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THE WORLD LOOKS RED... MY PRIEST CAN'T USE A THORN WHIP

As my students would say: Wow, really? ...that's a force.

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP

This thread sucks. It doesn't even have the substance of the punctuation thread from a few years back, and frankly, that one wasn't so hot either. BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP

Originally Posted By: Ephesos Originally Posted By: Synergy Who is to say we won't evolve to harness the energy of the sun directly into our bodies one day and bypass this tedious work of gathering, preparing, eating, and excreting food? (deep breath) ...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!! Originally Posted By: Lilith is that the sound of you trying to harness the sun Don't look now, Ephesos just transformed into a Super Saiyan!

Actually, that sounds a lot like Alwan's life story.

I had thought I remembered demons charging in from the west, but I looked it up and I was wrong: they charged in from the east! Crazy. A weird attack indeed.

The keyboard is the problem. Although this creates a sort of interesting point on a previously nonexistant part of the continuum between mobile phone and laptop, it seems to me much more like a very large iPhone and less like a keyboardless laptop.

C:\>unzip pants.zip Inflating: BUZZWRDS.DOC

Yeah, but Fort Remote is the only Exile outpost near Skarragath.

just for you

Originally Posted By: Synergy P.S. - Is it actually possible for one person to own or derail a topic here? It's not an individual act, really now, is it? It takes a corporate action, namely, a significant number of people shifting their attention... Or, a single person editing a significant number of posts... BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAP

Originally Posted By: Lilith also this is why spelljammer is the best d&d setting, you get to travel through space in a magic whale The money shot of this horribly unintentional camp is at about 1:52.

He wants to attack Exile, and as of A1 -- with no Vahnatai and no Empire in the picture -- Exile and the Abyss were quite separate and not too friendly. The Great Cave wouldn't take it seriously if Spire was destroyed.

THERE WILL BE A SPECIAL PLACE FOR YOUR HEAD-FILLED HELMET IN MY APPROACHING WORLD OF DARKNESS

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity Quote: The difference is just that the patterns concern what must inevitably happen with the system dynamics of the cosmos, from the gods down to the hobbits, rather than what must inevitably happen with the system dynamics of the cosmos, from the unified theories and galaxies down to electricity and robots. Precisely. My point is that gods and hobbits are characters, galaxies and electricity are not. Robots, I admit, could go either way. The exact dividing line between galaxy and god, or between the Strong Force and Deep Magic, may be vague and hard to point out, but at least we can easily see the difference between a hobbit and a galaxy. So am I hearing you correctly: your argument is that fantasy is about departures from reality that receive their internal consistency through the actions of human or anthropomorphic characters, while science fiction is about departures form reality that receive their internal consistency through things that do not involve human or anthropomorphic characters?

(n_n) oh thurilith

Except that magic can have hardwired rules that rule things out... and science fiction settings are equally capable of implying that there are no hardwired rules and anything is possible. It really seems to me that this idea that magic can do anything, but science can't, is coming from your own associations with the two and not at all from the actual literature we're talking about.

Hard and fast boundaries for genres like fantasy and SF, where their better members tend to be liminal, boundary-pushing stories anyway, are not going to happen. But it's easy enough to come up with a list of tendencies. Fantasy typically involves some kind of magic and takes place in the past or in someplace resembling the past. Science fiction typically involves some kind of science and takes place in the future or in someplace resembling the future. Any tendencies beyond those become less and less essential, except for those that the genres share: they both typically involve departures from reality, they both typically require both plot and characters (not true of all forms of literature), and so on. Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity I think the difference is this: science is bigger than any character in a book; magic is not. In sci-fi you can have background figures with transcendent powers; and among your developed characters, you can have badasses with better tech or knowledge than anyone else. But neither your heroes nor your villains nor even any of their super-scarey mentors are actually able to personally affect the laws of nature. Even if some character has a technological artifact with totally arbitrary powers, it will still be clear that the device is whatever it is regardless of the character's wishes. Even if the author hasn't spelled out what is possible and what is not at the beginning of the book, the texture of the story will be shaped by the fact that what is possible is in principle predefined, and not up for grabs to the characters. Magic, on the other hand, means that what is possible is a lot more fluid, and in particular can be directly affected by the wishes of some of the characters. Whatever Tolkien might have said afterwards, within his story the impression is that in principle Gandalf might be able to do any particular thing he wanted. He is limited by his personal mental or spiritual 'strength', and by his ability to remember bits of lore; but I think any reader can tell, from the general feel of the story, that he does not just have a finite bag of particular tricks, and have to wait for a suitable opportunity for one of them. He can improvise reality, at least within limits, and his personal attributes as a character are on a par with at least some of the laws of nature. You could say that the character of Gandalf is himself at least a small aspect of the natural law of Middle Earth. This is magic, not science. I have to strongly disagree with this theory. I think it is sometimes true, and I'll even wager to say more than 50% of the time, but not much more, especially not when you are talking about really original and lively books. Middle-Earth and Narnia, I would argue, are picture perfect definitions of worlds where what is possible is predefined. Tolkien's extensive development of his world, with its deep internal consistency, and his writings on this subject and on sub-creation make this explicit. Indeed one never gets the sense in Tolkien that the many coincidences in the books are a matter of random chance, but rather that things follow a certain pattern and arrangement: Originally Posted By: The Hobbit 'Then the prophecies of the old songs have turned out to be true, after a fashion!' said Bilbo. 'Of course!' said Gandalf. 'And why should not they prove true? Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself? You don't really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!' The difference is just that the patterns concern what must inevitably happen with the system dynamics of the cosmos, from the gods down to the hobbits, rather than what must inevitably happen with the system dynamics of the cosmos, from the unified theories and galaxies down to electricity and robots. Narnia is the same way, when you look at what really goes on with the Deep Magic and Aslan and so on. Not that I think either genre is all about determinism. There is a niche for free will within the Jobbish hurricane of system dynamics: Originally Posted By: LOTR The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so.

Even without ESP, Angband pretty much requires you to cast or zap multiple detecton spells every screen if you really want to ensure survival.

Um, the LOTR books are pretty much the most widely read fantasy or science fiction books in existence. Deride them all you want, but "inane references no one else will get" definitely does not apply here.

You do realize that if Luthien is Jigglypuff, Beren must be Pikachu... I guess Morgoth can be Master Hand...

Luthien = Jigglypuff?

Nope, the G3 Strategy Central was the very first one, and it didn't even appear until a year after the game was released. Ishad Nha, for the blank names, keep in mind that script definitions for these games automatically import all data from the previous definition unless it is manually blanked or an import statement appears.

Secret of the Silver Blades eh?