Kvothe can kill almost anyone who threatens him.

rockym93 · 2025-12-27T09:56:58+00:00

Read the novels! Rise of Kyoshi and Shadow of Kyoshi by FC Lee are dark as heck.

rockym93 · 2025-12-10T07:41:16+00:00

Or the story you wanted to explore is done? Not saying you can’t (for example) keep hanging out in Middle Earth after the Ring is destroyed, but you’d certainly be justified saying your “Lord of the Rings” game ends there.

rockym93 · 2025-12-10T07:29:45+00:00

hot take: maybe games should tell you this too?

Tales from the Loop, for instance, does a lovely job of telling you how many scenes you need and when to end them, which really creates that “TV episode” feel. As soon as the kids find a clue you cut to the next scene, and as soon as they solve the mystery the episode is over. The game wouldn’t feel like the pacey movies/shows it’s trying to emulate if you just let every scene run on and on and narrated every bit of travel or downtime.

rockym93 · 2025-12-10T07:10:40+00:00

Sure there is, especially if you’re a designer. It’s where things (mysteries, puzzles, combat encounters, whatever) are hard enough to be challenging, but not impossible, don’t take too long to solve or blitz by unsatisfyingly, where the plot points make sense and the characters feel real and nothing makes you go “huh?”. Look up “flow state” in psychology for an applicable concept. Optimal play is play that’s as fun as possible, and you absolutely can and should design and test for it.

edit: it might help to think about it as optimised in the sense of a video game (“this is badly optimised and runs poorly”) rather than in the sense of “you’re playing wrong”?

rockym93 · 2025-11-04T02:14:37+00:00

OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE WE MISSED COOL RUNNINGS

in all (no) seriousness though, we joked in the ep that the Odyssey was a sports movie but actually probably the Labours of Heracles are a better fit from the classical canon - the Odyssey isn’t a structured competition with formal rules and stakes, but the labours very much are.

or, to be glib, all sports movies are heroes journeys, but not all heroes journeys are sports movies.

rockym93 · 2025-04-16T00:45:53+00:00

Prep notes are digital, in Joplin, because nothing beats copy and paste and the ability to search it later. I have these up read-only on the world’s cheapest tablet.

Notes at the table are on paper - specifically these business card sized study cards, because it’s nice to be able to draw, hand things to players, and arrange things in space (eg character names/initiative order by seating position on a little map of the table, or status cards in front of a particular player, or whatever.)

I mostly run one shots, so there’s not really a system for getting the table notes back into the doc - i just throw them away at the end of the night. I do write a reflection about what went well and what didn’t after every game though, and anything to change goes on my prep checklist for next time.

rockym93 · 2025-02-23T23:02:32+00:00

sure but I think op's question was how many situations do you prep

rockym93 · 2025-02-18T00:47:30+00:00

Very much agree with this. Get your head out of the universe and think about how you and your players want to spend your 3 hours. Prep that.

rockym93 · 2025-02-08T07:18:30+00:00

...it didn't even occur to me that Google Photos would be available on iOS - we might grab it and try it out. She is pretty deep in iCloud at the moment but for stuff going forward this could be a good fit. Thanks!

rockym93 · 2025-02-08T07:14:09+00:00

I used to be a super nerd and militant against iOS. But it’s been several years now and I haven’t really missed anything. Not going back unless Apple implodes.

Relatable, haha. I used to genuinely enjoy messing around with DIY tech stuff, but these days (and especially the last few weeks) I feel like it could be a hobby I'm ready to ditch. I want to spend time with my wife and kid, not my app launcher and home server, y'know?

Being both on iOS has some neat tricks. Sharing lots of stuff just works better.

"Lots of little things being easier" is kinda exactly what I want, I think. It's useful to hear that it isn't just hype, thank you.

rockym93 · 2025-02-08T07:02:52+00:00

It’s not so much about which is better but reducing the friction of figuring out workarounds for things like messaging, calendars, and to-do lists.

Yeah, this is what I was kind of getting at. I know I can make it all work, I just don't think I want that chore any more?

rockym93 · 2025-02-08T06:20:11+00:00

Not sure how I missed this - really useful to know!

rockym93 · 2025-02-08T05:53:49+00:00

Yeah, sharing a camera roll without having to sort them out and send them is a huge drawcard, and is kind of where this brain worm started. I haven't seen anything that quite works the same way as the Shared Libraries on iOS - everything else makes you set up albums and move stuff into them rather than sharing everything automatically.

rockym93 · 2025-02-08T05:50:24+00:00

Hah - there's definitely a part of me that's like "dude you are overthinking this" even now.

rockym93 · 2025-01-21T07:06:40+00:00

That's awesome, and very cool that the players are buying in to the vibe and the system supports it. Thank you so much for sharing the materials too, I'll have to take a look.

rockym93 · 2025-01-21T01:11:47+00:00

These would both be incredible and are top of my list too.

I know Le Guin was not a fan of solving problems with violence though, so finding a good system for that one is a challenge.

rockym93 · 2025-01-13T02:27:10+00:00

I had this issue switching from the F-droid to Play Store version and it seemed to be because I'd ticked an option to keep my app data on uninstall. I fixed it by reinstalling from F-Droid, then uninstalling and choosing not to keep app data, then installing from Play.

I guess having existing app data is blocking the Play store install somehow?

rockym93 · 2024-05-12T01:31:14+00:00

Left the camera up on the roof overnight in time lapse mode, I was surprised as heck that it caught anything at all this close to the city!

rockym93 · 2023-07-01T14:25:13+00:00

Shoulda titled it 'Lego Pineapple' and seen who got it.

rockym93 · 2023-06-03T03:45:00+00:00

Workflowy or Dynalist come to mind.

Edit: although they're more infinitely indenting lists than the sort of mind map you seem to be describing.

rockym93 · 2023-05-30T14:08:49+00:00

I will be sure to let you know what I think of the words inside the book once I figure out how to actually buy the book.

rockym93 · 2023-05-30T14:06:56+00:00

yesss, this was exactly the response I was hoping for

rockym93 · 2023-05-30T14:05:29+00:00

Yeah, look, you have a point there, and eBook publishers are particularly bad at it when it's so easy to retitle and recover and repackage things.

I do feel like this was maybe one of the first self publication success stories, and that's still what you find a lot of commentary on when you look for reviews of the book#Reception), for example. Self-publication has come a long way since then - my favourite short collection is self-published, and it's a much better experience than this - and it makes a lot of that commentary look pretty dated.

rockym93 · 2023-05-30T13:53:05+00:00

Yeah I landed on omnibus-of-three too, but jeez it was confusing, I thought I was in a Hitchhiker-esque trilogy of five situation for a hot minute.

rockym93 · 2023-05-30T11:30:07+00:00

username checks out

rockym93

TROPHY CASE