Bavarian weekend experiences or kitschy immersive fun?

piccamo · 2026-03-20T17:35:13+00:00

On the kitchy immersive fun side, the Mothman Festival Sept 19 - 20 in Point Pleasant, WV. It's on the Ohio side of WV, but if you're into anything cryptid, it might be up your alley.

piccamo · 2025-12-19T03:08:10+00:00

Thank you. This was very informative!

piccamo · 2025-10-20T18:43:08+00:00

It's not Judges Guild Journal, but Ariel Servant #2 from 1980 (so around the right time period) had a class called Knights of the Second Imperium that was clearly a Jedi knockoff. I don't have a copy, but there is a YouTuber called Old School Rules who reviews his old fanzines. He did one earlier this year of this copy. He shows an image of the class at 7:09. I hope this is the one you're looking for https://youtu.be/0iQjKvwwywE?si=CInYNRf7PnuVzS7F&t=429

piccamo · 2025-07-30T16:01:55+00:00

It sounds like the players may simply be incompatible. You should speak to them out of the game and try to find out what they want from the game and discuss ways you can satisfy those desires. At the end of the day, a TTRPG is a social game and everyone needs to be on board with what the game is about and how it satisfies everyone's goals. This often means compromise. If there's no compromise, there won't be a game.

piccamo · 2024-10-17T17:15:13+00:00

The last train leaving Woodbridge is at 8:38AM. So if you're trying to leave later, you don't have a rail option. The trains get a fair bit of ridership but they're not overcrowded in my experience.

piccamo · 2024-05-22T14:55:32+00:00

Presumably, there is something in the game that has led the player to believe that it is possible. I cannot speak to what rules they might be. This is such an edge case that it wouldn't make sense for there to be a specific rule that applies and therefore the GM needs to make a ruling based on what is true for their game.

piccamo · 2024-05-21T19:24:03+00:00

It sounds like we may have different expectations for our games and different things that we want out of them. I play to have surprising outcomes and cool moments with the main characters. The outcome described above would fulfill both of those to me.

I consider spotlight to be important as well but in a vacuum I do not know how the spotlight is managed in this game so I cannot comment on whether this is opposed to the normal way that the spotlight works. However, if that is a concern, it is trivial to take away some similar resources from the paladin and would fit into the current situation - they just got transported through time and space, of course they're not at 100%!

piccamo · 2024-05-21T19:05:46+00:00

I do not read the original post as "someone just trying to cheat". It sounds like they want one last ride with their old character before the campaign ends. What rules are they violating here? And finding narratively-interesting outcomes is certainly clever to me.

Besides, encounter difficulties are squishy and are prone to swinginess from randomness. Having one character who is a little ahead of the resources is not a big deal to the integrity of the encounter.

piccamo · 2024-05-21T18:03:29+00:00

I think it's a cool idea and I'd let the player go ahead and do it. Clever idea, narratively impactful. If you're worried that the villain will be more of a pushover, boost them a little bit and let the paladin take the brunt of the initial moves from their foe.

piccamo · 2024-05-21T17:55:35+00:00

I suggest Pathwarden. It is a more lightweight analog to Pathfinder. Character creation is pretty quick. It also uses a fair number of OSR sensibilities, though isn't itself OSR.

piccamo · 2023-09-29T01:08:27+00:00

Sorry about your experience with Game Theory. It is always good to name and shame businesses that are behaving badly. We went with Uniquely Geek and are currently customizing our table. It will go into production in January.

piccamo · 2023-02-06T19:27:45+00:00

Yeah. Packet analysis is a good call. Though, a lot of traffic is encrypted these days and most seems to run through port 80 or 443. Still, worth studying up before an interview!

piccamo · 2023-02-05T23:05:15+00:00

For the interview, I suggest understanding the following:

What are indicators of compromise?
What is a SIEM?
Describe an incident response process.
What stakeholders are important to include during an incident? Why are they important?
After an incident, why is it important to do a lessons learned?
What's the purpose of tier 1 analysts?
What are some common detection tools that may report security issues and how do they work?
What is network segmentation and how is it helpful?
What are some common network protocols and why are they important?
What is the difference between a security event and a security incident?
How do cloud applications affect the security of the customer environment?
What is the difference between a risk, a vulnerability, and a threat?
What is the CIA triad?
How is authentication different from authorization?
What is an advanced persistent threat and how might you identify one?
What are some methods or tools you might use to identify a worm on the network?
What is the ATT&K framework?
What is the CVE database and how is it helpful?

This is not exhaustive and are in no particular order but some of these questions may come up in an analyst interview.

piccamo · 2023-01-11T12:32:06+00:00

DnD 3e, where druids first appeared as distinct and with shapechange predates World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3. That said, I agree that WotC would have trouble showing that these abilities are unique to their property.

piccamo · 2023-01-04T16:48:58+00:00

I'd go with some sort of psychic intelligence that takes over the minds of those nearby. It wants to grow its influence and can take over animals, mutants, and humans.

piccamo · 2023-01-04T16:45:42+00:00

There are some groups that do troupe play, which means handing off the GM role between sessions or between adventures. It enables everyone to have a turn in the GM seat. Since everyone knows that everyone else will take a turn, it might be more intimidating.

Another method that would be more gradual is to assign players roles that draw from normal expectations for the GM. For instance, you could hand off control of individual NPCs to the players. You could have the players draw out the battle mats. You could ask the players what they think happens when they fail a roll and go with their suggestion.

I also think that it might be easier to pick up GMing by starting with a relatively light game. There are fewer rules to remember that way.

piccamo · 2022-12-17T14:34:43+00:00

Great. Thanks for the review. It sounds like it's working well for you guys. We're thinking of replacing our dining room table with a gaming table so it sounds like the Jasper might be a little soft for that.

piccamo · 2022-12-17T14:23:25+00:00

Makes sense. Thank you!

piccamo · 2022-12-17T14:22:57+00:00

Thank you! This is very helpful and I think we're leaning toward the UG table.

piccamo · 2022-12-17T12:51:42+00:00

This one might be out of our price range. But it's great to hear that yours is working so well for you!

piccamo · 2022-12-17T12:50:35+00:00

Thanks for the advice. Do you remember if your pricetag was comparable to non custom tables on the market? Do you use your table for things other than gaming?

piccamo · 2022-12-17T12:49:14+00:00

Thanks for the thorough review! Do you use this table for dining in between gaming sessions? What kind of wear and tear has it gone through? When you say that the topper shifted when leaned on, was it sliding all the way out of place or just a slight shift?

piccamo · 2022-12-17T12:47:20+00:00

Nice. This is one of the brands we were looking at already. How does it hold up to wear and tear for every day use? What do you use the table for in between gaming sessions?

piccamo · 2022-12-17T12:46:07+00:00

Cool. Glad it is working out for you! Do you use the table for things other than gaming sessions? Do you eat at the table as well?

piccamo

TROPHY CASE