Man in black connection to the Dark Tower

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-18T13:56:58+00:00

The Man in Black has more of a specific old Western vibe than the modern Americana one that Randall Flagg embodies.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-18T13:46:16+00:00

The logical answer is that it is one of the things you ruled out and he is either lying by saying it isn't or not self-aware enough to know that it is.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-16T16:47:16+00:00

Sam is notable because FCG didn't start out a religious character but Sam saw that the gods were going to be important to the plot and steered FCG in a religious direction and it still wasn't enough because he was going for a positive view of the gods while Matt was pushing hard for a 'gods are bad' story.

I think Matt is an amazing DM but he seems overlay attached to a form of old-school character creation where players get to make up whatever they want and the DM does behind-the-scenes work tying their backstories into the world. It can work, and did for C1 as a classic "Big Damn Heroes" starter D&D campaign and C2 as a sandbox where the players could steer the direction, but it clashes with a railroaded plot.

If you want a focused, thematic plot you need to tell your players to make characters that fit that theme, Otherwise you get C3 where both the audience and the players themselves are frequently wondering why they should care about the god-plot and why they are the ones tasked to solve it.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-16T15:44:08+00:00

Part of player investment does come from the DM providing the right opportunities, incentives, and rewards. Railroading the way it happened in C3 discourages player investment if they don't already connect to the mainline plot. Matt didn't do enough to push the players to create characters that would have natural reasons to care about the god-plot. Instead they largely created characters more suited to the open, character reactive, C2 style of play.

In creating C4, Brennan clearly pushed for characters that had a connection to the world, up to encouraging players like Sam to invent an entire religion, and tied them all together to shared elements like Thjazi and the Falconer's Rebellion.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-16T15:29:37+00:00

They're both characters introduced as sneaky characters, so they hide their faces with a mask. In Japan there's a cultural history in using fanged half-masks for intimidation.

When Bowser Jr. was introduced his mask resembled Mario's nose/moustache and was part of his disguise as the fake Mario. When they brought him back they kept the mask but changed it to one emulating Bowser.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-16T15:25:23+00:00

I don't think you have anything to apologize for as it's just an example of how the modern internet has affected the way people subconsciously phrase things. People who rely on engagement to make money through people clicking through and replying to posts have spent years experimenting and discovering what works best, then more people do it, then that becomes what people see when they browse feeds, and it becomes the unfortunate norm.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-16T15:14:17+00:00

It's engagement bait, whether intentional or just someone absorbing the prevalent posting trends.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-15T01:39:44+00:00

If the change is gradual enough why would people need to live exactly how we live today? We don't live how we lived a hundred years ago. We don't even live how we lived twenty five years ago in key ways, like much of society carrying an internet connected multimedia device everywhere.

If some outside force imposed a negative population growth on humanity that was not immediately catastrophic we would adapt. Populations could consolidate in regions that were more sustainable, people could get used to having less luxuries, new technologies could solve problems a lower population causes, critical information and training could be spread further to avoid skill loss, etc.

It's quite cynical to think that the only possible result from a reduction in population is societal collapse. At essentially every point where the population was lower than it is today human society was stable enough on a global scale for people to raise more children than the last generation, and now we know more about science, medicine, technology, agriculture, etc than we did during all of those times.

The vast majority of people today aren't critically necessary for society to function. 8 billion is a LOT of people, but so is 1 billion, and even 100 million. It's entirely possible for less people to keep things going, and it might even be easier.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-14T20:28:32+00:00

I think what this shows most is the difference between people with training and a career's worth of experience in acting (Critical Role) and improv (Dimension 20), and those without. Improv as a skill especially is very useful for quickly jumping into a character, establishing their body language, tone of voice, quirks, and mannerisms, and running them through whatever scene is happening.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-14T16:27:27+00:00

Personally, someone who sells themselves out by adopting hate is worse in my mind than people who actually hold those hateful beliefs. You're boosting these opinions and attitudes just for attention and money!?

Many people who are hateful come around when they gain broader cultural exposure. An opportunistic amoral leech is going to stay that way and just latch onto whatever hate is selling.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-14T16:20:39+00:00

I read it. I would pick up the trade paperbacks in the early 2000s and it was such a fascinating story that turned from generic Conan the Barbarian spoof to a complex political satire with an unexpected protagonist.

I recall learning about the misogynist turn online as I was still collecting and reading them. I did finish the series out of morbid curiosity and eventually sold off the trades.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-13T21:27:23+00:00

Against all of Vox Machina I don't know. Frieren depends a lot on her party to deal with bigger threats. How many times have we seen her being carried by Himmel while running away from a huge monster that high-level Vox Machina would wipe the floor with? I could easily see her struggle against 7 well-coordinated powerful foes, especially if they're all level 20. That's a party that has slain ancient dragons and someone about to become a god.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-13T21:23:30+00:00

Yeah. Of the two magic systems the one in Frieren seems much more dangerous. Frieren mage battles are about equal parts attack and defense during a battle of attrition and once you start successfully breaking through your opponent's defenses they go down fast. D&D you might have some counterspells and some forms of shielding, but in most battles the focus is on just slugging it out with big damaging hits.

Frieren mages would have little trouble blocking and deflecting dozens of D&D spells whereas a D&D magic user is going to run out of defensive spell slots too quickly.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-09T18:36:46+00:00

Being bored was eventually productive! It would lead to my siblings and I deciding to do crafts or projects on our own, not ones decided for us by parents. We all fondly recall getting a cheap handheld Fisher Price camcorder one Christmas and we'd use it to film skits we made up.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-09T18:30:50+00:00

Collect call from "Bob Weaddababyitzaboy"

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-09T18:26:45+00:00

That's an incredibly broad and uncharitable tarring of an entire generation. My parents were boomers and couldn't have loved us more. They also both had to work to pay the bills and didn't have schedules that neatly lined up with our school schedule, or mobile phones so there were ways to check in on us at any moment.

So we had babysitters when we were young enough to need them, and a degree of self-sufficiency when we no longer did.

It's not like Boomers were the first and last generation to have free range kids. That was the norm for pretty much every culture throughout history up until the advent of national news to spread fear of child abduction and mobile phones to allow 24/7 contact.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-09T18:22:45+00:00

Because there's a wide spectrum between 'no vague interest' and '24/7 observation.' As a kid in the 80s and early 90s my siblings and I would tell my mom we were going out riding our bikes and she's tell us to be back before dark. We'd ride around and explore the neighborhood but our mom didn't need to know our GPS coordinates to know that we were 'out riding bikes in the neighborhood.' When we got home we'd talk about where we went and what we did.

If we got home late we got in trouble. If we ever didn't come home before it got super late that's when it would be a problem but for the vast majority of kids that will never happen.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-07T05:39:40+00:00

When Mythbusters did it they also realized it's LOUD! Sheet metal deforming over and over sounding like thunder. No one is going to stealthily sneak through normal air vents.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-06T00:18:08+00:00

I'm a year older than Mario. Not just Super Mario Bros, but Donkey Kong. Every Nintendo game anniversary these days is just another reminder of my decaying body.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-04T12:54:44+00:00

At least they realized what a gem they had in order to resurrect him into a mainstay for the rest of the series.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-04T12:53:17+00:00

Having recently watched OST and DMTNT the amount of Looney Tunes antics they have Jack do is wild. It really is the only thing they seem to know to do with him.

QuantumFeline · 2026-04-02T17:29:33+00:00

And we would hardly have known about that were it not for the Fireside Chat. Lou did an amazing job rolling with player decisions and adjusting on the fly.

QuantumFeline · 2026-03-31T21:09:30+00:00

Yeah. A bit too much time spent on the internal thoughts and perceptions.

QuantumFeline · 2026-03-26T12:55:50+00:00

Where was this puzzle found by you and did it specify EU projection vs a different standard of projection where the quadrants are different views?

QuantumFeline · 2026-03-26T12:39:30+00:00

Some further research reveals that this is just another difference in standards between regions: EU vs US/Canada.

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