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Outgunned's task resolution system involves rolling six-sided dice and looking for sets.
Some explanation behind a cut.
( Read more... )
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Experience the trip of a lifetime — without having to deal with planes, passports, or other tourists...
RPG Tourism: Five Games To Help You Travel Vicariously
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Bold conspirators conceal a serious crime by committing a far more serious one.
Testimony of Mute Things (Penric & Desdemona, volume 15) by Lois McMaster Bujold
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In news of the day that was not technological balls, spatch let me know that despite the best efforts of the American federal government, the tradition of the Christmas tree gifted by the province of Nova Scotia to the city of Boston in recognition of its aid after the Halifax Explosion continues. We had worried. Apparently so had Mayor Wu, who made a point of traveling for the first time in the tradition's history to the tree-cutting ceremony and taking part in it herself. Fingers crossed for the tree-lighting, whose centenary we wandered into in 2017 and wandered out again wondering why no one was singing Stan Rogers. Today was also the fifty-fifth anniversary of the exploding whale.Current Music: Stan Rogers, "Watching the Apples Grow"
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Does anyone know how to remove the floating Copilot button from a version of Microsoft Word on which I disabled all so-called connected experiences the day I bought the new license more than two years ago and which has nonetheless just sneakily updated itself so that I have an AI-inducing rainbow-colored heartworm constantly keeping pace in the down right corner of the document, blocking out text which I am trying to write? I have looked for suggestions online and most of them seem to require preference options not available in my Mac. But what I need in a Word document is words and nothing else and I cannot deal with a planet-killing visual fault in the middle of them, on top of which the fact that this obscenity can be intruded into my software makes me want to headline the news for the disappearance of the Roko's basilisk boys who put it there. If a program is on my computer, the only person who should be able to tinker with it is me. I am not even eloquent, I am so furious. Any actionable suggestions would be appreciated.
[ETA 2025-11-12 22:23] JESUS CHRIST AFTER AN EVENING ON THE PHONE WITH APPLE SUPPORT WHICH WAS FLABBERGASTED BY THE PROBLEM AND NO SUPPORT WHATSOEVER FROM MICROSOFT I FIXED THE PROBLEM MYSELF WITH A CLEAN INSTALL OF PRE-COPILOT MICROSOFT WORD BECAUSE I NEVER THREW AWAY THE ORIGINAL INSTALL PACKAGE FROM 2023 IT WAS STILL IN MY TRASH I SHOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO REINSTALL FROM MY LITERAL TRASH WELCOME TO 2025Current Music: Dropkick Murphys, "Straight Edge (I Liked You Better)"
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39 Mythos-history-fringe-weird treatises from Pelgrane Press.
Bundle of Holding: Ken Writes About Stuff
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The 1997 Second Edition of Over the Edge, the acclaimed Atlas Games tabletop roleplaying game of surreal danger on the conspiracy-ridden, reality-bending Mediterranean island of Al Amarja, and more.
Bundle of Holding: Over the Edge 2E (From 2014)
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Ryudo Konosuke wakes in a fog, covered in wounds whose cause he does not recall and a haunting feeling he forgot something else very important.
Steel of the Celestial Shadows, volume 2 by Daruma Matsuura (Translated by Caleb D. Cook)
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Tragedy: I saw this afternoon a late eighteenth-century frock coat in olive-green broadcloth that I could not heist because it had been tailored for a smaller man than myself. It was in the Concord Museum, where fleurdelis41 and I had gone specifically for Transformed by Revolution but the TARDIS-like galleries winding inside the externally compact brick and slate-roofed buildings were too compelling to breeze through, especially when filled with items like the Musketaquid-turtle formed of ten thousand stone years or the small brass-foxed mirror that belonged to a man who died free or a collection of objects once in the possession of Thoreau that I had no idea anyone had preserved, like a wooden box for geological specimens or a DIY Aeolian harp. A copper kettle that belonged to Louisa May Alcott. Flints dug up from the lines of battle at the not yet Old North Bridge. Embroidered scenes of the Book of Esther. A musket that was high-tech enough for the militia but not for the Continental Army. A lace-trimmed gown of India cotton in the Empire style. The gallery devoted to the Battles of Lexington and Concord was audiovisual without eliding the tactile artifacts of powder horns and flintlocks and a lantern of the Old North Church. The modern quilt was as resonant as the stone tool island. I liked the display inviting the visitor to guess from their textures the difference between imported and homemade textiles, of which the silk and the superfine were not the latter. I liked, too, Elizabeth Wentworth Roberts' Unloading Boats (1912). By our own estimate, it was our first time hanging out in person in four years. I left the gift shop with Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny by Papa (1851/2003) and a guide to trees by their leaves.Current Music: The Last Dinner Party, "Woman Is a Tree"
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For anyone who's Dark Souls-curious and has a spare 30 mins, this is the best illustration I've seen of the process of figuring out a boss fight, and how you can go from dying in the first couple of seconds of a fight to methodical execution of it (and why it's so incredibly satisfying when you do):
For context, this is the Stray Demon, an optional side boss who's a very beefed-up version (now with added magic, as well as vastly increased damage and HP!) of the Asylum Demon from the tutorial.
I have a theory that the Asylum Demon is so pear-shaped partly in order to encourage the novice player to think of getting behind him and stabbing him in the arse, thus learning a key component of DS1 strategy (positioning yourself where it's hardest for them to hit you, which frequently means getting behind them or in their crotch).
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Some have lost a hand, some a leg—everyone is asking for water. And still men continue to speak about the glory of war and try to prove its advantages. In the name of patriotism and nationalism, they go on to cut each other's throats. There is nothing as narrow-minded as nationalism in this world . . . If the word 'patriotism' (or 'nationalism') did not exist in the European dictionary, there would have been far less bloodshed.
In our country, too, in the name of patriotism, many leaders are teaching small schoolchildren how to kill. Murder, the greatest sin, becomes morally acceptable when committed in the name of patriotism. If a person, by guile or force, takes away another's property, it is burglary or dacoity—again a sin. But when a nation snatches away another's land—then it is celebrated as empire. Well, there's little point in discussing all this now—just hope that the war ends soon.
—Kalyan Mukherji, 4 October 1915 (trans. Santanu Das)Current Music: Dropkick Murphys, "The Vultures Circle High (feat. Al Barr)"
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Thoughts on hateable, problematic, and morally bankrupt characters.
Five Ways to Build a Story Around an Unlikeable Protagonist
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Humanity caught in the crossfire of a cosmic war.
The World at the End of Time by Frederik Pohl
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Generally I appreciate axial tilt, but not always the resemblance between walking out for groceries at four-thirty in the afternoon of a hard-raining November and an all-night convenience store run. The brightest thing that wasn't the headlights was the scarlet maple in the war memorial.
It is incredible to me that I have been laid off for a month and gotten so little done with my theoretically free time. Mostly I seem to spend it the same kind of exhausted and seeing more doctors than anyone else. I keep reminding myself that I was supposed to be on medical leave, not vacation. It does not improve the sensation of a decaying orbit.
Immediately on concluding Lust for a Vampire (1971), spatch and I dubbed it Tits for Dracula for its plenitude of full-frontal yet curiously unsexy cleavage, as if it were enough just to have the buxom playmates of its Styrian girls' school breasting boobily all over with their tops occasionally falling down even as any of its exploitation potential as a Carmilla retelling is neutralized by the heterosexuality of its titular affair. Major props to Ralph Bates for turning himself into a horrible little gremlin of an occult-obsessed tutor who in one of the film's only original points tries to offer himself to its resurrected Mircalla Karnstein as her Renfield and is pathetically rejected, drained just enough to kill but not even to enthrall him. Major demerits for the post-dubbing of a modern pop ballad over the aforementioned central het scene from which neither of us ever recovered even a push-up of disbelief. Rob swears it was not in revenge that he introduced me to the googly-eyed marionette monster of The Giant Claw (1957).
This obituary of James Watson was like witnessing a murder from beyond the grave and he had it coming.Current Music: Daisy the Great, "Dog"
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This Outgunned Bundle presents Two Little Mice's Outgunned, the tabletop roleplaying game of cinematic action by Riccardo "Rico" Sirignano and Simone Formicola, with art by Daniela Giubellini.
Bundle of Holding: Outgunned
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2021: Conservationists are aghast that influenza B/Yamagata lineage may face extinction, the selection of Alan Turing’s image for new £50 notes raises the question of whether other state torture victims will be so honoured, and the Johnson government proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that herd immunity does exist… but only to shame, and only amongst Tories.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12 Which 2021 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
View AnswersThe Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay 0 (0.0%) Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes 9 (75.0%) Edge of Heaven by Rachael Kelly 0 (0.0%) The Infinite by Patience Agbabi 0 (0.0%) The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez 5 (41.7%) Vagabonds (translation of by Hao Jingfang 3 (25.0%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2021 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read? The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes Edge of Heaven by Rachael Kelly The Infinite by Patience Agbabi The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez Vagabonds (translation of by Hao Jingfang
(I thought I posted this last Monday...)
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Instead of "a group of moderate Democrats [who] agreed to proceed without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies . . . as Democrats have demanded for almost six weeks," I wish the papers would just print "strikebreakers."Current Music: Pete Seeger, "Which Side Are You On?"
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I was mistaken for an academic this afternoon at the bookstore which made me want to go home and shoot myself in the head, but when I actually got home a package of white chocolate and lemon Milanos was waiting for me from selkie and I managed to get a picture before the rain started of the previously mentioned neighborhood decoration.

Every single review I have encountered so far of Death by Lightning (2025) has proceeded from the assumption that the reader and by extension the viewer has never heard of Charles Guiteau and only vaguely, perhaps dutifully of President James Garfield and I just don't think Sondheim fans are that thin on the ground. At least it should popularize this particularly indelible fact.Current Music: The Last Dinner Party, "The Scythe"
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