Messages

61

General Discussion / Re: Let's hear it!

« on: December 07, 2011, 04:00:12 pm »

So I got diagnosed with migraines ~6 months back or so.

Never really thought them a huge deal. They forced me to lie down in a dark room and roll back and forth in pain until I passed out. Shitty, but they do no physical damage to me, so whatever. They occasionally cause me to vomit, but alcohol causes that way more frequently so the vomiting aspect of them wasn't much worse than the pain.

Then I got back to school. I started getting them nearly every other few days. I eventually got used to the pain and just dealt with it when they did happen. Then I started getting them while doing schoolwork on campus. And I thought, gee, there's no way they could get more inconvenient than that.

That is, until one happened during my final exam 3 hours ago. If there is a God, he wants me staying a full fifth year in college. Damn I hope I passed that exam/class. I think I'll be scheduling an appointment with a specialist relatively soon.

Worst part? I've got another final in an hour. I'm hoping I don't get one there too. But given that I've had two today (one this morning around 130am prior to the final exam one) it wouldn't surprise me too greatly. Bleh. :/

Doesn't' your school have provisions for that? I know that if you tell your professors about that ahead of time here (eg: start of semester) they give you extra time if you have medical problems during.

62

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 07, 2011, 12:10:04 pm »

This was, of course, what I meant, if it wasn't obvious already. I never meant to (nor does it seem I did...) say that you can either have 0 fighting or lots of fighting. I'd like to think I deserve more credit than that.

I visit other websites where people exist in lands of all-or-nothing instead of the fine gradient that is life. I sometimes forget I have more intelligent friends.

63

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 06, 2011, 08:48:09 pm »

It's not a false dichotomy. You have fighting and not fighting. If you spend your time in battles, you can't spend that time doing other stuff. You spend X% of your time in battles, and 100 - X% of your time in not battles. I find RPing more enjoyable if X is pretty small (no larger than 10).

common mister deadly... that's not what 'false dichotomy' means. This some other logical misstep. Arguing that there are two categories, and one category is generally less desirable than the other, and therefore that category should be minimized as much as possible isn't a false dichotomy.

At any rate, that's not what I said. Some combat (or challenge, etc.) is necessary to make it feel like a game and not a story.

Not going to respond to the rest, since the bolded explains why I said what I did, and why I found it a false dichotomy. You can have 0% fighting and 100% fighting, or any number in between.

That'd both be wrong.

FWIW, I'm the one who figured out which button to press during the game, and I was right.

Glad you found a campaign you enjoy. Puzzles like that sound completely boring, though. An hour spent "No wait, push 3!" "No wait, push 1 and 3!!" Did bad things happen if you pushed the wrong buttons?

64

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 06, 2011, 01:18:11 pm »

I've not RPed a lot, but I generally find combat far less interesting than a storyline. Dungeon crawls or anything close bore me to death and make me wish I was doing something else.

I find this to be a false dichotomy. I fully agree with you and iago that a hack-and-slash D&D campaign would be boring as all hell. But why does that immediately translate to "There should be as little fighting as possible"? A storyline can require a "dungeon" (ie: some place where multiple fights might be necessary) or the occasional fight. Like I said, when I was a DM, I tried to average one fight a day.

I'm not saying one way is right and one way is wrong, but I'm genuinely having a hard time understanding a campaign where all you do is talk and make decisions about certain things ("Do we go in this room? Do we back? Do we accept this quest? Which door?").

65

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 05, 2011, 03:01:43 pm »

The entire dungeon floods, rocks fall from above, and you are struck by blue light from the sky.  Roll to see how painfully you die!

I roll 20 and a magic genie comes and saves us.

We don't do fights very often. When we do, we occasionally use a map, if it's complex, but normally don't bother.

This sounds rather dull. What do your campaigns consist of? Walking around and talking to the townspeople etc? A fight a day (plus any monster creepings if resting in an open area at night) is about what I like. Keeps the story moving, adds some excitement, and lets the people level up for the fun fights I have planned later.

66

General Discussion / Re: Let's hear it!

« on: December 05, 2011, 02:00:16 pm »

Thanks all   If anyone wants more details, I'd be happy to share in a less public setting.

Your room, tonight?  I'll be there.

A foursome? This is going to be awkward...

67

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 04, 2011, 11:45:51 pm »

I don't understand. How do you conduct fights if you don't have a map? You can't say "There's some monsters somewhere the room, fight them". Distance between units matters. Spacing and separation of your team matters. The environment all matters. Or is your D&D more of a story telling? For example, "You open the door. You see five monsters. What do you do?" "Fight." "*roll roll roll* You kill them all and take 20, 10, 15 damage apiece."

68

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 04, 2011, 12:56:58 pm »

I played D&D last night, and we didn't use a single drawn map.

I'm confused. How do you know where you're going then?

69

General Discussion / Re: Let's hear it!

« on: December 02, 2011, 04:03:09 pm »

Grats chavo! You're the first x86er to have successfully continued his genetic line. How does that make you feel?

70

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 02, 2011, 01:36:43 pm »

A better solution is to stick with gaming in real life, where you don't have to deal with the limitations of the Internet.

I think a cool project would be to have an online tabletop platform. The DM could customize the game maps and when the "group leader" says move into/out of a room, walk on a square, etc, the DM's predefined traps, monster attacks, etc. all happen.

I have no idea how to actually implement this though.

71

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 01, 2011, 11:31:34 pm »

Haha, I didn't. It's a pain being a DM when nobody's paying attention after putting a ton of work into preparing. Ah well.

I paid attention!

I think an easy remedy to this would be to have two IRC channels instead of one. One can be strictly DM-Player interaction, the other can be player goofing off.

72

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: December 01, 2011, 08:12:39 pm »

As unserious our last game was, I had a ton of fun doing it. 

I agree so much.

Next year (after May 31, 2012!) I can DM some T&T if people are for it. Although it may not be T&T, but D&D 3.5. I believe I have all the books on my external HD somewhere..

73

Tabletop Gaming/RPGs / Re: DM'ing

« on: November 29, 2011, 01:39:38 am »

I miss playing D&D.

74

General Discussion / Re: Hi

« on: November 24, 2011, 05:43:38 pm »

Ahahahaha! Seriously, where do they find these tech support people?

Heh, You've gotta watch out for The Windows XP!

I also hate those Indians that work tech support. Is it hard to find those that are actually fluent in written English? Even British-style English? That's almost a Hindi translation to English, ffs.

I might buy the pack and see what its like on Win7 with Compatabilitiy mode.

75

General Discussion / Re: Hi

« on: November 24, 2011, 03:00:20 pm »

I e-mailed EA, who apparently now runs Bioware's support operations.

Greetings,

Thank you for writing to Electronic Arts accounts services.

I suggest you please run the game in Windows XP, as this is the old game, so it might not be supported by the windows XP, so we are not recommended the windows 7 for this game.

If you have any further questions or concerns please reply to this email or browse our extensive knowledge base online at http://help.ea.com. Visit at http://help.ea.com/chat for 24 x 7 chat support.

Regards,
Bharat
Electronic Arts – World Wide Customer Experience