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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Someone pointed out that capitalism loves subscriptions and rentals. They can sell you a widget, sure, but then they only get money once. If they can rent you a widget, then they get money forever.

    AI is a path for rent skills to people. You don’t need to learn to write python or learn Spanish. Just pay for LLM access. Rent the skill.

    It is extremely dystopian.

    Unfortunately, most people don’t care about much of anything. You could tell them, with undeniable proof, that every AI search kills a puppy, and most people would be like “well puppies die anyway and I always use Google, so…”


  • Kind of a big topic so I’m not sure where to focus.

    A friend of mine has ADHD and we were talking about it. Specifically about why she always has dishes in her sink. She said what happens is she goes to do the dishes. She’ll wash one. Realize it’s the dish she had popcorn in, and she needs to clean the popcorn machine. She puts down the dish, and goes over to the popcorn machine. She goes to unplug it, and realizes the power strip it’s plugged into is kind of shitty. She’s looking up new power strips online, and no dishes are washed.

    Contrary, I do my dishes. I wash one. I realize it’s the one I had popcorn in. I note I should clean that, too, later. I wash the next dish. I wash the next dish. I continue until the dishes are clean. I’m thinking about stuff but I’m still on task.

    I don’t know if her experience is representative.







  • For one thing, tech bros are stupid. They’re the kind of stupid where they think they have all the answers, and don’t know what they don’t know. So sometimes they’re completely sincere when they think they have a genius new idea (eg: a small private room where you can make a phone call. And maybe we can just put a phone in there, in case you don’t have yours charged or whatever. And then we can charge a fee. A phone booth. That’s a phone booth.)

    But sometimes they do know the idea already exists, but they’re selfish, capitalist shit heads. They don’t want to make a better world. They want to make a profit. If they can run a “bus” service, drive all the other competitors out of business, and suck up all the money from a handful of people? That’s a win. That’s better than actually getting people where they need to go. People who live in out of the way routes? Fuck 'em, not profitable. People in wheel chairs? Not enough of them to justify the cost of making the buses accessible.





  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networktoMemes@europe.pubHell
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    1 day ago

    Sometimes I ask them to give me a summary of the problem before the call, so I can have some context.

    Sometimes if I’m lucky they’ll rubber duck themselves into a solution.

    But sometimes it just helps me context switch to whatever they’re going to talk about.




  • I’m going to assume this is DND 5e, but this advice is system agnostic

    Add objectives to your scenes that aren’t “kill everyone else”.

    Add traps and environmental hazards to your scenes. Add enemies they can’t kill.

    Add a third faction that has its own goals

    They need to get books out of the library before it burns down, while the crazed wizard and his fire elementals are doing a ritual that’s going to make things worse for everyone.

    The mansion is haunted, and this ball room in particular. Anyone who steps on the dance floor and doesn’t dance is accosted by angry ghosts.

    The room is filling with water. There are a series of levers to control the water. There are priceless works of macguffin that will be damaged by the water.

    Each egg host killed explodes into a mist of parasites, potentially infecting everyone nearby. Some enemies don’t care about being infected.

    Security just wants everyone out, both the PCs and the cultists they’re fighting. Security has powerful control abilities- a fire hose to push people, a sonic weapon to prone people. (Don’t stun your players or prevent them from actually playing on their turn, but move them around and add costs to some actions)

    Several NPCs are channeling spells. They are individually weak, but spread out. Each spell that completes adds consequences and complications. Perhaps they affect the current scene (eg: blow a hole in the wall allowing demons from outside to flow in) or maybe it affects the plot (they conjure a plague upon the player’s home city)



  • Oh, I personally agree. I want my players engaged and adding flavor to the world. If I didn’t, I’d be better off writing a book.

    But I used to be more of a “you’re having fun wrong” jerk in my youth, so I make extra effort now to be clear that something might not be for me, it’s okay if you’re all having harmless fun with it. ( I still struggle when people tell me about their game of modern day vampires doing political intrigue run in D&D 5e instead of Vampire, but we all have our foibles. )


  • I discovered a couple years ago that some players hate being given any creative control over the setting. They’re extremely passive and want to be told a story. that’s a valid way to play, but very alien to me.

    When I had a wizard character mention his wizard school I let him color in a lot of details. I’d intervene if it was badly breaking established canon (eg: we said it’s in a remote desert and now you want it to be in a coastal city), but generally it’s great.