This supreme Court is bad

Republicans are not fit to govern.

I’m very much “old man yells at cloud” so I don’t really watch actual plays or consume podcasts, but the fate site has a list: https://fate-srd.com/actual-play

I can’t speak to their quality, but there’s a bunch on that list.

The game should feel different than DND. Players have a lot more control, and that kind of affects every aspect of the game. DND tends to put everything on the DM, and players can only do stuff in character. a fate player can be like “I want to spend a fate point to say the king is in fact looking for a witch to hire” or “I wanna declare a story detail: the farm is run by a family of loyalists, so I’m a loyalist they will hopefully see me as a friend”. That plus the ways to change rolls and outcomes makes for a different game. And the lack of focus on minutia like distance and spells per day.

Happy to go on about fate if you have questions!

Honestly, probably.

When I ran into someone collecting signatures for Cuomo on the street before the primary, I was like “didn’t he resign in disgrace?” I’d forgotten the details until I looked them up again. I think most people don’t bother to look things up, or don’t know how to

Reminds me of toddlers who want contradictory things.

And yet a big chunk of the country are still republicans, and another big chunk think doing anything to stop this is simply too gauche (pun intended) to consider. We can’t fight back or be at all disruptive because then they’ll do the bad things they’re planning to do anyway!

A note, if you pursue this: There’s fate core and fate condensed that are very similar, but have a few minor changes. Stress (similar to HP) is handled slightly differently between them. I prefer core’s method, but some people like condensed.

There’s also fate accelerated which is even lighter weight.

They’re all free on the website linked above - https://fate-srd.com/ - rules drop down has all the options

You could use Fate. Fate is a generic system that can do high fantasy just fine. It doesn’t need a full party like D&D does. It handles social and physical conflict equally well. The way aspects work is very “As long as I can justify it in the story, it could happen”. You can spend fate points as a player to alter the story, too, which is fun. I also like that it’s generally “You can get what you want, if you’re lucky or pay the price”. “Succeed at a major cost” is almost always on the table.

The downside is it has big “tyranny of the blank page”. D&D-likes you can just point at “Human Fighter” and go. Fate asks you to come up with your high concept, trouble, and background on your own. If you’re creative and that excites you, it’s freeing and exhilarating. If you’re shy, it can be overwhelming.

The core rules don’t have a detailed magic system. It’s up to you to decide how you want it to work, or to buy a splatbook where someone else made a system. It’s pretty easy to tinker with.

It’s also up to the GM to make sure the threats are reasonable. There’s no “CR” system like D&D. But players also always have the power to concede, where they lose the immediate conflict but survive. You don’t have to worry about accidentally wiping the player(s) usually.

You could look for some PbtA games, which are extremely popular. I personally don’t like them much because playbooks feel more like mad libs than creative writing. I also don’t like the dice system, and often find it punishing to the point of not being fun. (I just played a PbtA game last night and don’t think I rolled even a success on like 6 rolls in a row. I felt incompetent and it sucked).

Many conservatives only care about in-group and emotions. They don’t all justify it with as many words

When I got in an accident and was on the ground with a broken bone, the EMT asked if I had a preference about which hospital to go to. Like I was going to check out reviews with one working arm, from the pavement.

The US is a dystopia

One problem is there don’t seem to be a lot of strong left wing candidates. There’s Zohran for NYC mayor, and… AOC I think is a mixed but on the whole good bag, I think? Sanders is like a million years old, but could be worse.

Republicans are the worst of all people.

Democrats are everyone else

There are some pretty shitty people who aren’t the absolute worst of humanity.

I’m reminded of the heinz dilemma (nothing to do with ketchup)

Yeah some of my friends and coworkers are just staying home to play video games instead of going to the most basic, safe, protests. Doesnt look like they’re going to take real risks.

I definitely learned from the experience. Specifically, be explicit about what tone and such we’re going for, and be firm if someone is going off in some other direction.

In her defense, she’d played little to nothing before.

People have let their fucking brains ooze out their goddamn ears across the whole Western population. We don’t see how bad the situation really is, because the people who browse forums are NOT the people who drive to work every day listening to AM radio and working 6 days a week and only get their news from Facebook for an hour every other Sunday night. But it’s bad, it’s very, very bad and I am worried not enough of the thinking people see just how dumb and confused the average median voter is. They literally had no idea if there was a meaningful difference between people like Biden, Harris or Trump. There has been waves of post-election exit-polling and the number one issue people cared about was the price of groceries and they heard Trump scream about it and Harris deliver lines that “sounded like Biden, and he was the one in charge when prices went up.”

All those “did biden drop out?” searches the night of the election are haunting.

I don’t understand how so many people are so profoundly ignorant and stupid. I guess a poor educational foundation followed by shit media would do it?

My friends and associates tend to be pretty educated, literate, and wealthy. I don’t know what’s going on down in the depths.

This came up in the thread last night. Why would you dynamically load content that, practically, never changes?

I would not be surprised if some 20 year old “vibe coder” touched it, since they don’t know shit about computers they made bad choices.

The danger is that the American tradition of democracy will be permanently damaged

Republicans gaining power does damage, likely permanent damage. People will die. There’s a concentration camp. Like, what are you even thinking

There’s no reason to believe trump would do anything good. The republican party is just full of bad ideas. What kind of false reality are these people living in?

Then again you did say they physically stopped the player so maybe they’re not the only person whose lines are a bit blurred.

I communicated poorly! In-game they stopped the player character by saying their characters physically took the instruments away. We were playing remotely, so no one was physically interacting.