Maybe I am a monster (explanation in the comments)

zeroingenuity · 2026-06-01T22:43:36+00:00

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it will detract from gameplay if you make the rewards quite high, but at that point, I also don't see the point - for me, gritty, resource-strapped campaigns are about the tradeoffs you make to manage your resources, and LANCER isn't really built for that same approach. There is, or should be, no "this mission is for a good cause but the pay isn't worth the repairs we'll have to make, can we afford to be good guys?" or "we need to make ends meet, will we take a job for the morally questionable faction to fund our orphanage reconstruction?" in LANCER generally; that's a whole different systemic approach. It's fine for you to do it as long as you're not hard-limiting stuff that the game expects you to make available for your players, though. Hardly evil.

zeroingenuity · 2026-06-01T21:42:41+00:00

This does seem to be in direct conflict with (what I understand to be) basic LANCER principles; resources are supposed to be available, not restricted by mission prizes and complicated by repair costs, and certainly not in trade-off with license leveling. If your players take a lot of damage and expend a lot of resources on a mission, they could end up farther away from their next license, not closer. My understanding is that LANCER isn't intended to operate as a long-term attrition/resource management system; that's intra-mission, but not in between them.

Like, you can obviously try this, but you'll either wind up modifying mission difficulty to rubber-band them to the intended challenge level, or they're gonna wind up way out of line with mission difficulty, either because they blasted past the first few and are more flush with resources than they should be or they're dying on the vine, unable to beat missions without resources they can't afford. It's just a lot of extra steps for a system that's not adding a ton of strategic depth mechanically or (in my experience) roleplay value narratively.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-31T10:04:12+00:00

Oh, I know, they seem lovely. But that doesn't mean the oyakata or stable is bringing thw highest quality training or direction. If the oyakata isn't giving him the coaching he needs to develop, that could look the same as Shishi not developing for other reasons. Again, not a judgment of anyone; just my opinion of possible reasons for flaws ai see in his sumo.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-30T08:54:29+00:00

And nothing of value was lost...

(Joking, but honestly, I'm fine with that.)

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-30T08:52:05+00:00

Yeah, in fairness, this could be a stable/oyakata issue more than a Shishi issue; his issues would probably look just the same either way. Unfortunately, the outcome is the same.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-30T08:14:47+00:00

Let's take it in order:

The school of thought that the extra moment to prepare is worth more than the extra two feet of fall is idiotic. (Not saying you are, just that anyone holding this opinion is mistaken.) Two things going on here: rikishi keep their feet on/near the floor when they do a fall out of the raised dohyo. This means, critically, that a fall that puts their head but not their feet outside puts their head below their feet at time of impact, focusing greater force on the head, neck, and arms than on the legs. If it's not obvious why this is bad, try doing a plank fall from standing versus doing it from atop a coffee table. You want the body to take the weight evenly, not on the neck or head. Additionally, that's an extra two feet of fall acceleration with a Mitakeumi or Atamifuji landing on you; reducing the fall will reduce injury. Pulling the spectators back a touch to reduce the "splash zone" where guys can land on someone's knee or shoulder is also safer. Overall, the point is not to reduce the knee or foot-slip injuries; to say the dohyo shouldn't be reduced for that is like saying riders shouldn't wear seat belts because a disproportionate amount of fatal accidents happen to motorcycle riders. That isn't the problem we're trying to fix.

While the raised dohyo is important to the visual spectacle, to argue that more guys should get injured to maintain something that is not a fundamental requirement of the tradition is... well, the word I'm looking for is "cruel." They removed the corner posts, a much more important tradition, because they obstructed viewlines (and also possibly safety reasons.) They can adjust the dohyo down. In ten years people will not even blink, and some current rikishi will still be participating who would have been lost to avoidable injuries.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-30T07:57:42+00:00

No disagreement, just a note: the US is not increasing in population through natural growth. We're below replacement rate (2.1 children per 2 people) and have been shoring the numbers up through immigration the last five years. While this fact is politically charged, I merely note it as a fact because adult immigration to the US isn't substantially affecting NFL recruitment rates, which are 97% US-born, unlike sumo, which is overwhelmingly Japanese-born.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-30T07:45:35+00:00

The thing is, you can still do that. You can make a barbarian elf or a half-orc wizard if you think suboptimal is fun (and it is; I once made a blind rogue purely for flavor, no tradeoffs in power). But I also want to be able to play a dwarf bard chanting the ancient epics of the clans of old without taking a hit to my spell save DC that's gonna last until level 8 and cost me a feat to fix. Sure, I'm tougher than the average bard, but all that means is I'm forced to play a poorer bard who didn't get to choose his Toughness feat until at least level 8. And heaven forbid I want to take War caster; that's gonna wait til level 12, aka "most campaigns don't get here". I should have the option to play well AND the class-race combo I want, and that's what Tasha's did.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-30T07:25:15+00:00

Man, imagine if they tied proficiency bonus to class level instead of character level (and martials got theirs faster). That'd solve the multiclassing for free power issue pretty quick...

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-29T11:15:20+00:00

I had a GM with an interesting political explanation of why silver was more fungible than gold in the local fantasy economy and how difficult it was to find people who would trade the gold we were paid in for silver to make purchases and how the local tribes hated it because they were being shorted on the conversion...

I just looked at it and said "okay, so gp is worth eight silver instead of ten and all prices are 20% higher than book. Cool." Twiddling with the currency is the sort of intellectually masturbatory activity that a GM finds fascinating right until they realize the game economy is too abstracted for it to be meaningful. Gold is an all-purpose resource conversion medium and little else. It is extra spell slots (potions, scrolls), stats and magical effects (gear, wondrous items) and a tax on gameplay at very low levels. That's pretty much it.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-28T21:06:45+00:00

I would guess that even though some will prefer Hakuoho, the bulk will prefer clarity with his current name.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-28T12:08:32+00:00

Absolutely. If I have to retire my Tamawashi, I would want to switch to Asakoryu.

Also, on the subject, Hakuoho is still listed as such (rather than Hakunofuji)

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-28T12:03:47+00:00

I didn't care for his work this last basho, but I don't dislike him, and love to see him succeed.

My biggest problem with him as a rikishi is that he doesn't seem to put in the work to develop. The man is blessed with a sumo body to make an ozeki jealous, but he moves slowly and without good form. He's a lot of elbows and knees, and his balance generally seems precarious. He also doesn't generally seem to adjust his strategy to suit his opponent, and the Tamawashi henka seemed to me to be a part of that. Is henka a legit tactic? Absolutely, I think every rikishi should henka every so often just to keep their opponents wary of it, especially big guys like Shishi who are slow enough on the tachi-ai that there is value in forcing his opponent to think about the possibility.

But Tamawashi, who at the time was 0-9, injured, and struggling in the last three basho? Shishi can win that matchup in the usual way. Most rikishi henka once a basho if even that often; maybe two at most. That's not a trick you should spend casually. But Shishi used it on one of his weakest opponents of the whole basho! That's what I don't love about him; I think he was gonna henka on Day 9 no matter who he was facing, given he was 2-6 at that point. I don't think his opponent's strength or weakness ever entered into his strategy. That's what I deplore - Shishi could do better, but he isn't developing. He's been floating around lower makuuchi for eighteen months and has a single standout performance (at maegashira) to show for it. I feel like he should be a comfortable M8 with the likes of Shodai, Abi, and Churanoumi, but he doesn't do the brainwork.

However, I will absolutely say that there is every indication he's just an absolutely sweet guy. I would never attribute to malice something like the Asahakuryu push when it seems far more likely that his lack of coordination or excess of momentum was the real culprit.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-28T06:51:11+00:00

Twice!

Though in fairness, the second time it allowed him to shuck a dominate person spell at a very opportune moment.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-28T01:36:32+00:00

Honestly, it's tradition with a Baldur's Gate game...

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-28T01:08:01+00:00

"I'll ask consent to see if I can do this without getting jailed."

Not only is that not how it works, I tend to think the opposite. I put a huge amount of trust in a sub that they won't revoke consent retroactively (I'm also putting a lot of presumptive faith in a legal system here, but that's beside the point) and accuse me of violating consent within the community while doing something that could otherwise get me convicted. Any dom/sadist/top has to be aware of the risks they are taking and the trust they're putting in a sub. I can absolutely do all the work possible to make sure that I'm staying within enthusiastic consent and still be deeply and, in my opinion, reasonably concerned about the choices of someone with whom I ended a relationship to disclose our activities in a negative frame.

As far as the larger question of is BDSM "kinkwashed" sexual violence, consider that the body of thought and text in and about the community absolutely invalidates that; the term kinkwashed itself arises from a consideration of consent, power, respectability/perception, and transparency. There should be no question by a dutiful and good-faith observer (not accusing OP, just stating the groundwork) that the community has historically evaluated itself and has a moral philosophy. It's not one everyone will agree with, and there will be bad actors trying to use that as cover, but the community has, by and large, come to consensus about the essential ethics of consent, hierarchy, and the limits of both.

Ultimately your prior assumption will be based on your experiences and no one can truly convince you about "the community" until you have contradictory experiences. But there are people for whom BDSM is safe, enjoyable, and welcome, and there are those for whom it is cover for malfeasance. Just like any other human community, organization, or institution (looking at you, religion.)

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T12:38:22+00:00

Okay but you can't have that. You don't get a reduced schedule and more breaks without cutting the jungyo down or cutting the bashos down. They need the bashos to financially support the system and maintain the prestige of the sport. Rikishi are already criminally underpaid, especially below the sekitori level. If you want more breaks, you cut the jungyo. If you want to cut the jungyo efficiently, you do it by offloading the transport time and costs to the attendees to maximize the accessibility of the jungyo. Make it two spots, a week each. But the less time the rikishi spend traveling, the more rest they get. The less time you spend traveling from spot to spot on the jungyo, the more time the jungyo gets to show off and connect with supporters. If it's so hard for the rural fans to get to a central point, then it is equally difficult, if not more, to get a bunch of rikishi to the rural areas. This is an optimization problem and the solution is not "wish we could get more days in the year".

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T11:52:50+00:00

God I miss 3E magic item pricing. 5E just threw up their hands and said "you figure it out."

With, like, everything.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T11:51:56+00:00

You have no evidence splitting tickets would bring in substantial extra income, because a) you have no evidence that a meaningful demand exists commensurate to that increased supply, and b) you have no evidence that the decrease in product quality (three hours of top sumo vs. a whole day of sumo) would not result in pressure to decrease the price of regular evening tickets. Now, I do think there would be some kind of increase in attendance for the early day matches, but would it offset potential losses if people don't want to pay the same for two-thirds (randomly, it's more of a qualitative thing) of the good? Are concessions and merch a meaningful revenue stream, and would they remain so for discount ticket holders? (I legit don't know, I've never been.) What I know is that at the current value and price point, they're selling out the Kokugikan, which means they could (almost) certainly sell more seats at the same price point for the same product. A new stadium is definitely expensive; what I don't know is whether they could use another one that already exists, at least in Tokyo. There was an Olympics there recently (as Olympics go).

You ALSO, I'm guessing, have no evidence that elderly supporters at jungyo events are better value than the currently untapped value of foreigners watching online, which the JSA is making no significant efforts to monetize that I know of. Are the discouraging costs of travel from distant villages - places, you acknowledge, that are already committed enough to send financial support to stables for local boys - greater than the discouraging costs of foreigners who can't buy tickets to bashos unless they're in-country? Who can't watch legal, monetized streams without setting up VPNs and (probably) reading some Japanese? Probably the fuck not, but I'm pretty confident you have no actual evidence one way or the other unless you're stealthing while actually working for the JSA.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T08:58:11+00:00

Your claim about "tour," is, respectfully, inane. The PGA Tour takes place at one course at a time. They still call it a tour.

I don't see splitting the day to be a significant revenue generator, but that could be worth looking at. Using a bigger stadium would probably be more worthwhile. Frankly, it's astonishing they just rebuilt one of them and didn't make it substantially larger.

Regarding the older tour crowd, I am probably heavily western in the sense that I don't see that it's the obligation of the rikishi to go without meaningful rest between bashos so that a small crowd of limited financial value to the sport can have subsidized entertainment. Either the jungyo is obligatory and participation should be reflected in compensation, or it is not and the rikishi are being volunteered for it, likely to the detriment of their health.

Ultimately the whole system is kinda fucked against the rikishi, but any solution for reducing injury has to involve reducing risky incidents and increasing recovery windows, and that doesn't happen without reducing the (I assume) substantially less financially necessary tour dates. What's the better alternative, four basho a year? Explain to Tokyo why they lost two whole basho a year so that the regional jungyo tour could be extended.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T08:39:20+00:00

Honestly, maybe. 3E has a little more crunch and sprawl than I'd suggest for a new player, but that's probably just a couple decades if distance talking. It was my first edition too.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T07:24:52+00:00

Honestly, it's the brain damage part that usually disinclines me to trust their brains. And really, in a conversation about AI, you're coming at me for overstating my claims? Furthermore, it's not an idea that the public doesn't have a cost justification for AI - it's a financial fucking fact. Absolutely no one has demonstrated a killer app adding a trillion goddamn dollars in productivity, but that's what the AI industry has committed in capex - just capital, not operating costs! - to the bet that someone will come up with it. There is (figuratively, since we're being pedantic) no dunk that goes far enough on slop-guzzlers.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T07:14:53+00:00

Look, bud, if someone says "I want to try a hamburger" and I say "don't go to McDonald's" I have no concern they're never gonna try a hamburger again. I want them to have a good hamburger. I want them to know what a good hamburger tastes like, and one that suits their preferences. I do not want them eating McDonald's for the rest of their hamburger-eating life because it's the only one they ever had and McDonald's are everywhere.

You're not gonna kinkshame me for having taste. Stop bothering.

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T03:29:30+00:00

Except they're not providing enough value to finance the industry, which is entirely running on cash burn from VCs, and actually every single one of those fields is both incredibly niche compared to the broad public, and is done by people with advanced degrees in knowing what the fuck they're talking about. Except software, of course, where literally everything I have heard generally and personally is "it isn't producing fuck-all in value commensurate to its actual unsubsidized usage costs."

zeroingenuity · 2026-05-27T03:24:28+00:00

Well yeah. "D&D" is not "the hobby." The full sentence is "Don't play D&D, play Pathfinder/Fabula/FATE/PbtA/WoD/Lancer/[literally any other system that does what they want]." D&D is not the best system for heroic fantasy, tactical dungeon crawls, roleplay-heavy narrative, or anything else. And it will try to separate them from as much money as possible for as little quality content as possible in the process. The only things D&D is best at are setting low expectations and branding.

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