re#2 above: That assumes most grammer nazi's actually do care and are not just trolling. I believe most grammer nazi's just a subset of trolls excepting the occasional person with an OCD type dissorder.
At least that's how it seems as 90% of the time (rough estimate) the grammer nazi's are NOT reducing confusion but rather creating a distraction from the actuall conversation. Since the POINT of this sort of forum is discussion and not formal communication the net effect of most grammer nazi's is counter the purpose and thus should be treated as off topic, the topic is NOT correct use of the ' or how to properly use an adjective, but rather the article in question.
I could probably fine tooth comb my posts and elimate most grammatical errors (not spelling though, pretty bad at that), but why? The point is the topic at hand NOT perfect english. If your message is clear enough to understand you did it right for this sort of forum. I've also read posts that had good grammar and spelling yet made NO sense, they failed as far as I am concerned.
never tempt fate by telling the mods what they can't mod you.
I could say they can't mod me insightfull or funny, but knowing my luck I'll get overrated.
Minor thing, but it used to be if there was no money involved, and no harmfull intent (such as deliberatly giving away large numbers of copies for free to drive a competitor out of bussiness), it wasn't illeagle.
IIRC originally copywright ONLY covered comercial use, and ONLY for a few years.
It's expanded to the point were you practically need a specific clause to even READ something without commiting copywright infringement.
It's a reference to the book 1984 by George Orwell I suspect. Most likely in specific to doublethink and newspeak (IIRC the terms he used).
This no doubt relates to the apparent belief that/. has a unified opinion on everything and there for when subgroup A complains about x by an 'evil company' and subgroup B complains about another 'evil company' doing not x it must be doublethink. These funny breaches of common sense and logic get even worse when a particularly hated(by some subgroup) 'evil company' practices it's particular brand of 'evil' against another companies' use of a particularly hated 'evil practice' x.
There are of course various flavors of this particular brain damage.
Not shure whether the post you are reacting to was engaging in said lunacy, or sarcastically chiding someone else who has been modded down for commiting said brain damage in public.
I suppose I should have been clearer. I was actually hoping a lawyer, or paraleagle at least, could clarify my vauge memory/understanding here.
Anyone cluefull enough to mod me interesting or overated (and know what thier talking about) would have served the system better by actually posting a response.
Though I am curious how 2+1-1=1. Please note I'm not complaining about the moderation(other than the math), I honestly can't say I'm shure if eigther are incorrect or not, but about the chance that someone with a clue (or so they imply by thier mods) failed to share info.
Please if you can shed light on this do so. TIA
You need an actual lawyer to answer this clearly. But I seem to recall that if said decompiling and so on shows the code to belong to the pear people, cherryos people have no standing to limit what they do to it.
It's like I own a car, but you claim it's yours so I prove it's mine by starting it with my chipped key and comparing the vin number to sales records then you trying to have me jailed for using your car w/o permision.
There's also something about the fact that cherry os people are doing something illeagle here and since thier hands are dirty they don't really have any recourse to ask the courts to protect it or something like that.
Like I said a real lawyer could probably explain/clarify my what I vaguely remember here, or even show whether it made leagle sense (even though it makes common sense to me).
Not shure what you mean, but is a limit on patenting already existing things as I understand it a patent can be invalidated if you show what's patented had been in existance more than 1 year prior to the patent application. Fuzzy on the details though.
First off not EVERYONE thinks the exact same thing, even within the subset of people who like open source.
I personally think the registry is good idea, just badly implemented.
It's certainly a better idea than having every damn thing have it's own different type and style of config file. And no, having them all in text files neigther makes them 'human readable' nore make them consistant enough. Besides that human readable is secondary (but still necessary imho) to having them easy to read with code. Right now a major drawback to linux based systems is the complete lack of consistancy at the user config level. I've tried several distro's and what's easy to config one with a simple point and click interface requires wading through a bunch of 'human readable' config files setting obscure flags and what not.
Windows used to use a bunch of.ini files that were basically human readable text files all conforming to a standard layout and standard. Those were easier to deal with than what linux currently uses (an add hoc mess imho) and yet that has been replaced by a pair of database style files. I doubt there was no advantage to this, they wouldn't waste the time if they didn't see some worthwhile advantage. And no, it wasn't some tinfoil hat reason eigther.
Some complain that linux is constantly copying windows as if anything Microsoft ever did is for some reason to be avoided like the plague irrespective of it's merrits. This is foolish even if you buy that Microsoft is pure evil and to be fought at every chance.
The windows registry has serious issues for many reasons, but it has advantages as well. Since they went first the OSS community can learn from thier mistakes and thier successes. There is an advantage to being the second to try something, just as any second gen tech is superior to first gen.
I don't think you understood my meaning. I said near the poverty line, not under it. And I was speaking from experience. MOST of the computers I've fixed have been owned by people making under 40k a year as a family. The one I did most recently was owned by a lady who was raising her daughter on a gas station attendands pay plus her husband's pay which is just under twice that. Hardly middle class, yet they could afford the cheap compaq computer and the broadband costing them no more than dail up, possibly less as they got a package deal with the local 'baby' bell monopoly.
The problem with using the poverty line is I suppose the fact that it doesn't really represent what it should. In some parts of the US if your income doesn't place you at least twice the poverty line you're lucky if you can afford 1 meal a day and a cardboard box to live in, yet in other areas of the country that same amount is enough to live off of and even afford cable or broadband if you're thrifty with your money. The later describes a good chunk of the midwest, the former some areas near the coasts. Sorry I even used it as a referent.
My point was you hardly needed to be in the middle class to afford the cheap pc or connection to hit riaa's threshold as another poster mistakenly claimed. A 486 on dialup can accumulate enough mp3's in the shared files given a month or two. You don't need a 3ghz+ system on bussiness class dsl or t1 to get 30 songs in your shared folder.
Compounding the problem is that the credit worthyness of an individual is hard to determine.
I know your thinking, but they can look up my score, it's all on record. The truth is a BIG chunk of the data the three major credit reporting agencies keep is bogus or missfiled or simply screwed up. Someone with a simular name who's ss# isn't different enough from yours live nearby? well his ten late payements to pornpro magazine just might be on your credit report. What do you mean your house payments couldn't be late because you've never had a mortagage or a house and 111 first street would have to be 1/4 mile out to sea?
It happens alot, I've seen it reported to be anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of all credit reports have incorrect information on them.
I'm all for discouraging predetory lending, but how can you tell without accurate data to figure out a persons credit worthyness. Knowing thier income and outgo would be a big clue (as well as thier assets), but without accurate data on thier past practices wrt paying off debts is also pretty valid. We don't have that accurate history.
Maybee in the third world, but with sub $400 pc's that have 2ghz processors and broadband in many area's costing an extra $5-$20 a month over basic phone I can quite assure you many of these people are near the poverty line.
Sorry but computers are too cheap (not that your assertion that a 'beefy' computer is needed is correct, most any computer sold in the last few years could handle win9x+shareazza or whatever) and broadband seems to eigther be dirt cheap or not at any price around here (st louis area).
Neigther is an 'experienced' user required. Most kids above 8 can figure out how to download and run kazza or lime wire.
True min/maxing is not just making smart choices about assigning stats. It means the final numbers are ALL that matter, you don't care if it's a dwarven fighter or a elf druid or whatever. You don't pick any skills that don't 100% support a maxed out char or pick anything to make your character fully formed (as in no roll playing elements).
The reality is everyone doese this to some small degree. It's obnoxious when it passes a certain threshold, that threshold varies from person to person. Think of it a line from totaly random (or totaly driven by concept/story) character to one who's creation is total driven by the final numbers. You should try to create a character with SOME versimilitude, some concept beyond really good fighter, or very powerfull mage.
But my tolerance for min/maxing or stat crunching is fairly high, as long as the player is trying to create a character that's fun to play and not just trying to 'win' it's cool.
THAC0 is To Hit Armor Class 0. Once apon a time (that phrase had to show up somewhere here:) lower armor classes were better, you started at 10 and anything that made it harder to hit you lowered this. Small shields were a -1 to ac and so on.
Now each class had different starting odds on hitting an ac of 0 (middle of the range, which went from -10 to +10) that got better with level advancement, which also varied from class to class. Fighter classes generaly got better each level or nearly every level whereas mages were something like every 4 or 5 levels. Next you had to add in all the various modifiers, such as magic and exceptional stat bonuses. Once all these were added to gether you got what you needed to roll to hit an AC of 0, thus your calculated THAC0. since the number you needed to hit varied 1:1 with the targets AC this number and a single addition/subtraction told you what you needed to hit any particular critter 99% of the time. Whereas if you stopped and added everything up each time (gee I'm 17 strength that's +3 and my sword is +1 and....) it'd slow the game down durring battles to a borring crawl. When THAC0 was introduced it bassically codified and simplified what most players were already doing, prefiguring anything they could before play to speed up mechanics so they could focus on the fun.
Excuse me, but it shure looks like you contradict yourself there, unless your trying to distiguish between kinds of consideration.
Copyrights granted authorities over reproduction are tangible considerations. The gpl offers a swap of the rights granted under copyright.
In theory a copywrighted work can only be copied and distributed by the holder of the copyright.
What the GPL does is make the following offer: IF you wish the permision of the copyright holder(s) to re-distribute copies of this software (this is an offer of something tangeable, or else copyright is meaningless) you may do so provided you do so in a specific manner and make simular offer of anything you add to this software.
That's an offer for exchange of valid goods, that you are free to accept or not. If you don't accept the offer you are in the same boat as if the gpl wasn't offered with the software, you may not re-distribute the software.
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours is a simple exchange of services. The gpl is a more complicated exchange of copyright rights.
If the gpl is meaningless then you lose everything it grants you and gain nothing. If it's a valid offer you MAY choose to gain what it offers so long as you agree to abide by it's terms. And like any offer you are free to make your own offer to the owners of the copyright, such as "hey I'll pay you guys X dollars if you let me distribute a personal fork of the code as a closed binary" if you want.
Again IANAL and real one could probably explain it better.
However what you say does make some sense relative to shrink wrap licenses. They offer no further consideration in exchange for the consideration they ask from you AFTER you've already exchanged cash for the product.
Reminds me of these really huge dice we've seen from time to time at the local gamming shop chain.
We've talking d6's pips the size of dime or nickles, d4's that could lame an elephant (think caltrop) and so on.
We called the dammage dice, because if you got hit with them you were most definately damaged.
Then about six months ago they got in 'nerf' style damage dice.....:)
As a long time gamer let me confirm that yes your group is quite wierd.
I've rarely seen anything in a game that wierd. though the whole dragon nymph thing is getting old.
Imagine women gamming. How wierd can you get. That is outside of someones little sister playing for three games because she has a crush on one of the players, or her brother needed a another player and talked her into it. Though last time I saw that happen the guys 'little sister' was a 22 year old of outstanding err.. stats (19com..if you don't know that 7th stat you haven't gamed old school AD&D), unfortunately it wasn't me she was chasing.
Serously though, odd campains like that start happening for the odd change up when your group's been gaming for a few years, especially if the group formed mainly from experienced gamers.
We've done that sort of thing a few times. an interesting system to play mixed power level characters in is paladium's rifts. You can have two first level chars where one can take out marine regiment and the other one can't take a 50meter walk without getting winded.
THAT explains it. We just lost a player to some government dept of something or other, seems he got a degree in Economics (close enough to acounting for me). (see some of my other posts about how the guy had a 14/1 ranger/rouge with a +#something to hit with his +2 longbow)
I dunno which is more appropriate, but as someone who has played since 1.0 in 1980 I consider your lack of an insightfull or at least funny mod indicative of the youth of the current mods not mention an injustice.
Min Maxing is pretty much choosing everything about your character to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.
You start with stats then compare every class/race combo to see what gets you the best numbers for everything important in that combo without undully screwing anything else.
Choosing where to put your 18 and where to put your 9 so it make sense for the 1/2 orc ranger you've decided to play is just using some brains.
Also what you said about character is reminesent of one of the two big schools of thought on "HEROS" in rpgs and fiction.
Is a hero someone who lived up to his heroic potential, or a normal person forced into situations that gave him the oportunity to become a hero.
You can take the aproach that there's something about hero's that make them hero's or that the difference between your farmer and your hero is that the hero did something the farmer didn't or took an opourtunity the farmer could/would not.
Is hero born to greatness, or doese he sieze it? Doese he meet his fate or make it?
Not shure how to explain it clearly. Except through these sorts of questions and perspectives.
You hit the tricky part(IMHO) right on the head, Charisma and social skills are particualarly difficult.
The trick with being a gm is how to balance the role playing part with the skill roles here.
I've generally let the player lead it a bit in that if they really want to try and just roleplay it I minimize the rolling, If the player (or me I sometimes admit) are dealing with an unfamiliar situation I sub a roll for the actuall knowledge but keep the roleplaying in to get the gist or angle being used.
It's never just a 'bluff roll to see the guard lets you through'. But roll-playing to see if it's "i'm to important to stop or check on' or 'me? I'm just a messenger' or what have you and use that to guide the meaning (and limit) of the rolls results.
If the unarmored halfling pulls a 'I'm just a harmless waif' routing he's far more likely to pull it off with a good roll than the platemail wearing half-orc fighter, who might pull off the 'duh high I'm err dahht is I'm errr.. Oh yeah snorttles, dahh king say i go dere, fight enemies hard if they comes here' routine though that would likely get the elf stared at quick walked to the local loony bin.
Any Gm that can't handle anything but a narrow range of characters and has to kill off anyone trying to play a character they LIKE has no imagination.
I've played with min/maxers (been one, been a pure rollist, etc. gm'd all the above, etc.)
The trick for a gm is to make the game FUN, or at least make it possible to be fun.
If the player can legitimately create a really good character without cheating and enjoys such a character, let him play it, it's the gm's fault if that alone is enough to wreck the game.
Gamming is about fun, everyone want's a 'cool' character and newbies are most prone to think it's a min'maxed character. Now usually they'll grow out of it and start looking for characters that are interesting. But sometimes that's a character who in some way is outstanding. The trick for the gm is to give the character a chance to shine, just not at the expense of the rest of the party. Hopefully each character gets that chance.
A friend of mine I've been playing with for about two years just left for DC to accept a government job after getting his degree in economics. He's always played a somewhat min/maxed character, in part because that's what cool for him, but in part because NOT juggling the numbers would be alien to him I suspect. So sometimes they got to meet dangers out in the open where he could shoot first (ranger/archer) and quite often had over a +30 to hit (I LOOKED for cheating on his char sheet, I looked for some glitch in his numbers, never do that with a numbers guy unless you are one, he was legit) at level 14.
I also have a guy with >30 ac while wearing NO armour. So occasionally he deals with magic just as the archer can get bum-rushed in a small inn.
Or sometimes vice/versa. If you play at times to thier strengths and at times to thier weaknesses it's fun because sometimes they have to work thier asses off and sometimes they hand the enemy thier asses without getting up from dinner.
It about fun. You just have to have the imagination to gm (most people do, but need practice) and perserverance to learn to use it rather than blame the player for 'wrecking' the game. This is where most have trouble, I sure did at first not having any CLUE how to handle a party thinking of something I didn't. Remember the player deosn't usually want to wreck your game, he want's to have fun and is depending on your help not anger with what they want to do.
Yes it's harder to GM someone with a char that's the same old borring char we've all seen a thousand times, but IMNSHO it's worth it.
They(3.5) aren't as broad in scope as GURPS, but they do have the advantage not being so generic.
GURPS can feel like your bassically doing the same two rolls over and over again. (so can almost any game though, it's just a tad easier in GURPS)
I guess my point here is that D&D has a clear feel to it, a unique flavor if you will, that GURPS lacks outside the specific world books.
GURPS is a jack of all trades, master of none. D&D 3.5 is great for it's genre, Tolkienish fantasy. But you'll notice how much re-working d20 needs to work for star wars or it's spy genre, and the fit sometimes feels akward even still.
FWIW GURPS and (A)D&D are the two game systems I've consistantly collected over the years (two decades plus) and have probably spent a couple grand on each system while spending less a tenth that on all other systems.
Only if you got a really crappy GM with NO imagination.
Unless by 'game the system' you really mean cheat.
In my game we had untill recently a guy who as a matter of reflex built characters who had at least one impossible seeming ability. Most recently it was an ranger(archer choices) with a plus to hit that was about two to three times what you would expect for his level. He simply looked at his roles and planed ahead min/maxing for that. His other abilities and stats were normal to slightly (approx 1/2 level) behind.
The reason he WAS in our group is he graduated with a degree in economics and just got hired by some department of something in DC. And considering how well he crunched the numbers for his characters I sincerly hope he gets to help with the economy at some point.
To get back to my point, early on I found out if an arrow could hit it, it'd take massive damage fast and compensated a good portion of the time (not always, no fun playing a grand master archer or whatever if he never gets to show his stuff).
He's a big reason how they survived so long. Now I can see where a petty, braindead, asshole gm might penalize him for his cleverness somehow. But I refuse to be that kind of gm.
Actauly there is an exchange offered. If you want the privilage of re-distributing you have to do x.
If you don't wish to re-distribute then you are restricted to the no-liscence default (copyright law).
That's why most open source liscences are concionable where-as most EULAS are crap. Shrink wrap licenses that spring on you at install time offer NO further consideration in exchange for thier proposed restrictions.
However IANAL and if you think this is leagle advice I know a guy with famous bridge for sale....
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re#2 above: That assumes most grammer nazi's actually do care and are not just trolling. I believe most grammer nazi's just a subset of trolls excepting the occasional person with an OCD type dissorder.
At least that's how it seems as 90% of the time (rough estimate) the grammer nazi's are NOT reducing confusion but rather creating a distraction from the actuall conversation. Since the POINT of this sort of forum is discussion and not formal communication the net effect of most grammer nazi's is counter the purpose and thus should be treated as off topic, the topic is NOT correct use of the ' or how to properly use an adjective, but rather the article in question.
I could probably fine tooth comb my posts and elimate most grammatical errors (not spelling though, pretty bad at that), but why? The point is the topic at hand NOT perfect english. If your message is clear enough to understand you did it right for this sort of forum. I've also read posts that had good grammar and spelling yet made NO sense, they failed as far as I am concerned.
Mycroft
Yep, figures. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be right.
Mycroft
Not shure if I should offer sympathy or applause.
Mycroft
never tempt fate by telling the mods what they can't mod you.
I could say they can't mod me insightfull or funny, but knowing my luck I'll get overrated.
Mycroft
Minor thing, but it used to be if there was no money involved, and no harmfull intent (such as deliberatly giving away large numbers of copies for free to drive a competitor out of bussiness), it wasn't illeagle.
IIRC originally copywright ONLY covered comercial use, and ONLY for a few years.
It's expanded to the point were you practically need a specific clause to even READ something without commiting copywright infringement.
Mycroft
It's a reference to the book 1984 by George Orwell I suspect. Most likely in specific to doublethink and newspeak (IIRC the terms he used). /. has a unified opinion on everything and there for when subgroup A complains about x by an 'evil company' and subgroup B complains about another 'evil company' doing not x it must be doublethink. These funny breaches of common sense and logic get even worse when a particularly hated(by some subgroup) 'evil company' practices it's particular brand of 'evil' against another companies' use of a particularly hated 'evil practice' x.
This no doubt relates to the apparent belief that
There are of course various flavors of this particular brain damage.
Not shure whether the post you are reacting to was engaging in said lunacy, or sarcastically chiding someone else who has been modded down for commiting said brain damage in public.
Mycroft
I suppose I should have been clearer. I was actually hoping a lawyer, or paraleagle at least, could clarify my vauge memory/understanding here.
Anyone cluefull enough to mod me interesting or overated (and know what thier talking about) would have served the system better by actually posting a response.
Though I am curious how 2+1-1=1.
Please note I'm not complaining about the moderation(other than the math), I honestly can't say I'm shure if eigther are incorrect or not, but about the chance that someone with a clue (or so they imply by thier mods) failed to share info.
Please if you can shed light on this do so. TIA
Mycroft
Not only that, but 10% of the moderation is secret:
50% Funny
30% Overrated
10% Flamebait
probably not really, but that's a huge rounding error.
Mycroft
You need an actual lawyer to answer this clearly. But I seem to recall that if said decompiling and so on shows the code to belong to the pear people, cherryos people have no standing to limit what they do to it.
It's like I own a car, but you claim it's yours so I prove it's mine by starting it with my chipped key and comparing the vin number to sales records then you trying to have me jailed for using your car w/o permision.
There's also something about the fact that cherry os people are doing something illeagle here and since thier hands are dirty they don't really have any recourse to ask the courts to protect it or something like that.
Like I said a real lawyer could probably explain/clarify my what I vaguely remember here, or even show whether it made leagle sense (even though it makes common sense to me).
Mycroft
Not shure what you mean, but is a limit on patenting already existing things as I understand it a patent can be invalidated if you show what's patented had been in existance more than 1 year prior to the patent application. Fuzzy on the details though.
Mycroft
First off not EVERYONE thinks the exact same thing, even within the subset of people who like open source. .ini files that were basically human readable text files all conforming to a standard layout and standard. Those were easier to deal with than what linux currently uses (an add hoc mess imho) and yet that has been replaced by a pair of database style files. I doubt there was no advantage to this, they wouldn't waste the time if they didn't see some worthwhile advantage. And no, it wasn't some tinfoil hat reason eigther.
I personally think the registry is good idea, just badly implemented.
It's certainly a better idea than having every damn thing have it's own different type and style of config file. And no, having them all in text files neigther makes them 'human readable' nore make them consistant enough. Besides that human readable is secondary (but still necessary imho) to having them easy to read with code. Right now a major drawback to linux based systems is the complete lack of consistancy at the user config level. I've tried several distro's and what's easy to config one with a simple point and click interface requires wading through a bunch of 'human readable' config files setting obscure flags and what not.
Windows used to use a bunch of
Some complain that linux is constantly copying windows as if anything Microsoft ever did is for some reason to be avoided like the plague irrespective of it's merrits. This is foolish even if you buy that Microsoft is pure evil and to be fought at every chance.
The windows registry has serious issues for many reasons, but it has advantages as well. Since they went first the OSS community can learn from thier mistakes and thier successes. There is an advantage to being the second to try something, just as any second gen tech is superior to first gen.
Mycroft
I don't think you understood my meaning. I said near the poverty line, not under it. And I was speaking from experience. MOST of the computers I've fixed have been owned by people making under 40k a year as a family. The one I did most recently was owned by a lady who was raising her daughter on a gas station attendands pay plus her husband's pay which is just under twice that. Hardly middle class, yet they could afford the cheap compaq computer and the broadband costing them no more than dail up, possibly less as they got a package deal with the local 'baby' bell monopoly.
The problem with using the poverty line is I suppose the fact that it doesn't really represent what it should. In some parts of the US if your income doesn't place you at least twice the poverty line you're lucky if you can afford 1 meal a day and a cardboard box to live in, yet in other areas of the country that same amount is enough to live off of and even afford cable or broadband if you're thrifty with your money. The later describes a good chunk of the midwest, the former some areas near the coasts. Sorry I even used it as a referent.
My point was you hardly needed to be in the middle class to afford the cheap pc or connection to hit riaa's threshold as another poster mistakenly claimed. A 486 on dialup can accumulate enough mp3's in the shared files given a month or two. You don't need a 3ghz+ system on bussiness class dsl or t1 to get 30 songs in your shared folder.
Mycroft
Compounding the problem is that the credit worthyness of an individual is hard to determine.
I know your thinking, but they can look up my score, it's all on record. The truth is a BIG chunk of the data the three major credit reporting agencies keep is bogus or missfiled or simply screwed up. Someone with a simular name who's ss# isn't different enough from yours live nearby? well his ten late payements to pornpro magazine just might be on your credit report. What do you mean your house payments couldn't be late because you've never had a mortagage or a house and 111 first street would have to be 1/4 mile out to sea?
It happens alot, I've seen it reported to be anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of all credit reports have incorrect information on them.
I'm all for discouraging predetory lending, but how can you tell without accurate data to figure out a persons credit worthyness. Knowing thier income and outgo would be a big clue (as well as thier assets), but without accurate data on thier past practices wrt paying off debts is also pretty valid. We don't have that accurate history.
Mycroft
Maybee in the third world, but with sub $400 pc's that have 2ghz processors and broadband in many area's costing an extra $5-$20 a month over basic phone I can quite assure you many of these people are near the poverty line.
Sorry but computers are too cheap (not that your assertion that a 'beefy' computer is needed is correct, most any computer sold in the last few years could handle win9x+shareazza or whatever) and broadband seems to eigther be dirt cheap or not at any price around here (st louis area).
Neigther is an 'experienced' user required. Most kids above 8 can figure out how to download and run kazza or lime wire.
Mycroft
True min/maxing is not just making smart choices about assigning stats. It means the final numbers are ALL that matter, you don't care if it's a dwarven fighter or a elf druid or whatever. You don't pick any skills that don't 100% support a maxed out char or pick anything to make your character fully formed (as in no roll playing elements).
The reality is everyone doese this to some small degree. It's obnoxious when it passes a certain threshold, that threshold varies from person to person. Think of it a line from totaly random (or totaly driven by concept/story) character to one who's creation is total driven by the final numbers. You should try to create a character with SOME versimilitude, some concept beyond really good fighter, or very powerfull mage.
But my tolerance for min/maxing or stat crunching is fairly high, as long as the player is trying to create a character that's fun to play and not just trying to 'win' it's cool.
THAC0 is To Hit Armor Class 0. Once apon a time (that phrase had to show up somewhere here:) lower armor classes were better, you started at 10 and anything that made it harder to hit you lowered this. Small shields were a -1 to ac and so on.
Now each class had different starting odds on hitting an ac of 0 (middle of the range, which went from -10 to +10) that got better with level advancement, which also varied from class to class. Fighter classes generaly got better each level or nearly every level whereas mages were something like every 4 or 5 levels. Next you had to add in all the various modifiers, such as magic and exceptional stat bonuses. Once all these were added to gether you got what you needed to roll to hit an AC of 0, thus your calculated THAC0. since the number you needed to hit varied 1:1 with the targets AC this number and a single addition/subtraction told you what you needed to hit any particular critter 99% of the time. Whereas if you stopped and added everything up each time (gee I'm 17 strength that's +3 and my sword is +1 and....) it'd slow the game down durring battles to a borring crawl. When THAC0 was introduced it bassically codified and simplified what most players were already doing, prefiguring anything they could before play to speed up mechanics so they could focus on the fun.
Mycroft
Excuse me, but it shure looks like you contradict yourself there, unless your trying to distiguish between kinds of consideration.
Copyrights granted authorities over reproduction are tangible considerations. The gpl offers a swap of the rights granted under copyright.
In theory a copywrighted work can only be copied and distributed by the holder of the copyright.
What the GPL does is make the following offer: IF you wish the permision of the copyright holder(s) to re-distribute copies of this software (this is an offer of something tangeable, or else copyright is meaningless) you may do so provided you do so in a specific manner and make simular offer of anything you add to this software.
That's an offer for exchange of valid goods, that you are free to accept or not. If you don't accept the offer you are in the same boat as if the gpl wasn't offered with the software, you may not re-distribute the software.
You scratch my back I'll scratch yours is a simple exchange of services. The gpl is a more complicated exchange of copyright rights.
If the gpl is meaningless then you lose everything it grants you and gain nothing. If it's a valid offer you MAY choose to gain what it offers so long as you agree to abide by it's terms. And like any offer you are free to make your own offer to the owners of the copyright, such as "hey I'll pay you guys X dollars if you let me distribute a personal fork of the code as a closed binary" if you want.
Again IANAL and real one could probably explain it better.
However what you say does make some sense relative to shrink wrap licenses. They offer no further consideration in exchange for the consideration they ask from you AFTER you've already exchanged cash for the product.
Mycroft
Reminds me of these really huge dice we've seen from time to time at the local gamming shop chain. :)
We've talking d6's pips the size of dime or nickles, d4's that could lame an elephant (think caltrop) and so on.
We called the dammage dice, because if you got hit with them you were most definately damaged.
Then about six months ago they got in 'nerf' style damage dice.....
Mycroft
As a long time gamer let me confirm that yes your group is quite wierd.
I've rarely seen anything in a game that wierd.
though the whole dragon nymph thing is getting old.
Imagine women gamming. How wierd can you get. That is outside of someones little sister playing for three games because she has a crush on one of the players, or her brother needed a another player and talked her into it. Though last time I saw that happen the guys 'little sister' was a 22 year old of outstanding err.. stats (19com..if you don't know that 7th stat you haven't gamed old school AD&D), unfortunately it wasn't me she was chasing.
Serously though, odd campains like that start happening for the odd change up when your group's been gaming for a few years, especially if the group formed mainly from experienced gamers.
We've done that sort of thing a few times.
an interesting system to play mixed power level characters in is paladium's rifts. You can have two first level chars where one can take out marine regiment and the other one can't take a 50meter walk without getting winded.
Mycroft
THAT explains it. We just lost a player to some government dept of something or other, seems he got a degree in Economics (close enough to acounting for me). (see some of my other posts about how the guy had a 14/1 ranger/rouge with a +#something to hit with his +2 longbow)
I dunno which is more appropriate, but as someone who has played since 1.0 in 1980 I consider your lack of an insightfull or at least funny mod indicative of the youth of the current mods not mention an injustice.
Mycroft
Min Maxing is pretty much choosing everything about your character to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.
You start with stats then compare every class/race combo to see what gets you the best numbers for everything important in that combo without undully screwing anything else.
Choosing where to put your 18 and where to put your 9 so it make sense for the 1/2 orc ranger you've decided to play is just using some brains.
Also what you said about character is reminesent of one of the two big schools of thought on "HEROS" in rpgs and fiction.
Is a hero someone who lived up to his heroic potential, or a normal person forced into situations that gave him the oportunity to become a hero.
You can take the aproach that there's something about hero's that make them hero's or that the difference between your farmer and your hero is that the hero did something the farmer didn't or took an opourtunity the farmer could/would not.
Is hero born to greatness, or doese he sieze it? Doese he meet his fate or make it?
Not shure how to explain it clearly. Except through these sorts of questions and perspectives.
Mycroft
You hit the tricky part(IMHO) right on the head, Charisma and social skills are particualarly difficult.
The trick with being a gm is how to balance the role playing part with the skill roles here.
I've generally let the player lead it a bit in that if they really want to try and just roleplay it I minimize the rolling, If the player (or me I sometimes admit) are dealing with an unfamiliar situation I sub a roll for the actuall knowledge but keep the roleplaying in to get the gist or angle being used.
It's never just a 'bluff roll to see the guard lets you through'. But roll-playing to see if it's "i'm to important to stop or check on' or 'me? I'm just a messenger' or what have you and use that to guide the meaning (and limit) of the rolls results.
If the unarmored halfling pulls a 'I'm just a harmless waif' routing he's far more likely to pull it off with a good roll than the platemail wearing half-orc fighter, who might pull off the 'duh high I'm err dahht is I'm errr.. Oh yeah snorttles, dahh king say i go dere, fight enemies hard if they comes here' routine though that would likely get the elf stared at quick walked to the local loony bin.
Mycroft
Any Gm that can't handle anything but a narrow range of characters and has to kill off anyone trying to play a character they LIKE has no imagination.
I've played with min/maxers (been one, been a pure rollist, etc. gm'd all the above, etc.)
The trick for a gm is to make the game FUN, or at least make it possible to be fun.
If the player can legitimately create a really good character without cheating and enjoys such a character, let him play it, it's the gm's fault if that alone is enough to wreck the game.
Gamming is about fun, everyone want's a 'cool' character and newbies are most prone to think it's a min'maxed character. Now usually they'll grow out of it and start looking for characters that are interesting. But sometimes that's a character who in some way is outstanding. The trick for the gm is to give the character a chance to shine, just not at the expense of the rest of the party. Hopefully each character gets that chance.
A friend of mine I've been playing with for about two years just left for DC to accept a government job after getting his degree in economics. He's always played a somewhat min/maxed character, in part because that's what cool for him, but in part because NOT juggling the numbers would be alien to him I suspect. So sometimes they got to meet dangers out in the open where he could shoot first (ranger/archer) and quite often had over a +30 to hit (I LOOKED for cheating on his char sheet, I looked for some glitch in his numbers, never do that with a numbers guy unless you are one, he was legit) at level 14.
I also have a guy with >30 ac while wearing NO armour. So occasionally he deals with magic just as the archer can get bum-rushed in a small inn.
Or sometimes vice/versa. If you play at times to thier strengths and at times to thier weaknesses it's fun because sometimes they have to work thier asses off and sometimes they hand the enemy thier asses without getting up from dinner.
It about fun. You just have to have the imagination to gm (most people do, but need practice) and perserverance to learn to use it rather than blame the player for 'wrecking' the game. This is where most have trouble, I sure did at first not having any CLUE how to handle a party thinking of something I didn't. Remember the player deosn't usually want to wreck your game, he want's to have fun and is depending on your help not anger with what they want to do.
Yes it's harder to GM someone with a char that's the same old borring char we've all seen a thousand times, but IMNSHO it's worth it.
Mycroft
They(3.5) aren't as broad in scope as GURPS, but they do have the advantage not being so generic.
GURPS can feel like your bassically doing the same two rolls over and over again. (so can almost any game though, it's just a tad easier in GURPS)
I guess my point here is that D&D has a clear feel to it, a unique flavor if you will, that GURPS lacks outside the specific world books.
GURPS is a jack of all trades, master of none. D&D 3.5 is great for it's genre, Tolkienish fantasy. But you'll notice how much re-working d20 needs to work for star wars or it's spy genre, and the fit sometimes feels akward even still.
FWIW GURPS and (A)D&D are the two game systems I've consistantly collected over the years (two decades plus) and have probably spent a couple grand on each system while spending less a tenth that on all other systems.
Mycroft
Only if you got a really crappy GM with NO imagination.
Unless by 'game the system' you really mean cheat.
In my game we had untill recently a guy who as a matter of reflex built characters who had at least one impossible seeming ability. Most recently it was an ranger(archer choices) with a plus to hit that was about two to three times what you would expect for his level. He simply looked at his roles and planed ahead min/maxing for that. His other abilities and stats were normal to slightly (approx 1/2 level) behind.
The reason he WAS in our group is he graduated with a degree in economics and just got hired by some department of something in DC. And considering how well he crunched the numbers for his characters I sincerly hope he gets to help with the economy at some point.
To get back to my point, early on I found out if an arrow could hit it, it'd take massive damage fast and compensated a good portion of the time (not always, no fun playing a grand master archer or whatever if he never gets to show his stuff).
He's a big reason how they survived so long.
Now I can see where a petty, braindead, asshole gm might penalize him for his cleverness somehow. But I refuse to be that kind of gm.
Mycroft
Actauly there is an exchange offered. If you want the privilage of re-distributing you have to do x.
If you don't wish to re-distribute then you are restricted to the no-liscence default (copyright law).
That's why most open source liscences are concionable where-as most EULAS are crap. Shrink wrap licenses that spring on you at install time offer NO further consideration in exchange for thier proposed restrictions.
However IANAL and if you think this is leagle advice I know a guy with famous bridge for sale....
Mycroft