Lianodel @ Lianodel @ttrpg.network Posts 1Comments 359Joined 2 yr. ago
The campaign for Eat the Reich just ended! It had one of the coolest pitches I've ever read:
EAT THE REICH is a tabletop roleplaying game in which you, a vampire commando, are coffin-dropped into occupied Paris and must cut a bloody swathe through nazi forces en route to your ultimate goal: drinking all of Adolf Hitler's blood.
Unfortunately I didn't back it, though. I looked at my shelves of unplayed games and decided to be "responsible with my money." I'm sure I'll feel a little regret come Halloween. :P
"We need to see unemployment rise," he argued. "Unemployment has to jump 40 to 50 percent, in my view. We need to see some pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around... There's been a systemic change where the employees feel that the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around."
You love to see it.
Also, lots of comments about guillotines here. We might get some concern trolls about that, but at the very least, it sure is a problem when a billionaire like Tim feels like he can say something so outrageous without any consequences.
Honestly, because it depends on what the table wants.
Maybe that's what the meme is describing. The player decided that this is a meaningful last stand, and the DM making sure that they're on the same page.
Or it could be a table where the players don't expect their characters to either have a satisfying conclusion to their arc, or a meaningful, epic death. Maybe the stakes they enjoy include death being on the table more often.
And to be clear, none of these are value judgements. All are viable so long as the players (including the DM!) are on the same page and enjoy the game. Heck, I like various approaches depending on the campaign. :P
That sounds familiar! Partly because I recall reading that, but also because it's a frustratingly common scenario.
D&D is, for a ton of people, synonymous with tabletop RPGs. Often that means people think the things they like about playing tabletop RPGs are unique to D&D, even they aren't.
What gets me are people who complain about Pathfinder 2e having more rules. You're just as free to ignore them, and no one has to read much less memorize all the rules. Besides, is anyone under the illusion that players are learning all the rules to 5e?
Exactly. It's sort of an uncomfortable middle ground, but also just kind of messy.
And I'm tired, as someone who DMed it a bunch, hearing people act like broken or missing rules aren't a problem, or somehow even a good thing, because the DM can just make something up. Yeah, not shit. I can do that in literally any game I run. It's just unpleasant to do in 5e, yet I have to do it all the damn time to keep the game running smoothly. I'd rather have a game that either supports me as a GM, or is easier to improvise.
Can't wait to check it out! Like the other Without Number books, I bet it's going to be extremely useful to anyone playing in that genre just based on the GM tools.
...but also another rule system for people who want to play Shadowrun without having to play Shadowrun. :P
So do craft stores! :D
I can only base my knowledge of picking locks on watching the LockPickingLawyer. :P
So, I looked at this video, mostly because the key looks like what you'd find in a fantasy setting, and it's an older style of lock than the modern pin tumblers. He starts at 1:15, and finishes at 2:06, for a time of 51 seconds. Not too far off! and while a Pathfinder character will be pretty superheroic, the man in the video (for those who don't know) is notoriously fast at picking locks, and has even competed in timed competitions—and he's not in grave danger, like a player character likely would be. :P he also, interestingly enough, gets stuck, figure out what the problem was, and start over, which maps perfectly onto requiring multiple successes to fully open.
As for lock picks breaking, I don't know. Bean counting aside, I don't know how big of a deal it would be. I've heard LPL talk about breaking picks, but it's fairly rare, unlike what you see in most RPGs that incorporate it as an element. But he's also living in the modern day, where materials can be better and more consistent, and manufactured at scale. the people making lock picks, especially ones a thief an honorable rouge can get their hands on, might be making small batches by hand with whatever material they can get their hands on.
So I think it's actually firmly realistic enough for suspension of disbelief.
Due to the nature of Cybertruck, which is made of bright metal with mostly straight edges, any dimensional variation shows up like a sore thumb.
It sounds to me like the reasonable conclusion to draw from this would be to modify the design of the car. I'd also assume you don't need tolerances to be the same for literally all parts inside and out. I'd also think that, if the car looks that bad if things are 10 or more microns out of place, these cars are going to age terribly after regular use.
But what do I know? If I were smart, I'd be rich, right? And Elon is so rich, he must be a genius!
they were perfectly capable of nearly getting themselves killed without any bullshit from me.
Words to live by as a GM. :P
I've heard that's true for seasons one and two, but that it turns around in the third. The advice I got from otherwise disappointed Trek fans is that it is worth watching if you skip straight past the first two seasons.
Camping. Whether it's at a campsite, where a family might spend tens or hundreds of thousands on an RV and all the gadgets in it, or deep in the woods, where an ultralight backpacker might spend thousands of dollars upgrading perfectly good gear they already had because it could save a few ounces.
To be clear, camping is actually really accessible, and few people go THAT extreme with it. Just... no matter what budget you set for it, there are ways to spend it. :P
I was going to say it's a lot less expensive if you don't need espresso. An aeropress is around $40, I bought mine nearly two decades ago, and still use it daily!
...then I realized I spent $160 on the grinder right next to it. So I'm not totally immune. :P
The reason places like WebMD tell you that you might have cancer is so you go see a real doctor. It's not because it thinks you probably have cancer, but because you shouldn't rely on WebMD if there's even a small chance you might.
So if lists like these create false positives, I'm okay with it. It means some people with ADHD will finally get help and live their best lives. It means people with some signs of ADHD, but not enough for a full diagnosis, might still find value in the techniques people with ADHD use to deal with those symptoms. And even in the case of people with no issue whatsoever, it's just good to take your mental health seriously.
And hey, even if none of that mattered, there's still a huge stigma around mental health and neurodiversity. If it helps people understand what ADHD people are going through ("It's like this common experience, but to a high level on a frequent basis"), that's good too.
There's also ebiyaki! The difference is that it contains shrimp (ebi) instead of octopus (tako). I'm with you on not wanting to eat squid, but I already didn't like octopus, so I never even got to the moral quandary point. :P
Also, aside from needing a specialized pan, they're actually pretty easy to make at home, and you can fill them however you'd like.
Yep. There's a BIG difference between "I like driving" and "We should design all our towns and cities around driving."
And the ironic thing is that designing around walking and public transportation makes driving better. You don't have to deal with nearly as much stop & go traffic if there aren't as many people on the road, and if arterial roads don't need to have intersections every few hundred feet.
Yeah, I remember that. Along with the focus on digital tools, all I can think is, That's a video game. You're designing a video game. Those already exist. That is not what your flagship product is.
Seriously. If I want to play a video game, I can already do that. Even some amazing D&D video games! But the reason tabletop D&D and other RPGs haven't been supplanted by video games isn't because the technology wasn't there yet, but because they do a different thing entirely. If they made Digital D&D, and even if it turned out amazing, it would be a completely distinct type of game, not a new edition of D&D.
That's what I prefer to do. Maybe just a general reason for going adventuring with the party, but otherwise discover and develop characters in play!
By all means people can write backstories if they want. I just sometimes see it being treated as mandatory and a sign of taking the game seriously, when really it's just a matter of style and taste.
I'm so frustrated that 5e's design goal puts SO MUCH emphasis on balance, for encounters and between players, but is consistently so bad at it.
And look at half of the memes here and you'll see how bad they are at precise technical writing. Which is weird, because the M:tG folks are great at it, and they're right next door.
Seriously. I played a monk, and while Stunning Strike came in clutch sometimes, it was balanced by (a) depending on the opponent failing a save, and (b) using up ki, which will run out over a longer encounter.
Plus, as a DM, I never really had a problem with the players pulling off a huge upset like that. 5e is heroic fantasy, so let them be big damn heroes sometimes. They won't always be! (Though I do play up as though I'm shocked and frustrated, but that's just to play the heel and let them feel extra victorious. :P)