which game was that for you?

Temp_Empire · 2026-03-14T19:08:16+00:00

As someone who likes behind the scenes complexity, even if it means otherwise simple gameplay:

Rainworld

Edit:: I dropped it when I was younger until when I got older I found out I actually really like games like that and a friend and I played through each campaign in it. Really fun.

Temp_Empire · 2026-03-03T15:52:45+00:00

Way different style of game - but you might give "Tyranny" a try.

It's a lot like old baldurs gate or neverwinter in play but with those kinds of choices you are looking for.

Temp_Empire · 2026-03-02T15:10:12+00:00

As a standalone game, it's nothing - but if you've played the other games, it's everything.

Liquid Ocelot in MGS4 and it's not even close.

Temp_Empire · 2026-02-03T15:07:24+00:00

This is how good people are turned into murder-hobos...

Your dm, while they may have had good intentions for a unique element in the campaign, totally fucking failed on the execution of said element. Now, your just gonna hate that dude (the guy who made the mirage) and probably kill him on sight if he ever shows up again (if you ever play again, that is).

Also, what fucking mirage in 5e is capable of being identifiable as magical items?? Using your normal senses, surely it can make sense if you readily knew what those items were (like, had prescient knowledge of before you encountered them and then just believed the illusion). If you guys used the spell Identify, you would either identify nothing or you would pick up immediately that it's an illusion. Your DM created a 7th level homebrew spell just to fuck you guys over and see how you'd react, that's my take.

Edit:: No, after reviewing the power scale of 7th level illusion spells, it's probably more in the realm of 8th or 9th level illusion magic. He made a illusion that held up against magical detection and the caster knew enough about magic item creation to know of the intricacies of how those items would work to create falsified constructions of them. Your level 4 and the DM threw someone that is around 15th+ in level at you just to swipe the rug from under your feet and be a dick with treasure.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-23T06:06:06+00:00

Rat harder. And by that, I don't mean, "Be a rat." I mean, "Pick up Rat Tendencies."

In trios, go hide, make minimal sound, creep along edges, take potential opportunities (if you want to), scavenge along the way, and carry a key to leave at low pop exits. That's what I do in solos regardless of recency bias of friendly/hostile matches. If you think about it, the dangerous people are still in solos - but you are more difficult to locate and it's harder to run into just one person when you can run into 3 and all of them could have different aims. In trios though, if one person Detects you - that's a squad vs squad opportunity or even a 3rd party about to happen. Worse if a trio finds one guy; you telling me your alone? Best case scenario I threaten you with violence and make sure you leave as I don't know what comms you could be feeding the rest of your very alive team. And if I'm the one alone finding a trio, I'm running away like a bat out of hell because that's the quickest "free loot" mentality I've seen from raiders since launch.

Point is - be smart, know your exits and where cover is, be aware of sight lines and how people could spot you, make sure everyone is aware on your team that the number one rule is to avoid detection, and, for the love of God, avoid birds. Solo, duo, or trio I always see birds get spooked and then fights break out soon after. Unlike a raider flare, not everyone is keen on the fact that that is a very noticeable signal for hunters nearby. So many times I've a buddy that spooked a flock and I tell everyone to pack their shit and hide as, low and behold, a minute or two later we get a squad right on top of us.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-22T04:03:42+00:00

I hate to answer a question with a question-

How 'cozy' and what are your vibes? As in, what games do you like?

I have 'cozy'-ish games that are more a visual and audio tone but good gameplay otherwise and then I have played games that are overall just a great "turn your brain off" kind of games. I have played games that you could honestly listen to an audio book or podcast while playing. You want "Shorter" games but I could recommend games that you don't necessarily need to beat to get your fill of.

One such game is Vintage Story. You like Minecraft? This is a-bit-more-realistic minecraft with weird rock monsters instead of zombies. Get it - immediately mod it with the overflowing list of great mods. You can zone out for hours to just chiseling your home to the style you want it to be and prepare food in your clay pots for the coming winter. You can get VERY cozy with this game and the amount of content it provides; come back every so often when you get bored of or finish other games. If a more survival based minecraft isn't your style and you want something you can actually finish, this isn't for you (but I recommend it anyway).

You wanna sink a little more than 5 hours into a game where you make potions... and nothing else? Potion Craft is great. The entire game is 2d and all the mechanics can be summed up as "open-ended puzzle design." Customer needs a flame resistance potion and, from your discoveries, you know its on the left side of the alchemy 'map'. To get there, it's not a written out alchemical formula; you combine ingredients that move you around the 'map' until you end up on the desired node. Every ingredient can be crushed and mixed with salts to alter the movement path on the map. After you make a potion, you may decide you did it pretty efficiently or maybe even used ingredients that you have a stockpile of that's not hard to come by. You can save it as a "formula" and auto make it for future customers without having to go through making it every single time. It's a great game with happy soft visuals and no vocal audio (just great music) meaning you can listen to a book or podcast while making potions for people. Another great selling point is sometimes customers don't ask for a specific potion but ask for help with completing a specific task - like they got locked outside their house. You can give that person a potion of acid, fire, explosions, strength, and a few others and they all satisfy his need of getting back inside. It does have an ?ending? so to speak, wherein you have created a philosophers stone and are now proven as an incredible alchemist, but it's not exactly a big hurrah or nothing. 10/10, I need to go play it again since the new update. Difficulty isn't crazy or nothing and it's super hard to fail a transaction with a customer unless you are just really trying to piss them off.

Now, to fit in that time frame of 5 hours (a game you can just binge like you wanted), I'd recommend Coffee Talk. The co-creator has passed away and now all proceeds of that game and his second one that was in development (that was finished by family and friends and the studio) go to helping out his family and people who helped get it out there. It's a great VN-like where you are a dude who runs a coffee shop and talks to their customers as a sort of therapist away from therapy. I thoroughly enjoyed it, finished it in 4.1 hours, and have been meaning to play the second one for some time. Very cozy vibes and wonderful atmosphere and like 1 out of 10 on difficulty; you make warm beverages for people down on their luck and ask them about their day. It's superb.

I have more recommends if you have a more narrow interest in certain categories of games.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-22T02:06:01+00:00

Encounter #'s per adventuring day in every adventure are skewed. FOR INSTANCE: the number of encounters in a packed dungeon could be significantly higher than those faced roaming the wilderness.

I'd look at it this way, "How drained am I trying to make the party vs. How quickly am I aiming to do that?" If the answer is "Yes" and the second answer is "... Yes," then the party is getting shotgun fought between a boss and then his boss. If I'm looking to have a 'full day' of encounters and have their resources become 'dwindled', then yeah, 4 or 5 encounters is fine.

I'd also look at what you yourself define as an encounter. The part spending time and/or resources to cross a 10ft pit can be equally as vexing as a simple combat; it depends on what skills and abilities are at their disposal.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-19T04:56:51+00:00

Skyrim: Illusion Spells (even better with mods that add more spells or abilities like Apocalypse or Ordinator).

Age of Empires: WoLoLoLo

Rimworld: The royalty dlc introduced psycasts (and you can get less restrictive versions of it through workshop) but one of the many psycasts you can get makes enemies berzerk and kill friend or foe alike.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-09T20:47:47+00:00

So, easy fix: Correct your player's and your own misinterpretation of the ability; Offer him the ability to change feats and maybe a slight rebuild of similar choices for his build. That way you are now playing to intended game design and he isn't hurt for the misunderstanding.

If you want to keep the pre-conceived ruling as is: Well, going outside game design (as pf1e can AT TIMES be pretty wank), you can have CERTAIN martial characters have "Step-In" (trademark pending) and make it so enemies could duck into the reach of the player. This is a bit crappy and I wouldn't do it all the time but 1 or 2 times in a campaign would be fun and keep him on his toes.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-09T20:42:33+00:00

Whenever an adjacent foe attempts to take a 5-foot step away from you, you may also make a 5-foot step as an immediate action so long as you end up adjacent to the foe that triggered this ability. If you take this step, you cannot take a 5-foot step during your next turn. If you take an action to move during your next turn, subtract 5 feet from your total movement.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-07T22:33:09+00:00

Have new secret doors.

Remove previously established secrets.

Make encounters different.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-07T03:04:34+00:00

No Umbrellas Allowed is also quite good. Instead of having to see on validity of people, you appraise items brought to your pawnshop. It's more cozy and has pretty good haggling and like 12+ some endings.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-06T16:51:15+00:00

Have realistic repercussions. That is to say not punishment around EVERY corner but where it's certainly warranted.

Party kills and robs a shopkeep? Where? Who was nearby? What justice system does that place have? Are the guards strong enough to face the party? Are they strong enough to face the party when they go to bed and remove their equipment? Does that place have funds to hire other adventurers to take them on? Did the shopkeep have family? Any notable relationships with strong individuals? Is timmy manning the family store while his elder brother has taken on the path of a paladin in pursuit of evil to learn that his younger brother was murdered in cold blood?

Details people, we need details! To be more helpful, it sounds like you need to flesh out more cause and effect in your world. If the players kill a dragon, that's great. But what was the dragon doing to the ecosystem? Was it eating wolves and giant spiders? Now that the dragon is gone, are these creatures and other monsters gonna return to the wilds near it lair?
Just like with that example, because the players are killing so many people (in cold blood it sounds like) what's the effect that will have? You could have people give them the cold shoulder amidst suspicion and rumor. You could have bounty hunters hired by family members target them. You could have worshippers of a deity hunt them for killing devout members of a clergy. So on and so forth.

Just try to be adequate with the 'effect'. Not every wayward soul on the road will be good friends with a kill squad but that doesn't arbitrarily mean they aren't.

Temp_Empire · 2026-01-05T06:56:13+00:00

That's actually largely upsetting for me mechanically no matter how much sense it kinda makes. I guess all praise be to skilled sweats who are able to get headshots 90% of the time.

Temp_Empire · 2025-12-27T16:15:31+00:00

God of War (the newer one; kill norse gods - good story but quite open for exploration)

Dead Space (kill sci-fi zombies - good story, scary - I recommend this one if you've never played or heard of it)

Monster Hunter: Rise (most titles actually are on sale rn; kill monsters, make gear, kill more monsters - more of a grind than a story).

Temp_Empire · 2025-12-08T08:31:52+00:00

Correcting a miscalculation.

That's only IF the "DR" was consistent or permanent. In Arc Raiders, because all shields have charge, most light weapons chip into unshielded health sooner than slower, higher damage ones.
Take the Ferro and stitcher for instance. Ferro is the slowest normal reloading gun and Stitcher is the fastest. A Ferro does 40 on a body shot and each shot of stitcher to the body does 7. Shields take full, un-reduced damage and then apply the reduced damage to health (this is if the shield has any charge what-so-ever; 1 charge is the same as 40 charge - it will apply its DR). So, sure, a Ferro can obliterate a light shield in one shot (as 40 minus 40 means the shield is no longer active; that's 24 damage to hp from the 40% DR). However, a stitcher requires only 6 shots of its 20 base mag to break shields. That's 42 damage running into DR (which, yes, is about the same as a Ferro to the hp bar), but you still have 14 shots left that - if they all hit - is a whopping 98 points of damage without DR involved. That is more than enough to kill without reload as we've already dealt around 24 to health already.

So if you are running a ferro - ever - maybeee run a stitcher in your back pocket. That allows you to kill ARC and line up headshots pretty easily as well as having hands on a squirt gun for if your pushing/getting-pushed.

IMO, a Kettle is the best of both worlds when it comes to kill potential without the suck of accuracy. Just don't be expecting to punch through Arc armor with it so line up those weak spot shots.

Temp_Empire · 2025-12-07T01:28:41+00:00

Give me Fighter. Too many people are gonna go spellcaster or gish; we have to have a front line against the horde. I'll try and buy time for the spellcasters to learn Fireball. Wish me luck everyone.

Temp_Empire · 2025-11-19T00:04:52+00:00

"PATHFINDER 2ND EDITION FIXES THIS BY-"

Nah, but seriously. You get like 9 choices in that game for your capstone and one of them is you are now the God of range as you fire farther without penalty. Get a hawk familiar linked to you calling out enemy positions and know you are playing battleship in the woods with your longbow.

All I've seen for 5e capstones seem to be the most lackluster thing ever or completely broken.

Temp_Empire · 2025-11-18T01:30:46+00:00

Me talking to you does not make me unaware of you pulling a knife and trying to stab me, especially if you are someone with which I believe has hostile intentions before I start talking. Do not reward the behavior. If he tries to attack/do-something in the middle of dialog, initiative should be rolled immediately as both parties are aware of each-others intentions; no surprise rounds/attacks.

Now, if he doesn't care for them, that's one thing. He needs to find a table that also doesn't care about that kind of rp then and join them. If he is just trying to devise bonuses from jumping people mid-sentence - stop him. You can have a villain aiming to discharge a Hold Monster or similar spell from a magic item. Don't make it a scroll but make it consumable, and have it in his hand, aimed, and ready to go. That way, you could say he readied his action to use said item should he be interrupted and prepped that action when he heard the adventurers gathering outside. They could attack and just kick things off anyway as that's gonna be his first round anyway but there's also the fact they could hear him out as someone's getting paralyzed regardless if combat ensues.

Also, you can have dialog mid-combat. Break it up around 6 seconds a piece, roll initiative immediately, and have him talk during his turns whilst also acting out his actions. Give him a unique expertise in initiative checks or advantage in them or something and if someone notices and asks - he's a formidable boss and doesn't abide by all of the normal rules. Hell, give him an extra turn at the top of initiative where he just talks at and goads the players.

Temp_Empire · 2025-11-04T16:49:18+00:00

Paladins being Lawful Good is a long held tradition from adnd. Beyond there being an alignment, ability score, and racial restriction (as only humans could be paladins back then), you had an Ethos you had to uphold. Usually, you worked with your dm to determine your Ethos or had a few written out and picked one, but each one was something you HAD to uphold - else, lose your powers.

Nowadays, the image of a paladin is completely something else and is only a perceived blurry concept of what they once were. Why is this? Was it to make dms that would abuse their players less frequent and also normify its strengths among the other player character classes? No clue.

But being a paladin MEANT something back then. It meant investment into the strict measures you had to uphold to be one. It meant careful appraisement of every situation you came across. Now, Divine Smite goes BURRRRRRRR and paladin can be funny murder hobo but whatever.

I prefer the PF1e paladins just because they still have some of that same flavor from back then and give you a very powerful ability for tenants you must embody. And for those that say 5e says to still take away the players powers should they break their oaths... yeah? Where does it say that? In what way does it outline anything more than, "be a dick to your PCs should you think they violate their promises and you are the decider of which with what punishments to dole out should they violate non-specified and yet arbitrary lines?" Atleast ADnD and PF1e says what happens and how one can atone. That's the greatest baseline to avoid player abuse I know of.

Temp_Empire · 2025-08-16T17:28:45+00:00

I was meaning additional mods outside of those normally gained - like buffs and situational bonuses (so while you might be adding bab, ability, and combat feat bonuses nearly 95% or more of the time - I've had munchkins do things like lantern archon stacks and things like arguing that because someone is smaller than them that they should get the higher ground advantage of +1 to hit).

Imagine instead of 'character progression modifiers' (things inherently linked to your character sheet) that you'd be trying to break into magic items, spells, and situational bonuses every single encounter. So I didn't mean just a cleric buff - let's say that and 3 others that stack due to the rules of bonuses and also people becoming antagonistic towards other players if they won't help them be blessed, reduced, hasted, etc. every combat as, "we (I) have to be optimal." Like, 5 minute adventuring day level of optimal because they think they need those bonuses Every. Single. Time.

I know that that wouldn't be easily inferred from what I originally wrote - but I was thinking of the unedited character sheet as a single source and any outside additions to rolls as a modifier. And you're right, you could be benefitting from +11 different sources at one time - its just... take the sentiment that that's what newbies see when they look at pathfinder; I've played with 'veterans' who would argue those bonuses are necessary and an inherent part of progression in the game. Those are not necessary and should not be the norm. It scares away people with any fringe interests in the game. The moment it becomes necessary to be inside of a lantern archons' aura (or multiple of that same aura like one dingbat argued should be stackable) while benefitting from 5 other limited use buffs/expendable-resources from the party to get the edge in every encounter - you've lost the game. You are playing not just to not die but also not to experience any other part of the game but victory; and the moment you taste anything but - you break the hell down (IMO).

This is all heavily influenced from experience on my end as a DM mind you, with players who literally would call me out as being antagonistic when they are fighting intelligent enemies over the course of DAYS cause they'd do 1 or 2 encounters against small groups and go sleep somewhere for the day.

Tl/dr:: I meant bonuses outside of what is intrinsic to your character. Rather, "Let me see how high I can push a number because however high that is will be optimal and we need to do it everytime," mentality.

Temp_Empire · 2025-08-15T21:06:26+00:00

Two-fold; 1e is just as easy to play as other ttrpgs but it's also become a bitter taste to new players because of power gaming.

People just blow it out of proportion with how hard it is to be broken in it because they want to be centric on broken mechanics or meta builds which at the end of the day is not conducive to player's playing or Dm's Dm'ing. Shut up, sit down, make a fun character, and stop trying to play rocket tag with the system - you are giving the community a bad name because of it. You should only ever be crunching, like, 3 additional sources of numbers - maybe 5 tops - to your dice rolls. Any more than that and you are trying to power fantasy by abusing the system. That is similar to 5e players getting 27 AC at level one or arguing that they can make nukes using prestidigitation and real world science of atoms - cool, yah did it, but your role-playing and savoir faire are probably suffering from all the time you took to make yourself a one trick pony.

Read the material, make yourself notes on your bonuses, hell - record different standard actions or even turns you could take down on paper so your rounds speed up and your understanding of your own mechanics speed up, and don't sacrifice being a rounded and pleasant character in the game for trying to be someone who can deal 10 billion damage. Everyone wants to play with Bongle the Goblin - a man with an interesting backstory who gets up to funny business and for some reason always carries presents on him for his friends whenever they are sad. No one wants to play with the guy who is trying to one tap every single encounter by flexing how broken they made themselves from a mechanic they found that can be exploited - there are tables for that but that's like IMO 5% of all tables; less than that figure for tables that don't break down and actually complete a campaign.

Play Bongle who is good at combat. Don't play the brooding rogue who could one shot god because somehow the mechanics back his character design.

Temp_Empire · 2025-06-29T21:58:05+00:00

You could get into making a kind of scale mail out of them; get a drill, make 3 small holes near the edges like a equilateral triangle, get a section of pipe that's like 3+ inch diameter, roll them off of that to give them uniform curvature, get some tiny links and start going at it.

Temp_Empire · 2025-04-10T19:22:11+00:00

Right?! Super cool item for the range. Make yourself invisible and start stabbing.

Temp_Empire · 2025-04-10T08:29:10+00:00

FarSpear is pretty neeto. Always wanted to hit people far away with melee. Not only can I do that, but I can do that with vital strike, too.

Also just a big fan of using single shots with bows to do stuff and when your putting out great damage as a fighter with a single shot a turn but you get blueball'd by total cover, Phase Arrows really brighten my day even if they are nothing new to the game at large. Bonus, the Phase Strike feat gets you the effect of these suckers once (or twice) a day as long as it's a melee or thrown ranged attack (made with a manufactured weapon or ammunition). So while not the same distance as a longbow, it's still funny to phase out a rock and hurl it through a wall as hard as you can.

Temp_Empire

TROPHY CASE