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You're forgetting the one quality without which an ad can't be unobtrusive.

Why is that waste of oxygen still allowed near anything using electricity?

Lord Shojo says it best: "As long as the people at the table see a fellow player across from them, they'll tolerate you. A crooked player is a pain in the ass, but someone who refuses to play at all makes them start questioning their own lives and people HATE to think. They'd rather lose to a cheater than dwell too long on why they're playing in the first place."

You and me, we aren't players because we have no cards. Drug lords aren't players because they break the rules openly and flaunt it. Wallace, on the other hand, is a sleazy businessman, so the courts give him the "bad dog!" treatment. The system takes care of its own, and screw everyone else.

Open source game. Who do they sue?

First law of robotics: A robot without computer vision or radar may assume that it has free agency to operate within the convex hull encompassing its range of motion (otherwise referred to as its threatened area).

Even if the robot malfunctions due to other failures, those safety cages and perimeter markings are supposed to pretty much guarantee that you'll be safe if you're standing outside them, right? In that regard, one might worry more about robots that have autonomous control and unrestricted range of motion.

There's enough sunlight to sustain dozens of gigahitlers.

Bah, the proper unit is kilonazis.

Fantasy is where the power is from some mystics who meditate on it and are part of some hokey religion. SF is where the power is Midichlorians or nanites or DNA.

So would you agree with Larry Niven's assertion that "sufficiently analyzed magic" becomes indistinguishable from science? If so, then the only difference between science fiction and fantasy is how in control of their magic the magicians are. By your definition, electricity used to be "magic" centuries ago when Luigi Galvani and friends were doing experiments in "animal magnetism", and inheritance was "magic" before Gregor Mendel's pea experiments, and Dungeons & Dragons magic is "science" in the "Tippyverse" stories where spells are "trapped" in push-button devices that people use daily and people commute from city to city through teleporters.

The settings and stories are the same.

Bingo. What science fiction and fantasy have in common is exploration of how a particular counterfactual phenomenon affects relationship among sapient beings.

Yes, with more orders cost per parcel goes down - but overall costs go up because Amazon is not charging. See the following example:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics...

Yes. This appears to be the article's thinking. (Speaking of HP.)

[Is] that capitalism?

People paying more for something that it is intrinsically worth? Yes, but in this case it's (possibly) also a loss leader.

Well, actually, it’s economics. We only buy stuff that is worth more than it is intrinsically worth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_surplus

And it is probably not a loss leader – those are used to suck costumers into a store with the hope that they will buy some full priced items. It you are selling your e-books at a loss, you are not going to make it up by selling in volume. More likely a marketing ploy.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html

Yes, but you can always make up for it in volume.

That's how they do it at the First Citywide Change Bank....

If you are losing 5 for each unit and you ship 100,000,000, you lost $5,000,000. That is pretty significant.

Yes, but you can always make up for it in volume.

But this is only because we have a population that revels in it's own ignorance.

Not ignorance but righteousness. The one unifying trait of pretty much everyone holding any kind of even remotely political opinion in America (and more and more frequently elsewhere) is to refuse to believe that anyone could possibly honestly disagree with them. No, they must be evil or stupid or both, so convert the stupid with simplistic propaganda and try to intimidate the evil to change their wicked ways. And of course nowadays it's becoming increasingly common to simply declare any disagreement "trolling" - which, to be fair, it probably is: few would advocate socialized healthcare on a conservative forum for purposes of promoting insightful discussion.

This all makes it impossible to negotiate or compromise, since that would require giving into "evil" a little bit. It becomes impossible to even talk to one another, since meaningful conversation requires at least trying to comprehend what the other is saying, and why would I try to understand lies a malefactor is spouting out of sheer evilness of his dark heart? And as an added bonus the resulting frustration and adrenaline make for fertile ground for all kinds of extreme movements.

In other words, it's not that people are proud to be ignorant, it's that they all think politics is a D&D LARP, they're all playing paladins, and that paladin is Miko Miyazaki.

Oblig Giants in the Playground lin

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html

There are two doors. Each guarded by one guard. Both will tell you which door goes where (one to where you want to go, the other to certain doom), but there's a catch. You can only ask one of them, and one always tells the truth while the other always lies. So you ask one of them "If I had asked the other guard which door was the correct door, which door would he have pointed to?", and whichever door he points to, you take the other one. It's a twisted logic, but there you go.

This is my favorite solution to the problem.

Of course, there's always this approach.

Via The Order of the Stick.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0327.html

Nah, it'll be okay, they'll just make it back in VOLUME!

We've sold hundreds of Touchpads this month alone at Eve and Larry's!

Indeed, I make daily use of the differences between a partisan, ranseur, glaive, guisarme, glaive-guisarm, guisarm-glaive, lucern hammer, military fork, volge, etc.

SRSLY? Where do you shop? I've been having some issues at my local store.

If you lose money on each customer, what are you going to do? Make it up on volume?

That's the joke.

Start at the beginning, then work your way through the middle until you reach the end. Then stop.

And then keep coming back every MWF for the updates. :-) That is one of my favorite comics ever; very well-written/drawn, and almost never misses an update.

To keep this from just being a "+1," I'll share a few of my other favorites to lift OP's spirits:

http://www.dorktower.com/
http://irregularwebcomic.net/
http://www.basicinstructions.net/
http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/index.htm
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootslatest.html
http://xkcd.com/ (obligatory)

Then there's www.failblog.org and its sister sites. YMMV with individual items, but overall there's fun material there.

Lots of archive material to trawl with those. Enjoy!

The only thing nicer than seeing women smile is hearing them laugh.

Indeed.

Sometimes, you shouldn't bother fighting stupid. Instead, give up and take their money.

Follow the bouncing ball, children.

the number of social situations is it incapable of solving approaches zero.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0696.html

People saying that this footage disgusts them is not only legitimate, it's healthy and (IMHO) reassuring

People saying that this footage disgusts them scares the heck out of me. Why? Because when the public sees game after game after game of killing thousands of "the bad guys" it's all fine an dandy. But show someone killing "the good guys," and suddenly it's a complete moral outrage. Wanton killing is fine, apparently, if it's against the proper people.

Guess what? About a quarter of my family was "the bad guys" in Hiroshima, and another chunk was "the bad guys" whom we threw into prison camps here in the US. This is the mentality that we sent Blackwater troops into Iraq with, who then turn around and start killing the people that they perceive to be the bad guys. It's a question of "who do we care about killing?" Up until now I had thought this culture had just become desensitized to violence in general. Apparently, we just think it's OK to kill people we don't like.

It just reminds me a little too much of this comic for my comfort.

• good vs. evil
• law -- e.g., bureaucrat/corporate citizen vs. disorder -- bending or violating the rules
• neutrality -- just don't make waves, I don't care, or it's not important

and gave me a starting point on 'measuring' motivations and tendencies. This in turn helped me predict behavior for various people in the workplace. If nothing else, it makes it obvious that people have motivations and tendencies along more than one axis; I then added on a 'radius' from true neutral and a 'strength/weakness' axis and it still serves me (albeit simplistically) in learning how to work with other people to get results.

If absolutely nothing else, it gives me a common language and a starting point for identifying good and evil behavior that I can use in discussions with D&D-familiar wage slaves -- otherwise it sounds weird to use the word 'evil' to describe behavior in a world of moral relativism. Being able to back it up with a clear description helps. (Read from here on for the next 210 strips for a version with pictures).

Now, you could have linked straight to the strip. But we don't mind. As a freguent reader of oots I shall deliver: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0192.html

"Sacrificing minions: Is there any problem it can't solve?" -Xykon (OOTS)

Rocks fall.
Everyone dies.

  EVERYONE

Rocks fall.
Everyone dies.

  EVERYONE

Is it still obligatory if it's a comic that doesn't get linked very often?

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html/

But maybe I shouldn't link to them, their servers are notoriously slow.

Indeed.

For all the OOTS fans, here's a strip in his honor: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0644.html

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html

Taobao.com lose about $50M per year, but it now got 90% market share and 800M users.

Great logic you have there.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0584.html

ah yes, i was wondering what "gaining" a level would actually mean.

thing is this tho, are not the levels counted in increasing numbers while going down?

as such would one not be "loosing" a dungeon level by going up?

or is this on par with:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html

NO! DON'T SAY THAT!

This has been a problem for aeons -- we know exactly what you mean.

Here on Slashdot, a Wife is at the very least a mythical creature like a Gorgon or a Chimera

Hey, even mythical creatures can have problems relating to the fairer sex.

I don't use RSS feeds for webcomics, so here is the set of pages I regularly visit:
XKCD We probably all know this one.
Cyanide and Happiness Somewhat twisted humour.
Errant Story Excellent art and storyline.
Bunny Strange humour about bunnies.
QC Indy rock comic of social interaction.
Megatokyo Megatokyo. Has gone downhill in recent years, but still good art.
Penny Arcade Gamer comic, quite famous.
PBF Perry Bible Fellowship hasn't updated in some time, but very funny when he does.
Edible Dirt is a series of single-panel jokes. Very funny, often somewhat twisted.
Ctrl-Alt-Del is a comic about a few gamer roomates.
LFG WoW/MMO/D&D spoof. Quite funny, good art, interesting plot. Many references break the 4th wall.
Two-Lumps is a comic about cats, 1 smart, 1 very, very dumb. I think the artist is stalking my cat to get ideas for the dumb one.
Gunnerkrigg Court Beautiful art, excellent story. And robots.
underpower hasn't updated in some time, great single-page art pieces recently and an actual story before.
Girl Genius is all about Mad Science.
Bunny System is a comic about psychotic rabbits.
Something Positive is very, very cynical. It actually has 5 webcomics on 1 page. Very much worth checking out.
Head Trip is... a head trip.
FLEM hasn't updated in a while, and has a strange and rather violent storyline. Back to single-panel shorts now.
VGCats video game cats is excellent, if you play video games.
Clan of the Cats Author is going blind, will continue if she gets better. Great story and art.
Dr. McNinja The adventures of Dr. McNinja. Clean art, good story, ninjas on fire.
Code Name: Hunter Magic/technology interaction in a world strangely dominated by talking animals. Excellent facial expressions, especially for being animals.
Awkward Zombie gamer comic similar to vgcats.
No Need for Bushido Samurai story, well drawn and reasonably well written.
Giant ITP hosts both The Order of The Stick, a D&D spoof, and The Battle For Gobwin Knob, a comic about a GM who gets sucked into a world of his own design, on the losing side of a no-win scenario.
Last Blood Zombies have taken over the earth and killed nearly all humans, so now the vampires fight to protect their dwindling food source. Excellent drawing and unique story.
Chopping Block Butch the serial killer. Sick, twisted humour, but very funny.
Dominic Deegan Oracle for Hire, is a good story with pretty good art.
The Traveling Gnome Great art, story seems good so far.
One-Liners may be offensive to some, or funny to those with a sense of humour.

Order of the Stick
Penny Arcade

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0536.html

A brief tribute.

This isn't particularly insightful. We could say the same of _any_ creation myth. Maybe the Turtles exist in a dimension we can't see. Maybe Ra really is driving the Sun across the sky and the Sun appears stationary because $THEOBABBLE* HERE. You're redefining the dogma in a way that makes it fit observation better than say, the geocentric model of the universe of olde.

Pay particular attention to how the leaders change their interpretation of the "sign" to fit what they want:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0533.html

i wish more Xians thought the way you do, if only so there would be less resistance to teaching kids science and so religion would be less of a factor in policy making. It's a step in the right direction, even if it still clings to a silly idea.

* (c) 2008, Apeiron. Theobabble is the religious equivalent to technobabble, where believers try to explain something with reasonable sounding nonsense.

My original question as seen above:
How do you feel you've struck a balance between a desire to simplify/streamline rules to speed play and make the game more accessible, and a desire to preserve the strategy and general goodness of the game as it exists today? Details about proposed changes that were a tough call either way would be interesting.

WotC's response:
The struggle between playability and tactical depth is a constant one for any game designer, and D&D is no different. We're always wrestling with the right balance between providing streamlined, intuitive play and giving players all the options they want. For example, by giving more characters customizable options for their actions in combat, we've added a dramatic level of depth (both strategic, in building your character, and tactical, in employing those options during a fight), but at the cost of increasing complexity for some characters. We think that's a net positive effect, because the lack of tactical and strategic options for fighters, rogues, and many other characters had become a glaring weakness in the game. The key is to ensure that players of different sensibilities can still find a rewarding play experience within the game's framework. A player who prefers simple options can select those and still feel like he's creating an effective character, while his buddy who thrives on complexity can load up on interesting combos without grinding the game to a halt.

Follow-up Question:

Is there any concern that you've eliminated the most tactically interesting/complex characters from the game?

Further explanation/clarification:

As 3.5E D&D stands, I agree that the lack of tactical options for many kinds of characters is a weakness in the game. I'm glad to know that it will be possible to play a tactically interesting fighter without having to comb 10 books for esoteric feats and prestige classes to somehow combine together into a mutt build that ends up tactically interesting.

However, my fear and what my original question was alluding to, is that instead of 'helping the poor', so to speak, you've opted for 'gaming communism'.

I'll try to better clarify that by explaining it in 3.5E terms. Take these three classes for example:

Fighter:
- Moderate strategy at the character-build level.
- No strategy at the day level.
- Few tactical options at the combat level. That is, your fighter with feats picked for mounted combat CAN fire a longbow, but he's not very good at it. His best options in all fights come from a very short list.

Sorcerer:
- Moderate strategy at the character-build level. (Less feats to pick vs. fighter, but now you're picking spells, so...)
- No strategy at the day level.
- Moderate to many tactical options at the combat level. As you reach the mid-levels, you've got a long list of spells and maybe some metamagic feats to apply on the fly.

Druid:
- Moderate strategy at the character-build level. (You pick more skills than sorcerer/fighter, but few feats and a few are so good as to be default choices for many of the picks. Probably your single biggest 'build' choice is your animal companion, how you advance it, etc.)
- High strategy at the day level. You can fill a variety of roles depending on which spells you prepare. How well you anticipate which spells you need will have a huge impact on the usefulness of your character.
- High strategy at the day level. Lots of spells to choose from, an animal companion to manage, wild shape, etc.

Essentially, I'm concerned that instead of making fighter more of a complexity like sorcerer, you've instead chosen to make everyone like sorcerer and that there's no niche in the game for, say, the so-called 'Batman' style wizard; at best, a poor Batman sorcerer style controller seems possible. (See: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500 if you're not familiar.)

PBF has been a favorite of mine for a while, now. Here's some others(wiki pages. Paper comic sites(read: syndicate sites) suck more often than not):

Zits
Get Fuzzy
Pearls Before Swine
Lio

Schlock Mercenary
Something Positive
Erfworld
Penny Arcade
Irregular Webcomic!
There's a few others, but that's most of them.

So when you talk to fellow players, or read on a forum, etc. you can say "I'm stuck at level 33!", "I've beaten level 69 doing it upside down" and so on.

Not to mention that after escaping and killing some thousands of enemies, and 1% health left, reaching the room with the switch and seeing "loading next level" is very satisfying, is the confirmation of success of your efforts.

Third, players have less chances of getting lost. In a large world it's easier to remember locations if it's divided in sections in some way. I don't have problems finding the cave above lake Hylia, quite some and finding that strange tomb near some city it might have been Balmora - or was it Caldera ? - on the east - or was it west ?...

This is the same reason why most non-online RPGs still have levels (same name, different concept, see http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html) one way or the other.. it's easier to say "13th level vampire" than "some guy who takes pain in the sunlight with 100% magery and 79% swords and.. and.. and.. and.

> Confusion followed...She thought they were an Anime cartoon :-/

See Erfworld and go just before Parson's Klog pages 7 & 8 (i.e. about 3-4 strips ago from today's) and you'll find the "Knights In Stanley's Service."

They look better as cartoons, frankly. And apparently their ideas are loony enough...

You're welcome. :)