@notasnark@mastodon.social
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notasnark

@notasnark@mastodon.social

Tabletop gamer (RPGs and Wargames). Developer. Game writer. aka Samuel Penn

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notasnark,
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@EmpyClaw @Jocarnail @TwistedFox With Traveller, everyone starts with links to each other so that they have some reason to work together. Since character gen in Traveller is a game in itself, having everyone do it together helps a lot.

Sometimes I start things in media res, in the middle of some action scene with the adventure already started.

But generally telling the players what they're going to be doing, and asking them to design characters who will want to do that, helps.

Tim_Eagon, to CallOfCthulhu
@Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar

I’ve been reading way too many recently published scenarios that feature a perfunctory investigation before the Investigators board a train to creepy town that is a one way exercise in hit point and SAN attrition. Sure, some of the imagery is very creepy, but something is definitely missing, that being real problem solving and meaningful choices.

notasnark,
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@Tim_Eagon @lextenebris @luxet That's one of my problems with CoC as a player. Characters are often normal people with no experience of the supernatural. My first instinct on discovering that bad shit is happening is to run away and try to avoid the adventure.

That is partly down to me finding it harder to play heroic adventure seeking characters the closer the game setting is to the modern day.

I think one reason I prefer Delta Green, is that characters are expecting to deal with bad shit.

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Online calculator for plotting scifi interstellar trips. An aid for Mongoose 2300 AD

https://starscanner.six51.com/

notasnark,
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@nyrath @sudnadja which is why I'm currently happy to stick with 2D star maps in Traveller.

notasnark, to Wargaming
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We had another game of Dirtside II, this time trying out a more infantry focused game. The take away is that I probably need more terrain.

https://blog.notasnark.net/2024/01/dirtside-urban.html

nyrath, (edited ) to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Tetrahedral spacecraft attitude jet configuration. Invented by Hollister David

https://web.archive.org/web/20120225145607/https://clowder.net/hop/tetships/tetships.html

notasnark,
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@nyrath My guess would be that the Starfury would be more efficient for storage/docking though.

jens, to random
@jens@social.finkhaeuser.de avatar

Freedom 0 (The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose) is defective.

I would really like for my software not to be used to exploit or murder people, or any unethical shit.

I think the formulation of that freedom is solely focused on the damage restrictions can do, which isn't wrong. But it completely ignores the damage that liberty can do.

So the idea is that this kind of use would be unlawful anyway. Fair, but there's a wide range between unlawful and unethical.

notasnark,
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@jens Who gets to define what is unethical? Do we really want a plethora of software licenses all defining their own version of ethics, based on various religious beliefs for example?

notasnark,
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@jens Outside of FOSS I'm not really concerned about.

Ticking a box isn't the complicated bit. It makes deciding which software to use more complicated, and could lead to lots of duplicated functionality.

Oops, can't use that "GPL+No Adult Content" image library as a dependency, because you don't want to limit that use. Now someone has to write a new library from scratch.

notasnark, to physics
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So FTL does not lead to time travel? This looks like something that is beyond the limits of my physics/maths to properly understand to know how valid it is.

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=122128

notasnark,
@notasnark@mastodon.social avatar

@michael_w_busch @nyrath Thanks for the info. I definitely wouldn't pick up mistakes in the diagrams, which is why I was hoping people more qualified than me could comment.

notasnark, to Wargaming
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In the year 2246, a small group of Earth Alliance ships are trying to escape the clutches of the Minbari. We had a game of Babylon 5 Wars, a particularly crunchy set of space combat wargame rules.

https://blog.notasnark.net/2023/09/lots-of-guns.html

notasnark,
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@nyrath I played the EASB one. It used the cinematic movement for Minbari and other ships that had 'gravitic' drives, and vector for lower tech ships.

I've taught the FT vectored movement to a number of gamers who have never used anything like it before, and it was a lot easier than teaching the B5 Wars movement system.

notasnark,
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@RogerBW @nyrath I actually used the correct equation in my first attempt at doing vectored movement for Full Thrust (before there was an official one). I decided the extra effort didn't add anything to the game so dropped it.

notasnark,
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@nyrath I use counters, which show where the ship will be when it moves (assuming no acceleration). This makes it easy to see where each ship will be, but has the downside you need to keep the counters on the table as well as the ships.

Even with unique counters for each ship, it can sometimes also get messy for big battles.

notasnark,
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@nyrath @RogerBW The other complication introducing the full equation to Full Thrust is that it affects balance.

If a ship only moves half its thrust in the first turn, that makes its position much easier to predict. You'd have to change the range for things like salvo missiles and maybe even fighters.

notasnark, to Wargaming
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It was time for another game of Full Thrust. The ESU with large ships against the FSE with a set of smaller, faster ships. It was an attempt to see if the manoeuvrability of the FSE could overcome the long range firepower of the ESU.

https://blog.notasnark.net/2023/09/the-changchun.html

notasnark, to random
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@sudnadja I run Traveller, where most ships have reactionless drives with thrusts in multiples of g. DV is cheap so I don't bother with details like that.

notasnark,
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@sudnadja True, but most things tend to be roughly on the ecliptic. Unless there's a game reason for something to be on an awkward orbit, it won't be.

You also have the magic get out of jail free card of a Jump drive. If it's going to take longer than 7 days, then the Jump drive can be used to get you there quicker.

I do have a plotline coming up that involves an extra-solar object, which might be interesting to have it both fast moving and on an inclined orbit.

notasnark,
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@sudnadja @nyrath I assume "insert pseudo scientific technobabble" causes ships coming out of jump always arrive in a stable orbit around the dominant gravitational body.

Prevents kinetic kill vehicles being jumped into a system, and simplifies things for game purposes.

Though I don't bother with it for simplicity, my idea is that if a large momentum change is needed, it adds to the difficulty of the jump check.

nyrath, (edited ) to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Ways for scifi artists to jazz up their combat starship art.

Military Insignia: https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/symbols.php#id--Military_Insignia

Heraldry: https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacesuits.php#heraldry

Dazzle camouflage: https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardefense.php#cammo

notasnark,
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@nyrath @cwwilkie My assumption is that IR, Radar and ECM have much bigger impact on starship detection than optical wavelengths, so actual hull colour doesn't matter.

This means I can paint my starship miniatures whatever colours I think looks good on the tabletop.

notasnark,
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@DenOfEarth @nyrath @cwwilkie I don't know whether the Narn hull colours count as dazzle pattern or not, but they were fun to paint.

notasnark, to boardgames
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We had some friends over for boardgames yesterday. Our four player game of Tsuro ended with a simultaneous wipeout of all players.

notasnark, to Wargaming
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Last night we got to play with my new Dirtside designed vehicles. It was a NATO v Russian forces, with some modern and near-future vehicles. Most of a unit of T-80s was wiped out, then the Russians took advantage of the closely grouped NATO units and got some really good results with their artillery and things went downhill from there.

It's difficult to fight a war when you can't roll anything higher than a 2 in most of the engagements.

https://blog.notasnark.net/2023/08/artillery-and-luck.html

nyrath, to traveller
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Traveller: Society in Decline or Post Apocalyptic?

http://twilightgm.blogspot.com/2023/08/traveller-society-in-decline-or-post.html

notasnark,
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@sudnadja @tkinias @nyrath IMU, I tend to interpret TL as production capability as much as what is available.

It's relatively cheap to stick up a satellite phone network around a world, so even low tech worlds will be able to use high tech communication networks (even if available bandwidth is relatively low).

Solar power and portable fusion generators allow some individual households or small communities to have access to electricity, even if there isn't a national electrical grid.

notasnark,
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@sudnadja @tkinias @nyrath yeah, it can get messy. But Tech Levels are messy, even in the real world where countries can have a real difference between availability and production.

If you have a world with a single trillionaire living in it, in his TL 15 mansion, how do you rate that? Is the purpose of a world's TL to describe the culture there, or is it to determine what player characters can likely buy when they land there?

Both are valid uses for it, but both can give different meanings.

notasnark, to random
@notasnark@mastodon.social avatar

It was time to give Xenos Rampant a try, with a simple scenario of trying to get a group of teenagers and their dog safely across Xenos infested ruins.

Xenos Rampant is a set of very simple modern/SciFi wargame rules that allow for some very fast playing games. So it didn't take too long to see whether the teenagers managed to get their dog to safety, or whether they became tasty snacks for the hungry Xenos.

https://blog.notasnark.net/2023/07/xenos-snacks.html

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