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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • The bit about avoidance might be insightful. Some people have anxiety about reading and writing, and the LLMs feel like they’re helping. But as this post says, they’re not. They’re making the anxiety worse in the long term.

    Many people legitimately are bad at reading and writing. You’ll won’t find a ton of them here, on a platform that’s mostly text, but they’re out there. Struggling though life, probably embarrassed. An LLM that purports to let them skip uncomfortably engaging with text probably feels like a godsend. But it’s a trap. It’s a tarpit they’ll get stuck in and never develop skills of their own.




  • “Unilateral” GMing is completely necessary to the style of play and opens up player creativity and engagement in the ways I discussed in other comments.

    I don’t think a unilateral GM and the mother-may-I it implies are the only way to get player creativity and engagement.

    They want to test themselves against an organic, immersive world where their actions have consequences, good or bad. You cannot get that experience from collaborative storytelling games,

    Maybe?

    Imagine a scene where the players are trying to jump from one roof top to another to escape pursuit. It’s a pretty long jump, and there aren’t explicit rules in this game for jumping distances. The GM says to roll the dice. On a good roll, they’ll make it. The dice come up Bad.

    In one mode of play, the GM unilaterally decides what happens. Maybe you fall and get hurt. Maybe you land in a pile of trash. It’s all on them, and you have to accept it to keep playing. The actions have consequences.

    In the mode I prefer, the player has more of a say. Maybe they suggest they succeed at a cost. They can offer “What if I make it across, but lose my backpack?” and the group can accept it, or say that’s not an appropriate cost. They can also fail, and offer up ideas for what that looks like. The group achieves consensus, and the story moves on. The actions have consequences here, too.

    That first mode, where the GM just dictates what happens and you take it? I hate it. I want either clear rules we agreed to before-hand, or a seat at the table for deciding ambiguous outcomes.

    We don’t have to play together. Many people want to immerse in their character and any sort of meta-game mechanics (like succeed-at-a-cost) ruin it for them. Some people love metal and some people love jazz. Neither’s better than the other.

    I probably shouldn’t have posted in an OSR thread knowing I dislike the genre.



  • Many complaints against prostitution also apply to trading labor for money/shelter in general. People just have a stronger emotional response.

    Emotional responses are rarely a good foundation for policy.

    Prostitution should be legal with safety regulations. All labor should have protections, unions, and such, to protect them from being abused by the wealthy.

    Some specific things would probably remain illegal or disallowed, in the same sense that you’re not allowed to work construction without safety gear. People can wear condoms as easily as hard hats and hi-viz vests.



  • Hand in hand with this is, as the above commenter mentions, “rulings over rules” which emphasizes the GM making decisions about how player actions play out in the world rather than looking for mechanics in a rulebook.

    It’s kind of funny but I really like how Fate is open ended, but absolutely hate it in OSR games. I think because OSR games often feel unilateral and top down from the GM, and I don’t enjoy that. Reminds me of teenage games where the DM would be like “you’re crippled now because the orc hit your leg” just because they said so, and your only options are deal with it or quit.

    I also never play in the “I am my character!” mode. I’m more of the writer’s room style where we’re writing a story together, so it doesn’t take me out of the scene to be like “what if my succeed-at-a-cost roll means I get the window open, but wake up every dog in the house?”.


  • I’ve never really been into random tables. Like,

    I want to see more wizards and dragons and shit! 2.78% is way too low to see these cool guys on the end of the table,

    So just put more wizards and dragons in. You don’t need the dice’s permission.

    I guess they can be helpful if you’re out of ideas, but then you just need a list.






  • Left to my own devices it’d be about $100/month.

    Rice, beans, pasta, peanut butter, oatmeal, and then whatever fruit and vegetables are cheap.

    With the social life included, there’s more expenses. Did dinner out last week for $60 (a nice local Thai place). Ordered a pizza with a friend who was feeling down and watched Star Trek together for like $30.

    Other non-rice meals with my partner can also be more expensive. We air-fried up some potatoes and vegan “meat” last night and it was good.

    There’s an app called “too good to go” that lets you get cheap food near the end of day. It’s stuff the restaurant or grocery was going to have to throw out. Sometimes you get like four slices of pizza for $4, or a platter of Korean food for $6. Seems good and not enshittified yet.

    I’m in NYC, for context.