The Gaming Den

Captain_Bleach at [unixtime wrote:1197588645[/unixtime]]Isn't monotheism also "Sure, there are other Gods, but you HAVE to worship this God, and him/her only!"

That's Monolatrism.

Draco_Argentum at [unixtime wrote:1197635017[/unixtime]]

Thats an odd thing to have statistical evidence of.

I may have worded that incorrectly. The evidence is important because of its statistical significance, not that it is necessarily statistical evidence. Also the evidence actually strongly points to supernatural origins of the Bible, not necessarily divine. If you're interested I'll supply details early next week.

If you have evidence of the supernatural, I think James Randi will give you a million dollars...

That he will. Of cours, it's rather hilariously impossible to prove the existence of the supernatural, nor even to have any evidence of the supernatural. Whatever exists in the universe exists. The very nature of science is that if ghosts or gods or whatever were real, we'd simply include them in our codex of natural law. That we don't accept them is simply an extension of the fact that noone has ever produced a shred of real evidence that indicates their existence.

James Randi goes a step further though. He doesn't offer a million dollars to anyone who can prove the existence of supernatural occurances (which is impossible). He offers a million dollars to anyone who can prove the existence of things that are currently classified as supernatural.

So yes. If you or anyone else can show any real evidence that one or more books of one or more versions of the bible are of non-human origin you will be a millionaire. And I personally will amongst the first to congratulate you.

-Username17

I'm clutching my Master's in Physics and quivering in anticipation. The notion of empirical evidence for a thing outside the realm of empirical testability consistently fills me with giddy joy.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1197681054[/unixtime]]That he will. Of cours, it's rather hilariously impossible to prove the existence of the supernatural, nor even to have any evidence of the supernatural. Whatever exists in the universe exists. The very nature of science is that if ghosts or gods or whatever were real, we'd simply include them in our codex of natural law. That we don't accept them is simply an extension of the fact that noone has ever produced a shred of real evidence that indicates their existence.

James Randi goes a step further though. He doesn't offer a million dollars to anyone who can prove the existence of supernatural occurances (which is impossible). He offers a million dollars to anyone who can prove the existence of things that are currently classified as supernatural.

So yes. If you or anyone else can show any real evidence that one or more books of one or more versions of the bible are of non-human origin you will be a millionaire. And I personally will amongst the first to congratulate you.

-Username17

Myself wrote:Frank Trollman is an atheist because he killed all the supernatural entities.

Here is your proof. It's all just a cover-up.

It points to something significantly beyond human capability, it could be chalked up to extremely massive coincidence, though the chances are wildly astronomical, extraterrestrials, or something else far beyond human capabilities and knowledge thousands of years ago. Whatever it is, it's far beyond our current capabilities of empirical explanation.

You're going to have to wait until Monday, I'll give you quotes, explanations, and further resources then. If I tried to go by memory, without any of the data in front of me, I'd sound like an idiot.

I warn you ahead of time that most of the statistical determinations of the chances of various events being non-magical in origin rely on the before/after fallacy of dealing with probabilities.

That is, before you roll a d20, your chance of rolling any particular number is only 1 in 20. But your chances of rolling some particular number is 100%. So if you look at a series of dice rolls of an encounter, the chances of all four players rolling exactly what they did for 4 rounds running is just one in 655,360,000,000,000,000,000. But of course, despite the manifestly titanic odds they did roll those numbers with no supernatural aid because their chances of rolling something is still 100%.

-Username17

What makes me laugh the most abut Jack Chick's his claim to have belonged to pretty much every religion out there ...

Frank: where's said anti-Roman rant?

Sigma: didn't you say you have beliefs from a crapload of religions? If so, how do you claim to be "outside sects concerned with sin"? And, while the teenager's comment's hilarious, don't come with this BS about molesting: this guy didn't do anything other than feigning devotion - some people really do have it, and of course wouldn't do so.

Calibron: are you aware that "people liking the way it sounds" could be deliberate deception? To quote H. L. Mencken (Atheist of course): "Whoever translated the Bible to an excellent prose in French is the main responsible for the collapse of Christianity in France. To the contrary, the men who translated the Bible to an archaic, retumbant and nigh-incomprehensible English gave Christianity a fresh breath of life everywhere English is spoken". That's a translation I just made - I wouldn't be surprised if the quote was famous and the exact words known as different. Hilarious note: Mencken was born in Baltimore ...

Moreover, if you allow me to throw this at you: let's suppose one (doesn't matter which) of the Catholic churches contains the "most divinely inspired" Bible, and that indeed the other side ignored it out of "ignorance or stubborn pride". Now, take some Catholic from the "wrong side" who isn't being taught "the right stuff" and may well die without seeing it: what's fair about them paying for the "ignorance or stubborn pride" of some government of centuries ago? Especially if one throws in a conflicting moral rule and somebody goes to Hell thanks to said government ...

Calibron wrote:Christians that have mildly different beliefs from me don't bother me, we all have imperfect, finite minds and nobody is going to get it exactly right. It's that 90%(figure pulled directly out of ass) of people that identify themselves as Christians, or some denomination there of, do not follow Jesus in any meaningful way beyond going to church a few times a year and saying they believe in God that bothers me; that their behavior flies in the face of everything Christianity stands for and they have no problem with that. Those people aren't Christians regardless of whether they identify themselves as such or not.

That doesn't have anything to do with "Who's Christian?" or "What's the right Bible?" - that has to do with the basic concept of hypocrisy that I hate as much despite having no investment on any religion (or a lot of other things people claim to put faith in, such as nations). And I wanna see that "statistically important evidence" too ...

Bleach wrote:How do you find it insulting?

Making fun of an underdeveloped culture, perhaps?

Bigode at [unixtime wrote:1197763242[/unixtime]]

Bleach wrote:How do you find it insulting?

Making fun of an underdeveloped culture, perhaps?

What is it about Appalachians that is underdeveloped in your opinion?

Of course, I agree with you how it is insulting; the Kender personality represents A.D.D., while Gnome personalities represent obsessive compulsive disorder with perfection of technology. Silvanesti Elves represent xenophobia taken to hated extremes. Istarian humans represent religious monomania. What group of people in Dragonlance aren't some one-dimensional real-world/fantasy stereotype?

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1197753890[/unixtime]]I warn you ahead of time that most of the statistical determinations of the chances of various events being non-magical in origin rely on the before/after fallacy of dealing with probabilities.

That is, before you roll a d20, your chance of rolling any particular number is only 1 in 20. But your chances of rolling some particular number is 100%. So if you look at a series of dice rolls of an encounter, the chances of all four players rolling exactly what they did for 4 rounds running is just one in 655,360,000,000,000,000,000. But of course, despite the manifestly titanic odds they did roll those numbers with no supernatural aid because their chances of rolling something is still 100%.

-Username17

Well, yes, like I said what I'm going to share with you could possibly be chalked up to insanely astronomical coincidence.

Bigode at [unixtime wrote:1197763242[/unixtime]]Calibron: are you aware that "people liking the way it sounds" could be deliberate deception? To quote H. L. Mencken (Atheist of course): "Whoever translated the Bible to an excellent prose in French is the main responsible for the collapse of Christianity in France. To the contrary, the men who translated the Bible to an archaic, retumbant and nigh-incomprehensible English gave Christianity a fresh breath of life everywhere English is spoken". That's a translation I just made - I wouldn't be surprised if the quote was famous and the exact words known as different. Hilarious note: Mencken was born in Baltimore ...

I'm not sure what you're getting at, sure I use the king James version for just normal every day reading because I like the way it sounds, but I don't use it as my sole source when doing harder studying, or even give it greater credence than most other translations.

Bigode at [unixtime wrote:1197763242[/unixtime]]Moreover, if you allow me to throw this at you: let's suppose one (doesn't matter which) of the Catholic churches contains the "most divinely inspired" Bible, and that indeed the other side ignored it out of "ignorance or stubborn pride". Now, take some Catholic from the "wrong side" who isn't being taught "the right stuff" and may well die without seeing it: what's fair about them paying for the "ignorance or stubborn pride" of some government of centuries ago? Especially if one throws in a conflicting moral rule and somebody goes to Hell thanks to said government ...

This would be a problem if you actually needed to know scripture front to back in order to get to heaven, fortunately that's not the case, you only need to know enough to make the decision to accept Jesus' sacrifice and allow the Holy Spirit to enter you. So a little lack of information, or some misinformation, will lead to less progress in your walk with the Lord while alive, but won't reflect on your eternal destiny.

Bigode at [unixtime wrote:1197763242[/unixtime]]

Calibron wrote:Christians that have mildly different beliefs from me don't bother me, we all have imperfect, finite minds and nobody is going to get it exactly right. It's that 90%(figure pulled directly out of ass) of people that identify themselves as Christians, or some denomination there of, do not follow Jesus in any meaningful way beyond going to church a few times a year and saying they believe in God that bothers me; that their behavior flies in the face of everything Christianity stands for and they have no problem with that. Those people aren't Christians regardless of whether they identify themselves as such or not.

That doesn't have anything to do with "Who's Christian?" or "What's the right Bible?" - that has to do with the basic concept of hypocrisy that I hate as much despite having no investment on any religion (or a lot of other things people claim to put faith in, such as nations).

Right, I wouldn't have brought it up at all if I didn't feel the need to clarify my position.

Bigode at [unixtime wrote:1197763242[/unixtime]]And I wanna see that "statistically important evidence" too ...

Just wait until Monday and I'll tell you everything I can.

Captain Bleach wrote:What is it about Appalachians that is underdeveloped in your opinion?

Of course, I agree with you how it is insulting; the Kender personality represents A.D.D., while Gnome personalities represent obsessive compulsive disorder with perfection of technology. Silvanesti Elves represent xenophobia taken to hated extremes. Istarian humans represent religious monomania. What group of people in Dragonlance aren't some one-dimensional real-world/fantasy stereotype?

Well, let's see...

Humans are all over the map, as per usual--the people in Flotsam are rowdy sailor types, the people in Palanthas are your busy, industrious people who live in the 'paradise' city. You've got your corrupt culture, your medieval Europe culture, your frontiers culture, you pseudo-Native American culture, and, eventually, your hippies.

I will admit to liking the Minotaur in this setting. It's nice to see a brawny race that's not treated as going, "...dur, Brugz smash puny humans, hur hur hur." They've got a system of honor and they seem to the the preeminant seafaring race, what with living on a cluster of islands and all.

Giants are actually described as being a race of size queens. Whoever's the tallest is the leader, always. Not that giants ever actually show up.

Draconians seem to have trouble getting an actual culture started, seeing as how they started off as a military race. Still, they invented deer jerkey with a recipe that doesn't sound too bad, so they earn some cool points.

Qualinesti elves are hidebound, conservative, and dismissive of such things as human life.

The Silvanesti elves are so conservative they really don't approve of fire and spend much time complaining about how much better things were when everyone had to use stone tools. The Qualinesti are a bunch of pansy-waisted human-loving liberals compared to the Silvanesti.

(On a note: I'm waiting for someone to completely destroy the Silvanesti homeland. A single Green Dragon has nearly managed it twice. Maybe the Minotaur got it right. I dunno. I quit reading Dragonlance a few years back).

Dwarves are stereotypical--skilled smiths, honorable, heavy drinkers, and heavily bearded.

I'll hold off on further Dragonlance analysis.

You've got Nerakans, who are your "Evil Human Pseudo-Fascist Empire," Ogres who are basically crude, stupid, strong, tall, and addicted to raping and pillaging. How original!
Then you've got the Dark Dwarves, who are dwarves, but evil! And their societies are constantly at war, whether it be with other dwarves or themselves.
And Silvanesti; in the 3rd edition core rulebook, their racism and intolerance is described as "good taken to extremes." Hah! I'm pretty sure that by these peoples' logic, the witch burning at Salem and the Spanish Inquisition were "too much good."
Oh, and what is up with that whole "the Gods didn't leave the mortals, the mortals left the Gods" bit by Goldmoon? The Istarians were the most religious-addicted culture on Ansalon, not to mention that it said in the War of the Lance sourcebook that the Khur, who were still faithful after the Gods left, were also excluded from Divine Magic. Basically, their worshipers were told by Mishakal (healing goddess) to turn away from Divine Magic for healing and to use herbalism. They were still loyal, yet they were not allowed divine magic. Seems like the gods are looking at one pathway, that Goldmoon shall be the true revival of the "Old Gods," even though said Gods were still being worshiped in small areas. I don't get it.

P.S. LOL at the Silvanesti Elves not approving of a chemical reaction.

Calibron at [unixtime wrote:1197763819[/unixtime]]
Well, yes, like I said what I'm going to share with you could possibly be chalked up to insanely astronomical coincidence.

Right, but that wasn't an insanely astronomical coincidence that was cited there. It was the product of misunderstanding statistics, and thus a fallacy of reasoning.

Believe me, it's nothing so simple as a string of particular numbers. We should put this topic on hold until Monday rolls around and I get a chance to start explaining.

Captain_Bleach at [unixtime wrote:1197770552[/unixtime]]
Oh, and what is up with that whole "the Gods didn't leave the mortals, the mortals left the Gods" bit by Goldmoon? The Istarians were the most religious-addicted culture on Ansalon, not to mention that it said in the War of the Lance sourcebook that the Khur, who were still faithful after the Gods left, were also excluded from Divine Magic. Basically, their worshipers were told by Mishakal (healing goddess) to turn away from Divine Magic for healing and to use herbalism. They were still loyal, yet they were not allowed divine magic. Seems like the gods are looking at one pathway, that Goldmoon shall be the true revival of the "Old Gods," even though said Gods were still being worshiped in small areas. I don't get it.

The gods are totally into railroading.

"We worship you already!"
"No, you fucking don't... look you're ruining our glorious return, so why don't you like go practice herbalism or something, so when we return to the world it'll be all awesome and everything when divine magic works. You know, forget we ever existed because it'd be cool for the plot. Having pockets of loyalist worshipers is so less dramatic than some hot blond chick with a crystal staff. You're ruining everything!"

Actually, they took all their loyalist worshippers (i.e. everyone with Cleric levels) bodily into Heaven just before blowing up the world, iirc. Which is actually even worse for a D&D culture than "just" dropping a giant meteor on the planet and causing earthquakes and volcanoes all over the place, because now you have no healing magic whatsoever.

In the War of the Lance Sourcebook, they proposed a fix for healing magic:
Individual wounds are tracked separately. In order to heal a wound, you must make a Heal check at DC 15+ the number of damage dealt. Wounds that deal even so much as a moderate amount of damage will become nearly impossible to heal (DC 30 for a 15 point wound), plus I don't like keeping track of every time a Dragon bit you for wounds.

Captain_Bleach wrote:In the War of the Lance Sourcebook, they proposed a fix for healing magic:
Individual wounds are tracked separately. In order to heal a wound, you must make a Heal check at DC 15+ the number of damage dealt. Wounds that deal even so much as a moderate amount of damage will become nearly impossible to heal (DC 30 for a 15 point wound), plus I don't like keeping track of every time a Dragon bit you for wounds.

...

. . .

That's a very nice fix, assuming you print up a bunch of anatomical charts to hand out and you have some uber healers.

Why not just give Heal some more applications? Like a DC to whip up a poultice that provides increased healing over a length of time, even while you're doing stuff?

And that system's just making the DCs uber...I'd just borrow the increments for the Cure spells--minor, light, moderate, serious, and critical and give them flat DCs starting at 10. And the ability to take 10 as long as the patient isn't actively bleeding to death.

Calibron at [unixtime wrote:1197793893[/unixtime]]Believe me, it's nothing so simple as a string of particular numbers. We should put this topic on hold until Monday rolls around and I get a chance to start explaining.

So, uh, Monday's come and gone. Did this get put in another thread, or what?

Maxus at [unixtime wrote:1197842551[/unixtime]]


...

. . .

That's a very nice fix, assuming you print up a bunch of anatomical charts to hand out and you have some uber healers.

So is it a good fix or not?

Captain Bleach wrote:So is it a good fix or not?

Increasing the amount of paper you have to use to keep track of stuff, and DCs becoming rapidly uber?

Simplify, simplify!

When I first saw the rule, I thought the designers were on crack.

Captain Bleach wrote:When I first saw the rule, I thought the designers were on crack.

I like the idea of making the Heal skill used more, but to do that, it should be more useful, not slamming DC 15 + A Bazillion damage on people. I'd like to see Heal be used to mess with your natural healing rate so you can gain HP while traveling, or, maybe, a DC at which you can provide the same effect as a 'cure light wounds' over an hour.

I'm looking at the SRD, and I see it used for:

1) First Aid
2) Long-term Care
3) Fixing someone's feet after they step on something sharp.
4) Helping someone overcome poison and disease.

And the first three are all DC 15. I mean, a level 1 cleric with 16 wisdom and Skill Focus can get d20 + 10 on that, but, still. He can also just use a cure spell to do a lot of that.

The skill should be a way to help you save your spells. After a fight, it'd be nice to have the option to spend a few minutes fiddling with bandages and some herbs and then the Fighter's regained 1d8, and he'll continue to gain 1 HP per hour and by morning he'll be fine and you can use that spell slot on something else.

I dunno. Maybe I'll cook up a scaling Heal feat. Or for non-Tome games, a feat that allows expanded use of Heal.

...

...which is an intriguing idea for slipping stuff by DMs whose brains would catch on fire if you tried to introduce scaling feats to them all at once.

*writes that down*