u/noobule

I would have thousands of hours in Hexamania 1 and 2, tetris-like hexagon matching games, that I play purely to quell the ADHD while I listen to podcasts, YouTubes, often people actively talking to me. I'm not even 'playing' them most of the time, just keeping my hands busy and helping me sit still.

I've repeatedly tried to play other games for this purpose but it's hard to find things that fit that sort of busywork that aren't also progressively making levels harder so you buy items, or don't let you buy you way into an ad-free version, or dark design crap.

Anyone able to recommend cute stuff that doesn't ask a lot and has effectively endless replay ability?

Looking for new stuff to read, and better things to push into Reddit's very questionable algorithm

I did look at one of those subreddit maps that shows 'people who read this sub also read...' but the results weren't great

Looking for subreddits about science and history and subs that debunk bad ideas about either. Please recommend your favourites.

And please - subs that are about those topics and not just endless posts about the US administration. I know he sucks and his admin is actively destroying science and medicine but god please I would like to read something else sometimes

Thanks

Two sessions ago, two of my players approached the drone room. Last session, with one of those players sick, the other player entered the room. I knew I had no idea what I was going to do with that room but I figured something would come to mind. Unfortunately the player has no remotely relevant skills (while the sick player had had all the hacking/computer etc skills) and no one had any ripper ideas. Further, I was worried about just giving the reins of a 'man sized drone' to the players for free to just body enemies with. In the end, I committed the unforgivable GM sin of 'uh I guess you can't do anything here' and had them move on

Shit answer, obviously, but I'm still fairly stumped with how to make the drones interesting toys without them auto-solving problems. I also haven't thought of good natural ways to encourage plugging them into something where Monarch can hack them without doing something cheap like the drones needing to be recharged at some point, or being unusable in the first place without Monarch getting access, etc. Ideally the drones getting plugged into the network following greedy rubbing of hands that this will solve or achieve something specific

Basically, I'm asking - what did you do with them?

Speaking from a skeptic angle here, I am aware spirits are not being channeled

I don't know how common crystal balls really are, I suspect none even uses them in a 'professional' capacity anymore but obviously they're the classic prop of the medium. My question is - is there any visual or other element at play with them, or is it just some peasant-era hold over where simply owning a sphere of pure glass was enchanting enough on its own?

Does looking into a crystal ball create shadows and shapes that are easy to mistake for paranormal activity? Did they play around with them in some certain way? Is this something candles excel at that's ruined with modern lighting? They're constantly talking about peering into the crystal ball but I think about looking at a ball of glass and going 'well there's the table'. Is it the peering itself? Like you're focused on trying to 'see' something in nothing and that makes you more suggestible or whatever?

What is it about them that improves the rube-catchability of the act? Were they actually a bit crap at that and that's why you don't hear about them anymore?

I've always wanted use a tarot deck as like a fun, thematic tool to use as a sometimes alternative to dice (ie: occasionally players can choose to pull from the deck instead of rolling and the interpretation of the card adds a lot of extra depth + consequences + importance to the moment on top of the randomness of the card)

However a lot of people take Tarot seriously and I do not, and I neither seek to hurt anyone's feelings nor get their preconceptions in the way - I'm not going to be learning how to use it properly so that might lead to some misconceptions/miscommunications

I know alternatives exist, I can't name any but I've seen them out there, and I'm sure there's suitable 'decks of artful esoteric bs with multiple interpretations that aren't strictly aping tarot' out there as well - but I don't know what they are.

Can anyone recommend any?

I'm not talking, say, Deck of Many Things where the cards have specific effects.

I know it would be largely trivial to write 52 folk-deities/omens/arcana in a table but I want the tactility of a beautiful, threatening deck on the table as well

Thanks!

Industrial, spooky science terminals, space shit, goopy flesh walls - everything else that makes up Gradient Descent I have reams of inspirational images in folders from years of collecting. But I can't really share anything with my players for the corporate stuff. It's a surprisingly huge hole in my collection. Best I have are some of the cleaner corridors in the Alien franchise but that's not quite it, it feels signficantly more mundane than that.

Any links, pics or pointers are appreciated

Perhaps not another Samsung because the bloatware sucks and I haven't been bothered to change root/OS in fifteen years.

But some reliable equivalent midrange phone please and thank you

For the record, this phone is still decent, but the screen is cracked (again) and charging port is almost dead (would also be a second replacement) and replacing both is going to be most of the cost of a new phone. Never felt slow, battery still lasts most of a day.

(Australia)