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The only reasonable solution is arson.I support this product and/or service.
"Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem." - Jason Mendoza
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So, on the one hand, I'm really liking the style of the author of Book 5 of Strange Aeons.
On the other hand, I really have to wonder whether he's ever written for high-level players.
GM: OK. You've hit 13th level. Your next goal is 250 miles away across a burning desert...
Player 1: I'm a cleric! I cast Wind Walk
The point being that at 13th level, the party is extremely likely to be flying on their journey. If you're going to put in "on the way" encounters, they have to be things that would:
(1) Pique the PC's interest, and
(2) Be a good fight for a group of flying PCs.
So, while the author creates a very good, very interesting set of encounters and I'd really like to run them, I'm forced to figure out ways to entice the PCs to actually land to look at the darned stuff...
EDIT: Eew. Shadow Walk is available to both bards and wizards and is even worse -- it'll get them there in a matter of hours, and they don't even have a chance of seeing anything.
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Sometimes as a GM the hardest thing is to get players to allow their characters to 'stop and smell the roses' along the way.
And, by informing the players that there's some neat stuff along the way that they'll miss out on, one can inspire interest in the exceptional encounters -- unless they're very much Point A to Point B sorts.
In that case, perhaps danging threads of *why* it might be important to take the scenic route might produce better results.
APs typically are marathons or slow meanders.
It's very rare to see a 'sprint from start to finish' -- folks start losing their energy with a fast pace about Book Three or Four (including the GM) from my limited experience.
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As cute as the anime was, it doesn't hold a candle to the light novel series of Didn't I Say To Make My Abilities Average In The Next Life?!
So I'm a Spider, So What? is also pretty good.
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest is also a case of the LN being better than the anime, but the final episode of season one was pretty good and I LOVE the opening theme.
Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody is another example.
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OTOH the reverse is true for The Rising of the Shield Hero. IMHO the anime is much better than the LN series.
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Sometimes as a GM the hardest thing is to get players to allow their characters to 'stop and smell the roses' along the way.And, by informing the players that there's some neat stuff along the way that they'll miss out on, one can inspire interest in the exceptional encounters -- unless they're very much Point A to Point B sorts.
In that case, perhaps danging threads of *why* it might be important to take the scenic route might produce better results.
APs typically are marathons or slow meanders.
It's very rare to see a 'sprint from start to finish' -- folks start losing their energy with a fast pace about Book Three or Four (including the GM) from my limited experience.
It's more keeping in mind PC abilities as you write. I still hold up Rise of the Runelords as the pinnacle of good design. In early chapters, they had long treks: Thistletop, Turtleback Ferry, etc. By the higher levels, the authors assumed they'd have high-speed movement so the encounters were, "You see a blackened field among the otherwise-pristine environment. You see a lone cabin along the path."
Striking landmarks the PCs would want to investigate."There are monsters lying in ambush along the path," isn't a good encounter for flying PCs, and many groups will look down at the hapless monsters and think, "Meh. Not my problem. Idiots," and move on.
My hope is that my PCs are goody-two-shoes enough to go trigger the ambush anyway to make sure the monsters don't ambush someone less powerful.
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Sometimes as a GM the hardest thing is to get players to allow their characters to 'stop and smell the roses' along the way.And, by informing the players that there's some neat stuff along the way that they'll miss out on, one can inspire interest in the exceptional encounters -- unless they're very much Point A to Point B sorts.
In that case, perhaps danging threads of *why* it might be important to take the scenic route might produce better results.
APs typically are marathons or slow meanders.
It's very rare to see a 'sprint from start to finish' -- folks start losing their energy with a fast pace about Book Three or Four (including the GM) from my limited experience.
It's more keeping in mind PC abilities as you write. I still hold up Rise of the Runelords as the pinnacle of good design. In early chapters, they had long treks: Thistletop, Turtleback Ferry, etc. By the higher levels, the authors assumed they'd have high-speed movement so the encounters were, "You see a blackened field among the otherwise-pristine environment. You see a lone cabin along the path."
Striking landmarks the PCs would want to investigate."There are monsters lying in ambush along the path," isn't a good encounter for flying PCs, and many groups will look down at the hapless monsters and think, "Meh. Not my problem. Idiots," and move on.
My hope is that my PCs are goody-two-shoes enough to go trigger the ambush anyway to make sure the monsters don't ambush someone less powerful.
Alas, it's a trope of the genre.
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Alas, it's a trope of the genre.
Sometimes as a GM the hardest thing is to get players to allow their characters to 'stop and smell the roses' along the way.And, by informing the players that there's some neat stuff along the way that they'll miss out on, one can inspire interest in the exceptional encounters -- unless they're very much Point A to Point B sorts.
In that case, perhaps danging threads of *why* it might be important to take the scenic route might produce better results.
APs typically are marathons or slow meanders.
It's very rare to see a 'sprint from start to finish' -- folks start losing their energy with a fast pace about Book Three or Four (including the GM) from my limited experience.
It's more keeping in mind PC abilities as you write. I still hold up Rise of the Runelords as the pinnacle of good design. In early chapters, they had long treks: Thistletop, Turtleback Ferry, etc. By the higher levels, the authors assumed they'd have high-speed movement so the encounters were, "You see a blackened field among the otherwise-pristine environment. You see a lone cabin along the path."
Striking landmarks the PCs would want to investigate."There are monsters lying in ambush along the path," isn't a good encounter for flying PCs, and many groups will look down at the hapless monsters and think, "Meh. Not my problem. Idiots," and move on.
My hope is that my PCs are goody-two-shoes enough to go trigger the ambush anyway to make sure the monsters don't ambush someone less powerful.
IIRC, the SaGa series was good for having terrain specific random encounters, it always encouraged me to make sure there were monsters in the air and under the sea in addition to on the land.
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For what it's worth, John Compton is a phenomenal adventure writer and I'm fairly certain that the part of which you speak was part of the original turnover from the lead on Strange Aeons, so I wouldn't pin it on the author.
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A few Pathfinder Classic books have been incorporated into the home office.
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The only reasonable solution is arson.Hoo, boy. Vanykrye and Woran will get this one.
They did a massive analysis of service requests filed against one of our products.
In 73% of all cases, the end users did not even try to search our knowledge base before filing the service request.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: The end user!
(In fairness, the next graph was, "Would they have found the answer?" and that's at "only" 60%, but it means that over 40% of all our service requests are wastes of our time where people are filing requests instead of trying a simple search first.)
I agree with Vanykrye.
Also maybe a little maiming.| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The only reasonable solution is arson.Hoo, boy. Vanykrye and Woran will get this one.
They did a massive analysis of service requests filed against one of our products.
In 73% of all cases, the end users did not even try to search our knowledge base before filing the service request.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: The end user!
(In fairness, the next graph was, "Would they have found the answer?" and that's at "only" 60%, but it means that over 40% of all our service requests are wastes of our time where people are filing requests instead of trying a simple search first.)
I agree with Vanykrye.
Also maybe a little maiming.
You know what would happen.
"Hey, um, the server room's running a little hot. Can you look into that?"
"I put in a ticket because my monitor melted. What do you mean, we were supposed to evacuate?"
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Our Florida office closed. They were 99% remote anyway, and the few people that were in that satellite office just picked up their equipment and took it home. We have no IT personnel that are even living in Florida to help, but again, they were basically already set up for this very situation due to hurricane prep.
Our Virginia office is just now starting to think about sending people home. There's no on-site IT there either.
I dread where this one might be going.
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As much as I hate Best Buy I love how they're staying open.
You order it online and then when you get to the store you push a button in your email, and then pop your trunk and someone will come out and put it in your trunk. No human interaction at all.
Now, if only they'd do that without a global pandemic.
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The only reasonable solution is arson.Hoo, boy. Vanykrye and Woran will get this one.
They did a massive analysis of service requests filed against one of our products.
In 73% of all cases, the end users did not even try to search our knowledge base before filing the service request.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: The end user!
(In fairness, the next graph was, "Would they have found the answer?" and that's at "only" 60%, but it means that over 40% of all our service requests are wastes of our time where people are filing requests instead of trying a simple search first.)
I agree with Vanykrye.
Also maybe a little maiming.You know what would happen.
"Hey, um, the server room's running a little hot. Can you look into that?"
"I put in a ticket because my monitor melted. What do you mean, we were supposed to evacuate?"
"This is a known issue and the fix is already in progress. Ticket resolved."
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Crookshanks soaked her phone and neglected to tell anyone or do anything about it until it went black.
So, that's why we're going to Best Buy today.
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Sounds like a reason to be without her phone for a while.
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"This is a known issue and the fix is already in progress. Ticket resolved."The only reasonable solution is arson.Hoo, boy. Vanykrye and Woran will get this one.
They did a massive analysis of service requests filed against one of our products.
In 73% of all cases, the end users did not even try to search our knowledge base before filing the service request.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: The end user!
(In fairness, the next graph was, "Would they have found the answer?" and that's at "only" 60%, but it means that over 40% of all our service requests are wastes of our time where people are filing requests instead of trying a simple search first.)
I agree with Vanykrye.
Also maybe a little maiming.You know what would happen.
"Hey, um, the server room's running a little hot. Can you look into that?"
"I put in a ticket because my monitor melted. What do you mean, we were supposed to evacuate?"
Yep.
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Hey....
the state just issued an immensely confusing press release, but I realized that we have an in-house lawyer (or more?) right here on FaWtL, so maybe we can have fun trying to parse what the heck this means until Nylarthotep shows up and spoils our fun.
As to the latter, on Monday, March 23, 2020, Hon. Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Justice of California and Chair of the Judicial Council of California, issued a Statewide Order suspending or continuing all jury trials for a period of 60 days, i.e., through May 22, 2020.
So... er... what kind of trials are there other than "suspended" or "continuing"? Is there anything else?
My guess is that she meant that no *new* jury trials would start until May 22, but the language sure as heck isn't clear to me...
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I am happy to allow you to spin your wheels on this topic if you would prefer I wait until after lunch to parse the terms of art being used in the order.
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Sounds like a reason to be without her phone for a while.
She already has, this happened last week.
A teenager in lockdown without her phone is a punishment for us as well.
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I am happy to allow you to spin your wheels on this topic if you would prefer I wait until after lunch to parse the terms of art being used in the order.
Yeah, let's let it percolate for a bit. I'm having fun using it as a poser for my friends and co-workers.
We're in general agreement that it means:
(1) No new jury trials will be started
(2) Lawyers use very confusing language.
But I'd like to see what other FaWtL people say before someone who actually understands what it really means pipes up.
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At least Fortnite has the sense to include 3-5 missions with V-Bucks as the extra reward every day in Save the World.
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Typo of "Dis" missing from "continuing" was my first reactive guess.
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I will (and need to) make a general representation that nothing I say on here constitutes "legal advice" nor does it form an "attorney-client" relationship.
I practice a small, very select type of law, and while I passed the bar in multiple states, my skills outside my speciality are exceptionally rusty.
Outside of getting married, I have not been in a courthouse for almost 20 years.
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I will (and need to) make a general representation that nothing I say on here constitutes "legal advice" nor does it form an "attorney-client" relationship.
I practice a small, very select type of law, and while I passed the bar in multiple states, my skills outside my speciality are exceptionally rusty.
Outside of getting married, I have not been in a courthouse for almost 20 years.
OK, an unrelated question: Is that something that they hammer into you in the first year of law school?
Because I had another friend who was a corporate attorney, and we loved to talk legal matters with her, but she prefaced almost every statement with almost exactly that. "Nothing I say right now constitutes legal advice, but..."
And my CPA does the same thing.
I guess a LOT of lawyers and CPA get sued by their friends for casual conversations. They need better friends. :-P
EDIT: And don't worry -- I'm in this trouble in the first place because I didn't call in for my first jury duty. So even after the press release and the announcement that everything's shut down, I'm going to dutifully sign in and call in and cross all my t's and dot all my i's so I'm done for the year.
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It is not so much your friends that can get you in trouble, as the casual conversations you have with someone at a dinner party, over lunch, at a strip club or what have you.
Basically, we shoulder a whole big bunch of restrictions once an attorney client relationship is formed. We like to know that we have assumed those restrictions. Likewise, the potential liability for someone who mishears what we said in casual conversation is really obnoxious.
And no one likes lawyers, so when it comes down to a malpractice trial, the jury listens to Joe Average who says "well, this lawyer told me x, so I did x, and then the IRS came and bent me over the table and used this machine operated corn cob to do y to my fourth point of contact" and all the jury nods and says, 'yep, that happened to my cousin. Death penalty to the lawyer'
There is also the question of jurisdiction. Law is one of the last true guild systems (engineers are another). I am only licensed in a certain number of jurisdictions. If I am perceived to be giving legal advice outside my authorized jurisdictions, that may be "unauthorized practice of law" and that has another big slug of penalties, including losing my license in my home jurisdictions. SOOOOOOO...we tend to broadcast that we are not advertising legal advice and you are not our clients.
80-90% of the time it is no big deal, but if you ever get caught in the 10%, it really makes your week feel like you got tea bagged by a donkey.
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On his way out of the courthouse, Dan would find himself suddenly set upon by a trinity of finely-dressed ladies and gentleman from the Assassins Guild, who promptly placed a thick canvas bag over his head and bound him smartly before tossing him in the trunk of a nearby vehicle, wherein which he was driven for some indeterminate time and distance before being removed from the vehicle and clubbed unconscious with a cold blunt object, possibly a large wrench or tire iron.
When again his mind engaged with the world of waking consciousness, he had again been relocated, this time hanging by his ankles from a thick rope dangling from the ceiling of a cylindrical chamber with only enough bare torchlight to see the immediate area around his person. Above the rope ascended into dark infinity. Below was an equally infinite swarming morass of scorpions, all eagerly awaiting the chance to make merry with their painted-faced prisoner.
On the wall nearby, easily within the reach of the light, in neatly written and legible large letters of white paint, was the phrase "LEARN THE WORDS.".
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EDIT- I posted the following BEFORE reading the above posts. NO offense to our hard-working digital friends Nyarl & others. :)
And in OTHER news, between stories of companies both good and not-so-much, I give you,... the (accident & Injury) lawyers.
In Lousy-Anna, it is very common to see TV adds and billboards everywhere. In fact we (reportedly) have a lot of peeps leaving the state to escape the (allegedly, but I believe it to be true) rampant lawsuit abuse.
What are they doing in this time of crises? Helping out to prove that the old adage about lawyers isn't true? Providing uplifting messages in place of their usual TV adds?
Nope. In fact as best I can tell, they have drastically INCREASED the number of TV adds.
Why?
Because with more people staying at home, there are being fewer accidents. So less people calling their offices for their services.
The lawyers are going crazy!
Stay at home people! Not only are you helping prevent the spread of Covid-19, but you are helping to drive the accident lawyers out of business!
It's a Win-Win!!! :)
This has been an Aged Wizard Public Service announcement,
We now return you to your regularly scheduled rambling.
:)
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I've been contemplating making a pell (kind of like a punchbag, but for use with swords) for the back garden, regardless of the puzzled/concerned looks I will inevitably get from the neighbours.
Hey! I actually know what a Pell is! :)
And it would be cool to have one.
However, in MY specialty, (STAGED combat) it wouldn't really help much. As I practice to make sure that I DON'T hit my partner, (and make it look good!) as opposed to actually hitting them. ;P
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I am happy to allow you to spin your wheels on this topic if you would prefer I wait until after lunch to parse the terms of art being used in the order.Yeah, let's let it percolate for a bit. I'm having fun using it as a poser for my friends and co-workers.
We're in general agreement that it means:
(1) No new jury trials will be started
(2) Lawyers use very confusing language.
(1) Probably
(2) Definitely
;P
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I'm still looking for images of strange and bizarre alien/mutant megafauna, dinosaurs, etc. if anyone has any more lying around. =) Every little bit helps!
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Hey....
the state just issued an immensely confusing press release, but I realized that we have an in-house lawyer (or more?) right here on FaWtL, so maybe we can have fun trying to parse what the heck this means until Nylarthotep shows up and spoils our fun.
As to the latter, on Monday, March 23, 2020, Hon. Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Justice of California and Chair of the Judicial Council of California, issued a Statewide Order suspending or continuing all jury trials for a period of 60 days, i.e., through May 22, 2020.So... er... what kind of trials are there other than "suspended" or "continuing"? Is there anything else?
My guess is that she meant that no *new* jury trials would start until May 22, but the language sure as heck isn't clear to me...
So the verbs "suspending" and "continuing" are considered terms of art as it relates to cases pending before a court.
It should also be appreciated that many trials are not one hour affairs. They may and can last multiple days. So, imagine you have an ongoing trial or a trial about to start (say after court resumes after lunch). This order requires that all such trials be continued or suspended.
Suspended means that the trial just stops until such time as the order is lifted (the sixty days set forth herein). Continued is usually for a trial that is not quite started, and in this context means that the trial is set for a later date.
You will frequently see lawyers ask for a continuance when they are not quite ready for trial, realize that a witness is not available or the like. Some lawyers will file for continuance based on the judge (i know this judge is real hard on people that speed in school zones, the other judge is more understanding...we will file a continuance and hope we get the other judge next time).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey....
the state just issued an immensely confusing press release, but I realized that we have an in-house lawyer (or more?) right here on FaWtL, so maybe we can have fun trying to parse what the heck this means until Nylarthotep shows up and spoils our fun.
As to the latter, on Monday, March 23, 2020, Hon. Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Justice of California and Chair of the Judicial Council of California, issued a Statewide Order suspending or continuing all jury trials for a period of 60 days, i.e., through May 22, 2020.So... er... what kind of trials are there other than "suspended" or "continuing"? Is there anything else?
My guess is that she meant that no *new* jury trials would start until May 22, but the language sure as heck isn't clear to me...
So the verbs "suspending" and "continuing" are considered terms of art as it relates to cases pending before a court.
It should also be appreciated that many trials are not one hour affairs. They may and can last multiple days. So, imagine you have an ongoing trial or a trial about to start (say after court resumes after lunch). This order requires that all such trials be continued or suspended.
Suspended means that the trial just stops until such time as the order is lifted (the sixty days set forth herein). Continued is usually for a trial that is not quite started, and in this context means that the trial is set for a later date.
You will frequently see lawyers ask for a continuance when they are not quite ready for trial, realize that a witness is not available or the like. Some lawyers will file for continuance based on the judge (i know this judge is real hard on people that speed in school zones, the other judge is more understanding...we will file a continuance and hope we get the other judge next time).
Awesome! Thanks! And hoo, boy. "Continued = Will continue at a later date" is VERY non-obvious to a layperson!
Well, at least that means I can turn off my out-of-office notification for April 27. Worst-case scenario something changes and I get called in anyway and set it at the last minute.
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Awesome! Thanks! And hoo, boy. "Continued = Will continue at a later date" is VERY non-obvious to a layperson!
Heh. I grew up in house full of attorneys. I am struggling to come up with another way to read "continued." Even in old school television shows which would say at the end of a cliff hanger - to be continued...
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Step 1: Give up swearing for Lent.
Step 2: Order cheap desk because teacher budget, which requires assembly with cheap plywood and a hammer
Step 3: Disregard step 1 as incompetence requires.
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Awesome! Thanks! And hoo, boy. "Continued = Will continue at a later date" is VERY non-obvious to a layperson!Heh. I grew up in house full of attorneys. I am struggling to come up with another way to read "continued." Even in old school television shows which would say at the end of a cliff hanger - to be continued...
Oh, "TO BE continued" is obvious.
But, "Jury trials are continuing" sure as heck isn't.
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A few Pathfinder Classic books have been incorporated into the home office.
I would have stuck with the slashing damage from bowler hats, but bludgeoning damage is good, especially if there is currently a viral pandemic that may end with zombies.
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Awesome! Thanks! And hoo, boy. "Continued = Will continue at a later date" is VERY non-obvious to a layperson!Heh. I grew up in house full of attorneys. I am struggling to come up with another way to read "continued." Even in old school television shows which would say at the end of a cliff hanger - to be continued...Oh, "TO BE continued" is obvious.
But, "Jury trials are continuing" sure as heck isn't.
Same - the "to be" provided the implication of "at a future time". Versus just tacking "continuing" onto something presumably currently in progress, which to most just says "the current activity is maintained".
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Dr. Fronkensteen's Journal, 3/26/2020:
☑ Morgue Waiting room full of Transformer corpses patients and body parts, with more on the way?
☑ Dremel motor tool ordered?
☑ Polymer clay ordered shipped?
☑ Small set of knives, opticians' screwdrivers, and other tools ordered shipped?
☑ Mailcarrier now likely assuredly plotting my demise?
☑ One sketchbook already filled?
☑☑☑☑ Ideas, oh so many ideas, many wondrous, some horrifying, and most of them likely to be way too ambitious?
☐ Self-restraint?
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Cheap-ass desk of pain is assembled. I will no longer have to video conference with kids from my couch with the incredibly professional TARDIS throw.
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I'm still looking for images of strange and bizarre alien/mutant megafauna, dinosaurs, etc. if anyone has any more lying around. =) Every little bit helps!
I'm not sure my Pinterest pins are going to be that helpful (and I haven't added to them in a while), but you did say every little bit.
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Of course the nice thing about Amazon is, now we know who the hoarders are.
For future reference.
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GameholeCon is in Madison, and in the fall.
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A few Pathfinder Classic books have been incorporated into the home office.I would have stuck with the slashing damage from bowler hats, but bludgeoning damage is good, especially if there is currently a viral pandemic that may end with zombies.
Horror Adventures, Strategy Guide, NPC Codex, Monster Codex, and the Villian Codex.
A perfect selection for the work she does.