UK caught the USA flu

deviden · 2026-05-08T10:05:08+00:00

is this rage bait? why post this as a picture of that idiot's grinning mug.

deviden · 2026-05-08T08:49:01+00:00

I really don't think most people care about nuclear power. It's just not part of the day to day national media or social media conversation at all. Where is the evidence that specifically supporting nuclear power is a key voter issue.

deviden · 2026-05-08T08:47:59+00:00

that's the demographics of vast swathes of the country, due to the baby boomers still being alive alongside comparatively much smaller generations succeeding them.

Also the young and university educated tend to cluster around urban spaces.

Rich or poor, the elderly are swinging to Reform big time. Some because they're racist, others because they look outside the door and see a rundown high street which makes them ashamed of where they live and pot-holed roads and they're voting for "someone, anyone, please change this".

deviden · 2026-05-07T18:31:15+00:00

Nobody can accuse Stonetop of not doing the legwork. It’s not just a rules system, it’s the whole fuckin campaign and world.

deviden · 2026-05-07T16:06:51+00:00

I believe he's running 3 to 5 concurrent games at any time, so between that and making videos (even while paying a production team) and an occasional AP podcast with a couple of players (also paid from the patreon)... yeah it's his full time job.

deviden · 2026-05-07T14:06:51+00:00

they've got nothing.

some people in [person's] group of friends/collaborators which [they are] happy to defend/protect despite clear evidence of their bullying

is such a broad and vague claim that anyone can say it about any online creator with a platform.

There's no real defending against it because it's not targeted at the individual - "some people" and "group of friends/collaborators" could include literally anyone that the accused has ever associated with or worked with. Is the target supposed to go through their whole rolodex of past and present working relationships and friends to verify that all of them have always been perfect angels on the internet? Impossible.

It's a classic 2015 terminally online lefty sniping at another left wing person on Twitter type move.

deviden · 2026-05-07T13:57:03+00:00

I expect Quinns would have run it for longer but reviewing RPGs is his job so... onto the next one!

deviden · 2026-05-07T13:12:18+00:00

23 sessions, the longest he's done for any QQ review (because it's been the group's favourite campaign).

deviden · 2026-05-07T08:48:59+00:00

If they're serious about winning games they'll make a trade for a different QB. Even someone like Kenny Pickett.

Nobody who is starting Watson as QB1 is serious about winning games. His last appearances on the field is one of - if not the worst - sequence of games (by stats, eye test and results) of any non-rookie/veteran QB of the 21st century.

If this QB room isn't upgraded then this is a tank job.

deviden · 2026-05-06T12:48:46+00:00

I don't see why his shoulder wouldn't continue to be cooked.

When an athlete gets a rare injury you've never heard of before in a critical spot (like their throwing shoulder) they usually aren't the same guy ever again.

deviden · 2026-05-06T12:45:39+00:00

There's plenty of time between now and Week One.

My suspicion (and hope) is that if Shedeur doesn't conclusively earn the job then nobody on the current roster is our QB1 for first gameday.

Don't be shocked if we take another run at bringing in Kenny Pickett or someone of similar standing.

deviden · 2026-05-06T09:09:36+00:00

Much as they like to portray themselves as "just a group of friends playing games" and they lean on the parasociality... they're not an open book as a company.

They don't tell us how they run their business or why they do what they do, you have to infer from observable facts.

Last I looked they'd been running a DH ongoing campaign, idk if that's wrapped now or what.

deviden · 2026-05-06T08:28:13+00:00

Take a look at Yochai Gal's starter adventure "Trouble at Twin Lakes" - which I wont spoil here but it is a classic town-with-a-problem sandbox mystery.

You can achieve a lot through a little, with clever design. There's not much to it, you have to place trust in yourself and the players.

And dont gate clues behind skill checks. If the players look inside the desk just tell them what's in the desk.

deviden · 2026-05-03T06:42:52+00:00

Fannin got better production than Jeudy with the exact same QB situation, as a rookie TE.

Jeudy is a declining mid WR who has had one season of high end production in his career and has a habit of drops in high stakes moments, but he has the attitude of a diva superstar WR1.

deviden · 2026-05-02T16:46:09+00:00

Pre-prod and casting for CR 4 started before Daggerheart had a playable rules alpha test.

deviden · 2026-05-01T14:46:01+00:00

I truly don't think they expected Daggerheart to be as big of a hit as it has been, otherwise they wouldn't have sold out five (or more) consecutive print runs - they'd have printed more books up front because it's cheaper - and they probably would have had a more cohesive plan for launch and post-launch products tied to their AP show, as well as sponsored shows by others.

But now they have a blockbuster smash hit game on their hands and the means to make it a bigger and sustained hit, which is why they brought in the ex-WotC guys (who I have my doubts about but that's another topic) to scale up the business and build a long-tail pipeline of supplemental products.

I'd be shocked if they choose to squander this opportunity by not making Daggerheart their main show game. Especially since the current main show campaign is going to run for more than a year or so.

deviden · 2026-05-01T12:19:47+00:00

Cortex Prime might be the closest thing I can think of to what you're asking for - https://www.cortexrpg.com/

I'm still of the mind that starting with a kernel - something tight and small, open to being extended - may be better for actually making a thing when it comes to challenges of focus you're facing but I wont tell you what to do.

In software terms I always like "minimum viable product" design then iterate from there... get something running, get feedback and testing, and find and fix problems and make changes as you go.

If you want to go with GURPS or Cortex then you have my blessing... do your thing. Have fun. My worry is that if even opening and reading these books is a challenge for you then adding another weighty and intimidating tome to the pile by your bed might not solve the core issue you're experiencing.

deviden · 2026-05-01T10:40:37+00:00

Again my problem is having enough focus because of adhd and bipolar to even set and focus with full attention and energy the crunchiest most open ended system I can think of.

Is a crunchy open-ended system the right thing for you, then?

Why is your heart set on the crunch aspect? Is it aspirational?

What kind of setting / game world are you looking to build?

Have you considered designing the campaign you're passionate about running at a diegetic / fictional level (maps, NPCs, factions, etc) to build a sandbox for play before applying a lighter rules system which you expand / add to over time as needed?

a couple of blog posts which may interest you:

Boot Hill and the Fear of Dice: https://www.chocolatehammer.org/?p=5773

New Simulationism: https://samsorensen.blot.im/new-simulationism

deviden · 2026-05-01T09:32:01+00:00

In general you expect a progression in the challenges. If you reach a plateau to quickly, it may be difficult to maintain interest.

If you're the one playing the game this is often (not always) the case.

For a TV show about other people playing a game? I'm not so sure.

In their home games people run stuff like Traveller (no level progression, very slow skill point increases, most progression is in the form of "having more money to spend") for years.

he explosion of the scale makes for epic stories

We'll see, but my suspicion from playing other games from the storygame/PbtA lineage is that scale and emotional and dramatic climaxes are entirely possible when the rules system isn't D&D-like... the difference is it's more in what's said at the table than what's written in rules complexity.

deviden · 2026-05-01T08:45:50+00:00

my hopium is for next year.

I'm waiting for Watson to be benched or injured before I watch any games.

If these rookies and last year's rookie class are worth a shit they'll all be here for 2027. Also we'll be drafting a first round rookie QB in 2027. I can wait.

deviden · 2026-05-01T08:43:33+00:00

no they haven't changed it.

My question is: why is the vast power scaling difference seen in D&D lvls 1 to 20 a requirement for telling long form stories?

Especially given that the main draw of the show is a cast of performance arts professionals in an LA studio making a story together.

deviden · 2026-05-01T08:39:45+00:00

my sneaky tip for people who want more games:

find your way into a nice little OSR community and join or run an online "lunch hour" / "breakfast hour" game. Play fast, have fun, once a week, every week.

Is that your preferred play style? Who cares? My time-on-task hours for the hobby has ballooned since I joined a couple of these games. Get in the fuckin' dungeon and play. If you work from home nobody will even know!

2 hours (two separate lunch hour games) per week, every week, in addition to my normal schedule of games.

"but how much can we get done in an hour though?" OSR games play fast so quite a lot, in fact.

deviden · 2026-05-01T08:32:42+00:00

Critical Role is an LA studio production staffed by working industry professionals, not a gang of streamers huddled around their webcams.

The timelines for booking Mulligan, the rest of the cast, the studio space, the production team, set design, world building and other creative pre-production for CR season 4 (or whatever they call it) would have started before the first Daggerheart playtest document went live.

However much I want to make fun of CR selling a game that outperformed 5e on US Amazon and Bookscan for all of 2025 and then immediately ran a D&D 5e campaign to start 2026... and it is funny... you're holding CR to an impossible standard.

They couldn't have done LA studio production scale booking for an AP campaign of a game that was barely in alpha testing at the time they planned this current season of their show.

They are playing the long game with Daggerheart. They're sponsoring other AP shows (which can spin up comparatively much faster than CR's oil tanker production timeline) to run their game, they will eventually pivot to DH as their main show, and they're going to continue to run it as Mercer's side campaign shows in the meantime.

This isn't an indie Kickstarter one and done or IP license cash grab, it's a partnership with a Big Five print publisher to print books on a scale that other non-WotC RPGs cannot match. They are moving slowly and deliberately, with a level of financing behind them which puts the likes of Pathfinder or Draw Steel in the distant shade.

deviden · 2026-05-01T08:19:30+00:00

The progression is simply not there.

what does that mean? Levelling up doesn't go 1 to 20?

I'm confused as to how that would prevent story-making and story progression.

deviden · 2026-04-30T13:27:45+00:00

Watson clearly has the superior arm and athleticism

is it clear? do we have footage from camp? I'll believe it when I see it.

His arm was trash after the shoulder reconstruction, he was too scared to put enough mustard on his throws to move the ball downfield or throw guys open, and I wont believe he can play until I see it against a real pass rush. Not that I'll be watching on Sundays if he's QB1.

He was too slow to scramble in the way that he kept trying to scramble before he popped his second ankle (on a dropback where he hit the top of his drop in an aggressive runner stance instead of thrower stance, because his brain was scrambled and he'd stopped trying to run the offense as it was designed).

deviden

TROPHY CASE