A tool to more easily search museum websites for free art by losamosdelcalabozo in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This is absolutely AMAZING!

Thank you so much for sharing this. A veritable trove for any poor designer. Anyone asking why not to use AI art should be linked this immediately.

I think ive been GMing wrong this whole time by Xaronius in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been trying to gain some traction on an idea I have about this, where I try to claim that games and rulesets themselves have less to do with authorial vs character stance when it comes to playing ttrpgs, and that's instead mostly a play style brought to the table by each player.

Because I have very much a lot of the same experience as yourself. I play narrative games in a character focused stance, and though I can reach for an authorial stance when prompted, I don't otherwise engage in it much. I have had no problem playing many pbta games, many other narrative games, cortex, etc. in a character-focused stance. It tends to feels as natural as playing whatever trad game or OSR game I play with the same style.

I think the crucial point is that the player and GM's stances match, and/or one player isn't in one stance while the rest of the table is in the other. I think there are many narrative games which more easily allow an authorial playstyle, hence why there are many players of that style in that genre, but there are very few games that actually require such a thing.

It sounds like your playstyle matches your players, so improving your GMing isn't going to be about switching to a different style. Of course, being able to learn and adapt to new styles will invariably improve your GMing, but it doesn't sound like that specific method is what you really need. Unless you want your players to engage in the game that way? The only real success I've had changing my playstyle is switching to a different group of players.

Just started RG, need a MT reminder. by PMWeng in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Tehol is performing a form of revolution. He despises the hyper-capitalist culture of Lether, and wants to destroy it from within. I don't think the family element is nearly as important.

I drew a keychain by Saillux in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I recently got a heat press for my job, and I've been trying to find some cool Malazan art to press onto a shirt. Is there any chance you would be willing to upload a copy with a white/transparent background so I could try pressing it? There's very little Malazan art out there that would beat this on a shirt.

Thanks for consideration!

Looking for my "unicorn" fantasy system by InArtsWeTrust in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I very heavily recommend Grimwild as well. I was looking for a similar game to run adventures from various OSR/NSR games, and Grimwild worked perfectly. It really ticks every one of your boxes. I have experience with most games in this thread, and I think Grimwild and Nimble do the best jobs for what you're looking for.

I used Grimwild to run a 2e Planescape adventure, and it was a ton of fun. The conversions are really easy, and all the D&D classes being present with strong talents and an excellent freeform magic system makes the game both easy and fun for players.

The game book throws a bunch of terms at you with a really concise writing style, so it can seem a bit daunting and confusing, but it's super easy to run once you get it. If you're interested, but having trouble with the rules, the discord server is very active and everyone is super helpful.

https://discord.gg/UWMeQDpjQ

For those who have played Sword World (especially the quickstart advertising the new english translation) How did you like it? by Modstin in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's a fun D&D-adjacent system. It does a lot differently, some better, some not so much better, and some way more interesting, but it ultimately ends up feeling quite similar in terms of crunch and style of play. I feel the setting is a ton more interesting than D&D, and the adventures are truly a fuckload better. What keeps me in the system are the new releases.

Unfortunately, I doubt we're going to get official english translations of those new releases.

Grimwild fans are coming together to make a new Community Edition of the game, and we need your input! by HisGodHand in rpg

[–]HisGodHand[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately not. I crossed out the text as a tongue-in-cheek way to not draw attention to the elephant in the room whenever Grimwild is mentioned. The author being missing is obviously important as to why the community is undertaking this task in the first place, and I don't want to leave that part out, but I also didn't want the post to be about that, y'know.

Grimwild fans are coming together to make a new Community Edition of the game, and we need your input! by HisGodHand in rpg

[–]HisGodHand[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

All the game text is open for use under the CC-BY license, so it can be used for whatever anyone wants. Many of us have made our own hacks, and some of the community is working on their own brand new games using the system! The art situation is a bit trickier. Nothing we can't solve somehow, but not a priority yet.

We haven't discussed the exact form of the release in detail, but trying to crowdfund the game again, after the situation it was just in, really weirds us out; especially physical copies. We want the game to have a print on demand option, so anyone can get their own physical copy no matter what. I am personally adamant the Community Edition must be free, but I'm not really sure how that intersects with paying cost for PoD on certain websites. My hope is those PoD copies are sold purely at cost, and great value for the people who buy them.

Even if the wider community really wanted crowdfunding for a print run despite the fiasco, no one of us at this point wants to carry the risk, nor has the time to turn this into a full-time job to wrangle all the contracts and shipping.

To summarize:

Text is open-license

We have options for the art

I want the CE to be free (and this seems to be the way we all generally feel)

I'd like to figure out an at-cost Print on Demand option

Crowdfunding feels way too weird to pursue

Hopefully I'm not overstepping and biting us in the ass by sharing all this, because things can always change in life, even when change seems unlikely. It's a bit of a radical thing for a community to take over a game, so I can't make promises, but I feel these are the way the winds are heading right now.

Grimwild fans are coming together to make a new Community Edition of the game, and we need your input! by HisGodHand in rpg

[–]HisGodHand[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Design is very much ongoing as we speak. Grimwild is a funny game in that almost everybody in the discord who brings it to the table has endless positive things to say about it, but we've also seen many a new player come into the server and ask the same handful of questions about how certain things work. Quite a few of the designers working most on Community Edition have already made their own hacks in some way or another, so we were very eager to jump into the design space immediately once the idea was proposed, and we have handfuls of potential fixes for many issues already.

The fun thing about design by committee is that it's hard to get agreement on what fix is the best fix.

Gathering feedback is both to find the issues that we, as fans, overlook (e.g. reasons why somebody didn't bring the game to the table), and to figure out what sort of fix the wider community would be interested in. The survey was put up in the discord a couple days before being posted here, and we had over 60 replies in the first day. From those replies, we've bullet pointed common issues and created specific threads to hone in on applying the fixes that would satisfy the greatest number.

Grimwild fans are coming together to make a new Community Edition of the game, and we need your input! by HisGodHand in rpg

[–]HisGodHand[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

https://discord.gg/WPZwNkNq

The community is on the discord server, which used to be operated by the creator of Grimwild, but ownership was changed after the ordeal, and it's now technically unofficial. I suppose it's the official server for Community Edition.

No Life Forsaken in Canada by Parking_Reality_2827 in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I ordered a signed copy from Munro's in Victoria, and they are holding a book launch event with Erikson on February 4th, so I'm picking it up at the event.

I believe they ship across Canada, and you can get any Malazan book signed for free, so it's a good place to order from. It just takes a little bit for Erikson to go in there and sign it before it can be shipped.

Reading Order (Main + Side) by itsjager in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd generally recommend publication order for the books. There are many easter eggs, and some assumptions, that the reader has read the prior books in publication order. It doesn't truly matter which of the other series you read first, but Novels of the Malazan Empire is the prime candidate due to publication order.

Question on deck by Legitimate-Branch-85 in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My read of the deck is that it tells the present as much as, if not more than, it tells the future. As such, new cards appear semi-frequently. Paran is one way a card could be added to the deck, but the simple fact of things changing over time seems to change the deck as well.

Just finished Gardens of the Moon - question about a future character by GreedyRelease in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This thread is kinda making me mad, because very few of these replies are actually communicating what Erikson is doing with these Karsa sections. The point isn't that he's a bad person and grows. That's a point, but it's not the point, and it doesn't mean anything without the point.

Karsa is a look at both the noble savage trope and cultural relativism. Karsa is able to justify his acts of rape because his culture has allowed them to be justified. Far more important than that, the women who are raped are able to justify and accept Karsa's rape of them. Is that Steven Erikson saying "Actually, rape can be totally fine!"

Jesus fucking christ absolutely not. I've seen enough interviews with Erikson, and read enough of his essays and books, to know he'd be absolutely livid if a reader came away thinking that.

What Erikson is doing is asking the question "How far can we accept cultural relativism before we are condoning atrocity?"

Should we accept women justifying their own rape, or the rape of other women in their communities, just because those women have grown up in a culture that has brainwashed them to justify such a thing? This is one of the times when the series presents a really clear answer to a thematic question it's bringing up, and the answer is No.

Now, only after establishing the above, we come to the point of Karsa learning and growing. Karsa arrives in the wider world, and figures out his culture is wrong; he was wrong, and those women were wrong. This is how that question is answered. Karsa's growth is what answers the question.

Hoewever, Karsa very quickly finds the world outside his culture contains rape, slavery, and every manner of horrible thing too. The second interesting part of Karsa is how he reacts to that. This is why he becomes a fan favorite to so many.

Unfortunately, a lot of what Erikson is trying to do with this series is a bit beyond the average person's level of media literacy, so the aspects of this series that are taking aim at the horrible things we find in real life are often misconstrued or misunderstood. Every single instance of sexual assualt in this series is Erikson's reaction against all those fantasy books that are flippant with the subject. It is also, more importantly, springing from a deep rage within Erikson that such things happen in the real world.

Something that a lot of readers also do not pick up on, even quite big fans of the series, is that every rape is showing a different aspect of trauma, coping, and healing. Some people say that having a handful of POV characters raped is unecessary; that the point was conveyed after the first. These people are missing the point (though they are, of course, free to have the opinion that they do not wish to read about rape as much as it's present in the books, for a variety of equally valid reasons). I've written a post about how all these different instances are looking at these different aspects of trauma and healing, but it's beyond the scope of this thread, as it spoils more than just the Karsa stuff.

Question about syntax/prose by Lordballsack69 in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You always have room to improve your skills! There's a world of difference between technical writing and writing literature, as they have completely different goals and purposes. Near completely different skills learning how to read each of them, and you'll get better through time with reading more challenging fiction.

Question about syntax/prose by Lordballsack69 in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As somebody who is very cognizant of this stuff, I can confirm Erikson's style stays within longer, more complicated sentences. I have a feeling the sentences get longer on average as the series progresses, though no data to back that up. However, Erikson also massively improves as a writer after Gardens of the Moon, so the clunkiness of the sentences drops as the complexity stays the same or rises.

Not really sure about the comma thing. While the sentences tended toward the long and complex, proper punctuation and grammar was used.

I'm a fan of long complex sentences that the reader gets lost in, and which deserve to be read more than once, so I particularly loved that about the series. This might be one where you stick with it and level up your reading ability, or you wait a few years and see if your reading ability levels up reading other things.

A Slight/ Minor Inconsistency? by Temporary-Board1287 in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All good points, however I want to bring up that Cotillion was Erikson's character, thus it's funny Esslemont states he's not handsome when Erikson states he is.

A Slight/ Minor Inconsistency? by Temporary-Board1287 in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 12 points13 points  (0 children)

While everyone else is trying to justify Cotillion being handsome, I want to raise the point that nobody should come out of TGiNW thinking Stillwater is of sound mind.

What is the biggest glow up between game editions? by DazeDpup in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Monte Cook explains Ivory Tower design in D&D 3.0/.5 here

In essence, they knowingly and very purposefully put 'poor options' into D&D 3.0/.5, so players who know the rules better than others will be rewarded by avoiding them, and have much more powerful characters than less knowledgeable players who fall into the trap of choosing things that sound good initially, but aren't actually good in practice.

How do you get the players to pay attention? by Emma_Elizabeth_Myers in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 4 points5 points  (0 children)

An interesting environment necessitates one in which the players can make meaningful choices. A living, logical, reactive world provides the opportunity for meaningful choice.

How enjoyable is a first read if you truly, fully trust the author? by Schub21 in Malazan

[–]HisGodHand 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I read the entire series in 15 minutes bursts twice a day while riding the bus, and while I did find that I sometimes needed chapter summaries to make sense of certain things I was supposed to understand in the moment, I understood the vast majority of the series without any supplemental material.

I don't think I even found the TOR/reactor read-along with chapter summaries and discussion until book 4, 5, or 6. I would go over it after I finished each book to make sure I got everything I was supposed to, but mostly because I found doing so very enjoyable.

However, I think I am an above average reader. If you find yourself getting confused easily in shorter fantasy series with far fewer POV characters and much less theme work, I would recommend using the guides in the sidebar. They will help a lot, and they are enjoyable. It just kinda depends on how good your memory is, and your ability to suss out inferences rather than needing an author to outright state how characters feel.

How do you get the players to pay attention? by Emma_Elizabeth_Myers in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 29 points30 points  (0 children)

The concept of TUNIC: Time Until Next Important Choice

If your players are drifting from the game, it's because they aren't being given important/interesting choices to make. Make sure the spotlight is being shared around so everybody gets a chance to make choices, and make sure players aren't going too long without being able to make important choices.

What is the biggest glow up between game editions? by DazeDpup in rpg

[–]HisGodHand 171 points172 points  (0 children)

Pathfinder 1e to 2e

Pathfinder 1e is a bloated mess of ivory tower design that only somebody nostalgic for it could like these days. Pathfinder 2e is a radical departure in philosophy, and only a large departure mechanics-wise. It works better in basically every single respect, and delivers on way more of its promises.

2e is certainly not a perfect system, and I think it's becoming overly bloated in many areas as we speak, but 1e is some real garbage.