grym

Everyone plays to have fun, so either the GM is forcing this on others which doesn't seem to be the case, or this more of a player problem. Some people just want to fuck around and do random things, some care about the big plot. It's tough to reconcile what different players want sometimes. Good GMs can make this work and weave the plot in and out, but this can take a lot of time and effort and I've seen it too often being invisible to players, and it ends up being too much pressure on GMs. Players need to be clear on what they want in play, the GM as well (they are a player too!), and it should be just as much the responsibility of the players what they decide to do, where to go and what to focus on. The GM is just there to describe what happens when the players do things and do have the world around them change and do things, but if you don't want railroading then the responsibility of following leads and being able to focus should be shared with the players.

This kind of problem arises commonly with groups that have had/are used to railroad, it's a hard mindset to break. I've had to slowly ease those kinds of players into playing a more open-ended/crawl-y kind of play, because they are trying to find and follow the railroad, they assume it's there somewhere and are much more passive, waiting for the GM to lead them to where the plot is. If there are a lot of potential things to do, they'll panic or have the video-game reflex of wanting to do everything, completing all quests, and FOMO can be a real problem. This depends a lot on GM and players, and on the previous experiences of the GM and the players.

So all in all, good expectations and good communication throughout is key, the point is to have fun!

Same, kinda. I have a lot of things I know and I put in my world, threads I leave around. I have some "big plot" stuff, like what happened with this country, what happened with this person, what happened with this god, etc. Those might never be really explored or fully explained but I need to know those and facts about the world so I can answer questions, improv and bounce back when players do something unexpected.

Having a pretty clear foundation is very useful, a general theme, vibe, a way the world tends to work, a way the magic/fantastic/divine tends to work, etc. And that world is constantly built upon and expanded with and by the players, they'll ask questions where I go "Huh... I'm not sure", and we're figuring it out together!

Those are the best moments! Embrace them!

I genuinely just don't write ahead anymore, I just setup a world, see where it goes, follow threads and build on what the players say and what they want.

Sadly still no alternative that comes even close to MusicBee.

I need one that does it all. Extremely large library, complete and complex searching, filtering, changing which columns are displayed/how, complete tags editing and display including less common ones, and the ability to add custom library tags (such as tags for grouping purposes, which I use extensively on top of Genre and Comment). Also need gapless play, ability to add fade in/out and control the length of that fade either when skipping or between all tracks, ability to edit the start/end of some tracks, etc. And good tools for auto-tagging, automatically fetching album art, easy re-organizing like MusicBee which allows you to auto-rename and move selected files along customizable rules, etc etc etc. MusicBee has tons of really good tools and 90% of them are basically required for how I organize and add to my library. And a clean and configurable UI where I can decide what I want to see and where it is, wavebar, visualizers, good controls and a nice auto-DJ, etc etc.

Works really well with Wine now, but still there's some annoying things like it not being detected as a media source, and not being recognized by the normal media buttons/widgets. Also recurring audio problems (need to refresh Pipewire or switch the sink) which have gotten better but still not quite there.

God audio stuff on linux still has a long way to go.

Road-trip, road-trip!

Going to louisville is a fun quest, it's a long way from muldraugh! I know muldraugh pretty well, got a character that lived for a bunch of months and never went too far from that part of the map.

I went to louisville a few times but never settled there, it's much more tense. If you're not careful/experienced you get swarmed very quickly, and once you start being chased there are so many zombos everywhere you're not likely to find a safe spot before being exhausted. You need strats, often a way of making a noise distraction, etc. Or a good team that knows how to fight, or a shit-ton of ammo but even then the sheer amount of zombies in a place like louisville makes it hard to ever really "clear".

Zombies respawn over time in any cell that hasn't been visited by a player in a little while, depending on your sandbox settings that can be a few in-game hours, days, weeks, etc. It's hard to ever be entirely safe, even very well built safe-houses or areas will have zombies appearing in them if they don't have players in them for too long. The game's better than it used to at this process and you have less instances of zombies weirdly spawning inside places where they should not have been able to get in, but afaik it still happens.

Anyway, going to louisville is a pretty fun adventure and it can be quite difficult. Even with good gear and a good car, you get stuck in the road in places with a lot of car jams, or at the military/quarantine checkpoint around louisville.

Logged off for now, Got an ok start at the north-east corner of the residential area with high wooden walls. I've got the key to a pickup nearby and need to find gas. There's a lot of zombos around and I don't really have a good weapon, but I got curtains on everything so it's relatively safe for now, need to start getting wood and nails to board up a few things.

Ok I don't know if that's a new kind of event but I heard someone scream and get eaten lmao, I think most players spawn in the same residential area of that central town. I've got a decent spot, a pickup nearby I got the key to and I just need to get some gas.

Oh nice, i'm in. Is there a spot where people can try to get to, or a specific radio frequency to talk?