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My personal aesthetic preference is for weapons to do predictable damage based on their type. And that’s exactly what it is - a personal aesthetic preference All arguments which appeal to the idea of an abstracted system having some kind of meaningful relationship with real world physics or...

(Deleted.) I realized I had already answered this 4 years ago.

I have no problem with AI art. My wife is a graphic artist and she has no problem with it - and she’s much better informed than I am. I defer to her.

Link here Slated for Christmas 2026. "It's the darkest thing I've ever written." Awesome.

In 1979, I think the opposite effect was intended. It was a hairier time. But I'm done talking about this now. Let's move on.

I'm assuming you're referring to Alien. It's unfortunate that that scene was eroticized; it's really supposed to be about the utter vulnerability of Ripley when all of the tech and gadgetry is removed. She only has her wits; both she and the xenomorph are naked - Sigourney Weaver actually...

Whether a word is viewed as appropriate or not is generally tied up with power dynamics and power structures - i.e. who's included in them, and who's not. Hegemonic groups can usually withstand much more linguistic discourtesy, because their hegemony is not threatened; marginalized or alienated...

Some further digging. Back on these boards in 2007, Gygax indicated that his inspiration for the lich was from a story by Appendix N pulp author Gardner Fox (link here). Gardner Fox wrote a series of stories called Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman; one of these stories The Sword of the Sorcerer...

Mostly, I'd agree. But the 1E Monster Manual lists liches as either MUs or Cleric/MUs. Blueprint for a Lich by Len Lakofka in Dragon #29 indicates they may be "clerics or magic users" (in that order), and suggests no preference in class. It doesn't mention phylacteries, but does mention that...

I don't think anyone here would fail to recognize that historical iterations of the game contain certain ...problematic.. elements when viewed through a modern lens; the question becomes one of degree, and in which dimensions: to what extent are we permissive or censorious of legacy traditions...

A general observation regarding Gygax's conception of what a phylactery was: Phylactery -- An arm wrapping with a container holding religious writings, thus a form of amulet or charm. —Glossary of Dungeon Master's Guide (First edition, 1979)

Amulet - well, yes. Literally a translation of φυλακτήριον into Latin. Speech scrolls - looks like some kind of post-2000 manga reference But reliquary? That’s a new one to me. If there’s an historical reference, consider me impressed. Obviously, the word has propagated through various rpg...

I can’t engage with this in all conscience without trampling all over the Board’s exclusion of religious discourse. Suffice it to say that my exegetical framework is not theological, and I don’t agree.

Matthew doesn’t explain their function. The passage is basically a polemic against Pharisaic Judaism.

If you can find me a reference to phylactery between 200 CE and 1975 (when it was incorporated into the D&D lexicon) which doesn’t apply to tefillin, I’ll be impressed. Because I can’t find one. Gygax would have known them as phylacteries. Probably via Matthew 23. I don’t deny it. I’m not...

Except that the word phylactery has been exclusively and explicitly used by Gentiles for almost 2000 years to apply to tefillin, and the Anglicised version - Middle English Phylactery as opposed to φυλακτήριον - has only ever been applied to tefillin. As I’ve noted, the phylactery of long...

I appreciate your thoughts here, although I'm a bit reticent about the use of "fatalism" to describe my position. Yes, language changes (or is very resistant to it), but pushing against 18 centuries of accepted usage - and its enshrinement in Christian scripture - is no small undertaking. There...

I mean, the association is established. It has been for 1800 years. The use of the word phylactery was dropped in all other contexts a long time ago - probably late antiquity or the early middle ages. It’s only used now to apply to tefillin. You can argue its inappropriateness, but it doesn’t...

I really don’t think it’s all that important which particular term is associated with the item in question - whether it be tefillin or phylactery. In the west - in Christendom, so to speak - the word phylactery has been associated with the tefillin since at least the second century. You might...

I mean, I’m not going to respond to this because of the Board’s rules. But I would have thought that the unvoiced retort should be fairly obvious.