I once got to do a tour of a historic fort, and when we visited the magazine the guide told us that garrisoned soldiers were issued wooden button fly trousers. They couldn’t use a zipper because a spark might set off the gunpowder, and also they hadn’t been invented yet.

I’m sure it probably varies geographically, but when the plastic ban came first came into effect for us you’d see a lot of reusable shopping bags that were made from plastic.

I remember reading a study that suggested the typical reusable plastic bag used as much plastic as two-thousand disposable bags. So if you had one of those bags, you’d have to use it once a week for forty years to offset your plastic karma burden.

But anyway, as they say, you should bring your own bag because otherwise they’ll make more disposable bags. It has to be legislated, otherwise corpos are going to corpo and we’ll continue drowning in plastic.

These shopping bag bans don’t go far enough imo. The amount of plastic in packaging, shipping, medicine, fishing, whatever industry you choose - it’s just mind boggling.

Here’s a funny plastic quibble I have: a store near me sells bread which comes in a plastic bag, but the little clip/tag to tie off the bag they recently switched to cardboard. A token gesture, but hey, it’s still nice to see. Now if you want to buy in bulk, you can buy a bag of bread with two bags of bread in it. The outer bag is tied off with a plastic tag.

What doesn’t kill you might succeed on a second attempt.

When you consider that a lot of their customers are pretty entrenched in Amazon’s services, “Boycott Amazon for a week” is more achievable than, “Boycott Amazon forever.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see people give up on Amazon forever. But sometimes taking a week off is long enough for people to change their shopping habits.

Although I suppose the insidious thing about Amazon is that they only offer an annual subscription so I doubt people are cancelling their service for a week.

Hmm, I’d probably call it PG13.

The prologue has some fantasy violence / gore, and the main side plot is lesbian romance. Some sexual tension, and I think a fade to black, but I don’t remember anything explicit.

I don’t know if this would bother you, but the language was like fantasy blue-collar. The protaganist is an orc and curses a lot, but I feel they were fantasy swear words and I don’t remember seeing any F-bombs

The book’s main appeal is this wholesome, cozy vibe though. Even if some of the elements are for adults, it’s got good morals and a heartwarming message

This book is like a warm hug on a cold day. I can’t recommend it enough

I can’t find anything concrete online, but my assumption is that it has to do with the adventure / module design.

Consider a scenario where the party is going to go kill a lich, but first must delve into the lich’s lair before they may fight.

“Prophet” being that the party is forearmed with the knowledge of what the final encounter will be - and perhaps some intelligence on the dungeon.

“Squeeze” where the party has encounters that drain their resources. Those grenades / fireballs are going to be handy for fighting the lich, but they’re also useful for dealing with the lich’s zombie army.

“Monster” where the party finally encounters the prophesied monster and fights the lich.

I’ve never heard this trope named this way, but it’s how so many dungeons and adventures are designed. The party knows they have a particular fight coming up, and must carefully manage their resources because they won’t be having that fight at full strength.

When I was a teenager I felt this way. I didn’t ask to be here, and so far life has sucked pretty hard.

My stance has softened as I’ve aged. I still wish I’d never been born, mind you, but I don’t blame my parents for having kids. They just did what came naturally for them.

You can’t consent to being born, and that upset me a lot. But it’s not like they could have asked my permission anyway. Might as well make the most of the situation.

Just buy another book then, you’ll have only 12.5% of your problems left.

Hmmm, this is going to take forever…

So you’re saying it’s light on flash

It wouldn’t surprise me if reviewers have the budget for top of the line computers. Sadly, that does little to soothe my frustration that my computer - which meets the advertised recommended specs - falls short

Frickin Dead Space remake. I’m playing through it now and even on the lowest settings it was pretty bad. My computer crashed while the shuttle was crashing, which honestly felt kind of apt

I’ve never beat the original, but my wife wanted to see the game and has never played it. Even after tweaking things to get them running on my computer it’s still not super stable. We might have to switch to 2008

The game looks super tense, gross, and scary. Personally, I think it’d be scarier if it was buttery smooth, but I guess there’s a certain amount of anxiety to be had wondering if walking through a door is going to freeze the game while I’m being chased by xeno horrors

TTRPGs are quite diverse, but generally speaking they follow a similar formula. Traditionally, play takes place around a table, but even that’s negotiable. Many people play exclusively online these days.

Depending on the system you choose to play, accessories such as minis and battlemats could be optional. However, if you favour a tactical game and want to engage with all the combat rules, they do become more important.

There’s always alternatives though. I don’t keep minis for all my creatures - as a DM, who could afford to? Personally I use paper tokens because they’re easy to whip up and doodle on. Many people use coins, legos, or colored blocks. Anything can stand as a proxy of it’s the right size. There are tales of people who use candy so players can eat what they kill.

Another option, particularly if you go for the online option, is to use a Virtual Tabeletop (VTT). This is software that simulates your table, battlemat, minis, and generally facilitates play. I find them complicated and kind of fiddly, but a lot of people like them.

At the end of the day, you don’t need all that. There’s a concept of play called the Theater of the Mind where players use their shared imagination instead of any accessories. It’s easier when there aren’t a lot of moving parts to keep track of, but if you prefer a narratively focused game then it’s a good way to play.

As far as how to play the game, that’s up to the individual system. However generally speaking you play by having a conversation. The DM describes a situation and then asks “What do you do?” Players then describe their actions. Turn-taking can be more or less rigid depending on the situation. In D&D in particular, turns become much more formal during combat where players take turns in Initiative Order.

Generally speaking, near the start of the rule book (if you have one) there will be an Example of Play. This is usually styled as a transcript of a conversation between players. I always thought those were neat, and they dona pretty good job of showing how a game might play

Getting into the hobby can be intimidating because there are a lot of rules in certain systems, and it can be hard to keep track of them all.

Almost all systems include (or should include) Rule Zero, or Have Fun - the most important rule of all.

If you’re running the game then all rules are optional. As long as everyone is having fun then you can play however you want.

Anyway, I ramble a lot, but I’ve been playing these games for a long time. You’re in for a fun new hobby, good luck getting your group together!

I use a thumbs up reaction as “I acknowledge I’ve read and understood this, but don’t think you require a push notification” so I guess your mileage may vary

I think the intention is that you would read it as “Everything is impossible” followed by “Nothing is impossible”

But then I looked at it again and got “Everything is impossible / Nothing is possible”

So all in all, I think it’s a poorly conceived sign

Several years ago, HotS went into “Maintenance Mode” which means it isn’t receiving further updates although the servers are still up for now.

Which is such a shame. I’m not big on MOBAs but that was my favorite

I don’t like it very much, but the price is right.

I used to play Overwatch, and abandoned it shortly after the Overwatch 2 debacle. A bunch of my friends kept up with OW2, and when Rivals came out they made the switch so I figured I’d give it a go.

Season 0 was rough. It’s on Season 1 now and things are a bit better.

Hitboxes are bad. Maps seem confusing, although that might be that my game sense hasn’t figured them out yet. Lag is an issue a lot of the time, and the game crashes more than I feel it ought to - but I’m on Linux which I feel isn’t officially supported.

I saw an article the other day criticizing that you can’t type “Free Taiwan” into the chat. I guess I haven’t actually tested it to confirm, but gosh that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I don’t go in for the battlepass, but my friends usually do when they play a game and they say it’s fair. They do have a model that allows you to purchase the battlepass and then continue to fill it out even after it’s no longer the current season. So if it takes you a long time to finish content, you’re not forced into playing more games for fear of missing out.

When it’s fun, it’s a lot of fun. When it’s bad, my goodness, it’s bad. I guess it depends on how willing you are to gamble with your feelings. But hey, I guess you’re coming from League, so you might be ;)

I really hope to, but sadly then I couldn’t afford more sandwiches

I would love to be able to gift my unplayed games to others.

I guess you do get into a problem where a group of people might swap the game back and forth to avoid ever having to pay for the game. But people will abuse any system, so I guess that would just be a cost of it

If a game is still within the refund window, then maybe it should have an option to gift it. The devs / publishers could keep their money and Steam doesn’t have to process a refund. Seems like a win-win

Calling someone an idiot after having your opinion refuted in a thread about people having thin skin is either some high level satire or proof you have thin skin

I suppose it could be some third thing, but I don’t want to make baseless assumptions