An advanced technique: ask your players to make shit up.

Like, the players decided to go to the wizard university the wizard PC graduated from. So I ask him, “what’s their entrance hall like?” and let him just riff on it for a while. Players feel more engaged with the world, and it’s a little less work for me.

Warlock is trying to commune with his patron. I ask, “what is your patron usually like?” and the player is delighted to describe “the great sculpin” in detail. This then inspires me further.

Note that some players are very much “just tell me a story” and don’t want any input, and won’t like this. Some players are also shy and don’t think well on their feet. And some players are just really bad at staying on theme. But if you know your players , this can be a powerful technique.

I’m reminded of a post from elsewhere: “You hate all the parts of capitalism separately, without realizing they’re all the same thing”

Musk seems like the kind of D&D player who would

• Build a horrible character (frankly impressive in 5e, which is pretty simple in terms of choices to make at the start). Like, a bard with 8 charisma, or a rogue with no dex
• Or, pay someone else to build their character, and then not know how to play it.
• And/or induce the other players to murder him (in the game)

This is a good point. Seeing other people get onto the street can motivate people who weren’t feeling enthusiastic.

But I do worry that protests will fizzle out and be, as you say, an ending point. Maybe they won’t be.

“a peaceful movement”. Ok. Unilaterally disarming seems like a dubious move to me.

I don’t think protests where you just stand around and chant are especially effective. Maybe in 1950 when seeing people get firehosed was shocking, but the world is different today. Media is captured by the wealthy and most people don’t care.

That seems fine to me.

It was kind of wild going from D&D to games that don’t have tons of HP.

Players make different choices when they have a maximum of 7 health, and a random mook with a baseball bat hits for minimum 2, maximum “well if the dice keep exploding…”

Among other problems, people knowingly spread falsehoods because they feel truthy.

The problem is people. We’re all emotional but some people are just full on fact free gut feel almost all of the time.

Match should be broken up. But apparently some people learned nothing from history and some people don’t care as long as they make money

Fans were happy to run the servers at their own expense.

In the distant past of like 2000, you didn’t have to pay for online functionality. Also, people could host their own multiplayer servers. It was nice. Consoles and capitalism did a team-up to make things shittier for the end user, though.

I kinda like this idea that the players will be so responsible and active over their own entertainment that they’ll pick something to actively do to make something happen

This is the dream.

Sometimes I get players that have ideas, but then they’re like “oh that sounds too dangerous, nevermind”, and I’m like “it’s not going to be much of a game if we don’t take any risks”

It’s probably partly my fault for making the dangers clear to the players. I wanted them to have an understanding of the risks and factors!

Like one time, the players were told another faction would only help them with their problem if they dealt with a vampire that was in the local cemetery, and his little cult. This was a game of Mage, where even starting tier characters have a lot of strong options. One of the players just was like “you’re asking us to punch Cthulhu in the face! I don’t understand what you want us to do!”

I was like … there are so many options. Your character can literally control flame, a major weakness of vampires. You also have a strong alliance with a paramilitary group. You can go during the day. You have 3 other party members. One of them can open portals. Like, to places where it’s daytime. Trust me, you can win a 4 v 1 fight. Maybe deal with his cult first if you don’t want civilian casualties. Or maybe talk to him and see if you can negotiate.

But she just wanted to spin her wheels and complain. Worst player I’ve ever had, honestly.

It’s really frustrating how many things are bad because some assholes are making money off of it. Saint Luigi, please bless up in these trying times.

This is a revelation I think more people are going to need to realize. There’s no referee coming. The rules aren’t magic. Ultimately, the only things that matter are physics and might. If enough people just decided fuck it, all the multimillonaires gotta die, no cosmic force is going to call a timeout.

I usually just kept a list of what the various factions are up to. If the players were like “ok let’s go see if we can convince Priscilla to smuggle the uranium with her drug stuff” I have a rough idea of what she’s up to and if she’d help, or help at what cost.

I want to play again with a group that comes up with reasonable plans that play to their competencies.

I think a lot about how in a modern day magic game, the players wanted to contact another (NPC) group. They learned the NPCs were like double warded against magic, but spent a lot of time trying to punch through the wards to teleport to them. After two expensive, failed, attempts I was like “do you want a clue?”. They were like yes. I was like “if you just want to talk to them, why don’t you try calling them on the phone?”

I want to play again with a group that comes up with reasonable plans that play to their competencies.

I think a lot about how in a modern day magic game, the players wanted to contact another (NPC) group. They learned the NPCs were like double warded against magic, but spent a lot of time trying to punch through the wards to teleport to them. After two expensive, failed, attempts I was like “do you want a clue?”. They were like yes. I was like “if you just want to talk to them, why don’t you try calling them on the phone?”

The original Diablo I remember being more thoughtful and slower paced. I liked it. Diablo3 turned into just a brainless light show without much tactics. Less rewarding.

…what? With the exception of mage hand legerdemain, you’re typically very close to locks you’re picking. If it made an anti-magic field like 6" from the ring, that would be perfectly fine for picking the lock. Ring is on hand, lockpicks are in hand, magic lock is disabled.

if the ring permanently ends magical effects that enter its area of effect, that’s unusual and probably has a bunch of unexpected uses.

It it merely suppresses magical effects in its area, I guess the projectiles would briefly return to full size when in the anti-magic field, and return to small size afterwards? Doesn’t seem very effective unless you like point blank someone.