Jump to content

DShomshak

HERO Member
  • Posts

    3,204
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    27

Reputation Activity

  1. Thanks
    DShomshak got a reaction from pinecone in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    Just popped up on my Edge frontpage: Arizona judge invokes 14th Amendment to remove a public official who participated in Jan. 6:
     
    Judge Unseats Official Who Trespassed at Capitol on Jan. 6 (msn.com)
     
    It's a very brief story, and I'm not sure I entirely trust msn.com reporting, but it claims this is the first time the 14th has been used this way in about 100 years.
     
    Dean Shomshak
  2. Like
    DShomshak reacted to Cancer in Extra! Extra! Read All About It!   
    Fossil Australian "demon ducks" and the reason they went extinct
     
    (From Science News.  I link it here because, well, a lot of people GMing RPGs could make use of Australian Demon Ducks.)
  3. Sad
    DShomshak reacted to Cancer in Extra! Extra! Read All About It!   
    Frank Drake, the founder and animating spirit of SETI science, passed away quietly on Friday Sept 2.  He was 92.
  4. Like
    DShomshak reacted to Ternaugh in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
  5. Haha
    DShomshak reacted to Iuz the Evil in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
  6. Like
    DShomshak reacted to Old Man in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    It amazes me that Beren and Luthien hasn't been made into a film yet.
     
    Second Age would be phenomenal, if impossible to film.  It would make the Battle of the Pelennor Fields look like a soccer game.
     
    But there are plenty of conflicts and loose ends at the start of the Fourth Age to base a show on.  I have yet to see even a preview for RoP but you have:
     
    - A new King of Gondor trying to live up to his father's legacy;
    - An unspecified number of sisters of that king;
    - Gondor and the various Haradrim and Easterling countries trying to come to terms after centuries of warfare;
    - Haradrim and Easterling countries to explore;
    - Two blue wizards returning from the East;
    - All of Mordor to clean up;
    - A power vacuum left by the departing Elves;
    - The rise of dark cults in Gondor itself;
    - All kinds of ruins, artifacts, and creatures that might turn up.
     
    The worldbuilding in Middle-Earth is so deep that there's no shortage of material to work with, even in the Fourth Age which is practically a clean slate.
  7. Thanks
    DShomshak reacted to tkdguy in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    At least one Tolkien scholar says that elves, dwarves, etc. don't all have to be fair-skinned.
     
    Are All Tolkien Elves Fair-skinned?
     
    Is It True There is Racism in The Lord of the Rings?
  8. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from Scott Ruggels in The Queen RIP   
    She did her job without whingeing, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. RIP, and condolences for her family and friends.
     
    Many years ago, when my sister was in the Society for Creative Anachronism, she was part of the delegation from the Kingdom of An Tir that welcomed Queen Elizabeth II to the Pacific Northwest. As my sister describes it, the Queen was apparently well briefed enough (and a good enough sport) not to ask in public, "Who are these raving nutters, and why am I meeting them?"
     
    Dean Shomshak
  9. Haha
    DShomshak got a reaction from steriaca in The Queen RIP   
    She did her job without whingeing, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. RIP, and condolences for her family and friends.
     
    Many years ago, when my sister was in the Society for Creative Anachronism, she was part of the delegation from the Kingdom of An Tir that welcomed Queen Elizabeth II to the Pacific Northwest. As my sister describes it, the Queen was apparently well briefed enough (and a good enough sport) not to ask in public, "Who are these raving nutters, and why am I meeting them?"
     
    Dean Shomshak
  10. Haha
    DShomshak reacted to Bazza in The Queen RIP   
    What Queen Elizabeth said when asked 'have you ever met the queen?'
    https://www.reuters.com/article/britain-royals-queen-funny-idUSKBN2Q921H
  11. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from Hermit in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    Just popped up on my Edge frontpage: Arizona judge invokes 14th Amendment to remove a public official who participated in Jan. 6:
     
    Judge Unseats Official Who Trespassed at Capitol on Jan. 6 (msn.com)
     
    It's a very brief story, and I'm not sure I entirely trust msn.com reporting, but it claims this is the first time the 14th has been used this way in about 100 years.
     
    Dean Shomshak
  12. Like
    DShomshak reacted to Logan D. Hurricanes in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
  13. Thanks
    DShomshak got a reaction from Pattern Ghost in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    If we're talking about the broader contours of American culture, and how they become pathological, I once again refer to this episode of Freakonomics Radio describing a social research program that attempts to objectively measure aspects of culture, and how the US measures up. And it finds that in some important ways, we Americans are freaks compared to the rest of the world.
     
    The Pros and Cons of America’s (Extreme) Individualism (Replay) - Freakonomics
     
    Dean Shomshak
  14. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from Pattern Ghost in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    Just popped up on my Edge frontpage: Arizona judge invokes 14th Amendment to remove a public official who participated in Jan. 6:
     
    Judge Unseats Official Who Trespassed at Capitol on Jan. 6 (msn.com)
     
    It's a very brief story, and I'm not sure I entirely trust msn.com reporting, but it claims this is the first time the 14th has been used this way in about 100 years.
     
    Dean Shomshak
  15. Thanks
    DShomshak reacted to Pattern Ghost in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    Nope, but I have a 9 year old niece. Before I moved to a consulting role for a friend's company, I received notices for local lockdowns for schools in the area, and other serious crimes. I've secured scenes or several times for shooting victims (gang members, all of them) coming into emergency rooms. Part of my new role is giving training to organizations, including Active Shooter response. It's pretty familiar territory.
     
    As far as random violence goes, I live in the Seattle metro area, and there has been an uptick as the homeless population has exploded. Not that homeless people are bad, per se, but when the local government refuses to prosecute any crimes and demoralizes and guts their police department, you also attract bad actors to the area. I've watched the local population become more and more violent with our security officers over the time I worked for the hospital. One of my friends who also worked managing hotel security had his director shot by a transient trespasser a bit over a week ago. A few years back, two guys I knew who worked at the gas station down the street for me were murdered by a recently released felon for trying to break up a fight between the felons and some construction workers. Before that, we had a shoot out in the parking lot of our apartment between two Russian gangs, resulting in several injured and two dead.
     
    All that said . . . I don't walk around in fear of gun violence. I don't carry a gun. I generally only carry weapons professionally, though I do always carry a small folding knife, so some people might see that as a weapon. I just like not using my teeth to open stuff, and don't view it as such.
     
    I'm also trained and experienced in de-escalation, some self defense (not a pro fighter by any means), crime prevention and situational awareness. Heck, I'm teaching the last two tomorrow.
     
    So, I admit I may be the odd man out. I still don't think that people who live a normal life and don't intentionally put themselves into bad situations on a regular basis have a great cause for concern. The lock downs are mostly idiots being idiots, to be honest. Either pranks or administrators vastly overreacting to situations. If we were better at early intervention, they'd be much less of a concern, IMO.
     
    Edit: I'm not saying this to in any way diminish your concerns or fears. I'm just sharing my perspective, and hope you find some small value in it.
     
     
     
     
  16. Like
    DShomshak reacted to Pariah in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    An interesting little opinion piece in The Atlantic:
     
    Biden Laid the Trap. Trump Walked Into It.
  17. Thanks
    DShomshak reacted to assault in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    OK, I can only answer this in terms of the Australian federal system. States and Territories each have their own quirks. Also, I will use the Australian terminology of preferential voting - essentially ranked choice or instant run-off voting. This will be long.

    First of all, Australia has a different party system to the US. Parties pick their candidates through their own internal processes. There are no primaries.

    As a result, there is only one candidate per party in lower house elections (House of Representatives - name stolen from the US, of course).

    This reduces the number of candidates. 5-8 is fairly typical. That's usually the major parties, a couple of "minor" parties that have a real chance of getting people elected somewhere, if only in the Senate, a couple of minor parties with no chance, and an Independent or three.
     
    At times, some states have used "optional preferential" systems, where you can vote for as many candidates as you like and still have your vote counted. So a major party supporter might only vote 1 for the candidate of their own party. A minor party supporter might vote 1 for their candidate, and then 2,3... for other unobjectionable candidates, finally ending with the major party they hate the least. Some people might allocate preferences for all candidates, if only for the pleasure of putting the most obnoxious candidate last.

    Most of the time though, including in federal elections, you have to allocate a preference for each candidate. That means, for example, you have to list each candidate from, say, 1 to 8.

    That's no big deal. In theory you could have 20 candidates, but in practice you don't.

    So far, so good. Now we get to the Senate...

    I'm going to skip the Territories (Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) and the Northern Territory (where Bazza lives)) and focus on the 6 States.

    Each State has 12 Senators. Usually half are up for election each time. (There are times when all 12 are - but this is exceptional.)

    Senate elections use a mix of proportional and preferential voting. Typically, that results in the election of three candidates each from the "left" and the "right". It's rare these days for any party to have a majority in the Senate - getting legislation through involves negotiation and accepting amendments.

    Because of the proportional element, it's easier for minor parties and independents to get elected to the Senate. Using the "typical" 3-3 split I mentioned above, that often means that the major parties will get two candidates up each, with the remaining seats going to minors or independents on the left or right.

    That relative ease of election means that a lot of candidates run for the Senate. Ballot papers can be up to two metres/yards long! Most of these candidates are complete unknowns with no chance, single issue candidates and so on.

    This is also where parties run multiple candidates. Typically these are listed in columns on the ballot paper, in an order chosen by the party. A candidate at the top of the list usually has a better chance of being elected than one at the bottom, although upsets are possible.

    With (say) 132 candidates, most of whom you've never heard of, listing them from 1 to 132 is a chore, and fairly meaningless when you have no basis for ordering them.

    At that point, there is the option of voting "above the line" or "below the line".

    "Below the line" voting is fairly rare in practice. Basically, you chose a minimum of 12 candidates in the order in which you prefer them, and your vote is valid. Yes, you can vote for all 132 candidates this way. Or you can vote for a party candidate that's at the bottom of the list, and so on.

    "Above the line" works on the fact that the candidates are listed in columns. Even the independents. (There's an "ungrouped" column or two for people who aren't running alongside anyone else.)
     
    When you vote above the line you are allocating preferences between different columns. I think you have to choose at least six such groups. In that case, the order of candidates in each column matters - your vote goes initially to the first candidate. If they get elected, surplus votes go to the second candidate and so on.

    The maths here gets weird, and I'm not going to go into the details of quotas and such. It takes a lot longer to count Senate votes than House of Reps ones, but you can usually guesstimate the results on election night with reasonable accuracy.

    Well that's all as clear as mud, but yes, there are ways to deal with huge numbers of candidates without brain bleed or resorting to two rounds of voting.

    And "third/fourth/fifth parties" have a reasonable chance of getting elected where they have genuine support.
     
     
  18. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from Steve in An All Category for my clerics   
    For an example of divine domains that *isn't* D&D, there's the Scion game from White Wolf. The gods of myth are often (though not always) portrayed as having distinctive areas of interest and influence, so I won't say that giving their priests distinctive areas of influence is an automatic D&D-ism. "D&D does it that way" is a lousy reason to design features for a Fantasy Hero game, but it isn't an automatic reason to reject a design choice, either.
     
    If you also want a set of universal magical powers that are available to all channelers of divine power, these should be based on the fundamental priestly role of representing the god or gods to a community of worshipers, and the worshipers to the god. There... No, I don't see healing as universally clerical. Curing disease, maybe, if you've decided that disease is caused by evil spirits the cleric casts out of curses that the cleric lifts. But curing wounds? It's useful for anyone, but that doesn't make it suitable for every god.
     
    If you feel you *must* give all clerics healing, define SFX to fit it within a domain. Like, the Artisan God's priest intones "From clay were you made; now to clay return, that the Great Maker's hand may repair you!" And the wounded area briefly becomes clay, which flows back together before reverting to flesh.
     
    You've got a better case for Spiritual Weapon, as a basic low-power "Manifest Wrath of God" with which to smite enemies of the community. But again, it whould be skinned to fit the god's themes.
     
    I find Detect Magic dubious as written, since I tend to think of magic as a fairly broad category. If there's enough variation to make Discriminatory meaningful (let alone Analyze), that should be at least a 5-point category.
     
    To make it more clerical, I would adjust it to Detect Souls, or Detect Spiritual Forces, whatever those might be in your setting. This enables clerics to detect whether a creature has a soul; if it is being affected by a god or spirit (incidentally revealing whether a person is a cleric); or if an object is a holy/unholy relic and, if so, to which god it is consecrated. But if there are forms of non-divine magic, there's no intrinsc reason that all clerics should be able to detect them. (Or if there is, that's something you've defined about magic in your setting, as well as about clerics.)
     
    More later.
     
    Dean Shomshak
  19. Haha
    DShomshak reacted to Cygnia in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
  20. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from Steve in exotic locations   
    Flattering, but I think one of the other GMs in my gaming group topped me with the adventure that had our PCs fighting in, and against, a lake of sentient petroleum buried deep beneath the North Sea. "Special Environments" became sort of a theme for that campaign.
     
    We also fought the alien Star Gods on/in their homeworld within the Gray Nebula, a planetoid made of the corpses of the miles-long corpses of the real Star Gods, who had passed echoes of their appearances, power and personalities to the space maggots that had fed on them. (Sort of a Jack Kirby homage, but much weirder.)
     
    Dean Shomshak
  21. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from Steve in exotic locations   
    In my two "Supermage" playtest campaigns, I created many of the supernatural/extradimensional realms of the CU such as the Congeries, mad patchwork realm of the dimesnional conqueror Skarn, and Babylon, the City of Man. IIRC the PC Artifex had CK: Babylon because he grew up and still spent much of his time there.
     
    Some PCs also went to Manoa, a Muvia/Atlantean "lost city" in the jungle-clad mountains of Brazil. Except... In my campaign world there was no Mu or Atlantis. Something else was going on.
     
    In my latest campaign, PCs raided the Hot Zone, a deadly subterranean "zoo" and "garden" created by the mad biologist villain Helix. I hope to send the PCs there again, as there's a lot more for them to discover.
     
    Dean Shomshak
  22. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from Lord Liaden in exotic locations   
    Flattering, but I think one of the other GMs in my gaming group topped me with the adventure that had our PCs fighting in, and against, a lake of sentient petroleum buried deep beneath the North Sea. "Special Environments" became sort of a theme for that campaign.
     
    We also fought the alien Star Gods on/in their homeworld within the Gray Nebula, a planetoid made of the corpses of the miles-long corpses of the real Star Gods, who had passed echoes of their appearances, power and personalities to the space maggots that had fed on them. (Sort of a Jack Kirby homage, but much weirder.)
     
    Dean Shomshak
  23. Like
    DShomshak got a reaction from assault in exotic locations   
    Flattering, but I think one of the other GMs in my gaming group topped me with the adventure that had our PCs fighting in, and against, a lake of sentient petroleum buried deep beneath the North Sea. "Special Environments" became sort of a theme for that campaign.
     
    We also fought the alien Star Gods on/in their homeworld within the Gray Nebula, a planetoid made of the corpses of the miles-long corpses of the real Star Gods, who had passed echoes of their appearances, power and personalities to the space maggots that had fed on them. (Sort of a Jack Kirby homage, but much weirder.)
     
    Dean Shomshak
  24. Haha
    DShomshak reacted to Starlord in Funny Pics II: The Revenge   
  25. Like
    DShomshak reacted to Logan D. Hurricanes in Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)   
    In rare move, school librarian fights back in court against conservative activists
×
×
  • Create New...