Chebucto Regional Softball Club

Years ago I kept having this argument with the party fighter. I was playing a rogue. He had some sort of magical lens with a bonus to find traps. I was like, "let me use that so I can find traps better. You can't even find traps with a DC above 20, rules as written. That's a rogue class feature. With the lens I'd be getting like 27 if I take 10." He was like "no. It's mine. I found it." Like, my guy. We're all in danger if we don't find the traps. You don't see me holding onto armor I can't use.

In the same sense of wanting to go to the gym can be solved by watching videos of working out, or wanting to take up weaving can be satisfied by watching other people weaving. It may be enough for some people but it's not really the same thing.

I feel like a common problem is people say they want to play D&D, but in the same way that people say they want to go to the gym, or take up weaving, or whatever. A lot of people are really bad at honestly, accurately, evaluating their future self's energy level and interest. There's also people who say they'd totally like to join their D&D game, but they don't really. They're just afraid of conflict or hurting your feelings. There's this thing some people do where they try to spare someone's feelings by being a little dishonest, and end up causing a lot more problems. I would so much rather someone just say to my face "I don't want to play D&D" than "oh yeah that sounds fun" and then they keep having scheduling conflicts or flake or ghost. So yeah, I don't know. Some people are just a mess.

I would be okay with a ban on AI generated content. At the very least, I request a disclosure on any AI content. So like, if you make a little RPG yourself and used some AI tool to make the art, you are required to disclose that. Likewise, if the flavor text for some of your game came from an AI, would-be consumers should be alerted. Heck, if it was used in the editing phase put that in the ai disclosure blurb.

Foreshadowing is a pretty effective tool, yeah. Ideally when the thing happens, whatever it is, the players go "oh that makes sense."

I think "cultural values" are a better mechanism for that. Like america teaches that capitalism and individualism are good values. Anyone raised here gets a lot of that, but it's not an innate property of being from Ohio

One of the frustrating things about humans and mass communication is the "for me it's Tuesday" effect. For someone, this is the first time they've encountered "maybe orcs being innately evil isn't a good idea". They want to explore it and go through their feelings and blah blah blah. It's a day that might change their life. For someone else, it's Tuesday. We've had this conversation a thousand times before. It's old hat. It's hard to be patient to faceless newcomer #3742 when you've already done this conversation so many times. They feel stupid and slow because they blend in with all the other people who brought this up. They're bringing up points they feel are fresh and clever but have been discussed and settled already. But they're a person seeing it for the first time. Somehow. It feels like "are you stupid? We just went over this", but that's an illusion. It's new to them . (This doesn't account for bad faith actors, who are trash and should go away)