Thank you! My ex gf and I used to play a ton of Kingdom. I knew about "West of Loathing", but this is the first time hearing about "Shadows Over Loathing".

I’m on PopOS and my experience is the exact opposite. I love the UI- it’s the main thing I like about it actually. Never had an update fail.

Don’t use gamescope, just run everything from Steam or Heroic and never had an issue gaming.

YMMV

Even if your audio or WiFi card doesn't work automatically in the live environment, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are out of luck either. My WiFi card manufacturer doesn't support Linux (Last thing I buy from them), but I was able to find a driver that was built by the community for a very similar product that works flawlessly.

This may be more complex than some people are willing/able to solve, just wanted to put that out there for people who can so they aren't discouraged by a bad experience with a live distro.