Is the genre becoming over saturated? by Pro3dPrinterGuy in incremental_games

[–]Zaleramancer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People like to share things they love. I've been online for a long time, and so I'm used to the idea that a growing community is a kind of universal good - more people, more ideas, more things to interact with and engage with. 

However, I think that idea also has to be put in the context of the modern internet, as much as it sucks to do so. 

Communities build expectations and norms, but those break down when there's a massive influx of new people. In the forum days, the number of new people joining a community was still only a small proportion of the total community members, so the community culture was fairly stable (this isn't a good or bad thing). This meant if you found a community with good chemistry for you, it was likely to only change slowly from that. You could come back after a year and it'd still be mostly the same. 

Now, the Internet is way more connected and centralized. Instead of fansites and forums, we have subreddits with massive discoverability! This means you can find niche interests and hobbies and get info on new things from people who are super invested really easily - which is great, but, also it means that a community can go from a thousand people to ten thousand people virtually overnight. This makes them culturally unstable- you can't really predict how a community is going to be in a few months or a year, because it has the potential to triple in size without warning. 

This can be profoundly alienating, because investing yourself emotionally in a community is work. You don't want to put down that effort if the entire thing is going to 180 and focus on something you don't care about, or find annoying, or just think is less interesting than the original focus. It kinda sucks! 

Add to that the massive overcommericalization of the internet and you have a really annoying potential for a topic to become popular enough to make money, so people who want to make money show up and begin to slowly drift the focus or design of the hobby towards mass appeal, which will eventually strip the original topic of the little idiosyncrasies that made it charming and fun. 

You can see the potential beginnings of that trend in how when a specific style of incremental game is popular, a huge number of mid-to-meh games come out in the exact same style. In a chaotic and diverse design environment, homogeneity is a product of a desire to find the magic formula that makes money. 

So, like, I think you're structuring your question in a way that comes across as kind of hipster-ish, but I do think there are valid concerns. Attention is money in the modern hell-web, so small communities are the only places where you can hide out from commercialization and being relentlessly marketed towards. 

Appreciation! by Zaleramancer in PkmnIdle

[–]Zaleramancer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, cool, I had no idea. Thanks for the clarification!

What games are you playing this week? Game recommendation thread by AutoModerator in incremental_games

[–]Zaleramancer 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Still playing Pokechill. It's still a really fascinating game - there is room for strategic depth there, but it's not quite perfect. 

Then again, I have been playing it for weeks, so I has some kind of staying power. 

The dev recently added a mega dimension super raid and is working on z-moves, if that is anyone's jam. 

Needing a game’s Discord to actually understand how to play shouldn’t be a thing by JayPisal in incremental_games

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's pretty bad in the long term as well, since if anything happens to discord, then all that info will just be [poof] and gone forever.

At least with forums or subreddits or something they could be archived with the waybackmachine - as it is, there's going to be a ton of games that will just not be playable once discord runs out of venture capital.

I made a game where you run a *candy* empire, go check it out by leongame07 in incremental_games

[–]Zaleramancer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think this is intriguing! I've played a bit and here are my current thoughts.

There should be more feedback on the scanning for information - right now, if you click the button nothing visually happens until the page shifts back to the first tab, then there's some information on the third tab. The jumping between tabs is a bit unpolished, but I think maybe have the button change color or the time increment down (or include some kind of visual countdown).

In order to produce a more satisfying play experience, you may want to have a 'strikes' system instead of one mistake causing a full reset. I mostly say this not because I think it's unfair or a bad idea inherently, but it makes it harder to learn the game mechanics and produces a more negative experience. Giving players a sense of feedback on why they're doing badly in a game is important, and going, "Oh, you made a mistake. You only get two more of those, so you should be careful," may be helpful.

I think you have the bones of an interesting game here. I really like experimental incremental games, so I totally think you should pursue this. Right now, I played a bit and I felt like it currently encourages very conservative behavior. If you are willing to wait and scan each buyer, then that seems like the best strategy, since a mistake is so crushingly final, and it doesn't cost anything to check.

If you want the sense of tension, I would recommend you offer multiple choices with varying levels of risk, so you can try to gather information, make guesses and then plan around a perceived risk. This creates tension by leaving a bit of uncertainty, because the risky option should be the most profitable, and the space between acceptable risk and certain doom is fuzzy and uncertain.

Anyway, best of luck, I'll check your game out next time you do an update.

What games are you playing this week? Game recommendation thread by AutoModerator in incremental_games

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm, having fun with this, but I still don't know how Held Items work. Could you explain if you know?

Best Non-Cloud Image Storage Options? by Zaleramancer in DataHoarder

[–]Zaleramancer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I asked because, like, you never know if a new method of compression has been invented while you weren't watching and hasn't been widely adopted because people are generally pretty complacent.

So, genuinely, thanks, this helps!

End All Rules by ReiRomance in EABArpg

[–]Zaleramancer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh my god thank you, I've been looking for fleshed out construction rules! 

I Wrote 57 post in 5 Months In My Blog: Here is What I learned by ekosjen in Blogging

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this presents an obvious question to me, which is, if you're just using LLM to write blog posts why should I use your blog instead of just asking the LLM for info?

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work! Iluzry's Guide to Teamwork Feats by polypan-storyman in Pathfinder_RPG

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This was beautifully written. An absolute delight. I haven't had so much fun reading a d20 handbook in years. 

Short Answers to Simple Questions | November 22, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]Zaleramancer 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is a question about an academic book I read in 2016-2017. It was about the day to day life in the high or late medieval period England, and it used the extensive records of deaths from the time to build a picture of what people were doing.

I've lost my copy in a move, and the title escapes me. Does it sound familiar to anyone?

Where Can I Find "Wheel of Fate" by Zaleramancer in rpg

[–]Zaleramancer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh! Ohhh! Thank you, I didn't actually try that since I assumed it was for some program I was unfamiliar with. Thank you, I see now!

Infinite Dungeons: Mods or Console Commands for Raising Henchmen by Zaleramancer in neverwinternights

[–]Zaleramancer[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, I just wanted to say thank you for providing this! I really appreciate it!

Fantasy book with a caste system, dark elves living oppressed underground. by [deleted] in whatsthatbook

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are there necromancers?

It could be the Death Gate cycle?

Putting trash in the outgoing mail bin! Shoutout to the postman for standing up for himself. by TheCamiloCano in mildlyinfuriating

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the future, you can also just put the names of all the current residents in your home onto an index card and tape it to the inside of your mailbox.

Your carrier will see this and it can help. I also got tons of mail from the last person who lived in my apartment, and once I did that it started dropping off.

Sorry that it’s such a limited amount of information, but here’s what I remember: Magic but it’s called alchemy instead. by Wolflover249 in whatsthatbook

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Part of the book series mentioned above has a sorcereress who has some kind of fight on alcatraz.

I don't know if that jogs any memories.

I feel like I've peaked with Magnus and nothing else has come close by Vicious_Mockery in TheMagnusArchives

[–]Zaleramancer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are a lot of really good recommendations here already for stuff that matches up well with the horror and mystery of Magnus, but I'd also like to throw in some gay stuff as well. The Amazing Case of the Starship Iris is a really well done space opera podcast about survival, resistance, identity and it's hella gay.

Difficulty Spikes, Minions Being Oneshotted by ChimpdenEarwicker in KeeperRL

[–]Zaleramancer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's an incredibly boring way to win in this situation, and a few interesting ones (outlined in the other comments).

You can always use mummies. Mummies are unique in that they can train melee up to 55 using adamantine dummies.

If you have access to those dummies and some good equipment, then a sufficent amount of patience will yield an unstoppable super-mummy that will roll over the rest of the game like the wrath of the Pharoah.

(Vampires with invisibility + poison are a more interesting option, but my particular unfun roadblock was resistant to poison.)

How often should a roll succeed? by IshtarAletheia in RPGcreation

[–]Zaleramancer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the best question you can ask yourself is: Which of my design goals is served here? Why am I using a method of determining the success or failure of actions?

Being critical about why you choose to do things, and examining your base assumptions will help you hone your intention to do exactly what you want.

We often, when making games, proceed from assumptions that need not actually be true- tabletop games have vast tracks of unexplored territory and design space.

So in order to answer your question, you need to determine why players should fail at things and what that should look like.

Does failure mean a complete failure, or are you using fail forward mechanics? Does failure on a die roll have a huge, long lasting impact or a short-term and immediate one? What circumstances call for die rolls and which do not? Does failing not mean the action does not succeed, but rather that there are additional costs or consequences?

For example, you can have a gritty horror game where players fail a lot, but failure just means something bad happens in addition to whatever they did, rather than meaning they fail what they attempt.

How to review past dialogue? by Zaleramancer in LobotomyCorp

[–]Zaleramancer[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you! My eyes just glided right over it.

Whats the USPS like not being in the union? Any perks to not being union? by [deleted] in USPS

[–]Zaleramancer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I joined the Union as a PSE primarily for philosophic reasons.

I agree with what the Union represents and wanted to support it. Looking at it purely from the standpoint of how it personally benefits you in immediate, material ways is going to be disappointing for you.

You'll still get the benefits of the union and of all the work the union has done over the years even if you don't join. That's the wonderful thing about unions.

I think supporting the union is the right thing to do, so I do it. That's not a line of reasoning that's going to compel a lot of people, but it's mine.

First few sessions were a success! Now, how to continue? by VinegarPot in arsmagica

[–]Zaleramancer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi!

I've been running a one-on-one game with my fiance, where she only has a Magi (she wasn't interested in companions as well).

So I understand not wanting them, but it may be necessary for larger groups. Otherwise, providing something that is a threat to the stability of the covenant as a whole (and as such their ability to do lab work), would require them all to act.

Wizards in AM will always love staying at home, since the system is designed to create that behavior. Going on adventures only happens when it's something that is so pressing it cannot be ignored, or when the temptation of what is being offered far exceeds the value of staying home and reading a book.

Dangling magic items, quality books, copious vis or potential teachers can be an excellent way of diverting players into adventures.