Suffering and success.
Hasbro being the worst, yet again
BG3’s only sin is having to be tied to the worst owner in tabletop gaming. Thank god Larian is independent.
I’ve been browsing older Forgotten Realms sourcebooks and the love that the authors put into those is amazing. It hurts to see D&D and the worlds I grew up loving destroyed by a soulless entity that cares only about profit.
If it’s at all of interest to you, there are a bunch of good novels set in the Forgotten Realms, too.
There’s a pretty great thread from just a few years ago on the Candlekeep forums where someone read through every single book and gave a brief review of them. I can’t remember their opinion in great detail, but the biggest authors (Ed Greenwood and Bob Salvatore) were relatively lowly rated, while Elaine Cunningham and Erin M. Evans consistently rated much more highly.
I’ve never read Cunningham myself, but I’ve read all of Evans’ FR novels and am a huge fan. Plan to read her non-FR novels once I’m finished with what I’m currently working through, if I can find a copy that’s not from the rainforest company.
I’ve been searching all around for Cunningham books and I can’t find any. Not any libraries around here, virtual or physical. Not any used book stores. No where!
I’ve really struggled with the first of Evans’ Brimstone Angels series for a long time, too. The rest of the series was easy to come by, but the first one goes for over $100 second hand.
My local library had it for a while, but seems to have gotten rid of it. Thankfully, all Evans’ books are excellently narrated in audiobook, and are also available in ebook (including easily pirated, which I don’t feel too bad about considering I’ve bought the physical copy of all but the first, as well as the audiobooks of all of them).
I would guess the same should be true of Cunningham’s works, though I haven’t looked. (And the quality of the audio narration may not be as excellent. I know the narrator of the small number of Greenwood books I read was less than stellar.)
Audiobook unfortunately isn’t much of an option for me due to attention issues. All I know is it’s been impossible for me to find the Starlight & Shadows series.
If you have any recommendations for Evans’ books I’d love to see if I can check those out, as well.
Evans only has one standalone novel and one 6-book series.
The standalone: The God Catcher is set in Waterdeep, and is about the daughter of a minor noble who flunks out of wizard school and becomes a rogue, getting caught up in the scheme of some dragons who have found a way to bypass Waterdeep’s mythal and get into the city. It’s a fun ride.
The series is the Brimstone Angels series, about two twin tieflings abandoned at birth and adopted by a curmudgeonly single dad dragonborn. The prologue shows one of the twins accidentally forming a warlock pact with a devil. The biggest ongoing appeals of this series are:
- the nature of an infernal warlock pact and the relation between the warlock and patron
- the experience of a race that internally is absolutely no different to humans (unlike, say, half-orcs, which are canonically actually more likely to be aggressive) but which are perceived as evil
- the politics of the Nine Hells (her patron becomes, especially as the series goes on, a sort of deuteragonist of the series, and we see a lot of internal political dealings, schemes, etc. between different devils of different ranks)
If you’ve read the 5e Player’s Handbook, the quotes that are at the start of the tiefling and dragonborn racial entries both come from this series. The tiefling one is part of the prologue of book 1 (Brimstone Angels) and the dragonborn one is—from memory—from book 5 (Ashes of the Tyrant). The last two books are especially good if you’re interested in dragonborn, or if you like creative fantasy world building in general, because Evans’ background before she got into writing was in anthropology, and the dragonborn culture was not very heavily fleshed out previously, so she had a lot of leeway to do some really cool unique work with them. She’s got a number of articles on her blog about draconic language and dragonborn culture as sort of fun supplemental material. Here’s part 1 of “playing a Dragonborn in the Forgotten Realms”. There are also parts 2 and 3 of that series, plus 2 posts of the draconic language.
Book 4 is set in Cormyr, and deals a lot with Cormyrian politics. The closest parallel to which in more popular fantasy that I can think of is Wheel of Time’s Andoran succession crisis
Book 3 was explicitly part of WotC’s The Sundering, a series of books set around the time of the Second Sundering, the in-world explanation for the rule and setting changes between 4th and 5th edition. But Evans was allowed to set all of her remaining books 3–6 during the intermediary period, so book 6 climaxes basically right as the Sundering itself is hitting the world, which plays into her story threads in a major way.
There’s stuff about how Asmodeus came to be a god, how tieflings came to look like they do in 4th and 5th edition, how Azuth returned to life after being presumed dead, and a brief excursion to Toril’s twin plane of Abeir, the magic-less land ruled by dragon tyrants from which the dragonborn escaped.
There’s one other of her blog posts that I’d like to recommend, but I’m putting it down here because it’s a little different. It’s less a lore thing and more something interesting in the writing. Good if you want interesting ideas for narrating at a table, maybe, but mostly interesting if you’re interested in hearing about the writing process. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys seeing the “behind-the-scenes” of movies and the like. It’s this one where she’s talking about how she weaves in a game mechanic into the narrative in a seamless but necessary way. Specifically, how she used a 4e “healing surge” in the first book, a mechanic that was often derided by people who didn’t like 4e because of how unrealistic it was, but which she utilised in a way that was both flawless and entirely necessary (because the character doing it had used an ability that required they be below half health, and then later in the same scene used one that required they be above half health, to be faithful to the game rules).
But yeah, it’s safe to say that I’m a huge fan, and highly recommend her. Unfortunately if audiobook is not an option, book is the only way to get the first Brimstone Angels book, unless you’re lucky enough to have a library with it. But at least when I was buying 6 or so years ago, all the other books in the series were easy to get a hold of.
Fortunately, all of those books seem to be in my local library ebook app, so I’ve got some new reading to do, thank you for the wonderful breakdown!
Oh, I’ll just also add that she’s got two other books set in her own world that I know of. I think at least a third is planned. And next year the classic MMORPG RuneScape is releasing a book set in its world’s past written by her. I’ve not read any of these, but plan to.
Larian pls make a new series based on the Pathfinder ruleset. I think the success of BG3 has helped the mainstream to get used to DnD ruleset. Although Pathfinder is more complex, I think they have the chops to make it more accessible to the masses.
I thought the whole idea of Pathfinder was to simplify D&D. It’s more complex?
Pathfinder was to get around WotC dropping D&D 3.5. Paizo was started by veteran D&D writers to sell adventures, which they still do as adventure paths, rather than a system. When WotC updated to 4e, meaning no more print books that Paizo could reference in their adventures, Pathfinder was a way to print new 3.5e PHBs and Monster Manuals.
Paizo didn’t initially change much in PF1e. There were a few balance tweaks. The books were better laid out than 3.5. The players did the math on things like combat maneuvers in advance. In practice the game played pretty much the same, my groups jumped over seamlessly.
Having run and played both, I do think Pathfinder 2e is counterintuitively simpler in play than 5e D&D. 5e plays fluidly almost immediately, move and act. PF2e is pretty demanding for the first hour or three, the three action economy and Conditions ™ are an armful, and many players need to unlearn some D&D habits. Once a player has below average system mastery PF2e is as fluid as 5e. Beyond that PF2e shines. The rules scale better to complex scenarios, giving players more clear options of how they could act and giving the GM a better framework to figure out exactly what someone needs to roll. I also think it’s easier for players to go from average to good system mastery in Pathfinder, it’s mostly just learning how to optimize their character and learning more conditions and spells that work in the framework the player already understands.
For new players in session 1 D&D is simpler, in session 5 Pathfinder pulls even or maybe ahead, and in session 50 Pathfinder still sort of works where D&D falls apart.
PF2e character customization, though, is much more complicated, which some people like and others do not.
The same Hasbro that tried to make a land grab for all D&D derivative content by changing their Open Game License to grant them irrevocable, perpetual rights to it. This is not a nice company as they demonstrate time and again.
So maybe it’s time the RPG community stopped thinking Hasbro are ever going to change, mourn for what D&D has become, but move onto something else.
Shout-out to Pathfinder, paizo, and their new license!
The OGL License happened after Larian teamed up with Hasbro to make Baldur’s Gate 3. Thankfully Larian is still independent so it can continue on to make better RPGs without Hasbro.
Thankfully Larian is still independent
Was getting worried there and about to Google more on the subject. Happy to hear that.
If you haven’t played it, Divinity Original Sin 2 is a fantastic Larian-made RPG that uses a non-D&D system.
I have played it and really enjoyed it.
I wouldn’t have been so excited about bg3 otherwise.
This is mostly a USA problem. :) There are so many great pnp systems out there. But there will be a learning curve.
What? We don’t have a plethora of other games here in the US? I’ll have to remind the owners of all those shops that those hundreds of other games they’re selling currently only exist outside of the US. How embarrassing for us…
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And if one aren’t in the mood to learn something completely new, theres always Pathfinder.
Yeah Pathfinder 2e is good. It’s more crunchy than 5e, but that also means there are rules for most situations that come up. I like the 3 action system, much better than the old, “main action, swift action, move action, move- equivalent action” thing the old version had going on.
I have a group of friends, half in same town as me, half on the other side of the country, that get together once a week ion discord and play dnd via a self hosted foundry virtual tabletop docker. We used to play 5e but we decided to try out pathfinder 2e to see if we liked it and we haven’t gone back, pathfinder is fantastic. The flexibility with the actions makes it feel like you always get a chance to do something and you aren’t just wasting your turn when you are getting into position or whatever. Feels close enough to 5e that most of your intuition will be pretty close, just use a different website to look shit up. Highly recommend pathfinder!
Guess Larian just got a load of designers and writers. Such a shame as 5th ed was a real highlight, but now a lot of people seem to be heading back to pathfinder like the 4th ed days. Luckily, the Divinity universe can stand on its own and there’s a wealth of other tabletop rulesets waiting for their amazing adaptions
I don’t think it’s too controversial to suggest that 5e mechanics are not the strength of BG3. It would be arguably praised more if it kept the world design of BG3 and replaced the combat to have the spell scope of DO2 with the basic actions of 5e (aka shove, which arguably BG3 tweaked anyway to make it fun in combat)
I’ll miss the design approach of the game but BG3 was just a big advertisement to how good a D:OS3 will be
Revisiting DOS2 after playing BG3, the game feels like Splatoon: Painted surfaces everywhere, all the time.
I’m quite partial to FreeDOS myself.
I agree. DOS2 was, mechanically, a superior game. Porting 5e into videogame format isn’t as clean.
Imo Solasta is a better implementation of 5e mechanics (aside from the lack of grappling improvised weapons), but BG3 story is undeniably better
This 1000 times.
Solasta (especially modded) is a much more pure 5e as video game experience.
BG3 is a much better game overall.
A chance to post that meme I made!
“Let me put it to you this way, Tav. You can buy better games than Solasta, but I like Solasta. Yes, it has a linear story, and the voice acting is rather stiff, and you can’t multiclass, but–it’s brilliant!”
I don’t actually know that I would say BG3’s story is undeniably better. It’s more polished, sure, and it’s more open-ended, but that doesn’t necessarily make it better. Granted I’m not done with it yet so I can’t say for sure, but I really like Solasta’s story, especially the second campaign.
I think there’s also something to be said about having four fully voiced player-made protagonists instead of one silent protagonist and a ton of NPC companions. There are scenes made up entirely of your party talking to each other. Which like, yeah, BG3 has that too, but Astarion and Shadowheart aren’t mine. Nora and Crag were. The writing isn’t as tight, the voice acting is relatively amateurish, but I like it.
The story in bg3 better, as it’s closer to tabletop experience. Ofc no video game ever will be as open to player’s choices as an actual living DM, but bg3 here is way better in that regard than solasta. Solving an encounter by convincing multiple people to kill eachother is amazing
I still like solasta more, as there’s just so many things in bg3 that infuriate me, like individual exp instead of party exp, and personal exp rewards for “background related” stuff, allowing for someone get ahead or behind the rest of the party on level ups. I was playing with my gf and let her be the party face, which made me about a quarter of a level behind by act 3. Or flight being a glorified dash.
I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help but be upset by the individual xp. Either I get jealous when my friends level up three hours before I do, or I feel guilty having a level on them for three hours. That shit does not fly at most tables, why would they think to include it in this game? Why isn’t there an option to share xp???
I made the change almost a year ago now after all the OGL nonsense they tried to pull and I honestly believe Pathfinder is a much more fun game. My entire table enjoys it more than 5e and they are a real variety of different player types.
I’m so ready to get the kind of polish and mastery that BG3 has applied to a new game in the Divinity universe. I haven’t finished DOS3, not by a Longshot and don’t have time to play it, but it blew me away and I think about playing it again often. I will one day. It is daunting when you haven’t played a game like that in a while, to continue on. Especially on the harder difficulties lol RIP. Larian is the GOAT game studio up there with From Software and the Zelda team imo.
I’ve almost bought DIvinity Original Sin a couple of times, is it any good?
I prefer D:OS 1s story and played-through world to D:OS 2’s, but D:OS 2 has a lot more polish. Both are excellent games and worth your time.
If you like bg3 and that style of game, definitely worth it
Dos2 is really really good, if you like Larian games
I like Larian games they finish… Looking at your Tyranny!
I have a hankering to go back to it regularly and I’m playing on the Switch so it is less smooth, but yes I am a forever fan of Larian Studioes after experiencing just a tithe of DOS:2. Hard to explain why it is so good, but the mechanics are creative, fun, and challenging. The story is epic and actually epic in scope and the characters are all so fleshed out and the voice acting is professionally done and immaculate. It is very open ended and very long but very very good.
It’s slow like a TTRPG. If you liked Baldur’s Gate then you will like Divinity.
If one is too slow for you then you won’t like the other.
I personally can’t stand either but I’m not a TTRPG fan.
This just reads to me that Divinity Original Sin 3 is on the far horizon. YES
But no Larian studios Neverwinter 3??? 😢
Somebody needs to make a company shit list so I can avoid them. I got EA, Hasbro, Nestle so far.
spoiler alert though, it’s literally everybody. because everyone else is doing it, it’s not possible to survive as a business in a competitive space without doing, for lack of a better word, the devil’s work. It will take a major social disruption to change this, but it won’t happen in an organized fashion because we as a species are pathetic. The disruption will be the end of the world - North America cracking down the middle due to all the fracking, the Greenland glacier sliding into the ocean all at a go, something like that. FAFO endgame shit, due any minute now anyway.
Okay while I agree it’s everyone.
It is absolutely possible for a single corporation to not be the shittiest possible person in existence. They just can’t be public.
The stock market is the worst thing to ever happen to this country.
The stock market is the worst thing to ever happen to this world. FTFY
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One solution is to support government regulation of these industries. Deregulation is the cause of much of this crap.
Well, if you deregulate patents and copyright (that is, abolish them, with only trademark laws remaining), then I’d expect only positive results.
Honestly its kind of extremely crumby that hasbro owns the wizards
The DnD games from the 90s on steam went up in price because of the success of BG3 they are now on sale forbtheir old price lol
Oof, glad I got all the Infinity Engine games in a Humble Bundle before BG3 released
list of the companies that arent garbage might be shorter
A little too short
Good luck avoiding most of them. They own everything.
Nestle doesn’t just make Chocolate…
Samsung, Ubisoft, Epic, Chiquita, Dole, Apple, …
Pretty much any big corp is gonna be really shitty…
Almost as if capitalism would mean “profits over humanity”. I am shocked.
As am I! Just completely shocked!! And OUTRAGED!! /s
Create a github repo, put eveey company in the readme
Good idea. I may get on it if there isn’t one already
Not that I know of. Just thought of if because I have seen similar uses before. GitHub has GitHub pages, if you want to create a website.
All of them.
But what about the poor CEOs? Did they get their Christmas bonus? Think of the children!!
Thank you! The CEOs’ children need Maseratis, boarding school, college, jet fuel to pedo islands, and so many other necessities! We can’t let them suffer!
I can only ask how much cocaine remained on the table when they finally decided to do this. Not much, I’d wager.
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CEO is aptly named, at least.
I kept trying to figure out the joke about the name Swen Vincke and was failing. Cocks. It was right there in front of me everyone. It was Cocks.
Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, for those of us who can’t help but read comments before reading articles
stop whoring yourselves to these evil fuckups
They are owned by Hasbro? Why?
Larian Studios is not owned by anyone. The Wizards of the coast team that Larian worked with has been laid off
TSR, which was the company that originally made D&D got bought by Wizards of the Coast, which made Magic the Gathering. Then Wizards got bought by Hasbro.
Every product you love has been acquired by a large company that got bought by a larger company and then turned to shit. Until the government stops blocking mergers and acquisitions, this trend will continue.
starts*, but yeah
Let’s stop pretending T$R was a bastion of consumer values.
IDK, I think this take is more “It went from bad to worse” rather than “TSR was a bastion of consumer values”.
More like, a bunch of greedy folks overreached and lost their business to another bunch of greedy folks who sold to another group of greedy folks.
At least we don’t have a splat book coming out every other week these days.
Nice thread necromancy
Hasbro continuing to make shit decisions on behalf of WotC, the only sector of the company keeping it afloat.
laying off 1,100 employees as a way to "modernize our organization and get even leaner
Yeah because that’s what we want of the ones in charge of publishing, administering and providing support for some of the most played games in the world now and historically: leanness! The fewer people to take care of important things, the better! 🤦
I know that he’s talking to investors rather than players, but come on! Also, there’s nothing “modern” about stupidly trying to increase profits via mass layoffs without expecting blowback and for quality to suffer. That’s some 1700s bullshit right there.
Also, when your company is ailing (read: Not making more profit than last year, no matter what ocean of money your managers are swimming in), fire the good parts. That’ll fix it!
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why Do pEoPlEs LiVeLihOoDs mAtTeR if my GaEm WoRkS
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shut the fuck up already
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“I win the argument” … are you fucking 9 years old? Jesus Christ
He’s not talking about Larian, he’s talking aboutbthe actual D&D team at Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. Hasbro got a new CEO last year and the way they’ve been operating certain business units like WotC has changed dramatically, coupled with massive layoffs across many Hasbro subsidiaries. All he’s saying is the DnD team at WotC now is completely different to the one that Larian knew as they developed BG3.
Please do not tell me that anyone is surprised that a triple A game studio laid off most of their employees as a reward for a job well done.
Please. Please tell me everyone has figured out that nearly all large game dev companies are pure fucking evil.
EDIT: Welp, thats what I get for making an ill informed post after 36 hours on the road before passing out in my motel, yep, I probably should have read the article.
About a week ago you decided to make your lemmy account. A better idea would’ve been to learn how to fucking read.
You should teaach him about your username.
I’m proud to say I’ve spread the lemon party gospel on lemmy a few times, and the reactions are always worth it.
You…You might want to consider reading the article.
Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, who own DnD. Larian, a completely separate company, got the rights to make BG3 from Hasbro. Hasbro laid off nearly everyone Larian Studios worked with at Wizards of the Coast.
I upvoted you out of pitty. Hope your motel bed is comfortable.
Hooray pity upvote!
The bed is comfortable, yes.
Try re-reading the headline again :)
I guess this is reddit and you don’t know how to read past the headlines?
Read? Lemmy is Reddit 2.0. Unfortunately, the majority don’t read articles.
Yeah I was super refreshed when I moved here but it seems to have just absorbed all the bad habits I hated about reddit.
Off-topic, but when I mentioned this in a different thread, an actual answer I got is basically the fediverse is really similar to reddit - how can the culture be any different?
Anyways, if the fediverse starts to become Reddit 2.0 I think it would be high time to go.
