Of course we are. Fucking hate this sithole

Baby steps

I don’t think they’re all that different tbh

The last name is probably similar to “cha” or maybe “chia”

I know “Xin” is pronounced like “chin”

Gotta look for something frequently requiring novel problem solving and adaption to filter for high probability of high general intelligence.

So, to riff off another commenter - league of legends 😅

Boy is it a toxic and frustrating game but I will give it credit where it’s due, you have to make good tactical decisions in not a lot of time.

I’m sure overwatch et al. work as well.

Some of us do struggle to breathe around vapes though. Not as bad as cigarettes but it’s still a problem

The mechanics are the medium through which players relinquish control of their roleplay. They’re sort of what mediates roleplaying, I think, by providing a sort of arbitrary and neutral interface to both limit and move along characters.

Precisely. Which is why it feels different from improv. Rules and predictable-but-random outcomes add verisimilitude to a game.

And the closer something is to the game’s core experience, the more likely it is that a rule (instead of a ruling by the gm) is needed. So if you’re playing a game that revolves around intrigue and seduction, you will probably want some rules for that. They don’t have to be overly complicated, but they will need to exist.

I don’t know Randall, but I expect he would enjoy this.

Does anything need mechanics? You could just rp everything, after all.

I’m not saying you need something like FATAL, btw, the system I’m referring to is The Sword, the Crown and the Unspeakable Power. It’s a pretty normal PTBA system, plus a handful of moves that let you gain an advantage when you sleep with someone (as you might expect for courtly intrigue in an 18+ setting). There’s also one class that lets you give birth to eldritch abominations, but that’s less of a ‘roll for pregnancy’ thing and more of a dark ritual. It doesn’t have to be done out of a deep yearning for motherhood - that was just the direction I took it because it resonated with me.

It’s not always about horniness, per se. For example, I’m trans, and giving birth is something I’ll always want but probably will never get to experience. So maybe I want to experience a “power fantasy” of sorts where my trans character performs dark rituals to give birth to eldritch abominations, all so she can experience motherhood.

I’m sure there are other experiences that people would want to rp but not necessarily to experience irl. It certainly overlaps with kink, but it’s not like you’re masturbating at the table. You’re telling a story with adult themes, not (necessarily) writing erotica.

I think that what’s happening here is that

1. The vast majority of any <thing> is poorly made, but because there are better alternatives, the poorly made ones rarely see the light of day

And

2. The more specialized or niche something is, the more likely it is to stand out despite being poorly made

This includes racist garbage and weird fetishes, yes, but also any other game whose main selling point is its uniqueness instead of its quality.

Violence should never be employed

• against someone who is not harming you or infringing on your rights

• against a party genuinely willing to negotiate

• when your use of violence will seem excessive to onlookers such that they will turn against you

But are the people allowed to be violent when the police use excessive force?

…cuz the cops be doing that a lot

I think you may be the only commenter who actually read the post.

I understand and sympathize with your point, but unfortunately the law will never be that simple.

To use your example, you walking up to me and saying “hand over your money or I’ll kill you” is not justification to respond with lethal force per se. The missing element here is assault - in other words, I have to believe you both are able and intending to do me harm before I can respond with force. If no reasonable person would believe that what you said was actually a threat (like, for instance, if you were a five year old) then I’m still not justified in harming you in self defense.

Suddenly the lines are super blurry and the slopes are super slippery and its absolutely impossible to tell what a threat of violence is.

Yes. They are. And that was your first example, the one meant to be unequivocally black and white.

The problem here is fundamentally an epistemic one. The law is not a thinking, reasoning being. It is merely a system of procedures. The law does not know - it cannot know - the difference between right and wrong. It only knows what the rules are, and those rules may be wrong.

You might think that there is absolutely no reason to advocate for the mass murder of an entire group of people. And under 99.9% of circumstances, I would agree. But if the zombie apocalypse broke out, I might find myself in favor of killing all of the zombies - and legally, there’s no reason that wouldn’t be genocide.

The law doesn’t know whether zombies are people. It doesn’t know whether or not we are. Therefore, there must be some way to have discussions about the law that are above (or outside the scope of) the law. That’s what politics is, fundamentally: the discussion of the law that’s untouchable by the law. Even if we tried to make certain political stances illegal, we wouldn’t succeed, because that is one area in which the law is necessarily blind.

So we can’t curtail the first amendment.

We can’t execute Nazis.

But we could lynch them, as that would be a political act and not a legal one.

Hard to be the breaking point when it’s already broken. But if it weren’t broken already… then I think it actually might.

What we could do is make “journalist” a protected profession. So just like you can’t call yourself a fiduciary unless you hold to a certain set of ethical guidelines, you wouldn’t be able to call yourself a journalist unless you agree not to lie (among other things). So if you forgo the title of journalist, you can say whatever you want (obviously the other laws still apply, so you still can’t slander or libel, and if spreading misinformation causes harm you can still be liable). But if you are calling yourself a journalist, you voluntarily assume a higher standard for what you are allowed to say.

I think that would avoid any first amendment issues. But I’m not a lawyer, so please don’t take my word for it 🤣

No, it’s actually pretty popular. Although nothing today is as mainstream as things used to be.

If you liked Worm, you might enjoy Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (if you haven’t read it already). It has some real similarities to Worm, including an unreliable narrator who is very intelligent, but can also be arrogant and impulsive. I’d also classify them both as “hard fantasy.”

You can find it at hpmor.com if you’re interested.

Everyone dies eventually

Yes, that’s technically true, but maybe not in the way you think.

Everyone dies from something. While yes, as you get older it’s harder to overcome things that seemed trivial when you were younger, in theory you could continue living indefinitely until something kills you. It’s just statistically very unlikely.

That is exactly what was on my mind when I wrote the comment.

While I’m tempted to agree, the big problem here is that if the government can decide that some speech is illegal, they can use that to silence people they don’t like.

Obviously the system we’ve got now in the US isn’t working, but we need to tread carefully when giving the government power to decide what is or isn’t the “right beliefs”.