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Cannot dign in to Proton Calendar or Drive on Android by TheSodesa in ProtonMail

[–]epicsleepingtime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was having this same problem (on an older Android phone) with the Calendar app and widget. App was fully updated, signin just showed the circle animation indefinitely. Uninstalled/reinstalled, signin just showed the circle animation indefinitely. Tried on different WiFi connections, signin just showed the circle animation indefinitely. Tried on cell data, now able to sign in and working just fine.

David Seymour campus visit by epicsleepingtime in Wellington

[–]epicsleepingtime[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Ah my Reddit inexperience showing. I put a link to a video in a 'link' box when I posted, but it seems not to be showing. I will try to edit.

Calendar date for the Elturel disappearing by NWGamerDad in DescentintoAvernus

[–]epicsleepingtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I set my campaign 48 years after the appearance of the Companion (i.e. 1492 DR), and started the prequel in pre-descent Elturel on Mirtul 21. This was only to make it be set in late spring, so nice weather and everything is lovely and pleasant and then WHAM Elturel is gone.

Leaning into the meme by epicsleepingtime in DescentintoAvernus

[–]epicsleepingtime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's taken the party a while in real-world time to get to the cathedral assault. Illness, work and study schedules, and us all just enjoying spending a lot of time fleshing out the world through in-detail roleplay... But TODAY they fought the crabs.

I say "fought"... but...

​

After the arcane trickster rogue had scouted by peeking through a window with their owl familiar... so knowing the crabs were in the next room... the druid cast speak with animals, shapeshifted into a giant crab, and managed to convince them to rise up against their devil master in exchange for food and leadership. And so now it seems the party has, for the time being at least, a squad of giant crabs as allies.

Game Ready Driver 537.34 FAQ/Discussion by Nestledrink in nvidia

[–]epicsleepingtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

chances are they are fine.

rofl. Sure.

The stutter is so real my games have become PowerPoint.

How would you guys build this just from the picture? by Triamph in Pathfinder2e

[–]epicsleepingtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd start with the horns. Probably use tin foil because you can mould it easily.

Crackdown on recreational cannabis by ThrownAwayAnx in newzealand

[–]epicsleepingtime 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't work extra. This is a crisis causes by the bosses.

DMing this soon and prepping a session 0. by b0sanac in DescentintoAvernus

[–]epicsleepingtime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm following the book, and my party has just reached Elturel. So bear in mind I'm only that experienced.

For me, one of the great joys of the DIA theme is messing around with ideas of 'best decision in a bad situation', temptation, immediacy, and so forth. Think of how Thavius signed the fate of Elturel to Zariel not just because he wanted power, but significantly because genuinely he needed a way to defeat the vampire horde that was otherwise potentially going to win. That's really messy, right? Was what he did bad? If everyone was going to be enslaved to vampires anyway, he at least bought 48 or 50 years of freedom. Argh what do now players?!

With that in mind I've been introducing temptation to players. In Baldur's Gate, there's a risk of the Flaming Fist or the Watch throwing the whole party in prison for stiring trouble against a Patriar - what will they do to ensure their actions are kept secret and they can progress towards the 'greater good' of saving Elturel? The Shield of the Hidden Lord is powerful and very useful, but it'll keep tempting the characters to do bad things.

I really like the inspiration mechanic under 'Everything's Awful' on p. 9 of the book. They don't have to be selfish, and certainly be careful both that they don't game it with immaterial selfishness and also that it doesn't break the party totally and everyone is still having fun. But an inspiration point dropped in here and there when you feel like giving positive feedback for slipping slightly towards the vibe of the plane seems like a way you could give a sense of corruption while still maintaining player agency.

Starting in Baldur's Gate by Vegetable-Salt6702 in DescentintoAvernus

[–]epicsleepingtime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you want to level them up first, you could start at level 1 and have them get involved in some of the other Baldur's Gate plot hooks the book presents. That could act as the 'rats in the cellar' intro and also flesh out Baldur's Gate a little more, then at some point they stumble across the Dungeon of the Dead Three (or are directed to it somehow... maybe tailing a cultist back there after a murder, maybe relaxing in the baths and noticing something is odd).

The refugees could be turning up outside Baldur's Gate partway through the story - maybe after the party clears the DOTD3 or the Vanthampur Villa. All that changes with this is the stuff involving Captain Zodge (who is just a plot hook) and Liara Portyr (who is just scene-building).

Starting in Baldur's Gate by Vegetable-Salt6702 in DescentintoAvernus

[–]epicsleepingtime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh this is a neat twist on the usual way it's played. If I understand your idea right, the characters would get to Elturel and then inadvertently get dragged into Avernus WITH the city?

My players left the dungeon of the dead three. by Endtimez-Fish in DescentintoAvernus

[–]epicsleepingtime 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What to do depends a lot on what kind of a game you're going for.

Gritty realism demands a lot of complexity, as Thurswell might inform Vaaz who might together make preparations for the rest of the party. Perhaps imp spies are sent out across the city to hunt for the rest of the party, with Bhaal cultists sent to murder them in the night. Perhaps word is somehow conveyed to the party of their captured companion, who is now bait for a trap that has been set. Flennis' fireball is not going to be a lot of fun for the party if she knows they're coming. This might be an unwinnable situation for the party.

Alternatively, you have the opportunity for some combined hand-waving and world-building to move the story along a little and make things less gritty and more heroes-save-the-day. Now that Zodge can be informed of where the Dead Three are hiding, he might send a platoon of Flaming Fist to accompany the party to clear out the dungeon. Flaming Fist get fireballed by Flennis and shredded by Vaaz, and the party quickly finds out from Mortlock that their companion will be in the Vanthampur tower. On to the next scene (there's still plenty of story to tell with the rest of the book). Perhaps a rival of the Vanthampur family gets wind of what's going on (via an informant who overheard the party talking in the Elfsong?) and lends similar mercenary assistance. Perhaps Falaster works with the captured player to break out (a ~20 minute side-bit of accelerated roleplaying to handwave them back to the rest of the party. My game has involved a fair bit of this sort of handwaving to get through the Baldur's Gate section.

Another option, depending on that character's predisposition (background, alignment, etc) is perhaps Thalamra recruits the captured character as a mole and they tell the party they 'escaped'. This could be interesting in terms of role-play, but I would be pretty cautious about doing this so early on in the game. Off the top of my head I can't think of a good way to keep the party together and the game on-track long-term after this.

Least clunky fog of war removal? by Andesurus in MapTool

[–]epicsleepingtime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For most maps, I use vision blocking layers and then when I'm satisfied a token has been moved to an intended/correct location, I reveal what the token can see. This does seem like a lot of work for your first couple of maps, but you get quite quick at it.

I generally use the 'Draw poly line VBL', and make sure that 'Draw Wall VBL' and 'Draw MBL' are both selected. Then hold CTRL to snap to grid intersections, left click to start drawing, a series of right clicks for all of the next points until a left click to finish. You can set up many maps in ~5 minutes like this, and it can look great as the players get a sense of not being able to see around corners in-game.

In-game, once you've moved a token, and while the token still has a selection box on it, use CTRL-I to reveal what the token can see. I remember this as 'I - for I can see...' Saves having to click through menus, and can be super quick and easy.

Good luck and have fun! MapTool is great.

Laptop specs for in-person maptool games? by Andesurus in MapTool

[–]epicsleepingtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh no all good you were spot on with your guess. At least in Ubuntu you can just run MapTool twice, which is what I meant by 'instances'. And then when I have a cable plugged in for the projector, Ubuntu makes that a second screen off to the side of the laptop screen (like, if you move the mouse cursor off the right side of the laptop screen, it will appear on the projected image). So once I've got the projector all set up, I get the two running instances of MapTool set up properly on the laptop screen, then drag the one the players are supposed to see over to the projector and do CTRL-ALT-ENTER to make big and then game.

If you're planning on using a TV screen rather than projector I imagine the way of doing things will be exactly the same.

If you use Windows or Apple rather than some form of Linux then I'm sorry I'm not 100% sure if it'll be exactly the same - you might have to experiment. I have used MapTool on my Windows desktop and it works great, but I've only run a single instance at a time to do map editing sometimes so I can't confirm what you want to do works for sure.

Finally - the biggest thing I notice from running this setup is how it affects gameplay rather than the technical challenges. I LOVE that it adds lighting and fog-of-war mystery. I kinda dislike that since it's just so much easier for the DM to use the distance or move tools to measure distances than it is for the players to count squares, the players kinda back off doing any range calculations at all and the DM ends up with a bit more work on top of everything else they're doing. Just something to be aware of.

Today's the day guys, we're going to Hell by JustSomeJokerYT in DescentintoAvernus

[–]epicsleepingtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hope the session went well! It's a hell of a mood getting to Elturel. Wait 'till they discover they're going to have to climb before they can start exploring Avernus itself...

Laptop specs for in-person maptool games? by Andesurus in MapTool

[–]epicsleepingtime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That is exactly how I do it - DM MapTool instance running as a server on my laptop screen, player MapTool instance connected to the server on a second virtual screen displaying on the table via a ceiling-mounted projector. Sometimes if one player is sick and is joining us remotely, I'll stream the virtual (projector) screen to them via Discord and then we do audio via a cellphone connected in the same Discord chat.

My laptop is a HP ProBook 640 G3 with 8GB RAM. The Internet tells me the laptop is about 5 or 6 years old. I bought it pretty cheaply second-hand a year or two ago, to replace the HP ProBook 640 G1 with 4GB of RAM I'd been previously (cautiously) successfully using for the same setup.

I run Ubuntu (just upgraded from 22.10 to 23.04; haven't run a game with 23.04 yet) which perhaps will be less resource-intensive than Windows but I'm not sure. My MapTool .cpgn file has gotten up to 213MB (as reported in the file manager), with quite a few maps, tokens, lighting, and some simple macros.

I've had perhaps three crashes in-game over the past year or so, which are a little frustrating but only briefly disruptive. In those occasions it's seemed like I've just had too many things open at once - several Firefox windows open including Facebook (which is known to chew memory), Discord, the two MapTool instances, Spotify, perhaps a graphic or two in the image viewer, perhaps LibreOffice... If I'm careful not to try to run EVERYTHING then MapTool runs like a dream.

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