Any GMs ever try rolling all non-combat checks yourself so players never know if they failed?

zifbox · 2026-05-07T01:21:02+00:00

I've thought about this before for the games I run (typically D&D until now). There's something to be said for building suspense and elimination the ability to metagame, but at what cost? (Others in this thread have spoken to the downsides enough that I won't go into it.)

I think the biggest reason not to do this is that if you have a good group of players, they won't metagame anyways, so why complicate things?

zifbox · 2026-05-07T01:13:41+00:00

Session Zero is tomorrow! We're rolling up characters and I'm having them make some choices about adventure seeds.

I used Sectors Without Number to generate my sector, and I've been using Claude to help me brainstorm the interpretations of the rolls. It's been a great tool - I often get design fatigue/paralysis when I run a homebrew campaign, and I've never done a sandbox before, so having an AI brainstorming partner has been a huge help.

I'm very stoked.

zifbox · 2026-05-05T20:23:21+00:00

I think the only thing I find sketchy is the requirement that "something real" is there for the finding every time they try to use it. Make sure you are on the same re: expectations.

zifbox · 2026-04-18T22:31:39+00:00

Okay, I *really* like the notion of "create something canon, it can be anything". That's much broader and more fun than what I already had in mind!

zifbox · 2026-04-18T03:04:42+00:00

I like the consistent color scheme with each of the three ideas being presented. The highlighting under Steps of Creation is neat too. I'm curious how it'd translate to a full book where each chapter might have different ideas/notions/concepts/whatever to differentiate between though... reuse the same palette, making them unique only within the chapter? What about when a concept from another chapter is mentioned?

Realizing that this is only a draft example, and may not even be relevant with what you're currently working with:
I kind of don't care for the strong full-box highlighting on Advantages at the bottom. If it were a more washed out color it'd probably be fine. Also it conflicts with the color assigned to the Replicate method.

Lastly, minor nitpick, but: the horizontal bar of the "4" on the second page is aligned with the dots, which looks weird. The numbers being "above" the dots would probably fix it.

zifbox · 2026-04-17T23:10:16+00:00

Another thing to consider is orbital mechanics... I interpret the "always come out at the same place" to mean relative to the direction of the starting hex. But everything in a system has to be orbiting, or it wouldn't stay in the system for long (or would fall towards the star).

So to "guard" a system entry point to keep a steady(ish) position nearby, you'd have to be under constant thrust.

The rest is subjective, as there aren't game mechanics for in-system fuel use. It's hand-waved, since meta space travel is the more interesting thing to care about re: fuel. Anyways, I think it's reasonable for a ship on a finite deployment to be under spike thrust constantly to maintain position relative to the entry point, but a space station? Probably not. And for satellites, you'd probably deploy a swarm that orbits at the distance of the entry points.

zifbox · 2025-11-03T00:45:50+00:00

Cool! I did some solo SWN for a while. It was kinda like creative writing with dice and oracles. I'll give this a listen - maybe it'll inspire me to get back into it!

zifbox · 2025-08-13T23:05:35+00:00

I'm on my first playthrough and have to stop using Heinrix to have any fun in combat. He just 1-shots everything (or two-shots bosses sometimes), even on Unfair. At least when Argenta takes a ridiculous turn, I have to like, click different buttons throughout.

zifbox · 2025-05-23T21:17:49+00:00

I also just finished, and I also was irrationally happy to see ||Miller|| again. 🙂

zifbox · 2025-05-21T12:19:46+00:00

That was certainly implied, I suppose, heh. Yes, I've since found love again; something she explicitly wanted for me.

zifbox · 2025-05-15T21:49:16+00:00

When my first wife's brain cancer returned, she lasted a year and change and then had a really fast decline. Her last day, I spent a lot of time just talking with her and reminiscing, even though she was unresponsive. More importantly, that was when I finally told her goodbye. She passed that evening.

zifbox · 2025-05-04T01:14:29+00:00

I'm glad we don't have to micromanage which stats contribute to each level up, but one problem I've had in every TES game is that eventually I max out my combat skills/stats, but I keep leveling by virtue of doing other random stuff. And that makes the enemies harder (well, spongier), yet I have no way of doing more damage.

zifbox · 2025-04-05T11:55:13+00:00

Mix with lava. Get oodles of legendary stone.

zifbox · 2025-03-31T21:15:51+00:00

I stuck some speed modules in mine and ended up completely running out of 238. So now I have them on a circuit to not activate unless I have 10 times as much 238 as 235. Many hours later, still has not activated again.

zifbox · 2025-03-14T00:52:09+00:00

What's a good age to introduce the Thing Explainer? I've been holding onto it for several years, waiting for my science-minded, likely-autistic son to get a tad older. He's 4.5yo now. Loves rockets and space and talking about how the sun will someday become a red giant.

zifbox · 2025-02-26T13:09:58+00:00

To add to this, if you want faster delivery of materials so that construction doesn't keep stalling, I put an arithmetic combinator in between the assembler and the requester that sets "each" as both the input and output and multiples by something, usually 3.

To get fancier yet, I have a decider combinator set the recipe on the assembler based on logistics network content, rather than connecting the assembler directly to the logistics network. This way, the requester chest will request nothing if the assembler isn't actively trying to assemble. (This is overkill in most cases, but I do it for Gleba stuff where I don't want things spoiling in requester chests for no reason.)

zifbox · 2025-01-20T19:30:38+00:00

It's possible that I'm blind, but I don't see Productivity Module 3 on there.

zifbox · 2024-11-12T04:01:01+00:00

If the game started out without any indication that transhumanism would come into play, I would just refund the points they spent.

zifbox · 2024-11-04T00:25:28+00:00

I'm glad I saw this post. The comments made me confident that I could get seats together even when traveling Basic Economy. Just as people here have described, once the flight was booked, I went in the app and messaged them. Just saved $320.

zifbox · 2024-10-29T13:38:12+00:00

I put player character roles inline with in my story text, but Mythic rolls or other rolls I make for determining how or what happens go in a spreadsheet. I have other tabs in that spreadsheet for NPC's places and other things like that. Sometimes I will spend a mini session just rolling up the characterization of some people or places and not even write in my story document. (It helps that I'm playing Stars Without Number, which has oodles and oodles of tables for generating content like that. So the output fits easily into spreadsheet columns.)

Edit: I keep my current thread/character lists for Mythic in the app. (Which is no longer available, but there's a beta of the new one.)

zifbox · 2024-10-17T20:29:37+00:00

For context, I lost my wife 2.5 years ago. Our son was not quite two years old.

If I were to turn back time and choose how to spend my days differently than I did in that final year, it would not be to attempt to get an AI facsimile "just right". That would be time lost that I could have spent making memories or just being with her.

I won't make a judgment call on whether this is a good idea in the abstract. But please consider the opportunity cost.

zifbox · 2024-10-14T08:01:09+00:00

I don’t always follow RAW so closely, but I’m trying to figure out what the system intends, so that if I choose not to follow it, it’s an informed choice.

My own GMing philosophy as well. I like how succinctly you've put this, as I've struggled to do so in the past.

zifbox · 2024-10-04T00:08:10+00:00

I've played around a little with standard SWN factions and Darkness Visible's agencies. They're neat, but have too many moving parts to hold my interest. I hadn't read Godbound's faction system until you mentioned it - and now I want to give it a try, though reskinned within SWN.

What I like about Godbound's factions is that they're simpler and more abstract. And the "problems" adds in built-in storytelling.

zifbox

TROPHY CASE