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Hey guys,

I've had a Switch for a couple of years but I haven't really played it lately because I've kinda been disappointed with the last two titles I've played. I've played God of War recently and I was just blown away by how much fun I had and I kinda of want to replicate that? Sadly, my friend wants his PS5 back so I'm looking for some game recommendations for the Switch.

I've played BOTW and I just found it so boring. I played maybe two hours and I was at no point entertained. I also played the Link Awakening remake but I didn't really like the graphics and so I just stopped playing after two hours or so. 2D Zeldas are among my favorite games of all time (OOS/OOA; Minish Cap/LADX), I'm kinda scared to say this, but I also didn't really like OOT (although I played it a good 10 years after its initial release). I don't really like open worlds and much prefer having "guided" gameplay, but I do enjoy a mix of both (like God of War).

I've played Hades and absolutely loved it, just like Rayman Origins, but since I've been disappointed with BOTW and Link's Awakening, I'm kinda scared to buy another critically acclaimed game just to not like it... Looking at the list of games and picking one seems so daunting, I don't really know what to do.

You guys have any suggestions?

Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!

I'm currently at a crossroads for how I want to spend my next few years. For context I'm 33 and considering whether or not to purchase a vehicle after being car free for 12 years.

I rent a 600 sq foot apartment downtown and walk, run or bike everywhere with the occasional trip on transit. I fill up my free time with low cost activities like gaming, magic (the gathering), disc golf, and usually one paid activity like karate or climbing. I enjoy getting out to the mountains to hike when I can get a ride with a friend or meetup group.

I'm pretty content day to day, I have a good friend group, and it feels great knowing I only have to work for 12-17 more years while I am still young enough to enjoy retirement (If I keep my 50% savings rate). I do still splurge occasionally with a few weeks of overseas vacation.

I am considering getting a car as I feel it would allow me to:

• Go hiking more often, and on my terms. Most of the hiking groups I join are 10-20 people going extremely slowly. I run in a 100 mile trail run relay every year and a vehicle would allow me to train more and see how much I can push my body. Running a 50km, 50 miler, 100km, and maybe 100 miles would be goals that I can see myself training towards.
• Provide rides for people out to the mountains. The most luck I have had in meeting new people is through hiking groups, and being on the provider end and being known as someone that regularly hosts I feel can generate a lot more clout, and is seen as more attractive for the purposes of asking people out for dates afterwards if we bonded during the hike.
• Visit family and work remotely more often. I live 500km away from family, but my work allows me to work from anywhere within 1 or 2 timezones, so I could make 1-3 week trips to visit family and work during the day.

However I have the following reservations:

• Getting a vehicle I feel is a dangerous slope of lifestyle creep. Likely at least $3-5k in yearly expenses on top of the purchase cost, pushing retirement at least a few years back
• Getting a vehicle purely for pleasure as I work from home goes against my current frugal nature. What if I don't feel like hiking every single weekend? Sometimes I like just staying in a playing some games or working on a side project. What if I get an injury or it ends up being too smoky?
• The opportunity cost. Is this the best way I would want to spend my money to enjoy life more if I was dedicated to spending it? I could instead spend months in South America doing a bunch of awesome hiking and traveling there.

Has anyone else that was on track for an early retirement give in and decide to start spending more 10+ years out? I currently don't know what I want my retirement to look like, and a house and family is a huge question mark that I feel is so far off as the longest I have dated someone is just 2 months.

Probably more accurately, I hate that alcohol is treated so lightly in our culture. Its an extremely dangerous drug, yet we rarely acknowledge that. The most you'll hear is "Please drink responsibly" as if that has any influence at all.

What's disgusting to me personally is how it affects families. My bio kids and extended family are not drinkers, a little bit socially but my kids grew up in a 100% dry and sober house. But my wife's kids were the victims, and I use that word accurately, of an alcoholic grandfather who passed along his curse to their alcoholic father. He was an alcoholic who turned into an abusive man who spread his misery and chaos to his whole family. It directly killed his parents and two of his siblings and the remaining two are living miserable lives as alcohol has killed their relationships with their loved ones.

My wife's ex traumatized my stepkids and my wife in ways that are hard to comprehend - it's disgusting unless you understand what a demon that alcohol can be and how much it can f*** up your life and the lives of everyone around you. And then, after causing years of chaos and misery, he took his own life and added even more to their trauma.

Just recently, one of my stepkids realized that they too are an alcoholic. What the hell. That's now the third generation. At least they recognized it "early" because they're not yet in a long term relationship and they don't have kids (thank god) so it hasn't had a chance to completely f*** up their entire future family's life but its definitely caused them significant grief already. I only hope and pray they stick with their new commitment to stop drinking so this curse doesn't pass on to the fourth generation. They've gone to an AA meeting, heard other people's stories and seem to realize how bad it could get, as if their own father's story wasn't enough.

F*** alcohol. Seriously, it just makes me so angry how glibly it's treated. It ruins SO many people's lives, causes SO much pain and yet we live in a society that constantly pushes the message if you want to have a good time you should have a drink. Or two. Just get a little tipsy, why not?.... no one mentions how alcohol can not only totally screw over your entire life but also that of people three generations into the future. Or how millions of people are silently living with alcohol abuse in their families hoping and praying that it doesnt kill someone they love.

Ug. Just. Don't. Drink.

I’m really frustrated by recent experiences interfacing with the mental health system for myself and for my teenager. For them, it’s really atrocious. There may be effective options for the upper classes, but they aren’t accessible to me.

This is inspired by @X08’s recent [post] (https://tildes.net/~health.mental/1iia/unable_to_feel_progress_lack_of_happiness_and_not_finding_motivation_to_keep_investing) . Obviously I don’t know about their particulars, but I’ve certainly had the experience of being a part of a group where it appears others are progressing while I am not. Partly this is a problem of how we perceive, measure, and judge “success.” “Don’t compare my insides to others’ outsides,” as the saying goes. But it is possible to a more faithful and reflective comparison, and it does happen that others similar to me* make progress where I don’t, and it’s really frustrating. I’m often wondering, what’s wrong with me that I can’t change and grow?

I don’t have a great answer, although my exceptionally shitty childhood certainly plays a great role.

What I really want to comment on, though, is how insensitive our current mental health system is to the impact disparate causes have on creating similar symptoms, and how that should inform treatment approaches. A gifted psychiatrist (of which there are shockingly few) once put it like this (paraphrasing): Before we look at treatment for depression, we have to make sure the patient isn’t just surrounded by assholes.

But it’s a real problem. CBT is touted by a lot of “weighty” authorities as a valid gold standard treatment for a wide range of MH symptoms, and is claimed to be effective regardless of causes. And it’s my opinion that there is a lot of reasonably scientifically rigorous research backing that claim up. But, it’s not all rainbows, and it’s not working for lots of people. For one, a lot of folks claiming to do CBT are really not. Actual CBT involves a lot of homework, and a lot of recipients don’t have home support and don’t do the homework. This is extra true for children and adolescents living in dysfunctional homes. But more than just patient effort, the research marking CBT as so favorable is mostly based on subjects who are only mild to moderately distressed.* The end result is everyone involved in the “evidence based” healthcare chain is signing sufferers up for CBT when that might not be the best approach. There are lots of other criticisms too. If a practitioner is not well-trained and dedicated, the practice can be very invalidating. It seeks to make the sufferer’s more cognitive process more ‘rational,’ but when that person’s experiences are really, objectively bad, it’s very rational to conclude the world is hostile and unsafe. The tool itself is prepared for this, but it takes a really effective therapist to pull off. Also, it’s not enough by itself, grieving and other healing is also required for success.

The same thing happens in 12 step groups. AA/NA is resoundingly helpful-for a certain set of alcoholics/addicts. Those who don’t make it are often exhorted to become more honest, more open-minded, or more willing.*** My observation, though, is that most of the ones that make it come from intact families with resources. This is not universally true, it’s important for me to point out that there are enough examples of success among folks with no such background to say that there is something valuable in that approach that transcends socio-economics. There are also plenty from well-resourced families who don’t make it, but many of those families are highly dysfunctional. Of this last group, folks from dysfunctional families, some of us find success in other groups. This is because AA/NA are designed for sociopaths, ACA**** is designed for the product of sociopathic parents (who are filled with shame).

I don’t know what the solution is. A lot of malaise, addiction, “maladaptive” behaviors are, I think, born in a dysfunctional society, and so long as that society remains dysfunctional, no individual focused therapy solution will create a permanent fix. I think right here and now, too, we are at one of humanity’s “high tides” of self-destruction, a result primarily of runaway capitalism (is there any other kind?). We also just came through a really nasty global trauma, everyone is feeling it some kinda way.

Thanks for attending my TEDz talk.

*Of course, when talking about something as complex as a human life, there may no way to determine how similar is enough to make valid comparisons

**Also, let’s not talk about the various biases and implementation problems with what those studies refer to as ‘validated’ assessments used for measuring level of distress

***I am, technically, an NA success story

****Adult Children Anonymous, aka Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, more info at adultchildren.org.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

DMs, how do you decide if an NPC dies at 0HP (like a monster) or drops unconscious and starts making death saves (like a PC)? I'm a newish DM (been playing off and on for 10 years but never run a campaign that had legs until now), and our last session ended with the death of a recently-introduced barbarian NPC at the hands of another barbarian NPC. I made some other missteps but the big one seems to be this death - some of the players were shocked that barb #2 had done enough damage to kill barb #1 outright. I just had #1 die because she hit 0HP, and it hadn't really occurred to me that she should have gotten death saves.

Any rules of thumb for how you handle NPC death/dying? Or, if you're a player, how you would expect/like to see it handled? Happy to provide more context if desired.

Thanks!