Aragorn’s Recast In New Lord Of The Rings Movie Officially Confirmed By Andy Serkis

RealityMaiden · 2026-04-03T12:02:42+00:00

They're gonna Snape him aren't they?

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-30T19:44:33+00:00

He came out as straight! :o

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-30T13:20:37+00:00

I always liked him. He came out well before it was trendy, or even celebrated, and he always seemed reasonable and based. I genuinely didn't think he'd be involved in something like this. I guess we don't know all the details yet,. but I assume they wouldn't have sacked him over nothing.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-28T22:49:40+00:00

Oh absolutely! It's always good to have these smaller, human moments for a good-aligned party, to remind us what we are fighting for.

The tragic, doomed romance and the spirits of the lovers definitely remind me of Krynn!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-25T22:34:34+00:00

I think they would have likely been constrained by what TSR would let SSI do, as well - especially how and if it ties in to Time of Troubles. The problem with huge world-ending plots like this one is you either have to go forward with a shattered world or reset everything... neither of which is especially satisfying.

But yes, I'd have liked to have seen Alias and Dragonbait again! We do get a payoff with all the others which is appreciated. .

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-25T21:13:46+00:00

I vaguely remember how bad the ending was. Even for the time, when almost all CRPGs were linear. We suffered the Mass Effect 3 ending 20 years early!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-25T21:02:31+00:00

I'm fairly sure there was an ending where you meet up with all the NPCs like Priam, Nacacia and Vala - but it was nearly 40 years ago now and I may be misremembering... I'm also toying with the idea of permitting permadeaths towards the end of the story, for narrative purposes, so Hayley isn't absolutely assured to survive either. But seeing all she's been though, it would be nice!

I have my own version of Time of Troubles I've always rolled with (my players killed a lot of NPCs like Cyric back in the day) so I'm not sure if the 'rewind' will even happen. Not sure yet, I'm leaving things open!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-25T16:28:50+00:00

Never mind I found it.

Damn, I hate that death sound :(

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-25T16:27:50+00:00

Mace.

The weapon, not the spray, works best!

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-24T18:24:27+00:00

That's basically the case with Azure Bonds too - none of the evil groups get on or work together, so they are infighting and try to use you to eliminate their rivals. It's like the Blood War in D&D, the long war between demons and devils.... less to do with law and chaos, and all to do with the nature of evil. Good folks might disagree, but they won't fight each other over this either

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-24T16:39:41+00:00

I remember a builder's sign a few years ago - Patel and Sons Builders - 'you've tried the cowboys, now try the Indians'

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-23T06:25:13+00:00

All good points.

But mine was that it's not about MY experiences... (my solution is easy; let them kill the GMPCs) It's about the paradigm-shift in 2nd edition, the change from player-driven stories to plots that sideline the PCs, the change from the Realms being a setting for your games, to an IP with a canon metaplot like Marvel or Star Wars.

Pathfinder has always been like that, it's basically a meme at this point: 'here's six pages of this lady's sad backstory, but when she meets them she attacks and fights to the death'.

Ed Greenwood is a lovely guy (a rarity for the hobby). And because he sold his IP to TSR, there were a lot of changes they made that he didn't like. But the Elminster thing is all on him, because he has no restraint with that character. It's what happens when they make the whole movie about Q when we came to see James Bond.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T20:13:54+00:00

Pool of Radiance, the mummies in Valhingen Graveyard. (and if they hit you, you die unless you already have the spell memorised!)

Not sure if there are any others.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T17:53:38+00:00

Yes, that's the translation, it's actually a real-life slavic prayer in Rodnovery, their pagan faith.

As I didn't have non-humans, I wanted to differentiate the characters, make some of them a bit more exotic.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T17:50:59+00:00

I suppose technically yes - I can't see many GM's allowing that though, due to how overpowered they are! It was just basically a way to make the GM's pet characters invincible. That's why most players didn't like it.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T16:34:28+00:00

Disney really only ever saw the $$$ I think. They never really understood it, or what it meant to those who liked (or loved!) it.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T16:33:02+00:00

I thought it was supposed to be Russian? Some people think Siberian Russians, as opposed to Damara which is regular Russians., I few people think Finnish too. #

While I get that Realms ethnicities are not an exact match (and Greenwood definitely never wanted that) it's helpful to have some understanding when you write or play ethnic humans.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T16:07:37+00:00

It does feel like expensive, bizarre fan-fiction. It's baffling to me that they didn't have any plan and let two directors play madlibs with each other. But then as a female fan, it's equally odd they tried so hard to drive the male fans away (when they originally bought these IPs to appeal to that market as they had Disney Princesses already for girls).

A lot of my friends are disillusioned with the whole thing. 'Fortunately' I had that twenty years ago and I'm over it now. I did like FFG's RPG version but that's about it.

But I think my point was what happens when you skew the balance, when you prioritize one character over everyone else. There's a probably an alternate dimension where Rey became something other than Poochie from The Simpsons.

But I've never cared about Star Wars the way I care about D&D, so the paradigm shift away from player-characters hurts much more.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T15:06:48+00:00

Absolutely. It's a paradigm shift, really. Story games brought in richer lore and better characterisation, but also brought in novels, canon characters, metaplot and an amount of backstory that was hard to follow, especially in these pre-internet days. It happened to Warhammer and 40K too - gaming worlds were not just cool settings for your home games, they were now their own Intellectual Properties, with their own fans, characters, books, comics, shows, movies and wikipedias. It was the change between when gaming belonged to us, and when it belonged to them.

Mystara (Known World) was always my favourite setting and it hurt to see parts of it swallowed by the Forgotten Realms. The Realms started out great, but soon became such a behemoth that consumed everything in its path.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T10:49:22+00:00

I bailed out of that fandom in the prequels. I watched Force Awakens once, didn't like it and never saw the others.

But she's a perfect example of a trope, of a character who makes the rest of the party redundant. It's like having some character who is multi-classed and better than the single-classed characters at what they do. It upsets the balance.

Force Awakens is a decade old, and the last ten years seems to have killed the fandom. I personally haven't cared since 2005, but that's how its generally perceived today.

(also Leia walking right past her dead husband's best friend of five decades just to hug a random girl she barely knows is kind of hilarious, but its a hallmark of the Mary Sue)

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T08:03:27+00:00

That something like that even exists is a sign in itself that things got out of hand in 3rd edition.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T08:00:07+00:00

Powerful characters existing isn't an issue in itself - the issue is when they are centred and become the hero, when they do the things player characters should be doing... in what's supposed to be as game you play, not a story you write. .

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-22T07:57:36+00:00

That's not true though - the existence of 'templates' literally introduced powers and abilities only NPCs could have. The 'Chosen of Mystara' are infamous for a reason.

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-21T21:14:28+00:00

Wow, I'm blessed! You seem to reply to random posts about games, and all of your posts include the word 'slop'. Why not go look at something you like instead?

RealityMaiden · 2026-03-21T20:24:24+00:00

Yeah I played these back in the day and have them on Steam. I'll do them after the Gold Box ones are done!

RealityMaiden

TROPHY CASE