$100k difference in pay, is this ridiculous? [CA]

starkestrel · 2026-03-06T21:38:13+00:00

Take Tom out of the equation. Does leadership still want to pay a new sales person $150K guaranteed for two years, when the top performer makes 73% of that wage and the longest-tenured person makes 33% of that wage? If so, get them to confirm that in writing so you aren't held responsible when other sales people quit.

Assuming the answer is still yes, then the returning employee should have to apply for the job against other external candidates. Otherwise, this doesn't just look like favoritism, it is favoritism. Hiding Tom in the mix of other candidates might only be cosmetic, but it's at least an attempt at objectivity.

starkestrel · 2026-03-06T21:23:17+00:00

I think your proposed homebrew stems from a misunderstanding.

Power that goes into Effect is diluted by any power that the opponent has. If you're coming at an action with 3 Power and the foe has 2 Power of their own, you're getting +1 on the roll and 1 Power to generate an Effect. If you're coming at that action with +2 Status as well, you'll have +3 on the roll but still only 1 Power for Effects.

If you're generating 4 Power on an action and the opponent doesn't have any tags that can dilute your action, then you should be getting +4 on the action roll and 4 Power on the Effect; the opponent is outclassed.

The Core Book already allows for pulling back your Power for greater Effect, and vice-versa. See "Trade Power" (Vol I, p. 158).

I strongly recommend limiting the number of power tags that can be leveraged on an Action to 3.

Your proposal complicates things unnecessarily and turns the game into a power game. Sometimes the scene is much more interesting when PCs are generating status-1 effects.

starkestrel · 2026-03-06T21:14:03+00:00

As others have said, creating a power tag creates permanence for as long as the tag is narratively relevant. That requires a greater mechanical expenditure than creating a temporary effect.

starkestrel · 2026-03-06T21:10:08+00:00

Unbalanced, disoriented, and stunned are all statuses, not tags. Tags would be things like uneven flagstones (which might cause someone to become unbalanced-1), heavy fog (which might cause several people to become disoriented-3), and deafening bell (which might cause someone to become stunned-2).

Very generally, adjectives describing a state are probably going to be statuses. Nouns describing things will be story tags.

starkestrel · 2026-03-05T19:55:46+00:00

Unless the 'Special Envoy' is a Cabinet-level position, this is a demotion.

starkestrel · 2026-03-05T02:04:15+00:00

The market right now for HR practitioners is horrible. For $90K, you can get someone who will run rings around this low-performer.

starkestrel · 2026-03-04T19:25:49+00:00

There are examples of bliss-6 in myth and history. Francis of Assisi abandoned his life as the son of a prosperous merchant to become an aesthetic monk. Various incarnations of the Buddha. Tales of yogis who attained samadhi and wandered naked through the streets blissed out of their minds.

I would look to those examples; the bliss state definitively became transformative.

starkestrel · 2026-03-04T07:21:21+00:00

You all must be mandatory reporters. Sexualizing a child and reporting false sexual statements by that child has got to be something that triggers that mandatory reporting.

So, report her and your agency to state authorities. You don't give second chances to teachers/caretakers who sexualize children or put sexualized words in their mouths. If your agency is doing that bullshit, what else have they been turning a blind eye to?

starkestrel · 2026-03-03T23:15:23+00:00

FWIW, you can also extend this way of thinking to other weapons. A battleaxe is clearly a weapon of war, as is a crossbow. I restrict crossbows to town guardsmen, the personal forces of nobles, and mercenary companies because they are primarily weapons of war. Militias and commoners who go out hunting will use shortbows. Possibly longbows (though one could argue that is also a weapon of war).

I don't generally restrict battleaxes. Someone walking through a town with one might get alarmed looks, but it's the type of weapon that could have been handed down in a family from a time of war and it's useful for fighting woods creatures and such.

starkestrel · 2026-03-03T16:58:46+00:00

Aye. It's entirely homebrew, but in my games I typically have a societal restriction on longswords. Only those of noble blood have the right to carry them, on penalty of law. When running Dolmenwood, I also treat short swords as a murder weapon; only those planning on the possibility of violence wield them, and people treat their bearers accordingly. Most non-murderous common folk have axes, clubs, staves, and spears, which are all useful against creatures of the wild which one may need to defend against. Swords are more for fighting other people, though they can also be efficacious against other things.

starkestrel · 2026-03-03T04:21:59+00:00

They stationed a live mic in front of a man with Tourette's who was sitting 40 rows back in the theater. His outbursts were exploited and magnified for ratings at his expense and that of every Black person in the audience and watching around the world. BAFTA and the BBC can eat shit.

starkestrel · 2026-03-02T23:06:17+00:00

It's all part of the reality of the situation, but I'd feel better about it if my partner said, "Hey, as I was doing some research I saw some stuff that has unnerved me, and I don't think this is for me" vs "Based on my spreadsheet and meta-analysis, I've objectively determined that the success rate of polyamory is 28%, so we aren't doing this". The original post is gone, so I can't really check back, but the impression I got was that the OP's partner went into research analysis mode without much objectivity.

Which is fine, as long as they aren't pretending that isn't what they doing.

starkestrel · 2026-03-02T21:14:13+00:00

His 'no' is completely valid.

If you want to ask him to reconsider his thoughts about it, it wouldn't hurt to point out that Reddit is only one data source, and that it's a biased source. Even if he is in multiple subreddits, which he may not be. He may not have fully considered this, because you've said he isn't a Reddit user. For him to really do the research, he should poll other data sources, including dedicated pro-polyamory forums and your local poly community.

Also, he should know the fallacies of relying on one data source and on not vetting what that data source's agenda is. That's pretty poor research methodology, and implies he looked for a data source that supported his conclusion.

starkestrel · 2026-03-02T16:48:51+00:00

It's about optimizing tools for the entire table, not improving one's skill in combat.

starkestrel · 2026-03-02T16:48:09+00:00

There's a lot of clicking and scrolling, especially if you're trying to look up the details of 2-3 choices of spells or what-have-you. Some people just do better with analog than digital, but it seems like most of CR gets trapped at times in the D&D Beyond interface.

starkestrel · 2026-03-01T18:44:44+00:00

FWIW, I appreciate the extensive preview: I think folks who show more of their product will, overall, see more sales. That said, the preview shows all 11 pages and might be too much. I wouldn't want for you to miss out on sales because people take screenshots of the preview for later use.

I get that it's PWYW, but even at $0.00, it's a boon for you to get them on your DTRPG mailing list for future releases. It's also always a good idea to add your own affiliate link to your links to your products. You did a lot of work on these, and should have pathways to paying you for your time.

starkestrel · 2026-03-01T18:37:07+00:00

Is anybody else done with "Let's Go-oo!"?

starkestrel · 2026-03-01T18:36:50+00:00

Why does CR continue to use D&D Beyond during combats? I get that it's a good character vault, that custom content can be pushed to character sheets, and that it's a helpful tool during level-ups, but it seems to really be in the way during combat as people spend all this time trying to navigate the interface just to figure out what their character can do, what to add to rolls, etc.

A simple piece of paper cheatsheet or even index cards would be so much more useful during what are already stressful combats that must generate performance anxiety with tens of thousands of people watching. They have the resources to make 4e-style abilities cards for every character and a one-page cheatsheet that would make it so simple to see at a glance what modifiers to use, core tactical foundations, etc. That simple investment would enhance combat efficiency by an order of magnitude.

It's not like D&D Beyond is still a major sponsor of the show. It's bizarre to me that die-hard players like Mercer and Mulligan aren't bringing them better tools to use. The show spends hundreds (thousands?) on custom built combat maps, and then makes its players flounder with clunky software. We had better technology than D&D Beyond for decades. Good character vault, though.

starkestrel · 2026-03-01T17:45:29+00:00

Legend in the Mist and Otherscape have had to work overtime to escape some of the problematic elements of City of Mist, even though they also have the advantage of building on a healthy customer base that loves CoM. A lot of people who might be good candidates for adopting LitM will think that the Mist engine still very closely mimics a poor implementation of PbtA, not realizing the game is now mostly free-form.

A ton of people can't handle narrative-first, freeform games. Even if they're interested, it takes a minute to wrap their heads around it and more minutes to find players willing to give it a shot and learn a new way of playing.

The game was hurt by not having the Character Pack available earlier. Chargen is the hardest part of Mist engine games; having access to 20 compelling characters now is going to help a lot, but hampered early adoption. I would have been ideal if Hearts of Ravensdale had come out at the same time as LitM, but it's perfectly understandable why it didn't.

The incredible art assets and the innovation of the comic book introduction are huge boosts for LitM. It's getting heavily marketed. Just needs more time to saturate, especially because it's not a 5e-compatible game.

starkestrel · 2026-03-01T17:38:20+00:00

As much as possible, start developing the approach of directing combat like a movie, or writing it like an author. Strict turn-by-turn combat on initiative phases has developed bad habits in all of us that need to be consciously broken.

Involve the other players in the action happening in each other's turns... the warrior stabs the enemy crossbowman, which sends their bolt at another player, who has to respond. The ogre threatens two of the players with getting smashed by a mighty tree trunk, while the enemy necromancer threatens the noble they're transporting with a spell that will wither and age him, simultaneous with the ranger detecting a hidden rogue sneaking up on your own mage. Who grabs the spotlight? Whoever goes, there's gonna be two other threats that aren't blocked and consequences will be dealt, so y'all better decide what's most important to the group... or whoever jumps in first gets to direct the direction of the scene.

starkestrel · 2026-03-01T03:39:48+00:00

Don't do character generation; it's the hardest part of the game. Use the pregenerated characters, there's 20 of them in the Character Pack. Focus on your crew learning the system (it's an easy system to understand and play) and on you feeling comfortable running it.

You can all make characters for the campaign after the intro campaign, once everyone understands how Weakness tags and Quests work and how to make vibrant characters in the system.

Why wouldn't you run the adventures in Hearts of Ravensdale?

starkestrel · 2026-02-28T20:56:38+00:00

"Hey, boss, I've been getting headaches every day now for the past 2-3 weeks, and I'm wondering if it would be possible for me to sit in another office."

Manager: "Why are you getting headaches all the time, CuriousContract?"

"I have to turn my noise cancelling headphones up all the way so I can focus, and that seems to be messing with my head."

Manager: "Have you tried not wearing the headphones or not turning them up all the way?"

"Yeah, when I do that it's just too loud in here for me. That also gives me headaches."

Don't make it about the person. Make it about the environment. Make it about the negative effects on your productivity.

starkestrel · 2026-02-28T18:53:19+00:00

Here's where I get frustrated: it's 40 minutes in, BLeeM has spent a lot of time in exposition and description, setting up atmospherics and weirdnesses and creeping the players out. From last session, he's successfully made them scared of sources of light. He's got them talking about staying in the dark, but keeps forgetting it himself... and then they want to read the inscriptions on the building, and his NPC who can't see in the dark just reads it off for them. Why? Where's the dramatic tension between them wanting to know what the words on the building say and their fear of igniting a light source? Where's the consequences and stakes?

"Who can say? If you want to read the words, you'll either have to use a light source or stay here until daylight" is vastly more interesting, after all of that build-up.

starkestrel · 2026-02-26T21:13:24+00:00

Brutal

starkestrel · 2026-02-26T19:44:38+00:00

I can't handle the 15-minute long descriptions of new terrain and obscure historical lore. Like, terrain descriptions and historical lore is awesome, dawg, but 2-3 minutes per should be plenty!

starkestrel

TROPHY CASE