BarretWallace

For my part, my experience of the MCU came to a satisfying close with Endgame.  Essentially, I'm an outsider with respect to the post-Endgame stuff.  Now, there may be perfectly good offerings available, but I feel like Marvel has barfed out a prodigious volume of content, and just to catch up would take more time than I'd care to spend at present.  Maybe some day I'll dive back in, especially if they ever slow down a little.

Maybe it's an age thing too.  To use an eating metaphor, these days I'd rather savor each bite vs. wolf down every plate as fast as I can.

I reckon that AI is like any other technology in that it's having growing pains right now.  Early GPS units didn't always provide the best navigation, for example.

They also didn't usurp the work of actual artists, so yeah.

"It's got a wonderful defense mechanism.  You don't dare kill it."

I've either never caught it, or had it and never knew it.  I've been tested several times and came back negative each time.

Best of luck with everything, @Cancer.  If I come up with any better words I'll send them.  Sometimes we wrap up some life issues only to take on more, and I wish you (and your wife!) well.

My wife and I are fortunate enough to still have our parents, and our own health is decent.  As my mother in law is fond of saying, though, "You're day's coming!"  For now I'll just enjoy each time with our parents as it comes.

Somewhat more on topic, the projects currently in my hopper are:

• Star Wars fan fiction.  This was originally inspired by characters I played in the old--err, classic--West End d6 roleplaying game.  The characters and story have evolved tremendously since these stories began in high school.  I have a fairly clear idea of the beginning and ending of the series, plus quite a bit in the middle.  It takes place during the classic setting of the roleplaying game, i.e. between Star Wars (yes, I still call it that) and The Empire Strikes Back.  This is the era I know best, and focusing here helps me avoid the headaches of choosing a head canon from the Expanded Universe (EU), EU 2.0 (post-sequel trilogy), and so on.  It follows the story of a small band of Rebels doing their part in the struggle against the Empire.  I might have some of the movie characters make small appearances--for example, Admiral Ackbar plays a peripheral role in a couple of stories--but that's about it.  The core of the story is the crew of a little freighter.
• Jurassic Park fan fiction.  Several fan fiction bits have started and fizzled.  Most were blatant self-insertions.  One was the story of a team of mercs sent to recover the shaving cream can dropped by Dennis Nedry.  Another explored what might have happened if things didn't go south until after the park opened.  As that became the plot of the Jurassic World movies, I will probably never revisit it.  What I've got in mind now is a retrospective told by Tim Murphy.  It begins at Alan Grant's funeral, where Tim decides to finally write down the events of that terrible weekend at Isla Nublar.  The idea grew during a recent family trip to Hawaii, plus 2023 being the 30th anniversary of the movie.  Maybe this one will die as the others did, but first I want to run with it a while.
• Scouting memoirs.  I've been involved in the same Scout troop since age 11.  I've got lots of stories to tell, and I'd like to write them down before they fade beyond recall.  I have no idea how I'd organize all this, so I'm just going to write and see where it leads.
• Recon compilation.  In college, we played a "Recon" campaign with US Special Forces soldiers using the Hero System 4E rules.  We had such a blast that our main GM continued writing these characters for over 40 stories.  I want to compile these into one whole, make one last round of edits, and then compile it into a final whole.  Most likely it would be just an e-book, but if I can find a suitable printing service, a physical copy would be fun too.

All of these projects took on more life when I discovered Scrivener software and started playing around with it.  The way my brain works, Scrivener makes it a lot easier to keep disparate works organized into some kind of cohesive whole.  Much better than managing dozens of Word files.  It also allows great flexibility in organizing and compiling everything.

Who knows how far any of this will go, but I look forward to the journey.

I hope to dial down other hobbies and spend more time writing.  My biggest issue is clearing my schedule and brain to give writing the time and energy it needs.  I will probably never publish anything, but might at least finish a project or two that have languished for decades.

Oh my.... (https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/putin-calls-trump-charges-political-persecution-1736c591?mod=hp_lead_pos5)

If this isn't a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black, I'm not sure what is.

On 8/7/2023 at 1:09 AM, Lord Liaden said:

I'm not looking forward to when winter hits the northern hemisphere. The pendulum of weather extremes is going to be swinging wider and wider.

If I may salvage one sliver of optimism from this, if the snowfall is like last winter, at least we'll get precipitation in winter.  It's been a very dry summer here.

I'm remembering a classic movie line: "It's a miracle these people ever got out of the 20th Century!"

Yeah, now we just need to survive the 21st.  One day at a time!

Ni!!

I backed this high enough to get the "Fetchez la Vache" mini game, about which I am only somewhat embarrassed.

On 5/2/2023 at 12:38 PM, Lord Liaden said:

I advise you to drop the "not going to be friends again any time soon" part of your thinking. That way lies lingering pain. Accept that it's done, because NG clearly wants it to be.

I'm getting there...slowly but surely, I'm getting there.  Sometimes reality has to club me over the head multiple times (metaphorically speaking) before it truly sinks in.  This situation was a doozy, but it is finally sinking in.  My mind is sometimes more of a crock pot than a microwave in terms of how quickly it handles certain things.

The game is about to enter a new phase, a new "season" if you will.  Last session was given over to a group discussion of where we wanted to go.  I'm guessing we will stick around the Moonsea region, and let's face it, the Sword Coast gets way too much attention.  Regardless, I know that I have a good group of friends (in and out of game) to enjoy it with.

A dubious honor of "Season 2" of our game is that I'm starting a new gaming notebook at the same time.  I'm a little crazy about taking notes anyway, and this game resulted in an explosion of scribblings, quotes, pasting in pictures, and even minor dabblings back into cartography.  That is a good sign!

I tried a couple of times to establish contact, but long story short, NG shut me down.  The final "blow" came last Thursday when NG told me in no uncertain terms to butt out.  I am not 100% innocent of wrongdoing in this whole thing, and I've tried to admit that as a step toward reconciliation.  NG is having none of it.  In his words, I didn't just reject the character, I rejected, betrayed, and sabotaged him personally.  My arguments to the contrary are of no avail.  Never thought I'd see the day when a friendship collapsed over a clash at the game table, but I'm guessing it's because said friendship was already weaker than I thought by the time the clash took place.

Thank you all for your patience as I've tried to sort through this fiasco.  I've finally accepted in my own head that we are not going to be friends again any time soon, if ever.  I also got some feedback from the DM as part of my own mental "post mortem."  At least our D&D group (sans NG) is back to rocketing along as joyously as ever.  We just finished our first major story arc and are about to start another.

And here I thought WotC might have learned their lesson from the OGL debacle.

9 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

All of 5e D&D is susceptible to minmaxing.  Peek into any D&D 5e forum to find endless discussions of whether war cleric is better than hexblade warlock, or what feats combine with which subclass abilities, or which subclass to "dip" into to minmax your multiclass build.  And endless complaints about how hexadins are unbalanced.

I am SO glad that our group is crazy enough to pick abilities to fit a concept vs. min/maxing.

On 4/19/2023 at 10:55 AM, Lord Liaden said:

I would urge you not to hang on to hope that he will reach out some day. Take it from me, that's a wound that never stops bleeding. Consider the matter settled, and move on.

That's my plan.  I've been holding out hope that things might change, but I had to let it go.  It hurts, yet it's a relief at the same time.

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

"I am changed.  Things have changed me."

 

It is not always that a person is at fault for who he becomes.

One thing I've never lost sight of is that it's the character, not the player, than I had a problem with.  I certainly don't blame NG for being affected by what's happened in his life.  If a reconciliation does happen some day, I'll do my best to let it happen.  If it doesn't, then I can still appreciate all the good times we had.  Wherever his life leads him, I hope he finds peace.

Last night I tried calling NG.  He didn't pick up, so I left a voice mail.  That, as they say, is that.  If he ever reaches out, it will be getting to know him all over again because I'm not sure I know him at all anymore.

Thank you all!  Maybe NG just needs space...but if he had even said something basic like, "Not now, I need time" I'd hold off till he was ready.  Instead I'm in limbo with only my imagination for a guide.

22 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Over time people change, circumstances change. People may gradually drift apart, or something unexpected may happen that drives a wedge between them. It isn't necessarily anyone's fault, or because someone did something wrong. No one is to blame if they couldn't see it coming.

 

I would advise you to make that 'phone call. If you don't make your best effort to salvage your friendship, you'll always regret that. Maybe you can, but even if you fail, you'll know that you tried. And if you fail, it will be easier for you to accept that you have to move on.

We certainly have changed over time.  I'm not the same person I was when we first met, and neither is NG.  We haven't had very frequent contact for quite some time, though we are both middle aged men now, with our own lives.  Still, we have each gone down our own paths.  Maybe all this incident did was expose a rift that was already there but I didn't have the eyes to see.  Perhaps our respective life paths have just taken us farther apart than I realized.  Heh...as one example, there was a time when both NG and I were pretty hard-line Republicans.  Both of us abandoned that mindset years ago.  (That was also before the GOP became quite what it is today, but that's a whole other discussion).

19 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I don't mean to imply that your friend is having psychological issues; I really don't mean that at all.

 

I am just saying that from eventa in my life, I take am active role in a friendship, and I will _make_ you tell me if there is a problem, and what it is.

 

So yeah.  Call.  Stop by.  Even if (and it probably is) it is just someone who has  grown in a new direction, you still want to know for certain.

I don't feel entirely safe stopping by.  If we last till middle age, we all accumulate some measure of mental baggage along the way.  For the game conflict to elicit the kind of response I've gotten...well, I just want to keep some distance for the time being, until I get some sense of where he and I stand.  If a conflict at the game table set him off, I want to scope out potential minefields more before I let my guard down enough to be around him.

I am considering the phone call though.  That's more personal than an email or FB chat, but still gives us both a margin of safety.  If that also fails to begin a reconciliation, then I am finally prepared to lay this matter to rest and leave the initiative in NG's hands.  And to say, "I'll miss you," 'cause I sure will if it comes to that.

I know these things do happen, that friendships have an expiry date (I really like that phrasing, BTW).  This is the first time I've had it happen with a friendship I never doubted would stand the test of time.  We'll see how the next few weeks go.  And yeah, my journal will continue to get a workout.

[zorch] (can't seem to just delete the post)

I had "Alone Against the Flames" for ages as part of a Call of Cthulhu bundle.  Last week I finally played through it for the first time.  This is exactly the kind of product Hero System could use.  Get me into a story right away.  Guide me through the critical steps of building a character.  Give me options, tell me when to roll dice, and help me resolve the rolls.  Then and only then, once I've taken that first step, show me the depths of the rule system underlying what I just did.  Hero System has a strength like no other rule system I've ever encountered, but I can easily see how it can rapidly overwhelm many prospective players and drive them to other pastures.

When I was introduced to Hero System in the early-mid 1990s, I was fortunate enough to have GMs who held my hand (metaphorically speaking) until I understood the rules well enough to walk on my own.  I didn't have to digest a multi-course meal's worth of game mechanics before even beginning to tell a story.  I don't have that kind of patience anymore.

On 3/7/2023 at 8:03 PM, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Note: I'm responding to this quote first, but don't take the length of the post as I continue on into the weeds personally, Tricksta. I just found myself expanding on a thought that started here.

 

Microstamping isn't really viable. But, let's say it works exactly as advertised. The police recover a spent casing at the scene of a crime. They run it through a database and determine who the last owner was. Does this solve the crime?

 

Another point Stewart makes is that it should be easier for the ATF to trace gun transfers. Which they can already do.  Do gun traces solve crimes? These are essentially the same result as microstamping. I don't know the answer to that, because Google doesn't return any results for searches for crimes solved by ATW traces (and you can't prove a negative). I suspect the number of crimes actually solved by ATF transfer traces is low, because most crimes are committed by people who aren't the original owners. In the case of mass shooters, most of those (I'm guessing) seem to be legally obtained, but ATF traces are a moot point, because the person is usually caught or killed without the need for a trace.

 

But, let's look at this more optimistically and say that microstamping and better ATF tracing of firearms increases the solve rate for homicides by a significant amount. Does that prevent gun violence? I don't think it would. The death penalty isn't a deterrent, so I doubt an increased chance of getting caught would be.

 

So, even with the best rose-colored glasses on, these things that sound like good, "common sense," ideas just aren't going to curtail our murder rate.

 

Which is another lie told by Stewart in that interview, using statistics. Here's a decent, unbiased (as far as I can tell), analysis of gun death data from Pew:

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

 

So, how is Stewart lying about the increased number of murders? He isn't. But he is using the numbers disingenuously to sow fear.*

 

 

So far, so good. The number of gun homicides has clearly gone up. Horrible. We must do something. Stewart says we must reduce the number of guns (probably won't do squat), fund the ATF (agreed), research gun violence (agreed), require microstamping (disagreed), while Fox News says we all need to fund the police better (agreed, but not for their idiot reasons), and all go out and buy a gun (disagreed), because blood is flowing in the streets! Chaos! Calamity! (disagreed, as denoted by the sarcastic exclamation points).

 

OK, so what's the problem? The problem is that the number doesn't have context. Fortunately, the Pew report seems to be pretty clear at providing context:

 

 

OK, we can all breath a sigh of relief. Numbers are up, but it's not quite as bad as the raw numbers show, since our per capita rate is only slightly up.

 

Well, there were still 45,222 gun deaths in 2020, according to CDC data. That's a lot of people dead. This is a picture of a 44,000 people protest in Vienna, and it doesn't even have all the people in it:

 

 

Imagine the United States losing all those people in 2020 from gun deaths. If we could reduce that, we could save a lot of people.

 

According to the CDC, there were 3,358,814 deaths in the US in 2020. I don't think I can find a picture of that many people in one place.

 

The percentage of people who died that died from firearms:  45,222/3,358,814 = 0.013463, so about 1.35%.

 

Now, saving some of those 45k+ lives is a good thing. But you aren't very likely to get shot just walking down the street or engaging in normal daily activities like going to school, going to the movies, going shopping, etc. You might, but it's unlikely.

 

How's our overall death rate looking? Surely we're dropping like flies, right?

 

Here's a sortable ranking of death rates from World Bank. The numbers are from 2020 and per 1000 population. The whole list is rather long, but here are some highlights:

 

Bulgaria is the winner with 18

Ukraine is 3rd with 15.9

Russia is 7th with 14.6

 

OK, that was just to show the higher end of things and the Ukraine/Russia pairing. Not to pick on them, but to give a baseline. Let's look at some countries who have it "good," or at least should: Canada, Sweden and Japan. Just pulled those out of a hat b/c they're frequently mentioned as pretty decent, civilized places.

 

Canada in 84th place at 8.1

Sweden in 50th place at 9.5

Japan in 29th place at 11.1

 

OK, I thought those numbers were going to be better, especially Japan.

 

How about the US?

 

USA in 38th place at 10.3

 

What does this mean? Means we're not quite as horrible as some people would have us think, but we're also not as awesome as others would have us think. We can do better, but we could do much worse.

 

And why did I zoom out to deaths in general vs. gun deaths? Partly for the obvious perspective. We could reduce gun deaths to 0 and it wouldn't move our death rate dial by very much at all. The panic is disproportionate to the threat. This does not mean we do nothing, it means, as the Hitchiker's Guide reminds us:

So, my first point in all of this is we can, and should, approach the problem rationally.

 

My second point is that just as "national death rate" is too broad in scope, so is "gun violence" or even "homicide rate."

 

I'll reiterate my basic stance on the issue again: We need to solve root causes. We need to interpret the data not for the sake of drumming up fear for our proposed solution (including that of "do nothing" that some hold), but for a study of the causes of violence and homicide. At the end of the day, acting like guns alone can cause or prevent homicides is not productive. Neither position is true.

And that's why both Stewart and his interviewees annoy me.

 

How much has been spent by either side on root cause analysis and removing the root causes? I'm betting it's a low number.

 

My point is this: We are not a society of Mutant Biker Cowboy Barbarians.

 

We're a Confederacy of Dunces ruled by an Idiocracy.

 

 

 

 

*Note: That sounds nefarious. I don't think Stewart is nefarious. I think he cares deeply and is simply engaging in his own fears and spreading them around due to not looking at the subject dispassionately.

Although my Hero gaming is not what it once was, posts like this are a large part of why I still lurk and occasionally post on these forums.  Disputes happen even in this community, but by and large they stay civil and mutually respectful.  Posters also tend to show far more effort and articulate thinking than the average comment section on FB or a typical online news article.  While there are many well-written posts, for me, this one is a recent stand-out.  Thank you for putting in the time and effort it took to write it!

If I were to "fix" Hero somehow, I'd lower the entry barrier, or "energy of activation" as we call it in the chemistry world.  Get me a starter set, something like Call of Cthulhu's "Alone Against [X]" series.  Present me with a character and guide me through a short story.  Help me learn the rules by fleshing them out bit by bit, pointing out what skill to roll to resolve the encounter, etc.  Maybe have a few of these as ways to introduce Hero games in different genres.  Have a list of skills, powers, and equipment with their point costs, and dive into the underlying math later.  Maybe it's an age thing these days, but asking me to digest a massive chunk of game mechanics just to start play will result in a hard pass.  D&D is a mechanical mess, but I can throw together a character in less than an hour with minimal guidance, and be slaying orcs soon thereafter.  Hero is an excellent multi-drawer tool chest I can use to build anything, but to do that before I even start play is a turn-off.

It's a shame, really.  Had I devoted more time to finding and maintaining a Hero group, I would not need to learn a whole new system to play a whole new game; I'd just have to tweak the system I already know to fit that game.  I do still enjoy these forums because of the...interesting individuals here, plus the generally respectful tone of discussions we tend to have.

And dammit Old Man, now I can't get the image of that flying paladin out of my head.

Yeah, I started in 4E, and the transition to 5E had a very short learning curve.  It was more bloated perhaps, like some things were codified that 4E had left nebulous.  The jump from 5E to 6E was a lot more drastic.  That didn't last terribly long before Hero Central (the post-college avenue for all my Hero System gaming) sadly died.  Maybe if I'd given it more time*, 6E would have grown on me more.

*This is predicated, of course, on finding a table (physical or virtual) to play the game with in the first place.

There have been quite a few low-priced game bundles put out recently, including an excellent one of Hero 6E books.  Even for a Hero veteran like myself, the mechanics-heavy front end is a deterrent.  I'm still tempted to buy the 6E bundle just because you can use it to build literally any game.  It's just been so long since I've been part of a group that I don't know how effectively I can dust off those old cobwebs anymore.

Strangely enough, I do still laugh at my first-ever Hero game, where I got to roll the dice that literally blew the head off my first character.

15 hours ago, Cygnia said:

I've pulled muscles sneezing -- one day, it'll happen when I roll dice.

As a Minnesotan, I approve this message!