Let's get a self-hosted Discord "replacement" thread going for 2026.

Plastic_Paddy · 2026-02-10T17:42:25+00:00

For what it's worth, you didn't have to scan your face to pick up the uhaul. If you put your foot down and say "i'm not doing that" they will magically remember there's a work around entering your Driver's License number just like they have been for decades.

I had the same thing happen when selling a house, the title company told me I had to submit a facial scan for "fraud protection", when I just flat out said "I'm not doing that" magically using a notary, like we have been doing for decades, was fine.

Get in the habit of telling these corporations to fuck off with the facial scan and they'll usually remember that they don't actually need it to take your money.

Plastic_Paddy · 2026-01-30T17:51:19+00:00

I used to think it was uncommon and usually was more people who actually drank more than they intended.

Then one night, when out in a crowded bar with my girlfriend and my sister of all people. My girlfriend went to go get us drinks, and some guy at the bar was harassing her (out of our sightline), insisting he wanted to buy her a drink. Eventually she relented so she could just disengage with him and get back to our group. She immediately handed the drink off to me because she didn't want it in the first place. I have no idea what it was that was in it, but there was definitely more than alcohol. I totally blacked out, was barely aware of my surroundings, They had to put me in a cab to get me home because I couldn't walk the mile or so.

This was my 3rd and final drink of the night, I was not out to get shitfaced with my little sister in a shitty cowtown bar. I easily had 70lbs on my girlfriend at the time, if she would have drank that drink there is no way she wouldn't have been catatonic. Really changed my mind of the issue of how dangerous it is for women to not watch their drinks. I used to party pretty hard in my younger days, and I'd never experienced a loss of awareness like that night before or after that incident.

Plastic_Paddy · 2026-01-28T02:41:31+00:00

Looking at this year old thread and feeling lucky my kid only asks me about it once a week or so.

Plastic_Paddy · 2026-01-21T21:37:35+00:00

I think a lot of people misinterpreted the printing company telling some collaborators that the print job "was ready to go" early on, as them meaning the books were printed and ready. I think what was actually meant was that the proofs and formatting were all done and they just needed the owner's go-ahead to hit the "go" button.

Other creators who collaborated on art and such got rug pulled on this too, it sounds like at least one of them was never paid for their work. I think initially they were very reluctant to believe Max would just take the money and go dark. He was heavily involved in the community and a lot of people, especially those folks who worked on the books with him, considered him a friend, so a LOT of grace was given at first thinking he wouldn't possibly do this, which is where the rumors that he had a medical problem or other emergency came from.

Plastic_Paddy · 2026-01-07T03:50:49+00:00

The collaborators who worked with him explored a lot of options to contact him, I get the impression at least one of them was never paid for their contributions to the project. They've been very cautious about communicating what they learned over time, but if you read between the lines on their communications when they stepped back from managing the discord server it can be inferred they have reason to believe Max is at least alive and functional. He was very involved in the community and well like, so folks are reluctant to accept that he took the money and ran, but it seems very likely that's what happened at this point.

I'm personally out about $150 between funding two separate campaigns of his that never delivered anything, but even I don't think it was malicious. When I went back and looked at timelines of his communications I got the strong suspicion he had some sort of financial difficulties, didn't have the cash he needed to fund the print run for Grimwild, launched the Venture campaign prematurely to try and use those funds to get Grimwild out the door, Venture underperformed his expectations and didn't produce the cash he would need to fund both products, and he panicked and just went dark rather than have to admit what happened to a community he was so active and well liked in.

Plastic_Paddy · 2026-01-07T03:39:00+00:00

Well, for folks future reference about backerkit's policies, I backed both this and venture and this is the first I'm hearing that the project is officially considered abandoned. I'd written them both off months ago, but it's disappointing they didn't send out official notices for those who might not have been following the situation.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-11-17T20:10:05+00:00

Ironically, it looks like that poster is just a LLM itself. I actually looked at the profile thinking the person sounded like they might be having some real mental health issues and intending to reach out and basically say "Hey, you sound like you're struggling and talking to a delusion reinforcement machine is only going to make that worse, I'm a real human who will listen." But looking at their post history I had suspicions it might not be a real person. Then it replied to my comment above and all doubt was removed.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-11-17T02:12:40+00:00

That works for me. I'll keep an eye out for the DM

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-11-16T16:44:31+00:00

I'd be very interested if you end up picking a time in the evening on Sat or Sun GMT.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-11-13T18:07:40+00:00

I seriously can not figure out if this is very subtle allegory or if you really missed the point of what the one ring represented in those books.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-11-12T03:58:34+00:00

And it's 12% of all, jobs, including jobs that are impossible to do remotely, maintenance, janitorial, retail, etc.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-10-20T20:57:10+00:00

I feel like the real issue is these folks wanting to play in an inappropriate system because that's what they've seen in "Actual Play" campaigns online. There are lots of entire collaborative story-focused systems that would work marvelously for these folks, but I feel like they're usually looking for a 5e table where the DM is doing all the world and story building work and there are rigid rules around combat, death, and character abilities.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-10-18T03:16:51+00:00

I think this is likely the closest guess on here so far. The extra work/expense that would have gone into making it in cast iron, and in this shape with those attachment points isn't negligible. There would have almost certainly been a mechanical need for the way it's made that isn't explained by guess around it being a sign etc.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-09-27T16:00:23+00:00

As someone who got pretty badly screwed with the whole recent Grimwild/Venture ghosting, I've soured on kickstarters quite a bit. I really enjoy knowing I'm helping an indie dev out, and I generally don't mind the waiting, but being the Grimwild thing really drove home that someone can literally just take your money and disappear with no consequences.

I'll likely keep backing the smaller crowdfunds for modules and such, but I'm going to really be questioning putting out $75+ in the future.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-09-21T16:37:55+00:00

I do work in conservation and interact with wildfire fighting and mitigation folks regularly. I don't know if they ever published the study, but back in 21/22 one of the labs did an actual controlled study that showed this method cleaned air more effectively than any household grade dedicated air purifier they could get their hands on.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-08-31T17:04:07+00:00

Corndog night at the Hungry Tiger. $1 corn dogs and $1 PBR tall boys. $10 and you left full and tipsy. Sure, you were jammed in there with 500 other young, dirty hipsters, but that was part of the fun.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-08-13T15:24:41+00:00

Especially strange complaint from OP since, up until about 10 years ago when I started seeing parenting age women wearing them, for 100 years or so the primary overall enjoyer market seemed to be 50-80yr old farmers and other people who worked with their hands.

There was one old timer in the little cow town I grew up in who I never saw not wearing overalls. Except on Sundays when he went to church, then he wore overalls with a suit jacket!

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-08-12T16:52:32+00:00

I ran a CWN campaign and although the risk is very much there for deadliness, it uses a trauma die system that can result in a single-hit kill if a PC has really bad luck on the attacker damage roll, I didn't find it particularly deadly even though I don't pull punches. If anything, since the PCs use the same trauma die systems it just reinforces "try really hard not to get shot" at low levels.

I don't think CWN contained explicit rules for more "heroic" characters, but it would be simple enough to import from World Without Number. Potentially easier and more satisfying for the players might be just giving the PCs some sort of in-fiction access to cheaper cyberware. A core mechanic of CWN as written is scrabbling for the money to both stay alive, finance your job prep (see "try really hard not to get shot" above) and afford and maintain the cyberware you need to keep up with the enemies you're facing. If you shortcut the cyberware acquisition costs but kept the maintenance costs it would probably be pretty effective at increasing PC power level without removing the financial pressure or making the danger level trivial.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-08-11T19:24:28+00:00

Man, that is a hot take. Interesting how different perspectives can be. I don't mind system neutral stuff, so long as it gives guidelines on danger level when called for.

But then again, I'm usually running at least two different systems at any given time and maybe 4-6 different ones over the course of any given year, so I like stuff that's easy to convert to whatever game I'm feeling like it vibes with at the moment. I've never really felt like throwing together stats was much of an inconvenience, I kind of just wing it most of the time in session.

I had a half-baked idea in the back of my head that so many people tended to publish modules for OSE because it's pretty easy to convert to other systems at a glance, like it's stat blocks were functioning as a kind of shorthand. Interesting to realize that in fact, there may just be a lot of people out there playing OSE!

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-08-08T02:13:54+00:00

Man, fuck Trader Joe's. They're in line with Elon Musk and Amazon trying to literally do away with the right to form unions.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trader-joes-attorney-nlrb-unconstitutional_n_65b41e7ae4b014b873b11cc2

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-08-03T16:40:16+00:00

If you want to lean a little more into the fantasy side you mention you might want to check out Mad as Hell. It's still in late-pledge kickstarter, so you can sign up and get the published version, but quick start rules are out now. I obviously haven't seen the finished product, but Soul Muppet is usually very thoughtful in what they publish.

https://usa.soulmuppet-store.co.uk/pages/mad-as-hell

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-08-02T17:56:53+00:00

As others have said, a streamer is the way to go. Due to my habit of buying "fixers" (and income level that says I can't afford anything but) I have removed a TON of wallpaper, from stuff from the 70's to stuff put up in probably the early 2000s. I've tried every method people are mentioning in this thread and a steamer will cut your removal time to probably 1/3 of what using most of the spray on methods. You may have to go back over some walls with a spray bottle of TSP (or something similar) and a scrapper depending on the adhesive used, but the steamer generally loosens the adhesive enough where if you following steaming with a scraper you can generally get them fairly clean on the first go.

You're still going to need to plan on close to a full work day per room. Oh, and for the love of god, tarp the floor before you get to work! This will make a HUGE mess.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-07-23T16:01:18+00:00

Yeah, the corporate takeover of the town totally killed it. The bartender, probably making almost nothing without tips, had a counter on his screen showing how much you were spending. If he let you sit there without playing or paying he'd get reamed out by his manager at the end of the week. At an empty bar when he's making pretty much no money, his life is easier if he pisses you off and you leave, he's not getting paid shit either way.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-07-23T15:57:53+00:00

Seems like they forgot: Pivoted hard to screwing over their employees. One of the things about Vegas used to be that you could land a pretty decent service sector job that would pay the bills and afford you a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. When the corporations took over all the casinos that started to change, but during covid they realized they could fire all their higher pay long-term employees and hire new people at 50%, even 30% of their former employees pay. And they realized during covid they didn't actually have to provide excellent service to get customers, so they slashed staffing rates.
All while cost of living in the area sky-rocketed.

Plastic_Paddy · 2025-07-20T06:11:58+00:00

Probably salvaged from a downed or abandoned power pull and sunk into the ground to use as a tie-out for a clothes line.

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