In a nutshell, it's the idea that ISPs have to treat all sites as equal, so starupxyz.com gets served as fast as say CNN.com or CBS.com or NBC.com. It was one of the reasons that ISPs got labeled as Class II Common Carriers, which means that ISPs are or rather were utilities, like gas, electricity, and water.
Without that designation and without the Net Neutrality rules, ISPs are free to discriminate which bits get special treatment. Comcast, for example can now serve up NBC content at lightning speeds while throttling everything else to a trickle. They can then charge sites fees to not be put in the slow lane, which will starve out smaller companies and creators who can't afford the fast lane tolls. They can also entirely lock down access to sites and start offering site packages like cable has channel packages. The following is an extreme case, but it's not as far from what I think will happen.
- $15 for Internet Access! Blazing fast speeds, but only to sites that we own.
- $10 for the Googleplex package, get access to Google, Gmail, and Youtube!
- $15 for the Media package! Netflix! iTunes! and Amazon Video/Music. For another $5, get our Bibliophile addon! Or save the money and try this curated selection of books from NYT best sellers, and no one else.
- $15 for the Gamer package. Steam, Battlenet, and all the top studios!
- or pay $100 for the whole shebang! (Plus taxes, content delivery fees, infrastructure fees, and we like to be jerkwads fees. Oh, you want all of those sites not to be throttled? Well, that'll be an extra $50 for the Hi-Speed addon.)
It sounds silly, but that's pretty much what cable is, or rather cable's worse from what I hear. It's the very thing that Net Neutrality rules and laws are supposed to prevent, because it's a hostile, extortionist practice. I would call my representative and senators, but... Well, if you know where I live, then you know why I haven't worked myself up to do it. I got a letter from Roby one time that basically felt like she was patting me on the head and saying, "There, there, the grownups are talking and we know best."
And perhaps worse than the economic ramifications, it allows the corporations running the ISPs to control the flow of information. So, if NBC (to continue the above example) were to fire thousands of employees in a really sketchy (like, possibly illegal) cost saving plan, Comcast could (and given their track record, very likely would) block all access to websites running stories about it for their millions of customers. Or even worse- they can choose to only allow positive content about political candidates whose platform would benefit them and only negative content about their opponents.
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Merry Christmas! Thanks to all of you for making this one of the best games I've ever played.
Also, since I think many of you will appreciate this, one of the best presents I've gotten this year is an Imperial Shuttle Lego set, but not just any Imperial Shuttle set, it's the original one that the released back in 2001. It's sealed, in the box, and if I were so inclined, I could sell it and make $200 easy. When I realized this, I immediately geeked out and had to call my mom to tell her since she gave it to me. She found it and wrapped it after misplacing it some years ago.
Needless to say, that baby's going together and sitting in my office at work. :D
And perhaps worse than the economic ramifications, it allows the corporations running the ISPs to control the flow of information. So, if NBC (to continue the above example) were to fire thousands of employees in a really sketchy (like, possibly illegal) cost saving plan, Comcast could (and given their track record, very likely would) block all access to websites running stories about it for their millions of customers. Or even worse- they can choose to only allow positive content about political candidates whose platform would benefit them and only negative content about their opponents.
Exactly. This is why you have a small-government libertarian arguing for government control and regulation of ISPs. It's too likely they will abuse the power that comes with having no net neutrality rules or laws in place. That and without those laws, you give those companies carte blanc to violate the first amendment rights of anyone they don't agree with it.
Hope you enjoyed your X mas!
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Merry Christmas! Thanks to all of you for making this one of the best games I've ever played.
Also, since I think many of you will appreciate this, one of the best presents I've gotten this year is an Imperial Shuttle Lego set, but not just any Imperial Shuttle set, it's the original one that the released back in 2001. It's sealed, in the box, and if I were so inclined, I could sell it and make $200 easy. When I realized this, I immediately geeked out and had to call my mom to tell her since she gave it to me. She found it and wrapped it after misplacing it some years ago.
Needless to say, that baby's going together and sitting in my office at work. :D
And I've spent a good part of the day building the lower half of an AT-ST with eldest... and a volcano crawler with youngest - lego heaven :) Sadly, no lego for yours truly - just vicarious enjoyment...
Actually wound up with two sets this year, the Imperial Shuttle and the current Y-wing model.
Love what your momma gave ya, L.L. :3
Oh, almost forgot. I found/rediscovered this while looking up just how much that set was worth.
Strangely many in my family insist otherwise. :<
As far as modules go, not really sure. Masks of the Living God can be a lot of fun, but I've not played a lot of modules. There's the Rise of the Drow which could make for a fun game in the right hands, but that's a bit expensive.
Ten dollar pdf recommendations from me would include From Shore to Sea (I ran it on the boards here and it's a fun one), Carrion Hill, Midnight Mirror and the Godsmouth Heresy... I would absolutely say the Harrowing if you were picking only one - the only down side being that I'm going to lift you out of the standard Shattered Star narrative and run that one for you - so yeah, 'ware spoilers!!!
As to the later 17.99 modules, the House on Hook Street and Dragon's Demands are good ones...
Also, don't forget your Holiday17 discount for another cool 10% off your pdf's.
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The only really geeky gift I got this year was a fantastic sketch of Milhouse (from the simpsons) dressed as Frodo Baggins and carrying the one ring whilst riding a giant eagle, with the caption (in a stylized elven-esque font) "Everything's coming up Milhouse."
As for modules, I have no idea. I haven't run any of them (unless you count the pieces of book 1 of RotRL). If I have the time this semester, though, a friend and I may try writing one. We actually have an idea for a setting we've been talking about looking into self publishing. If we get into any really work any time soon I might be looking for playtesters...
Briana: If you're doin' an AP, I'm in !(well, if you let me in, of course!)
Well, if one day, in the next months or so, you feel ready for an AP, i'd be glad to sign. Unless it's Iron Gods.^^
Crypt of the Everflame, Masks of the Living God, and City of Golden Death from part of a series if you want to do something a little more ambitious than just a single module. Dragon's Demand is also another one that's more meaty, but I've never read all they way through it.
There's also third party modules if you don't mind going outside Paizo. Kobold Press and Frog God Games both do pretty good work, but I'm not sure about the others.
Crypt of the Everflame, Masks of the Living God, and City of Golden Death from part of a series if you want to do something a little more ambitious than just a single module. Dragon's Demand is also another one that's more meaty, but I've never read all they way through it.
There's also third party modules if you don't mind going outside Paizo. Kobold Press and Frog God Games both do pretty good work, but I'm not sure about the others.
- Did you download the freebie of Bloody Jack that Frog God Games were offering over the Holiday Season? Of the various one-offs that I've read and run, that's definitely amongst my favourites..
I have, but I haven't read it. I'm planning on running a GURPS Psi-Wars game soon, so that's taking up most of my reading time at the moment.
Murder's Mark has been frustrating for me. I'm not sure if that was because of the GM or the module.
It felt like we never really made any progress and every lead we had wound up being a dead end. We're in what I think is the final fight, but we basically had no way of thwarting their plans without what felt like a Deus ex machina. It doesn't help that the GM only posts once a week at most and that makes combats and NPC interactions torturously slow. Just to give you an idea of how slow, it's been over a year since we started the module and we still aren't done yet.
Honestly, I'd like a shot at it under a different GM just to see if it is how slow things have been that's causing the issue.
I would too. While the pre-UW Snowball was really good, there are also very few good cold and ice spells in Pathfinder in general. Ears of the City is more about convenience and Lipstitch is pretty situational as far as how good it is. It's not something that I'd pick just because I felt it was a must have. Besides, at best it's 12 points of damage with bleed. The real use is silently silencing someone from a distance before you rush in, and to me a silence spell is a lot better at that.
Sorry, don't really have any suggestions at the moment, I'll take a look if I can muster the energy and see what sticks.
I'm still trying to finish up a final paper from last semester that I got an extension on, so I don't have time to really dive into the witch's spell list... but if you're still looking for suggestions a week from today ask again and I'd be glad to do some digging!
I never played a witch (so far) so I can't be of any help, sorry.
My only witch isn't the best example, because he's a debuffer witch and very powerful when played right. First round, he's not so great, but by the third round, he's turned the boss into a platypus.
Merry Christmas and happy New Year to everyone!
My Christmas was wonderful, and New Year's Eve is shaping up to be a lot of fun, too. I'm tapping this update from my new Kindle Fire. (The only other gaming-related present I received was the board game Dominion plus an expansion set.)
My December has been rather trying otherwise. I'll spare you the details, but some things beyond my control have been taking up practically all of my spare time.
I think that the worst is behind me now, and that I'll be able to return to regular posting after New Year's Day.
Thanks for bearing with me!
Happy New Year!
--Mike "Haladir" Ferdinando, Ithaca NY, USA
And a Happy New Year to everyone here... who knows what fun awaits down here below the Lady's Light for you in 2018!!!
Didn't do a thing today, so thats good.
But I'm back at work tomorrow... and that's sad.
well, if it makes you feel any better, Briana, I'm still working on my overdue paper from last year/semester and I just got a syllabus for next semester which includes a paper due the first day of the semester (the 8th)...
Yikes.
Other than dealing with the crud, I'm actually doing pretty good. Tomorrow's my last day off before I go back to work, so here's hoping I feel better by Wednesday. :)
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I spent NYE working my way through a full bottle of Jack Daniel's with the man, and brought in the new year by drunkenly singing Africa by Toto at the top of our lungs. The dogs weren't impressed; we didn't care.
Now I want to see you play a Caydenite pirate. I think it'd be hilarious.
Despite the fact that I work on a college campus, I'm very glad that I've been done with writing papers for well over 20 years.
My wife and I decided to splurge and bought the New Year's Eve package at an old-school resort that's in our region, about an hour's drive north. The other guests were mostly a bit older, and mostly quite a bit wealthier than we are. That said, we have enough experience hobnobbing with the elite that I think we passed.
We ended up striking up a conversation during the cocktail hour with two charming couples: One pair was a physician married to a psychologist; and the other was the owner of an alternative-energy company married to the director of a regional nonprofit. We were then seated at the same table for six in the dining room. Dinner was scrumptious.
While the band was billed as a "swing band" and the brochure said that there would be dancing, the dining room really didn't have a dance floor, and the band was more of a cafe jazz band, so there wasn't much dancing to speak of. After dinner, we asked and were given the go-ahead to have a little after-party in the well-appointed "Parlor;" a reception room styled like a large living room. Before the bar closed, we bought two chilled bottles of local sparkling wine, and hung out in the parlor until about 2 AM.
Brunch for New Year's Day was as lovely as dinner.
Our daughter will be in college next year, so we'll probably be watching Ryan Seacrest on "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve" on TV next year!
Anyway, now to read the 121 unread posts in the Gameplay thread!
Sounds like a pretty cool NYE... we just chilled at home and I read up on the instructions for the X-Wing miniatures game - and that was NY day for myself and 9yo - and, in a shock to the system, am already back at work...
Cool. Sounds like everyone had more fun than I did New Year's. I just stayed home and took some NyQuil.
Wonder if the person who wrote the brochure was someone that things swing and jazz are the same thing or if there was a change of plans.
I did nothing at New year's eve.
A good supper (we're French, we don't joke with food), and I was in my bed around 10:15.
On a brighter note, I spent my Paizo credit and picked up the Murder's Mark module! I'm a little booked up on my GMing for the next few months since I'm GMing for a multi-table special that starts on Friday, will be doing the same for specials that'll be happening in March and May, and also agreed to run a 3-parter scenario series for one of my PFS-buddies here on the forums. Once some of those commitments are done, I'll look at trying to run the module :)
Murder's Mark is one of my favorite modules! I've run it four times: Twice for Pathfinder, once converted for Swords & Wizardry, and once converted for Dungeon World.
It's got tons of role-playing potential, and can play out in many different ways. It requires a lot of flexibility on the GM's part: it's written to be somewhat of a railroad, but it's very, very easy for the PCs to derail the train. My advice is to use the module-as-written as more of a set of guidelines than a script, let the PCs lead the action, and adjust on-the-fly.
Another time, the PCs found the smuggling tunnels beneath the city earlier than expected, and raided the thieve's guild before I had a chance to run the middle part of the module. Again, I just ran with it, skipping the entire section where the PCs are supposed to raid the mansion.
When I ran the DW conversion, I replaced the skulks with a down-on-their-luck band of former mercenaries. Honestly, I think skulks seem a bit out-of-place for the storyline.
Brianna: Feel free to PM me if you have questions about that module or if you want some pointers/tips on running it.
Jo, I *did* briefly play a Caydenite pirate! Aramis Elizabeth Mirian Steele was a typical loose cannon gunslinger, armed with her pappy's musket and a painstakingly transcribed accent :P Hope you're feeling better!
This summer is not fun... I've had to swap bedrooms with my sister/housemate, and my new one is much smaller. There's no room for my cooler to actually circulate the air anywhere, and temperatures are going over 40 degrees Celsius this week. (That's over 104F for you yanks!)
In other news, I get to take a step back from PFS this year, which might help me cut down on a few toxic people. I'll still go to games, still run them, but I'm not relying on it for my live-gaming fix. I'm playing in a post-apocalyptic low-powered GURPS game on Saturdays, and that Exalted game is starting up next Sunday. I'll go from a high-powered Lunar who can shift into a Cthulhu-esque monstrosity larger than a ship, to a hex-slinging witch who can turn enemies into toads, to a former low-level research scientist with an amphetamine addiction and only three days' supply left, trying to defend herself from zombies along with a veterinarian with broken glasses and a former college football start with a bung knee.
Sounds fun, also glad to hear that things are clearing up for ya. And yeah, I'm feeling better. Still got a cough, but at least it's not every few minutes.
So, speaking of GURPS, I've been toying with the idea of running a Psi-Wars here on the forums. For those who can't see the page, Psi-Wars is an inspired by Star Wars setting that's also pulling double-duty as an object lesson in how to do deep world building and setting design. Simply put, there's a lot of information. I'm planning on running a live game as well, but I've been wanting to do a spacey game here and I think this format will allow me to experiment a bit with breaking some of the assumptions built into the game.
I know you guys are really busy, but I'm not going to be doing this for a while. For one, I want to make it a little easier to get at information and well, the wiki's nowhere near ready and there's some changes coming that will be affecting the setting and some of the mechanics, like how starships and fighters are handled. That said, if y'all have the time, would you be interested?
Man, I haven't played GURPS in years. Also, finishing my overdue paper from last semester (which must, without exception, be submitted today)- will make gameplay post (in all the various games we share) later today.
GURPS was my go-to system throughout the 1990s, and I still think it's a very, very strong system. I picked up a copy of the 4th Edition rules a few months back, but haven't played it in a while.
Some of the more memorable GURPS games I was in were...
- Jungle Runners! A pulp adventure game set in the 1930s, heavily inspired by the Indiana Jones movies.
- Boston 2.0 A cyberpunk game set in the distant future of 2019.
- The Wild Wild West A not-quite-steampunk game inspired by the 1960s TV series of the same name. (This was several years before the terrible Will Smith movie.)
- Barogen 3039 A far-future space opera game that was one part "Star Wars," one part "Star Trek," one part "Babylon 5," and one part "Nine Princes in Amber."
- BLAZE LAZOR AND THE SATURN 5!! 1930s pulp scifi game inspired by the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials; a spin-off of the jungle-pulp game. It only lasted three sessions, but it was AMAZING!
- A very, very weird X-Files/Illuminati/Vampire/Cthulu game. (This one didn't have a title, so we just called it, "Ted's Game.")
I've been thinking recently of rebooting the "Blaze Lazor" game, using Fate Accelerated Edition. I think the FAE rules would work a lot better for that genre.
One of my favorite games that I ever ran was a 'heroes' GURPS campaign where the point buy wasn't high enough to really make super heroes and it was set in (basically) real world Western New York. So the characters were kind of odd vigilante types. One of them was "Mr. Alert" who was basically a regular guy with sky-high perception who spent a lot of his time watching dozens of TVs at once to notice the unusual happenings everyone else overlooked. Another was "The Good Humor Man" an ice cream truck owner/operator who had the power to conjure snow cones that could deal modest cold damage and like remove fatigue and/or grant some fire resistance or something. And the last guy was "Bob" a fairly athletic guy who ran a 'canadian leisure sports emporium' and would use equipment from like curling and duckpin bowling to fight crime. They would all meet at Denny's (in game) to hangout and plan their crime fighting and they befriended an octogenarian former superhero (the Grey Ghost) who used to have a bunch of legit powers (including invisibility, intangibility, and laser eyes) but couldn't use them properly anymore (his invisibility and intangibility powers would sometimes activate accidentally and he had to make rolls to activate them on purpose if he wanted to; and his cataracts had reduced his laser eyes to doing very little damage). Gosh, I already spent more time on this post than I should have but the main villain was great too: "Ferro" (a play on Pharaoh and ferrous) an egyptian student at the University of Buffalo who could turn his skin to metal (like Colossus) and stylized himself after the ancient kings of his homeland. At one point he succeeded in conquering the university, enslaving its significant Jewish population, and forcing them to turn a large building on campus into a pyramid from which he could rule and plot further conquests. This resulted in the arrival of a new hero who called himself "Moses 2" and became an ally of PCs. That game was so much fun.
Anyways, I need to do a cursory proofread of my final paper and submit it, then its nap time and I'll post in gameplay sometime tonight.