| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, there's got to be some kind of red warning klaxon that goes off at Verizon whenever I call in that says, "Warning! Warning! Global megacorporate account! Warning!"
After NobodysWife got nightmarishly-useless customer support both in person at the store and on the phone, I contacted them on a completely-unrelated manner.
I did happen to use *my* phone number.
Got the usual, "We are experiencing an unusual volume of calls" message and sat down for a loooong wait, then got a chat assistant in under 90 seconds. She saw my problem, couldn't work it out, and gave me the number of Verizon financials. Again, called in, put in my number, no wait, and got an utterly charming woman who solved everything for me in maybe 5 minutes.
From everything I've heard about Verizon customer support, they MUST have me flagged. Every time I call in they're nothing but fast, friendly, and efficient. It isn't the Verizon everybody else talks about...
EDIT: Or maybe *THAT'S* why they pay attention!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ferrets!Hello, everyone.Hello John.
...Didn't bring any sliced Ginger today, so I ate a box of Oatmeal Creme Cookies. Seems to have worked, somewhat...*Looks in fridge for ginger, just to remember he ate the last of it tonight*
*Sighs*
*Offers a cold IPA , a glass of Old Pulteney or another beverage of choice*
You need barn cats!Yea, that was my first suggestion too, but the owners seem quite adamant about not getting any barn cats for some reason (Did not really inquire why...maybe they just do not like them?)
So our options right are seem to be either traps, exterminator or a small but vicious dog (Yes, I do know someone with an experienced Danish/Swedish Farmdog, which is avid a rathunter).
In my pants!?
…Or is that just badgers?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, there's got to be some kind of red warning klaxon that goes off at Verizon whenever I call in that says, "Warning! Warning! Global megacorporate account! Warning!"
After NobodysWife got nightmarishly-useless customer support both in person at the store and on the phone, I contacted them on a completely-unrelated manner.
I did happen to use *my* phone number.
Got the usual, "We are experiencing an unusual volume of calls" message and sat down for a loooong wait, then got a chat assistant in under 90 seconds. She saw my problem, couldn't work it out, and gave me the number of Verizon financials. Again, called in, put in my number, no wait, and got an utterly charming woman who solved everything for me in maybe 5 minutes.
From everything I've heard about Verizon customer support, they MUST have me flagged. Every time I call in they're nothing but fast, friendly, and efficient. It isn't the Verizon everybody else talks about...
EDIT: Or maybe *THAT'S* why they pay attention!
Never really had verizon, but after using a few different internet and phone companies, I am firmly in the AT&T pocket.
AT&T may charge me an arm and a leg, but the sheer lack of problems will keep me paying that bill.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'll go with anyone else before I go back to AT&T, they are the most untrustworthy company I've ever delt with.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, there's got to be some kind of red warning klaxon that goes off at Verizon whenever I call in that says, "Warning! Warning! Global megacorporate account! Warning!"
After NobodysWife got nightmarishly-useless customer support both in person at the store and on the phone, I contacted them on a completely-unrelated manner.
I did happen to use *my* phone number.
Got the usual, "We are experiencing an unusual volume of calls" message and sat down for a loooong wait, then got a chat assistant in under 90 seconds. She saw my problem, couldn't work it out, and gave me the number of Verizon financials. Again, called in, put in my number, no wait, and got an utterly charming woman who solved everything for me in maybe 5 minutes.
From everything I've heard about Verizon customer support, they MUST have me flagged. Every time I call in they're nothing but fast, friendly, and efficient. It isn't the Verizon everybody else talks about...
EDIT: Or maybe *THAT'S* why they pay attention!
Maybe all those drives to hand the tips that were missed from the bill built up big enough positive karma supply?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hi John.
Do you happen to have a service flashlight that would be normally stored in a designated charging dock? If so, is there some name for that type of flashlight? Something like "on-site flashlight", "facility flashlight"? I am translating a text about flashlight that is repeatedly referred to as "latarka objektowa", literally "facility flashlight" and I am wondering of there is equivalent established term for that in English, either organizational or maybe marketing.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'll go with anyone else before I go back to AT&T, they are the most untrustworthy company I've ever delt with.
I've never had any issues. Maybe I'm an exception or something, but if it works... I ain't about to fix it.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh man oh boy oh boy, have I ever told you about the most hilarious critical fumble rule EVARRRR? I'm sure I told Freehold, but because I love gushing over Planescape:
So the Planescape setting is all about the power of ideas and belief. As part of chargen, players are encouraged to choose a Faction that their PC belongs to. Factions are "philosophers with clubs" -- each faction has a very different view of the Multiverse, and those views grant their factioneers special powers or traits.
One Faction is called The Sign of One, and its members believe that they (collectively and/or individually) are imagining the Multiverse and everything in it. As such, they believe that they can alter reality by the sheer force of their will. Sounds insane, but because Planescape is all about the power of ideas and beliefs, they actually can!
So if you're a Sign of One factioneer, you eventually get a capstone wish-like power to reflect your belief-ability to alter the very fabric of reality by force of will. Every time you use it though, you roll a d20, and depending on the result you might get what you want or not.
...And if you roll a 1, you will yourself right out of existence! No save, not even a POOF! You're just gone. You can't be resurrected, because you didn't die. I don't remember whether you can be wished back, but I want to say that because you willed yourself out of the timeline completely, you can't even be wished back because you never existed to begin with and nobody remembers you.
Like I said, hilarious. In a sort of on-paper, so-long-as-it-doesn't-happen-to-me way. :)
Honestly, I'm not sure I'd actually like a PS campaign. I've never felt like I could do it justice as a DM, and as a player I think I might end up jonesing to just stab something once in a while. Well, I guess that's what the Blood War is for.
Anyhow, Planescape is a joy to read; no other gaming book has ever drawn me into the game world like PS does.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
But why?mmm. Still a bit leery of planescape..."Up" is the direction diametrically opposed by gravity in an objective gravity field. In a subjective gravity field, "up" is whatever direction you decide it is. In a subjective gravity field, everyone can fly simply through their belief that "down" is now "over that direction", and can change their minds at will.Somebody's been reading too much Planescape.
** spoiler omitted **
I will say that I love a lot a lot a lot of the concepts, ideas, and major thrusts or themes of Planescape more than the actual execution.
I always found Acheron just more interesting than Hell, if more irritatingly inscrutable, but the devils themselves made Hell the go-to place, whereas Acheron had... uh... Hextor? Yeah, Hextor. Also Wee Jas. Those were kind of cool.
Carceri was a fascinating host of contradictions and deeply more interesting than the Abyss, but fundamentally boring in what was done with it. Demons on the other hand were brilliant and horrible and entirely seductive (metaphorically, unless we're talking about the succubus, then it's fictionally, but also metapho-, you know what, you get it).
The idea of Heaven as a sevenfold mountain was kind of neat, and archons were boss, but Elysium (you literally lose yourself in bliss) was far better and more compelling because of its inscrutable and alien nature.
(Also the Beastlands and Ysgard both kind of sucked. Just sayin'. )
The Bloodwar was fascinating and extremely compelling, but also weirdly and unbelievably total, in that, barring insignificantly sized exceptions, all the demons were all in, and all the devils were all in - something that really seemed wrong for both Hell-as-presented and the Abyss-as-presented, honestly.
And the Great Wheel... it was... it was kind of cool? I guess?
And... Sigil... was... a... thing. One supposes. I mean, it was super cool, but... the whole "Lady of Pain"... thing... was... um... a thing, one supposes. It was definitely a thing.
Effectively, the concepts and designs were amazing and delightful, but the whole of it felt somehow strangely artificial and staid - not in a "carefully designed by a creator" kind of way, but a kind of patchwork that felt like whole bits - including rather significant ones - were chopped off in favor of fitting the square pegs into a round hole by someone other than anyone interested in the thing itself. It felt artificial and inorganic, and not in a good or compelling way - not because the pieces weren't great - each of the individual pieces were actually super-awesome! -, but because they weren't fit together in a manner that really felt like it was a "real" (fantasy/story) cosmology - not just because they were alien, but just because it felt artificial.
I will note, this is one of the reasons I loved first Forgotten Realms (as presented in the 3e) cosmology, and then Eberron cosmology. Both of these had mysteries and weirdness, but they were mysteries that felt like they belonged in the context of the greater whole of that world.
I'm given to understand that Eberron fiction largely sucks (though I've not read it), and I can attest that much FR fiction isn't... isn't the best... not really... but the worlds generally feel compelling and interesting.
And let me go on record as stating that it's one of the reasons I loved - loved 4e cosmology. It just... it was so compelling. So natural to itself. I hated what they did to other cosmologies in attempting to make them fit, but the 4e on its own was pretty fantastic (once I got over the "they left 3e!" frustration bar, which, admittedly, was pretty high). I don't think the PoL setting was great, but it had some solid and compelling cosmology.
Golarion, it should be noted, has an absolutely phenomenal cosmology. Just... the best. It works extremely well.
Golarion itself, does have some issues, regionally - there are parts that, again, feel like artificial differentiation. But one of the things that Golarion has going for it that, say, PS didn't, is that I actually like the various factions, groups, elements, and locations Golarion has within. I like the people, the places, and the stories set there. PS often went out of its way to hammer home the ideals that, "No one can win, there is no victor, everything is an eternal slog of perfect balance." and that... is kind of boring after a bit - at least to me. A kind of nihilistic, "Nothing really matters, long-term." sort of thing (even though in several stories it actually does, it's just the impression that one gets).
All that said, I have to admit: some of the PS stories are fantastic, and so many of the individual pieces are a genuine delight. I would have preferred for them to chop out (or at least apportion) many of their "strong" alignments (the nine "direct correspondence" planes) into each of their "half-way" planes, but, eh. Despite all of my criticisms, I actually liked the cosmology, and many of the ideas were super refreshing.
... I'd just kind of like someone to come through, maybe file off the author's names, and snip a few pieces out to let others flourish, and do it better...
*cough*
*looks at Freehold*
You need barn cats!
Yea, that was my first suggestion too, but the owners seem quite adamant about not getting any barn cats for some reason (Did not really inquire why...maybe they just do not like them?)
So our options right are seem to be either traps, exterminator or a small but vicious dog (Yes, I do know someone with an experienced Danish/Swedish Farmdog, which is avid a rathunter).
Ferrets!
In my pants!?
…
Or is that just badgers?
Mushroom, mushroom~!
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
Been a bit of a s#!+ sandwich today. All sorts of problems ranging from "You have two choices: call your ISP or come into the office...I realize those are not pleasant options, but if you want to keep working from home you're going to have to get better internet service," to "Yeah, the time clock software isn't working in IE for everyone company-wide, but it worked fine this morning. It's working in Chrome and Firefox, but since it uses an IE-specific plug in, you won't have full functionality. It will work fine for clocking in/out....no, we have no idea....no, we have no ETA....because it's not ours...yes, we've called them to complain....they're looking into it...no I don't know when it's going to be fixed...please stop talking."People who still use IE make <insert appropriate irreverent reference here> cry.
I swear...
has Doof Warrior play national anthem on flaming guitar
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But why?mmm. Still a bit leery of planescape..."Up" is the direction diametrically opposed by gravity in an objective gravity field. In a subjective gravity field, "up" is whatever direction you decide it is. In a subjective gravity field, everyone can fly simply through their belief that "down" is now "over that direction", and can change their minds at will.Somebody's been reading too much Planescape.
** spoiler omitted **
because it is FRs bedroom.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Been a bit of a s#!+ sandwich today. All sorts of problems ranging from "You have two choices: call your ISP or come into the office...I realize those are not pleasant options, but if you want to keep working from home you're going to have to get better internet service," to "Yeah, the time clock software isn't working in IE for everyone company-wide, but it worked fine this morning. It's working in Chrome and Firefox, but since it uses an IE-specific plug in, you won't have full functionality. It will work fine for clocking in/out....no, we have no idea....no, we have no ETA....because it's not ours...yes, we've called them to complain....they're looking into it...no I don't know when it's going to be fixed...please stop talking."People who still use IE make <insert appropriate irreverent reference here> cry.
I swear...
...
Freehold's Posts are Way to Long.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Planescape is one of those things my brother didn't share with us younger brothers.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough of you guys to sell to be able to afford it on the resale market.
So I guess I'll never know how much I'm missing out.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Planescape is one of those things my brother didn't share with us younger brothers.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough of you guys to sell to be able to afford it on the resale market.
So I guess I'll never know how much I'm missing out.
Hey, Amazon has it used at only $100!
C'mon! Ancient, out-of-print RPGs for $100 a pop? What's not to love?
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
because it is FRs bedroom.But why?mmm. Still a bit leery of planescape..."Up" is the direction diametrically opposed by gravity in an objective gravity field. In a subjective gravity field, "up" is whatever direction you decide it is. In a subjective gravity field, everyone can fly simply through their belief that "down" is now "over that direction", and can change their minds at will.Somebody's been reading too much Planescape.
** spoiler omitted **
What do you have against France's bedroom?
...And which one of them are you against?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Now, in my preemptive defense, that post seems pretty long when I was filing it on the phone in the mall at a Chick-fil-A with two boys leaping over top of me.
...uh...maybe it's been too many nights at the second job but...wha?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
But why?mmm. Still a bit leery of planescape..."Up" is the direction diametrically opposed by gravity in an objective gravity field. In a subjective gravity field, "up" is whatever direction you decide it is. In a subjective gravity field, everyone can fly simply through their belief that "down" is now "over that direction", and can change their minds at will.Somebody's been reading too much Planescape.
** spoiler omitted **
I will say that I love a lot a lot a lot of the concepts, ideas, and major thrusts or themes of Planescape more than the actual execution.
I always found Acheron just more interesting than Hell, if more irritatingly inscrutable, but the devils themselves made Hell the go-to place, whereas Acheron had... uh... Hextor? Yeah, Hextor. Also Wee Jas. Those were kind of cool.
Carceri was a fascinating host of contradictions and deeply more interesting than the Abyss, but fundamentally boring in what was done with it. Demons on the other hand were brilliant and horrible and entirely seductive (metaphorically, unless we're talking about the succubus, then it's fictionally, but also metapho-, you know what, you get it).
The idea of Heaven as a sevenfold mountain was kind of neat, and archons were boss, but Elysium (you literally lose yourself in bliss) was far better and more compelling because of its inscrutable and alien nature.
(Also the Beastlands and Ysgard both kind of sucked. Just sayin'. )
The Bloodwar was fascinating and extremely compelling, but also weirdly and unbelievably total, in that, barring insignificantly sized exceptions, all the demons were all in, and all the devils were all in - something that really seemed wrong for both Hell-as-presented and the Abyss-as-presented, honestly.
And the Great Wheel... it was... it was kind of cool? I guess?
And... Sigil... was......
Loved alot idea's contained in PS.
It's still largely how I present the "outer sphere" in most D&D-esque games. As a large morphic "realm" containing smaller more well defined realms either bound to a deity, emotion, concept or (Urgh…) Alignment.(Ie the wheel model).
I also often hanken back to the older plane models for function I don't find specified in settings. Like, as you mentioned Carceri, which with its ease to get into and difficulty in leaving often was presented as a kind of plane sized prison, for stuff you wanted to disappear (Also see the "pockets of Pandemonium")
Also a fan of the, "there are places where the deities have to go with inscrutable laws, they don't even get" stuff that was throw in there...Like how other deities would "adopt" Clerics, that left their respective settings.
While I found the Blood-war in itself somewhat stale, what it represented was more clever in my opinion, it was as TL hinted at a single cog in a rather complex planar machinery that made sure it ground on smoothly...
Which is why I probably saw the slog (and the nihilism it represented) as something...not necessary positive but conforming, as it assured a predictable tomorrow for the planes as a whole. No "winner" meant that the "wheel" ground on...tomorrow as assured, ever as any party getting a upper hand (other then temporarily at least, which did happen kind of all the time...!?) would put the system into uncertainty, where no-obne would be quite sure of where things would end up.
I too though, have a bit of a soft spot for what Eberron did. Its still a setting building exercise I look to from time to time, especially when it come to creating flavourful political backgrounds for countries. Its cosmology was very interesting, if in my opinion at bit confusing at time, but still something I leaf through time to time.
Golarion…
Golarion has some good things, but in my mind its plagued by being a patch-work, ultimately done too...hmmm....patch-worky. I've kind of missed a underlying red-tread through much of the country design. At times things simply seem too different, scattered in or malplaced.
(Seriously, I really think Andorran and Galt belong in a different setting) I do find some places fine though like Varisia and Ustalav.
Then again as I've eluded to before, my version of Golarion isn't really Golarion as written...its more of a 'what's the worst possible take you can get from interpreting what's written' kind of thing spiced with some rewrites of everything from general history to particular factions, countries or places.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'll go with anyone else before I go back to AT&T, they are the most untrustworthy company I've ever delt with.I've never had any issues. Maybe I'm an exception or something, but if it works... I ain't about to fix it.
Same here. I had AT&T DSL when I was in my apartment (because the only other option was Comcast cable ... no. Just no.) and had immensely excellent customer service every time I had to call in, zero problems whatsoever.
Never had them for phone service though, that might be the difference.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Facility flashlight is good enough. And the garage doesn't have one. We have generator powered emergency lights.Hi John.
Do you happen to have a service flashlight that would be normally stored in a designated charging dock? If so, is there some name for that type of flashlight? Something like "on-site flashlight", "facility flashlight"? I am translating a text about flashlight that is repeatedly referred to as "latarka objektowa", literally "facility flashlight" and I am wondering of there is equivalent established term for that in English, either organizational or maybe marketing.
Thank you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
(Also the Beastlands and Ysgard both kind of sucked. Just sayin'. Kah-meh-hah-meh-hah~!)
It helps if you think of Ysgard as Valhalla. It's the plane of "get drunk, feast constantly, and brawl to the death all day, party all night, and no consequences because everyone gets resurrected and fully healed every dawn".
Then remember it's primarily occupied by (even more than celestials) dwarves and barbarians on its first layer, giants and dragons on its second, and the two are constantly fighting - mostly for the fun of fighting.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
What do you have against France's bedroom?because it is FRs bedroom.But why?mmm. Still a bit leery of planescape..."Up" is the direction diametrically opposed by gravity in an objective gravity field. In a subjective gravity field, "up" is whatever direction you decide it is. In a subjective gravity field, everyone can fly simply through their belief that "down" is now "over that direction", and can change their minds at will.Somebody's been reading too much Planescape.
** spoiler omitted **
He hasn't visited enough of them.
...And which one of them are you against?
Those he hasn't visited.
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Day Two, back at the stable.
Co-worker is still lazy…
So I went around doing more hoof-care, washing (and reparering) feeding troughs + horse-drinkers, oiling sadles, bridles and harness', feeding and grooming and some general stable cleaning.Two problems have cropped up though:
1. During cleaning, I moved a lot of stuff around (crates, barrels, old feed-bags etc) I meet mister/misses Rattus norvegicus (aka a huge brown rat), so we might have a rat-problem.
We've set some traps, and are keeping an eye out to see if we can get a feeling for the scale of the problem. If multiple rats are confirmed, we'll probably have to get an exterminator to look things over...2. We have 3 foals from this year (came to this world in April-May this year). These small suckers though, still have their foal coats, and for some reason all three of them have very little fur covering their faces, so they are getting quite noticeable sunburns all over their cute little faces…(stupid heat-wave *shakes fist at sky*).
Thus I was tasked with smearing their faces with sun-cream (only I could do so as I'm the resident master of salve-smearing apparently *slight eye-roll*)…
Yea cooperative they were not (neither were the mommies in fact), though it did succeed with liberal use of patience, feed and a bit of playful interaction.
You may seriously need rat terriers, the rats here can get so big the cats are scared of them. Again our cats are pampered with people constantly feeding the stray cats.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My family got around the "allergic to cats" thing for dealing with mice and rats by leaving them outside. As we grew up in south Texas, this was fine even during winter; on exceptionally cold days the cats would end up hiding out under the house or bunking in the neighbor's barn.
However, if you're not in a rural area, I imagine that's less of an option.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And the Great Wheel... it was... it was kind of cool? I guess?
And... Sigil... was... a... thing. One supposes. I mean, it was super cool, but... the whole "Lady of Pain"... thing... was... um... a thing, one supposes. It was definitely a thing.
Effectively, the concepts and designs were amazing and delightful, but the whole of it felt somehow strangely artificial and staid - not in a "carefully designed by a creator" kind of way, but a kind of patchwork that felt like whole bits - including rather significant ones - were chopped off in favor of fitting the square pegs into a round hole by someone other than anyone interested in the thing itself. It felt artificial and inorganic, and not in a good or compelling way - not because the pieces weren't great - each of the individual pieces were actually super-awesome! -, but because they weren't fit together in a manner that really felt like it was a "real" (fantasy/story) cosmology - not just because they were alien, but just because it felt artificial.
Yeah, I mean, I really like the Great Wheel cosmology for the same reason I really like the nine alignments -- they create this satisfying symmetrical whole that implies a high degree of order.
But yeah, it's very patchwork-y because it is a patchwork of monsters and planar lore that D&D accumulated in the two decades prior to Planescape. Zeb Cook basically went "Here, let me take this grab bag of random stuff from various RW mythologies and dozens of D&D writers and turn it into an avante garde un-D&D D&D setting!" With some really awesome and some really predictable results.
I also get the sense that Zeb & company ran out of creative juice well before the end and went "Oh frack it, whatever." Like how the exemplars of CE -- the demons that D&D had been accumulating for years -- are this motley crew of infinitely-varying forms and personalities. And similarly the exemplars of LG are these varying weird mostly-but-not-always anthropomorphic creatures. But the exemplars of both CN and CG are these two very homogenous races -- the slaads are differentiated merely by different colors, and are basically CE in all but name; while the eladrin are all super-turn-into-lightball elves.
As you say, PS is filled with great ideas, but the execution is often lacking.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Admittedly that's one reason I like what Paizo did with the Azata - they kept the basic eladrin, then added the Lillends to their number (which I'm not quite sure why they weren't eladrin before...), then when they did add others later they're not just more "elves that turn into glowy lights".
Proteans less so - they just replaced "frog monster" with "snake monster" really - though I do really like Proteans. I solve this personally by throwing all the various Chaos outsiders together in one big pile, so you have Slaadi, Proteans, Ei'risai, and any others I deem suitable and just say that the plane of chaos isn't limited to one representative series of species.
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Day Two, back at the stable.
Co-worker is still lazy…
So I went around doing more hoof-care, washing (and reparering) feeding troughs + horse-drinkers, oiling sadles, bridles and harness', feeding and grooming and some general stable cleaning.Two problems have cropped up though:
1. During cleaning, I moved a lot of stuff around (crates, barrels, old feed-bags etc) I meet mister/misses Rattus norvegicus (aka a huge brown rat), so we might have a rat-problem.
We've set some traps, and are keeping an eye out to see if we can get a feeling for the scale of the problem. If multiple rats are confirmed, we'll probably have to get an exterminator to look things over...2. We have 3 foals from this year (came to this world in April-May this year). These small suckers though, still have their foal coats, and for some reason all three of them have very little fur covering their faces, so they are getting quite noticeable sunburns all over their cute little faces…(stupid heat-wave *shakes fist at sky*).
Thus I was tasked with smearing their faces with sun-cream (only I could do so as I'm the resident master of salve-smearing apparently *slight eye-roll*)…
Yea cooperative they were not (neither were the mommies in fact), though it did succeed with liberal use of patience, feed and a bit of playful interaction.
Kjeldorn, what does your stable do with the foals? Does your stable have space for more horses? Or do you sell the foals away?
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Ferrets are adorable. My sister had one. Little balls of joyful schizophrenic energy.
I heard ferrets are even harder to train then cats to do stuff, and that's saying quite a bit.
*Passes john a ready to make cube of ginger tea with black sugar*
Part of my office supplies.
(Also the Beastlands and Ysgard both kind of sucked. Just sayin'. Kah-meh-hah-meh-hah~!)It helps if you think of Ysgard as Valhalla. It's the plane of "get drunk, feast constantly, and brawl to the death all day, party all night, and no consequences because everyone gets resurrected and fully healed every dawn".
Then remember it's primarily occupied by (even more than celestials) dwarves and barbarians on its first layer, giants and dragons on its second, and the two are constantly fighting - mostly for the fun of fighting.
Well, yes. It was pretty blatant. But it still kinda sucks.
Like, as the representative CG fantasy land of, "here's what you should enjoy, if you're CG" it's just... why.
I'm not against the idea of an eternal battle arena, but the way the plane was structured - that it was so structured at all, to some extent - and the entire way it put CG folk as, "those eternal guys who like to do nothing but FPS" was... meh.
I loved individual elements of the plane... the whole of it, notsomuch.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
(Also the Beastlands and Ysgard both kind of sucked. Just sayin'. Kah-meh-hah-meh-hah~!)It helps if you think of Ysgard as Valhalla. It's the plane of "get drunk, feast constantly, and brawl to the death all day, party all night, and no consequences because everyone gets resurrected and fully healed every dawn".
Then remember it's primarily occupied by (even more than celestials) dwarves and barbarians on its first layer, giants and dragons on its second, and the two are constantly fighting - mostly for the fun of fighting.
Well, yes. It was pretty blatant. But it still kinda sucks.
Like, as the representative CG fantasy land of, "here's what you should enjoy, if you're CG" it's just... why.
Well, it's not. Ysgard is the "between CG and CN" plane.
The CG plane is Arborea: the plane of the eladrin Court of Stars, the elven afterlife of Arvandor, the Seelie Court of the Fey, and Mount Olympus.
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just crossed the state line. We're in Texas!
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
I never thought I'd ever favorite someone going into Texas.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I never thought I'd ever favorite someone going into Texas.
I did, but not for these reasons.
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Golarion…
Golarion has some good things, but in my mind its plagued by being a patch-work, ultimately done too...hmmm....patch-worky. I've kind of missed a underlying red-tread through much of the country design. At times things simply seem too different, scattered in or malplaced.
(Seriously, I really think Andorran and Galt belong in a different setting) I do find some places fine though like Varisia and Ustalav.
Then again as I've eluded to before, my version of Golarion isn't really Golarion as written...its more of a 'what's the worst possible take you can get from interpreting what's written' kind of thing spiced with some rewrites of everything from general history to particular factions, countries or places.
And the Great Wheel... it was... it was kind of cool? I guess?
And... Sigil... was... a... thing. One supposes. I mean, it was super cool, but... the whole "Lady of Pain"... thing... was... um... a thing, one supposes. It was definitely a thing.
Effectively, the concepts and designs were amazing and delightful, but the whole of it felt somehow strangely artificial and staid - not in a "carefully designed by a creator" kind of way, but a kind of patchwork that felt like whole bits - including rather significant ones - were chopped off in favor of fitting the square pegs into a round hole by someone other than anyone interested in the thing itself. It felt artificial and inorganic, and not in a good or compelling way - not because the pieces weren't great - each of the individual pieces were actually super-awesome! -, but because they weren't fit together in a manner that really felt like it was a "real" (fantasy/story) cosmology - not just because they were alien, but just because it felt artificial.
Yeah, I mean, I really like the Great Wheel cosmology for the same reason I really like the nine alignments -- they create this satisfying symmetrical whole that implies a high degree of order.
But yeah, it's very patchwork-y because it is a patchwork of monsters and planar lore that D&D accumulated in the two decades prior to Planescape. Zeb Cook basically went "Here, let me take this grab bag of random stuff from various RW mythologies and dozens of D&D writers and turn it into an avante garde un-D&D D&D setting!" With some really awesome and some really predictable results.
I also get the sense that Zeb & company ran out of creative juice well before the end and went "Oh frack it, whatever." Like how the exemplars of CE -- the demons that D&D had been accumulating for years -- are this motley crew of infinitely-varying forms and personalities. And similarly the exemplars of LG are these varying weird mostly-but-not-always anthropomorphic creatures. But the exemplars of both CN and CG are these two very homogenous races -- the slaads are differentiated merely by different colors, and are basically CE in all but name; while the eladrin are all super-turn-into-lightball elves.
As you say, PS is filled with great ideas, but the execution is often lacking.
See, and TS kind of nails the difference between the patchwork quality of PS v. Golarion.
PS feels like, at some point or another, the folk making it just... ran out of creativity, leaving a number of really cool projects, concepts, or ideas half-finished, or just feeling like they had to put certain things in certain ways, regardless of what it did to the setting without putting a creative and personal spin on it.
Hence, PS feels both artificial and patchwork, but that artificialness can feel... kind of hollow.
On the other hand, Golarion feels patchwork, but that patchwork feels less artificial, not because it is less, but because it's brimming to the bursting with an over-all creative vision and energy. Golarion doesn't care about balance, it cares about genres, and it thus is a genre-first creative endeavor that, once it has its ideas set down to allow you to make stories, it then goes back to create a semi-coherent narrative around them, and never runs out of steam.
Getting folk like Todd doing unbelievably fantastic work on the outer planes, Jacobs to do mindblowingly great edge of civilization and broad setting building, Wes deep diving into horrors and undead, and so on and so forth generates what feels like an endless well of creation.
The Patchwork of Planescape is, "Here's a decade+ of history that has no semblance of similarity or themes; let's shove it in a box and chop off things until it almost does."
The Patchwork of Golarion in, "Here are a bunch of things we want in our setting; let's build them in their own areas, but around a central narrative that lets you play in any of them."
Neither is inherently right or wrong, but the latter personal creativity - where each portion of the setting was created to be that portion of the setting, rather than, "And we have to put this stuff somewhere... it's kinda alike, let's lump it together!" has generated a more interesting whole.
(I also strongly disagree with the Andoran/Galt-thing. I like them as features of the setting, even with the exceptionally obvious analogues they represent... they also have a lot of unique features that, to me, helps keep them fresh. That said, I understand why people might not like them, and find such opposition broadly fair - similarly, not liking the patchwork nature of Golarion isn't a problem with the person - it's a valid difference of taste.)
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I pulled Dr Boom!!!
Now I just have to figure out what Magnetic does...
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Hence, PS feels both artificial and patchwork, but that artificialness can feel... kind of hollow.
On the other hand, Golarion feels patchwork, but that patchwork feels less artificial, not because it is less, but because it's brimming to the bursting with an over-all creative vision and energy. Golarion doesn't care about balance, it cares about genres, and it thus is a genre-first creative endeavor that, once it has its ideas set down to allow you to make stories, it then goes back to create a semi-coherent narrative around them, and never runs out of steam.
And I feel exactly other way around - Golarion is much more artificial and forced than Planescape.
On the other hand I am not that much fan of Great Wheel itself, because it feels too ordered and too neat either. My favorite cosmology is the one from Malazan Book Of The Fallen with wild tangle of many supernatural realms, including multiple unknown ones, and that doesn't even starts to include other worlds.
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That means I get to tag in
So has anyone figured out why freehold hates everything good and loves everything bad?
Like I would probably agree with most everything bizzaro freehold says. He reminds me of the Simpsons halloween episode where bart has an evil twin but then it turns out bart was the evil twin all along.
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Strangely the company's sharepoint works better on internet explorer, but for any other stuff I use firefox.
I prefer Icejaguar myself...
oh you meant internet browsers...
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That means I get to tag in
So has anyone figured out why freehold hates everything good and loves everything bad?
Like I would probably agree with most everything bizzaro freehold says. He reminds me of the Simpsons halloween episode where bart has an evil twin but then it turns out bart was the evil twin all along.
what are you talking about? I only like good things!
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Strangely the company's sharepoint works better on internet explorer, but for any other stuff I use firefox.I prefer Icejaguar myself...
oh you meant internet browsers...
I thought mort was a snow leopard.
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I thought mort was a snow leopard.Strangely the company's sharepoint works better on internet explorer, but for any other stuff I use firefox.I prefer Icejaguar myself...
oh you meant internet browsers...
The one I can't decide on is lighting turtle. Its speed more or less averages out I think.
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Any motel where you can "pee-pay" for a room is probably one you don't want to stay at....
And we kept pushing through last night because I had stupidly pee-paid for a motel room at what I judged was the best stopping place to not make the final driving day even worse.
...
Yeah I'm glad we don't allow that her I want no part of that.
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Planescape is one of those things my brother didn't share with us younger brothers.
Unfortunately, there aren't enough of you guys to sell to be able to afford it on the resale market.
So I guess I'll never know how much I'm missing out.
Come on by.