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+---- Forum: Archived COVID-19 Check-in Threads (http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=39)
+---- Thread: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III (/showthread.php?tid=13982)
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - hazard - 02-05-2021
So much of the US prison system is in the hands of private companies running them as for profit incarceration facilities that fining them into submission for screwing up is an entirely viable course of action, and the inmates will always get screwed anyway, no pandemic needed.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Dragonflight - 02-05-2021
(02-05-2021, 03:44 AM)Inquisitive Raven Wrote:(02-04-2021, 10:57 PM)Star Ranger4 Wrote: Also, not sure where else to put it, but apparently the State of California just fined San Quentin prison half a mil for poor corona preparations. How does that even work? and in the end arn't the ones who suffer the most from this action the Inmates anyway?
Well, the inmates can presumably pass it to the staff who can then pass it to their families. And that's not considering whether or not the inmates in question actually deserve to be there. The way things work in this country, it wouldn't surprise me if a significant chunk of them don't.
Considering a lot of American prisons are operated as for-profit businesses, and some prison institutions in the U.S. have penalty clauses they can fine the states for if occupancy drops below a certain percentage, I wouldn't doubt that for a moment. Frankly, it's just one more thing that should never have been allowed to happen.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Star Ranger4 - 02-06-2021
O.o; !!!!!!
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Labster - 02-09-2021
San Quentin is managed by the Department of Corrections, not privately. They wouldn’t let the jewel of the system go, you know? It’s 170 years old, but the climate is nice and the view is really pretty; I once had a friend of a friend who needed a ride home from there and I had a truck. Also it has the nation’s largest death row but no one is ever executed.
Back on the original topic I am physically well, but increasingly going insane. Can shoggoths be summoned over Zoom? Asking for a friend, who is another one of my personalities.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Cobalt Greywalker - 02-11-2021
Still here, still working.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - robkelk - 02-11-2021
Still here. Taking a day off so it doesn't get paid to me in lieu. (Normally not a concern, but my employer and union just signed a contract that includes a hefty amount of back pay, and I don't want to be pushed into a higher tax bracket. First-world problem, I know.)
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - hazard - 02-11-2021
If your local taxing system is sensible it should be possible for you to date that back to the years that should've been paid, with some limitations.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - LynnInDenver - 02-11-2021
Still here. Gone down the rabbithole in DnD of a fair amount of vignette writing and 3D renders and *Gasp* future planning for my character. I don't know if it's just because we've gotten a good bite into her personal story or if it's coping with SAN loss or a combination of the two.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Inquisitive Raven - 02-12-2021
Wish I had an RPG to get lost in. Apart from a 2e Player’s Handbook, all my D&D stuff is 1e, I’d prefer something in GURPS or oWoD.
Oh yeah, I’m still here.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Matrix Dragon - 02-12-2021
Five day lockdown for the state of Victoria. *Sigh*
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Star Ranger4 - 02-12-2021
(02-12-2021, 01:24 AM)Inquisitive Raven Wrote: Wish I had an RPG to get lost in. Apart from a 2e Player’s Handbook, all my D&D stuff is 1e, I’d prefer something in GURPS or oWoD.
Oh yeah, I’m still here.
Have to agree with Raven. Though it should be possible to replace books.... finding a GROUP was what my sticking point is.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - LynnInDenver - 02-12-2021
(02-12-2021, 10:19 AM)Star Ranger4 Wrote:(02-12-2021, 01:24 AM)Inquisitive Raven Wrote: Wish I had an RPG to get lost in. Apart from a 2e Player’s Handbook, all my D&D stuff is 1e, I’d prefer something in GURPS or oWoD.
Oh yeah, I’m still here.
Have to agree with Raven. Though it should be possible to replace books.... finding a GROUP was what my sticking point is.
Well, to be fair, outside of my husband, I've been gaming with the other two off and on for almost a quarter century (something like six or seven finished campaigns across at least five gaming systems, several abortive ones with a former gaming group that we started with, with some breaks in between where we still managed to get together to do other things), and we've all taken effort to keep the current gaming going in spite of the pandemic (which accounts for one of the finished ones, this current one is the follow-up sequel), moving into voice and video chat to get it done. The biggest impact the pandemic has had on the gaming is that we wound up moving from around once a month to once a week.
I know some places online do have advertising for groups looking for players/players looking for groups, including a D&D discord out there, but that brings up the issue of gaming with a bunch of relative strangers. Oh, wait, I got to know these guys by joining a gaming group and only knowing one person in that group at the time.
BTW, elder fandom story time... these two, we were at a concert once together, and someone else in the crowd came to say hi, and she knew one of them from another gaming group he was in, went to high school with the other, and was in the same fandom group I was in back in the early 90s. It was a hilariously small world scenario, which led the one guy who went to school with her to comment, "if she knows this other guy we've gamed with, the world's going to implode"... turned out not, but I know gaming friends of that guy as well through other venues.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - hazard - 02-12-2021
There's the second edition for The One Ring on Kickstarter right now, and that's a Middle Earth based RPG.
Now, I'm not sure that'll get published and shipped fast enough for you, but at least it'll give you a second system.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Dartz - 02-12-2021
I miss gaming. I just sort of drifted out of the gaming group about 2 years ago. Because I kept missing gaming due to work.
3 Covids tests over the space of 6 weeks. 3 Failures.
About the only thing I'm doing right in work these days.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - classicdrogn - 02-12-2021
I'm still here, but Dad is off to the hospital - not for COVID, but we're still concerned. Hopefully he'll get vaxxed for it while there, at least.
I don't know what your position is on fan editions of out of print games, but googling "Star Wars RPG REUP" and "Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game 20th Anniversary Edition" will easily turn up pro-production-value PDFs of the fan made successors to WEG d6 Star Wars and White Wolf Street Fighter, which is at least the same system as oWoD.
If that grey area puts you off, try "OpenD6" and you'll find the WEG D6 System generic and genre books, which were officially released online and put under OGL by the owner before he died, while "Distant Star Thrash" will get you Ewen Cluney's fighting game RPG inspired by SF:TSG mixed with Mekton. I recommend the 1.8 edition over 2.0, as Trash 2 got rid of most of the Mekton-y customization in favor of lists of premade moves in the name of reducing complexity for widdle baby waah-waahs.
(Note: It's strongly recommended to divide the spell difficulty numbers by 2 from the official calculation for OpenD6 to give them a more realistic chance of working at standard D&D ripoff fantasy levels, but if magic is mostly for villains, subtle/minor, or unreliable in the setting RAW will work fine.)
I don't have anything for GURPs as such, but high on the semi-crunchy build/fast play, legit free game list is "Tri-Stat dX" which was the no-genre generic version of the BESM 3/Silver Age Sentinels rules, with the addition of letting you choose the die size (and hence max stats/attributes/etc.) based on the campaign's intended power level. This one (as with the WEGd6 books) I'd say to download anywhere but Drive-Thru RPG, as they put in watermarks despite it having been a freely released PDF. While the open system is easily abusable if you want to, it is relatively easy to model just about anything in it for whatever you want to play.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - LynnInDenver - 02-12-2021
Most of the currently published systems of note have PDF or electronic versions for purchase (although the price varies from "much cheaper" to "the only reason I'm buying the PDF over the hardcopy is that I want to specifically put it on my computer/tablet and use the Search feature"). A large amount of the GURPS 3rd library is available for cheap, I know I've gotten a good deal on a bunch of Pathfinder PDFs through Humble Bundle, and while it requires Fantasy Grounds (which brings us up to "spending as much as on the hardcopy books" and limits us to PCs) or their first party site DNDBeyond, even D&D comes in electronic form these days.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - classicdrogn - 02-12-2021
Oh, certainly, but I was specifically limiting my recommendations to free (at least as in beer) since, like the console RPG dialogue cliche goes, times are tough all over.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Star Ranger4 - 02-12-2021
Heh. You know, that is the evil. I have to dig around in my Drivethru RPG Folder, but several times I went over there because someone mentioned the free word and I wound up restocking some of my old beloved classics in PDF form. Car Wars, Mekton Z, TFOS, and a couple of others oddballs that probably no one ever heard of
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - classicdrogn - 02-17-2021
Still not COVID-19, but since I did mention it before,
He does still need his foot wrapped up every day, though, and since that means a visiting nurse coming into the house that might actually qualify as more danger of infection for him and the rest of us now than at any point in the past year.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Labster - 02-18-2021
Still mostly healthy here, though Mama has a sinus infection.
Officially quit my job today, and looking forward to life as a hikikomori. I still have a month to work, because I chose my own separation date.
Based on my discussions with other people, I'm starting to get the impression that I am deeply underpaid. At least one person in the same position as me makes another 50% more than I make. I mean, he's better than I am, but not by that much. So I'm thinking this was the right decision, and it gives me something to look forward to in interviews for new jobs. I actually need to start looking. At least I have several months of salary saved up, and this is a great time to look for remote work.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Cobalt Greywalker - 02-18-2021
Time again to say I'm still alive and working.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - robkelk - 02-18-2021
(02-18-2021, 05:13 PM)Cobalt Greywalker Wrote: Time again to say I'm still alive and working.
"I'm still alive and working."
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - LynnInDenver - 02-18-2021
Still here. Having a really rough week between my husband having a) instance of the overall body pain b) instance of the killer migraine c) instance of the insomnia (note: three days in a row, one per day), and that's it's been cold for the whole week, combined with enough snow to make it miserable.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Dragonflight - 02-18-2021
If you're looking for free RPG material which is easy to learn, I'd recommend Marvel advanced superheroes. There's a site online with a wealth of resources at https://classicmarvelforever.com/cms/ which has everything you need with explanations and rules and so on. Plus links to all sorts of other places. All you need physically is a couple of d10's for rolling percentiles.
In other news, still here, still alive, and still looking for my next job. Although the place I'm working with to find said job has helped me isolate a job category I might be better at than I have been targeting. Based on talent, training, and a lot of assessment questionnaires, the current wisdom is I should be looking at desktop publishing or possibly something to do with writing website content. It sounds interesting, so we'll be looking in that direction going forward, I think.
Finally, I don't know if I mentioned this, but a friend of mine who's had metastatic lung cancer for a number of years now was told by his doctor just a few weeks ago that aside from some leftover scarring, there's no evidence of tumours in his lungs at all. He is on an experimental treatment for people with metastatic lymph node cancer targeting the lungs, and the results are simply astounding. For people with metastatic cancer, there may be more light at the end of the tunnel.
RE: COVID-19 Check-In Thread Part III - Inquisitive Raven - 02-19-2021
I’m still here and apparently in hibernation mode for the past couple of days.