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  1. Umbran

    Attributes Should Be a Guideline for Personality

    I don't find most games to have stats give sufficient granularity to determine personality, and there are many factors other than stats that impact personality. So, generally, I try to make sure the personality I am considering is consistent with the stats I have for the character. Pretty...
  2. Umbran

    Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 3 Viewing (Spoilers)

    Well, there are a couple of things that suggest that Trelane isn't a Q. 1) We have seen a few other Q. They don't generally use personal names. Amanda Rogers grew up as a human, and didn't know she was Q. And Quinn took that name specifically to rebel against the Q-Continuum and end his own...
  3. Umbran

    Itch.io is shadowbanning or deleting NSFW and LGBTQ content

    Mod Note: Fully? Perhaps not. But, EN World does not hold that treating people fairly, without discriminating against them due to gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, and so on, is anything more than being a good human. We cannot go deeply here into how some choose to use the machines...
  4. Umbran

    D&D General Cthulhu by Torchlight Brings Mythos To D&D

    Mod Note: Two threads on the same topic merged.
  5. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    I think I have a different point to make than the speaker you were responding to.
  6. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    Maybe we are stumbling over the word "process", and I am using that word for things that you have not considered a "process" in the past? If some stuff has to happen to get from one state to another, that stuff is a "process". F'rex, to get from having our teeth be kinda fuzzy to being clean...
  7. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    Note, the distinction that makes the difference isn't whether the mechanic exists, but whether the mechanics are directly associated to and simulating processes that exist in the narrative.
  8. Umbran

    D&D General Mike Mearls' blog post about RPG generations

    I agree in part - I don't know that being simple for the GM is all that new, or will ultimately be seen as the focus of today's games. But i think he gets muddy about 4th generation, and that i cannot lay on how 5th generation is still going on. It reads more like a pile of his personal gripes...
  9. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    So, with respect, simulation in general does not require that association. That association is specific to what is usually called "process simulation" - it is an added requirement that may not be relevant to all folks who want simulation. For example, folks looking to simulate a fictional...
  10. Umbran

    D&D General Mike Mearls' blog post about RPG generations

    For generations 1-3, I suppose what he says is fair enough. At 4th generation, he gets very muddy, and unfortunately the change to his supposed 5th depends upon it. I am not convinced he grasped the middle spans there very well.
  11. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    It isn't clear if "starving hysterical naked" is supposed to apply to the best minds of your generation, or the bards...
  12. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    Sure. And there's courtly love, friendship, etc. Or maybe the dragon becomes a rabid fanboi of the bard's beat poetry... Folks are just so limited in how they think about these things...
  13. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    Wait a sec. When you were GMing before, and a player tried to do something, you didn't know what success would look like?
  14. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    Well, the point i was leading to is that the question is really only moot in a game like D&D as written, that only has simple success/fail mechanics. In games with other mechanics, the failed attempt can have other impacts, so the choice of whether to allow the attempt can matter. Like, in a...
  15. Umbran

    Judge decides case based on AI-hallucinated case law

    Humans are not known for their rationality, though. And, damage is not the only contributor to even a purely rational analysis.
  16. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    Not all love or seduction is sexual, folks.
  17. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    Note that I didn't mention rolling. I am asking about allowing the attempt or not. How we mechanically resolve the attempt is another question, and may be ruleset dependant. The question is whether the resulting fiction contains the attempt that fails, or not.
  18. Umbran

    Judge decides case based on AI-hallucinated case law

    Who makes the error does not change the damage done by the error. Human crash or auto-driving crash, what matters is that someone is injured or killed.
  19. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    I would say that the social status of the domicile implies the presence of servants. Like the owner maintains the large building and does all the cooking themselves? Also note the granularity difference between the cases: To get parity between 1 and 2, my first case actually needs two action...
  20. Umbran

    D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

    So, there are two different things that could happen here. 1) Disallowing the action -the PC cannot even attempt it. 2) Allowing the PC to attempt the action, but noting that the DC (or mechanical equvalent) is so high that the PC cannot succeed. Note that the resulting narrative is different...
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