Nacarbac [any]

  • 0 Posts
  • 194 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 28th, 2023
  • Nacarbac [any]@hexbear.nettoComics@hexbear.net•How do you define a superhero?English
    5·
    3 days ago
    rambling

    Maybe something like “a person who exists in a completely parallel society from humanity, or who is actually detached from the political”. They can do Great Things, but never change anything. They have a psychotic, maddening, power concentrated in themselves that defies the human agency of all around them, but mostly concern themselves with negating the ones who use it that way. If all superheroes and supervillains disappeared, nobody would notice, they leave no ripples on history. Or, perhaps they’re like the weather. Or police.

    A superhero only really interacts with other superheroes or supervillains, they don’t impact the real world outside of a few personal relationships. Their adventures might save many lives, but they don’t stop the genocide - saving a schoolbus full of children from going over a cliff certainly matters a lot to those kids and their families, but there’s always another drone strike.

    Ah, like the opening chapter of Miracleman. A dreamlike heroism, which can play with the words and shapes of the real world but cannot challenge them. Vast emotions, and a vaster repression.

    Though, sure, there are plenty of comics that would challenge that.

    tl;dr - a superhero does nothing, very loudly.

  • Nacarbac [any]@hexbear.nettogames@hexbear.net•I was expecting him to be more annoying. I don't get why everyone hates him tbhEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    Various spoilers.

    Yeah, it’s pretty silly. His backstory was probably near or at Epic level

    spoiler

    if he genuinely thought he could fuck around with Karsus’ Folly - that’s one of the few things that would have your peer superwizards (who mostly dislike each other) joining forces to put a stop to.

    I think pretty much all the character’s backgrounds were a poor choice on their part. You don’t need a shred of backstory upfront if the writing is up to snuff, and having theirs be so high-level kinda makes everything happening pretty low stakes - the intro cinematic with the spelljammer vs dragonriders is basically a level 20 action sequence, and then you’re slogging through mud and goblins hearing about how cool everyone else used to be, having just seen how cool the stuff you don’t get to do is.

    Plus Elminster could genuinely solve all of it in about three hours, so he shouldn’t have even been there to say:

    spoiler

    “So I hear you’re an unstable antimagical nuclear weapon now Gale?”.

    Then teleport away without doing anything about it.

    But eh, the story and stakes are all over the place.

    spoiler

    It isn’t even actually mind flayers! It’s just mid-level clerics of the three gods who job harder than Skeletor, with a plan so intensely stupid - fucking around with Illithid - that it can only function via the power of a saturday morning cartoon villain’s mcguffin.

    It’s… like the Battle Angel Alita movie. It likes the source material too much, so it crams in too many elements from much later and weakens itself in the process. Or perhaps the poison of escalation.

    spoiler

    It isn’t just hints of the mind flayer space empire, it’s a netherese superweapon, no wait, it’s also the Dead Three! The city you’ll reach in thirty hours will be destroyed - and the entire world hangs in the balance! Only your level 12 characters can save the universe!

    spoiler
  • Nacarbac [any]@hexbear.nettogames@hexbear.net•Fallout creator Tim Cain says he was "ordered to destroy" his personal archive of the RPG's development: "Individuals and organizations actively work against preservation"English
    3·
    10 days ago

    It certainly doesn’t sound out of character for Interplay - from the various accounts of the GURPS Fallout affair I’ve read the most persuasive (from the rare time an SJGames person commented on it) was roughly that Interplay took a lot of interest in getting SJGames to help them adapt GURPS, got quite far with it, then started asking more about how rpg mechanics should work, and then abruptly cut off all contact before the whole “Interplay gives SJGames money” part of the deal would happen.

    The more well known claim is that it was SJGame’s squeamishness over violence, which rings hollow given they made GURPS, and comes off as Interplay saying that they were busy being totally kewl and SJGames were squares who shot themselves in the [roll hit location]. I am, however, biased towards SJGames, given that they’re actually hexagons (and GURPS is cool).

    Come to think of it, it might also be about covering their ass in case SJGames had made more of a legal fuss, blurring the exact details of the GURPS->SPECIAL development process and any relevant correspondence.

    It’s such an old drama though…

  • Nacarbac [any]@hexbear.nettoMovies & TV@hexbear.net•Lower Decks already explained what the holodecks are really for.English
    2·
    16 days ago

    Yeah, and they’ve had them for a long time, so even leaving the obvious moral argument the clear psychological danger of interacting with simulacra of real people should be well known. But perhaps Barclay’s case really is genuinely unusual and (hopefully) would have prompted a wide-ranging review of holodeck ethical programming that we’d only see more about on some purely hypothetical Star Trek: San Francisco.

    I could see social interaction practice with simulacra being of therapeutic value when used appropriately under the guidance of an actual therapist. Which probably should also need the consent of the person who is being simulated.

    Perhaps also for command simulator practice and other tightly defined scenarios.

  • Nacarbac [any]@hexbear.nettochat@hexbear.net•I hate feeling stupid for not being handyEnglish
    4·
    22 days ago

    Absolutely this on confidence. The first and most essential step is letting yourself be someone who can solve the problem. Next is being careful about it, sure.

    Another big part is just careful attention to the parts available, as a huge number of intimidating problems (especially in plumbing) are solved by carefully browsing the catalogue and following up on the leads it offers.