I get annoyed when people say things like “big deal, just do xyz yourself, why are you complaining?” . Because making a clear and comprehensive game is WOTC’s job they are being paid for with our money!

If the system has a flaw, it’s their job to fix it, if they don’t they’re doing a bad job.

That being said, 5.5e has been pretty cleaned up in this aspect. I’m honestly shocked at how they both added new fun systems and codified a lot of vague mechanics.

There are multiple cases where pure chance and human hesitation prevented all out nuclear bombardment in the Cold War.

So for that alone we are extremely lucky.

Humans have advanced far but hardly changed.

As a pansexual I feel that Bi and Pan have enough differences to both be justified while the others are micro labels (not invalid, just less useful as labels).

But I recognize I’m drawing that line very conveniently for myself.

Could just say “I’m nobody”, then when they realize just say “I wasn’t answering your question or giving you my name, I’m just nobody”.

I hate hate hate when people try to discredit a theory because “it’s a theory not a fact” as if the label of “fact” exists on some kind of science ladder for an idea. “Facts” is a colloquial word like any other, it’s not some special category above theories.

Moreover, the most tried and tested theories are facts. Science rarely just disproves an established theory outright. Einstein’s General Relatively equations reduces into Newton’s Laws of Motion in most situations. Newton’s Laws of Motion weren’t “wrong”, it’s just General Relatively is more specific and accurate.

The Scientific Method usually just builds on what already exists without claiming we were all unfactual for working with what we had.

In a D&D game that I got in through Roll20 matchmaking. One of the players asks if I want to join another campaign with his friends, said yes.

One of those friends is now my fiancee that I moved states for. The original guy ghosted all of us in a harsh way but I’ll forever owe my new life to him.

Ring ding ding, winner!

The most immaculate well researched pickles ever seen.

But I’m getting bored, I should learn how to write, or maybe draw, or maybe dance.

No I got it, I’ll shift my focus to an obscure Github program I’m using to test a weird thought I had!

I’ll finish this burger later…

I once used Remove Curse to end an enemies attunement to a cursed amulet possessing them mid combat.

I think the worst thing about a Mary Sue is when their success comes trivially or randomly.

What usually helps me is making the obstacle more specific and diving into those specifics when they’re problem solving. You’ll find most things we broadly group into large lumps, like martial arts, swordfighting, researching, medicine, ect. often have an overwhelming amount of details that not only separates good from bad, but also have specific dynamics that change depending on circumstances.

If you want to make the successes feel earned, include enough detail about the problem that you can tell a story with the challenges involved. If your focus is swordfighting convey the kinds of techniques your protagonist know then put them up against opponents that can counter those techniques so they have to learn. If you focus is a doctor then instead of seeking out the Medicine Flower™, try conveying the roadmap to making medicine to the audience then make a story out of the process.

I feel like Breaking Bad is a good example of this. It depends a lot on actual chemistry and every chemistry advancement is a plot point. Mainly it’s figuring out how to procure the ingredients and equipment without leaving evidence to get caught from.

As an aside, I’ve often wondered what would happen if everything was automatically adjusted for inflation.

So like cost of living inflates, but then income is adjusted and bank accounts are modified to be their true value before inflation.

Would this patch things up to be effectively 0 inflation? or (more likely) would this cause an absurd runaway effect?

I have an SSD for my OS, but a large HDD for my games. It really starts to show as textures take a long time to load in.

I likely would but my computer’s from 2016 with no upgrades, so I’m on the cusp of building a new one from scratch.

After I do that though the old one’s becoming a linux server for sure.

Edit: Hmm, everyone telling me about their massive performance boosts is making me consider pulling the trigger and migrating my current computer.

I already planned on my next computer being Linux Mint, but it’s getting more and more desired as time goes on.

I was playing Elden Ring when it began stuttering, turns out Windows Defender was just constantly reading the disk (I still have a hard drive). Finally turned off maximum priority (seemingly random) scans in task scheduler when I began stuttering again. This time it was Windows Compatibility Telemetry taking up 50% of the disk, until I finally found a way to turn that off.

It’d be so nice to have an OS that doesn’t run random unnecessary things without your permission.

For some reason I always have a habit of scroll to the bottom of any list and reading up. Like I wanna confirm how long the list is before working my way up

Can confirm, it’s also a thing in the US.

With streaming services they’re proving it’s not viable to run a resource hog of a service with a measly monthly subscription.

With social media they’re proving it’s not viable to run a resource hog of a service for free, even with advertisement.

So naturally the best plan to monetize AI is to run a resource hog of a service with a measly monthly subscription and a free version without advertisements. /s

I’ve begun to think of LLMs as compression algorithms for patterns. It can take an existing pattern and apply it on unusual subjects. Like take the pattern of a limerick and apply it to the patterns of Danny Devito, that’s the upper limit of their creativity. So rather than storing information, it stores these patterns making it seem more dynamic.

The way I see it, human creativity is the combination of patterns but in a chaotic non-analytic way. We make leaps of logic that without precise knowledge of our brains can’t be exactly replicated. Meanwhile LLM’s just do the basic combination of patterns that result in the most generic realization of any idea.

However the well dries up as soon as we stop training them. They’ll store the basics of any field but fail to replicate new developments or conclusions until trained.

CVS has a speech recognition system that just won’t forward me to a damn human.

And the nerve of them to constantly berate you about using the app, when I’m calling because the apps not working.