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How to Not Die in Call of Cthulhu

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This is a sister article to my previous on mitigating Sanity loss, and equally not-recommended because dying horribly should be the expectation (not the exception) in Call of Cthulhu. The whole point is that your characters are delving into things mankind is neither supposed nor equipped to know, and the system is built to run your party ragged and then spit them out as chewed-up gibbering husks. That’s half the fun! However, I’m not gonna pretend there aren’t ways to spec your character out for a bit more survivability than the average joe. I checked the internet to see if… [Continue Reading]

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Mitigating Sanity Loss in Call of Cthulhu

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If there’s one mechanic most people know about the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG system, it’s that investigators have a tendency to go insane and die from witnessing eldritch horrors and learning horrific truths mankind was never meant to know. It’s practically a selling point, I know that was the primary reason I excitedly leapt into my first ever campaign back in undergrad. If you for whatever reason are worried about your player character dying a horrible premature death before you were done playing them, this sadly is probably not the right system for you. But to those people, I wholeheartedly encourage… [Continue Reading]

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Giratina used to be really fucking far away...
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The Pokemon I Hate Catching in Pokemon GO

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Every Pokemon in Pokemon GO has a different hitbox. If you want to be able to get Excellent throws all the time, then you need both patience and the chance to catch these Pokemon. But some Pokemon are really damn annoying to catch. Here are the ones I hate catching the most. Trubbish Trubbish does two annoying things. Firstly, it’s a pain in the ass to actually catch, often requiring an ultra ball and/or berry. Secondly, it’s kinda far away, and it has a funky hitbox, where Pokeballs will hit it but just bounce off the floor. But the thing… [Continue Reading]

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The 5 Best Vehicles in Just Cause 2

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There aren’t a lot of reasons to use vehicles in Just Cause 2, and I’m the first to admit it. Slingshotting yourself with the parachute is faster, more maneuverable, and more efficient in 95% of situations. But this article is about the other 5%! There are some niche situations where Rico is better served buying or stealing a vehicle than going it on foot. Today, we’re discussing what those times are, and why! 1. The Chevalier Icebreaker This jingle-playing ice cream truck was released as free DLC, and buyable in-game for $25,000. This is the cheapest price on the black market,… [Continue Reading]

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The 5 Best Stealth Weapons in Payday 2

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Payday 2‘s stealth missions require a completely different set of skills to a regular heist, and correspondingly, your stealth weapons will be focused on very different stats to their loud counterparts. Plenty of weapons offer high concealment, the bread-and-butter stat to stealthing, which means the standout weapons bring some sort of additional utility. Today, we’re covering The 5 Best Stealth Weapons in Payday 2! Starting with #1, the Judge shotgun pistol is widely agreed to be the best stealth weapon in the game. Great stats, great performance, high concealment, unobtrusive silencer, and like any shotgun, it sends victims flying when… [Continue Reading]

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The 5 Best Weapons in D&D 5e (That You Can’t Use)

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D&D 5th Edition simplified the weapon tables to an extreme degree compared to its predecessors. Gone are Exotic Weapon Proficiencies, or most subqualities like “keen” or “masterwork”, and most of the surviving options differ only in damage type or dice. And for the most part, martial NPCs/monsters honor these categories and follow the same rules for their own loadouts. But sometimes they don’t. Occasionally, a certain official monster or villain carries some seriously cool racial weapon with unique stats, and every GM just knows the party’s gonna ask if they can loot it from the corpse and use it themselves.… [Continue Reading]

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My 5 Favorite Bows in Gaming

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Since Medic recently covered her 5 favorite bows in Warframe, I was inspired to do something similar, but for gaming as a whole. I’ve often found myself gravitating to bows when available, in part due to their uniqueness in a modern setting. They often play wholly differently to regular firearms, with arcs and draw times and often extra ammo types. The general trend is “rewarding if you learn how to use it,” and I love standing out through mastering the intricacies of an unusual weapon or gadget. One last note before we begin that crossbows are also eligible for this… [Continue Reading]

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Call of Cthulhu: My 5 Favorite Under-Used Skills

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By far the toughest part of Call of Cthulhu is how few skillpoints it gives you. When every skill uses a percentile and you only get a couple-hundred points to allocate, it’s really difficult to excel at more than a few checks. This naturally leads to the most obviously-useful skills (Spot Hidden, Library Use, Firearms, Stealth) seeing massive use across the playerbase. But today I wanted to talk about some rarer skills that I’ve nonetheless found worth investing in. Many times they can save you skillpoints in other areas, or unlock niche-but-effective playstyles. You certainly can’t pick them all, but at… [Continue Reading]

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5 Reasons to Use the Axe in Quake

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Let’s get this out of the way; the Axe is a garbage weapon. Much like the Doom fist and the Wolfenstein knife before it, there are barely any reasons to bother with melee over the many ranged options. (In all honesty, your starting gun doesn’t fare much better. id’s design philosophy relies heavily on loadout variety, crafting weapons to serve different purposes, and the beginner weapons are always left by the wayside.) It’s so bad that it got removed completely in Quake II. However, due to Quake’s many gameplay elements, there are situational occasions where you might conceivably pull out the… [Continue Reading]

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5 Weapons Every Vanu Medic Should Unlock in Planetside 2

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 Tired of running around with that default Pulsar rifle? If you’re anything like me, you slowly figured out it wasn’t quite living up to your expectations. Then, once you maxed out your Medical Applicator, you finally had some decent certs to explore other options. This article catalogues some great guns you should consider when that time finally comes! Terminus I have been reliably informed that the Terminus is the best overall assault rifle in the Vanu Medic arsenal, with heavy-hitting bullets and a generous rate of fire for medics who can control the weapon spread and recoil. However I must… [Continue Reading]

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