Posts made by Ominous

I lean in the same direction as @Thenomain on this. First, I feel that sapient, tool-using life is very rare to begin with. Land-based life is also likely to be incredibly rare, given that it needs a planet with water but not so much water that there isn't dry land (hard to discover fire, a key component to developing technology, when you're under water (the fact that only oxygen and chlorine support combustion also rules out all other planets that don't have chlorine or oxygen rich atmospheres)), as well as needing a nearby large body to stabilize the tilt of the planet, to help oxygenate the seas, and to create tides for the development of transition zones between land and sea for the evolution of land-based life (https://futurism.com/the-moons-role-in-evolution-2/). Any species that does hit those Goldilocks qualities has to keep from destroying itself, destroying it's biosphere, or being destroyed by existinction events until it can develop sufficient technology. Then that species has to decide it's worth the resources to actually attempt the massive undertaking of reaching out to other species.

I would be surprised if in the entire history of the universe there are more than 100 planets in our galaxy that develop life in our galaxy with the goldilocks qualities of water, dry-land, oxygen, a nearby large body, etc. Out of that only ten survive to sufficient technology. Of those, none of them think tripling their deficits on the off chance other life forms reached the same level of tech in the same millenia as them so they can shake hands with potentially xenocidal civilizations 500 light years away is a good idea, when they have enough domestic problems already or are happy living in their utopian VR society. Honestly, I fully expect us to plug our brains into our computers in the next 100 years and leave the physical world behind, assuming we survive as a species long enough.

Basically, I subscribe to the Rare Earth Hypothesis, the Great Filter theory, and what the article in the OP has as possibilities 2.2 through 2.5, only I think there are multiple Great Filters with the final filter being that tech has an end point and doesn't perpetually keep getting better. Eventually you hit the wall of what is possible to engineer and it's not good enough for feasible interstellar travel (outside of generation ships or suspended animation) or communication, but it is good enough to build a Matrix that isn't a shithole 1990s simulator with Keanu Reeves as it's savior.

Addendum: I'm not arguing life is incredibly rare. I think life is likely very common in the universe. Sapient, tool-using, aerobic, land-based life that exists long enough to develop advanced technology, exists in the same time period as us, and wants to reach out to us is what is non-existent.

That depends on the mindset of the antagonist. If this is Song of Ice and Fire RPG or old-school D&D with morale rolls, then, yes, antagonists flee and surrender, because death sucks. If it's CoC, Nyalarthotep thinks it's what you call funny that you expect it to have this human emotion called fear. That's the thing about horror - it deals with things with alien mindsets. Even a human psychopath is so outside the norm that they're barely comprehensible to regular folks. What scares you shitless is a Tuesday to them.

So, no, in your example, I would say the demon doesn't care about you sending it back to hell. The fact that you can't reason with it or intimidate it is part of the horror.

@misadventure Absolutely, but that's true in most D&D games I run too. In a horror game the threat to the PCs shouldn't even be from a regular Joe NPC. If you're referring to the use of NPCs as allies for the PCs, then, yes, they should 'nope' right the fuck out the moment things get spooky.

Addressing the monster of the week vs. long running plot question, a mixture of both seems ideal for most MUs (and TV shows). Having a long term threat running in the background is good, but you need to throw the occasional, easily averted Boogeyman at the PCs now and then to mix things up.

In the last thread on this topic, I proposed that, instead of social skills being involved in social combat with die rolls, they be linked to getting access to resources. Essentially social combat would become bribes between players. The player with high social skills would have access to more resources that they could then give to other players to get what they want.

My go-to for horror tabletop is CoC, so generally I lean more towards the inevitability of death and aim for one character dying per two sessions.

I have a lot of these Abandon Thread gifs for some reason.