Can somebody explain the deal with Arknights? I thought this was just some mobile gacha game and paid no attention, but I must be following a handful of diehard fans on Tumblr and I didn’t notice the slow boil of increasing Arknights content on my dash. Feels like it came out of nowhere, but maybe I’m just out of touch?
its like a decent tower defense game iirc and unlike some other games it’s not as horny outright as like shit like nikke so its been popular for a while, but it has anime girls that appeal to people in general. i tried fgo and arknights felt like way more of an actual game. im not surprised its popular since most gacha games barely have gameplay. its been getting steadily more popular since it came out a few years ago
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The ads for this game on YouTube are so unhinged
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Is baldurs gate 3 still larian?
Yes
If I wanted to read a tabletop rpg rulebook to understand how tabletop rpgs work (and also understand lingo around those kinds of games), should I look at DnD or Pathfinder?
(I actually won some DnD book called “Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft” but I don’t know how this is different from a regular rulebook.)
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Uhh probably just like the starter adventure module that comes with DnD these days is enough. The Lost Mine of Phandelver.
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D&D, despite being by far the most popular ttrpg, is also one of the more rules-crufty and has very little guidance as to how ttrpgs should actually be played at the table.
It’s much much more instructive to watch/listen to one of the zillion of what’s called “actual play” podcasts, which is just recordings of people playing ttrpgs that are more or less edited across a huge spectrum of tastes. Might I recommend this one as the best of the bunch? 
Ravenloft is an adventure module. It’s like a combination campaign setting, storyline/character guide, and series of premade encounters intended to be used by dungeon masters to provide content for their players. You won’t find explanations of the rules in there; the “basic” dnd book is called the Player’s Handbook.
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Checkout an actual play, sure, but a lot of them deliberately cover up the mechanics with narrative in order to make things compelling. You’re listening to a story, most of the time, rather than listening to people explain the mechanics or arbitrate them. I think the quickest way through this would be to listen to No Rangers Allowed and glance at some adventure module.
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Read the original replays that led to the proliferation of Lodoss War media! They’re actually a good introduction to ttrpgs since they were written for an audience completely unfamiliar with ttrpgs
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oh this sounds awesome
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Dang, I had no idea the Lodoss War replays were translated. That looks fantastic!
I looked up The Lost Mine of Phandelver and saw it’s from the DnD Starter Set, and I was trying to find out if that was really worth the money as a curio when the Player’s Handbook was so much cheaper. Then I realized this entire time that the $50 Amazon listings I’d been browsing through was a price-gouged bundle by a third party. $20 a lot easier to swallow.
I am subscribed to No Ranger Allowed but I have never listened to it because I didn’t understand DnD, so I at least helped you subscriber numbers (maybe). I was looking for something I could just sit down and read through at my own pace rather than listen through, but maybe once I have a better grounding I’ll go back to it.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I’ll definitely start with Lodoss War, but I might also pick up the DnD starter set too.
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Don’t forget that the basic rules are available legally for free online! Like if you just want to soak in mechanics (which, again, does not in any way really describe “what it’s like to play a trrpg”) you can poke thru all the rules right now. Google “5e srd” and you can find it in wiki form
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I think this is useful to keep in mind so thanks for reminding me. Part of the interest in this though is that a lot of those itch.io bundle have indie TTRPG systems but I honestly can’t tell the difference between them, so I was trying understand the medium on a basic level so I can at least follow conversations around them.
I’m sure part of that is indeed going to come down to knowing what these systems mean in terms of actual play experience though.
Edit: Also no, I did not know the rules were online for free!
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If you want DnD without the cruft try looking up Shadow Dark. It’s DnD streamlined and modernized.
Mildly related - each ttrpg is played differently by each GM and each group of players. A popular system like DnD flexes to play how many players imagine/want to play.
Tbh DnD and all the other d20 games birthed from it all play relatively the same. The DM narrates the goings on. The players do anything they want or anything where a dice roll is boring (walking, opening doors, etc). Then they roll with bonuses from their stats for anything interesting (fighting a goblin, walking while drunk, reading a weird scroll). Good DMs will guide the players through the world at a good/interesting pace. And hopefully the world is interesting enough for the players to be entertained. And that’s pretty much it.
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I now got this rare vinyl coming to my house. I want to rip it to mp3/flac for the sake of the world. My crappy suitcase record player has white/yellow out. I have a laptop. Now what?
I mean, you can get an RCA(white/yellow plugs( to 3.5 (headphone jack) and hook it into your computer if it has a mic port. Not sure how good that will sound (probably not great) but it’s the easiest option from that setup.
yeah, that would be the most direct option - but may need some further amplification.
i don’t think the sound would be great, but i think the biggest issue in that regard is probably the record player itself.
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If you had an Apple arcade subscription but cancel it and delete the game, if you reactivate it and download the game again does it bring back your save?
A year ago these things were on clearance for less than $10, but now people are acting like they’re worth money
If your table has a built in preamp, you’re probably better going with booji’s method of RCA to 1/8” into your computer’s Line In though. The Behringer interface is super convenient (and the pass through is nice) but pretty limited in terms of recording settings whereas your motherboard’s on board audio probably supports some wild settings like 96khz audio.
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