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Character Scramble Season 14 Signups

Signups are now closed! Click here to go to Tribunal.

If you haven't already, please fill out this form to finish signing up for Season 14. If you don't fill out the form, you won't be counted!

The Character Scramble is a writing prompt tournament where people compete to write the best story they can. At the beginning, everyone submits characters that meet specified guidelines. Then, the submitted characters are randomized and distributed evenly to all participants.
After each participant receives their team, the participants are slotted into a single-elimination bracket. Writing prompts are assigned and participants write a story that features their team fighting against their opponent's team. Afterward, everyone votes for whichever story they prefer, and the participant of each match with the most votes moves on to the next round. The pattern continues until only one participant remains: the new Character Scramble champion!
The champion chooses the theme, tier, and rules of the next Character Scramble. They also receive a temporary custom flair as their reward.
Click here to join the email list. If you join the email list, you'll receive an email for every Scramble post that is made.
Join the official Discord channel if you want to be part of a large, vibrant community of Scramble participants, or if you just want a quick analysis of your characters and tips for competing. The majority of Scramble discussion takes place on the Discord and we also make announcements and post links there first, so it's the best way to keep up to date on what's going on in Scramble.

Frequently Asked Questions

Character Submission List

Basic Rules / Scramble Process

  • Sign-ups will be from Friday, January 8 to Friday, January 29.
    • PLEASE NOTE: Signups will close at 7pm PST on January 29, and Tribunal will go up. Anyone who isn’t done when Tribunal goes up will have their incomplete submissions removed or will be DQed if they don’t have enough submissions after removal. GET YOUR STUFF DONE WELL BEFORE THE DEADLINE!
  • Each user who wishes to participate must submit THREE (3) characters that adhere to the rules listed in the Submission Rules section.
  • Users may also submit up to TWO (2) back-up characters that adhere to the same set of rules.
    • Users must specify in the submission that the character is a back-up.
    • If a main submission is deemed out-of-tier in Tribunal, the submission will be replaced by an entry from the back-up pool.
  • Users must also submit ONE (1) Devil Fruit as specified in the FAQ and may submit an additional backup Devil Fruit if they so desire.
  • Each character must be submitted in their own parent comment in this thread. Don't reply to your own submission comment with another submission; make a separate comment thread for each individual submission.
  • After you complete your submission posts for all of your main submissions and any back-up submissions, fill out and submit the submission form linked at the very top of this post.
    • If you need to make a change, just resubmit the submission form with the same name and new info. We'll use whichever version is newest.
    • DO NOT resubmit after Tribunal; we'll account for any Tribunal changes to rosters.
  • After Sign-ups is the Tribunal, a community-regulated place for users to point out characters they feel are over- or underpowered.
  • After Tribunal, the characters are scrambled so that every participant receives three characters.
    • In Season 14, each participant is guaranteed to receive one of their own submissions, but they will not receive more than one.
    • Participants also have the option to opt out of NSFW submissions and veto ONE submission out of the list of total submissions. (Users cannot veto their own submission.)
    • Links to a form for opt-out and veto will be provided after Tribunal ends and before the scrambling happens.
  • Every round, a prompt is posted. Players are expected to write about how their characters would defeat their opponents based on the prompt.
  • At the end of the round, the thread is locked and the voting thread is posted. Voting is done using Google forms.
    • Voting is mandatory; failing to vote in any round will result in disqualification.
    • If you cannot vote due to time constraints, message u/FreestyleKneepad and we can work around that.
  • After results are posted, the brackets are updated and the next round begins.

Theme & Tier / Submission Rules

The theme of Scramble 14 is One Piece, based on the manga/anime series about the Golden Age of Piracy. Your team will set sail on a globe-spanning adventure, from island to island, searching for the greatest treasure of all time. For more info, check out the Hype Post.
The tier benchmark for this season is Luke Cage (616), using a modified RT we have built specifically for this season's tier.Your submissions must score between a Likely and an Unlikely Victory versus Luke. For more information about what that means, check the FAQ.
The tier benchmark for Devil Fruit submissions is the following: Scramble Luke Cage (as defined above) with the abilities granted by your Devil Fruit must be able to achieve a Draw or Likely Victory against Scramble Luke Cage with the Punch-Punch Fruit, meaning he can launch fist-sized shockwaves at bullet speed that are equal in power to his own punches. For more details on the Devil Fruit submission process, check the FAQ.
You get ONE (1) major change for any character submissions and NO major changes for Devil Fruit submissions. However, we’ll allow you to remove a bunch of out-of-tier powers from a Devil Fruit submission without counting so many changes as a major change like we typically would, so don’t worry about that. Refer to the FAQ for more info.
  • If you aren’t competing and only submitting backups, you may submit 3 backup characters and 2 backup Devil Fruits. You must do the writing prompt for all character submissions.

Additionally, please adhere to the following guidelines:

  • Characters must be in tier.
  • Characters must be researchable.
    • The show, video game, movie, or other media from which your character originates must be accessible in some way, ideally online.
    • Your character must have a functional Respect Thread, so that people can understand your character's stats and abilities at a glance. It is preferable that your character's Respect Thread is hosted on the Respect Threads subreddit, but CharacteTeam of the Week posts or any real repository of cited feats are acceptable.
    • If your character does not have a Respect Thread of any kind, please at the minimum include a Mini-RT in the sign-up post with at least five combat-related feats that completely cover the character's stats and abilities.
    • VSBattlesWiki pages or similar sources are not acceptable Respect Threads.
  • You cannot submit characters that you have created, helped to create, or in any way developed.
    • If the GMs believe you have asked someone else to submit a character you created, we might ban that as well.
  • You cannot submit a character with feats based on a previous Scramble story. This rule prevents Scramble writers from tailoring characters to be submitted to future tiers.
  • You cannot submit controversial real life figures. No Trump, no Putin, no Kanye, none of that. The GMs reserve the right to decide what qualifies as "controversial."
  • While you can submit characters from NSFW series with risqué material (such as an ecchi anime), you cannot submit characters from actual pornography.
  • The GMs reserve the right to veto specific submissions under the "Dude, come on" reasoning. This clause may sound extremely abusable, but honestly we'll only use it for submissions we feel violate the spirit of the above guidelines or are otherwise deemed unusable, like "disaster movie lava" or "a swarm of bees with the consciousness of Steve Buscemi."
  • Characters from ongoing series remain at the balance level from when they were submitted.
    • If you get Goku on your team and Goku unlocks Super Saiyan Ultra Mega Deluxe with Curly Fries in the anime after the Scramble season starts, you don't get to add that power to your character. This rule applies to new feats, new weapons, new powers, and so on.
Not exactly rules, but some suggestions:
  • Because you are guaranteed to receive one of your own submissions at random, submit characters you actually want to write yourself.
    • Ask yourself: Will your hilarious meme submission idea actually be hilarious over the course of an entire writing contest, or will the joke get old immediately?
    • If you're only submitting a character because the act of submitting them is funny, don't submit them.
    • Along these lines, while some less controversial personalities like Jerma or Adam Sandler might be submittable, we’d just like to mention that these typically aren’t well-received submissions, as they tend to require deep-diving a Youtuber’s video library or actor’s interviews and movies, which balloons research by a lot.
  • If you don't have any ideas for submissions, it's recommended that you try submitting one of the many back-ups we're likely to have.
  • Sometimes people like different things, and that's okay. Don't hate on a submission just because you personally don't like the character or the series. And on the other end, you don't have to withdraw a submission just because someone else doesn't like them.
  • You are allowed to make changes to a character for the purpose of making sure they're in tier or otherwise clarifying what gear they have available.
    • There are limits to the number and magnitude of changes you can make; check the FAQ for more information.
    • In general, avoid submissions with changes that radically change the character, such as "Ferris Bueller with Iron Man's armor" or "Goku with the stats of Captain America."
  • Duplicate submissions aren't prohibited, but try to avoid submitting the fifth Spider-Man submission this Scramble. Check to see if someone else has already submitted your character before you.
  • Listen to feedback. You don't have to follow it, but if a lot of people are saying the same thing, at least humor the idea that they have a point.

Submission Forms

To submit a character, fill out the following form in a comment to this thread. Include either the writing or non-writing prompt. As long as all of the below information is included, you can reformat your submission post however you want for maximum aesthetic.
All three of your main submissions MUST use the writing prompt to count. Back-up submissions may use the non-writing prompt.
If you're not competing and only submitting one or more back-ups, you must use the writing prompt.
The form has changed since last Scramble, so be sure to actually read it.

Character Submissions

Name: The character's name.
Series: The name of the piece of media your character is from. You can add specifications necessary.
Biography: A quick summary of your character. Who are they? What can they do? Where are they from? What are they like? It doesn't need to be a novel, but a good paragraph of information is appreciated.
Research: A link to your RT or RT-substitute, as well as any other links that might help someone understand your character quickly. You may also suggest how much of the series someone needs to read/watch to get a good idea of the character.
Justification: Briefly outline why you think your character is in tier, and where in the tier they fall (Unlikely Victory, Draw, or Likely Victory—See the FAQ for more information). The non-writing prompt already covers some of this information, but to expedite the Tribunal process, at least give a sentence or two.
Motivation: Why has your character set sail for adventure? What great desire calls them to the sea and beyond? This is where you describe what your character is fighting for. Are they a pirate seeking might, fame, or riches? Do they have a deeper desire they seek to fulfill somewhere out there in the world? Perhaps, they don’t call themselves a pirate at all. Basically, why are they here?
Major Changes: Check the FAQ for what to put here. You only get one!
Minor Changes: Check the FAQ for what to put here. You get as many of these as you need, but don't go overboard.

Devil Fruit Submissions

Devil Fruit Name: The name of your fruit. Typical naming scheme is a repeating phrase (1-2 syllables) and then “Fruit” or “no mi”, depending on whether you're naming it in English or Japanese. Zoan-type fruits may have a broader classification, then have “Model: [Species]” at the end. Examples: Gum Gum Fruit, Mera Mera no mi, Ushi Ushi no mi, Model: Giraffe.
Devil Fruit Type: Paramecia? Logia? Zoan? Refer to the FAQ for an explanation of each. The actual function of the fruit only changes if you pick Zoan, which comes with specific parameters as well.
Character Name: The name of the character these powers are derived from.
Series: The name of the media this character is from. You can add specifications as necessary.
Description: What abilities does this Devil Fruit give? Outline them here. If this is a Zoan type, describe what is unique about this new form.
Research: A link to your RT or RT-substitute, as well as any other links that might help someone understand these powers quickly. Please specify which sections of the RT are being drawn from, and if it is not clear, please organize the feats in a comment below. You may also suggest how much of the series someone needs to read/watch to get a good idea of the powers, or what parts they can specifically watch.
Minor Changes: Check the FAQ for what to put here. You get as many of these as you need, but don't go overboard. Remember, you get NO major changes!
Analysis Versus Punch-Punch Luke Cage: What advantages does your fruit offer that can turn the tides in their favour? How does the tiersetting battle play out? What strategies can be used by someone with this fruit in battle? Delve into multiple outcomes, and different ways the powers can be applied. This section should be used as a space to demonstrate what your Devil Fruit can do in a combat setting.
Other Uses: There’s a lot more to life than just fighting. In the broader scope, how might this ability be used while not directly in combat? Perhaps it’s good for espionage, or surveillance, or maybe it’s just useful to turn into a dragon every once in a while. Be creative!
Best Case Scenario: What kind of character would benefit most by getting the powers of this fruit? Would it best benefit a tough bruiser with no ranged attacks of their own, or a flimsy spellcaster who could use the help protecting themselves? This might be helpful for the recipient to decide who to give the fruit to.

Prompts

All of your main character submissions MUST use the writing prompt to count. Back-up submissions may use the non-writing prompt. If you're not competing and only submitting a back-up, you must use the writing prompt.

Character Writing Prompt

Your character’s journey has begun, but there’s a slight issue with this whole thing: Navigation is really hard. Thus, they find themselves stopped in the quaint village of Orange Town, and in order to safely get anywhere else, they’ll need some help.
Luckily for them, if they can find a Log Pose, they won’t have to worry about this issue ever again! These babies make navigation a breeze by just pointing in the direction of nearby islands. How convenient! The only issue is that the only Log Pose on this island is in the possession of a fearsome pirate, and he doesn’t plan on giving it up without a fight.
Your character comes face-to-face with Captain Luke Cage, who’s just like Luke Cage but a pirate and mean and his feats are REALLY specific for some reason. If they want this Log Pose, they’re not going to be able to get it without a fight. Whether they lay down the challenge themselves or Cage decides he wants to make an example out of them, eventually the area clears out of any bystanders. You square off, and it’s time for the showdown.
After finally achieving their victory, your character is free to take the Log Pose for themselves and set off once again. Onwards, to another adventure!
Prompt Rules:
  • I’m Gonna Be King Of The Pirates!: There is no bad ending to this tale. For the purposes of Scramble, your story should always have your team or characters on the winning side. Let your story show how your victory is achieved! Even if the chances are slim to none, demonstrate how your crew is able to come out on top.
  • Cage Match With Captain Luke Cage (Cage Not Included): This fight is going to happen. Your character can’t talk their way out of it, or hightail it out of there before anything even goes down. No matter what your character is feeling about this whole thing, they better put up their dukes, or they’re gonna get rocked right into next Scramble. And they might not even be in tier for that one!
  • Luke Cage, More Like Colossus The Thing Power Man Mike Tyson of Mike Tyson Mysteries!: Maybe you wanna spice things up a little bit, hey, I feel ya. You can swap out someone for Luke Cage if you’d rather write them, but note that this change is purely cosmetic. The character will still have all of Cage’s stats and abilities.
  • Where’s Everybody Going? Bingo?: Sure, there may be other people on the island, but you’ll notice it said the area cleared out. For the purposes of tiering and simplicity, the only two around these parts are your character and ole’ Luke. Feel free to get wild; there’s no one else around to hurt.

Character Non-Writing Prompt

Analysis Versus Luke Cage: Go deeper into how your character fares against the benchmark. How their abilities match the tier's, how their stats counteract each other, specific instances that are likely to happen in a fight between them, and so on. Because this analysis serves as a replacement for a narrative, you need to communicate how your character fights (for instance, whether they rush in headlong or approach tactically and exploit weaknesses) and what that means for them fighting other characters.
Biggest Strength and Weakness: Discuss the best thing your character brings to the table in a fight (a tactical mind, unorthodox abilities, good stats, et cetera), and also what detriments or drawbacks they might have (a specific stat that's lower than the others, lack of ranged options, inability to work with others, et cetera.)
Character in Setting/with Team: Analyze the flavor of your submission. How does your character deal with other submissions? How does your character deal with the setting? Are they inclined to thrive in a world of piracy, or are their sensibilities suited to something else? How does your character deal with just being in a Scramble? Are they good at working on any kind of team, or will they just be a pain in the ass the whole way?
Role on Ship: This is just for fun, we're not separating the submissions by roles or anything, nor do you need to give a solid title or job to any character. That being said, what skills might your character bring to the table for their fellow crewmates? Are they a natural-born leader who gets the captain's hat, or do they just steer the damn boat? Are they doing that marksman thing? Maybe cooking? Perhaps even doctoring? Ya yo ya yo? You tell us.
submitted by FreestyleKneepad to whowouldwin [link] [comments]

[Trading Card Games] The Yu-Gi-Oh! Card that Never Was

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a trading card game that ties into an anime series of the same name, and is one of the top three TCGs in the world, alongside Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering. Like those games, a new booster pack series is released roughly once every three months, adding around 100 new cards into the game. The game is primarily developed in Japan, and so they receive the sets first, normally a few months in advance. This first release in Asian regions (where the game is referred to as the "Official Trading Card Game", or "OCG") gives players in western areas (the "Trading Card Game", or "TCG") an insight into what cards are coming out and how they will shape tournament play in the future. However, there are some key differences between the two - they maintain separate banlists, and each set that releases in the TCG comes with around 10 additional TCG exclusive cards that have not been seen before in Japan. This story centres around a series of TCG exclusive cards, leaks, and some crazy price hiking.
Inferno
The story begins in August 2014, just before the release of the set Duelist Alliance. This was the first set tying into a new anime series, which brought about a lot of changes. A whole new game mechanic was being introduced, and we already knew from the 4 months the set had been in Japan that it was about to introduce two powerful new deck archetypes that would become immediate contenders with the existing metagame.
Prior to Duelist Alliance, the 10 TCG exclusive cards in a set had typically been a mixture of an extra card or two to supplement cards in the main set, and completely new and distinct cards with no connection to any others. Starting with Duelist Alliance, however, Konami decided to mix it up and instead use the slots to form entirely new deck types. As a result of this, 5 of the 10 TCG exclusive slots in the set were cards for the new Burning Abyss archetype, a series of cards based on the 14-century poem Dante's Inferno.
Despite only being 5 cards, the resultant decks that formed around them were decently powerful. They meshed well with some existing cards to pad the numbers, and their ace card based on Dante himself tied the whole thing together to form a very resilient core. That card was also at the highest rarity - Secret Rare - which meant it was not particularly easy to get the three copies needed for the deck to work. This was a common practice by Konami, and the demand coupled with the smaller supply lead to prices for individual copies of Dante to rise on the secondary market. As people started to catch on to the deck being a serious contender, Dante's prices slowly rose to the $30-$40 mark. The deck was not dominating tournaments against the other new decks introduced in the set - Shaddoll and Satellarknights - but even being able to trade evenly with despite having a card pool of only 5 cards was enough to turn heads. Players waited in anticipation for what the next set would bring for Burning Abyss.
Purgatorio
This next set, The New Challengers, was due for release in the TCG regions on November 6th 2014. The set had released in July in the OCG, so we already knew that both Shaddolls and Satellarknights were getting some interesting new cards, as well as the introduction of yet another top-tier deck in Qliphorts, that utilised the new summoning mechanic. Being TCG exclusive, however, the new cards that Burning Abyss would receive remained unknown, until Konami themselves would publish an article on them a couple of weeks before the sets release.
That was the plan, at least. On September 14th, a Japanese Twitter account leaked a picture of an uncut sheet from within the factory with some of the sets TCG exclusive cards on it. With this leak, we got our first look at Virgil, a Burning Abyss Synchro monster. The effect of the card was translated, and players generally determined that it was decent, if not earth-shattering. In order to play Synchro monsters, however, a special subclass of card called "Tuners" must be used. The way the Burning Abyss cards worked meant it'd be very difficult to use any existing Tuner monsters with them, which could only mean that the upcoming set must also include a specific Tuner for Burning Abyss. The viability of Virgil would largely depend on what this card did. As luck would have it, the leaks included this card too! Our first look at the Burning Abyss tuner, Rubic, looked like this:
The leaked image
This image is of course illegible, and so players left disappointed that we wouldn't know what the card did until the set's release. Except of course not, because 5 days after the leaks were originally posted, a user on the DuelistGroundz forums where the leaks were being discussed returned with some news. They had supposedly worked with a Portuguese translator and "magnified the card a thousand times in Photoshop and worked on it for an hour and a half" to decipher these hieroglyphs, and were here to share the results of their findings, the effect of this new Tuner monster. Digging this up again in 2020 took me a surprising amount of time, so I'm going to post it here in full to save others the effort.
If you control a monster that is not a "Burning Abyss" monster, destroy this card. This card cannot be used as a Synchro Material Monster, except for the Synchro Summon of a "Burning Abyss" monster. If this card is sent to the Graveyard for a Synchro Summon: Draw 1 card. You can only use 1 of the following effects of "(name), Malebranche of the Burning Abyss" per turn, and only once that turn.
● If you control no Spell/Trap Cards: You can Special Summon this card from your hand.
● If this card is sent to the Graveyard: You can Special Summon it.
This effect is absurdly good. It makes the mere act of summoning Virgil advantageous, since it grants you additional cards to continue making plays afterwards. Users on the forum immediately joked about the legitimacy of this effect, but it didn't take long for this to spread across the internet. Once the effect started getting picked up by major Yu-Gi-Oh news sites, being posted to other forums and Reddit, the wider playerbase started to take notice. With this new card, Burning Abyss could be in a position to be the best deck in the game. This new found attention caused many players to start scrambling to build the deck, and to do that they needed three copies of Dante, the Secret Rare card from the Duelist Alliance. This caused the secondary market price on Dante, an already expensive card, to skyrocket. Archives of yugiohprices.com show the average price of a single copy rose to $92, with the highest prices topping three digits at roughly $120. This had knock-on effects for anything else the deck ran, and even the cards that countered these demons.
The problem was that this effect was never real. It took over a month, but eventually Konami started to publish their preview articles for the TCG release of The New Challengers, and we got an article that showed us the real effect of Rubic for the first time. In comparison, it was remarkably lacklustre. Gone were the two parts of the leaked effect that made it good - the card draw and the recursion engine. In fact, Rubic didn't really do anything - it exists purely as a means to play Virgil. In the span of a month, the card had gone from being the star of the show to merely a supporting act for the upcoming rock star. The forum user immediately started to backpedal, attempting to explain their translation process and how they could have been mistaken. Some users were lamenting Dante's price hike, while others wished that the original leaker had just realised the importance of Rubic and gotten a clearer picture of that instead. Dante's price began to decline, though it never returned to its pre-leak levels. The damage had been done, pricing many players out of the deck for the foreseeable future.
Paradiso
While not as impactful as the cards in Duelist Alliance, Virgil, Rubic and the other Burning Abyss cards released in The New Challengers ultimately helped keep the deck afloat in the top tiers. Dante's exclusivity meant it remained expensive during this time, and the next two sets continued this trend - less impactful but ultimately useful cards to help give Burning Abyss more options and keep going. None of these other cards were ever leaked in the same fashion.
The deck has since then remained remarkably resilient, being relevant for many years since its original incarnation. With the help of two additional cards to prop it back, one in 2016 and one in 2019, the deck has gone on to top and win many of the highest level events since its original incarnation, most recently taking second place at YCS Utrecht in February 2020. For a game with such extreme powercreep, Burning Abyss has been one of the only decks to keep going year after year. By comparison, its competitors in 2014-2015 - Shaddolls, Satallerknights, and Qliphort - have all but been forgotten about. Unfortunately, while Virgil was a useful tool at its release against those decks, nowadays it is excluded from decklists, in part due to the requirement of needing to run the underwhelming do-nothing Tuner, Rubic.
submitted by Snowman_Eater to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]

[Mobile Gaming] How the Nyan Cat led to the death knell for a popular mobile game- the downfall of RWBY Amity Arena.

Note: Many of the links are to the Amity Arena Library, a website devoted to the game which includes tracking the history of it through patchnotes and a running history of what cards entered and left the meta. Their website was a valuable resource for this post.
Mobile gaming has taken off like a wildfire since the advent of the smartphone boosted the average processing power a phone could carry. Initially it took the form of crossing over older, more easily runnable games onto the mobile market to... mixed success, but in recent years we've seen both the West and East use mobile gaming to replace the old fashioned movie tie in game. It's easily accessable, has a much wider reach than consoles or PC, you can take it on the go and standards are inherently lower for mobile games than they are a full 60 dollar game.
Since the 2010s, mobile gaming has shifted to what's called the "Freemium" module. The game itself is free to download and start playing, but is insideously designed with obnoxious paywalls or artificial limiters put in place to limit how much you can play each day. If the game is part of a pre-existing franchise, additional money can be made through a premium currency or a chance to obtain high-powered units by rolling a slot machine random chance mechanic. And thus, gacha gaming was born. This sub has had several threads in the past on high profile gacha games, such as the monolithic Fate Grand/Order, Pokemon Go or Genshin Impact. One of the more popular things to roll for in gachas as a consequence is wallpapers for your homescreen, especially for high-grade units as they're usually animated to move a little bit on the homescreen. Today we're looking a low to mid-tier gacha game that rose and fell with the advent of one catgirl. Let's talk RWBY.
RWBY is an online web anime made by Rooster Teeth focusing on four prospective monster hunters who get embroiled in a world-spanning shadow war. It's of debatable quality in matters of animation, combat, voice acting, story, worldbuilding, romance, and it's kind of a little racist if I'm being honest, but one of the major positives of RWBY is that the series tends to have good character design. Series creator Monty Oum set in the guidelines for the show while making it that most if not every design should be made to be cosplay friendly, hence why most of the outfits have things most costume designers haven't heard of like... pockets. And Rooster Teeth, above all else, likes making money. So they know people like RWBY's character designs, enough so that in 2017 plans were made to release a gacha game themed around RWBY called Amity Arena, which would be developed by Korean company NHN Entertainment.
Amity Arena is a PvP tower defense game. Each player controls two turrets and a tower and has three minutes to use units themed from the show to destroy the other player's structures. Whoever took out more wins, destroying a tower is an instant victory. When the game launched, it had three tiers for units- Common (generally held for mooks or low-tier characters in the show), Rare (roughly protagonist-level or elite mooks go here) and Epic (High tier characters usually with an active ability that did lots of damage or stopped enemies in their tracks). The game launched in October 2018 to generally positive reviews from both mobile game players and RWBY fans alike. Fans were happy to get a lot of new official art for the characters in the game and the base gameplay loop was fun. Criticism at the time was largely themed around the lack of content besides PVP matches and some issues with the meta but overall, the launch went well. Each month, the developers would add new units, including popular characters like Neopolitian, Cinder Fall, Zwei the dog, and more.
But everything changed with February 20th 2019, which introduced Neon Katt, the titular catgirl (RWBY characters are themed around fairytales, except for Neon, who is themed around Nyan Cat, and her partner Flynt Coal, who is themed off a potentially racist joke made by Rooster Teeth).
Neon is a character from RWBY Volume 3 who's part of a team that RWBY face during a tournament arc. Her partner, Flynt Coal, was part of the game at launch, and Neon would join him a few months later. Neon in the show is a cocky fighter who taunts the heroes and zips around on rollarskates, which in-game is represented by Neon skating towards the nearest enemy structure to her and hitting it, while all units within a radius of Neon are taunted and provoked into attacking her above all other targets unless they-selves are coded to hit structures. On its own, not a bad idea for a unit, but Neon came with four big caveats:
From the word go, Neon is an unpopular unit; she's clearly overbalanced and elements such as the Disco Bear glitch have players thinking she'll have to get knocked down in a nerf- she'll either be made slower, more expensive, or able to die pre-hitting a structure, right?
Neon doesn't show up in the next patch. Instead, before she's fixed, an entire new class of units called Legendaries are introduced, and this is where the game goes full gacha. Legendaries were meant to represent the highest tier characters in the game, the ones who were either the most popular characters or the highest-tier fighters in the show. Or in some cases, the popular ships such as combo cards for White Rose (Ruby/Weiss), Bumblebee (Blake/Yang) and Flower Power (Ren/Nora). Legendaries, representing their value, were impossibly rare and had an infinitely small chance of actually appearing (The most reliable method was to buy the premium chests and hope you'd roll a Legendary, which often cost tons of money), and if you did get one, there was no way to guess which Legendary you'd actually get. Some such as White Rose and Adam were high tier units, others like Hazel or Checkmate were... kinda broken at launch. The playerbase isn't happy at this, especially as free to play players are left out in the cold and reliant on the game giving them high tier units effectively out of pity.
Neon would get a small nerf in the April patch which lessened her taunt range and killed the Disco Bear meta, but her invincibility would be left untouched, even as players submitted feedback regarding how to make it more efficient. The official Amity Arena discord has a weekly feedback section on Tuesdays where players could submit up to four suggestions on how to nerf/buff units and general requests for quality of life such as "Can this character get a new skin from this part of the show," or "Can we have an option to lower music volume that's not just muting all music?" (they never did add that second request) Neon would then remain in this state until the November patch, despite constant weekly requests for a Neon rework, and all it would do is make Neon functionally mortal, in that she had a flat shield bar of 20 that would be lowered by one for each attack before the next hit would kill her. Neon could now die... but your chances of actually doing enough damage to stop her were slim, and regardless, you were now at a serious Aura defecit.
It took seven months for this one unit to get a substantial nerf, all while the game added new units every week and the number of units being affected by patches each month began to gradually sink. To round up some of the major issues people had with Amity that developed throughout 2019 alongside Neon's general existance making life hell:
Unfortunately, the Novemember patch did little to stop the problems with Neon, and a new problem would rear its head for Christmas: Jinn. This unit embodied many of the problems players had: She was a Legendary so it would be hard for free players to get her, and only added to the sheer number of Legendaries that were out there. She was another structure card, and she was horrifically broken. Stopping time for seven seconds in an area around any friendly units, Jinn broke the game overnight, with players horrified at how little playtesting she'd clearly had. Most chip units now couldn't damage structures as Jinn simply could stop time and freeze the turret for the duration of the attack. And to make matters worse? She cost two Aura, meaning it was very easy to cycle a deck and start Jinn spamming.
And yet at two aura she was still one of the only cost-efficient Neon counters... until they patched her to be worth three Aura instead. Talking of the feline menace, January saw Neon get a HP nerf that set her shield at 14. Finally, Neon could be realistically be taken out, still at an Aura defecit but at least it can be countered and now they just have to raise her Aura- why are you buffing her game?
Less than a month later, Neon got, of all things, a buff. Her HP shield was set at 20, and her attacks now did double damage. This is around the point where a lot of players begin to suspect the developers aren't listening to feedback and more long-term players dip out or drop the game. Neon got touched one more time in April, which slowed her down (which itself was a problem as Neon's lessened speed on spawn simply made her better at generating aggro), she dealt 10% less damage and made it somewhat easier to hit her enough to kill her, but a new problem was on the horizon. Because Neon was now no longer the game's White Whale for patches.
Meet the White Fang Gunner Barracks. Added in September 2019, the Barracks fell under many player's radar simply because they were horrifically undertuned. Their gimmick was that every few seconds, a White Fang Gunner would spawn, with three spawning on death. In April, as Neon got her last appearance in the patches, the Barracks got a huge buff and became the centerpiece of the meta; they now spawned two Gunners, which made them immensely valuable for just five Aura. You could overwhelm many anti-swarm units before they had a chance, and shred your way through turrets.
The Barracks would then go six months before this overtuning was rectified, barring one nerf in August that lowered their health to try and stem the tide of units. To sum up every other thing that went wrong during the year meta-wise:
As OctobeNovember comes in, the players are getting more and more furious. The weekly feedback includes a near constant demand for an acknowledgement from the developers given how often it feels like the feedback is being ignored. The social media team get caught several times hyping up how the coming patch would address player concerns, only for said patch to lack those units. The meta has been locked down to the Xiong Family, Flynt, Launcher Nora, Spider-Mines and the hell-cat herself in Neon. Everyone runs at least one of these, people run meta decks not because they want to, but because it's the only way to have a chance of victory.
And then in December, things implode. The patch for the month was set to launch on December 10th with the monthly event missions. But when the clock rolls around, the event missions (which usually take about two weeks to do if you're doing as many as you can a day)... has a six day timer. And the update doesn't come out. The art team doesn't release new unit art. The shop has no special timed bundles. There's no patch notes. And then the Twitter team who've been hard carrying the game through... actually talking to the players and acknowledging the grievances they have... admitted that they don't know what's going on either. The best guess is that the devs have come down with Covid, but no statements to confirm or deny this leave it as guesswork. The timer eventually got reset and people could do the event, but then on Christmas itself, another issue.
Ruby has appeared in the plaza on Halloween (her canonical birthday) and Christmas, and if you go talk to her you get free stuff. But on Christmas people, people discovered that Ruby was talking as if you'd already talked to her. Because they hadn't updated Ruby yet for 2020. She still thought it was 2019 so if you'd talked to her then for goodies, she had none now. They patched it eventually but a lot of people didn't see this fix before the timer ran out to get the free stuff.
Some have resorted to memes to cope with the fact that the game just seems to have died out of the blue. Others have been trying to desperately rally the players and find a way to save it. Some resorted to friendly mockery of the whales who'd spent thousands on a game that seems to be dying (seriously though gacha games need to curb this shit but they won't because whales are godsends for their bank balances).
If the game doesn't get an update in January then two months without new content will mark the end, and the already significant playercount drops will only increase. And it's hard to say if any one thing could have turned Amity Arena's fate around beyond just "Have a better balancing team who can respond better to feedback." Neon began the time of death, but by the time December rolled around the meta was in a horrifically toxic place where if you wanted to make any progession, you had to get down and dirty with the pigs. The team just constantly failed to balance problem units outside of their emergency hotfixes of Jinn, and more often then not they went after units and buffed or nerfed them at random going off playcounts to determine what needed fixing instead of the actual written feedback they were getting. It's clear from the references to the show and some of the attempts to reach out to the community that at least one person in the team genuinely wanted to make the good appealing to RWBY fans, but somewhere during the game's lifespan, they lost their way. Less focus needed to be put on how to milk the players, and instead focusing on making a game sustainable and enjoyable enough to warrant the cosmetics and emotes. The game's failure ultimately isn't on the playerbase. It's on the people who were actually making the game who chose to slack off because they thought it acceptable to do so.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: HOT OFF THE PRESSES, I JUMPED THE GUN
Had I waited one more day, my story would have had a far more sudden ending, as the game just announced its shutdown for January.
RIP.
submitted by GoneRampant1 to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]

[God Field] How the Game Works for EN Bros

About God Field

So recently I noticed that 5th gen, Pekora and Matsuri have started streaming/playing the game God Field. Suisei & Shion also joined in to play on Pekora's stream. Pekora also mentioned potentially doing a tournament for the game (not confirmed yet though). It seems like we might continue to see more streams of this game within Hololive.
However, I haven't seen anyone TLing any stream clips, which is a shame since it's a very funny game, made even more entertaining when Hololive members are playing it! I suspect it's because the game isn't well known to the overseas audience, so I decided to make this guide for TLers and EN fans who are interested but don't understand the game. I've provided examples from Hololive streams so that you can practice following along.
If you don't know anything about God Field, in short, it's a party card game. You could say it's like the Mario Kart of card games, and by that I mean it's a mixture of skill and unfair RNG mechanics and lucky card draws. The game also has the weird ability to make players start role playing, somehow due to its weird "God" theming and its unusual card and status names. You'll see players start to say silly things as they attack each other cards like "Goodbye Sword" or inflict weird status effects like "Fog". But these aspects are what creates very hilarious interactions and dialogue between the players, some of which I'll include at the end of this guide as a bonus.
You can also play the game for free here, but there's no tutorial, so I recommend reading this guide as you go.

Basics

The goal is to get your opponent's HP to 0. There are two main card types, attack (攻) cards and defence (守) cards. During your turn, you use attack cards to attack an opponent. The opponent can use defence cards to defend against it. 1ATK is equal to 1DEF.
EX: Suisei attacks Pekora with the 14 ATK "Violent Flail" (a very fitting card for her). Pekora defends with "Iron Armor", a 5DEF card, so she takes 9 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3161)
When defending, you can stack as many defence cards as you want at once. But for attacking, it's a bit different. You can only use 1 attack card normally, but you can combine "combo attack" cards to make a stronger attack. You can tell if it's a combo attack card if it has a "+" in its damage, for example "+3 攻" or "+3 ATK". Note that combo attack cards don't have to be used in a combo, they can also be used as standalone attacks.
EX: Polka attacks Lamy with a monstrous 10+13+10 card combo, a total of 33 damage. Lamy defends with a 1, 3, and 9 DEF combo, a total of 13 DEF, so she takes 20 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3314)

Elements

Some cards are color-coded, meaning they have an element. Elemental attacks can only be blocked with an elemental defence of a certain element. Fire & water (red & blue) counter each other, and stone & wood (grey & orange) counter each other. Elemental attacks are very hard to deal with, because you often won't have the specific elemental defence needed in your hand. Elemental cards themselves are also more uncommon than non-elemental cards. Note that you can use elemental defence cards to defend against non-elemental attacks too.
EX: Lamy attacks Botan with "Fire Crossbow", a +4 ATK fire card. Note that she used a combo card by itself instead of making a combo, which was actually a good play, because it preserved the card's element, making it so that Botan needed water element defence to defend it. Of course, Botan didn't have it, so *she took 4 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2603)
*This is a funny moment during a 3v3 team game of "Botan/Polka/Suisei" vs "Pekora/Nene/Lamy", where Botan says she'll "be a wall" for her teammates, and proceeds to get brutally focus-fired by the opposing team. More on why that happens later.
Actually, there are two more elements that behave quite differently: light (yellow) and dark (purple). Light cannot be blocked, and can substitute as Fire/WateStone/Wood for both attacks and defence. So it's like a wildcard element, as well as being virtually undefendable (a few cards can block it). Dark can be blocked by anything, even by non-elemental defence, but it kills the opponent if even 1 damage goes through. As you can imagine, both of these elements are very scary to deal with.
EX1: Shion attacks Pekora with "Justice Lance", a 5 ATK light card. Note that none of Pekora's defence cards are lit up, showing that they can't be selected, because again, light element attacks are unblockable. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5623)
EX2: Botan attacks Nene with "Killer Fork", a 5 ATK dark card. Nene didn't have any defence cards, so she died despite having 24HP due to the dark element's instant kill effect. Note that Botan likely knew she had no defence cards, because in the early rounds of this 3v3 team game, Team Suisei/Botan/Polka all attacked Nene, causing her to use her up defence cards early on. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2977)
You might be thinking that if you combine something like +10 ATK cards with a 5 ATK dark element card, you have the recipe for an OP combo. But actually, stacking attack cards of different elements will cause the entire attack to become non elemental, so you'll lose the "dark instant-kill" effect. However, there are combo cards which are elemental, so if you're lucky enough to get a +5 ATK dark element, you can combine it with a 5 ATK dark element to create a very lethal dark element attack.

Tip for Following Along as a Viewer

It can be hard to add up all the cards and consider the elements for a given interaction, especially when the players play very fast. Some cards are also both attack and defence cards, meaning they have an ATK and DEF value, making it extra hard to understand if you don't know the kanji. So as a tip, the game itself will show the total ATK, total DEF, and elements of a given interaction. It's shown below each of the two "card columns" of the field.
And as mentioned before, usable cards will light up in your hand, so you can tell if the streamer was forced to take an attack because they had no cards to play, or if they took it in purpose to save their cards for later.
EX1: Polka attacks with a 9ATK card and +10 Light ATK *card. Remember that non elemental and light don't combine, so it's actually just a non elemental attack altogether. Note the "19 攻" near the bottom left, showing the total attack, and the fact that it's black means that it's non elemental. On Nene's side, it shows a black "15 守" , meaning the total defence is 15, and is also non elemental. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2679)
*The light card Polka used is called "Meteor", hence why Polka says Suisei's catchphrase in reference to it.
EX2: Lamy attacks Botan with 3 wood ATK and +1 light ATK. Since light substitutes as wood, you can see in the bottom-left that it becomes an orange "+4 攻", or in other woods, a 4 damage wood attack. Once again, Botan is unable to defend, since elemental defence is very rare. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2926)

AoE Attacks

Some attacks have a "%" in their damage, for example "50% 9ATK". What this means is that they have a % chance of hitting each opponent with that much damage. So with "50% 9ATK", if you're in a 8 player free for all, you can think of it as flipping a coin for each of your 7 opponents, and if it lands on heads, they get hit by 9ATK. Depending on luck, the attack can either hit everyone, miss everyone, or do some mix of hitting/missing. AoE attacks are all elemental by design as well, making them extra annoying.
EX: Polka attacks Pekora/Nene/Lamy with "Rain Deity's Sword", a 50% 9ATK water card. And to her luck, it successfully hits all three of them. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2771)

Spells

Spells work basically like how they do in RPGs; they cost MP, and they can be used infinitely. You'll notice after a player uses them the first time, that the card stays in the bottom right of the player's hand. It's sort of like they "learned" the spell. Most spells are simply elemental attacks that cost MP, but there are some other unique effects they can do as well. In general, spells are much stronger than regular attack cards in this game, since they're essentially infinitely reusable elemental attacks. But they're usually hard to use since MP is a somewhat uncommon resource, and spells themselves are uncommon as well.
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Pekora has a measly 2HP, and Shion uses the spell "Ice", a 4ATK water spell that costs 2MP, to finish her off. Luckily, Pekora draws "Moonlight Shield" just in time, which reflect spells, and manages to survive. But if you recall, spells are reusable, so Shion just uses "Ice" the next turn. Miraculously, Pekora draws "Moonlight Sword", which also can reflect spells, and survives yet another turn. Finally, for a third time, Shion casts "Ice", but this time Pekora is all out of luck. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5637)
Spells actually have an interesting side effect. Because of how card draw works (you replenish the same amount of cards that you use), when using a spell, it counts as if you "used it" even though it remained in your hand. So your hand size will increase by 1 every time you use it, meaning it gives +1 card advantage. So if you have a cheap cost spell, you can cast it many times over the course of a game to continuously increase your hand size - and thus create a massive card advantage over your opponent. If you've played card games before, you'll realize that this is a very powerful effect.
EX: Pekora attacks Shion with a 6 ATK wood spell. Watch Pekora's hand in the bottom-left, and notice that she gains a card slot in her hand when she uses the spell. Also note that her hand is much bigger than the default hand size, as she's already used the spell a bunch before. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5152)

Statuses

There are very non-traditional status effects in this game, so I'll explain each one:
Fog: The background becomes blue, and various things become blocked with a blue fill. You can't see what cards other players play, unless they're attacking you. You also can't see anyone's HP/MP/Money, besides your own, and you cannot select who you target when you attack.
EX: Shion uses the "Fog" spell on Pekora. Pekora actually has a consumable that can cure it called "Heart Shell", which can cure all statuses, so she uses it. But "Heart Shell" is single-use, and if you recall, spells are infinite use, so Shion just casts "Fog" again right after, since the MP cost is low. The interaction itself is funny, with Shion constantly teasing her about "absolutely wanting Pekora to not be able to see~" (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5547)
Dream: All cards you draw have a 50% of being "disguised" - meaning they can actually be a different card then what it visually appears as. It'll reveal what the card really is when you use it. A "disguised" card will have a misty filter on it. Note that cards can't turn into cards of another type - meaning you can't defend with a defence card, but then it turns into an attack/spell/consumable card with 0 DEF. It'll always turn into another defence card. And if it's an elemental defence card, it'll turn into an elemental defence card of the same element. This makes it so that you can't play a "wrong" or "invalid" card as a result of dream.
EX: In a close game of Pekora vs Matsuri, where both players have 7HP left, Matsuri attacks Pekora with a 11ATK combo. Pekora's only defence card is a potentially fake "Flame Boots", a 3DEF card, so she thinks she will lose, especially since elemental cards tend to have low DEF, so even if it's fake, it'll still probably turn into another weak card. However, it's actually revealed to be "Flame Armor", a 12DEF card, so she survives with excitement. (Volume Warning https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=4706)
Flash: You can only use up to 1 defence card when defending.
EX: Polka hits Botan with *"Horror Wheel", a +11 ATK card. Botan counters with "Uranus Ring", which inflicts flash to whoever damaged her, so Polka gets the "Flash" status. Then, Lamy attacks the "Flashed" Polka with the 9 ATK "Power Halberd", which is difficult to defend since she can only play 1 defence card. To top it off, Polka's under "Dream" as well, meaning she doesn't know if her 1 defence card will be good enough, since it may change into another, weaker card. This interaction shows a special yellow text (まぶしい) that translates to "bright". So while getting hit, Polka says "It's bright! What's with this brightness?" (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=1043)
*You might be wondering why Polka used a combo attack on its own, since unlike in the previous similar example with Lamy, it's non-elemental, so it should be better to combine it with another attack. It's because she was new to the game - Nene actually starts explaining it to her about "+" and "combo" cards during that timestamp after she plays it.
Dark Cloud: If you're hit with a % attack, it has a 100% chance of hitting.
EX: Shion hits Pekora with "Flare Axe", a 50% 10ATK fire card. Pekora is already under Dark Cloud, so she gets hit. This interaction shows a special purple text (不可避) which translates to "inevitable", as in it's inevitable the hit will land. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5967)
Cold->Fever->Hell->Heaven: These disease statuses give -1/-2/-5/+5 HP per turn. They're related in that diseases can get "worse" at a 5% chance each turn, or when you catch another disease. When a disease becomes worse, it turns into the "next stage" disease. Meaning cold turns into fever, which turns into hell, which turns into heaven, and after heaven, you'll simply die.
Heaven is quite odd since unlike the other diseases, it gives you HP per turn rather than dealing damage per turn. But instead you have a 5% chance of dying at the end of your turn. So it can create some thrilling situations where a player is nearly unkillable because of the +5HP per turn, but also can die at any moment if their luck turns bad.
EX: Lamy uses "Heaven Herb" on herself, which gives +20 MP, but also puts herself under "heaven". Note the +5HP that appears after as a result of "heaven". Polka questions the play at first, since heaven is very dangerous so you'd rather give it to someone else, but then she realizes you can cure it later. So Lamy used it as a desperate way to heal herself, as her HP was running low. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3144)

Common Keywords

There are some common card effects that are important to know.
Bounce Attack/Spell - Redirects an attack/spell to anyone in the game, even to the person who bounced it! A quirk of this mechanic is that the attack/spell will become unblockable if you bounce it and it redirects to yourself.
EX: During a team battle, Polka uses the light element spell "Meteor" on Lamy. Normally, light is unblockable - but Lamy plays "Sky Helm" which bounces spells. It then bounces to... (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3010) Polka's ally Botan, causing Polka's attack to kill her own teammate, who only had 7HP, and no way to counter light element.
Reflect Attack/Spell - Reflects the attack/spell back to the attackecaster. Fairly self explanatory, but it's good to be aware of, as it's the common cause of funny moments, along with "Bounce".
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Pekora has only 7HP and is on her last legs, while Shion has 22HP. Shion plays "Ice Age", a 75% 30ATK water spell. Shion thinks she just won, as it's nearly impossible to deal with 30 water damage. But... (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5268) Pekora uses "Moonlight Sword", which is an attack card that can also be used as a defence card to reflect spells, and makes a comeback.
Cast Spell w/o Cost: You can combine a card with this effect to cast a spell for free. This is why you'll see players occasionally cast a spell without enough MP, and combine it with a seemingly unrelated armoweapon.
EX: Polka casts the spell "Meteor" which costs 7MP on Lamy, but she only has 1MP. She then combines it with the consumable card "Spiritual Doll", which allows a spell to be casted with no cost. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3074)
Block Attack/Spell - It allows you to fully block certain kinds of attacks, regardless of how high the damage is.
Counterattack - A defensive keyword that activates upon receiving damage. You'll see counterattack on a set of cards known as "Elemental Planet Rings", like the "Uranus Ring" mentioned before. They all have very different effects. Some effects scale based on how much damage you took, meaning you might intentionally take more damage to boost the effect. A common mistake is to use defensive cards with a counterattack card, because it may weaken the special effect.
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Shion counters Pekora's 11ATK "Gravity Mace" with "Saturn Ring", which counterattacks with double the received damage, as stone element. So Pekora was countered with 22 stone ATK. If Shion instead tried to fully block the attack while using Saturn Ring, it would've dealt no damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=6025)
Inflict "X Status" on Damage - If the attack deals at least 1 damage, it'll also inflict a status.
EX: During the 5th Gen FFA, Lamy attacks Polka with "Bogus Spear", which has "inflict Dream on hit". Polka gets scared, saying "I have to completely defend this!". Earlier in the stream, nearly everyone had spent a long time under the effects of "Dream", so she was afraid of experiencing it again. It's a very scary status to be afflicted with. (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=4301)

Consumables

These are mostly cards that simply heal HP, MP, or cure statuses. Though there are actually some with much more wild effects, like the "Heaven Herb" mentioned previously. An interesting part about these cards is that you can use them on someone else, so for example you can heal allies in team matches. One more notable feature is that they're in a separate category from attacks or spells, and this game only has blocking cards that work against attacks and spells. As a result, there is no way to block consumable cards.
EX: Continuing from a previous example, Pekora uses "Heart Shell" to cure her teammate Lamy's "Heaven". She was afraid that Lamy would die from heaven, leaving her in a 1v2 situation, so she waited a few turns for it to heal her, then cured her. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3237)

Money

You may have noticed that both players and cards have "￥" on them. "￥", or money, is used for three specific cards: "buy", "sell", and "exchange". These cards are fairly common, have very unique effects, and can be OP when used right, so I'll explain them thoroughly.
Buy: target a player, then the game chooses a random card from their hand. You then have the option of buying that card from them. The real power of this card comes from its glitchy side effect - similar to spells, after buying a card, it actually increases the buyer's hand size by 1. But unlike spells, it also decreases the seller's hand size by 1, meaning this gives a +2 card advantage. You might notice a player's hand size becoming extremely small or big, as a result of multiple uses of this card. Needless to say, this card is extremely powerful.
EX: Pekora gets lucky and manages to buy Shion's "Real Ghost Sword", a 12ATK lifesteal card. This effect is very powerful and essentially means the card has 24ATK in terms of value. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5331)
Sell: choose one of the cards in your hand, and target a player to forcefully sell it to. It has the same side effect as "buy" cards, meaning you lose 1 hand size for using it, and the opponent gains 1 hand size. So at first it seems like a terrible card since it has -2 card advantage, but it actually has its uses. For example, what happens if you sell a $30 card to someone with $0 money? The victim is forced to buy the card no matter what. If they're too poor, they pay in MP instead. If they have insufficient MP, then they pay in HP. So they can actually die from being too poor to buy a card. So when used on a poor player, this card actually becomes an unblockable MP drain, and/or an unblockable attack.
EX: Suisei says "Peko-chan, Peko-chan, looks like you don't have any money right now" and then sells her an expensive Heart Shell. To add insult to injury, she already has two Heart Shells, and because she has no money, she lost 15MP instead, which she crucially needed because she has 3 useful spells in her hand. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3217)
Exchange: allows you to freely exchange your HP, MP, and money at a 1:1:1 ratio. This card is pretty straight forward, and doesn't have any crazy side effects like the others. The thing to note is that there are very few ways to gain HP/MP/money in this game, so this card is one of the most versatile cards in the game and combos well with all HP/MP/money cards.
EX: Shion vs Pekora. Shion has been using the spell "Treasure", which costs 5MP but gives 10$, to reach a total of $60. And as her HP runs low, she uses "exchange" to turn 60$ into 40HP and 20MP. As a result of this, while taking Pekora's attacks, she was able to fully heal herself, and leave herself with 20MP for a strong spell later, all the while increasing her hand size by a lot due to spamming the spell "Treasure". (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5798)
These cards all belong to the "trade" category, so like "consumables", they aren't considered an "attack/spell", so they cannot be blocked.
Note that money is not used to play cards, this value is strictly only for buying and selling. Cards don't have any cost to play them (except MP for spell cards).

Guardians

Certain cards will allow players to summon elemental guardians, which have a 25% chance of casting cards after every opponent's turn. The cards they cast depend on their element, the dark guardian for example will randomly choose between 5 dark element cards. Also, guardians don't need MP to cast spells. Guardians have a 10% of disappearing when the player they belong to gets hit. There's also a money guardian and a healing guardian, which are less deadly since they don't attack, but still are quite annoying if left alone for too long.
In general, guardians are a huge threat, as it's impossible to keep up with the amount of elemental defence cards needed to block their elemental attacks. The value they generate over time is so threatening that players in a team or FFA game will often start focus firing you for having one.
EX1: Pekora uses "Guardian Sealed Jar" on her teammate Lamy, to give her a guardian. She gets the darkness guardian, which has the potential to win the game on its own by constantly sending out dark element attacks. However, its threat causes Lamy to get *brutally targeted by Team Suisei & Polka, and eventually the guardian falls (Summoning https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3042) (Disappears https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3115)
*If you remember, Lamy had to use "Heaven Herb" on herself before due to her HP getting low. This was from the same game and happens right after this. So her HP was getting low because of the guardian her ally Pekora gave her.
EX2: Remember the Botan moment from before, where she says "I'll be a wall for everyone!" in a 3v3 game? The reason she said this was actually because she played "Guardian Sealed Jar" before, and thus you can see she has a guardian icon next to her on the top right. So she was playfully speaking to the fact that she drew the opposing team's aggro. And indeed, she ends up taking the brunt of the opposing team's attacks and dies first for her team. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2603)

Apocalypse

There's an optional setting in the game where when a certain number of turns pass, the apocalypse starts. When this happens, the background changes, and there's a high chance of drawing "devil" cards, which have various effects, most notable of which is just straight up receiving unblockable damage. It's basically a "hurry-up" mode - a way to stop games from being too long. Another fun interaction is that since devils count as cards, you can actually: draw a devil, take damage, devil gets discarded/used so you draw another card, you draw ANOTHER devil, take damage, and repeat. So you can simply die from endless devil damage, all from one card draw!
Pekora/Matsuri/Polka didn't use the setting, so there are no examples of it. But I explained it in case one of them uses it in the future.

Playing The Game

Within the RNG, the game has some interesting mechanics and strategy, which I've tried my best to cover. But if you want to understand the streams fully, I ultimately recommend playing the game yourself, as there's many unique card effects that I haven't covered. In addition to effects, knowing the card names and draw rarity adds much needed context to what the players are saying. There are times when players will play multiple powerful rare cards in a row, which adds to the hilarity.
The game is free and playable on browser and mobile. There's a "bible" on the top-right where you can check card effects and rarities, and modes where you can play vs AI, with friends, or with strangers. This game is very fun with friends, but is boring alone IMO. However, there's no tutorial, and the UI is confusing, so you should familiarize yourself with the game first before introducing it to friends.
It also has a NND style chat, so if you're wondering about the floating text that sometimes appears, it's the hololive members typing it.
The game uses odd "God"-themed terms for things, which I avoided using in the guide to prevent confusion. But you'll need to know them to play the game, and the players themselves make references to it, so here's a chart:
God Field's Terms Regular Game Terms
Artifact Card
Curse Status
Miracle Spell
Sundry Consumable
Ascension Death
Seizure Death by Heaven
Forgive Allow (allow an action to happen without playing any cards in response)
Pray Pass (if you have no attack cards, pass and draw a card)
Bible Glossary / Card Library
Gift Rate Draw Chance
Phenomena Global Effect
Prophet Player
Hidden Melee Private Lobby
Again, one of the charms of the game is how it makes the players "role-play" as they attack each other with unethical cards combos and statuses, so I'm hoping that whoever TLs any clips can capture the nuance and wordplay well. Thanks for reading!

Bonus: Stream Highlights

submitted by catsobi to Hololive [link] [comments]

Old Austin Tales: Forgotten Video Arcades of The 1970s & 80s

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.
There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.
But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.
I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction.
If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student.
But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades.
It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples.
Forgotten Arcade #1
Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe
June 15, 1975
ARCADE ENTHUSIASM
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.
March 3, 1976
ARCADE ROBBED
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.
First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
Forgotten Arcade #2
Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road
May 15, 1984
A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.
I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4
Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St
Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St
August 23, 1983
Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."
Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade.
We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants.
Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7
Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall)
The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf
March 4, 1982
'Quartermania' stalks South Austin
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."
Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Forgotten Arcade #8
Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway
February 25, 1982
Arcades fighting negative image
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.
This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area.
At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh
That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story.
I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:
Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.
The gameplay looked like this.
Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982
Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982
Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984
Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989
Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003
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How to Create Pay-Per-View Worthy Adventures or "How to Stop Worrying and Start DMing Like Vince McMahon"

Before I became a DM I spent a fair amount of time working for a professional wrestling company.
I won't say which one, but let's just say it once got sued by a federation of animal lovers and to this day features worldly wrestlers everywhere.
When I was first starting out as a DM, I read as much as I could (including tons of posts on this very subreddit). I built complex encounters and antagonists I thought were compelling, but when it came to running my sessions with them they often felt a little anticlimactic. That's because I was investing all my time in the payoff, and none in the build. And that's when I remembered everything I learned while I was working with in-ring talent on their characters their definitely real life selves: The build is everything. Now that I use pro-wrestling secrets* to develop my NPCs and encounters, I'm the best DM there is (ever was, or ever will be). At least to my party.
Below are a few lessons I learned from my time just outside gorilla, as well as a few examples of how they translate to your work as a DM.
For clarity these terms will come up alot, so here are simple definitions:
"heels" = "bad guys"
"babyfaces/faces" = "good guys" aka "your party/their allies."
"Heat" = "an emotional reaction." In general, you want the audience to be emotionally invested. Heat is the name for that investment, whether they love or hate someone.

*these aren't really secrets—they are the basic building blocks of compelling storytelling, and oftentimes can be boiled down to a single maxim: give the people what they want...just make them pay (and/or wait) for it.

Everyone Who's Anyone Has At Least One Nickname
The Undertaker is also: The Phenom, The Deadman, Big Evil, The Lord of Darkness, The Demon of Death Valley and 'Taker if you're nasty. And that's just one guy (and like, only half his nicknames...). Any of your NPCs that you're planning to throw at your party as possible heels should have a cool moniker or two to help establish their renown within the world you're creating.
Perhaps more importantly, each member of your party should be given the chance to earn one. You will be surprised how awesome your rogue feels when one of their NPC allies starts referring to them as "The Graveyard Whistler" following their steely performance during a crypt-based encounter.
As your players conquer various encounters, nicknames are a cool way to weave their exploits into the narrative on a regular basis. In my experience, you'll find players actually start incorporating their given monikers into the way they play their characters. A nickname is the first step toward turning your heroes into superheroes—don't miss out on the opportunity.
Everyone Sells for Your Superheroes (So When They Don't, It Means Something)
I put this close to the top because I think it informs everything about the way most pro-wrestling is booked. There are a few guys/gals on the roster that are unbeatable. Let's call them Superheroes (when they're a physically intimidating heel, they are usually referred to as "monsters"). Andre the Giant. Hulk Hogan. The Rock. Undertaker. Goldberg. John Cena. These wrestlers rarely, if ever, lose. If they do lose, it's typically under special circumstances (their opponent cheated, they were injured, they were supremely outnumbered, their opponent covered them in cement, or someone poked them with a very powerful finger). If a Superhero loses "clean," meaning none of that previously mentioned interference, it is often part of the coronation of a new Superhero.
Everyone on the roster sells for a Superhero. A Superhero's punches hit harder. Their bodyslams bounce you off the mat. Their penetrating stare sends you scrambling back up the ramp and into the locker room. Superheroes beat local competitors in 10 seconds, or destroy previously celebrated opponents in what are called "squash" matches—a total annihilation meant to reinforce that the Superhero is unbeatable.
Your party are fledgling Superheroes, and will reach proper Superhero status as they progress in level. So when they use a weapon or cast a spell or talk their way out of trouble, have your lower level NPCs sell for them. Basic bandits should flee in fear when your paladin drops that first smite. Skeletons shudder and rattle the moment a cleric shows their holy symbol—they know all it'll take to render them to dust is the whispered name of the cleric's god. A rogue's knife doesn't miss...the opponent got lucky dodging to the left at the precise moment...a twist of fate the target knows they're unlikely to repeat.
When Andre the Giant was bodyslammed and pinned by Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania III , it was the culmination of one of the longest, most successful builds in pro-wrestling history. And it cemented Hogan as an unbeatable force, because he had dethroned the boss. The monster. The 8th wonder of the world. Andre sold for Hogan, and elevated him as the heir apparent.
By having your lower level NPCs (and even some in the mid-tier) oversell for your party, it'll mean more to your party when they come across a monster or miscreant that takes the full weight of a great weapon master's heavy swing, shrugs it off and hands them a receipt: a full bore punch to the throat.
Now your party is facing a formidable foe—they've never been in this situation before. And when they finally succeed in defeating this new opponent, they'll feel that much more unstoppable (which is, of course, when you throw an even bigger monster at them).
When in Doubt, Give 'em a Gimmick
Some cynics might view this as lazy storytelling (and they might be right!) but even some of the best written characters in history have a "gimmick"—i.e.: a shtick...a clearly articulated angle...that thing that sets them apart from other, similar characters. Walter White wasn't just a drug kingpin—he was a brilliant chemistry teacher who used his brain to rise through the criminal underworld. Tony Soprano wasn't just a mob boss—he was a mob boss dealing with panic attacks/depression, whose family issues were as complicated/stressful as his "family" issues. Dr. Gregory House is just Sherlock Holmes in a hospital. Gimmicks are pretty much character premises, but in pro-wrestling, they have a way of informing entire identities.
Sure, Jake "the Snake" Roberts is a mentally intimidating dude—but that notion gets cranked to 11 when he shows up in the ring with a cobra in a sack. The Undertaker, a walking avatar of death itself, who buries his opponents (including his brother!) alive, evokes far more dread and intrigue than "Mark Calaway" ever could. Some gimmicks are simple ("He's a warrior, but he's like...the Ultimate Warrior.") and others are complex (Randy Orton, the Apex Predator, is also known as the Viper because his most devastating strike can come out of nowhere). But all WWE gimmicks have one thing in common: They exist. Pretty much every Superstar has one.
If you're building an NPC you want your party to love (or hate), make sure they have a thing that sets them apart from the rest of the crowd. Give them a nickname only those who speak Thieves' Cant understand means they are "Untouchable." Give them a blade that can end a life with a thought which they constantly brag about never having to use. Give them a profession that also doubles as a menacing, occasionally ridiculous hint at their underlying savagery (see: Mark Henry, aka The World's Strongest Man," or Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, or Irvin R. Shyster, aka "IRS.").
A gimmick is a way to crank an otherwise unmemorable NPC to 11 (everything in pro-wrestling is cranked to 11. Like, 11 is the baseline), and helps your party know who they are up against—and in many cases, how they can shut them down [see Good Gimmicks = Great Weaknesses].
"Parts Unknown" = Instant Backstory
Don't have a good idea for a gimmick for an NPC or magic item? Take another cue from Vince McMahon's playbook and simply describe them as being from "Parts Unknown." Demolition, Papa Shango, Ultimate Warrior and a dozen other WWE Superstars were billed as hailing not from Omaha or Albuquerque or Cleveland, but from "Parts Unknown." Where is that? NO ONE KNOWS. That's what makes it scary/cool/intriguing. It's instant mystique.
Now, this might read as lazy to you cynics out there, but high level works of fantasy use the same trick: see: 2001's monolith. The Next Generation's Borg. Even the Joker, one of the most considered villains of the modern era was, until pretty recently, backstoryless.
Sometimes a mystery is more terrifying than anything you could come up with on your own. If the most powerful NPCs in your world can't explain the origin of a recently summoned entity or artifact, well, that sounds like something your heroes should approach with caution (or reckless abandon...their choice).
Every Good Villain Deserves a Valet
If you've got a heel you know your party is going to love/hate, double down and give them a valet. A valet can take many forms. Sometimes they act as a hype man/woman, other times they serve as arm candy, a prop to showcase just how much better the heel's life is than your own or sometimes they are a heavy...a wall of meat to keep the heel from taking any sort of beating (there is no faster way to build heat than for a heel who deserves to be punched in the face than to have them step behind a wall of harder-to-punch flesh).
Valets often serve to offset the strengths/weaknesses of the character to whom they are assigned. Again, this is classic storytelling. Falstaff and Hal. Laurel and Hardy. Pinky and the Brain. Pro-wrestling just does it overtly and often (usually to protect a storyline or, in some cases, hide the wrestler's weaknesses). Monsters like Brock Lesnar aren't much on the mic? No problem: enter Paul Heyman.
Give your charming rogue a droll sorceress who can snap her fingers and summon a demon. Give your posh prince access to the hired goon who single-handedly dominated your party in the area's underground fight club. Give your dragon-lich an incredibly weak but utterly hilarious underling who can add some levity to otherwise intense "my evil plan is falling into place" monologues.
When your heel has a great valet, your party gets the bonus of kicking the ass of two characters they hate. Alternatively, they have a character they can use as leverage against the heel (perhaps, like Heyman, they work for the highest bidder, and would be willing to turn on their client for a better offer).
Repackage Your Failures into Successes
Look: You're going to screw up. You're going to create a character you think is an easy sell: let's call him Rocky Maivia. Rocky Maivia is the future! He's gonna be amazing! He will create heat simply by showing up. And then, when the pyro goes off...well, it's a dud. Well guess what! You're Vince F'ing McMahon! You create and destroy characters with a thought! You don't have to stick with Rocky Maivia! You are not a failure! You are simply biding your time, letting the crowd think you've made a mistake. But as anyone who has met him will tell you he's told them, Vince McMahon doesn't make mistakes. Rocky Maivia? No. That's the Rock. He's always been the Rock. And now, he always will be.
Demented Dentist Isaac Yankem? No...that's KANE, the Big Red Monster.
Hunter Hearst Helmsly, the Connecticut Blueblood? Uhmm...no. That's Triple H. The Game. The Cerebral Assassin. The World's Most Hydrated Man.
"Stunning" Steve Austin? No, make that Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Rattlesnake, he of the Gimme a Hell Yeah.
The "Bottom Line" as the artist formerly known as Stunning Steve might say, is this: you're going to invest a lot of time in a character and your party is going to wipe them out. You're going to create a fully developed backstory for a villain you think is dark and compelling only to watch your players laugh in your face and make a joke about the accent you gave them. You will toil over your notes for a delicious monologue and then watch your players choose to violently attack rather than listen to what your villain has to say. So many times. And you might think you have failed...but you are not a failure. You're Vince McMahon. You walk like this. You are a god.
If an NPC you thought had potential as a foil gets annihilated due to your party being OP, great. Did your party know he also made a deal with several different infernal authorities and is now a revenant that sleeplessly seeks their utter demise? Did your party know that nefarious noble with the funny accent was actually a weakened rakshasa who underestimated them but won't make the same mistake twice? That NPC your party chose to sneak by rather than encounter face to face? Oh shit, did you know that NPC has access to a helm of scrying and plans to see them later in more ways than one?
When something isn't working for you or your campaign, feel free to trash it. Keep the parts you like, or find creative ways to bring your personal favorites back in a fresh way. If your party can't remember the name of an NPC you care about...guess what (what!): to quote the Rock...it doesn't matter what their name is. You can rebuild them. You can rebrand them. You can return to glory.
Mediocre Heel + Good Heel + Random Heel = Great Stable
Similar to repackaging, and often a part of one, building a stable is a great way to take B-level talent and turn them into an A-list draw (see: The Shield. The New Day. The Nexus...sidenote: Stables often start with a definite article).
The truth is, your party is a stable—a group of individuals united out of convenience and (typically) a singular purpose (they might even have a name. It might even start with 'the'). But they all have individual goals. If your party can form a stable, why can't your NPCs?
Perhaps all the NPCs your players have dispatched over the past few months have decided they don't like the new heroes in town kicking them around, and they've formed a Justice League of their own. Or perhaps the seemingly disconnected events of the past year (and the NPCs associated with them) have all been part of a larger plan that's only just now coming into view.
You can get more mileage out of your lesser heels as well as more satisfaction out of encounters by having your party face off against familiar enemies who are now more powerful because they've allied with other known entities. "You mean the cult from three sessions ago that we barely defeated has somehow allied themselves with the New Kobold Order, from our very first session, to bring more gold to the dragon we nearly killed last month? Well...that sounds...bad." No. It sounds great.
Kick Them While They're Down (So You Can Lift Them Up)
You'll see this a lot when a babyface is angling for a title. It's not enough for a guy like John Cena to beat his opponent. After all, John Cena is a Superhero who could beat anyone. That's why you have John Cena get injured during a meaningless tag team match the week before the championship fight. Now he has a bad shoulder. Oh no! And the heel doesn't care that Cena has a bad shoulder. In fact, the heel just keeps working that shoulder over and over and over until Cena may as well be fighting the guy one handed.
But that's just it. When someone says "I could beat you with one arm tied behind my back," well, that's a claim that means more when you back it up. The crowd will root for Cena to defeat his foe in a weakened state (at least, the 10 and unders will).
Find a way to weaken your party so that the obstacle they're facing isn't just an enemy.
Curses. Exhaustion. Difficult Terrain. Anti-magic fields. Make them run a gauntlet (in WWE a gauntlet match is basically one guy vs. a series of tough opponents as part of one fight) by forcing them to experience more encounters in a day than Kobold Fight Club might deem reasonable or fair. You think Vince McMahon cares about what's fair? (spoiler: he does not). He cares about what sells. And desperation sells.
If your party feels overmatched, outgunned, outnumbered, and out of spell slots, it'll be all the more impressive when they come out on top. And if they don't...you do not have to kill them to "maintain realism." There are fates worth than death. You can just have one of your heels take everything they care about. Kick them while they are down. Rob them of their pride, their freedom, their dignity...their precious gold and preciouser magical items.
The struggle to get it all back will mean that much more.
Good Gimmicks = Great Weaknesses
The best gimmicks often come with something another wrestler could theoretically exploit for leverage. Macho Man Randy Savage didn't just love Slim Jims. He had a valet named Miss Elizabeth. They got married! It was amazing! While the Macho Man's gimmick wasn't necessarily "guy in love," (his gimmick was "guy on cocaine") but his devotion to Miss Elizabeth was definitely a big part of his character. That's a gimmick. And therefore a weakness. So what did Jake "the Snake" Roberts give the happy couple as a wedding gift? That's right: a cobra. (Note: It was not on their registry.)
Speaking of Jake "the Snake"—he had a number of snakes over the course of his tenure as a pro wrestler. The snake that was first introduced as part of this gimmick was named Damien. A guy who carries a snake in a bag into the ring with him is a great gimmick. But again, creates a great weakness. That's why Earthquake (a guy whose gimmick was that he was so obese he could shake the very earth just by sitting down) squashed Damien by sitting on him in the middle of a match. Twice! Earthquake later fed the remains of Damien to Vince McMahon and Lord Alfred Hayes. THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF PRO WRESTLING.
If your party is facing a great heel with a great gimmick, that character's weaknesses may be self evident. In Undertaker's case, for a while there his power allegedly came from something called "the Urn." Whomever controlled the Urn controlled the Deadman. The parallels to D&D tropes should be pretty clear there. "Monster X is unstoppable...but it's possible if we get our hands on Artifact 3, we can bring the monster under our control."
Giving your NPCs a weakness or two for your party to exploit is not taking it easy on them. In fact, it allows you to refocus your encounters on problem solving rather than just on combat. This is a great fix for DMs in the mid-to-late tier of the game when your party is effectively impervious to any threats. They aren't just fighting a villain—they are fighting a villain by solving a puzzle.
Stick it to the Smarts
In pro-wrestling parlance, there are "Marks" and there are "Smarts" (there are also "Smart Marks" or "Smarks"). Marks are people who believe everything they see related to pro wrestling is real/unscripted. Smarts are the opposite, and understand that pro wrestling is a business/form of entertainment with a specific audience (Smarks are Marks who believe wrestling is fake but love it in spite of (and sometimes because of) this fact).
Vince McMahon is not in the business of giving a shit what the Smarts think or think they know about what's happening backstage. The only time he cares is when so many Smarts think something is true that he can use their belief to his advantage (see: the evolution of Vince McMahon, friendly ring announcer to Mr. McMahon, arguably the greatest heel in pro wrestling history).
In D&D, metagamers are Smarts. The players who have read the Monster Manual (and the various supplementary titles) cover to cover and know every detail about every creature you could possibly throw their way, who are the first to say "they can't do that" when your NPC uses Dimension Door to move 500 feet instead of the published 400, who say things like "How can that creature deal 48 damage if we are Level 4? That's beyond our challenge rating!"—those are Smarts.
Smarts think D&D has rules—rules they can memorize and use against you at the table. You are absolutely welcome to agree with them, but that's not DMing like Vince McMahon.
If you want to DM like Vince, the only rule of D&D is you're the DM and whatever you say happened is what happened. Period. If you say it exists, it exists. Your players might ask "Why? How? Who?"—and you can flash the grin that accompanies ultimate power and say "Because I said so."
That's admittedly extreme, but so is the Smart's position ("This book I read before the session said X, Y or Z...so you're wrong" or worse "That's not how I do it in my game"). If you're feeling equitable, and want to split the difference (something Vince would never do, except for when he agreed to the Daniel Bryan push, but, I digress) meet in the middle and use what a Smart thinks they know against them.
As an example: Smarts know a creature only has 3 Legendary Resistances, and will strategize around this fact, holding onto a killer 7th-level spell for after that moment when the dragon uses its LR a third time. Well guess what, sucker—this ancient being has EIGHT Legendary Resistances, one for each of the centuries its been alive. Reveal this intel and watch them get sick to their stomachs.
This isn't being petty (though it certainly can be)—it's good storytelling. You have to keep people guessing. And if your players think they know everything about how your world works because they read an outside source, and you know this, you can flip their expectations back on them. Example:
Expectation: The Monster Manual says hags only hang out in covens of three. Reality: This coven formed a stable (see above) with two other hag covens, they call themselves The Triumvirate, and you just killed 3 of their sisters. The other six are on their way back to the nest. Whoopsie! Who's smart now?
The Art of the Swerve
Similar to using what your players know against them as a way of subverting/exceeding expectations, a swerve is a pro-wrestling term that basically means "doing something other than what the audience is planning to see," and typically involves storyline.
As the Monday Night Wars drew to a close, Vince McMahon sent his son Shane to sign the paperwork and purchase WCW as part of a cross brand takeover. Shane signs the paperwork (expected) but uses his OWN NAME (swerve!), effectively becoming the owner of a rival company overnight, and kicking off the "INVASION" storyline and like, 2 years of WWE content.
When CM Punk was dealing with contract negotiations, it was a forgone conclusion he would lose his championship bout with John Cena, as there was simply no way Vince would let someone like Punk win a championship, let alone against John Cena, to say nothing of the fact that Punk had cut a promo in the weeks prior that dunked on the entire concept of being a company guy. And yet—swerve—he walked out of Chicago and (at least in storyline) the company as WWE Champion.
Swerves happen in fantasy/sci-fi as well. Two notable examples both feature in spoiler-filled Game of Thrones recaps, and involve things that can/can't happen to supposed main characters' heads and what should/should not take place at colorful weddings. Those moments took the characters by surprise because they subverted the rules of the world (in so much as they proved rules only apply to those who believe in them) and they took the audience by surprise because they used our expectations against us. ("Sean Bean can't die! He never dies in anything!")
You can swerve your players by thinking through what their expectations for an encounter will be, then do the opposite. Or something to the left or right of what might have been promised. Or do something that isn't even in the same universe of what you'd originally presented.
Example: "Let's go visit the king and convince him to help the people of this fair city, who have been ignored by their leader for too long!"Expectation: There will be an encounter in the castle overlooking the citySwerve: There is no castle—it's a major illusion.
You can start with the swerve, then come up with the reasoning for it. You don't need to swerve just for the sake of shaking things up (although that's exactly what Vince would do), but you should recognize the swerve as a tool in your arsenal, and one that will help take your stories to another level simply by forcing you to think of the unexpected thing.
Always Build to the (Next) Pay Per View
This rule is more complicated now that WWE Network has sort of killed the idea of the PPV, but here's the gist: Each month there's a major event. That's where you want numerous storylines to coalesce— for the babyfaces to triumph and the heels to get their comeuppance.
This is a hard and fast rule: If the world wants nothing more than to see somebody punch Ric Flair in the mouth, do not—under any circumstances—let someone punch Ric Flair in the mouth unless they've paid for it. This is why championships rarely change hands on episodes of Raw or SmackDown—you want to build anticipation for a title change, rather than just allow it to happen without any buildup. That's how you make money off a PPV.
The more the heel needs to get punched, the more the heel should find ways to weasel out of it. For a defending champion, examples include:
-faking an injury to delay a match-no showing-refusing to fight unless ridiculous conditions are agreed to-getting themselves intentionally disqualified so the title won't change hands-getting themselves intentionally disqualified a different way so the title won't change hands-no showing again-faking another injury
This can take many forms in D&D. If the party wants to kill the evil princess, have them fight their way through a cavalcade of creatures and sneak through the sewers only to discover that (gasp!) the princess is in another castle. That castle is guarded by an anti-magic field and a bunch of buff tortles. So the party waits to try and catch the princess when she's at the Summer Tournament. But then the princess's courier shows up and explains the Summer Tournament has been cancelled. So the party convinces the realm's council to host a Fall Tournament. The party is pleased...they lie in wait. But the courier arrives at the Tournament in her place, with a note that says "ha, ha, ha. My castle is live-scrying the Tournament so I don't need to be there in person. Toodles." This will frustrate your party. The courier says "Milady has invited you to dinner at her castle." The party is skeptical, but they attend. The princess poisons their food...but the party was expecting poison so they're fine...but they don't know the princess is a simulacrum of the real deal, and when they slay her she turns to melted snow, and her dying words are "I'm sorry, but the princess is...in...another......castle-arrrrrggh."
By keeping your party's favorite foe just out of reach for a few sessions/encounters, you delay the gratification and help ensure that when they actually do get to land that killing blow, they've fought/sweat/died to earn it.
Blow Off to Something Bigger
When your party thinks they are at the end of their face off with a foe, don't be afraid to turn a Survivor Series showdown into a Wrestlemania-worthy main event. This is what I mean by "Build to the (Next) Pay Per View." You don't just want to delay the payoff/gratification as part of your build—you want to spin a partial pay off into something biggebettemore exciting.
In pro wrestling, this can take several forms, but the most common is "If you beat me at event X, you'll win a title shot at event Y," or the heel is forced into a contract signing to defend the title and it's a no DQ match so they can't weasel out of the defense this time, or the babyface finally (finally!) wins the title...but the moment the belt is in their hands after an utterly exhausting match, a new contender comes out of nowhere and challenges them to a title match, and the new champ loses before they can get to their feet. This starts a new program between your hero and a new challenger.
Generally, the last match in a program between two wrestlers is called a "blow off"—it's the match that ends one story for a wrestler so they can start a program with another one. Due to D&D's de facto episodic structure, you can create a blowoff in your campaign simply by introducing a new shiny object for your party to chase once they've finally accomplished a longterm goal.
The best blow-offs don't bookend a story—they start a new chapter, utilizing elements/moments/sleights/intel from the previous pages.
Once your party conquers the princess, they find out her courier is the one who's been pulling the strings all along, and he's kept the party busy long enough for his plans to finally come to fruition.
Or the dragon hoard features evidence of a conspiracy involving the disappearance of your party's favorite NPC...and it points directly at your party's paladin's dad!
Or the kindly treasure hunter who fearlessly led the party to the heart of the dungeon makes off with the loot while they're battling the creatures that guard it.
Finding ways to blow off into something bigger for your party will drive your narrative forward while keeping it rooted in the present moment. Your party's passions will be influenced as much by what you're telling them as what you're keeping from them. They'll be so motivated to chase the things that are important to them that they won't even notice how neatly it all connects behind the screen.
Know When to Humble Yourself
Yes, you're Vince McMahon—the walking, talking, mugging millionaire megalomaniac who runs D&D sessions with the confidence of a guy who has all the power. But even Vince knows when it's time to be sprayed with beer, or smacked in the face with a bedpan, or even have his head shaved by a future president.
If you rule your table like Vince would, you're going to frustrate your players. This is totally fine, provided you know when to allow them to release that tension on your creation. You aren't trying to beat them—you're trying to entertain them. Sometimes that means letting them have the W, especially when they've earned it.

There are dozens more examples but I feel I've gone on longer than Shawn Michaels v. Bret Hart at WrestleMania XII. So instead, I'll leave it here and leave the floor open for those of you who know more about DMing and D&D than I do pro wrestling to add your thoughts on the above.
And if you end up using any of the strategies above in your future sessions, give me a hell yeah.
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best way to win a slot tournament video

Before the tournament starts, check out the RTP for all slot machines in the tournament. And choose the one with the highest. You will thus play the most favorable slot machine. Tournament type: Biggest win on a single spin. In this type of tournament, win the highest value single spin amount relative to your bet amount. Effective Slot Tournament Strategy to Improve Your Winnings. Slot tournament is becoming a popular form of playing slot machines. The casino operators are able to realize that they need to bring more excitement on their slot machine games while removing the common notion that slot machines are played in solitary by its player.. With the advent of slot tournaments slot players have something ... The best way to win at slots is to first understand how they are made, how they run, and how (and when) they are liable to drop a payout. Slot machines run on random number generators (RNGs), which are computer programs tested and certified by a regulatory authority. Is there a secret to winning a slot tournament? While there is no secret trick or formula, we recommend always going for speed. The faster you spin, the more results you can rack up, boosting your chances of victory. The first point to note is that there is no strategy that can guarantee you will win tournaments. This is because you can in no way later the results you will get when playing a slot machine - there is nothing you can do to change the odds of a slot game. So what can you do to increase your chances of winning. A slot tournament is a gaming competition between you and other players, conditioning everyone in the tournament to collect as many game points as possible in order to win. When the tournament is over, the top-ranking players share the prizepool , with the player scoring the highest going home with the biggest prize. Concentrate and maintain speed. These may seem like obvious suggestions, but it can be difficult to maintain concentration in the midst of the flurry of activity during a slot tournament. The other players may be engaging in rituals that can invite you to be entertained or the noise level can get high. Having a slot tournament strategy for winning is a good idea, especially when there is a lot of money up for grabs. However, as we have mentioned before there isn’t a strategy that will guarantee you a win all the time. There is nothing you can do to change the odds of the game no matter what strategy you use. Believe it or not, playing in a slot tournament involves a strategy to place in the rankings to win slot tournaments prizes. Most players’ thinks it’s just a matter of hitting the spin button and hope for the best! Here are some guidelines to keep you informed and help you with your strategy. Best Slot Machines believes that slots players need to focus on having fun. You never know when you’re going to win. You may win two tournaments straight and then not finish in the money for the next dozen.

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best way to win a slot tournament

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