Rhavin's page

Is anyone still playing EVE Online?

My school and real lives have caught up to me for the time being, so I'm training my long-neglected missile skills to V and only logging on to change them. I will probably become far more active around Dominion's launch.

Remind me of your capsuleer alias?

I believe he was keeping the secret for his "friend" not from him.

Personally, once I realize a friend of mine is not someone I want to associate with my solution is to, surprisingly enough, not associate with them.

I don't know if it'll help at all but the way I build adventures has changed drastically over the years.

When I first started out all of my adventures were based around cool locations and, being an artist, I would draw them out and come up with a story as I drew. The advantages to this is that there is little "winging" that needs to be done in front of the players and everything tends tol be pre-scripted in a way.

It gradually evolved as I obtained a steady group that locations were significantly pre-planned ahead of time so I would have the concept of all of it before going in and mapping it out. THe advantage to this is that what needs to be decided is decided significantly in advance but there is still less room for maneuvering than the final option.

These days I just come up with what seems cool at the time on the spot and sketch, stat, and build as I DM... there have been a few spectacular failures with this method but more spectacular successes with this method than the other two combined. This has ultimate flexibility and I don't feel even a cursory constraint by my previously laid plans, however it is also very difficult to hold all the threads together at times.

You have never had the forum brutally devour your posts...

You have never admonished another poster for his or her horrid gramatical constructions and excessive 1337-Speak useage.

You do not know who Frank Trollman is/was and the significance of that "/"

The biggest frustration I find with text-speak is when it seeps into professional reports unnoticed by younger employees. Don't get me wrong, I'm 19, but seeing "2" instead of "to" or "too" on a report is just plain annoying.

One of the things I've never understood is reading secondary source essays on a literary work... I miss plenty, especially in works with layer after layer of meaning and subtext, but it would still rather have a discussion on the work with someone else who has read it than read a piece of rhetoric on the work.

This isn't a criticism for those of you who do enjoy such readings, simply a semi-off topic statement of confusion.

Not understanding a form of English in excess of 500 years old and out-of-use does not an illiterate make.

To the OP: are you perchance a Johnnie?

I wish I made more sense.

I wish that my consciousness was not tied to the survival of my body and could reform a destroyed or damaged body into an exact likeness of my current one.

I wish that the media would report swine flu informatively, rather than trying to make it a source of drama.

Incidentally, everything else the news reports on becomes just as terrible as they present it. Murders sky-rocket; Russia and China fire their nukes and create a third world war, finishing off what was left of humanity.

I wish for a pocket-dimension that I can travel to and from at will with the property that while within my pocket dimension nothing ages, similar to the effects of the 3.5e astral plane.

Rhavin wrote:

I wish for my wish to be granted in such a way as to benefit myself in all ways: mental, physical, and emotional without harming those around me or the fabric of the universe.

Granted - unfortunately, when people are not within 100 feet of you, they fall victim to horrible luck. When the rest of humanity learns this, people fight to just be near you. A war soon breaks out, and when it is over, only a handful of humans survive, enough to live comfortably within 100 feet of you. And you are never left alone again.

I wish I could win a marathon.

I wish that I am the prime mover.

When you exercise your skills, the sheer amount of force generated by one of your moves tears your body apart. Fortunately, you're now bad-ass enough to survive it and spend the rest of eternity as a gory mess.

I wish for my wish to be granted in such a way as to benefit myself in all ways: mental, physical, and emotional without harming those around me or the fabric of the universe.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Thurgon wrote:

I don't know, if I am sick I will have a lot of the signs of it. Is there a difinitive way to self check? If so they might as well tell us what it is.

Look for very high fever (101oF and up), burning sore throat, fluid in lungs, diarrhea and/or vomiting.

A regular case of the flu could produce many of those. But thanks for the info.

Granted.

What you want changes frequently to balance out your caloric intake. After eating a double monster bacon BBQ thickburger, you develop an insatiable craving for celery and Diet Coke that lasts for 3 days.

I wish I could summon angry kittens and throw them at people.

I wish for success.

I stand corrected, though I was talking more about speciation and the petri dish experiment doesn't demonstrate much more than Darwin's pigeon fanciers did - I don't think anyone has successfully created a new species under experimental conditions.

has anyone here other than me watched mushishi?

oops, yeah... definitely samurai champloo should be on there as well

would definately be a mayan, I just couldn't ignore the opportunity to decapitate a conquistador with my Macuahuitl

Enjoy the benefits of one of the greatest western civilizations in history. Be a part of a very efficient military machine. Retire with great benefits.

Alternately:

Samurai, I've been told my personal moral code conforms closely with historical bushido though I haven't done enough research to know if this is true or not. I would have chosen European knight but I have enough problem with the catholic church that I would promptly be excommunicated.

A few I really like that I haven't seen listed:

Revolutionary Girl Utena:
It seems really saccharin at first, but the depth of symbolism in it is staggering. Pay attention to recurring themes and symbols and there's a whole other show below what is readily apparent.

Mushishi:
Another very deep anime that has no real plot other than exploring the main character's personality and past.

Guren Lagan:
So over the top it's hilarious, takes most of the anime cliches and enlarges them to ridiculous proportions. Funny for the sheer exaggeration of so many "mech anime" tropes and cliches. It's a parody of itself.

Gankutsuo:
Count of Monte Cristo... in space

Peacemaker:
Yeah, the protagonist has a tragic past, but the entire show is about exploring his humanity. Furthermore, he has no incredible powers or skill and his prepubescence is a regular detriment to him and his ambitions.

Fullmetal Alchemist:
Conforms to many cliches but is amazing despite this. Excellent character development and plot.

I wish wizards didn't suck rocks in 4e.

I wish I could meet Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye.

I wish I was a deity.

I like it, my thanks for posting this idea.

I wish I had a photographic memory.

I wish I knew everything.

(yeah that will certainly end badly for me)

so say we all!

Weeeeeeell..... We had another session tonight, and there were some good points and some bad points.

The Cleric used his Rod of Wonder at a random time, and that magic number finally came up - 69. He shrunk to the size of a rat, and was already blue, and this was in the middle of a busy marketplace. About a minute went by and he was already back to his normal size due to DM intervention. The captain of the Guard walked up to him and took him to a wizard who returned him to size and just asked for an ambiguous favor that none of us (the rest of the party) will ever honor in a million freakin' years. He got all of his stuff back, even though it all fell to the ground in the middle of a marketplace in a sleazy town. The only thing that could really be considered a penalty to the item was immediately reversed.

The good points are that we finally got out of that dungeon and to a town, and most everything went according to plan.

Confront the DM about it, be nice and respectful but firm. If the DM still doesn't listen, leave and inform him that you aren't willing to play in a game that lacks fun for you; especially with such a disruptive player. At that point you can talk to the other sympathetic players about starting a new game. DMing can be fun and doesn't need a huge amount of pre-game planning if you get good at winging it.

And again, from personal experience: no D&D is better than bad D&D.

CORNFLAKES...

e-cookie if you know the reference

I quit my game when I stopped enjoying it... trust me when I say no D&D is better than bad D&D.

My cantankerous side says to murder the offending character before declaring yourself done. However, this would give them the opportunity to be self righteous and say "jeeze what an ass, glad he's gone."

Rickrolls don't work on me because.... *dramatic drumroll* I like the song. Yes, I know this makes me a terrible, terrible person.

When I was in high school (freshman in college now) I always angered my teachers to no end. I was one of those students who could pass easily and with high grades if he doodled and read unrelated books throughout the entire class. Even AP classes weren't difficult.

So I made a point of seeing how little I could work and still achieve "acceptable" grades. It's the only thing that kept me from going insane; I knew I could easily ace every class I had with no difficulty, the challenge came in seeing if I could fail without intentionally giving the wrong answers on quizzes and tests. The fact that I consistently passed with "acceptable" grades made me hate the system.

I remember my most ironic achievement was writing an essay for AP English, the period before it was due in chemistry, and getting an A+ on it. I didn't even read the thing after I wrote it, I didn't edit, I didn't even really pay much attention to what I was writing.

Kirth, that teaching style would have made me wake up and pay attention.

I am currently running a dark fantasy 3.5 game in which the standard races have mostly been altered in one way or another. Without going into to many details:

Elves: Primal and chaotic, of fey origin they are seen as time bombs by most of the other races as one can never know how an elf will react to a particular situation.

Dwarves: Hard and lawful (not much change) live in vast strongholds in the mountains where they produce most of the metals on the market. Insular in the extreme and constantly warring with the Orc clans.

Orcs: eliminated half orcs, used Celtic tribes as the basis for their culture.

Gnomes: Dwarves with a genetic anomaly similar to albinos in humans. Surprisingly, despite their oddity they are accepted readily into dwarven culture and even held in places of high respect; many a dwarven hold has a gnome lord.

Halflings: Vagabond nomads selling wares between remote human villages. Their old homeland has become a no-man's land between two great warring human kingdoms.

Lizardfolk: Primitive and cannibalistic they believe that the greatest honor their dead can have is to aid their loved ones as fully as possible in death. As such their homes tend to be grotesque (to outsiders) amalgamations of the bones and hides of dead lizardfolk and their best equipments and most sacred foods are made from dead relatives.

I have a friend who has allied himself with the Grok's and who has made it his goal to planet break every breakable planet in the galaxy.

/emote has been training exploration skills non-stop since the announcement

BoB has been disbanded as of this night. Apparently a goon spy with director level power decided to screw them over.

*casts raise thread*

Behold the power of a master thread necromancer!

where are all of you guys?

well, depending on the shading, patterns, and variation of tone brown outfits could look both beautiful and original.

Abjuration: Blue (always imagine wards as glowing blue for whatever reason)
Conjuration: Green (color of life)
Divination: Yellow (color of warning)
Enchantment: Red (color of seduction)
Evocation: Orange (color of flame)
Illusion: Grey (color of fog, represents concealment)
Necromancy: Black (feels obvious given western cultural biases)
Transmutation: White (color of possibility)

To go against the stereotype I'm tempted to go with Necromancers in white as it fits the Eastern traditions, the western Pale Horseman, and could portray the color of bones.

In that circumstance I'd change transmutation to brown.

pyramid of eternal quoting:

Appears to be a pyramidal series of stacked iron lattices.

Function: eternally quotes things said near it. If the area around it is silent it begins quoting itself.

I'm venting this online because I can't do it in real...

So.... after a long and sucky day I'm finally having a nice evening when it all goes to hell.

Long story short I ending up needing to give dating advice to a female friend. I happen to "like" said female friend though I keep that to myself and she doesn't seem to know. I happen to hate the guy she needed advice on. I happen to be a selfless enough person that I didn't bring my feelings into the advice I gave. I happen to be good enough friends with her that I gave her useful advice. The guy in question is so clingy that even though they aren't dating yet he interfears with my normal friendship with her.

Now I want to go beat something up...

Tarren Dei wrote:

:-(

I didn't make Sebastian's enemies list. ... I've gotten off some zingers at his expense but he's never around to see them.

This makes me sad.

:-((

Don't worry - I'll kick Sharoth off the list and put you on in his place.

Yeah, we all dress in plate armor, use padded weapons and beat the holy snot out of each other. Its good times, good booze and good fights all in one day!

Family get-togethers ROCK!

To be honest, this Pathfinder RPG is too important to ignore clever people who know their stuff just because they're abrasive. Hell, even if Jason and the others eventually ignore P_R and LN, at least we're having the discussion.

Not that I can do anythign about it or influence the people who come onto these boards, but I need to know if I'm sugar-coating my memories when I think of the paizo boards pre 4-E announcement as a nicer and more polite environment.

I remember being stunned at the civility of the boards when I first started having come from the flaming troll-pool of the WoTC boards. Lately it's seemed to me that people are taking 4E and Pathfinder as excuses to be arrogant and rude for no reason other than that there are no real consequences. I remember being stunned at the literacy of the posters who treated these boards as what they are: a forum for the literate and civil discussion of a mutually enjoyed hobby.

So where are those glory days of yesteryear? Are they only in my memories or did they never actually exist?

I'm not sure why people don't understand Elemental Rage sucks and the +level AB/Damage (especially AB) rage powers are overpowered

Most of the posts on this thread have actually said "We agree with the OP in many places but think he's being overly agressive."

I can agree with the OP on many of the things he says but not give two cents for him as a human being... although I am tempted to revert to the meme "obvious troll is obvious"

and to the OP... being a jerk won't get people to agree with you, those that agree with you do so despite your arrogant behavior, not because of it. Be diplomatic and you will have far fewer people flaming you, far more people reading what you write, and a far more productive thread overall.

Just to make my social and financial system worse I've been looking for a new MMORPG and came across Age of Conan. Before I dive in head first I want to know if anyone here plays it or has played it and if so what their analysis of the game is.

Hate the game. Love the trailer. Bravo to Blizzard, those guys always do make good trailers in my opinion.

my favorite high int, low wis, high cha:

Brilliant and charming prodigy who is more than a bit unhinged by his previous successes and tends to believe he can do no, or little, wrong.

Guys that are total jack-holes have the easiest time attracting women. Yeah, I don't get it either.

On a more personal basis I object to the "appearance = attraction" arguement. I would never consider dating a girl before I knew enough about her for her to be a long-term friend. I can appreciate the aesthetic value of the female form without being interested on the romantic or sexual level at all.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm attracted to personalities and intellect, not physical form.

Just checking Turin, do you know the following trick to avoiding being podded?

-Select a distant stellar object such as a planet or station when the fight turns against you.
-When you hit hull start spamming the "warp-to" button in the selected items overview

Your commands once you hit 50% hull carry over to your pod this means that there is no "pod loading" lag to the warp-out process and allows yuor pod to begin warp the nanosecond that your ship pops. Using this method you warp fast enough that even insta-lock ships can't lock you because the humans controlling them can't click fast enough.

jeeze go away for a day and look what happens?...

while I don't confess to having read these reams of responses to the original poster here's the bottom line:

I'm right, you're wrong (unless you agree with me) and that's all there is to it. I don't care if you have the facts on your side, or that silly thing called "logic". I've never let them stop me and look where I am! *stands in the gutter* Yes, follow my path to debating victory and you too might one day have a gutter of your own to call home. *nods sagely*

If people failed to notice, this is my epic fail at bringing some humor into this thread.

Oh and in response to my previous post. DnD 4e is influenced by digital gaming, in my experience past editions of pen&paper cared less for game balance and more for interesting stoylines than the present one does. The urge for game balance has arisen out of modern digital gaming in which players feel "jipped" for paying $20/month and find out that they chose a profession that is weaker than another. Rather than creating "rock-paper-scissors" gameplay there seems to be an urge to creat a style of gameplay best descriped as "different colored rocks".

I could care less your opinions of whether this is a good thing or a bad thing but please don't deny that the moddern cultural obsession with video games has had no impact on 4E D&D. This type of economy is an example. Yes it improves game flow and yes it may detract from realistic economics but I could care less either way. If I'm having fun then I'm having fun and who cares? Again if it bothers you, change it, if you like it as is, then keep it; but don't say that I'm wrong off-hand like that please.

welcome to digital-game influenced pen & paper

I'm not saying whether the influence is generally good or generally bad, but the effect you mentioned is certainly a side-effect.