Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Disco Elysium is a text-heavy, action-light RPG. It probably does remind me most closely of Planescape: Torment, though it isn't quite as legitimately "out there" as that classic. The character-defining stats are daunting as hell at first glance with things like Rhetoric (ability to persuade others) and Pain Threshold (affecting physical health) to Esprit de Corps (connection with and knowledge of police) and Encyclopedia (general world knowledge). The game is strewn with passive skill checks that affect information presented to you, the player. Then there are active checks to accomplish certain things, many of which can be attempted again if you increase the relevant trait. You also get Thoughts that can be suggested by conversations and encounters that you can put into your "Thought Cabinet" to consider for several in-game hours until reaching a conclusion. Such things usually have a negative modifier that, upon conclusion, becomes a positive one. Some don&

Okay, I should start by saying I've avoided spoilers, barely seen trailers, and set my expectations pretty low. I always say that endings are hard, and building the end of a 9-episode Star Wars sequence is a burden I wouldn't envy. It doesn't help that Episode 8 upended a lot of established content in ways that were... questionable. Where does one go from there? With all that in mind, I think The Rise of Skywalker did okay. I don't feel betrayed or seriously let down. I also don't feel radically uplifted and into Star Wars more than before. It felt more respectful of the canon than The Last Jedi, but it couldn't totally ignore that movie either. There are a lot of references and call-backs as major series characters and threads are gathered up as best as possible to try to tie things together. And with all that going on, things are cranked up to 11. I felt that was unnecessary, but also almost inevitable. Sequels are supposed to be "more and bigger"

Things were reasonably normal when I got home last night after doing a little favor/errand. I peeked in at Discord to see what the latest RP-stuffs was and saw 223 messages missed just in the general conversation channel. Okay, time to skim... talking about making new martial arts... bear traps as weapons... Yeah, I could sense that little jealous flare of "I'm conforming to presented rules while others are expanding/bending them." Ugh. So, I told myself flat out, "Look, you're not going to let this get to you tonight. It's too easy. You'll get bothered. You'll feel left out. That'll make you depressed about it. Just don't tonight, okay?" And with that, I pushed back, listened to a Youtube video, and went to make dinner. As dinner was ready, my phone buzzed with a message from my supervisor/co-tech. The accounting server had been restarted for Windows updates and was now in a recovery loop asking for a password that didn't match o

So, Nevernight set up an assassin girl out for revenge with unusual shadow powers. Godsgrave upended things somewhat with a few reveals and threads of destiny. Darkdawn ... I'm not sure exactly what to say about it... It continues the story, of course. The divine destiny is expanded upon. The source and natural of those shadow abilities is fully revealed. Relationships are complicated and carry on through. Vengeful battles are had. Good times! There are bits, however, that are kind of "out there" in ways I almost expect out of some anime series these days. We go full-on meta by having the novels themselves showing up in a mystical library of books destroyed and unwritten. And this isn't a throw-away event, either. Several characters are literally brought up to date on things they never were around to see by reading them and make plans based on what they've read. That is simultaneously a fascinating mind bender and a disappointing deus ex machina. Also, the

Man, being pissed off at myself is tiring. It's also sort of self-fueling, as I hate the waste of time and energy of it. And yet it's one of those emotional gut reactions that's near-impossible to shake. The trigger is generally another emotional reaction that I dislike. Most recently, it's this competitive streak I have. Yeah, I don't avoid PVP in games simply because the gameplay itself isn't fun. A big part of the reason I avoid that sort of entertainment is because I know I can get invested in winning to a problematic degree. Whether I win or lose (and yeah, I find losing frustrating), I face a part of me that I really don't like. And that, in turn, makes me angry with myself. I don't want to seek gratification at the expense of others. I find it distasteful and judge myself for it. Playing Magic with friends was probably borderline. We played almost exclusively in group games, which slows the pace and definitely made it more casual in my mind. I

I saw a review headline that read something like "... is a great Star Wars game with terrible slides." I think that's really a pretty solid assessment. My biggest problem with it is, in fact, the sliding sections. While the penalty for falling off edges isn't great, it is frustrating as heck to miss a jump over and over. Whoever thought that was a good design inclusion - no cookie for them! Other than that, I would say I found the combat challenging to difficult and turned the difficulty down on some boss fights. That may be because the combat is block-biased (in action combat games, I tend to prefer dodging) and I never got the timing down well, so it might not be so brutal to players who get that down. And at least there is an adjustable difficulty. But the combination of explorative traversal, puzzle-solving, and combat all works pretty well otherwise. Unlocking Force abilities feels pretty good, even if there's a lot of potential backtracking for completi

"War never changes." That line from the Fallout games is oft-quoted. In the process, I'm reminded that another game (Metal Gear Solid 4) pitched the counterpoint: "War has changed." Last night, the question game up of whether the group of FurryFaire players playing on Discord would want to see a world war play out. One player pointed out this would likely fracture the PCs who are only sort of starting to come together now. For simplicity, I probably should have backed that position (which I find to be true) or just simply answered "no." Instead, I fell back on other thoughts and reasoning against it. Ah well. I've considered the impacts of magic on warfare before - at least since I read and did a book report on Pools of Darkness, a Forgotten Realms-based D&D novel. I've long since forgotten many of the details, but at the time that was a facet of the story that struck me. "Simple" things like being able to march an undead unit