Spell points by formula: 5E variant rule

[snip]

I have been using the DMG spell point system since the DMG first came out. I understand your issues with not liking tables, and frankly I don't see a big reason why you couldn't just interpolate a simple formula and use that instead. It's already a fairly linear progression. One formula that comes fairly close is: spell points = 4 * LEVEL ^ (1 + LEVEL/100), rounded to the nearest integer. At level 1 this gives you 4 spell points; at level 5 you have 22 spell points; at level 11 you have 57 spell points; and by level 20 you have 146. Those numbers are all reasonably close to the DMG numbers (4, 27, 73, 133) although somewhat underpowered at low levels--they don't quite catch up to the DMG numbers until level 16, except for an anomaly at level 2 and a smaller anomaly at level 4. But they do remain within 2 levels of DMG numbers at all times.

Spell points by level:

Level 1 (DMG) 4 (formula) 4

Level 2 (DMG) 6 (formula) 8

Level 3 (DMG) 14 (formula) 12

Level 4 (DMG) 17 (formula) 17

Level 5 (DMG) 27 (formula) 22

Level 6 (DMG) 32 (formula) 27

Level 7 (DMG) 38 (formula) 32

Level 8 (DMG) 44 (formula) 38

Level 9 (DMG) 57 (formula) 44

Level 10 (DMG) 64 (formula) 50

Level 11 (DMG) 73 (formula) 58

Level 12 (DMG) 73 (formula) 65

Level 13 (DMG) 83 (formula) 73

Level 14 (DMG) 83 (formula) 81

Level 15 (DMG) 94 (formula) 91

Level 16 (DMG) 94 (formula) 100

Level 17 (DMG) 107 (formula) 110

Level 18 (DMG) 114 (formula) 121

Level 19 (DMG) 123 (formula) 133

Level 20 (DMG) 133 (formula) 146

Furthermore, I doubt the missing spell points would be all that sorely missed, since spell points systems give greater flexibility and there is less pressure to conserve some of every type of slot. A regular PHB 9th level wizard with only a 3rd level slot and two 1st level slot remaining would be quite nervous; but a spell point wizard with 9 spell points left is likely is be relatively cool and collected because he can still utilize any of his memorized spells and still have power a 1st level spell like Shield or Expeditious Retreat for emergencies. If you gave me a choice between running a spell point wizard under this formula or a PHB spell slot wizard, I'd take spell points every time.

My opinions on the 6th+ level slot issue are mostly theorycraft, because I've only played characters at those level in one-shots. IMO the biggest impact of that rule is that it makes multiclassing more attractive; since you can't get multiple 6th+ slots per day anyway, and you already have plenty of spell points, you might as well consider investing two levels in Rogue or Fighter or Warlock or something somewhere along the line instead of sticking with pure spellcaster classes.

Aesthetically I don't like the 6th+ limitation because it prevents it from being a real spell point system; it's actually a hybrid spell slot/spell point system because you still have to keep track of slots 6, 7, 8, and 9. But I don't have an elegant solution either, because 5E does clearly intend to keep a lid on level 6+ spells in a way that it doesn't for spell levels 1-5. (E.g. Arcane Recovery doesn't work with them, Sorcerers can't create them from sorcery points, etc.) If you held a knife to my throat and made me come up with a solution now I would simply increase the cost exponentially after level 5 and drop the 1/day restriction: spells over level 7 cost (14 * 1.4^(LEVEL - 5)) spell points, rounded to the nearest number.

Level 6: 20 spell points

Level 7: 27 spell points

Level 8: 38 spell points

Level 9: 54 spell points

Only the mightiest wizards could ever dream of casting multiple high-level spells in a day, and doing so would drain them utterly. That seems like it would maintain the flavor of 6th+ level spells in 5E: they're rare and significant.

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Optimization and Performance

Some good thoughts here: http://joeduffyblog.com/2010/09/06/the-premature-optimization-is-evil-myth/

I am personally used to writing code where 100 CPU cycles matters. So invoking a function that acquires a lock by way of a shared-memory interlocked instruction that may take 100 cycles is something I am apt to think hard about; even more worrisome is if that acquisition could block waiting for 100,000 cycles. Indeed this situation could become disastrous under load. As you can tell, I write a lot of systems code. If you're working on a network-intensive application, on the other hand, most of the code you write is going to be impervious to 100 cycle blips, and more sensitive to efficient network utilization, scalability, and end-to-end performance. And if you're writing a little one-time script, or some testing or debugging program, you may get away with ignoring performance altogether, even multi-million cycle network round-trips.

To be successful at this, you'll need to know what things cost. If you don't know what things cost, you're just flailing in the dark, hoping to get lucky. This includes rule of thumb order of magnitudes for primitive operations – e.g. reading / writing a register (nanoseconds, single-digit cycles), a cache hit (nanoseconds, tens of cycles), a cache miss to main memory (nanoseconds, hundreds of cycles), a disk access including page faults (micro- or milliseconds, millions of cycles), and a network roundtrip (milliseconds or seconds, many millions of cycles) – in addition to peering beneath opaque abstractions provided by other programmers, to understand their best, average, and worst case performance.

Clearly the concerns and situations you must work to avoid change quite substantially depending on the class of code you are writing, and whether the main function of your program is delivering a user experience (where usability reigns supreme), delivering server-side throughput, etc. Thinking this through is crucial, because it helps avoid true "premature optimization" traps where a programmer ends up writing complicated and convoluted code to save 10 cycles, when he or she really needs to be thinking about architecting the interaction with the network more thoughtfully to asynchronously overlap round-trips. Understanding how performance impacts the main function of your program drives all else.


--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Clemency abuse

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/bloodiest-medieval-war-fought-bucket.html

Here's one way to abuse clemency. 'To make his edict stick, the pope offered indulgences to anyone who successfully attacked Bonacolsi and/or his property. Indulgences were a guarantee that sins were either forgiven or lightened to the extent that one didn't have to burn in hell. Not even for the sin of murder.'

Tom Kratman, no dummy he, has previously observed in one of his SF novels (Caliphate, IIRC) that an (evil, psychotic, awful) President could use the Presidential pardoning power in just such a way. Spoiler alert: that Presidency doesn't turn out well for the U.S., but it turns out even worse for Iran.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Kipling

I love Kipling.

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm

As I pass through my incarnations

In every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations

To the Gods of the Market Place.

Peering through reverent fingers

I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings,

I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us.

They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us,

As Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift,

Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas

While we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed.

They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne

Like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress,

And presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield,

Or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on

They were utterly out of touch,

They denied that the Moon was Stilton;

They denied she was even Dutch;

They denied that Wishes were Horses;

They denied that a Pig had Wings;

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market

Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming,

They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons,

That the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us

And delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:

"Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones

We were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour

And ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children

And the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:

"The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch

We were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter

To pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money,

There was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said:

"If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled,

And their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled

And began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters,

And Two and Two make Four

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings

Limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future,

It was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain

Since Social Progress began.

That the Dog returns to his Vomit

And the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger

Goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished,

And the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing

And no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us,

As surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

With terror and slaughter return!

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

5E slings

Good house rules for slings here: http://ludusludorum.com/2016/05/12/a-defense-of-the-humble-sling/

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

CO2 Into Ethanol

Argh. I'm not educated enough to know what the implications are for this process with "high Faradaic efficiency (63 % at −1.2 V vs RHE) and high selectivity (84 %) that operates in water and at ambient temperature and pressure".

On the one hand, I remember how thermal depolymerization (turkey guts into oil) didn't pan out. On the other hand, I remember that one reason WHY it didn't pan out was that it turned out to be more expensive than anticipated to get the turkey guts--they had hoped to get them for free, but it turns out that normally turkey guts are sold for animal feed, and when the oil-makers had to pay for it, that cut into their profit margins. Plus, they had some early problems with odor that gave them PR issues. Neither of these would be expected to be an issue with ethanol-from-CO2, although I imagine that producing sufficient concentrations of CO2 to make the process work could be an engineering challenge. Also, "ambient temperature and pressure" seems like a big deal to me and very good news.

Overall I'm cautiously optimistic. Using nuclear power to turn CO2 into ethanol seems like a win-win-win scenario--although you'd obviously have to compare it to the competing scenario of using nuclear power to turn water into hydrogen for fuel cells, since both scenarios are really just ways of distributing energy. But I assume the PR for CO2-into-ethanol would be much better, which could make things politically easier.

I don't think this is a silver bullet. I doubt that more than 20% of the world's auto fuel will be produced via this method even twenty years from now--I expect we'll still be pumping most of our fuel out of the ground. But it will be great if this is a mature technology at that point which is proven to work reliably and economically.

Pop-sci article: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/convert-co2-into-ethanol/ 

Link to actual paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/slct.201601169/full

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Sentiment

I like it when girls don't do the "boyfriend" thing and boys don't do the "girlfriend" thing. I appreciate people who have the foresight and moral courage to do "do, or not not" as Yoda would say; "there is no try." As near as I can tell, you don't lose out on anything important by just doing things the same way that Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe did, to name one example*: be friends, get to know each other, be frank about your (hopefully-mutual) admiration, and make commitments when you're ready to actually commit. But there's no reason to make a temporary semi-commitment ("boyfriend") right there in the middle.

Whenever I find out that someone else thinks that way too, it cheers me up inside. Maybe I'm crazy, but at least I'm not crazy AND alone.

* Other examples: Garion and Ce'Nedra, Peter Joshua (Brian Crookshanks) and Regina Lampert, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, Apodictic Blue and Yellow Amusement.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Insight

I realized today why it is that I'm so allergic to exercising leadership and telling people to follow my lead. I mean, I can step up and get things done when no one else is doing it, but it makes me uncomfortable and today I realized why:

It's because fundamentally, I'm a teacher at heart, not a leader. If I'm telling you what to do, then that means I'm depriving you of the chance to learn how to lead yourself, and I'm failing as a teacher. Instead of saying, "Go that way and do this," I want to say, "Well, here are some of your options and the likely consequences of each. Which one are you going to choose?"

My goal is never to collect minions. I am only comfortable wanting to bring people up to my level; I want to make them my peers.

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

5E Sorcerer Archetype: Instinctual

Instinctual Sorcerer

You are an instinctive magic-user. Magical effects "just work" for you, as easily as your muscles work to move your body around. You may not even be aware what's happening--perhaps you found a lucky feather which, you think, turns you invisible when you wear it, until one day you lose the feather and realize the power was within you all along. Or perhaps you are like Spider Man or the X-Men, shooting energy blasts from your hands like a mutant power. Whatever it is, your magic is deeply a part of you in a way that most people could never understand.

[Instinctive Casting] Starting at first level, you have no need for verbal, somatic, or material components when casting your sorcerer spells.

[Made of Magic] Starting at sixth level, you can use your physical reserves to fuel your magic. When you are in your own body and form, you can convert HP to sorcery points as a bonus action on a 1:1 basis. Your HP maximum is reduced by the same amount. Once reduced, your HP maximum cannot be restored by any means except rest. You regain points equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum of +1) each time you complete a long rest.

[Magic Eater] Starting at fourteenth level, you can absorb hostile magic and turn it to your own ends. When a spell is cast that targets only you, you can use your reaction to absorb the spell, nullifying its effects and giving you as many sorcery points as the spell's level. If this would take you above your sorcery point maximum, lose the extra points and suffer the effects of a Feeblemind spell, DC 10 + (level of the absorbed spell).

[Magical Virtuoso] Starting at eighteenth level, your magical coordination improves. Like a musician playing two different instruments at once, once per short rest you can cast a sorcerer spell that requires concentration without losing concentration on another sorcerer spell that you are already concentrating on. If you lose concentration following that point, both spells end.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Dazzlingly clever or angelically good?

An attractive personality is better than a pretty face. And a beautiful character is better than an attractive personality.

I dig girls who are courageous, kind, generous, honorable, and valiant. If they are clever and funny too, that's strictly a bonus.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Serpents and symbols

This article about serpents (messengers of the gods, some false, some true) may interest you. I thought I originally read about it in the Ensign but right now I can only find a BYU publication by Andrew Skinner on the topic.

If serpents can represent either a true Messiah or a false Messiah, that also lends an additional pleasing symbolic message to the way Moses' stick-cum-serpent ate the magicians' sticks-cum-serpents.

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Evolution

I'm very interested in evolution and abiogenesis. I believe that it happened. I don't see a lot of evidence that humans understand HOW.

Anyway, Fred is often interesting and sometimes cogent. Here's Fred with an interesting observation on standards of evidence:

'Early on, I noticed three things about evolution that differentiated it from other sciences (or, I could almost say, from science). First, plausibility was accepted as being equivalent to evidence. And of course the less you know, the greater the number of things that are plausible, because there are fewer facts to get in the way. Again and again evolutionists assumed that suggesting how something might have happened was equivalent to establishing how it had happened. Asking them for evidence usually aroused annoyance and sometimes, if persisted in, hostility.

'As an example, consider the view that life arose by chemical misadventure. By this they mean, I think, that they cannot imagine how else it might have come about. (Neither can I. Does one accept a poor explanation because unable to think of a good one?) This accidental-life theory, being somewhat plausible, is therefore accepted without the usual standards of science, such as reproducibility or rigorous demonstration of mathematical feasibility. Putting it otherwise, evolutionists are too attached to their ideas to be able to question them.'

http://www.unz.com/freed/darwin-unhinged-the-bugs-in-evolution/

They say you can't get a PhD unless you have a burning question that you want to answer. Well, here's mine: WHAT MAKES IT WORK?!? How do you pose a machine-learning (parallel hill-climbing) question such that "complex multicellular ecologies" is the answer, as opposed to say "networks of self-replicating simple crystals"? Someday when I retire, I'll make that my PhD question and pursue a doctorate.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Partnership

Dear Y.A.,

This is a good husband. Remind me of this story some day.

Just this winter, I woke up one morning after a week-long battle with a particularly harsh bout of depression. I didn't want to get up. I looked out the window and noted that it had snowed: this was even worse. We were supposed to get up and go to church that day. The thought of even trying, of making what seemed like the Herculean effort to get out of bed, get everyone ready, be there, be pleasant, be social, just be at all, nearly crushed me. I told my husband, "I can't do it. I just can't today. Not today." My husband, who is kind and gentle and wise, and who I know just wanted to scoop me up and tell me that it was okay and to stay home, instead sagely said, "I know you don't want to go, and I know it is hard. But you can choose to go. And choosing to go is the right choice. Because if you choose not to go this one time, it will make it so much easier to choose not to go next time." And he was right. I was mad at him: I wanted him to give me an excuse to stay home, to wallow, to curl into myself in my bed and just not have to do this whole life thing for one day. But, he loves me enough to keep encouraging me to choose the light, even when it looks so dark.

And you, J.--thanks for being a good friend.

~B.C.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Francis Scott Key (biographical details)

There's been some talk lately of the Star Spangled Banner and its author. This article, for instance, says that 'Key himself owned slaves, was an anti-abolitionist and once called his African brethren "a distinct and inferior race of people"' before going on to repeat claims that when Key wrote the third verse of the Star Spangled Banner ("No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave"), Francis Scott Key "was in fact taking pleasure in the deaths of freed black slaves who had decided to fight with the British against the United States."

I clicked on one of the links in the article, the one for "a distinct and inferior" race of people, and learned some interesting things. He wasn't all good, but he wasn't all bad either. Unsurprisingly, he was a man of the times he lived in, and it sounds like he was a pretty good one in many ways. Not in all ways, certainly, but a better man than you'd think if all you knew about him was that he was an "anti-abolitionist" who had owned slaves. Anyway, here's an excerpt from the link, Snow-Storm in August by Jefferson Morley:

Key prided himself as a humanitarian and as a young lawyer relished defending individual colored people in court. Some even called him "the Blacks' lawyer." At the same time, Key shared a general view of the free people of color as shiftless and untrustworthy: a nuisance, if not a menace, to white people. He spoke publicly of Africans in America as "a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community." He nurtured a vision, expressed in deed (though not song), in which African colonization would solve the problem of the free blacks by helping them emigrate to Liberia. Key had worked ceaselessly and ineffectively on behalf of this dream for more than twenty years. He was, as one biographer admitted, a distressingly serious man.

Humanitarian ambition drove him. In his younger days, Key often left Polly and their growing brood to travel throughout the mid-Atlantic promoting the establishment of what were known as Lancaster schools, institutions of learning open to all white children, which evolved into the region's first public schools. He attended the annual General Convention of the Episcopal Church, where he denounced popular amusements like gambling. While some of his coreligionists chafed at his harsh pronouncements, none doubted his piety. Said his friend John Randolph, the brilliant and eccentric Virginia Senator, "His whole life is spent in endeavors that do good for his unhappy fellow-men." Randolph, an iconoclastic bachelor fond of opium and poetry, admired Key's benevolence but did not entirely trust it.

In his relations with enslaved people, Key was decent by the standards of the day. He had grown up on his family's plantation in the hills of northern Maryland surrounded by slaves and an ethic of service. His mother read the Bible to the blacks in residence. Family lore held that his grandmother had been blinded by smoke while rescuing a black family from a fire. Key abhorred the mistreatment of bondsmen and the sundering of families by slave dealers. A prim man, he was incapable of brutality. Condescension came more easily. During his lifetime, Key freed seven of his slaves. He said that all but one of them--whom he did not identify--had thrived in freedom. But in general, Key expressed disappointment at the results of his efforts on behalf of colored people. "I have been thus instrumental in liberating several large families and many individuals," he told a contemporary. "I cannot remember more than two instances, out of this large number, in which it did not appear that the freedom so earnestly sought for them was their ruin." Key concluded Negroes could not handle the responsibilities of liberty in America. When they moved back to Africa, the United States would then be free of slaves (and former slaves) and could thus fulfill its destiny as a "land of the free" for white people. 

~Maximilian

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Freedom of Agency

"For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward." D&C 58:28

"And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet." D&C 29:39

"And it is given unto them to know good from evil; wherefore they are agents unto themselves, and I have given unto you another law and commandment." Moses 6:56

"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves." D&C 104:17

The scriptures say that we are agents unto ourselves, with the freedom to choose good or evil. The most grammatically and doctrinally accurate term to describe the privilege that we have is not "free agency" (ungrammatical and misleading to some people) nor "moral agency" (doctrinally incomplete, omits to mention what kind of moral agency we have) but rather "freedom of agency."

We are *free* agents. We have the privilege of choosing with whom to align ourselves, whether God, man, or the devil. And if we choose God, our Father, and follow in the footsteps of His Son and strive to keep all of his commandments out of love for Him, we shall inherit His kingdom and one day become like Him, through the Atonement of Christ. And anyone who does not admire God or love His law can choose to do something else, and He will regretfully allow it.

That is what freedom of agency is about.

~B.C.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Book of Mormon hypothetical

If you were trying to pass the Book of Mormon off as a work of fiction by a 19th-century American fantasist, I would look at it and say, "Nice try. But your attempts to mimic contemporary 19th-century racial attitudes are too superfical and ham-handed to be believable. Sure, you have a superficial references to 'skin of blackness' as a curse, but then you slipped up--there is no discernible stigma against miscegenation with these supposedly 'loathsome' people. Amalickiah, Lamoni, and Amulon and all his followers all contemplate miscegenation with no qualms, and the purported narrator Mormon says not a word disparaging it. Your characters' racism is too shallow to be believably antebellum."

Also I would add, "Your attitudes toward monarchy are way too positive too. Your characters may object, but it's on purely pragmatic grounds, while speaking positively of the theoretical virtues of a good king. This is anachronistic for a book which was purportedly written in 1830, in New England no less, with memories of British misrule still vivid."

"It's an obvious fraud," I would say.

~Max Wilson, August 12, 2012


--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

A Chorus Line: The Sequel

A Chorus Line: The Sequel. Only it's so real.

Michael Blevins (who plays Mark): "I got to do a McDLT commercial and assistant choreographed 'How to Be a Man' (a kid TV show starring Capt. Kangaroo and Melba Moore). I'm being considered for a Broadway show, but in this business you can't really get excited about anything until it's signed on paper."

Yamil Borges (Morales): "It's very ironic. Here I am with my first major motion picture and I haven't worked since April."

Jan Gan Boyd (Connie): "After the film, I took more acting lessons and starred with Robert Ito and Paul Winfield in an hourlong after-school drama called 'War Between the Classes.' I'm up for three films but . . . you never know."

Cameron English (Paul): "I'm waiting for some meaningful part to come along. Meanwhile, my friend and I are developing a line of hand-painted greeting cards."

Tony Fields (Al): "After completing seven months of intense work filming 'Chorus Line,' I returned to L.A. and hit a severe 'post-partum psychosis,' so to speak. I spent the last year getting a good handle on my life. Now I'm ready for anything."

Nicole Fosse (Kristine): "I danced on Michael Blevins' 'How to Be a Man,' and . . . you know, a little of this and a little of that. Mostly I'm just taking it one step at a time."

Vicki Frederick (Sheila): "Just finished a film, 'Stewardess School.' But right now I'm being a mom for my daughter Amanda. There's nothing definite in the future."

Michelle Johnston (Bebe): "After the film, I assisted choreographer Jeffrey Hornaday on the Disney 3-D film 'Captain Eo,' starring Michael Jackson. I can't honestly say that dancing pays my rent because I live with my parents at Hermosa Beach."

Janet Jones (Judy): "I just finished filming 'American Anthem' with Olympic gold medalist Mitch Gaylord (she co-stars as his love interest). It was very strenuous. I'm taking a break, then a vacation. There are some things in the works but nothing definite."

Pam Klinger (Maggie): "After the shooting, I came to L.A. for a couple of months to try my luck. Now I'm back with the Broadway company doing Maggie again, but I'm still trying to get some film or TV work going in L.A."

Audrey Landers (Val): "My newest album, 'Paradise Generation,' went platinum overseas so I'm continuing with my European concert tours. My sister Judy and I are doing an album that I'm producing and my film 'Texas Heat' comes out next March."

Terrence Mann (Larry): "I went from 'Chorus Line' to 'Cats' to a space/horror film called 'Critters' to a space/roller-skate thing called 'Solar Babies.' I can't complain, because I'm an actor and I'm getting by on my acting."

Charles McGowan (Mike): "I've been looking at a couple of scripts. The best one is Tony Bill's project 'Five Corners.' If I get it, I'll play a villain. Meanwhile, I hope to do some commercials."

Alyson Reed (Cassie): "I did a Japanese commercial, took a long-overdue break, turned down some Broadway shows and refused two scripts. I'd love to work but I'm waiting for the right project."

Justin Ross (Greg): "I'm in the process of adapting my club act into an Off-Broadway piece. Meanwhile, I'm hoping for the best, taking my vitamins, have stopped smoking and am eating well."

Blane Savage (Don): "I appeared in a Toyota industrial film, toured with singer Lynda Carter's revue, am up for some pilots and will accept a good role if you have one for me. Call. . . ."

Matt West (Bobby): "I've been pondering my destiny while working on my house in Connecticut."

Gregg Burge (Richie): Unavailable for comment. He's in the new Broadway hit "Song and Dance."

So poignant. It's like they were actually playing themselves the whole time.

-B.C.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Voting fraud

This seems like an important example:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438754/james-okeefe-voter-fraud-videos-prove-voter-ID-laws-needed

Dickerson, the anti-voter ID columnist for the Detroit Free Press, ignored the O'Keefe videos that showed the filmmaker being offered ballots. O'Keefe's investigation, Dickerson said, was nothing more than a "social-media circus." He concluded that "although [O'Keefe] and others have been advocating for tougher voter-I.D. laws for years on the grounds that fraud is rampant, none has identified a single instance in which a U.S. election turned on counterfeit votes." But there certainly are examples of elections being overturned for reasons of fraud, including mayoral elections in Miami and East Chicago, Ind.

We've also seen clear evidence of fraud in more important races. In 2008, illegal felon voters appear to have swung the outcome of the critical 2008 Minnesota Senate election. The day after the election, GOP senator Norm Coleman had a 725-vote lead, but a series of recounts over the next six months reversed that result and gave Democrat Al Franken a 312-vote victory. The outcome had a significant impact because it gave Democrats the critical 60th Senate vote they needed to block GOP filibusters. Franken's vote proved crucial in the passage of Obamacare in the Senate.

After Franken was sworn in, a conservative group called Minnesota Majority looked into claims of voter fraud. Comparing criminal records with voting rolls, the group identified 1,099 felons — all ineligible to vote — who had voted in the Franken–Coleman race. Prosecutors were ultimately able to convict only those who were dumb enough to admit they had knowingly broken the law, but that added up to 177 fraudulent voters. Nine out of ten suspect felon voters contacted by a Minneapolis TV station said they had voted for Franken. Minnesota Majority also found all sorts of other irregularities that cast further doubt on the Al Franken victory results. It's noteworthy that evidence of fraud and irregularities in Minnesota had to be gathered by a private group. The fact is that prosecutions for voter fraud are rare in part because the crime is so hard to catch, the level of proof required is high, the priority in filing such cases is low, and district attorneys are reluctant to pursue cases that will anger half of the ruling political class.

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

5E rule variant: heavy obscurement

Heavy obscurement is so beneficial and so easy to acquire that I've decided to change the rules for it, so that being unseen or hidden does [I]not[/I] give you advantage on ranged attacks (but does enable sneak attack). It still gives advantage as usual on any melee attack (irrespective of weapon reach).

This does several things:

(1) Eliminates the worst abuse of Minor Illusion/Darkness/Fog Cloud/mundane camouflage. Under the vanilla rule, spells like Fog Cloud are disproportionately powerful compared to other spells which grant advantage (Faerie Fire) but allow a saving throw first.

(2) Eliminates the single most annoying thing about binary advantage (that heavy obscurement alone cancels out any number of disadvantage conditions like long range + prone + restrained + frightened, etc.).

(3) Makes more sense, physically. A failed melee attack can represent a successful parry, but a ranged attack cannot generally be parried--a failed attack just represents a miss. Missing on a ranged attack is easier than missing on a melee attack, because melee attacks can be redirected in-flight. Thus, it makes sense that being unseen helps melee attacks but not ranged attacks. Under this rule, camouflage will still help you defensively, but the fact that your foe doesn't know where exactly you are hiding in that bush won't somehow make you better at shooting him.

(4) Gives more of a niche for melee in the game, especially for night-fighting, because when it's dark melee attacks are resolved normally (if neither side has darkvision) but ranged attacks are at disadvantage.

-Max

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Nuclear War (False Alarm)

Wow. This is intense.

Five ballistic missiles were heading towards the Soviet Union from the west coast of the US.

On the monitor in front of Petrov the word "launch" flashed repeatedly in red. The horror of what was unfolding in front of him threatened to overwhelm the officer and he was initially frozen with fear.

If he believed his eyes he was witnessing a preemptive strike by the US, which could kill thousands of his people – the start of World War III.

Protocol demanded that Petrov, then 44, immediately telephone a senior Kremlin official.

However, he hesitated. The lieutenant colonel knew his call would probably trigger a retaliatory attack and a devastating nuclear war could ensue.

He was suspicious that Soviet ground radar had not picked up the approaching missiles. He was also mistrustful of the satellite technology, which was still in its infancy.

As the most senior man in the bunker, he faced an awful choice – follow the rules and make the call or trust his instincts and simply do nothing.

Petrov took the second option and reported the incident as a false alarm.

As the minutes ticked by his heart was racing and he could feel beads of sweat trickling down his back. Petrov's story is told in a new drama-documentary about his life, The Man Who Saved The World, which reveals how close the world came to nuclear war on the night of September 26, 1983.

"I took a gamble," admits Petrov.

"It was probably 50:50 but I had a funny feeling in my gut."

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

South China Sea

Interesting background on the South China Sea situation. Easy read, and I learned something.

http://qz.com/705223/where-exactly-did-chinas-nine-dash-line-in-the-south-china-sea-come-from/

Under Unclos, coastal nations get an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) 200 nautical miles from their shores. In that zone they have sole exploitation rights over all natural resources, though other nations have the freedom of navigation and overflight. The waters within 12 nautical miles are "territorial waters," where countries have essentially full sovereignty.

An EEZ also applies to the area around a country's islands too—so whoever controls the Spratlys and Paracels, for instance, also gets a large chunk of ocean to go with them. China's nine-dash line not only encompasses those strategic bits of rock but also overlaps with several countries' EEZs. [snip]

China's provocations operate at various levels. The most basic is sending fishing trawlers to fish in other countries' EEZs. It backs them up with refueling ships—disguised as fishing boats—and even sends its own coast guard to extricate them when they get caught. This sort of behavior has prompted Indonesia, for one, to beef up its military presence and turn to nano-satellites to better track potential trespassers in its waters.

China has also built artificial islands islands in the South China Sea by pumping sand onto live coral reefs and then paving them over with concrete. This kind of action—which also does great environmental damage—gives China a base (paywall) for air and sea patrols.

The next level is to act as if these artificial islands are real land, with their own EEZs and territorial waters. Under Unclos, such artificial islands don't have maritime rights, and nor do submerged reefs. But in a "freedom-of-navigation operation" in May, the US sent a naval vessel deliberately within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly archipelago's Fiery Cross Reef, on top of which China has built an island. (It has a runway for fighter jets, a hospital with its own garden, and even a farm with about 500 animals.) In response, China scrambled jets and shadowed the US vessel with three warships, ordering it to leave the area.

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Synaptic pruning

J.

You might find this interesting.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3059634/your-most-productive-self/your-brain-has-a-delete-button-heres-how-to-use-it

...Researchers are just starting to unravel this mystery, but what they do know is the synaptic connections that get used less get marked by a protein, C1q (as well as others). When the microglial cells detect that mark, they bond to the protein and destroy—or prune—the synapse...

WHY SLEEP MATTERS

Have you ever felt like your brain is full? Maybe when starting a new job, or deep in a project. You're not sleeping enough, even though you're constantly taking in new information. Well, in a way, your brain actually is full.

When you learn lots of new things, your brain builds connections, but they're inefficient, ad hoc connections. Your brain needs to prune a lot of those connections away and build more streamlined, efficient pathways. It does that when we sleep.

Your brain cleans itself out when you sleep—your brain cells shrinking by up to 60% to create space for your glial gardeners to come in take away the waste and prune the synapses.

Have you ever woken up from a good night's rest and been able to think clearly and quickly? That's because all the pruning and pathway-efficiency that took place overnight has left you with lots of room to take in and synthesize new information—in other words, to learn...

BE MINDFUL OF WHAT YOU'RE MINDFUL OF

And in fact, you actually have some control over what your brain decides to delete while you sleep. It's the synaptic connections you don't use that get marked for recycling. The ones you do use are the ones that get watered and oxygenated. So be mindful of what you're thinking about.

If you spend too much time reading theories about the end of Game of Thrones and very little on your job, guess which synapses are going to get marked for recycling?

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Dark Sun Character Trees

Here's some old rules that might be useful at some point:


CHARACTER TREES

DARK SUN™ campaigns are set in a violent world. Powerful magics and psionics, desperate hordes of raiders, and even the unforgiving desert wastes all conspire against player characters—death is not at all uncommon on Athas, nor is it uncommon for player characters in DARK SUN campaigns.

Replacing a fallen player character of high level with a novice first level character is never satisfying for the player. Also, where this new character fits into the plot is usually contrived on the spot.

In DARK SUN campaigns, players are encouraged to use character trees, where they play with only one character at a time, but they have four to call upon at the beginning of any particular adventure.

In brief, a character tree consists of one active character (which the player is using as his player character) and three inactive characters. the active character takes part in the adventure, performing actions in the campaign world. When a new adventure begins, the player may switch to one of his inactive characters or keep his previously active character to continue play.


SETTING UP A CHARACTER TREE 

To begin a character tree, a player should completely roll up four characters. Once this is done, the player selects the character that he intends to run for the first adventure, making that one his 'active" character. the other three are inactive.

Alignment

The four characters that make up a player's character tree are unrestricted as to class or race; any combination is acceptable. However, the alignment of these characters is restricted. All of the four characters in a character tree must be either good, neutral, or evil. Devotion to chaos or law makes no difference, however. 

For example, one character tree might have a chaotic good dwarven gladiator, a lawful good thri-kreen fighter, a neutral good human bard, and a chaotic good elven preserver. the thri-kreen could not be lawful evil or even lawful neutral and still be a part of that character tree. 

If a character is forced to change alignment so that it no longer fits within the tree, that character must be discarded (or, optionally, the player may discard the other three, inserting three new characters into his tree and adopt this new alignment). 

Discarded characters should be given to the dungeon master for use as NPCs.


CHANGING CHARACTERS 

There are three instances when a player may switch the character he wishes to use in play: between adventures, during an adventure, or upon an active character's death.

Between Adventures

When an adventure is concluded (in the eyes of the DM, that is), a player may switch his active character for an inactive one. The player is not obligated to do so, and may keep one character active through any number of consecutive adventures.

During an Adventure

Within the scope of the campaign world, calling upon another character to replace the active character requires a substantial investment in time, whether for sending messages or journeying and searching for the transient inactive characters of the tree (psionics and magic may mahe this task easier, but cannot solve all the problems). The DM should sparingly allow players to switch their active character during an adventure, and usually impose a 3d6 day delay. The DM should never allow switching during critical or dangerous scenes of an adventure. Any switching of characters during an adventure is subject to the discretion of the DM, who may freely veto any request to do so.

Upon an Active Character's Death

When the active character dies, one of the inactive characters on the tree is assumed to arrive on the scene within one day (if possible). The player picks which inactive character will arrive and must subsequently roll a new first-level character to occupy the vacated spot on the tree. If circumstances mahe it difficult for a new character to arrive, the DM may be forced to extend the period before the newly activated adventurer arrives.


CHARACTER ADVANCEMENT

The active character in a campaign receives experience points and advances in levels just as described in the Player's Handbook. 

Every time the active character goes up a level of experience, the player may also advance one of his inactive characters one level. the inactive character chosen must be of a lower level than the active character. Adjust the experience point total on that inactive character's sheet to the minimum number for the new level attained. 

For purposes of character tree advancement, multi-and dual-classed characters that are inactive may only advance in one class. As active characters, multi-class characters cause an inactive character to advance when he increases one level in each of his classes. A dual-classed character causes an inactive character to advance with every level he attains. 

For inactive multi-class characters, care must be taken that a single experience point total can correctly yield the level combination. In general, an inactive multi-classed character should never be more than one level different in each class (3,3,4 is okay, 3,3,9 is not).


THE STATUS OF INACTIVE CHARACTERS

Inactive characters are not NPCs or followers. They aren't involved in the adventure at any time. At no time will a player's active and inactive characters come into contact in the campaign world. 

When not in play, inactive characters are assumed to be elsewhere on Athas, performing other tasks. 

All characters in a character tree are assumed to know each other and are working toward similar ends. the player may invent connections—the characters are all sons of the same powerful woman, are distant cousins, friends from childhood, etc. However, there is no need to have any relationship between them—the player may decide that the individuals in his character tree have no more than a passing acquaintance with one another. 

USING THE CHARACTER TREE TO ADVANTAGE 

The character tree's chief purpose is to give every player a pool of adventurers to choose from for different situations or when one of his characters dies. The player is familiar with these characters and can apply their strengths more readily than he might be able to with freshly created characters. However, if care is taken, the character tree can be a valuable tool to the player in an extended campaign. 

As only one inactive character gains a level of experience every time the active character does so, deciding which character to advance might be a decision based on which direction the campaign seems to be taking. If, for instance, a large war is in progress, a player may wish to use his fighter for his active character. If the war is winding down, he might want to advance inactive non-fighter characters for the post war adventures to come. 

As another example, the quest might be a dangerous trek across the wilderness to steal a magical item from an ancient defiler's mansion. the player might use his ranger character to make the journey, but all the while might be using his inactive character advancements to make his thief more powerful for the final assault on the mansion.


EXCHANGES BETWEEN CHARACTERS

Even though characters are on the same tree, they cannot freely exchange equipment, magical items, cash, or personal possessions. Keep separate lists for all such items. In some instances, if there is a compelling reason to do so, characters may exchange important items or information, but this is an option that can be easily abused. In general, items stick with the original character and that's that.


--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Bounded Accuracy

[Originally posted at http://dnd.wizards.com/go/article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604 but no longer available.]

Conventional D&D wisdom tells us that the maxim "the numbers go up" is an inherent part of the class and level progression in D&D. While that might be true, in the next iteration of the game we're experimenting with something we call the bounded accuracy system.

The basic premise behind the bounded accuracy system is simple: we make no assumptions on the DM's side of the game that the player's attack and spell accuracy, or their defenses, increase as a result of gaining levels. Instead, we represent the difference in characters of various levels primarily through their hit points, the amount of damage they deal, and the various new abilities they have gained. Characters can fight tougher monsters not because they can finally hit them, but because their damage is sufficient to take a significant chunk out of the monster's hit points; likewise, the character can now stand up to a few hits from that monster without being killed easily, thanks to the character's increased hit points. Furthermore, gaining levels grants the characters new capabilities, which go much farther toward making your character feel different than simple numerical increases.

Now, note that I said that we make no assumptions on the DM's side of the game about increased accuracy and defenses. This does not mean that the players do not gain bonuses to accuracy and defenses. It does mean, however, that we do not need to make sure that characters advance on a set schedule, and we can let each class advance at its own appropriate pace. Thus, wizards don't have to gain a +10 bonus to weapon attack rolls just for reaching a higher level in order to keep participating; if wizards never gain an accuracy bonus, they can still contribute just fine to the ongoing play experience.

This extends beyond simple attacks and damage. We also make the same assumptions about character ability modifiers and skill bonuses. Thus, our expected DCs do not scale automatically with level, and instead a DC is left to represent the fixed value of the difficulty of some task, not the difficulty of the task relative to level.

We think the bounded accuracy system is good for the game for a number of different reasons, including the following:

Getting better at something means actually getting better at something. Since target numbers (DCs for checks, AC, and so on) and monster accuracy don't scale with level, gaining a +1 bonus means you are actually 5% better at succeeding at that task, not simply hitting some basic competence level. When a fighter gets a +1 increase to his or her attack bonus, it means he or she hits monsters across the board 5% more often. This means that characters, as they gain levels, see a tangible increase in their competence, not just in being able to accomplish more amazing things, but also in how often they succeed at tasks they perform regularly.

Nonspecialized characters can more easily participate in many scenes. While it's true that increases in accuracy are real and tangible, it also means that characters can achieve a basic level of competence just through how players assign their ability bonuses. Although a character who gains a +6 bonus to checks made to hide might do so with incredible ease, the character with only a naked ability bonus still has a chance to participate. We want to use the system to make it so that specialized characters find tasks increasingly trivial, while other characters can still make attempts without feeling they are wasting their time.

The DM's monster roster expands, never contracts. Although low-level characters probably don't stack up well against higher-level monsters, thanks to the high hit points and high damage numbers of those monsters, as the characters gain levels, the lower-level monsters continue to be useful to the DM, just in greater numbers. While we might fight only four goblins at a time at 1st level, we might take on twelve of them at 5th level without breaking a sweat. Since the monsters don't lose the ability to hit the player characters—instead they take out a smaller percentage chunk of the characters' hit points—the DM can continue to increase the number of monsters instead of needing to design or find whole new monsters. Thus, the repertoire of monsters available for DMs to use in an adventure only increases over time, as new monsters become acceptable challenges and old monsters simply need to have their quantity increased.

Bounded accuracy makes it easier to DM and easier to adjudicate improvised scenes. After a short period of DMing, DMs should gain a clear sense of how to assign DCs to various tasks. If the DM knows that for most characters a DC of 15 is a mildly difficult check, then the DM starts to associate DC values with in-world difficulties. Thus, when it comes time to improvise, a link has been created between the difficulty of the challenge in the world (balancing as you run across this rickety bridge is pretty tough due to the breaking planks, especially if you're not a nimble character) and the target number. Since those target numbers don't change, the longer a DM runs his or her game, the easier it is going to be to set quick target numbers, improvise monster attack bonuses and AC, or determine just what kind of bonus a skilled NPC has to a particular check. The DM's understanding of how difficult tasks are ceases to be a moving target under a bounded accuracy system.

It opens up new possibilities of encounter and adventure design. A 1st-level character might not fight the black dragon plaguing the town in a face-to-face fight and expect to survive. But if they rally the town to their side, outfit the guards with bows and arrows, and whittle the dragon down with dozens of attacks instead of only four or five, the possibilities grow. With the bounded accuracy system, lower-level creatures banding together can erode a higher-level creature's hit points, which cuts both ways; now, fights involving hordes of orcs against the higher-level party can be threatening using only the basic orc stat block, and the city militia can still battle against the fire giants rampaging at the gates without having to inflate the statistics of the city guards to make that possible.

It is easier for players and DMs to understand the relative strength and difficulty of things. Under the bounded accuracy system, a DM can describe a hobgoblin wearing chainmail, and, no matter what the level of the characters, a player can reasonably guess that the hobgoblin's AC is around 15; the description of the world matches up to mechanical expectations, and eventually players will see chainmail, or leather armor, or plate mail in game and have an instinctive response to how tough things are. Likewise, a DM knows that he or she can reasonably expect players to understand the difficulty of things based purely on their in-world description, and so the DM can focus more on the details of the world rather than on setting player expectations.

It's good for verisimilitude. The bounded accuracy system lets us perpetually associate difficulty numbers with certain tasks based on what they are in the world, without the need to constantly escalate the story behind those tasks. For example, we can say that breaking down an iron-banded wooden door is a DC 17 check, and that can live in the game no matter what level the players are. There's no need to constantly escalate the in-world descriptions to match a growing DC; an iron-banded door is just as tough to break down at 20th level as it was at 1st, and it might still be a challenge for a party consisting of heroes without great Strength scores. There's no need to make it a solid adamantine door encrusted with ancient runes just to make it a moderate challenge for the high-level characters. Instead, we let that adamantine door encrusted with ancient runes have its own high DC as a reflection of its difficulty in the world. If players have the means of breaking down the super difficult adamantine door, it's because they pursued player options that make that so, and it is not simply a side effect of continuing to adventure.

This feeds in with the earlier point about DMs and players understanding the relative strengths and weaknesses of things, since it not only makes it easier to understand play expectations, but it also ties those expectations very firmly to what those things are in the world. Now, we want to avoid situations where DMs feel bound by the numbers. ("Hey," says the player, "you said it was an iron-bound wooden door and I rolled a 17, what do you mean I didn't break it down?") We hope to do that by making sure we focus more on teaching DMs how to determine DCs and other numbers, and letting them adjust descriptions and difficulties based on their needs.

-Rodney Thompson, D&D designer

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

On X-Projects

On X-projects:

"The typical X project focused on a needed technology. Although the technique is applicable to many areas of technology, I'll stay with aerospace for the moment. One designs the best ship possible given existing technology. There are to be few to no stretches or reaches: we are not looking for new technology, we are looking to see what the best we have can do – and thereby identify what's needed next.

"The ship is built. Typically there will be three vehicles (tail numbers in the jargon). The first is flown to find out its capabilities. Then those limits are tested, and tested again. Frequently tail number One is destroyed in the test process, although that's not inevitable. Using what was learned from One, Two is modified and flown to its limits, and kept flying until there is no more to learn. Number Three makes a few token flights and goes to the Smithsonian."

It works in software too. "Build one to throw away." This is why the planning phase between sprints is important.

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

On Motherhood and Fatherhood

[Discussion from elsewhere about Mother's Day and whether it is offensive to be referred to as a "second mother" to a child not your own]

Eve was called "the mother of all living" long before she ever gave birth to anyone.

I'm perfectly fine with perceiving "Fatherhood" as something other than biological. Ultimately all fathering is adoptive anyway. I existed (in some form) long before I had any father at all, but I'm grateful to Heavenly Father for deciding that I was worth spending effort on, for giving me a spirit and instruction and a chance to become more.

The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits. -Joseph Smith

Fatherhood is the essence of the priesthood, and parenting is the essence of divinity. There's a sign at work that says "Live as though you will die today. Learn as though you will live forever." And learning is great. But learning without teaching ultimately starts feeling empty, at least to me. Passing on knowledge, empowering and strengthening others, is the essence of a happy life. And that is fatherhood and motherhood: "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of [your children]."

"Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race." Joseph Smith said that, and I'm persuaded that this is what is meant by the scripture which says, "In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it." That order of the priesthood is the desire to bless the whole human race.

-Max

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If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.