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  1. RangerWickett

    Brainstorming a sci-fi setting, and justifying interstellar war

    I just personally find the whole, "Nobody saved any records on how to build reactors" or whatever to be pretty silly. Disrupting supply chains is a thing, sure. Like, one narrative I read about the 'Bronze Age collapse' is really just that a few sources of raw materials had local disruptions...
  2. RangerWickett

    Brainstorming a sci-fi setting, and justifying interstellar war

    This reminds me of when a friend ran a D&D campaign where we all had to play lizardmen. Our city of lizardmen was going to have a big Aztec-esque sporting event against other lizardmen to see if we could go to the championships, where they'd play the forces of the dead to keep the sun from being...
  3. RangerWickett

    Brainstorming a sci-fi setting, and justifying interstellar war

    So yeah, there could be lots of worlds that are kinda inconsequential. People colonized them to look for resources, and you might have thousands of millions living there, and no one bothers to invest in major defensive weaponry because no one has a reason to attack. Most places would just do...
  4. RangerWickett

    Brainstorming a sci-fi setting, and justifying interstellar war

    I like the Balkanized idea. Even if you do have large interstellar nations, the conflicts would happen in places that are not in alliance with them, sorta like what we have these past few decades in eastern Europe. As for rare resources, a deep dive into the Battletech wiki reveals that someone...
  5. RangerWickett

    Brainstorming a sci-fi setting, and justifying interstellar war

    I recently got bit by the nostalgia bug for Battletech. Big robots, no magic or psychic mumbo jumbo. Fun times. But thinking back on the novels I read in the 90s and the video games over the past couple decades, and comparing them to the understanding I have today about how war works, and my...
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  7. RangerWickett

    ZEITGEIST PG Kasvarina - Is it doable?

    At what point? In canon he tries to rescue her and gets fed up that she's not the woman he remembered. He thinks she's weak, but he'll obey her instructions. I suppose a PC Kasvarina might try to bring Asrabey along as extra firepower, but you could play up his ego. If she insists on having...
  8. RangerWickett

    Simple, colorful mechanics to run a game for non-gamers?

    I work at a library, and a coworker and I had a conversation about me possibly running a 1 hour game for some staff who've never played RPGs before, as part of a series of staff members sharing their hobbies. I've run simple systems before, but how simple do you think I could go and still have...
  9. RangerWickett

    Level Up (A5E) Planestrider: Choose A Page And I'll Post It!

    Someone pick 15 for Faolyn. She needs our help!
  10. RangerWickett

    D&D General Why is D&D becoming increasingly gay and left-wing?

    A lot of folks struggle to understand their sexuality and gender identity in a society that is often hostile to not following cishet binary norms RPGs let you dabble and try out different identities, which probably entices more LGBT folks to keep playing.
  11. RangerWickett

    Level Up (A5E) Monstrous Menagerie II: Hordes & Heroes

    If by 'got better' you mean 'got turned into a giant mantis,' maybe.
  12. RangerWickett

    Level Up (A5E) Monstrous Menagerie II: Hordes & Heroes

    Don't laugh, everyone, but: ants. Seriously, my favorite little block of text I wrote was the sample encounters and treasure for fighting giant ants. ... Eclipsar Fey dragon Giant Ants Penitent Mantis Runic Guardian Vaknid
  13. RangerWickett

    How Generative AI's work

    There are billions of other humans already. We are already not special.
  14. RangerWickett

    How Generative AI's work

    Well, okay, the original poster asked us to keep this focused on the tech, not the ethics. My bad. I've got concerns, but I should start a separate thread about those. Sooooo, like, what other interesting discussions are to be had about how the technology works? Like, I heard a podcast talk...
  15. RangerWickett

    Level Up (A5E) Monstrous Menagerie II: Hordes & Heroes

    I really like what I wrote for this book, and I hope people enjoy fighting them, but dang, I don't get to talk about it for months!
  16. RangerWickett

    How Generative AI's work

    'How it works' includes the social context of its operation. If we were talking about how internal combustion engines work, once we got past the initial mechanics and maybe chemistry, I think it would prove useful to talk about the extraction of fossil fuels, and the designs of different...
  17. RangerWickett

    How Generative AI's work

    Fair enough. Seems like the energy consumption issue is not a real thing to worry about. So I will continue to focus on the exploitative and undemocratic nature of centralizing power through automation without checks and balances to ensure the output is used for the public good, or to share...
  18. RangerWickett

    How Generative AI's work

    My understanding, which could admittedly be flawed, is that currently the use of large scale computing to generate images and texts is less energy efficient than human labor. My concern is that we're getting mediocre outputs, and it's possible that even if green energy is being used for it...
  19. RangerWickett

    How Generative AI's work

    I was aware of these details. What I'm interested in seeing reporting about is how much electricity it costs to do these processes, as opposed to the energy cost to use a human mind.
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