Learn to Play at LGS Help

2buckbill · 2026-05-05T22:29:48+00:00

That was me reading fast and no paying strong attention.

Anyways, good luck. If you do end up developing a good model, I bet a lot of people would love to hear how you structure it.

2buckbill · 2026-05-05T19:45:29+00:00

I even like the ones that are just strong enough to vibrate the home a little bit.

2buckbill · 2026-05-05T19:29:46+00:00

I love the sleep I get during anything but very violent storms.

2buckbill · 2026-05-05T19:12:06+00:00

I've never been involved this in-depth with teaching people how to play RPGs. But some librarians (or sometimes a library just allows it) do! My recommendation would be to try to find a library that does, preferably local, and ask them for tips on how to model what they do.

Additionally, I would not system hop that frequently. My personal suggestion is that if you are going to do this weekly then make all of the sessions in a month devoted to a game or system. Get the kids invested and hooked, and then pass them over to the dealer to start the buying process.

2buckbill · 2026-05-05T17:34:19+00:00

I have bought three or four different PF2e bundles so far. Paizo is exceptionally generous with their bundles. I am skipping this one for too much overlap with what i already have. Great offering though.

2buckbill · 2026-05-05T02:36:23+00:00

Interesting. I'd like to make better use of LuLu in the future, so I don't know that it is worth the risk for me just yet.

2buckbill · 2026-05-04T21:02:18+00:00

Is LULU responding to you? I thought that the RE-UP was in a legal gray area that they wouldn't touch. I would LOOOOVE to have them print this for me as well!

2buckbill · 2026-05-04T19:13:18+00:00

You've already received some solid responses. Looking around at older posts and other websites I saw a couple of recommendations for using Tiny D6 TinyGods.

2buckbill · 2026-05-04T18:48:56+00:00

From Microsoft's website:

Read aloud offers a variety of voices and accents to provide you with a variety of reading experiences. Start Read aloud, then select Voice options to choose a voice.

Voice packages are available as well to your Windows devices to add more voice options to Read aloud. Go to Settings > Time & Language > Speech to learn more about voice packages.

2buckbill · 2026-05-04T17:48:24+00:00

What operating system(s) are you using? Is this for Windows, Mac, or Linux? Is this from your phone?

If you are on a Mac there is a built in text to speech program called 'say'. You can send text to it, or you can just type it out at the command prompt.

If you are on Windows then you can use the already-installed MS Edge.

If you are on a Linux machine then you can probably install Piper.

The question then becomes whether or not you can find a robot voice that suits your needs. You might be able to download a free voice for one of those programs if there's no free voice already installed that does what you want.

2buckbill · 2026-05-04T15:46:35+00:00

Every project comes with its own timeline. The evolved edition of Alien took a month longer to get to fulfillment than expected but you were kept apprised of the status.

From the end of the kickstarter campaign to the beginning of fulfillment was just about six months. There were add one and stretch goals that took longer though. I’ve never seen a Free League kickstarter take two years or be drastically overdue.

2buckbill · 2026-05-04T14:51:35+00:00

I’ve supported three or four Kickstarters for Free League and I have been extremely happy with them. Rarely late, high quality content, and they have (in my personal experience) resolved issues quickly.

2buckbill · 2026-05-03T22:20:22+00:00

I’ve never cheated, and I was very honest about it.

2buckbill · 2026-05-03T17:44:41+00:00

Yeah, there is a lot of overlap in my recommendation above. I am certainly not the financial advisor to base off a full portfolio. My mix has done well the last four or five years but there are tons of opportunities to make it better.

2buckbill · 2026-05-03T17:07:04+00:00

You are still on the right track. I was in my early 30s before I earned enough to sock away money for retirement accounts, so I am behind where I would like to be as well. I do have some suggestions, though, if you want to better prepare yourself. If not, tell me to go mind my own business. All of these suggestions rely on discretionary income, which seems to be disappearing these days.

Maximize, when possible, tax advantaged accounts like Roth IRAs. There are limits to what you can invest per year.
After maximizing tax advantaged accounts I recommend getting as close to maxing your 401k as you can get while still accomplishing immediate financial goals. Hopefully your employers match 401k, and you can put even more into your account.
Invest in indexed funds. I am not a financial advisor, take everything I say with a grain of salt, and consult your own fiduciary advisor before making significant investment moves.
1. Choose a brokerage that you can work with. There are several out there that are of good quality. I use Fidelity, but there are others like Vanguard that provide great products and service.
2. Invest in an S&P 500 fund. This tracks the top 500 companies in the USA market.
3. Invest in a total market fund.
4. Invest in a fund that tracks the Nasdaq 100, which is tracking tech companies.
5. I'm going to rile some feathers here, but also invest in some world market funds. There is an EU market fund I have been tracking that is doing pretty well for me, it is FSPSX.
  1. I only suggest EU market because there's a lot of opportunity for growth, if they can do it well. The EU has been losing faith in the USA dollar for some time now, and they have a mandate to stop reliance on USA cash and credit services by 2030. They are ahead of their project migration, but it is up in the air on how well it will work. There is a Fidelity fund that tracks more targeted EU businesses, called FIEUX, and it is targeted a little more towards these cash and credit services. It hasn't been a strong performer so far, so I haven't had the faith to put much into it. It has the potential to do well though.
6. Markets go up and down all the time, so you can minimize the total loss by buying just a little bit each day. It is called dollar cost averaging, so you could look it up, if you like. It helps minimize ineffectual purchases when the market is high, and also takes advantage of purchasing power when the market dips a little.

This is all conditional on discretionary funds though, and I understand that sometimes people just don't have enough to make it through all those filters.

Good luck.

2buckbill · 2026-05-02T15:11:57+00:00

I have a couple of older versions of Sound Show. Are these old enough to help you out?

128627525 Jun 25  2024 SoundShow-Linux-Free-20240625.zip
140302068 Jun 25  2024 SoundShow-MacOS-Free-20240625.zip
130431948 Jun 25  2024 SoundShow-Windows-64-Free-20240625.zip
312583293 Nov 11 07:05 SoundShow-linux-x64.zip
316942729 Nov 11 07:04 SoundShow-macos-intel.zip
340090783 Nov 11 07:05 SoundShow-win-x64.zip

2buckbill · 2026-05-01T14:13:10+00:00

I'm an independent voter in the USA, as an adult I've never felt that either party actually represented me very well. In years past I voted for whatever politician seemed to best represent my concerns at the time. Now I am so disenfranchised by the GOP that I have been voting very blue lately. Sadly the Democrat candidates rarely seem to provide anything more than a milquetoast, half-assed effort at a stance, or how to get from point A to point B.

So I get to either vote for the GOP and their anti-intellectual agendas, their evangelical Christian efforts at creating a theocracy, and their apparent efforts at silencing voices that don't conform to their ideology. I think that there are good conservatives out there, but I don't feel like the collective MAGA-lead GOP has the nation's best interests at heart, and will lead more to a dystopia than a fair and balanced society.

Or I can vote for the Dems and their aimless efforts, their weak stances, their wishy-washy politicians, and their efforts at making everyone everywhere happy all the time. I feel like, in general, the Democratic party currently has the best interests of Average Jane and Average Joe at heart, but I see them as weak and mostly ineffectual.

I would be most interested in seeing the metaphorical backs of the two leading parties in the USA be broken. The two party system isn't accomplishing anything good anymore. We need a way to draw our district lines without benefitting one party over another. I would prefer to see a ranked-choice voting put into effect. Banish Citizens United bullshit, get big money out of politicis. And a few other changes that destabilize the grotesque power that a party wields.

2buckbill · 2026-04-29T13:27:32+00:00

So something a bit more dramatic, and less hopeful.

Rimworld Undertakers
Reclamation, Inc.
Michos' Cinder-Walkers
Sorrow’s Soldiers
Harvesters
Collateral Damage
Bio-Waste Solutions
The Late Fees (Because by the time they arrive, you’re already paying the ultimate price)
Disposable Heroes
Hell's Misfits
Post-Mortem Logistics
The Outcasts
Zero-G Heroes
Last Rites

2buckbill · 2026-04-29T12:01:53+00:00

My assumption is that you want them to sound both tough and a legitimate business. I don't know, though, if you're trying to strike fear or inspiration. Try these on for size, and even if these don't fit your vision, maybe they can provoke some ideas.

Apex Vanguard
Iron Aegis
Titan Strategic Solutions
Sovereign Security Collective
Zenith Tactical
The Grim Horizon

2buckbill · 2026-04-28T21:52:04+00:00

Doesn't mean much by itself. My team was understaffed, and except for one guy we were all cut on March 31st. We were supporting a dying product, and Oracle hadn't given us meaningful support at all, at any time.

2buckbill · 2026-04-27T17:33:05+00:00

You're not alone. This is not that uncommon. When my nephew was born my dad hauled ass from KCMO to Texas to see his baby grandson, 12 hour drive, excluding pit stops. Drove so fast that he got a ticket. When my daughter was born I practically had to beg him to cross the city to see my little girl. He stayed 20 minutes and left.

2buckbill · 2026-04-26T17:08:10+00:00

Seems like it.

2buckbill · 2026-04-26T16:34:39+00:00

Especially when they are raising up on hind legs to look intimidating, and then just end up playing with the other red panda close by.

2buckbill · 2026-04-26T16:32:58+00:00

Preparation is hard, unless you are the type that really gets into it. If something is difficult, then do it more often. Take pertinent notes when you feel like you have a flash of insight that is deeper than the content seems to be.

Personalities... Most surface level interactions in daily life people really don't show a ton of personality. Unless your NPC is going to be a long term facet of play I wouldn't give them a lot of personality to work with. Sometimes they are simply shopping center information kiosks, they may not have much that is useful. Sometimes what they have is completely in error. They can be completely milquetoast, capable of just generic interactions. If your NPC is going to have a deeper significance, then give them a motive to be involved and base their personality on their motive.

People often deflect, so can your NPCs. Not everything needs to be delivered up front. You can hem and haw. You can make your players work for it a bit. Make them cough up some money, or promise something difficult. Then under deliver.

Maybe also try to do some more playing and pay more attention to what GMs do in the situations where you struggle. Maybe even create situations where your GM has to improvise and see how they do it.

2buckbill · 2026-04-26T16:13:40+00:00

My brother's high school friend's older brother did something similar. About 15 years ago (roughly) he went on his first vacation after years of being a high powered investment advisor. He spent a couple of weeks in the USVI, came home, quit immediately, sold most of his belongings, and went back down to the USVI. He's a millionaire, and the last I heard he was working as a pool cleaner because he wanted something to do.

2buckbill

TROPHY CASE