/u/DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca is right on the money. Mana paces the game, so anything that can break that is super good. In an otherwise even matchup, if one player has a Lotus while the other doesn’t, that can easily make the game. It’s not going to win the game in and of itself, but it’s a huge enabler to play the thing that will win you the game, before your opponent can reasonably do anything about it.

On top of that, it’s literally good in all decks. It’s been banned in every format besides Vintage, where it’s restricted to one (and not including casual/fan formats). It had to be banned partly for power reasons, but also because it makes deck-building less diverse. There’s no deck that wouldn’t want a Lotus if it could have one, much less four.

It’s also part of the Reserved List. After WotC overprinted cards, they essentially promised not to reprint certain ones. I think it’s a dumb decision, but they’ve annoyingly stuck to it (and players are worse off for it). Black Lotus is on that list. And it was alreadly limited in printings, because it was a rare card, and a bit of a design mistake.

It’s also simply an iconic card. Despite being a design mistake, it’s a major part of Magic history, and gets referenced all the time. To some extent, it’s famous for being famous. That makes it the biggest prize for collectors.

So, all this together, it has an incredibly high demand, a very limited supply, and no indication of a reprint anytime soon.

So I printed off a proxy at a professional card printer for 30¢. :)

Happy to help! It’s worked great for me, and a buddy of mine also liked it, so I’m fairly sure it’s not a fluke. :P

Also, my ratios were by weight. That’s only relevant because that’s what makes me push up against the maximum solubility. If you go volumetric, you have more wiggle room. The second point will be less relevant, but it’s still faster and easier than heating it in a pot, IMO.

Oh, and as a bonus: you don’t need to wait for the syrup to cool down.

If you’re going to make simple syrup, use a stick blender.

Firstly, it’s easier and faster than heating the sugar and water in a pot, which is the most popular method.

Secondly, you don’t lose any significant amount of water to evaporation. That’s not a big deal if you make 1:1 simple syrup, but if you’re going 2:1 (which I prefer), you’re already very close to the maximum solubility of sugar in water at room temperature. Losing a few grams of water can make it supersaturated, which leads to sugar crystals falling out of solution over time. Not a big deal, but a little annoying.

If you give it a try, bear in mind that you’re going to get a cloudy syrup at first. That’s totally normal, and it’s not undissolved sugar, it’s just air bubbles. They’ll float out over time.

“If you’d rather play D&D, are you willing to DM while I recharge?”

In my group, yes. :| We actually have plenty of players willing to run games.

That said, they’re also willing to try out new games, so it all works out just fine. :)

I think part of it is that meme discussions are just a great place to actually talk shop about D&D.

Back on reddit, the vast majority of D&D subs were flooded with fan art and very little discussion. There were DM subs, but those obviously left out players. I loved /r/rpg, but that place was also a refuge for people who don’t want to talk about D&D and only D&D all the dang time. (And even if I’m mostly over D&D, I still like D&D in theory, if not always in practice). So… that kind of left /r/dndmemes as, unexpectedly, one of the few places to get in-depth discussion about all kinds of RPGs and experiences from around the table.

Oof. I wouldn’t like that at all. I’m already bothered with how many player powers just shut off certain parts of the game. Also putting it on the monster side seems like it will make the game an arms race of things not mattering.

It’s definitely something that’s a part of newer D&D, though it’s debatable when it started. It was inarguably a part of 4th edition, I think it was here by 3rd edition, and there’s even a case to be made that 2e was headed in that direction with some of the supplements.

Anyway, your dad was right. :P During 2e, that was still a big part of the game. It’s part of the differentiation between “old school” and “new school” D&D. Whatever I think of any particular edition, I think both approaches are rad for different reasons. :)

It’s just the mismatch of expectations that would be a problem. It sucks to die because you were expecting another epic set piece battle, and it also sucks to try to come up with a clever solution to avoid an encounter just to end up not doing much or getting railroaded.

Yeah, we had a near-TPK with our group recently. The rogue picked a lock and opened a door, which triggered a comical amount of explosives. We dealt with the consequences, but it was frustrating because it just kind of came out of nowhere. It didn’t seem to be that kind of campaign, y’know? Nothing remotely like it happened in months of play up to that point.

…so I was kind of reading my own experiences into this. :P

Alright, gotcha. Just taking it as a launch point for discussing the game.

Plus apparently situations like this happened in CR recently, so I thought it was about these kinds of situations in general.

Just to get it out of the way, I don’t watch CR, so I don’t know if this is a specific reference, and am just speaking about D&D in general. :)

Kind of inevitable with most D&D games. If you design adventures around having a series of more-or-less balanced encounters, almost always combat, where player characters are expected to be stressed but not generally killed the vast majority of the time… both the players and their characters are going to have the expectation that they can just do that.

So you need to manage those expectations. Make it clear up front, and either run the game so that death is a real threat more of the time, or find other ways to make it crystal clear when it is.

(Or just don’t make things lethal and find other consequences for failure. Or whatever you’d like, my point is just to get folks on the same page.)

It’s really the crux of a lot of issues with D&D, from table problems to game problems to publisher problems.

And as a player who wants to do that too, I keep in mind that the DM is also playing the game and wants to have a good time.

Huh. I kind of do this in between sessions. I like to read a few pages, maybe a chapter or two, from whatever rulebook, just so I’m constantly brushing up on the rules.

Tankies: The word ‘tankie’ is meaningless because it gets overused by disingenuous people on the right.

Also tankies: Everyone who criticizes my position is right-wing.

It honestly reminds me of fascists saying that harsh criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. It’s a dishonest rhetorical game.

And capitalist regimes. The Russian Federation was literally founded by a betrayal of a reformist movement in the USSR, and China consulted with Milton Goddamn Friedman on their economy, ending up with billionaires. I even saw .ml users crying about Russian *oligarchs" having their assets seized (“stolen,” as they said), and unironically citing Matt Taibbi. Not even “back in the day” Taibbi, but literally The Twitter Files. Using bought & paid for corporate propaganda to make their point.

They’re just campists. I don’t want to run afoul of a “No True Scotsman” situation, but fuck, for people who seem to think they’re the Only True Socialists, they’re willing to drop socialism in an instant if it means they can be edgy dickheads on the internet.

And like with League of Legends, I bet SBF was hardstuck in bronze.

Yeah, written in a little booklet and everything. You don’t have to pass it down as an oral tradition from generation to generation!

You can also check the modlogs. They can be really revealing.

To go one step further, it’s not just that their customers will fill in the gaps, they’ll also take the blame.

The DM struggles with a products that provides them with little to no support? “Skill issue. You just need a good DM.”

The DM works doggedly to fill in and paper over the gaps? Sure, they’ll appreciate the DM, but WotC gets some credit because “This module is so much fun!”