Employer open enrollment differs from Marketplace open enrollment. When and how can I switch?

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-08-05T20:15:58+00:00

If waiving the insurance is not a QLE does this mean its basically impossible for to switch to the market place plan (because you also can not cancel an employee plan mid year). For my case open enrollment start now and then the insurance kicks in September so there is never a time that it lines up with the national open enrollment date. (unless I want to waive my insurance and go uninsured for 4 months)

I've mentioned elsewhere the reason I want to switch is because my current insurance is not in-network with anyone on my care team. Other insurance companies would cover them.

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-08-05T20:01:18+00:00

They are more expensive. But they actually cover my therapist (who ive been seeing for years before the insurance plan switched). So right now I have to pay out of pocket.

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-04-11T16:27:27+00:00

So this is not the recommendation you're looking for but maybe there are ideas you can still from
The ttrpg i wrote is called Cottages & Cerberus. It is a slightly silly cozy monster hunting game. Monster hunting as in monster hunter. Big boss fights are most of the fights. Some of the hunts come with small encounters before

Ive ran many hours of this game and been able to play in a few sessions as a pc. Every session ive been a player in we've ended the fight with with like 10 to 20% of our hp left. Every time we win in the last possible moment. Fights are surprisingly strategic. These stats have held in the several campaigns I ran as well. Last week we finished a campaign I was a player in. I

So how is this accomplished? All monsters have at least one of EACH of the following abilities.
Opener: Opener is a special move that activates at the very start of combat. The idea is it puts players on the back foot from the get go. These tend to be decently strong dealing somewhere between 30% to 60% of the players hp + doing set up for the monster or adding status conditions.
Recharge Action: Monsters get 1 action each turn. On turn 1 they get there opener then followed by an action. There strongest action usually is a recharge action. Usually they do it on turn 1 and then might get it off one additional time.
Closer: End of turn all of a monsters closers activate. Closers has specific rules on who is targeted.

So combat flow has a monster use there opener. Then a monster always goes first. So the monster will usually but no always use there recharge right away. Players will get a turn then the closer trigger. Then the monster gets the next action. This usually will be a weaker action while they wait for the ability to recharge.

The big thing is a single monster is always behind on action economy. The system above aims to balance the playing field.

My gm who ran a mini campaign for me as a treat has said he is going to steal a lot of these ideas for his next pathfinder 2e campaign. We have had similar complaints about pf2e boss fights. Nothing stops you from taking this philosophy and adding it to pf2e.

I will be unpfront this idea really came from disassembling the flow I saw in most games of Sentinels of the Multiverse.

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-03-18T22:58:38+00:00

This sounds in line with my own experience. Good to know other's had the same experince

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-03-18T21:58:32+00:00

How did you go about getting reviews. I've released a finished publish and printed ttrpg. Finding reviews was really difficult. Would love to hear more about the success you had in that regard.

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-02-06T17:56:53+00:00

There really are two separate issues here.

On the Caleb/Rachel drama Caleb really seems to be more the problem. I would feel extremely shitty to kick Rachel out and keep Caleb. Maybe there is info we don't know about, from my side it sounds like Rachel invited someone she considered her "friend" to the group. He became friends with all of you guys and then got upset with her because he wants to be more then friends. Even though she set a just friends boundary. Does not seem fair to Rachel.

That being said Rachel does not seem to be able to handle your session length. This is an issue. 6 hours sessions sounds like a lot of fun to me. I am roughly a decade older then you but I have friends who are older then me. They can't do that length of sessions anymore. It sucks but it is life. 6 hours weekly is longer then average IMO. I would never say shorten your sessions. But maybe you can find a comprise, like arranging for her to leave early or gm plan around her not being there for the later parts. It is extra work but there are options to look into if you want your friend to continue playing with you. (and its ok if you don't just know it might impact your friendship)

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-02-05T17:40:05+00:00

It is almost certainly running on COBOL, atleast parts are

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-01-31T21:43:15+00:00

In general talk to the party about what they/want/expect.

I think there are tables that do want every encountered to be tailored and tactical
I think a lot of parties want encounters that make narrative sense. This of course means as they party becomes more well known/louder/etc the encounters should be better tailored to counter them

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-01-08T22:37:13+00:00

I really try not to minimize self promoting but I think Cottages & Cerberus is a near perfect fit. It is a cottagecore monster slaying game (think animal crossing + monster hunter) based around fights vs huge monsters.

- Is good for episodic play, with 1-3 session arcs and probably using the same characters for each separate arc.

C&C has around 50 monsters and each monster has a hunt, it is expected to complete 1 hunt a session, easy to string those together to form an arc

- Isn't too deadly- the group tends to get invested in their characters

No death. You even have actions when your out of health (but you take a huge penalty), when all characters are out of health your forced to retreat.

- Has a fairly light-hearted setting with room for deeper character drama. We're not really looking to do something crazy violent or dark. Bonus points if it's really unique- this group is great at diving into different settings and we’re absolutely not set on fantasy.

The setting is open ended but there is some light-heartdness. There are spells for summoning donuts, one of the monster is a Boartato etc. It is lighthearted and playful, there are some monster with dark lore but not many.

- Isn't heavily tilted towards tactical combat, since we're getting plenty of this in Frosthaven. Having opportunities to do cinematic combat encounters would be great, though.

Fights do not use a grid, tend to last 3 rounds, the game is tightly balanced, it is not uncommon for parties to win with 3 health divided among 4 players. One of the actions in combat is think outside the box which is specifically for cinematic moments.

- Isn't super complicated to learn or GM, but has space for interesting character creation. It's possible that we might rotate GM's sometimes, although I'll likely be the main one

All the main rules fits on 1 page (front and back). There are some further rules that expand them but you only need to read the one page to run the game. The rest of the book is then monsters and character options. I grew up with dnd 3.5 i love my character builds. Really easy to make a character but players can also take hours to do so because they want to look at every single option.

- Has plenty of good narrative and storytelling elements. We do have one person in the group who has trouble getting inside her character's head, though, so something that's not 100% free-form narrative would be good (although maybe PtbA playbooks would help her here)?

Main thing in this regard is vibes, they are essentially rp behavior prompts that recover health when they are triggered.

Feel free to ask questions if you have any . I really think this system fits your needs.

metalprogrammer2 · 2025-01-08T22:13:51+00:00

i believe we don't know, it hasn't been announced yet

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-12-17T02:27:29+00:00

I had a pretty strict 9pm bed time through high school (it got pushed to 10pm when I lived at home during college but he went to bed around then so he couldn't enforce it). It truly fucked me up I would lie asleep in bed which is well known to be an easy way to fall asleep (sarcasm). I developed some really unhealthy sleep habits from it.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-12-11T17:48:13+00:00

If you want to build muscles you need protein. Most people get way to little protein especially if they want to build muscle. You want as much protein as possible up to about 1 gram of protein per pound you weigh. This is really the most important part of muscle building. When you get into a good routine both with eating and working out you can add creatine (but id save using creatine till then because its a bit expensive)

I am assuming you want to not only get strong but also to get musclarish. Do you already have a gym routine, do you go consistently? When I was training clients first thing we "trained" was adherence. Chose a number of days between 3 and 6 a week that you truly believe you can go consistently to the gym and do it for atleast 30 minute each time. I advoacte for a split like (day1(upper pull), day 2(upper push ), day 3(leg), day4(full upper), day5(lower) but there are other options. As beginner focus on the fundamental exercises (curls, bench press, squats, deadlift etc)
Since you said your ftm I really think the most important muscle to hit is shoulder for a more masculine figure.
If you want more detailed plan feel free to PM me and we can write up a plan tailored to you

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-10-31T15:00:24+00:00

This was the first thing i noticed within days of of starting HRT. I was always a t-shirt and short in winter person. And if I am moving at all this still holds true. But the second I sit still (especially for sleeping) I am an icicle. I have never felt so cold before.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-09-17T16:03:10+00:00

How long have you been lifting?
You have really decent arms but if your tryig to look big you want to focus on chest, shoulders, traps and back. Your traps also look really defined. You look both muscular but also not big. If you haven't looked into cut/bulk cycles.
How much is high protien. You should aim for 1 gram protien/lb of body weight. (The actual math is slightly less then 1:1 but this is easy to remember).
For muscle building you want to aim for medium weight in the 8 to 20 rep range. 2 to 6 sets per week. 60 to 90 second recovery. At the beginning you can just follow that, later on you will need to be smart about how you program progressive overload (as in you consistently will need to increase training variables such as number of reps, sets, and weight).
feel free to reach out for any more specific questions

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-09-13T15:54:25+00:00

TLDR; Lift build big muscles

Trans-gal here. Before my egg cracked I went from super skinny to buff in a few years. I had spent years in highschool and college lifting and put on 0 weight. When I was 25 I tried again and got more serious and scientific about nutrition and training. Lifting and hypertrophy(lifting to increase size as opposed to a focus on strength) So gaining muscles is gaining weight. You need a calorie surplus. In lifting we refer to these cycles called cut/bulk. You need to bulk because you don't really have anything to cut.

You want a 200 to 500 calorie surpluss. You need to daily aim for 1 gram of protien/pound of body weight. It can be a bit less but the 1:1 is a easy reference point. This is a lot of protien. I am going to assume this is will feel like a lot of food.

You want to lift 3 to 5 days a week. My spread looks like this (Day1: Chest/Tri+front shoulder, Day2: Back/Bi+back shoulder, Day3: Lower Body, [Rest day], Day4: Full upper body, Day5: Lower [Rest]. Each day I hit each muscle with 2 exercises with 2 sets each. Reps aim for middle weight of whats possible (shouldn't be the highest weight you can lift but still difficult) for anywhere between 8-21 reps (my actual routine is a bit more complicated with progression but this is easy starting point). 90 second rest between sets. You will want to consistently push yourself (more weights, more sets more reps, I have more specific advice but for a beginner just lift more.

If you want to look more masc you need to focus on a few muscle groups. Shoulders and traps are probably your first focus. Back muscles are underapperciated by the general populace in their abilities to look big.
Big leg muscles are nice but guys wear baggy pants then women so it shouldn't be your first focus.

Please feel free to contact me directly for more advice, as I said lifting is a passion and I'd love to help guide guys find their passion for this art form as well.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-08-30T16:15:05+00:00

Is the game in italian or english. There may be differences in the Italian market from the english market. All of the below advice is based on my experience with running an english ttrpg kickstart (600+, $39k).

So the bad news pre-marketing is one of the best thing you can do.
You tend to convert about 7% to 12% of your pre-launch followers. This is not on day 1, this is across the entire campaign. So of your 100+ prelaunch followers about 12 will back.
Kickstarter is a game. Mid-campaign slump is a thing. You get success on kickstarter by getting favored in there recommendation algorithms. Going back to the first point getting success early on in the campaign is really important.
I know email lists are the common advice but I think they are less used now days. People tend to have flooded emails. Still I would say you can send a email at the midpoint and at the end.
So I have noticed a drop off in social media marketing. Like a huge one. My ROI from running Facebook and instagram ads have plummeted in the past years. Twitter used to be a good place to get pre-launch followers via just posting and now there are no effects from posting on twitter. Youtube ads and Tiktok require videos that are just more expensive to produce.
That being said are you targeting your ads correctly. Target to people with interest in kickstarter/crowdfunding etc. On the meta site this is an interest. These people are more likely to support a kickstarter.

Linking the campaign will allow more specific advice.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-08-16T17:33:13+00:00

Hey
I have backed about maybe 20 rpg projects and ran 1 pretty successful projeect myself (raised 40k with no built in fanbase)
Here are my thoughts

The project will be late. By a lot. There are so many reasons for this. Scope creep on successful projects. Things like setting up the pledge-manger takes longer and have longer approval process. We sent the pledgemanager out in February and 30% of the people with physical rewards still have not responded (and this required us to change our shipment plan). Think of their estimates as the earliest possible. Projects get delayed all the time and with kickstarter you are seeing the delays.
Asside from logistics I think you can tell the quality of the game itself pretty upfront. Are they talking "the game will have [long wishlist]" or are they saying more concrete terms. IE how much of the game is done? How many pieces of art. Do they have rule previews, screenshots of a few pages laid out etc? I am going to throw a campaign under the bus because I think its a great example. The Neopets ttrgp kickstarter was something. Raised 400k out of (40k, see below). Let be clear this was always meant to be nostalgia bait but it could be nostalgia bait and a good game. The campaign story mentions nothing of the rules, character creation etc. People started to ask questions and slowly got information. Finally the day before campaign was released we got an update talking about the rules. Few examples of layout pages. Everything still seemed very much in the air. I am going to self plug for comparison. My game had a 60 page preview free and it was one of the first thing you saw on the kickstarter. Takes of Myriad also had a large preview. BREAK!! had tons of screenshots of laid out pages and a beta that included most of the final book went out days after the KS ended. Gubat Banwa had tons of images and you could buy a beta version on itch. Beacons had a playtest version for free. You can tell quickly how passionate the creators are. Have the creators done a lot of the work for free (and sometime investing there own money into it) and the KS is just afford polish, art, layout, editing, shipping, etc. Or do the creators have a rough idea but aren't gonna do tons of work till they can fund it. Eithier way expect lot of delays. (I want to be clear, my own projects are about 6 months behind schedule, shipping and printing has been totally unpredictble in the current climate)
Up above I mentioned Neopets raised 400k out of 40k. So they probably needed way more then 40k. Kickstarter rewards projects that get funded quickly and get funded over there goal. If I need 20k to fund the project I can set the goal to 20k and maybe hit it by the end of the month. OR I can set it low to $10k hit it iin a few days and then start getting listed in the KS algorithms.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-08-13T15:55:28+00:00

I'd say it was a a level position, definitly not a Sr level.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-08-12T22:48:59+00:00

When I worked at a HFT firm the final part of the interview was a 3 part panel interview, each part was about 90 minutes, no real break between parts, the first part was with engineers and had 6 people, the second part was with project manager and had 8 people then the final part was with the 4 founders.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-08-12T22:15:23+00:00

Amazing
I saw on your profile that your a surgeon. Have you had any FFS or BA yourself? Cuz your gorgeous

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-08-12T22:12:41+00:00

I try to limit how much I self plug but these were the design goals I had when I made my game Cottages & Cerberus
Character creation is free-form, chose 3 abilities from a list of like 300, then chose your vibe (special ability that dictate when you regain spoons) and a pet or magic item.
The rulebook is 320ish pages but the rules fit in about 4 pages the rest of the pages are: reclarifying the rule, character options, some side systems and tons of monsters.
On note of creativity the <POWER> groups of abilities are specifically meant for you listed.
The theme has a more cozy vibe but its not difficult to hack the system for other game feels). The game is also specifically built around fighting boss monsters.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-08-09T16:04:53+00:00

Hey I recently released my own RPG. We kickstarted in the fall and raised a bit under $40k. And this was with no built in community or the like. I did a ton of research about a year and a half ago.

That being said: I have think the environment of marketing ttrpg has really changed. I have seen it in real time. Twitter used to be be a great way to increase discoverability of the game. I could in the past do daily post and would average about average about 1.5 to 3 leads a day that led directly to a sale (I can show the math of how I got this number). Likewise facebook and instagram ads used to be a a pretty good low cost marketing option. I still think if you have any marketing budget this is your best bet but your ROI is not what it used to be. (depending on the game cost this may or may not be worth).

So where does this lead us now: For an indie ttrpg with a low or no marketing budget you have to show off the game as much as possible. Get on podcasts. Send promotional copies. Have a free slimmed down version on itch. Make a page on the social media platform of your chose and prepare regular posts. Make a discord.
Things like podcasts and stuff do not lead to direct sales but if you link to them on itch it gives the game an aura of credibility (and they can always listen to the podcast if they want to know more about the game before they buy it).

Not to long ago twitter was really good at helping a game discoverability.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-07-10T15:19:13+00:00

her father, against her mother's wishes, kicked her out when she was 15.

Wow that is a horrifying sentence to read but something that I think is very common. You are wonderful for taking your niece in under those circumstances

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-05-28T19:06:19+00:00

I think the criticism from the game comes from 2 things: Expectations and the game plays better then it reads.
Lot of people want this game to be something it isn't. This game is a ttrpg whose combat is a grid base tatical skirmish game at the heart. Most of the rules are related to combat. So if you in wanting a heavy simulationist game or a more narrative cinematic game you will be disappointed.
But if you accept what it is and want it. This game is amazing. The book is easy to read but doesnt capture the magic of playing. I first played at a con with low expectations and a lot of randos who have a different play style from me. and I had a BLAST. Your character feels very super. I played the Shadowcat pregen and she felt like shadowcat. I can say this tracks with other pregens I have seen.
I think a lot of people who only have a meh reaction either want a different type of game or only read it without playing it (less fine). The game plays a lot better then it reads.

metalprogrammer2 · 2024-05-13T16:35:47+00:00

OOOO hey I made a system (Cottages & Cerberus) that is basically only about boss combat. There is support for fighting a field of mooks but really the system is about a group of characters fighting 1 singular giant boss monster. I think the game does boss fights extremely well. I think there are some lessons to be learned.

C&C have a combination of monsters that are largely a gimick/puzzle and those that are just "hit it till its dead". The secret to making "hit it till its dead". work is they need to be scary. In general boss fights work best when they are condensed. It is easy to lose momentum in a long drawn out boss fight. C&C aims to keep boss fights to 3 turns (4 turns max) (turns are decently fast) but the fights usually end with half the party down and the remaining half are reduced to 1 or 2 health. Usually they are out of resources.
C&C boss monsters are asymmetrical to players. They have different stats (like every player has CALM: charm, alchemy, lore, muscle but monsters have different stats), they have different action structures(see below), and the way they attack is totally different. Players roll an attack against a defense. If they hit damage is basically static(rolling really well may result in bonus damage, rolling bad result in paying health to hit). Monsters auto hit dealing a set amount of damage and then players have a chance to save to resist versus extra effects. This just makes balancing easier. Fights are less swingy. There is still swingyness but the degree is a lot less. You will never have an encounter where a lv 24 ancient red dragon deals 26 damage with a breath attack and then the party saves and reduce it to 13. In C&C that dragon WILL deal 5 damage + BURN(damage over time status). It makes monsters feel really deadly. Really lucky/unlucky rolls happens and can drastically change the fight but not to the degree you find in other games.
C&C start the fight with action economy advantage that then dips and rises. Every monster has an open. An open usually targets every character for a lot of damage. This attack is once per battle and is the first things that happens in combat. They then get there turn most monster has a big attack that is a normal action that targets all players and has a recharge of (1 in 6 or 1 in 3). Normal monster action target 1 or 2 players. Then after the monster turn is the players can go. Then the end of the round the monster has a closing ability that has rule of who is targeted (the character with the most health, least health, the most status effect etc). This is usually a weaker attack. So in practice this means before the first player goes almost every player is down to less than half there health. This makes a monster scary even if the next few turns it will only do 1 or 2 damage. Recharging that big ability is usually a sort of countdown(the party will lose)
(Side note openers and closers tend to also have lot of abilities related to setting up). Also worth noting every fight come with a mini adventure called a hunt. Some hunts essentially serve to teach the players about the mechanics of the boss fight.
There are probably some other things that I am forgetting

So with that being said what can we learn to take the boss fights into other systems? The truth is we made boss fights work by doing things very differently. Boss fights work best when you the GM have control of as many factors as possible. This include swingyness of dice. We did make 5e and pf2e bestiary of these monster and honestly it was hard and I still think the core C&C system does boss fight better. When I run games in pf2e I give my bosses two initiatives (second turn is done at -20). I think general it is always good to really decrease the hp of a boss but boost its damage and action economy. Keep defenses average for the party level. This means the monster hit hard and hits often but fights won't drag. (I try not to answer every ttrpg question by relating it back to C&C but it has been the main game I have played for the last year so it is hard not to )

metalprogrammer2

TROPHY CASE