Nikolaj:
Aha, so Jew does not equal Israelite.
Slightly more complicated than that. I guess a good example is Paul's use of "Greek" and "gentile" or "nation" in his writings. Technically "Greek" refers to those from Macedonia and Achaia; but Paul almost never uses it to mean that, using it rather interchangeably with the word "gentile" which means "nations" or "ethnics". To him, it means everyone who is not Jewish, or sometimes everyone who is not Jewish who is part of the civilized Roman Empire.
In the same way, "Jew" is generally used to refer to all of Israel after the Northern Kingdom ceased to exist, and the majority of Jews are from Judah, but a Levite (or in Paul's case a Benjaminite) would in one sense distinguish himself from the Jews and in another sense include himself with the Jews, just as someone from Ephesus in Asia (modern Turkey) would both consider himself Greek in the sense that he was part of the Greek-speaking civilized world and not Greek in the sense that he was not from the Grecian peninsula.
John, quoting me:
The historic evidence for the existence of Jesus is that compelling....Then why don't we learn about Him in history class?
I think there have been answers to this, but the big one is simply that we don't teach all of history, only specific pieces of it.
That is, to graduate High School in New Jersey you must complete American History 1 and American History 2, which means you have to have studied all the history of the United States from its earliest settlement to the most recent generation. Of course, that's a lot more than you can learn in two years--my father had to memorize all the names of the Presidents in order, but I only know them all because they were in the milk cartons in the cafeteria (which occurs to me could be taken to suggest that they're all lost). Every President did something that mattered in history, but most of it is brushed aside as we hit those events that had the most impact--wars, economic disasters, major political and social shifts. Even here, I don't think anyone has ever mentioned to me at what point the Whigs and Federalists ceased to be significant parties in American politics.
Even if you study more than that, if you study the Roman Empire, there is so much there that the nearest you'll get to Jerusalem is that Titus knocked it down around 90 A.D. The fact that Saul of Tarsus had his plea heard by the Supreme Court of Caesar is something that students of Roman history know only if they're as deep into it as those are into American history who know why Marbury v. Madison is a significant U. S. Supreme Court case. I went to Law School, and I can't tell you even how many volumes of U. S. Supreme Court decisions there are, never mind which ones are still seriously important beyond a handful.
Jesus would undoubtedly be included in a study of the history of the Middle East in the first century; but very few people would be interested in such a course.
The point I'm trying to make though is that if there really is all of this irrefutable historical evidence, there shouldn't be a single Atheist anywhere in the world.
In the late sixties/early seventies an apologist spoke at a secular university, addressing the historic evidence that Jesus arose from the grave. When he was finished, one of the students had a question: who cares? What difference does it make? So some Jew died and came back to life; why does that have any impact on me?
A great deal of effort has been made to denying the resurrection by those who recognize that it means something; but there are others for whom it means nothing, and it does not matter what Jesus said or did.
Humans have a wonderful capacity for ignoring facts when those facts require they believe something other than what they do believe, and even more so if those facts will require that they act differently from how they want to act. John Calvin somewhere made the point that it is absurd that anyone could even think for a moment that God exists without immediately being struck by the fact that that would mean we owe our entire lives to Him, and everything we ever do ought to be framed with reference to Him. That's not how people want to live. We want to make the entire world revolve around us. God is thus terribly inconvenient for us, because His very existence means we are not the center of our universe. Thus people are highly motivated to find ways to persuade themselves that God does not exist.
One wonderful example is that in the late nineteenth century the New Testament statements that Jesus appeared to large numbers of persons in different groups after his death was attributed to mass hallucination. The fact is that there is absolutely no evidence that mass hallucination has ever occurred even under the most stressful of circumstances. Yet for some people, it was safer to believe that hundreds of people could share the same hallucination than to believe that one man might have come back from the grave.
People are still trying to find ways to argue the resurrection out of existence, and complicating it by making the claim that the belief in the resurrection as a historic fact is a religious belief that ought not be taught. That's a very complicated sort of circumstance. After all, the belief that all men are created equal is a religious belief, on which we have based a great deal of our legal system, and it is one that is a lot less demonstrable than the resurrection of Jesus (show me any two men who are actually equal to each other). But having noted that the fact of the resurrection is the foundation of a particular religion, those who do not believe that religion must reject the fact.
I'd give Wendy 1@1 strength, and myself 1@5. If she rolled a 10, and I rolled a 16, she just beat me at arm wrestling, a feat she couldn't accomplish if she used both hands. How is that possible, or even remotely realistic?
I don't know. Maybe you sneezed.
Actually, we're going to have to give Wendy a 1@2 strength, because we use difficult checks for comparative relative success, and a 1@1 can't win a difficult check. So Wendy has 3.34% chance of rolling a success, because she would have to roll a 1 on a d30 to succeed. You probably have higher than a 1@5 strength, but it's a fair argument. If you have a 1@5 strength, you can succeed on any roll of 1 to 4 (11 through 14 once the numbers are calcuated). That gives you a 13.34% chance of a successful roll. Now, figure that there are 30x30=900 possible roll combinations. Any time she rolls 1 and you roll 5 or higher, she wins--26 out of 900 rolls, 2.9%. Any time she rolls higher than a 1 and you do not roll higher than a 4, you win--116 out of 900, roughly 12.9%. On one chance in 900--0.1%--you tie. Every other roll is indeterminate--and after all, she's not going to arm wrestle you unless she's got a plan, like tickling you or kicking you under the table or otherwise disrupting the game.
So most of the time you're not going to get the answer.
I thought 1@5 WAS average for an adult male.
1@5 is the average for all adult humans in every place and time. Some cultures beat the average in some scores; some fall below it. There's also the problem that arm wrestling is specifically about upper body strength, at which males excel, and thus it is an unfair test of relative strength between men and women. Women often have greater abdominal strength, and leg strength is closer to equal.
You said that you regretted having a high magic bias in the Terminator world. Why? Magic vs Technology.
If I'd wanted to put you in a tech versus mag setting, I'd have gone for Krull--with the added bonus that you would not have been near as familiar with it as I.
I regretted it because I wanted to run something somewhere near the Terminator world of the movies, and once the mag bias got kicked up you were busily attempting to derail it.
It was my fault. I should have anticipated that a higher mag bias would mean you would be tapping your magic resources. Yes, it would have been interesting to see you throwing fireballs against terminators. It would not, though, have been interesting to see you calling hosts of angelic warriors to fight against the machines, because then I'm put in the position that I'm running both sides of the fight, and that means you don't even have to be here--and really, in that case, neither do I, thank you, because I have better things to do with my time than run a war between two sides of which I'm running all the combatants on both.
...the comments about it ever couple months are annoying to everyone I imagine.
I love it when there's a turn of a phrase that comes across as meaning something very different from what the speaker meant.
I would wager that the Final Countdown comments are annoying to the real people on the board, too.
And just imagine how much more annoying it must be to me.
Oh, yeah, I'm suffering miserably from this cold, let me give it to everyone else so they can suffer, too.
Suffer quietly.
Bringing back a funny moment that everyone finds funny and doing so in a funny way is funny. Bringing back a moment that you've tortured everyone about for years and saying that you're laughing about it as you do so is sadistic.
--M. J. Young
The Whigs are rather like the RINOs in todays politics. They were the 'let's be reasonable big businessmen and not get all bent out of shape about the great moral issue of the day...slavery.' Because they tried this, they got disintegrated, and the Republican Party got formed.
The Federalists wanted to centralize things more, and stuff like the Bank of the United States was their idea. Andrew Jackson, the founder of the Democrats, hated the Bank (probably for good reason).
Marbury vs. Madison is the decision where the Chief Justice snuck in the doctrine that the Supreme Court was supreme in deciding the meaning of the Constitution. I'm thinking its also the one where AJ said something to the effect of 'the justice has made his ruling, now let's see him enforce it.'
. Yes, it would have been interesting to see you throwing fireballs against terminators. It would not, though, have been interesting to see you calling hosts of angelic warriors to fight against the machines, because then I'm put in the position that I'm running both sides of the fight, and that means you don't even have to be here--and really, in that case, neither do I, thank you, because I have better things to do with my time than run a war between two sides of which I'm running all the combatants on both.
You're going to be running both sides of a war no matter what you do. Whether it's humans vs machines or angelic warriors vs machines. I mean seriously, what's the difference, in terms of you running both sides? That's kind of inevitable with the scenario. John Connor would be sitting on the sidelines quite a bit. You don't put the 5 star general on the battlefield, ya know? I give orders and you run the battle, no matter who I'm ordering. This was unavoidable when the scenario began. High mag bias just makes it more interesting.
I mean really, given the nature of the scenario, I find this a moot argument. It was going to happen even if the mag bias was negative.
(Doing Therapy)
Two
I regretted it because I wanted to run something somewhere near the Terminator world of the movies, and once the mag bias got kicked up you were busily attempting to derail it.
I thought you said that a story can't be derailed, because it hasn't been written yet. I understand you wanting to run something similar to the movies, but isn't the point to have fun? I really think a higher mag bias would make it more fun. Plus, it offers me the means to escape the infinity loop. I understand what you're saying about wanting to run the Terminator story, but this will just be "Terminator with a twist."
And about going to the Indians, I might have done that, even without magic. I'm sure Indians could teach John Connor skills (living off the land, tracking, strategy) which could be useful to him. In this story, John Connor will be trained in combat by Apache warriors, not just Mexican rednecks. If I learn a little magic too, all the better!!!!
I understand, but at the same time, I will never understand, the point of flatlined magic or psionics. I think ultimately, it only serves to make the game far less fun. It's that much less really cool stuff that can happen. That's just my two cents though. So Archangel Michael appears out of nowhere and single-handedly decimates a battalion of Terminators. Did you tell a good story? Did you have fun? Then the game served its purpose.
(Doing Therapy)
Last night's episode of The Next Iron Chef was about resourcefulness.
Does limiting what a chef can use in the kitchen make their food less interesting? No. It definitely makes the experience more challenging, though; some would argue that more challenging is more fun, but I believe everyone would agree that more challenging is more interesting.
You see the metaphor I'm drawing?
It's not about the toys, it's about what you do when you have most of them stripped away from you.
I believe everyone would agree that more challenging is more interesting.
I don't agree, so no, everyone doesn't think that.
Which of these is more interesting?
"I can kill a man 20 different ways"
or
"I can kill a man 2,000,000 different ways"
I can kill a man two million different ways.
Unfortunately, none of them will work in this situation, so I've got to come up with a new way to kill a man.
That, to me, makes for a more interesting story.
Ah grasshopper, the real challenge is keeping a man alive in two million different ways, that is the true test of skill :P
Like I said, I understand it, but at the same time, I will never understand it. You understand your wife, but at the same time, will never understand her. See what I mean?
I would want to keep the high mag bias, if, for no other reason than it allows me the means to escape the infinity loop.
You, sir, are a verser.
Time loops do not mean death when you are trapped within them anymore than being turned into a rock means death. You just need to wait for an external force to release you from your prison; what is forever to your verser can be seconds to us, especially in a case as boring as an infinity loop.
I still think magic vs technology is a much more interesting premise.
Magic vs technology is not Terminator. I'm sure someone can throw you into a world such as that though.
Did you tell a good story? Did you have a good time playing? Then the game served its purpose.
Look at it from where I'm sitting. If you knew millions of machines were about to take over the world, and you were the only person who could stop it, would you not want every advantage you could lay your hands on?
Some of it amounts to artistic taste. Which is better? Vanilla or chocolate? Now I'll say chocolate, very firmly, but it really is only my opinion.
And yes, the game serves its purpose if all have fun, but sometimes there are more complicated and clever ways to have fun. You have a hot dog...that's fun. You have a mashed potato with sour cream and butter and black pepper, with a side of broccoli under melted cheese, and a nicely grilled steak with A1 sauce on the side, and thats even better.
It offers more complex flavors, greater variety of texture, better health, it showcases the skill of the cook which means you know you're being cared for more, and so on.
I'd like to think all of the worlds I've designed are fun, but some are objectively aka factually better.
Now its an interesting question for discussion: What makes a piece of written art, like a world, or a game, better than another one (let's assume both are good and enjoyable games run by capable GM's with good players)?
One answer is thematic unity to use some big words. That's hard to do. Another is the answer of what beauty is....variations on a theme. Of course, I have another definition of beauty...Beauty is the shadow cast by truth.
Second post...
I know how to do some of the 'let's make an objectively better world', but defining it, explaining it, is harder.
And yes, the game serves its purpose if all have fun, but sometimes there are more complicated and clever ways to have fun. You have a hot dog...that's fun. You have a mashed potato with sour cream and butter and black pepper, with a side of broccoli under melted cheese, and a nicely grilled steak with A1 sauce on the side, and thats even better.
Right. The hot dog is the flatline world. The steak dinner with all the trimmings? That's your high mag world.
Clever. But frequently you find the distinctive and the best by paring away that which is not. Would you like your steak boiled, or fried on a grill?
Would you like your steak boiled, or fried on a grill?
Funny you mention it. I marinade my steaks then cook them in the marinade, effectively boiling them. Water is incapable of going above 212 degrees, so there's no chance of burning the steak, and they're YUMMY!!!! I recommend it to anyone.
Two
MJ Wrote:
Oh, yeah, I'm suffering miserably from this cold, let me give it to everyone else so they can suffer, too.
That's a bad analogy. A much more appropriate analogy would be giving someone else 1% of the cold so that you never again have another cold so long as you live. I'd do that for you in a heartbeat if I could.
It was a good enough analogy, I don't want any of your cold, regardless of percentage.
I have several worlds that have high biases across the charts.
Just wait, once Eric is done with you, I've got a few worlds up my sleeve particularly for you.
OK. So there is a distinctive, and in your view, superior way of dealing with steaks. Now we want to make a world which is distinctive, so we pare away all the unneccessary ways of dealing with steaks (grilling them, shish kabobing them, laser blasting them, eating them raw), and focus in on the issue we really want to deal with. And then we begin to search for the very best marinade, and the exact proper temperature, and to whether we should use hickory or oak wood in our grill.
As for two, you haven't stopped suffering from your "cold", so how can you say that giving it to us will make you stop suffering from it forever? What could someone say to make it stop?
And Ky, whenever you and John think you'd like to...I can find a way to verse John out fairly quickly and spectacularly. Its even reasonable in game context.
And that's another ref trick that some may choose to use. Have a method of versing the player out at any moment built into the world.
Second post...
OTOH, John's welcome to stay here for another half-dozen worlds.
As for two, you haven't stopped suffering from your "cold", so how can you say that giving it to us will make you stop suffering from it forever?
Because I'm getting better. Screaming obscenities vs talking about crazy stuff on a public message board. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't think that an improvement.
Trust me, I have no trouble versing people out of worlds.. hahahahahaha.
I keep having this mental image of Bill, Ted and Mike (Glantri is gone, the game I'm running) driving the garbage truck, Bill botching on his driving roll and flipping the truck over. In a sense, it would be completely out of my hands. That's a system shock, to be honest with you. Referees don't really have as much control over the worlds as I previously thought.
Nope; referees have setting and npcs, players have the pc or pcs. Dice throw in an element of randomness; although, as the GM, you do have the power to write the botch list; if flipping the truck over isn't on it, it sure won't happen.
Running the game has explained so much that I never could have learned any other way.
Two
Mike, if I may be allowed to pick on you for a moment. I'm also starting to realize how annoying it is when players argue with the referee. My character made a comment about you would need to hit a zombie with a Howitzer shell to drop it, when another character had done so with a 30-06. First off, the character who made the Howitzer comment was exaggerating (but not by much) and the character who dropped the zombie with a rifle was an expert Vietnam combat veteran. I found it mildly annoying to need to explain that to him. (Like a 1 on a scale of 100,000, so no worries Mike) I think refereeing this is teaching me more than anyone could have possibly explained to me.
John, see my last post in the game Eli's running me in for my rebuttal to you regarding lack of ideas =p
When in doubt, three 10 sided dice hold the answer.
I wasn't arguing... I asked for a clarification. I phrased it politely to boot.
A large part of why that game is being run is to help you develop as a referee, so pointing out possible inconsistencies that I may normally remain silent about is part of that.
But I will refrain in the future.
I don't think he as much meant for you to refrain as was stating that he was understanding what it was like to be on the other side of the table.
I don't think he as much meant for you to refrain as was stating that he was understanding what it was like to be on the other side of the table.
But I will refrain in the future.
No, for the love of Pete DO NOT REFRAIN from that!!!! As you said, it's to help me develop as a referee. It's to help me learn. Keep making comments like that. I would say I'm begging you to, but I wouldn't go that far. :)
I don't think he as much meant for you to refrain as was stating that he was understanding what it was like to be on the other side of the table.
Kyler hit the nail right between the eyes with this one. Yeah, I'm starting to see what it's like on the other side of the table. Just trying to learn.
Two
Mike, saying it was "mildly annoying" is exaggerating. I couldn't think of a softer word than "mildly". It was as annoying as having to wait an additional 2 seconds in line at the grocery store. I want you to continue to make comments like that. I want to learn as much as I can from this. I was just saying that I'm starting to see why referees get annoyed by such things. How am I supposed to learn if you don't make such comments?
I'll continue to make comments, but please don't phrase them as I'm arguing. I'm very particular about my behavior towards my GM's, and one aspect of that is I don't argue with them. I may clarify, and explain my understanding up until that point. I may point out aspects of confusion in case I misunderstood a scenario, but I very much attempt to not argue.
In particular because for people not reading the game thread you're running me in who do read this they would be under a different impression than I felt was accurate over what I did.