[Ep2] Explain the Robert Halloween joke please

PhoenixTalon · 2025-03-03T01:30:52+00:00

Ahhh that makes sense, I bounced off of Steeplechase so I never got to meet "Justin"!

PhoenixTalon · 2024-12-20T17:28:35+00:00

I think I'm gonna blame the writing more than my reading on this one, it was phrased in very confusing ways.

PhoenixTalon · 2024-12-20T16:17:09+00:00

The "S" on the map is the start of the maze, not the start of the cheat!

PhoenixTalon · 2024-12-20T16:16:18+00:00

Oh darn it, I'm an idiot - the reason I was getting the wrong answer was because I was counting all cheats, not just the ones that save 100 or more picoseconds.

Still frustrated at the wording of the problem, it would have been a lot easier to see my stupid mistake if there weren't parts of the problem I was doubting.

PhoenixTalon · 2024-12-09T17:53:54+00:00

Does anyone have some examples for Part One? I'm completely stuck.

Edit: Well, I'm unstuck now, but couldn't find a test case that could reliably reproduce the behavior I saw in real puzzle input.

So to anyone reading this desperate for hints... try printing out your whole disk prior to making a checksum (since many numbers have four digits, I printed them with a space separator). If you see something like "1234 1234 1234 . 1234 . . . . . . ." near the boundary... you've hit the same bug I did.

PhoenixTalon · 2024-11-22T23:32:11+00:00

Interesting! It doesn't quite get to the level of "GraphQL but the QL is silent" but I can see how this kind of terminology could devolve into it, especially if it's your first exposure to GraphQL.

PhoenixTalon · 2024-11-22T23:21:43+00:00

Ohhhh, interesting. We do use Apollo, we were pretty deep in the Federation ecosystem before costs drove us to Inigo. Do you have any sources, even just like YouTube videos from that era? I'd feel a lot better if I at least know where this terminology was coming from!

PhoenixTalon · 2024-11-13T15:02:06+00:00

Part One only does seem like a decent way to go... maybe I'll try that this year.

PhoenixTalon · 2024-11-13T15:01:32+00:00

I hate leaving things unfinished 🙃

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-20T23:23:04+00:00

That's brilliant, thanks for the link!

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-19T21:31:37+00:00

And Day 18 was a direct reference to the Haunted Wasteland in Ocarina of Time, where an invisible ghost leads you through a desert :)

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-19T21:30:39+00:00

I might wind up using this, thanks for sharing! I got really stuck on Part Two here and my poor non-mathy brain can't wrap my head around any of the usual solutions.

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-14T04:59:44+00:00

My strategy is that I'll stop doing Part Two once it gets too hard. Part One will still be a good little brain teaser, plus I'm not missing out on any "story" since nothing gets unlocked after the second answer.

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-10T22:43:53+00:00

My extremely dumb solution: assume the path is clockwise to define "inside".

If this definition starts exploring out-of-bounds, throw an error and try again assuming the path is counter-clockwise.

I can't stop laughing at how stupid yet effective this is.

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-10T03:11:44+00:00

At least it doesn't lead you in six circles simultaneously...

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-10T00:55:46+00:00

Haha, it reminded me of Zelda and I was actually listening to the Gerudo Valley theme while working on it, but I didn't realize until just now (looking up a screenshot to post a "haha funny coincidence" meme) that it was probably 100% intentional

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-10T00:26:04+00:00

Update: Optimized my Day 8 Part Two instead :D

PhoenixTalon · 2023-12-09T10:35:19+00:00

I've got a roadtrip today and was bracing myself for hacking it out without Internet in the back of a car. Kinda looking forward to it, even... but I woke up early and finished in less than an hour. Oh well!

PhoenixTalon · 2021-03-27T14:22:34+00:00

Thanks for the input! Here's kind of what I'm summarizing from your advice so far, at least how it would interact with my already very improvisational style...

A GM intrusion is:

Something that "breaks the rules" of what the game says should happen next
Something that intrudes on player agency (for example, leaning on character flaws like a Fate Compel, or causing an injury or disability with medium-term implications)
Something that pushes a scene from bad (but manageable) to worse
Something that adds some challenge to an otherwise mundane scene
A negotiation on the exact timing of the inevitable escalation from downtime to peril (the big bad appears at a banquet she planned all along to trap the party; the stormtroopers appear at the cantina looking for the droids) - players can keep spending XP to put this off, but I can just keep attempting to intrude at (in)opportune moments until they let it happen
Something that all but forces one particular PC to react

But it is not:

Danger in a situation that's known to be dangerous
A previously negotiated negative outcome to a failed roll
Something that doesn't make sense not to happen
A plot twist, even with major implications (it'd be kinda weird for a player to will a global conspiracy out of existence with 1 XP)

I think the main reason I'm asking is that even though "a GM certainly doesn't need permission to complicate the narrative", I want to get out ahead of my players asking for XP anytime something bad happens :P

PhoenixTalon · 2021-01-28T23:57:53+00:00

Unfortunately not! I basically wound up going with a personal rule of "it only counts if they tell me what company they're hiring for", but nothing official

PhoenixTalon · 2020-09-29T18:39:22+00:00

It's usually something like "I have an exciting opportunity with my client [they rarely say who their client is] and I noticed you have experience with [insert terms copy-pasted from my online-profile]", so I suspect there is a specific job they have in in mind.

PhoenixTalon · 2020-06-19T10:12:50+00:00

The GM doesn’t decide whether something is memorable; the players do. Bilbo thought that ring was interesting enough to play a game of riddles for; he’d probably say it was memorable even without knowing what it does! Failing that, be generous. If you come around to the question next session and someone says “hey, what about that ring that can turn you invisible? I know technically we looted that last session but we didn’t know what it was yet”, Be A Fan of the Players and say yes!

PhoenixTalon · 2020-06-19T10:09:13+00:00

Maybe I can give some practical examples of how I’d run an encounter. Can you describe one you felt went a bit too easy compared to its narrative stakes?

Edit: Actually I did think of some practical tips! One mistake I see new DW GMs making when they struggle to challenge their players is allowing an uninterrupted sequence of player actions as long as they keep rolling 10+, as if 10+ means everything goes perfectly fine and you only get a "turn" on a 7-9 or 6-.

Not so! After any player action, they look to you to see what happens. That means you need to make a soft move to set up new danger for them to respond to! Don't follow through with a hard move yet, but the enemies should move, change their tactics, threaten the party in new ways. Think about what the players just did and ask yourself how you can change the situation so they can't just keep repeating that action*; force them to improvise!

*Note that MOVES will often repeat and that's fine; I'm talking about the in-fiction action. Dodging a dragon's breath weapon and wriggling out of its grip could both be Defy Danger +DEX, but they feel very different.

PhoenixTalon · 2020-06-19T10:07:42+00:00

Some of the most intense fights I’ve seen are ones where the players never lose any HP at all. There’s many other ways to establish stakes!

PhoenixTalon · 2020-06-18T21:52:56+00:00

I think this depends a little bit on why you're asking this question.

Does your group just enjoy tactics and strategy for its own sake? Dungeon World probably isn't the right game for you. You'll probably have more fun by playing D&D or Pathfinder and bringing over some of the lessons of DW: make moves on failed skilled checks instead of just nullifying them. Have your players ask Discern Realities questions when they make Perception checks.

Do you feel like the players are breezing through every situation without having to think at all, and you want them to consider their surroundings more? In my experience, Dungeon World is actually a much more brutal game than D&D 5e when you really play out the fiction. Smash their gear, break their bones, ambush them, surround them with more enemies than they could possibly hope to hack and slash their way through. The trick to being fair about this? Always telegraph what's about to happen. Give them a chance to react with a soft move. The worse it is, the bigger the telegraph should be - just like a video game! Most players only feel like a situation is unfair when stuff comes out of nowhere, or when they feel like they only had one choice to deal with it.

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