@Paladin/Alignment incompatibility - Perhaps we can ask nicely and see if you can't grab one of the 3.5 'of freedom' archetypes or something?
Or you could look into a *uh* alternative approach :P?
lol.. its all good... I'm okay with the alignment change... it is, after all, a pretty minor shift for him (from NG to LG)... he's just gonna have to come to terms with his raison d'etre for his life choices up to now... it's doable. with Lina's help, probably can fast track it even.
I'm pretty sure Lina's idea of 'meditating to lawful' would involve asking you to tell her everytime you think something not-lawful, so she can punch you, until you associate Chaos with Pain. :)
It's pretty clear that such a thing doesn't work in any functionally useful way. At least when the aversion is imposed by an outside source. Of course, the most significant studies I've found were in regards to something more akin to condoned torture for 'deviant' personalities... :(
I'm pretty sure Lina's idea of 'meditating to lawful' would involve asking you to tell her everytime you think something not-lawful, so she can punch you, until you associate Chaos with Pain. :)
Nope! Non-lawful thoughts get punished with two additional hours of meditating.
But isn't that likely to invoke thoughts of annoyance :P?
"And thus the Demon Daichi was sealed away for time immemorial; locked in trance until the right one comes along and knocks him cold long enough to get unstuck from his infinite loop."
lol... that gets into the whole concept of 'what constitutes a non-lawful thought' ... that could get dangerous... and thoughts are not sins... acting on them is a different thing... even the best of folk are tempted... it's the 'not giving in to temptation' that makes the difference. At least that's my 2 cents on the matter... Meditation might get him on the right path, but I figure actual alignment change will take a bit more than that in the long run...
I figure it's kinda like hardening steel... it first has to be heated, then quenched, then tempered... it's a process, not a single action... and of course if one is talking about forging a sword, it has to be beaten too... but we'd prefer not to go there, lol... ultimately up to mdt of course.
Well, a lot of meditation is sort of like that. Especially zen meditation and some of the Tibetan styles, which—while they aren't really Chinese—are probably more familiar to our characters. The idea is thus to clear your head of chaotic thoughts (or all thoughts, when you get better), and practice getting to that place quickly and constantly. If you’re doing a basic zen meditation, such as counting your breaths, every time you have a different thought you say “oops, I had a thought, now I will stop having a thought” and then you go back to counting your breaths.
It’s not a “think nothing, or I hit you with a stick!” meditation (there are schools of Buddhism that do that), but it is a great way to help discipline your thoughts, speaking as someone who manages his ADHD almost entirely through meditation. (And there’s research out there that suggests meditating 2-3 hours a day for a month can have a significant impact on your brain patterns and overall health).
Maybe I should try that? (I have AOADD, not ADHD, but some of the problems are similar...)
I'm pretty sure I have something in the ADD spectrum, but have never been diagnosed. :)
Basically, a month or so of meditation, thought, and following Lina's Monk's 'way of zen' will nudge you from NG to LG. However, you'll be 'LG on probation'. Think of it like a pendulum. If you tilt the tray enough, the pendulum edges one direction. However, if it's just moved over the line, it can be nudged back with the slightest of efforts.
Or, if it helps you visualize, imagine it as a weight scale. You're moving from 300 to the target weight of 200. At 249 lbs, you're closer to 200 than 300. However, it don't take much of a loss of control to push you back up to 252 and closer to 300 (NG) than 200 (LG).
It'll take a lot of RP in game to swing that pendulum to full on LG so that occassional slippage just requires an atonement (being at 205 vs 200).
Gotcha.. that all makes good sense... and kinda along the lines of what I was thinking, too.
As a heads-up: Today is my last day at mthe first job I ever had. I've worked here for just shy of nine years... But I've decided I need to move on to a job that pays better... As a result, I'm going to be picking up a lot more hours at work, changing my schedule in the process, and ultimately having a lot less time for those things and people that I love. That being said... I'll become less of a post hog in the majority of my games. Things might change in the future, but at the moment, I'm hoping to continue playing in my games.
Congrats on the new job and the exciting new venture in your life... stay with us! as much as you can, that is.
You call it exciting, I call it scary. :)
I like change and all... But this is going to flip my life upside down.
So much anxiety. But I'm looking at an 18% increase in income minimum. Whereas my current job might have done a 5% increase...
We'll see. Hopefully it cuts finances as a stressor out of my life. :)
Trust me... no matter what your salary/income, it never cuts finances as a stressor out of life... it just changes the nature of what you count as a financial stressor... been there, done that. Here's hoping it makes it easier though.
:(
no sad face! changing the nature of your financial stressors is still a good thing.... bona ventura!!!
Trust me... no matter what your salary/income, it never cuts finances as a stressor out of life... it just changes the nature of what you count as a financial stressor... been there, done that. Here's hoping it makes it easier though.
I'm not sure I buy that. Unless you count worrying about losing a million dollars and only having 89 million instead of 90 million or some other crazy high number as "stress". Even with less money, I would think that while you can't cut financial stressors out entirely (after all, an unexpected need for an expensive surgery will always be stressful), you would lessen the number of incidents of stress that you would have if you're making more.
Although my disclaimer is that I've been working for less than a year at my first real job, so what do I know about this real life finance stuff. Although I still assert that "I can barely make ends meat" is always going to be significantly more stressful and come up far more often than when you make enough to have a pretty comfortable cushion.
But anyway, good luck Neri!
Congratz
And I think what he means is, people tend to expand their spending to match the new pay level. So they end up having stressors as they are still utilizing 100% of their pay.
They are different stressors because instead of being worried about, say, rent or food, you're worried about 'Can I afford that party/trip/movie outing/new tv' instead. Still stressors, but different ones.
Ahh yes, that is something my mom would repeatedly tell me to avoid as I was growing up.
Yeah. What's interesting is the psychology behind that. You tend to grow into a 'new normal' and the same things that stressed you out before are no longer issues, but they're replaced by things that are much less bad, but due to perspective are just as bad.
My early goals with the extra income is to get debts paid off more quickly, with a little self-rewarding involved (what is this 'new clothes' of which you speak? I basically haven't bought any new shirts or pants that aren't work related in 5 or so years.).
As it stands, I don't plan to expand my monthly-spending at all. I plan to pay things off much faster than I would be able to before. (Current outlying bills are my mortgage, my car payment, a few loans related to said car, and a few doctor bills). I do plan to spend a little more on those things that I just want, but can't have right now. But nothing that involves another payment. :|
Congratulations and good luck : )
Sorry, didn't mean to be a downer... mdt pretty much restated what I meant, but better...
I went from a high 5-figure income to inheriting an 8-figure trust fund... I still have money problems, they're just very different. It is a never-ending cycle. It's just life, yaknow?
I'm sure you'll do great at your new income level and enjoy life in new and interesting ways.
I went from a high 5-figure income to inheriting an 8-figure trust fund... I still have money problems, they're just very different. It is a never-ending cycle. It's just life, yaknow?
Whoaaaa... I guess at that point, capital management becomes a thing.
And, hmm. I went from living as a college student (save as much money as possible) to being a grad student (actual salary, but not a ton)—and I still only spend about half my income, because I still live like a college student. I've been trying to get better about my stigma to buy things, but honestly I worry very little about income because all my loans an be deferred until I graduate and I just... have disposable income that I let pile up.
I've worked my way up to 6 figures finally, and my concerns now are more along the lines of 'darn, we're paying off credit cards and putting a new door in the house so I can't get the new big screen until next year'.
15 years ago, my concerns were 'darn, I got pneumonia and got let go from my job and I can't pay my rent'.
Honestly, I have everything I need now. Now I'm down to what I want, which is vastly different, and I'm not nearly as stressed about money anymore. Even with the house payment.
I'm lucky in that my natural disposition is generally to save money out of pure laziness. Which helps me in everything except acquiring food.
On a related note, I learned not too long ago that "spendthrift" means the exact opposite of "thrifty," which seems very counterintuitive to me.
For me, it's more of a "should I buy a new tv? I can afford it, but... I'm never actually home, might as well stick to the 30" CRT I found on the sidewalk"
grrr.. i hate when the site goes down...
anyway.. having money doesn't change those considerations... I can tell you from experience... more "stuff" doesn't make life better.. it just complicates things... we have managed not to go hog wild buying things except a new car after 4 years. I have seen friends who have received windfalls making lots of mistakes and regretting it later and I don't want to go down that road. we still agonize over every little purchase, and worry about our budget and paying bills. Nothing changes, it just gets more complex.
so what are we waiting for in the gameplay thread? let me know if it's me, otherwise I'll shut up.
I believe we're waiting to figure out what everyone does for a month. (This is a windfall for Lina, because I know exactly what she's doing, but it's a negative for the rest of the party who need to figure things out).
Currently, we have arrival—1 day, caves—4 days, Daichi sleeping—2 days, meditating 30 days, for a total of 37 days of free time for Lina and 32 days for everyone else
Lina will be retraining. 37 days is enough time to retrain Ride-By Attack into Power Attack, and Ki Mystic into Unchained Monk, with an additional 2 days going towards her next feat (Mounted Combat into Improved Unarmed).
Johnny can repair the robe and craft new rods, as discussed, in about 5 days.
Neri expressed interest in visiting the raptors, which should take 5-10 days IIRC.
Luna and Kong don't have much to do at all. But maybe people can investigate things like producing lumber or researching spheres? Does Neri's compound allow spell research? (He expressed interest in that iirc)
Hm. Well, just thinking about it, if you're at 8 figures, that's at least 10 million, unless I'm confused about the numbers. Assuming you stuck all of that in a milk jug under your bed (and therefor, it didn't accrue any interest whatsoever), and you expected to live for 30 more years... you're looking at more than 300k a year. You have nearly twice the spending money, per month, that I have per year.
I understand that it can certainly feel like it's bad, but I'm in the same place as Kitty used to be. I came down with Sarcoidosis, lost something like 60% lung function (one was 10, other was much better), and worked through it because I didn't have any other choice. It was a great diet, though. All I did was work 8 hours and then sleep for 14 hours... with 2 hours for personal maintenance/fun.
I'm sure the grass isn't always greener, but I've moved from 'there's grass?' (Literally, one of my homes was on a property that was nothing but red clay mud...) to 'I have grass!'. For me, literally moving out of the state of moving every few years, sometimes more often, because my family couldn't make ends meet (along with a huge amount of other negative stuff), to making a mortgage and car payment on time every month... is a significant success. It definitely hurts seeing all of the people I was friends with in school, that had some form of stability and a place to fall back on graduating from college, and doing something with themselves, but on this end of the railroad tracks, I'm happy that there's a tram to get me somewhere. :) (If a little grumpy from time to time.)
All that said, there is a very real fear in losing where you are now, regardless of how high up that is. :)
Mep. Liisa is probably going to try and figure out if she can make scrolls somehow.
Papyrus is a plan, so is clay tablets or something. We'll see :P
Also perhaps taking a closer look at this whole defiling-nature-wall thingy...
Also every time I was visiting in the US and were like "hey this weather is quite nice. And both the food and people are a bit weird, but pleasant. Maybe I should stay a while ...?" I just thought to myself "free* healthcare!" :P
*Since my tax-contribution as a student is indeed quite low
But that fancy sunlight thing of your were quite cool too ...
Stick your tongue to it!
I get it. I really do... Been there myself.. Between my son's ages of birth and 8 yrs old, we moved at least once a year, never on good terms with our landlords on moving date... it was a tumultous time and nearly tore us apart as a family. We survived it, bought a house finally and settled down for a long 20 year run... we almost lost that house once due to financial mismanagement too, but got through that also... We are now one year in a new house (well, old but new for us, necessary to downgrade from 2 story to 1 story due to my bad knees), my son is 30 and living with us again with his wife, and we are praying we stay month to month solvent so we don't have to dip into the principal of the fund (the majority of the income from it is reinvested, so we get very little from it monthly).
We could literally afford just about anything we wanted, but our eyes are on passing the assets on, relatively untouched, to our son when we are gone. I know, different strokes, but still, comes down to the same relative concerns.
Anyway, I'm sure we didn't mean to get derailed by monetary conversations.
Let's get back to gaming!!! What's everyone doing for the month?
The sunshine here in southern california is wonderful... sometimes almost too much of a good thing, but I live close enough to the ocean to get the cool sea breeze, which helps alleviate some of the heat. I would love to live in Seattle area and get some rain more often, but we checked it out and decided too much grey cloudy skies wouldn't be good for depression.
Where are you from Liisa?
Well, with that in mind, trying to be thrifty so that you leave your children the same opportunities you had... I can totally understand that. :)
And if I ever go to far or bug you, just say so. It's important to me that I not get to the point of annoying folks. Though I love tabletalk. :)
Neri's plans amount to doing whatever other people suggest he does. If it comes down to being able to make Daichi's stuff out of stone, Neri will do his best to supply it. Especially if other people can supply wagons that don't catch fire. :P
Beyond that, I'm cool with taking Seth to visit the raptors on this side. I don't remember their home town, only 'Blue Streak Home' comes to mind. Likewise, someone else taking Daichi to visit Mahb (I'd really like to know how they perverted the holy knight, though paladin might not be known to her) since he's respecting her wishes to stay away from her family.
If we 'finish' those things, and Neri just has time to kill, he'll 'channel surf' with his scrying pool, to see if he can see anything he hasn't paid for, yet. :P
I'm not annoyed, just didn't mean to derail the ooc chat so far from the topic of the game, and didn't want it to be annoying to the other players.
Speaking of Setheen, what did you guys do with him? Send him home? is he here somehow? just curious.
Same country as Lina (the character, not the player!); Sweden. I may have been a tad bit overdramatic - we do get plenty of sunlight but it is all focused in the summer, winter is pretty dark. Lot colder (and rainier!) then SoCal but I'd say our summers are probably more bearable :P
Better question, Player of Setheen. What did Setheen do? Did he suddenly decide to be a vegetarian now that he was on the other side of the wall? :)
On the topic of where to live... I love clouds, but hate the rain. I love flowers, but hate pollen. So... no idea what I'm looking for. I used to like the idea of Seattle, but now I'm a bigger fan of maybe living somewhere where 'allergens' aren't a thing that exists. :P
I *think* we didn't really do much with Sseth. Question is, what did *He* do once we all (almost) left to fetch Daichi?
hmm...
My vote is that he moved in to Hell (we have a doctor's office there for Luna!), where he treats the booboos of the children, and gives them raptor-back rides. You know, when they aren't riding their eidolons or sharpening their knives.
Sounds wonderful!
lol... He could eat veggies probably, but maybe not? Probably evolved as meat eaters, most reptiles are... and probably not overly picky about whether predator or prey animal, so could hunt big cats, or wolves around here, but as a caster, he's not much of a hunter... would probably be trying to follow whatever your customs are here. (how are the fish in the lake? they are generally meat eaters, so are they docile herbivores now like other predators, or are there no fish?)
Hell sounds lovely - he'd probably be having a good time there, despite the name. lol works for me.
Raptors actually eat... fungus people. Sometimes. But it's okay, because fungus people eat raptors. Sometimes.
The fish seem 'fine'. Fine in that the only things I've seen in the lake are tentacles and sharks. :)
I'm still in SoCal! Yay.
So cal rocks... lol... ocean, rivers, mountains, deserts... just about anything you want in easy driving distance... just the lack of rainfall hurts really.
where are you at? I'm in the Ventura area.
Santa Barbara.
oh not far at all... we thought about relocating there, but couldn't find anything one story that we liked ... really beautiful city.