No work today, but I did have to get up to let the cleaners in (they were late), and ride the bus (it was also late) to go shopping, and then do laundry.
Watched (anime): Sentenced to Be a Hero 6: Six episodes, three demon lords down! Also, for those who were worried whether this might be a pervy anime, Teoritta briefly takes off her coat.
Watched (anime): Roll Over and Die 6: There is some kind of actual problem with corruption and human experimentation (in the FMA sense), but Flum is busy dealing with petty criminals. At least she has a house now.
Watched (anime): Journal with Witch 5-6: Makio is not free of problems herself.
Read (short): “The Teleporting Disaster Fairy” (Rati Mehrotra): Inexplicable events cause lots of trouble for someone.
Read (short): “Unfinished Architectures of the Human-Fae War” (Caroline M. Yoachim): Alien temporal architecture from beyond the gates.
Read (short): “The Millay Illusion” (Sarah Pinsker): Men who said a woman couldn’t be a good stage magician get what’s coming to them, probably.
Read (short): “With Her Serpent Locks” (Mary Robinette Kowal): Don’t fuck with the gorgon, no matter how hot shit you think you are.
Read (short): “10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” (Samantha Mills): So many dooms.
Read (short): “Six People to Revise You” (J.R. Dawson): Yeah, capitalism would absolutely charge people a fortune for the privilege of being brain-edited into social conformity.
Read (manga): The Apothecary Diaries vol 2 (Natsu Hyuuga, Nekokurage, Itsuki Nanao, Touco Shino): It’s hard being Maomao. But it’s also hard putting up with Maomao.
Written (game design): 152:
Speaking of balance, the effect of using a power cleverly on someone
should probably be proportional to the active points/ranks, just as
(presumably) the amount of Grind Down or KO is. But greater cleverness
should also increase the effect, and different effects are going to get
quantified differently if we aren’t just chipping active points/ranks
off. And then there’s defenses against conditions, or maybe against
maneuvers, which also need to have an effect according to cost, however
that works. Maybe there are weak, normal, and strong conditions that are
different divisors on the level of effect, just like moveby and
movethrough need different amounts of movement to get +1d6? That at
least gives something to come to an agreement on, instead of the GM
making it up out of whole cloth. Or possibly it’s split along some other
axis, but we should definitely have a short list to pick from instead of
having to guess at the magnitude of effect from first principles.