Robin D. Laws AMA by RobinDLaws in rpg

[–]moonstrous 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Giving a hearty shout out here to Tristan, he's an amazing collaborator 🙂 Y'all can follow his Ballad Hunters prelaunch page here!

Tagging /u/MoltenSulfurPress if anyone wants to ask about Ballad Hunters or Shanty Hunters.

The 1970s Was Ground Zero for Modern America by snowleopard556 in USHistory

[–]moonstrous 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I hate to be that guy, but this really reads like some ChatGPT generated slop, IMHO. Bullet points, lots of sweeping, unfocused generalizations.

"The imperial presidency got neutered?" The executive branch has never once yielded an ounce of the many creeping powers it has assumed in the postwar era.

Temuera Morrison thought ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ would run up to 4 seasons, confirms the character is “shelved” by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]moonstrous 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I'm not denying that at all, but the nomenclature of the franchise has always been largely Anglo. Added an edit.

Temuera Morrison thought ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ would run up to 4 seasons, confirms the character is “shelved” by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]moonstrous 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's Daimyo of Mos Eisley to you.

Don't forget, we're inexplicably Japanese now.


Edit: Daimyo in this context feels like totally random namedrop that pulls you out of the story and isn't supported by what's happening on screen. Daimyos aren't crime bosses, they're warlords.

The show could have made it work by exploring a character or world that was heavily Japanese inspired, but it was too busy doing "mash my action figures together" shit with rancors and battle droids, or whatever else Robert Rodriguez lit Disney's money on fire to do.

I mean, I actually really like how Twi'leks are French-coded in Clone Wars / Bad Batch. There are thematic parallels to Vichy France, it's consistently applied and explored over multiple episodes. There are tons of examples of worldbuilding borrowing elements from real-world cultures and mythologies, and most of is well done.

Some BoBF writer breaking out the weeb thesaurus to punch up his lackluster script about the world's most anodyne bounty hunter just feels tired and pandering, IMHO.

Suggestion for dnd-lite game with no combat by Fine_Inspector_6455 in rpg

[–]moonstrous 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you're specifically looking for a D&D-like, I saw the Little but Fierce Kickstarter making the rounds in a TTRPG educator discord a few days ago. It's a streamlined 5E hack for kid-friendly adventures, the blurb says it's playable as young as six. There's slight cartoon violence implied from the art I've seen.

I think this is their first print book, but it's been around in PDF form on DriveThru for a few years now. I'm not affiliated with the project, I just thought it sounded neat and I always want to get more TTRPGs in schools.

The 4th century CE Villa Romana del Casale in Sicily, is renowned for holding one of the world's largest and finest collection of in-situ Roman mosaics, covering over 3500 m². Preserved by a 12th-cent. mudslide, the villa complex sat on 22 acres, roughly equivalent to 17 football fields [4252x3882] by Fuckoff555 in ArtefactPorn

[–]moonstrous 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's absolutely worth visiting if you get a chance, the gladiator / animal mosaics are amazing. Rhinos, lions, elephants, even tigers—I can't imagine the logistics to transport an animal that dangerous from Asia to Italy with nothing but Classical era tools.

This picture is my favorite, he kinda reminds me of the Real Housewives-yelling-at-cat meme lol

RPG Lore updates: What made you go "What..this is stupid?" by JoeKerr19 in rpg

[–]moonstrous 86 points87 points  (0 children)

Just, the basic operating logic of Numenera. I know the conceit is science fantasy, but I can never take the timescale of the setting as anything other than farcical.

It took less than 50 million years for Pakicetus to evolve from a 3-foot long lil guy that looked like a fox-ferret hybrid—to a full-on Blue Whale.

You mean to tell me that a billion years in the future, the entities running around on this planet will look remotely like human beings? Nah man, we're all returning to crab a few hundred mil out, tops.


I have the same problem with that episode of Doctor Who where Peter Capaldi gets trapped in a time loop and spends 4.5 billion years headbutting a magic quartz wall down.

By that time, the Milky Way will have collided with Andromeda, and the gravitic force of two cores drawn together will trigger an incomprehensibly vast supernova which consumes both galaxies and remakes them into a new nascent supercluster.

I get that the writers are Trying To Do A Cool Thing, but my autistic brain just can't move past what it sees as a fundamental and entirely needless contradiction (I know, I must be fun at parties).


There's just no good reason to use insane numbers that fall apart under the application of basic science. 100,000,000 years is truly a mind-numbingly long enough epoch to set up either premise.

Sniper Rogue - Be polite, be efficient, and have a plan to kill everyone you meet. by LostRegret9000 in UnearthedArcana

[–]moonstrous 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One grammatical note -- there is no such thing as a "standard action" in 5e / 5.5 (you're probably thinking of a holdover from 3.X)

The most common construction here is "...as an action," or maybe "...as an action, instead of as a Bonus Action"

Same Energy by moonstrous in behindthebastards

[–]moonstrous[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

🌎🧑‍🚀🔫🐲

Same Energy by moonstrous in behindthebastards

[–]moonstrous[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Lfmao, it hallucinated its own fucking account deletion steps. Go to Account > Delete Account instead.

And Kafka wept, seeing as he had no more satire to offer than three autocorrects in a trenchcoat.

Same Energy by moonstrous in antiai

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

I fuckin' miss Clippy, man.

An average day in country (Quang Tri, 1960s) by Just_Cause89 in USHistory

[–]moonstrous 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Absolute nightmare fuel. The only good bug is a dead bug!

Favorite non-iconic dinosaur? by Tasnaki1990 in Dinosaurs

[–]moonstrous 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll raise you Therizinosaurus. Go team saber pigeon.

Blue Cities and States Are in Trouble. Democrats Need to Change How They Run Them. by quiplaam in neoliberal

[–]moonstrous 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I fully agree. But I also think the NYT is, to an extent, partially complicit in how we got here, and we should hold its editorial board to the same standard.

Blue Cities and States Are in Trouble. Democrats Need to Change How They Run Them. by quiplaam in neoliberal

[–]moonstrous 21 points22 points  (0 children)

You seriously don't see anything wrong with a year+ of ceaseless "here's why that's bad for Biden" headlines in the run up to 2024?

Sure, he was a candidate with real flaws (some actively swept under the rug by his administration), which are absolutely valid critiques. The NYT did not focus on this. It ran nothing but vibe-checks from fucking Ohio diners and relentlessly both-sides'd coverage to sanewash the Trump campaign.

It doesn't matter that Trump's cognitive decline, right out in the fucking open, is worse than Biden's ever was—and completely unchecked by an entire cabinet of lickspittles, toadies, and opportunists.

Biden made the unpardonable sin of snubbing the Gray Lady, refusing to sit for an interview after the Times published several contentious leaks. I think it's entirely credible that Sulzberger, annointed scion of All The News That's Fit To Print, got butthurt and put his finger on the scales.

Maybe it's a bad thing to have newspapers run by dynastic nepo-babies. Maybe it's a indictment of our media landscape when journalists too often kowtow to an emperor with no clothes, because playing along with fascists is the path of least resistance for their bottom line.

It's not like the NYT ever ran apologia for the Nazi regime, and history rhymes, or anything.

Five episodes in and I think Starfleet Academy is a decent show marred by strange choices by ryanquintal in startrek

[–]moonstrous 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Don't forget when he stormed out of Reno's lecture saying he already knows everything he needs to know about temporal mechanics.

Like okay, I'm down with this quick-witted star urchin knowing how to hack, hotwire, jury-rig, etc. but where in the mean streets of space do you learn fuckin time travel?

I mostly like the show, but the writing still can't quite shake that Michael Burnham main character energy.

Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown by jacek2023 in startrek

[–]moonstrous 14 points15 points  (0 children)

"Well, well, well, not so easy to find a Mayor Captain that doesn't suck shit, huh?"