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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • If people felt they can’t really escape an essential product from a shitty company because of cost, or even convenience, I’d understand.

    Warning: angry rant.

    But this is a video game. Playing video games is my primary hobby. I do it a lot. It’s how I spend quality time with my long-distance partner as well. But it is not essential to my life. We actually have a very viable option of not buying a product from a company helmed by evil, shitty people. It should’ve been more clear-cut.

    Ultimately, my disappointment over this runs pretty deep. I will never respect Blizzard as a company. Honestly, I had hoped that MS acquiring them would mean breaking them up and scattering the resources to different departments. The fact that I think MS is the better of the two probably says a lot about my disdain for Blizzard at this point.


  • The co-op modes are 3 vs 1 and 3 vs AI controlled boss. I only played the vs AI boss, and you all get separate boards until a specific event occurs. Then it merges and everyone gets to put their piece anywhere across the three boards. It only lasts for a little bit, and then the board splits again.

    The PvP modes are called:

    • Zone battle (incorporates their time-stopping mechanic)
    • Score attack (standard Tetris, no interfering blocks for the player lagging behind)
    • Classic Score attack (standard Tetris, but you don’t get hard drops or holds, and again, no interfering blocks)

    One thing I found out is that if you want to play against the CPU, you can just load up a local match and add player’s twice on the same controller. The second “adding” will fill the rest with CPUs.

    It’s available on both PC and Switch. However, from what I could find out, you need the Switch Online membership to play multiplayer online. But you haven’t mentioned an interest in that so it should fit your requirements really well.

    It’s currently 50% off on both Steam and Nintendo eShop

    Hope that helps!



  • I’ll probably take some flak for my answers, but here I go!

    Undertale

    Maybe I would’ve loved it if I had got to the game before the fandom madness got to me. But to be fair, it looks like it’s visually designed to tap into that 80’s nostalgia, which would’ve bore me anyway.

    Destiny 2

    I used to enjoy that game (and Destiny). Played it way more than I’d like to admit. But as my anxiety got worse, the more I abhorred the way they force you into matchmaking for PvE content, then give you all kinds of reasons why you have to do those PvE content where you’re forced to play with random players. Then there’s the changes Bungie had made that made the game more and more hostile to me on a mechanics level. Lately, it also feels like they’re treating Destiny 2 as a money-printing machine.

    Diablo 4

    Because Blizzard. I had a whole rant but I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I simply will not give Blizzard any money moving forward.


  • I’m glad I could help!

    Running co-op can be rather tricky, especially if the table is used to the traditional GM + players setup. It’s a different paradigm. Perhaps one way to ease people into it is to have a hands-off GM that encourages the players to come up with things. Another thing is to really leverage those oracle tables in the book. If no one at the table can come up with anything, but have questions, then Ask the Oracle or roll off of the Action/Theme table.

    I also have a few Gamemaster Apprentice decks. This is the base deck. There’s an online version as well! They look complicated but it does come with instructions on how to use them. This could be a way of breaking past any creative block or disagreements.

    Not sure if your group tried this already when y’all set out to run a co-op game, but a session zero where everyone talks about how they envision a co-op game runs like (among other meta-discussions) could help get everyone on the same page about how to move the story forward. Might help to codify some of it if your players are more comfortable with clear-cut boundaries and restrictions?

    I hope you don’t feel like I’m pressuring you into trying co-op again with all these solutions I’m posting. It’s just stuff I’ve thought about due to my interest in running one myself! But if your group does plan on running one again, I hope you find success 😁

    Edit: one more thing! I’ve seen it suggested that co-op games should be of a smaller group size, no more than 3-4. 3 is the optimal, IIRC. It’s easier to come to an agreement when the group is smaller.


  • FFG made their Genesys dice app free a while ago, IIRC. It’s not nearly as satisfying as rolling the physical dice, but it’s an option! Unfortunately, their Star Wars one is still a paid app. There’s one other app, on Android, that also included Star Wars dice, simply called Dice. There’s also RPG Sessions, which is a whole toolset, and integrated with Discord if you want to play online.

    As for Ironsworn co-op, one of the actual plays I watched had it so that the player speaking at the moment decided on what happens in the world. Kind of a round-robin GM’ing situation. Another idea would be to get everyone’s vote, or encourage them to speak up if they have a different idea and vote on that. I used to participate in forum RP, or as I like to call it, “collaborative writing,” so both approaches I’m familiar with. IIRC (it’s been a few years since I’ve been in a forum RP), we would write OOC notes if we want to make our intentions clearer, or have questions and thoughts we want input on.

    But IIRC, the whole thing around PbtA game is that you’re having a conversation with the players at the table…unless that’s from another system 😅 regardless, I think it could be a helpful way of approaching a co-op TTRPG!


  • I’m planning on two solo campaigns, one with EDGE Studio (originally Fantasy Flight Games) Star Wars RPG. A mix of both Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force and Destiny further down the road. But I plan on running it during the Old Republic era. I quite enjoy playing the SWRPG/Genesys system. I know the narrative dice is hard to get behind for some people but I prefer it. It feels a bit more transparent what you’ll get, plus it’s fun to roll a lot of dice so there’s that tactile aspect to it too 😁

    The second campaign is with Ironsworn: Starforged. I actually want to use this solo game as a basis for my web serial that I want to write in the near future. The system is built with solo play in mind, but it can be played co-op or guided by a GM. IIRC, the original basis of the system was PbtA, heavily modified. Ironsworn was what introduced me to the concept of playing a TTRPG solo! Which was awesome, considering my previous experiences playing a TTRPG with a group keep falling apart for one reason or another…

    I also want to try City Without Numbers, the cyberpunk variant of World Without Numbers and Stars Without Numbers. I backed it on Kickstarter and sorta waiting for a slightly more complete version before I dive in. Again, it’s something I plan on running solo as well…

    I am considering a play-by-post game, likely with the Ironsworn: Starforged system. Largely because of the nature of PbtA games, which tends to give and encourage more agency to players. Plus the support for running it co-op means ideally, no one is relied on as the GM, constantly having to respond to a player’s inquiry or action before anyone else can move forward.