I know. I actually tested if two different-looking kinds of dice were balanced against each other. (They were remarkably so.) The trick is that to spot small differences the number of tests grows large. Also: Maybe the rituals don’t work when testing, but only in actual play when you really, really want them to work (or numerous other explanations).

Tommis last blog post..Process of play

I agree that there is a difference between being a generalist during the time of the Renaissance and being a generalist in the modern age. However, I don’t think that the fact that you can’t have same depth (or, more accurately, knowledge to the current professional level) as you could then, the phrase “Renaissance Man” has come to have its own meaning beyond what it would truly mean (as phrases in common use tend to do).

However, I won’t quibble further with your adopted title… (I always wanted to be a “Freelance Intellectual… Saw it in a book once, and I really liked it…)

Michael Phillipss last blog post..RE: W3C

That’s all I’m going to say on that matter. Religion and politics are dangerous topics on any web site, and I know that Chatty is trying to keep the jerk factor to a minimum (ie: completely absent).

@Michael Phillips: You should refer to yourself as a “modern Renaissance man” (or modern Michaelangelo…)

Michael Phillipss last blog post..RE: W3C

Since then, personal study, seldom in depth, of whatever catches my interest/looks useful for what ever I’m working on writing. Recently that has been social justice/civil liberties/security issues.

Most of my work experience has been in educational venues, tutoring and working as a substitute teacher here and there.

Michael Phillipss last blog post..RE: W3C

Michael Phillipss last blog post..RE: W3C

Tommis last blog post..Process of play

Hum, also, in a general sense, there is a great deal of harm that can come from an animistic approach to non-animistic situations. It will tend to skew your (already bad just because you are a human) sense of likelihood, which if constrained to the game table (and possibly the craps table) won’t do too much harm, but if it expands to cover other instances of chance in your daily life, it could be exceptionally bad.

I direct you here: http://cectic.com/137.html as a specific case of the general problem with “if ~x, how does the belief x cause harm”

Michael Phillipss last blog post..RE: W3C

About randomness; If dice animism works, one should do it, and if it doesn’t there’s no harm in doing it. Proving that dice animism does not work is next to impossible. Hence one should practice it. (Refuting this argument is left as an exercise for the reader. See also the similar argument about believing in God.)

Tommis last blog post..Process of play

Begone foul fiend of stats and science!

Were I the Evil Overlord, I’d incinerate you on the spot! Of course, not that you passed the Minion test… that gives you free clone coverage.

Whenever my dice falls off the table and someone shouts ‘no good’ it always rolls in the upper range!
Oh there’s an observer effect going on here, but not the one that you are thinking of. It is, instead, the result of the incredibly bad job our brains do of sealing with statistical occurences. We are really bad at determining if something is likely or not, and we tend to filter out events that don’t match with our (already skewed) preconceptions, so the half of the time that the dice off the table landed on 1 – 10, well, those are the ones you aren’t remembering.

And I like Seattle.

Michael Phillipss last blog post..Firefoxing

If electrons change their behaviors when observed why not dice? Anyone that believes that dice are truly random deserve to be deported to a dreary land where it rains all the time.

Whenever my dice falls off the table and someone shouts ‘no good’ it always rolls in the upper range!

Statistics… pfa! It’s just clever lying!

Michael Phillipss last blog post..Firefoxing

Michael Phillipss last blog post..Firefoxing

You’re running a silly game with high mortality rate: rolling is fun because you know this character will probably die anyway might as well enhance the silliness with some truly random stats.

You’re running a year long campaign: Rolling your stats loses a lot of its appeal since you’ll be stuck with whatever you rolled for a long time.

Then again some people are mystical about dice rolling and truly believe they have a control over the statistical randomness of a die.

Ask anyone about their D20 results and you’ll see.

“Firstly, there are no more stat boosting magical items, which means that Rogue 2 can’t hope to get a few +2s to bring his 8s up to more respectable 10s.” How many of *your* players use stat-boosting items to boost their lowest stats? I know my players prefer to bump up their already high stats, rather than worry about their lows (despite the law of diminishing returns). I’m assuming that this is based on the fact that their currently high stats are high “for a reason”, and they’ve already decided that their low stats are not as important.

“(they take pains to point out that such characters are not RPGA legal, for example)” They do this because RPGA requires a higher level of inherent balance. If a player comes to the table at an RPGA event and has all 18′s, it’s suspect, and now you need a reason to say “I’m sorry, that’s allowed.” Point buy, as I pointed out, is inherently balanced. For something like RPGA, this is a must. For something like a table game, this is an option. Illegal in RPGA has nothing to do with it being an “outdated system”.