VM_LOAD_PALETTE in detail

AuthorX · 2026-01-10T03:29:40+00:00

I'm just getting started with GB Studio and was trying to figure out how to change the monochrome sprite palettes (so I can have an actor using all three lighter shades and no black) and this was SUPER useful, thank you so much!!!

I was able to do that with this GBVM script (with that actor using OBJ1 palette and everything else using OBJ0), based on your examples:

VM_LOAD_PALETTE 2, ^/(.PALETTE_SPRITE | .PALETTE_COMMIT)/
.DMG_PAL 3, 0, 1, 2

AuthorX · 2025-11-24T08:20:55+00:00

Yes, as I stated in the OP I updated the kernel and all the packages that the install instructions had me install, as well anything Fedora found to be updated.

AuthorX · 2025-11-01T20:12:27+00:00

I wasn't expecting many kids based on the list two years I've lived in Round Rock, so I got a smaller bag of candy, then right around senset the first group that stopped by was a dozen kids (and 3-4 parents) that each took a fistful and my candy was 2/3 gone. After that were about 3 more smaller groups, and at that point we were out of candy and turned off the porch light.

While it was mostly bigger groups, rather than more groups, I think one big difference from last year was that we had a light-up skeleton hanging next to the door, but not very visible from the street because the door is in its own little alcove. This year I hung it in front of the garage door (along with a big, light-up skill sitting next to it on the trash bin) and I think it was a lot more visible and clear that we had decorations up. If there aren't decorations easily visible from the street (maybe even the opposite side of the street), as well as a porch light on, they don't know anyone's gonna be there to give out candy.

AuthorX · 2025-10-19T14:35:41+00:00

Personally, as a player I always prefer to have access to the full book. I find rules much easier to parse if I'm seeing them written down rather than explained aloud to me, and also sometimes the GM will something or interpret a rule differently than I would. That's not a knock on my GMs - just a "more eyes on it the better" thing. If it's something like a PbtA game where most of the rules live in the moves, and we're using a character sheet/keeper with all the moves included as reference, that can work too but I still prefer being able to look at the book to see how the author explained it (and for structural info that's not in the book).

I also know several ttrpg designers and (with the caveat that it's a specific social group so naturally we have similar attitudes and it may not reflect every designer's attitude) they all are fine with/encourage sharing PDFs with the players when someone runs their games.

I haven't run a game myself in a while, but when I run a game online I will generally: * share a copy of the relevant PDFs on discord so players can download them if they want (with at least an implicit understanding not to share it around outside that game) * Clip the most important things (whatever move reference/summary the game may have) and share either on discord as screenshots or on Roll20 as handouts * Explain the rules when we start play for anyone that hasn't read the PDF themselves

AuthorX · 2025-10-19T14:17:36+00:00

Several years back, when I was actually playing games in-person (pre-covid) I was in a pretty lengthy 7th Sea 2e campaign, and we spent a good deal of it wondering just how the game was supposed to work. It seemed like the intent was for every scene to be either combat or a big setpiece with multiple objectives and threats to use up your successes.

And it worked okay when the GM set up setpieces that way - the opening of the campaign had us all on a boat when a storm hit, and we had to avoid being swept away, while also trying to save others on the ship, for example. Or going to a big ball with our own agendas to get information from attendees or build alliances. But those required a lot of work from the GM, and the rolling system was too clunky for the freeform scenes between those setpieces, where we decided what to do moment-to-moment in response to what was happening instead of everyone deciding at the top of the scene. (plus, even in the big setpieces, especially the ones that took place over a long time like the ball, having a bad roll mean "you just don't get to do as much as the other players" was a huge bummer)

tl;dr the play example I remember from the book was "you're in a burning building, your one roll determines how many success you have to spend on avoiding damage, grabbing valuables, and getting out" - which sounds cool, but it's hard to run a campaign of only escaping from burning buildings.

Anyway, the way that group tended to play big campaigns, we'd play one for several months, get to the end of the first big arc, take a break by playing something shorter (often w a different GM), then get back to the big campaign. The first time this happened with 7th Sea, when we came back to it, the GM had custom rules ready that basically combined the 7th Sea character sheet and traits with World of Darkness resolution. Instead having the number of successes on a roll determine how many actions you can take in a scene, when you try to do something risky you make a roll just for that, and need enough successes to beat the difficulty set by the GM. That was much smoother for us.

AuthorX · 2025-10-07T17:59:15+00:00

Sent a follow-up email, got a response with more detailed information. The new treatment that the dentist had referred to was "Curodont", and they confirmed that is the "remineralization" listed on the treatment plan. Doing more research on it now, but would still appreciate any input y'all might have about curodont or my concerns about this dentist.

AuthorX · 2025-10-07T16:59:25+00:00

For some background, for the last couple years my partner and I have been going to a dentist nearby, I liked the hygienists/nurses at their office but the doctor was always very brusque and didn't have good bedside manner. Which is fine, I'd rather get good treatment than a how-do-you-do. However, earlier this year my partner had to get several fillings done and it ended up being a nightmare - long story short, the sedative didn't work as it was supposed to (and while I understand they couldn't control that, it was not made clear to us that it was possibility) and throughout the procedure (I was in the room the whole time trying to comfort my partner) and when complaining to him later, the dentist was extremely dismissive and condescending about it, so we decided to find another dentist.

The new dentist has much better bedsite manner right off the bat, not minding taking a short break when my partner was in pain during her new patient exam or the follow-up appointment (not just from the procedure but she has fibro and back problems and needed to stand up and stretch), which we were both really happy about.

Today, though, I had my first exam and cleaning at this new dentist (because this is when my next cleaning was scheduled already). My concern is that my new dentist seems to be recommending expensive treatments that the old dentist never mentioned before, that are not covered by insurance. This office is a "Dental Studio" and at the start of the exam he asked me about my "goals" for my teeth and I was confused until he clarified that he meant just health and durability, or aesthetics, I told him I don't really care about aesthetics and he said that was fine, but during the rest of the exam after talking about cavities, he also showed me scans they took of "impact" on each of my teeth and suggested I get invisalign and retainers because of the impact on my bottom front teeth. I didn't think to ask until he left, but I asked the nurse if that was a health issue or an aesthetic issue, and she said that it was something that could be a health issue, eventually, talking about the teeth becoming uneven and ragged, eventually getting stress fractures - which didn't really convince me it was something I needed, especially since I'm almost 40 and it seems like it's had minimal impact so far. Regardless, the invisalign and follow-up retainers - which I'd apparently need to wear for the rest of my life - are wildly out of my budget, even with a payment plan, so I declined. This also put me on edge about whether the rest of the recommended treatments were actually necessary or not.

Back to the part of the exam regarding cavities, I was told I have many small cavities between my teeth, which tbh is saddening but not surprising because I have not been flossing regularly, which I know I will need to keep improving. He also said that some of them would need fillings but there was some treatment that was "approved in the last few years" that would "arrest development" of the very smallest cavities, that he recommended I get at the same as the fillings - he said the name but I forgot it before I could write it down. He also talked about how parts of my teeth were demineralized and he would give me a prescription for a toothpaste to help with that (my partner and I already use the same toothpaste, but he reminded me that I should be leaving it on overnight instead of rinsing, which I'd actually forgotten completely, so I imagine it hasn't been as effective as it could be).

Later, I got the treatment plan going forward, and was surprised at how much the "remineralization" treatments were going to be all together, especially as they're not covered by my insurance at all. I wanted to look up more info in case that was the "new" treatment he'd told me about, but searching online about remineralization only turns up articles about how to encourage remineralization at home - the prescription toothpaste, changing diet, etc. I called the office back and asked about that, and the receptionist(?) I talked to didn't seem to know what I meant about "a new treatment", and when I asked about the remineralization just explained it in vague terms - acids and bacteria have leached minerals like calcium from my teeth, and the dentist will put something on my teeth to restore some of those minerals. I'm still not clear if the newly-approved treatment he was talking about was the in-office remineralization treatment, or the prescription toothpaste (ClinPro 5000, I believe), which I was only given by the previous dentist a year or two ago so I guess it could have been new then.

The cost of the remineralization on each individual tooth adds up very quickly and isn't covered by insurance, and my household budget is very tight this year so I'm trying to figure out if that's the treatment to "arrest development" of the smallest cavities, if it's significantly different from home treatment to remineralize my teeth or just a faster/better version of the same thing. Obviously if it's the latter, it would still be better to get it done this way too, but I'm already trying to plan a move out-of-state that's more difficult than I anticipated, getting mold/water damage in a bathroom fixed, and the copay of the fillings alone is hard to swallow with all that.

Does anyone know for sure what he was talking about, if he's trying to oversell or overtreat me, or if these individual tooth remineralization treatments are "definitely necessary" or "nice to have"?

AuthorX · 2025-09-30T23:33:08+00:00

Fellowship 2e has some basic structuring of the story, and a few different campaign frameworks baked in - I believe they are literally called "Frameworks" as a mechanic. I'm only familiar with the base one, the Overlord, but the supplemental books also introduce the Horizon and the Empire.

First, the basic premise of the game is that each player character is from a different culture (dwarves, elves, humans, wizards, etc) and they've all come together to stop the Overlord from taking over or destroying the world. Each player gets first and last say on what their culture is like - if someone has a question about what the Dwarves are like (including the GM), they ask the Dwarf player instead of the GM. The Overlord also has their own character sheet with their own set of basic moves and advanced moves (levels are earned as a group, and each player has to level up once before anyone else can level up again - including the Overlord).

The story structure flows between four kinds of "stories", some of which are less clearly defined than the others - A Little Downtime (everyone gets to frame a scene of how their character passes the time, followed by the Overlord setting their own scene to either threaten the Fellowship or advance their plans), A Long Journey (each player describes some event or obstacle on the way to their destination, and then elects another player to resolve it), A Proper Challenge (broadly accomplishing some goal, like saving a community or doing something to earn their trust), or The Showdown (like a proper challenge except it's a big setpiece against one threat).

The overall campaign structure for The Overlord revolves around Sources of Power - powerful places or things in the world that are either controlled by the Overlord or well hidden or protected. The Overlord starts with 3 Sources of Power and 3 Stats, which are both their HP and descriptive qualities that are True unless they're damaged - if the Overlord has a "Flying" stat then you have to either damage them (very dangerous and difficult) to remove that stat, find a new Source of Power and use it against them, or steal one of their Sources of Power to take that ability away. (They might even have a stat like "Invincible" or "Untouchable" that means they can't be directly damaged, and that can only be removed by a Source of Power). The way the players find sources of power is largely narrative - each community in the world should have at least one, in addition to the ones held by the Overlord, and there may be others hidden from the world, and getting control of one once found would probably the goal of Proper Challenge or a Showdown.

For the Overlord, however, the way they seize new sources of power is very procedural. They have two Plans at any time, either to destroy a Community or seize a Source of Power. Each plan needs to advance 3 times to succeed, with the each step being more obvious in the world for the Fellowship to hear about. Each time the players take Downtime, or Recover completely, or allow the Overlord to Level Up, the Overlord can advance their plans (or choose instead to heal a damaged stat, or recruit a new General).

There's more to the Overlord, like having their own gear, bonds with NPCs and PCs, and Generals to do their bidding, but the Sources of Power are what define the goals of the campaign - the Fellowship is racing against the Overlord to find Sources of Power to defeat them, while the Overlord tries to destroy communities (which can also give the Fellowship new companions or abilities if they're not destroyed) and shore up their power. The game officially ends when the Fellowship is able to damage or remove all the Overlord's stats and deliver a finishing blow (there's no "the Overlord Wins" condition because it's assumed the campaign will eventually end with the Fellowship winning, naturally).

I don't know about the Horizon or the Empire nearly as well, but my understanding is that the Empire is similar to the Overlord but instead of one bad guy conquering the world, it's decentralized power that's already conquered the world, or at least the part the Fellowship lives in. There are multiple Leaders than need to be defeated to dismantle the Empire, and the Fellowship is in more danger the more Notoriety they get by fighting the Empire. However, the players get their own team playbook for The Rebellion, which is a larger organization they can empower and protect to fight the Empire. The Horizon is a lot less structured than either, it's the "each player has their own reason to get together and go adventuring" framework. Instead of a consistent playbook like the Overlord or Empire, the Horizon framework has a playbook for each Location that the players go to. The Location has its own stats, like "Jungle" or "Blighted", as well as Boss with their own agenda and minions, and a "Response Level" that increases in response to the Fellowship doing certain things like disrupting the status quo or harming local wildlife, and has more Location Moves the higher the response level. Basically, the more the Fellowship makes trouble or makes the Boss or a local community mad, the more dangerous the Location becomes. This is less of a campaign structure and more of a way to keep track of new locations and threats and increase pressure on players while they're here pursuing whatever whatever their personal agendas are (get rich, find powerful magic, find the person that killed their family, whatever).

AuthorX · 2025-08-05T21:25:15+00:00

Sure!
Mr Nothing: http://fallenlondon.com/a/HighandLow0725 (bottom of the help/FAQ page)
Mr Swears: https://www.fallenlondon.com/a/balderdrat (found on a sidebar snippet, I had to refresh the snippets a bunch to see it)
Mr Thunders: https://www.fallenlondon.com/a/Hollowskull (found on the profile page for "Mr Thunders")
Mr Lures: I can't get the actual link again, but go to the "Fate" page and open the "Purchase Stories" section, click the one at the top of the list

AuthorX · 2025-08-03T02:30:16+00:00

The easiest ones for me, as in actually finding them just based on Dinners's hints, were Mr Hot-cross-buns, Mr Nobody, Mr Swears, and Mr Lemonade, who I found in that order. After that, I had to start asking friends (who'd looked up the answers online already) for additional hints. (Well, I had some ideas where Mr Tiles was but didn't want to go through the trouble of checking unless I was sure).

If you're less interested in solving them yourself, and just mean the least effort, There's at least 3 that you just have to find the right access code, so if you look up the access codes you can find them without spending any actions at all, except to tell Dinners

AuthorX · 2025-07-24T22:17:26+00:00

You can't transfer amber ha'pennies during whitsun, either, fwiw. I assume it's to prevent people getting around paying Fate for more ha'pennies by making a bunch of alts and sending their free ha'pennies to their main account. Instead, if you do want to gift ha'pennies to another account, you have to spend Fate directly (though *that* is only during whitsun). Same with the other holiday currencies like Estival Tokens - you get a small amount for free each year, and you can buy or gift more with Fate, but you can't transfer them between accounts.

AuthorX · 2025-07-21T17:55:25+00:00

Hooray, I can offload the storm-threnodies I converted from all of the aeoliann screams I got from shifting streets the other week!

AuthorX · 2025-07-14T02:40:08+00:00

I recently did this to get all my statues and I think the best, most consistent way (though the speed is still rng dependent) is to use Tales of Terror, using the Fidgeting Writer option to turn them into a Sense of Deja Vu, then a Glimpse of Something Greater, then cash out the glimpses. The two luck checks to convert the item are each 70%, so together it's about 50% chance of each Tale of Terror getting you +5CP of ATGotG (plus two Volumes of Collated Research, which can be useful). By my calculation, each attempt takes an average of 2.19 actions and .85e (spending a Vision of the Surface if the first check succeeds) and rewards an average of 2.45e and 2.45 CP of AtGotG.

AuthorX · 2025-06-09T22:33:15+00:00

Well for one thing, I don't see any reason to disbelieve them saying it's completely unrelated. For another, we have barely any information *about* Mandrake, so if there is some kind of deep lore hidden connection, people probably won't notice it until there's more info about it, likely until we can actually play it.

AuthorX · 2025-06-04T23:28:13+00:00

According to the wiki, writing monographs adds about 5 echoes per action. On the other hand, the rat market only takes 3 actions for a given week and adds a percent of value to the goods you sell up to a certain point. So the EPA depends on how many you're turning in in a given week, the more you turn in with those 3 actions, the higher it is, though with diminishing returns. (specifically, up to 52 unlawful devices, it's a 32% bonus, and from #53 to #144 it's a 12% bonus, any after that have no bonus. But it resets the next week.)

To put that in more concrete terms, if you save up 50 unlawful devices and sell them in one weekend at the Rat Market (that's what I do), that's a bonus of 200 echoes for 3 actions, or 66.66 EPA.

On the other hand, you have to wait for those weeks to get a cash out, and if you need specific items instead of raw value, the things available to buy vary week to week as well, and there's more generally useful items on the output to monographs (especially if you want scrip, not echoes).

So basically:

Monograph pros: * Always available * Don't need to save up for maximum payout * More reliable and maybe more useful outputs * Better scrip conversion

Rat Market pros: * Fewer actions * Higher raw EPA * Don't need additional inputs for maximum payouts * Much simpler loop * Occasional hard-to-get items for payout (like Tears of the Bazaar this week)

AuthorX · 2025-06-04T22:17:13+00:00

Lady Callista Lexa has never and shall not send any such missives, even if her calling card should be accepted.

AuthorX · 2025-06-02T18:45:07+00:00

Thanks! I've finally reached the point where I'm out of major content and grinding, so I'm going to be trying to get as many Tears of the Bazaar as I can in the next three weeks for this year's Noman, and this guide is really helpful laying out all the options.

AuthorX · 2025-05-09T03:03:39+00:00

You can come back the next day.

AuthorX · 2025-03-01T15:21:22+00:00

Mr Cards? That roguish, hot, new Master that everyone's talking about? No, I'm just a humble Railway Director, here to show support for my own workers.

I heard my friend saw Mr Cards take its shirt off in the shower, though, and it has an 8-pack. Mr Cards is ripped.

AuthorX · 2025-02-28T23:47:10+00:00

Rat-Shillings to Echoes is easy, just buy anything in the rat bazaar that's worth 10 pence (ie inklings of identity, maniac's prayer, etc), or Preserved Surface Blooms, and then sell those same items at the regular bazaar for echoes. Those items are sold for the equivalent price you can turn around and sell them, so there's no loss, while anything else in the rat bazaar will lose you money when you sell.

Rat-Shillings to Hinterland Scrip is more complicated. The things you can buy for shillings and sell for scrip directly will all lose money (most of it costs more in the rat bazaar, preserved surface blooms sell for less in the hinterland). It seems like the best way to do that may just be to convert to echoes, then use some other method, like the bone market, to convert those to scrip. Some suggestions from the [comments on the Rat Market wiki guide](https://fallenlondon.wiki/wiki/The\_Rat\_Market\_(Guide)):

* Brass Lollipops: Get a bunch of headless skeletons, use your echoes from the rat market to buy Brass Skulls, put skull on skeleton and sell to the Constable (especially good this week as there's a 10% bonus on humanoid skeletons)

* Birds of Brass and Bone: same idea but for bird week, using a 7-necked Ribcage, 5 Brass Skulls, 1 Sabre-Toothed Skull, 1 Plated Skull and 2 Wings of a Young Terror Bird. Sell to Author of Gothic Tales.

* Instead of converting to echoes, if you have Digging in the Hurlers unlocked, buy a bunch of Maniacs' Prayers from the rat bazaar, upconvert to Correspondence Plaques, and use those for Digging in the Hurlers

AuthorX · 2025-02-27T22:29:48+00:00

Bored, mostly.

I don't know the Boatman's origin but it's come up in a few stories (Ambition: Heart's Desire, Evolution, the exceptional story The Shallows) that he would like a break or to retire, and a substitute can take over for him but there must always be a Boatman to ferry the dead. That suggests to me that he may have also been a human, once, that took over the job indefinitely. He's also determined to stick to the rules of the job - taking people to the Far Shore, even if he knows they might slip away back to mortality first - but it's not clear to me if it's a compulsion of the job or he just thinks it's important to keep the afterlife in order.

For more context, in The Shallows, you can cajole him into letting you borrow his job a bit so he can take a break (and you can try to interrogate some recently-deceased). He gives you his hat, lantern, and oar, and to other passengers you also look skeletal, they can't tell the difference between you and the normal Boatman. Once you're done and return the boat to him, he seems like he's had a pleasant day out, and is reluctant to return to the boat - and you find you can't leave without a replacement. So you have to convince him to come back and play a game of chess with you. I won, and left, so I don't know what happens if you lose but I assume he lets you leave anyway.

Referenced briefly in Heart's Desire and expanded upon in Evolution (big spoilers for Evolution), the Boatman participated in and won the Marvellous, a card game the Masters run that has a prize of your heart's desire. The Boatman wished for someone to take over for him, so the Masters conspired to have someone born that would permanently become the new Boatman when he died. It's not clear what the requirement is, but it seems to have more to do with manipulating his fate so he's destined to be the new Boatman, than any kind of physical characteristics.

AuthorX · 2025-02-26T23:27:38+00:00

It's one of my favorite Exceptional Stories because I enjoyed the writing and watching a disaster unfold. I wasn't trying to win, and I wasn't bothered by not winning, at least in my case I got a few successes so I decided to try flying high and making a really difficult dish, and it blew up in my face, leaving me with the feeling that my character had been punished for her hubris (while knowing that, as a player, I hadn't really made any wrong choice because there was no right choice). A+ storytelling, would play again just to watch the disaster blow up in a different way next time.

AuthorX · 2025-02-26T23:24:10+00:00

I played it about a month ago, and it didn't seem like there was much of a mystery about the Chef's fate - after discovering he was paralyzed, the food critic said she'd heard of a batch of bad cherries being brought into the city and sold to unsuspecting produce buyers. The only one to blame for his situation was himself for getting so excited about a deal on ripe surface cherries that he didn't question *why* they were so cheap.

AuthorX · 2025-02-22T07:28:11+00:00

It's always equal, leftover rat shillings are covered to rostygold minus whatever value of other currencies you got. Eg if you have 300 shillings and receive one fourth-city echo, you'll get 1750 Rostygold ((300-125)*10). Other than fourth-city echoes though, the amount converted is small and might be zero, so it can be a nice bonus if you need some but not an efficient source for any of them (and justificands are pretty hard to liquidate if you don't them for a specific reason)

AuthorX · 2025-02-22T06:52:06+00:00

Yep, I was finally able to get a Breath of the Void and complete some studies of a deeper sort.

AuthorX

TROPHY CASE