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Exactly this. I think I expressed my self poorly: “Looking like a spiral” was meant to express that the design looks interesting and possibly multiple connected, but it isn’t. It really just a line which has been bent twice. I consider this to be a problem because it is un-interesting, and...

Reading over the adventure, and reading the criticism, I'm finding that Alexander is not wrong, but he gives a poor review nevertheless. The adventure does have a lot of problems, but Alexander doesn't focus on the important ones. In the case of the dungeon with the Hydra, the problems are...

Yeah. What’s wrong with the word “linear”? As in, don’t make your dungeon too linear? Or, do put in multiple options for how a dungeon may be traversed? Related: Disguising a dungeon by bending it or making it a spiral or any other distortion still leaves a linear dungeon. Inventing a term...

I like the far realms intrusion idea, but having it create more mind flayers is stupid. The last thing that mind flayers need is a lot more mind flayers. A single mind flayer, if they eat one brain every two weeks, needs a population of about five hundred to a thousand sentients. More or fewer...

The scene towards the end, which has Miss Minutes and Renslayer, seems to show that Miss Minutes might not have been truthful. She seems to have a deeper intent. At least to control He Who Remains. TomB

I kindof figure the branches to be limited in extent, with each branch being a distinct bubble which expands at the speed of light. (FTL breaks this, but perhaps most places don't have access to FTL.) Perhaps less than FTL. That would allow pruning to be still dramatic, but also, to be more...

I'm thinking the trance sequence was Ahsoka confronting aspects of herself, and deciding that she wanted to be more than a soldier. Her non-soldier aspect was choosing to live on. TomB

Haha, RAW nothing happens. Lactose isn't a poison if you are lactose intolerant. The bad stuff is a side effect of the lactose fermenting in your gut. And Vegan doesn't make milk "not food", just "not food that I will eat". (Or, if it's not food to you, still, nothing happens, since it is...

I don't disagree. I'd go with a "does a usual person consider it food" test. The spell is a good example of inherent ambiguity. "Food", "creature", "poisoned", and "diseased" are highly dependent on the caster to provide meaning. Chickens and cows are creatures, not food -- until they are...

A lot of plant food (plants as food, not food for plants) is alive when eaten. Poisonous berries, anyone? Also, a fertilized but undeveloped chicken egg. TomB

Yeah. It has one of the standout emotional science fiction moments for me: At the ending, when he tells Nebogipfel to "go" (on ahead without him). Other works with standout moments were "The Dispossed", by Le Guin, (when he has his breakthrough), "Diaspora", by Egan, at the very end, and...

Should we count works such as Le Morte d'Arthur (Sir Thomas Malory), Beowulf, or any number of Greek plays? TomB

Nod. But, strictly, The Dispossessed, uses science to create a canvas, then tells a story which is not really sciency. (Apologies .. this is a bit of a ramble.) That being said, I struggle to find a true science fiction story. Solaris and Roadside Park stand out. Maybe some of Clarke, but...

Hmm, doesn't that give us a large part of the original Star Wars movie? Sneak onto the Death Star to rescue the princess? Maybe that would work as a dark side analogue, but that feels too meta to me. TomB

Yeah. The episode failed to present how ludicrous the situation appeared to the captain. And to give the captain enough bluster and arrogance to make it believable that he would want to go to the dock to be on hand when the simpleton fools were apprehended. I think the scene can be made...

Isn’t the problem here “pseudo-jargon”? In professional fields, jargon is precisely defined. Local variations are discussed and resolved early in discussions, and professionals recognize sub-field specific practices as a professional requirement. I think with table-top RPGs we haven't yet...

This is true, but from the perspective of what can companies do, it might be debated. If an economic actor thinks they can make more from an input, they will outbid another thinks they who would make less. There seem to be instabilities that drive maximizing behaviors. TomB

Using the example of the car spokes, is it really a mistake? The image seems to work even with incorrect spoke details. I’m thinking technical inaccuracy doesn’t matter as much as whether our perceptions accept an image; or whether an image is evocative. We are not counting ships in an aerial...

Although, isn't that the case with a lot of art? In particular, painters seems to do a lot of providing just enough form and just enough detail and relying on our perception and our brains to fill in the rest. TomB

Current evidence is that the rate of expansion is increasing. I’m intrigued by two follow up questions: For a time-like curve that is continued indefinitely in to the past and future, for every other such curve, is there always at least one light-like path from a point of the first curve to a...