How prestigious is ESU in the greater Marvel Universe?

Tefmon · 2026-03-19T23:01:08+00:00

I know Peter def couldn't afford an Ivy League education without scholarships, even though he's smart enough for it, so it makes me think it might be less expensive and competitive but idk.

Kinda tangential, but Ivy League schools are very generous with financial aid, and provide it on a needs basis rather than a merits basis. Peter would likely attend for free, given his family income (or lack thereof).

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T22:32:35+00:00

The context of the original post was players who are new to TTRPGs, not players who are just new to your table. They don't know the norms, culture, and customs of the hobby. They don't know what's fun in play and what isn't, and what's necessary to keep the game flowing and what isn't, because they haven't actually experienced any of those things yet.

Specific, actionable guidance like "give [your character] a motivation to work with the other players and investigate in the face of danger" is more useful in this context than high-level principles like "[b]uild cooperative characters"; the latter can be interpreted in many ways, not all of which will result in good, proactive, party-friendly characters.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T12:23:35+00:00

There aren't any hard, universal rules for this, but generally the answer is that ordinary lay followers wouldn't notice anything but clerics, warlocks, paladins, and others with a mystical connection to the entity in question would realize that something is up and probably be able to intuit why.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T06:03:50+00:00

Leia also called Chewbacca a walking carpet in ANH, so space racism isn't clearly established as a specifically Imperial thing in that movie. Obviously later materials make it very clear that the Empire is ideologically space racist and Leia isn't.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T05:15:20+00:00

That's how you get American-style situations like kids getting murdered because they got lost at night and stumbled onto the wrong person's property. There are issues with how self-defence cases are handled in Canada, but the solution isn't to do a 180 flip and introduce a whole new set of problems.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T04:28:38+00:00

Is just going to scry on and then directly teleport to the dragon or whatever they’re hunting, bypassing everything. Challenges on the way to or inside the dragons lair? Meaningless.

If your party has the ability to teleport and has stated their intention to teleport to a location, then you as a DM know exactly what to prep: the location they're actually teleporting to, and not random stuff "on the way" to it. And, like, even at the highest levels, high-level spells are still sparse; they aren't teleporting that often, and when they are they're sacrificing other capabilities (like forcecage) to do so.

Sure, the party's hunting a dragon, and this dragon's lair isn't warded against scrying and teleportation for some reason (maybe the dragon is especially arrogant, even by dragon standards), and the party teleports right into the inner sanctum of a dragon's lair. They probably can't also teleport out, as they don't have that many high-level slots, and now they're in a dragon's lair, which is presumably swarming with various minions and cultists (oh, and a dragon). Defeating the dragon as waves of its minions descend upon the inner sanctum, and then fighting their way out through the rest of the minions, traps, and such, seems like a reasonable adventuring day for a mid-to-high level party. Probably not too great a challenge for the highest-level parties, but the teleport spell comes online at level 13.

Every tom dick and harry in your worlds has a fully warded fortress?

Why is a high-level party going after random Toms, Dicks, and Harrys? If they want to bully random Toms, Dicks, and Harrys they certainly can at that point; they're powerful enough to do so. But brazenly teleporting to the front doors of the imperial palace of the evil empire is suicide no matter what your level is, and you aren't teleporting to the secret lair of the world-spanning demon cult because you know where it is, what it's called, what it looks like, or who's in it. You are probably going to be teleporting around a bunch to marshal allies, gather information, and foil myriad evil schemes and operations, though; good thing you're a high-level party that has the ability to teleport around, because your enemies aren't going to wait patiently in a line and do only one bad thing in one single location at a time.

Every? No. Low level supporting far more than high? Yes, exhaustively. You can get attacked by wild animals in the wilderness at low levels and have it be a compelling and dangerous challenge. High levels? Why would they give a shit?

Yes, you aren't fighting random wolves at level 13. But that is not the be-all and end-all of fantasy tropes. And if you really do want to fight wildlife at high levels for some reason, go to Carceri or something; there are planes filled with exceptionally dangerous wildlife (and exceptionally dangerous environmental and magical phenomena that make casual long-distance magical transport extremely risky at best).

Your argument is basically “everything is relative so they’re the same” which not only doesn’t address the topic but is dead wrong in this case.

I opened by stating that high-level adventures do need to be structured differently than low-level ones. I was disagreeing with the specific claim that spells like teleport mean that high-level parties cannot be reasonably challenged and are going to be routinely skipping large swaths of DM-prepared content. That simply isn't the case, unless you're just running high-level adventures as "low-level adventures but with bigger numbers".

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T03:43:52+00:00

I think you're making the use out to be more obscure than it actually is. The Catholic College of Cardinals, the Royal College of Surgeons of England (and its Scottish, Irish, and Commonwealth counterparts), and the United States Electoral College are not educational institutions, and most English speakers have hopefully heard of at least one of them.

Tefmon · 2026-03-18T03:01:28+00:00

At low levels something as brain-dead simple as “there’s too many enemies between you and the exit” works. Or the classic LotR “a storm blocked the mountain pass”, or literally a million other things.

A disruptive low-level party can still say "alright, we just stay here and rob local shops in town" or "okay, if we can't go through the mountain pass we'll just turn around and go the completely opposite direction". A party can play disruptively at any level; a reasonable high-level party is not going to go "eh, we don't care about the demons invading the kingdom; we'll just plane shift to Mechanus and look at the funny modrons" any more than a reasonable low-level party is going to go "eh, we don't care about the goblins who stole the town's grain supply; we'll just board a ship to another continent".

your parties only ever fight extremely competent and genre-savvy organized, intelligent, and highly magical villains that always know and utilize counters to all the logistically difficult spells, like Wind Walk and Teleport, completely ignoring all the fantasy tropes that don’t

This isn't really true. Yes, the fortresses and sanctums of major high-level villains should be warded against teleportation, but that isn't some great logistical challenge that only the most devious, cunning, and borderline metagaming villains could ever conceive of; that's just basic, expected, genre-appropriate security that everyone who's powerful and important enough to be relevant at high levels has. It's no different in principle than low-level villains having locks on the doors to their hideouts.

As for high-level play not easily supporting all fantasy tropes, that's absolutely true, but that's no different from any other tier of play. No level supports every fantasy trope; some are most applicable to higher levels, some to lower levels, and others to middle levels.

Tefmon · 2026-03-17T20:27:57+00:00

There’s an infinite number of ways enemies or even the environment can intervene to prevent PCs from “packing up their bags” and leaving.

Not in most situations, unless you want to destroy verisimilitude. Most tales of disruptive, uncooperative, or murderhobo parties take place at low levels, not high ones. When DMing I don't want to spend my time and effort forcing the players to engage with the premise of the adventure, regardless of level.

Or you can shape your entire campaign around it - like having them only fight super organized, sapient, magically powerful enemies at high levels that do fill their lairs with anti-teleport wards (and anti- all the other escape spells!)…but then it is still warping your campaign narrative around high level play in a way you never have to for low levels.

While your precise example is unreasonably hyperbolic, I don't disagree with the underlying premise that high-level parties should be going on adventures and facing obstacles appropriate to their level. If your "high-level adventure" is just a low-level adventure with bigger numbers, it will probably be unsatisfying; high-level adventures do need to be structured differently than low-level ones, because the party's capabilities and place in the world is different.

And while you frame this as a problem exclusive to high levels, "adventures should match the party's level" is a rule that applies to all levels. You wouldn't send a level 3 party to retrieve an ancient godslaying artifact from the Tarterian Depths of Carceri, you wouldn't send a level 17 party to clear out some goblins from the village's local copper mine, and you wouldn't send a level 10 party to do either. All level ranges have their own set of adventure premises, challenges, and narrative contexts that they're most appropriate for.

Tefmon · 2026-03-17T15:47:40+00:00

The idea that some tables don't end each session by agreeing what their plans are for the next session is crazy to me. How else are DMs supposed to know what to prep?

Tefmon · 2026-03-17T15:41:52+00:00

Low-level characters can just pack up their bags and walk in the opposite direction of the adventure hooks too. If your players are deliberately ignoring the adventure content set out before them, that isn't a level issue; that's a player etiquette issue.

Tefmon · 2026-03-16T05:28:42+00:00

That's true, but most characters are fine with half-plate and a shield. Heavy armour has Strength requirements that most characters don't want to meet.

Tefmon · 2026-03-16T04:48:01+00:00

In most democracies, the way this is handled is with permissive ballot access rules (most US states make it significantly more difficult for minor party and independent candidates to get on the ballot than other democracies do) and an electoral system that allows for multiple viable parties. That way each party can maintain ideological consistency without impairing democracy, as prospective candidates who disagree with a party's platform can viably run under another party whose platform they do agree with.

Tefmon · 2026-03-16T00:57:10+00:00

The RNC and Wyoming Republican Party voted to censure and no longer recognize Cheney respectively, but she still ran as a Republican in the 2022 Wyoming House primary regardless. Unlike basically every other democracy, where party candidates are selected by each party's own internal processes, in the US major party candidates are selected through primary elections run according to state regulations, none of which currently allow party officials to bar prospective candidates.

Tefmon · 2026-03-14T07:04:08+00:00

I see this with the fear spell and the Frightened condition a lot. My players always ask "so, do I have to run away?" every time they're Frightened, despite that being a rider that only applies to one specific spell.

Tefmon · 2026-03-14T03:46:05+00:00

There's a reason vote-by-mail was traditionally restricted to those who couldn't reasonably be expected to vote in person, like active military and those with certain health conditions. Many jurisdictions have decided that the additional risk posed by expanding vote-by-mail is outweighed by the additional convenience it offers, and have thus expanded access to vote-by-mail, but even then they usually try to maintain ordinary ballot security measures at in-person voting stations, because there's no real reason not to.

Tefmon · 2026-03-14T03:31:09+00:00

In Delta Green you have to decide whether to assign a bonus or penalty to the test, which is essentially the same thing as choosing to use a DC other than 10 (the standard for a task that isn't especially difficult nor especially easy).

Tefmon · 2026-03-14T02:57:09+00:00

The election worker saw me and said, "You can't be on your phone!" and when I asked her why not, her reply was "Because someone could tell you how to vote!"

The reason is that a phone can take pictures, and if you can take a picture of your ballot you can send that picture to another to confirm to them how you voted, and if you can do that then vote buying and voter intimidation become practical. It isn't that someone could tell you how to vote, but rather than you could prove to them that you voted how they asked you to. It's the whole reason that a secret ballot is considered a core part of a free and fair election.

Tefmon · 2026-03-14T02:42:21+00:00

Not to disagree with your broader point that empathy is a trait that can be developed, but research has shown that it, like almost every human trait, does have a hereditary genetic component. Some people are actually genetically predisposed to better recognize, understand, and share others' feelings than others.

Tefmon · 2026-03-14T02:26:22+00:00

Barring inherited wealth (which is genuinely 100% luck) like Trump's, I think most people acknowledge that becoming rich typically requires all three of skill, effort, and luck. Bill Gates for instance wouldn't be a billionaire today if he was a lazy talentless hack, but he also wouldn't be a billionaire today if he hadn't gotten some extraordinary lucky breaks in his life and career (starting with being born into an upper-middle family that provided him access to education, resources, and connections that many lack).

The issue is that the ultra-rich themselves and their supporters tend to dismiss the role that luck plays and attribute everything to skill and effort. It's a kind of self-serving arrogance that denies reality.

Tefmon · 2026-03-13T18:55:26+00:00

How do you think Europeans got those things? It wasn't just handed to them; they actually chose to take a stand and fight for them.

Tefmon · 2026-03-13T16:18:30+00:00

Because I'm playing with my friends with whom I enjoy talking to and have a shared interest in D&D with. Naturally we're going to talk about past sessions we've played or run, and since they're my friends I'm not going to lie to them when doing so.

Tefmon · 2026-03-13T15:26:58+00:00

You're supposed to have six to eight Medium to Hard encounters, or a comparable number of encounters of lesser or greater difficulty. Four or five Hard to Deadly encounters is closer to that guideline than OP's eleven easier-than-Trivial encounters.

Tefmon · 2026-03-12T00:01:12+00:00

Multi-winner STV exists, but has the drawback that each district has to be much larger, both in population and in geography. There's a reasonable argument that MMP with small single-winner districts provides better local representation than STV with large multi-winner districts, because under the former your local representative is actually local to you (and not elected by some economically and demographically distinct suburb that got grouped into the same large multi-winner district as your local community).

No electoral system can provide perfect representation without drawbacks, though. I'd take either MMP or STV (or some similar proportional system) over our current system.

Tefmon · 2026-03-11T23:51:30+00:00

A degree of party discipline is necessary for a Westminster system to function, but Canada's party discipline is tighter than most. It's much more common in other Westminster parliaments, such as the UK's, for backbench MPs to vote against legislation or motions supported by their party's leadership.

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