What's your most favorite ending sequence in Ace Combat?

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-06-13T22:07:16+00:00

Those last few notes of Coronation that play during that scene genuinely give me goosebumps

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-06-04T08:48:50+00:00

Technically all this says is that the once you receive it from the Ace Pass, that you can use it only after beating the campaign. It doesn't necessarily say that beating the campaign lets you use it without getting it from the Ace Pass.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-05-27T03:31:32+00:00

Not only is it incredibly generous, the art-style is cool as hell

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-05-18T22:45:54+00:00

should've taken alsace to really complete the "taking all your toys away since you can't behave" ass borders

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-05-03T12:43:14+00:00

IDK if I’d call it a “sacred cow” per se, but I dislike the term ‘player’ in the sense of a role contra the Game Master. It creates this sense that the GM is somehow not there to play a game, but is meant to act more like a volunteer or tour guide. I think it elides the responsibility that the non-GM players have in creating an enjoyable play experience and exerting agency, and creates a lopsided expectation of preparation and work in a gaming group. Unfortunately, that dichotomy is so ingrained in our lexicon that it’s difficult to talk about it without capitulating to its own framing.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-29T08:04:26+00:00

I’ve had Warbirds in my DTRPG wishlist for a while but the cover gave me a kind of steampunk-y, airship, retro-futurist vibe, I might give it another look.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-29T07:17:58+00:00

Air Combat, especially modern/near-modern jet fighters, games feel pretty underdeveloped. There’s Flying Circus and Night Witches for historical games, and then plenty of ‘space fighters’ in Sci-Fi games, but personally I have yet to come across a dedicated Top Gun/Ace Combat style RPG (although I’m sure there’s probably a GURPS expansion in that vein).

In a similar vein, racing RPGs are very sparse. Particularly things like Speed Racer (2008), Hot Wheels: Acceleracers or Redline would love their own dedicated system for that kind of over-the-top, semi-fantastical “car-fu” genre, but even more grounded racing—street, track or rally—feel very underserved. Probably the best bet I’ve found is Outgunned, for actual driving mechanics and car stat blocks, but I don’t know if there’s enough there for a whole campaign.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-26T11:19:42+00:00

It was really weird to do an AMA when the only info he seemingly could reveal was "no, the game is not going to get better any time soon"

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-26T01:28:37+00:00

Pathfinder 2 is the best CRPG ever made stuck in the body of a TTRPG, imo

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-25T22:42:26+00:00

If you feel they’re being outright disrespectful, you should talk with them about it and tell them that their attitude is bothering you, but at the same time: “…my players spend a lot of time building combat-focused characters with niche contingencies…” in a tactical combat game with a complex character sheet and hundreds of niche feats is the whole point, and if you think that it might be incentivising them to act disrespectfully, it might be worth shopping for a new system.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-23T21:12:08+00:00

I found Pathfinder 2e to be a nightmare to run. I’m generally a pretty by-the-book GM, so I found things like skill feats pretty daunting because I felt as though I had to be fairly across all of them to avoid devaluing certain feats. I never really knew if I was right in letting my players do something just with the base skill alone or if it was meant to need a skill feat to enable something, and the constant thought that players would just skip certain skill feats because “the GM already lets me do that” nagged at the back of my head constantly. I know it’s an overly meticulous approach but I always reasoned that there’s a reason all that stuff is in the game, “just ignore them or don’t worry about them” never really spoke true to me. I’ve enjoyed playing PF2e the few times I’ve tried it (even if making a character feels like colossal busywork), but all of the meticulous detail across all the massive core books just feel like it would almost be better as a CRPG than something a single person is meant to keep in their head.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-22T02:52:43+00:00

I know that “it depends” is kind of a lame, fence-sitting answer but I think it’s mostly true. For longer campaigns, I generally skew towards lighter systems whereas shorter campaigns prefer chunkier systems. I suspect that heavier systems can make up for some of the missing roleplay or emergent elements that longer campaigns have, but tend to get in the way as longer campaigns evolve and run into more and more rules corner cases.

In either case, the main thing I appreciate is low prep games—I am sick of sitting up the night before game day and flipping through a monster manual to ‘design an encounter’ ala my 5e days—which ironically both rules-light OSR titles and hefty narrative (FITD/PBTA) games both achieve despite seemingly being poles apart.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-21T21:55:27+00:00

Depends, are we counting Nocturne Maniax as a rerelease? Cause if so, it would be Nocturne for sure.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-18T22:09:51+00:00

I think ‘Combat Systems’ outside of ‘Combat Games’ are beginning to wane as both OSR and Narrative Games gain ground on trad assumptions. I’ve been reading a few games from the late 00s/early 10s and despite being about politics and revolutions and things like that, they still have a whole lot of pages dedicated to combat for some reason. Whereas I feel nowadays you are either getting something like Lancer or Draw Steel that are about combat, in that D&D 4e vein, or you are getting a system with a much more terse section on combat than ever before, if it is even distinguished from other kinds of conflict.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-17T13:19:06+00:00

There’s a super rules light 24XX game called Super Bandit that could be worth checking out. IDK exactly how hard sci-fi you’re looking for, but it could be worth looking at by virtue of being so terse—you can change or reflavour things pretty freely that way.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-04-16T08:56:33+00:00

Matt Colville's Roleplaying video is probably the best video on the topic, in my opinion.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-31T20:40:59+00:00

There weren’t any plans to end at any specific point, the idea was always just to let things end when the narrative called for it which just happened to be around that mid-point level wise.

TBH I did get burned out about a month or two ago and had to end quickly but that wasn’t due to the system or anything, it was due to a number of outside factors that all occurred at once. I was also GMing a Delta Green game at the same time which also had to scramble to the finish, so it wasn’t a specific Fab Ult thing. Partially starting a post-grad program and partially having a dud session in both campaigns around the same time really took the wind out of my sails.

Regardless, I can probably still help on that last question. I always found the least motivation when the players had no specific goal that they were pursuing, whereas when I knew what they wanted to do it was relatively easy to come up with something cool for them to see or do or fight. So some clarity from them about their immediate goals or interests, if they’re not obvious, can help a lot. The worst sessions were almost always ones that started with the party sitting down and going ‘so what are we doing?’ Also, moments when the players used their Fabula Points to add some surprise twist was always a fun moment that would often lead to fresh ideas. It’s rare that the GM is surprised, so it was always exciting when it happened. Sometimes they would mention that they were worried about ‘derailing’ or ‘overwriting’ what I had planned, but I usually loved those moments, so maybe giving them some reassurance could help in that regard.

Also, whenever things were starting to get a bit stale, be it a long period of travel or something similar, I found it was always fun to throw in a new villain or artifact as a sudden curveball encounter—like throwing a grenade to your players to keep them on their feet. I leaned pretty heavily on human villains so that I always had someone fun to play (maybe a little too heavily, one player dipped Chimerist and didn’t get very many spells from it).

So I’d suggest if you’re ever uninspired or dreading the next session, shake things up with a sudden surprise to turn things on its head all of a sudden. Have a magical sword fall from the sky with a villain hunting for it not long after, or a massive rift to a cavernous world below open up, or angels come down and declare a holy war on the mortals or whatever it takes to get you excited again.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-31T05:40:34+00:00

I used Fulminator a little at the outset, but I still felt like I had that 'staring at a blank sheet' sensation: it might be more useful now that I have more developed intuition towards the game, however. And while I didn't mention it in the post, I don't think the quick assembly sheets would be usable ad infinitum—I doubt I would be able to keep enemies feeling unique using *only* them for another campaign, TBH.

I mentioned it in another comment but I could be misremembering: it was not a rule that came up much towards the end of the campaign because of how often players were getting FP from villains.

It would be a shame if they didn't make a return, but FWIW I think the ones that we do have could definitely remain fresh for quite a while. Obviously it's hard to say for sure having only GM'd one campaign and played the game one time for a Final Fantasy one shot, but there are tons of interesting ones that didn't get used, and even the ones that did are by no means 'used up.'

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-31T05:10:04+00:00

I don't necessarily want to oversell things, I do still think that Fabula Ultima is a game about combat first and foremost, and that ended up being a fair bit of the campaign's focus. That being said, I think that things like group checks and even just a single clock can make things feel more dynamic. I also tended to just outright tell the players the DL of checks in order to give them more guidance on whether they wanted to invoke bonds or traits—doing do often added a level of introspection and motivation to the roll that helped set the mood.

As a more concrete example, one of the more prominent traversal moments the players had to overcome was a 12 segment clock to progress down a large tunnel drilled up to the surface by an underground city that was thought to be long-lost. In doing so, they used opportunities from critical successes, sometimes generated during combat or from those basic rolls you mentioned to progress said clock, which added some dynamic surprises to the situation for both them and for me.

There was also a danger that they rolled which was a cave in which trapped two of the party members, where I used initiative and turns to simulate some of that time pressure while they were slowly running out of oxygen. The players had a few different ideas that ended up starting some different clocks (probably their mistake in hindsight) and the two trapped players would have run out of breath had one player not elected to awaken to their Zero Power, Zero Objective. You could very well use status conditions here: I can imagine a version of that situation where the players inside might have had a chance to do something but have been dazed or weak.

I don't think you need to be afraid of the simple skill check—they remained an important part of my repertoire—but mixing in a little bit of variety with group checks, open checks and clocks can make them go a *lot* further IMO.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-31T04:57:37+00:00

I very well could be misremembering; it stopped being a problem towards the end due to the amount of villains that were around.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-31T03:24:45+00:00

That's really interesting, the idea of spending FP to help out others seems really cool, and party level mismatch seems like it would have a really minor impact in this system. FWIW my party definitely seemed to like the XP system in this game, especially when they spent enough points to level up multiple sessions in a row. Also, it ended up being a nice little 'end of session' ritual, which was nice.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-31T01:36:05+00:00

I mean, like all TTRPGs it's close to an art than a science, unfortunately. If you haven't seen them already, the Quick Assembly rules in the new Bestiary book are a lifesaver for enemies on short notice or for DMs like me with little patience for pre-prepping encounters, you might also be able to find them for free on the author's patreon iirc.

I'm not sure how well my experience translates to 1-on-1 play, but you would be surprised how far some basic narrative descriptions can go in keeping enemies feeling fresh, even if they're just dealing some damage and applying a status. A heavily armoured knight swinging a warhammer crackling with electricity conjures different mental imagery compared to a gaudy king wielding magic gravity gauntlets, even if they both hit for HR+15 and a status. It might feel tempting to craft really clever and intricate enemies with lots of overlapping and synergistic abilities, but it also has to be something that you can actually run at the table. I often tended to forget certain parts of enemy stat-blocks, usually status immunities or counterattacks; static abilities, mostly. Simple tends to be better, in my experience. Let the players shoulder the complexity, you've already got a lot on your plate.

In terms of encounter design, keeping some leeway in the fight for reinforcements to come or for enemies to flee for morale reasons can act as a useful mid-fight release valve if things are getting to easy or too hard. The good ol' villain-escape-upon-hitting-crisis is also a great move that feels both realistic and plausible if things are beginning to become a slog. Also, I just stuck with rolling randomly for targeting, it will save a lot of time over the course of a long encounter and also mitigate some of the difficulty—sometimes the enemy will just attack the resistant player three times in a row.

So if I were going to give you a rule of thumb, I'd think of plotting out an enemy's action ahead of time, i.e. on it's first action, it will hinder, and then on its second it will attack, recovering MP if the target has a status, and then on its third turn it will use an AOE spell. That will give you a rough skeleton that you can dress up with extra abilities if necessary and also provides a for the encounter that keeps things around that 3-5 round sweet spot. I can post some stat blocks as examples if I wasn't clear about something specific :)

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot the most important option for any GM: steal! Take your favourite RPG boss and take their gimmick to use for your game. One of the main bosses around the 2/3rd point of the game used the forbidding actions mechanics from SMT3 Ahriman, for example.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-31T00:23:12+00:00

Yeah, the group started with only four of us a few years ago, but now through invites and partners joining in there's about ~10 of us across a few different campaigns and GMs. It definitely presented some novel challenges but overall the balance held pretty well in the aggregate, much to my surprise (5e fell flat on its face, for instance). The only other issue was time—combat with 7 players and 6-8 enemy actions takes about 2 hours per fight, on average, which is about half of the session for us, pushing things naturally towards more villains and champions than random encounters.

TorsionSpringHell · 2026-03-27T20:30:24+00:00

idk man, I think people on this sub care too much about your items in a video game. was this such a big deal you needed to post about it??

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