the bit in geneforge 5 where you meet litalia, the de facto head of the anti-shaping faction whose backstory is that she was a one-woman death squad for the shapers, then the rebels, then realised she was a monster and decided that she would do anything to stop people from shaping more bioweapons. and the narrator tells you you feel a shiver when you realise that the main thing litalia is about is committing to causes super hard and then killing people.

replaying geneforge 1 now. first of all it makes me appreciate all the QOL improvements in geneforge 2 because there's more shit that just clangs. second, the obeyers are such a sad, fascinating faction. they believe they're the only ones who've managed to stay loyal to the shapers but they've become a cargo cult who worship their absent slave-masters. most obeyers throw themselves down at your feet upon seeing you. the obeyer high priest is incredibly conflicted when he meets you. this is their second coming and even though he knows he should be joyous he's also experienced enormous religious doubt over the course of his life. the obeyer doctrine demands complete loyalty to the shapers but they're cunning enough to put in caveats about only obeying true shapers. and all of their efforts to stay loyal over the century are meaningless; every servile on sucia island became a textbook rogue as soon as they decided to live instead of starve to death. the obeyers are doomed to fare the worst when the shapers return. the obeyers you meet in geneforge 2 live in the awakened territories and flatly state that they were all rounded up to be enslaved or euthanised.

i think you could write a book about being a good gamemaster. i think you could write a pamphlet about being a good player if the font was large enough.

running games isn't rocket science but running games does mean taking on a big chunk of responsbility that the freewheeling bisexual bard tiefling player doesn't have to worry about. you are primarily the referee but you're also entertainer, event organizer, financier and occasionally the HR department. i think the skills that go into running good games are less about creating cool dungeons or whatever and more about like, keeping things moving when you can tell one of your players is having a bad time because they're low on blood sugar and the game store is too loud.