Posts made by Ghost

@WTFE said in RL Anger:

@Lithium said in RL Anger:

@WTFE So that they can gerrymander the counties and take control of everything without having the popular vote

It's not a true democracy, it's technically a republic.

That's the reason that the PTBs want you to register.

WHY ARE YOU REGISTERING!?

The only truly democratic process of our alleged democratic elections are what are called the "Primaries". This is when the two-party system (Democrats and Republicans) field a number of prospective candidates per party as options to vote for.

Each of our 50 states has a state value per party, based on the population of the state. On a calendar, each respective party holds a Democrat or Republican vote that only registered party members can vote in, and they can only vote within their own party. There is no electoral college. Each vote is counted as a vote. 1 citizen? 1 vote.

The political parties have also provided a number of "Superdelegates" per state to influential party members, lobbyists, and historically these superdelegates will not commit their votes until the state has been won, and side with the candidate who won the state. California has 546 superdelegates and a population of 39 million, which comes to about each superdelegate (elite) vote in California being worth over 17,000 citizen votes.

(This should be maddening.)

In an unprecedented move, the Democrat party's superdelegates declared near unanimous support for Hillary Clinton before a single citizen had cast a single vote in the Primaries, placing her within reach of winning before the Primaries had even begun.

By the end of the primaries, this process helps decide who the (Democrat|Republican) nominees will be in the general election.

Which is, clearly, not a corrupted, usurped democratic process leaned towards focusing on the interests of the elite.

Thus concludes your 2 minute lesson as to why our democracy is clearly better than any other of you CLEARLY freedom-lacking nations, because we are the best.

@Ganymede said in RL Anger:

I don't know of any Catholic pastors who serve as members of local government. At least, not around my parts.

Not to put on a "Team Catholic" jersey here, even if I no longer refer to myself as one, I have more respect than I often speak of about the Catholic Church. I grew up around priests and nuns, have a high respect for Jesuits, and attended 2 years of a Jesuit high school.

I think a big difference is that where Catholics tend to spend a lot of time focusing on matters of conscience, with the need for regular confession, strains of guilt, and a fearful respect for a God who don't suffer no bullshit when he knows what was in your heart at the time, other strains of Christianity have bypassed that into the theory that sudden "re-baptisms" suddenly wash the slate clean, and that you can flaunt your "blessings" as victories and signs of God's approval.

Catholics don't do that shit. The general Catholic understanding is that regular pressings of some forgiveness button doesn't excuse you of the fact that you wouldn't have been truly sorry to begin with, and that flaunting riches in the face of the poor is inherently immoral.

So, in short, there are many Catholics that I don't apply these "Modern Christian" arguments towards. Sure, there are some who use Catholicism (just like others do in other faiths) as a personal path to power and abuse the influence and reassurances faith can bring, too. The Papacy has been a mess up until Pope Francis' arrival (and since John Paul II), but those that still admire the faith as a lifetime of conscience and introspection, I applaud.

@Ganymede I agree. As a former practicing Catholic I'm a fan of Pope Francis and think he's a shining example of what the faith should expect in a Pope.

I was particularly fond of his decision to turn down bullet-proof glass and the Popemobile because he wanted to walk amongst the people in the favelas of Brazil, and if it was God's expectation that he be assassinated, then that was God's will.

That's fucking faith.

And yes, there are members of the church, as well as stakeholders in Grand Canyon University, tied to the local Phoenix government. It's the Phoenix government who granted the eminent domain of the poor, low-income housing to provide inexpensive land for GCU to be built.

My accusation is that this doesn't happen without GCU being well aware that low income housing (and thus, low income people) aren't being displaced to build their for-profit school.

Private. Christian. Affordable.

My pitch for Starfinder is that it is d20 based, we've seen Pathfinder MUs, and Starfinder is the Sci-Fi upgrade of Pathfinder.

So, in theory, it's doable.

@DarkDeleria It's a SYFY TV series.

ALSO:

Agreed on it being a nightmare.

One major issue is that without any sort of binding contracts going in about who gets what, this sort of idea always devolves into an issue regarding who is entitled to what when it comes to any royalties made. It usually goes the way of Animal Farm, where a small group declares Two Legs Good, Four Legs Bad and begins deciding for other people what their take is.

The only way to ensure this sort of thing goes correctly is with legally binding contracts going in, and in trying to turn MU content into novel content's case, it likely wouldn't make much money.

BUT...what if one person takes their logs and roleplay, turns it into a story, goes off on their own, and the other players in this collaborative MU find re-writes of their characters and content and it becomes the next Harry Potter? Surely that's content stealing, but if the stories are retold to a degree, characters renamed...

I've worked with musicians and artists before and the only way I think I'd ever do something collaborative is if it was in writing and with a concrete idea going in.

@Lain said in RL Anger:

What is your religion political ideology (definitely NOT religion)?

Myself, personally? I'm my own, subjective life experience. If there's god(s), then I'm an ant incapable of choosing what their name is, and am comfortable with the idea of their being gods every bit as I am there being not. I'm the star of my own limited, mortal experience. I'm hesitant to claim what a GOD wants and more comfortable claiming what I want, which is usually fish tacos on Tuesday.

I was raised Catholic to the point of Confirmation, but then dispersed from the Catholic church for personal reasons mostly stemming towards the philosophical. I believe that people need to live up to their facades and the concept that if you do something you claim to not believe in, then you cannot claim to not believe in it.

So when I say the things I've said, it's not to attack ONE ideology. I've read plenty of history and even with religions predating Judaism, it's fairly constant that every era of our human society has included religious domination trying to enforce itself, politically, on the masses.

I don't see any really good reason why we shouldn't assume we're immune to this in 2017.

@Lain said in RL Anger:

@Ghost Americans like to bitch about crazy Christian crap because Christianity is the dominant religion in the region (North America) and as a consequence of that their crazies get a lot more leeway than the crazies of any other religion.

It has nothing to do with the content of the religion and everything to do with the one that is dominant and therefore the one that most of us have to tolerate in spite of their insanity.

Agreed and well spoken.

I live a few miles away from a site where a Hindu group petitioned to create a temple. The city council is heavily Mormon, and the empty site of the proposed temple was zoned for religious structures. It was already a part of the city zoning that a temple could be built there.

After the Hindu group had already placed thousands of dollars into getting permits to break ground, the city council held an emergency session and had the proposed site of the temple re-zoned to block it's building.

Right across the street from that site?

A Mormon temple.

ANOTHER FUN FACT: Here in Arizona (which boasts a staggering number of Evangelicals and Mormons in city government) it was approved that Mormon "Seminaries" could be built across the street from public high school (paid for by tax dollars). These Seminaries are attached to the school and were originally designed for Mormon students to meet separately on school grounds from the other students, but it was later written into the school board's code that any student who chose to go to the Seminary instead of their homeroom at the start of the day to attend teenage Mormon gatherings would receive school credits towards their graduation.

Agreed with @surreality

I've heard from time to time statements like "why should I have to deal with <issue> when it's against my faith?".

The question to this is (just using <issue> as an example, not here to discuss if it's right or wrong): "Are you truly dealing with it, or offended by the idea that you're living in a world where others partake in it?"

If you do not believe in doing a specific thing, then by not partaking in doing these things, one is not only not dealing with it, but they're practicing their belief. This is a good thing and has many positive examples!

But if it's still not okay to simply not partake, and actions are taken to try to create a world where others are not only barred from doing so, but could be punished for doing so, then it is not a statement of "I do not believe in doing these things", but instead: "It is unacceptable for me to allow others to do these things."

No one has a problem with people choosing to not partake in these things, but in a free society, the imposition of force to deny others by means of religion and personal preference isn't your field to tend. It's theirs.

Blood Drive....

Another quick note, which I think is constructive and fair.

Right now, in America, you do not see the following:

1. Jews lobbying through political parties to enforce the Sabbath be recognized on a political level
2. Hindus lobbying against the cattle industry and the killing of cows
3. Buddhists lobbying to require 1 hour of guided meditation on the cycle of Samsara
4. Followers of Islam lobbying to require multiple sessions of prayer towards Mecca, per day, in schools.
5. Shinto followers lobbying for mandatory days off of work on death holidays to honor passed ancestors.

I could go on, but my point is this:

American Christians and Mormons are on the move. They're claiming eminent domain, using tax-free donations to run profit empires, and actively lobbying for the promotion of their own faith as a social standard above the views and beliefs of other cultures and religions. This is nowhere near something other religions are attempting to do in American society, and when it comes to questioning whether or not Christians are oppressed in America, it's important to ask why.

This is why.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Perhaps the American Christian community should be asking themselves why, despite their message being about love, so many Americans feel as if they need to protect themselves from Christians?

@Lisse24 I'm going to venture to say that at least in America, no one has a true problem with Christianity.

In that, I mean, I don't think anyone has a problem with the concept of the monotheistic religion that preaches loving your neighbor and believing in good deeds until the point that you are accepted into heaven.

In fact, I'm going to venture to say that, historically, no one had a problem with these ideas, at all.

Christians (and many other followers of other religions that promise a "Deeds for Afterlife" scenario) tend to not stay in their lane, and that's a pretty big problem in the United States right now.

IMPORTANT NOTE:In America's current political climate, a good amount of the strife right now comes from the almost universally shared belief that if one of the two political parties gains control, then the needs and interests of the people from the opposing political party will not only fall onto deaf ears, but will be in jeopardy.

I don't think there would be any major problems with Christianity in the states right now were it not for a few core things:

1. One political party has quadrupled down on representing Christianity, running on God-centric tickets, in a country with freedom of religion for all religions. This places a face to a political movement. See Important Note above. Many of these candidates have run against women's medical rights, LGBTQ rights, and per Important Note above, creates a feeling of the religion taking a stance via political domination.
2. Unchecked 501c(3) donations to charitable Christian organizations have been used to monetize, lobby, and successfully (through politics) lobby for unchecked political representation and donations towards candidates who... Important Note
3. Tongue-In-Cheek abuses of power have been cited as victories. Americans see people like Joel Osteen and prosperity ministers abuse the tax code to their benefit. Even in Phoenix, Arizona, Grand Canyon University is claiming victory left and right as a "Private, Christian, Affordable" university, despite having lobbied to rake in plenty of for-profit money on a lowered tax bracket after claiming eminent domain over whole city blocks of low income housing to ensure the campus was built where they wanted it to.
4. OtherChristian sect practices, such as Mormons, targeting illegal immigrants into their fold, providing them with jobs in Mormon businesses, access to Mormon lawyers to get their papers, but should they not tithe regularly, threats of excommunication, loss of their job, and loss of access to immigration process take place.

So...I'm with Ghandi.

In the United States, at least, where it is written into the Constitution that we are a nation of all faiths, the movements since the 50's that placed "God" in the "Pledge of Allegiance", the growing political affiliation, the lobbying of elected officials, attempted legislation against female reproductive systems, has been a steady stream (or slippery slope) of working its way towards dominance over other faiths and belief systems in American society.

Attacked for practicing my faith does not apply when said attack happens while trying to alter the lives, faiths, beliefs, and practices of others. Doing so is no one's right. No one truly has a right to be adhered to, obeyed, or given microphone time when it comes to trying to assert change on others from the approach of this is what's best for you, just do what I say.

So do people have a problem with Christianity? No. It's the behavior and failure of many modern-day Christians (at least in America) to comfortably allow people to live different lives, and it seems that since preaching and handing out fliers is failing, the political control approach is being taken, and referred to as victory when legislation removes the ability to choose differently from others.

It's a problem. I, personally, have no issues with any of the plethora of Christian approaches in theory, but it's the behaviors and practices that take place when confronted with non-Christians that are of issue.

QUASI POLITICAL (NOT intended to start a political discussion)

The look on your face when fans shit on something good.

The football club I back (Phoenix Rising FC, USL, my user pic) has 2 major backer groups: La Furia Roja 1881 and Los Bandidos.

The Furia Roja 1881 are a bunch of good folks with kids, friends, get togethers, etc. The Bandidos are best described as a militant ANTIFA group who have adopted Rising FC as their FC of choice.

At Saturday's game (After plenty of political news generated here in Phoenix, Az) the Bandidos came loaded for bear with protest banners, one including crossed out swastikas on a railing within view of the TV cameras and the goal. They were asked (by Rising FC) to remove the sign with the swastikas and the Bandidos cited absolutism, you're with us or against us rhetoric, and in protest of the FC and USL regulations for political/hate related imagery in the stands...they stormed out of the arena.

In short? Way to make it about yourselves and not support of the team, assholes. Claiming support of a sports team does not automatically entitle you to support for every last drip of your political endeavors.

Double post but a followup afterthought to above post.

Back in my Vampire LARP days there was this concept I talked about a lot called playing the player. It's basically a metagaming tactic where despite the hobby's intention to be about playing a role and being in-character, I found that people were using their understanding of other players to thwart or outmatch them IC.

• If Brad always plays sneaky characters then despite his new character appearing as an honest character, I will never trust his character and always triple-validate everything he says...because BRAD
• Jane always smiles when she's lying.
• Nick always plays power combat characters so I'm not going to involve his new character in my role play scene because NICK

MU suffers from a lot of this. Many people take their queues from existing OOC knowledge of the other players and apply it to role play, rather than let the characters speak for themselves.

I feel the post above would help mitigate some of this.

Idea: Hidden social rolls.

This idea is like something I started doing in my tabletop group. Basically, I stopped letting my players roll their own perception checks, sense bullshit checks, and danger sense checks.

I found that when they rolled their dice by their own hand, something odd happened.

1. if they knew the target number to beat before they rolled, they would know if they had failed the check.
2. if they knew if they failed, they would usually not act as if they'd naturally not seen the thing, but instead act as if they failed to see the thing but still felt the need to inspect something as if their gut told them to do so.
3. The players who knew they'd passed the check would then tell everyone the correct answer, and the PCs would all automatically believe the PC who passed the check because the players knew it was correct. No one ever questioned whether or not seeing nothing at all was the correct answer.

So I've started to fight against PC hive mind by keeping track of their social/perception stats and rolling WITHOUT ANNOUNCEMENT behind a GM screen and using those results to generate RP.

THE ACTUAL IDEA: Code social/social awareness/perception rolls (or assist via GM) to be handled entirely out of sight from the players so that the PLAYER ELEMENT doesn't pollute the process.

Theoretical Example:

• Player A wants to lie to Player B
• Player B wants to know if they're being lied to.
• Player B initiates a specialized, hardcoded (or string) roll for their perception stat vs target's social stats.
• The screen returns a prompt to all players that Player B's explanation is convincing.

Not appears to be true or a lie, but that the writing/acting queue spits out that whatever Player B has said is convincing and plausible.

Then...the game lists an expectation that to avoid metagaming these queues are expected to be honored.

Late addition: So no one in the scene would know who won or lost the roll, but that from Player A's perspective, B appears to be genuine.

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

I didn't intend the TS portion of my reasoning to take over the thread. It's a minor (if still a) factor for discussing the elimination of social stats.

Oh, no, it's a very valid point and I agree it shouldn't be drilled too deeply into, but should also not be forgotten.

Clearly, a system of social combat that allows for such things is NOT the answer, and with rules about what can or cannot be forced with social rolls, in theory, it would cover a lot of rules ground to other corner cases.

@Lain

My vampire beats your vampire, because my vampire's PB is Dolph Lundgren and your vampire's PB is Russell Brand.

I mean, clearly, that seems fair to me.

I disagree that these rulesets are outdated.

I also dislike the argument that these systems arent often used out of fear of players being rolled into unwanted TS.

Let me throw something out here:

1. Making even attempting to use dice rolls to force a character into TS is a bannable offense no one should ever fear.
2. If people are not using the social dice mechanics of hundreds of existing RPG systems to implement control of social conflict, then they would be using these systems currently. No new system is going to spontaneously make people use risk-based social mechanics.

This is about choice.

PHYSICAL skill rolls are accepted because on some level players understand that not every slap shot gets past the goalie

MENTAL skill rolls are accepted because studying is difficult, takes endurance, and players understand that not every experiment or piece of software written works the way we want it to.

SOCIAL rolls are not accepted because players want to choose how their quasi-avatars react to social situations, which lies they believe or don't, and want complete creative control over how their character responds to other players.

This is about choice and control, and that players of these games do not want to have to roleplay a social avenue that they do not wish to. They don't want their characters to believe lies unless their player chooses to, and want to base their character's opinions on social situations based on the player's judgment for their characters.

I cannot say this enough, but I believe in my heart of hearts that the problem presented here is not about finding a worthy system or mechanic, but the approach of players to these games.

• Players trying to use dice to force others to TS
• Powerhouse players with limitless sheets throwing their dice around
• My Story

For whatever reason, ranging from the reasonable to the selfish, this is about the demand to control one's character, or on some level, the player protecting themselves and their fun time against strangers who may use these dice to turn the experience into something less fun for them.

Another new and shiny system for social interaction isn't going to do shit until this issue gets addressed and some people stop approaching these games as ways to be predatory to others or try to wedge their character into being the star of their own show.

@Lain UPVOTES

I've had issues like this on tabletop night:

The undead tentacle monster roars in your face and you are shaken for 2 rounds
But my character isn't afraid of it
It's a writhing mass of tentacles on a moldy bone frame. It's scary
My character has a +24 attack roll and does 12d400 mega-damage, he isn't afraid of shit.
He rolled over your will save, you spent all your points on combat stats
This is bullshit.

@Meg There's one.