This things happen!  I hope everyone is okay...

Save your character points and work on mind control, maybe?  *grin*

Hm.

...that requires 'Alter', which Shard doesn't have.  Nor would likely ever have, given she needs a teacher with Alter to get it.  And then needs a gawdawful amount of experience points to ever get anywhere she could actually do anything with it.

It's funny.  I've been thinking recently about the old games I used to play versus the new games.  Even the old, first and second editions of D&D versus the new stuff.

In the old days, progression was GLACIAL.  1st level magic-user, 3rd level magic-user....really, they're still a sword thrust from death, and have all of three spells to cast (and they are all *wiggles hand*).  And it took a while to level up.  Thieves in old-school D&D were horrid; the only skill they could use with ANY regularity (until arriving at level...I don't know, 10 or something) was Climb Walls.  Etc.

In this game, Force Users not only sacrifice stat points for Force skills, but Force skills cost DOUBLE unless you have a master teaching you.  That's...really, really expensives.

New games?  Progression shows.  Levelling up makes a difference.  Skill points come faster.  There are less...I don't know, 'roadblocks' to making people have oomph and capability than before.

I wonder if it's because there are so many games out there, and somewhere along the way, someone realized 'people aren't going to be playing the same campaign for eight years so much any more' (well, I might be, but others likely not).

I don't know; it's weird, the 'cultural changes' in RPGs.  :D

The above is not me whinging for more points, mind; I knew when I saw D6 this system would be sloooooow for progression.  :)  It was just something I was thinking about while considering where to place things.

I think progression also depends a lot on the GM.  I've played with a few different ones, in various systems...some of them were quite liberal with points, others essentially made you bargain for almost every one by highlighting what you'd done that was out of the ordinary to justify getting any additional points.

I found, however, that as long as the GM kept the game's overall 'threat level' commensurate with the abilities of the characters, my enjoyment of the game didn't depend all that much on character advancement (although it did certainly help to have characters be able to do more and more 'cool stuff' as the game moved on.  But in the case of the original incarnation of this particular character, I just always had this weird affinity with the dice...when there was just one chance to do something, and the fate of the party depended on it, Rhijans was the guy everyone wanted to take the shot, or fly the ship, or whatever...come do-or-die-time, the dice NEVER failed for him.  He might have all kinds of weird luck with them any other time, but when it really counted, the sixes just kept showing up.  It was almost uncanny...

But I also made a habit of trying to cover all the bases, so that it was very rare that the fate of the party depended on one successful dice roll (that's a habit I generally try to maintain with most characters I play, regardless of the game.)  And most of my GMs also took that into account when asking for dice rolls...I probably got away with a lot more cons than I should have because I'd laid out enough of a background for it that the GM looked at the con I was pulling, and often said, "I can't think of a good reason that WOULDN'T work..." and I either didn't have to roll or they knocked down the target number.  I've always appreciated GMs that give you some kind of credit for trying to be smart about doing the really stupid thing you're about to do (like raiding an Imperial shipyard...*laugh*)

It's certainly a sea-change in terms of culture.

I think a lot of old-school RPG's were sort of predicated on the idea that just playing an RPG was, in itself, so different and interesting and fun an unusual that advancement was almost just a pleasant by-product.

And the 'old-school' paradigm is that of matching characters against a set series of obstacles that were not modified in any way based on the participants, and the challenge was whether or not you could muster your available resources in a way that could overcome the obstacle. Much more like a video game than a communal narrative.

And so, like a video game, characters died. Sometimes they died a lot. And so there was a lot of groups composed of characters of varying level. And that meant that game design didn't really think of making sure all the options were balanced against each other at a given level, and that lead to game design leaning heavily into unequal advancement as a balancing mechanic.

Modern RPG's exist in a very different universe where the general design philosophy is that a 4th level Fighter and a 4th level Cleric should be contributing more or less the same within a given set of challenges. And lot more emphasis on everyone being roughly the same 'level' within a party.

Yes, if only there were another Jedi about who might be able to teach her the basics.

Say, perhaps Tfalta Dawl knows somebody with Jedi training...  *whistles tunelessly*

Y'know...I wasn't going to say anything about that, but...*grin*

Still alive guys.  I'll try to jump back in, life was just settling down when this virus hit, and now the Bay Area is like a bad apocalypse movie...

Sorry!

I think just about everywhere is starting to feel like a bad apocalypse movie.  The show I was working on closed a week and a half early.  All of my school-teacher friends are remote-teaching for the next two weeks.  Movie theaters are still open, so one of my two jobs is still safe.  Pretty sure opening day at the amusement park is postponed, but I'm nervous for how this will affect my job there.

But, hey...being single, I still have enough toilet paper on hand to last me until late June or July, and last time I bought some was back around Christmas, so there's one thing I don't have to worry about...

Things aren't exactly looking great in Canada, here.  :(  But I'll be going in to work on Monday, business as usual.

Until they shut down my building, science marches on!

Yeah, for the time being, we're still gearing up to open the park this summer, so I still have stuff to do....

It's just starting here where I live (near Toronto, Canada). My son and I went to a mall on Saturday around noon and it was empty. Like, creepy empty. And when we went grocery shopping after work Friday, it was a madhouse.

We're not planning a work shutdown, but we've told everyone if they have so much as a sniffle STAY HOME.

Sheesh...I have enough allergy problems, I'd never make it to work with that policy...

Ottawa, Canada, and I've now been working from home for a week.  Things are getting quite scary - I hope everyone stays careful and keeps themselves well.  And I hope everyone is financially safe!

So far, so good, for me.  I talked with the daughter of the park's VP (she's heading up marketing to large groups, as we have a lot of company parties, social groups, and even some pretty big family reunions that book the park, in a normal year).  She let slip that we are almost certainly not opening on schedule...which it seems everybody already knows, even though the park president has refused to make any public statement to the contrary.  I would be really worried, except for a few factors...I'm among those who are actually on salary...that means, open or not, I'll be expected to keep showing up until I either end up getting sick and self-quarantining or there's either a county-wide or state-wide order given to stay home.  It also means, in that eventuality, that I'm likely to keep collecting a paycheck, as I'm as close to indispensable as anyone in our department (I'm the only one with any idea of what's in our costume storage from beyond four years ago, I'm the one with the best knowledge of what's in our props storage, and I'm literally the only person on the park who knows where all the lighting circuits in the theater run).  I've also been with the company for close to twenty years, now, and they tend to be pretty loyal to long-term employees.  So I'm not too fussed about my day job.  And, thus far, the movie theater has done enough business to warrant staying open (we're averaging less than ten tickets per showing...but the building is bought and paid for, all the projection equipment is paid for...overhead is pretty low, for a movie theater, and crowds like that are slow enough that a manager can handle tickets and concessions on their own.)  I'm also effectively on salary there, too, and nobody else there knows my job or wants to do my job, so as long as we're open, I'm employed there.  So, aside from a flood of scared commentary and angry denunciations about not being able to find toilet paper on my FB newsfeed, life hasn't changed that much for me.

I'm pretty much working as normal.  The only change is that we aren't letting customers inside the building.  They turn up, put their dog in one of the outside pens, then phone us to say it's there so we can fetch it in.

Later, they ring us when they're on the way to collect their dog, and we put it outside to wait for them.

Our pet hospital is adapting day by day.  Nobody was really prepared for this.  We're now only allowing 1 client in at a time until we clear the lobby and room the pet, so we can keep client-to-client contact down.

People are starting to do "panic runs" on pet food and medicine. We're trying to adapt.

Hmmmm... no real panic on shopping here, except for toilet paper, of all things.  And maybe meatballs (though the store seems to run out of them at least once a month anyway).

I'm still trying to figure out the fixation with hoarding toilet paper...not even sure where it started, but that seems like the most ridiculous thing to have a shortage on in a pandemic that attacks the lungs..

What makes it even more comical is Taco Bell doing ads for being there to help.

And I'm like... with no TOILET PAPER on the shelves???

Well...I'm among that percentage of the population that eats Taco Bell with no significant digestive distress (sometimes I get a little gassy...)  So that still doesn't explain it to me.  *laugh*

In reply to Rhijans Thanus (msg # 143):

As I heard it, some idiot on YouTube put up a video of all the things he was hoarding in case he couldn't leave the house for six months, and one of the items was basically a room full of toilet paper.  A few million people thought it was a good idea, and the rest is history...

The store here ran out of toilet paper last week, but got new supplies in yesterday.  Oddly it's the only thing that they did run out of so far.

I also noticed that, in spite of their being told to stay away from crowds, being in one of the "at risk" categories, the store has been absolutely packed with old people every time I went in there (I live over the road from it, so I'm in there every day since there is no inconvenience for me in shopping often).  So same old people coming in every day and buying tons of stuff.  Wonder were they were storing it all?

And face it, at their age they were never going to live long enough to use that much toilet paper, even without a lethal virus doing the rounds...  :(

Was so tempted to walk in and start coughing, just to see how fast those pensioners could run...  >:D

In reply to The Force (msg # 146):

I also heard there was a popular radio personality in New Zealand? Maybe? Who had that as one of the big things everyone should be doing.

But it's still mystifying. Especially since, of all the things you might lose access to, that one's not actually that big a deal. Comparatively. I hear in Toronto that meat is becoming scarce. That one could be way, way worse.

We stocked up on meat and frozen vegetables (not hoarded, stocked up) about a week ago. And we're starting to see the veg freezers empty now.

And, again, we're not in an overly panicked area.

Shouldn't be particularly worried about meat.  I'm living proof you can live without it.  :)

Vegetables, on the other hand...yeah, things are getting scary.  Good thing is that there's always fresh produce.  Bad thing is that means more frequent trips for groceries.

On the plus side, my work IS allowing me (and about two other people) to enter the building and keep our experiments alive.  I have about an hour, twice a week.  It's barely enough, but it might suffice.

I feel Ontario WILL start to really panic soon, Haarmon.  We had our first explosion of fear when people realized it was coming.  Now we're just getting into the real sharp part of the graph, and once the cases start piling up, people might finally start taking it seriously.

...I went to drop off something from work at a colleague's house - leave it at his doorstep on the drive home - and witnessed his neighbourhood full of people walking around, talking with each other on corners, etc.  I was tempted to go all Italian Mayor out the window at them.

'The police will come to your house!  WITH FLAMETHROWERS!'