Relic

Lakers got nothing from their bench. Such a shame. Gabe Vincent's play proves that Spo is the best coach in the league. Dude is worse than a 0, -6 today. 

Brunson has been historically (for him) inefficient and we're up 2-0? We'll take it. Josh Hart is quickly becoming one of my fav all time Knicks. 

20 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Okay no, this is ridiculous. Up until some point it was semi-believable what’s been going on in this Africa storyline in 1923, but we are so long past that. 
 

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So say I believe that Spencer and Alexandra happened to be attacked by some rouge elephant after not bothering the elephant herd. How… unlucky. Say I believe that they had to night out in the wild. Say I even believe that somehow they didn’t have time to look for a taller tree and the lions and hyenas attacked them. I certainly don’t believe they had sex on the tree. I do believe people would be out looking for them. Fine. Lucky, but fine. 
Say I believe that Spencer is dumb enough to get on a sketchy tug boat with a dying captain to get to Suez because he’s in a hurry. Say I believe they happen to pass a free drifting ghost ship once. But twice? That’s… that’s sure real unlucky.  I sure believe the captain died in under 24 hours of setting out. I can also believe the motor of the ship would be dodgy, we know the radio is. Now for all of these events to coincide in one single momentum? That’s just beyond unlucky. But they both survive without injury and swim onto the flipped boat because these two are just beyond lucky. Twice, in fact because Alexandra is stupid enough to deliberately get off it. Okay, at this point, I fully believe they will be rescued because Spencer radioed for help and they are the protagonists. Although I was sort of expecting them to have miraculously roped themselves up the ghost ship and sail it that to Suez after we cut away from the shot of the boat upside down, because it would have had that Tarzan flare and it’s honestly not less likely or believable than anything else that happens to this pair. Oh well. So they are waiting to be rescued, I don’t care about the sun or the water because it doesn’t even cross my mind that they might die at this point, I just want the actress to open her teeth when she talks. She doesn’t, but sharks do appear. They just do. The sharks come… I suppose for all the blood the captain coughed up? Because Spencer and Alexandra don’t have so much as a scratch on them. Isn’t that unlucky? And then Spencer shoots one. And the rest leave. Wonderful. You have generated 3 minutes of plot that adds nothing to the anything. Spencer and Alexandra are rescued and they land in Sicily where they run into Alexandra’s ex in a restaurant. In the whole wide world. That happens. This implies two things. That Alexandra and Spencer spent more time at sea than the three weeks they would have had to wait for the ship plus the time of the voyage otherwise they would have arrived in Sicily weeks before the boyfriend. So either they spent weeks with the dying captain or spent weeks on the top of the tug boat, neither of which fit the plot. Option B, boyfriend has a jet pack from game of thrones and teleported ahead to Sicily. Wonderful. They board the same ship, boyfriend is butthurt and asks Spencer to a duel, who refuses several times but eventually succumbs to his hormones. The two go to the deck and are handed SWORDS by a crowd that don’t  intervene and don’t realize that sword duels in 1923 are by no realistic chance legal. There’s also no staff on this ship to intervene, the only one is conveniently away to alert a foreman. Spencer defeats boyfriend three times but boyfriend is so persistent to die that Spencer eventually gives in and throws boyfriend overboard in self defense. For some reason, nobody from the crowd reinforces this chain of events when the ship guard arrive so Spencer is arrested!
………….  Are you serious? Are you seriously expecting me to believe this? Stop generating redundant plot to kill fucking screen time , the character needs to get home so the actual story can happen. It’s 1923. There’s no fucking way that it takes 1 year for you to get to America from Africa, you arse, the conquistadors traveled faster than you before the Industrial Revolution. What is this. What is this. Who wrote this? 1923 feels like it was written by Rian Johnson and David Benioff, not Sheridan. Why would anybody write like this? Cut the elephant, let their car break down. Lions fine. Let them get on the tug boat, kill the lungless gentleman, let them figure out navigating the boat alone. Cut the fucking ghost ship and bloody sharks and the rescue. Cut the boyfriend, cut the arrest. Have them run into Alexandra’s parents in a port because they came looking for her and are checking out arriving ships. Let the parents get mad and disinherit Alexandra so we don’t need to worry about them anymore. Let them board a ship, do the titanic shots and the wedding, cut to getting off the ship in the US. They still have a damn train and horse journey! You are nowhere near out of plot! Just. Make. Progress. FFS. 
okay. So Alexandra FORGOT that the boyfriend she ditched was a member of the British Royal family? Like it did not occur to this British woman on a British ship to warn her not-British husband that her British ex is also a royal, so caution might be useful to apply when dealing with him? How in the world is that remotely in the realms of possibility? Also, in light of this knowledge, Alexandra can and should be held fully responsible for the unlucky plot that occurred on this latest ship for withholding this piece of vital information. It is also preposterous that the writing would purposely mislead you to serve up this “twist” during the final episode. Unforgivable writing. At this point this storyline is bleeding from a head wound and it’s not Jacob Dutton. 

also the amount of stolen tropes in this show… Game of Thrones want their torture porn and prostitute beating back. 

 

I wouldn't be totally shocked if the Pelicans stole their series.

16 hours ago, Werthead said:

 

Kicked off a rewatch of The Wire and I'm pretty certain this show is only getting better and better with age.

Gonna push back a bit to say that The Wire was the greatest show ever made by the end of season 4, and remains so. No other television show comes close to portraying meaningful important issues with such wit, humor, and empathy. I'll go as far as to say that the Wire is the greatest work of American fiction ever put on screen.

I'm glad you're enjoying more than ever, but it was always special.

4 hours ago, Mexal said:

Knicks would have been favored over Magic, Pacers, and Heat. My point was more that by the Knicks getting the 2nd seed, they're playing the hardest possible opponent.

That being said, think Knicks win. Embiid wasn't great against the Knicks in Jan. We have two physical centers and he didn't look great last night. Think we can bully him and stop Maxey with OG.

I don't understand why they tried so damn hard to win that final game. Typical Knicks dumbshit. Thought we were done with that.

3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

 Its not bad, but its no dream team.

 

Errrr, it's about as close to a Dream Team as you're getting. Like, who else do you want on this squad??

17 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Now, it is Linux based PC (that you can dual load Windows onto).  So there is hardly anything that you can't play in one shape or another.

Which is why ill probably never buy another laptop again. Once my current one dies im just going to get something like the ASUS ROG Ally.

4 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Hmm I guess I could try there. Still gets back to which game should I play. And no not playing 76.

Edit: also found some sort of games I don’t like playing 3d games on it. One it heats up badly and two experience isn’t really build for such a small screen. When it’s something like a smaller scale strategy game or rpg that tends to work better. Heck BG3 was miserable with how it turned it into a frying pan.

why not turn your steamdeck into a PC? get yourself a docking station and a nice monitor and you're set

9 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Agreed, he's one of the few names that makes a lot of sense. 

He was on that Wildcats team that won the title along with Brunson, Hart, and DiVincenzo, he's quite literally the perfect fit. 

We're going after Bridges

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

Wemby is paid basically half as much as Brunson and is like 50/50 to win MVP in the next three years, so I think the best contract in the NBA is out of reach.  But Brunson is playing very well, I didn't expect him to improve so much form his time in Dallas. 

Well duh, but rookie contracts don't count in this convo. If they did the top 50 contracts would be first four years in the league ones.

8 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Somewhere, in parts unknown in Europe, @Relic is dancing in a bar right now. 

Nice idea, but i was long asleep. However, watching the game this morning i just want to say that hearing the Boston crowd moan and groan in consternation is one of the sweetest sounds in basketball. Sweet sweet lament!

  Brunson = best contract in the NBA. It took 20 years but something good finally happened to us!

15 hours ago, Gertrude said:

I was actually thinking about this after I posted. It might be kinda fun for the DM to perhaps pick out some ability that the PC 

I like it, but i think if you're playing with an experienced group something like that should be PC driven. DM has enough work on their hands haha. But if a PC knows what they want to do with their next level up than working on it before they get it is something i would certainly allow in almost every single circumstance as a DM. The more RP around player abilities the better =) 

4 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I’m watching 1883 and it’s not what I expected, but better in a lot of ways. 

I quite enjoyed 1883 and 1923, way more so than the few episodes of Yellowstone I've watched. 1883 is pretty brutal, 1923 is a bit campier in certain moments but also extremely melancholic in others. Both are miles ahead of OG Yellowstone imho.

Maybe the solution is to really expand levels, from 20 to 50 or something. That way sometimes all you gain is a hit die, sometimes skill points, sometimes saving throws, sometimes new abilities, but not all at once.

On 4/4/2024 at 9:32 PM, Werthead said:

 They're also pretty artificial in how your character can suddenly do a ton more stuff better than five minutes earlier 

you're right, this is a pretty huge issue. whats the solution?

12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 

And ultimately anything that doesn't favor kill all the baddies favors spellcasters even more. Want to restrain a flying dragon? Want to capture prisoners? Want to charm the enemy, or make them think they're facing three kobolds in a trenchcoat? Martial classes are most favored when facing a single target that is on the ground, and they're trying to actively kill it; anything that deviates from that and you have to bring in random things to help the others feel needed.

 

Those are some options, but not quite what I meant. I do a lot of secondary objective stuff in combat that requires skill rolls, positioning, defensive strategy,moving from point a to point b, extraction, survive 8 rounds, and blah blah. My Eberron world has hacking , as well, with its own card based mini game and stuff that comes into play in many combats. I've never had a martial complain about lack of combat options. That said, we don't play lvl 15+ stuff, but I remember it from older editions where spellcasters were incredibly op.

15 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

From what I've found online, it looks like in 2E, wizard spells topped out at 9th level? But is that the same as being a 9th level wizard? It's been a long hot minute since I've RP'd 2E. 

Nope. Spell levels and pc levels are two different things, much to the confusion of new players.

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

They can beg to differ but they'd be wrong. Especially as you go up in level when you compare it to the spellcasters. At level 7 a battlemaster gets another technique to use from a list of like 15; a Wizard gets 25 or more different options that they can apply multiple times a day, and pick and choose what they want to do every single day. And those have broad power beyond combat, too. 

And honestly of the above classes the ones that don't suffer like this? Are the ones that are most closely like casters or are actual casters. 

::Shrug

Our table is fine with combat options. I give ayers unique level ups based on their rp, and we homebrew enough magical items to make sure that everyone always has some to do in combat. It's the skill stuff that I find lacking. Ymmv.

I get that casters have more to do in combat at high levels, potentially, but this game is about so much more than that. And a dm should include challenges that enable everyone to do something, combat should almost never just be a "kill all the bads" scenario. That's my take, as someone who has dmed hundreds of hours of dnd since covid, at least.

4 minutes ago, Poobah said:

Cool abilities for martial classes is something that's been horribly lacking in 5e. Yes reliably hitting multiple times a round is actually quite strong numerically but ultimately it's boring, and that's not even considering the lack of out of combat utilities.

Battlemaster, Echo Knight, Arcane Trickster, Ancestral Guardian, Blade Singer, Artificers and Paladins beg to differ. 5e has a ton of options for combat, it's the RP elements that are lacking imho

4e had some great ideas, especially skills challenges.

https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-L3dYW-IFahTdYhpPtyH

A fair bit of the resistance to it had to do with the people spending hundreds of dollars on 3rd edition, only to have it replaced with 3.5 (which was great but bloated) just a few years later. So having 4e come along 5 years after 3.5 was just a bad idea. 

it is quite strange, one has to admit, that so called "hot men" can play characters without having their looks distract anyone. Like, according to The Departed the entire Boston police force is filled with male models. Is it possible, maybe, that Hollywood has been selling us sex symbols this entire time? Whoa... 

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Clearly Netflix knows she’s attractive given they’ve put her on the front of all of their promo material 

So , basically, she makes you want to wank but she's supposed to be smart which makes you not want to wank. Got it.

Just now, House Cambodia said:

I don't get why people are saying she's sooo attractive, but that's a whole other can of worms.

I don't even know who we're discussing, tbh.