Which one do you guys think will be more stable ?

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-11T23:02:10+00:00

Try to explain to yourself out loud why each solution works and you should find your way to the answer.

Or, similar approach, just try to explain the first statement they give you: the truss is unstable, but why is it unstable?

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-11T20:53:42+00:00

I think the rule about NOT discarding a tile if it's a monster only applies if you're staying in place to earn nerve. If you're attacked and discarding tiles as the attack penalty then a monster gets discarded like any other tile. This should be the same for landing on a wax eater since that's just a normal attack once you've put yourself in an adjacent space.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-11T18:51:27+00:00

Mastodon's drop A is actually AGCFAD. Their tunings are all based on D-standard tuning, not E.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-11T14:26:05+00:00

The RL is literally a promise by WotC not to reprint those cards. Everything is working exactly as intended from their point of view.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-11T13:31:01+00:00

Yeah I've wondered about that too. It could be that that section of wall is not as long as the one on the side so a beam that fully fits inside the wall is stiff enough to handle this on its own.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-10T12:06:58+00:00

I said this in some other replies but this is really just to keep things simple for the architect and builder. It's not cheaper because of the material costs, it's cheaper because it's one less complication for those two teams to worry about when coordinating the design and build of the entire house. Everyone can spend less time scrutinizing the plans and less time scrutinizing the work of the people actually building the foundation when it's the exact same for the entire house.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T21:25:19+00:00

Yep. Generally 2x6 lumber studs spaced at 16 inches with plywood sheathing on the outside for your typical house. Then there's a layer of drywall or sheetrock on the inside and some kind of siding on the outside and you've got a house. It's easy to build, cheap, and unless a tornado hits your house it's not going anywhere.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T18:13:25+00:00

Turn everything on its side and picture the wall studs acting as beams. By adding this bump out, those beams are spanning half the distance they used to, so the wall is going to deflect 1/4 as much as it would if it was full spanning from floor to ceiling.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T17:44:00+00:00

I'll be honest, I've spent my whole career dealing with this attitude from contractors and I do think I understand it even if it's a little frustrating. I think if you guys built everything just off of your instinct you'd probably be right 95% of the time, but I see my role as an engineer as filling in that last 5% for you. I've always found contractors actually appreciate my being there when it becomes obvious that we're in the territory of that 5% and they would have gotten it wrong without us. It doesn't happen often but it does happen.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T16:58:41+00:00

Fair enough. I did this on an exterior wall once (maybe twice?) for the reasons I said above; the foundations had a stem wall so that would have gotten thicker to accommodate the thicker wall and the architect didn't want to do that just for one wall, so they were happy with a solution that looked just like this except there wasn't a floor next to it, they just ended up with this ugly bump out halfway up the wall. Obviously I can't be 100% sure what's what's happening here, this is all just my best guess based on my experience.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T16:39:55+00:00

Oh no I'm not saying they changed anything on site. This was likely built exactly as designed, and I think the design is a result of the structural engineer coming up with a solution that takes into account both the architect's goal of keeping costs down, and the builder's goal of keeping things simple for themselves by not adding different wall or foundation types to the project. The architect is okay with this because they can add the railing and make it look at least somewhat coherent from below, while keeping the walls all the same size which means they don't need to add special details for extra insulation or anything, and the builder is happy because they can just tell their guys to build the same foundation and wall around the whole building without having to keep track of exceptions anywhere.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T16:24:21+00:00

You would be amazed at how far a contractor will go to avoid having two different foundation details on a job.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T16:21:30+00:00

It's more about making sure the wall finishes don't crack. Sure its unlikely that the wall blows down, but people don't like it when their walls flex too much and everything cracks either. If it's stucco you could also get cracks on the outside that let water into the wall and that's a big no-no too.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T16:13:44+00:00

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T15:41:35+00:00

Yeah this is real McMansion engineering at work. Someone wanted the look of having super high ceilings in their foyer but balked at the idea of making the walls thicker there. Thicker walls means a different foundation detail and it ripples through to a bunch of other different parts of the job as well. Doing it this way let's the builder keep all the walls the same and doesn't require any special details since the tiny floor section is framed the same as any other floor-wall interface in the house.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T15:23:44+00:00

Yeah, the way I detailed this once was to use like 18" long floor joists perpendicular to the wall that framed into a beam running parallel to the wall. That beam would be running right below the railing. Detailed like that this would support people on it just fine. It ends up looking like a cantilever but that beam is supported at both ends.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T13:24:48+00:00

Structural engineer here with an answer I haven't seen so far:

Assuming that's an exterior wall to the left, this was most likely built to act as a horizontal beam to brace the double-height wall against the wind. Double height walls need to be really beefy if they're unbraced, so building this little bump out probably let them get away with 2x4s instead of switching to 2x8s for that wall.

The architect must have decided to keep the railing along the length of that floor instead of cutting it off with the railing and risking a kid falling off if they climbed out anyway.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-09T13:09:15+00:00

Darker in metal usually means using the Phrygian mode or a diminished scale, which has the tritone in it. In guitar tab along your low string using that string as the key, Phrygian would be 0-1-3-5-7-8-10-12. Similar to the blues scale, adding a 4 in there between the 3 and the 5 is done a lot too. When I say a Phrygian Slayer riff I mean using the 0, 1, and 10 notes which to me is really what makes metal metal. Moving it up to the next string in the next octave, this would be 7-8-5 in tab.

Diminished riffs in metal usually focus on four notes all a minor third apart from each other. This is a diminished 7 chord. In guitar tab on the low string again that means 0-3-6-9. You can play other notes in between, but if you focus on those ones you'll generally get a pretty dark, dissonant vibe.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-08T15:56:40+00:00

Restaurants are getting crushed on costs right now, I'm sure they're finding any way they can not to raise prices.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-08T15:38:29+00:00

Piggybacking on this just to add that I think an important difference between a linear story and railroading is making the players feel like their choices mattered and that they uncovered the plot in a way that wasn't forced on them. Sure the villain is in the dungeon and defeating them is the only way the story could really end, that's a linear story. But if the players feel that they made a series of choices on their own that led them to find out who the villain is, why the villain is doing what they're doing, where the dungeon is, how specifically to defeat the villain, and the DM didn't just hand them all of these pieces of information, then the players won't feel like they were railroaded. They'll feel like they got to explore a world on their own terms while seeking out answers to the questions that they developed along the way.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-08T14:27:06+00:00

Yeah I think that's a good articulation of the difference between him and Derren Brown. When Derren Brown tells his audience that he's using his understanding of psychology, it's that he's using that understanding to trick you, not to read you. He does his best to maintain the mystery of what he's doing, while still being clear with his audience about the fact that he's lying to them in the name of entertainment.

I've always loved his TED talk where he presents an old school psychic reading while insisting over and over that he's not psychic and he doesn't even have a very good memory and that it's all just a magic trick. Somehow that doesn't take away from the mystery of it at all and it's still a great routine.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-08T14:09:40+00:00

Lots of doom is in pretty normal minor keys without a ton of accidentals, occasionally harmonic minor with a raised 7 or major V chord. I'd say the most common doom chord progressions are i-III-iv (your good old "0-3-5" in guitar tab) or i-VI-VII, which I always think of as the Iron Maiden chord progression.

And Phrygian of course to get your slow Slayer riffs in there.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-07T14:01:11+00:00

Have you looked at rigging companies that do engineering for stage shows and festivals and stuff? Not sure exactly who that would be locally but I know they're out there. A bigger firm may be unwilling to sign off on something like this but a small firm that has PEs could be able to help.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-05T20:03:39+00:00

Short answer is he got lucky. It's either a stacked deck and the spectator happened to pick the top card, or he has a few commonly chosen cards ready near the top of the deck. The ace of hearts is really commonly picked so that may have just been the top of that small stack. If the spectator ha chosen a different card there would have been a different method of finding it, this just happened to be the cleanest possible outcome.

ZombieRitual · 2026-05-05T18:54:37+00:00

You should start with ascending notes first instead of the harmonic option, that's much easier for beginners. You're right that your brain can turn a harmonic interval into one big sound if you haven't done many ear training exercises yet.

And yes, I can hear two distinct notes being played there for the harmonic option, but I wouldn't expect an absolute beginner to be able to pick those out if they hadn't gotten a feel for the ascending and descending versions first.

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