Elf Herself

An incomplete, improperly credited 5e hack, with internal staff drama in the public beta release.

I agree.

Not all religions have an "organized religious structure," and some that do, have no political clout and/or no wish to address specific political topics.

(I get tired of people complaining about "religion in politics" when they mean "evangelical fundamentalist christianity in politics.")

23% of the US is evangelical Protestants. Half again that many didn't vote in the 2024 presidential election.

How many non-voters might turn up if they had candidates who weren't publicly declaring they intend to use religion as the basis of their campaigns?

If you mean "Christianity," say so, not "religion." There are plenty of religions that do not have toxic evangelists that political factions are trying to win over.

Only in the sense that any lifestyle, philosophy, or belief system can be called "inherently political." Religion does not necessarily have any direct connection to the political factions of the moment, nor does it necessarily attach to one "side" of any political divide.

Chart: World population by level of child mortality over time (1800-2013), showing global average child mortality rate of: 1800: 43.3%; 1950-1960: 19.5%; 1990: 7.4%; 2013: 3.4%

Yes.
ourworldindata.org/child-mortal...
Before the 1800s, about half of all children died before they turned 5. By the 1960s, that was down to 1 in 5 deaths.

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The Wisconsin Senate is voting on S.B. 130/A.B. 105, a problematic age verification bill that effectively bans VPN access to certain websites. If you live in Wisconsin, now is the time for you to contact your State Senator and urge them to vote down this bill. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Fair enough; I may be mixing up the vocab. The point is, playbooks are distinct, even if you can gain a move or two from another one after gaining enough xp.

Trying to sort out how that's different from "classes" in my head. It may be that the playbooks are intended as 1 of each per party.

I did watch the video.

And I didn't get over her initial claim of "I'm renouncing the body positivity movement." I watch the rest, waiting for her to say "what I *meant* was," something-something health is important, rather than "too many fat people are unhealthy so I can't be against fatphobia."

Should confirm that with the player, in case that wasn't the result they wanted - "oh, if I hit him on the head, it's Smash Something? No, I just want him confused and not looking at the door while the other guys get out, so… hit the wall near him to make noise for a Diversion instead?"

Ref should not be saying "what move are you using?" Ref should be saying, "what do you do," followed by, "Hmm, sounds like [sneak around] [smash something] [create a diversion]" or whatever move is in this specific game.

Players should be describing their actions; Ref should assign a Move.

That's not everything, but it's enough to have a rough idea. FitD games generally have more complexity than "raw" PbtA.

FitD has
1) Different dice mechanic
2) Add'l features (clocks, factions, perma-damage)
3) Different XP mechanics - your group gains XP as well as individuals

A few other differences. Parts that don't change:
1) Only the players roll dice; the GM does not.
2) Playbooks with specific moves

20 seconds in, she "renounces" body positivity.

She does say that fat can be healthy, that skinny can be unhealthy. But if she believes that - why is she renouncing body positivity? Why can't she champion "health at any size?"

And she shouldn't be saying things that amount to "I gave up on body positivity because it means encouraging people to be unhealthy."

If the problem is "the people using the label *body positivity* are often toxic," that's a different situation.

My profile says "I ship them all" but I suppose the random Wincest haters are not looking at profiles.

But you can mention in the author's notes "I write a lot of ships in different stories; this one just happens to be Destiel. I don't think that's canon, nor do I think it should be."

OK, everyone, get your dice warmed up. Robert Duvall says play a TTRPG in his honor. That's how I'm reading it.

We knew "every accusation is a confession." We just kinda... assumed there were limits to that, that some of the over-the-top conspiracy & crime theories were just fantasies.

Apparently not.

There were attempts to treat the detainees as a single class, or set of classes by circumstance; SCOTUS blocked that. So yes. 1 trial per person, as per the law. If that's 21 million, then yes, 21 million trials, or set them free.

I am fascinated by the statement of "if we had to follow the law, we could not enforce the law." Especially in the context of "and of course that's why we have to break the law. To enforce it. The important thing is removing criminals, which is why we have to commit crimes."

"Except guns in the presence of cops; omg, can't be having people have guns when those people are unhappy with cops! No, the 2nd amendment only protects guns owned by people who like what the gov't is doing; ICE is allowed to shoot anyone else who has a gun."

I would *like* people to find other options; I always knew Discord is headed towards the enshittification route (which this is not part of) and it's good to have alternates for any online platform paid for by venture capitalism.

But this won't be the event that kicks off death-of-Discord.

I'd believe enough people will leave to matter to Discord if people were sharing a detailed list of features & list of which other sites support which ones.

Instead, I expect several weeks of panic, a handful of servers shut down and moving to something else, and a lot of grumbling about ID checks.

Plenty of people will go looking for other platforms. But
1) Nobody's there yet; this is always a problem with new social spaces
2) Nothing has Discord's full feature set; groups will schism based on which ones matter to them
3) Anything hosted in the UK or Europe may have the same ID issues

Most users. More than 50%. I daresay more than 75%… are going to put up with this. Discord is not going to lose 25% of its customers over this.

They may lose a few large, active, nitro-heavy servers. The high-paying gaming community isn't going anywhere else because there is nowhere else to go.

I've met people who think the "free parking" rule is canon bc they learn from playing rather than reading the rules.

...I'm sure a hell of a lot of 5e players have never read the rulebooks. I hate playing games without reading the rules first, but I've learned I'm in a very small minority.

My normal boardgame exp starts with reading the rules, but I've played many many games where everyone assumes house rules.

E.g. Monopoly - money taken from Chance/Community Chest penalty cards goes in under Free Parking; land there and you get to take it.

Vibes and aesthetics - that's how you appeal to people who insist playing RAW is always useless. Full-color art, detailed worldbuilding, factions of NPCs, and a cobbled-together system with a few pages of tables, scattered kinda randomly around the rulebook bc you know nobody's using them.

What stays: FATE's four actions (including quitting out of any game where the GM says "make a ____ check"); I'll consider alternates where there's an Attack but no Defense roll bc I can see that working. But no "Roll Notice to realize he's disguised" - is that an Overcome or Create Advantage?

Money tracking is equal to encumbrance for me. "How many silver did this night in the tavern cost; do we have enough between us to pay for an afternoon in the library; can we book passage on this boat" — fuck all that. I play TTRPGs to get *away* from balancing my checkbook.