That’s a pretty good testimonial. Thank you for taking the time to share it with me.

They do make communication more efficient, as long as everyone understands the definition. If they don’t, then acronyms and initials quickly make the communication inefficient, or worse, make the person that isn’t in the know feel excluded. In my professional life, I spend a lot of my time translating acronyms and trying to help people navigate the confusion of not knowing what things mean and wondering if they’re in over their head, all due to the constant use of jargon.

My suggestion is to definite your acronyms the first time you use them or, if it’s a short message, spell the whole thing out and don’t mention the abbreviation at all.

I don’t know what the implied demographic is, but I assume I am not in it. I suppose that vibe is part of why I don’t feel the desire to venture further into the fediverse.

I would have assumed the audience for this post is TTRPG nerds.

What is a pigeon totem? It sounds made up.

For anybody else that hates needless acronyms, FOSS apparently stands for Free and Open Source Software.

Yes, original Battletech was simulating large scale mech warfare with collectible minis (let’s face it though, most people just liked to paint and have them). The Battletech RPG (to my understanding) is that flavor adapted to a TTRPG.

If you like mechs and video gaming, I encourage you to check out the MechWarrior series. It is the video game adaptation of Battletech.

The site appears to be back up now.

And yes, at the very basic level, all these settings involve mechs. Lancer would probably be closer in theme to Evangelion, if you wanted to run it that way. Battletech would be a crunchy cousin, due to its roots as a war game.

I would like an excuse to buy Battletech, but just can’t do it when I could play Lancer instead. Can anyone convince me I’m wrong?

I think I’ll try this. Thanks for sharing!

You are welcome. I think the awareness of potential deals outweighs the risk of being spammy.

One of the player characters is a clone that was grown in a mindflayer laboratory.

If you’re a Cyberpunk RED player, please skip this post - it contains spoilers for Tales of the Red: Reaping the Reaper.

Well now I’m going to come back and read this extra hard.

Great resource. Thank you!

I’m sad that this post has been up for a couple days and there haven’t been any replies. I wish there was more engagement on here aside from the memes. Thank you for taking the time to post it.

I was vaguely aware that this existed in the DMG, but I have never used it. I do like how it extrapolates the likelihood of hits based on the creature mechanics. In the rare cases I’ve ran mass combat, I just roll like single combat, but I apply the d20s for batches of baddies and apply average damage. I might divide the group into quarters and then roll 4 d20s for their collective attacks. There is also Mike Shea’s assume a quarter succeed guideline, which is a similar deal but with no rolling.

What I struggle with is what mechanics to use when the characters are overwhelmed. It’s one thing to use streamlined mechanics for when the characters are wading through enemies, cutting them down. But, if they get themselves into a situation where they are overwhelmed and on the ropes, the mechanics used could be life or death. I would hate to use a streamlined mechanic in those situations and have it result in a character death or a party wipe. Would the outcome have been different if I had used rolls for each monster? Who knows. It’s just something I would think about in those circumstances.

Damn is that how it worked? I don’t remember any of that, but it was a long time ago now.

Of the responses so far, this one brought me the most joy.

We call this cocktail hour.

That’s hilarious. Is the item still floating around in there?

How did you come to play a gelatinous cube? What do the other players play?