Sunday, August 27th, 2023
Something I’ve been mulling over for running old-school dungeon games is an easy and interesting way to roll for initiative. I kind of find individual initiative to be a slower way to play, but group initiative IMO feels less fun and has the problem of ‘who rolls for the group this time?’
I quite like the idea of how initiative works in The Black Hack - everyone rolls a DEX check, if they pass then they go before the opponents, if they fail then they go after. It’s sort of like group initiative, but blended with individual initiative. Everyone gets to roll.
I was thinking of a slightly different version that I want to try sometime. Everyone, including the DM, rolls a d6. If you beat the DM’s score then you go before the opponents. If you don’t then you go after. The two reasons for this slight tweak are:
- The DM gets to roll too! I think that’s fun! I like rolling dice.
- It makes the outcome a little more uncertain and less static - even if you have a fairly low DEX then you still might beat the DM and get to go first.
If required you could also combine this with a surprise check and say that anyone who rolls a 1 in the first round of combat is surprised.
Monday, August 21st, 2023
So I'm back from holidays! We had a nice time in Japan, although I unfortunately was sick for the last few days we were there. But! It was really nice to travel around, see friends old and new, and eat lots of delicious food!
I got to go to Tokyo Game Dungeon and play Nice Disc against Daikon and Renkon, as well as lots of other neat indie games. It was a big highlight of the trip - I don't often get to go to indie game events these days and I really enjoy seeing what folk are working on. My favourite game of the show was シカクリバーシ by HeX Wrench, which is this kinda intense Reversi game with no grid. (You can play the demo at that link!)
I also went to Takayama and Shirakawa-go for the first time in many years - I really like Gifu prefecture and it was great to be able to go and visit the area again.
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Saturday, July 29th, 2023
I had a free day in Tokyo and wanted to try and buy some Touhou games. I hadn’t been shopping for doujin games at Akiba in like… 15 years?
I did find some Touhous, it feels like there were a lot fewer places stocking them than there used to be, but it’s been a long time so idk. 🤷 There was also some VR-focused event going on that was kinda interesting but super crowded so I didn’t really get to try anything out.
I also saw a lot of Pikachu...
Saturday, July 22nd, 2023
It's summer! The UK has had some odd weather this year, super hot for a few weeks and now rain. We're off to Japan for a few weeks soon though (hence the header photo) so I am (not) prepared for the dramatic increase in heat and humidity...
The last month or so has been pretty busy for me! There's been a whole bunch of personal changes, some progress on my current projects and a few new things I've started.
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Tuesday, July 4th, 2023
Looking for some camera stuff, came across this banger of a post about game cameras.
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