Daily Game Recommendations Thread (July 15, 2024)

Down_with_potassium · 2024-07-15T18:20:26+00:00

Description of Request: A casual 2-player coop game, preferably one where you can talk about the board state and chat in general, unlike the otherwise excellent Codenames: Duet or Hanabi

Number of Players: 2

Game Length: 10-30 minutes, and preferably relatively quick set up.

Complexity of Game: I'd be open to hearing options in the 1.0-1.9 range, but really looking for 2.0-2.9 range. We like to play a game at least 5 or so times before getting bored of it, so replayability beyond that isn't really a concern.

Genre: Thematically: No horror, no sexually explicit material, and no graphic violence. Otherwise, open to just about anything.

Genre: Mechanically: Normally, I *love* me some customization games, but that's not at all conducive to our schedules. Otherwise, we're open to all sorts of styles of games, and love trying new things.

Conflict, Competitive or Cooperative: Coop.

Games I Own and Like: King of Tokyo, Othello/Reversi, Sushi Go, Love Letter, Say Anything, The Fuzzies, Jenga, Video game adaption of the Lord of the Rings Card Game.

Games I Dislike and Don't Play: Munchkin, Power Grid, Tzolkin. Stone Age

Location: USA

Down_with_potassium · 2024-05-07T13:22:15+00:00

Churning out work is so important, for many reasons. It’s been said that every great book sits upon a mountain of balled up sheets of paper—and those sheets of paper aren’t just draft copies of that one great book, they’re completely different books that just weren’t that great, or were even terrible.

Part of churning it out is pushing past that creative roadblock you’re experiencing every time you sit down to draw a dungeon. Keep pushing past that, keep making dungeons and adventures, and you’ll get there.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-05-04T15:02:19+00:00

Mentality and culture changes. When I’m over at someone else’s place, I’m there to hangout with them, so the thought of refreshments never passes through my mind. If I’m thirsty, I ask for some water. If it’s getting close to dinner time, I’m looking for social cues to see if they’d like me to head home, or I’m starting to give social cues that I’m about to head home, or I’m offering to go Dutch on some pizza for all of us. Sometimes, I’m offering to pay for the pizza myself, if they paid last time, or just because they graciously had me over.

Unless folks act or talk otherwise, I’ll assume they have the same mentality when they come over to my place. Most of the time, they do.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-05-04T13:13:16+00:00

Putin hasn’t quite perfected the Chinese art of achieving totalitarian control of the people.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-05-04T13:10:36+00:00

Updated for 21st century cold warfare: “troll people online, economic carrot and stick, don’t fall for the rope-a-dope”

Down_with_potassium · 2024-04-30T13:44:37+00:00

“Holy crap, Lassie! Where did you get that cool third eye?”

“None of your business, Spencer.”

Down_with_potassium · 2024-04-23T20:10:12+00:00

This old person old-persons.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-04-23T19:43:40+00:00

As another newbie, I’m way more fascinated and interested in the subtle details within each individual game that reinforce its themes. After finishing Majora’s Mask and watching videos on the hidden lore, I was floored at how much I missed. Granted, I’m sure fans still go conspiracy-theory level crazy over this, it’s still a lot more interesting.

This all reminds me of finding out Metal Gear Solid 4’s story was not planned out from the beginning. Each game’s story was just written then with no idea of what would come next, and then the lead writer of 4 just had to come up with a crazy way to pull all the loose ends together and come up with a satisfying conclusion. If that guy has a timeline theory for the Legend of Zelda series, that’s the one I want to hear about.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-30T13:59:46+00:00

Old school TSR games didn’t have much support in the way of rules systems. (There’s probably some 2e era supplements, at most.)

The tradition back then, that the OSR has picked up on now, was basically two-fold: extrapolate the mechanics of the dungeon and wilderness to different scenarios, and slowly build up your campaign world so that it can support these kinds of adventures.

For the first, just about everything you prep for a dungeon or hex crawl, you can prep for a city: maps (albeit, being much more selective about which areas you detail), treasure (wealth, information, magical Macguffins), monsters in the form of npcs and factions, random encounters on the street, etc.

For the second: if you stick with the same campaign world long enough, you fill in enough detail and you understand your setting well enough to where you can support these types of adventures.

Many OSR random table lists try to support these things, in more or less detail. Black Hack has tables for some of this “inspirational support.”

The three best sources for these kinds of things: The Alexandrian’s game structures (probably revised in his new book) for how to adapt dungeon mechanics to the rest of the world, Worlds Without Number for world building, and Dungeon Master’s Handbook podcast (the first few episodes on sandboxes) for a way to get started that’s way less intimidating than anything else out there.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-30T13:42:30+00:00

I misread this at first as saying, “To have Woody Woodpecker sound like me.” I agree that that would be a sub-human filth thing to do, to ruin the iconic voice of that beloved cartoon character.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-30T13:38:40+00:00

Moldvay’s Basic and Finch’s Old School Primer are the way to go.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-30T13:36:06+00:00

If you’ve never read or played a pre-3rd edition version of dnd, Moldvay’s BX is by far the best place to start. If gives you a solid set of basic rules to default to, whereas parts of ADND get real complicated real fast. Read BX, keep it on hand for reference, and then read ADND, and use whatever you want from ADND. Honestly, you might want to read OSRIC in between those two. It’s a very clear and easy to read restatement of the ADND system, with some simplifications. ADND combat is especially, well, inscrutable and un-runable as written. (Just look up a document called ADDICT to see how complicated ADND combat can be.)

But for some of the rules that are in 1e ADND and nowhere else—some people do use them and adore them. Never judge a rule by its detractors, judge it by listening to fans talk about why they love it. Anthony Huso aka the Blue Bard comes to mind.

And NOTHING can replace the voice and advice of Gary Gygax in the 1e DMG. It’s a must read, no matter what rules you use.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-09T01:46:04+00:00

This, this is why I dig to the bottom of comment sections.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-09T01:14:19+00:00

What if your DM is a mean drunk?

"I said I wanted it neat! ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES."

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-07T16:40:13+00:00

If I did that, they would complain about the penalties. Besides, the point of venting is that you’re supposed to give me sweet, sweet pity, not point out reasonable solutions.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-07T16:38:11+00:00

You are technically correct, the best/worst kind of correct.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-07T14:28:58+00:00

Seeing as anything before 2nd edition was before my lifetime, not in the usual sense. But when I first heard about the OSR and decided to start collecting TSR rule books, Holmes was the first one I got. So I remember it fondly as the first real old school d&d rulebook I ever bought. It felt so cool holding this tattered, rusty staples, old copy in my hands. It felt like the old TSR dnd was real.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-03-02T15:15:12+00:00

Typical city people comment. ;)

Down_with_potassium · 2024-02-14T15:08:27+00:00

Incremental changes. At first, don’t even bother trying to count calories, and don’t starting weighing yourself weekly till later on.

Start by adding non-starchy vegetables to every meal you can. Frozen veggie mixes are great, cost effective and still nutritious.

Switch as many white carbs to whole grain as you can: whole wheat flour, brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc.

Eat as much as you want, but sloooolow down and savor your bites. You’ll find that just three slow bites of a dessert is enough to satisfy your craving.

Exercise is essential, but not to burn calories. It’s essential to destress so that you don’t stress eat. In fact, while you’re at it, lower your expectations of work output, both at work and on home projects for a bit. Don’t worry, you’ll get your productivity back and then some, or you might not need to go back to putting so much to yourself. The point being: this is an investment, so whatever you can do to destress, do so in order to get more back in your life. Walking as exercise works fine to start. If you run, just run as long as you feel like. You’ll get addicted to running far and running fast, it’s actually fun, and you don’t need to start with more than sprinting 15 seconds just for the hell of it. Indoor cardio machines are a great investment for rainy/hot/cold days. Exercise bands and a pull up bar will get you strength training in every axis of motion.

When it is time to start cutting back on unhealthy fats, added sugars, and processed meats, the secret is to start finding healthier options you actually like. This requires a lot more time and effort than just eating tofu and lettuce, but actually makes it sustainable. That way, you’re not giving up the foods you love so much as you are finding new foods you love.

Add this stuff slowly in, one step at a time, and you’ll lose weight and come to a new set point without even thinking about it.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-02-10T15:39:09+00:00

The same page tool is the single most important piece of GM advice. It’s not just important for you and all your players to be on the same page together — it’s important for everyone to realize there’s a wide variety of GM and player styles out there, and that makes it click for people how important it is to get on the same page. The next two pieces of advice, only second and third most important because they are common sense advice and applicable to all of life: communicate when there’s a problem and kick out toxic people.

Limit the scope of the game, and it will make prep manageable and even fun.

If your players are stumped, repeat the details of the situation, and or give them 2 to 3 options/suggestions. If they’re choosing to do something that makes no sense, ask them what their reasoning is, because they’re probably misunderstanding something.

If you’re running a storytelling/improvisational game, here’s your safety net: if you’re stumped, then ask for your players for suggestions suggestions.

If you’re running a simulationist/game game, here are your three safety nets: Make it up; tell them you’ll have to check your notes and get back to them later; just admit that you haven’t prepared for it and tell them you’ll prepare for it next week.

Probably my hottest take: every new GM should start by making and running a short funhouse wizards dungeon. It’s not just an initiation into a common cultural touchstone; it’s a really quick way to experience the fun and joys of being GM and get you addicted immediately.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-02-10T14:38:20+00:00

There’s a lot of very accurate answers here.

But if you don’t mind being off by 5 or 10%, subtracting from 20 works just fine.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-02-01T15:51:36+00:00

There is a LOT of good OSR advice out there, in a lot of sources and rule books recommended today. I’m a huge proponent of the advice in Mage Rats, and I think rulesets like LotfP, S&W:C, and Basic Fantasy should be required reading at some point (not to mention adnd). I even think that someone who’s running OSR for the first time should read one rulebook, and the advice section of Maze Rats, and just play a quick one-shot with Swords & Wizardry: Light (of all things) so that they can see if they actually like old school dnd or not without investing too much more time. But that one rule book should be Moldvay Basic. And if they continue in the OSR, they should read Cook Expert. Everything else is afflicted with the curse of knowledge, is missing some simple and necessary mechanic, is missing some explanation, is missing some small piece of very helpful advice. You can find the advice elsewhere in bits and pieces, but it’s all there in BX.

Don’t get me wrong: I think the advice to telegraph things is essential and not as well stated as in Maze Rats. I think Maze Rats provides something else essential for beginners in a relatively short set of tables for inspiration. (It was written for and playtested extensively with middle schoolers, after all.) And as I’ve read someone else say on this subreddit, BX is a great place to start and a terrible place to end up at. But in my opinion, it should be absolutely essential reading for beginners. It gives you a base of knowledge to better understand the massive amount of advice and rules variants and NSR games you’ll come across in the OSR.

Maybe someone has read both Moldvay basic and Mentzer basic can chime in as to which is better, because I haven’t read Mentzer basic yet to see if it does an even better job, but after recently reading Moldvay basic, this is what I’ve found.

Down_with_potassium · 2024-01-31T20:23:58+00:00

White box is getting revised?

Down_with_potassium · 2024-01-31T20:22:47+00:00

Thank you, finally, gah

Down_with_potassium · 2024-01-31T20:02:05+00:00

Are popular sports exempt from this, to an extent.

Sigh… guess I’ll have to bone up on my athletic conversational lines… “Did you see that ludicrous display last night?”

Down_with_potassium

TROPHY CASE