The Gaming Den

But on the other hand we are talking about lead, and that's a very nasty pollutant indeed. Consider the glory of Rome. While it was true that the water pipes were lead general lead transferral into drinking water is exceptionally small. Imported wine, on the other hand was shipped in lead glaxed amp...

OK I’ll start with B.H.O. first of all, because he is the POTUS. I’m not going for the crude joke here; I want something that reflects on the character. Are there any really brilliant super geniuses out there? I can only think of one that fits the character of Obama. Obama as … Lex Luthor (hey at le...

TOZ wrote:I think you should have just made that thread, tzor.

OK, I'll have to work on it.

The example of Farming as the example of what's wrong with the profession skill has always bothered me for one reason. shouldn't farming be a craft skill? the divide the PHB puts between the two is that craft skills produce a physical product, which farming does. First of all I don't particularly l...

I'm not going to bother to even touch this thread with a ten foot pole. But I would like to throw a bucket of cold water on the point that had I started a thread comparing Democratic presidental candidates to cartoon characters I would have been called a racist.

Kevin Drum had an interesting article awhile back showing the decrease of violent crime with the decrease in lead emissions. And while I'm not a biologist or anything, given Obama's new mercury regulations, another neurotoxins, it seems to me that this will cause a further reduction in U.S. crime. ...

Finished Lincoln, now starting on Mark Levin's Ameritopia.

People who pray to gods (or abstract principles) are Divine powered. People who lift weights, stretch a lot, and do reps are Martial powered. People who read books or trade with Fiends are Arcane powered. People who do anything Asian themed are Ki powered. But if we look at this list, the problem i...

First and foremost, don't worry. A lot has changed since your great-uncle's time. I'm going to repeat this again, do not worry and do not panic. Now, let's talk about prostrate checks. I'm not sure if you technically should or not but remember that this isn't an exact science ... in fact it's two st...

The Ki power source was set up to have all the Asian classes in it. If there were Asian classes that didn't have the Ki power source and non-Asian classes that did, it wouldn't be a problem. I think this is a similiar problem to the anchient monk arguments. People used to argue that the monk had to...

While I can't claim to know any insight about the removal of Half Orcs in 2E, at the time I always assumed that it was linked to the removal of the Assassin class, as the Half Orc Cleric / Assassin multiclass was a very workable mode for the class. That in turn was related to the notion that the cha...

Currently reading "Killing Lincoln."

I've aways liked GNS theory ... then again I've never read it. :tongue: And the guy's an idiot so there. :razz: But seriously, the whole idea is flawed because it is misplaced. A game is a collection of individual rules. It is only at the specific rule itself that you might be able to assign a GNS a...

Still, I'll admit that that wasn't part of the actual rules. I didn't realize it was core for 1E. My impression was that 2E took a lot of 1E house rules and Dragon material and made it part of the official rules. Was this also the case? It’s hard to say. A lot of things from 1E Core was dropped (on...

2E wasn't all that bad as a game. It was definitely a move away from Gygax's simulationist rules. I'm not a fan of GNS theory, but how would you say Gygax's version was simulationist (alone or in comparison to 2E)? I've never played anything prior to 2E. I'll start with the combat system. The full ...

Star Trek doesn't really strike me as "entire civilizations are but pawns in our game" the way high-level D&D typically is. That's only because the Federation chooses not to do things that way. Roddenbury had a very utopian view of the future. This attitude continued until well after ...

My guess? 2e sucks as a game and sucks at simulation, so he calls it "narrativist" because narrative is subjective enough that it's really hard to definitively prove that a game is bad at it. As the old man in the forum ... 2E wasn't all that bad as a game. It was definitely a move away f...

Tzor knows absolutely nothing about French Culture. But he likes to invent doom and gloom. Everything I know about French culture I know from a local liberal writer who lived there for several years and who wrote books about it. Everyting I know aout French politics I know from my conservative uncl...

I’ll admit that dune’s a hard one to see because the baseline story is mid level. The really cool kick ass reality bending stuff is either briefly mentioned or is in the sequels / prequels. Mentats really aren’t high level, they are just trained and they use an extreme form of “eight hour energy.” T...

Speaking of keys, I really need to do a check on my work laptop. On some of the text boxes in IE the keys seem not to work most of the time. I've actually had to type text in notepad and copy/paste it into the Box. Facebook boxes are the worst, although I think those boxes have so much logic in them...

FrankTrollman wrote:These are fucking awful systems that cause your computer to "go crazy". I have no idea why there is a keyboard shortcut to make your computer act like you are holding down CTRL, but there you go.

Try typing with one finger.

There you go.

Actually I wasn’t even thinking about healthcare, except in the abstract of the “socialist” notion that government is the enforcer of an aspect of a citizen’s quality of life which is then considered a “right” (having nothing whatsoever with the inalienable rights such as life, liberty and property ...

For the moment I’ll stick with Star Trek and Dr. Who (and ignore most of the modern Dr. Who in the process). Star Trek is massively mid level to upper mid level. While the technology seems “advanced” it is only advanced in a linear fashion from the current norms. Any highly advanced technology is me...

In once sense I agree the question of how should a game economy work really has nothing to do with how an economy should work. First and foremost, characters are playing in the “now” so the current state of the economy is all that matters. Even your most stable nations have had major economic cycles...

A store in a DnD campaign has three items, all priced insanely high. You are a player in this campaign. Which is your reaction? Actually, my reaction is "what are the items and why do I even care?" Off the top of my head I can think of a plethora of reasons why this situation might exist....