Calvin Ball; usual rules apply.
25 Likes
They were role playing games, in the play by post style (more or less.) The first game we played was set in the world of Highlander, and the second was called Space Abbey, which was a sort of futuristic space opera/Downton Abbey hybrid… and they were wonderful fun! I was always amazed at what kind of amazing stories my fellow players came up with.
They’re still up on our site, and I believe most if not all threads involved are tagged with badass (the system used) and/or the Games category. @Messana used to run them, but they haven’t been around for a while. 
31 Likes
I always used to wonder what the “badass” tag was for.
They sound like fun. Would I find it if I scrolled through the games thread?
and
24 Likes
Here you go:
I get that it makes mathematical sense, but I find log scale graphs to be difficult to parse mentally.
26 Likes
I can do better than that. Here are the starter posts for both games:
I’m not sure how much sense they make to non-players; I once tried to read an old game at TOS and quickly got confused, but I think that was before I started playing the games here. And for each game there were a number of DM threads, some with mechanics and some with player and character interactions that can’t be shared.
25 Likes
Hi
One of the challenges I’m having as a newb here is it’s difficult to wade through the many posts.
Too many choices - like surfing cable listings.
There’s utility in having a handful of ‘contributors’ - like TOS - writing short articles on a main page. I find it much more approachable.
No idea if it’s technically doable or even broadly desirable. Thx
Ps - plug for more reaction emojis!! 
21 Likes
This is very cool to know.
I have never really been a gamer (I tried desktop D&D way back in the early 80’s, and certainly no math wiz, but I do find the whole thing fascinating.
So, thank you very much for this.
21 Likes
Y’know, I’m the exact opposite.
I like the fact that most of what those contributors on TOS would bring are still brung (?) but are now folded into existing topics.
Like Thom Dunn, who would post almost exclusively about music - here you’ll find it in the “What are you listening to” thread or the RIP thread, among others.
Or Carly, who would post mostly gentle fluffy stuff - go to Odd Stuff, Found Randomly or Unicorns instead.
Don’t get me started on Ellsworth Toohey!
There was a lot of doubling-up over there.
I use a laptop to access this site, so I don’t know if there’s a difference with the mobile experience but, on the whole, I’m quite happy that there’s not a new topic every ten minutes.
I have my favourites - HCR, Political 'toons, I won’t name them all, and I have had a couple weeks away from the keyboard, so even those topics are stretching my capability to keep up.
As for contributors - I think the folk here are doing just a splendid job.
32 Likes
Honestly, I like this place better.
35 Likes
24 Likes
25 Likes
24 Likes
25 Likes
I get that, for sure. Sometimes I’m scrolling through the list of topics and see that I haven’t checked in on the Elon Musk thread for like 327 posts. Or a number of other topics that happens with, and sometimes I think, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that thread. I should catch up.” Or sometimes, I want to post something, and it might take me a bit to figure out, and find, which topic I should post it in.
But…to be honest, the slightly chaotic nature of this system works, I think. It kinda reminds me of earlier days of BBS’s and forums (fora? formapodes?). I kinda like it. You have to have some intention to post something here, and I think that actually helps filter out the fluff.
28 Likes
My strategy is something like this:
For threads I am particularly keen on/active in, I set them to notify me when there’s activity. That way it always shows in my notifications view and I don’t have to go hunting for it.
For everything else, I just scroll through recent activity and decide on the fly whether it looks interesting or not. (Or if I’m bored I might just poke my head in anyway.)
YMMV.
Yeah, I hear you. Sometimes I just throw in the towel on those super busy topics and skip to the end to view the most recent comments. 
There’s always a risk of FOMO there but I’ve learned to cope with it.
I recall that we as a community discussed something like this early on, and I think the idea was eventually abandoned. It wouldn’t be hard from a logistical level to have a #boing like area that has topic restriction limited to a set of writers, but I don’t personally feel that something like that really fits with the site’s ethos and purpose. If someone wants to write long-form stuff, anybody is free to do this and tag it appropriately.
TOP was a message board bolted onto a highly visible and curated blog. The BBS community grew organically from that into its own unique and special place. Despite all of this, the site’s elites never let us forget that we were at best considered tolerated guests. Some were openly hostile to the BBS community, which was in no small part how this place came to be.
This place has always been community first and foremost. A labor of love to allow a bunch of weirdos to talk to one another. It wasn’t a sink meant only to drive engagement and traffic toward something that made money for the elites. I hope this never changes.
Anyway, that’s my perspective.
28 Likes
20 Likes
So, like, 90 minutes or so? Some of these (Goddam Trump Administration being the biggest one) accumulate posts at an amazing rate. I try to keep up, but sometimes real life gets in the way!
28 Likes
you knew it was under there.
15 Likes