Subnautica legitimately made me stop and stare at my screen with mouth agape at the wonder and terror of a glowing undersea behemoth. I've never had a game provoke pure awe like it does.
755 hours in Total War: Warhammer 2.
"Watch the Irishman Suffer" is practically it's own genre of Star Trek episode. Chief O'Brien needs a break, he's just a regular dude who has witnessed his own death too many times.
Hello from Spokane, where we were literally off the chart yesterday! (AQI of 511 out of 500!) I went outside for five minutes to water the garden and my eyes were stinging and teary for a while afterwards.
But nobody gives a shit unless it's the east coast, because this has happened nearly every year for the past 5 years. At least I can see the sky today.
Yoko Shimomura is my favorite Square Enix composer, hands down.
I have also had this issue!
I'm a Pathfinder fan with vague disdain for 5e as a ruleset and active loathing for Forgotten Realms as a setting. I love this game.
My life has been replaced with Baldur's Gate 3. I'm partially into Act 2 but keep having to take breaks because the spooky atmosphere and crippling decision anxiety are stressing me out too much to continue playing long stretches.
Why is everyone acting like Dragon Age: Origins is the only fantasy RPG that ever existed? Baldur's Gate 3 is the next step in a long legacy of genre defining games.
Practice makes perfect!
I'd say the most important thing is knowing who your NPCs are and what they want. That's what you should prepare outside of sessions. Once you have that, it's a lot easier to deal with players throwing curveballs.
A constrained scope helps as well. Give the group a prompt like "make characters who want revenge on the Lich Queen" or "make characters who care about the city of Korvosa."
You can't actually get the true ending on your first playthrough. You have to do the neutral ending first.
It is a wonderful little game!
Don't tell my friends, but I actually like GMing more than playing now. It's fun to have the galaxy-brain "always on" feeling and multitask information. (And it's always your turn in combat!)
I am putting my money on Mystra. Even though she only exists in Forgotten Realms, she has to die on every edition change, right?
My life has been completely subsumed by Baldur's Gate 3. I spend all day at work thinking about it.
My husband called it a "tactical combat dating sim" and that cracked me up.
My players spent a good portion of last night's session in a magic hot tub.
I've only gotten about 2 hours in, but I'm having tons of fun so far! The character creator has lots of options, there's unique dialogue choices from your class/race/etc in just about every conversation, and I am a big proponent of turn based CRPGs.
Also starting a multi-player game this weekend, which should be fun!
Wolfheart seems like a nice guy, he's put out tons of great content leading up to release.
I've only played a couple hours so far but I'm enjoying the game a lot! It seems like every conversation has at least one unique dialogue option based on your race or class picks, which is awesome. The companions I've met so far seem fairly interesting.
The entirety of Spiritfarer, really.
It feels like game development timelines are so long these days that there's very few games per hardware generation. I look back at the PS2's library (to be fair, it was enormous even for its own time) and everything on the Switch feels tiny in comparison.
Also, even if the "new Nintendo Switch(i)" or whatever is backwards compatible, the rise of digital sales means I can't play my switch games on the new console anyway.
I'm just tired of having to buy new crap.
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I really love Dragon Age: Inquisition. It has huge flaws, yes. Chiefly having way too much generic filler sidequesting.
Do note that you'll need the DLC to get the most important part of the story. (Thanks EA.)
To be fair, I am not the model series fan. I gave up on Origins in the 12 hours of identical dungeon corridors underneath the dwarf city. Never played DA2. Love KotOR, Jade Empire (still holds up surprisingly well!), and Mass Effect, though.

Can we talk about Final Fantasy XVI?
I am desperate to discuss this game, it's possibly one of my top 3 Final Fantasy games.
The combat feels pretty great, I don't mind it being a Devil May Cry action system. It's really satisfying to chain together evades and teleports and blow up the screen with particle effects. The game really opens up as you get more abilities but it does take a while to get into the full scope of combat.
The sense of spectacle is amazing, I am a huge fan of kaiju movies, so I am all on board for 50 foot monster battles.
And the story and characters are so good! It's so refreshing to get a story where the protagonists want to make the world a better place by throwing down oppressive authority and are actually allowed to do so. Clive has a strong sense of honor and a very endearing dorky streak wrapped up behind all his emotional trauma and he's a great sympathetic protagonist. Cid is possibly one of the best Cids of all time (where did they find the absolute mutant that voices him?). Jill is a p

Big Fuzzy Jumping Spider


This spider got into my house this morning and I had to put it back out before the cat got it. It's about a half inch long and very fuzzy and cute.
Homebrew Creature - Twining Hydra
I decided to make this creature after spending an hour pulling bindweed out of my backyard. Inspired by invasive and/or aggressive vining plants such as poison ivy, kudzu, and bindweed!
Though called a hydra due to its tendency to regenerate from very little plant material and many nodding flower heads, the twining hydra is not related to hydras in the least. Twining hydras are thought to arise from the chaotic energy of the First World, though some theorize that they are a biological deterrent created by a gnomish druid to drive intruders away from sacred groves. Either way, the capacity of the creatures for destruction is unparalleled and their persistence overly robust. Attempts to remove the creatures result in severe allergic reactions from the caustic sap, and attempts to hide are typically foiled by the plant simply tearing down entire walls. Even so, the sap is a useful reagent in alchemical poisons and decoctions when handled carefully, so adventurers may seek out one of