We continue our Zweihänder Reforged game, feeling our way through the rich tactical options that the three action economy gives. Early stage in the story too as these opening moves will start to open out some more plot.
Our survivors in the gambling parlour
Some thoughts on the way the combat system plays out.
Damage is compared to a threshold to see how many steps down the damage track the target must take. At basic tier, characters are looking for extras to up their damage to have a significant impact on thresholds, including the hoped for Fury Die explosion. Although there are only so many steps on the ladder, this makes everyone reasonably robust to stay in the fight, unless a ‘minion’ who go down with a one step damage effect. I was expecting there to be some mechanical death spiral effect on damage track steps, but there isn’t any that I can see as written. It’s tempting to add a stress test when reaching the ‘Seriously Wounded’ step to reflect the link between body and soul.
We are staying with both the 1AP Defence action and damage reduction using Fortune, though I think I will play it that you cannot apply both options to an attack. We’ll see how that works out in play.
I placed people on a grid, which the game supports, but can see the benefits of Reforged going zonal and hand waving some of the consequences of that tactical precision.
The interplay between tactical choices and Talents started to kick in and felt consequential.
I liked the to and fro of Fortune and Misfortune coins. I probably need to spend mine quicker to give them back to the players. I’ll get better at that as I become comfortable with the game play.
The VTT module does not support ‘targeting’ of opponents, so damage is not automatically applied. Now I know, I’m fine with that. The module supported our play very well, I’m glad we have it.
The binding and treating of wounds covers physical healing very well. I might add in that a week of natural rest will recover one step as a lengthier backstop.
Although we are playing online, the experience is giving me a view as to what I would need to prepare if I was presenting a game in the real with new players. As a minimum so far I would have: a print out of combat actions, beads to help people count their actions, and physical coins for fortune and misfortune. I have a plan for a particular setting backdrop, and some one shot potential that I might unleash at ‘Owlbear & The Wizard’s Staff’ this year.
Good times as we explore the game and story further.
As part of Virtual Grogmeet 2026, I offered to run a session of the Nimble RPG on Foundry VTT. Although I am more of a KSR (Klassic Swedish Roleplay) kind of gamer, the level based ascending power bubble and expanding hit point design nonsense continues to appeal for a hero to superhero fantasy experience.
One of the advantages of Nimble is the simplicity of conversion/substitution from existing D&D and adjacent adventures. I just grabbed something appealing that came with some useful looking VTT maps. Before long I had The Deepwood Bandits ready to go.
Nimble game poster
I’ll keep this update largely spoiler free, as the experience was so good that I’d like to run the adventure again, possibly a few times. Nimble is a surprisingly feature rich tactical game for such a tight page count. Class mastery is a thing, with the ascending levels generally giving you something extra every time. It was rather nice to see the return of the 4e Warlord in the shape of the Commander, one of a number of design decisions that spoke of my old favourite, even if coincidentally.
It was fearless to create 3rd level heroes, giving a much richer array of actions and features for my players to get to grips with in a very short amount of time. It certainly gave them plenty to go at, with their totemic abilities providing mechanical and consequential depth to the roleplaying and narration of their character actions. Still, it was a fairly deep end approach, that just about worked, in large part thanks to a top group of players who were happy to explore the game with me as we played.
Nimble characters in Foundry
Starting the game with a huge canvas of up to 30 actors stretched the ‘rules tight’ claims of the game. I am so used to wrapping a game in 3 hours that I was surprised that I would easily have gone on for over the maximum 3.5 hours. That opening scene is quite a set piece!
Playing Nimble and having a laugh
The Foundry VTT implementation is very strong indeed and great fun to use. It’s safe to say that I was finding my feet as a first time out, and I needed a stronger depth of knowledge of the hero classes, but even then we forged on at a good pace. Were we playing a mini campaign (and that would be all kinds of fun if I had the time and the fortune to secure this marvellous set of players) I reckon we would be in complete command of the class features and the slick interface in a couple more sessions.
I’m very taken with the game and glad that I have backed the forthcoming updated version. It’s going to see a lot more play.
I’ll leave you with some thoughts from my players via some select quotes:
Live action report from our Nimble session, winning the prize for slickest Foundry implementation ever seen.
Slickest Foundry implementation sounds like a challenge! The Nimble Foundry system is very good and hard to beat… and I need to get inbuilt video running in my Foundry setup.
.. thanks to @First Age and to my fellow players for a great first Nimble session. Lots of fun even if the range of spell options for the Mage did cause me some analysis paralysis (…. er, um, another Fire Dart I think…)
And neither of my pep talks / intimidation / HR Reviews had the desired effect. It was very good, I think it works in the VTT as it seemed to me a lot of things to juggle without it.
Really enjoyed it. Intrigued by Nimble, although heroic fantasy isn’t usually my bag, but seeing the system in action and the excellent Foundry system… I’m tempted.
We ran our first Zweihander Reforged session last night, and though it is very early days for rules engagement, I’m pretty sure that I am going to like it. Here are my early thoughts as placeholders for when actual play firms up my views.
In the gloomy alleys of Ertol
The game chassis is my sweet spot of light/medium crunch and skill based, without a huge shopping list of over specific expertise areas.
Core mechanics are familiar percentage based with simple blackjack for opposed tests. Warhammer success levels are good fun for a more detailed game, but I don’t really need them. Some very simple aiding and hindering mechanics plus result flipping gives you an agile and intuitive set of principles to play with.
The three tiers of development are very straightforwardly set out as three careers, with complete flexibility in the way you progress.
Characters start part way through their Basic Tier, with all their chosen career’s +10% skills already acquired. Along with the more generous base attribute starting percentages, your characters feel much more capable from the get go, and I sense that the level is a good place for the sort of games that I like to run.
Ancestry as talents provide an impactful way of flavouring other peoples and cultures without over emphasising mechanical differences.
Most of the later medieval vibe is captured in the professions and trappings. It would be very easy to set the game in other fantasy periods by reskinning the descriptions of the professions, possibly with some renamed talents, and adding a few classic trappings.
There are a number of small mini games that I have yet to evaluate, but I like the way the game recognises some extra game play for core endeavours that crop up in sessions, such as journeys, chases and social intrigues.
I’ve worked quite hard to give my players a well detailed and sumptuous feel to the play setting. Some of the simpler and ‘basic’ elements of Foundry VTT enable that in a seamless way. The journal feature provides contextual background information to players without the necessity of filling play time with exposition. It’s just there as you need it. New information that comes through play can be added, or revealed as the game progresses.
The Foundry Zweihänder module is written for the earlier revised edition of the game. However, the flexibility of its design allowed me to add in the new skill list, talents, spells, and updated trappings to give a near perfect Reforged edition system. The module is attractive, presents characters well, and forms an excellent base for game mechanics in scene resolution.
On the technical side, I host my Foundry instance on Sqyre. The service has been excellent, and I’m very glad to have found them so early in their own development. They have matured very quickly, and I will be staying with them. I also marvel at how good the Livekit module is, delivering high quality webcams into the session. I wouldn’t be without it. My Linux desktop runs a decent enough OBS session, allowing me to stream the game to YouTube, which ran without a hitch. My Internet connection may be wet string by modern standards, but it holds enough bandwidth to make my sessions fly by, with thanks to the technical wizardry above.
A number of game projects are pushing forward, with a focus on developing them for actual play. There remains a joy in my concept teasing, especially through VTT preparation, but mostly I just want to realise some of this potential. Perhaps the embarrassing glut of recent indiscrete crowd funding has encouraged me to hone in on actually doing something with what I have?
I’m reasonably certain that some of the ‘yet more to come’ will turn into great play experiences. Both Nimble and Dragonbane: Trudvang will feature strongly over the next few years, with the former already slated for a first try out at Virtual Grogmeet in April. For me, a strong Foundry implementation gets a game going early. ‘Beyond the Woods’, an Irish Celtic inspired expression of Legend in the Mist may yet prove irresistible, and have a group in mind to try out that whole game family. ‘The Serpent’ SF setting and mini campaign will take either Traveller or Coriolis off the shelf, ‘Amarath’ will do the same for Dragonbane, and ‘The Veiled God’ gives me an easy sword and sorcery option playing Barbarians of Lemuria.
All good. Only my implacable need to back Monte Cook’s Cypher nags at me. Yes, all the tweaks to the latest iteration of a game system, that I keep thinking I like, are the ones that I wanted to see, but will this really manifest as a breakthrough for the game in an already crowded sphere? I’m probably at a ‘use it or lose it’ stage with Cypher, and sense that I am enjoying the lengthy silence before ‘product’ appears. That isn’t how it should be. At least I didn’t go ‘All In’. There may well have been ‘nine worlds’, but does this mean that Cypher has nine lives?
A lovely combination
Of the recent glut, I’m currently enthused to find a long term vehicle for Nimble. This inventive ‘Occam’s Razor’ take on the huge F20 block of gaming has pushed my hopeful buttons. It’s almost as though, as I reflect on the horrors of recent real world events and the systemic failures of democratic processes to control them, I feel the need for some heroic fantasy froth and bubble to cheer me up. To get things moving I have been looking at two big 3rd party settings to provide a home for the game. Either Midnight or Fateforge are strong candidates. Midnight is my ‘Sauron has won’ dark fantasy of struggle against oppression, though one that I am invested in seeing win. Working through my wishes in play space, it is quite possible that the allegory would be raw and thin. I love everything that Studio Agate do. It’s been a while since I have embraced a welcoming Gallic hug from the creators at their UK Games Expo stand; it remains one of the most compelling reasons to attend the convention. Fateforge is an open and heroic setting, sumptuously realised through their team of artists. A recent and ongoing Humble Bundle delivers all the PDFs for a small investment, worth it for the art alone. I never explored the potential due to the embedded D&D 2014 5e, despite the clever design work to make the system their own. I’d probably have got lost in the maze of the Forge had they used their own house Story Arc System. Well, now I have Nimble, so perhaps it is time. Easy to get lost in a preparation jungle, only to return to where I started. I may yet get to inflict something on my mate Pete at Patriot Games.
The convention calendar imposes a useful sequencing to my creativity. After Virtual Grogmeet, North Star is next up in early May, and emerging from jumpspace directly after a week away in Italy. I have a pre-packaged fun-looking space opera already slotted in the schedule via ‘Genesys Twilight Imperium’. Shelf combing upended some hopeful second slot contenders, but really I knew it had to be Traveller, not least because I want to attend TravCon later in the year, and some game development now, will bear future dividend there.
Now British owned Traveller might be my forever game, yet even here I manage to face a game system conundrum. Far and away, and to another galaxy and back, the most sensible thing to do is just play and run Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition. The potential obfuscation of self imposed game breaking optional technologies is minor and controllable. Overall, it’s a solid and highly playable version of the game with a breathtakingly rich accumulation of material. There’s a reason that most people who love Traveller are playing this approachable version. Contrarian that I am, and seduced by that there Cybergoth’s delicious A5 Lulu print of Cepheus Universal, I want nothing more than to get this all in one 2D6 engine to the table. It is streamlined and solves some technology complexities with some asymmetrical game design. That it wanders off in small unit tactics places that I’m not interested to follow, doesn’t lessen my enthusiasm for it. The modular nature of the 2D6 SF group of games is a mixed blessing too. I can all too easily fuss over ‘perfect blends’, when I could be playing one of the damned games.
Getting T5 to the table
And here we are. The depths of my depravity. It’s time to get T5 to the table. The version that ‘everyone’ looks at with a technical reverence, and quickly dismisses as a playable possibility. You can see why. Even as I bludgeoned the wonderful huge tomes into some kind of play sense, I recognised that a number of the critical play phases, such as personal and starship combat, would be sub-optimal, at least for me. Rather than jettison the many good sequences in the three Big Black Books, I have decided to double down on the core mechanics and riotously blend in my own take of the Cepheus Universal system to deliver a mostly authentic T5 experience. The blend is seamless, largely helped by the fact that nobody understands how T5 is supposed to work anyway. I say nobody, there is, of course, an active, helpful and knowledgeable T5 community to be found on the Traveller Discord.
Bringing T5 to the table is going to take a lot of work, and I sense that time is already running out for North Star. I am committed to this folly in the oft quieter end of convention Sunday afternoon Slot 5. I’m undertaking the blend through the lens of actual play and player characters. See what is needed through experience in play and knit strands together from there. I’m continuing the story from previous TravCons, with the centrepiece being a ridiculously impractical frontier trader and a crew trying to keep it running along the Diadem Main, deep in the midst of the Vanguard Reaches. A slice of archetypal Traveller using the ultimate edition of the game.
This week, even while at Center Parcs, I have a session zero and character generation for Zweihander Reforged. I’m really looking forward to finally giving this game a try out. The Kickstarter failings can be forgotten, and we can find out how it plays. Signs are good for The Eternal Night of Lockwood.
Yet further game possibilities continue to escape to the surface, sometimes filling precious time with a stale odour. I reflect that the copious time I give my hobby brings me great delight, along with some good actual play outcomes. The ongoing Enemy Within campaign is a lot of fun, however long we decide to prop up the authoritarian regime as a bulwark against the swirling forces of chaos. This brings us back to our present reality, and a good time for a close and some breakfast!
A spare, and now somewhat ageing, Matebook laptop has afforded me an occasional Linux Distro hop. Although the Matebook is showing its years in a few areas, it continues to look fabulous, and sports a tremendous 3000 x 2000 resolution 13″ touch screen panel with thin bezels.
I thought I’d take a look at the Cosmic Desktop via Pop!_OS.
Cosmic Desktop
There is so much to like about this environment. It feels modern and responsive, with rich tiling and theming options. The few Cosmic apps are well implemented. Cosmic Files allowed simple samba loading of my network drive (once the config file had been edited to allow for the poor capabilities of my Plusnet router).
I’ve grown accustomed to the fairly vanilla Gnome desktop, with just a few tweaks and Dash to Dock. I felt immediately at home with Cosmic. The distro is packaged to handle my aged NVIDIA card flawlessly, delivering a smooth and high quality display. The Cosmic store seems to use Flathub almost exclusively, which keeps things simple, while managing any application updates in a straightforward manner. Proton, Zen browser and most of the other apps I routinely use are all there, so I am just cracking on doing what I do.
There are other distros that accommodate Cosmic, which I may check out, but for now I’m enjoying playing from where I am.
Another Airecon analogue gaming weekend in Harrogate, and what a fine time we have had! I run the RPG track as part of a lovely tabletop community convention, well organised, with a strong and positive ethos. It’s great to play a part in supporting this perfectly sized gaming weekend. Below are some personal reflections, in anticipation of feedback from my GMs and possibly some attendees via the community forum.
It was a very good weekend, with RPGs continuing to grow a little year on year, providing another gaming expression to the amazing board, card and other games. This year we moved to the grand Hilton Majestic Hotel with the Reading and Drawing rooms opened for 21 tables in each of the 8 sessions available. Being a short walk from the main convention halls probably had its pros and cons, but we were very happy with the space provided, amidst the grandeur of the column and chandelier great rooms, with carpets, drapes, and high ceilings that managed the sound so well. It was a delight to work the desk, helping people to find their booked tables and get into games. The buzz and laughter emanated through the walls to my corridor desk all weekend.
Our space was sponsored by Chaosium, who are significantly contributing to tabletop convention roleplay events across the UK (and doubtless beyond). Thank you to them for helping us put our RPG event together in such a fantastic location!
With some spaces in our programme, particularly on the lighter Sunday afternoon, we offered 781 player spaces, with 543 tickets sold. This tells me that, for now, we have the right number of tables, and should focus on filling the capacity we have, before expanding the space that we might need in future years. RPGs are very much a full part of the Airecon experience and they are there to stay.
Remi!!
Airecon’s RPG Gamemasters (GMs) are a terrific group, many of whom return every year to ply their craft. They bring a wide range of different RPGs with varying playstyles, thrilling situations for the players to resolve, or indeed murders to solve, and all delivered with a lot of heart and significant preparation. I think Remi might have stolen the show with his huge Lego diorama for his Star Wars games, though as I toured the tables I saw gorgeous character sheets, figures and maps, props, and even a touch of fancy dress, all of which, though not essential, adds to the experience. However, the real preparation is more important and invisible. The mastery of the game, the design of situations that engage, and characters that can be expressed through play at the table. Creators of memorable gaming experiences all.
Not everything works out smoothly on the day. Some games might not fill or be viable, some players do not show up, and just occasionally a GM might not be able to make the session they had pledged to run. We have a principle that GMs are ready to run, even if we know there are no, or few, ticket sales for their game. This enables me to juggle late minute player sign ups, or re-allocate players from one cancelled game to another. It was so nice to see players prefer to be slotted into another game, other than the one they had booked, instead of going for a refund. People had arrived to play! GMs with no sign-ups are also able to join games to make up numbers and get games going if required. GMs like to play too.
Our friend, David.
We were especially concerned about one GM who didn’t show up at all, and wasn’t responding to messages. It is with profound sadness that we were told that one of our number, David Gallico, passed away on Thursday night. Many of you know David, a lovely and kind hearted man, who shared our passion for RPGs and was always keen to offer a rich variety of games at conventions. David will be greatly missed, and I shall think of him, and his game of DCC that he ran for me. Time is so precious, and I am so glad to have shared the moments I had with David.
As an organiser, I also like to run games. I thought it particularly important to do so this tmie around, to personally experience the new play space. My planning of table numbering was designed to soften any impact of loud noise, though the rooms handled the volume extremely well. My three games of Free League’s ‘Dragonbane’ went well, with some riotous and welcoming play from a cast of wonderful players. My last game on Sunday afternoon was much shorter than I had planned, a full hour and 45 minutes less than the same game the previous evening. Sometimes the players take routes and decisions that short cut potential complications. I’ll be running three games again next year.
I have made a few notes on a very few changes that will fine tune the organisation of RPGs for next year. Most especially, I think some form of ‘#children friendly’ tag (or some such) will help parents choose games that GMs have prepared with children and younger adults in mind. I was very lucky to have a ten year old and mum play in my first game, and it was a considerable delight to see my other three adult players adapt their play to make the younger one welcome and included. The youngster seemed to have a wonderful time and remained fully engaged throughout more than three hours of play.
To conclude, I just want to say a big thank you to all the GMs. The event is nothing without you. You’re commitment to bring great play experiences to the table is clearly evident from the preparation, your skill and approach to managing the sessions, and perhaps most of all the electric buzz of players engaging in your games with all the cries of surprise and laughter flowing from the room.
I will admit to an ongoing dalliance with Fantasy D20 level and hit point designed games, despite my instinctive preference for lower fantasy skill based systems with static(ish) wound thresholds, so in the Warhammer and Dragonbane mode. It seems clear that I will put up with the ascending competence bubble for the visceral delights of levelling up. There’s also something of a joy to the engorged high fantasy tone, with menagerie populations and thoroughly unlikely super hero powers, popping off amongst the ale, simple farmsteads, and lost towers of the ghoulish Deathdealer King.
As you may know, I returned to these games after a long time away, mostly summoned by the prospect of my daughter becoming a Critter and starting to play D&D. This was a magnetic draw, initially fuelled by Green Ronin’s Dragon Age, and then unleashing the contrarian in me that took me to the adjacent Pathfinder 2nd Edition, which I played and very much enjoyed, and onto a huge spend fest on D&D 4th Edition. 4e over Covid with a great group and an epic campaign will live long in the memory.
Much as I enjoy the big blocks of F20 rules and ability lists, and copious monster options, there was always a desire to have it all without the bloated weight of the text walls, perhaps because I am a slow reader. So, I produced Heroic Fantasy, a Black Hack based game that delivers a similar experience but in a slim fast play volume. Some people out there really enjoying playing it, as do I. The earth was tilled and primed for the next crop of temptations.
My good friend Dom, who understands my gaming journey, introduced me to his most recent kickstarter backing: Nimble RPG. This is exactly the sort of D&D adjacent game I have been looking for. He knew it. Stripping back a lot of the 5e guff, you have a fast play ‘rules tight’ heroic fantasy game with 1-20 levels of ascending power, highly focused and very simple to play. That it also takes design inspiration from Pathfinder 2, D&D 4e, Savage Worlds and even out to ‘Into the Odd’, only added to my delight. Sixty page rulebook? That’ll do.
Nimble is perfect for someone like me, having quietly purchased a shed load of F20 adventures and campaigns, flowing from Bundles and indiscrete, over enthusiastic, DrivethruRPG shopping grabs. Nimble can take any of this rich input and, with conversion ‘on the fly’ produce a game of Nimble in a trice. I may know that the mouldering digital pile is unlikely to see much, if any play, but with Nimble I can now pretend that I have a ready vehicle to turn the steaming feat load into some actual gaming.
Even now, I look at the gothic nonsense of Elderbrains’ ‘Crown of the Oathbreaker’ campaign and think that I could, at last, get it to the table. Back to Greyhawk for some more of my Bandit Kingdom sandbox? Nimble. That nice looking Pathfinder adventure path? Nimble. That dodgy third party campaign module with inadvisable line art? Nimble. A simple one off for a convention? Well, that’s easy.
That it inhales some tactical vapours from Savage Worlds and 4e really works for me, instinctively taking me over to Foundry VTT, where I discovered that it had a beautiful and free Nimble system module full of ready to use compendium.
A few PCs I created with eight clicks each, and the compendium of data
Attractively, the Nimble community has a busy Discord, supporting websites, great VTT support, a regular zine, and, perhaps most important of all, a phenomenally talented and approachable creator. The third party licence is open and generous, doubtless foretelling a mushroom of community content.
The Kickstarter has just a few days to go. My digital pledge has been ‘Cybergothed’ (Dom’s online handle name) to a matching physical box tier, swept up as I am by the excitement of play. Virtual Grogmeet in April will be its first outing for me, and expect many more to follow.
Although unlikely to supercede Dragonbane in my affection, I still have a place for Nimble. It might nudge my own Heroic Fantasy game out of the way, at least for a while. I’m looking forward both to playing in Dom’s forthcoming game, and to inflicting this ‘5e but not’ on others, including possibly yourself!
Don’t tend this way Don’t tend that way Straight down the middle until next Thursday First to the left Back to the right Twist and turn until you got it right
Depeche Mode
To the thumping synths of a 1980s dance floor, welcome to this newly located blog! Here you will find a signal continuation from the Far Havens sector, briefly interrupted by an ongoing desire to move away from USA corporate owned tech. Legacy messages are found at https://farhavens.blogspot.com, though I have undertaken a full import of the old content to WordPress using a plugin.
Perhaps a fitting first post on this new ‘deGoogled’ blog site is a consideration of my engagement in social media, and where the healthy boundaries are? This will be different for everyone; have you got the balance right? I really don’t believe I have. Recognising this, I’ve already taken some steps, having walled off some places, particularly Facebook, languishing instead at quite a few Discord servers, along with some occasional Instagram, a forum or two, and a little BlueSky and Mastodon (dice.camp). So, a strongly curated series of places that allows some conversation about my gaming hobby, some tech, miscellanea, and often with people that I know and trust. Despite this, I have brought back into focus some old thinking about the amount of social media time that is really healthy for me, and the terms by which I choose to engage. You really don’t want to spend your retirement doom scrolling.
I think it would be beneficial to wind down the overall time I engage in online blather, and perhaps find the best moments in the day to click, view and participate. With the multiplicity of opportunities dangling on a typical desktop dock, it can be difficult to stay clear of the time sink icons. Still, I think a focus on just a few choice places is right, necessarily including the discussion associated with the conventions that I help to organise.
It has proven difficult to stick to my goal to only look at the news and politics on a Saturday morning. There seems to be a highly clickable despicable every single damned day. Need to double down on that goal. I think that this ‘clamour reclamation’ will be extremely positive for me, allowing some more space for family and closer friends, my own thoughts, creative endeavours, music, series, and ‘quiet reading’.
This blog has always been a strong place for me to express my enthusiasm and delight. I guess the amount of dialogue is low, except for the good folk of the Tavern, and so I get to speak forth with some good view numbers yet without extenuated conversation. So, I shall continue to write in this new place, and enjoy articulating thoughts in a positive manner. I’d be happy to engage more on the posts here and in other sites.
It amuses me that I could post this and, without some form of social media posting, no-one would see it! I sense this post is actually for me, so in some ways that would be fine.
Hope you have a good balance, and that your online dialogue adds positively to the time tapestry of your life.
On the morning after the bloated and falsehood strewn State of the Union address by President Trump, I thought I’d reflect on the progress I have made to disentangle my digital dependence on USA tech companies.
I use the Affinity Suite for a lot of my image and text presentation for creative projects. This Windows and Mac application suite has now been straightforwardly enabled on Linux, either through using an AppImage, or a GUI based Wine implementation. Although I can still hope for a native port to Linux, it is more than good enough for me to ditch the Windows PC that I held on to for just this purpose, and switch it to Linux. Microsoft has left my building. My Mrs uses Windows for work and home, but that’s fine, this is my struggle.
A satisfying morning adding repos and apps and making my local network USB HDD available to a fresh Fedora Workstation 43. I’ll add Affinity Suite as a standard these days. I think the main OS changes, away from USA corporations, that are possible for me right now are complete. Default browser is Zen (Firefox based), search engine is currently DuckDuckGo. I have the Brave browser if I need something Chromium based.
There is more that I can do, at a leisurely pace. The majority of my data is now stored locally on a pair of cheap USB HDDs, one live on the router and accessible throughout home, the other a maintained back-up. The backup is kept in sync by a monthly rsync process, sending changes that have occurred on the main HDD to the backup. I was stunned by the simplicity and power of ‘rsync’ on the command line. The process isn’t ideal, but for the nature of my data, this cadence is more than good enough. A proper NAS is likely this year, and I’ll report back on the one I go for and how I find it. Probably UGREEN, but we’ll see. In the mean time I plan to further reduce my Google Drive data, though I am already within the 100GB threshold I had set myself.
I have a full local archive of my Google photos, using their takeout service. It came to more than 40GB, reflecting many years of accumulation. I really should have first gone through the cloud based files and deleted the huge weight of pointless ones!
I need to decide if I am going to commit to Proton for an additional email address and cloud space. It would be part funded by the reduction in Google subscription. I also host websites for conventions on Hostinger, and have a domain there with email access. The cost of hosting is covered as charge to the conventions. I think the web presence is useful for the small charge.
I’m evaluating European alternatives to Google Maps. I think that will be a full switch, over the coming months.
Some elements will remain. Sunk cost on the Google phone and HarmonyOS based tablet will keep me for their lifetime. I’ve already noted alternatives for when the time comes. I really should do something about my bank!
And of course there is this blog. It will probably have to move. It makes sense to migrate the blog by using a WordPress instance on Hostinger. That feels like a significant effort, but it is a further next step.
Progress then. I feel less entangled, less personally dependent. I was disappointed by the speech given in my name by our Prime Minister at Munich. I have rehearsed the one that I would have given. It is a time of rupture, and despite beneficial and enduring cooperation, we have to recognise that a return to a rules based order with a properly cogent and powerful ally is not a given. For now, I’ll do these small things, in one aspect of my life, to give a sense of positive action.
An excellent resource for any science fiction RPG enthusiast is the free Star System Explorer (https://star-system-generator.vercel.app). Particularly responsive in any chromium based browser, this application calculates star system dynamics and planetary physical details, providing a graphical display of the orbits around the star. It has been modeled on known physics, to give a consistent projection of a system composition.
Even more amazing is that it pulls data using the Travellermap API, enabling you to import Traveller subsectors, where every system is mapped out using the application’s logic. There is space for you to edit your copy of this with other world details useful for your campaign. All the world system mathematics heavy lifting seems to be carried for you, leaving you with just the juicy narrative aspects to add.
Subsector G, Hyperion, of the Vanguard Reaches
One of the systems in the subsector
The system’s mainworld
Early days, but I think this tool may quickly become essential. You can save your maps and reload them should you need to. I’ll be using it at Travcon, perhaps with a screen display for a bit of a Sci Fi feel.
