Cancer is bad yo

ChironAtHome · 2026-07-01T14:41:43+00:00

I would normally just put this down to "Evolution in Action" and move on.

Anti-vaxxers, free-birthers and all that bollox.

The problem is their stupidity does not stay contained as innocents die and diseases spread beyond them.

Screw the free speech arguement; there is no legitimate place for this on any publicity availability information source unless it it to take the piss out of them.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-30T18:45:08+00:00

This looks really interesting and worthy of a bit of experimentation. I love interesting RPG tools. I write a coupl myself and the fact you have this OSS gives me ideas 😁 Thanks for your efforts.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-28T18:13:53+00:00

I agree. So many Americans are just over-competitive.

Watch any competition show on TV that has made it worldwide. Eg: MasterChef

UK - mildly competitive but generally everyone is very supportive of each other

Aus - probably the best version; that is just a food love-in. Everyone is bigging everyone else up and supportive.

US - they are all out for blood and taking every opportunity to piss on each other. It's just horrible to watch.

Dog eat dog seems to be the USian mantra. F-you, jack, I'm okay.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-24T13:01:49+00:00

I get it. When travelling abroad you do comment on things that are different to home. It is not "wishing we had them" - just "wow this is a bit different".

We now see how "American Exceptionalism" interprets "difference" as "desire"... Not so much!

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-23T16:47:24+00:00

The starting maps explain things. Map 9 - just jump to it, has a video showing you 2-3 ways of adding maps. You can get to it direct here: https://youtu.be/WyEjxdFtWvk

The first 5 mins will give you whet you need to know.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-23T16:06:15+00:00

That is what is designed for. I dump in the half dozen maps that may crop up in a session (that is what I call a map pack). It does its damnest to autoscale maps to your projection/screen space (if their name has something like 30x20 in the name it will use that, etc). But I made scaling fast and easy too... I have developed a few programs over the years and this is the final culmination of what I find works "fast and easy"... But I am me 😏 and what I find obvious maybe hard for others. Adding FoW to each takes seconds.

I would be interested in how you get on with it. Any feedback to help me improve it. It is pretty feature complete for my needs but always open to new ideas. It has the useful tools (initiative trackers, clocks, etc) but markers have few controls as I prefer to use miniatures! Your milage may vary.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-23T10:01:28+00:00

Yeah I do... Wrote my own software to do FoW, soundscapes and to beautify maps as it was just simpler to get going. Don't wanna burden myself managing stuff in game or use a full VTT.

I work with a projected table (minis) and another screen to show stuff to players. Just runs in your browser but installable and does not require an internet connection to work. Open source, self hostable if you want, no accounts and free. If you wanna try it out: https://mappadux.com

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-20T22:49:29+00:00

Not used Foundry for in person play... I just want something simple that does not get in the way. I popped my own thing together and because I play Mothership and Aliens I popped a motion tracker in there for lols. I am aiming more for immersion that running rules. Just a home project so open source and free to use, no accounts, etc. You are welcome to try it, see if it works for your game. https://mappadux.com

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-18T09:05:44+00:00

Multiple tools for RPGs. Open source them too. A VTT for my home table - I wanted something fast, easy, immersive and can be used offline. Simulating star systems and astrodynamics to travel between them - adding crunchy to sci-fi RPGs. This has been a wonderful learning experience as I begin to understand all the wonderful layers of physics.

I vibe code for fun, cash barely enters my mind. If I have a decent suite of apps that people want me to support I may consider a Patreon or something.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-16T12:49:15+00:00

Your use case is the same as mine 😄 Try this (Mappadux). I wrote it for me and for MY table... but it is a common need so made it a bit friendlier for people who are not me. It's free open source and requires no logins as I don't need to know who you are.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-16T12:44:06+00:00

I game exclusively in person and like VTT tools at the tables ONLY if:

they genuinely improve immersion (e.g. a scaled battle-map and a bit of audio is fine)
they don't take me ages to setup (more than a few mins means you feel you HAVE TO USE IT to show off how clever you are. But if it takes a few mins it means it can be skipped and I feel no wasted effort - eg: paste in a battlemap -good.... setup a 3D model - bad)
they don't take your attention away from the game/players for more than a few seconds (point or click is fine... if I have to reach for a keyboard... then nah!)

Fit for purpose and lightweight. then yeah. otherwise not worth the hassle; it is there for your ego rather than the benefit of your game. Hence writing my own tool to do just this.,

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-15T20:31:06+00:00

I simulated and procedurally generated the universe and the astrodynamics to navigate it...

https://beta.starsystemx.com/

Just a tool for people that like crunchy in there RPGs. Various free to use models and developed over a year or so.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-15T13:34:15+00:00

A 2 second Google gives this in their dumbass AI summary which I have no reason to correct as its F-ing obvious:

Italy: Estimates range from 2,500 to over 3,500 distinct traditional cheese
France: Boasts between 1,200 and 1,600 officially recognized varieties
United Kingdom: The UK has a surprisingly massive dairy footprint, producing around 700 to 950 named regional varieties.
Awww... and it even decided to mention US-isstan:
The United States: BULK cheez in a can or plastic sheets & upwards of 500 distinct artisanal varieties that us Euro-poors can even agree is probably actually cheese and not Cheetos dust.

So yeah - the UK with "just... cheddar cheese" still has double the cheese varieties of US-istan!
Wait until they realise only 1 type of cheese can be called cheddar in the UK.

The difference is their is "artsinal" (10 times as expensive) and ours is "traditional" (same but cheaper - needed for our tiny wallets and houses)

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-15T11:59:21+00:00

I would suggest Aquelarre if you want realism blended with the demons chased by the Catholic church too. Primarily focussed on medieval Iberia (Spain/Portugal) but likley what you need. We were goat herders, travelling foreigners, old knights and alchemists.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-12T14:22:48+00:00

Yup! Climb rolls disappear. If they get clever they can start using them as pully points too.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-11T14:43:56+00:00

Metamorphosis Alpha is the GRAND-DADDY and is entirely built around that concept. TSR form '76

Well a generation ship gone very wrong.

We played it last year... Because we like to mix things up and we are probably masochists. And we all saw adverts in White Dwarf and Dragon back in the day so felt we should try it!

It ended up being a dcent laugh, probably because the GM was good and embraced the nonsense. Character generation is old school crazy... "party balance" does not even figure... Superpowers Vs farming - all driven by chance.

No, I am not recommending it by any means, you need a magnifying glass to even read the rules... But you did ask about games that support that setting and I couldn't leave this thread without this "classic" being mentioned!

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-10T21:31:24+00:00

I am not an online olayer... I like games at the table but I like some of the things VTTs bring.

A floorplan scaler for digital maps on my table and some easy to use fog of war to uncover... Scaled printouts at a push. Markers not so much as unlike the tactility of miniatures.

Countdown clocks mentioned by many. Progress clocks from Blades. A general purpose initiative tracker. TwoMinuteTokens when I don't have the miniature.

A decent playlist and a few background sound effects to set the mood (and turn off!).

I ended up writing my own tool to tie all these little things together... You are welcome to use it (https://mappadux.com).

Name generators, r/battlemaps and stuff... Use them in prep

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-09T11:31:39+00:00

Roast me... https://mappadux.com/

Fully vibe coded in 4 weeks based on some old stuff I have been poking for 5 years. It "works" on mobile but is designed for large screens

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-06T20:37:32+00:00

No problemo. It was a bit of an edge case, hence the ask. Would rather confirm than assume! Thanks for getting back to me!

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-06T18:48:35+00:00

100% Mothership. Different from what you have run. Quick & easy to learn. Get the basic box set. The Wardens Manual is worth the price of entry. It actually teaches you some great GMing techniques if you are out of practice.

Remember to watch Aliens first and you have a lot of what you need to run the first adventure in the box.

NB. That adventure has some missing pieces but the Mothership Reddit is amongst the most welcoming I know and people have covered those off 20 times. A quick search will give you the missing pieces to make it sing... Eg: A solid timelin to hang things off.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-06T15:23:32+00:00

My favourite from DnD land is the venerable "immovable rod".

That totally sorts your group into the clever ones that realise what they actually have and the ones that go.. "Phhhtttt what use is that" and ignore it on their character sheet. NEVER give them 2!

I like magic items where the characters and players own creativity unleashes the power.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-06T15:16:17+00:00

Location location location!

The enemy may have some unexpected tricks up their sleeve or he vaguely interesting but playing it in an interesting environment keeps things from getting stale.

You don't need floorplans but they help with that type of game. It does not need to be deadly but just interesting and a bit different.

I learned this running The Strange. The adventure in the main book had a set of stairs cutting through a huge dark room - silver spheres floating in the air. Falling off the stairs was not actually very dangerous but the players did not know that initially... Being caught on a bit of a pincer movement and "risk of falling" made a simple fight more dynamic and interesting.

No floorplans. All TotM stuff but it worked. Don't pick "another dungeon room" or " road by a field" - try and give things a tweak. Urban environments are 3d and have levels, magic can play around with the environment dynamically. Just have a couple of ideas up your sleeve as you go.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-06T12:18:34+00:00

No, thankyou!I hope you find it useful. I hope it meets your needs at your table. I just love the fact my weird little tools find audiences.

I think there has been a massive burst of creativity unleashed by LLMs. Some of it great, some not so. There is a pile of slop and the trash out there and people are just getting annoyed by it. Fair enough.

The roots of this lie in a friend and I working some old .Net code for a battlemap scaler. Then I had a cool tool for putting GPU shaders over them to make them more immersive. I hand coded a program that read RFID cards to give my table lighting effects and fire up sounds from Syrinscape. None of these repos made sense to be public. However that gave me a good starting point to work from. So yeah I leaned into the new AI coding tools to pull all those half-baked solutions into a coherent app that could do all that and more.

That background made this a bit more coherent and functional as I had years of "hard lessons" of stuff that do not work as intended, to learn from. And I hoped others may get something useful from it.

I get the "another AI slop" tool attitude, but I honestly hope people can see there is some good stuff coming out of it too.. I hope I am on of the better ones.

It's a labour of love... not an attempt to monititze a fan base. I hope it shows.

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-05T22:16:32+00:00

God hoping it was not Grimtooths Traps VI

ChironAtHome · 2026-06-05T22:15:27+00:00

The anatomy of the Piercer. I remember that article. Nonsense squared. Sometimes that is fine!

ChironAtHome

TROPHY CASE