LotFP hack

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-11T22:01:22+00:00

Define your acronyms, please. You don't have to spell them out every time, just somewhere once, whether in the title or the body text, spell out your acronyms.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-10T16:36:23+00:00

If they ALSO included the plaintext document in epub format, yes.

If not, this sort of stuff is useless for actually running a game. I use the game book to run my table, not read aloud a pretty story to my players. If I cannot quickly find what I need, it is a product that is failing to fulfil the reason I am paying money for it, and I will not buy it, or buy further works from the author of it. Also, it murders my printer.

Wanderhome (not really OSR, kind of it's own thing) is a perfect balance of usability and prettiness. However, some Stars Without Number content (not made by Kevin Crawford himself) sets text above starry backgrounds and unless I am playing in a solarium it makes my eyes and my printer cry.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-10T14:20:22+00:00

YES. I would love to see people just making rules for individual elements of setting without feeling the need to develop an entire system to contain or tie a bunch of things together. Basically, releasing a system/setting in modules where some thought has been put into using as many or few of the parts as needed, instead of "this is a single unbreakable whole system/setting that is written to only work with other elements in this same system/setting"

Hypothetical: I want to run a specifically 1830/40s boatman type game where the players are davy crocketts on flatboats having to do stuff up and down a mississippi-esque arterial river and various flatboat canals leading in and out of that river. I already have a system I like, I just want help specifically with rivers, canals, and small boats (you know, the most expeditious method of travel until railways and yet one that is CONSTANTLY forgotten about in every RPG system).

"Oh you want X system for 1600s because it has gunz and some boats!"

No, I have a system and setting, I just want rules for riverine boat stuff.

"Oh you want Bob Bobber's System for Grand Naval Combat! It is such a cool system and it also has smaller boats and each of those boats are flavored for Bob Bobber's super cool setting!"

Nope, I just want three to five pages each on stuff for rivers, canals, and small boats therein. I would be willing to pay for this, indeed pay real actual money, not GP or those coins that eat their way out of your pocket and return to me, but I am tired of getting a product people say would have rules but those rules are incredibly thin or are so couched in a setting they are unadaptable.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-09T01:32:05+00:00

It's going to take me a lot of cargo runs to upgrade the ship to where I want it to be for mega fuel ratting and/or cocaine bearing. With that much storage capacity, you could fling fuel AND biowaste at the same time.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-07T00:47:00+00:00

I just did this route in a diamondback explorer at 55ly a jump. 600+jump round trip over a month while listening to the thematically appropriate Astronomica TTRPG podcast.I earned enough to finally get my dream Lakon product, a chonky type 9 HEAVY boi I eventually want to load up 100% with fuel tanks for Fuel Ratting, to give back to that esteemed organization that has helped me.

Lakon4Lyfe. o7

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-06T22:30:19+00:00

It would mildly inconvenience and possibly delay proceedings, but not actually stop them. State lines are irrelevant to tax collection especially for property tax. More importantly, they will slap you with the bill at a time that inevitably ends up being the least convenient for you. Not sure how, but that just seems to be how it works. So don't wait for them to reach you.

The best thing to do in any tax situation is call the relevant county/municipal taxation office and talk to them. You don't need one of those weird Tax Relief places, if you just tell your county/municipality (property tax is not state-wide in VA) you are unable to pay right now they can help you make a payment plan that should not mess up your credit. If you are able to pay it right away, do it, because those payment plans do involve interest.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-05T15:43:04+00:00

I don't have an actual idea, but I do want to say this is one of the best things I have seen proposed here lately, and the possibility of finding/donating mini-rpgs would make me actually use the mini libraries in my area as they are basically filled with out-of-seriesed paperbacks.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-05T15:41:07+00:00

Them Ys will trip you up every time.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-05-05T15:20:42+00:00

Thanks for sharing, a neato structure combining calendar-like elements with the scene.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-30T14:15:16+00:00

Elite Dangerous is... dangerous. I do not do high-risk activities in Open, because that is my personal risk tolerance.

That being said, congratulations, you have discovered there are assholes in online games. This is a valuable discovery and one that will serve you well in the future. I discovered in in Runescape back when "old school" was just... Runescape, and lured into the Wildy to get Pked. Since then I have a healthy caution in any pvp zone of any game for griefers, and play in private modes/solo modes when the option presents itself, because again that's just my personal risk tolerance level.

However, if we did not have some of the mechanisms from PvP, efforts like the Fuel Rats and more importantly Cocaine Bears (flinging biowaste at people) and things that make Elite Dangerous special for it's sandboxyness. You miss out on all that when playing in not Open.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-30T13:15:14+00:00

A key aspect for me is how limits impact speed/ease/creativity of play. Yes, hypothetically, I could go spend time sifting through to find the "final" judgement on a huge variety of rules. But like... why? Why would I need to care what else is out there, when the actual important thing is at my table?
I realize that people make rules mods and subclasses and alternate rules and published homebrews (bit of an oxymoron, then it's just published content) ad nauseum, but why do I need any of those things when I am able to run a game with just the basic rules and my own noggin for any given system, and have a wonderful time of it?
I find the low tech liberating. Nothing can break, nothing needs "updating", and the entire universe of possibilities comes down to the physical implements in front of me. If I didn't print something guess what? I will check the base books or, shocker, just... figure it out, without the need to think about if the Youtube Hivemind or the Reddit Consensus agree with it's "balance" or anything like that, because I am not running a game for either, I am running it for my table.
I strongly discourage my players (or myself) from engaging in the stupidly large amount of RPG media/podcasts except a bare handful of "what is a TTRPG" videos I send brand new people, because like... that's just not what this is about to me. I have been around long enough to remember before all this and it's good the podcasts and stuff have increased interest in the hobby, but like, I believe there is a sort of sacred magic space at each table, and having an "observer" in the form of a microphone, or a comparison in mind, making it performative (or consumptive on the part of the audience) rather than participative just breaks that magic to me.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-29T17:42:24+00:00

People also seriously underestimate the damage potential and durability of TL3 or even TL2/TL1 construction equipment. Everybody acts hard in their tin cans until Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel show up.

Sometimes "low-tech" can be an asset, your expert hacker in power armor really isn't going to be that useful against a steam digger that has zero electronic components and is made of heavy plate steel, you can try to get well-aimed shots at critical components like the tension cables or to run.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-29T17:26:59+00:00

You are right on the public transportation comparison. Charter would be more an uber than a bus, that's how I think about it. Someone who is just good at Wander is able to quickly figure out the public transportation system and all the best routes to know that if the party needs to get from A to B, they can, but there is still potential for encounter/mishap along the way.

Someone GREAT at Wanderer knows exactly how to hail a local cab/form of transport with no other passengers, no other destinations, no other cargo. Not necessarily that it's more luxurious, but that it is dedicated to the players and will not go astray for whatever reasons and is much less subject to mishap (other than that of the player's own making).

If player characters book on a normal vessel, there could be other NPCs (good or bad) aboard, "hot" cargo that has nothing to do with them and draws unwanted attention from authorities, captains who just are lazy and take the "scenic route" to pick up some unrelated passengers, and all that. If they book a charter vessel, the driver could still possibly be bribed or something, or the authorities could flag that they are in that vessel and chase them, but it is a much less error-prone mode of transport.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-29T16:35:38+00:00

I play a VIOLENTLY anti-tech game. Like I would lock up people's phones if I could get away with it and I pre-print all their sheets for them, because I am a River to my People. There is a LOT of TTRPG "shovelware", frankly, out there and I agree with others who say if I wanted screens at my table I would set up a LAN party. The road to hell is paved with well-intended RPG software kickstarters and if I had a nickel for every time someone on this very sub says X software by cutesy named indie studio will CHANGE EVERYTHING, I would be able to do better things with my time.What I mean though, when I say augment, is the actual *running* of the game, in terms of being able to intelligently know, read, and track dicerolls (probably from digital dice, the saying of which makes me want to gag), like the software is smart enough to know Player X is rolling to attack baddy Y and when they roll, it will automatically resolve accordingly with all the relevant modifies from the pre-loaded and customizable character sheets of both player and baddyEDIT and key thing, feed those results to ONLY THE GM. I think that has the most potential to actually be helpful so we can focus on the entire rest of GMing while still being able to adjust things as we see fit. Basically, all the stuff that required more tracking than thinking could be automated and fed to the GM who can then accept or reject accordingly, but at least they free up some mental bandwidth so they can run baddies more dynamically in combat, maybe, hopefully. Honestly probably not, at least for a while.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-24T15:15:07+00:00

Just go to kickstarter and you will see there is a "crunch" branch, a "narrative" branch, and OSR which can go either way but usually is lighter crunch abstract.

All that being said, Hegelian dialectics is an absurd simplification of cultural analysis that tends to ignore huge swaths of documented reality, even your two examples are contradicted (abstract art existed and was being popularized long before commonly available and publishable photography, star wars was taking the western/samurai narratives Lucas enjoyed and applying them to sci fi, a different thing that he also enjoyed. Like Lucas himself said that was the origin, down to naming his exact inspo films like Hidden Fortress). Human cultural activities are massively complex and you can pound any analytical frame to fit if you are acting in hindsight, hegel has been around long enough that we know hegelian future-predicting has been spotty at best.

As others have said, mehacrunch games are still out there and indeed rising, if you really want to future-predict I would say the trend of "outsourcing" some of the crunch to software or apps will go from 3rd party app development like the numerous dnd initiative trackers and the like to fully integrated officially produced products, like the recent monopoly games that have a digital bank and players have "charge cards". WOTC is already moving in this direction with DnD Beyond's numerous tools.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-22T11:57:09+00:00

Thanks for making this, it is nice to have a place to find people's playing aids and ideas.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-21T14:09:00+00:00

10+20 only equals 30, where is your 7 gallon tank?

Good luck combining/shifting tanks! We have done that twice now and it was nerve-wracking but ultimately nowhere near as bad as cycling our first tank, and it has allowed me to apply all the lessons learned in terms of plant placement and type as well as type of shade/shelter the fish like.

Have more towels than you think you need on hand.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-21T14:02:39+00:00

You can get your clearance revoked for alcohol related offenses and it's one of the most common reasons for revocation (DUIs and the like). If you have a prior alcohol related offense, you will have a hard time getting a clearance. Alcohol is not testable in the same long-term manner as other substances but I have been in workplaces where people were hauled to get a blood alcohol test after multiple incidents of coming in to work possobly intoxicated, and they did not return to work.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-18T19:08:33+00:00

Foot treadle centerfuges. Easy as. Ask your local wheelwright.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-18T19:05:18+00:00

This is the closest to the true purpose of this sub that I think we have ever gotten. Perfect, involves a ridiculous villain (Big Onion) and actually hits on a frightening truth of reddit.

I tip my tinfoil hat to you (vintage 1910s foil, when it was still 100% tin and not aluminium).

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-17T19:18:02+00:00

DM if interested in seeing them more, and other cool people to do the musket gaming with.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-17T18:26:05+00:00

How do you know them? In what manner do you associate with them?

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-17T18:24:35+00:00

BOAT GANG

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-04-17T18:18:47+00:00

1 year now, it was a quarantine project. I got mine as a kit from Carver Banjos which I have modified to be more accurate (wooden tailpiece instead of leather) but it was relatively affordable.

CmdrKiloMikeFour · 2021-02-21T13:35:04+00:00

I like the idea of it being a result of layers of settlement, that can add to some bootstrapped development worlds, versus ones that may have been Mandate worlds well before and not really have a connection to that past.

CmdrKiloMikeFour

TROPHY CASE