The federation changed forever on the day the Enterprise discovered the Planet of Chocolate Air

Pretty terrible movie, all things considered, but it does have a very satisfying ending.

Only the Doctor was sentient

I think it’s fine if they act like highschoolers in a show for highschoolers. It just means that’s not a show that’s for me.

I think you’re selling DS9’s progressiveness short. The federation is portrayed as less progressive, but the message of the show itself is far more progressive than the norm; if anything, it makes the federation standins for moderate/centrist/liberals and calls them out for not being left enough.

For sure! And that scarcity of resources and failing supply chains is a GREAT setting for questing!

A couple thoughts occur:

• If you wanted to justify big cities in wildernesses, you could use the prevalence of monsters to do so. Say it’s just too dangerous to have small villages, and everyone has to spend the night in a walled town/city for their own safety.
• I’m pondering how magic could effect this, too. You might have a whole Town in this ecosystem replaced by just a single wizard, who’s willing to magic up complex tools or luxuries in exchange for an exorbitant payment from the peasants.
• A lot of fantasy settings are lowkey post-apocalyptic, inspired by the Dark Ages and/or The Black Death. You may encounter isolated Villages that are struggling to scrape by as their Town got wiped off the map, or isolated Cities crammed full of starving refugees that fled their Villages.

Could you elaborate? How do their healing systems work? What makes them good?

Do you have a system you like where healing is a good idea? I’m a 3.5 native so I’m kind of used to the philosophy of “the best healing is killing them before you take damage.” But I’m interested in systems design in general and if there’s a particularly good example of doing it better I’d love to learn about it.

I know y’all are talking about like, buying a wish spell, but y’all make it sound like the mom hired a magic gigolo XD

Now you’ve inspired me. I should make a character who’s 1 level in sorcerer, the rest in wizard, and the premise is that they set out to prove everyone wrong that they’re not just going to rely on their inborn talents and they’re ready to do the work!

Really? I actually think it’s one of the strengths of 5e. In 3.5 you just have negative hitpoints down to -10, and that doesn’t scale with level or anything so it’s barely relevant after the first few levels. And it’s nice to not be just DRT when you get downed in combat.

You slightly moved the goalposts there. The assertion is not “Everything is making a political statement” it’s “Everything is political.” Your ikea glass reflects your social class, the international relations between where you are and where it was made. It may have been made by an oppressed person in some third world shithole (or even sweden!) It may even be a political statement, like a designer somewhere made it curvy because he thinks people are more likely to buy something with a “feminine” silhouette.

Well, the goal of rent seeking is to collect money, without giving any products or services in return. And without a product, you don’t need a Product team.

“Selectively simulationist” is a great way to put it. I think everyone falls victim to that from time to time and I’m definitely stealing your turn of phrase.

Disco lost me when I got to the episode where everyone is going to die unless the main character cAn tAlK tO a bOy aT tHe dAnCe!

Lower Decks was fun though. And I’ve watched like, 1 episode of SNW but it was a good pilot. Haven’t plumbed the depths of the rest of nutrek yet.

I was too lazy to make it but I was thinking earlier today of doing a “I hate nutrek because it’s derivative and centrist, you hate it because you are a nazi, we are not the same” meme. (Not that I’m calling you a nazi, this was just an idea I had, not directed at you)

Yes

Ohhhh they hate nutrek, got it.

Some have figured out how to eliminate Product. It’s called rent-seeking behavior or more recently neo-feudalism. The short version is you organize society such that everyone is required to give you all their money all the time or die. See for example the health insurance industry.