And then becomes famous for mo-cap acting.

I don't think HP wizards would find LotR all that compelling

@Yuuki What a mugggly thing to do.

The magic is weak, the world is mundane, the whole good vs evil thing is wasted on a society that keeps slaves & neglects children

And then finally gets to do non-mo-cap acting in a well-known film franchise only to be utterly wasted as a bait-and-switch villain in an otherwise great movie.

@SPavel I mean, replace "magic" with "technology" and you basically have "I don't understand why people find historical fiction compelling".

@Yuuki Not equivalent at all

Historical fiction uses contexts that are part of our shared history to explore themes relevant to our society

@SPavel or it's just an excuse for historians to have fun

@SPavel "I don't get it. Why didn't they just apparate to Mount Doom?"

@MikeQ "Something tells me that Gandalf is a high-level fighter or bard, not a wizard."

Gandalf was a tarrasque, but they used camera tricks to make him look smaller

@Yuuki I've seen some reasonable arguments that Gandalf was a 13th level Lore Bard...

... 5e wise ...

I mean, if you think about it, being a Bard is pretty much what the Istari were meant to do.

@Yuuki reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/3jpksw/…

They were to inspire and support the people of Middle-Earth in their fight against Sauron, not to directly contend with him.

Gandalf was really an improvised weapon, capable of dealing 1d4+STR bludgeoning damage

@MikeQ That's why it took him so long to kill the balrog.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but isn't it the only Star Wars movie since The Last Jedi?

Please tell me I haven't lost my mind yet

@Delioth So what you're saying is that it's actually the worst Star Wars movie since The Last Jedi?

@Yuuki I can say that with reasonable confidence, yes.

@Yuuki It is the best, worst, longest, and shortest Star Wars movie since TLJ

Last Jedi was not a very good Star Wars IMO

Black Panther was a great Star Wars

@SPavel Please explain? I don't disagree per se but I am confused

Antagonist uses politics to usurp control of technologically advanced nation from superpowered protagonist, protagonist organizes the rebellion to defeat antagonist

Martin Freeman plays Lando

Meanwhile I don't really know what Last Jedi was doing

I don't really want to spoil it, it just feels...aimless

Force Awakens had a plot, even if that plot was A New Hope

Last Jedi didn't really.

@SPavel I agree with that analysis. I've even somewhat-jokingly suggested that TLJ is an attempted remake of the Holiday Special, because the structure was so similar

@MikeQ Holiday special? Structure?

Last Jedi would be great structured as a sitcom.

Exactly the same plot, but spread over a season of ~20 half-hour episodes

@Rubiksmoose Some of the good guys are trying to get from A to B and the empire is chasing them. Meanwhile, everyone else does small unrelated tasks.

Side quests!

Last Jedi would also have been a great Elder Scrolls game

"Prisoner, the ship is under attack. We are releasing you so that you can go get help" proceeds to run away to Nar Shadaa and become the leader of the Thieves Guild

The end would be the protagonist rolling up to the fleet decked out in overpowered Sith artifacts and force-throwing the entire enemy fleet into a black hole

then using the black hole as a lightsaber crystal to craft a super powerful sword or something

The typical Elder Scrolls protagonist comes out of nowhere, then accelerates through the ranks of importance and interferes in important events

So that means... Rose is the protagonist?

Everything about her was just as rushed as "Welcome to the Mages Guild, also congrats you're the arch-mage now"

@MikeQ No, Rose has some kind of personality

@MikeQ You've made me think way too hard about the holidaty special. lol

I'd say Finn, he's at the center of everything and everyone is super into him for no good reason

@Rubiksmoose There are other similarities too, but that may be a bit spoily for those who haven't seen TLJ

@MikeQ or the Holiday Special

@SPavel That would imply encouraging people to see SWHS, which I believe is classified as torture by the Geneva Convention

@MikeQ But is it covered by GDPR?

@SPavel No? It's a made-for-tv film from the late 70s, it doesn't use cookies or trackers

@MikeQ But it does require the right to be forgotten

@Delioth Yes, forgetting the SWHS is the right thing to do

@MikeQ At this point even lightbulbs use cookies and trackers

But basically, one of the main plot points (using "plot" very loosely here) of SWHS is that Boba Fett introduces himself as an untrustworthy guy but Luke considers him an ally because Fett literally tells him to. Then later on, surprise surprise, he betrays them to the Empire.

@MikeQ hahaha

There's also a planet with an entirely red surface and gimmickly looking critters on it

Although it's made of red jello and not salt

@MikeQ can't get gimmickier than the porgs

At least the salt planet creatures served a purpose

And most importantly, the many random sideplots are just there to spew various moral tidbits at you

The porgs were just "hey so you know how there's a really dark and serious conversation happening, let's lighten the mood with some cute animals"

See, this is how The Last Jedi should have ended (contains spoilers).

@Yuuki Nice

I see you are a follower of Kylo's philosophy

almost vacation time.

@Maximillian so close!

Sadly no time for an RPG during my down time, but I will get to paint some fabulous miniatures.

@Maximillian paint me like one of your fabulous miniatures

Uhhh. Nooo. I doubt you fit into the boots of the NSFW mini I have anyway. >_>

But I assure you, she is a fabulous mini.

Kingdom Death makes some fantastic miniatures, about 3/4 I can actually display.

@Maximillian That qualifies as partial cover

~~~

On the plane of Toloreen, they measure width in duckless (pronounced duckulls). Which is to say the maximum number of millimeters away from your dominant eye that an object can be to still fully obstruct your view of a fully grown duck from 18 meters away (just out of the distance where you would enrage the duck)

@DavidCoffron Is there a conversion to Canadian geese?

@Maximillian ಠ_ಠ

@Yuuki There is no distance from the goose far enough that it would not be enraged

@SPavel They're Canadian geese, so they're politely enraged

@Yuuki The Toloreens are too afraid of Canadian geese to even list a measurement for fear that the lost god of the maple leaf might permanently tattoo geese on the back of their eyelids thereby making everything impossibly thin.

@SPavel hahaha that is so absolutely true.

@MikeQ No, Canadians are so nice and polite because they have channeled all of their rage into totems, the geese.

In undergrad, every fall and spring the geese would take over the pond on campus

and poop everywhere

New 5e Barbarian sub-class: Path of the Canadian Goose.

The pond was a great place to hang out and study (I had found a secret grove where the campus wifi juuuust reached) but geese season almost completely overlapped with nice weather season

@Yuuki North or south, depending on the season?

@SPavel I accidentally starred that for a second. Whoops

@MikeQ And East for the island geese (AKA seagulls)

Friend just forced me to watch a bootleg recording of Hamilton. It took every ounce of willpower I have not to snap it in half...

@SimonH. Video/Sound quality, or content?

@SimonH. Are you a Burr-iever?

@GreySage I hate to admit it, but the play infuriates me

@SimonH. So, both?

@SimonH. Are you a goose by any chance?

@GreySage I guess, yeah.

@MikeQ An angry goose. Watch out, I bite :p

I know little of Burr's life, but Hamilton is no saint. The play leaves out a lot of his mistakes like the alien & sedition acts and the electoral college we so hate today.

To be fair, they didn't have wide-range instantaneous communication in the 17-1800s.

Yeah, I get that. But I don't think that was the reason it exists - Hamilton was an elitist.

The Electoral College is dumb but it's only dumb because we haven't changed anything in forever.

@SimonH. I hate to say this, but rightly so. You just couldn't expect a random person from Georgia to know anything about a Massachusetts politician running for President. Ease of access to information was terrible back then.

@SimonH. It also leaves out all the quantum physics stuff

It's not like these days where you can learn plenty about a candidate's positions and history within an hour or so on the Internet and make an educated decision on your vote.

@Yuuki No, but maybe they'd be able to if it wasn't for the amount of backroom deals happening then.

IIRC, new presidents had always been in the previous presidents' cabinet.

Water Buffalo of Drugs. Should come up with a statblock for that.

-10 to constitution saving throws

Is the word in this answer considered not "Be[ing] Nice"? @doppelgreener @nitsua60 I don't know what qualifies....

(I ask because the idiom usually refers to drinking alcohol but is also used in slang, sarcastic, or insulting ways in some contexts)

@DavidCoffron it's fine, but i've replaced that idiom. it helps make it clearer anyway.

@doppelgreener Just checking :)