netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
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User ID: 647
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
12hr ago
That’s the baggage train to which I was alluding. It’s an interesting optimization puzzle…which I wasn’t willing to inflict on a small party fresh out of managing their own encumbrance. Not yet.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
14hr ago
Yes. Paying the evidence tax is what turns it from an argument into a debate. The more controversial a topic, the more important it is to explain your reasoning.
@sleepyegg added an example. This is an improvement. Now people who disagree have something to address rather than going straight to “nuh-uh.”
It doesn’t even have to be statistics, though. Citing his own experience would have been fine. The important thing is that there is a chain of reasoning which lets people engage without making up a position for him. It’s also why we discourage sarcasm and weakmanning.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
19hr ago
You’re making some pretty dramatic claims there. Proactively provide evidence rather than just asserting that “you must” do something. Why do you think that? How have you ruled out other explanations, models? These are the questions people are going to ask you. Preempting them helps to keep things…civil.
Does anybody here have experience with OSR D&D?
Yesterday, I ran a first session of the classic adventure module Caverns of Thracia. I did this to familiarize myself and my players with old-school mechanics in hopes of running, at some point, Deep Carbon Observatory. That captivated me a while back when I was trawling through greatest hits of the OSR, a logical next step from my on again/off again interest in the abstract concept of roleplaying games. Why do I care about that in the first place, seeing as how little I actually play such games? The margin is too narrow to contain an explanation.
But I digress.
Character sheets were simple enough. 3d6 in order, pick race/class, secondary stats. They handled this well enough until we got to equipment. Two of the core mechanics of old-school D&D are “can I afford to lug this around?” and “can I afford not to?” New players can’t really answer either of these questions. Asking them to tally encumbrance is fine. Asking them to plan a baggage train’s worth of loadouts with a limited budget is too much. Simplifying the mechanics with something like an inventory-slot system only helps answer the first question. It does nothing to pare down an overwhelming solution space. Still, this section got my players into a hilariously paranoid spiral over the presence of garlic and stakes in the (basic, non-adventure specific) equipment list. By the time we finalized gear, they were convinced that vampires and werewolves would both feature prominently. I count that as a win.
Actual adventuring started off just fine, too. “A break in the foliage reveals long, low stone walls. The lack of tree cover behind them suggests a plaza or platform. Further structures are visible to the southwest and north. What do you do?” I chose not to switch to adventuring turns until they needed light sources, so this was freeform. They encountered a camp of tribesmen in the southwest ruined tower, but the reaction roll was neutral, so they were able to back off without shedding blood. Investigating that plaza revealed a staircase down and a pair of distorted, doglike guards. Fortunately, those guards were distracted by the campfire smoke from the previous encounter and remained unaware of the party. When a minotaur sauntered up the steps to discipline his guards, the party wisely chose to back off and find another approach.
The next platform they investigated was keyed with a lizardman ambush, a volley of darts followed by a retreat into favorable terrain. As written, this involves half a dozen 2HD monsters getting the drop on the party. I couldn’t tell if I was running exploration or surprise rules wrong, because I couldn’t tell what the players should have done differently. I ended up toning down the number of lizards since the party was so small.
We ended the session there, with the cleric injured but no one dead. I count that as fortunate. Nobody seemed too frustrated, but they have no obvious avenues of progress, and a distinct lack of firepower against anything that wasn’t already determined to run away. I really hope they aren’t convinced that those lizard men were guarding something important.
Real hours: 2.5
Exploration turns: 0
Combat rounds: 1
The fact that we didn’t actually get into a dungeon with corridors and traps has thrown me for a loop. Has anyone here played Thracia, or can anyone point me to actual play of the surface? Am I doing this right?
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
1d ago
It ranks up there with the sock puppet subplot in Ender’s Game, yeah.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
1d ago
Wait, what’s the surprise?
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
2d ago
The supply curve offers higher quantities at less fidelity. The demand curve is populated by bored high-schoolers. Solve for the equilibrium.
Alternatively: fairy tale stories are a map, the map is not the territory, and ain’t nobody got time for a better map.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
2d ago
I really need to read some Junger. Never heard of him before the SSC reviews of Marble Cliffs but his work sounds so cool.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
2d ago
I grew up going to school with some profoundly autistic kids. They’ll always be my barometer. I’m not terribly inclined to joke about it.
There’s something about the way “autistic” is used in red/gray circles that reminds me of stereotypical gender discourse.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
2d ago
Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson.
Haven’t decided whether it has school textbook energy or if I just associate the antebellum material with high school. Setting that confusion aside, I found the beginning extremely compelling. It opens with sheet music: one tune, two sets of lyrics. Eloquent.
There are parts I want to write up for the Motte and parts I want to quote directly. Mostly about the absurd growth of mid-1800s America and how it mapped to the economic and social movements we learned about in school. Consider the Great Awakening. The standard AP explanation is “well, excess land is a pretty good situation for splinter religious groups.” This is underselling it. A glut of natural resources corresponds to a shortage of skilled labor. That suppresses the anti-capitalist sentiments which wrack Europe around this time, and it takes the pressure off social strife, so there’s less unrest and less resistance to industrialization. Moving along that curve pushes the modal worker out of the home and into the factory, or in the case of women, into education. So the next generation is both richer and better educated, creating a much more literate, socially conscious class which is still aligned with the industrialization project rather than conservative. Each surplus reinforces the others.
And none of this is touching on the Peculiar Institution! That’s like half of the opening chapter.
I have a lot more to say about this, but I’m going to hold off until I’ve read some more.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
3d ago
I would be surprised, too.
Trump has a monopoly on GOP-aligned populism, and he’s shown no interest in a big tent. Getting in on his movement requires kissing the ring.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
3d ago
It’s not a psyop; politics wasn’t and isn’t one-dimensional.
The political compass has its own issues, but it illustrates this one nicely. Economic collectivism, social conservatism. Distinctly lacking in the egalitarian, enlightenment ideals underpinning the Western Overton window.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
5d ago
I dunno, you're making this guy sound kinda cool.
Posts consisting of "look what this guy said one time!" are still pretty lame, though, so I want to drag it in a different direction.
What kind of candidate should the Democrats run if they want to appeal more to middle class voters?
Can't run anybody too slimy, of course. No association with Harris or Biden or Clinton. Ex-CEOs are probably out, as is anyone who might get called a "coastal elite." Complete novices with fresh-out-of-college social opinions, probably no good either. The centrists want some sort of serious, competent type who promises to fix broken shit without breaking everything else in the process.
I would have naively thought this guy threaded the needle. Combat and leadership experience. Political outsider. Reasonably well-off, but in the only landowning position which has somehow escaped the stink of class envy. Minimal social-justice baggage. Perhaps even passes the "would I have a beer with him?" test.
You're disqualifying him because he's a socialist; that's rather under-specified. He is engaging in the national pastime of bitching about those richer than oneself. I think you'll find it's quite popular across the political spectrum.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
5d ago
Damn it! Now I’ve libeled a President, too.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
5d ago
That’s…not exactly a new consideration for awarding damages. Or deterrent justice in general.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
5d ago
I’m with Rov_Scam. Down to the part where you’ve blocked me, even!
This makes for a nice comparison with the UAP disclosures, where a promise of juicy tell-all journalism proves much more exciting than the reality.
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
5d ago
netstack
The horse embodies the wings a person feels inside.
5d ago
Do people who were framed for CP usually submit a guilty plea? The only thing he’s contesting is that the search was illegal.
The other guy linked was Andrew Jackson, who apparently skipped the image step and got life in prison for actually molesting a kid.
Uh, all of those things are in the climate-activist portfolio. I couldn’t say what the actual rates are like. But then, lots of people who are sympathetic to that argument do end up having a child eventually. People aren’t always rational.
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