UlyssesT [he/him]

The much directly scarier version is the “Delet This” wizard.

It’s unfortunate, because I do find D&D creatively dry and stale especially now. WOTC focuses heavily on its “original monsters do not steal” and tends to rehash and rehash them for settings and stories a lot.

Pathfinder is close enough to D&D that I’ve had success converting people to it because fuck Wizards of the Coast and their recurring attempts to gouge everyone with mandatory subscriptions and predatory licensing rackets.

Also Pathfinder’s setting is downright more creative because they don’t keep digging deeper into that boring old “what if underdark and illithids… AGAIN?” well.

They say “history is bunk” because they don’t want to look into history first. That’d take time out of their very busy day of coming up with “new” ideas.

In my experience, a bazinga device like this, if it’s anywhere that’s not directly guarded at all times, will be broken in, oh, a month or less.

Apparently the origins of standardized testing are surprisingly dark even for what it is: in the leadup to WW1, they wanted a way to separate the brains in the bunkers from the bodies in the trench.

Later versions of standarized testing, the ones conjured up by undead creatures like Bill “The Good One” Gates, were intended to be failed as a justification for privatizing more schools and selling more standardized testing.

something original

OH ITS ORIGINAL FOR TECHBROS TO SELL MORE SURVEILLANCE

I haven’t owned a TV since they became “smart.” I hated the idea then and I hate it now.

Another Torment Nexus that is already well underway.

I’m done with D&D, probably forever. All the greedy fucked up monetization stunts attempted during 4th Edition are back with “One” and it’s clear the company will keep pushing that envelope and half sliding it back until they get what they want and then keep going.

I’m going with Pathfinder now and not looking back anymore.

There’s this constant tension with D&D where it wants to be medieval and it wants to have easily-reproducible magic. Follow the magic through to its logical conclusion and you get essentially modern technology with a mystical/medieval aesthetic, ignore it and you get big blatant plot holes.

For decades, Forgotten Realms tried really had to be this “peasants have their minds blown if they see even a level one Magic-User spell being cast; this is a grounded and gritty setting sort of” pretense in the official materials, but then there’s basically a magocracy running most cities (even the fucking Luskan pirates and other “savage frontier” big mean guys!) and maps full of “oh a web spell is on this window at all times” sorts of signs that maybe those peasants should be a lot more familiar with the very special very rare spellcasters that rule over them and make all the important decisions.

This is my long standing hot take and point of contention with rules as written in conventional D&D fantasy rule sets: death, if the rules of the game were actually applied to the setting, is less about finality (except for the lifespan limitation contrivance) and more about health insurance or lack thereof. People who die that have enough money should by all means have family that pay for raises (or resurrections when the body isn’t available) as a matter of course and the material consequences of that would be that premature death from violence, illness, or accident would be mostly a poor people thing. Funerals would be awkward in setting: “sorry you can’t afford a rez. The divines bless the departed I guess, lol.”

I loved that movie, so like a good D&D campaign, of course it’s up in the air when it’s happening again.

A sneaky DM trick that can do a little better when reeling like that is “HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER” where the pushover battle has a slightly more difficult wave of reinforcements afterward, and maybe one more after that with some extra treasure incentive for it to be seen as a challenge rather than a punishment.

If the “not really tragic backstory” person put some connections into the setting I can see lots of potential for a relatable character. If the city’s in danger and that’s where their family is, that’s a freebie. If there’s someone in their family they don’t like that’s in danger, even some room for comedy.

In my experience the “smirking in a dark corner of the tavern and has no living relatives or friends” characters don’t really learn or change much on average; it’s often a default setting that allows for murderhobo antics, or so the player believes.

One of my favorite player backstories was a well-to-do guy having a midlife crisis and going on adventures while still writing home sometimes to assure The Wife that he’s just on a business trip.

virtue-signaling

Greedy and hostile practices are cool and good as long as they’re not pretending to be nice!

The OP, among others, will keep criticizing it. They consider it to be shady and with dubious claims to privacy that are subject to the whims of the owners of the browser franchise, doing shady things with user data against users’ consent. Deal with it and stop telling people what they should and shouldn’t criticize.