no, Riddick is a criminal forged in the fires of a hellish prison, refined on the planet of Pitch black, refined in a lightless prison deep underground, then sent out to slaughter singlehandedly several hundred soldiers invading a different planet and finally becoming emperor or a warrior race by merit of killing their emperor...
The last Ranger I played was a falconer baronial bastard, that just happened to be good enogh to be sent out to reclaim some boardermarsh. Chose the Bow as weapon... and her bird was a bit bigger: a teeny weeny baby Roc...
Pitch black synopsis: some Planet in a trinary system sees a crashlanding ship, that happens to have abroad the following: a pilot, a drug addict ranger, a girl in boy cloths, a preacher, an artifact trader, some others and Riddick. They find a mining colony with an astrolab that shows them there will be a total, planetary eclipse lasting some eternity! It comes, monsters awaken and start to nom away all the people but Pilot, Riddick, Girl and Preacher, one by one. Then Pilot dies as they try to escape.
@Trish I was just being sarcastic :) That being said though, that means that the film is entirely new to everyone who was around 3 years old or younger when the movie was released
@Yuuki oh, I hnow he is haught in Japan... not sure on china, probably in india too (just besides "Alexander was the idiot europeen we repelled first, we jsut took our time with the tommies#"
I'm a big fan of the Riddick franchise, but it's rather like Mad Max in that continuity is loose enough it's easier to consider each iteration a story told about a legendary figure, rather than accurate depictions of real events all experienced by the same man.
(Also like Mad Max, there's often a significant genre shift between installments.)
@godskook That's was true of the previous two Mad Max films as well; Max is the point of view character for all of the films, but only in the first is he the central figure of the film's story.
In the others, he's a loner who wanders into a settlement and gets caught up in its problems, and usually only helps them because it benefits himself in some material way. When their story is concluded, he walks off with little to no character development.
In that sense, Fury Road is MORE about Max than Road Warrior or Thunderdome were, because participating in Furiosa's story arc helps him change as a person.
yeah, they cast a different actor as Max. Which rather reinforces the notion that the films are presented as tales told about a legendary figure, alongside the changes in his backstory and the setting from film to film.
@Ryan MM(1e) has things like Ape, Badger, Bear, Boar, Buffalo, and Bull mixed right in there among Ankheg, Basilisk, Beholder, and Blink Dog. There's no "type" in a monster's stat block, do you're just using natural language to decide whether something's a beast or not. (Ditto the MMII, though it's got proportionately fewer beasts. I didn't look, but assume you'll find no beasts in the FF.)
2
Note, though, that a 1e druid doesn't shapechange into a "beast," but rather a "reptile, bird, or mammal." (PHB 1e p.21) Again: all natural language here, pun not intended =)
@NautArch One beautiful thing about the Mad Max films (possibly barring the first) is that it feels like every side character, every voiceless extra, is interesting enough and developed enough that the film could've just as easily focused on him or her instead.
@Ryan Yeah, that comes pretty far along in 1e--I was shocked, frankly, when at my first 5e table it hit me that druids get shapechange on, like, their second day as a druid.
@nitsua60 but it seems like Animal Friendship got nerfed as the game progressed. In 1st edition you can get a good number of friends and they're permanent unless abandoned. In 5E its 24hrs.
@Ryan Yeah. Part of the wider shift in D&D to have more focused on/bundled with the character than under the GM's control. Look at the sorts of things that happen at "name level" in 1e, or the various "followers" tables in 2e.
@nitsua60 Out of curiosity, what would you say is the old-school design goalsl behind Druid, moreso? Shapechanging, Nature-Caster or Animal-Lord? Or has it always roughly had 3.5's even-ish mix?
Killer orientation comic for Fate Core: http://www.uptofourplayers.com/fate-core-rules/
Support the hell out of these folks: https://www.patreon.com/ut4p
@godskook 1e into 2e the Druid is like a nature-based cleric, beholden to Nature rather than any deity. (Remember, deities used to be important, too.) Shapechanging was a fairly high-level ability, acquired 'round the same time magic-users got to polymorph. So I'd say mostly beast-friend, nature's protector, nature's wrath, utility role.
@Ryan (d'oh! Forgot you're a mod, too, and could have just edited it yourself.)
@godskook I'd point you to Douglas Niles' Moonshae Trilogy for the exemplar of what a druid "is" in FR canon, except the writing's pretty rough. If you're willing to read some badly-written brain-candy with a whiny protagonist (ftr, not dr), it might be worth an hour or two of your time.
If you like watching live tabletop RPGs, Nash & other great people did a thing this weekend. It got uh, interesting. https://www.twitch.tv/d20live/videos/all
@godskook Two big things stand out: the protagonist of the trilogy is kind-of a whiny snot who doesn't ever really get any less schmuck-like, and Niles reuses six times in a row (across the two trilogies) the same structure where he sets five or six parties in motion, all to arrive at the final confrontation serially, each tipping the conflict in their favor when they arrive.
It works once, but knowing that the last fifty pages of each of the books are going to follow exactly the same pattern's a bit... underwhelming.
@nitsua60 I mean....depends? I generally only get bored with story structures when they belie belief in some critical way with minimal justification. Such as the "he's only really good because he's the chosen one" archetype that backs Harry Potter. I can't take too many of those stories because in bulk, they're simply unbelievable.
@godskook If you're a fan of brain candy (and I know I am, as about twenty linear feet of DL and FR paperbacks will attest) then I'd absolutely say grab the first one. It'll cost you an hour, and net you a decent bit of early D&D/FR lore. Then you can decide to continue or not.
But if you're of the "there are too many good books on my shelf to spare time for anything of dubious quality" bent, be warned =)
@Zachiel They're fine for what they are. And I'm no snob, the opposite really. (A girlfriend's mom once coined the term "book slut" for me: "he never met a book he wouldn't take to bed.") I'll plow through a dozen Lee Child or Stephen Hunter books in a week. I just don't want to present Douglas Niles as anything other than tier-two pulp.
A lion or even a mammoth are both common and of the appropriate intelligence to be friended. Meanwhile the closest (at least in MM1) I see to a Frog is a Lizard. There's 4 types of Lizards; only 1 is of the intelligence to become a friend and its rare. :(
(And I've got to thank whoever in this room dropped a Gunnerkrigg link in here a year or so back--I've loved it. May buy the whole run and donate to my local library in the hopes a kid discovers it some day.)
I like the Dan Brown books despite the plot being predictable. I really like the curious details about technology, or art, or history (even if some are probably fake) that come up during narration.
@godskook Erfworld... ah, why isn't it still season 1? I loved season 1.
Also, Erfworld is in a bit of a "Lost, Season 3" section for me. The story has sold me a bill of goods, and I'm still trusting that I'm going to, eventually, get that bill of goods. But....I'm also a tad concerned that the author might not know exactly what story he started writing.
Aside from the stuff that's just typical conspiracy theory nonsense which some simple scholarship would clear up (like the idea that Mary is depicted in The Last Supper; the Apostle John was at that time typically portrayed in ways which to our modern eyes read as feminine), he fails basic vocabulary (the difference between a line and a stanza) and geography (read their chase scene through Rome with a map of Rome to follow along).
@Zachiel the story is literally measured in "books", so....either you're using "season" as a synonym(and we can drop the conversation about that) or you're trying to imply something I'm not catching.
@nitsua60 Season 2 was when they first met the "islanders", I forget Season 3 exactly, but I remember I was in a denial-stage at that point.
By the last seasons, I hated myself for having watched farther than the writers' collective genius, but I was too far in to just drop the show, knowing there was an ending to see.
@BESW These are things that bother me about almost any movie set in DC but obviously shot in LA. Disjointed stock shots of DC landmarks cut together with back-lot car scenes that make my head spin trying to piece it all together.
@nitsua60 There's a late 90s Canadian TV show, Due South, which takes place in Chicago but is shot in Toronto. When an episode took place in Toronto, they went to Chicago to film it.
(It's a Canadian show about a Mountie who fits all the Canadian Mountie stereotypes so hard, the Mounties get sick of him and send him to Chicago on a flimsy pretense.)
@Baskakov_Dmitriy I noticed how close you were when I was reading a comment of yours earlier today. I almost held off on an upvote, but then my conscience (vote the post, not the user) got the better of me =)
@nitsua60 Every exterior shot of the Canadian consulate in "Chicago" is actually the American consulate in Toronto, so... yeah. They totally did that on purpose.
@nitsua60 BTW, should some comments here perhaps be moved to chat? https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/104497/what-class-archetypes-can-replace-a-witchs-spellcasting-ability I am afraid they will just be deleted otherwise, but I want to keep the messages just for the record and for the history.
@nitsua60 How many times is it possible to bounty the same question?
So....my D&D group came up with an awesome new fantasy animal: The Dire Battle Ram(Huge-sized sheep). Trained much like Elephants by the tribes of the foo race, these massive beasts provide many of the usual benefits of an Elephant of equal size. Where they differ is in Wool production. A Dire Battle Ram produces significant wool growth year round, allowing trained groomsman to sheer year-round wool, despite the frigid climates these Rams normally call home.
This unusual feature also provides a battle function, as the Wool of a Dire Battle Ram is thick enough to hide a number of medium…
@Baskakov_Dmitriy Could be--they're not obviously veering off-topic or chatty, so I'd usually wait a day or two to move them. But if you think they're over-and-done-with go ahead and flag them.
@Baskakov_Dmitriy There's no restriction, except that I think you can't have two active on the same question at the same time. However, if you're thinking of the last bounty you offered, can I suggest you spend an evening questing for other worthy recipients? There's got to be some other answer you like out there =)
@Miniman True--I forgot about that. (Ran into it the first time I wanted to bounty multiple answers on a Q and made the mistake of bountying the one I liked better first.)
@Baskakov_Dmitriy No problem, just that I hope you "spread the love."
@nitsua60 2 things: 1)Which way does 2e rules state on that question about easy-encounter XP? 2)My assessment of OP is that he's wanting a simple and clear "DMs are (pick one: never/sometimes) right to deny XP for an encounter that was too easy, in some system", which can be easily established using 3.5 rules and 2e rules can't possibly contradict me on that point.
@godskook I'm not saying they'll contradict you. I'm saying if you answer "3.5 says this unambiguously" and I answer "2 says this unambiguously" (and let's stipulate we're both factually correct) then how do we ever arrive at a well-sorted Q&A?
Why have this weird "I have a question about something in a game I played, but I'm also curious about what would be the rule in a completely different game*" structure on the site at all? When "I have a question about something in this game I played" and "I have a question about another game" is allowable? And, I argue (above), preferable?
* Or any different game, given the most recent edit.
Case 1: Our answers agree. This is handled how agreeing answers are always answered. Why would this particular question be different on this regard? Best upvoted answer "wins".
Case 2: Our answers disagree. If my assessment of OP's question is correct, then my answer is, imho, *objectively* the correct answer to his question, despite your contradictory answer. And the Stack is designed explicitly to handle such cases, isn't it?
