The Gaming Den

I don't mean game mechanics here, but rather in-universe rules for what magic can and can't do. Kind of like how the genie from Aladdin has restrictions on the wishes he'll grant, or how Full Metal Alchemist has the law of equivalent exchange, or how Patrick Rothfuss' Marty Stu masterpiece The Kingk...

Leress wrote:Bojack Horseman Season 5. Not as great as season 4 but still very good.

Last season was phenomenal - but the free churros episode from season 5 was outstanding.

It’s to the shows credit that no matter how despicable bojack is, you can’t help but root for him.

Can you give examples of what a fleshed out combat aspect looks like?

CapnTthePirateG wrote:The one thing that sucks about the Dragon Prince is that there aren't more episodes.

That's...really about it.

I know...I want to see more of that world. What's with the elves who have space faces? Love the fluff behind magic.

Maj wrote:I am fucking loving the hell out of Cloak & Dagger.

I like what they did with the cop in episode 2: skipping the played out procedural by making her investigation scenes silent.

I noped at after the part where the protagonist's brother was running for office on a political platform of scapegoating fire. I handled that as obviously dude was an unwitting tool of the dark forces of thems-what-is-vulnerable to fire, but I ragequit at the explanation of confessor powers. You ca...

I feel like Gotham is kind of emblematic of trashy CW writing, it's like a microcosm of every poor story decision ever made in any of their programming. It started out as a kind of down to earth crime drama. But... Gotham isn't a CW show. It airs on a "major" network. That's why they are ...

Atomic Blonde. Just caught this on VOD. I mean the plot is kind of like someone took a John LeCarre book and wrote in a bunch of arbitrary plot twists in colored pencil, but here's what I liked: The film was gorgeous to look at: everything from the sets to the colors, to the music and costumes, were...

Most people have already mentioned my rewatchables, but I’d like to add The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, Dark City, and The Third Man to that list. Favorite movie of all time is Strange Days. I watch it at least once a year. I don't know how well it stands up to critical analysis, but I still love ...

Yeah, I got into around book nine before I left. My only excuse was being young, stupid, and having only those books left to read at the time due to picking them up cheap at a library sell. Eargon isn't as bad because it doesn't blatantly try to throw ideology in my face and also doesn't have so mu...

Are there any RPGs out there where phase based combat actually works well?

I mean games where your round is broken into a declaration phase/move phase/execution phase/etc.?

I'm having trouble decyphering exactly what you mean by "outputs". What games have worse outputs magical tea party? FATAL infamously has worse mechanical outputs than magical tea party even ignoring the horrible fluff and even if you're determining good outputs by how well they support th...

I have to agree with Kaelik here. I was working on a reply, but work got in the way. Flexibility is great . There are always going to be situations where the physics engine breaks down and the table is going to have to figure out how to proceed. But if the following table produces better outputs th...

Well this has often been my hill to die on discussionwise so: https://i.imgur.com/QnATaIo.jpg Oh wow, li'l buddy...there is a whole lot of 100% from concentrate stupid to unpack there. I mean, this utterly fuck-brained argument fails on first principles, because it describes a social hobby and posi...

I Kill Giants was a good movie. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's on VOD and has a limited theatrical run. On the subject of shitty nerd gatekeeping. I don't get it. I have a couple of friends that used to do videos where they would make cocktails and review comics. Shitlord youtubers accuse...

Again not the worst thing ever depending on how it's done....Its being done wrong so it is indeed one of the worst things ever. As much as I hate D&D3 and its close cousins like Pathfinder, I would totally be on board if they actually managed to improve the game in some way. Unfortunately, all ...

Sorry if this has already been covered numerous times, but it is the annoying game questions thread... What are the Den's opinions on systems where either one side of the GM screen or the other rolls all the dice? Like games where the players roll for attack and defense vs. static TN's and the game ...

So, apparently, in Playtest details, you get critical damage if beat AC by 10 now. Wonder how they make Longsword better than battleaxe's than since higher Crit damage is usually better if no Critical chance increase. Perhaps they'll make longswords and such "swift" weapons that reduce th...

Yeah logic was removed as a core defense attribute, I think tricking a tiger is situational enough to just be a thing you point out about 'normal' animals. Having Sense defend against illusion and Spirit defend against fear also saves me from anguishing over if patterns are logic attacks and what e...

@ FrankTrollman : What's your reasoning for why player's shouldn't be required to pick alignment at chargen? I thought the reason it was included in the 1st place was as part of the 'backgrounds & history' part of making your char seem like a person who existed before Level1. I find it obvious ...

It seems like rigging/engineering, animal ken/survival and strategy/tactics could be folded in together. Since you've decoupled skills from base stats, you could fold logic and sense together into one stat and make that your defense against ambushes, stealth attack, traps, illusions, etc. I'm sure y...

Amusingly they haven't figured out every single thing in 5e was built in opposition to 4e. I haven't seen it anywhere else. I don't see that. From my perspective, 5E has more in common with 4E than any other edition if you exclude the legacy stuff. To wit: *Proficiency bonus works largely the same ...

What if instead of being forgetful kleptomaniacs, what if Kender had more of a Marxist concept of property and ownership in that a thing belongs to whoever happens to need it at the time. In fact that's how their society works: Kender A picks too many apples off of his tree, so he gives the extras t...

An other option; dice shrink as capabilities go up. I can't say if it's any good for anything though. So a Novice rolls a d20, and only generates a hit on a 11+ (with only a 19-20 {10%}allowing for an explosion/step/extra hit/whatever); and then they can upgrade to ->d12 (TN7; Ex@ 11-12 {~17%}) ->d...

Are die step mechanics (Savage Worlds, Earthdawn, Cortex, Ironclaw, etc.) a complete dead end design wise? I mean, I recognize that there are problems: the effective range of the randomizer is small, so there's not a lot of vertical growth to characters; produces weird outputs like novices succeedin...