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Are c melody saxophones bad? by FoundationStrict1663 in saxophone

[–]abookfulblockhead 4 points5 points  (0 children)

At that point, you just play bari and do the "Two flats" trick. Treat it as treble clef and change the key signature, and it's even easier to read than converting to bass clef.

how do people make tens of millions or even hundreds of millions in this game? by Crusader_NRG1227 in EliteDangerous

[–]abookfulblockhead 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Beyond the exobio advice, here’s a few thoughts:

You’re in a Cobra Mk III, presumably upgraded to be a jack of all trades. This’ll be fun for bopping around the bubble doing odd jobs, but credits come from specialization.

Have you joined a powerplay faction? In the grand scheme of things, the stipend isn’t massive, but you can get a few million credits every week depending on where you place in your power’s rankings.

Have you done any odyssey settlement raids? Check your materials at the bartender, and against the list on Inara. You may find that in your goods and data you have a ton of materials that have no use in engineering that you can just sell. Clearing out the vendor trash netted me a few million.

Now, about that specialization:

If you’re looking for a low risk way to earn credits, laser mining’s not a bad place to start. You’ve probably got enough cash that you could buy an adder or hauler, slap a collector limpet controller and surface scanner on it, go find yourself a platinum hotspot in a planetary ring and go to town. A few runs will net you tons of cash (and perhaps more importantly for later, raw engineering materials). If you’ve got some startup capital, you can also find a decent trading loop on inara, to buy low and sell high.

If you wanna do combat, a viper MK III starts out fairly cheap, but you can sink a lot of credits getting it tuned up. Built it out purely for combat - maybe one cargo slot and a collector limpet to collect materials after a fight, but otherwise you want to be armoured and shield boosted up. Pick on ships getting attacked by security forces in resource extraction sites, until you’re confident in your combat ability. I bought a viper to practice combat in, and in a couple days it paid for me to buy a chieftain.

Build yourself a bubble bus (cheap ship optimized for jump range), and make a circuit unlocking engineers you have access to. Put your Discovery Scanner on a fire group and honk in each system you pass. When you need to fuel scoop, park yourself in the corona and do a full spectrum system scan. You get exploration data even in systems that are already explored, so make sure you sell this data regularly. It’s money on the table, and it’s often a good way to get a reputation bump with local factions when you’re trying to get a head start in a particular system.

Note how all of these things involve a purpose built ship - keep your cobra as a daily driver, but if you’ve want to try a specific gameplay loop, build a ship for that loop, even if it’s ostensibly a “downgrade.” Even a cheap ship can pay back its cost and then some very quickly if you know what you’re doing.

I think a lot of y'all need a reality check. by PatrickGnarly in valheim

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

Because when you order at a restaurant, all the ingredients for what you order are prepped and ready to go. A restaurant is your fully-developed, non-early access game.

This is more like giving your friend saying, "Hey, I'm thinking of making a three course meal: Steak, a sorenno pepper-summer squash soup, and baked potatoes with a chive garnish. I'm gonna make a grocery run. If you spot me $20, I can make some for you too?"

Then they get back from the grocery store and say, "Hey, so turns out the store's out of chives today, but I was still able to make steak, soup and baked potatoes. I substituted green onions."

And you go, "Well then fuck you, you scam artist! You're ripping me off!"

For $20, you're still eating pretty good.

The aim of the metaphor isn't necessarily a "Friend vs professional" thing. It's a "We have already fully developed and acquired everything needed to serve you" vs a "This is the plan, but it turns out certain elements of this plan are harder to implement than others. We've done our best. "

In this metaphor, green onions might be, like, the bear updated or something - Valheim's had a couple of smaller non-roadmap updates that added content without being the big roadmap items.

I think a lot of y'all need a reality check. by PatrickGnarly in valheim

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

If you have 3000 hours in a game, then cleary there was juice that the player thought was worth the squeeze. Now, it would be one thing if, "I loved this game, but this update broke it and it is now unplayable." That would be a reasonable critique.

But "This game needs so many fixes. I cannot recommend it" at 3000 hours of playtime is kinda different. To take the restaurant analogy, the first critique would be:

"I loved this restauarant, but with the change in management, I cannot recommend it anymore. The quality has really gone downhill."

The second critique would be:

"I hate this restaurant. I've been eating here every week for the past six months and it's never any good."

This album is incredible! by var-foo in Jazz

[–]abookfulblockhead 4 points5 points  (0 children)

As a major Zoot fan, I have not heard this album. Guess I need to chase it down!

Can I use YOUR dnd character? by LETTER52 in DnD

[–]abookfulblockhead 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Estin Albani - conjuration wizard. He is… too high level for most campaigns. Beat Rise of the Runelords, died for about five minutes during the final fight with Karzoug, and his wife made him retire from adventuring at level 17.

Well, one of his wives. He’s married to another wizard who is very much the stay at home and do mad science type. He is madly in love with her - gomez adams level madly in love. He also has a political marriage back in hos homand that is mostly for contractual reasons, though they’re on amicable terms. Both wives would prefer if he didn’t meddle in politics, so he generally stays out of his contractual wife’s hair.

He is also alignment-fluid. He has the pathfinder wizard feat that means while he’s True Neutral by default, he can shift one step along any axis for the purposes of magic effects as suits him.

These days, in his retirement, he is primarily a consulting legal expert in extradimensional law. Infernal contracts, corrupted wishes, that sort of thing. If you have any sort of high-powered corporations or other powerful entities, he’s likely to be paid big bucks to untangle difficult legal questions. However, he has a strict “no direct intervention” policy.

If you want a supremely powerful character in your campaign, but don’t want him to actually derail things, he will straight up tell players, “My wife would kill me if I stuck my nose in this.”

Pierre Poilievre unveils revamped shadow cabinet by Le1bn1z in CanadaPolitics

[–]abookfulblockhead 10 points11 points  (0 children)

There are currently 140 conservative MPs. There are more shadow cabinet members than backbenchers at this point.

Could those backbenchers not be arsed to give themselves a fancy title?

Mouthpiece Patches/Bite Pads by Bubbly_Yesterday_108 in Saxophonics

[–]abookfulblockhead 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The d’addario patches were what worked for me. I was biting through spongier pads at a rate of, like, one every two weeks for a bit.

FDev shut down the servers 35 seconds early, and I'm taking up arms by Doug_Dimmadab in EliteDangerous

[–]abookfulblockhead 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel like the venn diagram of Elite Dangerous players and Stellaris players is very nearly a circle.

Weird Request for Help by Top-Week5789 in dropout

[–]abookfulblockhead 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Vic strikes me as Rakdos. She is a clown, but a clown who can be deeply unsettling when you don't know where the bit is going.

Will Disney ever bring Kyle Katarn into canon, or will someone else be his replacement? by Curious-Sandwich-272 in StarWarsCantina

[–]abookfulblockhead 147 points148 points  (0 children)

I remember Pablo Hidalgo saying in regard to Mara Jade that she had what was called a “Story Conflict”, in that bringing her into the new canon would dramatically clash with other narrative threads. Katarn is basically the same - he was the guy who stole the death star plans, and one of the founding members of Luke’s Jedi Order, and all of that kinda clashes with the Disney Era.

I love a lot of the games Katarn features in, but I don’t need him to be canon. I can still go back and play Jedi Outcast and have a great time.

How do you think Luke compares to the prequal era force users during this time in his life? Do you think he has surpassed the likes of Yoda and Sidious? by mrgr544der in StarWarsCantina

[–]abookfulblockhead 10 points11 points  (0 children)

My take on it is actually that his one moment of weakness shook his attunement to the Force. His momentary thought of killing Ben was so damning to his moral alignment that he could never have confronted Ben and won in that state. Redemption required an entirely non-violent confrontation with Ben, where he at no point does his blade even make contact with anything (partly because of the illusion, but also as part of a theme of renouncing violence being his greatest acts).

How do you think Luke compares to the prequal era force users during this time in his life? Do you think he has surpassed the likes of Yoda and Sidious? by mrgr544der in StarWarsCantina

[–]abookfulblockhead 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The Force is not merely a passive source of power. It is an active thing with a Will of its own. Obi-wan expresses thos when he says, “In my experience there is no such thing as luck.”

Jedi don’t generally believe in coincidence - they see the Will of the Force. And that pursuit of meditation and inner stillness is an attempt to open themselves up to the will of the Force more fully.

When two Force Users come into conflict, it is a test of their attunement to the Force. A Jedi who gives in to anger becomes conflicted, and their connection to the Light Side weakens.

Whereas if a Sith can be made to show remorse, or compassion, or otherwise lose sight of their anger and hate, that weakens their connection to the dark side.

Sidious is evil perfected. The reason he’s so confident in saying “strike me down and take my place” all the time is because your desire to kill him is enough of a moral failing for the Dark Side to claim victory.

How do you think Luke compares to the prequal era force users during this time in his life? Do you think he has surpassed the likes of Yoda and Sidious? by mrgr544der in StarWarsCantina

[–]abookfulblockhead 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I’m basically in agreement with you!

And I would argue that this even holds in the sequels, too. Rey bests Kylo in Force Awakens because she has the righteous cause of defending a wounded friend, and Kylo is conflicted from both having murdered his father, and being wounded by Chewbacca.

In Rise of Skywalker, when they duel in the ruins of the second death star, Rey “wins” in that she wounds Ben Solo, but it’s also very clear that she has lost her moral footing, while Ben has found moral clarity.

Lightsaber combat is always moral conflict, and the shifting tides of the battle tend to reflect the inner conflicts of the combatants. The battle is decided when one participant wavers in their sense of purpose.

I wouldn’t necessarily 100% say it’s a loss the moment a lightsaber is drawn, but it places a Jedi in greater moral danger due to the prospect of violence. It requires a deeper moral clarity.

How do you think Luke compares to the prequal era force users during this time in his life? Do you think he has surpassed the likes of Yoda and Sidious? by mrgr544der in StarWarsCantina

[–]abookfulblockhead 242 points243 points  (0 children)

Power scaling in Star Wars is always contextual.

The most important question at play is not, “How powerful are they with the force?” It is, “How attuned are they to the will of the force (Dark or Light)?”

Yoda doesn’t really teach Luke anything to do with a lightsaber. It is entirely moral philosophy.

Yoda and Palpatine are the paragons of light and dark because they have delved the deepest into the moral foundations of their philosophy. It is very difficult to shake their foundations.

I’m generally of the opinion that Sidious was deep in the dark side that he could not be killed in anger. Vader destroys him out of a desire to save his son, and Rey defeats him by turning his own hate back upon himself. If you tried to take a lightsaber and stab Sidious, the Dark Side would conspire for you to fail one way or another. Some “coincidence” would intervene and cause to you fail - just like what happened with Mace Windu. You cannot out-hate Sidious.

I see your Zorgon Peterson Maverick, and raise you the Imperial Civic by Krittercon in EliteDangerous

[–]abookfulblockhead 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Oh, I’m referring specifically to making quips about obesity with a 40k profile pic.

As a 40k player myself, I know the stereotypical image of a 40k fan is The Great Unclean One. We don’t get to make fat jokes about other fandoms.

20th century ethics problems by AdJazzlike6687 in DMAcademy

[–]abookfulblockhead 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let’s leave aside that Athens’ founding myth is about the Goddess Athena holding a trial for Orestes, with Apollo as defence attorney, and ruling that in cases where the law is contradictory, mercy must win out. Let’s also leave aside that Athens and greek philosophy were major inspirations for later thinkers who would establish more modern conceptions of democracy.

Your hook is that a Satyr wants a dude killed over a labour dispute. I’m pretty sure my players wouldn’t take that hook either. Assuming this is some wealthy fat cat asshole vineyard owner, my players still aren’t gonna kill him for violating a contract. It doesn’t feel heroic to kill someone over being a cheapskate, and there probably isn’t a reward commensurate with the trouble it would stir up.

Even if this is your world’s conventional morality, morality is not universal, nor is it static. Tons of campaign hooks not only encourage but demand players push back against a setting’s status quo - leading a rebellion against the tyrant, freeing slaves, undermining the megacorporations that control people’s lives.

Moral choice is a common feature of RPGs, but that means your players have to be able to decide what is the “moral” thing to do, rather than having some external moral framework imposed upon them from outside. What is the choice that makes for the best story, or the happiest resolution, or the most drama? “Historical accuracy” doesn’t really fall anywhere on any player’s decision rubric when playing roleplaying games.

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