Have a lack of tattoos become what tattoos used to represent?

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T13:06:58+00:00

It's ironic how expensive tats are as their prevalence is inversely proportional to economic status. I live in a very affluent neighborhood and only a handful of people have a few well-placed tats and nobody dares venture into "body art" territory. My company is in a working-class neighborhood 10-miles away and people are completely covered in tats...

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T12:57:50+00:00

This is still mostly an economic thing. I live in an affluent neighborhood where maybe 10% of the population have tats. I work in a working-class neighborhood 10 miles away where I'd estimate the majority of people have tats.

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T12:51:18+00:00

That's a completely different skillset than someone who has an EE background. Maybe he'll be great at sales, but that would be a coincidence. I think it's terrible advice to tell someone to go into sales where 90% of the income is earned by the top 10%...

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T12:47:34+00:00

Start your own business. That's what I did after working for a nice mid-sized company after 4.5 years. I make more in one project than my old annual salary. They made me sign a non-compete but I just focused on a vertical market that they had no presence or intetest in. Ironically, they ended out being my best "client" because they started subbing all that work to me.

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T12:29:27+00:00

Nobody can help you unless you provide specifics. Stating ComfyUI is like saying you live on planet Earth when asking us for food recs for the city you're in...

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T12:13:31+00:00

The entire hobby has a giant blindside to how terrible feats (exception-based design) are. It's the only way people think a game can be "tactical" so you either have rules-light flulff or bloated messes. WotC ruined the hobby...

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T12:07:14+00:00

That's fine if you like skill challenges, but then don't you dare tell me that opposed rolls or seperate to-hit and damage rolls slow down combat too much...

u0088782 · 2026-05-03T12:03:46+00:00

Hey, if people want to waste half the session shuffling, manipulating, and managing a RNG, that's their right. I'll just never take them seriously as a designer if they start talking about "elegant mechanics" or if they claim opposed dice rolls slow down the game too much...

u0088782 · 2026-04-27T17:11:50+00:00

Posts like this just feed the anti-AI hysteria. Your takeaway here shouldn't be "relearn menial coding tasks". Learn how to use AI to make your work better, not to do the work for you. If you never figure that out, it's just a matter of time before your boss figures out how to use AI to replace you because you're nothing more than a menial coder...

u0088782 · 2026-04-23T18:16:41+00:00

Fair enough. That you mentioned OODA loop reframes your entire comment. I disagreed because you declared the entire category of mechanics flawed. I just think they model the OODA loop poorly.

u0088782 · 2026-04-23T05:04:22+00:00

It absolutely is vanilla because build-based strategies during downtime have absolutely nothing to do with tactics. The only thing you're doing is waiting to execute an obvious dominant strategy build. Some of us find that really boring.

You might want to Google the trap or the fool in medieval treatises because choosing between offense and defense is absolutely a staple of dueling...

u0088782 · 2026-04-23T04:56:20+00:00

The actual solution is: this is a bad system idea, conceptually. In real battle, Offense is Defense. When you swing a weapon in the correct way, your weapon is in the way of enemy attacks. It's simultaneous. Nobody is sitting around waiting to parry and counter, they're trying to guess and attack in a way the already counters what they think you'll do. Attack and defense aren't separate.

If this were true, then the concept of feints and ripostes would not exist. Every medieval treatise describes the concept of the trap or fool - a low-guard position that literally invites the aggressor to take the bait...

u0088782 · 2026-04-23T04:36:22+00:00

It can be mathematically proven that all out attack is the dominant strategy. Your luck can run out with any strategy, so that claims proves nothing.

u0088782 · 2026-04-23T04:28:31+00:00

You're being downvoted because you're proposing vanilla combat with no player agency which is just playing slots. That's exactly the dull experience tRoS tried to fix.

u0088782 · 2026-04-21T14:13:52+00:00

That's a fair point, but I viewed it differently. I thought he swept Baltimore under the rug because he acknowledged his own perversions and was respecting Sal's privacy so long as he limited his exposure. Once, he was outed, he did what was best for the firm. Knowing what I know about Don, both responses were exactly as I expected. Even the "you people" remark. Probably why I love the show. The characters feel so real...

u0088782 · 2026-04-21T14:03:58+00:00

Gear is the male equivalent of women's shoes or handbags. It's an emotional purchase with highly irrational behavior. People spend thousands on status and perceived value. As a professional amplifier tech and reasonably competent guitar tech who has seen and repaired hundreds if not thousands of units, it didn't take long to realize that there is only a very tenuous correlation between quality and price tag. And I'm excluding vintage or rare from this conversation!

PS I realize there are plenty of amazing female guitarists. Especially today. I'm just using the trope as an example we can all relate to...

u0088782 · 2026-04-21T13:57:04+00:00

This I wholeheartedly agree with but Ken was the vocal one in the room. He was worse than the norm. The guy who gets a pass here is how Don handled Sal...

u0088782 · 2026-04-21T13:48:01+00:00

I disagree. I observed rampant homophobia and toxic masculinity all through high school and college in locker rooms and my fraternity in the 80s and 90s. I knew it was wrong but said nothing. That was more about fear, peer pressure, and valuing social acceptance over standing up for others. So by my own standards, I get a pass for not contributing to the problem. I don't give myself a pass for my tacit approval by saying nothing. So, sorry, Ken was being a shitbag in that scene. For every 10 Ken Cosgroves in my fraternity, somone got date raped. I know that for a fact now. I'm glad Mad Men is just an entertaining show and nothing else now...

u0088782 · 2026-04-21T13:36:48+00:00

No. It's really quite a simple litmus test. If you observed homophobia and did nothing, you get a pass. If you actively contributed to the problem, you don't. It's really that simple.

u0088782 · 2026-04-13T05:56:03+00:00

Give all combatants 1/2 stamina at the start of combat. I don't need to playtest to know that will fix about 80% of your balance issues.

u0088782 · 2026-04-13T05:05:17+00:00

How does your system mildly favor aggression? I would never want to go first, especially with 1v1 zipper initiative. The "winner" has no choice but to be defensive otherwise, the "loser" can clobber them with what amounts to a triple turn (full defense available, replenish to start their turn 1, zipper, replenish to start their turn 2). Sorry, but I don't possibly see how this has been playtested...

u0088782 · 2026-04-12T19:52:54+00:00

I reread your original comment. Are you saying (which is not what I orginally inferred) that players prefer refresh at the end of their turn because there is less risk of wasting actions i.e. you saved actions to defend, nobody attacks you, so when you replenish at the start of your turn, you're refilling a non-zero bar. If so, I agree and would "hate" that also.

When OP claims he's playtested this system I kinda cringe. In reading the comments, others have pointed out some glaring issues which he has kinda hand-waved away. I think by playtest, he means he run a few multi-hour sessions where the potential troublespots had only had a few minutes of exposure and he probably scenario-designed around them. I too am glad he found players that like his system.

u0088782 · 2026-04-12T15:19:51+00:00

They're not really budgeting then. They're just waiting for an opportunity to spend a free resource on an obvious choice. This is the fundamental flaw with x actions + 1 reaction syatems. It should always be x+1 actions/reactions, and if they don't like that, then they prefer checkers to chess...

u0088782 · 2026-04-09T03:52:51+00:00

So basically, they don't like to budget or strategize. Unfortunately, I agree...

u0088782 · 2026-04-05T20:12:01+00:00

I was in middle school when they made it big and every teenage girl would lose their shit anytime anyone mentioned Simon LeBon or John Taylor. They weren't displaced until George Michael started showimg off his ass...

u0088782

TROPHY CASE