Against the Darkmaster Bundle of Holding is a $19 variable price bundle.

Against the Darkmaster ($25, 580 pages) An RPG that "adapts old-school percentile systems (specifically, Middle-Earth Role-Playing) to support grand sagas in the style of Tolkien, The Wheel of Time, Labyrinth, and Dragonslayer – stories of a fellowship of heroes standing together against overwhelming evil."

Heartbane ($2.50, 10 pages) "Heartbane is a highly replayable one-session introductory Against the Darkmaster scenario for 2-4 starting characters."

GM Screen ($6, 42 pages) "includes a booklet of other useful tables" which gives an indication of how many tables MERP and this game has.

Secrets of the Golden Throne ($20, 355 pages) "Secrets of the Golden Throne is a major supplement for Against the Darkmaster that adds new rules and options for both the players and the GM, a mini-setting, and an epic campaign that pits your heroes against the machinations of an entity older than the world itself."

The Silence of Dawnfell ($9, 32 pages) lvl 1 adventure
Legacy of Blood ($9, 37 pages) - lvl 2-3 adventure

Spell Cards ($19, 665 pages — I assume small pages, each page being a spell) "With these six sets of printable cards you'll have readily available to you every spell known by your spellcasting character, including the new spells introduced in Secrets of the Golden Throne."

This is a tempting bundle since I really liked MERP system though I liked the background supplements more. Two full adventures, one mini-adventure, one "epic" campaign. May or may not buy this.

Sat Apr 19 2025

Sleep 0145 to 0645, 0715 to 1030 (8-1/4 hours)

• Gaming at Woo’s house. Got 2-1/2 hours recorded time with maybe 30 minutes dead time (and a fair amount of time in the beginning leveling up characters). PCs were clever and avoided 90% of the monsters skipping to the end fight of the location.
• Dinner with C3. We had Amici’s pizza. Apparently Cjr ended up throwing up that night.
• DDO we finished Gianthold at R3/R4. Did the Sharn prequel at R4 though getting into the cave was a bit tougher than it should have been.

Sun Apr 20 2025

Sleep 0600 to 1230 (6-1/2 hours)

• Moved my Music folder from my MBP Intel to my MBP M4. Turn on sync and it seems like it knows the files are already synced. Want to see next time I add music files if it syncs to MBP Intel in which case then I can delete those files on MBP Intel and turn sync off there.

Mon Apr 21 2025

Sleep 2230 to 0030, 0430 to 1130, 30m nap (9-1/2 hours)

• Last macOS update turned on Mail categories. I’m too used to seeing all my inbox mail then I file the mail that’s done. I suppose categories is good if you keep your inbox full of mail or never move mail out of it.

Tue Apr 22 2025

Sleep 0330 to 0500, 1100 to 1700. (7-1/2 hours)

• Christopher Sr got Netflix ad tier for a month. Time to watch more K-Dramas. As I’ve been watching it’s only like an ad per show and often no ads. Certainly better than Viki which is like three ads (of 15 to 2m each) every 5 to 10 minutes.

Wed April 23 2025

Sleep 0045 to 1000 (9-1/4 hours)

• Left ear a bit sore and feels stuffed up a bit. Took an Advil so I could sleep.

Thu Apr 24 2025

Sleep 0545 to 1245 (7 hours)

• HOA annual meeting. Kristin was pretty good at convincing one of the new homeowners to join the board. Hopefully it’ll be like me where his first term is basically just showing up and getting used to being on an HOA board.

Fri Apr 25 2025

Sleep 0915 to 1415 (5 hours)

• Couldn’t sleep last night after our HOA meeting. Tends to happen after stressful events and I find prepping and then being a board member in the meeting kind of stressful.
• Moved my TV folder from my old MBP Intel to my new MBP M4. It’s (1) Copy TV folder, (2) Start TV app with Option key and select new TV folder library file, (3) set Files > Media Location to new folder, (4) restart TV app. It will reload screen title graphics for non-Apple TV store content.
• Earlier this week I moved my Music folder so with the TV folder moved I can delete from MBP Intel and leave it only for web/Wiki Server and running Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
• Friday Night Baseball Red Sox vs Guardians was postponed due to weather so it looks there is only one game this Friday on Apple TV+. Unfortunately there is no indication on Apple TV+ except that the game is no longer available so I had to go to Red Sox web site to see that the game is postponed. I’d rather have the entry there with a banner over it saying “Postponed” or something like that.

For my BECMI D&D campaign I want to move more 3d6 roll low GURPS-like without full GURPS. I've already done this for Turn Undead, Thief Skills, and General Skills (from Rules Cyclopedia).


THAC0 17, AC 7 is 50% to hit (Fighter 4 has THAC0 17)

Equivalent 3d6 Skill = 7 with modifier = +(AC/2)

Skill 7, AC -4/-5 = 4.6% (3d6) vs 5% (d20)
Skill 7, AC -2/-3 = 9.3% vs 10%
Skill 7, AC 0/-1/1 = 16.2% vs 20%
Skill 7, AC 2/3 = 25.9% vs 30%
Skill 7, AC 4/5 = 37.5% vs 40%
Skill 7, AC 6/7 = 50.0% vs 50%
Skill 7, AC 8/9 = 62.5% vs 60%
Skill 7, AC 10 = 74.1% vs 70%


THAC0 19 = Skill 6 (starting characters have THAC0 19)

Skill 6, AC -4 = 1.9% vs 5%
Skill 6, AC -2 = 4.6% vs 5%
Skill 6, AC 0 = 9.3% vs 10%
Skill 6, AC 2 = 16.2% vs 20%
Skill 6, AC 4 = 25.9% vs 30%
Skill 6, AC 6 = 37.5% vs 40%
Skill 6, AC 8 = 50.0% vs 50%
Skill 6, AC 10 = 62.5% vs 60%


Seems ok until AC drops below -2/-4 which would be a rather high-level monster. The other thing is having 3 or 4 (on 3d6) be auto-hit and 17 or 18 be auto-miss (I don't yet do critical hits or misses).

This is a one-roll to hit system unlike GURPS attack then defense roll. Also there are no maneuvers or tactics like trading attack skill to lower enemy's defense skill.

There is also the part in the D&D to-hit chart where 20 repeats 5 times before going to 21 and up. It's sort of a "20 always hits unless the AC is truly good" but I've never really liked that discontinuity. In my 3d6 to hit system I ignore it since I do want that there's always a chance to hit.

Fixed price Coyote & Crow Bundle of Holding for $18.

"Coyote & Crow is set in an alternate future where colonization of the Americas never happened. The game presents a distinctive future full of possibilities and fresh perspectives, created and developed by a diverse, Indigneous-led team."

Coyote & Crow RPG (PWYW) - 482 page core book

Nine stories (adventures)

• Case of the Great Underwater Panther by Marsheila Rockwell (24pp, $10)
• Creep: Stories of the Free Lands by Allen Turner (35pp, $10)
• Laughter Lost & Found by Tali Inlow (29pp, $10)
• Path of Ice by Em Matson (30pp, $10)
• Raiders of the Burial Mounds by Will Thompson (22pp, $10)
• The Road Called Fox Paw by Riana Elliot (20pp, $10)
• Stolen Heart by William McKay (29pp, $10)
• What's the Damage by Logan Boese (28pp, $10)
• Whispers From the Well by Connor Alexander (27pp, $10)

Interesting that the pricing strategy is cheap core book and expensive adventures. I like that it's a novel setting and there are lots of adventures included so I'll probably buy this bundle. Oh, looks like a medium-heavy to crunchy RPG system so that's a plus, though it's a dice pool with variable success number (like one of the World of Darkness versions) so not that high a plus.

2025-04-30: Bought it and these look like digest sized books so half page counts to get an idea of what it would be on a normal sized book.

Sat Apr 12 2025

Sleep 0600 to 1500 (9 hours)

• Oops. Ran the dishwasher and I forgot that its outflow connects to the garbage disposal outflow but it’s so much water it goes up into the main sink outflow which then leaks.
• More Tiny Tina’s. This time I didn’t become nauseous. Realized that sniper rifle I currently have does a lot of damage.

Sun Apr 13 2025

Sleep 0230 to 0730, 1 hr nap x3 (8 hours)

• We visited mom and dad. Dad made curry chicken (plus other stuff) for lunch. Dinner we ate at New Lai Wah. Kind of run down a bit but the food is ok and must be cheap.

Mon Apr 14 2025

Sleep 0430 to 1230 (8 hours)

• Mailed my state tax return. Federal you can e-file it for free. State Turbotax charges you $25 for CA (different prices depending on your state). As far as I know that’s a Turbotax fee not a state fee. But you can print out your return and mail it for a couple of bucks.

Tue Apr 15 2025

Sleep 2315 to 0045, 1115 to 1530 (5-3/4 hours)

• Fire alarm testing today. As usual very loud and I wish I had my AirPods Max.
• Did a test. Empty toilet bowl (mostly). It fills up over the normal water line in a few hours (say 4 hours). Then it stabilizes and goes up slowly until there are a couple of inches from the bottom of the rim (say after another 2 hours). Then four hours after that maybe another inch higher. So I should be able to leave it unattended for the day if I go gaming this Saturday.

Wed Apr 16 2025

Sleep 2345 to 0845, 1 hour nap (10 hours)

• Whisky development ends on macOS to help Wine flourish. Sad since I was using it to get Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands working before CrossOver got it to work.

Thu Apr 17 2025

Sleep 0300 to 1045 (7-3/4 hours)

• One thing Bundle of Holding doesn’t do is, if an old bundle gets new items you don’t get any sort of notification or email. You’d have to notice that a resurrected bundle description says there are new items, like in the current Sigil Stone OSR bundle. I suppose if you use DriveThruRPG app the new stuff gets downloaded automatically and you might notice that.

Fri Apr 18 2025

Sleep 0245 to 0845 (6 hours)

• Safeway $5 buffalo wings. A bit of a mistake on my part as I don’t like flavored wings (there were two other options but looked like they had even more flavoring).
• DDO continuing doing Gianthold.

So my guest bathroom toilet backed up and I'm pretty bad with a plunger. Normally it'll clear after a couple of days or a week but it's been more like two weeks now.

One thing different is I noticed the water level rising slowly so I had to bail out some water. When it's close to empty it'll fill up fairly fast (most of the way in four or five hours) and then slow down so that maybe in a dozen hours it'll be almost to the bottom of the rim. Though sometimes it seems to go a little faster.

I tried some liquid plumber which it says doesn't work on toilets and didn't work here though it did do a fair job of cleaning the toilet.

I finally tried shutting off the water to the toilet water tank and that seems to have stopped it. Doesn't make sense to me. I'd think if it's draining water from the water tank eventually the float would dip enough to cause the tank to refill and that's noisy enough I would have noticed. So is it from the water line to the tank — but that doesn't seem sanitary.

In any case that buys he time to see if it fixes itself or I give up and call a plumber. Would be a bit embarrassing if all it takes is someone who knows how to use a plunger.

Defiant RPG bundle - "Defiant is an urban fantasy of mighty supernaturals who rebelled against destiny and, instead of destroying the world, decided to protect it."

This is a fixed-price $15 bundle. This is the stuff released in their Kickstarter for $29.

Defiant RPG ($25) - "Characters walk a thin line between satiating their desires and navigating the ruthless politics of their uncanny society, a world of extravagant parties, supernatural powers, apocalyptic cults, royal marriages, modern-day cities, blood feuds, reborn gods, aristocratic privilege, fallen angels, personal Courts, and dragons. Play to find out who your character really is and what they are truly made of. How much are you willing to sacrifice to do what is right? How many rules are you willing to bend to get what you want?"

Birthright (40pp, retail price $8) "introduces four new Origin-exclusive Personal Themes. As a Tormented Angel, you explore guilt and the road to redemption."

Bridgewood Guide (26pp, retail $5) - location

House Kamael (34pp, retail $8) - one of the Twelve Great Houses.

Subjects (44pp, retail $8) - "Subjects presents different ways to use the Courts and Courtiers to make their Liege's life more interesting."

Van Heim Tower (75pp, retail $10) - location. "Van Heim Tower introduces a vast new area into the Domain, along with a unique Daeva bloodline, the Vanir."

This game seems a bit too narrative for me. Nice art though.

Sat Apr 05 2025

Sleep 0900 to 1500 (6 hours)

• Noticed that Disney+ app when I watched What If? s3 and May It Please the Court (Korean) used English language and Korean language without me having to manually switch it back and forth.
• Today I woke up and the back of my throat was sore. Sometimes I sleep and breathe through my mouth and my whole mouth gets very dry by the time I wake up. Usually not a problem though today it was.

Sun Apr 06 2025

Sleep 0545 to 1200, 1 hour nap (7-1/4 hours)

• Don’t remember when I discovered this (maybe a week or two ago) but my kitchen main sink the outflow pipe has been leaking. The leak is before it gets to where it joins with the outflow pipe from the garbage disposal so I can use that drain for now. Eventually I’ll get around to having a plumber fix it. I think when this happened in the master bedroom I had Buri Buri do it since they’re the ones the HOA uses.

Mon 07 April 2025

Sleep 0145 to 0845 (7 hours)

• Stock markets go down because of high tariffs that we’re placing on incoming goods. May take a few months before my stocks are back to a level where I feel comfortable selling some. But then again might be forced to when I run out of money.

Tue Apr 08 2025

Sleep 0015 to 0315, 0715 to 1245 (8 hours)

• Disney+ dropped May It Please the Court. Sucks that they don’t give any warning before they drop a show.

Wed April 09 2025

Sleep 0600 to 1130 (5-1/2 hours)

• I ended up buying the Delta Green bundle and the Eco Mofos bundle. One with my Visa and one with my American Express. I’ll refrain from buying more until my credit card start of new month. I like making a charge on each so I get a statement otherwise they don’t give me a statement.

Thu Apr 10 2025

Sleep 0000 to 0900 (9 hours)

• I noticed there’s this CMU commercial on Viki that stops the application. The commercial freezes after a second or two and it never goes to the next ad or back the program. Pausing and resuming the ad doesn’t help. Weird bug.

Fri Apr 11 2025

Sleep 0645 to 1300 (6-1/4 hours)

• My guest toilet clogged up yesterday. Usually the toilet paper dissolves eventually and it clears up on it’s own and it’s faster if the water level keeps going down which means a bit of water is flowing out so any hole will get bigger and bigger. This time though the water is flowing in so I’ve been bailing out the water when the bowl starts getting full. Kind of makes me wonder if the clog clears will the water keep flowing into the bowl fast and overflow it?
• We played Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Got slightly nauseous.

Humble Bundle's Hellboy Expanded Universe 2025 bundle for $18 (i.e. the new stuff) is:

Hellboy in Love - TPB of this 5-issue mini-series
Hellboy in Mexico - various short stories, one-shots, and Hellboy: House of the Living Dead graphic novel
Hellboy: 25 Years of Covers - coffee table art book
Koshchei in Hell - TPB of 4 -issue mini-series + Sir Edward Grey OS
Koshchei the Deathless - TPB of 6-issue mini-series; Koshchei is a character from Hellboy in Hell series
Hellboy: Into the Silent Sea - graphic novel
Hellboy: The Midnight Circus - graphic novel
Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club - TPB of 5-issue mini-series
Young Hellboy: Assault on Castle Death - TPB of 4-issue mini-series
Giant Robot Hellboy #1-3 - 3-issue mini-series apparently not yet a TPB
British Paranormal Society: Time Out of Mind - TPB of 5-issue mini-series
Frankenstein Underground - OS? Frankenstein is from Hellboy's time in Mexico
Frankenstein: New World - TPB of 4-issue mini-series
Panya: The Mummy's Curse - TPB of 4-issue mini-series of Panya when she was young
Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon - OS? Set in WWII pitting Dr Bruttenholm against Rasputin
Rise of the Black Flame - OS?
Sledgehammer 44 v1 - I guess this is a TPB
The Sword of Hyperborea - TPB of 4-issue mini-series
Tales from the Outerverse - TPB of two 2-issue mini-series and a OS of characters I haven't heard of before
The House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery - TPB of 5-issue mini-series
The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed - TPB of 5-issue mini-series

I kind of like that Hellboy, BPRD, Abe Sapien, and Lobster Johnson TPBs are numbered volumes. This bundle is a bunch of random TPBs with no organization and outside the Hellboy books these are about very peripheral characters.

I'm inclined to skip this bundle, though if there are no other bundles to buy by end of this month maybe I'll buy this one.

Bundle of Holding has two Feng Shui bundles. I'm only minimally interested in the genre and it's nice this is not a medieval fantasy game. Still, don't think I'll end up buying this.

Feng Shui 2E ($26 variably increasing)

Feng Shui 2E RPG - "the classic game of Hong Kong-inspired cinematic action"

Hong Kong Task Force Double Eight - "originally released as part of the 2016 Free RPG Day promotion, is a full-length introductory Feng Shui 2 scenario"

Burning Shaolin Redux - "Burning Shaolin Redux is a re-release of a classic Coriolis/d20 adventure by Robin D. Laws"

Glimpse of the Abyss - "Glimpse of the Abyss is the definitive Feng Shui monster guide"

Secrets of the Chi War - "reveals new sites in the Ancient, Past, Modern, and Future Junctures", i.e. a settings book - in Feng Shui PCs travel to different sites which you can think of as movie locales.

Blood of the Valiant
Elevator to the Netherworld
Gorilla Warfare
Seal of the Wheel
Thorns of the Lotus - five faction splat books.

A Fistful of Fight Scenes - GM screen + 32-page booklet which "presents 15 sites for dazzling battles between your players and the nefarious factions of the Chi War."

Blowing Up the Movies - "Robin takes apart the workings of 24 action movies". A book of essays not specifically a Feng Shui supplement.

Feng Shui Ammo Pack ($18 fixed price)

Apeworld on Fire!
Burning Dragon
We'll Temporarily Have Paris - 30 modules each 34+ pp

Four Bastards - "a callous orphanage attack leads our heroes on a kung-fu campaign across time, from modern-day Hong Kong to 2056 Containment Site DS4S"

Seed of the New Flesh
Blowing Up Hong Kong
Friends of the Dragon
Golden Comeback
In Your Face Again - Five 1E supplements

Sat Mar 29 2025

Sleep 0445 to 1215 (7-1/2 hours)

• Watching Friday Night Baseball I just realized that AirPods Pro don’t switch to iPad when I’m playing games so I guess if I’m watching TV.app videos maybe it knows not to auto-switch whereas web video content it doesn’t know and will switch. I use DuckDuckGo browser to watch Twitch so maybe it won’t switch if I’m watching on Safari?
• CSr and I played DDO while Dave S watched me. Dave W arrived fairly late and we played two Gloomhaven scenarios until almost 0200.

Sun Mar 30 2025

Sleep 0400 to 0945 (5-3/4 hours)

• It’s a bit of a bug that MLS for past episodes they always have Season Pass tag even though some can be viewed with Apple TV+ subscription. For future episodes the tags are correct.
• Dad called and helped him debug why his iPad wouldn’t connect to home WiFi. It gave an error that indicated something was up with the router so I had them reboot it and that fixed it.

Mon Mar 31 2025

Sleep 0400 to 1200 (8 hours)

• Looks like Castle was removed from Disney+ (it’s a Hulu show). I did watch 5.22 to 7.4 and they were all ones I’d seen before so maybe I’ve seen the whole series.
• Received an email saying that Mr Cooper (in itself a division of one of the big banks) was bought by Rocket Mortgage (a division of Quicken).
• Restarting DDO Lantern quest means getting another 700 points in 18 days. Uhm, unlikely.

Tue Apr 01 2025

Sleep 0315 to 1115 (8 hours)

• Trader Joe’s for groceries. Bought a gallon milk and we’ll see if I can finish it before it starts going bad.
• Deposited $400 last of my cash (well, three $100 bills that are beat up so I’d have to deposit using a human teller).

Wed April 02 2025

Sleep 0530 to 1330 (8 hours)

• Updating my apps on my iPad. Get a This application requires iOS 18.0 warning with no indication which application update triggered it. (My iPad is old so iOS 17 is the last one it can use). Afterwards I can check and Ghostery is the only app that didn’t update. And I guess there is no way to mark it so that it won’t try to update next time.

Thu Apr 03 2025

Sleep 0600 to 1330 (7-1/2 hours)

• Finally took a few hours to move my web and wiki sites to my MBP Intel since that runs the current macOS and is supported by Homebrew. This was necessary because Mac mini llvm compile failed so I expect things will stop updating in that Homebrew environment.

Fri Apr 04 2025

Sleep 0300 to 0545, 1930 to 2030 (6-3/4 hours)

• Gloomhaven with the guys. This time I hosted and it worked well. Basically in Gloomhaven > Campaign > Load (Christopher’s save) which then forces a new save from me. Next time there are two saves one under Christopher’s name and one under mine with different dates so we know which one was last.

This BattleTech RPG bundle by Catalyst Game Labs is $18 for:

MechWarrior: Destiny (2020) - RPG based on Cue System, a narrative RPG system
A Time of War: The BattleTech RPG (Revised) (2022) - RPG with 2d6 roll mechanics

CAT-35252 Field Manual: 3145 (2013) - source book
CAT-35701 BattleTech: Legends (2021) - 52 MechWarriors and their Mechs
CAT-35900 Shattered Fortress (2022) - source book set in 3146 Republic of the Sphere
CAT-35901 BattleTech: ilClan (2021) - source book
CAT-35902 Tamar Rising (2022) - source book set in Clan Jade Falcon Occupation Zone in 3151

CAT-35SN501 House Arano: The Aurigan Coalition (2019) - source book based on PC BattleTech game

CAT-35001 Total Warfare (2006) - Classic BattleTech board game complete rules
Force Manual: Davion (2024) - source book for BattleTech board game
Force Manual: Kurita (2024)- source book for BattleTech board game

CAT-35680 Alpha Strike: Commander's Edition (2019) - board game rules for fast-play version of BattleTech

BattleTech Universe
Battlemech Manual
BattleTech: Recognition Guide, Vol 1: Classics
BattleTech: Recognition Guide, Vol 2: ilClan
BattleTech: Hot Spots: Hinterlands
BattleTech: Era Report: 3145
BattleTech: Empire Alone
BattleTech: Dominions Divided

I did not finish organizing this list because I realized this is such a hodgepodge of material. Why include the two board game rules plus supplementary material? At least most or all the material is Dark Ages or post Dark Ages. Still, BattleTech is such a massive universe of published products we'll just get overlapping bundles so I'd like something that I'm more confident will not be in other bundles.

I will skip.

Received my annual Social Security Statement which mainly tells me my estimated benefits depending on my retirement age, assuming I keep making the same salary per year.

Last year it assumed I would still earn $135k per year so my estimated benefits were:

Age 62 = $2600
Age 63 = $2797
Age 64 = $2986
Age 65 = $3235
Age 66 = $3484
Age 67 = $3733
Age 68 = $3932
Age 69 = $4230
Age 70 = $4628

This year the estimate is based on my earning $0 annually:

Age 62 = $2451
Age 63 = $2627
Age 64 = $2802
Age 65 = $3035
Age 66 = $3269
Age 67 = $3502
Age 68 = $3689
Age 69 = $3969
Age 70 = $4343

Not that much less. I was expecting it to be much lower since I've only had $100k+ salary for 15 years (benefits are based on top 35 years of salary).