u/RandolphCarter15

I'm running swash/Duelist, currently 6/7 and just got to the duel with Lorne. It was pretty fun. I turned on parry and he only managed to hit me a few times. Meanwhile my riposte and flourishes wore him down. It felt like the Oberyn/Mountain fight in GoT but with a different ending.

This has been a pretty fun class so far. I usually like having some magic but there are enough tactics to give some variety. ​

I'm intrigued by this just but am not sure how to run it. What do you do?

My family is heading up for our annual visit and saw this place is closed. That's too bad. Does anyone recommend an alternative?

I'm thinking of getting a quote tattoo. Someone said not every artist is good at script tattoos. Do you have any recommendations in the area?

I posted this recently, about people who won't tell me what we're playing before we first meet and how i find it annoying. comments were mixed, with some saying it's a sign they're disorganized and others saying it's a good way to see how flexible someone was.

well everyone was right. I met up with two people recently to see about accompanying them.

one was kind of a mess--half-written songs, unsteady rhythm and singing. so they were just disorganized.

the other was much different. awesome performer and knew his songs well. would talk through the chord changes with me. but was also clearly testing me, throwing in songs that were more complicated than they seemed or switching between songs without warning.

one of my concerns about "winging it" is i can't really demonstrate what I'm capable of. and that was the case with the first guy, as I was struggling just to figure out what he was doing. but the second guy was good enough that I was able to stretch out and I think he came away impressed.

Update: interesting regional variation. I grew up in a rural PA town that was formal. I'm now in Vermont, where even the doctors go by first name (I insist in calling them doctor).

When i was a kid we had close family friends we'd call Uncle/Aunt. It was a term of endearment but also formality-we didn't call any adult by their first name.

I'm wondering if this still happens. At least where I live things are more informal so kids just call family friends by their first name. Wonder if this has gone away.

I like probe Droids as a detachment and their synergy with the probe Droid upgrade but that means one fewer sniper. What are people doing?

update: thanks for the responses. This is for a potential duo situation, I'm not being paid but it's kind of an audition. I'm a multi-instrumentalist, so that adds anther layer of complexity.

I wanted to see what people think of this. I'm meeting with someone for the first time to play backup on some originals. I asked if they could send me demos and they said I could just figure it out with we get together.

So if I have a chord structure I can come up with something. But it tends not to be super complicated until I have time to think it over.

If someone just wants to jam to get a feel for each other that's fine. But in my experience people see me struggling to follow along with a song I've never heard before (and sometimes learning the chords by watching their fingers on guitar) as me being inexperienced. And often the people who won't let me prepare ahead of time aren't great at teaching their songs.

So I sometimes worry these situations are a waste of time, as I won't enjoy half playing a song and they'll get annoyed I'm not keeping up.

I've been playing with an old time music group and am trying to figure out what to do. I can't keep up with the melody so I've mostly been playing chords. But that gets boring and the others have asked for "more harmonica. " i think my chords sort of fade into the mix.

So what is the norm for this music? I was thinking of single note fills but am not sure if that gets too busy.

I recently led a travel study trip that overall went well. The students were really into it, and seemed to mature- over the course of the trip they became more professional. They all said how much they valued the trip.

There was a staff member in the trip who mentioned students told her they enjoyed connecting with me in a more personal way. She asked why I wasn't closer to them in class. I said I'd tried, but I often ended up feeling dumb. She didn't understand.

Then one of them got caught vaping in their room. There was evidence. They told us they would pay the fine but behind our backs went to the hotel to challenge it. It took a lot of urging from me to get them to just pay and that didn't happen until they were checking out. Then they complained to me that I didn't trust them...

Another student asked for an extension on a quick short reflection essay they had a week to write.

And another asked why i hadn't graded all their discussion posts yet (this was a daily reflection they did).

I talked to the staff member and she understood what i said better. It doesn't matter how much work you put into giving students a valuable experience, many of them will still see you as someone who just hands out their grade and not care about having a good relationship. And that hangs over every interaction with a student- that if things don't go their way they'll turn on me.

All the blues riffs I'm finding are in second position. Do you ever play in first? I ask, because I have A, C and G harmonicas so I can play with people when they're in E, G and D, but when it's in A I'm not sure what to do. I've ordered a D harmonica, but it'll be a bit before it gets here.

Update: very interesting points on the way the internet affects this. Thanks for this discussion

I was trying to avoid mentioning specific generations. But as a kid, I just remember thinking my older cousins and my friend's older siblings as really cool. I liked their music, I sort of followed their style before branching off. The generation after us just seems to make fun of us for our earnest music and the socks we wear. But maybe we were meaner than I remember.

This is a tic among Boomers that drives me crazy. They'll say something obnoxious, when you push back they'll say "it was just a joke, calm down. "

I posted a question on a neighborhood forum and a Boomer basically made fun of me for either not knowing or asking, it was unclear. I should have ignored it but I got mad and said that was rude and to just not post if they had no useful information. They told me to just calm down.

update: thanks for the thoughts. do you think it's better if I talk one on one or we present this as the group's feelings? I can see issues with both

My longtime group rotates GMs, and the current one isn't doing a great job. It's hard to explain- they see their job as messing with us, and kind of fudge the rules to do that. And they run multiple NPCs so half the game is them rolling.

I'm just not enjoying it. I thought it was just me but someone else said they aren't using fun. And a few from the group have just stopped coming.

I've known these guys for years but I'm close to finding another group. And I worry this group may fall apart. A few people have completely left.

If the GM was disorganized or overwhelmed, we could step in and try to help or suggest they take a break. But they're very organized and into it, just not in a way that's fun for us.

The obvious answer is talk to them but it's hard- they never ask for feedback, and I actually raised some of these issues when they previously GMd. So I'm not sure how they'll take it.

Again I know people just scoff and say "just talk to them" but hopefully you can see this is a tricky situation. Any specific ways to raise it would be appreciated.

update: as I said in the flair, we're playing 2014. no one is interested in 2024. it sounds like some of this was addressed in the new mini edition so maybe I can push for that

I'm coming back to 5e after awhile playing other RPGs and wargames and am a little let down by combat. Many other systems have you do a maneuver and action, like aim and attack. Various ways to mix strategy in to drive rolling.

Then I'm in 5e, playing a paladin, and i just roll a d20. If i hit i can do cool things with smites, but besides getting an advantage somehow it's limiting.

I love the way sorcerers can use their bonus action with cantrips and wish there was something for martial classes. ​

This is a new question for me, because it hasn't become an issue until the last few years.

What do you do when:

1. a student doesn't take the final, and never reaches out?

2. a student doesn't take the final, and asks later to have a makeup?

I had been giving a 0 for both. But some colleagues said that if a student misses an exam and tries to take it, I should let them. So I'm reconsidering. Others think that's being way too lenient. Our official policy, FWIW, is that if the student reaches out within 24 hours and the absence is because of a family emergency or illness the instructor should give a makeup. Otherwise, they fail.

This is just a follow-up on my post yesterday, complaining about dealing with passive-aggressive admin staff. I think the reason these conversations are tough is that there's different types of admin staff.

I've always had a great relationship with our Department administrators. They consider themselves on our side, and I treat them as colleagues.

Where I run into issues is with admin staff in the Dean's office, grants office, etc. Many of these offices take an antagonistic approach towards Professors, and that filters down to their staff. And that's where the problem arises. They're not trying to work with us to solve problems, they see us as a problem to solve. I need a Dean's office staffer to do something as part of a serious admin task I was given by the Dean's office, and they're just refusing to respond to my emails.

And it's no coincidence that our Dean's office has taken control of all Department admins, bringing them under their supervision not Departmental supervision. They even tried to remove them all to a central location and respond to "tickets" from Departments, but we pushed back on that.

I'm sure the owner is nice and they do great work, but i always laugh when it comes on The Point.

I can picture the recording session:

"So you kind of repeated yourself, didn't really say what you do, and just talked about what happens when you mess up. Do you want another take?"

"No, that's perfect. Play it twice a day for the next ten years. "

Update: People are raising the stress admins are under, and I agree. As I said in the post and in some replies, I'm always polite, and am the one who gets my Department to gather money for an end of year gift. But I do think it's fair to expect people to do their jobs, and not be mean.

Just an example. I volunteered to be a marshal for our commencement a few years ago. The admin woman from Res Life who was organizing things said to get there by X time, and we'd receive instructions. X time passed, and I saw her standing nearby so I went up to ask if I had missed the instructions. She could have said "I'll do it in a second," or "we're a little behind," or something. Instead she said "if people like you would stop asking me questions I could just give the instructions." I'm sure she was stressed, but that wasn't really called for. She was obviously off a bit with her schedule, and instead of acknowledging it, she blamed me. And this wasn't me asking her to photocopy for me; I took time out of my weekend to be there for the students. Needless to say that's the last time I volunteered for that position.

It doesn't matter how senior I get, I will never have the power to push people around that admin assistants do. I can live with it when they're competent--our former Department admin was a little touchy, but incredible at her job so she deserved our deference and respect.

But our Dean's admins--there's two of them--are just terrible. And one of them is really passive aggressive and touchy. So when she drops the ball on something and I ask nicely about it--i.e. I don't even ask why it wasn't done, or complain, I just ask about how to get something completed--she'll send back an annoyed response that basically makes it out to be my fault. And of course I can't complain, because then nothing will get done.