Godammed SDN

[starku]

i don't know how this became complicated

dragons = a giant flying lizard that breathes fire and occasionally talks sass to heroes

but nonono you gotta have ones that breath acid, ones that breathe poison, ones that breathe lightning (wtf), they all gotta cast spells and can shapeshift into humans etc etc

although i forgive monkey for having the dragon there shapeshift into trippitaka's horsie

obviously they breathe different stuff dude

otherwise 'resist fire' would be too powerful

seriously aaron in dnd there are dragons that breathe lightning bolts

again 'no really'

[Aaron]

Skyrim has ones that breathe ice...snow?

And one the breathes green stuff to sap your stamina, really easy to kill.

[Bakustra]

Were did thr other two show up? I only know Smaug.

well, there's actually four named and one unnamed, all of which either pop up in the lord of the rings appendixes or the silmarillion

the lotr ones are a unnamed "cold-drake" which killed Thorin's great-grandfather and drove them to the Lonely Mountain and a dragon named Scatha who the Rohirrim killed about a thousand years ago and then refused to give the dwarves back any of their treasure the dragon had stolen.

silmarillion has Glaurung, who's wingless and has immense hypnotic powers. he uses them to mess with the hero that's fated to slay him and trick him into incest, and Ancalagon the Black, who's a gigantic dragon big enough to blot out the sun. Thankfully Elrond's dad comes along with a spaceship to kill him, at which point he smashes a couple mountains as he falls. Of all these, only Glaurung actually gets any lines, because the later silmarillion stuff never actually got dialogue or anything, just descriptions

seriously aaron in dnd there are dragons that breathe lightning bolts

and acid, and poison. fuck d&d dragons.

[Aaron]

But all that is apparently their language and their having a "debate"

Man, I skipped over a lot!

[Bakustra]

actually, the best parts of the dragon rar are how quickly it descended into d&d rules sperging

i wonder what it is about that game which makes its fans so obsessed with treating its rules as some sort of law of physics

and what kind of people, apart from the furries fantasizing about becoming a transgender dragon, go on about how they'd get x template for z power

if i became a dragon, i'd read up on tolkien's commentary on the dragon in beowulf and live out my extremely long life as a symbol for natural disasters and targets of heroism :V

or else just blend together "smaug" and "ur-quan" for my voice and go around messing with people

[starku]

the thing about resists is actually interesting from a game design anthropological perspective

because fire is the traditional fantasy magic staple from fiction

which means it's the first resist you get

which means nothing dangerous can use it

which means you need ot invent 'poison' which drains hitpoints or 'ice' that is exactly like fire or 'lightning' or whatever


ps the whole idea of resistance is stupid and should be abstracted the way it is in robot games

[starku]

also

ATTENTION INTERLOPER

hey aaron did you ever play starcontrol 2

[Aaron]

When I was 15ish.

[starku]

well

good

[Aaron]

I downloaded it a year or so ago but iirc it ran way to fast to play.

[Bakustra]

the thing about resists is actually interesting from a game design anthropological perspective

because fire is the traditional fantasy magic staple from fiction

which means it's the first resist you get

which means nothing dangerous can use it

which means you need ot invent 'poison' which drains hitpoints or 'ice' that is exactly like fire or 'lightning' or whatever


ps the whole idea of resistance is stupid and should be abstracted the way it is in robot games

honestly i think the single best interpretation of elements i've found is in an rpg maker game where each one did different things- light did single-target, dark and fire hit all, thunder hit a cross pattern, water hit a row, ice hit a column- and each one had its own status spells and the like. if i made a fantasy role-playing game, i'd do something like that.

also

ATTENTION INTERLOPER

hey aaron did you ever play starcontrol 2

Human. We Ur-Quan never lie. NEVER!
It is a weakness to lie and, as you have noticed, the Ur-Quan are not weak!

You boldly enter our space! Approach this Dreadnought as though it were a recreation base
and then play the dumb hominid?
Who do you take us for, Captain... Spathi!?

[starku]

some nurds used the source to make a version good for modern machiens called 'ur quan masters'

however they were too fat to put in proper 360 degree rotation

but it has the voices from 3d0 which is a bit of a laugh

ps sc2 plot = better than mass effect

[starku]

an bakustra there is a thought right

that maybe damage types in fantasy shouldn't be differnt colours of the same projectile

ie ice doesn't fuckin explode, it burns on contact
or burning swords not actually getting +2 damage
or poison needing a biological basis

i actually think that old master of magic game did it a cool way, where things like 'chaos' where about pew pews but 'nature' was about indirect debuffs and shit

and 'corruption' just destroying a unit's weapns or ammunition with age is a really evocative fantasy image

and better than 'ice gives -10% movement for 1 turn'

[Bakustra]

some nurds used the source to make a version good for modern machiens called 'ur quan masters'

however they were too fat to put in proper 360 degree rotation

but it has the voices from 3d0 which is a bit of a laugh

ps sc2 plot = better than mass effect

they just released a new version in july

URL

no 360 though, and it's mostly just bugfixes, code tightening for modding, and a little content restoration

also, i will never forget the sacrifices of all those thraddash who died so i could steal their artifact

an bakustra there is a thought right

that maybe damage types in fantasy shouldn't be differnt colours of the same projectile

ie ice doesn't fuckin explode, it burns on contact
or burning swords not actually getting +2 damage
or poison needing a biological basis

i actually think that old master of magic game did it a cool way, where things like 'chaos' where about pew pews but 'nature' was about indirect debuffs and shit

and 'corruption' just destroying a unit's weapns or ammunition with age is a really evocative fantasy image

and better than 'ice gives -10% movement for 1 turn'

yeah, pretty much. but you know, shit's so baked-in at this point that you can't even get that sort of thing through unless it's an indie game, and those have plenty of issues of their own. but final fantasy should just give up and call their spells "magicra" or something.

[starku]

well in some games it's totally fine that it's paper-scissors-stone with resists and damage types

but it's not very 'fantasy'

ps did you know uqm guys refuse to make mobile version for no reason :V

[Bakustra]

well in some games it's totally fine that it's paper-scissors-stone with resists and damage types

but it's not very 'fantasy'

ps did you know uqm guys refuse to make mobile version for no reason :V

ff doesn't even do that consistently- at least pokemon is consistent and smt is all about that (except the handheld).

wait, really? for fuck's sakes.

[adr-admin]

i'm somewhat amused that i've never played d&d but i still know all the shit you're talking about because the final fantasy games copied so much from it

[Bakustra]

i'm somewhat amused that i've never played d&d but i still know all the shit you're talking about because the final fantasy games copied so much from it

ff1 has all the funky names (like KARY) because every monster except GARLAND, CHAOS, ASTOS, and WarMECH came straight out of the D&D monster manual, and TSR was incredibly lawsuit-happy

but the history of d&d in japan is downright tragicomic.

[Zod]

i'm somewhat amused that i've never played d&d but i still know all the shit you're talking about because the final fantasy games copied so much from it

ff1 has all the funky names (like KARY) because every monster except GARLAND, CHAOS, ASTOS, and WarMECH came straight out of the D&D monster manual, and TSR was incredibly lawsuit-happy

but the history of d&d in japan is downright tragicomic.

what's doubly amusing is that all the stuff ff copied was mostly copied out of dragon warrior

[starku]

remember how dnd had to invent their amazingly stupid planar structure (which the teo nerds are discussing lol) because you couldn't have 'devils' in the game because uh witches and shit

[Veef]

Mazes and Monsters is a far out game

[Bakustra]

remember how dnd had to invent their amazingly stupid planar structure (which the teo nerds are discussing lol) because you couldn't have 'devils' in the game because uh witches and shit

did you know that people hate the new edition because they stopped using the stupid alignment-based planes? even as a thirteen-year-old i remember laughing at the back of the ad&d book with the differentiation between "neutral good with lawful tendencies" and "neutral good, no chaser".

edit: also, that's tanar'ri and baatezu, thank you very much

[starku]

it's hilarious right

because in a really 80s way

so much of dnd is driven by 'decision to change names to avoid lawsuits/negative publicity' and then 'fat people at conventions write fanfic about the plane of pure shopping' and then 'obsess over thermodynamics of the murderworld'

so much of pre-forum shit is driven by the exact mechanics we see in forums today

eveyrthing from wierd tales to fucking dnd man

[Bakustra]

it's hilarious right

because in a really 80s way

so much of dnd is driven by 'decision to change names to avoid lawsuits/negative publicity' and then 'fat people at conventions write fanfic about the plane of pure shopping' and then 'obsess over thermodynamics of the murderworld'

so much of pre-forum shit is driven by the exact mechanics we see in forums today

eveyrthing from wierd tales to fucking dnd man

have you ever read sharyn mccrumb's bimbos of the death sun?

also,

Planes:

Q has currently placed a barrier between Terra and the rest of the planes, except demi-planes and the Ethereal plane surrounding Earth. The barrier is impermeable to creatures attempting to enter from outside Earth, but can be broken from the inside (from Earth). Breaking the barrier requires a DC35 Spellcraft check (this RAR does not adhere directly to D&D rules, the number is just to give you an idea of the difficulty). The barrier once broken in a place is permeable in that area to other planes. Once the barrier is broken once breaking it in a new spot reduces the check by DC5 each time. Once the barrier has been broken in three places it shatters and cannot be repaired. From that point on Earth is as accessible by planar travelers as any other Material plane.

Is that what you were looking for, Sol?

Also, everyone's missing the little line on the SRD that says "Can also cast cleric spells as arcane spells." That applies to all metallics and most chromatics, I believe.

Simon: The meaning behind that rather obtuse "don't break reality" law was casualty and violation of conservation of energy. A great communicator in writing I am not.

Ahriman:

The Orbs of Dragonkind... hmm... Q smirks at you and says nothing.

You may ask Q to take a non-metallic/chromatic form, though you'll probably drop an age category. No epic dragons. You can trade hit dice for levels in a class, provided you meet that classes requirements, and again you'll have to get it by Q.

Starglider: Half-celestial approved. Take a drop in a single age category.

And I'm tempted to say "Wong is a Great Wyrm Force Dragon" just for kicks.

also, few of those fuckers actually know how to charop, jesus christ they can't even sperg right!

[Phantasee]

One of the more hilarious things about being i nthe Mess over there is that because no one else really knows anything about the military and the members generally back each other is that you could pretty much say whatever the hell you wanted, as long as it wasn't "yeah we secretly landed dudes on the moon in '84"

you should do this

in some milwank thread or whatever just start dropping these random facts

like

'yeah b52s blah blah but it was pretty useful when we had to save those astronauts--but that's not supposed to be declassified for a few more years lol'

and you'd get other people be like 'oh yeah i remember hearing about that, buddy knew a guy on that--but you know, opsec lol'

you know they'd eat it up


IT'D BE LIKE WHEN THE MESSHOLES RUINED APRIL FOOLS ALL OVER AGAIN! but funnier