I dunno, it seems like a non problem.

Part of running a table is establishing the dynamic with regard to motivation and scenarios.

Thus, a prefab module doesn’t need hooks, but there’s nothing wrong with them being used as a starting point. You don’t have to slavishly follow modules to begin with. It’s just another part of the kit being provided. Use it or not, as fits your table.

It’s neither beneficial nor an inherent detriment.

It doesn’t provide enough padding to matter for anything, and the dangers of it bring grabbed are vastly exaggerated (been doing martial arts and grappling in one form or another since jr high, if you count a little wresting then, so over thirty years with breaks here and there, and bearded the entire adult time).

At best, blows will slide more and cut less, but not enough to really matter. At worst, having it grabbed hurts, which can be a bad distraction, but it isn’t so sturdy as to not be easy to escape. It either pulls loose if their grip is bad, pulls out if their grip is good enough, or makes sure their hands are easy to reach, and allows you an easy access inside their reach.

Every little pro has a con, and vice versa, with none of it being a deciding factor.

A ponytail is worse, and a braid worse than that.

Besides, anyone with a beard that isn’t just full mountain man is going to be oiling or otherwise treating their beard. This makes bare handed grips next to useless on them. And if you’re in a full contact sparring session, you’ll have other options to keep it from being a horrible thing.

Seriously. I have never once been tapped out because of my beard. I’ve never had any idiot during my years as a bouncer be successful in using it against me. Now, I have had to trim or shave it back because of having wads of it snatched out, but that’s still a very minor issue compared to the other things that can happen in a fight.

If anything, the fact that people tend to have this weird reaction to a big, bearded guy compared to just a big guy, you get in less fights in my experience outside of training or a job. Going places with a full beard, even drunks wouldn’t fuck with me the way they would other big guys. There’s a bit of some kind of reaction where people think a beard = tough sometimes. No clue why, just that it’s often enough to have noticed.

Pretty far in the past now, the kid has gotten a lot more resistant to fear over the years.

But, back when they were about 7, ghosts were the big fear at night.

Solution: ghost incense. One of those things I pulled out of my ass in the moment that worked like magic.

The kid didn’t want to go to bed. Was asked why. The answer was that they didn’t want ghosts to come get them.

In a rare flash of genius, I said “Well, I can fix that. Ghosts can’t go anywhere when you burn a stick of a special incense. I keep a box of it around for emergencies.”

We lit some nice smelling stuff, and said the magic words, and that was that.

Now, the next day, we had a nice conversation about how ghosts aren’t real, and even if they were, they’re ghosts, they can’t hurt anything. The kid asked if we could burn the “ghost sticks” anyway, just in case we were wrong lol. So it became the bedtime thing. When the kid would get tired, they’d show up with a stick of incense and ask me to light it.

By the end of that summer, the kid had said they weren’t scared of ghosts any more, but can we use the incense anyway, it smells nice.

Sometimes, trying to convince someone that their fear isn’t based in reality is not only impossible, but counterproductive. For a kid, it’s all about helping them manage the fear, give them control of it.

Well, the ABC’s legal department wants to disagree with you ;)

Hey man, you remember that time we went to vegas and had that shootout with some mob goons, banged fifteen hookers, and rescued dogs from a fighting ring?

Great weekend! We gotta do it again sometime

Plenty. Music and books in particular. I’m usually behind on making legit buys, but I treat piracy partially like a library where I can try before I buy.

That isn’t saying I buy everything I pirate, I don’t. But if I like it enough to keep the files, I’ll wait until I find a good sale and eventually get a legit copy in some format.

I also do it in reverse, where I’ll buy something, but pirate a digital copy when it’s more convenient. That’s typically for paper books and music on vinyl. Sometimes I’ll even pirate a copy of a CD if I’m not up to dealing with the ripping (disability means I don’t always have stamina for everything, so stuff like ripping a cd is low priority).

I very much enjoyed enterprise at the time, despite the horrible theme song and the flaws in writing that spotted most episodes.

Now, part of that is being a huge Bakula fan. I love the way he throws himself into roles. I think though, had there been another age actor in the role I still would have enjoyed the show.

It wasn’t great Trek. Probably the weakest of the older series, depending on tastes and criteria. Certainly wasn’t up to TNG, TOS, or DS 9. I’d put it on par with Voyager, though it was both bad and good in different ways, with the lack of attention being paid to established Vulcan history in Enterprise tipping the scales to it being lesser than Voyager.

But I really liked that they tried to go back to the whole “wagon train in space” vibe. And the cast was great. Can’t hold the iffy writing against the cast, and there were some great moments where the actors kept things from being worse just by virtue of how they carried their characters.

I don’t rewatch any of the series as a binge though, so my opinion might change when the flaws are showing up in rapid succession compared to the original pace of watching week by week and over time. I know binge watching made me almost hate shows I used to like a good bit (like Bones as an example).

I can’t compare anything to the newer shows since I’ve kinda stopped watching much in the way of “tv” the last few years, so I haven’t caught any of the stuff that has been done in the last decade. Could be that one of the new shows would be worse, in comparison to the earlier shows, I dunno. Doesn’t help that I despise the reboot movies, and the fact e that they happened kinda soured me on new Trek overall. The folks running things don’t seem to be interested in the kind of shows that made me enjoy Trek in the first place, but that’s second hand impression from seeing what people say online

I think where I would disagree is in wording.

I think a human fighter allows nearly unlimited creativity, but doing so requires a player with imagination, and DM that’s open to them doing it. Truth is, a lot of players don’t want creative characters that make them really open up. They want at least some degree of comfort in their character. Tropes exist for a reason, in other words.

But, yeah, in any system I’ve ever seen, a standard human fighter tends to be the best blank slate for going all out with.

I can neither confirm nor deny that she is in my rectum.

Don’t see a lot of guitarists poking playing southpaw in metal. She’s pretty damn good

And the award for best metal band name goes to…

Man, I can’t even describe how much I love this fucking song, and the album as a whole. The next album was incredible too.

Vastly underappreciated band

Poweramp

The way it handles its own audio engine is pretty much the best available.

That’s some good shit right there!

Not that anyone wants them, but I’ve had the same policy about my books. They got “leaked” by a friend that put them in his soulseek folder. Doesn’t bother me at all

The bass makes this track for me. Really digging the hell out of it

Jfc, people are stupid

That was my first thought too

Eh, it isn’t all the time for most people, and it isn’t hard to shut down for most people either.

The key is that it isn’t a separate entity, it’s just your own mind using words to ideate. Like, you can see the sky and just enjoy the blue, or you can think about the blue in words, if you have that inner voice. People without that voice still have a way of processing and thinking, it just isn’t in words, it’s more abstract.

The few people I’ve met that don’t think in words do seem to have difficulty in expressing the experience to others though.

Being real, after the debacle that is Google happened, I refuse to put all my eggs in one basket again. Proton is great at mail, so that’s what I use them for. The only other thing I’ve considered using is their calendar because there’s really no great option for me other than Google, because of the need to have an account that everyone can use on any device. Since that includes my dad, it limits things a hell of a lot. Proton’s calendar is still something he struggles with for some reason.

Bitwarden works well for me, so I ain’t moving.

Proton VPN is good, but mullvad is better imo, or air if I ever need port forwarding again.

And, there is the money factor. I’m fixed income, so proton is bloody expensive for me. I can’t justify the extra any given service would cost, even if I wanted a single provider for everything.

Don’t get me wrong, their fee scale is solid. Enough that it shouldn’t run dry for them and need more monetization, but not so much that it isn’t affordable for most. It’s just outside of my personal budget.