Ex pat rates are on the rise!
More realistically the ability to create a competing forum with hypothetically more ethical moderators is easier than creating a country in which to live with a more ethical government. Also the barrier of entry to website ownership vs international travel is pretty spread.
I'm going to take a swing at point #2 and see if I'm right.
When dealing with any community primarily based on debate/communication there is an issue of spirit of a rule vs the written rule. A classic example of this is the Supreme Court stating you know it when you see it in relation to... Obscenity (had to google that one). So in the event someone is clearly (to the moderator) violating the spirit of the rule the enforcement is done whether or not it violates the written rule.
While this obviously opens up to the favoritism, double standards, and tyranny angle of concern the answer to that is simple. If you believe the moderators would execute the spirit of the rule inappropriately than why would you stay? Just because they have written in that they won't be limited to the letter of the rule but the spirit of it doesn't mean they are seizing power. There is no higher authority on the forum than the moderators so them being up front and telling you that technicalities won't save you doesn't mean if they had not been up front about it that they would have restrained themselves or acted differently.
TLDR - If you believe the moderators would be unethical or unfair than any answer to the question is moot.
@solstice What is your budget like because there are some sound proofing options that should be able to mitigate 30% of your noise for 1000 USD with a normal sized bedroom.
My desired experience is to escape the burdens of a dissatisfying work, family, and sex life to replace it with simulated romances that I carefully craft to fulfill my emotional needs. Then, should I find disappointment will attack it as a personal slight against me and then obsess over needing to find "safe" roleplay, which means pigeonholing my online activities to players and roleplay situations that will fulfill these needs, but do so under the guise of it being their fault and not mine.
TLDR - Roleplay is Escapism
Enervated_Nihilist <--- reddit user name
Enervation <--- new account
Only activity, upvoting Rememberance who had complaints about Clarity and Kestrel and was stating that Azazello was respecting her boundaries in Haven because etc etc. Seems like a fairly intuitive leap to make.
Is the Shopping Cart theory even real, it seems like a kind of tongue in cheek this is something we see everyday thing to make a point. People don't take overly simplified examples as real do they?
Why BDs and why the topic matter they selected for them?
Cyberpunk as a genre is about the commodification of humanity and everything else.
The ability to save and replay and edit a life experience for consumer pleasure is commodification.
SPOILER
SPOILER
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SPOILER
There is a story separate from the main storyline wherein you are hired to kill someone. When you track them down you find they are very odd and have the crazy or holy thing going on. You find out that a BD production company (a corp) is getting this guy out of jail and off death row because he wants to be crucified for real as part of a message he believes he needs to send to the world. This man is a murderer who killed several people.
There are multiple points in this storyline wherein you can try and convince him to stop. I didn't. I opted not to encourage or discourage but to support. As a player I wanted to see whether this character would realize he is being played. This side mission also inspires a lot of dialogue with Johnny which is interesting.
At the end of this storyline you opt into telling him he shouldn't NOT be crucified and can even HAMMER THE NAILS INTO HIM YOURSELF while parts of scripture are recited. It is 100% super duper ultra clear that the corporation paying for this and recording this BD is doing so because he is a true believer and sincerity is something in high value for BDs.
SPOILERS DONE
BDs are a cheap and dirty way to get very in your face with players that peoples lives and experiences and even their sincere beliefs are turned into experiences/commodities not just for corporations but for the population that buy them from corporations. Thus why CDPR picks very obviously morally wrong things.
Cyberpunk is not really an open world game. It's a game with a story. In the underlying tabletop game which Cyberpunk 2077 is based on there are more stats than the 6 you have access too.
They restrict these stats because they have to do with who you are as a character and despite all the dialogue options and life path choices you can make with V the developers clearly retain the creative control of what story they are telling with that character.
Why does this matter?
That BD section is part of the game. It's part of the narrative of the game. You can argue it's almost a required portion of the game. This is the same game where I can run over an entire crowd of civilians and then just outrun the police. The same game where I can gun down an enemy and see they are clearly still alive on the ground (but incapped) and put one in their head (you know they were alive because dmg will appear when you shoot the body and they stop moving).
You cannot tell me that watching a BD snuff film is more morally hazardous than all the wonton violence I can get involved in. Like there is literally
I don't know how spoilers work, but if I did I'd finish the above thought.
Is Potato client being maintained for new Mac releases?
As a note for anyone that is excited about Savage Worlds.
PEG has partnered with Foundry VTT to release an official system module. What does this mean? Means the rules are all setup with character sheets and item tables and the whole shebang.
I'd like to know more about this Zorro reference. Why Zorro specifically?
I don't know about everyone else but having the actual dice math can be an aid for RP. As a writer if I succeed at something I shouldn't succeed at and do so by a wide margin I might describe that differently than if I scrap by with a just enough roll to succeed.
Likewise if I fail by a huge amount vs a small amount on something I should be a master in that might alter how I describe the situation and what led to the failure.
Maybe I'm just a lazy writer and like to lean on RNG as a way to give me ideas but I certainly find value in knowing the # or a more gradient success/failure would achieve the same thing. I guess =(
My currenty MODs list.
The Furnace
Pings
Beyond20 Companion module
Are all in my "required" list.
https://foundryvtt.com/purchase/
Black Friday sale 25% off Foundry!
I made a foundry post sometime last year, this year, if anyone wants to try foundry or do a one shot of dnd 5e or just get a little hands on time with it. I am happy to open my server and let you faff around or run a one shot for you and your friends just to push Foundry into your orbit. It's a great platform and the 1 time purchase / you own all your shit and if the "servers shut down" you don't lose it is a big selling point for me.
You can self contain on Foundry. It has full sheet, item, spell support for custom or book content. I choose to maintain dndbeyond because I find that the usability they provide exceeds the benefits of being self contained.
Foundry is a 100% standalone and ready to rock program. They just have a lot of community maintained modules that enable a wide variety of DM options for HOW to run and organize their game.
EDIT - There is a dnd 5e system module (comes with the download because it's the flagship system for vtt atm) that has every allowed by the OGL that wizard's of the coast provides. There are community maintained modules to expand this and you can equally expand this yourself.
Lessons on ROLL20 and ethics.
Roll20 locks content behind paywalls. They lock stuff like fog of war, dynamic lighting, blah blah blah. They do not however -really- lock the content. Instead they just toggle a little thing on your browser and enable it.
A program called tampermonkey allows you to just turn on everything with the appropriate script.
Should you feel so inclined you could run this program, gain access to every single adventure module on the website, and proceed to port it using one of several modules that allow you to import entire campaigns from roll20 to foundry. Ostensibly these modules are to remove transition pains or to allow people to buy roll20 adventures and port them or use this script and port them.
Once ported you will have all tokens, all maps (with walls), and all the handouts etc etc that you would have with the roll20 adventure module.
There is also a module to port characters or NPCs from dndbeyond into Foundry so the character or monster sheets are within the platform instead of say on dndbeyond (how I run my games).
The group that maintains the tampermonkey script to enable roll20 paywall removal has stated they are switching to supporting foundry going forward. Foundry is kind of taking the vtt space by storm with a lot of creators opting into its environment.
https://www.patreon.com/kakaroto
http://vttassets.com/
edit - Note if you do not want to circumvent roll20 paywall and do not want to BUY roll20 adventures to port VTTassets.com is creating adventure modules with community created VTT ready maps with walls, lighting, notes, etc etc even tokens.
VTTs generally do not have transferability. The benefit of buying a book on say dndbeyond is that some people have integrated dndbeyond with VTTs like foundry / roll20.
Normally when you buy an online handbook you get access to character sheet support so drop down, interactive, options. You also get access to monster stats, tokens, pictures. You get access to quick searching rules, feats, class abilities, etc. You will sometimes get some sample maps.
I would still recommend Foundry.
It integrates with dndbeyond which is a company that makes managing character sheets for players and DMs as easy as possible. It has all the rules present and easy to look up. It also has encounter creators and Foundry itself has roll tables and as mentioned before it has relationships with DnD patreon creators to provide fully ready to go maps with tokens with stats all in there.
I think roll20 would accomplish the same thing but be ready to $$$ every now and again since what you're asking for is basically content. Community or Creator provided plug and play content when it comes to aid in creating stuff on the fly now sheet management.