Great little Lovecraftian film from the 80s that it seems is still kinda unknown. I highly recommend it for fans of the above-mentioned horror conventions, fans of giallo and Italian horror, and 80s horror in general. I can't recommend it enough! It has a great creature-reveal at the end!
Just got these beasties ready for an event in December. Now I got to paint some potential reinforcements so I can grow them out as the campaign unfolds.
It went like this.
Actually it was pretty neck and neck up until the last turn, Victory Points-wise, but the Death Guard mostly wiped my army and I couldn't hold enough objectives.
Still a ton of fun! Lessons learned for next time.
I've run (or attempted to run) a total of four different campaigns that took place in Dark Sun over the years. Two of which were standard slaves-to-saviors campaigns, both of which kinda fizzled out after a few months over real-life issues from players.
The other two began with the player characters being agents of the sorcerer kings and neophyte templar (if they were spellcasters). One of these campaigns ended with the players rejecting the rule of the sorcerer king, and joining with the slaves to begin the revolution- this one lasted just about a year before a couple of players moved away and the campaign ended.
The last one, which lasted not-quite two years, was played through to fruition, and involved the player characters serving Tectuktitlay as his templar, but eventually they rallied around one of the player characters (a fellow sorcerer) in her quest to become a dragon.
It was a blast, one of the best campaigns I've ever run, and the players really leaned into the evil elements of the setting with a lot of creativity and surprise decisions- keep in mind, I didn't force the players to play evil characters or railroad them; they had the same opportunity to join the slave rebellion, but instead decided to align with themselves to see if they could become the new rulers of Draj. In doing so, they usurped Tectuktitlay, the player's sorcerer ascended to dragonhood, and a the campaign ended with a new, more effecient reign of terror befalling Athas, as the newly anoited dragon sent her armies to conquer the remaining city-states.
Anyone else had evil parties or campaigns that were a success, or just a lot of fun?
Hi all,
I've got my very first game of 40k coming up in... (checks calendar) 3 days!!!!
I'm playing a 1k match with my much-maligned Imperial Agents. I'm not playing to win necessarily, but I want to play my faction the right way and give my opponent a challenge, while hopefully not getting hung up on the rules of my army.
For learning the basics of 11th edition, what youtube channel or webpage do you recommend for learning the basics of the game, and then learning to play my faction/army specifically (Imperial Agents)? Any link, positive advice, or reference is beneficial.
Thanks guys!
I've read Neuromancer 3 times. I'm not saying that as a brag or an achievment, it's just something I did. I read it the first time when I was about 8 years old, when I found the book in my dad's office in the late 80s. I didn't understand much of what I was reading, and skipped big chunks when it got too verbose. However, I was absolutely entranced with the mystery of it; the metaphors were so alien, it both scared and excited my child-mind.
I picked it up again as a teen about 5-6 years later, and enjoyed it way more, but still had trouble with some of the more opaque metaphors. That said, it was around then that I really fell in love with Gibson's writing style. It kind of reminded me of the Aeon Flux cartoon, where everyone spoke really cryptically, and the plot and character motivations were really esoteric and somewhat unrelatable on purpose. In the future of Neuromancer, everyone is a cryptologist, speaking in code- everyone knows a little programming jargon, everyone feels smart and mysterious; that is a big part of what I consider "cyberpunk"- the obsession, valuation, and protection of information, both digitally and verbally. This love of spoken abstraction and a sort of "ennui" is a big part of my life now when it comes to the media I look for, be it David Lynch's works, or something like the film Mandy (2018). As far as other cyberpunk media I've enjoyed, I include the other short stories by Gibson in Mona Lisa Overdrive, and Snow Crash by Neil Stevenson. The last time I read Neuromancer was about 20 years ago, while I was stationed in Afghanistan, and it was still every bit as good, if not better, than my teenaged experience with it.
Which is what brings me to Cyberpunk 2077. When the game was annouced, I was absolutely thrilled. I built a brand-new PC specifically to play it. Upon release, I wasn't affected by the bugs that many people suffered, but the dialogue and story just felt... dumb... or at least dumb in comparison to Gibson's book. Maybe I just came in with the wrong expectations, but even games like the newer Dues Ex series felt a little more thoughtful and sophisticated with their dialogue to me, so I just didn't really get into it, even the much-revered Phantom Liberty expansion. Part of this could have been due to translation issues- you can tell the game came from Eastern Europe by the syntax, but even the "smart" characters in the game (netrunners like Songbird and T-Bug, or senior corpos like Goro Takemura) kinda talked like they were in a Michael Bay movie. "I'm gonna overload the mainframe!" that kind of fake, silly computer-speak stuff, instead of the strange jargon like in Gibson novels. I'll also say I was really disappointed that there was no real cyberspace or netrunning in the game, but that's a whole different complaint.
With the new Neuromancer series coming out, I'm hoping that the series maintains that wierd, cryptic vibe when characters talk to eachother, where you're not really sure what's going on sometimes, or at least characters' thoughts and feelings are kind of alien to the audience, and there's lots of double and triple meanings to the dialogue. That said, I'm worried that things will get dumbed down for mass-audience appeal.
Anyway, just wanted to get this off the top of my head and see if anyone relates, or if I am in the minority and just didn't "get" Cyberpunk 2077, and may just be too much of a grognard for the new Neuromancer series if they adapt the dialogue to be more "paletteable" to modern audiences.
Getting ready for Shorehammer in December, can't wait to fill out my roster!
Hail, Inquisitors and Rogue Traders.
I'm a new 40k player attending an event towards the end of the year, in which I'll be participating in the early round of a narrative campaign. The runner is calling this a "tactical strike", in which we must make a list based off these rules and parameters-
List Building:
Only Infantry units may be taken.
No Unpainted Miniatures.
No Named, Epic, or Supreme Commanders.
List Points: 400 points*
Max Model Count: Each unit may only have the minimum number of models.
Army Stratagems are not used, only core rule book Stratagems.
No Enhancements are allowed.
Visible range for all units is 18”, they cannot shoot farther.
The objective of this round are listed as "secret" but the description reads:
Small elite squads of troops will be the vanguard strike to reconnoiter the situation of the ground before the bulk of the forces arrive. Stealth, precision and accuracy is needed to complete the mission and pave the way for your brothers and sisters in arms on Friday. The outcomes of this battle will directly effect Fridays big battle
I have access to the whole range of our army, and plenty of time to assemble/paint before the event, so I wanted to ask what you guys would recommend I bring, as someone who has yet to play their first game yet. What would you guys recommend I bring?
Anyone run an Umerica campaign in Foundry? If so, did you use any pre-made resources? My players from a DCC fantasy campaign are having a little interdimensional "detour" thanks to their new patron, Sezerak, and I wanna sample a few different settings and, knowing my players, they would go ape-shit in Umerica. That said, I'm behind the curve on learning Foundry's more technical bits and wondered if anyone used any short-cuts via mods or other ways.
I was discouraged by the recent news, but powered through to finish the last piece of my Ordos Xenos.
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She had bad allergies last night, we were worried it was a cold but she feels better
Still growing, but getting there
This occured about two or three years ago in an online game. It's the only time I got so uncomfortable (not annoyed or bored, but straight-up wierded-out) in a game because of another player that I had to leave.
I've actually had pretty good luck with random online games in roll20 and other mediums- I've made some good friends from both DM/GMing randos and playing in random games. That said, I've had a few situations where I didn't click with a person and gracefully bowed out of the game under the guise of "my work and-or social life getting really busy." However, one instance has haunted me for a while where one player made me feel so uncomfortable that my skin crawls to this day at the thought of his voice.
I had joined a random game for D&D 5e Waterdeep Dragon Heist. I haven't been big into D&D 5e for a long time, but I had actually run this game before as a DM years before, and enjoyed it enough that I wanted to try it as a player. I told the DM this prior to creating a character, and said I would avoid any spoilers or insider knowledge by defering to my other party members at pivotal moments. My character, a human fighter leaning towards being an Eldritch Knight, had a backstory with Waterdeep nobility, so there was plenty of room for a side-quests that tied in with the main plot, and the DM was excited to create content around.
Anyway, first session I met the other players and their characters; we had an tiefling druid played by a lady who worked as an accountant who was new to RPGs, a dwarf thief played by an absolutely hilarious dude who worked at a restaurant, another long-time-gamer and office worker like myself playing a elf wizard, and then... this odd-ball with his homebrew class/race.
The guy had a wierd, high-pitched way of speaking that was immediatly jarring, but I try not to judge people based off aesthetics, no biggie. He introduced himself and said he worked in education for pre-school to kindergarten-aged kids. Then he introduced his character- his class was loosely built around a warlock apparently, and race was essentially a muppet. He was a pink, furry extra-dimensional creature with pom-poms for hair that walked around on all fours like an ape, and he said essentially that he was a "living toy for children, and that he wanted to be manipulated and played with by other people."
Yikes!
I wasn't sure how to feel about this right away, his character felt like either a fetish realized or just extremely off-putting and weird, but I tried to give the benefit of the doubt. The DM seemed like a stand-up guy, the rest of the party seemed fun, maybe I could ride this out...
Without revealing too much, the beginning of WDH starts in a famous tavern called the Yawning Portal, and leads to an initial encounter/combat. Well, we spent the entire session roleplaying around this dude's homebrew being isekai'd into the Forgotten Realms, "What's Waterdeep? What's a tavern? What's ale? What's an adventurer? What's magic?" and the dude would just giggle wierdly with each of our reactions to him. He told us his character was completely child-like, innocent, and ignorant to the Forgotten Realms or being an adventurer. The other players were doing way better than I was at this point in interacting with him, I was already kinda wanting nothing to do with this guy, but I was still hoping he would kinda get into the game.
Then the combat started. His first action- Burning Hands directly into the party, stating that his character didn't understand magic. The blast took my character out of action right away, had to be revived by the druid, yadda yadda. The entire first session involved that first combat encounter because of dude wanting to play the "I don't know what this is" card for every-fucking-thing and then proceeded to nearly teamkill the whole party. Needless to say, I dropped out ASAP and told the DM specifically that this player made me SUPER uncomfortable. The DM replied politely and wished me well, but didn't address my statement about the problem player. I kinda wonder if he was a friend of the DM or something.
To this day, I absolutely cringe when I think about playing with that dude. While he may have been harmless, I was getting VERY bad vibes from his infintile behavior and wierd attitude about children...
EDIT- he maybe in this sub, just got a downvote for some reason?
Hi all,
I've been running DCC, MCC, and Dying Earth games for friends for about 2-3 years now via Roll20. Recently, the bugs in Roll20 have been really interfering with our gameplay, so I was wondering if DCC had better options in Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, or another VTT yall have found?
Is there one that is pretty easy to use for DCC, especially if it allows for multiple settings (MCC, Dying Earth, Lankhmar, Umerica, etc.)?
