[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 9 points 45 minutes ago

Ah! Well, nevertheless

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 11 points 1 hour ago

What's absurd to me is that it's not like you couldn't bet on sports before, you just had to have some buddies at work, or a sibling who or something who was interested.

That doesn't allow for the quantity of gambling necessary to immiserate people en masse though.

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 12 points 1 hour ago

Yes exactly. Anyone who supports this kind of thing needs to listen to this one.

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 16 points 1 hour ago

This sounds like libertarianism

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 22 points 1 hour ago

I heard somewhere, I wanna say the-podcast that the idea that lotteries fund schools isn't even true.

Like, if property tax generated X dollars for local schools, and then a lottery was introduced that produced Y dollars, instead of schools now getting X+Y dollars, they still get X and you either give Y amount of dollars from the budget to something we don't want to say the lottery is funding, like police budgets or something, since the dollars are all fungible, or you reduce property taxes by Y dollars.

Meaning that generally, what it actually does, rather than providing a new revenue stream for your kid's school, is move the tax burden from the rich to the poor.

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 2 points 5 hours ago

So far it was the back to back bangers of A Matter of Honor and The Measure of a Man (TNG S2xE08-9) but I just watched Pen Pals, E15 in the same season and I'm fuming about how evil the Prime Directive is and wanting Dr. Pulaski to lose her medical license over one of the most unethical medical procedures I've seen performed in a television show.

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 22 points 21 hours ago

I'd probably change that last bit to association, or maybe group, coalition could work also. Immune Deficiency Team.

Regarding Edit 2, when you say more modern do you mean like urban fantasy?

I'm a big fan of the Chronicles of Darkness games (which, fair warning, new books aren't coming out, but you can get a PDF or print on demand copy of any of them, and like most non DND games you're looking at 1 core book only).

I really like Werewolf the Forsaken but it's pretty focused on playing a pack of werewolves. If she's into faeries you could look at Changeling the Lost (which may or may not be suitable, it's about humans who've escaped captivity after being captured by the "True Fae." They're changed by the experience and couldn't fit back into their old lives even if there weren't a doppelganger made of garbage and fae magic living their life, and they may have conflicting feelings about the whole thing anyway, after all if they hadn't gotten kidnapped they wouldn't have learned to magically learn someone's greatest desire or talk to birds or whatever. Worth pointing out that it's a horror game and the fae world kind of represent trauma).

If that one doesn't spark joy, Vampire the Requiem is also really cool and is about trying to survive as a relatively new vampire in a cutthroat, backward citywide society of the undead. It's not about violence in the sense of combat but vampires are obviously predatory so this could also maybe not be right.

The same line of games has one about being a wizard in the modern day, but it's extremely heavy and crunchy and probably not what you're looking for.


If you mean you're interested in non-fantasy modern settings I don't know much about the available games but I'm sure there are some decent ones someone else will mention.

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 26 points 1 day ago

Listened to it when it came out, it was excellent, if a hard listen. It's definitely where I'd point anyone who listens to podcasts and is interested in learning about this topic.

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 53 points 1 day ago

If anyone here hasn't listened to it, the "The Game" series from TrueAnon is a harrowing tour through this industry and its origins. Brace went to one of these and the series gets pretty emotional.

[-] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago

Do not let WotC trick you into thinking you need to pay them 150 bucks to start a game.

One, sail the high seas if you really wanna play D&D 5th edition (or whatever new edition they come out with).

Secondly, consider other systems. Depending on what exactly you wanna get from D&D (solving problems in a fantasy setting, character customization, playing in a particular setting, character drama in a fantasy setting, battles with cool powers, a sense of progressing from a nobody to a hero, feeling like a hero from day 1, etc) there is probably a better system for that than 5e and the majority of them don't require more than 2, or often even just 1 book. Plus several that have 2 only charge for digital versions of the GM book.

15

Uh, spoilers I guess for TNG season 2 generally and TMoaM specifically.


We're watching TNG for the first time (not counting seeing random out of order episodes when my aunt was watching me decades ago) and so far season 2 is definitely better, but the dehumanization of Data has been driving me up a wall.

This fuckin doctor who isn't Beverly Crusher consistently treating him like a thing and even being smug about it as she learns that she's wrong was bad enough to start with

But now we have this asshole calling him "it" repeatedly and saying that he's Starfleet property, doing the "well if one of Data's best friends doesn't make a sincere argument that he's a nonperson, I'll just immediately declare that he's a nonperson" etc.

Just unreal "justice system" brain worms. Oh is the question of whether this individual, who clearly has feelings and desires, deserves to have literally any personal rights more fitting for "saints and philosophers" you dumb lawyer hog

And finally the smug science nerd space fascist right here.

This guy's insistence that in spite of not understanding Data's construction at all basically, he should be allowed to vivisect him and poke around in his brain was absurd. Like, once people start asking him any questions about his plans for the experiment he immediately makes it clear that he doesn't know shit and hasn't considered the dangers to Data at all. The moment during the trial when Picard demands that he distinguish the traits that Picard demands has and Data lacks that makes only Picard sentient and he whines that the question is "difficult" holy shit I was funing. He loses the court case obviously but frankly I am mad that (and I know that TNG isn't this show) nobody shot him in the head with a phaser.

1
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net to c/ttrpg@hexbear.net

Ran The Witch is Dead for my wife and SILs recently.

They played an Owl with Create Fire (Othello), a Crow with Make Book Read Itself Aloud (Cawthorn) and a Cat with (Tidy Clean and Mend).

If I'm honest, Create Fire was definitely an MVP.

Spoilers, session report, includes arson, a murder and some eye stuff

spoilerThey went to investigate the cult controlled village, which was centered around a wizard college full of old men in pointy hats and star covered clothes.

They made a beeline to the wizard tower, Sylvia tried to enter as a student did, got underfoot and he magically burned down a tapestry when startled. Othello eavesdropped through some open windows and learned that some pranksters got another student expelled by framing him for a prank and interrupted an old man's spell causing him to accidentally blast her out of the sky with a torrent of water. Cawthorn made a cork notice board read itself aloud and heard some of the available classes, the honor roll and a notice about the expulsion.

They then fled the tower and went to the market to listen to some human gossip and heard some guys talking about how Steven had killed his first target and had eyes on another. They had weird symbols stitched into their cloaks which tipped the familiars off to them being cultists and of course they decided these guys were probably connected to the witch murderer.

They followed them to a farmhouse where they got confirmation of this so they used Create Fire to burn it down. They followed the fleeing cultists to the inn/tavern and the birds went down an unlit chimney but got soot in their eyes and became tangled up during the fall. The crow hid in the soot when the patrons came to investigate and the owl but someone's finger off when they tried to grab him. The cat used the resulting commotion to sneak in the back when someone ran into the kitchen from outside and the the familiars met up near the main room to kitchen doorway while everyone was trying to help the fingerless guy. Sylvia followed the cultist upstairs and listened through the door as he talked to gasp Steven! Steven explained that his friends at the school got another student expelled and he'd be killing him as well soon. He dropped a bit of info that the student was the cobblers grandfather (all wizard students are bearded old men). Around this time Othello decided this tavern needed to go also and caught some oily kitchen rags on fire.

At this point Cawthorn flies back to the witch's cottage and rips the spellbook page out explaining witch resurrection. Othello and Sylvia lurk near the market and try to listen to conversations to find out what a cobbler is. Eventually they do make out that it's a shoe repairperson and so when Cawthorn gets back they all head to the nearby building with a shoe painted on the sign out front and find the disgraced wizard student there. He's in tears and arguing with his cobbler grandson and they get his attention by making the spellbook page read itself. He quickly surmised that they're familiars and that the witch has been murdered and they scratch crude diagrams in the dirt implying that he's next.

Steven arrives at this point and Garamulus the not-quite-a-wizard flees into the wheatfields. Steven makes chase and Sylvia repeatedly trips him by getting underfoot. The birds claw at his eyes and throat until in a moment when he's particularly distracted, Othello bites his trachea out and watches as Steven dies in owl-terror, but not before accidentally injuring his wing with Steven's dropped knife in an attempt to stab Steven with it. In the distance, Garamulus can still be heard screaming and running away through the wheat. As required for the resurrection ritual Cawthorn takes Steven's eyes.

Sylvia carries the grounded Othello back to the cottage on her back while Cawthorn flies overhead. They do the resurrection and their beloved witch wakes up and heals Othello's wounded wing.

Below are some pictures of character sheets, the village map and some notes I took during the session (most of them are the names the players came up with for the expelled wizard when they couldn't remember his actual name).

Overall we had a great time, good way to spend what would have been the time for our normal game when a few players were out of town.

Edit: also we used these little plastic ducks to track danger and also the location in the village our intrepid heroes were at.

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TheLepidopterists

joined 3 years ago