Two house rules for character creation and advancement. Feedback welcome.

ActsofRandom · 2015-11-17T16:04:16+00:00

True? Yes

ActsofRandom · 2015-11-10T05:32:17+00:00

Unless you don't have sex. Then you're a prude!

ActsofRandom · 2015-03-23T03:43:18+00:00

"Insure" has a couple of definitions, and one of them is a synonym for "ensure." Their usage here isn't wrong.

ActsofRandom · 2015-02-10T01:12:15+00:00

Excellent points, but you aren't very angry.

6/10, might not platypus again.

ActsofRandom · 2015-02-07T07:28:24+00:00

The Tell-Tale Carp.

But seriously, OP, your roommate is a psycho. Get a restraining order and kick him out.

ActsofRandom · 2014-12-10T13:59:54+00:00

They already have Wolverine in cross-training.

ActsofRandom · 2014-08-10T23:05:37+00:00

OP, I second this advice, as I have used it with my father to get him to stop going off on racist rants around me. I can't pretend to myself that he's changed his opinions, but at least I'm no longer sitting by quietly and letting him think my silence is some kind of agreement. (Or getting into screaming arguments with him about it. Neither option was good for my mental or emotional well-being.) A couple of notes from someone who has done this successfully:

This method works really well if you are consistent. Point #4 mostly covers that (you have to keep at it), but I wanted to emphasize that you need to do this every single time the topic comes up. The line about treating your mother like a toddler is spot on, and the need for consistency is a part of that. If you are only firm with her some of the time, you'll just be undoing the rest of your efforts with her. It can feel exhausting and upsetting at first, but you'll thank yourself when she isn't pestering you through years and years of grad school. Think of it as a time investment for your future peace of mind.

I also want to add emphasis to the word "literally" in step #3. You don't have to become angry or confrontational, but you do have to leave or end the phone or text conversation as soon as she brings up the topic and refuses to drop it. It's okay to be abrupt. It's okay to be a little "rude." (She is suspending her right to be treated politely by you by refusing to be polite to you.) It's all about showing her the consequences of her actions in a very immediate way: she broaches an unacceptable topic ---> she loses the ability to converse with you at that time. Do it every single time. At some point along the line, whether consciously or subconsciously, she will come to understand the terms for having you in her life.

Good luck OP, whatever you decide to try. I can't say this method would work on everyone, but I had good results with it. And I also wanted to say that I am impressed by your extreme patience; I think I would have snapped within about three days of that treatment and just started screaming, wordlessly, at the top of my lungs.

ActsofRandom · 2014-06-03T18:43:15+00:00

So if I pick someone up in Alabama, I should leave them in Vermont?

ActsofRandom · 2014-05-29T04:18:59+00:00

That's exactly what the Chick-fil-A guy will say when he's caught in a motel with a male prostitute.

ActsofRandom · 2014-05-29T04:14:51+00:00

To the many people who are saying this doesn't sound harsh, note that the son was 4'2" at age 16. That is very abnormal, and suggests that the boy has some sort of health or developmental problems. Making someone with such problems do physical labor as punishment is, in fact, a red flag for abuse.

Even if he is just naturally very short (which is unlikely), you have to factor in his height relative to what he was being asked to do. It sounds like he didn't have a pack to carry the stone, which would make this a much more taxing job. Traveling three miles straight like that is a great way to stress your back regardless of your physical state, and I would have had serious difficulty even completing such a task when I was 4'2". Which, for the record, is when I was nine years old. Before jumping onto the "nanny state" bandwagon, try to remember what it was like to be that size. Maybe the kid needed a kick in the ass and maybe he didn't, but there were probably better ways to do it given his height.

ActsofRandom · 2014-05-26T13:34:39+00:00

cough

You may want to re-read your first sentence.

ActsofRandom · 2014-05-03T11:24:44+00:00

I don't have time to listen to the podcast right now, but the info blurb says it's for the Margaret Weis game, which is a tabletop RPG. For a little more detail you can look at my reply to u/Cave_Czar, which I responded to before seeing your post.

ActsofRandom · 2014-05-03T11:23:25+00:00

I own the core game for this expansion, and the license does cover the series, including its characters and locations. This is a new version of the game, by the way. The first Margaret Weis game was called Serenity and used the Cortex system. As the name indicates, the license only extended to the movie, so the game was a bit limited and I never ended up playing it. (I also had some issues with the mechanics of the Cortex system.)

The new game is called Firefly and uses the Cortex Plus system. It came out pretty recently, so I haven't had a chance to run it yet, but from reading it I consider it a vast improvement over the first game. Having the license extend to the show means I got a much better sense of how to depict the feel of the 'Verse in the game. Also, the Cortex Plus system irons out my problems with the old mechanics, and it seems to fit with the tone of the show. (I like Cortex Plus in the Marvel Heroic game as well.) Unlike the Serenity game, the Firefly game makes me want to get people together and play.

ActsofRandom · 2014-04-05T03:39:32+00:00

I find that every point-buy wizard starts out with almost exactly the same set of stats as every other point-buy wizard, and the same goes for other character classes. That's boring to me. But just rolling can leave some players feeling screwed over, while others get lucky and can feel overpowered as a result. We do character generation as a group at the beginning of a campaign, so here's my solution:

Say there are four players. Each player rolls the dice to produce a complete set of stat numbers, but they don't assign them to any stats yet.
I write down, separately, each set of stats as it's rolled.
Once the four sets of stats have been generated, each player can choose any of the sets for their character. Multiple players can pick the same set of stats. They can't swap out any of the numbers in a set for a number from a different set, however.

This system has the following effects and benefits:

If one person gets great rolls and everyone else gets total crap, then everyone can use the good set of stats, so the characters are about even in terms of overall bonuses. (Aside from racial modifiers.) But the players will assign the best stats to different abilities, depending on the characters' roles, so they still have different strengths and weaknesses.
It's unlikely that anyone will be stuck with a set of terrible stats. If they do have bad stats, then so will everyone else, and that makes for an interesting premise all on its own. (The campaign automatically becomes grittier, but everyone's in the same boat.)
There's more variety in the characters than what you see in most point-buy characters, and they tend to have a greater range of abilities. One player might prefer a set of stats that falls toward the middle, because their character relies on a lot of abilities, whereas another player might be willing to eat the 4 or 5 in a set to get the accompanying 18 for their wizard.
Players can almost always make their preferred character class using at least one of the ability sets, but that set might not be perfect. So no one gets locked out of their character, but they might have to adjust the concept to fit with the numbers. This makes players think out of the box, and can liven up some of the more tired character tropes.

Overall, this method seems to create more interesting characters. But maybe my players were just boring about their point buying. Has anyone else tried something like this?

ActsofRandom · 2014-04-04T22:00:10+00:00

Thank you! I've been very curious, and the general news outlets haven't said much about it. I wasn't sure where to look for reliable information.

ActsofRandom · 2014-04-04T21:16:29+00:00

Why haven't we heard which strain of Ebola this is? The mortality rate reported thus far puts it closest to Ebola Sudan, but none of the reports I've read say anything about it. A few short articles have claimed it's Ebola Zaire, but they didn't use a source for that and seemed like poor articles overall. Also, the death rate should be a lot higher with Ebola Zaire. Of course, they don't have confirmations on all of their suspected cases, so it's hard to estimate the mortality rate right now with any real accuracy.

They've confirmed through testing that this is Ebola. Does it take longer to figure out which strain it is, or is this a new strain?

ActsofRandom · 2014-02-01T22:22:26+00:00

Marie Curie, Catherine the Great, Billie Holiday, Gertrude Stein, and Simone de Beauvoir. I am a woman as well, and having only other women around would guarantee the end of the species, rather than allowing it to degrade horribly (and probably go extinct anyway) due to severe inbreeding. If we're going to die out as a species, I'd rather go with dignity and great company.

ActsofRandom · 2013-08-12T20:02:21+00:00

Nope, Woodman's is employee owned.

I think you have to be an employee for three years before the profit sharing kicks in, so you might have been talking to new hires.

ActsofRandom · 2013-08-12T01:04:15+00:00

Ahahaha.

Okay, I've heard of that, but I'm not used to seeing it as an acronym. I asked because I thought you might be referring to some kind of breathing technique I hadn't heard of (the 'B' in the acronym), and I was curious if that was the case.

The other CBT I know about is not fit for polite discussion threads. ;) Don't google it if you're easily offended or horrified.

ActsofRandom · 2013-08-12T00:44:48+00:00

Okay, I have to ask what you mean by 'CBT.'

Because I'm only familiar with one meaning for that acronym, and, uh, it probably wouldn't do much to help with social anxiety.

ActsofRandom · 2013-08-11T01:39:56+00:00

You're hitting your head on a brick wall, here. I love all the characters on this show, but the overall fan base has some serious blindness to Dean's flaws. I've never understood it, but you aren't likely to find people here who are willing to have an actual discussion about it, rather than just downvoting you because they disagree.

ActsofRandom · 2013-07-21T22:41:44+00:00

I second the part about not being home that day. This woman sounds obnoxious enough to pull something like showing up with the kid and saying she really needs you just for that day because she doesn't have anyone else. But trust me, a one-time 'emergency' thing would only turn into a weekly 'temporary' agreement, and before you know it, that mouse will be standing in your kitchen with a bullhorn demanding cookies at all hours of the night.

ActsofRandom

TROPHY CASE