Recent content by Heilemann

  1. Heilemann

    What Is Your Favorite Linear Adventure/Campaign

    Easily Beyond the Mountains of Madness.
  2. Heilemann

    AI GMs

    Energy expenditure would be largely the same, no? Either way, I think that side of the argument is slightly overdone, especially for running RPGs which is no where near what enterprises do with LLMs. But YMMV.
  3. Heilemann

    AI GMs

    Unlike people who are of course known to never hallucinate or make cognitive mistakes, or, you know, have a train of thought which is really just... a series of guess the next token... Calling that 'knowing' is in essence not that far off from what people consider 'knowing' which is in itself a...
  4. Heilemann

    Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

    You found something that works for you, and that's great. I had to roll for SAN on reading it, but that's me! 😄
  5. Heilemann

    Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

    Let's hope Fantasy Grounds stays afloat forever, otherwise I hope you love your current OS and its version! 😄 (I say that as someone who was on Windows back in the day and moved to Mac OS where Fantasy Ground wasn't).
  6. Heilemann

    Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

    Sure, that's certainly true. But not only are you locked into that VTT now, which great that that works for you, but that's a hard pass from me. Moreover, you're locked into reading your rulebooks... in... your VTT? Again, hard pass. That company might go bankrupt, they might do some shady stuff...
  7. Heilemann

    Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

    Well as I said earlier I’m not attracted to the automation side of VTTs; i think the drift towards computer games, even at a relatively small scale, detracts from the grain of TTRPGs. YMMV, so thats not a detractor for me.
  8. Heilemann

    Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

    Yeah that’s certainly true, and eg. for browsers there’s scant support for certain kinds of annotations (at least in open source packages, including Mozilla’s) which is frustrating. But non-interactive rendering is pretty solid and for the purposes of sharing resources at the table, looking up...
  9. Heilemann

    Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

    I’m generally not a fan of renting software either, but for software that I really use if it’s priced fairly, I think it’s worth it to keep supporting that development effort, especially in something as niche as role-playing.
  10. Heilemann

    Poll: VTT Users - Do you prefer self-hosted or cloud-based VTTs?

    To add a counterweight to the above arguments, here's what I want from a VTT, and what none of the ones I've tried are giving me (and why I wrote my own that does what I'm talking about here, but that's another matter): It should be simple above all, simple to sign up, start a game, invite...
  11. Heilemann

    Name an TTRPG You Really Like But Have Never Played/GMed

    Certainly up for debate, but I genuinely think the little motions that go into understanding the roll, the weapon, skill, environment, etc modifiers, the carried over bonuses from table to table, that particular weapon vs that particular armor, hitting that 66 on the crit table. The...
  12. Heilemann

    Name an TTRPG You Really Like But Have Never Played/GMed

    Everyone will have their own take on this, but as someone who has spent a lot of time actually implementing software to run and automate RPGs in various ways, my ultimate conclusion is that engaging with the systems and understanding them adds immensely to the game; outsourcing it to eg. a VTT...
  13. Heilemann

    Friday Chat: What Mechanics Do You Steal From A Game To Use In Another?

    Echoes of Burning Wheel social mechanics in there.
  14. Heilemann

    The Pioneer RPG - Get Ready for Launch!

    "Roll to grow potatoes, please." "Critical fail." "Well fu..."
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