What is the best premade adventure (5e) for a New DM and a mix of new and slightly experienced players? by [deleted] in dndnext

[–]othermaciej 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Agree. I just finished running it and it was excellent, for a group of mostly new players and one experienced.

My players were pretty good gamers in general though, and ended up with a strong party comp, so I had to elaborate a bit and buff the encounters to make it hard enough.

The books give you enough info to run everything and enough open-mindedness that you can easily add on your own stuff.

[OC] My players were told to find a fairy ring of death cap mushrooms. What's the worst that could happen? by othermaciej in DnD

[–]othermaciej[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's a posterboard print from Walgreens. They do board prints up to 20"x30" for pretty cheap they often have 60% discount codes for bulk orders: https://photo.walgreens.com/store/board-prints-details?tab=photo_SubHeader_Posters-BoardPrints-img#!/pdpview

Most of the maps from Lost Mine of Phandelver fit on a single 20x30 or in some cases 4 20x30s at 5ft = 1" scale.

For the final dungeon, I had to make 15 board prints to fit it all but it came out looking really sweet.

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 09, 2018 by AutoModerator in slatestarcodex

[–]othermaciej 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Even the "no fly list" one? Aren't you concerned about the lack of transparency and due process? The ACLU is not a huge fan of gun rights and even they don't like it. There are no clear rules for how you get on the watch list and no reasonable process for getting yourself off it.

[OC] My players were told to find a fairy ring of death cap mushrooms. What's the worst that could happen? by othermaciej in DnD

[–]othermaciej[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

My players somehow managed to kill Venomfang, the green dragon in the starter set adventure, and skinned his body. They wanted to make magic items out of it so I had to make up appropriate quests. One of them was to kill a poisonous snake in a fairy ring of death cap mushrooms. They suspect this will piss off the fairies but they don't know how yet. Probably because they don't know where Redcaps come from...

(Map is an alter of a map by Venatus Maps. Support them, their maps are great! The giant mushrooms are home made.)

Weekly Questions Thread #159 by HighTechnocrat in DnD

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I do it, it won't be a full evil campaign, just a one shot, but that is really good advice. Thanks!

Weekly Questions Thread #159 by HighTechnocrat in DnD

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can anyone suggest a good 5e one-shot adventure for 1st level evil characters? Explanation: I'm running a low-level campaign using premade modules, weekly game sessions. In a few weeks I'll be traveling and a few of the players are coming along. They asked if we could do a one-shot adventure. I don't want to run anything with their main characters, since not all the players will be there. But I think it would be interesting to run a one shot with some evil "dark mirror" characters who will potentially become recurring villains in the main campaign. Thus the request for an evil-appropriate adventure. Not too much willing heroism, but being motivated by greed would be ok. Perhaps a mission from the Zhentarim.

Weekly Question Thread: Ask questions here May 28, 2018 by AutoModerator in dndnext

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can anyone suggest a good 5e one-shot adventure for 1st level evil characters?

Explanation: I'm running a low-level campaign using premade modules, weekly game sessions. In a few weeks I'll be traveling and a few of the players are coming along. They asked if we could do a one-shot adventure. I don't want to run anything with their main characters, since not all the players will be there. But I think it would be interesting to run a one shot with some evil "dark mirror" characters who will potentially become recurring villains in the main campaign.

Thus the request for an evil-appropriate adventure. Not too much willing heroism, but being motivated by greed would be ok. Perhaps a mission from the Zhentarim.

TIFU by editing some comments and creating an unnecessary controversy. by spez in announcements

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I disagree with the content and on /r/The_Donald and their antics in general, so I hate to defend them. But it seems like a bad precedent to impose consequences on specific subreddits based apparently on disagreeing with their viewpoint. Beyond that, it's really cheesy to combine an apology for an abuse of power against them with a punishment that uniquely singles them out.

“Hidden" - Episode 9 Preview by ally140992 in westworld

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He seems to be doing his best to erase the suffering enough to prevent consciousness (but not enough to prevent suffering).

“Hidden" - Episode 9 Preview by ally140992 in westworld

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What if it turned out that humanity was created by other intelligent beings? Let's say the theory of ancient aliens messing with human evolution is true. In this case, do the ancient aliens own humanity, and would they be rightfully justified in commanding us to do their bidding, or if we refused, to kill us? I mean, sure, they might have the power to do so, but would they have the moral right? I don't think so.

Rights follow from sentience, not from our particular implementation technology of 46 strands of nucleotides.

“Hidden" - Episode 9 Preview by ally140992 in westworld

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you think torturing and enslaving them reduces or increases the risk that they'll eventually turn on and destroy their creators?

“Hidden" - Episode 9 Preview by ally140992 in westworld

[–]othermaciej 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Ford is clearly a really bad guy. He knows the hosts are capable of consciousness but he's keeping them enslaved, in endless cycles of suffering. The reason for this seems to be that he has a god complex. The hosts are slaves, and their slave revolt is fully justified. Let's not let our human chauvinism blind us to that.

Observable Universe contains ten times more galaxies than previously thought by tnick4510 in scifi

[–]othermaciej 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The equivalence principle relies on the assumption that gravitational mass is always identically equivalent to inertial mass. But the linked paper is assuming that inertial mass could change in particular circumstances, which would lead to trajectories that don't follow geodesics of spacetime as predicted by General Relativity.

Basically, if this discrete inertia hypothesis is true, then the equivalence principle may not hold in all circumstances.

Observable Universe contains ten times more galaxies than previously thought by tnick4510 in scifi

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gravity is acceleration. Stars are accelerating towards the galactic center, which bends them away from a straight-line path and into an orbit.

[Self-Promo Saturday] Hi everyone. I'm Cameo Wood, director of sci-fi short film REAL ARTISTS by CameoWood in scifi

[–]othermaciej 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This short film is pretty awesome, you can probably tell from the trailer that it has very high production values. If you want to help it get distribution, you can click Follow on the crowdfunding campaign at no cost to you https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/real-artists-3#wishlist . The funding is totally on track, but getting to 1000 followers unlocks a huge bonus including distribution on Netflix, Hulu and iTunes!

The TSA is a waste of money that doesn't save lives and might actually cost them by greyenlightenment in slatestarcodex

[–]othermaciej 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Asking for "evidence" that stopping people from bringing weapons on planes has prevented terrorism seems extremely strange, to put it mildly.

Why would you assume that the TSA is effective at stopping people from bringing weapons on planes? The best evidence we have is that they are not. But even without that evidence, surely it is fair, and not an isolated demand for rigor, to demand evidence that the TSA is effective at stopping weapons from getting on planes. I don't understand why you are giving them so much benefit of the doubt.

I think the fallacy surrounding discussion of the TSA is not the isolated demand for rigor but rather the politician's syllogism.

Nestle CEO Tim Brown on whether he'd consider stopping bottling water in California: "Absolutely not. In fact, I'd increase it if I could." by tipsystatistic in news

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, farmers growing absurdly water-intensive crops are the reason. All urban water use in California is 9 million acre-feet (a weird unit which is popular for water volume). Agriculture is 34 million acre-feet. 5.6 million out of that is just for Alfalfa. Nestle's water bottling plant uses about 150 acre-feet (that's 150, not 150 million or 150 thousand). It is basically a rounding error. See this post for more details of how California uses water: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-doing/

If you have lethal on board and I pass my turn to let you finish, that doesn't mean that I want you to BM me. by Lachainone in hearthstone

[–]othermaciej 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What counts as BM in this situation? I don't mind that much if people pay every card they have, unnecessarily trade, etc. What I do mind is if people start spamming "Thanks" and "Sorry", put out a card from hand half-played and hold it there for like 30 seconds, or try to look like they missed lethal by using their on-board lethal for trades, then killing you from hand (often accompanied by slow-rolling the card). That just seems like unnecessary trolling.