Malachi Silverclaw's page

if I needed the toilet during the night, I had to cup them and walk slowly or it hurt too much. :)

...I hate to see a woman doing a man's job...!

(I'm joking! Please don't kill me!)

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

In practice, this is handwaved by most, but it is easily possible to cheat if you don't. You could roll a d20, and if it's within 2 points of missing then decide it was a normal attack and if it isn't declare it was TWF.

That doesn't work. You don't roll a d20 and then decide what bonuses apply to is. If the roll is d20+16, it's d20+16, not d20 and then +16. In order to be using TWF, you must declare as such and incorporate the TWF penalties into your attack rolls. More to the point, I was illustrating the nature of the difference between what the character knows and what the player knows. Sure, from the standpoint of just looking at the rules of combat, the player is using a full-attack action with the option to step it down to a standard action. But from the meta-perspective, the full-attack never happened; it was always a standard action. You're arguing over nothing.

It seems like we agree, apart from the semantics.

The point I was answering was the idea that the player attacks without declaring what action he is using, believing that this is how the 'deciding between' clause works.

But it doesn't work that way. This choice is only given to those who declare a full attack. Not to those who make a standard attack, and not to those who try and attack first then decide what kind of action they are taking later (the game doesn't work that way).

As far as the character is concerned, there is no such thing as 'actions' in the game sense; no 'standard attack' or 'full round attack'. For the character, they are just making one or more attacks. They might be able to execute, say, three attacks using two weapons then they can start to execute that sequence, but if the enemy goes down after the first attack then they can do something else instead if the rest of the attacks.

For the character, this is not a quantum event; it's simply keep attacking til it dies and then move onto the next one.

For the player, it's not a quantum event either. The player declared a full attack, and it then got changed before it was complete. You didn't go back in time to change anything, it's that you only completed a bit of it so that bit only counts as a standard.

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

I don't agree that it's a state of uncertainty. You certainly choose the full attack full-round action, and then have the opportunity to change it to an attack standard action after your first attack.

Equivocation fallacy. I'm using "certainty" to describe the nature of revealing the actual course of the combat to the player. You are using "certainty" to describe the conviction of the player in choosing their actions. 5 Yard penalty.

Semantics aside (?), a player cannot first attack and then decide what kind of action it was later, nor can he attack and then reveal what kind of action it was later.

However you use the word 'certainly' (or 'uncertainly'), in order to take advantage of the 'deciding between' text you must already be taking a full attack. It must be a deliberate choice and it must be revealed. You must take any penalty associated with the full attack you're making (such as -2 for TWF), and must declare it if you are making such an attack.

In practice, this is handwaved by most, but it is easily possible to cheat if you don't. You could roll a d20, and if it's within 2 points of missing then decide it was a normal attack and if it isn't declare it was TWF.

I don't agree that it's a state of uncertainty. You certainly choose the full attack full-round action, and then have the opportunity to change it to an attack standard action after your first attack.

I'm gonna unleash a small salvo here, starting with this one:

I like memes. I think they actually do offer some insight into current culture. However, memes are not "stupid political ideas that the nut jobs on the other side believe." Using the word that way makes you look like a fool.

I recently saw one that I thought was funny:

What if deja vu means you died and had to restart from a previous save?

.....have you asked me that before....?

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

Wizards can cast spells, dragons can fly, giant insects can breathe, not because the players got together and decided all these things individually, and not because the DM made it all up from scratch.

These things are true in the game, because a group of mates decided to play Pathfinder, and the PF rules have these creatures doing those things.

The PF rules also say that monks get Slow Fall. It's a dick move for a DM to say that it doesn't work 'because realism', especially when it's the DM who wrote the character sheet!

If the DM said, at character creation, 'Monks don't get anything I think is unrealistic, and can only Flurry 1/day/level', then I'd ask, 'What do they get to make up for what you've taken away?'

If the answer was, 'Sod all!', then I'd say, 'Good luck in finding someone to play one. Oh, and BTW, that dragon isn't really flying, that wizard is only pretending to cast spells, and no 6 inch high creature is going to hurl me off a cliff so I don't need Slow Fall anyway!'

It would probably go downhill from there...

Being one of my first forays into RPG's, I didn't know any better at the time...

Another reason the term munchkin and the like really grind my gears, I got stuck with the label before I even knew the rules.

I really hate the idea that 'using class abilities as written' = 'munchkin powergamer cheesehead'.

My father used to be a shop steward (a union representative), one of about six shop stewards where he used to work. He was particularly successful in negotiating with management and getting the workers a good deal.

One day, he went into work to find that the others were having a shop stewards meeting without him. When he asked why, he was told that the meeting was about him. They thought he was too good at his job, and thought that this was suspicious.

In reply, my father got out a small book. "This is my Shop Stewards Handbook. I've got one, each of you has one, and they each say the same things.

"The difference is, I've read mine!"

I've had similar experience where, having read and understood the rules, the others think I must be cheating somehow.

Wizards can cast spells, dragons can fly, giant insects can breathe, not because the players got together and decided all these things individually, and not because the DM made it all up from scratch.

These things are true in the game, because a group of mates decided to play Pathfinder, and the PF rules have these creatures doing those things.

The PF rules also say that monks get Slow Fall. It's a dick move for a DM to say that it doesn't work 'because realism', especially when it's the DM who wrote the character sheet!

If the DM said, at character creation, 'Monks don't get anything I think is unrealistic, and can only Flurry 1/day/level', then I'd ask, 'What do they get to make up for what you've taken away?'

If the answer was, 'Sod all!', then I'd say, 'Good luck in finding someone to play one. Oh, and BTW, that dragon isn't really flying, that wizard is only pretending to cast spells, and no 6 inch high creature is going to hurl me off a cliff so I don't need Slow Fall anyway!'

It would probably go downhill from there...

Real people are not built to order. No point buy.

Real people get (the equivalent of) random stats. This doesn't mean that, say, blacksmiths are as likely to be weak as they are to be strong. It means that strong people are more likely to be effective blacksmiths, therefore that profession attracts and retains strong people.

Wizards need to be smart. That profession will attract and retain smart people.

This is modeled well by rolling stats, and even choosing how to assign them. Each blacksmith might put their best roll in Str, and each wizard might put their best roll in Int.

What they cannot do is intentionally lower one stat with the result being that another stat gets higher!

If the blacksmith repeatedly bashes his head against the wall to lower his Int, or is deliberately rude to people and scars his own face, this will not result in him being stronger!

If the wizard deliberately catches a wasting disease to lower his Str, this will not increase his intelligence! Although it might be a result of low wisdom...

But point buy allows you to lower one stat to increase another. Not only is this process a poor model of reality, it results in every wizard having 7 Str and every barbarian having 7 Cha, because any other choice is a deliberate choice to be less good at being a wizard or barbarian.

So point buy results in a population full of 18s and 7s, which does not model any population.

If there was a college for wizards, you would expect all of the students to have a high Int; there may even be an exam to get in. Rolling stats will mean that their Int scores will be 18, 17, 16, 15...whatever the best roll was, but not exactly predictable. The Str scores may be poorer (too much study, not enough exercise), but even a min/maxed set of rolls doesn't predict exactly what that Str score will be. It could be 10, 11, 12...whatever your worst roll was.

So this results in a student body with a realistic variation in ability scores, even if you can predict that Str won't be higher than Int.

Contrast that with the same college in point buy. Every single wizard wannabe can, and should, have 7s in Str and Cha, and 18 Int.

The optimisers in rolled stats still have a realistic population; the optimisers in point buy don't.

Rynjin wrote:

Y'all is a legitimate contraction y'all.

Even some language experts agree the English language needs a proper 2nd person plural.

What about thee and thine? English has a 2nd plural pronoun, "you" and the older "ye," but for some odd reason "you" has stolen the spot for 2nd plural subjective and two forms of 2nd singular, "thee" and "thine."

So why not put them all back where they belong?

English had different words for singular and plural 2nd person, much like many other languages.

In the vast majority of those languages, the use of one or the other (or both) took on additional connotations. French, for example, uses 'tu' if the speaker is talking to a friend/child/pupil, but 'vous' if talking to a (singular) adult superior, social 'better', stranger, etc. The use of the two terms stops being merely about singular/plural and gains all sorts of other meanings.

In England, calling an adult 'thou', despite being the correct singular term, became a pejorative. In a court case, the sentence, "I 'thou' thee, thou traitor!", was used to Sir Walter Raleigh, to make it absolutely clear that he was worthy of insult.

So the singular form eventually died out, though at different times in different places. In Sheffield, within a generation ago, a mother might beat her child for saying 'thou' to her, even though she says it to him. "Tha's not 'thou' me! Tha 'you's me!"

So, I guess I shun those who wonder why English 'doesn't have a 2nd person plural', and wants to invent one.

Simon Legrande wrote:

I think people who believe that life can't possibly have not been created by a higher power are extraordinarily bizarre. But I don't begrudge anyone their beliefs.

I agree. I believe in a higher power because of certain experiences of mine (which I will not detail here), but it is certainly believable to me that life exists somewhere from pure chance.

Besides, that greater power had to come from somewhere, it didn't just pop into existence for no reason.

I also find it very strange that the people who believe that there must be a Creator on the grounds that evolution without one is too unlikely....

...are completely happy to have the Creator not be created itself, but leave its existence unquestioned.

If you're comfortable with the idea that the Creator didn't need to be created, then it's even easier to be comfortable with the idea that life evolved without a Creator, because life started so simply but a Creator capable of creating, well, everything, must be infinitely more complex, and how much more unlikely is something like a Creator to spontaneously appear?

If you think that the Creator was itself created (by another Creator), where did the first Creator come from?

This post is not intended to insult Creationists, just sincerely trying to understand the logic behind the idea that life/the universe spontaneously appearing is too unlikely to be possible, while the Creator idea is not held up to the same criteria.

We evolved to be upper paleolithic hunter gatherers... so the healthiest diet we can have contains veggies, fruit, AND meat. As long as you avoid processed foods and observe the virtue of moderation (yes that means too much of anything is bad for you) then you should be eating the healthiest diet possible.

FIFY. : )

I find it strange when people two places below me on the food chain say that they won't eat meat because they heard a story once where some feces came into contact with some meat, but happily chomp vegetables which are covered in feces as part of their production.

I've been playing martials since...'78 ish? I always felt a bit guilty for hogging the glory because I was so effective compared to the others. I never ran out of 'sword'. : )

It wasn't until I first arrived on this forum that I discovered that I'd been wrong the whole time and that I'd been completely useless all along.

The Stormwind Fallacy is something I encountered without ever knowing it had a name. I spend a lot of time making my characters, and my thoughts go back and forth between crunch and fluff, with the crunch I choose informing the fluff, and then that fluff informing my choice of crunch, backwards and forwards for a couple of weeks until I'm happy. I end up with characters that are optimised AND with plenty of story...at least compared to the guy who's character is called 'Dwarf number seven' (true story!) and the other guy who spent all his time 'roleplaying' a personality (so well that I can't remember much except how annoying it was) but who had absolutely no idea what his own character could do mechanics-wise, even after playing the same one for three years!

Anyway, at one point I was playing in one group where the DM told a story and hated the fact that there were any mechanics at all, and used DM fiat to make our abilities just not work if it went against what he thought should happen, and I was playing in another group that said, 'Sod all this talking with NPCs, when can we get to the good stuff? Y'know, fights!

I was the same kind of player (both optimised and story-focused) in both games, but one group thought I wasn't roleplaying properly if I had a character that worked so effectively in mechanical terms, while the other group thought my role-playing efforts were completely pointless and just wasted good fighting time!

bookrat wrote:

but I have seen broken classes on the weak end, like the rogue. Every single one of my players who has played one ended up hating how useless their character was for the majority of the game (we play APs). In the Iron Gods game I'm running right now, our rogue player ditched his character at 5th level so he could play something that actually contributed to the party. He had such high hopes for his character, and he was very disappointed with how it worked out. Nearly useless, always going unconscious, barely do enough damage, couldn't find traps, and more.

Couldnt find traps? Then he built his character wrong. Sure, early rogues had issues with DPR and staying up, but they could find traps better than any, even after they allowed Trapfinding to other builds. Unless you had Perception as a Class skill, enuf skP to max it, Trapfinding and the ability to get the talent "Trap Spotter " then you couldnt equal a rogue for trapfinding. Mind you, yes, many AP's simply do not feature the kind of devious Gygaxian traps from earlier editions. In many you could just take the damage and heal, with hardly a slow down. (Try that in ToH!). This is the fault of the AP, not of the class.

And I also blame the devs there in not telling us upfront on a AP that a specialized trapfinder wasnt required. This was expected int he past, so to see it almost never really important was a paradigm shift.

So yeah, it's true- a bog standard Rogue from the Core RB was inferior in everything BUT finding traps. Still, if he couldnt do that- that's his fault, not the class.

Why doesn't it surprise me that you are the one who leaps to the defence of the thief...er, I mean...rogue? : )

thejeff wrote:

Because grizzled vet is a common and fun trope that they'd like to play? But can't if their games always start at first level.

So why not simply say "I'd like to play a character that is a grizzled vet. I'm thinking starting at level four would work for that. Level one certainly won't."

If the group/GM agrees, you're all set. But if the group doesn't, and wants to start at level one, why try to still force your grizzled vet idea into the game? Come up with something else. Or talk with the GM, perhaps you can play a novice until the group hits level four, then you can retire your character and bring in your level four grizzled vet?

Because starting at level 4 not only allows me to play a grizzled vet (and infinitely more 'experienced' possibilities), but also allows the others to play talented farmboys.

If the want to play un-talented farmboys, then sub-optimal choices will do that just fine.

bookrat wrote:

So, um... I apparently have a confession that will get me shunned, because I was shunned for it just today here on these boards:

I am perfectly fine and regularly create characters with a maximum starting ability score (after racial adjustments) of 16 or 17, even with a 25 point buy. I don't feel like I need an 18 or higher at level 1 to make an effective character.

I'm with you. I very rarely go above 16. In my 12 PFS characters I have only once gone as high as 18.

I think of 14, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10 (before racial adjustments) as the perfect stat array.

I've only had two PFS characters. The first had pre-racial stats (highest to lowest) of 17, 16, 13, 12, 7, 7.

My last character had 18, 18, 8, 7, 7, 7.

I hate point buy.

People who write a backstory for their brand new, 1st level, 0 XP characters that level 20 / mythic 10 characters would be hard-pressed to duplicate.

No, your 0-level character didn't cut the One Ring off of Sauron's hand / slam the gate shut on Rovagug's prison / be the vital part of Asmodeus' plan to overthrow Lucifer. You grew up on a farm.

This is one of the reasons that I despise starting at 1st level!

Starting at 4th gives you plenty of room for history, and you can start as a grizzled veteran as credibly as you can a farm boy. It's hard to play a grizzled vet with 0 XPs.

There are so many characters to play in 'idea space'; why should I only be allowed to play farm boys?

When played from 1st, farm boys are still little more than that in RP terms even at 20th level, because your character can level up every day in some campaigns.

Anyway, at 4th level the WBL is enough to get some minor stuff that is cool, without being unbalancing.

Trekkie90909 wrote:

I am going to make a pencil disappear into the brain of the next person I have to explain magical weapon costs to.

1+1 = 2 and no amount of arguing changes that!

Well... sometime it equals 10.

There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those that understand binary notation, and those that don't.

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

Last night at work I went through a training course about the law regarding Equality. In Britain, there are nine 'protected' categories that it is illegal to discriminate against: age, gender, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marriage, and gender reassignment.

One of the test questions was something like, 'One of your employees is undergoing gender reassignment surgery, female to male, but the process means that he has to take time off work. You decide that this shows an insufficient dedication to his job, and decide to remove him from the leadership of his team. Is your decision legal?'

Answer: it would be illegal, because this would be discrimination, and since gender reassignment is 'protected', this would be illegal.

It left me feeling good about my country. What's the situation in the US? Does it depend on the state?

It does - in a large number of states (including mine), there are no protections for sexual orientation or gender identity. (Employment-wise, I mean.)

Does this mean that even though you can now legally marry a person of the same gender, you can still get fired for being gay?

Last night at work I went through a training course about the law regarding Equality. In Britain, there are nine 'protected' categories that it is illegal to discriminate against: age, gender, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marriage, and gender reassignment.

One of the test questions was something like, 'One of your employees is undergoing gender reassignment surgery, female to male, but the process means that he has to take time off work. You decide that this shows an insufficient dedication to his job, and decide to remove him from the leadership of his team. Is your decision legal?'

Answer: it would be illegal, because this would be discrimination, and since gender reassignment is 'protected', this would be illegal.

It left me feeling good about my country. What's the situation in the US? Does it depend on the state?

Also, I believe that gender reassignment surgery is free on the National Health, but there are some hoops to jump through.

Another thing to note about this law: although those nine things are 'protected', other things are not. That doesn't mean it's okay to harass people about things that are not protected, but you can choose to treat them differently in some ways.

For example: you are planning a works night out to celebrate a new contract. The plan is to go to a few nightclubs and get totally pissed drunk. You decide not to invite anyone over 50 on the grounds that you think it won't be their scene. That would be illegal; age discrimination.

Another example: the works day out to the park; there are some swings, and you decide to have a competition using the swings. You cannot legally prevent people taking part on the grounds that they are too old are because they have no arms and legs, because age and disability are protected. But you can say that someone is too heavy to take part, because 'weight' is not protected. This doesn't mean you can make fun of their weight, because that would be harassment.

I do not like George R. R. Martin.

I've never even met him.

captain yesterday wrote:

I have a contrary streak in me, if a bunch of people like something I won't, just because everyone else does, I'm especially resistant to peer pressure, it has the opposite effect, in the plus side tho I've never seen Titanic or Avatar, never did anything harder than weed and got the f*!# our of the s+$*ty little town I spent my teenage years trapped in :-)

I've never even done weed -- but then, asthma is a good reason to avoid inhaling anything except fresh air. I experimented with drinks for a brief period; my drink of choice was the gin and tonic. But soon enough I realized I'd rather just have the tonic, and haven't touched alcohol since.

Yes, I enjoy tonic water in and of itself. Thanks, dad!

A friend tells me that she's on The Gin & Tonic diet. So far, she's lost three days....

It's surprising and disappointing that the 'LGBT community' (if there is such a thing) seems to indulge in as much 'us versus them' amongst its constituent parts as does the rest of humanity. Oh, well.

I was once naive enough to imagine that if some Goths saw another Goth coming toward them, they would be like, 'Cool, another Goth!'

I've been informed that the reality is more like, 'They're not a real Goth!'

I don't care what you say you did you have a 6 int and a 8 cha if you roll high on diplomacy ok, but your default setting is dumb brute so that's what will come out when you speak.

When you think about it, half of all the people in the world are below average. But we don't think like that. We think that there is a broad range of 'average', with narrower ranges of 'below average' and 'above average'.

On the 3d6 bell curve which represents the general population, nearly 1 in 20 people have an Int of 6 or less. But are 1 in 20 people you know limited to 'AAARRRRGGGHHH' in conversation? I doubt it.

And yet, you're saying that someone with 6 Int is incapable of talking? That you're so sure of it that you 'narrate' the result without even asking for a roll, assuming failure? That you're so confident that nearly 1 in 20 of the population is incapable of uttering a coherent sentence that you take away control of a player's character?

It's a very common fallacy, but a fallacy nonetheless, that mental stats of less than average somehow mean a character is so stupid that they will die without a friend constantly whispering, '...breathe in...breathe out...breathe in...breathe out...'

An Int of 6 is as far below average as an Int of 15 is above average. Yet do we treat those with stats of 15 as gods among men, leaving those without such an exalted score as pointless wastes of skin? We don't,and we shouldn't treat stats of 6 as if they were ridiculously rare, when nearly 1 in 20 of the population has Int of 6 or less, on the 3d6 bell curve.

BigDTBone wrote:

But what many people dont realize is that DS9 was the originator of long-drawn story arcs over more than 2-3 episodes. Before DS9 TV was considered a media for episodic story-telling and that epic scale narrative was meant for the theater where you can give it up to 3 hours of film time. DS9 destroyed that paradigm and showed that you can really tell deep stories when you have ~20 hours a season to give it. The modern paradigm of arc-heavy plot-driven drama on TV began with DS9.

Not sure if serious....

My memory of that time is that DS9 got progressively longer story arcs because until then they didn't believe viewers 'wanted' longer arcs...until Babylon 5 showed them that they did! DS9 evolved to compete with Babylon 5.

'..and so it begins...!'

.i don't really like minmax as when a player puts 3 stats to 7 just so they can max the others, and still want to rp like they have a 18 int /cha.

Then stop using point-buy.

I find it really dumb that most people can be cool with any stupid magic rule but unlike in the early 80's to early 2000's they would be happy to give into really dumb fake technology but now that our real technology has advanced and Google makes people think they are more intelligent than they really are. No one is happy when you make up some crazy technology cause "that would not work". and every one hates pseudoscience now, <<<Sigh>>> that would not work because x is not real and y wont work without z, you what maybe in that world zxy works ad dose not need to be explained as to why t just dose...give into the "fantasy"/"Scifi" for me ts the same thing

i don't remember who said it but

"any sufficiently advance tech is no indistinguishable from magic"

edit

i have been called a treky a few times when i was a kid because i was into scifi/ fantasy book but i have not nor will ever see 1 episode of that show, i like the moves but don't like the show....that and x-files but that's because i could not get passed the bad acting to get me to believe in the show...

I believe Arthur C. Clarke said it.

kyrt-ryder wrote:

DrDeth wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

Fox is basically the worst thing ever..

Look, Rynjin & I agree!

Could be worse. For all of their crap Fox used to carry some great kids entertainment on Saturday mornings.

That, and at least they aren't left wing whackos :P

Americans don't even know what left wing means. If political ideology was a bird and Americans pointed to their "left wing whackos", people over here would say "what are you talking about? That isn't the left wing you're pointing at, it's the right shoulder."

In the U.S., you have a party that is right wing (Democrats), and you have a party that is very right wing (Republicans).

And to the right of that is Fox 'News'.

I didn't know about Firefly until it was all over, and bought the box set on spec. Loved it!

Then I did a bit of research. One of the things I loved about it was the story arc; easy to appreciate when you binge-watch the whole thing.

What amazed me is that when it was on TV they didn't show the opening two-parter, the one that explains what's going on, until right at the end after they'd already decided to cancel the show. They showed the other episodes in a random order, meaning the story arc got lost and the laws of cause and effect were broken; several consequences happened before the things that caused them.

No wonder no-one stuck with it! If I was a TV exec, and had a secret agenda to make sure a show got cancelled even though it was brilliant, how would I go about it? Well, I'd probably show all the episodes out of order, making sure that the all-important first episode which explains everything doesn't get shown until it's too late, and I'd probably change the day/time it is shown at random, making it difficult to follow even if you do like it.

I wonder why it got cancelled?

This reminds me of the story behind the cancellation of Crusade, the follow up to the hugely successful Babylon 5. The writer, JMS, has a proven track record of success in both writing and showrunning, but when TV execs and bean-counters started to tell him how to write, he wondered if they'd accept his instructions on how to count beans! They instructed, he refused. He knew that refusing would lead to the show being cancelled, but decided that his integrity outweighed his cowardice and stood his ground.

Why are TV execs so stupid in the US? So many good shows get ruined by their interference, and then get cancelled because the shows are ruined.

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

It's not what it looks like, darling! I was just...jumping over the...naked and oiled....succubus dressed like a nazi and the Druid shape-changed into a horse and dressed like a nurse....and then I kind of...fell into them!

I was trying to claw my way out! It's not my fault that I got a bit...tangled up! And it was them that tore my clothes off, not me!

Okay, so while I was in there I did a bit of...research. The things I do for Science! I didn't enjoy it at all!

...I was thinking about you the whole time...!

Her: if you were thinking of me, why did the succubus Alter Self to look like my sister?!?

Well, I mistake her for you all the time. Wait! I didn't mean thaarrrgghh!!!

It's not what it looks like, darling! I was just...jumping over the...naked and oiled....succubus dressed like a nazi and the Druid shape-changed into a horse and dressed like a nurse....and then I kind of...fell into them!

I was trying to claw my way out! It's not my fault that I got a bit...tangled up! And it was them that tore my clothes off, not me!

Okay, so while I was in there I did a bit of...research. The things I do for Science! I didn't enjoy it at all!

...I was thinking about you the whole time...!

We have certain expectations of the game.

One of the things players expect is that the rules for his class are the ones in the book. If the DM does it a different way, he should make it clear.

In the book, the player decides which spells he prepares, not the DM. If the DM said, at character creation, that actually the DM decides what spells are prepared (playing the role of the god in question), that is certainly something a DM can legitimately do in his campaign, but the player should have the option to change his mind about playing a class if the DM house-rules it so that his choices are taken away.

If I was in your campaign and said I want to play a cleric and you said that the god/DM chooses which spells the cleric prepares, then I'd say 'Okay, I'll play something else'. No harm, no foul. If I agreed to play a cleric when I know your house rule, then I can't whine about it later.

If I want to play a cleric but you don't tell me that you house-rule who gets to choose which spells are prepared and just surprise me with that during play, that's a dick move. I'd immediately change my PC into a non-cleric, and if I wasn't allowed then I'd leave the game. It's an alarm bell when DMs do stuff like that, and one dick move is usually followed be several more.

Once bitten, twice shy.

The player only has his PC. The DM has the rest of the multiverse!

The PC is the only thing the players have, and taking away control of that PC makes the player wonder why he's even playing. Is it just to listen to the alleged 'DM' tell a story?

This rings alarm bells for many players. The post that started this may have been meant innocently, but the way it came across was like this:-

Cleric's player: Here's today's list of spells that I'm preparing. Note that this list was compiled entirely within the rules for my cleric.

DM: No, you don't get to choose your spells; I get to choose your spells, and if you don't like it then you're a whiney little bi...hey, where's everyone going?

This happened this week, actually.

A greater Shadow attacked the party while they were asleep, only one person had knowledge Religion, and failed to identify it, so they began referring to the creature as "The Darkness".

The sorcerer, having just gotten all his spells back, was very excited about the combat, and shouted "I CAST MAGIC MISSILE INTO THE DARKNESS!"

The entire table started cackling and he had no idea why. Appearently he had never even heard the phrase before, which warms the cockles of my dried up GM's heart.

I've never come across the phrase either. What's going on?

Being 'immune to fear' as a game mechanic has nothing to do with whether you're afraid or not, and everything to do with retaining control of your actions despite the fear you feel.

Oh, you still feel fear when Cthulu turns up and wants to know why you're wearing his dressing gown, reading his paper and in bed with his wife. But you are not magically forced to run away.

When you run away, it's because you want to...!

In my book, Hideous Laughter will always be Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter.

I prefer that other spell: Tasha's uncontrollably hideous sister.

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

My post was simply building support for a case to show why those biologists should have known better than to say, 'you were bi all the time', when both biology and logic should have led them to conclude that an individual's sexuality can naturally, biologically change over time.

The problem with this statement is that you are not looking at the evidence. With respect, I do not believe you have comprehensively reviewed it before reaching such a conclusion.

You're right, I was not looking at the evidence, nor did I claim to. That's why I chose my words carefully:-

There remains the possibility that the sexuality of women (or whomever) changes over time, but that the change has a biological cause as opposed to a conscious one.

Ah, well! The limits of a text based medium are illustrated yet again. : )

MUDs also have their own strengths and weaknesses. The specifics of that are not in dispute, but one of the key advantages of TTRPGs is that a human can judge the action, therefore any player can attempt any action he can imagine, and the DM can judge it. Games limited by computer programs can only allow the actions programmed into it.

If the DM refuses to consider anything that is not specifically written in the rules then he is simply throwing away a key advantage of TTRPGs, for no benefit. I believe that the reason DMs do this more frequently over the years is that they are so used to playing computer RPGs, where you are only allowed certain choices, that they find it hard to get out of that habit and realise that players have literally infinite choice in TTRPgs.

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

Jessica Price wrote:

Todd Stewart wrote:

That being said, from my own reading of the literature, I'm largely convinced that both sexuality and internal gender identity are biological in nature and immutable. I haven't seen much empirical evidence pointing to any social influence thereof. What exact biological effects in combination are responsible, in what way, at what point in development... that's still very much up in the air with lots of competing ideas. I look forward to seeing how the field advances as time goes on.

So again, the "immutability" characterization is counter to the experiences of a lot of women (I'm not sure about men, as everything I've read on the subject has focused on women).

It may be involuntarily mutable, but many women experience their orientation as fluid and evolving over the course of their lives. (Hence the lesbian who, later in life, falls in love with a man, or the straight woman who falls in love with her (female) best friend, or the bi woman who ends up attracted to only one gender.)

The response from biologists tends to be "you were bi all the time," but that's patronizing speculation that assumes that the biologist somehow knows who the women in question were attracted to better than the women themselves do.

There remains the possibility that the sexuality of women (or whomever) changes over time, but that the change has a biological cause as opposed to a conscious one.

I never said it wasn't biological, or that it was a choice, or that it was conscious -- I said it was mutable.

Our skin elasticity changes over our lifetimes as well -- doesn't mean we have any control over it, but it's not fixed.

We remain in agreement. My post was simply building support for a case to show why those biologists should have known better than to say, 'you were bi all the time', when both biology and logic should have led them to conclude that an individual's sexuality can naturally, biologically change over time.

I recently played in a Call of Cthulhu game where a player had a pretty good idea for subduing his opponent, but because it wasn't covered EXACTLY by the rules the GM wouldn't allow it. Sitting there, irritated, I came up with 3 different ways it could be accomplished. If something isn't covered in the rules, I'm gonna figure out a way for my players to do it. Period. It's not fair to them if I don't. They often come up with some pretty nifty ideas and I'm not the type to quash a creative moment.

Table-top role-playing has advantages and disadvantages.

Computer role-playing has its own advantages and disadvantages.

One of the strengths of TTRP is that the DM is not limited by a computer program; he can use his judgement.

If the DM refuses to use his judgement to adjudicate an action that is not expressly written in the rules, then you are taking away one of the key strengths of TTRP, while not replacing that loss with any of the strengths of computers.

It would be like playing a computer RPG and being limited by the program, while refusing to look at the cool graphics or allow the computer to rapidly resolve the maths of the rules so quickly. All of the disadvantages while throwing away the advantages.

I can't believe people choose to do this; I believe it's done out of ignorance.

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

Speaking from the POV of pure ignorance (important because those of us who are ignorant about this make up the majority of your social environment), it seems like hetero -> bi -> homo is like the frequency of your car radio, but the 'asexual spectrum' is the volume.

Am I totally wrong? If I am, what is it, in relation to hetero to homo spectrum?

OK, that makes sense, but how do I set the clock?

The clock has already been set by the manufacturer. : )

Todd Stewart wrote:

That being said, from my own reading of the literature, I'm largely convinced that both sexuality and internal gender identity are biological in nature and immutable. I haven't seen much empirical evidence pointing to any social influence thereof. What exact biological effects in combination are responsible, in what way, at what point in development... that's still very much up in the air with lots of competing ideas. I look forward to seeing how the field advances as time goes on.

So again, the "immutability" characterization is counter to the experiences of a lot of women (I'm not sure about men, as everything I've read on the subject has focused on women).

It may be involuntarily mutable, but many women experience their orientation as fluid and evolving over the course of their lives. (Hence the lesbian who, later in life, falls in love with a man, or the straight woman who falls in love with her (female) best friend, or the bi woman who ends up attracted to only one gender.)

The response from biologists tends to be "you were bi all the time," but that's patronizing speculation that assumes that the biologist somehow knows who the women in question were attracted to better than the women themselves do.

There remains the possibility that the sexuality of women (or whomever) changes over time, but that the change has a biological cause as opposed to a conscious one.

In the news recently was the 'virgin births' of Florida sawfish.

The researchers say the female smalltooth sawfish are resorting to asexual reproduction because their numbers are so low mating opportunities are fewer.

Note that I'm not suggesting that human women are comparable to sawfish but men aren't; that would be absurd. I'm merely pointing out that lifeforms can change over time, biologically, in response to...well, all sorts of stuff. It should not surprise us that if we understand sexuality to be a result of biology as opposed to a conscious choice (and we do!), then where we are on that spectrum of sexuality can also change over time, biologically.

This means that the correct response from those biologists should not be "you were bi all the time," but "your sexuality was evolving biologically all the time."

Doesn't that make sense?

Speaking from the POV of pure ignorance (important because those of us who are ignorant about this make up the majority of your social environment), it seems like hetero -> bi -> homo is like the frequency of your car radio, but the 'asexual spectrum' is the volume.

Am I totally wrong? If I am, what is it, in relation to hetero to homo spectrum?

Posts that have been removed are rare and I'm usually glad I didn't have to read them.

When the mods say that they removed posts, it make me really, really, really want to know exactly what was said that was so offensive!

Is it just me?

A character who is reduced to Dexterity 0 cause of ability damage is "incapable of moving", and then receives the spell freedom of movement, how works?

1) make actions normally, and the ability damage is vanished
2) can make actions normally, but apply Dexterity 0 to AC, Reflex and so on
3) stay "incapable of moving"

Nothing outside of him is preventing him from doing anything; he can move as much as his own abilities allow.

Unfortunately in this case, the movement rate for creatures with Dex zero is....zero. Nothing is stopping him from moving his full, zero, rate.

If he was dead, and if you rule that the dead have a move of zero, would you allow FoM to bring him back to life?

*puts on a respectable looking suit and a tie, pins badge that reads "Devil's Advocate" onto the lapel*

But labels can mean different things to different people, and they come with their own prejudices and expectations. How can you be sure what it is exactly you're telling someone when you use a specific label? People aren't so simplistic that a few labels can summarize the entirety of their intrinsic nature. To quote a famous cartoon character "I yam wot I yam and that's all wot I yam" or to put it more eloquently: you are who you are, a unique individual the likes of which has not been seen before nor will be again. This is despite whatever superficial similarities to others you bear, because although we're all human (for now at least) we are all unique individuals and while some of us may have similar patterns of behaviour there is never another person quite like you.

*pretends he didn't just crib the argument from a web-comic while embellishing it, removes badge from lapel and takes off the monkey-suit*

I agree with all of that. And yet...

Humans are social creatures. Every individual has a right to be, well, individual, but we cannot forget that humans naturally, automatically make judgements about their environment and, like it or not, other people are an important part of that environment.

One of the most important social things we do is to quickly work out who is available to mate with, whether you're consciously thinking about sex (or marriage) or not.

So labels are a useful shorthand. Humans are hard-wired to reach fast judgements. Those of our forebears who spent time wondering if this lion could be a friendly lion had much less chance of surviving to sire children than those who made the (totally unfair to this unique lion!) judgement that 'lions are unfriendly'.

So humans are evolved to...label things, including people.

I'm not saying that this is fair, it is just acknowledging reality.

We would be better served by learning how to manage this reality than by denying or bemoaning it. And while it may be helpful for each one of us to wear a badge with our sexual orientation on it, I can't see it catching on. : )

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

In 2nd ed a player cast command at an enemy cleric that was casting through an open window. His word was, 'Jump!'.

He hoped it would make her jump through the window, but she just jumped up and down for a round.

"Autodefenestrate!"

That would've worked! She did have a huge....vocabulary!

In 2nd ed a player cast command at an enemy cleric that was casting through an open window. His word was, 'Jump!'.

He hoped it would make her jump through the window, but she just jumped up and down for a round.

In the days when you could use any word (rather than choosing a word from a list), my go-to word was, 'Masturbate!'

They drop their weapons to...er...get access, and then their hands are *ahem* full. Effectively a no-save 1st level auto disarm and stun.

You might have to use a word which means the same thing but with fewer syllables, depending on the intelligence/vocabulary of the target.

I wonder why the newer editions forced you to choose a word from a list...?

Some time on Google reveals that-

You could marry at 16
You could have sex at 17
There is no age restriction on the purchase of condoms, so you can buy condoms at any age.

The last is according to the ifpa, which I believe stands for Irish Family Planning Association, or something similar. That is now, perhaps it was different when your sister was there.

My instinct tells me that if you marry at 16 you don't have to wait a year to consumate!

Ever since 1st ed, I've used the fluff that magical healing can be sexually arousing; pleasurable in the opposite way that getting damage in the first place is the opposite of pleasurable. For most people anyway.

If you are trying to please your partner in bed, then you'll use any trick you know to get the response you're after. LOH, applied...er...judiciously, can go a long way to help.

Am I spending too much time thinking about this?

Malachi Silverclaw wrote:

Joynt Jezebel wrote:

I don't disagree with a word Silverclaw.

You say you don't agree with a word (fair enough), but don't say what you disagree with. I say that because I do agree with what you wrote after writing that you disagree with me, which leaves me puzzled regarding what you disagree with, exactly.

Psst, Malachi. He said: I don't disagree with a word.

Oops! Brain fail!

I totally apologise, Joynt. : /