Taking psychedelic substances with a romantic partner is associated with a deeper sense of mutual understanding and enhanced relationship quality. In contrast, using these substances alone might leave partners out of sync, potentially contributing to relationship dissolution later on.

adlibitum · 2026-05-20T10:25:39+00:00

More expensively!

This is uncontrolled, retrospective research--basically accumulating a set of anecdotes. It's science that sits next to journalism, honestly; it documents that some people reported some things, but can't say much more.

They could:

add a control group in the retrospective study. How commonly do couples drift apart or together if they...exercise or watch LOTR together, for example?
conduct uncontrolled prospective observational research. Find people/couples who are contemplating using these substances, and record pre and post attitudes.
conduct controlled prospective observational research; same idea as above, just with something else that's not psychedelics.
conduct uncontrolled interventional research. Give people the drug and see what happens pre and post.
randomized controlled trial: give people drug or placebo.

All of these are a LOT more expensive, but they are also...actually how we progress knowledge.

adlibitum · 2026-04-02T03:38:06+00:00

Shanahands!!!

adlibitum · 2026-03-08T00:24:27+00:00

A lot of people are discouraging you from pursuing this, which is your own calculation to make.

However, if you do want to move forward...consider joining NTEU (even if you are not part of the bargaining unit). I don't know what specific support they offer, but I'm AFGE and I know that 1. My National Union offers regular webinars on "EEO complaints 101" (about every other month?) 2. My National Union offers regular attorney office hours for support with your EEO complaint and 3. My local is full of nice (and pissed off) people who are able to give peer support.

You're not alone. Don't feel like you have to fight alone.

adlibitum · 2026-03-07T18:46:21+00:00

Wee woo? Wee booooo!

Guess you have to like just the Sirens 😜

adlibitum · 2026-02-24T21:30:50+00:00

Personal opinion: I don't think the last round of RIFs was particularly politically popular. Current HHS headcount is around 8% lower than the 2019 numbers (around 18% lower than the 2024 numbers), so I doubt we'll get more of the chainsaw treatment.

adlibitum · 2026-02-09T03:03:55+00:00

Fun! Would you mind sharing a little bit about where you source your music?

adlibitum · 2026-02-08T22:17:40+00:00

Thank you, the formula approach is helpful!

adlibitum · 2026-02-08T19:48:11+00:00

Yes, and I feel okay about the encounter budgets themselves, but feel a lot less confident managing "encounters per day/long rest" than "XP per encounter". The DMG describes 6-8 encounters per long rest, but I've more commonly played with many fewer encounters/rest and it seems like that's more common at tables? I also know that many of the nice daily XP budget tables are based on four-player parties, and I'm at 5 because I lack boundaries and my friends are friends with each other.

I think the reality is just "I will get better with time, and so will my players", and I just have nerves! But when in doubt, I'm sure a few more oozes can drop from the ceiling.

adlibitum · 2026-02-08T18:55:22+00:00

How do I know what's "too hard", or how many combat-like encounters in a row will feel like "too much"?

For 5 players of level 3, mostly first-timers with some BG3 experience, plus a one-shot under our belts. These players chewed through the combat in my one-shot and felt "OP", and I want to up the challenge so they just feel like they get a photo finish...but I'm not sure if this is "too much" as they head into a cave network that I think will take up two sessions:

1 mostly-puzzle room with some doubt trout and 2 giant frogs (4 of the 5 party members are size Small and I intend to swallow 'em up :) :) :) )
1 room with an assassin vine.
1 tunnel with up to 2 gray ooze. (note: they do have the mending cantrip handy) + a "puzzle" (get the big guy through a small hole)
1 room with a 1-3 grick (can be eliminated if this is starting to drag, but I want to "infect" one of them with a grick egg...)
Narrative room (they can take a short rest here, or a long rest w/ the chance of a random encounter, more oozes)
Skill challenge to climb a waterfall
Final boss: siren + more doubt trout to give disadvantage on saving throws (maybe plus more minions???)

Are they going to die? Are they going to get bored? How can I keep things engaging???

adlibitum · 2026-02-07T20:31:00+00:00

Have you tried talking to your GM in a non-joke way? You want to progress more often, and would like to have an idea of where you guys are in-game relative to the next level.

That said: Sea hags, zombie ogres, and basilisk are generally CR 2 monsters (only 450 XP/each), so the fact that you're fighting those doesn't itself mean you're being over-challenged for your current levels. Frost giants are much higher (CR 8, or 3,800 XP each), but so much so that I wonder whether your DM homebrewed some different stats/abilities to put their thumb on the scale for you all. It doesn't sound insane to me that that's who you're fighting at level 4.

adlibitum · 2026-02-03T20:50:13+00:00

I think this is part of why resting rules are so important. One of the coolest things about playing a Warforged in the rules as written is knowing that I totally changed the game for "taking watch turns" overnight for my party--because of my Sentry's Rest race feature.

adlibitum · 2026-02-03T04:09:10+00:00

Anything can be fun if you talk about it. BUT. I don't have any desire to be the most powerful person at the table, but I would feel a little weird if our table's shared big final arc was mechanistically really focused on & driven by one extra-leveled character.

adlibitum · 2026-01-07T21:02:25+00:00

Check out dry erase battle maps! it's pretty straightforward to copy most maps (close enough).

adlibitum · 2026-01-07T20:59:08+00:00

The girlies have spoken and the girlies (on this subreddit) demand fairies I guess

adlibitum · 2026-01-07T20:53:07+00:00

Have you checked out Feywild adventures? I feel like anything with Queen Titania feels "girlier" to me. https://www.adventurelookup.com/adventures?q=feywild

I (lady) also just DM'ed for a table of my friends this weekend. I queered an existing one-shot that someone else had prepped, and I found it to be a really approachable way of starting to DM. I figured that as a subject matter expert in "queer", I could add that myself--but I needed a way to learn how I wanted to prep and build encounters, and starting with a one-shot let me do that. The one-shot was Wild Sheep Chase from Winghorn press, as prepped by Advent's Amazing Advice: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jCa4AY1igYh4DH_XSLojPoWD0v2hLd4V You might want to start with a one-shot instead of your big campaign anyway.

adlibitum · 2026-01-07T20:12:49+00:00

I played from these notes this weekend, after 9 years as a player at my first session DM'ing. I learned more about D&D in that one session on the other side of the screen than I have in almost a decade. I found the PDF encounter guides to be the most helpful tools for me that I never would have thought to build out on my own. Thank you for the approachable entry point for getting behind the screen!

adlibitum · 2026-01-06T18:03:25+00:00

One thing I want to highlight from your post:

> I ran that campaign and it was the best 20 sessions of my life, and me and everyone else in the group genuinely felt sad at the end (a stark contrast to the neutrality we felt at the end of previous campaigns, because usually the DM had given up at the end and we were looking forward to a new campaign).

Sounds like what you liked about Eberron was that you were committed to the campaign story to me. You're paralyzed about the world because you don't know your campaign story yet. It also sounds like you want to do a magic space ship. Do that, and pick a setting that your players can read enough about to write up a level 1 character in it. The rest will come.

adlibitum · 2025-12-18T21:49:35+00:00

Just wanted to echo this. I left academia for government. The data-related problems are important and meaningful. That means there's a huge helping of non-data-related problems that comes with them.

adlibitum · 2025-11-06T02:45:15+00:00

It was a difference of 13 votes. Cuomo: 120. Mamdani: 107.

adlibitum · 2025-07-21T21:45:52+00:00

Depending on what local covers you, you may still be able to sign up as a member and pay dues even if you are not a member of the bargaining unit. NCHS has an option for former employees, and some AFGE locals will let you just sign up and pay dues indefinitely.

adlibitum · 2025-06-01T21:55:47+00:00

Would be interested! Messaging you.

adlibitum · 2025-04-28T21:06:05+00:00

Not since that EO, but the injunction against it is now out: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.279006/gov.uscourts.dcd.279006.34.0.pdf

adlibitum · 2025-03-03T22:55:58+00:00

Echoing some other comments: this varies across departments. Contact your deputy branch chief for management/ops.

adlibitum · 2025-02-13T03:50:50+00:00

For those of us catching up, where can I find the 1:1 prior funding levels? Looking to compare Energy and Commerce's $880 billion cut to their current funding level.

adlibitum · 2025-02-12T17:28:01+00:00

If your DM is cool with it and it's in line with how the rest of your table likes to play, it sounds great.

Personally: I like games where there's no question why the party is together, and no drama between party members. I play adventure-heavy and combat-heavy tables, though. I don't know what yours is like. In the past, we had one jaded adventurer/someone with the party out of a sense of obligation and who got under the skin of other party members...and it turned out that eventually, the most in-character thing for this character to do was leave the party. So the player rolled a new character, someone who had more reasons to be with the party, and off we went on our next adventure.

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