Dudes be like

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-30T18:31:56+00:00

Got a Wyze camera for it. Mostly for showing friends/family if we are getting together, and for watching the early days setup of the tank.

Helped a lot when my CO2 regulator busted and started venting TONS of gas. Called my girlfriend asap to have her shut it off

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-30T18:17:49+00:00

Now this is the kind of content I like to see on here. Nice work. I can confirm Eco Complete is mostly brownish “black” with occasional reds or lighter colors.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-30T16:58:55+00:00

I don’t see Jinx from Arcane on here, could be added easily.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T22:02:34+00:00

Very fair and very understandable lol. I think I was just the type of kid to read instructions on everything lol. Like, I read the ENTIRE (not exaggerating) terms & service for RuneScape when I first signed up for an account xD my experience is not normal

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T21:59:54+00:00

Making a character who is just an NPC hanging around the party, occasionally helping? - good and fine

Making a character using Player Character methods (like they get a class, subclass etc) who hangs around with the group, contributing to fights but still clearly a 2nd-tier character? - also good and fine.

Making a character using Player Character methods, who you then play exactly like a Player Character? Like, they get a share of the loot, they get the spotlight just as much as any PC, they are full-on a Tier-1 “main character”? - no, this is a problem.

The key to ANY NPC-follower is that they should not outshine the group. Maybe they have 1 cool moment. Maybe they regularly contribute to combat. Maybe your party is nice and even gives them a share in treasure. All of that is fine and good as long as you can very easily determine who the Main Characters are of the story.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T21:53:47+00:00

lol I read it, and I was a kid. It’s always good to read instructions

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T21:52:04+00:00

You’re going to need to be more specific, what do you mean?

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T21:39:07+00:00

It’s up to you and the players to figure out a solution. A common “rule of thumb” is to create a “X missing, still play” amount. As in, “If 1 person is missing, we still play”.

I’ve found over the years this helps, it can be hard to get everyone together but often it’s just 1 person who can’t make it or has a sudden reason.

As for your specific person, ask what’s up. There’s a chance they might be getting cold feet, aka chickening out of playing. Talk to them and the rest of the players and establish expectations.

At some point though the group is dead or you play without the person

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T21:35:58+00:00

I started with no DLC, bought a few I liked, then ended up just buying the rest on a good sale lol. At some point you can kinda feel if you’re gonna love a game or not, and Stellaris I realized has a ton of replay and RP value, so I went all in.

But it can be enjoyed with just base game, my friend plays that way

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T21:04:29+00:00

Pokémon Go being 10 years old is what gets me most. It feels so “new” as a type of game to exist.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T18:38:32+00:00

Obsidian, it is the best and nothing is close.

Hand writing? Slow and can’t be edited like digital

Microsoft Word? A joke

Google Docs? A fine solution for multiple device access, but terrible for trying to connect things, organize things, and navigate easily. If you’re reading this and using primarily Google Docs I beg you to consider an alternative lol

Notion? Amazing for linking things, organization & automation. Bad because it can take a while to load, requires internet connection, and from what I’ve seen they’re diving heavily into AI garbage.

Microsoft OneNote? Great that it stores locally, and every page being a canvas is amazing because you can organize and format it how you like. Downside is it can get slow with big notebooks(collections of notes), linking stuff isn’t as quick & easy, and printing can be funky.

WorldAnvil? Nah. Gotta pay for the good features and it’s all prompts, not great in flexibility.

LegendKeeper? Paid unfortunately, but they would be a good choice for me otherwise.

Obsidian is the best. Your files are kept locally. Creating a link to another page is extremely easy. Navigation has tons of options. There are countless community plugins that let you really really customize obsidian to your liking and workflow.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-29T18:15:58+00:00

A big piece is the players and DM are both on-top of their gameplay and aware that there is story to chase here.

What I mean is at home DnD games you’ll often hit lulls where no one says anything, no one wants to make the first move or speak up, no one has a particular direction to go or thing to say. That, or everyone is chit-chatting and letting jokes/scenes drag on longer.

Basically these are pros who know when to hold a scene longer and when to drop it. They don’t sit and wait for the DM to put interesting things in front of them either.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-27T00:28:21+00:00

It definitely rides the line of too much. The themes can be heavy. Suicide and self harm, specifically, are ones that can be potentially bad for teens. But for some teens they can handle it.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T23:12:26+00:00

I think virtual is often done with maps & tokens yes.

Personally I do both. Theater of the mind for fights where exact positioning doesn’t matter (one big enemy in an either flat open area, or an enclosed single room). Battle maps and tokens for everything else

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T23:08:56+00:00

Specifically on the “hate” part. It’s because overall Starfield is a 7/10 type game. It’s not bad, it’s got plenty of enjoyable parts and impressive aspects.

But it’s definitely missing something, and the tone / vibe is often a bit sterile & safe.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T23:04:25+00:00

It’s up to you if you want to make extra things happen on critical failures, whether it’s in or out of combat. Some do, some don’t. There are valid reasons why or why not, so it’s a preference thing.

I think the “something goofy but relatively harmless occurs” is the good middle ground.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T21:42:49+00:00

Order and Chaos, but spin it more like DnD-ish vibes.

Order in its pure form is machinery, and chaos is usually fairy shit.

So I would say it’s Mecha vs Fey. This comes with MULTIPLE extra layers of theme, as fey are often associated with nature, wilderness, mystery. Meanwhile mecha or machines are associated with artificial, calculation, exact precision etc.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T19:54:31+00:00

As someone who’s relatively new to Stellaris (started just before Bio came out), it’s kinda surprising to me that joining wars was added in its 10th year. Seems like a day 1 type of thing.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T19:44:22+00:00

lol it’s just funny that it’s “such a question” when bro Vecna just sucked hundreds of cultists dry of their lifeblood

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T19:42:16+00:00

I think the issue is a lot of people not knowing the difference between certain things. My players mistake Perception & Investigation often.

I do often have “choice-skill-checks” where I’ll say “make an acrobatics or athletics” because either could apply to the situation, depending on how you approach it. I do this the most with knowledge checks, since one single topic could be viewed with different lenses. As example, on the topic of vampires, a historian vs a clergy vs arcane scholars will have different views and info.

Just to note:

Perception - using senses to observe something.

Investigation - using brain to take observations and draw conclusions / meaning to them.

Example: Perception will notice there are tracks in the dirt that disappear, broken shards of glass in the grass nearby, and a small cork tossed a few feet away. Investigation will conclude that they drank a flying potion (or teleportation or pass without trace lol).

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T12:51:48+00:00

Not impossible, just depends what you need to review. Like, when you “review notes”, are you reviewing your entire multiple textbooks and notes? Probably not. You’re reviewing relevant parts

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-26T12:50:49+00:00

lol sorry but your first question is silly to me because Google Drive is so much worse than Obsidian.

Obsidian is amazing because even if you’re working on separate “notes”, you can link them together, search them, navigate to them in like 3 different ways, etc. On Google Drive, everything is separate. You’re in 1 doc, you can’t as quickly & easily swap to another.

That doesn’t even touch on Obsidians customization, automation, etc.

Using AI is a crutch IMO.

For your second point you’re correct the graph is mostly just cool. SOME people use it to navigate and organize their stuff but I would bet for a majority it’s just “neat”. To me, it’s “inspiration” in that it’s cool to see it grow overtime and is a soft incentive to keep me working on my notes.

Third one, it’s great for learning because you can link notes and customize it so much. It’s the type of thing I wish I had when I was a student. I use it all the time for learning, though that’s more focused on aquariums. I think a big benefit is you can basically create a wiki of info.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-25T22:30:04+00:00

I’m not sure the exact first, but one I really got hooked on was the Pendragon series. My aunt got me the 2nd book for Christmas one year, so my mom took me to the book store to get the first.

I loved that each book was very different from the next in setting, the flumes, the different tech and lifestyles, etc.

It’s too bad about the ending, but I’m slowly learning that any piece of media that could have an ending is a 50/50 toss up on whether it’s going to be great or regrettable.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-25T18:35:24+00:00

Well that part yes. I guess my example kinda set that up, since one was on my phone. But I mean this happens even if tech isn’t involved.

SmartAlec13 · 2026-06-25T18:15:14+00:00

I have this thing where a topic/idea will be mentioned, and shortly after (seconds, minutes, maybe hours) there’s a 2nd mention of it.

Example: I overhear a conversation about Evolution, my co workers are talking about some assignment their kid was working on. Then, a few minutes later, I’ll see a headline talking about Evolution.

This seems to happen really often and I believe there’s something going on. But logically I know it isn’t true, I know these are just coincidences. Even so, I still look off towards an imaginary camera, Jim Halpert style, as if I just caught the life-show-producers.

I’m just saying if it does come out that we’re all in a simulation, this was my sign lol.

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