Remember the people who created malicious libraries that ChatGPT made up and suggested, in the hopes someone would blindly install them? You can do this a lot easier here. Check what websites this tends to hallucinate when typing “google” “youtube” “facebook” etc. and if any of them don’t exist yet, register that address and host a phishing version of the corresponding site there.
Same. I had PayPal do an automated charge back because their system thought I was doing something fraudulent when I wasn’t. Steam blocked my account.
Talking to support and re-buying said game did fix the issue for me.
I’d argue that with their definition of bots as “a software application that runs automated tasks over the internet” and later their definition of download bots as “Download bots are automated programs that can be used to automatically download software or mobile apps.”, automated software updates could absolutely be counted as bot activity by them.
Of course, if they count it as such, the traffic generated that way would fall into the 17.3% “good bot” traffic and not in the 30.2% “bad bot” traffic.
Looking at their report, without digging too deep into it, I also find it concerning that they seem to use “internet traffic” and “website traffic” interchangeably.
Without knowing any specifics of the TOS or the exact setup beyond what I could gather in this thread: generally speaking they could still send you a bill through email or otherwise.
After that, if you’re not paying up, they might be able to successfully get the money out of you through court regardless, depending on a few factors. What’s more likely for smaller sums is that they’ll just drop it and ban you though.
IANAL of course.
Out of curiosity, what was your original choice and why do you think it’s not a good fit anymore?
That was a response I got from ChatGPT with the following prompt:
Please write a one sentence answer someone would write on a forum in a response to the following two posts:
post 1: “You sure? If it’s another bot at the other end, yeah, but a real person, you recognize ChatGPT in 2 sentences.”
post 2: “I was going to disagree with you by using AI to generate my response, but the generated response was easily recognizable as non-human. You may be onto something lol”
It’s does indeed have an AI vibe, but I’ve seen scammers fall for more obvious pranks than this one, so I think it’d be good enough. I hope it fooled at least a minority of people for a second or made them do a double take.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that too—there’s a distinct ‘AI vibe’ that comes through in the generated responses, even if it’s subtle.
Or “watch”. That way they don’t have to make it obvious that their customers won’t own it but still don’t straight up lie.
It usually happens a lot faster in video games than 3 sessions in. If it happens later in a video game, it’s usually a very short, very temporary scene of depowerment.
I had a whole paragraph typed out on my phone but didn’t like most of it. By now many other players said most of what was in there already before I had the chance to proofread and reword it. The gist of it was though: Don’t alter player characters or take their power away without at least one of those three being true:
You might argue that picking that fight that would get them sent to hell would qualify as #2. But with you planning it out ahead of time it’s less them doing something dumb and more the DM guiding them to do something dumb.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt of only 3 hour sessions and ignoring the time they planned out their characters, you let them play with their characters for around 6 hours by now and it’ll probably be another hour or two until they “die”. This might sound harsh but even with you backtracking on this, seriously entertaining this idea in the first place worries me about what else you might have in store.
Regarding the “OP staff of fire” one of your players has: Did you talk to that player about it in private? I find that usually players respond well to the DM being open about something being so overpowered it warps the entire campaign to the point where you have to design every encounter around it. I’d recommend approaching them about it in private, and not at the (virtual?) table when everyone’s eager to play already.
Maybe you could just get the player on board to trade the item in for something less disruptively powerful. Essentially nullifying their magic item by being in hell where every enemy is fire-immune while everyone else still has some useful, fun magic toy feels uncool too after all.
Edit: and a player who wouldn’t agree to “Hey, your item is so strong I have to design everything around it so you don’t just steamroll everything. Can we, for example, have you meet a merchant where your character trades it for something else?” would react HORRIBLY to having it and all levels taken by force to the point where they’ll just quit.
In Roguelikes and Roguelike-adjenct games there are also a few games that get close. (I’d even argue some totally eclipse SV/Terraria in that regard, but that depends on your definition.) Some, but not all, of them are even completely free and open source.
Off the top of my head, a few examples would include Dwarf Fortress, UnReal World and Nethack. Maybe some Space Station 13 servers if you count that too.
This all turned out a bit rambly, gonna send it anyway. I hope you can get some positives out of it if you do decide to read it. The last three (real) paragraphs are more structured, so if you’re only gonna read part of it, make it that part.
I have noticed that playing on Foundry (or roll20 or any other VTT software) often leads to more video-gamey/war-gamey campaigns. VTTs assist the DM and players with a lot of the gamey aspects, but offer much less assistance, if any, for the other aspects of ttrpgs. This leads to a lot of the potential issues you described. In my experience, having virtual battle-map after battle-map (or a single large one) thrown at you leads to reduced creativity, especially in newer players who do have experience playing computer games.
It takes both time and conscious effort to realize that what’s in front of you is not the actual game being played but just a projection. This counts for both sides of the DM screen. Some people will never clear that hurdle or even realize it’s there. That is fine for some people who do love the video-gamey aspects but not for others who want the opposite, or at least more of a balance.
For example, personally I also DM a Pathfinder campaign on Foundry and I constantly have to remind some of my players that they don’t need to click on all the relevant buttons the system already has programmed in. They can just say what they’re doing and do a naked roll if finding the button takes more than a second.
In regards to your last paragraph. You did get an in-game reason from your DM, although they were a bit indirect with it. Your DM telling you you might have to roll up a new character also means your in-game reason is: “I feel like I might die if I try this.” My advice in that specific situation would be to lead by example and roleplay your character going through those thoughts/emotions. I know it can be awkward, might even get a giggle or two from the other people around if nobody else has done any roleplaying yet this session or campaign, but someone has to make the first step.
Also don’t forget that the players have a lot of power in shaping the game. You do not have to explore a huge cave. You can walk out at any time, go to a town and talk to people instead. It’s kind of a dick move though if you let your DM prepare this cave for days, letting them believe that’s what you were interested in, only to then not engage with it. Of course that requires all the players (or at least a good number of them) to be on board. To find out what you all want to get out of this game together, communication outside the game is required.
I’m gonna be devil’s advocate for the last three paragraphs of my rambling response:
Do you actually KNOW that the enemies you’re fighting are arbitrary? Do you know there is no explanation for the mimic and the gelatinous cube? No explanation for the moths and larvae? No explanation for the Morlocks? Is it possible that your characters just haven’t found those explanations? I’ve placed enemies in my games before and the players never found out WHY they were there (the characters never even bothered thinking about it in some cases) but there was always a in-universe reason. And even if your DM didn’t initially have a reason, I would assume they will be able to come up with one on the spot.
For example, Mimics are described as: “A mimic can remain in its alternate form for an extremely long period of time, sometimes remaining disguised in a dungeon chamber for decades. Regardless of how long it waits, the mimic remains vigilant and alert, ready to strike at any moment.” They do seek to ambush adventurers so hiding in a cave that would be attractive to adventurers is the #1 thing they’d do. It could’ve wandered in 10, 20, 30 years ago, biding its time. Saying something like “I investigate the area around where the mimic was, trying to find any hints whether it has moved recently” after combat could lead to you learning more context about how the mimic got there. Same with the moths and larvae, you could try finding out if they’ve been born and died in this cave? If something made them flee their previous homes (especially “easy” if you have anything to converse with animals), etc. I don’t think it’s the DMs responsibility to give you context unprompted. It’s their responsibility to give you context once you’re looking for context, and even then, you still might need to pass certain rolls to get context. In the end, most of the time, the DM shouldn’t and wouldn’t give you any info your characters wouldn’t have.
This also extends to other areas you complained about. If you want more information but your DM doesn’t immediately provide it, prod them for it through character actions. “What is this Morlock I’m fighting wearing?” “What’s the color of the stones here?” “How high is the ceiling?” “Can I hear anything at all?”
I think you’re on the right track with your Update though. Best of luck!
I think it would be fine as an official extension. Shipping it built-in feels weird to me.
Can that image viewer extract text so that a user could easily copy/paste it? I think if whatever pdf I was opening didn’t allow me to do that I would be really frustrated.