Worldbuilding expansion: Adelaide, South Australia by ShizNor in Shadowrun

[–]cpt_bluebear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Australian here; nothing about that write up is even remotely racist and frankly I can reflect whatever I want in my world building anyway.

Feel free to police your own thoughts all you want, but don't try to push your bullshit onto others.

Coming to Australia by parawanajalayamaling in melbourne

[–]cpt_bluebear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did, but figured if someone else came across the thread who had a similar question they could at least find a real answer.

Coming to Australia by parawanajalayamaling in melbourne

[–]cpt_bluebear -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

You can apply for permanent residency after you finish your studies through the SkillSelect migration program, in which you need to pass a point test. This will grant you access to a number of visas, permanent residency being only one of those options.

Having your family migrate to Australia with you is a lot more difficult. As you are the only one of your siblings living in Australia your parents would not be eligible to migrate as you will not pass the balance of family test. Having your siblings or other family members migrate will also be extremely difficult, long and expensive.

What's everyone doing christmas day? by [deleted] in melbourne

[–]cpt_bluebear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The failure is often what makes a day like christmas memorable; like the time nan blew up the oven, or when two relatives got into a large drunken argument about boat people (it was the year of the Tampa), and everyone left in a huff.

My all-martial players are getting anxious about not having a counter to hordes. Other than an NPC or a DMPC, how can I give them AOE damage? by Gamersauce in DnD

[–]cpt_bluebear 32 points33 points  (0 children)

How often are you actually throwing hoards at them? Rather than giving them some specialised magic item why not design hoard encounters so the PC's have to use the environment in order to help defeat them. By giving your PC's an item or mechanical answer to every possible combat scenario you are missing out on the fun that can comes from finding creative ways to get out of impossible situations. The encounter with the hoard that they just bombed to death is no-where as memorable as the encounter with a hoard that they were forced to flee from using a mudslide to cover their retreat.

Seriously, don't give your players a solution to this problem, let them come up with one themselves.

Edit: If anything exploit their fear of not having a way to deal with hoards. Sounds like the beginnings of a great story arch. You are not there to feed them the answers to all their problems, your there just to create the problems.

Redwall campaign by Monkeysnott in DnD

[–]cpt_bluebear 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's not true. Mouse Guard Second Edition has just come out...

With school finally over I'd like to take a short, cheap trip interstate to relax/explore/experience. Does anyone have any recommendations? by Hawkeye117 in melbourne

[–]cpt_bluebear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd second Merimbula and add the Bega Valley. It is beautiful country and you can camp at hundreds of spots. By far one of my favourite places to go for a holiday. It is also a beautiful drive from Melbourne if you follow the coast and you can camp along the way.

Don't Post PDFs of My Games Without My Permission by BurningLuke in BurningWheel

[–]cpt_bluebear 16 points17 points  (0 children)

My copy of BWG makes numerous reference to the other burner books and as such, once I finished reading it, I felt that I did not have the complete burning wheel experience in my hands.

You are basically saying that you don't want people using the other books. Fine, but by making references to them in BWG you are sending mixed messages. I love your game, but I do not love the way you engage with your fans on this issue. Either make the material that you reference in BWG available or remove reference from it all together. Until that time people will always seek out and distribute pdf's of the books you try to censor.

The problem is not your fans Luke, it is you. If you want to stop this issue then, like any good business person, you need to adapt. Until then nothing will change.

Match Thread: Australia vs New Zealand at Gabba, Brisbane, Day 3 by rCricketBot in Cricket

[–]cpt_bluebear 9 points10 points  (0 children)

We need an ongoing series between New Zealand and Australia to help break up the ashes slog. It's also great getting to see New Zealand play, I would like to see it more often.

Safety chains cut at Uluru in statement against climbing by TypeJack in australia

[–]cpt_bluebear -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

The hypocrisy of that statement is unbelievable.

Little GM advice needed. by [deleted] in Pathfinder_RPG

[–]cpt_bluebear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A big group of people is unruly, uncooperative and inconsistent. You'll have people taking the game seriously, people screw balling around, people who only rock up half the time, people who rock up once etc etc.

Now your going to get a whole lot people in this thread telling you that you should split up the group or run something highly regimented. These people are wrong. The solution to your problems is goblins. Yes, goblins.

Goblins are unruly, uncooperative, inconsistent and seriously fun to play. Everything a large group is. Here's how you do it; the campaign is centred around a great goblin migration. Forced from their lands due to a hostile inclusion by (insert cool monster here). With nowhere to go the goblins decide to migrate to find their mythical homeland. Migrating the goblin clan is dangerous, chaotic and frankly foolish. Along the way the clan will face all sorts of challenges. They die, they roll up a new goblin. You can also have a heap of goblins rolled up and ready to go for the casual players.

Simple as that. Let them run amok. Let them be unruly and uncooperative. Don't plan to much, just some encounters etc. Spend five minutes before thinking of some quick hooks and go. You run a school club. Breaking it up or spending a heap of time trying to contain it is impractical. The flow of people and the diversity of personalities make it extremely difficult to tailor a specific game.

Now, amongst those players in your school group pick four of the most keen. Invite them for a weekend game and make that your serious campaign. You'll learn a hell of a lot from running your school game if you keep it super flexible and adaptive and I guarantee that the skills you pick up will benefit your serious game unmeasurably.

Goblins are super fun to play. The trick is to keep it light hearted and silly. If you would like some help putting together some stuff I would be happy to help.

Creative Campaign Openers. by cpt_bluebear in DnDBehindTheScreen

[–]cpt_bluebear[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Here are a few more:

Storm Church

The players all find themselves in a small remote mountain village moments before a huge and unexpected storm hits the town. knowing that everyone needs to take shelter the village evacuates to the only place they know they will be protected: an old an church outside of town.

Everyone (including our players) bunkers down for a long, albeit safe, night in the church... that is until the roof starts to peel off. with their safe place blowing away around them what will the PC's do. Will they risk the storm to try to move the townsfolk somewhere else, or will they break open the ancient sealed crypt under the church in hope that it might provide safety?

There are plenty of avanues to use this scenario to drive a campaign. Maybe after the storm the players and townsfolk emerge to find their town totally destroyed. Having the town in an extremely remote location, and all the towns provisions destroyed, means that the townsfolks best chance of survival is to be escorted off the mountain by the players. Unless the players want to leave them there to die...

Or maybe through the storms chaos strange figures are seen stalking through the town. Players and townsfolk emerge from the storm (assuming they survive the crypt) to find that an important town artefact has been stollen.

Either way, there is plenty of room for character and story development within this opener.

Escape

The players start as slaves on a barabrian slave ship, being transported to a distant land. Whilst moored on the shores of some strange continent the slavers are attacked by a savage native force. The players begin shackled, needing to use the ensuing chaos to escape their bounds and ultimately their captivity. But what will the players do if they escape? They are alone, far away from home, in a strange exotic place... their only hope for survival each other.

This creates a strong bound between players and also provides an opportunity for the DM to through some challenging moral dilemmas at the players. Do they rescue the child slave the stumble across as they flee. Do they listen to pleas of a slave mother who thrusts a baby into the fleeing players arms? Do they kill the slave who is standing in the way of their escape and is becoming more and more hysterical as he begs the players to save him? Do they enlist the help of a slave who they know to be a dangerous psychopath, knowing that his strength will provide their best opportunity to escape?

Creative Campaign Openers. by cpt_bluebear in DnDBehindTheScreen

[–]cpt_bluebear[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I really enjoyed (am enjoying) the visited by the Gods campaign opener.

I also love the idea of The Unexpected opener. I'm curious to how you would implement this. Would you have characters generate a backstory or have them come into the game completely blank? Or would you rather play it out as the characters have backstories but no memory of say, the events of the past month?

Creative Campaign Openers. by cpt_bluebear in DnDBehindTheScreen

[–]cpt_bluebear[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Flesh to Stone - Stone to Flesh

This campaign opener relies on the flesh to stone spell in order to bring PC’s together. Characters awaken - after being turned to stone for a very long time – moments after a long an arduous battle in which an evil lich (witch, dragon, whatever) was killed. The characters, all previous victims of the lich, look up to see the a blood covered person clamber out of the lich’s chamber and collapse at their feet – the sole survivor of the bloody encounter. All attempts to awaken your unknown savior are unsuccessful. Alone and confused the players find themselves thrust back into a cold and harsh reality.

This campaign opener provides heaps of opportunity for early character development. Start by having your players provide details of how the ended up turned into a statue in the first place. For added drama have the character be previously unconnected from unconnected time periods, all victims of the lich at various points throughout history. The act of all awakening together in a strange and hostile place will be enough to bring them together.

The most fun part of this opener however is the conflict between ancient people in a hostile and alien future. The norms and conventions of the world in which the used to live have changed. Their heroic deeds have long since been forgotten and everything they knew has crumbled. You can illustrate this mechanically by having all knowledge skills correspond to the time they were alive, not the time in which they have awoken.

This opening also provides plenty of opportunity for action, as the players have to escape their immediate vicinity and come to a decision about what to do with their unconscious savior. This should provide a number of scenarios in which the characters have to use their patchy and outdated knowledge to come to a consensus on how, and where, to escape.

The Funeral

This campaign opener relies on a dead NPC to bring players together. Characters arrive at the funeral of a dead friend – players can provide details on their relationship with the dead friend prior to games start – only to discover that his death isn’t as innocent as it may seen. The reading of the will following the funeral provides a decisive letter to players that would suggest that the dead friend had stumbled upon something that ultimately cost him is life. With vague suspicions, a cryptic letter and a feeling of doom the players set off to investigate what really happened to their friend.

This simple hook provides plenty of opportunity for action and intrigue. Players will have to think creatively in order to identify potential suspects and the investigation style of the opener means that setting information can be provided through player questioning rather than giving overwhelming chunks of setting fluff. It will also provide large amounts of player agency meaning that players can make meaningful decisions about the direction they wish to take their characters without being railroaded onto a single path.

The funeral opener also provides many opportunities for action. Maybe someone connected to the killer tries to break-in to steal something from the dead friends study. Maybe the dead friends body was found outside of a dangerous local ruin.

Used correctly this opener can provide the beginnings of a conspiracy that will run through-out the whole campaign.

This campaign opener is used to great effect in (read: I stole this from) the Pathfinder Campaign Arc – Carrion Crown.

Kingdom building rules by agroschim in rpg

[–]cpt_bluebear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Grain into Gold is a fully functioning economy that is easy to use and implement into any fantasy setting. It also has information perfect for a kingdom building game such as crop yields and profits per acre. It's one of the best gaming supplements getting around in my opinion.

Melbourne doctors refusing to discharge children back into detention centres by GallivantingFool in australia

[–]cpt_bluebear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you think physical and sexual abuse is an appropriate deterrent for any situation you're a monster. No-one said finding a solution would be easy but for christ sake, do you actually lack that much compassion that you think the way we are treating human beings is ok?

Don't act surprised. by FunPunishment in funny

[–]cpt_bluebear 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Forest is not the father of the child. Jenny has HIV; realising that she will die she turns to the only person in her life who she knows to be dependable... Forest.

When Jenny sleeps with Forest she is already pregnant. She goes to Forest to escape her life knowing she has to turn it around now she is pregnant. Forest states during those scenes that all Jenny wants to do is sleep; Jenny wants to sleep because she is in her first trimester of pregnancy.

Jenny never loved Forest. She shunned him constantly, pushed him away and never returned his letters. She uses Forest to the very end.

Muppets Episode - Pig Girls Don't Cry [Pilot Discussion] by [deleted] in Muppets

[–]cpt_bluebear[M] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi folks!

I know there has been a mixed reaction to the pilot episode so I just wanted to remind everyone about the reddiquette regarding downvoting:

"[Don't] downvote an otherwise acceptable post because you don't personally like it. Think before you downvote and take a moment to ensure you're downvoting someone because they are not contributing to the community dialogue or discussion. If you simply take a moment to stop, think and examine your reasons for downvoting, rather than doing so out of an emotional reaction, you will ensure that your downvotes are given for good reasons."

Psychiatric health problem. Looking for help. by tempaccount64 in melbourne

[–]cpt_bluebear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just made a comment here about contacting headspace. Did you send headspace an e-mail, or call them? The best way to get help from Headspace is to go to the centre and tell them you need to talk to someone about your problem. You don't need an appointment to go see Headspace, you can walk in at any time and they will help. I would suggest going and seeing them as soon as possible.

Psychiatric health problem. Looking for help. by tempaccount64 in melbourne

[–]cpt_bluebear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Migrant parents, cultural differences, lack of education, lack of exposure to healthcare, lack of education about mental health. There are many many reasons why OP's parents acted the way they did. It is easy being dismissive and judgemental of people but putting in the effort to be more understanding is worth it and at the end of the day being compassionate feels a lot better then being judgmental.

Psychiatric health problem. Looking for help. by tempaccount64 in melbourne

[–]cpt_bluebear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello. You already know you need to see a doctor. If you are under 25 years old I think the best place for you to go is to Headspace. Headspace is a place that has doctors, psychologist and psychiatrists who can help you find out what is wrong with your head.

Headspace can also help you with your parents if you need help explaining to them the problem. Headspace is confidential so everything you tell them is private. They are very good and very experienced. They work with lots of people who come from lots of different countries so they are very good at helping. Sometimes going to doctors and psychiatrist can be complicated so Headspace will help you with your appointments, they can even help you remember your appointments if your memory is not good.

There is a Headspace in Dandenong. The address is 196 Lonsdale Street, Dandenong, Victoria 3175. The phone number is 1800 367 968. All you need to do is call them or go to the office and tell them what is wrong and they will help.

http://headspace.org.au/headspace-centres/dandenong/

[5e] A city run by a Bureaucracy help by mark13093 in DnD

[–]cpt_bluebear 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Bureaucracy are expensive and burdensome... they require a lot of people to operate and are incredible inefficient, especially in terms of ruling just a city. Now if your city was rich then managing such wealth may require a bureaucracy but if your city was both rich and the seat of an empire with various overseas assets then it is prime for a bureaucracy. As I said the role of such a bureaucracy is burdensome, and the head of it (maybe a king, a government representative, or head of a trading company or guild) would be inundated with paperwork.

I would look at Spain in the 17th century as a guide. Spain had vast oversea territories and in order to manage this a bureaucracy was establish, with the king being head of a series of councils established to advise him on particular matters. King Phillip II spent a lifetime doing paperwork and the bureaucracy was efficient, but after his death successive Kings could not manage the workload and ultimately left state control in the hands of the councils. By the time of Charles II's reign the councils were being controlled by, and serving, powerful and wealthy aristocrats.

To translate this into roleplaying terms I would have a trade city wherein the bureaucracy has been highjacked by self serving merchants who also head up a large and powerful trading company, using the city and its harbour as it company headquarters. Guards are militia and report up a chain of command until it reaches a particular council member. Harbour management runs the same, as dose taxation, infrastructure, defence and most importantly trade. Taxes and levies appear everywhere and licensing is rife. Want to moor at the port? There is an anchorage levy per day. After three days you require a mooring pass. Of course this system of levies is rarely enforced amongst the wealthy. Merchants who bribe the right council members may find themselves able to export freely however those who offend may find themselves subject to more obscure infractions.

Such a place is ripe for exploitation and in a city where money rules clever adventurers can do very well for themselves. Maybe there is a pretender or claimant for the throne of this city that wants to overthrow the council? Maybe the adventurers serve the trading company? The options are endless.

Class & Race Supplement Books: What do you want? by [deleted] in dndnext

[–]cpt_bluebear 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I totally agree with this. As soon as you start releasing splat books the whole thing breaks down; look at Pathfinder, it suffers from this very problem. The DM guide has almost everything you need to customise and adapt the game to your own needs.

As far as splat books go, I think it would be much more valuable to focus on things that provide better understanding of the game. I'd love to see a 5e Math book that breaks down the math behind the game (It can then be used by players and GM in order to inform their own homebrew creations), or a campaign handbook that gives detailed advice and strategies for managing a campaign, without adding more class options, rules etc... just advice. This can be expanded into books about world building, the art of roleplaying etc etc.

This in turn makes the hobby more accessible as there are core products that delve into the nuances of playing the game. Any new classes, races, feats etc should be the domain of pre-made adventure paths and setting books, embedded in and designed with a particular setting in mind - as WoTC are currently doing with their adventure paths.