In particular, there is the sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy called Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and there are two playable prototypes of it. Unfinished games? So you're saying that they have content and no content at the same time?
You can still require someone to be trained in a skill to decipher encoded messages, but keep in mind that there are several 4e skills that could cover this. The 4e philosophy is about giving players the freedom to approach a problem from different angles and not having a "need the blue key to continue" approach.
Arcane: Wizards commonly write their spellbooks and scrolls in codes to prevent rivals from stealing them. (Real world alchemists did this a lot.) Therefore, Arcane could help.
History: History in a world as ancient as many D&D settings includes a good bit of archeology and deciphering of dead languages. A good historian might also recall historical tricks, like the old Spartan one with the strip wrapped around a pole of the right size. Therefore, History could help.
Thievery: Thieves often speak and write in code to avoid tipping off the authorities or their marks to what they are doing. Any thief, especially one raised in a guild, should know some basic cryptography. Therefore, Thievery could help.
The 4e skill challenges section is very big on the modern GM philosophy of not saying, "No," to the players and instead saying, "How?" or "Why?" Challenges are meant to be open to using multiple skills to defeat them to give the whole party a chance to shine.
I can tell you that most law school classes don't have complex diagrams to worry about, and yet somehow they aren't exactly "insanely simple" nor easy to keep up with by hand.
Trust me, a good Use Rope scores when attempting to take down and deliver alive a rogue with many ranks in Escape Artist. Only because 3e has those specific skills. In 4e this would be an opposed Dex-check or Thievery check. No need for narrow skills that provide absurd results.
What absurd result, you might ask? Look up the Escape Artist checks for getting out of chains and manacles sometime. It's a fixed DC. At high levels, it's better to bind someone with a rope than it is to put them in irons -- because apparently you can get more skilled with ropes but not with chains (which has no skill).
This is the end result of an overly focused and narrow skill system. I'm glad that 4e is instead replacing this with a broad and flexible skill system that encourages players and DMs to be creative.
Our DM takes particular joy in using relatively obscure in his games, so they are good to put ranks in, so that you can do tasks yourself rather than hiring an NPC. It may be different in your games. I don't know. Our games are not designed around punishing the players for not having very specific skills. There's a movement in gaming that focuses on a chimerical concept of "realism" that likes that sort of thing, but our group prefers role playing to be driven by characters, story, and a sense of adventure rather than dice rolls and stats.
Let me tell you, they couldn't have made this move any sooner. Some of the law students were having 'independent' thoughts about how the United States legal system should be corrected and it was just causing mass chaos in the classrooms. Nice knee jerk geek rage, but in my experience, the only independent thoughts that people are having from web surfing are things like whether or not they can get Scrabulous.com to accept Latin legal terms.
Use Rope doesn't merit having its own individual skill, though. It's pretty much the exemplar of wasted skill ranks after 3.5 got rid of Intuit Direction and Innuendo. You can do what with it -- secure a grappling hook, tie someone up, or splice two ropes together? Yawn.
Why isn't using a grappling hook under Climb? Why not fold tying someone up under getting out of it (i.e. Escape Artist)? Who finds drama or challenge in trying to splice rope together? (For that matter, Profession (Sailor) doesn't include any of this?)
It's a senselessly fine-grained skill definition that wastes precious resources (i.e. skill points) that could be spent on things like Survival or Move Silently or Climb -- you know, skills people would actually *use* every adventure.
4e's philosophy on skills is that skills will generally be broad and cover common adventuring challenges. Their system is designed so that party members aren't excluded from the fun when a rare type of challenge is needed, like the party that won't use horses because only one player has the Ride skill. Lastly, their system is designed with versatility in mind, encouraging players to find creative uses of their skills to defeat challenges, like using History to escape pursuers by remembering an entrance into the ancient catacombs under the city.
If deciphering documents is essential to your game, then there's no reason you couldn't let someone make an Arcane, History, or Thievery check for it, representing their experience with tomes of cryptic lore, translating dead languages, or espionage, respectively. Having a largely one-trick skill is limiting and either forces the DM to find contrived ways to make it relevant or leaves the player with wasted skill points. 4e gets rid of that.
Decipher script isnt such a useless school when the DM regularly throws encrypted documents into the game as quest hooks and whatnot. Yeah, and Use Rope isn't useless if your whole campaign revolves around getting Tenderfoot rank in the local Boy Scouts chapter.
Your game doesn't really sound all that free-form if the lack of a skill on a formal list will determine whether or not your plots can still be played through.
However that one little clause deep in the license basically grants WotC the right to choose to seize the exclusive rights to anything you produced surrounding the D20 system. It grants them full and unrestricted access to all source materials, and it grants them the right to resell and distribute the goods produced from it. Further, it grants them the right to revoke the license from you, barring you from further use. Can you quote the specific language which you are referring to? I see nothing in either the OGL or the d20 License that grants them the rights you speak of. The closest thing I can find is the clause that terminates your license if and only if you are in breach of the contract.
Hey, I'm primarily a C/C++ programmer. I'm just very personally aware that the language doesn't protect you from shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly.
Both you and the GP talk about tax shelters like they're illegal. [...] Tax laws are riddled with loopholes and investment firms make lots of money figuring out how to work within the rules. Oh, sure. The key is that these rules are so complicated that attempts to jump through the loop holes frequently result in mistakes. The question Monster needs to ask themselves is if they feel lucky.
Basically, by questioning the "arm's length" relationship between the two entities in their licensing agreements, he's saying that they'd better make sure their financial house is in order before bringing him to court.
Then again, I run away screaming at the prospect of having to learn corporate tax law, so I may be too trusting of his oblique threat.
They'll have the best technology (your) money can buy when it is used AGAINST you (e.g. Dept of Homeland Security) [...] Now why on Earth would you assume that? Do you honestly think that a government agency founded by this administration is any better staffed with competent people and supplied with well-managed infrastructure than FEMA was? (Which was under the DHS umbrella, mind you.)
Didn't DHS get a D grade on the last government security report card (compared to the government's C- average)?
Please. A government that feels that government is part of the problem has no interest in making it run efficiently.
Don't blame the language because the developers are incompetent. Yeah. And C contributes absolute nothing to memory leaks or buffer overruns. Nothing at all.
I also love when he threatens Rule 11 sanctions, demands extensive discovery, and threatens to challenge each and every one of their patents. Oh, and he accuses them of acting in bad faith, without candor.
But really, you're right -- threatening their tax shelter was a masterstroke.
Except for the time I waste on whiners like you, Valdrax. As pointed out by McGiraf, do you really think you're going to improve the senseless meme-tossing by doing your own senseless meme-tossing? Lighten up. It's called irony. It's a form of subtle humor. One that apparently went right over your head and that of a few other posters.
Your indignant geek rage does nothing to help either.
So some of the briliant, insightful comments by my fellow shashdotters may get buried. When's the last time you've read the comments section on any science article on Slashdot, particularly over discoveries in physics?
Insightful comments are *always* buried under senseless meme-tossing and political (or other off-topic) ranting.
i've worked with these things (their 2700 gateways). they're great modems (though really really sensitive to surges), but these guys do not know how to design the router side. go above a couple hundred connections, and it crashes it (hitting "refresh all" in the CS server browser will do this almost every time). try to transfer files between wired and wireless (or vise versa) and it slows to a crawl. best idea is put the damn thing in bridge mode and get a real router. I've got a 2701, and the thing just falls completely apart whenever I use BitTorrent. I thought it was issues with the terrible connection which I have (12-9 dB SNR), so I called a tech out to fix it (improving it to 15-12 db), but that didn't do much.
I've often suspected the router itself due to the fact that this never happens when I'm maxing out my internet connection with only a couple of transactions, but that settles it. I'm getting a new router.
Personality rights fall into a nebulous border zone between privacy and intellectual property rights. Here's a good summary from the Wikipedia:
Personality rights are generally considered to consist of two types of rights: the right to publicity, or to keep one's image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission or contractual compensation, which is similar to the use of a trademark; and the right to privacy, or the right to be left alone and not represent one's personality publicly without permission. Generally, these rules most resemble IP in the context of celebrity likenesses, etc. This segment of law is currently in a huge flux right now. States have wildly varying laws on the concept, and decisions on where the borders of such rights begin and end vary wildly between even states with materially similar laws on the books.
I'll tell you why Win 7 will be a huge flop: since it breaks almost all compatibility between itself and previous windows releases, it has to compete on the same grounds as Linux, *BSD and OSX. Which means, that without the massive inertia of the previous windows releases, those three will kick the living crap out of Win 7 in terms of maturity, usability and price. Two points:
A) RTFA. There will be a separate compatibility layer, much like Classic for Mac OS 9 apps under Mac OS X. By the time they drop it years later, the world will have largely moved on.
B) Even if there wasn't, commercial developers would find it *far* easier to port their old Windows apps to the new Windows 7 API than to port to completely foreign systems that share absolutely no code in common. In other words, there will be a lag in production, but the vast majority of software development houses will continue to target Windows to the exclusion of other platforms.
You're crazy if you think this will spell a death sentence for Windows apps.
Neal Stephenson's books seem to often have the trope of a mundane activity elevated to ridiculous levels. "Snow Crash" had pizza delivery. "Cryptonomicon" had eating cereal.
I wonder if there's going to be a similar moment in his new book?
So it's like the opposite of Atlas Shrugged... You mean it has highly readable prose with richly developed characters who don't act as either superhuman soapbox mouthpieces for a flimsy philosophical justification for being an elitist, selfish prick or as mustache-twirling straw man arguments for the other side?
Slashdot Mirror
You can still require someone to be trained in a skill to decipher encoded messages, but keep in mind that there are several 4e skills that could cover this. The 4e philosophy is about giving players the freedom to approach a problem from different angles and not having a "need the blue key to continue" approach.
Arcane: Wizards commonly write their spellbooks and scrolls in codes to prevent rivals from stealing them. (Real world alchemists did this a lot.) Therefore, Arcane could help.
History: History in a world as ancient as many D&D settings includes a good bit of archeology and deciphering of dead languages. A good historian might also recall historical tricks, like the old Spartan one with the strip wrapped around a pole of the right size. Therefore, History could help.
Thievery: Thieves often speak and write in code to avoid tipping off the authorities or their marks to what they are doing. Any thief, especially one raised in a guild, should know some basic cryptography. Therefore, Thievery could help.
The 4e skill challenges section is very big on the modern GM philosophy of not saying, "No," to the players and instead saying, "How?" or "Why?" Challenges are meant to be open to using multiple skills to defeat them to give the whole party a chance to shine.
I can tell you that most law school classes don't have complex diagrams to worry about, and yet somehow they aren't exactly "insanely simple" nor easy to keep up with by hand.
What absurd result, you might ask? Look up the Escape Artist checks for getting out of chains and manacles sometime. It's a fixed DC. At high levels, it's better to bind someone with a rope than it is to put them in irons -- because apparently you can get more skilled with ropes but not with chains (which has no skill).
This is the end result of an overly focused and narrow skill system. I'm glad that 4e is instead replacing this with a broad and flexible skill system that encourages players and DMs to be creative. Our DM takes particular joy in using relatively obscure in his games, so they are good to put ranks in, so that you can do tasks yourself rather than hiring an NPC. It may be different in your games. I don't know. Our games are not designed around punishing the players for not having very specific skills. There's a movement in gaming that focuses on a chimerical concept of "realism" that likes that sort of thing, but our group prefers role playing to be driven by characters, story, and a sense of adventure rather than dice rolls and stats.
Use Rope doesn't merit having its own individual skill, though. It's pretty much the exemplar of wasted skill ranks after 3.5 got rid of Intuit Direction and Innuendo. You can do what with it -- secure a grappling hook, tie someone up, or splice two ropes together? Yawn.
Why isn't using a grappling hook under Climb? Why not fold tying someone up under getting out of it (i.e. Escape Artist)? Who finds drama or challenge in trying to splice rope together? (For that matter, Profession (Sailor) doesn't include any of this?)
It's a senselessly fine-grained skill definition that wastes precious resources (i.e. skill points) that could be spent on things like Survival or Move Silently or Climb -- you know, skills people would actually *use* every adventure.
4e's philosophy on skills is that skills will generally be broad and cover common adventuring challenges. Their system is designed so that party members aren't excluded from the fun when a rare type of challenge is needed, like the party that won't use horses because only one player has the Ride skill. Lastly, their system is designed with versatility in mind, encouraging players to find creative uses of their skills to defeat challenges, like using History to escape pursuers by remembering an entrance into the ancient catacombs under the city.
If deciphering documents is essential to your game, then there's no reason you couldn't let someone make an Arcane, History, or Thievery check for it, representing their experience with tomes of cryptic lore, translating dead languages, or espionage, respectively. Having a largely one-trick skill is limiting and either forces the DM to find contrived ways to make it relevant or leaves the player with wasted skill points. 4e gets rid of that.
Your game doesn't really sound all that free-form if the lack of a skill on a formal list will determine whether or not your plots can still be played through.
Finally?
I think you misunderstand.
Rights are for the ISPs.
Responsibilities are for the users.
Hey, I'm primarily a C/C++ programmer. I'm just very personally aware that the language doesn't protect you from shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly.
Automating some things just makes life easier.
That would be Rule 37.
(*whistles innocently*)
[...]
Tax laws are riddled with loopholes and investment firms make lots of money figuring out how to work within the rules. Oh, sure. The key is that these rules are so complicated that attempts to jump through the loop holes frequently result in mistakes. The question Monster needs to ask themselves is if they feel lucky.
Basically, by questioning the "arm's length" relationship between the two entities in their licensing agreements, he's saying that they'd better make sure their financial house is in order before bringing him to court.
Then again, I run away screaming at the prospect of having to learn corporate tax law, so I may be too trusting of his oblique threat.
Didn't DHS get a D grade on the last government security report card (compared to the government's C- average)?
Please. A government that feels that government is part of the problem has no interest in making it run efficiently.
I also love when he threatens Rule 11 sanctions, demands extensive discovery, and threatens to challenge each and every one of their patents. Oh, and he accuses them of acting in bad faith, without candor.
But really, you're right -- threatening their tax shelter was a masterstroke.
Your indignant geek rage does nothing to help either.
Insightful comments are *always* buried under senseless meme-tossing and political (or other off-topic) ranting.
I've often suspected the router itself due to the fact that this never happens when I'm maxing out my internet connection with only a couple of transactions, but that settles it. I'm getting a new router.
You know, we have Applebee's for a reason.
(What else are you supposed to do with a Fine Arts major?)
A) RTFA. There will be a separate compatibility layer, much like Classic for Mac OS 9 apps under Mac OS X. By the time they drop it years later, the world will have largely moved on.
B) Even if there wasn't, commercial developers would find it *far* easier to port their old Windows apps to the new Windows 7 API than to port to completely foreign systems that share absolutely no code in common. In other words, there will be a lag in production, but the vast majority of software development houses will continue to target Windows to the exclusion of other platforms.
You're crazy if you think this will spell a death sentence for Windows apps.
Neal Stephenson's books seem to often have the trope of a mundane activity elevated to ridiculous levels. "Snow Crash" had pizza delivery. "Cryptonomicon" had eating cereal.
I wonder if there's going to be a similar moment in his new book?
Sounds awesome.
To be fair, Hiro's name is self-given and says a lot about the character's sense of humor.