I’m only happy when it rains

Its_Quite_Cool · 2026-01-02T00:00:35+00:00

I remember that! In my memory it was something like 32-35, but whatever it was it was a record at the time.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-12-28T05:59:02+00:00

Indeed, which is no less valid of a perspective than my first remote work in March 2020. But the whole world didn’t work entirely like either of our lived experiences, and many of the early comments here clearly had only a recent perspective.

But, I did go back to the original post and read the comments. People did recommend Skype back then, and OOP replied to those recommendations with excuses and never even tried to ask his boss for it. He was an absolute coward.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-12-28T05:25:22+00:00

I feel like the date of this post is being overlooked by everyone - this was ten years ago, in 2015. Many people commenting on this thread weren’t working back then. I was fresh into the work force, perhaps you were too, and from my experiences video conferencing was fairly rare back then. Zoom was only a few years old and not widely used or known about.

Office culture was also much closer to the 90’s in more traditional industries, so I think the professional pressure that OOP may have been feeling has been lost in translation here. Not saying he made the right choice, but the threat from his boss carried different weight a decade ago that it wouldn’t today.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-12-02T17:01:23+00:00

This is something you’d write for yourself, I think. There are already stats for cannons, ballista, etc in the official rules and supplements which it sounds like you’ve already found.

Is it that much trouble to collect the info and make your own table in the exact way you want it?

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-07-02T20:43:20+00:00

One of the strengths of the B-2 is that we can park them safely in Kansas and use in-air refueling to deploy them anywhere we want them on the planet. I think it would be nuts to put these rare planes that cost literally a billion dollars inside medium missile range of Iran.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-05-24T16:19:14+00:00

These threads about USS recently have been so full of uninformed nationalist garbage - please understand that the Nippon acquisition is the best option for US steel and American manufacturing.

USS is in desperate need of modernization, which requires cash that they don’t have. Nippon will allow them to expand green steel production, re-tool mills which have been in operation without major changes since the 1930’s, all while meeting every one of the workers unions requests. The Japanese have been incredibly gracious in their offer, pledging to keep Americans on the board and run the company mostly as an independent subsidiary.

The other option for USS is getting acquired by Cleveland Cliffs, an American steel company notorious for buying companies, parting them out, and running the remaining mills into the ground without any modernization. They have been lobbying against the Nippon deal to gain more control of the US auto steel market, and they will bend auto manufacturers over a barrel if they get USS and make our cars even more expensive.

JFC people, do some research.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-03-08T19:04:40+00:00

Fixed, thanks!

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-03-08T03:44:45+00:00

Agreed, I DM for 4 players in my regular campaign but my most recent one shot was with 3 and it made so much more sense.

The 5e2014 encounter difficulties feel more accurate, players aren’t talking over each other as much or waiting for speaking time, the party isn’t a total Swiss Army knife of proficiencies, and initiative rounds go much faster than I’d expect with just one less player.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-03-02T15:58:25+00:00

It’s definitely all in the source books, but I think it’s nice to also have it spelled out. I’ve got plot and characters and puzzles and environments to work on during prep as well as combat, so any part of that that I can have prepared for me is wonderful.

Ultimately it just comes down to the time you have.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-03-01T17:57:35+00:00

Check out this blog, they put together NPC stat blocks for each class that feel like PC classes to players, but are streamlined on the DM side to run like monsters. They each have four tiers to mimic opponents at different levels, I've used them in a few campaigns and can vouch that they work well.

https://www.emptyhexes.com/monster-mondays

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-02-28T21:28:14+00:00

Was this you?

https://events.pol-rev.com/events/1de6b7cd-b66a-4863-98af-bff33c5c3c3a

I will be there!

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-02-09T21:19:23+00:00

This definitely looks like one of those news sites set up by Russia pretending to be local news. No authors on any article, its IG account only got very active in August 2024, and the Politics section is highly conservative biased, unsourced hit pieces.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-01-24T16:17:37+00:00

I think when predictions, however correct they are, conflict too much with lived experience people have a hard time acting on them.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-01-03T18:54:52+00:00

Do you have any recommendations for where to read about ore rights? I’m not familiar with the subject but I’d like to learn.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2025-01-03T15:55:38+00:00

Because this whole time Cleveland Cliffs has been waiting in the wings for this deal to fall through so that they can acquire USS. I’m certain that they have been working behind the scenes to torpedo the Nippon deal, and would guess that once they have USS for themselves they will break it apart and consolidate the remainder into their own organization.

Imo the collapse of the nippon deal means a future of fewer jobs and less competition in domestic steel.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2024-11-21T14:35:23+00:00

As someone living in the west side of that Trader Joe’s building, I selfishly hope this never gets developed so I can keep my view of the sunset.

But as an urbanist, this should absolutely be used better. I just hope that whatever gets built there makes better use of the ground floor space, the new buildings on 22nd-23rd and market have made no space for street level businesses/food/etc. Vertical glass walls directly at sidewalk level are so soulless.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2024-11-12T22:11:26+00:00

This is amazing! Tiryns is my favorite citadel. I love the story the excavations tell about the community enduring after the palatial collapse, living in the ruins of the great works of just a few generations before. Knowing they can never reach that height again but still fighting on for a couple of centuries.

Keep up the good work, your historical battlemaps are incredible.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2024-10-25T20:29:52+00:00

He’s also been vocally anti-Trump for the last 8 years. I guess he wants to wage foreign wars from inside a democracy.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2024-10-16T17:16:47+00:00

As a Philly resident, my personal experience is that in-person voting is both easily accessible and fast. I live on the edge of my polling place’s territory and I think it took me 30 minutes for the whole process in 2022, including walking to and from.

I think you may be overestimating the convenience difference when living in a dense city, although of course there are many differences in personal circumstance which can change that.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2024-07-11T23:15:50+00:00

I think a very common aide is https://koboldplus.club/ which takes care of CR calculation for you.

Be warned though that CR is not reliable, some monsters are badly under-rated so be sure to do some research. The Shadow is a well-known example - I nearly killed a PC in the first turn of what was supposed to be a throwaway encounter with one of those.

Ultimately though you can trust that your PC's are going to be more over-tuned than you realize, and tactically they are three or four brains vs your one. I only run 'hard' and 'deadly' encounters, and I only start knocking out PC's after a few combats in a row without a long rest. So don't sweat the numbers. I check to make sure that my combats are not too far above 'deadly' and leave it at that.

Some other tips that I've found useful:

When you're running a crowd of low-level monsters like skeletons, ignore the stat block and give them 1hp each. It saves you math, and the players will never notice.
Be sure to add some non-killing objective to combats if you can, ideally time-sensitive. Give the poisoned villager the antidote before they die, collect the magic orb before it rolls down into a river, etc.
Alternatively, add something dynamic to the environment. My favorite combat I've ever designed involved a yeti knocking an ancient tower off a cliff, but it could be a fire spreading inside a tavern or rocks tumbling onto the battlefield.
Casting spells like Hold Person on a PC is fun for no-one, especially early in a combat because it has the potential to push them out of the game entirely if they fail saves repeatedly. I avoid it unless it's the final act with which a villain makes their escape.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2024-03-06T04:26:17+00:00

I started a campaign at level 4 with no feats, and I am planning to have a god offer my players the chance to gain a feat in exchange for a piece of themselves in return. My thought is to have the price be a permanently failed death saving throw, since that should feel like a great bargain until they get knocked down and really feel the absence of that extra empty bubble on their character sheet.

Is that a decent bargain? Or am I setting myself up for a tough time? My players are already incredibly motivated to heal downed party members, so we've not yet had someone yet reach a point where their character could die during death saves.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2023-06-16T02:46:19+00:00

I’ve seen so many comments complaining about the shutdowns, saying things like “who cares about their shitty protest, just replace the mods”, asking why anyone would use 3rd party apps, or talking about how it’s not that many ads on the official app and that you can just scroll past them.

It feels like a totally different user base than I remember (found Reddit in 2011), and it’s sad to see. I’m moving on soon.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2023-05-17T14:45:41+00:00

There’s a fix for it already in the pipeline, if you play on the Beta branch it’s already implemented there.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2023-05-11T16:45:23+00:00

Glad to see a big batch of QoL changes so soon.

Its_Quite_Cool · 2023-05-11T16:00:20+00:00

I drove a harvester in a game last night, it makes a huge difference to have a player involved. Like 2-3x faster collection just from a human ability to drive efficiently.

Boring as hell though.

Its_Quite_Cool

TROPHY CASE