megaplayboy

The impetus for this was actually the problematic portrayal of orcs and drow. The latter especially. A dark skinned race that's inherently evil? As I understand it, many non playable races such as demons may remain "evil". So I'll never get to play my noble Balor-din. Dang it.

Reformed mind flayer: "Humans are friends not food"

https://www.themarysue.com/dungeons-dragons-inherently-evil-races-gone/ Fascinating. Probably long overdue. Though the idea of "virtuous" illithids and, uh, demons may take some getting used to. I can't really see the alignment system as currently constituted surviving this. Perhaps some alternative Outlook/Philosophy system?

TOO SOON

https://portcitydaily.com/local-news/2020/06/24/fired-wilmington-cop-we-are-just-going-to-go-out-and-start-slaughtering-them-f-ni-i-cant-wait-god-i-cant-wait-free-read/?fbclid=IwAR2rQ5D5Fyq6qgTRpdU6clh8a_7iOY_AUDe76SvfMAxywUnUPZVnoGzVVgM Just a few thousand bushels of bad apples. The most disturbing thing is that this was only picked up via random accidental recording and we have no idea how many cops say stuff like this as a matter of routine. But it's obviously non-zero and not necessarily a rare or uncommon sentiment. Things need to change.

"It's GroundDog Day"

"HAH! Easy."--Mechanon.

Case counts are spiking right now. ICU admissions lag case numbers by about 3 weeks, and then deaths follow that by a week or two. So by mid-late July, we're likely to either be back to where we were in April...or worse off than that. And then we're back to a second lockdown, or alternatively a real health care system meltdown in August. Holding the political conventions will seem insane if this is the scenario that comes to pass.

41% with 0 complaints, 41% with 1-3 complaints, 8% with 4 or 5, and 9% with 6 or more complaints. But even the ones with a double digit number of complaints get defended ferociously by both the unions and rank and file LEOs, and they'll even walk off the job if one of them is fired or criminally charged.

The reason why we know he had a criminal record is because he was convicted and served his time. He was already punished for said offenses, and had shot a video talking about the difficulties of navigating the parole system while trying to be a responsible father and partner and how it felt like a trap at times. The minute they began to arrest him he realized that he could be sent back to prison and everything he had worked for undone. One of the bullets fired by the officer went into an occupied vehicle in the parking lot area. Let's let a jury decide whether or not the officer's conduct was justifiable or reckless and unnecessary. Shooting victims don't need to be angels or even have blameless conduct for us to be concerned about how the police conducted themselves in the encounter. It's a red herring. The timing of when the shots were fired will matter a great deal--were the shots fired at the same time the suspect fired the taser, or seconds later? Once the taser was discharged and missed, the suspect was not in any sense a lethal threat to the officer. The danger had passed. And the suspect was running away with his back to the officer. It's not clear from the publicly available video precisely when the shots were fired, but it appears to be seconds AFTER the taser is discharged.

Xarriel, perhaps. In Champions Beyond.

Time will tell whether there's been a dampening of Trump voter enthusiasm. But he does seem, at this point, like a historically weak incumbent, closer to those who lost(GHWB, Carter, Ford, Hoover) than those who won(Nixon, Reagan, LBJ, Clinton, Obama, Bush II, Truman, FDR). There's really no polling prior to about 1936, and the media environment was vastly different before television, radio, internet, etc. But that's still about 8 decades' worth of polling data. And it doesn't look good for 45 up to this point. Biden has led more or less continuously, usually by 5 or more points. At the moment the realclearpolitics average is Biden +8.8. Biden has led by as much as 14 in recent polling. It's true that the electoral college determines who wins, but a large enough national popular vote lead renders the EC a foregone conclusion(statistically it's virtually impossible to lose the popular vote by 8 or more points and win the electoral college, a 4 point gap appears to be the upper bound of plausibility). And Biden is currently leading, tied or within the margin of error in virtually every "battleground state". He is leading in several states Trump won in 2016.

Or a simple 12 bar slow blues vs, well, this: https://www.veojam.com/watch/1284771777

Membership gives the character the "perks" of the position--police will speak to him, access to crime scenes, he can go into the FBI office or a forensic lab, log into the national crime database, etc. Contacts means a more emphatic/substantive request for assistance--extra agents, getting lab results expedited, getting your boss to call the local cops/politicians to make them more cooperative, and so forth. It seems to me one could take either, or both. A high level administrative position certainly would take both to represent the level of resources/power provided by having such a position within a powerful organization. If subordinates are directly loyal to the character first, the organization second, then the character should buy followers(and possibly a base if that, too, belongs to them in practice).

Still waiting on the tax returns case. Probably end of the month.

The thing is, police killings are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problematic behavior by LEOs. For every officer involved killing(and there's closer to 1500 from all causes than 1000, which blows away the rest of the developed world in per capita rate), there's an order of magnitude(or two) more instances of excessive force, and an even greater number of instances of harassment and/or over-enforcement of laws(we don't really need to cite every minor traffic violation, it's done to generate revenue for the jurisdiction). And the cumulative effect of this misconduct and abuse of authority is that communities of color, particularly struggling communities, feel as though they are being held down by an occupying army of sorts. It's hard to instill respect for rule of law when the law never seems to redound to your benefit.

2 million was a "do nothing and let the virus take its course" prediction for the entirety of the pandemic, not just the first wave. And the 200k projection I've seen is for the first wave alone, with some imperfect precautions factored in. For those who downplay those numbers as "could be worse", I wonder what the "failure threshold" is. Half a million? A million? No event in American history has killed more than 750,000 people. 120,000 is already more than World War 1 or the 1957-1958 Asian Flu pandemic. Only 3 events are ahead of that number: WW2(400k from all causes), The Spanish Flu(about 675k), and the Civil War(high side estimate is 750k, more commonly 620k). Given the tangible early failures to test and contain, the death numbers are already shameful and tragic and emblematic of catastrophic failure. There are specific people and agencies that specific fingers should be pointed at.

It's almost as if they have a quota or something.

Back in early April, my guess for death toll by election day was 120,000. We'll hit that tomorrow, and it's mid-June. My new guess is 250,000. When will that turn out to be low?

In a game with Gods as PCs I'd imagine there might be a fairly substantial list of "Everygod powers".

Looking at the original posting date of this thread, I think what I'd most like to see is the product being released by or before the 10th anniversary of this thread. 🙂

They could have just taken his keys and let him walk to his sister's home. No custodial arrest necessary.

In terms of how far advanced tech can be for a society to still be vaguely recognizable(i.e., retaining some familiar elements), I'd say somewhere between 20 and 120 years(one maximum human lifespan). If we go back 20 years IRL, there's still the internet, cell phones, and even HDTV starting to come on. If we go back 40 years, personal computers are starting to become a thing, and some places have high speed trains. 50 years back, we just landed on the Moon. 60 years back, we're talking about putting men into space. 70 years back, computers are coming into being. 80 years back, jet engines are being developed, long range rockets are being tested, and television is in development. Even 120 years back, automobiles are coming into being and airplanes are within the realm of the imaginable. Homes have electricity and flush toilets. So in a superhero world, you could advance technology by up to 100 years or so and there'd still be elements recognizable to a modern audience.

They're well on track to becoming the biggest cinematic universe of all time. Wong Fei Hong has 80 films, but at this pace they'll pass him within the next 20 years. Then I expect a reboot once Tom Holland is around 50+ years old. It's an amazing cinematic achievement. As a nerd from the "bad old days", whenever I see or hear someone complaining about the MCU all I hear is that "the caviar isn't fresh and the champagne is going flat, I expected more for my $20".

Thought I'd start a thread on ideas for character talents. Here's mine: Dilettante: the character is adept at skills in which they take a passing interest. +1 with all skills at Familiarity level(i.e., 8-). 5 or 8 points(I can't decide) Master Dilettante*: the character is surprisingly competent at skills in which they take a passing interest. +3 with all skills at Familiarity level. 15 or 24 points. Note that, in the case of complementary skills, the bonus would only apply to one, though at GM's discretion, the bonus for Master Dilettante could be split between the skills.