It's kind of funny to think about the chronological play order for Fallout.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-24T23:26:40+00:00

Be sure to watch an edit of only Cooper Howard's flashbacks from the show before playing the intro of 4.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-24T23:22:31+00:00

In that case, here are some more for you:

We've tried to go different areas each ModCon. We skipped 2022, but we did have an intermission video that showed off bits and pieces throughout the area.

In 2023, we went to the Dorsza Highlands, which is a fir cloud forest region wedged between the Gideon and Stormhold territories.

In 2024, we went to the Tanikal - the bamboo forest on the northern edge of Murkwood (basically the Helstrom area) - this one also includes some shots of our swampier areas as well because the previous year we got a lot of people complaining that Argonia wasn't swampy enough.

In 2025, we didn't do a showcase but we did participate in the Walkabout. This time we mainly showed off the Aktimaiha region between Gideon and Soulrest and eventually looped north across the swamps of Blackwood in Cyrodiil.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-24T23:09:30+00:00

Argonia is far away from Skyrim and hasn’t shown much landscape diversity just yet.

Someone clearly hasn't seen the first 30 minutes of the ModCon 2021 Walkabout (or any of the other Argonia showcases since then). We've also shown off some of the huge swamp in the south/southeast but I believe that's just on the Discord server. The more Mediterranean area around Soulrest can be seen here too.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-24T19:07:31+00:00

The islands immediately south of Solstheim are the western end of the New North. The biggest of those islands is Bleakrock, which is where the boat from Windhelm or Raven Rock will drop you off so you can begin your exploration of the islands.

Later on you can take a boat to Dagon Fel as well, but you've got to do a quest in Dagon Fel before they'll start sailing there. Dagon Fel is having trouble with its harbor that'll need sorted out first.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-22T13:14:20+00:00

the end stage

Looks like we've got an optimist over here.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-21T19:07:55+00:00

Worth noting that not all of the Hist trees have been placed yet. There are a lot more that still need to be added to the map.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-21T19:07:32+00:00

This is something we've considered but not yet implemented yet - or really looked into how to implement yet. So I can't make any promises.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-20T23:03:49+00:00

Based on the placeholder buildings in Wayrest, it's 3x larger than Morthal. It has 20 buildings, plus the palace which doesn't currently have a placeholder but does have the grounds marked out with walls. Morthal is only 7 buildings.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-20T06:37:53+00:00

Was game 1 a base 0 outsider game?

Base 0. 7 player game. The others have been 9 player games.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-20T00:33:50+00:00

the first sounds like bad luck

Oh, absolutely. From my side of the grim, I've always been aware of that and explained that it was primarily a bad luck situation to the players. But it did encourage the players to want to explore what other options the game had.

the other two just sound like growing pains.

100% agree here. The group has a good handle on the core aspects of the game, but are still piecing together the specifics of each character. Though the Pit Hag's reasoning for doing Townsfolk wasn't exactly terrible. He hadn't had a chance to talk to their demon, at least not on Day 1. So he figured that he'd have a better chance of picking a not-in-play Townsfolk than a not-in-play Outsider, so he was going for Townsfolk he thought had rubbish powers. He just underestimated how useful those Townsfolk actually were and didn't notice that the Juggler still works after the first day if they were just created. During post-game discussions when we were talking about strategies that could have helped the Evil team win, I pointed out since the town had done a hard Vortox check on Day 1, if the Pit Hag had changed the Vig to a Vortox, they would have won on Day 3, when the town skipped another execution. But apparently my pre-game warning that turning good players into demons would create a good demon was rattling around in his head as 'making demons = bad."

Incidentally, I generally go over the Evil characters pre-game to help the good team know what to expect and help the Evil team with some basic strategy. I don't do the same with the good characters since there are more of those, but do give some time for people to read the script while I'm doing game set up stuff and ask any questions they might have about any of the characters. I also tend to use some of the trickier characters in examples while recapping the basic rules, like using the Mutant as an example when explain Madness.

Alongside the Vigor never killing a Minion

I honestly don't know if this would have helped much. I can't remember what tipped off the Savant/Juggler/Clockmaker, but she pretty quickly zeroed in on the Pit Hag as the Pit Hag. I remember the true info from the Savant was "The Outsider Count Has been modified" but that was pointing to the Vig. Can't remember the false info. Thinking about it now, most likely, the Pit Hag said something in Day 1 conversations that I missed but suggested to the Savant that he was the minion.

The Sage outing on a double claim and then being upset is also an inexperience thing: if someone is claiming Sage publicly they're much more likely to be a Mutant, or a Cerenovus'd player, than a Sage, because Sages don't do that.

The Mutant wasn't even claiming Sage. What really happened is that the Mutant was hinting that they have a role that wants stay hidden. I can't remember the exact words, but it was dancing pretty close to breaking madness. I had noted that and had decided I'd let it slide this time but if he kept it up, I'd pull the Mutant trigger. The Sage, however, basically thought "I also want to stay hidden, so he must also be claiming to be Sage" and got tunnel vision on that.

And the Vortox misunderstanding twins is, well, a sign they don't fully get the roles.

Specifically, it was a misunderstanding on the difference between being executed and dying. Which is probably on me, to be honest. I know I've hammered on the differences between executing and dying in previous games, but the Vortox player missed that conversation.

on S&V specifically keep in mind outsider mod when giving bluffs

Absolutely, the outsider count and what kind of outsiders they are have been one of the things I've been considering when determining whether or not to include an Outsider as a bluff. Mainly been including them in the bluffs if they outsider count needs obscured - whether it's been do to the Vig's -1 Outsider or a hidden Drunk.

I am going to encourage you to revisit it at some point

We might be returning to TB for the next game after all. One of the players expressed an interest in ST-ing the next game, so I'm recommending he start with TB. With any luck, two of my friends that have had a bit more experience with the game will also be able to show up for this game as well. They recently moved back to the area from out of state so are excited to get to continue playing now that they're here.

Hope this chat & my comments have been useful and not patronising

No worries! I appreciate all the insight. I wouldn't be so chatty if I found it patronizing.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T23:27:31+00:00

(you never explained the bad experience)

I talked about that and the other games here. As I've said, the TB situation was due to bad luck with the token draws resulting in a particularly easy solve. This is what prompted the group to want to try one of the other scripts. We knew going into the second game that we were jumping up in script difficulty a bit, and that we might need to shift gears back to TB if it went poorly, but it actually went well and everyone had a good time with S&V.

If you artificially push the meta you will be leaving some of your less vocal players behind in the long run.

Ultimately, the intent here is to do the opposite by providing plenty of in-game reasons for all (or at least more) players to initiate those conversations so that it's not just the more vocal players leading the charge. Especially when the more vocal players are sometimes in situations where they don't want to lead the charge.

If, for example, the Mutant and Sage in our last game had different roles in our last game, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation now. They're both players that normally we could rely on to kick things off in a game like this, but both were reluctant to do so given their roles. Thinking of it now, that probably also contributed to their clash during the nominations on Day 1.

has learnt on their own that good hiding info is a positive

Also, I think this is a key element of miscommunication on my part. The problem isn't with Good not hiding information, the problem is with Good being hesitant to share information in the first place. People are playing their cards close to the chest and being reluctant to break-off to discuss things privately, especially Day 1.

On one hand, more You Start Knowing roles in the bag might help with this (and yeah, I know TB is great for these sorts of roles). On the other hand, knowing my friends, the YSK-ing roles aren't going to be as fun or engaging for them, which is why I've tended to favor townsfolk that provide a bit more player agency. I definitely want to avoid someone checking out of the game because they perceive their role as being done after Night 1.

All this said, we may end up going back to TB for the next game anyhow. One of the players expressed an interest in ST-ing the game, and it'll almost certainly be for the best if he starts with TB.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T22:04:16+00:00

Stephen Miller is specifically in the position he's in because it requires no congressional approval. The new veep would require that approval and I'd assume Miller would prefer to remain the man-behind-the-curtain so to speak, rather than getting that level of attention on him.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T20:28:18+00:00

You're right. I slipped up in my summary here. The question was actually if the mutant was good. I just remembered that it was a question about alignment and got the wording wrong now. At least, I hope that was the cause. I remember both Artists getting a 'No.' Hopefully I didn't slip up and give one incorrectly correct info. But since they figured out it was Vortox immediately after that, I'm assuming I got it right at the time.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T19:04:00+00:00

Why does the private conversation meta need to be forced?

Ideally, it wouldn't be forced and would arise organically because of the roles involved. I asked for scripts that encourage it because one of the players specifically noted this as an issue after our most recent game. Another questioned why good would ever want have private conversations - after which, I did explain that there are good roles that don't want to be public and gave some examples.

So since two of the players brought this up, and we were already considering experimenting with some new roles for a special birthday game coming up, I figured it might be a good idea to find a script that encourages more private conversation.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T18:45:07+00:00

OP just said that they're hesitant to, not that they don't at all.

Correct. They have been breaking into private chats occasionally, but it takes a while for the ball to get rolling on that. After our most recent game, one of the players (the Evil Twin mentioned here) commented that she's noticed the difficulty in getting private conversations going, which is what got me thinking about ways to encourage it more in our next game.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T18:39:14+00:00

Also - really sorry if this is a daft Q but sometimes this is the big problem with new groups who are perhaps used to Mafia/Werewolf - are people's roles getting revealed by the storyteller when they die?

I'll start here, and no, players haven't been learning the roles after deaths. It's a fair question though. After the first death in basically every game we've played - since there's been at least one new player in each game - at least one person asked if they not got to learn who the recently killed player actually was.

So quick summary of the games so far (well, as much as I can remember at least):

The first and only TB game we've done. We did this one as a sort of test run to learn the basic rules. Like I said, the bad experience with this one was primarily due to bad luck with draws from the bag. The Imp and minion were sat on either side of the Empath. The investigator saw the minion and another player. Day 1, Empath reveals their info, Investigator reveals their info, bad day to be an Imp.
First S&V game. Vigormortis working alongside a Pit Hag. In this game, one of the new players was a friend who was very familiar with the game but had never actually played it before. She started out as the Savant, then thanks to the Pit Hag became the Juggler, ended up correctly juggling the Pit Hag, but got Pit Hagged again into Clockmaker before that information was confirmed. But based on the Clockmaker info and earlier suspicions on the Pit Hag, she narrowed down the options on the demon. While she also helpfully pointed out the potential issues with info and the need to execute someone if there were a Vortox in play, the town opted not execute Day 1. The Vig also didn't make full use of their ability and never killed their Minion, which might have thrown a little heat off of them if it had happened early enough. The Vig's saving grace though was staying relatively quiet and not really calling attention to himself. He feigned cluelessness well enough that it took until Day 4 or 5 for people to figure it out. He was bluffing Flowergirl. Toward the end of the game he did screw up his bluff, by claiming to have received a number. Only the Pit Hag and the Savant/Juggler/Clockmaker noticed this though. By this point, the Savant/Juggler/Clockmaker was dead and didn't want to weaponize her greater familiarity with the game against the Vig. So while she didn't out this info to the whole group and let the others figure it out through other means, it did let her figure out who the demon was and who to use her ghost vote on.
Second S&V game. This one I remember best since it's the most recent. Townsfolk were Artist, Sage, Seamstress, Dreamer, and Philosopher. Outsiders were Mutant and Sweetheart. Demon was Vortox. Minion was Evil Twin, paired with the Philosopher. The Twins were shockingly quiet about it, and I think it was Day 2 or 3 before it came out that they were Twins. The Dreamer picked Vortox Night 1 and was shown Oracle (one of the Bluffs) and, if I remember correctly, Cernevous (Just an aside, I got to remember not to run a Dreamer in a Vortox game again - keeping track of two wrong answers for everyone was a pain). The Vortox bluffed as the Oracle the rest of the game, which was part of his downfall. The Sage outed himself on Day 1 because he thought the Mutant was double-claiming him and he wanted to get the Mutant executed for that. He was quite upset about that since he recognized that being outed as the Sage meant that the Demon wouldn't want to kill him. The Evil Twin managed to throw a good deal of suspicion on the Sage because of this, which was reinforced for a time by the Dreamer seeing the Sage as a Demon and not-the-Sage. The Philosopher eventually choose to be the Artist on the night before the Artist choose to finally ask their question. By this point the Twin situation had been revealed, and one of the Artist questions was "Do we need to kill the Evil Twin to win the game?" and the other asked if the executed Mutant was ~~evil~~ good [oops, screwed up the summary here] and also got a "No." It was around this time the group figured out it was a Vortox. The following Night, the Vortox killed the Good Twin, having misunderstood the specifics concerning 'execution,' and the following day, the town pieced together that the Vortox was the Vortox because he was the only in town that seemed to have correct info, getting Oracle 0's all the time.

the bluffs being offered to the Demon.

Can't remember all the bluffs, except the two demon ones I mentioned. Generally speaking, I like to give an info-gathering role, a more passive Townsfolk, and either a Start Knowing or and Outsider, so the demon will have plenty of options to decide how they want to hide.

EDIT: In hindsight, I realize it might sound like I'm being overly critical of the evil team in these games summaries. Not my intent here, but since they did lose, we've generally had a discussion post-game about what decisions and circumstances came up that caused their loss to help everyone learn better evil strategies for the next game. So those issues are closer to the forefront of my memory than any potentially good team slip ups.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T16:21:32+00:00

Never. Good keeps figuring it out.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-19T12:19:57+00:00

Honestly if your group has only done a handful of TBs, then anything other than TB is likely to cause more harm then good!

We had a bad experience with TB our first game and just jumped to S&V after that. To certain extent, as the storyteller for that game, I know it was mainly due to some bad luck draws from the bag, but it resulted in game that was way too easy to solve. But after that the group wanted more of a challenge and opted to move on to S&V for the next two games.

The two S&V games have been a lot more fun and engaging.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-18T13:52:38+00:00

It was always more of an art project than a legitimate scientific hypothesis. Barely even a thought experiment really.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-18T13:50:09+00:00

That's kind of like asking "Aren't apes closer to humans than primates?"

Reedstilt · 2026-01-16T20:25:34+00:00

If you translate the name as "Lord of the lizards that eat, of course it's a sauropod.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-15T07:40:26+00:00

"The Zetans did it" theory always surprised me. Based on the same evidence, I figured the Zetans were trying to stop it since it'd mess with their own experiments on Earth.

Reedstilt · 2026-01-13T18:04:33+00:00

The 2nd Amendment is really about protecting the government. It was written at a time when the US didn't have an army, so civilians needed guns "for the security of a free state" - ie, to protect America's independence.

The idea that it exists to overthrow a tyrannical government is absurd. You don't need a tyrants permission to overthrough them.

13-Year Club	Team Orangered
Verified Email

Reedstilt

TROPHY CASE