from adaptation (enemy difficulty, resource scarcity, puzzle complexity)

Implement simple tracking of relevant player metrics

Create modest adjustments based on those metrics

Test extensively with different player types

Iterate based on player feedback

Remember that the goal isn't to create the most technically impressive AI system, but to enhance player experience through thoughtful adaptation.

Conclusion

Dynamic and adaptive AI represents one of the most exciting frontiers in mobile game development. By creating opponents and systems that respond intelligently to player behavior, we can deliver more engaging, personalized experiences that keep players coming back. Whether you're developing a casual puzzle game or an ambitious mobile RPG, incorporating adaptive elements can elevate your game to new heights of player satisfaction.

The most successful mobile games of tomorrow won't just have the flashiest graphics or the most innovative mechanics – they'll be the ones that seem to understand their players, providing just the right challenge at just the right moment through intelligent, adaptive AI systems.

[angrybell]

You know how the Left was screaming that we needed to press Israel for a ceasefire so that the “innocent” people of Gaza could get food and those of us with a brain said, essentially, “yeah, sending anything means it’s going to be taken by Hamas and used to supply their terrorists?”

I hate being right.

Above is a not uncommon occurrence in Gaza. Hamas has hijacked the aid truck. None of the food will reach non-combatants. It will be used exclusively for Hamas’ purposes. Usually they just send armed gunmen to the UNWRA sites where they take but I guess this time they decided they didn’t want to wait for it to be offloaded.

This is a war. And I’m not sorry to say the quickest way this ends is if the brain dead Leftists stop getting their way and forcing Israel to supply the people trying to kill the Israelis.

[reiverreturns]

bg3 camp/companion features i would give my firstborn for that have little to basically no impact on core story gameplay:

side missions to give a special item to every companion a la giving shadowheart a night orchid. my love language is gift giving larian don't deny my love

customisable tents (tav and companions) and purchasable decor/upgrades for camp

idle camp banter between companions based on where the player has been. i want karlach to call astarion a stinky boy after adventuring in the sewers. i want gale to cheerfully inform me he knows twenty spells to get blood and brain matter out of leather when i return from the temple of bhaal. do you get me do you understand my vision

cooking minigame with gale

boo brings you stuff in camp like scratch but instead of a piece of rope or a potion ingredient it's a fuckin two handed greatsword or something

a post/letter function where npcs can send you/your companions messages of thanks or course you for not helping throughout the game (kind of like what we got in the epilogue but i want it throughout. you could also get cryptic puzzles and mission requests! that would be fun!)

wash facilities where tav can actually bathe with a lil cutscene

party function where i can choose to throw a get together as part of a long rest with companions sitting around the fire, mingling, chatting, etc. maybe it costs a load more resources but gives a buff until the next long rest. saving the tieflings wasn't enough for me i require more parties

a passing trading post where i can sell a bunch of shit without having to load the full map to find a shop or merchant. give me less money for the convenience idk my lame ass wizard can only eat so many magical boots the laces will give him indigestion i've gotta offload them somehow

little funerary tributes to companions who are permakilled where their tent used to be. press f to pay respects

mizora having camp gossip dialogue options when you speak to her (PERFECT for inter-companion romances wink wink nudge nudge.) Should also include some narrative pathways that make her leave because the companions are so fucking insufferable

camp resets after a combat in camp (e.g. puddles from create water are gone) and one random character bitches about being on cleaning duty

jaheria/halsin occasionally in wildshape and hanging out with scratch and owlbear

[violet-moonstone]

Ideas for Mel's Powers

I'm not familiar with League of Legends lore, so apologies if this doesn't fit, but I would have really liked it if Mel's powers included/focused on persuasion and mind control. I think it would be really fitting for her character and a great extension of the abilities she's already spent years developing and honestly would be more fitting for her than combat.

It would be cool if the golden light was a visual manifestation of her influence over someone or a group of people -- like glowing threads, a feild around a group of people, people's eyes glowing gold...although i guess that could end up looking too similar to Viktor's powers so idk.

And of course there would need to be limits to her powers so she's not like the queen of a hivemind. The easier control should involve manipulating things the person already believes or experiences (loyalty, fear, anger, paranoia, etc) and enhancing the extent of the manipulation with her powers. A more difficult action like getting someome with very strong willpower to directly act against their instincts and best interests should be really tiring and draining in every way (physically, mentally, magically).

A possible culmination of her powers might be reality manipulation through mass influence -- basically using propaganda, rumours, and/or legends to create so much widespread belief that it manifests that belief into reality through her magic. Again, there should be limits on the extent to which this can change reality/how much she can do before she's exhausted.

It would also be interesting if she learned how to offload some of her energy into devices or substances that can hold and/or amplify her power (something like hextech but uh...not as dangerous. Maybe she could meet a scientist or fellow magic user to help her out with that) so that when she's in the middle of a particularly complex working, she doesn't have to constantly focus on it. Imagine a hidden room with a huge crystal grid or arrangement of runes that repeat her spells over and over. Depending on how magic works in this world, this could also be aided by people in her employ (I'm imagining secret hooded figures and lots of chanting).

[mightyflamethrower]

U.S. Army Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley, 23, died last week from injuries he sustained while working on the pier built by the Biden-Harris administration for the purpose of delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

As Breitbart News reported, the pier was a core promise of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Biden assured Americans that there would be no “boots on the ground” — though, as Breitbart News pointed out, there would have to be U.S. personnel at sea, and at risk. The cost of building the floating pier was $230 million.

As Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong noted, the pier regularly broke apart due to storms and high waves in the Mediterranean. Wong also obtained exclusive video of the pier rising and falling dangerously in the surf.

Sources also complained to Wong that lives were being endangered for a “photo-op.” The administration itself admitted that there were other, more efficient ways of bringing aid to Gaza, principally over land and via truck, even if aid was stolen. Aid offloaded on the pier had to be trucked into Gaza anyway, rendering the sea route superfluous.

The pier opened in mid-May and was closed by mid-July, having only been operational for a total of 20 days. During the course of its operations, three U.S. soldiers were injured. Two returned to work; Stanley was disabled, then died.

Stanley was recently medically retired by his unit because his injuries meant he would be unable to continue military service, a defense official said. He died on October 31. “Stanley was injured while supporting the mission that delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza in May 2024 and was receiving treatment in long-term care medical center,” Capt. Shkeila Milford-Glover, a spokesman for the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, said Monday. … It’s unclear how exactly Stanley was injured, though officials have emphasized that it was not combat related. Stanley’s injury — as well as the minor injuries of the two other troops — were first confirmed by Vice Adm. Bradley Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command, who told reporters in May one individual was “undergoing care at an Israeli local hospital. He was injured out on a ship at sea.”

Israeli sources also reported that Palestinians no longer wanted aid from the pier after Israeli helicopters rescuing Noa Argamani and three other hostages from Hamas were filmed touching down in Israel on the beach near the pier

[bitchfitch]

I've got this story about a rainforest forest that was made and is maintained by a dragon in the middle of Antarctica bc he was lonely. The issue is. I have Never been able to decide what like. Species the people living there are. So I'm offloading the choice onto y'all.

The culture is comunal and largely centered around revelry and the worship of the party loving god dragon. Heavy focus on the arts and connecting with others, very little reason for combat outside of "it's fun to wrestle your buddies", the forest provides basically everything they need in terms of food and protection. There's nothing else besides that antarctic desert for miles around them.

arguments below the cut

Humans: the easiest but the least interesting narratively. Part of the joy of this project is building up this isolated culture and making the characters humans means they had to come from somewhere with the resoluting culture being a evolution of what they brought with them.

Elves: middle ground between the other two options. Keep the humanity, but add more elven bullshit like stupidly long lifespans.

Fauns: this was the original concept, but I really want the main character to throw his sandal at a guy, and he can't do that if he's got hooves now can he? and also. most of the characters in the story are brown or black, making them fauns feels like an attempt to sidestep their humanity.

[spewagepipe]

Plumbing the Depths: Ben Milton rates his subscribers' hot takes

My experience is that Ben Milton is among the "oftener right". I don't have much to add about his ideas in this video, but I have a lot to say about the hot takes themselves.

My responses are long enough that it seems better to me to publish them one at a time, so here is just the first hot take:

The 5e community has a toxic problem where it offloads all of the system's problems on DMs. The game isn't too easy, it's just the DM's fault for not being creative enough with combat encounters! Darkvision isn't OP, you just need to build your encounters around its very narrow limitations! Want your characters to think outside the box and not spam abilities? Design situations specifically tailored to that!

I want to take a brief aside to talk about terms like "toxic", which get thrown around an awful lot in ways that I don't think are accurate or helpful. If the community is mocking and berating these struggling DMs, then yes, that merits the term – but if that's really a common occurrence, then I must admit that I'm ignorant of it. What I do often see is advice that is framed in a dismissive, "If I were in [situation X], I would simply [solution Y]" sort of way. That's obviously unhelpful, but it's not really hazardous to anyone's psychological health.

But whether or not it is "toxic", the phenomenon being described in the take here is both real and commonplace. Among my pals, I coined the phrase "cherchez le maître du jeu" to describe this trend. In old noir fiction, detectives would "cherchez la femme" (transl. "look for the woman"). Somehow, every dead man was either killed by a woman, killed by that woman's associates, killed by that woman's rival lover, or whatever – the specifics didn't matter, but somehow "the woman" was always the cause, no matter how ridiculous (and misogynistic) that assumption might be.

In the same fashion, it seems like no matter what the problem is with someone's RPG experience, the D&D community always asks "what was the GM's mistake?" and then proceeds to engage in whatever mental gymnastics are necessary to somehow attribute the problem to GM error.

There is some truth to the idea that some GMs can sometimes work within any given set of rules in order to achieve some arbitrary creative goals – but if the system is at odds with those goals, then the GM will find that it's a struggle to accomplish. Much of the output of the D&D-advice cottage industry amounts to exactly this: helping GMs figure out how to fit the "square peg" of their stated creative goals into the "round hole" that is the D&D system.

The easiest solution, in almost all cases, is to change the system itself with either a house rule, home-brewed subsystem, a new set of special procedures, or by swapping to a different game altogether. Once your system is in harmony with your creative agenda, these problems just evaporate and the game begins to effortlessly behave as desired. This idea – that changing your system is the chief way to fix the problems with your game – is going to be a common theme here on Plumbing the Depths.

[blackjackkent]

I was just thinking that I really need to find a merchant and dump some of the goods I'm carrying, so this seems promising.

The shop is rather nice inside and run by a dragonborn named Exxvikyap; she's a gold dragonborn, which is gorgeous, and seems like a nice person. Her voice is v perky.

I think this is the first time in the game that we've seen NPC dragonborn?

She's also apparently dealt with a lot of very dumb customers.

Anyway, let's have a chat.

"Hiiiiiii! Want a blade? Or a bow? Or a dagger? Or maybe a spear is more your thing?" She leans closer to Hector and grins cheerfully. "You look like you know how to use a spear. Buy a spear, whaddya say? Huh?"

I love her. I can't believe this is an effective selling strategy in the long term but she's certainly likable.

[MONK] "I normally rely on my own hands for combat, but let's see what you have."

The dragonborn gives a knowing, conpiratorial nod. "One of those *stoic* types, are ya? Well, I'm sure Gyldro's got something cooked up that even you can use."

This absolutely sends Karlach into a fit of laughter and gets grins out of Jaheira and Shadowheart too; they are very familiar with Hector's stoic nature and the dragonborn has him completely figured out.

She didn't really have anything I immediately wanted but I did offload my whole inventory on her so there's that.