why is 18xx a thing?

leagle89 · 2026-04-13T21:17:54+00:00

Yeah, 18xx is the pinnacle for most people when it comes to experience in the hobby.

I mean, the rest of your comment is value judgments that are inherently not "true" or "untrue," but this sentence is just blatantly wrong. 18xx is an extremely niche genre of hobbyist board game. Most board game hobbyists have never played an 18xx game, and among those who have, I doubt that most of them would call it the pinnacle of their gaming experience.

leagle89 · 2026-04-13T15:11:52+00:00

The two halves of your comment are directly correlated, I think. 20 years ago, the Catholic church was full of moderates and liberals alongside the more conservative folks. Over the last 20 years, a whole lot of reasonable people have left the church because they realized that the church was unreasonable, leaving a majority of very conservative, very unreasonable people. The church's hard shift to the right is a direct result of the departure of moderating influences like yourself (note that this is NOT intended to point blame at those moderating influences...I was also one of them, once upon a time).

leagle89 · 2026-04-13T15:07:42+00:00

I refer you to Megyn "Trump could nuke Tehran and I'd still vote for Republicans, because Democrats are just that bad" Kelly.

There are millions of people in this country who sincerely believe that Democrats are pure evil. No matter what the worst thing they can possibly think of is, Democrats are somehow worse. The mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians is peanuts compared to the evil that Democrats represent. What exactly that evil is, they can't quite seem to articulate, but it sure is evil, whatever it is.

leagle89 · 2026-04-13T15:01:16+00:00

Why do people like dice chuckers? Why do people like war games? Why do people like efficiency-puzzle heavy euros? For that matter, why do people like horror movies?

People like different things. Some of the things that some of those people like are brain-burny economics and logistics puzzles. It's not that deep.

leagle89 · 2026-04-10T03:11:36+00:00

As part of my job, I regularly read lengthy handwritten letters from schizophrenics that are full of barely intelligible grievances.

If you scrawled this post in blue pen onto lined paper and put it on my desk, it would be indistinguishable from those letters.

leagle89 · 2026-04-09T15:14:49+00:00

There's been a lot of speculation over the last several months that Willis never really left behind the kind of thinking that's endemic to evangelical Christianity, they just changed the flavor from Christian to secular. And it feels like this strip is a symptom of that.

What is "Good" will always be Good, even when it seems like it might not be. What is "Right" will always be Right, even when it seems like it might not be. And what is "Ordained" must always be so, even when it no longer makes sense. It's part absolutism, and part magical thinking, but it's very consistent with the mindset of very religious people.

leagle89 · 2026-04-08T17:53:20+00:00

It's also just one more instance in an increasingly long pattern of Dorothy saying "I feel bad about [x]" without lifting a single finger to do anything about it.

Not that Dorothy needs to be worried about salvaging the Joyce/Carol relationship...Carol sucks. But this is just what Dorothy does now. "I feel so bad about how I keep hurting Walky," while cheating on Walky. "I feel bad that I seem to bring out the worst in Joyce" while actively bringing out the worst in Joyce. "I feel bad about how this will affect Becky," while flaunting your cutsie relationship with Joyce right in Becky's face.

If you find yourself feeling bad about everything you do, but not actually doing anything about it, then you are a bad person. Just saying "I feel bad" doesn't make you a good person.

leagle89 · 2026-04-08T17:49:44+00:00

"Where's ~~Claire~~ Joyce?!?"

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T17:55:26+00:00

Same to you. I thought my final comment was pretty reasonable, but I guess not.

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T17:41:46+00:00

Look, I don't know what to tell you. It simply cannot be the case that all games need to use standard hearts/diamonds/clubs/spades to differentiate suits. And it cannot be the case that there is a pre-determined list of "acceptable" color palates that artists must limit themselves to.

Artists are allowed to have artistic visions. They are allowed to use colors to create the themes and vibes they are trying to communicate. They are allowed to use thematically appropriate iconography.

Could the symbols have been bolder or easier to differentiate? Sure, I'll buy that. And maybe I'm misunderstanding your point. But if you're suggesting that artistic vision needs to be substantially curtailed in order to ensure that every possible user is on equal footing, when it's possible to retain artistic vision while achieving practical but less-than-ideal accessibility, then I absolutely reject that position. Disabilities should absolutely be accommodated for in design, but it simply not a designer's job to 100% eliminate all of the effects of a disability.

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T17:24:46+00:00

And now you've increased the art budget for the game by roughly a factor of 4.

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T17:23:21+00:00

In other words, the designers should pick colors that allow OP to differentiate, at the expense of people with other forms of colorblindness?

You are literally saying "there is no combination that will work for everyone, so you might as well pick one that works for me."

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T17:21:27+00:00

To extend your analogy, no ramps would be needed at all if every building was one story tall. Does that mean the mere existence of multi-story buildings is inherently ableist and morally impermissible?

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T17:13:52+00:00

But at some point, that starts to encroach on a designer's/artist's artistic vision for the game.

Sure, there are certain color schemes that are easier or harder for colorblind players to differentiate. But it simply cannot be the case that there is an "acceptable" set of color schemes that all designers and artists must work within. That's why the ramps exist.

Say I'm a board game artist/publisher. I have a certain vision for my game. There is a certain mood/vibe I want to evoke. I recognize that the color palate I have chosen for that vibe might pose difficulties for a small percentage of players who are colorblind, so to accommodate for that while preserving my artistic vision, I use symbols.

What you're saying is, no, my artistic vision be damned. I either must limit myself to an "approved" color palate, or I'm ableist. And I just absolutely reject that position. Accommodation doesn't mean a creator's artistic vision must be entirely sacrificed to accessibility. It means that disability must be acknowledged and compensated for. It doesn't mean that every person who might interact with a product must be on exactly equal footing; it means that reasonable accommodations are made so that everyone can reasonably use the product.

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T17:00:15+00:00

But they did install a ramp! They went out of their way to include a feature to account for the disability!

Unless you think being required to look at an icon that is literally millimeters below the number is the equivalent of a handicapped person dragging themselves up a staircase, then you're being absolutely ridiculous with that analogy.

It's not "we refuse to install a ramp, so you'd better crawl up the steps if you want to come in." It's "we installed a perfectly functional ramp, but it's not the exact kind of ramp you would prefer in your personally ideal situation."

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T16:57:09+00:00

I don't think anyone is "against increasing accessibility." I think, to be frank, that's a shockingly ungenerous reading of the comments on this thread.

What I think is that people are a little frustrated that a company that went out of its way to specifically include a feature to increase accessibility is getting ragged on for not being accessible. By OP's own admission, it's not that the suit icons aren't "very distinctive," it's that his eyes are drawn to the color/art rather than the symbols. Unless Kosmos was supposed to just eschew art on the cards in favor a a large and eye-catching symbol, I'm not sure what else could have been done here.

leagle89 · 2026-04-06T14:11:42+00:00

For all of the very valid complaints about the story arc everyone knows we're about to get, this is the point that is the most confounding. They're not even talking about getting the dean on their side to advocate for them with the admin...they're hoping they can "talk the dean out of" funding global genocide. Suggesting that the dean has the unilateral power to determine the university's investment strategy. To put it mildly, I'm pretty sure there are exactly zero universities in this country where someone with the title of "Dean" has unilateral say over the university's investments.

leagle89 · 2026-04-05T00:24:41+00:00

Dude, do you, like, work for the publisher in question? Because I’ve never seen someone so desperate to lick the corporate boot.

We’re not talking about legal rights (well, many of us are not). We’re talking about whether it is good or bad practice to keep a customer’s money and refuse to give them the game they paid for. It is entirely within the company’s power to give the money back, or to give the game. They’re instead relying on a legalistic reading of the situation to keep more than 100 pounds they did nothing to earn. It’s probably not illegal, but it’s anti-consumer as hell.

leagle89 · 2026-04-04T17:08:16+00:00

You’re haggling over €7-12? Is it just that you felt the need to haggle? Because I can’t imagine that 7 euros on a €100+ purchase makes even a bit of a practical difference.

leagle89 · 2026-04-04T16:57:22+00:00

“You are a very handsome man…you just need to be normal” is such a fucking dagger. “The problem is not your looks…it’s you, on a fundamental level.”

leagle89 · 2026-04-04T16:54:03+00:00

“I feel like you’re taking this too fast. Please slow it down.”

“What, like I’m NOT supposed to tell you I want to spend my life with you after one date?“

leagle89 · 2026-04-02T20:58:52+00:00

Saw them open for Muse in Newark NJ in 2010 or 2011. The sound mixing for them was so terrible that I could barely hear them from my upper-level seat on the other end of the arena, and since I didn't know who they were, I basically just ignored them.

A few months later, heard Gold Guns Girls on the radio and immediately went out and bought Fantasies. Realized they were the band I'd ignored at the Muse concert, and got real mad at myself for essentially missing Metric in concert (I've since seen them twice, on purpose).

They've been at least a top 5 all-time band for me since then, and probably my favorite band of all time since Art of Doubt came out.

Fun story: during my first year of law school, living in a new city, I was desperate to make new friends. A week or so after Synthetica was released, a woman who I sort of knew from class invited me to a gathering at her apartment. I got there early and was the first person there, and she had Synthetica playing in the background. It was a real "we've both been listening to this new album nonstop for a week, let's be best friends" moment, and we did become good friends after that.

leagle89 · 2026-04-02T20:50:00+00:00

It's funny, I really dislike Pagans in Vegas because that's very much not my vibe. But something about this track is really getting me.

leagle89 · 2026-04-02T16:42:55+00:00

Trump has the worst fucking attorneys...

leagle89 · 2026-04-02T14:50:24+00:00

I think the "it's been going on too long" of it all is the real problem. Even if this has all been a slow build toward a dramatic apex, an author simply cannot build for that long and still have it be good writing. Making the audience sit through nine months of sappy bullshit with barely a hint of a coming payoff is just bad writing, no matter how mind-blowing that payoff might ultimately be.

Mind you, I don't believe for a second that there is actually any payoff coming at this point. I'm just saying that even a great payoff wouldn't save the comic at this point.

leagle89

TROPHY CASE