I didn’t see that part of Mandalorian, so I don’t get it.

True, and the main villain here is still The Empire who forced the situation.

This is a good point, however the meme that OP posted is referencing the scene from “Clerks” that Arthur Besse posted below me.

The problem with the rationale of that scene is that the labor force that built “Death Star 2” would look more like the kind of labor force building modern-day Gulf State vanity projects, rather than US suburban contractors.

True, but on the other hand, The Empire does make extensive use of forced labor; both in the form of conscripted labor, but also slavery. So it’s not like everybody working on the Death Star actually chose to be there.

I suppose me asking the question in the first place truly shows my inexperience with systems.

No, it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask, I just happen to have a particular opinion on the matter.

I gotta try one of those systems you suggested at some point.

Not sure what type of game you would prefer to run, but I can try to give suggestions, depending on what your preferred genre, or tone is.

Sorry that it took a bit for me to get back on this one. I was busy with the holidays, and other personal matters.

So, when I say that I find the PF2E system “video-gamey”, I am talking mainly as a comparison with other RPG systems, and not necessarily when looked at solely in isolation to itself. I gave Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as an example of a system that I would prefer over it, but like I can understand if it wasn’t clear what I meant by that because it’s a little niche in terms of TTRPG interest.

Other systems to consider would be Call of Cthulhu (which WHFRP is very similar to structurally, even if it isn’t 1:1 identical), Shadowrun 5th Edition, Mongoose Traveller 2e, the new VtM game, and I’ve recently been looking at Mothership as a more rules-light alternative to Dark Heresy.

One thing that you will note is that for each of these games, even though they can be mechanically crunchy on occasions, is that their rules are primarily derived from & structured around emulating the lore, or vibes of their setting first, and are really only secondarily concerned (if they are at all) with fitting into some kind of formalized over-arching meta-rule structure.

Conversely, before you learn anything about what a dwarf, or a paladin is, PF2E throws up what is essentially it’s thesis statement about how all in-game pc interaction with the world should be structured in the form of it’s “Format of Rules Elements” section. According to the intended game structure as described in that section; every single Action, Skill, Feat, and Racial or Class Ability that a PC can possess, or that a player could attempt to engage in should be articulatable in the form of a definite stat-block, that indicates it’s relationship to the games action-economy, contains one or more “Trait” tags which are supposed to indicate how that action interacts with other “Rules Elements” (how it does this exactly is unclear, because there is no specific exhaustive list of Traits or what they mean outside the glossary, and good luck finding them in that mess), and which achieves a specific discrete mechanical effect within the game system.

Now, it should be said that PF2E itself often times, just fucking gives up on this format for how it wants to structure in-game player interaction, because it’s way too restrictive for most things outside of combat in a TTRPG. But like, trying to use that as a basis to structure the entire system, and particularly PC interaction within the system, in the first place strikes me as just kind of wrong-headed. It’s the kind of solution to the problem of “at-the-table rules-lawyering” that could only really be thought up by somebody with a degree in programming, or formal analytical logic, and I don’t think that it works very well for at-the-table play.

Beyond that, I also don’t like PF2e’s Feat system. Specifically, I don’t like that every single Ancestry, Character Class, and Skill has it’s own dedicated “Feat Tree”. This strikes me as ridiculous, and bloated, and it’s also the main part of the game that makes me think of Diablo; because it obviously gears players towards creating a specific, very mechanically-focused “character build”. This is a legitimate mode of play, to be sure, and it’s the one that PF2e is obviously trying to cater to the most, but it’s not my preference.

There is also the issue that Combat (“Encounters”), Exploration, and Role-play (“Downtime”) are all literally mechanically discrete “Modes”, and are supposed to be largely separate from one another within any given table session, but like my comment is getting overly long; so I’m not going to get into it.

But yes, PF2e is extremely “video-gamey” as a TTRPG by my estimation.

I don’t know if that’s a “bad translation”, or an "Evangelion-monologue-writing"problem.

it’d be like if a grown child soldier man was weeping because he’s never been allowed to do big cums in people.

I can’t think of any specific example off the top of my head, but I imagine that exists somewhere…

(Edit: Actually if I remember correctly that’s basically the premise of the book “The Sun Also Rises”, because it’s about a guy who got his dick shot off in WW1.)

On the other hand if you have a “grown child soldier man”, I imagine that the assumption is that he’s got it in at least one point in his life.

It’s like the “Solid Snake / Otacon” dichotomy.

Fair point.

These days

You must’ve missed the entire 80’s OVA boom, tbh.

I don’t like PF2e’s character building system though. It’s too “video-gamey”, it makes me think of Diablo 2.

For comparison, if I’m gonna be running a non D&D fantasy RPG, it’s gonna be WHFRP.

Mandatory Block-Chain MTG.

aren’t hexbears with reddit accounts basically running that place? thought it was a funnel to bring radicalized redditors here?

“Narcissism of small differences.”, describes a lot of the reaction here, I think.

I wish I could have a baseline functional understanding of human interaction & relationships.

Did you actually read the article here, or just the headline/first couple lines?

The actual conclusion presented by it, honestly doesn’t seem that distinct from your own.

I thought making a Hexbear account meant you guys would put a good word in for me with Xi…

We did, but unfortunately he’s old drinking buddies with Tonegawa-san; so he had to let the dice fall where they will. They met when he was working the countryside.

Question is do the Liberals get to take credit for it? If they do, then things get fucky again.

This will be funny when it bankrupts my employer because they can’t pay to import any of the components we need to make anything at a +30% markup.

I mean, they also banned a lot of that early “lifeboat” userbase, and also changed the entire name of the site specifically because they didn’t want to be associated with the old subreddit; or the podcast anymore.

HB mods/admins have always been more interested in making the site their personal bonsai-tree project over anything else really.

You’re just supposed to accept that It Is A Video Game and you do Video Game Stuff in it

I kinda think that this a big reason why the “Traditional JRPG” is a more-or-less extinct genre outside of the Persona series, and whatever weird remake, or “narrative experience” experiment SquareEnix is working on right now.

Most JRPG’s never really figured out how to actually get their game-worlds & their gameplay to interact with each other in ways that are actually compelling in any way; and consequently they ended up kind of just stagnating & getting overtaken by more dynamic games.

Like these things were invented to help portray Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian-esque adventures in pen-and-paper game form in the 70s

Yes, but you see Conan is not a fucking nerd, and is the furthest possible kind of subject from a Neoliberal Optimization Gremlin; and so his perspective is not relatable, or salient to anybody watching, or working on contemporary fantasy anime.

As a consequence of this, the modern audiences & creators plunder the systems meant to simulate things he would do or encounter, and then interject their own existing neoliberal value-sets on top of it in order to treat those systems & simulations as the “Actually Real” part; and then write shitty spiritually dead characters designed to thrive within that framework.