One of my favorite game publishers, this is wild (and not the Outer kind of wild). I’m super curious if the entire staff will start their own publishing company (which I imagine is harder to do without the financial backing of a billionaire’s daughter) or if they’ll split off and go their separate ways.

I’m also very curious if this will start changing the kinds of games Annapurna publishes or if they’ll still take interest in odd and niche games that need a publisher. I wish I knew more about the dispute here but time will tell what happens next at some point.

It kinda looks like the wizard saw some dudes fighting a dragon and started livestreaming it.

I could see this wizard being voiced by J.G. Quintel!

Ah yeah I totally understand that, I think the only times I was really comfortable going all in with the role-playing was when I had a bunch of film classes for electives and had to practice acting and improv skills a little bit. I hear that actor Joe Manganiello has a group of actors that take their characters super seriously and really get into their roles. I lean toward being a little sillier with it all so I’d probably get glared at in a strictly serious group and tend to have more fun walking the line.

There are so many ways to play the game that as long as everyone is having a good time it’s a success! It’s always great to see the characters people come up with and the stories they live in so I hope to see more character art if you feel like posting more!

Cool art style! Does your friend do a London street thief accent for the character? The voice actor for Cunoesse from Disco Elysium sounds like a really good fit.

It’s never explicitly explained, with the most being the other characters saying that they don’t think he’s ever seen the movie Gattaca and doesn’t know what it’s about, and Rafi later confirming he had no idea it was a movie.

Since Rafi’s character is defined by being as uninformed, devoid of all decency, and chaotic as possible, I think that it completely fits though. Especially since most of his lines are improvised by Mantzoukas, who would be clever enough to use a similar-sounding movie title in place of an actual event for Rafi’s character. Adding to that, there is another scene in later seasons where Rafi is getting kicked out of a store and he says that they’ll have to call in the police and the FBI to get him out of there, again shouting “Gattaca” which definitely plays into your theory.

If anyone gets the chance to ask Jason Mantzoukas a question, this is the one to ask about! Until then, I think this just became my headcanon. GATTACA!

I don’t use it very often but I misuse the word “Gattaca” on purpose sometimes. In reality it’s the title of the 1997 film that’s named from the letters G,A,T, and C, referring to guanine, adenin, thymine and cytosine, the four nucleobases of DNA.

But on the TV show The League, the character Rafi (Jason Mantzoukas) screams it as his battle cry during paintball, completely oblivious to what it actually means or that it’s the title of a movie. I urge you all to misuse this word at some point as well – if you ever need to hype yourself up, try screaming “GATTACA!” as your battle cry!

Yeah that’s fair. I figured since the kid is 11 years old that the figures and paper really help them visualize obstacles and enemy positions, etc. And my anecdotal experience with making it much easier when I was a DM to keep track of where everyone was, the graph squares making it easy to show how far they could move per turn in battle, if there was anything blocking ranged attack paths, if certain spells could reach their target, etc.

I’m no career campaigner though so I don’t know how hard and fast these things go when calculating if they can get close enough to a target to attack during their turn and all that. Would things like movement speed not matter so much in this instance and it would play more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book kind of thing? That does sound way easier. If keeping track of positions and stuff in combat is still fairly strict though I’d totally need paper and figs to remember the specifics.

I’m sure someone more experienced than me can give you more confident suggestions but I’ve been seeing the Starter Kit, Essentials Kit, and Core Rules Gift Set advertised more for the holidays. The descriptions make some of them sound like massive expansions on the bare basics and thereby possibly more overwhelming than you’d probably need at first. I think some include location books that may be different from the kinds of environments you want in your own campaign too so be sure to examine what’s included.

I’ve mostly only played and DM’d in homebrew groups so I’m probably too loose with it all but I will say you definitely need those two things you mentioned. Here’s what I found necessary to really get things started:

• Players Handbook
• DM Handbook
• Monster Manual
• DM Screen (don’t overlook this one, there are a bunch you can purchase that not only keep your players from reading off your game script but also have quick sheet information that is incredibly helpful on the fly. You can also print your own for free if you can create or find what you want, the DnD Compendium here has some free DM Screen images and files that you can print.
• Large Graph Paper (to draw your environments, and to measure how far players/NPCs can move per turn, etc.).
• Mini Figures (you can custom make some to fit your family’s characters at something like Hero Forge, buy different pre-made characters and monsters, or go the cheap route and print out pictures of characters that you can fold so they stand up on the board).
• Dice. Or, alternatively, I know some DM’s that run their own dice program code on their laptops so they don’t have to physically roll for monster and NPC actions and can just run it through their programs (but if you go this route, still get your family their own dice sets so they can roll for their own characters’ actions).
• A laptop with your game script and a darn good soundtrack playlist ready so you can set the right music mood for battles, taverns, etc.

You can also pick up a campaign book that interests you, or find some of the cool free one-shot campaigns right here in this very Lemmy community to cut down on the world and quest building! And of course, before I waste any more of your time, make sure to check out the DM Academy Lemmy community that’s all about teaching and learning how to DM!

Apparently they’re called “butt babies” according to James Gunn’s Peacemaker.

Yeah this was after his “training” when he went with this as the unhinged-person equivalent of a superhero costume. He’s smirking at the rally he’s at but also trying to blend in by smiling and clapping, even though his new look makes him completely stand out.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen it but it is a total classic that’s worth a rewatch if you don’t remember it!

I did some deep digging and found a few random works resembling the same alien so I think it’s just a common style that I’ve seen just enough to vaguely remember it!

And thanks, when I switched to Lemmy I was thinking about pun usernames and as soon as I thought of it I knew it was the one!

Turns out it’s just the alien equivalent of someone you think you know but “just has one of those faces.” I ended up finding a few different artists that did something similar and I must just have seen them enough to vaguely remember them!

There’s a stock illustration, and stock cartoon, and a coloring book, and an original gallery all from completely different people!

I see Robert De Niro from Taxi Driver applying for the job.

I swear the alien in the middle with the spacesuit and fishbowl helmet looks familiar too. Anyone recognize the other applicants?

I upvoted this when it posted but I’m back days later to say that I’m still laughing whenever I think about it. Shoutout to Uncle From Another World for explaining the tsundere trope in full and being the reason I got the joke.

When you realize you just completed a quest for Teddy Perkins.

A lot of big names attached to working on this which is great, but I still hope some of the original writers can get on this. If no one else, I’d at least like to see Greg Weisman involved.

I know Greg’s working on the comics but ultimately I’d love to see him able to finish the original animated series too.

Oh I thought he was long gone since Nocturne takes place about 300 years after the original series ended. I think he stayed human until the very end and returned to his home to lead and create a life for himself, but did he end up doing some eternal life enchantment stuff that I don’t remember? He was definitely a top tier character for me so I’d love to at least hear about him even if he’s gone and we don’t get to see him.

It didn’t occur to me until you mentioned it but now I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll bring in that familiar. I think you’re right that it’ll have to be something she works toward summoning. I’m curious if Olrox might assist in that journey with his vast experience in animal shapeshifting and ancient knowledge, but that’s just a thought at this point and not really a theory I’m committed to.

The first Castlevania series definitely felt far more concerned with building a story that had the spirit of the games but completely could stand on its own merit. Nocturne seems more like it was written with the idea of crafting a story to simply serve the action sequences. As such I think the original had action that felt like more was at stake (a pun I know), whereas Nocturne felt like the action was more just to look really cool even when it had the heroes losing during fights.

I think focusing on the brutality of vampires and night creatures during the first season of the original show along with the depth of the characters really helped the fight sequences feel more dire. Here I felt like I was just watching really cool fight choreography without a lot of weight.

That said, I still enjoyed it. I may not have been clamoring to find out what happens next like I did binging through each season of the original. But, even watching Nocturne at a slower pace without a lot of interest to see the events unfold or the characters continue was still enjoyable. For me, the original stands as a really good show, whereas Nocturne is just fun entertainment. That said, I am definitely intrigued by the conscious night creatures turning against their intended purpose in Nocturne, am really liking Zahn McClarnon’s performance and character, and think that having a certain son of a certain vampire throughout season 2 might ramp things up a bit.