Well as long as no one tries to convince me there are more than four lights…

now I know for sure covid was going around even before the pandemic was announced.

My friend group was making jokes and memes about it in december of 2019, so 100%.

I wish you a rapid recovery.

If that’s what you took away from my comments, have fun I guess.

I told him the game focuses on the group and if he’s not part of the group then he won’t be playing, and since that first game he has participated, with few issues popping up.

I probably could have been clearer before we even got to the table that if you aren’t playing with the group then you aren’t playing, rather than just expect them to stick with a group on their first game.

I told him multiple times that if he was going to try and do his own thing, he won’t be participating with the group, and the group is the entire focus of the game.

I suppose I could have made it more explicit that he could join the group or he could leave the game.

I should add that that was many games ago, and he has since begun participating, although he often tries to go his own way and threatens to leave the group constantly, but so far he hasn’t actually tried leaving the group unless it was agreed upon for strategy reasons. (they split up inside a crypt in the most horror movie fashion possible)

let people roll to see if something happens

Oh god so many DMs in the past have done this, and I just roll my eyes every time.

Like I’m okay if you want to roll your own dice behind the screen to see if we get attacked overnight, but that should be the only kind of “roll to see what happens” going on.

I really need to do some kind of team building exercise before a game, something that they’ll want to do, but requires teamwork, just to demonstrate the point that they need to work together.

When my first character did the whole “I’m gonna be all by myself because I’m a lone wolf” thing, the DM let me go off and the totally unexpected happened and my character got into a scuffle he wasn’t prepared for, but a group sure would have been.

I absolutely used to be that “my character is a quiet rogue-ish type that definitely wasn’t modeled after Aragorn when he was introduced at the Prancing Pony mixed with Robin hood” who always “had to be convinced” to join, and nobody ever called me out for it. I honestly wish they had because that’s annoying as fuck and you miss out on playing an actually fully developed character.

Nowadays I tend to be less tactful that you are, but essentially tell people the same thing, or literally beat their characters over the head with ambushes.

I started running games for my wife and her niblings, and the oldest boy is getting into that “I’m such a rebel” phase where they think they’re bad ass for taking slightly longer to do a chore than needed and say “no” the first time you ask them to do something.

He thought it was hilarious to have a character that refused to join the rest of the group, so I said “okay, you can stay at the inn if you want” and then proceeded to intentionally ignore anything he was saying or doing, leaving him out of rolls, and never addressing him.

He’s 12 and started literally crying to his mother about how we’re all being mean to him. Apparently “he had the opportunity to participate and chose not to” wasn’t a good enough response to his mother. I stand by my choice. Although my wife managed to convince me to let him “rejoin” at the next town/session.

He doesn’t pull that shit anymore though, when he’s playing he’s playing or he gets shut out again.

Genuine question to anyone reading: does that make me a bad DM? If so, suggestions on how to handle it?

I’m a big fan of “you all wake up in loincloths sitting in a wagon, hands bound” and as long as someone at the table can roll higher than a 1, they can break free.

Or something attacks them while they’re all in a tavern

Basically I’m a fan of “you could ignore having your shit kicked in, but will you?” since so many players would stop at nothing.

Fallout NV had the right idea. “Where’s that little fucker who shot me in the head?!”

It works at the current 93 billion light years of observable universe (46ish in every direction)

38 digits of pi can get the circumference of the visible universe to within a single hydrogen atom.

10 digits gets the diameter of the earth to within an inch.

Thank you for subscribing to Daily Spacey Math Facts

One would think. I would happily lend my printer and paper to make a bunch more ballots.

This is criminal election tampering plain and simple.

I’m sure if the vote doesn’t go the way they wanted, it’ll be called a “clerical error” and they’ll call for a do-over

If it DOES go the way they want, well shrug sorry, nothing to be done, it was just a simple clerical error, no need to get upset.

Slander is Spoken

Libel is Literary

Oh completely 100% agreed, and neglect isn’t the only form of child abuse going on but CPS has visited them plenty of times and interviewed all the kids and neighbors (before we moved in) over custody battles with some adopted ones. (they’re all related, long story with too many identifying details but some parents died and all the children are cousins and siblings) so they at least aren’t doing anything that CPS cares about.

But holy shit I have never wanted to curb stomp my sister in law a-la American History X more than when I went over one day and I could hear screaming halfway down the 1/4mi driveway, and when I walked in she was in the 6 year Olds face screaming at the top of her lungs about how she’s tired of telling the 6 year old to put her shoes away, four of the kids were slowly doing chores in the living room and kitchen with tears running down their faces, and I could hear the 13 year old sobbing upstairs. Their mother screamed so hard and long that she burst a blood vessel in her eye and detached the retina. As usual though the moment she saw me she stopped and pretended like she wasn’t doing anything.

Since then I’ve had my phone on record in my pocket whenever I’m coming over unannounced just in case I can catch it. Bare minimum it will be something to show the courts when one of the kids becomes a serial killer.

Their dad is no help, he’s an enabler and honestly a broken shell of a person when it comes to his wife.

Grandparents are worse than parents.

My wife watches them whenever she can, and takes them on surprise day trips to get away from their parents and some of the siblings when possible but holy shit they do not make it easy to take them anywhere.

I don’t regret marrying my wife but I can honestly say my in-laws are insane and anyone could understand why I hate them.

Uhhhhhhh what was the topic again? Sorry for the vent.

then why is it so popular there

Because like many countries whose inhabitants come from a variety of places, you’ve got lots of people interested in their “heritage”

Since most people in the US can’t say their family has been here longer than a couple hundred years, and depending on the area no more than 100 or so, a lot of people wish to know “where they came from” so to speak. DNA testing is just easier than tracing a family tree.

I happen to be lucky enough to have a family member obsessed with genealogy, who traced down the last 1,000 or so years depending on which parts of the family and what areas they’re from, so I don’t need genetic testing to know 99% of my family is white as fuck with a couple POC from different continents and a native back in the 1700s. I don’t feel any particular draw to any culture, nor do I feel like donning traditional garb or participating in holidays, ceremonies, rituals, or customs. Some people do.

I totally get it if it’s not your thing, especially since that kind of mentality of “ooh let’s find out where our families came from” isn’t present in most other places in the world, and definitely not to the same degree even in other colonial areas. Personally I think it’s part of that whole “melting pot” ideology, but I’m just some rando on the internet.

Honestly even without my relative tracing the family tree, I would never have paid to give my DNA to a company for results with questionable accuracy. Shits weird, yo.

In fairness, that’s why I feel like getting a leash.

Plus the oldest is 13 and at least she’s responsible enough for us to look away for a few minutes and she will still be there.

I’ve always felt weird about parents who have those backpack leashes for their kids, but now that I’ve been living next to my in-laws for a year, who have 8 children, I understand some of them.

I refuse to take some their kids anywhere unless one of them is with my wife and I.

One would absolutely go sprinting full speed away and hide from us just because he thinks it’s hilarious.

Two would wander off because they saw something shiny and their brains are like an etch-a-sketches where every time a new thought enters, the old one has to get wiped away.

One would do the exact opposite of anything we say just because he figures he can.

And three others would absolutely just wander off, not because they want to but just because kids aren’t always the best at spatial awareness and simply get too far away. And would be terrified if they noticed their adults were nowhere in sight.

City: we have decided not to support these people because they aren’t providing safety.

Government: WHOA YOU ANT DO THAT UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR CITIZENS TO SUFFEE

City citizens: no we support this action. We feel safe when ICE is nowhere to be found.

Government: SEE THEY’RE TERRIFIED