Tigranes

*cough* I admit all the stuff taks and GD and others talk about in politics goes over my head; something I really must remedy at some point. That said, what do you guys think Obama will actually be able to accomplish / screw up / start during his first term? From my uninformed / limited perspective it strikes me that the financial crisis will take at least all of 2009 to get over; Obama will have to work to keep spirits up during that period - closing Guantanamo down, which he's moved on to, should help ease the pain. I doubt he can just start pulling troops out 'tomorrow' - he'd have to negotiate a stand-alone plan for Iraq and so forth, and it's not as a universally agreed upon solution as GB is. The pullout *should* be complete by end of his term though, safe for a few 'peacekeepers', unless something else blows up big around there. Israel/Palestine, doubt he can do much about that. Universal healthcare again, seems like a big ask; expensive complicated controversial plan in a time of tightening belts. I wouldn't have my hopes very high on that one. Generally if he can repeal or stem the tide of some of the more ridiculous anti-terrorist / Homeland Security policies of the Bush years, not screw anything up bad in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan/North Korea, close Guantanamo Bay and steer the country relatively unscathed through the depression, I'd notch that up as a successful presidency..

They are not fears. They are consequences with a wide impact that can be reasonably suspected of happening (if not 'expected'). They only come across as 'negative' because you are applying your predispositions on them and framing the argument in terms of 'fears'. Observe: 1. Proliferation of diverse types of sexuality is not in any conceivable way a 'fear-mongering attitude' in and of itself. It may be celebrated/welcomed by some (and I lean towards that). It is only 'fear-mongering' when used as such, like anything else. Besides, if some people use that point in a fear-mongering way, does it invalidate its likelihood? No, it doesn't. 2. Whether you or I think diversification is 'good' or not, again, has absolutely no relevance. My point is that this can be reasonably expected to happen in the hypothetical situation of complete 'gay acceptance'. 3. See my previous post on marriage conventions. 4. I think you agree with me here and your comment was just a lateral one, so cool. I'm pretty sure you don't really disagree with me. You just need to abandon the misunderstanding that I am talking about fears or negative consequences.

Uh... what? Did you people miss that bit where I blatantly stated that I am neither opposed to nor in support of gay marriage and/or homosexuality at the present time? Why in the world would you think I'm trying to "win you over" towards an anti-homosexual position?

All specific information will be released in the first few days of February. We are going to keep the fanfic instructions as open as possible, as long as they pertain to an Obsidian gameworld, but details are still being ironed out. It won't be just Fio you have to impress slug. I expect lots of kinky

I agonised over a couple of emails to professors while applying for my Masters. It's really weird because unlike a Ph.D it's not quite clear what you're supposed to say, but if done well it can help. Also thought a bit about the Obsidian anniversary competition the squad's holding for you peeps. Lots of mumbo jumbo.

For the answer, see above. It's possible to make comparisons in a very limited and specific sense without having to hear the inevitable "NO DUH THEY ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT MAN". Anyway, for the consequences... there it gets really speculative and long-winded by nature, so I was hoping to leave that out for now. And I'm certainly not so willing to drop a truck full of Foucault on the thread (never mind 'feminist' literature). To make another limited and specific comparison that will make you want to cut me hard (hawt), it's like living in the 1950's and saying all that stuff about black people doesn't affect me because I'm not black and I don't know any black people. The immediate consequences don't affect you, but... A full acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage, for instance, could reasonably be suspected of contributing to the following: -> The creation and proliferation of more types of sexuality beyond the prime two, widening the range of identities that we may take on and opening up new demographics that are relevant for the market, for politics, for family life and relationships; -> As aforementioned, the loosening of the narrow 'sanctified' views of marriage, and a massive diversification in the relationships, relationship arrangements, intimate interactions and economic / household arrangements of relationships that obviously have economic, social and family effects; -> Either an even greater role for sexuality in the definition of self-identity or (paradoxically) a reduction of it, determining the role sexuality has in our sense of who we are; -> A rise in declared homosexual populations (possibly. Equally may not happen).

Wandered around the Sword Coast a bit, and it largely seems to be the same, just a little better (and of course with proper expanded trading). Trading is well done, but nothing special so far. I liked what they did with Neverwinter and Crossroads Keep.

Krezack: Some people accuse Sand of having his head in the sand and going IT DOESNT MATTER IT DOESNT AFFECT ME. I'm not homosexual, nobody I personally know at the momen tis homosexual, that doesn't mean that it's not an important issue (like, hey, the Iraq War!). Any major social phenomenon has long-reaching and long-lasting influences on our society, and homosexuality is an issue that, esp. since the 18th century, began to loom as a massive and alll-pervading thing on western society. How we deal with it as a whole is important to what kind of attitudes we take to other aspects such as marriag,e multiculturalism, relationships, friendship, discrimination and Christianity. In some societies, yes, it is deviant. That is not decided by me, that is decided by the social climate. That's sort of what I was going at with the marriage stuff. But I'm not so hesitant to just act on my emotions and say "Any form of relationship should be just fine as long as they're happy, EVERYTHING IS FINE". Tempting.... but rash, because if the mechanics of standardised marriage broke down completely, that would have serious and possibly debilitating effects on society. The issue of gay marriage alone? Perhaps. Note that I was talking about homosexuality as a whole up there. And if you think THAT has no consequences on society outside the homosexuals themselves, then you're looking at a very narrow and shallow perspective of how social forces operate, IMHO. Aristes:

Not at all. I mean, I don't know what to think about it. Is it hereditary or by choice, and to what degree of either? (That is obviously important) Is it deviant from a norm, or simply another legitimately different form of sexuality? If it is deviant, why exactly is it reprehensible? What cosnequences will it have on our society if we embrace (or condemn) homosexuals? It's an issue with a lot of question marks and I'm hesitant to put forth an opinion (i.e. burn them all / they can do whatever) at the present.

Yeah, sorry. That *was* baroque. In previous decades and in certain social climates (i.e. some Asian countries or some that were influenced by Christianity in a particular way), marriage was seen as 'sacred', and with that came a set of conventions and perspectives about what marriage was. Examples include how you had to marry by a certain age (as late as the last decade, in Korea, Japan and some other places if you were over 30 and you were still single there was something wrong with you, i.e. "to not have married by then he/she must have a serious flaw".); how marriage had to happen in a certain way (e.g. invite everyone you know for the wedding and have a honeymoon, which can be a serious financial burden), how married couples had to live, the roles the husband and wife took up in each family, etc. That restricted and normalised your life planning and your relationship in quite significant ways. If you wanted to live a bachelor's life until 35 then start a family then, you were seen as a player, a deviant: apparently it is not proper for some people to stay single longer than others on purpose. (In other words, if you are 18 it's okay to seek a relationship just for the sake of it, but if you're 28 you're expected to look seriously at marriage.) If you wanted to try living together for a few years and then see how it goes before committing to marriage, that wasn't so 'proper' either. Open relationships in some societies is basically adultery under disguise. So on and so forth. For some of you most of those notions might sound antiquated, or restricted to non-Western cultures. For the most part... yes. (By definition, Asians are more 'conservative' because what is 'progressive' has been defined by what Westerners have been doing.) But not always. You've still got a lot of people in whatever ethnic or cultural group that hold particular ideas and views about marriage / life; people who don't see eye to eye with you unless you've got a nuclear family going at the right age. And for me, the furore over gay marriage is just an extension of this dangerously sanctified and narrow view about marriage. I'm not saying the entire controversy over homosexuality boils down to that, or even the topic of gay marriage itself, but a lot of it does have to do with it. And that's why I'm not happy with it. I think we have invested way too much symbolic importance in gay marriage, and framed the debate in the terms of marriage I outlined above. So even though I haven't made up my mind about what to think about homosexuality, I think the fervent opposition to gay marriage is harmful to our society because I think we need to become more open-minded and diversified about the type of lives we build for ourselves and the type of relationships we cultivate. And that's for 'gays' and 'straights' both, and whatever else. And yes, I did exaggerate a bit for those examples, so it might sound like Victorian England. But for huge proportions of Western & non-Western society many such constraints and conventions do hold.

"Gay" means a homosexual person people, nothing else. It's my understanding that the Bible advises against homosexuality in a few passages. However, there are many more passages there concerning infidelity. All the Christians who are against gay marriages are quite silly; since if gays aren

I'm scared, hold me.

*hiss*

Yeah, it was just a case of "Hey Gray Orc, new!" "Hey Doomguide, new!" "Hey, I haven't tried FS yet, new!". It didn't take me long to see that it didn't make a lot of sense, though. I might just take your advice on re-making it as a cleric. Broken parties do just fine in, say, the OC, but not so much in SOZ. Anyway, yeah, it does feel half-baked. It is flawed, so far. But it's still fun and I'll probably play it a couple of times.

Hm. This game is hard. I don't know why, maybe I'm missing something. I've got over a dozen locations in Samarach, advanced the main quest up to where you go to the Sword Coast, and did a bunch of sides, but there are still some areas that knock the stuffing out of me (like those ). Also doesn't help that I forgot some obscure bit of 3.5ed D&D again and realised Favoured Souls don't get Turn Undead, and so can't become a Doomguide. Well that was just stupid, so I cheated in Extra Turning. Now I have a doomguide who can't... turn undead. The Overland Map really became disastrous when at one point my rogue died, and I had to hotfoot half of Samarach with my Fighter. Dear god, it was a pain. Teaches me for forgetting about Coins of Life. I can easily avoid every encounter when the rogue is alive, though... perhaps it shouldn't be quite so easy to do that on one hand, and on the other, perhasp encounter rates DO need to be toned down a bit, say 15-20%. Samarach is beautiful and the music is magnificent; the combat is quite fun, too. Main gripe is how shallowly developed it is. I was absolutely delighted to just stumble on to a Crypt, only to realise it was only one freaking room. I mean, come on. You couldn't have made it a decent floor? Or even TWO rooms? I suppose it was a time/budget issue, but I'd much rather they had the whole game in a slightly expanded Samarach with more detail than Samarch AND the Sword Coast. Imagine half of a Durlag's Tower in SOZ. Of course, I haven't been to the Coast yet. Maybe it's much better there. Currently it's not a game I can play for hours and hours on end, but it is fun in frequent short bursts and I'm eager to hit mid-game.

There would be no point making it TBC. NWN2 was built with RTwP in mind, and you can't just go *snap* and make it turn-based and expect everything to stay balanced and well. There is no reason for TBH to go through the effort to become turn-based, IMO.

Now that would create a shandstorm of cosmic proportions. GD, is that an independent proposal bya congressman or are there signs that it is part of a wider policy initiative?

GURPS is a familiar name here because of its original association with Fallout. It's a decent system, but for me, it's also quite simple/generic, and so why use GURPS when you can just make your own ruleset / system tailored to fit the setting and desired gameplay? Example being Arcanum. It's definitely feasible but I'd rather see, say, rulesets that integrate 'perks' or reputations more into the character stats sheet, or come up with something "new" like what Diablo 3 is doing with the runes ("new" meaning not technically ORIGINUL but still fresh in its implementation).

Just so I'm on topic, too: doesn't matter much to me what he said in the speech or the details of the inauguration which, I trust, in true US political style, had a lot of adrenaline and celebration and whatnot. What I'm interested in is the fact that he'll actually be doing stuff as prez now. Gonna be interesting to see hwo he follows up on the car bailouts after Bush's lease of life, Guantanamo Bay, the famous healthcare, etc.

Orchestral music that actually fits the setting would be fine, instead of just going Beethoven everywhere. Mix in some regional sounds and you've got gold.

Did someone mention Bush? Bush sucks. Obama is the best RPG in the last 10 years. ROOFLES ( )

Everyone hates NWN1 and NWN2 camera, but I can't really say. Never minded either of them. With a game like NWN, it's impossible to play with just a single camera angle and zoom all the way through without ever touching the controls, simply because of the nature of the game. Esp. in NWN2. You want to control a party and spread them out, have big battles, have ceilings and tall trees and buildings, have major elevation changes, the ability to zoom in and rotate and to roam free-cam.... then at some point you're gonna have to touch the camera. I quickly got used to using the mouse-wheel (which you can press for mouselook) to readjust all the while, and also to switch to an isometric or even bird's eye viewpoint in some of the more narrow caverns. Luckily, Obsid devs seemed to figure out pretty quickly that small narrow areas in NWN2 really screw with the camera, so most of the time you'll get decent pathways (i.e. the Skein). Still in Samarach because I didn't want to go to the Sword Coast too early. It's odd because I'm level 7 or something, but there are several areas in Samarach that are way too difficult for me, but I hear if you go to the Sword Coast you can't come back for ages. I haven't crafted a lot yet of course, but hell, I don't even know where to get Timber! Am I meant to make the jump?

You're dealing with fire, man, she's not ready for Disney Princess! She's only five, man!

I wonder where that got Pascal... The curious bit has to be that proselytising is fundamental to certain religions, i.e. Christianity. That religion was never about "save myself and bugger to you if you won't". It was always about spreading the word and demonstrating faith to encourage belief (which is, yes, different from coercion). Besides which, if you take out the atheist side for a second, prohibiting advertisement of Christian belief is farcical and has no basis on the current logic of advertising. If you're allowed to advertise that KFC chicken tastes finger-linkin' good, or that election of Joob Woogle will make your life better, why wouldn't you be allowed to advertise that God exists and is t3h awesome? The argument that the promotion of religion is dangerous and detrimental to the health of society holds the same position, for the time being, as arguments that, say, consumerism is too widespread; it does not have the widespread acceptance and traction to actually affect change democratically. Thus, advertisement of God or Christianity, to continue the example using that religion, can't be an issue - unless it goes over the top, like "Do you want your little adorable son Timmy to become a homosexual drug-addicted prostitute murderer THEN GO TO HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY? BECAUSE HE WILL UNLESS YOU PRAY REALLY LOUD EVERY SUNDAY AT OUR CHURCH AND PAY LOTS OF TRIBUTE!". So once we establish that, we can bring in the atheist side of things. ~Di's point should start us off, I think - that the same rights, in turn, should be granted to atheists when they attempt to advertise their beliefs. People think it's somehow different because it's negative, but denial or rejection of a particular idea is just as proactive as its affirmation. Atheism, last time I checked, is marked by an active rejection of a God, not a flat noncommittal 'eh'. Besides which, unlike smear campaigns in politics, "God does not exist" is not a simply destructive remark with no positive substance like "Candidate X is an ugly corpulent wife beater" would be; it is a proactive message on its own. So I see no reason why it shouldn't be allowed, or why it should be seen with any different a light than its Christian counterparts.

With my halfling rogue/swash as the party leader I'm not forced into any encounter - they're easy enough to avoid while going my way. But there *are* a lot of them, so I imagine a 'badly' made party would have a lot of frustration. Currently only at Rogue 4 / Swash 1, which means the halfling kind of sucks at close combat. The problem is I have no idea how high a level SOZ can take you (I'm assuming 15), and I'm not really convinced by some of the Swashbuckler's higher level benefits. I'm not one of those who can dissect the minutiae of D&D classes easily, but from what I can see in broad chunks, level 8 for the +4 flanking bonus is only as far as you need go - or even just level 3 for weapon finesse and the reflex bonus, since rogues can (I think?) easily match the forthcoming dodge/reflex extras. The swash does have a high BAB though, so I suppose later on they turn out more meatier than rogues. I might just crank up the swash levels up to 8 now, and see what happens. I was sort of envisioning a dextrous melee fighter with small weapons doing a lot of flanking (with sneak attack bonuses thrown in), but we'll see. Combat seems a lot more difficult, especially with stabilising dying party members. Kind of sucks that my sorceress is a yuan-ti and I'm compromised by the level adjustment, though.