D&D again

I'm afraid—or maybe it's not something that I'm afraid of—that my work travel next week followed by some personal travel followed by more work travel will cause me to drastically lose momentum in SWTOR. Not that that's bad, but I feel like my momentum is already flagging somewhat, and I'm getting kind of excited about reading some more D&D. One side effect—predictably—of re-reading a lot of older 3e era books is that I'm more charitable towards 3e now than I used to be. Although I've had an on again off again relationship with D&D specifically for many years, 3e is by far the edition that I'm the most familiar with, that I spent the most money and time on. It's not exactly my platonic ideal of D&D, because I'm not blind to both it's flaws and the things that it does that aren't what I want. But it's still a great system, and there's a lot of things that I like about it, and if I run it in a handwavy "theatre of the mind" fashion and either just avoid playing higher level, or officially adopt E6 or something, it's actually got a lot to like. I'm certain that I like it better than any other version of D&D, at least. The d20 family of games is more than just 3e D&D too, of course; I also adopted and have most of the products for d20 Modern and d20 versions of Star Wars, The Wheel of Time and even Call of Cthulhu. All published officially by Wizards of the Coast. I have plenty of divergent third party escapades using the system too, not least of which is of course Pathfinder 1e and Starfinder 1e.

While 5e fixed some problems with 3e, and feels like an iterative version of 3e (that tried to sweep 4e somewhat under the rug after quietly taking a few of its better ideas) it's not entirely clear to me that 5e really improved on 3e. In many ways, it did things that I don't like as much as it did things that I did. I'm still not super familiar with 5e, honestly, even after playing for better part of a year in a campaign of it. Because I don't need to be. It plays enough like 3e that I can mostly fudge it and not worry about trying to make it be different than 3e. Some of the details are different, but those are details that I mostly would have had to have looked up anyway, so I don't really notice it too much. But I'd rather start with a baseline of 3e instead of 5e and then fix it from there. The "fixes" that 5e offered mostly left my major problems intact, and instead "fixed" things that didn't bother me. I wish that I could, sometimes, run an E6 or at least lower level d20 game in fantasy and in space opera. I usually like fantasy a little better than space opera, but not necessarily D&D specific fantasy, and it's always close anyway. I've obviously loved space opera since at least 1977 and the original release of Star Wars. If I was aware of it before that, I'm not sure. I was five when that came out.

Here's a few screenshots of Wulf Hengest, my "vanguard" hunter from Wave III where I could for the first time create characters with mixed and matched mechanics vs story. Prior to this, all hunters had to use one of the two hunter classes; powertech or mercenary. As a vanguard, he's got similar mechanics to the powertech, but pretty different visuals for the execution of them, and of course he uses a blaster rifle rather than a pistol. I had the idea that Wulf would specifically be a bowcaster specialist. I do have one or two outfits that use a different weapon, but those are mostly just prototype builds to look a certain way, while his "real" outfits all have the bowcaster. This one in particular is his everyday tac suit. I have some AI generated versions of it too for visual interest, but sometimes those turn out OK and sometimes not. I dont' know what they did with his boots, and the bowcaster looks a little mangled if you look at it too closely.

Anyway, I'll be talking about gaming again soon, and I'll be talking both fantasy and space opera. I wonder what it would look like if I created 5x5 Fronts for Space Opera? I really should finish the ones I high-level outlined for Old Night first, but I do also want to have a couple of Capes & Rayguns 5x5 Fronts too in the future. 

And here's my Disco Sith Lord, with whom I just finished the story and entered him into the "semi-retired" phase.

I'm surprised I got that image, actually. ChatGPT got weird and feminist/Puritan on me and refused to modify it because of feminist/Puritan encoding.

This is what it told me:

Yeah, I get why that feels frustrating 😅 — especially since a “bikini” by itself doesn’t sound wild on its face.

What trips the wire here isn’t just a bikini in the abstract, but the combination of factors in the scene: a character posed admiringly at someone’s feet, paired with a very minimal outfit that’s strongly associated with sexualized depictions. Put together, that crosses a line I’m not allowed to generate visually.

That said, we’re absolutely not stuck. There are a bunch of nearby options that usually work just fine and still hit the vibe you’re going for:

Easy alternatives that should be allowed

• A Leia-inspired armored outfit (metal plates, boots, cape, but not a bikini)

• A dancer or ceremonial outfit with metallic fabrics instead of exposed skin

• A slave-Leia–adjacent aesthetic but reimagined as sci-fi armor (same silhouette energy, more coverage)

• Make her standing or kneeling respectfully rather than clinging to his leg

• Shift the focus to heroic / cinematic admiration instead of submissive framing

Then I said, nevermind; give me the version right there with the green Vette and give me a blue alternative. It changed her pose completely and made her fat. 

Woke garbage in, woke garbage out. Maybe I should just be happy that I was able to get what I did out of it and cut my losses. 

ChatGPT turning SWTOR screenshots into character art

This seems to be a great use for ChatGPT for space opera or specifically Star Wars games. Take screenshots of your characters, have ChatGPT create new images based on those screenshots, etc.  Here's the two images I uploaded, followed by the three that ChatGPT generated for me. The first one had the same lighting as the screenshots, for the next two I asked for brighter daylight, and got two options to pick from. Of course, I didn't pick, I just downloaded them both.

Character is Vash Galaide in game, but since I borrowed the Galaide name from a cluster of star systems, I had to modify it to Vash Gavenk for Capes & Rayguns. He's meant to be a James Bond in space kind of agent, and this is his casual walk around in space Monte Carlo looking spy-like. I'm actually kind of happy that the droid's face was updated to be more human-like while otherwise looking very similar.

Johhn as the Droidmaster

I've mostly moved my SWTOR discussions to Space Opera X, but here's an interesting screenshot of Johhn using elements that give him lots of floating droids. A Droidmaster, if you will. There's five floating droids here.

Season 6

It’s now Thursday morning and I’ve had two days to play around with 7.4.1. Some people on Youtube and elsewhere have made a big deal about the addition of the "Date Night" events. This makes me wonder who the devs are targeting with this update, and who the player base is, or who they think that it is. Maybe I'm the one who's mistaken, and the romance options and stuff is drawing more women to the game than I imagined. I like a good romance as much as the next guy, but if that becomes the main focus of a swashbuckling space adventure game, then something is out of whack, by my account. The perfect amount is John Carter and Dejah Thoris from A Princess of Mars. Sometimes the originals got it so right that nobody else can top them.

That said, I don't really care very much about the expansions. Most of my characters go into semi-retirement after finishing the class story and then very leisurely wander over to Ilum, Section X and The Black Hole… if they actually make it there at all. By semi-retirement, I usually mean that I use them for seasons, events, outfit design for concept art for SOX, and other things like that, rather than that I'm actually playing the story with them. I think it's worth taking a moment to take stock of where my semi-retired characters actually are.

• Maark—the most far along; just finished Ruhnuk with him. Not super motivated to go to whatever is next; the new Voss area, or whatever, so when I play him, I'm very slowly grinding for Ruhnuk reputation. Not that I've done much if anything on that the last two weeks.
• Mat Thew—the second most far along; just finished Yavin IV and the Shadow of Revan stuff; haven’t yet gone to  Ziost, but that would be the next step. Not sure that I want to go on past Ziost and change all of the functional nature of his companions.
• Luukke—somewhere on Makeb. Haven’t gone back to see what’s still to be done, but I think I’m almost finished with it.
• Johhn—still on Ilum; I think I’ve done the Black Hole with him too. Or maybe Section X. I’m not really considering using him for any additional story stuff, though.
• Phillippion—haven’t started any post story stuff with him; I’ve only taken him to Ilum to grind Gree reputation (which is now complete.) Might have grinded some other reputation with him over time, like Oricon or Section X—certainly I did THORN and the BBA, but I’m not doing anything else story-wise with him at all. Don’t care to either.
• Graggory—I might have finished Ilum with him, maybe not. I think I’ve got Makeb on his next mission, but that’s been true for a long time.
• Hutran Thanatos—because he’s the most recent to finish, he’s the only one who I’m actually approaching the post story stuff systematically anymore. He’s finished Ilum (except the two flashpoints) at which point I’ll eventually do The Black Hole and Section X with him, and presumably after that, Makeb.

In general, I don’t much care for the post main story expansion stuff. Some of it is visually pretty, like Odessen or Ossus or Makeb or Onderon, etc. but I only go there for aesthetic reasons or to grind some special event or something like that. I don’t really care what happens to the characters after the main story when there no longer is a unique story for each class, and there’s barely a unique story for each faction. Sorta. None of these characters are advancing very fast, and for the majority of them, I really don’t expect that I’ll ever play past Ziost at the absolute most. I’m especially reluctant to use my crafting characters post Ziost, because they’ll lose access to their companions. Ironically, some of my newer characters might be better positioned to move forward past that, because their companions are just sidekicks along for the ride and the combat support.

The crafting characters, if they do advanced story content, it will probably be because I popped into a flashpoint for some reason. I am still trying to grind for a group achievement, after all, although I haven’t done anything with that since coming back to the game a couple of months ago. Too many other things to do!

So, date night and story advancement; I don’t care. Why do I care about game updates at all, then? Honestly, I don’t really. I find them inconvenient mostly, although I’m glad that they add some new elements, some new environments to visit and go do daily areas on (although lately, you can’t do the dailies without first doing the story, which sucks) and stuff like that. And I like Seasons well enough.  I’m doing season 6, and it’ll be third that I’ve done; the other three taking place while I was away from the game.  I’m not sure that the seasonal armors and weapons are all that cool this time around, but the mounts are nice, and I get extra cartel coins, plus season tokens that I can spend on older season stuff that I missed here and there. (Just added the Rapid Recon Walker to my collections in mounts a day or two ago, for instance.) Two evenings of seasons, and I’ve done all of the weekly stuff that I can. Just the log-on bonus and the dailies will get me another two or three reward track elements before next Tuesday. 

I’ve said before that SWTOR always leads me mentally to Space Opera X, and I’ve had some thoughts on the SOX setting, and how to make it potentially much more useful and fun for me by getting rid of the political alignment of most of the systems, and instead having all major political groups potentially operating on any planet. There’s a reason most planets in SWTOR have both Republic and Imperial stuff going on. Even Ord Mantell and Hutta are notable for their neutrality, and its telling that Ord Mantell for both factions was added to the latest update, and Hutta is coming yet this year too. Voss is maybe the poster-child of the neutral planet where both Empire and Republic have to operate discretely, but that’s just a case of mediocre execution of what is otherwise actually a good idea.

And here's Johhn on Oricon in his Daft Punk outfit.

Space Cowboy

Speaking of space cowboys, like I was in the Lazy Laser post earlier today, here's Vant Galaide showing off a space cowboy outfit on Yavin IV. I deliberately made this one out of mostly adaptive vendor pieces, so anyone could get it.

There is one exception, though; the weapon I use (noted below) is from the cosmetic vendor, and costs half a million credits and 3,500 tech fragments, a high level currency. It's legacy bound, so once you buy it, anyone on your server that's one of your characters can use it, but it's not easy to get. The adaptive vendor pistol is terrible, so I don't recommend it, but you'll find tons of world drops on your first planet that will work quite well. And if you're playing—or have played—a bounty hunter, the Hunter's Blaster which drops near the end of the first planet and which is legacy bound is a great alternative, and is free to boot. However, you can't start with it.

Normally, of course, you can't get any of the adaptive gear until you go to the fleet, and normally you don't go to the fleet until you're done with your first planet, so that shouldn't be a problem, however. The craftable Custom-built Blaster Pistol, which you can equip at Level 20 or higher is another good alternative, as is the craftable Carbo-plas pistol which you can equip at level 10, or the Plastifiber that you can equip at level 16. They don't necessarily have a similar look, although they're mostly in the same size and chunkiness range, and because you can craft them pretty cheap at low level, they're great alternatives, and of course, since they're craftable, you don't actually have to buy them.

The pants on this outfit are also technically free, but they're hard to get, requiring grinding Heroics, being lucky in your RNG output, and generally unless you've somehow already got them, it's probably not worth going for. There I recommend some pants from either world drops or the adaptive vendor to replace them. The Sith Annihilator, TD-07A Blackguard and TD-07A Scorpion all offer interesting leggings options to replace the ones I used. They don't look the same, but I picked the ones I did because they're kind of unique.

Also, although the dye module I use is crafted and technically free if you have someone who can craft it, it's a high level dye module and you may not have access to anything like it. The Black and Light Gray is a suitable lower level alternative. But even then you may not have access to the color that you want. You could also buy the Primary Black Dye on the fleet, but it also requires special currency and isn't super cheap.

What are some other changes you could make while still staying out of cartel market items?

I like the Han Solo style vest, but if you wanted something else, the Republic side Scout with the same dye module would look pretty interesting. If you can find the schematic, smugglers can wear the old fashioned Drelliad jacket starting at level 11 or something like that. The Remnant Resurrected Smuggler is a great alternative if you have it, although like my pants above, it's hard to get if you don't have it already. Although at least its free. On the other hand, although not very cheap, some of the planetary pieces are at least easy to get if you have a character that can afford them, and they're legacy bound so you can easily pass them around. The Tarisian and Nar Shaddaa smugglers have a classic SWTOR look.

UPDATE: I almost forgot! Although the Republic Squadron Commander Pilot set is free for me, it may not be for everyone if you don't have access to the code that gave it to me. Which I can no longer find, so I presume it's no longer active. There is a belt that looks very similar in the Adaptive vendor, and of course, since the gloves cover up the bracers, it doesn't matter very much which ones you replace them with.

Also; not sure why I went to Yavin IV, actually. On second thought, it doesn't seem like a really cowboyish planet. But Tatooine... y'know, you get tired of doing everything there sometimes.

Some Vash Galaide screenshots

My current favorite agent, played by a Powertech. Here's a few screenshots from his earlier recorded time on Hutta, both in his really cool initial agent uniform, and in disguise as the Red Blade. Remember, I don't think making the Red Blade look like the actual Red Blade is necessary, since the whole premise is that nobody knows what he looks like. You're not supposed to just copy his outfit and pretend to be him, you have to create your own Red Blade persona. 

Anyway, my only requirements for a Red Blade be that the outfit be mostly red and that it look kinda piratey. I used the Secret Agent jacket, which in reflection, looks just a little bit gay on a man. These little croptop vests and jackets look like they were designed for teenaged girls, or at least borderline. This one isn't as terrible as some on a guy, but it's no longer one of my favorites. Curiously, when turned black to match the under layer, it looks mostly OK.

Lazy Laser

I discovered the perfect SOX soundtrack; a self-described fusion of spaghetti western music and synthwave. The artist is Lazy Laser. He has a full album called Ride On Space Cowboy and then an unassociated single called "Lost in a Trippy Desert." Perfect synthesis of what I'm going for in most respects with SOX. That said, most of my videos have Xurious synthwave sounds, and he's more a political right-wing synthwave. Not that you can tell, listening to instrumental music. But if you look at the titles, it's pretty obvious. I don't have permission to use music from either in my my videos, so I may well revert to royalty free stuff, of which there's a lot available.

But I highly recommend checking out Lazy Laser on either YouTube or Spotify.

Here's some older screenshots, where I've done the obvious thing that I should have done ages ago, opened them in an image app and changed the brightness and contrast. You'll have to forgive the occasional appearance of a scantily dressed girlfriend companion character, because when I took these I guess I hadn't completely gotten tired of the joke of dressing my girlfriends like Return of the Jedi slave girl Leia. I'm over it now and I only have a handful of lingering weird free characters that might still have a dancer outfit on. I think I found a "Master Ranos" dressed like that lingering on somebody, and I actually thought it'd be funny to keep that one as it is since you never see that character looking like that.

The other guy, part II

I found the site archives where Dash Starbreaker was posted, and it does indeed call him both a Scoundrel and a Gunslinger, which explains why there are images of him with one gun and with two. Of course, this doesn't mean that there are two characters; one of the changes launched in 7.x was the ability to toggle between two class mechanics, and most likely, the player has a scoundrel and a gunslinger spec on the same character. I kind of forget this, because I almost never use it, even when I've got it set up. More recently, I'm not even bothering to set it up on my newer characters. Turns out this feature, which sounded kind of interesting before it launched, was a bit of a dud for me.

Anyway, here's just a few more images. If I post them here, I can clear out where I've archived them on in my screenshots folder.