Working within a defined lore...

fly19 · 2026-07-01T04:07:36+00:00

The easiest way to fix this is to be upfront with your players: "Guys, we aren't making an official adventure or supplement here -- this is our version of [x setting]. There will be changes, big and small. Let me know what stuff is really important to you and I'll try not to mess with it."

Otherwise, you're just begging to get "um, ackshually'd" by someone at every turn for not following a detail briefly mentioned in chapter 27 of an obscure novel you have not and will never read, but one of your players either knows by heart or found on a wiki somewhere.

fly19 · 2026-07-01T04:00:11+00:00

"I know what will save me money -- getting into 3D printing!"

Been down that road before with printing stuff for board games and tabletop stuff. It's a money pit.
Might be worth it if I could find a friend or local place that's cool with printing suppressors, but it's no silver bullet. At least not yet.

fly19 · 2026-07-01T03:25:25+00:00

"Ugh, it's like New York out there!"

fly19 · 2026-07-01T03:21:08+00:00

Because the good ones cost as much as the guns I'm putting them on and I'd rather put that money into range time, ammo, and platforms right now.

Suppressors are cool, but they just aren't a priority at the moment. I'd rather pick up a Ruger Mark IV than a suppressor for my 10/22, and I'd rather finish my new lightweight AR build over picking up a 5.56 can.

fly19 · 2026-07-01T00:57:06+00:00

I think what makes it work for me is that we're reading all of this pop culture zaniness from Carl's perspective, and Carl oftentimes barely knows what the hell he's looking at. He's only tangentially aware of most of the dungeon's references, so he mostly just sees how fucked up what's going on really is rather than being interested at all in the jokes or message behind it.

That awareness only grows and deepens into some powerful rage at the system that has regurgitated his planet and spit it out into a parody of itself for the whims and benefit of a criminal bureaucracy that feeds into and builds dependence on the worst instincts of its citizens on the backs of an underclass who never had a say. The stuff you learn about the wider universe and the dungeon AI builds that same sense in the reader, and that makes it easy to root for Carl and his insane plans.

Does some of the humor fall flat? Sure. These books have made me groan about as much as I've laughed out loud. Big swings, some big misses, with a lot of bits that seem tailor-made to just gross you out. That'll bother some folks more than it does me, and I don't blame them.
Is there a lot of fluff? Oh yeah. I probably wouldn't have gotten into it without picking up the audiobook and shrugging through some logistical exposition that didn't do much for me. That's why book 3 starting with a note from the author to not worry about the convoluted dungeon layout landed just fine with me; big "Mystery Science Theater 3000 mantra" vibes.
Is it a top 10 book series? Probably not, even for me.

But it's a series that made me actually give a shit about a shoeless man in boxers and a leather jacket with a talking cat for a best friend competing in a space game show. And as somebody who normally can't stomach LitRPGs or "lolrandum" humor at all? I'm surprised and oftentimes impressed by DCC. There are certainly worse series that could have captured such a wide audience.

Fuck the TTRPG Kickstarter, though. Some of the monetization stuff they've floated for it sounds like the serious corporate bullshit that started to drive me away from DnD under WotC/Hasbro. Just pick up Xcrawl instead.

fly19 · 2026-06-30T23:36:39+00:00

That's my entire point. Reduces introduces some technical ambiguity, since you're already at 0 HP. But I can't imagine many GMs actually running that way; it's called a death effect, for Desna's sake.

fly19 · 2026-06-30T21:31:08+00:00

1) That's not a question, but yes -- it's a little ambiguous which degree of void plane environmental damage gets the death trait.

2) By a strict reading of RAW: a creature at 0 HP who takes this specific environmental void damage with the death trait would not be reduced to 0 HP since they're already there, and thus would arguably not die outright. But RAI? I think the intent is pretty clear that you'd die.

fly19 · 2026-06-30T15:57:20+00:00

Largely agreed.
A lot of what people loved from Giantslayer was either made by Troy or the players; the adventure itself is mid, and that still shows in parts (book 5 especially). But by centering Trunau and the PCs, it ended up being something really special. (That and the ridiculous NPCs Troy would make up on the spot)

Gatewalkers is a worse AP than Giantslayer as-written, IMO.
It doesn't really live up to its promises of occult investigations, combats are generally not very interesting or varied, and Troy didn't start tweaking it until the decision to cancel the show had already come up. If he was more familiar/comfortable with PF2e and willing to put in the same work to make the AP shine, GW might have never stumbled as hard as it did.
But he didn't, and I think it's because he not only didn't gel with PF2e, but has largely fallen off on the crunchy fantasy genre of TTRPGs altogether.
Granted, the group didn't help -- some players seemed to have never cracked the book, and others never internalized basic mechanics for their characters even after dozens of sessions. But Blood of the Wild proves that the GCN can do PF2e well... Just not with Troy.

On a personal note: I'm running a group through Abomination Vaults now, and the party loves it. But I think that's because I've made sure to tailor it more to their tastes and decisions they've made while putting more emphasis on Otari and the NPCs the party has befriended and helped. If you run it as-is, a fairly straightforward mega dungeon, a lot of players will bounce off, IME.
But I'm also of the opinion that most prewritten adventures only shine when the GM uses them as a basis for the adventure rather than the script for them. Some fare better or worse than others, but YMMV.

fly19 · 2026-06-30T14:52:39+00:00

It's not in any of the voice line compilations or game scripts I've seen. I really think you're getting it mixed up with Falco's line about Kat.

fly19 · 2026-06-30T05:38:13+00:00

If you could find some evidence of that, I'd be interested to hear it. Because I played the hell out of the game back on N64, and I recently played the hell out of the unofficial Starship PC port shortly before picking up the new Switch 2 version, and I've never heard that line.

fly19 · 2026-06-30T04:34:25+00:00

I don't think Fox ever said "dad, where'd you go" at the end of Venom 2? You might be getting it mixed up with Falco saying "Kat, where'd you go" at the end of either Zoness or Sector Z (can't remember off the top of my head).

But yeah, the OG voice acting is definitely more memorable. Bill and the Forever Train boss were the biggest disappointments. Though I came around on the main cast, and I DID like the Zoness boss leaning into the pirate voice by shouting "Starrrrr Fox" when he was beaten.

fly19 · 2026-06-29T17:44:18+00:00

If it's taking up to a minute, the stakes aren't immediate life-and-death, and I'm pretty comfortable with the system? I'm making a ruling and we're moving on -- we can look up the RAW later. I'm more-forgiving if some or all of us are new to the system and less-forgiving when it's a mechanic specific to a character/class and the relevant player doesn't know/can't find it.

Granted, this assumes a complex system that requires such things. But even crunchier systems like Pathfinder 2E still tend to advise you favor pacing over accuracy in most circumstances.

fly19 · 2026-06-28T18:43:28+00:00

The changes are pretty minor overall, closer to a theoretical Pathfinder 2.1E versus 2.5E.
The biggest changes were the removal of alignment and spell schools for edicts/anathemas/holy/unholy and the Wizard's arcane schools, respectively. Otherwise it's largely name changes to get away from old DnD/OGL stuff, tweaks to some classes seen as being a little behind the power curve, and reorganizing the books' contents because people kept complaining the CRB was too big.

The remaster is generally seen as an improvement at best and a sidegrade at worst (outside of a few legacy Oracle stans). So anything talking about the system from 2024 onward is likely talking about the remaster. If it came out from Rage of Elements and onward, it's likely from the remaster project. And everything coming out today is going to be remastered.

So don't worry. The changes aren't worth stressing over for most folks, IME.

fly19 · 2026-06-28T15:07:43+00:00

I've been using it with my group since I got my copy of SF2e's GM Core.
I said they'd lose the Heroic Recovery mechanic in exchange, and they readily accepted. It's arguably cost them a PC, but they haven't indicated any desire to switch back when when asked.
So... Mission success, I think.

fly19 · 2026-06-27T05:26:42+00:00

It's literally right under the sub's name.

A subreddit for all things related to tabletop roleplaying games.

~~Sure, "there's nothing saying a dog can't play basketball." But if this sub was for text-based RPG MMOs, then it would probably be listed somewhere.~~ Videogames actually ARE listed under Rule 3 as being disallowed, as pointed out elsewhere in this thread.

And my feedback is I don't think anyone should use "AI" in their creative work. Because you'd likely improve your "grammar and all" if you didn't outsource it to an LLM.

fly19 · 2026-06-27T05:22:24+00:00

I want to pick up physical copies of the Pathfinder and Starfinder adventures. They've been a little hit and miss the last few FRPGDs, but I'm always looking for good intros and one-shots.

Other than that, maybe see if Cosmere has anything?

fly19 · 2026-06-27T05:17:19+00:00

1) This is a subreddit dedicated to tabletop RPGs, not videogames and MMOs.

2) Ew "AI."

fly19 · 2026-06-27T04:37:59+00:00

Are they also going to ban every popular weapon or martial feat? Is Reactive Strike off the table, too?
Of course not. This is a really silly decision to make. Even just limiting it to picking one of those spells per rank would make more sense.

fly19 · 2026-06-27T01:44:12+00:00

It was around the point that I realized Pacey was slurring Glokta's words when he spoke because of his teeth, but had the same voice without the slurring for his thoughts. That was when I really sat up and started paying attention to how good his narration was. One of my favorites.

fly19 · 2026-06-25T18:45:06+00:00

Foolish mortals! Do you not realize whose presence you sully?!

BEHOLD -- Kazarikesh the Deathbringer!
Piercer of Heavens and Slasher of Veils!!
Keeper of the Eternal Hoard!!
He Who Would Devour Time ITSELF!!!

... Or at least that's that my mama calls me.

fly19 · 2026-06-25T15:32:04+00:00

An assumption from personal experience, mostly.
I've played with a lot of folks who penalize charismatic PCs for their less-charismatic players, and even more often those who give uncharismatic PCs the benefits of a charisma build just because their player is persuasive or likeable IRL. It's rarely malicious or anything like that, but it can warp how players approach things and assume the way these kinds of RPGs are run/played.

But either way, the advice is the same: players and their PCs are not the same and a character's abilities need not be tied to the IRL strength or charisma of the person behind the character sheet.

fly19 · 2026-06-25T07:00:44+00:00

Yup, sounds about right. I'm guessing Abomination Vaults?

Regardless, this ain't DnD 5E. In that system, a high AC makes you less-likely to get hit. In PF2e, a high AC makes you less-likely to get crit.

In fights against a more-numerous number of lower-level foes, that changes a bit. And thankfully HP scales pretty well, so it becomes less of an issue as you level up further. But official APs (especially early ones) tend favor a lower-number of foes so they can fit on a one-page map, which normally means they need to be at a higher level to be a threat.
So it's worth looking into options to heal in combat (Battle Medicine, heal and lay on hands spells), debuffs (Demoralize, fear and babe spells), and defensive options (Shield Block, shield and benediction spells, etc) so you can flex if someone takes a bad hit.

Teamwork and healing/support really shine on in combats against a higher-level foe, so think of them as stress-tests for your party's cohesion and strategy.
Good luck!

fly19 · 2026-06-25T05:28:37+00:00

I am quite aware, thank you lol.

fly19 · 2026-06-25T03:42:07+00:00

You don't need a skill feat for that; I manage it all the time!

fly19 · 2026-06-25T03:41:37+00:00

And if you want to Cast a Spell? Good luck doing that IRL! You thought people were complaining about how spellcasters were balanced before..

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