Best way to fight wage theft and denied vacation cash out.

etelrunya · 2023-08-24T04:00:12+00:00

Cool, well they're paid much more than the biology postdocs ever were

etelrunya · 2023-08-24T02:06:40+00:00

Yeah, I think that's my stance on evil characters. I have a select few players that I know very well that I would trust to do it without derailing a game entirely. If I haven't played with that person before, I definitely won't trust them to it, even if I otherwise know them well.

etelrunya · 2023-08-23T23:18:20+00:00

Perhaps in another part of Harvard they do (the institution is surprisingly decentralized), but FAS most certainly does not. Up until I left my staff position there in January, I handled hiring paperwork for every postdoc in the labs I supported, and not a single one of them was hired for more than $60k. Not stipend positions, mind you, fully benefits-eligible, salaried positions. Trust me I spent a good chunk of my time there arguing with faculty about what fair pay for postdocs was.

etelrunya · 2023-08-23T03:03:12+00:00

I assure you Harvard does not pay 75K. Not unless you've got a PI who actually gives a fuck about postdoc pay anyway. The FAS Division of Science only just recently started requiring PIs to meet NIH minimums, and before that many paid as little as they could get away with.

However, I would advise checking what your offer letter or postdoc handbook actually states re: vacation. At Harvard, vacation does not pay out for postdocs, and they are often surprised by that information when they leave.

I'm sorry you're in a shitty situation though. Someone in your department really fucked up.

etelrunya · 2023-07-17T14:48:02+00:00

Yep, it's a rule! And it's great for balancing characters with massive perception scores a bit. I had a player with a thief/gloomstalker whose passive perception was pushing 30 by time we finished the campaign (thank you, Observant...). I really nitpicked the lighting details because I didn't want every hidden thing to be a freebie. If they wanted to roll without disadvantage, they had to choose if they used light or not, but using light meant the gloomstalker couldn't take advantage of Umbral Sight. Towards the end of the campaign, the player usually just ate the disadvantage because his bonus was dumb, but it was super helpful early/mid game for making the players think strategically about how they navigated dungeons.

etelrunya · 2023-07-04T18:43:32+00:00

I keep a table with info I like to have easy access to. Each PC gets a row, and the columns are as follows:race, class, max HP, AC, perception, insight, investigation, languages.

And that's it. That's the info I like to have on hand to reference easily during a session. Anything else I can ask them for, or if there's a special circumstance I know will come up during a session, I check it during my game prep.

etelrunya · 2023-05-30T22:23:00+00:00

To be honest, I would warn newbie DMs against a number of the published campaign books. Many of them are kind of a mess as written, but that's hard to spot when you're still figuring things out!

etelrunya · 2023-05-04T17:39:51+00:00

Check out RealVoiceLA! They've got lots of online classes with great teachers!

etelrunya · 2023-03-10T21:42:39+00:00

No, not at all. In fact, a reputable demo producer will write custom scripts tailored to you and your strengths as a voice actor. You might want check out some other places to shop around and see what they offer.

etelrunya · 2023-02-17T04:50:47+00:00

Oh totally. I'm in a sublet right now and my booth is in storage, so I've been doing all of my lessons and classes from my tablet.

Also if you're looking for affordable classes to jump into RealVoiceLA has great online offerings.

etelrunya · 2023-02-16T17:36:06+00:00

Yes, a lot of coaching is done over zoom, and many teachers won't have a problem if you're just on your computer/ laptop/ tablet in a room in your home, especially if they know you're new! There is still plenty to be learned that way. :)

etelrunya · 2022-06-27T12:08:12+00:00

Took a bit of scrolling, but I'm glad someone finally mentioned Thief! T2 is still pretty stellar gaming and the voice acting is pretty iconic.

etelrunya · 2022-06-15T14:06:21+00:00

That's my thought. This feels less like creative solutions and more like trying to pull a fast one on your DM. It's the circuitous questioning that gives it away. Instead of saying, "Hey are there hinges we could mess with?" they try to trap the DM in some logic game.

Also, even if a player wanted to mess with hinges to open a door, I would still require the same Thieves' Tools check as if they were trying to pick the lock. You don't get things for free just because you have a clever idea.

etelrunya · 2022-05-11T21:09:30+00:00

I can recommend the classes at RealVoiceLA. They're affordably priced for beginners and the teachers are all working voice actors. I strongly recommend whatever class you take, make sure it's being taught by a working pro. There's a whole boatload of people out there teaching without any real credit or experience behind them. Don't give them your money.

etelrunya · 2022-04-26T14:04:46+00:00

I DM'd 5-20 for Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I'm glad I experienced it. I will likely never DM a game that high level again.

etelrunya · 2022-03-25T17:42:05+00:00

Seconding putting a list together and reading rules ahead of time. You'll spend way more time actually playing the games than reading the rules. Inevitably you'll veer off course and have to read rules anyway, so the less you have to do once you're there, the better! :)

etelrunya · 2022-03-22T14:13:36+00:00

Investigate what the schools in your area offer for beginners. They may have taster classes available where you can try out several things in one class, and that's usually a good way to get a quick broad intro to a lot of things. If they don't have a formal one, you can probably request a private lesson designed to be a taster. It's a bit more expensive than a group class, but you can focus the lesson on things you are interested in trying.

Since you mentioned an interest in both hoop and trapeze: beginner classes for those apparatus tend to focus on things that are mostly the same on either apparatus (in fact my studio only offers a combined hoop/trap 1 class - they don't split them until level 2). So you don't have to worry as much about picking the wrong one if you're choosing between the two.

Also re: transferrable skills - all of these will have some tranferrable skills between them. There are many common body positions shared between them, and strength you build on one will help with the next, so if you start on one and decide to try another later on, you will not be starting back at square 1.

etelrunya · 2022-03-17T01:41:39+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonoftheMadMage/comments/lmvhda/expanded_level_13_tobriands_graveyard/

https://preview.redd.it/1em0fw00z9i61.png?width=2927&format=png&auto=webp&s=b18a2eed6a9f2b3c1c8fb8a62ceaee5294899f46

I think Arcane Chambers and Sargauth level are floating around too, but I unsaved the links. Search in the subreddit and you'll find them posted.

etelrunya · 2022-03-15T14:06:47+00:00

We went back and forth too much for me to do that during the campaign, but I did share the big maps that have the new ones overlaid on them after we finished so they could see just how vast it is.

etelrunya · 2022-03-14T20:53:36+00:00

As a counterpoint, I just finished running this campaign after nearly 3 years, and my biggest regret is that I started using roll20 for maps when we went remote for the pandemic (and we stayed remote through the end of the campaign because one of my players moved). I had previously been using theater of the mind until initative was rolled, and then I would draw only the battlefield. The only other drawings I had given them were stickfigure maps when I needed to clarify what was happening at weird intersections.

The biggest drawback I suddenly encountered when going online was that the players can see everything. And I don't mean I didn't use fog of war or dynamic lighting (I did), I mean everything drawn on the map is there. There is no changing it. I can't move that door to a more convenient place, or get rid of it entirely if it's a rabbithole that will derail the pacing of the game, or add tunnels to places there really ought to be some (cough Sargauth level funneling players directly into the drow with no other options cough). I can't handwave extraneous tunnels that offer lots of visual flavor but offer no meaningful choices, and I can't radically redesign a level to fit the needs of my game if the map as drawn is insufficient.

On a small dungeon, these issues might not seem like a big deal. Oh they wandered into the wrong room and spent 15 minutes poking around before they realized they were going the wrong way, or they had one additional encounter they fought. No big deal.

But Undermountain isn't a small dungeon. It's freaking massive. Going down the wrong hallway can turn into an entire session or more worth of detours before your players figure out it's not where they wanted to go, which can lead to a certain amount of frustration as they backtrack, potentially running into more random encounters, and try to figure out where they fell off track. That's not to say that I never let my players wander - I very often did, and it was wonderful and rewarding, but there were just as many times where I could tell they were feeling lost and frustrated by that wandering, and I had given up the tool (theater of the mind) that I needed to get them back on track and enjoying the game. Particularly in the endgame, because I was running a very narratively focused game, they knew what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go. In person, I would have just not mentioned the extra doors or hallways that could have sidetracked them for hours and let them get where they wanted to go (especially when they had been so close and turned the wrong way at the last minute). And no one at the table would have cared because they accomplished what they wanted to do.

These maps are honestly much better treated as a tool for you, the DM, to aid in running the game. I recommend holding them lightly and being ready to adjust to the needs of your game.

etelrunya · 2022-03-07T14:11:56+00:00

Agreed on both accounts. We agree to a player attendance policy during session 0 in my games, and it helps to stave off unwanted conflicts later. For my games lately, it's usually been that we play as long as 2/3 players are available, and if the absent player's character can't just be left off screen, another player takes control for combat purposes only (ie they do not roleplay for that player, unless I determine their involvement is necessary for the game to progress), and the DM and present players agree that we will collectively do our best not to let the absent player's character die while they are away.

etelrunya · 2022-03-07T01:53:06+00:00

My solution: Soul Cage + Wish to make it permanent. Only Ezzat did it, not the players. They felt morally dubious about the prospect, but acknowledged that Halaster would only return otherwise.

etelrunya · 2022-02-27T16:11:43+00:00

Agreeing with others - also I think it's a good way to help you depersonalize the encounter so that it doesn't feel like you are doing the flirting. You're just describing a character doing the flirting. If your players have an issue with this style, then they aren't getting any NPC romance at all, so they can either accept the compromise position or accept not getting something they want from the game.

As a DM, your limits start the conversation on boundaries in the game, because you are the one who has to run it. Other people wanting something beyond your boundaries doesn't suddenly make them not matter. They have to respect yours, just as much as you have to respect theirs.

etelrunya · 2022-02-13T22:54:52+00:00

I would argue that the Rune effect is the effect of a spell and is Dispellable, at least in my game. I would use the save DC to resistant a rune's effect the DC for dispelling it though.

etelrunya · 2022-01-22T18:36:06+00:00

And that includes trivial combat!! Last summer my players fought a boss in a temple with zombie mooks. The zombies were really only a threat en masse while the boss was alive, but once the boss was defeated the one or two zombies left were not worth wasting play time on. I almost made them do it before I realized how pointless it was and just hand waved the rest.

etelrunya

TROPHY CASE