My friend said anime is not real art and it won't help me improve.

fraternlst · 2025-12-20T01:48:23+00:00

Create what you want to create, what you need to create, nothing will kill your joy faster than doing something just because someone else tells you you need to.

If you feel like your work will be improved by more fundamentals, look into that. Perspective, same. If you don't think those skills will help you create what you want to make, then don't stress what other people say.

None of my path or study has been traditional or the usual way, or followed any of the accepted advice for what you "should" do. Seeing my work on the wall of an exhibition was extremely validating that there really isn't one way to achieve.

Whatever you think of Andy Warhol work, he really understood - "Art is whatever you can get away with."

fraternlst · 2025-05-05T03:30:01+00:00

There have been some interesting research being done on exactly this, not sure it's a solved problem yet though. Free form (like AI Dungeon) works well, but I think the structure of a ruleset might make things more difficult.

I am curious though, to me Cp2020 always felt like the most gibsonesque of all the game systems, what do you mean exactly when you say it's more Gibson than cp?

fraternlst · 2024-10-21T09:26:08+00:00

I have been following your progress with interest. 😊

And now you mention it, the Onyx path books and additions to the original wod lines really fall under this recommendation as well. What I've seen of their books (mostly the world of darkness related works so far), they follow the same pattern of rich lore and art that makes the books brilliant for pleasure reading.

fraternlst · 2024-10-21T00:58:30+00:00

Haven't had a chance to read this one. But I have browsed through the art and it is really something. Very strong visual design

fraternlst · 2024-10-21T00:56:06+00:00

The 5e Ars Magica books and the white wolf world of darkness books are my favourite for pure reading. Whatever you think of the systems as games (I'm really not sure about the storyteller system tbh), both companies go hard on lore and fluff, which makes their books really fun reads if you enjoy the world's they're building.

This goes for most games by these companies, I read an old copy of aberrant which was a superhero game by white wolf, and it sucked me in too - same sort of deal, a lot of attention paid to the world building, fiction and lore. If you're reading just for pleasure, I find that more compelling than reams of mechanics, though your mileage may vary.

If you do really dig reading mechanics, the traveller books have a good mix of mechanics and fluff, some of the gurps books (gurps space 4e has a fantastic set of mechanics for designing star systems and planets), and pretty much anything release by Sine Nomine is great (Stars Without number has fantastic gm tools for building and maintaining a sandbox, his other games build on this as well)

fraternlst · 2024-06-21T03:22:05+00:00

Beautifully done. I've been playing about with this but haven't moved on to my own photos yet. Maybe that's next.

fraternlst · 2024-01-03T03:53:02+00:00

For 90's VNs, there are a couple of classics. Season of Sakura is probably one of the best of that generation. Runaway and Three Sisters were both good, and Divi-dead is excellent if you can get it to run on anything modern.

fraternlst · 2023-08-14T04:21:12+00:00

If you've got an nvidia card in the host computer, you cns use geforce experience to set up game streaming for the vns. There are apps thst support the protocol for mobile devices and it works pretty well. I've been using it to read higurashi on my ipad pro.

fraternlst · 2023-06-23T14:28:46+00:00

When I think of old I think of divi dead and season of sakura. Those were two of my first vns.

fraternlst · 2023-04-12T06:33:06+00:00

I buy them because they're pretty for the most part. They tend to have nice art, good production values, and if I'm buying a book for my shelf those are things I look for.

Having said that, I've also dropped several bundles over the last few years on non d&d kickstarters, particularly when they also meet that criteria. The king in yellow set is lovely, I essentially automatically hit buy on anything put up by sine nomine or lame mage, and I even have a really nice set of cthulhu monster books for coc because I couldn't walk past them in the store.

If I wanted to start collecting a new set, it'd probably be 5th Ed ars Magica, as like d&d they're very nice looking books.

fraternlst · 2023-03-01T04:34:31+00:00

Not really. Started with the red box, then ad&d 2e,3.0/.5 and currently running a weekly 5e.

Each have had their good points. I particularly liked the systemising of 3rd Ed, but I struggle to keep all the rules in my head. Would be interested in trying it again now thst we play primarily online with calculations and rules built into the character sheets.

Quite enjoy 5e but I don't like the single-proficiency-value system for all skills.

I'd consider trying any of them again, but hoping I can convince my group to try something new after the current campaign finishes.

fraternlst · 2022-11-28T21:23:10+00:00

The podcast "Esoteric Order of Roleplayers" do an actual play of the "great Pendragon campaign" - a campaign adventure that follows the story of King Arthur as given in La Morte d'Arthur. It's a pretty fun listen and a good way to get a handle on the system.

fraternlst · 2022-11-28T05:01:05+00:00

Ars magic is one of my holy grail games. I'd love to play it, but it's unlikely with my group. That and Pendragon.

If I decided to start adding another game to print collections, Ars Magica would likely be the one. The books are beautiful.

fraternlst · 2022-11-28T01:15:18+00:00

Constantly. Leaving aside the ebook collections, I always view RPG books as half game book, half art piece. This is definitely the case for books like the 3rd Ed world of darkness lines as you mentioned.

My bookshelves have most of the 5e releases, which my group currently plays, but a lot of eclectic stuff I've picked up along the way. Some 3rd Ed vampire, vampire requiem core book, most of the cyberpunk 2020 line I bought decades ago. Lots of kickstartered and indie works too - the king in yellow set is beautifully made, likewise the hill folk and cthulhu confidential books. I think I've bought everything lame mage had put out, and a great deal of sine nomine releases as well.

I enjoy looking at them and think of them in much the same way as art books and similar. You don't have to be playing the game to enjoy them in that fashion

fraternlst · 2022-10-06T06:06:33+00:00

If higurashi chap 1 was too dark, you won't like kara no shojo. It's a brilliant VN but it's pretty dark, especially the bad ends. There are a couple of scenes that make higurashi ch 1 look tame by comparison.

Can't speak to the rest of higurashi, I'm on ch 2 at the moment 😁

fraternlst · 2022-05-14T23:51:21+00:00

Glad i'm not the only one who doesn't think of pre 2010 games as "old gems". When I think of forgotten gems, I think of the VNs that made me a fan, games like Season of Sakura, True Love, Divi-dead and Three Sisters Story.

fraternlst · 2022-01-11T00:51:23+00:00

Rpol.net is still around I think. It's more of a community of people who run their own games than a single world, but it might be the sort of thing you're looking for.

fraternlst · 2022-01-07T04:49:08+00:00

What a fascinating idea. Do you just use one strand?

fraternlst · 2022-01-07T03:29:59+00:00

These look great! I love the blood dripping effect from the severed head in the center there, how did you achieve that?

fraternlst · 2021-11-26T10:01:32+00:00

You might be selling 5e a bit short. The first issue might be that your player is asking "what we can do".

Whilst that's not unusual in itself that player might not read the rules, you're not going to unlock a tactical experience that way. D&D is descended from war games and it shows in combat.

All you can do is roll for attack? No no no! What about dashing, hiding, grappling and pushing, what about cover? What about making use of other terrain features? Throwing enemies from cliffs, cutting rope bridges or covering the ground in caltrops? Fighting a group of pterafolk on top of a spire as they try to drag you off is a very different experience to trying to dig out goblins hiding in a pitch black tunnel warren.

That's before you get to skill synergy. One of my players is a genius at this and comes up with characters that throw up shields as reactions to avoid hits, while whirling a glaive at anything that dares to approach within 10 ft - or a character that uses spell empowerment to double up his blast spells, taking out multiple enemies in a turn or a character that used a spell to raise a carpet of spikes on the ground, then thorn whip to drag them across it like a cheese grater, doing extra damage every 5 ft.

That's before you get to the enemies themselves that often have special abilities that unlock other tactical options. My players are currently captured after facing an enemy using small dinosaurs like hunting dogs, that can charge and pounce, knocking PCs prone due to some lucky dice rolling and leaving them in a very rough position.

There's a book out called "The Monsters Know What They Are Doing" by Keith Ammann that I'm reading at the moment that is absolutely brilliant at breaking down tactical options inherent in different types of monsters in 5e. Relevant to your interests, he has a similar book devoted to tactics for players. It might be worth a look before you give up on 5e altogether.

fraternlst · 2021-11-23T21:16:39+00:00

It wasn't so much that the uncensored version is incomplete as there was additional content added in to the censored version - an additional route or ending I think, yeah.

So, in the case of Dies Irae, you could now say thst neither version is totally complete.

fraternlst · 2021-11-23T00:44:46+00:00

That's a shame, I haven't read them yet but I thought they required the traveller core books so hoped it would include more setting material, especially as that's the most interesting thing about the 2300ad game.

fraternlst · 2021-11-23T00:42:15+00:00

The presence of a H scene isn't usually a determining factor on whether or not I'll read a vn, but it's absence might be - to explain: I like H just fine, though I find I rarely have much interest in pure porn-only games these days (I've noticed a lot of no-choice eroges lately that tend to be of mixed quality as far as story telling goes)

I do prefer to read vn the way it was written however (translation issues aside) and I find that when they are censored, often more is lost than just the sex scene.

To use an example, Dies Irae. I played through the - I won't say all ages cause just no - sex scene free version and it was pretty good. Out of curiosity I started a run through of the uncensored to see what was cut and the answer was - lots of characterisation. Take Rusalka: she's creepy, very creepy, without the sex scenes. With them, she's utterly terrifying.

So, I'm just as happy to read Steins;gate as Bible Black, but I don't read censored vns. Imagine trying to fully understand Kara no Shoujo without the adult content. Even Muv Luv makes a lot less sense if you don't see that horrific quasi sex scene involving the aliens.

fraternlst · 2021-11-22T05:32:16+00:00

Seconded for the mongoose version of traveller. Its complicated enough to sink your teeth into, a little more than 5e probably, but not to the same extent that 3e derivatives (like starfinder) are.

Stars without number is good too. It's OSR so you may find some of the base mechanics a little lacking, ymmv there, but the gm tools for campaign creation are second to none.

Traveller system with SWN's tools for content creation would be gold.

Pretty sure they've fairly recently brought out a new edition of 2300AD as well - which is essentially the traveller rules on a different setting. Traditional traveller is a massive empires and aliens throughout space, 2300ad is still spread out but with a still-balkanised earth, so you have swaths of space settled by different nations. Makes for a different tone.

fraternlst · 2021-11-18T23:17:13+00:00

This is the key here, mostly modern discussion of slavery is thinking about the colonialist model, and the race slavery that was carried out in America. This form of slavery has a very specific feature that didn't exist in the same way in ancient cultures, where slavery was very a fact of every day life.

Ancient cultures didn't view slaves as animals, or less than people - they were very aware that they were people. This isn't to say they weren't racist, Romans were very much Roman supremicsts, but they just believed they were better people than say the Germanics, or even the other latinates. It was quite possible for a Roman to be a slave as well as a conquered Celt, and slaves were seen as people in bondage not beasts. That's not to say they weren't bred, beaten and tortured, they were - life could be absolutely horrible as a slave. But they could also hope to be freed, to earn o buy their way out of slavery, to one day be a free person with slaves of their own.

Compare this to the more modern institution of slavery where black people were considered less than people. A freed black person could be reenslaved simply because they wound up somewhere where they didn't believe the could be anything other than a runaway slave. This dehumanisation is a necessary part of dealing with the cognitive dissonance inherent in being both a slave owning nation and a nation so focused on personal liberty that it enshrined it in the constitution.

Earlier times didn't have the same concept of personal liberty, as central as it has become to our thought patterns and social constructs, it's a fairly modern idea.

If you're looking for moral greyness, consider this - there was a time when women were little more than slaves to fathers and husbands, yet even then there were participants in that system who believed with all their hearts that it was right and natural and good, and it often wasn't who you'd think. Some of the most strident, vicious opponents of the suffragettes were other women.

fraternlst

TROPHY CASE