Kelandon

You may as well say "English" rather than "Northern European." There was discrimination against Germans when they came in large numbers in the 1800's. The history of the United States is a long, slow, fitful story of exclusion giving way to inclusion. At some point, just about everyone was on the outside, except — as far as I know — men of English descent. Now I'm confused. The latter, sure. People from India are often considered "white," and they're from South Asia, not Europe. But the former? Who did you have in mind? Or do you literally mean skin color, not race?

Wait, did someone just argue that it's not (ever) immoral to hurt people emotionally? That's nuts. I continue to think that the phrase "cultural appropriation" is a horrible phrase for an important concept, and I think Edgwyn's first post in this thread illustrates another reason why: people who use this terminology need to distinguish between "cultural appropriation" on the one hand and "cultural borrowing" (or something equivalent) in order to clarify what is okay and what is not — but that terminology is hopelessly counterintuitive. It leads to the confusion that started this thread: "I'm not even sure what's okay anymore," because the terms are so poorly chosen. Just be respectful, don't play up stereotypes or exploit people, and you'll probably be fine.

I'm not particularly disagreeing with that article, except insofar as I think its terminology — which, to be fair, is the standard progressive terminology right now — is a massive political communication fail. So neither am I arguing that you should ignore the author. What I am saying is that you shouldn't over-read the author and be terrified of everything all the time. Just be respectful and approach things in good faith — this generally means not over-emphasizing stereotypes and bad images of marginalized people — and you'll be fine.

"Cultural appropriation" is a godawful term, because the words don't mean what they're trying to mean. The word "appropriation" just means taking something that belongs to someone else, but that's not at all what's at issue in so-called "cultural appropriation." What's at issue in the most offensive examples of the phenomenon might better be termed "stereotype profiteering." For example, consider the NFL selling football gear for their Washington, D.C., franchise. The gear is covered with stereotypical (and inaccurate) depictions of Native Americans and labeled with a racist slur ("Redskin"), no less. (By comparison, imagine if there was a football team called the Alabama Niggers, and the mascot was a person in blackface.) The issue here is the flagrantly racist stereotyping, not the fact that the NFL is depicting a native culture at all. When Kevin Costner made Dances With Wolves, he was depicting a native culture (and making lots of money off it), but not in a similarly offensive way. So ask yourself why you were concerned when a mostly Christian choir sang Jewish songs for a mostly Christian audience. How much were they playing on stereotypes or otherwise showing disrespect to Jews in their performance, and how much were they just singing songs for the sake of the music? If it was pretty much just the latter, then get over yourself. You don't "own" Jewish music, and neither does any other Jew, except insofar as the actual composer has (or at one time had) an intellectual property right in his or her own work. "Cultural appropriation" makes it sound as though someone is hysterically saying, "You're taking what's mine!!" when the cultural product in no sense belongs to that person at all — it's just that someone who kind of looks like that person created that cultural product. Under the same reasoning, feel no shame in depicting people who are not like you in some respect, whether culturally or otherwise. In fact, you should depict people who are in some ways dissimilar from you, and you should borrow ideas from the cultures and backgrounds that produce people who are not identical to you in order to depict those people more accurately and carefully. Just don't play up stereotypes and create one-dimensional portrayals, because that's crappy artistic product and it's also offensive. Take (or "appropriate") all you want. Just don't become a stereotype profiteer.

But they're technical terms.

My brain autocorrected that to "chaotic good." But, like autocorrect generally, that may or may not be what was intended at all.

Seeing Dave Gilbert tweet at Jeff Vogel caused one of the nerdiest moments of genuine excitement that I've had in a long time.

I've wondered this myself. I'm pretty sure that I was not properly min-maxing when I was playing BoA. I listed the special skills here. It won't answer this question, exactly, but at least it gives the skill requirements for other skills.

Yes, I know. I'm one of the mods who does that, after all. My bad. The screenshot is from the wrong page, but I could've sworn I saw the same phenomenon in the archive. Maybe I'm wrong, and it's only here. Regardless, quotes are all screwed up on some browsers on PPP.

Also, for some reason, they show up sometimes but in the wrong formatting.

On Safari, the quoted text is blank. I just checked, and it looks fine in Firefox.

*slaps hand* You'll eat what you're given!

After I said this, I went back and checked, and here it is. On my third playthrough of Avadon 1, I pumped Dex and only Dex, except on one character.

The obvious choice would be Avadon 1 and Dexterity. It's possible — and not very hard — to beat it on Torment without ever raising another stat.

Pretty much everything here is solid gold.

No, I prefer not to be on CSR.

Tons of people had this problem back in the day. It's just that APF was one of the first scenarios, so everything about it is on Pied Piper, not here. Here's probably the most useful thread on the subject.

I think whatever theme I was using became the pony theme, because I just had to switch back manually right now.

Okay, I think we've got most of the bugs, so here's an official release. Here's version 1.0.

Ah. You may want this thread.

It's hard to know if there's something that you're forgetting or missing without knowing what you've done. Generally avoid walking along the uneven ground, and you should encounter only the placed monsters. But there are several sets of relatively tricky battles. Where specifically are you?

If you do make new graphics, make sure that they get posted somewhere. The overwhelming majority of Blades scenarios that people have started have not been finished, so putting finished components out there — graphics in particular — is a way to make sure that your work doesn't go to waste, and it releases something sooner than a full scenario can be released.

Not that I'm aware of. I would ask for your tech specs, but I actually don't have any idea how to begin to diagnose the problem, so it wouldn't do me any good.

Are you using the magic frequently (i.e., every chance you get)? The fights shouldn't be very hard. I'm disinclined to add filler on the front end. There is history of the PCs later on in the scenario, but not quite in the way that you're expecting.

At first I thought it was Richard White selling a remake of Lost Souls — because yes, it's basically the same game, with new graphics, a better AI, and more complicated moves. But no, no one at Thoughtshelter Games is named Richard White. Also, welcome to the forums, leave your sanity at the door, etc.