pres man's page

Just took another look at the cover of the magazine in question: you guys do realize she just killed a frickin' Frost Giant Jarl, right?!?

Hawt and scary-awesome.

Yeah, a few decades ago it would have been some Conan guy standing over the dead giant dressed in nothing but a cloak and a loincloth and the woman would have been peeking around some boulder at the great man who saved her. Nice to see a woman not needing saving.

Do we know if the women that were being discussed felt like they were being treated badly?

It is still going to a week or two before things really start moving. The last container isn't suppose to reach Reaper until Tuesday. They will then have to unload it and get into the sorting line. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't any real shipping happening this week.

Digitalelf wrote:

Right, and Old Spice and Axe ads/commercials are not advertising to the lowest common denominator either, are they? No, not at all... Not even a little bit...

Can we not pretend that deodorant and firearms are argumentatively interchangeable? Thanks.

Can we agree that to advertising companies the products don't actually matter? Thanks.

Sounds like he is booting himself. The easiest thing to do is just remove him from future emailings and such. Put the weight on him to contact you. You don't have to boot him, just let him do it himself. If he shows up, great, but work under the assumption he is out of the game. At this point booting him seems more of an ego thing than a practical one. "No I dumped her, she didn't dump me."

Yup, a hammer's only use is to hit things. Tools are often designed with only a limited number of uses. Doesn't make them less of a tool or less useful for those things they are designed to do. If you want to build a house, use a hammer not a gun. If you want to scare off a wild animal, a gun might be a better option. The right tool for the right job.

Bay Area elementary school holds toy-gun exchange

Gun toting grandma stops intruder.

Game of Thrones spoiler:

** spoiler omitted **

LOL, exactly what I was think.

Looks kind of interesting.

Also liking women in armor does not nesecarily mean you don't like naked women or are a prude isn't that a false dictomy.

This makes me think of the ST:NG episode when they first introduce the Ferengi.

Last I heard, Reaper was waiting for the last containers to arrive, they are basically in a holding pattern right now. The number of pre-orders (yes they are pre-orders just deal with it) they could fulfill from the last shipment arrived was so small that they decide to just wait until the rest arrive to set up their sorting system again.

Facts are facts. If there is no gun around, a teen looking to go on a rampage will settle for a knife. It will then be a knife-slaughter rather than a gun-slaughter. Note that the number of victims will likely not be the same.

It should be noted that while they don't get nearly the same amount of coverage, most killings with guns don't involve a large number of people getting killed. Usually it is one or two people due to a crime, accident, or self-infliction. Mass killings whether guns, bombs, or a man running slicing a thousand throats in a single night are a rarity in most civilizations.

Maybe the scandal is the anti-Bush folks that were foaming at the mouth when he was doing it for calls made from inside the US to numbers outside the US, who are now silent or up in arms defending Obama for continuing to do it and including calls inside to the US to inside the US.

Don't get upset that you got punched in the face, because the other day I got kicked in the nuts.

On the other hand, a 15-year-old dating a 17-year-old is relatively safe (circumstances should determine if there is a power imbalance)... and I don't think they should be forced to stop having sex just because one turns 18.

What was it Natalie Merchant say?

When the boy was a boy, the girl was a girl
they found each other in a wicked world
strong in some respects
but she couldn't stand for the way he begged and gave in
pride is for men
young girls should run and hide instead
risk the game by taking dares with, "yes"

Do you have enough players to get the rest of the adventuring done? If so, just cut his character out of any significant plots or plans and expect him to be the occasional guest star who crops up every few episodes or so.

If not, adjust things so you can or recruit another player to do the heavy lifting while he drops in and out.

This. So much this.

Great, now if I ever watch Aliens again, I must be supporting the abuse and murder of women, due to the scene where the marines find the woman still alive in the hive and she asks them to kill her (before an alien bursts from her chest).

It should be noted that women are now making up majority of college graduates. Will we see a dramatic drop in high level positions being held by white males in the near future. Probably not, but I believe we will see a dramatic shift in the middle range positions.

Males will be pushed to the extremes, maintain the majority of high level positions but also making up most of the lowest level positions in society. The question then will become what does it mean to have privilege and power for a given category of people?

If (I'm pulling numbers out of my rear here) 90% of men are in a lower position than 90% of women, but the other 10% of men are in higher position than everyone, does that mean that men as a whole will still be considered to have the power in society?

Gee, what a shock. In video about violence against women in video games, she focuses on violence against women in video games.

Is it violence against women video or tropes vs. women?

pres man wrote:

Here are some of them.

That link is actually all of them that were made under 3.x any after that were made under 4E rules and didn't have RPG stats

Pres man - do you know if there is a link like that for the star wars cards, or did they have to take it down when they lost the license?

I couldn't find any and I saw somewhere that said they never did put them up for download (of course the person might have been wrong). It looks like almost all information related to star wars miniatures and RPG have been taken down or the links are broken.

There is a druid variant in Complete Mage IIRC that gives you an elemental companion instead of an animal companion, you might consider going with that.

OPTIONAL addons, subtractions and substitutions is probably the way they will go. Always optional so no one can ever complain they ruined the game for them.

Case in point Gunslingers, how many groups would have left PF if guns had been made a core part of the rules. But they didn't they made it purely optional take it or leave it and everyone stays happy, Simple ;)

Well up to the point the new material starts showing up in APs and modules and things. At that point the whole: "optional, take it or leave it", starts to lose some traction.

Here are some of them.

I would say that calling Jabba helpless versus Leia is a bit of stretch (of his neck, LOL). He had shown he was still capable of inflicting harm when he Hutt slapped C3-P0 across the throne room as well as keeping the slave girl from getting too far away till he fed her to the rancor. Sure he was going to be slip sliding around the sail barge. But he was certainly capable of stopping Leia under favorable circumstances. And Leia wasn't armed except for the chain leash he had her on.

No, Leia took advantage of the situation and strangled that fat slug. She kept her wits and used leverage to her advantage (and perhaps some unconscious force ability). Claiming she cowardly killed a poor helpless creature who couldn't defend himself is silly. Had she tried to attack him in the light in a frontal attack (assuming there was an opportunity to) he likely would have swatted her around before rolling on top of her and crushing her.

I think Keith Baker's Gleaner is different.

I will agree, JJ's 2013 movie is just as sexist as Lucas's 1983 movie, 30 years earlier. Nice to see social evolution in Hollywood is moving right along.

Klaus van der Kroft wrote:

If you ask me, no one should be allowed to yell "Fire!" inside a theatre.

And what should they yell in the event of a fire inside said theatre? ;)

EN FUEGO!

Well the Justice Department has apparently gone against their own rules about informing News agencies when they are being investigated. So claims of being "the most transparent" administration seems to be false.

Now does that mean Obama has gone back on his word. Maybe not. We are seeing more information that advisers to the President have been keeping information from him (regarding the IRS scandal specifically). So it is maybe others in the administration that are hiding things and not the President.

It should be noted though that at this time it has been stated that the President is apparently okay with being kept out of the loop (so he can't unintentionally influence the investigations that were on going).

I think the issue was with this comment:

Couldn't I just as easily say "why don't people just stop saying offensive things?

I believe Meatrace was indicating this is an impossible standard to consider since there is no way to know in all circumstances what will be offensive or who may be listening.

There is a variant of 3.5 (which I imagine could be used for PF), where all rolls are made by the players.

Marc Radle wrote:

Black Dougal wrote:

Just saw it..

... $25/30 to see again in the theatre.

$25/30 to see a movie in the theater? Wow, where do you live???

13 bucks for a ticket, 13 bucks for a large coke and chilli nachos.

Clearing out the entire row. Priceless.

;D

I would add a party NPC. Nothing too powerful, but just something there that you can use in game to rebalance an encounter if things get a little too off kilter. Probably keep the party 2 levels above the challenge levels. Gestalt can help but just keep in mind that the economy of action still applies.

Another thing to consider is if the players might want to play more than one character, perhaps a primary character and their sidekick/cohort (same level though).

I mean, jeez, it's not entirely off-topic. Did you know that that case was still in court? I didn't.

Based on the descriptions of some of the defendants' statements and attitudes, I'm not sure if all of them are aware it is still ongoing (or aware of much anything). Probably explains why they are in the position they are.

I'd be more impressed if they took Final Frontier and use that for the basis and actually made it not bad (I actually like Final Frontier but a lot of people don't). I would actually recommend using the animated series episode, "Beyond the Farthest Star" as the basis, but there is obviously similarity between the two (incorporeal being needing a ship to escape).

That guy is his dad.
And she is his sister.
And by the way, that guy is the emperor.

By the way it was Paris and Janeway that became lizards. And the child was not Chakotay after all but really was the Kazon leader's.

pres man wrote:

Irontruth wrote:

There plenty of worse cracks in the system showing than this project. Here's a project that pretty much died.

The KS funds have all been spent. The project creator is now digging into his own pocket to supply refunds, but you have to contact him directly and he has to pay pal it to you. I don't know what his exact financial situation is, but if he's out of cash in his pocket, you're out of luck on your refund. You could take him to court over it I guess.

Kickstarter is not a preorder site, regardless of how much it might appear to actually be one, or how much you wish it were one.

Now what does that remind me of? Certainly not any kind of preorder situation.

Do your research on people and the industry.

Don't just go "ooh, shiny!"

Doing research means:
1) less likely to get burned (but it can still happen)
2) less likely to be surprised when setbacks happen, because you'll know what kind of setbacks can happen

KS is not a handholding site.

You're putting your financial information into a website that has zero policy/infrastructure on returns and zero mechanisms of enforcement. The company that owns KS will do NOTHING to help you obtain your promised goods/services, or refund your money. NOTHING. It is up to you to protect yourself.

Isn't what you are saying true of a lot of independent preorder situations? Such as the one the link I provided was discussing. So if that is the case, why make such a big deal of saying kickstarter isn't a preorder site. As if just because something is a preorder that somehow protects you from being screwed over. It doesn't, and never has.

There plenty of worse cracks in the system showing than this project. Here's a project that pretty much died.

The KS funds have all been spent. The project creator is now digging into his own pocket to supply refunds, but you have to contact him directly and he has to pay pal it to you. I don't know what his exact financial situation is, but if he's out of cash in his pocket, you're out of luck on your refund. You could take him to court over it I guess.

Kickstarter is not a preorder site, regardless of how much it might appear to actually be one, or how much you wish it were one.

Now what does that remind me of? Certainly not any kind of preorder situation.

If Reaper had marketed this as "Gives us some money so we can make some new molds and maybe if we get enough money we will get some production ability out our source. We might sometime in the future feel generous and send our backers some kind of gift as a thanks." Then I might buy the whole, "It isn't a preordering system." And of course it wouldn't have been nearly successful either.

It was successful because Reaper did market it as a preorder system. "Give us X money and we will give you A amount of stuff. Give us extra Y money and we will give you in addition B amount of stuff." I mean the entire add-on system is a preorder system in its purest sense.

Also, it has been noted that Reaper specifically set the bar low (for them) at $30,000 and that they were really thinking it would reach $1 million and had planned for it to reach as high as $4 million.

Reaper as late as February (6 months after the Kickstarter ended) was still saying they believed that the March deadline was possible.

Newest prediction:

My estimates now include unknowable variables like Customs delays, so I have predictions ranging best case to worst case, Best Case for orders to be 100% complete is July 4th weekend, worst Case is July 14th, as close as I can calculate. so yeah, assuming 2 months is realistic, although sooner is certainly possible.

Anything JJ Abrams touches always ends poorly. He can't even end stories as good as Michael Crichton, and believe me that is a pretty low bar to clear (... uh how about a volcano blows up and everyone jumps on a hot air balloon).

Yeah, I did catch that they said that it was 3-6 weeks (so counting next week 4-7 weeks) to get to our docks, not to get to the warehouse. So an additional x weeks on top of that for customs.

Well it looks like it is going to be about 2 months for most of the people still waiting. Good news is that maybe by then they will have the whole Canada thing worked out.

If the character in question is a pleasure to have in the game and that dynamic will be changed because of an unlucky death - why is it bad to spare that character? I don't get it. If the character is a good contributor to the campaign, what's wrong with a little plot immunity? This isn't to say that letting the dice fall where they may is bad, it's just mystifying to me the number of people who, for some reason, characterize fudging as some kind of weakness, moral or otherwise.

Not necessarily bad to spare them, but would it have to be bad to change the dynamics of the group? Just because this character was a pleasure to have in the game, does that mean that the next character won't be? Maybe the next character will be even more of a pleasure to have in the game? Isn't that a possibility also?

My personally problem with too much fudging is the following:
A)It assumes that the GM knows for a fact what outcomes will lead to the most enjoyable outcome. Yet in my experience many of the most enjoyable memories and thus outcomes have come about as completely unexpected results. Yes losing a character is annoying, but if it leads to the dwarf in the party saying, "My name is Ironhorn Mountainbeard, you killed my friend, prepare to die." over and over again for the rest of the combat with the entire table, including the player whose character died, laughing their butts off. Wouldn't that be great?

B)It can lead to favoritism issues. If for plot reasons the GM's best friend/significant other keeps getting "saved" by the GM, because they understand the GM better and are able to interact with the plot better. Yet the guy who the GM is least friendly with never seems to get "saved", his characters don't vibe with the plot as well, that can become an issue out of game. If there is no fudging and rolls are made in the open it is hard to have those issues come up as much.

Bill Kirsch wrote:

Jade, I'd like to see that Maron episode. Is it still running? What channel is it on?

Maron is only two episodes into its first season. The D&D flavored episode was the first. It's on Fridays at 10pm. I'm not sure how you'd catch the pilot, but it's got to be out there somewhere.

Check hulu.com

Will Smith - "Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But Fear is a choice."

So wait, we should avoid looking like we're discriminating even if we aren't? Isn't that the democrats line?

Isn't that who we are talking about? ;)

Yeah, I'm not seeing the connections, can you draw the lines a little more clearly for us slower people.

So wait...

You have a slew of AstroTurf organizations that are effectively a mouthpiece for the republican party popping up like mushrooms and claiming a tax exempt status that prevents you from supporting specific candidates and you don't think the IRS is supposed to look into it?

I'm not sure what you mean by "that prevents you from supporting specific candidates". You are going to have to clarify that for me.

Also as pointed out there are plenty of AstroTurf organizations that are mouthpieces of the Democratic Party.

I don't think anyone is against the IRS being diligent about proper application of this tax exempt status (well except for those that want to get rid of the IRS entire, and this situation isn't exactly helping the IRS's reputation).

But keep in mind the IRS (a) targeted specific groups based on key phrases that only show up on one area of the political spectrum. Which is bad enough, but it also may mean that they focused so much on those groups that they missed other groups from other areas of the political spectrum. And (b) they were asking these groups for information that they could not legally ask for (such as personal information about backers and their families).

There probably wasn't any political motivation involved, there was probably just some low level workers trying to cut corners to deal with an increasing larger set of people trying for this status. This was a way to cut out some quickly. The problem is that anyone with half a brain should have realized this looks like a steaming pile of crap and they should avoid any appearance of this type of thing, whether legitimate or not. "Performance is no substitute for Appearance."