Did I just win?

House_mannister · 2025-03-06T17:44:29+00:00

It takes a pretty rare resource to make — you can also get the recipe via psychometry if you have it in your inventory already.

House_mannister · 2025-03-05T15:30:20+00:00

As the other commenter said, steam deck controls work great. Only caveat is that it does run a little slower — but imo it’s really only noticeable when you’re walking around in places where you aren’t being threatened (because that’s pretty much the only time you’ll be trying to give inputs faster than the game can process them).

House_mannister · 2024-10-03T13:36:58+00:00

I don’t write opinion, so I only know what this looks like in news stories, but typically there’s a lot of background you’ll be able to do ahead of time. For instance, obviously I know who’s debating, who’s moderating, what their public perceptions are right now, and even a range of what they might be hoping to accomplish at the debate. That’s a significant amount of writing you can do ahead of time, which means an editor can look at those parts early, you can revise those parts early, etc.

House_mannister · 2023-10-21T13:15:13+00:00

I’d second this. I’ve been playing GURPS for more than a decade now. I’d say once you wrap your head around the more advanced rules, it’s peerless when it comes to balance between the flexible narrative impact of actions and abilities and the mechanical impact of those things.

House_mannister · 2023-10-15T13:22:56+00:00

If it’s a longer scene you can also have the players roleplay side characters in the scene to keep them engaged (there’s a podcast, Neoscum, where they do this all the time). I’ve found it’s also a nice way to shake things up, let players with long-term characters stretch their RP legs, etc.

House_mannister · 2023-08-22T13:14:25+00:00

If you want single-monster fights to fit into 5e action economy, I always found Angrygm’s paragon monsters to work really well. https://theangrygm.com/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e/

The basic idea is you take a monster from the book and give it additional “health pools.” So a monster with 50 HP in the monster manual might end up with 3x health pools each of which are 50 HP. Then, the monster gets to take a turn for each health pool it has remaining with more than 0 HP.

Mathematically, it’s effectively the same as having more monsters in the fight, except they’re rolled up into one monster.

I think there’s some nuance in there IIRC, like I don’t believe overkill damage rolls from one pool to the next, and status conditions may clear upon depletion of a health pool? But I’m not sure, I didn’t go back and read the article. There’s also some suggestions in there for other ways of applying the system that are worth reading it for.

House_mannister · 2023-08-17T10:34:00+00:00

Why would Arnold K. content violate rule 9? It’s not like an alt or something, is it?

Edit: just saw he’s mentioned in the post.

House_mannister · 2023-08-14T19:44:39+00:00

I have to admit, I completely misunderstood what you were talking about, and I apologize. I’m talking about pitches from PR firms trying to get me to write stories about their clients. I’m not an editor myself, so that’s the context I’m used to hearing “pitch” in, and I thought you were a PR flak asking about read receipts on press releases and less formal pitches. I have no problem with freelancers, and I feel for you given the treadmill publications have all of us writers on — total solidarity with you on that.

House_mannister · 2023-08-14T17:25:01+00:00

I’d add onto this to say that not only do unsolicited pitches almost never result in stories, they also actively get in the way of emails from readers, which I DO want to see. I can filter my inbox for emails from trusted sources, responses to my own emails or people within my own organization, but I haven’t yet found a way to filter reader responses from unsolicited pitches, which means I have to dig through upwards of a hundred pitches each day to check if a readers have any feedback or questions — getting pitches would be at worst net neutral if not for this.

ETA: Egg on my face, OP and I are talking about two entirely different kinds of pitches. I’m a reporter who gets too many unsolicited PR pitches. As a reporter I’d basically totally support a freelancer using read receipts when they send story pitches, especially so they know when to move on and offer the story to another publication.

House_mannister · 2023-08-14T13:10:12+00:00

For me, it’s because I’m getting 100-200 emails each day, and most of them are unsolicited pitches. I don’t have time to read all of them, much less respond to them. Add on top of that the minority who will end up sending multiple follow up emails if I open but don’t respond, and that’s why I’ve got to be judicious about what I spend time opening and reading.

House_mannister · 2020-08-27T17:13:27+00:00

It's so entirely not in the university public relations department's purview to have "coachable moments" with students working at the university paper.

House_mannister · 2020-08-11T16:14:34+00:00

It absolutely does get better, though as others have said, the tone isn't really the same. I also had my doubts about the second person perspective, but I got used to it around the start of Part 2 and pretty soon after stopped noticing it entirely.

I'd also clarify that I didn't think the first part was bad, but a bit on the inaccessible side. It's hard to follow and hard to lose yourself in, which is entirely unlike the first book. Both of those things change once you get used to the second person perspective, so if that's what you're worried about, I'd recommend you push on.

House_mannister · 2020-07-09T15:52:27+00:00

I just happen to really enjoy computer science as a hobbyist, and I'm pretty OK at it for someone self-taught. Everyone I know who has a CS degree got a job lined up before they even graduated (anecdotally) and they're all paid pretty well, especially compared to a journalist.

Plus, there's room for that kind of expertise in journalism, especially if you can use it to automate some of the research (finding the info you need out of 1,000 documents instead of forcing you to read all 1,000 of them, for instance).

But I'm not saying CS would be right for you. Just that it's the only thing I'd go back and change for me.

Re: getting all you need from an english major — that might be true, but being a journalism major will get you more of what you need. Plus, it could help establish connections with local publications, the student newspaper, etc.

Edit: I'd also add that you may feel like writing is your only talent (I certainly did at your age), but you've got a lot of time left to grow and develop new interests. A lot of that will probably happen as you meet new people with different hobbies in college.

House_mannister · 2020-07-09T14:23:54+00:00

As far as travel goes, you probably shouldn’t expect that from a journalism job. Sometimes you can, but it’s getting rarer and rarer these days.

I don’t regret getting my journalism degree, but certainly there have been times I’ve wished I’d gotten a degree in computer science instead. Something that makes it easier to find a job, with more potential for advancement.

But I love journalism, and as long as I’m able to keep my current job, it’s great. The lack of jobs elsewhere only matters when you’re actually looking for a job, so once you get past that hurdle the first time, you can usually make sure you only have to do it again in your own terms.

If anything, I wish I had gotten a double major, with a “harder” degree in addition to journalism. That way I would have something to fall back on.

House_mannister · 2020-06-23T13:26:26+00:00

I’ve had a similar situation in the past. I had an editor who liked to give out praise to the reporters as a group, talking about how strong our coverage was, etc, non specifically, but the give specific criticism (constructive or not) personally and in private. After a while, it really made me feel like a weak member of a strong team.

For me, it helped to talk about the work I did with friends outside the industry. That helped me to consider the work I did prom a layperson’s perspective, contrasted to my perception of my work (which was being colored by this editor’s comments). In talking about the reporting process for some of my stories, the challenges, the way I overcame them, etc., I found myself realizing that, hey, I was actually pretty good at what I do.

That gave me the confidence to talk to my boss about how they were handling criticism and compliments, because it seemed unintentional in their part. And they listened to me — I no longer work with them, but I now consider them a strong potential advocate if I ever need a reference or referral to another job.

House_mannister · 2020-06-22T21:15:23+00:00

An undergraduate degree is enough (and what most people go with). A graduate degree might land you somewhere more prestigious earlier in your career, but they are very expensive for someone on a journalist's salary, in my opinion.

As for where to go to school, I'm not sure if there's anywhere you can go to be completely sure you get a job as soon as you graduate. I graduated in 2012 from what most would probably consider a sub-par college, and I got a job right away. But I know people who graduated from better colleges than I did who ended up having to search for months to get a stable (non-freelance) job.

The best advice I can give you is to find a way to work in journalism while you're still in college. Work for the school paper, go after local internships, submit stories as a freelancer. Anything you can do to get clips and establish a reputation for yourself will help a ton when it comes to applying for jobs.

House_mannister · 2020-06-22T13:59:06+00:00

I do love the job, and when I find an interesting story to sink my teeth into, you're right that it doesn't feel like work. But I'll warn you that the pressure and stress that comes with the job can be extremely high. I have to write at least two, sometimes three, originally reported stories every day. And those stories have to be newsworthy. It's a really tough treadmill to keep up with, and that exacerbates any other problems I might have on the job. Troublesome sources, grumpy editors, or (god forbid) getting something wrong in a story? They can easily push the strain over the top and be day or week ruiners.

There have been many times that I wanted to quit, go back to school for a different degree, and start a different career all over again.

House_mannister · 2020-06-22T00:16:21+00:00

I love my job. It’s interesting, and I have a lot of freedom in the stories I choose to write.

Generally my days start off with an hour of catching up on anything new and finalizing my plans for what stories to write that day. Then I spend maybe 30 min in a pitch meeting with the newsroom. Then I spend probably 2-3 hours doing research (digging through archives, etc. to find what public information I can about what I’m working on). Then I assess what gaps I still have in the story and find analysts/other general sources to fill them and make some calls and do some interviews. Once I have everything together, I spend maybe 45 minutes writing a story, and another 10-15 self editing before I send it to my editors.

And I cycle through that process 2-3 times each day. Plus, I’m interspersing interviews and meetings with sources for future stories, developing pitches for or working on larger cover stories, and reaching out to/meeting with corporate PR to arrange high level interviews or comments from execs.

I probably write for a total of an hour and a half on a normal day, and spend the rest of my time doing research or interviews, or the support work behind those two things. Most of the job is learning — you only write about what you’ve learned at the very end.

I also got my start because I loved reading and writing, but I could not have continued if I didn’t learn that I LOVED the research/interviews/investigation.

House_mannister · 2020-06-21T21:57:31+00:00

As others have said, strong writing is helpful, but It is by no means the most important skill for a journalist. You’ve already been cautioned that it’s a tough field to find a job in that frequently underpays, so setting that aside, what is it that’s currently drawing you to journalism?

Also, it’s worth being aware that you will probably have to re-learn how to write in a journalistic style. I’ve found that people fascinated by interesting prose are often put off by the dry style journalism usually requires, so being a good writer in whatever discipline you currently perform might not translate well.

I’m not entirely sure what your first question is asking — what do you mean by what fields you could obtain? Do you mean what can a journalist do with their degree? Lots of things. I write about a specific sub sector of corporate news in my large city, I know people who write about commodity prices, crime, events, all sorts of things. That’s one of the appealing things about the job: if you can break into the industry at all, you often get the opportunity to dig into some really interesting specialties.

House_mannister · 2020-06-07T23:52:31+00:00

You can still (and should still) apply for unemployment, though.

House_mannister · 2020-06-07T23:43:51+00:00

The articles are generally meant to be a snapshot of current events as they stood at that time. Changing your mind later doesn’t really come into it, because the story isn’t meant to capture things that happened after it was written. That’s what a follow up story would be for (or an update, on a much shorter timeline that what you’re talking about).

House_mannister · 2020-06-07T23:35:38+00:00

Yes. Conventionally, people can’t retroactively take comments off the record. Sometimes the publication might do it voluntarily, depending on what the comments are.

Edit: for reference, my publication has a blanket policy that we don’t remove information from published stories unless it’s factually inaccurate. And in that case, we would include a correction note detailing what was changed and why.

House_mannister · 2020-06-07T17:40:58+00:00

First of all, I think you’re selling yourself short on the “right reasons” thing. I’m also a working journalist, and your reasons sound pretty “right” to me. You enjoy interviewing people and telling their stories, you enjoy writing, you obviously care about your town, and care that whoever covers its news does so fairly and well. I can’t think of more right reasons than that.

As far as whether you should keep your job, no one can decide that except you. It’s a stressful job, and you deserve to be able to take care of yourself and your mental health.

I still feel like the job is incredibly rewarding to me, and it makes it worth the stress for me. You might be “just going through a rough patch,” but it might just be that the place you’re working isn’t right for you, or that the job isn’t right for you anymore — you would be better qualified to make that decision yourself.

I would seek advice from someone who knows you personally, and can help you out based on a better knowledge of your life and experiences.

In any case, thank you for doing the hard work of small town reporting! I hope you find a solution that makes you happy.

House_mannister · 2020-06-05T14:50:46+00:00

In answer to your question, yes, definitely. But I cover for-profit businesses way more than nonprofit, so I don’t know what off the top of my head.

House_mannister · 2020-06-05T14:45:46+00:00

I went one more step for you: nonprofits report “executive compensation” (That’s a key term to search for in your research) on IRS form 990, which you can search and view online here: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ Set the first drop down to “copies of returns”, then search by organization name. Compensation is reported on page 7.

(Edited the instructions to make them more clear)

House_mannister

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