phrontifugist.bsky.social
Semi-retired
BA (Phil/Rel), MDiv, MS (Leadership), MBA (IntBiz)
Atheist
Progressive Liberal Democratic Republican
Investor
Science enthusiast
Dad to two exceptional girls
Referee of OD&D-like games
523 posts
209 followers
113 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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Blue states be a-livin'. Red states be resentin'.
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It was about political retribution and damaging government to say, look how damaged and inefficient it is.
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We need a presidential candidate in the coming years who pledges to rendition Republican elected officials for treason under the cover of night to places like El Salvador and Guantanmo Bay, under the States Secrets doctrine.
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This is the most accurate portrayal of events thus far.
It says something about our media when it's from a non-journalistic source.
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Trumps a TACO.
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He's just communing with his fascist/apartheid ancestors. Give him a break.
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Am I the only one who can't get to the message because of a(n apparent) missing verb?
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Gestapo-level sh*t in the US.
Where are the conservative militias fighting government intrusion? Oh, they're being used as personal militias for the Republicans.
It was always about freedom ...
The freedom to be despicable human beings.
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We know their god.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
HP Lovecraft
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The love conservatives have is not for their neighbor but for their hateful self-righteousness. Their hate enables them to justify their cruelty to others. “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven."
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Preach it.
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DA's remarkable contribution to the history of gaming was realizing that the game didn't have to end, whether the players achieved the win conditions or not (ie, lost).
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The original dungeon levels were sparsely populated with monsters, maybe 1 for every 3 to 5 rooms. The rest were barren/empty. And the treasure well hidden, and trapped. So there was lot of moving around and exploring these strange places. 3/3
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Unfortunately, TSR didn’t do such a great job explaining why the modules looked the way they did. They started out as tourney modules, meant to measure “who won.” That approach meant overloading the locales with monster encounters. The original mega dungeons weren’t so densely packed. 2/
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It’s been mentioned before that TSR encouraged others to publish modules, because EGG et al didn’t think people wanted them to do their imagining for them. Then they realized, no, people did want TSR to imagine for them. 1/
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Agreed. DA and EGG had different ways to play the game. DA was much more the wargamer. EGG was much more the board gamer. (Very broad strokes there but used to make the point.)
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And so how best to challenge players? By always presenting a differently configured space to explore. Thus the megadungeon concept. "OD&D again tonight. With a new board! Just one level lower." And like Megarry's DUNGEON, going lower meant more lethal experiences. As many new boards as you can make.
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But this board game was different! There was no board, or more accurately, it was one you had to discover. And the pieces were warriors and wizards. And you worked together, not against each other. And the point was, like Megarry's DUNGEON, to go into the constrained space and get the loot. 4/
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EGG then proceeded to create a board game that contrained/contained the action inside the board, but which could be organically molded and remolded, over and over. Think the Gauntlet arcade game. That was early OD&D. "What are we going to play tonight?" "That new board game, OD&D!" 3/
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First, if I remember correctly, EGG was first introduced to David Megarry's DUNGEON, itself inspired by play in DA's Blackmoor (BM). It applied CHAINMAIL combat rules to a small board game like environ. Then EGG experienced BM, which had much more of the roleplay (RP), or free-play aspect. 2/
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Hey, Jason. I'll take the bait here to offer some of my thoughts. The first being that D&D is really just a board game without a board, or better said, with a board that the players must discover and likely never to come to know completely. I make that statement for a few reasons. 1/
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OD&D is nothing if not an exploration game. So how does one incentivize more dungeon exploration? By rewarding people for finding the GP. And so much better for it too if it was super-well hidden.
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The stat that gets the most written text, along with its effects on getting special hirelings.
As my high school English teacher once said, pay attention to the topic that gets the most attention in a book. It's likely the author finds it important.
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Well, technically, 44 HP. But who's counting. ;)
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I play straight LBBs. Which means a Warrior (fighter) at 10th level has an average of 35 HP.
And a hit is always 1d6.
And most times I mimic CHAINMAIL single round/turn resolution by rolling one die to hit for every HD/FC of a combatant, even in fantastic combat.
Combat = deadly/last resort
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Either one of two things happened when a player used a missile weapon in a dungeon.
(a) I enjoyed telling a surprised playing when they ran out of ammo.
(b) Players learned quickly a dungeon was no place for missile weapons to begin with.
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This was a no brainer from the start.
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As separate things or as a combination?
The former seems uninteresting; the latter however ....
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An except (from the linked site) in support of the OP.
tinyurl.com/u7fje4rs
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"We'll square dance!"
"Square dance?"
"And line dance!
"And line dance?"
"To disco!"
"To disco?"
"With aliens!"
"With aliens? ... Ok."
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I see correlation with year. Which doesn't surprise me. To sustain clapping for that long just begs diminishing returns.
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And it was a disaster.
Seriously.
History does not look kindly on it.
Its repercussions are felt to this day.
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FAFO indeed!
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Yes, we need to enlarge the House and implement multimember districts, whose members are elected by #proportionalvoting and #rankedchoicevoting.
tinyurl.com/mvr74xpp
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Agreed re: history.
However, what of the nature of our Union, that The People are a collection of sovereign entities?
How do we have the sovereign entities vote then?
Popular vote?
That implies my state of Illinois is more sovereign then Rhode Island.
Why so?
Reform, not rescission, perhaps?
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Political parties are antithetical to democracy. At least in a two-party system.
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I don't disagree.
I think people get what they vote for.
I have the luxury of winning when either side is in office.
I just tend to vote for the right side, regardless.
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I enjoy the luxuries people who are without afford to me.
And I take no responsibility for their actions when I tell them to raise my taxes and they choose not to.
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As I said throughout 2024:
I'd vote for a good person unresponsive on life-support over any Republican.
It looks likes evil won the day in November.
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Just like his companies.