The U.S. Chess Federation does something like this. In chess lingo, it’s called “setting a rating floor.” For instance, one you hit class A (rating 1800–1999), your rating can never again fall below 1600, the lowest class B rating.

No. Ban them for life.

If you throw a game in a chess tournament, not only will you almost certainly get ejected from the tournament on the spot, you’re likely to be barred from future tournaments as well. The U.S. Chess Federation does not fuck around with sandbaggers.

Democrats need to run on people’s wallets—but they also need to run on people’s feelings. People feel angry: run on justice. People feel disrespected: run on dignity and equality. People feel anxious: run on caring. People feel outraged: run on decency.

I’m neutral-to-cool toward Tammy Duckworth, in large part because I remember how she entered politics as a candida handpicked by Rahm Emanuel to knock a progressive Democrat, Christine Cegelis, out of a House primary.

I have no philosophical problem with loot boxes, but I do have a problem with an overly permissive approach toward toxicity and immaturity that’s allowed other players to rob me of the value I get from a game I paid for. I’m grateful for LFG and look forward to seeing how it improves the game. But I haven’t spent any…

At least it’s not another Western European.

These two issues are unrelated. Toxicity occurs when people don’t face consistent consequences for their toxicity. That’s it. They need no other incentive.

The game is great. It’s the players who make it occasionally unbearable.

It’s “leviOOOOsa,” not “leviosAAAA”

Count me as one player grateful for those escape exits. I hate when games make you waste time running from the innermost part of a dungeon all the way back to the exit. That’s time spent not playing.

In chess, this principle is known as “The threat is stronger than the execution.”

Sound cues. Queues are something else.

Funny, because I also have a few decades of gaming experience, including a few years of experience with my current group, who are almost all total noobs, and my current group has never even come close to wrecking the campaign. They make the campaign.

Here’s the one that gets me: In the Pillars of Eternity series, he plays two different secondary characters, Aloth and Edér. And I never realized this until I saw the preannounced credits for Deadfire.

You, sir, need to learn about metaphors.

Lovely idea, but The Elder Scrolls: Online was so fucking boring that Bethesda has lost its chance of selling me on any MMORPG.

Here’s a great phrase for situations like those: “How could we find the answer to that?”

It makes me want to say, “Sounds like you’re the one who’s going to be in trouble.”

There are plenty of Clintons in office. They just aren’t legal members of the family.