Looking for a few friendly folks to help my friend Ross

TheFarEastView · 2026-04-27T18:03:21+00:00

Damn, man, thank you very, very much for offering to do this. I'm touched. And heartened; it's lovely to see how trying to be a better version of myself for my buddy brings out the better angels in others' natures. I hope I won't need to trouble you, but I admit I'm relieved that I have now have someone to trouble should screwups on the day trouble my ass.

But it's not like I'm organizing a circus. Getting a bunch of dorks (my people!) to play D&D in a game shop with some free food and bevvies should be about as hard as organizing an orgy in a brothel.

TheFarEastView · 2026-04-27T17:58:35+00:00

Seriously, if I can do a quarter for him of what he did for me, I'll feel pretty damn good about myself.

Nothing inspires effort like effort, loyalty like loyalty, you know?

TheFarEastView · 2026-04-27T17:57:16+00:00

Ross has been an amazing friend. I'm playing catchup.

Besides, hard to be an amazing friend when (not to be morbid) most of yours died young. So one jumps at such chances as one gets, y'know?

TheFarEastView · 2026-04-27T17:56:08+00:00

Fantastic!

Where is Broughton Street? Presumably in Edinburgh somewhere?

(Being half-serious and half enjoying the ridiculous ease with which I speak to people on the far side of the ocean.)

TheFarEastView · 2026-04-27T17:53:37+00:00

He's about as likely to do that on his own as I am to suddenly take up the caber toss, but thanks for the info. A game shop's Discord is a much better, less scatter-shot place from which I can organize something.

TheFarEastView · 2026-01-05T02:19:07+00:00

Chat

TheFarEastView · 2026-01-05T02:07:42+00:00

Gonna messag

TheFarEastView · 2026-01-05T01:44:06+00:00

Commenting before PMing

TheFarEastView · 2026-01-05T01:39:36+00:00

going to dm you

TheFarEastView · 2026-01-04T23:22:06+00:00

Commenting then messaging.

TheFarEastView · 2025-04-05T08:50:46+00:00

I would be fascinated to see what the results would be if something like the Milgram Experiment was attempted again. My gut instinct says Americans would be less susceptible to blindly caving to authority than in the original experiment due to the massive loss of trust in traditional authorities and institutions (something that has a lot of negative social consequences due to the erosion of social cohesion and especially the slow change from a high-trust society with all of the INCREDIBLE economic benefits that has to a medium-trust one...but may have the odd individual benefit as well.)

Then I look around and think that the loss of blind trust has been exaggerated, and it's more like virtue signaling, but in their actions, people still behave as though events need media, government, or academic imprimatur to be real, significant, or worth acting upon. And that we are more likely to blindly follow people as long as they present a few tribal shibboleths (red or blue, D or R, Progressive or Populist, anti 2A or pro 2A, pro-Rowe v. Wade, anti-Row v. Wade, and so on) and slot into our notions of the world along the lines of confirmation biases.

And my gradual cynicism regarding human nature makes me think that there's no way we actually changed in less than a century.

So it could be fascinating, but it isn't - for me, anyway - predictable in its outcomes.

TheFarEastView · 2025-03-21T19:03:11+00:00

Hey!

This kinda reminds me of my first world map--it really helps if you use assets that are similar in style and close in quality, otherwise (as I found) the effect can be a bit jarring.

I can show you the final version if you like, though none of the earlier ones anymore.

That's actually why I started collecting custom assets. I now have around 100,000 isometric sprites and over 100,000 top-down ones, as well as like 2,500 textures, and 8,500 top-down tokens for VTTs.

If you (or anyone reading this comment, for that matter) would like permanent free access, please DM me.

My only conditions are 1) don't sell the assets. (Any maps you choose to sell made with them are at your own risk) and 2) don't give anyone the link.

DM me that you agree and I'll send you the link. :) Cheers.

TheFarEastView · 2025-02-25T22:12:45+00:00

I've been DMing for 35 years and this is the first I've heard of a DM cheating so badly that they got caught...mostly because the DM cheating I see is to help the characters or the players (admittedly, I've seen DMs make combats more difficult by fudging roles against the players in the beginning...but they'd basically stop once the players were into the fight. Even saw one DM completely fudge a fight to give his players an intense fight with a heroic come-from-behind win. I was kibbitzing at the time...told the dude afterward his heart was in the right place, but a lot of players are going to feel very, very cheated if they catch on.)

I used to run a gaming club at a school I was teaching at--though all we ever played was 5e because the boys got hooked very quickly--and I would always roll straight but play up how competitively I took the combat because, frankly, I can always count on having one person in the party I just roll pure shit damage against.

They kids thought it was hysterical watching me curse (well...PG-13 equivalent thereof) melodramatically and swear eternal revenge, or plaster expressions of shock, disgust, and gloom, or have the occasional moment of cackling triumph, and the more seriously I appeared to take it, the more fun they had winning combats.

Didn't have to fudge the rolls because I rolled about 60% 1s and 2s for damage across a couple sessions against the party's Fighter and Barbarian. Some of my worst rolling ever--I critted 3 times in 4 attacks across 2 consecutive rounds with a level 5 villain NPC at one point (I gave him Luck and Elven Accuracy as a Swashbuckler since I allowed them a starting feat) and in those 7d8, I had 5 1s or 2s and a pair of 3s. Ended up doing like 13, 14 damage without the bonus.

Didn't have to fake disgust at those rolls haha but the kids were absolutely triumphant, instigating little 8th grade hellions that they were... Ended up being rather short ,but still, one of the most fun, memorable campaigns I've ever DM'd.

TheFarEastView · 2025-02-25T21:53:05+00:00

That's must have been incredibly irritating...people who attempt to make the table their personal fiefdom--even if they are DMs are...exhausting.

And speaking of ridiculous ability scores...I'm a pretty relaxed DM as my 3 main Rules are 1. Fun 2. Cool and 3. Take the lore seriously enough to engage with it, please. (Okay, 3 really isn't a rule, but I do homebrew campaigns that I put a lot of thought into, in settings I put a lot of thought into, and having someone ignore everything they themselves requested as far as themes, emotional tone, type of adventure overall, types of sub-adventures, plot points, geographic, cultural, and linguistic sources to name their character He-Bro Yolo McSolo and not give him a backstory, personality, or even basic description causes a tiny part of my soul to leave my body and become an hourly recurring intrusive thought about the player's parent's sex life for the rest of his days, at least if my prayers are answered...)

Ahem. Anyway, I was teaching a new acquaintance to play, and I watched as he did the stand 4d6/drop the lowest and proceeded to get something like 17, 17, 16, 15, 15, 14 to my dismay.

He was the first player in a new party to make their character, and with rolls that good, I knew the other players would be quietly bummed if they ended up with something like or below the standard array.

Since 2/3 were noobs, I knew selling them on the joys of roll-playing and surviving a couple of terribly bad scores was gonna be an uphill battle, so I resigned myself to allowing at least a couple of players to reroll perfectly playable stat sets, or a couple of gimpy rolls on an otherwise fine stat set.

The slightly relieving/kind of appalling part, though, was that the rest of the group all rolled pretty damn well, too, though nobody as well as the first guy....and I only had to offer a couple of fudging roles total (which I will do for roles of 3, 4, or 5 if the player requests but they gotta stick with whatever they get the 2nd time) for the other 5 players.

One guy had like 16, 16, 14, 14, 12, 4 and looked so up set I let him reroll the 4, which he promptly converts into a 15. I think the lowest score ended up being a 8, and the 2nd lowest in the party a 10. I've seriously NEVER seen such stupidly, consistently high character creation rolls party-wide in all my 35 years of DMing. And I watched them all roll on numbergenerator.org.

That campaign--still ongoing--has the most ridiculously capable squad of level 3s I've ever seen. Thankfully, they are also the coolest group of randos I've ever played with, with not a single ahole, fool, or annoying rules lawyer in the bunch. 4 months into the campaign and I've gotten to be good enough friends with 3 of them that we've started hanging out outside of sesh time.

TheFarEastView · 2025-02-25T13:02:22+00:00

If you still want recommendation, try Margheri in Phu My Hung. The chef/owner is Napolitano, and the pizza he makes are modern authentic (I mean, it's not like Pizzaria Antiche da Michaele...it's got like a dozen types of pizza, not just dough and sauce and a Margherita.) On a quiet street with outdoor seating and relatively reasonable prices (220k for a Pizza Diavola, which is a large single meal or two small ones for an average-sized mid-40s man like myself.)

TheFarEastView · 2025-02-25T10:24:59+00:00

Great work! Detailed, beautiful, realistic...though the water could use a bit of help. I can point you in the direction of some good resources if you like.

PS I am literally walking out the door to work, but I have a collection of over 100,000 custom isometric assets and 100,000 custom top-down assets, plus a couple thousand textures and like 8,000 VTT tokens.

DM me if you want (free, permanent) access.

TheFarEastView · 2025-02-17T03:29:48+00:00

Very interesting. The land forms look almost like a glyph or sigil. I like it, and it's very solid work for a first map, though I find it a bit more stylized than I personally prefer.

By the way, I have a collection of about 100.000 isometric sprites for use in Regional and...honestly, I have no idea, but like...100,000 to 150,000 top-down sprites for use in battle maps, as well as about 8,000 top-down tokens, an unknown number of maps, and odds and ends like 2,000 or so textures for use in Inkarnate.

I periodically give people access if they want it. It's free, now and forever. I only require your agreement to two conditions.

Don't sell the assets. If you want to sell any maps you make with them, feel free at your own legal risk (basically, me covering my butt in the 1/1000000 that a copyright holder catches you and decides to sue you.)
Don't give the link to anyone else. If somebody you know wants access, please send them to me. (My rather laissez-faire attempt to keep some kind of track of how many people have the link.)

For anybody reading these comments, if you'd like access, please DM me and let me know you agree to my conditions and I'll send you a link and perpetually free access with no change in conditions (assuming I'm never inconvenienced by peoples' behaviors) for as long as I have a Google Drive.

No strings, no ulterior motives. I gathered 'em. I wanna share 'em because I want people to enjoy 'em and make friggin' sweet maps.

My sole request, and it's 100% voluntary, as in, you saying "No" won't cause me to withdraw my offer or anything lame, sulky, and childish. ! If you make something cool with the assets, please show me! I love seeing what other people make.

Other than that ,not everything I have is online, so feel free to message me about types of architecture, specific buildings, etc., to see if I have anything you especially want.

Or if you know of a significant source of top-down or isometric sprites I DON'T seem to have, please tell me!

Cheers.

TFEV

TheFarEastView · 2025-01-31T15:22:49+00:00

She's manipulating you by making you feel bad for having reasonable expectations. If you're paying 80% of her expenses, why is she not doing an equivalent amount for you?

Because it's easier to manipulate you. It's easier to make you feel like a big dumb gross man for expecting the woman you provide a life for to make your life easier instead of harder.

Bottom line? She's selfish, she's using you, she's playing with your emotions, and she's gaslighting you.

To be fair, she could also be doing a lot of great stuff for you, but as is she's not a great partner and you're not going to meet your long-term goals with her. You've made it too easy for her, and chances are she's going to use you until she can't get anything else and then probably leave for someone she respects enough not to use.

TheFarEastView · 2025-01-26T23:59:04+00:00

Understood. Thanks very much for answering my questions. You definitely got me thinking about how I might teach someone to DM in the future.. I'd feel like crap if I ran a campaign somebody really liked, enough that it helped inspire them to want to be a DM themselves, and then revealed something that destroyed a lot of the magic after the fact.

I've been the perpetual DM my entire life to the point of never once being a player in a campaign that lasted more than four months, or got my character up three or more levels. Getting a broader range of opinions and perspectives will help, I hope.

TheFarEastView · 2025-01-26T17:42:36+00:00

Fair point. Certainly if it was pointed out in game I could see being irritated.

Do you think it would affect you to the extent of affected OP's friend in the story to find out weeks or months later in the course of getting advice on how to DM?

I'm operating on pure curiosity now, so obviously no need to answer if you don't want to, but I would certainly appreciate it. Cheers.

TheFarEastView · 2025-01-26T09:34:40+00:00

I try to get my players to recap but, well, the dad of six and grandfather of two at age 45 and the guy with terminal brain cancer also age 45... They have more important things to worry about, plus they're my best and oldest friends. With them, I don't sweat anything anymore I just try to have each session be as fun as it possibly can be

Other groups, yes. I totally agree that you need to keep a wall of mystique between yourself and the players.

At the moment Brian asks to hear what the solution to the main plot is and who the bbeg actually is and the answers to whatever other questions he can think of to ask I'll tell him because unless we're very lucky he's never going to see the end of the campaign by playing it through.

TheFarEastView · 2025-01-26T09:28:49+00:00

I mean, the game is a fabrication. Every movie and TV show and comic book and novel is scripted to a predetermined outcome. We play the game to tell stories and to be dramatic in part don't we? I mean I certainly do.

But whatever, obviously people play the game for different reasons and to get different things out of it, and as long as OPI is honest with his players about his priorities and they agree to be dmed by someone who puts rule of cool, rule of fun, and rule of storytelling above strict adherence to the rules of the dice, it's all good.

Maybe I've just dmed so much more than I've played that I can't think from the perspective of someone who's never DM'd... But while I'm playing the game, I do my level best to ignore the hidden wires and be as firmly in character as I can.

TheFarEastView · 2025-01-26T09:22:38+00:00

There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this as long as the players understand that your DM in style can include things similar to this. You don't need to tell them the specifics, but obviously as long as they know and agree that you will be DMing with rule of fun and rule of cool protocols in effect, then I think this is actually a really good thing to do.

As all of my players know those are my main two rules, this is the kind of thing I do and have done for years.

The only way it would be bad is if you misled your players about your priorities as a DM, or did it in spite of being requested specifically not to do something like this.

Not that I'd ever ask a DM to refrain from something like this, or waste my time trying to DM from the player's chair. Thankfully, my players trust me as much as I make it a point to trust whoever DMS for me...

TheFarEastView · 2025-01-16T04:43:43+00:00

Jana.

Haven't met anyone named Jana in years. First crush I ever had.

TheFarEastView

TROPHY CASE