All posts by Chris

RPG

Boot Hill: Simulating Skill and Cheating at Cards

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Gambling, specifically Five Card Draw Poker has become a feature in our Boot Hill games. Since characters have Gambling skill (and the player may not), we have come up with the following rules to simulate the advantages of being a skilled professional gambler. Cheating is also possible along with the risk of getting caught.

Boot Hill – Poker: Catching Cheats

To watch for card cheating, perform a successful Observation or Gambling check with a Modifier of -1 (or -2 if the observer is the dealer or playing in the game.)

Continue reading Boot Hill: Simulating Skill and Cheating at Cards →
RPG

Boot Hill RPG Maps

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Burned Bush Wells
The town from the module, BH4: Burned Bush Wells. The module map is on a 1/4″ grid so I wanted to re-make the map (in color) with 1/2″ grid for use with 15mm figures.
Full Size Map
Paginated version for Printing (PDF, 8 Pages)

Mad Mesa
The module includes a town map, but as a solo-module the streets are very narrow. I have re-drawn the map (in color) with wider streets.
Full Size Map
Paginated version for Printing (PDF, 6 Pages)

Mad Mesa Map
Mad Mesa Map for Boot Hill
Continue reading Boot Hill RPG Maps →
Networking, Security

WiFi Adapter Test: 6 adapters with Kali

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I have several WiFi adapters laying around and I figured it might be helpful to document the capabilities of each.

I am using a Raspberry Pi 3 with a fresh image of Kali Rolling 2017.3 (with Nexmon drivers). The test AP I am using is in my living room (I’m down the hall in the office…)

The adapters tested and the chipsets used are:

Continue reading WiFi Adapter Test: 6 adapters with Kali →
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
RPG

Mongoose Traveller Cheat Sheets

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MT - Task Cheat SheetI’ve been getting into the roleplaying game, Traveller and created some task cheat sheets. I saved them as PDFs for easy printing.

The combined one is color coded (Blue = 1st ed., Red = 2nd ed.)

First Edition: MG – Tasks.pdf

Second Edition: MG2 – Tasks.pdf

Combined: Mongoose Traveller – Tasks.pdf

I have also made cheat sheets for the combat systems.

First Edition: MG – Combat.pdf

Second Edition: MG2 – Combat.pdf

RPG

Cowboy and Medieval Drifters in Mongoose Traveller

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I recently purchased the Cowboys vs. Xenomorphs adventure for Mongoose Traveller and it’s a fun setting. So fun that I wanted more Period careers available to ‘flesh out’ the campaign.
I used the Drifter career as a template and created four Cowboy era careers (Cowboy Drifter, Cowboy Era Barbarian,  Cowboy Era Sailor/Pirate, Cowboy Era Charlaton.)
I also added Medieval Adventurer and Medieval Soldier careers that I have used in the past to finish out the Drifters from Other Eras career sheet.
Download the PDF: Traveller – Career – Drifters

RPG

Snapshot

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Snapshot
My old maps were bent so I had to make new maps.

Snapshot, the game of close combat (aboard Starships) by Game Designers Workshop was originally released in 1979. Although it was a stand-alone game, it used an expanded turn and combat system based on the original Classic Traveller RPG.

We used to use Snapshot to resolve combat for the roll playing game, Traveller. Recently, I pulled out my old copy, printed the original deck plans and played the default scenarios with a friend (who has never played).

The rules are easy enough to grasp and the gameplay is generally fast-paced (the ships are not huge and it is a combat game.)

If you happen to still have the game, pull it out and give it a try with some modern gamers. It’s still an entertaining way to spend a game night. Sadly, I no longer have my space themed miniatures that worked well with the grid size (15mm, I believe.)

Here is my old Custom AP Cost Chart.png for Snapshot

Networking, Security, Uncategorized

Cellphones Appearing in Windows Network

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Recently, a friend asked me why he keeps seeing strange cellphones in Windows file explorer under, ‘Network’. I checked his router and it had WPS enabled by default. I disabled it and we changed the WiFi password to something a little longer (>12 characters.) Now his network is free of strange devices.

WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) is an easy way to enable device access to a router using an 8-digit PIN. I can not stress this enough, it is insecure by design and you should disable WPS on your router now! Continue reading Cellphones Appearing in Windows Network →

Microcomputing, Networking, Uncategorized

Installing a LAMP stack on the Raspberry Pi

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Parallel PiI have been doing more with MySQL and I wanted to have a stable environment to test with. I have a working (virtualized) LAMP stack on my Dell 3050, but I don’t want to play around on the live server environment… The obvious solution? Add a LAMP stack to my Raspberry Pi (running Raspbian). I already SSH into that box all the time and it’s always on. Continue reading Installing a LAMP stack on the Raspberry Pi →