I would honestly recommend sports anime like Haikyuu or Prince of Tennis for this kind of thing. Sports anime always lean really hard into the mental game and you’ll have whole scenes playing out in freeze frame or slow-mo while characters painstakingly walk through their plans. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing

I’ve got to recommend Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. One of the most legendary games in the series for its sheer amount of content. It might feel a bit dated if you’ve played World or Rise, but still good

I had a Genesis and a Dreamcast as a kid, but never a Saturn, so when I played this level I was so confused who the hell this was and what they had to do with anything lol

Not sure why “stop shooting me” is where it is. I only played like 10-15 hours of Lethal Company, but I never once saw a gun in the game. In DRG, on the other hand, every dwarf has multiple voice lines about being shot by their teammate

“Hymn”

You basically lose just guessing the 5 vowels

Remind them every, single, turn.

“Really? Your dagger? Not your cantrip?”

“Oh yeah, I always forget about those”

If they prefer to use it for thematic or aesthetic reasons, they’ll tell you and the mystery will be solved. Maybe there’s a class that does what they want and you can push them towards it. Or maybe they really are just that forgetful and they just need to be reminded every turn. Consider giving them a character sheet that more obviously shows what they can do. Action cards, spell cards, stuff like that might help too. But ultimately, just don’t let them make a dagger attack. Just stop them and present the better option EVERY TIME. You’ll learn one way or another what they want because they’ll go with it or resist it

And I’m not necessarily saying to find a new group (although it seems like you’ll have no choice since you’re moving). I’m just saying, I cant imagine how you could keep playing with this person and no one at the table is making suggestions on how to play their turns. My players strategize about each others’ turns constantly. It’s a bit meta-gamey, but they’re newer and don’t know all the mechanics well so I never stop them. In fact, I try to help them find the course of action that will make them feel the coolest or the most useful without outright telling them what to do

I can see where you are coming from but OP assures us that this player knows about games and specifically makes caster characters. This isn’t one sorcerer with a quirk in their backstory about never using their magic, this is multiple characters in a row. I play with new players all the time. Maybe an occasional person will take others’ suggestions as law, but if they do the same thing too many times in a row or force themselves to use the move you recommended when it still doesn’t make sense, you just keep guiding them.

“Don’t forget you have other cantrips too. Using fire bolt was a suggestion. In this fight, you could try using your shocking grasp to get away. Or you could use your magic missile for some guaranteed damage on that heavily-armored hobgoblin. It uses one of your slots, but now seems as good a time as any. They’re no good to you when you’re dead.”

The DM and even the other players should be chiming in with suggestions on other players’ turns. It can get annoying when you know how to play and others are telling you what to do, but if you had a fighter player who just stood in combat and took a disengage action every turn, wouldn’t you eventually speak up and suggest they try a dodge or an attack instead?

There’s really no right answer here and I don’t think it’s something that we can work through without that player involved in the conversation. It’s not that they don’t know better, it’s not that you haven’t helped them, it’s not that you haven’t made suggestions, and they’ve been doing this for 3 YEARS??? I’m sorry, but this is above my pay grade. I am almost certain there is some detail that I’m missing because this makes zero sense. I have played with veterans of all walks and ages, new players who are 8 years old, new players that are 60 years old, and everywhere in between. It just doesn’t make sense unless there’s more to it.

Sit down with the player again. Ask why they don’t use cantrips. Leave the leveled spells aside for now (saving them forever is a problem, but an understandable one). Continue to remind them every combat, every turn, every time they take out their dagger. I know you said your group doesn’t know the rules well, so maybe it’s time to learn (3 YEARS???). Cantrips and weapons work exactly the same, so I don’t know how “not wanting to engage with the mechanics” has anything to with it. There’s something going on and I can’t be sure what it is without talking to this player themselves

“I run up and stab it with my dagger!”

“Are you sure? As a wizard, your dagger is very ineffective and puts you in harm’s way. You could cast fire bolt from where you are standing. You’d have a better chance to hit, do more damage, remain safe, and play to your character’s strengths more. Do you want to do that instead?”

“I’m trying to save my spells for an emergency”

“Well fire bolt is a cantrip, so it never runs out and you can use it every turn like a fighter would use their weapon. Cantrips are the ‘auto-attacks’ for spell casters”

I can’t understand your situation OP if the exchange I described above isn’t the solution. I play with newbies and first timers all the time and we constantly strategize in combat so they can learn how to play as we go. Would your player really say “no, I don’t care, I stab them” after being presented with that option? If so, I think they are doing this intentionally because they think it’s funny or interesting, not because they don’t know better

I think I know what you mean, OP, but it seems like most of the comments think you are just complaining about people saying “thanks” at the end of an email, or in general.

So forget email for now. This is an in person thing or instant message. Ending an email, even a short one, with “thanks” is fine and normal. But if you message me “please update that ticket. Thanks.” It has a more aggressive tone than you might have meant. It feels like you aren’t asking and so the “thanks” comes off as fake or even sarcastic. Maybe also a bit dismissive or distracted. Like this isn’t a conversation or even a request. I’m telling you what to do and walking away. It’s a bit terse. You’re not even giving me a chance to reply. If you say “please update that ticket” and I say “sure thing” and then you say “thanks”, the tone is much different. That doesn’t sound bad at all.

Again, email is different. Emails are meant to be send and forget. The thanks at the end can even be read as a “thanks for reading”. I think OP is talking about something different, and I agree it feels bad when someone talks to me that way.

As for your actual question, OP, I can’t say I know why they said it that way, but I’d guess they mean no offense, like most people are saying. It could be a second language thing or they really are too distracted or busy to wait for your reply. They don’t want to get into it, they just want to check off that someone is taking care of that one thing

I actually kinda love WYSIWYG because it’s pronounced “wizzy-wig” in some circles and that always makes me chuckle

Just to be “that guy” I wanted to say that an acronym is technically an initialism that you pronounce as a word, like SCUBA, LASER, or NASA. If it’s just letters that stand for something, it’s called an initialism. No one cares (not even me), but I had to say it :P

Most acronyms that have a W in them are pointless to say aloud in English. It’s almost always shorter to just say the words. Like WTF, for example. Those are my least favorite

Oh and YMMV. I used to work with car data and we would use YMMB to mean “year/make/model/body” and so I always start reading YMMV wrong and that bugs me

Monster Hunter is a great example of a series with quality sequels. They always add some new, interesting mechanics, trim the fat from the previous iteration, and add new content while still keeping the core gameplay exactly the same. There have been some exceptions, but generally every MH game before they split the dev teams had been an improvement on the last. Even when they cut the swimming from 3U to 4. It was a system that most players didn’t enjoy, and 4 had so many great new additions like mounting that it hardly felt like anything was missing.

That said, one of the main criticisms you’ll hear from players is the “ultimate” edition being the same game with just some new hunts tacked on. Or even that the base version isn’t worth it and the ultimate version is the “real” game. Nowadays they do expansions instead, which I think players generally find more palatable

Granted, I haven’t played the original Dragon’s Dogma in like 10 years and I’m watching this on a small phone screen, but if you told me this was DD1 footage, I would believe you. I really don’t see the difference. That said, DD1 also looked awesome and I did enjoy it for the most part… I think it was just missing something to be truly great. I’m just not sure what that is. Back then, I thought it was multiplayer. As a huge Monster Hunter fan, DD felt like a great competitor or rival (despite both being from Capcom) and so I just thought multiplayer was a no-brainer. Now, though, I really appreciate single player experiences more and more, so I’m not sure that was really it. Maybe it was the Pawn system just didn’t do it for me or maybe it was that the quests didn’t flow.

Either way, I think I’m excited to give DD2 a try. The classes in DD1 were very cool, especially the advanced classes. Looking forward to see what this game has to offer

TCP is when you don’t get your package because you weren’t there to sign for it and now you have to wait until tomorrow for them to try again. You were home all day and no one rang the bell but you still keep finding a “sorry we missed you” slip in the door. Eventually you have to go to the package center and get it yourself.

UDP is when you get 50 packages per day thrown on your doorstep. Some of them are probably yours and some of those are probably what you ordered, but they show up fast and often

I’ve been watching some GPW3 gameplay, but I also would probably not be able to play it lol. I just beat Jedi: Survivor yesterday. I waited a while to pick it up because of all the performance issues and it really did run like crap, but at least I got it on sale and it was still quite fun.

I’ll probably either go back to Sea of Stars, which I only played for a couple hours so far, or maybe I’ll play The Messenger, which I bought at the same time in a bundle.

Also, with the release of the Rivals 2 Kickstarter, I’ve been playing a bit of Rivals of Aether with friends. It’s one of the greatest platform fighters out there, but I feel like it’s still very underrated

If you don’t Rock and Stone, you ain’t going home

Cleaning the litter box sucks but it’s something you have to do as the caretaker. It’s ok to vent but I would caution you, as others have, that “if this is the worst part of their lives, fine” is all well and good until the cat is sick due to box avoidance. I’ve struggled with this too and I’ve had to take my cat to the vet because of a UTI she got from not going simply because there was one tiny pee spot in her giant litter box that takes up half my bathroom. Do the right thing and make sure it gets done either by sucking it up or finding someone who will.

If you want some advice, I have a few suggestions. You could pay a friend or relative to do it if they have regular, convenient access. You can also try to wear something like latex gloves while dealing with it and I always wear a face mask because the dust that kicks up gets in my sinuses every time. Some people have even had success teaching their cat to use the toilet

I know the box is the most annoying part about taking care of a cat but it is what it is. Hope you find something that works and I hope your cat stays healthy

One time I got trapped in a store because the door was behind the counter where the register was and a guy was sitting there the whole time. I decided not to buy anything, but I looked around for a while so I felt like he might question me. So I just kept pretending to look around which made it even more awkward to leave empty handed.

I think I decided not to buy anything after 20 minutes but spent a whole hour in there trying to figure out how to leave

The best feeling is knowing that your players had fun and want to play more. Glad you are all having fun. LMoP is great for new players and DMs alike