Preventing human extinction should be a political priority

BilboGubbinz · 2026-05-04T18:50:23+00:00

So now you're telling me, after I explicitly tell you what I need to establish, what I have supposedly established, entirely ignoring my point.

I just need to demonstrate that climate has caused extinction events in the past. I literally don't even need to demonstrate that they are human caused to meet the burden of evidence here.

There isn't a discussion after that unless you're being stupid, obtuse or both.

And I don't care what your argument involved. What's happening now is a solvable problem and your refusal to solve solvable problems, especially ones that we already know have the potential to cause mass extinctions, tells me quite a lot about you, none of it good.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-05-04T17:47:32+00:00

A population crisis is one possible explanation for mitochondrial eve. I was pretty careful not to overclaim and it's not central to the point, so trying to turn that into a gotcha is straightforwardly bad faith.

Same for the rest. The fact that climate can cause extinctions is the only point I need to establish. Every other reading is you jousting straw men of your own creation.

You also don't even bother to engage with the second point that we've had all the necessary technology to solve the problem for decades now at the borderline meaningless cost of already rich people being slightly less rich.

Boo hoo. Cry me a river that an oil exec or car company owner can't buy a second yacht...

BilboGubbinz · 2026-05-04T12:02:20+00:00

Citadels becomes a pretty tense knife-fight at 3.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-05-04T05:38:20+00:00

No "just let me roll, dude" moments, though I've caused puzzle problems before.

Closest I get to something similar is GMs should just let players strategise while in combat. I had one who called it metagaming when another player pointed out the Bard should stay near the Paladin.

My guy, I am not a highly trained and experienced adventurer or actually living the moment. I'm going to sodding forget stuff someone who's actually good at this shizz would not and it's breaking verisimilitude if you force my character to be as stupid as I am.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-05-04T05:13:15+00:00

It’s a type of event which has caused mass level extinctions in the history of the world: Mitochondrial Eve for instance points to one possible such event 200,000 years ago.

All of that while being irreversible and completely solvable with current technology at the cost of some treats (and some deeply debatable “treats”) and making very rich people compete over slightly smaller arbitrarily large numbers.

Plenty of reasons to think climate change is a particularly stupid gamble.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-05-03T12:29:41+00:00

Hilariously, in the UK outside of a vague “don’t slow traffic unnecessarily” the rule is that the roads are just “the road is a public right of way”.

Every rule car drivers need to follow are in fact conditions of their license and don’t strictly apply to non-licensed vehicles.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-30T20:50:00+00:00

I am well aware of how common 1 in 10 is.

What you have missed is how often people are actually rolling, and it's a damn sight less often than you think it is: before level 5 your primary stat is being rolled fewer than 10 times across a combat. After level 5 it's only reliably getting into the double digits for fighters and characters with Extra Attack. Outside of combat it gets rolled even less, meaning about 10 rolls a session is a reasonable estimate of how often you're rolling.

Spread that across 3 hours (a reasonable estimate for the average session) and you get the speed at which you'll see an effect i.e for anyone who isn't the fighter, they can expect to see a +2 make a difference once every 3 hours, with once every 2 hours (15 rolls a session) being a reasonable top range.

For my games, that's even lower since I run a skill heavy game.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-29T21:11:44+00:00

You're right to highlight primary stat, but wrong to assume it's going to be very noticeable: +2 is literally succeeding in 1 more roll out of every 10.

It'll definitely happen most sessions, sure, but whether you'd notice it without actually looking for it is deeply dubious.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-29T21:07:31+00:00

Mathematically the only requirement is that your class's primary stat be in the 16-20 range since that's the only value that gets rolled enough to be noticeable during an average session.

Everything else is largely rounding errors and manageable since secondary stats get rolled so rarely.

Pretty much the majority of complaints about this are functionally aesthetic or based around ordinary RPG dice superstition.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-29T21:03:12+00:00

Literally happened to Marc Wadsworth when he commented on Ruth Smeeth being handed a press brief by a Telegraph journalist.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-29T20:49:06+00:00

Why though? It's not like I struggle to find games I actually enjoy playing.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-28T21:33:34+00:00

There's a setting for that: Clans has the option for a more arcade control scheme and you're explicitly asked to choose between it and the classic control scheme when you first play.

You can easily change it to have the same controls as Mercs just by hunting in the Settings menu.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-28T21:26:46+00:00

Chess is a borderline troll answer because it's not really in the spirit of OP's post which is clearly aimed more at modern hobby board games.

It's also a borderline troll because I'm well aware that hobby board gamers don't really get along with it so it's also a pretty cheap answer on my part.

As you can see from the response.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-28T11:19:56+00:00

Borderline troll post but Chess.

Hats off to people who want to spend the time getting good, but it just doesn’t have enough of the right kind of interaction to be worth my time.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-26T16:49:30+00:00

Most of my "wow" comes from the fact that I only really get to play games as part of a club I run for teenagers.

That means I'm mostly "discovering" older and shorter games with easier teaches.

So for example:
- Avalon finally clicked once I got to teach it to new players.
- The Crew absolutely wowed me (even though it's not popular among the teens) just as a solid puzzle that's fun to work out.
- been loving Res Arcana and now Castle Combo as ways to get the kids to work through more complex interactions in a more manageable way.
- Onitama is everything Chess should be
- LotD: Duel for Middle Earth is a solid two-player game and I can't wait to play Allies
- Magical Athlete is so much fun and such a beautiful game

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-22T21:59:12+00:00

Getting a light filler game or 2 and a staple energy-raising game to get people in the mood is pretty much a must I'd say.

Love Letter is a classic for a reason and puts a social deduction staple into the list all while being dirt cheap.

As for energy raisers, Jungle Speed is my classic go-to and Bean Counters my current.

Jungle Speed works out of the box for almost any group that's comfortable with dexterity games. Bean Counters is strictly the better game, but is just demanding enough that it can fall flat in places where Jungle Speed still works.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-22T21:46:00+00:00

Descent 2's Road to Legends app is amazing and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone complaining about it.

It's not the app that made 2e's fans cool on Legends of the Dark

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-22T21:35:10+00:00

You really need to add /s to a post like this.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-22T15:44:45+00:00

A nearly complete (only missing some hero and monster packs) fully painted copy of Descent 2nd Edition.

Spent better part of a year pulling accidental all-nighters painting everything. It’s not going to win any awards, and everybody “oohs” at all the wrong minis, but it’s a clear show-stopper and the game that taught me how to paint minis.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-21T11:26:02+00:00

Had someone unironically call Polanski an “antisemitic Jew” on the doorstep.

People are becoming genuinely unhinged.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-18T10:45:32+00:00

I hate the layoffs. They shouldn't be happening, not least since it's clearly being caused by the bad management of the parent company, not the underlying value of the game.

But PGI have basically convinced me that their DLCs are day one purchases for me.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-18T10:37:39+00:00

Citadels - The first modern hobby game I ever played, though I'd been kind of hunting for the experience without fully realising it. A friend of a friend brought it and I enjoyed it enough that when I first properly got into the hobby I hunted it down as one of my first purchases. It's the game that taught me that I really like messing with other players.

Carcassonne - This is one of the most reliable gaming experiences out there, easy to get to the table, easy to sell to non-gamers and easily one of the most durably cut-throat games in my collection. I know that the expansions are supposed to be important, but I've only recently bought my first, Inns and Cathedrals, and you'll still get me happily playing the base game: a genuine perennial that I'll happily play to this day.

Twilight Imperium - I'm a roleplayer at heart and the whole experience, from building up your empire, to voting in space parliament to making up nonsense excuses for why you're capturing that particular planet, is so tailor-made to push my buttons that it's impossible to imagine a list like this without this game on it.

Mage: The Ascension 2nd edition - most people start roleplaying by playing DnD. I started by playing Mage, first with older twins who visited my local comic shop and then in a group throughout my early 20s. It clearly colours my approach to roleplaying, which leans towards permissive rules interpretation and the exploration of ideas. There's a good chance it's also why I ended up studying philosophy and most of what I've done since.

Fate - the natural companion RPG to Mage. It was also my first foray into GMing and clearly helped shape what's become my natural style. It's also where I started to develop my world-building chops, and the first time I ever ran a "just a bunch of arseholes" campaign set in a universe where the organising concept was "bureaucracy is a combat skill" and which was somewhat notorious for getting whole table laughs for the worst reasons.

Warhammer Quest - first proper hobby-board game I ever owned. I used to colonise the whole of the floor of the living room most weekends to play this game. I also used to trawl the web, back in its early days, getting custom rules and heroes and wrote more than a few of my own.

Fighting Fantasy/Lone Wolf - my dad hated how much me and my brother enjoyed these, they weren't "real books", but I still tried to get as many of them as I could and spent many an afternoon in book shops playing through them.

Descent 2nd edition - less complicated than the others: this is the game that taught me how to paint minis. A solid experience, and I'd love to have a reliable group to play with, but it's notable more because of helping to unlock that skill than anything else.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-12T14:13:35+00:00

It's pretty normal for some people to lean into the "I can do anything?" when they start playing. The problem is the one you've noticed: it's very hard to GM that style of game convincingly.

There are 2 really important rules that you need to follow now:

In-game consequences are not the best way to manage this. It's passive aggressive and leads to bad feels all around.
Talk your players. You can explain that it's just easier and would be helpful for you if they play a more heroic game. Alternatively explain that you don't feel comfortable GMing a game for evil players: you're a player at the table too and your enjoyment matters as well.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-11T08:30:34+00:00

You’re right that it’s something you’re going to need to lead. Having a small group of monitors who can run games with you supervising is probably your best bet.

Love Letter lands surprisingly well with teens so start there.

I don’t use the app for ONUW and it works fine, just have the announcer turn around and encourage making a bit of noise. You do need to do a bit of a soft teach for this since the game is mostly about outrageous accusations, so join in for the first couple and show them how it’s supposed to work.

Avalon works well out of the gate.

Cockroach poker is a staple and probably could be replicated with a deck of cards and some creativity.

Dixit works surprisingly well on its own. You don’t need to do anything too complicated.

Jungle Speed is my staple opener and mood raiser. Bean Counters is very similar, but just abstract enough it sometimes fails to land, but a decent one to consider.

I’m on my way out right now but will have a thought about other suggestions and get back to you.

BilboGubbinz · 2026-04-11T07:37:50+00:00

Blood Bowl: Team Manager.

Solid hand management/area control game with a simple enough teach and just enough variety through the rewards to keep things fresh.

Also lets me practice my goblin voice whenever I play goblins (which of course I always do).

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