Thanks for context. It was giving me Ugly Americans vibes, but I knew that wasn’t correct.

Brb, updating my grindr profile…

Idk what to tell you man. Trying to achieve a sense of intellectual superiority over a religious person by pointing out how the literal text doesn’t make sense when the entire purpose of an allegory is the SUBtext seems just as silly to me as cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit.

I’ll allow that you’re free to use this tactic to dunk on proponents of Biblical inerrancy, but most mainstream sects of Christianity don’t subscribe to that doctrine.

Take religion out of it for a second. Someone says, “when I was a kid, I had to walk to school for 5 miles, through the snow, uphill, BOTH ways!”. Obviously, this is a statement which doesn’t make much literal sense. However, you probably understand that the person is actually just trying to communicate that they had it hard growing up, and that their words are not meant to be taken literally.

this video comes to mind. It’s not about the figs, it’s about Israel.

Now, think of the message what you will. I attended a lot of Catholic school, but I’m staunchly irreligious, so if you want to keep dunking on believers, you go girl. I just think you’d be better served (and more likely to get a believer to consider their beliefs more critically) by engaging with the text the way the believer does, lest you wind up just talking past one another.

well, first of all…

Not saying you’re wrong in a practical sense, but carrying practical sense into an allegorical story from a culture and time not your own is, if not folly, at least ill-advised.

I mean, I feel like making Jesus a samurai is as authentic to history as making him a blond white dude.

Also, wandering the countryside, helping out the peasants and tweaking the nose of the establishment, gathering a crew of like-minded friends/followers, and culminating in an act of self-sacrifice which results in the protagonist’s willing death? I can easily see how someone could imagine, “what if Jesus, but ronin?”.

Shit. Im gonna end up buying one or both of these at some point…

There is a convenience store I stop at which has a self help / religious book rack. On it, there is a copy of “The Action Bible”, and, given it’s cover, I assume this is the DMG for OPs campaign.

The post is not literal. Marie Antoinette’s gender has nothing to do with her position in pop culture as the poster child of the casual detachment from reality that wealth brings (i.e. “Let them eat cake”). Given that this situation is over the expiration of food benefits, THAT is why Trump is being compared to Antoinette (and also why the comparison point is her, and not King Louis, for example).

To mollify you, yes, I’m sure that a minor element of the “joke” here is that Trump is wearing a dress, but hewing in on that over the clear historical allegory is comically missing the point.

If a man cut off the penis of his lover and threw it from the window of a moving taxi, and I posted the “they’re the same picture” meme of his mugshot and a photo of Lorena Bobbitt (look her up if this reference is making no sense to you), would that be transphobic for equating a male and female? I don’t think so, because the point of the comparison is their actions, not their undercarriages, same as it is in the OP’s meme.

I don’t have time to peruse this in-depth at the moment, but, presentation-wise, this is a very nice product.

Admittedly, I’ve never played a ranger, so most of my info is second hand at best, but I’ve long heard that it could use some TLC. I had heard that Tasha’s optional rules and the 2024 update went some way towards addressing the common complaints, though clearly not far enough in this author’s opinion.

I do wonder if the denigration of the Survival / Exploration pillar of DnD has contributed to the ranger’s bad reputation among 5e players. It feels like a lot of the crunchy bits that come with wilderness exploration mechanics (travel speed, terrain type, consumable rationing, getting lost, etc) have fallen out of favor. Or, perhaps, such mechanics never been in favor with fans whose early DnD memories were Critical Role campaigns rather than filling out a map one hex grid at a time.

I don’t care to argue which style of campaign is better than the other (each has their own pros and cons), but it does seem like a table with a laissez-faire attitude towards exploration and survival doesn’t have much of a call for a ranger, unless, as OP indicated, you REALLY want to play the pet class.

I don’t know if Frank is involving others in his fetishes without their consent (not cool), or trying to make a snack of Detective Bones (also not cool). Either way, get it together, Frank.

It’s not a dumb idea, it’s almost certainly what’s occurring, with the caveat that I don’t think they actually want to shut the government down. Whenever you hear about an impending government shutdown, it is always a game of political chicken, trying to find out who will cave first, while simultaneously trying to preemptively sell the public that it’s the other party’s fault. Look at the messaging from the white House and congressional majority leadership. It’s all “oooh the Democrats aren’t willing to pass our super clean funding bill to keep the government open, they are unserious and willing to hold the American people hostage in order to continue mutilating babies”. Meanwhile, Democrats state (accurately) that Republicans need Democrat votes to pass anything, therefore it is incumbent upon them to negotiate in good faith.

There’s nothing more antithetical to Trumpism than good faith negotiation and compromise, so he’s doing everything in his power to avoid that, lest it appear like he had to cave to Schumer, to include cancelling the meeting they had scheduled last week in favor of doing the meeting today, at the 11th hour, to further pressure the Dems into capitulating.

Now, it’s important to note that, for all of the political brinkmanship on display, shutting down the government is, historically, far more damaging for the majority party than the minority, though the public tends to take a dim view of everyone involved in this sort of situation. Therefore, Dems have reason to stand fast and Republicans have an incentive to make concessions. This is in addition to the fact that Schumer got a lot of flak for instructing Dems to fund the government back in the spring, so he’s also likely motivated to feign some backbone in this particular tete a tete.

I consider the occupation of certain cities to be mostly unrelated to the funding fight. In fact, it would have behooved Trump to not antagonize Dems leading up to this for the aforementioned reasons. With that being said, Trump doesn’t do things according to what makes political sense, and, to your point, I can see a scenario where Trump is the only person at the negotiation table today who is totally ambivalent about whether a deal is struck or not. A local (Republican) representative was quoted with a statement to the effect of, “I’m not sure if the Dems have considered the fact that the Presidency is granted additional powers in the event of a budget related shutdown, maybe they should think about that”.

So, you’ve got Dems at the table who are motivated to follow through with a shutdown unless they get certain carve outs. You’ve got congressional Reps at the table who are aware that the American public has historically always blamed the party in power when a shutdown occurs, and are thus motivated to make concessions, but quietly. And then you’ve got Trump et al, who gain additional emergency powers in the event of a shutdown, further diminishing the legitimacy of the other branches of government and increasing the consolidation of power within the executive branch. However, if the government doesn’t shut down, Trump will likely spin this as yet another example of his brilliant negotiating ability (see also the Gaza peace plan released this week), even if there’s a snowballs chance in hell that any concession appears in further funding bills the next time this occurs.

Idk if any of that holds any water in the face of evidence, but it’s compelling speculation.

Wrong! Or, at least, in Lincoln’s case, you’re both kind of correct. Lincoln had, at the insistence of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, at least one company of Union cavalry assigned to his protection. This was in addition to Ward Lamon, a personal friend of Lincoln’s from his lawyer days who took it upon himself to act as his bodyguard. Indeed, Lamon and Pinkerton clashed over the President’s security even before the war broke out. Pinkerton claimed an assassination plot was afoot in the lead up to Lincoln’s inauguration in early 1861. There is some debate over the validity of these claims, as Pinkerton’s intelligence gathering capabilities seem to have been greatly exaggerated. Regardless, the cabinet took these claims seriously enough to change Lincoln’s travel plans at the last minute, and he arrived in DC under the cover of night and with only Lamon present with him during the legs of the journey where Pinkerton claimed the most danger lie. Once inaugurated, and in the midst of the war, his protection became a military matter, which is when the cavalry companies stepped in. However, he routinely delighted in giving them the slip. In 1864, someone took a pot shot at him whilst riding through DC, and he was forced to take his protection more seriously. It was at this point that the DC police assembled a 4 man permanent bodyguard detail.

So, depending on when exactly you’re looking, Lincoln’s protection detail could have consisted of 2 companies of Union Army troops, Pinkertons, a self-appointed bodyguard cum lawyer pal, 4 police officers, a Freedman valet/bodyguard (William Henry Johnson), and a partridge in a pear tree.

I mean, tbh, I would consider VIP protection to be far less military-adjacent than police adjacent.

I’m not sure I agree with the author on every point they’ve made,but it’s an interesting take, and well-written.

FATAL, now roll an anal circumference saving throw.

What happens after dawn?

First and foremost, I understand and share your skepticism, but I attribute it more to Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast being terrible stewards of the brand moreso than the game’s genre. They’ve proven to be anti-consumer ghouls with nearly every decision they’ve made (many of which have needed to be walked back or apologized for in the wake of massive backlash) over the past couple of years. So, in light of that context, it’s only natural to assume this game is being made to chase some “casual gamer” money, rather than passion for DnDs various settings or mechanics.

As a counterpoint to the above, however, turn based gameplay is an abstraction used to make running the game easier for DMs. In the “reality” of the game world, all of the actions taking place in a round occur roughly simultaneously within a 6 second window. While my meat-based brain can’t handle adjudicating multiple dice rolls a second, my CPU absolutely can, and therefore you could, potentially, play a highly faithful version of DnD in a real time environment if the CPU is just rolling the dice in the background. In fact, this is basically what Real Time with Pause systems offer, such as the first couple Baldur’s Gate games (or many other cRPGs which emulate those).

Furthermore, the Dark Alliance games (1 and 2, not the recent live service game which is emblematic of the exact sort of decisions by Hasbro et al which leads us both to be highly suspicious of this project) are a lot of fun despite only being tangentially related to DnD. Getting something of comparable quality (with minimal GAAS nonsense), would make me pleased as punch.

Boy, I knew Alan Moore has some strong opinions, but this seems beyond the pale.

That’s a real neat image, does anyone know the source?