To be transparent, I checked with another admin to make sure this would be okay!
This summer, I am offering Cherokee language tutoring via zoom!
I am a Cherokee language teacher, working in a public education setting. I have a degree in Cherokee Education and I am a graduate of CLMAP.
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Currently I am offering a package and half hour sessions:
Package—$200 Includes: •FREE consultation prior to payment •10 one half hour sessions —sessions can be daily or weekly —study materials tailored to fit your needs —flexible scheduling •classroom-like structure payment plan options for those on fixed incomes and/or those with disabilities available
Half hour sessions—$30 Includes: •FREE consultation prior to payment •Premade materials with ability to tailor to suit you •Guidance on how to further your learning
If you don’t know how to get started, I can definitely help with that! A lot of the materials we would use are things I use in my classroom. We can outline our expectations and figure out what best suits your needs 😁
Please feel free to message me, if you are interested

I benefitted a lot from the advice on this subreddit and used a lot of it to guide my approach to M3 year; now that I've had the chance to sit the exam, I wanted to create an exam write-up in the hopes that it will be useful to others. This write-up is lengthy, as I wanted to include advice for any new M3 students about how to maximize 3rd year, as well as some Step 2-specific strategies and advice.
A little about me: I am a non-traditional student (in my 30s) at a mid-tier US MD school. Pre-clinical grades were good (honored 2nd year, 0.5% away from honoring 1st year). Honored every rotation in 3rd year. I am a peer tutor at my medical school and was actively involved in tutoring 1st and 2nd year students throughout my M3 year and dedicated.
I am a big believer in students teaching students and the idea that if we all work together, we all become better students and clinicians. In that spirit, I welcome you to ask me any questions that you have below.

Overview

In general, my advice boils down to:

1. Don't try to use EVERY resource. Choose a few high-quality resources and really know them well.
2. Doing well on Step 2 (and shelf exams, tbh) requires active learning strategies and continually trying to think about what the next step would be. Practice questions are a great way to do this, but challenge yourself to go beyond what each individual question to build a broader knowledge base. That way, you won't only know the answer to that specific question, but also to a whole host of related questions.

General studying tips for 3rd year + dedicated
I am a big believer that the most effective study strategy involves four big components:

1. A question bank (UWorld) - gives you primary exposure to the material and helps to identify where your gaps are.
2. A system for continuously reviewing content - I used Anki (I discuss this more below). You can also use other strategies (note-taking, old school flash cards), but the important thing is that your review strategy needs to be ACTIVE (i.e., not just re-reading your old notes, but actively quizzing yourself and covering up the answers) and it needs to be CONTINUOUS. I did not pause any Anki cards during 3rd year, so by the time I got to dedicated, I had been actively, continuously reviewing content for months.
3. Resource(s) for primary sources - this is where you go when you need to refresh on pathophysiology, look up treatment/diagnostic testing for a disease, or understand the symptoms. I prefer UpToDate for this broadly, and used some additional resources on specific clerkships that I will discuss below.
4. Practice exams - NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms") and NBME Step 2 practice exams; do them timed to practice pacing.

A note on AMBOSS vs UWorld
A lot of people I know use AMBOSS and like it. Some people want an additional bank of questions to study from. I didn't personally use AMBOSS at all during 3rd year, and only used it for Ethics and QI during dedicated (and honestly, it was only marginally useful - may have gotten me 1 or 2 extra points on the real step 2 exam, but not more than that).
I think the smartest way to approach Q-banks is to make sure you have enough time to complete and thoroughly review at least one. For me, UWorld was more than enough to prepare well for each shelf exam and step 2 (honored every rotation). I think that a lot of people who try to use both AMBOSS and UWorld never finish either Q-bank in its entirety, or don't really review the Q-bank adequately. I decided it was a better use of my time and money to review only one but really know it well.
A note on Anki
Anki is a powerful tool that can really help with your long term retention, but it is dangerous if used incorrectly. I suspect that many people who don't find Anki helpful simply don't use it effectively.
The purpose of Anki is spaced repetition. In order for this to work, you have to keep up with reviews and you can't pause cards. I also caution students I tutor to be cautious of relying solely on a premade Anki deck; I used the AnKing deck, as well as this deck and a home-brew deck at my medical school.
During M3 year, I would start each rotation with UWorld from day 1, and as I came across each concept in UWorld, I would do a search through my Anki cards and unpause all the cards that related to that topic (so, for instance, when I got a question about diverculitis, I would then unpause all the diverticulitis cards). I found that doing this ensured that the new Anki cards I was adding were reviews of concepts I had just studied (via UWorld), so I was able to both reinforce the new content via Anki and also ensure that the new Anki cards I was adding were concepts that I was actually familiar with. I recommended this approach over the one that I saw many classmates using (just unpausing all the cards tagged for a clerkship at the start of the clerkship and "raw dogging" them, as my friend put it). It's also a good way to keep your daily new cards (and thus, your reviews) at a manageable number. On a typical day in 3rd year, I added between 50-100 new cards and averaged 250-350 reviews daily. I was nearly always able to complete my reviews while I was at the hospital each day, leaving my home study time free for UWorld.
More on how to effectively use Anki
A note on staying sane and prioritizing high-yield content
As others have said, I think that the best way to do extremely well on Step 2 CK is to approach M3 as a yearlong dedicated period. Doing well on Step 2 is not just about your preparation for the Step 2 exam, but also your learning during each rotation and your preparation for your shelf exams. Even if you're not at all interested in a particular specialty, there is a lot to learn from each rotation that will be valuable to you as a future physician. Additionally, each specialty has its own way of approaching medical decision-making, and paying attention to these patterns of thought can help you to reason through questions on exams, as well as be a better communicator with physicians in each specialty when you become a resident and attending.
As you progress through 3rd year, there are also a few things that I think it's wise to keep in mind:

• Remember that you are a person first and a medical student/doctor second. I put this first because it's the most important. It's hard to learn when your basic needs aren't being met or you're so anxious, stressed, or depressed you can't remember anything. Find something that keeps you grounded and whole and sane and make that a priority. For me, it's distance running. I ran nearly every day of 3rd year and dedicated (often at 3 AM, before rounds). I finished 3 marathons during M3 and dedicated, including running the Boston Marathon 2 weeks before I took step 2. Running relieves anxiety, gives me an excuse to step away from studying, and evens out my mood. In total, I ran over 2500 miles during my M3 year. I don't think I would have done anywhere near as well in M3 without it.
• Get really, really good at preventive care. The US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines are highly tested on all shelf exams and on Step 2, and there really aren't that many of them. Before my family med rotation, I made an Anki deck of the A and B recommendations based on the most recent updates and kept those in rotation through Step 2 (about 150 cards total). If you're at the beginning of M3 year, (or really any point in M3) I would suggest doing this right now. Every time you see a patient in clinic, think about "what screening exams should this patient have". If you get in the habit of always doing this, by the time you get to the exam, those screening questions will be free points (and there are usually a bunch of them).
• Try to approach every patient encounter as though you are the sole physician responsible for that patient's care. Formulate your own plan independently of residents or attendings. Ask questions about all these things in your patient interview, and present the answers to your attending. You will learn more if you push yourself to try to think about management from the beginning of 3rd year rather than relying on plans from your residents.
• Pay attention to sensitivity and specificity of tests. This is becoming a bigger and bigger deal on NBMEs and Step 2. Knowing sensitivity and specificity can help you determine whether a given finding in a question stem is significant or not.
• Look up every imaging test and diagnostic procedure you come across, whether in clinic or on a practice exam. A good rule of thumb for whether you understand a test is "Do I know when this test is appropriate, when it is inappropriate, and could I explain it to a patient?". I had a surgery fellow pimp me on when to order an ERCP vs MRCP; this stuff is important because it prevents unnecessary testing and allows you to get the most "bang for your buck", both in terms of diagnostic accuracy and scoring points on the "next step" questions on exams.
• Pay attention to thresholds for follow-up observation vs treatment. If a patient has a AAA that's 3 cm, you do serial ultrasounds and watch it clinically; if it's 7 cm, you operate. Many, many conditions have similar thresholds, and you should look for the differences in how you manage a condition based on the thresholds. Sometimes this stuff is buried in the UWorld explanations, so when you see it, make a flash card or add it to your review.
• Know the USPSTF screening guidelines like the back of your hand. There aren't that many of them, and it's basically free points on every single shelf exam + step 2. Make a flash card deck with the most updated versions on day 1 and review it throughout 3rd year. Especially high yield on FM + IM, but they appear on every shelf.
• Think about what things a specialty "cares about" when you're rotating on that specialty.
  • OBGYN: gestational age, STI history/screening, social/fam Hx of risk factors for gyn cancers (breast, cervical, ovarian, endometrial).
  • Surgery: is the patient safe to take to surgery (comorbidities, heart failure, coagulopathies, meds, etc)? When is surgery indicated (i.e., do they have to go now, or can they wait)? Antibiotic prophylaxis (who needs it, and what antibiotics)? Post-op complications (the "5 W's", leaks, nearby structures that can be injured)? Normal post-op care/patient safety (DVT prophylaxis, catheter removal, infections, etc).
  • Peds: developmental milestones/normal development/growth curves, rashes (pediatricians love rashes), upper respiratory infections, stuff that gets treated differently in kids (ex. febrile UTI), neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (basically guaranteed to get at least one question on this on any peds exam)
  • IM: Preventive care/screening, vaccines, hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, ACS, liver failure/cirrhosis.
  • FM: IM + Peds + OBGYN, with a heavy focus on preventive screenings
  • Psych: Pay attention to timelines; think of every psych disease as a continuum (i.e., <1 mo = brief psychotic disorder, 1-6 mo = schizophreniform, 6+ = schizophrenia, schizophrenia + mood symptoms = schizophreniform). Find something that makes sense to you for the personality disorders (I personally mapped them all onto Harry Potter characters and now I will never have to re-learn them).
  • Neuro: Differentiating causes of stroke, multiple sclerosis, when to get an MRI (answer: always get an MRI in neuro), different types of dementia

Subject Review

This section is intended for those who are starting or still in the midst of M3 year. If you're already in dedicated, this section may be less useful.
For all rotations, my strategy was generally:

1. Complete the UWorld Shelf exam Q-bank with 1-2 weeks to spare
2. Make/unpause Anki cards as I worked through UWorld
3. Take timed NBME practice shelf exams regularly throughout the rotation(I sat down at the start of each rotation and planned these out every 1-2 weeks so they were evenly spaced throughout the rotation). Get through every practice exam by the end of the rotation. Doing them timed is important because it helps you to practice pacing. One 50-question exam at 90 seconds/ question = 75 minutes total. I also wrote down the diagnosis for each question so that when I reviewed the exam, I could see whether any wrong answers were a problem with making the wrong diagnosis vs knowing the next step. Doing the NBME shelf exams also gives you a good sense of what the "pet concepts" that tend to occur over and over are (for instance, SCFE vs Legg-Calve-Perthes comes up shockingly often)

Order of rotations:
I did my rotations in the order listed below and I really liked this order. I know many people advocate for finishing on Internal Medicine, but I was very glad I started with it, because I think it laid a strong foundation for everything else. As long as you have a solid strategy for reviewing the IM content continuously throughout the year, I think it's a smart choice for the first rotation, especially because basically every other shelf exam will have 5-10 IM questions on it.
Medicine
Resources: UWorld (IM shelf bank + 1/2 of Ambulatory), Case Files Internal Medicine (did ~50% of it), USPSTF A & B guidelines, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), Emma Holliday review
Advice: If you have free time 1-2 weeks before starting IM, get through as much of Case Files as you can. It lays a good base and helps you get into the mindset of IM. Once you start the rotation, crank through UWorld. I'd suggest trying to finish the UWorld Q's with 1-2 weeks to spare at the end of the clerkship in which you can review incorrects and/or shore up any weak areas.
Raw Score: 85
Neurology
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: Neurology, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms")
Advice: Case Files Neuro is a little in the weeds, but it will help a lot with some of the more off-the-wall pathologies that aren't really seen in the UWorld bank.
Raw Score: 90
Psychiatry
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: Psych, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"). A lot of people swear by First Aid for the Psychiatry Clerkship; I didn't use it (but I think Case Files accomplished much the same purpose)
Advice: Pay attention to timelines + enjoy the psychation! This is the lightest rotation for most people. Take it in the summer if at all possible and enjoy the nice weather and free time. If you can, get it somewhere in the middle of 3rd year so you can have a little break.
Raw Score: 94
Family Medicine
Resources: UWorld (FM bank + 1/2 of ambulatory bank), Case Files: Family Med, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), USPSTF A & B guidelines, CDC vaccination schedules
Advice: Try to take FM after IM, if at all possible. DO NOT underestimate the family medicine shelf exam. It is the broadest shelf exam, and it's heavily weighted towards prevention, so plan your studying accordingly. Know the USPSTF guidelines and vaccine schedules like the back of your hand (this is at least 25-30% of the shelf exam).
Raw Score: 85
Surgery
Resources: UWorld (Surgery bank + EM bank), de Virgilio's Surgery, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms") for EM and Surgery, American College of Surgeons TEAM (Trauma Evaluation and Management) course book, Emma Holliday review
Advice: The surgery shelf exam focuses heavily on the pre- and post-surgical management of surgical patients, trauma assessment (hence the EM questions/CMS forms above), and knowing the indications for surgery. You will not be asked how to do a surgery on the shelf exam, but you will be expected to know when a surgery is indicated vs when medical management should be used instead (and also what that medical management is). De Virgilio's is a great and under-utilized resource that has a fantastic question bank at the end of each chapter. I would recommend reading at least the GI, vascular, breast, endocrine, and trauma sections (and honestly, as much of it as you have time for).
Raw Score: 85
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: OBGYN, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), ACOG guidelines, UWise questions
Advice: OBGYN is all about timelines (at least, the OB part is). Pay attention to gestational age requirements for diagnosis of various conditions. Know the various labs that are used to diagnose Pre-eclampsia with severe features, and really pay attention to risk factors for the various obstetric complications. As one nurse midwife I worked with put it, "The biggest risk factor anything in L & D is usually a history of the same complication". I didn't really find the UWise Q-bank that useful, but if you have extra time, it's a nice source of extra practice questions, or a good way to reinforce any trouble spots.
Raw Score: 87
Pediatrics
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: Pediatrics, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), CDC vaccination schedule, Emma Holliday review
Advice: Know the general trends of pediatric vital signs (what's normal for an adult is abnormal for most pediatric patients and vice versa), pay attention to rashes and dermatology, and review these as often as possible. It's well worth your time to do a good review of all the glycogen storage diseases, inborn errors of metabolism, lysosomal storage diseases, etc that you forgot after Step 1. For this reason, if you can do Peds as your last rotation before Step 2 it's kind of nice...then you only have to re-learn all this stuff once. This stuff is fair game for Step 2 (and I did personally get questions on it on my exam).
Raw Score: 91

Dedicated Study

I completed my first pass of UWorld during my M3 core rotations with an average of 74%. I did reset UWorld and begin a 2nd pass during dedicated, but I found that the questions repeated a lot of content that I knew well, and ultimately decided it wasn't a good use of my time. I only completed about 20% of my 2nd pass of UWorld with an average of 92%.
My main resources during dedicated were NBME practice exams (I did 8-14 timed), UWSAs, and the Free 120. I also listened to some Divine Intervention episodes on my runs and reviewed the Emma Holliday shelf exam reviews (I had previously listened to these during my M3 rotations). Of the podcasts, I found the Divine Intervention Free 120 review the most helpful, and would strongly recommend listening to those episodes after you take the Free 120. It did a lot to help me with some test taking strategies that I used on exam day.
General advice for dedicated:

• Keep on a regular sleep schedule, even on your days off. I went to bed at 10 and got up at 6 every day, because I wanted my schedule to be close to what I would need to do on test day.
• Take days off. I took at least 1/2 a day off every week. I also ran a major marathon 2 weeks before my test day, so that was a very light weekend in terms of studying.
• Keep exercising and doing things you enjoy. For me, this meant running a marathon (something I do regularly). You don't have to go as crazy as I did, but do something to get outside and stay active. It will help you keep the anxiety under control and see the sunlight every so often.
• Take practice exams regularly and spend plenty of time reviewing them. I made a google doc to keep track of incorrects and assigned each one to a category of "why I got it wrong" (i.e., "overthinking", "knowledge gap", "guessed wrong of 2", etc). This helps to identify trends. I found that I have a tendency to overthink questions, so identifying this helped me to address this weakness and gave me confidence to go with my gut instinct on the exam.
• Don't be afraid to adjust your study plan during dedicated. I started a 2nd pass of UWorld, but after about 2 weeks of dedicated, I felt like I wasn't really getting anything additional out of it and I was remembering too many of the questions from my 1st pass, so I just stopped using it. I spent that time on other resources instead (more practice exams). Take the time to really analyze which activities are actually helping your learning. Don't just do something because that's what everyone else is doing during their dedicated.
• Keep up with your review strategy. For me, this was Anki. I spent 2-4 hours every morning during dedicated doing Anki. At times, I worried that this was too much time on Anki, but part of what makes Step 2 (and all USMLE exams) challenging is the sheer breadth of content. The best way to prep for this is to keep consistent with your review strategy.
• If there's a concept you dread seeing in a question stem, STOP, do not pass Go, do not collect $20. Take a second to go to a primary source (UpToDate, a textbook) and review that content. Make some flash cards and review it regularly.
• Practice your timing. I came up with my exam day break strategy at the start of my dedicated, and every time I took a practice exam, I practiced my break strategy (at least, the first 5 blocks of my break strategy). This made it very easy for me to execute on test day because I was already used to doing 5 blocks in a row exactly this way. I took my lunch break after block 5 instead of block 4 (because I liked the psychological factor of knowing the exam was more than halfway done). Coming back for 3 more was no problem on test day.

My practice exam scores:
CCSE: 254 (my school requires this, and it was given a few days after the final shelf exam, right at the start of my dedicated period)
NBME 9 (30 days out) 269
NBME 10 (21 days out) 268
NBME 11 (18 days out) 262
NBME 12 (15 days out) 251
NBME 13 (7 days out) 264
NBME 14 (2 days out) 264
UWSA 1 (25 days out) 254
UWSA 2 (9 days out) 268
UWSA 3 (5 days out) 266
New Free 120 (3 days out) 85%
Predicted score: 265

The Day Before

Just take a break, for the love of all that is good. I went for a run, watched some old TV, read for fun, had a nice pasta dinner, and tried to go to bed early. Laid out everything I needed (lucky t-shirt, snacks, testing permit, ID, keys, etc).
Of course, I ended up tossing and turning most of the night and slept very poorly. When I woke up, I considered trying to postpone my test, but ultimately I decided I just wanted it over and done with and I wasn't willing to wait any longer. My point here is that even if you have anxiety and/or a single bad night of sleep before the exam, you can still do very well if you've done the work. As we say in the marathon world, trust your training.

The Test

Got to the testing center 45 minutes early. Made sure the last thing I did before going through security was to take a bathroom break. Brought plenty of snacks, headache medication, chocolate, and a healthy and delicious lunch (I think there's some psychological power in knowing you have a delicious lunch awaiting you).
During the exam, I took a break of at least 5 min after every block. Personally, I found the mental break was extremely helpful. On the whole, I found the exam to be quite reasonable.
Step 2 CK: 277
My last piece of advice will be that I think doing well throughout third year is the best thing you can do. If you've had a break after 3rd year or you are an IMG or someone coming from a non-traditional program, doing a thorough content review with the CMS forms before starting Step 2 specific practice exams is a good idea.
Ultimately, I think the most important things are:
1.) Choosing a FEW, QUALITY resources to review
2.) Continuing your ACTIVE, CONTINUOUS review strategy
3.) Keeping a consistent schedule with time for sleep, healthy eating, exercise, and something you find fun (ideally something other than TV).
4.) Staying off Reddit. Really, I mean it. Especially during dedicated, it's just a black hole of anxiety and angst and you should avoid it at all costs. Come back after you get your amazing scores and pay it forward to others.

I’m 19 and genderfluid (they/he/she). I live at home currently with my dad and other family members. I know i’m a CG but i’m unsure about being little.
For context, I just recently got my first part time job at my local rec center so when i work is very abnormal since I don’t work every week. So I have a lot of free time until I start my EMT program in the fall. I want to explore my possible little side in private without my family knowing because my dad and brother are very not conservative, but conservative thinking, they are very lgbtq and womens rights and stuff but also they would chose a man over a bear in the bear VS man tiktok debate. i’m thinking of ordering an adult paci to see how I feel about it since they don’t typically question when I ordebuy stuff and don’t go through any of it.
I also can only regress willingly rather than being triggered into regressing. My ex bf was a flip and he would encourage me to try and regress and I did when with him (online relationship), but it was only because I chose to let go and let him be my cg.
Any advice on if I should get a premade paci or just buy a blank? I like scooby doo and curious george when regressed. Mostly anything animal related since i’m also in the SFW furry community.

I know the idea sounds... frankly absurd especially when we are considering the nature of Undertale and your capability to have a choice and choices that can effect the broader scope of the game as a whole, but I at least want to bring up the concept of fate mostly to have the idea be put out there. Deltarune seems to be far more explicit with the idea of fate and it made me wonder about Undertale and how it stacks up. I'll start with textual evidence and then work up to more Meta Evidence. All of which could be argued for or against.
First this true lab entry made by Alphys.
I've done it. Using the blueprints, I've extracted it from the human SOULs. I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living... The resolve to change fate. Let's call this power... "Determination." - Entry Number 5, True Lab
This is as far as I can tell the only major instance in which Fate as an idea is brought up, and while this is mostly there to hint at the idea of Frisk's whole time manipulation powers this is still coming from a scientist someone who at least should be honest enough to not jump the gun on conclusions like this.
Counterargument: It's also entirely possible Alphys is being a nerdy dumbass. It isn't entirely out of character for Alphys to hype up something. She is a dork who loves anime ffs.
Second, The Delta Rune Prophecy, this is a very pivitol form of forshadowing for both Pacifist and Genocide runs of Undertale. Gerson explains it as such...
Oh yeah... The prophecy. Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom. Lately, the people have been taking a bleaker outlook... Callin' that winged circle the 'Angel of Death. A harbinger of destruction, waitin' to 'free' us from this mortal realm...
Note this Prophecy manifests itself regardless of the decision you made in Pacifist or Genocide albeit differently. Implying that there could be Fate that brings you to this outcome regardless of the choices you made.
Counterargument: It's interesting to note how all other endings seem to cause the legend to be derailed. That being the Neutral endings. It's also wholly possible you just fufilled some vauge requirements of a prophecy that was intentionally vauge enough for it to be applied to anyone.
Third: Metatextual, you as a player can load a game of Undertale to try out a different choice. Sure you "made" a choice but would it be more accurate to say you were "given" a choice by the developer of said game. To put it in another way there are RULES in Undertale that all players are sort of bound to. Despite your ability to save and load there are genuine consequences to your actions. Unless you are using glitches or have very precise control over the universe theres not really a way to circumvent these laws.
What if you exhaust every choice in existence in Undertale? Does your actions seem free then, or did you just walk down premade paths made by devs that already anticipated the choice?
Counterargument: The focus of the game seems to be that your choices matter. Toby very much may have never intended for his game to be veiwed this Metatexually. Toby probably intended to have the Save and Load mechanic to be the only Meta concepts involved in the game.
Well with my thoughts laid out what do you all think... Does fate exist in undertale?

Demon Gate: Dreamcatcher

1. Setting: Demon Gate: (a dark/ high fantasy campaign)
2. System: Chaos System by Arcanum Syndicate
3. Time/ Day: Saturday 10pm EST till 1 am EST
4. Platforms: Roll20 & Discord
5. Character Classes: Create your own or choose a premade

About the Campaign: It is the Year of the Crow in the 11th Era. You have watched the twin suns set outside the arched window many times ever since you arrived here. The great city known as The Nine Towers. It is a place of powerful and esoteric knowledge, filled with some of the greatest libraries in the north. The city sits on the borderlands of Thead and Kauldane, two northern kingdoms that were once at war long ago. Yet, now, these two countries are united for the sake of power and peace. For not far away are the countries Varagoth, the land of the goblinoids, and Vasgar to the south, where the vatagi dwell... a race of mutants that many call half demons.
Magic is untrusted in this world. Many blame magic and those who use it on the arrival of the Pale Plague. Necromancers, once hired by the empire during the Black Arbitration, were meant to quell this pandemic. Yet, they could not stop it. For the sick were not undead, they were something else entirely. They were not able to be controlled by black magic. Now, the Arbiters have been disbanded, blamed for the disease by the Aticraulian Empire, the very ones that gave them power to stop it. Now, they are hunted down to be burned at the stake. It is true that magic is dangerous, but the elves believe they can control it. They believe that great things lay hidden within its mysterious secrets.
You have come here to some of the finest schools of magic in the northern lands. All manner of species dwell here, living in harmony in their quest for knowledge. You have come to the Academy of Thaumaturgical Investigation to advance your career, gain power, reputation, coin... well, the rest is for you to decide. Not all of you need to be spell casters. We have plenty of jobs for you to do. For we need all the heroes we can get.
Setting and System: We are playing Demon Gate, and the system is the Chaos System. This particular campaign is a mix of dark fantasy and high fantasy. Some of you can play as new students to a school of magic. Where you are learning your skills for the first time. Even those who are not playing caster classes will be training in combat or other skills they will be learning. During the course of the stay, it will become apparent that there is something amiss.
Platform: Roll20 and Discord: If accepted, I will send you a link to my Discord for the game to be set up in a private room. We are using it as a home base and the link to the Roll20 game is there.
Game Time: 10pm EST Bi-weekly every other Saturday until the campaign is complete. The game runs about 2 and a half to 3 hours where we have a hard stop.
GM: I am a GM with many years of experience, but I am fine with beginning players to this system and I am happy to help out. There are character sheets available or you may choose a premade. This is a module I am creating and would love to run you through it as a playtester. If you are okay with it I will use your name or alias in the publication as a playtester. There will be a questionnaire to fill out so I can get to know what style of play you like and a bit about yourself. Please feel free to message me if you have any questions.

About the 7th Ranger Group [7R]

We are an international Arma 3 Milsim community officially founded in 2016, with roots dating back to 2013. We are based in Europe, with members from all over the world. As a community we strive to overcome challenges together by coordinated team play. To achieve this we rely on planning, communication and deployment of adapted military tactics and procedures. While we aim to provide an immersive, realistic experience, fun gameplay is not forgotten.

Our take on Milsim

We apply military procedures to establish a coordinated and team play focused environment. This does not mean realism at all costs. While we do not utilize an extensive rank structure, respecting the ingame chain of command is required, as well as following standard operating procedures and having adequate discipline. Communication and capacity for teamwork are crucial.
To ensure an immersive experience we regulate equipment and use first person view only. We use a modified ACE advanced medical system. Furthermore, we do not have an extensive ORBAT or dedicated roles. In general all specialized roles are entrusted to members who are capable of fulfilling them, supported by our diverse qualification system. While we are mainly a light infantry unit, we dynamically integrate a wide range of other assets into our composition based on mission requirements.

About our operations

• Dedicated server for main operations. Works as training grounds during non-mission hours.
• Weekly premade operation, set in modern day or cold war-era.
• Saturdays 20:00 CET (GMT+1) or CEST (Summer Time, GMT+2).
• We play mainly as infantry, with additional air or ground support.
• Units we play as includes (but is not limited to) US Army, US Marines, Tier 1 Operators, British Armed Forces and Bundeswehr.

Our Expectations

We are looking for mature people who share our enthusiasm for overcoming challenges using tactical team play. We do not expect any previous experience and will gladly support each new member with a will to improve on their journey forward.
With our training pipelines, we provide an accessible environment for both experienced and inexperienced players. Every new member will undergo a training program which teaches the required individual skills as well as our standard operating procedures, ensuring a smooth transition into our unit. At the end of a trial period, each Recruit has to complete our Infantry Qualification Course to become a full member.

Requirements

• You are at least 18 years old and you are able to respect and understand others in the unit, and give and take criticism for personal learning. We give everyone a chance to show what they are made of.
• TeamSpeak 3 Client
• A working microphone
• Legal copy of ARMA 3 (also, while not required, we strongly recommend the APEX, Contact and S.O.G. Prairie Fire DLCs)
• Weekly attendance. However, as real life always comes first, not everyone can always make this. In this case, just post a Leave of Absence so that we know and can plan the operations accordingly.

About mods

We, like many other units out there, use a collection of mods to improve and expand the base game. Some of these mods have been further customized to better suit our needs. Size of the modset is currently around 70 GB, and we use Steam Workshop to distribute and keep it synced.

How to join

Please read the general information and then fill an application on our Discord. Once a Recruiter has reviewed it, he will contact you through Discord and invite you to our Teamspeak to have a chat. If we are what you are looking for and vice versa, you will get further access to all the needed resources to be able to join our operations.

For more information

• Check out our handbook to learn more about us and our operation procedures and models.
• Visit our website
• Take a look at Maale's Youtube channel, Ronny's Youtube or his Twitch to see us in action.
• Feel free to join our Discord and have a chat with us.

About the 7th Ranger Group [7R]

We are an international Arma 3 Milsim community officially founded in 2016, with roots dating back to 2013. We are based in Europe, with members from all over the world. As a community we strive to overcome challenges together by coordinated team play. To achieve this we rely on planning, communication and deployment of adapted military tactics and procedures. While we aim to provide an immersive, realistic experience, fun gameplay is not forgotten.

Our take on Milsim

We apply military procedures to establish a coordinated and team play focused environment. This does not mean realism at all costs. While we do not utilize an extensive rank structure, respecting the ingame chain of command is required, as well as following standard operating procedures and having adequate discipline. Communication and capacity for teamwork are crucial.
To ensure an immersive experience we regulate equipment and use first person view only. We use a modified ACE advanced medical system. Furthermore, we do not have an extensive ORBAT or dedicated roles. In general all specialized roles are entrusted to members who are capable of fulfilling them, supported by our diverse qualification system. While we are mainly a light infantry unit, we dynamically integrate a wide range of other assets into our composition based on mission requirements.

About our operations

• Dedicated server for main operations. Works as training grounds during non-mission hours.
• Weekly premade operation, set in modern day or cold war-era.
• Saturdays 20:00 CET (GMT+1) or CEST (Summer Time, GMT+2).
• We play mainly as infantry, with additional air or ground support.
• Units we play as includes (but is not limited to) US Army, US Marines, Tier 1 Operators, British Armed Forces and Bundeswehr.

Our Expectations

We are looking for mature people who share our enthusiasm for overcoming challenges using tactical team play. We do not expect any previous experience and will gladly support each new member with a will to improve on their journey forward.
With our training pipelines, we provide an accessible environment for both experienced and inexperienced players. Every new member will undergo a training program which teaches the required individual skills as well as our standard operating procedures, ensuring a smooth transition into our unit. At the end of a trial period, each Recruit has to complete our Infantry Qualification Course to become a full member.

Requirements

• You are at least 18 years old and you are able to respect and understand others in the unit, and give and take criticism for personal learning. We give everyone a chance to show what they are made of.
• TeamSpeak 3 Client
• A working microphone
• Legal copy of ARMA 3 (also, while not required, we strongly recommend the APEX, Contact and S.O.G. Prairie Fire DLCs)
• Weekly attendance. However, as real life always comes first, not everyone can always make this. In this case, just post a Leave of Absence so that we know and can plan the operations accordingly.

About mods

We, like many other units out there, use a collection of mods to improve and expand the base game. Some of these mods have been further customized to better suit our needs. Size of the modset is currently around 70 GB, and we use Steam Workshop to distribute and keep it synced.

How to join

Please read the general information and then fill an application on our Discord. Once a Recruiter has reviewed it, he will contact you through Discord and invite you to our Teamspeak to have a chat. If we are what you are looking for and vice versa, you will get further access to all the needed resources to be able to join our operations.

For more information

• Check out our handbook to learn more about us and our operation procedures and models.
• Visit our website
• Take a look at Maale's Youtube channel, Ronny's Youtube or his Twitch to see us in action.
• Feel free to join our Discord and have a chat with us.

Post is same as title - Broly still needs a buff. I literally just had a premade game where I lost because the survivors spammed the afterimage deathball "tech" as well as fake death to get free vanish kick combos.
I'm sorry but I literally have to block everyone that is level 200+ and Z rank just so I can get z5 for my raider. I hate having to do it, but it's honest to god the only way without going pay 2 win and using goku black.

Hello everyone, I recently(2 month) started playing DnD and thinking of DMing my first session, so i have some questions:
1) what resources or rules should I need to know?
2) do i need to buy official DM screen or printing online dm screen will be enough?
3) all the players are newbies(me as well) and they want to create their own hand written character sheets, is there any cheat sheet i can follow or do i have to read the whole DM guide?
4) i have a story in mind which is set in post apocalyptic world(in our current country) should I directly start with that or should i run some premade one shots to get me and them familiar with the game?
5) what resources should i keep handy and is there any free versions of them available?
6) what would you suggest i look out for before and while running my first game?
Any and all suggestions for me are welcomed and appreciated! Thank you for reading and responding

Hey loves,
Does anyone know if there is premade journals out there to keep track of POTS symptoms. Id like to have a journal where i can keep track of my flare ups... Symptoms, what i was doing when i had those symptoms, hr & bp at that time.i dont see a specialist for up to 9 months, but id love to have a record to show them and also try to find patterns or anything. I know i could make my own, but im wondering if anyone knows if theres an official pots journal out there, already laid out with detailed pages and everything we need??
Thanks for ur help, also feel free to let me kno what you guys do if you keep track!

Pre-surgery I lurked a lot on this thread and admittedly FREAKED myself out a lot BUT it did make me do a lot of prep work pre-surgery that I think ultimately made recovery a lot better and just wanted to share!
I’m 26F on day 8 of recovery from my tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy on 5/9/24. I’m honestly doing surprisingly well and was even able to eat pizza (sans crust) and honey hot wings without any issues today.
I want to emphasize that this has fucking sucked but I wouldn’t change my decision to have this surgery. While I did not have frequent illnesses or tonsil stones due to my tonsils I did have mild obstructive sleep apnea due to my tonsil size which my ENT said were large both from the front and the top (from the nasal scope). Already I feel less crowdedness in my throat and am able to breathe so much more easily.
I’ve keep a consistent schedule with pain medication, much more Vicodin in the beginning but by day 4 I was able to transition to mostly ibuprofen and tylenol and just doing Vicodin before bed and again 5.5 hours later (getting me around 10 hours of decently pain free sleep.) Set alarms, have caretakers set alarms, set back up alarms and strictly follow those alarms. The only times I was in excruciating pain were the times that I overslept an alarm or forgot a dose of medication, which only happened twice. The liquid forms of ibuprofen and tylenol have been amazing. Getting ready for sleep I would take the Vicodin (in applesauce), drink as much fluids as I could, then I would spray my throat with the mucinex instasoothe spray, put my ice pack on, prop myself up in a comfortable spot and then drift off.
In the comfort list I mentioned pillows, humidifiers and ice packs. Make a lil pillow nest 10/10, it’s hard to get comfortable so having a lot of different points to be able to adjust helps, especially when propping yourself upright ends up being the most comfortable position to sleep in. From the get go I had a cool mist humidifier running 24/7 which helped prevent dry mouth/nose and has definitely helped with healing and pain, I highly recommend this. I also bought an ice pack head wrap with extra ice packs to have fully frozen ones on hand at all times, this helped a lot with managing the pain.
No one warned me about not being able to blow my nose, sneeze, cough or clear my throat— this is me warning you. No matter how much it feels like you have to, you can’t, this is annoying. To help with this my ENT (who told me this only after surgery) recommended I avoid dairy as much as possible to prevent excessive mucous production.
The other thing people did warn about but I didn’t want to believe was the taste. It’s vile. It doesn’t go away until the scabs start going away. Which for me started on day 6 and by day 8 (today) the scabs are almost completely gone and with them the taste is gone too. I spent 6 days doing everything in my power to not think about the taste. I hated drinking regular water bc it just made the taste worse, so I took the less healthy route of drinking anything with flavors to mask the taste, it was a concession I was happy to make. That being said, swallowing hurts, just keep at it, the more you do it the less it hurts, again set alarms, stay hydrated it’s important.
I’ve seen a lot of mixed feedback on here about brushing your teeth but I asked my ENT and he said it’s fine as long as you don’t hit the back of your throat, which people normally don’t do anyways. For me brushing my teeth has been the best, it makes your mouth feel so much better and helps a ton with the god awful cauterized flesh taste.
As for food, I kept to jello, popsicles, broths, applesauce and my other fluids the first few days, by day 3 I was able to eat instant mashed potatoes and by day 4 I was doing mac and cheese and heartier soups. Today is day 8 and as I said I was able to do pizza and wings!
For drinks, like I said, hated the taste in my mouth so I did everything I could to mask it. I’ve been drinking a lot of water with liquid IV and a lot of Gatorade. I have a pebble ice maker, but you can buy bags of it from sonic, pebble ice is so nice to chew on and have in drinks.
Again, this has sucked, but honestly recovery has flown by (not sure if it’s the pain meds or the excessive amount of sleep) but it’s going by quickly and I’m very happy I did it and would make the same choice again.
Best of luck if you’re pre-surgery and reading this thread. You’ve got this!
List of everything:
Food - I premade a fuck ton of jello in different flavors, popsicles, sorbet, sherbet, Jamba Juice with protein, instant mashed potatoes, knorr pasta sides, Annie’s Mac and cheese (I went easy on the milk), applesauce, miso soup and chicken noodle soup/chicken broth (with both soups the early days I did strain out anything in it bc I was paranoid about things getting stuck in my throat) — I did buy protein yogurt drinks, pudding, and ice cream but I did end up AVOIDING those to prevent excessive mucous
Drinks - ice water, water with liquid IV, watered down apple juice, Gatorade, slushies, smoothies, lots and lots of pebble ice
Medication - prescription hydrocodone (which insurance would NOT fill the liquid form of because apparently they know better than my doctor and felt big pills would be better for me after the surgery… in my throat… :-) so wise) I crushed the pills up and ate them with applesauce, children’s liquid ibuprofen, children’s liquid tylenol, mucinex instasoothe sore throat and pain relief
Comfort things - pillows, a cool mist humidifier, head ice pack wrap with extra ice pack inserts

Demon Gate: Dreamcatcher

1. Setting: Demon Gate: (a dark/ high fantasy campaign)
2. System: Chaos System by Arcanum Syndicate
3. Time/ Day: Saturday 10pm EST till 1 am EST
4. Platforms: Roll20 & Discord
5. Character Classes: Create your own or choose a premade

About the Campaign: It is the Year of the Crow in the 11th Era. You have watched the twin suns set outside the arched window many times ever since you arrived here. The great city known as The Nine Towers. It is a place of powerful and esoteric knowledge, filled with some of the greatest libraries in the north. The city sits on the borderlands of Thead and Kauldane, two northern kingdoms that were once at war long ago. Yet, now, these two countries are united for the sake of power and peace. For not far away are the countries Varagoth, the land of the goblinoids, and Vasgar to the south, where the vatagi dwell... a race of mutants that many call half demons.
Magic is untrusted in this world. Many blame magic and those who use it on the arrival of the Pale Plague. Necromancers, once hired by the empire during the Black Arbitration, were meant to quell this pandemic. Yet, they could not stop it. For the sick were not undead, they were something else entirely. They were not able to be controlled by black magic. Now, the Arbiters have been disbanded, blamed for the disease by the Aticraulian Empire, the very ones that gave them power to stop it. Now, they are hunted down to be burned at the stake. It is true that magic is dangerous, but the elves believe they can control it. They believe that great things lay hidden within its mysterious secrets.
You have come here to some of the finest schools of magic in the northern lands. All manner of species dwell here, living in harmony in their quest for knowledge. You have come to the Academy of Thaumaturgical Investigation to advance your career, gain power, reputation, coin... well, the rest is for you to decide. Not all of you need to be spell casters. We have plenty of jobs for you to do. For we need all the heroes we can get.
Setting and System: We are playing Demon Gate, and the system is the Chaos System. This particular campaign is a mix of dark fantasy and high fantasy. Some of you can play as new students to a school of magic. Where you are learning your skills for the first time. Even those who are not playing caster classes will be training in combat or other skills they will be learning. During the course of the stay, it will become apparent that there is something amiss.
Platform: Roll20 and Discord: If accepted, I will send you a link to my Discord for the game to be set up in a private room. We are using it as a home base and the link to the Roll20 game is there.
Game Time: 10pm EST Bi-weekly every other Saturday until the campaign is complete. The game runs about 2 and a half to 3 hours where we have a hard stop.
GM: I am a GM with many years of experience, but I am fine with beginning players to this system and I am happy to help out. There are character sheets available or you may choose a premade. All rules are in the handouts as we are designers for Arcanum Syndicate and are creating a new module to playtest so we will not be handing out the books for free. This is a module I am writing and would love to run you through it as a playtester. If you are okay with it I will use your name or alias in the publication as a playtester. There will be a questionnaire to fill out so I can get to know what style of play you like and a bit about yourself. Please feel free to message me if you have any questions.

I'm reading posts about Nexon struggling with their finances and the game having less players than their expectations, so my aim in this post is to all of us have some good feedbacks and discussions to how to make the game better.
I reached in Discord feedback channels but most of the times my feedbacks got buried by other's balance feedbacks. Here I want to discuss more potential game changing feedbacks that might help the developers get better vision and ideas for their game. I love the game and how much developers and their marketing team respect us with their good pricing and free skin giveaways so I want to give back to them.
I invite others to upvote good feedbacks and discuss new mechanics and possible solutions to game's low population (in publisher's eyes). I don't think balance issues should be discussed here cause we already discussed them a lot.
As others mentioned I don't think the game has monetization problems cause I've seen my friends and me all paying for skins without feeling ripped off and love to pay for their great skins and the game has the most reasonable price to quality for cosmetics in the whole PvP shooters I've seen.
Here is some of my feedback discussions:

Photo Mode and Replays:

One huge feature that I think would change is photo mode. But to have photo mode in middle of the game you can't have it without replays cause of the nature of the game being online.
One simple suggestion I have is to add a prototype photo mode in loudouts. I love to change the pose of my character based on game animations or already in game expressions. It would be great to have a timeline of the animation so we can pause the animation in a specific time and take a photo with nice filters, effects or even different lightning if it's possible. I mention lightning cause Finals lightning is the most astonishing lighting I've seen specially on shiny guns. It should have camera movement, zoom, focus and the usuals of photo modes.
Doing this can result in better advertisement of the game from players using photos for their profiles or even wallpapers or YouTube thumbnails and it will help us advertise the game ourselves or just simply enjoy the details of the game graphics.

Non-Objective Game Modes:

Another discussed topic is to make the game have Team Deathmatch or just Deathmatch for newer players to experience the game without the stress of objectives and necessarily committing to a goal and just get experienced with weapons and gadgets or any other game mode that just gives players cash (game points) for just killing and not completing objectives (like depositing). A gun game mode could be fun, just guns switch after killing and at the end we have dagger only weapon. Doing this requires smaller maps that I will discuss in the next part.

Smaller Maps or Limited Play Area:

Most of The Finals maps are pretty big with repeated buildings and shapes, it is understandable as design point cause it will make use of reusing same premade objects that helps the game with performance and lower disc space along with less development times. My suggestions is to either make smaller maps that I understand takes a lot of time, map design is not an easy task, for this reason other solution is to limit the play area to smaller sections (it can be easily added by the lore that CNS corrupted the map data and things like that). Doing so would cause another problem that is the destruction of the buildings and map can make the map look flat after destroying the objects. A solution I have to this is to add some interactable objects that would reconstruct the buildings or some part of the map with added cooldown. Doing this my cause some physics problems but another solution to this is repel (knockout) the players out of that area and reconstruct the building so it would prevent players getting stuck somewhere on the reconstructed part.
It would be great if mods could help me with this post and reach out to developers for better visibility. I highly suggest others discuss about these or their own game changing feedbacks to help the game become better. We are a community and a group that I'm sure most of us love the game and want to see it succeed. As always be civil and don't argue with others feedback without good reasoning.
Edit: added gun game mode suggestion.

To the Bladesmiths of reddit; I am a simple wood worker by hobby, and tend to spend my free time whittling the hours by making whatever strikes my fancy, usually swords and knives from wood. I have been told that the handles I make are of really good quality and have had several friends tell me I should sell premade carved handles to smiths, as handles are apparently somewhat difficult for most smiths to make. is this true?

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Made it to Diamond on the EU server as a light main, who would also play medium in order to avoid a double light composition. Here are some key observations. Please note that they are personal, and they reflect my experience with the game. If your experience happens to differ, that's understandable and statistically possible.
• More often than not, clicking "play again" after a game ends, will place you with the exact same teammates as the last game. This would happen so often, that it became a habit of mine to wait approximately 10 minutes before queuing for a match if I was not satisfied with my last team.
• Above Platinum 2, the game would at times feel like a closed community game. I would frequently be matched against people on my friend list that I would have added the day before, and I would also frequently spot players I had a hard time with the other day. This is not a phenomenon that would occur on a single session, but a continuous thing that would happen throughout my ranked grind. It led to lot of wholesome moments when I would be matched with players I had a blast with days ago, but also animosities with current teammates that were past sweaty enemies that I had big rivalries with.
• There's a lot of toxicity towards light players. No one wants a light player in their team, and many are willing to offensively voice this in the character selection, and are also willing to trollpick if you don't comply with their requests. Many duo premades would also frequently switch to light the moment I would switch to my light character. I essentially overcame this by queuing as medium, and then switching to my light class at the last possible moment.
• The game (Like most games at this time) is infested with... People with illegal chairs. I'm glad if your experience doesn't reflect this, but this was my experience. There's many people soft wall hacking, which is very annoying but possible to deal with, and there's also many blatant aimbotters. The latest security patch did improve things for a day or two, now it's at a bad state once again. A thing that did change, is that the detection seems to be faster, because many aimbotters will be unranked players in a diamond lobby, whereas this didn't use to be the case. If you spot any hackers, make sure you communicate with your team that your goal for the game will be to avoid that team at all costs and aim for a second place finish. (Quick note, for your own safety and understanding of how these people operate, you should research on your own to learn how these people hide their paid software, how they use their software, as well as to understand the capabilities of the software. A thing I was personally blown away with was a free example of such software on a popular site that was uploaded less than a month ago was sitting at 75000 downloads a few days ago. 75 thousand downloads in less than a month, on a platform with 10k daily peak players. This is not aimed towards embark, they're aware and doing their best and we should support them in this endeavour in every way we can. Spreading awareness is one way to eradicate this problem.
There are a few more observations, but these are some key non-gameplay-specific observation. Good luck and enjoy the game!

I wouldn't ask if I didn't absolutely have to LOL! I'm on a health journey and I'm OBSESSED with the new Churro Freeze. It is my favorite flavor by far and I've gone to Dutch for years. However, I can't just get a Churro Freeze whenever I want with its calorie and sugar content being so high. I have sugar free syrups and sauces at home but I don't know the measurement ratios.
I do know that freezes come with a premade base. But I'd love to know everything that goes in which ISN'T that base (syrups, sauces, cinnamon powder?, etc.) I wanna try to get it as close as I can at home. I know it won't be perfect but that sweet perfect cinnamon flavor is SO GOOD I have to at least TRY.
Thank you in advance! 🙏💯

Demon Gate: Dreamcatcher

1. Setting: Demon Gate: (a dark/ high fantasy campaign)
2. System: Chaos System by Arcanum Syndicate
3. Time/ Day: Saturday 10pm EST till 1 am EST
4. Platforms: Roll20 & Discord
5. Character Classes: Create your own or choose a premade

About the Campaign: It is the Year of the Crow in the 11th Era. You have watched the twin suns set outside the arched window many times ever since you arrived here. The great city known as The Nine Towers. It is a place of powerful and esoteric knowledge, filled with some of the greatest libraries in the north. The city sits on the borderlands of Thead and Kauldane, two northern kingdoms that were once at war long ago. Yet, now, these two countries are united for the sake of power and peace. For not far away are the countries Varagoth, the land of the goblinoids, and Vasgar to the south, where the vatagi dwell... a race of mutants that many call half demons.
Magic is untrusted in this world. Many blame magic and those who use it on the arrival of the Pale Plague. Necromancers, once hired by the empire during the Black Arbitration, were meant to quell this pandemic. Yet, they could not stop it. For the sick were not undead, they were something else entirely. They were not able to be controlled by black magic. Now, the Arbiters have been disbanded, blamed for the disease by the Aticraulian Empire, the very ones that gave them power to stop it. Now, they are hunted down to be burned at the stake. It is true that magic is dangerous, but the elves believe they can control it. They believe that great things lay hidden within its mysterious secrets.
You have come here to some of the finest schools of magic in the northern lands. All manner of species dwell here, living in harmony in their quest for knowledge. You have come to the Academy of Thaumaturgical Investigation to advance your career, gain power, reputation, coin... well, the rest is for you to decide. Not all of you need to be spell casters. We have plenty of jobs for you to do. For we need all the heroes we can get.
Setting and System: We are playing Demon Gate, and the system is the Chaos System. This particular campaign is a mix of dark fantasy and high fantasy. Some of you can play as new students to a school of magic. Where you are learning your skills for the first time. Even those who are not playing caster classes will be training in combat or other skills they will be learning. During the course of the stay, it will become apparent that there is something amiss.
Platform: Roll20 and Discord: If accepted, I will send you a link to my Discord for the game to be set up in a private room. We are using it as a home base and the link to the Roll20 game is there.
Game Time: 10pm EST Bi-weekly every other Saturday until the campaign is complete. The game runs about 2 and a half to 3 hours where we have a hard stop.
GM: I am a GM with many years of experience, but I am fine with beginning players and I am happy to help out. There are character sheets available or you may choose a premade. This is a module I am creating and would love to run you through it as a playtester. If you are okay with it I will use your name or alias in the publication as a playtester. There will be a questionnaire to fill out so I can get to know what style of play you like and a bit about yourself. Please feel free to message me if you have any questions.

Hello all (throwaway account since I'm not on reddit much). This is going to be a partial rant but also genuinely curious on how to prepare for the SCYM exam as I am going to have to retake it.
For some context I am a flow "core" manager (I have other assay development duties as well) at the big pharma I work at and for a variety of reasons have decided to recently take the SCYM exam to add onto my CV.
Thing is as probably most of you in this subreddit are either in an Academic or Industry flow setting, however when taking the exam earlier today many of the day-to-day subject matters we see in the workplace don't apply to us and alot applied to the clinical flow people in the hospital setting. As an example half my day to day work deals with spectral flow on the Aurora, Symphony SE and analysis on OMIQ; the exam however only had 1 out of 100 questions about high dimensional flow. Well over 10 to 15 questions related to some sort of disease state or hematological malignancy, something only talked about within clinical flow. I can't recall any questions asked about panel design for example, something very critical in research flow but something that is not practically developed in the clinical lab as there use premade cocktails and panels. All and all the exam is very outdated (still asking question about cell cycle, as if people are still doing that these day's).
Moving forward I really need a resource to study for this exam. They have a vague outline with books that go far beyond the relevance of what is needed for the test on the ASCP website. Flurofinder had a great test prep that claimed it preps you for the test (which i passed with flying colors when practicing) 1 part about flow basics, 1 part about sorting and a 3rd part about spectral and panel design. After taking the test however it covers things that wont be on the exam and excludes all the clinical flow questions that will be on the exam.
What I'm really looking for at this point is a test bank or practice tests to study from or any other real suggestions from people that have taken the test in recent years. Feel free to PM me.

So disclaimer this is everything my roommate did when she lived with me from my perspective. Also this is a really long story because a lot happened, and I do tend to get sidetracked.
Before we became roommates, I had a situationship with this guy. Let’s call him John. John and I met in our first semester of college and hit it off right off the bat. John was a mutual friend of me and my psychotic roommate, which is how we were introduced. Let’s call her Shortstack. So Shortstack knew I had a thing for John, and was encouraging us to start a relationship which I thought was nice. Eventually, though, when there was a lull in our relationship she admitted to liking John, and I backed off because it was looking like a relationship between me and John wasn’t gonna happen. I did my best to subtly wingman and they ended up dating.
Right before they made it official, I had met someone new. We’ll call him Tim (I’m trying to use generic/default guy names to keep some anonymity). Tim and I hit it off right off the bat. He’s honestly the most genuine, talented, thoughtful, and interesting guy I’ve ever met. Anyway, right before John and Shortstack started dating, I got a text from Shortstack saying she had the hots for Tim and asked if I he was free game. I was a bit bothered by that, but she respected my answer when I politely told her that Tim and I had something good and I didn’t want anyone interfering. At least, I THOUGHT she respected my answer.
Almost a year later and I had asked Shortstack if she wanted to be my roommate so we could both live near school while not having to live on campus. Worst decision ever.
She moved in before I did, and when it was my turn to move in the place was an absolute disaster. Dirty clothes and empty Dominos boxes covered the floor. She had also set up her decorations all over the entire apartment (not really leaving any room for me, which was made worse by the fact that we shared a room, and the apartment was very tiny so we were basically living on top of each other). I brushed it off, but it never really got any better. Normally I wouldn’t be too upset, I’m not a huge neat freak or anything, but it peeved me that she would always point out any mess that I had made.
Here’s a list of some of her really gross habits: dirty underwear everywhere kept old dominos boxes everywhere would buy salads and let them expire and they would sit there until I took them out Refused to do any chores or contribute in any way our shower didn’t fully drain so hair was often left in the tub, but she never cleaned up after herself (meaning I was scrubbing her pubes out of the tub) Used tissues would be left on the ground Not flushing I never once saw her do laundry in the 6 months we lived together
I’m sure there’s more but these are just the ones that I remember. To be fair, here were my gross she took issue with: Leaving dishes in the sink for a long-ass time Letting my laundry basket overflow Walking around in a towel after I took a shower, even when her tinder dates were over (mostly cuz I didn’t give a shit and everything was covered, but I also understand that her glares when I would do that were a little deserved).
That was the easiest part of living with her that I had to deal with. It got so so so much worse, and slowly she started to reveal her true colours.
She had a job at a jewelry store, got fired. Moved to a job at a grocery store across the street, got fired. Bummed around for a few weeks, mostly just sitting on the couch doing arts and crafts. Tried a Zumba class, quit after 2 sessions. Finally she got hired at a movie theatre, but she would only work Friday and weekends. All the while a lot of new things were appearing in our apartment. New makeup, a makeup chair, a tiny plastic Dreamhouse, posters and picture frames, lights, you name it. She was also buying premade meals and continued to order Dominos and DoorDash, never making her own food.
That’s around the time I found a buried letter from our landlord saying she was 2 months behind on rent. (Also an honorable mention about her RGB lights, she would keep them on while I was trying to sleep, even when I had work in the morning which was most days and she’d throw a little hissy fit whenever I asked her to turn them off because it was midnight and I had to get up in a couple hours).
She would constantly be having guys over, but would never tell me, so I’d always come home to a stranger on our couch and I’d uncomfortably lock myself in our room. Walls were thin so I had to listen to her awful flirting and occasionally kissing noises. She had made a goal for herself to kiss at least 30 guys so she could write a book about it, one chapter for each guy. It’s funny because the book is coming out soon, I’m not gonna share the name because I don’t wanna promote an incel’s diary but if you happen to be one of the guys she wrote about, just know that she has said several times her type is “Generic kinda ugly white guys.” I don’t think that’s her type, I think she just says that because all of the super attractive guys she went after all shot her down so quick.
While she’s collecting “ugly-ish white guys” (her words), she has promised herself to some dude in the military overseas who has a ring with their initials carved into it (his name is Matt. I’m not censoring that because I genuinely hope he sees this even though chances are insanely slim. She’s Jodie-ing you my guy, and she wants to elope and marry you to piss her parents off and for financial benefits because she can’t keep a job).
ONTOP of all this, Tim (who at this point I had been with for over a year) would come over and visit sometimes. She was always miserable, but perked up and suddenly became so sweet and friendly whenever he was there. Tim kept trying to drop some social cues that he did not want to talk to her, but she ignored it. I also want to mention that Tim is incredibly attractive, physically and personality wise, which is the main reason I think that “ugly” isn’t actually her type, it’s just all she can get.
Oh quick mention one of her tinder guys was 17. She was close to 20 at the time. She said their age gap made her uncomfortable but she invited him over because she wanted to, and I quote, “lick his abs.” Take that as you will.
My breaking point with her was when I woke up one day with a random man in the room sleeping next to her. She let a random man from tinder have full unsupervised access to 2 unconscious girls and all of their valuable items. There’s more stuff she did but this is already super long so I’m going to leave it on this note. Let me know if you guys wanna hear the rest.

Grave is i think my favorite OSR game. it's a lesser-known hack of Knave 1e designed for dark souls inspired games and i've been running a campaign of it for roughly 2 years now. i praise it here every time i get the opportunity - i've ended up liking it so much, actually, that i really wanted it to be the default system i use for D&D-style fantasy.
this is a bit of an issue as the dark souls elements (souls as both currency & XP, PCs getting multiple deaths, etc) are a pretty specific flavor, so it requires some tweaking. but i want to talk about why i like the system so much before talking about making it work more seamlessly for vanilla fantasy.
good stuff unchanged from Knave: knave 1e is popular enough here that i probably don't need to introduce it, but in case anyone is out of the loop, here you go

• super lightweight, as knave's only 7 pages long
• rather than picking a class, your character is defined entirely by randomly rolled stats & gear. you be a fighter by spending your limited inventory on a big sword & armor and having good strength, you play a wizard by carrying a bunch of spellbooks and having good intelligence. etc etc. very elegant and streamlined
• simple, quick iterations on various old-D&D mechanics, like reaction rolls, morale, monster stats, etc. one-roll side-based initiative. i tend to prefer these over actual D&D/retroclones since they're so clean and easy for new GMs and players to remember

reasons i like Grave specifically:

• PCs have stamina - a resource for spells/combat maneuvers - equal to their empty item slots, adding an axis of customization where a fighter might be more heavily armed & armored for bigger numbers with fewer maneuvers, or play a more nimble swashbuckler for lower numbers with a lot more maneuvers.
• spells are divided into wizardry (INT), theurgy (WIS) and witchcraft (CHA) which adds much more diversity to casters. a wizard and cleric now feel different whereas in knave 1e all spellcasters are largely interchangeable. combined with the stamina mechanic this gives grave vastly more PC diversity than knave while adding very little extra crunch, which i think is super impressive
• grave adds premade packages of starting stats/gear as an alternative to rolling (though you can still roll), essentially adding back character classes. this is really nice, especially when running for new players whose expectations are closer to something like 5e.
• multiple second chances at death per PC (because dark souls) - a little anti-OSR, but i really like it for giving new players a bit of a buffer & time to get invested in their PC. importantly, this only ever goes down as you die, never up, so you have this really nice ticking-clock thing going on as you die more often. it is still way too generous with extra deaths tho, if you run grave i recommend cutting the amount of second chances in half
• whole page of 50 magic items that are all cool and flavorful. the $2 PDF price is probably worth it just for these honestly
• sands off a couple of knave's oddities, like using wisdom for ranged attacks instead of dex. this is an upside or downside depending on preference, but i find it more intuitive to new players

seriously you should play grave. it's so good

my houserules

with 5e being my first ttrpg, that slightly more heroic-fantasy vibe influenced my design here a bit; my goal was to essentially replace 5e with grave as my go-to system for people new to RPGs. you can find the full PDF here!

• diceless skills: i really like skills as a way to customize PCs a little further, but i dislike defaulting to a die roll for task resolution. so instead the game uses a spin on joseph manola's skill system, i.e. if you have the skill on your sheet, you're just considered really good at that thing for the purpose of the GM's rulings. & that's the whole mechanic.
• weapon traits: easy-to-remember, one-sentence traits like crushing weapons being good against armor, rapiers giving you more maneuvers, axes cleaving through enemies, spears having extra reach, etc. weapons deal more damage if they're heavier or don't have traits. the goal is for weapon choice to feel impactful without there being an obvious best one.
• dungeon crawl procedure: this is something knave & grave lack and it's the only thing i feel is really missing from them. i don't really like super-structured dungeon turns with each PC picking exactly 1 action/movement each 10 minutes, so here the referee just marks off 10 minutes behind the screen as appropriate.
• balance adjustments: i love getting to discover characters instead of hand-craft them, so i kept the rolling option on top of grave's classes. but it is reworked so now it gives you the same amount of stats as everyone else, just randomizing where they go instead of how good or bad they are, since i've never liked that power variance. HP is also standardized now.
• ticking-clock deaths: i wanted to keep grave's feeling of gradually getting closer to death the more you fall in combat, even though there's no extra-lives thing built into the lore here. instead you take a mortal wound each time you reach 0HP, and when you hit 3 wounds, you die. they never go away. i like it better than straight death at 0HP because it gives new players a chance to make mistakes without instantly dying, but is still an impactful, permanent consequence.
• other additions: different playable creatures like elves/goblins/etc, a little bestiary, some GM advice, a d50 potion table, proper XP-for-gold rules, free maneuver on to-hit rolls of 20+ (stolen from knave 2e), and a simple character sheet.

i've run this version of grave for kids a few times and it's gone really well. ben milton & jason tocci (knave and grave designers respectively) deserve most of the credit here, since i'm just building on their work and creativity. huge thanks to both of them