Simons Mith

25 Nov 2024

Rules for Happier Internetting: 1. Block fuckwits 2. Block asshats 3. Block people who /tolerate/ fuckwits or asshats [credit: Dr. Ed Morbius] Just 1 and 2 are good, but they are not sufficient.

From the numbers I can find, if there's one of these and it runs 24/7 all year, it'd take 880 years to do the entire Pacific Garbage Patch. So we'll want 100 of 'em and it'll still take 20-30 years. It's feasible, just, but don't let one CGI image trick you into thinking plastic pollution is solved.

4fuxake@blueheartedly1.bsky.social

Amazing 👇👏

So you're looking at a project with annual operating costs of $100million and upwards, sustained for at least 20 years. Conclusion is that cleaning up the garbage patch is gonna cost a few billion dollars. That does seems an entirely reasonable sum to me, given the scale of the project.

#GM tip of the day A cardinal rule of gamemastering is never to take control of another player's character. Some game systems do this or try to do it in insidious ways and you have to watch out for it. Gonna steal a good example from Star Wars as an example: #ttrpg

rules in the first place every thought about. Old school rules in particular rarely even considered that kind of risk. #ttrpg

There's always a damn typo! My KINGDOM for an edit button! god

If any mind control spell is powerful enough to take complete control of a character, then during that period it's not their character at all. /Definitely/ don't take away a player's agency and then punish them for things that happen while their agency is removed. I tend not to use those #ttrpg

kinds of mind control spell in the first place. More trouble than they're worth, in my opinion. If you do use them, do not use them casually; they can be a lot more damaging to your campaign, and player trust, than you might realise. And certainly more damage than the guys writing those #ttrpg

understood, I have every faith it will prove to be vital to the completion of our mission. Gamemaster: Sorry, Jackson. Your bargain skill is only 2D. He’s got you outclassed. Player Two: Stuff and nonsense! Jackson is my character, and I’m not giving him the ou’tranoi. #ttrpg

Star Wars firmly and correctly sides with Player Two here, and this is a pretty egregious example of a player trying to abuse, in this case the bargaining rules. But the same error can show up in subtler guises too. Possession and mind control spells in particular are troublesome. Basically, #ttrpg

Player One: My bargain skill is 8D+2. I use it to get Jackson to give me the alien ou’tranoi device for 100 credits. Player Two: The devil you say, young Farsten. I have no intention of selling you the ou’tranoi for 100 credits, or indeed for any other sum. Although its powers are poorly #ttrpg

For anybody wondering, gen AI is as incompetent at reading as it is everything else, and it's incorrigible. If a human hits a word they don't know how to pronounce they can ask. You can't explain to an AI. If a human decides to pronounce lead as lead rather than lead, you can correct them. All you

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is oblivious to tone and nuance. You'd get a better performance if you got a railway station announcer to read out your stuff. Human voiceover artists bring a long more value that just reading out the dang text. It's a subset of /acting/. It's a genuine skill. Pay for it, or accept robovoices,

and know that a decent chunk of your audience /actively prefer robovoices already/ and don't even want a skilled human reading to them, never mind an incompetent gen-AI voice.

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the clipboard). People use them /because/ they're characterless. They become 'invisible' when you're listening, and you stop noticing the voice at all, and just hear the words. Many listeners to audiobooks (a large minority) prefer them to humans because of this. A human reader injects character,

yes, and does the voices, yes, and can reflect the emotional tone and pacing of a scene. But if you don't /want/ a performance, you just want to hear the book, as a minority do, those creative touches are unwelcome. From this perspective, an AI voice has all the disadvantages of a human voice, and

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ever would, they're not significantly cheaper, they're discernibly less competent, and everyone hates them. If you had a human who did as lacklustre a job as an AI, you wouldn't hire 'em again.

Also: robovoices. Modern OS have robovoices available. They've been available for years and they're not AI. They're inhuman and flavourless machine voices that, with practice, you can dial up to 200% and even 300% speed and still understand. And you can get them to read any piece of text (e.g. from

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can do with AI is rewrite the section it's getting wrong and hope. Also, the 'professional' quality AI services are priced to be only just slightly cheaper than a competent human, and an AI is incapable of giving feedback or constructive suggestions. So they still muff their lines, in ways no human

#GM tip of the day If you want examples of speech for a krezy monster or an evil megalomaniac, comics (and probably anime and manga) are excellent resources. I especially recommend Girl Genius as it's readily available online and it has a huge variety of kooky and scenery-chewing characters #ttrpg

'Falsehoods! Scurrilous rumours put about by our foes!' is a finely-crafted phrase, and it should become more widespread.

Paul@spookshow71.bsky.social

First customer of the day can be important - their attitude can really chart the course for your hours ahead. This morning, first customer, an older lady (77, she said) came in, looking worried, 'is it true that you're closing?' 'Falsehoods!' I said, 'scurrilous rumours put about by our foes'

@thisone0verhere.bsky.social

The letter J has the strongest abs and the best core strength of any letter of the alphabet. These help it balance on its curved base. #dailylie

Simons Mith reposted

Ed Newton-Rex

@ednewtonrex.bsky.social

No ISBNs in Canada for AI writing. This is a fantastic policy, and every country should do the same. www.canada.ca/en/library-a...

Simons Mith reposted

Jonathan Edward Durham

Yall need anything from the drawer?

#GM tip of the day A good combat environment should have things in it that move or change. Perhaps there are robot vehicles thundering past every 2–3 rounds, or acrid smoke drifting through the arena, blown randomly by the air currents. Maybe there are machines that give out regular blasts #ttrpg

of fire or steam, or vents that open and close periodically. Or slowly-spinning ventilation fans. In a natural environment the changes will tend to be random; in an artificial environment they may be quite predictable. But they should be present so that all sides can exploit them. #ttrpg

Now that Brexit has been confirmed to be such a roaring success, Britain is going to de-decimalise its coinage. #dailylie

On April 1st 2025, as an April Fool's Day prank, the Niland Geyser, California spewed molten custard instead of mud. #dailylie

While most snakes shed their skin, the British and Western European grass snake, natrix helvetica, skins its shed. #dailylie

Cornell becoming a synonym for rape? That bit seems fair.

Transphobes Can't Read@lordaslan.bsky.social

"why do women choose the bear?"

This software is getting ever more impressive. For any dungeon- (or village-) drawers out there, I strongly recommend checking it out.

Canvas of Kings@mightofmerchants.bsky.social

I added a new brush for objects. With auto height, collision check and snap to grid.

Germany is so-named because it has many germs. #dailylie

Here's one of my own uses for a D36; the Critter Skills table. Critters get 1D6 skills at a level chosen by GM fiat. Just pick any from whichever row you roll. Critters will use their skills 1-2 times during and adventure, and 1-2 times during downtime, and the PCs can deal with the results. #ttrpg

I'm sorry, due to a browser bug (I believe), only GIFs post successfully, but unfortunately BSky has no concept of a GIF that ISN'T an animation. This is a one-frame animation - which is to say, it's just a still image. Doh.

It looks blurry here. Oh, Bluesky. This trick was fine last time I did it. Reposting with the table text as alt text, in case that helps.

This is not a formal rules system; it's just a rules-lite way to emulate the kind of things pet animals may get up to. Wild animals may have more serious skills: Hunt, Guard, Smell Predator, while work animals may have a mixture of serious skills with the odd frivolous one mixed in.

Rolling once or twice per adventure should generally be enough to register the animal's presence and establish its character without making it too much of a nuisance. 4/4

When a critter successfully uses a skill, its skill may go up. If it keep failing at a skill, it will probably stop using it and switch to something else. Intelligent animals often change what skills they like using, while stupid animals change less often, but do still change.

#GM tip of the day If you want a flat 1-36 number range, as for a D36, you can use (D6 * 6) + (D6 - 6) If you want a flat 1-64 number range, as for a D64, you can use (D8 * 8) + (D8 - 8) If you want a 1-144 number range, you can use (D12 * 12) + (D12 - 12), and so on for other dice combos #ttrpg

Whoops had to delete post 2: If you want 1-40, you can use (D4 * 10) + (D10 - 10) If you want 1-60, you can use (D6 * 10) + (D10 - 10) If you want 1-80, you can use (D8 * 10) + (D10 - 10) If you want 1-120, you can use (D12 * 10) + (D10 - 10) I knew there was a reason you can't get dice like D70s

If you want to get something like a D7 or a D13, roll the closest bigger die you can get, and then reroll if you get an out-of-range answer. So for a D7 you can use a D8 and reroll on 8s, and for a D13 you would have to use a D20 and reroll on 14-20. However, this may sometimes need many rerolls.

Spongebob Squarepants is the most versatile movie actor of his phylum. His films include: Tinker Tailor Soldier Sponge Supersponge The Sponge of the Father The Princess Sponge Monty Python and the Holey Sponge Wag the Sponge The Third Sponge Spongin' in the Rain Spongebusters MacSponge #dailylie

What sad news

Olaf Falafel@ofalafel.bsky.social

The inventor of bubblewrap shoes has popped his clogs.

This is not a bad idea at all! I started a 'Little Pleasures' game online with friends, where we just post tiny mundane things that pleased us. And I for one found that because I started to keep an eye out for them, I noticed them more.

Kyle Labriola@kylelabriola.bsky.social

31 years old and at the point where I feel like the next step in managing my mental health is gonna be "make a list of things that make me happy, make a list of things that make me unhappy, start making conspiracy theory red-yarn cork boards about it, study under microscope, etc."

Abridged examples, not all from me: Having shiny new sprockets, chain, and crankset on my bicycle Drinking English Afternoon Tea in the morning When an old friend contacts you out of the blue Watching the birds having a good splosh in their bird bath The Dutch word 'broodrooster' (toaster)

*Lights the Writer-Signal and points it at the clouds* The Writer-Signal is, IDK, probably a quill pen or something Can anyone in my circles help out?

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