“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

-Gandalf the Grey / J R R Tolkein

Only you can really answer that question, but here’s my take at least.

When we are young, the world feels magical and mysterious. We are convinced that there’s dragons living in the mountains, and kraken in the oceans. We are so sure that we spotted a fairy in the garden or a mermaid at the pool And then there’s the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause who leave an obvious trace. But as we get older, that magic seems to fade. We instead see the world for the boring corporate reality that it is. And yet there’s still a part of us that hopes. Hopes that Bigfoot is walking around out there somewhere. Hope that Nessy really is swimming around in some undiscovered cave network beneath Scotland. Hope that the fuzzy photo of a smudge really is an Alian spacecraft come to make our world feel magical again.

As the great Sir Terry Pratchet once wrote

“All right," said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

“So we can believe the big ones?”

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

I once worked with a guy who did the opposite of this. He just randomly mentioned that he had a twin brother one day, which no-one believed given how long we had all known him. But he persisted by casually talking about him in regular conversation. Nothing overly noticeable, just enough to plant the idea in people’s mind that he did indeed have a twin brother. Around the same time he started growing his beard out and really made it his personality for several months to be the guy with a beard. It all came together one day, he finished his shift around lunch time and left like usual with his glorious beard. Unbeknownst all but a select few of us, he hadn’t actually left. He left the store and drove his car around the corner to the other car park then used the sink in a nearby public toilet to completely shave his beard off and changed his clothes. Then he just walked in through the front door, introduced himself as the name he had been using for his fake twin brother and asked if his brother was there. He always had a reputation as a joker, but I don’t think any of us truly believed anything he said after that. Not that he cared. It still cracked him up years later when folks were telling the tale to the newbies.

I know the feeling. I payed for a new computer with specs higher than needed for any new release game at full settings, and yet the main game I have played on it so far was built for Windows 3 and is best played in a web browser.

I’ve been thinking the same thing. While I like the idea that publishers are responsible for maintaining the needed infrastructure, I can only see that resulting in even more predatory pricing to cover the costs and unreasonable pressure on smaller publishers leading them to fold and leave behind the greedy ones

No. They would rather effective age verification that doesn’t negatively impact the privacy and liberties of their users. They want a solution, not just a ham fisted excuse to start building the foundations of a social credit system

All three corporations involved are scumbags trying to game the broken legal system to profit at the expense of the consumer. None of them deserve your support. You should be able to buy what you want and emjoy, in a manner that’s convenient for you, at a reasonable price, without having to navigate a labyrinth of corporate deals and user agreements.

8

I agree about not using it just to disagree with an opinion, but I do think the ability to downvote is very important. It just needs to be clear that it’s supposed to be used to reduce the impact of stuff this is either harmful or just distracts from the conversation.

If I’m in a thread talking about what the best flavor of milkshake is, I will absolutely upvote someone claiming that chocolate is the best even though they are “objectively” wrong. They are however engaging with the conversation. On the other hand, someone who comes in saying that they hate milkshakes and prefer lemonade, while they’re not exactly wrong in having that opinion, it would be worthy of a downvote because they’re in the wrong place for that comment.

And then there’s the bots/people that if they lost the ability to ever talk again, the world would be a better place. Never feel sorry for downvoting them.

Disgusting. People like that are the reason that No D&D is better than bad D&D.

This exactly. I make a note of ruling out things like this at session zero when I DM and also help others to identify their limits. I’ve had people ask why I make such a big deal out of it and my answer is always “because I’ve seen what happens if I don’t.”

I mean, as a long time D&D player, this would be a pretty accurate adaptation of some of the tables I’ve played at.