For dragon enthusiasts
There’s a scene in the DnD movie Honor Among Thieves where a danger is evaded in a snarky way. Chris Pine says, “Well, that’s hurtful.”
I defy you to watch that scene and not think it’s a PC talking to a GM who is grinning like an idiot. You know that GM is laughing. You know he, and it’s definitely a he, thinks he is so freaking funny. He’s not even on camera, and you know exactly who he is.
And yeah, GM/DM, whatever. I’m GURPS OG.
Mara and BH are free on Kindle for a few days.
While the hobbits of the Shire showed remarkable resilience to the Ring’s temptation, Smeagol and Deagol fell faster than…
Saruman’s quick death at the beginning of RotK is legit a good change. Like, I understand the messaging for Tolkien’s sons, but for the movie it was a good change.
Legolas being incapable of getting drunk is not a good change.
The reason I like this story is LotR is the battle against despair. It’s not melodramatic or nonsensical, and yet it’s a psychological duel between cultures. I have not the depth.
Okay, like seriously, if a dude says, ‘I do not fear death’ and walks into a spooky cave, I ain’t following. That dude ain’t going anywhere I need to be*.
*After you argue, my counterargument is going to be, ‘Yes, but what if he’s an idiot?’
Long story short, I was in my BJJ class and took a rough shot to the leg. It wasn’t that serious, and we didn’t stop the match. However when I came home, I had a bulge like Mount Vesuvius rising from my shin, and it’s currently turning interesting colors.
I love the way the official medical diagnosis for such things is, ‘Ouch.’
Does it hurt when I poke it? Yes. ‘So don’t poke it.’
It looks ugly! ‘So don’t look at it. Pants are your friend.’
I can’t fault them. It really doesn’t hurt. My leg carries my weight without pain. I finished the BJJ class.
But this thing, wooo, gnarly. It looks bad.
‘So don’t look at it.’
The problem with hiking as a primary hobby is it’s hard to share with people who weren’t on the hike.
“I SAW REALLY COOL ROCKS!”
BJJ does not solve the problem.
“I choked a mfer! He made noises like when you turn on a garbage disposal and forget there’s a spoon in there!”
Stef Schrader has a piece for Road and Track.
I like Stef. The cute, puffalump bit doesn’t really work for me, but Stef is a straight-up car nerd. I like her authenticity. She’s also fairly optimistic and up-beat, and her articles rarely delve into indiscriminate complaining. Thirdly, when she has to cover some details about a car, she does the parts that should be professional professionally. If a car doesn’t have the straight-line speed of another, but handles better while breaking, that bit of story doesn’t need too much editorializing. When GM reports sales, I don’t really want to hear how Cadilac’s year-over-year sales changes are interpreted in the author’s views of social justice. I want a little context but inside the box. They’re cars. They’re cool and I like them, but let’s keep perspective.
This one’s a human interest story, but she can string a few sentences together to make a cord of memories. It’s worth reading.
I was rolling the instructor in my BJJ class on Monday, and in the middle of our match, he starts giving advice to the people in the match next to us.
That’s kinda demoralizing.
Trying to spend more time looking up and around. Headed to Boreas Pass today just to be there.
I particularly love the tree-tunnel effect when the mountains are tall enough to be seen.
The basic order of operations in a BJJ match is take them down, get past the legs, achieve a dominant position, execute a submission.
In early white-belt, you’re learning how to roll in control, how to control your breathing, that you can control your breathing, and how not to kill the smaller people. The smaller people tend to think this is easy, just don’t murder me, but it’s actually very difficult. If I push left on someone and bend their spine, the movements are all off. On a big person, it’s a little twist: not comfortable but not significant. On a smaller person, the bent spine can mean an injury. The smaller people need to learn than yes, they need to tap to avoid the accidental-broken-spine submission, which they don’t necessarily think about either.
All that comes together to the main lesson of white belt which is: what’s going on and what do I do about it? The process of asking those questions is the skill. You look down at a tangle of arms and legs while you can’t breathe and need to process that into half-guard with chest pressure.
Going along with that, white belt is where you start learning moves. You get a few down and combined them with recognition to get to execution. So looking down at that tangle of arms and legs, you start doing the appropriate escape and move on.
What you don’t do yet, and I see this but I can’t do it, is the sequences. I can’t do an escape while thinking about how I want it to land. I’m still too busy figuring out what’s going on right now. The gateless gate before me is this position leads to that position, and that’s what I need to do. But I don’t know the positions, the moves, the analysis well enough. I require practice.
DnD: Honor Among Thieves was a better and more faithful adaption than either LotR: Rings of Power or Wheel of Time.