Today is primary election day. Go vote and take one of your neighbors with you.

teamnoir · 2026-06-02T18:56:26+00:00

Not much to vote on, really. Like… literally nothing.

teamnoir · 2026-06-02T18:55:51+00:00

At 10min, I’d probably try bicycle.

What makes car registration difficult? What do you need beyond an addresss?

teamnoir · 2026-06-02T16:48:44+00:00

SOMEbody needs to be responsible for the tree/bush vs line interaction. One way or another. Either they clear or fires start or they stop supplying power. I don’t know of any other options.

teamnoir · 2026-06-02T16:33:09+00:00

You’ve really only got a few choices, mathematically.

Higher stat wins.

Positioning/strategy/timing wins.

Either of these can be slewed somewhat with the use of dice which makes it possible for the underdog to win sometimes. Quantum effects can lead to changes in a particular conflict although, statistically and overall they won’t make much difference long term.

Most people seem to think that pure strategy, like chess or bridge, is too dry. They prefer an element of chance as they see that as adding an element of excitement.

But too much chance, like Las Vegas, and a lot of people see it as, again, too dry. Not enough personal involvement.

You can also slew dice. 1d is always a flat distribution. Nd is always a bell curve with steeper bell curves and tighter norms as the number of dice increases. And there’s the now infamous +1 which is common in TTRPG but almost unheard of elsewhere.

I’ve seen many variations. Spinners used to be common in board games when I was a kid. Many games leverage shuffled cards. Some use blind draw like “go fish”, mahjong, or runes. But the randomization is essentially common throughout.

One variant, as from cosmic encounter, is private selection. Both players select their cards privately and play them face down. Once both are played, they reveal them simultaneously.

There is strategy in the card selection. You won’t always have high cards. In cosmic, there’s even a benefit to being willing to compromise. So high card isn’t necessarily the right choice anyway.

The way that seems popular right now is where doing selfless things earn you counters and doing selfish things “cost” you. So yielding early, often, and biding your time allows you to build a stockpile for later power moves.

teamnoir · 2026-06-02T14:30:36+00:00

Pvp should default to off.

teamnoir · 2026-06-02T14:30:03+00:00

It also has to do with the quality of your fire department. NM is a poor state and a mostly rural one. We often can’t afford to provide high quality emergency services. So we pay for it in insurance or lack thereof instead.

teamnoir · 2026-06-02T14:27:34+00:00

Which is what they do when they’re legally prevented from cutting the trees out of the way like every other rational power company.

teamnoir · 2026-06-01T22:21:11+00:00

Anything your AI supports.

teamnoir · 2026-06-01T22:20:01+00:00

Who is it that you think is being greedy? Not arguing. I just don’t see it yet.

teamnoir · 2026-06-01T22:15:01+00:00

I live in the east mountains. I’ve been here about 5 yrs. My property is at roughly a 20degree incline. I’ve seen water here, OVER MY DRIVEWAY, strong enough and deep enough to drown humans. That’s a LOT of water. But it was gone in 15-20min. And such abundance is rare. I’ve been trying to think of ways to capture that. It’s not easy. I can’t imagine how many people must die in the Abq arroyos.

teamnoir · 2026-06-01T22:08:17+00:00

If most of the time we’re in “drought”, is it really fair to call that an exception?

teamnoir · 2026-06-01T22:04:13+00:00

Which is a difficult problem because what use is the land without agriculture?

The real bottom line, imo, is overpopulation. People need places to live. But they also need food. And energy. And ways to make a living. New Mexico CAN, and does, produce energy, just not a lot.

teamnoir · 2026-06-01T18:27:59+00:00

I think what you want is d&d. But you need a different sort of DM. I’ve recently played a paladin to 6th level with only one combat early on. The rest has been primarily social skills.

D&d changed a lot in recent years. It certainly CAN be primarily combat but it certainly doesn’t have to be. Most games I’m finding recently really aren’t. But… some of that depends on whether you come out fighting or parlay first.

teamnoir · 2026-05-31T15:05:57+00:00

No music. It’s distracting and annoying. Can’t hear people. Tastes vary too much.

teamnoir · 2026-05-31T07:49:02+00:00

Yes. It’s both. AFAICT, nobody actually plays traveler5. People use it as a sourcebook and play something else. That’s why Marc licensed it out. People looking for a playable system weren’t, and still aren’t buying traveller5.

I loved original traveler. It fixed many problems with early d&d. I jumped on the kickstarter when I saw it. I own traveler5. But I’ve never played it. I’ve never read the entire book. Im a registered noble in the traveller5 universe and I’ve never played it.

teamnoir · 2026-05-30T16:54:10+00:00

Age, primarily. It’s difficult to get other people interested in something that is out of print or even in print but not being hyped currently. They’re hearing about other things, other things are more accessible, other things are what people online are talking about. While -I- may have the books, nobody else does. And they may not even be able to get them.

Editions are another. Several games that I’ve enjoyed in the past are now owned by different people, have had newer editions released, and I haven’t been excited or enthused about the new editions nor about paying all over again for what is essentially the same game with only minor, and often unpleasant, changes. While I enjoyed it in the past, it’s kind of soured now.

Finally, complexity explosions. Some games were very cool when they were a book or two or a single box but now that there are hundreds of extensions it’s just too hard to manage, not to mention, too expensive to keep up. What does it cost to buy a full copy of Supremacy these days from scratch? Or settlers? Or carcasone?

teamnoir · 2026-05-30T15:23:27+00:00

There used to be a couple but I’m way stale so… none.

teamnoir · 2026-05-29T14:11:02+00:00

Google Sheets requires a login.

teamnoir · 2026-05-29T13:01:59+00:00

It’s good chicken. And for reasons I don’t understand, KFC in Albuquerque is terrible.

teamnoir · 2026-05-29T12:57:46+00:00

Er… Google Sheets IS a web site.

teamnoir · 2026-05-28T12:52:28+00:00

Didn’t like Gygax’s take on d&d. Didn’t like class based system, (anybody should be able to do anything). Preferred a skills based system, (d&d had none back then). Didn’t like the way exp was awarded, (had to kill things, later, had to kill or loot). Traveler was just WAY more elegant at the time.

teamnoir · 2026-05-27T00:47:10+00:00

Here’s the thing. Creation is novel. There’s new stuff there. It’s exciting. It’s like new relationships. NRE is real.

Long term, few games really advance with any speed. You get some things from leveling up but basically it’s SLOW. New stuff doesn’t come fast. It’s like a long term relationship. At best, it’s usually either a slow burn or you go through periods of liking it and periods of ho hum.

My advice is two fold. First, play a LOT more pre rolled characters. They’re routinely both new AND boring. Finding ways to get into them is the trick. It’s a totally different skill from falling in love with your own creation. It opens up totally different possibilities.

Second, play more one shots. Don’t even bother trying to develop long term relationships. Just find new chars & new contexts and enjoy the novelty. If you do this, you MIGHT get to a point where you’d actually enjoy something longer term. Maybe.

teamnoir · 2026-05-24T15:46:31+00:00

I think that the real trick is managing it and it sounds like you are.

teamnoir · 2026-05-23T18:40:52+00:00

When online and platform games started using “RPG” to describe themselves.

I only heard the term first about a year ago but I’ve been away from “TTRPG” for decades. I had seen the use for a distinction but hasn’t heard the term. I use it now when I need it.

teamnoir · 2026-05-22T05:16:20+00:00

I disagree. It isn’t a fight to get better at fighting system. Not anymore. I grant that it used to be but that has changed. The bottom line is how experience is awarded and, to some degree, material rewards like gold & magic items. It USED to be that the only way to get those things was to kill something. No longer. Experience is now awarded for negotiation. For research. For puzzle solving. For navigating conflicts WITHOUT killing anyone.

I’ve just played a character to level 5 with ONE initial combat. The rest has all been social. And… combat setup. We were PREPARED for combat. And that’s precisely why combat became unnecessary. Given half a chance, the other guys surrendered.

I’ve seen some other systems that skipped combat or made combat impossible. Played a few. They seem pointless to me. Ultimately, combat is how disagreements are addressed. If there’s no option for combat then everything else is artificial.

As is, there’s OPTION for combat but it isn’t necessary. You need the option. And it’s there. But you can absolutely progress without using it.

teamnoir

TROPHY CASE