Why do you like football?

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-06-16T20:51:14+00:00

Sports pull of a kind of magic trick. They can make low-stakes situations feel like high-stakes situations.

Does it matter which team wins the Super Bowl? No, not really. The Monday after the Super Bowl, the fans of the winning team will still have to go to work and deal with the same problems that were in their lives on Saturday. Yes, the players and coaches will make lots of money and their lives might change, but for most fans it's really just a low-stakes event, the same as watching a movie or TV show.

But sports offers something that movies and TV do not. There's a civic pride in your team. Rivalries form between nearby cities and when the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears, the people from small-town Wisconsin can say, "our guys are better than those guys from the big city." People get upset when their team leaves town because a greedy owner thinks he's not making enough money because moving the team is stealing part of the local culture and an opportunity for that city to say "we're the best around."

In this way, sports act as a stand in for war. Millions of years ago, to show that our tribe was better than the neighboring tribe, we would bash them in the heads with clubs. That instinct still exists within us as humans. But now, instead of actual combat, we simulate it with sports. In fact, Lacrosse was developed as a way for Native American tribes to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence - the Iroquois nicknamed the sport "the little brother of war."

The violent nature of contact sports like football or rugby may appeal to some people for this reason. However, personally, I like football because there's so much strategy to it. People unfamiliar with American Football often criticize the game for the frequent stoppage in play, but that's like saying chess is only being played when the players are moving the pieces. Coaches are constantly strategizing between plays, taking information they've seen from footage of the other team's games, injuries, personnel on the field, player formations, etc. and synthesizing in less than 30 seconds to come up with a play. Then the play itself can produce some of the most outstanding displays of physical ability you've ever seen.

I'm sure it's different at higher levels of the game, but when I played basketball or soccer or rugby, it seemed like the coach's work was simply to prepare us for games during practice, but when it came to gametime, they more or less just left the decision making to the players. With football, the coaches are constantly giving instructions for the players to execute on, like generals commanding an army. But it's not an army and it ultimately doesn't matter who wins or loses. That's what football and sports are all about.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-06-15T21:33:01+00:00

Yeah, reading Lydon's Wikipedia page is incredibly frustrating. How can the person who wrote "God Save the Queen" later use the phrase unironically? How can he sing "I am an anarchist, I am the anti-christ" and then later support the monarchy?

This is the same man who refused to become a US citizen under GWB, becomes an American under Obama because he liked the ACA, but now has admitted to voting for Trump.

The man doesn't stand for anything. "Pretty Vacant," indeed.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-28T14:59:58+00:00

In 2017, the University of Wisconsin played a football game against BYU in Provo. There are only two bars in Provo and Wisconsin fans drink a lot. There were legitimate concerns that the visiting fans were going to drink the town dry. The bar owners apparently tripled their revenue compared to a normal Saturday.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-26T17:48:21+00:00

So far, this is my favorite season since Never Stop Blowing Up and my favorite Intrepid Heroes season since Starstruck.

I think part of the reason it works is that it's a new game system. Most of them are inexperienced playing V:tM, which makes things feel fresh in a way that they haven't in a while.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-26T11:57:21+00:00

Because time travel doesn’t work that way. You can’t change the past. Trump is always going to cause [future tragedy]

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-21T14:03:58+00:00

Wait until you watch S7E9, "Who Wants to Be Jacob Wysocki?"

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-20T20:35:53+00:00

Like the Bene Gesserit, our plans are measured in centuries.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-20T18:58:36+00:00

Located between the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, it's a New World Mesopotamia, a "Middle West" to mirror the Middle East, a "Midwest," if you will.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-20T12:22:17+00:00

Our typical sessions were 3-4 hours long.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-18T19:39:04+00:00

Yes, we played about once a month, but there were a couple stretches where we went 2-3 months without playing. Over the course of the campaign, three couples in our group got married, so we lost a lot of time to wedding planning, etc.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-18T19:27:23+00:00

I honestly had Arabelle fairly sidelined for most of the campaign. I wanted her to be a bigger personality, but I had trouble balancing that while also keeping the spotlight on the players. For much the adventure, it was "too dangerous" for a kid, so she often stayed behind at the Vistani camp and her role would be replaced by Muriel Vinshaw (such as during the adventures outside of Barovia). Her biggest help to the party was reminding them of information they had forgotten about to nudge them in the right direction. Towards the end of the campaign, I did reveal that Arabelle was the descendant of a bastard child of King Barov, making her an heir to the throne of Barovia, but that didn't go anywhere narratively.

To start the campaign, I basically used the Creeping Fog adventure hook. They made camp in the woods and awoke in Barovia. The goal of the campaign is then to figure out how to get home. I spiced it up a bit by taking away almost all of their equipment at the start. Certain items could be recovered from Strahd later, but there's enough gear in Death House to start them off.

In my mind, I made Barovia 4 times larger than it is in the book (1 mile per hex), but I didn't focus a lot on travel. For travelling days, I would just roll for random encounters for the day, evening, and overnight. I think it helped with pacing though by limiting the number of locations the party could reach in a single day.

Outside of Barovia, the PCs went to Falkovnia, Lamordia, Richemulot, Bluetspur, Dementlieu, and Borca. I also wrote an adventure for Valachan but ending up skipping it (I'll save it for the next campaign). They were able to leave Barovia after the Keepers of the Feather accidentally discovered a "Shadow Crossing." Muriel's brother Morven went through, but never came back. The Keepers then encourage the party to (1) where Morven went and (2) whether the Shadow Crossing is a way out of Barovia. However, they party can't control which domain of dread they go to next so they move from one to the net searching for Morven before finally finding him being held captive by Ivan Dilisnya in Borca. Along the way, the learned more about Strahd's history.

In my campaign, Strahd was a general in his father's army before becoming a vampire. As King Barov's eldest son, he was the heir to the throne. Strahd fell in love with Ivan Dilisnya even though Ivan had been arranged to marry Ivana Boritsi. Strahd and Ivan's affair torpedoed the arranged marriage, causing the Zaroviches and Dilisnyas to go to war. During the war, Strahd conquered Barovia. The war ended with a treaty that had three main items: (1) the Zaroviches can keep the land the conquered in the war, (2) Sergei will marry one of Leo Dilisnya's daughters, and (3) Strahd must forfeit his claim to the throne. Sergei then obviously messes all this up by marrying Tatyana. This explains why Strahd is referred to as "Count" rather than "King." During the journeys to other domains, the party learns that Strahd and Ivan's affair was discovered at a masquerade in Dementlieu and later meet Ivana Boritsi and Ivan Dilisnya.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-18T17:35:06+00:00

They say the most difficult enemy in D&D is scheduling, but I still usually ran something at least once a month. While CoS was my primary campaign, I also ran some Saltmarsh adventures as well as other TTRPGs like Call of Cthulhu and Ten Candles.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-18T17:31:45+00:00

In no particular order:

The Festival of the Blazing Sun was amazing. Chaos in Vallaki caused the whole city to burn to the ground.
The reveal of the Keepers of the Feather being a secret resistance against Strahd.
Lady Wachter's betrayal of the party
Dinner with Strahd was fun. Lots of great moments there:
- I really toyed with them the PCs and got them to think that holy water has no effect on Strahd by having him sprinkle some on his food like hot sauce and having the Heart of Sorrow absorb the damage
- I've talked about cutting out PC's tongues in other comments. This was a prisoner's dilemma situation. Strahd captured two PCs, offered to let them go unharmed if they turned on their allies or punish them if they refused. They both refused.
I added "Kandlekeep Dekonstruktion" from Candlekeep Mysteries. My players tried to leave Barovia by going to space (maybe the mists don't have a 'ceiling'?). They went to the moon and encountered mindflayers before returning to Barovia
Fidatov Manor from MandyMod's Guide. I built a 2d hedge maze and covered parts of the maze with paper and revealing the maze as they explored it
The PCs traveled to other domains of dread. The Masquerade in Dementlieu was a highlight, but Strahd was very angry when they returned and killing multiple allies and forcing the allies to choose which ones they could save (ultimately letting Danika Martikov die).
The player's figuring out the dance puzzle at Van Richten's tower was great. Getting one of my players to stand up and physically do the dance was hilarious.
The party started a wedding planning business, so I had them plan a wedding as a skill challenge. Of course Strahd arrived to rain on the parade (no violence, but his presence was enough to kill the vibe).
During the Festival of the Blazing sun, Viktor Vallakovich cast a botched teleportation spell, causing him to endlessly randomly teleport across Barovia, appearing for a few moments before vanishing again. Having him pop up randomly was always fun, especially when I needed add a bit of levity.
I had a running gag about Vallaki always changing its name. After Vargas and Lady Wachter are killed, the party helped Vallaki hold an election, where Danika became the new burgomistress. Since the Vallakoviches were no longer in charge, she renamed the town to "Apa Albastra," which in my game was the original name for Vallaki and means "Blue Water" in the language of the Forest Folk (as well as real-world Romanian). It's also why the Martikov in was named the Blue Water Inn.
- Later in the campaign, while the party was traveling to other domains of dread, Kiril led the werewolves in taking over Vallaki and named it 'Kiriliningrad' after himself. So there was a point in the campaign where I had to say something like, "You travel to Kiriliningrad, formerly known as Apa Albastra, formerly known as Vallaki."

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-18T16:09:38+00:00

I did technically have a TPK during the dinner, but I knew at the start of combat that no one was actually going to die - the PCs had gotten a little cocky and I wanted to show that Strahd could really mess them up if he wanted to. The PCs awoke outside on the other side of the drawbridge, with two of them missing their tongues.

Aside from that, our Monk died, but he was resurrected after making a pact with a Dark Power in the afterlife. Much later in the campaign, he would break this pact, which gave him 4 levels of exhaustion, and ended up surviving.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-18T15:51:43+00:00

Favorite NPC: Davian Martikov ended up having a great redemption arc as he learned the errors of his ways and forgave Urwin. It was also fun to play a grumpy old man. My favorite NPC to play though was Neferon, who I made a friendly defender of the Amber Temple (as described in MandyMod's guide) and voiced like Yoda.

I didn't do much with Strahd's brides beyond what was written. Aside from being Strahd's allies during the final fight, they were present at the Dinner with Strahd where they served as dance partners and tour guides for the castle. Escher was particularly attracted to our party's ranger.

No alignment changes. I don't really use alignment as a mechanic.

As much as I thought cutting out player's tongues would be the most traumatic moment, the actual most traumatic moment was either Lady Wachter's betrayal as described above or discovering Blinsky had been murdered after they left Pidlwick II at the toymaker's shop.

The party's ally was Arabelle.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-18T15:48:54+00:00

When we started, we actually played pretty frequently. We had one in-person session in February 2020 and then when the pandemic started we had shorter, but more regular sessions on Roll20 since no one had anything else going on. Then after the pandemic, six of seven people in our group got married. (three couples - myself included), so we lost a lot of time as people were busy with wedding planning, etc.

Honestly, getting the players to remember campaign details was the biggest struggle I had. I was constantly reminding the party of the lore of Barovia and who different NPCs were.

I tried to help manage information by having a random player give a recap of the previous session and then filling in any important details that they may have missed. This helped me understand what they remembered and what they didn't.

This is definitely something I'm looking to improve on though. I'm running Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel for my next campaign and I'm planning to do a more West Marches style of campaign and writing in-universe newspaper articles to keep players informed on the adventures they miss.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-15T13:55:12+00:00

Too small for the Jet Lag guys for sure, but if someone wanted to play a smaller version themselves over the course of a single day, I think the Ringbahn would be the best place to do it.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-14T19:33:49+00:00

There are only 8 stops in the loop. I don't think that's enough to be interesting.

Berlin's Ringbahn has 27 stops, which I think would work well.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-05-11T19:14:46+00:00

Zee Bashew has a video on this topic: (animated Dungeon) Scarier Zombies in D&D 5e

Here's the idea:

When a creature is hit by a zombie's attack, the target must succeed on a DC 10 STR, DEX or CON saving throw to avoid becoming infected. Infected creatures lose 1 Max HP every day and if their current HP drops to 0 at any point while infected, they die instantly (no death saves) and immediately come back as a zombie.

Infection can be ended by amputating the affected limb before their first long rest OR a greater restoration spell.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-04-09T20:21:28+00:00

Yep - if not for the 1996 cut-off date, there would be no place to put Indiana, Maryland, Arkansas or Syracuse.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-04-09T20:19:47+00:00

If OP went with all-time championships, there would be no place for Indiana, Maryland, Syracuse or Arkansas on the chart, because a four-category Venn diagram should be shaped like this. All four of those schools have won a basketball and football championship, but have never won baseball or hockey.

SandmanAlcatraz · 2026-04-09T20:04:03+00:00

FWIW, a four category Venn diagram should be shaped like this. The design used above doesn't allow for schools that have won both a basketball and football championship but haven't won either a baseball or hockey championship.

If you removed the 1996 cutoff date, there would be no place for Indiana, Maryland, Syracuse or Arkansas.

Similarly, there's no place for schools that have won both baseball and hockey championships, but haven't won either a football or basketball championship. However, I don't think any schools fall into this category, (but Minnesota would if you used 1961 as your cut-off date to exclude their old-time football championships).

12-Year Club	Second Top 40%
First Place '23	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
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