Dantius

The session has now been scheduled for 6:00 CDT (Ususal time), on Sunday, August 15th. Be there!

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Yeah, I agree. The problem currently is that there *ARE* things worth buying... however, since the effective bonus you get from them is only temporary (until you find something better) and not usually much larger than the bonus you get from buying points in skills, it's almost always better even in the fairly short term to save up for skills. Hmm. Since we're tossing out idea here, what about just not having trainers in the first place? I mean, magic trainers sure, but I do have to suspend disbelief that "I can pay this guy 200 pieces of eight and he'll suddenly improve my skill at shooting a bow instantaneously". Or we could go back to an early Avernum mechanic of having to pay to spend skill points and that you could only do it in very few specific areas. I miss that.

Originally Posted By: Lilith hahahaha i have a 1 in 30 chance of being murdered, yeah that ain't no thang Where did you come up with that number? It seems rather arbitrary, also data please. Originally Posted By: Lilith you don't know what the hell you're talking about and need to shut up right now I'm looking through data and trying to figure out a pattern. It seems like you are arguing from personal anecdote. It's very difficult to figure out who know what they're talking about in those circumstances.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Reputable, yeah. They still have the reporting problems that Lilith alluded to above. There are also issues with classification. For example, when (if ever) does rape count as a hate crime? That's a complicated question. If it's reported as a hate crime by the victim? Not quite sure on that one... Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES And speaking of classification issues, you'll notice that gender identity isn't even listed, but there is DEFINITELY violence against trans people. Does it exist? Almost certainly. Is it on par with violence against homosexual men/women? Probably not, because a) there are probably less transsexuals than there are gays, and it's an issue that has received nowhere near as much attention as gay marriage/gay rights has, so it's probably slipped under the radar.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Originally Posted By: Lilith and most gay rights groups pretty much exist solely for the benefit of middle-class white gay men Originally Posted By: Dantius (quote from a gay rights group website) Seriously, though, the site doesn't even say where those numbers come from. Although I would suspect there *are* more hate crimes against gay men simply because men are way more likely to commit hate crimes than women are. It was the first result on Google. It's late, and I didn't really feel like searching for actual statistics. But since you insist, I scrolled down, and found that the FBI (should be reputable enough for you) has some hate crimes statistics from 2007 here.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Originally Posted By: Fearstung After you do some of his quests, Redbeard sews an extra arm on you. With my luck it'll be in the wrong place so I can't scatch myself while fighting. If you're lucky, you'll get a second head, too. That way, you'll have a much easier time ski-boxing!

Originally Posted By: Fearstung It's probably a safe generalization to make that hate crimes are deplorable whenever and to whomever they happen. That was of course implicit. I was merely linking to and posting the data.

Originally Posted By: Lilith oh my god shut up Statistics for hate crimes due to sexual orientation 1997: Code: Sexual Orientation Incidents Offenses Victims OffendersAnti-Male Homosexual 760 912 927 1,032Anti-Female Homosexual 188 229 236 158Anti-Hetrosexual 12 14 14 14Anti-Bisexual 9 10 10 8

Originally Posted By: Lilith actually no it's 100% false, lesbians are more likely to experience employment discrimination and be victims of violence than gay men and most gay rights groups pretty much exist solely for the benefit of middle-class white gay men One hundred percent false? Really? So that means that there's never been a single occasion in all of history where gays have been more victimized than lesbians? Ever? Be more careful with those kinds of generalizations, Lilith.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: boggle Lesbians on the whole have even had an easier ride than gays. No pun intended. And also if you do not know how many men have fantasies about lesbians, you have been living under a rock. It was not an completely inappropriate post for what is pretty much, as far as we know, an all male audience. what the hell is wrong with you get out Ehhh, it was a point made in the most offensive, ignorant, and obtuse means humanly possible under the circumstances, but it is, nevertheless, a point.

Originally Posted By: Fearstung But I think the emotional lift of wearing the possessions of your murder-victims more than outweighs the dubiousness of actual protection afforded. Yes my armor is dented. I dented it. With a Mighty Blow. More like "Yes, my armor has been perforated in multiple places and has been baked into a thin sheet by the spells of my mage". An interesting thing to think about would be doing a sort of Oblivion leveled armor type of thing, but just have two levels: armor you buy/steal/diplomatize yourself into [better/normal], and then armor you take off of dead bodies[normal/worse, maybe a 5% armor penalty and if it's magic, -1 for all effects].

Wait, how did we get to ethnic slurs now? How does that relate to climate change? And, more importantly, does violating the COC in a polite and somewhat meta way give me licence to violate the COC in a polite and somewhat meta way?

Originally Posted By: Fearstung Quote: Wouldn't have to be the best items. Just have to be items that aren't substitutable by random loot. If there were a particular category of item--e.g. armbands--that enemies never dropped and that was never given as a mission reward, stores could sell items in that category and they'd be worth buying. Even if the items in question were fairly weak, overall. You wouldn't have to have a special equip category to have items that aren't substitutable by random loot. What if you could only get the poisonous sword at the shop? No perceived obligation to buy it, but a good use of gold for someone who likes poisoning things. But then people would carefully weigh the risks vs. benefits, and then either not by it and hold out for a better sword later, or only go to that shop to buy the Venomblade, or whatever it was called, and ignore the rest of the merchandise there. That said, this reminds me of something Ephesos said after one of his DnD campaigns here [paraphrased]: "The best armor probably doesn't come off of the guy you just killed", which is true for rather obvious reasons

Originally Posted By: Acky Originally Posted By: Txgangsta Wingbolts are useless unless you have a meatshield to take the damage. Gazers are awesome, but wartralls give damage, take damage, and still have the range attack. My favorite without a doubt. Wingbolts do a lot of damage however, and are much cheaper then Gazers. You can also get them practically right as you enter the Storm Planes. Yeah, but you can get Gazers a lot quicker than any other Tier 5 creation while doing Alwan's messenger quest. I don't think you can even get War Tralls until the Dera Reaches.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES <img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png"> This one gets overused, but really, what else is there to say here? I found today's funnier, but that one's still a classic.

Originally Posted By: boggle Originally Posted By: Dantius Is it the Daily Mail? Not exactly a keen reader of British journalism that's not The Economist... How awfully refined of you. Well, I also only watch BBC America when I need cable news, but that doesn't exactly count, since there are no quality American alternatives...

Originally Posted By: Niemand You'll be happy to know that since you brought this back to my attention, I have updated my response to reflect that I really ought to be working on my contest entry right now. Which entailed removing the whole of this week. Yes. Yes, I'm very happy. *scribbles* frank... be sure... premature detonation... 10d20 damage... *scribbles*

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: izen Most of the posters there are refugees from the UK Daily Telegraph comments section - a 'hotbed' of AGW theory rejectionists.... the second-worst UK newspaper that expects to be taken at all seriously the worst also has a name starting in Daily Is it the Daily Mail? Not exactly a keen reader of British journalism that's not The Economist...

Originally Posted By: Triumph Congratulations. Dust Bowl must have really helped your post count. Maybe if you run such good RPs all the time, you can make it to 2000 by 2014 instead. It will be irrelevant unless he reaches it by 2012, though...

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Dantius He's more machine now than man, twisted, and evil. she Last time I checked, Darth Vader isn't a she. Originally Posted By: Lilith what does this have to do with anything i said It was in reference to the blog post, which you referenced. It had no bearing on anything you said, it was just a handy thing to quote.

Originally Posted By: Lilith i used to be a nicer poster than i am today i was once... a human, like you... He's more machine now than man, twisted, and evil. Originally Posted By: Lilith but yeah that entire post is a hilariously dishonest characterisation of our arguments and i don't really feel like having a conversation with him if he's just going to grumble about postmodernism and accuse us of being a bunch of lying cultists for our trouble Resorting to postmodernist arguments in any discussion EXCEPT one on literary/art criticism should result in your immediate expulsion from the debate. What little respect I once had for pomo has be stretched to the absolute limit by people twisting it to support their own agenda.

...It's really difficult to schedule a session when I only have two responses to the calendar, one of which is me. Y'all have two days to fill in your responses before I pick a date based on what I already have.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba The better solution would be to reduce the number of trainers, the cost of trainers, or to increase the amount of money available. Dikiyoba. I'm a fan of not capping money, myself. 30000 was okay, but I really ran into problems when my limit was 9000 or 15000 in the earlier Avernums.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Even if the stock rotated, it would still be the same stuff you don't want to buy. This is because the existence of trainers break merchants. If there were no trainers, and hence there was no incentive to be a pinchpenny, there are plenty of items that -would- be worth buying, even though the power boost you get from them might only last a few areas. So nerf trainers by making it possible to have ridiculously high skills (Like 20-30 points) with ease, while still having the trainers only train 3 levels. They'll be a much worse deal for your money, and the player will be encouraged to invest in things from stores.

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan Not many of you will care, but for those who do: http://www.scribd.com/doc/35539144/pnp12pt Welp, there goes the rest of my evening as I try to comprehend part of this. Hopes of this being error-free are low right now, but still... So he's a millionaire now? Or was that prize offered for some different mathematical proof?