@pikasaurX4 - eviltoast
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 31st, 2023

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  • This drives me up the wall. Any time I point this out, the AI fanboys are so quick to say “well, that’s v3.x. If you try on 4.x it’s actually much better.” Like, sure it is. These things are really good at sounding like they know what they’re talking about, but they will just lie. Especially any time numbers or math are involved. I’ve had a chat bot tell me things like 10+3=15. And like you pointed out, if you call it out, it always says “oh my bad” and then just lies some more or doubles down. It would be cool if they could be used to teach things, but I’ve tried it for learning the rules to games, but it will just lie and fill in important numbers with other, similar numbers and present it as completely factual. So if I ever used it for something I truly didn’t know about, I wouldn’t be able to trust anything it said










  • I can kinda get you’re what you’re saying, but I don’t really get your point. Some people are bad pet owners. Some people are meat eaters. You said yourself there’s a spectrum, but then you said “blah blah” for some reason. You excused some meat eaters because at least they “do an awkward shuffle” when they do it around you.

    I have a cat, and I often feel really bad about keeping it indoors. I rescued the cat and I’m keeping it warm, keeping it from destroying the ecosystem around us, and it has a very safe, and seemingly happy life in my home, but I still wonder if it would have been better off if I never took it in. In that way, I can see what you might be saying. But do I think every pet owner is worse than every meat eater? No, not even close. Would you excuse a dog owner who works 10 hours a day as long as they did an awkward shuffle and apologized to you personally about it? Or is all pet ownership inexcusable to you?

    Yes, I get very frustrated with people who take poor care of their animals, but also when they neglect their environment, their friends/family, their personal space, or themselves. I’m not about to start advocating for abolishing pet ownership, specifically. Maybe you are.

    Your tone comes off as though you think all pet owners are equally evil (even though there’s a spectrum “blah blah”), but we can excuse other harmful practices out of necessity. Is it because no one “needs” to have a pet? I still think rescuing an animal and trying your best to give it a decent life is better than euthanasia, but maybe you disagree. Maybe your point is all animals should run free, and i can’t say I disagree with that, but I also think it’s ok to try and protect the creatures around us sometimes.

    I’m sure you don’t appreciate people who say things like “I eat more meat just to offset your veganism” or other such nonsense, and I don’t appreciate people who keep fish in tiny bowls, or people who breed dogs for profit. But because of the “spectrums” you mentioned, in general I can abide pet ownership more easily than wanton consumption

    Edit: reading again, maybe you are struggling with the use of the term “ownership”, so I apologize for wording it that way. I don’t mean to be “speciesist” and insinuate human superiority. I used the term out of habit. I do think people keeping their pets safe and out of trouble can be for the best, just like protecting a child who doesn’t know better. But I would recoil in disgust if someone said they “owned” their child, whereas “owning” a pet is the normal terminology. In that aspect, I can agree with you that people shouldn’t treat pets like possessions, but as fellow occupants of their home or even family members




  • My old school favorite, not counting Pokémon, is Monster Rancher. I always liked how raising the monsters worked in those games and battling was its own thing that you did to show off the fruits of your training.

    A modern game that I loved was Monster Sanctuary. The battle mechanics are very satisfying. The battles are 3v3 and move quickly. The mechanics make for multiple viable strategies. Every monster has 2-4 skill trees and 3 forms, meaning there is a very high level of customization too. On top of that, it’s a metroidvania, so you have a map to explore and areas you can’t access until you find a monster with the map action to get you through


  • In the US, the names vary a lot by location. Even which grades are included can change based on the local population and how they choose to organize it. My wife and I went to school in the same state, maybe 45 minutes apart, and we did not have the same names or grade delineations.

    For me, pre-school and kindergarten are each there own thing. Grades 1-3 were “elementary school”, 4-6 were “middle school”, 7-8 were “junior high”, and 9-12 were “high school”. We called them this based on the actual names of the school buildings. But even by the time I was in junior high, they started moving the 4th grade classes to the elementary school, so I’d assume kids in my own home town might say 1-4 is “elementary”. We didn’t have a “junior high” building. Grades 7 and 8 were still part of the “middle school”, but based on the changes in curriculum and the fact that they were held on a designated side of the building, it was colloquially referred to as “junior high”



  • Remind them every, single, turn.

    “Really? Your dagger? Not your cantrip?”

    “Oh yeah, I always forget about those”

    If they prefer to use it for thematic or aesthetic reasons, they’ll tell you and the mystery will be solved. Maybe there’s a class that does what they want and you can push them towards it. Or maybe they really are just that forgetful and they just need to be reminded every turn. Consider giving them a character sheet that more obviously shows what they can do. Action cards, spell cards, stuff like that might help too. But ultimately, just don’t let them make a dagger attack. Just stop them and present the better option EVERY TIME. You’ll learn one way or another what they want because they’ll go with it or resist it

    And I’m not necessarily saying to find a new group (although it seems like you’ll have no choice since you’re moving). I’m just saying, I cant imagine how you could keep playing with this person and no one at the table is making suggestions on how to play their turns. My players strategize about each others’ turns constantly. It’s a bit meta-gamey, but they’re newer and don’t know all the mechanics well so I never stop them. In fact, I try to help them find the course of action that will make them feel the coolest or the most useful without outright telling them what to do


  • I can see where you are coming from but OP assures us that this player knows about games and specifically makes caster characters. This isn’t one sorcerer with a quirk in their backstory about never using their magic, this is multiple characters in a row. I play with new players all the time. Maybe an occasional person will take others’ suggestions as law, but if they do the same thing too many times in a row or force themselves to use the move you recommended when it still doesn’t make sense, you just keep guiding them.

    “Don’t forget you have other cantrips too. Using fire bolt was a suggestion. In this fight, you could try using your shocking grasp to get away. Or you could use your magic missile for some guaranteed damage on that heavily-armored hobgoblin. It uses one of your slots, but now seems as good a time as any. They’re no good to you when you’re dead.”

    The DM and even the other players should be chiming in with suggestions on other players’ turns. It can get annoying when you know how to play and others are telling you what to do, but if you had a fighter player who just stood in combat and took a disengage action every turn, wouldn’t you eventually speak up and suggest they try a dodge or an attack instead?


  • There’s really no right answer here and I don’t think it’s something that we can work through without that player involved in the conversation. It’s not that they don’t know better, it’s not that you haven’t helped them, it’s not that you haven’t made suggestions, and they’ve been doing this for 3 YEARS??? I’m sorry, but this is above my pay grade. I am almost certain there is some detail that I’m missing because this makes zero sense. I have played with veterans of all walks and ages, new players who are 8 years old, new players that are 60 years old, and everywhere in between. It just doesn’t make sense unless there’s more to it.

    Sit down with the player again. Ask why they don’t use cantrips. Leave the leveled spells aside for now (saving them forever is a problem, but an understandable one). Continue to remind them every combat, every turn, every time they take out their dagger. I know you said your group doesn’t know the rules well, so maybe it’s time to learn (3 YEARS???). Cantrips and weapons work exactly the same, so I don’t know how “not wanting to engage with the mechanics” has anything to with it. There’s something going on and I can’t be sure what it is without talking to this player themselves


  • “I run up and stab it with my dagger!”

    “Are you sure? As a wizard, your dagger is very ineffective and puts you in harm’s way. You could cast fire bolt from where you are standing. You’d have a better chance to hit, do more damage, remain safe, and play to your character’s strengths more. Do you want to do that instead?”

    “I’m trying to save my spells for an emergency”

    “Well fire bolt is a cantrip, so it never runs out and you can use it every turn like a fighter would use their weapon. Cantrips are the ‘auto-attacks’ for spell casters”

    I can’t understand your situation OP if the exchange I described above isn’t the solution. I play with newbies and first timers all the time and we constantly strategize in combat so they can learn how to play as we go. Would your player really say “no, I don’t care, I stab them” after being presented with that option? If so, I think they are doing this intentionally because they think it’s funny or interesting, not because they don’t know better