Nolgroth

7 hours ago, Starlord said:

I'm not sure what the horrible storyline and dialogue she was given has to do with the disgusting treatment she received afterwards.  Many actors have been handed awful parts to play.  None of them had to deal with what she did.  All thanks to the extreme reactions of 'toxic fan culture'.  IMO, that's not making an excuse for failure.

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? 

11 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

 

Two words: Rose Tico. The way the character and the actress who played her were treated on the Net is shameful. I can get not liking the character -- but sending death threats to the actress and thinking of it as a joke is beyond the pale. And they must have thought they were "listening to fan input" when they practically wrote her out of the movie.

 

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.

6 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

 

It was built on 6e Hero according to the back of the book, but is heavily modified to fit the setting, and wouldn't be easily adaptable to other games/settings. 

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

8 hours ago, zslane said:

I presume Narosia is built on 6e HERO? Does it include the Hero System rules and game mechanics in its 480 pages?

 

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

6 hours ago, Iuz the Evil said:

I've decided sometime in the last decade or so that I don't actually need critics to review material to let me know if I should like it.

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. 

6 hours ago, Starlord said:

 

Disagreeing with the idea that a great deal of fan behavior is toxic is certainly warranted...dismissing it though...i can't agree with.  It's definitely a problem.  A lot of passion that is taken in the wrong direction too often.

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

8 hours ago, Iuz the Evil said:

To be honest, I very nearly gave up on the game at the very same point (that may be the longest tutorial I've ever played). The game world opens up considerably after the tutorial, and the story only gets good in Velen. And builds from there into one of the coolest narrative RPGs I've played. 

 

But it does take quite a bit to get going, I can see that not being for everyone. And it's a narrative driven game, where choices determine story outcomes. Kind of the opposite of Skyrim's open sandbox in many ways. I like them both though. 

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. 

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Hero needs a game

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. 

50 minutes ago, Spence said:

My version was to create the equivalent of a D&D starter with prebuilt everything

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.

1 hour ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

There are so many potential things you can do in the Star Wars universe (as roleplayers have known for decades). Spaghetti Western/Samurai film is definitely one of them. I'm waiting for the Star Wars version of Agent 007 -- a Rebellion superspy of great daring and perseverance who is just as ruthless as the Imperial officers and crime lords she's trying to take down.

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). 

23 hours ago, Zeropoint said:

Not only does BMI completely fail to account for variations in lean muscle mass and differences in build, it is also biased against tall people: it measures mass divided by height squared, when (proportions being equal) mass should track with height cubed. Also, because of the square-cube law, taller people need to have proportionally thicker limbs to maintain the same strength to weight ratio. With a height of 6' 4", I don't think I could get down to a "normal" BMI without looking kind of scrawny . . . and BMI says I'd have to get down to 151 pounds before I'd be considered "underweight". That's absurd.

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.

14 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I did it in a game I ran for D20 lovers.  I customised a character sheet and told them that the test for success was to beat 10 on a modified roll.  So roll + levels and bonuses - difficulty and penalties. 

 

In combat, OCV is a bonus as are skill levels and sundry situational modifiers; DCV is the difficulty with range etc providing penalties. 

 

With skills, the difficulty was 10.  I treated every improvement to base skill as a plus on the sheet, so Stealth 11 or less was listed as Stealth on the character sheet; Stealth 13 or less was listed as Stealth +2.

 

Worked a treat, everything was about beating 10, rolling high was always good.

 

However, to show the fickleness of gamers, not one of them complained about Runequest when looking to roll under a percentage to hit and roll high for damage....

 

Doc

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. 

3 hours ago, Greywind said:

Warlocks heal or DPS now. I hear that the healer is the better path. My warlock doesn't get out much.

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?

2 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

My Great Weapons Fighter now has to use healing potions in a fight rather than relying on his abilities to get him through the combat.  I find it a pain to play - I did GWF *because* I did not want the hassle of thinking about healing! 🙂

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.

19 hours ago, Greywind said:

Much of that was dealt with in Mod 16. No more speeding through a dungeon. Everyone is the same base speed regardless of level.

Randoms are still the primary was to get your rAD. Top end random (Trials) earn the most, followed by Epic Dungeons, skirmishes, and finally leveling dungeons.

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.