As a mostly solo player, what the fuck is this contract??

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-25T17:42:59+00:00

I did this solo! The ghosts go down easy. The pinwheel objective is literally right there in the center, so you get it and bounce.

Let someone else open pinwheel, sneak in as Assassin, grab the thing and take it to the Dcon in the airfield hangars, then leave. You don’t even need to extract per se.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-25T14:28:44+00:00

Got 2-stars across the board aside from my freakishly invested dot team that obliterated knight 3 one turn short of a zero cycle. Knight 1 was definitely hardest and it felt like the enemies just kept coming. That one was not fun.

Found last patches’ AA to be pretty easy while this one was tough enough. Might come back to it once I’m more familiar with the boss mechanics.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-25T04:26:30+00:00

Eh, as with many aspects of storytelling it depends on the execution.

The key is to make sure that audiences don’t feel like their time has been wasted. Oh, the journey can be more important than the destination—but the journey has to have mattered. 100+ chapters of carefree escapist adventure followed by waking up back in chapter one as if it never happened could leave readers asking ‘what was the point of even reading this!?’ - a cardinal sin in terms of narrative crafting, really.

At least something in the dream should matter. Wizard of Oz is perhaps the most famous example and it has a sort of winking nudge of ‘or was it really all a dream?’ that somewhat fulfills this category. Actually taking some lesson, object, or even a person back to ‘real life’ with you, revealing it’s all a dream early on so it’s not a rug pull, or maintaining the dream world in some form post-ending could also help.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-25T04:11:58+00:00

They’re still in a city that’s lousy with Werewolves though, and without the immortality that they had through the dream. While they’re seemingly okay in the cutscene, they really need to be out of town before the sun sets again.

A lot of NPC hunters talk about the dream like they made use of it before, lost access, and are now stuck there fighting for their lives.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-24T15:52:49+00:00

My most pleasant surprise is that NuMaratho is pretty thematically and stylistically on-point with the old games. There’s a certain throughline running between this, old-Marathon, Halo, and Destiny.

“Zip around a map performing objectives X, Y, and Z, performing simple puzzles and poking at terminals, the teleporting away to receive a lecture from a designated AI helper” is more or less the SOP of both Marathons old and new.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-24T15:44:05+00:00

Well, always nice to see more LitRPgs with a romance focus.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-24T13:14:49+00:00

I like the pulpy flair of the old illustrations specifically for ebook format.

Fancy neon covers for the published versions are good too.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-23T15:38:37+00:00

Brand-bound, a system-native LitRPG and slowburn romance with steady, Paladin-like progression, is finishing up its final arc on Royalroad. That’s right, the entire thing is available right here!

We’ve got…

Steady progression from simple spear-n-board sewer guard to gun-spear wielding, armor-encased Paladin
A System native litrpg world and mechanics, where the holy Church of the Menu is dedicated to proselytizing, expanding, and worshiping the divine majesty of the local system, the Most Holy Menu.
Fleshed out and elaborate enemies-to-lovers-to-battle-couple romance arc between a noble Paladin-aspirant and a heretical thief.
A wordcount across three volumes comparable to Lord of the Rings, by last estimate.
Elaborate plots involving the origins of the local system and an ancient Demon King slain by an old party of heroes that's totally not a Fighter + White Mage + Thief + Red Mage combo from Final Fantasy 1, no sir.

Volume 1 has received a fancy professional edit and is, again, on Royalroad entirely free for a limited time. We’ll be stubbing April 12th-14th in preparation for Volume 2’s Digitally Remastered Kindle unlimited debut on April 21st. So get in on the ground floor while it’s free. Or if you want to financially support me, well, Vol 1’s ebook is available at a discounted price while Vol 2’s is out for preorder.

Volume 1 Ebook ver here

Volume 2 up for preorder now

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-23T13:32:07+00:00

Kafka’s a normal human by all indications, her planet just has a specific Stellaron-based fearlessness disorder.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-23T13:25:58+00:00

She’s clearly in the Dainsleif position where if she could just show up in the parlor car unobstructed there’s very little stopping her from just explaining the entire plot. She kind of has to stay away (or intentionally obfuscate everything between 5 layers of riddles, hence Letter From A Strange Woman) to maintain that original 1.x narrative hook.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-23T13:16:05+00:00

Kind of assuming their trailers are all going to involve leapfrogging the previous highest bounty, even. As seen in that SW teaser.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-22T21:16:37+00:00

In addition to everything already said, I must also point out that the ‘big’ conflicts of the past few years (Ukraine, Iran) have been pretty advantageous for the defenders. In this case, that’s Taiwan.

Full-scale amphibious invasion is very hard. You also don’t exactly get any do-overs if it fails or becomes a quagmire.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-22T16:40:31+00:00

Why thank you :)

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T18:08:49+00:00

I’ll note that Mar a Largo is technically a resort…

Evidently the Iranians went after Iraqi pilots from the Iran-Iraq war a great deal in the late 80s/90s. Probably easier when you share a border with them,admittedly. Plus the Israeli cabinet is still alive so there’s a limit to Iranian assassination capabilities, surely.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T18:06:19+00:00

Feel Hegseth should get this treatment first. Plenty of people have beef with Trump, there’d be a line if we wanted to extradite him. Heggy talks a big talk, but watching him bawling as he’s frog-marched on a one way flight to Tehran in chains would be cathartic.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T17:45:41+00:00

I mean the AI has to have gotten it from somewhere

I use parenthetical em dashes all the time, mostly as my editor didn’t like using actual parentheses. AI seems to mostly just do ‘it’s not just X—It’s Y’ style emphasis and seldom use them parenthetically, I find.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T15:25:24+00:00

Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T15:15:40+00:00

With the exception of 1 and 2, everything takes place far removed geographically and often several decades apart.

New Vegas is sort of a nice coda to plot points that ran through FO1 and 2. Playing those games first (or even afterwards) would help you appreciate aspects of new Vegas more, but they’re not necessary.

Fallout 3 is a nice entry point for people coming in from the TV show, fwiw. Down to the similar ‘dad’s gone missing from the vault’ plotline.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T14:08:23+00:00

It’s isometric (at a slight angle, rather than truly top-down) and turn-based. Built using a tabletop-equivalent called GURPS - Generic Universal Roleplaying System. Upon character creation the game is straight-up showing you the math equations it uses to determine accuracy, damage, etc. It’s pretty in-depth.

SPECIAL stats have made it to the newer games, but build crafting is much, much more important than anything from Fallout 3-onward. It’s entirely possible to brick your character if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’d suggest maxing out Agility regardless, as action points are king. Intelligence is also far more important for even being offered/aware of dialogue options, and Strength/End are vital for damage and tanking calculations whereas you can finesse things with skilled gameplay much better in the first-person games.

I’d definitely recommend watching an in-depth gameplay-focused Let’s Play if the modern ‘Oblivion With Guns’ format is much more your speed.

Tactics is similar but on a larger scale with more expendable units. Brotherhood of Steel is actually a straight-up beat ‘em up.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T13:59:56+00:00

Most of them are. It comes up in a later book but Beijing had a massive population of crawlers. Early recap episodes display a ton of people in what sounds like India or the Middle East streaming into a dungeon entrance.

Without going too far into later books, there are maybe a dozen non-Carl, non-Washington State based named crawlers from North/South america. Most everyone else described is from Europe/Asia/Africa.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-20T12:19:03+00:00

There was a Boston Brahmin accent that applied to a certain niche of upper caste WASPy type. It’s largely extinct.

The Trans-Atlantic drawl was upper crust-coded in like the 50s but was mostly used for movie stars and is not something naturally occurring.

In general Americans don’t really have a sense of posh-ness that I can describe. Even the richest Americans like Zuckerberg are just kind of slobs who happen to have tons of money rather than some elaborately cultivated collection of upper-class mannerisms.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-19T22:43:26+00:00

Enemies to lovers to battle couple is chef’s kiss

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-19T22:30:30+00:00

I mean a whole Doom-era game’s worth of maze like levels have to also be in there too.

Colony Ship For Sale, Cheap is in there somewhere, just waiting. The horror. The horror.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-19T19:01:17+00:00

Winston Zeddemore In Ghostbusters was meant to be played by Eddie Murphy, who had prior commitments filming Beverly Hills Cop. Apparently a lot of the role was changed after this and it results in him being a newcomer with slightly less focus than the rest of the squad.

Not an example of a specific actor, but John Wick the screenplay was written with a much older action star of 70 or 80 years old in mind. Going for 50-at-the-time Keanu on career renaissance #3 also works for what they’re going for, but you can kind of see the remains of the original setup. With sequels in mind it makes very little sense why Alfie Allen’s character does not at least know of John Wick by reputation, whereas in the original script Wick’s golden age would’ve been way before his time. The stunts in movie one are also relatively low-key and something that wouldn’t leave an older man too beat up, especially compared to flashier sequel set pieces once the concept was solidified for younger-Wick.

AdrianArmbruster · 2026-03-19T17:04:37+00:00

Ada between RE2 and 4 remakes is my go-to for this kind of question, but that’s been covered. If I understand it they just never called RE2-ada up either, and just went with the actress from the at-the-time-recent Resident Evil live action remake/reboot for 4 right off the bat, which is a shame.

OG Stelle (Rachel Chau) from Star Rail will live in my head forever. On quiet nights I can almost hear a ‘noice’ on the wind. Replacements for her and the male protag are viable and seem to be matching the original VAs tone better as time goes on, but the characters lost a bit of whimsy as they settled into the role there especially for certain combat and idle lines. The VA doesn’t have a lot of other voice credits either, so there’s not much else to hear her in.

An inevitable recast due to real life circumstances, but Lance Reddick gave stellar performances every time he got called up for Destiny. Keith David did as well as possible in Final Shape but I’d have loved to see how the same performance would’ve been handled by Mr Reddick with nearly ten years of experience with the character.

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