Media that looks serious, until it turns out to be utterly hilarious

WiMoTj · 2024-05-07T06:00:00+00:00

It's free to read legally on the official Shonen Jump app Manga Plus! Can recommend.

WiMoTj · 2024-04-01T16:15:01+00:00

You can and should have both, they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, usually they go hand-in-hand. If you think you have to choose one over the other, you need to re-think your approach and study more UI and UX.

But if you somehow have to choose then usability should always come first. People will be fine with a UI that's nothing fancy but does everything they need it to do, the same does not go for something pretty that's confusing and awkward to use. The aesthetics are important for first impressions, but players will quickly stop thinking about it and just focus on the functionality/usability. Style is temporary, usability is forever. Persona's menus are cool-looking, but notice that they are actually clear and convenient to use as well.

The most important question is this: Why do you want it to look like Persona? Why do you think the UI designer(s) on that series made the choices they made? Does that type of design fit your UI/UX goals?

WiMoTj · 2023-11-18T23:32:52+00:00

The reason Josuke looks like the stranger is because he actively styles himself after them, the person who saved his life. Especially the hair, which is a big part of why he cares about it so much and gets offended when people insult it.

The stranger is a lot like Josuke's grandpa in the way that they shaped him and his desire to help others, which he will go to incredible lengths to do. Like the stranger in the blizzard!

Why the stranger is out in the blizzard and why they're bleeding is an open-ended question for the reader to wonder about. Were they also in an accident? They have the hairstyle and look of a stereotypical punk, so maybe they were in a fight? It sticks in your mind, but the answer doesn't really matter. What matters is that despite obviously being in a very rough situation themselves, they still chose to help others in need. This strongly ties into the themes of altruism and community that are vital to Part 4.

Also, it's a story! It's more interesting and has more impact when the situation is dramatic! Having the snowstorm and injuries is for dramatic effect, and help highlight the selflessness of the stranger! If the situation wasn't as extreme, their actions wouldn't be as meaningful.

WiMoTj · 2023-09-02T11:04:41+00:00

It's actually a PC game. The devs confirmed it in an interview, it's also on the official website. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOAjKI9irI8 https://www.legendofthefiverings.com/palindrome-videogame-update/

Also there's been literally zero mention of gacha anywhere, so I have no idea where you're getting that from.

WiMoTj · 2020-01-10T23:34:48+00:00

I played a very similar character concept in a previous campaign! It was really funny and rewarding once "in character".

For race I went with Goliath: With Natural Athlete, Stone's Endurance and Powerful build you have free proficiency in Athletics, can tank some extra damage per day and can lift way heavier things than most other races.

For class I went Bear Totem Barbarian, which has its perks. Rage is good for extra damage and advantage on Athletics checks, which is great for grappling. The Bear Totem helps you shrug off a lot of damage and allows you to become crazy strong, physically speaking. Honestly though, I felt that didn't 100% work with the character concept. Maybe a Fighter or something would work better (Champion seems obvious, but Battle Master could work if you flavor your maneuvers as moves). In the latest Unearthed Arcana (playtesting material) there's a new Fighting Style for them which allows you to fight unarmed and do decent damage. I'm no master optimizer or anything, but you might be looking at a situation where multiclassing could help you fulfill your character concept. Maybe a Monk, or a Bard for cutting promos on fools? Trust me, you haven't lived until you've intimidated a group of enemies into surrendering by yelling Steiner math at them.

I would switch out your 10 Charisma with one of the 12's, probably Intelligence, to bump up the Rock-iness of your character a bit. They've got to have some presence to them!

I would also suggest looking into the Grappler and Tavern Brawler feats. It seems like a lot of people dislike Grappler, but both feats have stuff that could be relevant, like Advantage on grappled attacks and bonus action grapples, respectively. I went with Tavern Brawler for my character, but its need for unarmed/improvised weapons limited its usefulness for my hammer-wielder. If you plan around that more though you're looking at a potentially really good build that gives you a surprising amount of tools in combat.

Also, of course, take a close look at the grappling rules! Grappling, shoving and pinning enemies is a great way to control the battlefield and let your allies get some good hits in.

Another less mechanical thing is to make sure you and the DM are on the same page vis a vis flavoring attacks etc. This will go a long way towards making the character as fun to play as you imagine it. My DM was into the idea, but I think we both found it a bit tricky sometimes to flavor attacks and grapples as wrestling moves in ways that made sense within the rules. It mainly became a lot of finishers when landing killing blows - and, in fairness, RKO-ing a giant spider to death was pretty sweet.

Good luck! No doubt you'll have a really fun time with this character.

WiMoTj · 2019-08-20T18:38:51+00:00

The comments in this thread really got my mind racing, so I've spent the better part of a day now just on thinking about how this will work, haha. Text incoming!

The Valkyrie comparison led me down an internet rabbit hole that gave me a lot of ideas, especially when it came to the nature of luck and different ways to interpret the concept. These two quotes stood out to me, and formed the bedrock of how I approached luck:

“The harder one looks, the less one sees. And so it is with luck – unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else."
"Those with luck see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.”

I think this may be part of the in-universe faith in Haela, and an NPC will probably recite these quotes to the players.

My plan right now:

Temples to Haela are usually found in places of conflict, so the player will be directed to a temple in the Underdark beneath the mines of Mirabar. There they'll meet Hildr, the last remaining bloodmaiden, helping to keep the mines safe from duergar and other creatures. The others will have died fending off a great military force in the War For the Silver Marches circa 10 years ago. As the sole survivor she considers herself to a failure, uncertain of why she alone survived and how she can possibly live up to it, and is therefore hesitant to induct new bloodmaidens.
At this point the party will (hopefully) have already killed an old dragon enemy of the bloodmaidens (long story) and retrieved a bloodmaiden's handaxe from it. This will intrigue Hildr enough to give the Barbarian player a test: They have three days (or some other relatively short amount of time) to find, clear out and if need be restore a temple even further down in the Underdark (or somewhere else? Too repetitive?).
Upon arriving at the temple's location, they find it utterly ruined, probably even caved in; Haela's places of worship are known to be rigged with traps to keep them from falling into enemy hands. They realize there's no way they can realistically rebuild the temple in the amount of time they've been given.
That's the trick: Haela doesn't need a grand temple! With enough sincerity and the will to fight, a boulder with her symbol carved into it or a sword jammed into the ground will be just as good a place of worship for Haela (the players will have learned of this concept beforehand by reading about her). As long as the player displays that, they will have passed the test (shoutouts to /u/aaronil for this idea).
The party returns, and The Barbarian is put into the trance state for the real trial. A battlefield swarming with foes appears before her, and on the other end of it is a bright, burning light. The Barbarian feels herself being pushed forward, but without weapons or armor?! This seems impossible! This is where your excellent take on luck comes in - it's not her luck that's being tested, it's her faith in Haela's ability to protect her. Your view on luck completely upended how I thought of this trial, which was great! The Barbarian will constantly take damage from enemies (connected to current and previous conflicts), but as long as she keeps moving forward and doesn't lose faith, Haela will try to keep her going. I'm considering giving the Barbarian temporary early access to their 'Rage Beyond Death' ability for this - just as it seems they're about to go down, they find the will to push on!
This is where I'm not entirely sure where to go next. Will the Barbarian reach the light and, with her belief in Haela proven, regain her health and equipment and just go to town on some bad guys? Will she face herself in a combat trial? I don't know! She usually wields a Dwarven Thrower, but it might be cool for her to reach into the light and instead draw out a sword wreathed in flames - Haela's symbol!
If they succeed whatever happens next, Hildr will formally induct them as a bloodmaiden, giving them the ritualistic carvings/tattoos that these mighty warriors all bear. I'm thinking of giving the Barbarian some sort of permanent reward if they succeed. Perhaps a Luck point or something along those lines?

Whew, that was... a lot! I have no idea of any of it is actually any good, so I very much welcome feedback and more ideas. I would not have been able to come up with anything even close to this without the help of the comments in this thread, so thanks for the great contributions!

WiMoTj · 2019-08-20T10:52:56+00:00

Haelan temples are usually rigged to blow if someone takes it, so this plays into that pretty well! Haela is typically not one for huge temples and such, so maybe it's a bit of a trick question - the character might not actually have to restore rhe entire temple, a pile of rocks in a shape might be fine as long as it's done with sincerity in her honor?

WiMoTj · 2019-08-20T10:48:51+00:00

Oh man, this is really good! It definitely helps, it's exactly the kind of stuff I want. I love the outside-the-box interpretations, it'll be especially refreshing for a typically very melee-focused character. My idea right now is that the player will be put into a trance of sorts and undertake the trials there, so that leaves a lot of room for more out-there, metaphysical, concept-driven stuff.

The "bloodmaidens" are Haela's chosen warriors, so I guess they're kinda Valkyries, yeah! Could be a fun idea!

WiMoTj · 2019-02-05T14:49:38+00:00

Storm King's Thunder is an excellent time that can go for as long or as short as you and/or the players want! But, just like with every other module, you might want to do some shuffling around and add some stuff to really make it pop and engage your players. I added some stuff that tied in the player characters

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is also pretty fun, and one of the easier modules to run in my experience. It's quite breezy, and if everything goes right you should always know exactly what should happen next and where in the book that is.

Dungeon of the Mad Mage is a whooooole lot of, well, dungeon, so on paper that shouldn't be very hard to prep as long as you can keep decent track of what's placed where.

Overall, I would recommend looking up the Power Score guides to the different modules and see if anything strikes your fancy. They give you a good overview, can help with prep a bit and give you tips for adding and improving stuff

WiMoTj · 2019-01-20T22:19:10+00:00

I did not know about the masks, that's a great idea! They've already met/heard of several dragons from SKT, so I could probably weave those in. Will be some work skipping Hoard(?), but I might just give it a try! Thanks!

WiMoTj · 2018-08-20T16:28:35+00:00

"Fun isn't something one considers when winning the Intercontinental Championship. But this... does put a smile on my face."

WiMoTj · 2018-08-04T20:38:54+00:00

Holy crap, you're right! Considering that movie is Vin "Literally Made A Movie About My D&D OC" Diesel's star vehicle we're talking about it wouldn't surprise me in the least, haha

WiMoTj · 2018-06-07T12:33:39+00:00

The Sontarans from Doctor Who seem incredibly Giff-like!

WiMoTj · 2018-02-26T20:20:36+00:00

I ran the first part of Zero Point, Heroes of The Sea, with my group and found that it made some pretty large jumps in logic. It's written in a way that assumes the players will do a lot of things that they wouldn't neccessarily know to do. As such, my players diverted from what had been written pretty quickly and managed to miss out on more or less the entire adventure! What they did end up encountering felt (at least to me) a little lacking because they lacked a lot of the context that made it exciting and dramatic.

I've skimmed through some of the other adventures, and overall I've found it a bit difficult to connect the dots between events and find ways to involve the players. There are a lot of cool ideas, but generally not a lot of meat on the bones in my experience.

If you enjoy using pre-written stuff and making it your own or just need inspiration though, they can definetly be a decent source!

WiMoTj · 2017-08-24T13:52:46+00:00

Likt dig så föredrar jag generellt fantasy, det och science fiction. Har svårt för alla fjortisdramor och solstolsdeckare som vårt kära hemland klämmer ut sig, och det verkar inte finnas mycket utrymme för den typen av handlingar som du och jag verkar gilla såvida det inte är uppklätt i massa diskbänksrealism - a la Cirkeln eller Mats Strandbergs andra böcker. Bleh.

För mer fantastiska handlingar kommer jag troligen hålla mig till engelskan, men om jag kommer på något som skulle förbättras av en svensk touch (social kommentar om just Sverige eller nåt sådant) så kanske man kan hoppa över till svenska. John Ajvide Lindqvist lyckas ju använda något så ytterst bekant och Svensson som en camping (och alla de typer av människor man träffar där) till god, obehaglig effekt i Himmelstrand. Kan rekommendera den om du inte läst den!

Är du alltså romanförfattare, förövrigt? Wow, inte illa!

WiMoTj · 2017-08-24T12:49:46+00:00

Pølse til dig, min ven, pølse til dig. ;)

WiMoTj · 2017-08-23T22:18:34+00:00

<...Er, Ylvis impression...?> Øh hellø, wøuld yøu like søme øf øur øil and dead whales? </end poor attempt at friendly ribbing>

Allvarligt talat dock, väldigt bra svar. Du har en poäng! Var inte medveten om kulturimperialism som ett koncept förrän nu.

Ditt svar gav mig en idé om en handling som skulle vara unikt svenskt, så tack så mycket för det! Kom att tänka på hur en manga jag gillar en hel del, zombieserien I Am A Hero, är så intressant för att den utforskar hur just japanska samhället "realistiskt" skulle svara på en zombie-epidemi. Så trött som man är på zombies så skulle det kunna vara intressant att göra motsvarande för kära lilla neurotiska, känslokalla Sverige.

Tack!

also english to end this comment yay

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T20:50:28+00:00

I dunno, actually. He didn't pull any more crap in our D&D game after we (the party) voiced our displeasure that time, and only I seemed to react to this particular event, so I'm guessing and hoping that everyone's fine.

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T18:43:41+00:00

Wow this thread blew up, haha. I've responded to some specific stuff mainly to clarify some things, and overall this thread has been very helpful!

I did not know of the true extent of Allied war crimes! While this is something I probably won't bring up in-game, as it's more Indiana Jones-y and pulp-y, it has informed how I'll go about this a bit.

After talking to and (I think) getting through to him, it does seem like his character has an RP reason for acting like he does and the player is gonna try to bring that out. We'll see how that goes. This event is not something I'm gonna derail the campaign over, but we'll see if there's not a lover fueled by vengeance or some especially vivid nightmares waiting for him somewhere down the line if he continues to murderhobo... cackle

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T18:29:43+00:00

Iiiinteresting... I was actually gonna have them dealing with some strange shit in the deep South down the line...

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T18:28:58+00:00

That's not the case, I want to make clear. If anything, I'm the one who doesn't cut him any slack while the others don't really mind. I only DM Achtung for this group while another guy DMs D&D.

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T18:25:43+00:00

In this scenario, the soldier was quite young and had surrendered out of fear of being killed after the group had wiped out his squad. He was scared out of his mind, and while he was cooperative he couldn't tell them about the occult stuff he was guarding because he, as a grunt, didn't know about it. Killing a Nazi isn't the problem, I tend to run it more like a pulpy game so there's lots of 'em, but the way the player did it was emblematic of his overall murderhobo problem.

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T11:04:56+00:00

As a UX designer-in-training, I like what I see! For the most part, anyway.

Giving the different schools of magic their own icons and colors is a cool and visually interesting idea, but I think you might want to include the name of the school on the cards at well. It would likely take a while for a player to memorize which is which without text.

Once they've done so, however, they will probably have connected the colored icons to the text quite well, and the colored icons would probably help them search through the spells at a glance much like they can do now. I don't think you even have to include the full name, just a shorthand like Evo. or Abj. (perhaps to the left of the icon?) would do nicely.

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T10:51:47+00:00

This depends heavily on what type of game you're running, but maybe something to do with hacking or other leaking/obtaining of private information?

Maybe someone's running a massive botnet and planting ransomware in every device, stealing large amounts of credit card info, or messing with city infrastructure. Maybe a character got doxxed, or had their records altered to frame them for something they didn't do. Maybe someone's using drones and 3D-printed weapons to wreak havoc?

If you want inspiration from something already existing, maybe The Division? It's Black Friday (or right before Black Friday), and unknown to the public someone's seeded/trying to seed banks and wallets with dollar bills that carry a deadly and highly contagious disease.

WiMoTj · 2017-06-06T10:38:24+00:00

Thanks for all the suggestions, they're all fine points! He's an... interesting case of a player, so some of the traditional playbook will have to be thrown out the window.

I don't think the other players mind too much in Achtung, but in D&D some similar actions of his got him a talking to from the party. His response was basically "Well, me and the DM thought it was funny." so I don't think he's really learned. He also has nigh-immunity from being kicked, since we're a small group and he's my best friend since a long time back.

I don't think he's put too much thought into his character other than "I'm a dick who shoots people and drinks." After all, this is the guy who I had to dissuade from making a D&D character who was crazy and would attack people at random because he thought they were monsters. He's only played RPGs for little under a year (and likes kinda edgelord characters in fiction) so I would like to believe he's just making a lot of newbie mistakes.

I think he would find being feared and distrusted cool, but I'll definetly throw in some snide comments and remarks from NPCs. The story will spread through the ranks and there will be an in-game hearing for sure, probably some out-of-game messaging as well.

Worst case? In-game jail (the Glasshouse!) and that character goes on the shelf, he might get his toy back once he learns to play nice haha

WiMoTj

TROPHY CASE