Bay 12 Games Forum

I tried it during their free playtest, got a feel for the core mechanics they were building, and decided it wasn't for me. It heavily restricted character build options, immensely scaled back access to both magic items and spells per day, and generally didn't feel as fun for me.

Of course, this position disregards the inherent fun that is present for a certain type of person in the mini-game of character creation.

Especially in crunchy systems with plenty of bloat, there's a lot of fun to be had in trawling through multiple resources, finding obscure options and bolting them onto a framework that creates something more than the sum of its parts.

Now, not everyone enjoys this part of the game, and would prefer a simple, streamlined option. There's plenty of games that offer this if so. Personally, I love watching my players take a concept and run with it. "My character is the best at X" can be fun too.

So one of our MPs compared China to Nazi Germany recently.

Obviously the owners of the sock-puppets in Canberra didn't feel too keen about this comment.

Makes me wonder whether we actually have a working democracy, when elected officials can't call a spade a spade.

Michelle Grattan did a decent discussion of the topic, which I enjoyed reading.

Also, we really need to stop screwing over our Pacific Islander neighbors. Otherwise, we're likely going to find they'll be looking to forge alliances with other nations. Anyone fancy a nice new Chinese naval base in Tonga? It probably isn't too far away. The Chinese are already having nice chats and photo-ops to strengthen relations, rather than sending Tonga's PM home in tears like dear Mr Morrison.

After reading a bunch of Sci-Fi, I've had the bug to play Masters of Orion II again.

Dear god, even though the game's over 20 years old, it still offers solid hours of genuine enjoyment.

Eh, if pastel equines solving problems through close personal relationships is your cup of tea, I'm not gonna shame you over it. If you decide you want to merge that particular niche with your gaming hobby, I frankly don't lose any more respect for you compared to your choice of that form of fantasy over, say, bearded dwarven women, androgynous elven pretty-boys, or brooding emo drow characters.

That being said, you won't be playing a pony at my table. Yes, the game world is full of magical, wondrous and strange creatures, but at no point do I want to have a party of ponies prancing merrily through said world.

In other news, I've decided a future campaign for my group of intrepid guardspersons in my Pathfinder homebrew will be investigating a murder-mystery soon. It'll be set in a VIP brothel featuring expensive services for upper-class patrons desiring the unique and varied companionship of creatures not native to the material plane. I'm particularly proud of the planned name for this establishment: The Starving Succubus.

The air-con at work's broken again, so I've spent the whole day freezing my balls off, and now I think I'm getting a cold. Hopefully a few stiff cure-alls will see me right tomorrow.

I've been sinking my evenings after work into The Long Dark. It's a survival game set in the Canadian wilderness, where you're the only survivor of a geomagnetic event that destroys much of the infrastructure in the isolated frozen island where your plane crashes.

It's a great man vs. nature game, with a slow, challenging gameplay that rewards thoughtful planning over twitch reflexes, which I love. No zombies, no mutants, just striving to craft survival tools, gather food, and avoid getting eaten by wolves or dying of hypothermia.

So far I've made it to 100 days survival on the game's hardest difficulty, which is a decent accomplishment. I'm preparing for a trip to one of the game's most isolated regions, searching for the last few scraps of pre-apocalypse equipment left in the game before time and the elements destroy them. After that, it's going to be a slow journey across the desolated winterlocked wastes, living off the land and battling the elements to see how long I'll survive before succumbing to the inevitable.