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Hello Knights, This is my first blog post, so I figured I'd cover something along the lines of ethics, but of course not really. Ethics being in short the guiding compass of ones morals, however, in this case I figured I'd cover unofficial social contract between a dungeon master and his players. Now, what I mean by this is the symbiosis between these two roles that allow these sort of games to function, the two ends of the staff that each hold up. Without both ends holding up, the staff falls. To delve deeper into this, lets say I call my friend John ask him and a couple others if they're up for a game of D&D this Saturday. The moment they say yes is when this metaphorical contract is forged. A contract that can be summed up as 1.) The Dungeon Master promises to build the game, flesh it out, and make it as good as he possibly can. 2.) The player(s) agree to take the game as serious as the game allows and to give in as much as the Dungeon Master puts in himself. The reasoning behind this contract can be applied to anything social really, hence the name, it's no different then lets say, same example as before except it's a party. There is still going to be a gathering for a number of hours on a Saturday, with the host making all the necessary preparations, and on the other end, the guests being respectful and attempting to have a great time. Both examples rely on both parties giving it their all. Really in such a niche hobby that is table-top gaming this is important because a Dungeon Master can create a kick-ass adventure, have the maps, monsters, and antagonist to back it, but this falls flat if the players just decide to rob the local shoppe, or start killing any NPCs without a regard for the world. This works two ways of course, if the Dungeon Master barely worked on his adventure, and didn't prepare the entire week before the game that Saturday. Well, simply put your players (more often then not, your friends) are gonna get bored and try to make the game fun on their own terms or even just leave. In short, both sides of the coin cleared their schedule in order to enjoy a game that, at least in my experience, they were looking forward to playing. In conclusion, I'd take the idea of this contract for your consideration if you decide to run or join a game, or even just planning a social outing in general. Both sides need to have fun and have their heart in whatever they're doing, because the other end of the staff can get heavy when being dragged along. That's all for tonight, thank you for reading, and have a great day Knights! I took heavy inspiration from one of my idols in the table top community, and he posts his own video about the social contract and elaborates more then I did, the link is below.

Don't let the slightly older Forza Horizon 4 scare you... It's a hell of a beauty. This is a really fun game as well. It's on Xbox, obviously, but also Steam I think. Fun game to mindlessly unwind. check it out of you like pretty cars and arcade action.

I strongly suspect this game will be driving my interest desire to write sci-fi. It was originally supposed to launch on 11/11/22. They missed. Of course, I'll have to beat the game first. And yes, I suspect a Bethesda game to have some bugs. You saw some really big bugs in the trailer, though they looked like the variety that are supposed to be there as alien creatures. Anyone else looking forward to this game?

This is a cute little game. fun to play as light entertainment. It is also not expensive or free with Xbox Game Pass, if you are on that. I tried it because you needed to play one of the top ten games on game pass for the reward points. more than worth it and I wouldn't have checked this out if hadn't been for Game Pass and the reward. But I tried it out on Cloud gaming and liked it so I installed it and spent a couple hours unwinding with it.

This is a very addicting game. You play as long as you can survive, die and start over. What keeps you going is finding out the story, which is really quite interesting. The music is cool and the voice acting is top notch. Excellent game. I sunk a LOT of hours into it as a way to unwind after a long day of work. Pretty inexpensive too. And it's on all platforms, I think. worth checking out!

Gotham Knights has launched. I'm still forming my thoughts on this one. Once again, another company has taken a game genre that is action/adventure and turned it into a "Games as a service" grind fest that is more about keeping you locked in the game and not doing other things. Assassin's Creed went this route, killing off the franchise back when they released the last Assassin's Creed game, Syndicate. They created a new franchise of grindy RPG's and slapped "Assassin's Creed" on the cover, despite only a superficial resembles to the fun games they made previously. (Hence AC: Origins, AC: Odyssey and AC: Valhalla longer longer grindfest with no Assassins or 'power fantasy because you're a bad ass' in sight. Or so many hours into a grind that I never got to it) Playing the Batman Arkham games and then playing Gotham Knights will give you that exact feeling of doom, if you liked the older play style. So Gotham Knights... I have played as Robin and Red Hood so far. I'm queued up to play Nightwing next time I leave the belfry. Despite the trailers, the game lacks a glide mechanism even hours into the game. Apparently there is a way to get it, but it is grindy and not obvious at all without watching how to videos. The story is engaging enough. But the enemies are repetitive and damage sponges so that have to grind to power up. I am playing on an Xbox Series X. I'm not noticing any issues with it beyond some frustrating controls and too much RPG in a game that should be more actiony. I do like the investigation stuff, at least on a surface level.

One of the ways I try to maintain my sanity is to unplug from the craziness of the real world and just do mindless fun activities. Forza Horizon 5 is one of the nicest looking games I've seen. It is hands down the best arcade racer style game out there. It's huge and it's free as part of Xbox Game Pass. (PC, Xbox, Cloud - $15 a month... if you aren't doing bing searches with microsoft rewards and getting it all for free...) This is my go to game for a few minutes of relaxing each night. I'll do a race or two. maybe a few of the weekly challenges. The Hotwheels DLC is one of the best fantasy racing things you can do it. It takes the fun of the normal game and puts you on giant looping tracks, high above Mexico. They understand fun. I can't wait to see what this studio does with Fable...

Anyone else playing the newest generation of Pokémon games? Despite a few frame-drop issues, I'm having an honest blast decimating everything in my path with my Flamigo (affectionately nicknamed Flambae). Lots of tiny game mechanic changes I'm loving, such as picking up items with no interrupting text boxes and sped-up catching shakes. A few mechanics could've been left alone... not being able to change the battle style from switch to set is annoying. Haven't gotten very far in the story. Just beat the first gym and Titan. Many of the new Mons are just so stinkin' adorable (Pawmi, Fuecoco, and Tarountula)!!!

I’ve just been introduced to this via a friend, it looks good, but the almost total lack of early voice acting is a little weird. Anyone else play? Does it get better? Is it worth it?

Steam is always super fun and a great way to spend time with friends. So, I figured that we should have a dedicated Steam thread, to help us co-ordinate with each other and play games together. I've created a questionnaire that you can fill out, that will automatically put all your answers into a spreadsheet. I filled it out the best I could, but if there's more games you'd like for me to add, please let me know! The game should be multiplayer, though. If you notice any mistakes or something isn't working properly, please let me know so I can fix it. I've already filled out my information.