There are few robot welfare advocates complaining about robots doing what dogs love to do, though. Nobody is going to say robo-fido is being exposed to carcinogens or loud noises while it (merrily?) chases off birds.
Ulysses is as an absolutely incredible book, the Martello tower in the morning with Stephen and Mulligan looking out at the “snotgreen sea” will forever live rent free in my head.
yawn another libertarian blaming things on too much government.
I could sure use some more government right now cracking down on industries with oligopolies that feel no threat of consequence for completely undermining the quality of their products while raising prices.
Who says way too much art is being made? There are a dizzying array of video games outs there but there is still clearly plenty room for more.
The problem is the exploitive way we set up these industries. Right now we have most of the big game companies seemingly poised to try to fire all the bulk of their artists/employees in favor of ai and it goes going to fail spectacularly but the damage to human workers in the industry will be long lasting all the same.
yawn I’m sorry but why do we need a corporation to profit off of the social network we use? I am not excited for any new corporate social network because after using mastodon and lemmy it has become crystal clear that social networks as a “technology” are a terrible business. Either you make a social network healthy for its users or you profit off of them. Pick one.
It is like the concept of hospitals being privatized businesses. It is insane when you step back and actually think about it. Do I want the doctors, nurses, janitors and staff to get paid for doing hard work at the hospital?
Absolutely! Why does an abstract entity, the financial instrument of a private hospital, need to profit off of my care?
Hey I see a bright future for companies selling the service of turnkey lemmy, mastodon, pixelfed and peertube instances so maybe Facebook can get into that and be a nice little small reasonable company helping instance admins out instead of a monstrously poorly run corporation that tears apart the social fabric of society for profit.
:)
edit wait did this article seriously just call the guy running the open source project mastodon, “CEO”…?
People really forget that you can pay a small amount of money for paperwork and legally call yourself CEO, CTO or any other position you want in your own company.
We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point, it is absurdly clear that everyone putting all their eggs in the basket with wizards of the coast and it is just a bad idea.
There are plenty of fantastic alternatives, we really don’t need the DnD universe. I mean, as highly acclaimed as BG3 is, people in general seem to feel that the dev’s previous game Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics… so idk I just think it’s time to move past wizards of the coast and embrace better systems.
I think Forgotten Realms has a special place in many people's hearts (especially the millennials and around them), being a formative part of our childhoods: Minsc and Boo, Drizzt, beholders, mimics, etc. It's like Star Wars or LOTR, people get attached and emotionally invested and it's not so easy to let go overnight.
I enjoyed the Original Sin series and played them for many hours,but never finished either one. The characters and stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda cheesy, honestly), but yeah, tactically they played better than BG3. That's the downside of trying to accurately transfer tabletop mechanics, I guess, and combining it with the poor UI of the BG3 series (too many different types of actions and reactions to squeeze in the toolbars). Anyway that's beside the point.
I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare! It would be cool to see an open source fantasy world where high quality fanfic could be curated into canon.
> The characters and stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda cheesy, honestly)
Yes, but so are D&D characters like Drizzt and Minsc. But they come with added feel-good nostalgia.
> I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare!
I am really enjoying "The Timescape" at the moment. It's the setting from Matt Colville / MCDM. It's used in a range of D&D supplements, streams, literature books, videos and more. And soon in a new TTRPG as well. It is more concise and less "out there" that the Forgotten Realms. And it doesn't carry 40+ years of inconsistent lore baggage.
The alternative systems flourished with DnD 4.0 back in 2008, since that system just wasn't as good as 3.5 or the new 5th edition.
Wizards of the Coast did a great job with the balance of customization vs simplicity of 5e and that's why DnD did so well recently. But the alternatives always were there.
Its a big community of literal house-rule makers (everyone plays DnD with their own houserules). Its a community used to making rules for themselves, buying 3rd party rules packages or discussing balance things online. The community will figure something out one way or the other.
Was 4 really worse than 5? Everyone I've heard speak on it is pretty hesitant to say 5 is better, and that a lot of of great design choices (martial classes not being completely outclassed, less frustrating saving throws, rule clarity, better handling of numbers on enemies, better rest mechanics, etc.) were thrown out in 5 because 4 caught so much shit for being "not 3.5".
Every character class was practically the same with the same mechanics (at will "spells", per encounter "spells", per long rest "spells") and a massive amount of repetition across abilities. As a DM, I was an over worked CPU; monsters were boring and scripted and every character class had liberal amounts of "force the monster to do x" actions that resulted in monsters having little to no agency.
I ran a few adventures in 4.0 and put the books away forever.
I loved 3.5, but it was really complex and unbalanced. 4E was a very different kind of game, more like World of Warcraft than 3.5. But I enjoyed it a lot too (the classes were much better balanced), and it was far easier to teach to new players because they couldn't as easily dig themselves into a grave with poor character development (anti-munchkinism, or whatever you call it).
I don't mean role playing a flawed character for story flavor, but that in 3.5e it's way too easy to accidentally make a non viable build that's drastically weaker than other party members (and level appropriate enemies).
5e is more similar to a simplified 3.5e with a little less complexity. And rather than focusing on the tactical turn based combat of the 4e (which was often kind a drag to execute without digital DM aids and digital tabletops), they shifted the focus more to storytelling and player involvement. It was the right move, IMO, for a tabletop role playing game.
On the other hand, I don't think the 5e rules translate as well to computer RPGs. BG3 shines for its exceptional narrative freedom, but its combat is lackluster compared to Temple of Elemental Evil or even Nwverwinter Nights or KotoR, which all used 3E/3.5E to allow really cool build diversity.
4e was a very different kind of game. They did fix the balance problem, but they did it by making every class work in pretty much the same way. Also, the focus was so strongly on the battlegrid that it felt more like a tactical skirmish game than a roleplaying game.
Older D&D editions actually had a tactical miniatures game. Of course D&D originally evolved from the Chainmail miniatures rules. 4e had a miniatures game as well as some great tactical board games that are fun with friends and can even be played solo. With 5e they wanted to emphasize "theater of the mind" but you can still have fairly tactical battles with miniatures, terrain, etc.
All D&D versions seem pretty great. I've played the 2.5e CRPGs (fun!), classic Pathfinder (basically 3.5+ - also fun!), 4e RPG, miniatures game, boardgames (all definitely fun!), and lots of 5e (also very fun!) The classic rulebooks are baroque, fascinating, and immensely charming. The settings (Forgotten Realms etc.) are brilliant.
Yeah was pretty crap. There were some positive items here or there, like trying to balance the "linear figher/quadratic wizard" issues, and things like healing surges helped keep play smooth, but the whole thing basically felt like they saw that 'the yout' were all about those MMOs and they tried to make that on the tabletop.
> Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics
While I think the combat in 5E combat in BG3 is fairly simple by comparison, DOS2 combat was definitely not better. All combat devolved into status effect versions of “the floor is lava” and a lot of builds become unviable late game.
You didn't like the environmental interactions? I thought it was awesome how the "floor is lava" could quickly become "the air is now noxious gas / steam / full of lava elementals", how undead and the living react to elements different, etc. But it's really more that the action points system gave you a lot more tactical flexibility than the D&D "attack/cast + move" limits.
Still, though, I loved the different builds in both games :) When Original Sin first came out, I made a wine barrel build that just had an insanely strong level 1 character with telekinesis and no other skills... he could insta-kill any enemy in a single turn just by throwing 600 kg wine barrels at them. Or in BG3 how you could have a party of shovers that just throw people off cliffs.
I think the environmental effects were fun, but in longer or large battles, too much of the emphasis was placed on managing them. One thing I appreciated about BG3 is that you can use them to your advantage, but they’re not a primary focus of combat. I like the scale and variety of combat in DOS2 better overall, however. All the BG3 combat, outside a handful of battles, felt trivial and anti-climactic.
> I think the environmental effects were fun, but in longer or large battles, too much of the emphasis became on managing them.
Oh, I see what you mean there. Yeah, I agree, the environmental effects were SO powerful they often occluded the usefulness of other skills. I'm glad they toned it down a bit in BG3.
>All the BG3 combat, outside a handful of battles, felt trivial and anti-climactic.
The final battle in BG3 was clearly rushed in design IMO. You just avoid the fight entirely and you're done. That's not what I want in a climatic final battle with an other-dimensional entity of immense power that has to be controlled by implements of the gods. You straight up shouldn't be able to cheese it, almost as a requirement; it should be the culmination of all the elements of strategy the game has offered, but it doesn't do that to me.
Yeah, you can beat the whole thing in a few turns. The enemies in the courtyard and ascent to final boss were a bit better, but still akin to any number of fights in DOS2 (vs. a climax).
Yeah, just to add on, Orin and Gortash were much more interesting fights for me even; Ketheric took a few iterations to realize what the pattern was. But the final battle is either Sisyphean or cheesed entirely. I haven't played either DOS games, I might take a go at em.
Side note: I had tremendous fun doing a BG3 combat-only playthrough (meaning paying no attention to the story or characters, just min-maxing combat).
One of my most memorable encounters happened entirely by accident: I had just learned how to make my characters fly, and was exploring a new city by gliding from rooftop to rooftop. I ended up on top of some big castle thing by chance, and pissed off all the guards in what looked like a throne room. They chased me out onto a small patio, where I set up a perfect ambush: https://share.cleanshot.com/tPHhWk6p
A cloud of darkness blocked vision out of the only exit, with only my fighter visible at the end of the ledge. Each enemy would come stumbling out of the darkness, only to be ambushed by arrows fired from a dust cloud. Enraged, they'd run towards the ledge, engage my fighter, only to be blown into the chasm below by my warlock hiding on a tower above. Over the next couple hours, I ended up killing like 40-60 of these huge guards, a pile of bodies at the river bottom. (Apparently this was some sort of boss fight, which I had no idea lol). It was just such a perfect tactical setup to blow them off the ledge, one by one, unaware and so angry :D
One of the best moments I ever had in any video game.
Relatedly, Old School Essentials is, IIRC, B/X just more streamlined in presentation? They also have a cool-looking setting with Dolmenwood (as I gather, basically "a mix of darkness and whimsy in the style of old-school fairy tales") that just had a kickstarter for a big campaign setting guide earlier this year.
While I haven't played D&D in any form for nearly 30 years, I lurk in places like r/adnd. There's something I often wonder in the light of the OSR trend & renewed interest in B/X, early AD&D, etc. And that is - to what extent the style of play captures the older style of play vs. hybridizing the more modern style of play w/ the older rules.
When I talk to friends who play contemporary versions of the game, even if one normalized the rules, what they play isn't what I played way back when. There's much more focus on the actual role playing & narrative/story. It tends more towards high fantasy, almost more like a superhero game. That sort of thing.
I assume it must wind up as a hybrid, and find myself curious to see what that looks like. Granted, it's easy enough for me to try it first hand and find out :)
There's a YouTube channel called 3D6DownTheLine which has video series of two campaigns using OSE (one in Dolmenwood and another in a popular megadungeon). I can't really comment on how close it fits D&D from 30 years ago but it at least seems like it plays like how people describe old-school D&D (more emphasis on player skill and creative problem-solving).
From just watching a little bit of those videos, I think a significant part of the appeal today is that it's much quicker (thinking mainly in comparison to 3.5 since that was my introduction) to roll some attributes, pick a class, and go. It also makes the GM's job easier because they don't need to worry about balancing skill checks when the game doesn't even have skills.
This really is the most salient point in this entire thread, there are piles of people commenting about this article with literally the same argument that was used to try to kick the can about ending slavery down the road.
“ He may have furthered his own interests but did he also further the interests of the US more effectively than most could?”
Hahahahaha nope, he literally was just a leech on society that got into high enough positions that his vapid bullshitting didn’t just fool his bosses into paying him a good wage but directly contributed to the deaths of countless innocent humans… for absolutely zero good reason from any perspective other than kissingers. Seriously this isn’t serial killer level stuff, this is war criminal mass murderer levels off violence and he never ever faced any real consequences for it.
I am not religious but Kissinger makes me want to believe in hell just so I can fall asleep with the comforting thought that Kissinger is burning in hell forever. He deserves nothing less, rest in piss, Kissinger.
“screen time” is such a nonsense phrase. Sure make sure your kid gets physical exercise but to primarily define and rate the value of an experience a child is having primarily based on whether it is on a screen or not is hilariously myopic especially among people that supposedly claim to have a progressive view of technology.
The question is WHAT is the child doing on that screen? Are they blobbing out or are they playing a video game that stimulates and challenges their brain (a strategy game, even action games) or socializing with friends in a video game learning how to conflict manage and operate as an effective social group? (minecraft is full of this).
I mean we ruined the world for kids, I can’t blame them for looking to virtual worlds to transcend the hellhole we left them even a little bit. Sure, the kids should just “go outside” and play in the… development full of huge pickups that aren’t even designed to able to see children (they kind of look custom designed to run over children actually), with no public spaces to explore and play in, no sidewalks leading from the development to anywhere else and endless strip malls, parking lots and cars as far as the eye can see…
Their brain is going to be healthier engaging with good video games than that landscape.
Not enough dog investors pushing dog-tech hype though. It is a shame though, have you ever read about what their noses can do??