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I've lived in 'big' cities and small rural towns. Most of my friends who make a big deal out of living in a big city no longer go to music shows in clubs, drink or eat out or go to arthouse theatres, all the real world advantages of actually living in a big city.

All the other former advantages of living in a big city, the book stores, music shops, etc. has been rendered less important due to the net.

Sometimes I think people just like the idea of living in a 'big city' even if they never leave their boring suburb.
It also depends on the city itself. Some cities are amazing but others are basically just a collection of suburbs.

I like many Spanish and French cities (outside of Paris) because there's often really nice regions around them that are indistinguishable from living in the country but you're in a major cultural city in less than ten minutes or so. I miss France in particular for this.
 
It also depends on the city itself. Some cities are amazing but others are basically just a collection of suburbs.

I like many Spanish and French cities (outside of Paris) because there's often really nice regions around them that are indistinguishable from living in the country but you're in a major cultural city in less than ten minutes or so. I miss France in particular for this.
That's one thing I like about the commuter belt towns outside of London. You don't have to drive all that far to be out in the country, and the Poms plant trees all around the roads, so the place looks a lot more rural than it really is. The Weald (where I live) is quite nice, and is an area of outstanding natural beauty - loads of country lanes and villagey little villages with pubby little pubs. The towns are OK in that they have adequate facilities and feel much less rat-racey than London. Train connections into London are pretty good (if expensive) so it's a much more pleasant environment.

I've even managed to find a decent group to role play with, although they're pretty D&D centric and I've not yet managed to cure them of that.
 
Actually related to your other post, is it me or did London used to have much better bookshops. I lived there for nearly a year and would often go back and visit. I remember Foyle's and many others having curated sections with many obscure and hard to find books. When I went back last year many had just turned into big chain stores.
 
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Actually related to you other post, is it me or did London used to have much better bookshops. I lived there for nearly a year and would often go back and visit. I remember Foyle's and many others having curated sections with many obscure and hard to find books. When I went back last year many had just turned into big chain stores.

i used to go to Forbidden Planet, and a few other bookshops to browse the books. Wouldn't dream of doing so now - Amazon to just too damn convenient.
 
Actually related to you other post, is it me or did London used to have much better bookshops. I lived there for nearly a year and would often go back and visit. I remember Foyle's and many others having curated sections with many obscure and hard to find books. When I went back last year many had just turned into big chain stores.
Foyle's is still quite good, although their computer section is a shadow of what it was 10 years ago. They just did a new building recently. There are a few institutional bookshops around, like Stanfords or Foyles, but pretty much everything else is Waterstones or WH Smith, with only a handful of exceptions. Not that Waterstones is all that bad - local managers get a lot of say in what they stock, and the one in Leadenhall market isn't bad (All the managing agents have offices around there as it's next to the Lloyd's building, so I've spent a lot of time working in the area).

However, if you want to go to a more highbrow sort of place, or a secondhand bookshop, you really have to get out of London - or at least way out in the 'burbs. I found a fabulous secondhand bookshop in Arundel, for example, which was a rabbit warren over 3 stories or so, and that sort of thing is much more common outside of London than in London itself. From time to time I get to Bath, and found a nice one called Topping just off the end of the main drag. Tunbridge Wells has an indie comics and games shop - and a Games Workshop of all things.

I think the disproportionately high cost of space in London has pushed most of the indie places out into the shires, and I suspect the real estate crunch has exacerbated the problem over the last 10 or 20 years. It was probably a lot better than it is now, and on-line vendors have taken a lot of the wind out of the sales of little indie shops, which also compounds the problem.

I find most retail in London to be pretty sterile these days. It's much easier to buy niche stuff online, as half the time the retailers don't have it in stock anyway.
 
At this point the value of any major city over a minor one has been drastically reduced. I used to live ten minutes from starting to go somewhere. Now I live at my destination. I haven't moved.
I still manage to be late to work, even though my "commute" is now about five metres.

But yeah. When people are actually able to move again, I think a radical rethink of the way our modern world is structured is on the cards. I'm a weirdo who actually likes being in the office, rather than WFH, because it adds structure to my day, but I know I'm in the minority, especially for software folk.
 
I still manage to be late to work, even though my "commute" is now about five metres. But yeah. When people are actually able to move again, I think a radical rethink of the way our modern world is structured is on the cards. I'm a weirdo who actually likes being in the office, rather than WFH, because it adds structure to my day, but I know I'm in the minority, especially for software folk.

I agree especially with bubonic plague in China now, and despite being easily treatable, it may be a matter of time now before another outbreak of something really nasty that cannot be easily treated and far higher fatality than COVID-19 (although this is bad enough as seen due to lock downs).
 
I agree especially with bubonic plague in China now, and despite being easily treatable, it may be a matter of time now before another outbreak of something really nasty that cannot be easily treated and far higher fatality than COVID-19 (although this is bad enough as seen due to lock downs).
I guess we could LARP Survivors.
 
But if we are going to LARP - we need some undead then we can use Outbreak Survivors rules.
I played that game, in a "play as yourself!" campaign, which kicked off with our characters at game night as the apocalypse began.

Whenever I play a "play as yourself! Shit's gonna get crazy!" game, my first reaction is to say "nope, fuck this" and go home, so that's what I did... to find my partner pinning down my daughter, who had somehow got infected, and so I had to brain her to death with a piggy bank. RPG's are fun!
 
I played that game, in a "play as yourself!" campaign, which kicked off with our characters at game night as the apocalypse began.

Whenever I play a "play as yourself! Shit's gonna get crazy!" game, my first reaction is to say "nope, fuck this" and go home, so that's what I did... to find my partner pinning down my daughter, who had somehow got infected, and so I had to brain her to death with a piggy bank. RPG's are fun!
Wow! I get the realism draw since it sort of puts you straight in the Post-Apoc setting, but that'd be too much for me! I know a father and son who'd enjoy it though.
 
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Wow! I get the realism draw since it sort of puts you straight in the Post-Apoc setting, but that'd be too too much for me! I know a father and son who'd enjoy it though.
The GM apologised after the session in case he had pushed things too far (This was before the UKGE incident which really pushed the X card into public consciousness), so I had to explain to him that no no, it was fine because it's clearly a game, but I'd strongly appreciate him not doing it again thanks.
 
I played that game, in a "play as yourself!" campaign, which kicked off with our characters at game night as the apocalypse began.

Whenever I play a "play as yourself! Shit's gonna get crazy!" game, my first reaction is to say "nope, fuck this" and go home, so that's what I did... to find my partner pinning down my daughter, who had somehow got infected, and so I had to brain her to death with a piggy bank. RPG's are fun!

Yeah that sounds a bit too real for my liking.
Whenever I play on a forum, and players start as themselves it is always with the caveat that this is an alternate version of them with no immediate family to save those kind of situations.
 
A while back I realized that grim "play as yourself" apocalypse games, especially zombie-related ones, were far more appealing to people without strong relationships, families or kids.

Ie, my bachelor friends who were still in College or with dead-end jobs but lots of free time and disposable income. Planning for anti-zombie treehouses and gun collection is less fun when your PC has to worry about spouses or kids.
 
A while back I realized that grim "play as yourself" apocalypse games, especially zombie-related ones, were far more appealing to people without strong relationships, families or kids.

Ie, my bachelor friends who were still in College or with dead-end jobs but lots of free time and disposable income. Planning for anti-zombie treehouses and gun collection is less fun when your PC has to worry about spouses or kids.
In our game the group pretty neatly split into "it's the apocalypse, scavenge all the shit" and "our families are in danger, we should start by saving them" halves, dependent on if we had local loved ones; I told the "apocalypse yay!" folk that if they fucked about and put us in danger, I had absolutely no qualms about leaving them behind, both because I'm inherently not very brave and because I didn't actually trust them very much.

The campaign actually ended with the party split up, the serious half having joined up with a local raiding clan who had promised to help my partner recover (She had been in a coma for a year, after donating her blood in an emergency transfusion to fix someone who was infected with zombism, and keeping her alive was very much my motivation) because we'd fallen out with the stupid half because they were morons, and a giant running battle through the remains of the local port.
 
At the moment I’m living in lockdown in Melbourne.
For all intents and purposes you may as well be, how can I tell the difference.....
Now, now,let's not subject the figments of our imaginations to a fourth wall breaks. Even if they're PCs.
I mean, that'd be storytelling, not roleplaying:devil:!
 
I have a different complaint about DTRPG shipping: I ordered Neon City Overdrive and its first two supplements (Skinjobs and Psions). I received Neon City Overdrive and the S&W version of Timothy S. Brannan's Warlock and Green Witch books.

DTRPG said they'd send me the correct books. Today I received two copies of Skinjobs and no Psions.

Facepalm.

I'm back. I finally got my copy of Psions. I also received a third copy of Skinjobs and a second copy of Psions, both of which arrived today (and from the invoice) appear to be the original order. They were both damaged, so I guess it's a good thing that I got extra copies. :smile:
 
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