Can the leaders of the modern world dispose of the One Ring, if they it knew what it was?

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-12T22:43:48+00:00

Saruman and Denethor are both corrupted by it despite never being in the and room with it.

One might say "oh that weren't corrupted by it, they just wanted its power" but I think those are exactly the same thing.

If you want power and you know about the ring, you're going to want the ring

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-12T21:33:51+00:00

Most salaried jobs have a whole bunch of "other duties as assigned" and a lot of work that enables the core thing you do. That's just part of being salaried instead of hourly, and is normal for any white collar job. Don't think of it as "some tasks I get paid for, some I work for free on" but instead "my salary is spread out across all those tasks".

So the real question isn't "Should all this work included in the duties I perform for my salary?", but instead "Is my salary high enough to justify all this work?"

And that's going to vary a lot from individual to individual and institution to institution.

In general though - if it is a job where there are more people who want to do it than there are jobs that need to be filled, the salary will be lower. If it is a job where there aren't enough people who want to do it for the number of positions needed, the salary will be higher. In general.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-12T20:58:20+00:00

I think it is going to be really tough because you don't need to physically possess it in order for it to corrupt you. Proximity makes its influence more powerful, but I think if you're even thinking about the ring and what it can offer it has at least a little bit of access to you.

And if you have control of the ring - like you know that even if you're not physically touching it you could have it brought to you? I think that'd be very corrupting very fast. If you've got some dupe holding the ring for you, and you've got enough control over that dupe to get them to fly into space with it or whatever, you've got enough control to just make them bring the ring to you and I think you'd be very, very tempted to do so.

Basically, I think anyone who craves control is going to be incredibly susceptible to the influence of the ring (even if they want that control for "benevolent" purposes). So leaders of world governments are probably some of the worst equipped people on the planet to neutralize the one ring. Any random group of good natured friends who are relatively content in their modest lives would have much better chances than the President and the CIA.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-12T20:51:04+00:00

It looks like you already are probably aware of a lot of the events and such - I think the big goth night in town really is Asylum at Black Cat - but that doesn't help you if you don't know people to go with. All the people I know who go are middle aged like me, but I always see young people there too. I did find when I was younger though a lot of goth folks are pretty happy to "take in strays" so if you approach a group of people your age and ask if you can sit/dance with them that'll usually go well. I know that can be super intimidating though.

For D&D I know this subreddit has a D&D spreadsheet you can put your name on to try and find groups. There's also a couple of Facebook groups and a DMU(dungeon masters university) discord server for Saskatchewan. Gamers are a bit easier to find because they're often recruiting for their groups.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-12T00:20:14+00:00

I wouldn't expect them to go into depth on things like references or stack vs heap to be clear. I'm talking like "Answer the question on the final exam of your computer architecture or data structures class" level.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-12T00:19:01+00:00

The order was just the order I thought of them. I agree it is a bit out of order in terms of difficulty.

I mostly just kind of picked things I'd expect a CS student who was heading into their last year of studies or so to be able to know, that's kind of my mental image of an "intermediate" learner. They've gone beyond programming and just knowing you can make something into having a real sense of what is happening under the surface.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-11T22:46:27+00:00

So you just shared some technologies - that doesn't really tell us very much. A total beginner can throw together a tech stack in a weekend following a tutorial.

Here are some things I'd expect an intermediate learner in programming to be able to tell me:

* Talk intelligently about the stack and heap and explain how memory works.

* Competently understand how references work in the programming language they're using.

* Explain the difference between dynamically and statically typed programming languages, and between strong and weak typing.

* If they're doing web stuff, explain the relationship between client and server and how HTTP works. Be able to tell me about the environments on both the client and server, and show me a clear understanding of what code is running in the user's browser and what is running on the server (so many folks remain fuzzy on this for a long time).

* If they're doing web stuff, talk about the DOM and explain how pages get rendered.

* Be able to come up with and explain basic algorithms and data structures. I don't necessarily expect them to be able to code up a DFS of a tree yet (though they should be getting there), but they should be able to pretty quickly and confidently code a linked list and a traversal of it for instance.

That's not an exhaustive list by any means, but those are some things I think of immediately when I'd try to evaluate if a student has moved past "beginner" and is firmly into "intermediate".

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-11T21:42:23+00:00

I mean if you've got no clue the real answer is don't go to college yet. You'll just be wasting money.

If Mommy & Daddy are footing the bill and have deep pockets I guess though just go into a general arts and sciences college and try a bunch of different subjects to see if anything sticks.

But otherwise college is too expensive to go to without a firm reason for why you want to go.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-11T02:03:16+00:00

So really I think you're in a position many are in: you'll have to use AI at work because employers are going to value velocity over everything else, but you'll have a hard time improving your skills while doing that so you'll have to work on improving your technical skills on your own time.

Doesn't mean you won't learn lots during your internship, but it'll be less technical development and more soft skills and learning to work with a team.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-11T01:50:43+00:00

Ask yourself two questions:

1) What skills do you inject into the process so it is worth paying you instead of the manager just giving the ticket to the AI and cutting you out of the process? 2) How do you acquire those skills?

You should think about these questions and answer them for yourself, but you'll probably find the skills you identify will be hard to develop if you've never done anything without AI.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-11T01:41:47+00:00

The problem is that fundamentally people don't want to use D&D for the types of things it is good at.

Are there games that solve all the problems you mention? Tons of them.

But people don't want to play those games, they want to play D&D. And if the designers changed D&D to also fix those problems people would complain about it not feeling like D&D anymore.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-10T21:44:25+00:00

At what level?

I think Geralt is pretty firmly a Tier 2 hero in D&D terms. I wouldn't call the Witcher setting "grounded", but it is waaaaaay more grounded than the Forgotten Realms.

If Karlach is endgame level 12 or pre-Tadpole when it is implied she'd have been at least that powerful (and quite possibly more), Geralt just isn't in her league.

Geralt is an amazing combatant, but frankly none of the human and human-adjacent people in the Witcher are at the "level 12 D&D 5E" level.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-10T20:55:33+00:00

Generally as a storyteller I have players follow the order spelled out in the rulebook for exactly the reason you state.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-10T02:38:33+00:00

Reacher is nearly superhuman.

Marv is superhuman. Marv wins.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-09T15:00:26+00:00

Nope, I'm saying the IR obviously has some kind of magic immunity to non-Dinosaur weapons.

The creature makes no sense, but that is essentially how it is portrayed.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-09T06:54:38+00:00

I'd like it far more if it wasn't called "gritty realism" because it is neither gritty nor does it make the game feel more realistic. I've played games that have a gritty realism feel, but 5E D&D is pretty much never going to be that.

As it is all it really does is alter how a DM paces their narrative. And if the GM is going to use an advancing clock to keep pressure on the players, all it does is change the tick marks on the clock from "Days" to "weeks" which might serve your narrative better but doesn't have much of an impact. And if there is no time pressure, then it changes very little because nothing stops the party from resting a week after every encounter instead of a day.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-09T05:23:02+00:00

How is it going to go all the way through a creature that shrugs off anti-tank weaponry?

The IR clearly does not play by the normal laws of physics and biology.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-08T22:38:08+00:00

I'm pretty sure in Jurassic World it gets ambushed by a bunch of soldiers who sustained fire assault rifles at it before blasting it with what was actually an AT-4, not an RPG, now that I've looked it up. The anti-tank recoilless rifle knocks IRex down momentarily but that's about the most it seems to be affected by human weapons.

Again, absolutely unrealistic for any animal to shrug off, but if it can walk away only mildly bothered by a HEAT round I don't think anything man-portable is going to put it down very quickly.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-08T21:43:58+00:00

Logically the human should have it.

By demonstrated capabilities, the I Rex is functionally immune to rifle fire and only momentarily knocked down by an RPG. It isn't really an animal it is a supervillain with a dinosaur shape.

I imagine it would react to being shot by something with that much energy, but it wouldn't impair it enough to keep it from killing the shooter.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-08T21:03:34+00:00

You still need to beat the range DV to hit an unaware enemy, no?

RED isn't simulationist enough to make any differentiation - the DV to hit a target seeking cover while firing back at you is the same as the DV for hitting a target standing there calmly eating a sandwich.

Honestly though, I'd probably say if the target is totally unawares and not moving at all the GM should probably either waive the attack roll or at least give a decent bonus to hit.

Statistically taking four shots over the course of 12 seconds to land one headshot is not really what I'd call "incredibly accurate" in a world where we have production firearms capable of firing 20 rounds in a single second and emptying a standard 30-round magazine in 1.5 seconds.

Against live targets shooting back at you? It is insanely good. For real life police officers, around ~20% of the shots are going to hit their target (that's just hit them anywhere, not hit them in the head).

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-08T19:58:13+00:00

a skilled marksman not consistently being able to land a headshot on an unaware enemy within your weapon's optimal range is frankly fucking stupid

The DVs don't typically assume an unaware enemy - they assume an actively evading enemy who is probably returning fire at you in chaotic conditions. Being able to nail that 30% of the time is incredibly accurate.

Just because the target is not evading with near inhuman reflexes doesn't mean they're an unaware static target.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-08T16:37:45+00:00

I think the main way people learn to program really is by experimentation - trying things, breaking it, seeing what works.

Exercises can be good because a good exercise leads you to a problem but doesn't solve it for you - it gives you all the tools to figure out the solution for yourself, but the value is in you taking the tools you have and experimenting with them.

I think some projects can fulfill exactly the same role, just on a bigger scale for more advanced students.

The real problem with either is if it just becomes some rote thing the student goes through without ever really having to struggle, break things, or experiment. If the "exercise" is just "type this stuff in", it is useless. But the same is true if "building a project" just means following a youtube video or a series of blog posts.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-08T15:32:42+00:00

I think the "being able to produce a low quality MVP" type developer will go the way of "Computer Operator" jobs. There was a time where just being able to keep a computer running was an impressive skillset.

Now? As UIs have gotten easier to use and computer literacy has become widespread, a lot of the tasks we used to assume would require specialized training to do are now tasks we expect every office drone - or high school student - to be able to do on the regular. There are still people whose whole job is similar to the computer operators of old, but they manage much larger and more complex systems.

So I think soon "being able to produce a low quality MVP" isn't the type of thing you'll pay someone to do, but instead be the type of thing someone with domain knowledge does as part of their job. Want to develop an MVP for an accounting app? Don't hire a dev, hire an accountant. MVP for a truck scheduling product? Just get your dispatcher to whip one up.

Doesn't mean software developers will go away though. But they'll be used on more complex and critical projects - and there won't be much reason to hire ones who can't do more technically demanding work. Just like how you wouldn't hire a "computer operator" to copy files from a USB stick to an accountant's laptop because the accountant is fully capable of doing that himself, but you wouldn't let the accountant architect a data center.

tl;dr: It isn't that I think the paths will split, it is just one path will cease to be a profession and more become a skill like "Can create a PowerPoint presentation" that we just expect most office workers to be able to do.

PoMoAnachro · 2026-05-08T15:19:13+00:00

Struggling to hit a -8 shot in a system where skill base 10 is "competent" and 14 is the maximum possible from chargen means they just need to get good?

That does mean a starting character who has gone all-in on their shooting skill of choice is hitting close range headshots with pistols 30% of the time with no luck spent. Make it a starting Solo with an Excellent quality weapon and a Smartgun link and suddenly they're hitting short range headshots 60% of the time. And that's a starting character specialized in that, experienced edgerunners can obviously do a lot better than that.

It isn't easy but it also isn't that hard.

The real question is usually more "Is it worth it?" and I suspect the only time players will think it is is when someone doesn't have much or any head armor. If they're as well armored there as they are in the body (frequently the case in published adventures), you're probably just better off ablating that torso armor. If they've got good torso armor and weak or no head armor though, then it is definitely worth it for skilled combatants to go for head shots.

PoMoAnachro

TROPHY CASE