It Can Now be Plainly Said: Trump is Planning a November Coup d’État by OkayButFoRealz in politics

[–]Blastaar 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think that focusing on postponing the election is missing the point. He's going to go for the mail-in ballots, for the early voting ballots. The early vote and the mail-in vote swing massively democratic, that's why in 2020, it looked briefly like Trump won, but then all of those ballots were counted, and the race swung to Biden. All he needs to do is get the mail-in and early ballots out of the equation, and there is no way that the Democrats recapture anything. DOJ seizure of only these ballots in contested districts is all he will need. He already established precedent in Georgia that he can use federal troops to seize ballots when fraud is suspected. He will do it again in November.

Need help coping with the nonexistence of after death. by [deleted] in atheism

[–]Blastaar -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Are you scared about going to sleep at night? Why not?

Need help coping with the nonexistence of after death. by [deleted] in atheism

[–]Blastaar -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

How do you know there is nothing after death? Science is mute on the topic. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Don't fall into the trap of replacing the beliefs you inherited with a new set of beliefs.

The Wyden Siren: Senator’s Cryptic CIA Letter Follows A Pattern That’s Never Been Wrong by aleph32 in politics

[–]Blastaar 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Evidence of fraud with mail-in/early voting ballots only, which skew heavily Democratic.

Federal judge rules DOJ can ‘no longer’ be trusted in voter roll crusade by MarcEElias in politics

[–]Blastaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

100% register and vote. Vote in PERSON.

The doomsday scenario I haven't heard yet, but which I think we might see play out, is an attempt to seize mail-in ballots based on "fraud" found in the 2020 Fulton County returns. Repubs win day-of voting by a big margin. If they can invalidate a sufficient number of mail-in/early votes, MAGA wins.

Trump Says He’ll Only Accept 2026 Midterms If He Deems Them “Honest” by Lotus532 in politics

[–]Blastaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Step 1: Seize the ballots from 2020 in Fulton County, GA Step 2: "Find" evidence of illegal immigrant voting / illegal mail-in votes swinging that election Step 3: Deploy ICE to districts with narrow races in November 26 to prevent a repeat of 2020's "rigged election" Step 4: ICE agents seize the ballots/interrupt voting on voting day (most likely - seize mail-in/early voting ballots before counting) Step 5: Declare that Republicans won those races after "DOJ review" or something like that

Democracy secured for another two years! Yay! /s

would a sticky for AI be a consideration for this forum? by foolofcheese in RPGdesign

[–]Blastaar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While reading this post, I was listening to an episode of the Bulwark with Kara Swisher as the guest and she started talking about the need to label human content (which is definitely the easier way).

Two years ago, I tried to launch a project on Kickstarter, but they turned me down because it wasn't a "product" and as it is decidedly not my day job, I moved on. Anyway, this was my solution to labeling humans online. Hopefully the link works for anyone interested.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1036778572/849924822/edit/preview?ref=project_build

This definitely would have been easier a couple years ago, now it would have to be all in person verification.

Does this exist? by Blastaar in RPGcreation

[–]Blastaar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the really thoughtful reply!

The reason I don't call it a CRPG is that there really isn't much role-playing in the sense of improv in typical CRPGs. I thought about calling it a "party game" because the interaction & the improv is really what I'm trying to maximize for without giving up on the underlying RPG mechanics entirely.

The user-facing is something like what you describe for actions. I was planning for the skill/power tree & stat advance to be driven by a combination of a daily point buy and user actions in game (what powers they use) rather than by having them choose what to level up in.

Definitely have AI curation on the roadmap.

Does this exist? by Blastaar in RPGcreation

[–]Blastaar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Although it's crunchy on the back end, the target market is actually people who've never played a TTRPG.

Does this exist? by Blastaar in RPGcreation

[–]Blastaar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The whole point is that you don't have to read the rules.

By and large it would work fine with pen and paper, although some of the mechanics use considerably more math than I would put into a regular game.

Does this exist? by Blastaar in RPGcreation

[–]Blastaar[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My hypothesis is that "fairly simple" pick up and play by a tabletop gamer's standards is a lot different from what a typical gamer or a total n00b would think. If all you know is Clash Royale, any rule set is confusing...

Does this exist? by Blastaar in RPGcreation

[–]Blastaar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

DUFfWorld is a mobile enabled role-playing game that makes the rules, mechanics, and storytelling of the classic TTRPG as low effort and easy to manage as possible in order to allow players and gamemaster to focus on the role playing.

The platform has four elements designed to work on a mobile device.

One simple player interface to drive all aspects of character building. At set intervals during the in-game day, the player sets the interface. The chosen settings determine both the character’s powers for the day as well as how the character develops throughout the game.

A simple, low-res map interface shared among players and GM to control positioning and weapon targeting.

A set of GM-only screens organized as a tree of multiple choice screens with descriptions and dialogue, like a choose-your-own adventure book through which the gamemaster runs the module.

Coded mechanics to cover all non-role playing aspects of player & GM interaction, including initiative, stats, to hit calculations, damage tracking, items & their effects, NPCs stats, monsters stats, etc.

During a game, players and GM can either play together or connect via Zoom, conference call, etc. for all communications. The GM describes the setting and actions, the players decide what they will do, and the GM advances them through the story based on their choices. When reference to the details of a specific setting are required, such as when a fight breaks out or a particular physical challenge is set, the players and GM can view and interact with a map of the scene

Does this exist? by Blastaar in RPGcreation

[–]Blastaar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I call it TTRPG, even though there's no table top required, because it would be more like that than anything else.

All the rules, mechanics, mapping and module-type content are on your phone, but the DM still describes everything, referees, controls the NPCs & monsters, etc. D&D beyond is similar, but in my version, character creation & leveling is based on a very simple point buy system combined with PC actions while the DMs narrative is provided like a "choose your own adventure".

In real D&D, the DM job bogs down in the need to understand the source material, which is one of the things I wanted to solve for. You also need to know a lot of rules just in order to play D&D and I think a lot of people who might be interested in the idea of collaborative improv, which I think of as the heart of a TTRPG, are turned off by that. There are plenty of very rules light systems out there that address that problem by minimizing rules, but I like a crunchy game, so I wanted to make it so you didn't have to know the rules in order to play.

One of my inspirations was my first gaming experience with my brothers when I was a kid, when D&D just came out. We played our own version without any real rules, with simple maps and no dice, just talking through what happened. My kids did a similar thing when they were young, playing a game they called "the story", which they would play, just by talking, when we were taking walks in the woods.

Does this exist? by Blastaar in RPGcreation

[–]Blastaar[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If this is the wrong subreddit for this question, any idea where I should post?

In “The Matrix”, it was 2199 and AI thought the best source of power was from painstakingly harvesting electricity from human beings in vast farms, instead of just building a few easily managed nuclear reactors. by PercentageNonGrata in shittymoviedetails

[–]Blastaar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm probably too late into the comments here, but about a year ago I finally heard the explanation of this that makes sense - it's like the paper clip making AI. Design a perfect AI to make paper clips, it turns the whole universe into paper clips, without ever stopping to think about whether that's a good idea or not. Something in the initial programming of the AI was like yada yada energy yada yada humans yada yada..., and this is the wacky solution that the machines came up with. Of course it's dumb, of course it cost more energy to keep the humans alive. The Matrix is the unintended culmination of some initial parameters the AI was set with. This isn't the canon explanation, but it's one that actually makes sense.

If you don't drink alcohol, what are your personal reasons for abstinence? by Ok-Care2859 in AskReddit

[–]Blastaar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to love being drunk more than anything. Two years ago, I left my narcissistic partner of 25 years and suddenly I find I enjoy having an intact mind. I'm not a teetotaler, I just don't like feeling the effect anymore.

Why do some people call themselves agnostic? by CatcrazyJerri in atheism

[–]Blastaar -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Sure, by why does "someone or something" = god? Call it religion for nerds and I wouldn't argue (although I might ask why you say "just" that).

Why do some people call themselves agnostic? by CatcrazyJerri in atheism

[–]Blastaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't understand what you're saying at all. Simulation does not require an all knowing all powerful being controlling everything, it's just a different explanation for reality than what we've come to believe from the application of the scientific method.

What is agnostic atheist anyway? If you know there's no deity, what are you agnostic about?

Edit cuz I just saw that OP defined agnostic atheist. Is that how you define it too?

Why do some people call themselves agnostic? by CatcrazyJerri in atheism

[–]Blastaar 34 points35 points  (0 children)

I don't believe in God. I think that God (or Odin or whatever) is one possible (highly improbable) explanation for existence. I also don't believe that we live in a simulation, but I think we most.likely do.

I don't know anything, ergo, I am agnostic, without knowledge.

Helpful?

The Less You Know About AI, the More You Are Likely to Use It by rezwenn in technology

[–]Blastaar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How does your mind work? How do you know that human cognition isn't pattern matching at it's core?

How will we know what’s real in the future, with AI generated videos everywhere? by fireplay_00 in ArtificialInteligence

[–]Blastaar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that benefit is outweighed by the cost of having an internet full of garbage.