jocundthejolly's page

It looks deceptively simple,which means execution is critical. I hope we can pull it off well.

Sounds like Mozart's underappreciated keyboard music: many can play it, but not many can play it.

I don't mean to sound like I'm dismissing your link but I think at this point in history the discovery of bacteria or prokaryote analogs elsewhere in the galaxy will only be a pop media revelation. Anyone with basic education in biology and statistics realizes that it's only a matter of time before we find a self-replicator out there somewhere. Space is big and Earth is not special just because we live on it.

Thuggish cop or thuggish robber. In either case, someone who is gruff, abrasive, or overaggressive, not especially bright but pretty canny and street smart, notices suspicious characters or things that are out of place, has a well-developed sense for negotiating a 'hood, can walk into a tavern, scan the crowd, and get a good feel for people's character and motivations.

Thanks, CH and AB.

I've been listening to Trinity's Messiah, great performance. Unfortunately one of the soloists had a bit of a malfunction from 20:50-21:00, felt really bad for her.

Anyone wants to guess what they are gonna change compared to the books? My money is on how Smaug gets killed (oh and spoilers ... I guess).

I read that Beorn is getting the full visual treatment. In the book he changes offstage, but I read that his metamorphosis is going to be a major effects sequence in the movie.

Biogas is expanding. I just read about a prison in Rwanda that is powered by poop.

I've read Hamlet but not Titus.

*Goes looking*

Not one of his better efforts but if you are looking for lurid Shakspear that is a good place to go.

Trikk wrote:

Go punch out a cop and then see if his buddies ask why you did that instead of beating you down and arresting you.

If I saw my buddy punching out some chick because she put her hand on him and said something lecherous, I wouldn't go "good for you!" and high five him.

Arguing that these actions were LG is insane. What would the CG, CE and LE actions have been then?

A violent, lethal and destructive action like that is the definition of CE in all groups I've played in.

Who died? Where's the lethality in non-lethal fighting. Do boxers and mma fighters get arrested where'd your at after each match?

There's some metagame thinking involved here: any time you strike someone (in real life), even if you don't intend to kill, unless you are a complete moron you know that you could inflict grievous, permanent harm, even lethal harm. The vagaries of any particular fight don't affect the moral currency of the action. Morally, if not in the eyes of the law, choosing to punch someone in the face is the same whether you happen to land a glancing blow or break bones or kill the person.

Can you recommend something of his that you really like? I took some music courses in college and I listen to a lot of classical radio, so I'm probably familiar with most of his popular and well-known works; but maybe there is something further afield that I should hear. I'm a lot more into Gesualdo and D Scarlatti (if you are into Baroque keyboard music, there are some great Elaine Comparone performances on youtube).

I've tried to reconcile myself to Vivaldi's music, fruitless. I find him incredibly boring. I'm afraid I'm with Stravinsky here: "The same concerto 400 times."

Regarding 7: remember the creepy sniffing, when the hobbits are hiding from them on the side of the road.

As for theories proven wrong in science (not just improved, but flat out proven wrong) we've got phrenology, Lamarckian evolution, race, the belief that no bacteria can survive in the stomach, the belief that acupuncture has no medical affects, etc. etc.

In defense of Lamarck, he is usually caricatured as the silly guy who thought bodybuilders should have muscular kids, which is not fair to him. Also, over the last couple of decades advances in cellular biology microbiology have led us to reconsider some of his ideas, albeit in ways he probably couldn't have imagined. For example, classical or orthodox Darwinian thought concerns itself with vertical gene transfer (parents>offspring), but we are becoming increasingly aware that lateral or horizontal gene transfer is and has been enormously significant in the evolution of life on our planet.

Nategar,
Information only comes from intelligence?

Let me give a succinct argument:

It's a worthless analogy because genetic "information" is in no way symbolic or referential. We have sciences (physics and chemistry) which are enormously robust in their power to explain and predict the business of self-replication at the molecular level, why atoms and molecules assort themselves in certain ways. Also, your argument is a bit similar to Hoyle's "wind blowing through junkyard assembling airplane" argument or Behe's bacterial machinery (flagellum) arguments. If I rearrange a bunch of letters in a text, it stops being meaningful and symbolic. However, since evolution is an unguided process which is not teleological, there are many diverse ways life can exist. The genetic code has diversified in a non-deterministic way since the advent of the first self-replicators. It may be hard for you to accept that matter can organize itself in ways we tend to find extremely complex, but there is nothing miraculous about it. That is simply what some matter on this planet does.

Here are some atmospheric suggestions for you. You can probably find a number of recordings/performances of all of these on youtube. I'll post more if I think of them.

Mystery: Debussy comes to mind. Try the beginning of "Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien" or "Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune," or perhaps "Sirenes" (vocal). There's at least one track also on the Excalibur soundtrack that would suit your needs. Perhaps also check out the 3rd movement of Beethoven's c minor symphony. For a creepy piece check out Ligeti's "Musica Ricercata II."

Grand sights: The prelude to Wagner's "Das Rheingold." Flip through Handel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks" (check out the overture) or "Water Music," Bach's orchestral suites.

Hell: "Dies Irae." Most people know the version in the opening credits of "The Shining," but it appears in a number of other pieces. Try the 5th movement of Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique (Dreams of a Witches' Sabbath).

Chaos: "Rite of Spring" could probably fit a few of your categories here, including this one and mental anguish and torture. I recommend listening to the whole thing.

One-on-one battle: Vocal, but "Heda, heda hedo!" from Wagner's "Rheingold" is a classic call to arms. The famous "Ride of the Valkyries" is great for battles as well. I think the prelude to "Walkure" would fit at least one of your categories also. You can probably find a bunch more Wagner selections that are well-suited to fantasy gaming (Siegfried's Funeral March, for one).

Just flipping through I don't see Gene Wolfe mentioned here, but his work is made for this thread. "New Sun" is one of those polarizing books, sort of like "Finnegan's," that is either the best thing you have ever read or deadly dense, opaque, abstruse, and almost unreadable. I vacillate/oscillate.

What brought this on?

"Guns are like condoms. I'd rather have one and not need it, then need it and not have one."
- That one chick from AvP.

I find that a lot of gun people, for lack of a better term, have trouble understanding that their rights and wants are not the only ones that matter, and that the government's job is to balance all of our competing rights as well as it can. For example, other people have a right not to be endangered by those with guns, and a right not to be made to feel afraid by those people. A lot of gun people abuse their rights and hide behind a disingenuous "nothing happened." "No one got shot, so what's your problem?!?! Mind your own business (insert name-calling [statist, enemy of freedom, etc] here)!" If 20 guys carrying loaded weapons walk into a restaurant, something happened (and they're well aware of it-it's not a naive or inadvertent transgression of a social contract), even if it was legal and no one was hurt or killed. See here for example of what I am talking about.

There was a Dungeon adventure in I think 2005 in which a sentence read "the orcs are not gentile captors." I was imagining yarmulke-wearing orcs with payot.

They wouldn't tell you here if they had a plan to do that, but I think the ruleset is pretty solid for the foreseeable future because they have developed a business model that doesn't rely on rebooting the game to sell core books every couple of years (they are making lots of money on adventure paths and Golarion products, as well as books like Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, etc.).

Just go with something you always wanted to play but never had a chance. Place the stats as needed. Then consider this as a good opportunity to role play.

Some of the most memorable characters are the runts and misfits who manage to survive and prosper.

It sounds like you might be trying too hard. As this kind of person, I can tell you that I don't like feeling pressed. The more I get pressed, the more I close down. You said he closed up when you got angry, which I understand. I don't like intense situations in which I feel judged or pressured. I think patience is required here. If things are going well, be happy and take your foot off the gas a little, give him room to expand at a pace that is comfortable for him. Hope things work out for you.

I would have to ask what is giving you climb as well.

A monkey would probably need his hands.

A snake, not so much.

And people wonder what a BS in Evolutionary Anthropology is good for:

some non-human primates are quadrumanous, fancy word for "four-handed." Orangutans are well-known for quadrumanous locomotion. Any limb they can bring to bear is about as useful to them as an arm is to us.

The molecular evidence is the smoking gun, probably providing the most powerful support for common descent (in this case, the idea that the first tetrapods were fishlike creatures exploiting littoral niches, from which evolved amphibians, from which evolved terrestrial animals not dependent on aquatic environments). I recommend this website highly for those wishing to educate themselves.

I think you use Dexterity modifier. This from http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules #TOC-Incorporeal-Ex-
(second sentence of last paragraph).

It has no Strength score, so its Dexterity modifier applies to its melee attacks, ranged attacks, and CMB.

From the "affirming/restoring faith in human goodness" file.

Actually, that sounds bad from a european perspective, as this trend has not yet happened in Europe, and we tend to follow your bad ideas more than your good ones :)

Yes, you should try to keep independent bookstores, because, like all kind of stores, these are social places, where people can meet and talk IRL, and that is not something that happens over the Internet.

Amazon is convenient. It is also soulless. Bland.

IT will never replace a one-man work of passion and offer the same thing.

best,

To me it's a matter of what Glen Duncan calls the amoral craving for novelty. Amazon and B&N are utile, but everything there is on the map. When I go to a library book sale or a used bookstore I never know what I will find. Something long out of print, something awesome that's languishing in obscurity, a remnant of lives long gone in the form of an inscription, some 70 year old newspaper clippings tucked between the pages, who knows.

Paizo has a bunch on clearance, many of them classics.

http://paizo.com/store/fiction/kingArthurPendragon

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Quote:

But, once again, a Paladin who is operating in lands where slavery is legal, knows the score. He should be working every day to change the circumstance, change the law, promote goodness, etc. But, unless he's prepared to smite you know... everybody, he has to work within the system.

and watch evil happen right in front of his eyes, stand by and let them happen. I think that works for a paladin in an abstract sense if he KNOWS its happening...until it happens right in front of him and he's morally obligated to stop it.

But he's not obligated to throw his life away if it accomplishes nothing, his death won't fix the system which is what needs to be changed. Check out the paladin entry in the CoT players guide, it spells out how a paladin in Cheliax would work to change things without charging in sword first and rocking the boat. If you piss off the government and they have you killed you will not be able to bring hope and joy to the masses.

Examples familiar to most people here are Princess Leia, Mon Mothma, and some other rebel leaders in the Star Wars movies. They're rebels in Eps IV-VI but they're clearly lawful good. They're not looking to destroy political order, but rather to use the Senate and bureaucracy as instruments of good instead of tyranny. They're running and hiding because it becomes too dangerous to try to fight the Empire politically, and they can't help anyone if they are put out of business.

Cartigan wrote:

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Again, why won't it attract a new generation? If it attracted the last one, what has changed?

Good stuff about the English language, but Cartigan also doesn't like Faulkner or The Great Gatsby, so make of that what you will. Also, just because Cartigan doesn't like it doesn't mean that Shakespeare's appeal has escaped anybody other than Cartigan.

Faulkner is piss. And The Great Gatsby is droll. Oh look at all the rich people being self-righteous and self-pitying. Go drown yourself in your lake.

My not liking Shakespeare in general is unrelated to my point that there is no reason not to update the language.

Oh, or H.G. Wells, either. He's a real hater, that one.

Wells is an interesting case. It's hard for us to understand that someone who was considered a progressive liberal in his time (not all that long ago) could have written some of the unbelievably racist stuff he wrote. Double-take racist.

Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus wrote:

HarbinNick wrote:

Is there a polish joke in here somewhere? poles? throwing poles?

Funny you bring that up, I am 50% polish.

Oddly enough, I always found the way written Polish looks to be quite terrifying, until I learned Russian, and realized you guys just needed some Cyrillic to sort yourself out. That said 'Polish' is the only nationality that is also an English verb as far as I know. And nobody says Finlandize anymore.

French (v) has culinary uses (it isn't just slang for kissyface). Japan is a verb, though that doesn't quite work.

AB, if you don't mind my kibitzing (if you do, please just tell me to shut up and I won't post here any more):

I wasn't crazy about 4...Nc6. It's hard maybe to criticize a natural developing move, but it freezes your c pawn. When White tries a kingside fianchetto, I usually try a solid setup with d5, c6, and e6 at some point, c6 to block up the diagonal and bolster my foothold in the center (d5 square), if I can. A more aggressive strategy might involve a c5 thrust at some point. c5 is a thematic freeing move for Black in many openings, exerting pressure on d4 and also on the queenside (b4 square). In this game, since White adopted a hypermodern approach (sniping at the center rather than occupying it with lots of pawns) Black might have been the one grabbing a lot of space with a pawn center. In either case, the mobility of the c pawn is an important consideration. (Even if I can't play d5 and c6-for example, after 1 c4 c5, 2Nc3 followed by g3 and Bg2 at some point, I've gotten my c5 pawn active fighting for control of the center.)

Judge Reinhold
was in
Gremlins
with
Steven Spielberg

Way back in 1981, when I started playing, it was explained to me by more experienced players that the racial limitations were there to make up for two facts:

1. Most demi-humans could multi-class. Humans were limited to "dual-class," which was more limiting, and in those days nobody worried too much about a multi-class character ending up weaker than a single class (it just wasn't something we fretted over too much until late 2nd Edition). We were too busy being eager to play more than one class at a time.

2. Demi-humans had all those great racial abilities.

Humans, on the other hand, could be anything. Other than multi-class. That was the trade. The result, strangely, was that hardly any of us ever played a human. Because we all wanted to be elvish fighter/magic users, or fighter/magic user/thieves, or whatever. In order to keep that badass elvish fighter/magic user from being too badass, he had limitations on what else he could be, and if I recall correctly, class level limitations. It was all very complicated.

(I personally also believe it had a little to do with their source material; the most obvious being halflings, who had all the class options otherwise available to Bilbo, Sam, Frodo and Bullroarer.)

3.x/Pathfinder traded all that mess for giving humans extra feats and skill points. Probably a cleaner, easier, more simple solution to balancing racial abilities and it brings so many more game options for players.

But here's the funny thing. I know you guys who play gnome barbarians are out there. But in my experience, most players, even new ones, stick with those same old racial limitations without even thinking about it. We still see oodles of halfling rogues, elf fighter/sorcerers, and gnome wizards. So I'm not sure anything really needs to be done about it. It just is, on its own.

In retrospect I'm kind of surprised how much everyone liked extreme multiclassing. It's not as if you were becoming super powerful; in a 12th level party the 12th level wizard was light years ahead of the thief 5/fighter 4/wizard 3 or however the staggered advancement worked out.

Lawns are underwater in 07066 and we're under curfew probably until noon tomorrow, but no wind yet and the lights are still on, thank goodness. Part of neighboring 07016 was evacuated this morning, got my bugout bag ready but hoping we don't have to leave our homes.

My gaming group has switched to PF for over a year now, maybe close to two, and we still call it "DND" when we're discussing it with other people. Like, we say "Are we playing DND on Friday?" instead of "Are we playing Pathfinder on Friday?" I also notice that when I stick PF games into my schedule, I type "DND." My wife still calls it DND.

Anyone else notice the same thing? Note for the sake of discussion, nobody I've talked to bothered playing DND4thED.

Yeah, to me D&D is a genericized trademark at this point. Maybe if I liked the name Pathfinder I would use it, but Pathfinder is the name of a Nissan, so it's D&D.

Motivated from the thread about the dude playing the paladin (would link, but I am on break and doing this from my phone), I want to know people's opinions on paladins and how they interact with gods and alignment. I have heard of people allowing paladins with any alignment, so long as they matched it to their diety. I can be convinced differently, but I don't agree with that.

To start off, I'll state what I think.

Conceptually, paladins were supposed to be warriors who used divine power to further the overall cause of good, while adhering to a rigid code of conduct.

By design theory, they were meant to be a notch above other classes, at the cost of alignment and roleplay restrictions.

Neutral, to me, goes against the intent of the class - that is, to have apathy towards both lawfulness and chaoticism (is that a word?). Paladins were meant to be devoted, and the very idea of having apathy at all seems wrong to me.

Certainly there are similar classes that don't demand LG. The divine champion prestige class from 3E Forgotten Realms comes to mind. "For deities that do not count paladins among their followers, divine champions fill the role of the church-sponsored warrior."

It's hard to play at GM level without spending hours and hours studying the opening and memorizing moves, huh? Great. No offense, but I play Chess to have fun. I'd have a lot more fun losing against a better player than winning at the price of putting in that kind of work. Even if I had the potential (which I'm sure I don't) I would never even TRY to achieve grandmaster level.

On the other hand, this post mortem thing seems interesting. Maybe I should try it. I used to play on chess.math.com, which has a program so simple that even I can beat it...most of the time. And it keeps a record of all the moves, which you can copy and paste into a text file. Maybe I could try analyzing a game some time.

(And I've heard that Bobby Fischer hated the way Chess today required analyzing records of one's opponent's past games, and for that reason, introduced a variant called Chess960 which randomly places the pieces.)

Anyway, 3... Pe7-e6

I think analyzing your own games is essential if you really want to improve. As you suggested, the idea of Chess960 or Fischerrandom is to make chess a game of critical thought (once again) rather than a contest of rote and preparation.

This is an informative article about how a top player uses technology to prepare for events. Highlight: "Kris and Hikaru go over the report together, and Hikaru memorizes the 500-1000 moves that it includes, reciting it back to Kris without looking at the board to ensure that he has all the information in his head when he goes into a game. And that’s when computational power ends and human skill and talent take over."

17...Bd7-e5

(And incidentally, I just noticed "blindfolded chess" in your profile. I'm deeply impressed. I find it hard to believe that such a thing is possible, although I just read in the wikipedia "Blindfold chess was considered miraculous for centuries, but it is now accepted that any strong player today can play blindfolded, and many can keep track of more than one simultaneous blindfolded game.")

Opening preparation is another reason top players now can play blindfold well. The nature of high-level play has changed so much since the advent of strong software. Nowadays if 2 GMs, or even weaker masters, are playing they will often churn out 20 or more moves of theory before they reach a novel position that requires serious critical thought. If they have spent hours and hours studying the opening and memorizing moves (it is hard to play at a respectable GM level without doing this nowadays. There are only a handful of absolute freaks of nature, such as Magnus Carlsen, who can show up at the board with little or no prep time and perform well against the strongest players in the world), they can play it blindfolded because they know all the pitfalls. They know that there is no lurking danger, and they can get well into the middlegame without breaking a cognitive sweat (whereas a top player 40 or 50 years ago would have been out of book much earlier in the game).

I guess I'll wait and see, and look up the research ;)

Simon LeVay's research, especially on possible correlations between hypothalamic morphology and sexual orientation, might be a good place to start. He's best known for some work he did with cadavers, comparing certain areas of the hypothalamus in people of different sexual orientations. As an aside, whenever people talk about "being born gay" I think of 5:15-5:27 .

They don't clean themselves? Give them penalties to diplomacy.

They don't sleep on anything they're used to? Make them roll a fortitude save, if they fail penalize their movement by 5 for have issues with their back.

So, in game terms would you say that every person in real-world pre-industrial societies who didn't bathe regularly suffered penalties during social interaction? That doesn't make much sense to me. It's more likely that denizens of a fantasy world roughly comparable to medieval or early modern Europe would find frequent bathing strange.

There's another issue here with "birth control," which is that the steroid sex hormones have many therapeutic uses I don't believe anyone has a moral problem with. For example, some women who have hellacious problems with endometriosis are prescribed "birth control" pills. I don't think a prescription ever says,"Take one Seasonale once a day to prevent pregnancy," so you can't even assume that you know why the medication is being prescribed (as far as I know the dosage doesn't give it away). I don't imagine there are any pharmacists who are so crazy they would refuse to fill a script when they don't even know what the drug is for, or that they would ask the patient or doctor why the drug is being ordered ("Doctor, am I filling this because the patient is a slut, or is there some legitimate reason she is taking this?").

Umbral Reaver wrote:

What does obsidian do? I'm curious, since I don't have UC and obsidian weapons are relevant to part of my home setting that's still under development.

Cannot be used for armor, normal weapon damage, has the same fragile quality as bone and other stone.

Incidentally the terbutje/macuahuitl is probably my second favorite of the primitive weapons in the book (it loses out to the taiaha for me).

As an anthropologist I'm obliged to mention that "primitive" obsidian is the best material we have for many surgical applications. Unless there has been a major breakthrough within the last couple of years, obsidian blades have the best (thinnest) cutting edge we can currently make, much superior to that of our best metal implements.

Absent-minded professor is one high INT low WIS archetype. This is the person who is brilliant but struggles in the real world because of lack of savvy or common sense. The kind of person about whom people say,"He's so smart, I can't believe he puts his pants on backwards." Or perhaps the intellectual who is oblivious to the world around him because his head is always buried in a book. Or perhaps someone who is mildly or moderately autistic, extremely intelligent but imperceptive because he is lives in his own insular world. Another might be an arrogant intellectual who is oblivious to the world around him because he is so self-absorbed and caught up in his feelings of superiority. Religious or political fanatic is another possibility, someone highly intelligent but extremely pig-headed and narrow-minded, too small-minded to see any points of view but his own.

Brave New World is still a mainstay in secondary English curricula but is hard for me to read now; it seems horribly dated. Silmarillion, I dunno. I have loved LotR since I was a kid, but I can't get through that thing. I believe many other Tolkien fans feel the same way. Disappointed that Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Green Sky didn't make it, though it has been out of print for a while I think.

...you think skills are "sort of like non-weapon proficiencies."

...you don't understand why every character doesn't have a max press.

...you think rolling dice to collect information or influence NPCs is a crime against nature.

...you really like polearms.

Fergie wrote:

Getting murdered in your sleep isn't an epic way to die, it is a very frustrating death.

[...]

One more thing, the DC to notice someone while you are sleeping is probably out of the range of most characters, and surviving a coup de grace generally requires rolling a 20. Considering the odds involved, ganking someone in their sleep is pretty much guaranteed death.

Of course it sucks. But so does being run over by a car after lying down on the highway for fun. In other words: It really sucks, but you only have yourself to blame.

Generally, I could see an unspoken agreement that inns are off limits and have in-game explanations for it. Maybe the assassin's guild this this rule where they don't shine a guy in someone else's establishment. Or breaking into the inn means extra effort, the assassin will want to be paid extra if the client insists of an inn-side job (hee hee hee), or otherwise just wait for a better opportunity.

But if you don't keep a watch when you're out adventuring and sleep in the wild or a dungeon, you practically ask to be shined.

Plus, this isn't generally, either: They have a known enemy they stole something from and who's really pissed at them and who has already made several attempts to get his stuff back. You just don't let your guard down in such situations. Just assuming that nothing will happen you in your room in the inn even though you have an enemy is a sure-fire way to be taken down.

And concerning "fairness". It might not be too fair to kill someone in their sleep, but is it fair to just ignore dangers and assume the GM will keep the kid gloves on, or maybe put him on a guild trip if he teaches you a lesson in carelessness?

Opportunity makes a thief.

Lying in the highway is not a useful analogy. The point here is that the GM wants to balance consequences against abuse of his power, since he has absolute power over the PCs. And opportunity frequently doesn't make a thief. I'm sure everyone has done something stupid like left a wallet in plain view on his car seat or forgotten it on a table in a restaurant, only to find it later exactly where he left it, or to get it back later from someone decent. Most people go unvictimized most of the time, even if they are not being sensible. It's not your job as GM to ensure that the universe punishes the PCs every time they do something you think isn't smart. That's neither fun nor believable.

3.5, I disagree with this, at least from a game standpoint:

but neutral good is the most good of good, potentially saintly, at the very least accepting and decent.

The bias toward social order, the idea that social order is intrinsically positive (though there are exceptions) is built into Pathfinder, and has been built into the game as long as the 9 alignments have been around. You can have philosophical discussions about the relative merits of order, balance, and individualism in the real world, but in the moral universe of the game the alignments have always been arrayed from best to worst as

LG
NG
CG
LN
N
CN
LE
NE
CE

Social structure as a virtue, or regard for social structure as a virtue, is implicit in this schema.

Auxmaulous wrote:

Quote:

Pro-personal vs state could easily be the liberals too -- Martin Luther King Jr for an easy example. Also GAY MARRIAGE == PERSONAL CHOICE which is being denied by the conservatives.

No, by today’s standards he would be considered a conservative Republican who opposed the Dixiecrat standards. Democrats are the ones who passed prop 8 in California (exit polls 82% Repub, 64% Dem, 52% Independent) - a solid blue state.

By today's standards, MLK is just as much of a radical liberal as he was in the 60s.

Contrary to today's sanitized image of him, he was not just involved in African American civil rights, but in economic and social justice work. When he was shot he was supporting a Memphis Sanitation workers strike.

Unless you think unions are now a conservative issue?

Auxmaulous wrote:

Anyway, I’m not going to get into a lib vs. conservative fight on a lib controlled board. Just wanted to offer up the op some movie suggestions.

I'm also amused by the conservative persecution complex. Lib controlled board? Seriously?

I haven't read or watched any of MLK's speeches lately, but as I recall he sounded extremely conservative, by our standards. I can't imagine many public/political figures nowadays other than Ralph Reed-Gary Bauer-Alan Keyes types talking about judging people by the content of their character.

LilithsThrall wrote:

Atarlost wrote:

political banter? You've got a bit of a problem. First, you've got to know what you're talking about at least a little.

roflmao you don't spend much time on the Internet do you?

They have 1 skill rank and no class skill in Knowledge(Politics). If your character doesn't even have one skill rank why would he even think about politics.

Think of all those medieval peasants who have no clue who their king is and what his duties are.

Too many gamers are applying a modern educated populace standard and not thinking in a medieval uneducated mindset. An uneducated peasant/sorcerer wouldn't even have the concept of poetry much less think himself as a poet.

I disagree about poetry. I can't say how a scop or transmitter of the epic poetic traditions of ancient Greece thought of himself, but oral traditions, including song, have been hugely important across cultural time and space, precisely because most people were not literate. Of course, poetry as a literary enterprise, the province of the educated, is a different species. But poetry was important long before the advent of widespread literacy.

ICv2 has posted an updated Top 5 RPG chart for Q2/2011.

Guess who's on the top.

Great news for the Paizo crew on the opening day of GenCon, gratz!

Remember, as they admit ("In the RPG category, we estimate that Paizo's Pathfinder won the quarter, behind more and stronger releases than Dungeons & Dragons.") these are estimates. As a skeptic, I'd like to know more about their methods. I don't know how to interpret this:

"The charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers."

DeathMetal4tw wrote:

A typical wizard will have a staggering hodgepodge of useful utility, damage, debuffing and other spells. You get so many new spells granted that you can learn large chunks of the classes' spell list.

Alot of people assume that wizards are going to have a vast selection of spells. They only get 2 free spells per level and have to pay gold for the rest, something that no other core class has to do. And depending on your DM and the campaign, just finding or researching new spells might be a major undertaking. Most of the wizards I've played didn't have more than 5 or 6 spells of each spell level (except for level 1-2 spells, which I had about a dozen each). And I spent a tremendous chunk of my time and my gold on new spells, money that could have been spent on permanent items.

DeathMetal4tw wrote:

On the other hand, a sorcerer has so few spells to gain per level that he can sort of collect every spell around a certain theme. For example, a necromancer can make it his goal to collect only death spells and related dark, icky spells like black tentacles, undead anatomy and perhaps magic missiles modified by sickening spell.

Interesting. I've actually found that my wizards tend to be more focused on themes than the sorcerers I play. For one thing, as a wizard, I can afford to take alot of redundant, similarly themed spells. As a sorcerer, not so much. As a Wizard, I feel the pull toward specialization, to find a niche out of the larger selection of abilities I have available. As a sorcerer, I feel the pull to be as versatile as I can be, given my limited spell selection.

DeathMetal4tw wrote:

On top of that the sorcerer gets awesome flavor abilities based off his bloodline which in many cases are actually pretty damn good.

Wizards also get some neat abilities, as well as bonus feats that can now be used on some pretty cool discoveries.

DeathMetal4tw wrote:

I see wizards as more of a minmax class and sorcerers as more of a role playing option, with

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As a player and GM, I really like spells dropped into adventures in creative ways. Of course, you can make the search for a spell a goal of an adventure, but there are so many other possibilities-spell runes inscribed on a stele, a collections of tiny potsherds inscribed with runes that need to be pieced together to make sense as a spell, a ciphered spell written in the stars, the notes of a song that can be translated into a spell, with intensive study.