Khrux

@Khrux@ttrpg.network

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Khrux ,

Season 1 is also great because it did a great job having the kids be basically doing ET, the teens doing a camp horror and the parents doing a cold war conspiracy thriller.

Every season since of course needs to alter the group compositions, so we rarely get this again, although the elements are still there, they're now shaken up enough that the show is often more focused on riffing on its own formula then emulating the media that inspired it. And that's fine, it should probably be a good thing that it's not in the shadow of it's inspirations, but man do I miss that specific vibe.

Khrux ,

Although you could travel the land. Perhaps not cross the Sahara but if you lived in the Roman world, you could quite easily take some years to walk off the edge of the map and just explore. There would of course be a good chance of death from illness, animal or person, but equally like today, you may also meet plenty of kind people who would let you stay and maybe even share their knowledge of the area and culture.

Khrux ,

Infact we should go out of our way to swear because it's the fucking advertising companies that pedal the ad friendly, PG internet and if you don't support that, you're harming their ability to advertise by swearing.

Khrux ,

There was an edgy but very fun indie game a few years ago (maybe 5-6?) where one player played as a parent running around and childproofing the house while the other played as the baby trying to kill themselves. The game was surprisingly fun, and weirdly putting the logic you'd heard your entire life to keep children safe to die was always quiet funny, from getting forks to plugs to filling the bath etc.

Taking inspiration to make a game in a psyche ward in a jail break / death is victory multiplayer game would probably make for a popular streaming game, although the topic is as horrible as the baby death game, perhaps worse because instead of being in the role of a silly unfortunate baby, you'd be in the role of somebody fully aware and acting with premeditation.

Khrux ,

This is my favourite, it's a little cheesy and fun, but it doesn't have my biggest issue with the Reddit one which is for some reason acting like it's a birthday party.

Khrux ,

I'd say the Rage beyond Death feature of the zealot is pretty major to how they're played. A level 14 barb may have 150 hitpoints or more, plus their resistances, but people play the zealot in high level games for this feature.

The idea of getting to fight to 0 hitpoints, then keep fighting until you die and then still not relenting until the fight ends is rad. Hell I'd say that their level 3 and level 6 features, while cool, were designed after their level 14 feature and designed to let you get as much out of that final feature as possible.

Khrux ,

It's a shame that knowing average monster hitpoints is generally metagaming and there is no ranger option or similar to show you this.

It would be cool to follow a fireball. If you know the enemy you're fighting has about 32 hitpoints for example, such as the thug, and a band of them got hit by a fireball for 30 damage, sleep is a perfect spell. But getting this combo off in game always feels a little metagamey in a way that just makes it ineffective.

Khrux ,

This is my favourite novel of all time. It's interesting how the conversation is always about if it's adaptable into film, where many famous novels are accepted as totally unable to be adapted.

Part of it comes from McCarthy's very external style of writing. It's basically impossible to covert the layers of subtext in Ulysses to screen, or the introspection of The Bell Jar.

Hell in university I adapted the first chapter into a screenplay to pass the time and I was super happy with the outcome. I'm paraphrasing here but when the Coen Brothers adapted No Country for Old Men they made a joke that the adaptation was as simple as Ethan turning the page and Joel writing the words. McCarthy's work screams to be adapted.

On the flipside, Blood Meridian's meandering, epic nature may be what makes it unable to be adapted, not it's cruelty. Any and all adaptations for screen would need to reimagine swathes of the book, which is a disservice to it's structure. Many novels have this difficulty in adaptation but for reasons I struggle to explain, it feels it would hurt this novel more than most. Even if it were to be adapted into a 10 or 20 episode high budget show, I'd doubt it would adapt naturally in it's flow.

On a totally unrelated note, chapter 14 is such a great chapter. I often pick the book back up to read that chapter again. It's got fantastic prose, a great monologue from the judge, and covers in my opinion the most critical point of choosing evil for the Glanton gang.

Khrux ,

The Witcher novels are one of the few epic fantasy franchises I've read and man, I didn't really like them.

Unsurprisingly, I came from the playing the Witcher 3, and I loved the first two books; the collections of short stories. The actual main plot felt that it never knew clearly where it was going, and it often suddenly meandered at times that killed the pacing, and man was it horny.

I don't mind horny either. I really enjoyed reading Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and the authors horniness is prevalent throughout the novel, but it actually works to complement the narrative. Even in the Song of Ice and Fire series where GRRM can get distractedly horny, it doesn't read as off-puttingly as Sapkowski's "edgy horny" style.

Khrux ,

I was so amazed at how common they were. I spent a year in Australia and probably saw more kangaroos day by day than I see all wild animals combined day by day here in the UK (excluding birds).

Hell I grew up in North Wales and may have seen as many kangaroos day by day as I saw sheep here, and that's saying something.

Khrux ,

Idk if anyone else follows the rule of thumb of "let the party pull the same trick 3 times before you make it backfire".

In a story, it would fail on the third try, in a game, it would never fail. I find 4th time doesn't leave many people dissatisfied but also doesn't let every encounter be trivialised.

Bust out your fireball empowered cultists responsibly.

Khrux ,

I wrote an essay on this exact thing back in college. Basically every backdrop, including every mountain range the action actually took place in was totally digitally created, furthermore many of the explosions were beefed up in post production. Some obvious stuff like the sandstorm were of course CGI too. Sometimes the ground would just be reshaped a little for the aesthetics of the final shot when it's basically just changing desert to desert.

The thing is, practically every vehicle and person you saw was real, and most of the special effects like the explosions were real and looked incredible on the day, with things like shrapnel and the like being added in post.

Fury Road barely used CGI for the content people care about, the stuff that's exciting to know was done for real on location. But beyond that, it was used liberally.

I'm happy with this approach and I'm curious to see how much the new film adheres to this choice.

Khrux ,

I find I really need to get over the hump into it feeling like a parasocial relationship, which is kinda a shame. The only time I've enjoyed actual plays is when I've seen people who I was already fond of from other internet content play, and on top of that, never in a gimmicky setting like a promotion one-shot.

Basically it's not for the actual play, it's for living through their friendship, then occasionally the drama of the game spills forth and gives it an extra kick.

Khrux ,

I believe they're arguing that AI is particularly used in news, and when looking up news, you're typically seeking current events, in which case excluding post 2023 content doesn't work.

In my opinion, the place I encounter AI content the most is in list content, not just clickbait lists but also stuff where multiple products are compared. If I'm looking up what laptop to get, AI articles pop up comparing 10 products with inaccurate and messy details, but also I don't want to see old products.

Also IMO, in many cases Google search has been useless for 6+ years now. I think it was around 2018 where I started ending my search terms in 'reddit' because the first few articles were poorly advised clickbait, especially when looking for any advice (Reddit of course went to shit anyway). Google is only useful now for navigating to popular sites that will inevitably float to the top of any search query due to popularity. The only other common use for me is correcting typos when autocorrect is stumped.

Khrux ,

Oops I misread your message. I interpreted you as saying that they had it backwards, meaning they thought it excluded everything before 2023.

Khrux ,

If this is 5e, you could probably have done the first idea as a battlesmith artificer, flavouring your steel defender as the thrall.

Khrux ,

Surely that would be more of a https://ttrpg.network/pictrs/image/5161e5d4-e389-47f8-be73-d9d93bcf80a6.jpeg

Khrux , (edited )

Tome of beasts also has a little more bite than standard 5e, I think they've called their design 5e with teeth before, one of those books is also now available on D&DBeyond too if that's to the person's liking.

All that content is under various OGL / CC licenses too so it's available on open5e.com

Khrux ,

I'm not particularly clued into the industry but I'm not shocked. From what I've seen, Cynthia Williams believed the most profitable direction for D&D was to monetise game game at a very granular level like microtransactions, as we saw in the OGL debacle, plus her focus on the VTT was likely going to manifest in a similar way.

I'd say the explosive success of Baldur's Gate and the surge in WotC talking to practically all games companies possible, it's clear they've set their sights on a hopeful path to continued revenue growth that does not offend any fans.

My assumption is that Cynthia simply centered her leadership on a path that is no longer the direction the company has deviated from.

Khrux ,

2-3 years of pumping shit video games is 2-3 years that they aren't fucking with the core product, which is the only part I don't want ruined. The can make bad games, bad merch, bad brand tie-ins or anything else for all I care as long as they don't harm the game.

Khrux ,

I don't agree with the social commentary the Greeks attached to Aphrodite, Hephaestus and Ares but I do think it's interesting and goes against this headcannon.

Aphrodite was forcednto be in married to Hephaestus, but does not show him and love, instead she's in a long term affair with Ares / is cuckolding Hephaestus.

Looking at Aphrodite, not as 'a woman's love' but love and passion itself, what this relationship is telling us is that we pretend that love is for our crafts, or our creative passions, but really our true love is for conquest and victory. We can't deny out competitive nature, no matter how much we pretend our nature is to create.

Again I don't agree with that belief but it's a great insight into ancient Greek culture and morality.

Khrux ,

I totally agree with what you say about the gods reflectiing us, however I just meant to mention that Aphrodite didn't just have plenty of affairs, she was in love with Ares. Also despite being beautiful, she did everything in her power to avoid Hephaestus and had no children by him.

It's that above all, her favourite lover was war (a high ranking general) and she showed distaste to her husband, a master craftsman.

If it was just about Aphrodite being promiscuous because she was beautiful, she'd have also slept with Hephaestus, what we learn from her distaste for him is that the storytellers who popularised these myths believed that being a great general garnered love while being a great craftsman did not. But also Aphrodite and Hephaestus being married shows the pretense of love between passion and craft, that is really false in the eyes of the storyteller as it's a loveless marriage.

I believe I got this interpretation from Mythos by Steven Fry but honestly I may have picked it up from some random corner of the internet with no credibility.

Khrux ,

Any gumshoe game, probably something shorter than Nights Black Agents: The Dracula Dossier. If I set it in my own setting, I'd like to use Bubblegumshoe to do my own telling of "Tomorrow When the War Began" basically what happens if on the summer camping trip after your last school year, your country is invaded. I can't quite tell how good Gumshoe is for homebrew settings however.

My other want is to run a worldbuilding game such as the quiet year, for the queen or microscope, hacked to set up a concise and thematic noir mystery inspired by fiction like Disco Elysium, The City and the City or The Nice Guys, with a rich and vibrant world that the players are invested in as they built it. I'm tempted to hack the bladerunner RPG by Freeleague for the actual police procedural afterwards.

Khrux ,

Thank you, I've realised that my approach seems a little different from other here, where I try to pick an RPG for an idea that's forming in my head, based on the genre and tone, settling on an RPG that's 80% there but people love the ruleset, then I chop and change it to get close enough to 100%.

This is probably detrimental in a few ways too, as some games like Lancer are unchangable until I'm familiar enough to peel apart the interwoven mechanics and lore, and I'm not going to touch it because I almost never run official settings and adventures, particularly in longform games.

I will shout out both Alice is Missing and For the Queen, which both get worse when they get altered, because their strength comes from their simplicity and then probably ridiculous amount of playtesting.

Khrux ,

"Wrong community", meanwhile every GM who reads this immediately thinks "Same".

Khrux ,

This isn't a perfect example but Cormac McCarthy has been my favourite author for years now, and his first major work Suttree was from '79.

My all time favourites novel is Blood Meridian from 1985. If you're familiar with metamodernism, which is basically very modern works that have their cake and eat it when it comes to modernist ideals and postmodern critique, you'd clock that practically every western is either a modernist white hat western or a metamodern "the west is grim and hard, but also fucking cool" western. The only straight postmodern takes on the west that I know of are either Blood Meridian or pieces of work that take direct notes from it, such as the films Dead Man from '95 (except maybe the Oregon Trail video game from. 85'). Blood Meridian otherwise is a fantastic novel which meditates on madness and cruelty, religion and fate, race, war and conquest and so many other themes. It also has one of the best antagonists ever written in Judge Holden, a character who I would have called a direct insert of Satan if not for the fact that his deeds and the novel as a whole are closely inspired by true events. I feel the novel takes inspiration from Apocalypse Now, specifically the '79 film and not Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness. If you enjoy that film, you're likely to enjoy this book. The opening and closing chapters are fantastic, but I often find myself re-reading chapter 14. It has some of the best prose and monologues of the entire novel, and encompasses in my opinion the main turning point of the novel.

His other legendary work is The Road, a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel. I'll talk on this one less but as our climate crisis grows and our cultural zeitgeist swings more towards this being the critical issue of our time, the novel fantastically paints itself as both a fantastic warning to our 21st century apocalypse and the unresolved 20th century shadow of nuclear winter. Despite this, it hones in on a meditation of parenthood and could be considered solely about that, with other themes of death, trauma, survival and mortality being explored through parenthood. Of course the unsalvageable deatg of the world that make the setting also makes this theme extra tragic. There is an adaptation into a film from 2008 but it isn't anywhere near as potent as the novel and I'd suggest should only be seen in tandem with reading the novel. The prize of this novel has really evolved to fit the novel too. McCarthy is renowned for his punctuation lacking prose, but where Blood Meridian is practically biblical in its dramatic and beautiful prose which juxtaposes the plain and brutal violence, The Road sacrifices no beauty in it's language but is so somber and meanders from mostly terse to so florid, while also always perfectly feels like how the protagonists are seeing their world.

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A Telegram user who advertises their services on Twitter will create an AI-generated pornographic image of anyone in the world for as little as $10 if users send them pictures of that person. Like many other Telegram communities and users producing nonconsensual AI-generated sexual images, this user creates fake nude images of...

Khrux , (edited )

I have no sympathy for the people who are being scammed here, I hope they lose hundreds to it. Making fake porn of somebody else without their consent, particularly that which could be mistaken for real if it were to be seen by others, is awful.

I wish everyone involved in this use of AI a very awful day.

Khrux ,

I mean we can basically justify the law keeping faction to act and respond in whatever way suits the story.

Perhaps the police are a mercenary company paid to guard the local clergy, so reporting their misdeeds is moot.

Perhaps as you said it's that the law keepers are an order of paladin's who must uphold their oath of enforcing the law or lose their magical connection.

Perhaps the closest to a guard force up to that point has been the ruling warlord's loyal warriors, and to your party, they're the enemy.

If the party become too over reliant or too wary of the police, have them reform in plot, for better or for worse.

Khrux ,

I've been using this for years> https://ttrpg.network/pictrs/image/4092b368-6773-45be-b952-a668d9fe1ea2.jpeg.

It's part of my phone's overall aesthetic of lock screen, home screen and keyboard.

As for where I found it, I believe somewhere on Reddit 5 or so years ago that I changed to my phone screen resolution. I also made a version with animated twinkling stars and moving waves but ithe waves were less pretty so I dropped it eventually.

The only silly thing is that all my friends and my partner all have eachother as our lock screens in a cute way, but I am too committed to my lock screen to change.

Khrux ,

I don't even think this is the fast charging prank, I think she thought it was be a cool tiktok dance shot.

Khrux ,

90% sure I read about someone doing this about a decade ago. It was the joke of my friend group for weeks after.

Khrux ,

I don't think I've ever met anyone outside of Lemmy where I feel their lives would be better if they used it. The only time I feel a want to yell about Lemmy is when people who are on Masterdon or the like blindly promote something on Reddit.

Khrux ,

I've been trying to get a LAN party together with some IRL friends for a little bit, but we all are so different in experience level that even playing vanilla, we'll inevitably have some people run rings around others.

My current pitch is that we all share one house and bolt different spaces of different styles onto the sides of it whenever we need a new space, share all resource except a small personal chest and the experienced players can only do specific tasks like going caving or into the nether if it's as a whole group, so the newer players get to experience some of those parts fresh.

Khrux ,

Am I fucking bonkers or does the g not have a clear reflection on the lower half that totally breaks this take.

Khrux ,

Hey apologies if I sound like I'm greatly underestimating your maturity but it's probably better to act on the side of caution.

Flowers are lovely I really hope she likes them! I also have a best friend who I really want to be happy and would probably appreciate nice flowers, although I'd personally steer away from valentine's as I wouldn't want them to be interpreted romantically.

As for that, I trust you know if you want them to be interpreted as a romantic gesture and you should absolutely let her know they're from you and if they are or aren't.

If you want it to be mysterious if they're from you, absolutely expect her to either figure it out or assume they're from someone else secretly and show them gratitude, it's a rare person who would receive something anonymously and not try to presume the sender.

It is a really thoughtful gesture to get flowers for someone you care about today in the want for them to be happy, but it's not fun for anyone if it's misinterpreted and someone ends up less happy for it.

Khrux ,

That's a complicated place to be in and I wish you the best. Until I found my current partner, I'd fallen into a similar friendship / romance pattern with a few friends and it does suck to have both unrequited love and a friendship built off it.

You said you just want her to be happy and I believe you. You can still be a good friend to her despite those feelings do don't ever feel like that friendship is built on your love, even if that's how it started.

It's totally up to you how you progress, you could choose that distance between the two of you helps let that desire simmer until you meet someone else and wonder how you felt so strongly now, or you can make your love known and see where it takes you, which is whaf I'd recommend. If you do this, then both of you are able to take action about it and nothing is left disingenuous. Perhaps it's mutual and that's fantastic, but if it isn't it puts her in the same position as you, which is deciding how to navigate your friendship going forward knowing about this aspect of it.

The other option, which I absolutely would not recommend is continuing to hide these feelings and try to be a good friend regardless. A good friend is trustworthy and can give sincere advice on things like love and dating which is really difficult if you are romantically interested in the person who you give advice to. Even if you mean well and don't try to keep the person you want to be with from being with other, any time a potential person comes up, you will inevitably compare their worst traits to your best. Not just is this insincere, even if you can't tell in the moment, watching them have feelings for someone else will really hurt.

I think I've had strong romantic feelings for a close friend or best friend 4 times in my life. Once was in school and she never knew so whatever. One time it became obvious and basically ruined the friendship and caused both of us a lot of hurt and without a best friend. The most recent two times were a little different, I was between two friendgroups and sort of ended up in this situation in both. One is now my partner of 4 years and the other is my best friend who I no longer feel that way for. I do think that the final case here would have ended badly if not for the fact that I found the other person in that period.

I've done a lot of rambling here but you really should let them know, it's probably the most difficult of the choices to do but also no happiness can come from the other options.

Khrux ,

Meanwhile on the surface, the lich that crushed them with the rock has subsumed their corpses into their army and is going to invade the hells.

Khrux OP , (edited )

I initially built them as having multiattack before thinking of this, and they'd only get as many actions as the number of attacks, so they wouldn't be risking instantly downing a PC more than any creature with standard multiattack.

As for yo-yoing on the edge of their attack range, I think I'll lower their weapon range and their special ability basically requires them to consistently read aloud from a grimour, so I'll half their movement while that's active (they'll either be retreating entirely or using the book).

The main reason I'm hesitant with legendary actions is that I already use the MCDM villain actions and this NPC is going to be encountered with basically a heist team, so I don't want to manage too much for this creature off their turn.

Edit: Thinking about it more, I'm happy not making it all happen in a turn and giving them two legendary actions, however for the sake of versatility, I don't see an issue with making those legendary actions "The thief takes an action".

Khrux OP ,

The cumbersome element comes fromcthe combination of Multiattack: Master Thief makes 3 attacks. Alternatively it can replace any number of those attacks with Cunning Action or Special Action and *Cunning action. The master thief makes may take the dash, disengage or hide action, or make a sleight of hand check, use an object or use thieves tools.

I'm not totally against breaking it into legendary actions, I suppose the dilemma is less about "should it be legendary actions" and more "should it be any action or limited to specific choices" i.e. If I made the theif have two legendary actions per round and its option was "the tbief takes an action", I cant imagine it breaking anything that adding cunning action, and multiattack separately wouldn't do too, and I'm worried I'm overlooking something here.

Khrux OP ,

Thinking about it more, I'm happy not making it all happen in a turn and giving them two legendary actions, however for the sake of versatility, I don't see an issue with making those legendary actions "The thief takes an action".

Khrux ,

Although we know the cat got up 5 seconds after the kimono was cut.

Khrux ,

It aired against House of the Dragon which really shower it's mediocre writing. I'm a huge Tolkien fan and generally sceptical of most franchises but honestly I think in a vacuum, the show is fine.

Compare it to Witcher, even season 1 which is fine is probably on par or worse than Rings of Power, it's just that LotR is a strong franchise and it was easier to compare to multiple better competitors.

Khrux ,

Charles has literally lobbied ministers to change spending plans to go against the NHS in favour of homeopathic remedies. People have likely died from cancer directly due to his decisions and in my opinion, lol is a suitable response to that karma.

Khrux ,

At the higher budget level, where basically the products can afford plenty of art, I basically never see games using the 5e engine? Perhaps I'm wrong here but beyond the splintering of many of the companies that previously made 5e content like Darrington Press, MCDM, Cubicle 7 and Kobold Press, I don't think I've seen any non-amareur RPGs based on 5e on the horizon.

I do see a lot of powered by the apocalypse game, and within that a few forged in the dark games, but powered by the apocalypse is so varied anyway that I don't see it as an issue. I also see Freeleague using the same engine for their games but that's a specific company using their engine.

Khrux ,

Hating on D&D is a past time that's as old as D&D. I agree though, the attitude towards the franchise ignores that they are generally making a few good small steps for each corporate, huge step back. It's still my workhorse system while I explore games with deeply different tones and mechanics but I haven't found a want to replace it at my table at all.

Khrux ,

If I'm reading your message right, I'd like to mention the infinite ways to flavor the 2014 5e rogue. Firstly the rogue gets no resting based resources so it's effectively always on, secondly despite some flavourful descriptive names like sneak attack and cunning action, it's classic abilities are really just bonus damage, more bonus action mobility and expertise.

This means the rogue is really easy to play as a lot of plain professions. Stick your expertise in medicine and flavour your sneak attack as surgical strikes and you have a surgeon. You can do the same with being a ballet dancer, labourer, merchant, scribe, mechanic, whatever. All you need to do is pick your most relevant expertise.

Khrux ,

Do they cast spells out of combat? My favourite characters of all time are basically low resource management casters who then have a couple of spell slots for our of combat utility such as a warlock. If they do, then just increase the number of out of combat obstacles as that's probably what they're saving their spells for.

The other thing is that if they reliably always do this in combat, just decrease how much they influence encounter balance. If you use an encounter balancing tool, just put that PC through at a lower level. If they don't do it reliably, just make your encounters have a scalable element such as a boss who can power up or a creature who joins the fray after a round or two if they actually do use spells.

Some full casters also make good frontliners, although I'm sure you're already accounting for that. If this character doesn't, consider ways to offer them powerful melee options. It doesn't need to rival a paladin or even any melee character but enough to keep them enjoying the same pkaystyle they always fall into. A sentient sword that verbally demands you cast spells because they empower it for melee attacks would be an option, it would encourage them to cast spells to enjoy being in the frontline more, and you can encourage them to cast spells in character. (That idea is actually neat please steal it).

Overall I'd say that if they're having fun, don't worry too much about it, I'm terrible for accidentally spoiling the fun of my players by trying to show them the right way to play. If they're causing TPKs then something needs to be addressed, but if everyone is having fun despite the playstyle, consider how to introduce mechanics, tools and narrative options to forgive and support that pkaystyle.

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