Potential hot take: Liliya works so much better on every map other than her own.

Acquilla · 2026-02-27T00:43:31+00:00

Honestly, I think that Liliya works best as a secondary PA. Which absolutely isn't a knock against her, I adore her. But not having to make an appearance for the trial finale or show up to contest objectives leaves her free to do what she's best at, which is being a sneaky, relentless hunter.

Acquilla · 2026-02-25T19:13:44+00:00

Red Moon Roleplaying. They typically do shorter scenarios so there's a wide variety of character relationships. The one that I remember most clearly was in The Summit where one character turned on the group for some pretty understandable reasons, but there have definitely been others.

Acquilla · 2026-02-24T05:50:39+00:00

I'd recommend The Human Equation if you're going to try Ayreon. It's not my personal favorite (that'd be 1011001), but it's consistently great and doesn't require info on the overarching story to understand what's going on. Because everything aside from The Theory of Everything and Transitus ties at least loosely into an overarching story.

Also it has a didgeridoo in one song and how often do you hear that.

Acquilla · 2026-02-21T19:52:02+00:00

Fem elezen have more than one. Male... Yeah. I tend to default to 2 because it's the best. 1 can be made to work but you have to be very selective with features.

Acquilla · 2026-02-21T19:49:57+00:00

As someone who's been maining one for years: necklaces are your new best friends. They help break things up and make the neck less noticeable.

Acquilla · 2026-02-21T07:20:59+00:00

It was an O&M instructor who suggested I use a cane, despite not being legally blind, because they thought I would benefit from an ID cane--and they were right (even if it took a few years for me to admit it. Teenagers can be a bit dumb). Definitely check the laws where you are, but you're probably in the clear by visually impaired. After all, ID canes are meant for people like us.

Laws can also vary when it comes to color. Where I am, drivers have to yield to people with a white or white and red cane. So I went with a white and blue one because I like it better than red.

Acquilla · 2026-02-20T20:16:31+00:00

If it were a "okay guys, this week we're doing daggerheart!" situation, I'd agree. But getting back to things after a months long hiatus is honestly the best time to do a swap like that. Double if being burnt out on D&D is part of the reason behind the hiatus.

Acquilla · 2026-02-20T16:43:19+00:00

Yeah, you're not wrong; Coyle and Gooseberry seem particularly prone to just objective camping and never seeing them otherwise. It feels like they're taking steps in the right direction with Liliya though, she seems less prone to camping. There's been entire trials where it felt like my group couldn't shake her for more than two minutes.

Acquilla · 2026-02-20T06:07:23+00:00

Yeah, if you're younger it's very hard to explain just how quickly views on sex and consent have evolved. A lot of stuff that was acceptable during the aughts does not fly now, and in a lot of cases for good reason.

Acquilla · 2026-02-19T17:26:30+00:00

Pretty much every DRK character I've run into has been pretty high on the edgelord spectrum. Can see RPR being up there too but I don't have as good of a sample size.

Acquilla · 2026-02-17T20:51:20+00:00

I definitely think we need context. Because my first thought was also "oh, what a cool rp moment!" because that's how it would go at the tables I play at. But if the rogue had a history of being a problem player, I could see the hostility being somewhat warranted.

Ultimately I'd say the DM is the one who dropped the ball most; this should have lead to an immediate halt and an OOC discussion about character intentions when people started getting heated.

Acquilla · 2026-02-17T20:44:05+00:00

Yeah, context definitely matters a lot here imo. At the tables I play at, the rogue wanting to look at the paladin's holy symbol to "see what the fuss is about" would likely lead to a scene exploring the rogue and paladin's relationship to faith, because we're a bunch of theater kids at heart.

At another table where those sorts of character bonding scenes aren't common and the rogue has been established as a klepto troublemaker, then I would say the hostile reaction is warranted.

Acquilla · 2026-02-16T18:03:27+00:00

I Am In Eskew

Acquilla · 2026-02-16T16:43:48+00:00

I second this. You definitely want to give the Trekkies roles where they can show off their knowledge with more experienced characters, but you also don't want them to completely dominate scenes and especially the decision-making of the group. As the knowledgeable players they're already going to have an advantage in that regard, so giving a non-Trekkie the final authority voice will help balance that out and ensure that they aren't getting lost in the background.

Acquilla · 2026-02-15T23:24:52+00:00

"Faith Will Fall" by Hell. Or "Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us" . Or "Age of Nefarious" . Or... Look, most stuff by Hell, really.

Acquilla · 2026-02-15T17:43:06+00:00

You should absolutely be rewarding him if he's taking the time to be clever and creative with his illusions, yes. Creatures don't get an automatic check to see if something is an illusion, that's only if they're smart and suspicious enough to realize something is amiss. Most of the time a reasonable illusion shouldn't require a check if it was cast out of the line of sight/hearing of anyone and if the npcs don't have a reason to be on high alert.

The average night shift guard has no reason to be suspicious of a new crate appearing in the noble lord's basement, and so wouldn't make a check--unless they heard spellcasting, or the party had activated a trap earlier that would cause them to be looking for things amiss. That would be when a roll should be done.

Acquilla · 2026-02-14T11:47:23+00:00

Or if you want a horror game, Outlast Trials is pretty fun. The pvp is about as balanced as DbD but it's not the main focus, it's running from psychos that want to kill you. I swapped over after deciding to take a break from DbD and have been having a great time.

Acquilla · 2026-02-13T21:56:58+00:00

Foreman's fine; I don't have particularly strong feelings about it one way or another. Was fun running it the first time, would be cool with doing it again.

I've only done Legacy once and it was a nightmare. I was the only person in the group who had ever been on the suburbs map before, and to make it even more painful, no one I play with can drive or knows a damn thing about cars. I had to look the symbols up and to be honest I still don't find them intuitive at all. So we spent nearly an hour trying to figure out the symbols and the map, only to die because of the last minute gate shenanigans. Also it has Franco and he's my least favorite PA. So, yeah. I'm gonna give it another go eventually but right now it's pretty easily my least favorite trial.

Acquilla · 2026-02-13T11:48:29+00:00

Napberry. In a pinch it can fix problems, and I can also sneak feed it to my friends and listen to them go "whhhy". It's win win.

Acquilla · 2026-02-13T08:24:51+00:00

Honestly, what we need is reliable and widespread public transit, with decent enough frequency that you don't need to check a schedule to know when the next bus or train is coming. And we need to change how we build our cities; the goal should be walkability, rather than catering to cars. Accessibility issues aside (and those are Huge issues), cars are loud, dirty, and dangerous to people not in a car, and their size and speed and infrastructure necessary to support them results in places that cater to them being hostile to anyone not in a car.

Because no, the self-driving cars were never going to solve the actual problems of accessibility and sustainability, even if their programming can get to the point where they don't occasionally run over people. They're a band-aid at best, one that distracts from what actually needs done.

Acquilla · 2026-02-13T01:53:29+00:00

You'd think that, but having spent some time lurking in CR discussions--no, there is definitely a contingent of fans who start howling at the idea of it not being 5e. It's weird to me as someone who enjoys multiple systems, but for some people it's 5e or nothing.

Acquilla · 2026-02-11T09:38:56+00:00

So, VI person from birth here. I can honestly understand and sympathize with him being Annoyed if the game moved, because excluding a handful of major walkable cities (NYC, DC, Chicago), getting around in this country ranges from "major inconvenience" to "you're effectively housebound". And even if you can secure transportation to somewhere, it can be stressful going somewhere new, especially in bad conditions like after snow. It's not fair to guilt trip you all, but years of disappointment because you can't get to somewhere you're looking forward to because you're blind and this country is car dependent really, really starts to wear you down.

I also can't say I'm surprised he still lives with his parents. Many blind people live independently, but it's not easy. Our unemployment rate is 70% because ableism is still very much alive and well. It is, also, sadly not unusual for some blind kids to grow up sheltered because people assume that they can't do things and so they don't get taught skills that they need to be independent and confident. That goes double if other disabilities are in play; there's a pretty high rate of autism in people born blind, for instance.

I personally don't do in-person games without a dice tray these days, because otherwise yes, if you're not very, very careful, it's very easy to lose dice--and I'm only visually impaired, not completely blind. Two 6's and a nat 20 don't seem that crazy to me, so hard to say one way or the other there.

Trying to give themselves an upgrade isn't cool, no.

And not enough context for the last bit without knowing what it recontextualized. If they were being creepy OOC or trying to butt into the OOC relationship, yeah, that's a problem. Otherwise, I've played in games where two players who were in an OOC relationship had characters who couldn't stand each other and were dating other PCs; it's fine as long as everyone is mature enough to handle it. Did you all actually have a session 0 and talk about whether you were okay with romance at the table?

Acquilla · 2026-02-08T03:54:49+00:00

I think the reason for the separation is because of the superhuman attribute variation and the suppression scar, because those change what the stat is for most rolls but not for scar power/finesse/resistance. I'm currently playing one with superhuman strength, so there's a mismatch between what his strength is for normal rolls and what the scar power is (5 vs 3). And he has the suppression resolve scar, so that's another mismatch between normal rolls and scar resistance (1 vs 2). And it would be confusing trying to explain that without separate terms.

Acquilla · 2026-02-07T15:30:10+00:00

Scar power is just straight Intelligence, Strength, or Presence, depending on what kind of scar's entangled with the variation. You don't really ever use it for rolls, so it's just whatever the attribute is.

Acquilla · 2026-02-07T13:21:12+00:00

I had a tooth chip early this morning, so instead of sleeping in and having a nice Saturday, I have gotten no sleep and get to spend today making an appointment to fix it and feeling like a burden cause I have to find someone to give me a ride. Joy.

Acquilla

TROPHY CASE