Combat appears to be an important facet of most RPG systems out there, including ones embedded into the games themselves. Seems fair to say that most RPGs have combat as a major, dedicated part of their gameplay: stats like weapon damage and armor resistance are tracked and augmented by enhancements and skills; there are special game states and (for videogame RPGs) controls that separate combat from non-combat; combat serves as one of the major sources of XP for character growth.

There's probably a good few examples out there of games that tried something different that I haven't even heard about. Disco Elysium does "combat" through skill checks in the few instances that it does tackle physical encounters. Griftlands uses card-based actions for both combat and social encounters, each having their own separate decks and "health" values.

What I've been looking for was the kind of a system that doesn't take combat for a special game state. A system where the simulation extends to assimilate combat as just... a thing that happens because you're in danger – or looking to be the danger.

To understand where I'm going with the next bit, you should know a couple of things about Frontiers.

Frontiers is an episodic story about a group of friends playing a homebrew from-first-principles tabletop RPG system. The system, so far titled Frontiers RPG 'cause I'm very original, deals away with or reimagines much of the classic RPG trope library.

One thing that differentiates Frontiers RPG is having 20-some traits for characters, where each trait is an abstracted statistic representative of a character's distinct natural-performance categories. For example:

• Instrumentation determines how well the character naturally operates simple and complex technology
• Visual Space determines one's eyesight and, consequently, the ability to model the geometry of an environment or an object in the head (because apparently these things are linked in the human brain)
• Biomechanics determines how well does one's muscles perform under stress
• Presence determines the strength of the vibe the character gives off naturally; the vibe itself could be intimidating, commanding, or inspiring, depending on said character

Traits are tracked on a low scale:

• −10 is the lowest possible for any living creature with any amount of agency.
• −5 is the lowest any human could possibly get without outside intervention, and means the person is unable to perform in this area completely.
• 0 is average human performance.
• +5 is the best a human being could naturally achieve at their peak.
• +10 is the epitome of human potential when amplified with hyperadvanced technology or supernatural effects.

This means that when someone with Presence +1 enters the room, people can't but notice, even if they don't concern themselves too much with the person. When it's someone with Presence +3, however, most will stop what they're doing for a few seconds and pay attention to what the person is doing. Presence +5? The party stops when the person enters the room: they inspire this much awe and respect (or fear, depending on the person). Characters with high Presence naturally make for excellent leaders, teachers, negotiators, and point-makers.

There are no dice rolls. Each challenge has a difficulty rating on the same scale as traits, which is how the outcomes get determined: either by checking the trait itself or the average of a set of traits (which are sometimes conceptualized into skills and sometimes only exist as checks). For example, if your character's Conditioning (representing physical endurance) is +1 and the challenge is a short jog (difficulty 1), they succeed without a problem.

What makes this system not entirely deterministic is stat depletion. Each trait value above 0 grants the character 1 point of the trait. These points may be used to assist oneself or another character in a challenge if the challenge is of higher difficulty than their trait would normally allow to automatically succeed in. Points are regained at rest, up to the maximum of trait value points: e.g. Instrumentation 2 grants you maximum of 2 points you can have on your character at any given time.

What I've been working with for a few months was HP-like stats derived from specific traits:

• wounds for physical damage, derived from Conditioning
• willpower for mental stress, derived from Volition
• stamina for physical performance, derived from Stress Response

(Having willpower as a stat works because for normal humans, D&D-like adventures would inevitably take their toll. Seeing people suffering may damage the will of a high-Empathy character, but then, everyone would suffer from seeing their loved ones in danger. Seeing a giant fucking monster would certainly make you consider your life choices. Persevering through emotional and mental challenges where your willpower is mechanically limited – a person can only take so much within a limit of time – is an underexplored, underdeveloped field of roleplay, and it fits into the story thematically.)

This naturally geared itself to combat-as-special-state. Abstracting "health points" only makes sense when the only thing that matters is whether you're able to fight further. To this end, I figured that at a certain level of wounds, all traits would take penalty (to simulate being beaten up and stressed from combat) until such a time when the character receive proper care and rest.

Lately, however, I came upon a way to streamline the system and make it "wider" (i.e. not just combat/non-combat simulation): use the trait points directly. This approach enables the player by allowing them to use their whole potential in all manners of situations, and have said potential used against them if they're facing a challenge their ability does not allow them to surpass.

• rather than exchange punches in a bar fight, you can use your Executive Function – your thinking-on-your-feet – to distract your opponent and sucker-punch them while they're looking away
• in a fistfight, character may use their Coordination to deflect a blow – or two points to direct it in a specific way: for example, to harm their proximous ally
• before approaching the bench in order to testify, characters may use their Empathy in order to read the room and understand what sort of an appeal would work best
• seeing an atrocity committed would take a point away from the character's Volition; if they have none left, they may faint, become disstressed (receiving a malus to all checks of a particular nature), or even become catatonic (unable to act coherently until snapped out of it or well-rested)
• being shot by a scared youth may take a point or two of the character's Conditioning, but because they're still standing, they could use Volition to "not fucking flinch", which gives them a temporary bonus to Presence that they can use to interrogate with greater success or otherwise use the youth's capacities

This works, at least on the surface, because it reflects the potential traits grant almost exactly. Someone with Conditioning 0 may be able to take a punch, but it would leave them seriously disoriented or may even inflict lasting damage (broken rib, dislocated jaw etc.); meanwhile, another character with Conditioning 4 may be able to get shot with a pistol and still function to a degree. Someone with Inner World +3 should find it little trouble to jot down a short story to tell their children before bed, while someone with Inner World 0 would find it impossible to come up with a logo for their new product even with intense consideration.

What I haven't yet figured out is:

• how to handle such "shooting above one's head" attempts for trait values lower than 0 (which is encouraged for challenge and roleplay reasons)
• how to handle situations where all points are depleted and the player still wants to try a difficult thing that's just above their character's level
• whether players should receive more than one point per level of trait, or even see points granted scale with value (Engineering 3 → 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 points total)

The system is not perfect, but it's hella interesting, and I'd like to pursue it. If it leads nowhere, at least I explored. What I'm looking for from this topic is review of the concept of stat depletion and its potential implications. Assume that the rest of the system is perfectly viable and feasible unless its parts directly contradict or hamper the system as a whole. What problems can you see with this section? What benefits can one derive from it?

Mine is about my spirit animal.

Manatees have long been known as gentle giants, and somehow sailors once confused them with beautiful women. What fewer people know about manatees, is that they control their buoyancy with flatulance. Their whole life is floating around and eating seagrass. They get gassy and start to float up, so they let a few farts out to get back down to the seagrass. And you thought dolphins had life figured out.

What is this?

See here for full details on the event.

Post Your Update

• How did your week go?
• What games did you get through?
• How did you feel about them?
• What's up next for you?

Focuses for Week 2

• Games in genres you don't normally play
• Games that take longer than 4 hours to complete
• Story-driven games

Let's burn through these backlogs!

What is this?

See here for full details on the event.

Post Your Update

• How did your week go?
• What books did you get through?
• How did you feel about them?
• What's up next for you?

Focuses for Week 2

• Books in a genre you don't normally read
• Books that you own physical copies of
• Books with more than 400 pages

Let's burn through these backlogs!

A lot of catchy music is instantly magnetic but then tends to lose its appeal over time and repeated listens. I'm curious to find out what are some catchy songs that haven't gone through this decay for you, especially over the course of years.

What are some earworms with staying power? What are those songs for you that are still hopelessly, irresistibly catchy, even after you've heard them countless times already?

To be clear, this is purely individual, so I'm not looking for a list of like, "the best pop songs of all time". I mostly just want to know your experiences and choices for songs that you seemingly can't ever get out of your head.

I’m seeing him get a lot of negative press on how he has handled it, but I personally don’t see what he has done wrong so I’m interested in what others think about it, has he handled it wrong or are the press just looking for someone to blame?

Just found in my closet a lighter fluid (butane) can which expired in 2017. I tried charging a lighter with it but I can’t get a flame (it was working before). I don’t suppose it’s going to explode but it doesn’t seem reasonable to just throw it in the trash. What should I do?

Times are tough and isolation is getting to everybody, we've been playing some easy jackbox games with my friends on Google Hangouts, when the idea came to me: Why not start a DnD campaign? I've never ever played one, just watched some Youtube (Geek and Sundry, Mathew Colville), and definitely never though about hosting one until now.

After looking around, there are a lot of cool resources for running one, Roll20 seems to be the most popular and praised for ease of use. Rules are very well written into it and all the tools needed to deal with the mechanics are in. So technology-wise I think we're set.

Now I have a lot of questions on how to get an adventure running. Do I just get an official DnD guide book, do I just rip off the White Orchard level from Witcher 3 to start off or do I come up with some generic fantasy land? I'd like to run a small adventure in one night, just to get a taste of it and maybe branch it off later if everyone is up for it.

For characters I think it would be easier for me to come up with 8-10 pre-generated ones for a group of 4-5 people (with specific people in mind) to tailor it a little bit for my group, but still present some variety, while smoothing the learning curve and lowering the barrier to entry. Feels like a decent idea.

I'm still not sure where to start with this expansive world and I'd love to hear for seasoned DMs an players here on Tildes. How did you start your first game, what was the setting? How do I gently introduce players to mechanics? How do I deal with unpredictable situations?

And most importantly, how do I make sure everyone is having fun?

There are a million sites with postings on this theme right now, but this seems like an interesting opportunity to survey the Tildes community's collective wisdom.

I'll share one of my own pantry baking recipes to kick off - the only fresh ingredient required is eggs.

Patience Limited's Honey Cake

(based on original "Majestic and Moist Honey Cake" from smittenkitchen.com)

This is a simple, one- or two-bowl quick bread-type recipe which has a dense, cake-like crumb. (I highly recommend using a kitchen scale for faster and more uniform results, but it's a forgiving recipe if you measure instead.)

It can be eaten alone like a sweet bread if baked in loaf pans, or used as layers for other desserts if baked in loaf or sheet pans. The recipe is so versatile that it can also be easily scaled up or down, and portioned as mini-loaves or cupcakes with appropriate adjustments to cooking time.

This honey cake recipe is fantastic by itself with a cup of coffee in the morning, and will keep for days if lightly wrapped.

[Not gluten-free, but contains no nuts if optional almond topping is omitted, and is vegetarian and kosher.]

3 1/2 cups (440 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons (about 8 grams) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger powder
1 cup (235 ml) vegetable oil
1 cup (340 grams) honey
1 cup (300 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (95 grams) brown sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup warm (235 ml) coffee or strong tea
1/4 cup (60 ml) rye, whiskey, or rum
1/2 cup (45 to 55 grams) slivered or sliced almonds (optional)

Fits in three loaf pans, two 9-inch square or round cake pans, one 9 or 10 inch tube or bundt cake pan, or one 9 by 13 inch sheet cake.

[I make my batch in two full-size 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pans (8 cups each), and it makes two perfect loaves.]

Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Generously grease pan(s) with non-stick cooking spray. For tube or angel food pans, line the bottom with lightly greased parchment paper, cut to fit.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cardamom, and ginger. Make a well in the center, and add oil, honey, white sugar, brown sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee or tea, orange juice and rye or whiskey, if using. (If you measure your oil before the honey, it will be easier to get all of the honey out.)

Using a strong wire whisk or in an electric mixer on slow speed, stir together well to make a thick, well-blended batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom.

Spoon batter into prepared pan(s). Sprinkle top of cake(s) evenly with almonds, if using. Place cake pan(s) on two baking sheets, stacked together (this will ensure the cakes bake properly with the bottom baking faster than the cake interior and top).

Bake until cake tests done, that is, it springs back when you gently touch the cake center. For angel and tube cake pans, this will take 60 to 75 minutes, loaf cakes, about 45 to 55 minutes. For sheet style cakes, baking time is 40 to 45 minutes.

Let cake stand fifteen minutes before removing from pan.

sorry for being a little late this late week, we started online school and I've been trying to get organized hahahahah. If you know me well you'd know I have no idea how to organize myself, so I'm trying to take the opportunity to learn a little !

Anyhow, this week's curry was Massaman curry! This marks the first time that I've decided to remake a curry, using a different recipe this time ! I got recommended the website thaifoodmaster.com by fellow reader of my curry escapades, @arghdos, and decided to give it a shot. Massaman curry was something that really shook me the first time I made it, and this was no different! It's funny how different the techniques we used in this one ended up being from the last one, but they still managed to taste very similar. Which isn't a bad thing, mind you! Still a very decadent, rich, and delicious dish that I think everyone should try. (Though a bit spicy, be careful with that. My mom was not too pleased !)

Little story time: the recipe called for charring the dried red chillies a bit before adding them to a paste, so we did that. I kid you not, for about 20 minutes after doing this, we were coughing at how spicy everything was in the room. I almost puked because of it hahahah. Fun times. (Funny how both times I made massaman I got really really spiced....). This time my dad and I decided to finally buy a decent food processor to make the paste, so it actually came out pretty smooth! I can't wait to use this processor for different recipes in the future, it's such a good feeling to finally have something that's good enough for pureeing hahah.

Overall, a great Recipe once again, that I found easier than the original one because of the techniques used being a lot less complicated. Great dish !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/QW5k0Th
Recipe: https://thaifoodmaster.com/preparation/curry_preparation/6679#.XojiDIhKguV

Question of the day: What Culture do you think has the best food?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Most recent update is here.

The Tildes community has been amazing and patient with me as a new and uninformed Linux user, and I'm greatly appreciative of that. I return to you today with yet another request.

Hardware

System76 Oryx Pro
Distro: Pop!_OS 19.10

Issue #1 (mission critical)

Brother MFC-L2750DW

I have a Brother printer/scanner for which I have installed the drivers using the .deb file provided on the Brother site. It's connected via USB. Printing works fine; scanning does not. My husband and I both need the ability to scan for our jobs, so this issue is pretty important to us.

I am using the program Document Scanner (I believe it's one of the GNOME default programs?). When I open the program it says "Searching for Scanners" and then recognizes my scanner, giving the model number and says it's "Ready to Scan". Whenever I attempt to scan, however, whether from the ADF or the flatbed, it says "Unable to connect to scanner". I am not sure how to proceed, and any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated!

Issue #2 (optional)

Hyperkin Duke Wired Xbox Controller

This is an optional issue and not at all one that needs to be solved by any means. A while back my husband got me this because it's my absolute favorite controller of all time (I know, scoff all you want!). It worked fine in Windows, but now that I've shifted over to Linux it has been sitting and gathering dust.

When I plug it in the controller rumbles briefly (which it also did on Windows), but other than that does nothing. No input is accepted. If it's easy to get this up and running in Linux, I'd love to be able to use it, but if it's not that's totally fine. I have another controller I can use, and again, none of this is essential to my work. I just figured since I was asking for help I'd throw this in here too.

If you need any additional information or need me to try any specific things, let me know!

I've been progressively getting more excited about cannabis over the past year or so; we had a chat about drugs a while back, I figured we could try one specifically about cannabis.

I've been really enjoying Durban Poison lately, I tend towards feeling compassionate and really loving and open to folks around me, though that depends somewhat on context. Jack Herer and derivatives have been nice as well, but they're more for tasks that need some focus like programming or writing.

I've been trying a couple indica/evening leaning strains lately, but I haven't found one that I've really loved (my ulterior motive for starting this thread).

We should probably start a ~talk.casual, but maybe all talk on tildes is somewhat causal, and that's cool too, Also, this is aspie special interest territory for me, so if y'all don't think about this as much, I can do strain recs if that'd be something that was nice for you. Though, I don't some (relatively) that much, so someone on the internet could probably do that better.

Also, yes, I know that COVID-19 falls under SARS; I already got the gentle warnings from my dad.

(edit: thanks whoever tagged nsfw.drugs! Also the cannabis tag makes more sense as well)

Hi Tilderinos!

As the title says, I have used Android almost my entire life. Many parts of the internet (especially reddit) really look down on Apple for many reasons (may of them valid). Starting about 3 weeks ago, I started to wonder if the grass really was greener on the other side. I would like to share my experience.

My first smart device was an iPod tough 4th generation. Back then, iOS was really bad. Notifications took over the screen. If you didn't want to deal with a notification right then, you had to dismiss it permanently. Multitasking did not exist (until a few updates later) Android was miles better then. Switching was the obvious choice. Flash forward to now, through many different android devices. I had a Samsung Galaxy S10e, Galaxy Watch LTE, and Galaxy Buds. I had the best ecosystem of devices that Android has to offer (Tizen vs WearOS is arguable, but I have not used WearOS).

I wanted to get back into mountain biking, and I wanted to bring only my buds and watch. This should be an obvious use case for an LTE watch and bluetooth earbuds. Unfortunately, transferring music to the watch is a difficult prospect. You must have the files downloaded onto your phone, but I use Spotify or Google Play Music. Spotify does have a Tizen app, but it is pretty terrible. Also, I wanted to have audiobooks and podcasts downloaded to listen to. I could not find any apps for audiobooks or podcasts for my Galaxy Watch. All my google-fu got me to the answer: Just transfer the files and play them in the watch music app. This was a pretty bad solution for a few reasons. First, listening times did not sync with the phone. Second, I don't think that the watch music app would save the timestamp when you closed it. Finally, the Galaxy Watch has 4gb storage, and only leaves around 2gb usable. Game of Thrones book 5 weighs in at about 1.3gb. If I wanted my book and even a single episode from most of my podcasts, that would not be enough storage.

Because of this experience, I started looking into the Apple Watch. My grandfather gave me his old iPhone 6s+ and I got an Apple Watch series 3 LTE for a great deal on craigslist. I thought the phone would be a downgrade from an s10e. In a few ways it is, such as the screen, battery life, and camera. But for everything else about this phone, it is just as good as my s10e, which is 4 years newer. I still have my s10e, and I keep it charged. There are very few times where I want to use my s10e over my 6s+. This was not what I was expecting when I switched. I expected to use the 6s+ to see if I could handle a new iPhone, just so I could use an Apple Watch. Since then, I borrowed my dad's old MacBook Pro mid 2012 non-retina, to see if I liked OS X. I am currently typing this in that MacBook. I also bought the AirPods Pro.

Almost every single interaction between these devices is quick, intuitive, and seamless. OS X is way better than windows. Parallels makes running windows software a dream. When I bought parallels, I was able to pay with my watch through Apple Pay. I have not heard of any software doing anything like that with google/samsung pay and windows. Overcast is able to automatically sync podcasts and playback times to the watch, and easily switch which device is playing. Audible is a bit more clunky (and I am still looking for an alternative for books), but it is possible to get books on the watch, and the playback time syncs without issue. The AirPods Pro seamlessly switch between the phone and watch. They are already paired with the MBP through iCloud, although they do not seamlessly switch. I think this is because the bluetooth chip in the computer is too old. CarPlay is miles better than android auto. Siri is just as good for most thing as google assistant, and is more consistent.

This is a pretty long post already, but the bottom line is every single apple device I am trying out is better than the corresponding android/windows device that is 2-4 years newer. After many years of shunning apple, I am back on the apple bandwagon. I am currently planning on replacing all of my devices with something from apple (except my gaming desktop, unfortunately). I would like to hear about your experiences with switching to or from either ecosystem.

(Mods: I wasn't sure if this should be in ~talk or ~tech. Please move it if necessary)

Quick one for the Gitlab:

Just how comment submitters get a few minutes of breathing room to make adjustments and edits to their comment before an indication the comment has been edited appears, it'd be nice if the topic history which records title adjustments/tag changes/tilde moves doesn't record history by submitters just after posting?

Usually, I'll forget to add a tag or two, or decide the title can be appropriately clarified further within a minute or two of submitting. Today I made a particularly egregious mistake which is now recorded for all time (and further documented here!) by submitting that post to ~tildes initially!

Usually, edits by the post submitter within the first few minutes aren't of particular consequence, so recording them is a bit much, in my view. This would generally dovetail well with the notion that Tildes discards information if it isn't needed. Thoughts?

What is this?

First off, this is NOT an April Fool (I promise!). I know that many of us will be stuck at home for this month, I know that many of us could likely use something to pull our attention away from the news, and I know that many of us have accumulated quite the to-read list of books. As such, I'm thinking it could be fun for us to tackle those lists together and collectively clean up our clutter! Let's all burn through our backlogs!

The goal isn't necessarily to completely clear them, just to put a dent in them.

How does it work?

Your "backlog" is all those books you've been meaning to get around to read, but never have yet! For the purposes of this event, an item can be removed from your backlog in one of three ways:

• Finished: you completed the book

• Moved On: you tried it out, but it didn't hold your interest or wasn't for you

• Removed: you are choosing to remove this from your backlog without reading it, likely because it no longer interests you, but really for any reason at all

Use this thread to talk about your backlogs, plan for the month, and once you start reading, inform us of any backlog downsizing and their associated categories. Give us a list of the books you removed. Tell us why you moved on from what you were just reading. Gush about how a particular item held your interest long enough to see it through. The goal of this isn't to read every book you own; it's to explore what you already have in the way that's best, and most meaningful, for you. If you're not enjoying a book, dump it and move on!

If you're not sure what you might write, take a look at a previous backlog post for games to get an idea. Also if you want to keep track of statistics or anything else like that, go for it!

What's the timeline?

I will post an update thread weekly, each Wednesday, for the four weeks of April. At the end of the month, I think it would be neat to tally how many collective books we all removed from our backlogs, as well as what the best finds were from our collective digging into our libraries. I expect we'll turn up some good hidden gems, as well as interesting insights.

Each week, I'll also include some "focus" areas which can help narrow down choices for what to read. Those are just recommendations for fun, however. Read whatever you like, whenever you like, however you like! If it's in your backlog, then it's automatically a good choice!

Do I need to sign up?

You don't have to do anything to officially join or participate in the event other than post in these threads! Participate in whatever way works for you. Also, because this is ongoing, it is okay to make more than one top-level post if you're updating the thread with new information.

Focuses for Week 1:

• Books that have been on your to-read list for more than a year
• Books that have single-word titles
• Books that are less than 200 pages

Let's burn through these backlogs!

Meta Note: I am also running this same event for ~games as well. I am not active in the other media-focused communities on Tildes, but I encourage someone(s) to pick this up and run it concurrently for ~movies, ~tv, ~anime, and/or ~music (and any other places you think it might fit). I like the idea of it being sitewide, with people participating in their media format(s) of choice. Any runners for those groups have my full permission to steal this wholesale, tweak it for their target group, and post it there.

What is this?

First off, this is NOT an April Fool (I promise!). I know that many of us will be stuck at home for this month, I know that many of us could likely use something to pull our attention away from the news, and I know that many of us have accumulated quite the to-play list of games. As such, I'm thinking it could be fun for us to tackle those lists together and collectively clean up our clutter! Let's all burn through our backlogs!

The goal isn't necessarily to completely clear them, just to put a dent in them.

How does it work?

Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet! For the purposes of this event, an item can be removed from your backlog in one of three ways:

• Finished: you completed the game, or, for open-ended games, reached some level of "done" that you consider satisfactory

• Moved On: you tried it out, but it didn't hold your interest, got repetitive, wasn't for you, or had some other issue (like compatibility problems or glitches)

• Removed: you are choosing to remove this from your backlog without playing it, likely because it no longer interests you, but really for any reason at all.

Use this thread to talk about your backlogs, plan for the month, and once you start playing, inform us of any backlog downsizing and their associated categories. Give us a list of the games you removed. Tell us why you moved on from what you were just playing. Gush about how a particular item held your interest long enough to see it through. The goal of this isn't to beat every game you own; it's to explore what you already have in the way that's best, and most meaningful, for you. If you're not enjoying a game, dump it and move on!

If you're not sure what you might write, take a look at a previous backlog post to get an idea. Also if you want to keep track of statistics or anything else like that, go for it!

What's the timeline?

I will post an update thread weekly, each Wednesday, for the four weeks of April. At the end of the month, I think it would be neat to tally how many collective games we all removed from our backlogs, as well as what the best finds were from our collective digging into our libraries. I expect we'll turn up some good hidden gems, as well as interesting insights.

Each week, I'll also include some "focus" areas which can help narrow down choices for what to play. Those are just recommendations for fun, however. Play whatever you like, whenever you like, however you like! If it's in your backlog, then it's automatically a good choice!

Do I need to sign up?

You don't have to do anything to officially join or participate in the event other than post in these threads! Participate in whatever way works for you. Also, because this is ongoing, it is okay to make more than one top-level post if you're updating the thread with new information.

Focuses for Week 1:

• Games you've been meaning to play for more than a year
• Games you can mod
• "Evening-size" games

Let's burn through these backlogs!

Meta Note: I am also running this same event for ~books as well. I am not active in the other media-focused communities on Tildes, but I encourage someone(s) to pick this up and run it concurrently for ~movies, ~tv, ~anime, and/or ~music (and any other places you think it might fit). I like the idea of it being sitewide, with people participating in their media formats of choice. Any runners for those groups have my full permission to steal this wholesale, tweak it for their target group, and post it there.

This is mostly a test to see how well this will show up, but I'm experimenting with some text-based (I guess UTF-8) chord diagrams. If anyone plays guitar and/or has some feedback, feel free to chime in.

These are drop 2 chord voicings on the top 4 strings of a standard-tuned guitar. Arranged vertically, with each shape representing each chord piece. The gaps are for clarity, but each line ought to be successive and the patterns repeat themselves.

Edit: Well, it seems some of the symbols aren't rendered at a fixed-width. Though, they are in the font in my editor. Hm. I guess that's what I get for using symbols for an unintended purpose.

EditEdit: Oh, I see. Firefox is using three different fonts to render the symbols. SF Mono is my default monospace font, and it only renders the ◊ symbol. It falls back to Courier New for ○ and Segoe UI Symbol for the rest. Interesting.

▢ = Root
△ = Major 3rd
▽ = Minor 3rd
○ = Perfect 5th
◎ = Diminished 5th
◊ = Major 7th
◇ = Minor 7th
◈ = Diminished 7th

Major 7 
Drop 2 Voicings
Top 4

EADGBe
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Dominant 7
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EADGBe
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EADGBe
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Half-diminished 7
Drop 2 Voicings
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EADGBe
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We haven't had one of these in a while, and given the amount of time people are spending indoors, I figured it might be good to share some movie recommendations.

I will post my own comment regarding some movies I've seen recently, but I wanted to also share some quarantine / pandemic movies that might be interesting given the strange times we find ourselves in. Warning: they are probably not a great way to take your mind off things, if that's what you are searching for, hence why I'm separating them from my other comment.

• Contagion (2011) - Probably one of the more relevant movies, and certainly on people's minds. It's an interesting worst case what-if scenario, and actually tackles some of the political struggle with organizing around a pandemic.
• Perfect Sense (2011) - Overshadowed by Contagion, which is arguably the better movie, but I liked the premise of this one: a disease that slowly takes away your 5 senses, one at a time. I didn't like the ending, but for a thought experiment it captured my attention. It threw in a love plot line which may or may not have been necessary when the reaction was more interesting, but it does help provide a ground floor experience of a more terrifying epidemic.
• It's a Disaster (2012) - I have somehow managed to miss watching this movie, despite it being on my watch list for some time. A comedy, which may come in use in this trying time, it centers around a group of friends who invariably become part of a self-quarantine at their house.
• Rear Window (1954) - A Hitchcock classic. Jimmy Stewart is confined to his NYC apartment due to a leg injury, and has all the time in the world to spy on his neighbors, where he becomes obsessive over a potential domestic dispute between a couple across the way.
• The Lighthouse (2019) - Superb acting by Willem Dafoe. Two men, a seaman fresh to the trade and a seasoned veteran, are servicing the sole lighthouse on a tiny island as part of a contract. They are forced to stay longer than either imagined due to a storm passing through them. They get at their wits end with each other and their sanity slowly falls apart. Beautifully shot in black and white and with authentic vernacular, it really transports you to a different time period.

While I've been teaching myself my first programming language (Python), I've been getting more into using the terminal as much as possible to build familiarity and get comfortable. This has opened my eyes to so many useful utilities and makes me curious as to what there is out there that I haven't heard of yet.

My favorites so far:

exa - A modern version of "ls"

youtube-dl - Download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms with various options

hledger - Plain text double-entry accounting software based on ledger written in Haskell

thefuck - App that corrects a spelling mistake in the previous command by typing "fuck"

spicetify-cli - Customizes the Spotify client with themes and extensions

spotifyd - Lightweight Spotify daemon

spotify-tui - Control Spotify in the terminal

neofetch - Launch tool that can display ASCII art or pictures and general system information

I'm on macOS but I'm almost certain all of these are cross-platform.

What are your favorite or "must-have" CLI packages?

My OG Pixel died last night and while I'm waiting for tech support to get back with me on how I can still use MFA to do my job, I figured I would ask you all how I should proceed with getting a new device. My first impulse is to get a Referb Pixel 2 on Amazon for $99, as I liked my original Pixel, I like having the latest Android version and I like only paying $99 for an older flagship phone. Additionally, I was considering a Pixel 3a as it would presumably last a bit longer and has had good reviews but is three times as much and hasn't devalued nearly as much when used, which is good and bad.

I'm open to anything that's relatively stock Android and still updated, and am curious about iOS, Kaios or other options. Landlines are a hard pass.

Rural Towns Insulated From Coronavirus Now May Take A Harder Hit Later (They will almost certainly get the virus. When they do, they'll realize they're less prepared than cities and their people are disproportionately more likely to be a high risk group.)

The Coronavirus may hit rural communities later but it will certainly hit them harder (very similar to the one above)

Are suburbs/rural areas safer from the Coronavirus? Probably not. (also pretty similar but it talks about precedent during the 1918 and earlier pandemics and also that people are apparently renting their houses on the notion they're safe, which is wrong.)

My gaming group got to talking at our last game about how long we've been playing. Most of us were at 20+ years. I asked them if they'd ever played a 20th level character, and the answer was a unanimous no, so that's something we're going to remedy with the next campaign.

I got to fiddling around with characters and noticed that 5e caps itself out nicely once you hit 20th. No matter what you create, the limits on action economy, maximum spell/attacks, stats/scores all give rise to a nice plateau. The hit points getting huge is the biggest change, so you just end up trading healing word whack-a-mole for characters that can actually take some real punishment and using power word heal. Needs a wound mechanic so that going down has lasting consequences even if you get right back up, but that's easily workable.

I was bored and threw another twenty levels on for a 40th level character, and then another 11 for a meaningful dip into a third class. Just cap the character's proficiency bonus at +6/20th and nothing really changes except you have a far larger bag of tricks at your disposal. Twelve feats is like candyland. I'm anticipating some of my players are going to get ferret shock trying to keep up with their spell lists during combat. Too many choices, they'll make a hilarious mess out of it and it'll be fun. I have a tiny hourglass sitting on the table to keep the pressure up, I'm sure that'll get some use.

I told them to pick their favorite character they've played over the years that they want to revisit and make the best version they can, complete with character history, holdings, etc. They also have to explain everything on their sheet - every level, feat, item, holding, etc all have a story attached. You're a monk? Where and when did you get that training, etc.

Then one of my players turned me on to the epic level book for 5e from 2c gaming. It's perfect, plugs right into the limits and takes them up a bit, but also adds all sorts of epic madness. Every class/archetype gets its own ten level epic prestige class. That's the 'real' 21-30 I can use for their advancement. I can also torment them with the prestige evolutions from the campaign setting we'll be using. There's plenty of advancement to be had this way despite already being at 51st level. I'm working in all of their existing characters from adjacent games as well, so we've got a ready made pool of henchmen.

I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of spelljamming and planar travel in this campaign. There's probably a gods war in there somewhere too. I have my 2nd Edition monster manual binders right here, and a third of the critters in them can give these characters nightmares for days. I'm figuring I'll be making heavy use of Illithids as one of the main threats, that trailer for Baldur's Gate 3 has them back in vogue again. Psionics is such a wonderful foil for magic.

So what kind of character would you build if you were making a character that's already the master of his/her/its? tiny corner of the D&D universe? What do you do with those 51 character levels?

Any races allowed, of course. Racial abilities are the least of it at this point. Origin can be from any campaign setting, past or present.

I went today to the store to buy some chicken and coconut for this recipe and, man, does it feel unreal to have to wait in line to even get into something like a Maxi! it makes perfect sense, but it just feels so unreal still hahahah. Today I have cooked up a little Chicken Pepper Fry, which is, among other things, another very simple dish that could be made in any weeknight, though it isn't as easy as something like last week's chana masala. Ended up tasting a lot like Curry leaves and less like coconut, which I am not complaining about! Curry leaves are awesome. I do think this was missing some sort of punch, though. Felt a bit same-y to a lot of the other recipes I had made previously. But still, very hearty and delish nonetheless :P

Also, I'm thinking of using other sources for Curry recipes in the future, so be on the look out for that!

Picture of the Dish: https://imgur.com/a/dlbOIwA
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/ENWAnGE

Question of the day: How has the recent COVID-19 pandemic, if at all, modified the way you eat on a daily basis?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

I live in the UK and Channel 4 got the rights to Seinfeld. I never saw them before, so I'm watching them all now.

It's weird, because people make (still!) a lot of noise about the show, and so far (although I'm only 5 episodes in) I don't get it.

I had a similar experience when I re-watched Allie McBeal -- I enjoyed it the first time around, but the second time it just felt tedious.

I watched Lost a long time after that finished, and I mostly enjoyed it, and I could understand why at the time it was so popular.

So, I was wondering, have you watched any of the zeitgeisty shows long after the buzz died down, and what did you think of them?

corvid-19 has taken over my thinking. I haven't been this depressed in a very long time. Feels like I'm living in a sort of fog. I usually have national news on in the background during the day but the coronavirus is taking over. I don't know if I contracted it. I have been in a funk the last 2 or so weeks. My temp reader (which i don't trust) says im 2 degrees below 97.6. I don't know, i just had to get this off my chest.

I just started playing AER: Memories of Old which allows your character to transform into a bird and fly around a sky world of islands. I was struck by how good the flight feels in-game. The sense of speed, control, and freedom was immediately satisfying. I've spent most of the game not actually doing what I'm supposed to but just enjoying the ability to swoop, dive, and get from one point to another in a novel way.

It made me curious: what other games are out there in which just the act of moving your player avatar around is engaging, interesting, or fulfilling?

Sorry for the low effort post but my computer is broken and my smartphone is crap.

My city in Brazil is basically closed for business. My mother was supposed to be in another continent but, THANKFULLY, flight restrictions prevented her from traveling.

The downside is that she’s making me crazy like mothers do.

I’m going bananas here, and cycling makes me sane. I also need the exercise. Am I crazy for wanting to get on my bike once a day? The streets are not totally empty, but a lot less populated.

I’m in Salvador, Bahia. My state has 33 cases now.

due to the looming pandemic forcing everyone to stay inside, I've recently decided to get back into video games. I did a fresh install of windows 10 the other day, and tried to play a few games with my controller. I found that whenever I press the right trigger on my controller, my computer's audio cuts out system-wide immediately and does not come back on until I restart.

The controller is a wired Afterglow for Xbox 360 PL-3702.

Windows 10, version 1903.

I see two audio devices under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager: a AMD High Definition Audio Device and a Realtek Audio device.

I've tried updating drivers for my controller and audio controllers.

I've reproduced the issue and collected logs of it following the steps here. If you know how to read these I'd be happy to send you the trace.

Now, I've tried to look at the trace of this in both Windows Performance Analyzer and Windows Media eXperience Analyzer to try and get a better sense of what's causing this. I see a pretty clear event where a bunch of stuff shows up in the visualizer, but I don't know what any of the stack traces that show up mean. This did not occur on my previous install of Windows on the same computer so I suspect it's related to something with some new Windows "gaming" feature I didn't have before.

I'm really at a loss as to where to go from here. It's both perfectly clear and completely mystifying. Any ideas?

I was recently in the market for a cheap used phone. I was looking for an Android device, preferably less than 3 years old, preferably with an unlockable bootloader and rootable, for $200 or less. I was looking at used Pixel 2's when I came across this weird Chinese manufacturer I'd never heard of.

The Umidigi F2 is a bizarre device. I was blown away by the specs, and the seller was only asking $200CAD for it, so I took a chance. I've got to say, so far I'm pretty impressed.

Quick Specs:

• 6.5" IPS LCD, 2340x1080px, bezelless, w/ hole-punch camera, no notch
• 6GB Dual-channel LPDDR4 RAM, 128GB Storage
• Mediatek P70 - ARM Cortex A73/A53 Octo-core 2.0/2.1GHz CPU
• 5 cameras, 32MP front-facing, 48MP rear, 13MP wide-angle, 5MP depth, 5MP macro
• Dual SIM, MicroSD
• 5150mAh battery
• ~40 frequency bands
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Stock Android 10

At this price I was initially skeptical. There must be something wrong with it, some glaring flaw I wasn't seeing, and/or those specs must be fake. I'm happy to say though, they're real, and the device seems much more solid than I expected.

I've had the thing a little over a week so far, and have only charged it once. On the first charge it lasted 4 days before I charged it, and still had 30% battery remaining after I'd spent a couple hours surfing the web and two hours watching youtube (total screen-on time was ~4.5hrs). After charging it I haven't been using it as much, but it's currently been running 3 days and it has 70% battery remaining. I've used it to listen to the radio for 3 hours this morning. Oh yeah, did I mention? Bizarrely, it has a FM radio tuner for some reason.

So far everything has been smooth, the device performs really well, which is not something I expected from a Mediatek CPU. Rooting it went smoothly, and I've been able to tweak a bunch of settings via the EdXposed framework, as much as you can in Android 10 anyway. I did remove some background bloat, but otherwise the default ROM is very close to vanilla AOSP.

The build quality of the thing is honestly not bad. I've used mid-range Samsung devices that have felt cheaper and more plastic-y than this. I have read some reports of bad touchscreens, but so far I haven't had any problems. There's also a DIY solution to solve that. Unfortunately, if it dies, this is pretty much my only option, since the warranty and support is pretty much nonexistent. At a quarter the price of a brand-name phone with similar specs though, I'm willing to roll those dice.

So, other than warranty, what are the downsides? Well, so far the biggest gripe I have is there is no notification LED on it. So if I go to the washroom and come back I can't just tell at a glance if I've missed a call or text, I actually need to unlock it. Luckily the fingerprint reader and face unlock are both pretty reliable. There is no wireless charging, which I'm more or less okay with. The main reason I'd want that is if the USB port died, but again, this is the sort of phone that if anything is wrong with it you're pretty much meant to throw it out. The speaker is a bit tinny, and unfortunately it's mono. The cameras are bad. The 48MP camera does take 8000x6000 pictures, but they're grainy to the point where even if you resize them down they still look worse than something taken with a good 6MP camera. This seems to be a software problem though. The camera module is apparently made by Samsung, and people have said it's gotten better with every OTA update. As for that, there's been an update this month, but a lot of people are expecting it might be the last update they put out. Umidigi apparently has a bad track record of only providing updates for a few months.

In conclusion, this is objectively a decent phone, and for it's price, it's exceptional. You sacrifice warranty, updates, any kind of support really, but you get some very decent hardware for $200.

Official site: https://www.umidigi.com/page-umidigi_f2_specification.html
Purchasable on amazon for fast shipping, purchase on aliexpress to save $50.

Solved!

Thanks to @pseudolobster's post here, I was able to resolve the issue by creating a new user account on the computer. I'm leaving the post up for posterity, in case anyone else is ever searching up this same issue in the future.

My husband is starting to transition to work from home. He is using his personal computer and just yesterday set up a VPN, Microsoft Teams, and Windows' built-in remote desktop so that he can access his work computer. Everything worked smoothly and he was able to finish out his workday from home just fine.

Primary Issue

This morning, upon booting his computer, he cannot access his Start Menu. It is on screen, and it appears clickable, but nothing comes up. Likewise, the search bar in his task bar is present on boot, but upon clicking the start menu for the first time it disappears and does not return. Other basic Windows functionality seems to be broken. Alt-tabbing does not work to switch between windows. System tray icons are present, but right clicking them and selecting an option does nothing. We cannot open taskbar settings or network settings this way, for example.

This might be indicative of a larger breakdown. Even by command line, I can't get to the Windows 10 settings or Windows Update. It seems like all of the "new Windows"-style interfaces won't start (though the old ones, like the Control Panel, do).

We can still open up apps by clicking on the links in his taskbar, and those seem to work fine. I can also get to the run command with Win+R.

He is running Windows 10, and as far as I know, it's fully up-to-date (I can't open Windows Update to check).

Additional Information

In attempting to diagnose this issue, I've come across several others that are potentially related. I don't know if these are relevant and they're not a primary concern at the moment, but I'm including them here in case they help contextualize what's going on.

There seems to be a runaway process that slowly eats up more and more memory over time, as well as a chunk of CPU. Sometimes it's called "Service Host: Windows Push Notifications User Service_#####" and sometimes it's called "Service Host: WpnUserService_#####" with the numbers changing each boot.

Also, in attempting to restart the computer, it sometimes (but not always) pauses with a notification about programs still running, with one of them being "Task Host Window" with the message Task Host is stopping background tasks. (\Microsoft\Windows\Plug and Play\Device Install Reboot Required) Finally, immediately before restarting, it shows an error message from "svchost.exe" which reads The system detected an overrun of a stack-based buffer in this application. This overrun could potentially allow a malicious user to gain control of this application.

Is this potentially a malware/intrusion issue?

Attempted Solutions

I have tried, to no success:

• Rebooting the computer, both via a restart in Windows as well as by holding down the power button
• Signing out and back in to his user account on the computer
• Running sfc /scannow
• Running DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Request for Help

I know we have a lot of techy people here, but I also know you are all probably busy with everything that's going on. Nevertheless, if anyone has any guidance or help they could give on this issue, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Also, it's been a while since I've used Windows, but IIRC there's a way of just resetting the whole thing and starting fresh? That's not ideal, but if that's the course of action I need to take, just let me know. Ultimately I just want this to work, by whatever method, so that my husband can be at home and reduce his exposure.