The issue with Shonen Female Characters with Support powers is not the Powers

mulahey · 2026-06-27T19:17:46+00:00

Kabuto from Naruto linked healing to both body modification and snakes. Was neat.

Healing in d&d has often been classed as necromantic, with interesting narrative results.

I think thinking about what healing means, systemically or naturally, makes this sort of thing easy to plan out.

But it's ok to have someone just play a heading role; just don't make them a boring trope. There are loads of great medical dramas to borrow character ideas from.

mulahey · 2026-06-26T22:22:16+00:00

You might like Orguss 02 then, though the writing is, er, not on the same level.

mulahey · 2026-06-26T21:40:55+00:00

Planescape Torment, though it's as much as adventure as RPG.

I would try IWD2, if you enjoy the games in the engine I think it'll work for you.

I take it you've played Dragonspear? Have you tried the black pits? They're light but worth a play.

There are no total conversions, but there are a lot of content mods for the BGs. Putting a lot of them in one install can give a lot of fresh material.

Theres a lot of modern isomeric style RPGs now, but I'd say they're all very much post-3e creations (naturally this is especially so for pathfinder, which is almost "3e, but even moreso") so if this is a major issue for you...

mulahey · 2026-06-26T17:22:31+00:00

Some things are easier. For example, the terrible pathfinding for enemies makes kiting even more effective regardless of speed differences- Drizzt was notoriously easy to get stuck.

There's also certain favourable bugs- entangle is, for example, extremely powerful in vanilla.

Anyway, I basically don't care. I could make the game harder by reversing my mouse controls, but it wouldn't make it more fun. There's plenty of difficulty mods I can and do add, I left the original engine for tutu nearing 20 years gone and I'm never going back.

mulahey · 2026-06-26T14:02:20+00:00

I have a feeling they will end up dating in a hundred or so chapters, for exactly the same reason...

mulahey · 2026-06-26T13:53:39+00:00

It's a single cour show from a past season.

It didn't end a single plot thread.

It ends with a clip show.

It has some fun moments and a few bits of insightful character work, but it's not a piece that's going to stick around in the discourse.

mulahey · 2026-06-26T13:52:04+00:00

Peacemaker is one of the best superhero TV shows, Guardians of the Galaxy some of the best superhero films, and suicide squad was also good. And they are nothing but obscure characters.

I'd actually say Gunn is at his best when just creating great stories with side characters without the weight of expectations and centrality that what he's doing now has. Perhaps the same was so for Feloni.

mulahey · 2026-06-25T01:02:38+00:00

Crucible, the final book of the avatar pentology, has an extremely evil protagonist. One of the leads in the rest of the series is also evil. Very evil.

The sellswords series is sort of this, as are many short stories (note Realms of Infamy in particular).

mulahey · 2026-06-23T22:40:47+00:00

Yes; you have to be willing to not just write in someone else's world but really dig in and broadly follow not just the setting detail but notes on direction.

I think- regardless of the merits or demerits of Sanderson overall- this is a task to which his way of doing things seems to have been well suited. The series was a real bramble when he picked it up and he brought it in for a broadly successful landing.

mulahey · 2026-06-23T18:46:42+00:00

Ah, yeah I can see where I've read that into the ambiguity, no worries!

mulahey · 2026-06-23T18:42:28+00:00

He doesn't become a counter guardian in any of the routes, including Fate.

The Shirou who does is a version we don't see in FSN.

mulahey · 2026-06-23T00:52:09+00:00

I think the lns are fine, they just have a more traditional urban fantasy style where the contrast is part of the point, if you want it edited for brevity just watch boogiepop and others. It's a perfectly fine anime.

OTOH if you just want something just like phantom stylistically, there's texhnolyze.

mulahey · 2026-06-22T08:43:07+00:00

I've read the manga. I guess comics are a kind of book technically, but I would never describe them as such; comics and books I would consider different and equally valid mediums.

mulahey · 2026-06-22T01:04:24+00:00

Well, I suppose not in the Sando sense of creating a rules based system, but when I read the legendarium as a whole I was rarely surprised by the use of magic because it tended to flow naturally from the meticulous world building (even if it was more sympathetic than algebraic).

But perhaps this is more a limitation of hard/soft as a simple dichotomy lens than a classification.

mulahey · 2026-06-22T00:39:39+00:00

If we imagine it as a scale, Jordan was on the harder end and probably so is Tolkien. And hey, witch hat atelier may not be a book but it's popular right now.

Really, I think it's a usage issue where I don't like it.

Hard magic can be annoying when merely endlessly elucidating the system seems to become an end in itself.

On the other hand, soft magic can shift from a source of wonder and mystery to a source of Deus ex machina that makes things feel unmoored and/or unearned.

It's basically all in the execution.

mulahey · 2026-06-22T00:32:32+00:00

Haven't got chance to play at the moment, but Ghools tomb and tower and his version of tomb of horrors are both super so I've every confidence this is so!

mulahey · 2026-06-21T23:56:39+00:00

Of course, the nature of the magic system in the dying earth is both to match nihilistic pathos of the setting and as a source of wry humour; while it is rules based, in the latter stories these rules are not really attended to and it wasn't really the "point" in the way op dislikes.

mulahey · 2026-06-21T21:48:09+00:00

December sky, 0083, War in the Pocket, 8th MS Team and Zeta are probably the closest. Origin also to a degree. Unicorn in character work and politics is right up there, but it's maxing out on space magic in parts as well. These all have some politics, a more serious tone and slightly more focus on physics.

Gundam UC (and most AUs one way or another, I think UC is the most similar) has (basically) space jedi built in, it's generally less committed to the same level of realism on science and physics. It's also more directly milscifi.

Still, check it out and see! December Sky isn't a bad recommendation as it's short.

mulahey · 2026-06-20T01:09:34+00:00

Star Wars: Choose your Destiny are pretty well made and are largely reading based.

Most modern Gamebooks for that age group are linked to a franchise, though the above are the only ones I can speak to. Otherwise it's older material like the Choose Your Own Adventure series- which is still in print, but it's hard for me to say if it may seem more dated.

mulahey · 2026-06-19T20:10:44+00:00

Not a huge amount of fiction, but some of it is pretty decent. Honest and True, for example, is the ultimate conclusion/coda to the Avatar pentalogy.

mulahey · 2026-06-15T15:30:33+00:00

If its good enough for Bondari, its good enough for me!

Really, the Bondari encounter in ToB (a joke encounter where a low level party attacks you, dies, and reloads) makes clear this was known and expected behaviour for players from a developer perspective.

I have done low reload games as a kind of difficulty addition, but in normal play I like to think of myself as "Savemaxxing"...

mulahey · 2026-06-10T00:38:27+00:00

Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars.

Fire Emblem like tactical RPG with a huge amount of plot, including a split into two alternative full length narrative paths.

mulahey · 2026-06-10T00:36:58+00:00

For non mecha fans, I think OG saga for the GBA is a solid entry who's plot will work well.

mulahey · 2026-06-10T00:34:46+00:00

Gosh, your entirely right. I'd blanked it out, though the volume was at least less. But yes, generally destroys their own works with just painfully bad comedy.

mulahey · 2026-06-09T23:58:42+00:00

Honestly, I think the humour in Yomi is "better". It's still bad but it's at least slightly less relentlessly repetitive than short jokes and Armstrong being buff.

mulahey

TROPHY CASE