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    1. Where to donate used boardgames?

      Looking for recommendations or ideas of organizations that might appreciate some well-taken-care-of board games. They range in complexity from classics like catan to more complicated ones. My knee...

      Looking for recommendations or ideas of organizations that might appreciate some well-taken-care-of board games. They range in complexity from classics like catan to more complicated ones. My knee jerk reaction is Goodwill but I figured there were other lesser known orgs that might receive direct benefit from them instead.

      13 votes
    2. Which board games have you all been playing this week (to 2nd July)?

      Hi boardtiddlers, It's that time of the week again already. Another opportunity to discuss what you've been playing this week. Personally I've only managed a single game of Hegemony, this time as...

      Hi boardtiddlers,

      It's that time of the week again already. Another opportunity to discuss what you've been playing this week.

      Personally I've only managed a single game of Hegemony, this time as the middle classes, with my opponents playing working class and state, and with a robot for the capitalists. It was a bit of a crazy game: capitalist automaton managed to open companies across all three rows of the board. I, as middle, had a fair number too, so production was massive and there was little unemployment. We actually ran out of unskilled middle class workers and influence cubes. Working class managed a comfortable win with state and middle coming joint second some twelve or so points behind. I really think we need to work out how to nix the working class, because they've been strong in every game so far.

      So tell us about your sessions this week.

      24 votes
    3. Anyone play cards-and-dice sports simulator games?

      Curious to see if there are any other sports sim fans around here. If you're not familiar with the genre, the two most popular and longest running are APBA Baseball/Football/Hockey and...

      Curious to see if there are any other sports sim fans around here. If you're not familiar with the genre, the two most popular and longest running are APBA Baseball/Football/Hockey and Strat-O-Matic Baseball/Football/Hockey. Personally, I'm a big fan of Second Season Football and I'm playing with Back to Minnesota's 1965 season so I can bring Jim Brown and Cleveland back to glory!

      If you've never heard of this before, think of these games as "story generators" where you can play two teams against each other and see how close the dice rolls and stats get to real life. I play as a sort of chill night where I listen to a baseball game or a podcast with a cup of coffee. Throwing dice around and watching Jim Brown plow through some poor defense is really enjoyable :)

      You can also play head to head with another player! I highly recommend a smaller game like Pocket Pennant Run if you're interested in diving into games like this. A similar game would be Stone Cold Hockey for hockey fans and Fast Drive Football for football nerds like myself.

      The biggest communities online are definitely the Delphi Forums for Tabletop Sports as well as the Digital to Dice Podcast Facebook page.

      Digital versions of the APBA and Strat games exist, and there is a huge fanbase for the Action! PC Games, and a hugely popular game is Out of the Park Baseball which has simulator-like features but is mostly a baseball management game.

      6 votes
    4. DMs and GMs what tool or tools do you use for world building?

      I'm starting a new campaign soon and I plan to create a homebrew setting and story like I've done in the past. I've used a combination of Google Docs, Evernote, and other general purpose tools for...

      I'm starting a new campaign soon and I plan to create a homebrew setting and story like I've done in the past. I've used a combination of Google Docs, Evernote, and other general purpose tools for other settings and campaigns. Does anyone use something like World Anvil or Legend Keeper? Something else?

      I'm still in the brainstorming stage of world building, and I'd like a place to collect my thoughts and plans. Ideally I'd be able to easily convert that into something searchable and updateable when it's time to actually play in the setting.

      Do you use a single tool for creating maps, NPCs, plot points, history, and adventures? Or do you have a suite of tools you find works well to cover all those aspects?

      29 votes
    5. The longest game of Diplomacy ever

      This is an article I wrote on boardgames subreddit seven years ago, about a tournament game of Diplomacy which had lasted more than 3 years and was still ongoing at the time. It eventually ended...

      This is an article I wrote on boardgames subreddit seven years ago, about a tournament game of Diplomacy which had lasted more than 3 years and was still ongoing at the time. It eventually ended in a draw with Italy leading, in Feb 2016, after 3 years and 7 months of play. I'm reposting it here because I'm quite proud of the article (and I want to move it away from Reddit) and because imo it still holds up as one of the greatest events in the history of Diplomacy and a very interesting event in niche internet history.

      tl;dr - Seven players (less now that some have been eliminated) have been playing a game that simulates the First World War in a Tournament. They've been playing it so long that the First World War is now continuing on into the 21st Century. The game has been out for 57 years and this has never happened in a recorded game before.

       

       

      If you are not familiar with Diplomacy, it's a war game based around negotiation where 7 players each play one Great Power in the First World War, attempting to gain control of Europe by taking key provinces known as Supply Centers. It's very similar to A Game of Thrones - The Board Game except that you can (usually) talk in private with other players and all players must submit orders for a phase before any are revealed, meaning that you don't know if your 'ally' will backstab you that phase or not until you've already set your orders. Other players can support your units into provinces, so negotiation is key to victory.

       

      Everyone who knows about Diplomacy knows that it takes a ridiculously long time to play. In a face-to-face (FTF) tournament strict deadlines of 15 minutes per phase are set, and games are played from 1901 to 1908, meaning 4 hours for a game. In casual settings, where the timers aren't observed so harshly, a game of the same number of phases can take 8 hours.

       

      Because of how difficult Diplomacy can be to start in real life, there are a lot of active communities for playing it online. In online play, phases are usually set to process every 2 days, and you only need to dedicate an hour or so a day to it. Because of this, the set end date (1908) used in most FTF games isn't needed, and the game can be played to the win condition stated in the rulebook - one great power controlling 18 Supply Centers - which isn't used much in FTF because it takes far too long to achieve. This in turn means that games can last months.

       

      There's also the possibility of an 'eternal game' since there is no set end date. Usually, this is due to stalemates - there can be positions where no player can push any further forward, and no player can back off because another player can win as a result. These games are declared drawn, since no victory is possible.

       

      However, there's a small possibility of a game that would go on forever while going back and forth, back and forth - one power gaining centers then being pushed back by the others, and then another, and so on, without the game being stalemated. In practice, this sort of thing rarely happens - going by statistics from webDiplomacy last year, out of ~43000 games completed, only 17 had legitimately passed 1930, and none of those had reached the year 1940.

       

      The longest recorded completed game comes from another site and reached 1964 -note, I originally had a link to this game but it appears to now be dead. However, one non-completed game on webDiplomacy completely blows it out of the water.

       

      The 2012 webDiplomacy World Cup Final has one game still ongoing, long after all the others have been completed. This game has just reached the year 2000! That is absolutely insane - if this had been a FTF game at a tournament, the participants would have been playing for just over two days straight. Since it's online, they have been playing for three and a half years.

       

      I have checked with several important members of the Diplomacy community and it is indeed the first game ever to have legitimately done so (not just because some players decided to mess around until it reached that date).

       

      Link to the game

       

      What was/is the 2012 webDiplomacy World Cup?

       

      The World Cup was an event held on webDiplomacy which mimicked the FTF Diplomacy Tournament that goes by the same name. Different countries (or regions, if there were not enough players in a country) would gather a group of players and play in a group of games with teams from 6 other regions, each having one player in each game, and gaining points based on how well they did in each game. The best countries/regions advanced from groups in a knockout style until the Final, which has not yet finished.

       

      Why has it gone on so long?

       

      That's a difficult question to give a straight answer to. It's a combination of several factors:

       

      • These players are insanely good. The teams in question reached the final, and they picked their best participants at the Public Press Variant (which I'll come to next) for this game.

      • This game is Public Press Only. That means that any messages anyone sends are received by everyone, which slows the game down a fair amount because players have to position themselves to make completely uncounterable moves if they want to coordinate them with allies, or they have to risk their allies misunderstanding what they are doing and not supporting them correctly.

      • Nobody wants to lose or draw. Sounds trivial, right? Everyone wants to win any game they're playing. This one is different, though - every other game in the world cup has finished, so everyone in the game knows how many points all teams have. Every team in this game can still win the overall tournament, but for most of them it is only if they achieve a solo victory. One specific team will win if all players draw, so nobody except that team want this game to end in a draw, and certainly nobody wants anyone else to get a solo.

       

      That said, fatigue is starting to set in and they may draw the game soon just to be done of it. That's only after over 3 years of trying to achieve a solo though.

       

      Do you have a handy graph of how the SC counts of each player have changed throughout the game?

       

      What a coincidence! I just happen to have one right here!

       

      That game is really long. I want to just see the interesting bits.

       

      Again, you're in luck! I happen to have an imgur album here which shows the high points and low points of each great power and explains a little what happened to them. The important provinces (Supply Centers) are marked by white circles with a black dot in them. The provinces and units belonging to each country have an assigned colour as follows:

       

      • Pink, England
      • Blue, France
      • Brown, Germany
      • Green, Italy
      • Red, Austria
      • Purple, Russia
      • Yellow, Turkey

       

      If you do want to look through the game for yourself, you can find the full record here. On webDiplomacy, red arrows represent move orders, yellow arrows represent support move orders, green lines represent support hold orders, and blue lines represent convoys.

       

      Has any Supply Center never changed hands?

       

      No. Every Supply Center on the board has changed hands at least once. Ankara has been taken the least, it's been held by Russia for the 76 years since he took it from its original owner, Turkey, in 1925. Rumania has been taken the most, it's been conquered an astonishing 26 times. Most SCs have been taken around 11 times, but in particularly contested places (like the Balkans and Scandinavia) the average is much higher.

       

      If it's Public Press Only, can I read the messages the players have sent?

       

      Yes! You can find all messages sent in the game here. Use the blue arrows above the messagebox to navigate pages. The chat from each country follows the same colour coding as their provinces and units.

       

      Bear in mind, though, that there are so many messages to look through that they actually crashed the game at one point. The site administrators had to assign more memory to the chat of this particular game to fix it. There's also some profanity in some of the messages, although not many.

       

      Diplomacy sounds interesting. Can I try it?

       

      First off, playing the game in person is a very different experience to playing it online, and one that I find to be much more tense and exciting (although online is good too!). I'd very much recommend you play it in person first. You'll need a copy of the board game (it's available on Amazon) and 6 friends with 4 hours spare.

       

      Obviously that can be a bit difficult to arrange, so you could also look for Diplomacy Face to Face groups in your area - there are quite a few of them around the world. If you want information about them feel free to PM me and I'll try to find out if there are any in your area and get back to you. Also, if you're part of a board gaming group, it's possible that someone there will have a copy so you might be able to play it with them.

       

      If you are interested in the online version, there are many online sites that offer it. I'd recommend webDiplomacy but there are plenty of others if you don't like the interface there.

       

      Is there anything I should know before I play?

       

      Yes, specifically if you're playing in person. I'll let some board game celebrities say it for me:

       

      "This game makes people mad, and I mean really mad." ... "The tagline is 'Diplomacy - Destroying friendships since 1965'." - Tom Vasel

       

      "Diplomacy wounds run deep, and take forever to heal." - Wil Wheaton

       

      It's not quite as bad as they make out, but it's worth making sure that you don't play it with someone you know will take lies and backstabbing badly. Also - don't play it over several sessions, the paranoia you get when you see other players talking to one another in the breaks can be unbearable.

       

      Congratulations if you've read this far, and I hope others found this Diplomacy game to be as incredible as I did!

      23 votes
    6. What board games have you played this week (to 26th June)?

      Hey tabletilders, It's been another week. Let's share what we all played this week! For me it was a single play of Pax Renaissance with a promo expansion that changes the starting state of the...

      Hey tabletilders,

      It's been another week. Let's share what we all played this week!

      For me it was a single play of Pax Renaissance with a promo expansion that changes the starting state of the board. I completely dominated the trade routes and accumulated a huge stash of cash, but was unable to get the comet out to activate the win condition that would leverage it. My opponents then mowed down my commissions, so I had to pivot quite heavily. But I wasn't too worried as I had so much cash, so could nab any card I wanted, including the next comet.

      Unfortunately two of us took our eyes of the ball and our third player managed a sneaky protestant victory. Annoyingly there was an apostasy I could have bought that would have nixed this, but I totally didn't see it coming. Great game.

      After that we wound down with a quick game of Scout. Fun little game that makes me want to explore the trick-taking space a bit more, but it seems all the highly praised ones I read about are out of stock. I might see if any of these can be played with a poker deck.

      So what have you all been playing?

      17 votes
    7. The argument for Dungeon Crawl Classics

      Dungeon Crawl Classics I think this game is great and I was surprised to see nobody recommended it in their non-D&D game lists. At the system level, Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is a rules-light...

      Dungeon Crawl Classics

      I think this game is great and I was surprised to see nobody recommended it in their non-D&D game lists. At the system level, Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is a rules-light version of 3.5. You never need more than one sourcebook and there are quick-start rules to play for free on the website.

      At its core, though, DCC is an old school sword and sorcery setting heavily inspired by the authors of Appendix N. For those not familiar, in the first edition of D&D, Gary Gygax published a list of authors that inspired D&D in an appendix in the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide. It has some obvious ones that I think most RPGs pull from (Tolkien and Jack Vance {of the Vancian magic system}, for instance), but there are also some deeper cuts that I don't think are really leveraged in many tabletop RPGs (Robert Howard of Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane, and H.P. Lovecraft). Those last two in particular, pulp-y fantasy writers who defined a genre, heavily influence DCC in my experience.

      Aside from this, though, there are a few very unique and fun mechanics that got me totally hooked on this game.

      The 0-level funnel and death as a narrative device

      Traditionally in D&D, you end up spending the majority of your first session designing and building a character. In my experience, it usually takes around 2-4 hours depending on complexity. This results in mechanically unique characters, but it also ups the stakes for the DM. When was the last time you played a game of D&D and the survival of your character was ever truly in question? Nobody wants to spend 4 hours on their character only to have it killed off in the first play session -- that's not fun. But, in the end, it's also not challenging.

      In DCC, it takes about 5-10 minutes to create a character (and there are online tools like The Purple Sorcerer that will generate them by the dozen). Every character starts with a profession (and by extension, a tool of their trade), a random piece of gear, and a block of random stats (3d6 rolled in order, none of these "points" or "4d6 drop the lowest" business). In the first session, you roll 4 of them and you play all 4 in what is termed the 0-level funnel. Over the course of this adventure, 2-3 of your characters will die -- after all, adventuring is a treacherous business fraught with peril -- and your surviving character(s) become level 1. At this point, they get a class and a couple additional abilities.

      The core interesting thing to me about this is the emergent gameplay that results. Oftentimes, the character that rolled the best stats aren't the ones that actually survive. A single unlucky roll or an undiscovered trap results in unceremoniously striking down another one of the PCs, whereby they pick up the gear leftover from them and continue on their grim quest. I've seen the character with the lowest luck somehow being the one that survived and it forging a bond with the person playing it unlike anything I've seen in D&D. What did they do to earn that? What is in store for the doomed character that somehow managed to outlast 3 of his fellow villagers? It gives you a ton of tools as a DM and as a player to craft interesting narratives. And it also reminds the players that this character probably won't last forever. That opens the door for dramatic moments involving death that you don't really get to explore with D&D. Magic that restores life is exceedingly rare and would require a quest of comparable bravery to discover.

      Magic as a dangerous and unpredictable tool

      I've heard some complaints about Vancian magic in other topics and DCC also does away with this, but it does it with two chaotic and, at times, hilarious mechanics: the mercurial magic table and the spell table.

      The Mercurial Magic Table

      Magic is, by nature, a chaotic tool for the desperate. No two casters cast the same spell in the same way and the mercurial magic table is a representation of that. The first time a character casts a spell, they have to roll on the table to determine how they invoke that spell. There's a big chunk of the table that's just 'as normal,' but there are also things like 'every time you cast this, a digit on your hand or foot disintegrates. Take a -1 to dex for every two digits that disappear.'

      How badly do you need to cast that magic missile? Is it worth invoking the unpredictable elemental energies required to do so? Is it worth....your thumb?

      The Spell Table

      Once you invoke the spell, you roll your spellcasting check and consult the spell table. The quality of your roll (of which there are a couple mechanics to affect this) determines what the spell actually does -- and they can be wildly different! That magic missile might fire a single missile that does 1 damage or it might summon 1d4 that do 1d4 damage each. Your darkness spell might allow you to create a 20' sphere of darkness at a point of your choosing or it might center a 5' magical darkness sphere on you.

      Magic is chaotic and difficult to control. But as a result, it is almost always very powerful. Your spell might not do exactly what you expected, but it makes for much more interesting combat and on-the-fly thinking.

      Should I play it?

      Emphatically, yes! The rules-light nature of the game allows you to focus more on story-telling and mood-setting than being buried in the books all the time (except for looking up spell effects, everyone at the table seems to get excited when we have to do that). The deadly nature of the game has resulted in both better and heavier storytelling than anything I've done before -- stakes without it getting personal, as it were. And the adventure content is awesome -- there are some great resources on Sample Adventure Paths, but even the starting 0-level adventure in the back of the sourcebook is strong. I swear I'm not a shill, I just want more DCC in the universe.

      30 votes
    8. Delta Green handler advice

      I’m going to run Delta Green for the second time tomorrow and I’m excited! However, I’m looking for some tips on running a session and/or your favorite scenarios to run. What are your thoughts?

      7 votes
    9. GMs: What do you do when a player doesn't show up?

      I think this has to be one of the oldest questions there is in the TTRPG world, but I wanted to see if the general consensus has changed with the rise of virtual tabletops. When you have a player...

      I think this has to be one of the oldest questions there is in the TTRPG world, but I wanted to see if the general consensus has changed with the rise of virtual tabletops.

      When you have a player cancel on you, do you skip the session, or play without them?

      What is your reasoning behind your decision?

      Personally, I always play without them. This is a change from when I first started DM'ing, as back then I wanted to be 'fair' to my players. As I left University and went into work however, waiting until everyone was able to play became such a rare thing that it would mean hardly ever playing.

      34 votes
    10. What board games have you played this week (to 19th June)?

      It's been another week and I thought – if there's not too much protest – we could all talk about what we've been playing again. Personally I got in the one game of Hegemony at three players. I've...

      It's been another week and I thought – if there's not too much protest – we could all talk about what we've been playing again.

      Personally I got in the one game of Hegemony at three players. I've played it twice before at two, and adding the third player really took the tension up a notch.

      I played as the proletariat, which I think is the simplest class to play. Once again played no strikes or demonstrations, so I really think I might be missing a concept as it never seemed like a worthwhile pursuit. But it's really hard to predict how pulling any particular string in this game will resolve, so I think I'd just go for it in a subsequent game to see what happens.

      The capitalists, like in previous games, started very weak but by the last few rounds were raking in the points. I managed a very narrow victory of four or five points over the capitalists. Middle class, who had to take a loan mid-game, never really recovered and were twenty points behind. Fun game, I can see why it's popular.

      So what have you all managed to get played this week?

      20 votes
    11. What is your favorite board or card game for seven or more players?

      I'm looking for some games I can play with my team at work as part of our next team building event. We're 7 people, so finding a game that can seat everyone is challenging (and we don't want to...

      I'm looking for some games I can play with my team at work as part of our next team building event. We're 7 people, so finding a game that can seat everyone is challenging (and we don't want to split tables in this case).

      My favorite board game is 7 wonders, which obviously is perfect except for the fact that it's pretty rules heavy and my team is mostly not boardgamers, so will probably be overwhelmed.

      Cards against Humanity was also mentioned but is probably not PG enough for a work event.

      What would you play?

      22 votes
    12. Just One's "land mine" cards

      My friends and I have been striving for the perfect score of 13 in Just One, and there's almost always one or two cards which make it seemingly impossible unless you're very lucky. Just One if...

      My friends and I have been striving for the perfect score of 13 in Just One, and there's almost always one or two cards which make it seemingly impossible unless you're very lucky.

      Just One if you're unfamiliar, is a game where your teammate wants to guess a word -- and you each independently give a one-word clue, "Donkey", "Dreamworks", "Ogre". If two or more players write the same word, all those clues get hidden -- so your clues can't be too obvious.

      The words vary absurdly in difficulty from words like "Wine" and "Snake" where you can basically break the game by listing wines and snakes -- to words like "Mexico" and "Strawberry" where you can come at them from a few directions. ...But about 10% of the words are things like "Grotto", "Couscous" and "Ramses" where honestly, you could possibly sit down with someone for 30 minutes describing them in excruciating detail, and they might still not come up with those particular words. Could you describe "Couscous" to your 10-year-old nephew who lives on Chick-fil-A and Mcdonalds? Could you disambiguate a "Grotto" from a cave, cavern, bunker or lair? Sometimes it's a vocabulary thing but more often, it's just words with a lot of synonyms.

      I call these "land mine" cards and I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon. Have any of you gotten a perfect score in Just One? If so did you randomly dodge these land mines or did you overcome them with a really perfect clue?

      5 votes
    13. Any suggestions for getting into DnD?

      I've been interested in getting into it for the last few years but haven't managed to get started, no one I know personally is into it, and within online communities I'm a part of I sometimes miss...

      I've been interested in getting into it for the last few years but haven't managed to get started, no one I know personally is into it, and within online communities I'm a part of I sometimes miss dates for campaigns, often due to my work schedule.

      18 votes
    14. Looking for advice on designing 3D printable board game inserts

      Hello Tildes board gamers! I got a 3D printer last year, and over the last few months, I've started printing organizers other people have designed from Printables and Thingiverse, especially for...

      Hello Tildes board gamers!

      I got a 3D printer last year, and over the last few months, I've started printing organizers other people have designed from Printables and Thingiverse, especially for games with poor provided organization or lots of tokens and cards... however there are a number of games I have where people haven't designed a good organizer, or the ones which exist are lacking in some way (don't fit my boxes, missing boxes for expansions, only support all the expansions, etc)

      Does anyone have tips on getting started with designing my own? I've got some very basic 3D modeling knowledge, but my primary strengths are as a programmer, so leveraging something like OpenSCAD would be ideal. I saw the boardgame insert toolkit, but it seems relatively basic - there are lots of convenience features I'd love to add as well (like curved walls for token holders to make it easier to get tokens out). Is that a good place to start, or should I look elsewhere?

      Even just some ideas about tolerances and/or tips for how to size sections for cards would be super helpful.

      8 votes
    15. GMs of Tildes, what books, movies, or other media have changed how you portray the world?

      For example, Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett has forever changed how I roleplay dragons. I'm going on a camping trip soon. I've loaded up my eReader with books from Appendix N and am looking...

      For example, Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett has forever changed how I roleplay dragons.

      I'm going on a camping trip soon. I've loaded up my eReader with books from Appendix N and am looking for other grist for the mill. Mainly looking for books at the moment, but feel free to suggest other things.

      13 votes
    16. Any 'Yu-Gi-Oh!' fans here?

      Mirroring the other thread about Magic, I was wondering if there's any Yu-Gi-Oh! players around who would be interested in sharing their current thoughts on the game and history.

      20 votes
    17. Any Diplomacy players here?

      I've recently been getting into Diplomacy (both face to face and online) and it's surprisingly fun, although requires some dedication. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with the game or...

      I've recently been getting into Diplomacy (both face to face and online) and it's surprisingly fun, although requires some dedication. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with the game or some tips for learning more in-depth strategy? It feels like online resources aren't that great or plentiful yet I'm having a hard time surviving against experienced players.

      17 votes
    18. Fun stories about characters hating each other in a TTRPG

      Usually when playing a game of dnd, pathfinder, etc. You want the party to be nice to each other. But at times when done right, you just have two characters who hate each other, yet it's fun for...

      Usually when playing a game of dnd, pathfinder, etc. You want the party to be nice to each other. But at times when done right, you just have two characters who hate each other, yet it's fun for everyone.

      Do you have any such stories?

      4 votes
    19. What board games have you played this week (to 12th June)?

      Personally I've received Earth and managed to get in a game at two players and another at five. I like the big stack of cards and the fact it plays so fast, but I think I prefer Ark Nova, which...

      Personally I've received Earth and managed to get in a game at two players and another at five. I like the big stack of cards and the fact it plays so fast, but I think I prefer Ark Nova, which adds the tile laying puzzle too.

      Earth does look funky by the end though, with all the shoots sprouting up from the table.

      Also managed to get in a couple of rounds of Fugitive, the card based hidden movement game from Tim Fowers. I think this is an excellent little game to fill half an hour at the end of the evening. I keep eyeing up the events cards it comes with but have not yet been brave enough to actually play with them.

      What have you all been playing?

      21 votes
    20. Zero to low prep games

      So, I have been getting into some Blades in the dark stuff recently. I am loving it due to the fact that I really don't need to spend much time between sessions doing any prep. Sure, I can spend...

      So, I have been getting into some Blades in the dark stuff recently. I am loving it due to the fact that I really don't need to spend much time between sessions doing any prep. Sure, I can spend as much time brainstorming cool stuff to happen but really it all happens at the table.

      So, what other cool TTRPGs are out there that support this kind of play?

      19 votes
    21. Short campaign reccomendations?

      Hi, im looking for some reccomendations of short campaigns, like 3-4 months sort of thing- I'm planning to run in 5e, but im pretty open to any other systems people can recomend- what are peoples...

      Hi, im looking for some reccomendations of short campaigns, like 3-4 months sort of thing- I'm planning to run in 5e, but im pretty open to any other systems people can recomend- what are peoples faves, what are they playing through at the minute?

      7 votes
    22. What's your not-D&D RPG, and why?

      I nearly made this post a hot few hours ago, but it turned into me gushing about Worlds Without Number for an inexplicably long time. I realized that of all the things that matter, going into the...

      I nearly made this post a hot few hours ago, but it turned into me gushing about Worlds Without Number for an inexplicably long time. I realized that of all the things that matter, going into the minutiae does the least.

      So yeah, I'm just curious what kind of not-D&D RPGs people are into and why exactly they're interested in it. Obviously there's the whole 'Wizards of the Coast is a shithole company' aspect, but I'm speaking more from a broad design standpoint than a moral one.

      22 votes
    23. What makes you play wargames instead of strategy video games?

      I am mostly a TTRPG player, but lately I have been becoming a bit curious on wargaming. I usually play TTRPGs because it allows a lot more freedom when compared to video games. However, I can't...

      I am mostly a TTRPG player, but lately I have been becoming a bit curious on wargaming.

      I usually play TTRPGs because it allows a lot more freedom when compared to video games. However, I can't really see that much in wargaming that you can't get in video games. Is the appeal primarily a social one?

      I am not bashing wargaming or saying that it's a bad hobby. I am just curious as to what the main draw is.
      Thank you for any answers :)

      6 votes
    24. What board games have you played recently?

      I went through a phase where we seemed to have board games nights with friends a couple of times a month but with the whole pandemic thing that has dried up. Tonight, I finally got around to...

      I went through a phase where we seemed to have board games nights with friends a couple of times a month but with the whole pandemic thing that has dried up.

      Tonight, I finally got around to trying Lanterns with my wife and we really enjoyed it. It's sort of similar to sushi go with more steps. You play lake tiles which contain lanterns and collect lantern cards based on how you place the lake tiles, then you dedicate those lanterns in different sets to gain honour (points) and at the end, who has the most honour wins.

      11 votes
    25. Anyone going to Gencon?

      We're at 59 days until Gencon and its one of my favorite events of the year. Wondering if anyone else is going and what you're excited for. It seems like Lorcana is set to the be the buzz of the...

      We're at 59 days until Gencon and its one of my favorite events of the year. Wondering if anyone else is going and what you're excited for.

      It seems like Lorcana is set to the be the buzz of the con this year around. While I'm interested in getting my hands on a deck or two to give it a go, I'm more looking forward to when BGG posts their games that will be releasing to sift through and try to find a hidden gem or two.

      12 votes
    26. Too Many Bones

      I've recently gotten into Too Many Bones. I've been into tabletop for years and painted many minis, but now I find myself floored by hoplomachus and too many bones...and there's no minis to paint....

      I've recently gotten into Too Many Bones.
      I've been into tabletop for years and painted many minis, but now I find myself floored by hoplomachus and too many bones...and there's no minis to paint. But the gameplay is so so good I'm in love.
      I'm waiting on unbreakable to come in. All I've played is undertow but man is there a lot going on in such a small box.
      What's the best gearloc?

      6 votes
    27. With Map in hand : Finding maps for your VTT RPG

      I've been GMing games for years and over the last few transitioned to Online VTT, first Cypher System, then PF2e. My first online campaign was a little off the wall, magic versus technology,...

      I've been GMing games for years and over the last few transitioned to Online VTT, first Cypher System, then PF2e. My first online campaign was a little off the wall, magic versus technology, barbarian party learning that guns and space battles were a thing, aliens and robotic overloads.

      What's more my party tended to blow up stuff and wreck most maps in one session, so in the end I got into making maps or desperately looking for maps everywhere I could.

      So, I thought maybe people could use some of what I've found in their own searches (disclaimer, I don't sell any of my maps, free to all, and I have no connection with any of the pay-for ones, but I've subscribed to most of them at one time or another!)

      Map Tools

      The idea in VTT RPG is to make a map image and import that into your game tool (Such as Roll20 or Foundry) then overlay tiles, tokens, walls etc onto it. The single map image is most, if not all of what you need.

      This is just a short list of what I have tried, lots more than this out there.
      • Dungeondraft One of the best mapping programs and the one I use the most. Offline and stand alone, also encompasses a good default art style of the base assets
      • Inkarnate Online tool that requires a subscription, pretty good, I started out with it and sill occasionally use to make world maps rather than battle maps but can do both.
      • Wonderdraft Dungeondraft but for world maps. I do not make enough of these to have warranted buying it so never tried it
      • Dungeon Alchemist A "AI" driven map creator in Early Access. Can knock out stuff in seconds but I don't like the art style. Good if you need a dungeon in 5 minutes

      Map styles

      There are a couple of popular styles if you are picky about that sort of thing, though mostly important if you want to make your own maps and are looking for asset packs.

      The asset styles you find seem to fall in roughly two forms:

      • Dungeondraft default style. Flat. Line art, less detail
      • Forgotten Adventures (short form FA) Still hand drawn (not rendered) but more detailed computer art style

      Some people prefer the first style due to simplicity, others like the second but some may find it more gamey.

      There is also the "rendered" style that Dungeon Alchemist uses, but that's REALLY gamey to my eyes. I believe there are third party libraries for it but never really looked.

      Lastly, there is the unique art style of hard drawn art that lots of artist draw their battle maps in.

      When I chose a style I went Forgotten Adventures. You can't really mix the two main ones when making your own map, looks horrible. I also found that of the various styles, FA could be matched with many hand drawn styles.

      Maps

      Ok the meat, and what I meant to post before I got side tracked!

      Note most of the sites I am posting above can be used offline on a table top game by just printing the maps out, though I've never tried this.

      My own maps tend heavily towards space and the magic/tech mix due to the campaign. They are in the Forgotten Adventures style. Free to use, including the ones on my Patreon (DON'T SUBSCRIBE TO IT! I started working on making more maps but then got too involved in GMing the game and ran out of time)

      • My main free library ~35 maps, space, ground, some bunkers and others. All in WEBP for faster loading
      • My Patreon, no subscribe! Only take! Only a few maps and then the campaign finished, space ships mostly and then it gets weird if you go back further and find it was a MMORPG Kit tutorial Patreon :/

      Other peoples maps amazing I've found!

      Science Fiction or Modern

      These maps cover mostly futuristic themes such as cyberpunk, world war 2, space ships and so on
      • Hyperdrive Fleet An AMAZING selection of space ships, engine rooms, and space shipy related stuff.
      • Moonlight Maps Scifi A paired Patreon channel to the Moonlight below but for scifi maps. Building interiors, some assets (Vehicles for example), space forests, malls. Flatish style with few shadows?
      • de-Zigner Um, steam punk art? Really cool hand drawn art style, I guess has a mix between modern punk and undead fantasy things.
      • Cracked|Compass This is not the entire library for this mapper, but they do some AMAZING World War 2 maps and several are available on their Inkarnate page. More are available on Reddit in various posts

      Fantasy

      Basic fantasy maps, ruins, temples and the like. Useful for most games
      • Forgotten Adventures A medium size collection of Fantasy maps with some great maps, and has some integration with Foundry complete with walls and actions to switch out parts of some maps on the fly (if you are into that sort of thing)
      • Limithron Lots of pirate ships, islands, water and sea based maps, boats, whales.
      • Cze and Peku Fantasy stuff, hand drawn so may not fit with your campaign style but a LOT of art, A little closer to the Dungeondraft style than FA, LOTS of fantasy stuff, temples, ruins, some ships.
      • Moonlight Maps Again generic (good) fantasy stuff, temples, ruins, villages. Lot of art available, style is of the school of flat line art more than anything.
      • Tom Cartos Has a large asset library which pairs well with FA assets but the maps are what we are here for. Has been expanding recently into 3D scene pictures to accompany the maps recently. Lots of temples, dungeons, inns, villages etc.
      • Bearworks FA style? Lots of fantasy items, had a lot of desert maps which is what I was attracted to. Otherwise standard dungeons and ruins. They do come in very high PPI if required
      • Seafoot games Lots of maps here in a flat DD style. Got some audio mixs. I used their shipwreck maps for a while.
      • Stained Karbon Very stylistic cartoon hand drawn maps of the most bizarre stuff. I've grabbed a few of the free ones but never had the chance to use them. If you need a sword driven through 4 maps of various styles of terrain, then this is the map maker for you
      • Ataraxian Bear VERY clean lined cartoon maps, lots of water and islands. Slightly different style from most but still very nice art so unless you are fussy there are some nice maps here!
      • Borough Bound Some large scale project maps here, as in entire cities with all the moving parts, campaign information, stories, multiple parts of the city etc. You can grab a selection and have a entire city for your players to explore.

      Speciality environments

      These are specific mappers that may concentrate on one unique game theme
      • Gamers Cortex Lots of battle maps of flying wooden sailing ships, all with wings, above and below decks images. They are also beginning to include Foundry VTT files with walls and lights.

      Phased Battle Maps

      Ok this is a niche thing, most of these mappers make various map types, scifi, modern or fantasy, but what sets them aside is the maps come in variants, phases, so you can change the map over time, say every combat round, as the environment changes. Water flowing in and flooding a village, a fire burning down a town hall, bridges breaking etc.
      • Domille's Wondrous Works The main reason Phased battle maps exist! DWW has a lot of these but also has an addon for Foundry to help you use them. I've used a lot of their maps over the years and found the addon stable and works well. Drawn in their own hand drawn art style.
      • Balatro A good alternative to DWW above, lots of maps, Nice style similar to FA in the later maps, more like Dungeondraft in earlier. Boat battles, buildings struck my lightening. List goes on

      Asset Libraries

      Collections of assets to be used when MAKING maps
      • Forgotten Adventures the main alternative for most map makers to the default assets. This is an amazing selection of art,
      • White Fox Works basically just an asset library all matching the FA assets nicely. They started I believe to fill the gaps of FA assets and have done some REALLY well... ALong with FA this is the single most important asset library in my toolkit.
      • Tom Cartos Mentioned in maps but he has a asset library that pairs well with the FA style. Mostly Fantasy but a small section is scifi which I abused a lot in my maps.
      • Hellscape Assets Mostly scifi assets, does not fit the FA style all that well but has a lot of art so may be worth trying. May work with DD style? Some maps, some modern stuff
      • Captain Tom Asset Emporium Amazing Sci-Fi asset packs, many options but a little flatter than FA assets. Can be made to work with FA but more like the DD style

      Tokens

      Ok forgot about these, tokens for player and NPCS!
      • Forgotten Adventures Again FA! Lots of tokens, monsters etc. Lots are free and variants cost money
      • The League of Raconteur Explorers (LORE) A mixture of assets, scifi, maybe steampunk-ish. All really nice and varied. The assets are available FREE from their discord but the Patreon allows you to support the artist and download the assets in a better format and nicely catalogued
      • de-Zigner Some amazing tokens, very stylistic so may not match other token you are using unless you use these for the entire campaign, and honestly you could. Plague zombies, cyber warriors and cyborgs. Lots to unpack here.

      Animations

      Animated movies/gifs etc that can be overlaid on your maps to provide some bling. Fire, explosions etc
      • JB2A Animations If you want to animate spells etc in your game I've only tried JB2A. Free ones and endless updated every month! There may be others but I never needed to look!

      There is more than this of course, but I just wanted to put down what I'd found. Hope it helps someone!

      18 votes
    28. Norway Chess 2023 | GothamChess YouTube recaps

      Background The 2023 Norway Chess is an elite over-the-board tournament in Stavanger, Norway. The event starts on May 29 at 10 a.m. PT/19:00 CEST with a blitz tournament, followed by a classical...

      Background

      The 2023 Norway Chess is an elite over-the-board tournament in Stavanger, Norway. The event starts on May 29 at 10 a.m. PT/19:00 CEST with a blitz tournament, followed by a classical event beginning May 30 at 8 a.m. PT/17:00 CEST.

      This edition of Norway Chess features a kr$2,500,000 prize fund, roughly equivalent to $234,000 at the time of writing.


      Format

      The 2023 Norway Chess features a blitz tournament that precedes the classical event. The final standings of the blitz event determine players' seeds for the classical event.

      Blitz Event
      • 10-player single round-robin.
      • Players earn 1 point for a win, 0.5 for a draw, and 0 for a loss.
      • The time control is 3+2.
      • In case there's a tie, the following tiebreakers apply:
      1. Direct Encounter
      2. Sonneborn-Berger
      3. Koya System
      4. The Koya System Extended
      5. Drawing of lots

      The winner of the blitz event picks their pairing number. The remaining players pick their pairing number, one by one, according to their final standings in the blitz tournament.

      Classical
      • 10-player single round-robin.
      • Players earn 3 points for a win, 1.5 for a draw and armageddon win, 1 for a draw and armageddon loss, and 0 for a loss.
      • Players can't draw by agreement before Black's 30th move, unless it's an armageddon game.
      • The time control is 120 minutes for the entire game, with a 10-second increment per move starting on move 41.
      • In case there's a tie, players contest an armageddon game where White has 10 minutes on their clock and Black has seven, with a one-second increment starting on move 41. Black has draw odds. The player who played White in the classical game plays White in the armageddon.
      Classical Tiebreaks

      If two players tie for first place, the following tiebreakers apply:

      • A two-game blitz Playoff match with a 3+2 time control.
      • If the tie persists, players contest another two-game blitz match.
      • If still drawn, players contest an armageddon game. White gets 10 minutes, and Black gets 7 minutes with draw odds. The armageddon game has a one-second increment per move, starting on move 41.

      If more than two players tie for first place, the following tiebreakers apply:

      • Drawn players contest a double round-robin with the same tiebreakers as the blitz tournament.

      Players

      Below is a list of the players confirmed to play in the 2023 Norway Chess tournament:

      • GM Magnus Carlsen
      • GM Alireza Firouzja
      • GM Anish Giri
      • GM Wesley So
      • GM Hikaru Nakamura
      • GM Fabiano Caruana
      • GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
      • GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov
      • GM Gukesh D
      • GM Aryan Tari

      Source: Chess.com

      16 votes