Reveilled

The Economy is more important than any other issue, I think. Whether education, healthcare, and protection of the environment are paid for by taxation or by private individuals, the better the economy is, the better these are funded. Improve an impoverished nation's economy, and all these other things will come with it. Give third world farmers a fair price for their goods, and they will be able to pay for their own education, and their own medicine. They'll also be able to pay for tools for better farming techniques, allowing them to stand on their own two feet and develop by themselves, without handouts from the developed world, which are never more than a short term fix.

"Watashi wa terebijion desu" is Japanese for "I am a television". Now how's THAT for useless information?

It just has to be Big Eyes, Small Mouth. Sadly, I have not had a group that shares my interest in Anime for quite some time. Barring that, nothin' beats good ol' D&D. EDIT: On second thought, I totally loved Ninja Burger. Ninja Burger frickin kicked ass. All one session of it that I played.

not only that, you need to buy magical components for the armour, because remodeling the armour without the proper magical components will permanantly damage it and render it non-magical. Remodeling the non-magical armour is prety cheap if I remember correctly.

Hmm...thundercats...I remember the theme tune, and remember thinking that the theme tunes and basic plots of Thundercats, Defenders of the Earth, and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles were extremely similar. Other than that, it's all a blur.

Jesus Saves! and takes half damage

The wooden quarterstaffs, but they really should stay extended at all times. Unfortunately, they retract as if they were two bladed lightsabers, which is just stupid.

well that's basically always the case when you roleplay it's never the system that makes it what it is <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, but well-written rules with many options can indeed inspire richer and deeper characters. A list of optionable disadvantages, for example, is certainly a great aid for making complex and interesting characters. GURPS has a full chapter of 40+ pages dedicated solely to that (and that's not counting quirks). D&D has nothing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> DMG, p128. It has something. Maybe not 40 pages of a list of disadvantages, but I don't need a book to tell me about things that can disadvantage characters. Why not use your imagination?

Just 7%? I dunno, I find that hard to believe. Maybe 7% of the parts used for concious thought, but 7% including the parts used to maintain bodily functions?

I'd say that's more cynical than naive. And I think you may have something there...

It's not very useful in the regular campaign. In fact, it's only really ever useful for making your stuff look cooler, especially in the CEP, with its huge wardrobe.

UN Charter 'Nuff Said. Exactly! The preambe speaks constantly of increasing freedom, respect for human life, and so on. Yet what does the UN do when the leader of a country commits genocide? Does it see that the killer is brought to trial? Does it see that justice is done? No, it sits around and basically twiddles its thumbs and imposes economic sanctions. When a regular civilian murders someone, the police don't enforce a pay cut, they put him in prison. Why should it be any different just because the killer is the head of a country? If the details of the charter prevent doing anything more, then the charter is not being true to the intention, and should be changed. can't as all major powers have a veto. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So have all the non-veto powers get together, and agree to refuse entry to the veto powers while a vote is taken to revoke their veto powers. If the veto powers don't like that, well, too bad for them. if the veto given to those powers is preventing the UN from being true to the charter, it has to be revoked. But would the UN do this, or would it rather sit around, twiddle its thumbs, and moan about the Security Council veto? Then we'll see just how well the UN does in dealing with mass murderers. My guess is that nothing better will come of it unless those dictatorships are removed from the UN (as the preamble would seem to indicate should be done), but perhaps I'm wrong. The point is, the UN won't take the actions that it should take without individual nations intervening, failing the people who believe in the spirit in which the charter was written. At the same time, by not taking action against the 'bullies' that are supposedly ruining the UN, by sitting around and letting them ruin it, it fails those who want to see the UN as an influencial body. By following only the letter of its laws, and completely ignoring the spirit in which they were made, the UN fails everyone except those who thrive on murder and injustice.

SO why doesn't the UN do something about these bullies?

Because besides fixed and restrictive classes and feats, D&D/d20 also bases a lot of the core functions on things like experience points. Now, accumulating xp isn't a bad idea per se, since at it's core it's a fine representation of progress. But in D&D xp is based on monster slashing - the more monsters you kill, the more xp you get. And it doesn't stop there, no. Every single creature or person is worth xp, so going by the rules, you'd get xp for every single little orc, peasant, ferret, or slug you kill. Sure, you and I can agree that is a preposterous basis for character growth, but it's still right there in the core rules. I much prefer systems where the GM awards xp based on actual role-playing, and where those xp are then used to buy abilities and skills to represent progress rather than to cross some arbitrary xp level. GURPS and WoD does the former. D&D/d20 does the latter, which tends to reward stupid xp abuse over good roleplaying. No, I don't do it either in my AD&D campaign, but it's actually what the rules say. Actually, no. You don't get a fixed amount experience for extremely easy things. The rules for experience work relative to the difference between the ability of the combatants, The rules specifically state that below a certain level (a difference of eight between the character level and the Challenge rating), the DM must decide for himself how much experience is awarded, and the rules also specifically state that if an enounter is so easy that the Player's resources aren't used up at all, the experience the DM should award should almost certainly be 0. if you are a first level character, a peasant who worked a farm that was periodically raided by orcs whom he had to fight off would and should present a challenge to the party. If it presents them a challenge, then XP should be awarded if they have to fight the peasant. If not, 0 XP, as it says in the rules. Yes, I'd agree that in that case d20 rules are convenient and appropriate. It's easy to work with and requires players to make few and easy choices during play. There is nothing wrong with enjoying dungeon crawls, and D&D/d20 is appropriate for it, but it still has no depth. I've also enjoyed playing Diablo II on my computer, but I'm not pretending it's a role-playing game, when it's really just a polished hack 'n slash/dungeon crawl game with extremely linear story and no plot options, unlike KotOR, for example. Star Wars movies are fun, but they have no depth next to movies like Blade Runner or Apocalypse Now. They're fun to watch, but once you leave the theatre, that's pretty much it. Same thing with d20 - it may be fun, but the characters has no depth beyond numbers on a sheet of paper. At least none that is supported or encouraged by the core rules. Now, that's not to say that D&D characters cannot be complex or memorable. Indeed, my fondest ever character was a cryptic and secretive D&D wizard, but that was due to my role-playing - he became memorable for me in spite of D&D rules, certainly not because of them. For example, he had an allergy toward horses and was afraid of spiders. That's fun, but D&D rules won't let me represent that in the game (well, 2e player option rules did, not 3e...). Sure, I can still establish it for my character, but it has no consequence in 3e rules. That means such characteristics will be completely voluntary limitations that a player chooses with no redeeming counterbalance in 3e, which tends to discourage players from being creative when giving PCs characteristics. After all, the GM should penalize me if I don't roleplay my disadvantage, so if taking it carries no counterbalance, then I'm unlikely to choose as a player, aren't I? Otherwise a player would just be shooting himself in the foot, which is not a popular pastime... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> As far as I can tell, there is no redeeming counterbalance to being allergic to horses or afraid of spiders, so I see no reason for there to be in the rules. In my opinion, providing incentives to put in these quirks should rest solely on the roleplayers themselves. it's up to the players and the DM to encourage more interesting characters. My players and I are from the "Cowboys and Injuns" school of roleplaying; The only time that it's appropriate to introduce the rules is when there would be an argument over how the story progresses (such as combat).

From that article: I've never read superman comics; if the bullets bounce of him, does his suit tear when he is shot?

I understand that by failings you understand UN's lack of approval toward dubya-made colonialism? From certain point of view that's success <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If the UN was doing the things it should, there would be no need for unilateral action. As it is, mass murderers are allowed to remain in power across the world. Take Iraq. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, but why did the UN need that to take action? Saddam may not have been breaking international law at the time of the war, but the UN is the closest thing our planet has to a world government, and if anyone should be the world's policeman, it should be the UN. Saddam was a mass murderer, who in the past gassed thousands of his own people. Yet where was the international police? When was Saddam arrested by the world's policeman for murder? The UN is failing not because it doesn't support "American colonialism", but because its lack of action opens the door for that very thing by not properly policing the world. If you opposed the war, can't you see that the UN is failing you too? Do you believe that the Iraq war was illegal? If so, why hasn't the UN arrested President Bush for it? The UN is failing everyone who believes in the rule of law, every person on the left and right. The only people it is helping are those who crave oppression and genocide.

I've tried many other systems, including White Wolf's, GURPS, Guardian's of Order's tri-stat system, and several homemade systems during the days of 2e AD&D (which I couldn't stand). D20 was the only system I liked more than first edition AD&D. What I don't understand is, why do you feel other systems are better for roleplaying? With us at any rate, when we roleplay we might as well not use a system at all. In our group, it would be uncommon to pay any attention to what's on the character sheet during a roleplaying situation, so I don't understand why it would matter what system you use for roleplaying. Perhaps you're right that D20 is only good for hack 'n' slash and dungeon crawls, but that's all we use it for, so it couldn't suit us better. I'd hate to actually have to use rules while roleplaying. For me, it would defeat the purpose.

How on earth would a new system prevent them from making a Mario or Zelda game?

I've never been a fan of the rolling d6s method of character creation. Both as a player and a DM, I found it extremely unbalancing, because someone would inevitably get lucky. The only method involving dice I've liked was the 6x6 array method, which works by creating a 6x6 grid, and rolling 3d6 36 times, entering the results left to right as they are rolled. At the end, you have 36 stats, and you select a line of stats which you like, either horizontally, diagonally, or vertically, and enter them to your character sheet in order either left to right or right to left. Of course, I liked that probably for the sheer novelty of it. To keep things fair, I prefer the point buy method, which is what I use presently in my current campaign. EDIT:And Kaftan, if you don't change that short note sharpish, I'll send Vin Diesel over to your house to beat you up!

I don't agree with this claim that classes force things on you. If you don't like the fact that your rogue gets sneak attack bonuses, make a new class without sneak attack bonuses. You want your wizard to be as good at the innuendo skill as a rogue? Design a variant wizard class with alternative skills, or get the group's agreement that innuendo should be a wizard class skill. The only things about the d20 system that can't really be changed are the attrributes. You can add new skills, you can remove feats, you can ban classes, create new classes, make some classes into Prestige Classes, make prestige classes core classes. The D20 system have rules that are very easily customiseable. In fact, one of the variants in the Unearthed Arcana supplement was rules for "Generic Classes"; you chose from one of three classes, picked your own class skills, which saves would be good, which special abilities you wanted, and so on. If you chose to play classes in a way you find restrictive, then that's up to you, but I certainly don't find them restrictive at all, nor do my players. If D20 is sweeping the market, it's because it is a better system than the others.

My avatar is a manga style representation of the Great Race of Yith.

Arcane spell failure is the chance that the restrictiveness of your armour will cause you to mess up the somantic component of an arcane spell (as opposed to a divine spell), making it fail. In your barbarian's case, it doesn't matter, but it can be avoided with the still spell metamagic feat. If as I suspect you are looking for the latter, you'll want spell resistance. It can be vitally important for characters without access to protective magics.

Voiceovers are, as far as I know, rather rare due to the huge downloads that would create. Maybe a few lines, maybe not. As to the Valsharess, is this a swedish voiceover or the English one? I don't remember the English voice over being so bad. I do remember my Higher English teacher reading Nineteen Eighty Four with the wrong emphasis, though.

So, right now instead of playing the Sims 2, I'm taking advantage of the amazing online capabilities of a Massively Multiplayer RPG known as Real Life.

Sure, as a place of discussion, the UN is great. But just because they're a place for discussion doesn't mean their views on human rights are the sort that I'd take seriously. Using a democratic process on that level to decide things only works if all the levels below it are also democratic. When some levels aren't (i.e. the levels that take place at the national level which are non-democratic from that point to the bottom in so many states), the conclusions arrived at do not present the opinion of the people of Earth. And as such, the UN's policies on human rights become muddied and corrupted, because they are a place of discussion for everyone. My country can debate in the UN with a totalitarian state about geopolitical situations, about trade agreements and embargos, but I don't feel the need for my country to debate with a President-For-Life or a 'Communist' Chairman about moral issues such as human rights, because their oppressive actions show that their positions should be rejected out of hand.