Hey guys, I've been doing a let's play series for a roguelike I play, Tales of Maj'Eyal. I just did the last video (and am currently uploading it) and it's kind of a beginner's guide to the game. I don't know if anyone is going to be interested given the subject matter but I thought I would share it here since I already have with the Tome community and SA.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB_LlwcQ_MdX5Hj-qP2ARs6jTDvFcvN2r is the playlist for the video series.

If anyone is unfamiliar with the game, it's a free roguelike with pretty high production values considering it's a garage project mostly put together by one guy. It is entirely graphical, with tiles by Shockbolt.

"Who says Christmas only comes once a year?"

I thought I could go my entire life without ever hearing this stupid, corny line ever again.

Pierce Brosnan, you were the worst James Bond.

What the fuck, New England?

First they came for the Super Sized Drinks and Fries, and I said nothing because I was only eating from the dollar menus at the time
Then they came for the Soda Vending Machines in Schools, and I said nothing because I wasn't in school anymore
Then they came for the large soda and free refills and restaraunts, and nobody was left to speak for me!!!!!!!!!!

resend to 20 of your friends or obama will take away your rights to be fat


In all seriousness though, this 'save you from yourself' bullshit is exactly what makes new england liberals look so bad. We're just feeding ammunition to the conservatives at this point.

I like to think that we're all good people at the core, but everyone does fucking horrible things.

When I used to work for Sprint, sometmies we would get video relay calls. Basically a deaf person would call a video relay service who would contact us and translate sign language so we could help them with their phones. I got five or six video relay calls the entire time I worked at sprint. I hung up on every single one of them because I didn't have the patience to deal with a deaf person talking through a mediator.

 

I was disappointed to see nobody try to start up the worst olympics this year. Anybody else up for some forum competition?

I want to start by noting that from a hobbyist standpoint, cars are awesome; I would love to own a really nice car, take it out on the weekends, and enjoy the activity of driving. I enjoy driving, road trips, and can appreciate a nice car. I can even appreciate wrenching on a car, to a certain extent.

But boy howdy am I sick and tired of The Goddamn Vehicles We Own.

I bought a car from my mother back in October - a 2001 mercury sable LX, with a DOHC V6, leather seats and power everything. It's a very nice car (or it could be) except for a small problem - there is an intermittent electrical problem which started with a little compressor trouble and has since advanced to major electrical shorts causing my vehicle to fail to start. Also, my driver's side window is stuck down in Oklahoma's rainy season, and my AC compressor still has trouble. I want to note that it's 100 degrees F outside right now.

In the last two days I have spent about 7 hours in the sun on a variety of tasks, ranging from testing battery and alternator, removing and cleaning the battery cables (that was not a fun job, btw) and now ripping out relays and circuit breakers and replacing them. And how far have I gotten in fixing the problem? Not even goddamn close. all I've managed to do is eliminate the obvious - the last potential source of the problem I can think of is the wire harness in the door, and I have no idea on how to get to it, having removed the door panel - it's behind metal and encased in plastic in most places and as far as I can tell I'll probably have to actually remove the door from the car to get to the fucking thing. And if that does not turn out to be the problem? I'll have to take it to an auto electric shop, where they're probably going to charge me half the value of the car to fix the problem.

in short: fuck vehicle ownership forever.

Six hundred years have past since the rise and fall of the terrible Saint Emirkol. In his madness, the black priest declared a holy crusade against all who opposed the will of the gods - in his twisted mind - leading a campaign of genocide and subjugation across the land. The halflings of the hills and grasslands were driven to extinction, the elves back to the farthest reaches of their forests, and the dwarves of the mountains even farther into their strongholds. The humans, those few deemed pure enough to survive his bloody inquisition, gradually rebuilt, living in constant fear of the priest, even after his presumed death.

Emirkol's chapel was a source of constant fear for those living in the hills below it. For many years after the priest retreated into the seclusion of his sanctum, bands of his inquisitors would ride out into the surrounding villages, rounding up women and children and taking them back to the chapel, never to be seen from again. Over time, the raids became fewer and farther between, the inquisitorial force keeping to patrols around the chapel. Some years after this, the patrols were recalled, and the doors were barred. One by one, the lights were snuffed out until finally the place lay dead and ominous, a terrible outline on the night sky that would act as a reminder of the horrors that the past generations were forced to live through.

Adventurers tried for years to penetrate the walls of the chapel, only to be turned back at every attempt. Seemingly indestructable walls coupled with magical barriers would keep even the most resourceful explorers at bay. Over time, the place was almost forgotten - until the raids began anew.

The town of Meria, the closest to the chapel, has been hit the hardest by the raids. This time, the raiders are bands of demi-humans - primarily kobolds and orcs - but they fly the banner of the Dread Saint. Old fears have been stirred anew, and Meria and her sister towns and villages have pooled together a sizable sum of gold to reward any adventurer or adventurers who are able to stop the raids and put to rest the horrible legacy of Emirkol.




This is a clipped down version of 3e D&D. The setting will be a single megadungeon (the aforementioned chapel of Emirkol) and the players will be adventurers and mercenaries hired on by the council of a small coalition of villages, the central of which is Meria, which will act as a base of operations for the party. Due to my currently variable schedule, I will be posting the date we're going to shoot for on the first date of the week I know my schedule (saturday, sunday or monday) and whoever is able to show up on date available will be the party.

I have taken down a lot of the options and modified the way classes and races and feats etc work because I want to have a system that is familiar and quick to work with. By having less options balance is easier to calculate for me (which means less prep time) and picking up and stepping away from the game becomes easier - a slight disparity in gear or level won't be as big of a deal as it is in third edition proper. I would probably use labyrinth lord or swords & wizardy for this, but I don't want 'I'm not familiar with that system' to stop anyone from participating.



For this point in the dungeon, all new characters will start at level 1. As adventurers operating out of Meria explore deeper into the dungeon and uncover greater secrets and treasures, adventurers of greater reknown will be attracted to Meria's cause. (meaning, higher level characters) It is assumed that characters in the party will have family members, friends, compatriates, old war buddies, etc, who will be well aware of what they are doing, so if character death occurs, your next character will be allowed to inherit your equipment.


Starting gold is 200gp, 1st level maximum HP. Classes and races are in the next post:

So, I was in the shower today and I had an idea that I thought was pretty awesome. I've been playing a lot of the D&D MMO, and casters in the game can eventually learn a summon monster spell that pulls up an Earth Elemental. Earth Elementals in DDO are burly as hell - they do a lot of damage, have a lot of HP, and have a lot of crowd control/grapple abilities that just make them cool as hell whenever they're around. So I had an idea for a fourth edition class based on this concept.

The idea I had was some kind of elementalist ascetic mage. Not necessarily with an eastern feel to it like Monks or Wu Jen or the like, but definately more like a monk than a wizard. You'd have two different versions of the class - one would be a striker, and the other would be a defender. Each would focus on the summon and control of an elemental. For the defender, your paths would be Earth and Air, and for the striker, Fire and Water. At all times you'd be controlling two characters on the battlefield - yourself, and your elemental.

As far as I can tell with some of the other 'pet' abilities in 4e, they seem to revolve around 'your pet comes out and attacks the enemy when you use an ability with the pet keyword, like interceptor from FF6'. I don't really like that, I think it's clumsy. I also don't like the idea of a wholly seperate entity that can be easily dispatched and render half your abilities useless. But with a completely shared hp pool, the elemental is just an extension of your PC, at which point where's the flavor?

The idea I had works like this - your character, and your elemental are seperate for the purposes of targeting, and have different HP pools. You start with the HP of a wizard, the elemental starts with the HP of a Fighter. You share a fighter sized pool of healing surges. The elemental and the elementalist can both act seperately from one another, but share the same pool of available actions - For example, you could move, your elemental could attack, and you could use a minor to throw him a mending spell. Or your elemental could move, you could throw a gust of wind at the enemies, and your elemental could use a defensive minor action.

The elementalist would have access to a number of powers, most of which would be only usable by the elementalist or only usable by the elemental, with a handful of them being usable by either. Each elemental path would probably need to have it's own, specific path-only powers, as it wouldn't make sense for an air elemental to imprison an enemy in a crushing prison of rock - alternatively, being ambiguous with power descriptions might serve that purpose, or adding dual descriptions to each power.

To keep the balance of having two seperate hp pools in check, getting reduced to 0 in one pool would incapacitate the other. Hell, if 4e was more like the D&D versions of the past, maybe the elemental could go berserk and attack the party. The idea would be to put the elementalist in a position where they need to balance their own safety with the safety of their elemental while also keeping the party from getting attacked as a defender. I envision the character playing out as a three way hybrid - the elementalist themselves being a controller/leader, and the elemental being a defender/controller.

Any thoughts?

If the nationwide unemployment statistics are right, it's a good bet that one in five of us are either unemployed or working part time at best due to an absence of full time work. As such, I think it's about time that we had a thread like this; herein, we shall discuss cost cutting measures, bartering, haggling, ways to live high on the hog at minimal expense, freebie deals and things like that.

The last three months I was completely unemployed and living with three family members who were also unemployed. We're also all retarded at saving money, so we were broke pretty much the whole time, but we managed to not go hungry by minimizing our expenses, making better shopping habits and trading convenience for extra cash. Here's some things I did over the last few months to save or make more money;

1. Clip Coupons. This is a big one, and requires a substantial time investment and a minor money investment. Coupons can save a lot of money if you use them correctly and understand some basic rules about grocery shopping:

  Grocery rule 1 : Never buy anything that isn't on sale
    Unless something is an absolute staple, or never goes on sale (cat food, spices, etc) it's not worth buying at retail price. Grocery stores have sales
    to entice customers to come in and buy things strategically positioned around the sale items. They figure that they can up profits by having a sale
    to get you through the door and then make up the difference and then some on premium high profit items. That salsa might be on sale, but the chips
    aren't. Following this rule alone will save you hundreds or more a year.

  Grocery rule 2 : Everyone has a store nearby that price matches - that store is probably wal-mart. If you have the ad, they will match the sale price.
    Depending on your area and how many stores are within a reasonable distance of you, wal-mart and price matching can save you a hell of a lot of
    money. You may find the company reprehensible but you're poor and don't have the luxury of standing by your principles on this. If there's another
    store nearby that will pricematch any product they sell, great, otherwise Wal-mart should be your primary shopping destination. Wal-mart will price
    match anything - this includes produce and meat - provided you can produce the ad. Some wal-marts will have the ads stacked up at the
    register. Depending on who you get at the store when you go, there's always a chance you will get harassed by the cashier. If you're there late
    and the customer service desk isn't open, and they refuse to pricematch for whatever arbitrary reason (1oz difference between product and sale,
    for example) then abandon your cart and walk away. Sticking to your guns is important. The next time they see you, they won't argue. To avoid
    arguments, never go to a lane with a cashier over the age of 30 if you can avoid it. Getting ads for all your local grocery stores should be a simple
    matter of picking up a sunday paper (which will also have coupon inserts) but if you don't get a particular ad, you can go to their website and print
    the ad out. If you have Aldi in your area, make sure you print the ad out - their produce prices are always rock bottom.

  Grocery rule 3 : You are not paying for the package on the shelf - you are paying for it's contents.
    This might seem obvious, but this is usually the first thing people forget when coupon clipping comes into play. In about half of the united states,
    grocery stores are required to place a by weight price next to the tag on a grocery store shelf. If you are not in one of these states you may
    need to occasionally bust out a calculator to find out what is the best deal. Some stores get around the regulation by using different measurements
    for different size products - the 24oz version might be compared to pounds, while the 16oz version might be compared to grams. A calculator and
    a conversion chart help here.

Once you understand these three factors you are ready to begin saving serious money coupon clipping. Most coupons are good for 3-4 months after their print date - as a result, you may find that some of the coupons in your coupon folder may go weeks or even months before they are useful - anything, anything you think you might buy, even items you think you'd only buy if you could get it for nearly free, should get it's coupons clipped when they come up. Catalog your coupons to your preference - by month of expiration, by product, whatever, but keep them organized so you can find what you're looking for when you need it. It'll take a few weeks or more of saving sunday paper coupons before you can really make use of your stocks, so prepare for a slow rampup. During this time, also collect online coupons - there's lots of places to get these - and sign up with manufacturers of products you like - they will occasionally email you coupons. You can also send emails to these companies to receive coupons by email or direct mail. If you don't have a printer, invest in one. You'll probably save the 30 dollars you spent on your first fully coupon'd shopping trip.

ONLY use your coupons to buy products on sale. If your coupon removes a fixed amount from a purchase (such as 2 dollars off 2) buy the lowest cost items possible - these usually tend to be the smaller packages. If an item on sale is a very large package and your coupon is a general item, you may want to consider saving the coupon. This can be the difference between getting a product half off and getting a product for free.

Find a website - preferably for your area - that coordinates coupons and sales. Tulsa has 918 Coupon Queen, which also does some nationwide deals - aldi, walgreens, CVS, etc - so if you can't find one in your area this is a great place to start. The coordinator website will match up sales and coupons - coupon queen matches up to the previous year on some coupons and deals, so this can be incredibly helpful. This all may seem like a hell of a lot of work, but you'll feel great the first time you walk out of a walgreen's with 30 dollars worth of groceries and 2 dollars more than you came in with.


2. Dried > Canned > Fresh

In terms of expense, fresh ingredients cost a lot more than dried or canned. This is the case with most things. Fancy fresh Bertolli pasta might be fucking tasty, but it's 12 times the cost of dried pasta. Fresh tomatoes might be nice, but if you're just making spaghetti sauce, you can get 8 tomatoes in a can for the cost of 2 fresh tomatoes. Dried beans might require soak time, but you'll get between 2 and 6 times the yield over canned for the same price. To an extent, you give up convenience and in some cases quality here - you have to get over that. A good chef can make do with substandard ingredients with the right spices and cooking methods - but he's not going to be able to get 2 pounds of tomatoes for under a dollar.

3. Buy items in the right places

Warehouse stores and Lot stores are everywhere. Warehouse stores include Pace, Costco and Sam's Club (among others), Lot stores being stores like Cheapo Deapo, Ocean State Job Lot, Big Lots, etc. These stores are unqiue in two ways - you can't pricematch their products at wal-mart, and they tend to offer products at prices that can't be found anywhere else. Lot stores deal in products they buy in lots. Depending on where you go, these could be nonperishables past their best by date, discontinued products, products from promotions that are over, etc. For example, Wolfgang Puck had a line of organic soups out recently - normally they sold at 4 dollars a can, but the product was failing, so it ended up at Big Lots for 80 cents. You can usually find your big three canned/boxed stables at lot stores - Beans, Tomatoes, and Broth/Stock. These three things can be used as a base for chili and soup, among other things, and are usually sold at an incredibly low price. Organic crushed tomatoes (canned) - 2 1/2 pounds, 50 cents. That kind of thing. Warehouse stores deal in bulk, so you are buying massive products, and don't often have sales. They also don't usually accept coupons. (lot stores never accept coupons, btw.) The bulk prices turn out to be incredibly low, though, and you usually only have to make warehouse trips once a quarter. Buy staples here - toilet paper, paper towls, paper plates, plastic cups, frozen chicken, bacon, etc. If you can put the money forth, these are also great places to buy meat. A whole pork loin can feed you on loin chops for two months. The initial investment is high but the long term savings are as well.

More to come later, feel free to add your own etc.

itt: things that make you anxious for no good reason

Being in a room with the door open.