Basilisk

I'm not actively playing, but I've got a 4e one-shot ready for the next time my group can't do the regular game, and I keep threatening them with 3e.

The last time I took the blue pill I didn't care if it was a bot or not, I wanted to fuck it.

I own it. It's fun to play with but ultimately suffers from the same problem that almost every tool in this style does. The resources you get to use are limited to the ones that they've thought to include. If you want to make a jail, that's fine, you can make it work. A tavern? Easy. An ancient Greek temple? Eh, you can get there with a bit of imagination. A bathroom? Sorry, bud, you're on your own.

I've traditionally used Dungeon Painter Studio for my maps, and while it has similar limitations, it has the benefit of being able to import other art, and you get a whole dimension to hide your crimes in. That vaguely bookshelf- looking rectangular thing on the map? It's an armory cabinet in the barracks. Now in the bathroom it's a medicine cabinet. In the bedroom? A wardrobe. You can't see what's in it, can't see how tall it is or how high it's mounted on the wall, so you get to fill in the details with my description. 3d limits your ability to do that because everything looks like what it is. So if you don't have a model of what you're looking for, it's more obvious when you're making do.

I agree with you. The small bump to things like attack rolls, damage rolls, and save DCs from hitting levels that bump your modifier are noticeable, and playing as a wizard in the campaign I'm in right now I can tell you I'm champing at the bit to get my spell DC that one little bit higher because it's the difference between some of my spells having no effect or outright changing the flow of combat. Getting that boost and also some of the big-hitter feats like Tough or War Caster would be a bit much. It gets even worse if you're getting the benefit of the 2 points ASI as well as one from the half-feats.

On the other hand, though, there's a huge gap in the power level between feats, and I'm not sure I'd necessarily feel the same way if the feat chosen was Shield Master, which is one of the weaker of the full feats. I might also be more inclined to set aside a list of the more flavourful feats like Chef that the players could just get for free without the associated ability boost and let the players just pick one for free as character building.

Is it a "mural" if it's painted on a road? The term literally means "wall"...

Yeah, my in-person campaign didn't survive the transition to online. One that started online is still going strong online, but it feels like transitioning from one to the other is a big ask, especially since what someone gets from an in-person game is not necessarily the same as a remote game.

On the other hand, online is nice in that there's no rushing around to get somewhere, no travel time to deal with. Just be at your desk on time and spend a few hours throwing dice. If I could figure out how to do that but still get to play with my minis I'd be in a good place...

• ”We’ve got subdermal universal translators.” This is the first mention of Starfleet personnel having translators implanted beneath the skin. In “Little Green Men” we saw that Ferengi had translators implanted in the ear canal, but Starfleet translators have always been part of the communicator or combadge, a function of the ship or station, or a wholly separate device.

Subcutaneous transponders have been part of the Trek lore since "Patterns of Force" though, and Archer had one implanted in "Stratagem". Given that there's no reason to believe that the Ekosians spoke English (at best you might expect German) it seems likely that these shared the UT functions that the other communications gear has.

I remember reading someone joke about this line somewhere about how that song is probably about Sybok and J'onn on Nimbus III.

"Move Along Home" is objectively pretty not great, but I have to admit I really like it too. I appreciate what they were trying to do with it and they just never really got there. It's a plot that I've cribbed for running D&D games in the past when player are unable to make a session. The party gets trapped in the game and the missing player/s is/are the one who's on the outside trying to get them free.

I'd watch Shades of Grey a dozen times over on repeat before wanting to watch Code of Honor.

It's hard to watch The Wrath of Khan where the Reliant fires and hits the Enterprise's neck and not think "Gee, if Khan had got a bit more of a shot in, that would've been the end of the movie right there." Beyond even followed through on that. I love the Enterprise's design and love the way that it shows that it's in space by not being constrained by the rules you need to follow in gravity but it's definitely not a tactically sound design.

But then my favourite ship design is the Steamrunner which is equally impractical so sometimes tactics can go out the window for a pretty ship.

The Mayan Riviera is absolutely gorgeous, but it's not exactly a representative sample for what moving to Mexico would be like, and a vacation there is not the same as moving there either. I'll very happily visit the US. I'll do the touristy things, I'll meet with my American friends, I'll go to Vegas for a weekend and melt into a puddle. But if I were picking up and moving I would want to be good and damn sure that my life there would be an improvement and that's not a great bet in a lot of cases in the US, especially when one half of the government is actively, intentionally and openly working to make everyone's life worse and there's a reasonable chance that they'll be back in power with the next election. And even if they aren't they're still able to act through state government and the Supreme Court.

I've been doing some figuring to see if leaving the country is feasible for myself, but the US doesn't make my short list of destinations. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.