Recent content by Umbran

We can add to that an element of how some GMs do not want players inventing anything in the scene. Players asking questions are then looking for what they can, and cannot, use in declaring their actions.

Um, no, that's not anything like what Einstein said. In physics terms you are close to "not even wrong". Einstein recognized all motion in as a vector in a 4-d spacetime, that could have components both across your field and towards/away from you.

No. Einsteinian Relativity does not prohibit closed timelike curves through spacetime (which is what you call time travel in relativity). But the solutions that have closed timelike curves are not "extreme but naturally happening". They are things like infinitely long cylinders of neutronium...

First, please note that dismissing, or labeling things as bad, because of "political correctness" is against the site's inclusivity policy. So, please watch it. More conversationally, claims like, "In a modern RPG everyone must be 100% equal," seems pretty vague, and very poorly supported. It...

"Informatics" is the study of computational systems. In much of Europe, it is synonymous with "computer science". Typically, it is used in the context of recasting information to be something useful to humans. In this context, it may be mean "the science of information processing".

If we are taking that view, your statement is kind of like saying that left-right is not navigable separate from forward-back, which is clearly wrong. I can walk forward without walking right. That's not the quantum world angle. In the Many Worlds interpretation, all possibilities exist and...

Bingo! You've got it! Now, you can discuss pure fantasy in terms of its internal logic and consistency just fine. But arguments of the form, "That's not how magic would really work," are generally bogus.

It is good. But, I am told, if you were on from the beginning, the waits between seasons were kind of interminable. I jumped on late, so I could watch more of the story in a more regular fashion, and was happy for that. ... because now the waits between seasons seem soooo loooooonnnnnngggggg.

Yes, but everything we know about how time travel might possibly work also involves materials that don't exist, and/or that we cannot manipulate, in configurations that should not be physically stable. Like, infinitely long, rapidly rotating cylinders of neutronium. How we think it "might...

Having not been there, I of course cannot say with any certainty. But... connotations matter. If you point out to them that they just asked a question, that's one thing. If you point out to them that they've been disrupting play with several picayune questions, that's another. And, with...

Well, humans literally (and this is literally-literally, not figuratively-literally) process judgements about others with different parts of the brain than they judge themselves. So, folks can very much have a different opinion of their own behavior than they would have of someone else doing...

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? Since we don't know how to do it, we first have to posit how complex and power-hungry it is. So, you are rejecting a posit, based on another posit. Not exactly the most stable of bases for an argument.

Correction - people who actually show up consistently AND ARE FREE TO PLAY IN YOUR GAME may be unicorns. It is like asking, "Where are all the truly awesome people who want to be in long-term relationships? I want one of them!" Well, sorry, but they are mostly in long-term relationships...

Always welcome! Celebrate your pets!

My wife is a veterinarian that does hospice, end of life, and palliative care exclusively. She is, as I type this, at a house call helping a client say goodbye to their pet. And what you say above is not her recommendation to her clients. (Edit to add: When she got home from the house call, I...