Are you seriously conflating communism with authoritarianism?

It’s like you guys went through the red scare and instead of figuring it was a stupid insane witch hunt without any real foundation, decided that the republican definition of “communism = evil” was actually true, but you wanted in anyway. It’s ridiculous.

I actually don’t think this is true. I used to think it was true, but after seeing more and more people I think it’s simpler than that. It’s a belief in the justness of hierarchy— the “great chain of being” from medieval thought, where people on the top both deserve to be there by right of being there, and it is right to submit to them.

On a certain level, I even see the point. Despite anarchist clams to the contrary, leaders are important, necessary even to accomplish anything greater than a single person can manage. Even kids can see this first hand the first time they get assigned a group project by their teacher, or try to win a game of sports. But it’s too easy to twist “we need a good leader” into the tautology of “the leader is good, right, and justified because he’s the leader”.

If everyone rebelled against leadership all the time, there’d be no leadership, and people do need leaders. But at the same time, leaders can be or become shitstains that need to be rebelled against. It’s difficult, and I don’t think being reductive about the difficulty is right.

In case anyone was ignorant amidst the jokes, the purpose of both flag bearers and drummers was basically communication, and was utterly crucial for command and control of an army. It wasn’t just an honor thing, though adding honor on top made sure that soldiers wouldn’t abandon it.

I had one of these in my last game. It wasn’t as obvious as some of the others being commented on here, but there were still just two pieces to put together.

Fact 1: the players learned that the evil cultists are being lied to by the cult leader— the promised vision of a glorious future that solves all the world’s problems is not, amazingly enough, a genuine glimpse of the future, no matter how emotionally fulfilling and sensorially overwhelming it seemed to them. They have complete proof of this.

Fact 2: evil cultist minion who is obtaining godlike powers from a ritual has written in her diary about how horrified she is at all the terrible things that they’ve been doing in the cult, and that it’s only the complete certainty that she has of the promised future where all the world’s problems are solved that keeps her going. If there was even a single crack in this belief, she wouldn’t be able to go on doing all the horrible evil shit the cult leader is having them do.

Can you guys put the two pieces together? Please? Can I remind you of the two pieces of this puzzle again? How about a third time? No? The only solution you see is to kill the cultist after she’s obtained godlike powers? Ooookaaayyy….

Look, I know this is a common repeated question in response to this, to the point of being a meme. But honestly, sex is private, and you know it. Try having sex in the middle of a shopping mall and ask again. That’s acceptable in approximately zero places across the world, and it’s not because sex is bad. It’s just not the place for it, it’s an intimate thing.

Next you might say “cutting people in half isn’t acceptable in a shopping mall either”… but bad things need to be discussed in public to make sure people understand what’s bad. Communicating bad things, and what IS bad, is an important part of society. And again, sex is not bad, so it’s not typically included in this.

The dog always suspected…

Demonstrably true. Try saying anything contrary to a tankie talking point on .ml and see how long before you get banned. May I suggest “Russia was wrong for invading Ukraine” for starters, or “China committed unjustifiable atrocities against peaceful protestors”.

Deep simulations appeal to me, and I haven’t heard of this game before. Is it… is it any good?

To clarify, don’t use nonsense gobbledygook words. Do speak slowly, pitched/melodically, drawing out vowels, and with special emphasis on key words, and using shorter, simpler sentences— which tends to be instinctual for most parents. It’s known as Child-Directed Speech or CDS in linguistics and has been proven to be beneficial for the child. Do not try to avoid this instinct by forcing yourself to speak as if to an adult, it’s built in for a reason.

Spoken like a dog lover who doesn’t get cats. Many… dare I say even most cats would. Not constantly, not in an obsessively needy way, but they do love you and want to be around you and want to know where you are. They do actually care.