I am sure Kruelaid and I can find some young chinese lass or lad, and coach them to enter the contest, then you would see mass voting.Dude, what a great idea.
One way to get more votes for each, would be if we could get one Taiwanese, and one Chinese to go head to head. Just no Koreans. They cheat.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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I am sure Kruelaid and I can find some young chinese lass or lad, and coach them to enter the contest, then you would see mass voting.Dude, what a great idea.One way to get more votes for each, would be if we could get one Taiwanese, and one Chinese to go head to head. Just no Koreans. They cheat.
** spoiler omitted **
Ya! Na-ppun sa-ram!! Gu-rau-ggae da-shi mal-ha-myon, chuk-kul-ggau-yae-yo!!
I read the spoiler, I'm just practicing my Korean. I've never heard a Korean say they invented gunpowder or paper and I lived there 8 years. I have heard them say that the printing press was invented in Korea but I suspect that an invention like that had several 'inventors'.
From Shakespeare to Springsteen, then?
"Born to Run"?
Yes, sir! Interesting how much of that actually made it through intact-ish.
Your turn!
Most Taiwanese seem to think of Koreans as cheating braggarts, who claim to have invented gunpowder and paper, and who steal the accomplishments of other countries. This is almost certainly a false and grotesque opinion to hold, and I personally don't believe a word of it.
I've never heard a Korean say they invented gunpowder or paper and I lived there 8 years. I have heard them say that the printing press was invented in Korea but I suspect that an invention like that had several 'inventors'.
These two quotes actually remind me of Dayton (and Ohio in general), where I happen to be living right now (it's OK: I get to leave soon!). First, there's the whole Wright Brothers pissing match: South Carolina (where they made their first manned flight) is "First in Flight," so Ohio (where they were from, and where they did the bulk of their development and design work) chose the title, "Birthplace of Aviation." At least that particular claim is understandable. However, it seems like pretty much every time I visit a museum here, I encounter a completely ridiculous claim. For example:
- One museum had a display stating that Ohio is "The Mother of Presidents." Uhh...no, that would be Virginia. The display also claimed that ten U.S. Presidents were from Ohio. I can only assume that by "from Ohio" they meant, "spent at least one night in Ohio at some point before being elected President." Notably, the display did not actually list the ten Presidents in question.
- Another museum had a display stating that Ohio is "The Land of Lincoln." OK, everybody in America knows that's Illinois; heck, they even have it on their friggin' license plates, for crying out loud! The display supported this claim with some obscure anecdote about how he lived in Ohio for a brief time.
There are other examples I can't remember off of the top of my head right now, but they all follow the same basic theme of absurdly taking credit for something that happened somewhere else.
These two quotes actually remind me of Dayton (and Ohio in general), where I happen to be living right now (it's OK: I get to leave soon!). First, there's the whole Wright Brothers pissing match: South Carolina (where they made their first manned flight) is "First in Flight," so Ohio (where they were from, and where they did the bulk of their development and design work) chose the title, "Birthplace of Aviation." At least that particular claim is understandable.
Ummm...a point of clarification: The Wright Brothers made their first flight on the outer banks of North Carolina at Kitty Hawk...not in South Carolina. I live in North Carolina, so I've got the "First in Flight" moniker on my license plate. But yeah, I think your point is well-taken. The whole "who gets to claim the guys who invented the airplane" deal is a bit overblown.
My two-cents,
--Neil
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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What I meant is that a printing press is a complex invention that combines different technologies and could be justly claimed to have several inventors.
Take the lightbulb for example. Many scientists worked towards the same ends and learnt from each others' research. There comes a certain 'eureka' moment when the game changes but in reality, the invention took place over time.
From Shakespeare to Springsteen, then?
"Born to Run"?
Yes, sir! Interesting how much of that actually made it through intact-ish.
Your turn!
Alrighty.
Smurfy made praise in the green color a little, the future orgástico which inclines us year after year encircles. It to avoid ours after this, but that's absence of the question - tomorrow, our weapons plus itself more far from estiramiento more most quickly, we are what necessary to break in an operation. … Demain specifies I one this manner, the current postpones impact of boats, we act the past without delay.
HINT:
Man, the inventor of aviation is Santos Dumond :P
Whatever, while the Wright Brothers make trades whith the Army for the upcoming planes, Santos Dumond as a humanist and believe her planes are just the realization of the humam dreams of fly.
Whith the militarization of her planes, he committed suicide in the middle of a São Paulo destroyed for air bombers in the Brazilian civil war know as Revolução Paulista. So, I want to believe in Santos Dumond as the father of civil aviation, leaving the military aviation for anyone who clains this harmful title.
Convergent Invention..... different people come up with the same ideas around the same time.
I think the Wright brothers may have just pipped Dumont at the post. Even though his aircraft was far superior.
None of them could have done it with out this guy... Lawrence Hargrave Who is one of my all time heroes.
"Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are so much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition." Lawrence Hargrave
Ummm...a point of clarification: The Wright Brothers made their first flight on the outer banks of North Carolina at Kitty Hawk...not in South Carolina. I live in North Carolina, so I've got the "First in Flight" moniker on my license plate. But yeah, I think your point is well-taken. The whole "who gets to claim the guys who invented the airplane" deal is a bit overblown.My two-cents,
--Neil
Doh!
A couple of hours after posting this, I thought to myself, "Did I say South Carolina? I really hope I didn't. Maybe nobody will notice before I can get home and correct myself." So much for that. I really should know better: I can't count the number of times I've done flybys of the memorial in Kill Devil Hills. I apologize.
Man, the inventor of aviation is Santos Dumond :P
I understand that you are saying this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I believe that Santos-Dumont would not have been able to build a working airplane if he hadn't been able to follow the Wrights' example (more on this later).
Timeline:
I think the Wright brothers may have just pipped Dumont at the post. Even though his aircraft was far superior.
- 17 December, 1903: first heavier-than-air manned flight by Wright Brothers in Kittyhawk, North Carolina. Distance: ca. 120 ft.
- September-October 1905: Wright Brothers conduct several sustained flights in the Dayton area, the longest lasting about 38 minutes and traveling a total distance of about 24 miles.
- 23 October, 1906: Santos-Dumont conducts his first heavier-than-air flight.
It took Santos-Dumont three years to make a primitive plane comparable to the Wright's first, and by then they had a much better design.
Whatever, while the Wright Brothers make trades whith the Army for the upcoming planes, Santos Dumond as a humanist and believe her planes are just the realization of the humam dreams of fly.
Let me fix that for you: "The Wright Brothers were industrious innovators who started with very little and worked their way up to success. Since they didn't have deep pockets, they had to secure other forms of funding in order to realize their dream of powered flight, and the Army was one of many such providers of funds. Santos-Dumont was a rich dilettante who had plenty of money to burn, so he didn't have to secure funding from anybody else.
So here's the deal: I'm currently most of the way done with a Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering, and one of my areas of specialization is stability and control. To me, the Wright/Santos-Dumont controversy isn't about USA vs. Brazil, it's about practical design vs. the arrogant (and wrong) establishment: the Wrights embodied the former and Santos-Dumont embodied the latter.
When the Wright Brothers started working on their design, conventional wisdom held that for an airplane to fly, it would need to have what we now call "open loop" stability. In very simplified terms, this means that such an aircraft, when disturbed from straight and level flight, would tend to return to straight and level flight of its own accord, with no input from the operator. This idea took hold for a number of reasons. First, many of the people in the aviation establishment of the time, including Santos-Dumont, came from a background of designing buoyant-lift aircraft (balloons, blimps, dirigibles, etc.), and they pretty much wanted their airplanes to handle like the lighter-than-air aircraft they were used to. Second, most early experiments were conducted with unmanned gliders, which really do need to have open loop stability because there is no way to actively control them. Finally, they all envisioned aircraft as passenger transports and believed that people would only find air travel comfortable and safe if airplanes flew and handled in such a gradual and benign manner.
The Wright Brothers were the first people to realize that this approach would not work. They had great practical knowledge, but they were not engineers so they didn't fully understand the trade-off between stability and maneuverability, but they did grasp the important part: a manned aircraft doesn't need to have open loop stability because the human pilot actively controls it, establishing what we now call "closed loop" stability. Furthermore, a system that has excessive open loop stability will not be very responsive to control inputs from the pilot. Because they were willing to abandon the unnecessary requirement for open loop stability, they were able to design an airplane that could actually be controlled. At first, they receive a great deal of backlash from naysayers in the aviation establishment: Didn't those country bumpkins know that an airplane must be inherently stable or it wont fly? Of course, once they got their plane to fly everyone else changed their minds and guys like Santos-Dumant were finally able to create working designs.
"Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are so much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition." Lawrence Hargrave
This quote very nicely summarizes the other main source of friction between the Wrights and the aviation establishment, as well as the main reason why they never really achieved great commercial success.
The aviation establishment at the time consisted mostly of rich Europeans (especially French). In addition to a desire to realize the dream of heavier-than-air flight, they were mostly in it for fame and recognition. As such, they had developed a culture of showmanship: they never conducted experiments in private, but always put on big public demonstrations. They weren't terribly worried about being copied, because at least then they would be credited as the originator of the copied idea. There is also one good reason for doing business this way: results can be verified by independent observers. Unfortunately, they were a bit arrogant about this "verification:" you could have a hundred witnesses see you fly, but none of them counted unless they were "official" observers from some European university or aviation organization.
Like everyone else, the Wright Brothers wanted to realize their dream of flying; unlike most of the others, they didn't care about fame and recognition--they wanted to become rich. The above quote from Hargrave describes them perfectly: they wanted to invent the airplane, patent it, and then sit back and collect royalties from everyone else. As such, they were extremely paranoid about being observed until their patent filing went through. This put them very much at odds with the members of the aviation establishment, who wanted to document everything and doubted the Wrights' claims of success because all of the witnesses were casual bystanders or occasionally small-town reporters.
After securing their patent, the Wrights did exactly what Hargrave warned against: they sat on their laurels. Actually, they didn't exactly rest--they expended a great deal of time, money, and effort suing just about everyone else for patent infringement, without bothering to spend nearly enough time or effort improving their designs. They eventually won most of their cases, but by then their designs were obsolete and everyone else had passed them by. They would have made far more money if they had focused on maintaining their technological lead.
I must say this is the most spectacular threadjacking I've witnessed to date, and I can't say that it's not for the better.
Wow Lucas - I sit corrected - 3 years is to much time between the Wright Brothers and Dumont. Even counting the fact that communications were not as instantaneous as they are now, blows my convergent invention theory out of the air.
So here's the deal: I'm currently most of the way done with a Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering, and one of my areas of specialization is stability and control.
That is incredibly cool..... I just have a Nerds interest in WWI and WWII aircraft. So what are you looking to go into - Aerospace, military, commercial?
I must say this is the most spectacular threadjacking I've witnessed to date, and I can't say that it's not for the better.
Yep poor Joao got jumped on rather harshly (Yes I am guilty) - I hope it hasn't pushed him away from the boards.
Anyway I am thinking of a Cog/Clock Punk (Too early for steam)adventure set in Alkenstar.
Two young Gnome brothers Anvil and Bilurn Skrybe (I have to work on the names) have their plans for their skycart stolen. They hire the party to retrieve them... and all sorts of clockwork high-jinks occur.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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Wow Lucas - I sit corrected - 3 years is to much time between the Wright Brothers and Dumont. Even counting the fact that communications were not as instantaneous as they are now, blows my convergent invention theory out of the air.
So here's the deal: I'm currently most of the way done with a Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering, and one of my areas of specialization is stability and control.That is incredibly cool..... I just have a Nerds interest in WWI and WWII aircraft. So what are you looking to go into - Aerospace, military, commercial?
My grandfather's first job in Canada was building flight test models of the CF-105 Arrow to shoot out over Lake Ontario. There are groups still trying to recover those models. He says these days you'd need a Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering to do that job but back then all you needed was a high school diploma.
My grandfather's first job in Canada was building flight test models of the CF-105 Arrow to shoot out over Lake Ontario. There are groups still trying to recover those models. He says these days you'd need a Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering to do that job but back then all you needed was a high school diploma.
You'd be surprised: people with skills comparable to your grandfather's are still in very high demand. Engineers working on prototyping and testing typically work hand-in-hand with technicians. Those technicians may not have degrees in engineering, but they have critically important practical knowledge and experience that engineers typically lack (if you take the time to get four to eight years of post-secondary education, you probably won't have time to learn very much about things like welding and metalworking). An engineer might create a design that works on paper, only to have a technician explain why the design would be prohibitively difficult and/or expensive to fabricate. More commonly, the engineers consult with the technicians throughout the design process to avoid the need for such corrections.
Anyway I am thinking of a Cog/Clock Punk (Too early for steam)adventure set in Alkenstar.
Two young Gnome brothers Anvil and Bilurn Skrybe (I have to work on the names) have their plans for their skycart stolen. They hire the party to retrieve them... and all sorts of clockwork high-jinks occur.
I'm really digging this idea. One of my favorite fantasy locales has always been Lantan...until the bastards destroyed it in 4E. Ever since they did that, I've been thinking of ways to introduce Lantan-like elements to other game worlds. I've even been playing with an idea for a Pathfinder "Gearsmith" prestige class, but so far I have a huge problem: all of the abilities are linked to contraptions, so if you take away a Gearsmith's toys, you essentially turn him into an expert. The corollary is that you can give his gadgets to other people and they basically get his powers, which would be incredibly unbalancing. I've come up with a pretty good mechanism for handling the latter problem, but a solution to the former still eludes me.
Just a friendly reminder: we're still looking for a solution to the latest translation puzzle:
I'm honestly not very good at these. I did find translations for a few of the words that didn't make it back into English:
Spoiler:
Smurfy made praise in the green color a little, the future orgástico which inclines us year after year encircles. It to avoid ours after this, but that's absence of the question - tomorrow, our weapons plus itself more far from estiramiento more most quickly, we are what necessary to break in an operation. … Demain specifies I one this manner, the current postpones impact of boats, we act the past without delay.
HINT:
Spoiler:
Changed the proper name that would give it all away to 'Smurfy', obviously, plus I wanted to get in on the Smurf action. In a film version, though, Robert Redford once played the character represented by the non-smurfified version of that name.
- orgástico = orgastic (I'm pretty confident that this word started out as "climax" in the original)
- estiramiento = stretch
- Demain = tomorrow
I really don't have a clue, but something makes me want to say, "A Bridge Too Far." I couldn't tell you who said it or when, but it feels right to me.
EDIT: spleling.
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 9
I wouldn't have got this if you hadn't mentioned Robert Redford. I have never read the book and I saw the movie such a long time ago. But a search of RR's filmography and taking an educated guess that it would be Gatsby then looking for famous quotes from the book.... As the Europeans say Goalllllllllllll(Runs around room with shirt over his head).
I've even been playing with an idea for a Pathfinder "Gearsmith" prestige class, but so far I have a huge problem: all of the abilities are linked to contraptions, so if you take away a Gearsmith's toys, you essentially turn him into an expert. The corollary is that you can give his gadgets to other people and they basically get his powers, which would be incredibly unbalancing. I've come up with a pretty good mechanism for handling the latter problem, but a solution to the former still eludes me.
Class ability - MacGuyver: you can jury rig/repair just about anything from the most bizarre assortment of tools and junk. The size and weight of the objects you create advance at 5lb and 5 cubic feet per level. The number of times that your contraption works before it fails cataclysmaly is equal to your level.
Feat: A-Team Allows you to apply your MacGuyver ability to vehicles. It also increase the weight allowance and area of your jury-rig by a multiple of 10 for vehicles only.
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 9I wouldn't have got this if you hadn't mentioned Robert Redford. I have never read the book and I saw the movie such a long time ago. But a search of RR's filmography and taking an educated guess that it would be Gatsby then looking for famous quotes from the book.... As the Europeans say Goalllllllllllll(Runs around room with shirt over his head).
1: So much for my "feeling." The only thing I "feel" now is "like a fool."
2: You owe us another one!
Class ability - MacGuyver: you can jury rig/repair just about anything from the most bizarre assortment of tools and junk. The size and weight of the objects you create advance at 5lb and 5 cubic feet per level. The number of times that your contraption works before it fails cataclysmaly is equal to your level.
Feat: A-Team Allows you to apply your MacGuyver ability to vehicles. It also increase the weight allowance and area of your jury-rig by a multiple of 10 for vehicles only.
Very amusing, but it would be a nightmare for DMs to adjudicate. That being said, this is reminiscent of one of the class abilities that I think actually works well: when disabling a non-magical trap, a Gearsmith has two additional options. At lower levels, he can modify the trap to use a different trigger and (if directional) to point in a different direction. At higher levels, he can extract the damage-dealing mechanism (assuming it isn't something along the lines of a "giant falling boulder to crush its victims" trap or a "fall into a pit full of spikes" trap, etc.) and jerry-rig it as a single-use weapon; basically, if the trap is small enough he can pick it up, carry it away, point it at someone, and set it off.
The feat is somewhat similar to an idea I have, but which I haven't yet been able to properly phrase as a good rule. It would apply to non-weapon items that require active operation by intelligent creatures (such as a ship or mill): a Gearsmith would be able to modify such items to perform better for a certain length of time. At the end of that time, the modifications break and the equipment performs worse until the Gearsmith restores it to its original configuration.
The rest of the powers I've been able to think up thus far all involve the ability to craft nifty clockwork (or chemical) gadgets. The problem with this is that (as I said before) if you take away a Gearsmith's gadgets, he's pretty useless. I'm still trying to think up a way to mitigate that problem.
I have literally never seen anything like this thread.
I wouldn't have got this if you hadn't mentioned Robert Redford. I have never read the book and I saw the movie such a long time ago. But a search of RR's filmography and taking an educated guess that it would be Gatsby then looking for famous quotes from the book.... As the Europeans say Goalllllllllllll(Runs around room with shirt over his head).
Hey, nicely done. If you can't get there by means of literary trivia, logic and deduction work well.
Mind you, I was convinced that 'orgastico' was gonna give it right away to one of the lit major types around here, since babelfish refused to translate that BACK into something amusingly equivalent and doing it by hand would probably have been cheating.
So... your turn. :-)
Star Voter Season 6
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Very amusing, but it would be a nightmare for DMs to adjudicate. That being said, this is reminiscent of one of the class abilities that I think actually works well: when disabling a non-magical trap, a Gearsmith has two additional options. At lower levels, he can modify the trap to use a different trigger and (if directional) to point in a different direction. At higher levels, he can extract the damage-dealing mechanism (assuming it isn't something along the lines of a "giant falling boulder to crush its victims" trap or a "fall into a pit full of spikes" trap, etc.) and jerry-rig it as a single-use weapon; basically, if the trap is small enough he can pick it up, carry it away, point it at someone, and set it off.The feat is somewhat similar to an idea I have, but which I haven't yet been able to properly phrase as a good rule. It would apply to non-weapon items that require active operation by intelligent creatures (such as a ship or mill): a Gearsmith would be able to modify such items to perform better for a certain length of time. At the end of that time, the modifications break and the equipment performs worse until the Gearsmith restores it to its original configuration.
The rest of the powers I've been able to think up thus far all involve the ability to craft nifty clockwork (or chemical) gadgets. The problem with this is that (as I said before) if you take away a Gearsmith's gadgets, he's pretty useless. I'm still trying to think up a way to mitigate that...
Just ripping something off from Shadowrun.
Gearsman of Alkenstar - Class ability: Implant/Graft clockwork. A Gearsman can implant or graft a device into their body with a device rating up to their unmodified willpower save. You may exceed your rating but a great price. The loss of humanity that comes with implants will cause you to suffer a will power penalty at twice the rating that you exceed it by.
Non Gearsmen can have implants but actually must sacrifice will power save points equal to the clock work devices rating.
Basic Hand Rating 1
Basic Arm Rating 2
Basic Leg Rating 3
Basic Eye Rating 1
Strength +2 Arm Rating 3.
This is just getting too Smurfy for me.
Hey, nicely done. If you can't get there by means of literary trivia, logic and deduction work well.Mind you, I was convinced that 'orgastico' was gonna give it right away to one of the lit major types around here, since babelfish refused to translate that BACK into something amusingly equivalent and doing it by hand would probably have been cheating.
So... your turn. :-)
“All that is gold does not scintillate, not all those which wander is lost; the old man who is strong does not soil, the deep roots n' is not reached by freezing. Ashes qu' a fire will be awaked, a light of the shades will spout out; renenwed be the blade which was broken, the crownless still will be king. ”
This may be too easy. My wife suggested Dickens or Bronte but I wanted to use something I had read.
I have literally never seen anything like this thread.
You should try the political threads....I did once... but I got better.
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“All that is gold does not scintillate, not all those which wander is lost; the old man who is strong does not soil, the deep roots n' is not reached by freezing. Ashes qu' a fire will be awaked, a light of the shades will spout out; renenwed be the blade which was broken, the crownless still will be king.”
Ah, 'Lord of the Rings'.
The poem from Gandalf's letter to Frodo, held by Barleyman Butterburr, in reference to Aragorn, as the code to prove his identity.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
That one didn't get mangled too bad.
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Here's another.
English to Japanese, and back again.
I' The thing people wouldn' who see due to ve; t believes. Attack ships with the fire from the Orion shoulder separated. I' ve c beam the gate of Tannhäuser is dark, because it is close, the [pi] or the [pi] you observed at that it shines. Entirely that within the time like damage of the rain…Time,…It is lost. The time when it dies.
(Oh, dear Lord.)
All your base are belong to us!!!
Here's another.
English to Japanese, and back again.I' The thing people wouldn' who see due to ve; t believes. Attack ships with the fire from the Orion shoulder separated. I' ve c beam the gate of Tannhäuser is dark, because it is close, the [pi] or the [pi] you observed at that it shines. Entirely that within the time like damage of the rain…Time,…It is lost. The time when it dies.
(Oh, dear Lord.)
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...Attack ships on fire, off the shoulder of Orion. I've seen C beams, glittering in the darkness of the Tannhäuser gate....
Roy Batty. If you don't know the film, you can hand in your geek card on the way out.
Does Drillbit Taylor have a quote of Bladerunner?
Just ripping something off from Shadowrun.Gearsman of Alkenstar - Class ability: Implant/Graft clockwork. A Gearsman can implant or graft a device into their body with a device rating up to their unmodified willpower save. You may exceed your rating but a great price. The loss of humanity that comes with implants will cause you to suffer a will power penalty at twice the rating that you exceed it by.
Non Gearsmen can have implants but actually must sacrifice will power save points equal to the clock work devices rating.
Basic Hand Rating 1
Basic Arm Rating 2
Basic Leg Rating 3
Basic Eye Rating 1Strength +2 Arm Rating 3.
I find this very creepy and disturbing, but in a good way. I realize that you've basically transposed the standard cybernetics rules, but your flavor text makes me think of the cybermancy rules. It also reminds me of the Pale Master's "undead graft" class feature, just with machines and gears instead of undead body parts. I can imagine a whole order of these guys, living in relative isolation in monastary-type facilities. They would all be dedicated to advancing technology. They would see flesh as weak and imperfect, and so would aspire to "improve" themselves by replacing their "flawed" bodies with "ideal" machine components, one piece at a time. Not the direction I want to go with my Gearsmith concept, but definitely something I would incorporate into a game. You could even throw in a prophecy about "the one" who will come along and achieve complete machine perfection, ushering in a new era of order and logic. You could dial the "insidious factor" up or down to suit your needs as a DM: at one end of the spectrum they would be like the Borg, with the ultimate goal of remaking the entire world to match their vision; at the other end of the spectrum they would jealously guard their secrets and reserve "perfection" for those who are "worthy."
yup, I'm kind of a big deal . . . in Brazil.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Star Voter Season 6
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I'm feeling a zobeck grove coming from the gearmen.
It also makes me think of the clockwork guy from the Hellboy movie.
And i'm not sure if it's 'too early' for steampunk. The Greeks had a steam engine, they just never discovered anything to do with it.
One thing that always amazes me about real world technology. How did our ancestors get the idea to try some of the things they made? The Atalatl for example.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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I have literally never seen anything like this thread.You need to spend more time on the Paizo boards then, Clark! :D
What would happen to Necromancer if Clark became a Paizo off-topic forum addict? (Feel free to respond in the style of Marvel Comics 'What If...'.)
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From Shakespeare to Springsteen, then?
"Born to Run"?
Yes, sir! Interesting how much of that actually made it through intact-ish.
Your turn!
Alrighty.
** spoiler omitted **
HINT:
** spoiler omitted **
I know this one! "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald!
Edit: Oops. I should have read to the end of the thread before posting. Still, I got it without needing the Robert Redford reference!|
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One museum had a display stating that Ohio is "The Mother of Presidents." Uhh...no, that would be Virginia. The display also claimed that ten U.S. Presidents were from Ohio. I can only assume that by "from Ohio" they meant, "spent at least one night in Ohio at some point before being elected President." Notably, the display did not actually list the ten Presidents in question.
I only count 8 presidents from Ohio and I have never heard anything different. Are you sure you are remembering the plague correctly?
William Henry Harrison
Ulysses Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James Garfield
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
William Taft
Warren Harding
I am not afraid to say, I had to look up the names. I remembered the total but not the names. Of course, some of those presidents weren't exactly great either.
Indiana claims Harrison as well. I didn't know that.
According to their official site, Virginia was also the home for 8 presidents.
I have never heard Ohio called The Land of Lincoln and I have lived here all of my life. Do you remember what museum you saw that in? I am downright fascinated and flabbergasted.
it's OK: I get to leave soon!
Please hurry, we insist. :) I kid!
Seriously, I understand not liking it here, but there are worse places to live. Of course, I am pretty much counting the days till I move as well, so I can't really judge you for wanting to go.
Of course, your real problem is you live in Dayton. At least you don't live in Toledo or Akron, I suppose. It could be worse.
Taliesein, is it your turn to post for the translation game?...or is the game dead?
It is his turn, but it's been over a day and he still hasn't posted. Since you got it right, I'd say go ahead and post a new one. Honestly, the "rules" of this game are a lot like Calvinball.
I am not afraid to say, I had to look up the names. I remembered the total but not the names. Of course, some of those presidents weren't exactly great either.Indiana claims Harrison as well. I didn't know that.
According to their official site, Virginia was also the home for 8 presidents.
I have never heard Ohio called The Land of Lincoln and I have lived here all of my life. Do you remember what museum you saw that in? I am downright fascinated and flabbergasted.
it's OK: I get to leave soon!Please hurry, we insist. :) I kid!
Seriously, I understand not liking it here, but there are worse places to live. Of course, I am pretty much counting the days till I move as well, so I can't really judge you for wanting to go.
Of course, your real problem is you live in Dayton. At least you don't live in Toledo or Akron, I suppose. It could be worse.
I consulted my wife, and it turns out that the "mother of Presidents" line was from a magazine-format visitors guide she picked up when we first moved here. We don't have it anymore, but she also remembers that it claimed 10. I'd be willing to bet that Harrison isn't the only one on your list of 8 who is claimed by at least one other state. I'd also be willing to bet that some of the Presidents on Virginia's list also have overlap. As far as I remember from when I lived in Virginia, the moniker "Mother of Presidents" is very old and has more to do with quality (Washington, Jefferson, etc.) than quantity.
Shortly after moving here, we spent a long weekend in Cincinnati and toured a bunch of museums (and the aquarium, which was quite nice). One of those museums had the "Land of Lincoln" claim. They all kinda blur together now, so I don't remember which one it was, but I'm pretty sure it was NOT the Underground Railroad museum (you would think that they would know better). Honestly, this is the kind of overblown claim that small museums all over the world make, "[Somebody Famous] slept here!" eventually morphs into "[Somebody Famous] loved our village/city/state/country so much that he considered it his heart's true home."
I actually like it here way better than I expected, and there really are some things I am truly going to miss. Even the weather isn't nearly as bad as you might think (of course, when you never plow roads, even six inches of snow becomes a major problem). [rant]The only thing I really truly can't stand are Ohio State fans. They are by far the most obnoxious bandwagon fans I've ever encountered. Everybody here is an Ohio State fan, and they all call it "The Ohio State University," with the emphasis and everything, as if someone might confuse it with some other Ohio State University. On Saturdays in the fall, everyone wears red and talks about "our team," never mind the fact that very few of them actually went to the school. My favorite college football team is still my alma mater, but my second-favorite college football team is now officially: "Whoever is playing against Ohio State this weekend."[/rant]
EDIT:
Please hurry, we insist. :) I kid!
I once had a roommate from a small town outside of Cleveland. Your quote reminds me of his bumper sticker:
Go Browns!
And take the Indians with you!
Taliesein, is it your turn to post for the translation game?...or is the game dead?
Now midnight all proxies and the superhuman crew comes out, and surrounds everybody that to know that more gives the heart compared to their then them to attack machine's factory to bring them to stretch across their shoulder then petroleum to fetter reduces from the castle by the safe salesman who goes inspects looked nobody escapes.
Here is another one by the same singer, to help jog your subconscious:
How many roads can the human walk gets down before you tell him? Yes, ' n' How many seas, in her before the sand, sleeps a white dove to navigate? Yes, ' n' How many times must the ancient artillery shell in they' Before flies; Forever is banned again? The answer, the friend of mine, is...
I knew this from Watchmen, but it is of course by Bob Dylan, Desolation Row.
At midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row.
I find this very creepy and disturbing, but in a good way. I realize that you've basically transposed the standard cybernetics rules, but your flavor text makes me think of the cybermancy rules. It also reminds me of the Pale Master's "undead graft" class feature, just with machines and gears instead of undead body parts. I can imagine a whole order of these guys, living in relative isolation in monastary-type facilities. They would all be dedicated to advancing technology. They would see flesh as weak and imperfect, and so would aspire to "improve" themselves by replacing their "flawed" bodies with "ideal" machine components, one piece at a time.
Kind of like the Cybermen from Dr Who.... Or an elite group of assassins dedicated to the eradication of Magic. I was also thinking of rogue Gearsmen doing "shadowrun" style missions. I need to find out more about Alkenstar - does Psionics work there - is it all magic dead.
Not the direction I want to go with my Gearsmith concept, but definitely something I would incorporate into a game.
I have been thinking about your problem with the Gearsmith..... The best idea I can come up with is use the Rogue as a base class and then have a combination of Rogue feats, alternate levels and talents that way it makes the Gearsmith useful in other situations.