Basic Gameplay “Loop”

So, what do I have set up for my players? Having a world is fine and all, but what great challenge is going to face the players? Many Dungeons and Dragons campaigns have some epic story behind them. Perhaps a clue to a long lost Dwarven fortress has been discovered. The adventurers must race to find this fortress before another power claims them. Or perhaps a dragon cult is trying to resurrect their dragon god. The adventurers must foil these plans for the good of the world. Or perhaps the adventurers have been stranded in a dark realm ruled by a vampire king. They must unravel the mysteries of this place if they are to have any hope of survival. So what great story will my campaign entail?

The Basic Loop

At first there won’t be some epic quest. In essence they will be the fantasy version of contractors, exploring dungeons and returning with magic items. But, fairly quickly I will have the group come to the attention of those in charge of the settlement. This will get the group a bit more direction in what dungeons to explore, and possible side objectives.

The basic “gameplay loop” I am going for is this: players get assigned/chose a dungeon to explore. They travel to the dungeon and clear it. Upon returning to town the characters get a week “downtime” to have fun and get in trouble. Then repeat the loop.

But of course, nothing ever goes according to a smooth plan. Normally this would be where I would tell you what big twist awaits the players. But as of yet, no twist exists. Mostly this is because when I made this setting I was trying to make a giant “sandbox” for the players to play in. So how will I get my twist?

The Twist

If I have no twist planned, how will I get one? One of three ways. I will go in order of most preferred to least.

backstory

This one is fairly simple. Each player will make a backstory for their character, and I can draw on those backstories to create new points of tension or conflicts for them to deal with.

For instance, a player may be searching for parts of an ancient, broken, magic item. Maybe the pieces have been discovered by another group. How will the player go about getting them? Will they even involve the rest of the party? Or maybe another player’s past catches up to them in the form of a competing adventure’s party. Or even more complicated quests could arise.

it is a sandbox

This one is the most organic. Put simply, given enough rope an adventure’s party with either: 1 hang themselves 2 accidently kidnap someone they shouldn’t have or 3 recreate the Gordian Knot. Any of these can turn into an interesting adventure, and basically only relies on me to react to what the party does with either “Yes, and…” or “No, but…” aka, the two most useful phrases in improv.

Kick the nest

The final one is the one I least want to use. If the players refuse to create problems (or solve problems too quickly) I can have the island throw a problem at them. One idea I had to this is as follows.

During one of the party’s down days the alarms begin to sound. A giant lumbering beast has been spotted approaching the settlement. Too large and fast to face head on they wait at the barricades to face the beast and turn it back. But as it grows closer, it looks… strange, not quite right. Until it gets close enough to realize it is fake, a “trojan horse” monster. It heaves itself over the walls, ignoring the punishment it is taking from the defenders, before disgorging a horde of goblins into the settlement. These goblins are not here to fight, but to steal everything they can get there hands on before running away.

How will the party react to this? Will they get something of theirs stolen too? Who built the mechanical monster that breached the walls? All things to kick off an adventure. The only question now being: Which adventure will they find/create in this sandbox.

Populating My World

Now, the setting for my campaign is a brand new island, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be people here. While it is true there won’t be any natives (at least as far as anyone is aware) plenty of people have an interest in this island. Some for a fresh start. Others to plunder the riches of the dungeons. Some for the mystery of this place. And a few have arrived to safeguard against the potential danger this place represents.

Primary Settlement

The first group my adventuring party is going to encounter is the primary settlement created by the adventures exploring this island. This settlement is split into two sections: the civilian flotilla and the adventure’s stronghold.

The Flotilla

The flotilla is a collection of ships and semi-permeant floating structures a few miles off shore. Viewed from the outside it looks like a small floating city, with almost all the accommodations you would expect from a well established settlement. Blacksmiths, eateries, tailor shops, housing, a town square, even a hospital all exist in this floating city. As for why the civilians live off the island, that’s simple. The Island is dangerous. Seemingly random beasts sometimes appear, and it is safer for the civilians to just not be in harm’s way. Not to mention easier for the adventures to drive off the beasts.

Adventure’s stronghold

The stronghold is the on land coastal settlement of the adventures. While it doesn’t have as many of the accommodations that the flotilla has, it is hardly bare bones. One giant bar services the adventures, with enough partitions that it functions as almost 5-7 bars. Several weapon and armor shops with gear from all over the multiverse. Many so called “general stores” with all the gear an adventure could want. And then you have the administration.

This is a stronghold after all, so those in charge had to fortify it. Several barracks line the impressive outer walls, with enough semi-retired adventures living in them to fight off several Dragons if it came to it. For those adventures not in the full time business of defending the settlement there are boarding houses randomly distributed throughout the settlement… At least they appear random, until you note the even distribution and a few other patterns that guarantee whatever threat the settlement faces: someone will be on scene quickly. Finally we have the administration of the entire settlement, flotilla and stronghold both.

Administration

The group primarily in charge of this settlement are “commonly” known as The Insatiable Scholars. This is a group I created for the backstory of an old character I once played. In short they believe Magic has no inherent morality, whether it be a firebolt, the magic to become an undead Lich that feeds on souls, or even healing magic. To them the magic itself is not good or evil, although the consequences of a given use may be. Along with this amoral stance is a generations long quest to learn all there is to know about magic. Understandably, an island connected to all the planes of existence, that seems to spontaneously create dungeons and magic items, presents an irresistible siren’s call to them. With their considerable resources, connections, and raw power they got themselves put in charge of the island’s exploration and investigation.

In game terms this means that the primary contact for my group is going to be a very powerful Wizard. This Wizard is going to be a bit absent minded and quirky, but have a bit more level headed wife to keep him on track. Both are very powerful, but so caught up in administrative work and keeping this place from falling apart that they can’t actually go and investigate as they wish. While they will provide the party with some support, they aren’t going to be able to wave their hands and make problems disappear for the party (the way a level 20 player might).

Everyone Else

This is getting a bit longer than I first thought, so I will give a quick round up of the other factions on the island at the start of the campaign. I may return to these and expand on them in a future post.

Goblins

Firstly there are at least 3 goblin tribes that disappeared into the Island’s interior and disappeared. Are they dead? Fractured into more tribes? Combined into one goblin empire? No one is quite sure. But it is known that at least some of them live on, as goblin raids and ambushes are not unheard of.

Creatures

Next up is the “local” fauna. Creatures from all over the multiverse appear to just… show up on the island. They struggle for dominance, some going extinct on the island before more creatures arrive to put everything into chaos again. Almost like the island itself is “borrowing” from other places to create a new ecosystem all its own.

Other Problems

It is speculated that some of the big boogeymen of the D&D world also have outposts on the island. Beings like the Mind Flayers, Cults dedicated to Dragons or Demons, covens of Necromancers or Vampires. Almost nothing is off the table. But by the same token almost nothing is yet written in stone.

Dragons (In my dungeons? more likely than you might think)

The last group I have decided will be part of the setting is a “lauth” of dragons. Long story short a “lauth” is a small group of dragons that have agreed to a common goal, becoming something close to a clan of dragons. These dragons need have nothing in common besides this singular goal, so traditionally good and evil dragons may align together.

In my case the lauth on this island will be comprised of several metallic, chromatic, and even gem dragons. No one is quite sure what their goal is, but tow things are certain. They seem to have the uncanny ability to know everything that is happening on the island at any given time. And they have made a habit of intercepting adventurers returning from a dungeon dive to take the magic item they retrieved. Curiously though, despite the dragon’s ability to simply overpower the adventurers and take what they want, they almost always offer a trade for the item in question.

Ideas for Settings

When last I left off I promised some of the ideas I had for the setting I would be presenting my players. Unfortunately I got sick shortly after, but I am back now. I must admit, writing these out is only in part for the consumption of others. I also am doing this to force myself to actually write out my ideas rather than letting them fester in my mind. That way I might actually make progress.

Where to Begin?

First and foremost: What world are we playing in? Dungeons and Dragons has a large number of established worlds with their own societies, power structures, threats, etcetera. So which one am I using? None of them and all of them. And just to cut off the D&D experts in the crowd, no this is not a plane shift campaign (if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it). Let me explain.

Objectives and Solutions

I had a simple objective when creating this world: Give my players an excuse to go dungeon diving. Inspired by a couple of fantasy stories I have been following, I started with the idea of Dungeons that self generated. But why would that happen? Magic obviously, but the more specific the better. And so I created an “Island”, on this island dungeons spontaneously generate with magic items at their core. Retrieve the item and the dungeon begins to collapse. What is in the dungeon? Almost anything from a classic stone dungeon filled with skeletons, to a cave with goblins and wolves, all the way to a full on “who done it” murder mystery.

You might have noticed I put “island” in quotation marks, that is because this island is on the larger size of that description. Somewhere between the size of New Zealand and Madagascar. AKA more than enough space to have just about anything show up. But where would this “anything” come from? Anywhere.

A little more backstory. In the lore of D&D there are multiple worlds, literally different planets, that compose what is called the “mortal plane”. Surrounding that are the other planes of existence, ranging from the Feywilds, to the Shadowfell, to the Elemental Planes, all the way to the outer planes of Order-Chaos and Good-Evil. Why is this relevant? Well, the back story for my island goes something like this.

Discovery

One day, a new island was discovered. No island should have been there, and it was too large to have gone unnoticed until now. Upon landing and exploring the island, the first explores found others doing the same. These people were strange, just a bit “off” from what was expected. But the Wizards of the expeditions all came to the same conclusion: they had each come from another world. It turns out that this island was somehow connected to multiple worlds of the Mortal Plane. Further investigation proved that this island in fact was connected to ALL the planes of existence. Upon discovering the dungeon phenomenon a kind of “gold rush” began. Spearheaded by adventures this gold rush was targeting not gold, but the far more valuable magic items at the core of the dungeons.

Upshots

With this set up I establish a few things. First a “sandbox” environment where anything can happen and the players are free to do just about anything. Next is two clear objectives: get loot and learn the mysteries of the island. And finally it makes the only requirement for a character created for this campaign to be “a reason to come to this island” place of origin, backstory, species, almost nothing is off the table as long as they have a reason to come here.

First Time Dudgeon Master

I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons for several years now, through multiple different worlds brought to life by our Dungeon Masters. Some basics of Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPGs): most people playing TTRPG are simply referred to as “players”. They create and play as a single character in a party of such characters with the other players. One player is different however. This player does not have a specific character they play. Instead they are in charge of managing the world you are playing in.

What is a DM?

They play the shop keep you buy your gear from, the little girl looking for her cat, the wizened wizard that sends you on a quest, down to the goblin you are fighting. They describe the world, they track everything, and even control the rules of the world. In TTRPGs there are mortals, there are gods, and above them all is the Dungeon Master. Some people will tell you the Dungeon Master tells the story for the players. These people are very wrong.

While it is true that the Dungeon Master sets up the initial situations the players find themselves in, it is the Players that decide how to respond to those situations. And those responses are the story that is told for years to come. The DM sets the stage for the Players to improv around.

Why bring all this up?

Simple. Because I have decided its my turn. My turn to run the game, to set the stage, and let the players go crazy. But in order to do that, I need a world/setting/story for them to go crazy in. I have been making that behind the scenes as I am waiting for our current story to run its course. Over the next few weeks, I intend to go over some of the things I have made for this story.

When to Abandon Ship

The Question

As I wrote about last time, Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro) has been causing a big stir in their community. Lots of talk is happening along the lines of “What could Wizards do to salvage this situation?” The second big point of discussion is “What can we (the players) do to force Wizards into a decision we want?” And the big take away from that second question is simple: stop giving them money. Cancel subscriptions, don’t buy books, and maybe even boycott the new movie coming out. But there is one final question that is floated around from time to time “Do we abandon Dungeons and Dragons in favor of another game?”

A Solution

There are plenty of other role playing table top games to try. And some of them look really fun. From the very familiar setting of pathfinder, itself being a spin off of the 3rd edition of D&D. To the dystopian future of one of several Cyberpunk systems. Even old western meets magic, were playing cards are an integral part of the game. Or more story based games where you don’t even roll dice. Or even cosmic horror with Call of Cthulhu. Point being, if you are interested in role playing games, there is a system and setting for you.

My Solution

But that doesn’t address the central question. Do we need to abandon D&D? As I see it, no. Even if you are 100% trying to “stick it to Wizards” you don’t need to abandon D&D to accomplish that. You just need to stop giving them money. Don’t pay for online services. Lots of players already have most of the books, in a group you likely have enough books to share. And if you need to buy a new book? Buy second hand, and as a bonus try to buy from a local used book store. There are ways to make the community’s dissatisfaction clear without burning down everything we have built.

That is not to say you have to stay with D&D. If you find another game you and your group will enjoy more, go for it. Just don’t bash those that stay with the old ship.

Breaking News

As I was writing this a new announcement was made by Wizards of the Coast. The old OGL will be left in place, and the SRD (System Reference document) for 5.1 will still be going into creative commons as they said previously. So looks like the ship is going to stop sinking… assuming they are being truthful.

Announcement: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1439-ogl-1-0a-creative-commons

Dungeons and Dragons OGL Situation

Introduction

So, what is going on? And what even is an OGL? Lets start with that second one as everything builds off that. OGL stands for Open Game License, and is a license/agreement Wizards of the Coast had with their community. The OGL laid out what could and could not be used by 3rd party creators in making D&D supplemental material. And ever since 3rd party creators have been making a combination of amazing, weird, terrible, and fun content for D&D. And under the OGL they could even charge for this content.

What Happened?

Recently Wizards of the Coast (most likely at the behest of Hasbro) announced they were going to revamp the OGL. They laid out some broad goals that seemed reasonable if unpopular. With easily the least popular being that they would now expect royalties from 3rd party creators that made more than a certain amount per year. Well… least popular if you discount changing the OGL at all, but we will get to that.

This all caused the community to grumble but generally agree to wait and see what would happen. Until a leak of the contract. Multiple sources are claiming that this leak comes from creators sent both a copy of the “OGL 1.1” (as opposed to the original OGL1.0) and a contract to sign agreeing to the terms. The language in this leaked version lit the community on fire.

I am not a lawyer. I do not pretend to be an expert on legal matters. But my layman’s reading of parts of this OGL 1.1 felt disgusting and greedy. Or at least rife for abuse. Clauses that could mean “You own what you made… until we decide you don’t and we do.” Suggestions that they could change any part of the agreement at any time. Or simply eliminate the entire thing with a simple 30 day notice.

Reactions

At Large

As I said, the D&D community was outraged at the language in OGL1.1. So many video essays explaining the situation. People trying to figure out what to do, wondering if they will still have a livelihood if this came to pass. And Wizards of the Coast largely remaining silent. That is of course… until another leak.

Wizards Employees

Not sure if “leak” is the right term. What happened is that a Wizards employee reached out to a community content creator, under the condition of anonymity, to expose some insider information. So I guess “leak” is appropriate. In this there were 4 main takeaways. First, that Wizards was hoping the community had a short attention span and they could just let all this “blow over” before trying again. Second, the rank and file employee only knew marginally more than the community at large. Third, and I quote “…they see customers as obstacles between them and their money…” And finally, that the only thing they care about is the bottom line, using subscriptions to an online service as a barometer for how well they were doing. So a large movement of people started unsubscribing from that service.

Other Companies

If you thought the reaction to this was limited to the community and small creators you underestimate the scope of these changes. Several well known companies that make 3rd party D&D content have announced that in response to these proposed changes they are moving away from D&D content. One such company (Kobold Press) even announced they would make their own system. This all seems to have culminated in the company Paizo (the creators of Pathfinder) announcing their own take on an OGL style license.

This announcement had several components, but the first one I will be focusing on is the new license. This new license will be called the Open RPG Creative License or ORC for short. This license has several big points. First is that it is intended to be irrevocable, no one can change or resend it ever. They seek to accomplish this through a combination of legal language and transferring ownership of the license to a non-profit. Next up is that this is a generic license that any company can apply to their game, so any company can opt in to using this license. And finally, they weren’t alone in this effort, they had several big names in the community on board for this plan.

But what about OGL1.0a?

That term “irrevocable” was not used by accident. The thing is, it was a term that, once upon a time, Wizards of the Coast had used in reference to the first version of the OGL. That’s right, Wizards (read Hasbro) was trying to alter an agreement designed, agreed, and understood to be unchangeable. And the people pointing this out have more standing than just “guy on the internet”. The leaders of Paizo are pointing this out. And they should know, they were higher ups at Wizards when the OGL was made. So a very real question has arisen: Can Wizards legally do any of this? And several companies are willing to fight them in court over it.

Finally Wizards Speaks

About an hour before I sat down to write this, Wizards finally released an official statement. In it they paint themselves as “misunderstood” and “not trying to step on the little guy” but to “fight back against giant corporations” (completely missing that they are a giant corporation). And, if I assume they are speaking in good faith, they make a couple good points… If one assumes they are arguing in good faith. You see, there was one more leak I haven’t talked about. Partially because it is so recent, but mostly because of it’s contents. Because if this leak is true, and was actually intended to be released to the public… Oh boy. It would be some of the most “cartoonish evil corporation” nonsense in what lies they expected the public to swallow. I won’t get any further into it here, but just for context, most of the community is taking anything Wizards says with a handful of salt at minimum.

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Discord, Socializing, Moderation, and Events

Years ago I discovered the program Discord, a free server hosting software originally aimed at gamers but has since broadened its aim a bit. At first I was only interested in using it to keep in contact with a few friends and as a place to have voice chats during games, but as the years went on I broadened my own horizons a bit. I am an introverted person, as such putting myself out there and talking to people can be difficult for me. But eventually I found a community I clicked with. At first it was simply a server for a YouTube creator I liked, with several text channels relating to the various types of content they make (Overly Sarcastic Productions, if anyone is curious). But then the YouTuber started publishing their own webcomic, and shortly a new channel was opened for discussion of that comic. And my interaction began to ramp up.

Now that I had something I was interested in I could post more freely, and I did. Discussions of plot developments, talking about the world building, and giant posts about theorizing where things were going in the story. I was having fun, and finding people I got along with. Then one of the regulars told us all something fun: they were making a fandub of the comic, and had made their own server to organize it. Needless to say I shortly joined that new server as well. As time went by the server became more of a generalized “fan server” as the fandub went further and further on the back burner, firstly because the organizer needed to focus on college, but also because the pandemic complicated things. But the server’s shift meant it could keep going even without the fandub… with one small issue, the server master could no longer manage the number of members on their own.

With that in mind, Canine (the user name of the server master) put out a call for applications to be server moderators. I waffled for a bit on whether I would apply, finally squeaking in after the last minute. My thought process was simple “If I don’t like it I can quit. And besides, no guarantee I will even make it.” Not sure how other servers make the decision but on this server the mod candidates “campaign” for election, eventually culminating in the server members voting for who they want to be the moderators. However the final decision is in the hands of Canine, while he takes the vote into account (I think the vote and the final decision have always lined up so far) it is their server and they need people they can work with. As you can no doubt guess I made it, a bit under 2 years ago I became a moderator of the server. In the time since, a few changes have been made to the system: we added another election cycle  when we needed more moderators, leading to a twice yearly election with half the mods up for reelection each time. And Canine talking with the Moderators (not up for reelection) to decide who makes the cut. I have been the longest serving Moderator on the server and I seem to be doing a fairly good job.

Over time the server has taken on a bit of a life of its own. And one of the things we have started doing are semi-regular events. These range from holiday art events, to putting together a two year calendar spread, to several word games, and even book readings. And so, after gathering my courage, I started readings books for the server. twice a week I read from two books for an hour at a time, usually finishing 1-2 chapters per reading based on the book. I also record my readings… but for now that is just a “because I can” thing, as distributing those recordings could get me into trouble around copyright. But I have kept this up for over a year, so I am more than a bit proud of it… even if I only had one listener for a while, but an audience of one is enough to make it worth doing. In my capacity as a Moderator I have also helped a few others put on other events. Some were flops, most have been warmly received.

I am still an introvert. But I have found a place where I can be with people of like minds.

More Games to Play

Time for some more games I recommend playing.

Hades
Welcome to the world of Greek myth, the realm of the gods… or the realm one god in particular. You play as Zagreus, son of Hades, in your quest to escape the underworld and reach the surface, perhaps even go to Olympus to meet your aunts, uncles, and cousins. Speaking of your illustrious family, you won’t be tackling this challenge alone, the Olympians grant you boons as you progress through the levels of the Underworld. But… eventually you will die
And that is were the setting does extra duty, you see Hades is a rouge like game, meaning you are meant to paly again and again against randomized levels, getting different perks on each “run”. Most games in this genre have to somehow explain how you keep coming back to try again. But you are the son of Hades, Lord of the Dead, your “reresection” back home is treated as “another day, another death” by most of the denizens of the Underworld… Zagreus especially, who shakes off death about as fast as the blood from the pool he resurrects out of.
As you progress you will unlock new weapons to use, new boons to play with, and even make some semi permeant stat boosts between runs to make things more manageable. And on top of all that it even has some great interpretations of various Greek myths, and not just ones limited to the gods.

Slay the Spire
From one rouge like to another, but where Hades is an action packed brawler game, Slay the Spire is a deck drafting game. In Slay the Spire, you select a class that determines what strategies you can use in the run, for instance the warrior might go for a big armor or a high risk self damage strategy, where as the rouge might go with a cheap card strategy that relies on drawing a bunch of cards and unloading them all at once. But at the start you only have a basic preconstructed deck that shows off a few of the things your class can do, and as you progress (killing enemies, finding shops, and more esoteric encounters) you will have opportunities to add more cards to that deck… and even the opportunity to remove some cards to make your deck more consistent. But the spire has many mysteries, and many strange encounters.
For if you like the idea of rouge like games, but don’t like the twitch reaction speed elements. Or if you just like a well made deck crafting game.

Elden Ring
From the creators of Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro, comes the latest “Souls” game. For those that don’t know, this company has a reputation for making “hard” games where you die, drop your unspent experience/wealth, try to get it back and make more progress, die again, and repeat. Now you will notice I put “hard” in quotations, this is because the difficulty of these games is vastly overhyped. That is not to say the games are easy, far from it. These games certainly are hard… but they are fair.
Was there a trap that caught you off guard? Look for the telegraph and learn from it. Enemy came “out of nowhere”? Maybe dropped down on you? They were always there, and if you spot them early you might even get in some free damage. Boss killing you over and over? Learn their moves and the timings, almost no attacks are completely undodgeable.
But in Elden Ring a new wrinkle was added: an open world. In all the previous games there might be a branching path here or there, but the core game was pretty linear. In Elden Ring you can go off and explore for hours before encountering your first main story boss… or even skip that boss altogether if you explore enough. Or you might be out exploring and suddenly a dragon swoops down, taking out a bunch of other enemies, and starting up boss music. The good news is that these “overworld bosses” you can encounter at random can be run away from and they will stop chasing you… eventually.
As with most “Souls Like” games there is a top level story, a sub level story, and more world building than you can shake a stick at.
If you do decide to pick up this game I heard an anecdote that rings true in my experience: “You know you are in the right part of the game if the encounters are hard, but manageable. If the boss is beating you, but you feel you can win.”

Stardew Valley
And now for something on an entirely different wave length. Stardew Valley is a farming sim game. But don’t let the simplicity of that genre description fool you it is quite a bit more than that. To start the game, your character is tired of the city life and decides to take up their decides grandfather’s offer to take over an old farm in the town of Stardew Valley. To start off you are clearing the land of some weeds, planting your first crop, caring for them, selling them off when they ripen, and repeating. But soon you get enough money to start buying some upgrades to your land and house and you will start making some things to make your job easier, like scarecrows and sprinkler systems. Soon you will discover the mines that house ore for your crafting, but also monsters you have to defend yourself from in order to get that useful ore. Or maybe you got yourself a chicken coop or barn to raise some animals? Or maybe you are focusing on your relationships with the various townsfolk and seeing what stories they have to tell. Or perhaps you might have tripped over one of the more magical aspects of this town and started exploring where that leads. Plenty of things in Stardew Valley to keep ones attention.

Game Recomendations

So I have recommended some webcomics, some books, and a specific author, now for my other big obsession: Video Games.

Going to go with a variety of choices here, the only real criteria being that I have played and enjoyed a given game. So here we go

Ghost of Tsushima
I am something of a Japanese history and culture nerd (thank Gaijin Goombah on YouTube for that) so a game that takes place during the Mongol invasion of Japan? YES PLEASE! You play as Jin Sakai, the young lord of the Sakai clan and nephew of the ruler of the island of Tsushima. After the first confrontation with the Mongols goes horrifically bad, most of the Samurai of the island are dead, with Jin being left for dead and only being saved when a female thief saves him. It is now your job to save your uncle and the island from the Mongols, but the strict way honor code your uncle taught you won’t work against this enemy, so Jin is forced to learn new strategies and make unsavory allies in order to save his home.
Gameplay wise the game is split into exploration, stealth, and combat. Most situations can be solved either by sneakily eliminating the enemy or charging in with sword drawn and a curse on your lips (although stealth is usually the better option most of the time, you can usually fall back on a brawl if things fall apart). Sometimes you are forced into stealth or combat (infiltration of a castle vs fighting on the front line of a siege) but you are fairly free to handle situations as you see fit. And all of this is not to mention that the game is drop dead gorgeous.

Monster Hunter: Rise
Want to hunt big monsters? Want to wield a giant sword while you do it? Or how about a lance that is also a gun? Or sour through the sky spinning a glaive at the monster’s unprotected back? Monster Hunter is all about it. The play loop is simple: Hunt monster, return to town, craft new weapons, armor, and items to help hunting bigger monsters, repeat. There is also a story in there, and a nice one too, plus a bunch of lore to justify hunting these monsters. But let’s be real, you aren’t here for the story, you are here for the mechanics. And Rise (like most Monster Hunter games) has a few unique mechanics to offer. Firstly is the wire bugs, allowing both for more mobility than in any other Monster Hunter game to date, and being a resource system for new big moves unique to each weapon. Speaking of weapon’s unique moves, the Switch Skills system allows you to swap out some of the moves on weapons to further customize your playstyle.
Rise is one of the most newbie friendly Monster Hunter games so far. That is not to say it isn’t hard to get into, Monster Hunter games are notorious for being hard to understand. But as long as you are willing to open a wiki or look up some guides on YouTube nothing is too arcane or shrouded in mystery that you cannot master it.

Elder Scrolls and Fallout
Just some good “comfort food” games. If you don’t know them yet… what rock have you been living under? These are more or less the base lines for modern open world games.

Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
This game is one part 2D side scrolling beat ’em up and one part shockingly accurate rice farming simulator, yes really. You are Sakuna, you are a Kami and as the daughter of a Kami of agriculture and a Kami of War you have inherited both of your parent’s affinities. As such, you gain power by bringing in a harvest of rice and you gain the resources to harvest that rice by going out and fighting demons. But you have to manage your time fighting because managing your rice field is a surprisingly demanding task and how well you do that determines how good your stats will be.
On the story end the game isn’t lacking either. Sakuna at the start of the story is a lazy, spoiled, arrogant, Kami. But after a chance encounter with a group of humans (a large cowardly man who is knowledgeable, but fails at most of his endeavors. An energetic, rebellious, boy and a shy, reserved girl. A baby. And a Western religious missionary.) Sakuna is forced to live on an island of Demons, tasked with subduing said demons. All the characters undergo a myriad of developments and the story intersects with the mechanics in surprising ways. And finally as with my first pick, it has a surprising amount of fairly accurate (if twisted for story purposes) references to real world things, mostly how the Japanese viewed the Kami, but also daily life and Western Missionaries.

 

I still have plenty of games to recommend, but this is enough for today.

Life, Fantasy, The Supernatural, and Some of the Most Stunning Art I Have Seen

For the past few weeks I have been posting about various works I recommend (should really get around to recommending some games, but that is for latter). These Recommendations have had a lose theme based on medium. Today the “theme” is a specific artist/author: Stjepan Šejić (and no. I will not attempt to help you figure out how to pronounce that).

So first off I will go into a small bit of personal history: How I found this artist. Years ago I was browsing Deviant Art, and I found a creator that had some cool things. This was Stjepan’s main account and included a bunch of the work he did for some major comic publishers (such as some Witchblade covers and panels, funny non-cannon things he did with various DC characters, and Harlee Quin concept art he would later pitch and have made into a graphic novel). I really liked all this art, but it is not where I became entranced with his work. Following a few of the pages favorited pieces I found another creator, Shiniez, and a silly strip they were making (more on that latter). I was hooked. Not just because of the content (Not going to lie, it was hot) but because of the characters and the ways they interacted. And that highlights a piece of what makes Stjepan such an amazing story teller: you show up for the plot (or “plot” as the case may sometimes be), but you stay for, nay get hooked on, the characters. As you may have put together the Shiniez account was also owned by Stjepan, but he tried to hide this. I had my suspicions for a while (the art style was just too similar to be a case of similar or copied style) but one day he reveled this truth and I began following his work. These are some of those works I recommend.

Death Vigil
Welcome to the Death Vigil. Our job is to stop the eldritch abominations from the other side of the veil from crossing over into our world and turning it into a buffet. Every member of the Vigil has three things in common. Firstly, they all died. But, secondly, they all got the attention of a being known as Bernadette, affectionately called Bernie, also known as The Reaper, complete with giant scythe. She gave these people a chance to be reborn and help defend the world. To help accomplish this each member of the vigil gets a Veilripper, a powerful artifact and one of the only things capable of actually harming the beings from beyond the veil. But on the other side from the vigil are the Necromancers. Poor fools that have lost, and have been promised by those from beyond the veil that their power can bring those the necromancer lost back…
Lots of action, lots of found family themes, and more than a few winding plots intersecting. The first few chapters can be found on Stjepan’s deviant art page, and he is in the process of making the next volume. For more on that, see his Patreon page for updates and early releases of all his independent work.

The Queen and the Woodborn
To be fair, I have not read as much of this story as the others. But it is just as beautiful as the others and has a great set up so…
In this world of medieval fantasy, a Queen recently lost her son and travels into the woods in her grief. These woods are ancient, magical, and forbidden for any that trespass belong to the Woodborn. But the Queen does not care, here lies some faint chance of seeing her dead son. And she thinks she has found it, until the Woodborn shows up and saves the queen from the being that had tricked her and tried to devour her. But now that she is in the woods she is bound in service to the Woodborn, and they come to an agreement: the queen will server the Woodborn until her dyeing breath. At which point it is revealed that the Queen was already dyeing and promptly breaths her dyeing breath. But that is not the end of our story, for death is not an end here, but just the beginning of our tale of mythical beings, gods, and the queen who stumbled into it all.

Sunstone
Anyone familiar with Stjepan’s work was waiting for me to bring this one up. And I don’t think there is a better way to introduce this work that the words of one of the main characters at the start of the story:
“Dear reader, this is the story of how I met the love of my life. That one person that compl–
WAIT! DON’T LEAVE YET! THIS BOOK HAS LOTS OF HOT LESBIAN BONDAGE SEX!
Good. That got your attention…
You bunch of pervs…
But that’s alright. You see, I’mma let you in on a little secret
We are all a bit pervy in our own ways…”
So yeah, this is a love story played out between a pair of women who are into BDSM as a submissive and dominant respectively and the various people around them. Don’t get this confused with 50 Shades of Abuse or any other sadist porn. A very large point is made in the story about needing trust, cooperation, and consent between all parties so that everyone can get what they are looking for… and more or less paints the BDSM community as a bunch of sexual geeks that put more effort into the act and like things a bit spicier than “normal”. This is a story about pleasure, love, trauma, jealousy, miscommunication, and drop dead gorgeous art. And yes, to address the elephant in the room, there are sex scenes in this story. There is full frontal nudity in this story. And every time it happened I was either too enraptured by the character’s inner monologues or too impatient to get back to the story to care.
And yes. This is the story I found on Stjepan’s alt account that got me hooked… or at least… it kind of is. You see how this story came about is a fun story in and of itself. Told in comic form at the end of the physical copy of volume 1. Stjepan was suffering from burnout. To help combat this he created an alt account to post some silly one-shot style work, and chose the theme of the account to be: fetishistic erotic imagery. Just some random pin ups so he could get the creative juices going again, nothing serious, and obviously nothing with a storyline too it… as you can imagine that idea spiraled down the drain as the creativity spiraled out of control. Pretty soon he had characters, he had relationships, the characters were getting arcs, and he had a story that needed to be told. But all he had were loosely connected pinups and a few small comic pages. So he re-wrote it to be the story it is today.

Other works of Stjepan’s to look out for:
Achilles Shieldmaidens: Women in giant mechs fighting as part of a final resistance against aliens in giant mechs. Still in production, but from what I have seen so far I am HYPE for it to see the light of day.
Fine Print: Think Sunstone had too little sex and demons? Well half the main cast of this story are succubi/incubi. And somehow it is just as character driven as Sunstone.
Harleen: Stjepan’s take on the origin story of Harley Quinn. Amazing art (as always) and a fresh take on the story. Unlikely to get a follow up as Stjepan’s independent work is making him more than his contracted work did.