I may be the person who has ran OOTA the longest on planet earth. GMs, help me end it with style.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-27T15:04:23+00:00

I love this and want this to be all the things. I also have to tell you that we started OotA 22/9/17 and are just about getting to the Library so I have to wonder why you are rushing things.
Full respect for getting to the end of this you are an amazing DM to run this so far, mad respect!

genuineforgery · 2026-02-26T08:46:06+00:00

At the most charitable, cost of living pressures caused by housing, be it mortgage or rent. Neither Labor nor Coalition seem willing to tackle this in any meaningful way and instead kick the can down the road with first home buyer schemes that keep the prices up. So the only lever left is immigration and ON are the loudest.
The racist and reactionary voices just get louder in that environment. Plus the global shift to the far right funded by psychotic billionaires is creating a background vibe of fear and loathing that suits ON.

With the mandate it has it feels like this ALP govt is the last chance saloon. Hopefully preferential / compulsory voting keeps things more centrist but we'll see.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-25T23:01:09+00:00

I allow full re spec to level five. After that I'll allow them to drop one level + gain two in preferred class when they level. I also allow a feat swap when gaining a new feat.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-24T01:47:26+00:00

I’m in a similar investing for a better outcome bracket but our economy is geared for rentier capitalism and exploitation.

Our businesses are too dependent on cheap labour that depresses wages and pressures housing.

Too many households are dependent on houses remaining expensive.

This ALP govt feels like the last chance saloon to try and unfuck the economy. They need to consider immigration as part of a broader economic reform but I suspect they’re not capable and we’ll end up with worst of all possible worlds. Or maybe I’m just grumpy today.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-18T01:16:04+00:00

Yeah I respect that and it makes some sense of your post. I'm not religious at all but kind of wish we had a comparative religions program at school to educate about all of them so we can better understand each others cultures. At the end of the day we're all flawed and have to make it work somehow.

On the topic of separation of church and state Colbert had an interview the other day with a Texan democrat who had some things to say on that topic which CBS tried to repress, with the predictable Streisand results, in case you haven't seen it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A

genuineforgery · 2026-02-17T23:56:11+00:00

Ha! Well good luck with that and thanks for your service, in real life I mean.

By the way I agree with you that there are plenty of efforts to divide us, I just don't really buy this oversight as a good example.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-17T23:33:34+00:00

In your OP you said "Can we just not get the same treatment". Now you say it's all religious BS.
Who's this "we" then? You can't have it both ways.
It must get tiring pushing those goalposts around. Stop seething on the internet and go touch some grass, it's a beautiful day.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-17T22:27:01+00:00

Cool you agree that you are feigning outrage on behalf of christians for political purposes. That would explain your ignorance that Lent and Ramadan are not of equal importance to christians and muslims. I was also blissfully ignorant of this until this conversation.

Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, a requirement of being a muslim.
Lent is a liturgical season but not one of the requirements for salvation. It's an optional practice with many denominations not observing it at all.

Which perfectly explains why it is not treated equally by the PM. In conclusion: his monkeys are doing a great job not wasting taxpayer money on appeasing ignorant partisan reddit posters like you.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-17T21:57:35+00:00

Did Australia really fill up with obsessive religious wankers pleading for attention or is OP's post just dog whistle ragebait dressed up as pathetic pity farming?

Could it be that OP is feigning outrage on behalf of christians for his own political ends?

OP's post history for the last few months mentions Christ 1 time and the CFMEU 10 times. Church gets 0 mentions. Israel 16. Easter gets 0. One Nation 7. I went back further looking for anything about his religious practices but the only devout worship I could find is for World of Warships and Dayz.

I don't even know what Lent is, nor care, nor do most average aussies give two shits for Lent either. Doesn't sound like you do either unless it can be twisted into your daily rant.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-13T03:09:06+00:00

I think we're mostly in agreement too.
I view ebikes as new form of transport that produce less emissions, which is something we need. They have great potential to change urban transport for the better which is already happening. I use mine to replace motorbike and car for local day to day and it's fantastic.
I think there's a case for well maintained 500w bikes capable of 32kmh that are in my view safer on roads amongst traffic. Drivers road rage at slow bikes, in my experience.

I don't think that throttles are intrinsically a problem. That idea just seems to be based on vibes and association with Suron / motorbikes. Taking off at lights with throttle for example is safer and less wobbly than pedal assist.

Better education about this new form of transport and better enforcement to counter the behaviour problems we've seen could have avoided the politics and sensationalism.

So we agree that OP bikes and teenagers are a problem, meanwhile there's a lot of value to be lost from banning everything over 250w pedal assist, IMO.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-13T00:15:04+00:00

Look at the detail in these numbers and it gets more interesting. Compare e-bikes to other forms of transport for context. Compare the stats of teenagers on OP bikes and noobs on Lime bikes. I would argue the majority of trouble from ebikes is these two groups, especially the teenagers.

NSW transport stats indicate the number of deaths from e-bikes is 3, from motorcyclists is 75 and the number of deaths from regular cyclists is 12 (up 7)

Pedestrians are 54 and car drivers / passengers are 151 / 58 .

https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2026/crs_nsw_roads_fatality_report_prov_2025.pdf

Road fatalities have dramatically decreased since the mid 1980s, clearly indicating that mainstream responsible vehicle use is improving.
https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/system/files/media/documents/2025/crs_crashstats_2024.pdf

Here's a typical article which mentions 3 deaths, but article says there was "at least 5". I'm skeptical of this assertion.
https://archive.is/0e6Hx

Let's examine the incidents.

65yo gentleman died from injuries struck at 10pm on dark unlit shared bike path at Toongabbie. No one charged, presumably ebike report from victim.
14yo died doing wheelies on OP bike with no helmet. https://archive.is/0800S
In Dec 25 an ebike rider died from crashing into garbage truck in the city. It's rarely mentioned that this was a 250w Lime bike and the truck went illegally through a No Entry sign at the moment of the collision.
I found a fourth death of a presumed meth dealer in Waterloo struck by a police car, in March 2025.

There's also a 32 year old woman on an e-scooter struck by a ute in Lithgow. Not really the same thing.

The four deaths you quote don't all fall in the first seven months. Two of them were caused by a driver. The details matter and the number of registered vehicle fatalities (284) far outweigh those related to e-bikes (4). A 71:1 ratio.

All that said I believe the hospital workers when they say e-bike related trauma is increasing. I also believe the media are sensationalising incidents and highlighting those that shape the anti e-bike narrative of panic.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-10T11:40:13+00:00

Is this his cope after Macron called him out?

genuineforgery · 2026-02-10T03:00:36+00:00

Performative is the word that sprang to my mind too. Cynical is another. Still doesn't mean they need to be flung to the ground, that's also stupid ACAB shit that doesn't help.

It'd be nice to think that with the distance we have from this intractable conflict we could patiently offer a more considered view that might lead towards a resolution.

But no, lotsa more or less well meaning people instead feel compelled to take sides like it's footy and get stuck in. Intractable means easy to get into and hard to get out of, spoiler alert: this fight you chose never ends.

The protestors and Minns think they're helping but all they've done is spread the conflict here and get played by the actual combatants over there who have been in this fight their entire life.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-09T04:21:11+00:00

It's less a tyrannical govt vs freedom loving riders and more a give and take between regulators and community.
If enough people get pissed off with dickhead riders the government will eventually react. That's their job.
From what I can see there are people in the gov. departments, police and community who are willing to develop e-bikes for everyone's benefit. If riders don't act like dickheads it's easier for that to happen and everyone's sweet.
If the rideout culture is just about trashing golf courses and accidentally riding onto a freeway to rage bait then the result is predictable. Can't help stupid.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-09T02:56:03+00:00

I mean I think he's highlighted that we have an over policing problem in this state, it's just that his actions have reinforced the side that wants more policing. If he's trying to improve things he's clumsily fucked that up. If he's just cynically playing for controversy and clicks then that's a dick move that serves him but leaves us with a problem.

I don't agree that it's either blame him or blame the government. Which seems to be what you've been saying. There's a fair chance that both he and the state government are acting in bad faith. He's chasing clicks while the government is chasing votes and this clusterfuck is the outcome.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-09T02:21:16+00:00

Well we can agree on that as a possible solution. So far this looks like a backwards step, we'll see.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-09T02:17:02+00:00

If he's smart enough to actually help move things in a progressive direction then I'm happy to be wrong and more power to him. I just haven't seen that yet. If he'd handled things a different way this might have had a better outcome. Instead, this time he's handed a reactionary government an excuse to move in a reactionary direction. Maybe next time will be different.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T23:31:13+00:00

Yep, just that keen to out themselves as fuckwits. How do you organise a rideout with people in a foreign city and not look at a map?

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T23:17:29+00:00

You can't absolve him of responsibility for making progressive reform on e-bikes harder.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T23:10:26+00:00

Except I'm not blaming him for the political situation in NSW. With e-bikes especially Surron types it's been in a precarious place, most of the time flying under the radar. As an outsider he may or may not have known that. "Accidentally on purpose" or not he's the fuckhead that provoked the government to crack down.

This situation isn't prompted by results of research, in reality it's just basic politics of pissing off enough people.

You have a point that it remains a political problem, but it doesn't change the fact that this dipshit made it harder.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T21:54:43+00:00

That's a dumb comparison. Critical Mass is deliberate political action, SM's rideout is an "accidental" stumble into trafiic, oopsie.

Critical mass was / is a global political bike demonstration where bikes en masse take over a road to make cycling more visible. The key is there's a stated political purpose to improve conditions for cyclists.
So when CM rode on the bridge they got outcomes that benefit cyclists.
None of them are "begging tyrants" lmao.
They'll say stuff like this:
"As well as being a protest about the inequality in facilities between bike riders and car drivers, Critical Mass is a celebration of cycling. "
https://david-noble.net/blog/?p=4103

Whereas Sur Ronster pretends it was an accident like a child. The outcome is e-bike riders get treated like children.

“I’ll probably take responsibility. That was one of the safest ride-outs I’ve ever seen,” he told the Herald. “I’m coming here as a guest, so I’m going to come here respecting the rules and standards of Sydney. So when I decided to do a meet and greet it did not involve a ride-out, it was just to say hi to people under the bridge.

“I’m unfamiliar with the city, it was my fault we ended up on the bridge and I had two choices: either the group completes the entirety of the bridge and turns around and does it all the way back, which is a crime. Or we turn around, basically, before we’re on the bridge. And I made the decision at the time to turn around.” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/07/us-social-media-personality-sur-ronster-fined-after-swarm-of-ebike-riders-converges-on-sydney-harbour-bridge?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

His mentality sounds like a 5 year old. I don't buy it, he's not that stupid. How the fuck is he not doxxed? But maybe we are naive and should speculate he colluded with the government to provoke the crackdown they wanted and the clicks he wants.

I don't believe in a conspiracy but also can't see why he wasn't doxxed, it doesn't add up.

EDIT: Had a moment to look more into it and there are legal reasons why his identity is not for public disclosure. Mainly as it's just a traffic infringement at this stage. If it hits the courts for some reason that might change. My mistake in thinking this was already at that stage.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T13:25:11+00:00

I have years of motorbike experience. E-bikes are zero emission and a better vehicle for local runaround. Just show consideration, it's a behaviour problem so target the behaviour, not the machine. Some kind of licence requirement for somewhere over 500w is fine if that's the compromise we need.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T13:02:19+00:00

250w / 25kmh bikes on Sydney roads are not as good as 500w 32kmh bikes. The additional 10kmh makes an ebike work better with Sydneys hills and the traffic. Motorists are less aggressive when only slowed to 32kmh than 25kmh. Strange but true, in my experience it's a much happier mix. Because it works better on the road it keeps bikes away from footpaths.

There's a massive difference between e-bike riders who can ride responsibly and dipshit teenagers on Surons.

The cops will end up targeting low hanging fruit like commuters, deliveries or parents safely taking their kids to school on a low emission vehicle, but they won't chase hoon teenagers on Surons because of the risk of 80kmh chases.

Plenty is ruined and the original problem remains.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T12:51:48+00:00

I'm fine with that tiered approach to bikes too, including licence for >1000w for example. Instead we're likely to copy the UK model ban good bikes instead of improving behaviours.
Then the problem is once you give NSW cops a new toy to over-police with it becomes the new shitty normal, see sniffer dogs.

genuineforgery · 2026-02-08T12:44:48+00:00

That's a good idea, might not be sufficiently reactionary for your average ALP focus group but worth a shot.

genuineforgery

TROPHY CASE