I trick and scam my players pretty much constantly. The enemies, the neutrals, and even people on the side of good are always pulling something. But then, my campaign is more of a mystery campaign masquerading as a fantasy adventure campaign. My players have come to expect it.

In essence, I think this is the line I take: if you’re going to pull a trick, you can’t fake it. The trick HAS to be fair. The pieces should all be there for the players to put together, a bit of logic can be necessary but ideally no leaps of logic required, and if you hand the players all the pieces and they STILL fall for it, that’s on them. You can’t blatantly lie with the DM voice or conveniently leave out information any reasonable person would notice. That’s unfair. As I tell my players, the DM voice will never lie to you, it will always tell you exactly what you can sense. The NPCs can lie to you, and many will. It has served them well so far once they got the hang of it.

This is probably my pick too, and it frustrates me. Because like, look. I love Remedy games. I love Alan Wake 1 and 2 to death. I just bought a 200 dollar book about Alan Wake. I really vibe with Control’s aesthetic and setting. Ahti is great. I have beat Control before, but ever since then, whenever I think “oh, I should go back and replay Control” I get about five hours back into the game before I just sit there and think man, I am not having any fun. Just about all of these characters feel like cardboard cutouts with neutral faces drawn on them, the plot is kinda dull, when it bothers to show up, and if the game can’t really get excited about itself I’m not sure how I’m supposed to. I’ll always love launching a forklift at some Hiss at 200mph but it doesn’t take me far enough.

That being said, yes, I will still be playing Control 2 day one. Even if it’s garbage, Remedy will always deserve the chance for me.

I’ve heard it pointed out before that these kids were living on World War 2 rations and, regardless of the quality of Turkish Delight under normal circumstances, it probably tastes a heck of a lot better when you’ve been eating mostly meat, cheese, and preserves for the last however long (though in Googling it, I see they did get SOME sweets in rations).

The main thing that keeps me from reinstalling and trying to play Skyrim again is the thought of having to do Bleak Falls Barrow for the billionth time. Yeah, I could mod around it, but I just don’t care enough to figure out how for a game I pretty much always play through the first few hours of and then drop for another three years anyways.

I can’t prove it, but there’s a florist in my town, definitely still in business, that I have not seen a non-company-branded car in front of in actual years. Morning, noon, and night, never any customers. Never any movement from inside. The only time I ever saw the lights on was in the dead of night. The building is half-claimed by ivy.

If it weren’t for the upkept greenhouse and the sign out front occasionally changing, you’d never know it wasn’t totally abandoned, but it’s still operating. Mob activity is the only way to explain it.