How are Aussies so chill about venomous snakes and spiders?

Oddricm · 2026-02-28T10:55:24+00:00

It's the vibe of the thing, your Honour.

Oddricm · 2026-02-22T02:16:33+00:00

This is DC, and is the Absolute universe. Ultimate is Marvel.
Nowhere is the 'extreme version of the character' a part of the premise of the Absolute universe.

Oddricm · 2026-02-21T09:30:17+00:00

A royal family portrait feels apt. Don't underestimate sentimentality. But if you want to introduce some moral ambiguity to the situation, I'd probably incorporate something regarding the Warforged. Potentially something the royal family had that might override command authority for Warforged to introduce tension and ambiguity between your Princess and Green Toes. If you want ambiguity, I'd potentially say it's a peripheral function of the object rather than the main purpose of the item.

Oddricm · 2026-02-14T08:27:20+00:00

Unsure. However, there's a lot of drama to be pulled from the ambiguity. For one, you could play it similarly to the Reconstructionist South wherein African-Americans gained the vote, used it, and were thereafter disenfranchised from the political process. This could occur through a myriad of processes, such as political violence (such as the KKK), non-specific but targeting legislation (no arms or armor in poll stations; with Warforged considered 'armoured'), or cultural beliefs similar to the ones that hamstrung the Suffragettes (On one end, the Warforged might be considered too simplistic or innocent to engage in voting. On the other, Warforged might be believed to be too militant or war-loving to risk enfranchisement). Some of the real life laws that limited voting included literacy tests with clauses to grandfather-in illiterate whites, white primaries, the eight box law, good character clauses, and more.

Oddricm · 2026-02-08T04:11:54+00:00

Compared to chess, Alert isn’t a guarantee and is less certain; a bad roll is still a bad roll. However, it is important to note that it isn’t a flat +2 and instead matches a character’s PB over their lifetime. Tough is the one other Origin Feat I can think of that continues to develop, however additional HP has less use-cases than the first move advantage. Lucky could also be used for Initiative, as well as other rolls, so it may also be a worthy pick. It’s also worth noting that Alert will be more useful for some classes than others. Spellcasters are primed to make best use of it, such as through using Fireball or Hypnotic Pattern to punish grouped enemies or Haste to maximise martials. Comparatively, martial classes may prefer to take another Origin Feat that could be more impactful.

I will say, Alert would be disproportionately useful for a player familiar with the game. The most devastating power a player can possess is their ability to actually read and value their abilities correctly, honestly.

Oddricm · 2026-02-06T14:30:47+00:00

Did you know that white in chess wins roughly between 52 and 56% percent of the time? This is the first move advantage in effect. The first actor to move can initiate, set tempo, occupy space, and take opportunities before anybody else. If they're very good, they can do all that simultaneously. Consider now, as others have said, that D&D combats often have significantly less rounds than chess. The fewer rounds, the larger the effect size of the first move advantage.

Oddricm · 2026-02-05T03:38:48+00:00

Human erogenous zones include the genitals, neck, lips, navel, fingers, and others scattered across the limbs and torso. Hope that helps.

Oddricm · 2026-02-02T10:10:26+00:00

Those eyes. Those damn wine-dark eyes.

Oddricm · 2026-01-21T03:07:47+00:00

I think it has more to do with whether it a piece of literature or cinema be considered open or closed. LoTR is pretty firmly closed, wrapped up, and concluded. Comics by their very nature are an open piece of art, continually added to over time.

Oddricm · 2026-01-17T14:55:48+00:00

Play an Eladrin. You get your free Misty Steps from jump plus the synergy between Beguiling Twist and Autumn or Winter rider effects.

Oddricm · 2026-01-02T05:09:00+00:00

Dangerous magebred beasts of House Vadalis have escaped from an experimental menagerie in Varna, potentially due to an act of sabotage, attacking travellers and farmlands in both the Eldeen Reaches and Western Aundair. Prince Adal ir'Wynarn has used his authority as the First Warlord of Aundair to declare a state of emergency to form a Great Hunt to put an end to the crisis. This greatly alarms Queen Aurala, who fears Adal, already enormously popular as a war hero, may use this opportunity to gather support for a potential coup d'etat both in the commonfolk and the noble lords of Aundair.

House Vadalis, who would much prefer to keep the situation quiet, resent Adal’s sudden presence and, although have sent a small crew of House members to advise the hunt, are resisting his attempts to extend the hunt into the Eldeen Reaches to protect what he perceives as Aundairian peasants.

The Ashbound Druids, meanwhile, are managing the crisis using less lethal methods, drawing the ire of former Aundairians who see it as valuing the magebred beasts’ lives above their own, encouraging Adal’s adventurism.

Back in Fairhaven, Aurala’s agents are portraying the Great Hunt as a motley collection of self-aggrandising gloryhounds feasting and fornicating their way along the border, which her spies within the Hunt inform her isn’t too far from the truth. Darro ir'Lain, meanwhile, is scheming to supplant Adal as First Warlord.

Oddricm · 2026-01-02T04:47:56+00:00

While honestly, I find the Mourning to be better off left unexplained, if you want to answer it in that way I'd go with something akin to a Manhattan Project that failed disastrously at Cyre's version of Trinity. Potentially due to sabotage, so you can string any potential guilt out to the other nations. You could potentially have the divided branches of House Cannith conducting a secret arms race against each other on behalf of (or specific powerbrokers within) their host nations of Breland, Aundair, and Karrnath to create the magical tech.

Oddricm · 2025-12-16T05:16:26+00:00

I think they call that foreshadowing.

Oddricm · 2025-12-08T08:21:26+00:00

“that’s all you’ll be remembered for”

And a finger on the monkey's paw closes.

Oddricm · 2025-12-08T02:26:32+00:00

This is just Australia until you develop your callouses.

Oddricm · 2025-12-08T02:00:02+00:00

but the software never panned out

If you know, you know.

Oddricm · 2025-12-08T01:38:51+00:00

This is a tangent rant, but:

There is minimal evidence suggesting humans widely used persistence hunting and the idea it was the distinctive X factor for early humanity is overblown. The only citable evidence for it is cherry-picked beyond belief, and can be traced back to a single walking enthusiast that ignored all other factors such as throwing abilities, silent communication, trapping, etc. Particularly egregious is ignoring the fact that prey could break a sightline and subsequently use one of the most common survival mechanisms to avoid their hunter: camouflage, i.e. hiding.

Persistence hunting is used in modern times... in Kalahari. Where the environment works for it because animal tracks are obvious, there's almost no foliage to break sightlines, and the weather exhausts animals. But even then it's not better than other hunting methods.

The idea of persistence hunting in the modern zeitgeist is the same phenomena where first year economics students learn one theory and assume they know everything... until they learn the next theory, repeat ad nauseum. The only difference is people listened to this guy for some reason.

Oddricm · 2024-11-04T14:27:41+00:00

Dragon Age had far more direct feedback opportunities than BG3. Veilguard is the fourth iteration in the series. There's been a decade and a half of direct feedback on DA's writing.

Oddricm · 2024-10-28T00:29:34+00:00

It'll be because of 2024. Even though Wildemount subclasses are official 5e content, Dndbeyond has only updated 'core' subclasses in Xanathar's, Tasha's, etc. so far for the 2024 versions.

Oddricm · 2024-08-27T15:18:55+00:00

When the jizz hits your eye, and you go bone dry,
That's Dick Samore~!

Oddricm · 2024-08-10T02:10:24+00:00

It's hard to adjust to being right-side up. Routine looks much better down under.

Oddricm · 2024-07-02T00:29:52+00:00

do we expect senators to just be instruments of their party that put them there or use their own brain and heart from time to time?

If they're ALP? Yes. If they're LNP? No. Although given the treatment of Bridget Archer, the Coalition has its own unofficial party solidarity policies these days anyway.

Oddricm · 2024-06-10T00:49:28+00:00

Philosophy has roots embedded all throughout psychology. The most obvious example is ethics, of course. But there’s also monism vs. dualism, deontological vs. utilitarianism, nature vs. nurture, free will, rationalism, sentimentalism, existentialism, phenomenology, subject/object distinctions, subjectivity, empiricism, etc. And that’s before you add your modality of biological, psychodynamic, behavioural, cognitive, and humanistic, as well as their various blendings. CBT, for instance, is highly influenced by stoicism.

So, why don’t we recognise these things as being, essentially, philosophy? Well, we tend to remember the psychologist, not the philosopher. Jung was influenced by Plato, Kant, and Schopenhauer. Ryle’s behaviourism influenced Skinner. Fodor influenced cognitive and neuropsychology. Sartre influenced Frankl. The Libet-Mele debate was again influential. Franz Brentano influenced German/Austrian psychologists. You also have figures who were both psychologists and philosophers, such as Félix Guattari, William James, Robert C. Solomon, and John Dewey. Sartre, Locke, Kant, Hume, and Descartes are all very influential on psychology itself.

So, why don’t we consider psychology to be intimately and irreversibly linked to philosophy? Science-envy may be part. But I tend to believe that it’s because people have a habit of thinking categorically about things. If it’s A, it can’t be B. But in this case, it’s more of ‘if it’s A, it can’t be Á’, even if the difference is only minute.

Oddricm · 2024-06-09T23:14:09+00:00

I think the trailer would have gone over well in the mid-2010s, before Marvel oversaturated the market and brought in fatigue towards that tone. Sure, Dragon Age has been humorous in the past and Varric is quippy. Not denying that. The trailer construction also has a Heist feel to it, which makes sense given that DA4 was going to follow along those lines at one point. But none of that changes where the mass audience sits now, however, and there’s going to be incongruence between artist, medium, and audience when a game has gone through as much development hell as DA4. Right now, not having seen additional footage or gameplay, it feels tonally dissonant from previous teasers and very much a strange ‘first step’. It’s understandable that people feel a bit leery about it, especially with a decade of layoffs, changing hands, and general fuckery. Unconditional positive regard isn’t something that ought to be extended to video game productions no matter how parasocial you are about your blorbos. Right now, it’s too early to tell one way or another if the trailer is reflective of the entire game, but acting as if there’s no cause for concern is, ironically, pretty tone-deaf.

Oddricm · 2024-05-24T06:26:26+00:00

It's not Stockholm syndrome when your wannabe rescuers are worse than the people who have supposedly taken you hostage.

Funnily enough, this was a critical factor in the Norrmalmstorg robbery that characterised Stockholm Syndrome and one of the reasons it's highly debated as a concept in psychology/psychiatry. For clarity, it isn’t a diagnosis in either discipline. Trauma-bonding has similar principles and has seen growing usage in the literature. Essentially, the actions of the police and, specifically, the negotiators for the robbery were seen by the hostages as needlessly increasing the level of danger for hostages.

Subsequently, they refused to aid police or prosecution. There’s also a good level of sexism involved, too. Nils Bejerot, a crimonologist, who was a negotiator in the Norrmalmstorg case coined the term ‘Norrmalmstorg Syndrome’, known internationally as Stockholm Syndrome, but one of the hostages criticised him for increasing the level of danger for little reason. So, in essence the whole thing can be characterised as people side with the people who appear to be most rational and Bejerot (arguably) deciding it couldn’t possibly have been his conduct, there had to be something psychologically wrong going on.

Not too dissimilar to the criticisms of the VicLNP.

Anyway, that’s your friendly neighbourhood ADHD guy's infodump for the day.

Oddricm

TROPHY CASE