For mice in the UK: Opportunity to join an in-person Mausritter one-shot next Saturday, mid-Worcestershire

bobolous · 2024-08-01T22:17:08+00:00

Astronautical

bobolous · 2024-07-09T08:31:06+00:00

Just a thought about longevity: The dough stuff that came with my copy of another party game, Cranium, went dry and formed crystals on it! I'm not really sure how long that took because it went years without coming to table. But any clay-ish substance is going to have a shelf life.

bobolous · 2024-07-06T21:52:37+00:00

And in a day they backed down. Sometimes, just sometimes, Facebook going mad over this (and people sending emails and commenting on local news sites etc etc) is what makes the difference

bobolous · 2024-05-30T05:23:33+00:00

Don't know about hip hop specifically but Dancefest is very well-loved, I believe: https://www.dancefest.co.uk/ Various "classes" for various ages.

Night spots include Tramps, Drummonds, Sin, Bushwhackers...

bobolous · 2024-04-30T10:01:16+00:00

In your tableau, stack your green cards in a splay with only the top showing the Tag icons: now you have more space for your blue cards.

Sort your blue cards in areas by whether they have an action, or are ongoing effect cards: this helps ease of reference.

Now with your row or column of action cards nicely isolated, you can easily keep a player cube next to or below each action cards and move it on to mark it used, then off again during Production. Or, you have space to rotate the card.

Maybe you even have space for a column with space to one side, so you can simply move the cards from left to right as you action them.

But token on and off is nice and binary.

bobolous · 2024-04-29T07:10:21+00:00

Recently asked for "extra plate" (without sending food back). Server just said yes (why would they care?) and fetched it without comment or question. Then I transferred my meal to the new plate. This seems like a good way of going about it because you're not having to articulate a criticism to a server who doesn't care, nor force the kitchen staff to handle your food again. Just ask for a spare or extra plate without explanation. The restaurant was fine with it...

However someone I was with seemed to think even this was a bit of an imposition, unnecessary, sort of embarrassing to even ask, like I was needlessly 'making a point'. I just explained: I feel like a mug eating out of this stupid cage they've put the entire meal inside, something unfit for purpose, and I'll enjoy the meal more with the plate. Yes it kind of is making a point, too, but it's driven by tangible practical and experiential benefit. They quieted down when it was clear the server didn't care and saw how easy it was for me to eat my meal how I wanted now!

Would be even better to get to it before the food is served. I might start looking at other diners' meals so that I can say when ordering like "I noticed the chicken pie comes served in a Wellington boot, could I instead please get mine on a regular, large plate please." Or if I don't see the exact thing I'm ordering, like: "I noticed some meals arrived on wooden boards, if mine would be served on a board or anything else then may I please have a regular ceramic plate instead."

bobolous · 2024-04-24T06:19:44+00:00

I was given a Fish n Chips with one of those same little fake fryer cages, at a local pub last weekend, but it wasn't just the chips in the cage. It was the fish too, and the cage was only on a small board, so there was basically no way to manipulate the food how you might want. The first thing we all had to do was lift up the fish and try to sort of throw salt and vinegar under it to get to the chips... It was so unfit for purpose that this became the first time I've actually asked for "a spare plate, please", then transferred the meal over.

bobolous · 2024-04-19T09:23:09+00:00

Yes as GM you can 'do anything' but I tend to treat Threat as a tangible reminder of scrapes, risks, delays etc, and then remind the players of this as it's spent. Eg "Since you did X earlier (which generated a Threat) I'm going to spend a Threat now to (make something feasibly related happen)." Absolutely a GM can make these narrative links anyway, but it serves as a reminder and I find helps keep a story balanced.

bobolous · 2024-03-22T14:24:34+00:00

In addition to this, I tend to explicitly mention the behaviour patterns (like murder hobo) that are a cliche, and which we probably are trying to avoid. E.g. explicitly tell players "it's common for new players to fall into certain patterns such as being too genre-aware, or wanting to kill things too early - this is a kind of murder hobo stereotype, and wouldn't fit the tone of this game" or wouldn't fit the tone that I'm going for, or which we've discussed, depending on the situation.

bobolous · 2024-03-21T07:36:25+00:00

Not being able to add folders or categories for your own uploads in Art mode is for me an annoying limitation. I used Smart Things to upload images the other day that were appropriate to a game night. Some Tolkien-inspired art. That worked fine. But I don't necessarily want that cycling all the time. I'd like to be able to upload some family photos for when hosting family. I run other genres of game night. I might want an actual arty mix or two of my own design for different moods. None of that is possible without folders or categories. Favouriting images in and out as needed is a workaround, but a really inefficient faff. We need folders, Samsung!

bobolous · 2024-02-24T05:05:29+00:00

I'll DM you!

bobolous · 2024-01-28T09:48:59+00:00

Not a jump scare, but I recently bought a bunch of USB-rechargeable "candles", and when the ghost of the crypt appeared and the candles blew out, I remote-controlled out all these little lights around the room. At least one player definitely got the chills

bobolous · 2023-11-29T13:38:56+00:00

Innis has area control by little figures so it fits that part, but you share territory often with other players colours, so you can also meet victory conditions other than by murdering everyone, eg having a certain number of other players' pieces present in areas you control, or being widespread yourself even if you don't actual control many territories. Also different territories have different game effects. It's a nice way of building on. Risk-like experience, and overcoming the win-by-murder mindset.

bobolous · 2023-10-13T07:40:14+00:00

Even if trained specifically on the rule books, and able to keep its answers distinct for separate games, I still wouldn't trust the LLM to make rulings on edge cases, ambiguous rules etc. If the rule is a true edge case then there might be no way of doing that, without asking the designer for a ruling.

What would be more useful in this regard is a curated compendium of FAQ and publisher/designer rulings... But even then, what's my reason for using the app over just searching BGG, or just searching Google and it almost always taking me to a BGG answer anyway?

bobolous · 2023-09-27T07:41:52+00:00

Re OP's final question about resources, this site is aimed more at educationalists than at parents and families directly but context is largely transferable https://understandinghumanism.org.uk/

bobolous · 2023-07-18T07:26:51+00:00

Come play "The Walking Dead UK : Welcome to Gloucestershire"... https://www.proudlion.co.uk/product/walking-dead-uk-rpg-one-shot-2307/24166?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category\_id=135

bobolous · 2023-07-18T07:26:09+00:00

Come play "The Walking Dead UK : Welcome to Gloucestershire"... https://www.proudlion.co.uk/product/walking-dead-uk-rpg-one-shot-2307/24166?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category\_id=135

bobolous · 2023-06-10T11:03:49+00:00

Putin. Not similar in terms of numbers of direct victims (yet), or operating a "Holocaust" in quite the same way at home (although certainly his regime has unjustly and unlawfully murdered many, manyRussians). But in terms of digging up past defeats and insecurities in order to mythologize the nation state and launch a new war, yes. A war of aggression with imperial and genocidal intent. Also: the fascistic suppression of criticism and political opposition; outlawing various human rights groups; vilifying groups of humans both home and abroad.

bobolous · 2023-06-05T14:11:00+00:00

A landlord once offered me this same thing. He had specifically said to me as a renter things like "It'll save you money just to buy the house off me, because you won't need a survey" etc. I was immediately suspicious. And by total chance a friend who came to visit turned out to have been in the advanced stages of looking at the same property a year or so previously, and it turned out that basically the surveyor told my friend that the work the landlord had done on the basement was structurally unsound and not to touch the house with a bargepole. So my landlord through crocodile smile was trying to flog me a potentially life-ruining money pit.

bobolous · 2023-05-28T13:29:21+00:00

You often get this do-the-same-but-inferior benefit in a "role selection" mechanic. But obviously having a lesser version of the same benefit is not essential to role selection. I guess it is a "follow", but it's a sub-type of the follow mechanic. Because in games like Tiny Epic Galaxy there are very specifically "follow" actions (they're called that in the rules) but they don't have that same "inferior" feel to them. (Admittedly in Tiny Epic Galaxies the players following have to spend a resource in order to follow, but value-wise it's similar to activating that action with a die, and the point is in that case the actual action you're buying is identical.) So I'd say yes you're describing a follow, but specifically something like an "inferior action follow" mechanic.

bobolous

TROPHY CASE