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squishymage42

@squishymage42@dice.camp

Pathfinder GM and Public Defender. Theatre fan. He/Him

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

clarkvalentine , to random
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I was rooting for Edmonton, so boo.

squishymage42 ,
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@clarkvalentine "It was rigged! Has anyone checked the score cards for bamboo fibers? No? Has anyone related to any of the refs ever been in the same room as anyone related to the players?"

Tim_Eagon , to random
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Apollo 13 is one of those films that, despite having seen it more than a dozen times and being familiar with the actual history behind it, gets me every freakin' time. I don't think Ron Howard has done or will do better.

squishymage42 ,
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@Tim_Eagon One of my absolute favorite movie experiences was when my grandpa took me to an Imax rerelease of Apollo 13.

It's there with Princess Bride and Armageddon and Spaceballs for "I may have seen this enough times to quote large portions, but I will still stop and watch if I see it on"

squishymage42 , to random
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So, despite being a fan of every book I've ever read, I'd managed to miss out on reading any Guards books until now.

Just finished my first readthrough of Guards! Guards! and typed up some of what I thought about it: https://alexanderkeane.com/2024/05/28/guards-guards-by-terry-pratchett/

squishymage42 OP ,
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@SJohnRoss Sometimes the adaptations that take liberties with the window dressing but really get the core and tweak it for their medium and time are the best ones.

I'd argue that the short-lived Dresden Files did this same thing. Sure Murphy was tall and brunette, sure the books never mention a hockey stick staff. Sure Blue Beetle has beetle in the name, but the show still got at the heart of mystery of the week stories that underscored early Dresden Files.

LeviKornelsen , to random
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    squishymage42 ,
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    @LeviKornelsen I had to keep the Bug from giving her own winter coat to her doll whose coat she'd forgotten at home.

    It was 20 and snowing.

    thoughtpunks , to random
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    Tell me all about your ! What cool and have you discovered or played for the first time recently? What do you like about them? What drew you to them?

    squishymage42 ,
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    @thoughtpunks I just picked up a Magical Kitties Save The Day box set to play with a little one today.

    Urban fantasy setting for me, adorable kitties for her. Best of both worlds.

    vampiress , to random
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    I was Yesterday years old when I learned that a Fire Truck and a Fire Engine are different things.

    (Fire Engine is a small and zoomy boi designed to keep a lid on a fire until the Fire Truck arrives, which is lorge and has more supplies / ladders / etc.)

    squishymage42 ,
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    @vampiress I only know this from watching Chicago Fire where they have a Truck Company and an Engine Company both.

    Tim_Eagon , to random
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    I sat down and watched "Ghost Basket" and "The Sign" with my kids this afternoon. They liked it but were doing other things at the same time, while I, on the other hand, was watching with rapt attention. I'm sure now more than ever that is an adult show that appeals to kids instead of vice versa!

    squishymage42 ,
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    @Tim_Eagon I had to break out tissues for my daughter when we watched The Sign on Sunday.

    I sent a message to a friend of mine who also watches Bluey right when we finished Ghost Basket the day before when they did the reveal with the sign.

    It is unfair how tight they can write that show and the gut punches they can pack into 7 minutes.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    squishymage42 ,
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    @LeviKornelsen My little one also occasionally regrets starting Daddy Science Infodump time.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    [Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    squishymage42 ,
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    @BrianBinh @LeviKornelsen @DartzIRL Or President Cena, no one will mess with us if they can't see us.

    image/gif

    Yora , to random
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    Damn, I was suddenly reminded that the Tech-Bro Hypes about how a new technology would revolutionize daily life and society didn't start with the dotcom bubble in the late 90s.
    It goes back at leas to the early 80s.

    Robot servants at home were the future, man!

    And this whole current AI fad looks indistinguishable to me.

    #tech #techhype #techbros #robots

    squishymage42 ,
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    @LeviKornelsen @Yora I want the retro WallE.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    Here's an assertion that should be fairly agreeable with a second of consideration:

    In a trad game, when it comes to how much gravity the game mechanics exert on play, the pull of the character sheet and the things the player imagines based on it is notably stronger than the great majority of of other rules. It's the dwarf star of rules gravity.

    image/jpeg

    squishymage42 ,
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    @pteryx @thoughtpunks @LeviKornelsen @Silverlion Part may just be that "here are some clues, now go do something with them" might just not be in the players' specific skill set. Part may be that the players aren't genre savvy in this genre and may need slightly heavier handed clues (remembering that we as GM know the truth so our clues can seem extremely obvious to us).

    Maybe introduce some sort of NPC prompting to have a discussion of the clues and ask about thoughts (at least to start)

    squishymage42 ,
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    @thoughtpunks @pteryx @LeviKornelsen @Silverlion This reminds me of the session XP questions from Monster of the Week. Not exactly the same, but "did we solve a mystery, did we learn something about one of the hunters, did we save someone"

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    Look:

    Joe Biden is a capitalist imperialist in a nation that's deeply capitalist and imperialist, and he's willing to tolerate the kind of horrible shit that comes with empire.

    On the other hand, Trump is a populist, kleptocratic fascist who openly wants to be a dictator and would be happy to not only tolerate but actively perpetrate such horrors on his own people, and put people into place to do so.

    Crappy at 10 and crappy at 1000 are both crappy, but holy shit there's a difference.

    squishymage42 ,
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    @LeviKornelsen Also, as has been seen with some of Biden's appointments like Khan, he merely tolerates terrible and can be shoved in a better direction.

    squishymage42 , to random
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    Continuing on a theme of discussing random monsters I like from the Pathfinder Bestiaries: The Faerie Dragon.

    They are awesome, and a great example of how a stat block can inspire non-combat encounters. Because faerie dragons are way better at escaping than they are at fighting.

    https://alexanderkeane.com/2024/03/16/squishy-mages-field-guide-faerie-dragon/

    #TTRPG #Pathfinder #SquishyMageFieldGuide

    squishymage42 OP ,
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    @Tim_Eagon My first experience with them was getting to choose one as my familiar in Baldurs Gate 2, when college friends and I played it right about the same time I was playing my first Wizard in a D&D 3.5 game.

    squishymage42 , to random
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    Started laughing while listening to the latest @slyflourish video.

    It's on using paper character sheets to avoid being beholden to what big corporations decide to do to the digital tools we use.

    I literally just printed a bunch of and character sheets to play with.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QsTgmcdbO8

    squishymage42 , to random
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    I'm not even done with my current campaign yet, but the campaign Notion I'm building using the template from @slyflourish has like 20 NPCs, three different villains with colliding motivations, an idea for a first session dungeon.

    The notion template makes just dumping prep into a database to use later so easy.

    squishymage42 OP ,
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    @slyflourish I, like you mentioned, made extensive use of the 4e Web Character Builder between 2012 and 2014, but now that I'm wanting to check it out again, even the official 4e character sheets have been difficult to track down.

    squishymage42 , to random
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    For all that Hasbro and WotC were completely focused on digital tools as the primary focus in the days, the books have far better layout than

    Looking at the Eberron books, information like the Calendar of Khorvaire gets its own sidebar in the 4e book while it's buried in body text in the 5e book.

    I also really like the inclusion of a relevant statblock tied to the lore it goes with rather than all of them being shoved to the back of the book.

    squishymage42 , to random
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    Started watching Ginny Di's video on while and had quite a few "oh... I do that..." moments.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEYtpUHCGq8&list=WL&index=56

    squishymage42 , to random
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    Watching #ChicagoPD

    There was just a line "MDMA laced with meth."

    The MA in MDMA is Methamphetamine. How do you lace meth with more meth?

    I feel like if you write an acronym into dialog, you should look it up to avoid stuff like this.

    #Writing

    squishymage42 OP ,
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    @SJohnRoss Today I Learned.

    (I guess that derivative part does a lot of lifting in criminal statutes)

    squishymage42 , to random
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    I've been re-reading Fourth Edition D&D books, because I've been flipping through every book I have to cross reference lore and get ideas for the campaign I'm writing up.

    Fourth Edition listed tactics with every monster. Perhaps not so thoughtfully detailed as The Monsters Know What They're Doing by @KeithAmmann but still, suggested tactics are RIGHT THERE in the monster listing.

    5e and Pathfinder 2e could really learn something from the system they shun.

    squishymage42 , to random
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    Last Saturday, my group played a session from the Gatewalkers adventure path.

    I've been inspired by the play reports from @loottheroom to do my own play reports to try and understand why I make decisions in game that I do and do better next time.

    I've uploaded that play report to my blog: https://alexanderkeane.com/2024/02/28/session-stories-2-24-24-pathfinder-session/

    We had fun, but there were definitely moments I think I could have handled beter.

    KeithAmmann , to random
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    Question for #Pathfinder players, especially those who also play #DnD:

    In your experience, do you find that a bonus or penalty of ±2 is enough to make a meaningful difference in the likely outcome of a saving throw in PF2?

    squishymage42 ,
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    @KeithAmmann 10% increase or decrease to not just chance of success, but also critical success. Definitely something that gets felt.

    squishymage42 , to random
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    https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/

    Fun reading about how even @pluralistic falls for phishing sometimes thanks to all the enshittification of getting in touch with necessary services making us less likely to catch the red flags.

    I've clicked on a few of my office's "phishing tests" which at least gets me more "watch this social engineering info video" even if the videos are so bad that you can't help zone out.

    KeithAmmann , to random
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    The second-oldest outstanding project in the list of projects I've backed just arrived today.

    Estimated delivery was September 2021.

    I'm still waiting on the one that was supposed to be done in January 2020.

    squishymage42 ,
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    @KeithAmmann I just wish there were as much information for creators about how to make reasonable time table estimates as there is on how to make a flashy marketing video.

    All mine but one have delivered, 99% blow completely past the original time estimate (which I now mentally tack a year onto plus 6 months for substantial stretch goals)

    squishymage42 , to random
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    I'm trying to find my way back to a blog post I seem to have misplaced. It featured a run-through of the hacking systems for various games describing the skills available, how the systems work, and timing themselves playing through it.

    I was really interested in finishing it but seem to have accidentally cleared it from my RSS feed and can't remember which blog it came from.

    Google also hasn't helped because "cyberpunk" and "hacking" are way too common

    squishymage42 OP ,
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    https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-great-tabletop-hackathon-hacking-the-gibson-in-multiple-cyberpunk-systems.914639/

    By asking for external help, the missing tab has miraculously reappeared, problem was I was checking my RSS feed rather than tabs because it was an RPG.net forum thread.

    Sharing because the work put into this is great. They really break down the hacking systems, the complexity, and how they play.

    Tim_Eagon , (edited ) to random
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    Just curious, have you purchased anything from creators who've posted about their creations here on the ? Please boost for more visibility.

    squishymage42 ,
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    @Tim_Eagon Yeah, my move from Twitter to Mastodon was right about the same time I learned of most of the indie creators I follow on Itch.

    And even if I decide that the specific product I'm looking at isn't for me, if they caught my attention enough to click through and read more, I follow them there to see the next thing.

    squishymage42 ,
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    @Tim_Eagon TTRPG Twitter basically just pointed me at a bunch of people doing 5e stuff. Boosts from TTRPG Mastodon point me at cool weird stuff.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    "By opening this bottle of fairie wine, you agree that a single drop of every future bottle of wine you open will be taken from you, to be given to a tiny imp that will sit on your shoulder, observe you in the name of the faerie courts (and our allies), and urge you toward further faerie dealings that it believes you will enjoy."

    ...How I feel about tracking bits on my phone.

    squishymage42 ,
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    @BrianBinh @LeviKornelsen Only as the internet ad duopoly would have you believe.

    There is a third option of fae imps residing in the places we visit urging us toward dealings related to their place of residence.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    Having now attended a children's birthday party as a parent: Yup, I'm really useless at interacting with regular people.

    squishymage42 ,
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    @LeviKornelsen Between RPGs, sports that are not US Mainstream, and criminal law, none of my interests really make small talk easy with a random person at a party. I definitely hear you there.

    LeviKornelsen , to random
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    For people who like eBooks, just a reminder (because I forgot about them myself) that Standard Ebooks exists, making prettier (but still free) versions of Gutenburg stuff.

    And because I know my people, let me just link directly to the fantasy stuff:

    https://standardebooks.org/ebooks?tags%5B%5D=fantasy&query=&sort=newest&view=grid&per-page=12

    squishymage42 ,
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    @LeviKornelsen And I get why Gutenberg targets plaintext as its main platform, but yeah the prettiness from Standard is great.

    JasonT , to random
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    I love looking up words on etymonline.com because about half the time they’re like, “honestly, nobody has any idea where this weird thing came from,” but they still sound very academic about it

    squishymage42 ,
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    @LeviKornelsen @JasonT My personal favorite is backformation where we had a word that had bits that sounded derived and so we clipped those bits off a word to make a new word.

    Like the word edit. Which was derived from editor rather than the other way around.

    KeithAmmann , to random
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    The research is conclusive, but school districts across the country refuse to move high school start times later, because … well, basically, because this is America and they don't wanna.

    We hate our kids and want them to suffer. If school lunches weren't proof enough, high school start times are. https://newsie.social/@TheConversationUS/111739211688876556

    squishymage42 ,
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    @KeithAmmann That's because kids are property not people. Later start times would be inconvenient for the actual people who have jobs and need to work.

    (I wish the US didn't clearly believe this with all the new laws around kids and "parents' rights")

    squishymage42 ,
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    @sgtnasty I'm currently running one Pathfinder 2 game, prepping for a game of Protect the Child (a forged in the Dark playtest by @mintrabbit ), and writing up for play my own Fate Condensed setting.

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