urchin
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Post by urchin on Dec 21, 2017 17:06:51 GMT
My pleasure! Haven't played either of them myself, sadly, but Exploding Kittens always seemed hilarious! And there's a play of Eldritch Horror on Tabletop by Will Wheaton that's very fun. Eldritch Horror is alright. I have played it a few times, but I'll never love it as much as Arkham Horror. Most people disagree with that, though, and Arkham Horror is even more heinously complicated and probably terrible for a charity livestream.
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Dec 21, 2017 17:04:28 GMT
The mess Gertrude left the archives in was most likely very deliberate to prevent Beholding and it's marked to string everything neatly together. She was able to read and understand everything that went on, misfiled and "misplaced" the statements, then conferred with Leitner. Until Elias noticed and - BAM - bullets to the chest for going against Beholding. Same result for Leitner once he was outside of his protective reading-bubble. This is a great point that problematizes Gertrude being on Beholding's good side at the end of her life. I've been thinking that she was hiding statements from Elias and working for Beholding, but hiding them from Beholding is a strong possibility that I cannot discount, and does turn things on their heads. I'm sticking with the theory that Elias has some other agenda that pits him against Jonathan for now. Partially because it's believable (though not definitive), and partially because that sounds like it the most exciting possibility to me, at least from where the story is now It's great trading notes and observations with you, we shall see what unfolds!
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urchin
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Post by urchin on Dec 20, 2017 16:19:28 GMT
Which is another clue for my theory that Elias tries to pit enemies against John (or vice versa) to train and harden him up. Hmm. I'm not sure about that. I think it's very possible that Elias is sending the tapes to Jonathan (Elias or Martin are my guesses), but I don't think it's to harden him. I think Elias considers himself Jonathan to be his adversary, given his penchant for murdering people who dig to deeply and learn too much. If the tapes are coming from Elias, it might be a smokescreen to keep Jonathan occupied and out of the way. As to what Elias is really after... the more episodes come out, the less certain I am of that. I doubt that he's working for beholding, though. At least given what we know right now. I think Beholding's current chosen is Jonathan, and that it has its hooks in Martin as well. Just my thoughts, could be totally wrong. I think the audience-as-beholding idea is an interesting one, though I don't know how much I want to identify with an entity of cosmic horror
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Dec 19, 2017 15:55:52 GMT
Personally, I think it's more telling that he was primed earlier in the season - there's a point where Not!Sasha says that the table makes her uncomfortable and they should get rid of it, but The Archivist retorts that they're not in the habit of destroying artefacts. Will quote relevant bit here when I've found it again. Are you thinking of when Martin suggests that it be destroyed? From Episode 37 - Burnt Offering: MARTIN: Sorry... Look, John, I do think we should destroy the table, though. I mean, if it’s the one from Amy Patel’s statement. Just in case.
ARCHIVIST: Elias told me the same thing. Luckily he phrased it as advice rather than an instruction, so for now I’m more inclined to keep studying it. We’re not in the business of destroying knowledge. Not Sasha may have suggested destroying it somewhere else, but I don't recall for sure. I think you're right, though, that the Archivist had the thought of destroying the table suggested to him long before he did it. Sounds like Elias helped with that as well.
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urchin
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Post by urchin on Dec 18, 2017 14:49:10 GMT
Thank you for the advice! The frequent cuts make sense as the best to keep players engaged when their characters aren't present.
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Dec 16, 2017 18:31:49 GMT
One thing about RQG that I am really impressed by is how well things stay on track when the party is split. There are few off-topic tangents and very little disruptive interjection by people who are not in the active scene. How much of that is editing?
My biggest issue with the campaign I'm playing in right now is that there's a lot of party splitting that's done poorly. Cuts between scenes feel too infrequent, so inactive players get bored/antsy. Players tend to interrupt scenes they are not in, and want the GM to resolve things that are not part of the active scene while he is trying to run the active scene.
What can I as a player do to make this better? Or do is RQG not as tight as it appears to be in the edited version that gets released?
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Dec 14, 2017 17:02:53 GMT
This was a fun special! I like the relationship-first character construction idea, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things play in the second half. Also, the accents were endearingly terrible.
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urchin
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Post by urchin on Dec 12, 2017 16:03:04 GMT
Climbing down, I retrieved what turned out to be a small wooden box, about six inches square, with an intricate pattern carved along the outside. Engraved lines covered it, warping and weaving together, making it hard to look away. Sadly, no, Lensik doesn't call the boxes patterns fractal directly. I don't think think that means they aren't, though, especially when compared to this description from Lost and Found:
Instead of the pictures or scenes common to the ceramics of the period, the blue glaze was painted on in crisp, thin geometric lines. They repeated perfectly and seemed to get smaller and more intricate the closer I looked, but the shapes they formed never lost any of the precision, seeming to continue on however closely I looked. This is definitely a description of a fractal pattern. It's as clear as you can get without using the world fractal itself. It also sounds similar enough to what Lensik was describing that I would bet they are both hypno-fractal patterns.
That said, I think the vase in Lost and Found is connected to Esmentiaras, but I doubt it's connected to Hilltop Road (at least from what we know so far).
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urchin
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Post by urchin on Dec 8, 2017 21:35:41 GMT
Hmm, that's almost certainly evidence that he's not just working for himself, though inconclusive otherwise. Do you have recorded anywhere your master list of the beings and what you're calling them? I confuse all the different aliases sometimes. I don't.. for the most part I go with Beholding, Esmentiaras, The Lightless Flame, The Hive and Mr. Pitch. Others I describe as appropriate. Do you think Butchery/Slaughter is one of them? Meat keeps coming up, and there was the weird graffiti in Skintight: Silk will not stitch the butcher's meat.What about the anglerfish and the not-people? Related to the greater beings or just lesser monsters?
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Dec 8, 2017 21:31:38 GMT
I really like this idea, and I think it explains the confusion that is Hilltop Road more than anything else I've seen. In Burned Out alone there is such a jumble of evidence pointing at so many different aspects: the Lightless Flame's fever, spiders from the apple, and hypnotic patterns on the box that Lensik finds. Maybe the red herring salad is all Esmentiaras's doing. Furthermore, if Esmentiaras is capable of bending time (or the perception of time), then this would explain why the timeline of all those episodes is a mess of contradictions.
Another detail that may not be directly relevant, but can't be accidental: Lensik mentions that his father was obsessed with fractals.
Finally, though this is meta evidence, Jonathan Sims has mentioned he's an Junji Ito fan. There is freaky time distortion is Ito's series Uzumaki, and that might have been a source of inspiration for Esmentiaras.
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Dec 5, 2017 19:29:39 GMT
Well, we know that Elias has "changed" a lot since his uni days... though since we don't know if this could be caused by Beholding or "Mr. Pitch", I'm not sure that that helps! Hmm, that's almost certainly evidence that he's not just working for himself, though inconclusive otherwise. Do you have recorded anywhere your master list of the beings and what you're calling them? I confuse all the different aliases sometimes.
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urchin
Right Honourable Poster
Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
Posts: 52
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Post by urchin on Dec 2, 2017 3:34:12 GMT
Theory: Elias isn't working for Beholding.
Maybe this is obvious to everyone already and I'm just catching up, but it’s been bugging me why Elias would want Gertrude Robinson or Jeurgen Leitner dead if he's working for Beholding.
I'm part-way through a re-listen, so I'm probably missing some key facts, but something stood out in Growing Dark that didn’t the first time through. The archivist notes at the end of that episode that screams were heard in the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel on May 15, 2015, the day that Gertrude died. Initially, this seemed like a clue that the Peoples' Church of the Divine Hope was in some way responsible for her death, but now we know that Elias was Gertrud's killer.
Could Elias be connected to the Peoples' Church of the Divine Hope in some way? Could he be the reason they seem still to be active even after Maxwell Raynor allegedly left? Could Elias be an infiltrator in Beholding's archives, rather than a servant of them?
Is evidence to contradict these possibilities or more to support them?
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Nov 30, 2017 16:42:04 GMT
The EYEwitnesses. Nice nod to Beholding.
I wonder to what degree Elias knows what he's working for and how comfortable he is with it. He's become such a wonderfully scary character, but other than getting away with murder, I'm not sure what he ultimately wants. Or what Beholding wants? That seems like a fuzzy line.
This episode was really well written and Ben's performance totally blew me away. I hope we get more direct Elias recordings!
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Nov 28, 2017 14:55:42 GMT
Not sure loaded dice are perfectly valid, but if you were exceptionally dexterous you could potentially skew the expected value of your dice rolls on standard dice slightly by aiming for certain vertices. Theoretically. Over many rolls. There are probably better ways to punish players.
They do have that property, but not the other properties. This is more of a mathematical curiosity than a serious practical concern. I fear I've mislead people on that, sorry if that's the case!
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urchin
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Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.
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Post by urchin on Nov 23, 2017 13:55:42 GMT
How different are they from normal d20s? Personally I refuse to use any die that doesn't have opposite sides that sum to a consistent number. Standard polyhedral dice do have the opposite face property (unless they're those spin-down kind that people use for MtG life counters). The other properties are not typical. The opposite-face property keeps the die's expected value the same if it is pressed, making one pair of sides larger and more likely to come up. The third property (balanced faces around each face) functions similarly. The second property (balanced faces around each vertex) minimize change in the die's expected value if a vertex becomes more rounded through pressing or being shaved down. I don't think dice loading is a serious concern personally, and think of this more as a fun curiosity, but there is real world motivation behind it. Check out your d20s and add up the faces around a few vertices to notice the differences.
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