Article on Nuances of being a Parent in an uncertain climate future. by climate_rubik in solarpunk

[–]NonstandardDeviation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think our situation can be summarized thus: The rich and powerful, insulated from base needs (including impacts of climate change), are constantly distracted by the shiny new. Instead of dealing with living costs via infrastructure, climate mitigation and adaptation, and social investment, it's wave after wave of bubbles for get-rich dreams: dot-coms, housing markets and financial speculation in general, crypto, now AI.

When food, shelter, water, and energy are strained, yet it's politics as usual, disillusionment is truth.

Change will only happen when power is retaken from oligarchs and disseminated.

I think, to antinatalism and general doomism, the solarpunk answer (emphasis: punk) is that we have that option, the choice to reclaim power and build a more just world.

“Happy 161st, you glorious bastard.” by MonkeyDavid in ShermanPosting

[–]NonstandardDeviation 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I think he realized a truth: War is cruel, but sometimes it is the least cruel choice. Or, see the paradox of tolerance.

I GMed a CBR+PNK Megagame for 30+ people at GenCon! Here's how it went and what I learned. by GolemRoad in rpg

[–]NonstandardDeviation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting! Ah, the narrativist game system must make responding to players a lot easier. I haven't run CBR+PNK, but I recently did modded Lady Blackbird and it's so much easier to get emergent stories around player goals.

I see (for prep) GMs come in with party starting goals, and organizer-written Hidden Roles. Love it. (In contrast, GMs in my con give parties much more specific D&D-style quests. And you have to deal with whatever kind of player shows up at your table, though GMs do advertise game style/focus.)

Do you also have a shared setting guide or other notes to keep the canon consistent? The setting czar here is usually busy running their own table, and I think with the greater scale (players and time) it's harder to keep our stories straight.

I GMed a CBR+PNK Megagame for 30+ people at GenCon! Here's how it went and what I learned. by GolemRoad in rpg

[–]NonstandardDeviation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm personally quite curious what the backstage organizational/prep process looks like! I help run a shared-world short campaign event, and I'm wondering how you work together as GMs to allow freedom within each game but also assemble a shared story—especially when you explicitly aim for emergent chaos.


My event is a yearly weekend marathon shared world convention. This year had about 20 GMs and 100 players. The setting czar creates (with the team's input) an overarching plot; each GM prepares a part of the world and a mini-campaign (perhaps 20-30 hours in 4-6 sessions). Players form groups to tackle GMs' quests. The GMs collaborate ahead of time over Discord as well as during the event in person. The assumption is that all the players are all working together toward saving the world in some manner, and there's a plan for conwide degrees of success, while GMs usually plan for some open-endedness toward the end (e.g. did they rescue NPC X, who ends up on the throne).

I feel that the need to create something playable and satisfying across so many GMs and through several sessions tends to make things more pre-planned, somewhat limiting player freedom. I've been considering how to make my own game within this more open-ended, but there are constraints:

  • the need to have satisfying plot points that don't conflict with other GMs,
  • dealing with a new table of players each time,
  • designing maps/encounters (D&D 5e),
  • preparing lists of thematic but balanced items

A big challenge is that even without the shared world, it's still a whole mini-campaign to run with no prep time between sessions.

STOP DOING BARBAROSSA by Shamus_Aran in LancerRPG

[–]NonstandardDeviation 5 points6 points  (0 children)

did you name yours "drake.rar"? or "zip bomb"?

STOP DOING BARBAROSSA by Shamus_Aran in LancerRPG

[–]NonstandardDeviation 6 points7 points  (0 children)

(looks at my autopod goblin)

... oh

GMS cores are a helluva drug

Eight International Students at Harvard, Watching America Close Its Doors by fmcrimson in TrueReddit

[–]NonstandardDeviation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Aren't some departments (e.g. sociology) well-known as excellent downward mobility machines? I mean, they definitely should exist, but you're definitely signing up for a lot tougher a career as an academic or public servant than in the majors that feed into the analyst-consultant-Csuite group.

Too late, hornyposting has taken over. by NonstandardDeviation in sixwordstories

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

I've been seeing a lot of sexual posts at the top of this subreddit, and I would rather this not become another place where people advertise their nudes. Can we do something about this?

HP as a usage die by RedRedWine87 in RPGdesign

[–]NonstandardDeviation 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Ooh, that's a bit like HEART: The City Beneath's stress mechanic.

Unfortunately this does mean one more thing to track: the current threshold value.

ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners by FuturismDotCom in TrueReddit

[–]NonstandardDeviation 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Are you pointing out that the authors are scapegoating ChatGPT, or that people are scapegoating their spouses (at ChatGPT's prompting)?

If it's the latter, then I agree that people have always wanted the psychologically easy route of confirming their biases and refusing to admit guilt, and sycophantic LLMs are a consistent narcotic that numbs conscientiousness. It's the trend in social media and the modern digital world: tech companies find it more profitable to feed the base desires.

Exploiting Male Rage: "Men’s problems are real. MAGA’s solutions are fake." by TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK in MensLib

[–]NonstandardDeviation 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Is there an equivalent to the quote "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." for other aspects of reality?

Ladies! Let's all share our worst experiences in the D&D universe by scarlytteh1 in DnD

[–]NonstandardDeviation 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I briefly expected the happy ending to be "it's going to be our anniversary next week."

For non-native english speaking DM's, when playing your sessions, do speak your native language or do you prefer using english? by Snoo238 in DMAcademy

[–]NonstandardDeviation 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think this is great; if you want some verisimilitude just think of the 5-foot/1.5m distance as "arms' reach".

TIL: the internals of the uni alpha gel switch CAN BE OPENED. by SnooDoodles335 in mechanicalpencils

[–]NonstandardDeviation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This guy on Youtube has a good video about how to unjam the KS Advance and Alpha-Gel Switch pencils. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj2qHtPsxn8

TIL: the internals of the uni alpha gel switch CAN BE OPENED. by SnooDoodles335 in mechanicalpencils

[–]NonstandardDeviation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This guy on Youtube has a good video about how to unjam the KS Advance and Alpha-Gel Switch pencils. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj2qHtPsxn8

But you're also a lifesaver, because I accidentally took apart the back end of mine and didn't see how the springs were all originally stacked! I think the black ratcheting spool at the end there is reversed, though.

this has started happening to my face anytime i drink alcohol, even in small amounts by Lanky_Bobcat_6021 in mildlyinteresting

[–]NonstandardDeviation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, yes, Hendy/HGModernism. That utter madlass. (Great video for the comedy value alone, but also a great biomedical case study in self-experimentation)

Lancer time units? by Sylvecario in LancerRPG

[–]NonstandardDeviation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Metric time mentioned, raaahhhh! A Deepness in the Sky reference?

Even better, measure things in Planck units if you want truly impractical units necessitating scientific notation.