tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39000323481074948672024-02-07T11:21:42.057-08:00Dear JLetters to my counterpart, as well as sundry others on occasion.B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.comBlogger682125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-64211361484968137122023-12-29T23:28:00.000-08:002023-12-29T23:29:20.864-08:00Accidental duplicate post Nothing to see here.B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-29042485022920252242023-12-29T23:25:00.001-08:002023-12-29T23:25:48.549-08:00[AD&D] Dark Sun: The Order (motivations)<div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Dragon Kings has a blurb about The Order, a clandestine organization of high-level (21st-30th level) psionicists with three tenets:<br></div><div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><i>They must personally confront heresy according to their roles; they must pursue greater psionic mastery themselves; and they cannot personally use their psionic powers for any purpose that is completely good or evil.</i></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Furthermore, a PC who reaches level 21+ as a psionicist is "marked for death" if he's not neutral-aligned.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><i>Once any creature attains 21st level as a pure psionicist, his mind attracts the Order's attention. Mediators send one or more entrants to investigate the new psionicist and learn his motivations. If the new psionicist is of neutral alignment, they approach him to join the Order as a new entrant. **If his alignment is either good or evil**, or if he refuses to join the Order, he is marked for death.</i></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">(Emphasis mine.)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">On the one hand, I get it. The Order isn't supposed to get involved. They may perhaps have the power to turn deserts into verdant forests and free everyone on Athas from the tyranny of the templars and sorcerer kings, but they've been designed <i><b>not to do that.</b></i> Instead they're a threat for high-level parties.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">They're a stabilizing force, not a destabilizing deus ex machina like Elminster.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But if merely being good-aligned (always kind to children, goes out of his way to help poor folks and old folks) or evil-aligned (happily exploits business loopholes, keeps slaves, bribes templars to look the other way while paying employees the absolute minimum he can get away with and overworking his slaves--or maybe even just because he secretly enjoys watching his commercial rivals go out of business and starve!) is enough to make The Order conclude that you're abusing your psionic purity and need to die... that's just stupid. That's the old Aggressively True Neutral druid thing that Dark Sun thankfully did away with w/rt druids. So... how can we fix The Order so that it stays aloof and uninvolved but not in a stupid alignment-driven way?</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><b>Steal from Star Trek and/or space opera.</b> Give The Order their own version of The Interdict or The Prime Directive. "<i>Enlightened minds (a.k.a. powerful psis) must not interfere with the development of lesser beings--must not alter the course of history or affect individual lives on a large scale--because natural [Darwinian] selection is vital to the eventual coadunation (psychomaturation) of the collective planetary mind. The penalty for violation is death.</i>" It's still kind of pig-headed and stupid and virtually guaranteed to make The Order an antagonist to many PCs, but it's a <i>coherent</i> motivation that you can actually imagine an earnest NPC reluctantly killing for, as opposed to the ridiculous nonsense of "I'm killing you because you are too nice to widows and orphans."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Maybe Mr. NPC is willing to overlook a 21st level psionicist who seeks out buried water sources (for free) to help farmers establish new farms, because that's small potatoes. But if a psionicist--even a "mere" 15th level metapsionicist--sets up shop Empowering items with metapsionics including the Empower, Receptacle, and Convergence powers to achieve a psionic Singularity of sorts (eventually you'll be creating dozens of new Empowered items a day), wow, that could change the course of Athasian history pretty quick, and Mr. The Order NPC should be horrified and act ruthlessly to prevent that "disruption".</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Instead of the story about the little elf boy:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><i>One day, an intolerant shopkeeper, no doubt a recent victim of one of the boy's pranks, sought the strongest psionicists in the village to control the adolescent. But the entire village went wide-eyed with panic when the boy dealt back more than he took, even from the greatest masters in Ledopolus. Enraged, the boy turned his youthful anger full-force on the villagers, killing and maiming, lashing out with all the ferocity that fifteen years of scorn had burned into him. Those he didn't kill he enslaved, controlling their minds to do his wicked bidding. </i></div><div dir="auto"><i><br></i></div><div dir="auto"><i>But within the month, a stranger appeared at the edge of town, a shrouded elf whose brown wrappings indicated loyalty to no tribe. The elf made no sound, yet the half-breed boy sensed him and appeared. Their mental struggle took only an instant. Then the stranger left, leaving behind the shattered village, its newly awakened (and very confused) inhabitants, and the corpse of the evil half-elf boy. Thankful, the villagers sent out their fastest riders to reward the solitary elf, but they never found nor heard from him again. </i></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Instead, it would be a story about a dwarven mindmaster with the crazy goal of greening the desert. He worked hard all day every day creating figurines and statues which gave uneasy villagers the feeling they might be alive--and the desert began to green, and the statues began to spread, until one day... the brown elf showed up, broke the dwarf's mind and smashed all his statues, and left. The villagers had mixed feelings about this but overall they were glad because nobody knows where this all could have led, and people fear change, especially on Athas where news is so often bad news.<br></div></div> </div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-10322151191330429912023-12-14T11:48:00.000-08:002023-12-14T11:49:11.083-08:00Explanations<div dir="ltr">E.,<br><br>I want to vent a little to you about something, but first let me explain why. President Nelson said something true and overall immensely helpful to me in a recent conference talk, but there's part of it that I have an issue with, and I want to vent about it, and I want to vent about it <i>with you </i>in part with the ulterior motive of proving that just because we don't have the same religious beliefs any more doesn't mean we can't have a conversation about religion that you and I will both enjoy. I think you will "get" my issue with this quote and also why I don't ultimately consider it a big deal, but that it's still worth noting.<br><br>The quote is:<br><br>"As you think celestial, you will <b>find yourself avoiding</b><b> </b><b><i>anything </i></b><b>that robs you of your agency. </b><b><i>Any</i></b><b> </b><b>addiction—be it gaming, gambling, debt, drugs, alcohol, anger, pornography, sex, or even food—offends God. Why?</b> Because your obsession becomes your god. <u>You look to</u><u> </u><i><u>it</u></i><u> rather than to </u><i><u>Him</u></i><u> </u><u>for solace.</u> If you struggle with an addiction, seek the spiritual and professional help you need. Please do not let an obsession rob you of your freedom to follow God's fabulous plan."<br><br>Both emphases mine. The bold part I have zero problems with and find immensely helpful. (I've been struggling with a food addiction for years and it's super helpful to have official sanction to think of it as an actual spiritual problem, as opposed to something <i>I </i>consider a spiritual problem but am embarrassed to talk about to anyone else because they won't understand why it matters.)<br><br>The underlined part I find unsatisfying and a bit of a cop-out. There's an answer but it's much deeper than that, and if I were talking to Heavenly Father directly he would probably say to me either "There are psychological dynamics in play that result in food addiction doing X to your habits which results in Y or Z" or he would say "It's harmful but you're not at a stage yet where I can explain to you exactly why, except via [analogy]."<br><br>I'm not saying President Nelson was wrong to phrase it that way because his job is to talk to the world, not only to Max, and I think the world would generally respond poorly to the kind of explanation Max would benefit from (especially the "you're not at a stage yet where I can explain to you"). But the Holy Ghost says <i>to me at least</i> that the Max-directed explanation exists and would satisfy me.<br><br>If I know you, E., I would say you have probably had your own run-ins with explanations that are unsatisfying and a bit of a cop-out. I know how it feels.<br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-59797388829143251762023-09-28T07:52:00.001-07:002023-09-28T07:52:53.708-07:00Mirror of the Fire Demon<div dir="auto">[from another forum]<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">We once talked... about adventure seeds and my preference for dynamically unstable situations as adventure hooks, instead of status quo. Here's a concrete example:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I'm prepping Mirror of the Fire Demon. It's a good adventure in many ways with lots of mechanically interesting stuff going on: interesting terrain, monsters that hear combat and come out to investigate, at least one really tough fight, and so on.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But the central hook of "<i>there's a megalomaniac gathering a horde of monsters to take over the world, and the wind spirit will tell you how to stop him</i>" leaves me cold.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">In particular, I feel that it makes roleplay more difficult than it needs to be. If the adventure is going to be purely hack and slash, "<i>there's an evil warlord with a magic mirror, go take it</i>" would suffice. The existence of hooks can only be to support roleplaying elements such as character motivation or informing interactions with monsters and rival adventuring parties, or aiding suspension of disbelief, and yet the default hook makes me feel like it raises more questions than it answers such as "<i>what exactly has the bad guy done so far with his tens of thousands of troops, and why aren't there more of them at his main headquarters?</i>"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">So in the course of prepping this adventure I plan to make the situation more dynamic.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Rather than "<i>this bad guy is gathering an army but hasn't done anything yet and everyone wants to stop him</i>," which is a mission to maintain the status quo, it will work better at my table if it's "<i>this bad dude has been in power for a while, doing terrible things to his subjects, but now for reasons unknown (to you) he's missing! His generals are jockeying for position, it looks like maybe a succession war is brewing, his armies are hunkering down and unsure which internal faction they're going to support... and in the middle of all this, word gets out that his old spymaster has defected and is selling secrets about bad dude's sources of power. Agents of nearby nations are greedily eyeing each other on their way to rendezvous with said spymaster. That's where you come in...</i>"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Now you've got a huge horde which is fearful and somewhat passive, rival agents/adventurers who are greedy, an oracle of sorts (the spymaster) hiding in a cave but with a clear motive to dispense information for a price, and a mystery for future adventuring: what happened to bad dude and is he coming back? BTW the answer is "<i>he got careless in his troop movements and elven armies took the opportunity to ambush him and his company of soldiers, at a high price in blood, but unless someone breaks the mirror he's got Unkillable 3 and will come back angrier than ever.</i>"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">That helps me roleplay everyone involved, because they've all got clear motivations for what they're doing and not doing. It also tells me to insert more civilians into the wasteland parts of the adventure, to showcase the bad things the bad dude and his armies have been doing, like putting orphans to work as forced labor growing food.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-54029815504881441072023-09-20T16:42:00.000-07:002023-09-20T16:43:35.930-07:00Why I finally switched from Visual Studio to VSCode + Ionide<div dir="ltr"><p class="gmail-_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 0.25em;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-variant-alternates:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Noto Sans",Arial,sans-serif;font-kerning:inherit;font-feature-settings:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(28,28,28)">I've tried out Ionide a few times over the years, but never permanently until now. There are three factors which individually wouldn't be enough to make me reprogram my reflexes for a new IDE:</p><p class="gmail-_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="margin:0px;padding:0.8em 0px 0.25em;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-variant-alternates:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Noto Sans",Arial,sans-serif;font-kerning:inherit;font-feature-settings:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(28,28,28)">1.) Font Ligatures. I've started to really appreciate the cognitive benefits of font ligatures, but there's a long-standing bug in Visual Studio that prevents the -> ligature from working. <a href="https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/issues/846" class="gmail-_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/issues/846</a> This was my proximate cause for giving VSCode another try, and VSCode handles it like a champ.</p><p class="gmail-_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="margin:0px;padding:0.8em 0px 0.25em;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-variant-alternates:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Noto Sans",Arial,sans-serif;font-kerning:inherit;font-feature-settings:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(28,28,28)">2.) Github Copilot in VS completes whenever you hit Tab, and you can't reconfigure it. Copilot is pretty decent at guessing correct code completions but it's not anywhere close to 100%, and having erroneous code unexpectedly insert itself in the middle of my coding was distracting. In VSCode I set it to complete on Alt-/ instead.</p><p class="gmail-_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="margin:0px;padding:0.8em 0px 0.25em;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-variant-alternates:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Noto Sans",Arial,sans-serif;font-kerning:inherit;font-feature-settings:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(28,28,28)">3.) F# Intellisense in VS broke for me about six months ago (<a href="https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp/issues/14901" class="gmail-_3t5uN8xUmg0TOwRCOGQEcU" rel="noopener nofollow ugc" target="_blank" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">https://github.com/dotnet/fsharp/issues/14901</a>) and while it's sort of working again now, it's quite slow, on the order of five or six seconds between fixing a type error and having the red squiggles disappear in VS. In VSCode it's approximately instantaneous.</p><p class="gmail-_1qeIAgB0cPwnLhDF9XSiJM" style="margin:0px;padding:0.8em 0px 0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-variant-alternates:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;font-size:14px;line-height:inherit;font-family:"Noto Sans",Arial,sans-serif;font-kerning:inherit;font-feature-settings:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;color:rgb(28,28,28)">In theory if VS fixed all three of these issues I would switch back, but right now I'm pretty happy about having moved over. There's some learning curve but the end result feels more productive.<br><br></p><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-81483143806409913262023-09-16T20:47:00.001-07:002023-09-16T20:47:20.084-07:00[DFRPG] Making demons demonic<div dir="auto">From <a href="https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/diabolical/">https://awesomeliesblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/diabolical/</a> an interesting anecdote, which may be written specifically for that article or possibly from an RPG sourcebook:<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><i>In the wake of these defeats Agrippa was consumed by anger, shame and dread. He feared the armies of Talabheim and Middenheim would arrive at any moment to slaughter him and seize the throne at Nuln. His wits perturbed by panic, he sought out Calidus for advice, who presented to him the most desperate and dangerous of measures. To this Agrippa agreed. Calidus called forth the infernal spirit Achorax and the young emperor entered into a most dreadful bargain with the demon. On Geheimnisnacht the demon would destroy the two older emperors, and thereby Agrippa would be left with an unchallenged claim on the Imperial throne. Yet the demon's price was high: the moonlight of that night would also be the last seen by Agrippa's daughters, who would be condemned to an eternity of torment in the Abyss.</i></div><div dir="auto"><i><br></i></div><div dir="auto"><i>The fatal Geheimnisnacht arrived and Achorax claimed his payment. Yet the demon's work was not done in Nuln. Two days before the night of the Twin Moons, the Emperor Konrad had succumbed to a sudden and mysterious illness and the Middenheim throne had passed to his twelve-year-old son, Arnulf. Achorax held to his bargain and that night tore asunder the two older Emperors: Lothar and the hapless Agrippa.</i></div><div dir="auto"><i><br></i></div><div dir="auto"><i>– Dietmar von Humboldt, A History of Sigmar's People, XVIII.43</i></div><div dir="auto"><i><br></i></div><div dir="auto">To me this shows an interesting way to make demons fearful: by making them <i>know</i> stuff. Just like Dresden Files Outsiders always act together, flawlessly cooperating, maybe a good distinction between Tanar'ri and Baatezu could be that Baatezu share knowledge, maybe even magically, so that if you summon one Baatezu to demand power, it knows that Emperor Conrad is dead as long as any other Baatezu knows. It knows where <i>all</i> the bodies are buried.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">That could be an excellent reason to be wary of ever signing a contract with one.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">This will probably influence how I run demons and Elder Things in DFRPG. </div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-71980217681764695682023-09-02T06:57:00.001-07:002023-09-02T06:57:44.655-07:00What is DFRPG? Summary<div dir="auto">"OSR" is a word with many definitions, but DFRPG fits some of them, e.g. it doesn't really have a concept of "balanced encounter difficulty" beyond having the GM eyeball it, and it works very well with the "if you can describe it, you can attempt it" mentality of the OSR including stuff like "I invisibly sneak up and stab it in the eye!"<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The biggest difference between DFRPG and GURPS IMO is that GURPS is a setting-agnostic toolkit with lots of rules for making hypothetical powers and abilities and assigning point costs to them, and DFRPG is a D&D-ish game made using GURPS and has a specific set of professions (i.e. classes) with specific powers available to each (e.g. bards can mind control intelligent creatures with music, if they buy that ability). Since I dislike GURPS chargen but like its gameplay rules DFRPG is a good choice for me, especially when it comes to tactical complexity like "what are some nasty things I can do to incautious players with two minotaurs in a maze, and how can I make that experience different from six goblins in a night raid?"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">It has terrific balance between wizards and warriors (both are fun and OP, especially when working together, and BTW I'm including bards, clerics, and druids under "wizards" here) and between melee and ranged combat, and coming from 5E that is a breath of fresh air because my 5E players towards the end were mostly wizard X/cleric 1 with a light smattering of Sharpshooter Fighters. It's nice to see some actual melee warriors (Knights and Swashbucklers) having fun at my table now.</div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-52412565693980823782023-09-01T12:20:00.001-07:002023-09-01T13:26:40.852-07:00Converting D&D adventures to Dungeon Fantasy RPG (Powered By GURPS)<div dir="ltr">One of the joys of GURPS, in theory, is that you can run anything you can think of in it. One of the joys of running well-designed D&D modules, from AD&D's Against the Giants series to the best of OSR adventures today, is that they are <i>different</i> from stuff you write yourself. They can surprise you and teach you new things. There are some monsters that D&D and DFRPG share in common, like ogres, goblins, dragons, and mariliths/peshkalis, and there are products out there like <i><a href="https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/386983/Nordlond-Bestiary-and-Enemies-Book">Nordlond Bestiary</a></i> which provide quite a lot of others, but what do you do about traps and treasure?<br><br>Here are my rules:<br><br>1.) For treasure values, divide gold piece amounts by 100 and silver amounts by 10, e.g. if the module says you find 200 gp and 35 silver, you find two gold pieces ($800) and three silver pieces ($60). For jewelry/trade goods/etc. apply this same rule directly to the value of the jewels/etc. using whatever currency the value is given in.<br><br>2.) For traps, if it's a known trap type from the DFRPG books like a deadfall or crossbow trap, use whatever is listed there. Otherwise, it's noticed with a Per check; Disarmed with a Traps check; unavoidable unless disarmed; and if it's triggered it is Saved/Evaded with a DX check (or Will check if magical, HT check if poisonous), and does the same damage as listed in the module. Since D&D and DFRPG use HP differently, traps with large damage amounts in D&D (e.g. 5d10 poison) are sometimes intended to be reliably lethal, but that's better represented in DFRPG by making them difficult to avoid. Every time you cut the damage dice in half, rounded up, add a -2 penalty to all detection/disarm/evasion rolls. For example, if an evil lich king's tomb has a poison gas damage trap that does 5d10 poison damage per round for 10 rounds if triggered, in DFRPG you can convert it to a 3d10 toxic damage per second gas trap that is detected by Per-2, disarmed by Traps-2, and does no damage this second if you succeed against HT-2. Or you can halve the damage twice more to get a 1d10 damage per second trap that's detected by Per-6, disarmed by Traps-6, and resisted by HT-6.<br><br>3.) In all cases, if these simple defaults feel off to you, tweak them! If you want to convert the gas trap from 1d10 damage to 2d6, detected at Per and disarmed at Traps-6 but with no HT check to avoid the damage, do so. These rules are just a starting point to save you hassle for things you don't have a strong opinion about.<br><br>Happy gaming to all!<br><br>-B.C.<br><br> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.<br></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-42298084563195166412023-05-24T23:38:00.001-07:002023-05-24T23:38:40.463-07:00Ukraine war tactics, artillery<div dir="auto">The best argument I've seen for why the US should stay in the Ukraine ear: to use up Russia's ammunition (they have limited industrial capacity to replace it).<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/13r6kms/demystifying_the_myth_of_russian_artillery_power/">https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/13r6kms/demystifying_the_myth_of_russian_artillery_power/</a><br><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">See also </div><div dir="auto"><a href="https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraine">https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraine</a></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-75701214242007074552023-02-26T09:06:00.001-08:002023-02-26T09:06:43.358-08:00Re: Journal (Daily Impressions From Prayer)<div dir="ltr">Oh, I get it now. <br><br>I was thinking about how ready I am for Babylon to be gone and for justice to reign, and I thought of this:<br><br><i>"But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." </i>(Matthew 26, D&C 27, etc.)<br><br>It's an expression of eagerness. Apparently Jesus is capable of grand romantic gestures too.<br><br>-Max<br><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-84999653577639914682022-12-23T22:44:00.000-08:002022-12-23T22:45:00.288-08:00Mini-tutorial on GMing different adventure styles<div dir="auto">Some of the most common and easiest ways to run an adventure include:<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">1.) "Dungeon crawls", wherein players explore a hostile environment room-by-room seeking treasure while avoiding or overcoming traps and monsters. The fun in these games comes from a mix of the thrill of discovery and the challenge of staying alive. The simplest possible dungeon crawl is to draw a maze, some monsters in the maze, and some treasure, and then let the players enter the maze while you describe the current room they're in and let them decide where to move and what to do in each room, until they find the treasure and take it out of the maze or die trying. Many DMs got their start as twelve-year-olds running simple dungeon crawls back in the 1970s and 1980s, and it's still a fun way to start DMing! </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2.) "Linear plots": stories with a mostly-fixed plot, but with open character roles and opportunities for customization. These are fairly easy to run as long as players cooperate, a bit like a movie where the players can choose who the heroes are and specifically how they overcome the villains of the story: imagine the Twelve Labors of Heracles, but you don't have to be Heracles the strong man. Instead you can be Belfry, an elf cursed with wanderlust who fights monsters by throwing playing cards with the force of shuriken and sneaking through the shadows. You'll still do the Twelve Labors and come into conflict with the Evil king, but the details of how will be different as Belfry than they were for Heracles. Unlike a dungeon crawl, this type of game is often less about challenge and winning/losing than about seeing HOW this particular hero or group of heroes will succeed, and what unique imprint they will make on the gameworld in the process.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">3.) "Mysteries" are a bit like dungeon crawls in that the players move around freely seeking something, but unlike a dungeon crawl players usually don't move from room to room seeking treasure, so much as from "scene" to "scene" looking for clues. They require a bit more skill than dungeon crawls because you need to know where to start and stop scenes and how much to skip over: if players say "we go find the police chief and ask him when and where John Thorn was last seen alive," you have to decide whether to start the next scene on the road to the police station (possibly noticing some interesting clue), in the lobby of the police station looking at a police secretary, or in the middle of conversation with the police chief who's now glaring ferociously over his bushy mustache at the player characters after having just barked an answer to their question at them.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">In some ways mysteries are still a little like dungeon crawls, but another difference is that in a dungeon you can usually count on players finding everything eventually, including every non-hidden door to every room in the dungeon, but in a mystery there will be many things players never realize so it's very easy to make the mystery too hard unless you build in multiple paths (clues) to every "place" (conclusion, or scene) that the players need to reach.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">4.) "Hexcrawls" are like dungeon crawls on a much bigger scale. Instead of exploring a dungeon looking for monsters and treasure, you're exploring a wilderness looking for towns, dungeons, and other interesting places or events (some of which might be linear plots or dungeoncrawls or mysteries). In a dungeon you're usually careful to always describe the exits from each room so that players always know where to go next if they're not interested in the current room ("out the green door" or "through the tunnel to the south"); in a hexcrawl you describe the contents of the local "hex" (i.e. local terrain within a fixed distance such as 5 miles) and then players choose a direction to go (such as "towards the river" or "northwest").</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">5.) "Social" adventures focus more on personalities and interactions between them than on locations and physical problems. A social adventure has some resemblance to a mystery in how you might navigate between scenes--DM judgment is required to know how much to skip--but the goals are different. Instead of looking for clues, players might seek out conversation which elicits emotional reactions in themselves or other characters (such as confronting an adulterous parent to demand accountability, or pleading with a friend for forgiveness at your inability to get them out of jail).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">As before, social adventures need not be wholly separate from other kinds of adventures--perhaps one section of a hexcrawl might be a "home base" of sorts where social situations happen frequently, and even during a dungeon crawl there might be a hidden dwarf civilization on one level where social gameplay is the primary game mode.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Other gameplay modes are possible, such as running a spelljamming spaceship where hexcrawls through interplanetary space lead to dungeon crawls and linear plots whilst managing social issues among the PCs and NPCs who crew the ship. But these five basic types should get you started: dungeon crawls, linear plots, mysteries, hexcrawls, and social adventures.</div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-68652424344911224032022-12-07T03:46:00.000-08:002022-12-07T03:47:09.457-08:00Procedures for monster objectives<div dir="auto">Inspired by <a href="https://mindstorm.blot.im/o-a-r-combat-objectives">https://mindstorm.blot.im/o-a-r-combat-objectives</a> but different.<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Before combat or other conflict can occur, there must be goals. In order for dice rolling to be needed, there must be uncertainty as to whether those goals can be achieved, which is especially likely if those goals are in conflict.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Unlike mindstorm I focus less on the moment of goal achievement than on removal of uncertainty.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Thus: before a potential conflict, both sides secretly write down their objectives and give them to the referee. (If one side is run by the referee they still write down the objectives.) The referee puts the objects in one of three piles: can, cannot, maybe. If nothing is in the maybe pile then players may resolve the scene by reading all objectives and narrating an outcome which satisfies all "can" objectives and no "cannot" objectives, or they may give the objectives to the referee to do. Otherwise, "maybe" objectives must be resolved into "can" or "cannot" objectives through game procedures such as reaction checks or combat. Whenever the referee decides an objective has changed status they will immediately move the objective into the correct pile.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Example encounter:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Dungeon desecrators seek entrance to a royal pyramid via a secret tunnel full of sleeping giant mutant bats. The bats' secret objective is written by the adventure designer: wake up and kill anyone who isn't a bat.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Players write down their objective, and the party druid adds a separate objective, and then the GM looks at all three objectives: </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Bats: wake up and kill anyone who isn't a bat.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Desecrators: sneak through the area without being noticed by any bats</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Druid: take control of as many bats as possible to use as minions inside the pyramid.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">All three goals conflict to some extent so they all go in the maybe pile. The GM will use whatever procedures are built into the game they are playing (e.g. Stealth rolls in Dungeon Fantasy or D&D 5E; spellcasting or Control Animal rolls for the druid) to resolve uncertainty. If everyone rolls well then the GM will push the bat objective into "cannot" and the other objectives into "can" and then indicate to the players to read them all and narrate an outcome (or push the cards back to him if they prefer to remain 'in character'). If they roll poorly then combat likely begins and the desecrator objective moves to the "cannot" pile.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The written goals serve both as a motivator for the adventure writer or GM to explicitly provide motivations for monsters, and as an audit trail to help players learn more about the game world over the course of play. </div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-42691277012977836762022-10-05T11:46:00.001-07:002022-10-05T12:03:20.017-07:00F# probabilities: opposed 3d6 rolls<div dir="ltr">A handy little F# script for computing odds for Dungeon Fantasy/GURPS, such as the odds of a Slow Stone affecting a dragon:<br><br>let distribution3d6 =<br> [for x in 1..6 do<br> for y in 1..6 do<br> for z in 1..6 do<br> (x+y+z), (x,y,z)]<br>let probabilityOfSuccess attackerSkill defenderSkill =<br> let mutable n = 0<br> let mutable success = 0<br> for x,_ in distribution3d6 do<br> for y,_ in distribution3d6 do<br> n <- n + 1<br> let successMargin =<br> match attackerSkill - x with<br> | n when n >= 0 -> Some n<br> | _ -> None<br> match defenderSkill - y, successMargin with<br> | defenderMargin, Some attackerMargin when attackerMargin > defenderMargin -><br> success <- success + 1<br> | _ -> ()<br> {| attackerSkill = attackerSkill; defenderSkill = defenderSkill; n = n; success = success; successRatio = (float success/float n) |}<br>probabilityOfSuccess 15 15<br><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-8833505212934552322022-08-24T17:08:00.001-07:002022-08-24T17:08:58.387-07:00RPGs: difficulty and headroom<div dir="auto">This may interest you: <a href="http://nethack4.org/blog/strategy-headroom.html">http://nethack4.org/blog/strategy-headroom.html</a><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The article defines "headroom" as follows: if the choices a player can make in a particular situation have a wrong answer, that is a sign of low headroom, especially if a different situation would have a different right answer. <br><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Has some applicability to RPGs (stat roll = low headroom, point buy = high headroom) as well as general difficulty level (5E in general is very high headroom, but so is Master of Magic).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-90295947770375843332022-08-23T12:53:00.001-07:002022-08-23T12:53:36.842-07:00D&D skill checks: negotiation and adjudication<div dir="auto">One of 5E's issues is that the canonical loop goes:<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">1. DM describes situation</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2a. Player declares intention and approach</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2b. (Optional) DM rolls dice or asks player to do so</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">3. DM narrates outcome</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The problem is that because skills in 5E are partially overlapping, (2b) should really be a dialogue with feedback loops for player suggestions and not just a query for a number result. Example:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">1. DM, "As you're having tea with the Goblin King, you suddenly notice Rincewind behind him, stealthily descending the exterior castle wall. The Goblin King might turn around and see him at any moment."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2a. Lady Sarissa: "I turn up the charm to distract the Goblin King. Smiling broadly, flirting, laughing and touching his arm, trying to keep him looking at me and not behind him."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2b. DM: "Roll a Charisma (Deception) check, DC 15."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2c. Lady Sarissa: "I am proficient in Performance. I think that means I am skilled in holding an audience's attention. May I substitute Charisma (Performance)?"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2d. DM: "Actually that works even better. DC 12 in that case."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">2e. Lady Sarissa: [rolls] "11!"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">3. DM: "Laughing heartily at one of your jokes, the Goblin King accidentally knocks over a glass of water on the table between you. 'Excuse me,' he murmurs, and turns to call the steward to clean it up... which Rincewind right into his field of vision.'</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">4a. DM: "Rincewind, make an Wisdom (Stealth) check please to see if your ghillie suit camouflage is good enough."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">4b. Rincewind: "Can I do Dexterity (Stealth) instead?"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">4c. DM: "Not in this case because you're in plain sight. If your camouflage is good enough it's possible to be mistaken for a section of plants, and I'll waive the Dexterity (Stealth) check because all you have to do is hold still, but if your camouflage is faulty then you'll be obviously not a plant."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">4d. Rincewind: "I made the ghillie suit with Woodsman's Tools, and Sprocket helped me look for any flaws in it. Can I use his Wisdom with my Woodsman's Tools proficiency?"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">4e. DM: [thinks] "Sure."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">4f. Rincewind: [rolls] 19.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">5. DM: "Sarissa, the Goblin King waves the steward over. The steward wipes up the mess while the Goblin King continues enjoying your company. He doesn't seem to have noticed anything."</div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-29476405384082410082022-06-05T08:20:00.001-07:002022-06-05T08:20:16.215-07:00Dungeon checklist<div dir="auto"><div dir="auto">Y.A.,</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Check this out. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><a href="https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/01/dungeon-checklist.html">https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/01/dungeon-checklist.html</a><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">-B.C.</div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-81986237766403506912022-06-03T13:26:00.001-07:002022-06-03T13:26:51.735-07:00Thieves in AD&D: variant rule<div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Most of the criticisms of the Thief that I've read aren't conceptual, but mechanical: it's not that sneaking and finding traps aren't cool or worthwhile, it's that (O/A)D&D Thieves are *bad* at these things, especially at low level.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Intuition tells me that the root of the problem is using % dice for thief skills, in conjunction with low starting values for all the skills.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I wonder whether a dice pool mechanic might not be a better way to model expertise. Something like the following five Thief skills, each starting at one die (d6):</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Camouflage: exist/sneak without your presence being detected</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Forgery: create documents, uniforms, etc. that look like the real thing</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Hands: delicate manipulations such as pickpocketing, card magic, lockpicking, disarming fine traps</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Perceive: notice large traps, hear clues, oppose Camouflage</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Savvy: predict NPC actions, detect social manipulators, have already prepared for a given situation.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">(Maybe a Climb Walls skill somehow too, or is that just Hands?)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I'm imagining that you get one extra die per level to add to one of these skills, or maybe two at high level. Tools might give you additional dice or subtract dice if they're substandard.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Example usage:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Picking a crude lock jury-rigged out of iron by a goblin blacksmith requires Hands 1:5 (read: at least one 5-6 in your dice pool). A thief who chose to specialize in Hands (2 dice) and has decent tools (no penalty, no bonus) would roll two d6s. If either is 5+ (55% probability) he picks the lock, otherwise that lock is beyond him until the situation changes (such as gaining more Hands skill or consulting a mentor about goblin locks). At 2nd level, he could bump Hands to 3d6 (70% chance of success on the crude lock) or invest in a different skill.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">A lock in town might be harder, 2:5. A really impressive tamper-resistant lock might need higher rolls, such as 2:6 or even 3:6.A Hands 3:6 lock is impossible for a novice thief to pick, and tricky even for a master thief with Hands 10d6.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Similarly, forging a simple travel permit within the Hobgoblin Empire might be Forgery 1:5 (easy for anyone who's ever seen one) while access to a classified military location might require Forgery 3:6 documents.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">If the PCs get thrown in a jail during a heist, "I've already bribed this guard with money. He's supposed to drop a copy of the key on the floor" might require a Savvy 3:5 check, but if the DM decides that this guard isn't corrupt, and money won't work, he could say "roll Savvy 5:5 instead" and on success, tell the player, "You found that this guard isn't corrupt and won't take money, but he's desperate to find his missing daughter [adventure hook]. You promised to help with that if he helps you. He drops the key on the floor just as you had planned."</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I imagine that instead of various races getting +/- 5% to Hide In Shadows, etc., elves might get * or ** to Camouflage while halflings get * to Perceive, where each * means "you can add +1 to a die of your choice". Thus, Camouflage 2d6* might roll 4, 5, which you can use to satisfy Camouflage 1:6 (4, 6) or Camouflage 2:5 (5,5).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I think by boosting the low-level success rate and reorganizing the skills, Thieves would have a unique niche that isn't easily duplicated by a wizard with Knock and Invisibility. Having a Thief in the party would feel less like a tax begrudgingly paid (or ignored in favor of another priest to offset trap damage) and more like a role that brings an actual benefit to the party and is fun playing.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">At any rate, this is about what it would take to get *me* to want to play a Thief sometimes.</div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-4826281570669609802022-04-17T13:33:00.001-07:002022-04-17T13:33:39.242-07:00Easter Sunday<div dir="auto"><div dir="auto">Jesus is alive today, and because of him we will all one day live again after we die. I know that to be true both with my mind and by the witness of the Holy Ghost, and I know that you have the right to know it too, through study and prayer.<br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Happy Resurrection Day!</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">-Max</div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-56207254137199538022022-04-17T12:51:00.000-07:002022-04-17T12:52:17.996-07:00Greek values and the morality of infanticide<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail-kvgmc6g5 gmail-cxmmr5t8 gmail-oygrvhab gmail-hcukyx3x gmail-c1et5uql gmail-ii04i59q" style="margin:0px;white-space:pre-wrap;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(5,5,5);font-size:15px"><div dir="auto" style="font-family:inherit">From <a href="https://wng.org/opinions/protect-the-children-1650019354">https://wng.org/opinions/protect-the-children-1650019354</a> <i> ...The rise of Christianity created moral intuitions we now take for granted: Children are uniquely vulnerable, and we must physically protect them and work to preserve their innocence.</i></div></div><div class="gmail-cxmmr5t8 gmail-oygrvhab gmail-hcukyx3x gmail-c1et5uql gmail-o9v6fnle gmail-ii04i59q" style="margin:0.5em 0px 0px;white-space:pre-wrap;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(5,5,5);font-size:15px"><div dir="auto" style="font-family:inherit"><i>Don't take my word for it. The essential text here is When Children Became People: The Birth of Childhood in Early Christianity by the Norwegian theologian O.M. Bakke. Before Christ, Bakke observes, the ancient Greeks essentially created a societal hierarchy around their notions of "logos" or reason. Free male citizens were said to possess the most capacity for reason. Women and older men had less capacity, and children possessed even less rational capacity. Therefore, they were valued even less.</i></div></div><div class="gmail-cxmmr5t8 gmail-oygrvhab gmail-hcukyx3x gmail-c1et5uql gmail-o9v6fnle gmail-ii04i59q" style="margin:0.5em 0px 0px;white-space:pre-wrap;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(5,5,5);font-size:15px"><div dir="auto" style="font-family:inherit"><i>Indeed, unwanted children were frequently abandoned in the ancient world for trivial reasons, such as the desire to have a son instead of a daughter or in response to political or economic instability. The practice was known as expositio, where infants were simply left outside to die of thirst, exposure, or animal attacks...</i></div></div><div class="gmail-cxmmr5t8 gmail-oygrvhab gmail-hcukyx3x gmail-c1et5uql gmail-o9v6fnle gmail-ii04i59q" style="margin:0.5em 0px 0px;white-space:pre-wrap;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(5,5,5);font-size:15px"><div dir="auto" style="font-family:inherit"> Ohhhhh! Suddenly those old Greek myths about babies like Oedipus and Paris being abandoned to wild animals suddenly has a context: the Greeks' moral system didn't consider children to have moral value because babies aren't intellectually impressive! They were wrong of course but no wonder it was a part of their stories.</div></div><div class="gmail-cxmmr5t8 gmail-oygrvhab gmail-hcukyx3x gmail-c1et5uql gmail-o9v6fnle gmail-ii04i59q" style="margin:0.5em 0px 0px;white-space:pre-wrap;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Segoe UI",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(5,5,5);font-size:15px"><div dir="auto" style="font-family:inherit"> -Max </div></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-51267083325453554962022-04-06T12:54:00.001-07:002022-04-06T12:54:39.733-07:00George Lucas on happiness<div dir="ltr">I think this is a good definition of joy. "Joy is something you can recall." That matches scriptural usages of "joy".<br><br><i>I've discovered along the way that happiness--you live in two worlds here. Happiness is pleasure, and happiness is joy. You know, it can be either one. You add them up and it sort of falls under the uber category of happiness. Pleasure is short-lived. It lasts an hour, it lasts a minute, it lasts a month, and it peaks and then goes down--it peaks very high, but the next time you want to get that same peak you have to do it twice as much. You know, it's like drugs--you have to keep </i>doing because<i> it insulates itself. No matter what it is, whether it's shopping, whether you're engaged in any other kind of pleasure. It all has the same quality about it. On the other hand is joy, and joy is the thing that doesn't go as high as pleasure, in terms of your emotional reaction, but it stays with you. Joy is something you can recall. Pleasure you can't. So the secret is that even though it's not as intense as the pleasure, the joy will last you a lot longer, and people who get the pleasure, they keep saying, "Well, if I can just get richer and get more cars..." You'll NEVER relive the moment you got your first car. That's it. That's the highest peak. Yes, you can get three Ferraris and a new Gulfstream Jet, but you have to keep going, and eventually you run out. It doesn't work. So if you're trying to sustain that level of peak pleasure, you're doomed.</i><br><br><i>Pleasure's fun. It's great. But you can't keep it going forever. Just accept the fact that it's here and it's gone, and maybe again it'll come back, and you'll get to do it again.</i><br><br><i>Joy lasts forever. Pleasure is purely self-centered. It's all about YOUR pleasure. It's about you. It's a selfish, self-centered emotion that's created by a self-centered motive of greed. Joy is compassion. Joy is giving yourself to somebody else or something else, and it's a kind of thing that is in its subtlety and lowness much more powerful than pleasure. If you get hung up on pleasure, you're doomed. If you pursue joy, you will </i>find everlasting<i>... happiness.<br></i><br><i>-George Lucas</i><br><br>Source: <a href="https://youtu.be/sCP2SGTIz28?t=503">https://youtu.be/sCP2SGTIz28?t=503</a><br><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-14417439263020278282022-03-22T16:52:00.000-07:002022-03-22T16:53:07.119-07:00Joseph in Egypt<div dir="ltr"><div><i>*snip*</i></div><div><br></div>...Joseph is an interesting (and admirable) example to us all. I was just reflecting how interesting it is that Joseph's story is one of the only stories even in scripture where we are motivated to think of being given lots of work as a blessing. Not that we have a problem with work, I mean, but when the people of Alma are taken prisoners by Amulon and the armies of the Lamanites, we usually focus on the persecution and eventual deliverance. We don't typically say, "Alma and his people were so trustworthy that soon the Lamanites were having them do ALL the work!" And yet, with Joseph, that's essentially what we do. Joseph gets enslaved and he's so good at work that he eventually gets put in charge of all the work in Potiphar's household. He gets thrown in prison and soon he's the overseer of all the work in prison. He talks to Pharaoh and Pharaoh decides to make Joseph in charge of getting all the work done to keep the whole kingdom fed throughout the years of famine.<br><br>I do think it's a really healthy perspective to have, and one we should keep in mind often. It just struck me that this is one of the few places even in scripture where this perspective is readily visible. It dovetails well though with the Savior's teachings on "...and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."<br><br>-Max<br><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-63515560108547253702022-01-06T14:20:00.000-08:002022-01-06T14:21:18.709-08:00House Rules for 5E<div dir="ltr"><b style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><u>Why a house rule document?</u></b><br style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px">So that players can know what rule changes might affect them up front. Player-facing rules go in this document, which gets given out to new players so they know what rules in the PHB don't apply. </span><font size="1" style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif">There are some DM-facing rules which don't go in this doc, including changes to monsters and procedures for running mysteries and dungeon crawls, and of course ad hoc rulings for a unique situation which don't get written down anywhere although I will try to be consistent if the unique situation recurs.</font><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px"> This document exists so that players can make good decisions about things the characters would logically already know from experience.</span><br style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;padding:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><b><u>House rules for my campaign<br></u></b><br><b>Simple changes<br></b><br>1.) On ability checks only, an odd score gives an extra +1. So Str 19 means you have +4 to Strength-based attacks and saves, but +5 to Strength checks.<br><br>2.) You can use both your move and your action in a Readied action, and can maintain a readied action from round to round.<br><br>3.) Class tweaks:<br><br>For Champion:<br><br>Improved Critical: you crit on a 19-20. Furthermore, when you inflict a critical hit, roll damage once and then double the total damage (including any bonuses from Strength/magic weapons/etc.), instead of just rolling twice the normal number of dice.<br><br>Furthermore, Remarkable Athlete now stacks with proficiency. So a Str 18 Champion 9 with Athletics proficiency would have +4+4+2=+10 to Strength (Athletics) checks, not just +8.<br><br>For Arcane Archer:<br><br>You have three shots per short rest instead of two.<br><br>For Battlemaster:<br><br>You can temporarily regain expended superiority dice, up to your normal maximum, by studying enemies for weaknesses. For every Attack you forgo during the Attack action, you regain one expended superiority die, which is usable only against creatures you can see at the time you regain the die. This temporary die expires after one minute if it has not already been used, as do any temp HP gained from Rally with it.<br><br>For Berserker:<br><br>When you end a Frenzy rage, if you pass a DC 15 Con save you do not suffer any exhaustion.<br><br>4.) Everyone uses spell points instead of spell slots. A player can opt for DMG spell points or use the rules here: <a href="https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2016/12/spell-points-by-formula-5e-variant-rule.html">https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2016/12/spell-points-by-formula-5e-variant-rule.html</a>. Must decide when spellcasting is first learned; cannot change.<br><br>5.) An attacker unseen by his target has advantage only on melee attack rolls, not ranged attack rolls; however, he does qualify for sneak attack damage at range if unseen despite not having advantage.<br><br>6.) Anyone with any weapon can attack vital areas at -5 to-hit for +5 to damage. GWM and Sharpshooter feats merely increase the bonus when you are using those weapons.<br><br>7.) Casting a non-bonus-action/non-reaction spell triggers an opportunity attack from any enemies in melee range, unless you have the Warcaster feat. (This replaces the third benefit of Warcaster, about reaction spellcasting.) This attack occurs after the spell is cast but before it takes effect (e.g. can still hit someone Dimension Dooring away, can disrupt a concentrations spell and prevent it from taking effect). If the attacker is a Mage Slayer, they can force a concentration save to potentially disrupt even non-concentration spells.<br><br>8.) Casting a non-bonus-action/non-reaction spell while moving at more than half speed, riding a horse or on a moving ship forces a concentration save every round even if it's not a concentration spell (Fireball) or it fizzles. Fizzling does not cost spell points but does waste your action to no effect.<br><br>9.) There is no Disengage. Opportunity attacks occur when you move at full speed away from an enemy (turning your back), or whenever you are paralyzed/unconscious. You can back away at half speed without turning your back. Creatures like beholders and black puddings have no backs to turn and can move at full speed in any direction without provoking opportunity attacks.<br><br>Remark: Dashing while moving backwards replaces and is equivalent to Disengage. You move half speed ('15), but you do it twice because you Dashed, so you move 30' without provoking opportunity attacks--that's why Disengage does not exist, because it's redundant.<br><br>10.) Falling damage doubles for every size category over Medium, and halves for every size category under Small. For example, an Ogre falling 100' would take 20d6 HP of damage, not 10d6, because it is Large; and a Fire Giant falling the same distance would take 40d6 damage because it is Huge; but a housecat would take only 5d6 because it is Tiny, and a rat would take 2d6 because it is Tiny II.<br><br>11.) Abilities which recharge on "rolling initiative" instead recharge after five minutes. Specifically the following:<br><br>I. Relentless [Battlemaster 15th IIRC]: five minutes after you expend your last superiority die, you regain one die.<br>II. Perfect Self [Monk 20]: whenever you've had less than four ki for five minutes and haven't spent ki during that time, you regain enough ki to have four ki remaining.<br>III. Superior Inspiration [Bard 20]: five minutes after you expend your last use of Bardic Inspiration, you regain one use of Bardic Inspiration.<br><br>12.) While you are incapacitated/stunned/paralyzed/unconscious (but not grappled/restrained), your Dex is 0. Won't affect PCs in heavy armor, but that swashbuckling rogue is in deep trouble if he ever gets paralyzed by a monster or put to sleep, even briefly.<br><br>13.) You do not heal to full health automatically on a long rest. Hit Dice can normally only be gained or spent on a long rest, instead of a short rest, and on any given rest you can spend HD or regain half of your HD but not both. However, Bardic Song of Healing now also allows you to spend one HD during a short rest.<br><br>14.) You can go below zero HP. Instead of the normal rules on death saves and stabilization, you die whenever you reach negative (max HP). E.g. if you have 40 max HP normally, you die at -40 HP. When you are at zero HP or below, you are either stunned or unconscious. (If you choose to make a DC 15 Con save and succeed you can be stunned, but if you fail the save or choose not to try, you are unconscious from shock.) When you are below zero HP and are not already stable, you must make a death save at the start of every round. If you succeed, you are stable unless/until you take damage again. If you fail, you take 20% of your max HP in damage, rounded UP, not down. You can be stabilized by another character's actions as usual, through the use of a healer's kit or the Wisdom (Medicine) skill or a Spare the Dying cantrip, and any amount of healing also stabilizes you, even 1 HP.<br><br>Example: if you have 40 HP normally, and you get hit twice by an Iron Golem for a total of 50 HP of damage, you're now at -10 HP (and likely unconscious, unless you made the DC 15 Con save). Since you're at -10 HP, not zero HP, you can't be restored to full activity by a simple 1 HP Word of Healing as you would under PHB rules--it takes 11 HP of healing to get you conscious again. At the start of every round, you make a death save (as usual, it is DC 10 and no attribute modifiers apply). If you succeed you stabilize at your current HP, otherwise you lose another 8 HP and must save again next round. If you ever reach -40 HP you die.<br><br>Remark: In some ways losing 20% of your HP is more generous than the default rules because it only takes one roll to stabilize, and someone who is just barely at negative HP may take five failures before they die. A wound which takes you down to -1 HP is extremely unlikely to kill you. In other ways though, it is less generous because stabilizing doesn't wipe out past failures--that requires actual healing. Furthermore, if you're deep in the negatives, a single failure will kill you, possibly before anyone else can intervene.<br><br>15.) Parry: This is a special type of attack which attacks attacks. When you Attack on your turn, you may choose to dedicate one or more of those attacks to Parrying. If an enemy attacks you with a melee weapon before your next turn, you may roll a melee weapon attack and replace your AC with your attack roll against that attack. You can do this a number of times equal to the number of attacks you dedicated to Parrying.<br><br>Example: Robilar the Mighty, an 11th level fighter, has been attacked in his bed by two assassins. Unarmed and unarmored, he snatches up a nearby log to use as an improvised club, and dedicates two of his three attacks to parrying. Robilar inflicts some damage on an assassin with his remaining attack, but then the assassins strike back. On the first assassin's attack, Robilar parries, and rolls d20+8 on his melee attack (for Strength 18 and proficiency bonus +4), getting a total of 23, which he uses instead of his normal unarmored AC of 10. The assassin rolls d20+6, gets a 15, and fails to hit AC 23! Then the second assassin strikes, and Robilar rolls d20+8 and gets a 14. The assassin rolls d20+6 and gets 17, so Robilar is hit! The assassin rolls 5d6+4 poison damage and inflicts 27 HP of damage on Robilar--Robilar is in trouble if he doesn't finish them off soon!<br><br>16.) To avoid breaking the game, Simulacrum works more like AD&D Simulacrum than PHB Simulacrum. Instead of an almost-perfect copy of the original, Simulacrum produces a dull, listless imitation of the original. If the original creature has any class levels or special abilities, the copy has only 50% of those class levels or abilities, rounded up (the player can select which ones, e.g. if you copy a dual-classed Fighter 5/Wizard 6, you can pick which feats to keep and if you want a Fighter 5/Wizard 1 or a Wizard 6).<br><br>In exchange for this nerf, Simulacrum is now not restricted to humanoids, and it may regain spell slots as normal by resting, but it never increases in power (never gains levels).<br><br><br><b>Complex changes<br></b><br>1.) Open-ended d20 rolls. Since skill checks and saves, unlike attack rolls, don't auto-succeed on a 20 or auto-fail on a 1, but I always want there to be some chance of failure*, on a 20 you re-roll at +10 and take the highest roll. Roll again at +20 if you roll another 20, etc. If you roll a 1, re-roll at -10 and take the lowest. If it's obvious that you've already failed or succeeded you can of course stop rolling already.<br><br><font size="1">*Unless you have Reliable Talent.</font><br><br>2.) Concurrent multiclassing is an option. With concurrent multiclassing, you can advance in two classes or three at the same time, e.g. you could be a 10th level Battlemaster/Necromancer with the abilities of both a 10th level Battlemaster and a 10th level Necromancer. See <a href="https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2017/01/5e-old-school-multiclassing-rules_29.html">https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2017/01/5e-old-school-multiclassing-rules_29.html</a> for more details.<br><br>3.) XP awards. All characters get a share of XP proportional to their share of the total levels or CR (rounded up to 1) on their side of a combat. For example, in a party of three 9th level PCs and one 5th level PC (total of 32 levels), if they earn 2000 XP from defeating twenty orcs, the 9th level PCs will all earn 9/32 * 2000 = 562.5 XP, while the 5th level PC earns 5/32 * 2000 = 312.5 XP. But if one of the PCs casts Animate Objects and temporarily animates 10 Tiny Objects during the fight, then there are 42 total levels/CR, so the 9thl level PCs earn only 9/42 * 2000 = 428.6 XP, while the 5th level PC earns 238.1 XP.<br><br>Purpose: this rule does not exist to punish you, it exists to keep the game interesting, so that you have a good excuse NOT to make the game too easy by flooding every fight with animated dead, purchased mastiffs, and summoned creatures unless you genuinely need them to survive and beat a tough enemy.<br><br>4.) Different initiative variant, WE-GO instead of IGO-UGO, and is designed to enhance player engagement and teamwork by reducing the amount of time players spend waiting for their turn to interact with the DM, while also making more intelligent characters and monsters seem more intelligent.<br><br>Procedure: DM secretly decides all monster actions while players consult each other and declare everyone's actions for the round together. Then actions are resolved in an order determined by the DM's best judgment of realism and convenience (e.g. arrows are faster than human feet so an arrow attack may happen before a move-and-melee-attack; but the DM might also resolve them both at the same time if the order isn't likely to change any outcomes), with initiative contests when the DM calls for one to decide potential ties.<br><br>Once you've declared an action or movement usage for this round you are committed and can't change it except how you initially specified (e.g. you can declare "I'm charging the goblins (moving towards them and Dashing if necessary) and attacking whoever gets within range if I didn't need to Dash"), but you can delay action declaration (or explicitly declare Delay). At any time before the round ends, you can declare an action or movement usage that you haven't used yet (e.g. "I'm standing up" after someone knocks you down, if you have enough movement left, or "I take cover") but then you automatically lose any initiative contests the DM calls for against those who declared actions before you. When the round ends, the DM will pause briefly for additional declarations, and if none are made (e.g. if a Mexican standoff occurs), any unused actions or movements are lost and a new round begins.<br><br>During initial action declaration for the round, faster thinking (a tighter OODA loop) is represented by letting highly intelligent creatures gain extra knowledge about other's actions before acting. A character (or monster) who wishes to observe other creatures before declaring an action may take a penalty of N on any initiative contests this round. If so, that character or monster may learn the action declarations of any characters or monsters with intelligence less than or equal to [character's own Int] - 10 + N, before declaring their own action. Example: if Erac the Mage (Int 17) does Observe 4, Erac's player may ask the DM what any monster with Int 11 or less is doing (which could be Delaying) before Erac has to declare his own action. If Erac chooses to Fireball because a group of goblins is preparing to scatter in all directions, and if the DM decides that an initiative contest is needed to see if the goblins scatter before the Fireball detonates, Erac will have -4 on that initiative contest because he paused to study the goblins before acting.<br><br>True surprise is rare and occurs only when an unwary target has effectively declared a non-combat action such as "read a book" at the same time a hidden attacker is preparing to attack them. If a target is wary (e.g. an adventurer in a dangerous dungeon) but unaware of a specific threat (the goblin aiming a crossbow at his back), at the start of combat the attacker will declare an action, and the target will be treated as having implicitly Delayed and will get to declare an action after the attacker's action is resolved.<br><br>Ask DM for details (or consult brief writeup at <a href="https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2017/01/simultaneous-initiative-in-5e.html">https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2017/01/simultaneous-initiative-in-5e.html</a>).<br><br>5.) Magic Resistance and Legendary Resistance works differently--requires a reaction and can dispel a spell it's affected by, regardless of whether or not it has a save. Details here: <a href="https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2016/03/5e-magic-resistance-variant-rule.html">https://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2016/03/5e-magic-resistance-variant-rule.html</a> Fundamentally, instead of advantage on saves, it's now like Dispel Magic as a reaction whenever a spell would directly or indirectly affect the monster.<br><br>If a creature attempts to use its magic resistance against a given spell and fails, that represents being unable to resist this casting of that spell unless its magic resistance improves--any retries will result in failure. E.g. if you've got a demon bound with Planar Binding, the demon gets only one chance to resist that Planar Binding. (But a crafty demon may not test the Planar Binding right away so be on your guard.)<br><br>If magic resistance fails due to temporary circumstances like Hex or Cutting Words, that represents a temporary failure which can be overcome if the creature retries without the hindance. In this rare circumstance, the DM may record the original d20 roll prior to the temporary modifiers, and re-use it on the subsequent attempts. (Or the DM may choose another equivalent method with the same probability curve.) Ditto for temporary improvements: a demon which rolls a 7 (failure) on its MR check against Planar Binding, but then receives Enhance Ability (Charisma) and tests the spell again, would roll one new die, compare it to the previous 7, and take the higher result.</div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-84259729746924049322021-10-21T11:03:00.000-07:002021-10-21T11:04:09.319-07:00Minimal APIs for .NET<div dir="ltr">For future reference: <a href="https://gist.github.com/davidfowl/ff1addd02d239d2d26f4648a06158727">https://gist.github.com/davidfowl/ff1addd02d239d2d26f4648a06158727</a><br><br>Looks like simple application building will be much easier in .NET 6.0.<br><br>-Max<br><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-63720469369057923002021-10-20T09:03:00.000-07:002021-10-20T09:09:06.082-07:00Epistemology of Dreams<div dir="ltr">I believe I've just made a significant discovery about dreams.<br><br>I had a dream last night with many interesting features, besides the fact that it was in first person and involved a trip back to the Philippines and meeting a bunch of orphaned children and <i>delagas</i>. One interesting feature was that it explicitly featured in-dream <i>deja vu</i>, to the point where I not only asked the girl if we'd had this conversation before but speculated out loud about whether it was just <i>deja vu</i>. (From a waking perspective, it clearly was indeed <i>deja vu</i>.) Even more interesting, though, is my attempts to explain to some of the kids that I do in fact speak Cebuano as well as English, because they tell me something about how well my mind functions while asleep.<br><br>Specifically, in the dream, I knew that "kahibalo ka og Cebuano" wasn't quite right, that kahibalo meant "knowledge" but that that was kind of an Ilonggo way to say things. So I tried again, inside my head (another interesting feature of this dream is that it featured an inner monologue, separate from the dreamworld "plot"--I find this even rarer for me than first-person dreaming). I'm about 80% sure that what I came up with involved the word "pungutana" for "speak," something like "makahibalo ko pungutana og Cebuano."<br><br>That's interesting because my waking mind immediately recognizes that pungutana means "question" and not "knowledge" or "speak", which means that not only did my dream involve my dream-self creating a memory <i>retrieval</i> task for my brain, but that when my brain got it wrong, my dream-self failed to reject the failure and instead incorporated it into the dream as if it were accurate.<br><br>I think viewing dreams as a state of non-rejection and radical openness/gullibility explains a lot about dreams, or at least my dreams.<br><br>Incidentally, it did take my waking self more than a few seconds to remember that "makasulti ko'g Cebuano" is the Cebuano way to say it, and "kabolo ko Cebuano" is the Ilonggo way to say it. They use different verbs and different grammatical shortcuts.<br><br>-Max<br><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3900032348107494867.post-12215308929236686142021-10-01T11:38:00.000-07:002021-10-01T11:40:07.743-07:00RE: "Maricopa County audit flags 57k+ ballot issues in a state Biden won by fewer than 11k votes"<div dir="ltr">RE: <a href="https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/09/read-maricopa-county-audit-flags-57k-ballot-issues-in-a-state-biden-won-by-fewer-than-11k-votes">https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/09/read-maricopa-county-audit-flags-57k-ballot-issues-in-a-state-biden-won-by-fewer-than-11k-votes</a><br><br><b>Maricopa County audit flags 57k+ ballot issues in a state Biden won by fewer than 11k votes<br></b><i><br></i><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><i>It's unclear why most media reports have been declaring, contrary to evidence, that the audit somehow confirmed that Biden won the Arizona race fair and square. (You can read the audit at the link below and draw your own conclusions.) Though a hand recount of ballots was fairly close to the original count, that did not address the anomalies found, nor did it rule out invalid votes and fraud.</i></blockquote><i><br></i><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><i>In addition to the problems flagged, auditors said it was impossible to conduct a complete audit because county officials failed to cooperate on some important matters. And some evidence was reportedly removed or destroyed prior to a subpoena.</i></blockquote><i><br></i><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><i>Among significant problems uncovered were tens of thousands of people who voted from a prior address, which would technically invalidate the votes if one were to enforce election law. Likewise with 10,342 voters who potentially voted in more than one county.</i></blockquote><i><br></i><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><i>In one particularly difficult-to-square anomaly, more than 9,000 more ballots were returned by voter than were sent out. In more than 3,000 instances, the official results do "not match who voted."</i></blockquote><br>Remember all those stories around election time of people in Maricopa county who showed up to vote and were told they had already voted absentee (i.e. someone stole their vote)? I'm not sure but I think this might be an official statistic on roughly how many times that happened.<br><br>Obviously in a democracy we can't permit this to happen again, going forward. It undermines trust in the election result, which is bad for both the winner of the election and for the country. IWe need better security for mail-in votes, or we need to eliminate mail-in voting.<br><br>This is not a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans should both be backing election security.<br><br>-Max<br><br> --<br><br>I could not love thee dear, so much,<br>Loved I not honor more.</div> B.C.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04048881524085910509noreply@blogger.com0