Ketram

Everyone else covered stuff pretty well. I guess I want to elaborate more on the writing style of 40K:

The reason why 40K grimdark stuff is so fascinating and not just depressing is because humanity has spread so far, to countless untold worlds being found and re-found as the warp fucks up space travel etc. that the value of a human life is essentially NOTHING.

They live in such horrible fascist, imperialist control, surrounded by countless incredible enemies and dangers that most imperialist groups just wipe out groups of people (or even planets) that seem corrupted, or straying, or whatever else.

I think understanding the level of oppression for these people is tantamount to understanding the morality and characters of rogue trader. As a rogue trader, you are one of the only wildly privileged people in the galaxy. Everyone else is so used to existing in this deeply fucked hierarchy in this deeply fucked universe, that to understand them you need to accept this is how their lives are.

Sorry if that was too vague, but it is important context, I think. This is a universe where the value of a human life is infinitesimal.

Actually just got here with my friend. I felt the same way, I really wanted there to be a world where there was more than a “get improved dodge+ nimble onslaught, get auto revival and guts” for builds. Same thing with the majority of damage stats, there are only a couple that are actually good (big and multiplicative, pretty much just tyranny and stamina) so builds become very restrictive and based on specific sigil drops WAY too fast.

I feel your pain. You kind of HAVE to do perfect dodges to survive later fights consistently. I will say, if you get max Improved Dodge sigil it makes dodges practically twice as easy.

I will say though, endgame is so goddamn grindy. They’ve almost lost me as well, my interest has only survived because I’m able to AFK farm in the background while doing things on a second monitor.

Like my experience with most remedy games by this point. Cool concept, interesting world, so many things I SHOULD love…but the combat got so damn repetitive and unfun. Same enemy types over and over again. Killed all enjoyment for me. At least I finished it.

Goddamn interstellar wizard alliances at it again.

I hope you have a good one near you! I met many social workers at UU churches.

Good luck!

I would see if you have a Unitarian Universalist (UU) Congregation near you.

It IS technically a religion, but it doesn’t feel like anyone is trying to make you believe anything, is aggressively LGBTQIA+ friendly, and is also welcoming to all races and cultures (it is literally in their commandments to respect people regardless of creed or views, and respect their individual search for truth and meaning).

While people there are incredibly nice, welcoming etc…the big downside is that most people at UU churches are usually older. It’s got a lot of “old hippie” energy, which is great but they might have less younger people if you’re looking for people in your age group. You won’t really know until you visit your (hopefully) nearby congregation.

They do have traditional church services, with sitting at pews and singing hymns (a select hymnal with a lot of pagany hymns) and a sermon, but the sermon is always about philosophical things and thought provoking stuff, or more recently about current events. For example, when I went for my first time to a nearby church, the reverend spoke about her life growing up queer and everything the world did to make her feel like she didn’t belong.

If you can give the church format a chance, I can’t recommend it enough. A lot of the greatest most loving people I have met have been UU, and I still love and cherish them to this day.

Sorry if this is too churchy for what you are looking for. I would say if you’re pretty liberal/leftist and you want to find groups that do/talk about stuff like that you can often find those connected to UU churches in some way and they’ll never pressure you beyond “oh we hope you will stay, we love to have you” and things like that.

Yeah Kotor 1 is a very classic Star wars hero story, which is fun in its own way. Kotor 2 With TSLRCM patch will likely hit a lot better for you after disco Elysium.

Disco Elysium

Hi-Fi Rush

…third is hard. Maybe Mass Effect Trilogy. Maybe Rogue Trader/Pathfinder WOTR.

Love these posts so much. Thank you for sharing these every single time, it is such a lemmy staple. You make this space way more awesome with your contribution :)

Thanks for the clarification. I remember the gyroscopic weight stuff somewhat, but always sorta dismissed it since it felt like it was selectively used by authors and many of my favorites made little to no mention of it.

I haven’t had much desire to watch any of the new stuff since Force Awakens so I’m not up to snuff on the new stuff. Keep on enjoying it though! Makes me want to go back and read some of the best of legends.

Maybe I’m just old, but I can’t stand how magic the " kyber" crystals are in the rewritten sequel canon. In older legends canon, there was no “the crystal chooses the Jedi blah blah blah” which really makes it seem incredibly religious. You could use nearly any focusing crystal in a lightsaber, and Jedi would often choose a crystal that is sentimental or meaningful to them. There was little to no magic, and lightsabers were cheap and simple to construct. It was more that no one but a force-user could bring a laser-sword to a laser-gun fight and not die immediately.

I know I’m just not up with the times but I really loved old Star wars legends and how much emphasis it put on how these people who could use the force were normal people with exceptional abilities trying to interpret something much stranger and bigger than them (the force), and I feel like “kyber” crystals are a symptom of the very binary, new light vs. dark sequel canon which I find insanely reductive.

So uh yeah, I know I’m just old but it really bothers me.

P.S. Also isn’t the word “Kyber” just them bastardizing “Kaiburr” crystals (which were supposed to be rare lightsaber crystals)? I was pretty sure this was always the case.

Agreed, Owlcat has always earned my money and then some, I think. Especially with the new rogue trader DLCs, which are all connected to the main story somehow and playable in a new playthrough.

It’s hard to extoll the virtues of my chosen system (Pathfinder2e) without comparing it to the issues of where I find 5e lacking.

That said, what I love about 2e is the great encounter balance, almost every single “build” for a class is viable, and when you say “I’m playing a rogue” there are like 4 major types of rogues that all feel like they play differently instead of just some tacked on homebrew class. Adding free archetype rules (supported by the system creators themselves in their books) adds even more customizability.

One of my favorite things is that PF2e makes it feel like it makes encounter design fun again; martials actually have more options than just walk up and attack repeatedly, spacing matters, defenses matter. Most classes have some sort of gimmick that makes them play differently. Been working with my girlfriend to make a swashbuckler for the game I am DMing, and the panache/bravado/finisher mechanics really excite us from a roleplay and gameplay standpoint.

The three action system is way more flexible than the action/bonus action system. You can spend all 3 actions on a huge spell and burn your entire turn. You can move away from enemies to force them to burn an action or flank them to gain bonuses to attack for yourself and allies. You can apply debuffs using your main stats with actions like Demoralize, and still attack or move on your turn.

You constantly gain feats, and they are what defines your character so much. No longer do you get a “choice” of an ASI or feat. You get ones every level. There are ancestry tests from your race, class feats, skill feats, archetype feats. They don’t just make you stronger, they instead give you more possible actions, give you unique traits, like being able to fight while climbing or use deception to detect when someone is lying instead of perception.

Also, you can find every rule for free online @ Archives of Nethys. No more being gated by purchases outside of adventure paths.

I could keep going, and I really want to extoll how awesome Golarion is, and the pantheon of gods, and everything. But I will stop here. Would happily answer anyone’s questions about the system, I love it. It gave me true passion for tabletop RPGs while DnD5e made me feel really mildly about it.

As an old souls player who doesn’t touch many new souls games, and only really goes back to Bloodborne, I can say this is the one souls game I played, dropped, then came back and finished. Very good game, very good systems. You can tell how much they loved Bloodborne specifically when making this game. It has a very similarly focused art style and I’m a big fan.

I was raised partially in a Unitarian Universalist church which believes in comprehensive sex education. I was still a dumbass about it but they definitely tried to inform me and I think I have a healthier sex life than most people have had.

Zuck is, however, at the top of the list for lizard person index.

Bezos has such a shit-eating grin. Really makes him infinitely more punchable