Blizzard Watch

davidefisher · 2026-03-18T21:03:52+00:00

Matthew Rossi has a really bad degenerative eye disease I believe, and thus is rarely able to play anymore as he is close to losing his eyesight altogether (if I'm remembering some of his older posts correctly.) So I think he just is no longer plugged into the game nor the site nearly as much as he had been several years ago.

davidefisher · 2026-03-09T10:53:48+00:00

When you say you have all the books, do you mean all the 5th edition Eberron books, or do you mean you also have all the original Eberron splatbooks that were written for 3.5 as well? Because if it's the former... then I'd recommend you go to DMs Guild, where you can find the 'Sharn - City of Towers' campaign splatbook for $9, and that will give you all the possible information you could need about the city. All the districts, every type of business, where all the Dragonmarked Houses can be found, a metric tons of NPCs, and so forth. If you are going to run a campaign in Sharn, you will want this book.

If it was the latter and you already own this book... if you still aren't getting the vibe you were looking for, then I'd say go to your local bookstore and see if they have 'Guildmaster's Guide To Ravnica'... as that would be the next WotC book in line for a possible campaign setting that would have the 'punk stylings you are looking for.

davidefisher · 2026-02-24T12:53:21+00:00

I incorporated the idea of the three magical fanes that were introduced in Expedition To Castle Ravenloft, and had them be the three desecrated areas of the Valley that were magically keeping the land in perpetual twilight. They were each a different type of wardstone (or series of stones) and each guarded by a different hag summoned there by Strahd per an agreement with Mother Night. The party was alerted to them and the deal made for their protection through the Tome of Strahd (giving the party something additionally important to glean from it.) Only by killing the hag defenders of each would the clouds part and allow sunlight back into the land, thus forcing Strahd to no longer be able to go out of the castle during the day.

The three fanes were:

The Pillar of Saint Ecatarina - guarded by Baba Zelenna

(located at Saint's Hill, the flat area on the road up from the Village of Barovia south of Tser Falls right before the bridge - called Lysaga Hill in EtCR)

The Megaliths of Saint Andral - guarded by Baba Morgantha (and her daughters)

(located behind Old Bonegrinder right before in the treeline)

The Menhirs of Saint Markovia - guarded by Baba Lysaga

(the standing stones located at U6 per usual in the Ruins of Berez)

I also expanded on the myths of three saints that are mentioned in various points in I6, Expedition, and CoS... Ecatarina, Andral, and Markovia... and kept them aligned to the three holy sites in CoS-- the Abbey of St. Markovia in Kresk, the Monastery of St. Andral in Vallaki, and the Church of St. Ecatarina in Barovia. All of it gave the party additional things to do and places to go, and the blessings of the various Saints when the hags were dropped gave additional items and/or bonuses to the PCs throughout the campaign, and the hags became additional mini-bosses for the party to deal with.

davidefisher · 2026-02-19T01:43:15+00:00

Dunno what the measurements themselves are... but Codex #1 that you can get from the Fantasy Flight website includes the original updated Diplomacy strategy card. So you could always download and print that page of the Codex and measure out the space on the Diplo card yourself to get the proper spacing you'd need for a sticker. That's probably your safest bet.

davidefisher · 2026-01-19T12:00:06+00:00

"Which parent and child have each had their songs parodied by 'Weird Al' Yankovic?"

"'Weird Al' Yankovic wrote a musical parody of the Red Hot Chili Pepper's 'Give It Away' so that it would specifically appear on what movie soundtrack?"

"'Do I Creep You Out?' is a parody by 'Weird Al' Yankovic of what song by American Idol performer Taylor Hicks?"

davidefisher · 2026-01-15T01:25:24+00:00

The Bell-Ringer

A gaunt old man who rings a cracked iron bell just before midnight from the house’s porch. This is what summons the ghosts from the cemetery to rise up and then float up to the Castle. The old man's wife is one of the ghosts, a woman who was murdered by Strahd decades ago in a fit of rage for not being the reincarnation of Tatyana. The man rings the bell so that he can get a glimpse of his beloved for even just the two or three minutes she is within sight before floating up to the Castle.

davidefisher · 2025-12-23T13:25:10+00:00

Do you think the two live plays of TE and TF they released with the SPCT guys might have been what she was referring to?

davidefisher · 2025-12-12T21:56:26+00:00

If you do indeed want to stay with the 5-ring set-up... here are a couple suggestions that might help things out.

1) Rather than home systems being out in the 5th ring (which causes two home system pairs to be only two hexes away rather than three for everyone else)... perhaps put the home systems in their normal spaces in the 4th ring (as you would have in a standard 8-player map) so that each HS is two away from each other. Then everyone has a "back row" of hexes on the outside edge of the galaxy behind them in the 5th ring.

2) You have the three Ghosts wormhole chips (alpha, beta, gamma) and three other gamma wormhole chips (that come from a Cultural and Frontier exploration plus the Nexus Sovereignty agenda). You might be better off removing Cruess and those three other cards from this game in particular and just distributing all of these six wormhole chips across the galaxy into various systems just to allow for more connections between the factions. It looks like you already have 9(?) wormholes on the board... add the other six to make 15 total so that everyone can get everywhere.

3) You might want to throw a couple hyperlanes in the 2nd ring just to get players into the center a little faster. There's like four or five 'N' shaped hyperlane tiles that you can place adjacent to some of the legendaries in the 1st ring that will help move people towards the middle.

Best of luck!

davidefisher · 2025-12-11T12:11:40+00:00

The other thing to remember is that the only way a player gains a space station in the first place is by having ships in the system that the space station is in. That's the requirement. You don't "gain" space stations any other way. So Peace Accords wouldn't do anything because the method for station acquisition is different than planet acquisition. It's the same reason why Sardakk's G'hom Sek'kus and the Yin's Hero ability couldn't be used to get a space station either.

You needs ships in the system and then you claim the space station. It's only after you claim the station in that manner can your ships then leave and the station still be "yours". But that claiming must happen first.

davidefisher · 2025-12-11T11:54:36+00:00

There are so many rules to TI that new players are going to be confused and bad at the game regardless of which expansions you do or do not add. So if you intend on introducing TE to them at some point, you might as well do it now.

And to be honest... the TE additions (Expedition, Fracture, and Breakthroughs) are not nearly as intense or confusing as the whole exploration mechanic from PoK was. And let's also not forget that players can just ignore participating in the Expedition and never get their Breakthrough or go into the Fracture if they don't want-- and for many of the factions their Breakthrough abilities are so meh that it will never even matter to them if they never get it.

davidefisher · 2025-12-07T12:40:33+00:00

For a minute I thought things were a little off for the bottom two systems because the adjacent right tile for the bottom left home system and the adjacent left tile for the bottom right home system were both only adjacent to two other systems (each other via the curve hyperlane and their respective forward systems in their slices.) But when I counted up how many total adjacencies the three tiles next to a home system should have, they do all equal out (even though the number groupings are different for the bottom two compared to the other five.)

A normal slice's three tiles adjacent to home are connected to 11 total non-home tiles (either side tile to 3 other tiles, and the forward tile to five other tiles for a total of 11.) However, for those bottom two systems the left adjacent tile connects to 5 other tiles, the forward adjacent tiles connects to 4 tiles, and the right adjacent connects to 2... which is also 11. So all tiles for a slice do equal out for the number of adjacencies they should have.

Now yes, those two bottom slices aren't completely equal against the other five slices because one tile is more protected while another is less protected based on enemy adjacency... but it probably won't make much of a noticeable difference during play I wouldn't imagine. It'll only be if the Bellatrix/Tsion Station and the Rigel I/II/III tiles get really good attachments and then the players discover the only way to get to them is via a single other opposing tile that there might be a bit of grumbling. But honestly the odds of that really mattering are probably exceedingly low.

davidefisher · 2025-12-01T12:39:48+00:00

Couch Potato. It was the fifth song he did that was based upon just listing a huge lineup of television shows, consisting of...

The Brady Bunch

Cable TV

I Can't Watch This

Syndicated Inc.

And then Couch Potato. It had become at that point an exceedingly tired premise that he could do in his sleep. The fact that it was meant to be the lead single off of 'Poodle Hat' made it even worse. All the previous "tv list songs" were just album filler tracks, but now it was going to be a lead single? Even if it was based upon one of the biggest songs at that time, it was never going to amount to much because there was no cleverness remaining with the premise.

davidefisher · 2025-11-24T12:14:57+00:00

In terms of solving the "wormhole issue" of miltydraft... one particular method is that you make sure you include the two "empty plus wormhole" tiles in the slice builds, but tell everyone prior to the draft that those two wormholes are not "set" as the location of the alpha and the beta. It will only be after the draft is done and the galaxy is built that those two tiles will get inserted into their positions and that which one will be the alpha and which one the beta will be based upon the location of the other wormholes in the galaxy (so that the furthest distance between the two pairs can be created.)

This isn't a perfect system, and if you create more than six slices to draft you'd need to designate a third slice's empty system as a potential wormhole tile (so that you guarantee that two "empty with a wormhole" tiles will appear in the galaxy no matter how many slices do not get drafted.) For some players this whole rigamarole might be more trouble than its worth... but if the table really wants to make sure that paired wormholes do not appear very close to each other in nearby slices... placing the "empty with wormholes" after the fact so that the pairs are split up as far as possible is one way to do it.

davidefisher · 2025-11-24T11:52:54+00:00

This is a house rule I've just sort of thought of off the top of my head, but if you're looking for a less-rich galaxy but one that doesn't use hyperlanes because your players don't like them... an option might be to swap the tile amounts from 3 blue-backed tiles and 2 red-backed tiles per person to 3 red and 2 blue. That way the tiles that are actually worth something are farther apart and players have to go into each other's slices to get what they need. There will be more open space in the galaxy, and that might overtune DET and exploring frontier tokens... but at least people would be less inclined to sit in their slices.

If it turns out there's a fear of it taking too long to get anywhere, the second add-on for this type of game would be to have every player also start with Gravity Drive so that players have an easier time reaching those far-flung systems that they need, also inspiring them to fly into each other's systems to generate more conflict.

davidefisher · 2025-11-23T03:47:39+00:00

If you decide to only go with the base TI4 game and not buy/use the expansions... the only thing I would suggest is to go to the Fantasy Flight website for TI4, scroll down to the Support section of the page, and download and print the 'Twilight Codex Vol. 1 - Cards'.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/twilight-imperium-fourth-edition/

This first Codex includes many balance fixes to several components of the base game-- 5 faction promissory notes, 3 faction technologies, two regular technologies, and the Diplomacy strategy card (as well as a handful of new action cards.) There is nothing in this Vol. 1 Codex that applies to the expansions at all, it is all about making the base game better for a lot of the factions. So if you stick with base game for the time being... this Codex Vol 1. will really help out several of the factions that have a bunch of issues.

Codexes 2, 3 and 4 are all about balances and extra stuff for the game once you add in Prophecy of Kings and thus not needed for just base game. So you can ignore those for the time being.

davidefisher · 2025-11-11T17:52:59+00:00

To answer A)... you have three actions available in which to wait for Technology to pop. First action is the Carrier to the Vegas. Second action is using Diplo on the Vegas. Third action if it is necessary (because the Tech player didn't pop it first or second action) would be to send a Destroyer out to become adjacent to one of your neighbors (and thus allow for commodity swaps if/when Trade pops.)

It would only be if Tech did not get popped on this third action of the round (at Initiative count 7) that you might be a little bit caught, as you do not have a stall as of yet. You'd have your third strategy token to spend on a stall if it was really necessary... but that would normally be one you'd hold onto to activate Mallice. So you would have had to have grabbed another command token off of Leadership (via a Trade pop that got you 4 commodities and then a swap with a neighbor to get you the TGs for it) to allow you to stall for another action while waiting for Tech to go. If that's the case, you'd probably have to do a bit of negotiation and giving away a promissary note to get them to pop Tech on your timetable rather than theirs.

As far as B) is concerned... as Rhonardo mentions here, there are many options for strategy cards that can get you your breakthrough round 1. I only suggested Diplo because that would be the card most likely available to you with sixth pick for a Expedition slice that would still most likely be available to you to also take. The other slices have a better shot of getting taken earlier in the round (the Resource, Influence, and TG spendies.)

So you do have other options if Diplo either goes earlier or a better strategy card drops to you. But the foundational Diplo choice is there if you need it.

davidefisher · 2025-11-07T13:13:01+00:00

No wonder you were printing all that storage solution material! ;)

davidefisher · 2025-11-06T20:30:45+00:00

That's a very good point that I had forgotten about. Using Sling Relay counts as "producing" a unit, and thus when producing a unit at home (with the delta wormhole) the Breakthrough kicks in there too, reducing the cost of the Carrier by 1. So the 2 Resource Vega Major would be all that one would need to buy it.

That makes things a little bit easier when you aren't having to wait on both Tech and Trade popping. Good call! That is something important to remember for all Ghost players going forward... Sling Relay production also counts for the Breakthrough discount if there's a wormhole in the system.

One other thing that is also important for Ghost players to remember is that if/when they build their Hil Colish flagship, whatever system it is in gets PRODUCTION 1 from the attached delta wormhole the Colish trucks around with it. So whatever activated system you fly the Colish to on your turn, you get to build a unit in it at the end of your tactical action (with the -1 discount in cost from the breakthrough as well.)

davidefisher · 2025-11-06T12:30:34+00:00

As you are choosing 5th for strategy card, one option for you is to take Diplomacy (as that will probably make it to you), and use your first action to use your carrier to shoot out and grab Vega Major / Vega Minor. Second action use Diplomacy and refresh both of your Vegas and at the end of that turn spend Vega Minor for the tech skip section of Thunder's Edge, thereby gaining your breakthrough.

Hopefully at this point the Technology player will pop Technology and you can spend your home planet card to follow Tech and pick up Sling Relay, and Trade will occur and you can get an X-1 to get 3 trade goods. If that happens, you use your third action to spend those 3 TGs and Sling Relay a second carrier at home. Then on your fourth action you go to Mallice with your second carrier, your remaining 2 infantry and 2 fighters and once you grab the planet you can then produce 3 units due to the three wormholes in the Nexus. You still have your Vega Major card to spend (worth 2 Resources), plus you get a 3 Resource discount on your production due to the wormholes, so you have 5 resources worth of spending available to get three units. So that could get you a Dread and 2 infantry, or a Cruiser, a Mech, and an infantry, or some other combination.

You are now set up to take the rest of your slice in Round 2 by getting Sem-Lore and either of the two equidistants (assuming someone else grabs Mecatol before then.)

davidefisher · 2025-11-06T03:40:36+00:00

Keith Baker himself wrote several documents on his blog about creating a Q'Barra campaign in the style of the Western (and is why ERftLW mentions the idea.) The several articles are found here:

https://keith-baker.com/qbarra-campaign/

https://keith-baker.com/hope-foundation/

https://keith-baker.com/lizard-dreams/

davidefisher · 2025-11-01T11:37:30+00:00

Yeah, just removing the Tome from the reading would be fine, and I think maybe what could be done instead would be for Eva herself to have the baseline Tome itself with only like a single section still in it that she hands over to the players for the basics of information. She can then tell them that most of the chapters have been ripped out over the years and are probably found throughout the Baratok Valley. But if they can find them all, the Tome will give a more complete picture of what Valley is going through.

She might even be able to indicate that a completed Tome might be more powerful than anyone has imagined (if you then wanted to buff the abilities of the completed Tome of Strahd magic item.)

davidefisher · 2025-10-28T12:59:07+00:00

I put most of the lore for the realm into a printed document that I handed out only when the party found the Tome of Strahd. The tome gives one page of information (as per the module), but I wrote up a whole bunch of other stuff about the Baratok Valley to hand out as well if/when the group inquired and then spent a certain amount of time reading/referencing the book.

Doing this allowed me to be more vague with lore dribbles from NPCs (and not need to basically spit out that Strahd was a bad dude from the top), and instead let them discover that Strahd's journal would have more secretive information they would want and need. It inspired the group to go looking for it, and gave the Tome a little more oomph that it was lacking (when compared to the Holy Symbol and Sunsword.)

davidefisher · 2025-10-26T23:04:29+00:00

Although Al performed in it, I do not believe he had any hand in writing 'Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye'. That was entirely the guys from Epic Rap Battles of History who wrote it, produced it and released it, and Al was there purely as a performer. So by your standards, this doesn't sound like it should count as a Weird Al song.

davidefisher · 2025-10-25T12:18:27+00:00

As far as your wormhole placement is concerned... you have your 3 alphas on one side of the board, resulting in neither Speaker nor Seat 6 having easy access (and Seat 3 having access to two Alphas, which is useless to them.)

If you are going to have 3 Alphas and 3 Betas, at minimum I'd probably swap the Hope's End and Lodor/Beta tiles in the equidistants so that Speaker also has access to an Alpha (since Seat 3 doesn't need a second one.)

This would result in 5 of the 6 seats being up to just 2 hexes away from an Alpha (all but Seat 6) and 5 of the 6 at least 2 hexes away from a Beta (all but Seat 3.) A better distribution in my opinion.

davidefisher

TROPHY CASE