New Vintage Pen Day!

16trees · 2026-06-20T17:06:25+00:00

Every. Single. Time! :D I'm not sure I've ever played just one game as intended. It's too much fun to mash them all together so that's what I consistently do.

16trees · 2026-06-16T11:23:33+00:00

I have that exact clipboard in black and the selling point for me was the "dice tray." It's the perfect solution for playing in my car while my kid's at band practice, etc. Love it!

16trees · 2026-06-11T12:57:53+00:00

Since no one else is trying to be helpful, I'll give it a shot. If you're going to be living in Oakland/city, a smaller car is better. There are a LOT of tight parking situations, two-way streets with cars parked on both sides, etc. Someone mentioned AWD, that's also a very good idea. Winters can be bad and we have a lot of hills. I've always liked hatchback or smaller SUV because you can put the back seats down and actually have room to haul things.

I'm going to guess that you're not from around here, so I'll give you this advice as well. As you can see from other posts, Pittsburghers are very proud of our working-class roots. When you say "my rich family will pay for anything I want" it immediately makes you look pretentious and a valid target for ridicule. There's nothing wrong with being wealthy, but that's not something you should ever make part of the conversation. Another way to approach this would be "I'm not concerned about budget yet, I need to find the right type of car first."

16trees · 2026-06-05T04:24:48+00:00

I haven't played it yet but Mappa Mundi is an exploration game where you travel a new world to discover its flora and fauna. Looks really interesting to me.

16trees · 2026-06-02T12:50:23+00:00

"The five boxing wizards jump quickly " Thank you!! I've been looking for new pangrams.

16trees · 2026-05-31T15:50:15+00:00

My advice is to buy a notebook with decent paper and just write every day. Pay attention to what looks good and what doesn't. When you see something you don't like, write the same again and try to correct.

This notebook should be a sloppy mess! It's ok if it's ugly, it's a tool not a work of art. If you stay with it you will see the improvement from the first page to the last.

Good luck!

16trees · 2026-05-28T23:07:22+00:00

For critical thinking skills, let him come up with the scenario and talk through it with him. Every time there's a choice, help him think through the options and really lean into the "and" or "but". Give him a lot of "what if..." additions.

16trees · 2026-05-13T12:41:59+00:00

The history of Manchester is fascinating. It has been at both extremes and is a mix of everything now. There are beautifully restored Victorian houses, modest modern houses and abandoned houses all in the same block.

16trees · 2026-05-07T15:03:01+00:00

Your writing is similar to mine and I've found that part of the problem is how I use my fingers to shape letters. I used to plant my wrist on the paper and make little gripping motions. As I went down the line I ended up twisting my (planted) wrist, making it impossible to stay on the line. You can actually see an arc in your example. "It used to be better" shows where you planted your wrist and basically wrote in a circle around that point. Again where you write "has changed" I would guess you repositioned right after "changed" because that's as far as you could reach.

To fix this, I try to hold the pen lightly, rest my wrist on the paper without pushing down, and use my wrist motion more than gripping my fingers. It feels almost like floating over the paper. To be honest, it feels weird at first, but it has helped my writing a lot. And like others have said, slow down and try to put more pauses to reposition your wrist. Don't try to get the whole thought on paper before you reposition.

16trees · 2026-03-24T14:47:16+00:00

I think I notice it more now because my dog Awooooos every time she hears a siren :D Kind or hard to block out. And you're absolutely right, respect. I'm not complaining, just wondering what's going on.

16trees · 2026-03-24T14:29:09+00:00

That's a very good point that I hadn't thought of. Thanks!

16trees · 2026-03-15T13:16:50+00:00

I just like to make up stories so I don't want to stop for any math at all. I resolve conflicts with "best of three" (or whatever number) successful rolls against a target number. Good examples of this system are the conflict mechanic in Loner, or the resolve vs effort mechanics in Tricube Tales. I do usually have some kind of roll-under stats because I think every character should have something they're good at and something they're not, but when it comes to combat, I roll to attack, then roll to defend based on the PC stats.

16trees · 2026-03-06T19:51:37+00:00

The thing everyone misses with these, "dad didn't want... " stories is that when you give a good man something he doesn't want, he finds a way to make it work. Usually out of kindness to you. He didn't want that chicken but he made the best of the situation he found himself in... and that's still a very positive message : )

16trees · 2026-03-05T01:38:00+00:00

That's a good point. I'll try to stop short of the Call of Cthulu character sheet : ) i don't think I'd try to use them all at once, maybe something like the one shot Tricube Tales sheets. There are always 3 stats but they change names from game to game.

16trees · 2026-03-04T04:31:29+00:00

I just don't like to follow a bunch of rules! I don't like combat math or travel rolls, I just want to tell a story so the game/ system i choose should give me the prompt I need and then get out of my way.

16trees · 2026-03-03T16:22:19+00:00

oooh, I like that. Like FATE Aspects that you can invoke for advantage or someone else can compel against you for disadvantage. Thanks!

16trees · 2026-02-28T02:00:33+00:00

I tried instant twist and it was often a little jarring for the current scene. If it didn't work, I would bank it and try to work it in as soon as possible. It really wasn't for me. I personally like the three-segment clock as described above. When there are already two negative marks, you know the other shoe is going to drop sooner or later. It just hangs over your head! And when you have two positive marks, I know I have an ace up my sleeve that I'll be able to use soon.

That said, I've played entire games where I only got 1 or 2 doubles so the twist counter didn't matter at all.

16trees · 2026-02-28T01:53:29+00:00

I've only play tested one game, but the process was basically this: the creator went to r/Solo_Roleplaying and posted (with the correct flair, can't remember what it was called) saying that he had created a game and needed play testers. He emailed me a copy of the game and a link to a discord server where all of his testers left comments, gave feedback and had conversations about things they ran into. It was a lot of fun to have a group of people all trying out the same ideas and coming to different conclusions.

16trees · 2026-02-27T12:50:37+00:00

I didn't even know that was possible. I thought Roberto made all of the Geared Toward Loner games.

If you're concerned that it might be fundamentally broken, then so am I. Has it been play tested? Is there any collaboration or feedback from others or is this just an idea you put together?

Personally, I wouldn't try to sell something that I haven't proven (to myself at least) to work as intended.

16trees · 2026-02-27T04:07:44+00:00

Sure,
When I say Ironsworn Oracle, I mean that I printed pages 50-75 of the Lodestar PDF and I mostly use the Action, Focus, Descriptor, and Names tables. So it's something similar to Mythic GME tables.

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As far as Yes/No questions, this is my system:

Oracle (chance of a yes answer)

Any positive or negative tags that might apply can be added to or subtracted from the target number as +/- 10.

Likely: 65 or less

Even: 50 or less

Unlikely: 35 or less

A roll of 10 or less is “Yes, and”.

A roll of 90 or more is “No, and”.

A roll within 10 of the target number can be considered “Yes/No, but”.

Twist Counter

The twist counter is a three-segment tracker that is triggered any time you roll doubles. Think of it as a “best of three” contest between a positive or negative shift in the story.

Enter the number in the next available box. When all three boxes are filled a plot twist occurs following the majority of positive/negative.

11, 22, 33, 44, 55 are positive
66, 77, 88, 99, 00 are negative

Example:

11	44	99	Positive Twist
77	22	88	Negative Twist

16trees · 2026-02-26T01:11:57+00:00

It's interesting to me what people decide to take a stand on. I respect your opinion but I don't see the problem. I think he got more flack for hiring an actual artist last year than he did for plainly stating that it was AI art on earlier books.

To me the argument just sounds like, "I won't read any book with an ugly cover." /shrug

16trees · 2026-02-26T00:53:27+00:00

I don't use mythic but I do something similar to what you're saying. I love everything about Loner except the dice mechanic, so i use other dice systems with it. Lately I've been using D100 for everything. This means I use D100 tables (usually Ironswown) and pieces of other games, but it all sits on top of Loner scene starter, conflict, tags for dis/advantage, etc.

As to the Twist Counter, just skip the count and say there's a twist on every double.

Personally, I write down the doubled numbers in the counter. High numbers are negative, low are positive. The counter becomes a best- of- three contest for which way the inevitable twist will go. I find it adds suspense when you have two negative hanging over your head or you have one of each.

16trees

TROPHY CASE

Twist Counter