Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 7h

We do exploration, but we don't like... make new cities on lands occupied by goblins after kicking them out of it. We explore new cultures, learn about their habits, and help them with their corrupt pricks.

Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 7h

Hearing people talking about how D&D and TTRPGs are so much about "cowboys versus Indians" made me instinctively deny it. But then I realized how differently we're playing our game, where 90% of the time we're fighting religious zealots and corrupt politcians, instead of "monsters".

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 7h

How does that work within the fiction? Is there a rule on how early you can go, or do you win forever by killing him the moment he's born?

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 7h

The kids, no. But the grognards are as argumentative about it as ever.

Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 11h

While I do not take those tools away from my players, I try to emphasize through the worldbuilding that this is not common. The prices for resurrections are exorbitant, spellcasters who can cast it are very rare, and so is the ability to walk the planes. Afterlife is real and tangible, but remote.

Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 13h

(5) So I personally think it wouldn't work very well because of different design goals, but if you really wanted to do it, it is probably doable relatively easily (but very time consuming due to translating spell effects). (End)

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 13h

(4) It is probably possible to just replace the Prepared Spells mechanic with an MtG deck you have to design separately, but you'd probably have to also translate the spell mechanics between systems? I do a lot of that kind of translation and it can be hard in some instances.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 13h

(3) In my system, there's no prepared spells at all, if you learn a spell, you remember it, no silly Vancian living spells that you forget every day, and no rules to tell you what you remember at any given moment - but my system does value freedom and versatility first and foremost.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 13h

(2) In Magic, the cards you draw are the spells that are coming to your mind at the moment, and your deck is the spells you remember altogether. The "remember in the moment" mechanic doesn't translate well into TTRPGs, because generally you decide what you're thinking about, not random draw.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 13h

I have tried designing MtG-based systems in a TTRPG, non-D&D, and IMO, there is some conceptual clash between how TTRPGs and Magic represent memory and spells.

In D&D, you memorize spells at the beginning of the day and switch them out then, because spells are "alive" in their fiction. (Cont'd)

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 14h

I've said it in my own YouTube videos, it is very surprising they aren't doing anything with that given how popular TTRPGs have become since. We got the old tabletop gamer Metzen back at the helm, so maybe he will eventually push for something but IDK.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 14h

That also existed in the past! Look up StarCraft Alternity.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 1d

WoW used to have RPGs back in the 3rd edition era. It was very heavy on d20/D&D, but it used some of its unique flair. It was somewhere between campaign setting and full system.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 1d

For the most part, simply the natural extensions of things people do with regular mundane power. Only more massive and more thorough. Like, if there's people running around with mind control powers.. what can they do to you with it? I don't condemn things that are entirely fictional, like necromancy

Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 1d

Anyone playing WoW GeoGuessr (aka WoWGuessr)?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbne...

Did I Get Any Better at WoW GeoGuessr?

YouTube video by Kalontas

www.youtube.com

Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 2d

So people will probably have more to say when there's more to see.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 2d

I sometimes envy Germans the ease of creating new words to describe things they just thought of. "The feeling of being proud of doing something well, but it's also something people would ridicule you for? Sure, that's... shamepride."

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 2d

There isn't a whole lot there yet to say much. What's with those two oddly-shaped straits bisecting the two landmasses?

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 4d

Someone cursed is someone who is probably alive, just debilitated in some way. Someone damned is someone condemned to go into a certain direction, or already gone there. Neither is unbreakable, but the latter sounds dead.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 4d

I don't write here often (because I have very few followers), but I keep "fixing" WoW (for a TTRPG).

youtu.be/6xeuTD_-3DI

How I Fixed the Void in World of WarCraft (for a TTRPG)

YouTube video by Kalontas

youtu.be

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 4d

She looks like a half-orc whose other half is Trill, lol. I'd say githyanki/githzerai but the gear throws me off.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 5d

I swear "Liam, someone you love is about to die" will be remembered in the history of RPGs.

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Reposted by Kalontas / Xarthat

Elizabeth Smith @instantsunrise.bsky.social · 5d

Mountain Dew implies the existence of Plains Dew, Island Dew, Swamp Dew and Forest Dew.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 5d

And my point was, it's totally fine to change small pieces of the system you don't like. Each table is different, and each plays to their own players. I'm not going to be constrained by books if I see my players are not happy with something.

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Kalontas / Xarthat @kalontas.bsky.social · 5d

What do I do then when I agree with about 50% of the rules of one system, and much less of other systems? There's really no system I agree on anywhere close to 90%, except the one I made myself for my small group of friends. (When we disagree with that one, we change what we disagreed with)

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