School Is Awesome.

Things I No Longer Claim To Understand/No Longer Believe In:

–Gravity
–Any other sort of action over distance besides electricity
–Heat
–Atomic theory
–Learning
–Language
–Virtue
–Weight
–Time
–Measurement in general
–The reason for the world’s existence if my religion happens to be wrong (which it isn’t)

Things I Now Know More About/How To Do Better Than You:

–Alchemy
–Geometry
–Ancient Greek
–Writing Gregorian chant
–Phlogiston
–Stones such as no two of today’s men could lift

School is awesome.

A History Lesson from Mr. Freedman

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/08/congress.economy/index.html?iref=mpstoryview if you don’t know.

Who is Mr. Freedman? Mr. Freedman was my high school US history teacher. I have a lot of memories of him, and one of the clearer ones is this:

We’re talking about FDR one day in class.  (That’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for the uninitiated.)  Mr. Freedman is describing FDR’s New Deal policies and views in regards to beating the Great Depression.  This was the way he summed it up: “We’ll try something, and if it doesn’t work — we’ll try something else!”

Very well.  Now is the time, I think, for something else.  For eight years we’ve had tax cuts as the answer to all humanity’s problems.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see much changing.  Now the GOP is calling the (admittedly hugely expensive) bailout measure a waste that will “lead to disaster,” according to CNN.  Why?  Because it doesn’t have enough tax cuts.  (Note if you haven’t been following: one-third of the bill is tax cuts.)  I could just reiterate that a tax cut doesn’t fix a road, but I’ve got something else to say tonight.

Sen. McCain’s comment on the situation, again according to CNN, ran thusly: “We’re going to amass the largest debt in the history of this country, by any measurement, and we’re going to ask our kids and grandkids to pay for it.”  Hey, guess what?  We already have amassed that debt, and I, the rest of my generation, and my kids are already going to have to pay for it.  And you know what?  I’m okay with investing another trillion in the future.  I can’t speak for the rest of my peers, but it seems to me that we don’t have much choice at this point.  Will I sacrifice 0.3% economic growth over ten years to reduce the unenployment rate by over 25%?  Hell yes I will.  I’m less concerned about a growing economy than making sure that people have jobs, so they can do things like buy food and learn to pay off debt.

Mr. Freedman, consider your lesson well-learned: I now believe it’s time to try something else.

Reversing Course On D&D 4th Edition

Now, let me make one thing clear: I still don’t like 3.5 very much either.  But I’m not as excited about 4E as I once was.  Here’s why.

I’ve been playing Star Wars SAGA for a good long while now.  Now, normally what I do is treat a game as a sort of “primary:” I play lots of games, but I focus most of my attention on one system or another.  I’ve had a few of these over the years, but only four for any significant length of time: D&D 3.5, D&D 4E, Shadowrun 4th, and Star Wars SAGA.  The merits of 3.5 have been discussed to death elsewhere, and honestly, if you’re reading this you probably have an opinion on it.  Suffice it to say that I don’t like it as much as any of the other above systems.  Also, Shadowrun is a very different style of game than the others; it’s not d20, and lends itself to a bit more of a “beer and pretzels” feel.  (Note: this is a very good thing, if ya ask me.)

So that just leaves SAGA and 4E.  Now, both games are d20 system games, both are by the same company, and both have similar mechanics — SAGA was actually a testing ground for a lot of the 4E mechanics.  (Compare 3.5–SAGA–4E skills, for instance.)  You’d think they run in the same way.  And, well, they sort of do.  But there’s a huge difference between them, and that’s the level system.

See, the thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth about 4E?  It’s not what a lot of people complain about.  I don’t think the classes are generic in terms of flavor; I don’t think that there aren’t enough options to play the character you want.  I don’t think that having the classes work off the same mechanics was a bad idea; as it happens, I still think it’s a good one.  No, what bothers me is this: there’s just not a huge difference between what a level 1 character does and what a level 30 character does.

Okay, WHAT?  That is a pretty hefty claim to make.  I mean, people are dealing tons more damage and attacking with a much higher to-hit, right?   Well… yeah.  And that’s really about it.  Because of the way the system works, you’ll only ever have four powers of each type.  And while you get new and exciting ones while leveling up, they’re basically just higher-level versions of the same thing.  Your character may be getting more objectively powerful, but to me it seems that he’s just running faster on a treadmill.

Add to this the fact that feats and class abilities have been de-emphasized in terms of power, and you get this system where you level up really fast and barely even notice.  It doesn’t help that since feats are so terrible, you’re either taking from an incredibly small set or picking stuff you’ll never, ever use.  The end result is that you just don’t notice the difference in your character’s abilities, and that’s (for me) one of the most fun parts of the game.

Note that there’s more to abilities than mechanics.  I work off the basic assumption that we’re all roleplaying because we want to play characters that can do stuff.  Maybe not awesomely, maybe not as well as other people in the setting, but you wanna be able to swing a sword, shoot a gun, cast a spell, or use the Force starting from day one.  And then, as your character becomes more experienced (and comes into more Experience), they start to be able to affect the world around them in different ways.  That’s what’s not reflected in 4E: your character, in a large way, never changes.  And compared to something like SAGA — where every single level offers new and exciting change — that’s just not very interesting to me.

So I’ve given up 4E for SAGA.  And I couldn’t be happier.

Obama and the OTHER FBI

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/05/obama.faith.based/index.html if you don’t know already.

It’s an interesting issue. We all know discrimination is bad, but at a certain level jobs require certain things.  You need a teaching credential to teach in public schools; you need to know how a computer works to head up an IT department.  But should religion be one of those requirements if the job in question is for a faith-based charity?

On the surface, I think they nailed it in ‘64: yes, a faith-based charitable organization is perfectly within its rights to only hire applicants of a matching faith.  I mean, nondiscrimination is one thing, but should churches be forced to hire Jewish ministers (or priests, if that’s your thing) because to do otherwise would be discriminatory?  Obviously not.  And I’m fine with faith-based charities doing likewise.

I do have a caveat to that, though: if CNN isn’t making up that stuff about organizations using that clause to discriminate against LGBTQ hirings, then a crackdown needs to go down and fast.  Religious hiring practices are one thing, but your religion being prejudicial isn’t an excuse to turn away members of your own faith and claim that they’re a different one.  You want fiath-based hiring practices, fine, but it’s not an excuse to be homophobic.

All that said, I actually think that there are more important discrimination practices than faith-based that need a long, hard look.  Ageism is one, as is cultural discrimination against certain names.  (Note that I’m not talking about LGBTQ discrimination as less important than these; it’s not.)

News Time, Children!

Okay, so enough with the Facebook statuses.  I’ve been frustrated with my inability to comment at length on news stories I like for a good long while now… but today, I remembered, “Oh, right, I have a blog.”

Anyhoo.

Today’s objection is to the GOP’s line-by-line analysis of “wasteful spending” in President Obama’s economic stimulus package.  The article’s there for you to read, and what’s nice is that it’s just the list.  So go read it; more after you do.

…Done?  Okay, who else thinks that the GOP is completely off their collective rocker?  Two can play at this line-by-line game; let’s go through it.

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

I’d like to take a closer look at this one.  Remember that this was the DoE of the previous administration.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

Help Hollywood make movies?  Historically, a good idea.  Even in the Great Depression, movies served as a popular form of entertainment and remained an economic player.  Also, big scenes always need extras — and extras = jobs.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

A needed measure, and arguably will have an economic impact.  It’s better than having millions of viewers not make the changeover and stop being a TV market.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

Arguable impact.  Manufacturing of these ships could create jobs or throw shipyards a bone, but I’m leery.

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

This?  This is exactly the kind of thing that SHOULD be in here.  Construction is one of the best ways of creating jobs, because it needs unskilled labor and lots of it.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

…Unless they’re including computer equipment in the cost of furniture, this may be a little excessive.  (If you’re asking why this should be in the bill at all, it’s because building an office without furniture would be kind of silly.)

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

Yay auto bailouts!  Yay alternative energy!  Actually, I’d like to see exactly what this means first.  If we’re talking cars they drive on their own time, probably not good.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD’s.

Okay, the Democrats have dropped this as a gesture of faith to the GOP.  And you know what?  That was boneheaded.  I quote an anonymous CNN Democratic source: “”It’s hard to explain when you’re in the midst of a crisis why these programs are important. When people are struggling and thinking about their jobs, it’s hard to make that connection.”  It’s important because you don’t want people dying or severely ill, obviously.  (You could also argue that this would allow the CDC to create jobs.)

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

Environmental initiative?  But hey, programs = jobs.  I approve.

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

Define “for,” please, CNN.  Repairs make work, useless planning generally doesn’t.

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

See above, though with a bit less skepticism.  I’m plenty okay with museums getting money.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

I’m back and forth on this one.  It’s not immediate and it may or may not create jobs, but I have this gut feeling that censuses are somehow important.

• $75 million for “smoking cessation activities.”

Same deal as the STD prevention: Democrats caved.  Boohiss.  Quitters need all the help they can get, and compared to the rest of this bill it’s not even a lot.

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

You know what’s good?  Internet access.  Sure it makes jobs (IT people, community instructors, and even just the construction work) but my main reason for liking this is my deep-seated belief in universal net access.

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

May or may not be good.  I can’t find an analysis of their pay scale, so I can’t tell ya.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

This is less than 1/3,400th of the total money spent to fix a SERIOUS problem.  (I live in Santa Fe, I should know.)

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

Ditch-digging: another time-honored public works project that creates jobs all over the place.  Plus, we need it.  See: Katrina.

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

See: above.

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into “green” buildings.

Saves money in the long run, gives contractors jobs, etc.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

You know what?  My hometown (Magnolia, MA) doesn’t even HAVE a fire station any more.  Let’s not cut things that fix that little problem, okay?

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

Gee, I wonder what I have to say about this.  (Hint: my family lives in LA.)

•$1.2 billion for “youth activities,” including youth summer job programs.

Hey, you know what sucks?  Looking for a job as a teen.  We need to create teen jobs as much as adult ones — maybe even more so, as employers will almost always take an adult over a teen.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

Renovations.  Contractors.  Jobs.  We’ve been through this.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

Define “for.”

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

Construction.  Jobs.

• $160 million for “paid volunteers” at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Okay, this is literally making… well, not jobs, but really, what else do you call them?

• $5.5 million for “energy efficiency initiatives” at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

Pays for itself in the long run, is a TINY sum of this package, and will probably give some contractor a job.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

Okay, for this I have to talk about WHY the GOP wants to cut this stuff: they want more tax cuts.  They’re proposed their own version of a stimulus package, which is more than half tax cuts.  But I think that Rep. Frank of Massachusetts said it best: “I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation. The fact is, we need a mix.”

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

Uhm.  This one… well, Id like to see how prevalent a problem it is and how exactly this will help first.

• $75 million to construct a “security training” facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

Construction.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

IT work, and Lord knows the government needs some better computers.

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.

Stimulates car rental services, which sounds like an industry that won’t be having a ton of fun right now.

So there you have it.  Feel free to argue, as always.

Present Tense Writing

An interesting phenomena in recent fiction is the tendancy of writers to write in the present tense.  (“The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” sparked this thought, though there are many others — “A Great and Terrible Beauty,” etc.)  I’m not going to pretend that I know whether or not this directly makes a book better or worse, only having read two books that use it.  And, frankly, having read “Beauty” is probably a bit of a stretch; I didn’t make it that far at all.  I’ll just say that I like it in some cases and not in others.  (And that I look forward to the day a book is written entirely in the future tense.  Hm… an interesting challenge for NaNoWriMo ‘08.)

Now, the present tense at the physical game table has been around from the beginning.  It’s encouraged by the environment: when you’re explaining what your character’s doing, you tend to explain it as if they were doing it right now — IE, in the present tense.  But this is different in play-by-post campaign.  Players write in a more literary style, and a post could easily be either in the past tense or the present.  (I have found, personally, that the longer a post is, the better it looks in past tense.)  However, most players choose to write in the present tense; indeed, many PbP sites encourage or even require it.

The sites with those policies explain them by saying that the present tense makes one player’s action easier for another to invalidate and doesn’t assume success.  (The idea being that it’s not okay for me to say to you, “I stabbed your character and he fell over, dead;” I should instead write “I attempt to stab your character.”  The rules for how this kind of thing is resolved are archaic, complex, and entirely beyond my capacity to explain in my current “splitting-headache” state.)  However, that reasoning is pretty flimsy to me: I could just as easily say “I attempted to stab you” as “I attempt to stab you.”  I understant the reasoning as to why a tense is established — after going through a game or two where someone was using a different tense than everyone else, I’ll establish one too if I feel the need.  But why present instead of past?

I suspect that the reason’s cultural.  (It’d be no fun if it wasn’t.)  We live in an age of accessibility — please stay; unlike most people who use that phrase, I’m not going to actively persecute the modern era.  In times past, we listened to records of what people did: for example, as most RPGers know, the earliest stories were epics and myths of time immemorial.  These were of course written in the past tense; they were stories of our ancestors and had happened long ago.  In the modern era, however, the emphasis is on what people are doing: TV news gives us up-to-the-minute information, and YouTube covers whatever it missed.  And, when it’s time to title a news story or a YouTube clip, the modern man chooses the present tense to cover these current events.  It’s only logical to conclude that today’s culture influences (there, I did it) how we write for our play-by-post games.

But then, I play Fourth Edition.  I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me in the least.

PING!

This isn’t so much an article, but:Here you will find the only useful meme on the Internet.

Representative Mechanics

First off, welcome to everyone who’s here from TT or something. I’m amazed anyone actually reads this thing. (And thanks for linking to me, Martin!)

Aaaanyway, today’s topic is representative mechanics. You know, where what the rules say you’re doing isn’t exactly what you do.

Okay, I’m going to need to explain this further.

Take hit points. Let’s say we’ve got an average tanker barbarian with HP in the triple digits, and an average Errol Flynn swashbuckler. The tank is just fine with his HP representing just how many times he gets whacked with a sword, but what about Flynnie? His character is really more of a thin, welterweight type, and it wouldn’t make sense for him to take five arrows to the gut and survive. So, what does he do?

This is where representative mechanics come into play. Errol here talks with his DM, and they decide that instead of wounds Flynnie’s HP represents his stamina, or defensive moves in his repertoire. So now, when Flynnie fights, he’s utterly untouchable — until that one perfect thrust gets by him, wounding him severely enough that he drops. This gives much more of the impression of an invincible swordsman with an answer for anything, and also those really long sword duels that were in all of the old movies. (Man, do I miss those.)

There’s a great example of this over at Jeff’s Gameblog.  In that article (an excellent read, by the way) he mentions how his player Doug roleplayed out the buying of a 120k sword as receiving the sword and throwing a block part.  (Y’know, if Greyhawk were a block.)  The idea was that buying a sword is boring, so he turned it into something interesting.

The underlying concept here is simple: don’t let the predefined fluff spoil your fun.  As long as it doesn’t change the mechanical outcome, there is no balance change whatsoever when a character roleplays something differently — so why not let them have their fun and do it?

DMing and the Dao

This is a repost of an article I wrote a while ago on the Wizards.com forums. I never wrote the follow-up, but it was well-recieved and I like it. As such, it’s included here.

Besides, I may write the followup some day.

———-

I was looking at one of my favorite sites, and I realized that it has some good DMing advice contained within.

And if any of you doubt it, well…

Ordinary people think the “Great Tao” is actually useless. That everyone thinks it is useless, is proof of how great it is. If it was the kind of thing ordinary people thought was useful, it would have disappeared long ago.

Heh.
So, our first quote:

Heaven and Earth last and last. Why do they last so long? Because they are not self-serving!

Now, what may we take home from this?

Lesson #1: A Campaign is NOT All About You!

This is a pretty basic lesson, and most DMs here know about it already. It’s worth repeating endlessly, though: if you’re in it for your enjoyment alone, you should’t be DMing. A DM who makes a storyline for his own enjoyment and forces the characters through it exactly the way he wants isn’t a DM, he’s an auther — and a cruel one at that.

Which brings us to quote #2:

Living plants are flexible; in death, they become dry and brittle.

Therefore, stubborn people are disciples of death, but flexible people are disciples of life.

Lesson #2: Be Flexible

This is related to lesson number one, but is important enough to be its own. A game without flexibility is a game without fun. This is true of everything from plots to houserules: if you force a player to play with rules that they don’t like, they won’t have much fun at all. Likewise, if no one’s having fun with the current story, it may be time to think about a change of pace.

However, I’m not saying let the players walk all over you. Indeed…

The more regulations there are, the poorer the people; the more weapons there are, the greater the chaos.

Lesson #3: Be Flexible, But Don’t Be TOO Flexible

Now, I’m all for allowing things in a campaign. Even if it doesn’t fit, work with your player to find a way to adapt it. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should allow every mechanic into a game — some just shouldn’t be in there. I’m not going to list what I think they are, because nothing is more a matter of opinion over what’s broken and what isn’t, but I think everybody reading this thread has at least one thing in mind by now. I give you permission not to allow that in your games.

Finally, the simplest and most important:

If you don’t trust people, people will not trust you.

Lesson #4: Trust Your Players

Normally this maxim is thrown around in Op vs. RP arguments, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Trust your players not to do things inappropriate to the game, and they’ll trust you not to ban things they bring or do outright. This goes back to lesson two, but again, it deserves its own. A game that lacks trust quickly becomes DM versus players — the players don’t trust the DM to play fairly and the DM doesn’t trust the players not to wreck his campaign.

And there you have it. I’m considering making a list for players, too — Lao Tzu had some good advice to those who say “I must have this in the game or I shall PERISH!” If this gets a good reception, look for it over on the “What’s a Player to Do?” boards soon!

Bell Curve Rolling and Threat Ranges

“Consider – One: Probability is a factor which operates within natural forces. Two: Probability is not operating as a factor. Three: We are now held within un-, sub-, or supernatural forces.”
–Guildenstern, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead

So I was reading the bell-curve rolling rules here, and I had a thought:

How good would range multipliers be under them?

For instance, let’s take everyone’s favorite, the Disciple of Dispater with attached Improved Critical. The table in the SRD seems to imply that you multiply the old threat range and then calculate the new one. All right, let’s try the quadrupled threat range of a scimitar: 9-20/x2, a 60% probability.

We then run the handy Harlequin Jones Dice Probability Calculator for 3d6. Then, we start adding results until we hit .6 or more.

The exact chance of hitting a 14-18 is .16204, which means that 18-20 weapons got a boost and 17-20 weapons got a hit, as they say. 20 by itself takes the hit they indicate as well… but what they DON’T say is that 19-20 is only .0925, or 9.25% — a hit of .75%, which in bell curve rolling is a heck of a lot. Shafting 19-20 even further is the fact that taking Improved Critical only adds less than 7% to your threat range, as opposed to the previous 10%. Weapons with a range of 20 (Greataxe, for example) are actually .0463, meaning that they too take a hit to IC strength — down from +5% to +.0462, or 4.6%. This is a better increase than 19-20 gets.

The percentage increase for 18-20 goes down as well, by a little over 5%. (.05279, to be exact.) But here’s the thing: even with this drop, you’re still at a net advantage over normal rolling. This isn’t true of any other range… and, as we get closer and closer to the top of the bell curve, this is more and more and more of an advantage.

Now, let’s get back to the DoD. He has a threat percentile of 60. His cap is either going to be 11-18 (.5) or 10-18 (.625). Which one do we choose?

Well, the obvious analouges here are 18-20 and 17-20. 18-20 has a threat percentile of 15%, whereas 17-20 has a threat percentile of 20%. A 14-20 has a .16204 chance of occuring, while a 13-20 has a .25926. A 15-18 occurs .0925. So, we find the deviation from each to find how WotC rounded.

.0925 – .15 = -.0575
.16204 – .15 = .01204

.16204 – .20 = -.03796
.25926 – .20 = .05926

So in both cases the plan was to go with the least deviation from the norm. This means that a converted 9-20 threat range is .625, or 10-18.

Now, stop a minute. Think about that.

In terms of probability, that’s a bit of an upgrade — 2.5%. But in practical terms, as mentioned, rolls will cluster around 10 and 11. This means that you’re going to be threatening a good deal more than under the other system — meaning that a Disciple with a large STR score, a greatpick and someone willing to give him lots of burst enhancements is going to cause a great deal of trouble. It also means that he’ll be critting more than “equivalent builds” under the old system.

For example, a Dervish with a threat range of 15-20 will critical for about the same amount as a DoD, since his Dervish Dance gives him twice as many attacks. (Usually more due to TWF and all, but let’s say twice as many for the sake of comparison.) However, in bell urve rolling the DoD takes a jump in power, as you’ll probably roll a lot closer 10 and 11 — inside the DoD’s threat range, but not the Dervish’s. (This is reflected in terms of their probability; in bell curve, a Dervish has about a 25% chance of critting, but the Disciple has 62.5% — a diference of 37.% as compared to the original difference of 30%.)

What does all this mean, though?

Well, in the bigger picture, it makes bell curve rolling a much better choice for crit range specialists. That’s nice, because it also decreases CL checks and increases general sucess rates on saving throws — meaning that the environment is more melee-friendly. The end result for me is that I think I’m going to be trying it sometime soon — if for no other reason than my local Walgreens sells lighters with 3d6 in ‘em.