Rob was also getting worse during this time of being able to convert his time/work into output (I forget how I normally word this)
rawb
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
8 hours of Rob "working" on something would output 1 hour of actual work
so he'd kill himself during the offseason churning away at scripts and software overhauls, and have relatively little to show for it, given 9 months of time
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and imo the issue with cannon was not even that it mattered, I just think it was the driving issue of why he felt the need to overly script some stuff, and get all flippant about which campaigns were "real" or not
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Rob swung back and forth a lot on whether Urealms should stand on its own as a game, or just be a way to facilitate the show
and I think universally, everyone wanted the former
I think if he accepted that eventually there may be an unsalvageable campaign in design. Stuck with what season 2 had and maybe nerfed the health stuff a bit to keep it high stakes and balanced around shield utility he could have found a good inbetween for the show to be functional and it be a fun game
Whichever route he picked, it would have been successful, he squandered the chance to be massive, but even as a lot of people were kinda checked out by S3, there was a big enough audience and continued interest
the fact anyone is still talking about it 5+ years after it ended is proof enough of that lol
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The show didn't need higher production value or bigger budgets
Rob was obsessed with this idea the show needed professional VAs (and actual women) which is where Spiff came from
super big spends on animation, custom music, all the set dressings, etc.
when the core of the show was people wanted a fun TTRPG and a bunch of funny player banter
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Rob was right in S1, and his original Unforgotten Realms cartoon
the ratio is 90-10
and by S3 it was way closer to 50-50
agreed
And if the show grew, I'm not against the production value growing
but Rob forced it at the expense of everything else
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So, I love Nick's art
but I think the art girls did a really good job once they found a style
Just goes back to it being FUN. I am never into shit feeling super staged. Some times or sections I can get for parts of a finale maybe. The way silver mines was a bit staged felt natural as an example. But just having fun in a ttrpg setting is the best. I still miss doing so a lot in my own time and know it was always the most fun I have had
Deathrolls were such a good idea in conjunction with the shield system. Shields needed to have more ways of being punched through, but they did make it so squishy characters could be both tankier and still vulnerable. I really liked the fact that a character going down they still had a good chance of dying, but it gave a safeish buffer, but still made them extremely vulnerable if repeated measures were taken at hitting a downed player. Also kinda made it so very dangerous things could be measured in death ranges. Along with the fact that putting them down, but not out allowed for some flexibility in action for killing vs incapacitating the players.
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Replying to PhrogDor #froglandus2 I honestly wanted more interpretation of the character's looks. I prefered seeing fan art over official art. Plus RadioActiveK's OG art for the side characters being sorta what the community accepted was a sort of nice grass roots thing to see (edited)
Had to correct. I meant RadioActiveK
Replying to Tecado #tecado When random character from buttfuck plot irrelevant campaign #15 appeared I was like "yooo that's bubblefuck the wizard"
This is why imo Den of Devils wound up being the best URealms campaign. It was a season 2 mix. Nisovin was always a Urealms character in the show. It was what these sort of loose campaigns can line up to in terms of game play and feeling more open ended. I think could have been better in ways, but I think that it was spectacle more built up on throwing characters we all had seen before into a new situation. Player mades and not just the plot characters for the most part.
I think there are times for more story, but railroading it as hard as he did was a bit much. I think doing so for mechanics sake is what boned the show the most. I became so that combat meant nothing unless deathrolls killed you as they were the only way to effectively do so. Season 1 was always high stakes. I already elaborated on survivability for a show's sake finding some balance with season 2 mechancis. But I think the fall of dundinwhatever was another good example of player characters or their set ups being interesting. It was an amazing point of chance that Milbee dies and has a bear to essentially be his character the rest of the campaign. You don't really get odd stuff happening like that if it is hard railroaded. But the context it was set in as the characters being guards made the more restrictive set up make more sense. Rather than being a little more creative with settitng the scene it drew mostly off nostalgia and heavy railroading conclusions
Also, found this music on some rando book trailer forever ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uapP24GgKag
Replying to PhrogDor #froglandus2 I think there are times for more story, but railroading it as hard as he did was a bit much. I think doing so for mechanics sake is what boned the show the most. I became so that combat meant nothing unless deathrolls killed you as they were the only way to effectively do so. Season 1 was always high stakes. I already elaborated on survivability for a show's sake finding some balance with season 2 mechancis. But I think the fall of dundinwhatever was another good example of player characters or their set ups being interesting. It was an amazing point of chance that Milbee dies and has a bear to essentially be his character the rest of the campaign. You don't really get odd stuff happening like that if it is hard railroaded. But the context it was set in as the characters being guards made the more restrictive set up make more sense. Rather than being a little more creative with settitng the scene it drew mostly off nostalgia and heavy railroading conclusions
The shittiest thing about combat becoming meaningless was that they already had a great system when deadrolls went form rolling a 1 to rolling 1-5 to throwing a coin
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See, I don't disagree with the assessment that it didn't need more mechanical upgrades to it but...
Okay, I'm in a longform game with a rotating character cast, and it updates like every 2 months with new items, rules changes, character options, etc. It keeps things fresh to change things.
(and on a personal writing project side, I've revamped my own setting lore like 17 times over 20 years)
Sometimes it's just a matter of never being satisfied with something that's good enough, and at times that results in a net negative.
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Somehow, against all odds, we have gained a selection of people that Rob chat is 10x more active that any other chat for the first time in many years
and all with wall of text posts no less
Replying to Phijkchu_Pikachu #klombak Somehow, against all odds, we have gained a selection of people that Rob chat is 10x more active that any other chat for the first time in many years
Tbf I have had it pent up for a smidge too long lol
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Replying to LavaLord #aethirmordu See, I don't disagree with the assessment that it didn't need more mechanical upgrades to it but... Okay, I'm in a longform game with a rotating character cast, and it updates like every 2 months with new items, rules changes, character options, etc. It keeps things fresh to change things. (and on a personal writing project side, I've revamped my own setting lore like 17 times over 20 years) Sometimes it's just a matter of never being satisfied with something that's good enough, and at times that results in a net negative.
Yeah I'm not mad about change because imo every iteration apart from s1 that obviously needed much more plish was great, every iteration s2 onwards I'd say worked beautifully