VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
You can still be appreciative of what folks fought and died for, even if it wasn't one of YOUR folks who fought or died for it!
I have like 0 military tradition in my family, but still found the ANZAC dawn service really meaningful when I went... paying respects to the folks who fought to defend the place I now call home and supporting my husband in paying HIS respects to his great grandfather never felt out of character to me.
PaperLuigi44My amazement is at maximum capacity.Registered Userregular
I second that. Your lineage may not have direction connections to the ANZACs, but it's still an admirable gesture to pay tribute to the people who fought to protect the country you live in, and presumably love.
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
But it's odd, I think. I'm an American. My husband's family is from Taiwan. But we consider our daughter to be Kiwi. But even with her being born here, raised here, she still won't really have any big ties to the ANZAC.
It feels almost hypocritical of me to fell a connection? Not hypocritical, but just, not quite right? My ancestors missed the generation of fighting in WWI. And WWII for that matter. My grandfather was only just born in 1914, my grandmother was born in 1913. And my dad's grandparents were too old at the time to serve as well. I think the last time any member of my family tree served in any actual combat was the US Civil War, for the Union.
But I want to have her take part in things like this because it's part of her national heritage, even if it's not part of her familial one. But that seems almost flimsy of a thought.
I dunno, i'm babbling on again.
It's not about your family having a direct line to Gallipoli. It's about looking at all of these young men and women and respecting what they have sacrificed for the country that you respect and want it to be the best it can be. The talk this morning about Anzac and why it was important was referencing how both Australia and New Zealand were fledging nations in world war one, and these men and women volunteered and represented their country to do what they thought was right.
You can still be appreciative of what folks fought and died for, even if it wasn't one of YOUR folks who fought or died for it!
I have like 0 military tradition in my family, but still found the ANZAC dawn service really meaningful when I went... paying respects to the folks who fought to defend the place I now call home and supporting my husband in paying HIS respects to his great grandfather never felt out of character to me.
ANZAC day is always a conflicting one for me, because while I have family past and present who served across multiple wars and conflicts, I also have very negative feelings towards militaristic rhetoric and the high pedestal we put participating (as a country) in war on at times.
It's very easy for actual reverence and memorial for those who served, be they veterans or those who died in service, to get muddied by gross patriotism and the enshrinement of the military. It's... A complex matter.
I'm also acutely aware these days of a lot of the minority groups who served and are rarely given the attention or respect they deserve by mass media and politicians and such. The fact of the matter is that in the eyes of some people, not all sacrifices were equal.
So I guess in the end, everything is political and the nature of how ANZAC day and such can be portrayed is a very complex matter to my heart. ANZAC day is far more important to me when we think about the individuals, not the whole, I suppose.
You can still be appreciative of what folks fought and died for, even if it wasn't one of YOUR folks who fought or died for it!
I have like 0 military tradition in my family, but still found the ANZAC dawn service really meaningful when I went... paying respects to the folks who fought to defend the place I now call home and supporting my husband in paying HIS respects to his great grandfather never felt out of character to me.
Wait you're married?
You’d know this if you’d actually shown up to our wedding.
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KincaidYou're standing on my neckKuwaitRegistered Userregular
Pretty sure they’re still in the movies, I’m probably safe for another hour or so.
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Hey so my older sister is moving up.to brisbane for potentially 6ish weeks or something, and i would appreciate if anyone has got any good reccomendations of things to do that i could pass on.
Can be food/drink related, but if there are any other fun activities to do she's already been given a rundown of just about every bar and nightclub from friends.
PaperLuigi44My amazement is at maximum capacity.Registered Userregular
The Queensland Museum is pretty chill if she's into that. The Wild State exhibit has a whole bunch of models of local fauna that I liked a lot. South Bank/the Botanical Gardens are nice too.
Hey so my older sister is moving up.to brisbane for potentially 6ish weeks or something, and i would appreciate if anyone has got any good reccomendations of things to do that i could pass on.
Can be food/drink related, but if there are any other fun activities to do she's already been given a rundown of just about every bar and nightclub from friends.
go kayaking at enoggera dam
visit the glasshouse mountains and do bushwalks
go to the gold coast - not surfers paradise, it sucks, but the southern beaches are nice. like burleigh heads and broadbeach
stradbroke island?? i haven't been there in a long time
there's only so much to do in brisbane itself, but the rest of seq is good as hell. you need a car tho
In short, go ham on the improv. If players want to do something, find a dice roll to check their proposed action against, think of a suitable threshold for success, let em go for it. If they fail it, they pratfall.. or worse. All good comedy has consequence and stakes.
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
Do lots of planning, then throw away everything you planned because your players will ignore it.
Yes. This.
Basically, expect the players to latch onto a completely random and unrelated detail, believe it is significant, and ride it until the end of time, which then means your super excellent preparation means nothing as you're stuck improvising for 4 hours.
Because I adore @Anzekay as our GM and I feel super sorry for him.
lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Man.
The last time i did any tabletop gaming (shortly after 3rd Edition came out.... gosh i'm old)
We ruined the DMs plan because they put a magically locked door in a hallway and we figured it needed to be gotten past.
We had a Psionic in the group, with some sort of ability that let him absorb damage and then pass it along.
So we turned him into a punching bag for about 4 rounds of combat, did a ridiculous amount of damage, he then touched the wall next to the door.
The wall exploded/crumbled setting off all kinds of traps. But we got the treasure hidden inside and escaped the tower as it caught fire and began crumbling around us.
To be honest though, his original goal was for us to fight the wizard at the top of the tower. We just collapsed the building on top of them instead.
they always seem really clever but sometimes your players just don't latch onto the right detail and the entire puzzle becomes unsolvable
the very best puzzle I've ever done was the weird level machine in the very first D&D campaign with the forumers and it wasn't a puzzle, I just made random shit up when they interacted with it until everyone was laughing at it mincing goblins and I decided to have it activate something and open the door they needed to open
it was funny, it was silly, and they felt great when it did what they wanted it to do without having to fiddle too much
same goes for puzzle-like combat encounters. sometimes your players will latch onto something in a way you don't expect, and approach it in a way that just plain won't work with what you have on paper. My best advice is to avoid GMing such encounters while tired because you'll get exhausted just trying to keep things together
which brings me onto my other GM top tips:
don't GM while tired if you can help it
HYDRATE! I get massive headaches while GMing if I get too invested in the game and forget to drink, and then I lose focus. staying hydrated is a big thing.
if looking up a rule for something not-too-important takes more than a minute, just handwave it and make something up and look it up later
memorise as many basic spells as you can, because knowing what they do and being able to just fling them at your party from an enemy spellcaster at will is really great
Also, open with this line (also stolen from Dice Friends): "We are using a slightly modified version of the 5E rules, in that when I make a mistake it's actually a house rule."
Do lots of planning, then throw away everything you planned because your players will ignore it.
Yes. This.
Basically, expect the players to latch onto a completely random and unrelated detail, believe it is significant, and ride it until the end of time, which then means your super excellent preparation means nothing as you're stuck improvising for 4 hours.
Because I adore @Anzekay as our GM and I feel super sorry for him.
DM: As the door creaks open, the four of you enter the main chamber and notice four suspiciously familiar-looking statues, each of them holding a-
P1: Wait, why did the door creak? This is an assassin's hideout, all the doors should be silent.
P2: Hey, there was a creaking door in that haunted blacksmith's house that we robbed two months ago. Maybe the ghost has followed us! We should oil the hinges to banish the evil spirit.
P3: We don't have any oil though.
P4: We have that goat carcass we got from the cave troll earlier. What if we make a fire and render the fat off that?
P2: I volunteer my helmet as a drip tray!
P4: Let's make sure we have everything we need, we only get one shot at this. Someone look up a YouTube video on rendering goat fat.
DM: Suddenly a portal appears and you all fall through into a universe where all that exists are gelatinous cubes.
P1: What? That's the third time since we started this quest!
P3: Yeah, not to be rude, DM, but I feel like it messes with the narrative flow when you take us on these random tangents all the time?
Apparently players hate it when you team them up with the big bad unknowingly to take down someone else, but then he disappears leaving them all to an impossible fight, so he can turn up later when they're weak and extort them for what he wants.
So don't do that.
Making mistakes is half the fun because they can lead in interesting directions. Although that depends what you mean by mistakes. I had to prevent my players from haggling with anyone as it would turn into a halfhour detour.
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
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AwkoAbout to poison the waterhole.Registered Userregular
OrthancDeath Lite, Only 1 CalorieOff the end of the internet, just turn left.Registered User, ClubPAregular
There's an ANZ advert here where the couple buying thier first home are depressed that the bidding starts at one million dollars. Then the bank gives them a loan and it's all OK.
Every time I see it all I can think is "Seriously, you're normalizing a million dollars for a first home"
The wife and I both make pretty good money these days, but we couldn't afford to buy our house if we didn't already have it.
Posts
I have like 0 military tradition in my family, but still found the ANZAC dawn service really meaningful when I went... paying respects to the folks who fought to defend the place I now call home and supporting my husband in paying HIS respects to his great grandfather never felt out of character to me.
It's not about your family having a direct line to Gallipoli. It's about looking at all of these young men and women and respecting what they have sacrificed for the country that you respect and want it to be the best it can be. The talk this morning about Anzac and why it was important was referencing how both Australia and New Zealand were fledging nations in world war one, and these men and women volunteered and represented their country to do what they thought was right.
Satans..... hints.....
Wait you're married?
Satans..... hints.....
It's very easy for actual reverence and memorial for those who served, be they veterans or those who died in service, to get muddied by gross patriotism and the enshrinement of the military. It's... A complex matter.
I'm also acutely aware these days of a lot of the minority groups who served and are rarely given the attention or respect they deserve by mass media and politicians and such. The fact of the matter is that in the eyes of some people, not all sacrifices were equal.
So I guess in the end, everything is political and the nature of how ANZAC day and such can be portrayed is a very complex matter to my heart. ANZAC day is far more important to me when we think about the individuals, not the whole, I suppose.
Was it though.
I've been preoccupied today with how warm it is.
The planet is on fire.
This is some climate disaster movie level garbage.
Ah yes, that’s what we call “Wednesday”.
You’d know this if you’d actually shown up to our wedding.
Satans..... hints.....
Can be food/drink related, but if there are any other fun activities to do she's already been given a rundown of just about every bar and nightclub from friends.
Steam // Secret Satan
go kayaking at enoggera dam
visit the glasshouse mountains and do bushwalks
go to the gold coast - not surfers paradise, it sucks, but the southern beaches are nice. like burleigh heads and broadbeach
stradbroke island?? i haven't been there in a long time
there's only so much to do in brisbane itself, but the rest of seq is good as hell. you need a car tho
having a laptop with the roll20 database up on it is very handy
In short, go ham on the improv. If players want to do something, find a dice roll to check their proposed action against, think of a suitable threshold for success, let em go for it. If they fail it, they pratfall.. or worse. All good comedy has consequence and stakes.
Yes. This.
Basically, expect the players to latch onto a completely random and unrelated detail, believe it is significant, and ride it until the end of time, which then means your super excellent preparation means nothing as you're stuck improvising for 4 hours.
Because I adore @Anzekay as our GM and I feel super sorry for him.
The last time i did any tabletop gaming (shortly after 3rd Edition came out.... gosh i'm old)
We ruined the DMs plan because they put a magically locked door in a hallway and we figured it needed to be gotten past.
We had a Psionic in the group, with some sort of ability that let him absorb damage and then pass it along.
So we turned him into a punching bag for about 4 rounds of combat, did a ridiculous amount of damage, he then touched the wall next to the door.
The wall exploded/crumbled setting off all kinds of traps. But we got the treasure hidden inside and escaped the tower as it caught fire and began crumbling around us.
To be honest though, his original goal was for us to fight the wizard at the top of the tower. We just collapsed the building on top of them instead.
...
The DM was incensed.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
they always seem really clever but sometimes your players just don't latch onto the right detail and the entire puzzle becomes unsolvable
the very best puzzle I've ever done was the weird level machine in the very first D&D campaign with the forumers and it wasn't a puzzle, I just made random shit up when they interacted with it until everyone was laughing at it mincing goblins and I decided to have it activate something and open the door they needed to open
it was funny, it was silly, and they felt great when it did what they wanted it to do without having to fiddle too much
same goes for puzzle-like combat encounters. sometimes your players will latch onto something in a way you don't expect, and approach it in a way that just plain won't work with what you have on paper. My best advice is to avoid GMing such encounters while tired because you'll get exhausted just trying to keep things together
which brings me onto my other GM top tips:
don't GM while tired if you can help it
HYDRATE! I get massive headaches while GMing if I get too invested in the game and forget to drink, and then I lose focus. staying hydrated is a big thing.
if looking up a rule for something not-too-important takes more than a minute, just handwave it and make something up and look it up later
memorise as many basic spells as you can, because knowing what they do and being able to just fling them at your party from an enemy spellcaster at will is really great
also don't ever underestimate the sleep spell:
DM: As the door creaks open, the four of you enter the main chamber and notice four suspiciously familiar-looking statues, each of them holding a-
P1: Wait, why did the door creak? This is an assassin's hideout, all the doors should be silent.
P2: Hey, there was a creaking door in that haunted blacksmith's house that we robbed two months ago. Maybe the ghost has followed us! We should oil the hinges to banish the evil spirit.
P3: We don't have any oil though.
P4: We have that goat carcass we got from the cave troll earlier. What if we make a fire and render the fat off that?
P2: I volunteer my helmet as a drip tray!
P4: Let's make sure we have everything we need, we only get one shot at this. Someone look up a YouTube video on rendering goat fat.
DM: Suddenly a portal appears and you all fall through into a universe where all that exists are gelatinous cubes.
P1: What? That's the third time since we started this quest!
P3: Yeah, not to be rude, DM, but I feel like it messes with the narrative flow when you take us on these random tangents all the time?
So don't do that.
Want to play co-op games? Feel free to hit me up!
This is exactly how I run puzzles. It's my job to create problems, not solve them.
2DS/3DS Friend code 0361-7385-2366
Twitter: @PoeticGecko
The numbers are saying that the maximum price for the new housing is going to be higher than what we paid for our house.
Average house prices in this city has now hit $1M. That's the average.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Every time I see it all I can think is "Seriously, you're normalizing a million dollars for a first home"
The wife and I both make pretty good money these days, but we couldn't afford to buy our house if we didn't already have it.