CodexArcanum

Who's that supposed to be? Must not get up to the Cloud District very often!

I'm reminded of a very passionate post I once saw about how tiktok dances have made some people afraid to dance because they aren't as good as people who literally live in dance training camps to factory -produce dance videos. Anyway, the plea was to just ignore that and dance! People largely have an innate desire to move when they hear music, and its OK to just vibe with it.

The internet has got people thinking that everything they make must be step 1 of their plan to monetize that thing and release it for global consumption. Write stories for yourself, letter for friends, and poems for no one! Dance no matter who is looking. Make art everywhere. And for goodness' sake, play table top games with friends, make up stories, and let yourself get wildly obcessed about it! It's yours! It's ok to just love the story your friends are telling and to talk about with people, and you don't even have to lament that your friend group isn't charming enough to carry the podcast of your game.

I'm a big fan of the "wisdom " check before players do something that seems, to me, completely stupid. Like, hey, before you set out to storm the castle, roll your highest knowledge skill.

Tactics, architecture, history, etc, all good. But any success on any skill (or even, literally, Wisdom if nothing else) gets you a little hint that this is a terrible idea.

"OK well, as a Baker, you understand that the huge wagon pulling 500 loaves of bread into the castle means there must be an enormous amount of guards. Since you got a natural 20 on your Cooking check, you can estimate the number precisely to around 150. Even if they weild the baguettes as weapons, you are certain they will defeat you."

And then, most parties I've played with will then begin formulating their plan to sneak in on the bread wagon, which is a much funnier story. Or they'll complain that they meant the druid should cause a storm to distract the guards or something like that. It's kind of amazing how often these bad plans arise from a miscommunication.

Catnip lovers will see this and be like, "hell yeah"

I hadn't heard of this book, but I'm entirely unsurprised to see that this is the same duo that made Veins of the Earth. The monsters in that book are so, so delightfully fucked up and this has that same energy. Have to add this one to my wishlist.

Jack Saint (YouTuber) did a take down vid on Shad that revealed his real nature to me. I also had previously enjoyed his historical content.

The thing is, as another poster pointed out, once people started looking, he's actually not historically accurate either and is barely more knowledgeable about it than your friend in the SCA who won't shut up about long swords and katanas.

It's a pattern with bigots: you can't trust their information or expertise on anything. Because either they aren't willing to update their views with facts, or they're willing to lie to cover up facts they do know but dislike. Neither are good qualities in any person, but especially not in historians and educators.

Hey if it's good enough for From software...

Look, this isn't a diceocracy, its a dicetatorship. If they can't roll right, perhaps they have no place in our society.

"So uh, did you remember to sheath your weapon after the last fight? Well, you didn't explicitly say that you did..."

There's like a whole thing with marathon and ultramarathon runners just shitting themselves while running. There's something physiological that happens when you push the body that much. So I'm not so surprised that "pit stops" in the bushes were an issue that required a ruling.

Im salty about the smoking guy though: Justice for Chain-Smoking Chen! China has the world's only living train and they treat him like this!

In the "Veins of the Earth" underdark setting for retro D&D, the author was clearly annoyed about this because they draw attention to the fine distinction between "Dark Vision" (which only monsters have) and "Infrared" or "Low Light" vision, which still give you some advantages underground but which both also require some kind of light source to work still.

Molly's in the Market! Great place for a drink anytime of day!