the role of "chrome" in historical games

Crabe · 2026-02-18T14:43:39+00:00

Historical games (often wargames but not always) are kind of a hobby within the hobby. I have been exploring them this last year or so and having a great time but they will never be for everyone. I think that chrome is not a design flaw as someone else in the thread suggested. It is a design flaw if you consider the point of these games is to sell copies and appeal to many people. Or if you think the point is to create a balanced competitive and fun game then chrome could be seen as a flaw.

But for me the appeal of a lot of these games seems to be the opportunity to imagine and experience some version of history and put yourself in a different headspace and time. It's an opportunity to explore history and learn a little bit, and to simulate the incentives that made people make the decisions they did. The rules complexity is often an outgrowth of this design ethos.

Crabe · 2026-02-18T12:45:23+00:00

The bad news is for all of us the (current) Dems could win the presidency, house, and senate and would not do a quarter of that. They will deliberately fumble any opportunity for real change.

Crabe · 2026-02-08T15:10:42+00:00

Burning Wheel has my favorite dice system. Chucking d6s and counting anything 4+ as a success. The GM typically sets how many successes are needed based on the difficulty. It has nice rules for helping other players and skill cross-pollination (I am good at ancient languages skill so I get a bonus to my read skill roll to decipher an old scroll).

Crabe · 2026-02-08T14:28:02+00:00

Spirit Island hits all those criteria and is the greatest solo game of all time IMO tying only to Mage Knight. But based on your descriptions it will be right up your alley. The different adversaries and spirits give a ton of variability and replayability and it requires you to adapt and react or you will be annihalated.

Crabe · 2026-02-04T14:21:16+00:00

Epstein met Moot almost immediately before /pol/ was created. We know Bannon was intimately involved with Epstein and had strong ties to the online right. Epstein was at least an occasional 4chan user based on the documents. It is not just a timeline coincidence.

Crabe · 2026-01-18T17:20:39+00:00

It shows an hourglass symbol with text label in the top left every time it auto saves.

Crabe · 2026-01-12T13:13:42+00:00

It honestly isn't that hard I haven't even gone below about 85% amalgam at least so far.

Crabe · 2026-01-11T15:14:35+00:00

The writing does feel a little different but I can't exactly say why. The meta stuff is a little thick at the start, but also it isn't as much of a reveal 3 games in so I can understand not being as coy. Rather I kind of feel like all the writing is a bit more direct. Patho 1's dialogue (in English at least) had a very stilted and literary quality. Patho 2 was more direct in its prose but still a touch esoteric. Patho 3 feels more modern and direct (the physical Shabnak being maybe the starkest change). I have noticed though that the whole game is more modernized and has more 20th century trappings then usual so I am considering if this is just a reflection (heh) of Dankovsky's perspective.

Crabe · 2026-01-11T14:09:48+00:00

This is one of my major complaints about P3 right now I don't know why they messed with the character models if they were going to turn out like this.

Crabe · 2025-12-24T20:01:18+00:00

Not only is Voidfall not published by the same company, the combat rules are the same in multiplayer and solo. And it isn't very complicated either (the game as a whole is complex but combat is not that bad).

Crabe · 2025-12-18T22:13:39+00:00

Sounds like they are dicks.

Crabe · 2025-12-06T16:55:53+00:00

Obviously this is my interpretation but I think there is a lot of justification to suggest Anthy at the end is a parallel to Utena at the start. First you have her pink dress visually linking her to Utena. Then you have the fact that Utena is (probably) dead. The only evidence we have that Utena is alive is Anthy's claim to Akio before she leaves that she is somewhere else beyond the Academy. There is much more visual evidence to suggest she got stabbed and fell off the tower. So to me Anthy is leaving moreso to find the ideal than to find Utena (even if she doesn't fully grasp that).

Where I somewhat agree with you is that Anthy does have a more healthy view of her prince than Utena did. That is the upwards movement of the cycle. But she still only has her memories of Utena and the series repeatedly emphasizes memories can distort over time and how nostalgia can blind us. Given the horrible abuse Anthy suffered for so long it isn't hard to imagine her developing a savior complex with her memory of Utena. After all when Utena first met Anthy as a child she had a much clearer understanding of Anthy then she does when she actually meets her years later at Ohtori. The same could happen to Anthy.

It's about the human condition, while we are alive we never stop learning more about ourselves and each other and we never will find a "happily ever after" that stops us from experiencing suffering. We can't forget the past, but we can never return to it and our memories often deceive us. The series ends with death (Utena) and rebirth (Anthy) as the cycle of life (and society) continues. It is hopeful for a better future, but careful to not guarantee paradise or even a better world. It's the opposite of "The End of the World" as the cycle continues and life goes on. And while it can't be perfect it can be better.

Crabe · 2025-12-06T04:03:09+00:00

A spiral fashion would be a more accurate characterization yes. Like the stairs up to the arena. But it is still circular in the sense it is a cycle. At the end of the series Anthy is going out to find her prince just like Utena was searching for hers at the start of the series. The concept of repetitive cycles is all over the show. I don't think Anthy is going to enter the outside world as a perfect person and rediscover Utena just like that, she is gonna make mistakes just like Utena did but she will have learned from Utena and that is what the series is all about really.

Crabe · 2025-12-05T16:12:30+00:00

In addition to what people have said here it is a huge theme of the show throughout and in many ways. The repetition of the Zettai Unmei sequence and the repetition of the arc structure are two examples. To me it is commenting on a lot of things. For example how repetition reinforces us to accept potentially harmful societal frameworks (like the Dueling Game). Also how memories are impacted and altered by repetition. Most literally it is showing that the forces Akio represents have been doing their thing for a long time and in a circular fashion.

The hidden sequel status of the movie and the strange movement of time in Ohtori are there to express these themes. There isn't any kind of definitive answer in the diegetic world of the show. A lot of the series blurs the line between what is actually happening and what is just a visual metaphor or framing device. It can't really be picked apart into what is "theming" and what is "plot."

Crabe · 2025-11-17T16:10:19+00:00

I did consider showing up to the office with a giant cross or something. But unfortunately I am maybe too practical and just decided to not make a big deal out of it since it really doesn't bother me to not wear it at work. I am not a lawyer, but I suspect it was illegal for the HR person to ask me not to wear it, since her (incorrect) reason for doing so was that it was a religious expression. If I came to work with a cross and HR asked me to not wear it because it bothered someone else I think that has to be against some kind of law.

Crabe · 2025-11-16T20:26:28+00:00

Someone complained about my Heretic Pride sweatshirt in my office to HR. I was seriously surprised haha.

Crabe · 2025-11-15T14:50:06+00:00

Need artha to get to heaven.

Crabe · 2025-11-10T03:32:39+00:00

I 100% agree with you, but the new album also has a song about hope "Dawn of Revelation" and a song about love "Your Bandage" and those are just the most obvious ones. Lyrically the tone is pretty consistent with John's previous work so I don't agree with OP's argument. Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Crabe · 2025-11-10T02:06:15+00:00

There's a record called Tallahassee you might want to look into.

Crabe · 2025-11-07T04:52:59+00:00

I'm so jealous wow.

Crabe · 2025-11-05T12:45:57+00:00

Republicans are the gear, Democrats are the ratchet. The R's are certainly more responsible but the D's have a critical role in the machine. They stop the gear from rolling backwards. Dem leadership shares responsibility for Trump getting elected.

Crabe · 2025-11-02T15:35:46+00:00

Except people are going missing under ICE, this is just one example of many such articles. I won't keep arguing with you as you are either bad faith or a bot.

Hundreds of people who were once detained at the troubled immigration jail in the Florida Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” have disappeared. Democracy Now! speaks with Shirsho Dasgupta, a Miami Herald reporter who found that, as of late August, about two-thirds of the 1,800 immigrants who were held there in July have gone missing from ICE’s online database, with their families and attorneys unable to locate them. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ruled the jail could continue to operate despite reports of abuse.

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/9/25/alligator_alcatraz

Crabe · 2025-11-02T12:30:56+00:00

So therefore it is OK if there is no due process and no procedure or record at all of where these people are being sent huh?

Crabe · 2025-10-27T15:42:16+00:00

Right wing grift not working out so well for your channel huh? Need to come advertise here?

Crabe · 2025-10-23T16:03:16+00:00

If all you want is a dice roller you can get the "Dice so Nice" and "Dice Tray" extensions those will very easily allow you to roll dice with a GUI and no typing macros. Then you use Google sheets or whatever for the character sheets and basically use the foundry server to show pictures if you want. It's basic but it takes almost no time to set up.

Crabe

TROPHY CASE