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Toxxus

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Everything posted by Toxxus

  1. 1- I live in state where I had to pass a criminal background check, get fingerprinted, pass a written exam and then pass a range test to get a concealed carry permit. This same state requires that concealed carry permit in order to open carry. I'm pretty good with this system. It is sensible and provides a minimum level of education and competence one should have in order to carry safely. I'm fine with it in Texas - for now. I'd be fine with it, in general, for everyone if I could trust the government - which I cannot. That being said, I've seen states like New York where they make it so impossible to get a permit that it is effectively a complete gun ban unless you can show dire need or have a hook. The government cannot be trusted in this regard and that's why the 2nd amendment is set up the way it is. Additionally, as long as the 2nd amendment has, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." as part of the language any gun restriction is unconstitutional. I strongly dislike unconstitutional laws as there are already many and the government is getting far too comfortable ignoring our constitutional rights as it continues to creep into every nook and cranny of day to day life. Here's an area where I probably break ranks with most pro-gun types. I think criminals should be allowed to have firearms. Your constitutional rights shouldn't become null and void as soon as you commit a crime. Should we toss all of these out the window as soon as you get convicted of a misdemeanor? 1 - Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. 3 - No quartering of soldiers. 4 - Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. 5 - Right to due process of law, freedom from self-incrimination, double jeopardy. 6 - Rights of accused persons, e.g., right to a speedy and public trial. 7 - Right of trial by jury in civil cases. 8 - Freedom from excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishments.
  2. Is it not practical? I would disagree. Look at the degree of inconvenience and cost we're absorbing so the TSA can harass the living sh*t out of us at airports for what appears to be virtually no gain in safety. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/6/tsa-failed-detect-95-percent-prohibited-items-minn/ https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188 I prefer the older approach of inconveniencing people who seem to be up to no good and leaving everyone else alone. I'm old enough to remember flying prior to TSA and it was lovely. So much faster. So much less harassment. I think I've managed to take 1 flight where I wasn't **randomly** selected to be screened. Pull over the guys who are driving in an unsafe manner. Stop harassing people who are just trying to drive home on a Holiday weekend.
  3. That article was great and chock full of specifics I hadn't seen before. Hard to believe so much of the murder is concentrated in such small areas.
  4. I was trying to recreate the D&D 5th edition spell Sanctuary the other night for my players. Essentially, each time you attack the target you have to make a WIS saving throw (EGO roll, roughly) or you feel compelled not to attack the target and your attack is wasted. If the caster does anything hostile the spell abruptly ends. My first thought was a very limited mind control with the limitation - Only to make someone NOT attack me as long as I do nothing hostile (Ego +10) and make it a damage shield. This doesn't quite work as it will kick in after the caster is hit. My second thought was a large area Change Environment where you'd have to make an Ego roll at -4 or not be able to attack the caster. Improvements to these approaches would be appreciated.
  5. Let's try the solution for other behaviors: 1- Some people drive drunk and hurt people. We will make vehicles illegal. 2- Some people steal things. We will make personal property illegal. 3- Some criminals assault other criminals in prison. We shall make prisons or criminals or both illegal. 4- Some people cheat on tests. We shall make tests illegal. We really do need to focus on the behavior and mindset of the roughly 5 per 100,000 that get gun murderous and leave the other 99,995 per 100,000 alone. And why do these conversations almost universally overlook the successful defensive gun uses per year? The CDC had some fun data: Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.
  6. I 100% agree with this. We should also be separating suicides from gun deaths since it intentionally skews the numbers upward by a very large amount. Yes, the last couple years have been the first significant upward swing in the last two decades. Still, I find the fact that gun ownership went up 50% at the same time the murder rate went down 50% makes a very strong case that rates of gun ownership and gun-related homicide are not correlated. Culture, imo, more than anything else sets the murder rate. It is the willingness of citizens to kill each other that is the problem. We've had no meaningful gun control in the country and the murder rate dropped by half over the last two decades.
  7. Certainly not very ethical of the drivers, but I'd hope that the meat dodgers would learn something from this experience. They're eating a high-carb disaster called a Whopper and they LOVED it. Humans. Are. Omnivores.
  8. As someone who lives/works in the Plano, TX area I'd like to point out that we have massively, unbelievably high rates of gun ownership. Not "do you have a firearm", but rather "how many firearms do you have?" and we have a murder rate that is so low that it shames most European countries. It's gone up in recent years, but at one point we were at 0.4 murders per 100,000 people (2012) in an affluent pro-gun part of Northern DFW. Gun ownership went up hugely during the Obama years due to gun-control fears, yet murder rates continued to drop. I don't think I can state anything as simply and elegantly as the following chart:
  9. Jesus was also Jewish as were almost all of his followers. So - hard to say.
  10. It seems related to the mass shooting in Australia, but I have no idea what comment it was in response to. It just came out of nowhere.
  11. That aspect of the movie was even worse in the 30+ minute battle royal at the end where instead of luring Zod out of the city they proceed to demolish half of New York. Like, the guy wants to kill you, take it to a grassy hilltop and stop tipping over buildings full of people.
  12. D&D got back into the adventure business pretty hard with 5th Edition. Not only is there a new hardcover or two with each season (currently going on Season 9), but Adventurer's League has a process to take in 3rd party author work and make sure it is sanitized for organized play. I'd much rather spend 30 minutes reading someone else's adventure and modifying it to fit my players than create from scratch. I'm a reasonably creative guy and yet I doubt, as an individual, I could punch out something as masterful as The Storm King's Thunder or Paizo's War for the Crown.
  13. You don't have to be ashamed of your state. Just THAT guy and his boss who should have corrected his behavior or started termination proceedings.
  14. There's people that thought the terrorist survived that move through? Superman hits him at incredible speed. You don't even need a wall there for him to be dead. Just the collision with his dense Kryptonian body at that speed would be absolutely fatal. Add the brick wall (hit by Superman first or not) and that guy is a broken, bloody ruin best left off camera to preserve the PG-13 rating. Though I'll admit I see the Flash do stunts that are worse - all the time - and somehow not instantly vaporize someone by punching them full force while moving faster than a bullet. Taking a rough guess at the Flash's weight he's roughly 1000x the weight of a 9mm bullet. The energy transfer would vaporize mere mortals.
  15. Not sure if it popped up in here yet or not, but someone did re-did the final battle between the brothers by adding light saber effects. It's full of awesome.
  16. Not being willing to kill - even in the most obvious self-defense situation - is choosing to go extinct. When inherently peaceful people take this stance they offer the world on a silver platter to violent invaders. Even Non-Aggression Principle followers will defend themselves.
  17. This is one area where I feel HERO system just destroyed itself in the market. The failure to produce a reasonable volume of adventures sent GMs and their players to other systems. A lot of us who played RPGs in high school & college grew up, started families, and no longer had time to generate entire worlds from scratch. Many of us were quite happy to use canned adventures and modify them to fit our preferences. Fast forward 30 years and I STILL do this. I'm currently running HERO system twice a week using Pathfinder adventures. That's $300 worth of adventure path books I've sent to Paizo instead of HERO because there aren't any Fantasy HERO adventures of similar quality. The core of HERO system combat is preferred by my players, but the current rule books are so overwhelming none of them have tried to make their own characters. Three of my players have purchased HERO Designer and only two of them have tried to make a character as they are quickly overwhelmed by the volume of options in the software. HERO would benefit, imo, from two things. A condensed, simplified version of the rules in a modern format along with some playable content.
  18. Fortunately I grew up watching some British comedy so I'm enjoying the style of humor more than I suspect many will. I'm enjoying it. My wife is looking at me like I'm insane. Add that to the - Watch after the wife and kiddo go to sleep - pile.
  19. Just awful, senseless, murder.
  20. The degree to which your psychological profile predicts your political affiliation is an eye-opener to be sure.
  21. I have DM'd 5th edition for the last 5 seasons and I've played HERO for several years in the 80s/90s and recently picked it back up. Shoot me a message. I think having the material available in two markets would be an interesting way to lure some business back over to the HERO side.
  22. Unless those high DCs are also hard to avoid (large AoE's, extremely high OCV, etc.) then I find my groups typically use a tactic of having targets dodge/block and then non-targets counterattack. The counterattacks are especially effective since you can't abort on the same segment you've already had a phase. What I noticed in my Fantasy Hero games as players have moved into the high-end (270pts now) and are at the level of low end super-heroes is that most of the high-dex / low-armor types have progressed towards more armor. The team now looks more like heavy-to-medium armor with only my wife's sorceress still very vulnerable to lethal damage. Also, the OCV/DCV progression has this weird dichotomy where nobody wants the goose and gander to have equal treatment. Me: The celestial warrior attacks with his flaming greatsword. He is OCV 11. Player: ELEVEN!! Holy !@#$! That's crazy. Me: Dude, aren't you OCV 11 with your levels on attack? Player: Yeah, but...
  23. Moving at Noncombat Speeds sets your OCV to 0. It's not a modifier of 0. Normally if you were OCV 7 and did a Move Through at 10m of movement then you'd take a -1 and drop to OCV 6. At non-combat speeds you're at OCV 0. Full Stop. Hope that helps.
  24. Once players recognize that we don't ROLL for initiative and that turn order is fixed based on DEX there is a strong desire to buy enough DEX to consistently go first or at least in the top 1/3rd of the order. Then, after they get more familiar with the system, they realize that the defensive Abort options can make going later/last quite attractive. Especially in group encounters where an enemy attacks a teammate who dodges/blocks and then, having acted, cannot take a defensive action against your attack. I do find the 2 point cost of DEX to be warranted. It comes up so often in avoiding traps / environment hazards and determining who wins out in held-action vs. action contests.
  25. I wish I could like your statement more than once. A moderate degree of tribalism is natural and healthy. I care about my child more than other children. I care about my family more than other families. I care about my city more than other cities. I care about my country more than other countries, etc. I don't think you can remove individuals from a healthy degree of self-interest (Captain America!) without doing the kind of damage that lead to the death of 200 million people last century. Moderation really is the key. Too far left or too far right and you're in the ditch.
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