#quickstart guides

[thenewsfactsnow]

Meet Gemma: Your New Secret Weapon for Smarter AI Solutions from Google!

Gemma, Google’s new generation of open models is now a reality. The tech major released two versions of a new lightweight open-source family of artificial intelligence (AI) models called Gemma on Wednesday, February 21. Gemma is a group of modern, easy-to-use models made with the same advanced research and technology as the Gemini models. Created by Google DeepMind and other teams at Google,…

[ddoodler]

The TTRPG I've been working on for a year, for FREE on itch.io :)

Just a fairly easy Quickstart Guide to set up your game in a moment, with peoples, occupations, lore, enemies and adventures to get a quick feel of this world! Hope y'all can grab it maybe have a game or two!

[irrigos]

quickstart guide for the fallen london ttrpg dropped wahoo!!! unfortunately i tried to read it and my whole body rejected the entire exercise. seems PBTA games still activate my fight or flight response. (crazy how not addressing that at all didn't fix it????) so one of you will have to go play it and then tell me how it went. seems cool though!!

[pancakeke]

the kit prices on cannakit seemed kinda high so I put the individual parts for this kit in my cart and together they were twenty bucks less. though maybe they upcharge for the SD card in the kit a bunch for preloading an OS on it.

[stragglewort]

I've made a sign to put up (context here)

[jkcorellia]

OH boy, if I want a quickstart guide to help potential players learn Symbaroum, I'm going to need to make my own because Symbaroum's official "quick" start guide is *checks notes* one hundred and nineteen pages long

[aphemorpha]

it took me 11 hours to set up my new computer bc im a dumbass who couldnt find the manual and just winged it 😭

[techsoulculture]

A Google Photos Quickstart Guide- Techsoul Culture 2023

Google Photos is Google s photo storage and sharing service It was released in May 2015 and has since gained popularity due

[legionofmyth]

Coriolis: The Third Horizon - Combat System [Part 2]

🌌 Prepare for more epic battles in Coriolis: The Third Horizon by Free League Publishing! Learn the combat system's intricacies and strategies in our (second of two) videos. Get ready to engage the cosmos like never before! #CoriolisRPG #TabletopGaming #CombatSystem

Coriolis: The Third Horizon [PDF]Unlock the secrets of Coriolis: The Third Horizon’s combat system in this informative video! Dive into interstellar battles. The combat system in Coriolis: The Third Horizon, a captivating tabletop RPG by Free League Publishing, is a thrilling blend of strategy and narrative immersion. With its focus on cinematic action, it brings the vastness of interstellar…

[acevenoms]

Fuck you so hard Nintendo.

If the judge rules with them on that detail at the end, it's not a good sign for other emulators that need a firmware. DVD and BD decryption could be at risk too :/

Alright nobody'a freak out but Yuzu got sued pretty'a badly.

[seth-whumps]

Any tips for writing the scenes you don't want to write to get to the scenes you do want to write?

Writing When It Sucks: A Quickstart Guide to the Scenes That Hate You Personally

by seth-whumps / sethlost

So, you've got a thousand-word gap between the good scenes, and you've gotta fill it with something. We've all been there—that one sentence in the outline, filling you with irreversible dread—but don’t lose hope. We do have some solutions! I've got three pieces of advice for this situation:

-> Skip The Hard Parts

-> Check Your Variables

-> Change It Up

Long post ahead, folks—you’ve been warned!

Let's start easy, with—

AVOIDANCE

Don't force yourself to write the parts you hate! If it's a scene that's not your thing, just... skip it! If you think it's boring, chances are your readers will feel it, too. If you'd skip it, they'd skip it. Famous authors do this alllllll the time. Don't deny yourself the privilege.

Remember, you don’t have to write chronologically. Write the good parts when you want to write them.

You gotta get to December? Skip to it.

You have a long ass captivity scene you don't want to bore yourself with? Skip it.

Does this scene just inspire you to stop writing forever? SKIP IT.

Now, I hear you. "But if I do that with every scene that troubles me, I'll have hardly any scenes at all!"

If it sucks, hit da bricks, as we Tumblrinas say.

Welcome to writing. It sucks. However, I'll let you in on the best tip I have ever learned from Reddit Dot Com—

CHECK YOUR VARIABLES

Your story, whether big or small, is built from several puzzle pieces! We'll call these your Story Variables. They can include:

Physical:

-> Heroes - your main people!

-> Villains - you’ve gotta have an antagonist somewhere, yknow?

-> Setting/Genre - solarpunk? ancient Arthurian myth? literally just New York City?

-> Locations - home base, headquarters, the villain’s lair, high school, etc

Narrative:

-> Main plot - getting the hero from point A to Z

-> Sideplots - character development, romance, betrayal and redemption arcs

-> Motivations - what do your characters want? what does your setting want?

-> Ending - where is it all going towards?

Audience:

-> Morals/messages - what’s the point of the story? what are you discussing or exploring throughout?

-> Metaphors - what’s the language you’re using to paint a picture?

-> Emotions - and the language you’re using to invoke a feeling?

-> Satisfaction - do you want your audience to feel satisfied? do you not? where and why?

If you're stuck on a scene, you may have an underdeveloped variable, or a missing one altogether. You can fix this by interrogating the absolute hell out of your story. Here's a few questions to get you started:

Do you know your ending? Is this scene guiding you towards it?

What emotions are you trying to portray? Where can you show that in this scene?

Where's your current location? Are you using it as a character in your story?

What drives your heroes? Your villains? How can you make them more obvious?

Are you considering your side plots and character development arcs?

You might be saying, "But wait! I'm only writing a little thing! I don't have the time/energy to think about all that!"

Is this scene contributing to the satisfaction of your story?

That's okay! I hear you. But it's not hopeless. I've still got something to help—

CHANGING IT UP

Hobbyists work in styles. It's hard to develop one, and often it comes from years of practice and study, but there's a way you can streamline it to your advantage. Think of it this way:

-> If you don't like drawing noses, change the way you draw them.

-> If your crocheting tools don't feel right, find ones that suit you.

-> If a chord on the guitar is too difficult, use an alternate fingering.

NEWS FLASH: it's the same for writing.

Physical movements? Blocking? You might be having trouble visualizing what the scene needs to contain.

If something isn't working, you have every ability to do it differently. There's very little right and wrong, here. Don't confine yourself to one generalized "type" of writing--branch out until you find what works for you. Let's start by thinking about what you're struggling on.

Draw the layout of your location. Use random pieces to represent your characters. Play dolls.

Keep it simple. Write exactly what happens, no more and no less.

Another post on Tumblr blew up, advising you to try writing the scene with only dialogue, and adding the actions later.

Emotional weight? Prose? This one's tricky, but I've got some advice regardless.

Change your sentence structure. Focus on the rhythm of the words. Worry less about grammar, and pay attention to the picture, the painting, the music.

Or, in opposition, write it exactly like it is. Come back to prose it up once you've got the scene skeletonized.

Organization? The actual, nitty-gritty content of the scene? Think about what the purpose of the scene is, then consider the following.

What's your moral/metaphor? Thread it throughout. Come back to it often. This'll tie up the story into something cohesive and cinematic.

Start with a bullet point list of everything you want to include. Think of details, interactions, and movements. Spam as many as you can think of, until you've got a substantial list of meat and seasoning you can sprinkle in as necessary.

Check in on your variables. Where does the scene need to end? What's the most convoluted path it could take to get there?

Introduce a new variable. Treat everything like a character in the story. Is the location an old building? Have it collapse. Is the ending too close for comfort? Drive the story in the opposite direction.

Most of all, mess around. Do what comes naturally, and if something isn't working, do it differently until it does. Writing is fun, despite everything about writing--so workshop it until it's fun again.

Whoops! That got very long. I hope this helps at least a bit, and if you've got any questions at all, Anon, feel free to ask! I'm sorry for the wait on this ask, by the way. I wanted to give it justice.

I'd be happy to go more in depth on anything mentioned here. I love talking through my thought processes while writing.

And as a disclaimer, none of what is said here is law. It's just what I've gathered through practice, and through following incredible people. There's no rules! Do what feels right!

Anyway! Thanks for reading, folks. See you in the next one [salutes]

Seth, signing off!

dividers by @/saradika-graphics, link in pinned post

[aurelim]

Episode 2 release :)

ok it’s finally out now! episode two of swapped is now available on itch.io. in it you finally meet Taylor and make the Deal. There are two new entries in the info of people, three new achievements (though one is really hard to get compared to the others), a quickstart menu to episode 2 and a guide for beginners that was originally meant for my friends who don’t know what IF or CYOA stories are.

let me know if something goes wrong. otherwise I hope you enjoy!

[felassan]

@danielnelsen kindly gave me a heads up that the entire Dragon Age TTRPG collection is currently on sale from Green Ronin as a bundle of PDFs, for 75% off: [link]

"Dragon Age RPG Beat the Blight Bundle $34.99 for almost $140* of Dragon Age RPG PDFs! Includes PDFs of the Dragon Age Core Rulebook, Dragon Age Game Master's Kit Revised, Dragon Age Quickstart Guide, the Duty Unto Death adventure (as played on Wil Wheaton's TableTop!), The Dalish Curse adventure, the Blood in Ferelden adventure, the Faces of Thedas NPC sourcebook, Dragon Age Sets 1, 2, and 3, and more!" [source]

the listing isn't completely clear about everything the bundle includes, but Daniel advised that it contains everything official that they've ever released for the TTRPG (so it has the 3 original game sets and the combined core rulebook).

[yuurivoice]

Hello, Your Honor!

You’ve been in my feed since I first got on here, and my curiosity is finally getting the better of me- would you recommend starting with your Evalas Origins series or one of your other series when I start my binge?

-🖤🐈‍��

Sorry this sat in my inbox for so long, I kept going "oh I know how to answer that, but it'll be easier on PC" and then......I never sat at a desk. lol

So, this question comes up pretty often because I think people overestimate how complicated the multiple series and integrations are! I have a "Quickstart Guide To YuuriVoice" over on the Wiki (which I know is in dire need of updates with all the Evalas stuff and it is not really out of beta) but the tldr is that you can't really pick a bad option and should choose based on what appeals most to you based on character tropes and the plot.

If you want a taste of my approach, there are several self contained AU stories that are multi-part self contained stories like Vampire Auron, Werewolf Seth, etc. and it's a good showcase of how I write and interact with listeners. Low stakes, mostly smut with a plot, but even when the endgame is "hear the rest on Patreon!" I think it's a fairly satisfying listen even if you just take it as a fade to black.

For the multiple narratives and overall "YuuriVerse" the BitterSweet Director's Cut is a BANGER and is the high water mark for those stories at the moment in terms of visuals, writing, and acting.

But, all of the overlapping characters and stories are specifically designed to hook into each other both ways. You don't get any significant advantage by watching any particular one first. The road goes both ways. Rather than leaving you with a "well what did I miss????" it should be more of a "ooooh I wonder what the story is behind this overlap?" and you can take it or leave it!

That is slowly changing as more of these stories become entangled deeper, I think by the time you've made it to that point of the story, you'll have enough of an understanding of what should be listened to.

The Evalas content is similarly designed. The Origins work similarly in that you don't have to hear any of them in order or HAVE to have the knowledge to enjoy the other stories. They have distinct arcs with specific story points and could be enjoyed on their own, but dabbling in all of them gives you a clearer picture of the conflict and stakes at hand for multiple characters.

These threads will all converge eventually, but that's a problem for me to figure out when we get there.

Thank you for giving me a shot, and I hope you have a wonderful time listening!

[stragglewort]

The situation has not been fixed. But I've been given the order to take the stack around back and shred it.

A final measurement before the inevitable. 30 total (though not all pictured)

[essektheylyss]

In different TTRPG news, if you remember me talking about Historica Arcanum from Metis Creative earlier this year, they just launched a Kickstarter for Astra Arcanum, a sci-fi TTRPG in a totally new system that sounds REALLY cool—very high stakes and combat-oriented based on a d20 pool mechanic. I believe it's their first venture beyond 5e supplements and I haven't had a chance to really delve into their quickstart guide for the system, but I've really liked their mechanical work for 5e and my first impressions from when they initially previewed this system were very good. If that sounds like your speed, definitely check it out!