Mad that the grand jury didn’t refuse to indict.

Hope the jury nullifies.

If he is found guilty, maybe it’ll be time for unrest.

In my pandemic game, goblins were described as sort of perpetual teenagers. Some of them could be really smart, but a lot of them were impulsive, prone to going along with the group, and being kind of cruel.

They found a pack of goblins that had robbed some travelers… to steal their concert tickets. Most of them scattered, but they caught up with one. The monk decided not to punch this small humanoid in the face and instead asked “wtf are you all doing?”

The goblin told them they wanted to go to the show. the show! everyone’s going to the show! (The show turned out to be put on by an evil warlock, and the players had to intervene to stop the bands from summoning a lord of pandemonium into the world. Everyone loves a battle of the bands)

The players essentially adopted this goblin, Windy, for the rest of the campaign. Windy learned to play drums and flute, and I think they eventually got them enrolled in wizard school.

Sorceress focusing on cold magic. Freeze everything. Frost Wall is pretty effective. Plop it on big things and it explodes for damage + freeze. Put it down otherewise, and it tends to block or distract mobs. Currently in act3-cruel

I think there can be some intra-group tension when half the group is going for “how can we win this fight cleanly with minimal resources spent?” and half is going for “what would my character do? What would be dramatic?”

It’s something to clear up in session 0, I think.

My personal fantasy right now is being part of a highly skilled and competent team. I’m tired of always being the three stooges.

Also bad: when part of the group wants to play for clean victory, and part of the group does but it really bad at it.

I don’t think DND or close relatives is as good a first system as people think it is. It’s very idiosyncratic. It wastes a lot of time with stuff like “8 is -1 and 14 is +2”. But mostly I don’t recommend it because at its core it is a resource management game, and that’s not what most people imagine roleplaying is about. It will teach people bad habits, or at least habits that don’t translate outside of DND + their group very well.

I like Fate. I think Fate is more intuitive and rewards creativity more consistently. You don’t need to read long lists of classes and spells. It does, however, ask for a lot more creative input than DND does. You can’t just be “Bob the fighter” and go. But it’s a lot more rewarding when it does sing, IMO.

Most social media is bad for you. I don’t think this kind of ban is the right tool. But the idea that everyone would just delete Facebook and Instagram is a dream that will never happen.

The government could break up the megacorps though.

It varies. It’s pretty rare that it’s working hours and I’m just goofing off for more than a couple minutes at a time. I look at lemmy when waiting for builds/deploys/etc. a hard ass boss might be like “do more work while that’s happening!!” but that would be a net negative on overall productivity.

1 was cold and confident, 1 had an androgynous personality

I am moderately more sold on this game now.

Still disappointed that Cassandra in DA:I’s romance was very traditional. Really wanted it to turn into “I’m going to tie you to the chair and interrogate you again, but like extra sexy this time”

I think people have radically different ideas about what “minimal background information” is.

Some people think the Silmarillion is a suitable primer for their setting.

Some people have like one paragraph for the big picture, and one paragraph for each major faction.

There are players that would say both is too much.

I think a couple short paragraphs should be enough for a quick start for a custom setting, but I’ve had players that just refuse to read anything at all. As someone else said, it’s makes it really hard to do some sort of stories if all the players are utter neophytes/amnesiacs/from-another-world/etc

I tried to do a game of Vampire once, but the players refused to read anything about the setting. All the political intrigue fell completely flat because they didn’t understand what the different factions were looking for, nor did they understand how vampires worked.

That group might have just been kind of bad players, but I feel like bad players are more common than good. By “bad” I mean “doesn’t think about the game very much, doesn’t retain anything about the story or rules”. They couldn’t really do anything more complex than a simple dungeon crawl.

What is the discomfort? Are you afraid something will happen?

You should probably talk to a professional about this. I am not a professional, alas.

I once has a girl follow up 2 weeks later asking why we didn’t go on a date? I told her that was the first question she asked me and I felt she wasn’t into the conversation.

I do wonder sometimes what they’re thinking. Like, do they think the conversation is going well when I have to keep resuscitating it?

I’m told people have “different communication styles”, which is fine, but “not asking questions and giving really short answers” doesn’t seem like an effective style here. Like, if someone’s chatting you up at the bar and you’re not interested, then giving short answers can make a kind of sense. But in a dating app where you both showed interest? If you’re no longer interested just unmatch.

No class consciousness. Too many tech workers think they’re rugged individuals that can negotiate their own contracts into wealth.

Working for free on nights and weekends to “hit that deadline” is not good. You’re just making the owners rich, and devaluing labor. Even if you own a lot of equity, it’s not as much as the owners.

And then there’s bullshit like return to office mandates and people are like “oh no none of us want to do this but there’s no organized mechanism to resist”

• Profiles with no hooks. They’ll have like 3 unremarkable pictures and a bio that says like “I like hanging out”. What is your match supposed to do with this? It’s extra bad if their bio says like “I hate small talk”.

Side note: small talk plays important roles in socializing and is an important skill. Use it to steer the conversation to interesting topics.

• Getting too in their head and bailing for flimsy reasons. Like, if the guy threatened you definitely do not continue. But I had a friend that was like “he was really sweet and lived nearby, but his hair was browner than his photos and I just wanted blonde”. Like what. That is not a good reason to bail.

No one’s going to be perfect. People are going to be nervous on a first date. Give them a chance.

• Conversely, sticking with a relationship too long. Contrary to the above, sometimes you really should call it. If the guy isn’t treating you with respect, you don’t have to keep going. If you realize you never look forward to seeing them, you should probably end it.

• Chatting too long before meeting. You’re not a real person to them when you’re just over text. You’re missing body language and tone. You want to meet in person quickly.

The general flow for me is like

• Initial message. Hopefully ask something about their profile
• if they respond well, maybe another couple follow up questions.
• clear any deal breakers. Eg: if you have a kid, ask “hey I just wanted to check you saw on my profile I have a toddler. Are you okay with that?”
• ask if they want to have a date in person to see if you get along
• schedule the date
• go on the date

If the online chat ends and you haven’t scheduled a date, but you want to, that’s bad. You don’t want to be having a second “hey what’s up?” tinder chat.

• related to the above: dead ending the chat. Don’t do that. Like, let’s pretend your profile says you love dragon age. They message you with “I’ve been a dragon age fan since origins! Did you play Veilguard yet? I’m thinking of starting it this weekend”. You respond with "I haven’t played it yet ". What the fuck kind of garbage reply is that? What is the other person supposed to do with that? They essentially have to send you another first message. Good first messages are hard! Give them something to work with. “I haven’t played it yet, but I loved origins! Always played mage. What was your favorite origin?” You almost always want to ask a question.

If this doesn’t come naturally to you , that’s fine. Just remember with your brain “always ask a question”. You need to give them something to work with.

• Don’t non sequitur into sexual details. Sorry, but them’s the norms. Like, a friend was chatting with a match about Star Trek and the guy out of the blue was like “so do you like anal?”. Unmatched.

And a last thought that ended up stranded at the bottom of this post, and I’m writing on my phone so editing is hard:

“But what about people who want to take it slow?” Do you want to date someone who doesn’t want to date? I don’t.

edit: minor error from autocorrect

I have never ever ever wanted to “just be friends” first. I am not looking for a new friend. I have friends. I am looking for intimacy that’s not typically available for friends, and sex.

Furthermore, the timeline and transition points for “just friends” to “dating” are not defined. If I want to kiss now but we’re on a “just friends” track, what do I do? Probably pursue someone who wants what I want, and not spin my wheels hoping the other person will come around

This does not sound like a very common experience.

What is it that makes you uncomfortable? Is it all scenarios? Coffee date? Bar date?

Yes, you can make players pre-plan. You nudge them.

No amount of nudging will make some players do anything. Some players are obstinate and frankly not very good, but honestly the solution to “this player won’t stop looking at their phone and their turns take forever” may be to remove them from the group.

Why does it matter how much time everyone takes?

I don’t want to wait 5 minutes for someone to dither and dither and finally decide “I attack”

https://archive.is/9kNLR

I just use archive.is for paywall breaking. Magic.

Pray to Saint Luigi for guidance

This was a weirdly aggressive comment.

The solution is the pre-planning, which does not need a timer, nor is it a guaranteed result of a timer.

You cannot make players pre-plan. The timer encourages pre-planning, or at least rapid decision making on the fly. Both have the desired result of the game moving at a quicker pace.

It also has the benefit of creating an impartial tool for measuring, instead of relying on subjective “You’re taking a long time.” It is harder to argue with a clock. This is an advantage.

There was a problem, and in trying to fix it, the DM created a second problem.

What is the second problem?

Reading at a 6th grade level is reading for plot. Just like, what happened? Who was there? More advanced things like subtext, metaphor, and unreliable narrators come later.

I found this online the last time this topic came up: https://www.oxfordonlineenglish.com/english-level-test/reading

Go ahead and read the story, and imagine that a lot of people cannot read and understand it.

There’s also this article about how many kids are taught to read badly: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ (amusingly, also available as a podcast)

What does it mean practically? Bad things. If you haven’t read 1984, give it a go and think about why the authoritarian state benefitted from a diminished language.