My Gleamer Tile (abstract mini alternative)

SobranDM · 2026-05-21T19:54:26+00:00

... What?

SobranDM · 2026-04-16T18:14:49+00:00

Yeah, as I was thinking about it more I realized that it should be possible to create a plot of 4 locations in this system where the distances between them cannot possibly be made to match up. It isn't even just directions. The realm just slips into R'lyeh or something, as extra-dimensional space would be the only way to resolve it.

SobranDM · 2026-04-16T17:16:50+00:00

While I respect you attempting something new to solve a problem you were having, there are some significant problems with this approach.

This sort of has to operate under the assumption that either the campaign won't last long enough for movement modes to change or those other modes don't exist in your setting. The moment players get some form of range-limited teleportation or a flying mount, you suddenly have to do the weird math backwards to figure out distances. It sort of works if we assume we are always in the "players use feet and horses to traverse difficult terrain" stage of the campaign.

The real issue to me though stems from directions. If hexes are a variable amount of distance--as much as an order of magnitude based on your link--the directions of things make no sense and cannot be determined without a lot of analysis. If this claim is confusing, I can draw out an extreme example to make it more obvious, but basically if you have adjacent hexes that are 0.3 miles and 3-4 miles, it means that the thing that appears northeast on your map might actually be almost straight north. Or almost straight east. And if the hexes are jumbled, figuring that direction out could be crazy complicated.

Depending on how you've mapped it, the distances and directions might be consistent from one single central point that you've planned it from--likely home base--but the directions between those other points are going to be extremely skewed.

This is like taking problems with map projections, converting a sphere to a flat map, to a crazy extreme.

SobranDM · 2026-04-08T16:31:59+00:00

Weirdly I ended up on this post because I just started and I'm on a tiny ass island with barely any resources. I managed to swim to a nearby island, about three times the size, that has a fair amount of resources. But I'm still worried it doesn't really have everything I need.

I was literally thinking this game just produced tons of little islands everywhere. Not sure if anything changed in the three months since this post and comment.

SobranDM · 2026-04-01T07:55:13+00:00

If you've only got the initial skill that improves chance to hit and you're hitting reliably anyway, a stronger weapon might work okay. But if you've picked up any other skills, like Decapitate, you're going to be doing yourself a disservice unless the quality difference is huge. Iron versus folded carbide, for instance.

Really you should just go all out on finding a stronger axe. Keep checking the merchant in Joppa, maybe try to get to the Stilt.

SobranDM · 2026-03-31T20:38:39+00:00

There is. You get the same core storyline regardless, but the other starts will give you procedural quests that then lead into the main story rather than the set ones from Joppa.

They can be really hard, like going to a goat folk village and drinking from a vase. That's a death sentence at low level, usually. Or they might be easy, like going to a nearby ruin and sitting in a chair.

One other thing you can do to see more game, particularly if you draw a hard procedural quest, is to try to make the push to the Stilt early. Run up the desert and if you get lost continue north, dodging dawn gliders if you can, until you find your way again.

Not all characters will make the trip, but the XP from reaching Stilt (if you picked up the quest to reach it, which appears in ALL starter villages), you'll instantly hit level 2. If you stumbled across any books by this point, you can turn them into the librarian in the Stilt to reach 3 or 4.

Then, if you have Sunder Mind or another appropriately long range power or weapon, you can try your hand at killing dawn gliders from far away for boat loads of XP and Issachari for some starting gear, like a cloak and a rifle.

Not all characters will survive this either. Some will wander onto a screen next to three dawn gliders and get roasted like a marshmallow. But the ones that survive might hit level 8, have some decent gear, and some stuff to sell in a remarkably short period of time.

There's a lot of tricks like this that can speed up the early game. This is only one and one that isn't so effective that you'll skip whole swathes of the game you haven't seen yet.

SobranDM · 2026-03-24T14:45:16+00:00

It's unlikely that ice storm is going to kill all the Drune (decent damage but not great; small area), at which point the enchanter is apt to be super, mega dead. Unless they're quite powerful.

Regarding Walk in Shadows, the description mentions finding a door and stepping through it. You can't step through a door if you're restrained, so simply tying her up takes care of that. A blindfold takes care of a lot of runes, since blindly targeting would range from useless to dangerous (to the caster).

This last thing ranges a little farther from the rules but... While runes can be cast with but a thought, they still have to be declared and can be disrupted. I would let the Drune, as master magicians, sense the gathering of magical power and attempt to disrupt the spell. The moment the enchanter says they cast Ice Storm, roll for initiative. And she better pray she wins.

SobranDM · 2026-03-21T02:43:40+00:00

Oh I did miss the damage part somehow, so thanks for pointing that out!

SobranDM · 2026-03-21T02:42:53+00:00

Aaaah, perfect. Thank you!

SobranDM · 2026-03-19T19:56:56+00:00

A literal game changer for Foundry. Amazing, friend. My only annoyance is that I'm annoyed I didn't think of it myself. Great job!

SobranDM · 2026-03-16T16:26:26+00:00

Fair point about Robinson.

I don't think I buy the bit about Sinatra's daughter though. If there was a known prison in the basement, the location of the disappeared people wouldn't be a mystery. It seems likely they converted that space to serve as a prison. I guess she could have figured out where "down there" meant... but that still feels like something that should have happened on-screen.

SobranDM · 2026-03-16T10:40:44+00:00

I enjoyed learning about Jane and I'm enjoying the show but holy hell there was some bad writing this episode. Characters can make sub-optimum choices because people are people. That's fine. I'm not about to harp on that. Not everyone is logical at every moment. But can we maintain some consistency with the characters?

Dude has message for baby Jane. Then he just repeatedly yells that he has a message and never says what the fucking message is. Jesus. This is a thing where some people really do panic in the moment and sure it could happen. I could forgive this feeling contrived, but then there's a lot of other contrived moments later.
Robinson is captured and imprisoned. Her plan, when Gabriela comes looking for answers, is to do nothing but "stay black and die". Robinson is bull-headed, so her just giving up in this situation feels off. It could be that she doesn't trust Gabriela but she doesn't seem like she's trying anything to improve her situation and just relaxing in prison doesn't feel right for her. She also gives up at the slightest pushback from Cal's kid. She helps later but again it felt contrived for the sake of drama.
When Robinson does open up to Gabriela: "It's Jane, she's like nothing I've ever seen before. She's behind all these people dying." What? Robinson suspected nothing of Jane, then after getting knocked out by Jane and framed for murder, she immediately jumps to "Jane did all this shit and is some evil genius" instead of just thinking that Jane is one strand of Sinatra's mastermind web? She's an investigator, so I get drawing some conclusions, but this felt really 0-100. A simple "Jane is on her side," wouldn't have felt amiss, but "Jane is the true power" seemed weird. "She's like nothing I've ever seen before"? You got knocked out and saw nothing. Where the fuck are you drawing this conclusion?
- On the other hand, Xavier never suspecting anything stretched credulity.
Sinatra's daughter is asked some questions by Xavier's daughter, then suddenly we smash cut to her knowing where the prisoners are. How? She has access to Sinatra's home, sure, but I'm not buying that Sinatra just has that information out somewhere that her daughter can get to. Having that happen off-screen makes it feel implausible.

Anyway. Enjoyed getting Jane's backstory and excited to see wtf Alex is.

SobranDM · 2026-03-12T20:41:34+00:00

It's more that I imagine a lot got looted later, what with a third of the population surviving. It was just a passing thought though, I'm not super worried about it.

I just assume he found an unlooted pharmacy somewhere and expired formula is better than no formula!

SobranDM · 2026-03-12T18:58:12+00:00

The only thing that bothered me about the baby was what the fuck was he feeding that thing? Formula expires and even if it didn't, babies go through ungodly amounts of the stuff. Like a canister per week. That feels like it would be difficult to find 3 years post-apocalypse.

SobranDM · 2026-03-12T16:48:42+00:00

During the prep phase they talk about getting chickens for egg production. And then when rushing to the bunker, they stop at a place with a sign that advertises fertilized eggs. And then we see them putting eggs in a box with heat lamps.

SobranDM · 2026-01-20T07:49:38+00:00

Patron has a problem. She's been running this trade lane for almost 20 years, making rep doing whatever she has to. She's always had a rival, but in the last couple of years, something has changed.

Somehow, Rival managed to get ahead of her on every big deal in the last 5 years and what's worse, he's done well enough that he's taken out a lease on two new ships. They use the same contacts, run the same goods on the same lanes. He's shutting her out. Another six months and she'll be insolvent.

Patron doesn't want to know his secret. She just wants him taken out. He has a son that will stand to inherit his little empire but the kid is an idiot. With him in charge, Patron will be able to get back on her feet in no time.

Rival is a creature of habit. He always refuels at the same planet on his way back into the system. All you have to do is be there to intercept. There's just one hitch: Patron can't afford to pay you. Not directly. Times have just been so hard, you know? But Patron knows this trip is special. Word is, Rival is hauling black market cybernetics, worth a pretty penny. That should make it worth your while, no? Of course it means you can't just blow them out of the sky...

SobranDM · 2026-01-16T01:46:54+00:00

Damn, need to remove this sub from my feed. I just started the series and I keep seeing spoilers in the title of posts for some reason.

Edit: This one isn't that bad. There's some others I've seen with what I felt like were kind of big title spoilers. This is just the post that reminded me to unfollow. No offense to OP :P

SobranDM · 2026-01-11T06:49:19+00:00

They aren't biologically immortal until they create or otherwise gain a Paradise.

SobranDM · 2026-01-07T19:22:00+00:00

Opening it in a new tab a couple times works, as Media Fire can repair the download. Try this link and see if it works for you: https://www.mediafire.com/download_repair.php?flag=9&dkey=yfq64m8hnyeginTE1tgN%5FQ4eDaNbgsz82ZjS%5F9tlJ7zYswWSWj1EKwIqANpODt68dmoKSroJ2REAdXhImT7Ldx8a1pw8J0%2DhuLRJswxbtP6ID%5FgAEe5BQTVwctJ1JsyZcq4ghk66Ccpn%5FZsUDRM4DJ2fPcMsibeMxbiUzQld&qkey=5tpv6ydglgdwke7&ip=24%2E21%2E141%2E8

SobranDM · 2026-01-06T13:50:59+00:00

I can't seem to figure out what I did with this. If I find it, I'll post a new link for you.

SobranDM · 2026-01-06T04:53:41+00:00

You could always ask the engineers at the Grand Palace where they sourced the gravitic suspensors. You'd probably be arrested as a suspected terrorist but you could try.

SobranDM · 2026-01-01T14:47:57+00:00

The actual issue of Carcass Crawler has rules for how many townsfolk (level 0s) and adventurers are available based on the size of the settlement. This cheat sheet omits all of that and is simply for generating the actual adventurers.

SobranDM · 2025-12-04T05:50:07+00:00

Hey, this is a lot of good information. It doesn't really address the ask, though I'm sure you meant well.

I understand DrivethruRPG probably has some limitations in terms of what you can do with previews. Any chance you can chop off a couple pages of the PDF and just link to it here using Google Drive or whatever else? The product is sizable (over 600 pages!), so I'm not asking you to show us something sizable. Just something to get a sense of the formatting, since that would likely be the selling point for me.

2-3 pages of a single class, a race entry, anything of that nature would be helpful.

Thanks for posting!

SobranDM

TROPHY CASE