Nolgroth

I explicitly agreed that Kellie Marie Tran was the subject of abuse by toxic fans. I have admitted that such a thing does happen. My only contention is that it has become and easy out to blame fans for being toxic when the product itself was sub-par. Were you not reading or just looking for an excuse to take my comment out of context?

I will absolutely, and without any reservation, agree with you that Kellie Marie Tran was the victim of toxic fans and the actress deserves much much more. It's not her fault that the character was poorly handled by the directors and screen writers involved. I'm sure that we can cherry pick a few more out too. Probably ones I'm not even aware of. Not every failed movie attempt is due to fan toxicity. Sometimes a movie just sucks. The alchemy that makes a movie successful just wasn't there. Sometimes those movies go on to be cult classics and sometimes they get MST3k'ed. Some are best forgotten. Blaming "toxic fans" has become just another weary excuse for failure.

Yeah. Come to think of it, it was Kamarathin that was 5E and has a 6E conversion document.

Fifth Edition, though there is a 6th Edition conversion document floating around somewhere.

My general rule of thumb is to go opposite of the critical bought review of most recognized media outlets. I read the user score and watch a few YouTube creators take on the matter.

Yeah, that happens. I just believe the label of "toxic" is applied way too often though and now seems to be the default excuse for a poorly constructed product's inevitable failure. I imagine it is a very subjective bar though.

I think Henry Cavill is turning out to be one of my favorite stars. In a recent interview, he dismissed the interviewer's characterization of fans as being toxic. He instead pointed out how fans can be very passionate about the subject material. I don't have a link to the actual interview, but I saw several videos on YouTube refer back to it. I just think it is pretty cool that somebody in Hollywood has taken a moment to realize that fans are going to have opinions about the things they love.

You're welcome. Good luck.

I just got the PDF. If you're one of those that has to have dead tree versions, I'm pretty sure you're outta luck. Or you might try: https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2147599435/Narosia---Sea-of-Tears

Oh don't get me wrong, I want to love it. The world is a beauty. I may try again one of these weekends. Try to remember the gameplay (controls, etc.) so that I don't have to do the tutorial again.

Watched it. Enjoyed it, for the most part. The gratuitous nudity is par for the Witcher video games course so I just took it as being faithful. The amusing part about all that is the one woman I thought the most sexy/attractive never took her clothes off. Indeed, she was covered in blood and gore for a large portion of her on screen time. I have my gripes about the show, but they are minor. I put it a little ahead of the Mandalorian but only because I think the set pieces are a little better. I have started Witcher 3 about six, maybe seven, times. I can never get past the tutorial area. The pace is glacial, the music drones on and on and there is a constant wind sound effect that just lulls me straight to sleep. I hear that it is an amazing game, but for me it is guilty of one of the worst entertainment sins; it's boring. Add to that the very console-centric UI that does the PC version no justice and I would rather just mod Skyrim for my fiftieth (or so) playthrough.

Absolutely. I am not advocating for yet another setting, sourcebook or compilation of the rules. Without a plan, however, then any "Starter" set is just another product created in a vacuum. Without additional support material already built and/or scheduled to be published, then it is doomed to fail. That's what I'm getting at. Suppose Hero publishes the Fantasy Hero Starter Kit with some basic rules, a couple of pre-made characters, a high quality poster map for the introductory adventure "Lost Mines of Herodelver." Now what? There has to be more. Not some vague idea or notion. There has to be something tangible to keep people coming back.

I think you are putting the horse before the cart. Hero needs a pre-planned product line and the intent/means to publish it. Then there can be a Quick Start product. Anything less is no better than the individual setting books we've received in the past. In fact, it'd be just another postmortem twitch. Sorry if that came out harsh. We've just seen too many half-assed measures from Hero already. A solid development plan is the only way that Hero can leverage any realistic return to full-time publication.

Having run a 6E game way back when it came out, I would say your assessment is mostly fair. The difference is pretty small though. You could award R.A.W. experience awards and the players would not feel cheated or hampered.

Funny you should mention Westerns. The Mandalorian sort of reminds me of the hardened, reluctant hero, gunslinger from an old western. One who is capable of some pretty ruthless deeds, but retains a seed of decency within them. As for roleplaying, the Mandalorian inspired me to pull down some of my FFG Star Wars material and take a gander at it.

Just binged The Mandalorian on Disney+. Normally I wouldn't have seen it, but my son decided he wanted to get a D+ membership. A decently good set of Star Wars stories following the exploits of the titular Mandalorian bounty hunter.

Just finished binge watching Season 1 and 2 of Castle Rock. Actually better than I thought it would be. Season 2 was particularly entertaining. All of the cast did a really great job but Lizzy Caplan stole the show as a young Annie Wilkes (Misery).

If I were at my BMI optimum, I would literally look starved. I know. I've been there before. Now, I could stand to lose 10-15 pounds (or convert some of weight to more muscle mass), but I hardly consider myself obese. The BMI does. I'm just an inch shorter than you. Arbitrary standards are arbitrary.

That's how I wrote up a Roll High Hero document I was going to use but never got around to it. As for rolling low, it isn't a problem and I always equated it with percentile systems. The statistical breakdown of each #- as it relates to percentage helps a lot.

You and me both, but I think that makes us the outliers. I was part of a guild once and all they wanted to do was go on Hunts in the Jungles of Chult. Some members, especially Tamia the Guild Leader, would go out of their way to help out newer members get through some of the tougher dungeons and whatnot, but it seemed like the two guild events were Hunts and defend the guild hq from monster attacks. It got painfully boring after awhile. Not saying that they were bad people for that, but I was just not excited to do those things.

I got the same impression as I looked around yesterday. I also got the impression that the player base isn't as large as it once was. Nobody really said much about that, other than a comment about low pop servers, but the community just doesn't seem as active as it was a couple of years back. Am I just reading into things? That is, indeed, a major shakeup. I remember that one of the complaints I used to hear, is that healers were not necessary at end game. Maybe they decided to artificially promote the healer role by limiting other classes' ability to do so.

Thanks for the info. Since my favorite character is a Warlock, I'm guessing I will keep my distance.

Has the power balance shifted much? When I was playing, my SW was queen of the battlefield. My Pali was virtually indestructible. Any major shakeups?

Well I finished the Races section today. First the good/neutral news. The section on Elves really expanded them as a unique entity in the setting. They call them clans. I call them castes. (Let's call the whole thing off.) More importantly, that section provided me with some hooks for roleplaying an elf character in TA. Also good were the Gnomes. I normally hate gnomes in all other settings (especially Dragonlance) but having them be a crossbreed between Dwarves and Hobbits really makes sense. I can build a character around that background. On the neutral side, the rest of the races were kinda bland. A good concept could overcome that blandness, but it would have to be one of those moments of inspiration. That is what ultimately drives my assessment of a race's relative value to a setting (for me); does it hook me into a character concept easily or do I have to work to find a place for that particular race. And now the bad news. An accident involving a lot of water, traveling at high pressure, pretty much ruined my copy of Turakian Age. I'm going to have to (hopefully) salvage what I can and maybe even pick up the PDF at some point. So that ends my review of Turakian Age for now. Maybe after Christmas, December birthdays, January birthdays and February birthdays, I can start to look at a replacement.

Like any Cryptic MMO, Neverwinter is fun until the end game. At that point it becomes a grind to get the best gear so you can take on the toughest challenges so you can get the best gear to take on the toughest.....you get the idea. I have not played in over a year, so I cannot help you with build advice. Look up a good solo PvE build for your character class and try to follow the skill progression. It will help as you get further along. One thing that I hated was the Random Dungeon thing that stuck end game characters alongside starting characters. The theory was that the end game players could help the newbs with learning the ropes. The practical upshot was more powerful characters speeding through the dungeon, often bypassing the monsters whenever possible, and leaving the newbs to struggle through it. A couple of times, I've been voted out of a map because the more experienced players got impatient or thought it would be cute. And, at least when I played, Random Dungeons were one of the primary ways to get AD. On the other hand, the dragon bosses were really fun to tackle with a group.