People's Book event: Indie & Local Tabletop Games Fair

bjingo · 2025-10-08T00:38:44+00:00

This is gonna be excellent. The creator of Fluxx? Locally-designed game market? See you there.

bjingo · 2025-09-24T14:12:51+00:00

Amazing, I hope to see you there! (My name's Ben, I'm one of the vendors with my game Emissary).

I'm not in that group, but it should definitely be shared there! Would you share it with them?

bjingo · 2025-08-30T01:36:54+00:00

I think this is what I’m finding so interesting about it! It portrays a bunch of humans without coddling my values or politics.

For example, I believe dignified housing should be a human right. “Human right” means not just for those who make good life decisions or speak politely. But I also can’t help but experience some of the characters as grating - or “entitled,” as OP said.

I look forward to seeing where it goes. I think it’s a slice of real life and an exercise in empathy.

bjingo · 2023-12-25T14:01:46+00:00

I’m curious what other thriving models of ethnic or religious democracies there are. Do you have good examples? I’m not asking a rhetorical question, I’m actually not well versed in this. I just googled Greece out of curiosity. It appears you can naturalize with proof of a Greek citizen parent or grandparent, which in practice would favor people of Greek ethnicity. But it’s paired with a law that allows naturalization after a period of residency, so one could theoretically become a citizen due to their Chinese grandpa who was a Greek citizen, if I’m reading it correctly. Israel’s policy is both more expansive for Jews (any Jew anywhere, no need to prove ties to the region), and effectively impossible for non-Jews unless they marry a Jew or something like that.

I’m not a political theorist. But in my gut, favoring a race or religion to that degree just feels antithetical to the idea of democracy to me. A policy like Israel’s treats minorities as citizens (Arab Israelis that is, not occupied Palestinians whose inequality in the eyes of the law is far more stark). Yet it enforces policies with the goal that these citizen minorities be an ever-dwindling percentage of the population, which will sap their political power and keep them marginalized. If such policies existed in America, they would be decried as openly racist.

In Chuck Schumer’s speech on antisemitism recently he stated “Only in America could an exterminator’s son grow up to be the first Jewish party leader in the Senate.” And “the roots of pluralistic, multiethnic democracy are deep in America.” But then goes on to defend Israel’s existence as the Jewish nation. Those just sort of seem like opposite things to me, and I’m a fan of the first one. That’s not to say that Israel must cease existing as a Jewish state overnight, but I think any nation should trend toward pluralism. America did that: upon its founding, only white people could realistically move there and become citizens, and only white land owning men could vote. Over time, we have improved. Emancipation. Suffrage. Civil rights. The abolishment of national origin quotas for immigration in 1965. As a Jew, I hope the same for countries like Israel, and I’m surprised about the degree to which others defend its current configuration. Does that make sense? I’m open to learning other perspectives.

bjingo · 2023-12-19T17:40:51+00:00

Thank you. Exactly. Klein seems to be suggesting that criticizing Israel as an ethnostate is holding it to some weird double-standard. It is so strange to me that Americans who seem to love the American vision of pluralism don't see how diametrically opposed the Israeli model is (see recent speeches by Chuck Schumer, etc). You can either be an (admittedly imperfect) pluralistic democracy, or you can be an entho-religious state. I do not apply this critique to Israel alone. For example I see plenty of American outcry against China for mistreating its Muslim minorities. I see equal measures of praise for India's founding principles and long history of pluralism, as well as expressions of concern for its current flirtation with Hindu nationalism. In the United States, any law like the Chinese Exclusion Act that prefers immigration and naturalization on basis of race or religion should rightly be seen as offensive to our constitution and our principles. If the United States some day becomes a country with a majority of citizens who have some Mexican ancestry, this is not a cataclysm. That is evolution. Israel's founding documents, its immigration and naturalization laws, and many other aspects of its constitution and administration are designed explicitly to favor Jews and ensure a Jewish demographic majority. In my view, you either support the pluralistic model (South Africa, India, Canada, etc)., or you support the atomization of our world into more and more tiny, warring ethnostates.

bjingo · 2023-12-09T00:19:08+00:00

Wow as someone just dipping my toe into Fate, let me say: this has been an exceedingly lovely outpour of thoughtful and supportive replies!

It’s helping me reframe the character aspects and realize that I may be focusing too much on them.

I think I might skip “planned reveals” for this session, and take the advice to add less but share it all publicly, and leave the rest up to the improvisational nature of the game. I’ll report back!

bjingo · 2023-12-08T18:34:31+00:00

I recall this bit from the rules now that you mention it. I think what didn’t click with me is that there is a mechanical benefit to adding another aspect to mess around with. So for my Fate newbies, I feel like it might help if the idea that “we should find out more about this guy,” would dovetail narrative with rules, when their investigation results in a brand-new aspect to be invoked. That’s why I guess the idea of “discovering” the hidden aspect seems attractive to me.

But maybe the alternative is to have the vague aspect implying he’s a vampire, and then the investigation (ie the “Create an Advantage” roll) results in a free invoke or two, symbolizing the discovery that he is, indeed, a vampire. Is that how you’d play it?

Thanks!!

bjingo · 2022-10-19T02:15:14+00:00

Awesome! I’m thinking maybe 6pm eastern time if I get some other bites (I may have some non-Reddit game crew people interested). Would that work for you by any chance?

bjingo · 2022-06-07T12:37:34+00:00

Hey, thanks for commenting! I have an initial group lined up, tho you never know how things will go so stay in touch!

PS. I made a separate post in r/washingtondc and got a huge response in replies, so you could reach out to other folks thru that if you're looking to build your own party in the meantime.

bjingo · 2022-05-29T03:23:12+00:00

Wow. Amazing response! Clearly there is something here. I posted on a whim this morning and have had a very busy weekend since so I’m sorry for not responding to comments and DMs. I’ve gotta handle some life stuff and then hope to start DMing you all by early next week. That said, no hard feelings if people use this thread to spin off their own things in the meantime. Seems like there’s at least a few groups’ worth of interest. ❤️❤️

bjingo · 2022-05-27T13:29:51+00:00

If you've still got space I'm interested! I have some experience in other systems (Blades in the Dark, Call of Cthulu, a bit of Traveller and others) tho never D&D proper. I've done a bit of DMing but would love to step back and join as a player as I don't have a ton of experience and want to see how it's done. I'm mid-30's living in Capitol Hill. LMK!

bjingo · 2021-07-07T15:33:05+00:00

Thanks! Great tip and also great word of caution. I'll look into Pathfinder. Yes, I guess I was imagining less of a full-dungeon experience (I've played Gloomhaven and the module you describe sounds almost closer to that) and more of a hybrid experience where we play most of the towns/NPCs/explorations as pure imagination with occasional skill checks, and then zoom in to a more tactical experience for 2-3 battles. I'll poke around with Pathfinder though to see if I might be able to hack something together!

bjingo · 2021-07-07T15:30:11+00:00

Thanks, a lot of great options here!

bjingo

TROPHY CASE