Moe Lane's Blog, page 85

02/14/2025 Snippet, PICKMAN’S MODELS.

I realized that my hero is very passive in this story. He needs more to do. Sorry, Commander Marsh…

“With the lights later removed.” Tobias couldn’t see Reithner’s face, but from the tone of her voice, she was frowning. “That’s odd. Why were the mountings also not taken? The metal too would have value.”

That was a really good question, Tobias decided. These days, anything that could be recycled was, including things that normally wouldn’t be considered recyclable. Leaving behind perfectly good pieces of metal felt wasteful. Unless they weren’t being wasted… “Hold!” he barked.

The Euros were well-trained, and stopped immediately; Buckley’s squad was just a touch sloppier. They were a bit too bunched up, but Tobias decided to worry about that later. “Check the walls by you, and the floor!” he told them. “Tripwires, spydots, spring-operated plates. Then check around your buddy. Then check yourself again.”

For a moment, he wondered if he was being paranoid — but then Buckley swore, and carefully squatted. “Found something, sir. Looks like a sensor. Passive, minilight beam. And there’s another sensor on the other side there.”

Patreon!

Please back AND SHARE (via the page) The Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit.

As in, go to the site, and click the share button. Even if you’ve already backed the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit, share it anyway. There’s an art achievement linked to it.

Speaking of achievements, we’re only a few backers away from extra maps, and less than four hundred dollars away from the stretch goal. Back it today!

So, what’s the best UNOFFICIAL Baldur’s Gate 3 print guide?

Since there’s apparently not an official one, which just feels weird. It’s a popular game! You’d think they’d have put something together, made a decent extra amount of change that way.

Moe Lane

PS: Yeah, I’m restarting. I usually don’t finish a game the first time; instead, I go back to the start, and then carefully squeeze all the juice out of the lemon as I go. I am, in fact, the prime audience for print guides.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

We celebrated by making grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner, and drank beer. Because there was no chance that either one of us was going to enjoy a Friday night dinner out this evening. Sandwiches and potato chips and beer and a couple of pickles worked out a lot better.

Moe Lane

PS: Well, those and some chocolate-covered strawberries. I’m not a fool.

I’m being cranky about AI again.

Stuff like this just bugs me, though.

The longer I look at the AI picture, the more subtly horrifying it gets as I see how it casually distorts and enervates the scene. This isn't art: it's a mockery of it, made all the worse because no actual malice is involved. And it will mess up your head if you don't take care. https://t.co/SpGYmIsUHK pic.twitter.com/n2Q7Vo3WHC

— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) February 14, 2025

I like Frank a lot, but I just can’t groove to the suggestion that the output on the right has anything meaningful to say when compared to the artwork on the left. It’s not just that the AI version is meaning-neutral. It’s like it deliberately tried to ignore everything meaningful in the original, solely to produce the optical illusion of art.

So it’s horrible, and I loathe it, and I am deeply suspicious of any argument that says this is the future. People make art to tell stories, and the story didn’t make the transition from Rockwell to whatever video game made the other output. And all the manifestos and proclamations in the world will do nothing to get AI past that gap.

Okay. Shaking-fist-at-cloud time done.

‘She Talks To Angels.’

She Talks To Angels, Black Crowes

#commissionearned

02/13/2025 Snippet, PICKMAN’S MODELS.

This is actually getting somewhere!

Tobias contemplated Reithner. She looked like Hell, especially around the eyes, but what did that even mean anymore? “This is the deal I’ll offer,” he told the cleaver-man. “It’s the same deal some of the others get. We put you and your people in deep sleep, and when we make it back to Earth we’ll leave you somewhere that’s not where we are. If you try to find us later, we’ll kill you. I’ve never negotiated on this, and I’m not doing that today.”

“Yes, the Lieutenant has told us about how stubborn you are. She also told us that you talk to an imaginary computer in your head.” The cleaver-man smirked. “Would you believe that I found this a reassurance? You must be clever, if your countrymen are willing to ignore your madness.  And you are ruthless, clearly. I do admire how you told your men to flee if necessary, and warn your faction. I did not expect you to be so clear-headed about it.”

“By now my men are back at Heinlein Base,” Tobias told him. “You won’t be able to surprise them. They’ll fight.”

“Then it is a good thing we will not be fighting them, then.”

The ominous announcement of a Forgotten Realms TV show.

‘Ominous’ because Hollywood’s timing has sucked recently. Has D&D crested already? Is a live-action Forgotten Realms show appearing at the wrong cultural moment? Particularly since…

Hasbro Entertainment has taken the reins, allowing for a complete redevelopment of the series under [Drew] Crevello’s leadership. The new version of The Forgotten Realms is not connected to previous iterations or the 2023 film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

I get that the movie didn’t make its money back, and I frankly blame Hasbro for that. Why in God’s name didn’t they have a Forgotten Realms campaign setting book out for 5e in time for the movie? Heck, why don’t they have one now? Exactly what is stopping them?

Anyway. Maybe it won’t suck.

02/13/2025 Snippet, JUDITH STORMCROW AND THE FLIM-FLAM MAN.

Restarted the story.

Judith Stormcrow had long since decided that a tavern had to be the worst place in the Twenty Realms to plan a job. Too dirty, too smelly, too public, and far too much booze. You could never be sure whether the new hire was brave, or just full of half-drunk bravado.

That went double for new clients, too.

Take this ‘Gregor of Lostvale.’ Sure, he looked like he knew what he was about, even if he wasn’t a bruiser or a bravo. And he probably wasn’t drunk. But he was here, just like Judith, so things had likely gone bad for him lately. Just like Judith.

“How well does your crew know the Bone Marches?” Gregor sounded better than a bravo, too, and as sober as Judith. “Do my maps make any sense? I don’t know how good they still are.”

“They’re good enough,” Judith admitted. “Old, though. Not all the places on them are still there. Might make finding this town of yours tough.”

Patreon!

Technical thoughts on the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit, 02/13/2025.

Short version: things are going extremely well for the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit. Sufficiently so that I am wondering whether Kickstarter is a cost-effective move. It’s not that Kickstarter is bad. It’s just never given me these kinds of numbers.

To unpack a little: at the moment, I am at 83 backers, and $2,020 on a $500 goal. The ratio is 37/63 returning/new backers, and I am at a 13% returning backer rate. My average pledge is just under $25. Let me put up some numbers on how that compares to previous projects:

ProjectBackersAmountBacker %Avg PledgeR B ROldNewFermi Res WB83$2,02037%63%$24.3413%TFR 262$2,13480%20%$34.4224%Tinsel Rain83$2,58965%35%$31.1933%Pickman23$36290%10%$15.7411%TFR 157$1,09185%15%$19.1433%Frozen Dreams149$5,238N/AN/A$35.16N/A

As you can see, we’re ten days into the Worldbook Backerkit and already it’s tied for second in backers, fourth in total money gathered, and leading in new backer percentage (technically Frozen Dreams had 100%, but that’s not really meaningful, since it’s the baseline). What’s not visible from this is that the current project isn’t as front-loaded as the other ones were, with the sort-of exception of Frozen Dreams; crowdfunding projects traditionally have doldrums in the middle, and I’m having them with the worldbook, but I’m still seeing daily churn for right now.

I should also note that obviously the numbers for the worldbook don’t take into account the boost in backers that traditionally comes in the last two days of a campaign, either. I don’t think I have enough data yet to even make a guess, but I should get some. A significant amount? Maybe. The Old Backer and Return Backer Rate percentages suggest that my usual audience hasn’t fully engaged yet, and those people generally like me.

All in all, it’s hard to argue that Backerkit isn’t doing a better job for me than Kickstarter did. I’ve been heeding their suggestions pretty closely on this project, from building interest beforehand to growing my mailing list to blindly following their instructions on advertising, and so far it’s been working – actually, no. If it all shuts down today I would score this as ‘it worked,’ and everything after this is pretty much gravy. Their customer service is also spot-on, although I have some thoughts about handling smaller projects that I’ll save for my after-project discussions with them.

So that’s that. Oh: back my project, if you haven’t yet. You deserve a bit of fun.

Moe Lane

PS: Kickstarter is not bad now. Their system works perfectly fine, and may indeed work better for other projects. I’m just favorably impressed by how much better Backerkit is working for me.