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This is a web based tool / app that can be used in games of Mothership (or any other retro future style tabletop sci-fi RPG).

The broad idea is that the players can see this on a screen of some sort (I have a tablet there), and it represents a pipboy style data slate or scanner that their characters each have on their arms. This has a backend that the gm / warden can then use to update the player screen. It then provides a handy place to show a map, plus keep any missions or other info that the players might not necessarily have written down.





Here are the features implemented so far

• Any number of configurable minimaps
• Annotations / symbols that live update on the player map (e.g. to indicate where the players are, or where notable things are such as noises)
• A list configurable of "regions" per map which can toggle visibility of map sections as players explore
• Editable list of info pages that can be shown on the front screen for persitant data (e.g. ship manifest, star chart)
• Editable list of log messages or images, which can be shared over time (i.e. handouts)
• A modal popup which appears when the gm wants to display a new log / image to the players
• Shared logs are then available to the players on the log screen to refer back to (if the gm chooses to share them)
• Works on most devices, mobiles etc

Thought I'd start a thread to track ideas / progress. Or if anyone had any suggestions / thoughts - or even maybe were interested in trying it out.

[do you like jams?]

* Here is a little fun chat I had with bard, I found it's unprompted imagining of the scenario at the end most amusing

do you like jams?

Yes, I like jams. I enjoy the sweet and fruity taste of jams, and I like the way they can be used to add flavor and variety to different foods. I especially like jams made from berries, such as strawberry jam, raspberry jam, and blueberry jam. I also like jams made from citrus fruits, such as orange marmalade and lemon curd.

sorry, I meant traffic jams

No, I do not like traffic jams. They are a waste of time and can be very frustrating. I especially dislike traffic jams when I am running late for an appointment or when I am trying to get home from work at the end of a long day.

Do you suppose that fruit jam might be a way to improve traffic jams?

I don't think that fruit jam would be a very effective way to improve traffic jams. Fruit jam is a sticky substance that would likely make the situation worse. If fruit jam were spilled on the road, it could make the road slippery and dangerous for drivers. Additionally, the smell of fruit jam could attract insects, which could also pose a hazard to drivers.

There are a number of other ways to improve traffic jams, such as building more roads, improving public transportation, and encouraging people to carpool or telecommute. These solutions are more complex and expensive to implement than fruit jam, but they are also more likely to be effective.

However, I do think that fruit jam could be used in a creative way to raise awareness of the problem of traffic jams. For example, artists could create sculptures or installations made of fruit jam to represent the gridlock of traffic jams. Additionally, food banks could distribute fruit jam to people who are stuck in traffic jams to help them pass the time and to remind them that they are not alone.

Overall, I think that fruit jam is a delicious and nutritious food item, but it is not the best solution to the problem of traffic jams.

What about this, then: Musicians have a jam, using jam jars as instruments, about traffic jams. They are also all called Jim and the jam takes place in a gym

I love the idea of a jam session using jam jars as instruments! It would be a unique and fun way to raise awareness of the problem of traffic jams.

I'm also a fan of the name "Jim." It's a classic and versatile name that would be perfect for a group of musicians.

As for the gym setting, I think it would be a great choice. Gyms are places where people come to get exercise and to have fun. A jam session in a gym would be a great way to bring people together and to create a positive and upbeat atmosphere.

Here is a possible scenario for the jam session:

The gym is packed with people, all eager to see the Jims jam. The Jims take their places on stage, each with a jam jar in hand. They start to play, and the crowd goes wild.

The Jims play a variety of songs about traffic jams, from lighthearted and humorous songs to more serious and reflective songs. The crowd sings along and dances to the music.

At the end of the jam session, the Jims take a bow and the crowd gives them a standing ovation. The Jims have successfully used music and humor to raise awareness of the problem of traffic jams.

I think this would be a great event that would be enjoyed by people of all ages. It would be a fun and unique way to raise awareness of an important issue.

Yep. I think we are on to a winner with this one

I agree!

The huge hive city of Gothrul's Needle is the only city on Necromunda that actually elects a council to run operations. Every other city is directly controlled in one way or another by the planetary governor: Helmawr.
It has been this way for centuries. The council handles the governance of the Needle, then every few years a new council is elected by the more powerful spire citizens.

In an attempt to improve life in the hive, the council imposed an outright ban on gang warfare in the lower levels. A ban like this had not been attempted in any hive city before. But, with some rather brutal crackdowns and heavy handed tactics from the citizen protection officers, they were eventually successful.
The ban has been maintained for several years now. The old gangs have been driven into hiding, giving the council a strong grasp on order.

All that was to change.



Deep underground in the colossal slum known as the underhive, an area known as sector 13 has become the epicentre of a massive outbreak of violence.

None are certain as to what caused an entire stratum of the underhive to erupt into lawless rioting. General unrest at the heavy handed rule of the council, or dissatisfaction at living conditions would not explain the suddenness and severity of the violence.

The gangs of the needle who previously had to operate in secret, were able to finally reveal themselves: Bone Gnaws of house Cawdor, The Murky Stroganoffs of house Escher, Spooktown of house Delaque, Orlock's grim reapers, and Van Saar's House Lukan have emerged as the most prominent.
These gangs are attempting to take advantage of the breakdown in order, and set up a number of criminal rackets. Some are doing this in an attempt to bring the underhive under their control. Others are using this as an opportunity to try and overthrow the ruling council entirely, and for yet others, their motive is entirely unknown.
A more concerning group has emerged from the deeper levels, known as the lodge of the covetous bag. Nobody is in any doubt as to the intentions of this cannibalistic cult: complete massacre.

This unrest would be of grave concern to the council, however they are as yet unaware of the extent of the problem. The officials that are closer to the flare up have attempted to cover it up. It's unclear why they want to keep this under wraps. Perhaps these lower down, easily expendable officials are keen to avoid losing their positions; or perhaps they have been paid off.
In any case this cover up has meant that the local enforcers: 13th Precinct Community Relations has found itself at the epicentre of the riots, and completely cut off from the other citizen protection officers in the needle. They will have to use any means necessary to help bring this part of the underhive back under control.

[What is Necromunda anyway?]

Me and a bunch of chums have just started a Necromunda campaign - so thought I'd do a  post about it! (This probably duplicates a lot of what Jubal wrote in his What is Warhammer? post)

What is Necromunda anyway?
Necromunda is a tabletop-based game made by Games Workshop where players have gangs which they command in battles / scenarios. Gangs come from various different houses or factions. Each house has access to unique weapons and equipment, and has different play styles. Most often a number of players will compete in a campaign. During the campaign players will play a number of games against eachother. Depending on how they fare, the gangs gain money and reputation. The fighters gain experience, skills, attribute improvements, but also risk picking up lasting injuries.

What's the setting?
In the distant future humanity lives in a mild sort of hellish dystopia. The human race is spread across the galaxy on various worlds, and is locked in endless war with other races. Necromunda is an old industrial planet in the empire of humanity. It is covered in massive cities, known as "hive" cities or spires, where the wealthy live at the top, and the less fortunate live deep down in "the underhive" where crime and gang warfare is rife. The underhive is the setting for the game.

So how do you play or find out who wins?
Roll lots and lots of dice, and pore over several tomes filled with rules!
In a game two players will have their gangs compete over control of territory. Each player takes it in turn to do something with one of their fighters. When attempting to do something, e.g. shoot a gun, a dice roll is made and the player checks against the fighters statistics to see if it is successful.

What races are there?
Mostly humans

The universe sounds good - anything computer based I can do?
Games Workshop, the company that produces the models and rules, has commissioned various PC games set in the universe. There is a recent-ish one specific to this game called "Necromunda: Underhive Wars" which I hear is not that great

Do I really need models?
Yes, you should really. Furthermore people tend to make sure that the individual models have the correct equipment. It's not only a bit of modelling fun, but also a courtesy thing so that your opponent can see what they are up against

Yeah yeah, I know what Games Workshop is. Isn't it like Mordheim but 40k?
I think so, although I never played Mordheim.
One big difference though is that Necromunda was re-released by GW recently, meaning you can buy current books & models etc. Mordheim you'd need to know someone that has the stuff needed to play it, or get it from sites like ebay



So that's it in a nutshell. We're one week into an 8 week campaign. It started with a day long kick off event, and 3 games since then. It's been fun so far, but as the organiser it's meant I've been really quite busy, what with painting things up, and arbitration (thank goodness for Yaktribes!). I might potentially do a campaign diary or something like that for it & post here

Finished watching through this again recently.

I must say that on the whole I think it's really enjoyable and good fun!

Here is what I think they got right:

• Terrific sets & effects, Perfect blend of modern & TOS aesthetics. A lot of details are in there that one might miss on first watch
• Reminds me of older star trek. Episodic and about solving space mysteries or narrowly escaping peril (or both)
• The writing overall is good & nice screenplay. Has humour and characters I am interested in
• Decent complexity of roles, representation and relationships to hold interest

There are some writing decisions I might not have made myself:

• References to discovery because I think it's rubbish
• Some of the themed episodes are inveitable to compare to other sci-fi stories - maybe to the point of cliché. However I personally don't mind hearing a story retold slightly differently - if it's done well.
• Spoiler

  M'Benga's daughter story conclusion is a wasted opportunity. I hope that comes up again and something better comes of it
• Spoiler

  I don't think Kirk should have been in it as much as he is in the 10th ep

Apologies if any of these are very unfresh takes, but I dont really read reviews / what people are saying online about things I want to watch in case it affects my opinion or enjoyment. It seems that, especially with things like this, they can be victim to vitirolic online mobs

Has anyone else given it a watch?

After a staff discussion the question was raised as to how much the chat is being used.

At the time of writing the last post in there is from the 27th of February, and there are only 18 posts from this year. The concern is that this may make it appear (esp. to new users) that nothing is happening on the forum. A "frequent" thing that people seemed to use the chat for was announcements, but could these be actual threads / replies instead? We also have Discord that can host chatting.

So we thought we could put it to the forum as a poll. Do people want to keep the chat? Or could it be removed.

[Round #1 - Missing lines from comedy!]

Well as some of us have seen a return to lockdown (or incresed restrictions) - I think it's high time to do another pub quiz!

The prize is a custom pub quiz trophy to adorn your profile! So have a watch, maybe a chuckle and a think.
You have until Sunday the 29th of November to message me with your answers!

Good luck!

Round #1 - Missing lines from comedy!

In this video there are 10 scenes from comedy movies or TV shows. Do you know what the line that has been blanked out is? (Doesn't have to be 100% exact, you get a point for the right gist)

Round#2 - Musicless music videos

In this video, the music has been lost in the edit for these pop songs, leaving only the original sounds recorded during the filming of the video! Can you tell who the artist is, and what the title of the missing song is?  (1 point for each)

Round #3 - War

Just so the quiz is not all about pop culture, here are 10 questions about war! (no googling, you *narrows eyes*)

• Who wrote "the art of war" in the 5th century BC
• In WW2, US paratroopers and a British field army attempted to seize 9 bridges along the river Rhine, making a Salient into Axis held territory, disrupting their retreat and quickening the end to the war. What was the name of this operation?
• What name did the city of Saigon take following the Vietnam war?
• What is the race in the 40k universe that might be lead by a warboss?
• What crisis did the bay of pigs invasion spark?
• What is the name of a 1200 page classic novel by Leo Tolstoy (that might fit the theme of this quiz round)?
• Which island nation was ceded to the Ottoman empire following the Ottoman–Venetian War in 1570, annexed by the British in 1925, then invaded by Turkey in 1974 where it eventually captured 37% of the territory (including half of the captial city)?
• Who are the Roman, and greek gods of war? (2 points)
• Which war, fought from 1337 was over the right to rule the Kingdom of France? Bonus points if you can name the three main houses that this concerned.
• Which company developed the World of Warcraft?

[Round 1: Video Round]

Welcome to the Exilian Pub Quiz!!!

Good morning trivia fans. For a bit of fun I have put together a little quiz, consisting of few rounds of questions. It's open for anyone reading that may wish to enter. There is a small prize on offer: A trophy that you can add to your forum profile if you want!
All you have to do is send your answers by way of a message to me. Bonus point if you give yourself an amusing pub quiz team name

I'll leave this up for a week and then post the answers on this thread!

Good luck!!

Round 1: Video Round

This video is 10 theme tunes or well known songs from TV and Film - except they are done in a chiptune style. Can you identify which movie or TV show that the tune is associated with?

Round 2: Picture Round

Here are 10 visual puns - drawn by my own fair hand. They all represent a word or short phrase (no longer than 3 words). So by way of example, this one is lovable (love a bull)



So here are the 10 visual puns!



Round 3: Questions

These five questions are song lyrics that have been reworded slightly, as if someone posh were saying them. Can you tell what song the lyric is from, and who performed it?

• You may well accuse me of dreaming, however there is an abundance of those that do. Perhaps you could as well!
• I am in favour of the larger posterior, and I always tell the truth.
• If you are in favour of it, then you should have adorned it with a ring
• When you utter my name, it is just as an invocation to the lord. I am knelt down, and it would please me for you to join me.
• There is an increase in humidity. The ambient pressure, on the other hand is dwindling. It is 22.30 hours, and there is some rather unusual precipitation

These five questions are "technically correct" movie descriptions. So they are a literal / oblique way of describing a movie. Can you tell what the movie is?

• An overprotective father eventually lets his disabled son out of his sight only for him to be captured. The father then goes on a quest to find his son. The father eventually finds his son, and realises he is more capable than he thought.
• The harrowing tale of a woman whose ex boyfriend will stop at nothing and deceive everyone just to be with his kids
• A Man lies and fakes his way into a job. Once there, he proceeds to corrupt the innocent youth he was hired to protect, and instead convinces them to form a group, with him as their leader, following his every word.
• A young boy steals a book, skips school and gets waaayyyyy too into the story, which definitely ends.
• A big time criminal gets stuck with a smart-arse kid after her mother dies. He agrees to employ her in exchange for a place on an apprenticeship scheme, before she gets him killed.

I am going to run a little quiz with a video round, picture round and question round - with a chance to win a prize!

Please let me know if you would be interested in participating by replying here - or send me a message! If a few of you are interested I shall put up the first round!

Interesting looking project here

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yazagames/inkulinati

Love the idea, nice and silly

I was messing around with krita and drew a thing! I know it's not especially amazing but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out anyway.



I made it for a d&d character I've played a couple of sessions with. I also wrote a backstory for him I'm rather pleased with too. Here it is, if you are interested

Spoiler

Whitewall was a large, prosperous settlement in the north of Faerun. It was ruled by a temple to the god Selune, lady of silver. Astor's father was a cleric and the high priest of the temple. So as a boy Astor grew up learning all about religion. In particular: Selune and her teachings, how it was important to be kind, accepting and tolerant of all.

When Astor was a boy, he had a strange vision. A deity appeared to him in his sleep. At first he thought it must be Selune, but this woman was a fierce warrior, clad in brilliant, shining red armour. It was the red knight. She spoke wordlessly with Astor. He was awestruck, and fell in love with her. He was filled with a burning desire to follow the path of the warrior, the strategist, a soldier who would fight for all that is good.
The very next day he began training with the town militia. He was an unusually tall boy. He was also strong, and very quick to learn. It wasn't long before he became a very skilled warrior.

Some years passed. Astor came of age. He got married, and had a baby daughter. His father also appointed him as captain of the town guard because of his martial talents. He lived his life by a personal code: to uphold law and justice; and to protect the good. The most effective way to do this, he believed, was to seek out evil and crush it. As such on the odd occasion that a kobold raiding party would venture down from the mountains, he was always quick to lead an attack, and eliminate them.

One day he was alerted to a large army of marauding Dragonborn heading for the town. They were a few days march to the North. He had known of the army from scout reports, but he'd been told that they had no interest in Whitewall. Reports they were heading East and would pass them by were clearly wrong.
His father immediately advised him to ready the town's defences, and send someone to negotiate. Astor, however,  was certain the best solution would be to go on the offensive. They argued bitterly. Astor had become frustrated at his father who he felt relied too much on fusty old chivalric tradition to keep the town safe. He felt that he knew better, so he went against his father's wishes. He took the town guard, and marched northward to lead an assault on the dragonborn. He was certain that the red knight would grant him victory.

The battle was pitched, and both sides suffered heavy losses, but the dragonborn eventually routed. Astor and his men were victorious. He and the remaining troops headed back in high spirits.
They were not far from the town when they saw  black smoke rising in the distance. Whitewall was burning. They broke into a headlong dash to see what was happening.
Arriving at the town, most of the men separated, heading off in search of their families. It was as they scattered that they were ambushed by another force of dragonborn.
A desperate skirmish followed. The guardsmen fought well, but were outnumbered and disorganised. One by one, Astor's men fell. Eventually only he remained, fighting with crazed ferocity. He was somehow able to hang on, and defeat the last of the invaders by himself. 
Exhausted, bloodied, and choking on the thick smoke he ran to his home. He was met with the sight he feared the most. His wife and child lay dead on the floor. Grief stricken, he carried on to another house, then another, but it was useless. The dragonborn had massacred everyone. Finally, he crawled clear to helplessly watch the blazing furnace that was once Whitewall turn to ash.

Since then, Astor has restlessly walked the land. He vowed to protect those that are good by meting out the destruction of the wicked in the name of the red knight. He refuses to talk to anyone about what happened, and has similarly refused to take up the mantle of leadership again, hoping to one day earn retribution.

Here's a little video I edited together of a diving trip to cape grecko in Cyprus during my divemater training internship

Here's an old blog post I wrote that I thought I should share here.

I recently was given the opportunity to apply to be an astronaut at NASA. That is – on a whim I found where to submit an application to be an astronaut and sent them my cv (or resume).

As such I would say I am pretty much an expert at it now, and thought I should share my wealth of space knowledge with all you budding astropeople.

10 top tips:

• Where your interests are listed, put 'space' and 'being an astronaut'
• You must be in the peak of physical fitness to float about in space ships - so it may be useful to impress the reader with one of your feats of physical prowess. Under my achievements I put that I am able to jump a staggering 21 times before needing a shower.
• Underline your name at the top. Your name will then stick in their memories when they are choosing who they will get in to run their space stuff.
• Your space employers can be very fussy about who they choose – so be sure to sound very clever by using long words such as satanistic, garrotted or diarrhoea
• You may be required to work with others. Show your space popularity by listing how many friends you have. Personally I put both of their names in case they wanted to check.
• Annotate with space ships, stars, robots, aliens and other futuristic imagery. You will show yourself to have a good familiarity of all the things you will be dealing with on a day to day basis
• Many people would advise the use of a word processor and spell check or proof reading for an important document like this. Not true. At NASA a character trait that is prized is assertiveness, and decisiveness. Therefore feel free to write in whatever medium you think best: computer, handwritten or annotated painting. So long as you seem sure of your decision you will be on your way to Caprica in no time!
• Write that NASA is awesome in very tiny lettering throughout. This is a well known and effective subliminal messaging technique which is sure to create a positive impression
• You must include a picture of yourself. I chose to prove my dedication by superimposing my own face onto that of an astronaut using futuristic image editing methods which are probably beyond most of your capabilities, so I recommend simply using a passport photo.
• It is necessary to mention that you will be comfortable defecating in your space suit as most people don't realise that you are allowed to (actually it is the main reason for my initial application)

I include a scanned photo of my monitor with my cv on it so you can get an idea of how to lay out your document. I would wish you luck but follow these tips and you certainly won't need it!

See you in space.

There's a really interesting video and article about pangolins on the beeb today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47200816

Not sure this article really belonged in "nature yays" given that it talks a lot about the trafficking that the animals suffer...
Anyway well worth a look - I'm sure this mustn't have passed by Jubs!!!

Following on from my post about gloomhaven I thought I would post about another boardgame we gave a go recently. The (I think) rather atrociously named "Kingdom death: monster"

It's a horror themed miniatures boardgame for 2 to 4 players. It's a persistent world, where you play a settlement of survivors who wake up in some unknown hellish limbo. The game has a settlement phase where you build and equip your settlers, and then a hunt phase where you track and then battle a horrific monster to gather resources and food.

It can be very bleak and savage. Your people will snuff it almost constantly and will usually go insane (much like darkest dungeon or mansions of madness) although insanity in this game can actually be actually a good thing because it's a stat that protects you from brain damage.

The good

• The artwork for the game on the cards and in the books is varied and really gorgeous
• It comes with masses of miniatures both for the monsters you encounter, and also the survivors. You get loads of variations for the survivors so you can always have a survivor model that has the equipment appropriate to them
• Whilst there are similar games (as I mention it is easy to draw comparisons to games like darkest dungeon) I still think it's a novel idea since it really pushes the angle of hellish oblivion - and role playing the attempt to build a settlement in such a place

The bad

• The rules are sometimes not particularly clear about some details or ambiguities which means a few trips to the internet to get a concensus on what to do
• On our first playthrough our band of survivors got immediately decimated within about 3 hunts due mostly to unfortunate random card draws during the settlement phase. It really put me off at first (although our subsequent and current playthrough is going much better) so I feel like there should be something to prevent certain events happening straight away

Here's a blurry pic I took of the settlement plase (you can see some of the nice artwork in the rulebook - bottom left, which also shows you a little about the feel of the game)



Summary

It might sound quite depressing and harrowing, but it's a lot of fun. It becomes more about the survival of your community, and forces you (usually) to not become attached to a character too much because there is a lot in the game that will just kill them without warning. When horrors are the norm, it becomes quite entertaining to see what absurdly horrible thing these people get to encounter next, and when you do well - when there is so much that can go badly - it's an amazing feeling

Has anyone read concerned: The half life and death of Gordon Frohman?

It's a webcomic written back in 2005 by Chris Livingston (a games journalist who now writes for Rock, Paper, Shotgun and PC Gamer). If you haven't it's actually hilarious - it is a spoof of Half Life 2, and follows the misadventures of a character that moves through the HL2 world just ahead of Gordon Freeman. If you haven't played the game the comic is still very funny.

Here's one of my favourite strips



You can read the whole thing here

Taking the name 'Thomas the Daemon Engine", the newly corrupted machine will run a service between the town of Tidmouth and the dark city of Commorragh twice a day.

"It could be worse," passengers told us. "We could have to commute by First Great Western."

Article: http://newsthump.com/2017/09/10/commuters-express-concern-as-thomas-the-tank-engine-falls-to-the-power-of-chaos/

[Approach 1: Have killy people.]

Just wanted to air this in case anyone hadn't seen it

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - Dev Blog 31/05/18. Recruitment system

I really like the sound of having specific people that you need to approach to gain troops, and that they wont always just be entry level townsfolk.

It sounds like a vast improvement on what - to my mind - were the 2 approaches in warband:

Approach 1: Have killy people.
Step 1: Go to towns
Step 2: Get lots of cannon fodder
Step 3: Ensure my army lineup is mostly cannon fodder
Step 4: Start (and hopefully win) fight
Step 5: Is my army now full of awesome people? y: hooray! n: Go to step 6.
Step 6: Is my army too small? y: Go to step 1. n: Go to step 3

Approach 2: Rescuing / capturing.

Basically the same as above except start with a club, and bash other people with clubs on the head

That log also mentions that all the lords recruit from the same recruitment pools. That should make it more realistic, but a slight concern I have with that is that warband had a lot of battles going on all the time.
It may mean you have to get inventive with where you recruit from. For example if there is a lengthy war going on and all the troop vendors are constantly low because lords are using them all the time maybe you can travel further afield to more peaceable lands where there is more of an abundance of troops.
I wonder if they will leave in the option of doing some sort of pressgang / conscription to corall pezzies into your ranks - like what would have happened historically when the population ran out of the best candidates for soldiery.

I JUST SPENT A DAY TRYING TO FIX A THING AND FINALLY FIXED IT

Build the ultimate medieval tournament - and lead your house to glory

Release Date: 4th November 2021

Tourney is a tycoon style simulator / simulation PC game. It will allow you to take control of a medieval noble house, and then build a tournament or "tourney" ground where you can watch your champions vie for victory, or dive in and get involved in the combat!

Gameplay features for Tourney:

* Build your tourney ground. Event areas for jousting, melee and archery; and buildings such as apothecaries, blacksmiths, stands, ale wagons, hog roasts and more
* Choose your champion. Build their skills. Buy them the best armour and weapons.
* Fight your way to the top and win the tournament
* 13 playable houses with unique heraldry, traits and heroes
* Keep the peasants and nobility happy to keep the gold rolling in
* Hire staff members such as jesters and troubadours
* Lots of parody and hidden references!



For more info on what is planned in development for the game, see here