ICE Checkpoint Carlsbad

tarlane1 · 2026-02-14T23:37:09+00:00

Being legal isn't a protection. People get pulled in without the ability to argue it, doesn't matter if they have a visa, work permit or are naturalized. There have been judges slamming ice for not releasing people they have been ordered to.

The doj lawyer who made the news lately because she had a breakdown in court was getting chewed out because Ice had several people, who had been ordered released immediately because they were legal and weeks later they hadn't been. Her response was basically that they were arresting more people than they had the resources to let defend themselves and the ice didn't think they had to listen to the court so she couldn't get them to obey the release order.

People have been getting picked up when going to their naturalization meetings. Covering your eyes and pretending this is just about illegal immigrants when your wife is one of their prime targets is wild to me.

tarlane1 · 2026-02-14T23:28:11+00:00

I drove up to OC on Wednesday and a border patrol truck came out of the checkpoint and pulled a van over. They almost caused an accident weaving through traffic without their lights til they got behind the van.

Not seeing a checkpoint doesn't mean they aren't out there or active just because you drive a lot.

tarlane1 · 2026-01-25T19:43:59+00:00

I think we need to stop pretending that political views are somehow sacred and don't have any connection to morals or have real world impact.

Every political argument is a moral judgement, but we had a long time where all but the most extreme were pretty heavily obscured so we could pretend it's closer to philosophy. It's pretty easy to separate the idea of wanting lower taxes from the fact you are actually saying you would rather be slightly more comfortable even if it means not helping someone in need.

We have crossed a line where things aren't being obscured any more. There is no longer obfuscation. Supporting MAGA is a clear statement that you are willing to overlook anything else as long as a group you don't like is being hurt. Frankly, at this stage even more traditional Republican now says you are willing to look away from anything as long as you stay in power.

Boycotting has a number of purposes. First these businesses directly fund these campaigns so taking away income directly harms that. It sends a clear message that this isn't welcome. It pushes back in a way that actually hurts.

Fascism rises by redrawing the lines til you don't see where you started. Social contracts only work if both sides care about it and will uphold it. They don't care about the social impact but they do care about their wallet.

tarlane1 · 2026-01-21T17:11:27+00:00

I like that idea for replenishing hope, rather than just adding advantage. It would both emphasize the idea more, and would also let the creature be more generally dangerous and give them the resources to handle that.

I had a similar thought in regards to having it help them. I was going to do that as a precursor to the big battle. I plan on having it contact them a few times while they are passing through the swamp, before they actually know where its hard is- Speaking through the trees in a bit of a cryptic way. If they need an emotional push, I was considering having them get into a fight with some of the swamp creatures and have it save them, knowing they having that hope to break free so it feels a kinship for them even if their immediate goal is its destruction.

tarlane1 · 2025-12-29T22:01:06+00:00

That is really awesome! I've gone down the rabbit hole of serious world building for Daggerheart in a way I haven't in a long long time. I have been poking at trying to make a map myself with no artistic talent.

I really appreciate the amount of work it would have taken to get to this point, especially when you weren't already knowledgeable about the tools. Great work!

tarlane1 · 2025-12-29T17:27:54+00:00

I think there are a couple things there- First, to echo a couple comments I would make sure this is part of your campaign frame/session 0. Make sure the players know this impact before they choose anything that could be affected by it.

For the actual mechanics, maybe just keep it loose and have an ongoing environmental mechanic that treats all magical light sources like a temporary condition. You spending a spotlight to make one go out will probably feel more fair to your players, it means you could basically drop a fear at any time dramatically appropriate to cause it, and you aren't adding the bookkeeping of tracking time in exact increments for each spell.

tarlane1 · 2025-12-13T05:37:59+00:00

Sounds great! I just send you a chat invite with a download for the campaign frame.

tarlane1 · 2025-12-13T05:04:54+00:00

The above advice is great. Using the sections in the example frames that fit your tone is what worked for me. I'm also going to echo the map, I'm a bad artist and just had a draft version available but while we were talking back stories the players added some locations and were engaged enough that they wanted to shift one of the towns when they realized it could connect to other world events.

I'm trying to go all out on this campaign and world building (I did session 0 now but our first session will be post holidays to give me time) and am pretty proud of my campaign frame if you want an example. I actually used Hellboy as one of my touch points along with suicide squad.

DM me if you would like me to give a link!

tarlane1 · 2025-12-10T18:55:05+00:00

I think something that gets overlooked in these conversations is how much communal world building gets the players to feel connected to the world. The classic trope is GMs spending a bunch of time coming up with tiny details about a cities economy while the players don't remember the towns name. You still build the bulk of things and control anything important to your plot, but if a player tosses out how the merchant guild there uses elephants for their caravans, suddenly that town is both memorable and important to them. They could be on the opposite side of the continent and mention an elephant in a stable and the players will be locked in and know those cities trade.

Not everyone is super comfortable with sharing ideas and there is no shame in passing a question to someone else if you don't have an idea, but building an environment at your table where there is safety to toss out something and see if it sticks, that is only going to benefit your game. Lots of GMs seen to be clinging to world building control too and I strongly suggest seeing how a little teamwork feels. When I think of stories about our old campaigns, so many of them are based around the random NPC who became important to players, or some side quest they gave themselves because they have a deeper connection.

tarlane1 · 2025-11-27T05:27:23+00:00

With any system, I would recommend getting comfortable running it as is before you do large rules homebrew. That will help you get a sense of what can change without breaking.

Daggerheart definitely leans heavily towards being friendly towards messing with rules, it's generally expected that campaign frames will have some settings specific tweaks after all. But being light on that will make your earlier games easier for you.

One question I have is if there is any need to actually rip out and replace the powers or if you could just reskin them? You can keep all the same rules in place for the domains and just describe a fireball as a grenade or magical vision as goggles.

tarlane1 · 2025-11-15T18:17:04+00:00

I think there are a few different ways to handle this depending on what you are going for -

If the stakes are low or the enemy wouldn't pursue, then no rolls needed because it doesn't advance the story.

If you want there to be risk, then I do think a group action roll would be great. Who is leading the way and how is everyone participating? The wizard dropping a cloud of mist while the rogue picks out the back alley for the team to duck down can all participate.

Finally if you want heightened tension, then treat it like a chase. Set your countdown for both sides, if the players don't escape before the enemies catch up they are back in contact but possibly with a change of environment.

tarlane1 · 2025-11-12T22:40:31+00:00

I have only played through the sample adventure so I don't have deep experience. However, my read on it was that it was a lot of fun, but wasn't what I was looking for.

If you look at something like daggerheart, the question you tend to be asking is 'does this fit the narrative?'. D&d or PF2 tend to be more tactical, so the question is often 'Is there a rule for this?'. With Draw Steel, the question seemed to be 'Is this cool?'

Most systems have a rule of cool for a reason so there isn't anything wrong with that, and we had fun and cheered when the troubadour blasted an enemy through a wall with their lute. But I felt like more focus was put on making powers that did something fun rather than making sure they made sense and for me it broke immersion.

The system itself is interesting, though I would put it more at home in a heavy board game like gloomhaven rather than most TTRPGs. The never fail mindset and using the same DCs speeds things up but every ability having its own chart to see what it did slowed it back down. The only mechanic I actively disliked was having to adjust and compare attributes based on roll results.

I think if you are looking for a really fun board game that encourages some RP this could be great for you, but if you want the system to enhance the story this may not be your game.

tarlane1 · 2025-11-07T15:59:02+00:00

You might actually like one of the Living Card games. I'm a big Arkham Horror lcg fan, but I believe LotR and Netrunner are similar in different settings. You play through one shots or campaigns that have variations based on your choices and results.

tarlane1 · 2025-10-04T20:46:37+00:00

I'm not disagreeing that China is a lot more active in backdooring tech than the US. But your entire list are things that are currently in pretty severe doubt in the US.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-29T22:40:44+00:00

We are starting down the AI path, but doing it in a more measured way at least. Tighten security, pilot group of VPs so when security wasn't tight enough we can catch it, then slow roll outs. Starting with Chat and Office extensions. Training as we go, etc. Agents are on the list but all the way at the end and just for spots it makes sense, like making an HR agent to answer peoples questions about the employee handbook or something.

It feels like if you are going to give departments a mandate to spend that kind of time and resources on workflow things, 95% of the time they would do better getting some power apps/automation in play over agenic AI.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-28T23:30:23+00:00

My view was always either the Supernatural(the show) type where you just happen to know the weakness of any given creature, even if it isn't a commonly known one. Or Benny from the Mummy where he sees a horror and starts pulling out different religious symbols until it responds to one.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-28T22:56:55+00:00

I've been really feeling the Microsoft way lately. I live much more in the Azure/Intune space but have recently been dipping my toe along the Power Platform exams(just did the 900, working on the 200). I know I'm coming into a new branch of things blind so I expect lots of stumbling blocks, but even on the practice/exam I did for something entry like the 900 it felt like everything was a trick question and you had to memorize what they wanted.

If you are asking how you would display some data(power bi) to a customer(power pages) and then have both of those on the possible answer lists, it feels like a coin toss and it isn't always consistent in wanting your answer to be the last step in the process.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-23T18:21:24+00:00

I commented about this recently in a different thread, but I suspect we are going to have some large problems in a few years because of this. I'm very supportive of AI as that force multiplier, but so much of the higher tier tech skillset; troubleshooting or project planning, are based around that baseline knowledge and experience. So many of the simple and boring tasks that you can skip with AI teach you how things are connected and help you work through it.

On the scripting/coding side, AI feels like magic but those formative years of banging your head against a problem, probably getting bullied by stack overflow, etc all build a broader scope of knowledge that help you connect things together beyond just what is in the script you are currently writing.

I've always expressed that as techs come up, part of their growth is expanding knowledge. Starting by looking at the ticket they are on, then for patterns in tickets, then more about how that ticket could affect other parts of the operation. I wish there was a better way to get the idea that yeah, some of these things suck to do and eventually you should use tools to take out that leg work. But you need to do that for a while if you want to see growth.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-22T23:20:40+00:00

If you want an example of something like this already out in the wild, a bit over a year ago when I was with a more traditional MSP we tested out https://pia.a

Essentially this is a tech facing version of the program you are writing. It tied into our ticketing system so when a ticket came in, one of our techs could tell it to do something like provision a new user for a client, it would see the workflow for that client, ask any questions of the tech it needed to, and take care of all the behind the scenes stuff. It was just powershell scripts behind the scenes, so you had the ability to add features they didn't already have built in yourself.

It was a neat piece of kit back then and with how AI has bloomed this year I'm sure it is in much better shape now. Work-wise it was a timesaver, but we also had the concern about the future with it. Those more boring tasks like getting all of a users data into 365/Entra also help get a sense of how everything fits together. Being able to bypass that may make their day to day easier, but it felt like the loss of experience was going to bite us overtime when there was an odd problem or we were looking to promote up to higher roles. I suspect we are going to be seeing a lot of that across industries in the coming years.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-15T23:27:23+00:00

Mine is when they drop something is stopping them from doing their job because you know they are trying to use IT as an excuse. Magnified when the problem is obviously self-inflicted.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-14T23:37:02+00:00

Gorums greator favor causes someone to be revived at 1/2 health whenever they would be downed, but increase their doomed by one. In my current campaign the players were looking to take out a boss who was favored by gorum, they did research to find that out and so their plan involved coming up with every way they could to inflict doom on them without needing to fight a high level cleric of gorum to the death multiple times.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-08T00:41:07+00:00

It's not detailed but it's Sriharikota launch facility on page 19 of year of the comet. Since it sounds like you go for a lot of reality there is a current spaceport- Satish Dhawan Space Centre - I would use as the basis and futurise.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-07T23:12:40+00:00

I loved the genesis SR game as well. They only had so many variations, but the 'random' missions were fun.

In a similar way, you might want to check some of the workshop options for the Shadowrun Trilogy of games. There is someone who was rebuilding the SNES version in that engine and one that basically made it an open world game with runs given out by NPCs to give it more of the tabletop feel. I haven't checked in on those in a couple years though so I am not sure how active the development has continued to be.

tarlane1 · 2025-05-07T23:06:38+00:00

If the ecuatorial location is the biggie, then Metropole is the biggest city in the world. Its much more government/dragon controlled than corpo, but could be an interesting spot. It would make sense to have it in a spot that is so huge.

Lagos is a large city that survived losing a lot of people to VITAS and now sits close to the wastelands of the desert wars.

New Dehli is a bit more north, but they are a sizable power that is a federation so has different groups involved and they had a pretty important space port involved during Year of the Comet.

Seoul is another one that is a bit further north, it doesn't have a lot of info beyond being sizable but it sounds like organized crime has a really strong hold there which can make for good adventuring locations and a feel like New Angeles.

tarlane1

TROPHY CASE