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Welcome! 03/05/2016
Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change. If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away. I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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The Old Hack
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Content count
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Joined
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Last visited
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Days Won
380
Everything posted by The Old Hack
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I would occasionally play this track during a roleplaying session when I wanted to completely freak my players out. Ideally, just as they had settled to camp for the night and when I had something nasty planned.
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This one is kind of cheating, but I love it anyway:
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Apologies! I'll try to remember.
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loving language The Grammar Thread
The Old Hack replied to CritterKeeper's topic in Off Topic Discussion
Maybe it means that they have added spin doctor to the lens cleaning fluid? That's a very good notion. I think the best gamer spell checking disaster I ever encountered was the horrible 'dawizard' that I first encountered in a Ravenloft supplement and later on met again in a book that collected magical items over the time. I could NOT work out what in the world it meant that the device inflicted such-and-such an amount of 'dawizard' on the players that tried to meddle with it. Finally, more than a year later, it dawned on me that someone had for whatever reason done a search-and-replace on 'mage' in exchange for 'wizard' and that this had resulted in damage becoming the absurd dawizard. The blessings of early spell checking programs. -
loving language The Grammar Thread
The Old Hack replied to CritterKeeper's topic in Off Topic Discussion
Sorry about that! I didn't even consider it, I was in Nile mode. -
The Moderator: 'Leninade' was one of the posters who made the environment so very toxic in the old days. I have renewed his permaban and will request of the admins that they do not allow him to register a new account.
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loving language The Grammar Thread
The Old Hack replied to CritterKeeper's topic in Off Topic Discussion
Did you have similar troubles with the spell checkers in the Middle Kingdom? I heard a rumour one was notorious for employing an ibis when you actually meant heron. -
loving language The Grammar Thread
The Old Hack replied to CritterKeeper's topic in Off Topic Discussion
The Moderator: There will be no further discussion of 'prescriptivism' or related matters. If any still wish to argue this, kindly take it to private messages. (Requests for clarification of meaning and settling personal issues are still okay.) -
loving language The Grammar Thread
The Old Hack replied to CritterKeeper's topic in Off Topic Discussion
The Moderator: Sweveham, CritterKeeper is correct. The thread is made for this purpose and it even states that those who do not care about such matters are free to simply ignore it. What is more, no matter how hard I try, I cannot see this thread as 'prescriptivism'. It would be the latter if it somehow imposed itself on others and required them to follow whatever results it may arrive at. As it is, it is simply a little niche where those who care about little things like a unified standard of spelling, the various ways of employing diction and the like may have debates in peace. I would say you owe CritterKeeper an unreserved apology but I do not have the authority to require you to give her one. I leave that to your conscience. As it is, I do have the authority to give you a warning point, which is hereby done -- it is richly deserved. ~tOH. -
loving language The Grammar Thread
The Old Hack replied to CritterKeeper's topic in Off Topic Discussion
I received an important lesson in this sort of thing through having known two dyslexics. One is an engineer who works at a nuclear power plant. The other holds a PhD in high-temperature superconductors. They taught me to not judge by spelling but by content, a lesson which I have always been grateful for. I have at times found humour in typoes, but I tend to keep it to myself unless it is between me and someone I know very well. Mind you, I am completely merciless when it comes to spell checkers pulling stupid shit. A good example would be a friend of mine with the last name of Bolland. The stupid spell checker tried to write 'Ebola' instead. I and my friend had a field day with that one. -
The only time she was together with him that I remember was during his stay in the hospital. Back then she did not show her nightmare side though she did sort of go Galadriel Dark Queen near the end.
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New EGS: NP not up yet. Locking this for now.
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The Moderator: By all means. Go ahead.
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I believe that Dan put it this way: that 2002 plotholes live in their own little world and that he will likely never get around to fixing all of them. He just sort of ignores them and ascribes them to inexperience.
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Consider in comparison the fearsome power of Pharaoh Rutin Tutin and the might this dreadful God-King employs on these forums even today. *shudder*
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The Moderator: Please don't.
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It was a belief system. It is not a question of whether it worked or not, it is a question of whether those who practice it believe in it or not. Voldemort is a poor comparison. The reason no-one spoke his name was that they were afraid of doing so. A fear deliberately inculcated by Voldemort himself by spreading the rumour that his attention might be drawn by naming him. He may or may not have also actually struck at some of those who did to help spread that fear. You will note that the toughest of the heroes refused to submit to Voldemort's intimidation, including Dumbledore and of course Harry himself.
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I believe that if we ask the good Pharaoh here, the chosen MO of ancient Egypt when wanting to utterly destroy an entity -- divine or mortal -- was to destroy all records of it, especially of its name. To speak of it as little as possible and when one did speak of it, to never name it but rather refer to it with some sort of derogative that granted it as little respect (and hence power) as possible. 'The creature', for example. Once the so treated being's name was completely erased and all record of it destroyed and forgotten, the target would be destroyed, too.
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I would emphatically second this. Never ever use plot armour (again, with the possible exception of Gods) as it is cheating the players. Not even for the player characters themselves. Death needs to be a looming possibility for everyone and even the most powerful master villains or epic heroes need to be fallible. Mind you, this is not the same as saying that it should be easy to kill anyone. In my Occidentia campaign it would certainly be possible to kill the Byzantine Empress -- once you managed to outwit the Imperial Guards, subvert her massive and paranoid network of spies and counterintelligence, penetrate intricate magical defences erected by the Court Wizards and (last but not least) outmaneuver the Empress' own highly cautious routine of self-preservation. Just remember that all of the above are good at what they do as they get a LOT of practice. Also remember that even arousing suspicion of having intentions against the Empress is as good as a death sentence, of if she is feeling merciful, lifetime imprisonment in a high security jail. Still, on a more everyday basis and with characters the PCs are more likely to meet, it means that if the players play it smart and/or get lucky, they can take any of their personal enemies down. The above was an extreme example as the likelihood of the players making the personal enmity of someone that high up is very low. Unless they really work at it, in which case they only have themselves to thank for it. In short, I consider plot armor an abomination. It's unfair to players, demoralising as all out and it makes the game boring for everyone. What fun is it to run a campaign if your players can't surprise you?
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I once did that scenario with a kingdom where powerful nobles were trying to destroy it internally, too. The old king was dead, leaving only a daughter to hold the throne, so wild plotting commenced. But the plotting slowly ground to a halt. First, the most aggressive of the plotters died in a hunting accident. This occurred when he was somehow placed in a trebuchet that was primed to launch and he got fired hundreds of yards away to impact in a noxious swamp. The second plotter, who was also a suitor, suffered from a stroke that was so bad that it not only crushed the back of his skull but also most of his neck and his left shoulder. The third committed suicide by running screaming through his home while beating himself to death with an iron bar. The fourth died when an accidental fire burned his home down and shot everyone trying to escape through the windows with crossbow bolts. After that, the rest of plotters got the hint and decided not to tempt the new queen's wrath any longer. It did not save them, mind. They had the privilege of occupying the front ranks of the army when the Queen ordered the neighbouring kingdom plotting against hers invaded. They all died as war heroes. The players treated the queen of that kingdom very respectfully.
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Once again, a cosh or a blackjack is really only a less lethal way of taking someone down, not really a nonlethal one. And you have to know exactly what you are doing -- if you don't, the odds of killing your victim increase dramatically.
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That might work very well for something like Thief. To be fair, in a Diablo-like it is probably OK to stay with XP for kills.
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It's like they say. Old soldiers are made of old leather and boot soles. They keep going through stuff that left the fainthearts and the tender skinned in the dust many miles ago. And a good thing, too.
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Trust me, I hated it, too. I came up with house rules for awarding XP for nonlethal and nonavaricious ways of advancing plot and goals long before it got built into newer roleplaying games.
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Political Discussion Thread (READ FIRST POST)
The Old Hack replied to The Old Hack's topic in Off Topic Discussion
In an ideal world they would have. And it was certainly what many or even most of the people in the Resistance tried for. But even good men can wear down and when you live under constant threat of capture, torture and death, and you see that happen to your closest friends and family members, and you can not ever be certain that someone you trust won't sell you out... strange things happen to the human mind after a while. And some people are just broken to begin with. That doesn't help, either. In school I was taught a sanitised version that closely resembled the ideal it is so tempting to believe in or hope for. You have to dig to find the atrocities. But if you do, they are there.
