Quote from: StormBringer;366825Actually, it isn't all that difficult.  Anything below GS-9 / GS-10 or so isn't shit.  They are more or less standard salary-workers.  Between GS-10 and about GS-13, they start to have a bit of weight.  If I recall things correctly, your girlfriend is at about the limit of what she is going to get paid.  GS-14 and GS-15 aren't usually just higher pay grades, those people are in charge of larger departments.

She's probably going to end up getting there. Like I said, she was the NE regional manager for the DTV transition, with a staff of 50. She's been working for the FCC for over a decade.

Quote from: Sigmund;366832She's probably going to end up getting there. Like I said, she was the NE regional manager for the DTV transition, with a staff of 50. She's been working for the FCC for over a decade.

Well, tell her good luck then!  Hitting GS-15 pretty much you are immune from Congress, it takes an act of God to lose your job.  

Quote from: Benoist;366810Christ. I'm sorry, I apologize to everyone in advance, but DAMN. I just have to say: you are such a disingenuous bastard when you start posting that way. Look:









Contempt literally DRIPS from your posts, Pete. You're constantly trying to portray people who disagree with you as irrelevant, mal-adjusted, antisocial, non-gamers. And you're telling RANDALL, of all people, that he's just imagining himself as inferior, rather than you talking about your own superiority and belittling people constantly instead of actually bringing a rational, constructed, respectable argument at the table?

Are you kidding me?

Just the fact that you consider doing this is either funny because we'd all go up in arms about this, or that we're dumb enough to not notice what you're doing, should actually be quoted as an example of the definition of both contempt and disdain in the dictionary.

Jesus. And you have the guts to present yourself as a victim afterwards. Hypocrite.

You can be more intelligent than this. Heck. You are worth better than this. I've seen it in the last few days. Why the HELL are you going down that path AGAIN?

Benny, it's ok. As far as I'm concerned, Abby continues to be the most obnoxious poster on this message board. He doesn't argue honestly, he shills constantly, he feigns apathy, his posts drip with condescension, and he remains, as ever, a disingenuous fuck. He's the most passive-aggressive poster on this website. I honestly think that his more sedate posting behavior in the past few days was an effort to regain some of his credibility here. Either that, or he just grew weary of behaving like such a twat.

Abby, you're not being persecuted, and you know it. People "freak out" about your noxious online presence because you're disruptive, and this form of behavior gets people riled up. You'll occasionally back off from your typical asshattery when you sufficiently piss people off, but that's only so you can claim persecution, and pretend to take the high road in a discussion. And you know what? That's the way you like it. You're smart, but not smart enough to convince everyone that you're some kind of Internet martyr.

The problem with you is....it's impossible to trust anything that you say, because it always feels like you have an agenda, or that you're selling something (in a sleazy used car salesman way), hence the accusations of shilling. If you could actually stop being a condescending douchebag, 90% of your online conflicts would disappear.

And please spare us your comparisons of rpgs to technology or even worse, your condescending catch-phrases, such as:

* "hurt feelings"
* "you guys"
* "hand-wringing"
* "tears of rage"
* "outrage"
* "suck it, haters "
* "my stalkers"
* "my fan club"

...you get the picture.

You're a joke, a shill, and you've almost become a parody of the classic "fanboi" mentality. At this point, you're practically a cartoon character, though not a funny one. So...please spare us the bullshit, and just shut the fuck up.

Finished work and vendor issues, brought the boy to the Boston Aquarium.  
Then I get back on this thread, one of the ones that was being constructive, and damn thing implodes.

AM (Pete), we had some good discussions recently.  Then it's back to the, " I can't defend my viewpoint anymore, so I'm going to back to my already-busted-by-fifty-members technology metaphor.'
Not to mention purposely confusing the support and PR of the largest gaming name and gaming company in the industry as popularity.  

Hell, I was perfectly willing to cede you the points earlier for what a good idea and how nice the community support of your Living Campaign.

Quote from: StormBringer;366833Well, tell her good luck then!  Hitting GS-15 pretty much you are immune from Congress, it takes an act of God to lose your job.  

Hell, from what she says now it takes damn near that even at her current level... they have a union even.

Quote from: Sigmund;366845Hell, from what she says now it takes damn near that even at her current level... they have a union even.

I need to get myself a government job again.  

We had a couple GS-12s and GS-13s wandering around the hospital, and maybe one GS-15, but I never had occasion to talk to them.  Of course, this was on a logistics base, where the civilian population outnumbered the military by about 2.5 or even 3 to 1.  

Quote from: StormBringer;366825Anything below GS-9 / GS-10 or so isn't shit.  They are more or less standard salary-workers.

Like park rangers.

The Shaman -------> former GS-7.

Quote from: The Shaman;366865Like park rangers.

The Shaman -------> former GS-7.

But you got any software you wanted, right?  

Quote from: StormBringer;366866But you got any software you wanted, right?  

Doesn't everybody?

Quote from: Windjammer;366822Just to put this in perspective. Abyssal Maw rightly points out that individual DMs have more freedom to adjust 'Living' modules in 4E than they had in 3.5. What he conveniently forgets to mention, though, is that the guidelines for module authors have become so codified, with a hitherto unparalleled "must have 2-3 full combats in each module - for a 4 hour session" stricture*, that the result is that people DMing 'Living' modules are struggling to get a good amount of non-combat roleplaying into their own sessions more than ever.

AM even wrote a couple of brilliant and helpful posts to address this issue (i.e. how to lower the amount your LFR group spends on combat because there's frankly too much in it as per the time limit) so he's about the last person on earth to be ignorant of this fact.

*Read the section "Adventure in Failure" here, and follow the link to the WotC page. I'd be grateful to be informed that the LFR module guidelines have been drastically altered to reduce the amount each LFR session needs to compulsorily spend on combat.

If you want my advice in a nuitshell it's "ignore the restrictions and make the best D&D adventures you can". Breaking the 3.5 people out of that mode has been a pretty tough task. People are very set in their ways.

The last time we talked about it, one of the other admins pointed out that there was an official adventure he wrote that made all of the combats either optional or avoidable.

But that's not to say I'm anti-combat! D&D is about adventuring, and you've got 6 adventurers strapped to the teeth with weaponry, you aren't going to be re-enacting Jane Eyre, unless you're some kind of twat.

The drow adventuring company I recently set up explicitly to deal with more cloak and dagger type stories. After three adventures, they haven't been on "an adventure" (out of the three sessions I've run), but they have intercepted secret mesages, carried out an assassination, stolen a priestess' seal in order to forge a letter, etc.

Quote from: Windjammer;366822AM even wrote a couple of brilliant and helpful posts to address this issue (i.e. how to lower the amount your LFR group spends on combat because there's frankly too much in it as per the time limit) so he's about the last person on earth to be ignorant of this fact.

*Read the section "Adventure in Failure" here, and follow the link to the WotC page. I'd be grateful to be informed that the LFR module guidelines have been drastically altered to reduce the amount each LFR session needs to compulsorily spend on combat.

Not compulsory. This is the goblins busting through walls guy too! Fun stuff.

Here, read it again:

LFR official writing guidelines "Make sure you include at least 2 combat encounters in every adventure..."

Goblins busting through walls guy:
"While I realise they think 4E does fighting particularly well, some of the finest adventure modules I've played in Living Greyhawk have included the option of avoiding combat altogether if you were smart"

Living Greyhawk had the exact same guideline, and LFR combats aren't mandatory. Including a combat doesn't mean you can't make it avoidable or optional. Check on that argument.

Ready for Checkmate?

Those guidelines are only for adventures that get submitted for official adventures. And the reason for that is they are also checking to see if the writer even understands how to write for D&D4.

And Double Checkmate: MyRealms doesn't follow any of these rules anyway.

Quote from: Benoist;366810Christ. I'm sorry, I apologize to everyone in advance, but DAMN. I just have to say: you are such a disingenuous bastard when you start posting that way. Look:









Contempt literally DRIPS from your posts, Pete. You're constantly trying to portray people who disagree with you as irrelevant, mal-adjusted, antisocial, non-gamers. And you're telling RANDALL, of all people, that he's just imagining himself as inferior, rather than you talking about your own superiority and belittling people constantly instead of actually bringing a rational, constructed, respectable argument at the table?

Are you kidding me?

Just the fact that you consider doing this is either funny because we'd all go up in arms about this, or that we're dumb enough to not notice what you're doing, should actually be quoted as an example of the definition of both contempt and disdain in the dictionary.

Jesus. And you have the guts to present yourself as a victim afterwards. Hypocrite.

You can be more intelligent than this. Heck. You are worth better than this. I've seen it in the last few days. Why the HELL are you going down that path AGAIN?

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;366842Benny, it's ok. As far as I'm concerned, Abby continues to be the most obnoxious poster on this message board. He doesn't argue honestly, he shills constantly, he feigns apathy, his posts drip with condescension, and he remains, as ever, a disingenuous fuck. He's the most passive-aggressive poster on this website. I honestly think that his more sedate posting behavior in the past few days was an effort to regain some of his credibility here. Either that, or he just grew weary of behaving like such a twat.

Abby, you're not being persecuted, and you know it. People "freak out" about your noxious online presence because you're disruptive, and this form of behavior gets people riled up. You'll occasionally back off from your typical asshattery when you sufficiently piss people off, but that's only so you can claim persecution, and pretend to take the high road in a discussion. And you know what? That's the way you like it. You're smart, but not smart enough to convince everyone that you're some kind of Internet martyr.

The problem with you is....it's impossible to trust anything that you say, because it always feels like you have an agenda, or that you're selling something (in a sleazy used car salesman way), hence the accusations of shilling. If you could actually stop being a condescending douchebag, 90% of your online conflicts would disappear.

And please spare us your comparisons of rpgs to technology or even worse, your condescending catch-phrases, such as:

* "hurt feelings"
* "you guys"
* "hand-wringing"
* "tears of rage"
* "outrage"
* "suck it, haters "
* "my stalkers"
* "my fan club"

...you get the picture.

You're a joke, a shill, and you've almost become a parody of the classic "fanboi" mentality. At this point, you're practically a cartoon character, though not a funny one. So...please spare us the bullshit, and just shut the fuck up.

Thank you both for this effort.

Quote from: jeff37923;366940Thank you both for this effort.

Yeah, good luck with that. Your circle of squealing whiners grows ever tighter. I'm merely here to explain how this all works.

Here's some more proof:

http://countingku.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/weekend-in-the-realms/

Here's some real world examples of people avoiding combat in LFR.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;366941Here's some real world examples of people avoiding combat in LFR.

OK. You do want to get down that path.
Fine by me.

Quote from: Benoist;366946OK. You do want to get down that path.
Fine by me.

Dude, go back and read who started down what path. I enjoy retard farming as much as the next guy, but I'd much rather talk about gaming.