[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 8 points 1 day ago

That makes it even better lol

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 22 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I listened to Chapo on and off, but I'm glad I was there for that moment him and I think Virgil talked to those two liberal podcasters completely unprepared and still schooled them. That was hilarious.

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 3 points 2 days ago

Thanks, I dislike that, too. The difference between this genocide and others, is that the US is directly involved in this one. Palestinian children are being killed by our bombs, dropped by equipment based on our technology, from deals we've given them, and ordered by politicians we are supporting. If the US wasn't involved, I wouldn't care as much. But they are. Blinken runs interference for them, defending Israel at every opportunity. We block resolutions against them in the UN. The press uses loaded language with Hamas and the passive voice with Israel caused tragedies and massacres. We promise retribution against the ICC if they prosecute Netanyahu (if you ever need proof we're the baddies, look at that. Threatening vengeance against international court when they are trying to punish a genocide). Biden has gone around Congress to give stuff to Israel multiple times. They avoid applying any pressure to Israel to let in aid, instead using the vastly inefficient and more expensive failure of a pier. He keeps saying it's not a genocide despite a bunch of other countries saying it is. They block news of bad things Israel does and actively lie about it. People in his administration have left over these things. I agree with you that the US should be less involved and not be the World Police. But you seem to think this means I want us to go in. If we were not involved, that would be a VAST improvement over the status of quo, of being involved in purely bad ways. At least if we weren't involved, I wouldn't feel responsible as an American in a democracy to use my vote to affect change in some way, to do good, agonizing over whether to vote for a "Hitler" because his holocaust is abroad and he's got better domestic policies. I hate the DNC for putting those of us with a conscience in this position.

Now, this doesn't mean I think people should vote for Trump. Maybe I should've emphasized that more. He's obviously worse. But he's not causing this right now, Biden is. So he's a bad President. I can acknowledge he's better than Trump on this and all other issues, and still criticize him for that.

I agree some explanation would be nice at least.

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 11 points 2 days ago

Ohio used to be a swing state, too, right? Not sure of it still is or if it isn't, how that turned around. But maybe they should be in the list?

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 13 points 4 days ago

Right? I don't remember seeing a debate or anything. It's equivalent to those elections people make fun of in North Korea, where the choices are the leader and nobody.

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Considering our data is being bought and sold by US companies to whoever I don't think this is going to help with that. Tbh, I'm more scared of the US having our data than China. The US can use it to find people seeking abortions, or to track protestors trying to get human rights, or things like that. Not China. I'd rather they make a general law to preserve privacy, but this half-assed measure to preserve US monopolies.

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 23 points 6 days ago

The revealed their code to a US company already: Oracle.

They just don't like that the youth use it to see what's happening in other parts of the world, like Palestine. They want to be able to keep the US populace within their propaganda bubble, in the state we were in when we didn't know about things like the Irgun or The Great March of Return.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Shyfer@ttrpg.network to c/bestoflemmy@lemmy.world

Well they already tried suing them when they began accepting girls and changed their name the first time to Scouts BSA, but that didn't work. But truthfully the two organizations have different missions and methods.

Historically, a lot of girls who joined GSUSA thinking it was going to be Boy Scouts for girls were disappointed and would leave. GSUSA is more about empowering girls through community engagement and exploring careers. Yes there can also be camping, hiking, etc but these are more or less optional components, up to each troop to integrate. Rank advancement is based on age and grade level, while awards are based on merit.

Boy Scouts is much more focused on outdoor skills and citizenship. These are integrated into the program in that advancement in rank is based solely on merit and demonstrating proficiency with these skills. You can spend six years in Boy Scouts and never make it past Tenderfoot.

So for girls who want more emphasis on the outdoors built into their program, Scouting America would be the better option. For those that want more flexibility and are less outdoorsy, GSUSA is still an option. Both are good programs. I have kids in both. There are some things I like better about GSUSA and some I like more in Boy Scouts. I think Boy Scouts is a more challenging program overall, but GSUSA's Gold Award is way more challenging to achieve than an Eagle project. I definitely prefer GSUSA not having a religious requirement.

Both programs will continue to adapt and change. Both have been experiencing declines in membership for decades anyway, so there's bigger problems that they're facing.

17
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by Shyfer@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

I've been invited to join a game of Daggerheart. I like the critical role people, but otherwise know nothing about the game. I haven't read much about it or anything yet. And I haven't seen a thread about it on Lemmy yet, so I'm wondering what the different opinions on it so far are.

People enjoying it? Not liking it? Mixed reviews, making it a sort of niche game? Any good or bad comparisons with other fantasy ttrpg's?

35
submitted 4 months ago by Shyfer@ttrpg.network to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net

It's a cross-post from lemmy.world. Hope I'm doing it right.

11
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by Shyfer@ttrpg.network to c/dm_academy@lemmy.world

I'm planning a campaign loosely where players have to fight enemies backed by a larger, scarier empire that frequently sends out their agents to try to assassinate them while they try to setup a new kingdom post-revolution (think the beginning of Game of Thrones where players are on the Small Council, but they're also sort of Danaerys trying to fend off the spies and assassins of the enemy kingdom's Varys).

I want there to be a lot of cloak and dagger stuff. The players will probably have to protect themselves and fellow members of the court, the monarch (whether it's a player or NPC), allied diplomats, and such from assassins while also rooting out spies. Those resulting battles, along with adventures that I'll incorporate with diplomatic missions abroad, are what will make it DnD.

But it occurred to me as I was planning the worldbuilding for this campaign that a lot of the danger of assassinations will be lost if they can be undone by resurrection magic. Then I started wondering how kings, organization leaders, criminal syndicate bosses, basically anyone important ever dies in any high fantasy DnD world. For players I can restrict their access to diamonds or whatever, but for NPC's who are rich and powerful, not sure if that makes much sense. Besides, it's okay of players have access to the magic, but I want NPCs to be threatened by it, because it adds drama and stakes to the story I'm planning. But if players have access to it, then basically no NPC around them is in danger either, and I lose a lot of the tension I was counting on.

So looking for advice on how you would solve this. Tl;dr: How would anyone important or rich die in your fantasy world from stuff that are not old age? (assuming you want a fantasy world like I do where death is a dangerous possibility)

Restrict the resurrection spells? Restrict diamonds even more so they're rare even for kings? Manipulate the religion or cosmology of your world somehow? Do something with the resurrection spells themselves, like like Matthew Mercer's optional rules? Something else?

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submitted 5 months ago by Shyfer@ttrpg.network to c/lemmyapps@lemmy.world

One of the more interesting updates I saw mentioned in release notes for Lemmy v0.19 was scaled sort. So that posts from smaller communities can get bumped up more in the feed.

I currently use Sync, and it's great, but doesn't seem to have implemented this yet. Is there another mobile app for Android that does?

Thanks!

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 84 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Honestly, there's a reason hype has died down. The site has all the same problems as other alternatives.

After the initial hype, it's only as big as a reasonably large individual subreddit. In fact, here are the top weekly posts of lemmy's federation partners and T_D's exodus site. The latter edges out the former slightly in upvotes and much more substantially in comments, and it's just a single community. Even in the fairly small category of "biggest extant reddit alternative", lemmy doesn't take first prize.

Same content problem as all the others: roughly half of the posts are politics of a uniform orientation, and the other half are reposted facebook memes.

Reddit's killer app is the presence of a sizable community for every little niche thing, and that's not there. Unless your only interests are politics (within roughly .3 standard deviations of the median Huffpo writer) or Facebook memes, it's not a viable alternative.

Competition: Sure, it's federated in theory, but the block-happy, drama-centric culture means that, if an alternative were to pop up with the userbase of 2012 Reddit (or even 2018 Reddit), it'd get defederated almost immediately. Open federation solves the "dozens of sites competing for the same thousand-or-so people" problem. Closed federation just pretends to do so.

This is basically all the same issue: not enough users. It's so dumb. "Lemmy isn't as good as Reddit because everyone isn't there yet. But ya, Reddit sucks." /face-palm Then come over and get users to come over instead of saying there's not enough people.

4

I saw an interesting post on Reddit related to worldbuilding and I thought I'd reproduce it here for the fediverse. It's from /r/Userfaulty and it's about where natural resources would appear normally in the world. It might not be completely accurate but it's a great start and inspiration.


A Guide to Placing Resources on Fictional Worlds

Resource

I recently watched a great video on youtube by Artifexian where he showed how to place Fuels and Metal Ores on a fictional world. But I was left in a lurch. What about stones? What about valuable gems? What else should I at least make a note of that could be of strategic importance? Well...I did the digging and below is my abstract, I haven't taken geology classes in 20 years, guide to placing resources on your fantasy world maps. If you find something below that I grossly misjudged then let me know and I will try to fix it but keep in mind that these don't need to be accurate to the real world. They are just suggestions to help the worldbuilder that just wants help in placing it in a somewhat believable area. I tried to be as accurate as I could. The below locations will contain the highest quality of the materials or will be the easiest to find for your early hunter gatherer societies. edit Added more wood types for bows and arrows. Included areas for Iron. Added Clay and Tar.   Fuels

Coal remains of ancient tropical and subtropical swamps that then become compacted over lots of time remains become Peat then when buried further becomes Lignite Lignite buried further becomes more concentrated and becomes Bituminous Coal Then becomes Anthracite

Place Coal in areas that were low-lying tropical and subtropical swamps Higher quality coal in foothills of mountain belts that formed in those regions do not place Coal in interior of mountain chains

Graphite will form in interior of mountain chains instead of coal

Place Peat reserves in modern day low-lying wetlands

  Oil & Gas derived from remains of ancient plankton remains fell to bottom of ocean buried and compacted to form Shale Shale then becomes Oil Shale Oil Shale at greater depths becomes Oil and Natural Gas Oil will try to escape through the water table to the surface forming Gas/Oil Seep

Place Oil in locations that were once shallow tropical seas and lakes also normally forms along tectonic plates

  Metal Ores

Deposits of Copper forms around volcanic plate boundaries Copper, Copper-Gold, Copper-Molybdenum, or Molybdenum will also form near Volcanic Hotspots These will contain minor amounts of Lead, Zinc, Silver

Place a couple Tin-Tungsten deposits here too

Gold Place near the Copper deposits but still close to volcanic active plate boundaries

Place Gold with minor amounts of Silver and Copper Farther out place Gold with minor amounts of Silver, Lead, and Zinc Farther out place Gold with Minor amounts of Silver and Mercury Farther out place Iron-Copper-Gold deposits, will become sources of Uranium

Place Nickel-Copper and PGE-Chromium (Platinum, Palladium, Rhodium, Ruthenium, Osmium, Iridium) in the middle of stable plates

Place Iron around old mountain chains (this can be lone sections of hills or mountain bands that are not near active volcanic boundaries). Also can be placed around swamps and marshlands. Iron can be found almost everywhere but these locations will contain highest quality or be the easiest to find for early hunter gather societies.

Place Lead-Zinc-Silver in sedimentary basins along outskirts of coasts (fairly uncommon)

Place Aluminium in rain forests or very wet regions

Place some secondary deposits of all ores downstream from mountain deposits or inland a ways from the main source

  Stones

Ancient Chalk beds formed on the floor of ancient seas.

The Chalk later solidifies into Limestone. Can be placed where hills meet grasslands in non wet areas.

Flint (also called Chert) forms as lumps between layers and in cavities left in the sea floor in these Chalk beds.

Marble is formed from Limestone that has been subjected to intense heat and pressure. Marble will be placed near mountain ranges.

Jade is placed not too far inland along ancient or current convergent plate boundaries that occur or occurred along a coastline. They will be located on the steeper parts of drainage basins where erosion reveals the uplifted mineral. Was also used as stone age tools.

Obsidian is formed when water flows over volcanic lava to cool it rapidly. Placed near volcanic plate boundaries that no longer have large amounts of water. Water breaks down obsidian over time.

Granite is formed when molten rock is slowly cooled. It forms the bottom layer of all land continents. Placed along two land type convergent boundaries on the uplifted side where it is raised to the surface, making quarrying easy.

Sandstone is formed when sand is deposited in large quantities and under goes large amounts of pressure, heat, and drainage causing the sand and other minerals to "cement" together. Placed near ancient drainage basins that deposited sand from deserts or beaches, or alternatively where hills or mountains meet a dry desert.

Clay can be placed on hillsides, on lake and sea bottoms or on shores, and near volcanic hot spots that heat a water source.

  Gems

Agate place near ancient volcanic flows that met active drainage basins.

Amber occurs in ancient pine type forests then carried by rivers and tides to deltas in coastal regions, where they were buried over time.

Amethyst can be placed where ancient lava would flow near an iron deposit.

Aquamarine normally found in the interiors of tectonic plates and located near Granite and contains a Tin - Tungsten deposit in the same water shed.

Carnelian normally located near ancient volcanic plate boundaries with iron deposits and then are washed down to river beds in current times

Citrine is formed by heat treating purple Amethyst or can be found where Amethyst has been naturally heat treated

Coral is normally found between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn (the equator to the lower and upper temperate zones) but can be farther out where warm currents flow out of tropics.

Diamonds will go in the middle of stable tectonic plates (near Nickel-Copper and PGE-Chromium, make them rare)

Emeralds almost the same as an Aquamarine but when a PGE-Chromium deposit is in the same water shed.

Garnets can be found in Granite but is also found where two tectonic plates converge.

Jade is placed not too far inland along ancient or current convergent plate boundaries that occur or occurred along a coastline. They will be located on the steeper parts of drainage basins where erosion reveals the uplifted mineral.

Jasper is formed when ancient volcanic flows possibly met with ancient sea beds that then get reburied, are relifted, and then are washed down to river beds in current times.

Jet is similar to coal but is formed differently. Coal is from ancient wooded swamps, Jet is from wood material being washed into a body of water, becomes waterlogged, sinks and is covered by organic rich sediment.

Lapis Lazuli can be placed in high naked mountain valleys along plate boundaries and is somewhat rare. formed when underground magma contacts limestone.

Obsidian is formed when water flows over volcanic lava to cool it rapidly. Placed near volcanic plate boundaries that no longer have large amounts of water. Water breaks down obsidian over time.

Onyx is formed in the same way as Agates and can be placed in the same manner.

Opals are placed near or in sandstone deposits.

Pearls can form in any mollusk like creature in any body of water.

Peridot/Olivine is normally found around active lava flows near tectonic hot spots or where lava has fallen during a pyroclastic blast around an erupted volcano and cooled quickly.

Rubies are placed near convergent plates that has no iron but has trace amounts of Aluminium and Chromium. They are extremely rare. They should be placed in stream beds or watersheds leading away from the creation site.

Sapphire is the same as Rubies but has trace amounts of Titanium instead of Chromium.

Shells are found in tropical coastal areas with shallow tide pools.

Topaz can be placed near volcanic convergent plate boundaries.

Tourmaline can be placed similar to Granite. Can also be found in stream bed long distances from the source deposit.

Turquoise is is formed when copper deposits are transported through a watershed that contains aluminium deposits in arid environments.

  Wood

There is a large amount of wood and it would take much longer than I want to discuss all the types of wood. You should keep in mind at least the following historic common uses for wood but its up to you:

Dyes - Brazilwood

Paper - Mulberry, Bamboo, Beech bark was also used as a writing tablet

Glassworks - Beechwood

Shipbuilding - Elm for capstans and mastheads. Larch and fir for internal planking, masts, and spars. Oak for hulls. Walnut for rudders.

Weapons - Ash for spear shafts. Hickory for weapon hafts. Osage, Bamboo, Ash, Black Locust, Oak, Maple, Yew, Elm, or any flexible hardwood or animal horns for bows. Pine and Cedar is common for Arrows. Walnut for gun stocks.

Bridge Pilons - Alder

Construction - Sycamore, Oak, Bamboo, Poplar, Hickory

Forges for Iron and Bronze - Charcoal, Coal, Coke, Any abundant wood will do

  Oils

Olive Oil

  Glues

Pitch, Tar, Bitumen, Asphalt, Resin - Pine, Petroleum, Coal Tar, or Plants. Can be collected from Charcoal production, Tar pits where Oil Seeps occur. Resin is made from plants. Bitumen and Asphalt is Petroleum (crude Oil).

  Whales   Furs   Spices   Salts

can be placed along low-lying ocean beaches or inland in deserts that formed from evaporated inland seas

  Sources

Most of the information was gathered from these sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9qvQspSbWc&t=582s by Artifexian

http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk/what-is-flint.htm https://geology.com/gemstones/jade/#geology http://dianahurwitz.blogspot.com/2018/03/worldbuilding-gemstones.html https://www.getty.edu/publications/ambers/intro/4/#:~:text=Amber%20is%20formed%20from%20resin,hardens%20and%20forms%20a%20seal. https://sciencing.com/how-amethyst-geodes-formed-4913351.html https://www.minerals.net/mineral/amethyst.aspx https://www.gemrockauctions.com/learn/technical-information-on-gemstones/what-is-aquamarine-made-of#:~:text=Aquamarine%20Formation,magma%20which%20forms%20the%20gemstone.&text=Almost%20all%20aquamarines%20are%20formed,world%20where%20there%20are%20mountains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegmatite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryl#:~:text=While%20gem%20beryls%20are%20ordinarily,miarolitic%20cavities%20of%20the%20rhyolite. https://www.gemselect.com/english/gem-info/carnelian/carnelian-info.php https://coral.org/coral-reefs-101/coral-reef-ecology/geography/#:~:text=Most%20reefs%20are%20located%20between,in%20Florida%20and%20southern%20Japan. https://www.ga.gov.au/education/classroom-resources/minerals-energy/australian-mineral-facts/garnet#:~:text=Most%20garnet%20forms%20when%20a,and%20cause%20minerals%20to%20recrystallise.&text=Garnets%20can%20also%20be%20found,such%20as%20granite%20and%20basalt. https://www.minerals.net/gemstone/chalcedony_gemstone.aspx https://geology.com/gemstones/jet/#:~:text=Jet%20does%20not%20form%20in,degraded%2C%20and%20heated%20in%20isolation. http://www.gemstones-guide.com/Lapis-Lazuli.html https://nature.berkeley.edu/classes/eps2/wisc/Lect16.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl https://www.gemselect.com/other-info/about-peridot.php https://geology.com/gemstones/ruby-and-sapphire/

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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by Shyfer@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

I just discovered Kobold Press's Black Flag Role Playing system and Tales of the Valorant game being made. I had no idea that was a thing.

Added with the ones I did know about:

  • Critical Role's Daggerheart
  • MCDM's new RPG (Matt Colville's company)
  • And we can count the Pathfinder 2's updates if we want

I wonder how many other RPG's are being made as a result of that debacle.

It does seem like a lot. WotC really shot themselves in the foot spawning all this new competition, didn't they?

[-] Shyfer@ttrpg.network 97 points 9 months ago

Maybe that's the first test. See how much abuse you'll put up with lol.

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Shyfer

joined 10 months ago