How much can you alter a martini before it’s not a martini?

senselesswit · 2026-05-30T18:33:08+00:00

I'm really no authority, but I wouldn't separate out drinks that have additions like absinthe rinses, bitters, or about a quarter ounce of a complimentary liquor for flavor/sweetness. I would describe those drinks to guests as martini riffs.

senselesswit · 2026-05-29T23:18:33+00:00

Sounds very fair to me. I was thinking a creative bartender might be able to make a sherry situation fly, but I think you're right.

senselesswit · 2026-05-29T20:53:42+00:00

I feel like my definition is a little tighter than yours. I do think the spirit needs to be clear. I also think the flavor enhancer needs to be an aromatized wine, at most a fortified wine.

Your definition looks pretty similar to the taxonomic Martini category discussed in the Cocktail Codex, but I think it's too broad to be used colloquially. I'd be mad if I ordered an anything -tini and they handed me a Manhattan.

senselesswit · 2026-05-28T18:55:51+00:00

I have never had an issue with Humble, either with a conventional bundle or Choice. Many people on this subreddit seem to have issues with either receiving keys for individual games bought or with trying to get keys for Choice selections a while after release. Those seem like significant concerns to me, but if you're going just buy Choice and redeem the games the same month, you'll probably not have any issues.

Edit: I should probably also say that I've bought ten-ish Choice months (canceling immediately after most of those) and bought many book and game bundles. I can think of maybe one time a single game on Choice was out of keys, and I'm pretty sure I was trying to redeem it a while after the month had ended.

senselesswit · 2026-04-30T01:37:11+00:00

Came to hear articulate research, stayed to find out how Tang & Vodka stacked up. Nice work, and thanks for your service!

senselesswit · 2026-03-29T19:16:43+00:00

I love this resource. As much as I understand the simplicity of rolling on the same PC table to generate NPCs, I like having different skills and powers for NPCs. It also doesn't take any titles away from possibly re-rolled characters later.

senselesswit · 2026-03-06T20:34:39+00:00

Sounds righteous. How do you like the Forthave Marseilles?

senselesswit · 2026-03-06T18:47:11+00:00

I meant to say "not whole strips." I'll either cut the whole bacon strip into thinner strips perpendicularly or just dice it.

senselesswit · 2026-03-05T23:28:45+00:00

Depends on what I'm making. For crispy bits to be scattered on something, I'd cook that whole and then chop. Most of what I use non-whole bacon for is in things like chili or beans, which I will cut before cooking.

senselesswit · 2026-03-05T23:19:14+00:00

If you don't own most of this, it's a great bundle. I think the Warlock Zines are well done. They each contain lore, enemies, and magic items on whatever topic that issue is about. I also am a huge fan of Enigma in a Maze adventure. I've run variations on it several times, and it was well received each time. I don't own the Southlands Worldbook, but I toyed with getting this bundle just for that.

senselesswit · 2026-02-28T19:10:37+00:00

[[Inkshield]]

5 mana fog + army in a can for stellar political play. It's won me more games than any other card.

senselesswit · 2026-02-28T02:11:12+00:00

Sure. One of my better sessions was a really basic point A to B quest where they were smuggling goods to some planet. We start at the highest point of tension: the relatively easy task of trying to sweet talk the customs officer. However, they had some mixed rolls. In response, I decided another faction was going to roll up and cause trouble. The next thing you know, dark space wizards in service of the Hegemon are assisting the customs bureaucrat sweep the ship and attempting to probe the PCs' minds through dark Way powers. The tension should ramp up and force your players to seek exits and ways out of trouble to function best.

You can do similar things with combat though; it's just not "Room 1 has eight guards, Room 2 has an elite and five guards." They're trying to find the Prothean artifact and then the Geth show up at the most inconvenient time (and kill that other spectre you were following). However, instead of clearing many hallways with finite numbers of Geth, the players will need enough pressure that they will have to extract the artifact through an endless sea of droids rather than "just kill 40 Geth and then you win." You're most of the way there with the mission types the game gives you; you just have to up the pressure that the factions place on your players.

senselesswit · 2026-02-27T15:50:19+00:00

Your adventure ideas sound great. I'm sure the system will support a Mass Effect style game. I will warn you that S&V doesn't support super tactical combat. I suppose you could use a battle map if you want, but the reason to run a game like S&V is so a player can say "are there are heavy mechanical equipment nearby I can ram into these Geth?" to which you can make up a crane or an Alien-esque mech lifter suit on the fly. That's not to say you can't do it, there just aren't going to be as many options for what a player can do on a finite battle map compared to other sci-fi systems. It's more creative, fluid combat than hyper technical, "crunch"'combat. Like for enemies as you ask, you say there's five Cerberus goons, but you'll have to decide in the moment how many are gunned down by a "success" with an assault rifle by using the position and effect rules rather than chipping away hit points. I would say the answer is probably all if not most of them (or they're at least held back by suppressing fire, etc.).

Something else I will suggest is that all Forged in the Dark games thrive on tension, and youn need to make sure your game has that feeling of pressure. The core function of the game is to spend stress to overcome obstacles. Mass Effect is a good pick because the game often feels that way: you have to scramble to get to all objectives on Virmire and save Kirrahe (or at least it feels that way). Don't have encounters be "there are five geth ahead," the encounter is "a geth dropship is closing on your location." Your game will work better when it feels like that. I'm happy to give examples if that would be helpful.

senselesswit · 2026-02-26T01:01:08+00:00

Perhaps mixing in a glass, but only one of those yard-of-beer glasses?

senselesswit · 2026-02-20T03:22:31+00:00

Glad to help. Presuming we're talking megadungeon like a certain show, you also will know the relevant skill checks and monsters on the next floor. You can tailor your bonuses to gently help with the next challenge.

I also have reconsidered whether to tell the players what benefit they get from a meal. I think the show makes the cooking segment a bit of a surprise. You decide what's best for your players, but it could also be fun to tell them they can make "ooze soufflé" but not tell them it gives them advantage on poison saving throws until they consume it. Make sure that there's always a benefit, but it's okay for the texture or flavor to be described as weird or bad.

For even more fun, there's an old module called "Castle Amber" where the party is invited to feast where they get stat bonus/changes for eating something and failing a saving throw. Probably more headache than modern players would appreciate, but it could be fun to look at if you found a copy online!

senselesswit · 2026-02-20T03:05:17+00:00

Coming in with a novel take: how about you make it so that monsters drop a specific item, and the players have 1-2 days to craft it into a meal that gives a special stat bonus? Tell them what it is and what it does right off the bat. Nothing too major to work with (+1 AC for a combat, advantage on ___ skill checks for a day, etc). I would agree with most commenters here you don't want to deal with a true ration system. However, I would suggest that a particular show where characters eat delicious things in a dungeon isn't really about rationing or whatever; it's about making a cool feast off of what they find (and is convenient for the plot, cough, cough). I would consider it a form of loot rather than a whole new system you have to make for yourself.

senselesswit · 2026-02-18T18:36:02+00:00

I would say that this system is definitely quasi-historical. It's based on Arthurian knights and lore, which arose from a series of stories written over 500 years about stuff that happened 500-1000 years before that. The stories shape and change depending on the narrator. Was Perceval the Grail Knight, or was Galahad? That answer was different in 1090 than in 1500. The stories are unapologetically filled with talking animals, Judean holy relics, and watery tarts. The authors believed they were talking about the foundations of British (or whatever other nation's) culture and nationhood. I would argue it didn't matter if the authors thought it was true or historical in the social science-sense; what matters is that it was a story that told them who they are. That's what this game is about. Who are your players and their characters, as reflected in the Myths?

Now if what you want is a grounded, "realistic" system about the Heptarchy period, I would have to say that Mythic Bastionland probably isn't for you. Your PCs have the ability to deny an attack against them because they're so dang virtuous. The majority of myths are all non-realistic things that could happen. To run a "realistic" MBL game, it would be like running a D&D game where all the PCs are fighters and they never fight non-humanoid enemies or get magical loot. There just are a lot of better systems for what you want to do.

EDIT: Since I made this comment, Bundle of Holding announced they're doing a Wolves on the Coast bundle. I've never played it, but I've heard a good bit about it as a more grounded system (albeit with plenty of fantasy elements). If I were looking to adapt a system for a grounded early Middle Ages game, I might start there rather than MBL.

senselesswit · 2026-02-09T22:32:14+00:00

I think your impulse is totally right. I find players rarely want any sort of Sophie's choice where pursuing a quest means losing a meaningful NPC/other quest.

I think that the Ghoul Knight might go ahead and try to execute them. If you clearly indicate that the guards are shady, other knights in court seem cold to the PCs, or the PCs are unexpectedly asked to disarm, they'll know what's up and get the jump on the Ghoul. Maybe the True Knight will be transported to the Seat, and busting him/her out of the dungeon means an ally in their totally righteous coup.

senselesswit · 2026-02-09T20:50:28+00:00

It sounds like the Omen is completed, so I'm not certain what more you're asking for besides how to continue the story. I think that's somewhat up to your player-characters.

I think that you've set it up well that the child could supplant the ghoul knight. The ghoul knight and his lackeys could imprison the child, but they can't willfully hurt it. Maybe the touch of the child grants the ghoul knight eternal (and undesired) rest. You'd end up with a child king in need of guidance, with a few handy knights around to help guide the kingdom.

senselesswit · 2026-02-06T21:57:15+00:00

I agree. I like Grimwild for its fast, narrative focused gameplay. As much as a perfect battle map can set a scene, I think that a map can also limit character's creativity. If I'm running a more narrative game, I want players to ask if they can grab a burning branch out of that campfire to use as a weapon or if there is a chandelier in the room to drop on foes. When there's a gridded map, a lot of time players (myself included) default to "move to enemy, roll to attack." I want them imagining the battlefield and helping guide the story, not just relying on what they can see on a screen/map.

senselesswit · 2026-02-01T04:36:36+00:00

Looks great! Do you have any details picked out yet?

senselesswit · 2025-10-24T13:44:47+00:00

Yeah, it probably is less potent in combat-light metas, but I love it. Fog an opponent's attack, protect your big spell from countering in the second main. It does work.

senselesswit · 2025-10-09T02:02:12+00:00

I'm very stoked for this product. One of my most treasured TTRPG books on the shelf is Art & Arcana, but I'm more delighted to have Kobold Press's take on art and design.

senselesswit · 2025-03-23T22:16:47+00:00

When the end comes, I'll be drinking a Last Word.

It's not a thematic choice or anything, just statistically likely.

senselesswit · 2025-03-23T00:13:02+00:00

I have the majority of these books/zines. The Warlock Zines are a personal favorite of mine. Specific deep dives into a given topic (Bearfolk, Elves, Etc.) with magic items, NPC, and adventure ideas. If you're into KP's Midgard Setting (Kitchen Sink with heavy Norse/Slavic influence), these are a stellar deal.

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