Echinoderm
Lots of stuff by Tim Minchin, including my favourite Christmas song, White Wine in the Sun.
They had Australian servers about 10 years ago. I quit when they closed them down, forcing people to transfer their characters to servers with that where considerably more laggy.
This is terrible for all involved. Even if the driver did everything right and couldn’t have foreseen this, he will still always be the guy who ploughed into a bunch of families and kids.
I don’t agree with the overall view there.
The example the blog gives is: “I flash the barkeep my best smile, order a cup of ale and pay with a handsome tip and try to get him talking about the local rumours in a chatty friendly manner.” The mistake in the reasoning is assuming the GM must call for a roll.
From my point of view, players don’t call for rolls, the GM does. Players just say what they are trying to do. While the GM can call for a roll in a situation, they don’t have to. Something might just succeed or not. What if the barkeep likes gossiping with anyone who walks in the door, no matter how persuasive the other person is?
It’s also odd that they state in the d20 version of the example “the roleplaying doesn’t actually affect the outcome” right after suggesting the GM give a +2 modifier to the roll for the roleplaying.
My current campaign has a character whose parents still live in the town where the adventure is largely based. A lot of effort is spent convincing other townsfolk not to tell his mother what he’s been up to. It’s fantastic.
There are a lot of books. They are all stand-alone stories, but have continuity with recurring characters. Some are in more closely linked arcs, like the Death series, the city guard books and the witches books.
The Tiffany Aching series might not be a bad starting point. While they were among the last to be written, they introduce a young trainee witch who’s power is basically being rational (much like other Discworld witches).