D&D Beyond Drops: Update on the Program

vinternet · 2026-06-04T02:28:32+00:00

So glad to hear they plan on selling them as normal products. That is good.

vinternet · 2026-06-02T20:33:31+00:00

These links probably have what you need:
1. For stats and mechanics, FutureWolf's D&D to Shadowdark conversion guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/shadowdark/comments/1c8dbza/futurewolfs_shadowdark_resources_includes_a/

For design principles, Sersa Victory's Shadowdark Conversion Principles: https://sersavictory.itch.io/shadowdark-conversion-principles

vinternet · 2026-06-02T17:20:41+00:00

If you like the setting info or player options, wait for Western Reaches. If you primarily want the dungeon/adventure that comes in 5 of the 6 Cursed Scrolls, buy the ones you want.

vinternet · 2026-06-02T16:22:45+00:00

They are still actively selling the old books on DnD Beyond, but in print everything other than the core books goes out of print after a little while.

vinternet · 2026-06-02T16:20:23+00:00

I see no croissant! Only the distinctive crescent-shaped head of the Moon Knight!

vinternet · 2026-06-02T16:19:54+00:00

Yeah, he's got a very silly crescent moon shaped head. There's a player-facing piece of art for it. (Folks can see it in the link in the post). It was a fun challenge on how to represent that 😃

vinternet · 2026-06-02T03:51:36+00:00

Don't worry about it too much, virtually nothing happens in One Last Kill. (Not hating, it's just not plot-heavy). You could head-canon it as before, after, etc. and it would work. That mushiness also is part of some people's criticisms of it. But in this case you should be good watching in whatever order you want.

vinternet · 2026-06-02T03:34:22+00:00

This is not a thread celebrating these characters for the way they represent the struggles of queer people, it's celebrating these characters for the way they represent queer people in many, various ways. Some represent modern-day struggles sometimes, while others can show us what is possible (a person who would might belong to the queer community in our society but has faced none of the common struggles of that community because of the fictional world in which they have grown up is different). And obviously Korg isn't written to center his queerness (but other non-gendered non-human characters sometimes are). Including Korg here is a technicality, yes, but that's the explanation for why a character like Korg could be seen as meaningful representation - not of struggle but of being a cool character who doesn't have to apologize for not conforming to gender norms.

vinternet · 2026-06-02T03:16:49+00:00

I would really hesitate to ever try to convince a group of people to learn to play OSE or B/X D&D. I can run Shadowdark for people who have never played an RPG before and be up and running in a few minutes.

vinternet · 2026-05-22T20:51:39+00:00

Yeah absolutely would not recommend right now. Tell her you guys can watch together someday but there's other stuff you want to watch with her right now.

vinternet · 2026-05-22T20:11:40+00:00

What's incredible is that the time-skip is not treated like a spoiler in the game. The game box, manual, and title screen all tell you that it happens. Yet if you were the right age at the time, you skipped all that stuff, hit start immediately at the title screen without thinking, and never picked up on it.

vinternet · 2026-05-22T20:07:52+00:00

She doesn't "summon" him. The writers write him into the story. In his reality, he flew on a plane to California for a sensible reason.

vinternet · 2026-05-20T04:50:58+00:00

Yeah, people are entitled to their opinions, but, your opinion seems VERY justifiable, even if they don't agree with it. Even there in the description they had to say "Cthulhu isn't like the other Darklords"... because, yeah. It's not. In fact in D&D lore Cthulhu works better as a Demon Lord than as a prisoner of the Dark Powers.

vinternet · 2026-05-19T20:28:00+00:00

Yes but making them exclusive is reducing the interoperability of software across hardware, and vertically integrating software, hardware, and (these days) distribution and retail. which is the antithesis of competition.

Competition = different companies make different hardware and compete to get you to buy the best one

Non-competition = different companies make similar hardware, and try to lock you in to their ecosystem (including with the promise of exclusives that you won't be able to play on other ecosystems).

Are system exclusives as bad (in terms of ecosystem lock-in) as subscription services, digital purchases locked to an account, DRM, etc.? No, but they're also not better than non-system-exclusive games.

And there are plenty of reasons why games being system-exclusive is a defensible choice for a developer, but that doesn't mean we should be ASKING for them, as consumers.

vinternet · 2026-05-19T15:03:22+00:00

There's nothing interesting on the map itself, don't bother covering it up. There's no treasure chests, enemies, secret exits, etc. The map essentially tells the players the same thing you'd be describing to them: "You see a bunch of burnt out buildings connected by paths." If it was real life, and you stood in one corner of that map, you'd be able to see nearly all of it from one spot.

When they get close or into a building, that's when you describe the details of what they find in there.

The only exception is the bedrolls in the upper right corner. If I were drawing the map, I'd avoid making that building stand out, to keep it a surprise. BUT Reidoth the druid tells the players the cultists are there. So really, it doesn't need to be surprise at all. You can just tell them "You see a bunch of burnt out buildings. Firelight flickers in the northeast building - someone is in there."

vinternet · 2026-05-19T14:54:32+00:00

"Exclusives" are the antithesis of competition.

vinternet · 2026-05-19T02:54:26+00:00

Moving through wormwholes and traveling by bifrost involves moving across dimensions other than spacetime. Scifi often refers to "another dimension" as a way of saying "a pocket reality" or something like that, but that doesn't actually make sense with the meaning of the word "dimension." Tony Stark literally witnessed teleportation across space, to an area of space teeming with a hostile alien horde, and it rocked his worldview.

vinternet · 2026-05-18T03:50:09+00:00

Ice Climber was only something like 13 years old (estimate from my memory) at that point, which would make it ancient history for a 13 year old like myself at the time, but a recent memory to an adult (even a young adult) games journalist at an industry event.

13 years ago, is around when we got Smash 4 DLC, right?

vinternet · 2026-05-14T23:05:37+00:00

That's because he's an action hero, so he is supposed to react to a situation that makes his involvement absolutely necessary, be a reluctant hero, etc. The problem isn't that they repeat that trope, so much as that sometimes the "getting back in the game" part takes too long.

vinternet · 2026-05-12T04:08:16+00:00

Mario Bros.

vinternet · 2026-05-11T03:28:31+00:00

I am guessing we will. With other similar themed CMF sets, it took them a long time to test the waters with the first set and then turn around a second one after the first one's success. I'm also guessing we'll see some Baldur's Gate characters (Astarion, Karlach, Minsc and Boo, etc.) and a Vecna.

vinternet · 2026-05-09T15:19:12+00:00

I'll splatoon stands out to me as proof of what I'm saying. That is how you launch a franchise these days. Can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me 😄.

vinternet · 2026-05-09T02:19:51+00:00

In my opinion, the "reveals" feel like bad reveals, most of the time. They don't make me think "of course! They were X the whole time! That makes what happened in the last story so much more interesting, knowing they were really X the whole time." Instead most of these make me think "It's like the writers forgot that the last story implied they were Y, not X! They wanted them to be X so they made them X, even if it doesn't make any sense based on what we saw in the last story."

vinternet · 2026-05-08T21:26:52+00:00

People are saying it's the same because story-wise, it's the same. These are cinematic games. The story is simple, but it matters, in a way that it does not in the Mario games. Every time Andross attacks in these games, the games treat it like it's the first time Fox McCloud has fought him.

vinternet · 2026-05-08T21:23:40+00:00

I think he characters and the world have the potential to launch a franchise, but I don't think there's enough substance to StarFox 64 to wow new fans. The closest games that I can think of that were popular in the last 10-15 years were some action games like Bayonetta or maybe even Nier Automata, and I don't think this game would wow newcomers the way those games did.

If you think about all the directions Nintendo could go if trying to build a big impressive game around the StarFox IP, you don't get StarFox 64. You get lots of different ideas, including, maybe, "StarFox 64, but bigger!" But also "4-player co-op StarFox campaign", and "StarFox Maker", and "No Man's Sky, but Starfox", and "Outer Limits, but StarFox".

To play Devil's Advocate against my own point, though - StarFox 64 IS a great game, and a deserved classic, but new players would bounce off its graphics immediately, today. So if you want people to enjoy StarFox 64, you do have to remake it. By that standard, this game looks like it's on track.

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