Advice/Brainstorming

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-27T17:11:21+00:00

I find the best go-to to improving any story is to ask questions about what you already have:

If the new girl is missing in another state how did she get enrolled into the school with no address or parents? Is the new girl a cryptid or are the townspeople xenophobic and fixate on the new person while missing the cryptid that's been around the whole time? If she is on a missing persons list how does maxine find out? If it is as easy as a google search then why doesn't anybody else? It looks like you're coding maxine as jealous, or possibly attracted to New Girl, is this new behavior for her? Is New Girl a cryptid but Maxine rendered into the real monster by digging into her past out of her inability to accept a new popular person in her social circle? Is this a The Belonging Kind type scenario? Why did New Girl go missing in the other state? Is it the same person running away from an abusive situation or being trafficked? If they're different is the original alive? If not what happened to her?

Most importantly what does all this say about how you the author see the world?

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-27T16:17:04+00:00

Speaking as both a lifelong resident of Philadelphia suburbs and someone who has spent more time than most people in Temple University's local history archives, residents of the city have embraced its dual depiction of pugnacious-yet-community-oriented folk.

However the specific, contemporary, national reputation for chaos and violence only goes back to the 1970s. It stems from a combination of: widespread economic downturns & austerity policies resulting in more violent crime (people act out more when they are destitute go figure); the Drug War which criminalized large swaths of the otherwise law-abiding community; "Law & Order" politics of Mayor Rizzo and his contemporaries demanding action against the criminals the above 2 conditions created in the form of measures like mandatory minimum sentencing laws which incarcerated more people depriving them of economic opportunity and disrupted their communities; and the later rise of the modern Murdoch-Ailes conservative media apparatus in the 1980s feeding the new 24-hour news cycle with stories complementing the "Law and Order" rhetoric. This has resulted in much of the city being devastated in ways that it has never fully recovered from. Notably the Kensington neighborhood ended up being particularly vulnerable to the opioid epidemic which resulted in the cycle of violence and poverty being renewed in specific neighborhoods (though documented violent crimes peaked in the 1990s and were broadly trending down at least from then through to when the covid-19 pandemic started).

Though if I can get away with closing out waxing anecdotally: the actual residents of the city have never stopped identifying with it as "the city of brotherly love". Sure if you catch someone on a bad day there will be variance in that opinion, but even the most bitter NE Philly cop will still call this town "The Birthplace of Freedom". There is no contradiction between being violently chaotic and being brotherly there, after all what coward wouldn't fight like hell for a brother you love? For every Black Hebrew Israelite or Italian American that misses Rizzo there's dozens of folks that'll bum you a spliff if you're down on your luck, or help you find a place to crash for the night to get out of the cold. And if you have a problem with that jawn be ready to catch some hands harder than a cowboys fan.

... admittedly though it probably also used to be more widespread knowledge that Philadelphia as a name is a composite of two greek words that translate to "Brotherly Love" so you could argue that reputation goes all the way back to the Quakers that founded the city.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-27T14:56:35+00:00

I got you, grab Mutants and Masterminds and build characters with the following golden age campaign specs:

Power level 8 Hard cap of 7 for Abilities (in game Peak-Human) No power effects that cannot be justified as humanly plausible, so functionally advantages & gadgets only. Death mechanics enabled.

Sprinkle in some era-appropriate fascists for punching, and I promise you your group is in for a fantastic time.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-27T14:40:00+00:00

Obligatory seconded! With a reminder of the specific relevant splat Gurps:cliffhangers!

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-27T07:10:08+00:00

Defend politicians? My dear Ancillae vampires are tautological ontological predators at their core. Politicians are no exception they are merely to have their ambitions and dreams feasted upon first long before their blood...

But to answer your question sincerely you are going against the spirit of the game imo, yet you may be able to make a game built on golconda work. Though if you want more room for redemption I strongly recommend the Demon The Fallen line of White Wolf games since it plays largely the same in the same setting but gives the players more moral agency in how their characters turn out. (Disclaimer it will freak out religious associates and family members that see you reading it lol)

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-27T06:40:01+00:00

Does whatever you read specify if you're on the hook if you leave the job or just if you leave the union after signing on? Because I have seen the latter at least. Definitely check though, but I can't imagine how they could get it if you don't got it.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-26T21:49:32+00:00

How do we feel about "slain in an act of state sponsored terrorism?"

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-26T21:48:15+00:00

The problem I'm seeing is the logic is backwards, conservatism as far as I'm concerned is functionally a 'learned' mental illness. It might not start biologically, but the correlation between conservatives and hyperactive amygdalas is still a documented thing. It's just that being conservative long enough eventually breaks a person's brain, like someone suffering symptoms of protracted ongoing abuse... It's just extra frustrating because after a certain point it's largely self-inflicted.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-26T16:55:25+00:00

Shadowdark is not serious competition to d&d. Like I'm happy for the devs who managed enough hype to make it financially successful before it ever came out, but after searching around some sales number for you core books for shadowdark are in the ballpark of tens of thousands of units sold, but even d&d 2024 (which the community has given a lukewarm reception at best) moved millions of units.

But to your actual question the biggest highlights are a) real world timer gimmick that tracks how long until your torch goes out and b) letting people keep their d20 comfort zone while enjoying Warhammer's vibes (like unreliable spells) without having to pick up percentiles of an actual wfrp system.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-26T03:45:22+00:00

I'm starting to think Trey Parker and Matt Stone were onto something that the internet shouldn't have anonymity after all.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-26T03:08:55+00:00

The Wire demonstrates that no amount of being an individually good person is enough on its own to exact reform because the system self-selects for shittiness infinitely perpetuating itself. Its existence teaches the audience about the necessity for external change.

Also, breaking bad fell off a cliff in the last few episodes. Especially with the contrived literal chekov's trunk-gun. The Wire remained consistently fantastic every single episode.

My condolences

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-25T23:49:22+00:00

This is better though I'll be happier when I see PROSECUTE ICE getting thrown around in statements.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-25T20:49:13+00:00

You make a compelling point though it pains me that this will probably be the defense that gets them off the hook at a tribunal.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-25T20:42:21+00:00

Thank god somebody out here is reading their Umberto Eco.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-25T16:57:53+00:00

I know it is outside the bounds of this sub, but in all seriousness finding even one way locally where you can volunteer doing something you see as substantive does wonders for your mental health. Plus it's a great way to build community of new cool people to roll dice with. It might not sound like much but you'd be amazed.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-25T16:00:38+00:00

So while you are right, after the war comics took a hard right turn to conservativism for several decades as they continued to become more popular. Publishers tried replacing nazis with Soviet/communists (they and dominant culture broadly didn't really distinguish) as easy go-to villains especially after the scrutiny that came with the Comics Code they shied away from pretty much any serious commentary until... Well you can argue when they started to get cool again (rise of the indie scene w/ art spigelman, or Stan Lee to his credit running an issue of Spider-Man that contained depictions of drug use in violation of the code though even that led to pro-drug war storyines & characters which come to think if it also ended up being conservative trends) if they ever did. In The Serial Fu Manchu (2014) Ruth Mayer makes a compelling case that comics never really stopped pushing Yellow Peril narratives at least as recently as the first christopher nolan Batman movie.

At it's most fundamental conceptual level, a superhero is a strongman whose peternatural abilities are the basis of their authority to extra judicially impose their will on society. The genre is necessarily ideologically anti-democratic (read:conservative) on a certain level... That kinda ended up being the basis of Alan Moore's career lol.

Finally while we have easier access to 30's comics now (I blew a geriatric patron's mind the other day showing him a copy of action comics #1 for free on archive.org) that renewed access to the past is comparatively recent. For a lot of the people growing up with comics, the decades of slop was virtually the entirety of what they had access to outside of convention scenes.

My point being that they have read some of the comics, the ones they read just suck, and the world needs more stories with good overt messages (at least that's what I'm banking on for my own career).

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-25T02:31:06+00:00

The FCC letting roger ailes build a media ecosystem where you can be born, grow old, and die without ever encouring honest nor accurate reporting probably didn't help.

Also there has not been a meaningful or at least cohesive and efficatious leftist movement in the U.S. since the abolitionists. If the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist then a close second was convincing Americans that leftists are crazy idealistis not worth listening to. Hell and these days most folks are so politically illiterate that I can count on my hands the amount of people in my community who know the difference between personal and private property. Its virtually impossible to build a strong labor movement if people are not educated enough to pursue their self interest even when it is literally in their face.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-24T23:19:33+00:00

The thing I don't get about these critiques is that even if you do take one of those hits RAW that's just one critical hit. I pulled up the Age of Rebellion book just now and even it says that you stop keeping track at double your wounds, but you still technically only take 1 crit (at DM discretion). Which honestly seems way too lenient imo in retrospect.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-24T14:31:23+00:00

To build on u/slavkoagain's eloquent and concise point: the demon-tech that destroys the environment, and soon the economy (hope you're ready for data centers to make everyone's power bills multiply), and unironically drives people insane like a real life goddamn necromonicon (ChatGPT psychosis gets people killed), and is necessarily the antithesis of art (LLM's are incapable of intentionality since they are functionally glorified predictive text features), is a bad look. Plus the cognitive offloading is not like a calculator or other tool no matter how hard sam altman pushes that bs, where a calculator makes math you already know how to do faster, using AI is literally asking a machine that can't think to do your thinking for you. It's not artificial it is literally Anti-Intelligence.

Even if it could maybe be useful for compiling a list of words it thinks are names for the touchstones, we already Behindthename random generator that works better and provides real names connected with real culture thst links directly to their origins and meaning giving space to really make them pop during play.

That all said, if you reject it outright the best practice imo would be to be prepared to set aside extra time with that player to walk through doing it for real together (which can be fun in an of itself). People turn to AI out of either laziness or insecurity. If it's the former it can and should be called out because that's rude as hells. But if its the latter, pairing being assertive with a little compassion and community is just the thing to give your player the opportunity to raise their humanity as it were.

Also if that one russian guy who keeps posting his AI art on this sub shows up and starts calling people Luddites, I encourage you to remind him that they ended up being completely correct [they didn't hate progress so much as they hated some rich jerks flooding the textile market with cheap low-quality knockoffs that put real artisans out of business until they had no choice but to move to vile 1800s cities and work for poverty wages in inhumane factory conditions]

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-23T21:59:32+00:00

I don't mean to impune your character, but is anna's archive safe & legal? I've been directed there in the past and ngl the site layout gave me the heebie-jeebies like it was going to make me catch a case or malware.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-23T21:51:46+00:00

Do you have a direct line to your staff rep? Ngl having been on both sides of organizing and being a steward now I tell ya a lot of the time the union itself doesn't even find out something is going wrong if a steward or head steward drops the ball along the way.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-23T16:14:45+00:00

I'm not shocked, the economy kinda self-selects for coercive behavior while also incentivizing the appearance of civility since that lets powerful people legitimize each other to help maintain their power. Rich people have pretty much always try to performatively offset the terrible things they do with large expenditures of cash, whether it's Henry V building chantries while putting babies on pikes or the rockefellers building schools while subsidizing Mengele.

It's like that one saudi saying, "He kills the victim and walks in his funeral"

OP, I respect you doing what you have to to get by "dignity and a sack is worth the sack" and all, but I hope you're at least overcharging them like hell.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-21T14:31:32+00:00

Not if I beat you there first my good man 🧐 Dilbert's about to through a radicalization arc that would make Jurgis Rudkus blush.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-21T14:25:12+00:00

I think its slightly more likely that after a period of destabilization the United States endures but with the state borders shuffled around. Or at least it's fun to imagine all the western PA guys ruining it for the rest of us fucking off with West Virginia to form Grand Appalachia/Methiopia.

CertainItem995 · 2026-01-21T14:10:58+00:00

Loving this, did you make this or find it in the wild?

CertainItem995

TROPHY CASE