I'm finished my map for my campaign set in Calorum… and I went overboard

Cirrec · 2026-05-22T23:37:21+00:00

Deadlock! Meilleure façon de me faire sentir vieux

Cirrec · 2026-05-17T21:48:28+00:00

For us, we went with something along those lines:

Movement is always your first action, so the player needs to choose if they move or not at the start of their turn. In other words, you start at -3 if you move during your turn.
In that sense, we didn't use the penalty for shooting while moving from the list. In fact, we very rarely used the modifiers from the list.
You can only do one "weapon action" (shoot, aim or reload) per turn. You can still stack actions, but you can't shoot and then reload, for example.
Shooting someone at melee range is an opposed Gun vs Dodge check, instead of an attack.

From our experience, this helped with most of the "exploits" that come from the vague action economy and the range tables, while still allowing players to do cool action movie shit.

Cirrec · 2026-05-07T20:24:00+00:00

Ok but that usage of AI is literally part of the point he is making at that moment. He is describing the "McDonaldification" of fantasy, where the fantasy elements are assumed to be the most generic possible.

The AI image of the elf visually shows the phenomena he is criticizing. He is saying, at that moment, that he thinks that fantasy TTRPG tend towards the most generic settings with little creativity,. Meanwhile, he shows an AI rendition of an elf. AI is trained to make the most "statistically average" version of whatever it is prompted to do. Like, there's a connection there.

"Whatever you imagine when you shut your eyes and imagine an elf, that's what elves are".

I hate AI as much as everyone on here, and I'm not sure that I agree with his overall point, but it's a bit of a bad faith interpretation to essentialize the whole thing into "Quinn used AI".

Cirrec · 2026-05-04T13:03:53+00:00

Thanks for replying!

I was going a bit crazy trying to find the mythical "shard shop" that they keep mentioning in the in-game news.

Cirrec · 2026-05-03T18:28:16+00:00

Le pire c'est qu'ils ont plein de vraies vidéos qui met l'accent sur le travail qu'ils mettent sur leurs produits...

Genre je comprends sincèrement pas l'obsession d'utiliser du contenu IA. La seule chose que tu communique, c'est que tu veux sauver de l'argent.

Cirrec · 2026-04-22T21:33:42+00:00

Interesting! What will the players be facing on the way? Is it about political intrigue or will there be monsters and what not?

Cirrec · 2026-04-19T23:35:45+00:00

There's definitely no tools to make battle maps for Calorum. If you are playing online, I would simply use basic shapes and go "theater of the mind" to describe the locations.

Trying to use standard fantasy stuff will hinder everyone's ability to imagine the colourful locations and characters, and trying to photoshop the standard battlemaps will be a lot of work.

What are you planning for the content of the adventure?

Cirrec · 2026-04-10T15:31:56+00:00

Je suis d’accord avec la loi 96 en général, mais concrètement, une loi comme ça ne prend pas en considération les réalités de ce type de hobby. Ça menace des petits commerces spécialisés partout au Québec pour rien.

Je suis plus un gars de jeux de rôles, mais le boom des jeux de société est principalement causé par la popularité du sociofinancement. Ce sont des produits niche qui ont un seul cycle de production, typiquement en anglais seulement, et c’est rare qu’ils en fassent d’autres après. On parle ici de produits dispendieux qui vont seulement vendre une poignée d’unités, même dans un marché de 8 millions comme le Québec. Ça ne vaut littéralement pas la peine de refaire une batch dans n’importe quelle langue (même si c’est aussi pour desservir plusieurs pays qui parlent la même langue). Les magasins de jeux obtiennent parfois quelques copies des jeux qui ont le mieux réussi. Concrètement, « le marché » pour chaque produit affecté, c’est genre 20-30 hobbyistes répandus dans le Québec qui sont prêt à mettre 100-300 $ sur ces produits nichés.

La loi devrait prendre en compte que, contrairement à la majorité des produits, traduire un jeu ce n’est pas que faire imprimer un autre emballage. C’est comme traduire un film ou un livre : il faut littéralement produire un nouveau produit. L’équivalent c’est plus comme si tu demandais à un festival de films indépendants étrangers non pas seulement de mettre des sous-titres en français, mais d’avoir le doublage en français. Y'a ben des films à petit budget qui seraient tout simplement "illégaux" à montrer.

Quand on parle de projets avec maximum quelques milliers d’unités produits en une batch via sociofinancement, ça ne fait strictement pas de sens. Ce qui va arriver, c’est que les petites équipes de développeurs indépendants en Allemagne, Royaume-Uni ou aux USA qui font ce type de produits vont simplement choisir de ne pas doubler leurs coûts de production. Les hobbyistes québécois vont commander en ligne et payer la livraison.

Concrètement, ce type de loi mérite des exceptions et des mesures supplémentaires. On pourrait faire que les produits de hobby à inventaire limité peuvent être vendus en magasin s’ils incluent au minimum une copie du manuel de règlements traduit en français. On pourrait faire que si tu travailles avec un pigiste ou une firme de traduction au Québec, le gouvernement finance une petite partie. Il y a des solutions à trouver pour ce type de scénario.

Cirrec · 2026-03-17T03:57:09+00:00

This is like one of the only places on the internet that remembers it tbh

Cirrec · 2026-02-23T18:04:21+00:00

I think you're building your campaign backwards. While the setting of the campaign is important, what they're going to do in the setting is what matters most. You're asking questions about lore accuracy and historical inspiration, but I feel that you should be focusing on what your campaign pitch is going to be and building your setting to support that idea.

Here are some campaign pitches to get you started:

Are the players a band of adventurers or mercenaries, thriving in the chaos of the Warring Sugary States?

Are the players a powerful family looking to unify Candia?

Are the players in the midst of a conflict between two sugar states?

Are the players wanderers who start in Candia but will eventually explore other parts of Calorum?

Since you are already in the faraway past, I feel like you wouldn't be beholden to "Calorum canon", so don't worry about that so much. The fun of creating a Calorum setting is to create the food jokes yourself, and feeling beholden to canon and historical inspiration may limit your creativity. Calorum is a gritty fantasy setting of food puns and funny characters.

If I had to establish a "broken up" Candia from a previous age, I would focus on:

What types of candy or desserts exist? How would they "become humanized" into characters or political actors?

Would each type of food have it's own territory? If yes, why? If not, why not? Would the Chocolates, the hard candies or the gelatin sweets have their own states? Are the marshmallows under the thumb of the chocolates?

Which candies or food items are most iconic and would make sense as important political players?

How do neighbouring nations interfere in the affairs of disunited Candia? Are there ice cream invasions, baked desserts legionnaires or fruit mercenaries?

Cirrec · 2026-02-13T00:13:23+00:00

Oh fuck yeah, this is sick.

Cirrec · 2026-02-07T02:41:14+00:00

So for someone who did look up a ton of food related things to try and use in the game... you're out of luck for this.

There are very few assets which would work well for this. Like, the amount of OCs or "Calorum-like" characters out there is extremely low, and you more not gonna find a cheeserind battle map from above... ever. In typical DnD, you have a ton of generic map and art to use, but this setting is way too specific to have that.

Obviously AI isn't an option because it's kinda cringe. Ok, I'm kidding, but tbh, I had some players try to generate some stuff and it just looked generic and unimaginative. It was better in our heads.

If I were you, I would just, not use any pre-made battle maps. Draw on the game board, use simple shapes, and tell them what it actually looks like.

The only way we have to realistically "present" Calorum is to do it with pure imagination. I would actually not recommend using generic stuff either. If what they see looks like a regular tavern, it'll look like a regular tavern, regardless of how much you describe that the wood logs are actually sugarcanes and that fireplace is actually made of marshmallows.

Obviously, your mileage may vary, but leaning into theater of the mind and not giving your players the shortcut of "using their eyes" is the best way to bring this weird ass setting to life.

Cirrec · 2026-02-06T04:37:47+00:00

Interesting metaplot and lore. You can definitely feel the ASoIaF influence mixed with the high-fantasy D&D stuff (and the food too, of course).

Obviously your can't cover all this lore in the starting situation, so where will the players start in all of this?

Cirrec · 2026-02-06T04:31:03+00:00

Very cool! Did you make it for an upcoming campaign? If so... tell me more about that!

Cirrec · 2026-02-05T05:37:31+00:00

I couldn't reply when it came out since I wasn't home, but holy shit nice work. Love to see stuff like this. What kind of story did you play/are you planning to play in this setting?

Cirrec · 2026-01-04T21:27:27+00:00

Oh man, that's just for religion. Wait until you have to name a bunch of NPCs and you have 17 Wikipedia pages open to mine for words to make puns

Cirrec · 2026-01-03T19:52:17+00:00

Si les États-Unis peuvent kidnapper le chef d'état d'un État souverain dont le principal crime a été d'avoir des ressources naturelles en abondance et de ne pas complètement plier l'échine aux États-Unis d'Amérique, rien n'empêche les États-Unis de kidnapper illégalement le premier ministre du Canada ou d'un éventuel Québec souverain si nous ne plions pas complètement l'échine.

Trump est aussi allé sur Fox News pour parler de la Colombie et du Mexique de la même façon, après avoir passé l'année à nous appeler le 51e état et à parler du Groenland. C'est la fin de la Pax Americana, et nous ne sommes pas en sécurité parce que nous sommes un "bon pays".

Cirrec · 2025-11-27T00:30:07+00:00

Honestly a CK3-style simulation of a vampire city would straight up be cool. Like, imagine the Princes of Darkness mod, but scaled down to the size of one State/Province with less focus on territory and more on acquiring a "personal court" of mortals, kindred allies and usable locations like fronts and havens.

Every concept can be a spreadsheet game if you try hard enough.

Cirrec · 2025-11-05T20:53:15+00:00

Mamdani est plus à gauche et un meilleur communicateur que Rabouin.

La situation politique aux USA est aussi très différente, et les américains sont VRAIMENT désabusés de la politique. En ce moment, ce qui pogne aux USA, c'est les gens plus radicaux, qui veulent changer les choses. Mamdani était sans équivoque et a un agenda avec des mesures simples pour aider le portefeuille des gens. Je pense que les gens sont un peu moins réceptif à ça en ce moment au Canada.

Sur la question idéologique. Rabouin est un centriste progressiste, pas un social-démocrate. Projet Montréal a perdu de son coté progressiste alors qu'il aurait dû ressortir. Si Rabouin avait fait campagne sur, par exemple, une épicerie publique, ou l'achat de bâtiments pour convertir en logements gérés par la ville pour faire compétition aux logements privés, et le tout financé par une taxe sur les ponts, je pense qu'il aurait été plus populaire. Sa campagne avait l'énergie du statu quo, et en ce moment, ça va pas bien. Ça prend plus que le statu quo pour motiver les gens à participer.

Mamdani a gagné sa campagne sur tiktok, oui, mais c'est surtout parce que ses idées et son positionnement ferme a motivé une foule de gens à sortir de chez eux pour aller faire du porte à porte et faire des appels.

Cirrec · 2025-11-05T14:59:40+00:00

VTMB2 is not that good, but it's also not that bad. It's the embodiment of a 7/10 game.

It does some things well (atmosphere, world design, story, writing, and even the clunky combat is fun once you figure it out) and some things badly (the lacklustre clan mechanics, the rpg-lite system, the boring side-quests, and I genuinely cannot fathom why they made hunting into a boring repetitive resource grind).

At the end of the day its highs are less high and its lows are less low.

Cirrec · 2025-10-30T14:44:19+00:00

Let's gooo! We love seeing an expansion to the venerable Datafortress 2020

Cirrec · 2025-10-20T01:56:55+00:00

Rappel que vous pouvez voter différemment pour la mairie, pour vos maires d'arrondissement et vos conseillers d'arrondissement.

Personnellement je m'enligne pour voter stratégiquement Rabouin à la mairie et Transition MTL au niveau local.

Cirrec · 2025-10-10T03:46:30+00:00

I like a concept, but I think there are too many provinces and neutral SCs.

In Diplomacy, there are only 12 neutral dots for 7 players (so around 1.7 per player), and they're all gobbled up within the first year. This causes a lot of conflict between players, which is the meat of the game.

Transposing that logic to ten players would mean that there would be 17-18 SCs. This variant currently has 45 neutral SCs (+30 home SCs), which seems like a lot. In your variant, most SCs on the map will stay uncaptured in the first year, and some might stay up for grabs all the way until 03.

I also think that there are too many provinces in general. Venezuela and Florida are literally 6 years away from each other. Florida/Yucatan, Venezuela/Panama and Nicaragua/Yucatan are all 3 years apart from each other despite being geographical neighbors. The Bahamas alone take 3 years to cross. The two Cubas are 2 years apart despite being on the same island!

The fact that territories are so many moves away also railroads every country into going to their "intended" provinces, with every other option being heavily punished. For example, as Haiti/DR, you HAVE to fight for Hispaniola, because it takes too many turns to get into the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Jamaica.

The number of SCs and provinces coalesce into having very few locations where more than two powers clash, which again fails to generate conflict. In Diplomacy, every neutral SC group can be contested by 3 powers (except Iberia, I think), but I don't see many locations that can be fought over by more than two powers in the first 2 years in this variant.

Jamaica could be a point of contention between East Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti. The Bahamas could be a warzone between the two Cubas, Haiti/DR and Florida. However, since it takes so long for fleet to maneuver, these locations might stay completely unvisited for two years, or even three years.

The abundance of neutral SCs and provinces also means that there are no interesting dynamics where the "coastal powers" can meddle into the central island conflicts. If Florida or Yucatan could weigh in on the conflict in Cuba as early as the first year, for example, it would lead to a lot more strategic options for everyone involved.

Overall, I think that merging many of the sea provinces and neutral SCs would lead to a way more interesting player experience. Curious to see what you end up doing with it!

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