UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

6 thoughts on “541 – Graverobbers

  1. “Oh, *that* kind of grave robbing? Lead on, Chuck!” 😈

  2. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    What? I say “What”?

  3. Heh, this is going to be fun. Tradition says you need to drink at least one bottle of MD 20/20 before going to the graveyard.

  4. At first I was thinking of something like a potato battery … nope!

  5. If you take a dead “D” cell battery, take out the carbon rod from the center, cut a strip of galvanized sheet metal about an inch (2.7 centimeters), take a small jar for canning, suspend the rod in the center and the strip on the side, pour in drain cleaner, you’ll get 1.2 to 1.4 volts DC. 10 of those connected to an inverter will give you 120 VAC at 0.5 amps. Do NOT keep them in the same area you live in however, the fumes will burn your lungs. Just something I learned in chem class in high school. You’d have to top-up the jars every few days, however. Any type of acid will work, even salt water. I think the teacher was a survivalist…

  6. Scheffler, Hovland and Conners Share the Lead at P.G.A. Championship
    Jordan Spieth, who needs a victory at Oak Hill to complete the career Grand Slam, and Justin Thomas, who won last year’s tournament, just made the cut at five over.

    Give this article

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

 

541 – Graverobbers

WonderCon 2025 is coming soon, so the next comic is planned for April 9th.

In the meantime, relevant previousness for this week's page:

https://www.zombieranchcomic.com/comic/223-surrounded-by-film-end-of-episode-9/

 

https://www.zombieranchcomic.com/comic/483-solar-systems/

You never know where it’s gonna go…

Where Dungeons and Dragons or really almost any RPG is concerned, the operating principle for the game master is to prepare to be unprepared. Players will almost always do something undreamt of in your philosophy. Is it good as any kind of writing exercise? Maybe, but if you’re the kind of writer who has everything plotted out just so you might end up frustrated when you make contact with the chaos that is other people. If you think you’re having trouble because your own characters are resisting going where you want them to go, wait until you meet the characters of your friends! A tabletop game master does not have the luxury of the impassive computer environment which can put a stop to stray wanderings by means of a simple waist-high fence. “Railroading” players is still possible but it must be done with great subtlety lest they catch on and become disgruntled; after all, part of the draw of the tabletop session, whether in-person or virtual, is the flexibility and possibility of creating a story ultimately bounded only by the desires and imaginations of all involved — and the occasional critical success or failure. Tabletop is best approached as less of a writing exercise than an improvisation exercise of the kind you might have experienced if you’ve ever taken acting courses or perhaps just watched episodes of Who’s Line is it Anyway? Improv theater does not take “no” for an answer. It takes the starting parameters of a scenario and builds upon it and every twist and turn is met not with the stonewall (or waist-high fence) of a “no” but the evolving path of “yes, and…” Not every game ends up like this, particularly in D&D which can focus less on character interactions and more on tactical combat depending on what the folks involved want. Now don’t get me wrong, I like my tactical combat as much as the next dude but hey, that’s something computer games already do extremely well. What computer games still can’t simulate is the absolute insanity that can happen when the fence is no longer an issue, and I am well pleased with our current game which has spent its last two sessions “in-town” with the closest thing to a tactical situation occurring when characters were attempting to eavesdrop on other characters. I don’t think our DM could ever have foreseen what’s happening, but to her credit she has rolled with it and still has her plot ongoing even if the party at the moment is more concerned with the social implications of root vegetables than getting out and questing. I’m not even kidding. “Yes, and…”