@Macha said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
Not to the best of my knowledge. That sort of thing - would it show up with CBCs? (I just had a bunch of blood tests)
Might, yes. The CBCs ought to show any imbalance in electrolyte/ion levels. These may cause uncontrollable spasms or jerks. I'd talk to a doctor because such imbalance can cause you to pass out or for your heart to stop.
@RDC
I'm willing to work with anyone else on this. I went back through my files, and I think, with a couple of weeks of steady work, I might be able to get the system written out.
But I'm really proud of some of the bloodline work I did for this one. I did a lot of research to try and captured the Dark Ages, and the religious and political rifts. For example, the following were the "Covenants" that vampires could join:
The Bratrstvi Vedmak (Covenant): The Brotherhood is spread far and wide over the Slavic nations. They keep the secrets of the land and their blood magic close to them. The Church sees them as rivals for the faith of their people, when, in truth, the Brotherhood has little interest in spreading their rituals to outsiders. Unfortunately, the Church ignores the Brotherhood’s pleas for non-interference, as the latter are well-aware that there are dangers in the darkness that are far less pleasant than Bible-wielding vampires.
The Invictus (Covenant): The Crown has used the Northern Crusades to push its own vassals’ interests into the darker corners of the known world. Although it has no personal grudge against heathen vampires, the Crown knows that such lands hide elders too set in their ways to respect the Traditions that keep the Camarilla’s descendants safe. Those that will not respect the Traditions’ aims cannot be tolerated, and must be destroyed ... for the good of everyone, of course.
The Lancea et Sanctum (Covenant): The Church is ascendant, and at the zenith of its power. The Crusades provide an excellent cover for spreading the word of Longinus into the rest of the known world, and for destroying rival, heathen religions. In this case, the Church is chasing down the remnants of its past – the Legio Mortuum and the Founders that back them – in order to hide one of the great heresies that continues to undermine its foundations.
The Legio Mortuum (Covenant): When Rome fell, the Founders were assailed by the Strix, and the Empire’s undead leaders disappeared. Most were turned to ash in a matter of a decade, but many successfully fled the initial hunt against them, fleeing to the east and the north. There, in dark forests and remote mountain ranges, the Legion lives on, hiding in plain sight among the pagan barbarians they once quelled and now rule through fear, power, and ritualistic gatherings. And in Livonia, they wage war against the incursions by the Church and Crown, who would like more than anything to put the past where it belongs.
All of the Covenants exist under:
The Res Publica Livonia: Amid the chaos of the Livonian Crusade, the Republic was established when Albert, Bishop of Riga, officially transferred the seat of the Bishopric of Livonia to Riga in 1201. The compact was formed between the four Factions as a way to stem the threat of overt, Tradition-breaching warfare that had been waged in the decades prior. The Republic rules through a council of eight Curators, two from each Covenant, presided over by the Princeps, Marcus Antonius Gordianus. Its edicts are carried out by Praetors, who also serve to enforce the same.
I like the list of bloodlines that SunnyJ and I worked on, which included the Julii and the Pijavica. All of this review makes me kind of wistful.
Honestly, I need the energy of youth to get this one going. Ark and SunnyJ and I had something going, and I'm sad to see it fizzle, mostly due to my work schedule.
I'll need to dig the Word files out of my old laptop, and see what I can cobble together for the public.
@deadculture said in Derbyshire Estate:
Not gonna lie, a Dark Ages: Vampire game would be great. But that requires oWoD.
Naw, it doesn't. I have a setting all ready to go.
@farfalla said in Derbyshire Estate:
I don't go into WoD game threads to be like "ugh I wish this was L&L instead".
Maybe you should? That's how they tend to end up anyhow.
@Trix said in Mobbing in Text Games:
There's this thing called 'academic mobbing' that can be freaky accurate when applied to how people behave in mud communities.
We sometimes call this "dogpiling."
People shouldn't be quiet about this - or delude themselves into thinking they haven't been part of the problem with compliant silence or outright shunning.
People who engage to defend others are sometimes accused of "white knighting." Others may stay away because there seems to be no purpose to engaging with the mob. Yet others will simply snipe from the sideline or joke to make light of the situation. And still others might divert attention with a non-sequitur.
Are there any universal conduct rules that anyone would like or have liked seeing across the board for all text games?
Sure, but no one listens to me.
How does handling of disputes make for better social environments and which games get it right?
Good question. How many games "handle disputes right"? I will posit to you that no game has, or will, ever get it right, and demanding them to do so is tomfoolery. Even the most reasonable cadre of staff will make mistakes to someone's detriment.
@Macha said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
So I've been having weird muscle jerks. Especially in my forearms and hands, though my legs have been twitching too. It's starting to worry me
Do you have thyroid issues?
I’m sorry, the Dolphins suck?
Right now, sure. But I live in Ohio. There’s a reason why most people are Buckeye fans.
Don’t you talk to me about the Dolphins sucking until you live in Browns/Bengals territory.
@Ghost said in The Work Thread:
It would be like getting Stalin-appointed to coach the Miami Dolphins.
I'm not sure what the problem is.
I picked up Frostpunk on a whim, and it is a gritty. brutal survival game. I like it a great deal, but I can see the frustration in playing with it If you want to save everyone.
Hint: you ain't.
@Selerik said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
I realize this falls under bringing a thread back from the dead, but this is something I wanted to share from the beginning.
Let me just chime in to say that you should never feel bad about bringing this particular thread "back from the dead." We all have health issues, physical or mental, and some of us (if not all of us) can agree at the very least that our health is a serious issue that many gamers avoid addressing or discussing because of the ever-present fear of social stigma. Although I do not suffer from anxiety or attention-deficient issues (or can keep them under control via my own tools), reading this thread has been very helpful in trying to understand others, particularly my daughter (who is seriously hyperlexic in a way that is baffling, creepy, and amazing all at the same time).
While I wish our other discussions could be as civil, this particular area is supposed to be civil and safe. I will police this thread expressly for this purpose.
@Rinel said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
It's really hard. Try to remember who is paying whom. Doctors aren't obligated to prescribe you oxycodone for your headaches, but they sure as hell can sit down and listen to you about the pain.
This is really good advice, but I see it a little differently.
We are generally socially conditioned to accept authority without question. Who can blame us? That's how many of us were probably instructed as we went through our formative years. But now that we approach a different (not quite as, but supposedly) adult world, our interactions with professionals is a matter of finding a person we feel comfortable working with.
I think that people too often enter a doctor's office looking for a prescription or a cure. That's not going to work in the long run. Patients need to go into a doctor's office expecting to work with a professional to find a solution to health issues, and the best offices work this way. It is no different than seeing a therapist for mental health issues or a lawyer for legal issues; you are there to disclose everything that is remotely related to the issue so that the professional can figure out how to improve it. Just as therapists cannot give you a "one-shot" solution and a lawyer cannot give you a "guaranteed outcome" (and be wary of the ones that do), a doctor often needs to work with you over a period of time to craft a solution that works for you.
Unfortunately, we do not always have the luxury of being able to do this, but for some of us it is a necessity. So take the time to get comfortable with your professional, and more importantly find one that does the above: sit down; listen closely; and discuss the issue in full. You have a better idea of how or when you feel a certain way, and it's up to the health professional to piece together what and why you are feeling.
I'm not a doctor, but I've pieced together the above from my partner's experiences as a physician's assistant (and she's a lawyer and a PA).
@Aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Why? Why does this bullshit "holiday" exist?
I celebrated this holiday by buying some IKEA organizing shit for my partner and taking my associates out for lunch.
A real boss doesn't need a holiday. A real boss shames the bosses who don't treat their employees as valued members of a team. If you're a real boss, you do whatever it fucking takes to make sure the people who work with you forget that you sign their paychecks.
@Auspice said in NOLA: The Game That Care Forgot:
They may need it the most but I'm not dealing with their temper tantrums to force them to it.
My vampire pirate is going to have a field day.
@Derp said in The Work Thread:
I wish that I could convince my attorneys of this. Between Smartsheet and Sharepoint they're convinced they've hit the next big thing, and I'm over here like 'can we please please not'?
To be fair, Smartsheet is good for short-term projects in litigation and long-term development projects for which legal expertise is required.
But as far as firm management is concerned, it is an inefficient use of time. Feral cats are going to feral, period.
@gryphter said in The Work Thread:
It works much like it was made 20 years ago, in some ways. Which is what makes it so satisfying to wrestle it into the output I need.
It's a really good system that too few offices used back in the day to manage projects. It's not so good for legal practice because it's impossible to plan for multiple attorneys. But it is really good for the average project, and by "the average project" I mean "anything that doesn't involve attorneys, who are pretty much just like feral fucking cats all the time, I swear."
@Tinuviel said in The Work Thread:
I remember when this was called "Microsoft Project."
I also remember using it almost 20 years ago.
Not sure if I'd call it innovative or novel, but it sure does look pretty.
@Macha said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
My therapist worries because I cling to the same humor/deflection even when I'm talking about the dark things. That I deliver it all logically.
I can understand this too.
My partner can sense my moods. When I'm joking about dark things, she knows I'm stressed. When I'm not joking at all, she knows there's a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.
It's hard for a lot of non-therapists to understand that the guy cracking jokes while his life is falling apart around him is not okay.
