tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55904652024-03-23T13:48:22.493-04:00Halbert's CubicleSince 2003, this blog has been about whatever interests me at any given time. Politics, religion, philosophy, gaming, science, etc. Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.comBlogger990125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-91452224705138718262019-04-14T09:00:00.000-04:002019-04-14T15:08:18.895-04:00A Reflection for Holy WeekOne of the interesting parts of parenthood has been exposure to children's bibles. I'm incredibly appreciative of authors who can distill the biblical stories into a form that grabs children's attention; the times I've attempted to read to my kids from the actual scriptures were over very quickly, toddler attention spans being what they are.<br />
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Yet, for the variety of bible story books we have, there's a particular trend that jumped out at us:<br />
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When telling the story of Jesus, many of these books go from the Triumphal Entry straight to the Resurrection.<br />
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There's a sense in which this is perfectly understandable. It would be irresponsible not to <a href="https://babylonbee.com/news/toddler-horrified-image-gods-terrible-wrath-bedroom-wall">curate the content of scripture</a> to your child's maturity level. A pre-schooler is probably not ready to hear about Sodom and Gomorrah, David and Bathsheba, the book of Judges . . . take your pick.<br />
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Still, while I certainly wouldn't show my children <i>Passion of the Christ</i>, there are ways to explain the death of Jesus in an age appropriate manner. We have enough books <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Storybook-Bible-Every-Whispers/dp/0310708257">which manage to do so</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAr4h-lXTEWf48zGWwVjufyBI0SHmCsZn9LjrBZs1z8dYeyOnbSaW9I_W7wMK7zzT7jXfRUGaEJ9QXOu07d9jN73UvUTP7mzwLWC_RI_NcFsDl_iE8pq1-Y_MWQNybZDmnmXnn/s1600/20190410_202128_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="1600" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAr4h-lXTEWf48zGWwVjufyBI0SHmCsZn9LjrBZs1z8dYeyOnbSaW9I_W7wMK7zzT7jXfRUGaEJ9QXOu07d9jN73UvUTP7mzwLWC_RI_NcFsDl_iE8pq1-Y_MWQNybZDmnmXnn/s400/20190410_202128_3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note the page numbers</td></tr>
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Perhaps the issue isn't with the children, then, but with the adults. So many of us don't hide the crucifixion only from our children. We live out a faith that treats it like an embarrassment, or perhaps a temporary bump in the road. A necessary evil to get to the good part.<br />
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We admire Jesus the teacher, dispensing timeless wisdom about good morals and better living from the hillside. Jesus, meek and mild, caring for children, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, champion of the downtrodden . . . a paragon of idyllic goodness.<br />
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We like the picture of Jesus in the triumphal entry: The king coming into his city! See how his lordship is proclaimed and celebrated! Yes, there is always the shadow of betrayal right around the corner, but for a brief period of time, everything is as it should be, and will be again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPL_zc_pQ_WSltS0vYOCpDRS0OOxMzNRULLQg-7lK_81bUxezAgj_ewGYYiqonFsEeTOCnfLhYbDdAbhYaT0-hzOb9qrmJ9A6OO3l-5veeUP9VCbzoor7YA4g9LEF2ChenKQzL/s1600/20190410_202138_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1600" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPL_zc_pQ_WSltS0vYOCpDRS0OOxMzNRULLQg-7lK_81bUxezAgj_ewGYYiqonFsEeTOCnfLhYbDdAbhYaT0-hzOb9qrmJ9A6OO3l-5veeUP9VCbzoor7YA4g9LEF2ChenKQzL/s320/20190410_202138_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To be fair, Jesus's death does not go unmentioned, but it is certainly over before it began.</td></tr>
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We love the Jesus of the resurrection. If death is the oldest enemy of mankind, then God has shown that it can be overcome. The power of God on display for all to see, the promises of ages fulfilled, the new creation set into motion!<br />
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Yet in a theology that lacks the crucifixion, we are left with a single question: Why?<br />
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I've heard so many sermons over the years talk about our need for Jesus. In trying to explain why you should follow the way of Christ, the preachers would say things like, "Because he is Lord and the resurrection proves it! Because his way is better than man's way! Because your life will be so much better with Jesus!" It's all true, but it's incomplete. It skips over something crucial.<br />
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<a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2019/february-web-exclusives/to-reach-unsaved-christians-first-help-them-get-lost.html">We are lost in our sin</a>. By ourselves, on our own, through our own means, we cannot be right before God. To fulfill the Law, to atone for our sins, to provide a righteousness isn't our own, Jesus came to take the penalty of sin on our behalf. It was our sin, <i>my </i>sin, and the mercy of God, that led Jesus to the cross.<br />
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We dare not pass over that too quickly.<br />
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Lent, as part of the liturgical calendar, is a time of preparation for Easter. It's not <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/march-web-only/answering-protestant-myths-about-lent.html">terribly popular with Evangelicals</a>, for various reasons. As a historical practice, Lent has <a href="https://www.amazon.com/40-Days-Decrease-Different-Hunger/dp/0718076605">changed much over the centuries</a>. Although it has always been a period of fasting, it was also a season of repentance. In order to prepare for the celebration of the Resurrection, of our freedom from bondage, we must first pass through the desert of remorse, culminating on Good Friday where we remember the work of the Cross.<br />
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This isn't guilt-stricken self-flagellation, because Christ has already received our punishment. Instead, sober awareness of the state from which Christ has saved us. The scriptures promise that we are no longer in bondage to sin (see Romans 6). There is, after all, no longer an condemnation for those in Christ. The good news of the Gospel will always fall flat if we don't know how much God has done for us, and we can't know that without seeing just how great our need is.Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-84493780195496868922017-10-18T21:25:00.000-04:002017-10-19T10:50:44.430-04:00Book Review - Allah: A Christian Response<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You might remember that last year I wrote <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/03/book-review-answering-jihad-better-way.html">reviews</a> of <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/book-review-no-god-but-one.html">books</a> by Nabeel Qureshi. The latter review of <i>No God But One</i> covered a crucial topic for Qureshi: Are Islam and Christianity really all that different?<br />
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A friend of mine suggested my next book be Miroslav Volf's <i>Allah: A Christian Response.</i> In fact, he actually bought the book <i>for</i> me; thanks again, friend. </div>
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I think understanding this book starts with understanding the author. Volf's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Volf">Wikipedia page</a> carries a lot of noteworthy accomplishments and glowing references. Theologian, seminary professor, author, public intellectual, White House advisor . . . the man has a long and reputable résumé. There is a strong theme throughout his work, however, of interfaith engagement, the most relevant work being his crafting of the "<a href="http://faith.yale.edu/common-word/common-word-christian-response">Yale Response</a>" to "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Common_Word_Between_Us_and_You">A Common Word.</a>" </div>
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This book seems to have been an outgrowth of that work, though in this case, Volf's audience is fellow Christians, or at least that's what he claims in the book. The central question Volf seeks to answer in <i>Allah </i>is, "Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?" Nabeel Qureshi answered the question <a href="http://rzim.org/global-blog/do-muslims-and-christians-worship-the-same-god/">in the negative</a>. Volf, in the course of the book, says, "Yes, we do worship the same God." (If you're interested in hearing these two debate the matter, <a href="http://rzim.org/global-blog/do-christians-and-muslims-worship-the-same-god-debate-with-nabeel-qureshi-and-dr-miroslav-volf/">there's audio of just that.</a>)</div>
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Volf spends a lot of time laying his groundwork, but his basic argument follows that of "A Common Word," arguing that Muslims and Christians worship the same God because of their common ground, a faith centered in the love of God and the love of neighbor. He spends a great deal of the book unpacking these ideas. </div>
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I really struggled to finish this book. My first inclination while reading it was to call Volf a hack. That isn't fair or charitable, but it was born out of irritation, and a sense, as I worked my way through the chapters, that Volf was not dealing with the topic in an honest manner. I can't know the process by which Volf reached the conclusions he did; I can't unpack the people he's met or the books he's read. However, I can at least respond to the arguments he's made, and they are <i>not</i> convincing, as far as I'm concerned.<br />
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Although Volf writes extensively about issues surrounding the topic, he most directly covers the central question of the book in part II, chapters 4-6. The core of Volf's argument comes from addressing the similarities in which Muslims and Christians describe God. If there is only one God, and we both use the same language, pointing to the same reality, to describe the same being, we must, therefore, worship the same God.</div>
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I could go step by step through the problems in Volf's arguments throughout the book, but my objections to Volf mainly stem in three parts:<br />
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Proof-Texting</h3>
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Volf goes through a numbered list describing the various elements that Christians and Muslims use to describe God, and cites passages from both the Bible and the Qur'an to demonstrate these beliefs. They are:</div>
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<li>There is only one divine being, God.</li>
<li>God created everything that isn't God.</li>
<li>God is different from everything that isn't God.</li>
<li>God is good.</li>
<li>God commands that we love Him with our whole being.</li>
<li>God commands that we love our neighbors as ourselves. </li>
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It would be too much to go through the fine details of this section. However, if I find fault with Volf here, it's because, although he does cite scriptural passages, he does so in only the most trite and superficial sense. Many of the Biblical verse he cites are so abbreviated, so stripped of context, that it's difficult to take them seriously, and this coming from someone inclined to agree with Volf on matters of faith. We call it "proof-texting," and if it's a problem when used in defense of specious arguments, it's still a problem in defense of sound doctrine.</div>
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For example, to back up point #5, God's command to love Him wholly, Volf cites from the Qur'an, "God, One and Only." (39:45) Now, perhaps Islamic scholars understand that verse to be teaching total devotion to God. Perhaps you can even find such teaching all throughout the Qur'an. All the same, devoid of context, those four words must do an <i>awful</i> lot of work to back up the point. It's difficult to give the arguments any weight when the basis for them is treated so blithely.<br />
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Volf's list breaks down for me when thinking about point #6, God's command to love our neighbors. It's a point important enough that Jesus devoted a parable (Luke 10:25-37) to it: Who is my neighbor? This isn't a trivial question; the command becomes a very different thing depending on how you answer the question. Jesus's teaching to "love your enemies" (Luke 6:27-36) encapsulates the Biblical perspective. </div>
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Suffice it to say, the Muslim conception of "loving your neighbor" is <i>not</i> <i>at all </i>similar to the Christian conception.<br />
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Selective Examples</h3>
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This might be evident if Volf went beyond the few Qur'anic verses he cites, but that would work against the point he wishes to make. Islam has additional authoritative sources besides the Qur'an; there is also the Hadith, the collection of sayings and stories about Muhammad. Although these do not carry the same weight as the Qur'an, their authority within Islam is no less important, and their absence when considering Islamic theology is telling.</div>
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In one example, Volf raises the question of Jewish worship; that is, do Jews worship the same God as Christians? Most Christians would give a measured assent, along the lines that,although Jews worship the father, they don't know Christ as the Son, thus they worship God, but not in the completeness of truth. What, Volf asks, makes Muslim worship of God so different?<br />
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While there is some weight to this, Volf is not fair in his application. He gives only the briefest mentions of Islamic violence; it's enough for him to say that the vast majority of the Muslim world does not participate in terrorism or violence against others. That may not be as compelling a factoid as he'd like to think, but I think the bigger question comes from his outright dismissal of those terrorists. Do <i>they </i>worship the same God as the non-violent Muslims? I think that's a question worthy of consideration, but it would require asking questions Volf would rather not address, such as why some Muslims think there's theological justification for violence against non-believers, or how other Muslims resolve such justifications into a life of non-violence. By excluding the examples of the Hadith, Volf avoids these sticky questions.<br />
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<br />The Missing Prophet</h3>
Those are important questions to ask, and given the conclusion Volf has reached, it's understandable why he would avoid them. Their absence, however, only highlights a glaring omission in the book: Muhammad. In all this talk of Islam, where is its high prophet?<br />
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This is not a trivial point. Muhammad's position within Islam is of supreme importance. He's not just considered <i>a</i> messenger of God; he is <i>the</i> messenger, the greatest and final prophet in a line of prophets stretching back to Biblical origins. He is the primary example for how any Muslim should conduct his life, govern his people, and relate to both believers and non-believers alike. This is why the Hadith were collected; Muhammad's life is explored in exquisite detail to sort out principles for Sharia and Muslim practice.<br />
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All of which is to say, Muhammad's absence is felt.<br />
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Volf argues that it's not enough to find similarities between Christian and Muslim descriptions of God; significant differences or deviations in the nature and character of God will disprove the notion that we worship the same God. To this end, he spends a long time on the major differences in Christian and Muslim theology, such as the nature of God's love or the Trinity. He argues to show that the two faiths are basically saying the same things in those areas, or at least aren't mutually exclusive; either way, the differences are not so significant as to violate the rule from chapter 4.<br />
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In this light, his exclusion of Muhammad is understandable. Muhammad was not a good man. He was a warlord, and an aggressive one at that. He commanded his men to take subjugated women as sex slaves. He abolished adoption so that he could marry his adopted son's wife. He sent assassins after his critics. He told his followers that those who died in battle would not have their souls judged, but be admitted straight into paradise.<br />
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Muhammad's absence is critical because it speaks to the very nature of the God Muslims worship. What does it say about God that he would declare this man to be His greatest servant? That He would put such words in his mouth, order such deeds, and bless such iniquity? It greatly speaks to <i>who that God is</i>.<br />
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To what end?</h3>
Suffice it to say that I find Volf's argument that Christians and Muslims worship the same God unconvincing. This is not to say I disagree with him in every way. One way of phrasing this I've heard is that Islam is much like Mormonism, theologically; a heretical variant on the Christian faith. It may profess similar things and bear similar structures, but the differences are enough to invalidate it as holding to the truths revealed in scriptures.<br />
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Which returns me to the same questions that pestered me as I read the book: Why write this book? Why make these arguments? Is Volf trying to get his readers to agree to arguments he won't explicitly state?<br />
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In Volf's words, the book is written to Christians, to argue that we worship the same God as Muslims, in order to foster better relations and more productive dialog between the faiths. I have no quarrel with bridge building and peace making; blessed are the peace makers, after all.<br />
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However, much of the time I was reading the book, I wondered if Volf doesn't believe that salvation can be found in Islam. Of course, Volf gets coy on this question; claiming it beyond the purpose of the book, he leaves it at the "quick and inadequate" answer of, "Not necessarily." He then goes on to explain why fussing about differences in theology aren't nearly so important as the fruit of faith and the similarities of practice. This is an odd enough thing coming from a theologian, but he goes on to approvingly cite examples of people who consider themselves <i>both </i>Muslim <i>and </i>Christian, going on to talk about the best ways to blend the faiths<i>. </i><br />
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Volf, of all people, ought to understand just how convoluted that is. The very definition of a Muslim is someone who professes the <i>shahada,</i> the statement that there is but one God and Muhammad is his messenger. No Christian could, or should, ever accept Muhammad's claim of prophethood.<br />
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What, then, does Volf sees as the mission of Christians? How should evangelism be handled if we accept Volf's arguments? Once again, Volf plays coy on this. Though he spends a chapter on the idea, he never seems to stand for his faith to say, "Yes, the Great Commission is always in effect." He does allow a friend to state that Christian evangelism is explicitly violence against Muslims and should be regarded as such. Volf seems much more interested that we stand together against post-modernism and doing good works.<br />
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Valuable as those things might be, they will not save a man's soul. All the good works in the world will not earn anyone a place in heaven. Standing <i>against </i>post-modernism means nothing if we are not standing <i>for</i> something, and a flowery ecumenism with Islam offers nothing of substance to this end. </div>
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Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-90345769526999192512017-06-06T21:59:00.000-04:002017-06-06T21:59:35.757-04:00On The Paris Climate Treaty Exit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BDwnEsB8lHai-U9ZCbh5TR9GDs17RQxQzBfxG91jH-LrFY6_bYxveY76iJPESh9AQnoqX9tK5gbP-ohbi_-SZMJauds5ta179YpJAPOI97kuAZ4TDGuuPIXmvNBXDacudoPY/s1600/global-warming.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="872" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BDwnEsB8lHai-U9ZCbh5TR9GDs17RQxQzBfxG91jH-LrFY6_bYxveY76iJPESh9AQnoqX9tK5gbP-ohbi_-SZMJauds5ta179YpJAPOI97kuAZ4TDGuuPIXmvNBXDacudoPY/s320/global-warming.jpeg" width="293" /></a></div>
I've written sparingly about global warming/climate change over the years. I'll be the first to tell you that most of the actual science that comes from the myriad concerned fields goes right over my head. I do take quite a bit of it with a grain of salt, not just because I suspect some people <i>are</i> playing fast and loose with the data, but also because on a social level it's become associated with a sort of eschatological environmentalism.<br />
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Nowhere was the latter bit more evident to me than following President Trump's announcement that the US would be leaving the Paris Climate Treaty.<br />
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It's hard to determine just how serious to take any of it anymore. I understand that Trump's election represents an existential crisis to many on the American left, but many declared that the US exit from this treaty means no less than the end of the world. Everything as we know it is lost! The world will burn! Our only chance at possibly saving a remnant is to vote Democrat!<br />
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Everything Donald Trump does is wrong, I get that. This panic over the Paris Treaty, though, the rending of garments, the gnashing of teeth . . . it's really not worth it. Let me explain.<br />
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According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), coal represents <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3">about 30%</a> of America's energy generating capacity, and <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=77&t=11">about 70%</a> of the CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from electricity production. The Department of Energy (DOE) reports that, of all CO<sub>2</sub> emission sources in the US, electricity production accounts for <a href="https://www.netl.doe.gov/research/coal/carbon-storage/carbon-storage-faqs/what-are-the-primary-sources-of-co2">about 73%</a> of them.<br />
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Back of the envelope calculation, means that roughly half of America's CO<sub>2</sub> emissions come from coal power. Why do we care about that? First, let's look at where we rank in terms of emissions globally.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPg7eERbp50Qe0S5Yisu2rEnypTRBaa1-tOpsaMM_XwBEizypb9ecPuK8ZA59p_t9J45epJT0dcDNYPtG-_TYIV8REeoIGtN126JWf_OwqzcToKe5XsOR2JatjO2q3b5VwwTAw/s1600/gw-graphic-pie-chart-co2-emissions-by-country-2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="840" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPg7eERbp50Qe0S5Yisu2rEnypTRBaa1-tOpsaMM_XwBEizypb9ecPuK8ZA59p_t9J45epJT0dcDNYPtG-_TYIV8REeoIGtN126JWf_OwqzcToKe5XsOR2JatjO2q3b5VwwTAw/s400/gw-graphic-pie-chart-co2-emissions-by-country-2011.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html#.WTdUWWjyu70">Union of Concerned Scientists</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the US ranks #2 in CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, right behind China. (Those numbers are outdated, but the 2015 numbers <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions">found on Wikipedia</a> only raised China and India's share of the pie.) In other words, our emissions footprint is big, but it's not the biggest, nor is it the only big footprint.<br />
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If coal is a big part of the footprint in our country, what about those other countries?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimd8uZ0buKPuJLLyE9Ijf2FfX32RjqH4RzuYLfzjwcLdrDlHZY9puVovLVtl2z7g3nRy2weftN2Bo9QCrN09yF2C9erHAv30fDSlfFyA2ZVwpuZ35W1t-f0Krv3qWvkDC7-RVY/s1600/Sustainability+graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="654" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimd8uZ0buKPuJLLyE9Ijf2FfX32RjqH4RzuYLfzjwcLdrDlHZY9puVovLVtl2z7g3nRy2weftN2Bo9QCrN09yF2C9erHAv30fDSlfFyA2ZVwpuZ35W1t-f0Krv3qWvkDC7-RVY/s400/Sustainability+graph.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Source:</b> González-Eguino, M., Olabe, A., & Ribera, T. (2017). New Coal-Fired Plants Jeopardise Paris Agreement. Sustainability, 9(2), 168. http://doi.org/10.3390/su9020168</td></tr>
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I'm not a huge fan of bar graphs because you can't get exact numbers, but I think this picture is telling. Right now, China dwarfs the US in terms of coal power generation, with plans to add more coal power than currently exists in the US. Even India, currently ranked #4 in terms of CO<sub>2</sub> emissions globally, plans to add coal power capacity exceeding that of the US.<br />
<br />
If you're curious where the authors of the Sustainability journal found those numbers, they cite the annual (2016) report, <i><a href="http://endcoal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/BoomBust2017-English-Final.pdf">Tracking The Global Coal Plant Pipeline</a>, </i>assembled jointly by Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.<br />
<br />
All of this is to ask: What difference was the Paris treaty going to make in the face of this?<br />
<br />
Even if the US stayed in the treaty and agreed to destroy every coal power plant on its soil, no stone left on top of another, China alone will eventually build enough coal power to make up for the absence and then some.<br />
<br />
As I understand it, the Paris treaty allows countries <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/12/17/paris-climate-agreement-spells-trouble-for-coal/#25648266460b">to set their own emissions goals</a>, which makes it functionally meaningless. Although it seems as though signatories such as India are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/world/europe/climate-paris-agreement-trump-china.html?mcubz=0&_r=0">serious about curbing their current coal plans</a>, I don't see any more reason to believe they're serious about curbing their coal appetite than to believe they're going to be building much more coal power generation.<br />
<br />
In short, the Paris treaty would have made no difference except, at best, to create the illusion that progress was being made. If you think the Trump Presidency is the worst political event in American history, you're entitled to your opinion. I wouldn't entirely disagree with you, either. This treaty, however, is not the hill to die on, nor is it worth shedding any tears over.Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-81135063799483889762017-05-08T08:47:00.000-04:002017-05-23T09:38:13.406-04:00On Origins and the Molecular Basis of Life<b></b><br />
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<br />
I've said on a number of posts, mostly about the possibility of life on other planets, that I don't particularly buy into the idea of a chemical origin of life. This often leads to some awkwardness in my professional life. I have advanced degrees in life sciences; how can I disregard actual science in favor of a purely religious point of view?<br />
<br />
I don't reject a naturalistic explanation of the origin of life on purely religious grounds. Even in the absence of a motivating faith, the ideas regarding the chemical origin of life don't inspire confidence. Frankly, I find it requires more faith to believe that life arose out of a primordial soup than not, a conclusion in search of evidence to support it, and the evidence is wanting.<br />
<br />
In all of the posts where I've mentioned this, I've said that I ought to explain why at some point. This is an attempt to do so, and like the theory itself, this explanation is complicated.<br />
<b></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b><br /></b>
<br />
<h3>
<b>The Molecular Basis of Life</b></h3>
I can't assume that my audience has a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26883/">textbook understanding</a> of the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21050/">chemical basis of life</a>, so I will try to make a very brief explanation of life, the universe, and everything.<br />
<br />
Everything we know about the function of life starts with the chemicals that make up the cell. Although there are many that are critical for life to function, the most important of these are DNA, RNA, and proteins.<br />
<ul>
<li><b>The three molecule paradigm</b></li>
</ul>
It starts with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA">DNA</a>, which contains all of the genetic information for life, much like computer code. However, DNA is largely a storage medium. To get to functionality, it has to first be converted into functional formats. First, it gets <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_(biology)">transcribed</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_polymerase">cellular machinery</a>, using the DNA as a template to create an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA">RNA</a> copy of the nucleic acid sequence of the DNA.<br />
<br />
RNA has a variety of different functionalities, but the primary interest here is messenger RNA (mRNA), which then gets <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_(biology)">translated</a> into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein">proteins</a>. The mRNA is fed through different <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome">cellular machinery</a>, which keys the three-letter codes of the nucleic acid sequence into different amino acids. The amino acid chain, also known as a polypeptide, is then folded, often with assistance, into a functional shape. If necessary, it is also transported to the location where its functions, such as the nucleus or within the cell membrane.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A brief overview of the molecular basis of life</td></tr>
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<ul>
<li><b>Primordial Soup, Primitive Cells</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
The hypothesis for the chemical origin of life, or at least my understanding of it, holds that cellular life began from simple organic molecules collecting and aggregating in the "primordial soup" of ancient Earth. What this looked like is highly speculative. Ideas range from undersea thermal vents, pockets of water within ice crystals, or even soupy mud formations. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As the molecules assembled, they gained functionality and spawned new molecules. Eventually, many of these would be isolated within simple lipid membranes which facilitated compartmentalization of function, and the close proximity allowed for the development of collaborative functions and the transmission of information frome one generation of protocell to the next.</div>
<ul>
<li><b>RNA World Hypothesis</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
One weakness in the chemical origin of life is the complexity of current life. It's a chicken-and-egg problem: Given the interconnectedness of the molecules necessary for cellular life, how could all three simultaneously, spontaneously arise? This problem resulted in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world">RNA World hypothesis</a>. The idea is that RNA was the very first molecule, acting both as storage medium of genetic information and functional molecule. Given the existence of RNA with functional properties (i.e. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribozyme">ribozymes</a>), it is a plausible idea, although it is not without critics or competing hypotheses.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now, I've taken an entire semester of molecular biology and summarized it in a few paragraphs. Despite this gross simplification, it should be evident that life at its basic level is intricate, and tremendous effort has gone into exploring the origin of life. What makes me think these explanations are insufficient?</div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<h3>
<b>Doing the Math</b></h3>
</div>
<div>
<div>
Consider a simple scenario. Imagine you have one of each letter of the alphabet, and you toss them in a bag. Then, without looking, you pull out one letter at a time. What are the odds that you pull them out in alphabetical order?</div>
<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No peeking</td></tr>
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The answer, as it turns out, is about <b>1 in 4 x 10<sup>26 </sup></b>chance. That is a four with 26 zeroes behind it. As a reference point, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-of-sand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky">it's roughly estimated</a> there are about 7.5 x 10<sup>18</sup> grains of sand on Earth. If I were to mark a single grain of sand, hide it somewhere on planet Earth, then blind fold you and ask you to pick it up, you'd be a billion times more likely to find that grain of sand than to get the alphabet out of the bag.</div>
<div>
<br />
These outcomes are not <i>impossible</i>, but are so unlikely as to be <i>essentially</i> impossible. If you had 4 x 10<sup>26</sup> people doing this at the same time, would it be more likely to happen? Not exactly. There's certainly more opportunities for it to occur, but every one of those people pulling letters still have that same low (very, <i>very low</i>) probability of getting alphabetical order. A rare event doesn't become more likely just because you have more attempts at it.<br />
<br />
What's the point of this example?<br />
<br />
As I explained above, the macromolecules involved in the basis of life function off of templates; the DNA double-helix replicates against itself, RNA is a mirror of DNA, and then the RNA acts as a template for proteins.<br />
<br />
How did the first macromolecules come about if they didn't have anything to read for a template?<br />
<br />
The answer would probably be very similar to the alphabet-in-a-bag scenario. Nucleotides or amino acids spontaneously forming chains until functional molecules appear.</div>
<ul>
</ul>
<div>
If this is the method by which functional proteins first appeared, then what are the odds of a specific molecule forming?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The smallest proteins, or protein sub-units, are roughly 50 amino acids in length. We'll use the 50aa sequence for this consideration. If the amino acids are randomly assembling, like pulling letters out of the bag, then the odds of a specific protein sequence appearing is about <b>1 in 5.6 x 10<sup>70</sup></b>.<br />
<br />
Since the RNA World hypothesis is the most popular understanding of chemical origin, if you build a polynucleotide in this way, with the same length, then the odds of any given specific sequence appearing become <b>1 in 1.3 x 10<sup>30</sup></b>. Definitely more likely than peptides, but still extraordinarily unlikely.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Xr1LwHofmj6vQaQgy9RVdWAAQ88yzJPMuRiUv9MPCGvIOw0qNaNxxythyw9o04flfmwdKWo3S2K0wHjozhoKm9HH3VC6RR6HV8Qhyphenhyphenz86tA6qNu_ZTII6-BOsIjec5dTTzxjU/s1600/sand-285546_960_720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Xr1LwHofmj6vQaQgy9RVdWAAQ88yzJPMuRiUv9MPCGvIOw0qNaNxxythyw9o04flfmwdKWo3S2K0wHjozhoKm9HH3VC6RR6HV8Qhyphenhyphenz86tA6qNu_ZTII6-BOsIjec5dTTzxjU/s400/sand-285546_960_720.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You're a trillion times more likely to find that grain of sand.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
Those numbers are for the assembly of a single molecule; one protein, one specific RNA molecule. Although the first protocell would presumably have been very simple, multiple copies of each protein or RNA would be still be needed, so those long odds become all the more daunting. Unless the particular machinery of replication was the first on the scene, these molecules would have to be self-replicating. That's certainly a tall order, since self-replication is not generally a feature of either peptides or nucleic acids. (Although <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128251-300-first-life-the-search-for-the-first-replicator/">there's been some fuss about the success in this field</a>, the gap between our current understanding and what would have been required under these circumstances is substantial.)<br />
<br />
A single self-replicating molecule doesn't account for cellular life, though. Many different molecules would be needed for a functional organism to arise.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<h3>
<b>Minimal Essential Organism</b></h3>
</div>
<div>
I wrote about <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2007/10/minimal-bacterial-genome.html">the work of Craig Venter on the Minimal Essential Organism</a> for a class back in 2007. In short, they took the simplest bacterium known to man, with a genome of roughly 480 protein-coding genes, and introduced mutations in order to figure out which genes were necessary for the life of the organism. In other words, how much could they simplify the organism before it couldn't survive? In the end, they found that nearly 380 of those genes were <i>essential</i> to life for the bacterium. This is the "minimal essential organism," as they understood it.</div>
<div>
<br />
On top of that, 29% of those essential genes were of "unknown function." This indicates that nearly a third of the functions essential to life at the molecular level remain unknown to us. (This may have changed in the intervening decade; it's unclear <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/we-made-a-minimal-cell-and-began-a-synthetic-life-revolution">what progress has been made</a> on that front.) Perhaps the first protocell was simpler, but it seems nearly impossible that we could determine how much so when we don't even understand the functions that are essential to life <i>now</i>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7jwIwYRuviGUq9EWqxJqw3ZxssiXP9SqWtirz5FTV_yonMGrOlI2BsFX-ZPdJ1-bP-OQ6yuW1bagYnah2oaeUnwdNV1nzJAYavRIrOFEmyK2Cf8xGwRc_PiFRqu59rZFwGMl5/s1600/Organization1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7jwIwYRuviGUq9EWqxJqw3ZxssiXP9SqWtirz5FTV_yonMGrOlI2BsFX-ZPdJ1-bP-OQ6yuW1bagYnah2oaeUnwdNV1nzJAYavRIrOFEmyK2Cf8xGwRc_PiFRqu59rZFwGMl5/s320/Organization1.JPG" width="309" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Given the various types of processes involved in molecular life, how do you determine which ones are superfluous?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That's quite a departure from the usual story about the very first cell, in which a few initial molecules self-replicate, errors in replication result in molecules of differing function, and then those functional molecules become trapped in a liposome, resulting in a functional entity which benefits from the segregated space for those molecular functions.</div>
<div>
<br />
The numbers above for the appearance of the molecules is staggeringly low, but it becomes absolutely mind-boggling when you consider that you have to have 380 <i>specific</i> sequences show up for life to be feasible. That ratio for the likelihood of an RNA-cell appearing becomes less 1 in <b>10<sup>11,000</sup></b>, a number so ridiculously low I can't even come up with a proper analogy for expressing just how insane that number is.<br />
<br />
<div>
<h3>
<b>Other problems</b></h3>
As if all of the above weren't reason enough to be skeptical, consider some further criticisms:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Stability of Purines vs. Pyrimidines</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
The amino acids that comprise all RNA falls into two categories. As it turns out, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9653118">they're not equally stable at the temperatures</a> you'd find around thermal ocean vents. The inability of these molecules to accumulate severely impacts the notion that RNA molecules could spontaneously assemble. The authors of the above piece suggest that life would have to have arisen in under 100 years under such conditions. Other groups speculate these reactions taking place at freezing temperatures instead, but that creates other problems.</div>
<ul>
<li><b>Synthesis of NTPs (Purine/Pyrimidine + Ribose + triphosphate)</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
It tends to be taken for granted that RNA is more than just the Purine/Pyrimidine base. It also consists of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleoside_triphosphate">a sugar and phosphate moiety</a> which creates the backbone of the chain. The triphosphate portion is incredibly important; the energy released by breaking that triphosphate apart facilitates the assembly of nucleotide chains. However, that reaction has to be catalyzed; it doesn't happen spontaneously. Same thing with the formation of a triphosphate molecule from a monophosphate molecule. </div>
<ul>
<li><b>Stability of RNA</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
It's a common curse of those who work with RNA that it is incredibly fragile. In large part, this is because nature is replete with enzymes that degrade RNA, but it's also because RNA is prone to hydrolysis and other chemical reactions. In other words, the first polynucleotides, even if they formed the right sequences to attain functionality, would also require specific conditions to maintain stability; otherwise they would have to accomplish a lot before succumbing to degradation (assuming they could assemble at all.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>(Update) Synthesis of Purines and Pyrimidines</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
Since the writing of this piece, I <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/chemists-may-be-zeroing-chemical-reactions-sparked-first-life?utm_source=newsfromscience&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=firstlife-13133">came across the work</a> of <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.471.html">Powner, Sutherland, and colleagues</a>, who have spent time using "early earth biochemistry" to generate first pyrimidine, and now purine analogs. Supposedly, this gives a plausible path for showing how life generated out of a prebiotic world. One problem with the work, though, is that these are analogs, and not the actual amino acids found in all living creatures. Similar is not often good enough in biology, and critics of the work point out that there's no good path to the actual amino acids from the analogs generated in these experiments.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A more confounding issue at play is their use of "<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7244/abs/nature08013.html">prebiotically plausible conditions</a>." That is, these analogs are synthesized under conditions that may have existed on the early Earth. That qualification is a big deal, because we really have no way of determining with certainty what conditions would have been. This is partly why there's so many different scenarios for life arising: Tide pools, undersea vents, hot springs, ice pockets, on and on it goes. </div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Conclusions</h3>
<div>
There are certainly objections to the way I've laid this out. Although the experiments I referenced above for the "simplest" cell describe ideal conditions, the first cell could have been a much simpler molecule; in an environment in which time is not a factor and there are no competing organisms to contend with, the first cell could possibly make do with very few functions. I find this unlikley for the reasons listed above, but it's not a baseless objection.<br />
<br />
I've also done a lot of "back of the envelope" calculations, so the math is also suspect; after all, these are numbers for the appearance of a single molecule, but when you have chemicals in solution, you get a very large number of molecular interactions every second. Multiply that by the very large volume of the ocean and the <i>millions</i> of years for life to appear and it seems almost inevitable that life should appear, right? </div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
Not as far as I'm concerned. Although accounting for reaction rate would give more opportunities for functional molecules to appear, that doesn't make improbable events any more probable. While a consideration of the various factors involved in this can quickly spiral into obscuring complexity, consider just the volume feature. The ocean is indeed a very large "reaction vessel," but its size prevents consideration of it as a singular entity. After all, two molecules formed on opposite sides of the planet are unlikely to ever interact. Further, the various hypotheses about the location of the origin of life, such as around thermal vents on the ocean floor or within the pockets of ice crystals, require the practical volume of where life originated to be considerably smaller, limited to the areas conducive to the chemistry at work here.<br />
<br />
The time feature isn't really helpful, either. If the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, life is estimated to have shown up <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/377-billion-year-old-fossils-stake-new-claim-oldest-evidence-life?utm_source=newsfromscience&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=oldlife-11430">anywhere from 400-750 million years</a> after the Earth was formed; perhaps even earlier. Given that water isn't thought to have formed for the first 100 million years, that leaves a window as small as 300 million years for life to form, or 9.5 x 10<sup>15</sup> seconds. That seems like a lot, but given the very small probabilities calculated above, the reaction rate per volume for the formation of these molecules would have to be . . . fast. Very fast.<br />
<br />
It could also be said that my understanding of the biochemistry of the RNA world would probably be considered simplistic by experts in the field. It's a broad field with a great deal of published work to support the hypotheses laid out by researchers, and I've barely skimmed the surface. On the other hand, many of the complications I bring up here are acknowledged in the literature. The proposed solutions to these problems often involve hypothetical, unknown nucleic acids that only existed in the primordial world, intermediate molecules that no we haven't seen, or chemical conditions and reactions that we haven't discovered and don't exist in nature any longer. When a hypothesis has to be papered over with imaginary molecules or black box chemistry, I think a measure of doubt is not unreasonable.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
In short, you have to have hundreds of very rare molecules forming in a relatively short period of time in close proximity, under very exacting (and possibly unknowable) conditions. Now, I've taken a very brief view of some incredibly complicated topics. I can't say that those events happening are absolutely impossible. I can't pretend that I have a comprehensive understanding of the fields. However, just based on the numbers alone, I think it takes <i>at least</i> as much faith to say that life spawned in the primordial soup as to hold to a religious view of human origins. I would say that these explanations only work when you've started from the conclusion that the answer to these questions must be naturalistic. As Frank Turek says in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615">the very title of his book</a>, I don't have enough faith to believe that this was the origin of life.</div>
</div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-27204396591746372872016-12-12T07:00:00.000-05:002016-12-12T07:00:00.163-05:00Chasing the Wind: Of Pain and Sovereignty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIyhzECRoye5tp-U-OfJtT4CRJketIWNNteTViWVkKaOjU4l_9vKPSOkW3i8awnhmADH78GLxPxs9aGLpVkdYvuOj9Yu50TIAlAfC2q7Mx2AH91xFQDWhG25jO57hqWl00B6HQ/s1600/bible-ecclesiastes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIyhzECRoye5tp-U-OfJtT4CRJketIWNNteTViWVkKaOjU4l_9vKPSOkW3i8awnhmADH78GLxPxs9aGLpVkdYvuOj9Yu50TIAlAfC2q7Mx2AH91xFQDWhG25jO57hqWl00B6HQ/s400/bible-ecclesiastes.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
In <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/09/chasing-wind-our-story.html">my last entry of the series</a>, I didn't dwell on the text of Ecclesiastes in order to present some arguments that I'd need to return to later. In retrospect, my discussion on God's sovereignty would have been all the better for consideration of the following text, although it was already lengthy enough. My purpose last time was addressing the criticism that our actions and lives cannot be meaningful if they cannot actually change the outcome. God's sovereignty, in that consideration, prevents us from having Meaning because nothing we do matters.<br />
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Although I did address this argument, it turns out there's another aspect of God's sovereignty which weighs on the heart.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>For everything there is an appointed time, and an appropriate time for every activity on earth: </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>A time to be born, and a time to die;<br /> a time to plant, and a time to uproot what was planted;<br />A time to kill, and a time to heal;<br /> a time to break down, and a time to build up;<br />A time to weep, and a time to laugh;<br /> a time to mourn, and a time to dance.<br />A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones;<br /> a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;<br />A time to search, and a time to give something up as lost;<br /> a time to keep, and a time to throw away;<br />A time to rip, and a time to sew;<br /> a time to keep silent, and a time to speak.<br />A time to love, and a time to hate;<br /> a time for war, and a time for peace. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>What benefit can a worker gain from his toil? I have observed the burden that God has given to people to keep them occupied. God has made everything fit beautifully in its appropriate time, but he has also placed ignorance in the human heart so that people cannot discover what God has ordained, from the beginning to the end of their lives.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I have concluded that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to enjoy themselves as long as they live, and also that everyone should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in all his toil, for these things are a gift from God.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I also know that whatever God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away from it. God has made it this way, so that men will fear him. Whatever exists now has already been, and whatever will be has already been; for God will seek to do again what has occurred in the past.</i> - Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 (NET)</blockquote>
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Considering all the ups and downs of life, the Teacher reaches the conclusion that God prevents us from seeing the coming and going of these matters, that what God ordains is beyond our ability to change, positively or negatively. What's left to us isn't to fret and worry about these things, but to simply live our lives and enjoy what we can. Jesus taught likewise when he asked whether someone could add even one hour to his life by worrying about it. (Matthew 6:25-34)<br />
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There's a lot to unpack here, but in my experience, the critic's primary reply to all of this is, "Why?" Why should there be downs with the ups? Why should there be a time to weep, to break down, to kill, to mourn? Why has God ordained such things in the lives of people He supposedly loves?<br />
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In short, these verses stand in contrast to the Problem of Pain.<br />
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You hear about this a lot in the field of apologetics. The argument is usually addressed as the Problem of Evil. The Problem, in short, asks why a loving God would permit evil to be perpetrated in this world. Either God is unable to do anything about evil, making Him powerless, or He actively allows it, making Him complicit in evil and thus evil Himself. While the Problem of Evil merely addresses those acts perpetrated by humans against one another, the Problem of Pain expands the scope to consider acts and occurrences that aren't evil, but still cause suffering. A natural disaster, for example, is not itself evil, but would fall under the scope of the Problem of Pain. This can range from merely banal to absolutely devastating.<br />
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The Christian world view has a lot to say on the Problem of Pain, more than can adequately be addressed in a single blog post. Be that as it may, there's one response to the Problem that I have seen in recent years which seems worth considering. The idea, in short, is that we are better off for our suffering. Like most Christian wisdom, this may seem counter-intuitive, but it merits examination.<br />
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<h3>
We are worse off without it</h3>
In 2013, sixteen year-old Ethan Crouch was driving drunk and speeding on a small road in Texas. He ended up crashing into two vehicles parked on the side of the road, killing four and injuring nine people, including passengers in his own vehicle.<br />
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At sentencing, Ethan was given 10 years of probation and long-term therapy at an in-patient facility. Ethan's lawyers had argued that he suffered from "affluenza;" having grown up wealthy and privileged, Ethan was completely disconnected from a world where actions have consequences. The judge agreed that Ethan needed rehabilitation, not punishment.<br />
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That verdict was widely panned, and rightly so. It didn't take long for Ethan to violate his parole and then flee to Mexico to avoid jail. Ethan's story doesn't have any happy endings to be found, but it does provide a great illustration of something every parent learns at some point: We have to be exposed to suffering, setback, and disappointment at some point or another. It's not just that we need to be prepared to experience the friction that comes with living in this world, but being spoiled the way Ethan was can result in a pronounced deficiency of character.<br />
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People who are spoiled don't know how to be told "no," and they don't react well to hearing it. They're often selfish and self-centered, because they're so used to having their own desires fulfilled without issue. Everything is disposable to them, even people; when something can be replaced easily, they don't appreciate the true value of anything. <br />
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I could go on. The point is clear, though: Pain is difficult, but to never experience it is worse. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<em>Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you do not experience discipline, something all sons have shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons. Besides, we have experienced discipline from our earthly fathers and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life? For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness. Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.</em> - Hebrews 12:7-13</blockquote>
<h3>
We can benefit from setbacks</h3>
The idea that suffering and pain might produce something good, both for us and for others, suffuses the scriptures. Consider the example of Joseph.<br />
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Hated by his brothers, they sold him into slavery out of jealousy. Despite thriving in his new role, a false accusation of rape landed him in prison for years. Yet from there, he eventually ascended to a role at the right hand of the king. When a terrible famine struck, it was Joseph's intervention that saved the land from starvation, including those same brothers that sold him into slavery so many years before.<br />
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At the end of it all, when he's finally reconciled to his family again, Joseph says them, "You devised evil against me, but God intended it for a good purpose." (Genesis 50:20)<br />
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To use more contemporary examples, you see lots of stories about famous people with lots of setbacks early in their careers. Harrison Ford struggled to get acting jobs, working as a carpenter until he landed a role in <em>American Graffiti.</em> Oprah Winfrey had a rough life growing up, and bounced between media jobs for a while before she took over a low-rated morning talk show in Chicago that would eventually launch her to fame. Colonel Sanders didn't establish KFC until he was 65, and before that he had a number of middling jobs and failed business ventures.<br />
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The point of such stories is usually to give people hope regarding their own career disappointments. It's rare that someone becomes an overnight success, and nobody experiences an endless parade of success and achievement. Everyone with some measure of worldly accomplishment took a winding road to get there. We're encouraged to take comfort in these stories and rest assured that success is often far more complicated and messy than we might realize.<br />
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This may be true, but I think of what would be had those careers not been so difficult. Had Oprah not struggled in her early career, we might only know her as the long-time host of the local news in Baltimore instead of a media giant. Would Harrison Ford have been better off if he'd become a successful carpenter rather than continuing to pursue acting?<br />
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The difficulty comes from applying this lesson beyond our careers. We're ready to accept this as wisdom because we want to believe that success is just around the corner: That big opportunity, that new job, that promotion, whatever it looks like, it's waiting for us. Enduring the pain of setbacks and disappointments doesn't seem so bad that way. <br />
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Looking at suffering elsewhere in our lives and seeing it as beneficial is a much taller order. A painful setback in our life doesn't necessarily open the door for other opportunities elsewhere. All the same, it's possible for good things to come from our pain and suffering, even if we can't see that at the time.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.</i> - Romans 5:3-4</blockquote>
<h3>
From the ashes comes beauty</h3>
Time Magazine is known for honoring a "person of year" in their publication. In 2013, Time also decided to rank the top 100 historical figures of all time. Perhaps this seems like an arbitrary exercise; after all, how do you decide whether Alexander Hamilton is more or less significant to history than Francis Bacon? One thing you notice when you peruse the list, though, is what marks these figures as noteworthy historical figures. Many of them are well-known for having fought injustice, for reducing or ending some source of human misery, for inventing technology that made saved lives. <br />
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All of these things exemplify character traits that we find praiseworthy in others: Mercy, generosity, charity, perseverance, etc. Yet, in a world without pain, where would any of these values come from? What meaning would they have when there is no need for charity, no difficulty to persevere through, no wounds to be healed?<br />
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There are other responses to suffering that bring beauty to this world. Many of the greatest works of art or the classics of literature are born of the pain of their creators. This is not to suggest that this is an equitable trade off; no one would ever suggest that we are better off for the Holocaust because it resulted in <em>Schindler's List</em>. We are, however, better off for the impulse it represents, that people can experience tragedy and pain and, in spite of it, create something wonderful.<br />
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The importance of this impulse cannot be understated. How we understand pain and how we respond to it are delicately woven together. Do we learn from it? Do we grow? Do we work through the difficulties and continue with life? Or do we wallow in misery and bitterness, becoming stuck in a quagmire of self-pity?<br />
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<h3>
The cry of the heart</h3>
We return to the words of the teacher, that there is no better response to suffering than for man to enjoy life as he may, for what else can we do? God remains the final arbiter of life, and we rarely understand how the events of life fit together. This situation, and any explanations for the problem of pain, may still leave some unsatisfied. Arguments like the above tend towards the cerebral, whereas suffering affects us on a deeply emotional and spiritual level. When we ask the question, "Why does God allow pain and suffering?" sometimes the actual question we're asking is, "Does God care about <em>my </em>pain and suffering?"<br />
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The God the Teacher writes about is not some aloof, unmoving tyrant completely divorced from our lives. He cares enough about human pain that He chose to enter into it personally, taking on human form and willingly experiencing the pain and suffering of this world. He felt hunger, grief, torture, and death; our suffering is not something alien to Him, but something he knows all too well.<br />
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As if that weren't enough, the believer is never left to endure his pain alone; if the Holy Spirit dwells within us, whom Jesus refers to as the "comforter," then God is always with us in our pain. If that is the case, then it <em>is</em> possible to grow in hard times, to be strengthened from discipline, and to enjoy the things in life that are still good, both the temporary and those that will endure forever. Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-23246390980730781822016-11-09T22:02:00.000-05:002016-11-09T22:02:38.407-05:00Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG - Campaign Characters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yxJFjjeMISkJ7Axoj6aTazpM2oRCXJUSYD7iTcdufC9uWGj2IWI4rROWltDDcRum_bDLBh235eCNdYbnvRdZ7u_OAPpP6zjjUucN3Ox6I4BSG5dqKPZkmgPVD2BRqSR3-PNa/s1600/8+-+conclusion.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3yxJFjjeMISkJ7Axoj6aTazpM2oRCXJUSYD7iTcdufC9uWGj2IWI4rROWltDDcRum_bDLBh235eCNdYbnvRdZ7u_OAPpP6zjjUucN3Ox6I4BSG5dqKPZkmgPVD2BRqSR3-PNa/s400/8+-+conclusion.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
With the news that <a href="https://www.comicbookmovie.com/justice_league/after-being-cancelled-in-2013-young-justice-is-finally-returning-a146611">Young Justice</a> is returning for a third season, it seemed like a good time to finish off my posts about my Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG. I've previously discussed <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/02/sentinels-of-multiverse-rpg-fate-edition.html">choosing the system</a> and the <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/02/sentinels-of-multiverse-fate-rpg.html">character building rules</a>. Now, it's time to meet the characters who inhabited my game.<br />
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As I've said before, the characters of <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page">Sentinel Comics</a> are homage to the comics we all know and love, with their own world filled with comic-book drama. Many of the characters have analogues, singular or combinations, in the DC or Marvel properties. For example, <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Legacy">Legacy</a>, <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Tachyon">Tachyon</a>, and <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Tachyon">The Wraith</a> are all homologous to Superman, The Flash, and Batman, respectively. <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Tempest">Tempest</a>, on the other hand, is more of a blend of the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, and Storm.<br />
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<a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/rpg-day-day-15.html">I mentioned this</a> during August and the RPG a Day binge, but the characters for my Sentinels campaign were inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Justice_(TV_series)">Young Justice</a>, a superhero team comprised of the side-kicks and proteges of the DC heroes. (The story of the campaign borrowed liberally from the first season of Young Justice, too.)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnCft_-8trQzGXLU96UMpSDtTrI8oLZDyIobUrtuvFhliPvGFUhONpwOiq80RgpQ9IvhO7GfaL0maTu7hqSTGY5PoHjqWXHim7d1utidAJosoPxKepaMZj1TiAvj6cYt-3gdR/s1600/Young-Justice-The-Team-Pose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnCft_-8trQzGXLU96UMpSDtTrI8oLZDyIobUrtuvFhliPvGFUhONpwOiq80RgpQ9IvhO7GfaL0maTu7hqSTGY5PoHjqWXHim7d1utidAJosoPxKepaMZj1TiAvj6cYt-3gdR/s400/Young-Justice-The-Team-Pose.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And . . . hero pose!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In total, there were nine characters in my game. This wasn't just because I had a bunch of fun making characters. I made the characters so that we could just jump into playing the game; if the people available to play at any given time changed, it wouldn't matter because there wasn't any connection between the players and the characters. Plus, with a variety of options for the players to choose from, they could experiment with different mechanics and play styles.<br />
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That was the intent, at least. In practice, the players tended to gravitate back to the first character that grabbed their attention in the first place. Not a bad thing, just not what I'd intended for the game. One player even made his own character,<br />
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Without further ado, meet the cast of the Young Sentinels.<br />
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<h3>
Silver Legacy</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_rDVQC-OTrOG2Ax_8kCyjumnf8JwzkrnO0B-stqAZz6sOv6XV73b9dc4X-jegLO29AuHZkcJfKc7PB280IJula3R03h9hDt2Hp4Wylu8gxAbJDy9VtKklcadAfhUu0Y7KNIxA/s1600/Argentum+Character+Sheet+Accelerated+v2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_rDVQC-OTrOG2Ax_8kCyjumnf8JwzkrnO0B-stqAZz6sOv6XV73b9dc4X-jegLO29AuHZkcJfKc7PB280IJula3R03h9hDt2Hp4Wylu8gxAbJDy9VtKklcadAfhUu0Y7KNIxA/s320/Argentum+Character+Sheet+Accelerated+v2.png" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For some reason, this is an outdated version of the character, but it's close enough.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
Silver Legacy was a clone of Legacy, developed by a covert government agency to be a counter to Legacy's power if he were to go rogue. (Not that they had <a href="http://sotm.wikidot.com/villain:iron-legacy">any reason to fear that</a>.) This made Silver Legacy very much like Superboy, and I played off of the cartoon incarnation's personality traits as well. The PCs rescued Silver Legacy from a secret facility in the first session.</div>
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<h3>
Cyclone</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKTBI53MOizNF6vbd3-lTIRFW8HethZiyE4QvJ2lSIEMJSMorKbSC_FZRf2N9TI964Bz0Z8eVhRzvLNwlcLOQAcLnkemUya8XJj-NKQc1-kEAfD8huwh-RQqt2OKl5ldamzIIc/s1600/Cyclone+Character+Sheet+Accelerated.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKTBI53MOizNF6vbd3-lTIRFW8HethZiyE4QvJ2lSIEMJSMorKbSC_FZRf2N9TI964Bz0Z8eVhRzvLNwlcLOQAcLnkemUya8XJj-NKQc1-kEAfD8huwh-RQqt2OKl5ldamzIIc/s320/Cyclone+Character+Sheet+Accelerated.png" width="247" /></a></div>
<div>
Tempest is an alien, of a race known as Maerynians, and a refugee from a war-ravaged world who ended up on Earth while fleeing from the forces of <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Grand_Warlord_Voss">Grand Warlord Voss</a>. Cyclone is his son. Not exactly an Aqualad analog, but the closest to the Young Justice cast. He was meant to be overly eager to live up to his father's accomplishments, without realizing just how alien his presence truly is on Earth. </div>
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<div>
Incidentally, the Maerynian refugees ended up taking up residence in <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Ruins_of_Atlantis">the ruins of Atlantis</a>. It seemed appropriate.</div>
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<h3>
The Dreamer</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg42r8TyUbax7CmxloDe9JsVf2xoaIHABdfvM9uu73DXSWrKgdd75zeB2kmwSaANrTSzjf3U1vKNXmiO3Uv2-akO4c65XgdbYLimChjoSZE82ZjoZvbSsdFdvmRVt9C3CMKskCe/s1600/Dreamer+Character+Sheet+Accelerated+v4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg42r8TyUbax7CmxloDe9JsVf2xoaIHABdfvM9uu73DXSWrKgdd75zeB2kmwSaANrTSzjf3U1vKNXmiO3Uv2-akO4c65XgdbYLimChjoSZE82ZjoZvbSsdFdvmRVt9C3CMKskCe/s320/Dreamer+Character+Sheet+Accelerated+v4.png" width="247" /></a></div>
<div>
Vanessa Long, <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Visionary">The Visionary</a>, has a complicated history in the world of Sentinel Comics. Her tremendous psychic powers were the result of military experiments performed on her mother while Vanessa was still in the womb. Her parents died when she was born because of said powers. Once her powers developed, she went back in time to prevent the death of her parents. Unfortunately, her young paradoxical self still manifested nightmarish psychic powers as <a href="http://sotm.wikidot.com/villain:the-dreamer">The Dreamer</a>.</div>
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<div>
In my take on the Sentinel Comics universe, The Visionary later died à la Dark Phoenix. The Dreamer remained, and resolved to pick up the late hero's mantle. Because her powers are unstable and dangerous, the Freedom Force keeps her around both to train her and to monitor her stability.</div>
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<h3>
Flashpoint</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvHVS_lxbILlNKR2VMx6l3Eb48ycr7ooPH7oBAfk-chvfo5J1VvGZgXsongaas52L0EwPiCOkRstX6XO1uDnfjzxAoZykS8N8ZLbSvIENmyUGIb28Hu1NNh4dkKVsbexga0FC/s1600/Flashpoint+Character+Sheet+Accelerated.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvHVS_lxbILlNKR2VMx6l3Eb48ycr7ooPH7oBAfk-chvfo5J1VvGZgXsongaas52L0EwPiCOkRstX6XO1uDnfjzxAoZykS8N8ZLbSvIENmyUGIb28Hu1NNh4dkKVsbexga0FC/s320/Flashpoint+Character+Sheet+Accelerated.png" width="247" /></a></div>
<div>
Flashpoint is the polar opposite of an existing Sentinels character, <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Absolute_Zero">Absolute Zero</a>. Absolute Zero is like a mash-up of Mr. Freeze and Iron Man, trapped in a suit that protects him due to his sub-zero body temperatures; the suit allows him to channel those temperatures into ice blasts. Flashpoint suffers from the opposite problem, with body temperatures so high that the world around him burns. This makes him somewhat akin to the Human Torch. As he can't control the effect, however, his suit makes it possible for him to walk in the world without destroying it, and allowing him to channel it to "productive" ends.</div>
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<h3>
Glare</h3>
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<div>
Glare was a blind girl who received her powers from a scientific experiment gone wrong. Her sight was restored, but she ended up with uncontrollable laser vision. She takes an obvious cue from Cyclops in this way. </div>
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I didn't get to do much with her character. She was meant to be somewhat clumsy and inept in combat, a result of being blind her entire life and thus not a physical powerhouse. </div>
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Also, my initial plan was to have her power level change depending on the level of ambient light, since she absorbs and channels the light. However, it ended up being a rather clunky mechanic that I had to simplify.</div>
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<h3>
Luxon</h3>
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Luxon is the niece of Tachyon. A great admirer of her aunt's scientific prowess, she attempted to recreate the experiment that gave Tachyon her powers. She succeeded, gaining the super speed that made her aunt's heroics possible. </div>
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This makes Luxon very much like Kid Flash. Once again, I also borrowed from Kid Flash's personality as he was in the cartoon.</div>
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For what it's worth, converting Luxon from Fate Core to Fate Accelerated was complicated. The "speedster" example given in <a href="https://fate-srd.com/venture-city">Venture City Stories</a> wasn't particularly friendly to Fate Accelerated. </div>
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<h3>
Spectre</h3>
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What Robin was to Batman, Spectre is to The Wraith: A young ward taken in and trained to fight crime after she lost her family to the blight of <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Rook_City(Environment)">Rook City</a>.<br />
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Building Spectre was complicated. I wanted her to be adept in martial combat, but it seemed like she shouldn't be competent in the same way that, say, Silver Legacy was. So assigning the right combination of skills and stunts was key. But handling stunts was an issue itself. The Venture City rules associates the Special Effects/Drawback/Collateral Damage features with actual superpowers. Being unpowered, it seemed like Spectre ought to skip those features but get more fate points in compensation. Ultimately, I just applied those power features to her anyhow; it's one of the unique and fun features of the rule system, so why make someone go without?<br />
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<h3>
Switchblade</h3>
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<div>
Switchblade was actually the creation of one of my players; it warms a GM's heart when you have a player that gets so enthusiastic about your game that he makes characters for it even when he doesn't have to. </div>
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Switchblade is the daughter of <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Baron_Blade">Baron Blade</a>, a Lex Luthor-like figure and Legacy's nemesis. A scientist and engineering genius after her father, she turned to join with the heroes after she realized the extent of her father's villainy.</div>
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<h3>
Trickshot</h3>
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One of the central features of the Sentinel Comics story is time travel/alternate dimensions. It's weird, but you see so much of it in Marvel and DC comics that it's just another vehicle for drama. In my iteration of the setting, the conclusion of a temporal catastrophe ended up stranding people from various alternate worlds in this reality. One of those people was Trickshot: The son of two heroes, <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Expatriette">Expatriette </a>and <a href="http://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Setback">Setback</a>, who weren't actually together in this world. Awkward.</div>
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Trickshot went through a lot of iterations. The use of various guns wasn't too difficult, but the aura of chaos and randomness borrowed from Setback was difficult to put together in a way that made it actually useful to the player. If I ever revisit these characters in a game, I may still change how those powers work.</div>
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<h3>
Wrapping up</h3>
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Some of these characters weren't particularly original, but I had fun building them using the rules I'd developed for a Sentinels Fate game, and they fit into the world of Sentinel Comics just fine. </div>
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I still have one more post I'd like to write about this game, explaining the spin I put on the Sentinel Comics setting and the story for the sessions. I also want to talk about some of the ideas I tried to incorporate into the game that did or didn't work. </div>
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Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-52825392954104696922016-09-28T11:19:00.001-04:002016-09-29T15:16:43.645-04:00Missionaries to MarsEvery time there's exciting news about space, whether it's missions of exploration, the discovery of new celestial bodies, or an advancement in relevant technology, speculation starts flying about extraterrestrial life. One variant of that you don't see very often popped up in the Wall Street Journal: <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/could-aliens-have-souls-that-need-saving-1474655256">"Could Aliens Have Souls That Need Saving?"</a><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Post title shamelessly stolen from <a href="http://www.albertmohler.com/2016/09/27/briefing-09-27-16/">Albert Mohler</a>.</td></tr>
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(If you don't have access to the WSJ, the <a href="http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2016/9/25/the-wall-street-journal-gets-religion-and-aliens-in-los-angeles">discussion of said article over at Get Religion</a> is worth reading.)<br />
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The question at hand: If alien life were discovered, would Christians have to share the Gospel with them? It's not a new question, although it's usually expanded to consider the role of cosmology in Christian theology as well. CS Lewis wrote a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Trilogy">series of books</a> about it, for example.<br />
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There's a few ways of looking at this.<br />
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<ul>
<li>The positive case would state that, since Adam's sin caused the Fall to ripple out through all of creation, then aliens would also be in need of redemption. </li>
<li>The negative case would state that, since any alien life would not be descended from Adam, they would not be inheritors of Adam's sinful nature and thus not bound by the details of Christian theology. </li>
<li>The demure case would state that, since the Bible says nothing, positive or negative, about life beyond Earth, then speculation about the theological ideas surrounding it is improper. </li>
</ul>
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Dr. Mohler argues the latter case, incidentally. </div>
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As for me, I'm a contrarian on this topic. The question is hypothetical, but I'm convinced that the possibility of alien life is so poor that it's not worth taking seriously. Allow me to explain.</div>
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<a name='more'></a><h3>
Deconstructing Drake</h3>
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If you've never heard of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation">Drake Equation</a>, it's a speculative equation for calculating the probable number of planets with communicative, extraterrestrial civilizations. It suffices for the sake of this discussion. The terms of the equation (per Wikipedia):</div>
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<ul>
<li><b>R*</b> = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy</li>
<li><b>fp</b> = the fraction of those stars that have planets</li>
<li><b>ne</b> = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets</li>
<li><b>fl</b> = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point</li>
<li><b>fi </b>= the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)</li>
<li><b>fc</b> = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space</li>
<li><b>L </b>= the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space</li>
</ul>
The product of those terms is supposed to represent the number of extraterrestrial civilizations with which we might communicate. </div>
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The most immediate criticism of the equation is that most of the terms are completely unknowable. This can be seen in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis">Rare Earth criticism</a> of the equation, which restates the equation in such a way as to emphasize the extreme unlikelihood of these events. It's a lot to restate much of the case there. For example, the extreme galactic radiation and gravitational forces would most certainly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System#Galactic_context">prevent life from forming in the galactic center</a>. That's where the highest density of stars in our galaxy lies, so most life would have to form in the less crowded outer sections. Except, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_habitable_zone">it can't form <i>too</i> far out there</a>, because the spiral arms are home to many supernovae that would also disrupt the formation of life. </div>
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In short, Earth rests in a sweet spot, both in our solar system and in the galaxy, but there's only a fraction of the planets in the galaxy in that sweet spot. Of those, how many actually have conditions under which life could develop? I still intend to write a post on the topic alone, but my feelings on the chemical origin of life are . . . not positive. Although there is much speculation on the ability of life to survive in climates very different from Earth, supposedly expanding the "ne" term above, the "fl" term, as far as I'm concerned, is <i>extremely</i> low. Zero, for all intents and purposes. Frankly, by the viewpoint of scientific naturalism, life shouldn't even exist on <i>Earth</i>, much less any other planet. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Hospitable" climates like this aren't particularly common.</td></tr>
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<h3>
For all practical purposes</h3>
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Perhaps I'm being overly critical of a hypothetical situation. What <i>if</i> alien life actually <i>did</i> exist on other worlds? </div>
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It actually wouldn't make a difference. For all practical purposes, we're alone. </div>
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I explained <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/09/theres-no-place-like-home.html">in my last post on astronomical matters</a> that travel between stars is essentially impossible. Our closest neighboring star, a mere four light years away, would take thousands of years to reach. Even assuming speed of light travel, reaching other planets in the habitable ring of the Milky Way is still a journey of years beyond human lifespans. </div>
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That's not even considering other galaxies, where the distances are measured in <i>millions</i> of light years. </div>
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If we're not visiting other planets, and they're not visiting us, could we at least communicate?</div>
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Consider your local radio station. You can't listen to it beyond a certain distance. This is because the signal dissipates as it travels from the broadcast site; eventually, it becomes too weak, too indistinct, to be distinguished over background noise. You could solve this issue by increasing the amount of power put into the broadcast, or you can focus the signal to aim it at a specific location.</div>
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This signal dissipation becomes problematic at interstellar distances. Let's take the example of <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-star-signal-stokes-seti-hopes-but-could-be-earthly/">the signal SETI detected back in August</a>. That came from a star system roughly 94 light years away. Here's what was said of the signal at the time:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Based on the received signal's characteristics, aliens would have to generate about 100 billion billion watts of energy to blast it out in all directions. And they'd still have to produce more than 1 trillion watts if they beamed it only to Earth for some reason, Shostak said.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The first number is hundreds of times more than all the sunlight falling on Earth," he said. "That's a very big energy bill."</blockquote>
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To be clear, 1 trillion watts is still an awful lot of energy. It's roughly the entire energy generated in the US for two solid weeks; or, if you prefer, the entire energy output of a modest nuclear bomb. </div>
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The idea of a directed signal is often thought unlikely; after all, you'd have to know the planet was actually there. Even then, the energy needed to directly contact other planets is . . . well, implausible. The bill for contacting something "relatively" nearby, less than 100 light years, is immense. <a href="http://www.space.com/33357-china-largest-radio-telescope-alien-life.html">Fancy radio telescopes</a> can't change those numbers. What about something further out than that? </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But can they see why kids love the cinnamon taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?</td></tr>
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<h3>
And then a miracle happens</h3>
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Well, you could start speculating about Dyson Spheres and higher-order Kardashev civilizations, but that sort of stuff is entirely imaginary. The same thing for traversing the distances, much less surviving them. We have to imagine technology that is, by our understanding of the laws of physics, utterly impossible. </div>
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It's entirely premised on the idea that these civilizations would be much <i>older</i> than ours, and that by merit of their age, they've somehow learned far more than us. After all, our current tech would seem like magic to society a century ago; imagine if a civilization had a million, or even a billion years on us. </div>
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That argument presupposes that our understanding is still insufficient. Not that I'd assume we know all there is to know about everything, but there's only so far you can take that before it gets into fairy-tale understandings of science. It boils down to an argument of, "Well, just because it's practically impossible and we have zero evidence for any of this doesn't mean there isn't a chance it might be true someday."</div>
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And they say Christian faith is superstitious nonsense based on blind faith. </div>
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You can mull over <a href="http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html">the Fermi Paradox</a> as much as you like, but as far as I'm concerned, humans are unique in the universe. Even if we're not, we might as well be. So, no. I don't think it's worth it to fret about the state of alien souls. Don't we have enough theological concerns about life on Earth as it is?</div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-66332721809671334472016-09-26T14:38:00.000-04:002016-09-26T14:39:02.892-04:00Chasing the Wind: Our Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I mentioned in <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/chasing-wind.html">the first entry for this series</a> that I've been re-reading some philosophy books. In A.J. Ayer's essay, <i>The Claims of Philosophy</i>, I came across this paragraph:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But for now, it may be objected, suppose that the world is designed by a superior being. In that case, the purpose of our existence will be the purpose that it realizes for him; and the meaning of life will be found in our conscious adaptation to his purpose. But here again, the answer is, first, that there is no good reason whatsoever for believing that there is any such superior being; and, secondly, that even if there were, he could not accomplish what is here required of him. For let us assume, for the sake of argument, that everything happens as it does because a superior being has intended that it should.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
. . . The point is, in short, that even the invocation of a deity does not enable us to answer the question why things are as they are. </blockquote>
I've left out the details of the argument, and Ayer goes on like this quite a bit more; Kai Nielsen repeats Ayer's argument in his essay, <i>Linguistic Philosophy and "The Meaning of Life."</i> (I don't recommend the latter. Linguistic Philosophy, as a field, seems like endless pontification on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0">what the meaning of "is" is</a> with the assumption that such navel gazing is profound.) There's much to say in response to this line of argument, but it becomes easier to do so in the context of the Christian world view. In other words, the response to all of these different formulations and perspectives on Meaning becomes understandable in the light of the story Christians tell about the Meaning of Life.<br />
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Maybe this comes off as surprising to some. Christians have an answer to the question of Meaning? What is the Christian answer here?<br />
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<i>We were made to be in relationship with God.</i><br />
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Does that seem too simple? It really isn't. To make the most sense of this, we have to go back to the beginning. Before that, really.<br />
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<h3>
<a name='more'></a>For the love of God</h3>
<div>
In a sense, this story starts at Creation. However we understand these passages, Genesis 1 is the Biblical narrative of God's deliberate action in crafting the universe, the Earth, and mankind in particular.<br />
<br />
What about before that? What was happening before "In the beginning?" The Bible has very little to say about things before then; much of this gets inferred from what is written. </div>
<br />
We know God is eternal. We know that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were all present before the creation of the world. Thus, we know there was already, in a sense, relationship between the three persons of the triune Godhead. Thus, God's act of creation wasn't out of any sense of "loneliness," as if God lacked anything for the absence of mankind, nor was it born of a desire to see mankind tested or punished.<br />
<br />
No, God made us for Himself (Colossians 1:16.) We, the creatures of the sixth day, were created to be in relationship with God, to love and be loved by Him. There is a sense of intimacy in this in Genesis 2; for all of the creatures of the world, the text simply says "God created," yet for humans, we get a much closer look at these things. God sets aside a special place for us, even spent time among us (Genesis 3:8.)<br />
<br />
In this act of creation, God didn't make us as mindless automatons, toys with pull-strings to bleat out pre-programmed phrases. How meaningful could "love" be in that case? Part of the relevance of being made "in the image of God" is the free will we received, the ability to choose to obey and seek after God or not. That decision wasn't without consequence; we disobeyed, and have felt the ramifications for that ever since.<br />
<br />
This isn't the end of the story, of course. God's love for us wouldn't let that chasm of sin separate us from God. Thus, the entire Biblical narrative, from Genesis to Revelation, is the story of reconciliation between God and Man (Acts 17:22-31.) None of this is forceful; God invites people to return to Him, it isn't forced upon them.<br />
<br />
I've severely abbreviated an idea that stretches across the whole of scripture, but that's the Christian metanarrative in a nutshell. Mankind was made to be in relationship with God. We wrestle with this question of Meaning because, in the deep place of our soul, we feel the distance from the One who made us, and only in Him can those longings find fulfillment. As Augustine put it: "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee."<br />
<br />
The world outside of the Church tells its story about us. This is our story about the world. Ayer dismissed it out of hand, claiming that there's "no good reason" to believe in God. I respectfully disagree, but that's not the argument at hand here.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A question of sovereignty </h3>
Returning to Ayer, it's worth starting at the beginning of his argument. Like Nielsen and so many others, Ayer started the essay faffing about with the "meaning of meaning." This section starts with thinking about purpose. In the absence of God, thinking about the "purpose" of your life really just amounts to asking, "What were the conditions and how were affairs ordered that resulted in my life?" As he puts it, there's no real difference in this case between an explanation and a mere description of events. The answer is purely arbitrary.<br />
<br />
Ayer reluctantly allows God into the picture, but this doesn't resolve the matter. The sovereignty of God mucks about with the argument. After all, if God has a Will, His intended "way" for things to be, then nothing we do matters, and thus can't be meaningful, because it won't change the outcome. Nor can our actions be meaningful if we can't know God's intended outcome and join in on it. On the other hand, if our actions could change the outcome, then in what way is God sovereign? This problem remains, according to Ayer, regardless of whether God's purpose can be known.<br />
<br />
Christians have wrestled with the question of God's sovereignty for ages. There's a Biblical understanding of how God can be sovereign and yet man is still responsible for choosing wisely, though it would be a bit much to get into for this post. The primary questions, however, rest around what we mean by "God's Will."<br />
<br />
If we mean God's desire that man should be restored to a right relationship with Him, then God's sovereignty isn't a consideration. After all, God does not exercise sovereignty in this matter in favor of giving men the freedom to choose God or not.<br />
<br />
If we mean God's "working out" of the course of human history towards desired ends, such as the birth of the Messiah or the events of the book of Revelation, then such considerations are irrelevant to human behavior. We aren't in a position to understand the moving parts and motivations the way God would, although that is not the only caveat.<br />
<br />
Consider this analogy: Imagine your friend is throwing a party and invites you to attend. He asks that you bring paper plates for the party. For whatever reason, you end up having to cancel attending the party. Your friend asks someone else to bring the paper plates.<br />
<br />
Nobody would think to themselves, "It doesn't matter whether I attend the party or not; my friend will have paper plates either way." Such thinking misses the point of the invitation and most likely played no role in the choice to attend or not. Note how that feeds back into the idea of purpose in life. I've yet to meet a scientist who declined to study a topic because any discovery would be made regardless of their work. A chef could fret that people already have plenty of options for eating food, and they'll fill their bellies one way or another; somehow, people still find the gumption to open new restaurants. Our participation in God's Will is invitational and relational. God's Will may remain unaltered in the latter sense, but the consequences of our decisions still affect <i>us,</i> and thus God's Will in the former sense.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynAQFa8yaRAr_Rz3oxSlMOfaVRo9EilYOnyoAEd43nGBWQflb2zJatMARrZHWL9NZmgS-XtYEINPeIZftTHCSaNJ1MKwHpoOY8aNzmMYYuU7_RSVp6caDEcjvLqZYhzV8PqyR/s1600/1-150313144K90-L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynAQFa8yaRAr_Rz3oxSlMOfaVRo9EilYOnyoAEd43nGBWQflb2zJatMARrZHWL9NZmgS-XtYEINPeIZftTHCSaNJ1MKwHpoOY8aNzmMYYuU7_RSVp6caDEcjvLqZYhzV8PqyR/s1600/1-150313144K90-L.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not the most profound analogy I've ever used, but it gets the point across. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3>
How, then, shall we live?</h3>
As it stands, God's sovereignty is beside the point in terms of the question of Meaning. Ayer's objections confuse the human and divine perspectives of God's sovereignty and aren't relevant to the way people actually think and feel about Meaning in the first place. Ayer partially acknowledges this; he follows the above remarks as such:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And so, to whatever level our explanations may be carried, the final statement is never an answer to the question "Why?" but necessarily only an answer to the question "How?" . . . But what is required by those who seek to know the purpose of their existence is not a factual description of the way that people actually do conduct themselves, but rather a decision as to how they should conduct themselves.</blockquote>
Ayer's point is that the real question behind Meaning is about how one should live their life in order to achieve a feeling of meaningfulness. Both Ayer and Nielsen get caught up in the error of confusing that feeling of meaningfulness with the question of Meaning, but they're not wrong when they observe that Meaning is bound up with how we ought to live. After all, if we were made for a purpose, that should necessarily change our course in life.<br />
<br />
The Christian story coincides beautifully with this. Consider Jesus's declaration about the greatest commandments:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”</i> - Matthew 22:36-40</blockquote>
This is the outworking of the Biblical story. If we are made to be in relationship with God, if the culmination and greatest fulfillment of our lives is to be made right with Him, then the command to love Him in every facet of our being is a response that flows naturally. If God has this relentless, unceasing affection for us, then to love those that He loves is the essential way to honor that love.<br />
<br />
We tend to get caught up on the specifics of "how," of course; what form should loving one's neighbor take in our lives at any given time. <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2013/05/heading-whisper-epilogue.html">This is worth wrestling over</a>, to be sure, but to get lost in a question of Meaning on this front is to miss the forest for the trees. If we <i>do</i> love God, and we <i>are</i> loving our neighbor, then we waste time worrying that we have missed out on something or made a mistake in the "how." As it's been said, "God loves adverbs. He doesn't care how good, but how well."<br />
<br />
<h3>
Laying the groundwork</h3>
This, in short, is the Christian story. (Although, if you read all of this, it might not seem that short.) We were made to be in relation to a God who bent Heaven and Earth to reconcile our hearts to His, and that plays out in our lives through love for one another. All of this together leads to a coherent vision of man and his role in this world.<br />
<br />
I stated at the beginning of this post that the Christian response to other narratives about Meaning becomes clear in light of this narrative. Ayer's misunderstanding of divine sovereignty, for example. Other writers assume that only actions which have eternal consequences are meaningful, or that Meaning is a purely subjective arrangement. I'll get to those ideas in future posts; hopefully I'll be able, eventually, to address all of the essays in the book I've been reading. By laying out the Christian perspective now, however, I hope that the response to those ideas becomes much clearer in the future.Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-17012791552491235652016-09-13T14:35:00.002-04:002016-09-13T14:37:41.792-04:00There's No Place Like Home<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc-BYFeJckI0lKPMNjfl-PWcAqO7OX8NRXVTE0gVUZQkobJWqFFaXnRPsLYJga7wN7eXGndL6DMCOwNB3qgbxt1bUYiC10PFVYOLFhTG0ZzqxGjkRcKVrUU8cA0hyP51xz5YmN/s1600/080D3120-603F-4E4A-83B9EFCAF26ECC6C.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc-BYFeJckI0lKPMNjfl-PWcAqO7OX8NRXVTE0gVUZQkobJWqFFaXnRPsLYJga7wN7eXGndL6DMCOwNB3qgbxt1bUYiC10PFVYOLFhTG0ZzqxGjkRcKVrUU8cA0hyP51xz5YmN/s400/080D3120-603F-4E4A-83B9EFCAF26ECC6C.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background: rgb(255 , 255 , 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "benton" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Howdy neighbor!"</span><i style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #999999; font-family: Benton, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline;"> Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser</i></td></tr>
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I've got another post in the works on topic of Meaning, but it's been almost two weeks since my last post went up, and I wanted to break the silence with something that's a bit easier to write.<br />
<br />
There's been quite a bit of news about the universe lately. First, there was the short-lived bit of excitement about <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-star-signal-stokes-seti-hopes-but-could-be-earthly/">SETI detecting a radio burst from deep space</a>. Then <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-earth-next-door/">we detected an "Earth-like" planet</a> around our closest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri. A scientist even <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/09/10/misra-intelligent/7F0TH4JUoCPDi97VzkSp0M/story.html">wrote a recent piece for the Boston Globe</a> about directed panspermia, the theory that life on Earth originated, indeed, was specifically seeded, from extraterrestrial sources.<br />
<br />
Most of this is nonsensical. The SETI signal is most likely Earth-based interference, or at the very least random noise amplified by natural phenomena. Proxima B, even if it's located in the "Goldilocks zone," is unlikely to be able to support life as we might appreciate it for all kinds of reasons. Even the author of the panspermia piece recognizes that it's not a particularly compelling theory, and it only moves the goalposts when working out the problems with the chemical origin of life. (That's a topic I've been meaning to address someday.)<br />
<br />
Still, people get very excited about the idea of life on other planets. It's certainly been a staple of science fiction since the genre came about. Given all the recent talk related to that idea in the news, I wasn't surprised to see this article: <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-will-it-take-for-humans-to-colonize-the-milky-way1/">What will it take for humans to colonize the Milky Way?</a><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
It starts off this way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The idea that humans will eventually travel to and inhabit other parts of our galaxy was well expressed by the early Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who wrote, “Earth is humanity’s cradle, but you’re not meant to stay in your cradle forever.” Since then the idea has been a staple of science fiction, and thus become part of a consensus image of humanity’s future. Going to the stars is often regarded as humanity’s destiny, even a measure of its success as a species. But in the century since this vision was proposed, things we have learned about the universe and ourselves combine to suggest that moving out into the galaxy may not be humanity’s destiny after all.</blockquote>
The author goes on to discuss the problems of actually transporting people across the vast distances of space: How to organize society, how to provide enough food for those people, how to keep their ship functional when it is a closed system in terms of resources, etc. All of these problems stem from the fact that any attempt to colonize another planet would be a generational endeavor.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC530uHoX_6aHrT84gcu7VHWMa7znGYszOOn0jtzfZZ5SMmwOOBENYFWcLtahnnY0vtKN02qpgYCNRHdPuiIzP0mZOp7ZCxVgczz_KLnw4LzK97i_3ORHpVVCvI-uEKc1F5E8i/s1600/c79c66a34079484b8c77ffc0158a4116.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC530uHoX_6aHrT84gcu7VHWMa7znGYszOOn0jtzfZZ5SMmwOOBENYFWcLtahnnY0vtKN02qpgYCNRHdPuiIzP0mZOp7ZCxVgczz_KLnw4LzK97i_3ORHpVVCvI-uEKc1F5E8i/s400/c79c66a34079484b8c77ffc0158a4116.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Although I could probably get on board with this.</td></tr>
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Why generational? Note my use of the phrase "vast distances" above. We tend to downplay those distances for one reason or another, but it's what I would call <i>insurmountable</i>.<br />
<br />
Take Proxima Centauri for example. It's our closest neighboring star, at a cozy little distance of 4.25 light years away. If you're not aware, a light year is the distance light can travel in a year; in more familiar terms, that's about 40 <i>trillion</i> kilometers.<br />
<br />
That's a <i>big</i> distance. How much time would it take to travel that span? <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/15403/how-long-would-it-take-to-travel-to-the-nearest-star/#">It depends on how you calculate it</a>. Most of our current technology would measure the trip in tens of thousands of years. Speculative technologies, unproven but being bandied about, drop it into the thousands. Theoretical tech can get it under 100 years, but that stuff remains in the realm of science fiction. Even a propulsion system that could go at the speed of light would still take four years, and we've seen that extended time is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_spaceflight_on_the_human_body">not good</a> for humans. Anything faster than that, such as Star Trek's warp drives, remain entirely imaginary.<br />
<br />
Of course, that's just to get to our nearest neighbor. Which has a planet that <i>might </i>support life. (Can you imagine the disappointment of sending a ship there that would take 50,000 years to arrive, only to find out it can't support life at all?) <a href="http://www.space.com/18964-the-nearest-stars-to-earth-infographic.html">Our other neighbors</a>, however, are progressively further and further away; visiting them would be even more prohibitive.<br />
<br />
All of this is to say that, at least as far as I'm concerned, we're not travelling to the stars. We're not colonizing the Milky Way. There will be no Federation of Planets. This is it; we're stuck here on Earth.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQczXJIMMZme5KWc9Gfnw2Pu8PGYwp4cYK42ipG_kp5h7o1-Ai7iw6RI1aqEa9BoHMlsVHvrsvq2Tq0bPCFA9MrR-Loxz6Fg1upkZn5HR16ZCV0CUH0g7FcKjf8wPx3vGUFLiK/s1600/Earth_Western_Hemisphere_transparent_background.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQczXJIMMZme5KWc9Gfnw2Pu8PGYwp4cYK42ipG_kp5h7o1-Ai7iw6RI1aqEa9BoHMlsVHvrsvq2Tq0bPCFA9MrR-Loxz6Fg1upkZn5HR16ZCV0CUH0g7FcKjf8wPx3vGUFLiK/s400/Earth_Western_Hemisphere_transparent_background.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Be it ever so humble.</td></tr>
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I think most people probably realize this on some level. I understand the impulse to dream about the stars, though. It's not just the human fascination with new horizons, the urge to explore and understand. Life on Earth is rough. As a collective society, we've got our share of problems: War, famine, disease, poverty, conflicts at every conceivable scale. As long as there's been a frontier, people have looked to it as the solution to social problems. It's the chance to start over. Leave the conflicts maladies behind and do things right. It's not always utopian, but there's still the prevailing sentiment that things will be better.<br />
<br />
We can't really do that on Earth anymore; we've spread out to every corner of the globe that can support human life. There's no escaping the problems and starting over, no running from the entangling governments, no isolation from the social strife that seems overwhelming at times. So we dream about the stars as the next great frontier, the next chance to escape destruction if we "screw it up" as a planet, Wall-E style.<br />
<br />
As Christians, we completely understand this sentiment. We recognize just how pervasive the influence of sin in this world can be. There's not a single human institute or endeavor that isn't corrupted in some way. Our hope isn't that we'll get to escape these maladies, but that there will be <i>redemption </i>for them (see Romans 8:18-25). We don't have to dream about other planets because we trust God when He says that He's still watching out for this one.<br />
<br />
I realize not everyone sees things that way. All the same, I think there's far better reasons to believe that we will shine like stars than that mankind will live among them.Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-9154292853660191072016-09-01T17:27:00.002-04:002016-09-01T17:27:29.048-04:00RPG a Day - Post MortemI started doing the "RPG a Day" activity as a way of jump-starting the writing process. You might notice the blog's been a little thin on content the last few, erm . . . years. <br />
<br />
Well, it was certainly successful on that score. My enthusiasm for writing has been reinvigorated, although I can't say my time available for such things is any more abundant.<br />
<br />
I'm rather proud I managed to put something up every day but the last for this. I'd been writing several of the posts at a time and scheduling them to go out, but that last one just got away from me.<br />
<br />
In any case, I'm hoping 2016 will look better for the blog from here on out. I've been having enjoying writing my "Chasing the Wind" posts, and I hope to do a lot more with that. I've got several other ideas I've been percolating as well. No politics, though. Not that I have nothing to say on the current state of things, but it seems like a moot point; of all the voices clamoring for attention out there, I have nothing to offer that others won't say in more detail or more eloquently.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiR5vHfXVerxdlW0_SBzpo9GeYsKZ_7HyMUYccMcXRpRD7iiq8IV-OrCGPeCfmTOwPDHis0nUQM0TGkgu8vTgBp-HVEjZ1eP78FCC9qSgcx7szwDtaKo_TWXh7MNkvYqNncBY/s1600/DiceLot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiR5vHfXVerxdlW0_SBzpo9GeYsKZ_7HyMUYccMcXRpRD7iiq8IV-OrCGPeCfmTOwPDHis0nUQM0TGkgu8vTgBp-HVEjZ1eP78FCC9qSgcx7szwDtaKo_TWXh7MNkvYqNncBY/s400/DiceLot.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's to 2017.</td></tr>
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<br />Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-91848154228481855932016-08-30T16:54:00.001-04:002016-08-30T16:54:58.373-04:00RPG a Day - Day 30<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>Describe the ideal game room if budget were not an issue.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I don't have much to say here; maybe give me a room from <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/rpg-day-day-29.html">Britannia Manor</a> with a <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/rpg-day-day-18.html">digital table top</a> and I'd be set.<br />
<br />
For a more interesting topic, one of my own consideration: <b>What's the biggest mistake you've made as a GM?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I ask this question because I've been thinking a lot about the games I've run in recent weeks (go figure) and it occurs to me that there's a lot to be said for learning from our mistakes. I certainly have enough to choose from. However, there's one in particular I'm considering.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/">Fear the Boot</a> frequently talks about <a href="http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/2566">The Golden Box</a>. It's this concept to illustrate the idea that a player's character shouldn't be changed by the GM, at least not without some measure of consent. After all, the GM has control of <i>everything</i> in the game, while the player only has control over his character; take that away, violate The Golden Box, and you've breached a social contract and diminished the game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGVsRmY1nDWbqO7cN7dlXTro54oO09Yukpw3C8f0UsgG5pDzz-ShGZmKe9l8EtjoWShK5_Ted-16zlOb8WReRAbbAG-udicrJZSmlsFJ0ueGuI6eDDgusx8w1rIRfZ8TdrM-s/s1600/golden-box_2493891.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtGVsRmY1nDWbqO7cN7dlXTro54oO09Yukpw3C8f0UsgG5pDzz-ShGZmKe9l8EtjoWShK5_Ted-16zlOb8WReRAbbAG-udicrJZSmlsFJ0ueGuI6eDDgusx8w1rIRfZ8TdrM-s/s320/golden-box_2493891.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tread carefully.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When I ran last Dresden Files, I definitely violated The Golden Box.<br />
<br />
I won't belabor the details, but within my game world there were five Items of Power, tied to powerful patron spirits, that needed to be claimed in order for the local ley lines to be balanced. This seemed like a fun idea at the time. The provided a physical link to a campaign idea, and offered some fun options for sponsored magic and other boons from the items.<br />
<br />
The problem was, I hadn't opted to provide the players with any more refresh to take up the Items of Power. (Refresh is the resource one uses to 'purchase' powers and abilities, and it's the basic measure of how powerful a character is. Taking up an Item of Power usually requires spending refresh to gain access to its abilities.)<br />
<br />
I hadn't considered this from the players perspective at the time. Here was something that, as I'd structured things, <i>had</i> to be taken up in order to prevent calamity, <i>but</i> I wasn't making it free to use. Thus, they had to give up the abilities they'd built into their characters in the first place in order to take up the Items.<br />
<br />
That's definitely a violation.<br />
<br />
I didn't realized the mistake I'd made until one of my players vocalized just how much he resented having to trade off the powers he'd wanted to use for the powers of the Item. In the end, I allowed the players to pass of the Items to NPCs if they so desired, but the damage had been done.<br />
<br />
There's no great solution here. Probably would have been best to make the items free to use, although then I'd have run into issues balancing the game. Perhaps, had I been up front about the items with my players, we could have reached an understanding that would have suited everyone. The items were a central mystery to the game, so that would have ablated much of the investigation and exploration as they went.<br />
<br />
All the same, I know how <i>not </i>to handle it in the future, and that's the most important part.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVj7IPBeoUoM3-xv3P8e9zUmIFMtVnXS-rxR1NeZyTplB0ean5_hCXJNmfYNGx4leh9JE2epcWVDuJetv4p4ETW10yhHGHKKv-FOzMHgkljyYcj21Z-iQU9-0vh2sgHz4EEOse/s1600/image12-1024x576.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVj7IPBeoUoM3-xv3P8e9zUmIFMtVnXS-rxR1NeZyTplB0ean5_hCXJNmfYNGx4leh9JE2epcWVDuJetv4p4ETW10yhHGHKKv-FOzMHgkljyYcj21Z-iQU9-0vh2sgHz4EEOse/s400/image12-1024x576.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cool as this is, it may not be the vision your players had in mind.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-54423073144530992732016-08-29T14:55:00.000-04:002016-08-29T14:55:51.702-04:00RPG a Day - Day 29<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>You can game anywhere on Earth; where do you game?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Easily, that's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia_Manor">Richard Garriott's (former) home</a>. That place would have some serious atmosphere for a game.<br />
<br />
On a more substantial topic, I think the choice of gaming location is worth exploring. So today's actual topic is going to be: <b>Where do you prefer to do your gaming?</b><br />
<br />
I know of four major locations people do their gaming:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Someone's home</li>
<li>Game store</li>
<li>Bar/Restaurant</li>
<li>Some other public venue</li>
</ul>
<div>
I've only done the first two. Of them, my preference is definitely to game in a home. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's certainly advantages to be drawn from gaming in a store. You can meet new people and attract others to your game, if you're in need. Store owners like having people in their store having fun, so a gaming group can be good "advertisement," even if they don't buy much during their time there. Unfortunately, I've found game stores to be too loud to be conducive to role-playing, and often times "meeting people" devolves into looky-loos making your players uncomfortable. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Playing at someone's home can be much more comfortable; you don't have to worry about the distractions of other gamers, although the distraction of spouses or children can counter-balance that benefit. You have much more leeway with game time that isn't centered around store hours. You're also much less restricted in terms of food and beverage, which is a definite advantage.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That's partially why some people game at bars or restaurants; I've never seen this, but I've heard stories. It just doesn't seem like a good environment for it, though. It's highly public, so "enthusiastic" gaming is unlikely to be appreciated, and you're limited to the time a business has patience for you. If it's a busy period, they're not likely to appreciate you taking up a table for four hours.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIG4WyYQTtjhiFf_TaSiWGBz3De6XsnF6keUq7eojAJMz8eXrLJTsKz4Av0tUnKsLmNl6bT1fkd2lqmB0Nv0rsztLzMgCh5bht_0ZruE6zkmpzWrnEDMvctzYUfnthPbd9sspA/s1600/1351888640-dennyswizards.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIG4WyYQTtjhiFf_TaSiWGBz3De6XsnF6keUq7eojAJMz8eXrLJTsKz4Av0tUnKsLmNl6bT1fkd2lqmB0Nv0rsztLzMgCh5bht_0ZruE6zkmpzWrnEDMvctzYUfnthPbd9sspA/s400/1351888640-dennyswizards.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I don't care if Middle Earth is in danger, either buy more food or get out."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
As for other, I hear some people will play at libraries, or at school after classes get out. A friend of mine used to belong to a "social club" for gamers that provided gaming space. I'm sure these have their advantages, although I imagine the first two are chosen out of necessity or convenience.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All the same, my preference remains home gaming. More comfortable, fewer restrictions, free reign on food. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-54959788983605664072016-08-28T16:18:00.003-04:002016-08-28T16:18:51.005-04:00RPG a Day - Day 28<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What is the thing you'd be most surprised a friend had not seen or read?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
As this is an RPG topic, I'll assume these are properties that are at least vaguely RPG-related. To that end, I'm going to skip the obvious elephants in the room: <i>Star Wars</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>. Yes, I'd be amazed if someone hadn't seen the movies or read Tolkien's books, but that's largely because these properties carry such huge cultural influence that you couldn't avoid them if you tried.<br />
<br />
To this end, I'm thinking more outside the box. With that in mind:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3T3FkPPi51wegQI7byeufFfacjais3XGkHSfnWoiHk0n7AOfkZnRvRlkXVQl1E-2BDWBQkQkrzkeMC7LPCt9Pey2hejh3KStazTMRMJ7UTx3lSH7ZQvPLi9a7gRC3VY1EPd_/s1600/JusticeLeague.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3T3FkPPi51wegQI7byeufFfacjais3XGkHSfnWoiHk0n7AOfkZnRvRlkXVQl1E-2BDWBQkQkrzkeMC7LPCt9Pey2hejh3KStazTMRMJ7UTx3lSH7ZQvPLi9a7gRC3VY1EPd_/s400/JusticeLeague.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't be too impressed. Every man is shaped like that in Timm's animated shows.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Super hero cartoons enjoyed a good deal of popularity during the 90s. Two of the most popular shows during that time were the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_The_Animated_Series">Batman</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman:_The_Animated_Series">Superman</a> animated series.<br />
<br />
Following on that success, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini followed their previous work with the series based on the iconic superhero team, running 2001 to 2004, followed by <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_League_Unlimited">Justice League Unlimited</a></i> through 2006.<br />
<br />
It's understandable how someone might have missed the show. Older millennials like myself would have been college students when the show was on TV. Even then, it aired on Saturday nights in a time when DVRs weren't yet abundant, Netflix wasn't around, and Cartoon Network was recalcitrant on the matter of reruns. I only saw most of the series because my parents recorded it on VHS for me to watch when I went home to visit.<br />
<br />
So why do I list it as the property I'd be surprised someone hadn't seen? Three reasons.<br />
<ol>
<li>It has been available on Netflix for quite some time.</li>
<li>It was <i>really</i> good. </li>
<li>Few superhero cartoons that came afterwards were able to match the quality of these shows.</li>
</ol>
<div>
There's a lot of love to be had for shows like <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Justice_(TV_series)">Young Justice</a></i> or <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Avengers:_Earth%27s_Mightiest_Heroes">Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes</a></i>. Even so, few modern series were as widely celebrated, or influential on the genre, as the JL/JLU series. It's a series I'd recommend in a heart beat to someone interested in the genre.</div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-57576960993341317802016-08-27T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-27T07:00:01.434-04:00RPG a Day - Day 27<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Having not gamed in any unusual or exotic circumstances, I can't really speak to the scheduled topic for today. Instead, I'm going to backtrack to something <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/rpg-day-day-25.html">I mentioned the other day</a>.<br />
<br />
When talking about <b>"What makes a good character?"</b> I focused on the narrative and table-centric elements: Backstory, Goals, and Personality. This time, I'd like to talk about the place where mechanics and character meet, and how that interface can be difficult.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<h3>
Form vs. Function</h3>
<div>
One of the problems I run into most frequently on this subject is the conflict between mechanically representing the character I'm making and mechanically optimizing the character.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For example, perhaps you're playing a Paladin who grew up as a street urchin. He started in a life of crime, picking pockets and so forth, until some life event drove him to become a champion of law and justice.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It would make sense, then, for the character to have some usually Rogue-like skills: Sneaking, Lock-picking, that sort of thing. In a lot of systems, this would be difficult to achieve. Perhaps it's not even possible for a Paladin to be skilled in those skills, or just prohibitively costly. It might be the case that those skills are non-functional for the Paladin; his divine oath might exclude such indirect actions, or maybe the Paladin's tendency towards heavy armor renders stealthy approaches irrelevant.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The point being, the story being told means building the character one way, but practical considerations warrant building it another way. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A lot of players avoid this by building the character first and telling the story <i>around</i> the mechanics; work with what is required and take advantage of the "empty spaces," so to speak. Sometimes, the solution is more story telling; taking up the Paladin's mantle naturally led to those skills becoming rusty and unusable, so it's not necessary to take any of them. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Limitations of the System</h3>
<div>
In some cases, though, it may just be best to acknowledge that the system isn't practical for representing the character. This can happen in a number of ways.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One possibility is having to compromise between combat and non-combat skills and features. Given how central physical conflict is in a lot of games, it makes sense that players want to maximize the combat prowess of their characters. However, if that comes at the cost of proficiency in non-combat roles, then realizing the character might become difficult or impossible.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For example, consider trying to build Batman in a system. He's at the peak of human physical potential, trained in martial arts, stealthy, incredibly wealthy, an expert in many fields of science and engineering, and often considered the world's greatest detective. Combining all of that into a single character would be <i>quite</i> difficult, depending on the system. The trade-offs might necessitate downplaying some elements, or forgoing them completely. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Another possibility can come from a clash between expectations for a character versus the actual mechanics in play. For example, <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2013/09/return-to-mar-tesaro-band-of-misfits.html">during the D&D campaign I ran a while back</a>, two of the characters were to act as a team, with one acting as the bodyguard for the other. In any other system, this would have been fine. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Unfortunately, because this was 4th edition D&D, it didn't work out quite so well. Every character in this system is fairly sturdy, so there's often only little-to-moderate risk at any given time. Additionally, both characters were <a href="http://dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Defender">Defenders</a>, classes focused on going to the front of combat and intercepting attacks. This led to some incongruity at the table. Both players felt unable to play their characters the way they'd imagined or intended them to be. Had we all considered this possibility before the game started, it might have been avoided. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In either case, the best solution is to keep the system in mind when building the characters, so problems like the above can be avoided.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Devil in the Details</h3>
<div>
In other cases, the conflict might come down to circumstances unique to any given game. For example, a player might want to play a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OldSoldier">grizzled war veteran</a>. It's not a bad trope, but if the game is to start at level 1, or whatever the lowest marker of competency is in the system, then it would probably be hard to accurately portray an experienced soldier.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's not hard to come up with other examples: Playing a tinker in a system that doesn't account for technology. Playing a wizard in a low fantasy setting. Playing an atheist in a setting with clerics and other divine champions. Playing a gunslinger in a setting where they're scarce. Building a character concept around an ability they can only use rarely. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In general, these sorts of conflicts arise because there's a break between the character the player wants to make and the game the GM wants to run. In some cases, a change of game system might accommodate this, but often the bottom line is that there has to be an acknowledgment when a character simply isn't a good match for the game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-QREZ_DPFvTjCKY8FzE2oT4EI7Kk0g2-D6x58XCW4hHuo-50ZXap6QkGKPrX96NRaePLkEDIw68Q55nqELIyMWSnOgRoBcWlD_6u06kfMYasMZmEm2QBjn9GL-FPttcXJZ4WB/s1600/heroes-banner-updated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-QREZ_DPFvTjCKY8FzE2oT4EI7Kk0g2-D6x58XCW4hHuo-50ZXap6QkGKPrX96NRaePLkEDIw68Q55nqELIyMWSnOgRoBcWlD_6u06kfMYasMZmEm2QBjn9GL-FPttcXJZ4WB/s400/heroes-banner-updated.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This group really would have benefited from using a <a href="https://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/resources">group template</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-87074320785714852632016-08-26T11:06:00.001-04:002016-08-26T11:06:41.132-04:00RPG a Day - Day 26<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What hobbies go well with RPGs?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Video games</b> are the first thing that come to mind, given that most of the audience for RPGs overlaps with video game players. The benefit is often twofold. Players will get exposed to stories and narrative structures that provide useful inspiration to draw or borrow from when making their own stories. On top of that, seeing various mechanics at work in a video game can inform an understanding of how mechanics ought to work at the table.<br />
<br />
That being the most obvious answer, there are some others that fit as well:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Writing,</b> for the obvious reason of having experience crafting a narrative and understanding different elements of the story structure.</li>
<li><b>Acting</b>, especially improv, because being able to take on the role of a character and make him real and compelling can be complicated.</li>
<li><b>Drawing</b>, although any artistic skills will also find use. If you can create good renderings of characters or events in your game, you will never want for a group to play with. People eat that stuff up.</li>
<li><b>History</b>, and the study thereof. This might seem an unusual one, but it's a simple explanation. Sometimes the events of history can make for great inspiration in games, especially when real events are stranger than fiction. </li>
<li><b>Cooking</b>, because who doesn't love the person who brings homemade snacks to the table?</li>
</ul>
<div>
Really, the best answer to this is, "Whatever makes you happy." That's rather the point of hobbies, right? Just about any hobby will synergize well with gaming, if only because it lets you bring additional perspective to the table. </div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-64710815936382431412016-08-25T15:16:00.001-04:002016-08-25T15:25:51.172-04:00Book Review: No God But One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbEnPBEEmHKBIDgOhYEARA1mfkM6X7sDvsTxznlRUOvupsqwOP9rYOGQQ5DVlDfHJgnESrkohSYQkoZuEYA38K7Gdztw5ErVbue7f6HA0xCSKgfoAkSwDD2lW7qp01hZeLDmo0/s1600/ngb1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbEnPBEEmHKBIDgOhYEARA1mfkM6X7sDvsTxznlRUOvupsqwOP9rYOGQQ5DVlDfHJgnESrkohSYQkoZuEYA38K7Gdztw5ErVbue7f6HA0xCSKgfoAkSwDD2lW7qp01hZeLDmo0/s320/ngb1.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
A few months ago, I received a copy of <i><a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/03/book-review-answering-jihad-better-way.html">Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward</a> </i>for review. Written by Nabeel Qureshi, it was a brief examination of <i>jihad</i> in Islam and the Christian response to it.<br />
<br />
I was fortunate enough to receive a review copy of Qureshi's third book, <i><a href="http://www.nabeelqureshi.com/no-god-but-one/">No God But One: Allah or Jesus?</a> </i>as well. If his first book, <i><a href="http://www.nabeelqureshi.com/seeking-allah-finding-jesus/">Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus</a></i>, was the story of how his heart changed in his conversion from Islam to Christianity, then <i>No God But One</i> is the story of how his mind changed.<br />
<br />
In <i>No God But One</i>, Qureshi takes the time to unpack two primary questions central to someone seeking to know God:<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Are Christianity and Islam really all that different?</b></li>
<li><b>Can we know whether Islam or Christianity is true?</b></li>
</ol>
<div>
These are both questions of profound importance. There is no sense in choosing between one faith or the other if they are not meaningfully different, but if they <i>are</i> different, then how can you know which one to choose? This is not a process of elimination, either; they must stand or fall on their own merits. As Qureshi says of his own experience:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>For me, it's been a decade since I made the decision to leave Islam, and the fallout of my decision haunts me every day. I knew it would, well before I ever converted, but I also knew that I was sure. I was sure that Islam and Christianity are not just two paths that lead to the same God, but two very different paths that lead very different ways. I was sure that I had excellent historical reason to believe the gospel. I was sure that, though I loved Islam, I couldn't ignore the problems that plagued its foundations. But most of all, I was sure that following the one true God would be worth all trials and all suffering. I had to follow the evidence and the truth, no matter the cost.</i></blockquote>
<h3>
<a name='more'></a>Are Christianity and Islam really all that different?</h3>
<div>
In our postmodern age, syncretism abounds. If truth is not exclusive to any one religion or world view, then they all must be true in some sense or another. It's the similarities that bind them together, right? For adherents of these faiths, the differences truly matter. Qureshi puts it this way:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Not only are these religions different, but the differences have far greater ramifications than I realized when I converted. I knew that the historical doctrines of the two religions were different, but doctrines do not exist in a vacuum. They work together to impact the way we see the world, which in turn changes who we are </i><i>. . . </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>[W]hat we think God is like has a tremendous impact on how we see the world He created. Why did God create humans: To share intimacy with them or to test them? What does He think about people: Are they His servants or His children? How does He want us to live: Focusing on love or focusing on law? What does He tell us about the afterlife: To anxiously anticipate unknown judgment or to have joyful faith in His grace? The Islamic view of God and the Christian view lend themselves to different answers, and how we answer these questions changes how we see ourselves, other people, and the world around us.</i></blockquote>
<div>
To this end, he examines the differences between these two faiths in six parts:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Two solutions to the problem of human sin: <b>Sharia</b> or the <b>Gospel</b></li>
<li>Two understandings of the nature of God: <i><b>Tawhid</b> </i>or the <b>Trinity</b></li>
<li>Two leaders who started a movement of faith: <b>Muhammad</b> or <b>Jesus</b></li>
<li>Two books which guide the faithful: The <b>Quran</b> or the <b>Bible</b></li>
<li>Two approaches to violence and war: <b>Jihad</b> or the <b>Crusades</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
It would be easy to do a perfunctory comparison of these things and ideas, but Qureshi explores all of them in great detail. Applying his upbringing in a devout Islamic family, as well as the texts of the faiths, and study into the relevant history and theology, Qureshi presents a panoramic view of the topics; perhaps not comprehensive, but more than sufficient for proper understanding of the nature and breadth at work.<br />
<br />
For example, in the consideration of his comparison of the Trinity and the <i>Tawhid</i>, both conceptions of the oneness of God, he extensively covers the relevant texts of the Bible, the Quran, and the Hadiths. His coverage goes beyond this, however, into topics like <i>bila kayf </i>("without how," the understanding of the paradox of God's oneness and the Quran's eternality), the <i>Mihna</i> (the Islamic Inquisition which unified Islamic theology on the concept of <i>Tawhid</i>), and an examination of the <i>Shema</i> (from Deuteronomy 6:4). Later topics build off of this discussion, such as a consideration of the Council of Nicaea on the person of Jesus.<br />
<br />
In short, the reader who picks up this book thinking that Islam and Christianity are "essentially the same" will certainly be disabused of this notion, or at least be given much food for though.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Can we know whether Islam or Christianity is true?</h3>
Having argued that the two faiths are fundamentally, radically different, Qureshi addresses the question that confronted him: How can we know which faith holds the truth? It's not a trivial question for the believer to address.<br />
<br />
Qureshi handles the argument by systematically examining the "core" distillation of each faith. That is, the things that make the primary admission of faith. In Christianity, this was found in Romans 10:9, which produced three topics of inquiry:<br />
<ul>
<li>Did Jesus die on the cross? </li>
<li>Did He rise from the dead? </li>
<li>Did Jesus proclaim to be God?</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
In Islam, this core was found in the <i>Shahada</i>: "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger." To this end, the case for Islam rests on the following:<br />
<ul>
<li>Was Muhammad a prophet of God?</li>
<li>Is the Quran the Word of God?</li>
</ul>
<div>
There's a lot of build-up to explaining how these topics became the basis of argument and others were excluded, but they are sufficient for the case being made. If any of these questions comes back negative, then the respective faith is discredited. Further, each faith invalidates the other on these questions; for example, Christians reject Muhammad as a prophet, and Muslims reject that Jesus died on the cross.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
In all of this, Qureshi is up front about the possibility of perception bias. As a Muslim, he was inclined to disregard evidence in Christianity's favor and over-value evidence in Islam's favor. Still, he had to consider, what did the evidence say? What would an objective observer conclude?<br />
<br />
The format Qureshi uses for this section is quite interesting. He first presents the positive case for each faith. Any reader who has explored Christian apologetics will be familiar with much of the evidence presented for Christianity; the positive case for Islam might be less well known to readers, but for those familiar there are no surprises here. However, in each case, Qureshi also brings forward a critical response to the positive case from the other faith.<br />
<br />
For example, when considering the question of whether Jesus died on the cross, after considering the Biblical, historical, and medical case to be made for Jesus's execution, he also presents the Islamic understanding of the matter, including discussions on Swoon Theory and the Substitution Theory. After each such response section, he evaluates and weighs the totality of the arguments on each matter.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Fork in the Road</h3>
As this is, ultimately, a glimpse into the unfolding of Qureshi's conversion, it goes without saying that he finds the evidence falls in Christianity's favor over and over. Which returns to where things started. By his own admission, he <i>wanted</i> Islam to be true. Unfortunately, he couldn't reconcile this with the facts at hand.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>This meant that if I wanted to remain Muslim, I would have to do so based on some reason other than objective truth. I could remain Muslim because I liked the Islamic message, because I desired the discipline of Sharia, or because I just wanted to keep my family happy.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>But if there was one thing Islam had taught me, it was that I must submit to God and not to man. That meant following the truth, no matter where it led </i><i>. . . </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>As a Muslim, I wanted to base my beliefs not on blind faith, not on what appealed to me, and not even on my family's heritage. I wanted to ground my faith in reality. If I wanted to take the records of history seriously, I had to abandon my Islamic faith and accept the gospel.</i></blockquote>
Overall, it's a worthwhile read. Almost everyone will find something of interest in the book, whether it's the comparative theology of the first section, the back-and-forth apologetics of the second, or the various anecdotes and vignettes Qureshi peppers throughout the book. In the end, he makes a powerful and compelling case for the truth of Christianity.<br />
<br />
The book releases August 30, and is available for pre-order until then. </div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-29409255164697686362016-08-25T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-25T07:00:19.036-04:00RPG a Day - Day 25<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What makes for a good character?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Before I start, I have to say I wish more of the questions were like this. This is red meat for gamers who like to argue about their hobby.<br />
<br />
My answer to this is going to center around the non-mechanical aspects, as I feel like the functionality of a character and the interface of mechanical and non-mechanical character traits is a different issue altogether.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Backstory</h3>
First, a good character has to have a <b>backstory.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
It's a common trope that poorly made characters have no history. They sprang from the earth, fully formed and clad in adventuring gear. Some games don't really need more than that; Fi-tor the Fighter doesn't need a backstory if all he's doing is descending into <a href="http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Crawl_Wiki">an endless dungeon</a> to fight monsters until he dies.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinz78y7QfHbHorBL8uwOTWJHaj1ZHNwi3k32cFIFjiVJGdrB88vpV2CJmP0a3y-gyXFY4FPHa9b-UsDKHwILfnFPz3FvK40kjtA3ZoLc8q9IxoX5nCq5BZOPHG0Ova0ok-0gXW/s1600/hephaestus-helping-in-birth-of-athena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinz78y7QfHbHorBL8uwOTWJHaj1ZHNwi3k32cFIFjiVJGdrB88vpV2CJmP0a3y-gyXFY4FPHa9b-UsDKHwILfnFPz3FvK40kjtA3ZoLc8q9IxoX5nCq5BZOPHG0Ova0ok-0gXW/s320/hephaestus-helping-in-birth-of-athena.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unless you're literally playing Athena, then springing forth fully-formed is probably okay.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Still, a good backstory provides a few benefits. It gives the character motivation for his adventures. It ties him into the setting, unless you're going for a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FishOutOfWater">fish-out-of-water</a> character. It provides hooks for the GM to draw the character into the adventure by personalizing elements of it.<br />
<br />
It doesn't have to be <i>War and Peace</i>, it just needs to be enough to understand what motivates the character and why. What benefit is all of this motivation?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Goals</h3>
<div>
A good character also needs <b>goals</b>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This starts with justifying why your character is even on the adventure in the first place. Frodo's life was not one long build-up leading to Bilbo handing him the One Ring, but the events of his life made it plausible for Frodo to accept the quest to take it to Mordor. The well-written character will follow the adventure for reasons besides "I'm good and the bad guy is evil" or "All my friends are doing it."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WsLMfUBDe_ihDYa5-2vgVKfSBbVW5k2XhBdyCYRYH2jUsdeH4hQe3iJJc4agxfhrqCrX3CU9SOK9o9kDHFIJFt0tY3f-JnNC2LdGZR3Kw2al65wm3xDY0T-NA7PjLhyjadTy/s1600/13151229_285455451791325_1569616134_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3WsLMfUBDe_ihDYa5-2vgVKfSBbVW5k2XhBdyCYRYH2jUsdeH4hQe3iJJc4agxfhrqCrX3CU9SOK9o9kDHFIJFt0tY3f-JnNC2LdGZR3Kw2al65wm3xDY0T-NA7PjLhyjadTy/s320/13151229_285455451791325_1569616134_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some exceptions may apply.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
It goes beyond that, though. Most people have some interests outside of their profession. Presumably, your character should have things that motivate him besides completing his quest. Do they have hobbies? Are they collectors or trophy hunters? Are they part of an organization? Are they religious? Do they have any feelings about the local government? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This doesn't have to be an extensive or comprehensive list, but having a few things that the character wants out of the game will go a long way towards making him three-dimensional. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Personality</h3>
<div>
To really shine at the table, however, a character needs personality, things that make him unique to the other characters at the table and those you've played as well.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A lot of people like to do <a href="http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/4519">voices and accents</a> for this, which is fine. A lot of us are only mediocre at best at this sort of thing, so it's probably best to skip it unless you do some practicing ahead of time.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Still, distinguishing the character at the table goes beyond just the voice. but also the mannerisms, the tone, and other affectations. This can be something incorporated into the way the character speaks, but it can also branch into the way you describe the character's actions. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For example, perhaps the character is shy. This could be voiced by a slight studder and squeamishness when speaking with strangers. When possible, perhaps the character chooses to stand behind other characters, being out of direct line of sight. They probably don't make a lot of eye contact, either. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAfJFUUNPB8NXn7ZP7fdwR3apvUug4m5calYDVngcNMAFjUtKIl5QsOWV6jZBxto5j3Ffvi_IgPs8TgfRBVHW9GLUDiloMuVTE7NcPFm_5NtT_yTWM9Grfeoe4ZaCAbwo3YOuD/s1600/flat%252C1000x1000%252C075%252Cf.u2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAfJFUUNPB8NXn7ZP7fdwR3apvUug4m5calYDVngcNMAFjUtKIl5QsOWV6jZBxto5j3Ffvi_IgPs8TgfRBVHW9GLUDiloMuVTE7NcPFm_5NtT_yTWM9Grfeoe4ZaCAbwo3YOuD/s200/flat%252C1000x1000%252C075%252Cf.u2.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just don't do catchphrases. The other players <i>will</i> try to murder you.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
None of these things in isolation may seem like much, but in concert they can take a bland, boring character and turn him into something memorable and vibrant.</div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-24472184489210544912016-08-24T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-24T07:00:17.394-04:00RPG a Day - Day 24<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What is the game you are most likely to give to others?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This is an easy answer: <a href="http://fate-srd.com/fate-accelerated/get-started">Fate Accelerated Edition</a>. Partially, this is because of my deep love for the system, which <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/02/sentinels-of-multiverse-rpg-fate-edition.html">I've discussed previously</a>. Much more relevant to the question, though, is the price point: $5.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXyScopXPgpTM-FrdQOd-XQXxG6mMbEwiaYpxhSiN8vLAv4emt_DI5wtJRfdoqxuw15T5av4MuCWBP-D28df1KlO9FEHGcQiDfQhGh4basckBDBQqgRKZMIRMVII-TCNQSvllq/s1600/FAE+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXyScopXPgpTM-FrdQOd-XQXxG6mMbEwiaYpxhSiN8vLAv4emt_DI5wtJRfdoqxuw15T5av4MuCWBP-D28df1KlO9FEHGcQiDfQhGh4basckBDBQqgRKZMIRMVII-TCNQSvllq/s320/FAE+cover.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.evilhat.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=222&zenid=glcupm548f8dn0qhs6em3tjm55">Yep. What it says on the tin.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In fact, <a href="https://xer0rules.wordpress.com/">Larry's </a>been known to hand out copies of this to his players at <a href="http://www.charmcitygameday.com/">Charm City Game Day</a>, in case you needed additional incentive to go.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeq92BEtFTJfqeqNtnsfVhIQayQ8f0XwrFw4FYgnVPf-0CuIqrZW_SUmX849XcmZcBLGEXZucFprr7T5NYx7kYoGGwjQiV0uLt_ttOD3LR2ePQylHp8noqTn4A7Kk33nkMDO9x/s1600/Charm-City-Game-Day-672x372.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeq92BEtFTJfqeqNtnsfVhIQayQ8f0XwrFw4FYgnVPf-0CuIqrZW_SUmX849XcmZcBLGEXZucFprr7T5NYx7kYoGGwjQiV0uLt_ttOD3LR2ePQylHp8noqTn4A7Kk33nkMDO9x/s320/Charm-City-Game-Day-672x372.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">September 17th. Hint hint.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-89493338610308576972016-08-23T13:34:00.003-04:002016-08-23T13:57:55.765-04:00RPG a Day - Day 23<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What is your best 'worst luck' story?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Oh, my best is non-gaming related, so I'll have to save that for another day. As for gaming . . .<br />
<br />
It's often said that people create their own luck. I think when it comes to RPGs, a GM can create his players' bad luck, too. In the very first Dungeons & Dragons game I ever played, the GM did exactly that.<br />
<br />
We were playing a party of adventurers in a pre-made adventure setting. Saltmarsh, I think? It doesn't matter. Had I more experience, I might have known there was going to be trouble right off the bat when the GM had us bother with finding jobs. Not adventurer jobs, mind you. Normal civilian employment.<br />
<br />
See, 3rd edition D&D had rules for earning money the civilian way. You could spend your (for some classes, severely limited) skill points on professional training and earn varying amounts of money per day for your labor. I didn't spend any skill points on such because I thought my paladin was going to actually be out there smiting evil. That's fine; you can perform unskilled labor and earn money still; moving crates at the docks and so forth.<br />
<br />
It's worth pointing out that a night at the inn was one gold. The cheapest lodging in town was to stay at the temple of the god devoted to travelers and safe roads for 10 silver a night. Using my divine might to haul cargo, I was earning . . .<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHkkssHLFVjYQAlrMm5c3Wp8M1pcq10rVhyyOfx_OoshGpyehvpZK3m4Dn6pL9Liu7ZvCQppmtsfx9GVI5S9kpCt4uIc2o84EESn_AJ61RAOSOqlR2c__CSHSZWWziABPXpXD/s1600/nat+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZHkkssHLFVjYQAlrMm5c3Wp8M1pcq10rVhyyOfx_OoshGpyehvpZK3m4Dn6pL9Liu7ZvCQppmtsfx9GVI5S9kpCt4uIc2o84EESn_AJ61RAOSOqlR2c__CSHSZWWziABPXpXD/s200/nat+1.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hoo boy.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
. . . Much less than that.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, the GM decided that a game about a paladin starving in the streets of Saltmarsh was not going to be interesting and sent us on an adventure.<br />
<br />
Unbeknownst to us, this adventure had us crashing a smuggling operation in a "haunted" house. We found a member of the smuggling ring clearly cast out from the group, as he was bound and gagged in the house. We freed him and invited him to explore the house with us, because why not? So just as we're about to discover the hidden entrance to the smugglers' hideout . . .<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY9zBatDNlBZ186sYtJcE6WqBZXptbSsKrqHckqZqxJZ4emaCUw_SRu13oUPrVAAM67LnikSThyphenhyphenhYx5B2e9m3NOOUGfnH9BksltXDQV1lMckQCh-5PuPQNIQYd0D5lUf0dDpXX/s1600/nat+20.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY9zBatDNlBZ186sYtJcE6WqBZXptbSsKrqHckqZqxJZ4emaCUw_SRu13oUPrVAAM67LnikSThyphenhyphenhYx5B2e9m3NOOUGfnH9BksltXDQV1lMckQCh-5PuPQNIQYd0D5lUf0dDpXX/s200/nat+20.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uh oh.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
. . . The jerk decides to shank me in the back. With <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/rogue.htm">sneak attack dice</a>. And a high level poison worth more than everything we'd find in the smugglers' den.<br />
<br />
Somehow, I survive and we clear out the den for actual monetary gain. Except, the smugglers were apparently the only source of <i>alcohol</i> for the city, so now we're hated by the general populace. Even better, the jerk who shanked me was the nephew of some politician, so now we're <i>also </i>wanted criminals.<br />
<br />
Gee, you'd think maybe we were being set up.<br />
<br />
By the time this all came to light, we'd recently escorted a diplomat to the city, and she offered to shelter us under her authority. Well, on the condition that we "consummate" this arrangement. I didn't like it, but the GM had shown he was ready to let the characters sit in prison, so if I wanted to keep playing the paladin, this was the way to go. Except . . .<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpQ2jXkdtaH4cguLL37h7IrLuJGTkS1kXzsECwdQz3MyxUsthZMNhIb-UMIJdrdz8svmVq-hF8cfzRYVk3AFNZ62j77yPlX133YoWqNjEybDitZSBVaNAWHIW7iRk18xPNxlu/s1600/nat+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpQ2jXkdtaH4cguLL37h7IrLuJGTkS1kXzsECwdQz3MyxUsthZMNhIb-UMIJdrdz8svmVq-hF8cfzRYVk3AFNZ62j77yPlX133YoWqNjEybDitZSBVaNAWHIW7iRk18xPNxlu/s200/nat+1.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Make a saving throw." Why? . . . Shoot.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
. . . It turns out our kindly benefactor is a succubus. Now the entire party is broke again, because we have to pay high level spell casters to heal the level damage she caused.<br />
<br />
Our next adventure has us sorting out an "artist" whose sculptures were just people and creatures he'd been <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fleshToStone.htm">turning to stone with magic</a>. Can you guess how that went?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpQ2jXkdtaH4cguLL37h7IrLuJGTkS1kXzsECwdQz3MyxUsthZMNhIb-UMIJdrdz8svmVq-hF8cfzRYVk3AFNZ62j77yPlX133YoWqNjEybDitZSBVaNAWHIW7iRk18xPNxlu/s1600/nat+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpQ2jXkdtaH4cguLL37h7IrLuJGTkS1kXzsECwdQz3MyxUsthZMNhIb-UMIJdrdz8svmVq-hF8cfzRYVk3AFNZ62j77yPlX133YoWqNjEybDitZSBVaNAWHIW7iRk18xPNxlu/s200/nat+1.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Make a saving throw!" . . . You've got to be kidding me.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
(<b>Edit</b>: I went back to look this up. That spell isn't even accessible to a caster until level 11 or later. At our peak, we hit level 4, and we weren't there long. By all rights, this was a crazy challenge to throw at us.)<br />
<br />
We had similar luck when a gang of local ruffians decided we were suitable targets for bullying. Their response to a bit of backbone was to murder my paladin in the street. In broad daylight. In the middle of a crowd.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi284kY5HUfsmm0GqVv5xOwZBfFTHQmMpvgqMmBLneWigd0Our_Sq_AQWvDbB4fv-mgTLOq-P6QoaI2zz-2i30GSYXgATPDpUWS1PNTF1cLpivFi8NERzo_W5I1wr7dQ0eb5ub4/s1600/nat+20.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi284kY5HUfsmm0GqVv5xOwZBfFTHQmMpvgqMmBLneWigd0Our_Sq_AQWvDbB4fv-mgTLOq-P6QoaI2zz-2i30GSYXgATPDpUWS1PNTF1cLpivFi8NERzo_W5I1wr7dQ0eb5ub4/s200/nat+20.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The barbarian turns you into a fine, pink mist. The ruffians are now local heroes because everyone hated you."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now we have to spend some money we don't have on a resurrection for my paladin. We were completely out of options, except . . .<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbRu72MEyJGOmNbFfkzqrqVTMKfzE19tt06woyNZrM1S7VeILr91K6o90vrnpyJuNaGmGBNJbXU9zsLXXgsD2nYGUrdkxvgUw778CPVModPO5r2k3ZC2qWNyO8Sw8tLopPDFC/s1600/Cute-a-bunny.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTbRu72MEyJGOmNbFfkzqrqVTMKfzE19tt06woyNZrM1S7VeILr91K6o90vrnpyJuNaGmGBNJbXU9zsLXXgsD2nYGUrdkxvgUw778CPVModPO5r2k3ZC2qWNyO8Sw8tLopPDFC/s200/Cute-a-bunny.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I couldn't find any tasteful pictures of a succubus, so have a bunny instead.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Broke. Back at level 1. Reviled by the city. Our only friend a soul-consuming sex demon.<br />
<br />
The game didn't last much longer than this. Like I said, though: Sometimes your bad luck is made for you. We rolled poorly, but even good rolls weren't going to save us in this environment.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji32KC0PG1nBFj4JhVZFowvkSK0GVTEQZ-pOY9n7Gz6aL0ud1wboU8kC6zljVaIcas8obC-QJ72xWJrE3SBpJXyet8ALLtKcI-qfD_or3ckFKC8XiGAZRjZ2DpZmOBewIlFkHP/s1600/comic_lotr48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji32KC0PG1nBFj4JhVZFowvkSK0GVTEQZ-pOY9n7Gz6aL0ud1wboU8kC6zljVaIcas8obC-QJ72xWJrE3SBpJXyet8ALLtKcI-qfD_or3ckFKC8XiGAZRjZ2DpZmOBewIlFkHP/s400/comic_lotr48.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just to lighten the mood. <a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=850">Comic by Shamus Young</a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-47023458754810690612016-08-22T14:00:00.000-04:002016-08-22T14:00:12.452-04:00RPG a Day - Day 22<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I don't have a great answer for the scheduled topic, so I wanted to <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/rpg-day-day-14.html">revisit a topic</a> from a few days ago: <b>What is your favorite media property you wish was an RPG?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
If you've never read it, you should seriously check out the webcomic <i><a href="http://www.drivecomic.com/new.html">Drive</a>.</i> Of all the sci-fi properties I've encountered in recent years, this one has fascinated me more than any, and this is coming from someone who only discovered <i>Firefly</i> two or three years ago. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
<br />
<i>Drive</i> is the creation of Dave Kellett, best known as the creator behind <i><a href="http://www.sheldoncomics.com/">Sheldon</a></i> and co-director of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stripped_(film)">comic strip documentary</a> <i><a href="http://www.strippedfilm.com/">Stripped</a>.</i> The story behind Drive is absolutely fascinating. It starts with a man who discovers a spaceship, advanced technology from a far-flung civilization known as the Contiuum of Makers. From this ship, the man derives the secret of "ring" technology, and with it, the ability to break the light-speed barrier in space travel. With this secret, the man builds an empire, eventually becoming the first emperor of a second Spanish empire that spans the galaxy. It is a secret so closely coveted that only blood-relations of the royal family are permitted to know how the technology works. For a non-<i>familia</i> to enter the engine room of a ship is to invite a swift death.<br />
<br />
The problem for mankind, however, is that the Contiuum knows its technology has been stolen and wants it back with a religious fervor, and their firepower far exceeds the capabilities of the Drive Corps, the new Spanish Armada.<br />
<br />
Complicating this war is the reappearance of The Vinn, a "race" of parasites that reproduces by infecting other species, searching for their lost gods and attempting to infect every planet and race in the universe.<br />
<br />
I've barely scratched the surface, but you can guess that there is an epic story to be told here. I absolutely love the potential playground this enables for an RPG and the stories that could be told. It would certainly be a change of pace from the standard-bearers of Sci-Fi RPGs.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/davekellett/status/766041368925839360?s=09">It's probably not going to happen</a> any time soon, but it's a property I'd absolutely love to see as an RPG.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihwb6WD-5rtu6O1L1NuyhfRR289rKjGOhjJHEd1Qu4fucSMQ6orn5MqZsAd_w9tNxfgUNofx9sop5i4ShfmfGRefdYThmoWWRjaOLUoVhw4hbCX0jO0wCrDVnU9ETiIlQV2Bpu/s1600/120410_1459753923.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihwb6WD-5rtu6O1L1NuyhfRR289rKjGOhjJHEd1Qu4fucSMQ6orn5MqZsAd_w9tNxfgUNofx9sop5i4ShfmfGRefdYThmoWWRjaOLUoVhw4hbCX0jO0wCrDVnU9ETiIlQV2Bpu/s400/120410_1459753923.png" width="380" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A wealth of stories just waiting to be told.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-16336214571896093902016-08-21T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-21T07:00:23.724-04:00RPG a Day - Day 21<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Already three weeks in? This is the most commitment I've shown to a writing project in a long, long time. Neat!<br />
<br />
In any case, today's topic: <b>What was the funniest misinterpretation of a rule in your group?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I'm not sure my group ever had any truly hilarious rule misinterpretations. The closest I could say is that, when we first picked up <a href="https://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/">Sentinels of the Multiverse</a>, our friend Adam would retroactively invalidate our victories the next time we'd play. "As it turns out, we were doing X wrong, so we <i>probably</i> wouldn't have won that match." Like clockwork. Not that it was his fault we couldn't follow the rules, but shooting the messenger can be very satisfying.<br />
<br />
Instead, I think I'll share some of the best, most hilarious rules shenanigans I remember from 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons. They're not so much "misinterpretations" as they are "unintended consequences" from the over-accumulation of rules books. Splat books will do that to you.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Jumplomancer</h3>
<div>
First up is <a href="http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444052-The-Jumplomancer-are-you-serious">the Jumplomancer</a>. The idea behind this build was that you could build a character who would leap hundreds of feet into the air, and by the time he's landed, the awesomeness of this feat of athletic prowess caused all who saw it to become his fanatical devotees. Without focusing too much on the details, the steps this entailed:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Acquire feature that allows you to substitute any other skill for a Perform check.</li>
<li>Acquire feature that allows you to substitute a Perform check for a Diplomacy check.</li>
<li>Boost your Jump skill and speed (related to jumping) into ludicrous levels.</li>
</ol>
<div>
There you go. People might argue about the specific combinations of feats and class features, specifically whether they interact in the manner intended to make this so ridiculous. Still, just the idea of the Jumplomancer is hilarious.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
The Locate City Bomb</h3>
<div>
The other trick I'm thinking of is the <a href="http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?72212-quot-Locate-city-bomb-quot-I-m-a-noob-what-is-it">Locate City Bomb</a>. In this case, the shenanigans come about by the abuse of meta-magic feats, which served to alter the way in which mages cast their spells. The central misinterpretation is on the spell <a href="http://alcyius.com/dndtools/spells/races-of-destiny--81/locate-city--3036/index.html">Locate City</a>, which ostensibly a spell meant for finding civilization when you're far from it. However, because it was published listing it as having an <i>area</i> affect, and not just a range, that opened it up to meta-magic abuse. The general chain of progression:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Acquire feat that turns it into a Cold spell.</li>
<li>Acquire feat that adds frost damage to all Cold spells. </li>
<li>Acquire feat that changes the damage to Lightning.</li>
<li>Acquire feat that adds a reflex save to avoid the damage.</li>
<li>Acquire feat that pushes a target to the edge of the spell area if it fails the reflex save</li>
</ol>
<div>
There you go. It's worth noting that being pushed to the edge of the spell area causes damage per 10 feet traveled, and the spell has an area measured in <i>miles</i>. It's funny because the ridiculous chain of feats that has to be combined to make it happen, as well as the innocuousness of the original spell, speaks to just how abusive of the rules this is. </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That, and just imagine it's use in a game. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"Hey, where's the nearest city?"</div>
<div>
"Hm . . . That way."</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWKTLzTPfo3397g302Smixpae9sy7ZwF8UcWvwgrFJKuetbghN9o7WlgpCieCkaNKusnqptkXIf-_UJvUILH9FfPPV7JYM5Rb4VMWUymtanbB5H41v7BO_45TAdvhS3EkuB06/s1600/1813aqov5wc2jjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWKTLzTPfo3397g302Smixpae9sy7ZwF8UcWvwgrFJKuetbghN9o7WlgpCieCkaNKusnqptkXIf-_UJvUILH9FfPPV7JYM5Rb4VMWUymtanbB5H41v7BO_45TAdvhS3EkuB06/s320/1813aqov5wc2jjpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Never mind."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-55131423700119928672016-08-20T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-20T07:00:17.506-04:00RPG a Day - Day 20<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s320/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What is the most challenging, but rewarding, system you've learned?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This answer might strike folks as strange, but I'd say 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.<br />
<br />
This game (which I'll abbreviate as 4E) was controversial when it was released. Its predecesor, third edition (3.5E,) was tremendously popular, but it had accrued a great deal of cruft in the form of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatbook">splat books</a>. When 4E came along, it turned a great number of the mechanics that had been endlessly reiterated in 3.5E and turned them on their heads. It's probably too much to recount the differences here, but suffice it to say that many of the features players considered "core" to the D&D experience, such as <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic">Vancian magic</a>, were exchanged for new systems. <br />
<br />
For some people, the new system was fundamentally broken. It simply wasn't something they could enjoy, and they'd stick with 3.5E <i>thank you very much</i>. For others, it could have been a reasonably fun game if it just didn't have the D&D label on it. Regardless of who you asked, it was a substantially different experience from 3.5E.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Challenge</h3>
Coming in to run the game for the first time, I had a number of hurdles to overcome. This included, but wasn't limited to:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Pacing the game against player resources, such as healing surges and powers</li>
<li>Understanding the role of combat in a session, and how to pace it appropriately</li>
<li>Properly utilizing the Skill Challenge system</li>
<li>Motivating players to use Rituals effectively</li>
<li>Rewarding players without trivializing the challenges</li>
</ul>
<div>
I could go on. The point is that there was a new mindset needed, and a lot of things to consider, when running this system. It couldn't be run in the same fashion as a 3.5E game. There were many elements "out of the box" that needed tinkering to get the most mileage out of them. It came with a lot of trial and error. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
The Reward</h3>
<div>
I shouldn't have to explain this one too deeply. I've <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/search/label/Campaign">written quite a bit</a> about the 4E campaign I ran for my group. It was one of the longest games I've run, <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/rpg-day-day-13.html">it ended</a> after about 15 sessions, and everyone seemed to enjoy it throughout. I had lots of player investment in the setting, there was good roleplaying throughout, and the ending was satisfying all around.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Now that 5th Edition has been released, a lot of people have moved on from 4E. I don't blame anyone, but I consider it a game I'd return to again. I learned how to get the most of the system when I ran it, and I think it can be a fun system to play again and again. </div>
<div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh29a6JgoEfyUJoCeKPUdrcnHnoq2jdLanOAADZlLARpQKaXUlWj38eadDAr7PairS-DzzChfgRNfU8XOj6IWXZCCrx9ZXol_jQz9RX2cgRCS97aeTyFNJCYNkD53oOQtqFQNxs/s1600/comic_lotr38a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh29a6JgoEfyUJoCeKPUdrcnHnoq2jdLanOAADZlLARpQKaXUlWj38eadDAr7PairS-DzzChfgRNfU8XOj6IWXZCCrx9ZXol_jQz9RX2cgRCS97aeTyFNJCYNkD53oOQtqFQNxs/s400/comic_lotr38a.jpg" width="311" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Except for Grappling Rules. Those are never rewarding. <a href="http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=792">Comic by Shamus Young</a>.</td></tr>
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Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-2172653444139157522016-08-19T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-19T07:00:40.045-04:00RPG a Day - Day 19<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What's the best way to learn a new game?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I have a lot of experience learning new games, thanks to <a href="http://www.charmcitygameday.com/">Charm City Game Day</a>, run by my friend <a href="http://twitter.com/Xer0Rules">Larry</a>. I saw some games I'd never even heard of in the past and met some awesome people this way, by the way. The next one is just around the corner, September 17. If you're in greater Baltimore/DC area, you should consider coming out for this.<br />
<br />
In any case, I've found that immersion is the best way to learn a new game. Most people, if they've played any sort of RPG before, understand that if their character sheet says, "Sneaking +5," then if they decide to sneak, they'll get a +5 to their rolls. That's relatively intuitive for even the greenest of gamers.<br />
<br />
For more complicated rules, though? Demonstrations are worth their weight in gold. For example, I <a href="http://mrhalbert.blogspot.com/2016/08/rpg-day-day-17.html">mentioned a few days ago</a> that I loved <a href="http://fate-srd.com/fate-core/fate-points">Fate Points</a>. This system isn't always intuitive to players right away, whether they're seeing a written description or the GM is explaining it to them at the table. Show them the different ways they work in the first five minutes of the game, however, and they'll catch on quickly.<br />
<br />
Another helpful element of jumping into the game is to simply ask the players to declare their actions and start getting into the rule details as things come along. For example, perhaps the players are a spaceship crew, and you tell them that their destination is blocked by debris. One player says, "My character is the ship's navigator. Can I pilot us through the wreckage?" Great, this is the perfect time to talk about how piloting a ship works in this game.<br />
<br />
This appraoch also works because the players will ask questions as they come up. To use the same example, another player might say, "My character has a bonus in 'Heavy Weapons' and training in 'Ship Weaponry.' Is there a difference? 'Cause I'd like to use the ship's guns to clear a path in the debris." This makes a great time to talk about those differences and the mechanics for shooting the ship's weapons.<br />
<br />
You might not think it'd make a difference, but if you'd tried to throw all of that at the players before starting, plus whatever other explanations you think they'd needed, it probably would have gotten lost in the din.<br />
<br />
Some other good advice for teaching a new system:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Provide a copy of quick-start rules if you can. It can speed up the game if the players have something to reference for their questions on basic mechanics within the system.</li>
<li>Keep it simple. Some systems can get incredibly complicated, and the game can get bogged down in the details if you throw too much at the players at once. </li>
<li>Limit the options. The players' primary vehicle for interacting with the world is the collection of knobs and levers that make up the character sheet. Don't put anything on there that you know won't get used in the game. </li>
<li>If the characters are divided into different classes or roles, make certain that all of those roles are show-cased and useful in your game.</li>
</ul>
<div>
The last thing I'd say about all of this is to make the game <i>fun</i>. Nothing about the system or the mechanics will matter if nobody actually enjoys the adventure. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">September 17. Put it on your to-do list.</td></tr>
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Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-5165993520608515782016-08-18T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-18T07:00:15.600-04:00RPG a Day - Day 18<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today's topic: <b>What innovation could RPG groups benefit from most?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Most readily, I think RPG groups could benefit from smart phone integration.<br />
<br />
Think about it. Most likely, everyone at your table is carrying one. There's probably a good chance they're already looking at it throughout the game session. I think there's an obvious opportunity for apps which make integrating them into the game a smooth endeavor. I realize that there are programs out there that would cover most of the functions I'm thinking about here, but something that made it more seamless, especially in the context of a group of people sitting around at a gaming table, would probably be very popular.<br />
<br />
As for innovations that aren't really prominent, I'd be delighted to see how the digital table top endeavor is coming along.<br />
<br />
If you're not familiar with it, the idea was to take advantage of the boom in touch screen technology to create a digital, interactive table top display.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcT-e8RuTmyQJ-kEmmmnQfgv0XJRG0XouZ-6mjDryAiMo-xX-UNYRxxUYf5_Lp25_gt8lEsd6W_1YQc30gS7YxmlT1odLMm5ka4tSQMK78mzFmhniEwI4HikaJzq4rIxvj6eJz/s1600/digital+table+top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcT-e8RuTmyQJ-kEmmmnQfgv0XJRG0XouZ-6mjDryAiMo-xX-UNYRxxUYf5_Lp25_gt8lEsd6W_1YQc30gS7YxmlT1odLMm5ka4tSQMK78mzFmhniEwI4HikaJzq4rIxvj6eJz/s320/digital+table+top.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Something like this.</td></tr>
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Supposedly, this was something WotC was working on back in the days of D&D 4th edition, but seems to have abandoned the project for various reasons. Most likely cost; a quick google search shows digital table tops available, but with costs running in the $8-10k range. Yikes.<br />
<br />
The advantages of such tech are obvious: High quality visuals without having to buy printed maps all the time. (Generally) easy to interact with. Lots of possibilities for a variety of systems.<br />
<br />
I know people already simulate such things using projectors and virtual table top programs such as <a href="https://roll20.net/">Roll20</a>, but this always felt like the inevitable progression of the hobby. (Throw in smart phone integration as I discussed above, and you've got a solid gold project there.)Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5590465.post-86907855460359163982016-08-17T07:00:00.000-04:002016-08-17T07:00:03.313-04:00RPG a Day - Day 17<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s1600/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZB3tM-DIikXaw4D2Ydj0wisIWqfKfaCYNUO7z962dW6mlB1HZHSjo2czWLzKoQbtiCxZAeh9cWnx5BbZis4-_Vl82L-nHMPkUa-QMBHjdsodvwD4nXC_2rXRJts18Sd9BHtL/s400/rpgaday-2016-bw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Once again, I'm skipping the scheduled topic for one I find more interesting. Today's topic: <b>What is your favorite revolutionary game mechanic?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I'm not sure how you'd define "revolutionary" in this context, but discovering <a href="http://fate-srd.com/fate-core/fate-points">Fate Points</a> was a moment of awakening for me. To explain why, it would help to start from the beginning.<br />
<br />
I started gaming back in 2007 with D&D (3.5). It's a system people love to death, enough so that when <a href="https://company.wizards.com/">WoTC</a> moved on to 4th Edition, people stuck with a new version of D&D 3.5, <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG">Pathfinder</a>. I point that out just to say that it's obviously a system with redeeming qualities if people loved it this much, but it places a lot of the narrative control in the hands of the GM. Players are generally limited to interacting with the game by the "buttons and levers" on their character sheet. This is why magic users are often considered so much more powerful in those systems; they just have more options for interacting with the world than the martial classes.<br />
<br />
Even so, that ability to interact with the world is still limited to the effects described within the rules. If the player wants to interact with the game itself, it's entirely at the discretion of the GM.<br />
<br />
Fate Points changed that in a way that I love. They give the players a way to interact with the game that goes beyond the mechanics defined on the character sheet. A player can spend a Fate Point to, for example, declare a detail about the world, or force a certain behavior onto an NPC. In some systems, similar types of resources can be spent to declare a PC automatically succeeds at his action.<br />
<br />
It's an incredible method for the game to become much more interactive to the players, and not just the characters. It provides means for them to be much more creative and contribute in ways that the GM may never have anticipated. It's also a great vehicle for the GM to reward the players. It's frequently the case that a player might have a great moment at the table: He comes up with a great plan, does something hilarious, or capitalizes on a dramatic moment that impresses everyone. Fate Points are a good way for the GM to reward such moments. In a system like D&D, there's no obvious way to handle this.<br />
<br />
Like I've said, there are similar systems out there, but Fate Points were my first encounter with this sort of mechanic, and I <i>love it.</i> It's why Fate remains one of my favorite systems.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NVhgtycZzU2G7yZzCyq_9N-TP9jM0IkmopaUByPN-HJGtRa1ByShBdXz_RjeqIN9RYeckXuM_2fCs5jd6_fwJ6UUFPRhZxrXvxgB1viWlf9HZ2GHQqCIJL0TkIjkTAfes5kp/s1600/fate_0033_Layer_5__53563.1421921346.1280.1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6NVhgtycZzU2G7yZzCyq_9N-TP9jM0IkmopaUByPN-HJGtRa1ByShBdXz_RjeqIN9RYeckXuM_2fCs5jd6_fwJ6UUFPRhZxrXvxgB1viWlf9HZ2GHQqCIJL0TkIjkTAfes5kp/s200/fate_0033_Layer_5__53563.1421921346.1280.1280.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Besides, there's just something satisfying about passing tokens back and forth.</td></tr>
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Halhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17985840356273623901noreply@blogger.com0