Sorry I dropped off in the middle of a game. Went through a rough period.

So with my bad back and my desk chair being one of the few places I can sit without pain I've been putting a ridiculous amount of time into Solasta: Crown of the Magister on PC lately. It's a turn-based 5th Edition D&D CRPG (though it uses the SRD rather than the full license) and I'm having a blast with it. (It reminds me of the old Temple of Elemental Evil video game, but less buggy.) I've played through the official campaign twice and am now working my way through some of the many user-created dungeons and trying out various mods.

Much like ToEE you create a full party (4 characters in this case). As part of character creation you assign them personality traits that influences what they say during cutscenes (though the system isn't quite as robust as I would like as some lines are always said and can seem out of character when they come up.) My favorite character I made so far is a Sellsword Dwarf Rogue who comes across like a sarcastic London street tough.

For you Halo fans, an a capella version of the theme: [link]

I love that music.

Just wanted to let y'all know that Emmett has gotten so into D&D that he's DMing a campaign, spends more time writing up scenarios every week than he does on his homework, and bought his girlfriend (who plays in his campaign) Fancy Dice for xmas.

That's awesome!

I was very similar when I first started DMing as far as workload. Tell him he doesn't have to come up with everything himself. Finding out that it was okay to "steal" things and that even the best DM's steal was much needed for my sanity when gaming as an adult.

For example, I made an inn in a frontier town based on Quark's Place from DS9, only instead of Ferengi the Quark and Rom analogs were dwarves. The players enjoyed it and even the hardcore Trekkers didn't pick up on the source material. I also frequently swipe plot hooks, story beats and even dungeons and NPCs from published adventures before tweaking them to fit the story I'm telling.

Tell him he doesn't have to come up with everything himself. Finding out that it was okay to "steal" things and that even the best DM's steal was much needed for my sanity when gaming as an adult.

I'll relay that! But not on Tuesday because that's gaming night and he will accept no calls.

Have you seen this yet?

"The Evolution of Trust" [link]

Neither the topic nor the conclusions might be new to you, but I enjoyed the presentation.

I'm really enjoying Horizon: Forbidden West (HZD is easily on my top 5 all time favorite games list) but man the increased difficultly and loss of all my cool gear from the first game is rough. Just wish I was able to play on a PS5 so the post-death reloads were shorter.

I'm about 28 hours in and have probably died more on Normal than I did in my entire NG+ Ultra Hard run to get the Platinum trophy for it.

The writing and acting is still great and I'm enjoying the follow-up to the phenomenal story of the first game. I had some suspicions confirmed but I'm sure they're going to throw more twists our way as well.

Nearing the end of the game and my wife is fully invested in the storyline just from watching me play. She has requested I don't advance the plot if I play when she's not around.