Fate is maybe the biggest game that uses this. You can spend a Fate Point to declare a story detail.

It’s a big change in mind set from the default of DND, where you’re super zoomed in on your character. Instead you’re more like a writer on a project.

For example, a group of players were trying to escape from an office building. They’d set off alarms and were fleeing upwards. One of the players said, “I bet the executives here have a helicopter on the roof, with a chopper always ready to go.”. Spend a fate point and it’s true. They stole the helicopter and escaped into new problems.

I like being able to steer the game. I don’t like just being along for the GM’s ride. I like when my players provide ideas.

But some players hate it. I guess some players really want to focus on becoming one with their character. I’m more focused on trying to tell a cool story.

https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/fate-points#declaring-a-story-detail

I find vanilla DND really weird after spending time in other games. Like I’m missing limbs and senses.

I usually ask the players something like “if it was this easy, why doesn’t everyone else do it?”. Sometimes they’ll dismantle their own ideas given the prompt.

Or, sometimes I’ll say “are you sure you want NPCs to use this tactic?”

Should be careful not to just shut down player ideas. If everything they do slams into an annoying problem, it can quickly stop being fun.

I sometimes try to sync with the players and be like “hm do you think the 300 year old vampire has had to engage with the city before? What sort of plans and influence do you think he has?”. Then it doesn’t feel like I’m just screwing them, if they’re thinking about it too.

There are of course some weak points, and I’ll gladly expand upon them and any other points it if you’re interested. But I’ve really enjoyed my time in PF2e on both sides of the screen and consider it my TTRPG of choice currently, even as a 3.5 Grognard.

It’s still mostly a spells-per-day game, right? You probably don’t lose the first fight of the day because you can go nova

It’s been really interesting playing Vampire with a person who’s only ever played DND. We keep telling him “you can use your cool powers”. He keeps thinking it’s like a special move to save for a big encounter. No, you don’t have to come up with an elaborate scheme to get past the bouncer. You can just Dominate him. It’s a big shift in mind set!

Personally I hate the “save your cool powers for later” mode of play. I think Pathfinder 2e is less of that, but not free of it?

I had a really bad time once where I wanted to run a dark souls inspired “explore the cursed island” game, and only two of four players were on board. One literally tried to open a BBQ shop. The other was more of a wonder around and pick flowers, not fights, kind

I’d rather spend N minutes reading a list of book recommendations than 5*N minutes watching a video. Presumably the target audience for books is literate.

I’m tired of video.

On the one hand, this might help fence sitters that are like “there’s no content there”.

On the other, I just don’t personally care for a stream of random images like Instagram et al do.

There’s something off about a video about books.

It’s not “retire and live a life of luxury” money, at least in many parts of the world.

It’s a lot of money in terms of paying down debt and covering rent for a while, though.

I dunno man. I’ve had a lot of conversations with players that go like “do you think your character is the first to come up with this hijink? If it works, why doesn’t the entire setting revolve about this infinite damage trick you’re trying to sell me?”

Like, if it was as easy as casting Charm Person on the king to become the new ruler, other people would already be doing that. Therefore, there must be reasons why it doesn’t work.

My parents are difficult. Not the worst people and not monsters, but at many times unpleasant.

Plus it was a house in the suburbs. Not ideal for socializing or culture.

And lastly, living with parents in the suburbs would be huge negatives for dating.

All it takes is one cop to be like “he was resisting arrest and I feared for my life so I had to shoot him 17 times in the back”.

“Top-down mandates to use large language models are crazy,” one employee told Wired. “If the tool were good, we’d all just use it.”

Yep.

Management is often out of touch and full of shit

Sounds like a good start

I don’t like to think of people as immutably good or bad, but I get what you meant.

There’s a bunch of factors.

• are they honest?
• are they kind?
• do they care about things other than themselves?
• do they try to make the world better?

So, someone who lies, is cruel, doesn’t care about anyone else, and leaves the world a mess is being a pretty bad person.

Someone who just keeps their head down, goes to work, and is polite to people they meet is kind of middling.

The cap was in place because the Social Security benefit doesn’t increase above the that income.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a good reason for the cap to exist. I expect it’s a compromise to get rich people and idiots on board.

The Oatmeal did a comic worth reading about this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Some people are really loathe to do any self reflection or assessment. I gather their sense of self and worth is very fragile, and looking too hard might make it collapse.

Like, some people you could say “Eating meat is bad for these reasons” and they’ll just lash out. Not enough emotional HP to tank the hit.

I’m not rich to the point of no longer needing to labor, but I did hit the social security cap one year. I was pissed when I learned why my take home jumped up. I would have rather kept paying.

It’s selfish to want to keep a little more of your vast wealth like you describe. That’s cartoon villainy.

Right. Cognitive dissonance. We all suffer it sometimes. I guess it takes uncommon courage and clarity to work through it. Most people would rather do the least effort to preserve their sense of being a good person.

Being sexist is bad

They are good

They don’t like this show because it has a woman lead

That’s sexist

But they’re good

Can’t change “sexism is bad”. Can’t change “they are good”. Only thing left to change is the reason they don’t like the show. Easy-peasy.

It’s kind of insane to me that there’s an annual cap on social security payments. If your salary is high enough, you stop paying into it partway through the year. That’s ass-backwards. You shouldn’t pay anything for the first chunk of money, and then pay more as you make more.