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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   865 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 7, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video game thread

I'm still playing BG3. Around 17 hours in. Progress is kinda slow, not because it's really difficult or boring but because there are so many items to inspect, notes and books to read, traps to spot and disarm, morals to ponder, battle decisions and build decisions to make. I'm enjoying it though. I killed one of the goblin leaders before heading downwards. I'm doing lots of stuff in the Underdark. Picked up a sword that can sing, and killed a bunch of minotaurs and duergar dwarves.

I've become really addicted to my 3rd play through of Owlcat's Rogue Trader CRPG, staying up until 2am on work nights to play it. I'm doing this run as dogmatic priest and am very much enjoying the RP. I just wish the game had a more creative difficulty setting. I play on unfair and don't use an officer(gives lots of extra turns) and combat still only lasts 1-2 rounds. Meaning most builds are just about pumping for 1-2 turns of play knowing that any downsides from consumables/items/abilities will unlikely to affect the combat. The recent 1.5v update added some new talents for less common play styles and I love them.

I haven't gotten the new Arbites DLC but i hear its not very good, unlike the Void Shadows one which is excellent.

I haven't gotten the new Arbites DLC but i hear its not very good, unlike the Void Shadows one which is excellent.

I thought that Lex Imperialis was also excellent. The story is well done, has some very fun moments, and Solomorne is a great party member. YMMV though.

Curious, my understanding is it felt very much like side act, you just go do some optional quests but very little impact on the story. If you think it's worth it maybe I'll check it out on my next run. Can you convert Solomorne to not dogmatic?

I mean, I would say that is exactly how the first DLC works to be fair. You get to go on quests for Kibellah's story but they are self contained and don't have any implications for the main story. That is also how Lex Imperialis works, but the side quests are generally engaging (and they cooked up some interesting combat encounters, which is always nice). The only thing which ties back into the main story to any real extent is that you get to spend more time with the Administratum prefect from the base game (she even gets a portrait now!), and she will have some tasks for you. No idea if you can make Solomorne not dogmatic - I wasn't aware you could shift companion alignment at all, I thought it was set in stone.

As a huge BG3 fan and off and on Warhammer painter, I picked up Rogue Trader a few months back but haven't really gotten into it. I feel like a lot of these games take a couple of hours of being confused by systems before they really grab you, and I haven't pushed through that yet (to my great nerd shame, I also wandered away from my PC after 45 minutes of Clair Obscur). Seems like Rogue trader is worth the effort to learn, though? Should I play with the DLC enabled for my first play through, and do you have any other relevant tips?

I enjoy it but yes there is quite the learning curve to push past. I'm not even truly degenerate about builds yet and I try to stay away from reading build guides as it sucks the fun out of it for me. The story is good, its fairly responsive to your choices. The romances feel great, the core set of characters have good arcs and potential. You can push your followers towards Chaos/dogmatic/humanism in ways that make sense. Overall it's a very enjoyable game.

Void shadows is a must. It seamlessly integrates with the core story very well. Technically the core story left side missions with references/hints prior to its release which makes it feel like it fleshed those out and made them immersive. The classes it adds are unfortunately very OP and very fun. 1.5v was a balance patch that mostly just hit them.

The gameplay tips if you are starting out is to abuse office mechanics via Cassia, you get extra turns on your heavy hitters allowing to scale up the needed buffs to be monsters. Late game they generally start fights with the buffs so its less relevant, but at low levels the power fantasy hasn't taken off yet.

Appreciate the advice! Other than this I'll try to go in blind, and we'll see if I succumb to the lure of build guides at some point.

The DLC integrates well into the main game, so I would enable it (and did for my first playthrough this past year). I'm not great at character building so I don't have a ton of tips, but one thing I found is that RT is very much a game of stacking buffs. 3% damage here, an extra attack there, and when you add them up the character becomes a killing machine. And speaking of extra attacks, look out for things that say they do not count against the one attack per turn limit. They are generally very powerful options to take.

I know that feeling. I’m reminded of the mod for D:OS2 which rebalanced combat to make health more relevant. They had to move heaven and earth to let it serve as a valid resource instead of a last resort.

But then, RPGs have always suffered from that tension. Real humans have a nasty habit of dying horribly when they take one bolter round to the face. Not easy to reconcile with slower, attrition-based gameplay.

My brain feels modded every time I read your handle. I keep seeing "nutsack" whenever I scroll past you. Do people ever call you that in multiplayer?

Unfortunately, yes.

I picked this name back in the Xbox live days. My mother had seen my existing handle and asked “isn’t that kind of…gay?” Since I’d been playing (and honestly, reading about) the roguelike NetHack, I swapped out the H and damned myself to a career of scrotal comments. How ironic.

Oh man. That is great. We’d have loved you back when the lot of us played the original StarCraft on Battle.net. It was a paradise of vulgarity, immature teenagers and young adults.

Oh DOS2, I have fond memories but yeah very much same feeling. I always hated how you pretty much had to spec your party towards one armor type strip or bust. I remember using the hell out of mods to try and fix it, make combat more interesting to some success but it was just a lot. I haven't tried modding Rogue Trader yet.

RPGs have always suffered from that tension. Real humans have a nasty habit of dying horribly when they take one bolter round to the face.

Funny enough this still happens with high level parties in Rogue Trader, which is part of the combat problem(on unfair). If you aren't alpha striking the enemy they are alpha striking you. I'm not sure what a satisfying system looks like. Thinking back idk if I've run into an rpg system that does it well.

EDIT: on further thought, its the power fantasy that probably causes the combat problem.

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