The Sly Cooper Trilogy +/- Thieves in Time

No idea unfortunately, but definitely not to release pressure. You don’t get air in your brain, it’s all fluid. Outside of the hospital, all the drains drain to somewhere internal, usually the abdominal cavity

Am doctor. Outside of very rare and specific causes of headache, no this wouldn’t fix anything, just put you at risk for infections.

Am a doctor, this wasn’t actually a migraine and is not how migraines happen. Shunts are placed for elevated intracranial pressure, which can occur for a number of reasons, and do cause headaches. But it’s a very uncommon cause of headaches and a shunt will not fix your actual migraines or tension headaches.

It’s not that we don’t use mode, there are definitely times mode is used. It’s just that mean (and median as well) contain a lot more useful information about distributions that we often care about. For a normal distribution mean, median, and mode should all be identical. So why do we use mean? Because mathematically, the mean is what underpins the formula for the normal distribution, not median or mode, and when you’re talking about doing math with normal distributions mean is the thing to talk about (along with standard deviation).

We use median a lot too, you probably just don’t hear it called median very often. The median is useful in non-normal distributions, and it defines the 50th percentile, so along with the 25%-ile and 75%-ile you’ve got your quartile distributions. We use these all the time to talk about grades in schools, or when we talk about home prices distributions in a given area, or salaries within a given field.

We use mode too, again just by a different name most of the time. Any time you’ve asked “what’s the most common blank” you’re basically asking for a mode. When we talk about “average” income in a country, we’re usually actually talking about median or mode. Favorite animal? Answered as a mode.

You have to use the right statistical tool for your question: unfortunately English doesn’t do a good job of conveying this without math jargon.

Oh, absolutely, there was going to have to be a discussion well before I would be willing to do that. I’d never take unilateral control of a player’s character like that

My table tends to not metagame at all, even in situations I really wish they would. I think of all the answers I’ve gotten, this is the most reasonable and actionable answer. Just remind the player more often. I’m gonna have to come up with a good way to not sound like a condescending asshole because this is the only player I’m going to have to do it to. It just sucks cause it’s one more thing I’ve gotta do while running combat. But that’s life I guess

That’s a really cool narrative way to go about fixing this, though it does feel kinda rail-roady. I’ll give it some thought.

I go back and forth on this. I feel like I’m enabling these choices by pulling punches. But it feels excessively anti-fun to just kill them and be like “sorry lol be better”. I don’t think I have the heart to just murder characters all the time.

It’s not quite 3 years. I’ve been DMing for about 3. This player has been playing on-and-off for about 1.5. I have complicated the rules a touch because in the last 8mo or so I’ve switched to PF2e. I mean this problem in specific isn’t that system specific, so I don’t think that really excuses it.

But all-in-all you’re right. The most effective answer is find another group that is more invested in the game. I’m moving across the country in a few months, so I guess I should just ride the issue out a little longer and then move on, which is a huge bummer. I guess in the meantime I’ll try and remind them more regularly and once again have the conversation about “Why?”

Thank you

I don’t try and TPK my players, quite the opposite. I’m actively downgrading encounters and making mechanically disadvantageous choices to avoid them. The only thing I’m not doing is fudging rolls.

I am reaching out to the community to help me try and better understand how I can resolve this problem at my table, and everyone else in this thread seems to agree that this player’s choices are, at a surface level at least, baffling. I recognize it is probably reflective of some underlying assumptions that I have tried multiple times to elucidate so I can better understand the situation. But for some reason, you are the only person I have encountered who has become hostile and accusatory towards me. I don’t know if you’ve been butt-hurt by some DM in your past or if your games live by the rule of cool. Regardless, you’re being disrespectful and I don’t appreciate that. I won’t be engaging with you anymore.

That’s why I came to the community. I feel like I’m a reasonable and half-way experienced DM at this point. The player is aware cantrips are unlimited use. The player is a very intelligent individual. I’ve had the conversations about spell use. At its core, I genuinely think the player is attracted to the “cool factor” and “aesthetic” of playing a caster but doesn’t actually want to engage with any of the mechanics. I can remind the player about spells and that reminder will last for a combat, sometimes less. I feel like I’ve done everything I know to do aside from straight banning the player from playing full casters or queuing them to cast spells every-other turn, I’m at a loss.

This is a great thought, I’ll definitely give it some thought

They generally pick combat focused spells, minimal utility cantrips/leveled spells. But then don’t use them. When they have utility cantrips, they rarely use them outside of combat (like won’t cast detect magic to look for things, won’t use prestidigitation for intimidation, etc).

I haven’t explicitly stated “your poor choices are killing your friends” but after the last TPK, they were sad and I apologized for killing them, but then immediately went into a discussion of “you know you were fully rested for this, why didn’t you use any of your more powerful spells?”

Unfortunately none of my players are exceptionally well versed in the rules of the system/their characters. They know the basics well enough. Unfortunately they (and I) have very demanding professional lives and reading a rule book is too low on their priority list to ever make it to the top.

I totally agree that the individual would be better suited to an eldritch knight, Paladin, arcane trickster rouge, etc. We’ve had that discussion twice, and it seems to go over well and they agree, until the next session comes up and they have made another caster character.

Accurate, just less hostile 😂

All of my encounters with individuals who feel liberal arts are useless and STEM is the way seem to, at their core, feel that way because of earning potential, and I’ve never heard one of them bash Econ/finance/investment as a career path. But 🤷‍♂️

Then no, I don’t agree with this specific implementation of the system, at least the second half. I do think more productive/effective workers should be compensated more. But being a good engineer does not make you a good manager, and the issues associated with promoting an excelling worker into management (a job requiring a substantially different skill set) are so common there’s a name for their inevitable failure, The Peter Principle

I didn’t say it did, but I am a citizen of the USA and the vast majority of my cultural experience and knowledge, and therefore what I can intelligently comment on, are centered on the US.

Well you need to clarify further then. Are you saying we should make the best scientist the president, or the person with the most aptitude for politics and rule to be president? I don’t see how this is functionally different than what I said.