Aye. We'd probably now diagnose both Byron and Ada with something on the bipolar spectrum, and indeed after Babbage cut her off from his work on the Analytical Engine she turned to the study of brain chemistry in an attempt to understand her own malady.
(In the alternate history of our RPG campaign, she didn't die of cancer and instead lived to reconcile with Babbage--eventually combining her knowledge of brain chemistry and engineering to preserve Babbage's living brain in a mechanical vessel which is now an NPC ally in our modern-day setting.)
@Althis A) No. She was the first person ever to publish a computer program, she recognised the non-mathematical potential of Babbage's engine when he did not, and was generally a pretty awesome person.
B) Even if it were the case that she's one of the only women in computer science history --she's not, a LOT of comp sci breakthroughs and work were made by women-- that'd certainly be a good enough reason to pay attention to her.
@BESW Only much later. But yeah, I am not saying that it is undue, just that we pay a lot of attention to her womanhood, when we could be paying more attention to other stuff of her life.
(The first programming language compiler was written by a woman; six women worked on ENIAC and a woman was the teacher of its original programmers; etc.)
@Althis I think that it's important to see her as a person, which includes but isn't limited to her womanhood. And given the general low profile of women in STEM history, I think it's valid to make some noise about the women who DO get the spotlight.
@Althis There are others, but I can't think right off the top of my head.
Anyway, that's not the point, it was a side note in response to your hyperbolic "pretty much the only woman in computer science history."
My point is that when the presence of a group of people is generally marginalised and ignored, it's reasonable to make more noise about it.
Once the presence of women in STEM fields is equalised and their historic contributions are considered alongside men, then we should be less focused on gender when talking about them. Until then, there's a deficit in cultural perception that needs to be countered.
Of course, there's also the problem with talking about Lovelace as a woman by focusing on stereotypically feminine topics in her life.
If I were forced to choose between those two and only those two, I'd go with 5e because it seems to have learnt from some of the d20 System's missteps.
I spent 6 years trying to get D&D 3.5 to work with me instead of against me.
@Althis These days my group plays Fate, with one-session forays into Cthulhu Dark, Great Ork Gods, Roll For Shoes, A Penny For My Thoughts, and other small systems with very focused and explicit play goals.
Charging straight in without a plan, knowing only that whatever happens it will be gloriously chaotic and/or chaotically glorious.
There aren't a lot of RPG system which actually support that: no prep, no restrictions, no setting, just an expanse the size and shape of the group's warped imagination.
Yeah. I am still not fond of the "without a plan" part. But we've been there already, I guess I just need to play more and see if I can bend myself to it's mind set.
And that's fine: I prefer game that aren't trying to appeal to everyone, because they can put their energy into doing a few things really well. If those are things I want to do, yey! If not, I can still admire the elegance of the system.
I've had a couple of friends - who've sampled D&D and Fate (but games before I figured out how to run Fate) and maybe a bit of other stuff - who've decided they like more structured roleplaying experiences (like, toward D&D's end). They might not like RFS. This was a pretty novel thing for me to hear. (And I am still not sure how much my running Fate pretty badly had to do with that)
@Shalvenay It is great. I've used it to introduce people before. Mainly because you pretty much just need to keep a bunch of the default sheets in your bag and you can do it pretty much ad-hoc.
@BESW I think they have in mind a more classic RPG experience. If I introduce them to something very different than that, my game will clash with their expectations.
(a DW version of my 3.5e electrical-code-violations dungeon could be interesting, but it is one weird dungeon :P with some elements that stretch 3.x rules to the limits)
@doppelgreener That's half the fun of pathfinder though, is finding those rules that make you think you'll be absolutely useless and actually finding a way to be effective regardless.
If you mostly liked the original cartoon it may be difficult because the reboot moved things around a lot, but it's obvious they love the source material and they draw on the comics heavily.
@Magician Basically they use the social settings and rules and effectively run more of a free-form RP game then a standard Pathfinder game. I do try and push it to blows occasionally, but that's the kind of person I am.
So if you know kids who don't know TMNT, I suppose they don't pay a lot of attention to cartoons or the movies? So they might not have known TMNT 20 years ago either.
@doppelgreener Probably. There's not a lot of games which are available for free online that offer the amount of options Pathfinder does, so I tend to just search for pathfinder games through RPOL.
So if, say, you're watching the first half of the third season, the whole setting and tone is different because spoiler, which is why they're spoiler and Leo is spoiler.
First season is laying the groundwork so we're invested when they escalate the stakes. Also we're discovering the dangers along with the turtles.
But it is definitely interested in being for kids, with enough love for the source material that parents who liked the earlier franchise iterations will like watching it with their kids.
@Nyoze On the other hand there's games that don't offer as many options because instead they're providing you with tools to create your own. Not sure how many of those there are though. (Fate and RFS come to mind, though RFS is probably not suitable for a long game.)
I dunno about other folks, but I felt like there was some really awesome stuff available to me when I was growing up. I didn't have cable TV and was more of a reader anyway, but I had Square One TV, Long Ago and Far Away, Reading Rainbow, Ghost Writer... and I was reading Beverly Cleary, Dinotopia, the Magic School Bus...
I was too young for Fraggle Rock and my PBS didn't do re-runs of it, alas.
I'm not saying the stuff available now is bad --I like Steven Universe and Dragonbreath too-- but it's not like quality moral media for kids is a new thing.
Maybe it's more mainstream than it used to be; my childhood doesn't represent anything close to typical media consumption for my generation, I know that. And it's very cool to see all this stuff these days. But I don't agree with the idea that kids' media was overall less mature 10 or 20 years ago; we've got trash and good stuff, then and now.
I do think there's a visible progression to society which is heartening.
But to dismiss older media as "less mature" sounds like Ghost Writer's themes of using illiteracy as a tool of oppression were silly and childish.
@BESW Could you agree that we might not be saying ALL older media is less mature, but that a lesser sample of it was mature, and now there is bigger prevalence of quality media?
I dunno, I might need numbers. Certainly I'll buy that morally forthright kids' media has more popular attention these days. Modern childrens' media can talk openly about these specific issues you're concerned with because previous generations of media laid the groundwork for it.
Older media and modern media are and were all full of a mix of trash as well as the good stuff, and some of the good stuff was/is even good for teaching.
I'm not trying to dismiss the advances that media has made, not at all. Just--the difference I see is in public attention and changes to the specific topics being discussed. I don't see any fundamental change in the quality of kids' media or its eagerness to address social problems head-on.
I'm very glad that this part of children's media is more commonly acknowledged as a positive feature.
@Shalvenay From what I understand of DW (having read through the rules a couple of times) you would lose out a bit by doing a 1on1. Characters are supposed to have Bonds with other characters, which you gain XP for resolving.
@Adeptus I think AlexP has good experiences running DW in twosies with his wife.
But I'm remembering something from years ago, so I could have the wrong person. Pretty sure somebody in chat was talking about doing DW twosies with his wife.
I think some military commanders would argue that victory at great cost is still a victory. The wounded & the families of the fallen might not see it that way though.
Plot thought: In a world where the gods are powered by belief, one of the gods sees to it that a computer is programmed to believe in him/her. Just to see what will happen.
@Nyoze Nothing specific. Simply I used to use my main account mostly when I was out of house, and now are planning to rework that. I was actually going to drop in and see hi from home this weekend, but well... most of my day went in an anime con.
In all seriousness though, most of the folks on RPG.SE and in its chat are pretty great. I value their conversation and am glad to be able to contribute whatever I can.
Many people think if we have a hands-off approach to animals they will thrive. No they won't. That's why a pack of wild dogs is not something you want to meet.
@BESW I've had a serious talk about beekeeping with my gf yesterday.
Turns out the bees will occasionally give birth to a queen even if they don't have enough space or resources. IF the current queen decides not to kill the larva, as soon as it's born it has to be taken away - and killed - or you'll face a hive civil war.
I'm not sure about our pollination status. I know when I was living in a less paved part of the island I'd see bees quite a lot, and I know there are a couple of beekeepers here.
I suspect bees are extremely important here, just because we've lost so many of our bird and bat pollinators over the last decades.
I'm currently living just on the southern edge of the "urban" area in the middle of the island, but I grew up in the "forest" bits just east of the southernmost blob of "barren."
The one wild beehive I know of was in one of the jungle areas a little ways north of me, in the folds of these limestone formations:
It was enormous and active, and very high up in the folds of a stalactite on the outside of the cave. You can probably actually see bits of it in that photo if you know where to look.
