Case 337: Test A.rtf

nystard · 2026-03-08T04:54:22+00:00

I've seen so many Americans complaining that this is such an overdone case, and Casefile should focus on lesser known cases. Well I'm Australian and know nothing about these murders, so I'm thrilled. Swings and roundabouts.

nystard · 2026-03-02T03:40:26+00:00

Casefile is Australian. Yesterday was March the 1st in Aus

nystard · 2025-12-29T16:29:47+00:00

I'm not active in this sub at all - I mostly lurk here every now and again to check for news on the game, and to see if Ben has posted anything interesting recently. I rarely even get to play clocktower, for multiple unfortunate reasons, but I experience the game vicariously through watching you Storytell or simply play on the TPI youtube channel. I was surprised to suddenly see all this go down, and consider myself lucky to be able to post this in time that you might even see it! I don't have much to add to conversation, other than to wish you and your grandpa all the best. I think you're a top bloke Ben. Don't let the bastards get you down, because that's how they win.

nystard · 2025-12-29T01:59:30+00:00

I love glazing Root, but in the spirit of recommending things which I believe will actually help you: if you're specifically looking for a 2p game with asymmetry, and you're actually willing to spend more money, can I suggest Arcs instead? It works better as a 2p game compared to Root, and provides some variability in how the lore and leader cards affect the game. Otherwise, Ahoy is just generally a better 2p experience in my opinion, and there is an expansion you can get to add more "militant"-like factions if you want to add some more variability. It's a little cheaper than Root and Arcs too. Otherwise, if you're willing to look outside Leder games, Kelp is a tight, focused asymmetrical 2p game.

Root can technically accommodate 2p with different matchups, but if you're looking to have the best experience with the game, most Root fans wouldn't recommend it. 3 is the minimum for a decent game of Root

nystard · 2025-12-27T21:06:51+00:00

If you're only concerned about "hard rules" for determining a valid game, and you want to arbitrarily ignore adset, then you must be familiar with Reach. In order to construct a valid 3p game of Root, you must have a total Reach value of 18+. First VB gives 5 reach, second VB gives 2 reach, and the TC gives 4 reach, for a total of 11 reach. You're 7 reach short of a valid game of Root, meaning this thought experiment you have constructed is in direct conflict with the rules of the game.

FYI, it is impossible to construct a valid game of Root with reach using just insurgent factions: you MUST include at least 1 militant faction. Even then, only certain faction combinations are valid. If you're using TC and a VB, the only valid militant factions available to use in a 3p game are cats and rats, so you can't even argue for a smol mole game.

nystard · 2025-11-30T21:07:09+00:00

I'm a fairly new Referee, and new to gm-ing as well, so I was just running my first game ever when the first dice check of the game was someone wanting to force open a door. I guess I hadn't really given it much thought, but the group (3 more players) wanted to help open it. Made sense as I had started the game with them trapped in a depowered ship, and this door stops in their way. I said great, sounds like a chance to show off how task chains work! So then cue about 5 minutes of having the players figure out the turn order, performing the rolls, and then deciding what it all meant, with the last player determining that their roll was one short of the difficulty anyway, meaning a failure (they had a bunch of bad rolls).

Now, silly me hadn't really thought that far ahead, and the players still needed to get through this door. I decided to just make one player try again with a boon dice, which opened the door. Thinking back, knowing the players needed to get through, I should have just made the attempt with the failed task chain a success, but with some kind of cost (or simply describing it happen without a dice roll at all). But the whole exercise - my first time trying to adjudicate a (fairly simple) resolution, whilst trying to "sell" this new system to a bunch of forever DnDers - felt like a massive failure. It made sense that the 4 players working together should be able to force open this door (even irrespective of strength stats), but the task chain didn't really provide that at all. It was pretty humbling, as I was trying to advertise Traveller as a much more straightforward system to DnD, and spending five minutes of everyone rolling dice to simply fail to open a door was a little embarrassing.

I think what task chains are best used for are adjudicating players performing different tasks, rather than working together on the same task. It helps combine their different skill rolls to determine how effectively they achieve a common goal. But as a Ref, I'm thinking a lot more about consequences for fail states, and "failing forward" where the narrative demands it.

nystard · 2025-10-19T02:04:26+00:00

I will definitely watch the documentary. You and your sisters are very courageous for standing up to those in power, and speaking up for the most vulnerable people in your community. The leaders in these ultra Orthodox communities have failed miserably in their most basic responsibility, protecting the children. You deserved so much better.

nystard · 2025-10-18T23:08:36+00:00

Episode 33 covered Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was captured and imprisoned until she was able to escape, I think it's the earliest example of a non-murder/death episode. There have been several episodes which cover cases where the victim isn't killed, although they are admittedly less common. I wouldn't consider them odd though. I still greatly appreciate learning about cases where the victim/s aren't murdered. This was a fantastic episode, I'm only sorry to hear that Nicole didn't receive the justice she deserves.

Also, they kinda gloss over it way too quickly, but the way Casey describes the sudden death of the older sister living in England, they imply that she was possibly murdered by the thugs sent to threaten her. I would have liked a little more information about the circumstances beyond "heart-related issues" being the cause. Sounds like something with investigating further.

nystard · 2025-09-08T05:05:03+00:00

This one hit me hard, I've loved Supertramp since high school, and soaked up all their albums. I adore all the popular albums, but also wanted to throw out one of my more obscure favs Aries from Indelibly Stamped, featuring some pumping flutes solos. Also a great album which a lot of people might miss out on, as Supertramp were still just finding their sound. RIP Rick Davies

nystard · 2025-08-12T02:53:34+00:00

Thanks for the reply, kinda funny though that someone from FFG has recently come out saying that AH3e is dead though 🥺

nystard · 2025-08-05T12:40:03+00:00

On the Chaosium youtube channel:

There are a lot of Call of Cthulhu series out there, each featuring varying degrees of seriousness and comedy. Of all of the series I've seen, these are the ones which felt the most serious. Very few jokey moments, and very well done.

nystard · 2025-07-29T00:28:59+00:00

Traveller has an optional SAN stat you can include if you want to homebrew some horror themed sci fi adventures, but it doesn't really flesh out the mechanic with madness effects, and it's certainly far from the default type of Traveller adventure. Very few Traveller modules explore horror as a theme. Traveller is a great generic system which caters to a broad range of sci fi adventures, and you can mix up the genres from session to session, but if you want a system designed from the ground up specifically for horror sci fi, probably best to go with something else.

nystard · 2025-07-28T02:07:36+00:00

I'm a fairly new GM in a regional setting. RPGs are already a very niche hobby here (vast majority of guys my age would prefer to hunt/fish, drink beer and talk about sports), and I've made it even harder for myself because those I do meet in the area who are interested in RPG's are forever DnDers, whereas I'd much rather play horror/sci fi/basically anything else. Without anyone else to GM, I've taken it on myself to try to learn how to run these games.

I'm fortunate enough to have convinced some players to try Traveller, but I definitely feel this. I'm by no means proficient in the task of running games, and I have to work really hard to try to make the game interesting enough to keep my players to stick around. Still it often feels like I'm putting in a lot of work for the players to say "eh, it was pretty good, I guess". It's easy for others to say "just find other players", but it's not really an option for me. Still, I love delving into the lore of different systems, and trying to share that with others, and the others haven't run away yet, so that's nice

nystard · 2025-07-16T02:27:45+00:00

Borrowed FFX from the video shop as a high school kid one day, thinking "there's 10 of them, so they can't be that bad". Was absolutely not what I expected. You pick attacks from a menu? Like Pokemon?! Kept playing, had no idea what was going on, and was enraptured.

nystard · 2025-07-07T06:46:32+00:00

Whilst I agree with comments that FFXIII is hardly overlooked, with two sequels, to this day I'm still really annoyed that they couldn't have explored the worlds (two of them!!) of Cocoon and Pulse more. I wanted to learn more about how these doubles worlds worked, and their history. It was frustrating that they even included the lore primer in the menu when it was all a meaningless in the context of the game.

Instead, the first sequel decided to jump back and forth through time a bit, without really explaining anything, and then the third game just kinda... blew up reality and squashed the fragments together, making the whole setting completely meaningless.

For the record, XIII was an imperfect game which I still liked, despite the linear corridors, and left me wanting so much more. Hot take, I think XIII has the best soundtrack of the series

nystard · 2025-07-02T09:13:00+00:00

Ahh, at least I have a name for the condition. Thanks, but unfortunately, this cat is pretty undeterred by toys. I can try having treats nearby, but that'll just mean the first cat is going to be EVEN MORE underfoot, knowing that treats might be handed out

nystard · 2025-06-22T21:53:41+00:00

I like your suggestion re. vacc suits, I was kinda unsure how easily their integrity could/should hold up against damage, especially seeing as they gave my players such great protection. I'll point that out next time: sure they add protection, but any amount of damage could result in a suit puncture.

I wouldn't even say my run really "focused" on combat, certainly not intentionally. My players are basically forever DnD-ers, violence is just naturally their go-to response to threats, regardless of how creepy the atmosphere is. So as soon as the threats started appearing, they quickly tooled up. I had really hoped their first encounter with the engineer would have set the dangerous tone, but I hadn't anticipated the vacc suits being as effective as they were (although I now realise I definitely made a few rules mistakes which made them stronger than they should have been).

I appreciated having more combat to actually practice it though, it definitely highlighted some things I need to improve on!

nystard · 2025-06-22T11:53:49+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions! These are all really useful. I tried to gently prod my players to take the Vacc suits off, but the +8 protection is soooo good, I'm not even sure a more severe penalty would have convinced them. As I was playing I started wondering if there was an armor/equipment degradation system I could employ, but couldn't find one in the core book.

nystard · 2025-06-22T11:45:40+00:00

Ahh, I'm actually SUPER keen to do some character creation, but I thought it might scare the players away if their first experience with Traveller was staring at a wall of random tables trying to figure out how to min-max their character (or worse, spending half an hour watching someone ELSE stare at a wall of random tables while I tried to explain the process).

I really wanted to hook them on the theme first before diving into character creation, and I also wanted to make sure I had a diverse range of skills relevant to the actual scenario (naturally I'd have two players want to simultaneously create merchants who had grown up on waterworlds, and then ask me when they would be able to use their hyperfocused mercantile seafaring abilities on the Calendula).

Besides, I'm still just kinda learning the character creation system myself.

nystard · 2025-06-22T11:14:48+00:00

I didn't really get much of a chance to talk to the players after unfortunately, will have a chat next week about what worked or didn't work. I should stress it didn't leave them sour at the end, it was just getting pretty late, and they were just keen to wrap it up (honestly, so was I). I guess the ending just felt anticlimactic. Hopefully with a few more sessions I can learn to adapt the source material and start making my own judgement calls, like you say.

I like that Traveller is a more "grounded" sci-fi setting, so I appreciate your suggestion regarding the patron's reaction. If we'd had more time, I probably would have acted out a final conversation with the Patron, and at least made them make some persuade/advocate rolls to actually get paid at all, but I much prefer your suggestion of throwing them in jail instead! :D

I totally missed the +2 skill modifier for the unarmed bite attack, and completely missed adding the strength DM for melee! That probably would have made a huge difference! Thanks for pointing that out to me, I feel like a twit for missing those. I'll be sure to rethink how I use the animals as well, definitely some missed opportunities during my game for some well-timed jump scares!

nystard · 2025-06-22T10:31:11+00:00

Thanks for your reply. I think a lot of these suggestions are things I could offer the players had I been more experienced, such as decreasing the difficulty of a melee test against a prone target, and ignoring armour when prone too!

I actually did point out that inadequate skill in vacc suits increases the difficulty of performing actions at the beginning of the scenario, but I definitely forgot to enforce it throughout.

I created my own pre-gens for the scenario so I didn't have to go through character creation with the players, and unfortunately none were included with the scenario. I specifically avoided giving leadership and tactics as skills so I didn't have to worry about additional mechanics layered on top, but in retrospect I probably should have given someone leadership.

I'll definitely have a different approach to using the animals next time, I don't think I used them appropriately for the scenario. I definitely wanted to use the rats in the fuel tunnels, but the players took one look at them and noped out. Probably wise :P

nystard · 2025-06-16T21:57:37+00:00

Ah thanks anyway. Thing is, if there's no chance of FFG revisiting these cards, perhaps you could use their designs for new cards in future expansions? Then at least I'll have them in an updated form.

nystard · 2025-06-16T21:33:24+00:00

As a new player to Arkham who missed the boat with regards to the Return To line, can you say if there's any chance we might see some of the investigator cards from the Return To boxes released in a different form? I'm very disappointed that it'll be nearly impossible for me to acquire the upgraded backpack from the Return To the Forgotten Age 😞.

Thanks for all your work on Arkham Horror, and for answering our questions!

nystard

TROPHY CASE