I was looking at getting some spiders & beetles from the prepainted D&D minis range, for US$3 each, plus postage. Had a look in a discount store, and got a pack of 12 plastic spiders for $3. Win!
@Shalvenay Thanks - I really wasn't sure what to say there, especially since he seemed so proud.
@Adeptus Nice! But, since you mention it, is there a way to get specific prepainted minis? The ludicrously stupid booster pack system is why I don't own any.
@Miniman Troll and Toad is the one I see most recommended. Paizo's store also has some, and Australian store Games Empire does too. Games Empire has a flat $9 postage, while Paizo & T&T start at about US$4... so they may actually be cheaper for small orders.
I bought about 40 from Games Empire - some D&D, some Star Wars that were monster-y and/or didn't have modern-looking weapons (there's some force-users with staffs or no weapon that can pass as D&D casters, and some aliens with swords/axes/polearms/no weapon)
@KorvinStarmast I'm currently reading the Obernewtyn trilogy (actually, I think there's a 4th book...) by Isobel Carmody. I'm a short way into the second book. I didn't realise before I started that it's a post-apocalypse fantasy. One of those "the old technology was lost" scenarios. Not my favourite subgenre, but I'm liking it enough to keep reading.
Recently finished two urban fantasy series(-es) by Laura Anne Gilman. One about a magic-using thief, and a spinoff about a magic-using crime scene investigator.
I was a city guard who'd accidentally been given (highly illegal) druid powers during a botched raid of a druid compound, went half-mad and became homeless.
@BESW In this one, the apocalypse was recent enough that there is some knowledge of "the beforetime", and some factions are trying to rediscover the old machines/weapons
@Miniman Even beyond that, there's a fascination with "things used to be better/cooler/awesomer" and following people discovering how much worse their life/world is now.
Like, Wheel of Time isn't set in OUR future; its past glory is still magical and stuff. But that "we're adventuring in the ruins of a better time" theme is still a major part of the series.
@Miniman Nightfall's perhaps a useful exception to the civilisation cycle rule; most stories work on the conceit that civilisations have their rise and fall built into themselves, that the nature of society is to increase in order until it collapses into chaos only for order to rise again.
Nightfall, on the other hand, presents a cyclic civilisation doomed by astrology astonomy, an outside uncaring happenstance dooming a society to its destructive cycle.
@BESW Yeah, I was sort of thinking about that when I mentioned it. It's an interesting contrast to all the "world razed by a war fought with terrible weapons beyond the ken of we simple folk".
@Miniman We're continuing with the main campaign. Still in chapter 1. We don't get a lot of time to play it... and we've restarted a few times. (Got partway through chapter 2 once. I think the savegame got corrupted or something, that time.)
The first several books each serve as an introduction to a major part of the setting, as well as pushing the plot. The last few books move between the setting locations more freely as everything comes together.
@Miniman I certainly don't see anything over the line. You're pretty much restricting yourself to fairly objective "the things there are pretty likely to kill L1" or Good Subjective statements "I wouldn't want to have to run from everything." I also don't quite know what the other person meant by their last substantive line, but they followed it up by a "LOL," so it doesn't seem to me like any harm's done.
@Shalvenay A touch bummed: I'm here rather than watching my daughter finish up her run as Gretl in The Sound of Music. (My two other kids were fading fast, so I brought them home at intermission.) But, no luck finding a babysitter to be here on ten minute's notice at 9:30 on a Sunday....
@Miniman Yeah. Not sure what it would have been referring to.
@Miniman On the other hand, the director's had such a good time with her that he's thinking of doing The King and I next year. (He'd seen it twice with Yul Brenner, then directed it as part of his MFA, and always said he wanted to go back to the well when he "had the right kids.") So that's nice to hear.
@nitsua60 I mean, reading over it, I assume he was trying to say that I was telling him he was doing it wrong. Which is sort of understandable, because I was trying to suggest to him that maybe he was doing it wrong not necessarily creating the most fun game for his players.
@Miniman Certainly, for a six year-old, it's been a pretty radical event. Hanging out with all her "big sisters." (Kurt and Friedrich do not make appearances in any of her stories.)
I once saw an amazing production of Mary Poppins produced by a private school, in which every student from K through 8 appeared at least once, and they thanked the local big box store for letting them rummage through the back alley for prop material.
The kindergarten chorus was adorable, and the lead actress was very impressive at grabbing her loose lapel mic out of the air whenever it popped off mid-spin.
Alright, I'm'a head out, everyone. Now that we've drawn the curtain on this production I should be around a bit more. Until next time, adieu, adieu, to you and you and you!
Both PlayOnMac and Wine have notes that they supported GOG versions of Thief 3 reasonably well as of 2014.
I'm also looking at The Dark Mod, which has guides for installing via PlayOnMac (that's how I found out about it) but I'm having trouble finding support for via Wine.
@Miniman Cool. My experience with VM's is limited to DosBox (for my old games) and using one trying to get a DB working locally (eventually did it another way)
@BESW The 2 minute extensive research I've done looking at the Thief POM page looks like it's some form or linux DL package installer system... that might be rather easy.
Mmm. I'm looking for insight into which is going to be easier for a complete noob to work with, and has better support communities for when I run into problems, vs effective performance of the games.
Well I don't know any Mac users I could ask, and I haven't had a Mac for over 20 years, so I'm out. POM looks dead easy to get started on... but I have no way to test it.
@Adeptus That's pretty cool. I've also found emulating older games to be a better way of having something entertaining on my phone than the insipid games that make up the mobile market.
@Adeptus Interesting idea, although I find the touchscreen controls poor enough that I stick to turn-based games pretty exclusively. At the point where I'm buying a controller for it, I'd just carry around an actual games console :P
@Shalvenay Oh Cmonnn, you can get a LN Cooling system for the Quad-Hex-SLI-GPU setup, can't ya?
@BESW Well then the fora look active, and the system looks relatively mature (5+ yrs) so I'd say go for it if you're lookin to spend a few on GOG anyway I'd say it works.
I'm curious to see if TDM invokes the same things I like in Thief; that would be a step toward helping me codify what I like about Thief and seeing if it can be distilled into a tabletop campaign.
On one hand, my frustration with plugins has been resolved (good news! COM is not essential!) However the deadline for the plugin has jumped forward to 2 weeks from now
The only thing I need to try and understand is how the Adept system integrates. It uses GUIDs, rather than reflection (which is what the Tut that Miniman found uses)
@Chemus Mmm, kinda? But with more "nobody knows what's going on," and from the perspective of the people who get in the way of the big movers and shakers rather than from the perspective of the big movers and shakers themselves.
@trogdor I think it was a good learning experience for what Fate can't do--in particular, it can't compensate for a group's unclear vision of what the campaign should be like.
I was also excited to create a setting with the Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver spirit world in it (though I admit that adding that into our setting was likely part of the problem)
I think the main problem was that we were mashing together a setting I was familiar with and a setting you were familiar with, without understanding of each other's settings.
So it wound up being a lot of implied concepts that weren't well understood by anybody.
So I ended up DMing my first 5E session over the weekend. It went... OK.
People enjoyed the encounters I threw at them, but I didn't give them any real chance to actually roleplay their characters.
So now I'm trying to figure out a way to give them more chance in the next session.
I'm also trying to figure out what the next session should actually be. The story so far is that they're all looking to join the Adventurer's Guild, which they'll have to pass a series of tests for - but I have no idea what those tests should be.
OK, well in Hunter X Hunter there is an organisation (called Hunters) that basically just exists to give exceptional people the resources they need to fulfill whatever goals they have.
Some use it to explore, some use it to research, some use it to fight evil, some use it to do evil, some use it to gain riches, some use it to simply have the connections they need to fulfill something even more specific.
The Adventurer's Guild is like that.
Only without the evil part.
(Ideally)
An Adventurer's Guild license is basically a really easy way to prove that you're capable. It's an instant path to minor celebrity.
I know that I want the final test to be a boat race, and I think I want the middle test to be a Hunger Games style "survive for X amount of time on an island" type deal.
@BESW That's the idea. An almost Mad Max type thing, where pre-established groups attempt to sabotage/sink other boats while attempting to navigate the maps they've been given the reach their destination in time.
@Szega 4 PCs atm, but that might rise to 5 next session. I have a really easy way to introduce new PCs to the group, so that's not an issue.
They'd play as a group. I think the idea would be that they have 3 days on an island, and each would-be Adventurer has a token. Anyone with two tokens at the end of the 3 days passes to the final test.
To be clear, my PCs are competing against dozens of other would-be Adventurers.
I want the first test to a) introduce recurring NPCs that will be allies/rivals for the latter tests an b) be fun, but I have no idea what I want that to be.
@DrRDizzle If you already have rival groups planned, i think that will be ok. If they have different strengths/strategies of their own and the players can (to an extent) choose who to engage.
@Szega Fairly. They might be working as a group, but they pass/fail the first two tests as individuals - it's only the final test that will be an "all for one and one for all" type thing.
Or maybe the first one should be a group and all the others should be individual.
I don't have any epic quests planned after they join the Guild, I want them to then decide what objectives they want to meet based on their motivations for joining the Guild in the first place.
I think the sailing one will be the easiest, so I'll open with that one. They'll meet an NPC who used to be a sailor, so he can "control" the boat while they navigate/fend off boarders.
They're also going to be there for 3 days, so they'll have to find fresh water and food, all the while being wary of other teams and sleeping in shifts.
The PC's are a Gnome Ranger, a Half-Orc Fighter, a Half-Elf Paladin, a Halfling Cleric and maybe a Dragonborn Bard. The NPC they'll (hopefully) be smart enough to team up with is a Dwarven Rogue.
Well, it is if they forget to do it. They'll pull up on shore, realise they have no provisions, no shelter, and a short time frame to gain items that everyone else on the island is looking for, and have to prioritize. I think it'll be interesting.
I plan on their just being one main stream on the (relatively small) island, so even if they do find it, they need to be on the lookout for other groups.
I'm thinking I'll divide the island up into squares, and when they move into a new square, have a thing happen that they have to deal with. Only I will know about the squares.
I like the idea of them having to reach a tower at the centre of the island BTW, I'm stealing that.
Hrm. POM installed TDM pretty painlessly, but I have to re-download the Thief setup .exe from GOG because POM can't handle running it from the game files.
I'm also looking at The Dark Mod, which has guides for installing via PlayOnMac (that's how I found out about it) but I'm having trouble finding support for via Wine.
Some folks with super high-end OSX computers could, but it wasn't pretty. My midrange iMac (purchased at about the time the game came out) wouldn't even try.
Right. I'm asking because I disliked the originals, (numbered ones), I enjoyed the Underworld series as a straight arcade, but I thoroughly loved the 2013 reboot, even to my own surprise.
It took me a while to figure out the games I enjoy are kinda like Souls: they reward careful patience and skill mastery, and they're challenging in that they make me work for victory, but I know what kind of skills I want to see challenged. I also know I don't like games where the main driver/attraction is moving through a story: I cannot complete them. That means Pokemon, Final Fantasy (anything), and a bunch of other games are out. (Limbo and Braid are not in this category.)
It uses the Battle Realms mechanic where the only unit produced is the Villager unit and you send the villager unit to other buildings to train into a different unit.
@BESW How do you feel about grand strategy games and stuff in that constellation? Say, Europa Universalis, Total War, Civilisation-et.al, Crusader Kings?
@BESW That's pretty cool! I've spent the last two days watching old streams of Matt Colville making a map with twitch using hexographer. Between you two, now I want to make a map!
Those are pretty much the three eras of BESW's D&D mapmaking.
@eimyr Honestly the list of video/computer games I've played which would inform a positive map of my preferences is probably short enough to enumerate.
I always thought it could be fun to convince players that they are entering a dragons' lair with loads of signs outside like "BEWER OF DARGON", but actually it is some dude's dog called dargon and the owner can't spell
> What should I do with a character that can lift 3 tons? > Have your party become alcohol traders. Buy tons of liquor and then sell it somewhere down the road for a profit. If your party buys too much booze to carry in the wagon, you're always there to lift their spirits.
my brain was eaten earlier by too much inhaled plant life. This was my PC. Our barbarian finished off the mindflayer before it could get me. But I was grappled and only had about 18 hit points left.
@doppelgreener I had used the Wall of Stone mechanic that gives the person enclosed a Dex save to escape to perfect effect. It was a planetar that had just moved onto a ledge with a 160' drop (it was flying before) to attack our Cleric. I wanted to either enclose it or force it off the ledge so that our Sorcerer could Earthbind it - which he did on his turn (and the planetar failed it's saving throw).
It was a no-win for the Planetar - either be surrounded by stone that it'd have to break out of (2 layers thick on most walls) or escape it, but then get earthbound.
@NautArch I don't know much about eating brains myself. But if it were me, I would consider it a great honor to be providing sustenance to such a perfect being.
As the title asks. The two tags, [fumbles] and [critical-fail], are both highly similar. It makes sense for them to be marked as synonyms.
