Here I thought you meant bailing on the site. With the added context, my thought is that we have a lot of house keeping to do before we can start looking for a new home. There have been a number of exo-planets discovered that could potentially house human life. However, barring the need for faster means of travel, there are still so many issues we should resolve here first. 

When Elon Musk proposed that poorer people could effectively pay their way, much like indentured servants, in his vision for terraforming Mars, that really sent shivers down my spine. As once you are there, there really is no way out of the arrangement, and your boss controls the food you get to eat and the air you can breathe. Total Recall was not meant to be a guide. That's just on the idea of unchecked capitalism and how it looks more and more like feudalism as we remove what limited controls that are in place. 

Then you get into societal issues, all the given "isms" of our world. Who would get to go to said haven? In Burning Chrome, there was a short story about a space station in a degrading orbit. The crew had all been evacuated, except for one person who had such bone deterioration from living in space he could not survive on earth. The story ends with a group of people using modified hot air balloons to  reach the upper atmosphere and correct the orbit before the station breaks up. Their goal to form a sustainable colony off world. There's something really innocent and fun in this concept, as they succeed and the remaining crewman becomes a mentor to the new inhabitants. However, I can't imagine this ever happening. Even if we take the events at face value, once this abandoned station is fixed, I can only see the original owners returning to collect. Although, I do like the idea of upcycling at that level. 

These days, I think of fantasy over science-fiction (if only because fantasy is more divorced from the sad realizations of our own existence). When all one has is dreams, it hardly hurts to dream big...

You do raise some fair points, however. Space colonization - at this point in our evolution - is incredibly complicated, glacial and almost self-defeating in some ways; we require miraculous advancements (e.g., faster-than-light travel that sidesteps relativistic issues, artificial gravity that isn't spin-gravity, fully protective radiation shielding, truly long-lasting plus safe stasis chambers, energy generation at least as powerful as reliable matter-antimatter reactors, et cetera) to make the endeavor worthwhile. The near-certainty that space exploitation is going to be guided by corporations is disheartening. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to my former bleak thoughts.

That it is going to be corporate driven in an unregulated space, no pun indeed, is indeed bleak. When thinking about the colonization of Mars, it is something I think is strangely more feasible than we want to believe. 

Creating closes cave systems allows terraforms to create larger pockets of inhabitable area while excavating resources. There's an airlock / logistics issue that better minds than I would need to work out, but I think that's well within the real of possibility. Before we get there though, I think it would be better to develop a space elevator and station to allow for easier launches. With advances in carbon tubing and other materials I think we have moved this concept into the realm of the possible. Of course, that means either contracting with an equatorial country, or building an artificial island. Once that's in place though, and the corresponding facilities in orbit, we can really begin more through space exploration, if domestic. Lunching shuttles becomes much easier when they don't have to escape earth's orbit. My fear though is that we have somehow moved beyond big ideas. We are somehow mired in what should be a trivial matter of take your medicine and stop trying to put out the fire in just room of the house. 

As far as fantasy goes, I found myself working on a supplement for Metahumans Rising before realizing that's what I was doing. It's a Fantasy Americana setting based in 1978. The concept was a vehicle to explore an idea while at the end of an age, the 80s being very different from the 60s and 70s. However, as I work on the setting I keep being faced with moments of, well this hasn't changed, and I see this is where this concept took hold and now we live in it's long term repercussions. It's hard to describe, in so much that I think the setting is fun, but I am mired in all the bummers associated with the setting, and how thing progressed from that point. 

Tried to resurrect a true fantasy setting from a few decades ago and saw it covered in white savior vomitus I was regurgitating from my childhood. Had to back burner that until I can completely update it. It's funny, I see so many people posting culture wars comments online about D&D and politics. I mean, I'm not even immune to it having written a few thousand words and spent way too much time looking up refences to prove some basic points about inherent bias. (Dropping this here, because I think anyone can see these conversations, and I may as well take the opportunity to bang the drum.)

Anecdotally, I see people are upset with WotC changing D&D cannon to be more inclusive. Often I see them argue that the company is changing D&D to appeal to an audience that doesn't play the game. At the same time, these same people decry actual play series of others playing D&D in ways they don't like. Doesn't this later point disprove the former?

One of the things I try to point out, when I get pulled into these conversations, is that no one is trying to change how you play at your home table. Now, you can argue the inverse is true, WotC can keep the cannon that is perceived as racist or sexist and other people can play how they want, there is no need to change the default cannon. With that in mind though, I feel like the default state should be inclusive as it makes the game more accessible to new people. 

With that said, I still enjoy Lord of the Rings, despite the origin of Orcs and Harry Potter, despite the multitude of issues with the setting. Maybe being able to see it and compartmentalize it is key. When the kiddo is old enough, I'm sure I'll find myself explaining the understated acceptance of slaves in Harry Potter, the racial stereotypes, and post publication queer bating to them. Along with the strange joy I take in having the movies provided by a streaming service so that I don't have to give money to the author. Although, I suppose, one could argue that streaming it justifies the service's renewal of access to the movies. 

Now I don't know where I was going with this, but there we go... 

They are changing the nature of certain monsters because some folks are perceiving monsters as humans.

I am of the opinion that lots of fey and similar creatures dont belong in a monster book at all and should be in an rpg encounter book.

And my opinion on orcs are that they are supposed to be the monstrous face of the industrialization of war and society in general but since they have been changed to "proud warriors of nature and peace" style orcs I kinda think they dont belong in monster books as well.

Monsters should be something that attack and kill you otherwise what is the point of statting them out you know?

Seen a lot of these posts on Twitter as well. What I think is happening is that they are trying to move away from the less than savory origins or races like Orcs. Like it or not they have origins in negative racial stereotypes. While working on an article for my own sanity a few months ago I sourced some of the materials WotC is now trying to pull away from. (Article if you are interested. Reference links at the bottom.)

The other change I was seeing is the Drow, moving them from an inherently evil race, to having a pervasive cult that shadows them. One of the things I find interesting here is while you have similar racial undertones, you also had this anti-feminist aspect. That being, the Drow are a matriarchy which is inherently corrupt and evil. This also translated some wink and nod sexual content for D&D or should we say D&D/s. 

What I've said in other threads is that if you like the old lore, that material is still out there, and available to you. No one is saying what you can play at your personal table. 

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This has become a tense conversation of Morse Code.

You're the third guy that chose H20! Anyhow, I recommend "Reed's"; Canada Dry - at least, nowadays - places more emphasis on sugar than actual spice. Reed's regular ale is sharp, but their beer is even stronger (you may want to dilute it with lemonade or another comparable sweetened citrus juice).

Used to drink an unhealthy amount of soda, and I've tried over the years to cut that back in a meaningful way. As far as ginger ale goes there was one brand Fiery that I enjoyed a lot, but they went out of business. What about you? 

I've taken a shine to San Pellegrino's sparkling drinks; their Grapefruit ("Pompelmo") flavor is fantastic...and that's the Nestle (i.e., slightly cheaper) variety. The original version contains more fruit juice and less added sugar; furthermore, the can - in addition to being slightly shorter yet wider - features a protective foil cover. Assuming citrus is on the menu at your household, give it a shot.

The other thing that warrants mentioning is this: Anti-Choice is fine. Just as women didn’t want the right to vote, and fought against suffragists. I, myself, am PRO LIFE. I have a baby. I cannot imagine terminating a pregnancy. But I will FOREVER vote PRO-CHOICE. Why? Because it’s not my f’n place. It’s not my call. It’s frankly none of my GD business, and as a conservative (no true Scotsman fallacy, don’t even start me on the whole RINO blah blah blah) I am a HUGE supporter of individual liberty and an equally loud supporter of my right to make my own choices. So that’s the thing. 

You don’t LOSE ANYTHING but giving someone ELSE a choice they very clearly need. I could go on like this for, frankly, hours. But you get the gist.

I use the term "Anti-Choice" for two reasons.

I am very tired and should be in bed, but I’m watching the aftermath of the VP debate. I’m reasonably certain I agree completely with everything you said, but let me respond in more detail after I get some sleep.

Which one? There are a lot of OSR D&D clones

AD&D 2e, as a matter-of-fact. What do the clones usually bring to the table?

 Usually slightly different mechanics, and a removal of most tables and charts. Generally, they  are compatible with Old D&D mostly, but "rationalize" the mechanics, to D-20 or D100 resolutions.  They also tend to put everything into one book. Here's a selection of the "Old School Rules":
http://www.howlingtower.com/p/old-school-renaissance-resources.html

You know I’m only doing this to annoy my British friend, right? 

Nope. Who is in your avatar space?

Nightcrawler is my current avatar. 

A genre that should have been retired with the movie Taken. 

Because it was done to death by that point or...?

Because, you're not going to get any better. Taken was fun, not amazing, but it's the best I've seen from that revenge genre. (Sorry, Kill Bill)

Who's been telling you about my "social life?"

Better than my social zombie, that is for certain.

BWA HA HA!

Alexa may be his new (ditzier) squeeze.

A point I make in my classes about this: we do not yet know the resolution to the Fermi Paradox.

In that I like to draw attention to another astronomical paradox, one framed multiple times since at least the Greeks, but most recently early in the 19th Century, Olbers' Paradox.  If you assume that the Universe obeys standard Euclidean geometry, and that it is infinite in spatial extent, and it is eternal (it has existed for infinite time, and presumably will continue to do so for infinite time, though that last is not required in the paradox), and uniform in content when averaged over an adequately large volume ... then one has to conclude that all sightlines in the Universe must eventually intersect the surface of a star, which means, the whole sky should be about as bright at the Sun's disk.  Obviously that is not observed.

In the context of comparing this to the Fermi Paradox, I point out that all but one of the assumptions that went into Olbers' Paradox are incorrect (and perhaps a second is correct, but we can't evaluate that one).  The Universe is not eternal: it has a finite age.  It does not obey Euclidean geometry, though the degree to which it fails to do so does not seem to be important in the resolution of this paradox.  It may or may not be infinite in spatial extent, but we can't evaluate that because of the finite speed of light and the finite age of the Universe.  The one that that we do observe to be true is the one about uniformity in content, once one makes allowance for the finite age of the Universe and the evolution of the matter in it over time.  And, capping all that off, at the time of the framing of the paradox, absolutely none of those failures in assumption was known at the time (you could imagine all of those failures as possible resolutions to the paradox, but utterly no evidence was available to support belief in one as the resolution), and would not be known for more than half a century.

So ... what is the resolution to the Fermi Paradox?  It is way too common to pick one assumption as being the obvious incorrect one, and wave away the problem.  As an instructor, I give that sort of thinking a grade of B-minus.  What if all the assumptions made in the Fermi Paradox are incorrect?  Or more than one, and not all?  Each failure and combination of failures has other implications for our views about life in the Universe, and it is worth considering those implications for each individual possible failure and combinations of them, because all of them lead to profound conclusions in their own right.

So ... When I am asked about life elsewhere in the Universe, I avoid the "whole Universe" question.  I have no opinion informed enough to pass along.

But when I started teaching, which was in a course on the Solar System, I did adopt an answer to the question about life on Mars (and this is any life, not intelligent, technological life, which the Fermi Paradox is concerned with).  And my answer is: I think that once we have the requisite ability on site to find it, then we will find that there is life on Mars, somewhere. 

However, I am not willing to bet more than a beer on the issue.

Quote

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

- Arthur C. Clarke.

My inner cynic hopes that we aren't alone; I have to believe there's at least one lifeform out in the cosmos that hasn't screwed up as badly as homo sapiens. Then again, there is the possibility that we're the best of a bad lot. Golly...that is a depressing thought.

Still, even *if* we happen to be the only fully sentient/sapient species in this cosmic neighborhood, there could be an alternative universe - part of the proposed "multiverse" - that is truly teeming with life; my romantic side wants this to be the case, even though the implications are nothing short of an existential crisis for many people.

--- --- ---

Anyhow, thank you, Cancer. I appreciate the banquet you've given me to savor, but I regret I have little to offer in return.

More for the character he played in A Knight's Tale if you mean the current Avatar

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 All the way back to OD&D? or Champions?

Nouveau old school, then (i.e., AD&D 2e) . Man oh man...when you don't have to account for this more contemporary pressure in the TTRPG community to be subversive/daring, then you can fully focus on honest-to-goodness character interaction, interesting "set pieces" and fearsome foes.

This premise goes with the assumption that Combat = Experience. A lot of modern games have moved away from this idea, including my own work. However, if we are going on D&D, or D&D like games, there is an alternative here which is Milestone leveling. Here, characters level based on narrative beats, which removes the need to determine the significance of an encounter. That said, my response might feel like a dodge to the question. 

Let's look at the scenario provided: 

An unintelligent monster is attacking in an urban environment. An archer is poised in a secure position, mitigating the threat to them due to the creatures inability to reach them.  

It's not that this encounter doesn't pose a challenge to the character, it is that they have offset the risk. If the player realized that moving to a rooftop negated the monster completely, I wouldn't want to penalize the PC for creative thinking and / or planning. 

As the GM, not knowing the creatures stat block, I might have it attack the building the archer is on top of, like a bear trying to knock something out of a tree, but with the possibility of bringing the structure down. Suffer ye the damage of falling and the joys of being covered in rubble before becoming a snack. Granted, the archer might move to another location, but you can repeat this and it makes the encounter a bit ore engaging. This also brings me to the second tactic. 

Unless compelled, if it didn't look like it could get to the archer, I'd have the monster leave. Go look for easier meals, no the archer can stay safe opting not to engage, or give chase. In either scenario I would probably have the monster cause collateral damage, catch someone outside, or other harm. If the player choses not to engage then I might deny them Experience for the encounter, and make it clear that they could have prevented others from being harmed. If they are a paladin, this gets really ugly as they may have broken an oath. 

Does that help?  

Your response somewhat helped  . I suppose there are morale rules at play here (I'm using AD&D 2e), but...there may be times when a character is shooting the proverbial "fish in a barrel" and I was simply curious as to how you'd handle XP awards in those scenarios.

Did you get that from InspiroBot, or is it your own observation? 

I am merely echoing the sentiment; it is far from an original belief. To clarify: by "pointless existence" I mean a sapient life that isn't assigned a grand plan by a nebulous cosmic force or tied to a prearranged path decided by a deity (pick one...). There are those who wish to have the course of their lives dictated by an external force that is fundamental to all of existence, but I - personally - find the notion either terrifying (at worst) or depressing (at best). Why are some people seemingly destined to greatly suffer and/or cause suffering for others? "Life is unfair" is right; I'd hate for this - in the aggregate - to be considered "fair" or "just".

At least we have the freedom to make our own meaning. Granted, there are still financial, social, physiological and psychological barriers...yet it is still preferable to an existence that amounts to little more than a pawn (no matter how benign intentions end up being). If this is all going to turn out well "in the end", why the messy interim?

I do, but I'm no root beer connoisseur.

"Help me!  I'm melll-tingggg...."

... This is true.

😄

  Forrester grimaced as he looked down at the photograph laying on his desk. It had been mailed to him in a manila envelope with no return address.

  "Who the hell found this?" he asked, shaking his head. "I thought I had buried that Pepsi endorsement campaign deep enough that no one would ever find out about it."

  Sometimes you have to do things that you end up wishing you hadn't.

Agreed; but what brought that on?

Self deprecation or proud racist.  It's all in the usage, but at best it's the same as having a license plate that reads "CAUCASIAN".  Like... why?

Hey, I LIKE turtles!

It is, under classical Western astrology.  My username was a triple pun at the time I selected it.  The horoscope; my thesis project was on M67, a famous star cluster in Cancer; and at the time, I was employed as  a scientific programmer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, developing a population microsimulation code for evaluating cancer screening strategies.

I’m on PS4/5 now, but I do lament I’ll miss HALO Infinite. 

Thank you, Sir (I presume); that is much appreciated.

Unfortunately, I've come to discover that's not as welcome here as it once was.     In the world, I mean.

I agree with you completely.  I miss the days when it seemed more common.  On the plus side, I'm sixty!  I don't have too much longer to worry about it!