Barry @ishara@social.isharacomix.org

I love new automotive technology. This is the first time I've seen Michelin's airless tires, and I'm excited to one day put them on my own car. Even if "Uptis" is a ridiculous name. https://michelinmedia.com/michelin-uptis/

I've formulated an opinion now. The auto battler is cool and good, though I wish it was gated behind finishing the main story.

Disgaea really is two games in one: if you want a casual FF tactics experience, you can get that, but there's another game behind that which is optimizing level grinding. It can be a fun tactical challenge to try and beat foes when evenly matched, but I think there's an underlying sentiment that, in this game, only a sucker gets involved in a fair fight.

Oh heck we're getting an Unlosing Ranger switch port in spring? Sign me up.

I'm finding it hard to formulate an opinion on the auto-battler in Disgaea 6. It's strange how fun it is to "not" play the game and watch my levels go up by the hundreds.

i got the wario game

However that doesn't work well in a TTRPG that needs drama and action to justify folks taking four hours out of their day to put themselves into an imaginary world at the table. It's interesting to see the kinds of plotlines that show up in games of traveler... very unique and full of intrigue that you can't fit into an Elite-style of game.

As I think about it, this is probably why Elite was sold with a novella... to add in the intrigue not supported in the mechanics.

Recent thought that entered my brain about Traveller RPG (and by extension, other space games):

Part of the allure of space games for me has always been the solitude of space combined with routine tasks such as cargo hauling. Every once in a while a spooky pirate shows up to try and take your stuff, but it's usually a peaceful existence as you click destinations to bounce to within a procedurally generated universe.

Ah yes, I'm going through my annual "I'd like to play minecraft but don't want to start a new world with an update coming so soon" phase

Elaborating more on "if you're human", lionfolk and wolffolk are among the game's core playable species...

Character creation is really interesting. I really like how most player characters will begin their adventures around age 30-40 (if they are humans). Apparently one of the game's nicknames is "mid-life crisis in space".

The whole idea of "mustering out" of your career and becoming a vagrant among the stars with your buddies scratches a thematic itch.

I absolutely love Traveller's FTL system. No matter how far you jump, whether one parsec or six, it takes a week. Then you still have to slowboat to port to refuel, which might take another. Information is only as fast as the ships that carry it.

This means that information must depend on a decentralized infrastructure. I imagine the delayed posting and forwarding of usenet, and maybe a mail delivery system leveraging volunteer couriers and public key cryptogry.

At the moment I'm most enamored with the lack of mechanical character growth in Traveller. I think this is cool for a few reasons:
* Levels are fake anyway. Supposedly the encounters are supposed to scale but you often reach a tipping point in D&D-likes where it becomes much harder for characters to be challenged.
* The game can be more deadly for PCs since you can have a narratively satisfying demise without an associated loss of mechanical investment.

Against my better judgment I decided to pick up Mongoose Publishing's 2nd edition of the Traveller science fiction tabletop RPG.

It's interesting to see how it's evolution is so different from D&D despite their both coming about in the 70s. Just from the mechanics it's easy to tell the differences in what was important to the creators of these games.

My brain: Clearly the solution to not playing any RPGs is to invest in another set of rulebooks for a different system!