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Used to drink an unhealthy amount of soda, and I've tried over the years to cut that back in a meaningful way. As far as ginger ale goes there was one brand Fiery that I enjoyed a lot, but they went out of business. What about you? 

Typically, water. Although I do like a good ginger ale. sadly, I can't find any with a good bite where I am unless I go to a Caribbean restaurant. 

And you? 

D'aw, thank you. 

This is very true. 

We're doing alright. Just getting back in town from vacation. How are things going with you? 

This premise goes with the assumption that Combat = Experience. A lot of modern games have moved away from this idea, including my own work. However, if we are going on D&D, or D&D like games, there is an alternative here which is Milestone leveling. Here, characters level based on narrative beats, which removes the need to determine the significance of an encounter. That said, my response might feel like a dodge to the question. 

Let's look at the scenario provided: 

An unintelligent monster is attacking in an urban environment. An archer is poised in a secure position, mitigating the threat to them due to the creatures inability to reach them.  

It's not that this encounter doesn't pose a challenge to the character, it is that they have offset the risk. If the player realized that moving to a rooftop negated the monster completely, I wouldn't want to penalize the PC for creative thinking and / or planning. 

As the GM, not knowing the creatures stat block, I might have it attack the building the archer is on top of, like a bear trying to knock something out of a tree, but with the possibility of bringing the structure down. Suffer ye the damage of falling and the joys of being covered in rubble before becoming a snack. Granted, the archer might move to another location, but you can repeat this and it makes the encounter a bit ore engaging. This also brings me to the second tactic. 

Unless compelled, if it didn't look like it could get to the archer, I'd have the monster leave. Go look for easier meals, no the archer can stay safe opting not to engage, or give chase. In either scenario I would probably have the monster cause collateral damage, catch someone outside, or other harm. If the player choses not to engage then I might deny them Experience for the encounter, and make it clear that they could have prevented others from being harmed. If they are a paladin, this gets really ugly as they may have broken an oath. 

Does that help?  

Because, you're not going to get any better. Taken was fun, not amazing, but it's the best I've seen from that revenge genre. (Sorry, Kill Bill)

A genre that should have been retired with the movie Taken. 

Read this, see this...

If you're okay with it, I may share this conversation elsewhere. 

That it is going to be corporate driven in an unregulated space, no pun indeed, is indeed bleak. When thinking about the colonization of Mars, it is something I think is strangely more feasible than we want to believe. 

Creating closes cave systems allows terraforms to create larger pockets of inhabitable area while excavating resources. There's an airlock / logistics issue that better minds than I would need to work out, but I think that's well within the real of possibility. Before we get there though, I think it would be better to develop a space elevator and station to allow for easier launches. With advances in carbon tubing and other materials I think we have moved this concept into the realm of the possible. Of course, that means either contracting with an equatorial country, or building an artificial island. Once that's in place though, and the corresponding facilities in orbit, we can really begin more through space exploration, if domestic. Lunching shuttles becomes much easier when they don't have to escape earth's orbit. My fear though is that we have somehow moved beyond big ideas. We are somehow mired in what should be a trivial matter of take your medicine and stop trying to put out the fire in just room of the house. 

As far as fantasy goes, I found myself working on a supplement for Metahumans Rising before realizing that's what I was doing. It's a Fantasy Americana setting based in 1978. The concept was a vehicle to explore an idea while at the end of an age, the 80s being very different from the 60s and 70s. However, as I work on the setting I keep being faced with moments of, well this hasn't changed, and I see this is where this concept took hold and now we live in it's long term repercussions. It's hard to describe, in so much that I think the setting is fun, but I am mired in all the bummers associated with the setting, and how thing progressed from that point. 

Tried to resurrect a true fantasy setting from a few decades ago and saw it covered in white savior vomitus I was regurgitating from my childhood. Had to back burner that until I can completely update it. It's funny, I see so many people posting culture wars comments online about D&D and politics. I mean, I'm not even immune to it having written a few thousand words and spent way too much time looking up refences to prove some basic points about inherent bias. (Dropping this here, because I think anyone can see these conversations, and I may as well take the opportunity to bang the drum.)

Anecdotally, I see people are upset with WotC changing D&D cannon to be more inclusive. Often I see them argue that the company is changing D&D to appeal to an audience that doesn't play the game. At the same time, these same people decry actual play series of others playing D&D in ways they don't like. Doesn't this later point disprove the former?

One of the things I try to point out, when I get pulled into these conversations, is that no one is trying to change how you play at your home table. Now, you can argue the inverse is true, WotC can keep the cannon that is perceived as racist or sexist and other people can play how they want, there is no need to change the default cannon. With that in mind though, I feel like the default state should be inclusive as it makes the game more accessible to new people. 

With that said, I still enjoy Lord of the Rings, despite the origin of Orcs and Harry Potter, despite the multitude of issues with the setting. Maybe being able to see it and compartmentalize it is key. When the kiddo is old enough, I'm sure I'll find myself explaining the understated acceptance of slaves in Harry Potter, the racial stereotypes, and post publication queer bating to them. Along with the strange joy I take in having the movies provided by a streaming service so that I don't have to give money to the author. Although, I suppose, one could argue that streaming it justifies the service's renewal of access to the movies. 

Now I don't know where I was going with this, but there we go... 

Here I thought you meant bailing on the site. With the added context, my thought is that we have a lot of house keeping to do before we can start looking for a new home. There have been a number of exo-planets discovered that could potentially house human life. However, barring the need for faster means of travel, there are still so many issues we should resolve here first. 

When Elon Musk proposed that poorer people could effectively pay their way, much like indentured servants, in his vision for terraforming Mars, that really sent shivers down my spine. As once you are there, there really is no way out of the arrangement, and your boss controls the food you get to eat and the air you can breathe. Total Recall was not meant to be a guide. That's just on the idea of unchecked capitalism and how it looks more and more like feudalism as we remove what limited controls that are in place. 

Then you get into societal issues, all the given "isms" of our world. Who would get to go to said haven? In Burning Chrome, there was a short story about a space station in a degrading orbit. The crew had all been evacuated, except for one person who had such bone deterioration from living in space he could not survive on earth. The story ends with a group of people using modified hot air balloons to  reach the upper atmosphere and correct the orbit before the station breaks up. Their goal to form a sustainable colony off world. There's something really innocent and fun in this concept, as they succeed and the remaining crewman becomes a mentor to the new inhabitants. However, I can't imagine this ever happening. Even if we take the events at face value, once this abandoned station is fixed, I can only see the original owners returning to collect. Although, I do like the idea of upcycling at that level. 

There are a few other sites I'm, tangentially, active on:
rpgpub.com (They have a strict no politics policy and I've had a couple of posts, I didn't think we're political pulled from that site, but there are some interesting discussions that happen.)  

For the hive of scum and villainy, I'm on Twitter @HouseDokPro 

Also, I'm on MeWe as certifieds, but except for the chats from groups I'm in that's almost entirely promotional materials. Also the only group there that's even marginally chatty is the Savage Rifts group. 

Finally, I have a Facebook business page facebook.com/MetahumansRising but that really is all promotional. No actually Facebook page, this is maintained through elfin magic as I've been banned from the site for years following be calling out their lack of personal security. 

Seen a lot of these posts on Twitter as well. What I think is happening is that they are trying to move away from the less than savory origins or races like Orcs. Like it or not they have origins in negative racial stereotypes. While working on an article for my own sanity a few months ago I sourced some of the materials WotC is now trying to pull away from. (Article if you are interested. Reference links at the bottom.)

The other change I was seeing is the Drow, moving them from an inherently evil race, to having a pervasive cult that shadows them. One of the things I find interesting here is while you have similar racial undertones, you also had this anti-feminist aspect. That being, the Drow are a matriarchy which is inherently corrupt and evil. This also translated some wink and nod sexual content for D&D or should we say D&D/s. 

What I've said in other threads is that if you like the old lore, that material is still out there, and available to you. No one is saying what you can play at your personal table. 

Fun fact Jonathan Frakes was all for doing that episode with a male actor, but the studio refused. Another episode that comes to mind is The Neutral Zone where a modern era businessman is effectively seen as an antiquated joke. Although, in one of the books they find a use for him, negotiating with Ferengi.

Even the original series pushed social limits. Spock's look was intended to be demonic, to force people to question notions of judgement by appearance. In the pilot you had Number One, played by Majel Barrett. Again, nixed by the studio. However, Roddenberry was able to have an ethnically diverse cast. One of the things lost on modern audiences was the significance of Chekov and having moved past the cold war, seemingly peacefully. 

If we're going basic flavors, I'll take chocolate. If we're getting all fancy, Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra or some kind of turtle. Why do you ask?