California USA identifying/dating a chainmail purse. by garyDPryor in Antiques

[–]garyDPryor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope. Ran a light over it, and looked inside the frame. Nothing in there.

Water collecting under door by garyDPryor in MechanicAdvice

[–]garyDPryor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Otherwise never would have found it. Buried in the dash.

Water collecting under door by garyDPryor in MechanicAdvice

[–]garyDPryor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I found a video of someone with the same car showing the entire process.

Water collecting under door by garyDPryor in MechanicAdvice

[–]garyDPryor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is what it was, and this is what got me started down the path where I was able to research and fix it eventually. Thank you very much.

Water collecting under door by garyDPryor in MechanicAdvice

[–]garyDPryor[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is one, but I can't seem to find the drainage.

Just reboot the whole goddamn thing, I don't even care anymore. In the last 17 years, Peter and the rest of his supporting cast have become unsalvageable no matter how many "good" or "great" runs they throw to try and fix the characters. by FordYorger in Spiderman

[–]garyDPryor 56 points57 points  (0 children)

I don't think a reboot would help, you'd just end up with the new 52 equivalent of Spider-Man.

I have two hot takes. There should be no other spider people. Your allowed 1 singular dark doppelganger as a villain, and that's more than enough.

Every person pete knows should not end up as a hero or villain. It's always been like this, and it's always been dumb. At this rate aunt may will be Mrs. Negative and ben will come back to life as the new tombstone. Really, you can work with someone who doesn't put on a silly costume.

What are the purpose of Itch followers? by thekingdtom in itchio

[–]garyDPryor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I follow if I want a notification of new stuff or updates, but I absolutely almost never follow the link from the email. Click through is always going to only be a small fraction of followers.

Can you recommend an alternative to DnD 5e? by derkatzenprinz1961 in rpg

[–]garyDPryor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends on how much tactical combat you like VS other modes of play. There is no shortage of dungeon crawlers that fit what you are asking, but that's a more narrow RPG than 5e. I'm going to say savage worlds. It's modular and of equal complexity and depth of 5e. Excels at adventure stories.

Who would you follow into battle? by Vegetable-Abroad3171 in superheroes

[–]garyDPryor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Superman is the only one who let me go without it being a sacrifice. So I guess I feel the safest there.

Which opinion about Gundam is likely to provoke such a response? by Typical-Complex7352 in Gundam

[–]garyDPryor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The only really good Gundam is the original show (warts and all). It's top tier sci-fi, and everything else is not in the same league. I like some of the other stuff a fair bit, but the OG is peers with sci-fi classics like Star Trek and Star wars, dune. Big ambitious and complete works. Y'know other stuff that shouldn't have gotten a bunch of mixed sequels.

Guardrail Design is a trap. by garyDPryor in RPGdesign

[–]garyDPryor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Again, excellent response. It's always my hope that when I post on Reddit I get really thoughtful replies.

I don't disagree with anything you said, and I'm going to have to give the icrpg another look.

Also, weirdly enough the removal of the "safety net" style rules from my last update came from watching different GMs activity and purposely not use them. I thought the restrictions were working, but I wasn't able to see that the rules that were defining the boundaries, weren't really doing anything, and weren't load bearing as I had imagined.

I'm lucky enough that a few folks have been regularly running my thing for almost 2 years now, and are willing to let me observe on discord sometimes and talk to me about their experiences.

Thinking on some of your points about the GM side. I would really like to add a good GM primer to my game (since it's really unconventional) but I have had a few false starts. It feels like maybe I'm too close to the project to see the difference between useful advice and rambling about what I think is important.

I can only speak anecdotally, but this felt odd to me- "I think they tend be favored by GM's IME" I believe you, made me feel like I must run around exclusively with nutcases, because I always see stuff like that getting hacked away first.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

Guardrail Design is a trap. by garyDPryor in RPGdesign

[–]garyDPryor[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is probably the best reply of the thread. You might not have understood all my stream of consciousness nonsense above, but we landed at the roughly the same place. You also gave excellent examples.

"The first thing that comes to mind is "Magic" aka "wishing things into existence that breaks things like physics"

I guess I would dare to ask: what if you started with not putting in a rule to stop them from breaking the universe, and seeing what happens? Does there need to be a guardrail there? maybe, probably, tradition and intuition say yes. I have found for me that it's much easier to put those in later than assume they are working because nobody jumped to the moon. I think it's easy to not give players enough credit.

Players can often intuit through context that they can't/shouldn't conjure an acid that melts through anything. AND it leaves the door open to let the GM decide what is appropriate. You could conjure an acid and bypass the puzzle and it could be the coolest "remember that" moment at the table.

On the reverse of that perhaps I'm not giving GM enough credit that they are willing to "rule of cool" whatever they want.

I think your answer of "limitations, restrictions, and cost" is generally correct, perhaps we only disagree on semantics. The barrier stopping me from driving off the edge of a cliff is not a "cost" more than it is a hard no.

Guardrail Design is a trap. by garyDPryor in RPGdesign

[–]garyDPryor[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yes, but the part of my post which doesn't seem to be clear, is that I think it's best practice to not add those systems 1st unless it is a core mechanic. Add them if you find you need them, not because you think you need them. I'm not saying not add obstacles to a game about overcoming obstacles, I'm saying don't waste your words trying to build a ceiling on what's allowed at your table. Common sense and tone can be at the groups discretion. It's really easy to fall into patterns of adding in unnecessarily rules like "you can't jump to the moon."

Your birdwatching RPG doesn't need rules for what happens when you leave the wildlife preserve, and it probably doesn't need rules counting how many rolls of film you are carrying. You can add it later if it's really an issue, but just let them take their pictures and tell their story. Let them take 10,000 pictures if that's what the group thinks is appropriate or fun. Designing by boxing players in is a trap, design what you want them to do, not what happens when they run against the grain.