For the first time since, I dunno, 2014? I got to play Battletech. And game with johnlh. We used Tabletop Simulator, on Steam, along with Zoom for conversation. There was a bit of rulebook-diving, especially regarding physical attacks, but Battletech's rules have mostly not changed since 1987 and we remembered most of it. (At one point I listed to John ( Read more... )

I'd mentioned in a previous post that Eagle Dynamics is backdating the modern Marianas free map to WWII. Today they posted some progress pics.


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...be a sci fi nerd.

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Nice callback to "The Cage" with Pike being a horse enthusiast!

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And here we have another nice callback, to Star Wars Rebels!

Because I have the attention span of a magpie, I started yet another new construct. Like the dungeon it's a gaming map scaled up to livesize and expanded into three dimensions: the spaceport bar map that came with the GURPS Traveller GM screen. Just the walls so far, and with some copying and pasting I added shops on either side and some corridor ( Read more... )

Up until now all the 3d modeling I've posted has been in the default gray color. In addition to being unrealistic and flat, it also tends to wash out details. So today I went through some beginner's tutorials on how to use colors and textures in Blender, which have heretofor been a complete mystery to me. The results are pretty striking:


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Today, acting on a whim, I spent 4 hours modeling the first room of the sample dungeon from the AD&D 1e Dungeon Masters Guide. Scaled up to life size. As with my earlier castle project (that I need to get back to), the idea is to create a virtual reality environment that I will someday be able to walk around inside of, as if it were real.


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I just saw a thread at RPGnet about an Amazon MMO, which very briefly had me excited. But sadly, it's Amazon the company making an MMO, not an MMO where you play a murderous Scythian horse nomad lady ( Read more... )

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The basic idea of a passive solar home design is that you build the floor and main walls out of something with a high thermal mass, like stone, brick, cement―cinder blocks are a perfectly cromulent low-cost option―-and then put all the windows on the south face. Light hits the front windows and the thermal mass aborbs the energy and radiates it, ( Read more... )

Lottery's up to $400 million so I bought a ticket. Worth a shot, right? Back when I was homeless I dreamed about winning the lottery a lot, as I saw it the only way I'd ever get off the street. And of course I thought of what I'd do with all the leftover millions after my own needs were seen to. Buy John and Mel a new mold-free house, pay off Liv ( Read more... )