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If you're after 2d paper minis (or tokens for VTTs) I'm a big fan of Trash Mob Minis. They're cartoony and a little crossover-happy/fourth-wall-breaky in places but I like that sort of style, so.
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Apr 14, 2022 09:05
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I just set up maps using tinted chess pieces in TTS
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Apr 14, 2022 13:18
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Other solo-wargames worth a look: Planet 28: a Sci-Fi skirmish game with plenty of character options and quick, not terribly complicated combat. This leads to a more narrative experience. The base rules are designed for versus play, but there is a supplement for solo or co-op play that sets out a decent AI system and includes a mini-campaign. A supplement for vehicles is also available. It is a Pay What you Want sort of situation, but even the recommended price for all three books is about 20 bucks. Brutal Quest the fantasy version of Planet 28 with similar pricing. No vehicles. Space Weirdos: A 16-page rulebook with four pages more to guide solo play. Like Planet 28, it is a Sci-Fi skirmish game, but it is considerably more crunchy. Still not very crunchy, just more. Five bucks gets you the rules with solo-supplement and a PDF with some goodies, including tokens for those who don't like painting up tiny statues and making buildings out of home-insulation materials. One Hour Wargames: Unlike the above, not a skirmish game. This one allows for the deployment of whole armies and can capture every era from ancients to the second world war. A bit of time could be spent to figure out how to use it for fantasy or Sci-Fi. Since it exists at the unit-level, it isn't quite as role-playey as the others. It has about three pages dedicated to making a solo game work, and they are enough. The big benefit to this book is that it contains 30 different scenarios that work with any era and are easily used with any game. It was part of a Humble Bundle a couple of year ago that included a bunch of crafting and recipe books, so if you have a habit of buying a bunch of stuff on Humble, then you may already own a copy of this. One Hour Skirmish Wargames: rather like the above but at the warband level. You can pretty much put together everything you need to know about this one from a free PDF preview. This is a very light system that uses a standard deck of playing cards rather than dice. There really isn't much to this one, it basically plays out like the children's card game War. There are a few wrinkles in there that make for some intriguing situations despite the simplicity. There are some unit-specific things and different eras introduce other variances as well. It wouldn't work out for eras that are primarily melee-based combat (which would include fantasy), but is fine from the advent of gunpowder through to Sci-Fi. Dead Record: a solo zombie-apocalypse survival thing. I haven't played it, but I've been looking for something to do with all the minis I have from Zombies!!! since the game itself isn't very good. And a price of Free is about exactly as much as I'd want to pay for Yet Another Thing About Zombies. With a four-day weekend upcoming with various plans cancelled because of weather and COVID, I'm looking for stuff to do.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:25
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there's also https://battlesystems.co.uk/product/core-space-starter-set/ Which seems to be potentially single player, though I think that one is more battle and less rpg
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Apr 15, 2022 04:19
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There's the ongoing jankfest of the Two Hour Wargames product lines. They're not exactly perfectly explained and easy to learn. Some neat campaign systems.
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Apr 15, 2022 14:22
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GreenBuckanneer posted:there's also https://battlesystems.co.uk/product/core-space-starter-set/ Their new game First Born is more explicitly single player, but either works. There’s a short narrative campaign of missions, and the expansions add more. It’s along the lines of the Stargrave solo missions.
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Apr 15, 2022 15:51
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Thanks for all the suggestions. Adventure Wargaming opens up a whole new world for me, it's sort of exciting... and a little overwhelming, choice wise. I played a few turns of Five Parsecs from Home over the weekend and it was a blast. I really like the campaign process and it's fun to fill in the gaps, narrative wise, after rolling a ton of tables. I don't have much in the means of wargaming miniatures, but I was able to draw out some terrain on a 2x2 battle mat and made up some tokens with card stock and coins so I could play the game a bit before fully committing. I'll likely take a look at paper options in this thread and start to pivot into actual minis. GreenBuckaneer asked why I didn't consider myself a 'mini guy', I tried painting a long long time ago and found it frustrating, but now I'm a lot more patient and consume a lot less caffeine. With the abundance of learning materials online nowadays, it may be a cool creative outlet for me if I give it another try. While I was playing my wife came over saw my paper tokens and said that it looked like the game would be a lot more fun with minis. The only thing now is even though I am feeling sci-fi right now, I am really a fantasy fan at heart, therefore looking at one of the many fantasy options in the genre. Rangers of Shadow Deep looks pretty rad. Also looks like the 3rd edition of fantasy version of Five Parsecs, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, is due out very soon.
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Apr 18, 2022 01:04
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You get the PDF for Five Leagues right now if you preorder the book, but it isn't up for sale separately yet.
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Apr 18, 2022 04:41
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is there anywhere that has the new mork borg solo supplement solitary defilement in stock for print? i don't want a pdf and it's not on exalted funeral
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Apr 18, 2022 16:46
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Ubersandwich posted:
I’ve been playing rosd for the past couple of years and while I really enjoy it, the campaign is very much on rails. I’m really looking forward to 5 leagues for the free form narrative experience. Both games are brutal though and very swingy. Hopefully 5 leagues will be less swingy. I’m a bit tired of my characters in rosd being one-shotted by giant flies.
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Apr 18, 2022 22:05
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There are a lot of new paints that help with the tedious part of painting now. In particular the Army Painter Speed paint ranges (and the GW contrast color range) help a lot. Undercoat, glob speed paint on, paint as much detail as you can stomach. Profit. All in all you could paint an entire war band in the time it takes for the paint to dry.
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Apr 19, 2022 13:17
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Ubersandwich posted:Thanks for all the suggestions. Adventure Wargaming opens up a whole new world for me, it's sort of exciting... and a little overwhelming, choice wise. rangers of shadow deep is great. i think it's best with one other person as a co-op game but totally playable solo. it's one of the few games with an actual story campaign you can play through and i enjoyed building terrain and gameboards for the various missions as they came up.
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Apr 19, 2022 13:40
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Doctor Zero posted:There are a lot of new paints that help with the tedious part of painting now. In particular the Army Painter Speed paint ranges (and the GW contrast color range) help a lot. Undercoat, glob speed paint on, paint as much detail as you can stomach. Profit. All in all you could paint an entire war band in the time it takes for the paint to dry.  You can make your own "speed paint" aka "liquid talent" by mixing normal paint with Pledge Floor Gloss
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Apr 19, 2022 13:47
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Rutibex posted:
Yeah, but the army painter speed paint has excellent pigmentation for the application, and it's cheaper than GW (what isn't?). Also if someone doesn't like painting, I'm going to assume they don't want to gently caress around mixing their own speed paint. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsHGUAAi420
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Apr 19, 2022 13:58
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What makes those paints better than whatever else is out there? I'm not ever going to change from what I have since I bought ~14,000 bottles of paint from a freight liquidator, but I am curious.
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Apr 19, 2022 14:10
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Antifreeze Head posted:What makes those paints better than whatever else is out there? They're effectively designed to do every step of a base coat and shading with one paint that doesn't require super fine detail or layering. An example from when they first released, all of these are a single paint over primer: 
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Apr 19, 2022 14:13
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Finally got the space in my new apartment to justify gathering more junk, so I've printed the Ironsworn, Delve and Lodestar books. Going to have a go at world generation and a couple of sessions this afternoon. I can't deal with PDFs.
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Apr 22, 2022 12:50
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Fat Samurai posted:Finally got the space in my new apartment to justify gathering more junk, so I've printed the Ironsworn, Delve and Lodestar books. Going to have a go at world generation and a couple of sessions this afternoon. I can't deal with PDFs. i can't use PDFs either. is there a printer under $500 that can do a decent quality pamphlet? i don't know anything about zines and i only have a $100 inkjet but i'm about ready to just get the full setup and try to get all these mork borg pamphlets made. i started a solitary defilement run yesterday and it's a lot of fun so far, but not everything is POD and i can't abide the PDF stuff if anyone has any good resources for zine printing please let me know
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Apr 22, 2022 13:17
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It's only tolerable if you have an iPad or a laptop where you can flip the screen around so it's a pretend tablet, in my opinion
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Apr 22, 2022 13:27
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GreenBuckanneer posted:It's only tolerable if you have an iPad or a laptop where you can flip the screen around so it's a pretend tablet, in my opinion it just ruins the ambiance(even in dark mode)
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Apr 22, 2022 13:35
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jarofpiss posted:i can't use PDFs either. I just buy the book if it's an option. I bought 5 Parsecs from Home recently, went with the scratch and dent option and saved $7 because the finish on the cover is a little uneven, and it came with a .PDF copy. If you're looking for a printer, definitely go with a laser. Brother makes a decent black and white laser for ~$200 (if you're doing a lot of printing, you don't need color, and when you do, just spend a couple bucks at the local FedEx Office), toner cartridge can be a little expensive, but they last a shitload longer than any ink cartridge, with the added bonus that toner doesn't run and bleed when it gets wet.
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Apr 22, 2022 13:59
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Iron Crowned posted:I just buy the book if it's an option. I bought 5 Parsecs from Home recently, went with the scratch and dent option and saved $7 because the finish on the cover is a little uneven, and it came with a .PDF copy. yeah i always buy the book but a lot of the mork borg supplements are not available print on demand and are like 20 page pamphlets. i just feel like i should be able to get these printed out at home if i can figure out the right paper weight and cover stock. obviously won't be able to do the badass free league publishing foil treatment stuff but if i can get the resolution good enough i'll be happy i think. brother seems to be what people recommend because they're more consumer friendly on toner/ink. i'll look at my pdf collection and see what kind of art/color/etc i'm trying to print and see if there's anything consumer grade that can work for one-off copies of pamphlets. i'd do books but bookbinding is a hobby i've actively avoided the siren call of because i have literally no more space in my wizard lair.
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Apr 22, 2022 14:08
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I have a cheap (laser) Brother that's at least ten years old and it still works fine. I switched to third party toner and now it's pretty cheap to run - not that it even gets used that often. PDFs are handy but for things I want to commit to I typically just print out all the pages and toss them in a three-ring binder. It has the added bonus of being able to take out individual sheets for any arrangement you may need at the time.
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Apr 22, 2022 15:15
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jarofpiss posted:i can't use PDFs either. The best resource for zine printing is a office laser printer. This is what I use and I buy all my paper and toner in bulk. It's actually quite cheap if you go with laser toner instead of inkjet. You will only be able to print black and white, but that's best anyway 
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Apr 22, 2022 15:34
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jarofpiss posted:i can't use PDFs either. I spent a few years repairing and maintaining commercial printers, and Laser is the only real choice for most home print jobs. Toner cartridges get you more pages, the toner is fused to the paper so it won't run, the printer doesn't have to run cleaning cycles that waste your toner, prints faster, and significantly less calibration and maintenance to get high quality prints. For personal use, Brother is the only brand I consider. They're sturdy workhorses that will last you decades. I know people still using Brother printers they bought in the '90s. Color is more expensive than B/W and requires more calibration to keep your color gamut accurate...most people don't really need it. B/W is fine. You can get a B/W with duplex for around $150, color probably $450-500. Devorum fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 19:33
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i appreciate the advice everyone. i'm gonna look for a brother color laser printer with auto duplex and see what's out there. is there a dpi i need to get clean art out of it? not looking to do photo printing but i want to make sure i can get crisp graphic art put down. my wife's color laser printer is a little fuzzy(?) but that might be me being bad at settings. it's a brother HL-L3230cdw (i don't use that one for my work or game stuff because DSA buys her paper and toner and i can't steal from them like a normal job)
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Apr 22, 2022 20:51
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jarofpiss posted:i appreciate the advice everyone. i'm gonna look for a brother color laser printer with auto duplex and see what's out there. is there a dpi i need to get clean art out of it? not looking to do photo printing but i want to make sure i can get crisp graphic art put down. my wife's color laser printer is a little fuzzy(?) but that might be me being bad at settings. it's a brother HL-L3230cdw It might be set to a toner saver mode. That model is 600x600 by default, 2400x600 in Quality mode and that's about the best you're going to get at <$500. It could be out of calibration/alignment (all of the toner carts have to be aligned with each other or one or more colors will be offset from the rest, resulting in anything from strange colors to the image looking blurry or fuzzy), which is usually fixable via the printer settings.
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Apr 22, 2022 21:13
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Devorum posted:It might be set to a toner saver mode. That model is 600x600 by default, 2400x600 in Quality mode and that's about the best you're going to get at <$500. that's almost certainly what that is, i'll look into the settings and just buy my own toner for it. like you said it doesn't look like there are any other real options under $500
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Apr 22, 2022 21:25
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I have a Brother HL-L8360CDW which I think has the same resolution, though a bit more expensive than the HL-L3230CDW - like $450 I think - and at the quality setting, color images are sharp, though not super vibrant. I wouldn't use it for like color art prints or anything, but it's perfectly fine for the RPG PDF printouts I've been using it for. Main downside is that the official toner is literally more expensive than just rebuying the printer, so pretty much forced to use third party stuff. e: quick sample:  e2: my shaky hands and imgur recompressing the image didn't exactly help, but whatever. chglcu fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Apr 22, 2022 |
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Apr 22, 2022 22:08
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After stalling out on my Starforged game due to creative block and also losing a whole, long session of journal due to a computer problem, I find myself wishing Shawn Tomkin would give us a first look at the Sundered Isles stuff. I've started having a big itch for swashbuckling of either the classic seafaring or cloud islands style. I'm actually rather tempted to try to just kludge it using Starforged and play anyways, but part of me really wants to see what he's got in mind.
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Apr 28, 2022 05:14
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I wonder if it's worth making a thread where GMs (and solo players) stuck coming up with a story can come in and see if anyone's got a good next step for their specific thing. Like the Iron/Starsworn oracles, except guided by human minds. I gave up on Ironsworn for a couple months thanks to writer's block, the oracles weren't sparking anything, and I had zero idea how to resolve it until last night when I rolled one more time and got an idea that might or might not get me back in. I bet this isn't uncommon. Either way, Rangers of Shadow Deep looks cool and this weekend I'm planning to use Gloomhaven components and household items to see how far I can get while a kitten tries to eat my pieces and hands. She eventually stopped trying to catch the mouse cursor, so I figure she'll chill sooner or later. Are there any strategies I should or shouldn't try? I don't want to get invested in a strategy and discover it gets unfun or unreliable.
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Apr 30, 2022 10:13
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Ragnar34 posted:I wonder if it's worth making a thread where GMs (and solo players) stuck coming up with a story can come in and see if anyone's got a good next step for their specific thing. Like the Iron/Starsworn oracles, except guided by human minds. I gave up on Ironsworn for a couple months thanks to writer's block, the oracles weren't sparking anything, and I had zero idea how to resolve it until last night when I rolled one more time and got an idea that might or might not get me back in. I bet this isn't uncommon. rangers of shadow deep? not really a very deep strategic game and it's mainly an excuse to play with all of your existing huge collection of minis and terrain without having to schedule people to come over. it's a fun solo driven story campaign (which is extremely rare), but i'd never play it if i didn't build out fun tabletop to play it on if you don't already have that kind of thing or you're mostly not a terrain guy for d&d it might not click. still give it a shot though. it's still a fun game where you lead your aragorn around with a team of henchmen trying to find clues and rescue townspeople from zombies, so you may still like it even if you're doing the barebones setup
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Apr 30, 2022 12:39
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Ragnar34 posted:I wonder if it's worth making a thread where GMs (and solo players) stuck coming up with a story can come in and see if anyone's got a good next step for their specific thing. Like the Iron/Starsworn oracles, except guided by human minds. I gave up on Ironsworn for a couple months thanks to writer's block, the oracles weren't sparking anything, and I had zero idea how to resolve it until last night when I rolled one more time and got an idea that might or might not get me back in. I bet this isn't uncommon. The GM Advice thread does this for standard (non-solo) games on a fairly regular basis. A dedicated thread might not be a bad idea though.
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Apr 30, 2022 15:23
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Ragnar34 posted:I wonder if it's worth making a thread where GMs (and solo players) stuck coming up with a story can come in and see if anyone's got a good next step for their specific thing. Like the Iron/Starsworn oracles, except guided by human minds. I gave up on Ironsworn for a couple months thanks to writer's block, the oracles weren't sparking anything, and I had zero idea how to resolve it until last night when I rolled one more time and got an idea that might or might not get me back in. I bet this isn't uncommon. Is it ‘I literally can’t think of anything’ or is it ‘I don’t like the options given’? If it’s the latter, I recommend just going with it. I sometimes find myself re-rolling on charts if it’s not fitting with some preconceived notion I have, but if I just stick with the roll and explore what it’s saying, it turns out to be quite interesting when I peel back the layers. If it’s the former, IMO there is no such thing as ‘writers block’ per se (and yes, I’m a writer). There is a state of doubt / fear / self-sabotage that has the same effect, however. You have to understand and realize it for what it is. What’s happening is that you are having ideas, but you are mentally shooting them all down before they can form. In this case again, I recommend JUST WRITE, no matter how much you may not like the idea. Just the act will break through that state and get you going again, even if you have to go back and re-write it. Also it may be that you just aren’t engaged in your story. Think about it and if you find that’s the true heart of what’s going on, don’t be afraid to shelve it and start afresh. There’s no shame in it. Not every story idea is viable. Every writer has more incomplete stories than finished ones. Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Apr 30, 2022 |
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Apr 30, 2022 15:24
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Doctor Zero posted:If it’s the former, IMO there is no such thing as ‘writers block’ per se (and yes, I’m a writer). There is a state of doubt / fear / self-sabotage that has the same effect, however. You have to understand and realize it for what it is. What’s happening is that you are having ideas, but you are mentally shooting them all down before they can form. In this case again, I recommend JUST WRITE, no matter how much you may not like the idea. Just the act will break through that state and get you going again, even if you have to go back and re-write it. Write drunk, edit sober
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Apr 30, 2022 15:30
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Shawn Tomkin posted:Starforged Digital Edition: Public Release Coming Soon! One week or so until those of you waiting can get your hands on Starforged!
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Apr 30, 2022 23:59
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Modiphius is releasing a new line of rpg stuff called Cohors Cthulhu. What is it? Basically it is investigators in the Roman Empire and Ancient World battling Cthulhu and related cultists/Things. https://www.modiphius.net/pages/cohors-cthulhu quote:COHORS CTHULHU is a setting for Lovecraftian horror set against the backdrop of epic heroism, intrigue and strife in the era of ancient Rome. COHORS CTHULHU will allow players to discover hidden truths behind pivotal historical events as well as the myths and legends of the peoples in this time. Magic exists, available through belief and prayer in capricious gods. And behind the clash of mortals is a greater conflict between vast and malevolent powers competing to either subjugate humanity or shape its civilizations to suit their own sinister agendas. Why talk about this here? Way down at the veeeeery bottom is this.. quote:-A cinematic RPG driven by the 2d20 system also seen in Modiphius’ Dune, Star Trek Adventures, Dishonored, and Fallout roleplaying games. This is based on the Achtung! Cthulhu edition of 2d20 and will feature systems to help you get playing the moment you open the book. I'm excited for a solo wargame where I can stomp on Unspeakable Horrors with the sandals of the Roman Legion and Friends. Should make for some great battle reports.
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May 1, 2022 05:16
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Played some 5 Parsecs tonight with a friend, doing concurrent games, we both did our first actual combats (since our first session was getting everything settled and going through most of the first campaign turn) and I like it a lot! The combat was the part I felt most uncertain about going into the game, but it ended up being pretty quick and breezy while still having interesting decisions to make. Definitely a game that makes me want to paint and customize models for, too. Doing a concurrent game is pretty fun too in that we're sort of jointly creating the world and lore and sending writing segments to each other with plans to eventually have our crews meet/interact in some capacity. One thing that was kind of unclear to us though, was whether or not Seize the Initiative gives every member of your crew a chance to fire or any one member a chance to fire. I originally interpreted it the later way and played it as such, but re-reading for when he was doing his combat I realized the word "one" was missing from the text and wondered what the intention behind the rules was. We also had difficulty determining some of how your units are supposed to be placed, since you have a board edge, but the only limitation of where you can place models to start is how far you have to be from an enemy model afaict? There's a couple other bits that I felt were written a bit confusingly around Patrons, Missions and Quests, but those we eventually figured out. Overall though it's largely fantastic and really is a good fit for me for what I want not only out of a Solo TRPG, but also the stuff I like best about Miniature Skirmish games.
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May 3, 2022 10:11
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 This friday for anyone waiting to pick up Starforged.
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May 5, 2022 00:17
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Just finished up a 5 Parsecs campaign with a friend. It was a blast and we both really enjoyed it. We're going to try a co-op Starforged next week!
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May 5, 2022 00:27
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