BLUF: Title, basically.

Extra Context: A couple years back, I picked up the 4th edition of Twilight: 2000. For those don’t know, this is a post-apocalyptic RPG which was first released during the absolute peak of Reagan-era Cold War saber rattling. Unlike other, more fanciful or escapist takes on life “after the end”, Twilight skewed much more simulationist, with Tom Clancy levels of hard-on for NATO and Soviet personnel and equipment statistics. Think This War of Mine meets ARMA 3, moreso than Fallout or Wasteland.

I start with this preamble to communicate how different in tone this system is from the games of 5e DnD I’ve played and run in the past. While the latest version of the Twilight rules is, to my understanding, significantly less packed with grognard crunch than previous iterations, I still find myself overwhelmed with all of the various mechanics and slight rule variations. As an example I hope is illustrative, to fire a weapon classified as a machine gun, your character uses their “heavy weapons” skill, but they follow the “ranged combat” rules, because heavy weapons typically refers to explosive type weapons. You also have to remember whether the MG you’re using is classified as Light, Medium, or Heavy, as there are different requirements/penalties based on your character’s stance. In and of itself, not too bad, and it pretty much tracks with the considerations I would put in place if I were designing this system, but it becomes a bit much with the everything else of the system. Case in point: the entry for hand grenades states: “grenades use the same rules as heavy weapons, with these exceptions:” and then goes on to list 6 bullet points, which makes me think that it hardly uses the same rules as heavy weapons at all lol.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily want to jettison this level of crunch, as I think it’s integral to the tone the system is designed around, but fuck me if it isn’t a lot to keep track of, especially since I’ll have to shepherd potential players through it efficiently if I have any hope of actually playing a game.

With that being said, any advice from the field? Experience with Twilight would be a bonus (any edition), but if anyone has general tips for tackling new systems, I’m all ears.

Was doing some yardwork when I felt a presence watching over me. Thankfully, before I began treating myself for suspected heat stroke, I noticed this fella up in the treeline doing just that. I’m not sure if this is typical behavior for groundhogs, though their common name would indicate not, but I suspect he may have been trying to avoid my dog. At any rate, for an oversized rodent, I thought he was pretty cute! I checked back an hour or so later and he had scampered off elsewhere (I suspect into a tunnel under my garage that I’ve been putting off dealing with).

Admittedly, wound up with more of a “plague” troll type scheme, but, overall, I’m very happy with how this turned out. Last item in the to-do list is some light corrective work around her hair and feet and then I’m calling it. I wanted to make a creature with some ick factor, and I think this works!

A friend of mine helps out at a local artist co-op, and he invited me to come through to see the Deadly Prey exhibition. Deadly Prey Gallery. I wish I had snagged more photos of the artwork, but hopefully what I grabbed was interesting enough. Accuracy to the films being advertised did not appear to be a priority in many cases, such as the Dune poster featuring a Lynch worm, a Villeneuve worm, a Beetlejuice worm, and a tongue worm from Tremors. I’d crosspost this to some of the movies communities, but I don’t know how :(

Other posters:

A searing portrait of young men fighting for their lives in Vietnam in 1965, when America was ramping up involvement in Southeast Asia.

I love these sorts of themed film surveys. As children yearn for the mines, so too do I yearn to put movies into categorized lists. Full disclosure, I’ve only watched the entirety of 1 movie on this list (Deathstalker 2025), but I do watch a lot of RedLetterMedia, so I feel like I’ve gotten the gist of all of them lol.

Anyone got any affinity for the genre or particular recommendations for barbarian-type movies? Cause, I gotta be honest, I watched that Barbarian movie from several years back based on nothing but the title, and, let me tell ya, I felt VERY misled… (/s of course… Mostly.)

A little late to the party, given this interview came out 3 months ago and the game he’s promoting has launched into early access, but it’s still fun to listen to Van Caneghem talk about the early days of PC game development and the HoMM franchise.

The second of a two mini pack containing two generic Orc Adventurers. The first was painted some time ago, but I finally got around to painting his partner yesterday. Didn’t touch the spell effects, as I want to do some more research into the best approach for that, as this is will be my first time painting translucent plastic.

Overall, he could stand to be much neater, but every time I went in to clean something up, I wound up slopping paint somewhere I didn’t want it. So, I decided to just hit it with a couple washes to hide my mistakes and call it a day. I might go back in tonight to reapply highlights in a few areas, but I’m mostly just pleased to have reduced my pile of shame by one figure.

Brad Arnold, the founder and lead singer of the 3 Doors Down has died following “his courageous battle with cancer,” the rock band announced Saturday on social media.

While I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for “Kryptonite” and maybe one other 3 Doors Down track, I can’t say I’m very familiar with the rest of their work. Seems like the band was formed under something of a dark cloud: two of the three have died, and the third is (presumably) serving time for vehicular homicide. Sad all around. Fuck cancer.

I’ve always liked to cook, but I’ve never really delved into baking. It always seemed so fussy. However, as they say, the first step in being kinda good at something is being really bad at it, so I decided I should try anyway. All said, pretty pleased with the result, especially the evidence of laminated layers.

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/40438210 upon request.

BLUF: Art bad, game good, demo available.

With the Winter Sale now live, I’m sure many folks are looking at their wishlists and browsing for new games to pick up. I was doing the same last night, when I came across the store page for the forthcoming HoMM title. I must admit, my first impressions were hugely negative. HoMM2 is in contention for my favorite game of all time, and fans of the series will know that the early games had a rather, distinct, art style. The character portraits in particular are of a piece with the painterly, roccoco stylings of fantasy book jackets, such as those that decorated the initial printings of the Wheel of Time series. The style of The Olden Era is, well, decidedly, not, that. Charitably speaking, the style seems to be aping the post-Ubisoft acquisition, 3D entries moreso than the early games (odd, for a title which is openly courting nostalgia in its name). Less charitably, it looks like a mobile game. I don’t quite know how to articulate the qualities which give that impression, but I’m sure that anyone looking at those screenshots will understand my intent.

Despite my trepidation regarding the game’s presentation, I noted that there is a demo available and figured it was worth checking out. That was at 7:30 PM. Around 1:30 AM, I finally tore myself away from the “just one more turn” loop in which I had been locked all evening. The gameplay proved completely compelling in all the ways that made me fall in love with HoMM2, while adding loads of wrinkles and minor variations that could result in lots of replay value.

To be clear, I’m not an expert on the series or other SRPGs. For example, I am aware that HoMM3 is typically viewed as the apex of the series, but I can’t speak on that, as I’ve never played it. With that in mind, veterans of the genre may be less enthused about the offerings in the demo than I, as I’m sure some of the new-to-me stuff was pillaged from other entries (like the law system, or the varying upgrade paths for units). All I can say is, wherever the ingredients were sourced from, I found they made quite the tasty soup.

Admittedly, the generic artwork never stopped annoying me. Quality-wise, I think it’s mostly fine, and there are elements that I quite like, such as the upgraded versions of troops being totally different models, not just pallette swaps. Additionally, I actually think the game map looks quite nice, if, again, a touch generic. Sort of like if you let a DM who is proficient with Inkarnate go hog wild while building a map. At least it hearkens to the colorful, dense maps of the early games.

At any rate, I can thoroughly recommend the demo. They’ve got, I think, 4 factions ready to go, with another to be introduced when the game officially hits Early Access. Additionally, there are 5 different map templates of various sizes and play styles. For those that aren’t familiar with the series’ schtick, there is also a tutorial, but I decided to just dive in, so I can’t speak to its quality.

Link to Nexus Mods

From the description attached to that trailer: Update Summary:

• Added 6 new missions; The Fear of a Jedi, Trials of a Jedi, Duel with the Dark Lord, Live or Die, Snoke’s Fall, and In the Heart of the Empire.
• Added Rend2 (beta) support which is a new rendering engine for improved graphics and performance - developed by Somaz.
• Updated Character, Duel Maps and Saber menus to make them more user-friendly.
• Added a force power wheel and weapon wheel to equip force powers and weapons.
• Updated character models for Anakin, Ahsoka, Luke, Revan, Yoda and more.
• Added new characters such as Baylan Skoll, Darth Malak, Darth Malgus, Dagan Gera, Shin Hati and more.
• Added 18 new duel maps, mostly from the Old Republic era.
• General improvements and bug fixes to gameplay, models, missions, maps etc.

I haven’t played around in Movie Duels in years, but I’m very glad to see that there appears to be an active community still carrying the torch. I can’t imagine what it took to incorporate what appears to be real time dynamic lighting into that engine, but it looks fantastic.

BLUF: Art bad, game good, demo available.

With the Winter Sale now live, I’m sure many folks are looking at their wishlists and browsing for new games to pick up. I was doing the same last night, when I came across the store page for the forthcoming HoMM title. I must admit, my first impressions were hugely negative. HoMM2 is in contention for my favorite game of all time, and fans of the series will know that the early games had a rather, distinct, art style. The character portraits in particular are of a piece with the painterly, roccoco stylings of fantasy book jackets, such as those that decorated the initial printings of the Wheel of Time series. The style of The Olden Era is, well, decidedly, not, that. Charitably speaking, the style seems to be aping the post-Ubisoft acquisition, 3D entries moreso than the early games (odd, for a title which is openly courting nostalgia in its name). Less charitably, it looks like a mobile game. I don’t quite know how to articulate the qualities which give that impression, but I’m sure that anyone looking at those screenshots will understand my intent.

Despite my trepidation regarding the game’s presentation, I noted that there is a demo available and figured it was worth checking out. That was at 7:30 PM. Around 1:30 AM, I finally tore myself away from the “just one more turn” loop in which I had been locked all evening. The gameplay proved completely compelling in all the ways that made me fall in love with HoMM2, while adding loads of wrinkles and minor variations that could result in lots of replay value.

To be clear, I’m not an expert on the series or other SRPGs. For example, I am aware that HoMM3 is typically viewed as the apex of the series, but I can’t speak on that, as I’ve never played it. With that in mind, veterans of the genre may be less enthused about the offerings in the demo than I, as I’m sure some of the new-to-me stuff was pillaged from other entries (like the law system, or the varying upgrade paths for units). All I can say is, wherever the ingredients were sourced from, I found they made quite the tasty soup.

Admittedly, the generic artwork never stopped annoying me. Quality-wise, I think it’s mostly fine, and there are elements that I quite like, such as the upgraded versions of troops being totally different models, not just pallette swaps. Additionally, I actually think the game map looks quite nice, if, again, a touch generic. Sort of like if you let a DM who is proficient with Inkarnate go hog wild while building a map. At least it hearkens to the colorful, dense maps of the early games.

At any rate, I can thoroughly recommend the demo. They’ve got, I think, 4 factions ready to go, with another to be introduced when the game officially hits Early Access. Additionally, there are 5 different map templates of various sizes and play styles. For those that aren’t familiar with the series’ schtick, there is also a tutorial, but I decided to just dive in, so I can’t speak to its quality.

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing grown men and women experience what appears to be one of their lives’ highlights while talking to Elmo.

Man, what a time capsule. Makes me want to dig out my baggiest pair of cargo shorts.

The answer is: “The Dandelion Girl” by Robert F. Young, thanks to a now deleted post below.

I started reading this at work a couple weeks ago, but wasn’t able to finish it at the time. Got a light morning, so I was trying to find it again, but to no avail.

I have a sneaking suspicion of the twist the story was building towards, but I wasn’t sure how the author was going to pull it off, as it seemed to be a textbook time travel paradox.

I thought the title might have something to do with flowers, but including that in my searches did not yield results, even after filtering out all of the “Flowers for Algernon” results, so I might be wrong.

kexp.org presents Fishbone performing “Racist Piece Of Shit” live in the KEXP studio. Recorded August 5, 2025.Angelo Moore - Vocals, Sax, ThereminChri…

Specifically at grocery stores.

This weekend I was grocery shopping, and it occurred to me whilst attempting to find the one or two whole bean offerings amid the sea of pre-ground coffee and k-cups that I haven’t seen coffee grinders in a grocery store in years. It feels like, growing up through the 90s and early aughts, most stores would have at least a few options to grind fresh, or at least the Bakers near my home did. However, at some point, they were seemingly removed everywhere.

Of course, my intuition tells me that it benefits stores to not have such specialized machinery in place so as to allow maximum flexibility with store layout, but I’m curious if anyone has an inside scoop.