Why is Eberron being pushed so hard?

[fanboy2000]

Heck, while we're going wildly off topic, I have a story.

Dr. Jacques Benveniste, a famous and well respected scientist, made a claim sometime ago that water had memory. IOW, if you took a substance and diluted to the point where the solution is just water, the water would have some kind memory of the substance and could still be effective. He wrote an article for Nature, a famous scientific journal published in the UK. Nature said they would print it, but only if they could come to his lab and over see an experiment. To Nature's suprise, Benveniste said yes.

Nature got a team together to test the extraordinary claim. The team included the editor of Nature, several scientists, and a stage magician named James Randi. Dr. Benveniste had never heard of Randi before and was trying to find a scientist named Randi, when he found out Randi was a stage magician, he was very unhappy. Only real scientists were supposed to be there.

Well, the Nature team was watching Benveniste's lab do an experament when Randi noticed that the experamentors knew which samples were supposed to be diluted water and which were supposed to be just plain water. Well, if you know which samples are which, it's posible to see something that isn't there to skew the results in your favor. Randi sugested the test tubes be coded and the code hidden so that the experamenters didn't know which was which. They got a member of the team to code the samples and they put the code in an envelope and taped it to the ceiling.

Well, taping stuff to the ceiling isn't science. Dr. Benveniste was very unhappy, here was a man who isn't a scientist, and he's coding his test tubes and taping the code to the ceiling. Who does Randi think he is? Dosen't he know who Dr. Benveniste is? Well the experament was a flop, and Dr. Benveniste wasn't happy. He latter complained that his phone stopped ringing, so to speak, after this stunt.

I think of this when ever I see academic snobery (even, as in the above post, when in jest). Randi calls it Ivory Tower Syndrome.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I think of this when ever I see academic snobery (even, as in the above post, when in jest). Randi calls it Ivory Tower Syndrome.

My colleagues and I are absolutely LOADED with Ivory Tower syndrome.

Goes with the job. Though I like to think we biologists do a better job of staying grounded <polishes his monocle>

But, for the record, taping things to the ceiling IS standard scientific practice nowadays, at least in biology and psychology, as I can't speak for other disciplines. Whether Randi taught us that observer bias is a big problem or we figured it out on our own, double-blind experiment structure is part and parcel of the way things run.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Anybody up for neuroanatomy of the Shifter?

Since you mentioned it and the thread has left its original topic in the dust anyway, sure, that would be fascinating.

 

[Nisarg]

You don't get more heartlandy than the Dalelands in FR, and those are pretty darn non-medieval, what with not having kings and stuff. Beyond that, you have many, many city-states around in the Heartlands - the Moonsea, the Vast, the Dragon Coast, and the Western Heartlands basically consist of city-states, and those aren't any more medieval than Breland with its infant democracy. The only area of FR that's "credibly medieval" is Cormyr.

Hmm.. apparently you are not familiar with the Swiss Cantons. Or the Italian city-states.

If you're saying the only area credibly medieval is Cormyr, I'm guessing your only awareness of "medieval" is medieval england?

Nisarg

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Since you mentioned it and the thread has left its original topic in the dust anyway, sure, that would be fascinating.

Unfortunately, I was being facetious. Anything with rapidly changing physiology like that is impossible to model, especially if they claim to be a vertebrate. But that's par for the course with D&D. Heck, Darkvision as it's described nowadays is impossible by all reasonable biology. Infravision was better biologically, but sucked to adjudicate in game, which is one of the reasons I don't worry about biological accuracy in game very much.

If I was going to pretend to outline the neurological differences between a human and a shifter, it would have to be a terribly dry outline of peripheral sensory systems, alterations of the limbic vs cortical relationship in primate brain development (the blurring of lines between primate and carnivore would have some interesting consequences), and other nonsense that would bore even me pretty quickly.

 

[fanboy2000]

Refresher course

Hmm.. apparently you are not familiar with the Swiss Cantons. Or the Italian city-states.

If you're saying the only area credibly medieval is Cormyr, I'm guessing your only awareness of "medieval" is medieval england?

Nisarg

Well, gee, I don't know. Let's see here hmmmmmmm

Ok, Tatical Studies Research (TSR) was located in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. When TSR went out of business it was bought by a company called Wizards of the Coast located in Renton, Washington. One of, David Arneson's, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons (and Chainmail) , hobbies is American Civil War re-enactments. Most of the authors that influanced early D&D were either American or English.

So I don't know, do you think that it is posible that when an American company, runs an advertisment in America refering to medieval, they mean an American view of medieval England?

Words have more meaning then the definations in the dictionary. When you say medieval to most Americans (and I think you know this) they draw a certian picture in their head that has nothing to the dictionary defination of medieval. It dosen't have to be spelled out, the book dosen't have to have cavets, because the book is written with people who understand the connotative meaning of medieval is. If the reader dosen't understand the connotative meaning of medieval, then it's safe to say that the book is not written for that partiular reader.

Not to worry though. There are plenty of settings for such a person. Personaly, I'm still waiting for the D&D setting that portrays serfs accurately.

Again, it's not suprising that a game written in America, by Americans, to be sold (mostly) in America has certian american conotative meaning.

Now, I don't want people to think that I have some high and mighty view that America is better than anything else. Far from it. I think most people don't understand that the US has it's own culture. (Even in the US) Yes, The US's roots are western Europe, but a few hundred years of settalment will cause some cultural drift, and that's an important concept. Western Civlization isn't one culture divieded among many nations, is thousands of cutures divided among every conceivable geographic and political boundry there exists and few that don't. To think that words don't have diffrent meanings (connotative or otherwise) even to people who speak the same language (even to people with close cultural roots) is ludicrous.

 

[fanboy2000]

Unfortunately, I was being facetious. Anything with rapidly changing physiology like that is impossible to model, especially if they claim to be a vertebrate. But that's par for the course with D&D. Heck, Darkvision as it's described nowadays is impossible by all reasonable biology. Infravision was better biologically, but sucked to adjudicate in game, which is one of the reasons I don't worry about biological accuracy in game very much.

If I was going to pretend to outline the neurological differences between a human and a shifter, it would have to be a terribly dry outline of peripheral sensory systems, alterations of the limbic vs cortical relationship in primate brain development (the blurring of lines between primate and carnivore would have some interesting consequences), and other nonsense that would bore even me pretty quickly.

Interesting. I'm so used to people attemting to explain all but the sillyist things in fantasy away, that (untill I read your post) I forgot that the reason Shifters can shape change is magic.

If magic did exist, it would be interesting to find out how someone born with supernatural powers would think, and how their brain workd. I think it would be facinating if all the D&D humanoids were human but magic alters their physiology. And, of course, gives them their supernatural abilites.

 

[Drifter Bob]

Yes, it's both religious and political, which makes sense seeing as it came in response to an erroneous post regarding the religious background of a political ideology.

As for it being imbecilic... well, you're welcome to your opinion, but I'm certainly not following what, exactly, it is.

Do you believe there's a tighter ideological connection between the two? Or do you consider the end-result connection strong enough to override the idealogical differences?

It is imbecilic to assume that the varying rationalizations for the continued legacy of repeated massacres of jews in Europe for centuries upon centuries are utterly seperate from each other simply because you cannot reconcile it within your own sophomoric system of ideas about secular humanism or Wilsonian expansionism or whatever the hell you are talking about. To imply that, for example, there is no connection between Chrisitian religious persecution of Jews and that of the Nazis is more than imbecilic, it is highly irresponsible at best. The Nazi's could never have gotten away with what they did in a predominantly Christian Germany without the consent and enthusiastic cooperation of the Christian populace.

If I thought you were not either a Troll or someone who didn't have any interest in historical truth I might question you about your perception of the lack of any link between religion and religious culture in Europe, and in the United States, with anti-semitic, anti immigrant, and quasi fascistic societies and groups since the 19th cenutry.

But your comments in the thread mark you as some kind of warped idealogue, perhaps even something truly vile like an Objectivist. Carrying on any kind of disucssion with you would be as pointless as arguing with a particularly persistant Imp or some other minor Devil right out of the 9 hells, and I'm only answering you for the sake of other readers of the thread.

DB

 

[molonel]

To imply that, for example, there is no connection between Chrisitian religious persecution of Jews and that of the Nazis is more than imbecilic, it is highly irresponsible at best. The Nazi's could never have gotten away with what they did in a predominantly Christian Germany without the consent and enthusiastic cooperation of the Christian populace.

Or indeed, without the strong unpinnings of anti-semitism intrinsic in German Protestantism. That wasn't a later development, either. It comes straight from Martin Luther, as anyone who has read "On the Jews and Their Lies," written toward the end of Luther's life, can attest:

http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm

Or some selections:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther-jews.html

There is a STRONG current of anti-semitism in Christianity. The term "Christ killer" has a very old and diabolical lineage.

 

[Wormwood]

There is a STRONG current of anti-semitism in Christianity. The term "Christ killer" has a very old and diabolical lineage.

The term "thread killer", on the other hand, is a much later invention.

I'd hate to see it pop up 'round here, but it seems sadly inevitable.