Posts made by Wizz

@Pyrephox

Street level secret world weirdness. Like, say, The Secret World but grimier; there's no globe-spanning organizations and nobody has more than scraps of anything. It's all cults and nomadic secret orders and they all want a slice of some big mystical pie nobody in their right mind should ever actually touch, because magic and old gods and the mysteries behind the universe are something that will someday, somehow, guaranteed get you buried in an unmarked grave or get you so disappeared you may as well be. But you were touched by it, and that one taste will never ever be enough.

I'm two years late to even notice that this was a thing that happened and I don't even know where to talk about it, but I discovered today that the CRACKED/PWoT forums are no more and it hit me kinda hard. I have mixed feelings about it all.

I was a big fan of Pointless Waste of Time back in the day, and was a member of the forums from around 2008 onward. Never terribly active, but it was one of those staples of my online life that I returned to. In all honesty, the community was a little toxic imo -- they had these really arbitrary standards for posting and a "core" group that was very difficult to break into, and some moderators genuinely got abusive to new people especially. But still, I'm sad to see it go.

It feels like some essential part of what I enjoyed so much about the internet has gone the way of the dinosaur and social media sites like Facebook are a really impersonal replacement, ironically. I've yet to find the sense of community there I ever felt on forums.

@chibichibi said in Magicy Shenanigans - high fantasy or more modern:

So I think I have found a system for a Brakebills game.

We can use Mage the Awakening 2nd Edition with al the yantras, etc.

Standard WoD build. People can buy arcana. But they can't cast spells unless it's a rote. IE you need it on your sheet.

Magicians and hedge wizards can only access rotes. Players are welcome to do "creative thaumaturgy" but that requires research and other actions (and OOC coding time to put it into the database) before they can cast it as a spell proper.

Thoughts?

Thoughts?

This is almost exactly the same idea I had for this when we last talked about a Magicians adaptation and I also got a lot of pushback at the time, but tbh I still think it's a good idea. Maybe it would just take playtesting to get people on board. It sounds a lot more complicated when you talk about it than I think it would work out to be in play, and people tend to have an innate resistance to changing a familiar formula.

Some of my all-time favorites:

John Dies At The End by David Wong. Small-town burnouts get exposed to a substance they call "the soy sauce" that gives them sorta-omniscience, shreds the veil between the living and the dead, and makes them the target of interdimensional invaders. Hijinks ensue. Absurd, genuinely horrifying sometimes, and an Internet classic. Has a lot of nostalgia value for me since my friend and I used to print off the chapter updates every Halloween and read them together.

So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane (and really, ever subsequent book in the series). If you're really bummed about what a trash human being JK Rowling is turning out to be, this honestly has always been the superior young adult series. It came before Harry Potter anyway and it is just better, I mean it. Duane's characters grow and explore their personal tragedies in ways that are so much more raw and real than Rowling accomplishes even at her best, imho, and the way magic works is just fascinating; wizards are called to fight the force of universal entropy itself.

Silk by Caitlin R. Kiernan. I dunno how you even describe this book and the sequels/related novels. It's kinda-sorta urban fantasy/psychological horror with some cosmic horror influences (most often categorized as "weird fiction") revolving mostly around a group of friends in the South, but expands to include a sort of secret world and oh my god just go read it. Everything the author writes is amazing and will stick with you long after you put it down.

@Waller

Not gonna lie, Joe's speech to the guards about Nicky made me tear up. Easily the best bit of dialogue in a movie I've seen in quite a while.

...I wouldn't say no to a rebooted Highlander series either, tbh.

(As long as they kept Princes of the Universe as the themesong.)

The Old Guard was pretty fun. Super slick action sequences, and the premise was cool, but I really wish they'd done it as a TV series or even a mini-series instead and given these characters and their backstories a lot more room to breath. Considering they were centuries-old immortal mercenaries, there were a lot of awesome tales to tell that we didn't get to see aside from little index card references and that's disappointing! (Admittedly I am a huge geek for flashback scenes, sue me.)

If you've got Prime and you like anime, give Pet a shot. It's...it's really heavy, friend. I just finished it and I'm a bit devastated.

Similar to Inception, Paprika, or Legion if you liked any of those.

I'd totally app the Spirit Mushroom.

Fate-verse. Like, Fate/stay night, Fate/Zero, etc.

Outside of the Holy Grail War, it's actually a pretty complex and interesting setting, with a lot of political intrigue between all these different magical families, and magic itself is like this really cool blend of both WoD Mage games and --

WAIT COME BACK

@Coin said in Avatar / Korra game considerations:

why can't anyone, even staff, play the Avatar? Because they are a baby. What is the Avatar doing?

An interesting thing to consider setting it post-Korra is

***=LOK spoiler***

@Groth said in Gauging Interest:

I presume their own device is elsewhere(tm) while they're running stories for the other crew.

This just creates, IMHO, some weird logistics and seems like a restriction on the kinds of stories you can tell.

Like, say for example an independent TT char is the sort that is not exactly benign and runs stories about time-hopping Hijinks that the Crew is supposed to stop, prevent, or counteract? Only one time machine per story creates a clunky barrier that you then have to work around.

@HelloProject said in Gauging Interest:

Also I'm assuming that people in different crews can be in the same plot.

Another perfect example of why this would be a difficult rule. If two Crews get involved in the same adventures, do they need to contrive some reason for one or the other time machine to be inactive every single time?

@Botulism said in Gauging Interest:

There can also be more than one Time Traveler in a Crew, but only one time travel device

What makes a Time Traveler character a Time Traveler if they don't have access to their own device? How does this work with independent Time Traveler characters that run a story for a Crew that already includes one?

A Whoniverse game would be fun! I know one was tried somewhat recently, and seemed to have a few good months of play in it. I always intended to apply but never had the time, but if I recall correctly I think the biggest issue they faced (and seems likely to crop up again if you don't find some way to address it) is that the game was very group-oriented and individuals had a hard time finding RP.

@Rinel

Not to get into spoilers too much since you're still in S2, but Korra's journey is just TV worth watching. She falls down hard later on and gets back up very slowly, and it is very real and relatable. All the feels.

Also Verrick is just great. Always.

The one thing I didn't particularly enjoy was how much focus there was on the descendants of the original Team Avatar; kinda felt Star Warsy in a way, like you have this whole world and that there are only like three families worth knowing is a little offputting to me, if that makes sense?

But the characters themselves are fun and I feel like you'll def have come to know them just as well by the end.

Just for those interested, an article about Cannabis-induced psychosis, which was my official diagnosis. There's evidence that certain genetic factors increase the risk, but there is still a risk of CIP without them.