Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:45 pm
Actually you could fire it infinity times as long as you don't keep track of how many times you've fired, because you never know how many bullets are left.
But you would know, more or less. After all, it's your gun, you loaded the gun. You know how many bullets can fit into the clip. The basic parameters are in fact known to you. That part's really hard to fake.RobbyPants wrote:So, is the idea here, if you have a gun that can hold eight bullets, but you don't know how many are in it, you could be able to fire it eight times, so long as you don't check? Also, if you don't know the capacity, you might be able to get a few more than normal?FrankTrollman wrote:Innumermancy
An unknown number could be high or low. Using Innumermancy, a character could get enough change from couch cushions to buy a soda or continue firing bullets from a pistol without reloading. So long as the amount stays unknown, it can always be sufficient for the character's needs.
This is interesting, and it seems to reward slightly absent-minded play. How much of this is known by the player and how much by MC? It seems hard to hide this type of mechanic from a player who would normally meticulously track their ammo.
Um. You're assuming that you can embed an uncomputable problem into a simple request and that the magic will instantaneously and correctly answer it. You can very easily put a stop to that by simply not allowing that. For example, you can use dowsing to find a piece of paper with the word "yes", or you can use it to find a piece of paper with the word "no", but you can't ask for "whichever of the items from this list best communicates information that I don't have."Vebyast wrote:Thinking about it, the halting oracle is a bad example; I'm studying for an algorithms test right now, and my default reaction for anything is to reduce it to a known problem (in this case, "Where is the nearest piece of paper with the answer to the following question: does the following function halt?"). A better idea: just ask the question. Dowsing reduces to Clairvoyance via a dictionary and "Where is the nth word in the sentence that best answers this question:?".
Controlled conditions don't just happen randomly in everyday life, but it is entirely possible to deliberately manufacture them if it is your actual goal to prove that your magic powers are real.Kaelik wrote:How much of your life is under controlled conditions?
0%.
All these powers can be demonstrated under controlled conditions, because they are actual magic powers. But the point is that outside of controlled conditions, it's hard to tell whether you have a power, or are just really lucky/skilled/whatever.
So now, you need to go in early, scatter some change under the machine when no one is around, and do it again in front of them. They'll think you're a wizard. Or the devil.Maxus wrote:Total thread necromancy. I was thinking about this today because I pulled a Doubt move to get myself a soda from a vending machine at work.
I was 15 cents short, my boss and my co-worker present didn't have the change, so I sighed, got down on my belly and pulled a dime and a nickel out from under the machine.
It weirded them out--they said I acted like the change would be there because I wanted it to be. Or something.
Thanks to dark hair and glasses, I'm already called Harry Potter. There's folks who think my first name really is Harry.RobbyPants wrote:So now, you need to go in early, scatter some change under the machine when no one is around, and do it again in front of them. They'll think you're a wizard. Or the devil.Maxus wrote:Total thread necromancy. I was thinking about this today because I pulled a Doubt move to get myself a soda from a vending machine at work.
I was 15 cents short, my boss and my co-worker present didn't have the change, so I sighed, got down on my belly and pulled a dime and a nickel out from under the machine.
It weirded them out--they said I acted like the change would be there because I wanted it to be. Or something.