#leadership core

[jovialbasementbouquetblr]

2023 Bumingbai: Song Yongyi on PRC Personality Cults Past and Present

Another illuminating Bumingbai podcast episode, this time on Xi Jinping’s design of a personality cult for the uncharismatic with Chinese-American Cultural Revolution historian Song Yingyi of the University of California. Song sees a personality cult as a necessary weapon of leaders with leader for life ambitions. Song’s initial question was why do the Chinese have personality cults? After…

[3416]

Auston Matthews is named the 26th captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs. | 8.14.24

[ratatatastic]

our catmin of course is having their fun and by that i mean try to get everyone in trouble with sasha by putting his face on a golf ball and giving it to them to catalogue their varying levels of fear and enthusiasm at the idea of hitting their captain

Cats Classic | 9.16.24 (x)

[melisusthewee]

"The Andes are huge. They'd have to organize the search in some way - like in zones. They were here yesterday. We saw them fly overhead. Today we heard them but didn't see them. I bet they're searching a different area." "That means they didn't see us." - La Sociedad de la Nieve/Society of the Snow (2023)

[fannyyann]

Do you know anything about how/when Matthew was given the A when he went to the panthers?

i don't really remember if the panthers ever made an official announcement about it, and he didn't have it in the couple pre season games he played the first season, but he had it for the first game.

but in his last cam & strick podcast appearance he said (1:22:08) "I went down there, and I was like 'this is your guys, you guys have had success, like I'll fall in line' and that's not what they wanted. I had guys like, you know barky and ekky, and patric hornqvist and all these guys who wanted me to step into that leadership role with them. They made it so easy for me and wanted me to maybe even be uncomfortable in the sense of leadership and style of play and everything and have guys follow." so it definitely seems like he was going to be an A pretty much the moment he got traded there

[thepersonalwords]

If you compromise your core values, you go nowhere.

Roy T. Bennett

[39oa]

must a team have flashy playmakers with which to entertain national broadcast commentators is it not enough to have genuine depth, a d-man who never gets enough respect, a healthy locker room culture, a kid who passed up a hatty on his 21st birthday to ensure an already-guaranteed victory, revenge goals, the slogan "a little less for a lot more" and a dream

[mistninja]

We made it to drum island. Do u guys think the live action will cut out Dalton or not

[lupismaris]

Didn't get to smoke before work this morning (also not at all confident I took my meds) and while I'm managing the immense stress of the day (hello three new projects) rather well I'm reminded that the ritual of a spliff and a cup of coffee does in fact help keep my teeth dull and my temper subdued

[pokedcheck]

guys i fell asleep before the game and i just watched the tavares ceremony before the game and i'm crying lmao

[kpop-girlsworld]

Bae Joohyun

[dailycharacteroption]

Fun with Feats 12: Leadership

 Today is an interesting entry, as we will be covering a feat that a lot of GMs actually ban in their games, which is fair given how easy it is to use this feat to break the game. I speak of course of Leadership.

Anyone familiar with this feat likely already knows why banning it is so common, but for context, I’ll explain what it is and why it gives many GMs pause.

The leadership feat represents a character whose personal power and gravitas has attracted a number of followers who loyally aid them in various ways. The basic followers are simply background support, but they have one follower called a cohort which acts as another, lower-level adventurer to aid the leader on their adventures. Additionally, the leader gains a leadership score, which as a baseline based on their level and charisma, and is modified by other factors such as having a special power that marks them as a chosen one, having proven themselves honorable, wise, and worthy, and the likes, but also in negative ways such as killing or causing the death of followers, and so on, which determines the number of followers they can recruit and the maximum level a cohort can be (aside from never being more than two levels below your own.

 As you can imagine, having a massive amount of NPCs at your beck and call can be a bit game breaking. In theory you are supposed to leave your followers at home while adventuring, but inevitably someone brings them along with them to serve as fodder, or to do game-breaking nonsense like the “Peasant Railgun”. Others build their cohort completely around working in tandem with the leader to the point of being absurdly broken.

Having an extra body with full access to character abilities, unlike companion creatures, puts a lot of strain on the fairness of the action economy, to say nothing of having a horde of such bodies at your command, so it’s no surprise that this feat gets banned a lot as result, either from experienced GMs who have had to deal with someone who tried it before or who have heard the horror stories and banned it immediately.

But does it have to be that way?

 First and foremost when considering whether you want a player to take the leadership feat, consider: does the campaign fit having a leadership feat? In a lot of cases, the answer is actually no, since a lot of adventures have you travelling far and wide as adventurers, rarely staying in one place for too long, or travelling to exotic locales that one could not reliably bring followers along with or even regularly return and access them as a resource.

However, in a campaign where, say, one of the characters is an officer in an army, or has a leadership position in a static location that the party returns to often, then perhaps having a loyal group of followers makes sense.

From there, consider if there is a logical in-game reason for the character to have such a following. Are they military or nobility? Perhaps the leader of a following of a religion, or an important member of a thieves’ guild. Regardless, if there isn’t an in-game reason for the character to have such a following, that’s a good enough reason to disallow it.

But let’s say they have a reason to take leadership and do. First off, make sure the player knows that you will not allow them to make their followers do anything that wouldn’t make sense given the context of why they follow in the first place. The staff and guards of your castle have little reason to go on adventures with you, for example, and a mage academy probably will spend most of the time studying and experimenting, but could be convinced to make potions on your behalf (for a modest discount).

Secondly, make sure they know that their cohort should not be built as a way to exploit and destroy the action economy. If you notice game-breaking activity, calmly ask them to revise the character, and if they refuse, consider more firm measures.

(As a general rule, you probably shouldn’t allow multiple characters to take leadership though.)

 Most of all, like all feats and features of the game, Leadership is meant to be a way for the character to have fun, to reap the benefits of becoming someone that people look to for guidance and inspiration. With that in mind, make sure that the player in question understands that their fun with this feat should not detract from the fun of other players

Speaking of fun, players might be surprised to learn that the Leadership feat also lets you take intelligent monsters as cohorts! This was a thing back in 3.5 that Pathfinder brought back with the Ultimate Intrigue book! As you might imagine, the monster’s CR plays a hand in what their effective level as a cohort is (adjusted by any disruptive abilities they may have), and like other cohorts, advance by level. Depending on what allies you make in your adventure, you could potentially have all sorts of monstrous allies, though naturally they might turn heads, raise eyebrows, or call stakes and torches down upon them and the leader.

I’d also recommend looking at Ultimate Intrigue for guidelines on what sort of useful roles your followers can have if you’d like them to have more use than just being a number on a sheet.

 Ultimate Intrigue also gave us a series of lesser leadership feats that let those interested get a taste of the benefits at lower levels. Most of them grant a minor cohort at a considerably lower level that provides various benefits, such as a Groom taking care of your animal companions, a Light Bearer holding torches and light sources for you, the Page to aid you diplomatically, and the Weapon Bearer to hold and retrieve weapons for you. Additionally, the Recruits feat lets you take multiple minor cohorts which you can take turns taking into the field while the others study and practice in your absence, each one being a student of yours. All of these feats can be exchanged later on for the true leadership feat, one of the existing cohorts graduating up or being replaced once you become a proper leader.

Of course, we couldn’t leave off a discussion about Leadership without Vile Leadership, an alternate version of the feat for villainous characters where evil and cruel acts on your part actually increase your leadership score, as you rule through fear and ruthlessness rather than the respect and admiration of those under you.

 All in all, the Leadership feat is not something that should be taken lightly, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be banned from all games assuming that the players can treat the power it grants, and the time of the GM and other players, with the respect they deserve.

[ratatatastic]

would really love if there was list on which cats call pomo "paul" and which cats call him "mo" because i keep flipping from podcast to podcast and i get so much whiplash from the change

[asmolbirb]

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[hinakyuu]

you are a wonderful source of 1619 content!! you get them like no one else simply…

ansjsks that’s so nice of you, ty! but you’re def giving me too much credit 😭 i rly only take any crumbs that they give me and try to smoosh them together to sustain myself, for purely self-indulgent reasons. and hopefully, maybe… get some ppl on board along the way, only so i don’t have to go insane alone 🤣

sometimes if that means making gifs of them literally just touching paper differently, then so be it lol

conclusion: i’m so glad you’re here to go crazy over them with meee 💖

[yabagofmilfs]

I always hate when they leave tanger out.. it makes me sad and annoyed for him

Yeah it does feel a little weird from the official beat reporters (I make no excuses or apologies for myself) but I think there’s been so much work put into the public narrative of Sid and Geno—the way fans and some writers want to pit them against each other as if two queens can’t thrive and support each other 🙄, and the way G steps up when Sid’s out, and Sid supporting him through his slump, and the way they’ve always been so vocal about having each others backs no matter what—that I think these kinds of things just write themselves in a sense. Also, the thesis of the article was that Sid and Geno are carrying this team right now, and while Kris is doing much better the last month or so, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true for him as well? At least not in the obvious, point production sense.