murlopal

[murlopal]

Seeing all pro/anti-NATO/Russia discourse really makes me deaf to external politics. There really is no imperialism to fight other than the one in your country, after all

It doesn't matter for citizens where foreign civilians killed per capita is higher. Soliders are still the last resort for when pigs give up being pigs

[murlopal]

The point stands

studio ghibli movies are like if someone took all of your fondest, softest childhood dreams and put them into a film

[murlopal]

I read the first six lines, got bored, found siscon joke funny, but not enough to save the post

A "marxist-leninist video game" as I envision it would not really look like Halo but it's About The Revolution. I think a proper ML video game in my mind's eye would be an extremely low-action but mind-bogglingly thorough and complex browser/OS simulator wherein you do the day-in-day-out extremely difficult work of investigating the material bases of the conditions of this fictional world and its ludicrously nuanced lore and compiling meticulous research to justify making specific, extremely small-scale policy decisions for your local branch of the ruling communist party of the DOTP you live inside. it is rendered in beautiful pixel art but has a mode where the entire game can be run 100% text-based. you will have to contend with the data you collect being tainted by various elements including but not limited to random incompetence, foreign bourgeois propagandist interference, confusing inconsistencies, and simple individualist self-interest. the game would use remarkably advanced AI text-parsing technology to decide whether or not your reasoning and justifications for a particular policy decision were sufficiently thorough and careful and whether they had sufficiently considered the possible downstream effects of this decision on the broader society. if you make a mistake you have to do an entire sidequest branch which involves criticism and self-criticism which is again judged by the game's AI. the game would use the most bleeding-edge LLMs to do this and would be optimized to run on a Raspberry Pi 2 platform and would be distributed in little fun single-purpose consoles called Handtrons. it runs natively on Linux Mint. it would cost $0.15 and would get an Overwhelmingly Negative review on the Steam store but there would be an avid fanbase of a friend group of like 30 guys in Inner Mongolia who have meticulously and lovingly curated an independently hosted wiki for the game. amidst all of the vicious reviews on Steam of "Wtf this game is shit" and "how do u even play this" and "couldn't get past the first page(?)" there's a single glowing review, beautifully translated into 5 languages, which includes comments like "I don't believe it is right to call this a game. Rather I believe this elevates the medium of "game" into an entirely different form, and we are all bettered for it. This piece is rich in humanity and even richer in its love for the toiler. It is, down to its very core, the love of a firm older sister -- occasionally unforgiving, but only because it thinks of you so highly and expects so much; transcendentally hopeful, in how it believes in the capacity for things to be changed, if only in a small way, by the work of someone it trusts without question; kind and gentle in how it is as patient with you as you choose to be with it; and, like the only kind of love which matters, it is rooted deeply in truth. I will give this game to my children when I have them, if I am able, and it will be my greatest joy. 4.5/5 stars, only because I had difficulty running this on my android device despite there being native support (I downloaded a modded version from rutracker that fixed all the issues)."

[murlopal]

We're never beating elitism allegations with shit like this

A "marxist-leninist video game" as I envision it would not really look like Halo but it's About The Revolution. I think a proper ML video game in my mind's eye would be an extremely low-action but mind-bogglingly thorough and complex browser/OS simulator wherein you do the day-in-day-out extremely difficult work of investigating the material bases of the conditions of this fictional world and its ludicrously nuanced lore and compiling meticulous research to justify making specific, extremely small-scale policy decisions for your local branch of the ruling communist party of the DOTP you live inside. it is rendered in beautiful pixel art but has a mode where the entire game can be run 100% text-based. you will have to contend with the data you collect being tainted by various elements including but not limited to random incompetence, foreign bourgeois propagandist interference, confusing inconsistencies, and simple individualist self-interest. the game would use remarkably advanced AI text-parsing technology to decide whether or not your reasoning and justifications for a particular policy decision were sufficiently thorough and careful and whether they had sufficiently considered the possible downstream effects of this decision on the broader society. if you make a mistake you have to do an entire sidequest branch which involves criticism and self-criticism which is again judged by the game's AI. the game would use the most bleeding-edge LLMs to do this and would be optimized to run on a Raspberry Pi 2 platform and would be distributed in little fun single-purpose consoles called Handtrons. it runs natively on Linux Mint. it would cost $0.15 and would get an Overwhelmingly Negative review on the Steam store but there would be an avid fanbase of a friend group of like 30 guys in Inner Mongolia who have meticulously and lovingly curated an independently hosted wiki for the game. amidst all of the vicious reviews on Steam of "Wtf this game is shit" and "how do u even play this" and "couldn't get past the first page(?)" there's a single glowing review, beautifully translated into 5 languages, which includes comments like "I don't believe it is right to call this a game. Rather I believe this elevates the medium of "game" into an entirely different form, and we are all bettered for it. This piece is rich in humanity and even richer in its love for the toiler. It is, down to its very core, the love of a firm older sister -- occasionally unforgiving, but only because it thinks of you so highly and expects so much; transcendentally hopeful, in how it believes in the capacity for things to be changed, if only in a small way, by the work of someone it trusts without question; kind and gentle in how it is as patient with you as you choose to be with it; and, like the only kind of love which matters, it is rooted deeply in truth. I will give this game to my children when I have them, if I am able, and it will be my greatest joy. 4.5/5 stars, only because I had difficulty running this on my android device despite there being native support (I downloaded a modded version from rutracker that fixed all the issues)."

[murlopal]

"New year, new me." This new year the new you should send trans people you know money.

[murlopal]

621 hasn't had a trim since cryosleep- good thing they've got some downtime between missions.

[murlopal]

Thank god, my account is small. This argument could be comedically subverted by artistic depictions of gun hole made by smb who finds them sexually desirable

So wait, let me just ask for clarity because I want to understand. Do you support AI art?

i support art made with spontaneous and hands-off processes, i support the creation of art tools that are more art than tool & allow people to "participate" in someone else's creation vicariously a-la picrew, i don't support the institution of "AI" as a consumer grade technology industry that promises impossible things and prioritizes appearances and marketability over usability, i believe that if "AI" allowed people to siphon images directly from their brain with no effort required then it would be a good thing but I believe this is fundamentally impossible until we figure out how to read minds and the focus on arguing for or against accessibility is missing the point, i believe AI art can only ever be a pale imitation of the process of commissioning an artist who can't ever ask questions and cannot be trusted with object permanence, I believe copyright law is a head on the hydra of capitalism and doesn't serve artists, i believe that AI art isn't necessarily art theft but it CAN overfit to its data and create illegal works without telling you, which constitutes criminal levels of negligence, I believe all art is derivative in some way and some of the most seminal art made in this era of history has been far more dubiously infringing than AI art ever can be because AI art does not steal in the way a human does, I think the focus on energy consumption is transparently just a post-hoc justification for hating the thing you all already hated under the guise of environmentalism because it is a problem far from unique to AI, I think the focus on environmentalism was a distraction at best during the NFT craze too, i don't think AI art takes artists out of a job any more than stock photos or clipart does, but the proliferation of consumer-grade tools DOES run the risk of engendering bad client practices similar to the rise of machine translation and asking translators to simply "fix" a machine translated run of text at a marked down price, but this is not the fault of the technology itself and is instead a result of the ideological push being made by the biggest actors in the industry, i think AI art is ugly as sin and carries the pervasive quality of looking normal at a glance but getting worse and worse the longer you look at it, which can be interesting but often isn't, i think ai art is shit google images and the controversy is overblown but I think machine learning is here to stay and it will inevitably decentralize again after the immense costs catch up to all the corpos relying on it to win the future.

so like, yes and no.

[murlopal]

I refuse to accept AI generated imagery as AI art. AO art was written by engineers who based their work on decades of academic research. Calling AI images AI art is like calling bullet holes "gun art"

So wait, let me just ask for clarity because I want to understand. Do you support AI art?

i support art made with spontaneous and hands-off processes, i support the creation of art tools that are more art than tool & allow people to "participate" in someone else's creation vicariously a-la picrew, i don't support the institution of "AI" as a consumer grade technology industry that promises impossible things and prioritizes appearances and marketability over usability, i believe that if "AI" allowed people to siphon images directly from their brain with no effort required then it would be a good thing but I believe this is fundamentally impossible until we figure out how to read minds and the focus on arguing for or against accessibility is missing the point, i believe AI art can only ever be a pale imitation of the process of commissioning an artist who can't ever ask questions and cannot be trusted with object permanence, I believe copyright law is a head on the hydra of capitalism and doesn't serve artists, i believe that AI art isn't necessarily art theft but it CAN overfit to its data and create illegal works without telling you, which constitutes criminal levels of negligence, I believe all art is derivative in some way and some of the most seminal art made in this era of history has been far more dubiously infringing than AI art ever can be because AI art does not steal in the way a human does, I think the focus on energy consumption is transparently just a post-hoc justification for hating the thing you all already hated under the guise of environmentalism because it is a problem far from unique to AI, I think the focus on environmentalism was a distraction at best during the NFT craze too, i don't think AI art takes artists out of a job any more than stock photos or clipart does, but the proliferation of consumer-grade tools DOES run the risk of engendering bad client practices similar to the rise of machine translation and asking translators to simply "fix" a machine translated run of text at a marked down price, but this is not the fault of the technology itself and is instead a result of the ideological push being made by the biggest actors in the industry, i think AI art is ugly as sin and carries the pervasive quality of looking normal at a glance but getting worse and worse the longer you look at it, which can be interesting but often isn't, i think ai art is shit google images and the controversy is overblown but I think machine learning is here to stay and it will inevitably decentralize again after the immense costs catch up to all the corpos relying on it to win the future.

so like, yes and no.

[murlopal]

Wolfenstein is just an fps that used all the fps compatible parts of Ghibli movies

I want to run a rules light, no combat, Studio Ghibli inspired cozy game. But my group and I already learned Rolemaster, and there's no way we're going to put in the effort to learn ANOTHER game. How do I hack Rolemaster to do this?

Don't worry about it! Rolemaster can do anything! All you need to do is introduce some really cute creatures, like some kind of Ghibliesque cloud sheep, and then present it in the format of a Rolemaster creature (including, but not limited to, attack types and sizes, offensive bonuses, armor type, and any special resistance to critical hits it might have).

Now I heartily recommend giving it access to holy spells so it can also flood the party's lungs with holy water on a critical hit!

(by the way I was cackling while reading this ask imagining the sheer incongruity of running a saccharine "wholesome" fantasy RPG using Rolemaster and it immediately turning into gory slapstick as a character like accidentally trips and falls and breaks their skull)

[murlopal]

It's not Drag either. Only drag was done to Locksmith

Snail is seething because not only is Freud better than all the Vespers without coral augmentation. He's also piloting his mech wearing 4 cm nails and 20 cm heels

Vespers drag night. It's a PR stunt. Put them in drag.

[murlopal]

I wish people realised that living in shit countries is still living. North Koreans get paid shit wage, their (free, mind you) healthcare can't provide all the drugs you can get in EU and the meat is like 20% more processed.

It isn't the portal to hell people paint it at. Just because you can get jailed for political engagement, your country doesn't immediately morph into sci fi cautionary tale

you guys remember when some zionist came on here and said that the brains of north koreans are lacking in intellectual skills and modernity. cause i do

[murlopal]

Hooty is a cronenberg horror regardless, so it's not much of a difference in horror, really

[murlopal]

JFK death wasn't an issue

This is not about the shooter. This is about people whose claims were denied and died as a result. This is about the rich doing crimes the rest of us would never even want to do let alone get away with. Those crimes include genocide. Whenever crimes like those happen, pay attention to who gets even more rich afterwards. It's all connected.

[murlopal]

While it's annoying, it sure is an improvement

they're making being a tankie a Universal Trans Girl Thing

[murlopal]

I think that Mage: The Ascension is great for power fantasy narrative driven improv experiences like Dimension 20 has with Brennan as a GM.

I recall specific moments that exemplify why "play another game" crowd(me included) is angry about

In Fantasy high, the elf wizard uses Web to hold objects together. Objects aren't creature, so they can't be restrained or affected by difficult terrain. Wouldn't you know it, in Mage, Matter 3, Prime 2, Correspondence 1 would totally allow a Mage of fitting paradigm to conjure a web looking construct that can both slow and restrain and suspend anything that the web of non-magic material would hold(up to Storyteller whether or not carbon nanostrands are normal or inconspicuous magic)

In Unsleeping city, a monk warlock uses step of the wind, dash, levitation and Jump to jump on objects conjured by a wizard (a character could technically do such a thing through intense rule bending, but we all know it was just GM fiat) all while also landing an attack mid air! Very cool and also not a thing in DnD.

But no effect is beyond a sufficiently creative and ascended mage, obviously. This specific interaction would prob use fucking martial arts magic that makes my head hurt, but it is doable!

The power to make your own abilities and actions puts the player in control of the narrative. It is very much a collaborative improv game. You can and must do things that would benefit the narrative and play in good faith. Munchkin character problem is avoided because you have all the power you could ever dream of and the game simply wouldn't work if players and ST don't want to tell a story.

[murlopal]

Actually, PC carry weight in 5e isn't too much. Strength is a dump stat while medium armor is a must have

Carry weight isn't an issue because pack animals are crazy cheap with some classes being able to even summon them on demand.

A low level party finding a pile of steel ingots in a dungeon(a surprisingly common occurrence in official modules, for some reason) will find itself lost without a pack animal.

Pretty sure every time I was bothering to manage starting equipment, I had to take weight into consideration in 5e

Those situations are atypical for normal 5e but I played a couple games with an intent to run them "by the book" and pre lvl 5 weight matters

It matters even more when you ban food and water generation through magic. But that's just 5e being a trash system that needs homebrew to run a type of game it's supposed to be used for

sometimes i think about how one of the most common things excised from D&D-but-without-most-of-the-rules games is carry weight, which makes the bag of holding entirely worthless outside of bringing up the portable black hole fun fact. bizarre phenomena

It is funny yeah. Like, here we have an item whose very existence within the game makes it clear that this is a game that cares about logistics and carrying capacity (even though within the context of 5e carrying capacities are so huge they don't even become an issue) and then people will be like "Hmmm actually I like D&D but I hate logistics and resource management."

It is funny for the reasons you mentioned, like wow this neat magic item is only relevant when you play according to the rules, but also because it is one of the most apt examples of a disconnect between what the rules say you should care about and what people actually care about. And that's sad!

[murlopal]

On the bright side:

DnD is and will remain a phase until this is addressed

1: eventually you gotta master the system and find yourself purposefully deoptimising your builds to maintain the game flow. This alienates players and they eventually go play a game where it's okay to know the rules

2: since no rules known culture remains, DnD is eternally cursed with shit balance because WotC seems to actively refuse teaching rules to players through text (like, PLEASE, give AOE shutdown, high dpr spells and heling word to all casters that have it). This makes their balance changes affect perceived balance, never addressing core issues with combat. Thus the game is biased against people who know the rules, solidifying that everyone will quit dnd eventually due to being limited by low power parties.

Side notes:

Running deadly combat oriented game is a quick way to make players GM more because they are encouraged to learn the rules(no idea why CR system is severely undertuned. Even the legendary 5-8 combat days would be a breeze to somewhat optimised party, assuming GM uses CR as per recommendations). Btw, you can totally make 2-3 encounter days hard. Resource management is an important game facet, but players would learn the rules just fine without it(and imo, making the game rely on super long days for all resource management is a design mistake, especially since they seem to know how the game is actually played and just refuse to include resource management into commonly used session structure). Also, goodberry is a crime that should've never seen print. It's not like survival is hard to circumvent without it. Pack animals are fun and busted and good for rp.

5e is a shit DnD. Starfinder is the best DnD, imo. It's both a good DnD AND it's another game. I'd argue it's not a Batman case because star travel, space trading and space exploration are sufficient to say that it's not just a dungeon engine

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.