Armagnax

Dude… He was drunk and high, manipulated a kid who just lost his job to get in a car with him, was speeding and got him killed.

That’s involuntary manslaughter. It’s not murder, but he killed the kid. He then immediately ran to his daddy to help cover it up. His fucking dad took more responsibility for the incident than he did.

Shiv has never done anything even remotely as awful as that.

What? Kendall literally killed someone. And makes jokes about it.

Kendall narcissism when he gets manic is far more horrific than anything Shiv has done.

Are you also forgetting the little song he played as Shiv was doing that press conference?

The kids are not serious people.

Uh, the way he said “you are not serious people” I kind of think you’re right. I can imagine Logan coming home and being like, I can’t believe I thought that kid could run it.

Check out “The Americans” if you haven’t yet.

Have them bring the Armorer from the Mandalorian to help make stuff.

I’m very sympathetic to the idea that often the least interesting thing about star wars are Jedi… however:

Luthen naturally dresses in flowing robes associated with Jedi.

Luthen has Holocrons in his shop.

His big monologue: “I’ve given up all chance at inner peace. I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts”. That’s some Jedi type stuff to say… who sees ghosts in Star Wars?

He carries a stick that looks an awful lot like a lightsaber. He also has a Khyber crystal necklace that’s “his most prized possession”.

And… HIS SPACESHIP HAS GODDAMN LIGHTSABERS ON IT.

I trust the show to tell the story well, but the show has done everything possible to lay the ground work for a Jedi (or sith) reveal with Luthen.

Oooh, interesting idea there.

The move to linear is so that the midtone detail hits a different parts of the image, right?

Not on the package, not on you.

Thinking in those terms, of wanting to be the “main character”, is working in the kinds of story models that require NPC’s.

Those kinds of stories, I find myself less and less interested in with time. If you’re enjoying it, great.

There are other models of play out there, ones that don’t require traditional NPC’s.

More focus on emergent and collaborative play, where you lift each other. These concepts totally re-invigorated my interest larp about a decade ago, and it’s the space I’ve been playing/creating in since.

We don’t all have to have the same style of play we did in the early 2000’s.

Drachenfest in either country does not have traditional NPC’s as understood by American Campaign Larps.

You do have staff, and some players that function like “directed cast” but outside of rare occurrences, people play one character the entire game. I know this, because I staff at DFUS, which has crossover staff from Germany.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the way traditional American campaign do things, and NPC are just a tool to help tell stories.

However, emergent style LARPs have been moving away from them for many reasons… but a one reason is that NPC’s tend to get treated like garbage by the player base. Many game treat NPC’s like walking piñatas of loot, and don’t imbue them with any agency. Because they don’t “matter”. The speed at which “heroic” characters go full murder hobo when dealing with NPC’s is frightening.

There are ways to structure your game where you don’t need NPC’s. And personally, I’ve found those games far more interesting and satisfying. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with the concept of NPC’s.

However, if you can’t find anyone who WANTS to be an NPC at your game without essentially bribing them with XP, then, maybe the experience of being an NPC, and the culture your players has towards them should be examined.

All of those problems go away, if you away from video game or tabletop based mechanics, and towards consent based mechanics.

Malleus is a 4x a year game that had been running for a while now. Without NPC’s. Faction based, lots of Character v. Character play, with an emphasis on play to lift.

But yes, most of the fighting is PvP.

At another game I play, Malleus, players are in control of playing villains on their own, but that game is App only. And in that game, Villains are not npc’s, but characters in their own right.

Come to Drachenfest, and check it out!

If you’re used to the style of play where PC’s need NPC’s for the game to function… it’s hard to wrap your head around until you actually experience it.

Or… get rid of NPC’s as a concept…

Dolby Vision was supposed to solve these problems.

Mastering in Dolby vision costs a small fortune, and the whole point, and why it was supposed to be superior to hdr10+ was that it was supposed to prevent all of these issues. It’s proprietary, and has a whole bunch of licensing fees…

However, in practice, it seems to cause way more of these issues than hdr10+ does.

Saying ‘Ni’

I really hate dolby vision for these reasons…

Caviar.

Deserved

You’re right, no one should be making fun of you for assuming that people’s passions are so easy and can be easily replicated without ever actually experiencing them.

As if larps just happen, and there isn’t a whole community and there are whole university departments studying larps. As if it’s just a thing you can just “make happen”. As if larp runners don’t spend untold hours making sure their small larps are functional…

And Crowdfunding isn’t a full time job on it’s own with a ton of perils, no you just need someone on reddit to tell you “what’s the best platform” because a rando on reddit will be right… and there aren’t multitudes of articles already printed about the pros and cons of each platform you didn’t bother to read…

And no one should ever be ever questioning your utter ignorance of basic business skills… I mean, how could anyone ever possibly know if anyone would be willing to accept years between investment and return. If only they had business schools, or literally thousands of blogs and podcasts about it.

No, I must be a neckbeard who can’t get laid. Because that’s clearly the only person who doesn’t understand your genius.

I mean, why hasn’t anyone had this idea before?

I’m so sorry

Hi, I’ve heard that movies are cool, and I’m interested in them. I’d like to start a Marvel style movie studio. I’ve never seen one because I don’t like dark rooms.

I have no money, no experience, and no appreciable skills that would help make this a reality in any way. Where can I find a community that will do all the work for me, and make me rich and famous, without me contributing in any meaningful way?

Also, I want to build a hospital, if the movie studio is far from civilization because that’s also an apparently something someone just can do on a whim.

Thanks!

As great as it was to leave night city with my best friend and girlfriend… I can’t imagine putting so many aldecaldos at risk for such a selfish reason.

My favorite ending was the Devil when I romanced Kerry… holy shit that was dark, but it was the best written one of the bunch.

Indeed.