Have him stab the mayor who's evil because he's greedy and selfish and borderline abusive in trade-deals with neighboring regions but is otherwise beloved (and has rewards heaped on him) because he's so good at actually keeping order in the town and keeping their goodwill (although probably at least a little bit through some passive-aggressive blackmail). That's always fun.

Ah, the good ol' "I'm not, but actually am, but not enough that I should get a raise, but I really would like one and less work hours, but I really need to stay longer because I'm so slow at everything I do and am terrible at focusing so I should really be working harder to give you your money's worth, but you're probably not paying me as much as you should be for that work in hindsight" theoretical with yourself and your imagined boss.

I can't think of any media that explores its magic at any level where that isn't true though, tbh.

Unless there's a bug. Then it is my code and I have to fix it. Immediately. No, I don't want to discuss my thought process for "why I made that decision" I want to fix it. Why are we having a chat about milk pouring technique while it is dripping off the fucking table. Prod is burning and you want to fiddle! (Meanwhile this is a minor bug that nobody has ever actually complained about but just the knowledge that it was my fault...)

100% approve. Would strongly consider rolling something like a d4 to determine how the demon reacted (modified by species, because a palrethees isn't likely to attack). So for a palrethees it'd be like:

1 - Furious, bitter anger. Every deal it makes for the next d12 weeks is entirely centered on ruining the fighter in the most humiliating and harmful ways possible. Leaving dead innocents (like children or loose acquaintances) in their rooms to frame them, assaulting loved ones repeatedly whenever they think they're safe to cause them suffering, slandering them ahead of their travels, or even just trying to assassinate them.

2 - Cold respect and a reward for the fighter's cleverness. Maybe money or even a magic item, that comes with huge strings. (It was stolen, its cursed, someone very dangerous wants it, etc)

3 - Indifference and pulsing its fear creating affect just to be spiteful and drive away the fighter

4 - Actual amusement and a decision to follow the fighter around. Their new "friend" would probably amuse themselves in the same way any demon would, so atrocities would follow the fighter indirectly, the demon would get to make deals with those the fighter wronged/conflicted with for their souls, and maybe the demon even "helps" the fighter on occasion. As seen through the guise of a demon's idea of helpful of course. It might also just wander away after a week or so after it got bored.

I mean, are you miserable? Or are you just using the wrong expectation for being happy? Because overly unrealistic expectations can make any ever-present annoyance, like the day to day dealings of entropy and decay, an inescapable hell.

A joke that keeps being told with slight variation.

Simple rules that can describe almost every situation are also rules that over-generalize characters to the detriment of options (everyone's noticing the same things, instead of perception allowing more observant characters to do what they could do), over-include the player's capabilities in place of the character's. (Players conversational skills failing to match with those of the character they intend to play), overly abstract what they describe (a monster's "power" or a character's actual abilities meaning something in adjudication but nothing consistent/concrete enough in-world), or demand a DM adjudicate without reinforcement or restriction (In the absence of rules every corner case ruling risks the danger of turning the table into a debate between PCs and the DM, inviting rapid ends and either producing embittered DMs or embittered players* - especially under the "pack it up" approach the video suggests - and helping to increase combative tables in the future.)

The games that OSR takes inspiration from did a lot right in their mortal power-level, reasonable growth, real risk of danger, and humanistic tones but if you're trying to sell me that the growth of rules that followed aren't a direct result of weaknesses in those games? I don't think we'll agree.

*The "Dorkness Rising" problem, for a slightly more light-hearted allusion.

I guess my question's always been that since gender is (to my incomplete understanding) a social construct and can change, and transgender people seek to change to a gender that feels more appropriate, how did you (a) know what felt right, (b) that what felt right wasn't completely appropriate for your gender and the active definition of gender needed to change, and (c) where does chemical and surgical transition factor in for a gender based thing when attempting to find for comfortable self? Because that seems like a sex (in the clinical terminology) thing as much as a gender one (which of course there's probably a connection, I guess I'm just not clear where the line really breaks.)

To be clear, I think my questions are entirely too "rationalizing a deep emotional and person thing" so I don't really expect an answer, I've just never been invited to address the question to anyone before.

Didn't the cab companies interfere with that? Or at least lobby hard against it?

On top of some of the commentary here, I'd like to add that I think there's a real chance that WoTC's put some money behind getting it heavily reviewed/boosted, and so more articles about it and wider attention. That is not to undercut its quality, just that I think its layers of support. (I'll admit there's more than a little bit of my distrust of WoTC in that. Like after all their other scandals they need a win to try and suck newbies into the game after so much messing up. And I don't even mean in the last year or something, their release quality for 5e has been abysmal for a long time.)

Additionally Larian played the early access thing very well. Not only did they listen to their ongoing players, and even netted some "tried it didn't like it" people back, it gave time for everyone who was perhaps too into the older isometric BG1&2 titles (like me) to realize the game didn't seem quite like it was for them and not pick it up. So you get clear, mostly good(if outdated) information out there for people to use in researching if they wanted to buy it, helping to avoid a lot of the knee-jerk hate that stuff like Fallout 4 and 76 got from misplaced expectations that could dull the release.

There also seems to be a bit of weirdness even surrounding what "conservative" means. It used to mean an intent toward preservation of certain existing institutions/trends and preexisting stability, with a distrust for new institutions that may upset existing social calm. Which often is at odds with beneficial change but isn't inherently against it, favoring instead that it be slow and precise. When I think of myself as conservative that's the concept I have.

The problem is that "conservative" now can also include a group of people for which preserving an existing state (as in condition/mode of being ) is no longer acceptable, the demand either a reverse or entirely new directions.

As an example that's a little less hot button - vouchers for private schools. That's an active novelty and a change from an existing institution, rife with potential long-term impacts on both culture and stability that could be negative, and yet some positions push for it (often without addressing those problems). That's not a conservative position. That's a progressive one (maybe not in the direction someone on the left would want obviously).

Conservative got irrevocably linked with Right due to some preexisting social constructs and the urge to preserve them, but realistically it should hold just as well that a conservative would seek to preserve left-wing establishments as much as right-wing ones, or at least advise any changes to them be slow and incremental to avoid pop-up problems. Admittedly things like technology complicate that due to the speed with which it changes and demands response.