Random Thoughts X: Impromptu Interpretations

[Arakhor]

Back in the day, there used to be an Assassin class, as an alternative to the Thief, but they dropped that for some reason. Bards used to be really weird; they weren't a Class you could take at 1st level, you had to level up in Fighter, Thief, and Wizard first.

Assassins and half-orcs were lost due to the "Satanic Panic", along with all celestial/fiendish creatures being given non-Judaeo-Christian names.

1st Edition bards, as I recall, were fighter/thief/druids.

 

[Takhisis]

Bards used to be really weird; they weren't a Class you could take at 1st level, you had to level up in Fighter, Thief, and Wizard first.

So basically Nale.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Assassins and half-orcs were lost due to the "Satanic Panic", along with all celestial/fiendish creatures being given non-Judaeo-Christian names.

1st Edition bards, as I recall, were fighter/thief/druids.

Oh, was that it? I do remember when the Cthulhu mythos was removed from Deities & Demigods, but I think that was a copyright thing. Say, does anyone else remember Mazes & Monsters, with Tom Hanks?

So basically Nale.

I don't know who that is.

 

[Hygro]

Well, priests of war, certainly. What about all the other types of priests?

Just read it. Yes, in 1st and 2nd edition the worlds were as open as ever in theory, but the suggested flavor of the cleric was a crusader knight. Only in 2nd edition do they even limit the weaponry to bludgeon weapons (still knightly), but then depending on your deity, bring back the swords.

 

[Takhisis]

I don't know who that is.

He's a character from The Order of the Stick, the twin brother to Elan the Bard, who, as TVTropes puts it:

took levels in Sorcerer, Rogue, and Fighter just to get almost exactly the same abilities as Elan got as a Bard.​

(listed under complexity addiction, of course)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I agree, the difference between the cleric and the paladin were never well-described. Early on, I tended to think of them as variations on a theme, the "holy warrior", and the player could decide whether she preferred the version with more spells or the one with more fighting spirit. Later, I reconceptualized the Paladin as something more like a "demon hunter", a variant Fighter, like the Ranger and Barbarian, rather than a variant Cleric, kind of like how Druids and Monks are alternate options to the Cleric and a Sorcerer is a slightly different version of a Wizard. Back in the day, there used to be an Assassin class, as an alternative to the Thief, but they dropped that for some reason. Bards used to be really weird; they weren't a Class you could take at 1st level, you had to level up in Fighter, Thief, and Wizard first.

And never mind the difference between AD&D 1st and 2nd editions... I started out playing the Original D&D (when I really got going; not talking about my subbing for the paladin player). Most of the character classes you're talking about didn't exist.

I thought the difference between the cleric and paladin were quite obvious. Both are ultra-religious, both are fighters, but clerics can't use sharp weapons (are limited to maces or staves). Paladins use swords. Clerics cast spells. Paladins don't. Clerics found churches or temples. Paladins donate to churches or temples and build stuff - they could also build a church or temple, or they could build a castle (being of a more aristocratic class, it would be expected of them at higher levels).

The Assassin class was dropped because first of all, it fed into some of the anti-D&D public's imagination that the game is all about teaching witchcraft, devil-worship, and how to kill. Second, a lot of DMs discovered that it's hard to keep an Assassin character's player focused on the immediate mission and not going off and killing others not on the "to-do list". And of course there's the matter of the other members of the party feeling safe, which many don't around an assassin. It's a difficult class to referee, so quite a few DMs made a ruling that they would not allow Assassin characters.

I was part of a PbP game (play-by-post) for awhile, in a campaign somewhat based on AD&D, but the DM tweaked things in favor of a setting he had created. He informed me that I had a choice of being a bard or thief. Since I do have RL musical experience with a variety of instruments and no experience as a professional thief, I reasoned I could play a bard character better.

Well and good... until another person in the group decided he wanted to be a bard as well. I think the other person wanted a flute or lute (don't remember), so I pondered which other instruments I knew that had older equivalents (the organ is actually a reed instrument, not a percussion instrument like the piano, though you can usually play the same songs on both of them)... and settled on the concertina.

The DM wasn't happy, but I told him, look, the concertina is the precursor to the accordion, and I know how to play the accordion. It will help me to know which actions are and aren't possible. So he accepted that.

Part of the problem is that I'd read Alan Dean Foster's series of novels about a wannabe rock star named Jon-Tom Meriweather (if memory serves on the name) who accidentally gets transported to a fantasy world by a wizard who is in desperate need of a bard. This is the Spellsinger series, and as fantasy goes, it's not bad... not my preferred variety of fantasy, but Foster is a very good author, and so I kept up with it for the first few books. I don't think I've read the last two. In the world Jon-Tom ends up in, animals are sentient. The wizard who brought him to this world is a turtle. There's also a family of otters in the series.

The citizens of this world are a little taken aback at Jon-Tom's songs, but he can only play what he knows, so when he casts spells he uses 20th century rock music. He just needs to remember which lyrics have the elements that might work...

Did it command you to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan? If it did, tell Him it’s all good and Israel has the bomb now.

Dunno how forested it is in Aimee's area, but around here, if one tree catches fire we could end up with an urban forest/grass fire that could take out a significant chunk of the city. We're not like Calgary, with whole subdivisions of concrete with barely a scrap of grass or a small bush to break up the sterile environment people live in there (thankfully there are more civilized sections of that city that have lots of trees and parks).

Assassins and half-orcs were lost due to the "Satanic Panic", along with all celestial/fiendish creatures being given non-Judaeo-Christian names.

Back when I was setting up a campaign and asked who wanted to play a cleric, one of the people who is completely into the evangelical thing put up her hand. She wasn't pleased when I told her I would not allow any religions currently being practiced in RL, and to pick something from mythology. Then she objected to having to tithe a percentage of her coins and treasure to the temple, and I told her, it's in the rulebook, and besides, it's what your character would do. What novice players don't realize is that sooner or later, if they survive, PCs will be looking for things to do with all their money, and they can't just pop into the nearest bank to deposit it (some DMs have a banking system; others don't). That's why there's so much emphasis on supporting the church/temple, building strongholds, and paying for more training (aka leveling up).

Oh, was that it? I do remember when the Cthulhu mythos was removed from Deities & Demigods, but I think that was a copyright thing. Say, does anyone else remember Mazes & Monsters, with Tom Hanks?

I've seen it. My grandmother heard of it, read about it, and immediately went ballistic on me about my D&D books that were on display in the bookshelf in the living room, there for all my typing clients to see. She told me that if I didn't get rid of them, or at least cover them up, I'd lose all my customers.

I told her that at least a couple of my regulars had become regulars after their classmates told them, "You should go to _____ for your papers. She's good, and she has shelves full of science fiction movies and Dungeons & Dragons stuff, you gotta see it."

So my Star Trek stuff, other videos (science fiction movies and home-taped documentary series), books, AD&D hardcovers and modules, and Fighting Fantasy stuff became something they wanted to see and would miss if I put them somewhere else. Someone else thought it was cool that I had a globe in the living room. He said he'd seen that in movies but never in RL (it wasn't a huge one, but was very useful at the time when I was doing research).

That said, my grandmother kept harping on the D&D, that it was evil and would make me go "crazy". Me telling her the magic was just pretend didn't go anywhere. So finally I went outside, got some sand and a couple of petals from the rose bush in the front yard, and went back inside. I said the words and did the actions associated with the Sleep spell (the words and gestures are in Dragons of Autumn Twilight), and asked my grandmother, "Are you asleep?" She looked at me and said, "No, of course not." I told her that if D&D magic really worked, she would be asleep, and the fact that she wasn't was proof that D&D magic really doesn't work and it's just pretend.

So she quit hassling me, and I covered about half the books (with a piece of cat-themed artwork I'd bought at a convention; I still have that and am looking at it right now - a black and white drawing of a mother cat and three kittens).

Just read it. Yes, in 1st and 2nd edition the worlds were as open as ever in theory, but the suggested flavor of the cleric was a crusader knight. Only in 2nd edition do they even limit the weaponry to bludgeon weapons (still knightly), but then depending on your deity, bring back the swords.

In Original D&D clerics were limited to weapons without sharp edges. They could use anything as long as it wasn't sharp, so that meant maces and staves. Swords were forbidden to them (as they were to magic-users, who were limited to daggers and staves).

 

[amadeus]

Tomorrow, I will have been a member here for 19 years. If you were a sperm when I registered, you might be going to (online) university by now.

I was a sperm once.

 

[Ajidica]

Tomorrow, I will have been a member here for 19 years. If you were a sperm when I registered, you might be going to (online) university by now.

I was a sperm once.

Just think what you could have accomplished if you used your powers for good!

 

[Synobun]

Just think what you could have accomplished if you used your powers for good!

The PM of Japan is stepping down. Now's Amadeus's chance.

 

[Synobun]

A hamster is a monster made of ham.

 

[Takhisis]

The PM of Japan is stepping down. Now's Amadeus's chance.

It does say ‘for good’ in Ajidica's post. I just checked.

 

[amadeus]

It does say ‘for good’ in Ajidica's post. I just checked.

 

[Birdjaguar]

A hamster is a monster made of ham.

A big ass wild bore boar?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

"Humble" has become the new "literally" - it is now a word that is used in the exact opposite way from what it originally meant. If you go on LinkedIn, every other post is bragging about some awesome thing that someone did while saying they are 'humbled' to have gotten that award or job.

I'm not moralizing; I don't have anything against humblebragging or straight up bragging. It only annoys me how much it is overused at the moment as people tend to reflect what other people are writing in the same context.

 

[Synobun]

"Humble" has become the new "literally" - it is now a word that is used in the exact opposite way from what it originally meant. If you go on LinkedIn, every other post is bragging about some awesome thing that someone did while saying they are 'humbled' to have gotten that award or job.

I'm not moralizing; I don't have anything against humblebragging or straight up bragging. It only annoys me how much it is overused at the moment as people tend to reflect what other people are writing in the same context.

Reading my LinkedIn feed is truly miserable.

If I have to read one more recruiter's post about how you should do a deep-dive research of every single company you apply to and create a resume (from scratch) specifically for the job, I'm gonna hurl. I don't understand professionals who cater to the lower rungs of the ladder recommending things that only apply to the upper echelons. "I help new graduates start their careers." Then why are you telling them to act like they're dealing with C-suite stakes? Get outta here.

 

[Kyriakos]

"Humble" has become the new "literally" - it is now a word that is used in the exact opposite way from what it originally meant. If you go on LinkedIn, every other post is bragging about some awesome thing that someone did while saying they are 'humbled' to have gotten that award or job.

I'm not moralizing; I don't have anything against humblebragging or straight up bragging. It only annoys me how much it is overused at the moment as people tend to reflect what other people are writing in the same context.

Indeed. Usually one needs to stay humble after being awarded something. They'd be humbled if after they won god would pull a Job on them and everything around them would die plus their body would be filled with cancerous moles.

 

[Synobun]

Indeed. Usually one needs to stay humble after being awarded something. They'd be humbled if after they won god would pull a Job on them and everything around them would die plus their body would be filled with cancerous moles.

Speaking from personal experience?

 

[Kyriakos]

Speaking from personal experience?

Yes, I am actually Job.
It all worked ok, though, cause after god tested me (Job) he game me (Job) new relatives to replace those killed, and my body regained its health.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Reading my LinkedIn feed is truly miserable.

Mine has been taken over by corporate interns who fawn over the big aerospace primes either in hopes of getting full-time offers or under the direction of primes directly. So, so many of their posts are cringeworthy affairs about how meaningful their 2-month stents were, complete with the corporate accounts liking and boosting the posts with pithy replies.

Also, lots and lots of racism. My god, LinkedIn is so flipping racist these days. I know I have complained about it many times before but the reason why the interns have taken over my feed is because I've had to purge it of practically everyone else that posts because they all post racist and misogynistic garbage. There is one account called 'The Female Lead' that posts enlightening or uplifting news about women in STEM and the top replies to half of its posts are just straight up hate speech.

 

[Synobun]

Thankfully, my feed doesn't have any racism. Just weird religiousness. Praise the Lord I got an interview at a job that will give me 5 days unpaid leave, surely God will bless me.