I have a permanent solution to banking crises:

Ban capitalism globally.

It’s foolproof. It will stop any more banks from having any sort of crisis.

That’s literally what it feels like: being stuck in an objective (the planet) and you have a teammate that’s SUPER gung ho about the fact he’s got a bomb vest (nukes) on that will go off if he dies, and you’re just praying he doesn’t catch a stray round (attack) while shooting at people from the doorway (doing proxy war things or just straight up committing/supporting genocide/ethnic cleansing/war of extermination/etc) or lose connection (leadership going insane).

If any of those things happen, you know you’re all toast. And it’s all mostly outside of your control.

I hate to use video games as a metaphor for literal nuclear war and sorry for spelling it out like I’m talking to a child but I felt it was needed for clarity.

We’re all on the planet together, and no one will ever be able to force everyone into submission, the more we fight the shorter time we have as a species.

If that’s what you took away from my comments, have fun I guess.

I told him the game focuses on the group and if he’s not part of the group then he won’t be playing, and since that first game he has participated, with few issues popping up.

I probably could have been clearer before we even got to the table that if you aren’t playing with the group then you aren’t playing, rather than just expect them to stick with a group on their first game.

I told him multiple times that if he was going to try and do his own thing, he won’t be participating with the group, and the group is the entire focus of the game.

I suppose I could have made it more explicit that he could join the group or he could leave the game.

I should add that that was many games ago, and he has since begun participating, although he often tries to go his own way and threatens to leave the group constantly, but so far he hasn’t actually tried leaving the group unless it was agreed upon for strategy reasons. (they split up inside a crypt in the most horror movie fashion possible)

let people roll to see if something happens

Oh god so many DMs in the past have done this, and I just roll my eyes every time.

Like I’m okay if you want to roll your own dice behind the screen to see if we get attacked overnight, but that should be the only kind of “roll to see what happens” going on.

I really need to do some kind of team building exercise before a game, something that they’ll want to do, but requires teamwork, just to demonstrate the point that they need to work together.

When my first character did the whole “I’m gonna be all by myself because I’m a lone wolf” thing, the DM let me go off and the totally unexpected happened and my character got into a scuffle he wasn’t prepared for, but a group sure would have been.

nobody should have nuclear weapons.

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if the scientists working on the Manhattan project had all agreed it’s too much and intentionally sabotage every test.

Yeah, but this way you get to make sure your intended target actually gets hit instead of assuming the following nuclear wastwland would destroy your target like everything else.

It’s like the Martyrdom perk in fps games. You die and drop a grenade or c4 pack or something and explode, hopefully taking out the person who killed you.

It’s just a dead-man switch to get the AD part of MAD.

Effective? Maybe.

Incredibly stupid? Yes.

Is that stopping the US and Russia from doing it? Lolno we invented this dumb shit.

The world is run by insane people who would rather see the planet scorched into a lifeless rock than admit their way of doing things might be wrong.

I absolutely used to be that “my character is a quiet rogue-ish type that definitely wasn’t modeled after Aragorn when he was introduced at the Prancing Pony mixed with Robin hood” who always “had to be convinced” to join, and nobody ever called me out for it. I honestly wish they had because that’s annoying as fuck and you miss out on playing an actually fully developed character.

Nowadays I tend to be less tactful that you are, but essentially tell people the same thing, or literally beat their characters over the head with ambushes.

I started running games for my wife and her niblings, and the oldest boy is getting into that “I’m such a rebel” phase where they think they’re bad ass for taking slightly longer to do a chore than needed and say “no” the first time you ask them to do something.

He thought it was hilarious to have a character that refused to join the rest of the group, so I said “okay, you can stay at the inn if you want” and then proceeded to intentionally ignore anything he was saying or doing, leaving him out of rolls, and never addressing him.

He’s 12 and started literally crying to his mother about how we’re all being mean to him. Apparently “he had the opportunity to participate and chose not to” wasn’t a good enough response to his mother. I stand by my choice. Although my wife managed to convince me to let him “rejoin” at the next town/session.

He doesn’t pull that shit anymore though, when he’s playing he’s playing or he gets shut out again.

Genuine question to anyone reading: does that make me a bad DM? If so, suggestions on how to handle it?

I’m a big fan of “you all wake up in loincloths sitting in a wagon, hands bound” and as long as someone at the table can roll higher than a 1, they can break free.

Or something attacks them while they’re all in a tavern

Basically I’m a fan of “you could ignore having your shit kicked in, but will you?” since so many players would stop at nothing.

Fallout NV had the right idea. “Where’s that little fucker who shot me in the head?!”

“trying to grab to take a gun from a security guard”

Okay so obviously almost nowhere else is as insane as the US when it comes to firearms and therefore most people would have much better discipline when handling them and discharging or even pulling one, but the one thing I am sure of almsoy anywhere in the world is that you should NEVER try to grab someone else’s gun from them unless you’re prepared to get shot with it.

Dudes lucky he didn’t do that in Texas or Florida.

I genuinely think he’s got that “someone told me I’m not allowed to do something so now it’s my only thought and I will do it no matter what” mentality that 6 year Olds have.

Someone told him he’s not allowed to use nuclear weapons, so he wants nothing more than to have an excuse.

Considering the channel owner is heavily left leaning, I don’t think it was them but they may be getting extra cautious about what speech they allow, given the current regime.

From my understanding, he has solar/wind powered well pumps, and a septic system he can “shovel out” himself. He had a covered box for deliveries next to his mailbox, and anything that needs to be dropped close to the house can drive straight in, I assume he plans those out ahead of time.

I just checked street view maps and since the last time I was over there he actually has a driveway now! With a gate across it.

Last time I spoke to him regularly enough that house questions wouldnt be weird, he was already working on solar power and already had a “battery wall” from 18650 cells cobbled together from surplus and garage sale battery packs. Had a whole table set up with testing and monitoring stuff for it. Apparently when the power went out, he could keep his fridge and freezer going for “almost a week”

I’m sure by now he’s gotten some of the trees cleared so he can have a garden, as that was also on the list of things he wanted to do to the place.

So he’s probably living as off grid as possible by now, while still using satellite or cellular internet.

It would be weird for me to just out of the blue start talking to him to ask more about it, we were never really “friends” friends, more “he’s friends with my friend so by extension we hang out” which makes it weirder. Not sure why, we just didn’t seem to interact outside of hangouts and group chats. Although if I’m being honest it’s probably because his family is rich so any time he went on about the stuff he’s “built” and “earned” it just rubbed me the wrong way.

But It’s a nice setup for sure.

I’ll be honest, they fucked this game over hard in my opinion.

It really does feel like they separated everyone into teams, and none of the teams spoke to each other once. They all just delivered their chunk of the game without connecting pieces together.

Base building was a nightmare, and that’s the primary reason I downloaded it in the first place.

Then I finished the main quest and spoilers ahead for anyone who cares

Kind of killed literally every desire I had to play the game. Especially when they patched the easily accessed chests that at least gave me a shortcut to some things.

I made some comments on YouTube over the last week about LAPD and Israel, and all of them have been deleted without notice. Not even a warning of “hey you aren’t allowed to talk about that” or “you violated a mysterious rule sometime”

Yeah I am super confused, I just dumped my trash in one of these about an hour ago, and my family had one provided to us by the city in the early 2000s. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen these in TV shows from the 80s as well.

I don’t understand this mentality from people who already have their name out there. You’re supposedly famous and you’re getting mad about being even more famous and recognizable.