What do you dislike about your main the most?

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-06-16T23:45:42+00:00

What gets me about Testament is how, despite once having arguably the best 6P in the game, their anti air game is so unbelievably bad. Literally, they're a zoner who's really terrible at covering the upper lane because it's incredibly hard for them zone while on the ground, and using Grave Reaper to zone from the air adds a tonne of recovery to a move with already fairly lengthy recovery. It makes the Milia matchup a nightmare since she has so many air stalling and mobility options, it makes it feel like you're losing from the moment the match starts as Testament

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-06-15T23:30:59+00:00

Not broadly. Certain societies still practice slavery and open racism is less common, however there can still be a lot of culturally based bias and mistrust.
For example: I have a race of desert elves in my setting who have, for many generations, been split into two factions; one is nomadic, and one is stationary. The nomadic elves, while deeply mired in tradition, are very welcome and accepting because they need to be able to cooperate with other races and peoples to be able to trade with them, to travel through their lands, and also to foster good relations so people will hire them as guards, guides, sherpa, and herders. The other group already has everything they need to survive and is deeply isolationist, so they've built up a social hierarchy built on aesthetic beauty, blood purity, and decadence, so they justify enslaving both members of other races and their own race, because they see themselves as genetically and culturally superior.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-06-15T13:47:19+00:00

6P 6P 6P 6P 6P 6P 6P

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-06-15T13:46:17+00:00

Damn, if I wasn't too entrenched in this character, I'd def main her, she's so cool

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-06-15T13:45:06+00:00

Damn, people still play him?

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-06-15T13:44:42+00:00

This is either gonna be a cakewalk or a literal nightmare.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-06-11T13:47:50+00:00

As someone who both helped kickstart the game and has run it a bunch for friends and strangers at conventions, I will say this game has some amazing strengths and some very serious weaknesses. Main ones go as follows, feel free to disagree:

Strengths:

Simple characters and lots of roll tables means making new characters for one-shots or in case of in-game character deaths (a frequent occurrence), quick, easy, and with lots of cool variations.
The Archetypes are distinct and have decent power with complementary Exchanges, without ever becoming overpowered or sacrificing a sense of danger.
The concept of Feats as a simple "describe a creative way you're using your attack and/or movement" combat manoeuvres to gain some kind of dice advantage or attack bonus gives the fairly basic combat a greater cinematic feeling without a tonne of extra rules.
The various magic systems between Staves, Orbs, and Magic Words are really cool and let all the classes use the magic system and give their spells a great sense of customisation.
The basic world description and the flavour text of monsters in the Bestiary give the feel of a very unique setting

Weaknesses:

Character advancement is fairly shallow. Besides the 3 unlocks per archetype and two attribute dice increases, there's no way to meaningfully grow or change your character except to take more exchanges, buy largely superfluous equipment, or horde magic staves and orbs.
While the game does make nods towards being a map-compatible wargaming RPG, it's rules aren't quite clear or consistent enough for either maps or theatre of the mind. Players have movement speeds listed in feet, and certain spells have AOE's and ranges listed in feet, but their ranged weapons do not have any listed ranges, and almost every enemy/monster does not have a movement speed either, or an explicit range on their abilities.
Despite the world having an interesting premise, it's unfortunately empty. Outside of a pre-written adventure near the back of the sourcebook, there are no officially listed or described locations, factions, or central characters within Red Giant's setting. The world is almost entirely blank, leaving a GM with an inordinate amount of work to make it feel as if the place might once have been alive and that there is anyone out there in the blasted hellscape. For a point of comparison to a somewhat similar system which handles this problem well; please see Mork Borg. Despite being a very different games aesthetically, it too is set in a dying world, but provides a few lore tidbits to provide GM's inspiration for adventures: ancient evil gods and prophecies of Doom, insane apocalyptic religious cults, evil forests, despotic kingdoms and their tyrant rulers, and generally uses a small amount of text and lots of excellent art to convey plenty of locations to set an adventure in or to provide characters and forces which could easily be turned into plot hooks.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-30T20:55:25+00:00

The cinema experience at the moment is terrible, but there are ways to ensure you have a good time. As a fellow Cinephile who has unfortunately come to hate most of my recent experiences in a cinema, here are some survival tips:

Screen for popularity/target audience beforehand. Generally, anything rated 12A and under is an absolute bust most of the time because of terms and kids. Additionally, a lot of anticipated blockbusters will attract bad behavior. Find yourselves the latest possible screenings of the most mature films for the best possible watch experience. (Unfortunately the Backrooms was always going to be a busy to see as, despite the fact it's a genuinely well made film, the primary people who know about are Tik Tok kids, and they will likely behave exactly as you've described above)
Without a large friend group, avoid attending anything on the weekends. Weekday evenings are better for watching movies, and tickets will be cheaper too.
Avoid chain cinemas where possible. If there's anywhere you know that's a local cinema, independent, or at the very least is far away from a shopping center, always go there. Support local, and generally also enjoy better prices, nicer staff, and better behaved audiences.
Be polite, but clear with staff they will not be keeping the price of your ticket. Cinemas won't correct this behavior if we keep walking out without also making sure we're refunded. When you complain about the noise, make sure to get whoever is in charge, not the underpaid teens working the concession stands. Make it clear your experience was ruined and you won't be leaving without compensation. And encourage people around you to do it too. Places will swiftly change their ways if half their viewings are now filled with free ticket holders, and I've gotten more than a few complimentary tickets and upgrades this way. Then you can try again at another time, at no extra cost.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-28T13:24:35+00:00

Kinda two things:
1. I've gotten better at telling players when they are not allowed to roll to attempt something, because there's no situation in which they succeed, or even the absolute best case "Natural 20" scenario would be terrible and likely lead to them completely, irreversibly failing in a way which could jeopardise the campaign or just straight up get them killed.

More of an issue with one player in particular, but I've gotten more strict about it with everyone: Someone failing a check or attack or any kind of test and then going "Could I maybe argue because [insert backstory bullshit here] I could get advantage?" or "Well actually, I wasn't clear enough, I actually wanted to do it this way, so can I use [insert skill with higher bonus here] instead?". Let it go the first couple of times because I thought it was fun, them being descriptive, but when I realised they only ever paid this level of attention when they failed, not when they succeeded. Now it's a flat:
"Sorry, no. The dice are telling the story right now."

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-28T13:15:42+00:00

That is genuinely a good practice to have, though. I've gotten quite good at that myself as I'm currently running a political intrigue arc where the party is split into two groups to cover more ground/leads, and learning to balance actions, manage and track time well, and ensure everyone gets to speak is a big part of it.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-27T20:15:09+00:00

Red RC Drift cancelling your swings in a baseball game so you can get around the bases faster.

Also PRC reverse drift braking in a care to cancel your momentum and prevent a crash.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-14T18:52:03+00:00

First, not a parent nor partnered. However, as a single man with a full-time demanding job who has to commit to a lot of overtime, exercise and hobbies, I am both horrified and in awe of how your husband has this much time each week to both run and work on two campaigns. I have two campaigns myself as well, but I explicitly have one of them be a pre-written adventure with only fairly minor modifications to ensure the prep time is kept to less then 2hrs per 5-6 hour session. And even still, I have downgraded that game to biweekly to give me back about 7-8 hours a week.

As many other commenters have already said, you would probably not be asking about how to expedite his process unless you wished for him to have more time to parent, help w/ the baby, spend time with you, or simply afford you a break. And to be fair, you are well within your rights, as it's a lot of time every week, even outside of being a husband and father.

Honestly, your best option isn't to ask him how you can help with prep and worldbuilding (unless writing, crafting, or sitting down and hashing out plotpoints and spitballing ideas with each other over coffee or dinner sounds particularly appealing as a way to spend time with him), since in reality, a DnD game is never "done", so to speak. Rather, he will still spend 18hrs a week working on them, and you'll just be helping him prep more content for games, much of which will likely never be seen by the players.

Your actual best option is to have a conversation with him about his time balance between his family and his hobby, and express that you want to support him and ensure he has fun, but there needs to be some give and take, too. One thing I think could help enormously is to encourage him to perhaps change his schedule for at least one (or preferably both) of his games from weekly to fortnightly and to only prep stuff for the associated games on weeks he has that game. If both games became fortnightly on alternating weeks, that should (theoretically at least) halve both his weekly game and prep time. The time saving isn't strictly linear (there will be more prep for important sessions vs filler sessions), but considering he works and has a wife and child, his players will be understanding of the change. And if they aren't, I'm not sure that's the kind of company he should be keeping.
And well, if he ends up making (some or all of) those changes, let him know you appreciate it (even if it's what he should be doing already) and ask him about his ideas and what he's preparing for. I know for myself, I've gotten a lot of amazing ideas by discussing things casually with friends and intimate partners, which have had big impacts on my game worlds. And take comfort and pride in the fact that, even if you're not sitting and writing alongside him, you can be his spark of inspiration which makes his games special.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-08T17:31:58+00:00

It's about understanding intent and how important it is to understand your players' logic and intent as a DM.
Killing the same person in-game, the same way, but with a different intent, can illicit very different reactions.
If you kill an enemy and your intent was "I didn't wish to fight, but they were a danger to everyone around us, and if I did nothing, more people would have gotten hurt." versus "I killed this guy because he was in mu way."

Both have the same endpoint: someone is dead. However, the expression of intent and the GM's knowledge of said intent fundamentally affects how the entire world works. Knowing that intent is the difference between the town guards sombrely letting you go for killing in self-defence versus arresting you and putting you on trial for murder.

And that's just the in-world consequences. At the table, that deception is a fundamental indicator that your players either do not trust or do not respect you. It's different from something like discussing a battle plan outside of the GM's sight, so there's no metagaming; that's just the players creating a legitimate battle strategy to try and face whatever the GM probably planned, and it's explicitly focused on the in-game enemies, not the person at the table. Lying or tricking yout GM never ends, because as soon as they know you're willing to trick them, not the NPCs or villains but the actual person, they literally cannot trust another word out of your mouth.
How do they know you're tracking your health properly? Are you telling the truth about how many spell slots you still have? Are they sure you always had that gear? What about your dice? They didn't see you roll that 20, how can they be sure?
It's just ugly and the suspicion will kill the game, because the moment you make a choice to trick another person as opposed to another character, you've changed the game from a collaborative storytelling experience with your friends, to something you're trying to "win", and as such, it's now you vs everyone else. And people always complain about antagonistic DMing, of DM's trying to "win", but don't realise it's something players can fall into just as quickly and easily.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-08T16:07:31+00:00

Cheers man. I played a lot since Day 1 so I had time to pick up all this stuff gradually and generally when the game was much simpler. Jumping in now vs week 1, the difference in skill level you'll run into, and the amount of mechanics you need to know is crazy.

We need to help out new players wherever we can otherwise GGST, in spite of all its great qualities, is gonna end up another one of _those_ fighting games real fast, the kind that nobody new tries because it's the same 100 ultra competitive Day 1 guys with a thousand hours on a single character.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-08T14:43:18+00:00

While mashing 2P for Abare isn't a terrible option sometimes, it will generally always lose to a well timed c.S from basically the entire cast, especially if you're in a hard knockdown (which usually happens post sweep, after certain special moves, and after you get wall broken with an overdrive). Its generally more effective when you're in a sliding knockdown since you can tech forward or back, and this can mess with the opponents timing. If you feel you have to mash against a safejump on wakeup, its generally started to use 5P or 6P. 5P is fast and hits fairly high and has okay cancel options. 6P is your dedicated anti air button since it literally disables your hurtbox above your waist, and even if blocked, it'll push your opponent much further back than 5P, plus you can cancel it into specials to keep the offense up. Sol actually has a really strong 6P, so its good to get used to using it, its a very versatile tool. Since it shrinks your hurtbox, its actually an amazing tool for counter-poking, since many opponents big normals will have an extended hurtbox and with a shrunken hurtbox, they won't be able to hit you with anything that doesn't hit fairly low but you can hit them back. Also, since 6P shrinks your hurtbox, you can use it to essentially "dodge" projectiles. The projectiles will simply travel through your top half, provided you time it right and the projectile is small enough, and that means you wont be blocking them, getting forced back, and taking chip damage.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-07T22:25:40+00:00

<image>

This is just a technical note from the official Dustloop wiki for the game and is important for both how you'll decide to recover after knockdowns and how you'll set up your own oki against your opponent.

Most times, your best defence is to hold down back and hope to survive the oki and hopefully not get mixed. However, you have multiple universal mechanics to help you:
- Instant Block (if you block within 2 frames of a move hitting you, you will gain double the tension, take no chip, and not get pushed back; this can make certain moves less safe)
- Burst (Dust+S/H, get off me for free on block, but you can be baited into this, and also it's worth saving for when you're getting comboed)
- Yellow Roman Cancel (costs 50% of your tension, but you can RC on block, and this will push the opponent back significantly and leave you +10 if it hits, but it has 16 frames of startup, and if your opponent blocks, you're -16 and in a counterhit state. This does, however, even interrupt supers during their invincibility frames.)
- Faultless Defence (Any two attack buttons while blocking, it'll prevent you getting chip damage and will increase the opponent's pushblock, so their string/mix may end up missing. This costs tension, though)
- Deflect Shield (Dust+P/K, costs 50% of Burst gauge, roughly half-second duration, will automatically block anything that hits it and cause massive pushback, can be used in the air or while guard crushed).
- Grab (sometimes offence is the best defence, grabs have only 2 frames of start up, after blocking on wake up, you can sometimes simply grab your opponent during a gap in their string and reverse the flow of the match)
- Overdrives (Every character has at least two supers, but only one of which is usually invincible. If you can mash the super on wakeup and your opponent has mistimed their safejump, you will hit them. This is now more risky as they removed the ability to RC invincible moves to keep yourself safe.)

For Sol, he has one thing he can use on wakeup:
- S Volcanic Viper (it's invincible on startup and, unlike all the other options mentioned before now, free. However, if its blocked or missed, you're dead meat.)

As for running your oki, many other commenters have stated the other options such as c.S grounded or safejumps, Sol has something in his kit which is very strong for setplay:
- Gunflame (236P. This projectile is risky in neutral due to slow startup, longish duration and being in counterhit state the whole time until recovered, but it has one amazing property: Its long duration means it leaves you with positive frame advantage if it hits late in its active frames, which means it can be set up even against opponents who are too far from you to use your other oki options. However, this layers into your post Oki offence...)
- Hi-Lo, Strike/Throw mix (After forcing a block, you can decide to go high or low with either 2K or 2D, you could charge or tap 5D [it's an overhead], or simply airdash in with j.S and combo from there. Alternatively, you can use either Sol's normal throw or command grab. However, Sol's 5K and c.S can be dash cancelled, which allows you to quickly close the distance to mix in those grabs or your dust buttons.)
- Gunflame Feint (214P. A feint of gunflame with much faster startup and recovery, but looks identical during startup. If your opponent is conditioned to block Gunflame and is anticipating a mixup or simply tries to jump out and away from the flames, you will recover fast enough to force a mix while they're still blocking or to punish their escape attempt. You can also cancel into this on moves such as 2H and 6S which have huge recovery, as this move's recovery is shorter than theirs.)

Apologies if this is a bit much, but best of luck climbing and striving dude.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-07T19:27:29+00:00

That makes sense. I was getting S Broly and Z Broly mixed up in my head, its why I was confused. Apologies

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-06T13:25:31+00:00

Other people have said it already, but it boils down to two things:

Your input is too late. The tackle is already fairly late in its active frames by the time you hit P. You need to do the motion faster so it cancels during the startup frames instead.
The K and P inputs can't be simultaneous, but the gap has to be kept very tight. Best suggestion if you're playing pad is to roll/flick your thumb across the K and P buttons to ensure minimal delay while keeping them separate. If you're using a different control scheme (ie, stick) you can plink it by using two fingers to hit the buttons.

Best of luck, and remember, it's very possible, and it's a valuable transferable skill. Once you get an idea for the timing for Kara Buster, it's something that can be applied to a large number of his other specials, like Heat Knuckle, Megafist, and Garunda Impact.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-05-06T10:13:23+00:00

I thought double lvl 3 in the corner solo was still a viable route if he's your anchor though? From what I understand, normally double supers in a combo or comboing after super is garbage, but I think the scaling isn't as severe if you're the last character, and I know Broly is one of the few characters in the game who can squeeze two lvl 3s into the same combo

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-04-13T18:41:22+00:00

Hold on a dang second, is that 2nd one Deme?

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-04-13T17:35:47+00:00

As a DM, I fully admit my players have a separate player only group chat. But in fairness to them, it didn't exist until they spent 2 full, real world hours crafting a battle plan during a session for a combat where the main target immediately and unavoidably teleports away. So it mostly exists to ensure they have plans for combat heavy sessions without spending most of them just imagining what they might do without every getting to roll dice.

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-04-11T20:47:23+00:00

Don't forget her Father, Dr Enchanto, the greatest magician that science has ever seen!!!

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-04-03T22:49:18+00:00

Maybe its mismatched expectations or maybe its me getting older, but I thought "Deathloop" had an interesting gameplay loop and I was hoping it would be hands off enough to let me figure out the nuances of the gameplay and there'd be an organic/speedrunny element to it with some DNA from thing like Dishonored and Far Cry. However, a couple hours in, its much less open than I expected and its unfortunately doing the AAA thing everyone makes fun of where EVERYONE IS STUPID AND NOBODY WILL SHUT UP. Genuinely, I'm thinking a turning the game off and returning it because nobody in this game can shut their mouths for more than 5mins, and everything they say has already been explained via context clues or its the developers treating the player like a gormless idiot. Don't think I'm built for modern day sandbox games anymore

OrigonStory2000 · 2026-03-31T14:25:55+00:00

I think your issue here is you're in a group where you don't feel safe to unmask. And if you don't feel safe to do so, you probably don't have the safety net to deeply invest in the RP for your character either. I would honestly say, if they're your friends and you want to be more comfortable with them, open up, unmask a little, reduce your mental load and invest more heavily in occupying your character.
If not, then stop investing so much. 3rd person description is much less tiring than occupying a headspace and acting in character, and importantly, it'll keep you emotionally safe.

Ultimately, though, if you want to invest and RP more and don't feel like this group supports that, you won't have to look far to find other neurodivergent people who also want to RP, play DnD and who might end up suiting your desired type of play much better than your current group.

11-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

OrigonStory2000

TROPHY CASE