It’s a little bit hard to say, as - like you say - the political landscape can fundamentally shift in four years.
That said, I am very much hoping that a labor-derived leader might stand up in the next few years. I’m not aware of one just yet, but that is where I’d look, particularly as automation and concentration of wealth become steadily greater problems.
I hadn’t heard of her before, but after looking her up - I admit, I her record has some strong points.
Right? It has such a distinctive look.
Especially on this site. It’s honestly rather frustrating.
Here’s my thoughts from when I ran GoSM:
Ghosts isn’t really a campaign. It’s a really un-connected series of individual mini-dungeon crawls. In particular, if you were hoping for a focus to be on the three factions within Saltmarsh itself, I will warn you that almost none of the modules have anything to do with that. The leadership divisions in Saltmarsh are just kind of there to help DMs build on their own homebrew stuff. Despite much being made of the Sea Princes, they’re more or less unmentioned in the rest of the campaign, as are the other two factions.
Notably, the modules’ antagonists break down into two major categories:
In my case, I decided I liked undead as a final antagonist better than an Aboleth. The entire thing became a plot by Orcus - my ultimate BBEG - to drown and slaughter everything in the Saltmarsh region. Everyone else - Syrgaul Tammeraut, the Aboleth S’gothgah, the Sahuagin - were either intentionally or unintentionally working towards Orcus’ goals, some being duped into doing so. This required some reskinning - the generic evil cult in ‘Isle of the Abbey’ and the Lolth priest in ‘Salvage Operation’ became Orcus worshippers.
In your case, if you want to focus on the three factions of Saltmarsh, I think you could go two ways:
In either case, the political side of Saltmarsh is relatively undeveloped, giving you lots of room to work in, but also lots of work to do if that’s what you want.
Back around 2010 or so, I discovered that if you had a physical PC game that was also in Steam’s store, you could type in the serial number on the game box and it would register and add it to your Steam library.
WAIT WHAT.
Does this happen even if the game wasn’t on Steam at time of purchase so long as it has a Steam version now? Because that would be amazing.
I’m frankly rather concerned about the idea of crowdsourcing or voting on “reliability”, because - let’s be honest here - Lemmy’s population can have highly skewed perspectives on what constitutes “accurate”, “unbiased”, or “reliable” reporting of events. I’m concerned that opening this to influence by users’ preconceived notions would result in a reinforced echo chamber, where only sources which already agree with their perspectives are listed as “accurate”. It’d effectively turning this into a bias bot rather than a bias fact checking bot.
Aggregating from a number of rigorous, widely-accepted, and outside sources would seem to be a more suitable solution, although I can’t comment on how much programming it would take to produce an aggregate result. Perhaps just briefly listing results from a number of fact checkers?
Reminds me of the sketches on the covers of some of the older sci-fi compendiums I have. In a good way - it’s got that sketchy feel I like.
Economic points are limited to plans gestures about taxes. Nothing about tackling corporate-induced inflation / shrinkflation.
Nothing about supporting workers’ rights and aiding labor organizations.
Nothing about building a stronger regulatory framework and tackling loophole use by corporations and ultrawealthy.
Nothing here on continuing to support US allies and build international partnerships.
I recognize none of these are exactly keystone domestic culture war issues, and also all more or less reflect where she stood on Biden’s major pushes. But I’m still disappointed these all go unmentioned.
And to the shock of literally no one…
I am tinkering with something similar right now, with the elf-equivalents being virtually illegal outside the borders of their own empire.
So, here’s what I would suggest you consider:
First, discuss it with your players and make sure you’re not going to piss any of them off by doing this. If any of them were planning on playing said race, make sure they’re okay with the impact on their play style.
Consider the storytelling conflicts you want to explore with this. What encounters do you want to put your players through, and why? What themes are you looking to explore?
Consider the larger impact on other parts of your world. Try to make this more than a point that exists in isolation and a vacuum.
Welp. Since Hasbro overall seems intent on running its properties into the ground, I have little doubt the next one will continue the cycle of enshittification. I’d love to be wrong, but I doubt it.
This is exactly why single chunky bosses drive me nuts. I once watched a rogue annihilate a major chapter boss with a single opportunity attack and some very lucky rolls.
I think this would be more meaningful if things cash flow and hirelings had any reasonable purpose in 5e. But the reality is most players will have a pretty stable cashflow by level 5, and most campaigns simply don’t have a meaningful role for Hirelings to play.
So like, I could see this being a thing in Waterdeep Dragon Heist, which encourages you to acquire a home base and then take a side in a gang war. One building, 4-5 rooms acting as a bastion for each player? I guess. But it’s essentially making mechanics for something a lot of DMs did already, and a lot of other campaigns simply don’t have a good basis for this.
I’m also kind of underwhelmed by the attacks mechanic. “A random special facility is shut down for your next bastion turn”? So like, I can’t ever actually lose anything I put into the bastion, it just stays there even if I have literally no defenses, the attackers overrun the place, and squat in it for 7 days?