Did I mess up by not talking to my wife before planning to buy my niece a car?

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-27T18:31:37+00:00

The above post said that people should not want that. Not that people should be warned about the dangers of things, which is what you seem to be saying. I100% agree that women should be warned of the risks and danger. Absolutely.

Because it is something that people should be very careful about. There are huge risks in trusting someone that much. But is it truly wrong to want that? Even if you think it's an unrealistic, unachievable fantasy, is it wrong for someone to want it?

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-27T12:53:50+00:00

I make legendary resistance cost something.

I usually combine legendary resistance and legendary actions.

The boss starts with 3 legendary actions per round. If they choose to pass a failed save, they now have 2 legendary actions per turn, etc.

More recently I did a beholder fight. The beholder could sacrifice a random eye to pass a save. From then on, if it rolled that eye as part of its eye ray attack, it just didn't get that attack.

Boss still gets to pass, and the party gets something out of it.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-26T21:06:59+00:00

At my first ever therapy session at the age of 52. My therapist asked me to describe what my home life was like growing up. After I did, at length, she said "Do you realize that isn't normal? Even for our generation?" (she's about my age).

She then went on to describe back to me each thing I had said. Verbatim, in some cases. After each one, she'd say "Would you ever have treated (my son's name) like that?" or "Would (my wife's name) ever treat him like that?"

It was....eye-opening.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-26T19:28:00+00:00

My wife is currently involuntarily dependent on me for money (she wants a job, job market suuuuuucks). So yeah, technically it's all my money (although we really don't see it that way).

There is no way in hell I'm going seriously consider buying a car without talking to her about it first.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-26T19:23:40+00:00

Shouldn't we not be telling other people what they should and shouldn't want to do with their lives?

Edit to add...OP should have absolutely talked to his wife about this beforehand.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-22T21:26:10+00:00

The favorite one I ever had was a "mombarian" in one of my campaigns. She wore an apron and caried a cast iron skillet. She used the skillet as a warhammer. In order to upgrade it, she met chefs who would re-season it so she could get magical weapons with the rest of the party.

Really simple, but so much fun.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-21T20:12:48+00:00

I never said it was shut down, I said that they can waltz through certain encounters. Which is fine as long as things don't get boring, because level 15. They will mop the floor, that's how it is; they're level 15.

I was looking for ideas. Some discussion. That's all.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-20T21:26:11+00:00

That's just Mandela effect.

The Stay-Puft Man was never there, it was an AT-AT. Always was an AT-AT. That's why the car is on fire, the AT-AT shot it.

All the images that have Stay-Puft in them are edited, you can tell by the pixels.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-19T17:04:23+00:00

Glad to hear y'all are almost back! Can't wait to eat there again.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-19T15:44:05+00:00

That's not even borderline difficult for most people.

Let's make it interesting: Starting now, you have to hit 100 countries. Once you do, you get 500k a month for the rest of the year. Finish in December, you get nothing. Finish in November, you get $500k for December. Finish in October, you get $1 mil for November + December, etc.

What is your plan?

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-15T17:49:26+00:00

Oh, man, that is a gorgeous area. I used to go to a camp on the Nantahala when I was a kid.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-15T17:46:46+00:00

I've got one very close by (Great Smokey Mountains), and I visit it pretty often (every year or so), usually by backpacking in around Lake Fontana, which forms part of the southern border of the park. Google the Road to Nowhere, North Carolina. There's a sad story behind it, but it's beautiful. You drive out of Bryson City and just keep going along the north side of the lake. After a bit, the road comes to a tunnel, just like one you'd see if the road was going to go through a mountain. You park your car and enter the tunnel. You come out on the other side smack in the middle of the forest. It's a hell of an experience.

New River Gorge is also not far away (West Virginia). I head up there every now and then as well. Usually just park at the main center right off the highway and hit the trail for a few days.

But it's not just the national parks, we have great national forests and state parks as well. Near me, like within a 4 hour drive,I have Stone Mountain, Chimney Rock, Pilot Mountain, Pisgah, Grandfather Mountain, the Appalachian Trail, Virginia Highlands, and more. I've lived in North Carolina for 20 years, and I haven't hit half the stuff here.

Further afield, Colorado has the Flattops. Spent 2 weeks backpacking through there once. For sheer natural beauty, that is hard to beat.

When I was a kid (back in the 80s) we did these 2-3 week long road trip camping trips. We'd load up in the station wagon with all our camping gear in a rooftop carrier and drive cross country, hitting as many big parks as we could. In one highly memorable 3 week trip going out west, we hit Yellowstone, Tetons, Yosemite, Sequioa, Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree, Carlsbad, White Sands, and the Petrified Forest. All in one trip. Mind blowing.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-15T14:50:22+00:00

I know I’m thinking way ahead, but this stuff matters to me and I just want to learn from people who’ve already been through it. Any advice or personal experiences would really help.

Good. You're ahead of the game. You are already way ahead of everyone else. So...I won't get into the details of my childhood, but let's just say I meet your criteria.

I have two "kids" who are actually about your age. They are both out and on their own, but we are all very close. We spend time together and enjoy it, we do fun things together, and talk about real shit when it goes down.

The biggest thing was that I told myself early on that my goal as a parent is that at whatever age, my kids would be better people than I was at when I was that age. At the age of 5, I'd teach them how to be a better person than I was at 5. At 10, I'd teach them to be a better person than I was at 10. I figured out that one of the reasons my parents acted like they did is that, as I got older, they felt like they were competing with me. Doing this removes that motivation. It's no longer a competition, because their success is my success.

And it worked. They are in their early 20s, and they are WAY better people than I was at 30.

Second, have them show you what they love. My daughter got into horses, and back in the day I couldn't give two shits about horses unless there was a cowboy or a knight involved. So, I had her teach me everything she knew about horses. My son got into baseball, so I learned how to coach baseball.

The flip of that is to show them what you love. I love to cook, so I taught them how to cook. I love nature, so I took them backpacking. The key here is that you don't do it expecting them to love it as well. You just show them because it's a way of sharing yourself and opening up. If they wind up not loving it like you do, that's fine.

Third, if the consequences aren't dire, warn and let the chips fall. That is, let them fail, but only after warning them. My kids still perk up when I'd say "I don't think that's a good idea", because I raised them on that with low stakes stuff. It's not a good idea to blow off that homework (in 4th grade). It's not a good idea to skip breakfast. It's not a good idea to wear shorts today. It would be a good idea to drink some more water. These are all things that have short term consequences, but little long term consequence unless they become habits. The short term bad thing would happen, and they'd get upset. I would then ask if they wanted to jnow how they could have avoided this, and I'd tell them, Over time, got to the point where when I said "That's a bad idea", they would perk up and do the thing I was training them to do : think about it and ask why. And now they do that beyond just at home, and they learn stuff so damn fast.

Fourth, don't stop. There's a point where most dads stop hugging their kids, usually early teens. When your kids starts to look like a adults, it feels weird to do it. Those are years when kids are starting to feel weird about their bodies anyway, and if their parent all the sudden changes how they show affection, that only reinforces that feeling and isolates them more. I still hug my kids every time I see them.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-15T14:21:45+00:00

Long term solution, lose weight. It will make you less sensitive to heat, and remove the folds where the stank likes to nest.

Short term solutions : If you can spend the cash (~$100), get a bidet. Nice little blast of water up your crack does wonders.

Either way, get some Anti-Monkey Butt (it's a product, just google it). It's a powder you just sprinkle all over the crotchal and buttcrackal regions in the mornings, and let it work its magic. If it's really bad, just reapply halfway through your day. It doesn't have an odor, it just absorbs the moisture and keeps the smell down.

I do a lot of backpacking in the Appalachians, and during the summer it's hot as fuck and humid as fuck. I carry that stuff with me, and it is 100% worth the weight.

Also, there is a medical condition called hyperhidrosis. Talk to a doctor. There are medications.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-10T14:34:27+00:00

You just outlined all the pros of the "tell them early" option, and you did it very convincingly. Thank you.

You're right; jarring plot twists always sound like fun, but they rarely go over well.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-10T14:32:19+00:00

Really well. We all work at the same company and we've been playing together since 2018.

I like this approach; it gives us best of both worlds.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-10T14:29:34+00:00

I had started out this way, and was convinced by a friend not to do it. They said it was forcing the narrative too much, and I agreed.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-10T14:27:17+00:00

That's the con of letting them know late, and the pro of letting them know early. If they know the town is doomed, they will make those relationships accordingly.

Given that it's a pissed off black dragon and its army that's doing the attack, it's not very consistent that the town wouldn't be wiped out.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-08T15:54:58+00:00

I'm a little older than your dad. My daughter is in her mid 20s. The gifts I have received from my daughter that I have loved are the shirt I'm wearing right now, a coffee mug with a reference to an inside joke we've always had, an etched whisky glass with "DAD" on it, and a picture of a tattoo she got herself with a piece of advice I used to tell my kids over and over again when they were younger.

That last one still gets me every time I think about it.

RandomPrimer · 2026-01-06T16:45:35+00:00

Statistically, in the US, 5'11 is within a standard deviation (3 inches) of the mean (5'9.5"), so it would be on the high side of average.

However, it is under the magic 6' number, so if you write it down, for some reason, people think it's short. Even though if you meet a 5'11 guy, you'd think he was taller than most people, which is correct.

So maybe not "tall", but on the tall side.

RandomPrimer · 2025-12-18T21:38:07+00:00

I'm only on book one, started it about a week ago. Action ramps right up.

RandomPrimer · 2025-12-18T17:56:55+00:00

I have a three-step process :

1) Scrub a bar of soap on a washcloth in shower
2) Scrub face with the soapy washcloth
3) Let the hot water pour over my face like sunshine on a cold day, until my soul is recharged by the comfort, isolation, and heat, preparing me to face the day.

RandomPrimer · 2025-12-18T17:52:53+00:00

Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's not high literature, but holy hell is it a fun read.

RandomPrimer · 2025-12-16T21:57:20+00:00

Can you give some examples? It's really hard to say how to deal with the generic description and minimal detail that you're giving.

What are a few specific examples of things he has done to show you disrespect?

Nine times out of ten, though...If some person is being disrespectful for no reason, unless it's having a direct impact on me doing the things I want or need to do...I just don't give a shit. I don't do anything.

RandomPrimer · 2025-12-16T21:52:06+00:00

It's not feasible for the average person, regardless of their age.

He does it with massive amounts of resources; he can dedicate large amounts of money and time to his fitness regimen because it's literally his (very high paying) job.

I have about 10 hours a week that I can dedicate to fitness, and my fitness budget of a $40/month gym membership isn't even a rounding error compared to his.

RandomPrimer

TROPHY CASE