@pteryx@dice.camp

Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@pluralistic@mamot.fr I'd go further than that: to Musk and people like him, the very *existence* of single moms who need food stamps is wasteful, so """of course""" the government doing *anything* to make sure she doesn't keel over dead is "government fraud and waste". It's downstream of the whole "useless eater" myth.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@Lana@beige.party @roknrol@beige.party Heck, *the writers of Wrath of Khan* forgot. It's a known continuity error that Khan's original episode was in season 1, yet Khan reacted to Chekhov with "I never forget a face".

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Blender@mastodon.social Are you stupid? Selling out is selling out no matter how you phrase it.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@deinol@dice.camp (A compromise rule that pops to mind: Whenever the init count loops back around, everyone adds 2d4-5, no minimum, to their existing initiative count, injecting a measured amount of randomness to an otherwise static count. No, your Dex doesn't figure in; that was figured in at the start of combat with the original init rolls.)

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@SubplotKudzu@dice.camp @deinol@dice.camp The one I saw was plain white. Not sure if utilitarian or supremacist.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@deinol@dice.camp Oh, and one other detail worth pointing out: In the TSR era, initiative was rerolled at the top of each round. Arguably the bigger change 3.0 made, aside from making individual initiative the only option, was making your initiative count last through the entire fight, adding predictability on the micro level. This was likely to help support things like delaying and readying actions, so they'd actually have tradeoffs.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@timberwraith@mastodon.social Relatedly, imagine if bullying were treated as a real problem instead of a terrible inconvenience the victims were imposing on the faculty. Maybe if it were, we wouldn't have nearly as many adult bullies.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@deinol@dice.camp As far as expanding options, hard to beat the Traveler's Any-Tool: https://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Traveler%27s%20Any-Tool There's potential beyond the obvious in the Campfire Bead, too: https://aonprd.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Campfire%20Bead As long as your group can actually agree how it works, the Talisman of the Disk from 3.5's Magic Item Compendium has potential too. (My DM's ruling is one disk at a time, up to 3 hours runtime per day in 10-minute increments.)

aonprd.com

Traveler's Any-Tool - Wondrous Items - Magic Equipment - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder RPG Database

This implement at first seems to be nothing but a 12-inch iron bar lined with small plates and spikes. It can be folded, twisted, hinged, and bent, to form almost any known tool. Hammers, shovels, even a block and tackle (without rope) are possible. It can duplicate any tool the wielder can clearly visualize that contains only limited moving parts, such as a pair of scissors, but not a handloom. It cannot be used to replace missing or broken parts of machines or vehicles unless a mundane

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@beyondmachines1 I mean, there are reasons that when I got myself a new laptop a couple of years back, I got one with *physical switches for the mic and camera*.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@deinol@dice.camp In BECMI, side initiative was the default but individual initiative was presented as an optional rule.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@deinol@dice.camp I've seen one once, one someone had the sense to paint at least. I'd almost say it's surprising how large they are, but that's kind of a general trend...

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

You know you've got an all-star group when, in the face of a problem whose IC vs. OOC status is "it's complicated", you can and do all put in a serious effort to actually address it.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Blender@mastodon.social Why have you sold out?

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@randywalters@sunny.garden "I claim this, in the name of Lola!"

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@pluralistic One thing that sticks out about the side of the Fediverse I'm on is that there are a highly disproportionate number of people responding to the collapse of the social contract not with "let's elect fascists!", but with "let's build anarchy!" Also a pretty extreme response, but at least a rational one by comparison.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@beecycling Then pay us twice as much for half the hours, you assholes. (That wouldn't be enough to solve the problem, as this list is demanding essentially three full work weeks of us every week, but it would make it viable to even *try* half of it...) ...Also, I belatedly notice that this list doesn't even include maintaining one's house, hygiene, grocery shopping...

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@invadersil As if LLMs didn't resemble scammers pretending to be psychics enough...

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@tokensane @TarkabarkaHolgy An old friend of my mother's also does the sheep part!

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@kyonshi @mdhughes Oh? Abusing job interviews that way definitely sounds like a thing to share more info about...

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland Really, in the grander scheme of things, it took me *decades* to actually wind up with a good group. In the meantime, I accumulated enough horror stories to increase the length of a "warning signs" thread by almost a quarter single-handedly. It's a wonder that I didn't give up *long* before getting where I am now.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland I *am* playing in a good online group now, though getting there involved me meeting the GM via us both ending up hated by a *very unhealthy* freeform RP community, my roommate following me as always, and someone new to me responding to the GM's proposal, not being a *perfect* fit, but a combination of her adapting slightly and the rest of us coming to respect her as a creator in general smoothed things over enough.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@JoeSondow@dice.camp As a kid: Ms. Pac-Man. Currently: Been playing Word Play a lot since getting that.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@kenney@mastodon.gamedev.place That is one heck of a workspace you have there!

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Joy_intl@mastodon.online @futurebird@sauropods.win I can second that cinnamon is an effective ant deterrent... and the exterminator who visited us last time commented on our use of it, sounding impressed!

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Annacats@mastodon.social Gives off an impression of being fascinated with the surroundings.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@GamingWithEars Discord is also not:

a wiki
a repository
a substitute for a FAQ
safe from prying corporate eyes
equivalent to self-hosting a thing, "server" language notwithstanding

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@TarkabarkaHolgy "AI"-busting has never come up for me, but I suspect if someone tried to use it to "look up" rules from D&D 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder 1st Edition, or other games from that particular family rooted in the aughts that had its name stolen, I'd be the first to be asking, "Is that 'AI', or somebody's homebrew or third-party product that wasn't rooted in 3.x's meta-rules?"

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Annacats I suspect it would take practice for someone used to standard cat expressions to learn how to read folds.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@RogerBW @Printdevil @Taskerland And, to continue playing devil's advocate, that's a hard concept for a lot of people to wrap their heads around, my father included. "Obviously" a game has a specific goal and is self-contained and local. (He didn't understand why you couldn't just pause an MMO either.)

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland To be fair, that *is* the most obviously "game-like" part, and the stuff that's been iterated on most effectively.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Taskerland Reading your blog post further, I also miss the "TTRPG as toolkit" concept. It has a lot to do with why 3.x is the D&D edition for me; it's arguably the best-designed to *be* a toolkit due to its internal consistency. Meanwhile, 4e went "oh no no this is a *combat* game!", people who had played any other version recoiled, and 5.x went "ok ok I guess we have to make noise like it's a social and exploration game too *but it's still really a combat game!*"

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @Taskerland I *have* actually tried to get a local GM via one of those various gaming-specific meetup sites, but... well, suffice it to say that this is the GM who decided that my asking for a mystery game with small, local stakes instead of cosmic horror meant that I didn't appreciate the vastness and mystery of the universe and reject me on those grounds, in such a way as to make a third party say that she sounded like an actual Mythos cultist.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @Taskerland I suspect there was more hope that it would be possible in the time of the Forge thanks to the possibility of meeting new people who share your interests online. Though the way platforms evolved afterward, well... made it harder again.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@synlogic4242@social.vivaldi.net @deinol@dice.camp Heck, one thing I want to hear from anyone marketing a universal system is why *your* universal system over the others out there. All too often, people who make universal systems seem to not realize that this isn't a unique, original idea of theirs. Also of note: very few universal systems actually have properly open licenses.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Axomamma @briankrebs Presumably, illiterate white women with their vocal cords cut who wear nothing but underwear, a wedding ring, and a ball and chain...

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@kenney@mastodon.gamedev.place The lack of solar panels in this screenshot makes me wonder if some will be sprinkled around. One space-saving form of solar panel deployment I've heard of that's especially appropriate to a city is using solar panels as shades/roofs over a parking lot.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Taskerland Honestly, my experiences alone would have been enough to make me conclude that a good group with compatible goals is necessary to a good game. I know *exactly* what it's like when you have one player who wants to wander aimlessly like it's an Elder Scrolls game, one player who wants to be railroaded through a tight story where he gets to make up dialogue and roll dice, and one player who actually wanted the "this is the mission, how do you pursue it?" gameplay I was offering.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@lyrial @tj Ooh, they're interactable!

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@jaykuo@universeodon.com Couldn't really fit a fuller description of the chart in only one post; I'd rather have the second sentence of my alt text be: The trend in dates is shown to have varied sooner and later in waves before, but has trended sooner steadily since the mid-1800s to exceed any previous peak, in defiance of the old pattern.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@beyondmachines1 There is! Though sadly by now, Framework has gone and stepped in it, so...

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @RogerBW @Taskerland I'd be interested in reading about this history, because it's new to me.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@jaykuo@universeodon.com Alt text: A social media post of a normalized line chart stretching from the years 812 to 2026, showing trends in the blooming dates of cherry blossoms in Kyoto, Japan. The dates have trended sooner steadily since the mid-1800s. The poster comments, "This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset."

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@uncanny_kate@dice.camp I don't think this is an Internet thing so much as a living-through-a-time-of-crisis thing.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @Taskerland Honestly, I do like some variety, so that would probably work pretty well for me. :)

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @Taskerland It's not that I *dis*like big stakes, but it does feel like they're a bit too easy to come by and hard to do in small doses. Really, my bigger problem with cosmic horror is less being too large-scale, and more the fact that the entire point is incomprehensibility and human(oid) irrelevance, when if I'm investigating things I want to come out understanding stuff and showing how cool it is to be sapient.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @Taskerland I do have to wonder if there's some of that out this way but it just involves alcohol and therefore does not involve me. Seriously, this is the kind of place where you can easily find beer and pretzels games with literal beer and pretzels, if you know where to look and can actually concentrate when there's distant chatter in all directions.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@everbern@dice.camp And that it why I find that story to be deeply toxic.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @Taskerland I'm also the sort of person who, as opposed to the OSR "magic should be rare and mysterious and unpredictable and casting spells should be a really bad idea!" sorts, instead *loves* magic-as-alternate-universe-science. I love the "what if a world *actually worked like* D&D 3.5?" aspect of Eberron.

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Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary @pteryx@dice.camp

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Printdevil @Taskerland It didn't help that they also all seem to think that the best way to meet new players is through organized play. Or that I lost most of them when I said that would be like trying to recruit for a pool league based on people's pinball performance. (Frankly, if one can't follow a metaphor like that, we are getting *nowhere* in our interactions anyway.)

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