Conroy

I’ve got to recommend Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. One of the most legendary games in the series for its sheer amount of content. It might feel a bit dated if you’ve played World or Rise, but still good

I can kinda get you’re what you’re saying, but I don’t really get your point. Some people are bad pet owners. Some people are meat eaters. You said yourself there’s a spectrum, but then you said “blah blah” for some reason. You excused some meat eaters because at least they “do an awkward shuffle” when they do it around you.

I have a cat, and I often feel really bad about keeping it indoors. I rescued the cat and I’m keeping it warm, keeping it from destroying the ecosystem around us, and it has a very safe, and seemingly happy life in my home, but I still wonder if it would have been better off if I never took it in. In that way, I can see what you might be saying. But do I think every pet owner is worse than every meat eater? No, not even close. Would you excuse a dog owner who works 10 hours a day as long as they did an awkward shuffle and apologized to you personally about it? Or is all pet ownership inexcusable to you?

Yes, I get very frustrated with people who take poor care of their animals, but also when they neglect their environment, their friends/family, their personal space, or themselves. I’m not about to start advocating for abolishing pet ownership, specifically. Maybe you are.

Your tone comes off as though you think all pet owners are equally evil (even though there’s a spectrum “blah blah”), but we can excuse other harmful practices out of necessity. Is it because no one “needs” to have a pet? I still think rescuing an animal and trying your best to give it a decent life is better than euthanasia, but maybe you disagree. Maybe your point is all animals should run free, and i can’t say I disagree with that, but I also think it’s ok to try and protect the creatures around us sometimes.

I’m sure you don’t appreciate people who say things like “I eat more meat just to offset your veganism” or other such nonsense, and I don’t appreciate people who keep fish in tiny bowls, or people who breed dogs for profit. But because of the “spectrums” you mentioned, in general I can abide pet ownership more easily than wanton consumption

Edit: reading again, maybe you are struggling with the use of the term “ownership”, so I apologize for wording it that way. I don’t mean to be “speciesist” and insinuate human superiority. I used the term out of habit. I do think people keeping their pets safe and out of trouble can be for the best, just like protecting a child who doesn’t know better. But I would recoil in disgust if someone said they “owned” their child, whereas “owning” a pet is the normal terminology. In that aspect, I can agree with you that people shouldn’t treat pets like possessions, but as fellow occupants of their home or even family members

Remind them every, single, turn.

“Really? Your dagger? Not your cantrip?”

“Oh yeah, I always forget about those”

If they prefer to use it for thematic or aesthetic reasons, they’ll tell you and the mystery will be solved. Maybe there’s a class that does what they want and you can push them towards it. Or maybe they really are just that forgetful and they just need to be reminded every turn. Consider giving them a character sheet that more obviously shows what they can do. Action cards, spell cards, stuff like that might help too. But ultimately, just don’t let them make a dagger attack. Just stop them and present the better option EVERY TIME. You’ll learn one way or another what they want because they’ll go with it or resist it

And I’m not necessarily saying to find a new group (although it seems like you’ll have no choice since you’re moving). I’m just saying, I cant imagine how you could keep playing with this person and no one at the table is making suggestions on how to play their turns. My players strategize about each others’ turns constantly. It’s a bit meta-gamey, but they’re newer and don’t know all the mechanics well so I never stop them. In fact, I try to help them find the course of action that will make them feel the coolest or the most useful without outright telling them what to do

I can see where you are coming from but OP assures us that this player knows about games and specifically makes caster characters. This isn’t one sorcerer with a quirk in their backstory about never using their magic, this is multiple characters in a row. I play with new players all the time. Maybe an occasional person will take others’ suggestions as law, but if they do the same thing too many times in a row or force themselves to use the move you recommended when it still doesn’t make sense, you just keep guiding them.

“Don’t forget you have other cantrips too. Using fire bolt was a suggestion. In this fight, you could try using your shocking grasp to get away. Or you could use your magic missile for some guaranteed damage on that heavily-armored hobgoblin. It uses one of your slots, but now seems as good a time as any. They’re no good to you when you’re dead.”

The DM and even the other players should be chiming in with suggestions on other players’ turns. It can get annoying when you know how to play and others are telling you what to do, but if you had a fighter player who just stood in combat and took a disengage action every turn, wouldn’t you eventually speak up and suggest they try a dodge or an attack instead?

There’s really no right answer here and I don’t think it’s something that we can work through without that player involved in the conversation. It’s not that they don’t know better, it’s not that you haven’t helped them, it’s not that you haven’t made suggestions, and they’ve been doing this for 3 YEARS??? I’m sorry, but this is above my pay grade. I am almost certain there is some detail that I’m missing because this makes zero sense. I have played with veterans of all walks and ages, new players who are 8 years old, new players that are 60 years old, and everywhere in between. It just doesn’t make sense unless there’s more to it.

Sit down with the player again. Ask why they don’t use cantrips. Leave the leveled spells aside for now (saving them forever is a problem, but an understandable one). Continue to remind them every combat, every turn, every time they take out their dagger. I know you said your group doesn’t know the rules well, so maybe it’s time to learn (3 YEARS???). Cantrips and weapons work exactly the same, so I don’t know how “not wanting to engage with the mechanics” has anything to with it. There’s something going on and I can’t be sure what it is without talking to this player themselves

“I run up and stab it with my dagger!”

“Are you sure? As a wizard, your dagger is very ineffective and puts you in harm’s way. You could cast fire bolt from where you are standing. You’d have a better chance to hit, do more damage, remain safe, and play to your character’s strengths more. Do you want to do that instead?”

“I’m trying to save my spells for an emergency”

“Well fire bolt is a cantrip, so it never runs out and you can use it every turn like a fighter would use their weapon. Cantrips are the ‘auto-attacks’ for spell casters”

I can’t understand your situation OP if the exchange I described above isn’t the solution. I play with newbies and first timers all the time and we constantly strategize in combat so they can learn how to play as we go. Would your player really say “no, I don’t care, I stab them” after being presented with that option? If so, I think they are doing this intentionally because they think it’s funny or interesting, not because they don’t know better

Single player is fun if you like to play survival crafting games alone. “Pokémon with guns” is not actually a very good description. It’s a monster capturing game, and the creatures are cartoony like Pokémon, but it’s a third person survival crafting game. No turn based elements or choosing monster move sets or anything like that.

It’s more like Ark with Pokémon instead of dinosaurs

I think I know what you mean, OP, but it seems like most of the comments think you are just complaining about people saying “thanks” at the end of an email, or in general.

So forget email for now. This is an in person thing or instant message. Ending an email, even a short one, with “thanks” is fine and normal. But if you message me “please update that ticket. Thanks.” It has a more aggressive tone than you might have meant. It feels like you aren’t asking and so the “thanks” comes off as fake or even sarcastic. Maybe also a bit dismissive or distracted. Like this isn’t a conversation or even a request. I’m telling you what to do and walking away. It’s a bit terse. You’re not even giving me a chance to reply. If you say “please update that ticket” and I say “sure thing” and then you say “thanks”, the tone is much different. That doesn’t sound bad at all.

Again, email is different. Emails are meant to be send and forget. The thanks at the end can even be read as a “thanks for reading”. I think OP is talking about something different, and I agree it feels bad when someone talks to me that way.

As for your actual question, OP, I can’t say I know why they said it that way, but I’d guess they mean no offense, like most people are saying. It could be a second language thing or they really are too distracted or busy to wait for your reply. They don’t want to get into it, they just want to check off that someone is taking care of that one thing

It’s not all your fault and you don’t deserve to suffer. Just don’t forget that there are two sides to everything. This chance meeting between the two of you just didn’t work out, despite you both having the best intentions. It’s just bad luck. So keep moving forward and maybe the luck will come back to you later

Yeah, it’s true. New years is a special time for a lot of lovers and she has never spent a new year without her partner in all of her adult life. The hugging thing was probably her just trying to get through a hard time, but after a couple days, I think she realized she couldn’t just magically swap OP in for her old partner, which is why she needed space. Then when OP started obsessing, she probably decided it was better to go their separate ways since she wasn’t ready. I’m making a lot of assumptions here, but I just think it was a bad time for her and sadly OP fell head over heels

ETA: I also think things could have gone differently (or even still could, let’s be real, these two met less than a week ago!) if OP was more respectful of her feelings too. Like “hey I miss you, haven’t heard from you in a while and I love what we have going on” is totally fine, but “why are you doing this to me” just shows a lack of empathy. OP asked her if she wanted him to go, and I’m not shocked she pushed him away, but maybe OP could say “I respect that you just got out of a very long relationship, so I’ll back off, but I like you a lot, so when and if you are ever ready to try again, hit me up.” I’m not saying he should just wait around for her to come back or anything, but it all happened so fast. No need to burn the acquaintanceship to the ground by getting obsessed

I know it probably hurts, but you need to put yourself in her shoes too. You said she is 23 and just got out of a NINE YEAR relationship 3-4 months ago. She was with that person since she was 14 years old! Almost half of her whole life. She was testing the waters with dating again and she probably did like you a bit but you were probably being too intense or clingy after just 4 days apart. I know you said you want to love very openly, and that’s not bad, but I just don’t think she was ready for something like that.

It’s sad, but you might need to just let it go. You knew her for a week, man, and I know what it’s like to love that hard, but it’s better for both of you if you move on. Focus on yourself and if love finds its way to you, then that’s great. But don’t obsess over someone you just met, even if it felt like perfect, true love

It’s easy to get hung up on this stuff. I’m guilty of spending way too much time thinking about this kind of thing. There are so many potential nameless towns and villages that you can just make up your own without worrying too much. You can always make up your own kingdom or region without ever specifying or even mentioning what sphere, planet, plane, continent, or whatever you are on. With deities, they almost never matter unless a player is planning to lean heavily into it, and even then, you usually can skim some basic details about one or two gods and make stuff up from there.

If you read deeply into the history of the realms and their lore you will learn that it’s mostly independent nonsense. The pantheons and cosmology that the official setting uses has changed so many times that you can really just do whatever you want. There are literally worlds that are identical in every way except for a few things. They exist in the same place and time but are invisible to each other and just served as an excuse for the writers to say “it’s just like this other setting… but different.” The world your campaign takes place in can just be another one of those. A world based on the official Forgotten Realms, only in this world, the king is dead of the magic is delicious, or there’s no such thing as dragons, or gods don’t exist, or whatever.

Don’t let the existing lore stop you from telling the story you want to tell, because it never stopped any licensed content creator from doing whatever the fuck they wanted

Not sure what you mean, but it sounds like you just don’t care because it doesn’t affect your choice. I wonder how you will feel if one day your party’s candidate finally crosses your line

“There is no choice.” “You do not have a choice.” Classic catchphrases of a healthy, functioning democracy

Hey, kid!

I’ve been watching some GPW3 gameplay, but I also would probably not be able to play it lol. I just beat Jedi: Survivor yesterday. I waited a while to pick it up because of all the performance issues and it really did run like crap, but at least I got it on sale and it was still quite fun.

I’ll probably either go back to Sea of Stars, which I only played for a couple hours so far, or maybe I’ll play The Messenger, which I bought at the same time in a bundle.

Also, with the release of the Rivals 2 Kickstarter, I’ve been playing a bit of Rivals of Aether with friends. It’s one of the greatest platform fighters out there, but I feel like it’s still very underrated

This Venn diagram should just be a circle. Implying that the guys aren’t part of the homies? Seems wrong to me

My favorite Halifax fun fact: In 1917, a munitions ship exploded in Halifax Harbor. To commemorate the event, the City Council created ‘Splodey, the Halifax explosion mascot.

In addition, each public broadcast of Shaggy’s “Mr. Boombastic” is followed by a moment of silence

Gotta love those frog noises 🐸