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  1. Ruin Explorer

    Stop Looking At Your Character Sheet

    Yeah, I definitely don't like it, personally. I've seen DMs do that - like, one of my players who sometimes DMs has done that more than once in a campaign, as attempt to shut down discussion of something. I.e. say OOC that they can trust the NPC organisation or that this object is not, in fact...
  2. Ruin Explorer

    Stop Looking At Your Character Sheet

    But that's not what happened, is it? At least not as explained. They just deprioritized it, and found a solution before they had to resort to trying something outright dangerous and risky - eating the food. So you cannot possibly fairly accuse the players in the example of "not being...
  3. Ruin Explorer

    TPT is hosting a 75-player game of Mothership @ Gen Con 25

    Like the movie Battle Royale, or for less niche audiences, The Hunger Games, or for people under 25, Fortnite. I.e. a bunch of people start in an area with no much, but there are weapons/supplies either in that area or dropped, and the number of people is rapidly whittled down by them dying...
  4. Ruin Explorer

    Doctor Which

    I love Michelle Gomez as an actor in other things but I felt like Missy as a character was just way too consistently arch for even Doctor Who - which is saying something I admit! Maybe things improved when she was a companion but they'd lost me by then. Also, Capaldi for me was a mixed bag - he...
  5. Ruin Explorer

    Video Games You Wish Existed

    Sadly it is indeed not, it's well boring. The reason for the lack of sci-fi Diablo-likes though is mostly that looter-shooters exist and occupy fundamentally the same niche whilst being perceived as selling better and reaching a larger audience (seemingly accurately), i.e. kill things to level...
  6. Ruin Explorer

    Old shows that you enjoy?

    I think the only new-to-me pre-1990s thing I've enjoyed in the last decade was the original Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) and Mobile Suit Gundam Zeta (1981). I couldn't get through Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ despite the animation being hugely better - the characters are just too grating (and given I was...
  7. Ruin Explorer

    What videogames are you playing in 2025?

    Thinking about rules-modding next time I play BG3, was considering that one - what are the changes that you feel improve BG3 a lot here? On a more general note, it feels like there's a weird lack of like, urban fantasy in games, especially big-budget ones. Perhaps because it's a bit harder to...
  8. Ruin Explorer

    Doctor Which

    Right? It's interesting re: Capaldi for me, because I was super-hyped for him, and I thought his whole deal would translate perfectly to the Doctor, but I actually enjoyed his Doctor least of all of these (though I've seen very little Doctor 1 or 2). But I wonder if that was the writing and...
  9. Ruin Explorer

    Sinners (2025)

    Yeah I mean, not only did this, for me, establish that Coogler was just flat out a really good writer/director, regardless of genre, but it definitely made me want to see more from this whole setting, and honestly I think even as a producer and just managing the setting he and others could...
  10. Ruin Explorer

    Sinners (2025)

    I can't remember the exact dialogue but some combination of the narrator and Remmick himself seem to explicitly outline that he (and seemingly all vampires) are Fey beings (in at least a D&D sense, albeit they might be more Shadowfell than Feywild!), and that's why they're drawn to the music...
  11. Ruin Explorer

    Phase 5 of the MCU is over

    I would broadly agree with this, but I would say that in a competitive media environment like this, where frankly "good" shows are coming out pretty much every month (or at least new seasons of existing good shows are), then "mid not bad" isn't remotely good enough. Personally: Quantumania...
  12. Ruin Explorer

    Sinners (2025)

    Thank you, this is actually really helpful! I think what it's actually echoing is probably the writer/director's attitudes towards mostly-19th and 20th-century Christian conversion in Africa and the developing world, which whilst mostly technically "non-violent" and "not by force" has been...
  13. Ruin Explorer

    Judge decides case based on AI-hallucinated case law

    Given we know for sure some proportion of the population is going to do that, yeah I think it absolutely is. No Western nation has the level of strong mental health and learning difficulty and just plain idiot support such that we can avoid such people, who are like, 10% of the population or...
  14. Ruin Explorer

    Sinners (2025)

    Sure, but my point is that they could have drawn that line to the famines, to the Easter Uprising, or further back to Cromwell etc., and instead they drew a much more vampire-ish line to establish Remmick as truly ancient. I presume he was there and given his behaviour pattern had a good time in...
  15. Ruin Explorer

    Judge decides case based on AI-hallucinated case law

    Isn't it? You said: It kind of seems precisely what you're saying - i.e. that if you call someone who is, frankly, immune to rationality, immune to rationality, then people who are in-between him and a more sane viewpoint will automatically move towards being irrational because they somehow...
  16. Ruin Explorer

    Judge decides case based on AI-hallucinated case law

    No. That's not how sane people react. No-one who has a solid grasp on reality hears someone call their friend, who they know is a nutcase, however nice they might, a nutcase, and then goes "OMG U CRITICISED MY FRIEND I MUST BECOME A NUTCASE 2". They might well go "Well Ruin Explorer is a total...
  17. Ruin Explorer

    We Should Be More Critical of Our Criticisms

    Sometimes, yes. But usually only for a limited period. As an example I would present World of Warcraft. That was, for a time, from like, mid-2005 to 2009 and then I dunno for sometime in the 2010s, doing the "best work" in the MMORPG space. Not all of the best work (particularly not in the PvP...
  18. Ruin Explorer

    We Should Be More Critical of Our Criticisms

    Yeah I'm definitely more sympathetic to Giles generally but also I'd criticise some of his outbursts more. What I think is striking though is you can see much more easily as someone "his age" how he's often restraining himself and intentionally being nice to Buffy about stuff he could be a huge...
  19. Ruin Explorer

    We Should Be More Critical of Our Criticisms

    Okay, that's not what you seemed to say with your words, but makes sense. Fair enough though. I'm not sure I entirely agree re: only listening to "peers" though - critics sometimes really have interesting or informed opinions, and sometimes really dumb or weirdly unqualified-seeming ones, but...
  20. Ruin Explorer

    We Should Be More Critical of Our Criticisms

    I have to say, I pray that US Taco Bell is better than UK Taco Bell (which appeared here relatively recently), because my god, I've never come across even fast food that so consistently tasted like and had the texture of plastic and/or cardboard! I wish I was kidding! I've had proper Mexican a...
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