I like settings where the players can play parties from all kinds of factions. I've seen 'em roll up members of the same cult their last party faught against etc. This isn't a complete answer but just one more li'l contribution to the thought palette around this.
I like Chris Hayes’ take as clipped in this video 43 minutes in:
The way that so many prominent voices have focused so exclusively on colleges feels honestly a bit decadent to me. Like we’re doing a paper doll version of conflict because the actual reality of what’s happening in Gaza is so horrific, unceasing, and high-stakes, it’s more enjoyable to argue about what college kids are doing than to confront the human misery and destruction that’s happening in the actual conflict that is, of course, the source of these protests. What seems to be most worth debating isn’t campus speech but whether the US government should contine to fund and support an Israeli war in Gaza that has pushed more than a million people to the brink of famine. A war that has damaged half of the buildings in Gaza. A war that has failed to bring home most of the hostages held by Hamas, that has in fact lead to the death of some those hostages.
This is a good video, thanks.
I’m not all onboard with the conclusions: “YouTube & TikTok good” (I believe they’re overall bad. Fund Peertube.) and “Socialist sentiment is growing” (I believe the overton window has been slipping & skipping to the right for decades now.)
Sweden has these. But I can't speak to how good or bad they are because I've never lived in one for more than a week or so at a time. I grew up out in the boonies.
As for the video, I like that it (unlike way too many of these video essays) doesn't bury the lede; he's up front about his perspective and then spend the rest of the video elaborating and explaining why. That's an oasis in the desert of "mysterious, let me hold you in suspense for the lede" style videos we see too many of. I get really distracted by his music, though. I can't fully listen to what he has to say since I get so into the heartbreakingly depressive synth pads.
What I did was use tokens for inspiration and saying "you can have as many as you want and then cash in all of them to get advantage". That worked well.
Kudos to CR for listening to the backlash on this illconsidered project. They must've taken quite a hit 💸 but this was not a good idea. I mean, they have their fair share of bad sponsors like NordVPN or D&D Beyond but this was a li'l too much 🤷🏻♀️
I think this is spot on and I overall dislike the game. One thing that I am a li’l bit interested in is the hitpoints system which seems like a good mix of Fate stressboxes with D&D damage.
The amount of incoming damage can go to certain thresholds and that has different consequences (both symbol-layer mechanical and diegetic). I think that’s neat and I’m glad to see that experiment carried further.
How much gold is in that hoard?
Wow, I had missed that. That’s not good. I mean, CR gets criticized for their “shopping episodes” (even though my own group is even more extreme in that regard) so maybe that’s to address that? Diaspora, for example, just has a “recourses” roll instead of detailed accounting of space credits, and it seems to work well in the context of that game.
How far does that bandit run?
I don’t think that’s a fair characterization; range bands is trued and tested tech. Cartesian spatialization is overkill for most game groups.
It's great that kbin added this feature! It ameliorates some of Fedi's groups problems.
I've been using a script that mashes together several RSS feeds into one to sorta simulate this.
(I'm not really sure how this new approach is implemented or what a multireddit is.)
The problem with this is that it makes going left the same as going right, meaning that any decisions by the players where their characters should go become meaningless. I use a ton of random generators but it's in conjunction with more prepared stuff.