I used to read the encyclopedia for fun, so… 
Same.
Yeah, I can relate to that.
Nice! Disappointingly, I’ve never had an encyclopedia.
QotD #196 Reply: Like the rest of you, I’ve always liked learning.
Question of the Day #197: Favourite aphorism, proverb, or saying?
Boy, that’s hard. There are hundreds of little nuggets of wisdom that I love, but the very favorite? I’m gonna have to run a little game show or something to figure that out. Let’s say that we should leave out movie and novel quotes as much as possible, and just stick to the really standard cliches. The ol’ Google Machine found me a list of 150 of them to work with, so of those, here are the ones I’d consider possibly worthy of the title:
“In the Country of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Not only is this excellent wisdom, but it’s also the inspiration for one of my very favorite Old Time Radio programs, an episode of “Escape” titled “The Country of the Blind”, in which an adventurer stumbles upon a hidden valley populated by people who don’t believe that vision exists, and threaten to cut our hero’s eyes out so that he’ll stop speaking of the things he “sees” which nobody else understands. I often feel as if this is a metaphor for my life, not to mention just being an awesome story in its own right.
“Easy Come, Easy Go.” This perfectly describes my employment history.
“Familiarity Breeds Contempt”. This along with its more cheerful counterpart, “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder”, perfectly describes my family situation.
“Give Them An Inch And They’ll Take A Mile.” In my experience, it’s not worth trying to please people, because they’re never satisfied.
“Honesty is the Best Policy.” I’m not sure exactly what this is based upon, as the use of the word “policy” seems strange to me; in my life, it’s more like “Honesty is the Only Acceptable Option”, but the sentiment is much the same.
“Hope For The Best, Prepare For The Worst.” Mostly just that second half. I tend to think of hope as being an opiate that the masses don’t need.
“Still Waters Run Deep.” Ironically this isn’t one of the more profound of these statements, but it flatters me as a somewhat laconic person (verbally at least; I can express myself a lot more effectively in text).
“To someone with only a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This actually wasn’t on the list I searched up, but I was reminded of it by one of the entries which was on the list, “The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease”, because I immediately thought of that one’s exact opposite, “The Nail That Sticks Up Gets Hammered Down”. It seems to be a cultural distinction which of those precisely contradictory statements gets believed, so we’ll call them both a wash, but the one that I was reminded of still stands.
“You Can’t Unscramble An Egg.” - This is one of five or ten entries on the searched list which I’ve never heard of before, but the only member of that subset which I immediately figured was worthy of strong consideration. As someone who has suffered many setbacks in his life, I can’t help but think of everything in terms of inevitable, irreversible damage, and the necessity of avoiding mistakes when they probably aren’t fixable.
Okay, that’s 9 candidates, one too many to do a simple single-round elimination tourney. So I’ll throw out all eight that I found on the list and declare that our winner is the one entry which originated from my own thought process: “To someone with only a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
QotD #197 Reply:
Yeah, I like those two too.
Some others that I enjoy:
Actions speak louder than words.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.*
A bad workman blames his tools.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Assume nothing.
And one that isn’t really a proverb, but I’m writing it nonetheless:
May you live in interesting times.
I’m not going to bother determining which of these is my absolute favourite, however.
Question of the Day #198: What do you think of the X-Card?
* Unless you are literally judging an actual book, in which case you should judge it by its cover, because that is precisely what covers are for.
blows top
Seriously though, I’m going to stand by my previous answer, and further expand on it with the observation that if you’re looking for something (ie nails that you can use your hammer on, when you have nothing else to do), you tend to find that thing everywhere, whether or not it actually exists. You can probably draw your own conclusions about how this principle applies to various political situations, which I of course will not go into here; feel free to PM if such a debate interests you.
As for the X-card, I can’t get your link to work, but assuming it’s the one I think it is, I think it’s a very stupid idea that should be entirely banned. Roleplaying as a hobby is all about having intense, thought-provoking experiences, and if you’re going to push a cancel buzzer on everything you find mildly uncomfortable, then you’re stunting your own emotional growth. Besides, GMing is hard work as it is, without having squeamish players vetoing your plans every time their undies get in a bunch. If you’re not having fun in a game and you want to see things go a different direction, talk to your GM between games, but don’t interrupt a session in progress with your little power play. If you have phobias or something that are so severe you can’t handle having them mentioned in a fictional roleplay game, you’re probably not mentally stable enough to be participating in a social hobby, and should stick to adult coloring books and frolicking puppy videos and the like, until your therapist has successfully helped you reconstruct enough of a metaphorical backbone that you can once again deal with uncomfortable realities coming up during group play.
Link worked fine for me. 
I think the X-card is a great tool for those who are interested in using it. If someone’s having an issue with a situation, by definition they aren’t having fun, and the entire point is to have fun - for everyone to have fun. (And in my experience, if one person isn’t having fun, odds are good that multiple people aren’t going to be having fun… 
)
As the GM, if I don’t know there’s an issue, I can’t do anything about it, so I want to know and I want to know as early as possible. For example, if I’m gaming with someone who have arachnophobia but I don’t know it and I start a scenario with spiders and/or spider themes, I want them to bring it up immediately so I can shift gears. Because phobias are irrational and not something a person can control or make decisions about – they just are a part of that person’s life and something they have to manage around. Another example is people who have had kids or were abused as children often don’t deal with violence against children well – that’s just not fun for them – and they might not think to bring it up before the game because they don’t recognize that as a trigger until they’re in the moment. The X-card is just one tool to help with that, one that is quick and easy to manage. I also make a point to keep a messaging tool up and running during games so folks can ping me on the side if they aren’t willing to publicly hit the card, as some folks are embarrassed by it. (Mostly because there are people they’ve dealt with in the past who have ridiculed or belittled them because of an issue / challenge they have to deal with. 
)
My primary gaming group doesn’t use an X-card, but we’ve been playing together long enough and had enough hard discussions that we are willing to stop the game to bring up concerns. That almost never happens, but it’s good to know we trust each other well enough we’ll do that. We’ve had discussions in the past about veils and lines to ensure we are in agreement on what will be included in the game and what is only hinted at. (For example, some folks get a little embarrassed when PCs take actions that will result in a sexual encounter, so we say it happened and move on, not lingering on the details.)
If I’m running a game for folks I don’t know, though, I want them to feel comfortable with having fun, and a tool like the X-card is a good way to do it.
I want people to have fun. As GM, it’s worth it to me to have a way for people to communicate, whatever that method is. X-card is easy and simple. Communication is the key, and anything that helps with that is a good thing in my book. 
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I second what Rabit said almost exactly.
While I never personally have been in a game that uses the X-card, I do see how it’d benefit for playing with people that you’re not familiar with.
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Heh, sorry 'bout that . . . uhm, I’m the Questioneer, so I’m not bound by the same rules as you lowly commoners. ; )
Judging by your following thoughts, it indeed is. I’m not aware of any other X-Cards.
Is it? I’m pretty sure some (possibly most) folks (myself included) enjoy roleplaying games simply for the fun and/or escapism.
I find it hard to imagine that someone wanting uncomfortable content to be avoided really constitutes a “power play.”
“Having a phobia” and “being too mentally unstable to participate in social things” are, in my opinion, two quite distinct things, and those who are the former are not necessarily the latter.
QotD #198 Reply:
This, exactly.
I’m a pretty accommodating fella in general, so I view my players having fun as significantly more important than me getting to use one scene/encounter that I thought was cool. If you care more about telling the story you want to tell, blast the consequences, than insuring that your players have a good time . . . well, I surely wouldn’t want to play with you.
I’m also a fairly mellow GM anyway, so I’d be mildly surprised if someone felt uncomfortable with my story.
Like everyone else here, I’ve never actually used the X-Card, both for the reason stated above and that I’m already pretty familiar with my players. But I agree with it in principle and think that it is a fine idea.
Question of the Day #199: What should the momentous QotD #200 be?
Then you’re not familiar with the academic concept of “victimhood politics”, which has pretty much dominated the college curriculum for the last 10-20 years.
Strawman much? I’m not saying the players have no input, I’m saying that there’s a time and a place for that input to be given. The time to change your mind about where a train route should be going is BEFORE the tracks have been laid down. Once the GM has started their preparations for a given session, the social contract of roleplaying requires you to go along with what’s currently happening for the duration of the session (ideally even the adventure, when sessions may end halfway through a dungeon crawl or the like, and it’s quite inconvenient if things have to change when you last ended on a cliffhanger). That’s not the same as the players having ZERO control, but to go to the current alternative, including things like X-cards, is going too far in the direction of depriving the GM of their rights. They get to have fun too, and since they’re doing more work, their right to have fun exceeds that of any one player, though it is less than all of the players combined.
You underestimate just how mentally damaged some people are getting in this modern age.
I see how it is…
Just to clarify, this is not a reaction to the previous post, as I already had this in mind from this morning, in case you didn’t post a Question today. I propose “You have to die, but you get to choose the method of your death. What’s your poison?”
The reason I haven’t posted a QotD for three days is not because I’ve been stalling, trying to think of a good QotD #200.
It appears so.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t saying “you” as in The Justifier, but rather “you” as in an example person.
I suppose this is where we must agree to disagree. I believe that the GM’s #1 priority is to maximise every player’s fun, not have their own fun at the expense of a player’s.
Perhaps I do.
Sure, that’s a fine QotD, and I’ll probably use it some time, but it doesn’t really have the right Je ne sais quoi for a big number like 200.
Oh well, I can’t really think of anything very momentous for this special QotD, so we’ll all have to settle for the below.
Question of the Day #200 (Since it’s QotD #200, you get two questions):
A. What should GTG’s next product be?
B. Which of GTG’s characters would you want to be in our Reality?
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GTG’s next product? Hmm… That’s rough. Everything I want is already in the pipeline. 
(Some a little too far out, but it is what it is. 
) But I suppose an RPG supplement that supported alternate realities (outside the sandwich bag) would be fun. 
Which GTG character in our reality? I’d say Legacy, as he might be able to give people a little more of a positive view of things and help folks stop falling for all the garbage that’s causing so much harm, right now. (My first choice was Scholar, but he’d likely look around at our current world situation and “nope” himself right out of here… 
)
Or perhaps he’s overestimating, but it really doesn’t matter as we all have different experiences and views around things like this.
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Easy! A Cult of Gloom supplement for the RPG! With an entire 6 part adventure focused on the Cursed Acolyte.
GloomWeaver should exist in the real world. I’d have super powers in that scenario.
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The product I’d want would be a new expansion for the original SOTM (which I know won’t happen, but I’m fantasizing here). At the very least, I want us to have more Environments, with particularly obvious candidates including Bunker’s army HQ, a Revocorp facility and maybe also some Conteh Energy Company offices, the Southwest Sentinels’ hometown, and the casino where Setback fought Kismet. I feel like I’m missing an extremely obvious candidate here; I think at one point I tried to assign almost every villain in the game to a matching Environment, and there were one or two glaring omissions, but my brain isn’t connecting the dots right now. Anyway, I’d settle for a mini-expansion with just like 3 or 4 environments, but if that didn’t use up my entire genie wish, I’d also throw in another 5 or 10 mini-villain decks, and maybe make the whole box also an Enhanced-Edition style revision of Rook City, which is the only set that really badly needs it imo (Infernal Relics has a couple cards which are questionable, but overall probably stands okay as is, while every single deck in RC except maybe Pike Industries needs an overhaul afaic). Possibly toss in a few promo villains, and maybe after all that, about three new Hero decks just to make it an even 40. But about the only hero concept I can think of within the existing set is a deck for the extremely brief time when Bugbear was a hero, before Dark Visionary “suggested” that he become evil again.
Anyway, after all that, the question of who to be IRL is easy. Wager Master has literally infinite cosmic power; with my personality instead of his bratty imp complex, I could easily succeed where Iron Legacy failed, and create a world of perfect justice with no evil of any kind, other than what I choose to permit. Honestly, you could do a lot worse.
I assume that’s mostly you meming because you’re in the deck. Shooting fire would be fun and all, but Gloomweaver exists to cause the maximum possible human misery and suffering, and he’s not above slaughtering his own peons. I think you could make a somewhat better choice even if being purely selfish and evil about it. 
#200: I’d go with during and post-Vengeance Miss Information, so that our “reality” would be what I say it is!
That’d be a better pick if Miss Info actually could warp reality, which I always thought was the case based on her VOTM cards. In a semi-recent podcast ep, they decided that she was only an illusionist, which IMO was kinda the wrong call, and probably an outright contradiction of their previous lore. Reality bending is worth any price, but mere illusions would be worthless to me, no matter how convincing they were.
Really? I’ve been catching up on the last couple months of podcasts and don’t remember hearing that. Maybe it was farther back and they’re starting to run together. I thought illusions were more of Glamour’s domain. I was sure I remembered Miss Info having at least local reality warping powers.
@The_Justifier and @Thunderbird, I don’t know where you two got the idea that
the character would be under your control or have your personality . . .
As for Miss Info, I think I have some semi-conclusive evidence: her Villain Sheet in the SCRPG Core Rulebook lists “Transmutation” as one of her powers, and in her Capabilities and Motivations section, it says that she can warp reality itself if her illusions fail, if she can concentrate enough.
I suppose there’s always retcons, but this seems like a pretty major one, contradicting something in print and all.
What episode was that, if you remember?
I think you underestimate the power of misdirection . . .
QotD #200 Reply:
A. Well, SotM is done/in the process of being remade, and the SCRPG and Spirit Island are both still going strong. Hmm . . . I’m kinda in the same boat as @Rabit here. Maybe some SotM Decks of RPG things (e.g. Perestroika, Myriad, xxxt’Hulish, etc.). Ooh, or a Disparation SotM Expansion. Or an Alternate Reality RPG Sourcebook, or maybe a Golden Age one. Or perhaps a Spirit Island pack of Aspects for all (or most) of the Spirits who don’t have them yet. Or an expansion to Fate of the Elder Gods, as that seems fairly unlikely to actually happen.
B. Yeah, Legacy/Heritage is a pretty good choice; someone who can inspire others to be better. The Scholar’s also good here, of course. Haka, Chrono-Ranger, and La Comodora would all have some pretty great stories to tell, I’m sure. So would one of the older Spirits, like Volcano Looming High. (Serpent and Shifting Memory would also be good candidates, if not for the facts that the former was sleeping under the island for the whole time and the latter keeps forgetting everything.) Also, if ol’ Count Barzakh were here, I bet I could sell him some secrets about the Sentinels Universe in exchange for powers.
Question of the Day #201: You have to die, but you get to choose the method of your death. What’s your poison?
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Oh, guess I took that as which character would we ourselves like to become when you just meant which would we prefer exist in our reality.
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Ah, okay, now I see where the misunderstanding was. I did indeed intend the latter. Sorry for being syntactically ambiguous!
If we’re talking about the former, though, I might choose Miss Information as well.
Question of the Day #202: If you were exposed to Isoflux Alpha and became an Omega, what power would you have?
I interpreted your question as:
I now realize that it can also be taken as:
That was probably the question you had in mind, but I think my version is a more interesting theoretical to ponder.
I do not, sorry.
I’m never going to be satisfied with any false reality, no matter how paradisiacal it seems. If I have a superpower IRL, it’s a far-above-normal ability to tell what’s real and what is a fabrication.
Ground zero of a nuclear or thermonuclear explosion, the bigger the better. No warning, no time to feel any pain, no corpse left behind, just split-second vaporization. I honestly wish this were an option in real life, as we all have to die something, and most of the options are painful, slow, and thoroughly undignified.