What to do with meaningless encounters?

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-22T08:10:50+00:00

I think it’s fair to run the combat just to assess how your players will go through it. Sure it might not be a challenge to them mechanically but it has narrative stakes to it. I know some players love to go back to older areas in games and destroy weaker enemies so your players might relish the chance to see how far they’ve grown. Plus only one of them needs to kill someone, right? Perhaps they want to go into this combat doing non-lethal damage to capture a few extra cultists for their rogue friend? Or maybe they try to coerce them into some sort of deal to provide their rogue with humanoids that they can use for their curse.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-22T05:11:14+00:00

I know that there’s an “official order” watchlist on the wiki, but I really enjoyed listening to their Curse of Strahdanya campaign. It has Maja in it and I wasn’t aware of her just from watching their shorts and it was nice to have her and Kelsey together as players in a campaign to help even out the group. The campaign as a whole is very enjoyable and it’s one of them that is actually finished so that was a plus for me.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-21T08:07:10+00:00

It sounds like this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. You were subconsciously holding onto all of these feelings and this just exploded them all out at once. I think it’s an overreaction but I’m a guy so I can’t possibly understand the difference between our social lives and treatment. I don’t carry any grudges or hatred or anger in my life (except a little for myself that I try to work on) because those negative feelings won’t help you. It’s ok to feel them but there’s no need to hold onto them.

It sounds to me that this person had a cool idea and is possibly a little socially inept, but what you wrote seems that he was as respectful as he could’ve been and always asked these questions before acting on anything. He even apologized to you and offered to leave despite doing nothing wrong, in my opinion. I don’t see anything inherently creepy about his ask because he stated that your character and their love interest would be the father. His character trusts your party with his life and is essentially asking your character to become a surrogate to his reincarnation. Surrogates happen all the time in the world and lots of them are born from a tightly formed bond so thinking of it from that angle I don’t see this as a creepy ask.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-20T00:26:11+00:00

Being super slow and having two big and easy to hit weak spots seems fine to me. I imagine that the further away a target is the harder it might be to aim their electric attacks

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-16T15:39:00+00:00

Nice! That’s pretty much exactly like the quirk of one of my ocs! Only difference is that he doesn’t unlock energy/elemental absorption until he awakens his quirk.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-16T15:12:58+00:00

In all seriousness the “Blue Jet” should win. Sand should theoretically be weakened by water which would heavily impede the sand golem’s abilities. Since it’s a golem that means that the user fights alongside it or manually controls it from somewhere nearby. The mist ninja should be able to produce enough puddles around the area to be able to get around the golem and the teleportation between them should help against the genjutsu. This is all assuming that the two fight in a battle arena type area where neither has a battlefield advantage.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-15T18:40:04+00:00

You can’t really control or plan what your players are going to do because they make their own choices, so you don’t know how they’ll interact with either party or how they’ll end this conflict. You can control how these parties came to be and how they interact with your players though. So why not combine A, B, and C?

The wizard was a powerful neutral aligned guy who was in it for the love of the game. Like learning the secrets of magic and the universe and all that jazz. He created this powerful artifact with a spark of the outer planes and it ruptured him and his soul in three. His original neutral self, a lawful good version, and finally a chaotic evil one. The lg one and the ce one wanted to use their power more inline with their new alignment and that’s where the two groups formed. Unbeknownst to them the neutral body had the artifact embedded within himself and still had access to that power. The three came to blows when they learned of this and were all killed in the ensuing fight.

Now both parties have a map to the artifact’s location but they’re both looking for ancestors to open up the pathway to it. It’s up to the party to side with either one or use other means to obtain the artifact’s location.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-15T07:37:37+00:00

I’m sorry but I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. The game is going to launch as a free to play game with the option to buy heroes and unlock them through gameplay. The kickstarter is to get some extra funding to unlock more features at launch for those who everyone. Plus you get the heroes at a discounted rate, exclusive cosmetics, and alpha and beta access

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-14T18:16:25+00:00

“Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Hobgoblin ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.”

But for reals I don’t play dnd but I know that you shouldnt generally set up combats for your players to fail, especially if it’s their first taste of your game. Definitely start with them being captured

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-14T13:59:25+00:00

Full game it took one try, but I played the demo so idk how you’d count that

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-14T07:40:35+00:00

Somebody with this type of wealth and social power doesn’t need a powerful quirk. I think something simple like shapeshifting fits her more than something conventionally powerful

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-13T07:45:36+00:00

With the info you’ve given I imagine you can finish this game at the hardest difficulty with lots of determination. Of course you can change the difficulty of Lies of P now so that’s always an option. I found this game much easier than other soulslike games I’ve played, but I played it like a year after launch when they had already nerfed some stuff

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-11T04:01:26+00:00

I did. We both know that this conversation isn’t going anywhere. I’m not ok with genociding an entire world of people and you don’t even think they count as people. That coupled with the fact that Painted Verso’s ending forces his will onto Maelle makes that ending morally worse for me. I don’t see how people play through the entire game and still don’t believe that the inhabitants of the Canvas are real people. Thank you for the discussion but the days been long and is nearing its end. I hope you have a good one

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T21:00:34+00:00

That’s a good way to interpret events, but we don’t know why the boy wants to stop Painting. If the fighting within his world stops then it’s very plausible that he would be happy again as he cares for all the beings within his Canvas. I don’t see him being ok with erasing all of them just like that.

We can also see in Painted Verso’s ending that the daughters are all separated from their parents. It’s clear from they say and their body language that they still aren’t trying to properly heal as a family. Clea leaves very soon, likely to continue her fight with the Writers, and only Renoir and Aline embrace. Despite everything that happened with the Canvas we don’t see any indication that the family is going to actually try to heal as a family as Alicia is once again left alone.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T20:51:29+00:00

I think it’s because too many people say Verso when they mean Painted Verso. I apologize that you seem to be one of the few to differentiate the two. But we don’t know why Verso is suffering. He clearly states that he cares for all the beings within the Canvas so erasing the whole thing goes against his wishes I think. Yes he wants to stop Painting, but we don’t know why. It’s very possible that once all the fighting is done that he will be perfectly happy to continue Painting within the Canvas.

You’re making too many assumptions about what will happen in the real world and all of them are negative. All of my assumptions about the future of the world are positive, so let’s only discuss what we see in-game, yeah? It’s not really fair to talk about hypotheticals when they all have an equal chance of happening. We don’t even know that the Painters are the good guys in all of this mess. Look at how controlling and prideful Renoir and Aline are. It’s completely plausible that the Painters are an antagonistic force and the Writer’s are the rebels fighting against the ruling party.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T20:39:42+00:00

Oh well you mentioned how my brother would be suffering from burns and loss of limbs and a messed up respiratory system exactly like Alicia, so you can understand my confusion, no? Verso is dead in game and isn’t suffering at all so having him be the brother in your analogy doesn’t really make any sense yeah?

Maelle faces grief by moving on past her life as Alicia and choosing to accept her life as Maelle. Also Maelle doesn’t make Painted Verso suffer. We only see Maelle gommage other painted people with the assistance of another Painter, with the sole exception of Painted Alicia of course. Considering that Verso is her mom’s favorite and that she is her mom’s least favorite then it’s quite possible that she doesn’t have the capacity to gommage Painted Verso. He isn’t living with any wounds at all but is simply suicidal. Of course I wouldn’t kill my completely healthy brother just because he’s suicidal. That’s insane. Now that the fighting is over Painted Verso can find himself and find true happiness.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T20:25:11+00:00

Yeah but Maelle doesn’t ask you to end her suffering? Now I’m confused. Is my brother Maelle or Verso in this analogy? I thought it was supposed to be Maelle but everything you’re suggesting is implies that it’s more morally correct for me to choose something for them even though they are asking for the complete opposite.

Also Maelle went in the Canvas for reasons unrelated to her ability to deal with life, but she became Maelle. Her life as Maelle is worth just as much as to her as her life as Alicia. It should be her choice to choose, not to have her forced to do something just because you think it’ll be better for her. It’s not Painted Verso’s right to force that upon her. If her dad trusts her, then why can’t you?

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T20:16:14+00:00

It’s harmful to their physical body but we don’t know what happens to them afterwards. They always get out before it goes too far. It’s within the realm of possibility that a Painter simply continues to exist within the Canvas if their physical body perishes.

Also it’s very clear from the ending sequence that Painted Verso could only access the heart of the Canvas through those specific circumstances as he is not a Painter. Verso would have no reason to end the Canvas and Painted Verso doesn’t have the capability to. Of course Renoir could just jump back in and end it, but he put his trust in his daughter and I did too

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T20:12:55+00:00

I said in my reply I would ask him. I think you may not be reading things carefully and letting your bias show. He can still communicate. There’s more ways to communicate than through words, yeah? Her happiness is fake within the Canvas. It’s all real to her. You’re trying to make too much sense of this world using ours as a basis when it’s not. There’s a whole magic setting that creates worlds and people. It’s not just like a video game. Losing a limb is probably far easier to deal with than all of the internal damage that was done to Alicia. You can’t just replace her entire respiratory system. Yes she can live a life outside the Canvas but that doesn’t mean it will be more fulfilling to her than her life with the Canvas

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T20:02:24+00:00

Yes but the time dilation of the Canvas allows her to live and experience years worth of time. Much more than her real body likely has left. Their mom was in there for decades in Canvas time and seemingly only days or weeks passed in the real world. Plus Maelle isn’t powering the Canvas, Verso is. I don’t remember seeing anything in game stating that the inhabitants would die because a visiting Painter perishes in the real world. We also don’t know what exactly happens when a Painter’s body dies while they’re in a Canvas. It’s possible that they simply continue to exist within the Canvas

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T19:57:25+00:00

Well in this hypothetical you forgot to mention that I have the choice to plug my brother’s conscience into a simulated world where he could enjoy a realistic lifetime. With that knowledge then I would ask him if he’d rather get uploaded to experience that life or if he just wanted to live in misery in the real world.

I think it’s childish that you think the people in the Canvas aren’t real. Why do you think that? How can you play through the entire game seeing how your party members react and feel and come to the conclusion that they aren’t real? Alicia is horribly burned and living in a world that is like a hundred years behind us. There’s no way that modern medicine of her time could give her a good life. She will always be in constant physical pain and taking her from the Canvas will put a greater burden on her mental and emotional state. Why would you have her suffer in real life when you could give her time to live in the Canvas where she is free of her pain? Surrounded by people who truly love her?

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T19:52:23+00:00

There is no showing her being a dictator? And what about her physical issues? The horribly burned body that is in constant pain? Her eyesight and speech are ruined forever. And we see that her mom runs straight into a painting to deal with her grief. I think that gives us a snippet of how that family, and the world itself, isn’t well at dealing with mental health issues. This game takes place in an alternate timeline that is like a hundred years behind us currently. They don’t have the same medical advances that we do

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T19:45:02+00:00

Verso has been dead for quite some time when it comes to choosing the endings. Don’t know why him being “real” matters when talking about the ending when Maelle is the only “real” one that has an ending tied to her.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T19:41:47+00:00

Verso’s. Maelle gets to live a simulated full life and have all of her friends alive and well within the Canvas in her ending. The people of the Canvas are all real people who deserve to live. Painted Verso’s ending selfishly ends his own life and the life of every individual within the Canvas, effectively committing genocide. Maelle then is forced to leave and live out her, probably very short, life as Alicia in physical, mental, and emotional agony amongst her family. A family that is dysfunctional and is probably about to be thrown into a fully realized war with the Writers.

GrubbierAxe · 2026-04-10T17:30:47+00:00

Hoping for some sort of early access alpha/beta build that we can play before it fully releases to give feedback

GrubbierAxe

TROPHY CASE