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Friday, July 2, 2021

Friday Random Links for 7/2/21

Weekly wrap up.

- I still plan to run A2, but I plan to run it on 7/11. Unless my players come up with a really good plan after their delve into Sakatha's island last session. I don't expect so - they didn't really do anything but confirm what they're after.

I did learn they enjoy hexcrawling, though, with procedural travel, so we may need to do some of that in the future.

- My Reaper Bones minis shipped. Sadly, I've mostly stopped painting since between when I pledged and when they'll arrive. We'll see if they inspire me to take up my brush again. If not, maybe I'll just sell the lot on eBay. I doubt I'll back the next one.I don't even remember when I stuck the email with the shipping notice, so figure I'll get a UPS "package arriving tomorrow" notice at some point and it'll just show up. Like Tides of Numenera, it's coming so late (for reasons beyond their control) I've lost a lot of interest.

I'm still a bit grumpy that I barely got my pledge manager stuff locked in at the last minute. Apparantly they posted it as an update, and then emailed all of us delinquent people as a last resort. Well, had they emailed me as a first resort, I'd have locked in my pledge immediately. So I found that a bit annoying . . . and some helpful non-Reaper person gave me snark when I said so in a comment. Just remember, your fans reflect on your company, too . . .

- I'm excited that DF22 will come out. I wish I had any idea of when that would be.

I'm even more excited that my payment for DF22 will come soon. Heh.



Sounds shallow, maybe, but getting paid for game writing is sweet.

- After a break I'm back at Battletech: The Mercenary Collection. I'm into the Flashpoints. They're good, although I'm not sure what the deal is . . . do you usually make a new company to play them out? It just told me where they were and I went for them with Gunhaver and the Cheat Commandos, my campaign-winning crew. My first two missions were a joke. One had me going to fight a high-danger, well-equipped enemy lance. Their heaviest mech was a Wolverine, a 55-ton mech with good staying power and useful firepower. My mechs were a gauss gun-carrying Atlas (100 tons), a gauss-gun carrying Highlander (95 tons I think), an AC/20 mounting Atlas (100 tons), and a 70-ton Archer with two upgrded LRM-20s. We finished the mission without significant armor damage, just down a lot of ammo. It's getting better but I'm still walking through them. I just entered a tournament of champions with mechs provided, so that's a level playing field, but my pilots are all 10/10/10/10 in skills, and we'll see how good the enemy is.

Still amusing but not challenging, just a time waster.

- Speaking of games, War in the East II is out. I'm waiting on it showing up on GoG with a sale, but it looks good. I'm not saying it's not worth $80, just that I can wait on it. I'm still trying and failing to do well as the 1942 Soviets. I'm doing okay but it's hard to figure out how to deal with some situations when you're outgunned and on the defense.

7 comments:

  1. Any notes on the hexcrawling experience? Stuff they especially liked? How much of the survival minigame (camping, foraging, weather, travel) did you use?

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    1. I'll have to do a post, but we've used campaign, weather, random encounters, and travel rolls (Boating mostly). No foraging because it is not the best environment for it and the PCs pack and/or make their own (rations & Create Food.)

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    2. Create Food is pretty much an I-win button for the foraging game.

      As a note for travel: I wound up making Hiking a combined roll (at a penalty for all the characters who lack the skill, a la Dungeon Fantasy 2, page 11). Because five PCs making Hiking rolls and computing movement rates and taking only the lowest one is Not Fun.

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    3. We do the same for everything except Boating, because it just doesn't seem that reasonable that one boatmaster can really help the other that significantly, or that a critical success or failure can cause significant consequences to both boats.

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  2. Nooooo!

    If you're running a flashpoint game start with a fresh company.

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    1. I should. They just popped up right after I finished the campaign. Logically, I thought it was more hard stuff for my company to do . . . but that's not the case.

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  3. @Charles Seager, create food is a win button except for critical failures and weirdness magnet; I have had would be food turn into a plant monster, produce (for a mostly vegetarian party) a cheeseburger happy meal, and some rice porridge become a baby shoggoth.

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