unclevlad

New lows...and this season, that's hard to do, but they're pulling it off. Denver's now scoring less than 14 points/game. The most glaring factor: 3rd down conversions. They were 3rd worst...Houston and Carolina were slightly lower, but the gap to the next worst was 6%. Broncos were 28%, the Jets right above them were 34%. That went DOWN today; Broncos were 2 for 12. Looks like that drops them below 28%. Also, in scoring, Houston's 2nd worst...but they're scoring just under 2 points per game more.

Oh my... Being forced to root for the Broncos is now clearly shown to be unconstitutional, as cruel and unusual punishment. Choosing to root for them is equally proven to be a form of insanity that requires careful monitoring, in order to be certain the sufferer does not inflict physical harm on him or herself.

Then you are allowing me to circumvent a limitation easily. Darkness to Sound, 0 END, no range. 5 points. For that, I get a -1/4 limitation on arbitrarily large attack powers. It ties back to the point that Incantations is required to make the power activation obvious, per the first paragraph of the description. The rules are badly organized. Your reading is that the When clause is based solely on the "speak freely and clearly" and everything else is tied to that. That is not correct; it's one of them. If the clauses were written as bullet lists, a la --speak freely and clearly --doesn't work in a silence field --interrupted by damage it would be more apparent that they're unrelated to each other, as they all have separate reasons. So, are you saying spellcasters can only take Incantations if their spell is appealing to some Other Power? Recognize: that has nothing to do with the RAW mechanics of Incantations. That's a restriction YOU are adding as to when it *can be* taken. You're conflating story and mechanical elements. That's fine for your campaign, but DON'T assume that's part of the rules.

No. This is the error. Blocks, yes...but nowhere does it say overwhelms. "Impenetrable blackness" can simply mean all light is repulsed in the field. That doesn't overwhelm sight; it prevents the medium. Darkness vs. sound *could be* a cacophony, but it could also be simply a vacuum. No medium for sound to propagate. The text specifically says "some examples" so requiring this to be a blanket characterization is not supported. I'd also say that you're trying to compel a narrow interpretation, and one that works to achieve the effect, onto a Hero power...and that's anathema to Hero itself. Isn't "impossible to hear anything because it's so loud" part of the SFX? Abstract powers are SFX-agnostic, so sure, it could be because it's too loud, or it could be because all sound is denied. There is a Limitation, Incantations. It dictates that there are conditions that make it impossible to activate a power...such as being gagged, or being inside a Darkness (Sound) field. Incantations in RAW has 2 parts: 1. Power activation is normally invisible. It becomes obvious to hearing. (Just as Gestures becomes obvious to sight.) 2. It is a form of Conditional Power: "this power does not work when..." Making activation obvious is generally not worth a limitation. It simply doesn't come into play. Activating a power is an atomic action that can't be interrupted or disrupted...unless there is a separate time-based limitation, and that's got its own value. Yes, Incantations + Extra Time is a case where the limitations amplify each other, but Incantations does not imply Extra Time. It does also imply that Incantations is a poor choice for powers that would be Inobvious or Invisible...but again, that's an application question. Overall, this aspect is not worth a limitation in many cases. The major reason why Incantations is worth a limitation at all, is the conditional power. These establish the When conditions. What you're talking about is Why...but that can't remove conditions established by the When, it can only add new ones...and that becomes SFX-related, and tied to the specific power. Also, the rules give an indication of Why. The bold text sections comprise the core When clauses. They are *separate* clauses. The first is obvious but pretty rare...and won't happen in combat barring an odd effect. The second clause is such that you can't wrap yourself up in a silence field and thereby render the limitation moot. The limitation is worth something because the activation must be Obvious. If you strike that? You can't activate the power. The damage clause relates back to "freely and clearly". You take damage, you say OWWW...and that's not speaking your incantation clearly. There are 2 major cases: first, for Extra Time, and second, to handle the additional Limitation for a Constant power (Incants Throughout).

I'm also not sure that soccer fits the American mindset. Too many games spend too much time with, apparently, nothing happening. For example, in the game today, there were 13 shots that resulted in a save or goal. 13...for both teams combined. That doesn't count those that miss the net, which are often dramatic, but still, for 90+ minutes, that's glacial. Watching soccer is like watching an old no-shot-clock basketball game, or more recently, many University of Virginia games where they played the packed-line defense, and the final score was likely in the 50s. What's the #1 issue WRT baseball? Lack of action/pace of play. If baseball, as played these days, had to build itself from scratch, I think it'd have a really hard time. I did forget the Spanish-language broadcasts, but what's their overall level of market penetration? I'll also buy the point that the South American and European players aren't playing in their home base...but the sport still has market saturation via the local clubs, to maintain interest. There are fewer kids playing HS football. https://www.statista.com/statistics/267955/participation-in-us-high-school-football/ That's about 11% over the period. Questions arise, tho: a) how many of the kids who decided not to play, were never going to be good players? Spotty time on the field at most. Probably not even getting a letter...criteria vary, but one school district, for football, says 40% of plays from scrimmage. That's not spotty. b) how many moved to other sports? And actually...there's a surprising number of boys playing soccer. https://www.statista.com/statistics/267963/participation-in-us-high-school-soccer/ This is boys and girls combined. Boys apparently make up a bit more than half, so we're talking about half the number of boys playing soccer, as football. This begs the question: how many treat it like, say, college intramurals or club sports? It's great, it's fun, but it's not a path leading to a potential future. HS football, obviously...it is a path. Same with basketball. Soccer could absolutely be a path to a scholarship, and hey, even a half-time scholarship would be huge. The other point: football, basketball, and baseball have a deep, rich tradition, and the strong competitive nature. It's plausible to assume that coaching is at a higher level. Where's soccer coaching? That's not to say there aren't serious HS soccer programs...but I question, how many of them are there across the country?

Hey, we know that any team west of the Mississippi, and NOT in LA, will be ignored 99% of the time. Unless they're wallowing in utter ineptitude... So this part's over. Georgia #1, Michigan #2. To get the seeding right, I'll lean to TCU staying #3, and OSU #4, almost by default. It feels like the easiest, UNLESS you feel the Big 12 had a fair number of just middling-good teams, and down-value TCU's in-conference ranked wins. And can we really see Bama vaulting over TCU? We shall see tomorrow. The full bowl schedule, including the CFP, is announced then. Starts at noon Eastern; looks like only ESPN is carrying it. (That's pregame time for CBS and Fox; FS1 has World Cup.) Set for 4 hours, but that'll be dissecting ALL the bowl games. I figure the CFP teams will be announced quickly, so CBS and Fox can at least report the teams/matchups before game time gets too close.

A few key elements are also missing from the 3E SRDs...I know those better. Character creation and advancement are missing. Also, the classes detailed are limited to those in the PHB. 3rd Ed revenue was also the class splatbooks...there were a LOT of those, and many sold fairly well. I think a Hero SRD could be built, with slimmed-down rules. The major aspect: take out the massive proliferation of advantages and limitations, at least to a degree. Or go for a Champions SRD...elements that were introduced for Fantasy or Ninja Hero...bye-bye. Leave em for expansions, a la splatbooks. The problem is likely to be the raw financing to review, reclassify, re-edit, and reorganize the material, with an eye to hypertext as the primary implementation. I think what may have helped the transition for D&D is that much of this effort may well have been taking place anyway, as 3E was built.

Lemme start with the last: I suspect Gygax had Silence 15' Radius stop spellcasting to a) make the verbal component mean something, and b) so he could mess with the players. I don't think anyone would much argue that a spell with a somatic component wouldn't work if the caster's tied up. A silence field is about the best you'll get, to inhibit the verbal. I don't see, tho, that darkness to sound only represents a cacophony that drowns out everything else. Nothing in the power reads that way to me. A vacuum blocks all sound; granted, it should have other game effects as well, but it does serve to stop sound. Darkness to sight can be a complete lack of light...or suddenly creating a brightness like the sun. One's denying, one's overloading. Why should sound only be overloading? Last: Darkness can be to any sense group. Darkness to the Radio Group? A Faraday cage. Does it stop the sight group? Nope. Sound group? Definitely not. Is it noticeable to any other sense? Nope. For that matter, blocking *all* light for a Sight Darkness field doesn't interfere with hearing. Darkness is perceivable to the sense group to which it applies...not necessarily to anything else. One thing that RAW does not allow, is soundproofing to act as Darkness. High-end turntables...remember those?...were often placed on high-density foam mats, that absorbed vibration. Cork is a great soundproofing material; its structure, I think, disrupts vibrational transmission. So, in reality you can incorporate these materials into a room's surfaces, and no one can hear your conversations in the room...nor can you hear what goes on outside. But you can speak perfectly normally inside the room...and that's not allowed with Darkness. Offhand, I think Black Rose's solution should work fairly well. Maybe need some tweaking...Mind Link doesn't allow sense sharing. That requires Clairvoyance. So entering an anti-scry area, and having that stop the mind link? Not sure about that. Stop the Clairvoy (using the senses of another)...yeah, no problem.

Gonna be a tough sell. MLS minimum salary: $65K NBA rookie minimum: $950K Another issue: of the top 20 highest paid players in MLS, there's 1 from the US (https://boardroom.tv/highest-mls-salaries-2022/) College soccer? 209 Div I schools, 9.9 scholarships max per school College basketball? 353 Div I schools, 13 scholarships max per school I'd also argue that, if you want to develop an international-level player, high school is probably too late. There are *occasional* basketball players that start late, but I believe they're typically centers...of the "7 foot WHAT?" variety. A big factor in football and basketball is the camps, often but not always run by the shoe brands. They're pay to attend, mind, but they go down to youth levels...middle school, I believe. Nike's camps page says they ran 650 camps. No mention of how many kids attended, but they say over 7000 were on the waitlists and didn't get in. (In case you wonder where all those 3-star, 4-star, 5-star ratings that you hear about during recruiting are determined? These camps.) It's not just Nike, or just the shoe brands; they're just, I believe, the biggest. It's a massive industry. It does look like there's soccer camps too, but they're nowhere near the same level, at least based on a quick check. But, I suspect a big factor is, it's simply not viewed as a US sport. The top players in the top US league are foreign. There's no view that the US develops top players, which discourages players who can see any other option, which means...you tend to get players not quite as good. There's SOME change here; I believe there's better US representation in UEFA overall in the last few years, but...that doesn't help very much. It's plausible that the increased exposure...IIRC, NBC does Premier League, and I think Fox does Bundesliga, which are both fairly new developments, could help raise awareness and interest. We shall have to see if that lasts...or whether this was based on it being a World Cup year.

So Mr. P has to wait for the Wilson contract to expire? No, wait. That might be manageable. Painful, to be sure, but manageable. At the end of this period, tho, the Broncos will have to fall back to a QB they draft and develop. Oh dear....

Since when do college football coaches accede to reality?

Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

And now a tipped ball bounces off the helmet of the LSU receiver...nice and neat and just hanging there for the Georgia DB to scoop it up for an INT. That's 14 points set up by freak plays, for Georgia. And threatens to build the momentum for the avalanche........ That is, unless Georgia goes for it on 4th and 8 at the Utah 40 like USC did...........up 14..... EDIT: they didn't, and it has...turned into an avalanche. Georgia takes 5 plays to go 58 yards in 1:30ish to slap #5 on the board with 30 seconds left in the half. AND they get the 2nd half kickoff...up 35-7. Might be time to go channel surfing...

Oh my. Talk about rubbing salt into the your OWN wound. LSU drives down inside the 10. Georgia sacks them on 3rd down. LSU has to go for the FG. It gets blocked. That's the self-inflicted wound. Should not get a short FG blocked. THEN, half the Georgia guys are just congratulating each other, and getting ready to walk off...as are ALL the LSU players. But there's one...little...problem. It's a live ball. Georgia guy lets the ball settle, but he's right there...looks at the refs...no one's whistled or signalled, soooo....ok then! He picks it up and *sails* 95 yards with no LSU player in the picture until he's at the 10 and cruising in. Touchdown Georgia. 10 point swing.

Oh my. TCU has a nice late drive, with a 2 point conversion to tie. In the OT, they go for it on 4th and 1...and get stuffed. K-State positions for the chip shot. 31-28 KSU. MASSIVE CHAOS!!!! I LOVE IT!!! And Georgia and Michigan are now absolute locks, no matter what, IMO.

4 safeties in 1 game????? I bet you could count on one hand, the number of teams that gave up 4, non-intentional, safeties all YEAR.

I do like the shade that TCU uses. Purple is a tricky color. Also helps that, for me, purple looks better with black, than white. But that's probably my inner necromancer.

Let Chaos Reign!!!! The coffin lid's been nailed in place. The grave's dug. They're lowering it down now. Inside 2 minutes to go, Utah SLAMS the door completely with a spirited, tough run for a putaway TD. 47-24. Yeah. This, after USC led 17-3...3 opening possessions, 3 scores. Then the roof caved in. This very likely puts OSU in. A twisted question: does this guarantee TCU a spot, even with a loss? Because if we slot OSU in, then the alternatives would be Bama, Tennessee, and USC...as a 2-loss team but that did play in the conference title game. 1-loss TCU, and in the title game, over 2-loss, didn't even make the title game? We're halfway to Ultimate Chaos!!!! Oh, side aspect. Say a) TCU loses, Georgia and Michigan win b) USC and TCU fall OUT. c) OSU and Alabama jump IN. (I doubt they'd do it, but IF!!! they want to take TCU out, it's a total mess.) It'd seem to be Georgia 1, Michigan 2, OSU 3, Bama 4. That would be Georgia-Bama, Michigan-OSU. Would they stay with it, or tweak the rankings so it's Georgia-OSU, Michigan-Bama. Rather a lot of things have to happen for that to happen, but we gots the start!!!!! K-State vs. TCU in the noon (Eastern) slot LSU-Georgia gets the afternoon slot, 4 Eastern Purdue-Mich, and Clemson-UNC, 8 Eastern Mr. P's blue ponies are in the afternoon slot.

So how many different sets did you send him?

Elsewhere, Elon Musk is finding out that no, you cannot have completely unfettered speech. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html This, after another anti-Semitic rant, including that he "saw good things about Hitler" on Alex Jones' show.

Well, if they did, it'd be a first for them.

Good win for the Bills; Pats look miserable again. Bills get some separation; the Pats were tied with the Chargers at the front of the chase pack, 8th-9th in the standings. And...9 wins in the bag, a game against the Bears as an early Christmas present. (Turns out they're playing 11 games in total on Christmas Eve, and running a morning-afternoon-evening triple on Christmas day itself, much like Thanksgiving.) That should be #10, and that should get them a playoff berth. The division may come down to the next 2 games...Dolphins and Jets.

Maybe, just maybe, something can now come of this one... Appeals Court overturns the special master review of the Trump docs seized from Mar-a-Lago a while back, and rips the judge. From NYT, mostly a quote of the decision:

Well they do say you can fool some of the people all of the time....

The LA Times gathered up a ton of demographic and economic data, and broke it down all the way to neighborhoods or sometimes smaller cities, in the LA metro area. It's a wonderful resource: https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/index.html For example, for a character concept I'm fleshing out...I wanted a fairly high income, but also very diverse neighborhood. Hmm...flip round...yeah...South Pasadena will work. Good combination of very diverse (white, Asian, Latino anyway) and high income. It is only LA, but it's a wonderful resource if you're ok with that being where the character grew up. Most neighborhood guides don't go into anything like this kind of detail; it's more like visitors' points of interest, and not a lot more. But if anyone happens to know of other major cities, where someone's done this kind of breakdown? I'd love to hear about it.