“Child pure of heart and innocent of mind. You have caught my attentions, a Unicorn who wants nothing but to live and peace, and to see the joy and love of the innocent as yourself. For your purity of spirit, I shall grant a boon of this magic gun.”

A tale that is perpetually dark in tone becomes tiresome very quickly. It needs to feature the occasional ray of light for contrast and to create a sense of hope. Monsters and other terrors must be offset with creatures that are kind and lovable, giving the characters even more reasons to stand against the darkness. Here are a couple of ways to add glimmers of light to a tragic tale:

• In a land as dreary as Barovia, take the time to describe the occasional scene of beauty, such as a pretty flower growing atop a grave.
• Make sure that the heroes have contact with NPCs who are honest, friendly, and helpful, such as the Martikovs in Vallaki or the Krezkovs in Krezk.

-Curse of Strahd, Introduction. Marks of Horror. 2016.

It’s one of those things where I look at it, and say ‘wow that sucks… But you can’t argue with the results damn, can we workshop a better version of that?’

China doesn’t aim for global hegemony

You are gliding over every single time that Xi Jinping said, out loud, that this is the long term goal? Why wouldn’t you believe him?

Yeah, they couch it carefully, but it’s quite clear, from the China #1 propaganda, that China doesn’t want to uplift anyone else, they want to use their soft power to make neighboring countries dependent on them. They’re following the playbook laid out by Western companies in the 20th century, but organizing it with State controlled corporations.

And as for Singapore, there’s a lot of propaganda from some right-wing Supply-Side economists that mischaracterize that country as being an ideal Capitalist state, while gliding over how the State controls most of the means of production. It isn’t an ideal system, it has many inequities. But it’s an example that serves as a surprising counterpoint to the argument that only free markets can thrive & survive in global capitalism, and components of it could be useful for looking for solutions to the issues with capitalism. Right wing economists do this, so they don’t have to confront how incorrect their argument that Capitalism cannot be reformed with the State taking a direct role in the economy without disaster.

You say that like Russia isn’t Capitalist as all get out.

The only good counterpoint to Capitalism in the modern global landscape is Singapore, and possibly China if you’re feeling extra spicy and support their version of global hegemony.

The modern Russian state is a Fascist Autocracy propped up by Oligarchs. Y’know, what Trump likes.

Edit: Actually I’m going to add Slovenia to that as well, as I had a great time learning about that Jewel of a Country before the Delta Variant absolutely wrecked it.

When I was there in 2018, it was a fantastically eye-opening example of a successful socialist state.

But that’s where my knowledge end on counterpoints to Capitalism, in its varied forms. I’m sure more exist. I’m not an academic on this subject.

I didn’t hand curate them, I just went to google and copy/pasted in a demonstration of the lowest amount of effort I could do to find articles that dispute the narrative here.

Most of these countries have free press, btw. And some articles blame Russia, others give credence to the possibility that Ukraine could have done this, but with the realistic perspective that it’s basically impossible to know.

In fact, reading those stories makes me incredibly skeptical of anyone who doesn’t show uncertainty on this topic. Look at that, I just changed my own view by researching a bit more.

lmao you actually think the BBC is incredible?

Not particularly, they are heavily influenced by the party in power that gets to selectively enforce biased news laws. That was in the order that Google gave it to me with no reordering. BBC is B-Tier for North American news because there is less impetus for political bias. I usually go the Associated Press and The Globe And Mail.

My comment was more to how easy it is to find many news stories covering this from a multitude of perspectives.

And for the record, yes, I do believe that journalistic standards upheld by credible institutions are safeguards against specious speculation and lies. You can phrase that however you’d want, but the conceit of that statement is true.

In order of my google search’s results.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4043221-ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse-theories/

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-says-russia-admits-blowing-up-nova-kakhovka-dam-call-intercepted/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/world/europe/ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65818705

Most of these articles admit that it is kind of impossible to know for sure in the middle of a warzone. It’s as likely that it collapsed due to lack of proper maintenance in the middle of a war.

What’s your source?

Maybe they did the pipeline, but none of that other stuff.

Either way you haven’t actually showed me where you got any of this info.

She’s supporting the Ukrainians tho.

Are you actually saying that they did all this to themselves? That’s what the Russian state has been saying without credible proof.

Edit: I’d like to see where you got your info.

While this is all well and good, I think the OneD&D playtest provided a great fix on the biggest issue I’ve had with the mechanic: Remembering it exists.

Simply stating that on an unmodified 20 or 1 that Inspiration is granted is a fantastic way to remind the GM that they should give this out more often. It’s gotten to the point that in cases where I would have previously given ad-hoc advantage, I now give inspiration where the player can make use of it if they feel like they want or not.

Also I have adopted those rules for both hero points in PF2e, and my regular D&D5e game. I mean both of them.

How it works…

A player rolls a Natural 1 - They get inspiration to use on a future roll. A player rolls a Natural 20 - They choose another player at the table who gets inspiration.

These two together more or less ensures that there’s an amount of inspiration floating around all the time. But this also solves an issue where a hot-streak gets hotter, and someone with luck early on will get more of a spotlight later. By making success something that gives a boon to someone else, you build espirt de corps as everyone celebrates eachothers’ successes more, and the spotlight be more likely to move to another player.

As I said before, this system works fantastic in both Pathfinder and D&D. The only downside is that it feels like PCs have an extra layer of plot armor, but that is mitigated by the fact that it wasn’t my decision that I made capriciously. Also it makes math rocks a little more ‘WEEE’!