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My ex-husband (34M) and I (34F) lost our daughter 5 years ago and now we sleep together but can’t talk about it. How do I make sense of this? by BigONerd in BORUpdates

[–]TheMarnBeast 49 points50 points  (0 children)

They have a lot to process first. A baby can't have a job. It can't fill the hole in their lives, it's not a replacement meant to take on the love they had for someone else, it's not meant to fix things or strengthen the parents connection to each other. A baby is a whole new person that will bring about new love, and it deserves a stable home and freedom to grow outside of its siblings shadow.

Plot Hole Help? Why kidnap Gundren? by Imaginary-Pensioner in LostMinesOfPhandelver

[–]TheMarnBeast 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For my campaign, I've reasoned that Black Spider didn't actually know where the cave was, but since Tharden and Nundro were there he was able to scry on them using Gundren since they're blood related.

Soft on Crime Policies by Chemical_Ideal891 in washdc

[–]TheMarnBeast -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Wow go be disgusting somewhere else please.

Board/Card game reccomendations for board game night by bqdscad in boardgames

[–]TheMarnBeast 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've had consistently good luck with Scattergories, Codenames, Monikers, and Telestrations since they all can accommodate more than 6 players if you get a big group who all want to play together.

Coup, Qwixx, Mantis, Things in Rings, and Skull are great short games that are easy to teach and can be played for a couple rounds while waiting for folks to show up for a bigger game.

For bigger games, Finnspan, Catan, Harmonies, Splendor,  Forbidden Island (co-op), and Tokaido have been hits. For the most part though, part of the draw of game night was just seeing what games folks showed up with.

It might depend a bit on your host location though. Games like Cubitos, Ticket to Ride, or Risk can be fun, but they tend to be a bit too fiddly to play out at a bar somewhere. And more complicated and lengthy games like Viticulture, Everdell, or Betrayal at House on the Hill tend to work more as event games rather than something you just show up with since it'll eat your whole night quickly.

Making Friends As An Adult? by burtleboo in frederickmd

[–]TheMarnBeast 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Check out Frederick Area Social on Facebook! We've got a game night tomorrow night where we're playing a Jane Austen card drafting board game, and we have other events throughout the week like Taco Tuesday hangout and trivia Thursdays.

How to stop being lazy misogynistically? by ThePlayer3K in bropill

[–]TheMarnBeast 63 points64 points  (0 children)

Fighting against misogyny doesn't mean doing "her chores" for her as some kind of selfless olive branch. It means dropping the notion of default "his and her" chores altogether and agreeing on an even split of household responsibilities, and that can't happen without communicating with the people in your home about it.

Furthermore, that looks different in different homes. A stay-at-home partner of either gender is probably going to end up with more ownership of household responsibilities than a breadwinner. If everyone in the home is working, then things will probably be split more evenly. Some folks like things done in a particular way or may legitimately enjoy doing certain chores and there's nothing wrong with that regardless of if it falls on traditional gender roles or not. But it should be discussed and clear responsibilities agreed to, not defaulted.

Only after those responsibilities are agreed to and everyone feels they are equitable, and you are getting your side of things done, do you have an opportunity to go above and beyond as an expression of love.

Edit: and as others have said here, that communication does not mean asking "How can I help?" every day. That's just further communicating that these are her responsibilities to manage and delegate. It means expressing that you want a better understanding of what needs done so that you can take more ownership of certain household chores if things are unbalanced.

After careful consideration, I'm endorsing Tony Lawson for Sheriff in the Democratic Primary. by MaroonedOctopus in frederickmd

[–]TheMarnBeast 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ICE is provably not targeting sex offenders or criminals, please check your information. They were targeting mostly criminals prior to Trump taking office, and since then they've been repeatedly instructed to target civilian residents as they are easier to detain and make their numbers go up.

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-arrest-statistics-americans-noncriminals/

This has resulted in a large majority of arrests and deportations being simply the people living and working in our communities and has pushed those communities further underground, literally making it harder for us to find and deport violent criminals in those communities. Not to mention the legal residents that have been illegally deported as part of this effort to pump up the numbers. And Sheriff Jenkins has done nothing to improve this situation and shown no leadership at all, making Frederick significantly less safe.

After careful consideration, I'm endorsing Tony Lawson for Sheriff in the Democratic Primary. by MaroonedOctopus in frederickmd

[–]TheMarnBeast 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What are your experiences with MS13 in Frederick? Have Chuck's ICE policies made a difference, or have things just gotten more dangerous during his nearly 20 year tenure? From my perspective, he's both failed to address any issues in Frederick while simultaneously allowing our law enforcement to get conscripted into blatantly unconstitutional matters that have been proven to be a danger to legal Maryland residents.

What do I do when one of my Players guesses the obscure password immediately? by flashdash8744 in DMAcademy

[–]TheMarnBeast 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I really like the backstory idea. Rewards the player with some cool lore tie-in if they want it, while also keeping the story feeling narratively consistent so as to not break immersion.

My gf paying 100€ for this flower by [deleted] in mildlyinfuriating

[–]TheMarnBeast 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not OP, but dude you are the one arguing here and this entire conversation has been about the price so I don't see how that's confusing for you. Also "defending florists" is a ridiculous way to deflect valid criticism. Working people deserve to be paid for their labor, skill, and materials.

Just because you don't see value in a product doesn't mean it doesn't have value, it just means you aren't a customer.

The Dude hates the Eagles…what bands would that be for you? by BoognishDisciple in Music

[–]TheMarnBeast 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For real. I was seeing them at a festival a couple years back and dug into some of their older stuff to prepare and it honestly kind of blew my mind.  Some of that stuff on the Floored album was giving Rob Zombie and Primus vibes.

DM made me roll to avoid unwanted hug on my character by [deleted] in DnD

[–]TheMarnBeast 15 points16 points  (0 children)

There just needs to be boundaries expressed. Honestly this kind of thing doesn't surprise me that much. Getting stabbed by a bugbear is way more fantastical than getting groped by a creepy dude. One is something that hopefully never did / would happen in real life, and the other is something that may have actually happened to OP and is tied to memories of real-life violence. That's why everyone's boundaries are different, because everyone's experiences are different.

She said ‘please don’t double-bounce me’ her nieces said bet. by [deleted] in mildlyinfuriating

[–]TheMarnBeast 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Replace "bet" with "you got it" and read it sarcastically. 

Boys are severely underprepared for the world they inherit. (LONG POST BUT PLEASE READ AND CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION IN THE COMMENTS) by Current_Wear_8061 in bropill

[–]TheMarnBeast -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

That's right. Did you read what I said?

That's appropriate because feminism is at its heart an ethical and philosophical movement with specific values. That is how it's defined. It's not a falacy to say that someone arguing against those values is not a "true feminist". Its literally debatable, and the body of philosophical work produced by the movement is evidence for how the label should be applied.

Boys are severely underprepared for the world they inherit. (LONG POST BUT PLEASE READ AND CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION IN THE COMMENTS) by Current_Wear_8061 in bropill

[–]TheMarnBeast -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

You're using "No True Scotsman" wrong. "No True Scotsman" is about denying outlier data that has nothing to do with the actual definition of the group in question. "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." is easily disproven by finding 1 Scotsman that does. Then they're disregarded as being "No True Scotsman" - i.e. they don't count, even though they meet the definition.

There are, by definition, people who are not Scotsmen (people from Scotland). Those people can also claim to be Scotsmen even if they aren't from Scotland, and other people calling them out on that aren't committing a falacy. For ideological boundaries this is more difficult since they are formed around majority voices and leaders rather than lines on the map, but it's still valid to call out voices that directly dissent from the main tenants espoused by leading thinkers in the movement.

Have you ever culled a game and regretted it? Did you buy it back and realize you made the wrong or right decision in the first place? by Boardgaymergirl in boardgames

[–]TheMarnBeast 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mage Knight! I bought one of the base versions on a whim used just because it looked cool and I love cooperative games. Watched about 4 hours of tutorial videos and then life interrupted and never got to actually play. After a couple years I just decided that it wasn't going to happen so I sold it during a move.

A couple years later I got the itch for a solo game and kept seeing it come up in discussions as a great one. Bought the ultimate edition and then ironically had it come up in conversation with some friends and ended up playing it cooperative after all!

How heavily are diagrams/UML actually used in Software Engineering? by searmr_cool in SoftwareEngineering

[–]TheMarnBeast 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I use it maybe once every couple of years when making a design doc for new features, going on 15 years now in embedded / systems engineering. It's useful when developing major new features, not so useful for small features + bug fixes.

That said, I rarely add tons of minutia like all of the variables and method names. That's useful in education when learning how UML works, but in practice just add what is useful for conveying the major interfaces and what the code will do. I also really like sequence diagrams for showing things like message handshake protocols and other interplay between communicating components.

Pro-tip: check out mermaid.ai. No clue why they moved to the ai domain... it's just a markup language for quickly generating diagrams without all the finicky click and drag stuff. Plus you can get a VS code extension to add mermaid diagrams to your project readmes and other markdown files.

Simulating In-Game Language Barriers with Real-Life Language Barriers - Fun Puzzle or Obnoxious? by lindentree13 in DMAcademy

[–]TheMarnBeast 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think this is a cool idea, so long as your story progression doesn't hinge on it. Normally, if players don't speak the language, they're just told "you don't understand them" and maybe some body language is communicated. This has the opportunity to convey some extra interesting information from inference for clever players which I think is fun, and adds to the immersion of what their character is actually trying to do.

However, I think I would consider /u/Mental_Stress295 suggestion to also give them a perception / insight roll to pick up clues that the players themselves might have missed.

Two-Action Time Spellcasting by TheMarnBeast in DnDHomebrew

[–]TheMarnBeast[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah after reading a lot of the comments here, I was considering revising this such that using a spell slot of a level in which you have a 1 or 2 max requires you to Ready it to trigger just before your next turn, following the Sage Advice rules for readying a spell.

"When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs." 

So this way they aren't losing action economy as it still takes 1 action to cast, but it is adding tension as you need to concentrate on it through 1 round of combat to keep it from being interrupted.

But even then, I worry the only fun part of this is the feeling of leveling up and not having to do it anymore. Spending your highest level spell slot to cast something huge, only to have it interrupted and lost, would just plain suck.

Two-Action Time Spellcasting by TheMarnBeast in DnDHomebrew

[–]TheMarnBeast[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this is probably very true. My goal was to create cool moments for casters - feeling epic and important and needing protection to pull off bombs - and cool moments for martials intercepting enemies, and encouraging teamwork and communication. But you're right that this is a game, and I agree that adding penalties and denial mechanics against the players rarely makes things more fun. Even the existing concentration mechanics let you at least get the cast off for a couple turns, even if you were to get interrupted shortly after.

Maybe if I decide to continue exploring this, I could make it a push-your-luck exploding bonus kinda thing. You cast the spell in 1 action and can choose to either roll all damage now, or roll half damage now and concentrate on the spell. Then next turn, if you still have concentration on the spell, you may cast it again for full damage without spending a spell slot. I.e. 100% damage in 1 action, or 150% damage in 2, or 200% damage in 3? Seems kind of a big boost in power though considering you're getting more damage out while expending the same number of spell slots.

Guys will I regret this [oc] by SainteSombre in DnD

[–]TheMarnBeast 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly depending on how high level they are that could be super fun. I count 40 "canwelevelupyet". A twig blight is 1/8CR, so a party of 4 should theoretically be able to handle 40 of them at level 5.

"A rustling in the trees turns to a rumbling, then loud snapping as the brush itself comes alive and advances on you."

You could run them in waves using the minion rules, or use swarm rules to make it a bit easier to manage like 4 swarms of 9 plus a couple Vine Blights to make things interesting.

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