2016-12-02 Week Recap

image from ArtBreeder

filed under site on 02 Dec 2016
tagged game design, actual play, and solo

Week in recap, no particular order. Just to keep the posting going on this blog and to remind myself I have, in fact, achieved stuff.

Added a new panel to Pythia that takes source files and outputs inspiration.

It’s not live yet (but probably will be sometime today) since it needs more testing. It does two major things.

First, if you give it source files (and it can use your current game’s play logs) it will suggest interesting “seeds” (similar to Mythic complex answers) related to what you’re typing as you type and also do a rudimentary “auto-predict” for you.

Second, it will output full Markov-chain sentences based on your source material if you ask for it. Call of Cthulu (which is in the public domain) is ridiculously good for this. The drawback is that it requires a couple of python libraries to be installed over the usual for Pythia, which is why I’ve been on the fence about adding something like this for a while.

Wrote up a campaign framework called “End of Days” where you play in two different eras.

You make one to play before the Fall, one after, and manage a settlement and a dynasty. And then I rewrote it because I stumbled over Always/Never/Now and it’s the perfect system for the “Before”. And Lady Blackbird is awesome for the “After”. Really happy with it.

Read through my Thanksgiving haul.

Some misses, but the hits were awesome. The aforementioned Always/Never/Now is how it’s done, people. An Echo Resounding, a stellar domain management system by Sine Nomine. A couple of the Kabuki books I didn’t have yet. Like I said, awesome stuff, by and large.

Christmas stuff.

For the first time in my life, I have ordered at least some Christmas gifts before December 1st. Is this what being a grown-up is like?

Did an actual play using Stranger Things.

Should probably post it but I’ve been tinkering with Markov files and code and TextBlob instead. Look for it in the next couple of days, anyway. Playing a half-demon is awesomely amusing.