The Old Hack

One time where I played on an NWN server (which did run on 3.x) one of my fellow players was so mad at how weak his character was that he randomly attacked a seagull. His character stabilized at -7 hit points.

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/wie-147 In classic old AD&D a housecat could be pretty badass. It could bite for 1 point of damage and do 1-2 damage with its front paws, and if it hit with both of these attacks it would also rake with its rear paws for another 1-2 points of damage. One time during a massively chaotic battle my wizard managed to paralyze a hill giant. Against paralyzed opponents all attacks hit for maximum damage. His housecat familiar promptly attacked it for 5 points of damage. It kept this going and the giant died ten painful rounds later. Given that in this version of the game each round counted as a full minute, this meant that the poor stupid thing spent ten minutes being flayed to death by an angry cat. Not fun.

I kind of love how Trump is still praising Putin to the skies and that half or more of the GOP is singing Putin's praises right along with him because they are terrified of offending the followers of il Douche.

[To the tune of 'One Night in Bangkok'] Waterdeep, fantasy settingAnd the city don't know that the city is gettingThe creme de la creme of the D&D world In a show with everything but Vin Diesel One D&D will make a hard man humbleNot much between despair and ecstasyOne D&D will make the tough guys tumbleCan't be too careful picking your partyI can feel Baatezu walking next to me...

To be fair, modern capabilities of precisely targeting single individuals at long distances has removed a great deal of attraction from the act of leading from the front lines. In combination with the doctrine of decapitating enemy armies specifically by targeting their leadership it has rendered heroic charges while holding battle flags aloft positively unhealthy. I do not anticipate Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen leading cavalry formations with drawn saber any time soon.

Back in December 2015. Clearly it was on to him.

A line actually spoken in a game I participated in: "No, for the last time. Your technomage can't reverse engineer the One Ring."

That fits de Santis well.

Some people are just plain bad at handling angry birds.

I can't wait to see how the pro-Putin toadies are going to explain how the current situation is all part of his master strategy.

True. For some reason I suspect that that priest is not nearly as skilled at handling chickens as, say, a regular farmwife.

That 'comparatively' is important. War is an incredibly filthy business and collateral damage does not care which side you are on. And often even the 'good guys' will have leaders that make to put it mildly rather doubtful decisions. This is not helped by the fact that sometimes these leaders get no good options at all and it becomes a question of which group of people you end up betraying. Of course there is the relatively common example of an aggressive neighbour invading on the legal basis of What's Mine Is Mine And What's Yours Is Also Mine If I Can Grab It. It's fairly easy to sympathize with the defender in that case. But even these need not be clear cut. Example: the Spanish conquistadores are generally not considered nice people. But they got into a fight with the Aztec Empire and it is really hard for me to see the Aztecs as purely innocent victims. Sometimes two groups of different bastards get into a fight over the same spoils and you end up not caring much who wins. In that case the 'good guys' is the side that is the least likely to make trouble for you and your in-group when the fighting is over. But even the 'good guys' too often end up with innocent blood on their hands. Winston Churchill for example was to put it mildly a creature of many parts. There are people who curse his name to this day and consider him not much of an improvement on the side he fought. Quite a few of those live in India. I am going to go out on a limb here and say that aggressively persecuting and scapegoating minorities in order to consolidate and expand your own power is bad and that anyone who does it is also bad and should feel bad.

Okay. But who plays Bullwinkle?

When did the war happen where one side was the good guys? I think I missed that one.

The Will of Magic as the Time Warp.

The traitor label has little to do with fairness and everything to do with who gets to write the history books. My personal attitude to calling him a traitor goes 'defending the right to own slaves? close enough to fit.'

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/wie-141

Well, in Florida most of the main characters would be registered sex offenders and possibly put to death.

Well, the traitors have promised that it will be renamed for a traitor if any of them manage to get into the WH.

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/layers-011

Called it. https://www.egscomics.com/comic/layers-008

Well I hear that there is an almost criminal lack of D&D games in Sunday School's curriculum.

I have now asked an American friend of mine how it works in her area. She says it is kind of like Game of Thrones but with more leashes and dog collars. I am very sorry I asked.

Highly so! I find him endlessly fascinating. But this sort of finicky stuff is my jam so I may be an outlier

That's all right. As long as Explorer thinks you do, he will keep fighting the Foot.