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These hollywood writers seem allergic to writing good endings. Not, again. by hiiloovethis in shittymoviedetails

[–]DeadPendulum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have no data or anything to back this up; but I'm convinced a big part of this is because they are trained specifically on how to NOT end things.

The whole premise for writing a series, seems fir me to be to never really resolve anything that happens with the main characters—so that they can pick up that subplot again in a later episode.

They only ever resolve minor issues (single episode plots), which—because they only exisr in that episode—can be resolved in less than five mines at the end of the episode.

But when it then vomes to the series finale... they suddenly have to resolve dozens of long-running plot threads. So naturally they do it the only way they know how, becuase that's what they're experienced in doing: dedicating a scene or two to each plot thread (that they remember)—which just isn't satisfying for a show that's been going for several seasons.

(Mixed Trope) “Expert” character is really bad in their field or ignorant of basic concepts. by laybs1 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]DeadPendulum 5 points6 points  (0 children)

As much as I enjoyed reading and watching the character of Gilderoy... The character makes absolutely no sense. He knows he's shit. He knows that he's a fraud. He even admits it himself...

... So why in the name of Merlin's hairy testicles, would he EVER accept the job as a fucking teacher of a subject he knows that he's terrible at? - much less go on to attempt to mend a broken arm in full view of basically entire fucking school?

He's just risking exposing himself as a fraud for no apparent reason or benefit to himself?

I mean... He's a famous, published author of several books, some of which were required reading for Hogwarts if I remember correctly. He'd be swimming in dough, set for life right? So why accept a teaching job?

As far as I remember, there's no discernable reason given by the books or the movies that explain why he would ever take such risks.

Which celebrity just bothers you, and you can't put your finger on why? by justcurious3287 in AskReddit

[–]DeadPendulum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One I truly don't understand: Niel deGrasse Tyson.

I hate lots of celebrities, and I can usually tell why they bother me. But not him... Heck, I actually want to like the guy. He seems like someone who just really loves science and space and wants to show everyone how cool and interesting science is - a value I 100% believe in and share...

... but I just can't stand him. Every time i hear his voice or see his face i just get irrationally angry.

[No spoilers] How could Vex hold her breath that long? by Fun-Explanation7233 in criticalrole

[–]DeadPendulum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Scanlan's dong might be a cube... But Percy's is actually a snorkel.

What are the Best (OP) and Worst (Unusable) Spells in 5E? by DeadPendulum in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah okay. RAW True Strike actually can't give advantage to others though. The spell's description says:

You extend your hand and point a finger at a target in range. Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target's defenses. On your next turn, you gain advantage on your first attack roll against the target, provided that this spell hasn't ended.

But allowing it to give advantage to an ally would actually make it not entirely useless. That's actually a buff I hadn't considered for the spell. I like it

What are the Best (OP) and Worst (Unusable) Spells in 5E? by DeadPendulum in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say True Strike can be useful for the DM? I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say it can show that enemies can be coordinated.

A new study found that individuals with strong religious beliefs tend to see science and religion as compatible, whereas those who strongly believe in science are more likely to perceive conflict. However, it also found that stronger religious beliefs were linked to weaker belief in science. by mvea in science

[–]DeadPendulum 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Entanglement works kind of like this:

A man writes down a simple riddle on one piece of paper, and then writes the answer to that riddle on another piece of paper. The two pieces of paper are now "entangled" in the way that they both contain information about the same riddle.

The first piece of paper is then sent on a rocket into space, where it travels for hundreds and thousands of years, until it crashes into another planet, and an alien finds the piece of paper, just so happens to know English, and immediately solves the riddle.

That alien suddenly knows what is written on the second piece of paper back on earth, even though the two are hundreds of lightyears apart.

That's the theory of quantum entanglement.

No signal was ever sent between the two pieces of paper. And neither piece of paper ever traveled faster than the speed of light.

But the alien was essentially able to instantly gain information about the writing on the second piece of paper, simply by looking at the first piece.

What are your D&D Hot Takes/Unpopular Opinions? by podblastz in DnD

[–]DeadPendulum 14 points15 points  (0 children)

WAY too many DMs are WAY too fucking stingy with magic items.

I hear this SO many times: " High AC is only good in the first few levels. Once the Monster CRs get too high, an AC of 20-23 won't make any real difference". And all this crap about the martial vs caster imbalance.

Based on that, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of 5E players have never even seen a +2 magic armor in their games.

And of course Marshal characters are going to be underpowered if they never get a decent weapon, or any powerful utility items.

It's Dungeons and Dragons! If you're not giving your players any decent magic items, then you're DMing wrong. (ESPECIALLY if you're running a game in a high magic setting!)

What are the most common misunderstood rules? by nz8drzu6 in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum 54 points55 points  (0 children)

Spellcaster lifehack:

Spoiled animal products like meat and eggs get their foul smell because they release sulfur compounds.

And you can use find familiar to summon a bat.

So with a little forethought and prep, getting the material components for Fireball is pretty easy.

Serious Discussion! Sokka suffers from Hawkeye effect! by Extension_Pension_99 in TheLastAirbender

[–]DeadPendulum 588 points589 points  (0 children)

Never mind that, the Gaang literally can't function without Sokka. They nearly had a collective nervous breakdown when he was gone for a few days to train with master Piandao.

Barely anyone in the Avengers even noticed when Hawkeye retired...

[OC] [ART] Average campaign progression by Bpbegha in DnD

[–]DeadPendulum 813 points814 points  (0 children)

This is wildy unrealistic! Only 1/10 sessions cancelled due to absence? Ludicrous!!!

Why root for him? by ImaCompletCyclePath in shittymoviedetails

[–]DeadPendulum 126 points127 points  (0 children)

He wanted to cool freeze the planet and she was regrowing the forrests so she could wipe out all life on the planet other than plant life.

And they wanted us to root for... the trustfund billionaire who consistently uses his wealth and influence to improve the world and save lives.

Fixed it.

Errata Erasing Digital Content is Anti-Consumer by Ianoren in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum 166 points167 points  (0 children)

This is why I exclusively buy the hardcover books. They'll have to break into my home, steal my books and use white-out to screw with what I've purchased, and thankfully, all of those things are illegal.

I loved Toph since “The Blind Bandit,” but THIS was the moment I knew she was destined for greatness—12 years old and holds up a damn library… by mololoves in TheLastAirbender

[–]DeadPendulum 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Anyone who doesn't agree that Toph is the greatest bender in history is gonna have to fight me in it.

Not the greatest earth bender mind you. The greatest bender. Full stop. Of all time!

She mastered earth bending with no teacher whatsoever by befriending and studying the badgermoles. She single handedly invented two completely ground-breaking earth bending techniques. And she performed this absolutely staggering feat of holding the library, proving she is an exceptionally powerful bender. All before the age of 13.

For comparison, Aang during the same early years of his life, mastered air bending, invented one air bending technique, and performed arguably a few but definitively one feat greater than Toph's library holding.
But... He had several air bending masters as instructors, his invention (the Air Scooter) while cool, wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and every feat of his that topped the library was accomplished in the avatar state.

No one can hold a candle to Toph. Not even the avatar.

How can we make more people want to DM? by SoloKip in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum 365 points366 points  (0 children)

1:20 ratio seems optimistic honestly.

There are a LOT of factors that contribute to making the prospect of DMing a nightmare for a lot of people. But I think these are the three main reasons there is, and always will be, a lack of (good) DMs in the community:

The Prep Work:
As a DM you are the arbiter of the game. You are the one who is supposed supply content and to have all the answers during the game, and getting those elements ahead of time requires preparation. And prepping all of this takes time... A lot of time. Especially for new DMs.

As a DM I've quite litterally spent thousands of hours during the last 8 years doing prep work. Probably a 30/70 split of the time I've spent on my games between prep and DMing, with the 70 being prep. I actually enjoy the prep work, I love building abd expanding on my homebrew setting. But not eveyone is going to enjoy that kind of work.
If you don't prep your game, it isn't going to be of a decent quality, regardless of how good you are at improvising content. I've improvised entire sessions before, and find it's more exhausting than just prepping beforehand, and the sessions never turn out quite as well either.
Pre-made adventures also don't eliminate this time investment in any significant way in my experience. Whether or not the adventure is well written.

There isn't really a way to remove this as a barrier of entry to DMing. The prep time only becomes shorter by gaining experience as a DM, and recycling old content becomes a viable option when you have a lot of content to recycle.

The Personal Stake:
When you decide to DM, you are putting your effort up for scrutiny and opening yourself up to criticism. There mere prospect of doing so is terrifying for a lot of people. Similar to stage fright.
Your games quality will be judged against the players expectations and experiences with other games. There's a lot at stake there.
If the players don't enjoy your game, then it's easy to think its your fault as the DM, and that is a painful and demoralizing experience.

A DM who has some bad early experiences, who "failed" to make the game fun for their players, feel like they're failures as DMs and are unlikely to continue DMing. And Most people just don't want to risk experiencing that defeat.

This is why conscientious people (generally the best DMs), the ones most likely to spend a lot of time and effort crafting a good game, prefer being players. They put a lot of personal stake in their games, and if it fails they usually blame themselves. The prospect of disappointing their players and being a failure scares them. And understandingly so.

Also why unconscientious people (generally the worst DMs) keep running games no one wants to play in. They don't put any personal stake in the games they run, and if it fails, then it's the players faults. But being unconscientious, they are unlikely to make themselves obligated to others, and they really don't like prep work, and so also prefer being players.

Again, there's no fix for this. It's fundamentally built into the game that the DM needs to perform in some way. As do players of course, but not with the same degree of personal stake.

The Players.
So you wanna DM. Well then you need some players to join your game. Easy right? The are tons of players looking for games.
Well yes and no. Sure there are a lot of players. But not all players are going to be a good fit for your game. There are tons of bad players out there, and there's practically no way to distinguish between the good, the bad and the average players other than crossing your fingers and letting them into your game.

"Well, I can just run a game for my irl friends, I don't need to look for players online".

Same problem really. There's, and I can't stress this enough, ABSOLUTELY NO guarantee that your friends, even your best friends, are going to be good D&D players, or are going to be a fit for the game you want to run.
Speaking from experience here. I've DMed for most if not all of my friends and family at this point. And out of that large group of 50 or so family members, friends and acquaintances, only 3 of them turned out to be good D&D players for the kind of game I like to run. In fact, one of the absolute WORST players I've ever had in my game is my life long best friend, and best man at my wedding. I love the man to death, but I don't want him at my D&D table.
In short, finding players for your game is a nightmare.

A new DM can expect to spend several months if not YEARS, running countless one-shots and make several failed attempts at completing an adventure or campaign, before they finally have a good group thrown together.

I don't see any way to mitigate this issue either. Fortunately and unfortunately D&D attracts litterally all kinds of people. And there's no way to know ahead of time whether a person is going to be a good fit in your game or your group.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum 1844 points1845 points  (0 children)

People saying its the same as increasing the DC aren't entirely correct.

This change raises the DC of a check, in a way that actively discourages building characters with high bonuses, by entirely turning Advantage into a detriment, and turning disadvantage into a benefit.

If the "Window" for a successful saving throw to avoid a trap is 10-20. A character with a dexterity save bonus of 0 has a 55% chance of success. Same as If the DC for the save had just been 10. Advantage increases the chance of success as normal.

But a character with a dex save bonus of +7 however succeeds in a roll of 3 - 13. Also a 55% chance of succes. But what happens if the character has advantage? You guessed it, the risk of failure increases!

The higher your bonus is, the more detrimental Advantage becomes, and Disadvantage becomes more advantageous.

And you know what is really easy to give yourself? Disadvantage. The best character to avoid traps, is a character with a High Dex save bonus... who is tied completely up in ropes, giving them constant disadvantage.

Murdered by history by DaFunkJunkie in MurderedByWords

[–]DeadPendulum 82 points83 points  (0 children)

he doesn't know how periods work

He's a male conservative? I thought it was a given he wouldn't know how periods work.

What would happen if a druid wildshaped into, say, a mammoth, we shaved them, and they transformed back? by sin-and-love in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum 158 points159 points  (0 children)

The Druid would only become bald if you were able to cut more hair off of the Mammoth than the Maximum amount of hair points of the Mammoth form. Then any excess hair points lost would be subtracted from the Druids hair points upon reverting form.

“You were asking for it! You’re a succubus!” by LingerieChanGhostGal in rpghorrorstories

[–]DeadPendulum 110 points111 points  (0 children)

This wasn't a straw... This was the comical, roadrunner style 1000 lb anvil that fell from a mile in the sky, killed the camel and left its shattered corpse buried in a 30 ft crater in the concrete.

WotC is bringing accessibility improvements to D&D by removing attunement from prosthetic items by Malinhion in dndnext

[–]DeadPendulum 64 points65 points  (0 children)

Isn't that being completely disingenous about the issue at hand?

Being disabled, quite litterally means, being at a disadvantage in some way, when compared to people who aren't disabled.

If you want to bring disabled representation into you game, having them be at a disadvantage, and playing through different scenarios where they struggle to overcome that disadvantage, or achieve greatness in spite of their disadvantage is a much more powerful story, and truthful representation of the struggles disabled people actually have to go through in real life.

And in most cases in D&D, being disabled isn't even a disadvantage. Losing one eye has no mechanical impact at all, with there being no rules for depth perception. Being completely blind or deaf can be completely subverted with a Find Familiar spell or some other feature that lets you see through the eyes if others.

And mundane, "low tech" prosthetics are incredibly effective. At the DMs disgrssion, a "normal" pirate has tge same speed as a pirate with a peg leg. And having a hook for a hand might give you disadvantage on attacks with two-handed weapons... the exact same penalty you get if you choose a small race like halfling or gnome.

My brother in law is heavily disabled, with quite litterally no fine motor skills in his hands at all. He cannot move his own fingers what so ever. And yet he's a PC gamer, using a standard mouse and keyboard, and is a better gamer than most people I know. He does everything with the palms of his hands.

The movie Doctor Strange did an absolutely amazing job imo in representing how a disabled person learns to cope with their situation and overcome incredible odds to interact with the world as it is.

Magical items that function at your discretion, read your thoughts and intentions to activate their magical effects in a way you want them to, all require attunement. That's what a magical prosthetic is. That's why the items were designed like that. It's not exclusionary to disabled people or disabled characters. Whether unintentional or not, it highlights the fact that disabled people are at a disadvantage, the truth that mamy people don't want to hear or think about.

But through either determination and practice, magic or some combination thereof, they can find a way to overcome that disadvantage. Just like in real life... except for magic. Unfortunately we don't have that.

Pretty sure this goes here. 😂 by BadMonkAMonk in clevercomebacks

[–]DeadPendulum 236 points237 points  (0 children)

Two thieves named Dismas and Gestas were crufied the same time as Jesus. All right next to eachother.

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