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Neutral Party and Party of Two do beautiful work
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Dec 13, 2020 18:02
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Countblanc posted:does anyone have any good recommendations for premade map galleries? i'm mostly looking for modern things like building interiors but anything would be helpful - i'm trying Foundry over Roll20 for the first time and am already missing out on having a searchable database of backgrounds and other bits built in I like Two Minute Tabletop. Also if you look through Foundry’s modules a good number of maps are already provided for free by various artists.
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Dec 13, 2020 18:05
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Good news of the week: for the second time in my life I've finally had a campaign finish with an intended conclusion. It's a good feeling compared to all the games that fall by the wayside.
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Dec 13, 2020 18:06
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Countblanc posted:does anyone have any good recommendations for premade map galleries? i'm mostly looking for modern things like building interiors but anything would be helpful - i'm trying Foundry over Roll20 for the first time and am already missing out on having a searchable database of backgrounds and other bits built in Dyson Logos has shitloads of maps on his site, but I think they're almost all fantasy.
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Dec 13, 2020 19:38
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thanks for the suggestions all, i'll take a look at those + some of the add-on options.
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Dec 13, 2020 20:56
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SkyeAuroline posted:Good news of the week: for the second time in my life I've finally had a campaign finish with an intended conclusion. It's a good feeling compared to all the games that fall by the wayside. Congratulations! I haven't had one of those since high school, but the one I'm running now looks to break that streak.
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Dec 13, 2020 22:25
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Yeah, finished a campaign this year for the first time in a decade. Thanks? Covid?
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Dec 13, 2020 22:42
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Yes, never thought a pandemic would lead to a) getting into a group with a clue about PbtA games and understanding them better b) finally running that dumb fairy game But also c) realising that a lot of this was due to a desire to be “the (something) guy” with regard to gaming d) having an unrelated thing happen showing that c) might be a terrible idea
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Dec 14, 2020 16:58
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UnCO3 posted:Many have asked "Where is Wally?" I just ordered your download and have two
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Dec 14, 2020 19:52
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D&D 4e question: Did anyone ever make an add-on for the offline character builder which covers the Zeitgeist campaign, or am I going to have to do that myself?
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Dec 15, 2020 13:13
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potatocubed posted:D&D 4e question: Did anyone ever make an add-on for the offline character builder which covers the Zeitgeist campaign, or am I going to have to do that myself? Dwarf74 did if you ask in the 4e thread.
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Dec 15, 2020 13:41
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If I can ask another weird open question (should I necro the philosophy thread?): If you have to make a decision during play (not during character generation) and none of the following apply: a) one choice is obviously tactically better b) one choice is better after analysis of known values c) both choices are equal, or equally unknown then how do you make the choice?
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Dec 15, 2020 15:16
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hyphz posted:If I can ask another weird open question (should I necro the philosophy thread?): "Which choice would most likely make the game more fun for everyone/make the coolest story/generally contribute to having fun?" Actually that's the first criteria before a, b, or c.
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Dec 15, 2020 15:22
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on the solo RPG topic: I loved play B-17 Queen of the Skies and I wish there were more games of that sort - I mean, there are those in the wargaming space, such as for U-boats and tanks, but I wonder how you could translate that to a D&D-esque settinghyphz posted:If I can ask another weird open question (should I necro the philosophy thread?): you make the "obvious" choice in a lot of roleplaying situations there's always a choice that's what you'd be expected to make, or the most cliched one, if you will. Instead of trying to be clever, just do that in a tactical combat situation, that's almost always "move to engage with the closest enemy, and attack it" - it might not be the best, most advantageous choice, but it is the quickest choice, and will output the fastest results. Even if it's a trap, even if it's a distraction, even if the enemy will resist your attack, etc., triggering any one of those reactions will change your knowledge of the tactical space enough that you'd be able to make a more informed choice the next time around
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Dec 15, 2020 15:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:you make the "obvious" choice Bear in mind, I'm not asking "if you get stuck how do you make that choice to avoid holding up the game?" I'm asking how the choice is made, at any time, even if you don't get stuck and it's made subconsciously.
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Dec 15, 2020 16:32
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potatocubed posted:D&D 4e question: Did anyone ever make an add-on for the offline character builder which covers the Zeitgeist campaign, or am I going to have to do that myself?
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Dec 15, 2020 16:53
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People put out some cool posts in the solo-game chat, thank you for that. hyphz posted:If I can ask another weird open question (should I necro the philosophy thread?): Well, if I'm playing a tactics game, then I generally don't even do any of those, if I even get to (b) then I'm probably running out the clock and pissing off my counterpart. I either go with (a) or I do what feels right, usually based on what my principles were before the table was even laid out. If I'm playing a role-playing game then I go with what makes sense for what reflects my character. I try to keep RPG characters relatively simple, so typically I follow their 'driving emotion,' are they angry or timid or paranoid or smarmy? If that doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense, I tend to go with 'what trauma are they running from' and 'who are they trying to impress.' And..that tends to cover basically everything that actually comes up at a table? If there's no action I can take that is informed by my characters drives or fears, then uh there's a real chance my character should not be there.
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Dec 15, 2020 18:05
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hyphz posted:If I can ask another weird open question (should I necro the philosophy thread?): I might just be having brain troubles but I'm not sure I follow, could you give an example? Also is this specifically a Player thing or does it apply to GMs as well?
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Dec 15, 2020 18:29
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This isn't actually that tricky of a problem, because a tactically better choice may allow harm to befall a human.
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Dec 15, 2020 19:44
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I'm looking for some recommendations on miniature games. I have a pretty large board game collection, many of which with miniatures, and I started painting them during covid to relieve some boredom. I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would and think I would like to try out some miniature gaming but am indecisive about which game to pick up. Here's my constraints when considering which game to pick up: -A game I can paint and play with my daughter (10) and my wife who both enjoy board games -Ideally ~2 hours per gaming session when we know what we are doing -Preferably not Warhammer -Not so niche that it might stop being produced soon or has really limited models I've looked into Malifaux and that seems like it might fit the bill but some of my friend who play it say that games can be really long. Also open to just some good board games with miniatures. I'd appreciate any recommendations.
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Dec 15, 2020 19:47
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Are you asking for a ruleset that can be used with the miniatures you already have (the ones you're painting out of boredom), or for a game with its own line of miniatures to buy/paint?
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Dec 15, 2020 19:49
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Countblanc posted:I might just be having brain troubles but I'm not sure I follow, could you give an example? Also is this specifically a Player thing or does it apply to GMs as well? Well, what I'm thinking about is a YouTube video about Pathfinder 2e that was made recently which complained that game offered too much of an "illusion of choice". Listening to the video what it sounded he actually meant, was that all of the system-meaningful choices are moved to character generation or leveling up time, leaving little choice in play time - based on your build, there will always be a "best thing" to do. And this made me start wondering about how it can be ensured that there are meaningful choices occurring during play. Too often, the choices in play are either that one option is obviously tactically better (possibly as a result of choices in character generation), which is no choice at all; or that there is no information in either direction ("you see doors on the left and right of the hallway") in which case it is arbitrary. At the same time, meaningful choices have to be contained to some extent, since in most games it would not be at all fun to make a choice that seemed to be right at the time and then have the PCs hopelessly crushed several scenes later because the approach they chose was actually doomed from the beginning. This ties into something I found in XD's game - my character, Fabian, accidentally came into contact with werewolf blood and contracted lycanthropy. Instead of making this behave like a regular illness, XD gave me a move to "wolf out" which could grant super strength and agility at the cost of losing control dramatically on a miss or weak hit. Fabian would be terrified of harming innocents and therefore given the choice would never have done this, but because of the shared-narrative focus in PbtA, it instead moved the decision from "what would my character do?" to "in what circumstances do I want to find out what happens?" which meant that wolfing out was an active choice in any situation, even if the consequences were negative. So the focus made the game more engaging, but less immersive - I couldn't make the decision in the mindset of my character, but that turned out to be good, because in the mindset of my character there would be no decision at all. The tradeoff though is what I then began to feel about games like Spire that had interested me before, that they didn't actually support a whole city but simply used it as a backdrop for narrative structures already established in RPGs (it strikes me that this is very similar to the hype backlash regarding Cyberpunk 2077), and that this adds another limit to choices, because you already know what will happen by spotting the narrative beats. And that made me wonder if that's inevitable. If you can't have a fun game with real choices without having at least partially exposed narrative beats. If some choices are clearly best, you don't have real choices. If you don't know anything about the choices, you don't have real choices either. If you have choices but have no way of knowing if they lead to inevitable catastrophe down the line, then you don't have a fun game unless you're into mustard smuggling. And if you have choices but know that they won't so lead to inevitable catastophe, then that knowledge is itself an exposed narrative structure. But I might be way off base on that.
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Dec 15, 2020 19:59
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mellonbread posted:Are you asking for a ruleset that can be used with the miniatures you already have (the ones you're painting out of boredom), or for a game with its own line of miniatures to buy/paint? A game line preferably. The miniatures I have are pretty game specific and would be difficult to adapt to anything else.
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Dec 15, 2020 20:03
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hyphz posted:If some choices are clearly best, you don't have real choices. I mean, this only tracks as far as you want it to. I absolutely take sub-optimal spell choices on my current PF1e cleric because they're far more in-character for him. I've also chosen to take actions that were actively destructive to our short-term goal because they were so in-character - the time where I lost my temper and plugged someone we were interrogating in the foot with a crossbow bolt because they laughed about sacrificing children to raise more ghouls was absolutely detrimental to the short-term goal of "get information out of this jerk" but very in-character for the "neutral good cleric whose goddess abhors the undead and absolutely considers protecting the weak and downtrodden his calling" character. The stuff I'd do in the pursuit of a good narrative is absolutely divergent from the stuff I'd do in pursuit of "mastery of tactical system X, problem Y laid before me". 
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Dec 15, 2020 20:11
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Lawlicaust posted:A game line preferably. The miniatures I have are pretty game specific and would be difficult to adapt to anything else. So, when warhammer fantasy blew up a few years ago, Mantic - a company made of ex-games workshop nerds - stepped in to fill that niche for a little while. They have a big fantasy battles game (Kings of War) that takes hundreds of minis, but they've followed up with a smaller-scale version called Vanguard that takes merely a dozen or three. Their fantasy setting is a kitchen sink one made basically to let people proxy in anythign from other manufacturers (like games workshop) so it's flexible in that respect. It's still a tabletop wargame, though, and I'm not sure how well it'd go with a 10-year-old. Games Workshop managed to rescue Age of Sigmar from its poor initial release, so it's back to being the king of the hill of fantasy minis games. It's not necessarily easy to find a game of kings of war: vanguard nowadays, depends on where you live. Another fantasy skirmish game I've tried is Frostgrave. That's a game set in an icy abandoned city or whatever, where you have a wizard and the wizard's minions and they fight for treasures. The first edition came out in 2015 and it's got some weaknesses in the rules (most glaringly, wizards get XP to level up from scoring kills, so wizard varieties that are more focused on e.g. control or healing up minions or stealth etc. earn less xp, don't level as fast, and fall behind) but there's a new 2nd edition (https://ospreypublishing.com/frostgrave-second-edition?___store=osprey_usa) and maybe it's better. I haven't read the rules on it. Which brings me to that game's publisher, Osprey. They have a big line of various minis games, including historicals... and historicals is a big component of the tabletop wargaming world. If you want to play real-world armies smashing, in any scale, from any era and region of the world, there is a tabletop minis game of it. The main drawback to historicals is that there's tons of them, so finding a community playing one in particular can be challenging. Also it's rife with nerds who get annoyed that your 17th century polish hussar's uniforms are the wrong shade of crimson, although that concern is maybe a bit overblown. But they also do cool poo poo like Gaslands, a mad max style game about driving cars around in the dystopian future. You can probably get away with just slapping some hotwheels down on the table along with some terrain and going for it. There's also sci fi battle and skirmish games. The big one is warhammer of course, which I don't particularly recommend, but like age of sigmar, it's the king of the hill and if your main concern is finding games, that's the top of the list. But its minis are expensive, highly detailed, probably not ideal for a 10 year old, and the community is what it is. Battletech is another very longstanding tabletop wargame, and it has the advantage of being playable with as few as one miniature per player; it also typically is played on hex map terrain, rather than totally open terrain, and the starter sets come with maps and minis sufficient to play. GW does/has published some "specialist" games too, which are much less popular than the two big flagship games, but they have longstanding fans, some of them use fewer minis, and in my opinion their longevity often owes to better rules. Do you or your daughter like the star wars? There's ship-level combat with X-Wing, fleet ship combat with Armada, squad-level combat on boardgame tiles with Imperial Assault, and now large battles too with Legion. Some (all?) of these games use pre-painted minis I think. How about goths and vampires doing spooky minis combat? Malifaux uses a handful of minis. It has sort of an adultish-goth-horror theme to it, dunno if that's too mature for your daughter, you should take a careful look first. A sleek futuristic skirmish minis game called Infinity has some proponents on these forums. Cyberdudes and laser sword ninjas and such. The first year or two of releases included an excess of bare midriffs and cheesecake poses, but those minis seem to have mostly faded away. Another fantasy/sci fi game series called War Machine (SF) / Hordes (Fantasy) was very popular for a few years, but has mostly faded out of view. There are still people with collections of minis who want games? I heard they messed up the rules and people got burnt, but I don't know the details. Do you or your daughter like marvel superheroes? Well you're in luck, of course there's a minis game, Marvel: Crisis Protocol. There's more, but I think this is a good enough start. Here's the threads to ask for more help: Cirque du Frostgrave: FANTASY WARGAMES ON ICE Age of Sigmar V2.0 - Solving Problems with More Dice Warhammer 40K 9th Edition: THE HELL I CAN'T! Warhammer 30k: Big Cheats and Girthy Meats Mantic Games - Why does everyone suddenly want to play our mass battle fantasy game? Historicals: I love the game and era, but no one near me is even vaguely interested Miniature Wargaming, Indie Style: Sci-fi/Fantasy/etc. (no GW/PP/historical) Games Workshop Specialist Games - Spend 2CP to Replace Your CEO Battletech: Break the (Fortress) Walls Down! Gaslands - Hotwheels in a dystopian future Star Wars Legion: Our Emperor's throne can swivel Fantasy Flight and Star Wars. Two great tastes that taste great together! X-Wing 2.0: It's everything we wanted, and more Malifaux - Bad Things Happen Infinity: The Bit & Kiss Tape Is Real Warmachine & Hordes Thread Mk3: The Age of Cygnar Has Both Points and Rules Marvel: Crisis Protocol - Miniatures, Assemble!
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Dec 15, 2020 20:47
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Lawlicaust posted:I'm looking for some recommendations on miniature games. I have a pretty large board game collection, many of which with miniatures, and I started painting them during covid to relieve some boredom. I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would and think I would like to try out some miniature gaming but am indecisive about which game to pick up. You want Gaslands. Cheap, simple enough a ten year old can play it, super quick.
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Dec 15, 2020 20:58
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Oh yeah the lego games exist too http://mobileframezero.com/mfz/ https://brikwars.com/
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Dec 15, 2020 22:11
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Leperflesh posted:Oh yeah the lego games exist too  This is the coolest thing I've seen in a while.
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Dec 15, 2020 22:29
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Re: the grognards.txt, Zweihander guy never showed up there. I don't think the game was even out yet when those threads were around? He only came here once to promote his game under an account he named Zweihander RPG for a post or two and vanished when people noticed. The sad reality is that a mock thread that's sustained by "look at this bad thing someone said" type posts eventually strips out all the funny-but-not-especially-horrendous things in obvious archives, like the guy pushing his PCs to make their own fun and become Mustard Merchant Masters, or the DM masks. Those don't happen with nearly the rate of outright vile racism, misogyny, and other bigoted screeds. So the thread just turns into a constant churn of the most depressing opinions too many people in our society still share, but through a D&D lens. Also the last real one ended with poop touching and digging up public court records for a guy who had bad tabletop RPG opinions, which caused it to be evacuated to the mod-only forum.
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Dec 15, 2020 22:32
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Nuns with Guns posted:be evacuated to the mod-only forum new euphemism for taking a poo poo spotted
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Dec 15, 2020 22:57
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Kyrosiris posted:
MFZ is the kind of game that gives you real respectability chops as a game designer, if you hadn't already designed some other game, like Apocalypse World.
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Dec 15, 2020 23:28
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Leperflesh posted:
Thank you so much for this. I'd love to go into a store around here to look at the games but that's a little difficult in the current state of affairs and unfortunately all the FLGS around here only carry various Warhammer lines. I think something smaller scale with squads rather than large armies would work out better to start with. After looking at a few of them, Imperial Assault seems like it would be a great game to start with but it looks to be out of print (not a surprise considering FFG). I'll see if I can find a copy and we might start there. I like the idea of something that is a little more boxed and on-rails to start off with to get us started. Some of the other games are pretty open ended and feel really daunting to teach myself and get started. Gaslands seems really cool and simple as well. She might enjoy customizing her own car. The low point of entry on it is pretty enticing too. If those don't work out Malifaux and the Marvel game sound like good fits as well for the things my daughter would enjoy painting and playing. I really appreciate the time and suggestions.
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Dec 16, 2020 07:56
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Nuns with Guns posted:Also the last real one ended with poop touching and digging up public court records for a guy who had bad tabletop RPG opinions, which caused it to be evacuated to the mod-only forum.
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Dec 16, 2020 14:53
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Does anyone here have any experience with making their own polyhedral dice? My wife's been thinking of giving it a shot but neither of us have any idea of where to start outside of the usual Google search
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Dec 16, 2020 22:56
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Would there be any interest in resurrecting a Palladium thread? I know the old one only got a couple of posts a month but, like Palladium games themselves, I look back on it fondly despite this shortcoming.
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Dec 16, 2020 23:03
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EverettLO posted:Would there be any interest in resurrecting a Palladium thread? I know the old one only got a couple of posts a month but, like Palladium games themselves, I look back on it fondly despite this shortcoming. Sure, somewhere to talk about things like Splicers would always be welcome
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Dec 16, 2020 23:04
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Dangerous Minority posted:Does anyone here have any experience with making their own polyhedral dice? My wife's been thinking of giving it a shot but neither of us have any idea of where to start outside of the usual Google search Resin casting in a silicone mold is your best bet. It's easy to get started but you can really go nuts with like, partially-mixed pigment and suspended objects and stuff if you want to make more impressive-looking dice. You can get most components from basically any craft shop. You can buy silicone molds online, or you could make a mold yourself. As long as you're safe around the resin it's surprisingly easy. Just, y'know, read the directions and warnings about toxicity and heat. Pre-mix your pigment in the resin before you pour it. Unless you're doing something extremely precise, you shouldn't have to touch the resin once it's poured into the mold. Make sure you've got a space that it can cure safely, and don't let animals or kids near it. Otherwise it's very much as easy as it looks to get a basic result - mix, pour, cure. Rip_Van_Winkle fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Dec 16, 2020 |
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Dec 16, 2020 23:14
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EverettLO posted:Would there be any interest in resurrecting a Palladium thread? I know the old one only got a couple of posts a month but, like Palladium games themselves, I look back on it fondly despite this shortcoming.
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Dec 16, 2020 23:21
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Halloween Jack posted:I am very much looking forward to the thread where we discuss Nightbane 24/7.
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Dec 17, 2020 01:53
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If you get really into dice making, you'll end up buying a vacuum chamber just to cure your dice without any bubbles. Then again once you hit that point, you've already made 100s of dice.
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Dec 17, 2020 04:21
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