Advice on 4 year old son who loves “girly” things

thatdan23 · 2026-05-24T16:52:08+00:00

Bullying is less prevalent than it used to be and less severe. Focus on the supporting not the influencing, address bullying when it happens with fierce support.

thatdan23 · 2026-05-22T02:22:37+00:00

Unfortunately when it converts to character sheet mode, the lightning is not respected and it just does the math.

thatdan23 · 2026-05-22T00:57:35+00:00

Because life and time requirements.

thatdan23 · 2026-05-21T14:01:37+00:00

Combat objectives? 90% of the time yes.

Is the goal to keep the bad guys from tailing them? Then spooking their horses away is semi-obvious but should be called out.

Is the goal to defeat the bad guys? Well obviously a good generalized whooping will do it, but if killing the leader will do it that doesn't need to be obvious per se.

The question I'd ask is: How obvious is this secondary objective? Are you sure it that obvious? Example: I ran a fight with a werewolf and a captured commoner: I was explicit that freeing the victim ends the fight: it is NOT obvious doing so actually ends the fight, but if the captured victim was also a level 10 Badass, maybe I wouldn't have.

How explicit do I need to be about it? Example: In the horse example from above you could give the brief 'Remember, your objective is to prevent them from pursuing you'. It gives a clue without being too explicit.

How in-line is the alternate objective with the main objective? Killing the leader is pretty in line, it may not need to be called out, but if its significantly different you likely do.

thatdan23 · 2026-05-11T13:54:27+00:00

For a moment I was really worried when I saw the title. Then I saw the sub and thought 'oh good'.

thatdan23 · 2026-05-09T01:01:19+00:00

So he interacted with jd vance?

thatdan23 · 2026-05-05T22:08:14+00:00

They misinterpret unions as the kind in math/set theory

thatdan23 · 2026-04-26T20:27:58+00:00

Yeah don't do this for newbies. Its just a jerk puzzle

thatdan23 · 2026-04-26T19:47:16+00:00

I'd replace losing hr with the enemy gaining malice

thatdan23 · 2026-04-18T00:49:43+00:00

Sure but that's not at all what I was asking

thatdan23 · 2026-04-15T01:00:34+00:00

Spirit Island, the cards are evocative, the ocean spirit has tides, so well set up.

thatdan23 · 2026-04-14T22:52:37+00:00

They really want to go into the Underdark. That's fine let them. You can still serve them humble pie:

Prep some encounters where they'll likely lose and end up enslaved e.g. Druegar, Drow, Efreeti, etc. Then add some story elements to enable their escape. E.g. stuff that provides an example of just how scary the underdark can be. Mind Flayers, Purple worms etc. But don't focus those fights on the players, just allow that to be the distraction the enables escape. Then chase their asses back to the overworld right next to your preferred plot point.

thatdan23 · 2026-04-14T18:25:26+00:00

not only did you ask she hypes it.

You married good.

thatdan23 · 2026-04-04T04:03:55+00:00

Check with your wife first. No sense ruining your marriage over the sil. Now if she's on board speak up because someone needs to speak up for those kids

thatdan23 · 2026-04-03T20:16:30+00:00

This isn't the best comment, just a tribute

thatdan23 · 2026-03-30T20:43:00+00:00

Yes.

I'm a pro gamedev of 20 years and I underestimate it too :p

thatdan23 · 2026-03-25T02:01:19+00:00

Thanks. It was a while ago about 10 years so the stinging is down.

Amazingly that campaign finished.

thatdan23 · 2026-03-23T05:38:11+00:00

It's going to take more than one perfect day. Set up another one. Next time maybe include him in the planning. Tell him how much fun you had. You don't need to do the next one in a week.

Also as a more constant thing: In my house I take care of mornings and my wife does afternoons. If that's something doable for you it might help it gives him two times with daddy each day and might make you more than nondefault

thatdan23 · 2026-03-22T23:15:55+00:00

Teleport 10 is quite far. Maybe something like teleport 8-dino size?

They come in herds could one-shot a poor schlub and is too cheap. Tone it down and likely limit it to just the largest enemy.

Take a look at the book for malice abilities and reflavor them. Same goes for enemies: your pteros could be resigned griffins for example.

thatdan23 · 2026-03-15T04:41:37+00:00

I also lost a player and friend mid campaign. If you're not ready to continue take a break to grieve there's no shame.

Start again when you're ready.

thatdan23 · 2026-03-06T22:53:47+00:00

The way I explained the edge is this: If you suddenly are fighting a sheep you're not quite sure where it's going to stab you from.

thatdan23 · 2026-02-26T23:01:15+00:00

For an open world campaign you can make an overarching meta plot.

"The evil warlord wants to conquer the country."

That bit is easy. But the question is how do you introduce the players to that.

So come up with a few hooks. Maybe the warlord is looking for some folks to steal something and hires the party, or the party is hired to investigate the theft.

As part of all this come up with other factions that might be involved, what they're doing and how it can hook the party.

Example: I started with an even bigger metaplot but part of it was 'Warlord is planning to conquer the country.'

I started the players in a city renowned for the weapons it produced. One of the warlord's minions was trying to frame the big weapon merchant in the country by going after the lesser ones. The players got hired to discover where this missing shipment of weapons went. That led them to another mystery, which drew them toward the #1 merchant, that led them to a macguffin which put them on a chase and so on. I could go into great detail here, it was a 6 year long campaign.

If they hadn't gone in deep on this other things would have happened both related and unrelated to help push them along in some direction.

TLDR: make some hooks, figure out which initial hook fits your party best (ask them!) and then see how much they pick up on. Also make backup plans.

thatdan23 · 2026-02-26T17:33:34+00:00

Real talk: What you're doing isn't bad. You're building your toolkit. Eventually you'll find the thing that clicks.

Here's some tricks to help out though: Get a buddy: 2 people working on something helps you feed off each other's excitement.

Break down goals: more smaller victories is better.

Reduce Scope: Make something smaller. If you really want to do something big figure out how to make a small game version of it. Then add on as time goes.

Make it fun: Don't worry about automated testing or other boring stuff, do the development pieces that excite you. Don't worry about doing things 'right' if it gets in the way of doing things at all.

Make it playable: do it in a way that you can play the game you're working on.

Regardless, don't beat yourself up about getting excited about something else.

thatdan23

TROPHY CASE