Rutskarn

I'm trying to read more books, but if I could only read ones put out by publishers I was paying a large monthly subscription to I would check out of the entire conversation instantaneously

Blockbuster was more convenient and customer friendly than this, and it was famously neither of those things

You can't have it, we'll just let you use it. Ten bucks a month. Twelve. Fuck it, fifteen. Would you eat bugs. Would you eat bugs for The Da Vinci Code or are you just gonna watch clips of The Office on YouTube

It's such an accounting success and a marketing disaster. Oh, you like our movie? You owe us money forever you deadbeat motherfucker. You can't even buy it. Pay us a monthly fee or forget our product exists. We will repo your nostalgia at 6AM on Sunday

One of the things that's so dumb about everyone wanting their own streaming channel is that it depreciates content super, super quickly. Like I would've said "The Da Vinci Code" was worth a few bucks until it was put behind a thin curtain and vanished completely

If you ever want to bounce drafts off people, I'm down!

extreme closeup

Been working on more of these lately and the WIP thumbnail haunts me

Then, when you crash it and go to hell, driver pulls a very faintly sheepish expression while the passenger gets testy about the fact that you are now dead and in hell because of all of this bad driving. the roles reverse until the next time you ride it

From this point on the driver is yelling, cackling, swinging the wheel, acting like the idea of safe driving had never even occurred to them while the passenger acts like they're hanging on for dear life.

The rule of the game is that you actually sort of sound like a naggy spouse in the line, like them crashing was this whole big thing and you're going to show them how to drive like a normal person, until the exact moment it actually starts

That's one of my favorite theme park rides just because every time we went on it one of us would complain about how reckless the other's driving was last time and insist on being behind the wheel

The premise of it was basically "you're in a county of the UK that has like twenty completely inexplicable murders a year so they have a clubhouse of bored amateur detectives"

I have never seen Midsomer Murders, and yet, after looking it up, I would say one of my old RPG campaigns was in a literal sense based on it

Let me put it this way:

An old-school GM is, basically, hitting the player with a steel chair. It's gonna hurt! You may as well make it *look* and *sound* like it!

Sometimes people get the mistaken idea that an old-school campaign means there's no "GM kayfabe" happening.

Lethal games benefit from showmanship as much as story games! Whatever the actual threat level is, a canny GM learns to sell it as well as possible.

This here: GM Kayfabe is a whole, extensive thing, to the point that some games ought to address it way more directly.

A woman in medieval clothing that somewhat suggests Kage Maru from Virtua Fighter 2.

cadfael, that is NOT the lady of the manor, that is Kage Maru. Master of infiltration and poisons. cadfael let me top up on this medicated detective syrup and then I'll whomp her punk ninja ass in the LORD's nam.e,

When I'm feeling well, I watch mysteries so I can try to work out the solution. When I'm sick, I watch mysteries because the solution gets worked out even if I nap through most of it. Two very different fantasies at work here

A key to Cyberpunk (as in the franchise) fashion that's not super obvious in-game is that it's insanely hot most of the time, so when people wear bulkier shit it's because it's full of fans and liquid cooling systems

When I say "free weights" they are five pounds, each

I'm only exaggerating in the sense that I also walk around and mime, like, climbing ladders and throwing spears and stuff

I've discovered an exercise routine that works for me, and it is, unfortunately, swinging free weights in front of a mirror while blasting fantasy metal

One of the ghoulish things about getting up close to elites when their guard is down is realizing that it isn't an act. They really do think they're viruous saviors bringing a better tomorrow. Any voices raising the alarm have been pruned away, internally and externally.

Some of them are buying prepper bunkers and shit, but it seems to me none of them are investing more heavily in them than you or I would, relatively, invest in a fire extinguisher for the kitchen. I don't think it's as real to any of them as it is to us.

Honestly, a few anecdotal examples aside, I kinda don't think so. I think that firstly they're almost all out of touch with human suffering to a Pollyanna degree, secondly they live in a bubble that tells them everything is getting better, and thirdly this is just what the economic system does.

I think if I read another six novels about Napoleonic sailing ships I can get a degree without the whole ""having kids"" part

If you ever want to get a degree in Dad this is worth five course credits

Steady as she goes

But when gargoyles ambush the climb, those details all matter. If the wizard's holding the rope, she's not casting Fireball. If the fighter's holding on with one hand, the only weapon he can use is his dagger.

So the party that prospers is the one that asks: "Why IS there a skeleton down there?"