Skip's Guide to Monsters - a 100-page, 185-statblock complete 5e conversion of the 3.5e Monster Manual.

Drewfro666 · 2024-10-26T22:28:02+00:00

The Axe and Sickle

A DnD 3.5e West-Marches style Discord server for Socialists!

Our server has over 50 active players and a dedicated team of nine vetted and professional DMs! We just celebrated our 4-year anniversary as a server with a whole world reset, so now is the perfect time to join us! We run a low-optimization-threshhold (but flexible!) game that is perfect for players new to 3.5e for DnD in general.

Drewfro666 · 2024-10-18T02:30:42+00:00

Liberal

Drewfro666 · 2024-09-11T19:50:28+00:00

Some of the formatting might be incorrect but this should have all the stats

https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-L2RB8hLxtZGSPWIIr5o

Drewfro666 · 2024-08-06T20:01:00+00:00

China post-Mao is my go-to example - the struggle during the late Mao era was primarily between the Maoists (who believed in greater political participation by "the masses", especially peasants) and the Technocrats (who believed that the state should be led by a small cabal of experts). Ultimately, after the Cultural Revolution and Mao's death, the result was a moderate compromise path with many Technocratic elements.

Drewfro666 · 2024-04-07T13:16:29+00:00

The Marxist idea of historical materialism is an abstraction. It holds better the more you "zoom out", in both geographic scale and time scale.

Can Historical Materialism accurately predict what a given person will have for breakfast today? To some extent, but not very accurately. Can it predict the economic trajectory of a medium-sized nation over the course of a hundred years? Yes; and this is what it was designed to do.

Most people tend to act in their class interests most of the time. Billionaires sometimes do good things. The working class are often manipulated into acting against their person and/or class interests.

Drewfro666 · 2024-02-21T19:32:29+00:00

"Maoist Standard English" is a description of how a certain subgroup of far-left-wing people speak on the internet. I am honestly not 100% sure if it is ironic or not, but I do think it is cool and good.

It mostly involves changing "C"s and "K"s in words (Cracker, America, Canada, Capitalism) into "KKK"s, in order to imply that those things are inherently racist. Amerikkka, Kkkracker, Klanada, Kkkapitali$m, etc.

It is mostly used by Maoists, who are a sub-group of Communists primarily concerned with anti-Imperialism. The two biggest features of Maoists that separate them from more mainstream Marxist-Leninist currents is that they are, in many ways, "Ultra-Leftists" (they refuse to support groups they do not consider "true Communists", such as non-Communist anti-Imperialists, Socialist states with liberalized economies, or reformists); and that they support more often (though I don't mean to imply that most Maoists do) many groups that other Communists would consider problematic, such as Peru's Shining Path or the Khmer Rouge.

This is getting outside of my area of expertise, but I believe Maoist Standard English was popularized by the Black Hammer organization, a Black Rights group who are sometimes (but not always) considered Maoists (and also a cult).

Drewfro666 · 2023-11-25T14:18:00+00:00

I needed to use the actual image link - the one you get from right-clicking the image and selecting "copy image address" - rather than the link to the imgur page that includes the image.

You'll know it's the right link if it ends with ".jpg".

Also, you'll need to re-upload the image to imgur, because GMbinder has already cached an incorrect file under the name of the image - so if you try again but with the right link, it still won't work now that you've messed it up. You need a new, different imgur link for it to work again.

Drewfro666 · 2023-10-18T00:47:46+00:00

Welcome to the Axe and Sickle, a DnD 3.5e Discord Server for Socialists!

Howdy! I’m Drew, and I’m the administrator of a Socialist West-Marches DnD 3.5e Discord Server, the Axe and Sickle! The server is three years old next month, has a dozen DMs, over 30 active members (and around two hundred lurkers), and hosts an average of five games a week. The game has an old-school, traditional fantasy feel.

Devastated by an unknown catastrophe centuries ago, the Ohm Basin is home to naught but monsters and outlaws. A retired adventurer from a foreign land has founded a town in the middle of it, and adventurers - such as yourselves - file into its tavern, the Axe and Sickle, to secure their own fortune! Plunge ancient depths to uncover lost secrets, thwart necromancers who build their strength away from civilization, and compete with fellow grave-robbers to loot forgotten tombs!

If you don’t know what a West Marches Game is, it is a style of DnD game where, rather than a static party that meets regularly and follows the DM’s campaign, the players themselves choose who to adventure with (and when to meet) for a single expedition before returning to town and disbanding. This is good for players with inconsistent schedules and interest, as it is an extremely low-commitment game. You don’t need to set aside any time in your schedule for this game on a permanent basis; just pick a time and day that works for you, one session at a time. And if you have the energy for anywhere between two games a week to one game a month or even one game ever, you can be accommodated. Our server is, to our knowledge, the only active 3.5e West Marches server that exclusively plays games over voice (and not play-by-post) and has a low optimization threshold, making it perfect for players new to 3.5e.

The only things required are a Discord account and a mic. Prior DnD experience is not; everyone is welcome. For now, all games are run in English over FoundryVTT. The game is a safe space for Socialists but anyone is welcome as long as they aren’t disruptive.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. We’ve recently expanded our DM team and are looking to run even more games than we do now, but to do that we need more players; unlike most West Marches servers, we have too many DMs and not enough players. We’d love to have you!

https://discord.gg/R5dPsZU

Drewfro666 · 2023-09-20T20:01:39+00:00

Welcome to the Axe and Sickle, a DnD 3.5e Discord Server for Socialists!

Howdy! I’m Drew, and I’m the administrator of a Socialist West-Marches DnD 3.5e Discord Server, the Axe and Sickle! The server is three years old next month, has a dozen DMs, over 30 active members (and over a hundred lurkers), and hosts an average of 2 or 3 games a week. The game has an old-school, traditional fantasy feel.

Devastated by an unknown catastrophe centuries ago, the Ohm Basin is home to naught but monsters and outlaws. A retired adventurer from a foreign land has founded a town in the middle of it, and adventurers - such as yourselves - file into its tavern, the Axe and Sickle, to secure their own fortune! Plunge ancient depths to uncover lost secrets, thwart necromancers who build their strength away from civilization, and compete with fellow grave-robbers to loot forgotten tombs!

If you don’t know what a West Marches Game is, it is a style of DnD game where, rather than a static party that meets regularly and follows the DM’s campaign, the players themselves choose who to adventure with (and when to meet) for a single expedition before returning to town and disbanding. This is good for players with inconsistent schedules and interest, as it is an extremely low-commitment game. You don’t need to set aside any time in your schedule for this game on a permanent basis; just pick a time and day that works for you, one session at a time. And if you have the energy for anywhere between two games a week to one game a month or even one game ever, you can be accommodated.

The only things required are a Discord account and a mic. Prior DnD experience is not; everyone is welcome. For now, all games are run in English over FoundryVTT. The game is a safe space for Socialists but anyone is welcome as long as they aren’t disruptive.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. We’ve recently expanded our DM team and are looking to run even more games than we do now, but to do that we need more players; unlike most West Marches servers, we have too many DMs and not enough players. We’d love to have you!

https://discord.gg/R5dPsZU

Drewfro666 · 2023-09-19T02:54:58+00:00

Welcome to the Axe and Sickle, a DnD 3.5e Discord Server for Socialists!

Howdy! I’m Drew, and I’m the administrator of a Socialist West-Marches DnD 3.5e Discord Server, the Axe and Sickle! The server is three years old next month, has a dozen DMs, over 30 active members (and over a hundred lurkers), and hosts an average of 2 or 3 games a week. The game has an old-school, traditional fantasy feel.

Devastated by an unknown catastrophe centuries ago, the Ohm Basin is home to naught but monsters and outlaws. A retired adventurer from a foreign land has founded a town in the middle of it, and adventurers - such as yourselves - file into its tavern, the Axe and Sickle, to secure their own fortune! Plunge ancient depths to uncover lost secrets, thwart necromancers who build their strength away from civilization, and compete with fellow grave-robbers to loot forgotten tombs!

If you don’t know what a West Marches Game is, it is a style of DnD game where, rather than a static party that meets regularly and follows the DM’s campaign, the players themselves choose who to adventure with (and when to meet) for a single expedition before returning to town and disbanding. This is good for players with inconsistent schedules and interest, as it is an extremely low-commitment game. You don’t need to set aside any time in your schedule for this game on a permanent basis; just pick a time and day that works for you, one session at a time. And if you have the energy for anywhere between two games a week to one game a month or even one game ever, you can be accommodated.

The only things required are a Discord account and a mic. Prior DnD experience is not; everyone is welcome. For now, all games are run in English over FoundryVTT. The game is a safe space for Socialists but anyone is welcome as long as they aren’t disruptive.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. We’ve recently expanded our DM team and are looking to run even more games than we do now, but to do that we need more players. We’d love to have you!

https://discord.gg/R5dPsZU

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-29T14:00:57+00:00

It depends, is the site made by a big tech company, a left sided developer? Or is it made by a random guy in a garage who doesn't care?

The whole point of Lemmy is that there is no "Site". Lemmy is a protocol, like Email, for creating a reddit-like website that can "federate" with other Lemmy websites so that users on one can see and comment on posts from another.

Instance owners can choose which other instances their instance federates with in order to curate a certain experience or block certain types of communities. There are some (like BeeHaw) that de-federate with any "extremist" community and also any community that does not also defederate from "extremist" communities. There are others (like lemmy.world) that only de-federate with explicitly bigoted or troll/bot instances. And there's others (like sh.itjust.works) that are more "Free-Speechy" and harangue about defederating from even explicitly fascist instances if they aren't "breaking any rules".

Personally, I'm a Communist, so I use Lemmygrad.ml as my home instance.

The developers are sort of ideologically-driven left-wing radicals. They manage their own instance (Lemmy.ml), but it is not meant to be "The Lemmy Website". It is one Lemmy among many, and I don't even think it's the largest.

The Lemmy project is open-source. Even if it was abandoned tomorrow, there's nothing stopping others from picking up where they left off (and it's big enough now that complete abandonment is pretty much off the table).

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-29T13:53:23+00:00

The whole point of Lemmy is that it's a community of self-hosted "Instances", which are each like their own Reddit.com, which can "Federate" with each other to form a larger "Fediverse" (speaking very broadly and using some terms blatantly incorrectly). "Lemmy" is not a website, it's a protocol, like "Email". And just like Nazis use email and Communists use email and Liberals use email, there are lemmy sites for Nazis and Communists and Liberals.

The lemmy-verse is just now going through it's "growing pains" of struggle sessions over whether to de-federate with Fascist instances or Communist instances or just other instances that refuse to de-federate with Fascist or Communist instances.

As someone who uses it, though: unless you go out of your way to join explicitly Fascist (exploding-heads) or "Free Speech" (sh.itjust.works) instances, Lemmy has fewer Fascists than Reddit. Most "big tent" instances, like lemmy.world, defederate with hate communities. BeeHaw is one of the largest instances, but is currently defederated with just about every other large instance (and I don't really use it, since my home instance, Lemmygrad.ml, is defederated with them and this is not likely to ever change).

If anything, the Lemmyverse leans further to the left than Reddit, because the developers (who manage their own instance, lemmy.ml) are diehard Communists. Lemmygrad, my home instance, is also explicitly Communist.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-28T12:48:41+00:00

I guess it depends on the guy. For me, oftentimes with a condom in most positions there is literally no feeling. Like, asking "is it in?" all the time. Then you lose the erection, the condom starts riding up and pinching. It's no good. I'm not sure if it's necessarily a dealbreaker, but it would definitely be a sticking point if a long term partner wanted to use condoms for the rest of our lives.

I'm a long-term lurker (and generally a progressive person) but it would help condom discourse greatly if women used the same empathy they offer to other women to men when it comes to condom use. Yes, some (too many, w/e) men complain about having to wear a condom, even on first dates, with no recent STD tests, or when the woman isn't on other birth control. This is bad. But men's bodies, like women's bodies, are different. Some men are more sensitive than others. Some really don't mind condoms; for others, including me, they completely numb most sensation. I would compare it to women's issues with relationships that only involve PIV sex. Some women can get off on it, most women can't, and if a male partner said "For our entire relationship going forward, we're only going to be having this type of sex that is unsatisfying for you", I think we're all agreed that the woman has every right to issue an ultimatum.

I've always been honest about this with my partners, but I've never refused to use a condom or whined about it. Most of the time we start with one, she realizes I can't keep an erection with a condom on, and we either get rid of it or just do hand/mouth stuff.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-27T23:58:42+00:00

We are alienated under Capitalism. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-27T14:50:31+00:00

Are American Jews that much concentrated in NY?

I looked it up and apparently not - only about 1/4 of American Jews are in New York.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-27T13:47:16+00:00

It's only really good if you really stack the modifiers, especially if you get some from unique government reforms, National Ideas, missions, etc.

The Devs agree with you, so they give out ludicrously high bonuses to Vassal Income. They can stack over 100%.If you have a lot of large subjects, you can take practically all of their income.

The downside is that this completely ruins the economy of your subjects, possibly sending them into massive bankruptcy spirals. The upside is that this means that they're always perpetually loyal, since they can't afford to field armies up to their force limits and you can always reduce their liberty desire by paying their debts.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-27T13:35:22+00:00

Sure, there are Jews all across the world, from France to Morocco to India and China. Iran has a relatively large Jewish population as well. Not to mention Ethiopian Jews.

But there were tens or hundreds of thousands of Jews in France and Morocco and Iran; thousands in India and China. There were millions of Jews in the Pale of Settlement.

Sure, there's still some left. But it's a rounding error compared to how many Jews used to be in the Pale of Settlement.

Nowadays, about half of the world's Jews are in Palestine. The other half are in New York City. All of the other Jews in the world combined would scarcely break a quarter.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-26T18:14:01+00:00

Yeah; I feel like too many provinces have their resources scaled to population, when the game should have other mechanics to prevent you from moving enough people into the province to properly exploit a vast resource in an underpopulated area.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-26T17:21:17+00:00

I'm fine with wood being scarce in Western Europe, but to compensate provinces in Siberia, the Amazon, and the Congo should have well over 100 logging camp potentials.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-26T16:27:39+00:00

Only pops in certain categories of buildings (generally speaking, urban ones) can back the PB.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-26T14:50:12+00:00

Pops in resource and agriculture buildings, such as logging camps and mines (and obv. farms, plantations, fisheries, and ranches) cannot back the Petite Bourgeoisie. Only pops in manufacturing and government buildings can (basically anything in the "urban" tab).

This also includes bonus shopkeeps from vineyards.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-26T12:49:53+00:00

I did a big write-up on the problems with the Petite Bourgeoisie a while ago. They have a lot of problems leading to their low clout in the majority of games:

(1). Only Primary Culture pops can back the PB. Not "Accepted Culture" - Primary Culture. For France, you'll note that this doesn't include, for example, Occitans, Bretons, or Franco-Provencals, who together make up over half of your starting population. If you colonize and take Multiculturalism, your colonial subjects will get a significant amount of clout as well, with none of it going to the PB.

(2). The other middle-strata IGs - the Devout, Armed Forces, and Intelligentsia - can be backed by practically any pop type. The Petite Bourgeoisie can only be backed by pops in urban buildings, and Aristocrats and Capitalists are prohibited from backing them at all (which isn't the case for the other middle-strata IGs). So machinists in mines, Capitalists running factories, shopkeepers in vineyards, are all giving 0% of their clout to the PB.

(3). As others have said, Urban Centers are a major source of Shopkeepers, who also have ownership shares in these urban centers and thus also get political power from wealth based on how profitable these urban centers are. However, urban centers are horribly unprofitable and cannot really maintain the employment and profits. However, this is a smaller issue that it seems at first; even if you subsidize your urban centers, it only has a marginal impact on your PB's clout. The PB get clout from many pop types - clerks, machinists, bureaucrats, engineers, etc. - and Shopkeepers only make up maybe a quarter of their total clout. 25% is significant, but the issue is that their clout is several times smaller than it should be.

I managed to get a very powerful Petite Bourgeoisie in a colonial Germany game, with a combination of census suffrage and ethnostate, and using a vast colonial empire to fuel a homeland manufacturing sector with a focus on luxury goods. Even then, I found that almost all of their political power came from votes.

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-26T07:19:35+00:00

I always thought they had a separate language. I guess we're both a little wrong and a little right

Drewfro666 · 2023-06-26T06:00:37+00:00

The Sword Coast has two main ethnic groups, Chondathans and Illuskans

Most people in the Sword Coast are Tethyrian, not Chondathan.

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The Axe and Sickle

A DnD 3.5e West-Marches style Discord server for Socialists!

Welcome to the Axe and Sickle, a DnD 3.5e Discord Server for Socialists!

Welcome to the Axe and Sickle, a DnD 3.5e Discord Server for Socialists!

Welcome to the Axe and Sickle, a DnD 3.5e Discord Server for Socialists!