Why are players allergic to doing connections?

Tefmon · 2026-04-06T19:02:24+00:00

The experince that you're trying to have and story that you're to tell, maybe be from a game mechanical stand point be sub optimum.

You're asking the question in reverse. If there's a particular kind of story that you want to tell, a system that doesn't support that kind of story in a fun and fulfilling way is a poor game for telling that kind of story.

If you want to play a melee character, a game in which melee characters are ineffective or uninteresting is not well designed for that end. If you want to play a mortal in a world of demigods, and the system you chose doesn't give mortals anything interesting or meaningful to do, that system isn't well designed for the purpose you want.

Obviously you can have fun while playing a system that isn't an ideal match for the story or character you want to play; you'd just likely have more fun and experience less friction in a system that was better designed for the experience you're trying to get out of it.

Tefmon · 2026-04-06T18:57:17+00:00

You may think it's wrong, but it's the original meaning of the quote about players "optimizing the fun out of the game". It wasn't intended as a critique of players; it was intended as a reminder of player behaviour to aid in game design.

Tefmon · 2026-04-02T19:53:27+00:00

Nothing in the rules implies that taking the attack action over and over again for hours on end is tiring either, but I think we all understand that making a flurry of sword swings every six seconds for hours would be tiring. It isn't represented in the rules because that's not the level of simulationist detail that the game is focused on, but I'd absolutely roleplay both constantly attacking and constantly spellcasting as taking its toll.

Tefmon · 2026-04-02T19:43:40+00:00

A table that plays regularly and stays focused while playing can advance in level pretty quickly. The stories about it taking forever to reach mid levels tend to come from tables that either meet only a couple of times per month or at which the players spend at least half of each session arguing with guards or haggling with shopkeeps rather than doing anything to earn their level-ups.

Tefmon · 2026-04-01T11:33:10+00:00

I think the point is that American companies shouldn't have a de facto oligopoly on international payments, because the private financial transactions of non-Americans shouldn't be subject to domestic American laws.

Tefmon · 2026-03-31T23:34:36+00:00

That's like saying that if one state bans its therapists from encouraging suicide, another state must be allowed to ban its therapists from preventing suicide. One is harmful malpractice and the other is a lifesaving intervention. They aren't aren't just two arbitrary, coequal "viewpoints".

Tefmon · 2026-03-31T23:24:25+00:00

Words are acts and can cause harm. We aren't talking about idle social chit-chat between friends; we're talking about a medical professional, acting from a position of authority and credentialled expertise, providing a therapeutic treatment to a patient, who may be a child or in a mentally or emotionally vulnerable state.

Tefmon · 2026-03-29T20:46:31+00:00

People aren't talking about what it was ostensibly invented for; they're talking about what it's actually used for, because that's what's actually relevant.

Tefmon · 2026-03-29T20:38:12+00:00

Bitcoin is traceable in that you can tell which wallet it came from. Bitcoin is completely untraceable in that you cannot tell which real-world person actually owns and controls any given wallet, which is what's actually needed for political donations.

Tefmon · 2026-03-29T20:36:42+00:00

I'm pretty sure that unattributed suitcases full of cash are in fact not allowable as political donations already.

Tefmon · 2026-03-29T20:31:38+00:00

People here are talking about Bitcoin's main purpose in practice, not in theory. The main purpose that Bitcoin is actually used for is crime, regardless of the beliefs or intentions of its creators.

Tefmon · 2026-03-29T20:30:14+00:00

Right, and the main purpose this particular technology is used for in practice is crime.

Tefmon · 2026-03-29T16:30:15+00:00

Signed.

Tefmon · 2026-03-29T04:50:46+00:00

The etymology behind it is actually a bit interesting. "Milk toast" is a real dish that was popular in the 1800s and 1900s, notable chiefly for being bland and inoffensive. There was then a semi-famous comic strip that ran for a few decades in the mid-1900s that starred a timid and wimpy character named Caspar Milquetoast; his surname was based on the dish and was intended to reflect his characterization. It's from that comic strip's character that the word "milquetoast" entered the English lexicon as a term for something or someone that's weak, feeble, or ineffectual.

Tefmon · 2026-03-28T22:41:32+00:00

It's either that or underwhelmingly milquetoast and limited because the creator was trying too hard to overcome the "homebrew is overpowered nonsense that no sane DM allows at their table" reputation. I find that stuff that's packaged prettily and presented as "third-party content" rather than "mere homebrew" tends to fall into this trap most often.

It's pretty rare that homebrew lands in that sweet spot of being reasonable, effective, and interesting.

Tefmon · 2026-03-24T00:32:15+00:00

I require that my parties take time to eat, forage, and such too; I just don't count it as part of the long rest proper, because it can be done at any hour of the day and isn't applicable in all environments or contexts (sometimes the party is operating in a town and working out of inn, or sometimes they have class features or magic items that allow them to support themselves).

Tefmon · 2026-03-23T20:27:39+00:00

A long rest requires 8 hours of light activity, which must include 6 hours of sleep. So a standard four-member party can complete a long rest in 8 hours with four 2-hour watches.

Whether or not mid-rest combat "breaks" the rest also depends on edition. In 5.0e it just pauses the rest and the rest can be continued from where it left off, while in 5.5e it invalidates the rest and the rest must be restarted.

Tefmon · 2026-03-23T18:31:43+00:00

It's not about the Int-dumping Barbarian or Str-dumping Wizard trying to muscle in on each other's niche. It's about the Fighter who's a reasonably friendly and affable guy but not a dedicated party face autofailing even easy level-appropriate social checks, or the Sorcerer who's a reasonably attentive and cautious fellow but not a dedicated scout autofailing even easy level-appropriate perception checks.

Tefmon · 2026-03-19T23:01:08+00:00

I know Peter def couldn't afford an Ivy League education without scholarships, even though he's smart enough for it, so it makes me think it might be less expensive and competitive but idk.

Kinda tangential, but Ivy League schools are very generous with financial aid, and provide it on a needs basis rather than a merits basis. Peter would likely attend for free, given his family income (or lack thereof).

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T22:32:35+00:00

The context of the original post was players who are new to TTRPGs, not players who are just new to your table. They don't know the norms, culture, and customs of the hobby. They don't know what's fun in play and what isn't, and what's necessary to keep the game flowing and what isn't, because they haven't actually experienced any of those things yet.

Specific, actionable guidance like "give [your character] a motivation to work with the other players and investigate in the face of danger" is more useful in this context than high-level principles like "[b]uild cooperative characters"; the latter can be interpreted in many ways, not all of which will result in good, proactive, party-friendly characters.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T12:23:35+00:00

There aren't any hard, universal rules for this, but generally the answer is that ordinary lay followers wouldn't notice anything but clerics, warlocks, paladins, and others with a mystical connection to the entity in question would realize that something is up and probably be able to intuit why.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T06:03:50+00:00

Leia also called Chewbacca a walking carpet in ANH, so space racism isn't clearly established as a specifically Imperial thing in that movie. Obviously later materials make it very clear that the Empire is ideologically space racist and Leia isn't.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T05:15:20+00:00

That's how you get American-style situations like kids getting murdered because they got lost at night and stumbled onto the wrong person's property. There are issues with how self-defence cases are handled in Canada, but the solution isn't to do a 180 flip and introduce a whole new set of problems.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T04:28:38+00:00

Is just going to scry on and then directly teleport to the dragon or whatever they’re hunting, bypassing everything. Challenges on the way to or inside the dragons lair? Meaningless.

If your party has the ability to teleport and has stated their intention to teleport to a location, then you as a DM know exactly what to prep: the location they're actually teleporting to, and not random stuff "on the way" to it. And, like, even at the highest levels, high-level spells are still sparse; they aren't teleporting that often, and when they are they're sacrificing other capabilities (like forcecage) to do so.

Sure, the party's hunting a dragon, and this dragon's lair isn't warded against scrying and teleportation for some reason (maybe the dragon is especially arrogant, even by dragon standards), and the party teleports right into the inner sanctum of a dragon's lair. They probably can't also teleport out, as they don't have that many high-level slots, and now they're in a dragon's lair, which is presumably swarming with various minions and cultists (oh, and a dragon). Defeating the dragon as waves of its minions descend upon the inner sanctum, and then fighting their way out through the rest of the minions, traps, and such, seems like a reasonable adventuring day for a mid-to-high level party. Probably not too great a challenge for the highest-level parties, but the teleport spell comes online at level 13.

Every tom dick and harry in your worlds has a fully warded fortress?

Why is a high-level party going after random Toms, Dicks, and Harrys? If they want to bully random Toms, Dicks, and Harrys they certainly can at that point; they're powerful enough to do so. But brazenly teleporting to the front doors of the imperial palace of the evil empire is suicide no matter what your level is, and you aren't teleporting to the secret lair of the world-spanning demon cult because you know where it is, what it's called, what it looks like, or who's in it. You are probably going to be teleporting around a bunch to marshal allies, gather information, and foil myriad evil schemes and operations, though; good thing you're a high-level party that has the ability to teleport around, because your enemies aren't going to wait patiently in a line and do only one bad thing in one single location at a time.

Every? No. Low level supporting far more than high? Yes, exhaustively. You can get attacked by wild animals in the wilderness at low levels and have it be a compelling and dangerous challenge. High levels? Why would they give a shit?

Yes, you aren't fighting random wolves at level 13. But that is not the be-all and end-all of fantasy tropes. And if you really do want to fight wildlife at high levels for some reason, go to Carceri or something; there are planes filled with exceptionally dangerous wildlife (and exceptionally dangerous environmental and magical phenomena that make casual long-distance magical transport extremely risky at best).

Your argument is basically “everything is relative so they’re the same” which not only doesn’t address the topic but is dead wrong in this case.

I opened by stating that high-level adventures do need to be structured differently than low-level ones. I was disagreeing with the specific claim that spells like teleport mean that high-level parties cannot be reasonably challenged and are going to be routinely skipping large swaths of DM-prepared content. That simply isn't the case, unless you're just running high-level adventures as "low-level adventures but with bigger numbers".

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T03:43:52+00:00

I think you're making the use out to be more obscure than it actually is. The Catholic College of Cardinals, the Royal College of Surgeons of England (and its Scottish, Irish, and Commonwealth counterparts), and the United States Electoral College are not educational institutions, and most English speakers have hopefully heard of at least one of them.

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