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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, April 23, 2009
First, support these guys; they do great work. Second, I think a Google search of some of our friends there might turn up some disturbing basement photos. :) Do your contributors get paid?
We don’t pay per article or per word, but at the end of the year we take any profits we make from advertising and book sales and divide it up between the staff. In the past, that has yielded a few hundred bucks for guys who are week-in, week-out contributors.
Do any of them live in their parents’ basements?
Not that I know of, though I do know that one of our writers is a devoted Dungeons & Dragons player. I won’t name names, but a Google search of his name could turn up some interesting results.
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EDIT: Oh, and I protect the Lounge from the scourge of the undead. It's probably my life's most important work. GGC alone is like a full-time job here.
Dear sir, what do you think of the upcoming Abrams sort-of reboot/sort-of prequel/sort-of sequel?
I lurk at ENWorld from time to time - there were (probably still are) some fantastic RHoD maps over there I used as handouts and as battlemats when I ran that campaign. I don't do 4e, so I've scaled back some on my reading.
Concur on elves being slap hitters. And this may surprise you, but they're not even good at making contact - you apply your STR bonus to all melee attacks, and elves have a -2 STR penalty. And sure, they live longer, but you can't draft one until they're 100 years old, which offsets a lot of it.
Or probably just inscripted with tiny little magic runes.
Okay, fine, but it's not like an elf gets a lot of feats to begin with.
1. CF Elf, rogue
2. 2B Half-Elf, ranger
3. 1B Half-Orc, fighter
4. LF Human, paladin
5. RF Half-Orc, cleric
6. 3B Human, ranger
7. C Dwarf, fighter
8. SS Elf, wizard
9. SP Human, rogue
CL Elf, fighter
Manager: Halfling, rogue
GM: Gnome, expert
Thieves are now "Rogues"? Lame.
You get into power, sure, that's strength-based. But you're not going to convince me making contact is a strength-based skill. It's dexterity.
"You enter a large space. There's a box painted on the ground ahead of you. Two masked men await."
"I approach them."
"One looks at you, the other pays you no heed."
"I step into the painted box."
"A missile comes hurling at you! Roll for save!"
"Crikey!"
Or a Steely Dan song title.
If you want to Rule Zero it, I have no problem with it. But rules as written, you're hitting something with a club, and that's a melee attack. I don't need to convince you of anything.
Not that I'm judging. I spent an alarming percentage of my youth playing AD&D;. I could still burn an hour or two if I ran across one of those Dungeon Master's books.
Yes you do. These are teh internetz. Check your manual.
Yes, but, if you are doing melee attacks with your strength, instead of dexterity, you will likely need to wear heavy armour to protect yourself from being hit. Which results in a movement speed penalty. Lots of GIDPs and caught stealings. Whereas a dextrous elf does not need armour. Combine being able to move without a movement speed penalty, with a feat like Spring Attack, not getting attacked when moving in combat, and you get a great baserunner.
Though some would of course claim that baserunning is grossly overrated.
Baseball uniform and pads would probably count as padded armor. All an elf gets is the ability to get out of the way of a few extra HBP.
And Spring Attack doesn't give you extra movement. You'd want a feat like Run, I guess.
Well, what's a human-sized creature's movement, anyway? The problem here is that the round is about 6 seconds; any human-sized creature will be able to go 90' in a round. So there's no way to model baserunning that I can see. A dwarf will be just as good on the bases as a wood elf.
Nothing a table couldn't solve. Throwing out a runner is a reflex saving throw against a DC set by the runner's movement speed.
As good a eulogy for Gygax as could be written.
Spring attack allows you to move without triggering attacks of opportunity (people attempting to pick you off / throw you out). If have a dex based char with spring attack, against someone bogged down with heavy armour, with your high initiative from high dex, you can move in, attack, then move out.
It's a question of the throw being on time, not accurate. I suppose you could do it in three parts:
* Reflex to beat the timing of the runner
* Thrown object attack roll to get the throw on target
* Optional reflex save by first baseman to catch ball if the throw was off target.
I like to think I do my part in educating Loungers of the the coming Zombocalypse.
Jeez, I'm a non-mainsteam hack blogger who actually knows and works with some of these people and it's all I can do not to start writing about this thread in terms that not everyone here would find flattering.
/um, yeah, I played a little D&D;once. Sue me.
Nice try, Calcaterra! But I made my INT check to remember you're a lawyer. Tricksy.
Strange. I always thought that Rule 34 indicated that the Internet was created for pron.
Solonor's Groovy Computer Baseball League
I spend most of my waking hours logged into this site, at least when I'm not on Fark.
Geeky is probably an extremely fair (and accurate) description.
You know, STR/WIS/INT/DEX/CON/CHR values, skills, feats, powers, weapons (Puljos' +3 Club of Striking)?
Come on, people! Someone killing time at home has got to get on this!
And obviously, the required uniform is *leather*. Flash it.
I was raised on that complicated system (and recently discovered a box in my basement filled with books detailing that complicated system). You shall not badmouth the complicated system.
EDIT: An exception shall be made to allow the badmouthing of the 1st edition handling of psionics.
http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showbook&bookid=2973
Did anyone ever use psionics? It seemed like it was an afterthought of Gary Gygax's, or something he threw out there and never really developed.
Players were never meant to HAVE psionics. It was supposed to be a fun little toy for the DM to pull out when he wanted to screw over his players without having to resort to actual fiat. There was no reason to make it a coherent, workable system. In 3E it just became an alternate magic system based on MP.
I tried on a couple occasions. In addition of seeming like an afterthought, it played like an afterthought, and (even by the standards of AD&D;) added far too much in the way of complication, while adding very little in terms of entertainment value.
Basically, it was mostly good for creating a source of endless arguments.
Players were never meant to HAVE psionics. It was supposed to be a fun little toy for the DM to pull out when he wanted to screw over his players without having to resort to actual fiat.
Suddenly, the system makes sense, and was apparently a massive success.
EDIT: The 1st Edition dungeon master's guide was a fun read. It was more a rambling dissertation on medieval role playing than anything else.
Seriously, portable hole and a bag of holding - that's all you need, quite frankly.
It's either that, or just ignore the encumberance rules, which is usually what we did.
I always made for a terrible DM - I continually got bogged down in details ("when's the last time your character ate something?","How can I reflect the possibility of broken or damaged weapons or armor, and what are the effects of using them?","Why are there six orcs hanging around in a room, doing nothing?"), that players didn't care about.
Apparently you've massively underestimated the nerdly potential and leanings of the average BTF attendee.
My joke about portable hole and bag f holding was something else entirely though.
That's another reason I was an unpopular DM - I was really, really stingy with magic items. My thinking was that they should be extraordinarily rare, like two per party.
I've played more games with THAC0 than without. I even like saying "Tha-koh" outloud. But it's a goofy system that shouldn't have made it into the most popular RPG system on the Urth.
D&D player: Um.
Ah. You're referencing the placement of one into the other, to cause a hole between whatever realm the players are currently in and the Astral Plain (thus bypassing the whole psionics mess)?
What do they do now? I admit I've never even seen a third edition book.
My problem with THAC0 was never that it was complicated. Rather, that it was too simplistic, too unrealistic.
Also, you can stuff one over a person (like an assassin from behind) and then tear it with a dagger or something.
That is assuming you don't want a sphere of annhilation in the game giving off static pops.
Also, they are just gone. I don't believe they go to the Astral Plane, but I could be wrong about that.
Based on Wikipedia (the ultimate source for all things nerdy), it apparently works in the following manner:
It scares me that I still at least partially remembered this.
Total, and my players agreed with you.
EDIT: My thinking was that I wanted magic items to be really special, something that players would treasure, rather than an item on their Batman utility belt, to be pulled out when they needed it. The idea was that just acquiring a magic item would be an adventure in itself, and the stories associated with that item would be remembered.
Like I said, though, my players disagreed, and I soon stopped being DM.
That's exactly what happens when you put Minute Rice in a microwave.
Basically, everything is redone so that a high roll is always good. In 1st edition, you might roll a d20 and add your modifiers, with (let's say) a result of "10." You'd compare that to your THAC0 (to hit AC 0), which maybe is 17 - meaning you need to roll a 17 to hit someone with an AC of 0 (AC 0, for those not in the know is pretty good; the range went from 10 (bad) down to -10 (very good)). By a nifty feat of subtraction you'd know your result of a ten would hit someone with an AC of 7. For really early versions, there was a chart.
In 3rd edition, everything goes up (which is a benefit in itself). So you roll your d20, add your modifiers, and the total that you get is the armor class that you hit. AC starts, roughly speaking, at 10 and goes up, with not theoretical upper limit. You basically cut out half the math, as you only need to add your numbers up and don't have to then subtract them from another score.
4th edition (which is about a year old) keeps this basic mechanic and refines a few others (and then tacks on a new power system that may or may not appeal to someone).
I think my books have the charts - pages and pages of them.
So you roll your d20, add your modifiers, and the total that you get is the armor class that you hit. AC starts, roughly speaking, at 10 and goes up, with not theoretical upper limit. You basically cut out half the math, as you only need to add your numbers up and don't have to then subtract them from another score.
Makes sense.
1) I had the exact same initial reaction as Dayn - let's make sure that Murray Chass never finds out about this thread.
2) Where were all of you when I talked about booster drafting Revised and got roundly mocked on a thread here this winter? Too chicken to get my back, or what? Surely there is some overlap between D&Ders; and ex-MTGers.
Regrettably, I suspect that I was one of the people mocking you. You see, idiotic pursuits which I like are cool, whereas idiotic pursuits I don't like are nerdy.
I always had in my mind that it would be cool to have like....9 different nations, each with their own deck of about 1400 cards or so...at any point you could draw totally weak or totally strong creatures. Maybe each deck would be slanted to a colour or something but no real plan beyond that.
I guess that's why I never really got into any nerd games. Building a really effective deck and winning didn't really hold much appeal for me. I like the games where you can sit back and just watch things develop. I had to stop playing AD&D;for similar reasons. I would get really annoyed with my friends who played it as if it was a competition to see whose character could develop the best. Although also I had to stop because AD&D;is far too social a game for me. Committing 6-8 hours in one day to hanging out with people is a bit more than I can handle most days.
As for Magic. I played, not at tournament level but frequently, through... I want to say 2-3 expansions after Ice Age? I could be wrong here, it's been awhile. I ran a mostly red burn deck focused on instants and a black (and maybe green?) deck based on reanimating units. Oh, and I was into artifacts as well. But they depreciated a lot of cards, it got hard to keep up and I got into FFXI.
Final Fantasy?
Nerd!
How did they know of my intent to ROCK?!
I just could never get into the collecting aspect of MtG.
Brian Johnson actually expert in Bayesian statistics.
Bonn Scott more of a philosopher
"I know that it's evil. I know that it's got to be"
Also, using a Horn Of Blasting in conjunction with a Sphere Of Annihilation also is pretty nasty -- just ask Fum The Mad (except he too is gone forever) ...
Man, I never catch the topics that unexpectedly turn to MTG. I play MTG competitively. I'm not amazing, but I have played two Pro Tours, cashed two GPs, and I have 9 lifetime Pro Points.
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