Rain Dog @Leucrotta@awoo.space

I have mixed feelings about "no more half [whatever]."

My *opinion* is; rules differences for ancestries *are* mostly good (because they're different species, not humans with indistinguishable physical and intellectual capacities), *but* it can shade into racism. Ie; I can see "an elf" being naturally faster and more agile than a similar human (different species) but I can't see cultural differences between hunter-gatherer wild elf and bookish gray elf playing out in biological differences in strength.

I definitely feel "intelligence" (and to a lesser extent "wisdom" and "charisma") are loaded terms where stat modifiers should *always* be off limits. That gets uncomfortably close to justification for real world exploitation and genocide. Moving along...

Like it or not, D&D comes from a somewhat racist context (for instance Robert E Howard's fiction, where Aquilonians are innately different from the Picts they're trying to conquer), and half-elves/half-orcs are an inclusion from where Tolkien, who was fairly good about this stuff, was racist. "Half elves are not just culturally but biologically different from elf or human" teeters on the edge of profoundly offensive. Theoretically you could take hybrids out of the game and I'd be cool with that, but... I'm not.

Given that I'm from groups where being recently made invisible by pigeonholing us as "white" is the latest step in genociding us, I'm really uncomfortable with "disappearing" mixed ancestry adventurers!

Unfortunately I feel like reductionism here - and you need reductionism to jam reality into something you can quickly play as a game - is a real problem (when you simplify armor into "AC," it doesn't touch on anyone's bitter family history) and I don't have an easy answer.

That also took my mood from "simmering anger at everything to wanting" to "find anything that looks like an oppressor and beat the shit out of it with my fists," and a *good* development of this is I realized that being this angry doesn't make me an out of control monster - but it does mean my judgment's really screwed up for a little while, and acting out of anger at the next thing that pisses me off (not hard in that mood) might not be what I honestly *want* to do.

I figure I will go somewhere as long as I'm now unemployed and relatively near a school but well after when the kids would have started class, there are some bright flashes of light, so I think I got tagged for a speeding ticket again. I really hate those cameras, and whether I get hit with a fine or not, I think the takeaway is drive nowhere *near* schools on the weekdays.

One day eventually I’d really like to host a Seder.

My next D&D character will be a swashbuckling French tortle on a mission from the Cardinal himself, or in other words; a Mazarin torte.

Is it irreverent to think that charoset is probably awesome when you’re baked?

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Have some flower photos. Waiting.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Circle of Spores druid turns out to do damage with spores and is not the peacenik psilocybin fueled subclass I was hoping for. There go my dreams of including the Holy Hacky Sack in my D&D games.

okay, *here's* the stress fueled crying jag. Was wondering when that was gonna show up. Gonna listen to "Bron Y Aur" and "That's the Way" and lean into it a little, as long as I have a little time before I have to head north.

A thing I've always wondered about AD&D;

"Accidental Death and Dismemberment" insurance. I'm curious whether a former actuary turned game designer decided this was a hilarious acronym for the variation of his game he wanted to push, and which featured a fair amount of accidental death and dismemberment.

Well, they fired me. Thankfully, they didn’t yell like I was afraid of. so now I just need to get through Seder at my parents’, then I can start working on whatever comes next.

Jimmy Olson sobbing as he sees a full page ad where Supes endorses a new food processor as “Superman’s Pal!”

Let’s see, I could wait for my coworker to show up and nag me, I’m looking forward to having an absolutely grim Seder, and I have thumbnails of shit like Monster Hunter Rangers and warlocks making pacts which I could work up, guess which is most appealing.

HOT D&D TAKE: the best D&D villain is actually Manshoon because it’s fun to say. Try it with me! ManSHOOOOOOn!

… it’s a cheap joke but someone had to use it.

The obvious thing to come out of the D&D movie is Theyberchaud/Themberchaud pronouns for people whose gender is tubby dragon.

When it has been decided for me, that I am evil, stupid, disposable, or only a useful source of income, all I can really do is survive until I am somewhere where I am not viewed that way automatically.

aww sadly this "Drums of Midgard" track is just horn and people galdering, and not in fact "When the trolls break in/how you gonna go/shot down on the pavement or waiting in death row/you can crush us, you can bruise us, but you'll have to answer to/aaaaaa, the drums of Midgard."