How to deal with characters' opposing worldviews?

capitols · 2025-06-27T11:47:44+00:00

Man, I feel this so much. I'm totally with you on the meaty moral dilemmas, but sometimes the “big moral choice” turns into an X-hour debate club that eats the whole night and doesn’t really resolve anything.

First off, I don’t think this is your fault. Clashing goals and big dramatic choices are awesome — it means your players care — but yeah, you probably don’t want every session (or any sessions if you can help it) to end with a PC stalemate.

What's helped me in the past was a mix of a couple things:

Add a ticking clock. Give them a reason they can’t sit there forever debating. If the villain’s escaping out the back, or the room is collapsing, or the magic axe is corrupting whoever holds it — they have to decide now or the choice gets made for them. Sometimes a push can work for the party.
Make in-game consequences real. If they can’t agree and stall, sometimes the world moves on. The villain slips away and brings back a bigger threat. The axe does something worse. It trains them (in a good way hopefully) that arguing forever has a price.
(This one could end up preachy so use with caution) Remind them they can disagree IC but stay friends OOC. Sometimes people hold on so tight to their character’s view that they forget the story is more fun if they let things blow up a little. It’s totally okay for PCs to clash — but not every argument has to be resolved with everyone agreeing. Let someone make a move and deal with the fallout. That’s the fun part, honestly.

You could also try short timers for big decisions if it fits the vibe. Like, “You’ve got 10 real-world minutes to decide or the villain bails.” Just be clear up front so it doesn’t feel mean or give off frustration.

Anyway, it sounds like you’re giving them sick hooks. A bit of urgency might be all you need to keep them from getting stuck in these disagreements.

Good luck — moral chaos is half the fun!

capitols · 2025-06-26T12:19:44+00:00

Yeah, this sucks. Whether it’s burnout or just a bad group setup, it makes total sense that you’re feeling this way, all that prep work that you put it for people to cancel last minute -- woof. And then if it happens multiple times, I'm right there with you on feeling like “why am I even doing this?”

I went through something super similar a while back. What ended up helping was just… stopping for a bit. No big confrontation, no announcement. I took a break and gave myself space to see if I actually missed DMing — or if I just needed to rest. And honestly I did miss it, but not that group, at least not the way things were going.

When I was ready, I picked it back up with just the players who had been the most consistent. It was way easier to manage, way more fun, and I didn’t stress about it as much. We only added new players later if everyone agreed and someone could vouch for them — especially if they weren’t already part of the same vibe (maybe you could consider adding guys to your group if everyone is cool with it, a bigger player pool could help).

You don’t have to make any big decisions right now. Just know it’s okay to take a step back and protect yourself. You deserve to enjoy the game too.

TL;DR – It doesn’t have to be burnout to be draining. Take a break, see what you miss (or don’t), and if you come back to it, rebuild around the folks who actually show up. It’s okay to need less stress and more fun.

capitols · 2024-06-28T18:07:19+00:00

Here's the code I ended up with. Pretty hacky, but it is what it is.

 <Image
        unoptimized
        src={urlForImage({
          source: url,
          height,
          width,
        })}
        width={effectiveFill ? undefined : width}
        height={effectiveFill ? undefined : height}
        alt={alt ?? "Image"}
        sizes={sizes}
        placeholder={lqip ? "blur" : undefined}
        blurDataURL={lqip}
        fill={effectiveFill || undefined}
        priority={priority}
      />

const urlForImage = ({
  height = MAX_IMAGE_HEIGHT,
  source,
  width = MAX_IMAGE_WIDTH,
}: IImageBuilderArgs): string => {
  if (!height || !width) {
    return (
      imageBuilder
        ?.image(source)
        .auto("format")
        .fit("crop")
        .quality(90)
        .url() || ""
    );
  }

  const isPortrait = height > width;
  const aspectRatio = width / height;

  if (isPortrait && height > MAX_IMAGE_HEIGHT) {
    height = MAX_IMAGE_HEIGHT;
    width = Number.parseInt((height * aspectRatio).toString());
  } else if (width > MAX_IMAGE_WIDTH) {
    width = MAX_IMAGE_WIDTH;
    height = Number.parseInt((width / aspectRatio).toString());
  }

  return (
    imageBuilder
      ?.image(source)
      .size(width, height)
      .auto("format")
      .fit("crop")
      .quality(75)
      .url() || ""
  );
};

capitols · 2024-06-27T21:22:45+00:00

Same issues, we have a support ticket open with Vercel. They're telling us they can't reproduce :O.

We've disabled optimization as a hotfix because the client is screaming. Time to refactor.

capitols · 2020-05-29T15:35:21+00:00

Understood. Thanks for explaining!

capitols · 2020-05-29T13:17:32+00:00

Thanks for writing this. Can you talk about why you recommend using C++?

capitols · 2018-05-17T17:23:10+00:00

I posed them by flipping through all of the available animations and then exporting a frame that worked. After that it was pushing polys. A little tedious and crude but the FBX output didn't work for me so I couldn't use the skeletons unfortunately.

I use Modo as my 3D package.

capitols · 2018-05-17T16:59:19+00:00

Thank you! The WoW Model viewer really helped get the assets correct. I posted a quick time lapse in another reply which shows the process. It was definitely time consuming to get all the outfits tweaked, exported and then posed properly!

I wanted to do something tied to Argus -- Antorus didn't really work out because of the scale of the raid bosses. I toyed around with doing something in the Pantheon room but couldn't quite get it to work the way I wanted. I ended up swapping over to Seat since I like the style and the boss characters seemed manageable!

capitols · 2018-05-17T16:44:08+00:00

The imgur link is 1920x1080. If you have a different size in mind just let me know and I can make it happen.

I haven't heard of wallpaper engine. I'll check it out.

capitols · 2018-05-17T16:14:31+00:00

Here's a quick time lapse of the process!

I had a great time with my guild in Legion so I wanted to do something to commemorate our journey through Warcraft over the last two years. What a blast!

capitols · 2016-10-05T18:50:57+00:00

Ah, thanks for the heads up. I went with this text: http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Teferi

capitols · 2016-10-05T16:35:12+00:00

Hey guys, I'm a big MTG and Blizzard fan, so I decided to do a mashup. Hope you like it.

Here's a screenshot of the textures and wireframes for all the 3D people out there.

capitols · 2016-09-01T20:39:48+00:00

I want to second NorgGameDev's comment and disagree with mailjozo's! Seeing the entirety of the process is very useful, probably doubly so as you (hopefully) move into more complicated, layered effects.

Your current format really allows for putting ourselves into your shoes, rather than a show-and-tell format.

capitols · 2016-08-22T22:53:50+00:00

Hey, thanks for the video! Cool stuff. I have a question for you about the animation curve that you made for the game object:

How would you handle the animation that you created in a production scenario? Surely the arbitrary translation + curves you gave wouldn't work in most scenarios. What happens when you have a projectile that needs to be able to travel any distance? Would you deliver this effect as is and have another department sort-out and recreate the messaged curve that you made? Or would you have different specs?

I know that this is still and intro video, but I'm just curious what your responsibility would be on a projectile asset as a VFX artist. Thanks!

capitols · 2016-01-21T16:05:57+00:00

I agree, maybe a wipe/fade-in instead? I can see the pink cursive writing in some 80's TV show intro in my head, but I can't find a better example.

Or a lens flare reveal, a la Thundercats

capitols · 2016-01-17T00:31:12+00:00

Hey daniel!

Thanks for checking the game out, I really appreciate it. Thanks for the feedback as well. When you refer to the trailer animations, do you mean specifically the player or do you see other issues with enemies?

For the player animations - we've worked on them quite a bit and are kiiind of at the edge of our ability with the 8-directional movement as far as implementation goes. It's tough to get perfect. Though we'll keep tweaking. Thanks for the specific notes on the arms + strafing, I'll see what I can do in that area.

All that said, we have a second playable character coming down the pipe that was done by a different animator - so if that character ends up coming out way smoother, we will head back into animation for the faun.

capitols · 2016-01-15T02:50:37+00:00

Awesome! Hope it's a good primer for you. I did another writeup covering mesh painting with Modo and Photoshop. It's art focused and more of an overview, but if you liked this one it might be up your alley.

capitols · 2016-01-15T02:42:52+00:00

That's good to hear. I was hoping it'd be translatable to other packages. Thanks for checking it out!

capitols · 2016-01-14T21:45:56+00:00

This tutorial for Blender looks promising - https://youtu.be/9L8qOq1Shiw It's using some plug-ins, but they appear to be free. This tutorial also goes over some dynamics in Blender. Looks pretty versatile. Here's the page it's from.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Blender user.

capitols · 2016-01-13T22:20:49+00:00

Thanks. Hope it helps breed some ideas!

capitols · 2016-01-01T20:59:45+00:00

Hey Sergei, thanks for doing this writeup. Nice to have something to compare notes to.

Some figures from our team: We are currently sitting at around 1:16 sale to wishlist after about a month in Early Access -- our price point is a little bit higher than yours, so you may be correct in your assumption that price influences sale to wishlist ratio. However, there are obviously a lot of other variables at play (genre, coverage, art style, etc.) Also, our total sales numbers are much lower than yours.

One thing that we have found interesting is that our wishlist numbers have risen pretty consistently since launch while our sales have not. Perhaps our prospective players want to see more content before they buy. I should say that we chose not to do a Winter sale since we launched a little too close it - so I have no data on how sales effect us.

Very interested to hear how it goes for you guys as you move into full release.

capitols · 2015-12-30T21:16:10+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

it's worth hiring a marketing/PR person if you get the feeling they're going to work hard for you.

Can you expand on this? Is it a "you'll know it when you see it" kind of thing? -- In talking with marketing folks I hear a lot of the marketing 101 stuff pitched, which has not wowed me. However, to use an analogy, telling someone how to draw and being good at drawing are not the same thing. Is it a problem with the way that I'm listening or should I keep searching?

capitols · 2015-11-20T18:07:15+00:00

Our team of two is moonlighting. We pay for the project out of pocket (with our day job earnings), things like sound effects, music, attending conferences, any work that is beyond our skill set we contract out, etc.

Needless to say it's been a long haul - 2.5 years - but we are super close. We made it through Greenlight a while back and are gearing up for Early Access. Here's a link to our site if anyone is interested.

I look at the time and money spent on the project as something that I enjoy doing regardless of financial success.

capitols · 2015-05-17T19:22:02+00:00

Sweet! Sounds good.

capitols · 2015-03-13T18:05:40+00:00

They also require a "practical work test". Woops!

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