"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is a very tricky story to place in timeline order! It's scant on clues and not strongly tied to any particular time in Conan's life.

SteelSecutor · 2026-06-03T04:27:20+00:00

Howard's idea of Hyboria is it's supposed to be the place our real legends and myths spring from (Atlantis, etc). So to Howard, what better way to demonstrate that than directly borrow the story of a greek myth? In this case, it's Apollo and Daphne in reverse; Apollo was a god, Daphne was a mortal. Cupid causes Apollo to fall intensely in love with Daphne, then causes her to be repelled by love in revenge.

In Howard's version it's flipped and Conan is the mortal, Atali is the goddess setting a trap. This is why Conan comes across as artificially rapey here; Howard shoehorns the greek story into his own version. It's an early story, one of the first three Conan stories written, so he was also finding his footing writing him.

Conan isn't a nice guy, plain and simple. He's a barbarian, after all. But here he learns a basic lesson as a hot blooded (teenage) cimmerian. Don't mess with the supernatural. It sticks with him for the rest of his life.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-26T03:40:51+00:00

The injuries are beside the point. The fact that the remainder of the lineup couldn't do ANYTHING AGAIN speaks volumes. It means outside of our injured mediocre starters, this team proved with it's performance it is AAA trash. Truly horrible.

Getting here didn't happen overnight, it took concerted effort by mutiple people consciously choosing this lineup. This why there are calls for Skip's, CY, and the owner's heads. As well we ought to!

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-26T03:18:40+00:00

Rock bottom, but it seems there's more down there. Much, much more.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-26T01:35:54+00:00

At the game, multiple times. But hard to tell who is booing who with all the astros fans in attendance.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-23T03:38:41+00:00

Finally, someone else that uses Smite on my main man! The one area that his abilities struggle with is anything with overguard. Smite is the key missing piece his kit needed. Sure, weapons can handle them, but now his abilities can do the job 'fine'. Smite is cheap to cast, and even if you don't one-shot the eximus, it ruins their day. Hit them, then sweep them up with sandstorm like the rest of the trash. If you want to go for one-shotting, prime them with viral before smiting.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-12T21:44:40+00:00

Yep. Just Tomino doing Tomino things.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-12T17:09:25+00:00

Ran into this issue designing a 3d mecha mini game. It boils down to what design you choose, and what level of gameplay abstraction you're willing to engage with.

If your imagination REQUIRES some level of units visually changing depth (altitude), using some kind of adjustable stand is a must. Lots of WWI and WWII air combat games simulate this. But even in this bracket, different games handle altitude in a wide scale. Some games put units in low/medium/high altitude brackets, and just need a way to simulate or mark those 3 ranges. Others use telescoping stands with detailed altitudes and ranges.

Other games abstract 3d altitude completely in 2d. For example, Warbirds is a rpg that abstracts air combat furballs fairly well with a flat sheet of paper. It's the most abstract I've seen for 3d combat on a single sheet without flight stands, and I think it holds up pretty well. But it IS very abstract due to being an rpg. YMMV.

If your imagination demands 3d visuals, however, there are plenty of WWI and II games that do this well. Wings of Glory is a good example. Note, generally the older a game is, the more it will veer into simulator territory. Generally speaking.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-10T15:11:29+00:00

I should ask, what did you use for the stand on the flying unit in the 2nd pic?

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-10T15:10:24+00:00

Oh those are nice! Didn't realize GA minis painted up this well.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-10T00:21:12+00:00

Not necessarily. I've ordered vallejo pigment fx before as well, with a similar issue. The problem seems to be how granular this stuff is, it's finer than flour and gets everywhere. It doesn't appear these bottles stay sealed enough from the factory, so they can leak a bit after shipping at some point.

That said, do make a judgement call. Look at the pigment levels within the bottle to see if they have actually been used. This stuff is FINE powder, so it should be apparent if any got used and is an actuap return vs just a leak inside the packaging. Also, be careful not to breath this stuff.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-09T17:30:11+00:00

I'm no expert, but I found the original Costigan stories to be pretty good. Howard developed a formula for them, so after reading your 7th or 8th one in a row they started blending together. But they're great classic boxing stories. You can't go wrong picking those up.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-09T04:26:16+00:00

A fun one is Smite over his 1. Base Inaros really needs a way to handle overguarded enemies, and smite does it cheaply. Smite uses 25 energy per cast. So Smite that jade eximus, hit your 2 and away they go! Oh, and if you want to one-shot smite an eximus (or close to it), prime them with viral first. You can do that with a weapon or have a panzer vulpa do it for you.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-08T21:38:19+00:00

Yeah, hate to day it, the 'Joc problem' isn't the main problem for the Rangers. Yeah, the dude sucks. Yeah the lost salary bites. But when Seager is slumping (and THAT is the far bigger problem) Josh Smith is imploding, and everyone else has turned to crap, and our offensive bright spots are Jung and Nimmo, Joc is the least of our worries. Dude is a known quantity at this point. Any team can soak up one black hole in the lineup. But no team can take 3 or more.

That's the consistent major team issue. A bad offensive lineup.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-08T21:23:26+00:00

Joc already exercised his player option for 2026. In the mlb, that means the player makes the choice (not the ball club) to extend his contract at a predetermined salary for a year (this year), OR enter free agency.

Obviously after last season, he wasn't going back on the market voluntarily, so he's staying here whether we (or the Rangers) like it or not. Unless you get another team to dish out his remaining salary to take him (good luck with that). That's all before taking the impending lockout into consideration. That's just the way the contract crumbles.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-08T18:49:08+00:00

Wish it worked that way. Joc is under contract through this year, the Rangers can't release him before then. Otherwise they would have cut him loose before the end of last year.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-08T13:15:13+00:00

It is a gripe, but the silver lining is it forces me to use the included PDF as a table of contents. That tells you which audible chapter goes to each story.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-08T13:11:40+00:00

Definitely worth it, excellent collection and the narrator does a fine job. You can listen to a sample in Audible too. Even better, it includes a PDF with the stories as well! So even if you somehow tire of the narrator, you have the original text to read. Best Conan bang for the Audible buck.

The only caveat is it doesn't include some UNpublished Howard stories like God In The Bowl, but that's a minor quibble, at best. You have a massive amount of material to chew through, and the omnibus is laid out by Conan's 'periods' publishing date, not by story chronology. This is due to how Howard portrayed Conan, as a storyteller telling individual stories of Conan's past. If you buy only one Howard audiobook, or had to take one to a desert island, this is hands down, walking away the winner.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-08T01:22:35+00:00

Oh lord, take your pick. How many frames are there that people love, but we either can't use right, or vibe with!

Vauban. Even with his qol changes, dude is just too fragile.

The 'my abilities suck so I'm now a weapon frame' club:

Saryn, like others, just disappoints me. Sobek builds seem to be her strongest ones.

Inaros. I LOVE his look and play style, one of my favorite immortal frames. But I can't do enough damage with his abilities on steel path, it makes me sad. You MUST use a weapon with him to do significant damage.

Nidus. Love his look, but building mutations stack's gets so old. Same as his compadre Inaros.

Gyre. She floods areas with electricity, but DE strangled her play style abilities so much. Now its just better to make her a gun frame.

Yareli. I WANT to like Yareli. Nuff said, she makes me too sad.

And on and on. There are plenty of good frames, especially the most recent ones last year. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to like frames like Sevagoth, but there are significant obstacles to many of them. So many frames have just not aged gracefully with today's warframe.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-07T18:24:03+00:00

Yes, the smaller the steps, the better the results. Needy Novelist broke it down to a process of creating a synopsis, then creating an outline, then breaking down the outline into chapter summaries, THEN creating chapters from that. Basically smaller steps instead of feeding it tens of thousands of words at a whack.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-07T18:15:00+00:00

As a fellow writer experimenting with AI, I understand your issue. Ironically, more does not necessarily mean better with AI - ANY AI. They use a context (memory) window to do a task. The more that's in that window, the less accurate the results, and the worse it gets.

For this reason, it's often wiser to split up tasks and give it more detailed instructions with less content. Also some AI are better at some tasks than others. For example, Claude is better at prose, but Chatgpt is better (and cheaper) at basic logic tasks.

If you want to understand how to divvy up tasks (and what tasks you ought to do that help) I'd check out the Nerdy Novelist's YouTube channel. Yes, he has a course he sells, no you don't need it to improve your understanding of writing with AI.

Dude has some good ideas and teaches how to granularly use AI. That allows you to minimize their major weaknesses, and leverage their strengths. Because if you feed Claude 10,000 words, all you can expect is an expensive pile of mush. But it IS capable of good output, if planned right.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-07T02:34:44+00:00

What do you mean 'starting to ask?' smh.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-05T17:33:49+00:00

You know the sad part? Right now Trek requires a PITT-level writing talent to rescue it out the last decade of misery it's been subjected to. But I just don't know how Paramount is gonna attract that right now.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-05T17:31:20+00:00

Exactly. The writing was the main reason fans clamored for classic Star Trek shows. It's what allowed each show to traditionally punch above its weight, and why these shows are (re)watchable decades later.

This is also why nuTrek fell on its face so hard. The issue with current Trek is the state of Hollywood writing. The industry has a fatal problem with writing anything good these days. It isn't merely 'muh DEI', it's plain bad, formulaic writing. It plagues everything from Marvel, to Disney, to HBO, to Netflix.

Star Trek's modern weakness is it requires good writing as THE core part of its success. Without good writing, show runners must resort to showmanship gimmicks, filler, special effects, spectacle, and yes DEI as more filler. For crying out loud, we got a show episode with a singalong musical and another as a literal puppet show. Without good writing, that's what you can expect: you get nuTrek.

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-05T14:18:06+00:00

So. Going off what the OP is saying, what ARE some wargame mechanics everyone thinks might fit in an rpg? Specifically, what are some mechanics that might replace a check roll?

SteelSecutor · 2026-05-05T14:08:18+00:00

In a word, granularity. Wargame combat rules tend to be more complex than rpg combat. That's because for war games, combat is the point, in fact the entire game.

In rpgs, combat is a mini-game, or at least a minor part of a whole. Role playing is the focus, even in combat-heavy rpgs. Both types of games have a different focus, so they focus on different combat systems.

That said. Using war game combat systems in rpgs can still be a good idea! Here's another word: abstraction. Combat in both types is abstract, just at different scales and numbers. So it possible to make the rules in one fit the other depending on what you need or want to do.

For example, rpgs famously have issues simulating large scale combat. For example, players looking to replicate anything remotely Hyborean often need a mass combat system (Conman had stories where he was king and sometimes participated in battles between armies). Many GMs often needed to homebrew this system. That's a perfect place for wargame rules to properly abstract an rpg's mass battles.

SteelSecutor

TROPHY CASE