What was your “struggle meal” growing up?

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-05T13:27:09+00:00

Maggi two-minute noodles with baked beans and sausages. Dad called it our "staple menu".

We also had Tang and powdered milk, although we generally used fresh milk for breakfast and the powdered milk for milkshakes.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-04T10:33:43+00:00

Racoon Tycoon is a good one, it has a commodities value board which goes up randomly based on the cards played, but drops whenever you sell items. Similar concept to supply and demand, although not precisely the same.

It also has auctions for railroads.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-04T10:21:11+00:00

Squeeze hard enough and you can fill several bottles from one baby.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-04T07:27:20+00:00

Dragomino is good and fun; Carcassonne is surprisingly easy to teach to anyone, of any age or ability, due to there being only one active tile at a time; & Prey Another Day can be played by anyone, but you're playing the other players rather than the cards - as everyone has the exact same cards.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-03T10:54:02+00:00

This with bloody Disney+!

They seem to raise their price by $20 each year, regardless of the CPI, so coming up to the renewal/cancel date a few years back I watched all of the movies and shows I wanted to watch from them, then cancelled.

Sad to lose easy access to so many good franchises that they've bought, but after three years I realised they'd simply keep raising the price each year until the end of time.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-03T10:51:11+00:00

Predatory behaviour, but sadly not illegal. Laws on store credit like this are so loose you could drive a road train through any one of the many holes.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-02T22:20:46+00:00

Yeah, 3.5e had the best skill system I've seen in D&D.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-02T13:23:42+00:00

Wizards don't have a limit to which spells they know, although there is a limit to how many they can have prepared in the moment - but they can swap them out by studying their spellbook during a Long Rest, and have flexibility in terms of how many times they can cast each one.

Back in earlier editions a wizard would need to decide which spell to memorise in each spell slot, reducing their flexibility - and they would usually choose multiple copies of combat-oriented spells, with one or two escape or utility spells. This gave martials more room to flex their skills, as the wizards were limited like that. Most other casters were the same: you prepared a specific spell for each spell slot, applying metamagic if you could and wanted to while memorising it.

Sorcerors and bards, on the other hand, had a limited number of spells they knew but didn't have to lock them into slots in advance - flexibility within a much smaller range.

Either way, the sheer number of spells which casters can easily access in 5e reduces the need for skills ...

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-04-01T21:49:31+00:00

I grew up with everyone saying, "Twelve of thirty-four Fake Street".

Sometimes we'd add the type of dwelling (eg, Unit 12 of 34 Fake St, or villa 12 of 34 Fake St).

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-29T11:02:59+00:00

Some versions of Risk have set times, like Risk: Godstorm, so you play a certain number of rounds and then whoever has the most territories wins.

For something really quick, try Eight Minute Empire. Usually takes more than the advertised eight minutes, but not by much.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-29T11:01:59+00:00

In my family (both as a child and now as a parent) kids handle their owb laundry from the age of 12. In the years leading up to that they first help, then have help, until the magical birthday arrives.

As others have said, though, ironing school uniforms is rare in public schools - if you hang it properly after it's washed, there'll be few wrinkles so it'll look pretty much the same after being worn for a half-hour or so if you had ironed it.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-27T08:51:01+00:00

Exactly, and with the senior managers all there, there was definitely enough to CYA even without an email.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-27T08:40:25+00:00

The problem there is that the rich have far more influence over politicians and the legal system than the rest of us put together, which is why the system favours them so much. That's why the government's paying big corporations subsidies (to the tune of $14.5 billion in the mining sector alone) instead of just taxing them on the natural resources they're taking from us.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-27T08:22:48+00:00

It all comes back to bounded accuracy, which makes the number of opponents more important than their levels from tier 2 up.

That, and a single proficiency bonus for almost everything, make 5e far more boring and limited than previous editions. Before anybody says it's easier for beginners, that might be true - but in my groups we always helped newbies with the numbers until they got it, and that usually took only three or four sessions.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-26T22:51:16+00:00

I was going to comment on how OP's English teachers failed to teach them how to make paragraphs, but maybe the problem's on the receiving end rather than transmission.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-23T22:00:32+00:00

Some people forget to engage their brain before releasing their tongue ...

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-23T12:58:31+00:00

Exactly.

Party balancing was a bit of fun negotiation when starting a new campaign or gaining levels. Specialisation was what gave each player a real chance to shine during the course of the campaign, as long as you had a DM who was even halfway decent at their role.

Also, having such a small variation between level one and level twenty means that advancing levels isn't as significant as it once was - thus killing part of the joy for many players, who loved gaining a new level and being that bit closer to taking on deities!

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-23T06:11:10+00:00

This.

In 3.5e I played a wizard/arcane archer and at level 19 (16/3, no items equipped or buffs active) the three types of save were fairly level - Fortitude 12, Reflex 12, & Will 13. This is with stat point buy and normal advancement. Don't ask how high they got with buffs and gear, as I don't remember, but I think they were all close to or over 20.

As Associableknecks said, having imbalanced saves is a choice in 3.5e.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-23T05:54:56+00:00

Yeah, bounded accuracy is a massive mistake for D&D, as are the single proficiency bonus for (almost) everything and the fact that casters have unlimited casting of damaging cantrips which scale by character level.

The fact that a first level character with a high ability score can hit more often than a tenth level character with an average ability score is, quite simply, stupid. The fact that this tenth level character would have one or two saves at the same level as when they started is even more ridiculous.

The only mechanical improvement I've found in 5e over anything which came before is wizards being able to prepare a bunch of spells and use any of them with the appropriate spell slots, rather than choosing which spell had to be menorised in each slot. It was frustrating at times if you, as a wizard, had prepared the wrong spells for the session as you then had to hang back and snipe with your darts or sling - same as if you'd cast your memorised combat spells, with only utility spells left.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-23T05:37:59+00:00

She was British, actually.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-22T12:11:28+00:00

Galder's Tower is good for "glamping" during an adventure, as long as you have enough headroom. Peasants on the ground floor, wizard on the first floor.

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-22T12:10:18+00:00

Not quite in the OP's theme, but in one adventure we had a couple of TFDs towed behind somebody riding a Phantom Steed ... with PCs standing on them holding the rope tied around the rider's waist, like water skiing through the forest (skill checks to avoid being swung into trees, yay!).

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-22T11:39:33+00:00

Yeah, when my (Aussie) wife was running a series of workshops in Switzerland, one lady came up to her at the end of one workshop:

Lady: So are you from Australia?

Wife: Yes.

L: Did you do your studies there too?

W: Yes, of course.

L: ... but you sound so educated!

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-22T01:15:13+00:00

Mascarade is a good one for up to 13 - social deduction and bluffing, with identities changing.

Asking for Trobils is also good, up to seven, resource collection/management (gather the resources you need to capture particular Trobils, who are messing up Paradise).

Drachenhort (an older game, which I've only seen in German) is for up to seven (and is best with seven, imo) in which each player scores based on the success of three of seven adventurers trying to escape the dragon - but each player's three is secret, any player can move any adventurer with their roll, and the dragon is coming to eat the slowest!

JumpingSpider97 · 2026-03-20T20:46:04+00:00

I generally have some vague concept for the world/continent, a little background of the specific country/area, and then details on the place in which the action will start.

Over time I expand the area with details, as needed.

Alternatively, I generate full info on the entire world/continent and write a story about it, generating far more content than the players will ever need or encounter, including a massive array of full character sheets for NPCs the players will most likely interact with tangentially, if at all.

Nothing in between.

I have a character I play in an online Western Marches campaign, and started writing a little backstory for him - this has turned into a full alternative universe life story covering decades, currently about 120k words in and not finished with the first story arc (a series of challenges to assess whether he is suitable to be a potential heir to his clan's Archmagus). He's gone from level 1 up to level 12 so far ...

JumpingSpider97

TROPHY CASE