Manwolf's page

I'm sure the people who attacked the cops are going to be hung by the neck until dead, if they even get arrested. Cops who do the same to civilians rarely see the inside of a courtroom, and the ones that do are given gold plated defense attorneys. You want this to be less us v them? Then stop coming up with sob stories when cops mess up.

I do not disagree. This guy that shot the other officers is a piece of work and anyone that does anything like that too another person should hang. I don't defend him at all and don't want to appear to. The letter of the law gets used to distort the spirit of the law, and justice isn't served. Innocent people on both sides are dieing, needlessly, and I agree with you that if the perpetrators are government workers, police, CIA, NSA, or whatever, they aren't paying for their crimes. That has to change. That doesn't give anyone the right to commit more crimes for payback. I don't think that's a sob story.

Manwolf wrote:

Of course it's not, it just makes it harder for the superiors to take timely action. Like you said, if you, or I, screwed up at work we'd be gone. Can't do that with a union. The idea is to protect people's jobs from bad people and bad situations, but it can unfortunately protect a bad person's job too.

It can, but I don't think it's the real problem. The Blue Wall is far more of an issue and not directly related to unions.

Some protection is needed - cops do face false accusations all the time.

But who built this "Blue Wall", the police or everyone else? It does, as they say, take two to tango. Do we have as much responsibility for the situation as they do?

In the last 3 weeks I've seen reports that there have been 7 or 8 cops murdered. Where's the outraged citizenry? Where's the comfort and call for justice? If all lives matter then please make all of them matter. I saw video of one lady, using the term loosely, being given a ticket for going over 50 thru a school zone, cursing out the officer and telling him how horrible a person he was and that she understood why people would want to murder cops.

I believe Police should not be persecuting citizens for any reason, they should just do their jobs in a legal and professional manner. I believe too that we have the same responsibility to act civilly, respect legitimate authority, and protest abuse. Let's make it better, instead of constantly dividing ourselves into us vs then.

Save Aranna's niece, save the world

Manwolf wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

thejeff wrote:

CBDunkerson wrote:

Policing in the US only attracts bullies and criminals because we have allowed police to get away with being bullies and criminals. If they were held to high standards of professional conduct and jailed (or at the very least fired) at the slightest sign of misconduct then the job wouldn't be at all attractive to the dregs of society that often seek it out now. There ARE still places in the US where the police are decent and professional people. However, so long as police are held to lower standards of behaviour than the population at large many of them will inevitably seek out the job precisely because they aren't fit for decent society without the protection it affords.

It's more than that, though that's part of it. In many places the attitude that the police are like an occupying force and the populace is the enemy is encouraged. Or the police (and the rest of the judicial system) are used to extract revenue from the populace in the form of fines (and penalties for not paying the fines, etc). Or in the form of civil forfeiture.

hm.

When I was mugged, I went to the cops to try to identify the guys. The cops in dealt with were distantly professional, but annoyed that I was interrupting their watching-porn-on-company-time time. They didn't seem upset when I couldn't identify the guys and were all smiles when I left.

There are still a whole lot more good cops than bad ones, but you will only hear about the sensational stories on the news. Even then, good people can go bad. Cops have a hard job, they generally do not get to deal with the best people, as in not many criminals are like the characters on Leverage, and they don't get to deal with people who are at their best, drugged out of their minds, violently angry, dangerously insane, etc.1

I work with many of the same people, and without the ability to defend myself in any way. If I mess up on the job, I get fired. Not time off with pay.

You can thank unions for that. There should be a method to quickly get rid of those that are either incompetent or just plain crazy like this guy, and make sure they can never be a cop again, but it's hard to fire union employees, even in cases like this.

thejeff wrote:

CBDunkerson wrote:

Policing in the US only attracts bullies and criminals because we have allowed police to get away with being bullies and criminals. If they were held to high standards of professional conduct and jailed (or at the very least fired) at the slightest sign of misconduct then the job wouldn't be at all attractive to the dregs of society that often seek it out now. There ARE still places in the US where the police are decent and professional people. However, so long as police are held to lower standards of behaviour than the population at large many of them will inevitably seek out the job precisely because they aren't fit for decent society without the protection it affords.

It's more than that, though that's part of it. In many places the attitude that the police are like an occupying force and the populace is the enemy is encouraged. Or the police (and the rest of the judicial system) are used to extract revenue from the populace in the form of fines (and penalties for not paying the fines, etc). Or in the form of civil forfeiture.

hm.

When I was mugged, I went to the cops to try to identify the guys. The cops in dealt with were distantly professional, but annoyed that I was interrupting their watching-porn-on-company-time time. They didn't seem upset when I couldn't identify the guys and were all smiles when I left.

There are still a whole lot more good cops than bad ones, but you will only hear about the sensational stories on the news. Even then, good people can go bad. Cops have a hard job, they generally do not get to deal with the best people, as in not many criminals are like the characters on Leverage, and they don't get to deal with people who are at their best, drugged out of their minds, violently angry, dangerously insane, etc.

I work on airplanes, and I know that you only hear the sensational news stories about air travel. Yes, an airplane caught fire in Las Vegas because the engine malfunctioned catastrophically, but did you know that this engine type is the most powerful commercial engine and has over 40 million flight hours as of 2014, and this is the first time for such a catastrophic failure?

I'm not wanting to minimize or defend the bad cops, but please don't paint the whole with a broad brush colored by the vast minority. I lived in ABQ, graduated HS there, and even went to school with and I personally knew Matt Griffin, cop turned "Ninja Bandit" and murderer, but my mom was a dispatcher for the NM State Police (in ABQ), Torrance Co. Sheriff, and other local forces, so I also knew a lot of fine officers, as well as a few bad ones.

Hung out with CH today.

Here us a breakdown of our time together.

Time spent in greeting- 10%
Time spent catching up- 5%
Time spent talking about FaWtL-15%
Time spent talking about Mass Effect/Dragon Age Inquisition- 70%

Line of the evening -

CH (adlibbing a line from Elcor porn)- With enthusiasm: Harder. Faster.

OMG I almost sprayed my soda across the room when I read this

SURPRISE! I was the turkey all along!

This is my favorite show.

One of my cats, Buddy, passed a couple years ago, he used to jump on my shoulder and ride around on me. My daughter's cat spends as much time with me as he does with her, and my cat Suzy talks to much, but she's a cute tortoise shell calico, so I forgive her.

NobodysHome wrote:

The katana is beautiful, but so far has been used for nothing more than to discipline recalcitrant spaghetti squashes or particularly large watermelons

"It can slice a man in two... if you hit him hard enough."

I'm glad he only talks about the katana in that video instead of trying to use it. He holds it like a baseball bat.

Squashes and watermelons are serious offenders. Good to see someone is looking out for us. Bamboo and tatami wrapped around bamboo are the traditional miscreants. I have punished those many times myself.

I'll have an order of that too, and the colossal sized fortune cookie

Aniuś the Talewise wrote:

EDIT: Death is a very good dancer by the way. I on the other hand am a clumsy dancer and keep accidentally stepping on his foot. Sorry, death.

SQUEAK.

One of my favorite characters.

RIP Sir Terry

So I am no longer in my twenties as of today...not too sure how I feel about that yet.

Wait until your 50s where you see all the gray but still feel like the awkward 14 year old inside. Time is a cruel cruel thing.

Manwolf wrote:

Turin the Mad wrote:

Diet Dr. Pepper.

Diet? You truly are mad.

Dr Pepper is clearly the superior soda.

I — and a certain world renown zombie that frequents these parts — also prefer regular sugared Dr Pepper above all else.

I should warn you though, by regularly marinating our innards with Dr Pepper, when the Zombpocalypse comes, we will probably be eaten first.

I would rather be considered the ultimate in tastiness than something a zombie would spit out.

Diet Dr. Pepper.

Diet? You truly are mad.

Dr Pepper is clearly the superior soda.

While I certainly don't want to get into scripture and how it relates to church teaching, I believe he is correctly relating the JW teaching. I have experienced a nearly identical situation in the form of a confrontation from the pastor and elders of a church I used to attend. They explained how participating in role-playing games was not compatible with the church's doctrine because of the violence and magic, and that such participation precluded me from performing any service within the church, and at the time I was playing in the church band during services, and I could not participate in talking communion. There was no alternative, if I wanted to continue to serve in the church and take communion, I would have to give up gaming.

There was no rational explanation as to why this pretending that involved violence and magic was bad, or conversely how it was ok for Anthony Hopkins to pretend to be a serial killer/cannibal, or Nicole Williamson to pretend to be Merlin, but not ok for me to pretend to be an elven hero on Friday nights.

Unfortunately attempts to get him involved in a game may simply be seen as tempting him to sin. That could just cause a rift between you as he may think you don't respect his beliefs. From my own experiences, I would suggest you find a different activity that all of you can enjoy.

Cursed bracer. What a roleplaying opportunity, with the voices in your head, do you follow their instructions or rebel, and do you answer back out loud or get funny looks for your facial expressions that accompany your internal dialogue?

Would you rather play a kobold or a goblin character?

Getting ready to log off here and finish up another ME2 play through, playing a FemShep. Project Overlord, then off to get the Reaper IFF.

FLite wrote:

More importantly, did they include retrophrenology?

I just reread Men at Arms. I was coming in here to post the same thing...

That was one of my favorite parts of that book. So sad that he has left us, but his final Discworld book comes to the U.S. on September 1st.

Brother Maynard: Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one.

Cleric: [reading] And Saint Attila raised the Ban Hammer up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this thy Ban Hammer, that with it thou mayst smash thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu...

Brother Maynard: Skip a bit, Brother...

Cleric: And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou lift thy Holy Ban Hammer. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then swingest thou thy Holy Ban Hammer of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

Brother Maynard: Amen.

So there is a possibility that my other eye might go kaput soon as well so before the possible blindness sets in I've decided to play Skyrim again, last time I played it on ps3 with no expansions but now I'm playing it on steam with the full suite, any recommendations for mods to the game for an even funner experience?

I hope they find you a better solution, maybe even cybernetics

** spoiler omitted **... The Bear and the Succubus

Provides a +2 morale bonus to CMB checks. (Bard song)

Is that my "bear and succubus" question immortalized in song? Perhaps to the tune of Dog and Butterfly by Heart? Say yes. Please say yes.

And one of my feats, Improved Impulsive Kiss, has been accepted into a powerful succubus feat chain as well.

I'm blushing under my fur.

I have so many tomatoes. So many.

Well, you know what they say, If life gives you tomatoes, make tomatoaide!

It is fun, but after you've flagged a few hundred over the weeks you start to wish there was a different game to play on the messageboards. :-P

I may need assistance later this year with purchasing a new desktop.

Alienware Area 51

Oh yeah.

When you read more of the books you'll find that Maiar like the wizards Gandolf, Saruman, and Radagast are probably quite high in level. Valar like Sauron are more lesser deities than men. The issue is that magic is very different in Middle Earth than it is in D&D and Pathfinder. Some things like divination, healing, and mind magic like bidirectional telepathy are more likely than teleportation and time stop.

The Valar and Maiar spend more time guiding (manipulating?) the races like humans, hobbies and orcs, that they don't need to do a cheap ton of magic every day.

In game terms for example, in the old MERP and Rolemaster game terms, here's one I could find quickly, the Witch King was 60th level with 30th level spells. Per the MERP conversions a 20th level AD&D character would be the equivalent of 30th level in MERP.

You can, it's called Independent Research in the CRB and more info is here.

Manwolf wrote:

David M Mallon wrote:

Celestial Healer wrote:

Mmmmm. Commander Shepard.

I was just playing ME3 for the first time in a week or so. Is it bad that one of my favorite things in the entire series is the Armax Arsenal Arena?

It's combat time, in the Armax Arsenal Arena!

Oh yeah. Piranha shotgun and maxed biotic charge. Good times.

I prefer to fight from a distance.

Excellent choices. In the play through I just finished I was playing an Adept and had fun taking down the Illusive Man's base with the M-11.

I most like playing Vanguards in ME2 and ME3. Charge into a group, blast away with the shotgun, rinse and repeat. Throw in an occasional Nova to spice things up.

Celestial Healer wrote:

Mmmmm. Commander Shepard.

I was just playing ME3 for the first time in a week or so. Is it bad that one of my favorite things in the entire series is the Armax Arsenal Arena?

It's combat time, in the Armax Arsenal Arena!

Oh yeah. Piranha shotgun and maxed biotic charge. Good times.

Manwolf wrote:

29. Faerie, Fire! : A brownie appears and begins shooting you with a tiny bow and arrow for 1 min/level. The arrows do no damage but count as a distraction preventing you from taking 10 and requiring you to make a concentration check to cast spells.

31.) Fearie Fire: You summon a helpful brownie who immediately catches on fire. The fire cannot be put out.

You monster.

Now that funny right there, I don't care who you are :)

32. Faerie Fired: You summon a helpful? brownie but it is so incompetent you are forced to dismiss the spell long before the duration expires. You feel bad for the remainder of the day after seeing the tiny creature's expression as you dismiss it.

It does become difficult to separate church and state, even when it's written into our own government's establishing documents, when the American political parties sprinkle their agendas liberally (or conservatively, as you wish) with them.

It creeps into our laws so that in places you can't purchase alcohol on Sundays, or a business can't be open on Sunday mornings, etc. to not give people a reason to skip church.

It rears its ugly head in censorship by people telling us what we can see on TV, or what we can read in books, based on religious taboos.

Thanks Puritans, your nearly 500 year old biases are going strong.

Yes, I will put on clothes in the morning. For tonight, NAKIE!

Oh, uh, TMI!

Did anyone else hear the satisfying WHUMP of a couple Flamestrikes?

Power Level 36%

Resources drained

Bite and trip, bite and trip, for as long as I can

Divine, I like that my magic comes with a seal of approval.

Would you rather be an experienced GM for a group of noob pre-teens and teens, or be the only experienced player in said group with a noob GM?

*sips tea*

I knew I felt a disturbance in the Force. Well played, my lady, well played.

Fades back into the trees

I blame Cosmo that the Paizo messageboards are so cool that the spammers just can't stay away. Oh well, back to flagging

The wolf pack is on the prowl!

There will be wailing and gnashing of sharp pointy teeth, and crushing of bones between powerful jaws of DOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

Yep I'm in there slogging thru the sweltering summer on the Korean front. Hope my kindle doesn't overheat, or I'm a goner

DrDeth wrote:

Manwolf wrote:

Confession: So far I really haven't gotten into archetypes. I still like base classes better.

Archetypes replaced those incredibly broken PrC's, which was a great way to go. I knew high level PC's in 3.5 with six PrCs, mostly dips.

Or played by dips.....?

I even hate the term. :-P

Dips, builds, DPR, some folks are all about that, and that's fine, but all that just isn't me. I still "roll up" or "make" characters, even when I am using point buy. I guess 37 years of gaming does that to you. Not that I don't usually plan out all 20 levels for feats, abilities, etc., of course I do, I want to make an effective character, I just do it more old school. Give it up for the old timers, woot! :-P

Civil discussions can't have nice things [/joke]

I still like ME3 but every time I play it now I just dread the ending. Can't wait for ME4.

181. Lizardfolk character always prepares to eat the bodies of fallen party members "out of respect for them" and "in order that they live on thru me", and is always crestfallen and sullen when party members object or prevent this consumption, continuously remarking on how the others disrespected their fallen comrade by burying them in the cold, cold ground.

182. Lizardfolk character hides in the river to surprise and test their comrades, because it's fun.

Wait, responding to armchair psychology stating that preferring to play a non-human in a fantasy game full of dragons and magic means that you don't like humans or their history or culture in the real world counts as armchair psychology?

Wow. Does that count as irony?

No, I read it as people take pride in their work product, as I'm sure Ms. Price does, and to see someone write something negative, something based solely on personal preference, could seem as devaluing work they have put so much into, it's a bit difficult to swallow.

Isnt this kind of part of the trope anyways? Zorro was caught because of a distinctive cut, Spider man was found out because of a cut too and i am sure there are many others i cant remember off the top of my head.

Like a boy with a lightning bolt on his forehead in his secret persona of H.P. as a troll living under his uncle's stairs, but when he dons his Robes of Wizardry and wields his Wand of Power, he becomes "The Boy Who Lived"!

Nobody has mentioned
Mr Furious
The Shoveler
The Bowler
The Spleen
The Invisible Boy
The Sphinx
The Blue Raja

I kind of like the idea that you have to choose between spell advancement and mystic bolt. Maybe give the warlock the option of spells OR mystic bolt at 1st level.

But a Sorcerer with the Elemental bloodline doesn't have to choose between casting and elemental ray. With the other weak talent choices, why make the warlock even weaker? They make this a caster version of the vigilante class, and then make them pay thru the nose for a very few spells.

This question came up in another thread where a question arose about the DC to jump over a succubus grappling a druid. And when I mean that it came up, I sorta kinda mean I'm the one who asked it.

So if a druid is in a grapple with a succubus and the druid wild shapes into a bear, and the succubus attempts an act of passion, is the succubus then committing beastiality?

Kalindlara wrote:

Manwolf wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Manwolf wrote:

LazarX wrote:

One of our player characters in our WOTR campaign wants to get in a grapple with our resident succubus, but she told him she'd rather be "just friends".

Wow, is that a 2 level drain or what?

Worse. At least negative levels can be patched up with restoration. ^_^

So you're saying that what he lost there requires regeneration.

I was thinking plane shift, actually. ^_^

straight to the friendzone

trapped there forever

Ah yes, I was thinking more of the emasculation effect that has. As in "where you're going you won't need those".