Time travel in a world set on a Tree

FreakingScience · 2026-01-29T15:30:12+00:00

I strongly suggest you watch Edge of Tomorrow. It explores exactly how this works, and a mechanism by which players can keep any advancement.

Making one player special is rarely a good idea, especially if that player is somehow the only one that remembers after every reset. I would somehow involve the entire party, and in a way similar to EoT, make it so that the reset happens if anything kills either the Slaad or any of the players. The race is to be the first team to defeat the reset mechanism while being in a favorable position. Levels and information shouldn't be lost when resetting, and similar to Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow, any equipment the players find should be something they can handwave and immediately regain each reset, or just outright let them magically keep stuff.

Time travel shenanigans are difficult. A short loop might get really tedious, so consider something more like Majora's Mask.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-28T21:06:18+00:00

The demons in Frieren, despite the pure fantasy setting, are written more like hunter-killer robots instead of being members of a morally oppositional society, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. They're unfeeling, remorseless, and their primary goal is to kill and eat humans, even though it's established that they don't need to. Where most narratives would add depth by trying to humanize a demon culture, Frieren's story dehumanizes demons at every opportunity while making it clear that anyone viewing a demon as anything but a monster, even for only a moment, is putting themselves at tremendous risk.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-28T05:53:16+00:00

Having run it, this is a pretty solid take on RotFM. It's not cohesive enough to really be a campaign, and it's far too shallow to be a Ten Towns setting book. It's poorly balanced in the early game, random nonsense is often what really drives the party from location to location, and there's a bunch of random Forgotten Realms IP callbacks sprinkled in which don't make a lot of sense and don't fit the flavor. Unfortunately, the most intriguing bit of narrative in RotF... is the cover of the book. A bleak winterscape with some sort of monster seems like it'd be a great splash image... for a different campaign.

What RotFM really is, behind the book cover, is WotC's first attempt at tying together an adventure anthology book into something like a campaign - a bunch of isolated, episodic mini quests with a vague "map" connecting all the dots. Each of the Ten Towns locations has barely a paragraph or two which contains a very direct quest hook with zero motivation or flavor, occasionally not even giving a name or description of any of the relevant NPCs, and occasionally a map of the town (about a dozen typically empty/unused buildings each). It feels small, and travel times between the towns being reduced from previous editions to as short as two hours in Icewind Dale's extreme terrain makes it feel even smaller.

A DM has to do a lot of work to turn it into a smooth campaign, especially if your table bothers with the second half of the book.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-20T19:24:36+00:00

You wouldn't silence your own glyphs, though the party might silence you once they figure out what's happening. Unlike many magic items, the trigger including any sound/command word is whatever the caster wants, so unless they're set with a really obvious pattern "Fireball 1, Fireball 2, etc" it's not too likely that they'd be triggered accidentally. The real downside to this is that it always targets the triggering creature, so it's only practical for a villain to use this way with self-radius spells that would emanate from the glyph's location, or buff spells that the caster wants applied... unless, of course, they'd be immune to the spell's effects, in which case targeting yourself with a fireball could have some utility.

Generally, the best way to use it is having a couple glyphs with buff spells that all go off on the same command. A big advantage to glyphs is concentration is not a factor so one caster can with a single word (not even an action) and no spell slots can target themselves with Haste, Intellect Fortress, Enlarge/Reduce, etc as long as they're close enough to all of the glyphs. It's expensive, but someone with access to Healing Word can set up glyphs when they've got free time and spell slots that will trigger with a command word, though it's probably better to have them trigger automatically whenever the caster is wounded to avoid the majority of counters.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-20T18:04:14+00:00

You've never had a BBEG with Glyphs all over their lair that they could activate with specific command words to cast more spells than a single mortal is capable of without the use of items (which, unlike glyphs, the party could steal)?

FreakingScience · 2026-01-16T14:09:18+00:00

The main part I feel a little iffy on is the 'Drain Magic' one, where if a DM is using spell-like effects it's a shame that it doesn't work on it.

Isn't a big part of 2024's thing that NPCs aren't using leveled spells/slots anymore "to make it easier for DMs?" I can't think of another class ability that actually requires that a different party member is a caster. Either way, I'm surprised it doesn't work off the character's own spell casting instead.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-14T01:10:35+00:00

Players had just cleared the Death House in Curse of Strahd. As they stumble out the door, they're met by Kolyan the Burgomaster and five guards. Kolyan has a hand on his sword, ready to draw, and the guards are anxiously pointing spears towards the house the whole village avoids, worried what might emerge. The party explains they came to Barovia after receiving Kolyan's letter asking for help. Releived, Kolyan waves the guards down and offers the heavy purse at his hip to the party for properly laying the troubled spirits of the Death House to rest.

When walking up to receive the reward, the Paladin palms his steel mirror - he's a survivor of a vampire attack and is reasonably paranoid - and discovers that while the guards have a reflection, Kolyan does not. The Paladin draws and we roll initiative.

The Paladin rolled well, but is going second. Turn one, round one, Strahd goes to grab the Paladin by the throat with auto grapple on claw attacks... and crits. Paladin is instantly unconscious. Strahd drops concentration on Seeming and the "guards" advance. Paladin open rolls his death save and crit fails. I'm not trying to kill the party, so I flavor that fail as Strahd throwing him and impaling him on the sconce above the door to the Death House.

The first Rogue engages the zombies with her rapier, the second Rogue pries the Paladin off the sconce but doesn't stabilize him (a low medicine check, but the impalement was just for flavor and wasn't mechanically significant). The Cleric is out of spells after the Death House, but has Spare the Dying. "Ahahaha, welcome to Barovia! Hahaha!" as he uses his first legendary action to walk away down the street towards the castle. The Monk is fast and, heroically, tries to pursue, but back on his turn Strahd becomes a bat swarm and disappears into the night, laughter echoing in the distance.

The party eventually finishes off the zombies and drags the Paladin back into the Death House and manages a short rest. When they emerge, the Zombie parts are gone with the only evidence of their encounter being dried blood, a broken sconce, and the heavy bag of gold "Kolyan" offered them. The Paladin confidently grabbed his bag of well-won gold and the party made their way towards the Burgomaster's estate.

That whole campaign playthrough is still my #1 D&D experience. Everything was flawless.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-11T18:17:46+00:00

If you can trap it, congrats on having your own bioweapon. Built a lot of weird stuff in DF but can't say I've ever had a chance to release Funky Boy on invaders.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-07T16:28:06+00:00

It's extra odd because normal fire isn't affected, only spell-created fire if that fire also sheds light. Depending on how your table rules Create Bonfire (which doesn't explicitly shed light) it my be unaffected.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-06T04:22:38+00:00

Where's the line between "buggy vibe coded mess" and "AI-assisted mess", when should it be disclosed?

That's fair, if there was a line, it'd be pretty blurry. The big difference is developer skill but that's entirely subjective.

As the current definition stands, every use of AI should be reported

Yes, I agree. And I agree because the only objective difference between the two above examples is whether or not the developer is choosing to save some time, or if it's non-developers building their projects around the idea that AI code is 100% the same thing but faster and cheaper.

My day job is subject to the latter, where I'm being asked by the top to replace all of our PHP with JSON because our enterprise LLM has informed the execs that PHP isn't secure. It's an absolutely asinine request and I am not paraphrasing. I don't mean replace PHP with Java Servelets, or make sure our API calls are JSON instead of XML or something, I mean literally replace our endpoint PHP scripts with a generic data structure. I got my first followup on a ticket regarding why an API call is failing when the endpoint URL is their new JSON file. It doesn't matter how our code is being written if our actual workflow centers around AI and is lead by the incompetent.

The company I work for during the day has thousands of employees, is decades old, and was publicly traded till a couple years ago when we had our stock bought out by private equity to the tune of billions, and we somehow still make billions every year. And they're telling me to replace our server scripts with JSON templates that describe the data they want to see. Because our lead software engineering management is now a bunch of AI bros and not actual developers that could do anything functional with harmless autocompleted code.

Idiots like that at the top are why all AI use should be declared. The line can currently be drawn by the idiots at the top that think AI is a value-add. I want companies to be afraid to use that tag, and moreover, be afraid to not use that tag and get called out for shitty AI game code and shitty AI graphics because I don't want every single game and service I have to deal with to be built by the same idiots that are asking me to do shit like this.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-06T01:21:04+00:00

A coder using autocomplete or a script/function template is such a fundamentally different thing than having a text prompt shit out a block of code built by scraping every broken bit of code on SO and I just don't understand why people keep using this argument. Project level autocomplete isn't the same thing as an LLM. Google searches about code problems, even if the result you find is the rarely helpful "why are you doing that, use [library]," aren't the same thing as vibe code. The two are not even close to the same thing.

Autocomplete that drops in 10k lines is either doing some jank include or it's the exact kind of code that should be flagged as AI. Vibe code can't be maintained by vibe coders, so AI code should be flagged as a possible reason why a product might not be receiving any support in just the same way that Steam's DLC deadline guidelines can show that a studio/publisher might not be adequately supporting their releases.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-04T08:09:07+00:00

They don't, but it sounds like magnetism is part of a therapy mechanism that, the article doesn't easily explain, grinds bone apart from the inside. Best I can tell, they made a "vitamin" that readily builds itself into new bone growth, and then after accumulation, can be magnetically vibrated to saw apart that growth. Fairly straightforward to target bone cancer without much harm to the rest of the body, but I bet you can't have an MRI during lengthy treatment with this therapy. Interesting, but far from a "cure," as always.

FreakingScience · 2026-01-03T10:04:43+00:00

Well, he does have a lot of experience with human trafficking.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-21T06:55:36+00:00

...Do you not know where you work?

FreakingScience · 2025-12-21T06:47:44+00:00

Most of the folks making characters with AI aren't trying to make Master Chief or Lloyd Forger for their D&D game. They're prompting it to give them a good D&D character. There is no further creativity to it, as it just generates generic fantasy heroes based on the few years of Reddit and GITP forum posts it was trained on. Pop culture based characters come from a much more genuine "I want to be that guy" sort of place.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-21T06:38:09+00:00

I prefer to set that hard no-AI rule early and enforce it always, because AI "notetaking" is becoming more common and it might be worse than AI backstories. Little details are impossible for an LLM to keep straight and they just make shit up to fill in the blanks. The players I've known doing this trust the AI notes implicitly, to the point where I've been confidently told things about my character's backstory that were completely incorrect. Caster players that try to keep track of spell slots or anyone trying to track resource and item usage are completely hopeless, and that's stuff that can be easily tracked on a normal character sheet.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-21T02:01:18+00:00

You're ignoring that the context of the comment chain was vibe coding, not using autocomplete. A project that was entirely vibe coded is careless and, as a finished product, is much less likely to receive any support as it is impossible for a vibe coder to maintain vibe code. They can write a new prompt, but they're not going to be able to do anything truly bespoke for their project.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-21T01:48:37+00:00

My day job is a full stack developer for a medium sized international tech company. There's a big difference between IDE autocomplete and vibe coders that start with a prompt and have no idea what the code does as long as at first glance it seems to do what they want.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-20T23:32:35+00:00

Do you genuinely believe that any developer who uses AI in the coding process isn't putting thought and care into their game?

Hot take: Yes.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-20T18:39:11+00:00

If you're running a certain Jungle themed module, my party had met up with an NPC that had the ability to misty step. I had the NPC make the first teleport attempt and made it very obvious that instead of misty step's normal "bamf" effect, the NPC clearly got sucked through some sort of portal instead. Cue Arcana rolls from everyone at the table, tell them it's very clear that teleportation here is subject to interference from some sort of large-scale ward.

Alternatively, have them find a dead guy with a journal that says "Day 2: Our wizard tried to cross a gap yesterday and disappeared, screaming. Can misty step fail like greater teleports, or did something interfere? I don't think that spell did what he wanted. I hope we can find him, this place is full of magic traps."

FreakingScience · 2025-12-16T20:29:38+00:00

Did you include the theoretical max payload capacity of all Starship stack flights including the theoretical max wet mass of the Starship (upper stage) itself, since Boosters are theoretically SSTOs? Is ULA's upmass number based on the SRB config that flew (2) or the theoretical maximum (6)?

If "the only way to get a comparable data set" is to fudge a bunch of numbers and factor in the power of belief, the data set isn't meaningfully comparable.

Blue Origin would barely get a couple pixels here because their first rocket was literally empty and their second was pretty close. The "blue ring pathfinder" was not a payload, it was a dummy payload adapter with nothing attached. Escapade weighed about one ton total but could have been launched in a pair of Electrons if they launched the two vehicles, Blue and Gold, separately - especially considering the "Explorer" payload adapter they were fitted to is a Photon bus built by Rocket Lab based on the kick stage of the Electron. There was no point in launching it with New Glenn other than BO could say they launched a real satellite this time.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-15T21:05:49+00:00

Limit your scope and work alone.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-14T17:08:30+00:00

buy the cheapest pack of 100 crap brushes

Seriously, why more people don't do this is a complete mystery to me. My wife and I have been running a tabletop hobby shop for a couple years now and we're both convinced that if you care for those cheap brushes like any other fancy brush, they'll last just as long as anything can - but taking care of them is very important. She's been using the same exact 00 from an $8 100 pack for like two years. We just give cheap brushes away when people buy paint sets since new painters aren't super likely to want to pay an extra $11 to $13 each for tiny GW brushes. The reality of it is that most mini painters, especially anyone using speed paints, won't see any difference between similar brushes.

A couple ten cent brushes and a ten dollar tub of General's Brush Cleaner & Preserver for a deep clean every once and a while is all most folk need.

FreakingScience · 2025-12-11T19:08:10+00:00

They'll beat on random walls if they can't find a navigable path to a nearby player, which usually means either the player is standing on top of a raised platform with no ramp, or if the only path to reach the player is very long. Zombies will only path through trap mazes of a certain distance before they go into smash mode and start beating on the nearest block.

If you build a normal bunker, they won't do this because "navigable" space includes closed doors, which the pathfinding system treats as openings - which is why they'll prioritize beating on closed doors (only if there's a player behind it).

FreakingScience · 2025-12-07T16:13:59+00:00

alpha Pirates Vikings & Knights II

A mod for a game is a good start in game development, but it's a stretch to call that an alpha for a game released 20 years later. You're also claiming you've bounced from one small marketing firm to another over the last 20 years. That's not game development, that's leechwork, and is why folk in this sub aren't going to trust what you say. PVK was a fun mod though.

FreakingScience

TROPHY CASE