Jediphile

And who would publish that? You seem to have the impression that censorship needs to be applied in case this person expresses something harmful, but the truth is that to be heard he needs to appeal to the media or a publisher, and they usually have ethical standards. Even if they do not, they would think twice about publishing something that will tarnish their image or get them into trouble with the law. Therefore I find that censoring this man's right to free speech does not present much of a problem where it concerns his victims or their families. On a related note (which wasn't brought up, so I will), we might argue that such a book (or whatever form) would inspire violent actions by people enraged or encouraged in some form of perversion. However, I do not accept that as relevant point - if you do something harmful, then *you* are to blame for it - you don't get to shift the blame to some book you read or some program you saw on tv. There is a sad tendency to shift the blame these days, so that nobody is ever truly responsible for anything they do, like "I read <insert book here>, and that's why I killed him - it was not my fault". Nonsense, I say - people are allowed to use the insides of their heads too... <_<

Atton is nowhere as cool as Han Solo - he's much to whiny for that.

Well, in the interest of avoiding derailment, I'll just ask how the hp-system is going to work. It's not that I really find the notion of a point-based health system bad, I just find the way D&D accumulates hit points illogical and stupid. On the other hand, they did have a hit location system in Twilight 2000 (I think it was that, but I could be wrong...), where each body part had a number of points dependent on the the character's Health attribute (and the relevant part) which dropped by health levels as the character was injured. That was a pretty simple, good, and logical system.

Sure, go ahead - see if I care... :D Seriously, in AD&D, the xp progression requirements are so massive at higher levels that the players advance very far unless you give out hefty awards like that. Then again, I don't entirely follow the rest of the rules either. After all, the rules state that I must also give out an xp award based on the value of gear and treasure (and coins) equal to the gp value in 2e. I don't do that, since I believe finding treasure and magical items is a reward onto itself, nor do I want to reward players for simply carrying as much as they can back to town with them - that's just silly and counterproductive to the role-playing experience, I think. But the story goal xp awards I give out more than compensate for this. I do usually tally up the total, then double it, triple it, and then give ten times that... And the players still find progress slow, at which point I explain exactly why they have little reason to complain

"Three editors and a staff writer at the New York Press, a weekly alternative newspaper, resigned after being ordered not to publish reprints of the Danish cartoons, former managing editor Tim Marchman told CNN. "We have no desire to be free speech martyrs, but it would have been nakedly hypocritical to avoid the same cartoons we'd criticized others for not running," editor-in-chief Harry Siegel, who also resigned, told colleagues in an e-mail." Found at CNN

I put "other" The thing is hate the most about Darth Malak is that he never tells us how he lost his jaw - it's driving me crazy... The stupid git!

well he says "as a padawan" which would suggest his initial training, it'd have been different if he just mentioned that Revan was Kae's padawan somewhere in the middle of his training <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, Obi-Wan was also Qui-Gon's padawan in Ep. I ("be mindful of the living force, my young padawan"), so it seems to me that the term 'padawan' goes beyond initial training... But then, I do agree with your conclusions. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thats like for a mom with her kid: it will always be a 'kid' <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Perhaps, but then it's wasn't just an term of affection. Obi-Wan was Qui-Gon's "padawan" at the time - note how the later appeal to the jedi council that Obi-Wan is ready for the trials and is given the rank of jedi knight only at the end of the film after he has defeated Darth Maul...

A pretty big restriction. In fact, I find that the fixed class-system is probably the biggest and most annoying game mechanic of D&D altogether these days. It's ancient, inflexible and limits role-playing. It is also founded on principles now more than three decades old, and it shows. It should have been abolished long ago IMHO...

Yes, I think that's a fair question. Though I run AD&D 2e, I never give out xp to the group - ever! I just record it myself and then tell the players who can advance in levels when there is appropriate downtime in the game. That takes a lot of annoying focus on xp away from the game, especially if you're used to players who will hunt down every last little orc just because he's worth a few xp... Except in my game - I don't give xp for a non-threat like that. I do, however, give out massive story goal xp awards, which helps emphasize the focus on the actual role-playing experience. I do recommend not letting the players tally up their own xp, since it's my experience that this helps to make campaign evolvement feel much smoother.

well he says "as a padawan" which would suggest his initial training, it'd have been different if he just mentioned that Revan was Kae's padawan somewhere in the middle of his training <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, Obi-Wan was also Qui-Gon's padawan in Ep. I ("be mindful of the living force, my young padawan"), so it seems to me that the term 'padawan' goes beyond initial training... But then, I do agree with your conclusions.

Good points that pretty much sums up the major points that support the idea that Kreia might be Kae. I will have to question the above, however, since you seem to conclude that Kae was Revan's first master solely on the basis that Revan was her padawan, which is not particularly compelling when Kreia says several times that Revan had many masters. We're never told who was actually first, just that none is mentioned earlier than Kae. I do agree that Kae was probably Revan's first master and so is Kreia, but we must admit that we have no proof of it, only circumstanciel evidence to suggest it. Nice picture btw - sure does support the idea that Brianna might be Kreia's daughter - they do seem to have a striking resemblance to each other if you factor in Kreia's decay from using the dark side of the force, I think.

Btw, Newsweek has an interview with the editor, who made the decision to publish the danish caricatures. His points go right to the core of freedom of speech, I think.

I would tend to agree with that, which is why I don't like the concept of religion altogether. However, this does not prevent me from thinking that Jesus, or Mohammed, makes some very clever and wise observations. The problem lies with those who interpret the texts once the originator is gone, which is usually priest. Now, if the text is just a text that has to justify its own worth like any other text, then it has no special connection with the divine to it. But that would also mean that the priest has only the lowly function of trying to inform others of the text, which does not give him much, or indeed, any authority. If he, on the other hand, can claim that the text is divine, then he becomes a representative of the higher being behind the text and so gains authority in his society. This has been the practice in many, if not most, religions throughout history, and is the reason why I don't like priests much, or at least the concept of the priest...

I concur with Lucius - for once we are in complete agreement. In fact, I would go as far as to say that now the real danger is to the moderate muslims - yes, the do exist - who don't want this matter to escalate. I fear they could be silenced in the muslim countries, as dissenters or 'sympathizers of the infidels', and not be heard in the west because, to the media, they are not as interesting as the extremists, or, to the muslims, because they are not "real" muslims if they don't agree with the violence... There are extremist forces out there, I think, that really do want this to be a religious conflict, and they're not interested in having people of their own faith trying to calm things down or even show understand of "the enemy".

Seemed to happen to Ulic Qel-Droma, though... At least, his body faded into the force (in the "Redemption" comic books) just like Obi-Wan and Yoda did, though we haven't seen him as a force ghost... And Ulic had no connection to the force at all at that point.

I agree with this. My own suggestion for a K3 plot tried to play very specifically toward these qualities of Revan and the Exile, with Exile using his wound-in-the-force abilities as a "new" Nihilus and Revan sacrificing himself to the DS in a strategic maneuver to stop the true Sith.... My main concern is that I really don't want to see a plot where those characters *again* lose all their power/memories and have to start over. That said, if they are to be groupmembers at one point, I do think their powerlevels may need to be adjusted down slightly to fit with the rest of the group, but they should not appear until the main PC is at least level 15+, and they should both be set to always be higher level than the main PC, I think. This is agree less with, if it means giving the new PC some special powers, because it again brings us close the mechanic of the "chosen one". That said, I did give the PC an ususual ability in my own plot, but that was just to gain an understanding of what had happened to Revan and Exile and facilitate their eventual redemption.

And now the extremists have torched the danish embassy in Beirut. At this point I'm wondering if there is any point in talking to such people at all? It seems to me that they are just angry and want to be angry, and that nothing will change that.

When I first read this I thought it read "seduction" instead of "deduction." I was about to say, what kind of campaign are you running Jediphile?! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hehe - wouldn't you like to know?

Such a campaign should focus heavily on investigation, deduction, and interaction between characters. I guess that's one reason I like Call of Cthulhu - lots of that, few (but deadly) fights, and loads of tense atmosphere... Not that you need Cthulhu for that - you can do it with pretty much any RPG system, even D&D. The only trouble is that some RPGs are designed towards lots of combat and dice rolling, and it's therefore difficult to persuade the players not to resolve things violently - after all, why should they bother being diplomatic if they are undoubtedly tough enough to put the entire orc tribe to the sword without breaking a sweat? The only way to overcome that is to let the PCs be constantly surrounded by beings that are obviously far more powerful than they are (e.g., dragons), only that is not a very credible solution, since dragons and their like are rare. Surrounding the PCs with more powerful (demi)human NPCs had the same problem (experienced people are rare), but also has the problem of the PCs not being able to identify their power until it's too late. You can play the circumstances to your advantage at times, though. I once had the group hold their breath in fear and run away from... a little boy. They had infiltrated the hometown of the evil, evil baron, and the little boy recognized one of the group. They couldn't draw attention to themselves, and they couldn't make the boy shut up. They tried, though - the ranger (level 15) tried to hush up the boy, only to have him kick the ranger shouting, "stupid man!" And yes, this was in D&D. It was bloody hilarious to see the entire group of awesome all-13+ level heroes taken down by a five-year-old boy. Lucky for me the players saw the humor of the situation, too - the smiles did seem a bit strained for a few minutes, though... As a GM, I live for moments like these :D

Well, K1 had seven worlds - Taris, Dantooine, Kashyyyk, Tatooine, Manaan, Korriban and the unknown world of the Rakatans, while Sleheyron was cut. K2 had eight "worlds" - Peragus, Telos, Dantooine, Nar Shaddaa, Korriban, Onderon, Dxun, and Malachor V, while M4-78 was cut. I don't think they should have less than in K1, which means at least seven if not more.

What, there is someone here not already mad at me?

Self-censorship due to poor ideas is fine... Self-censorship due to fear of retaliation by religious extremists is not. The real problem here is that both considerations apply, at least if you ask me, since I thought the caricatures were poor taste. But Jyllands-posten apparently decided that not giving in to fear was so important that they forgot to consider whether it was just a dumb idea. Again, as I see it. But even if we conclude that this was a dumb idea (which the newspaper pretty much has said itself), is this reasonable punishment for making a mistake?

and again, we are used to being quite sarcastic here.. and moslims here are used to the tone .. (even moslim standup comdians usually attack Christianity, which is fine, since it's on par with danish humor) 4 years ago there was a sketch about how annoying it was to find a dead moslim in your home, since we don't have any burrialgrounds for them .. and the sketch ended with the guy being charged several thousand kr in stamps as he send the dead moslim to his homecountry .. now this sketch had a point, but I would dare to agree that the point JP was trying to debate was just as valid! A press can't accept censur that is based on fear .. nor can a democratic country or any citizen therein! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Also remember the Jesus movie by Thorsen - major protests and problems for decades, but it was made in the end nonetheless. I do think people should remember things like that before they accuse Denmark of double standards.

No she isn't. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Or is she...