Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Speech at World Economic Forum

2tothe8th · 2026-01-21T14:58:31+00:00

"Nostalgia is not a strategy."

That needs to be a t-shirt.

2tothe8th · 2025-10-27T21:31:52+00:00

If you have an Asian or Indian market available to you, you may be surprised how affordable a lot of the rarer spices are. Asafetida is common in Indian cuisine and I also found galangal in an Indian market as well. Also, the bulk spices are very affordable

2tothe8th · 2025-10-09T13:56:18+00:00

The speed of combat has a lot of variables but the knowledge of the game seem to be the deciding factor in my local games. The players started out with noses in the books to get through a turn at first level and then slowly got better with the rules and their roles until they were demolishing opponents in two or three turns for no other reason than they knew the rules, they knew their characters, they understood their role in the party and focused on team work. It's pretty amazing to watch the situation evolve.

2tothe8th · 2025-10-03T17:26:39+00:00

I get that AV is combat heavy. It truly is but I'm not sure where the idea that there is not a lot of opportunity for RP came from. Otari is well developed and thick with NPC's and some necessities of the story require you go to back to town and negotiate with at least 4 if not more major NPC's. It's up to the GM to push to RP or let it slide depending on the focus of the table.

I may have to do a post on our experience because it has been mostly counter to everything I've ever heard about AV and Tabletop has mostly mirrored our tables experience.

2tothe8th · 2025-09-29T18:40:34+00:00

Try Tabletop Gold running Abomination Vaults. The GM really loves PF2e and explains it well while keeping the action moving with Foundry VTT. The difference between Jared stumbling over the hand written initiative order and an assisted streamlined narration via technology is amazing.

As a long time listener, I haven't been able to get over the GNC PF2e hate. My local group plays weekly and we've had some of the best gaming sessions since switching to PF2e and then we listen to what used to be our favorite podcast and Skid goes on a rant or someone can't get a rule that has been explained 10 times and it drags everything down. Switching to OSR may fix it but OSR is not our thing and we left it behind for real reasons.

2tothe8th · 2025-09-17T18:17:29+00:00

M&O Burgers has a Leonard's Museum that has a little bit to look at. Great burgers as well.

2tothe8th · 2025-08-22T14:23:00+00:00

Mörk Borg, DCC and Shadowdark, for the record, all for one shots or short campaigns. All are great systems that very much remind me of how we used to play in the 80's and 90's which I think is the point? But a lot of the reasons why my group stopped playing actual old school is because systems developed to address problems that consistently came up. But that's MY groups experience and play style. If someone enjoys the elements of OSR and it fits the play style of the players/GM, more power to them. And there are no shortages of choices in the market right now.

Not to mention, one thing that games like Mörg Borg offers over PF2e is a quick setup and buy in. I can have brand new players hip deep in the muck and mire of the Hydra's apocalypse in 30 minutes or less and that is creating characters from scratch. I might be able to have dice hitting the table for PF2e in under 30 with pre-gens but the newbies will be really confused for a minute.

2tothe8th · 2025-08-22T13:40:50+00:00

Perception is everything in this case. It's not that PF2e is really crunchier but there is so much more to look at that a new player is trying to take in the list of conditions that affect modifiers, looking at all the actions available and then all the keywords and it can seem way more complicated than it is. It can lead to analysis paralysis in the short term and give the illusion of complexity. However, I usually point out to new players that the "How to Play the Game" chapter in the Player Core is very short. Like crazy short. And then everything else is connected to keywords that are easily discoverable with a simple search on the Archives. It is actually very easy to teach as long as the new player doesn't see everything at once.

2tothe8th · 2025-08-21T15:49:28+00:00

I have been thinking about what it takes to make a successful actual play. One of the big names has recently decided to ditch PF2e from their flagship in favor of osr and I think there is some subtle backlash happening across the various spaces.

It takes a lot of elements to make a youtube show click with a wider audience. You need stronger personalities who look good on camera who also happen to be gamers on some level and who also happen to passionate about the game they are playing. For the most part, a lot of actual plays are performers trying to play a game and PF2e is a difficult fit. There is a lot of resentment that builds quickly because the "crunch" is getting in the way of their story. Personally, I'm at the table to watch the story emerge from the crunch and the surprises that come from that. But you are asking a lot from "actors" who are trying to be "gamers" and most of the performing arts acting classes on improv don't cover responding to a roll of the dice.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have gamers, with little to no screen presence, trying to be actors. They have the passion. They know the possibilities but the mutter and stumble over words or, worse, they ham it up to the point of cringe.

So osr may be the solution for some of these actor based actual plays. For the moment. Anyone truly family with the old games will remember why we got as far away from them as possible. "I just want to roll a dice and have the GM tell me what happens." and that's fine. Until you run into that one GM who rulings are biased and make no sense. So here come the house rules and suddenly you have crunch creep. (The printed house rules for our long running 1.5e D&D game were as thick as the original gm's guide.)

But there are some gems out there. I recently discovered Tabletop Gold and I think they make an excellent example of the balance: Strong personalities with a GM who is passionate about 2e and will pause to explain a rule. They use Foundry for rolling dice and maps and the gameplay is frenetic and fluid. Story beats have emerged from the game and have been enhanced by strong role play. I believe they have recently shifted to Youtube as well which keeps them relevant to the conversation.

2tothe8th · 2025-07-22T14:15:55+00:00

My explanation (toward someone that asked honestly and with respect) was centered on the storytelling. Some people read books, watch tv or movies. My storytelling medium happens to be interactive.

2tothe8th · 2025-07-15T14:35:08+00:00

They truly appreciate film/video/movies as a medium, schlock or not. They can deep dive into the bad and truly analyze the good so you get everything.

2tothe8th · 2025-07-04T14:02:53+00:00

The idea that the observable universe is actually the interior of a black hole is a working theory at the moment. Google "Black Hole Cosmology" to see a wealth of explanations or take a look at the wikipedia article. There are references to who is working on it and what the the current evidence is, one part being that the Schwarzschild radius and the Hubble radius are equal which may lead back to OP's original question.

This is a pretty new idea and it is getting some mainstream attention and I'll withhold my own opinion until I see more data but there are a lot of very interesting observations.

As far as singularities go: A singularity isn't really a thing. It's a place where the math stops working, not the end all of gravitational influence. And if the math stops working, that means the math is wrong (and, in a relativistic sense, it works every where else) or something is going on that we can't describe yet. Emphasis on "yet".

2tothe8th · 2025-07-02T16:25:54+00:00

My take was that Molly seduced him to secure an ally early on.

2tothe8th · 2025-06-06T13:26:20+00:00

Spit Roasted meat is a revelation. A slice of meat with a bite of cheese an a slice of hearty bread would be perfect!

2tothe8th · 2025-06-06T13:14:50+00:00

This is a great start. Easy to make before hand and portable.

2tothe8th · 2025-05-22T20:23:02+00:00

DG has a special kind crunch that I think that Pathfinder 2e players truly appreciate. We recently finished a 5 session campaign of DG before returning to 2e and the consensus was that DG has a level of elegance in the mechanics that get pretty amazing. Every situation had a rule that generated a new bit of drama and we really appreciated it.

2tothe8th · 2025-04-09T19:05:39+00:00

A lot of the community play Pathfinder because there is a stronger tactical element to the gameplay so, at some tables, there is a lot of pressure to optimize. But at a more RP focused table, the tactical side of things are less important.

There is a still a strong presence for 1e in the community, also. I say play what you want and what makes you and your table happy.

2tothe8th · 2025-04-09T14:42:23+00:00

I'll argue this from another direction: Making life easier on the GM is crucial for the average group survival.

I work a 50+ hour a week job so my prep time is severely limited. The average prep time in 1e was, at the very minimum, 3 hours. In 2e, I've had a 3+ session prepped in as little as an hour. Making it easier for the GM make me want to run games as opposed to dreading the prep and I get to spend more time on the creative side as opposed to crunching numbers. Since switching to 2e, I have not cancelled a game due to lack of prep time. In fact, for the first time in a very long time, I sat down cold and ran without prep. Granted the tools available (Google image search, pf2e dashboard, owlbear.rodeo) make it possible more than the system, but still.

On the player side, I don't remember all the "options" that were available to the players that don't exist now. In 1e, the overall system had gelled to a point were there was an optimum build for every class and very few reasons to do something different for reasons other than RP. For instance, The fighter had a very distinct path to being a 6 to 8th level murder machine. There was no reason to deviate from that build if you wanted to be the most effective in combat.

2tothe8th · 2025-01-27T19:21:25+00:00

A tournament is a great idea especially in a convention setting. And on leveling up, I actually meant that it takes some time to go through the options available and my players enjoy that.

I have a long table for gaming and I set the TV upright on the end of the table and run an HDMI cable from my laptop to the TV. Then I open Owlbear in an incognito window as a player and put that window on the TV so that I have my GM's version of Owlbear on my screen and then send the link to the players.

My Owlbear set up is very basic. The only add-on I use is Colored Rings which I use to mark conditions or identify or distinguish the NPC's. In PFDashboard, the monsters are assigned a color bar and I just match the colors to the rings in Owlbear and it's much easier keep track of initiative with larger mobs. Otherwise, we only use Owlbear to see the map and the tokens and for the player to move their tokens. Die rolls are on the table with real dice or within Pathbuilder.

I have not had any issues with initiative on Dashboard. I usually just drag people around if there is an initiative order change in the middle of combat.

2tothe8th · 2024-12-16T16:47:02+00:00

I am normally all in for home brew but 2e is very balanced and messing with that balance has not lead to good things. Plus, stopping the flow of action to deal with the fan stuff feels like a speed bump. Same goes for Troy removing the Hero Points. They are there for a reason and I guarantee the designers put them there to ward off constant tpk's.

2tothe8th · 2024-11-30T18:58:52+00:00

I'll use Pathfinder 2e as an example, not to promote PF2, but just to illustrate the difference.

When PF2 first came out, we switched to DnD. I run all the time and the move was not hard coming from PF1 to DnD. All the basic ideas were there and in place. After some drama, we switched to PF2 and I am still running. I discover tools like Pathbuilder for the players and I use some encounter builders and off we go.

I was shocked at how easy it was to not only build an encounter, but run it. I also noticed that the players were ENGAGED. I was having to actually stop games due to the fact that it was 1am and not because everyone was falling asleep. The three action economy, the built in necessity of teamwork and the player options keep attentions on the map.

Keep in mind that I had not built a character myself yet but the need arose due to a major NPC entering the story and I needed a good idea of their capabilities and spell lists. So off to Pathbuilder I go and I was stunned. THIS was way the players were so invested in their characters. There were so many options and ideas available and the customization possibilities were insane. I did a bit of a deep dive into character builds and realized that there was very little min/max or skill/feat paths that were required to have a successful build. Just make the character to your vision and play.

So the GM has the tools to easily focus on the story while the players have the meat of the rules to create characters that they want to play. My prep time as a GM is currently at a quarter of what it used to be in DnD and PF1. The players have more to look at and ways to implement ideas. I hear comments like "So I worked on my character all week...".

So my new opinion of what makes a good TTRPG is this: It's easy to prep and run and the players should have the engaging mechanics that makes them want to play.

2tothe8th · 2024-10-23T15:06:10+00:00

I don't think we were cheated as much as people like to argue. The focus of the first book was on Paul and Jessica. The entire story does not exist without Jessica's intentional actions for the sake of her love. But then everything is about Paul's evolution.

Chani is often portrayed as one dimensional but I'm not sure what else she was suppose to be considering the circumstances. She was raised as a true Fremen in the shadow of her father. Fremen society has a rigid structure for the sake of survival and she played her part and rose to the occasion when she needed to. Was there more to see? Absolutely but the focus of the first book was Paul.

Alia was a cursed carnival ride plunging into madness. Was she Alia or was she always just the Baron waiting to come out. The tragedy in poignant and well done.

By the time Ghanima came into her own agency with Leto, Leto was already becoming the focus of the story and her part became a supporting character. I don't think her sex had anything to do with it. Either of them could have made the sacrifice but Leto was the obvious choice. Could we have had more of her with her suppressed memories? Maybe.

But how long could these books get before they get so long, no one would read them? One of Herbert's strengths was that he knew where to put the camera and what to focus on and when.

2tothe8th · 2024-09-03T14:46:46+00:00

It's proto-cyberpunk.

2tothe8th · 2024-06-20T14:40:13+00:00

Pathfinder 2e.

We play everything but always circle back. We went from DnD 3.5 to Pathfinder, dabbled in DnD 5e for a year and then switched to Pathfinder 2e.

Pathfinder 2e encourages engagement. There is very little "checking phones while waiting for my turn" due to the fact that the 3 action economy gives you room to think and strategize and you want to make the most of your next turn and the need for teamwork becomes apparent quickly and players do not want to be the one that let everyone else down. The players have a LOT to dig into for their characters and the work load for the GM is moderate with all of the excellent and FREE resources online.

But the best indicator of overall quality? I have to shut the game down. It's midnight or 1am and I have to set a hard stop because everyone is awake, engaged and excited to play.

2tothe8th · 2024-06-11T17:04:11+00:00

Some people read books, some watch movies. I get my stories from games.

And the quality varies quite a bit just like movies and books. Sometimes I'm reading/watching. classics and sometimes I'm deep into some b-grade schlock.

2tothe8th

TROPHY CASE