So far it was the back to back bangers of A Matter of Honor and The Measure of a Man (TNG S2xE08-9) but I just watched Pen Pals, E15 in the same season and I’m fuming about how evil the Prime Directive is and wanting Dr. Pulaski to lose her medical license over one of the most unethical medical procedures I’ve seen performed in a television show.

I’d probably change that last bit to association, or maybe group, coalition could work also. Immune Deficiency Team.

Regarding Edit 2, when you say more modern do you mean like urban fantasy?

I’m a big fan of the Chronicles of Darkness games (which, fair warning, new books aren’t coming out, but you can get a PDF or print on demand copy of any of them, and like most non DND games you’re looking at 1 core book only).

I really like Werewolf the Forsaken but it’s pretty focused on playing a pack of werewolves. If she’s into faeries you could look at Changeling the Lost (which may or may not be suitable, it’s about humans who’ve escaped captivity after being captured by the “True Fae.” They’re changed by the experience and couldn’t fit back into their old lives even if there weren’t a doppelganger made of garbage and fae magic living their life, and they may have conflicting feelings about the whole thing anyway, after all if they hadn’t gotten kidnapped they wouldn’t have learned to magically learn someone’s greatest desire or talk to birds or whatever. Worth pointing out that it’s a horror game and the fae world kind of represent trauma).

If that one doesn’t spark joy, Vampire the Requiem is also really cool and is about trying to survive as a relatively new vampire in a cutthroat, backward citywide society of the undead. It’s not about violence in the sense of combat but vampires are obviously predatory so this could also maybe not be right.

The same line of games has one about being a wizard in the modern day, but it’s extremely heavy and crunchy and probably not what you’re looking for.

If you mean you’re interested in non-fantasy modern settings I don’t know much about the available games but I’m sure there are some decent ones someone else will mention.

Listened to it when it came out, it was excellent, if a hard listen. It’s definitely where I’d point anyone who listens to podcasts and is interested in learning about this topic.

If anyone here hasn’t listened to it, the “The Game” series from TrueAnon is a harrowing tour through this industry and its origins. Brace went to one of these and the series gets pretty emotional.

Also presumably if TheDoctor is looking at D&D they’re interested in fantasy adventure and not like, hard-ish scifi intrigue

Do not let WotC trick you into thinking you need to pay them 150 bucks to start a game.

One, sail the high seas if you really wanna play D&D 5th edition (or whatever new edition they come out with).

Secondly, consider other systems. Depending on what exactly you wanna get from D&D (solving problems in a fantasy setting, character customization, playing in a particular setting, character drama in a fantasy setting, battles with cool powers, a sense of progressing from a nobody to a hero, feeling like a hero from day 1, etc) there is probably a better system for that than 5e and the majority of them don’t require more than 2, or often even just 1 book. Plus several that have 2 only charge for digital versions of the GM book.

Don’t even have words. It’s so cruel and senseless.

It’s funny, they’re not even “with them” to the extent that they even exist. I remember when Texas was frozen the libs were ecstatic that poor rural people were gonna freeze to death.

Yeah, I guess the indignity of using a burner account to doomscroll through the posts of those who actively hate him is probably too much for his ego.

Genuine question, I don’t really use Twitter at all outside of reading threads someone posts through xcancel occasionally:

Does this actually change anything? You could just log into a burner account or use xcancel to see these posts already right? Without a whitelist function (which actually would be good for people who need more privacy) this information was already available to anyone who wanted it anyways right?

Just to be clear, fuck Elon Musk both for making social media more pleasant for Nazis and for every other dumb thing he’s done but this particular change doesn’t feel like it accomplishes anything?

Is it just the fact that it makes it easier and therefore signals solidarity with stalkers?

Okay that makes a lot of sense, if it clearly evolved from existing viruses in another species, it needs to have come from where that species is living with that virus.

Right but what is the evidence that it did start in China? Is there a reason other than “that’s where we started noticing it first?”

I’m being sincere here, not Ft Detrick memeing

Okay I think this may have been the one I was thinking of

I guess I’m just not sure why if it was in both China and Italy in December '19, everyone is so sure it started in China? Like the reason people think it started in China is that that’s where it was first detected right?

What ended up happening with that? IIRC, old sewage samples from Italy from well before Covid is known to have been present in China had Covid in them right?

It seems crazy that such a thing would be shoved under the rug.

I agree with this

I think maybe nothing could make them happy?

Spitballing here

Will the romcom for men still have the meetcute>secret comes out or fight occurs which destroys the relationship>differences are settled and relationship is reformed plot pattern?

I’m not knocking it for being unoriginal mind you, nothing is original (certainly not action movies)- I just can’t handle the stress of knowing the couple is definitely going to break up some time in the next hour when the couple is getting together originally. I get too nervous for them.