Hello, everyone! We’re coming to you live from my phone’s notes app! (I’m on a plane right now. By the time this goes live, I’ll be back in Vancouver :D).

The main story tonight has gotta be something I can at the very least write about on the plane. I’ve got a couple ideas in the cooker but they all require research 🙄. So I’m just gonna talk about something cool my partner and I have been making.

Little Painted Pieces of Plastic

As you nerds know, I play a little bit of Draw Steel (it’s a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game like D&D). Well, I play a lot. A major part of the game is fighting baddies, and as tactical fighting-monsters game, Draw Steel has a lot of statuses flying about. (So if you trip someone, you give them the prone condition. If you hit ‘em with a concussive blast, you might give them the dazed condition.)

Now, one of the things about this is that sometimes it becomes a little difficult to keep track of (which one of the krull are Marked? Should that one have taken damage because they’re Bleeding? Do any of the shadow goblins have Invigorating Spores on them?)

One of the traditional ways to track these conditions is to just… write it down next to their health. In fact, this is what I do for the Pathfinder 2e game I’m running (and hopefully ending soon).

This has an upside: it’s quick and easy. It doesn’t matter what condition is being applied, the process is the same (write the name of the condition down). This has a major downside which is that only the person who wrote the condition down knows who has it. If four goblins become Bleeding and three don’t, once they start moving around the battlefield, it becomes tough to remember which is which.

So I wanted a way to indicate conditions that was as quick as writing the condition down but still indicated to everyone at the table which combatants were affected. This is what my partner and I cooked up.

I am very happy with these. We’ve used them a handful of times, and I think they worked well! You’ll notice that the majority of our collection is generic positive/negative indicators. I’ve seen and used condition rings that are unique for each condition and effect (blessed, poisoned, bane, restrained, grappled, concentrating would all be separate rings — most with multiple copies). In my experience, the becomes pretty unwieldy pretty quick. It takes ages to sort through the rings to find the specific one you want. More of a burden than a boon.

So, with this system, whether a creature becomes weakened or slowed or restrained, you use the same Negative Effect indicator. In my experience, even something as vague as that is really helpful in remembering which conditions everyone has.

You’ll notice some of the indicators are not generic but rather have boutique symbols painted on the top (painted by my lovely partner). These are effects that we know will come up every combat (like Marked and Judged, which will almost certainly come into play every combat with a Tactician and Censor respectively) or are not guaranteed but are frequent and impactful (like Invigorating Spores).

With only a limited set of boutique symbols, it’s easy to remember which are which — especially because each is iconic or representative of their associated condition. If we had a unique indicator for every condition, they might become tough to distinguish.

My personal favourite feature of these is… the magnets! Each of the bases have a bit of thickness to ‘em, so I’m able to glue a magnet on the bottom. This means that they stack really nicely for storage — and for applying multiple conditions to one creature. Speaking of, by gluing a magnet or nickel to the bottom of a mini, they magnetize of the indicators! So it’s easy to keep ‘em together.

And if our minis are already magnetized… might as well make it so they magnetically secure to our altitude trackers (for flying creatures). I’m pretty excited about these, but we haven’t had a chance yet to really give ‘em a go.

These aren’t incredible innovations that’ll improve our gaming a hundred fold. But I think they’re snazzy and fun to make/use. It makes me feel very cool and professional when we throw ‘em beneath a mini.

Anyways, that’s my flight! We’re landing now. Back to you in the studio, Quyen.

Other News

Thanks Plane Quyen! On to the rest of the ol’ newsletter.

Sam Low Bullied Me

I got emailed a link to the following article with the subject “You?”

Dare I say this is incredibly mean.

See, but the way I’m not like Wilson is that I’ll also read articles on Web. Because The Ubyssey has a very nice website :)

Halloween Restaurant in May???

So while I was in Texas, a friend and I went to Haunted Castle Cafe. Which is a spooky halloween themed restaurant. And it is the middle of May. We genuinely didn’t think the place was open on the approach because their spooky exterior lighting was off.

But they were open! And oh boy they did not disappoint. It was basically entirely empty and there was a 20 minute wait. There was a photo opportunity! There were two sapphics on a date! There was a coffin that had knocking sounds playing from it. Honestly impeccable.

The menu was lowkey kinda hilarious. Primarily because of the inclusion of… Octopus Guac??? Which feels like such a big swing. But I am both a seafood hater and a guac disliker so what do I know.

The food was so thoroughly mid. One of the people I went with definitely just got frozen vegetables. And honestly? I wouldn’t be surprised if everything was microwaved. (Also, zero per cent chance I trust seafood from this place.)

They had a staff member dressed up as Michael Myers wander around the like… 3 tables with people and pose for photos/pretend to stab them with a knife. I am not too proud to admit I did get jumpscared when bestie turned the corner. I think I had some pretty iconic interactions with Michael Myers. I asked them if I could have some of the complementary popcorn as they killed one of the people I was there with. And then I said something that I think was very funny but would too sad and serious for this newsletter right before I got killed.

Anyways, Haunted Castle Cafe was absolutely iconic. The food was so incredibly mid, but I could be convinced to go back again for the memes (if indeed it is still in business when next I am in Texas. Which… I dunno I think it might not be.)

Take Me to Space Pl3ase

(that was a typo but im leaving it in)

I cannot emphasize enough how desperately I want to do this. I haven’t even watched that much Star Trek, it’s just being the bridge crew for a space ship is such a wonderful fantasy. And it looks actually unironically immersive.

It’s More Quinns

Quinns Quest is among my favourite channels right now. It’s just… such good TTRPG reviews and such a delightfully geeky 80s vibe.

I want to play every damn game he reviews so badly. I mean this adventure has over A HUNDRED officially made handouts. That’s wild I want it so muchhhhhhh.

Wait We’ve Got Canadian History Short Films???

Honestly this is so rad I’m such a big fan. I only just heard about these from the Justin McElroy Bluesky in my RSS Reader so this is the only one I’ve seen. But they kinda fuck and I love them. (Also as always, Justin please don’t notice me. I couldn’t handle the verbal flaying you’d give me.)

OH MY GOD I JUST SAW THAT THE PRODUCTION OF THESE GOES BACK TO THE EIGHTIES!!!! IM SO EXCITED TO WATCH THROUGH THEM

From the Archive

March 15, 1963. We continue looking through The Ubyssey coverage of the cute lil strike for provincial funding of the university.

That’s All!

Good to be back in Van, y’all. We’re having a great time, I hope y’all are too. I feel really energized having seen everyone I saw back in Texas. I have such deep love for all those nerds who have been my friends for like… seven years? It’s been a hot sec. Anyways, you’re reading this newsletter you know who you are :D.

Until Wednesday at 10:03 pm, buzz on, my busy bees!

Tits 4 Fics since 2025