Quote from: JesterRaiin;908740You're free to not participate and/or pretend it doesn't exist.

Unless, of course, you've suddenly became a mod and you feel such a simple conversation is - for some reason - threatening the stability of whole forum. In which case, we can talk about your feelings.

If not, buy some popcorn, sit back, enjoy, or simply move away, start another thread and don't be an ass. :cool:

It's been going on for like 5 fucking pages and over a week now! The horse's remains have gooefied and been reabsorbed by the earth, and now you're just beating the clover shoots! Are you aiming for hyper-specialized, niche protection yourself?: "dead horse atomizer."

Quote from: Opaopajr;908735Okay, this talk about taking conversational hyperbole about the word "every" into specious literalism at 'mathematical proof levels' is just irredeemably stupid.

Words have meaning.

I know, I suppose expecting people to not use specious universals like "every" and "all" when they really mean "most" or "some" would be asking too much.

All I know is when the sharks start jumping out of the water to lob flaming oil at the intelligent squirrel collective, it is time to stop camping by the lake and retreat with a squad of archers.

Just sayin'.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;908705So how about those encumbrance rules?

Quote from: Daztur;908707Still don't know why more games don't have CRPG-style slot-based initiative. Even LotFP/ACKS stone system isn't quite all the way there.

I don't know what "slot-based initiative" is, but pretty much anything adapted from CRPGs to real RPGs is crap.

In the encumbrance system I use, yo don't worry much about individual weight. You worry about bags. You can carry 5 full bags of stuff before you drop to half move, 10 full bags max. A few small items not in bags can be ignored, like a dagger in your boot. Clothes can be ignored.

Six small items can fit in a small bag, six average-sized items or six full small bags can fit in a large bag. You can use lined index cards to represent bags and write one item per line. To figure out if you are encumbered, count your cards. If you have to drop something to run faster, the GM grabs some cards at random.

You need to know how many coins can fit in a bag, and the weight of large items in bag equivalents, but other than that, don't worry about it. I use a 5-pound bag of sugar and a 30-pound bag of potatoes as my size comparisons.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908777Words have meaning.

I know, I suppose expecting people to not use specious universals like "every" and "all" when they really mean "most" or "some" would be asking too much.

Frankly, yes. People use colloquial or inexact phrasing all the time. See what I did there? Would anyone seriously believe that I meant that people did so 100% of the time, and therefore finding a single instance where people didn't use colloquial or inexact phrasing would prove me utterly wrong? No, because my contextual meaning was obvious.

The only real problem is when people start changing the rules of the conversation mid-stream.

"When it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead" is an interesting premise, and could lead into an interesting discussion about non-human thinking, the opportunity cost of intelligence from an evolutionary perspective, or all sorts of interesting things. Instead we're watching an argument about whether finding a counter-argument disproves the premise.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908775It's been going on for like 5 fucking pages and over a week now! The horse's remains have gooefied and been reabsorbed by the earth, and now you're just beating the clover shoots! Are you aiming for hyper-specialized, niche protection yourself?: "dead horse atomizer."

Yes, I'm aware that the Mankind goes through its "Mars" period now, but heck... Control yourself, man. :cool:

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908785"When it comes to getting food, every animal is smart, or it's dead" is an interesting premise, and could lead into an interesting discussion about non-human thinking, the opportunity cost of intelligence from an evolutionary perspective, or all sorts of interesting things. Instead we're watching an argument about whether finding a counter-argument disproves the premise.

Please bear with me:

- We're on RPG-related forum.

- On top of that, it's not "beginner level" forum. Manners aside, it is an undisputed fact that at least a few users frequenting these parts are in the business pretty much since its early days. Which is "long" and what translates to "experience".

- This leads to the assumption that people should be capable of shitting dozens of quality threads per hour.

Instead we're watching them complain about how a thread they are visiting out of their own free will (let me stress that out: free will) is ruining... I'm not sure what. Silence?

Quote from: JesterRaiin;908789Please bear with me:

- We're on RPG-related forum.

- On top of that, it's not "beginner level" forum. Manners aside it is an undisputed fact that at least a few users frequenting these parts are in the business pretty much since its early days. Which is "long" and what translates to "experience".

- This leads to the assumption that people should be capable of shitting dozens of quality threads per hour.

Instead we're watching them complain about how a thread they are visiting out of their own free will (let me stress that out: free will) is ruining... I'm not sure what. Silence?

Yes, people are visiting this thread of their own free will. I'm not sure why you think that that is a boldness-worthy concept. We can all always participate or not as we see fit. That is not an inoculation from critique.

As to the current avenue of discussion ruining the silence or something more: I listed, and you quoted, two potential avenues of inquiry we are not exploring because instead we are watching this argumentation endless loop. I'm not sure if there's any appetite left out there for it, or if people were just throwing popcorn into the fire. I'll ask everyone, not just JesterRaiin--is this (animal intelligence) and interesting tangent we should keep going on, or should we steer back towards niche protection.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908791I'll ask everyone,

Why?

Words I get, the meaning of your message I can't comprehend.

This ain't no wizard council. People come here - once again - out of their own free will. You don't need their acceptation to discuss things. If they are willing to discuss, they are gonna do that - it's not they are not gonna ignore you if they find you and your words lacking any interest. You're free to produce additional branches within the boundaries of any single thread - it's not that linear experience only. As long as it's relevant, you're free to discuss whatever you want, and skip comments you don't find interesting - it's not that the pace makes it impossible or any hard to find yourself in that "clutter".

And if you feel you can't, you're free to abandon the thread and start a new one titled "niche protection redux", or something.

This is Internet basics. We did that in times of Hayes 9600 modems.

Point is: there's no need for "everyone, thread -> this way" announcements. Especially if derailment seems to be the only thing keeping the thread alive.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;908785Instead we're watching an argument about whether finding a counter-argument disproves the premise.

Which is certainly pointless, yes, because a single counter-example is, in fact, enough to disprove a universal statement.

People said "nobody said every animal" and then JesterRaiin highlighted the posts where people said exactly that, and then pointed to a couple of atypical species.

Rather than digging foxholes and holding the Humpty Dumpty Ridge against all comers, the sensible thing to do was just say "well, all right, 'every' was an exaggeration, but it's mostly true".

I'd still like to see a thread that breaks down different animal behaviours by type and ecological niche with an eye towards how to represent them in an RPG encounter.  One of the most fun encounters I ever ran was a non-Glorantha RQ ranger slipping down a ravine while out foraging and realizing he'd landed right between a black bear cub and momma bear.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798I'd still like to see a thread that breaks down different animal behaviours by type and ecological niche with an eye towards how to represent them in an RPG encounter.  One of the most fun encounters I ever ran was a non-Glorantha RQ ranger slipping down a ravine while out foraging and realizing he'd landed right between a black bear cub and momma bear.

I too would like useful guidelines categorized either by real world species or by generic ecological niche. Personally, I'd like ecological niches with real earth examples as illustrations because I could use that anywhere from 1624 France to Star Trek, Star Wars, or Glorantha.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798People said "nobody said every animal" and then JesterRaiin highlighted the posts where people said exactly that, and then pointed to a couple of atypical species.

So we're OK with getting on pedantic arguments where apparently hyperbole doesn't exist, despite people using exaggerations in a fair amount of statements on and off the internet?

It's attitudes like this that promote some of the silliest character optimization creations in a lot of games, because people can't seem to understand the 'spirit' versus the 'letter' of 'the law' (which in this case is the word, EVERY!)

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798Which is certainly pointless, yes, because a single counter-example is, in fact, enough to disprove a universal statement.

I'd still like to see a thread that breaks down different animal behaviours by type and ecological niche with an eye towards how to represent them in an RPG encounter.  One of the most fun encounters I ever ran was a non-Glorantha RQ ranger slipping down a ravine while out foraging and realizing he'd landed right between a black bear cub and momma bear.

"In my day, I've seen bears do things that even a bear wouldn't do" - Ranger Brad.

Quote from: daniel_ream;908798People said "nobody said every animal" and then JesterRaiin highlighted the posts where people said exactly that, and then pointed to a couple of atypical species.

Fine. Fuck it. Yeah sure Every animal can learn. Yes even an amoeba can learn.

My point was that not every animal lives to learn. Or even learns something useful. Kinda like RPG players. Some of which cling tenaciously to their niche protection of being stupid.

There. We are back on topic.

Y'know, I was gonna respond to a couple posts, but screw it: this threadjacking has been threadjacked by threadjacked threaders all out of any shape or sense.

Help, some old geezer is forcing me to read this thread and post on it against my will!