There was a rally to support Lander this afternoon. Pretty good turnout for a sudden gathering on a Tuesday.

He gave a short talk after he was released.

He should be removed from office at the very least.

Lots of other good points already made, but I’ll add my own two cents.

When I run a game, I always require players to make characters together. No “go off and make a character in isolation”. That’s just a recipe for disaster. You can have some ideas already in mind, but nothing is canon until the whole group agrees.

Second, everyone needs to have buy-in to whatever the hook is. If the scenario is “you’re starting a courier business at the edge of civilization”, there are lots of good options. Guy on the run from the law. Lady studying local wild life. Intelligent, local, wildlife. Don’t play “guy who doesn’t want to be here and is a total killjoy”

Third, it’s better when characters have connections to each other. You can play the “we just met and we’re forming a relationship!” arc, but like “what if we play ourselves in a fantasy world??” it has been done.

Honestly, everyone should read Fate’s “Phase Trio” https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/phase-trio and the rest of character creation.

will humanity ever learn to stop acting like dumb angry monkeys?

Seems unlikely.

As to your broader point about the tools themselves not being bad, the root problem remains capitalism, or “a few people have unaccountable power over many”

I feel like the current AI stuff has been net negative. It prompted layoffs and hiring freezes, but then didn’t produce quality results.

Probably any game with a story. Voiced might be better, but written has advantages, too.

Might not want games with a lot of fictional words or idiosyncrasies. Like Baldur’s Gate 3 is really good and well acted, but you’d pick up a lot of less useful fantasy words.

Just looking at what I’ve played lately.

Guild Wars 2 is a great game. Lots of content. Most of it voiced. There’s also other players you can talk to, and some might speak your native language. It has some fantasy jargon.

Grand Theft Auto 5 would probably teach you swear words and other stuff you shouldn’t casually say. Be careful with that one.

My time at Sandrock was fun. That probably would give you some vocabulary.

You have to jump when you’re doing it, too. if you touch the ground before it finishes, it won’t work and you’ll just get shocked.

If you clear some post-game optional challenges, there’s a special move you can unlock that does it easier, but that’s only useful if you want to do NG+

Hours on the centipede man, you say? Once you get into the deflect rhythm, they’re very satisfying. Fill their posture right up and then finish them. But without the timing, you’re going to take a lot of chip damage or get posture broken yourself :(

Sekiro is one of my favorites. I like that it’s not really about leveling, and it pretty much gets right into it. I could pick it up today and blast through a new game.

Do you know how to do the lightning reversal? There are a handful of bosses that it really counters.

Some kinds of people (often conservatives) don’t use words to convey consistent meaning. They use words for the effect it has on the audience. It’s emotions.

They see something bad, they reach into their bag of bad-thing-words, and pull out “Marxist”. That’s it.

They are in a fundamental sense stupid.

The most important thing for people, and by people I mean all of us at times, is in-group belonging. None of us are immune to that. We look to our peers for cues on how to behave and what to believe.

Some people consider like scientists and experts in-group, and trust them. Some don’t.

This need for in-group cohesion is more important than facts and figures. It’s more important than the text of some book.

So when all your friends and family are saying that Christianity means one thing, it’s unlikely you’re going to disagree.

Most self described Christians don’t really follow their religion very well.

Ownership will abuse labor as much as it can. Sometimes to make more profit. Sometimes for murkier reasons. I think some management are just stupid and they’d hurt the company to follow their unfounded feelings.

Labor should organize.

“I cast that wish at level 9” is a weird phrasing. So far as I know Wish is already level 9, so there’s no other level to cast it at. Older editions had “limited wish” but I don’t believe they had upcasting. It feels very “how do you do fellow children”

NYC had good turnout despite the rain.

It’s 1950. A black man is sitting at an all white’s counter. Is what he’s doing wrong? You’re on the jury. Do you convict?

CEO seems like an idiot and/or coward.

DND is tricky to recommend. On the one hand, as far as RPGs go it’s mega popular. On the other, it’s a very specific kind of game and rather finicky.

Many people who don’t want to play fantasy dungeon crawling tactical combat would enjoy other genres, but finding those groups can be harder. One of my friends has no real interest in fantasy, but immediately was like “LET’S DO IT” when I mentioned a game of Vampire.

The tabletop game meetup I know of (in New York) is explicitly friendly to new players. One of the hosts said their first game ever was at the meetup many years ago.

Point of order:

“Illegal” isn’t always “immoral”. “Legal” isn’t always “moral”.

If one’s best defense is “it’s not technically illegal”, that’s a very weak spot to be in.

I was hoping you would explain what you meant by “There’s not a reason to fight most enemies in most video games to be honest”. I don’t think that’s a true statement. I think most games do give reasons to fight enemies.

I haven’t played enough BotW to really weigh in on it, specifically.