With the launch of Project Online a few years ago, organizations of all sizes have been able to use Microsoft's rich set of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) capabilities within the convenience of our Office 365 cloud infrastructure.
Although one of the obvious benefits of using a cloud-based service is avoiding having to deal with deployment, setup, and hardware and software tuning, there are still some steps you can take to ensure your organization gets the best performance out of Project Online.
Project Online offers many configuration and customization settings, but customizations can have a performance impact. This article highlights the performance impact and tradeoffs of some of the most common Project Online settings, so you can make informed decisions when it comes to customizing and configuring Project Online.
This article is part of the Network planning and performance tuning for Office 365 project.
There is a wealth of information around network planning and performance tuning for SharePoint Online and Office 365. All this information is relevant to Project Online customers and should be consulted in addition to the following best practices specific to Project Online.
Many elements of a Project Web App site can be configured and customized, from administrative settings to permissions, and from collaboration settings to look-and-feel. Let's look at the settings that can potentially have an impact on the overall performance of your Project Web App site.
With Project Online and Project Server 2013, we introduced a new and simplified permission model called SharePoint permission mode, as opposed to the legacy Project permission mode. The comparison between both modes can be found on Technet.
New Project Online instances are provisioned in SharePoint permission mode by default, and we are confident this mode will address the needs of the vast majority of customers. By using this mode, you can manage user authorization via regular SharePoint groups and permissions.
Project permission mode offers a high degree of customizability, but it can come at a price in terms of performance. If you create hundreds of categories and rely heavily on dynamic permissions via your Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS), it might slow down the end-user experience for users who have access to a lot of content, such as admins and portfolio managers.
Switching between SharePoint permission mode and Project Server permission mode deletes all security-related settings. If you switch from SharePoint permission mode to classic Project Server permission mode, you have to manually configure your security permissions structure in Project Server 2013 and Project Server 2016. Switching from Project Server permission mode back to SharePoint permission mode deletes your security permissions information from Project Server 2013 and Project Server 2016.
When possible, keep the default SharePoint permission mode for better overall performance. If you need to use Project permission mode, limit your customizations as much as possible.
An Enterprise Project Types (EPT) represents a wrapper that encapsulates phases, stages, a single workflow, and Project Detail Pages (PDPs).
Project sites are built on core SharePoint functionality. Creating project sites is not a lightweight process, and deciding if and when your organization might need project sites can go a long way in improving the overall end-user experience.
A lot of organizations use Project Online to collect and rate project proposals before deciding which projects to fund. If project sites are set to be automatically created the first time a project is published, then all project proposals, even the ones that don't make the cut, get a project site. These unnecessary sites would have to be manually cleaned up afterwards.
A better approach, if you decide to use project sites, is either letting the user choose when to create their collaboration site, or, even better, having it created by a workflow as soon as the project proposal reaches a certain stage gate.
SharePoint Online currently SharePoint Online limits the number of subsites that can be created for each site collection. An EPT allows you to define which site collection to create new project sites in. This will allow you to create a project site for each project as you can span them across multiple site collections.
For example, if you have a site collection dedicated to your IT department, you can configure your IT Projects EPT to create Project sites off of https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/IT .
If your organization uses project sites, select the option to create them on demand rather than automatically. This speeds up the first publishing experience and avoids creating unnecessary sites and content.
In Project Web App Settings, click Enterprise Project Types.
Select the EPT to which you need to change the setting.
In the EPT settings page, in the Project Site section, select Allow users to choose.
Create project sites in their own site collection by the EPT. Keep the number of project sites in a site collection below the SharePoint Online SharePoint Online limits.
Project Online runs on top of SharePoint Online the same way Project Server runs on top of SharePoint Server. As a result, we have to keep in sync a certain number of components between to two systems. These synchronizations can be time consuming and, depending on your business needs, can sometimes be unnecessary. This article explores all these various synchronization systems to help you decide which ones you need and which ones you can safely turn off. Some of these settings are already off by default.
Project Sites are workspaces where project teams can collaborate, upload documents, and raise issues. When sync user permissions is turned on, whenever a person is granted permission to a project, the corresponding Project site permissions are updated.
This synchronization happens every time the project is published. The tradeoff for the sync convenience is performance, e.g. the more users and sites that need to be synced, the slower the operation, especially if you're bulk publishing, importing or creating multiple projects (with Projects sites), or updating group memberships that will require a resync of project site permissions.
For each EPT, you can define if sync user permissions is turned on.
If your project teams have low turnover, consider turning off Project site permission sync to improve Project Publish and Project Detail Pages performance. You would then have to manually grant or remove permission to your Project sites whenever someone joins or leaves a project team.
If access needs to be granted for all users in PWA and it maps to your existing group permissions, consider configuring your Project sites to inherit from the parent PWA site.
If site access aligns with specific roles, create one or more groups that map to those roles (possibly if you have Group sync enabled, you can use the same groups) and grant those groups access to the Project site.
In the EPT settings page, in the Synchronize section, select User Permission Sync.
Sync SharePoint Tasks Lists is turned off by default to improve the speed of project publishing. This also helps speed the transition between Project Detail Pages. If your users rely on the task list and its timeline visualization in the Project site, you can turn this feature on and check if its impact on the performance of project publishing is reasonable.
The Sync SharePoint Task Lists option was intended for use with small project plans. If the project has a large number of tasks, syncing them on publish will take some time as each task needs to be updated one at a time. For example, it takes several minutes to sync a 500 task project plan to the SharePoint task list. Even though the queue job is on a separate correlation and does not block saving and editing of the project plan, we recommend not enabling the Sync SharePoint Task Lists option. We recommend only syncing projects with less than 250 tasks.
In the EPT settings page, in the Synchronize section, select Sync SharePoint Tasks Lists.
Active Directory Resource Pool sync by itself does not have particular performance issues and can import thousands of resources into your Project Web App instance in minutes. However, its downstream effect on other parts of the system can impact performance. The primary process to keep an eye on is the resource permission sync previously mentioned. If there is large turnover in your Active Directory groups membership, and that requires you to sync your Resource Pool often, monitor any potential downstream effects on related permission sync jobs.
Limit Active Directory sync to groups of resources that actually need to use the system, and monitor any potential permission issues after the synchronization of large groups. (To configure Active Directory Enterprise Resource Pool Synchronization, in Project Web App Settings, click Active Directory Resource Pool Synchronization.
The SharePoint platform offers great customization capabilities with its modular webpart infrastructure and support for custom pages. When you add logos, custom webparts, and new themes, it might not have a significant impact on performance on an on-premises infrastructure due to the benefits of server proximity, low latency, and high bandwidth networks. However, on an online service, the story is different.
When you upload a logo or graphic with a large file size, it might slow down pages a bit on an on-premises deployment, but online, the performance hit on page loads is substantial.
The same principle applies when you add multiple webparts to a page. It might be tempting to have a custom page with multiple webparts, but unless users actually need to see the data side by side, it is better to have separate specialized pages than having it all in one place. If users only need the content of one webpart on the page, they still have to wait longer for the page to load and display the data for all the other webparts.
When you customize pages, treat your Project Online site as any regular Internet website, and create lightweight pages as much as possible.
Here again, simplicity goes a long way to improving page load performance. Organizations can create custom views by using multiple Project Web App pages, including Project Center, Resource Center, Tasks, and Timesheets.
The more content is displayed, the slower page rendering will be. You can reduce each page load time by a few seconds if you provide users with a greater number of simple and targeted views rather than a few "all-in-one" views.
In the examples below, the second view takes an average of 2 to 3 seconds less to load than the first one.
When you configure views, offer users simple specialized views for faster navigation rather than a complex all-in-one view that would load unnecessary data most of the time.
Users can configure different ways to have the view rendered to them including having data grouped by different fields. When using group by, data can be rolled up for supported aggregation fields (for example, summing costs or a custom field). Computing these aggregate values requests the service to load up all the values in order to display the total.
Unless the user needs to see the rolled up values, disable the Rollup option in the ribbon.
The chart portion of the Gantt Chart view displays each project as a summary Gantt bar.
Unless the user needs to see the Gantt, disable the Gantt Chart option in the ribbon.
In addition to the recommendation provided above for page design, Project Detail Pages (PDPs) are particular in that they can trigger a recalculation of the entire project and kick off workflow actions, both of which can be expensive operations in terms of performance, depending on your customizations.
Nonschedule-related fields, such as project name, description, and owner.
We recommend that you avoid updating both types of data on the same PDP to avoid triggering both update processes at the same time.
Here is a list of the most common actions that require a schedule recalculation.
A second way to improve PDP performance is to reduce the number of webparts and custom fields displayed on each PDP. If your business processes require frequent updates to the same set of fields, create a dedicated PDP with only these fields to improve load and save time. Displaying all custom fields at all times results in a lot of unnecessary overhead.
Create lightweight specialized PDPs, and avoid mixing schedule-related and nonschedule-related updates.
Updating project custom fields values in a workflow one at a time requires a separate server request using the Set Project Field action. This results in reduced performance when updating a lot of custom fields at the same time on a high-latency, low-bandwidth network.
To solve this issue, there is a CSOM method to update custom fields in bulk. This method requires you to pass in a dictionary containing the name and values of all the custom fields you want to update.
Each project can have its own dedicated SharePoint site where team members can collaborate, share documents, and raise issues. These sites can be automatically created on first publish or manually created by the project manager via Project Pro or the administrator via Project Web App settings, or they can simply be disabled.
You can use the CreateProjectSite('') method to decide when to create their project sites. This is particularly useful for organizations who want to create their sites only after a project proposal reaches a specific stage in a predefined workflow, rather than on first publish. This significantly improves the performance of project creation by postponing the creation of Project sites.
Add-ins can respond to events being raised in Project Online. For example, an add-in can perform some additional activity after a project has been created. Users may have to wait for these add-ins to complete handling the events before they can continue working with Project Online.
Project Online should be configured to handle certain events asynchronously to minimize the amount of time users will need to wait. To do this, ask the developer of any add-ins you use to make sure their code is able to handle After events asynchronously. They can go to this article to learn more about practices they can follow for handling these events.
If the developer confirms the add-in is ready for the change, you then need to enable the Turn on asynchronous After event processing setting on your PWA Settings page.
On your PWA Settings page, in the Operational Policies section, select Additional Server Settings.
In the Asynchronous event handling for After events section, make sure that Turn on asynchronous After event processing is selected.
You'll then need to test your instances to verify that everything works correctly.
This feature is being introduced gradually to Office 365. This means that you may not currently have this setting available.
Fiscal Periods has the big advantage over Monthly in that reporting data is only held for defined Fiscal Periods, whereas Monthly will hold data for the full duration across all of your projects.
By using the Project OData service, you can extract information from your Project Online instance for reporting.
Store the least amount of timephased data that is consistent with your business needs. Do not use Daily if you have workflows that wait on publish to complete.
If the amount of data is small, then Power BI can regularly read data from the Project OData service and help provide a variety of dynamics reports. A sample content pack can be found here.
If the amount of data in Project Online is large, you can still bring in a subset of the data as long as it meets the PowerBI data size limits outlined here. Another option is to create your reports in a moving window, i.e. filtering projects who were active in the last 30 days or viewing resource capacity for the next 6 months.
Using SSIS, data can be extracted from the Project OData service and can download your reporting data into a SQL server database locally or in Microsoft Azure. A sample SSIS package for the Project OData service can be found here.
If your reporting needs still require you to extract a large amount of data, consider using the SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) package to copy your reporting data into a SQL server database locally or in Microsoft Azure.
Get a current snapshot of the reporting data you are interested in.
Download data from each endpoint.
Check periodically to keep your copy up to date.
Query ProjectId From Projects endpoint.
Delete local Projects where the ProjectId no longer exists.
Delete local entities where the Ids no longer exists.
Query for mod_dates that has changed since you last synced.
When retrieving data from the OData endpoint, extra computation is required when using custom fields which are multi-value lookups. The extra computation does not allow the OData endpoint to take advantage of a number of optimizations.
There are limits to the number of entities that can be returned in one query of the ProjectData service. As a result, querying a large amount of data requires multiple web requests to be sent to the service, adding network overhead and latency for each request.
For a Project Web App instance that contains a large number of entities, such as projects, assignments, or tasks, you should limit the data returned in at least one of the following ways. If you don't limit the data returned, the query can exceed the default limits and affect server performance.
Trying limiting the amount of data you query at runtime by using server-side filtering.
By default, the Project Web App Site comes with a 25GB limit and is separate from the limit on all data stored in the SharePoint site collection where Project Web App is enabled. Using the reporting granularity options to reduce your data volume can help in staying within the quota.
Note: For large customers, quota can be increased, but we would also expect customers to have considered the reporting granularity options to limit data volume. To increase your quota, please contact Microsoft.
Project Online, like any cloud service running on the Internet, requires specific tuning to deliver the best performance compared with an on-premises deployment.
Although we are constantly improving the system to speed up performance, there are some steps you can take in the meantime to provide a good experience to your end users.
Use SharePoint permission mode when possible.
Only turn on the features you will actually use.
Keep pages and customization as simple and lightweight as possible for faster page load times.
Use server-side filtering or export Odata feeds data to a SQL Server database for more reporting flexibility.
Choose a reporting granularity option that uses the least amount of data that satisfies your reporting needs.


The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has accused some desperate politicians of stealing 2,045 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) from its office in Okobo local government area of Akwa Ibom State.
The office was attacked last month by some youths protesting the outcome of the primaries conducted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the area.
Briefing reporters yesterday in Uyo, the state capital, INEC national commissioner supervising Akwa Ibom, Delta and Cross River States, Dr. Mohammed Mustapha Lecky, said that the commission was working with security agencies to track down the suspects with a view to prosecuting them.
He said: "The PVCs were stolen in Okobo local government area; they were 2,045 PVCs. We have visited the council and we found a lot of security lapses around the local government office.
"I think it was a mob action which was a consequence of the primary elections that were taking place at that time and I want to assure you that the police are looking into the matter. These things (PVCs) were stolen from where we kept them for safety.
"Like I have said what they (hoodlums) have done is a nullity because we have a list of everybody; we have their names, we have their pin numbers and we have their pictures on the voter register. It is a matter of reproducing the PVCs and making them available.
"Still we have to go after those culprits who were responsible so that we can apprehend them and punish them according to the law", he said.
Lecky dispelled the insinuation that federal might would be used to truncate the credibility of next year's election in favour of the APC, adding that the current leadership of INEC would not pander to the interest of any political party.
He condemned politicians for starting campaigns before November 18, 2018 fixed by the commission, saying that they have defied INEC's regulations.
INEC resident electoral commissioner in Akwa Ibom, Mr. Mike Igini, said that he would ensure that credible and transparent elections were conducted in the state.
"Under the current leadership in this state and with our commissioner of police, we will maintain absolute, unqualified neutrality to provide a level playing field to leave behind a legacy and electoral process where attitudes are shaped," he said.
The police commissioner Mr. John Abang, said that every security measures would be taken to ensure that the outcome of the polls meet international best practices and acceptable to all contenders.


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best star projection lamp
The Premiere marks a return to high-end projectors for Samsung, earning the manufacturer five stars in our review for its colorful pictures, high brightness, and fully-fledged Tizen interface (usually saved for new Samsung TVs). Previous Samsung devices allowed users to select what apps used the notification light, and what didn't, to streamline and minimize it's usage, but that's no longer the case. Again, that isn't a knock against the Galaxy Buds, but rather just something I have to live with when it comes to these true wireless devices in general. And, once again, it is the comfortable, smooth stylus that sets the Tab series apart. It's a shame, as it's a minor issue that stops the phone getting full performance marks. In short, the Elite EPV DarkStar 9 is definitely competitive in its niche, with the key advantage being the best contrast performance in high ambient light of all the ALR screens that offer maximally wide viewing angles. The contrast isn't best in class, but the picture is very watchable and doesn't tire the eyes.
There's no optical zoom, which isn't a surprise in a projector this compact. Despite being technically only 1,000 lumens, the EF12 is bright enough to project in a room that isn't completely blacked out. Most of the phone's backing sports the soft-touch finish, which is quite similar to that of the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G, though the bottommost part is done up in plastic and makes room for two tiny speaker grilles. Admittedly, the black levels aren't as deep as we would have liked and it's missing some major streaming services – both of which hurt its overall value compared to, say, the Samsung Premiere. This makes the 100L5's price look even better value. At 10.9 ounces (309.1g), it's comfortable to hold one-handed, and at just 0.29 inch (7.36mm) thick, it makes the 0.31-inch Note 8.0 look (and feel) positively bloated. Although your toddler might have mastered the way to the toilet, note that accidents are likely to happen in the dark, and you do not want to have him or her bang into furniture or other objects. Samsung might be able to get developers to start building more apps for curved screens eventually, but I wouldn't bet on that happening over the next year.
I'm not a fan of DeX mode, but I appreciate that Samsung has made it easier to access. There's no Ethernet socket, but you can use an USB-to-Ethernet connector if you don't have access to Wi-Fi. None of the HDMIs are made to the 2.1 standard, though, so there's no support for 4K at 120Hz, variable refresh rates or eARC. Colors are bright and saturated without being exaggerated and viewing angles are solid. This sort of bang for your buck is certain to turn heads, and has doubtless played a big part in Hisense being able to get its latest 'Laser TV' proposition into mainstream retailers all over the world, despite the potential difficulties associated with exhibiting and installing such a unique product. However, by delivering a 100-inch picture that's genuinely watchable in a bright room for vastly less than a normal 100-inch LCD TV would cost, it still has the potential to seriously shake up the king-sized TV world. This much becomes obvious as soon as you clock the fact that it gives you a massive 100-inch screen for less money than many regular 75-inch TVs. Since it ships in two parts – the projector and the screen – the 100L5 is a bit more of an imposition on your room than a straight 100-inch TV would be.
Much more surprising is how affordable the 100L5 is in all the territories it appears in. Apple's approach skews more realistic. We have found that the people we support who have more complex needs have got the most out of it, by watching the colours change and spin. The colours are lush, and the image detailed, partly down to the fact that this is a laser projector. Ideally, the projector will be placed behind the audience and projecting just above their heads so that the angle of incidence and angle of reflection are minimized. The iPhone and iPad are still sending shock waves through their respective industries. Google is still more effective at noise reduction and in darker conditions. Although the S Pen has a supercapacitor to power that Bluetooth Low Energy module, you can still use it to draw even without a charge. Hisense has really started to get its market localization act together in recent times, so it's no longer surprising to find even a relatively esoteric and expensive AV product like the 100L5 now widely available across the globe. However, while Hisense has tried to make installation easier thanks to an autoinstall app that fine tunes the picture based on a simple photograph of your image taken on your phone, impressively the brand is also running a free home installation service with every 100L5 it sells.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


For years, the center of gravity within the tech sector has been squarely located in Silicon Valley, the storied West Coast home of Apple, Alphabet, and pretty much every other tech behemoth you can imagine (with a few notable exceptions like Amazon). As a result, tech workers have notoriously fled competing job markets in the hopes of landing gigs in 'The Valley,' making the local talent pool the envy of the global tech community.
Recently, however, the paradigm seems to be shifting. A confluence of factors, from skyrocketing housing costs to bad PR, have actually pushed tech talent to start looking elsewhere. And rather than attempting to lure workers back to the pricey San Francisco suburbs, local companies are looking afield for workers who are happy to join remote offices, and the results are paying off.
Take Amazon's recent search for HQ2. While not a Silicon Valley unicorn, Amazon has spent the last few decades reshaping it's hometown of Seattle into one of the West Coast's fastest-growing job centers. But as the company transformed from a bookseller to an everything-seller, it's outgrown the traditional enterprise model based around a central office, instead opting for a decentralized business, the likes of which are quickly becoming the norm for businesses of all stripes.
While the road to HQ2 is still a rocky one, Amazon took a hard look at metro areas across the country with the goal of meeting the most talented workers on their terms — where they live — rather than luring them to the Pacific Northwest.
This form of workforce decentralization isn't just an Amazon phenomenon, either.
Back in Silicon Valley, a recent report from Indeed found that as of February 2019, 35 percent of the tech job searches on the site from the valley were for positions elsewhere, which is up roughly 30 percent from a year earlier.
This doesn't change the fact that Silicon Valley is still the undisputed hotspot for tech companies (66 percent of tech job searches remain for work within the Bay Area). But companies with headquarters in the region are actually finding it more productive and cost-effective (considering the prices for office space outside San Francisco) to support an increasingly remote and decentralized workforce.
At AppNeta, we're a perfect example of the distributed enterprise in action. While we're headquartered in Boston, (itself considered one of the top global tech markets), our team is hardly pigeonholed to our Fort Point HQ. We have our own version of "HQ2" at our Vancouver office, where we tap into that city's pool of engineering talent to constantly help enhance AppNeta Performance Manager, as well as remote employees across the map, from Colorado to Maine.
Like any organization that's decentralized it's operations, our success hinges on network performance. As any list of ingredients for remote office success will iterate, keeping the lines of communication open across all remote offices is key for the decentralized enterprise to succeed.
Because there are so many collaboration tools and SaaS applications available to keep the performance of remote workers in lock-step with the employees at HQ, the network supporting these tools needs to be continuously performant as well. This all makes the case for comprehensive network performance monitoring stronger than ever, as the costs associated with down networks could literally spell doom for a decentralized organization.
This also makes it more important than ever for teams to seek out network performance monitoring tools that go well beyond what legacy solutions can deliver, as teams adopt new network layouts.
As we discuss in our recent whitepaper, "Direct Internet Access (DIA): Rethinking WAN for the Cloud Era," the only way for companies to cost-effectively distribute their offices is to leverage cloud-delivered network infrastructures that rely heavily on DIA for app traffic. But the added complexity that comes with DIA, SD-WAN, and the widespread adoption of SaaS requires tools that look at the network from multiple dimensions.
In a recent blog post, we unpacked an EMA report that found many organizations still relying on legacy network monitoring tools — that is, ones that pre-date widespread enterprise cloud adoption — aren't succeeding in effectively managing their networks or supporting their remote offices.


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[Thrilling Fate!] Some Trouble In This Place
This post does indeed reek of trouble.
If you're one of those poor unfortunates who isn't already familiar with Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars, that guy on the right up there, the one speaking trepidatiously about the mere possibility of trouble, is the Barkeep. (He has a name, but it was a fairly recent revelation on the podcast, and I'm embarrassed to admit I don't remember it.) "I don't want no trouble in my place!" is the Barkeep's catchphrase, defining character trait, and probably his concept aspect as well.
So there's no way I'm not using trouble as this hack's term for "damage." So let's talk about damage.
First of all: no stress tracks. Just troubles, which will sub in for consequences in every way that matters. I'm not completely clear yet on how they'll work, but the basic idea is that you have so many trouble boxes, like six. Checking a box reduces a hit by 2 shifts.
But! When you take a hit, you can write down any number of troubles and check any number of boxes for each trouble. For example, if the Binary Kid nails you with a 6-shift hit, you could write down a single trouble, like Broken Ribs, and check three boxes -- or you could take three troubles, like Winded, Embarrassed, and Caught Off Guard, and check one box for each. Either way, you've dealt with all six shifts.
(This is a character sheet design issue: It has to be clear that you can have several troubles, and that each trouble has its own track of boxes, but that you can't have more than six boxes checked at a time.)
So if these work like consequences, why would you ever take three one-box troubles instead of one three-box trouble? Because the fewer boxes a trouble has, the faster it goes away.
When you have a moment to breathe, like at the end of a scene, erase one one-box trouble.
At the end of some currently unspecified longer period of time, like after a night's sleep or something, do all of these:
Erase all your one-box troubles.
Clear one box on each of your troubles that has two or more checked boxes.
A trouble can be treated much the same way a consequence can, with a difficulty equal to twice the number of boxes it has.
Now look, I'll admit that this is a little more complicated than consequences as written in Fate Core or FAE, but it's also a little less complicated in that you only have one option for damage mitigation (troubles) instead of two (stress and consequences). In my experience, new players -- my expected audience -- have an easier time with "When you get hit, take a consequence" than they do with "When you get hit, check a stress box or take a consequence, or both, or take two consequences." Plus, I dunno, it seems fun, so I'm going with it.
I also like the flexibility of it, and it makes things like Sparks' make-them-check-another-trouble-box stunt and Croach's clear-an-additional-trouble-box stunt viable and engaging without being difficult to grasp. There are other potential hooks too, like saying that if you take two troubles at once from a physical attack, one of them has to be mental (which is pretty typical of Sparks Nevada characters, who, Cactoid Jim aside, tend to have their share of insecurities). Or maybe a success with style on anything lets you immediately clear a mental trouble box. Just spitballing here -- this whole thing needs more thought, and obviously some refinement of terminology.
Anyway, this looks like the end of the hacking for this hack, but... I guess I'll post a few characters? Next week or something?
Posted by Mike Olson at 9:43 AM No comments:
Aspects: consequences, FAE, playtest, RPG, stress, Thrilling Fate, troubles
[Thrilling Fate!] Stunts
I don't have a lot of changes in mind for Thrilling Fate! when it comes to stunts. Hey, if it ain't broke, etc. Really, I only have three guidelines for myself: no more than three per PC (so... three per PC), explicitly tie each one to an aspect, and make them about something other than bonuses.
The first one isn't unusual, especially since I'm using FAE as a base, but I need to emphasize it to myself because lately the characters I've been making usually have a lot more than three stunts' worth of stunts going on. I don't want to give my players too much to look at on the sheet. I picture a really clean layout, with stunts in callout boxes connected to aspects.
I want to connect each one to an aspect to make everything feel that much more interrelated. I like FAE's stunt sentence construction of "Because I'm a whatever, I can do whatever," but if I include an aspect in there, it's a little more smoothly integrated. I think it'll make the idea of the stunt easier to swallow.
And the ideas behind those stunts aren't going to engage with the mechanics quite as directly as they usually would. I mean, look, it's really easy to say "Because I have Robot Fists, I get a +2 to attack with them." That's a totally fine stunt. The issue is that I have no idea how much arithmetic my players are going to tolerate. Even experienced gamers forget the odd +1 or +2 here and there. I don't want any of that going on, because I don't want them to feel distracted by the math, simple though it may be.
The next most common stunt is probably skill substitution -- y'know, "Use Athletics instead of Fight to attack when fighting unarmed" -- but since the total lack of skills here would make those meaningless, that's not really an option.
As I mentioned yesterday, I initially made these characters for an Apocalypse World hack (Thrilling World, I guess?). In that incarnation, each playbook had about three custom moves. So... hey, stunts! AW-style stunts! These are pretty easy to do in Fate.
Here are a couple for Sparks:
Because you're the Marshal on Mars, when you're acting in your capacity as a representative of the Mars-Earth Coalition, they can either do as you say or give you a fate point.
Because you have Robot Fists, when you punch someone with them, they have to check an extra trouble box.
And here are a few for Croach:
Because you are Under Onus to Sparks Nevada, whenever you are in a scene with him, you start with a free boost called Onus.
Because of the Sacred Nah Nohtek within you, you heal extremely fast -- clear an additional physical trouble box at the start of every scene.
Because of your Martian Physiology, whenever you try to perceive something in your environment, you get a +2 bonus to your roll if you mention how you're using one of your 28 senses in the process.
Right now, you're probably jumping up and down and screaming at me about how I said I wanted to avoid bonus-oriented stunts. That's a perfectly reasonable reaction. I'm okay with them if they look like that last one. It's not a passive bonus that's easy for you to forget; you have to make a roleplaying choice to activate it. As long as nobody has more than one of those, it oughtta be okay.
But hey, what's this "trouble" thing about? It has something to do with this guy:
But what? Find out next time! You can probably guess already!
Aspects: Apocalypse World, FAE, playtest, RPG, stunts, Thrilling Fate
[Thrilling Fate!] Cues and Aspects
So! Self-indulgent tangent time!
I was a music major for a little while -- like, four years -- back in the '90s, during my first go at college. Two years performance, two years composition. I left high school with really no understanding of music theory at all. I mean, I'd taken a fairly informal after-school "class" taught by our band director, but clearly I didn't get a whole lot of actual understanding out of it, because in college, if it was more advanced than basic counterpoint and harmony, it was a struggle for me. (I'm much better now. My ego compels me to say that.)
Anyway, when you learn music theory -- and forgive all this bloviating if you've done just that -- you generally start with Baroque music, and specifically the works of Johann Sebastian Bach (father of PDQ). Baroque music has all kinda rules to follow for it to be "right," and most of it becomes second-nature after a while. Like, avoid parallel motion if you can, and parallel fifths in particular, and this chord wants to resolve this way while that chord wants to resolve that way, and so on. These rules inform all Baroque music, but we study JS Bach because, among other reasons, he's the GOAT.
The thing is, though, Bach and his contemporaries didn't study these rules the way we do. We've reverse-engineered these rules by analyzing their music.
Shift now to game stuff. I've said before that sometimes I see making a game like making a machine: You build it for a specific function, and the more maintenance you have to do on it, the more problematic it is. From this perspective, houserules are maintenance. Relying on the players to ignore problems or exploits because they "get it" is maintenance. I want to be able to send a game out into the world and have it work for everyone else the same way it works for me.
In this case, I want a game/machine that, if you input players and characters, and everyone follows the rules, it produces a Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars story. But a Sparks Nevada story is a lot more than whiz-bang action and shoot-'em-ups. Those things, in fact, usually have very little prominence. There's probably only one fight, often even just one shot fired, in an average episode. While it looks like an action-adventure story, it's way more character-focused than you might expect. What keeps me coming back is the characters and the way they relate to one another. If a Sparks Nevada game can't produce something like that, whether or not the players know the source material, it's not much of a Sparks Nevada game, if you ask me.
One of my favorite nudge-them-into-roleplaying mechanics is The Shadow of Yesterday's (and Lady Blackbird's) keys (called milestones in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying). A few weeks ago at Gateway I ran a Saturday-night Firefly-ish Spelljammer game using the Fantasy Heroic rules from the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide, and coming up with the pre-gens' milestones was integral to getting those characters "right." I loved that the goblin mechanic could earn XP simply by complaining about the ship, or that the Githyanki monk could do the same by offering up a cryptic aphorism. These have nothing to do with complicating the character's life or even spotlight time, really. It's just offering the player roleplaying cues.
The thing I love most about keys is that when you use them correctly, you may feel (as I did) like you're abusing the system, or getting away with something. But you're not! It's a trick. All you're really doing is playing your character to the hilt, because you're incentivized with small, immediate rewards for injecting personality and color into the story.
In other words, it's a perfect mechanic for Sparks Nevada. I want Sparks to be annoyed with Croach, or announce that he's... from Earth. Likewise, I want Croach to inform Sparks of an increase or reduction in onus owed, or to drop vaguely unsettling comments about his egg sacs or multiple esophageal tracts. To me, these fly under the aspect compel's radar, primarily because they're lousy, weaksauce compels. They don't get the characters in trouble in any way. They're fun, but hardly worth a fate point. But it's these little character moments that give the show its, well, character. And for a hack like this, that's absolutely vital.
These are essentially keys, but I'm calling them cues, partially because I'm treating them a little differently, and partially (largely) because I'm writing for my intended audience, whom I figure will more easily parse "cue" than "key."
Every PC has three cues: two Scene cues, and one Episode cue. You can hit a Scene cue once per scene, and an Episode cue but once per episode/session. When you hit a Scene cue, refresh one aspect. When you hit an Episode cue, refresh up to three.
(I'm not 100% on the Episode cue's benefit there. You'll only use it in one of two circumstances: you desperately need to refresh multiple aspects and don't have a lot of time to do it, or you've already used your Scene cues this scene and are just using your Episode cue out of necessity to refresh fewer than three aspects. The right way to do this will depend on how exhausting an aspect ends up working, as I mentioned in yesterday's post. Maybe a better option would be "Refresh an aspect and gain a fate point." Dunno. The point is, the reward is getting to exhaust an aspect again for a +3, which is something we want people doing anyway because it calls attention to various facets of their characters in dramatically appropriate circumstances. That's not cheating or working the system; it's being bribed to play up your character's personality, which leads to a fun, memorable game. Everyone wins.)
So maybe these are Sparks' cues:
Scene: Act annoyed with Croach.
Scene: Call attention to how great you are.
Episode: At a dramatically appropriate moment, justify your course of action by reminding everyone that you're... from Earth.
And maybe these are Croach's:
Scene: Tell another PC your onus owed to them (or vice-versa) has just increased or decreased owing to something that just happened in the story.
Scene: Make specific reference to some bizarre feature of your Martian physiology, or humans' lack of same.
Episode: Rank a sensation. For example, "This is the fourth-worst pain I have ever endured" or "Your face is the seventh-most pleasing face I have ever beheld."
In other words, this is just reverse-engineering mechanics based on an "analysis" of (i.e., "re-listening to") episodes of the show itself. And hopefully, those mechanics will successfully create a play experience that feels like a Sparks Nevada story. For example, It's a rare episode in which Sparks doesn't pull the "I'm... from Earth" thing, but he doesn't run around saying it all the time, either. However, bickering with Croach? Calling (totally justified) attention to himself? Pretty common behaviors for the Marshal on Mars.
Next time: messing with stunts!
Related but non-Fate P.S.: BTW, my first whack at a Sparks Nevada game is based on Apocalypse World. There, cues get you either 1 XP or 3 XP. This essentially replaces stat highlighting as the main route to advancement.
Aspects: Apocalypse World, aspects, Cortex Plus, cues, FAE, Gateway, Johann Sebastian Bach, Lady Blackbird, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, meta, playtest, RPG, The Shadow of Yesterday, Thrilling Fate
[Thrilling Fate!] Getting Started
So here's what's going on. I'm probably going to do a few posts about this thing, so consider this the intro.
I may have an opportunity to run a game for a bunch of non-gamers whose work I very much admire, and (more importantly) who I want to make sure have a really good time with their first RPG experience. Some of them may have RPG experience, actually, but I'd be really surprised if it were recent at all.
Anyway, so my first thought is naturally to use Fate, because it's second nature to me and I've already introduced more first-timers to Fate than I can count. But because I want to make any barriers to entry as low as possible, my next thought was to use Fate Accelerated, because it's rad.
However.
This PCs for this game would be specific, well-established characters, characters with whom the prospective players are very familiar. And frankly, the default approaches in FAE don't really fit all that well. I could easily replace them with new adjectives, adverbs, or nouns that fit the property better, but not even that would really do the trick. Ranking these characters by how clever, forceful, or sneaky each one is just doesn't feel right. It feels too confining, and it doesn't put enough emphasis on what makes these characters really interesting. It's too... objective, I guess.
Plus, because of the whole new-to-RPGs angle, I want to cut down on how many things they'll have to look at on the sheet. So I decide to to cut out approaches altogether and concentrate on aspects. (Almost everything from here on out is a little weird.)
You have five aspects. Each aspect has a box next to it. When you roll the dice, if you have an aspect that seems helpful, you can check its box to exhaust it and give you a +3 bonus to the roll. You can only exhaust one aspect per roll, but you can invoke other aspects (the usual way) for a further +1 each.
(Maybe it'd be per roll, maybe it'd be for the scene. I'm not sure yet.)
What this means is that instead of having a predetermined menu of bonuses with attendant contexts, you'd choose as you go what's important right now. Any aspect is potentially a free +3; it's just a matter of deciding which one. It's a bit like Cortex Plus's distinctions.
For example, here are the aspects for, I dunno, some random character:
Marshal on Mars
Robot Fists
Justice Rides a Rocket Steed
Righting Outlaw Wrongs
So if you're chasing down an outlaw, you might exhaust Justice Rides a Rocket Steed, or Righting Outlaw Wrongs or Marshal on Mars. If you're punching out that outlaw, you could turn to your Robot Fists. If someone's trying to talk you into committing to a relationship, which does happen from time to time, and you're resisting, which happens all the time, exhaust Emotionally Unavailable to put up the wall.
Of course, all of these aspects can be invoked and compelled as usual. Situation aspects work the same way: exhaust, invoke, or compel.
But how do you clear those checked boxes? How do you refresh these aspects so they can be used again? Find out next time!
Aspects: aspects, FAE, playtest, RPG, Thrilling Fate


The homeowners had emptied cabinets and removed furniture from the space, prior to the first day of demolition. They decided to change the scope of work and remove the carpet in the great room and dining areas to replace with wood flooring, and match the kitchen. To help keep the cost down, our homeowners pulled the carpet, pad, baseboards, tack strips and staples themselves. On this particular job, the existing wood floors are being sanded down and refinished to a new stain color, so it's not necessary to protect them at this point.
Our eager crew jumped in and removed all of the cabinets, countertops, appliances and light fixtures. The countertops were hauled away, and the rest of the items were moved to the garage to be sold or donated, so nothing went to waste.
We've decided to remove all of the ceiling drywall in the kitchen area. There had been some old repairs that were unattractive, and we were adding so many can lights to the space that it made more sense to remove all of it, rather than cutting holes and patching. The homeowner didn't care for the sand texture on the original ceiling, so this will give them a smooth painted finish when the job is complete.
The crew removed the kitchen wall drywall and insulation from the floor up to roughly 4 feet. This would allow the electricians and plumbers access to complete their rough-in work inside the walls.
The original kitchen had a walk-in pantry that the homeowner wanted to have removed. They felt that the pantry did not serve their needs based on their lifestyle and shopping habits. It had become a "catch-all" and was a heavily cluttered area. By removing it, we were able to really open up the kitchen space, which gave us more design flexibility for appliance locations. We will be installing a tall pantry cabinet with full extension roll-out trays to use for their pantry items.
We want to be sure our homeowners have a place to prepare and enjoy meals during the construction process. Their lower level bar already had a refrigerator and dishwasher, so we added a convection microwave and hot plate to keep them in the comfort of home as we work.
All of this and the carpet removal was complete in about 3 days. Now that we've done the initial tear out, we're ready to move on to electrical and plumbing rough-in work and the local municipality inspections. Next!


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'Dune': Director Denis Villeneuve's Two Conditions for Making the Movie, and Why the 55-Year-Old Story is "More Relevant Than Ever"
Posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2020 by Ben Pearson
Denis Villeneuve is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today, and it looks like his hot streak is going to continue with his next big movie.
As of a few weeks ago, the filmmaker behind Arrival, Sicario, and Blade Runner 2049 was still hard at work on Dune, the first part of a planned two-movie adaptation of Frank Herbert's massively influential 1960s sci-fi novel. But even though he's in a self-described "sprint to finish the movie" before its December release date due to complications from the COVID-19 pandemic, Villeneuve and several members of the cast participated in a press conference last month, where they unveiled an early look at the trailer and explained what we can expect from this long-awaited big-screen adventure. Here's what we learned from the event. Read More »
'Dune' Teaser: See New Footage Ahead of Tomorrow's Full Trailer
Posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2020 by Ethan Anderton
Those lucky enough to see Tenet in theaters have been treated to the first footage from Denis Villeneuve's upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel Dune. Weirdly enough, it's actually a theatrical teaser that announces the impending arrival of the full trailer, which will show up online tomorrow, September 9. But since not a lot of people are going to the movies right now, Warner Bros. has provided a different sneak peek at the movie with a Dune teaser that has a snippet of footage and a certain piece of dialogue that fans will be very excited to hear. Read More »
New 'Mission: Impossible' Sequels Character Details Teased by Director Christopher McQuarrie
Posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2020 by Ethan Anderton
The Mission: Impossible franchise had barely begun production on the seventh installment when the coronavirus pandemic shut down movie and TV sets all over the world. Since it's the first of two back-to-back sequels, the release dates have already been pushed back to give director Christopher McQuarrie and producer/star Tom Cruise to make sure everything is in order when the movie is allowed to resume production. Thankfully, that gave McQuarrie, as well as a couple cast members, some time to talk about what fans can expect from the two sequels. Read More »
'Dune' Debuts New Images of Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, and More; Director Denis Villeneuve Teases "Complex" Two-Parter
Posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2020 by Hoai-Tran Bui
Be still(suit) our beating hearts: new Dune images have arrived. Denis Villeneuve's highly anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel has debuted a slew of new images featuring the film's ridiculously good-looking cast, including Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, and of course, Timothée Chalamet as the reluctant hero Paul Atreides.
'Doctor Sleep' Review: 'The Shining' Sequel Attempts to Reconcile the Conflicting Views of Kubrick and King
Posted on Wednesday, October 30th, 2019 by Chris Evangelista
For all of the horrors he's conjured up over the decades, Stephen King is really a big softie. Yes, he's written stories about horrible, nightmarish things happening to innocent souls. But in the end, King is a writer who believes in humanity. He believes in hope. He believes in redemption. Which is probably why he was so damn furious when Stanley Kubrick adapted his novel The Shining into a film in 1980. Kubrick, brilliant artist that he was, was also the complete opposite of King. It's unfair to claim – though many have – that Kubrick was a misanthrope with a disdain for humanity. But it's fair to say that Stanley Kubrick's movies were, all in all, unsentimental – an attitude that King has never ascribed to.
With all of this in mind, Mike Flanagan was facing an uphill battle when it came to adapting Doctor Sleep, King's own sequel to The Shining, published in 2013. King's Shining and Kubrick's Shining share a basic framework, and several similar elements. But they're vastly different works. And King's Doctor Sleep is a sequel to his novel – not Kubrick's film. What was Flanagan to do? Ignore one of the most talked-about horror movies of all time and stick with King's text? Jettison King's prose to remain true to Kubrick? Or find some sort of middle ground? With Doctor Sleep, Flanagan has opted for the third option. But can the diametrically opposed viewpoints of King and Kubrick truly inhabit the same space?
Denis Villeneuve's 'Dune' Will Have a More Empowered Take on Its Female Characters, Rebecca Ferguson Says
Posted on Tuesday, October 29th, 2019 by Hoai-Tran Bui
The praise brigade is back in full force for Denis Villeneuve's Dune, with star Rebecca Ferguson revealing that the director has given a more empowering update to the story's female characters. Ferguson, who plays Jessica, the mother of the protagonist played by Timothee Chalamet, acknowledged that her character was created by author Frank Herbert when men and women didn't exactly have equal rights, but that Villeneuve's upcoming sci-fi film will give a more progressive take on the Dune female characters.
'Doctor Sleep' Trailer Breakdown: Head Back to the Overlook Hotel With 'The Shining' Sequel
Posted on Thursday, June 13th, 2019 by Chris Evangelista
Even though I'm the biggest Stephen King fan around these here parts, and a Mike Flanagan fan to boot, I've been highly skeptical of Doctor Sleep – Flanagan's new film adaptation of King's own sequel to The Shining. I found the book a bit disappointing, and wasn't even sure how Flanagan could adapt it to the screen – since the version of The Shining most people are familiar with is Stanley Kubrick's film, which deviates heavily from the source material.
So it is with great relief that I can report the newly released trailer for Doctor Sleep has completely won me over. This looks great. Flanagan is combining both King's novel with elements of Kubrick's film, and it appears he's created a must-see in the process. Below, I'll extract some of the film's secrets with a Doctor Sleep trailer breakdown. I promise I'll keep this as spoiler-free as possible.
'Doctor Sleep' Trailer: Ewan McGregor Faces Psychic Vampires in the Sequel to 'The Shining'
Mike Flanagan, director of Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, tackles a very different iconic ghost story with Doctor Sleep. Based on the novel by Stephen King (you may have heard of him), Doctor Sleep is the official sequel to The Shining, following a grown-up Danny Torrance dealing with a whole new set of supernatural problems, while also still grappling with his traumatic childhood. Our first look at the film is finally here, and it looks like fans won't be disappointed. Watch the Doctor Sleep trailer below.
'Dune' Sequel Plan Confirmed by Legendary Pictures
There's a lot of sandy ground to cover with Dune, and one movie might not cut it. Director Denis Villeneuve's star-studded Dune adaptation is currently filming, but will there be more to come? Villeneuve has hinted in the past that he'd like to make more than one film to bring Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic to life, and as of now, that seems to be the plan. In a new interview, Legendary CEO Joshua Grode confirms that at least one Dune sequel is being planned – although that could change.
'Mission: Impossible 7' Will See the Return of Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust
Posted on Friday, February 8th, 2019 by Ethan Anderton
When it comes to Mission: Impossible, director Christopher McQuarrie and star Tom Cruise are on a roll. The pair have teamed up to deliver two thoroughly entertaining installments of the action spy franchise. In fact, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is arguably the best of them all. Now, the duo are teaming up for two more sequels that will be shot back-to-back and released in consecutive summers in 2021 and 2022. And we already have word on another team member who will be joining them.
Rebecca Ferguson made her debut as the sultry and dangerous MI6 spy Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. She also became the first female cast member to recur in the entirety of the franchise when she returned as the character in Fallout last year. The actress recently confirmed that she'll keep the trend going by being part of Mission Impossible 7. Read More »


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Scholars / UChicago Scholar
Jeffrey Grogger
Irving Harris Professor in Urban Policy, Harris Public Policy
Jeff Grogger, the Irving Harris Professor in Urban Policy at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, has authored dozens of scholarly articles focusing on problems of low-income populations. An applied microeconomist, he has worked on issues including crime, education, migration, and various aspects of racial inequality. He is a leading authority on social insurance programs and on US welfare reform. Grogger received a PhD in economics from the University of California, San...
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