I then ran a Mindjammer (Fate) campaign heavily leaning into Iain Banks' culture series (one character played a ship mind). Also recommended, but it is high crunch so mentioning it mostly for other following your post.

My son ran us through a Bulldogs (Fate Core) game and it worked excellently. Contacts and Resources skills were a big feature, zone-based combat suits sci-fi well, and I'm a big fan of making equipment special by giving them aspects (we tagged our spaceship's Fancy Bar so many times ...)

"there is no mechanical reason to coordinate" and his belief that initiative systems cause this seems way off. Having played D&D4E / PF2 with very non-RP players, they are most engaged with each other when discussing tactics within the initiative system - there IS a strong mechanical advantage.

I agree -- even in very trad games, if the players engage with each other, I find the GM only interrupts this for pacing reasons, not because they feel the need to be the conduit. Some GMs are unhappy if the players try to create a new story element, but that's really a different issue.

Time to read the Silverberg short story ‘Caught in the Organ Draft’ !

2/3 10 years ago today I wrote a retrospective on the "Being Poor" piece, talking about why I wrote it, how it had gone out into the world after I wrote it, and my thoughts on some of the responses to it.

whatever.scalzi.com/2015/09/03/b...

One of the longest stories Jesus told, mentioned in multiple gospels, is in fact exactly this.

Even a quick skim of the Bible shows that pretty much every mention of hell or a rough equivalent is linked to rich people and religious people who didn’t actually care for others. Very explicitly. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise

I ran **Nemesis 382** from this collection at Gen Con the year after it came out and had a fantastic time. Players loved it and it had some seriously strong and emotion-filled moments; pretty rare for a Con game. This pot reminds me I should run another of these at another con!

images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5...

My youngest asserted it to me, and requested I validate her statement. I have pledged so to do.

An odd but satisfying game. I think defeating a mime was one of the peak experiences of the game for me. They are More Than A Little Scary.

Young elves paint paintings and grow gardens. Older elves discuss how to adjust river flow so the mountains will look better in a few millennia.

Maybe the way they perceive time changes as they age (5 minutes is a long time to a toddler, but a week seems to fly by for me). Younger elves are focused on daily life, the older ones are more like Ents; focused on centuries and hard to rouse to action

I can't remember who said it, but "Americans are a people who will spend 5 dollars to make sure 1 dollar doesn't go to someone who 'doesn't deserve it'," is one of the best descriptions of this problem I've ever seen.

One reason might be comparing the behavior of rich, entitled politicians who have been given millions by their family, with those who grew up with the need to struggle.