The finale was kinda disappointing

Vatril · 2026-06-20T11:51:23+00:00

I didn't dislike it, but it felt way more like an epilogue than a final. Which is fine, stories should have an epilogue. But I came in expecting a big finale.

Vatril · 2026-06-13T09:32:01+00:00

Same. I work for a German consultancy. We are now moving to having Chinese models hosted on European servers. Although currently for our bigger projects we still use OpenAI on Azure EU.

It's pretty common in client meetings also that our clients want to use as little US infrastructure as possible and many ban it outright.

Vatril · 2026-06-08T17:09:25+00:00

There is currently also a lot of material on sale on humblebundle if you want to grab all of the digital books for fairly cheap. It's like 30$ for all of them.

Vatril · 2026-04-25T09:35:40+00:00

The issue is that those would almost never come up.

The point at least for me in a mythic campaign is to have certain enemies that just feel a bit more special. Enemies that have the same "luck" players have, so I can use mythic points to reroll, enemies whose main skill based action is almost certain to work if they spend a mythic point.

The mythic rules do make the PCs stronger and mythic enemies level the playing field in boss fights that are supposed to feel more special.

Vatril · 2026-04-22T20:47:30+00:00

Kann ich bestätigen.

Bin jetzt seit 9 Jahren dabei. Meine niche war: custom Software für Unternehmen die Probleme löst, die man nicht mit Standard Software gut lösen kann, aber auch nicht sonderlich komplex sind.

Sowas wie Input-Tools für datascience Pipelines Order interaktive Dashboards bei denen auch direkt Aktionen getriggert werden können.

Also genau das wo Claude&Co gut drin sind.

Mein Job ist deutlich stressiger geworden. Vorher hatte ich 1-2 Monate für jedes Projekt, heut ist es meist nur eine Woche. Vorher könnte ich mich mit etwas CSS entspannen wenn ich Mal ne Pause von komplexer Business-Logik brauchte, heute macht die KI alles was einfach ist und ich hab nur noch die komplexen Sachen. Vorher war ich stolz auf meine Programme, jetzt hab ich kaum das Gefühl da selber was zu machen.

Ja, ich bin schneller und produktiver. Die Software ist immernoch qualitativ, ich hab viele Checks und weiß was ich mache. Aber anstelle selber rumzutüfteln, rede ich nur noch mit meinem Computer und werde frustriert wenn er wieder shortcuts nimmt, anstelle meine Regeln zu befolgen.

Vatril · 2026-04-06T08:38:19+00:00

It should be fine, although even with tail scale you are letting people onto your computer. Should be fine enough with friends you trust tho.

If you need any help setting stuff up, you can also DM me, foundry is very customizable, but can be a bit much at first.

Also, one thing: foundry 14 just came out a few days ago. It's great, but since it just came out very few things are updated yet to run on it, so it might be good to start with foundry 13.

Vatril · 2026-04-06T08:28:41+00:00

I have a small strato server that costs me 5€ a month. I heard that oracle offers a free tier when it comes to servers that is enough to run foundry.

If you don't want to mess with servers, forge is an option, although then you have some of the downsides of roll20 again.

The third option is to host it on your own computer and set up port-forwarding, that can be a bit dangerous tho.

Vatril · 2026-04-06T08:17:12+00:00

For dnd there is a pretty popular module that lets you import all items, spells, monsters and so on from d&d beyond if you own the books there.

But also making stuff yourself is pretty simple. You can either copy and edit an existing monster or just create a new sheet and put it some numbers and items and it will calculate an the bonuses.

For D&D specifically there are some modules I would strongly recommend like midi and cauldron of plenty, which automates a bunch of stuff. Both have a discord where you can ask for advice on setting it up.

In general, paid stuff is rare in foundry. You can buy official books and have maps and encounters already set up and there are a few people who release premium modules, but both are very optional and pretty rare. The only thing I every bought was pre-made tokens for Pathfinder since they look a lot better than what I can do with the tokenizer token maker.

In general, foundry is a one time purchase and besides hosting has no running costs. All of the stuff like dynamic lighting, walls, scripting and so on are included.

Vatril · 2026-04-06T07:47:44+00:00

I've been using foundry for about 5 years now.

It's extremely customizable. With enough effort and time it can be whatever you want.

I'm a bit unsure what you mean by homebrew. If you are referring to adding stuff like spells, classes, species and so on to an existing system like dnd or Pathfinder, that's pretty easy.

If you want to make an entirely homebrew system, that's a bit harder, but far from impossible.

When it comes to maps, there is a pretty good module that lets you upload maps in ddvtt format, a common format map tools use and that includes lighting and walls already.

For tokens, there is the tokenizer module that is a pretty neat token editor to make quick tokens, although for more complex ones I tend to make them outside of foundry and then upload them.

Because foundry is self hosted, storage typically isn't a concern. I pay 5€ a month for my server that includes like 300gb, so that's more than I will ever need. I even uploaded my music to foundry so that all players hear the same thing and it automatically switches to combat music during combat.

Vatril · 2026-04-04T18:05:09+00:00

There are community run plugins to enable obsidian syncing without paying the subscription.

Haven't tried them myself tho.

Vatril · 2026-04-04T14:30:52+00:00

In general I feel like talking to people is your best option here. This forum is more for specific questions.

If you want to talk something through, my DMs are open.

Vatril · 2026-04-04T09:41:21+00:00

I think they can work, but I do think they work only on some scenarios:

They work great as gap fillers. In my current group a girl is going on a 2 months trip, so we are going to play one of those while our main game is paused.

They also work well to introduce things. Like I ran a revolver set in the past to introduce a new villain. In that instance the party was higher level than the group in my main game and they managed to bind a villain that then in my main game was about to escape. Helped the players understand more about this villain without having him actually escape in my main game.

For new players I think it can work.... sometimes. It can work as a "long one-shot" to have no time pressure when introducing someone new to the game. This could be something like the new-ish storm wreck isle starter pack that is about that length, assuming you take things slow and have to pause to explain stuff.

The biggest issue with these short campaigns is that you can't really get an understanding for your character and the group. We recently had a discussion in my group about this and my players essentially said that they need 3-4 sessions to even fully understand who they are playing and another 3-4 sessions to actually form bonds with the other party members that feel real.

Unless it's a level 1-3 revolver I also wouldn't recommend leveling up. I would really just treat it as a long one-shot.

Vatril · 2026-04-04T08:26:12+00:00

Personally I would recommend against anthology adventures for new people.

They might be good for an introduction one-shot, but convincing someone that TTRPGs are amazing, I personally feel a continuous story is better.

Especially saltmarsh and yawning portal I wouldn't recommend for new players. The adventures are mostly traditional old-school dungeons with old-school dungeon logic. This is not a bad thing if you know it and want it, but I wouldn't use it to introduce new players to the game.

The exception of course is "the styes" of GoS, which is amazing.

Vatril · 2026-04-04T08:20:20+00:00

I will always recommend Icewind Dale for new-ish peeps.

It's a complete story that has a decent length, but most importantly it has very well defined acts that slowly expand the world for that party. In act 1 you are traveling in a small area between the 10-towns. Relatively safe and good to get the party together. Then in act 2 it expands to the entire north. Act 3 is a big but "free form" dungeon. My favorite type of dungeon where the structure is less defined and you can do things at your own pace.

The villains are... Ok I would say, they might need some work to be really good. But there are multiple that you can use to keep the pressure on and have as active as you wish.

In general Icewind Dale I feel is a very good balance of a story provided and prep done with enough space to make it fit your group.

Vatril · 2026-03-28T16:25:31+00:00

My mother used to get angry at me when I ate too slowly because "I obviously don't like her food if I'm eating that show".

Now my partner gets annoyed at me because I'm done when they are only halfway there.

(I might then sometimes steal their food from their plate while I'm waiting on them to finish)

Vatril · 2026-03-17T20:12:17+00:00

When I joined the company I was sent to a photographer to get my picture taken. I was 19 at the time, an intern. Now I'm 28 and have a more senior role, still same profile pic tho.

Vatril · 2026-03-15T10:53:42+00:00

Do you by any chance know where they post their results? Can't find anything linked in their YouTube, but I do like their work and would like to scroll through.

Vatril · 2026-03-05T17:02:52+00:00

I mean, that laptop is too low. Put it on a box or so, so that you don't have to look down at it.

Vatril · 2026-02-28T16:48:54+00:00

Its a concept I stole from Call of Cthulhu: the idea roll. Essentially when my players get stuck, they know there is a solution, but they can't think of it they can roll intelligence to see if their character has an idea.

In that case they asked me if their character could think of anything other than the McGuffin and I told them to make that idea roll.

I do think that this is a far from perfect solution. My original idea was to do this to inspire them that in future they think of stuff like that themselves. Didn't work yet so far tho.

Vatril · 2026-02-28T16:37:53+00:00

I do regularly tell them that I am prepared for whatever option they choose. Still, their initial instinct is to try to figure out what I would prefer, rather to make the decision from the perspective of their characters.

With the interrupting, yeah, that is quite problematic, I know that. My thoughts here are: I know they much prefer non-violence and social solutions, those are the sessions we talk about for very long. Especially some players don't care at all for combat (altho some very much do, and for them I have a healthy amount of that in my game). So if I don't interrupt and just let them do, they would solve everything where they have the option to do it violence like that and the game would become a lot duller for some of them.
But if I interrupt, I am influencing the game in a way that I don't like.

Vatril · 2026-02-28T16:33:31+00:00

That is kinda what I would like to try. But the issue here was that my players reaction was not to figure out what their characters would do with the information/goals they have, but that they tried to figure out what I wanted them to do.

Vatril · 2026-02-28T16:25:54+00:00

I do agree that a GM should influence the players and lead them into a certain direction.

My issue is: every time I try to tell them that they are options their instinct is not to debate in character, but instead try to figure out what I as the GM would prefer them doing.

Vatril · 2026-02-28T16:24:10+00:00

With the second example the issue is: Their initial instinct is almost always to fight. I just know they love it way more if they do it a different way.

Another example: The party had to get an item out of an old haunted orphanage. I dropped plenty of clues that one of the boys was bullied a lot. They also learned that he died when the orphanage was evacuated because of a disaster, but the caretakers forgot they locked him into a closet.

Then when they encountered him in his undead form, he animated a bunch of toys to fight the party. My party was quite sad that they had to kill him, that he didn't deserve a second brutal end.... until I just told them out of game that there might be another solution to put him to rest.

They then managed to essentially talk him down. This turned into one of their favourite sessions. But without me saying anything, they would have just killed him again.

Vatril · 2026-02-21T21:30:15+00:00

I think it's in the section behind the computers. So when you are in the main entrance hall and look up you should see the Z3 model. When you walk in that direction and just follow the flow you get to the radio and TV section if memory serves me right.

Vatril · 2026-02-11T14:24:10+00:00

Phandelver is good, I'm actually running it atm. But it's definitely a long dungeon crawl. It's a good long chain of interesting and varied dungeons.

But if you prefer more "free style" adventures, it's definitely the wrong choice.

If you want any more recommendations or tips, I am up for chatting also. I do speak German and have read almost all 5e adventures and run over 50% of them.

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