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Henry Southgard leads on.
19: Is from a different latitude entirely, and will often complain about how the weather is too cold. If they're not complaining, they're wearing warm garb in the autumn. Or it's winter, and they're expressing astonishment that snow can pile deeper than an inch. 19B: In the winter months, hires prostitutes when the party stays in town for bedwarming duty rather than entertainment. 20: Composes battle hymns and poetry. Will often state WIP lines out loud to get a feel for the meter, or ask fellow party members if they know a three-syllable synonym for 'strength'. 21: Is an accomplished chef, and will cook up any monster the party kills for dinner. Absolutely anything, short of humanoids or otyughs.
Welcome to the wonderful, wonderful world of Ted Beale, where the guy's a [Profanity-laced tirade omitted for polite company] with his head [Let's not go there either] and so are his detractors. You can't stick up for him because he's indefensible, but you have a hard time siding with the critics because you got to comb through their blog posts to sort out the facts from the hyperbole. What's the guy's fiction like? I don't know, haven't bothered reading what he's written. Only now he's made the ballot, so I have to read it so I can judge it fairly. This'll be interesting.
"Actually, it's quite ergo..." Tainesh trails off as Sparks disappears in a flash of non-light, to be replaced by a strapping Half-Elf in shining armor. Her cry of surprise -and the pending search for signs of a transmutation spell of some sort- is averted when he speaks. Clearly, the warrior has no idea where he is and how he got here. With a murmur, Tainesh activates her magical sight and is astounded at what she sees. The Half-Elf... well, someone has plans for him. Sarenrae, probably, judging from the holy symbol. Positive energy radiates from his body, and his eyes and mouth are like white-hot furnaces. A high priest of the Dawnflower, or perhaps some sort of paladin. The thing behind him nicely explains the odd encounter. It... defied description. It was not something that mundane eyes encountered often enough to craft words for, but it was an enlarged hypersphere of insubstantially fractal... lacey-spacey... stuff. It was an un-singularity where planes had collided at just the right angle (acute, really) to cause a pileup of branes, continuums and multiverses. It was a tunnel, a kaleidoscope into a trillion trillion possibilities, some near, some far. She saw a brother and sister -No, closer than that- asking a man to flip a coin. She saw a team of knights in green armor protecting a strange crystal as purple ships like spun glass hovered ominously overhead. She saw a party of outcasts huddling in a red city, casting wary glances over at a haberdashery. And there, orbiting a point five feet to the left of the future, she sees Sparks in a jungle, flanked by a tiger and a warrior kobold. The kaleidoscope grinds to a halt as the universe realizes it made an error and reverses direction, looking for the step where it forgot to carry the two. Inevitables step out of the folds of space and, with Auditors and Guardians at their side, begin the metaphorical and metaphysical task of pushing the universe's seat into the upright position. "Sir knight," the wizard says, stepping as close as she dares to the disturbance. "You may want to take three steps back and, oh, about half a step to the right. In that order."
*Peaks* Um... all I see is an old guy fiddling with some sort of control booth.
156.5 Tie dead friends to a dinosaur's back, then drop off dead friends and the dinosaur in a mundane stable.Not the proudest moment of my adventuring career... Were you the owner, the guy in the sack, or the dinosaur?
I thought it was going to end with
Making the Symbol of Death look like a smiley face with "Have a nice day" written in Black Speech is just pouring salt on the wound.
123: Spend three hours a day arguing whether one of the party members is really as Lawful/Good/Neutral/Evil/Chaotic as she said she was back when they first met up three years ago. 123a: Not counting the two hours they spend arguing what exactly "True Neutral" is supposed to be. 124: Repeatedly demand to know why the Paladin's patron god didn't thrown him out on the street when he refused to smite that litter of Orc babies. And if that wasn't horrible enough, what about the time when he donated only half of his savings to the city's orphanages?
76: Refer to themselves as "Peacies", despite the fact that war, mayhem, and large-scale slaughter follow them around like their own shadows.
A series of talking monuments strategically placed around the dungeon that chronicle its original establishment as one individual's dream society, and its tragic progressive descent into the monster-ridden crypt it is today. Bonus points: In the nearby towns are a chain of potion shops staffed by female gnomes in pink dresses. It is strongly recommended that you do no approach them when they are gathering ingredients in the wild. The massive armored barbarians don't take kindly to it.
A trap that sets off an Unnatural Lust spell on whoever set it off. *Squints* How about a trap that, in front of the whole party, appears to cast Unnatural Lust on a player before dumping him down a chute. The party finds him in a room full of livestock a few hours later, swearing profusely that nothing actually happened.
This one's a little DM-vs-Players, but I hope it's adversarial in a fun way. A BBEG with the ability to predict the future, and the players need to enter his lair to get something, or maybe just dangle him out the window for information. Wherever the rogue looks for traps (Tiles, walls, privy, ect) there are no traps, but there's bolt-holes and dust to indicate that the trap was moved. Wherever the rogue forgets or simply neglects to look for a trap, there's a trap. On the door to the BBEG's inner sanctum, there's a note that says "On vacation until you murderhobos leave" with free drink vouchers for a local tavern. Because, yes, if a guy like that sees a team of adventurers coming, he's going to take a vacation in Monte Carlo until the storm blows over. Bonus points for turning the note into a booklet that lets the players have a conversation with the BBEG.
So, a couple of my friends are into creepypastas. They follow the Slender Man mythos and are devotees of the SCP Wiki. And their DM was getting frustrated because they were so high level that there was nothing he could challenge them with. Hell, there was nothing that they were even afraid of in the monster manual. So, he decided to step up his game. The party hears of a dungeon nearby with a lizard monster. Rumor has it that it's an immortal demigod in the shape of a crocodile. "Sure. Can't be much tougher than the Tarrasque." A gather information check turns up more rumors, that it regenerates from all attacks and tears into its prey with unmatched ferocity. "Sounds like it has regeneration. Dale, go buy some alchemist fires and acid flasks." When they pass through the dungeon, most of the monsters are dead already, turned into piles of carrion and blood splatters. "Nice of it to save us the trouble." At the bottom of the dungeon are a set of heavily reinforced adamantium doors.
Cue panicked evacuation of the dungeon.
Riffing on the potions thing earlier... The PCs encounter a cupboard filled with unlabeled potions. Scratched into the inside of the door are vague instructions that the owner uses to keep track of what is what. -"The Poison What Kills Instantly 'Pon Drinking is two down from the potion of Healing. Or maybe the other way around."
-Have a BBEG who is known for animating stonework, and have the bridge to his lair lined with gargoyles and statues of dragons and harpies. When the PCs try to cross, he animates the bridge itself. -When the PCs are traveling to a dungeon and just catch sight of the entrance, they see another group of adventurers loading up a wagon with sacks of gold and captured weapons. "True Seeing" will reveal that this is an illusion cast by the local warlock to keep pesky interlopers away.
-A chasm the players must cross, with a riddle encouraging them to take a leap of faith. There is, of course, no bridge. There is a stairway at the bottom of the chasm, and the floor is enchanted to cast 'Cure Critical Wounds' on impact. -Upon entering a hallway, the players see headless corpses wearing all sorts of gear. The spectacular blood splatters on the floor, ceiling, and walls gives some hint as to how they died and what happened to their heads. The players cannot see what's at the other end of the hallway.
So, this guy made three mistakes: -He was playing a dark, edgy anime character whose internal monologues (This was a 3.5e PbP) consisted of self-congratulatory gloating, purple prose, and explicitly thinking of the other PCs as "tools to be used." -He was badly roleplaying a cliched shapeshifter. You know, he'd always correct himself mid-word when talking about himself or his past, he kept referring to stuff he could smell, and lavished way too much purple prose on how he couldn't wait to discard his current frail aspect. -Did I mention the gorram purple prose? The rest of the party got tired of it (by the end of the first page, come to think of it) and started hatching a plan titled Operation 'Sorry, But You're Obviously A Lycanthrope'. This would have entailed getting an iron collar (The 'Mark One Werewolf Restraint Collar") forged that would inflict a random condition when he transforms. Our DM was going to allow it because, unknown to us, the guy was playing a kitsune imported from Pathfinder. When he'd transform, the collar would just inflict nonlethal damage and wound his pride. It could have actually made for some excellent roleplay, if he'd been any good at roleplaying. Or if the campaign lasted long enough to set the operation in motion.
*Looks into fridge* "Oh, Hell, not again!"
Why do you think that the police in the U.S. are being so heavily militarized?Which makes it incredibly important that the peasants can shoot back.Which circles back to the williamoak's "kill all the peasants" option. Because the people supplying the police are idiots who didn't learn their lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Which circles back to the williamoak's "kill all the peasants" option. Which makes it incredibly important that the peasants can shoot back.
175: A group of drunken druids proclaim that the beer tastes worse than moose urine, and try to prove their charge with Summon Nature's Ally. Unfortunately, there's a level of drunkeness that can make "Dire moose" sound like "Tarrasque"...
Henry Southgard's glances over at the brazier, wondering if the embers absorbed the fire or if it was merely a trick of the eyes. He loads the crossbow, aims for the construct...
And the bolthead flattens against an armored scale, hardly scratching the metal.
'Pooh' was a half-ton grizzly bear, best drug sniffer we ever had. But this one time, we raided this paint factory for cocaine. He stepped into a pool of paint and we had to shave the fur off, after which he quit the force and wouldn't go outside. He just couldn't bear bearing Behr-bared bear arms.
Of course. No self-respecting eldritch abomination goes outside without a pocketful of extra dimensions.
In exchange for what the society give you, you must in turn give things to society. When your society has a government, that generally means money. It isn't your money. You owe it to society. *Alarm bells* The government didn't take your money. It was never yours. The government lets you use their money to facilitate financial transactions. At the end of the day, the government gets it's money back. How much it gets back it a product of many factors, but the money is the government's to take. Hmm... If money was the government's property, what would that look like? Wouldn't it mean that the government could repossess its property at a moment's notice? I don't recall signing any agreements, contracts, or EULAs, so the government has more freedom to raid my bank account than Microsoft has to terminate my Xbox Live account.And wouldn't the government be under no obligations to use that property responsibly? Million dollar salaries and posh gosdachas for bureaucrats would be totally justified. No one gives a flip what you think. Nor does it matter, because the money being spent isn't yours anyway. What a horrible, horrible philosophy.
Hanford baby right here. I would trade the made up "problems" you mentioned over the possibility of a Chernobyl Nuclear reactors in the US usually aren't built to Soviet Russian standards, or staffed with simpletons who can't run an equipment test right. or Fukashima The US also has a low incidence of both tsunamis and disastrously low seawalls. I would bet the same thing could be said for the next hundred generations as well. I was wondering how long it would be until someone said "For the children!"
... a player, curious about an encounter the GM has been bragging about for a few weeks, peeks at the campaign notes when the GM is on a smoke break. That player promptly turns pale, sits down, and starts rocking back and forth in his chair.
So there is a gravity well toward the centre of our star system... Congratulations. You're not even wrong. People who are wrong reach incorrect conclusions from an analysis of data. Sometimes the analysis itself was incorrect, or the data was flawed. In a few sad instances, the initial assumptions behind the analysis were wrong to begin with. You had none of these. You laid down a foundation of flawed assumptions, and then layered on something that we can't call logic. We can't call it anti-logic or non-logic either, because it has zero relation to logic in the first place. There is no path that can be taken, no instructions that can be given to steer a thinking man from proper logic to your method of thought (for lack of a better word, and even then we're using the broadest definition of 'thought' possible). So, congratulations. You aren't right, but we can't say you're wrong either. We may call you 'entertaining', but only in the way that the Time Cubed guy is.
So the state having benefited from your million dollar of toil over a lifetime is obliged to remunerate you to the full value of your labour payable in resources, I'd trust my MBA-toting, Dale Carnegie-quoting huckster of a boss to reimburse my labor fairly long before I trust the likes of you. a seat in parliament, So... Either it's an impractically big parliament building, each citizen occupies the seat for a grand total of seven minutes, or this is more empty "Power to the people" rhetoric. a roof over your head? Khrushchyovka is how animals live, not humans. No thanks, comrade.
Seems perfectly reasonable. *slow clap*
"Hey, Wise Mister Owlbear! How many licks does it take to get to the chewy center of a Barbarian Pop?"
things are indeed significantly different on the coasts.the time period where that was true to the level you insinuate has long passed. Most four year colleges do not recognize credits from community colleges. Even if they are in the same system.As much as I think his point is privileged and kind of dumb, this is flatly not true. Maybe things are significantly different on the coasts, but in the Midwest and Southwest US 4 year colleges will accept virtually all credits from community colleges in their same state and the majority for credits from other states. Went to a community college in Washington State, and I had the option of transferring to at least four state colleges with full credit. And those are just the ones I bothered to check. What hellhole are you living in?
So you're saying that we need to rebuild the unions whose destruction preceded the loss of those manufacturing jobs and get rid of supply-side economics, which has been the single greatest burden on our economy for three decades. And then laugh out any politician who talks about it likes it's a good thing. So... when were these unions destroyed? AFL-CIO is still around, UAW is still going as strong as a business in Detroit can be expected to, etc. Did I miss reading about a round of union-busting forty years back?
... you get to the table and everybody is yakking about RAW and spellcasting services instead of playing the game.
110. A draft blows through the tavern and stuffs out the lights.
111. While barcrawling, two bands of warriors from the Ul'tak tribe enter the same tavern and mistake each other for their sworn enemies, the Ul'tao.
The President really does want to act on this stuff, but who are we kidding? He can't even declare a snow day without being accused of Communism. Hate to burst your bubble, but Obama is as much of a taker as any other politician.
Which is fallacious in itself, because I've met plenty of racist Democrats. Racism isn't about hate. Racism is about judging people by their skin color and place of birth. So, there's the Democrat who told me that lax gun laws might work well where I live, but there was a high Latino population in her hometown, "and Latinos get violent pretty quick. Letting them have easy access to guns isn't a good idea." And then there was my stint in Engineers Without Borders. That boiled down to "Those poor starving people in Africa can't feed or house themselves, so let's go over and teach them how." And yes, they were Democrats; the ensuing conversation about foreign aid steamrolled into a debate about the ACA. Or there's the Republican blacks who get called "Sell-outs" and "House Negros" . Yeah, nothing makes my TA want to join the Democrat Party like being told he's a traitor to his race.
“If I must tear you apart, sinner, I will.” “This body does not matter. The flesh is weak. It is my faith that endures all.” “I am the alpha and the omega.” “This is true power.” “You cannot resist.” “This is what you face.” “The forces of the universe bend to me.” “My Lord's power is unmatched. Nothing stands against Him.” “Face your annihilation.” “You are shortsighted. Pitiful. Irrelevant.” “You are vermin.” “I will end you.” “You prolong the inevitable.” “Embrace perfection.” “I will show you true power.” “My attacks will tear you apart.”
After a long night and early morning, you arrive at the table ready to start a new campaign. And you find that you only have tax forms and W2s with you. With dawning horror, you realize that you mailed in your character sheet.
Oh, is this cute or what? Wheat brings in $8.35 per bushel. Yields for wheat in Southern Illinois is about 56 bushels per acre. Once land is rented By The People for $1,000,000 per acre per year, a bushel of wheat goes for $17,863. The price will just adjust upward after farmers and agricorps band together to hire mercenary companies to defend their fields from roving bands of marauders and starving families. This makes the crops even more valuable, which means that the farmers have to pay the mercenaries more to stop them from pillaging the farmland. That increases the price more, so the bandits get more desperate. This vicious cycle creates a state of hyperinflation that wrecks the economy within four months. Skyscraper hydroponic plants are briefly left unfinished as workers go on strike. They are almost coaxed back onto the job site when they are paid in corn cobs and apples, but labor unions step in and refuse to work for anything less than fifteen pounds of sirloin steak per 6-hour day. By this point, a gram of soy meal is worth about three bricks of cocaine. The Canadian-American border is walled up and guarded to protect America's Hat from America's masses of refugees. For the first time ever, 100% of all migrants crossing the Mexican-American border are headed south. That wall finally gets built, because you apparently need an iron wall to prevent the proletariat from fleeing paradise. Of course, the government solves the problem by nationalizing the mercenaries and incorporating them into the armed services. This doesn't stop the graft and corruption, though. It just means that if the farmer complains about armed men stealing their crops, they get shot for sabotage, obstructionism, and counter-Soviet activities. Naturally, the farmers fail to meet quotas and get shipped off to labor camps because everyone keeps stealing from their fields. Inevitably, the farms will be nationalized as well. There'll be resistance, of course, because all that farmland accounts for about 408 trillion (worthless) dollars in revenue, but something must be done. Something other than reverting to a (relatively) sane taxation plan. Besides, the State can make a profit by selling the food at markup. There will still be food shortages, since we're staffing the farms with anyone too stupid to escape the kolkhoz and the people in charge have never studied history. Or maybe they did, and decided they wanted omelettes anyway. ...Satire. This was supposed to be satire. I think I got lost halfway through. Sigh. Yellowdingo, millions of people have died in countries all over the world because some idiot got in power and was determined to create his little utopia, reality be damned. So, would you kindly go take a long walk off a short pier.
I'm building a robot over the next few weeks. Now you've laid this immense guilt trip on me :(Yeah, you really need to read rossums universal robots (the play). As a consequence of robots, the poorest are forced to live in badlands struggling to grow their own foods right up until the bot armies that pushed their protesting asses from cities and good farmland crush the last remaining human holdouts on behalf of the ruling class.basically we are screwed but if robots take over food production and building homes, is providing you with the bare minimum all the ruling class need provide you? Is it okay to be paid food and shelter or should you be left to die? And there's your problem. A true engineer would have stepped up to the plate and said "Challenge accepted."
I hate my Province, if the fusion happened, would you throw out French Canadians who refuse to learn/use English? If you look the other way while we relocate Southern California to Baja California and build a huge freaking wall, I don't see why not.
The Latin for cow is 'bos', which is why we call cows bossy. I bring this up because, when asked the same question I asked above, my neighbor's wife said that it's offensive because when girls are called bossy it's the same as calling them cows. Has anyone heard this before? Not before now. Kind of denying that languages shift and words can take on new meanings, isn't she?
You enter a town that frowns on weapons. The gunslinger tries to bluff his way through, and is asked to demonstrate that they are empty. He does. The cleric has to roll a new character. The best trap springers are dead goblins tied to the end of a rope and thrown down a hallway. Minor correction: the best trap springers are dead goblins rigged up with rope and a paddle, and then manipulated via "Bugsby's Hand of Marionette Control". If you don't have it in your spellbook, phone up Vaarsuvius and offer to trade it for a coffee machine that does espresso.
Sounds like someone crossed a pokedex with The Luggage.
...you break into the BBEG's inner sanctum and: -The obscenely optimized Gunslinger runs screaming from the room before the DM can finish reading the description. -The player who has quoted the stats of every encountered monster thus far merely remarks "That's just delaying the inevitable." -The player who quotes Princess Bride and Monty Python ad nauseum says "Don't move. It can't see us if we don't move." -The party wizard uses the Scroll of Wish that he's been sitting on for a year and a half to teleport to safety. More precisely, 'safety' is 'several planes away, under an assumed identity.'
Use windmills to power fans to combat global warming
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