Bruh the shit going on in Ohio this election cycle where LaRose has reworded (see also the abortion amendment where his “summary” was longer than the actual text of the amendment) the ballot to obfuscate the actual intent of Issue 1 to make people vote No which helps consolidate the Republicans grip

It’s ridiculous. My wife is relatively intelligent and she doesn’t understand the wording on the ballot and I explained to her that despite the reading, a No vote will continue the status quo. Like I’m a free speech kind of guy but just put the damn text on the damn ballot like don’t bullshit us Frankie!

Fuckin schmucks

Man of Steel Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven is a weird take on this

We did do the right thing in most of the special elections these last twelve months, though

Two chances. Two of them to spell altar the right way!

Also Crown and Skull has the best dungeon design format and rules. This is my hill.

A Supermarket in California by Ginsberg. Idk why it just always has stuck with me

I prefer games with player-facing rolls. I also prefer emergent gameplay so I’ll roll on random charts, but that’s it. Stakes are stakes, and character death should be something in the forefront of player minds imo

What stakes do you have in your games? What does your prep look like?

Idk it’s like my second favorite edition of D&D©️ after b/x. There are dozens of us!

Ish? I run machines at a steel tube/chromed bar processing plant in the Midwest which is kinda neat but also mind-numbing, but the money is really good for what I do. They just offered me an outside sales position over my whole state so… I like doing new things and my background is in food and bev so I’d much rather be dealing with people than pushing buttons on a CNC or hone all day plus for a pay increase and not being all gross and oily when I get off work? No-brainer

Roger Zelazny

Neil Gaiman

Gregory Bateson

Dan O’Brien

Terrence McKenna

Alan Moore

Ken Kesey

Albert Camus

Badger

Concrete

Strikes and gutters, ups and downs. This year’s been the drizzling shits, and it’s tough to keep my chin up but I’m getting by.

Hope you’re doing great OP

This is gonna stretch the definition but

Dorthia Cottrell from Windhand did a country album and it’s so good

Calcium means the stones are calcium oxalate which comes from having too much oxalates in your diet

I get recurring kidney stones which are from oxalates and sodium

I keep my oxalate intake per day under 40mg

Spinach has 755 mg per HALF CUP!

Fuck spinach

Thanks! They’re the best

She is the daintiest little thing and the noises that she makes like elephant grunts 🥰🥰

We have two others a 17 year old lab mix I’ve had since he was 4 months old and a 10 year old beagle shepherd that my wife got while we were dating/roommates

She’s part staffie part beagle part pug part American Eskimo dog part pit all 35 lbs of love 😄

Someone who got her litter mate did one of those genetic tests and that was the top 5 lol just a mutt

It’s Eevee!

With most of Twix behind her lol

I’d agree with your first point re: D&D ®️ esp re 5th Edition. My wife took a long time to get in to ttrpgs, something that I’ve enjoyed for over 30 years bc I kept trying to do the D&D®️ thing. I’d recommend you try other games that actually “play” at the table. Dungeon World is great and almost anything in the PbtA family does such a great job of driving the action forward (5e doesn’t), having actual stakes and danger (5e doesn’t), actually meaningful character choices (5e doesn’t), not a beat-the-designer/video-gamist philosophy (5e DOES have this), and not ran by a shitty corporation that hires mercenary thugs to intimidate people, since literally anyone can make a PbtA game about anything.

Agree 💯 on the d20. I think it works in some games, notable Mörk Borg and like b/x D&D - games where if you are rolling dice, you already have fucked up

I can’t speak to the groups you played with , but have you tried getting people that aren’t in to the hobby in to it? I run games for new players often and they never have the baggage I think you’re speaking about

Re the preparation you do, be sure to always prep situations not plots. There should be a law that states “the more prep the DM puts into a game is directly proportional to how quickly the players will force their prep off the rails”. The game is a conversation, and I think D&D®️ 5e has fucked this up bc of how they format their adventures WITHOUT EVER TELLING YOU HOW TO ACTUALLY RUN A GAME! Plus, Christ they are fucking textbooks written by committee! I would say a couple things, first: look at Dungeon World as a guideline for how to format your adventures, and second: don’t plan huge arcs, just plan individual moments that you want to happen. The characters will get there, even if it is a roundabout way. The Lazy DM by Sly Flourish has a lot of help here that can work for any game, and there’s this blog post that talks about the literal easiest foolproof prep method.

Your last point doesn’t make sense… Check out itch.io and their physical games category. There are RPGs for literally any genre or setting you can think of. TinyD6 and FAE are two really good generic games that if you can’t find your setting, you just slap these bad boys in there and you have an RPG

It really is a fun and exciting hobby and I’m sorry you’ve had a bad time previously.

Natural 20s don’t matter except on attack rolls RAW