I always wanted to get one of my lawyer friends to play a devil in a DND game I ran. Just have him write the worst contracts for the players that are more air tight than I can come up with.

I comment. Reminds me of how I’d end up playing medic in tfc/tf2- someone has to do it.

I don’t post original stuff often, though.

Did a one shot in high school where to cast any spell you had to sing a relevant line from an extant song.

I don’t remember everyone’s picks, but one player pulled out a pretty enthusiastic Beatles’ “got to admit it’s getting better, getting better all the time” for a heal.

Arcanum is good shit. I played that so many times when it came out.

• straight damage dealing mage
• beat with an ugly stick orc fighter
• gun jerk
• charismatic elf girl who got everyone else to fight for her, talked the final boss down.

I think maxing out time magic and backstab might have been the wackiest. Got like 90 action points and everyone else got 4. Stab stab stab stab.

Python.

• It’s pretty easy to get going.
• the debugger is very good. Being able to put a breakpoint and interactively fuss with it is so much better than print statements and crying
• you can (and should) use type annotations, but they are optional
• it’s on most machines already, but you don’t want to fuck with the system install of it. On Linux and Mac you can use pyenv or similar if the system came with a version you can’t use. (Don’t teach anyone python 2.)
• the standard library is very good.

You could also do JavaScript, as that’ll work on any modern browser. However, JavaScript is a deeply cursed language. It’s really bad at like every level.

I don’t recommend it unless your top priority is “it is definitely available everywhere” and “these are future web developers”.

120 feet seems pretty far. I guess you could shout, awkwardly.

I think there’s a difference between “these rituals and metaphors help me deal with the struggles of the world” and “yo I totally hexed him that’s why he got the flu”.

The former is pretty harmless. Some people meditate. Some people lift weights. Some people draw cards from a deck and reflect on how they feel about getting The Tower when they asked about their boyfriend. It’s just a lens to focus your thoughts.

I’ve tried both. I think part of it is friction from little behaviors that I expect to be like Google sheets but aren’t. I don’t even know what they are until I hit some keys and excel does the “wrong” (but probably reasonable) thing.

I feel like Google sheets is a better experience than Excel, at least for my personal usage. I’m not enterprise though, and not trying to run it like a database or anything crazy.

It can get pretty crowded in some places at some times. Major transit hubs like Penn station, herald square, times square, all get pretty dense.

I’ve been working from home so I don’t need to go to the busier parts at often.

Do I just get one shot or can I keep trying until I get it right?

Basically anything that reduces Republican power in the US is probably a win overall.

There might be meetups near you doing games. There’s one here in NYC that’s very friendly I’ve been to.

I think the “they think they’re a hero but they’re just level 1” trope goes in the same bucket as “let’s make characters based on ourselves!”. Everyone comes up with it but it’s rarely as good as imagined.

This has negative appeal for me. I don’t want to buy slop in games. I don’t even want to use discord. It’s the children who are out of touch.

Now excuse me, I have to go yell at some clouds.

Yep. Feel like we just had some posts about this. People who write that kind of backstory should just write a book. It’s especially bad in games like D&D where you’re starting out as a level 1 nobody. Some games, even some games of D&D, start at higher power levels, so the story is at least mechanically plausible.

I assumed they meant in the “build vs maintain” sense. Builders add to the conversation by telling their own stories. Maintainers instead focus more on “wow what was that like for you?”

https://haileymagee.substack.com/p/these-three-communication-differences

But that’s a guess.

Mostly specific to online dating, but: People who dead end a conversation. Like, their profile says they love the author NK Jemisen. I write, “oh, I love her books! Did you read The City We Became? It’s a total love letter to the city”.

They response with, “no”.

Friend, that’s not an effective way to play this game.

If you are not interested in dating, just unmatch. Maybe you swiped by accident or when drunk. I don’t care. I’m not going to remember.

If you are interested in dating, you should put some effort in. If you don’t throw the ball back, you look like you’re either uninterested or incapable. I don’t want to date someone who’s not interested, nor someone who can’t carry a conversation.

You might be thinking, “Well they asked a yes/no question and I answered as such”. Technically true, but not productive. What do you expect them to do? Ask another first-message-tier question? This isn’t supposed to be a one sided interview like you’re applying for a job. You’re supposed to be a full participant. Ask a question (preferably related to the topic). Or, if you’re not interested anymore, unmatch.

You might also be thinking, “well I don’t have time for a whole conversation right now”. Ok. Do you ever have time? If not, delete the app because you don’t have time to date. If you do, answer when you have time. These things are asynchronous. If you’re afraid you’re going to forget, I don’t know man write yourself a note. That’s a life management problem outside the scope of dating advice.

This whole thing peeves me because it feels like people want “banter” and witty conversation, but they don’t want to do their half of it. They want to be passively entertained, but this isn’t some podcast you can listen to when dozing. These are (hopefully) real people looking for connection.

My therapist told me that people have different styles of communication and that’s okay. Maybe some people would be happy where their conversations are no deeper than “Did you hear the new slothrust album?” “No”. Doesn’t seem like an effective way to get to know someone to me.

I like a short backstory that provides hooks. “Disgraced son of a noble family that became a warlock when everyone expected a sorcerer” is fine.

12 pages where all the cool stuff already happened is bad. Write that as a book.

This is very heteronormative and gender binaried. Queer people exist and date.

That said, anecdotally, from the handful of women I’ve talked about this with: many don’t like making first moves on these apps.

Using dating apps is a skill, and if you haven’t been practicing sending messages you’re going to be bad at it. The vast majority of first messages I got from women were “hey”. Trash tier. Probably because they just haven’t done it very often.

The problem is most people are lazy and don’t understand anything. They just use the app they know, even if it sucks.

If you got it to be popular it could work , but I don’t see how you could.