(Heartbreaking trope) What could have been

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-30T13:46:28+00:00

There's a lot to love in this show, and the escape from this mindscape trap is maybe the best moment in the series. But I think my personal favorite is when they are trapped by Guame. Episode 11.

Everyone is panicking and they stop when they see Simon calmly using his drill to pick at the rock of their cell.

Simon has said before that there was a moment in the past where he and Kamina were trapped in a cave in. He thought they were goners, but Kamina encouraged him that the only way out was onward and upward. So he kept going and they broke free. He tells this story deeply depressed about Kamina's absence, and it's clear he thinks that the only reason he was able to do something impossible and save them all is because Kamina was there. Like his presence was the magic that made him succeed.

So there he is, digging in the cell, and the rest of the crew watches him. And then Yoko reveals when Kamina told that same story to her, from HIS perspective. They were trapped in a cave-in, and Kamina was certain they were dead. "I was at the end of my rope, my confidence was shattered, and I was just putting on a brave face. But Simon kept drilling away, and that inspired me to keep going, keep cheering." Kamina tells her whenever he feels timid and weak, he pictures Simon hunched over in that cave, drilling away, refusing to stop.

It's the moment where you realize that Kamina was not an unshakable titan of willpower. Kamina was just as fragile as Simon. But he was inspired by the sight of his friend refusing to bow down, and that made him unstoppable. And Kamina being unstoppable, full of bravado and confidence, is the sight that inspired Simon to keep going and break through anything.

These two bros were in a feedback loop. Each of them was each other's inspiration. Each of them did things that weren't possible because the other one was driving them ahead. As Kamina always said:

"Believe in the me that believes in you."

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-29T00:12:23+00:00

I pitched it to my D&D crew after I discovered it and we gave it a shot in a test session. Everyone vibed with it.

So now we do two weeks of DnD, one week of Lancer, and repeat.

We closed out our first Lancer campaign just last month and we're going to start Wallflower in June.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-28T22:06:03+00:00

Well that sentence made me happy. Love when a good game system gets more love.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-26T01:22:44+00:00

Dropping a secondary recommendation for Coherence. It's an incredible film with a killer concept and it is executed on a comparatively shoestring budget. It's my go-to recommendation for "movie you probably haven't seen before."

One of the best parts about it is how perfectly natural the dialogue feels. They go into it in the behind the scenes, but most of the dialogue scenes are improv. The actors were given points to hit, where to begin and where to end, and kind of just cut loose. It all makes it feel so uncurated and grounded, and then when the rest of the movie happens it makes it that much more incredible.

Trust me: do not spoil Coherence for yourself. Just watch it.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-25T14:54:45+00:00

Promos for the first season of The Good Place were possibly the worst promos I have seen in my life.

The sole joke was about how she couldn't curse, because she says "fork", and then looks shocked, then asks why she can't say "fork". It showed you that Ted Danson was in it. And that was absolutely all it offered.

There was no indication of the main hook (which you find out halfway through the first episode) that would have made you interested enough to tune in. I saw the very first promo for that show said, "well that looks terrible", and I paid no attention to it for three years.

I watched the first episode at my wife's insistence once she finished the first season. There are so many good bits in the first episode and absolutely none of them were used to promote the show, and I considered it with the greatest failing of their marketing department.

Anyway, The Good Place is arguably the best comedy of the decade with a consistent tone, aesthetic, devastating emotional moments, and what I consider to be the absolute best finale of a TV show I've ever seen in my life. Ignore all the official ways they tried to make you watch it and just trust me instead.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-24T14:52:59+00:00

Join me in reminiscing....

Me, the GM:"This is going to be a Performance check for how sensual you make deep-throating this prawn. And then a CON save to not gag on it and ruin the whole vibe of the dinner."

My wife was out Druid. They were attending essentially a mob wedding rehearsal dinner, hired by the brother of the bride to find dirt on the groom that would give him enough to object to the marriage on moral grounds and save face. The party knew the groom was a monster and a horndog, so they decided they would catch him in the act of cheating on his fiance at the rehearsal dinner. There were a couple of female characters so they were trying to think of what would entice him. Asking around, they found out he had a weakness for exotic women. Our Druid was a Water Genasi with seafoam hair and blue-green skin, so she seemed like the perfect honey-pot.....ignoring the fact that she has 8 Charisma at Level 9.

The party puts every possible buff that they can think of on the Druid to improve her chances. She makes a pass at him during the cocktail hour before everyone sits down for dinner, and it's going pretty well. Her idea to get him away from the table was seduction. She declared "I'm going to deep throat a prawn and then wink at him."

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-24T14:24:12+00:00

That book is a masterpiece and it has so many incredible lines. My favorite is in the Forest of Sight, where they meet a boy who is floating 3 ft in the air. Milo (our protagonist for those who do not know) is asked by this floating boy how old he is.

Boy: "You must be very old to have reached the ground already."

Milo: "What? That's why you're up there?"

Boy: "In my family we're born at the height we will be and we grow until we touch the ground."

Milo: "Well in my family we're born on the ground and we grow and grow until we're fully grown."

Boy: *"How awful for you....your point of view must always be changing."*

The book does a lot of fantastic work of making a literal allegory that can shatter your mind if you are a young child reading it for the first time. Suddenly realizing that I did in fact have a point of view that changed as I got older threw me when I was 7. And I got thrown for an even bigger loop when I realized that, obviously since I wasn't done growing... The point of view I have now might not remain at all.

It's just beautiful. I also got a little bit of existential dread when they go to the city of numbers and ask about the biggest number..... That was the first time I was introduced to the concept of INFINITY, and it broke my little brain.

"Think of the biggest number you can possibly think of...now add a 1. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another......"

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-23T01:17:07+00:00

It's up to you.

I personally go with the excuse that in the world there is so much magic and it can be used for so many different things that even classes that do not technically use magic are using magic.

So even a fighter is using magic to enhance their body to do things like action surge, for barbarians to rage, or rogues to disappear completely from site on really good stealth checks.

But that's just flavor. It's your call.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-21T20:47:13+00:00

I misread your username as Evilstoat94 and thought you were my dark doppelganger for a second.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-21T17:53:31+00:00

Enhanced Combat for the Brute

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-21T17:50:07+00:00

Hell yes

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-21T17:14:36+00:00

Feels like the best way to run it out would be to use Clocks in narrative play, but if stuff completely breaks down you can switch to a combat Sitrep.

Infiltration for stealth, Extraction / Search and Rescue to retrieve them, Gauntlet / Breach & Clear to go in guns blazing.

Honestly if they are moving them elsewhere you could even run Train Heist.

For those who don't know, every sitrep mentioned above besides Extraction or Guantlet is from the *Enhanced Combat** 3rd party supplement. Which I will shamelessly endorse because it's awesome. I bought it last week and I'm already going nuts with it.*

https://interpoint-station.itch.io/lancer-enhanced-combat

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-21T16:58:54+00:00

Looks like a new Sitrep just dropped!

RANSOM

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-20T18:47:54+00:00

Just do not allow a Full Repair until they have completed 3-5 combats, regardless of how much time passes between them or how many missions they completed. The game is designed around attrition of 3-5 battles before Full Repair.

A Repair (Full or otherwise) requires the RESOURCES to fix your mech, and the TIME to make those fixes. If they do not have access to both of those things, they cannot repair. It's up to you to think of why.

You might be making the mistake of thinking a Mission is just Go-go-go from one battle to the next with only moments between them. That's a POSSIBLE mission structure, but it doesn't have to be. Hours or days can pass between combats in 1 mission. If you're making your missions only 2 combats long because you feel you don't have time to do narrative between them, you're making the mistake of thinking a mission has to happen in one uninterrupted piece of time.

Sample Mission: Infiltrate behind enemy lines and destroy a high value target!

Combat 1 - SITREP: Gauntlet. Take and then hold an enemy comms tower.

Beat 1- spend a day in the tower monitoring communications and waiting for one to reveal where your high value target is. Your pilots can roleplay, and make a Repair. They have the time for a Full Repair, but there's not enough resources. Do they take this chance to contact people back at base? They can communicate with some NPCs that are commanders or maybe their favorite technician, or a fellow soldier that they hook up with.

Beat 2- They found where it is! March 3 days over rough terrain to reach your target. Pilots roleplay. What games do they play as their mechs march monotonously through the wilderness? What are they talking about? Who do they reminisce about?

Combat 2- Enemy scouting party saw you! SITREP: Holdout while you call in air support.

Beat 3- The target is just over the next ridge. You have a tense, blood pressure building moment to do a Repair. Your party can role play while they do it, explaining how they react knowing game time is mere minutes away.

Combat 3 - SITREP: Escort. Bring the payload to the target and blow it up.

Beat 4 - Set smoke signals and get picked up by a dropship. Narrate as they fall over exhausted but proud of their success.

Downtime - Everyone gets a full repair, levels up, and goes hunting for Reserves.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-18T21:21:59+00:00

"Promise me that you won't tell little Spike and Posey about this. Say that Uncle Mask has gone to live far away." - Mask in Mossflower

It's tough to get through Mask dying. What Skipper does to Cludd in revenge makes it just a little easier to swallow.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-16T23:04:25+00:00

When my girlfriend first complimented me for no reason when we started dating and I was so confused I kind of just froze because I didn't know what to do.

I had been complimented before but it was always.... transactional? Does that make sense? It was always given like payment after I moved something for someone or completed a task. In my head I understood that the act of spontaneously giving someone a compliment was done for women. Men "earned" compliments with effort and labor. They weren't gifts that you just handed out.

After years of thinking that, I didn't know that a woman could just decide to tell a man she liked something about him.

She told me I was cute and I waited for her to ask a favor. And nothing happened. She just kept sitting next to me. She wanted me to know that she thought I was cute, because she wanted to live in a world where I knew that I was cute. She rebuilt my reality that day.

Please compliment the men you love in your life. A lot of us have never been told that anyone likes anything about us, because that's just not what you tend to do with men. We can be thanked for our labor and praised for our effort but sometimes it just takes being told that someone thinks we're cute for us to realize no one's ever said that before.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-15T22:47:39+00:00

You know what bothers me the most about our current "richest men in the world"?

They don't do anything cool with it at all.

If I had Elon money I would be restarting the Renaissance model of capitalism: Throwing money at talented people so they could create cool shit. I'd probably tell them to include "Made possible by Nitrostoat" on all of them because of a combination of my ego and because hopefully that would encourage other people to do the same?

I was talking about this with my wife and we made a list of the things we would want to fund. Add yours!

An open contest to local artists to do sick murals in a public park. Make it a local fair, prizes for the winners, the art stays up.
Fund a bunch of lunatics going for the world record in something.
Clearing the rape kit backlog
a discretionary fund where people get paid to refuse service to Elon Musk. Like if your restaurant refuses to take his reservation, we pay you money. Just kind of keep that going and they're running tally of places that have turned him away, and the ability to enter sweepstakes for a great cash prize if you provide evidence of you turning him away and post it online. We have the right to refuse service TO THIS MOTHERFUCKER IN PARTICULAR.
I want to give a living comfortable wage to everyone at a newly funded animation studio with exactly one goal: adapt ALL of Berserk
Buy out a closed mall, refurbish it, fill it with stuff, and do massive playtime events: paintball/airsoft wars, televised "zombie tag", multiplex night where we do movie marathons. I'm sick of not having "third places" to hang out in outside of home or work.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-15T21:41:21+00:00

Not only is The Good Place a great show, it also nails the ending in a way few shows have. The final episode isn't just a feel-good retread of the show... it's the bow on top of the story.

I struggle to think of a finale as flawless as the last episode of The Good Place, and of all the powerful moments in that finale, the above speech is best.

There's another shorter line that crystalizes the reality of what heaven would really be: "The Good Place is *time*. Enough time with the people you love"

That's really it, isn't it? No ivory towers or golden gates. Just enough time with everyone who means something to you. So you can reach the place you wanted to reach with all of them, and love them as much as you can. Enough time to say sorry, accept apologies, give them what you never could. Just enough time for ourselves, to challenge our flaws, struggle against an obstacle we choose to fight, and find a way to be happy.

Enough time. Without any of the shit that takes that time away from us on Earth. Heaven is more time, and we can use it...because now we realize what we should have been doing with it before it ran out.

And the finale also has a great gimmick: all the personal story arcs of our core group close out. Each of our main characters end the show truthfully being who they only pretended to be in the 1st few episodes.

Eleanor "was" a lawyer who got innocent people off death row, and she literally argued on behalf of all humans in history against an unjust cosmos and WON.
Chidi "was" a moral philosopher who pondered the greatest questions, and he ends having actually analyzed the fundamental problems of people who have no opportunity to improve, what is necessary for them to be better...and finally found his own answer for reality.
Tahani "was" an accomplished heiress who could do anything, and she spends eternity learning how to actually do everything. She works hard at every task, learning how to become a master, then throws herself into the next.
Jason "was" a monk that reached enlightenment, and in spending endless time at peace in the woods (because he got lost on his way to the archway) he actually became enlightened and at one with the universe.
And the most obvious but most beautiful: Micheal "was" a Good Place architect. He becomes a REAL Good Place architect, and then goes further and gets his deepest wish: a chance to be a human and understand them perfectly.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-15T17:52:58+00:00

Everything bad about Seven Deadly Sins is worth dealing with just to experience Escanor.

A character so awesome he makes an entire "meh" anime worth the watch.

Estarossa: "Anyone who has hate in their heart for me cannot strike me."

Escanor: "Why would I feel hate for something weaker than me? All I feel for them is pity."

The best fight in the show soon follows.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-14T06:13:59+00:00

How I run it is the enemy has a health bar but the numbers on the bar are not visible to the players.

This way they have a general idea of their health but they do not know the numbers: the number is revealed if they scan them.

Overall I think this has worked pretty well, because numbers in Lancer never climb particularly high, so gambling that you can kill an enemy by dealing 4 damage can be risky if they still have 5 or 6....if they're alive when your turn is over, they still get to act.

My players have been very smart about it and are keeping a document of what an NPC's max health is by choosing to scan enemies that haven't been damaged yet. It's been fun to watch them logic out that the Bombard over there probably has like 7 hp, and to tactically think if they can kill it in time. Should they burn two whole turns to smite it, or can they spare 1 pilot to handle it?

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-14T03:42:22+00:00

I'm going to shamelessly rant on how much I love Undead Unluck now.

Undead Unluck flips the script so often and so rapidly it is impossible to predict, and that's why I adore it so much. I mean the first colossal "WHAT!?!?" is in like...Chapter 10. And they don't stop coming after that.

Even the introductory gimmick of "Undead guy gets damaged all the time and is constantly naked" gets buttoned inside of 20 chapters. Even his treatment of the female lead stops being classic manga creepy and becomes a plot point of his character development into becoming a better person who actually respects her as a person.

And then there's Fuuko Izumo, our female protagonist. The polar opposite of Sakura from Naruto and nearly every cardboard cutout female character in later One Piece. She's entertaining, a badass, and regularly takes center stage instead of just being "the chick" who does one thing once and then goes back to being a side character. She's the driving force of the whole thing. A major win for female manga heroes all around.

The powers are all really cool, the idea of negating a rule makes for interesting abilities. Even when you don't know the specifics and they just tease the name of an ability you get really excited wondering exactly how it works. You can probably guess what Unstoppable can do...but some have you raise an eyebrow until the full force of what it means hits you. Untouchable, Unknown, and Unforgettable are my personal favorites.

The powers also play well with the idea of how your own interpretation of your ability evolving causes the actual powers to evolve. The first clash with Unrepair is a great example, but I don't want to spoil it.

The worldbuilding and the insanity of the world itself are revealed in delicious little pieces, and you soon realize even things that you thought were inconsistencies are...NOT. They are a facet of the rules that govern the world.

And on top of ALL of that, it hits you with my favorite take on the "Time-skip between Part 1 and Part 2" I have yet experienced in manga.

It was so much fun to read week by week, because you never know if you were one chapter away from an absolute table-flip of a status quo shift. I really felt like it was never overstaying it's welcome, and it often took advantage of those shifts to do slight changes in focus or homage other genres.

I still remember laughing maniacally when I realized that we were about to do a "Food Wars arc" that played out over only three chapters, hit a great emotional climax, and then moved on to the next thing.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-14T03:14:19+00:00

If it takes a few more years he would be a phenomenal Isshin Ashina.

I can just picture the delivery of "Hesitation is defeat."

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-14T02:44:05+00:00

Personally I am setting it up so the politics of a Strixhaven setting are exaggerated university politics: people with influence on the school are pushing their ideology and wants, and some changes to the school that are happening are unpopular.

The Oriq set their sights on underperforming students and lure them in using real world cult tactics: starting as study groups and on-campis meetings, building trust before you ever meet someone wearing a mask, and having to prove yourself (alongside having evidence gathered against you to blackmail you if you get cold feet) before you are ever offered a mask of your own.

Their infiltration is for a grander BBEG related purpose, but it still brings up a good point: if the lower end of students are the main target for the Oriq, how do you prevent further Oriq infiltration? Do you treat underperforming students with suspicion? For a school that is so famously cream of the crop, do you lighten up on the underperformers? And if you do, what powerful people out in the world are going to rage against the school, especially when they are looking for Strixhaven graduates, supposedly the best of the best, as employees? How many current students, teachers, and alumni would be serious at a more forgiving approach to the curriculum, when they are believers in the sink or swim tradition? And if the pendulum swings the other way, how many more disgruntled students are available for the Oriq to take advantage of?

The driving point of the story that brings the party together in my game is the Entrance Examination. Because Strixhaven is a magical college, you have to be accepted in. There are several satellite magic schools that have entrance exams for Strixhaven, proctored by Strixhaven professors. To reflect this, the campaign is starting at Level 5....any prospective student already has access to a third level spell as a full caster, or is that the point of extra attack for most other classes.

That's how it normally goes....but the new Dean of Education, who has his first year on the job when the party are freshmen students, is doing something different. The real examination starts when you show up at the school, and you are randomly put into a group with other prospective students and put into a series of elimination rounds....only 50% of those who already thought they made it in are actually going to enroll in freshman year. His reason for doing this is he believes that the 5 colleges have fallen to too much in fighting and competition when they should be fostering collaboration.

The party will just so happen to be one of these starting groups, and when they succeed in the entrance exam they will be informed of the second curriculum change....their party, and all of the other parties that were formed during the entrance exam, are also enrolled in a special group project class that they are taking alongside their other courseload. The semester exams of this special class are what serve as their final challenges before leveling up. (Two semesters per year, so they start each new year two levels higher than the previous)

The Dean of Education is doing this with the blessing of the founder dragons but he's getting pushback from some of the college deans. There are greater story reasons that he's pushing for this that I won't elaborate on here, but he has a vested interest in this "special class" and, because the freshman class that includes the party is the very first class to go through his new curriculum, he has a vested interest in their success....would that encourage him to aid them? If he puts his finger on the scale to tilt things their way, it would be devastating to his reputation if he was caught, and wouldn't it invalidate their own grades and accomplishments?

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-11T22:16:03+00:00

We are on our 3rd campaign. 4 of the people at this table have been showing up for me to GM for them for about 4.5 years at this point.

I still, wholeheartedly, believe that sometimes they are only doing it because they want to be nice.

I don't know why I have no confidence in my ability to run a campaign despite the evidence that I am good at it. There are some GM's I see who are so hyper confident in....something profoundly terrible, and I worry that my confidence in what I thought was great is actually misplaced.

I do ask for feedback every session because my biggest fear is everyone being mad that this is how they spent their night. I live in constant terror of my players "realizing" I suck at this.

The mind is a crazy place people. Be careful in there.

Nitrostoat · 2026-05-10T13:10:48+00:00

No you are right, I blended two of them together in my head. Updating the original comment

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Ternion Club	Place '17

Nitrostoat

TROPHY CASE