The Gaming Den

Thank you, Bigode. But of course you realize, you are now just one of my many alternate accounts falsely attributing a quote to Leress in a grand plan to smear Frank, right? ;) The fact that ubernoob said something that may have been wrong does not in fact mean that what frank said is wrong. Yeah, ...

Back while I was on the project I noticed a few of Frank's essays from the TNE threads used verbatim to start discussions with the implication that they were OW4's words (no citation or reference to seeing them elsewhere at all) . The squares discussion in particular had Frank's stuff word for word...

I guess the best case would be for Frank to say he was mistaken or that he cannot come up with an example as opposed to accusing and then quickly saying he doesn't care. Except: that would be stupid. I know what I saw, and I didn't care then, and I don't care now. People directed me to material I h...

I offer no retraction because my story is exactly as true then as it is now No, it's not. Hell, if it was, I wouldn't object to your story because your material is Open Source. If your allegations were true, I wouldn't *care.* It's because you're going around saying things that demonstrably aren't ...

I'm a straight male and I don't feel neglected by Dragon Age. *Shrug*

Just because I'm a straight male doesn't mean I have to be seeing naked or impractically dressed women in my videogames all the time in order to be happy.

Wait. Did he delete his fucking post while I was replying to it? See, you really have to stop doing that. It makes it impossible to carry on a fucking conversation. Just quote the whole post that you're replying to. Well, in that case, I did. He deleted the entire post, but not until after I'd quot...

Wait. Did he delete his fucking post while I was replying to it? See, you really have to stop doing that. It makes it impossible to carry on a fucking conversation. Just quote the whole post that you're replying to. Yeah, please do. I am prone to making edits, but it's never meant to be deceptive o...

Wait. Did he delete his fucking post while I was replying to it? Heh, I thought at that point that it would be better to drop the conversation rather than post a reply, didn't think you'd be responding to it. There's literally no way anyone can know. Sure there is. So, I'm not saying you did , I'm ...

There's a big difference from someone looking at two sides of an argument, each full of holes and drawing a conclusion, and having one side completely proven false. In general, I agree with you in that there was never any actual proof asserted that you took anything, but I don't think you can say t...

I don't remember Caedrus accusing people of trying to ruin him so much as getting angry at being accused of stealing Frank's work. This seems perfectly reasonable to get pissed about. That is exactly what I'm pissed about. However, I didn't think the accusations were proven false, so much as they w...

I hate JaronK as much as the next guy, but Frank is outright lying , and his own "source" proves it. Anyone in doubt needs only read that page and, um, a single link. Not exactly hard. Yep... Caedrus/OneWingAngel copypastaed some of my writing into his super special secret forum and that ...

Not only is knot-cutting satisfying to many players, but it's also a type of fun that videogames just can't effectively compete at when compared to pen and paper roleplaying games. If you ask me, that means that's a gameplay feature that pen and paper games should be playing up. They're not going to...

The fundamental problem is that there is a large contingent of people who are a specific kind of retarded that causes them to think that the *name* of a thing actually *changes* the thing. They think in terms of oversimplified labels (a situationally useful cognitive tool) without actually recognizi...

I can see a great many design options that would give Diplomacy advantages over Dominate Person. Sure, they both change people's minds about things, but they can do so in different ways. There are all kinds of reasons you would want to make someone your friend rather than your enchanted thrall. A si...

I always wished that Diplomacy wasn't an attitude roll at all. "Hey, let's determine whether this random harpy hates you" doesn't seem to fit the bill. While I can't speak for the playstyle of other DMs, I don't use random encounter tables and I know exactly why the harpy is in that cleari...

While I have not looked deeply into the controversy surrounding Assange, I think it's a fair bet that the frenzied mudslinging and rumormongering isn't because Assange has some heap of terrible moral failings that simply must be addressed, but because some people with considerable resources don't li...

A rather large scorpion, yes. Didn't they errata that one, though? Or am I thinking of something else?

Being stuck without a crucial spell at a crucial time due to unforeseeable circumstances can lead to a very large loss. Getting a bonus charge... is not a huge advantage, especially since the potential loss is big enough that people are likely to waste extra money on *backup wands.* The potential lo...

Well... okay... but only if we get to reduce Tokyo to molten slag with radioactive fire while little people run around screaming asynchronous horror in badly dubbed engrish.

("expected result" is a specific term of art and doesn't mean what a normal person would think it means). Would you mind clarifying what it actually means, then? Wikipedia is smarter than I am: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value Well, see, that's why I couldn't find anything when...

1. What purpose do roles serve for PCs? Throughout gaming, roles can be made to accomplish many various things, though it depends on exactly what the roles are, how they're implemented, etc. Some common purposes of varied roles are to promote teamwork, emphasize different playstyles, and add replay...

fectin wrote:("expected result" is a specific term of art and doesn't mean what a normal person would think it means).

Would you mind clarifying what it actually means, then?

fectin wrote:Overall, the balance point is the same

It's really not. There is a huge difference between having a resource you can rely on and one that's a gamble.

To explain the math... It's really quite simple. If you have a cumulative 10% chance of failure... The chance that you will fail the first time is 10%. Then in the other 90% of times you get a second charge. The chance of failing that second charge is 10% of that (so another 9%), and then there's 81...

A friend of mine actually suggested a system whereby not only wands, but magic in general works by something like this principle (somewhat different because he suggested making magic fairly dangerous with various side effects and such). You can't know exactly when you will be spent, thus encouraging...