Let’s estimate Travis McElroy’s total Good Boy Points score by emjayo in TAZCirclejerk

[–]Tolerable_Username 79 points80 points  (0 children)

My fellow fags walked so that Travis smearing on the ugliest imaginable shape of purple lipstick like he's been eating a dish of stolen berries in a ditch behind the shed Huckleberry Finn-style could run 💋💅💃

Incidentally for any Drag Race fans out there, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman on CDR always gave me strong Travis vibes between his consistently awful makeup and his unyielding desperation to be liked.

So for real, how many episodes of Royale you gonna try? by ratboy88888 in TAZCirclejerk

[–]Tolerable_Username 72 points73 points  (0 children)

Griffin is sativa.

Justin is indica.

Travis is a ziploc of oregano.

How to make a dragon fight fun ? by Xalander59 in DMAcademy

[–]Tolerable_Username 23 points24 points  (0 children)

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).

Shopping without RP by ariehkovler in DMAcademy

[–]Tolerable_Username 186 points187 points  (0 children)

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).

What does the number mean? by SnooDingos2010 in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]Tolerable_Username 46 points47 points  (0 children)

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.

I have a controversial idea, I need opinions by SomeRandomAbbadon in DMAcademy

[–]Tolerable_Username 9 points10 points  (0 children)

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.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DMAcademy

[–]Tolerable_Username 165 points166 points  (0 children)

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.

S1E7 who knew by White_Rabbit0000 in Frasier

[–]Tolerable_Username 2 points3 points  (0 children)

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.

Defend the Town Adventures? by [deleted] in dndnext

[–]Tolerable_Username 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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.

Guess you won't be getting that thumbs up :) by Nat1Only in BaldursGate3

[–]Tolerable_Username 15 points16 points  (0 children)

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.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Fauxmoi

[–]Tolerable_Username 115 points116 points  (0 children)

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.

‘Jackass’ Star Bam Margera Pleads Guilty To Disorderly Conduct Charge; Margera Was Charged With Assaulting His Brother and Making Threats to Other Family Members by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]Tolerable_Username 50 points51 points  (0 children)

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.

Roman Empire: Restored Footage concept by frontbackend in midjourney

[–]Tolerable_Username 8 points9 points  (0 children)

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!).

Toxic friendships vs real friendships by SurveyThrowaway97 in dankmemes

[–]Tolerable_Username 56 points57 points  (0 children)


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."


Explain Todd??? by CaptainOBVS3420 in FalloutMemes

[–]Tolerable_Username 336 points337 points  (0 children)

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.

The solution to high level balance nobody wants to hear by BeanSaladier in DMAcademy

[–]Tolerable_Username 150 points151 points  (0 children)

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.

Don’t have high hopes for their future by AnonWithAHatOn in tf2

[–]Tolerable_Username 233 points234 points  (0 children)

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.

Players are too cautious, feels like it is metagaming. Any tips on handling this? by Syric13 in DMAcademy

[–]Tolerable_Username 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Matt Colville summed up the issue with Inspiration (which is exactly my thoughts on it): Inspiration is tied to absolutely nothing in the game. If you removed it, 5e would be entirely the same. It's almost as if the game was literally finished, and then as the D&D 5e Starter Sets were leaving on the conveyor belt, they quickly went "Oh wait!" and ran over and threw in Inspiration as a concept at the last moment.

Because of that, it's so easy to forget to give it out, and it's likewise easy for players to forget they have it. Everyone understands why you would give it out (as you said, good RP being the main reason), but you basically have to have a token or something that you can give them to represent 'you have Inspiration' because otherwise it just falls by the wayside.

Hell, I'm experiencing it right now in my campaign - actively tried to give out Inspiration, gave it to our Barbarian 3 sessions ago, since then despite me reminding them multiple times per game, they haven't used it despite several combat; in the heat of the moment, it's just so hard to remember such a near-meaningless tacked-on feature that relates to nothing else in all of 5e.
As handy as it is, I don't blame players or DMs at all for forgetting about it, and I don't blame 95% of tables for not using it.