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VladVladikoff 2 days ago [-]
I would love to do some fun things with the thermal printer I have lying around, however, I’m not so sure it is possible to get BPA free paper. Even the “BPA free” paper comes with similar molecules like BPS, which has been shown to be just as bad for the human endocrine system. If anyone can correct me on this and point me to some paper I would be comfortable with my kids handling (kids put everything in their mouths), please let me know.
ortusdux 2 days ago [-]
Most of the alternatives today (including the Costco receipt in my pocket) are labeled "phenol free". As I understand it they use vitamin c or a urea derived compound.
VladVladikoff 2 days ago [-]
Whoa! Really? That’s cool! Thanks!
ortusdux 2 days ago [-]
Yep! WA State is the first to ban retailers from using phenol paper starting this year. I'd imagine hobbyists buying thermal printers online are likely to end up with the bad stuff, so I think it's good for people to be aware of the issue and the fact that there are cheap alternatives.
VladVladikoff 2 days ago [-]
I really appreciate that you mentioned this, I am now very inspired to do a fun thermal printer project with my kids. Thank you!
kuerbel 2 days ago [-]
In Germany there is a thermal paper that is considered food contact safe
Thermal printers for TTRPG handouts is such a good idea. Handing a player a physical slip with a riddle or loot description is way more immersive than reading off a screen.
DarkUranium 2 days ago [-]
It's actually the reason as to why I wanted to get a thermal printer a few years ago. To be honest, I'm surprised someone else had this idea, too.
Alas, that never materialized as the in-person campaign I was DMing fizzled out.
iterateoften 2 days ago [-]
Just a question, but on these threads it’s nonstop talk about how dangerous the paper is like using it for one dnd game will give you cancer but we don’t blink twice at cashiers handling it 8hrs a day?
avazhi 2 days ago [-]
When I worked at a register in my teens we were given gloves to wear.
It’s pretty uncontroversial that the paper is hazardous. And when you’re sweating the BPA absorbs into the skin more readily. The issue is more about the dose curve; according to the FDA and other regulators, it’d be impossible to hit the upper limit on exposure by just handling receipts, while there’s plenty of evidence that there is no harmless threshold. Kinda like lead, albeit without a doubt BPA is less harmful than lead.
nemomarx 2 days ago [-]
I think people here just assume they won't ever have to be a cashier and ignore that risk?
SoftTalker 2 days ago [-]
Wait until they find out that restaurant order tickets use the same types of printers and the tickets are frequently directly in contact with your food.
Instantnoodl 2 days ago [-]
Thanks for posting my project! was wondering where the influx of GitHub stars came from :)
hyperific 2 days ago [-]
Thanks for making such a cool project!
kaishiro 2 days ago [-]
Anyone have a good recommendation for a thermal printer? I've been looking to get one for printing out daily to-dos and shopping lists.
hyperific 2 days ago [-]
There are a ton of brands and I got a random knock off so I can only report on that one. I would recommend putting some thought and research into what size you think you'll need. I got a 58mm printer and I'm realizing it's quite narrow.
Also you might want to consider the size of the printer itself. I bought a open-box new printer off ebay and the seller's photos didn't give any sense of scale. I was surprised how big this "mini" printer is. It's about the standard size of a printer you'd see at a grocery store, so I don't think I'll be keeping it on my desk.
PaulHoule 2 days ago [-]
In the US my impression is that printers marketed with a size in inches are quality printers from reputable brands but bottom feeding Chinese printers are marketed with a size in mm.
cindyllm 11 hours ago [-]
[dead]
edei 2 days ago [-]
I'd very much recommend a second-hand Epson TM-M30 if you can pick one up for cheap. It prints at 203dpi and can output true grayscale (multi tone) without dithering.
PufPufPuf 2 days ago [-]
I have one of those AliExpress ones that look like a white box with a colored circle on one side, stylized to look like a cat. They go for a few bucks used in the secondary market. I wrote a simple webapp for it to avoid using the bulky official app, it uses the web Bluetooth API (Chrome only sadly): https://purrint.github.io/
Hackbraten 2 days ago [-]
What did you use to reverse engineer the BLE protocol?
micimize 2 days ago [-]
I got the Phomemo M02 Pro and have liked it alright for printing out playtest cards on-the-fly. Claude did manage to replicate an integration someone else did the hard work of working out w/ dithering etc, but the native app's fidelity & speed has been better for my use-case, at least
Instantnoodl 2 days ago [-]
For daily to-dos a generic 58mm Chinese ones is probably enough. For pen and paper stuff I highly recommend going with anything 80mm, as 58mm can be too narrow...
Search "58mm usb thermal receipt printer esc/pos" on Amazon and you will find various generic models
There are many similar models from other companies; however, while Bluetooth is advertised as its primary connection, this one also has a USB port, which works with Linux!
Bluetooth also works, but it was too unreliable for me. I ended up using Claude to write a small CLI tool which prints via raw USB: rock solid and simple.
dccoolgai 2 days ago [-]
This looks awesome but I've read in the past that there are a lot of PFAS chemicals on these thermal printer papers. Is there like "safe" paper they have now that you can use for these things?
> If you must give paper receipts, look for “phenol-free” paper, which is safer for human health and has fewer environmental effects. Three types that do not contain BPA or BPS and are competitively priced contain either ascorbic acid (vitamin C), urea-based Pergafast 201, or a technology without developers, Blue4est. The latter uses a coating that reveals an underlying dark layer when heat is applied.
> Companies that offer phenol-free alternatives: ...
woolion 2 days ago [-]
I was thinking about this recently in order to solve the problem of RPG fights. Deterministic combat is not super exciting, but dice throwing is even worse. What if instead you quickly printed a puzzle that you can do on a timer, and your score determines whether you miss or hit a critical.
Also instead of meta-progression through stats you have increased difficulties through the puzzles, but you improve your puzzle-solving skills.
marcus_holmes 1 days ago [-]
Years of re-enactment combat got me thinking along the same lines.
The core of hand-to-hand combat is feinting - persuading you are going to hit your opponent in one place, so they move their defences to that place, and then hitting them in another place. That's a simple mechanic that could be translated easily into cards or any other bluffing format.
It gets more interesting with animals (who don't feint much) and large monsters (who don't need to feint because their attacks will overwhelm your defences), so dodging and armour come into it then.
But that brings up hit points, which are a ridiculous mechanic for modelling all of this. Stabbing someone in the arm or in the gut is completely different, it has very different effects, and should be modelled differently.
And this is where the rabbit-hole takes over and it gets too complicated ;)
_carbyau_ 1 days ago [-]
> And this is where the rabbit-hole takes over and it gets too complicated ;)
What do you want from your experience?
I see a TTRPG as a story telling game and the fights have a probability of outcome. Most of the time, the fights in the story goes as you'd expect. Sometimes it doesn't. Kinda like life. And keeping it simple means you get on with your overall story telling.
But I would never stoop so low as to tell you how to enjoy your time. A different approach to fighting could be cool!
marcus_holmes 9 hours ago [-]
Great question.
A few thoughts:
- Combat is a stupid thing to do or get involved in. The chance of getting permanently injured is really high. It would be good if our games reflected that. That fight with the kobold back at level 1 where it shoved a rusty dagger into your thigh and the priest only just saved your leg - it still hurts on cold days, and you still can't run properly. These are more interesting stories than "you take 3 points of damage". In my ideal system every point of damage is an actual injury, at a specific location on the body, and has effects. You cannot shoot a bow if you've just been stabbed in the arm. If you get shot in the leg with a goblin arrow then you're not going to run anywhere. Or do much except swear, scream, and try and deal with the dirty lump of wood sticking out of you. If you cut a giant rat in half with a longaxe then there's going to be blood and half-digested shit spread over the area and most of the player. Make combat more visceral, make the players more acutely aware of what they're actually doing and risking.
- It's not random. There's an element of luck involved, in that everything has to go the way you thought it would go, like most things. But you get the chance to react when things go wrong, too. If injuries have more consequences, then getting injured needs to be a multi-stage process. Like "the orc swings at your shoulder! You move your shield to block it! The orc twists their wrist and the cleaver is heading down towards your leg! You move your leg! Not quite fast enough! The cleaver hits your knee! Your knee explodes in pain and you see stars for a second but you manage to stay upright! The orc grins and growls but doesn't take advantage of your agony. You try to stab it in the neck with your sword! It reacts badly, tries to block with the cleaver, knocks the blade up and you slice most of its left ear off! Green orc-blood drips down its face. It howls and tries to use it's free hand to hold its face, obviously in a lot of pain. You do take advantage of its agony and stab it in the stomach. It doesn't react, too busy trying to keep its ear on. Your thrust goes deep into its stomach, perforating intestines and grating off its spine. The orc screams and drops its cleaver, clutching itself in agony as ruptured intestines spill from the open wound. The smell is unbelievable, you gag but hold your breakfast. It's clearly out of the fight. You turn to check on the rest of the group, but your knee is not working properly and something is definitely wrong with it."
- You're right, it's about stories and outcomes. But I think the mechanism should help tell the actual story rather than the story being subsumed by the mechanism. Getting players to roll to hit - what are they actually trying to do? How are you going to hit the orc? Where? What's the effect of that going to be if you roll well? How does the orc react to that? What's the effect of that reaction going to be? Rather than abstract "you roll a 14, which overcomes its AC of 10, and then you roll a 4 for damage, so it takes 4 points of damage. It rolls to hit you..." which doesn't really tell any story at all.
- There are/were systems (ICE comes to mind) that modelled this better, usually with endless tables of hit locations, but still it was all about the system not the story.
- I keep thinking of cards as a system. Players have cards, which represent moves or attacks, and they play a card as an attack. The DM plays a card for the monster. The cards interact and produce a result (or non-result). The cards play out a story like the one above. As the players get different weapons, they get different cards. As they go up levels and get better at combat, they get different cards. Just a very crude idea at the moment, but I keep thinking about it.
Anyway, that's more than I meant to write ;)
_carbyau_ 5 hours ago [-]
More than you meant, but I thought it was awesome.
I know some people who get squeamish about confrontation and so the detailed description you provided may put them off.
But they like a good comic book story where the hero and henchmen/villain tussle and the hero effects range from battered to outright death depending on risk and cleverness in approach.
As a player I enjoyed the use of descriptive elements to elaborate on the effect of a dice roll. I had a scifi character where it was a running gag to be gutshot, leading to cyberware etc.
I wouldn't have every nick and cut possibly develop into life threatening infection or complications; most RPGs are not based in an E.R...
And I'd probably skip the kobold knife attack lingering effects UNLESS that battle was a real highlight of the story at that time. Maybe make it more a mental thing than physiological.
To use D&D, the idea a level 20 fighter looks clean and shiny, almost fresh off the boat, is disappointing. My view is more "don't bet on the knight in shining armour. They haven't used it."
But it all depends on the setting and the level of woowoo magic/scifi-nanotech-forcefields and - most of all - the people you're playing with. Maybe the magic potion really DOES erase the bad wounds as though they never happened.
Your card based play is interesting. It represents - and forces - the choice in action. Captain America can punch or throw the shield again - but he doesn't "roll to attack... and do 4 damage".
I have concerns that the card based play would be hard to balance and would be huge if it has to contend with all the creatures and equipment variations. And then to make it not so huge you end up simplifying it. Unless the cognitive automation agents (they are not AI) can help you out here with descriptions, perhaps on the fly with a quick GM review-and-approve stamp.
Maybe you could card-enhance current playstyles.[snipped my rambling thoughts when...] ... a websearch has revealed such things as The GameMasters Apprentice. [0] What you describe however seems very much more combat focused.
I just use index cards and a pen, but I wish I was a competent enough sketcher to make them look as cute as these printout templates. These look great.
protocolture 2 days ago [-]
I do this, I give my players an rfid tag, scanning the tag prints their character sheet, background and any secret goals they have (With cuts in between) they can then destroy the secret materials and scan again if they forget.
SubiculumCode 2 days ago [-]
I kinda love that someone wanted this to exist.
I shared with my ttrpg folk
PunchyHamster 2 days ago [-]
Probably best left for short lived notes, thermal printouts have tendency to degrade
a1o 2 days ago [-]
I wonder, are there modern and cheap dot matrix printers (and papers?). They would give a “roguelike” feel to this sort of output.
I remember I enjoyed the simple typewriter behavior of connecting them to a computer db9 cable and using the terminal that used to come with windows to type out directly in the paper something short. I think this app had a red phone as icon or something like it (and there was a reimplementation later with a donkey on the icon).
ianburrell 2 days ago [-]
There are new dot matrix printers but they are expensive cause designed for heavy use. I did find dot matrix receipt printer that could work with this.
thomascountz 2 days ago [-]
Obligatory "be careful with that poison paper" warning![1]
https://www.koehlerpaper.com/en/products/Thermal-paper/TH_Bl...
Maybe someone sells this where you live? I have found a shop in the US: https://www.ncco.com/blue4est/
Searching for blue4est was the key.
[0] https://www.oekobon.de/
Alas, that never materialized as the in-person campaign I was DMing fizzled out.
It’s pretty uncontroversial that the paper is hazardous. And when you’re sweating the BPA absorbs into the skin more readily. The issue is more about the dose curve; according to the FDA and other regulators, it’d be impossible to hit the upper limit on exposure by just handling receipts, while there’s plenty of evidence that there is no harmless threshold. Kinda like lead, albeit without a doubt BPA is less harmful than lead.
Also you might want to consider the size of the printer itself. I bought a open-box new printer off ebay and the seller's photos didn't give any sense of scale. I was surprised how big this "mini" printer is. It's about the standard size of a printer you'd see at a grocery store, so I don't think I'll be keeping it on my desk.
Search "58mm usb thermal receipt printer esc/pos" on Amazon and you will find various generic models
There are many similar models from other companies; however, while Bluetooth is advertised as its primary connection, this one also has a USB port, which works with Linux!
Bluetooth also works, but it was too unreliable for me. I ended up using Claude to write a small CLI tool which prints via raw USB: rock solid and simple.
> If you must give paper receipts, look for “phenol-free” paper, which is safer for human health and has fewer environmental effects. Three types that do not contain BPA or BPS and are competitively priced contain either ascorbic acid (vitamin C), urea-based Pergafast 201, or a technology without developers, Blue4est. The latter uses a coating that reveals an underlying dark layer when heat is applied.
> Companies that offer phenol-free alternatives: ...
Also instead of meta-progression through stats you have increased difficulties through the puzzles, but you improve your puzzle-solving skills.
The core of hand-to-hand combat is feinting - persuading you are going to hit your opponent in one place, so they move their defences to that place, and then hitting them in another place. That's a simple mechanic that could be translated easily into cards or any other bluffing format.
It gets more interesting with animals (who don't feint much) and large monsters (who don't need to feint because their attacks will overwhelm your defences), so dodging and armour come into it then.
But that brings up hit points, which are a ridiculous mechanic for modelling all of this. Stabbing someone in the arm or in the gut is completely different, it has very different effects, and should be modelled differently.
And this is where the rabbit-hole takes over and it gets too complicated ;)
What do you want from your experience?
I see a TTRPG as a story telling game and the fights have a probability of outcome. Most of the time, the fights in the story goes as you'd expect. Sometimes it doesn't. Kinda like life. And keeping it simple means you get on with your overall story telling.
But I would never stoop so low as to tell you how to enjoy your time. A different approach to fighting could be cool!
A few thoughts:
- Combat is a stupid thing to do or get involved in. The chance of getting permanently injured is really high. It would be good if our games reflected that. That fight with the kobold back at level 1 where it shoved a rusty dagger into your thigh and the priest only just saved your leg - it still hurts on cold days, and you still can't run properly. These are more interesting stories than "you take 3 points of damage". In my ideal system every point of damage is an actual injury, at a specific location on the body, and has effects. You cannot shoot a bow if you've just been stabbed in the arm. If you get shot in the leg with a goblin arrow then you're not going to run anywhere. Or do much except swear, scream, and try and deal with the dirty lump of wood sticking out of you. If you cut a giant rat in half with a longaxe then there's going to be blood and half-digested shit spread over the area and most of the player. Make combat more visceral, make the players more acutely aware of what they're actually doing and risking.
- It's not random. There's an element of luck involved, in that everything has to go the way you thought it would go, like most things. But you get the chance to react when things go wrong, too. If injuries have more consequences, then getting injured needs to be a multi-stage process. Like "the orc swings at your shoulder! You move your shield to block it! The orc twists their wrist and the cleaver is heading down towards your leg! You move your leg! Not quite fast enough! The cleaver hits your knee! Your knee explodes in pain and you see stars for a second but you manage to stay upright! The orc grins and growls but doesn't take advantage of your agony. You try to stab it in the neck with your sword! It reacts badly, tries to block with the cleaver, knocks the blade up and you slice most of its left ear off! Green orc-blood drips down its face. It howls and tries to use it's free hand to hold its face, obviously in a lot of pain. You do take advantage of its agony and stab it in the stomach. It doesn't react, too busy trying to keep its ear on. Your thrust goes deep into its stomach, perforating intestines and grating off its spine. The orc screams and drops its cleaver, clutching itself in agony as ruptured intestines spill from the open wound. The smell is unbelievable, you gag but hold your breakfast. It's clearly out of the fight. You turn to check on the rest of the group, but your knee is not working properly and something is definitely wrong with it."
- You're right, it's about stories and outcomes. But I think the mechanism should help tell the actual story rather than the story being subsumed by the mechanism. Getting players to roll to hit - what are they actually trying to do? How are you going to hit the orc? Where? What's the effect of that going to be if you roll well? How does the orc react to that? What's the effect of that reaction going to be? Rather than abstract "you roll a 14, which overcomes its AC of 10, and then you roll a 4 for damage, so it takes 4 points of damage. It rolls to hit you..." which doesn't really tell any story at all.
- There are/were systems (ICE comes to mind) that modelled this better, usually with endless tables of hit locations, but still it was all about the system not the story.
- I keep thinking of cards as a system. Players have cards, which represent moves or attacks, and they play a card as an attack. The DM plays a card for the monster. The cards interact and produce a result (or non-result). The cards play out a story like the one above. As the players get different weapons, they get different cards. As they go up levels and get better at combat, they get different cards. Just a very crude idea at the moment, but I keep thinking about it.
Anyway, that's more than I meant to write ;)
I know some people who get squeamish about confrontation and so the detailed description you provided may put them off.
But they like a good comic book story where the hero and henchmen/villain tussle and the hero effects range from battered to outright death depending on risk and cleverness in approach.
As a player I enjoyed the use of descriptive elements to elaborate on the effect of a dice roll. I had a scifi character where it was a running gag to be gutshot, leading to cyberware etc.
I wouldn't have every nick and cut possibly develop into life threatening infection or complications; most RPGs are not based in an E.R...
And I'd probably skip the kobold knife attack lingering effects UNLESS that battle was a real highlight of the story at that time. Maybe make it more a mental thing than physiological.
To use D&D, the idea a level 20 fighter looks clean and shiny, almost fresh off the boat, is disappointing. My view is more "don't bet on the knight in shining armour. They haven't used it."
But it all depends on the setting and the level of woowoo magic/scifi-nanotech-forcefields and - most of all - the people you're playing with. Maybe the magic potion really DOES erase the bad wounds as though they never happened.
Your card based play is interesting. It represents - and forces - the choice in action. Captain America can punch or throw the shield again - but he doesn't "roll to attack... and do 4 damage".
I have concerns that the card based play would be hard to balance and would be huge if it has to contend with all the creatures and equipment variations. And then to make it not so huge you end up simplifying it. Unless the cognitive automation agents (they are not AI) can help you out here with descriptions, perhaps on the fly with a quick GM review-and-approve stamp.
Maybe you could card-enhance current playstyles.[snipped my rambling thoughts when...] ... a websearch has revealed such things as The GameMasters Apprentice. [0] What you describe however seems very much more combat focused.
[0] https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/475920/the-gamemaste...
I should stop here too.
I shared with my ttrpg folk
I remember I enjoyed the simple typewriter behavior of connecting them to a computer db9 cable and using the terminal that used to come with windows to type out directly in the paper something short. I think this app had a red phone as icon or something like it (and there was a reimplementation later with a donkey on the icon).
[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...