Apa Aku Memantaskan atau Memaksakan diri?

Sebuah video terbaru dari cerita seorang teman membuat saya berpikir. "Bismillah bangun dari tempat tidur," katanya.

Bertahun-tahun telah berlalu, tetapi saya merasa telah melepaskan ilusi ini. Doktrin - atau semacamnya - "Untuk mendapatkan pasangan yang baik kita harus baik. Untuk berada di sisinya kita harus berusaha untuk setara dengannya ." Saya tidak tahu versi frasa mana yang merupakan versi lain, karena saya yakin itu bergema tidak hanya di satu tempat, tetapi di tempat lain. Tetapi dalam hal uang, saya pikir kami menemukan kesamaan di utas yang sama.

Akibatnya, saya menjadi buta secara logika. Hal yang membuat saya khawatir bukanlah karena hal itu menuntun saya pada ketaatan, tetapi bahwa saya mengikuti Tuhan untuk menemukan seseorang. Makna ibadah dibatasi oleh keinginan duniawi dan mungkin hanya nafsu. Sayangnya, doktrin ini membawa saya pada arti sebenarnya dari ibadah yang murni dan penyerahan diri kepada Tuhan.

Namun, saya tidak mengutuk keputusan ini - apa artinya - karena saya tidak perlu menafsirkannya seperti itu. Saya mengerti bahwa saya tidak harus melepaskan apa yang saya inginkan. Saya berdoa untuk kebahagiaan dunia, saya beribadah, tetapi hati dan pikiran saya sibuk dengan hal lain.

Karena menghindari diri sendiri. Ibadah saya sudah saya sesuaikan agar Allah mengabulkan keinginan saya, dan saya kurangi jadwal belajar saya agar ilmu saya sama dengan ilmu-Nya. Pada saat yang sama sedih dan bodoh. Mungkin itu sebabnya Tuhan memperbaiki semuanya. Saya lupa esensi doa dan terlalu rakus untuk mimpi saya. Saya harus bisa berdoa dan dekat dengan Tuhan tanpa janji dunia ini. Karena ketika kita menerima kasih Tuhan, semua hal baik datang kepada kita. Sayangnya, saya menelan yang pertama terbalik. Saya meminta Tuhan untuk mencairkan orang lain.

Yang sedang membaca jangan dibaca.

Tingkatkan, karena kami benar-benar ingin menjadi lebih baik.

Sembahlah Dia dengan ketulusan dan pengabdian.

Personalisasi ide. Kita tidak bisa menipu Tuhan, Dia tahu apa yang ada di hati kita.

Bagaimana kita bisa berdoa ketika nama seseorang ada di hati kita: "Dekat atau setuju dengan siapa yang menurutmu terbaik untukku?" Ayo, Tuhan tahu segalanya.

Beyond Rashomon

Akiro Kurosawa’s Rashomon is one of my favorite films. The film tells different versions of the same event from the perspective of different participants. These versions are very different, but you will understand how each participant twists the truth to make themselves more beautiful. A great lesson on why we disagree with universal truth, and why it helps to understand why the same phenomenon can be explained by different media today and interpreted so differently.

As a European, I follow American news like someone would follow a horror comedy series. Most of the characters are at the top. In fact, political satire sessions like Vip have given up because some people in the real world acted out of the writers ’imagination. You can't * guess * such crazy people. But for the most part, it’s still about Rashomon. People agree with some basic data, such as "the women in the women's department at the Los Angeles Spa were exposed to seeing their penises"; The struggle revolves around the interpretation of these facts. Is sex acceptable if the owner of a women’s spa “identifies as a woman”? Is it a case of transgender rights or an immoral statement? You don’t have to be an extreme politician to understand how opinions on this issue can be different. Even if they bring together a group of completely apolitical people, they will probably agree on such a complex issue.

But I’m starting to get annoyed if there’s no more agreement at the event below. I read about the politicians on January 6, when the Republican Party invited a group of tourists to a peaceful visit to the capital, someone accidentally broke something, and the Deep Democratic State reacted. Through the arrest of tourists and political prisoners like everyone else. Of course, many video footage of the event does not support this assumption, so all reports of this hypothesis are made without video or photographic evidence. I would understand if Republicans were to claim that it was not a coup, but a protest. But to pretend that nothing has happened, after everyone has seen what is happening on TV, goes beyond the Rashomon-style checkerboard.

I am also concerned about the evolution of leftist history. As an amateur historian, I’ve always thought that the best way to deal with the confusing truth of the past is to create a new 2,000-page version of Maine Camp, with 3,500 footnotes explaining why Hitler’s arguments were wrong. The worst way to deal with the uncomfortable truth of the past is to deny the existence of the past and reinvent an alternative version of it that conforms to current social norms. Forging the past, even in the context of entertainment, is the opposite of acquiring knowledge. How would you explain the Windrash scandal that followed Bridgeton and who now believe that the British ruling class was a mixed race for many centuries?

Civil society relies on a basic consensus to disagree with the political interpretation of information. Attempts to simply change the truth are elements of Orwelia’s nightmare.

Tobold's blog

I don’t want to call it a sandbox

Can you write an essay or a story for next week? You probably can, because you've been given jobs like this since high school. Would you write the same essay or story right now, in the next 10 minutes? Most people can't or won't try and in the long run the result will be much less than it is. Now, one of the tasks of the Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons is to tell a story that connects players with smaller stories about their characters' actions. And one of the big differences between the different Dungeon Masters is how well they prepare for it. For the past few years I have mainly played adventure campaigns published by Wizards of the Coast, now Curse of Strahd. And first because of the pandemic, and now because people have moved, we play on a virtual table, in our case Roll20. I purchased the Curse of Strahd module in Roll20, so now I have all the cards, tokens and flyers ready. Most importantly, Curse of Strahd is a campaign with a specific story, with a specific ending. At the end of the campaign, players will be strong enough to enter Ravenloft Castle and the Campaign Archbishop, Vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich. I don't know exactly what the players will do in each session, but I can prepare a great story; and when the players enter Ravenloft Castle, I will have the battle cards and tokens ready and I have probably researched the contents of the castle in the campaign book.

Now it's perfect for playing D&D without preparation. You can improvise and play in a completely isolated campaign with no pre-planned stories. But there's an obvious price to pay for it: the story the DM had to create to explode is probably not that epic, and the world isn't as logical, not as logical as something made up. This makes the game session quite stressful for the DM because not only does he have to guess the world and the story in a short period of time, but he also has to take notes so as not to contradict what he says to the players in the game. future. . The session. . what he says now. And this sandbox style of play is best suited to mind games without tokens or cards. Or play with a blank map, quickly draw the land by hand, and represent enemies with common symbols. In Roll20, at least the chips can be quickly removed from the draw, but any good card must be prepared. As a DM, I don't like completely improvised play.

However, there is a weak point: the DM can set up the world and populate it with location cards, fragments of stories and NPCs. Think of it as a sandbox and you don't start with a flat sand surface, but you already have some pre-planned sand castles and structures. The master does not need to guess the name of the kingdom and the name of the king to fly, he is trained in tools such as Roll20 or World Anvil. Players still have a lot of freedom, they can decide whether to ignore this king, work for him or kill him and conquer the kingdom. But at least when players ask what the kingdom is geographically, it has a map that the DM can draw. The campaign is still player-driven, indefinitely, with no predetermined bits at the end.

This is what I want to do in my next post on the Curse of Strahd campaign. After initial discussions with my players, we chose a pirate-themed marine and aquatic adventure campaign. I will use the original Ghosts of Saltmarch material, but not necessarily all of the adventures in this book. And certainly not all newspapers, because there are a lot of low-quality black and white sheets in that book. I will not prepare more than one mission in advance and will use player input to select or create missions. This will require players to be rewarded for multiple contributions; but it should be enough to simply ask what they would like to see in such a campaign and then create something to answer that question. Everyone has ideas for pirate stories, treasure hunts or naval battles with a ghost ship. I don't want to call it a sandbox campaign, but rather a "player driven campaign".

tobold's blog

Wary of subscriptions

I'm so old that I really remember the days before the internet. And it may surprise you that those now trying to rip you off and sell you something of little value for a lot of money existed before the internet. Only they work through print ads or even door-to-door sales. One of the things I learned early in my life was that subscription was one of the favorite business models for scammers. Obviously, many people struggle to calculate how much they cost annually for a $10 per month subscription. In fact, how much you're willing to pay for something depends on your motivation for that thing, and if that motivation is new to you, it can be even greater. $10 a month might seem like a bargain in the first month, but it's probably impossible to see what services or products you're consistently receiving after six months, and $10 is way more than what you're currently offering.

Someone recommended Ted Lasso to me and that's when I realized I had an Apple TV+ subscription showing him. In my defense, I still have the first year of Apple TV free. But it's a weird subscription, because you'll lose access *immediately* when you cancel, not when the free period ends. So I have to be careful before I pay in October and cancel it. In my opinion Apple TV is not worth paying for in full because there is so little content and less than I really think. After Mythical Quest and The Morning Show, Ted Lasso is only the third show I've seen on Apple TV+ in a year. For me personally, Amazon Prime Video is the best TV show subscription because it's free as a bundle and I pay less per year for the subscription than I save on shipping (especially during epidemic years) . The only other TV content subscription I have is Netflix and it was better than today because when I started Netflix I still had content from different TV channels. These days these content providers each have their own streaming service and if I want to access everything I have to a) travel to the US (many of which are not available in Europe) and b) pay $100 or more per month, almost like Netflix when it starts streaming.

Video game subscription services are still relatively new, but I see the same thing happening there. Currently, Microsoft Xbox Games for PC offers games from various publishers with big names like EA. It would be even worse if each of these publishers removed their games from Game Pass and charged me an additional ড10 per month to access them. But even if each subscription service had as many games as the current game pass, it would be bad for me as a consumer: either I would have to pay for everything, or I wouldn't have access to all "exclusive" games. this situation, I would have to set up a rotation, play all games for three months on one subscription service, then cancel it and move on to another. It would be difficult.

In the end, the limiting factor is my available free time. Ten times the content is not a good deal for ten times the money because I don't have ten times the time to eat the content. And that's where video streaming competes with gaming subscriptions for my time. However, of course, the large number of subscriptions is also a risk for personal money, because it is easy to lose an account. I'm particularly critical of non-gaming software that I may only need occasionally. I don't want to pay a monthly Microsoft subscription to use Word or Excel, I don't use them personally. And these days, there are even all kinds of subscription gadgets, right down to the doorbell . Instead of trying to persuade sales people to buy you a magazine subscription you don't really need, Doorbell now takes your subscription money. I think it's called progress.

Tobold's blog

The fragility of the influencer business

YouTube has a long list of channels that I subscribe to. This serves a dual purpose: I get updates when these channels post something new, and the content providers increase their ad revenue, so it's a way of at least "paying" them for the content they create. One of the channels I subscribe to is The Spiffing Brit, who writes funny posts about hacking various games. The Spiffing Brite was recently embroiled in a scandal that resulted in his YouTube channel being shut down (but brought back). Jim Browning did the same by starting a channel that exposed scammers. And apparently there are many more YouTubers who have read about the same scandal . Well, since the scammer wasn't interested in monetizing his exploits, it seemed to me that he was intentionally targeting people who had cheats and exploit pipelines so he could be matched against the most informed targets possible. But for me, this action revealed something about the fragility of influential "art".

You've probably heard about how a ransomware attack crippled a major oil pipeline in the United States earlier this year , causing gas shortages and soaring prices. This is one of the few examples of hackers damaging the real industry, not reputation . Many companies *deliberately do not connect their process control systems to the internet*, so a hacker must first gain physical access to the site before doing any damage. Above all, however, this process control system has a fault-tolerant hardware mechanism, so that a hacker can close the pipeline but not use it. Ultimately, while hackers can harm a business, the physical business always retains control of its physical assets and recovers from an attack.

For YouTube influencers, their YouTube channel is essentially a *business*. If that channel is removed and the YouTube user fails to persuade YouTube to reverse the removal, it will go out of business. I've had a bit of personal contact with business influencers since my blog went viral and after my Warhol-esque 15 minutes of internet fame. A few people suggested at the time that I should stay away from bloggers for one reason or another. And the reality is, you can't: no matter how much client base you have as an influencer, your Google page ranking that leads to search, and any other similar systems that link to any of your external channels, whether it's a blog or YouTube channel. Even if all your content is stored on the same hard drive and you create a new channel with the same name and content, your history is still associated with the original channel and will disappear if you change it. My blog was never a business venture so destroying my blog would only hurt my pride. But nowadays, some YouTubers make big money and hire other people like video editors. Some channels are small businesses dedicated to creating effective content.

The scammer forced YouTube users to delete their channel by impersonating YouTube and threatened to remove their channel if they didn't follow certain account setup steps. That and the fact that these YouTubers managed to reverse the takedown process by interacting with the original YouTube shows that hackers are not the biggest problem: the company that controls the platform. YouTube always removes YouTube channels because the channel owner went against very complicated and incorrect rules and regulations. What makes this scandal believable? But that means YouTube is actually holding these small content companies hostage.

It's really hard to understand how great the platform company's strength is compared to other companies. One is tempted to see them as a kind of Zamindari. And yes, any small business where you rent an office can fire your landlord; The difference is that such a company can probably find another office in a different building to rent to someone else. When you get kicked out by your YouTube "owner", it's almost impossible to find an equivalent alternative to your content; But your "owner" basically controls all your customers and can't move them to new locations.

Tobold's blog

Might & Magic X : No More Legacy

In January 2014, I purchased Might & Magic X: Legacy for €29.99. I played it for 24 hours, wrote a little blog post about it, and then forgot about it. On June 1, 2021, Ubisoft closed its online service for Might & Magic X: Legacy and several other games . By doing so, they also disabled the DRM server for the game. What is needed to complete chapter 1 of the game. So unless you've "hacked" the game to no longer verify ownership, Might & Magic X: Legacy is currently unplayable, even for people who legally purchased the game.

I wouldn't say it's a huge loss, but there are more disappointments than you might think. Because it sheds light on some very unpleasant truths about the "ownership" of the game that everyone is trying to forget. You never own the game, you only get a limited license to play it. While the actual owners in some cases forget about this and let you play their old games forever, this is more of a coincidence than your legal right. With DRM, the damage can be the other way around: companies can disconnect you from games you bought years ago without even thinking about it. I think this is not the last case.

Tobold's blog

NFC Cards

I have a lot of games, but almost no toys. You won't find a shelf full of Star Wars figures or anything like that in my house. The only thing I have are 4 character figurines from The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, called amiibo. The only reason I bought them was when I played Legend of Zelda. Breath of the Wild, once per day for each figure, I can click this amiibo with the right thumb on the stick and get something for it. More importantly, the game has special items like monster pets that can *only* be obtained this way. Other Nintendo Switch games also have amiibo systems, such as Monster Hunter Stories 2, where you can get special equipment and regular resources using amiibo.

I bought this amiibo to try out in Legend of Zelda, but I'm not a fan of them. I don't use these figurines except for gaming, they are quite large and take up a lot of space. And they are expensive and sometimes hard to find. Even a regular amiibo figure is around $20, and good luck finding a monster rider reference for under $100 these days (I bought the reel when it was still cheap). I found the Monster Hunter Stories 2 amiibo on Amazon, just to see what was available.

To my surprise, there was a cheaper option: NFC cards. It's basically the same Near Field Communications chip that powers amiibo on a small plastic card. You can get full sets for the game you're playing (12 for Monster Hunter Stories 2 or 24 for Legend of Zelda) for about $20, which is what a regular amiibo would cost you. I had my doubts if it was legit and would work, but I tried it and it worked.

It is now clear that these NFC cards were made by copying information from the original amiibo. However, this information is not copyrighted, so the copy of the NFC card is completely legal. Only the amiibo drawings are copyrighted, meaning the images on these NFC cards look like a child trying to draw a favorite video game character. You can barely tell who it is, so there are no copyright issues.

This is perfect for me. I will never buy amiibo again. I've always wanted the electronic feature of it and never cared for the statue. Of course, I understand that this will not be true for everyone and that some collectors will want to display the figurines. But for me, a cheap Chinese fake is better than the original.

tobold's blog

Simulating the D&D experience

There are many board games and video games that use the "RPG" label. However, they never replicate the same experience that you can play in a tabletop RPG like Dangeons and Dragons. This is mainly due to the lack of a dungeon master: In D&D you can announce every imaginable step and a good dungeon master will at least let you try and ask you for a skill test. So yes, in D&D you can *jump off the porch* and attack trolls from above, even if that action isn't part of the quest module your party is playing. You can't do this in a board game or video game unless you have a "leap over the chandelier" listed.

Still, let's look at some D&D gameplay elements that can be modeled with a board game or video game:

• A story where your choices affect the outcome.
• Characters with traits and abilities.
• Verbs whose success depends on character traits and skills.
• Bound by combat, traits, and power.
• Rewards in the form of experience/levels or items that usually increase a character's stats and skills.

When you play a video game like Baldur's Gate 3, you get all of these elements. So if you don't think about the list of possible actions coded in the game, you at least have a very D&D-like experience. To a certain extent, these games try to give you the illusion that your choices affect the outcome and may have a limited number of slightly different outcomes. But sometimes the front is too thin, and if you play the game a second time, you'll notice many elements of the story that you can't change even if you try to make a different choice. *Spoiler alert* In Baldur's Gate 3, the mind-flare nautiloid "ship" will *always* crash and end up in the same place as you, no matter what you choose in this early phase of the game.

In board games, the storyline is sometimes more linear and/or shorter. Most board games have no apps and are limited to telling visual stories. So if there is a story, it is limited to reading text aloud. For obvious reasons, you don't want the text to be too long, at least when the game has multiple players. I just ordered Legacy of Dragonholt, which is quite an expensive book with a sheet of Choose Your Own Adventure character; I'll probably play this alone because if I played with my wife I would have to read a lot of songs. But at least Legacy of Dragonholt has a lot of decision points, and the skills you choose when creating your character will determine what you can do. So if you create an orc fighter or a dwarven alchemist, you'll get different abilities and therefore different options, even if you're playing the same story. The only thing missing in my opinion is the dice roll and efficiency control system. Other people might like it if you go for stealth power, you will still succeed if stealth is actually an alternative to history.

I do like board games when they're story-driven, but that's definitely a matter of taste. Yesterday I mentioned the new Descent: Legends of the Dark that I will not be buying. But it's based on my choice; If you're looking for a game that features mostly tactical battles and a wide range of character development systems with lots of skills and abilities, then New Descent might be the game for you. You still have to consider how much the app bothers you, whether the price of ট্যাগ 175 is too much for you and how satisfied you are with the 3D cardboard terrain. But if you want a dungeon crawler with a nice miniature and a decent strategic combat system to start with, I wouldn't blow Decent. Especially if you prefer dice-based combat over card-based combat in GrimHarbar.

I still think Lands of Galzar would come very close to a lightweight two player D&D style game for me and my wife. However, this game is of course still crowdfunded, and it will be at least another year before I can test that guess. Baldur's Gate 3 will also be released next year, although you can buy the game and play the beta now. So in terms of games, I'd recommend Solasta: Crown of the Magistrate if you prefer a previously released game that's pretty close to D&D.

Tobold's blog

Whose fault is climate change?

Politicians in the US Senate are proposing a climate fund to pay for a pollution law that would fine oil companies like Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron a total of $300 billion for global warming. I think it's a cheap political gimmick. So let's take a look at the problem.

First, I agree with previous legislation that penalized tobacco companies for not informing their customers about the risk of lung cancer. In the same way, the new legislation tries to portray the actions of the oil companies. Is this justified? It has been known since the 18th century that burning gasoline produces carbon dioxide. For the first time, Arrhenius calculated the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide in 1896. Since the legislation specifically mentions the period between 2000 and 2019, it would be very difficult to say that it was not known in 2000 that the use of gasoline could lead to global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been around since 1988. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in 1992. Although some people still deny the existence of climate change, I don't think it's fair to say that the oil companies have deceive consumers.

The second problem is that oil companies themselves emit only about 10% of the carbon dioxide their customers emit when using their products. If you decide to buy a plane ticket, who is responsible for your carbon footprint? It is very difficult to say that only the company that sells kerosene is to blame. What about the airline? What about booking individual flights? Same thing with cars. Is ExxonMobil responsible for driving the Hummer and not the Prius? Or do you drive a lot instead of cycling?

The third problem is fundamental and arises when one tries to punish the company. Who is being punished specifically? Many executives and decision makers at companies like ExxonMobil have changed over the past 20 years. No punitive tax hurts them except the shareholders. ExxonMobil is known as " widows and orphans' equity " and is a low-risk investment held by many people with little investment knowledge. Most of what ExxonMobil pays out will come from the pockets of ordinary people who own these shares through pension funds and the like. They can tax the company on the ground until the existing shareholders (not those who owned the shares at the time of the alleged wrongdoing) are eliminated. If the tax doesn't destroy the company, then the company has to find the money somewhere, in this case by raising the price of gas. This, in turn, drives ordinary people.

I think we are all to some extent responsible for climate change. This is a result of our standard of living and how we can afford it. Punishing a person or organization for this is often an exercise in public anger management that serves no real purpose. Why are oil companies punished and not coal companies? What about emissions from other sectors such as cement and steel? Carbon emissions are such an integral part of all economic activities that you will never be able to target the guilty individuals. This is a public responsibility.

What might work, but is politically difficult, is to penalize everyone *starting now* for future CO2 emissions. This will require a carbon tax. And that will make everything from gas to plane tickets more expensive because of the emissions generated. However, people love cheap flights and cheap gas. The politician who tells you that you can keep your flights cheap and your gas cheap because he'll find *someone else* to pay for climate change is just lying to you.

Tobold's blog

Micro-adventures instead of random encounter tables

As I mentioned before, I plan to run a more open and player focused D&D campaign next year. Less ready main storyline with a pre-set main villain, more freedom for players to go in any direction they want. Now, one thing that tends to come up a lot in these open-ended campaigns (but sometimes in more linear campaigns too) is the use of random encounter schedules. Players travel through the jungle and will have the chance to face a roll of less than 5 in d20. Roll the D20 again, it's 12, which means you encounter 5 monsters. The DM rolls a generic battle card and the group fights these random monsters for half an hour. I've always hated this style of D&D gameplay.

I love random encounters in role-playing video games. If you feel worse than the content of the following story, I find it helpful to find that you can run in circles in this forest until you come across a "potential" encounter that will give you some power and some loot. . But fighting in a video game is getting faster and easier every day. I usually get one or two 4-6 hour sessions per month in D&D. I don't want to waste that precious time fighting some random monsters.

This doesn't mean that every battle in D&D has to be epic, or that every confrontation has to be a dramatic part of the story as a whole. As I travel, I see the appeal and even the necessity of dangerous confrontations. I just wish they were more interesting. So I thought I'd create/compile a list of little adventures to fill out my random schedule. For example, instead of facing 5 monsters in the forest, the group encounters a wounded merchant who was robbed by bandits. The group can hunt down the bandits in their camp and fight against them. As a DM, I can create a battle map with the bandit camp, so it's more exciting than an empty map with 5 monsters in it. Also, as Sid Meier said, a good game is a series of interesting decisions; If the group is attacked by 5 monsters, there is no choice but to use the combat ability. When confronted with a wounded merchant, the group can decide whether to hunt down the bandits, return the goods, or keep them.

I'll be researching adventure materials I already own, as well as what can be found in places like DriveThruRPG/RPGNow/DMsGuild for small adventure groups. I know the "5-room dungeon" is a thing and could work for things like a small dungeon or a wizard's tower. But this is going to be the biggest little adventure I ever put on the dating table; Something like pirate camp, the smallest little adventure possible on the same table. I don't want to "accidentally bump into X monsters", but I also don't want to "crash into a huge dungeon that will take several sessions to explore".

Fortunately, the theme for my upcoming campaign, Pirates and Adventures of the Sea, fits right in with the concept. If players are in control of a pirate ship, take on another ship, whether it's a merchant stealing them or a ghost ship chasing them, for a cute little adventure. The same goes for a small island where there is likely to be buried treasure. The Saltmarch Ghosts book actually has some little adventures at the end of the underwater locations section, battle maps like the shipwreck, and ideas on how to populate the area.

Tobold's Blog

Curse of Strahd - Session 9, 10, and 11

Over the past few months, we have continued our Straded Curse campaign with a few short sessions. From the last reported session, the group crossed the Tsolenka mountain pass and reached the Amber Cathedral. Clear Amber Temple, the second largest module dungeon, սկս start now with the largest և final, Castle Ravenloft. In doing so, the party was like level 9. Adding to their fun relationship with the Forgotten Leach, Tsolenka անց և Amber Temple's seem to fill Castle Ravenloft և a little magic. Ingredients. Most sessions are full of fights. This brings me to the discussion of magic that I began to hate as DM.

On paper, Polymorf looks like a fun charm . You can turn a willing partner into a useful animal or a harmless animal, reminiscent of a World War II game that turns an enemy into a sheep. However, this latest edition is much smaller than the original due to savings. And since Polymorf is level 4 magic, you will not make it to level 7, the magic is just there for the two monkeys to enter the magic game at the level 7 giant monkey party and the Tyrannosaurus Rex for 8. at the level of: "We finished a few combat sessions where two players switched to Tyrannosaurus Rexes.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex 8 level challenge has a lot more points, it will hit your character harder than the regular 8 level. And the game takes an hour if you don't focus on it. But T-Rex has a high constitutional point, և between success և brain injury և it is much easier not to lose focus. So now, like my Gothic horror campaign in the Japanese film Godzilla vs. Dracula, two dinosaurs keep coming in. It's fun once or twice, but it gets old very quickly, it kind of kills the atmosphere in which the regime has entered.

Fortunately, Castle Ravenloft levels are so low that you can't drive a T-Rex up or down a medieval turn. But for future campaigns, I want to introduce a house rule that you can not turn anyone into an animal you have never seen before (this is the same rule that used to apply to wildlife in the past). Thus, players will not be able to use these horses unless they are connected to the և T-Rex of the monkeys. I also think that my players have abused Sharpener's artificial intelligence, which should not be useful in a polymorphic image.

The main event of the temple in history is the discovery of the Word of Arber by Amber Gustav, who predicted that the last of the three artifacts would be useful to Mrs. Eva. Find out where the Strathists came from. Each of them collected gifts as dark as bones, as they flew at you. But then they were all cruel, like monsters.

When they entered Castel Raveloft, they remembered the damage. In the temple, they find a sacred treasure that throws 16d10 on a deliberately evil creature (no, you can not throw it in the straw as a weapon). While Strad was lying on the ground in the yard, the group entered the barn and hinted that it was better to scatter the soil in the grave first, և we will continue next time.

Tobold Blog:

Better D&D, Best D&D

There are a lot of discussions in various forums and YouTube videos like "Which is the best version of D&D?" Or "What RPG is better than D&D?" Most of these conversations don't really discuss "better" or "best", which makes the whole conversation meaningless. There's a very simple argument for making D&D the best RPG system and V its best version, because it's a system that a lot of people play. As far as the player is concerned, 5E and Dean will earn the best statistical chance. Once you have a team together, all bets are off. I know bands who prefer the fourth version rather than the fifth. I know many groups that prefer other systems than D&D. Asking about the best movie on Netflix is ​​a bit like finding the most popular or top rated movie by critics, but for any viewer, the "best" movie can be very different.

What makes the question "better" is the fact that every RPG is a set of rules. You are not following the rules properly. For example, you can try the game Dungeons & Dragons, but the quality only depends to some extent on the set of rules; Much depends on the players, the pastor, and the adventure they are playing. For a particular group, some systems may fit better than others, and some adventures may complement some systems better than others. I've played the Steampunk campaign twice using D&D rules, but I understand the argument that Steampunk rules might be a better fit.

If you don't think a certain thing can be good, then it's reasonable to think that Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is a good rule of thumb. But the current 5E version won't last forever: a system compatible "evolution" is known for 2024 , and at some point the current "VI version" will appear or be prepared for other system rules. In order of most popular. Therefore, even for someone who thinks 5E is the "best", it is still important to know how to improve the system by house rules or future expenses.

So where are 5E D&D's weaknesses? One of these results is certainly the first result of skills: strength, efficiency, constitution, ingenuity, wisdom and charm. Fifth Edition uses the same stats for many different things, from crash to shock, damage range, skill check, and savings. Description Some skill levels are more important than others. Flexibility is more important than strength, as you can take the same damage with the same hitting weapons and tactics, skill bullets and skill checks are more common than strength. . Investigations. Intelligence, like the main stats, is not only used in small amounts, but also in bulk storage, and the associated skill checks are all "knowledge checks". When people aren't trying to do something, they often don't know what to do.

Another obvious weakness is that the gameplay is unbalanced. In Fifth Edition, the rules of concentration are that some witches are inherently weak; The Amazing Level 5 Cloudkil ends well in most cases less than Level 3 Fireball . In general, balance doesn't seem to be very important in VV's design, with vaguely unbalanced parts and components being much better than others. Some seem to be based on the idea of ​​balancing things out on a "normal adventure day" in the middle of a long vacation, which is unrealistic for most groups and campaigns. . No.

Although some people don't care much about balance, the defect can have serious consequences that are difficult to manage. This is especially true for inexperienced people, they choose a careless character class and then get upset. I don't think it's a coincidence that the biggest "problem player" event was with a magician at the time; Before this part is anything more than a small magic spell, you need to upgrade the spell adequately in certain subcategories and options. A player who thinks his behavior is the weakest and funniest of all is more likely to act.

I don't think all of these things will be handled by D&D in 2024, but I hope some things will be resolved. Because if the most popular system isn't very good, it really should be. The internet is making the system more popular by posting virtual spreadsheets or game sessions, pens, and cards in places like YouTube. Presence and recognition are essential when choosing an RPG system; A few people dig deep into the rules of different systems to find out which one is "best".

Tobold Blog

The Sad Reality of Fantasy Worlds

I have a six month subscription to World Anvil and it was very difficult for me to use it. I tested the software I wanted to use for my next D&D campaign to create a corner of a fantasy world. But in practice, it seems like the world-building tool isn't all that useful; It is customary to say that the sad reality of fantasy worlds is only a small part of each of them.

Experience a famous fantasy world like Westeros in Game of Thrones. If you've watched every episode of the entire season, you might think you know the world well. You've seen a lot on the show, from the icy north wall, the seven kingdoms, winter to King's Territory, to Esteros and the desert city-states. How? If so, then Game of Thrones is a gimmick with a lot of characters, and you've seen the world of Westeros through the eyes of each one of them. Now do a meditative experiment: choose a character from Game of Thrones and imagine that you only saw the scenes in the program in which this character is involved. Even if you choose the "main" character, you will see less of Westeros. Some little characters are always together. And the truth is, there are parts of Westeros that you can't see.

This is the problem of building the old D&D world. Will your team actually see all the places you've created? If you come up with a story for your party, how important is it to the adventure you're playing? Yes, World Anvil allows you to create a complete wiki encyclopedia of the world you've created, consisting of hundreds of articles. But if you don't want to expose your players for hours, you can play the campaign for a year and touch on some of these articles. Your imaginary world is the city of Potemkin, and everything you do behind the facades will be in vain.

Instead of working on all the details in your world, you can find those details as soon as you need them. He does not need the name of the village blacksmith until the players decide to visit him. A random fantasy name generator will help you find it quickly, and then if the players ever come back, all you have to do is enter that name. This method is much more efficient than pre-determining all the names of all the inhabitants, have your players decide not to visit the city at all. In fact, no one cared about the lineage of the king.

Of course, you can use World Anvil to record the most important information about your world and then add notes based on the information gathered during your game session. But does it really need a subscription service? Generations of Dungeon Masters have managed to keep their fantasy worlds in one folder, in fact if you have more than one folder of information you are already overusing it. I like World Anvil as a concept, but I don't need it for my campaign.

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Saltmarsh - Session 1

We've launched a new pirate/pirate D&D campaign based on the Saltmarsh ghost adventure book. The heroes are:

• Tabakhi Bubu attempted to eat the red fish that granted his desires and cursed him for reducing it to the size of a regular plate. She is a witch with an unhealthy obsession with fish.
• Grace, a sea dwarf, lived alone on a deserted island for many years after being shipwrecked. He is a janitor who admires the fairy who helps him survive on his own.
• Nordak, the dwarven team captain. It's complicated, the instrument he chooses is the drum. It works well on the boat, but it's often not so good when trying it at the bar.
• Shaila - Kalashtar, a person whose spirit comes from the dream world and lives in his body. He is the priest of life. When the magic goddess Shaila is forced to destroy Mistra in the battle of the gods, she seeks the guardian's tears shed by the god Helm. The tears crystallized on a large long stone with strong anti-magic power but disappeared into the sea.

In different situations, these four characters appeared as young pirates in Hold'em Prince's pirate kingdom in the capital Montmurg. In a naval battle against a merchant ship (we played in a Zero session to explain the rules of naval warfare I used), Admiral Arjan Monu's secretary, Shaylak Edgar, rescued the dragon "Edgar's Four Eyes". Upon returning to Montmorg, players are summoned to the Palace of the Council of Princes of the Sea and proclaim that they have "won" a special mission. One of them is called the key captain "Insinkable II" and the other players play the role of the crew. The Prince of Montmur himself, Admiral Arjan Moon, ordered them to sail 80 miles northwest of Jetsom the next day to wait near a small island that was a beacon for another ship. He will bring them a box of goods to take back to Montmor.

Before they can navigate, however, they contact the Four Eyes and tell them the mission is a trap. Admiral Arjan Mon agreed with Krakolich Slarkretel to offer the group as human sacrifices so that Slarkretel could leave the other pirate ships alone. The Four Eyes advise them to take the Jolly Roger and sail northeast instead of northwest and take refuge in Saltmarshah in the Kingdom of Keoland, where the King of Scotland is the enemy of the Princes of the Sea.

So they left Montmurg in a small boat. At sea, they encounter a group of calm sharks, but they are able to defeat them with the help of ballistic boats. There are wooden shields with the sacred symbol on the Sahuagins and inscriptions indicating that Helm's boss tears have lingered in the underwater city of Acryl. Sahuagin hates magic;

Using a map provided by Four Eyes, the group arrives at the small fishing village of Saltmarsh. The map shows a building marked with a bag of gold 7km from shore, but the group is unsure if it's just buried treasure or a shop. In Saltmarsh the boat is smuggled. Apparently King Scott of Keoland recently imposed tariffs on alcohol and tobacco and now some people are smuggling these goods.

In Saltmarsh, the group rents rooms at a bar run by dwarven miners called The Wicker Goat. There, Keled meets a wizard who lives in a nearby tower. They know that the building on their map is an abandoned mansion, a dream surrounded by light and a terrible white dream at night. They visit the dream house and learn that the "Nightmares" are huge gangs buried in white paint. They search the house and find other pests such as spiders and caterpillars. You'll find a room upstairs that uses a flashlight to send light signals from a window. The man was found locked in his underwear with his mouth closed. It was Ned Shekshaft who tried to persuade the team to leave immediately. However, the team insists on continuing to search the building, so Ned joins them. But in the next fight (against the chamber flutes), Bubu tries to play from behind, then runs away. The badly injured group examines all upper floors of the house and returns to Saltmar. [There they go to Level 2 between sessions.]

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