We don't have the bot, so let me step in: this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics, this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

Friday Fun Thread for September 09, 2022
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What is this place?
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
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if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
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Notes -
We have a Blood on the Clocktower themotte/rdrama Discord group. It's a social deduction game similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game), but with a much bigger emphasis on mechanics and logical deduction: there are no "simple peacefuls", everyone has some interesting ability, which also makes it more suitable for online play since you have a lot to discuss right from the start.
Though if you saw previous announcements there's a change: after 9 asynchronous text-based games we decided to try playing it live over voice chat and got seriously hooked on this format, so that's what we are doing now, and in particular are intending to do tomorrow, Saturday 10th September, at 19:00 UTC (http://time.unitarium.com/utc/1900), expecting to play 2 games lasting for about an hour and a half total.
https://rebrand.ly/StorytellerIntro - one page rules explanation.
http://bit.ly/TroubleBrewingScript - one page character reference for the Trouble Brewing script (the game has different sets of possible characters called scripts).
http://bit.ly/TBalmanac - detailed list of Trouble Brewing character abilities with corner cases and interactions, not necessary to read but helps to understand how it all works.
PM me for a discord invite and with any questions you have.
We're also looking at likely running an async text-based game starting sometime this weekend. If hopping in voice chat with some near strangers isn't quite your thing, we'd still love to have people around for the text games.
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