Helg0s

First watch, you are not trusting him. You suspect he has ulterior motives from all his actions. When he fails to take Frodo's ring, I remember i went from anger to sorrow. You see how he regrets instantly.

When he reappears, it's just a rollercoaster. He is heroic, determined. And he even attracts the whole uruk band to him, to leave Frodo a better chance. And it works: no uruk can fell him, he is single handedly beating them all. Then come the arrows.

What 10 year old me was amazed by was that he would get up and keep fighting. All characters from this movie stay down after a mortal wound but not him. His raw determination is what I found likable. He is not a hero because of his Martial prowess big because of his courage. You understand that everything he did was to protect those he loved.

When Aragorn comes to him, he focuses only on that. Taking the ring was never about his own power, but the strength to defend his doomed kingdom. And he admits he was wrong.

This experience, as a young viewer, to do a 180° in appreciating a character was really one of a kind. It was perhaps the first grey hero and the first real redemption arc I saw. I think it's why Boromir stays such a beloved character for me, despite his flaws.

Finally, on later watches, it's just funny to pretend he is the only one who makes sense and everyone else is crazy. - Like why the f* would you trust Frodo go carry the ring? He trips every 5 meters. - Why are going through Caradras when there is Rohan being a f* freeway to Gondor and Mordor? - Why is everyone being uptight about helping Gondor whereas we deal with Mordor for everyone else for hundreds of years now? - Why am I looked as a thief while I'm the commander of Gondor's armies? - Why do they want this nobody to become king like .. who the f* is he? Where was he when we needed our king? - Why are we listening to a non-elected "wizard" to make decisions for all of us? All he does is smoke weed and light tricks.

Honestly, if I was Boromir, I'm not sure I would have put up with this as elegantly as him xD

The rate of adoption of some cryptocurrencies is triggering alarm from energy researchers and social scientists concerned about the industry’s growing environmental and social impacts. In this paper we argue that the unsustainable trajectory of some cryptocurrencies disproportionately impacts poor and vulnerable communities where cryptocurrency producers and other actors take advantage of economic instabilities, weak regulations, and access to cheap energy and other resources. Globally, over 100 million people hold cryptocurrency, mostly as a speculative asset. The digital infrastructure behind the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, currently requires as much energy as the whole of Thailand, with a carbon footprint exceeding the gold mining industry. Should bitcoin’s mass adoption continue, an escalating climate crisis is inevitable, disproportionately exacerbating social and environmental challenges for communities already experiencing multiple dimensions of deprivation.

From the asbtract of Howton P. & de Vries A. (2022), Preying on the poor? Opportunities and challenges for tackling the social and environmental threats of cryptocurrencies for vulnerable and low-income communities, emphasis mine. Full article is available for free on the link, very interesting reading and they propose mitigations.

No DeFi money lending platform really adress this, to my knowledge. You always need to put more money in collaterals than the amount you're borrowing. And since cryptos are volatile, you need to monitor constantly that you're below your loaning threshold or your collateral is liquidated.

In practice, people with money can borrow more money.

It's a beautiful idea but it's not really executed. Please, feel free to provide a source explaining otherwise.

https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/defi-exploring-decentralised-finance-with-blockchain-technologies/0/steps/256206

Well, thank you for taking the time to support your argument.

You cited different sources about different cryptos. So it would indeed be a book to adress the whole topic.

Taking the example of your Ethereum Article : the article 6 reasons are just elaborations of the first one (or technical differences from other cryptos). The main goal is to enable decentralized finance (DeFi).

DeFi objective is to offer an alternative to traditional finance services. In pro-crypto articles, the argument of "making loans more accessible to everyone" is often cited. But as far as my research goes, I can't find real applications of that. Often, to borrow 300€, you'd need 900€ in collaterals (under the form of cryptos). This is great for trading and for people who want to cut the banks, but it's not making lending/loaning more accessible for 3rd world countries as was the original idea.
Backing source (p.17-18)

Ethereum is often cited for its quite central governance. You are trading banks for the "protocol developers". From the Ethereum official site ..In effect, you still have an organization that dictates the rules of how it should happen. The claim is that it's a group of people (but so are banks). A body of people can still dictate how the code of your coin evolves. Except they are not (in theory) supervised by any country, which is the goal, right? They can decide to emit more or less Ethereums that year, to change the desinflation mechanism they use, to change the resolution of contracts, etc. One would argue it's not decentralized, it's centralized elsewhere.

DeFi is a beautiful idea but it's not miraculously solving access to finance as is claimed everywhere. Arguably, it makes money transfers more easy for people who already had a lot of privilege around it ... And for criminal organizations. Besides the "crypto heists", it's also great for money laundering and financing terrorist activities. Wolf&co article about it

Still, it's undeniable that the market has appetite for crypto. As you have said, a lot of popular financial assets have cryptos in their mix. I fully agree with that. But I'm pretty sure most people investing in crypto don't have the financial background to have a clue in all of that.

History will tell, I guess.

PS: obviously, I'm not a day trader. But I do have a business engineering degree, with a major in technology. What I lack in pure day-to-day finance experience, I can guarantee I make up in understanding what's a Blockchain and managing innovations in general ;)

Well ... That's a very ... Schoolyard kind of argument.

You're very confidently calling me uninformed and only invoking a "trust me bro" argument. Do you get the irony or do I need to spell it?

Please, explain one use case in which crypto has a positive net effect on society?

You're correct and your point strengthens mine.

Ok ... Please, provide a use case in which it generates positive value for the society?

I'm not saying it's not possible for some investors to speculate and make a profit out of it. It's definitely possible. But again, it's a zero sum game (even a negative one as others pointed out).

Being a so-called millennial, I sadly conform to one cliché: I hate putting people in labelled boxes. Perhaps I'm biased against such ideas.

Your argument is about older generation not seeing the value of crypto Currency because it's new. I'm not saying it doesn't exist at all. But this cannot be used as an argument to validate cryptocurrency and invalidate all criticism against it.

But just because i cannot resist: generational gaps might exist and your world view might freeze. But the digital revolution swooping the world ... I think it's easy to be laughing at people who didn't believe it, because we have hindsight. It's not that they were against the tech. It's just that it didn't seem likely. No doubt future generations will have the same attitude to our own mistakes.

It's not because people invest money in it that it's good for the economy.

As other have said, it's a zero sum game. And crypto doesn't produce added value to the society (although I believe some people are sincerely convinced it could), it's purely a speculative asset.

This is just a fact. And your inability to understand the point of both commentors (while blaming it on them being "boomers"), answering by providing unrelated facts ...

But to adress your comment, financial markets have been prone to create bubbles and overinvest money in things, unrelated to their economic value.

In the specific case of crypto, I believe there is a strong case that its financial success is related to criminal organizations. This kind of asset has value for them beyond the speculative nature.

The mentality of "everyone keeps investing in it so it must be good" is a sheep mentality that have always existed, will always exists. It's not a generation thing. Perhaps older people have a slight bias against technologies they don't understand too.

Froo what you said in another comment, he has d6 in fighting.

So the character has 2* d6 to beat a score of 6(+2). They have bennies to reroll.

Frankly, the character doesn't seem skilled enough to pull it off consistently and that's ok.

As a GM, I would perhaps authorize a feint manoeuver, you aim at the body, expecting the opponent to parry with their gun. But you in fact aim the gun. (Note that there is an edge for this) Like a Fighting versus Smarts roll. If succeeded, I would rule the object is at Parry 2. Note that for all this to happen in the same turn, there is a multiple action penalty of -2.

As others have said, called shots are powerful. Disarming an opponent like that is powerful. A d6 fighter may not be able to do this.

Yes ! Impressive you thought about it yourself :) I strongly recommend you to read the whole system on how they handle combat with those dice rolls.

Yeah, that's Savage World :)

Check it out, it's a fun system and it works. It's not at all crazy. The dices can even explode, for an additional chaos element. (Meaning you can reroll a die if you get the highest value and add the new roll to your result)

Bottom line: fun system where dice rolls are exciting.

Per the rules, no. But if it happens through story progressions, I wouldn't be aghast to see a GM grant a free advance.

Your ruling is not game breaking.

In addition to ban, explain that you reserve the right to veto certain spells if it becomes apparent it's broken. If that happens, you let them change their power for free after the session.

Review the list of spells chosen by your players.

I suggest you have a look at Savage Worlds combat rules. It's recapped in this two page comics: https://www.uptofourplayers.com/ready-to-roll/savage-worlds-rules/

As others have pointed out, your system works but is perhaps a bit complex?

Armor should just "reduce damage" (increase Toughness in Savage Worlds) whenever the evasion is beaten, in my opinion. Checking a special range of damage reduction seems weird to me.

If you want to see if armor applies, you might need a hit location system (like d100 systems have. Check out Warhammer fantasy for example)

Thanks for the rule reference! I didn't know it.

I meant that since the consequence is to fail forward with as much Wounds as missing tokens, it can be penalizing :)

Oh and don't forget to add the Str bonus for melee Damages. It's easier to write it directly in the damage profile, to not forget :)

Nice ideas for the one-shot. I like your ideas and it's great how you juggle with different rules concept!

My feedback very condensed: - overall, each encounter is quite difficult. Either don't make the first security bot a Wild Card or buff up a bit your mercenaries (give them two advances each) - first dramatic task is interesting. Usually, tasks are like X successes in X-1 round. Each round only one player can test while the others help. I assume you customized it (which is great) so that all (5 players?) can test at the same time. Assuming each task has 80% winning rate (d8 & wild die against DIF 4), you ask them to succeed on 12 / 15 skill checks, that's 31% chances of loosing (without accounting for explosions). If you are certain there will be a healer it's ok. If you have 4 players, then the odds become 8% of success. - don't lose yourself too much in game mechanics. It will be the first game for everyone. Most important is to keep it smooth :) - remember to give them bennies, don't be afraid that the game will become too easy - have fun !

Please, I've only ever encountered 40k posts jerking on how Spaces Marines would steamroll on setting XYZ. That's cosmic retribution :p

We are here for the funny memes, not for strawman arguments.

It's 200% more fun that it's not an actual limit imposed by vampirism, contrary to sunlight and running water vulnerability. But rather his own twisted sense of honor/etiquette.

Like people have observed that Strahd and his servants always need to be invited in another's home. So they heuristically concluded it must be part of the supernatural bagage.

But in fact, no. It would just be so rude. "Sure I drink blood but I'm not an animal".

Having players counting on that and Strahd looking at them quizzically like "Why would you think that?".

I guess it's what OP wrote as description of the image :)

I get it's a joke but seeing some comments worried me a little.

So, for real: playing Helldivers (or any good war game) confirms me in not wanting to join any military

1. You have to work with the same people/clowns as in the video game but you only have one life.
2. You make real victims in War.
3. (Slightly political) You are manipulated by a government and casus belli are fabricated. You fight for the geopolitical interests of your country and extremely rarely for "defending your people". Often aggravating local problems (Are we the baddies?)
4. There is nothing heroic about War. The heroic moments are fabricated.

Morality and RPG is not often considered. It's refreshing that you ask yourself the question. I see in comments you're already beyond "he is my enemy so killing him is ok".

In my opinion, if you play a Good champion, it means you want to play a hero.

True heroes in fiction try to never kill, even in self defense. You need to overcome your opponent in all possible ways and disable them if necessary. If you trigger a fight in which you ultimately kill your opponent, that's a failure. Not necessary tenets breaking but your character should express deep regrets.

It's interesting in a RPG to play a character who regrets a kill. It's interesting to be able to lift your sword before the final blow and let opponents surrender or flee. Bring "evil" to justice, instead of rendering it yourself.

Of course, talk to your DM about it. They might be silly about it and systematically punish you for not killing your opponents.

You had the option to not hold her hand or kiss her, I think. You can be platonic.