Peter Drake HAS MOVED @peterdrake@qoto.org

@stux I've sometimes ask students, in a beginning-of-term survey, what they're passionate about. One wrote "clean cabling".

@stux ... and that's where black licorice comes from.

@lextenebris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record

@lextenebris Every year since 2015 has been warmer than any year before then since direct measurement started in 1850. The essentially unanimous prediction of the scientific community is that this warming is going to continue. Do you have a different prediction?

@lextenebris @SolarpunkPrompts So ... are you not at all concerned about climate change?

@lextenebris Yes -- after the last few games I've run, I've realized that the GM shouldn't create the adventure (locations, NPCs, what the shadowy factions are up to) until after character generation. Make the world about these characters. Pregenerated adventures put the players on a rail, which is bad whether or not they stay on it.

(I've probably only got about 6 feet of TTRPGs, but 1st edition AD&D is in there!)

@lextenebris @SolarpunkPrompts

Please share some of that hope!

I am preternaturally even-keeled, but there are people around me who look at the climate emergency and see nothing but a slide to Mad Max, who look at the GOP and see nothing but a slide to The Handmaid's Tale. They need stories where the people (not the chosen superwarriors) work together solve these real, pressing, deadly problems. I can't find these stories, but maybe in a game we can create them together.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the other kind of game. I've enjoyed escapist power fantasy games, blood for the blood god and all that. For this particular thread, though, I'm interested in using a game to explore how we can make a better world.

@lextenebris @SolarpunkPrompts That complaint is ... not without merit. As someone said, drama happens because someone wants something and for some reason they can't have it. I have seen stories that fail to include any drama.

It's been a while, but I enjoyed this podcast because it provided at least some ideas of how to generate that drama.

@lextenebris I've got (but haven't played) both Ironsworn: Starforged and The Quiet Year. I'm intrigued, but nervous about what seem like a series of creative writing prompts that then leave it up to the players and GM to decide what happens. On the other hand, it's very easy for a simulation to become busywork that detracts from the story.

@lextenebris Again, interesting. I do like the idea of having detailed (but not incredibly fiddly) rules for simulating resource/infrastructure issues. Are there more modern games that do this, or are the "simulation" players all running these and other old-school games like Traveller and GURPS?

From the artwork, these all seem pretty grim -- there's been a horror apocalypse and everybody is packing multiple guns. I'm not saying I want to run a game where anthropomorphic woodland creatures sit around drinking tea and talking about their feelings, but I'd like to see a world the players want to live in and protect.

I know opinions vary wildly, but I'm imagining solarpunk as being about (1) imagining a plausible world we'd like to live in, then (2) figuring how to get there. With climate dread and specter of galloping christofascism, people need to see any path to hope.

Have you listened to the @SolarpunkPrompts podcast?

@pluralistic % ed balls
balls: No such file or directory
q
% touch balls
% ed balls
0
q
% rm balls

(I had to do a web search to figure out how to quit The Standard Editor, and my first attempt ("how to quit ed") did not return what I was expecting.)

@rachelandrew Will it be easier to convince people to do this correctly or to convince chatbots?

Next we can do ISO 8601 dates...