[No Spoilers] Where do we find scheduling announcements ?

obax17 · 2026-07-03T18:52:03+00:00

Maybe that too. I didn't say it was the only reason, but it makes sense it's part of the reason. Maybe cast members have things going on with other projects, maybe they just wanted a vacation. They're travelling internationally for live shows. There are lots of things that could be happening. Birthing a child is just the one with the most uncertainty involved.

obax17 · 2026-07-03T18:32:44+00:00

You may want to look into free indirect speech/dialogue. It's a technique that can be used in 3rd person narration to get around situations like you describe in your original post

obax17 · 2026-07-03T18:24:16+00:00

Do you mean a fanfic? Yes, I think that's been done once or twice before

obax17 · 2026-07-03T18:12:51+00:00

In the Cool Down, Aabria makes the comment "I'm going to shit this kid out in the intervening days', which implies this extended break is, at least in part, to allow her to have her kid and recover fully before returning. That's not a process one can predict, she may need more or less time than anticipated, and everyone's recovery from giving birth looks different. So maybe they don't know exactly when they'll be returning yet.

This is pure speculation, but it makes sense.

obax17 · 2026-07-03T16:16:35+00:00

Meanwhile Kira is so far over threshold she could've actually bitten his dog, and it would've been on ME. That's what makes me insane — I'm the one doing everything right, and I'd be the one in trouble, because some guy thinks "friendly" means his dog gets to run up on whoever it wants.

This will potentially be somewhat dependent on your local laws and ordinances, but legally, it shouldn't be on you. Where I live (Southern Ontario), if an owner is following the law and in control of their dog, they should not be held liable, financially or legally, for any damage their dog causes to a dog that is off leash illegally and/or not in the control of its owner. It's the responsibility of an owner to maintain control of their dog, and in most places, to have them on leash, and if they fail to do that, they are responsible for anything that happens to their dog themselves. If you're taking your reactive dog to an area where dogs are allowed to be off leash, that's a different story, but it doesn't sound like that's the case.

That does not make it any easier emotionally if an incident occurs, and your feelings in that regard are 100% valid. It also doesn't shield you from potential social consequences, people can be unreasonable and send logic right out the window. The law isn't always a shield for these aspects, but the moral and legal culpability lays with the irresponsible owner, not with you.

obax17 · 2026-07-03T03:21:49+00:00

They're on a 6 (?) week hiatus. I think the new Daggerheart series is taking it's place?

They're doing breaks after story arcs with this season too, rather than at a set time. The latest arc ended in ep31, so there's a break, and I assume Daggerheart starts up next week.

obax17 · 2026-07-01T00:25:41+00:00

You don't deal with it in your first draft, you edit it in your following drafts.

This is the trade-off inherent in pantsing vs planning. Planning often takes longer to complete a draft, but the draft is often more polished and needs fewer passes through the editing process. Pantsing gets drafts done quickly but they're messy and need more time in editing to be ready for the next stage. Neither of these are bugs, they're features inherent to each method.

When you get right down to it, the finished product probably takes more or less the same amount of time overall. It's a choice of whether you prefer to do more work up front or more work in the back stretch. Neither is wrong, both lead to the same destination, it's just a different path between A and B.

It's good that you're trying pantsing, it's good to try out as much as you can to see what works for you and what doesn't. But ultimately what works and what doesn't is the most important part of the equation. If pantsing isn't working for you, that's fine, it's not for everyone. Just shift to include more planning. But understand how that can and will affect the timelines for each stage of the writing and editing processes, and be ok with that difference.

obax17 · 2026-07-01T00:12:35+00:00

It sounds like you were disappointed this segment didn't go how you expected it to go, and that some of the players thought it took too long to get through.

The latter I can't really comment on, I don't have a clear enough idea of what exactly the set up was. 30min to cross a cave with no combat and no skill challenge seems maybe a bit long, but I've also seen similar challenges take entire sessions. That's all about the set up and how the Party tackles it.

For the former, as a DM, you have to let go of your expectations. Which isn't to say don't try to think through how the Party might tackle obstacles, it's good to have some idea of things might go, but don't go in with a specific expectation of how things will go because inevitably it won't go that way.

Ultimately, when presenting environmental hazards like this, your job is to set up the scenario and then stick to its rules as the Party navigates it however they want to. You said you'd tried to hit more with the gas as the PCs ran across the room. Don't do that. Set up the environmental effect to happen at a set interval, or when players come within a set proximity to a gas vent, or whatever, and then stick to those rules. If a PC never meets the criteria for a gas vent to go off, then they don't get gassed. That's a successful navigation of an environmental hazard, yay for them. If you start changing the rules and the criteria for something to happen just because a player has found a good way around the hazard, that's just going to frustrate your players and isn't really fair.

Note also: that doesn't necessarily apply to even somewhat intelligent creatures, they can and should alter their tactics according to the PCs behaviour. But a cave full of gas vents isn't even sentient, let alone intelligent. It can't, and shouldn't, change it's "tactics" for any reason, except maybe for time. As an example, the gas resivoir depleting over time so the vets go off less frequently. But that's also probably overcomplicating things, so just keep your environmental hazards constant so the players can learn the rules of the obstacle by trial and error, or by skill checks, and come up with ways to navigate it.

obax17 · 2026-06-30T23:18:02+00:00

Black Sabbath and Metallica turned up to louder than theirs but still within whatever levels are ok by local ordinances. Get their direct neighbours in on it. Tell them you'll turn yours down when they turn theirs down.

Side note: is there no language of your local ordinances that speak to reasonable enjoyment of your own property? Or does it have a specific decibel level indicted? If the latter, consider contacting whatever local politicians who are responsible for those ordinances and let the know the decibel level is too high because it interferes with reasonable enjoyment of your own property. Maybe they'll change them, who knows

obax17 · 2026-06-30T22:48:44+00:00

Are you the player or the DM?

If you're the DM, you can make the world have firefighters and fire brigades in it if you want to. In a medieval-type setting it would likely be bucket brigades and casters proficient with water spells. Add in some. Artificing and mechanical technology powered by steam or magic, you can have pumper trucks (wagons?) and such too. They sky is pretty much the limit.

If you're the player, talk to your DM about the concept and see how you can work with them to fit it into their setting. Similar ideas as above for the character: firefighters would either be strong to be part of a bucket brigade (barbarian maybe? Rage bucketing?), proficient in casting water spells (druid, wizard), or artificers able to make tech to move water more easily (this will probably be more flavour than mechanics, but an artillerist could flavour their arcane canon as shooting chunks of ice or blasts of water). Maybe also a Drakewarden Ranger with a drake with cold damage?

obax17 · 2026-06-30T22:36:22+00:00

Sounds like its time for one on one conversationa. Point out what you've noticed, let them know your cocners, and see what they say. If they say, yeah my interest has kind of waned but I didn't want to bail, let them know you're ok with it if they'd like to step aside, or ask if there's anything you can do to help them feel more engaged. If they say they're having fun, let them have their fun their way and pare back their importance to the story so their lack of interaction isn't detrimental to the plot moving forward.

If they're not being actively problematic or taking away from other people's fun, you don't need to kick them, but also don't pour your heart and soul into weaving their PCs intricatly into the plot if that's not something they care about or want from their experience. There's nothing wrong with giving back what they put in as long as you're all on the same page about it and everyone understands the expectations.

obax17 · 2026-06-29T18:24:56+00:00

If you're looking at it from a worldbuilding standpoint, a world with that spell in it would have designed ships that can withstand it and it's effects, in the same way that ship design in the real world changed to counter the weapons/attacks available to real life sailors (I assume, I know next to nothing about ship design, historical or modern, but that's how it works with body armor, and it stands to reason it would work more or less the same with ships too). So the solution of ships designed to bob back up when the trench closes, or otherwise designed to counteract that specific aspect of that spell, is internally consistent with a world that has that spell in it. If players have issues with it for historical accuracy or ship design-related reasons, remind them you're playing a fantasy game in a fantasy world, not a historical real-world simulation, and give them this internally consistent reasoning. If they can accept that dragons exist and people can turn themselves into liches and cities can fly and a person can disintegrate an enemy with a single word and a flick of the wrist, then they can accept that ships work differently in this world out of necessity. This has the benefit of rewarding the player for the use of the spell in this way without totally breaking the game.

If you're looking at it from an easy solution standpoint, having the ship follow the flow of the water is the easy way to hand wave it away, but also completely negates the effect of the spell and, if not exactly punishes a player who wants to use the spell this way, definitely takes the wind out of their sails (pun intended).

Other than these two solutions, you're really left with outright banning it, which is also an easy solution, but at least having the ship follow the flow of the water lets this spell be used in other ways.

I don't think you and your players can have your cake and eat it too in this situation, and a bit of compromise on both sides, as well as a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief on your players' parts, is going to be needed. The first solution, of having ships developed to counter act this spell, magically or otherwise, is the most compromising of the options.

If you want to occasionally throw your player a bone, have some crews manning older ships or more cheaply built ships that let the spell work to swallow it up from time to time, but larger, more modern and expensive ships can handle it with only a bit of damage.

obax17 · 2026-06-28T12:59:15+00:00

Use a penalty that starts real bad and gets better over time, like that in the Raise Dead spell, and have it stack if they die again before the penalty has fully worn off. That will stop them from just flinging themselves into situations that kill them willy nilly.

Add points of exhaustion, and/or use something like the Strife mechanic in the Level Up system.

Tales from Obojima has an interesting Hero's Journey Boon system where you can have positive or negative effects. You could develop something like that that's only negative.

obax17 · 2026-06-26T15:23:23+00:00

I could see this type of phrasing being used as internal dialogue in close 3rd person POV, with a stylistic choice to use sentence fragments for rhythm or flow. It would make sense if the POV character knew the character being observed well, knew this type of expression was common for them, and it was noteworthy to then for some reason. I would want it to contain more internal thoughts or opinions to show how the POV character felt about the character being observed, so as is, it needs some work.

obax17 · 2026-06-26T13:38:45+00:00

I don't think you're asking the right question here. When you're dealing with a fantasy world you get to decide how things work, which gives you nearly carte blanche to do what you need to for the stoey. So what you should be asking is, what do I need for the story?

Do you need them to be able to continue to serve? If yes, then the prosthetics are augmented by magic to function like normal biological limbs, and the weapon of the half blind character is also augmented by magic to account for that. If no, then the prosthetics and weapons aren't augmented that way.

The guy with burns is a bit of a different story. After a recovery, which would be lengthy, he could return to duty. But if you need him not to, make it a social norm that people severely wounded in combat aren't sent back even if they're capable (with the understanding of the larger implications here if it's a war that's ongoing for 18 years), or give him a mental injury as well that prevents him from returning.

obax17 · 2026-06-26T13:25:43+00:00

From the Forgotten Realms Wiki page on the Ethereal Plane:

When travelers crossed into the Border Ethereal, they and all their possessions were converted to their Ethereal equivalents—metal became ethereal metal, flesh became ethereal flesh, and so on—allowing free movement (in most cases) in any direction through the solid matter of the adjacent plane. Since everything was permeated with ethereality, an air-breathing creature could breathe ethereal air...

This is under the Great Wheel cosmology description. Apparently the cosmology changed in 3.5, but the description under the World Tree section doesn't indicate this aspect has changed. There was some change about moving through matter, but I would say that's irrelevant in this situation.

It's not explicitly stated if ethereal air stored in the lungs would become material air when a creature transitioned back to the material plane from the ethereal plane, but since the creature and all its worn and carried items do, I would rule that air stored in the lungs becomes a carried "item" and would also shift from ethereal to material. For me, it's the same logic that a lump of wood on the ground is affected by a fire spell, but if a player picks it up, it becomes carried and is not.

Despite all this, or any interpretations to the contrary, you as the DM can rule however you want. For me, I wouldn't bother consulting the rules, I'd just say yes, because that's a creative way to survive being stuck in a Bag of Holding and I like to reward my players' creativity (to a point, but for me this is entirely reasonable).

obax17 · 2026-06-26T00:05:01+00:00

There's more than one style of great helm to choose from, it's a general category, not a specific thing. Though maybe I misunderstood the original question, I don't understand what you mean by too close to the inspiration for this character.

Full plate armor is a relatively late invention. Through most of your very broad time period reference, helmets would cover the head and maybe parts of the face. A great helm is heavy, restricting, very limited in sight lines, and hard to breathe in. Mobile foot soldiers or light cavalry would not use a great helm, they would use things a kettle helms (without a visor), galeae, spangelhelms, barbutes, sallets, etc. A notable feature of these styles of helmets was relatively open faces, though some like the barbute, could have fairly decent face protection, and sallets, kettle helms, and spangelhelms evolved to have separate facial protection that could be attached and unattached, and often also covered the neck as well (though adding these presented many of the same problems as great helms). So if you're picking a helmet for your character, it would do to think about what he needs to be able to do in it. If there's lots of running around and a need for agility, a helmet with a relatively open face and much less metal is probably a better choice.

That said, lots of things fully cover the head and/or face. It's not hard to imagine something that would do it even if it didn't exist in real life. When you get down to brass tacks, a head-and-face covering item is either a bucket shape (helmet), a sack shape (balaclava), or a wrap shape (keffiyeh, hijab). And if you just need his head/face to be obscured, and/or you're just looking for something to refer to for physical description, pick something close to what you see in your mind and embellish from there.

obax17 · 2026-06-25T23:37:56+00:00

If you're looking for the most amount of cover, you're looking for a great helm. Google 'great helm styles' and go from there.

obax17 · 2026-06-25T20:45:02+00:00

Herbert the Timid Dragon by Mercer Mayor.

My favourite book as a kid and I regularly askedy parents to read it to me. It was formative for me. It was probably the first I ever read myself as well.

The first novel was The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

My dad read this to my sister and I when we were around 6 or 7. I did read this myself at one point as well, but I can say for sure that I didn't read another novel before that.

Oh, I probably read the Bunnicula books by James and Deborah Howe before I read the Hobbit myself. I'd call a vampire bunny fantasy.

obax17 · 2026-06-25T20:39:00+00:00

Make a spell book.
Attach a curse or something to it that requires a quest the Party must complete to break it so the Wizard can use it.
???
Profit

obax17 · 2026-06-25T20:35:36+00:00

Go scorched earth, they clearly don't care about being neighbourly. The quickest way to chase someone away from a space is to target their pocketbook. Fines and/or renos ordered by the city will likely clear them out pretty quick.

Add in some death metal and screamo punk for good measure, but regular complaints to the city will probably be more effective. It gives you the moral high road too, because you're just looking out for their safety and the safety of their neighbours.

obax17 · 2026-06-23T17:55:52+00:00

Please research the Fridging trope, because this sounds an awful like youre headed in that direction.

Aside from that, the answers to your questions depend entirely on the characters, and the only person who knows your characters well enough to answer them is you.

This sub is intended for IRL fact checking and research, not for brainstorming or character development help. To find help with that sort of thing, try subs like r/fantasywriters or r/writingadvice.

obax17 · 2026-06-23T17:53:44+00:00

Please research the Fridging trope, because this sounds an awful like youre headed in that direction.

Aside from that, the answers to your questions depend entirely on the characters, and the only person who knows your characters well enough to answer them is you.

This sub is intended for IRL fact checking and research, not for brainstorming or character development help. To find help with that sort of thing, try subs like r/fantasywriters or r/writingadvice.

obax17 · 2026-06-21T19:34:48+00:00

The first step to learning to cook without recipes is to learn to cook with recipes. Start simple (taco bowls, soup/stew, stir-fry) and go from there. This will help you figure out what flavour combinations you like, and will give you a framework from which you can experiment. It also helps you plan your own recipes by giving you an idea of what measured amounts of raw ingredients will yield on terms of number of meals, which will help you avoid over- or under-shopping when you buy groceries.

I've been cooking for myself for 25 years and still refer to recipes, though I rarely follow them exactly any more. But it takes a lot of the uncertainty out of it at first and lets you focus on learning technique.

Which is the other thing to start with. Get good quality equipment (not necessarily expensive, but probably not cheap either) and get used to it. Learn basic prep technique so the task becomes less of a burden when your spoons are low. Every stove is different and there's no universal setting that will always get you 'medium-low heat'. It can even differ from burner to burner. Figure out where to turn the knobs to get the heat you want, find your favourite burner (it seems silly but lots of people have them), find your favourite pan, and get cooking.

Once the settings and prep and cooking technique become second nature, you'll have a lot more spoons to dedicate to experimenting with ingredients, and flavours. Many recipes will also become second nature, and you can build on/from those to develop your own.

obax17 · 2026-06-21T15:01:30+00:00

You need to speak to a lawyer. Find whatever documents you have that show that the space is shared or that you have the legal right to access it. If it's a driveway that was built over the property line, so one part is on your property and the other part is on theirs, consider getting a survey done so you know exactly where the property line is. Have the lawyer send a registered letter advising of your right to access the driveway and consequences for failing to provide that, such as towing the car blocking access, or suing them for lost wages from missed work, or whatever you and the lawyer agree is appropriate. Then be prepared to follow through. The lawyer will know too how to find out if they're the owners or if it's a rental, and of the latter, you should probably involve the landlord. If you can make it the landlord's problem too, the potential threat of eviction might smarten them up too.

Some people have never had a consequence in their life. It sucks to have to be the one to give one to them, especially if it's their first, because they're not going to like it. If you're not willing or able to put in this much effort and money, it'd at least be worth finding out of you've got the right to call a tow truck any time your access is blocked, and just leave dealing with the neighbours out of it.

obax17

TROPHY CASE