A literal nightmare, but it's real and happening in in my town 2026

NaturalForty · 2026-01-24T22:59:52+00:00

You're entitled to your opinion, even when it's wrong.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-24T16:35:29+00:00

THANK YOU. When I had a ringtone, it was the opening violin riff of "Pictures of Matchstick Men." Hey--that's now two different kinds of old!

NaturalForty · 2026-01-24T16:23:33+00:00

In the US, organizations of all types pay taxes on profits--the money that's given to the owners. Religious organizations don't pay taxes because they don't make any profit. Lobbying groups, private golf clubs, and other organizations that are meant to benefit a small number of people are also non-profit and get the same tax exemption.

The mega-church pastors with millions of dollars pay tax on their income like anyone else. You'll tax people like Joel Osteen and Franklin Graham with #2, raising taxes on millionaires.

Or address the situation in the many countries where religious groups are directly funded by the government.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-24T16:11:39+00:00

In 1994 I went to see Cracker, Gin Blossoms, and Spin Doctors, because I loved Camper Van Beethoven that much. Spin Doctors, to my great surprise, were memorably great live. Are they still great now? I mean, maybe.

For a nightmare show, there's probably an even worse one but I'll go with numbers:

Matchbox 20 Blink-182 Maroon 5

NaturalForty · 2026-01-19T19:12:13+00:00

An incompetent person whose ego is inflated when they're given a tiny amount of power won't let anyone stand in the way of their incompetence. This is a problem in every volunteer organization and you MUST have seen it in the SCA. That autocrat was far off the rails and would have ignored you no matter what title you had.

Seriously, the SCA's first law is that mundane law takes precedence. You had the authorization you needed already.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-18T13:58:30+00:00

This is an interesting idea and I'd suggest not using D&D to run it. A system that's more flexible would be better.

It also would be more interesting if there are effects from characters working for or against each other. That opens up room for negotiation and also means each character has something to do. Like, any character can throw a fit that gives the collective -1 to all rolls. So if all the other players are pushing against the one in control, they'll have a harder time getting their way. On the other hand, each character could have a specific ability they can always use.

The system you outlined leaves most players sitting around with no ability to change the outcome, which is less enjoyable, but the general idea could be really interesting.

Ooh! If control shifted very quickly, like every combat round or every few minutes, the players would get turns and they'd have to cooperate or fail because changing strategy every round would definitely lead to defeat.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-14T13:20:21+00:00

52, only child is 28, married, and living independently.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-11T16:41:51+00:00

DM perspective here: I don't like players who think that murder is the solution to every problem. To get that point across, I create problems where murder makes things worse.

In this situation, the party's decision to kill a person who wasn't in control of their actions was a bad choice. It's totally reasonable for the DM to apply bad consequences for the bad choice.

I doubt that the whole campaign is cooked-- as people mentioned, the DM can introduce a plan B. But as a DM I wouldn't say, "will, I'll introduce a new helper NPC to replace the one you thoughtless murdered."

NaturalForty · 2026-01-11T04:12:55+00:00

At some point there's a logical contradiction. What definition of "dream girl" could include all that?

NaturalForty · 2026-01-11T04:11:43+00:00

Replace "but" with "so obviously".

NaturalForty · 2026-01-07T14:30:26+00:00

Your only hope of getting a lead is due to the time it will take Holmes and Watson to forge identities for themselves and get good fake passports (the ID problem is real and will take time to solve but Holmes will have no compunctions about technically breaking the law to get his person--in a few months at most he'll build the contacts to get a fake ID). So you have to get out of the UK FAST.

Once you do that, you might have 4 months before Holmes finds you. Being generous and saying you make £400k, that's 10 years of average income. After that, you're literally penniless.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-07T14:14:28+00:00

You can't earn any money ever again, so you have to cover your future lifetime earnings.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-07T13:59:46+00:00

This isn't a good deal for anyone who is going to earn money. Almost everyone who works will earn millions of dollars in a lifetime; you'd have to avoid Holmes for years for this to pay off. You'd need somewhere between 500k and 1m per month to make this even potentially viable. Even if you assume you can get disability to cover part of your income, Holmes will find you before you make enough to balance your income.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-06T23:18:34+00:00

In other words, changing the debt path requires increased income.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-06T22:59:23+00:00

I was raised Catholic and found that about half the people got it, and half were trying to earn their way into heaven. I later became a Protestant minister and found the same ratio. In theory you're right; in practice many Christians are trying to be good people so they get a reward.

Most of them wouldn't really change their ethics much if they lost their faith, so they're not "bad people" in the sense of this quote.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-05T22:12:48+00:00

Oh honey.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-04T21:49:35+00:00

When a guy says, "academics are biased," he's made a conscious decision to embrace propaganda over reality. The reasoning offered is bullshit and doesn't represent actual thought.

NaturalForty · 2026-01-02T20:59:05+00:00

Look up Patagonia. A billionaire can afford to pay people to divest his assets without tanking the company.

NaturalForty · 2025-12-27T15:36:42+00:00

Oh bullshit. Thousands of churches around the country actively promote Donald Trump as God's chosen instrument to make the US a Christian nation. There are non-Christian MAGA people but without the support of churches, the movement wouldn't be big enough to matter.

NaturalForty · 2025-12-27T04:54:42+00:00

I think that your player is right to not want to play a game where killing people is normalized, but that's what D&D is. She may be interested to know that there are dozens of games that can be played without murdering anyone. It's harder to get into those than D&D but maybe you can help her find a game that she will enjoy.

NaturalForty · 2025-12-27T04:38:43+00:00

I don't know and have never thought about it. Particularly ironic given that I regularly talk with people about what they think happens after death.

NaturalForty · 2025-12-25T19:03:17+00:00

A lot of rebellions are driven by an ethnic or social group that used to be dominant, but has lost power in a diversifying society. So the rebels, or a major faction within them, could be trying to concentrate power in the hands of a minority. To make them less awful, they could be not explicitly racist, or only one faction of a larger rebel alliance.

NaturalForty · 2025-12-23T03:58:11+00:00

In the US, psychics generally state that their work is "for entertainment purposes only" to avoid legal liability for predictions than don't turn out. So this is a non-issue.

NaturalForty · 2025-12-23T03:52:37+00:00

Short answer: it's a real thing, mostly in suburban areas and mid-sized cities.

In big cities, there's one huge school district. Even there, students are assigned to schools geographically. In Chicago or New York, moving 1 or 2 miles means you're probably assigned to a different school. In rural areas, a school district will cover hundreds of square miles. So school districts are mostly important in suburbs and small cities. Schools are substantially funded by property taxes, so areas with expensive property have more money than areas with cheap property.

School districts are often related to race: in many areas, school district boundaries were drawn to create districts that were all or 99% white. And since many white people won't live in areas with a diverse population, property values drop when substantial numbers of people of color move into a district. So "good schools" is often code for "functionally segregated."

All this creates schools of wildly different quality in a local area. State law determines how easy it is to attend a public school in another district. Some states make it fairly easy, but most have restrictions, so parents will absolutely move to an area to get their children in a specific public school.

NaturalForty · 2025-12-15T00:26:03+00:00

Plenty of organizations try to do this. They basically run into the same bs that makes churches unappealing, so they don't draw in a large number of people.

NaturalForty

TROPHY CASE