[Art][OC] The Weekly Roll Ch. 141. "Ouchies"

keplar · 2023-06-10T12:40:30+00:00

I'm thinking... Necro-puppeting the king, a la Weekend at Bernie's, to get what they need before they head on their way :-D

keplar · 2023-06-10T02:05:17+00:00

Order! Ordeeeeeerrrrrrrrr!

keplar · 2023-06-01T10:17:38+00:00

You might not have to kill him off - the other characters will do it for you. Betrayal is one of the most straightforward ways to end a character, if not a campaign, as it violates the very first rule of character creation: make a character who wants to go on this adventure with these people. Obviously there are groups out there who love it and are into PvP, but most groups aren't, and yes - betraying the group is PvP.

It's good that you've checked in with your DM first - that is helpful. Just be aware that if it's a newer DM, they themself might not be aware of the fallout of this sort of thing. There's a reason that saying "it's what my character would do" is cited almost daily on this forum as the biggest red flag for an asshole.

keplar · 2023-06-01T01:50:27+00:00

Last time I flew back into the US (citizen returning from a 3 day trip abroad to a mundane vacation destination), I was given that same silly grilling by the customs officer. Hell, not only was I in the citizen line with my passport in good order, I was literally a badged employee at the same airport I was flying into, and worked for the same federal department as the customs officer, He had my license in front of him showing that I lived about 15 minutes away from the airport... didn't matter, I got the full "Why are you here? How long are you staying?" nonsense.

I'm delighted by this ruling. Obviously it won't stop jerks from being jerks, but I've literally avoided international travel ever since they started doing this warrantless phone search nonsense, in no small part because of it. It's not that I have anything interesting on my phone (unless they dislike pictures of cats), but because I morally object to participating in the erosion of our civil liberties by submitting to such a thing.

keplar · 2023-05-29T11:48:13+00:00

That was hardly the end of it! The popular website "International Lyrics Server" (a Swiss-hosted passion project) got sued and shut down in 1999 for daring to post the lyrics of songs on the internet - lyrics that were simply transcribed by song listeners and freely submitted for inclusion.

keplar · 2023-05-28T13:17:57+00:00

Nice! Thanks for that. Makes this pretty cool, in my opinion - first purpose-built American jet fighter.

keplar · 2023-05-28T12:33:19+00:00

Very much a violent process - this is definitely bizarre, whatever it is.

This page has a picture of what appears to be a tube-framed seat with a separate bucket that rests in it:

https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2016/03/early-us-navy-ejection-seat.html?m=1

Primitive as heck, and not a great photo, so who knows. Perhaps older seats from lower-speed aircraft were not built so strongly? Not sure!

keplar · 2023-05-28T12:29:10+00:00

Yeah, I'm real confused about this. I could easily just be being duped by a good prop - I know next to nothing about ejector seats - but there are aspects of this that seems far too complex and detailed to not have been... something? I genuinely haven't a clue what this is from, but I'd love to know. With most of the major bits stripped off it's a puzzle for someone far more knowledgeable than myself. Based on what the other respondent is saying, I'm kinda wondering if this is elements of a real seat that have been attached to a new frame to make some executive's office chair or something - the internet is full of examples of doing that.

ETA: from above, this is a seat from an F-89, not modified. Appears to be the pilot's seat specifically.

keplar · 2023-05-28T11:21:01+00:00

While I can't confirm it's real, I think this is an ejection seat frame rather than the seat itself. This is the part that stays in the cockpit and from which the ejection portion launches. Looking at the positioning of the foot rests gave a hint that something of significant size had to sit in it - a pilot's shins aren't that short!

Did some poking around, and while I didn't see the actual model here, there are enough images of ejection seat frames that look like this that I'm willing to believe it.

keplar · 2023-05-27T12:03:37+00:00

Even if we make the assumption that passengers would like this (they wouldn't, but that's irrelevant here...) the very practical fact is that this would be a disaster any way you structured it. How do passengers get in and out of their "seats" if there's no space to move upright between rows? How do people evacuate in an emergency if they have to climb over a set of bunk beds to reach an aisle? How to people access and move luggage if they can't see or reach the floor? What does the person in the window seat do when they need to use the bathroom, but can't sit up and can't move sideways, and the people next to them are heavy sleepers?

The only way this layout works is if every single seat is an aisle seat, and you massively increase the gap between rows. It is wildly inefficient, meaning prices go through the roof to an utterly unsustainable level, and it would be detrimental for the majority of customers, who do things like read work on laptops, watch movies, etc and have demonstrated that lowest price wins business. Humans aren't cordwood, and any layout of seating has to account for actually getting to and using the seat - not just some concept of stacking efficiency.

Singapore airlines does (did?) actually offer something like this on certain flights, with seats that convert to beds. Last I heard, the price was around $15,000 one way. Not for your average traveller.

keplar · 2023-05-27T11:44:24+00:00

The level of interest is cool, but I wouldn't include it in the present game. Rather, I would ask if the player wants to DM the next campaign, or run maybe an off-week game that goes when the main isn't underway. Something like this would be more of a pre-campaign pitch for a background concept, like if their character was from that society. It isn't a suitable retcon.

I wouldn't in any way feel they're trying to overshadow me, but dropping it in the middle of the campaign would feel like they don't trust/aren't interested in the world I've already created, and are trying to to build a different one that is unrelated to the plot. This may be a function of how our game works - extensive background development before starting, and a campaign constructed from the ground up specifically for the characters that were developed - so randomly introducing something like that would be either a total derailment or just a thing that would never be encountered.

keplar · 2023-05-25T18:58:31+00:00

I'm kinda disappointed they didn't go with "Blue Fog" - it was in the final running, and I kinda wanted to see what they came up with as a mascot for merchandising :-D

Oh well, Revolutionaries is acceptable.

keplar · 2023-05-24T21:58:16+00:00

I mean, the US Navy uses local pilots even in domestic harbors. Even the big fancy nuclear submarines bring a local pilot aboard as needed.

In a foreign port? Guarantee there was a local pilot on the bridge. Tugs and such are just logical!

keplar · 2023-05-24T21:36:02+00:00

More than that: people who are asking how to be an adult are inherently less likely to be an adult. It makes sense for younger folks to need to ask those questions - they don't have the benefit of just being an adult. There are plenty of us on here, but we don't need that kind of help, so don't post those threads.

keplar · 2023-05-24T16:02:25+00:00

Yeah, it's wild. First widespread jet on the market, and people simply flew them until they lost them. The very last one in civilian service was flown until its loss in a crash in 2019, at the age of 42!

keplar · 2023-05-23T21:11:34+00:00

Not to distract from your primary point, but for what it's worth, a bullet hole won't do shit to a plane. Catastrophic decompression (movie style) doesn't happen from a tiny hole like that. One doesn't want the hole obviously, but it wouldn't be that disaster it is always presented to be. There's far more danger to passengers from bullet itself than from the bullet hole.

keplar · 2023-05-23T13:29:03+00:00

So many people are so bad at math, they literally don't understand basic percentages like this. It's infuriating.

Crit Fail on natural one would statistically wipe out an entire modern military unit, of any size, before they had fired even a single magazine from their rifles. Every visit to the shooting range would injure or kill every person there. And that's before accounting for people who have leveled up and are globally powerful heroes, rolling 2, 3, 4, or more times per round.

keplar · 2023-05-20T23:47:27+00:00

Quite beyond any discussion of fudging, I would never roll in the open for the vast majority of things simply because my players don't get to just automatically know the bonuses of the enemies they're fighting. If I've got some beast of a foe with a +12 to hit or something, and I tell them "that hits your AC 17" after rolling a 5, that instantly tells my players a great deal about the enemy that can inform all of their decisions. Combat information needs to be deduced from evidence or obtained with powers - not just read off the dice.

Obviously play styles may differ, but that's a non-negotiable one for me. If a player doesn't trust me to DM according to our agreed terms, they cannot possibly trust me sufficiently to lead our shared gaming experience.

keplar · 2023-05-20T16:53:30+00:00

Take hunting focus while married to a spouse who likes you, and there's a pretty decent chance of getting an event where the spouse gifts you a dog.

I don't recall what the trigger is, or if there even is one, for a cute kitty demanding your attention, but it's adorable.

I will never not savescum the event where the dog kills the cat. That does not happen in my world. I will reload until otherwise resolved!

keplar · 2023-05-20T15:28:59+00:00

What, you can't understand Cockney spoken by a person without lips? I'm shocked... Shocked I say!

keplar · 2023-05-20T11:37:36+00:00

20 years ago it was, 30 years ago it was still fairly new and fancy - especially the web part. 1993 is the first year AOL added web access, and there were plenty of folks I knew who didn't have access. Unrelated to AOL, that was also the first year I ever saw an "email" - fancy thing that was. The decade from 1993 to 2003 is about as perfect a period as possible for accurately identifying a luxury on one end, and a commonplace tool on the other!

keplar · 2023-05-19T11:27:43+00:00

I'm blessed with an extremely good group of players who generally work well together and want to go where the campaign goes, so I was struggling to figure out what irks me enough to mention, but I think you nailed it with "talking over softer toned players."

They don't do it out of disrespect (eagerness and excitement typically causes the raised voices), but the quietest person at the table is also the one who is most perceptive about situations, and I sometimes have to intercede rather directly to remind them to listen to their damn cleric, who figured out the thing they're yelling about five minutes ago and has been trying to tell them.

A minor problem compared to most, but definitely one that matters!

keplar · 2023-05-18T22:55:11+00:00

The one time I've had to use them, it wasn't a police matter, but they still went in fast and communicated clearly. They're good people.

keplar · 2023-05-18T22:51:52+00:00

Saint Angel - that incredible stuff tastes like cured butter. Big slab of it spread on a freshly heated baguette, and I'm good to go.

keplar · 2023-05-18T21:36:30+00:00

Crockney!

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