The other day I said something about how maybe people will rise up, and someone responded with a quote from “they thought they were free”

Go on. Have a read: https://fedia.io/m/history@lemmy.world/t/1432476/An-excerpt-from-They-Thought-They-Were-Free-The-Germans

(Edit: that URL isn’t making a nice link for some reason)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Thought_They_Were_Free

I really liked poe2 and would play a third one.

I really liked that they made powers per-encounter instead of per-rest. Per-rest really doesn’t work well despite DND trying really hard. It especially doesn’t work well without a human steering to prevent things like “you killed everyone in the castle, now go rest for 8 hours before opening the final door to the boss”. Or you can programmatically enforce that, but players don’t like that. Mostly because it sucks to do like an hour of stuff and realize you’re too low on resources to win, and have to reload.

I’d probably prefer the stats to be coarser or more meaningful. It’s hard to get a feel for “3% more damage”. Especially when the base damage is like 5-15.

This guy should be, at the very least, removed from office. I don’t care if it’s handcuffs or a body bag.

Fuck. I just want to thanos snap away all the republicans. The absolute worst people.

I do this.

I also will delete someone’s number and archive the messages. If they text me, it’ll pop up. But it makes it harder for me to initiate contact.

Remember when all those internet duds were mad that Dragon Age 2 was “sHoVinG tHe gAy aGeNdA dOwN oUr tHroAts!!!” because the NPCs would romance the PC regardless of gender? And they absolutely lost their shit that Anders might express interest and, if you’re not interested, you’d have to politely turn him down once?

Those are the worst sort of people and I frankly wish them ill.

I dunno. problems, mysteries, and war aren’t usually portrayed realistically in video games, either.

I never got far in stardew, so maybe?

I think that you can just give them gifts until they’re horny for you is like the quintessential example of poorly done video game romance.

Half-assed sex scenes (no pun intended) are probably worse than ones that are well done.

I still think a lot about one of the beats in a DA:I romance. But like… all the ones from DA:O were kind of bad. But also the one I played in DA:V was so PG-13 and sterile it wasn’t any fun at all.

You’re probably right. Dark days ahead.

But I hold out a little hope that people will fight back

An advanced technique: ask your players to make shit up.

Like, the players decided to go to the wizard university the wizard PC graduated from. So I ask him, “what’s their entrance hall like?” and let him just riff on it for a while. Players feel more engaged with the world, and it’s a little less work for me.

Warlock is trying to commune with his patron. I ask, “what is your patron usually like?” and the player is delighted to describe “the great sculpin” in detail. This then inspires me further.

Note that some players are very much “just tell me a story” and don’t want any input, and won’t like this. Some players are also shy and don’t think well on their feet. And some players are just really bad at staying on theme. But if you know your players , this can be a powerful technique.

It’s not exactly my genre of music but i like it anyway.

It does feel like chaotic times are ahead. At some point, the republicans will do something so vile that people will say “No”, and when that happens there will be violence.

I don’t want a civil war. I don’t want unrest. But I do want every republican and their enablers removed from power, and the billionaires stripped of their wealth. I don’t know how to get from here to there.

The damage will last for decades.

The republicans should be stopped.

I would probably make spells easier to interrupt like they were in 3e.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm

These two things were key:

• Casting a spell provokes an opportunity attack
• Taking any damage requires a check or you lose the spell

Now casting when the orc warlord is up in your face is a lot riskier.

I think I get why they got rid of this system. It was more to think about, and I think they wanted the game to generally be easier so more players could enjoy it. Certain classes of player don’t want to think about tactics and positioning. They want to cast fireball. But as a result, the whole game is kind of shallower sometimes.

For mages countering mages, I’d probably give it a rework. It shouldn’t just be its own spell. It should be an action. Maybe have a separate check to identify the spell, or maybe just tell the player to skip double rolls. Then make some sort of opposed check. Use the spell level delta (and if you had them roll to identify, how thematically opposite the spell is. Like a fire and ice spell, or shield v magic missile).

Everyone saying “they can evacuate” clearly doesn’t remember how bad the covid response was.

There will be anti-space conspiracy theorists. The ownership class would demand people continue working until the last possible minute (and beyond). It would be politicized, because some people are unbelievably stupid, cruel, and selfish, and enough people are so stupid they’ll buy in.

Now, if we could make the meteor fall on a location occupied solely by the people who don’t believe in science…

Anyone who seriously proposes privatizing the US postal service should be removed from power. They’re either trying to harm the US, or are too stupid to be trusted with anything more dangerous than a paper towel.

I recommend players make their characters together. Fate’s rules for it are pretty good, and can be ported to many systems: https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/phase-trio . The whole “You all meet in a tavern for the first time” mode is a valid way to play, but I’ve had friends do that and then struggle with how contrived it feels to fight to the death for people they just met, or go on a whole dangerous sidequest for someone else’s hobby.

I also recommend reading other systems. Not everyone needs to know dozens of games, but if you always play d20 games spending some time in a different branch of the RPG family tree can really be eye-opening. Or if you’ve only really played really light games, looking at how something crunchier does detail can be insightful.

I’m reminded of a post from elsewhere: “You hate all the parts of capitalism separately, without realizing they’re all the same thing”

Many Christians don’t really know the Bible well or follow jesus’ instructions.

There’s articles about it every so often. https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706 was the top hit right now.

Logical arguments aren’t going to persuade anyone of anything. This is the domain of emotions. It’s about in-group and identity