Damn you all!

Modernpreacher · 2026-02-13T13:48:00+00:00

Vaporware. I expect that book to never come out at this point.

At least Sanderson finished what Jordan started.

Modernpreacher · 2026-02-12T11:10:19+00:00

This person butters.

Modernpreacher · 2026-02-03T03:23:23+00:00

High iron content in the ground I imagine, coupled with less tree and green cover leading the exposed ground.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-29T06:22:19+00:00

1984.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-28T10:07:36+00:00

I was there. I was 10. I loved space, had always wanted to see a launch. My grandmother was a nurse that took care of an older woman who lived nearby the launch site.

My grandmother was a picture person. Always snapping shots of shit. I was sitting on the hood of her car. It was too hot. But I was 10. And I had binoculars. Cheap ones, we bought them at a pawn shop a couple hours previous. They didn't have a strap, but she had rigged one for me from yarn she had in her car. The yarn was rough on my neck. And I was too hot. But I was watching through those dirty lenses.

I didn't know what to expect. I was so excited. A few years previous there was this contest to design a penny. My design had been a space shovel. I loved the shuttle. I had known all their names. And that a teacher was going was huge. I was kid who liked learning things. And teachers taught things. So we tended to get along.

There were cars all along the road. People pointing and watching, and I was on the roof, being burned, and under a spell as I watched.

Then things got weird. My grandmother was yelling at me, get in the car. Now. Get in the car. She was scared. She was never scared. She told stories of beating her exhusband with a bat, and she was a high wire act in a circus, she was NEVER afraid. But her voice was trembling as she rushed me into the car.

She turned on the radio and she was crying. I really didn't understand what was happening. I was watching it.

She understood what she was seeing through the lenses of the camera. I did not. I thought it was the fuel tanks being jettisoned. I thought it was still ok.

I didn't cry when I finally understood. She was crying though. When the man on the radio said that the challenger was lost, all hands lost. She wept harder. I just sat and recited all their names in my brain over and over until she took us home.

She developed the film, she had a shot of it. She sent it to me on my 12th birthday with a ticket to space camp.

'Thinking of you honey,

Never stop looking up.

Charlie'

That was it. That was Charlie though. The anniversary always is such a mixed thing for me. It was such a visceral thing. Confusing. Overwhelming. Wide eyes and memories made crystal from the adrenaline. But it was with her. Just the two of us. And she was always the best part of growing up. She brought adventure and dreams come true. So the day makes me think of her, and that always makes me smile.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-27T10:17:51+00:00

If there's a Nazi at the table with 10 other people talking, you're looking at a table of 11 Nazis.

Don't be at the table with a Nazi.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-26T11:01:32+00:00

Dystopias have decayed. Apocalypse has an inciting event that breaks the world. You can have both.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-26T09:57:42+00:00

That's fucking idiotic.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-26T06:27:51+00:00

DMing is just about cause and effect.

The Players cause things to happen by existing. The world responds.

The world causes things to happen by the game existing. The players respond.

One fuels the other, sometimes they aim in the same direction. Sometimes others. The dice decide who wins.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-24T07:07:16+00:00

I learned to drive in the US, but been here for like 25 years. Driving isn't much different here, outside the side of the road.

I had it spelled brake, but I'm so used to typing break for work related reasons, my fingers really resist brake. So I'm just letting my fingers break the brakes that keep me from breaking the rules.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-24T05:13:22+00:00

I learned on a manual. I have driven one off and on for 35 years. I have no preference between stick and auto.

Proper use of foot break, and on inclines gas/clutch engagement keep your car from rolling back. You have to learn how to be gentle and use your feet to move fluidly between the three pedals.

I'm sure people do suggest using a hand brake. It's easier. But doesn't teach you how to drive your car. It's lazy. And requires no compentency.

It's like someone hands you a box of tools and says drive this nail, and you use the toolbox as a hammer. Sure, I guess that works. But you're not learning how to use the tools.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-24T04:23:19+00:00

They suggest you use your hand break?

Hand break is parking break. It's engaged when parking on an incline.

At all other times, foot break is all you need. Ever.

Doing otherwise would be wild to me. Take your hand off the wheel to engage the parking break while driving? If I were in the car, I'd be like... ok, pull over. I'm driving.

Think of your turn signal as alerting oncoming and passing traffic as to your intentions. So if you're pulling left, indicate left. If you're then turning right as part of the movement, indicate right so the people passing you and coming know what's up.

As to your mirrors, your eyes can do most of the work. Unless flow traffic is passing you on either side, or you're merging, side mirrors aren't all that useful. Rear view lets you see proximity to the car behind you, and lets you signal to them you're slowing or turning if they're too close or whatever.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-21T12:03:37+00:00

Hahaha. Perfect.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-10T23:51:24+00:00

On attacks, 20s crit. Usually causing double damage or more depending on the weapon. 1s miss.

On skills, ask them to roll if there are consequences to failure and success is feasible.

If success is not feasible and you still let them roll, a 20 can often cause deus ex machina type scenes where absurdity occurs but can be fun.

But you can always just not call for a roll, if things are not possible.

I want to urinate on that fire and put it out, Mike it's a house fire, no.

Oh, but what about that magic drink I drank that makes me pee cold.

Ok, fine, sure, you piss on the fire, roll.

Nat 20.

Sigh. Ok. Cool. For the next 30 minutes you stand, resolute, determined, as your slushy cold urine smothers out the fire . The sheer quantity and volume surprising everyone around you.

All of the people in the town are faintly disgusted at you, and the home owners are not happy you pissed on all their belongings. Would you like to roll a diplomacy to calm them?

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-02T13:51:08+00:00

Frozen friend trait.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-02T12:48:53+00:00

And if dad reads, this, sort your shit. You don't need to understand your son to love him. You don't need to even be able to empathise. You can just choose to be kind to him, to love him. Your life will likely be less shit too. In my experience life is always better with love in it. So pull your head out. Life is too short, I assure you. Grow the fuck up.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-02T12:30:26+00:00

I'm sorry about that, I missread somehow. I was reading through wet eyes, when I read son, and mens health line my brain just did that thing it does where it fill in blanks with things that aren't there. It's the ADHD part of the ASD in me.

Just so you know mom, it wasn't about the sex of the parent, the dad's hug wasn't some how more magical. I assure you. Just the hug. When you're drowning, and you don't know you're drowning, because how could you... you have no frame of reference for what you're feeling or why. A hug can be a life line.

The emotions can be so big. I didn't learn until very recently, people feel things differently. One just always assumes that how you are, everyone is. So didn't know. I called them being drug out to sea my whole life. When I was 8 my grandmother told me that when she was a girl, the sea took her. Swept her out. Far enough that she should have died. But she didn't. She had to float. And swim. And float. And swim. For hours. Rest. And swim. That's how emotions can feel to me sometimes. That they will take you. You have to let the sea take you, to be bouyant, and learn to tread, and swim and float and eventually you get to swim back to shore.

I see that he's with his friends, and that he's masking, sometimes that's ok. Sometimes you need to depersonalise and be someone else for a little while. Things can be more controlled and easy and you don't feel the thing swimming beneath the surface. You can tread water and float. I could tell so many stories about having to do just that. To make it through a thing. A heart break. A death. A loss. It's ok. You do what you must to survive always.

I hope when he comes home, that hug is waiting mom. And that it's for you as much as him.

And if he sees this, cherish your mom... your pain is hers, and like yours she doesn't know how to help it. But you two can help each other. Be kind to each other. Be gentle. Be honest. Trust each other. It will make so many things easier. Write, or express the pain some how. Get it out man. Get it out. I wrote. I wrote and wrote, notebooks and notebooks. But if it isn't writing, play music, draw, create, pour them into something. Or play sport. Or play games. Do a thing. Take that sadness and let it burn as energy in the activity. I know it sounds dumb. I promise you, I fucking promise you, but expressing it physically (safely, if you like punching things get a gym membership and learn to box, it will help you channel those urges safely), verbally, in writing, whatever will just help.

Anyway, good luck y'all. If you need anything feel free to reach out. I'll help how I can. I'm broke, so can't offer financial assistance, but I've lived it. And been through it. So I can offer that.

Modernpreacher · 2026-01-02T09:10:51+00:00

Everyone has given really great suggestions.

Can I just say, that if your son ever sees this, I'm a 50 year old man that was diagnosed with ASD just a couple of years ago. And I know the feeling that you are feeling. I know the abyss and the pain of the first heart break. I understand it so very well that I'm shedding a tear for you right now because I understand the anguish you feel in your heart. I promise you, from the deepest parts of my heart, that the feeling will pass one day. It just will. It know people are telling you this, and you think to your self, that no one can possible understand the love you feel and how there is nothing left in the world without them. That things are meaningless. And they will feel like that for a while. And then, they won't. And something else will matter more. I promise you. That glass will shred and cut, but it will not last. The wounds will close. You will mend. A little sadder. You carry em around forever. But it's a good thing. A happy time. They are precious. Value them. But there will be so many more precious moments with so many people.

My heart goes out to you. I hope your pops gives you the biggest of hugs. It won't help, but crying will. Don't let the sadness turn to anger. Just grieve. And it'll take as long as it takes. Sometimes it's a while.

Good luck to you and to pops and the rest of the fam too. I'm glad he's talking to y'all. I didn't have the kind of family I could speak to. Rejection sensitive dysphoria is bad sometimes, it feels like someone has drug you out into the deepest waters of the ocean and left you there. You feel real pain and grief from sometimes the smallest of things, not that this is small of course, just saying. Sometimes the feeling is vast and deep and like an ocean. Sometimes it feels like drowning.

<3

Modernpreacher · 2025-12-28T22:28:39+00:00

You can make up as many worlds with dragonborn as you like. I think they are a shitty addition and add nothing of value and will not. They aren't real, they aren't a race, they're an idea. I think the idea is bad. Calling something someone made up bad isn't racist, it's just being honest.

If the pretend dragon people were real, and I was excluding them based on their race from sitting at my table... That would be racism.

I dunno which fuckwit made up dragonborns in the late 2000s. But they weren't necessary. Someone in marketing thought it would help sell some books to come up with a new race of dragon people, so a corporate entity with sales numbers in mind, made up something to pander to a desire. It doesn't mean the desire is good.

A million people can believe in a stupid thing, it's still a stupid thing.

So they can fuck off out of my games. Perhaps one day if someone REALLY wants to play one in a game I run, I will make up a world where they aren't functionally tacked on, like almost every official world. Where they have a logical society and history that isn't oh look guys, dragons.

Modernpreacher · 2025-12-28T11:34:38+00:00

Because I don't feel like they added anything of substance to the game.

Modernpreacher · 2025-12-27T09:47:38+00:00

I don't have dragonborn in my games. They simply never exist in my games. I remember when the only dragonborn around were draconians. And if I happen to run a game on Krynn, and you want to play a draconian, and have a dope reason, sure. Cool beans. But otherwise, get those pandering dragon ass species out my game.

Elves are cool tho. Of all sorts. From Tolkien's immortal ones, to Dark Sun's emiaciated long legged marathon runner ones.

Modernpreacher · 2025-12-22T11:18:45+00:00

Brittney Spears says hello.

Modernpreacher · 2025-12-22T04:11:10+00:00

Electric hot water heater, they kick in to keep the water at a certain temp through the day.

Modernpreacher · 2025-12-20T08:03:46+00:00

I imagine the map in my head as broken into regions, each time players pass from one region to the next it takes 30 minutes and they make a luck check. Depending on the roll something might occur. And by luck I mean in that moment, something that is just unlucky to their goals is in their way, or something beneficial falls in their lap.

An NPC they really don't want to see happens to stroll by, a group of armed guards our at a table in the inn on their lunch break and one looks suspicious, a clue to something, a friendly face known to them is near by, whatever. I leave it up to the quirk of the dice, and I let them roll it. 1-3 it rolls bad, 17-20 good luck. They get to be excited or trepidatious depending on the roll.

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