Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary

A roleplayer frustrated at the structure of our society. She/her.

Public Key

npub19msg7zlzhea5k3tednza69s7qjkvkj4jhhwezyhp74qxkagew6kq2pqzn9

NIP-05 Address

pteryx@dice-camp.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqszacy0p03tu76tg4uke3wazc0qftxtf2etmhv3ztsl2srtw5vhdtqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qlsknfy

Publishing to

relay.ditto.pub

Author Public Key

npub19msg7zlzhea5k3tednza69s7qjkvkj4jhhwezyhp74qxkagew6kq2pqzn9

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Last Notes

2026-10-27 03:32:49 UTC

Silly worldbuilding: when the offscreen-for-now country you're trying to get a basic grasp on seems to be tugging towards "place I used to live except [partial biome change]", so you end up recasting a famous animal from your home as... still an animal, but regarded as a saint for leading the people to the area.

2026-10-16 10:34:27 UTC

So, was watching an alternate analysis of @nprofile…dht4 's survey, and it jumped out at me while they were going over things every demographic they identified disagrees on that in looking at agreement and disagreement separately, they missed an "agree" point tying together a set of "disagree" points that seemed to contradict each other.
1/2
https://youtu.be/vmx8nyFsWQc?t=4938

2026-08-15 07:53:18 UTC

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@nprofile…ujap
Some context for the American version: Back during the Old West gold rush days, saloons would advertise "free lunches" of heavily salted brisket sandwiches, which was very thirst-inducing... and the beverages were *not* free.
This also led to sit-down restaurants becoming, at least in the 20th Century, legally required to offer free water.

2026-08-14 11:48:44 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63
Well, of course. Children are easy, vulnerable targets to oppress, and often even cry when you do it. 🙄

2026-08-10 07:28:36 UTC

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@nprofile…ugpy
Reminds me of how clever my old schoolyard verbal bullies got by middle school... which, in turn, led to my getting misdiagnosed behind my back as hallucinating it all, with traumatic results.

2026-08-09 07:30:16 UTC

Fun thing about there being a deuterocanonical game in the #TTRPG world you play in that's based on a real game that has pro players: you can make references based on *real* pro players, twisted around for the game setting.
Our session involved a character talking about "Silver" Margil defeating Aramelk "Magigraft" in a Bagmon tournament, and an upcoming matchup with Gurrick "The Wolf", all based on the loose contours of real careers and relationships.

2026-08-08 17:17:31 UTC

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@nprofile…ugpy
I'd go further than that: to Musk and people like him, the very *existence* of single moms who need food stamps is wasteful, so """of course""" the government doing *anything* to make sure she doesn't keel over dead is "government fraud and waste".
It's downstream of the whole "useless eater" myth.

2026-08-06 10:19:27 UTC

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@nprofile…q5yn
I've definitely seen some people who want a sense of belonging without having to actually commit themselves to anything. I'm left to wonder if that's what was going on here...

2026-08-06 08:36:33 UTC

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@nprofile…q5yn
...Did the latter even understand what they were getting into?

2026-08-06 04:03:12 UTC

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@nprofile…4uga
I mean, there's a reason I figured I needed to dig this out and pin it:

2026-07-31 17:39:01 UTC

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@nprofile…ugpy
I'd say a typical "di minimis" example for copyright would be the use of a copyrighted image one doesn't have the rights to as one's online avatar. As long as you're not, say, using that image to misrepresent yourself as representing whoever *does* have the rights to that image? Well, there's a reason people aren't sued left and right for this very common practice.

2026-07-25 01:26:17 UTC

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@nprofile…p833 @nprofile…ugpy
Finally got around to finishing reading this article.
I'll note that I've started thinking of right to repair as a subset of a broader right: a right to *tools fit for purpose*. That would also cover things like making sure tools meet minimum quality thresholds, must be available for actual purchase and not just rental/subscription, should have some form of public availability like "libraries of things", are not advertised to do things they can't, and so on.

2026-07-24 19:13:54 UTC

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@nprofile…fhkg
Question is, is the leaker going to be assassinated by Pinkertons, given the attitude WotC displayed three years ago about such things...

2026-07-23 19:15:18 UTC

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@nprofile…ugpy
*And*, on top of everything else, it sounds like the sort of process that creates a database full of people's personal information... in other words, a very, *very* juicy-sounding hacking target. Higher-risk to crack into a government server, sure, but when you've also made it higher-reward too, somebody's gonna try...

2026-07-20 09:47:16 UTC

I wonder what a " #TTRPG advice iceberg" might look like, and if it might help people understand what's basic or heavily rehashed and what's easily missed, situational, or forgotten.
Because it seems to me like one of the problems with our institutional memory is simply that so many people don't know what we already know.

2026-07-17 23:33:27 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63
And also a pity because Roll20 is centralized, and anything centralized could go fash at any time.

2026-07-17 19:21:04 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63
Oh yes, and MapTool is underappreciated since it's a child of the old temp server/client era of the Net from the 2000s. Even if you don't touch it, though, its companion app TokenTool can be used alongside any VTT.

2026-07-17 19:14:08 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63
The campaign I'm in has a self-hosted Mattermost Team Edition server for private, persistent OOC coordination, and that works pretty well. (Be careful, though; they'll try to make you install Mattermost Entry instead by mistake because they want to upsell you to the paid version, being one of those companies that really only reluctantly does the "free and open" thing.)

2026-07-10 17:00:24 UTC

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@nprofile…fxer
Mm, I definitely remember when swimming in lakes was safe, instead of a major algae bloom risk...

2026-06-26 15:27:12 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0
With movies it's a lot easier to enjoy them as they are than it is with TV shows, where there's the constant fear of cancellation.

2026-06-21 05:33:57 UTC

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@nprofile…4uga
There's a white one! Bunnicula must be nearby!

2026-06-18 20:38:42 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0
And yet ignore perfect opportunities like Uvalde...

2026-06-16 18:43:36 UTC

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@nprofile…67n4 @nprofile…nmr0
I'm not sure what bothers me more: that there are a lot of people willing to just go along with things like this in order to "not rock the boat" or out of some misguided sense of "compromise", or that *actual supporters* of this kind of thing can even *exist* and in dangerously large numbers.

2026-06-06 15:49:23 UTC

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@nprofile…p0fq @nprofile…r8jc
Well, they used to. If there are any non-exclusive ones nowadays, they don't make it into the Local feed here anymore.

2026-06-06 14:23:06 UTC

So apparently @nprofile…r8jc has the ear of WotC for the moment, as part of a council that's the closest replacement we have for them actually once having surveys that weren't exclusive to D&D Beyond subscribers (and therefore only people who'll say what they want to hear to at least some degree).
So, if you're listening, @nprofile…r8jc , right now I care about exactly three things:
1/2

2026-06-05 22:04:08 UTC

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@nprofile…q5yn
Though the article is talking less about D&D 3.5 per se and more about the timeless sorts of DM advice in the book (and, to a lesser degree, about things like the Taint mechanics), and how that sort of thing tends to be missing from books for more modern editions.

2026-06-05 19:43:00 UTC

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@nprofile…q5yn
Ah. 😉

2026-06-05 19:33:35 UTC

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@nprofile…q5yn
What brings this up all of a sudden? (I know there's at least one, but...?)

2026-06-05 15:16:27 UTC

...Huh. Didn't expect to see a brand-new article highlighting a 3.5 supplement:
https://www.rascal.news/twenty-years-and-two-editions-later-heroes-of-horror-still-offers-scary-good-advice/

2026-06-03 20:33:53 UTC

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@nprofile…ugpy
Paywalled.

2026-06-02 20:57:02 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0
I get the sense that a lot of what *seemed* like engaging original worldbuilding to an American eye was... just the stuff that was ripped wholesale from British culture. When she went on to try to write a story that was supposed to be set in the past of the US, she no longer had her intimate understanding of British culture to prop up her poor worldbuilding skills with and it *really* showed.

2026-05-30 22:17:27 UTC

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@nprofile…p0fq
Good stuff. Most basic advice I have on my own blog is just some chat room RP best practices.

2026-05-17 14:24:50 UTC

So, our GM has clearly been having an increasingly hard time keeping up with the stresses of running the campaign, even as our ambitions for it grow. Yesterday, we were *going* to have a session, but she was clearly having trouble *even keeping up with our efforts to decide how to frame the scene*. I put my foot down and insisted that we go on hiatus for a month... though I don't think she really *gets* it, and thinks this is merely skipping a week... when no, *clearly* she's off her game.

2026-04-30 08:05:54 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63 @nprofile…3n74
Oh? Abusing job interviews that way definitely sounds like a thing to share more info about...

2026-04-25 19:01:56 UTC

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@nprofile…p0fq
When they aren't for TTRPG sessions, anyway.
(Currently waking up enough to prep for it.)

2026-04-22 03:31:53 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0 @nprofile…vumf
Eh, they remember the 1970s oil crisis. That's about it, though...

2026-04-08 20:34:23 UTC

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@nprofile…zrxk
The lack of solar panels in this screenshot makes me wonder if some will be sprinkled around. One space-saving form of solar panel deployment I've heard of that's especially appropriate to a city is using solar panels as shades/roofs over a parking lot.

2026-04-06 19:02:22 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63
Yes, actually. "For entertainment purposes only" is typical fine print on such "services".

2026-04-06 12:50:24 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63
This would not be the first time "AI" has been compared to con-artist "psychics".

2026-04-03 14:18:37 UTC

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@nprofile…9989
"Allowing this" implies that there is a choice made, that you intend to make a victim-blaming, "stop hitting yourself" argument.

2026-04-02 03:18:30 UTC

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@nprofile…p0fq @nprofile…znqj
Along similar lines, there is a competitive Pokémon player named Aurélien Soula. Seems like a good elf name.

2026-04-01 23:56:10 UTC

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@nprofile…4hqr
...why does your blog have an undismissable citation overlay for me? (There is an X, but it doesn't work.)
https://cdn.masto.host/dicecamp/media_attachments/files/116/332/141/507/064/399/original/0952f5982b77ac34.png

2026-04-01 17:58:38 UTC

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@nprofile…wkgp
You forgot to make their eyes glow red in the preview card!

2026-03-30 18:45:48 UTC

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@nprofile…23t9
One obstacle I've run into WRT split parties is the impossible expectation that a single GM can somehow run both scenes at once rather than alternating attention. The players kept splitting the party because it saved IC time, yet wouldn't invest the OOC time to make it work.

2026-03-30 01:39:40 UTC

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@nprofile…p0fq
See, when you're only recently leveled up, you're better off begging for magic loot instead... 😜

2026-03-27 18:13:13 UTC

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@nprofile…j3y3 @nprofile…q7yr
Heck, why would anyone *want* to travel in these conditions, except to escape?

2026-03-21 14:59:53 UTC

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@nprofile…8p63
Ten years ago? Odd, I've seen a functional IRC-Minecraft chat bridge as recently as six and a half years ago... though that involved a very isolated community I want nothing to do with anymore, full of coders of its own, so they might have done it themselves for all I know.

2026-03-07 22:47:28 UTC

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@nprofile…k95v @nprofile…kfde
No, that's exactly my point. They *aren't* selling any new books, they're just changing a label.

2026-03-07 22:40:05 UTC

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@nprofile…k95v @nprofile…kfde
Thing is, 5.5 isn't actually new. It's a relabeling of what was most commonly called "5e 2024", complete with insistence on "compatibility" with 5.0/"5e 2014". Basically, it's WotC relenting and realizing *again* that edition numbers are like labels on wrenches.

2026-03-02 11:08:59 UTC

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@nprofile…ugpy
...This leaves me curious as to whether someone did this to you. >_>;

2026-02-25 01:47:24 UTC

Random question: How big do you prefer dragons to be?
My preference is "big enough to eat a human in one sitting, not so big that you're left wondering what it eats".

2026-02-19 11:38:53 UTC

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@nprofile…e2pl
...What piece? This doesn't seem to link anywhere.

2026-01-27 01:33:46 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0
Heck, even with as little as I can think of to do to advance the cause of actually getting us *out* of this... I *can* think of at least two directly resistance-related things I can do with this food stockpile, and one way to merely survive a potential danger ahead. (And if none of that comes up... well, natural disasters, right?) And my building that up *is* because of being utterly terrified of what was going to happen.

2026-01-21 02:53:49 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0
It's been pointed out that this happens a *lot* with robot characters. Data's a particularly good execution of a pretty common pattern. It's one of *many* points touched on in OSP's Trope Talk about robots, for example.

2026-01-14 18:30:09 UTC

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@nprofile…ugpy
I will note that the reason DriveThruRPG does *not* have DRM, instead relying on watermarking, is because of the outcry around it having first opened *with* DRM back in 2004. I was part of that outcry, and pointed out that it is not normal to force the entire table to buy their own copies of a TTRPG book instead of getting one or two copies and then passing them around the table. And it worked!
I fear that same outcry would not have happened had it opened ten years later.

2026-01-06 21:30:51 UTC

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@nprofile…nmr0
I dunno, honoring suckers tricked or manipulated into doing evil things seems inappropriate.

2025-12-24 17:08:53 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
Pinterest always bugged me even before that, for pretty much hijacking all image results and making it harder to find out where any given image originally *came* from.
I have heard others complain about it becoming overwhelmed by diffusion model slop though, yeah.

2025-12-23 20:50:00 UTC

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@nprofile…q2w2
Friend Computer, not that I mean to question you, but I don't understand why a 2.4% drop in happiness would require a 100% replacement of oxygen. To my mere human mind, it would seem like a mere 2.4% replacement would suffice.

2025-12-20 18:45:32 UTC

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@nprofile…e4ry @nprofile…a6su
When I cited 1:20 in another thread, that was the number of kids in a classroom at a time. I think the full size of each class in the "class of 19XX" sense was about 200ish? It's been a long time, so I can't be sure. Things like it being a wealthy suburb that refused to participate in football so it would have more money for actual education stuck out in my mind more.

2025-12-20 18:39:02 UTC

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@nprofile…e4ry @nprofile…eg4f
Just generally, it's... *really* striking how consistently throughout history the wealthy and privileged neglect, resent, or simply fail to notice or understand the concept of peasants needing food.

2025-12-20 17:44:37 UTC

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@nprofile…x0fp
One of my old cats was like that too. One of the many, many ways you could make her spontaneously purr was to cover her in a blanket.

2025-12-19 21:04:13 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
Be careful. Forgiving someone who has no regrets does carry danger. She may see it as permission to keep abusing you. You yourself may process it as a duty to *allow* said further abuse, because "it's not her fault".

2025-12-17 20:51:31 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
Sounds like someone I should look into.

2025-12-16 18:49:38 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
Frankly, I'd say I've changed less than many people... and one thing that struck me about 2020 as the sense that everyone around me had finally *caught up* to where I was in 1990.
June of 1990, I should note, was the moment I was hit with the traumatic shock of just *how* badly the school system was stacked against me in particular... a realization that transferred all too well to looking at the rest of society as a whole.

2025-12-16 18:24:59 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
"It's not inevitable that things get better, but the opportunity exists" is a phrasing I am very grateful to see. It frankly drives me *nuts* that so many people are treating the omnicrisis as just another "this too shall pass" moment when there are people with the means, motive, and opportunity to make it last for *another* span of a thousand years... and the detachment to not grasp that they'll also doom themselves in the process.
I'm still not sure how I can help, but.

2025-12-15 18:09:18 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
There is a reason I tend to describe social trial and error as "trial and trauma". Social situations are minefields that no one admits are minefields. You're just urged to run out into the barbed-wire-fenced acre, because it's "welcoming!" And then it's "your fault" when your leg gets blown off.

2025-12-15 18:04:28 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
Heh, seems your mind went in a different direction than mine concerning what expectation is not being met.
My complaint is more that "welcoming" is inexplicably used as a substitute for *describing the social dynamics*.
I suspect that most social groups lack the self-awareness necessary to actually describe themselves usefully.

2025-12-15 17:32:59 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3 Oh, RL is the *last* place I'd expect to find a starting point... though it *has* gotten distinctly harder to find good starting points online in recent years.
And it doesn't help that people always say the same useless thing about their communities if you try to ask about them: "Oh, it's very welcoming."
A welcome only describes how things *start*. How does it continue from there? Do you *listen* to yourselves?!

2025-12-15 17:10:28 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
One difficult part about finding other people who who understand, IME, is that one *actually has to be good at people*. I'm not good at that. Worse, my roommate is *so* bad at it that for decades they mistook *me* for good at it, *and* seems to have developed a full-blown *phobia* of my leaving people behind when I inevitably end up with irreconcilable differences with them after a couple of years.

2025-12-13 04:59:26 UTC

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@nprofile…09m9
More cats are plain/"mixes" than identifiable breeds, and this isn't generally seen as a bad or lesser thing. They're unlike dogs in that way. Sometimes the "breed" of an unidentifiable cat is cited as "Domestic Shorthair".

2025-12-11 14:59:32 UTC

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@nprofile…dtdq @nprofile…rypq
This *was* in a private tab (most of my stuff is; I hate surveillance), and I haven't visited the New Yorker recently except for this article.

2025-12-11 14:48:02 UTC

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@nprofile…dtdq @nprofile…rypq
Paywalled.

2025-12-09 11:08:45 UTC

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@nprofile…998y
I've long said this is true of writing as well. (You would not *believe* how many people who take part in written forms of RP don't know that good writing is as long or as short as it needs to be...)

2025-12-09 05:44:14 UTC

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@nprofile…pdgt @nprofile…jd4w
I've been wondering about that myself. They've been saying "next year" or "two years from now" long enough that I think they're lying to try to string us along.
(There are other possibilities, though, like them losing track of the original RTF files. Your own damned faults for *deleting the 3.5 Archive* back in 2022, you assholes.)
Also, while they've mentioned 3.5 and 3.0, d20 Modern is conspicuously not mentioned.

2025-12-08 15:50:18 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
If you'll allow me a tinfoil hat for a moment, I do have to wonder whether the tendency to ruin shows and franchises over time is always actually accidental like it seems, or if sometimes it's a deliberate attempt to wreck community in order to further the cause of isolating people.
Probably not, given that's attributing to malice what can be sufficiently explained by incompetence, but it says something about the state of our society that this is even *imaginable*.

2025-12-08 15:35:50 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
Community has a lot to do with it.
An important thing to understand about the phenomenon of "fandom" as we know it today is that for some people, it's the only connection they have to other people. To abandon a particular show, they fear, would be to lose their friend group. Heck, in a lot of cases, to *disagree with popular takes* is to invite angry dogpiling and excommunication.

2025-12-07 15:30:25 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
...At least when we recently did something like that in a game, the person interjecting was 1) *walking* in, 2) the current thrust of the conversation was of a sort she in particular has heard many permutations of throughout her life, 3) that topic was one that has bothered her for a long time, 4) she's a seer *and* highly intelligent, making her unusually suited to filling in the blanks, *and* 5) she wasn't clued into anything said *before* it turned to that topic.

2025-12-06 17:47:30 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
See also the *intense* grudge-holding and negative reputation creation machine that's just one part of the toxic culture of one online RP community I've been in...

2025-11-27 18:37:35 UTC

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@nprofile…aa8p
Pretty sure this book was specifically for the Basic branch (B/X, BECMI, RC). My long-lost copy had a different cover, but it was essentially the same book. A lot of the creatures were reprinted in the Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix for AD&D 2e.

2025-11-23 14:52:35 UTC

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@nprofile…dgea @nprofile…998y
I'm immediately reminded of the OGL debacle that rocked the TTRPG world in January of 2023, except for something far more important whose original licensing was better.
It probably calls for *at least* as much organized revolt.

2025-11-19 14:59:40 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
And some people are quite the opposite, like my father was. Part of what taught me to pay attention to my own emotions was seeing an example of someone who *didn't* and the harm that caused to people around him.

2025-11-19 14:47:13 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
Keep in mind that *A LOT* of people have been shamed, shunned, or otherwise punished for daring to display their emotions, for a multitude of different possible reasons. Also keep in mind that there is a strong tradition of treating emotions as diametrically opposed to any kind of rational thought, and that therefore saying anything negative about emotions will automatically make you look like you're accusing someone of being irrational unless otherwise noted *right then*.

2025-11-19 14:30:38 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
I do feel like blocks are an overly blunt instrument for many cases. Sometimes "delete this person from my reality and myself from theirs, even to the point of preventing me from even seeing conversations other people have with this person" is exactly the right tool for the job. But you'd think there'd also be a "prevent this person from replying to me, successfully @-ing me, following me, or being notified of anything I ever say, but don't unperson them" button.

2025-11-19 14:07:42 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
In at least some cases, someone who wanted to at least keep hearing the other person's side.

2025-11-14 01:11:21 UTC

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@nprofile…7qxe
This also applies to chocolate with different-colored candy shells.
(For Reese's Pieces the balance seems to be different such that you need to eat twice as many orange ones, though.)

2025-11-07 19:02:11 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
I'd say there's a third noteworthy category too: those who realize they're going to die eventually, panic at the idea of not just their own cessation of existence but the idea that the world won't need *them specifically* in the long term, and go out of their way to simultaneously pursue means of immortality *and* try to blackmail society into helping them stay alive on pains of being left a worse place.

2025-11-05 18:46:20 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
In particular, consider how someone who has had "debate" weaponized against them as a tool of control repeatedly as a child might feel about it.
(It's me, I'm that person.)

2025-11-02 22:37:20 UTC

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@nprofile…4q78
While it's not focused on it per se, there is a faction in the newer version of Aeon that has been expanded from just being doctors to being disaster relief more generally.

2025-10-28 05:26:06 UTC

...And you can be certain that among cats in the #RealmsOfPugmire , the belief that Man was able to control weather and the cycle of day and night continues unabated.
#Pugmire #MonarciesOfMau
https://cdn.masto.host/dicecamp/media_attachments/files/115/450/066/269/995/715/original/c6b16240253aa25c.png

2025-10-21 03:39:14 UTC

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@nprofile…7qxe
Likely a result of the boycott of Target still being ongoing...

2025-10-14 18:02:49 UTC

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@nprofile…n7x3
This is one of my most personal beefs with society too. Heck, in my experience it's not *just* that it's not acceptable for adults (though it definitely is that), it's not considered acceptable for *children* either. I was regularly called "disruptive" for crying when i was upset, and insisted that I hurry up and get over it (implying time waste as one of the perceived problems too). Schools built little rooms specifically for me to cry in *twice*, to get me out of the way.

2025-10-13 17:30:35 UTC

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@nprofile…03hd
Of course, sometimes the issue isn't unfounded preconceptions, but false advertising... which sometimes stems from the writers not knowing what they wrote, sometimes from them actively trying to deceive the executives about what they *really* wrote, and sometimes is an attempt to prevent spoilers.

2025-10-13 17:26:25 UTC

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@nprofile…03hd
The one piece of media that jumps straight to mind for me as far as being a victim of focus groups is Final Fantasy 12.
The story clearly *ought* to be about Ashe.
The writers *wanted* the story to center around Bacsh.
...But focus groups insisted on a young boy protag, so we got Vaan, who had no real reason to be in that specific story... and who brought Penelo with him, whose only reason to be in the party was that Vaan was.
(I have other issues with FF12, but.)

2025-10-09 18:21:47 UTC

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@nprofile…kml8
The one thing that has always bothered me about warfare in dungeon fantasy settings is simply this: The effectiveness of a squad with a diversity of capabilities is a known thing in them; that's what adventuring parties are. Why, then, are war units in dungeon fantasy settings so often assumed to be made up of a single class — or worse, assumed to mostly be groups of Fighters?
I've been working on a bunch of 3.x squads that have three builds each across ten members for that reason.

2025-10-09 18:13:29 UTC

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@nprofile…kml8
Concerning combat engineers, in an older-edition game I'm in (technically a 3.5 game that raids PF1 for parts frequently), I'm actually working on a build based on the Trapper Ranger. I'm even waiting on my DM to approve a feat that's based on PF1's Natural Pathseeker feat, but applies to Craft (trapmaking), Search, and Disable Device instead, on the theory that such a ranger would lean on their expertise surrounding different types of terrain to help them set, find, and disarm traps.

2025-10-08 20:30:03 UTC

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@nprofile…03hd
The reason I'm scared of "losing" isn't because the abstract concept of shame surrounds the abstract concept of defeat.
The reason I'm scared of "losing" is because all my friends will be dead and I'll be someone's rape toy, every book I have would be burned, and nobody else would be any better off.

2025-10-07 17:00:40 UTC

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@nprofile…03hd @nprofile…359g
I've also gotten the distinct impression that even the perpetual culture-wide shaming has been largely misinterpreted by a lot of Germans. Instead of "oppressing and killing broad swaths of people is bad", many seem to have taken the message as "the Jews are a special people who must never be harmed or opposed no matter what they do".

2025-10-07 16:37:34 UTC

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@nprofile…03hd
As I'd said at the time, if it were just a matter of overthrowing 2000 or so corrupt politicians, corporate executives, and others in positions of power, that would be one thing... but the problem is so much bigger. It seems to me like about 30% of humans are lackeys by nature, without which the tiny percentage of would-be dictators wouldn't present a meaningful threat.
And you can't just *get rid of* 100 million people in a country of 330 million.

2025-10-07 16:28:16 UTC

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@nprofile…03hd
...and yet people recently seemed to think I was a baby trying to interfere with the adults trying to do "the real work" of overthrowing fascism by being worried about this kind of problem.
To be entirely fair, I didn't phrase it this well, partly because I'm so scared that any solution close to effective would get extreme.

2025-10-07 15:20:18 UTC

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@nprofile…03hd
And then there's the strain of people who got away with their crimes because they were capitalists and it was the beginning of the Cold War, as I understand it... though if "but we *can't* punish titans of industry!" repeats again, I'd expect it to be more because of the wealthy controlling the narrative too pervasively rather than because of fear of """letting communism win""" in a world order with the Soviet Union as an apparent threat.