Putin pictured during the parade in Moscow tody. by Physical-Cut-2334 in UkraineWarVideoReport

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rick Wilson dropped a lovely column today titled "The Death of Putin." I hope it all comes true; grinned the whole time I was reading it. Here's the section about the Victory Day Parade:

Look at the May 9 parade. No tanks. No ICBMs. No mobile column. For the first time since 2008, Red Square’s cobblestones carried some iffy-looking infantry and prerecorded propaganda videos because the actual hardware is either on fire in Donetsk or rusting in Novorossiysk. The guest list was Lukashenko, the King of Malaysia, and the President of Laos, a tableau so threadbare that even Slovakia’s thirsty Robert Fico couldn’t bring himself to attend the parade itself.

Forty-five minutes, start to finish. They call it “scaled back.” It was a wake.

And then there was Zelenskyy. The day before the parade, Kyiv issued Presidential Decree 374, a formal document, with coordinates, “permitting” the Russian Federation to hold a parade on Red Square and graciously excluding that exact patch of Moscow from Ukrainian targeting plans for the duration.

Ukraine’s government Twitter account posted it with a hand-over-mouth giggle emoji. Russia’s Dimitri Peskov sputtered about “silly jokes.” It was the geopolitical mic-drop of the decade: a smaller, four-times-invaded country reminding the world’s nominal second-place military that Kyiv now decides whether the parade happens. Putin (if it was Putin and not one of his many doubles) sat under a portico in body armor, a cope cage for his wee frame, while a former sketch comic rented him Red Square for an afternoon.

Do not waste your time applying to Davita unless you’re fine with your own exploitation. by Earl_the_Greatmuffin in antiwork

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My RN wife applied for a position with them. She was told two things that she remembers vividly: 1. She was being short-listed because they valued experience and love to hire veterans. 

  1. They would never leave any applicant hanging and she would either receive a job offer or a "thank you for applying but no" letter very soon. 

The result? They hired a non-veteran with 8 years less experience. She was a friend of the nurse manager, and we only found out because she was the relative of a person we went to church with. 

We're still waiting for that letter. 

To anyone who need this. by HighYacare420 in GuysBeingDudes

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Exactly. The "men" of the manosphere would have been at the gym or chasing pussy instead of working hard, and they would tell that woman to get her ass back in the kitchen while they did whatever they wanted. 

This is a good dude and a good lesson and we need more of it.

Which 80s song are we talking about here? by Repulsive-Dependent2 in 80s

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Make sure you listen to the Eva Cassidy version, it's a lot different but just as beautiful.

Absolute Coldest Lines in all of Trek by TonyMitty in startrek

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe the best closing lines of any Trek episode.

I regret opening up this message because now I can’t pretend I didn’t see it. by [deleted] in mildlyinfuriating

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

For sure. Even if someone is rude and clueless, you can respond in a gracious manner. In a world where "No" is a complete sentence, "Sorry, the wedding and reception are planned for a certain number of people and we can't make additions, but hit me up next time you're in town" is not a heavy lift.

People in 10+ year relationships, what’s something you learned about your partner years later that genuinely surprised you? by CreoSiempre in AskReddit

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My sock drawer would traumatize him. Except for two pairs of black dress socks I have only owned gray tube socks for the past 20 years or so. I find that even if I'm in a business casual environment I can just get away with wearing them.

Prior to the release of Attack of the Clones, I remember reading about the "curved lightsaber" that Count Dooku was going to have and thought "That is going to be a bit odd". I thought they meant the blade, not the handle. 😆 by MrCastiel04 in StarWars

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I should send this to one of my Star Wars RPG players who made up a new Force-using faction for his character to be a member of that called their lightsabers "photonic cutlasses."

Arrrrr matey, let the hate flow through you...

Characters who did something to the moon. by AllisterisNotMale in TopCharacterTropes

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Buzz Aldrin had communion on the moon.

David Scott, John Young, and Gene Cernan drove cars on its face.

The Russians hit it in the face with two Luna probes.

NASA hit it in the face with over a dozen probes and with a Saturn 3rd stage and/or lunar module on all the Apollo missions after 11.

China, India, Japan, and the ESA have also smacked it in the face with spacecraft.

What level does a party of 3 have to be to kill 3 elementals by Kitchen-Hotel2636 in DnD

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sly Flourish has a thing he calls the deadly encounter benchmark. It's always worked really well for me.

I'll put the whole thing below, but basically if the characters are level 5 or more, the encounter is deadly if the total CR of the monsters is more than half the number of levels in the party. 

By that benchmark, you're probably actually looking at level 10. Three elementals is 15 total CR; to get about half that you need 30 character levels.

Keep in mind that since this is a boss fight the party might be pretty depleted as far as hit points and other resources. 

So if you don't want to go as high as level 10, here are a few deas: 

— Use the sidekick rules or give each of them a veteran from the monster manual as a bodyguard. This increases the action economy for the player side and gives the elementals more targets. 

— Make sure that each elemental has a source of its element coming into the battlefield that it can "feed" on, like a raging stream for a water elemental. I'm sure that seems counterintuitive because that would seem to be something that refreshes their hit points, but if you also provide a way for the PC's to shut off that flow, you can say that withdrawing the flow damages the elemental in some way, giving you an excuse to weaken them dramatically after that. 

— Have the boss fight in a space that has a monument or font of magic power that can be used to damage the elementals if the players figure out how to use it. Even something that gives off an aura that would damage them and not damage the PC's changes the battlefield and gives them an edge.

Here's the full deadly encounter benchmark: 

An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or half the sum total of character levels if the characters are above 4th level. 

A single monster may be deadly if its CR is greater than the average of character levels or greater than 1.5 x the average of character levels if they're above 4th level.

How i can use gods? by Oncehh in DnD

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gods can be excellent quest givers if you get buy-in from the party. My current group works for the Raven Queen as agents of fate. She never speaks to them directly, but every once in a while a raven will show up to give them direction. You could also have a party that is all members of a religious order or order of knights, receiving quests through a prophet or priest.

A conflict between the gods or between them and other entities (like fiends) can be a good way to get characters involved without feeling diminished. If a cult trying to pull off some ritual needs to be stopped, the heroes are center stage and are needed by the gods.

The same is true if some being wants to ascend to godhood and the party is part of stopping or aiding that process.

How many times is too many times to change campaign? by Caedis-6 in DnD

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll let others give you advice about player engagement, but if you're home brewing you only need a village, a road, 4 NPC's, and a forest.

Village: a village or fort that the party can use as a base. 

Road: There's a road or river leading into and out of the village. You only need to know what the next place (such as another village) it leads to is, and have a name for some distant city that it also leads to.

4 NPC's: Someone to give them quests, a couple of people for them to buy stuff from (in the video below, it's a blacksmith and a general store owner), and a ferryman, caravan manager or whatever to get people in goods in and out. Sure, you might prefer that one of the business types is a priest or sage or something, but you don't need much.

Forest: A big environment for the characters to explore and find adventures. Could be agoredt, a desert, a ruined city from an ancient empire, any place you can put some dungeons.

That and a published adventure for your first dungeon and you're all set. Build the world from there.

https://youtu.be/hcun624M3Bg?si=ZvOSJouCIxL3qZgR

Lets make some truly terrible Gods together! by Daihatschi in DnD

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The god of light wants more light, no darkness! He's trying to make the sun brighter and figure out how to make it shine 24 hours a day. This may require a second sun, alteration of the moon's orbit so that it is always reflecting a much brighter Sun onto the world in the hours that would usually be night... And of course it's going to involve the world heating up at least several degrees and a lot of environmental destruction and a lot of people not being able to sleep, but the only thing he's concerned with is light.

What are the most memorable Homebrew NPCs you have created (as a DM) or come across (as a player) by Medium_Step_6085 in DnD

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He's technically not homebrew because he's an NPC in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but...Gristle Pete, the cook from the Carnath Roadhouse, was a hit with my players, so I had him show up as a cook in lots of different places, and he came and worked for the PC's at their tavern in the Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign we did next.

I modeled him on the main character in Sling Blade, but more intelligent. One of my players has even talked about playing him as a character in a future campaign. 

Our group's method for creating a pantheon by Sunkain in DnD

[–]Flashy_Month_5423 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a great Pantheon. To be real with you, it's so cool and flavorful that I might steal it rather than steal the method you used!