@Zachiel 'cause close powers are fun :D

@waxeagle informed us of this a few days ago...

@JoshuaAslanSmith Chapter 2, Scene 1 is up.

There's now 13 hours left on Bundle of Holding to buy Numenera.

@besw sweet

I have so much fun finding the right pictures for the cards...

@zachiel it moves faster if both the GM and the players can do things instantly vs having to think about it

@JoshuaAslanSmith As always, thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, compliments, and complaints are welcomed.

@JonathanHobbs "Do you believe in Magic, Mr. Amundsen?"

@BESW Oh boy!!

@BESW Yes; yes he does

Heheh.

Nice "bring the others in" move.

thanks ;)

Over on Programmers.SE there was a question titled "How Can I Effectively Interview an Oracle Candidate", and my instinct was "ask him how you will die".

Things I learn when researching SE questions: Sharks have tongues, kind of.

@DuckTapeAl Go on.

Yes, explain! :o

They don't have a muscly tongue like most mammals do, theirs is made of cartilage.

And is largely immobile.

Whoa what

So they don't have a wriggly thing so much as some kind of taste platform?

They don't taste with it.

they do have mostly cartilage rather than bones

it makes sense

Their taste buds and their smell receptors are basically the same, and are more in their throat and the top of their mouth, I guess.

I didn't know that about the tongue per se, but it isn't too surprising

I submit to the committee: What I think a shark with Feet to Fins on would look like: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4289403/shark.jpg

Man, Water Breathing would be so much better worded if it just gave the amphibious subtype.

There are a bunch of things in 3.x where they make certain tacit assumptions about what game everyone is playing, which make it harder to play a game that doesn't use those assumptions.

Indeed.

Also, I think the most awesome solution would be life bubble and fly.

It's been about 15 years since that specific Ars Magica powergamer, but we still have collective nightmares about his flying invisible dolphin.

Or perhaps overland flight, to make it last long enough?

I wasn't sure if Pathfinder had that.

d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/o/overland-flight

He didn't breath air, as much as he was constantly surrounded by a bubble of magically replenishing water. Which he could also shoot as the equivalent of the 20th level spell Mighty Torrent of Water.

It was the second most ridiculous act of powergaming I've ever encountered in Ars Magica.

If he was a dolphin, why would he need a bubble of water?

@lisardggY And...

Dolphins breathe air.

@DuckTapeAl Dolphins aren't built to support their own weight.

Dolphins aren't built to fly, either.

@DuckTapeAl Not in medieval Europe where the laws of physics follow Aristotelian laws. Dolphins are fish.

(Also it'd probably be psychologically devastating; also it's Ars Magica so--yes, what @lisardggY just said.)

Oh, "the laws of physics are different". That makes a lot more sense.

The most ridiculous one, by the same player, was utilizing the fact that creation magic can be made much easier to cast if the result lasts only a couple of minutes (duration Diameter, meaning the time it takes the sun to move its own diameter in the sky), and affecting animal matter was much easier if said matter was dead, not living.

So he had a spell which created a dead elephant in the air over somebody. Elephant falls, person is crushed, elephant vanishes.

All this, for about a lv20-25 spell which isn't particularly high.

Even easier once he got an eagle familiar (different character than the one with the dolphin). Familiars can be endowed with the power to cast one of your spells. He gave it that spell, without even the need to target at a distance - eagle would just poop temporary dead elephants.

I find the idea of an eagle pooping dead elephants to be hilarious.

The guy was meticulous in his rules research. The only way the GM found to stop him was by telling him that as a resident of northern France in the 13th century, he had never seen or even heard of elephants.

I think he was about to change it into bears before we collectively told him to stop it.

@BESW Provençal, technically. Far away from Bretagne. :)

(I just now for the first time ever googled the sources of D&D's tarrasque. Fascinating)

It's the kind of story that gets around, though, wouldn't you say?

Likely. However, creating a magical or mythical creature would be much harder, magically speaking.

Same as creating any unnatural animal, like a particularly huge bear.

Even a dead magical creature?

@DuckTapeAl Yup. "Alive" would kick it up a couple of levels, and "unnatural" or "magical" would kick it up a couple of levels, irrespective of each other.

....hrm. How do you define "mythical" in an Aristotelian cosmos?

I find myself outraged - outraged! - that D&D's Tarrasque isn't listed in the Tarasque's wikipedia entry under "Cultural Impact", and is instead relegated to the "See Also" section. A French military 20mm anti-aircraft gun is.

/me go feed baby

I think an anti-aircraft round has a bigger impact than a monster manual.

lol

No, baby has instead chosen to fall asleep.

Magical creatures in Ars Magica are always aligned to one of the four Realms - Divine, Infernal, Magical or Faerie.

@trogdor Ben should be able to make it this Saturday. Since it's your last for a month or so, what would you like to do?

not sure at the moment

I think Ben would like to use his Fudge dice.

I did really like our Lady Blackbird session

though I am not sure we can replicate that experience entirely

Raycia won't be there, almost for sure.

i think a legshark would be more like this

@BESW yeah, that probably means we can't quite replicate the experience

seeing as we will just have us 2 and Ben

@JonathanHobbs Bravo. I thought my shark with kitten feet was pretty good, but that takes the cake.

And devours it whole.

if the spell left it open for those to be hands it would be grapple champion 2014

thank you, also :)

@JonathanHobbs Instead it probably gets Improved Trip for free.

@BESW Hahaha!

@trogdor Maybe Aeon Wave?

maybe

I certainly enjoyed that as well

I'm checking if Evil Hat's Patreon has spat out anything new and interesting.

Nopes.

if Ben wasn't coming I would be cool with more Ultimate Spiderman watching

but for starters I am sure he would prefer to do some gaming of some kind with us

So, I'll ask him if he wants to play Aeon Wave or watch Ultimate Spider-Man?

Or both!

secondly, of course, having only the 2 of us is part of why we even fell back on watching stuff in the first place

I mean, if he wants to it's cool

but if he is just "ok with it" that isn't what I want

plus, I think I would also prefer to do something with the fact that we have an extra friend there

watching Ultimate Spider-Man is something we could do at any time when no one else can show

Ayuh.

all reasons why I said "if Ben wasn't coming"

Ben says he's down for Aeon Wave.

mk

@BESW that is a lot

I think it's a couple a lots.

@trogdor And he says "OMG Gun Kata."

lol

@lisardggY ... now i'm gonna look this up

It's one of those things where you step back and realise simultaneously how much D&D is rooted in sources of lore beyond recent literary fantasy... and how much D&D just doesn't care about the sources of its lore.

It makes references to contemporary TV, Catholic saint traditions, historical and mythological sources across Europe, Asia, and the Americas (but not Africa)... but it doesn't do much more than wave its hands at them and say "I know these exist, aren't I smart?"

And so we have to deal with gorgons.

Water walking, resurrection... I wonder why we got a create food and water instead of a multiply fish and bread.

@BESW That is exactly what I thought of. And medusas being a race, not a person. And maedars being the male equivalent of that race, when they could all just have been gorgons and the gorgons could have been Goata Eat Everyone.

Oh wait they're bull-things not goat-things.

I also have some large disappoints about their skipping over African fantasy so thoroughly.

However you depict it, the snake/elephant Grootslang is relephant to my interests.

(It was so terrifying that the gods decided to rip it apart into the snake and the elephant.)

@BESW That is amazing

@JonathanHobbs Too much minotaur and mithraic cult on the brain, maybe.

Y'know what? I've got an animal to put in my researcher's lair.

And my group's doing its dive into the researcher's lair on Friday the 13th next month.

It is so hardcore that even with the gods themselves trying to stomp out the race, a couple managed to survive and breed.

@BESW haha, yes

@JonathanHobbs No, seriously, that's part of the original myth.

i just have one thing to resolve with that lair: i want it to be in partial ruins. i want big things in it. and i want it to be mostly or entirely vacant of people.

but it was used fairly recently.

> Tales state that gods, new to the crafting of things, made a terrible mistake in the Grootslang's creation, and gave it tremendous strength, cunning, and intellect. Realizing their mistake, the gods split the Grootslang into separate creatures and thus created the first elephants and the first snakes. But one of the original Grootslangs escaped, and from this first sire all other Grootslangs were born.

because the researcher was doin' his research there at least within the last few months.

Easy. Recent earthquake.

so maybe he was using some magic to keep it in good condition, like Dorean Gray and his portrait, but once the magic fell apart, everything came undone?

that works!! :D

that even explains how things have gotten free, and that could have happened all on its own.

(i will let them, near the entrance, pass by a very, very large carcass of something unrecognisable and now mostly buried under rocks.)

@BESW aw yeah.

I am a fan of this animal.

@JonathanHobbs If you're feeling unsqueamish, do an image search for "sea monster corpse" and get some good stuff to describe.

@Metool "Whales turn into awesomely disgusting fantasy creatures when they rot" is on my list of amazing real-life things to use in RPGs.

Dad sent me notice of people searching for a hard job (manual labor). I'm not sure if he just wants me to try every opportunity or if he came to the conclusion that I'll never find a job I'd like.

@Zachiel What's the adage? "Get a job, then look for the job you want?"

@BESW I'm more for "get a job, then... oh, look, I have a job, all of my problems are solved."

Then, of course, I lose the job.

Aw.

I know a guy here who has luck like that.

I don't know if it's a matter of luck.

He's trained, certified, and licensed in a half-dozen fields which were, at the time, booming growth industries on Guam.

Co-workers usually tell me I'm slow and unfocused

But within a year of his finishing his training on them, they'd wither and die.

@Zachiel Well that's not in line with the Zachiel I know.

can't we just live in a world where repetitive and boring tasks being done by robots actually lets everyone live while doing less work, instead of people being substituted by robots and becoming jobless?

@BESW you say?

@Zachiel You have a great memory, you're a good and careful listener, you have a good head for details, you can make complicated language jokes at the drop of a hat in your second language... there's no slow or unfocused I see.

I'm a good and careful reader, it's different.

At a wild guess I'd speculate you're suffering from distraction or disinterest at your work.

possibly

yet, unless I find a job in the gaming industry (which I'm not sure I'm qualified for), the number of jobs I'm interested in is unknown and close to 0

Then maybe the manual labour job is a good idea.

The first step in searching for an answer is to stop assuming we know where to look.

(And honestly, manual labour is... well, it can be very rewarding in an "I did something" kind of way. You feel the work you've done, in your muscles and bones, every night.)

I've got an old friend who is very... ah, flighty. Too smart for his own good and tries to get away with things he shouldn't let himself get away with. Hands-on labour is the happiest honest work he's ever done.

Not that I think you're like that, but I've seen that kind of job be very good for a wide variety of people I wouldn't have expected to take to it, even if they didn't stay with it long.

It's metal bending so I suppose the job is mostly done by machines and I'd maybe need to put metal pieces on the machine... I wonder if they're big pieces or not. I'm more worried about screwing up pieces positioning

Oh who am I trying to deceive. The worst part is it's three towns away.

Mmm. Commutes are a pain, especially if there's bad traffic.

When I lived down south it was between half an hour and an hour to get anywhere worth going, but the drive was so splendid it hardly mattered. Now I'm in town and the drives are much shorter but more gruesome.

@BenHardy [wave] What's new?

nothing too much. Just lurking random places. Going to need to head out soon for errands for father. but that can wait another hour yet.

leeeerk.

lol

some might say that is all I do anywhere

not so much here though I guess

When people notice you at all.

I'm also thinking about my finances for the immediate future.

heheh

@BESW two traffic lights and a 50km/h speed limit for the most part.

I took a trip to saipan last year about this time for the national guard, but paperwork got messed up somehow and the expenses, which were charged to the government card, got pawned to me.

that's not too bad :)

@BenHardy Eek!

So it got to the point where they were taking it out monthly from my drill pay, while trying to correct the issue.

But this last month it just disappeared.

and noone seems to know why.

@BESW I rest my case

@BenHardy What disappeared? The money, the government, Saipan, ...?

I think they took my tax return and paid it off, but Im hoping the issue was corrected and they paid off the card (which was airfare mainly that should have been covered by the government anyway)

Well theres a weirdly complicated system

called DTS (defense travel systems) or something

that sounds like they should be giving you money back

where you go to book your flight and plan the trip

but I got messed up in the fact that when you book your flight, using this system

you have to then print out your itinerary, scan it, and re-upload it to the system

that you just got your itinerary from

So they didn't have the document (or so they say) and I'm stuck with the 400 dollar round trip airfare, that my current means of living doesn't really cover.

on the bright side, it's apparently gone, I just am now stuck wondering if I'm gonna get a refund back (which I was kinda hoping for)

How bizarre.

(I generally prefer to put my refund toward next year's taxes, since Gov Guam has historically had such a hard time actually producing the cash that it seems better to keep it as theoretical money which lets me keep more of my real money next year.)

I guess since I fall under a federal tax claim it's slightly different?

But another friend of mine who was in a similar circumstance, (from the same trip I think) also had a large drop

So here's hoping :)

Ah, yeah, that'd be different.

Gov Guam's relationship with federal taxation is... weird... and it means that Guam is responsible for coming up with its taxpayers' federal tax refunds all on its lonesome.

I'm considering, Longshot, the ninja assassin, or gunslinger with gunkata :)

Cause in post apocalyptic world, grammaton clerics need to exist :)

It's not post-apocalyptic... yet.

give the trouble stim addiction and re-name it prosium

done done and done :)

It's a martianpunk corporate dystopia.

If you and @trogdor want to coordinate your character choices ahead of time, that would give us more time tomorrow night for the playing.

(With only two characters it might be important to be sure they're synergistic.)

ttfn

indeed. Later Zachiel

@Zachiel Ta! And good luck.

I am considering picking the same character build as before

but that might not be the best idea

I'd advise against it.

Let's try to have a totally different game.

Well @trogdor I think I'd really like Gunslinger or shadowdancer.

mk

Longshot would be nice too, but that'd be a little more complicated.

Morning

@Aaron morning!

for the amusement of the room: kickstarter.com/projects/crazybricks/…

@waxeagle We have a rather large group where I work who plays Muchkins.

so when playing one would take a generic lego dude, and blaaam!

@BenHardy lol, only if they manage to expand the line rather significantly :)

@waxeagle That's where you, the donater comes in, as a backer to the kickstarter you will be spearheading a massive change in the way you and your friends can play munchkin!

or something XD

The "or something" really sold it.

:)

thank you, thank you :)

I always knew I was destined to be a chat-marketer?

[yawn] Okay, beds for me. G'night, y'alls.

anyway, time to do the task requested of me! I shall return!

Night night @BESW

my "compiling!" is "report is currently generating" today :(

testing sucks when the report you're working on takes 40 minutes...

should probably make one of my queries TOP 10

@BenHardy I'm thinking either Shadowdancer or Netrunner

@BESW Wait, what.

@Metool did you not hear about the Whale up north that they were waiting for it to kersplode?

businessinsider.com/…

I've been too caught up in work.

@Zachiel I have a couple of things to mention here as someone who wanted to work in the video game industry, and got a manual labour job.

For the record: graduated high school knowing I wanted to program and help people. Figured I'd like programming video games. Did manual labour shipping camping equipment in a gap year, then studied information technology majoring in programming and minoring in game design at university. I now work as a consultant programmer.

Manual labour jobs are wonderful. I found it kinda boring just shipping equipment, but in hindsight it was lovely. I exercised every day, constantly, and had endorphins (aka good mood chemicals) surging through my system as a result. My brain wandered during the day, and after work I had only physical tiredness to worry about (a good thing) and my brain was ready to work on programming video game stuff.

A friend of mine went from the financial sector to being a finish carpenter, and... it's something I'm considering too, a decade down the line maybe.

For the games industry: it's not all it's cracked up to be. For RPGs, you can ask LG about how work is. For video games, it's... not fun unless you know exactly what you're getting into. (I'd recommend doing any other job and experimenting with game development as a hobby to find out what you're getting into.) It's a highly competitive industry and a lot of places are just companies to work at.

For myself, by doing anything but I found completely different ways to achieve my goals. I'm currently consulting on user experience design and accessibility (for the visually, physically, hearing, or mentally impaired, and so on), which is fun, though I'm doing it in an environment where I can't do my job properly.

In the long term, I'm putting aside savings I plan to use to finance the bionics (or cybernetics) industry, which is the one busy producing artificial eyes and robotic limbs which actually listen to your nerves, get commanded by the brain, provide tactile feedback when you touch something, and so on.

So, do find other work. Explore your options. If the metal bending factory only needed people to shove metal in machines, they'd have machines to shove the metal in the machines. There's clearly a more human element there.

@Zachiel (Also re: people being substituted by robots, that opened up a lot of mechanical industries, including IT, and transport-related maintenance industries, etc)

@JonathanHobbs one of the things I've seen frequently that keeps me from even trying is that mass layoffs seem frequent

@waxeagle Yeah; it's a really risky high-stakes industry, and there's generally not money to keep people around. Which is shitty. But it's why DLC is so good, and why mass effect had day 1 DLC: instead of firing all those people, they put them onto working on a new product, the DLC, and then the DLC that followed, and then the DLC that followed that.

finding ways to generate constant revenue streams

very few companies get the luxury of retaining staff, and they're the ones like half brick and steam, or the ones that have something with a subscription attached.

because the old model of big release video games only provides big money for a few weeks

yeah. the original model of video games was spend a few thousand dollars for a few weeks or months on a few people to produce something that'll hopefully sell.

then it grew into: spend a few million dollars on hundreds of people for two years to produce something that will hopefully sell for several million dollars more than that. it didn't scale well.

it's investing everything on a product when you don't even know if people want it

and thus producers come into the picture, but they don't know what the hell people want, they just know what the theoretical majority wants (which represents no one person at all)

mobile makes things interesting in that it's sort of a return to the old model

which is part of the beauty of kickstarter: the only projects that get funded are the ones people want, and the project gets a large chunk of its funding right at the beginning, from the people who want it.

@waxeagle yeah, it's a wonderful return to the old model, and that's probably a large part of why the companies focusing on mobile development are doing pretty well

yep, I've supported a couple of video games projects on KS, and would support more if I had more funds and more time to play them

low stakes means you can afford to be innovative, because there's not much to lose, so they produce entirely new and fun stuff all the time.

... s'also part of why we don't see much new from the big projects: they can't afford to risk the $30m being pumped into the studio; so they just make something reliable like a first-person shooter

the question is "have they learned anything from the PC/Console market" and I think to some degree is "yes." free to play + in app purchases seem to be working fairly well from a consumer stand point and there are enough people doing them that it seems like they are making money (but I'm on the consumer end not the producer end so I don't know)

and as a family we've recently started changing our stance a bit on app purchases...

(we've made a few in games we've spent a lot of time on)

@waxeagle s'fair enough as long as it's worthwhile

(though i err on the side of it p. much always not being so)

(that's just me though; i spend my money instead in lumps like buying dark souls 2)

@JonathanHobbs yeah, if we're going to buy something, I'd rather it be an always on thing, not whatever the game's premium currency is...

@Zachiel I get what you are saying but there is also freedom in boring repetitive tasks, when I used to wash dishes the work itself sucked but my mind was free to focus on whatever I wanted it to, got a lot of good political and philosophical thinking done at that period in my life

@waxeagle I have the exact same reservations, like if we move to atlanta thers lots of game studios but the industry as a whole doesnt seem to be able to keep up output like the film industry does so its way too cyclical

@JoshuaAslanSmith decent amount of film possibilities in ATL too :)

@waxeagle I'll spend money on League of Legends champs or Skins from time to time, Im not a hardcore player but I get into it

at this point though my skill set isnt right for films, I've sort of written off movie production because I don't wanna do the starving artist thing

My bachelor's was great but its now more of a leg up on the competition/skills for professional enviroment more than a way to get a job

Bachelor's of Science in Screenwriting

I would like to get into HCI optimization possibly (though cyber security looks to be the next big thing) because I could actually apply my aesthetic background to systems design

but even if I never do that, I'll still be the guy that writes really great emails and is able to navigate office politics really well because of everything I learned in undergrad

those are not skills to undersell. They play well in any field

OH I know

Im very glad I have them

I legitimately say that my undergrad was worth it for that.

Im the only person in my IT department that doesn't have issues with the staff in some way

@JoshuaAslanSmith IT is a field where those skills are notoriously lacking. and I see it here for sure. Just poor communication all around. Partly due to different levels of understanding, partly due to arrogance or pride or...something

I mean I have personal issues with people But I keep it underwraps and I keep my head done, my mantra while working in academia had been, "keep my head down, keep moving forward' people tray to drag me into office disputes and I just say, no thanks. Just getting my degree and then getting out somewhere with it"

but basically the libraries at Drexel is terribly dysfunctional vs. the university as a whole which is pretty great

@JoshuaAslanSmith what d'you have your eye on that you see it as the next big thing?

(or eyes as the case may be)

but basically the libraries at Drexel is terribly dysfunctional vs. the university as a whole which is pretty great

@JonathanHobbs lax security for decades, its been the most minimized of intrastructure systems, but more and more high profile attacks have been occuring and its resulting in serious money lost and brand damage for companies

@JoshuaAslanSmith aha yes this is true

there's also the fun part where if quantum computing goes some degree of mainstream, a lot of our basic security measures go out the window

@JonathanHobbs because brute force becomes viable again?

yeah pretty much

I feel like whoever comes up with the most intuitive, realistic, non-biometric, high-entropy alternative to passwords in the next 10-15 years wins.

cuz passwords suck and should die a fiery death.

hahaha

our current two factor authorization system is a complete sham

indeed

still hackable, but time limited sec codes sent to phones would be more secure

sweet, quick chat with the boss and a bit of rejiggering takes my report from 40 minutes down to a far more runnable 10!

now to do the less compute intense, but more records heavy version of the same report...

lol

one gets dollars and hours, the other gets hours...more people get the hours stuff

this is the "you're probably gonna be over budget" report

designed for auto-notification

@waxeagle + this whole internet driver's license concept letting me use providers that support that

@JonathanHobbs yes, huge fan of that

we're getting there, but the provider options aren't the best right now

(for instance, FB is frequently blocked, if you use them for an auth server, you remove the business space)

Wow, there was a surge of PF & D&D questions lately

@ThalesPereira they tend to come in waves

@ThalesPereira also sharks

sometimes it's read the rules t-ball, sometimes it's more esoteric stuff

@JonathanHobbs Oh, I know. That's just the part I'm worried about.

@JonathanHobbs aaand, I also know. I think I'd like to be a lead designer but I know I wouldn't be a good (or experienced) one

only get to be a lead after working on someone's else stuff for awhile

hmmm im sad about the distinct lack of meta involvement over my dnd 5e related stuff

tryign to get momentum on this

@JoshuaAslanSmith I'm in a place where I'm not sure where I'm standing wrt 5e.

I'd love to volunteer to receive a set of books, and I'm sure I'll read them...I'm just not sure I have a group to play with

I think 5e was noob friendly enough that I could run a game with newbies

(current group is flaky and entrenched in 4e, currently passively LFG)

its pretty simple for the GM to walk someone through class selection and handle levelups with them

@waxeagle I'd love to play with you in some form, we are in teh same timezone

hmm, maybe I can get the wife to recruit some summer workers :)

@JoshuaAslanSmith we could swing that. My internet works pretty well with hangouts

perhaps I can volunteer to receive a set and run a weekly game on the stack in the evenings. Come who may.

for VOIP? yeah and use roll 20 if its grid based

roll20 has a built in VOIP but the quality isnt great, though it intergrates the video into the GUI display on the page so I guess if you like looking at peoples faces (at an off angle) while roleplaying theres that too

Ive never owned a webcam in my life so thats meh to me

I found roll20 to be very good for 4e, had to teach myself their macros and a few other syntaxy things but its simple to learn (especially ifyou are used to some kind of code language) and you could always make them for other players

@JoshuaAslanSmith you haven't had a laptop made in the last 5ish years?

:)

the only place where things got flaky was it didnt situtional dice rolling for the macros

ive never owned a laptop

too many compromises

makes sense

I own a smartphone which I like, maybe id get a tablet

I'm a big fan of tablets now

but that would be for pass n play boardgame apps (smallword carcassone, etc) and playing games vs. anythign real

it's better than a netbook, and better than a phone

(I mostly use mine for gaming, but it's handy for reading vs a computer)

I have a custom built PC I made with dual screens

but also good for serious work

serious gaming

7" is a great form factor for me

I cant ever get anything done not sitting in a desk chair

yeah thats the size of my wife's kindle fire

I like it

my issue is Im torn between wanting another android device (so all my play apps are available)

or a kindle because they have amazing sound and amazon prime

I got the missus a Fire a couple of years ago, 2nd or 3rd year it was out, was looking at the Nexus 7 for myself, then was given an iPad mini and really like it (not and Apple fan boi, but they make good stuff)

probably going to pick up another Fire or a Nexus in the next year or so to pass the current Fire along to our oldest so he has something that's more "his" (though it won't actually be his)

lol yeah

after I graduated from college, I used my graduated money to get buy both my wife and I computers, got her a nice Dell Laptop, myself a custom PC and a netbook, used the netbook for a lot of different things, but it wasn't all that useful. A tablet replaces it for all but one thing...I still use it for torrents

@JoshuaAslanSmith that would imply being able to do the other tasks :(

@Zachiel gotta crawl before you walk, walk before you run

this is why entry level exists, to get a foot in the door

prove you can do it, and move up

Mind, I can do it. I can program, I can even engineer game levels. But I'm not as fast as the market requires.

FYI amazon has the 5e starter set for <13 right now on preorder

WHAT

damn might have to preorder it

I just did

I'm also going to say it now. I'll run a game this summer with the starter adventure. That's that. Schedule TBD. it will be first come first server, up to 5 players per session.

I really wanna get an advance copy though, I thin community sees that as being the 2nd to last issue but honestly if we knew how many copies we were getting and of which books we could easily then plan who should get what and then move on from there

but maybe Im fixating on logistical issues before philsophical ones

yep

looks like we have consensus to use a self nominate process. You can start the thread

I liked brain's suggestion of just self-nominate

okay

that way we can talk about what we intend to do with the materials ourselves instead of just committing to use them

let me know if you think I should expand or edit the question itself

looks good to me

@waxeagle do you use open id at all>?

@JoshuaAslanSmith just for SE

I've yet to see it offered anywhere else :(

cuz I would be happy to use it

if I do a web app anytime soon it will definitely use external auth though