kanisatha

Also different pantheon of gods.

I would guess that Greyhawk will be one of the two more settings to be brought back next year. D&D is now such a huge cash-cow for WotC and Hasbro and, since setting books and guides and gaming modules are all mainly being released in digital form and not physical form, they can go nuts pushing out a lot of new stuff. The demand is certainly there.

Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-kherson.html

This is what happens with me as well. Hits my motivation to keep playing very hard.

Yes they are the land-based version of the Harpoon. Many US allies have Harpoon, but Denmark is one of the very few countries that has the land-based version. Apparently those Harpoons and more US M777 howitzers were very recently delivered. The M777s are only now getting into the fight in the east, and are being assessed as highly effective. On the M142 HiMARS, apparently the White House has decided to send them, but don't want to make a big public spectacle of it because the Russians are screaming about that crossing their red lines.

So here's another new game I just now came across. Any of you played it yet? Thoughts? Thanks in advance. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1157390/King_Arthur_Knights_Tale/

I was just going to post this myself. Yeah, on the Pathfinder reddit, Paizo officially posted that this game is NOT a Starfinder game. So, either it is another Pathfinder game using an AP with a space-y connection (people keep pointing to the Iron Gods AP), or, it could very well be a new Owlcat IP. Owlcat is not an extension of Paizo, and I can see them wanting to do something different that is their own creation.

Well, Ravenloft was already back. And recently we had the announcement of the return of Spelljammer and Dragonlance this year. Here's all the recent D&D-related news, including title and release date for the D&D movie: https://www.geekwire.com/2022/wizards-of-the-coast-reveals-upcoming-projects-for-dungeons-dragons/ https://www.polygon.com/23034058/dungeons-dragons-dnd-direct-movie-release-date-cast https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2022/02/dd-on-track-to-deliver-one-digital-release-a-year-starting-in-2023.html

Sorry for deflating your excitement. But for what it's worth, Spelljammer is one of the old D&D settings that is coming back, and according to the CEO of WotC they are planning on making video games in all of the active D&D settings. So at some point in the future you should get a Spelljammer game.

Okay, good to know. But doesn't it have advanced tech, including directed energy weapons? According to what I've just now begun to read about the setting, it is in the same star system as Pathfinder's Golarion, but thousands of years in the future where Golarion has mysteriously disappeared from the system.

Actually I don't know anything about Starfinder. It's just that I have always been entirely about fantasy settings for my RPGs and have never cared to venture into sci-fi setting games. So there is the possibility that, without supporting the KS campaign, I will wait to see streams of the game after it is released and then possibly decide to give it a try.

A very interesting read: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-us-ukraine-discuss-danger-escalation-new-arms-extend-kyivs-reach-2022-05-26/

Well, that will make it that much easier for me to sit out this Owlcat KS campaign.

This game was an Epic exclusive for a year and has just now released on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/597180/Old_World/ Anyone here played it? Any feedback? Looks very interesting to me, but also looks like playing it might get frustrating after a while.

Here's a very interesting piece, yet another interview with a major realist scholar, except that Allison is someone I typically agree with a lot and I use his books in my classes often: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-dealing-with-horrible-leaders-is-part-of-the-history-of-international-relations-a-31a0aabb-35eb-4107-a65f-39ae5f79c9e7

No I was referring to a recent NYT op-ed in which the editors demanded that Western leaders force Ukraine to give up land for a peace deal with Russia.

No shocker for me at all that Kissinger is pushing for appeasing Russia (though unlike Macron and co. and the NYT, at least he has the decency to still say it is up to the Ukrainians to decide, and this is just his recommendation). Kissinger is a conundrum for me. On the one hand, his academic books and articles are superb: sound logic, impeccable research and documentation, beautiful writing, comprehensive coverage of the subject. His Diplomacy is the best book out there on that subject. Ditto his book World Order. But on the other hand, he (along with Mearsheimer and Walt among others) are those realists who believe the way to keep great powers from doing bad things in the world is to appease them (though conveniently this is not applied to the U.S., and only to "other" great powers such as the former Soviet Union, the PRC, post-Soviet Russia, post-Cold War Germany, and even today's Iran). I generally agree with realist thinking, but on appeasement I'm a hard 'no'.

Okay, but then is it difficult/challenging/frustrating to build up/regain willpower and to reduce hunger?

Hehe. This is me too.

This is exactly how I play most RPGs, the first time being a blind learning experience (where I may not necessarily finish the game), and the second time being a completionist and perfectionist run. Re. Swansong itself, how difficult is it to handle the resource management? I like resource management in games, but have found there is a fine line between resource management that is challenging but reasonable and fun, and resource management that is aggravating and frustrating.

^This. Once they believe they have enough of Luhansk and Donetsk to sell to the Russian people the notion of a "victory," that's when they will start talking about "ending" the "operation." But I think they're also struggling right now to come up with a sellable justification for why they should also get to hold on to the areas in southern Ukraine currently under their occupation. That's the part for which even their ludicrous mythmaking hasn't yet been able to come up with a justification that can be presented to the world at large.

More scapegoating by Putin (should I feel bad for these guys?): https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2022-05-19/putin-loses-faith-in-top-generals-following-high-profile-failures-in-ukraine

Don't want to side-track this thread, but yeah things are utterly ****ty in Sri Lanka right now. And yeah, I also tell my students that Sri Lanka is the proverbial canary in the coalmine; even the US could someday end up in that state when wastefully running up the national debt in a stupid way. My mom texts me every day with the latest, for example that her medications (she is a recovering breast cancer survivor and a diabetic) are going up in cost from one month to the next by about 40%. Just yesterday she texted me about a loaf of bread now costing 400 rupees. That's insane! My mom at least has two financially successful sons sending her funds in hard currency every month. What about the average villager living on less than $2 a day (the UN's global poverty line)? Revolution is coming in Sri Lanka, and this time the bastards at the top are not able to divide the people against each other on ethnic and religious-communal lines, or even socioeconomic class lines.

Excellent find! I would largely agree with Tim Snyder (I have a couple of his books on my office shelf). His concern is exactly what I've been concerned about myself right from the very beginning of the war, that some Western leaders--in their desperation to give Putin an "out" from his war--which would actually be about an "out" for themselves too, may start talking about giving Putin things he does not deserve (or has earned), effectively moving towards appeasement as the endgame for the war. And on my list of things I hate with a white-hot passion, appeasement is pretty up there.

And they shouldn't have any such stick. Will France or Italy or Germany give up any of their territory to an invader?