And today is Vacation Day. Yippee! The Ladyfaire is following Ver. 1.2 in the bus off to Holiday Farms for a school field trip, and on the same day, Ver. 1.1 has the annual Parents Eat Lunch At School thing, so with one car, I am condemned to spend the morning at the Emporium (a very nice and huge coffee shoppe with a New Orleans theme) and fast Internet. After which I have a burger lunch with my cool kid (hopefully the burger is not soy, if so that will be soy-soy as burgers go.), and then head to McDonalds for Coke and more internet time until my Ladyfaire comes by to join me with Ver. 1.2 in tow, and then we all pick up Ver. 1.1.
I know, I'm a lazy bum, and God is gracious to me indeed.
bump!
Thanks, Kyler.
MJ,
You may wish to start another character. I know I helped talk you into the second, and I think that turned out well. Graeme is not able to do his game regularly, I guess, and I doubt you want me to take over from him in the midst of a world (I have no problem with doing so if he's okay with it...but ideally I'd go with Option B.) And Option B is for you to have a third verser character. I think twould be a lot of fun. I have some different areas I'd like to explore.
@JohnA1nut in the behind the screens thread: Thanks for talking and saying nothing new. Do you practice stating the obvious inferences in the statements of others or does it just come naturally to you?
@Kyler. Were you always such an insolent snot, or did you have to practice it?
(Doing Therapy)
I would say it's natural, I have to try to work at politude, but you bring out my true nature by showing yours, inconsiderate fop.
So John you expect Kyler to not be what you call an insolent snot (I disagree but that's besides the point) due to societal expectations yet you yourself refuse to adjust to societal expectations?
If this was Survivor, I think we'd know who would be going home at this point :P
Well yes, but we try to expand the base rather than diminish it. And Jhiaxus, I knew two players. One was M. who was in many ways an okay guy although not as bright as the rest (although not dumb), and the other was Other Eric who is brighter than most and gifted with verbal skills.
So M. could be annoying and sometimes deliberately stupid, and after a bit Other Eric just decided that it would be fun to tweak the poor fellow....every chance he got. And it was not remotely a fair fight. Other Eric could have outwitted me and perhaps M. was smarter than me as well, but I'm well, not a good person to pick on for various reasons. I'm too calm and too hard at the same time. Against M. who was a bit inclined to freak out, and much smaller than me, and again, not as quick witted in a duel of insults, it was a massacre.
I have backed off from "tweaking" John for quite awhile now, I'm just saying it's one thing to get one person against you, poking and prodding the rest of the community is not going to endure them to you.
To be sure. I want my game with John to offer him a path to dealing with other gamers in a more helpful way. Of course, John, if you need to blow off steam, and go on a Hulk Smash....there are restaurants, and then there are bars, and in some of the bars there are places for wrestling...and if you really want to fight Nuevo Amsterdam has plenty of dark alleys. Or you could track down some goblins or red caps.
So John you expect Kyler to not be what you call an insolent snot (I disagree but that's besides the point) due to societal expectations yet you yourself refuse to adjust to societal expectations?
Let's see. There's 17 posters in the Behind the Screens thread. People have been posting there for years. He says MJ is the only one who should post there. Why is he suddenly harping on me for doing what 15 other people have been doing all along?
I'm sorry if you didn't know the rule. The fact was, is, and remains that the behind the screens thread is intended for MJ's mechanics. There have been occasions where someone has corrected an error he made there or asked a mechanics related question (the latter of which would have been better delegated to another thread). That does not negate the fact that everyone will look there who has an interest in the mechanics pertinent to their game thread at least; considering that you aren't even being run in a game by him at the moment, your reasons to necessarily post there at all are very close to nil.
If I'm not allowed to post there then nobody is.
I didn't say you aren't allowed, just that your commentation would in the case presented be better delegated to another thread. I would have said the same to someone else, and indeed have in recent pages on the thread.
Eric suggested to me,
You may wish to start another character.
Eh.
When I was actively playing, I always relegated my own game to the last post of the night. And it was always late, and I always was torn between the fact that I do have things to do after I leave here and I do enjoy playing the game.
Were Graeme to return, I would pick up the game where he left off.
Now, if you wanted to pick up The Architect from where John Walker left him, I could try to figure out where that was and what had happened, and get you briefed on that so you could take him forward from there. But then, I'm the guy who's always nagging about using the mechanics right, and you're the guy who's always running everything by the seat of your pants, and that's certainly a fine way to run a game but not a way I prefer. I'd probably be more reluctant to decline if Scott were offering, but I know he's busy, and I know I'm busy, and I think I would still decline.
In the end, I think it best that I not add another game to my plate, mostly because it's time out of my day that I can't really afford. It was different several years ago when the point was going to be that by you running me I would be teaching you the mechanics. At this point, I think you know them as well as you're going to
*****
We seem to have a bit of a fight/disagreement. I'm going to summarize a few salient points.
@JohnA1nut in the behind the screens thread: Thanks for talking and saying nothing new.
Not yet seen that thread, so I don't know what this is about; but there are some points to cover in the abstract.
@Kyler. Were you always such an insolent snot, or did you have to practice it?
I would say it's natural,...
I included this bit because it strikes me that a possibility was overlooked: I may have taught Kyler much of what he knows, or at least got him started in that direction. I was once very good at invective, but I gave it up when I got in a battle of wits with someone who it turns out was unarmed--or more precisely, unarmored. He could spew clever invective almost as well as I, but he lacked the ability to absorb the defenses. When he threw a folding chair across the chapel after losing a verbal sparring match with me, I realized that I probably out not respond to his attacks in the future, and indeed that my wit was a bit caustic and not likely to endear me to others. I still shared a few of my thoughts with my sons now and then, though, so they may have picked up a few pointers in that regard.
I am also going to comment that I do appreciate Adam's efforts to avoid conflict and Eric's to rechannel John elsewhere. Thank you both.
Now we get to the part that needs to be addressed.
There's 17 posters in the Behind the Screens thread. People have been posting there for years. He says MJ is the only one who should post there. Why is he suddenly harping on me for doing what 15 other people have been doing all along?
The fact was, is, and remains that the behind the screens thread is intended for MJ's mechanics. There have been occasions where someone has corrected an error he made there or asked a mechanics related question (the latter of which would have been better delegated to another thread). That does not negate the fact that everyone will look there who has an interest in the mechanics pertinent to their game thread at least; considering that you aren't even being run in a game by him at the moment, your reasons to necessarily post there at all are very close to nil.
If I'm not allowed to post there then nobody is.
Let's clarify the Behind the Screens thread functions.
It is not true that it is intended solely for me to post the mechanics of my games. It is intended for:
- Me to post the mechanics of my games.
- Any other referee running games on this forum who wishes to do so with semi-open mechanics to post mechanics to their games as well. I notice that most who post their rolls do so at the end of their game threads, which is fine, but there is no reason why they can't post them Behind the Screens.
- Players to ask quick play-related mechanics questions which can be answered in a single post or taken to another (linked) thread if they prove more complicated than that.
- Players to raise issues about their games, ranging from whether the referee overlooked something in a calculation to whether the referee overlooked a thread.
- Players to ask questions about the use of mechanics in other games if they are confused about them, so as to learn the system better.
It is not intended for off-topic socializing posts, but that sometimes slips in incidentally, you know, like, "Yes, you're right, I missed that number; by the way, are you going to be at Ubercon?" or "We've got five players today including Kyler (happy birthday, Kyler)...." Obviously if a socialization comment is made in an otherwise relevant post, it is appropriate to respond to it in that thread even if it's not a relevant post to do so.
But completely social posts are off-topic for that thread.
Now, I think I'm about to get to that thread, so I guess I'll see what the hubub was.
--M. J. Young
Kyler, I would like to point out that you just made MJ waste however much time that took because you couldn't just accept that there was a 2 sentence comment Behind the Screens which could have been addressed by MJ in 30 seconds. All you did was create more work for nothing. Good going Kyler.
hahaha rofl lol lmao. Anyway, now that that's over, I've got a long way before I can begin to compare to how much of his time you waste on a daily basis.
@ MJ, I think Eric has improved running his games by the book by leaps and bounds. If I recall correctly, I joined Eric's game on Rpol, to give him a player to run more by the book, and in return I loosened up a bit on rolls, and seeing results ((he still puts major ones in and what skill levels in things I have, but there really isn't the wanting to see the rolls thing anymore)). I've come to prefer seeing just how good or bad my rolls were, by reading the text and making judgments. I think what I am saying is that being the words that you see, the multiverser engine is behind used, and that is the important part.
I've got a long way before I can begin to compare to how much of his time you waste on a daily basis.
I've not been posting nearly as much lately, although I doubt anyone bothered to notice.
I noticed.
Thing is, sometimes these things are like allergic reactions. Once it finally kicks in, it keeps on kicking for a while.
And MJ, that's fine. I think it would be beneficial as Remote and WAW Tadeusz were beneficial to me. If you change your mind, you know where I am.
We are running in a human race.
We must run it at a different pace.
Cuz we'll all meet The Father face to face
at the finish line of the human race.
It's a song I've not heard in years which is suddenly stuck in my head.
(Doing Therapy)
So true, for better or worse.
I argue politics and sometimes religion with politics on blogs.
At one blog, I saw some really curious points of view.
One fellow seems to be arguing that Jesus is a Levite and not a Jew. And while he had said that Jesus was the Son of God, he might not be so enthused about saying he's fully human. From this and other bits, I'm wondering if I've run into an anti-semitic Gnostic. Not everything he says is wrong so he might be just a holder of a weird peculiarity, but I'll see if I can smoke him out and see where he really stands.
The other peculiar view was that allying with Libertarianism by Christians in order to defeat Obama was evil, and would send someone to Hell. Ummmmmm. Where to begin? Libertarians have issues, its true. But so do the RINOs in charge of the party, and in fact, so does the Base. Two, I'd ally with a Green Party member to defeat Obama. I don't think, or I hope not, that the arguements against mixed multitudes in the Old Testament apply to modern politics. Three, even if you support Obama, its unbelief that sends you downward not a mistaken viewpoint in politics.
I kinda suspect the second guy was a troll, trying to pretend to be hardcore.
I've heard people say that Jesus didn't really exist at all and was in fact completely metaphorical. Likewise, Satan doesn't exist and is completely metaphorical. I imagine that's something God finds quite amusing. First we mistranslate the Bible, then we argue about what it means.
mistake.
Something I've been thinking about lately. Who is to say that the person who wrote/copied the original manuscript didn't write/copy it incorrectly on purpose to fit with their own personal agenda at the time, not realizing that their mistake would still be there 2,000 years later? I mean seriously, it's possible.
Many Muslims I have met claim that is the case and that they believe in the "Original" New Testament which has been lost forever (that is why they say Jesus is a prophet but not the son of God even though they also say that they believe in the New Testament.)
John,
The Jewish scribes took their job with an extreme amount of seriousness. I think that this is something like one of the tests for a finished copy of a book of the Bible was to count from one side half the number of syllables known to be in the book. Arrive at the middle and it had better be the proper syllable that its supposed to be there.
As in something like this...
I really like ice cream.
Six sylabbles ly-ice is the middle two. Count three from the side and you get the syllables you're supposed too....Now imagine doing that for something like much more involved books of the Bible instead of the single line I did.
If I'm remembering right, the person I read stated that one would throw out the copy if it did not match properly.
The Jewish scribes believed they were dealing with the Word of God, and they took extremely serious precautions I've heard.
What I was talking about is how bizzarre some views out there can be. There's some people who are Really Weird.
That don't mean squat Eric. So you're telling me that if the king waved a bag of gold in the scribe's face (Or waved a sword in his face) the scribe couldn't be persuaded to fix it the way the king wanted?
I think we need to channel these posts in this thread, into time worked on game posts, discuss :P
The title is Random Chat. Post what you like.
I'm still hoping to see what happens to the Kyler in John's game.
Which John?
There was an Old Testament prophet who for money went to prophesy against Israel. His donkey talked to him, and got him to stop because there was an angel with a flaming sword in his path.
Also, its not just one guy, its a bunch of guys in various areas.
And yeah, a lot of the scribes would likely have done the right thing even faced with death.
And a lot of Israel's kings, and some of its neighbors had a direct experience with God, often unpleasant in nature. I'm not sure that too many kings would have wanted to tick off the God of the Israelites. There is some who dared too, but they tended to have bad ends too.
The Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant and had all sorts of nastiness head their way. Things like that tend to reinforce notions of 'Let's be respectful'.
I'm just reminded of a stand-up comedy routine a once saw. When the Cro Magnon was discovered, it was believed to have a very diminished brain capacity. Meanwhile, all of his friends are sitting up in Heaven saying "Oh man, of all the people, why did they have to find Ralph???"
There were at least seven Levite scribes who checked the book before it was allowed if I remember correctly.
BTW, how can somebody be a levite and not a Jew?
@Kyler: Agreed
I don't really want to go into whether or not the Bible was deliberately forged. (I just know MJ is sitting there at his computer about the have a field day with that.) It's just something I like to think about. They say the longest sentence in the English language is "What If?" It's also my favorite thing to think about.
(Doing Therapy)
Food thickener is a tasteless product used in the food industry when they want to thicken a liquid-like food (a soup or cream, for instance) to achieve a variety of effects with food. It's available in many pharmacies and markets because people who suffer from dysphagia have an easier time swallowing thicker foods. It is usually a modified cornstarch.
Mix with gasoline for gel-like flammable material, almost like napalm.
Mix with a caustic liquid for a thick caustic fluid.
(I wonder why people are always telling me that I'm scary for knowing these things.)
(I wonder why people are always telling me that I'm scary for knowing these things.)
I hardly think that. Of course, I read The Anarchist Cookbook and The Improvised Munitions Handbook cover to cover.....