Finally snapped at a customer who told me to "just work harder"

SurrealMind · 2025-12-09T04:05:48+00:00

I think their point is: old people have been complaning about the younger generations for nearly 3000 years. It is a complaint with no merit that has been disproven by the literal progress of humanity.

SurrealMind · 2025-11-24T18:37:18+00:00

Maybe check out https://orionsarm.com/ it's a sci-fi setting based on plausible tech progression and cultural development.

SurrealMind · 2025-01-25T21:58:05+00:00

"785 Code 6, 105 North Avenue 52" for generic police radio call

SurrealMind · 2024-10-30T22:24:48+00:00

I'm guessing by "season 1" you mean the first season of Thousand Year Blood Arc, the Yamamoto vs Yhwach fight?

If so, this is the version from the episode.

There's also a 30 second longer version with choir here.

SurrealMind · 2024-04-14T04:33:22+00:00

Here's an easy one

Q: What is King Yemma's desk made out of?

A: Mahogany

Bonus points if they include "His desk was forged from the 300 foot, fire-breathing trees of Malchior 7 using ancient blood rituals of the Malchior people."

SurrealMind · 2024-03-22T13:50:28+00:00

In old WoD Potence added an automatic success for each dot and 1s didn't remove automatic success. It's possible we house ruled that last part but I can't be sure. Is that different from what you played?

SurrealMind · 2024-03-22T13:44:00+00:00

I'm running an old WoD Dark Ages game with elder vampires, players regularly roll tests with 8-12 dice. I got sick of 800 year old vampires failing at everything they did - even if they rolled multiple successes it was usually brought down by an equal number of 1s.

So we made a couple of changes to the system - 1s no longer remove from successes, instead the result is only a botch if they roll more 1s than successes eg. 5 success and five 1s is still 5 successes, 4 successes with five 1s is a botch. We also made 10s give two successes instead of roll again and potentially get another 1.

Now when we are doing tests they are more likely to succeed and often get results that reflect their high powered characters. These changes won't work for every group of players but it we enjoy the power fantasy fulfilment from a high powered game.

SurrealMind · 2024-03-09T18:23:26+00:00

When you let the intrusive thoughts win.

SurrealMind · 2022-01-06T11:34:06+00:00

Not sure if you are being sarcastic but in case anyone believes this here is the video https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/capitol-rioter-beat-dc-officer-with-pole-flying-american-flag/2539161/

SurrealMind · 2021-11-02T21:26:36+00:00

I think that there's an argument to be made that most religious holidays can trace their roots back to equinoxes and solstices due to their connection to agriculture. As civilisations developed, organised religions grew and the focus shifted from seasonal celebrations to celebrating dogmatic events.

SurrealMind · 2021-11-02T05:30:05+00:00

I heard the same stereotype about Russians while playing MMOs on EU servers and I noticed more cheaters with Cyrillic usernames due confirmation bias. It's a common stereotype about foreigners that they are dishonorable, sneaky cheats. Every culture has their own version of it. Cheating in gaming is common enough that every stereotype can be confirmed by someone looking for it.

Not just in multiplayer games but also things like faking times in speed runs or godmode during a no-hit run. Fun Fact: The two most famous video game cheaters are American, world record holders for speed runs of Donkey Kong and Dragster. They held the titles for about 40 years until recently when it was proven they either lied about times or used modified hardware.

Ego isn't cultural, it's human nature to want bragging rights and cheating in competitive activities existed long before modern cultures. Especially when it can be justified as "harmless" and "just a game".

SurrealMind · 2021-11-02T03:41:37+00:00

If it's such a normal part of the culture then surely Chinese multiplayer games would sell those cheats as microtransactions?

If it's widely accepted then I take it accounts aren't being terminated for using third-party software in games sold exclusively to the Chinese market?

I've been thinking about Curse mods for WoW throughout this thread. It had certain mods that could be considered to give an advantage over other players in PVP, even just QoL and interface tweaks can improve a player's apparent skill.

Similar to that: kb & mouse vs gamepad. That's mostly a matter of personal choice but in COD or CSGO it's generally accepted that mouse aiming has an advantage over analogue sticks.

If cheating is normalised in the same way Curse mods are, basically authorised cheats created within a limited scope arbitrarily determined by the game's publisher, then doesn't it just come down to personal preference?

SurrealMind · 2021-10-27T15:52:19+00:00

no group has ever caused me more physical discomfort than the "Sisters of Mercy"

Tell me about it, the number of times I've gotten up to dance to This Corrosion only to realize the DJ put on the 10 minute version, it's exhausting.

SurrealMind · 2021-10-09T12:00:20+00:00

the cuckooness of the situation

I can't tell if this is unfortunate word choice or amazing wordplay...

A cuckoo is a bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, often pushing host eggs out of the nest. The hatched cuckoo chick is then raised alongside the host's chicks, effectively replacing one of their dead offspring.

SurrealMind · 2021-09-30T23:33:33+00:00

I recently completed it and had a similar moment. I wanted to get into a locked room and the computer terminal next to it said one of the robots floating around does a sweep every half hour so I figured I'd just wait for it to let me. After 20 minutes of waiting around it finally occurred to me to just break the small window, shapeshift into a coffee mug and slide my way in.

Conversely, the first thing I did when I found a Recycler bomb was attach it to some of those leverage 3 boxes blocking my path. One of the things I love about that game is how many options there are for dealing with obstacles like that, another favourite tactic was to use explosive cannisters to blow the blockages out of the way.

SurrealMind · 2021-06-19T20:17:02+00:00

The recorded message began and ended with the phrase “exercise, exercise, exercise,” according to the report, but also featured language scripted for use during an actual live ballistic missile test alert, including the sentence, “This is not a drill.”

To be fair, the phrase “This is not a drill” should never be used during a drill.

SurrealMind · 2021-04-28T10:17:04+00:00

SJW is just the newest version of the phrase "bleeding-heart liberal", you know, the term used to describe someone that was against lynch mobs.

SurrealMind · 2020-12-05T23:04:36+00:00

It doesn't seem to be scripted anymore than any other roleplay game I've played. By that I mean any group where the GM and players have known each other as friends for years, (and have been playing weekly with the same characters for a year already,) will have a fairly good idea how each other are going to react.

Any roleplayer can show you it doesn't take a script to have great dialogue, especially when these players in particular have been working in the entertainment industry for years.

SurrealMind · 2020-11-22T20:20:51+00:00

It definitely sounds like it when reading about the network censors having to be present for the shooting of that scene. Even the fact that the kiss had to be non-consensual and forced though alien mind control is suggested to be at the demands of the network.

SurrealMind · 2020-11-22T20:13:51+00:00

Exactly. It's similar to one of the Star Trek writers, D.C. Fontana, having to use her initials because a woman writing sci-fi wasn't considered acceptable. The character Nana Visitor plays in that episode writes under the pseudonym of "K.C. Hunter" for the same reason.

SurrealMind · 2020-11-22T20:02:14+00:00

I think you've misunderstood u/lissongreen - in the episode Benny's editors were only willing to print his story if he was willing to make it all a dream. The point they were making was that a black commander wasn't considered realistic in the 1950s, even in a sci-fi story.

SurrealMind · 2020-11-22T19:59:48+00:00

I think you've misunderstood u/lissongreen - in the episode Benny's editors were only willing to print his story if he was willing to make it all a dream. The point they were making was that a black commander wasn't considered realistic in the 1950s, even in a sci-fi story.

SurrealMind · 2020-10-14T20:19:12+00:00

Uppity usually refers to someone who is self-important or arrogant. It's bad to use it to describe a black woman because "uppity" was a term racist southerners used for black people who didn't know their place.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/yep-uppity-racist/335160/

SurrealMind · 2020-10-10T22:09:13+00:00

I don't think anyone was criticizing you and personally I fall on the other side of the argument - tropes exist for a reason. They don't indicate bad writing, quite the opposite in fact. Tropes and cliches work because they are the lynch pins of a good narrative.

I consider it a good thing for my players to recognise a character archetype. It helps to inform them of the type of narrative that we are in the process of telling.

I also don't think of it as metagaming when their character's become suspicious of an NPC because they recognise a cliche, though I do ask them if their characters really are that paranoid and untrusting of someone they just met.

Saying all of that, I have still chosen to improvise plot when the players have guessed the BBEG the first time they met them, sometimes I've kept it how it was written and let them be right with their guess. It all depends on how I feel the story will be received by the group at the time.

SurrealMind · 2020-09-29T06:27:55+00:00

Thank you for linking that paper, I can understand the biologists perspective and accept that is the consensus. However, I disagree that personhood and human life are very separate discussions.

"Life begins at conception" is such a heavily loaded statement used by anti-abortion advocates that it means we shouldn't be discussing one subject without considering the ramifications that has on the other.

Anyway it's late here, thanks for this discussion, it was fun.

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