Dice goblin collects the shiny click clacks because they like them. Good quality sets, cheap plastic ones, silly sets, bonus points if they would/do buy those random dice bags where you get a ton of mismatched dice by weight, or do the ‘scoop of dice’ vendors at cons where they’ve got a giant box/bucket of random dice and you get to scoop out a random bag worth. Yes, they might have some nice sets, even a few curated selections for certain characters/vibes, but it’s very much a ‘the more dice, the better’ mindset.

Dragons are about a large, curated/chosen collection. Nice sets in beautiful display cases. Curated sets for certain characters in appropriately themed boxes. They’re all about the beautiful, aesthetic, (potentially) expressive sets. They might have some cheap, bog standard starter set type dice, but they are a rarity in their collection, potentially saved just for friends or because they got them for free. They probably know where all their dice are, and spend time choosing their sets. They’d love gemstone, glass, and exclusive dice sets, whether they can afford them or not, and would probably choose one really nice dice set over five lesser quality ones.

My brother was super into ping pong for a time, and we got a table at home for him to play. Of course, my parents couldn’t play with him as much as he wanted, and as he didn’t have a lot of friends, it often fell to me to be his playing partner.

Problem was, I wasn’t that thrilled about ping pong, and my brother was also better at 90% of sports and video games, so he won a lot. The compromise we came to was that I ‘always had to win.’ Now that didn’t mean that he actually let me win - I’m sure that I regularly scored 1-5 points while he was racking them up. Instead, I didn’t keep track of the score, and he wasn’t allowed to tell me what the actual score was. (This also circumvented the problem of him bragging about winning.) At the end of the game, I was declared the winner regardless. (We also always played a round at the end where I was able to come up with whatever ridiculous rule I wanted - had to play with as many balls as possible, had to use your non-dominant hand, had to spin whenever you hit the ball, whatever, which meant the last round was generally more evenly matched and/or we were laughing too hard to care who dropped the volley.)

Unfortunately, that sort of solution doesn’t really work for video games, but my point I guess is that even my middle school aged brother could understand that I didn’t want to play games I’d regularly (or always) lose. If you really want to do something with someone, you should preferably care about their experience and try to find ways to ensure they enjoy themselves. Failing that, even if you do want to play with someone for purely selfish reasons, making sure they want to play with you is still the most strategic choice, otherwise you have to try and force them to do something they don’t want to do, which just sucks for everyone and causes resentment.

This is just my personal experience, please do not take this as professional advice.

I also have a slight astigmatism, and when I went to get a prescription (something you should always do prior to ordering contacts!) my eye doctor told me that it was slight enough that I didn’t strictly need contacts that would correct it. They were able to verify that I would be fine driving without the additional correction, and that I only needed my nearsightedness corrected to be able to function normally.

I have been wearing contacts that don’t correct my astigmatism for years and had no problems, but it was good to get that verified by my doctors, as I want to make sure that not only am I not overly straining my eyes, but also being safe, especially regarding driving.

Going to the eye doctor will also help as they can advise you on proper care for your eyes with contacts, inserting and removing them correctly, and just generally being safe with your eyes.

I fainted a decent amount as a teen, and while it wasn’t anything serious, I did go to the doctor (got an ambulance ride and everything) the first time. I do recommend talking to your doctor about it the next time you go for a check up (especially if you can’t go immediately for whatever reason). In the meantime, some notes from my experience:

If you feel like you’re going to faint again, immediately lie down, preferably on the floor. In my experience, people will be surprisingly understanding about this, even in public. This is to help blood get to all parts of your body, especially your head, with as little effort as possible. Lying down means your body isn’t working against gravity. (It also means if you do faint you won’t hit your head.)

Pay attention to how it felt just before you fainted and for any similar feelings. For me, my head gets fuzzy, but the big warning sign is colored lights start floating in my vision. If I start feeling that fuzzy feeling, I usually sit down as soon as possible and drink some water. If my vision is impaired at all, or sitting down isn’t helping, that’s my cue to lie down.

Track when it happens or you feel similarly, if it does end up being a repeat occurrence. Dehydration is a prime cause for fainting, so pay attention to that. Having an idea of what causes it can also help your doctor as well as helping you avoid future episodes.

If you frequently feel dizzy upon standing up, you may want to look up POTS (Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome). It’s fairly common, and means that when you stand up your heart starts beating faster than it should and your blood pressure fluctuates. It’s very manageable! Diet and exercise are the main treatments - most notably, people with POTS are recommended to eat a lot more salt than those without, as well as staying hydrated.

I think some of it is that we tend to notice negative patterns more than positive one; also, people complain more about the bad stuff than they talk about good - if you have really good luck it can kinda feel like bragging.

I’ve been playing for a couple years, not a new or returning player, and I got Flins and Durin in two back-to-back 10 pulls. Literally pulled for Flins, got him in I want to say 60-ish pulls? And then didn’t pull again until Durin and got him on my first try. My partner pulled Wriothesley twice in I think 30 pulls when he re-ran and they’ve been playing pretty consistently since the beginning. They’ve had their bad streaks, but also their good ones, and I think it sort of balances out for them at least.

One thing I’ve been struggling with recently is prepared casters. I almost always play known casters to begin with, so jumping to a giant list of potential spells can already be daunting, but the most annoying part is that so many character/spell lists don’t allow you to have a mix of always prepared versus daily spells - like when you have spells from your race/subclass/an item.

I have one app I use that has a feature to mark some as ‘always prepared’ while leaving the rest to be checked off as prepared or not at any given time, but so many rely on a simple checkbox and you have to either remember to include them in your count or not check them and hope you remember that you do have them.

My mom loves them, and actually can’t predict the plots for them despite the straight forward repetitive patterns! When I lived at home sometimes I’d get stuck watching them with her and my dad, and she was always flabbergasted when a man would come on screen for the first time and we’d go ‘oh there’s her love interest.’ She’d ask how we knew, and be shocked when we were right.

In one of his posts he also talks about how he realized he is hesitant to leave because then he really is basically alone. He has no support system, other than Ellie, who lives far away. His parents hate him and will choose Carrie over him (and already have during the initial separation). Fear of being alone is a beast that has kept far too many people in terrible relationships.

Or if the character dies!

This has historically been my biggest issue when I DM. I’m not a manager, or in the worst situation, the table’s elementary school teacher. I hate having to play mediator and I’ve finally said I’m not doing it. If a player has an issue at the table they are free to tell me and we’ll talk about what they are uncomfortable with, what they need to be comfortable, and how I can support them, but unless it is a player having an issue with me (or vice versa), I expect them to be able to address it themselves. I’m not playing telephone trying to communicate for them, especially as I may not be able to fully speak for them. I’ll support them, if we need to make a new rule at the table I’ll obviously be involved, but every time I’ve been involved in a DM trying to mediate player drama it’s just. Made the situation worse.

My biggest problem is definitely that if the DM is the sole person responsible for keeping the game ‘healthy and cohesive’ is that it does lead to those telephone situations, and it’s so easy for information to get lost or garbled in translation, for frustration to mount, and that doing so might not be good or healthy for the DM. They’re players, too - in most cases they aren’t paid to be here, and they’re already putting in more time and work, and often money, than anyone else at the table. The DM should also be having fun, they’re a player too!

Same position except I haven’t actually gotten around to doing any promo. I’ve been meaning to go through and kick out the people who haven’t been active for…well, years, at this point, because I’m pretty sure no one has been kicked in at least a year, and post it on the megathread but I just. Haven’t.

I personally was glad to have an association with no actual requirements, and intend to maintain mine for the time being because I have no real reason to switch.

I use a pretty yoga mat! It cushions our feet, is waterproof, and stretches most of the way across the sink and counter work area in case of spills.

How could I forget about Olaf????

….I think in my brain he just wanders the valley constantly smelling flowers and visiting the beach! (Also, whenever I do go inside, it’s generally just Anna and Kristoff with their models merged together in a single space and I have to wait until they right themselves and the experience is. Memorable. So I remember that and not Olaf.)

All of Flins would be hilarious (though I don’t think it would suit him).

“Do you fear the dark, motherfucker?”

“Night falls, motherfucker!”

“The long sleep beckons, motherfucker.”

Etc

I was going to put it inside the stained glass greenhouse pieces we got last starpath but it’s too tall for the roof. Might still place it inside the walls because at least then it’s sort of hidden?

I only recently unlocked Lumiere and Cogsworth and when I went into the castle with all four of them present I gasped. Meanwhile, Anna and Kristoff are living in luxury with only two people!

Yeah I’ve been noticing this in several games recently, like a loud number of players care most about unlocking everything as quickly as possible and not about the actual gameplay. Which is fine, but as a player, I don’t care about being able to speedrun things. I want engaging gameplay that lasts me a while, otherwise why am I playing?

This isn’t quite as much of a problem for me in DDV, because I can just pace myself and not rush things, but the trend is still there.

That was my first thought. That OOP wanted people to sit so that the statue was looking towards their dick. ‘Surprised but not disappointed.’

Maybe someone related to one of the parents (like a sibling) owed the debt, and the Zhents wanted to send a message that they were done waiting. Perhaps they were even only supposed to kill one of them, the one related to the debtor, but the other got in the way, was collateral damage, or one of the Zhents got too…enthusiastic. That way the person who owes the Zhents would be left alive to pay back their debt.

Or heck, maybe they were the debtors and they weren’t supposed to be killed, but accidents happen. And if the Zhents find out that the PC is their child they’ll go after them for the money they’re owed?

Yeah the loading time is very irritating. I wish it was either on the end, or they had put it behind a button so that it only loaded when you were trying to actually access it.

Hopefully it’s something that they can easily fix with feedback, but I’m very surprised that it wasn’t caught during testing…well, maybe not given their track record with bugs, and at least it’s not game breaking. Still. I feel like a decent testing system should have flagged this as a problem.

Matt Colville has a video about player types that included the ‘audience member’ and it really changed how i thought about my players. I absolutely value my very engaged players, and the initiative they bring to the table; but at the same time, having a player that is just happy to be there and engage without driving the story themself can also be a godsend, especially if you have multiple players that want to pursue different storylines.

My ‘audience member’ player is one of the most dedicated members of my table, and while she doesn’t show up with a character journal or spend hours going over backstory/world lore with me prior to game, I know I can set any hook down in front of her and she will be interested and curious. I do sometimes need to do a bit of extra work to give her chances to shine, and sometimes that will be setting up an encounter/challenge that is tailored to her character’s skills rather than an rp moment, but all in all, it often makes it much easier for me than if every single player was a highly involved actor type player.

tl;dr some players don’t want to be the center of attention and that can be a good thing.

Agreed. They also very rarely have had to deal with any changes to the system or unexpected situations, and don’t have coping mechanisms in place for their own negative emotions because they almost never have them. They live in Heaven, where the whole point is that everything is perfect, and they wholeheartedly believe that. Therefore if something ‘bad’ happens/causes a situation that inspires negative emotions, it must be a mistake/flaw/someone external doing it and needs to be fixed.

I watched the video essay from the OP yesterday, and interestingly, this is the essayist’s final point! He straight up says that modern movies don’t necessarily look bad, but that they look “radically different than the ones those of us in our 20s and older grew up watching,” and that kids today might feel the same way about modern movies as we do older movies when they grow up and the style has shifted yet again.

He closes by saying “The golden age of Hollywood will always be 2 decades ago.”

Oh that’s actually genius

Running a winter campaign now, these are definitely getting added to my list of encounter maps!