#Introduction: Hello, I am #new here! I was on #Diaspora for quite a few years but it was a very small community. Mastodon seems larger and more dynamic.
I'm mainly here to chat about #RPG games. I have been playing #DnD since the #1980s, starting with Moldvay #Basic and Keep on the Borderlands. These days I am mostly playing #DCC, but also enjoy Call of #Cthulhu, Traveller and #OSR games.
Besides #RPGs, I like British comics, especially #2000AD and its spin-offs. And #cycling.
Exactly 30 years ago today, Final Fantasy VI was released on the SNES in Japan. It is one of the greatest Final Fantasy games to ever be developed, and is a personal favorite of ours on the blog.
Our retrospective post won't be ready until tomorrow.
I've encountered a strange issue where #BaldursGate3 is suddenly constantly crashing on my main rig, but working perfectly fine on my #SteamDeck. I'm not using any mods, my rig is more than enough to handle the game on high settings at 1440p, and I'm not having any issues with any other games. I've reinstalled the game several times. I've verified the integrity of the files via steam, I've even reinstalled my OS. Noting works. It still crashes constantly on my main PC. There;s no discernible pattern to the crashes either--in combat, out of combat, standing around in the world, clicking on something, doing an action, character creation...it just crashes after 5-10 minutes every time without fail. My temps are all fine as well, and no other game is giving me these issues....any idea what's up? I'm running the game on a Ryzen 5 2600 with a 6650 XT, 32 GB of ram, and nvme driven and i'm using #LinuxMint 21.3... #GamingOnLinux#RPGs#BG3#GamingOnLinux#RPGs#BG3
People need to stop worrying about what #Hasbro#WotC is doing to #DnD. #RPG, at its core, is a very simple thing: rules, dice, paper, pencils, people, time and space, and a lot of snacks and beverages.
The genre transcends its progenitor. Your rules need to govern how to describe a character, how to describe the environment, how to resolve conflicts, and how to handle rewards/progression/improvement. All of it can be and in fact is made up.
#RPGs were always meant from the very beginning of #DnD to be mostly #DIY, just like D&D itself started.
And, for the love of Selune, Lliira, Eldath, and Mystra (insert your preferred $deity value), #Hasbro makes the Basic Rules available for free download. It contains the most important bits of the framework, enough that you need never spend a penny, provided you are willing to supplement that framework with an active imagination (which really, is the first requirement to play, after all!)
It’s up to us to keep our hobby strong. Buy physical RPG books and PDFs direct from independent publishers. Don’t become reliant on online digital tools. Use paper character sheets. Let players use options from non-WOTC 5e books. Play other RPGs.
What else can we do strengthen our hobby from the whims of any single company?
Dragon Magazine #52, August 1981. The first issue I ever bought, with Faerie Dragon cover art by #BorisVallejo. There's a great article in this issue concerning the differences between the Holmes Basic and Moldvay Basic rules, by Holmes and Moldvay, respectively.
Going back and actually reading #DragonMagazine will give you a much more accurate understanding of what playing #RPGs in the early days was actually like than you will ever get by listening to old #OSR#cranks, #wingnuts, #neckbeards, #trolls, and #grognards bloviate about the #wokeness invading their precious little hobby. #DnD was not for conservative and reactionary people who didn't appreciate change. Literally everything about our games was changeable at will, and so we did.
Part 1 of our Shadows of Adam livestream is now on YouTube. This RPG starts off somewhat dark and ominous, not unlike Breath of Fire II. Speaking of 16-bit RPGs, there's a ton of homage to various SNES games.
The phenomena of rentier supermassive #photogrametry libraries like #Quixel for #Unreal will be the death knell of open world #rpgs. The barrage of highly photorealistic yet poorly designed games is destined to transform the connotation of "uncanny valley" from that of estrangement to that of burnout, as gamers hop from one massive world to the next sporting realistic landscapes with little depth of consideration for the psychological mechanics that define story-oriented games or the dedication required to become intimate with a craft. Meanwhile, the flaws of supposedly flawless #megascans will become apparent to average players within a few years, and one can even imagine the megascan aesthetic becoming associated with interactive smut and reactionary virtual reality in 15 years. Meanwhile those who are genuinely passionate about games will continue to learn to build them from the inside and out, and continue to produce worlds worth imagining, along with faithful audiences.