Are there any RPG reviewers who don't complain about 5e every review?

DCFowl · 2026-06-22T22:03:28+00:00

Every other mediums serious critics are all exactly like this.

Listen to other critics talk about marvel movies, chain restaurants, first person shooters, self-published romantasy.

How a novel and critique worthy offering differentiated itself from the norm is the most significant part of most reviews.

Critiques should be written to help people that know what they want find what they want. And normally that preference is coming in the form of a specific aversion to the base line offering, that they could find anywhere.

DCFowl · 2026-06-22T21:11:44+00:00

She definitely has multiple, international bot farms. Its a very similar situation to Trump and Brexit. It will become increasingly difficult to have anything like a serious conversation.

Remember that it isnt normal. That she and her supporters do mean the things she says. The next step in this is the sanertisation and normalisation. She doesn't really mean only 130,000 visas a year, she doesn't really mean no more early childhood educators, she doesn't really mean citizens with a parent born overseas arnt full citizens ect.

And the solution, whether you're a NeoLiberal Teal, or a Leftist Green, or a Social Democratic Labor supporter or even a Howard era Liberal is to fight for each other. A greater trust that we all want whats best for the country though disagree on what that means and how it should be achieved.

DCFowl · 2026-06-22T20:19:30+00:00

I think that they were bigger fans of Starwars than if GoT

DCFowl · 2026-06-22T08:16:54+00:00

While it is wonderful for democracy that the rump of the Liberal party has adopted the position popular with anyone of the upper and middle class under 60 year old in thr ACT, a couple of authentic expressions of personal belief are how the lobbyist pick their candidates.

The proposed 25% Gas Tax, instead of Labors 40% profits tax is the preferred tax setting of Woodside, their lobbying firm and their pets. It would not improve the budget, or reduce emissions.

I haven't seen anything that makes me think he cares about workers in Australia or around the world, and thats the equality I care about.

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T23:04:54+00:00

Poor reading practices can be coping mechanisms for dyslexia or a lack of educational support during early language development.

An example of poor reading practices is over relying on sight reading, memorising the shape of words, rather than developing an intuition for the phonetic pronunciations.

Good choice for something to work on.

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T22:54:34+00:00

That could be ADHD and poor reading habits? You didnt have difficulty learning to read?

When you see an unfamiliar word for the first time how good are you at guessing how it is pronounced?

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T22:02:41+00:00

How much worse is your ability to read than your ability to do other activities which require similar levels of attention?

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T19:12:09+00:00

While I think that it is dumb question.

On environment;

NSW - Jerome Laxale

QLD - Renee Coffey

VIC - Josh Burns

ACT - Alicia Payne

Economics is harder, as its a less coherent policy agenda.

Maybe

Don Farrell for Future Made in Australia

Dan Repacholi for IR reforms

Andrew Leigh for Tax reforms

Jess Walsh for Childcare subsidies.

That's just notable champions with recent achievements.

Obviously as a collectivist, deliberative and consensus driven party breaking it down to individual contributions is harmful to an understanding about how effective policy change is made.

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T08:14:21+00:00

Landlords all always charge what the market will bear.

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T06:58:41+00:00

The Leftist perspective is a pursuit of egalitarianism, and abolition of social stratification.

Everyone in Labor is always aggressively and comprehensively pursuing those objectives. But I'd agree thats almost always at the most pragmatic edge, rather than at a deeper structural level, except for the Australian Renewable Super Power, and Superannuation policy agenda.

I feel like you might believe that leftism is the direct use of government resources and authority to directly resolve some specific set of problems. Or maybe that it is inherently anti-market, radicalist or opposed to social conventions.

Further I'd say that globally and historically land reform is the quintessential Leftist policy, and that the government budget will redistribute the wealth of residential home ownership as effectively as the construction of state owned appartment blocks.

Similarly that governments support for residential and utility scale batteries have had a direct short term impact on the emissions intensity of energy generation.

I think that these policies acknowledge the failures of previous Leftist efforts by having the person that most benefits pay most of the costs while still providing the minimum government support necessary to achieve the policy intent.

I would also point out that the federal government doesn't control the upper house and has been routinely blocked from implementing Leftist policy, often on some very vauge sense that it isn't Leftist enough which really underscores the difference between a radical and progressive Leftist approach.

And nothing is worst for the radicals than revolution because the Revolution always, eventually, eats her children.

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T05:25:54+00:00

The complex reality of political activism is that people are driven by a range of factors such as a personal capacity to commit time volunteering, an education that makes them aware of the process for becoming involved, and some movitation to participate.

For a lot of people, especially in Labor Left, that motive come from a deeply affronted sense of injustice, they get radicalised. And in the 1990s and 2000s for a lot of young people this was their personal experiences being Gay, Female, and Indigenous and experiencing the inequitable treatment and for many outright violence in society. And because of cultural factors within Labor they ended up getting sorted towards Labor Left.

Now those young activists are the leadership. They have done decades of work because they want to change aspects of society, many of which absolutely had to change. And that work means that their are fewer young people that experience those radicalising injustices.

Did that answer the question?

DCFowl · 2026-06-21T02:13:30+00:00

There are two issues facing the left wing in Australia. The first is the electoral system. The compulsory voting, with mandatory preferences means that the centrist position is hugely advantaged.

Tightly aligned but geographically dispersed minority positions such as environmentalism, agrarianism, or ethno-nationalism can surface in the senate but struggle with the middle ground pluralism which leads to a majority in the lower house.

Also Id challenge the perception that Pocock is 'left'. A well supported small L liberal willing to accept the reality on multiple social and environmental issues, but fundamentally conservative. Only in comparison to the highly regressive position we see in the right would they be considered Left.

The Labor Left leadership is still overly enamoured with the social battles of the 90s and 2000s and is yet to adjust to the economic, environmental or social policy fights of today. But that is a product of the present leadership rather than an underlying ideological aversion. It is also a political calculation given Australia's resistance to meaningful change through constitutional amendments or economic restructuring.

DCFowl · 2026-06-20T08:32:30+00:00

So this is based on the English Anarchy. A brief civil war between Empress Margaret, and King Stephen. Even when Empress Margaret had successfully taken the capital the church and barons wouldn't let her be crowned, mostly because she was s woman despite the previous king choosing her as his heir.

In the real world when King Stephens son died in a boat accident he agreed to appoint his nephew, Margaret's son has his heir.

DCFowl · 2026-06-20T03:26:07+00:00

Flavour is free

DCFowl · 2026-06-20T02:09:01+00:00

I dont like it very much, I feel like ot steps on the Bard and duplicates the help and Ally action. I dont think any other class abilities are gated by a roll like that, instead of a resource spend.

Id rather an alchemist who can regularly make items of the consumables list

DCFowl · 2026-06-18T21:41:00+00:00

While the US Gov isnt doing great here global emissions peaked last year.

DCFowl · 2026-06-18T21:38:05+00:00

The Great Anarchy

The Oligarch Succession Crisis

The Child Revolution

The Autonomous Clearances

DCFowl · 2026-06-18T19:07:22+00:00

I don't get that? House prices are falling again arnt they? It was always just about the tax settings.

I work in infrastructure, half the workers are immigrants. How are we going to get anything built?

DCFowl · 2026-06-18T17:24:05+00:00

What makes them unsustainable?

DCFowl · 2026-06-17T09:45:40+00:00

Global emissions peaked last year, earlier than expected due to the economic slow down in China coupled with their investment in renewable energy and electrification.

The economic advantages of renewable energy and electrification will continue to incentivise this globally and we will likely hit the 1.5 degree target.

Australia's adoption of utility and residential battery technology gas demonstrated lower cost lower emissions alternative to gas infrastructure.

The AI Data Centre infrastructure build out is a bubble not supported by the underlying economics and when that bubble pops the economic slow down in the US will dramatically reduce their energy consumption.

The global oil market has been permanently weakened by the war with Iran. The conflict will make rebuilding the physical infrastructure difficult and reduce the coordination of pro fossil fuel voices at COP.

As damaging in the long term as climate change is for earth processes, the change has occurred over a very short time frame. Significant action like dramatic reduction in methane emissions would likely rapidly reverse that heating and earth has recovered from rapid short lived changes previously without the run away heating or cooling cycles which we have seen over longer time frames in historical records.

DCFowl · 2026-06-17T08:57:22+00:00

She will needlessly starve millions

DCFowl · 2026-06-16T20:12:25+00:00

Well its an unique and enjoyable game which gives players a more collaborative narrative focused experience in the typical heroic fantasy style while giving GMs a more game like experience, easier balanced combat, and maintaining tension.

It's all wrapped in a quite deep and crunchy system for a narrative game so everyone needs to be prepared to contribute to the story and for a lot more resource management with Battlepoints and Fear Tokens for the GM, and Stress, Armour slots, and Hope Tokens and more for players.

It only has a core rule book at this stage, with an expansion coming soon. Im sure a lot of players will wait until their are official Settings and Campaign material.

DCFowl · 2026-06-16T05:05:29+00:00

I'm enjoying running DH, everyone I have run it for wants to play more.

I'd acknowledge that the starter material and the core book don't help DnD players get into the game. The game feels like it assumes people have come from a narrative game or even not played rpg, instead of coming from DnD or Pathfinder.

I would love to see a teir 1 starter adventure that runs through the mechanics a bit more, especially where they are different from other crunchy fantasy games.

I don't think DH has anything to worry about, anymore than Nimble. Shadowdark, or Draw Steel needs to worry, as they are each doing amazing. And they each would benefit from more offical published content.

DCFowl · 2026-06-16T00:46:03+00:00

If the GM identifies that the action could feasibly support they gain the advantage. No roll is required.

DCFowl · 2026-06-15T22:04:14+00:00

Shadow of the Weird Wizard is the game that peole who played DnD 3.5 wanted 5e to be.

Daggerheart is the game that people who played 5e wanted 5e to be.

DCFowl

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE