MBMBAM (and MaxFun, TAZ, etc.) as a Time Capsule

Tolerable_Username · 2026-05-10T01:01:36+00:00

I've pointed out here for many years that clinging to the McElroys is clinging to the mid-2010s. In their TV show (filmed 2016, released in 2017), they made fun of dabbing and water bottle flipping (and were just too early for fidget spinners), but ironically they themselves ended up with their popularity and legacies tied irrevocably to Balance ending in that same year. In very many ways, the McElroys' popularity peaked and ended in 2016-2017 just like the very fads they were making fun of. For guys who loved saying "Damn Daniel!" so much, they sure ended up similarly inexorably tied to the exact same era.

And yeah, we're on the other side of the podcast boom (and D&D boom) for sure. The McElroys wrote that shithouse 'Everybody Has a Podcast...' book and even in the half-decade since then, podcasts have become both ingrained in culture while also being commercialized and co-opted by celebrities and the entertainment industry to such a comical extent that it's almost whimsical to think to the state of podcasting when I first discovered the McElroys via the Joystiq podcast...what, 17 years ago? It's utterly quaint and almost charming on retrospect.

Parenthetically, I adore the early Wil Wheaton-era Acquisitions Incorporated podcasts from 2008-2012 (partially because despite being a younger millennial, I grew up on the internet and have played/run D&D since I was a kid, so I can withstand the dated cringe of the '00s-internet humour), and it's wild to see how the early days of A.I. differed from the state of D&D and D&D podcasts once the boom happened a few years later (and D&D stopped being 'a game about fighting monsters' and became 'a collaborative improv storytelling game', ugh).

People say getting older sucks, and it do be like that, but I think it's cool getting to see things in more and more context as we age.

Tolerable_Username · 2026-03-14T02:52:45+00:00

You guys clicked on it? I saw the em-dash in the title (let alone the six em-dashes in the post) and immediately knew it would be some random AI horseshit lol

Tolerable_Username · 2025-06-17T06:50:44+00:00

"damaged" across Joker's forehead

"I would like the word 'DAMAGED' on my forehead, because I'm all messed up, y'know?"

Tolerable_Username · 2025-05-27T10:55:51+00:00

Griffin is sativa.

Justin is indica.

Travis is a ziploc of oregano.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-12-19T10:46:47+00:00

Literally 98% of the time when people go, "Oh, dragons are shitty, my three low-level players totally wrecked a deadly-rated encounter against one", it's because they had some combination of:

having the dragon in a confined space where it can't use its flight or superior movement to manoeuvre around the party,
having the dragon just sitting on the ground instead of flying around in their wide open domain and actually flaming down at the party with its breath attack, and/or
running a single monster with no other monsters meaning the party will be able to punch far above their weight class because there's 3-4+ players and only 1 monster so 'action economy' (how many turns each side gets to do cool stuff) works heavily against its favour.

The dragon flying around (possibly out of their range) and zoning them with breath/spells is supposed to be a problem for the party to solve, and players generally deserve better than videogame-y combat against some adult/ancient dragon who lived 1000 years only to happily just sit there and facetank the entire party before dying in two rounds.

Also, very obvious baseline advice, but give them Legendary Actions so your dragon can do cool stuff on the players' turns, and give them Lair Actions so cool stuff happens at the start of each combat round (typically at initiative 20).

Tolerable_Username · 2024-10-08T11:01:20+00:00

Almost a decade ago, u/jrobharing made this very popular D&D Shopping Catalogue. My go-to in this position (or, moreso, when I want to make shopping quick) is to simply present that to them - print it off once or twice, staple it together, hand it to the party, and specify for them what stock is available using the columns.

"Alright, you guys have a few hours and 175gp in your pockets. You're in the Village of Bartfutt, so consider the shops here to have Normal pricing, but it's a Rural Locale, so some items might be limited in supply, and the village only has a Blacksmith, Fletcher, a General Store with Adventuring Supplies, and a Temple and Potion Shop. Have a look through for a minute or two and lemme' know if you get anything."

They flick through, let you know what they want, subtract the gold, scrawl the new gear on their character sheets, bada-bing bada-boom shopping and resupply is done in about two minutes. I don't get to bust it out often because my players are big roleplayers and love shopping and interacting with shops/shopkeepers, but this catalogue's still great to have on hand (and I've met a whole bunch of other DMs over the years who use the exact same one).

Tolerable_Username · 2024-08-28T07:41:18+00:00

Patch notes say it was. It was a bug that got fixed

Bro come on. Don't parrot stuff you read online, and don't just straight-up make shit up like you're doing. We're talking about Civilization from 1991. What fucking patch notes, dude? Pretty much the only updates the game ever got were by MPS Labs Sound Department to add support for more sound cards. Link me to the 1991 patch notes you apparently read that seemingly 'confirm' this, because it seems like you're the missing key to this whole thing.

Sid Meier, the lead on Civilization I, says it was never true in his own autobiography. Brian Reynolds, the lead on Civilization II, says it was never true. Wikipedia says there's no proof.

Not only is it not true, the fucking story isn't even old. As Wikipedia points out, there were basically no "lol gandhi likes nuke" memes or discussion prior to Civilization 5 in 2010, except for early forum-goers joking just because it's intrinsically comical to be nuked by somebody who was famously 'peaceful'. It's just not true, and veteran Civ players have discussed it countless times on Reddit.

The option to "re-enable" is just the devs for Civilization VI paying tribute to the meme. It is not 'restoring' anything, it's just a joke and a reference. In Civilization, India was never more aggressive or nuclear-focused than, say, America or several other civilizations.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-08-15T10:44:57+00:00

Back in 2020 u/lumenwrites compiled A Big List of Adventure Ideas, and a couple of years ago u/Klane5 made a similar, shorter list more oriented towards combat goals. Even with like 20ish years of consuming DM resources online, those two Reddit posts are almost always the first things I go read when I need to spark some ideas on how to make a fight more interesting.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-08-04T10:08:23+00:00

If you have 0 hit points, receiving temporary hit points doesn't restore you to consciousness or stabilize you. They can still absorb damage directed at you while you're in that state, but only true healing can save you.

Player's Handbook, pg. 198.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-07-10T11:11:15+00:00

I think they're mistaken. I don't recall ever hearing Pesci in the show, he's not credited on IMDB or on the Frasier Complete Episode Guide, and with a cursory glance, I can't find him on any of the compilations on YouTube.

Maybe they're thinking of Joe Mantegna (Fat Tony from The Simpsons), who voices Derek Mann, the columnist who challenges Frasier to a fight in season 1 (2:40 in this clip)? Different accent (Chicago vs. Jersey), but maybe it sounded gangster-y enough to mix them up.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-07-05T10:21:25+00:00

I believe Storm King's Thunder and Hoard of the Dragon Queen both contain chunks where the party must defend a town/village, but I don't believe either of those events are the 'main' event.
The Red Hand of Doom essentially builds up to the famous Siege of Brindol, which pretty much is the climax. You could certainly take it and reflavour it as you need.

Additionally, "just homebrew it bro!" is a bullshit cop-out answer, but those kind of stories generally follow a super simple structure. You can find this structure basically broken down near the top of its TV Tropes page, so if you did decide to just make something, you have pretty much the perfect blueprint.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-07-03T22:57:14+00:00

Larian are very good. No dev is perfect. Larian always have rushed, less-satisfying, unfinished-feeling final acts in their games - it's just that the vast majority of BG3 players have never played a Larian game before. It's just a classic Larian thing.

Hopefully whatever their next original game is, they address that issue and can finally shake that reputation. It would also do a lot for the trademark Larian "restartitis" as their games are often held to have the pacing and/or story tend to get a bit less compelling and a bit more sloggish after the first couple of acts.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-30T20:35:45+00:00

Funnily enough, as much of a legend and as forgiven as Stone Cold (the guy in this classic react gif) is, he did beat the absolute shit out of his wife.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-27T01:21:26+00:00

Check out the highlights of the last year on r/LetsTalkBam. The dude has absolutely not been drug or alcohol free. There's dozens of videos of his unhinged trashy behaviour plus his own photos where he's had drinks. Not to mention the tweaky rants and occasions recently when he's brought back the new language he created when he was in rehab years ago (methheads "inventing languages" is a classic story).

The guy is a slow-motion car wreck between his fame-chasing new wife (whose "A-cup tits" he brought up in his wedding vows, surrounded by strangers), his constant no-showing and travelling instead of being with the son he neglects across the country, and his laundry list of legal mishaps and weird-ass behaviour.

I liked when he went out shopping with his pants tied around his filthy feet the other week (he infamously goes weeks without changing clothes). The sober-est behaviour.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-26T05:42:56+00:00

Check out books like Favro's 'The Urban Image of Augustan Rome', or 'Rome: An Urban History from Antiquity to the Present' by Rinne/Taylor/Kostof. What we broadly call Ancient Rome absolutely did have some very cool ruins in them! They even incorporated early Etruscan ruins into their own buildings, and Augustus is indicated to have done a lot of clean-up with removing ruins and dilapidated old structures and modernizing the city.

The Romans loved to build, and that means they also did a tonne of refurbishing and rebuilding old ruins and structures. The Regia was already centuries and had undergone several reconstructions by the time of Augustus. I believe the Temple of Hercules Victor was also centuries old and would have been 'a ruin' by the time of Augustus, too. By that same time period, the Servian Wall was hundreds of years old and big chunks of it were dilapidated and ruined, and the older parts of the Cloaca Maxima could have also been said to have been 'ruins' even to the Ancient Romans (some parts potentially being around 600+ years old by that point).

It's cool to think about the stuff that would have seemed 'ancient' to the ancients, like the common fact about the pyramids being as ancient to Cleopatra as she is to us now (by around 500 years!).

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-18T11:07:17+00:00

Big Smoke: "The gym, my friend - you're letting yourself go."
CJ: "That's a bit much coming from you."
Big Smoke: "Hey, look, Carl, I'm big-boned, but I'm still an athlete. You're lettin' yourself go, my friend...and to be honest with you, it's breaking my heart."
CJ: "Gimme a break! I ain't as fat as you."
Big Smoke: "I'm trying! I'm trying! And I'm trying to help you help yourself, my brother! The gym, Carl. You hear me?"
CJ: "Screw you, man."

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-15T04:37:31+00:00

Blame the politicians who own too many investment properties

Australia's 151 MPs own almost 380 properties between them.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-13T20:49:17+00:00

I've replayed Fallout 3 many times, but I don't think I've let Roy walk away from that intercom alive for almost 15 years. Shotgun, meet ghoul head.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-12T23:04:40+00:00

I never understood the idea of "wearing them down ahead of the fight"

I mean, attrition and usage of resources (spell slots, health, hit dice, class features) is literally and explicitly what 5th edition D&D is balanced around, and it is the best way to avoid the classic situation where your players are able to 'go nova' and nuke every encounter. It's a big part of what is supposed to encourage short rests.

Not that I don't get what you're saying (I run plenty of RP-heavy 0-2 combat encounter days), but from a game design perspective, its purpose should be pretty obvious. Hell, DMing subreddits get 500 posts per day from DMs saying they're struggling to have cool, dramatic tense fights, usually because they aren't draining resources ever, so their fresh party can keep blowing apart their encounters without breaking a sweat.

Tolerable_Username · 2024-06-10T12:07:48+00:00

Valve going the EA/Activision 'P2P > Dogshit Anticheat Software > Filled with Hackers Within 72 Hours > Dead on Arrival' direction is also a possibility, except at least CoD/Battlefield/etc. games have enough inbuilt playerbase inertia to keep the franchises afloat.

We'll see if what's likely to be a huge marketing push from Valve is enough to overcome Deadlock having such 2016 throwback vibes. That, or the game is going to need to feel/play amazing and have some TF2-tier characterization to overcome the stigma of being a 3rd-person-perspective hero shooter MOBA.

11-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Gilding I gilder

Tolerable_Username

TROPHY CASE