KoboldOfArtifice

joined 1 year ago

What happened in the Soviet Union is more complex than that. I want to emphasize that I don't support the majority of actions of the Soviet government and virtually none of the Stalin government in particular, but it is important to understand how society got where they were.

First and foremost, it is wrong to think that absolute power in a few people is absolutely necessary in this system to work. The reason that the Soviet Union fell into an authoritarian dictatorship is a result of their attempt at rectifying the old system. A strong believe specifically in Marxist-Leninism is that the only way society can move onto true and free socialism is if first, the bourgeoisie is completely and utterly removed from existence. They believe that if anyone still has a semblance of capital based superiority, that capitalism will always have a ground on which it will rise again, no matter how good their society might become. This lead to the believe that, "for now", society needs to be led with an iron fist by idealists who know what's good for it. This obviously fails once anyone with the will to abuse this system gets into a position of such power. There was no plan to get rid of them, no clear mechanism that would enforce their path towards the dissolution of this authoritarian state as was promised and finally no way out of it.

Socialism doesn't need to mean that an authoritarian government owns everything forever. If that were the case, you'd effectively be no better than under capitalism, as all that has happened is that an elite above the worker class has taken control and the worker class is forced to accept it's role in their plan. Even in the Soviet Union, one of the most famous planned economies in history, it was meant to be a temporary state just to set up a stable system and then transfer it into local worker ownership.

What has been shown to work well is at the very least the concept of a cooperative ownership where the workers own companies collectively and benefit from the profits together. While they aren't incredibly widespread, they exist even in countries like the US. Most of them are found in the agricultural sector, but you even have examples of more widespread application of the concept in companies like Mondragon in the Basque region of Spain.

The specifics of where these should ultimately go would completely blow up this conversation and there are better people you can talk about it with than me (just don't try it on hexbear), but the point, in short, is that no, Socialism doesn't imply any of those points you mentioned, but yes, attempts and supposed attempts to instate it have ended in system supporting these things. That doesn't mean that they are intrinsic to Socialism though. There are many factors that play into why it has historically failed and it serves to note that a major part that has made the development of a socialist society near-impossible, even in a good willed system, is the extreme pushback this has received from countries that were capitalist and where the elite was afraid of losing their advantage.

I think the problem just comes from dissatisfaction with the government. If I lived in the US, I'd have my own gripes with paying taxes to be honest. Where I live I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, but not because I don't want to pay them, but because I feel like they could be used better.

The difference to me being that I feel like it's something that can be reasonably fixed here whereas people struggle with believing the same in the US. Then again, there's people who don't want to pay taxes even here, so I guess there's just a general phenomenon going on.

Part of it seems to also just be a lack of social cohesion. People feel so incredibly negative to the thought of their money going to someone they don't know personally because they don't imagine them as people to be empathetic for. I've got the advantage, if you want to call it that, to have lived in poverty, to have had health emergencies and to have required government assistance to help me achieve my goals. I've seen first hand why these systems are critical. It makes it a lot easier to feel like these taxes are going somewhere good.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 19 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Literally none of these are an implication of socialism.

Some of these, like taking away all food, are explicitly anti-socialist. Just because states that acted under the name of a socialist government did many of these things, that doesn't mean that they have anything to do with socialism. That's like acting as if the current Chinese government were actually socialist instead of being a capitalist oligarchy, or like the Soviet Union under Stalin was anything but a hyper-authoritarian quasi-fascist military regime.

Socialism is expressed in socialist policies in states in Europe too and while it certain somewhat increases the tax burden on society, it alleviates the grueling effects of wage slavery and lack of access to food, as well as in especially well developed cases, allowing for greater personal expression than can be true otherwise in capitalist settings.

Claiming that having to move only happens under authoritarian regimes, completely besides the point of whether or not that is relevant to socialism in general, is in complete disregard to the constant forces exhibited by uncontrolled capitalism, forcing people to move, eat whatever cheap crap they can get and, believe it or not, experiencing how loved ones and acquaintances disappear, not due to the government taking them, but due to the for-profit society grinding them down into addiction, depression and death.

Note that in no way I wish to support any military regime or other undemocratic government. But socialism is the policy of putting the government to work to support society, by having everyone partaking in society assist in supporting those that need it. What you listed is not representative of that ideal and only serves to show the degeneracy of the governments that did so in the name of socialism.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 months ago

Your point specifically doesn't stand. Not the one you made in your comment. You're getting incredibly upset over being corrected when the correction was genuinely well meant and important to the discussion at hand. I'm sorry that this is something that angers you, but your hurt feelings don't change the fact that what I'm bringing up isn't pedantry but a correction on a misconception which is being propagated for political gain.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I know what events you're referencing and misrepresenting, yes.

The correction was entirely on point because the framing of this being an example of rampant inflation and thus a major governmental failure is misinformation propagated by the Republican party.

While it is certainly imaginable that the erratic pricing of eggs in particular could have been handled better by the Democratic government, it's entirely false to present it as just one example of a wide reaching problem as the price increase in this case is unique to this product. Inflation has been happening and is comparatively high, putting a lot of pressure on lower income households, but it is not effectively apocalyptic as it is presented here.

Your response is completely unwarranted as in no way was I even attacking or talking down to you.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 2 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Inflation describes the decrease of the value of your money. When a currency is affected by inflation, all prices go up as you require more of that money to equal the same worth of goods.

If eggs shot up to a price of 8 or so bucks and then went down to 2.69, you weren't being affected by inflation as it is unheard of for a currency to suffer such insane inflation and then immediately recover from it.

What happened in your case would have been a large shift in supply and demand, possibly brought on by the mentioned problems in the egg production, or price gouging by whoever was selling these. Possibly also just a mix of those.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In no sense did I say that other people's dislike for their games is a problem. I take no offense to that. I myself am literally of the opinion that the newer AC games are hard to enjoy and insulting to the players time.

Nonetheless, I can acknowledge that it's a source of comfort for some, even when I fail to enjoy it. Making them feel bad about it just isn't OK.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm sorry, but "Really? Ubisoft though?" is not just rubbishing Ubisofts practices. It's condescending to OP.

The fact that just because I criticized your choice of words makes you assume that it's in defense of my own tastes is unreasonable too. Is there not a chance someone might sympathise with someone without sitting in the same exact boat as them?

Point is, many people would feel bad about being approached the way you did and it is not exactly unreasonable to think that they would.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 months ago (6 children)

There's so much attempted shaming in these comments. People like some of their games and some like them a lot. Even if you don't feel like they're the best, Original and Odyssey still carry the attachment people have for Assassin's Creed and Anno 1800 has no real direct comparable alternatives.

Stop trying to make people feel bad for just wanting to enjoy something they like when they are the victim of these companies trying to make their life harder. The fact that Ubisoft treats their customers like trash isn't something to rub in someone's face, it's too bad that some people's hobbies are locked behind something like that.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 3 points 3 months ago

I see many comments discrediting this somehow, but I want to put my two cents in as someone who does work with sensor based AI assisted processing in real time and safety reliant environments.

Just because a concept can be thought of that sounds reasonable and maybe even works in simple tests, that doesn't mean that it's actually useful for the real use case. Many typical approaches to creating models that can solve computer vision tasks such as this can result in unstable results and no system that has a considerable false positive rate would be tolerated by any airliner. This isn't even to speak of the false negative rate which might then still be rather high, which still leaves the system useless.

Naturally it's not to say that no such system could be created, but they can't be just whipped out like some people here claim. If, as people here are already assuming, the problem happened because someone climbed onto the conveyor belt and was carried in, then this type of problem is sufficiently unthinkably rare that most companies didn't think about it much either.

Clearly greater security is necessary, but people are being unreasonable with how trivial they portray the solution as being.

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Well, much of the world does live in areas where 34 degrees Celsius are genuinely problematic and where homes are not suited to providing decent living conditions.

The fact that you don't immediately consider that temperature a problem given your personal circumstances doesn't mean that you should assume that it's not a problem for them. Your comment made it seem like you were trying to make light of it.

Where I live, 34 degrees is well past the point where we'd get major national emergency warnings from the government warning of the danger that the current heat poses. I'm curious how people in your area deal with 41 degrees though, that sounds brutal to me personally. I assume it'd at least be a low humidity heat?

[–] KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network 19 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Normality in some countries means little when it happens somewhere it's unexpected and people aren't used to it. Not only is acclimatization a thing, meaning that people who genuinely aren't used to these temperatures suffer more from them, it's also relevant how the local culture handles high temperatures.

Where it's normally very hot or very cold, infrastructure, daily routine and other culturally influenced elements provide for relief in some form. Texas suffered immensely under a cold period that other places in the world would consider utterly unremarkable, simply because it is utterly beyond what had been anticipated.

Telling people in those situations that something isn't that hot/cold is a bit callous.

 

I will be DMing a DnD 5e adventure going from levels 1-12 starting this week. I am finishing up the personal quests for each character to help tie them in more into the adventure and give them something to look forward to for themselves. Most of the characters were pretty easy to work with, but I am somewhat stuck on the Armorer Artificer.

They have stated that their character's dream is to create a legendary item. Whether it be an artefact or just some other powerful magic item, doesn't matter too much to them. Handing out a powerful magic item as the final reward for a personal quest is very classical anyways, so I'd love to go with it.

The problem is, I can't think of anything fun to give an Armorer Artificer. They have lots of stuff to work with on their own, so neither a weapon nor an armor is really going to be of interest to them.

Have any of you homebrewed some fun items just for Armorer Artificers or have any idea for existing (be it Wizards stuff or homebrew) stuff to hand out? It should be a considerable reward for someone around level 10.

 

I have been running a DnD campaign which is only getting longer and more complex as time goes on. Keeping track of every bit of lore, every NPC that is relevant to the party and major events that have happened is getting increasingly difficult. I am currently mostly trying to just keep everything in mind while taking notes here and there, but I am finding linear text documents to be hard to maintain and look through.

The thing that has made me especially interested in better tools is that I have been planning to do a homebrew campaign once this one has wrapped up and I would like to start planning it out.

What tools do you use to document info on worldbuilding, story and lore?

2
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by KoboldOfArtifice@ttrpg.network to c/askgamemasters@ttrpg.network
 

Combat makes up a decent chunk of most campaigns and the setup can make it either a blip that no one will remember to one of the most memorable parts of the campaign. I've been looking for various ways to make combat more fun in my campaign and was eager to see if people here have any ideas they'd like to share. I'm looking for anything that gives alternate win conditions, gives the players new ways to interact with the environment, forces special behaviour or anything to make a combat encounter unique.

I'll start with some of my favourites.


Battle Complications

Anything that makes combat more complicated than "kill this list of people". Special conditions and anything in that direction.

-- Ritual in Progress Someone is casting a terrifyingly strong ritual and it must be stopped by either destroying conduits, removing sacrificial materials or killing the casters. Typically this is something that allows enemies that wouldn't be very dangerous otherwise to have a far greater effect simply because the party can't focus them down, needing to spend their time on the ritual being stopped. If they fail, the possible punishment should sound quite bad, so that they feel a strong urge to stop what is happening.

-- Ritual-borne Foe Similar to the last one, but this time it's not a time limit but rather something that requires a novel way to defeat. An enemy that is incredibly powerful and dangerous to the party being kept alive or present by as summoner or necromancer of some sort, or alternatively by a contraption. Players must destroy or deactivate the source to defeat the opponent before it defeats them. This may be through directed combat or through a puzzle of sorts in the middle of combat.

-- Constant Reinforcements The BBEG is constantly calling forth fiends from another realm or some device creates more and more small creatures swarming the players. These elements make sure that the players can't just clear out the room, leaving the big bad guy in the middle helplessly overwhelmed by sheer action-economy. Instead, they have to either win quickly or alternatively do their best to disable the sources of enemies.

Environmental Hazards

These are difficult to design but great when they work out. Hazards in this case is taken in a very general sense.

-- Unstable Ground The ground that both the players and enemies are standing on is unstable and may break away easily. May it be as the result of some level being pulled, an attack hitting the ground or maybe just random chance. As long as the players have some chance to react to what is happening, this can include anything that can make ground unsafe to simply stand on. This makes certain types of ground that are stable very favorable and possibly worth fighting over. Bonus if the enemies have ways to contest ground, just like the players can.

-- The Floor is Lava The ground erupts in Flame, flashes of radiant beams hit the combat arena or meteors strike the area. Very similar to unstable ground, but more temporary, are occasional AoEs hitting the ground. Once again, these are best when the players feel like they can really work around them sensibly.

-- Bottomless Pit (Maybe with a bottom) A pit that people can be thrown into. This urges people to finally realize that shove is a thing. Don't make it too easy to fall into though, falling to your death into such a pit with little chance to safe yourself won't feel great. Make sure that they get a chance to save themselves or be saved if they do fall!


These are what comes to mind immediately. What interesting mechanics have you used to change your combat into something the party ended up finding really thrilling or memorable? I myself play DnD 5e, but I would love to hear your stories from other systems that I may implement in my campaign too!

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