Pattern Ghost

Ah, well that changes everything. 😉
 
Corrected, thanks.

Quote from that article:
 
"It is the latest in a string of shootings resulting from seemingly normal and even mundane interactions."
 
I'd say drunken neighbor shooting a firearm in his yard in the middle of the night falls out of the scope of "seemingly normal and even mundane interactions."
 
This is exactly what police are for. Even if it's just loud music. Someone's  acting out, have people in uniform come out and settle them down. Be safe.

Well, WOTC just lost any future business of mine they may have had:
 
Wizards Of The Coast Raids YouTuber’s House To Take Back Magic: The Gathering Cards
 
Sending Pinkertons to intimidate someone for accidentally getting product early instead of just giving them a call or sending an email first? Classy.
 
Edit: Changed "rough up" to "intimidate," misspoke there. Nobody was touched. Just Pinkertons tossing around threats and being general bungholes.
 

Well, WOTC just lost any future business of mine they may have had:
 
Wizards Of The Coast Raids YouTuber’s House To Take Back Magic: The Gathering Cards
 
Sending Pinkertons to intimidate someone for accidentally getting product early instead of just giving them a call or sending an email first? Classy.
 
Edit: Changed "rough up" to "intimidate," misspoke there. Nobody was touched. Just Pinkertons tossing around threats and being general bungholes.
 

I'm amusing myself with ChatGPT hallucinations.
 
I am playing a tabletop RPG using Hero System 5th edition revised by Steve Long. I want my character to be fully invisible to the Sight Group. How many points do I need to pay for invisibility?
In the Hero System 5th edition revised by Steve Long, you can achieve complete invisibility to the Sight Group by purchasing the Invisible Power with the "Affects Sight Group Only" modifier.
The cost of the Invisible Power depends on its level of effectiveness, which is determined by the amount of Perception rolls an observer must make to detect you. To be completely invisible to the Sight Group, you would need to purchase Invisible with the "Affects Sight Group Only" modifier at its maximum level, which requires observers to roll a Perception check against a difficulty of 18- (i.e., they must roll an 18 or higher on 3d6 to detect you).
According to the Hero System 5th edition rules, the cost of the Invisible Power with the "Affects Sight Group Only" modifier at its maximum level is 30 points per level. So if you want to be completely invisible to the Sight Group, you would need to pay 30 points for each level of the power.
 
I am playing a tabletop RPG using Hero System 5th edition revised by Steve Long. I am using a 5d6 Energy Blast against an enemy with 8 points normal defense. I make my attack roll. How do I calculate damage? Assume we are not using hit location modifiers.
To calculate the damage from your Energy Blast attack in Hero System 5th edition, you need to determine the attack's base damage, which is equal to the number of dice rolled plus the attack's damage class (which is determined by the character's power or equipment).
In this case, you are using a 5d6 Energy Blast, so the base damage is 5 plus the damage class of the attack. Let's assume the damage class is 6, which is a typical value for Energy Blast attacks.
So the base damage for your attack would be 5 + 6 = 11.
Next, you need to compare the attack's base damage to the target's defense value. In this case, the target has 8 points of normal defense.
If the attack's base damage is equal to or higher than the target's defense value, the attack hits and inflicts damage. If the base damage is lower than the target's defense value, the attack misses and does not inflict damage.
In this case, since the base damage of your Energy Blast attack is higher than the target's defense value, the attack hits and inflicts damage.
To calculate the damage inflicted, you subtract the target's defense value from the attack's base damage, and then multiply the result by the attack's damage multiplier. Let's assume the damage multiplier for your Energy Blast attack is 1, which is a typical value.
So the damage inflicted would be (11 - 8 )* 1 = 3.
Therefore, your Energy Blast attack would inflict 3 points of damage to the target.

You can identify historical justification for most groups at some point in their history. Humans have not been very nice to one another.

Yes, but if he realized that it was the police on the other side of the door, he likely wouldn't have pointed a gun at them and would still be alive.  Still, I am happy to agree to disagree.

Thanks,Ranxerox. I see where our opinions diverge. I don't believe that anyone knocking on someone's door should have a gun directly pointed at them without first identifying them as an imminent threat to life or limb. The law agrees with me on that point. So, the police identifying themselves properly is a moot point. That said, let's agree to disagree on that detail.

And I saw Birth of a Nation in film studies class, so I guess that makes us even.

It's been the experience of my lifetime that Canadians in general are far more familiar with what happens in the United States, than the reverse. Of course we don't have a lot of choice in the matter. As our current Prime Minister's late father, and former PM, famously said, "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt."

Here's a funny experiment I just tried:
 
Kind of reminds me of Data trying to learn about human emotions.

This isn't relevant. The fact is that the guy aimed his gun at the officer. That's it. At that point, shooting him to prevent getting shot by him was on the table. The police were not illegally on the property. They mistakenly approached the wrong house to respond to a call. They identified themselves as police. While it's quite possible the homeowner didn't hear that or process it as he came down to the door, the fact is that instead of identifying whether they were a threat or not, he chose to engage them by threatening their lives by pointing a gun at them.
 
 
He was within his rights to arm himself. Body cam footage clearly shows him pointing it at the officers. That's a lethal force threat that puts the police within their rights to shoot defensively. He made a mistake, and probably shouldn't have died for it, but the fact is he should not have opened the door without identifying who was on the other side. That's a bad tactic regardless of who was outside. If someone is outside pounding on your door, at any time of the day or night, the proper response is NOT to yank the door open and point a gun at whoever is out there. That was a bad response to the situation.
 
 
I honestly don't care about the statement made by the police, either. They often dumb things down for the press or -- as I suspect in this case -- try not to point the victim of a tragic mistake in a bad light. Just because they're soft selling it doesn't mean that the man did not foolishly open his door in the middle of the night and point it at the person on the other side. The reason I reviewed that video was to see if the gun was actually pointed at the cops or if they shot someone standing there holding a gun at his side. Which he did. Which provoked a legal and ethical response from the responding officers.
 
 
Was this a raid? It certainly wasn't a no-knock warrant. The responding officers knocked loudly and announced themselves as police and were in uniform.
 
 
No argument here.
 

They very loudly shouted "this is the police." The failure was on the part of the homeowner, when he yanked open his door and pointed his gun at an unidentified target. Had he exercised the least level of common sense and responsibility that should come with owning a firearm for home defense, he would have had his wife call 911 to report someone pounding on his door, not opened the door, not stood on the other side of the door at all, defended in place, and attempted to identify a threat before pointing a gun at someone. Period. Full stop. The homeowner bears all of the responsibility here. He could have the very least asked who was there before opening the door. The only reason he got shot was for pointing the gun at the police. Jesus, I've had the police knock on my door several times in the middle of the night. I've managed not to get shot any of those times because I identified who was on the other side of the door. (Twice looking for burglary witnesses, once looking for witnesses to a shootout in our apartment parking lot.)
 
 
They did.  Before you point a gun at someone, you need to identify who it is. If the threat is on the outside, you should remain on the inside, regardless of whether you have a right to go outside and look for trouble. These are important things.
 
 
OK. So you agree the fault is with the homeowner?

I'm finally home in Florida. I was surprised to meet so many in Canada that are so aware of our politics here. When they heard I was from Florida they offered immediate sympathies. Everyone knows DeSantis. 

No.  I agree that the homeowner bears some fault, but I am not willing to let the police off the hook for their role in this.  Neither resident of the house realized that the people pounding at were police officers.  I consider this prima facie evidence that the officers did not do a good enough job identifying themselves.  Yelling "this is the police" once at people who may be asleep or in a distant part of the house behind closed doors is not sufficient identification.  I work in health care, and we don't fool around with identification.  We don't say are "are you so-and-so", and when they dumbly nod yes, proceed to give them potentially dangerous medications.  No, we ask them to identify themselves with name and birthdate, then we check these against both their patient ID bands and our own records.  Going the other way with identification, we get the patient's attention, make eye contact, tell them our name and job title and what we plan to do with them, and then we give them a chance to respond.  So, these cops failed.  They didn't even make sure that they were at the right address before proceeding, and they identified themselves only once to people that for all they knew were asleep or out of the range of full hearing.  That is a procedural failure, in that either they failed to follow the department's procedure or the procedure itself was inadequate.
 
Yelling "this is the police" before pounding on the door is good, but they needed to repeat the yell several more times in case they were not heard or understood the first time.  Also, having the the flashing lights from their patrol car streaming through the windows would have really brought home that this was actually the police at the door and would convey the information to people who don't hear well.
 
 
Yes, I understand that.  However, a huge part of our problem is that we have dumbed things down way too much.  See my earlier post statement about right to bear arms and the right to be a moron.  Barring extenuating circumstances, pointing a gun at someone is assault with a deadly weapon (yes, the misdemeanor form of this charge, but still).  People should be taught that it is not alright even when they are on their own property and it is night time.  This is important information for the public to understand and if we don't talk about after a tragedy like this, when will we talk about it?

At the risk of annoying Pattern Ghost , I found this a helpful review of the issues.
 
 
 

He's gone. 

I got a call at 6 am, one that I've been waiting for the past few years.
Dad's in the hospital on life support.
I need to go to Canada ASAP. 

I agree with the point, but it's hardly a revelation. The same thing has been said repeatedly in this thread.
 
Also, in that final case of the police shooting, I looked up the video. Generally, it's not a good idea to be anywhere near a gun in the presence of police, but this wasn't jumpy police. The guy didn't just answer the door with a gun in hand. He opened it and pointed it directly at the police. No ambiguity on that one.

I agree with the point, but it's hardly a revelation. The same thing has been said repeatedly in this thread.
 
Also, in that final case of the police shooting, I looked up the video. Generally, it's not a good idea to be anywhere near a gun in the presence of police, but this wasn't jumpy police. The guy didn't just answer the door with a gun in hand. He opened it and pointed it directly at the police. No ambiguity on that one.

You may want to look at the 6E Hero System Advanced Players Guide II, which includes detailed optional rules for "Social Combat." Let me excerpt a couple of passages from p. 79 introducing that section, to see if how it defines Social Combat aligns with what you're looking for:
 
A Social Combat system provides a HERO System rules framework for character interaction that would otherwise have to be relegated either to a few Skill rolls, or entirely to roleplaying. Both of those approaches have their merits, and you should use them if they work for you. But some gamers prefer a more structured way of determining the outcome of a social encounter, and Social Combat rules provide that.
 
As always, the GM should use common and dramatic sense when adjudicating the course of a Social Combat and its outcome. Social Combat rules, regardless of the specifics, are designed to enhance game play and make it more fun for everyone, not to provide characters with an easy way to force NPCs to do what they want regardless of logic, common sense, or the demands of the story.
 
Since Social Combat can be a broad, vague, intangible sort of thing compared to physical combat, it often helps if all the characters involved state their goals for the interaction when it starts: obtain a certain piece of information; get the girl; make my opponent look like a fool; prevent myself from being made to look like a fool; intimidate my opponent into going away; make this guy angry. That gives the GM a clear idea of what’s intended and how the Social Combat may evolve as the characters pursue their respective goals. It may also help him think of clever and creative ways to represent success, failure, and their implications. For example, maybe a character succeeds in intimidating a high-ranking nobleman, but that nobleman then spreads vicious rumors about him to all the rich and powerful people in the kingdom, which will cause the character problems down the line. Or the character fails to impress the girl of his dreams, but his efforts bring him to the attention of someone who’s actually much better suited for him.
 
APG II includes three complete Social Combat systems. One is Skill based, expanding on the uses of standard Hero Skills and adding a couple of new ones, plus new mechanics to represent the results of more complex interactions. Another is Talent based, providing a range of new Talents built using the standard system rules, which can impact people in a variety of subtle ways. The third is Combat Maneuvers based, offering a fair-sized number of new Social Combat Maneuvers with rules for attacking, defending, and "damaging" an opponent. Each system has its strengths and weaknesses, depending on how they match what you'd like to have happen in your game.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of that critical thinking element from the younger generation. I've been seeing a whole lot of "shout down the opposition" in the last decade or so, though.

I’ve come to the conclusion that essentially political beliefs have become something of a faith tradition versus an intellectual exercise in policy decision making. It’s profoundly unacceptable and even offensive to question doctrine, or even seek to understand the thinking behind it more deeply with any form of critical question. 

Infinity stone shorts sound uncomfortable to wear.

They need to remove her from the  Homeland Security Committee immediately. Preferably from office, but that attitude isn't appropriate to sitting on that committee or anything intelligence or security related. ETA: I've seen people actually lose top secret clearances for way less than the views expressed in the article below.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/marjorie-taylor-greene-defends-national-052635902.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACpacYumG7-4ot4_37AdHQMcQ4ooc_GvPSDvMoQWEDSKr9kHbrKzT1wlHQE7YJkYsMw_7D8CCubyY9o9JaLwZyauW4Lvpiz7NF4ekzXDCTA-dKmuFuRdx8z2CNQ6v8nzBarva4yGWgdX4PGbeFzifYqqPXaLvPB2X6ruABHGE3eU

They need to remove her from the  Homeland Security Committee immediately. Preferably from office, but that attitude isn't appropriate to sitting on that committee or anything intelligence or security related. ETA: I've seen people actually lose top secret clearances for way less than the views expressed in the article below.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/marjorie-taylor-greene-defends-national-052635902.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACpacYumG7-4ot4_37AdHQMcQ4ooc_GvPSDvMoQWEDSKr9kHbrKzT1wlHQE7YJkYsMw_7D8CCubyY9o9JaLwZyauW4Lvpiz7NF4ekzXDCTA-dKmuFuRdx8z2CNQ6v8nzBarva4yGWgdX4PGbeFzifYqqPXaLvPB2X6ruABHGE3eU