My Thoughts on the New OGL 1.2

I’ve answered the survey as requested but I’m putting them here to for completion’s sake.


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Hasbro Bought D&D Beyond – Thoughts

I saw this video in my feed and if you’re into D&D and especially DDB, you should check this out. 1. Right now, Foundry is the benchmark, king-of-the-hill of VTTs. Nothing comes close. Not Roll20, not FG, and not what DDB has to offer. And at current rate of development, with both Roll20 and DDB working with small teams and Foundry having a small base team but a ton of community developers, I don’t see anyone able to catch up to that. I’m currently at a point that I truly treat DDB as a convenient, digital, online source… to get my D&D material and that’s it. Pretty much everything else I do on Foundry, and with no added subscriptions. I buy the software, I buy the materials, my players just log in. It’s, as if we have one set of books that everyone share at a single table. The D&D 5E version on Foundry even recently added a better level-up mechanism so I only need to download the content (possible through an amazing community developer) to Foundry and that’s it. Unless WotC decide no one is allowed to use D&D in online tools (which will probably be against their SRD and start a huge outcry) it’s not gonna change. 2. With Demiplane on the field, soon Pathfinder, Vampire, even Marvel’s new game will have the same capabilities as D&D in the online space. 3. In the video game space, a lot of companies get bought because the buyer see the Continue Reading →


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News: Average User has no Concept of How Much Game Dev Costs

Recently, some clueless joe on Twitter said he will pay 10,000$ to the person who adds a multiplayer aspect to Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If he was going to donate to a modder who was working on it, that would have been fine but it seems like he was thinking that he could hire someone to do something like that for that kind of money. Here is a long, detailed response to this which you should read but here’s the summary: 10,000$ would pay for about two work months of the average+ programmer. Also, networking is hard. The hardest networking challenges in gaming usually arise in fighting games because they usually need to be exactly per pixel and per frame accurate and, probably over distances where network traffic takes more time to go back and forth than it takes pro players twitch reflexes to react. You can see how important this is if you go back and read about the network woes of Street Fighter V. Now, the demands of a PvE, open world, action RPG would probably be a lot less strict but these are still difficult problems. Especially if you’re talking about tacking on something like this onto a game that was definitely not designed for it. You want a more current example? On the one hand, Battlefield 2042 is out now and it’s buggy as hell. On the other hand, Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is also out and it’s much better. Probably because the team is backed Continue Reading →


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Far Cry 6, PETA, and are Games Educational?

Recently, PETA criticised Ubisoft for including a cockfighting mini-game in their recent franchise title Far Cry 6. And that got me thinking about what is ok or not ok to include in a game. I completely understand why Far Cry 6, which occurs in a Cuban-esque island country called Yara, includes that aspect. Cuba, a country under heavy sanctions, makes due with whatever they have at hand. And, as far as entertainment goes, while cockfighting is a horrible practice in your regular western-aligned countries, it is not exactly frowned upon in Cuba. So, Far Cry 6 appropriating this symbol for immersion purposes is understandable. On the other hand, I also completely understand why PETA would criticise this. Far Cry is a very popular franchise. At the time of writing, it has sold poorer than its predecessor but that still puts it above 10 million units moved. That’s a lot of people being exposed to this segment, engaging with cockfighting in a way that might be unhealthy in the future. In the game itself, you do play the cockfighting mini-game in a fighting game style, as a animal encouraged to viciously peck, rip, and tear another animal, both of which were probably forced into this against their will. So, think about that 13-year-old kid who just got his hands on the new, popular AAA title all their friends are playing and this is the first time they sees something like cockfighting. If that’s the first time they engaged with that sort Continue Reading →


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My Foundry Setup

I have been asked about my Foundry setup and what I did to make everything so smooth, easy, and cool. I decided to not do a video about it because most of the modules I use already do a very fine job explaining themselves and Encounter Library already has an extensive set of tutorial videos.So, here are the modules I use with a short explanation of what exactly they do.


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I had a conversation with Riku Nuottajärvi

This might not mean a lot to a lot of people but it’s something I am very much enthused about! The story is Matt Mercer tweeted about that music track in a game that just breaks you. I said it’s the Yehat Theme Music from Star Control II. Then Riku Nuottajärvi liked that tweet and I lost it a bit. And he answered me! That’s the person who wrote a lot of the music that accompanied me through the nineties. So, I’m keeping this as a memento. :)


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Some Thoughts on Difficulty in Games

Idan Zeierman said this on The Last of Us Part II: אני קצת לא יודע מה להגיד. ביחד עם המשחק הראשון, מדובר כנראה ביצירות שהן מהטובות שיצא לי לחוות. אבל הן מגיעות בצורת משחקי הישרדות/אימה קשוחים שנמשכים 30 שעות ומכילים הרבה זומבים. זה רף לא קל בשביל לחוות אותן כהלכה. — Idan Zeierman (@idan315) July 5, 2020 Translation: I don’t know what to say. Along with the first game, they are probably two of the best works of art I ever experienced. But they come in the form of tough survival horror games that take 30 hours to complete and contain a lot of zombies. It’s not an easy bar for experiencing them properly. I replied: מצד אחד, זאת הסיבה למה הרבה אנשים לעולם לא יחוו כמה מיצירות האומנות הטובות ביותר שנוצרו (כי הן משחקים). ומצד שני, היצירות האלו לא יהיו אותו הדבר אם לא תחווה אותן על בשרך. — Eran Arbel (@SabreRunner) July 6, 2020 Translation: On the one hand, that is the reason why a lot of people will never experience some of the greatest works of art ever made (because they’re games). On the other hand, these works won’t be the same if you don’t experience them for yourself. This got me thinking about difficulty in games. I think the subject of inclusion and exclusion through difficulty has been tread enough but I think it mostly referred to gamer culture. Some Dark Souls fans would like to think that the game won’t be the same unless it was Continue Reading →


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Guides, not Game Masters

Dungeon Master has been used in the #dnd game since inception and is the most known title for the person actually orchestrating the game. It is definitely used in official settings by @Wizards_DND . However, it is quite exclusive, is easily misunderstood in “normie” society, and even an easy source for silly memes. Different games have different unique names for the role — be it Space Master or Master of Ceremonies — but the general term has been shifted, or tried to shift, into Game Master. I still find an issue with this name as Master is a very overbearing title. Even if you lose the connotation of a person completely in charge and in control of the game as opposed to another player whose character is the world, this implies much responsibility that is not necessarily the GM’s purview or singular domain. In Hebrew, there is another word that is coming more and more into use and that is “Mankheh” which is, roughly, translated as “Guide” (Roughly because it’s missing some of the attached cultural nuances). This, I believe, is a better way of describing what that person actually does. They take part in the story in the same way everyone else does, they share the responsibility, but they are the guide. Like the Tour Guide, they know the world, the environments, the dangers, and the inhabitants better than the players but their job is to explain and show, not wrangle and Master. The Guide’s role is to respond when Continue Reading →


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במשחקים Tropes עשרה

אז IGN פרסמו כתבה עם 10 ה-Tropes שצריך כבר להיפטר מהם. אני קצת מסכים ובעיקר לא מסכים. 1. אני לא מסכים שצריך להיפטר מהלוגים והפתקים לגמרי. אבל כן אפשר לשפר את ההגיוניות שלהם. דבר ראשון, אם זה קולי אז צריך להיות אפשר לנגן את זה ולהמשיך לשחק בלי שפס קול אחר יקטע את זה בהמשך. זה משהו ש-Subnautica עושה טוב. אפשר לנגן ולהמשיך. ואם יש עוד פס קול, הוא לרוב יחכה. ואם זה מסמכים אז זה צריך להיות מרוכז ולא מבולגן כאילו מישהו כתב יומן ואז פוצץ אותו לכל חדר אפשרי. 2. אני בכלל נגד cut-scenes שנועלות את השליטה כשאני בבירור הייתי עושה משהו אחר. זה בעיקר הציק לי ב-Rage 2. כשידעתי בדיוק מה איריס הולכת לעשות ורציתי לקטוע אותה באמצע אבל אי אפשר. אני לא מבין מה הבעיה. מעולם לא שיחקתם Half Life? זה יצא ב-98′. ושם, היית יכול להישאר להקשיב או ללכת. והיית יכול גם לירות במדענים. 3. הגרסה של באטמן ל-Detective Vision הייתה מפגרת. אני כמעט ולא זוכר את Arkham Asylum בצבעים נורמלים. וב-Arkham City ו-Knight הם ניסו לגמול אנשים מזה. אבל אין עם זה דבר רע באופן כללי. זה רק צריך להיות דומה ל-Mirror’s Edge, Deus Ex או Rage 2. הדברים לא באמת אדום בולט, צהוב בולט או ורוד בולט, אבל זאת דרך טובה להדגיש משהו שהדמות, או שהמכניקה של המשחק, יודעת ואנחנו לא בהכרח וזה מגשר את הפער יופי. 4. אני דווקא אוהב את הרעיון של המיני-משחקים האלו. אבל הם צריכים להיות רלבנטיים. למען האמת, רוב האלו של Spiderman היו גרועים. המיני-משחק של לפרוץ מכונות ב-Bioshock? Continue Reading →


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Professional Tabletop Role Playing Guide

ההודעה בעברית תגיע אחרי האנגלית. Hi. My name is Eran. I’ve been playing tabletop roleplaying games since the late 90’s and I’ve been guiding steadily since mid-10’s. I create supplemental content for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. I am the creator of The Human Element RPG system. And I want to help you. This message is for anyone looking for a group to play in or want one more game, for any new guides or ones who need help in this new digital age. I am a professional guide and I do this because I love it and because I think I’m good at it. I am very familiar with D&D 5th Edition but I know other systems as well. If you are complete beginners, I’ll teach you the game. If you don’t have books or dice, I provide everything. I have interactive maps (Some of which I make by myself). I bring music. I take pre-published adventures and expand them, I fit them to your wants and your desires. If you want, I can homebrew everything from scratch (though that takes more effort). In any case, the game will be yours and what you want it to be.I run sessions through FoundryVTT and Discord (at least, until the pandemic is officially over) which I will also happily explain and help you with. My price is 20$ per person. I also only expect payment *after* the first session and only if you wish to continue. In any case, if you Continue Reading →


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