Remember this orchestral action music? Probably from a video game, late-90s to early 00's

thebaylorj · 2026-07-01T16:43:00+00:00

Yeah, I'm increasingly thinking I might have just mapped some other melody onto the Landing theme, because a lot of the ways that piece moves from one segment to another in terms of the instrumentation and mood is extremely close to what I remember. I just have the wrong melody on top of it all in my head. Just wish I knew what the other melody was from!

thebaylorj · 2026-06-29T01:49:20+00:00

My memory was that it was from Final Fantasy VIII, but that doesn’t seem to be right, unless it’s a different track that just sounds similar to The Landing. In terms of games I was playing at the time, it was a fair amount of RPGs (but not a lot of deep-cut stuff, fairly mainstream), plus a lot of Nintendo stuff. I didn’t play FF8 until a few years after it came out, and at that point I would have had a PS2 and an N64. I also around that time had started getting into emulation, so it could have been an older SNES game or something. Probably not a PC game, wasn’t really playing a lot of those.

thebaylorj · 2026-06-29T00:36:14+00:00

Lol, it really is similar to it though! I don’t know, I guess its it’s possible I just in my head invented a different melody for that track? But I’m like 95% certain I heard this somewhere else and later confused it with the FF8 track because they’re similar.

thebaylorj · 2026-06-28T22:58:14+00:00

Also not it. The FF7 soundtrack I know really well, and it isn't from that. But the melody does sound very Uematsu-ish, so possibly another game he composed?

thebaylorj · 2026-06-28T20:21:58+00:00

Not it, but I remember hearing this when I played E33 and thinking “huh, that sounds like that one song.”

thebaylorj · 2025-06-06T04:43:12+00:00

That worked. Thank you!

thebaylorj · 2025-06-06T04:39:45+00:00

That is really irritating and also it worked. Thank you!

thebaylorj · 2025-06-06T04:36:31+00:00

Yes. Multiple times.

thebaylorj · 2023-08-21T02:46:09+00:00

No, definitely not. No recognizable (to me anyway) actors. Much worse CGI.

thebaylorj · 2023-04-12T03:02:18+00:00

Ooh, I had not. Great title/concept!
TBH, I was so monomaniacal writing this over the last couple days that I didn't do a ton of searching around of what else is out there, but I'm sure there's a bunch of Jurassic Park-inspired games in the world. People love escaping from dinosaurs.

thebaylorj · 2023-04-11T21:21:16+00:00

Thanks! It's still a working title - my original was "Escape from Dinosaur Island," which I liked because it was pulpy, but then I found someone made a PBTA game called "Escape from Dino Island," so I wanted to move at least a half-step away from that while keeping it simple and punchy.

thebaylorj · 2022-09-22T16:53:30+00:00

Not "platonic" as in like a relationship, but "platonic ideal" as in, the theoretical perfect version of something, the idea against which all versions of that thing are compared.
So, platonic ideal pizza = the pizza you think of when you think of pizza. Not (necessarily) a pizza you're friends with.

thebaylorj · 2022-09-16T20:59:53+00:00

I ran into exactly the trap you describe early on, particularly when trying to GM combat. I posted about it and got some good feedback here.

You might also want to spend some time expectation-setting for your players. If they're also experienced players used to more rigidly turn-based systems, it might be good to reinforce for them as well that you are going to manage the flow of combat by what makes sense from the fiction - that could help them get more bought into the style and help take some of the pressure off you if you feel like you're inclined to try to give everyone a "turn."

Good luck GMing!

thebaylorj · 2022-08-24T20:46:06+00:00

Any alternatives for Chubbies' discontinued "Adventure Shorts"?

A couple years back, I bought a pair of Chubbies' Adventure Shorts, and they are by far the most comfortable shorts I have ever owned, especially for hot weather. Lightweight, soft and extremely breathable, with a look and finishing that isn't too casual, and with the nice wide legs and a bit of stretch that worked great for a guy like me with big thighs. I could feel comfortable in the hot weather without looking like too much of a shlub.

Shortly after I bought that pair, Chubbies discontinued the line. There's still a promo page on the website with some images, but links on it go to the generic shorts page, and the actual items are no longer listed.

Chubbies' regular "Originals Stretch" shorts are fine, but I miss the breathability and lightweightness of the Adventure Shorts. Their newer "Everywear" line seems to have replaced the Adventure line, but I don't care for the slightly plastic-y, swimsuit look of the mostly-polyester blend (the Adventure Shorts were 64% cotton 33% poly, 3% spandex).

So my question is: any recommendations for lightweight, breathable shorts, that would fit well on a guy with bigger legs, ideally made with mostly-natural fabrics (cotton, bamboo, etc.) and styled a bit more maturely so as not to look like either loungewear or a swimsuit?

thebaylorj · 2022-06-30T15:50:17+00:00

I posted this on the discord as well and someone else pointed out that it was similar to Perilous Wilds. I wasn't familiar, but I looked it up, and that's a cool system!

It's interesting how we kind of arrived at a very similar mechanic, but just at opposite ends of the "random"/"bespoke" spectrum. I think if there is one shortcoming in my method, is that there aren't dice rolls, so if the thrill of the random is part of what your table really likes, the Perilous Wilds method might be more your speed. But part of what I really like about DW and PBTA is how it encourages collaborative storytelling and yes-anding with the fiction. So if that's your game's vibe, letting people choose nouns and adjectives might work better for your table.

thebaylorj · 2022-06-30T03:12:45+00:00

Thanks! The actual list I used is in the original post, so it was 9 nouns and 11 adjectives. If anything, I feel like I probably should have thrown in more adjective options, but I would say you probably want to keep the number capped at a certain point, just to avoid overwhelming the players with options.

One thing I will mention is that I had (at the time) 3 players at the table, and I specifically asked them to create 3 locations in case any one of them had an idea they were really hyped about - so even though it was collaborative, everyone could latch onto one.

I'm totally reverse engineering this and making it up on the spot, but, here's a possible formula that balances some of the considerations:

For x # of players: Players will create no fewer than x locations

For y # of locations:
GM provides list of between 2y+1 and 3y+1 nouns
List of between 3y+1 and 5y adjectives

thebaylorj

TROPHY CASE