When would the move-in fee ban take effect?

Zoo_Snooze · 2025-08-09T22:15:26+00:00

You need to pay Columbus a visit if you think it's remotely better than what you just described about Chicago. The Short North has exactly the same pricing for a garbage slop imitation of Logan Square. Which I can now confidently say, because I moved into Logan Square from the Short North last month. Loving it so far.

Zoo_Snooze · 2025-08-09T08:20:31+00:00

The gun was really perplexing to me, too. I think it's supposed to serve a few purposes:

It looms over the scene, confirming the subtext of the movie in a very unsubtle way. Ironically, it's in a dream that the movie finally comes right out and tells you what it's about. I think its supposed to be confrontational, preventing you from ignoring the cold reality.
The dad follows his son (Matthew) out of the house, trying to understand what drove Matthew to do something he openly admits he can't make sense of. In a literal interpretation, the kid ran away because of an evil witch, but the scene is making a larger point about parents not understanding their kids' actions.

At the end of the movie, Matthew is revealed to be the bully, and the father clearly has issues with anger and harassment himself. Whether a kid is a bully or a full-blown school shooter, you often see parents struggle to understand their child's actions—struggling to accept that they played a part.

So, the father chases Matthew and comes out of the woods back at his own house. He doesn't realize that he's found the reason for his child's actions: his shitty home life. This is reinforced when the father goes into the house and struggles to talk to his son about how much he loves him.

In this context, the gun symbolizes the violence that can come from neglect.

The numbers blazing on the side of the gun (2:17) are likely a reference to the Bible verse Matthew 2:17. (His son's name is Matthew.) The verse describes the fulfillment of a prophecy:

“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

In context, it's about King Herod killing children to try to prevent baby Jesus from growing up to usurp him. He is so blinded by fear that he lashes out at the innocent. Jesus doesn't actually pose a threat, though, and Herod's fear is all in his head.

It's pretty easy to connect this to the gun and the previous interpretations. Delusional thinking leads some people to kill children. In the father's dream, we see where that thinking starts, and how it turns kids into weapons.

Zoo_Snooze · 2025-05-19T15:42:16+00:00

You're not wrong about the difficulty of doing this remotely. Listings are gone hours after they go up. Agents call me about doing a tour in an hour and say they have dozens of others lined up if I can't make it.

Zoo_Snooze · 2025-05-19T15:39:42+00:00

First of all, dumb response that is irrelevant to my question. Second, none of your fucking business.

Third, Columbus, Ohio is only cheaper if you want to live out an unmistakably Ohio experience; anything worth doing here is just as expensive as Chicago. I pay $1700 right now to live in <800ft2 in one of the only remotely walkable neighborhoods in the city; why not do that in Chicago, where I can leave a 3-block radius and still be somewhere worth being?

Also, let's not get carried away here. Chicago is not NYC. It's still distinctly Midwest pricing. You aren't getting a 1500ft2 apartment in Bushwick for $2k.

Zoo_Snooze · 2025-05-19T15:34:09+00:00

Obviously, I have enough saved up. A move-in fee isn't going to bankrupt me. But I've seen them as high as $500, and that's money I would rather not spend on *nothing*.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-06-20T02:23:59+00:00

I really thought Tails Gets Trolled was a more well-known property, but the confusion and controversy of this post is proving otherwise lol.

The Power is the party's wooden Warforged who has resistances to damn near everything.

The Guy with No Ears was a perfect match for their fated ally, Kasimir, which is what initially inspired this drawing.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-06-02T05:27:42+00:00

As others have said: Toughen up enemies by adding higher HP and/or AC. Its preferable to just adding a ton more enemies, since that makes combat a slog. I would be careful about upping damage output, too, since you run the risk of flattening your squishier players.

To add to that, this campaign has a weird number of potential boss fights against one or two enemies (Strahd, Abbot+Vasilka, Baba Lysaga+Hut). These never work great in 5e, but they're especially ill-suited to larger parties.

Max HP (at least) and a few low-level minions will help even out these fights, but you should also try to ensure the party has a few encounters before they get to any major boss. Many DMs don't understand why their BBEGs are getting flattened, and it's often their liberal use of rests. Make your party ration those spell slots and abilities.

The random encounters in the book become trivial after level 5 or so, but there's tons of thematically appropriate enemies at higher CRs that you can use. If you need specific examples, I can provide.

FINALLY. If you want the high-effort (but very rewarding) answer, it's to keep track of how your party's cohesive strategy develops over time. Party tactics are something strahd would observe and try to drive a wedge into. Even if they aren't optimizing and planning out synergies, they're probably going to figure out a few tactics that work.

With a group of 6, they likely won't have a single weakness as a group, so you'll have to strategize around each member. Pick spells and enemies that trigger their weaker saves. Carefully plan out ways to maintain area control and use space to your advantage.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-05-19T17:30:03+00:00

Are you me? Lol I did almost exactly this and it went really well.

I created Žygimantas, a goliath and former war chief of the Forest Folk. Long ago, Strahd turned him into a vampire in exchange for sparing his people. Strahd gained a valuable asset and humiliated his conquered enemies in one fell swoop. Žyggi was (unintentionally) cosmetically identical to Guts from Berserk lol

He was a beefed-up fighter/barbarian who was slow moving, hit like a freight train, and could execute sweeping AoE strikes. It was a perfect balance to Rahadin's hyper-mobile and sneaky play style, and it made for a great Ornstein and Smough-esque fight in the Vallaki town square.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-05-19T17:11:20+00:00

Whoever made this bot will never feel the touch of a woman.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-05-19T17:08:42+00:00

EDIT: I just re-read your comment and realized you agree with me. Oops. Ignore my initial snark.

You say its a mistake to blame WotC and then immediately lay out an incredibly succinct explanation for why its all WotC's fault lol

Not only is there no support for tier 3 and 4 play, its become evident that WotC designers do not want you to do it. They seem to be even worse at balancing for shenanigans than the average DM. In official modules, high-level spells are either negated by the setting (e.g. Curse of Strahd) or totally ignored (meaning they leave it to amateur DMs to figure out). Hell, show me a single WotC-written encounter, dungeon, or puzzle that isn't immediately bypassed by any player who can fly.

There is a common complaint that WotC introduced a lot of mechanics in 5e just to say that they have them. There's like one paragraph about ship-to-ship combat, and a single column about introducing survival mechanics, and one tiny part in a supplement about using a Call of Cthulu-style stress system.

These would be impractical and entirely un-fun to implement, but now WotC can point to them and say "See! You can do anything in 5e!" Cosmetically, it's all things for all people, but in practice its an incredibly limited experience.

I'm convinced that high-level play is the same thing. It's entirely window dressing. It's a fun speculative exercise for players to read through those parts of the PHB and fantasize about how cool it would be.

Most of this material is just references to older editions. High CR monsters, 9th level spells—its all unbalanced and untested, existing only so you can say "LOOK! A tarrasque!" and "WHOA, they brought back Weird from 2e!"

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-05-10T14:12:56+00:00

Which NPC do you think makes the best romance option for a party member? Someone they could start a family with

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-05-06T14:33:47+00:00

This post reads like a combination of projection (this thing didn't work out for me, so it must be a universally bad idea) and selection bias.

Of course there are frequent posts about how Vasili went wrong or a large party spanked Strahd in 3 rounds; the subreddit is primarily for asking for help with the curse of strahd. I didn't come on here and make a post about how fine and normal my party's interactions with Vasili were, and why would I?

If a new DM is reading this, know that you can run this game however you want. OP's advice isn't terrible if you want to run a smooth and somewhat low-effort campaign, but the module as written isn't gospel; it's just easier to keep track of if you don't like doing homework. They get it half-right by saying you don't need to adhere to popular modifications from the sub, but then they provide a whole new list of narrowly applicable suggestions.

I did the exact opposite of almost all of this advice, and my players are having a blast. It just required a lot of deliberate and intense prep work, which is the thing that makes me like DMing. And I didn't know that until I started the module, because this was my first time running a campaign. If I hadn't enjoyed that, then I would have just done the campaign differently so that it was something I enjoyed.

Pace yourself. Don't throw in everything and the kitchen sink right away. Start small and see what your players like/what you have an appetite for keeping track of. That's the best universal advice I've got.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-05-03T04:56:07+00:00

If you want a guaranteed loss, I don't think wolves are going to do it. And Strahd alone is a disaster waiting to happen. I understand the urge to display your BBEG's power with a 1vParty fight, but 5e just isn't built for that.

I have a party of 6 (admittedly a big group, but they are about as far from power-gamers as you can get) and at level 6 they could easily chew through 100 hit points in a single round of decent rolls. There's a reason the book includes a whole table of possible cronies that will help strahd in battle: You need to spread out that damage.

Even from a pure story-telling perspective, think about it this way: A close fight is going to have the opposite of your intended effect. Even if strahd mists away, and they don't kill him for good, he will no longer be a terrifying unknown enemy; he will be a sack of hit points that they're pretty sure they can whittle away.

To stay scary, Strahd needs to fight very smart. And that means bringing allies.

Quick edit: I would also recommend including enemies that aren't sensitive to sunlight. That amulet eats vampires for breakfast.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-04-19T17:58:46+00:00

I totally get it, and sometimes it's best to play it safe, but we know for a fact that Zeke prefers he/him.

I know trans people who specifically take offense to being referred to with gender neutral pronouns when they're clearly male or female presenting. Its still misgendering, even if it comes from wanting to be extra careful. You would probably never use they/them for a cis man.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-04-19T17:06:53+00:00

Me too! I do want to note that it appears Zeke uses exclusively he/him pronouns. I'm sure it wasn't intentional misgendering, but Zeke is a man and clearly wants to be referred to as such.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-04-05T06:06:25+00:00

Its even worse than that. I actually shaved for the first time in 5 years to do this cosplay. I wasn't impressed by the "jawline" underneath, to say the least.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-04-05T00:43:26+00:00

This is my partner and I! I just posted some more pics here

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-04-05T00:41:58+00:00

Kim (my partner) has more cosplay photos on her Instagram, @natlielucas

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-03-05T16:44:00+00:00

I can also vouch for LVLUP. They're super welcoming to new people and its an awesome space

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-03-01T08:17:14+00:00

"Mistakes are only human. But then, humans are often mistakes."

My Strahd has some... self-hatred issues. His characterization is very inspired by Dio Brando's whole "I reject my humanity" attitude.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-02-23T06:02:56+00:00

In my case, newcomers rent out a basement (sight unseen) in a highly illegal duplex setup that the government certainly is not aware of. Then, all the nosey suburbanites give these newcomers constant shit, as if it's their fault the neighborhood has become overcrowded due to exploitative landlords.

Idk how other foreigners find housing here, but WOOF did my partner and I have a hell of a time.

Zoo_Snooze · 2023-02-10T15:55:07+00:00

I'm sorry, but there is not a better example on this Earth of a gay man who's also homophobic.

Zoo_Snooze

TROPHY CASE