XDM @XDM@dice.camp

I know none of you really know me from Eve. So if you're exploring unofficial channels of saving ICE's targets, I don't expect you to share the whys and hows with me. But I wish you all the best. Our "Sanctuary CIty" gestures are just that. Empty gestures. Officials are sighing, "Our hands are tied." There's no counting on them for any substantive help.

So I emailed the Portland City Council about our ever-wonderful Mayor. If you missed it: last week he said local cops would not interfere in the blockade against the ICE HQ in SW Portland. Of course, a few hours ago, they did. Mayor Wonderful had conveniently skipped out of town for a vacation. When I inquired to the C.C. about this, I basically got a polite version of "I am sorry, Amy. But our hands are tied." I'll happily re-post it here verbatim if anyone's interested. :/

H. P. Lovecraft dramatically underestimated the human ability to stare unblinking into the face of horror and say “That sucks, but it doesn’t affect me personally. Besides, what can one person do?”

Oh, this is neat:

Looks like HeroQuest is getting a System Reference Document (SRD) and will be released under the OGL:

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/7674-heroquest-srd-and-ogl-genre-packs/

Really pleased to see Chaosium open this system up as I think it has some potential.

#heroquest #ogl #rpg

Studies have shown time and again that when people experience fiction about people, they identify and empathize with those people.

We experience the world through our media. We use it to contextualize and empathize with our environment. The most popular TV shows and Movies are about renegade cops and violent vigilantes that take the law in to their own hands. We internalize and normalize that.

We have to control our own media.

I'm not even going far enough here.

At this point, I feel like the act of creating media outside of the control of a multi-million dollar corporation is a radical act in and of itself.

media controls our perception of reality. Current media companies are monopolistically huge, and thanks to modern copyright law they exert undue control over the figures of our modern folklore (think https://medium.com/@ajroach42/actual-nazi-steve-rogers-42bc10993904)

I think the closest I will ever come to understanding how much people despised me saying that Linux was the answer to all of the world's ills is the conversations I have about how much I think bitcoin is a complete Ponzi scheme and a fool's errand for solving the issues we have with currency.

It's like shaking a rotted piece of wood and having the ants living inside "well actually" you about how you're disturbing their habitat.

@Canageek D&D feels good at recreating pulp adventure stories, like Conan the Barbarian. It works best when you're "a thief, a reaver, a slayer," who the GM points at deserving villains.

But if you imitate D&D's structure without realizing how amoral it is, you're gonna have an evil time.

@Canageek Pulp protagonists and game PCs tend to develop narcissistic ethics--they're actually more important, and have more agency than, the people around them. I think stories either consciously resist this, or their heroes accidentally become monsters.

Another things that I worry sends the wrong message is the inherit assumption with a lot of games that due processes is a nicety and a weakness.

Examples:
-Delta Green
-Dark Matter (Alternity setting)
-Conspiracy X

All of them are "YOU MUST DO THE BAD THING TO SAVE HUMANITY" which I feel normalizes things we should not be normalizing.

I'm rather annoyed that the default in pretty much every tabletop game is that individuals should work hard, help themselves and get rich. Basically the std right wing narrative. I mean, I run games like that, and they are fun, but I'd like more games about working together as a town to overcome hardship.

Animated voxel #art #cyberpunk scene by John Kearney

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. Give love to a trans person you know today and remember those lost, and the risks that all trans people face in our world. When you can, act to protect and support them. 💜

Official Search Turn Essay Writer
Person of color with exp living in a small, rural town in North America in the past 30 years & understanding of the culture. Subject is race in small towns & intersections of race, gender, orientation, etc.

This is for _Turn_, a game of shapeshifters in small towns w populations under 5000. It explores daily life & relationships, identity & belonging.

Full length of essay to be discussed), $.07/word. Due date is not immediate.

Email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Had a realization. Mastodon isn't meant to create a massive social network. It's meant to create communities, and connect those communities together. Like a bunch of chat rooms, or bulletin boards.

Each room has its own rules and codes, and they are all connected by a greater network, but the individual community comes first.

So I'm moving here, to dice.camp

Hi everyone!