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Post by krusader74 on Aug 28, 2017 15:02:31 GMT -6
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 28, 2017 14:41:32 GMT -6
I removed the link for "Garbage Pits of Despair", though, at least for the moment No problem. Hopefully, this link will be restored very soon... I've written an email to Tadashi Ehara, publisher of Different Worlds magazine, and asked permission to excerpt Dave's article, "Garbage Pits of Despair", from issues #42 and #43. To: info@diffworlds.com, sales@diffworlds.com, webmaster@diffworlds.com Subj: Request for permission Body: > Dear Tadashi Ehara, To commemorate Dave Arneson's 70th birthday on October 1 2017, I am putting together a list of links to essays, interviews, forum posts, maps, dungeons and roleplaying supplements by him. You can see this list here:
http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/12562/arnesoniana
I would very much like to include in this list a link to the "Garbage Pits of Despair", a Blackmoor adventure, published in two parts in *Different Worlds* magazine issues #42 and #43.
If you own this work, then I would very much appreciate your permission to republish it. I would be happy to accomodate any requested modifications, such as removing copyrighted artwork and including an acknowledgement thanking you and your magazine for your contribution!
However, if Dave retained ownership to this adventure, then I will seek permission from his family. Please let me know. Thanks very much for your help!
I will post back with updates. If we are a society where the sharing of a 20-year-old, "lost" magazine excerpt is considered harmful to any community of heirs, then the fault is with society. Slight correction: 31-years-old It's worth noting that Dave Arneson himself was a generous, sharing guy. WRT his original roleplaying rules, he wrote:
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 27, 2017 11:39:34 GMT -6
Arneson also posted here under the name "blackmoor" Thanks! I've updated the OP with links to these 115 posts!
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 26, 2017 14:29:37 GMT -6
ArnesonianaWhat follows are links to some firsthand online resources by Dave Arneson: essays, interviews, posts, a supplement, a map, and a dungeon. Here is a quick summary of these links: For purposes of commentary and criticism, below I've excerpted from these Arnesoniana a few quotes that shed light on the origin of roleplaying and OD&D. If you know of any other firsthand, online, Arneson-specific links or resources that will help others discover the wonders of OD&D, then please add them below! Also feel free to add your own comments about the resources mentioned here in the OP. Enjoy! Remark: Dave sued Gary Gygax and TSR five times to get credit as co-creator of D&D. The cases were settled out of court and the terms were sealed. Unfortuantely, as a result of the confidentiality, Dave could not answer many frequently asked questions, either here or in the interviews linked below. A snapshot of Dave's official website archived by the Wayback Machine on 10-Jun-2008 (the Wayback Machine's links still work but may require a few seconds to load): An Interview with Dave Arneson. Pegasus #1 (April/May, 1981). Page 4. Question: Does anyone know who got ejected from Dave's game? By any chance was it the legendary Dinkie Rizzle?!
Garbage Pits of Despair (PDF) - a Blackmoor Campaign Module for Dungeons & Dragons by Dave Arneson: Link removed by Rafe.- Part 1 - The Slave Raiders. Different Worlds #42 (May/June 1986).
- Part 2 - The Dragon Hills. Different Worlds #43 (July/August 1986).
Quoting from Wikipedia: Pegasus chats with... Dave Arneson. Pegasus #14 (December, 1999). Comment: I'm quite fond of Dave's remarks here about rules and referees. Dave Arneson Interview. GameSpy. By Andrew S. Bub. August 11, 2002. 2 pages. The following exchange about Dave's role in the D&D movie is a gem... An Interview With Dave Arneson. ENworld.org. By Ciro Allessandro Sacco. July 07, 2004. Dave Arneson Interview. GameSpy. By Allen Rausch. August 19, 2004. 6 pages. Dungeons & Dragons' Arneson: The Lost Interview. Gamasutra. Published posthumously, August 10, 2009.
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 12, 2017 11:31:28 GMT -6
Chainmail -- 2d6 versus monster type on the fantastic attacks chart. I count no fewer than 11 different combat sub-systems at work in CHAINMAIL! - Missile fire (excluding guns, catapults, cannon, and wizards): d6 roll, where # kills depends on the number of attackers firing and the defender's armor type (only 3 broadly defined armor types).
- Gun fire: d6 >= Target Number (TN), where TN depends only on range.
- Catapult fire: All figures within the Hit Area are killed. Min/max range and diameter of the Hit Area both depend on weapon type. Overshoot (undershoot) determined by max(2d6), where the two dice are different colors, one indicating overshoot and the other indicating undershoot.
- Cannon fire: Hit areas depend on weapon type and variation measure (d6 roll) that determines the angle of deviation from the selected target.
- Wizard fire: Fireball=catapult, Lightning bolt=cannon, except heroic figures and some monsters get a saving throw: 2d6 >= TN that depends on hero/monster type.
- Mass Combat Table: # kills determined by number of successes when N rolls are made, each roll d6 >= TN, where TN depends on attacker type versus defender type, and N depends on both the numbers and type of the opposing units. Note: You need to be able to do division as in "1 die per 3 men, 6 kills."
- Man-to-man melee: 2d6 >= TN, where TN depends on Attacker's weapon type (12 melee weapon types and 7 missile types), defender's armor type (10 armor types), and range if missile weapon.
- Jousting: Matrix game (like rock, paper, scissors) depending on the attacker's strategy versus the defender's strategy. No dice! (TBD: How many Nash equilibra are there, and what types are they (mixed/pure)?)
- Fantasy Combat Table: 2d6 versus TN, where TN depends on attacker type and defender type. Kill if 2d6>TN; move back 1 full move if 2d6=TN; and no effect otherwise.
- Wizard Spells and Counterspells: Effect depends on spell (16 spells) and wizard rank (5 ranks). Spell distance and number of spells depends on wizard rank. Optional spell complexity (SC) is 2d6 versus 3 target numbers (TNs) corresponding to immediate effect (I), delayed effect (D) and negated (N). TNs depend on spell level (6 levels) and wizard rank.
- Siege warfare: Each weapon type has a fixed damage value (no random roll). Defending structures have different point values, determined prior to play.
Morale figures heavily into combat and there are 4 sub-systems: - Post-melee morale: Each side computes a score = d6 * (positive difference in losses) + (positive difference in survivors) + Sum {(number of surving figures of type ) * (weight of type)}. Then the side with the lower score computes the difference in scores and looks up the effect in a table. Note: Lots of accounting. And you need to do multiplication, not just addition and subtraction. (Aside: in Geneva Medieval Miniatures this computation was vastly simplified: score = d6 * (number of survivors). The player with the higher score stands his ground and captures d6 prisoners. The player with the lower score moves back 1 full move facing away from the enemy and must rally.)
- Instability Due to Excess Casualties: 2d6 >= TN, where TN depends on unit type. Failure means the unit is removed from play, unless surrounded (in which case they surrender).
- Swiss/Landsknechte Pike Charge: Resolve like "Instability Due to Excess Casualties", except failure means they move back 1.5 moves. They are only eliminated if they are pursued before rallying.
- Cavalry Charge: 2d6 >= TN, where TN depends on attacker/defender types. Dice modifiers apply for flanking, rear attack and when both sides are charging.
All morale sub-systems share a common rule for rallying: d6 >= TN, where TN depends on number of rounds spent in retreat. The main goal of all these diverse combat sub-systems is historical accuracy. You were supposed to be able to recreate historical Medieval battles and get similar results. So here are the main lessons I learned from CHAINMAIL: - Numerous sub-systems.
- Non-uniform dice probabilities: 2d6 is most common. Some uniform (d6 most common). And a couple of diceless sub-systems.
- Complex accounting procedures: Must be able to do multiplication and division, not just addition and subtraction.
- Lots of table lookups.
- Historical accuracy.
OD&D -- 1d20 versus AC on the men-versus-men attacks chart; 1d20 versus AC on the men-versus-monsters chart. Don't forget that the FAQ from The Strategic Review Vol. 1 No. 2 Summer 1975 equips OD&D with yet another combat sub-system -- for grappling -- namely (# attacker's hit dice)d6 versus (# defenders's hit dice)d6 - If the attacker's score is higher, then he successfully pins the helpless defender.
- If the scores are equal, then the defender is unable to return the attack, but he is still on his feet.
- If the defender's score is higher, then he tosses all attackers aside and stuns them for a number of rounds equal to the difference in scores.
Also, before any combat takes place using either sub-system (grappling or the Alternative Combat System), there is a d6 surprise roll and a d6 initiative roll. These rolls are common to both sub-systems. ...Now fast-forward to the d20 OGL system circa 2000, and you get one unified mechanic: d20 + (bonuses that make the task easier) >= TN + (circumstance modifiers that make the task harder). The base TNs are easy-to-remember multiples of 5. You could table the modifiers, but it boils down to what makes sense given the character's abilities, skills and the circumstances. The main lessons are: - One unified mechanic.
- Uniform dice probabilities: d20.
- Simple accounting procedures: Only have to add. (No multiplication, division, or even subtraction!)
- No real need for table lookups.
- Cinematic (not historically accurate).
These are exactly the opposite of CHAINMAIL's design principles!!!
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 8, 2017 18:50:59 GMT -6
I draw a lot of inspiration for playing D&D and other RPGs from comic books. And one man's artwork and storytelling have made a great impact on me... August 28th 2017 is the centennial of Jack Kirby, the King of Comics. There is a campaign already underway to get a Google Doodle for Jack Kirby's 100th birthday. If you want to help, then please send an email like the following to Google today! Use the following as a template. Keep the To: and Subject: as shown but personalize the Body: as you see fit. To: proposals@google.com Subject: Google Doodle for Jack Kirby - August 28 2017 Body: > Jack Kirby is the King of Comics. One of the most prolific and influential innovators in comic book history, Kirby created the most iconic superheroes (and villains) in the world: The Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Sandman, Demon Etrigan, New Gods, Darkseid, Hulk, Kamandi, Manhunter, Newsboy Legion, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, Silver Surfer, Thor, and X-Men. Please do a Google Doodle to celebrate Kirby's 100th birthday on August 28 2017. There are other tributes to the King going on this month... ComixologyThis week, Comixology has a DC Jack Kirby Sale. Up to 67% off his digital comics. Sale ends Monday, 08/14/2017. Marvel: True BelieversThis month, Marvel is reprinting classic Jack Kirby comics as part of the "True Believers" series. These comics only cost $1 (US) each. Wednesday August 2 they sold the following: Wednesday August 9, they reprinted: Wednesday August 16, they had: - Captain America #1
- Eternals #1
Wednesday August 23, they had: - Devil Dinosaur
- Inhumans
- Nick Fury
UPDATE: This week, Wednesday August 30, they're selling: - Iron Man
- Antman and The Wasp
DCDC also has a number of things going on this month to celebrate the King's centennial. DC is doing a series of one-shot specials: - New Gods Special #1, $4.99, August 2, (featuring Orion) with reprints of Kriby's Lonar and Thunderer. I thought they did a great job with this one-shot and look forward to collecting the rest.
- Newsboy Legion Special #1, August 9
- Sandman Special #1, August 16
- Manhunter Special #1, August 23
- The Black Racer Special #1, August 30
- Darkseid Special #1, August 30
They are also launching a new series based on one of Kirby's iconic Fourth World characters. I have high hopes for this: - Mister Miracle #1, August 9 (UPDATE: First comic book store I went to had already sold out! Second one still had a few copies left. Not dissappointed: I thought this was awesome! Original Mister Miracle was based on Jim Steranko who worked as an escape artist before he became a comic book illustrator. This new take on Mister Miracle reminds me a bit of Joe Chip in PKD's Ubik...)
There is also a tribute book: Please keep this thread going by sharing your own stories of how Kirby has inspired your roleplaying, or if you have any news of other celebrations of Kirby's 100th. And please remember to send an email asking for a Kirby Google Doodle!
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 4, 2017 16:32:03 GMT -6
"Planes: The Concepts of Spatial, Temporal and Physical Relationships in D&D" was an article by Gary Gygax in The Dragon #8 (Vol. 1, No. 8) July 1977, on pages 4, 5, and 28. Gary Gygax talks about the planes: their nature, denizens, and magic items that are influenced by them. This article really inspired me. Here are some of the things I found thought provoking about it: Gygax's multiverse is 4 dimensional. Referring to his diagram of the planes, he says, explicitly: "this is a 2-dimensional diagram of a 4-dimensional concept." (See the attached PDF to see the diagram I'm talking about.) I've written a lot about using 4D in D&D. Here are a few examples: Multiplanarity of monsters and magic weapons. If a monster only takes damage from a +1 weapon, then it exists simultaneously on the prime material plane and 1 other plane. If a monster only takes damage from a +2 weapon, then it exists simultaneously on the prime material plane and 2 other planes. Etc. Reciprocally, if a weapon does +1 damage, then it exists simultaneously on the prime material plane and 1 other plane. But does it exist on the same plane as the multiplanar monster you are attacking? Maybe your +1 sword works on hell spawn, but not on demons from the abyss... And when your +2 weapon moves "up" a plane, it may lose one of its plusses. Similarly, other magic items which work well in the prime material plane may lose their magic on other planes... Is there any literary precedence for a syncretic multiverse of such scope? Maybe Michael Moorcock (Elric of Melniboné)? Or the DC or Marvel comic multiverses? But I'm not so sure any of these multiverses were as fully developed or that they so fully united Hinduism/Buddhism (Nirvana) with Greek myths (Hades, Tarterus), Norse folk tales (Gladsheim), and Christian belief (Limbo, Heaven, Hell) -- at least not back in 1977. The current Marvel omniverse and Grant Morrison's recent schema of the DC multiverse certainly possess this pan religiosity, e.g., For purposes of commentary & criticism, the article I'm talking about is attached: Do the planes figure into your OD&D campaigns? How do you use them? Do you have a different conception of them?
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 1, 2017 16:00:18 GMT -6
I transcribed the "Geneva Medieval Miniatures" rules mentioned in my last post. This is really just a footnote to my last post, rather than a brand new "addition." Two versions are attached: Low res., watermarked photos of these rules are available on Jon Petersen's website (see my last post for link). Unfortunately, some of the text there was obscured by the watermarks. I substituted three question marks ? ? ? whenever I could not see the text. The original was nearly 5 letter-size pages. The attached PDF version is nearly double the page count, since it's in digest format. Sorry in advance for any transcription errors! These rules are truly fascinating. They are a simplified forerunner of the 1:20 CHAINMAIL rules. I love the uncomplicated "1 round" melee rules! Lots of material to analyze/discuss in these pages. Two questions...- Does anyone have a copy of the "4 page set of the original, less complicated version" of these rules mentioned in the 1st paragraph?
- Is there a non-watermarked copy? Can someone else fill in the blanks ? ? ?
Thanks!
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Post by krusader74 on Aug 1, 2017 15:42:08 GMT -6
I also loved how "Jack Kirby" many of the designs and especially costumes were. The whole mighty-magic/super-science/post-apocalypse/weird-moon thing really screams of balls-to-the-wall epic adventure! The King himself designed many of the villains, IIRC. The King of Comics, Jack Kirby, was born August 28, 1917, so we're quickly approaching his 100th birthday! DC Comics plans to release some memorials to him this month... Likely to be other recollections/celebrations of his work, but these are the main two I've seen advertised in the comics I've been reading lately.
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 31, 2017 14:10:06 GMT -6
Hot-hand fallacy diceWhat follows is a "show and tell" about some computer code I'm writing this week. I am re-writing and expanding Evan Verworn's Gambler's fallacy Dice, an ES6 (JavaScript) class for dice that follow the Gambler's fallacy. In addition to Gambler's fallacy dice in which people tend to predict the opposite outcome of the last event (negative recency), it also implements Hot-hand fallacy dice in which people tend to predict the same outcome of the last event (positive recency). (It implements a fair die too!) It adds convenience functions for making tables of probabilities, summarizing sample statistics, and performing Chi-squared hypothesis testing. It uses ESDoc to document the API. I still have a liitle more work to do (see the Future research section near the end). When I'm done, I'll post the finished product on GitHub, which is having some problems with outages this week. I've attached the source code at the bottom, in case someone wants to try it now. (It works!) The following demonstration should help explain what this is all about... DemoIncluded in the source code is a script that demonstrates the main features. In the project's root directory, run the script from the command line by entering: $ node -r markdown-table -r chi-squared-test -r ./src/Dice ./src/dice-demo.js or more simply as $ npm run demo The resulting MarkDown-formatted output looks like this... hot-hand-dice demoWe will be rolling three kinds of dice and testing them for fairness using Pearson's chi-squared test: The null hypothesis H 0 is that all faces are equally likely. The significance level α (alpha) is 0.001. We roll each die 10,000 times, compute the p-value as p = 1 - F(χ 25), and reject H 0 if p ≤ α. FairDieRoll 10 times and show the probability distribution for all 10 and the next... Roll | % of 1 | % of 2 | % of 3 | % of 4 | % of 5 | % of 6 | Actual Roll |
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1 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 2 | 2 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 2 | 3 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 1 | 4 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 5 | 5 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 3 | 6 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 3 | 7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 1 | 8 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 3 | 9 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 3 | 10 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 4 | 11 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | ? |
Roll once: 5 Generate sample of size 3: 5,5,5 Generate sample of size 9,986 (not shown) for a total of 10,000 rolls so far... Generate sample statistics for all 10,000 rolls... Statistic | Value |
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sample size N | 10000 | sample mean m | 3.49 | sample standard deviation s | 1.71 | % of 1 | 16.83 | % of 2 | 16.30 | % of 3 | 17.18 | % of 4 | 16.92 | % of 5 | 16.07 | % of 6 | 16.70 |
p-value: 0.406724960090882 (not significant: do not reject the null hypothesis that all faces are equally likely) GamblersDieRoll 10 times and show the probability distribution for all 10 and the next... Roll | % of 1 | % of 2 | % of 3 | % of 4 | % of 5 | % of 6 | Actual Roll |
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1 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 4 | 2 | 18.2 | 18.2 | 18.2 | 9.1 | 18.2 | 18.2 | 4 | 3 | 18.8 | 18.8 | 18.8 | 6.3 | 18.8 | 18.8 | 1 | 4 | 5.3 | 21.1 | 21.1 | 10.5 | 21.1 | 21.1 | 2 | 5 | 9.5 | 4.8 | 23.8 | 14.3 | 23.8 | 23.8 | 4 | 6 | 12.5 | 8.3 | 25.0 | 4.2 | 25.0 | 25.0 | 6 | 7 | 16.7 | 12.5 | 29.2 | 8.3 | 29.2 | 4.2 | 5 | 8 | 21.7 | 17.4 | 34.8 | 13.0 | 4.3 | 8.7 | 1 | 9 | 4.2 | 20.8 | 37.5 | 16.7 | 8.3 | 12.5 | 3 | 10 | 9.5 | 28.6 | 4.8 | 23.8 | 14.3 | 19.0 | 1 | 11 | 4.0 | 28.0 | 8.0 | 24.0 | 16.0 | 20.0 | ? |
Roll once: 2 Generate sample of size 3: 5,3,6 Generate sample of size 9,986 (not shown) for a total of 10,000 rolls so far... Generate sample statistics for all 10,000 rolls... Statistic | Value |
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sample size N | 10000 | sample mean m | 3.51 | sample standard deviation s | 1.71 | % of 1 | 16.48 | % of 2 | 16.82 | % of 3 | 16.37 | % of 4 | 17.08 | % of 5 | 16.49 | % of 6 | 16.76 |
p-value: 0.8290540016036037 (not significant: do not reject the null hypothesis that all faces are equally likely) HotHandDieRoll 10 times and show the probability distribution for all 10 and the next... Roll | % of 1 | % of 2 | % of 3 | % of 4 | % of 5 | % of 6 | Actual Roll |
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1 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 | 1 | 2 | 28.6 | 14.3 | 14.3 | 14.3 | 14.3 | 14.3 | 6 | 3 | 25.0 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 25.0 | 3 | 4 | 22.2 | 11.1 | 22.2 | 11.1 | 11.1 | 22.2 | 3 | 5 | 20.0 | 10.0 | 30.0 | 10.0 | 10.0 | 20.0 | 1 | 6 | 27.3 | 9.1 | 27.3 | 9.1 | 9.1 | 18.2 | 1 | 7 | 33.3 | 8.3 | 25.0 | 8.3 | 8.3 | 16.7 | 1 | 8 | 38.5 | 7.7 | 23.1 | 7.7 | 7.7 | 15.4 | 6 | 9 | 35.7 | 7.1 | 21.4 | 7.1 | 7.1 | 21.4 | 3 | 10 | 33.3 | 6.7 | 26.7 | 6.7 | 6.7 | 20.0 | 1 | 11 | 37.5 | 6.3 | 25.0 | 6.3 | 6.3 | 18.8 | ? |
Roll once: 3 Generate sample of size 3: 4,1,3 Generate sample of size 9,986 (not shown) for a total of 10,000 rolls so far... Generate sample statistics for all 10,000 rolls... Statistic | Value |
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sample size N | 10000 | sample mean m | 3.31 | sample standard deviation s | 1.80 | % of 1 | 30.92 | % of 2 | 0.17 | % of 3 | 22.73 | % of 4 | 9.79 | % of 5 | 25.81 | % of 6 | 10.58 |
p-value: 0 (significant: reject the null hypothesis that all faces are equally likely) Things to notice about the demo- The gambler's die has the same statistical properties as the fair die: same mean, standard deviation, and (in the long run) the same probability distribution.
- In the statistical tests, the gambler's die tends to produce higher p-values than the fair die (which equates with lower χ2 test statistics).
- The hot-hand fallacy is related to the Matthew Effect: "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer (Mt. 25:29)" and the Simon Model. Success tends to flow to those who experience a little early success.
- The limit of the pmfs of the hot-hand die almost surely converge to a discrete power-law distribution, i.e., f(x)=a x-k for some permutation x of the faces. Note that a power-law distribution only has a well-defined mean if k>2, and it only has a well-defined variance if k>3.
Future researchFirst, it is most likely that the hot-hand die does not possess a well-defined mean or variance! What needs to be done is an estimation of the exponent of discrete power law data. Second, I want to implement a die that follows the Simon Model. Such a die generally works like a hot-hand die, except that on each roll there is a tiny probability that the die "grows" a new face! This kind of die also follows a discrete power law. Lastly, the number of rolls (10,000) in the demonstration was arbitrary. What really needs to be done: - Experimentation to find the effect size w = √(χ25/n) for fair dice rolls. For a general χ2 distribution, the rule of thumb is 0.5 is a large effect size, 0.3 moderate, and 0.1 small. In the articles I reviewed (see the references below), it is generally assumed when we test dice we're looking for a large effect size (0.5). That assumption should be tested.
- A function N that maps significance (α), statistical power (1 - β) and effect size (w) to sample size N = N(α, 1 - β, w).
ReferencesHere are some references that go into more detail about testing dice for fairness as well as the relationship between sample size, effect size, statistical power and significance level for χ 2 distributions: AppendicesDependenciesTo run the source code, you will need: Development dependenciesTo continue development of this code, you should also have: - ESLint for ES6 linting, run with
npm run lint - ESDoc for documentation, run with
npm run doc - Tape for testing, run with
npm run test Attachmentshot-hand-dice.zip (476.88 KB) - ZIP archive with all source code, documentation and tests
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 31, 2017 13:24:07 GMT -6
Here's the ad that keeps appearing: And if I click on it, I get this: It seems to be in all the forums that uses proboards. ...I find these tactics very hypocritical since Proboards claims: But this is both annoying and a popup! Technically, it's a scroll-linked CSS popup. Neither the NoScript nor AdBlockPlus Firefox add-ons I use seem to protect against it. To get rid of it, I installed the GreaseMonkey Firefox add-on and wrote the following JavaScript one-liner: window.runAntiAdBlock=0; Poof it's gone! Perhaps someone with more web savvy has a better idea? For the record, I have no qualms about using ad blockers. Content providers certainly have a right to make money by serving ads. But does that negate my right to use ad blockers in my browser, on my pc, in my home? Furthermore, there's another thread on these boards about malvertizing -- attempts to download malware through ads. I certainly have the right to defend myself against crooks trying to hack my pc!!!
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 25, 2017 17:26:17 GMT -6
Continuing this series of Gygax OD&D additions... 8. "The Origins of D&D" - A frequently asked question, answered by Gary Gygax in the Designer's Forum column of The Dragon #7 (Vol II, No. 1) June 1977, page 7.
- The entire article is less than one page long --- only 8 paragraphs --- but it's packed very densely with great info of much interest here on the Original D&D Discussion forum.
- I haven't added this 8th installment to the master PDF (with "additions" 1--7) yet. There are several more "additions" in progress, and I'll update the master PDF when they're complete. In the meantime I've attached Markdown and PDF versions of this post below.
- I've added some commentary below the article. The pilcrow ¶ indicates the paragraph used as the source of the quote. Please feel free to post your own comments and questions below!
THE ORIGINS OF D&DThe most frequently asked question at seminars which I have given on DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is: "How did the game originate?" Because of the frequency of this question, and the involved nature of the reply required, I thought it a good idea to once again put it in writing. The Forward in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS contains most of what follows, but I will go into greater detail here. When the International Federation of Wargaming was at its peak, it contained many special interest groups. I founded one of these, the "Castle & Crusade Society". All members of this sub-group were interested in things medieval and I began publishing a magazine for them entitled Domesday Book. In an early issue, I drew up a map of the "Great Kingdom". Members of the society could then establish their holdings on the map, and we planned to sponsor campaign-type gaming at some point. Dave Arneson was a member of the C&C Society, and he established a barony, Blackmoor, to the northeast of the map, just above the Great Kingdom. He began a local medieval campaign for the Twin Cities gamers and used this area. The medieval rules, CHAINMAIL (Gygax and Perren) were published in Domesday Book prior to publication by Guidon Games. Of course, they were in a less developed state, and were only for a 1:20 figure scale. Between the time they appeared in Domesday Book and their publication by Guidon Games, I revised and expanded the rules for 1:20 and added 1:1 scale games, jousting, and fantasy. Rob Kuntz and I had acquired a large number of 40mm figures, and many of them were so heroic looking that it seemed a good idea to play some games which would reflect the action of the great swords and sorcery yarns. So I devised such rules, and the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association proceeded to play-test them. When the whole appeared as CHAINMAIL, Dave began using the fantasy rules for his campaign, and he reported a number of these actions to the C&C Society by way of articles. I thought that this usage was quite interesting, and a few months later when Dave came down to visit me we played a game of his amended CHAINMAIL fantasy campaign. Dave had taken the man-to-man and fantasy rules and modified them for his campaign. Players began as Heroes or Wizards. With sufficient success they could become Superheroes. In a similar fashion, Wizards could become more powerful. Additionally, he had added equipment for players to purchase and expanded the characters descriptions considerably --- even adding several new monsters to the rather short CHAINMAIL line-up. The idea of measured progression (experience points) and the addition of games taking place in a dungeon maze struck me as being very desireable. However, that did not really fit in the framework of CHAINMAIL. I asked Dave to please send me his rules additions, for I thought a whole new system should be developed. A few weeks after his visit I received 18 or so handwritten pages of rules and notes pertaining to his campaign, and I immediately began work on a brand new manuscript. "Greyhawk" campaign started --- the first D&D campaign! About three weeks later, I had some 100 typewritten pages, and we began serious play-testing in Lake Geneva, while copies were sent to the Twin Cities and to several other groups for comment. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS had been born. Its final form came over a year later and consisted of nearly 300 manuscript pages which I wrote during the wee hours of many a morning and on weekends. The first D&D (as opposed to variant CHAINMAIL) dungeon adventurers were: Ernie Gygax, Don Kaye, Rob Kuntz and Terry Kuntz. They were soon joined by Don Arndt, Brian Blume, Tom Champeny, Bill Corey, Bob Dale, Mary Dale, Chip Mornard, Mike Mornard, and Tim Wilson. All of these gamers --- as well as the other play-testers --- contributed to the final form of the game. There were then three character classes, with players beginning at first level (rather than as 4th level Hero-types or relatively powerful Wizards), and each level was given a heroic or otherwise descriptive name. The actions that they could follow were outlined. Spells were expanded. The list of monsters was broadened again, and a complete listing of magical items and treasures was given. The reaction to the manuscript was instant enthusiasm. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS differed considerably from Dave's "Blackmoor" campaign, just as the latter differed from CHAINMAIL: but, based on the reception given to the game by the others testing it, he had to agree that it was acceptable. Although D&D was not Dave's game system by any form or measure, he was given co-billing as author for his valuable idea kernels. He complained bitterly that the game wasn't right, but the other readers/players loved it. In fact, the fellows playing the manuscript version were so enthusiastic that they demanded publication of the rules as soon as possible. Thus, D&D was released long before I was satisfied that it was actually ready. I am not sorry that we decided to publish then instead of later, even though I've often been taken to task about it since, and I hope all of you feel the same way too. You can, however, rest assured that work on a complete revision of the game is in progress, and I promise a far better product. NotesBack in November 2010 in the thread Domesday Book PDFs?, Rob Kuntz talked about converting the Domesday Book into PDFs and distributing them freely. Jon Peterson (AKA increment) offers a more detailed publication history of CHAINMAIL on his blog: - "Geneva Medieval Miniatures" in Panzerfaust April 1970, pages 4--8
- "LGTSA Miniatures Rules" in Domesday Book Issue #5 July 1970
- "LGTSA Miniatures Rules" in Spartan International Monthly August 1970
There is a free CHAINMAIL retro-clone called Grognard (version 0.11 May 30, 2016). And CHAINMAIL itself is available for sale again since January 10, 2017 in PDF format at DriveThruRPG for only $4.99. Quoting from an interview with Jon "Buck" Birnbaum for GameBanshee published on 07/20/04, Gary Gygax said, Henry Bodenstedt's game, the Siege of Bodenburg is still available online. AKA gronanofsimmeryaA reference to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. AttachmentsOrigins-of-DD.md (9.87 KB) Origins-of-DD.pdf (202.05 KB)
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Post by krusader74 on Jul 13, 2017 17:15:48 GMT -6
Have Gun, Will Travel (About a gunslinger who is, basically, a D&D "Murder hobo") is a great source of rip-off-able ideas for RPG adventures for any genre. And for all you Star Trek fans out there, Gene Roddenberry wrote 24 episodes of Have Gun - Will Travel: - The Great Mojave Chase (1957, Season 1, Episode 3)
- The Yuma Treasure (1957, Season 1, Episode 14)
- The Hanging Cross (1957, Season 1, Episode 15)
- Helen of Abajinian (1957, Season 1, Episode 16)
- Ella West (1958, Season 1, Episode 17)
- The Hanging of Roy Carter (1958, Season 2, Episode 4)
- The Road to Wickenburg (1958, Season 2, Episode 7)
- Juliet (1959, Season 2, Episode 20)
- The Monster of Moon Ridge (1959, Season 2, Episode 24)
- Maggie O'Bannion (1959, Season 2, Episode 28)
- Return of Roy Carter (1959, Season 2, Episode 32)
- Episode in Laredo (1959, Season 3, Episode 2)
- Les Girls (1959, Season 3, Episode 3)
- The Posse (1959, Season 3, Episode 4)
- The Golden Toad (1959, Season 3, Episode 10)
- Tiger (1959, Season 3, Episode 11)
- Charley Red Dog (1959, Season 3, Episode 13)
- El Paso Stage (1961, Season 4, Episode 30)
- Alice (1962, Season 5, Episode 27)
- Taylor's Woman (1962, Season 6, Episode 2)
- Marshal of Sweethingyer (1962, Season 6, Episode 11)
- Trial at Tablerock (1962, Season 6, Episode 14)
- Cage at McNaab (1963, Season 6, Episode 23)
- The Savages (1963, Season 6, Episode 27)
And Gene L. Coon wrote 1 episode: - The Fifth Man (1959, Season 2, Episode 36)
(AFAIK you can find every episode of HGWT on YouTube.) I highly recommend the whole series and not just the episodes written by Roddenberry and Coon. But hopefully this list will convince some Sci-Fi fans to give this awesome Western a look!
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Post by krusader74 on Jun 12, 2017 17:13:06 GMT -6
The PLATO computer system was developed at the University of Illinois starting around 1960. It was way ahead of its time. While other computers still used punch cards, PLATO had plasma screens and touch screens in 1964, sound cards in 1972, emoticons in 1973, and forums and chat in 1973. It was designed as a classroom instruction aid. It used a high-level language called TUTOR in which "authors" wrote "lessons" (their jargon for programmers writing code). While these "lessons" were literally supposed to be lessons intended for classroom use, "authors" soon began producing video games. The very first computerized dungeon crawl ever was pedit5, a PLATO "lesson" by Rusty Rutherford. Released in winter 1975, pedit5 was a roguelike game. Unfortunately, sysadmins kept on deleting it, since it wasn't truly a lesson, and so there are no existing copies today. There is a short article about the creation of pedit5 by Rusty Rutherford. The next computerized dungeon crawl was dnd, another PLATO "lesson" by Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood. The story is: this guy they knew went to a game convention in 1974 and came back with a copy of D&D. They started playing the tabletop game. Then in late 1974 they started coding it as a PLATO "lesson." Like pedit5, dnd was a roguelike game and supported "group play." Like later arcade games, it tracked high scores. Like modern FRPGs, it featured a "boss fight" at the end of a level. Gary and Ray were at Southern Illinois University, which only had one PLATO terminal. One of them was a sysadmin, so unlike pedit5, dnd never got deleted from the network. Over the years they continued to make improvements and add levels. The dungeon eventually had about 20 levels. After Gary and Ray left SIU, development of the game was taken over by the brothers Dirk and Flint Pellett. By late 1976, dnd had 100,000 logons. By the time the PLATO system was decommisioned in the late 80s, it had millions of logons. There is an in depth interview with dnd's authors at the RPG Fanatc's website. Here is a collage of screenshots of the game from that article and from Wikipedia: There is also video interview with Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood on youtube: I haven't tried it yet, but cyber1.org has working PLATO terminals and supposedly lets you play dnd.
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Post by krusader74 on Jun 12, 2017 17:12:42 GMT -6
Hunt the Wumpus is a hide-and-seek format computer game. It was a text-adventure with a simple command-line interface. It was written in BASIC by Gregory Yob around 1972. There is prior art on which it was based. But these older games used a cartesian grid as a map, whereas Hunt the Wumpus used the graph of a dodecahedron as its map, giving it an exotic topology: There is an article on the origin of the game by Gregory Yob.
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Post by krusader74 on Jun 9, 2017 16:56:34 GMT -6
when i draw dungeons I start by making small loops and then connecting together. Knot bad... I've used this technique myself. Back in 2014 in the Gottam Cnihtas thread, I posted a scenario called King Arthur's Tomb that uses a Hopf Link inscribed in a Klein bottle as the floorplan of a dungeon. See the post for more details, but here are the 2D and 3D representations I provided there: I've considered randomly rolling knots and links as floorplans. Take a look at the Knot Zoo. You could roll a d8 for the knots up to 6 crossings. Or you could roll a d10 for links with 3 components up to 8 crossings. Looking at your diagram above, you could do a slide and an untwist to turn it into the unknot. You can confirm this with Sage which knows some knot theory. To get the Gauss code for your knot, I sketched it, numbered the crossings 1-4, and provided an orientation: Then I input the Gauss code into Sage and did some computations: sage: L = Link([[[1,2,3,4,-2,-3,-4,-1]],[-1,-1,1,-1]]) sage: L.is_knot() True sage: L.is_alternating() False sage: L.number_of_components() 1 sage: L.writhe() -2 sage: L.jones_polynomial() 1 sage: L.genus() 0 sage: L.plot() Launched png viewer for Graphics object consisting of 17 graphics primitives The writhe tells us how coiled it is. The Jones polynomial being 1 doesn't prove it's the unkot, but there's no known knots other than the unknot with this value. The genus of the Seifert surface being 0 proves that this is the unknot definitively -- there's a theorem that says the genus is 0 if and only if it's the unknot. Here is Sage's plot of your knot: It might be fun to use the "Monster" unknot as a dungeon floorplan: If only there were a knot called "Treasure," then we could make a "Monsters and Treasure" Link and turn it into a dungeon!
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Post by krusader74 on Apr 30, 2017 14:44:01 GMT -6
Free Comic Book DayNext Saturday is Free Comic Book Day 2017. Check out the website for a list of participating retailers and a list of free comics! Here are the comics I've read for the past few weeks: Wednesday, April 26, 2017- Batman The Shadow #1 -- Scott Snyder
- Doom Patrol #6
- Man-thing #3 -- R. L. Stine
- X-O Manowar (2017) #2
Wednesday, April 19, 2017- G.I. Joe (2016) #4
- Greatest Adventure #1 -- Bill Willingham
- Wild Storm #3 -- Warren Ellis
- Batwoman #2
- All Star Batman #9 -- Scott Snyder
Wednesday, April 12, 2017- Planet Of Apes Green Lantern #3
- Hellboy And B.P.R.D. 1954 Ghost Moon #2
- Neil Gaiman American Gods Shadows #2
- Vampirella #2
- Dungeons & Dragons Frost Giants Fury #2
- Warhammer 40000 Revelations #2
(image from Pinterest)
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Post by krusader74 on Apr 29, 2017 14:48:53 GMT -6
I had a few thoughts on this subject. Too long to post here. But even though my exposition is long, the core mechanic I use is very simple -- just a d20 roll and a table lookup to get the initial dungeon topology; followed by some 2d6 rolls to get room sizes, shapes, and exit types. I provide an example of how it works in the text, as well as a Palamedes online helper app. Please take a look -- it's available in several formats: UPDATE: - Uploaded version 0.3 (Sunday, April 30, 2017) of the document (HTML/PDF/Markdown) with three corrections, notably an error in the definition of self-dual
- Uploaded version 0.4 (Monday, May 1, 2017) of the document (HTML/PDF/Markdown): corrected the definition of the wheel graph
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Post by krusader74 on Apr 29, 2017 14:30:42 GMT -6
Chaos in Medieval ArtFrancesco De Comité took this photograph in the Church Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome... The central object is called a Sierpiński triangle/gasket/sieve. And it's a fractal. These fractals have been used in Roman Catholic art since the 1100s AD. Must have to do with the Holy Trinity. You can make one by - Taking an equilateral triangle
- Dividing it into 4 smaller copies
- Removing the middle copy, leaving 3 smaller copies in tact
- Repeat (2)-(3) for each of these 3 copies ad infinitum
Here's an image of this process from Wikipedia: You can calculate the fractal dimension of the Sierpiński triangle as follows: Look at one iteration: The big triangle is twice the width and twice the height of the smaller inner triangles, so the reduction factor is r = 2. And there are m = 3 reduced copies. Recall that m = r D, so D = ln 3/ln 2 = 1.584962500721156 The Chaos GameAnother way to get this triangle is by playing the Chaos game. - Grab a piece of paper, a pencil, and a d6
- Draw 3 non-colinear dots on the paper -- the corners of a triangle
- Label one vertex of the triangle 1,2. The next 3,4. The last 5,6.
- Pick any starting point, inside or outside the triangle. Put your pencil there.
- Roll the d6. Move your pencil halfway to the vertex corresponding to the dice roll. Put a dot there on the paper.
- Repeat step (5) ad infinitum
The random dots you're making coalesce into a Sierpiński triangle! The Sierpiński triangle is a chaotic attractor... That's why it doesn't matter where you pick your starting point, you will get drawn into the attractor. The dots you're making diverge from each other at an exponential rate, but fill a finite space -- hence chaos. There was a video on the Chaos Game on Numberphile this week: The video links to a free GeoGebra app you can use to simulate this game. If you Google Sierpinski+Geogebra, you'll find several more. As noted in the video, if you change the rules of the game, you can get different attractors and different fractals.
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Post by krusader74 on Apr 15, 2017 14:55:37 GMT -6
4D Art and the Corpus HypercubusYesterday was Good Friday, which reminded me of this... In 1954, Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí painted Corpus Hypercubus, depicting Christ crucified on a tesseract: In Corpus Hypercubus, Dalí fuses together his interests in mathematics, science and mysticism. HPL's DWH is a fusion of similar influences. The word "corpus" is Latin for "body" and refers to Christ's body on the cross. But in mathematics, the German equivalent, "Körper" was used by Richard Dedekind to mean what we usually call a "field" today, which is why an arbitrary field is still sometimes notated by the letter K. Coxeter used the word "corpus" instead of "field" in his books on geometry: We've already discussed the tesseract in several posts: It's a 4D cube. In Corpus Hypercubus, the tesseract is unfolded into 8 3D cubes. On the chessboard at the bottom of the painting, there appears to be a 2D shadow (of the 3D shadow) of the hypercube. Dalí's wife Gala was the model for Mary Magdalene at the bottom of the painting. She's standing on a cube, perhaps another levitating hypercube. Fractal Art and the Visage of WarSince we talked about fractals in the last post, I also wanted to mention Dalí's Visage of War (1940), in which the eyes and mouth each contain a face, whose eyes and mouth each contain a face, whose eyes and mouth each contain a face, and so on ad infinitum:
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Post by krusader74 on Apr 15, 2017 14:52:05 GMT -6
Burden Of The Purest Heart: Sir Gawain's Secret Treasure by J. R. R. TolkienGood Friday brought this non-existent book to mind. Here's a fragment of TV script (in Fountain markup) where it appears: As depicted in the "Fellowship of the Spear," J. R. R. Tolkien was a second lieutenant at the Battle of the Somme in WWI, where he contracted trench fever. Parallels between Tolkien's Ring and the Spear of Destiny: - They both have a secret inscription that only fire will reveal.
- Both call out to people, to convince them that they can have unlimited power -- even change history -- if they simply reach out and take it.
- Amaya, like Boromir, wants to use the artifact against their enemies. But the others vote to destroy it.
- A fellowship is formed to destroy the artifact.
- Each artifact can only be destroyed by that which created it -- the Ring by the fires of Mordor, and the Spear by Christ's blood.
Further parallels between the The Lord of the Rings and "Fellowship of the Spear": - The blade of the Spear glows when Christ's blood is near, much as elven blades glow when orcs or goblins are nearby.
- Martin Stein says, "One does not simply walk into a war zone," echoing Boromir's "One does not simply walk into Mordor" quote.
- Rip Hunter requests a ceasefire at the Battle of the Somme, not only for each side to collect their wounded, but also to grant the Legends time to retrieve the vial of Christ's blood from No Man's Land. His speach closely resembles a speech given by Aragorn in the film adaptation of Tolkien's The Return of the King.
I previously wrote about the Spear of Destiny (aka the Lance of Longinus) at length in the thread on Adventuring in the time of the Crusades.
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Post by krusader74 on Apr 15, 2017 14:49:21 GMT -6
New America and the Coming World Order by H. P. LovecraftThis fictional book is the subject of the historical fiction novel, Lovecraft's Book, by Richard A. Lupoff. Lupoff is a sci-fi writer and expert on ERB and HPL. In Lovecraft's Book, Nazi propagandist George Sylvester Viereck approaches HPL and asks him to write an American-ized version of Mein Kampf, called New America and the Coming World Order. George Sylvester Viereck was a real-life German-American poet, writer, and propagandist. Here's a brief biography: - In 1907, Viereck published a novel called The House of the Vampire.
- In the 1910s, Viereck founded two pro-German weekly periodicals: The Fatherland and The International. Aleister Crowley contributed to the former and became the editor of the latter. Digitized versions of The Fatherland are available free online at Villanova University.
- In the 1920s, Viereck interviewed some of the biggest celebrities: Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Marshal Foch, Georges Clemenceau, George Bernard Shaw, Oswald Spengler, Elisabeth of Bavaria (Queen of Belgium), Albert Moll, Magnus Hirschfeld, Henry Ford, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler. Viereck became enamored with Hitler.
- In the 1930s, Viereck became a Nazi propagandist. In 1934, he delivered a pro-Nazi speech to 20,000 people at Madison Square Garden.
- In the 1940s, Viereck went to jail in the US for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power.
- In the 1950s, Viereck wrote a memoir called Men Into Beasts about the brutality of US prison -- the first example of gay pulp fiction due to its treatment of situational homosexuality and prison rape.
I'm not sure if Viereck ever met or interviewed HPL, but Lupoff's premise seems completely plausible. In 1973, Lupoff wrote a short story called "12:01 PM" about a "time bounce"... NYC executive Myron Castleman is forced to relive his lunch hour over and over again, forever, due to a "disfiguration of time" -- basically, the universe is like a vinyl LP with a skip in it that keeps repeating. In 1990, this short story was made into a half-hour movie on Showtime starring Kurtwood Smith (the guy who played Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop (1987) and Red Forman in That '70s Show). This movie got nominated for an Academy Award. And it later got remade into a romantic comdedy in 1993 starring Helen Slater and Johnathan Silverman. Lupoff is an extra in both film adaptations. Groundhog Day (1993) rips off many of the main plot points. AFAIK, the 1990 film version of 12:01 PM isn't available on DVD in the US, but I have watched it on YouTube. Excellent. (I do love time travel stories.)
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Post by krusader74 on Mar 29, 2017 16:02:06 GMT -6
ChaosHPL uses the term "chaos" 7 times in DWH: - ...Azathoth at the centre of ultimate Chaos...
- ...the throne of Chaos where the thin flutes pipe mindlessly...
- ...some sort of shining metal whose colour could not be guessed in this chaos of mixed effulgences...
- ...the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos...
- ...the spiral black vortices of that ultimate void of Chaos wherein reigns the mindless daemon-sultan Azathoth...
- ...the prayers against the Crawling Chaos now turning to an inexplicably triumphant shriek...
- ...the vacant Witch House, ... a chaos of crumbling bricks, blackened, moss-grown shingles, and rotting planks and timbers...
The term "chaos" was introduced into mathematics by Tien-Yien Li and James A. Yorke in the 1975 paper Period Three Implies Chaos appearing in The American Mathematical Monthly, Volume 82, Number 10, pp. 985--992. But the core ideas of mathematical chaos have been around longer. After Isaac Newton discovered the Universal Law of Gravitation in the 1680s, he wrote down the equations of motion for one body orbiting another, like the earth orbiting the sun. He then tried to determine the equations of motion for three bodies (e.g., sun-earth-moon), but without any luck. He had no doubt that the three-body problem would be solved by some future brilliant mathematician. For two hundred years, the best and brightest mathematicians tried and failed to develop a solution. In the late 19th century, the King of Sweden established a prize for anyone who could find the solution to the problem. In 1887, Henri Poincaré proved that there is no general analytical solution for the three-body problem given by algebraic expressions and integrals. In doing so, he created the study of topology and the core ideas of chaos theory. The prize was awarded to Poincaré, even though his result was negative. King Oskar II of Sweden (pictured above) awarded Poincaré a prize for (not) solving the 3-body problem.Fast forward to the 1950s, there were 3 major methods used for weather prediction: - Historical
- Statistics/regression
- Physics
MIT meteorologist Ed Lorenz tried to falsify the statistical/regression method by finding a simple system of equations that is both - deterministic and
- unpredictable
He finally succeeded in 1963 with his paper Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Volume 20. Lorenz's system of differential equations have the following properties. They are - aperiodic: they don't settle down to equilibrium and don't repeat periodically
- long-term: this behavior is not just transient, but persistent
- deterministic: there's nothing random; if you start with the same initial conditions, you'll get the same results each time; the present determines the future
- sensitive dependence on initial conditions: trajectories with different initial conditions separate exponentially
Additionally, the phase space of Lorenz's system of equations has a strange attractor --- - an attractor attracts an open set of initial conditions
- if you start in an attractor, then you stay there forever -- it's "invariant"
- no proper subset of an attractor satisfies the above two conditions -- it's "minimal"
- Lorenz's attractor is "strange" in two senses:
- it's a "chaotic" attractor that exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions
- it's a "fractal" attractor, rather than a smooth attractor
There's some tension between these properties: Trajectories expand endlessly in a bounded region. How is this possible? FractalsThe bold portion of the quote says that a 3-D creature like Gilman can safely travel to a higher-dimensional plane. But can a higher-dimensional creature like Nyarlathothep or Yog-Sothoth squeeze into a lower-dimensional plane? Cornell math professor Steven Strogatz asks a similar question in his lecture on "Fractals and the geometry of strange attractors": Q: How to expand endlessly in a bounded region? A: Repeated stretching, folding, and re-injection. A concrete example of this comes from cooking, specifically making a pastry, like a croissant. Here's a diagram to help clarify: Iterating this process ad infinitum, the result is a flaking, layered structure, called a fractal. Chaotic systems like the Lorenz system exhibit the same fractal structure. If you put a small drop of food coloring in the dough before you began the process, it would quickly color the entire pastry with repeated stretching, folding and re-injection; this mimics what happens to a small open set of nearby trajectories as the chaotic system evolves. The first published example of a fractal was the Cantor Set in the 1883 paper Über unendliche, lineare Punktmannigfaltigkeiten (transl. "On infinite, linear point-manifolds") appearing in Mathematische Annalen, vol. 21, pp. 545--591. The Cantor Set is obtained by starting with a line segment and progressively removing the middle thirds, forever, as shown here: The properties of the Cantor Set include: - It's total length is 0.
- It has the same uncountably infinite cardinality as the continuum.
- It is a self-similar set: It contains arbitraily small copies of itself.
- It has a fractional dimension of D=0.63. (You'll see why in the next section.)
Q: But why would a higher-dimensional creature like Nyarlathothep or Yog-Sothoth want to squeeze itself into a lower-dimensional plane??? A: In DWH, Nyarlathotep assumes human form --- The Black Man. But finite, mortal human beings are useless --- at least compared to his true form. To conquer the lower planes, Nyarlathothep needs access to his full powers. So he has an engineering problem: How to fit his fullness into a finite region of earth. And to solve a difficult engineering problem, he needs some serious STEM talent. And that's exactly why Nyarlathothep recruits Walter Gilman. Gilman must have been an early pioneer in Chaos Theory! Note that Yog-Sothoth had already attempted to invade earth by impregnating a human woman and incarnating in the Dunwich Horror. In doing so, he became a flying spaghetti monster, which exhibits a clear fractal structure: DimensionWe've been talking a lot about "dimension," but so far we've never bothered to define it. Mathematicians have lots of different ways of defining it, and they don't always agree. Here's one of the simplest. It's called similarity dimension. The idea is that if you can reduce an object by a factor of r into m self-similar copies, then the object's dimension D is given by m = r DRearranging, D = ln m / ln r Here is a picture showing a simple example of reducing a square by a factor of r=3 into m=9 self-similar squares, which shows that the dimension of a square is D=2. With the Cantor Set, we take a line segment and reduce it by a factor of r=3 to make m=2 copies of itself. Therefore, it has dimension D = ln 2 / ln 3 = 0.63092975357 Hausdorff dimension is defined similarly, but is more useful for measuring the dimension of fractals. Wikipedia has a List of fractals by Hausdorff dimension. Negative DimensionsWe've encountered spatial dimensions higher than 3 and fractional dimensions, so it should be no surprise there are negative dimensional spaces as well. Consider the following descending progression of unit n-spheres... S 2 = {(x, y, z) ∈ℝ 3 : || x 2 + y 2 + z 2 || = 1 } (The two-dimensional sphere, e.g., the surface of a globe.) S 1 = {(x, y) ∈ℝ 2 : || x 2 + y 2 || = 1 } (The circle is a one dimensional sphere.) S 0 = {x ∈ℝ : || x 2 || = 1 } (Two points are a zero dimensional sphere.) S -1 = {x ∈ℝ 0 : || x 2 || = 1 } = ∅ (The empty set is a -1 dimensional sphere!) And yes -- in case you're wondering -- there are negative fractional dimensions, as shown by Benoit B. Mendelbrot in his 1990 paper Negative fractional dimensions and multifractals, Physica A 163, pp. 306--315.
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Post by krusader74 on Mar 27, 2017 18:54:59 GMT -6
Comixology.com has D&D Comics from the late 1980s (and newer) on sale for about half off until March 31, 2017. When WotC purchased TSR, the license to publish these comics passed to Kenzer & Co. and some other small publishers. In 2010, IDW began to publish 4E (and now 5E) -related comics. I read Dungeons & Dragons: Frost Giant's Fury #1, the beginning of latest series, which was better than expected.
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Post by krusader74 on Feb 10, 2017 17:51:06 GMT -6
Time-Crystals, Crones and the Crawling ChaosQ: How could Keziah Mason still be alive? After all, 239 years passed from the Salem witch trials (1692) to the events depicted in DWH (1931). Wouldn't she have died of old age long ago? A: One possible explanation is that by sacrificing children and eating their fat, Keziah Mason slows down her aging process. I talked about that possibility in the post on the witch cult. But HPL offers us another explanation that relates to QM and GR: HPL goes on to suggest that the Crawling Chaos (aka Nyarlathotep, the "Black Man") may use these atemporal regions of space to cross large time gaps: In my last post, I talked about time crystals---nanotechnology that exploits timelessness/eternity at the quantum level. In the video Quanta, Symmetry, and Topology, inventor of the time crystal, Frank Wilczek, offers an explanation for the Fermi paradox. The Fermi ParadoxIn May 1950, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a bunch of physicists were eating lunch, discussing this New Yorker Cartoon: Enrico Fermi exclaimed, The other physicists (Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York) immediately got what Fermi was saying and burst into laughter--the Milky Way has 100 billion suns, many similar to our own sun, with a high probability of earth-like planets. Some of these suns are billions of years older than our sun. If any of them had developed intelligent life, they would have had enough time to develop interstellar travel and traverse the galaxy. So, "Where are they?" Some solutions to the Fermi Paradox have been proposed: - About 90% of the suns that will ever develop have yet not developed. #f1rst
- The Prime Directive or zoo hypothesis prevents aliens from contacting us.
- They are here undetected, e.g., Spock is walking around somewhere right now wearing a knit cap.
- The government has some aliens locked up in area 51 but won't acknowledge it. Additionally, the government knows KIC 8462852 really is an alien mega-structure but denies it as a magnetic avalanche, a planet-eating star, a black hole, ..., and a Chinese hoax.
- Everyone's listening, but no one's transmitting. (See also: It is dangerous to communicate.)
- We have been contacted, e.g., the Wow! signal (1979).
We sent a response to the Wow! Signal in 2012. It'll take 40,000 years to get there. Maybe in 80,000 years we'll get a conversation going. In the meantime, be on the lookout for this guy: Of course, Spock might not be an alien. In The Omega Gory, the Yangs think he's Satan, because he resembles the Devil in their holy books, due to his pointed ears. At least he doesn't have a forked tongue or a club foot. But in a Call of Cthulhu RPG inspired twist on Star Trek, Spock might be an avatar of Nyarlathotep. InnerspaceFrank Wilczek's solution to the Fermi Paradox is: When aliens evolve enough to invent nanotechnology, they decide to explore the innerspace of the quantum world rather than outerspace. The innerspace of the quantum world is actually a much bigger place to explore than the vast emptiness of outerspace.So far we've been talking about 4D space plus 1D time. From a GR perpective, the extra space dimension, may be large, like the one seemingly depicted in DWH. Or it may be compactified---rolled up internal space, rather than "outer space." We already mentioned compactification in reference to the Kaluza-Klein 5D solution to the EFE. In what way is the "innerspace" of Wilczek's quantum microverse bigger than the 5D spacetime of Theodor Kaluza? Consider a simple QM system with two entangled electrons, each with spin up ↑ or down ↓. The wave function Ψ associated with the system is Ψ = c₁ |↑↑> + c₂ |↑↓> + c₃ |↓↑> + c₄ |↓↓> where the c i are complex coefficients which are 2D (because they range over the 2D complex plane). So this system is 8-dimensional, i.e., the 4D combinations of up-and-down spinning electrons times 2D complex coefficients. If the system had four electrons, it would be 32 dimensional. If it had N electrons, it would be 2 N+1 dimensional! So even elementary atoms, ions and crystals have vast numbers of dimensions, when looked upon from this QM perspective. So, Keziah Mason, Brown Jenkin and Nyarlathotep might reside in some kind of ultra-high-dimensional-time-crystal-like nanotech, bestowing them with immortality. OuterspaceA GR explanation for Keziah Mason's seeming immortality might be that Azathoth is a supermassive black hole so that the clocks near him appear to tick more slowly than terrestrial clocks, due to gravitational time dilation. Keziah Mason, Brown Jenkin and Nyarlathotep age normally, but when they travel from earth to the space near Azathoth, they age more slowly than us earthlings. By comparison, atronaut Scott Kelly aged more slowly than his earthbound brother, but in his case it was due to Special Relativistic time dilation (not gravitational), as I explained in an earlier post. EternityWhat's "outside the time and space we comprehend"? Eternity. Let's try to comprehend it using QM and GR. As mentioned previously, when you try to combine QM with GR to get a complete description of the cosmos, you get problematic infinities. In 1983, Wheeler and DeWitt solved this problem very simply. Recall the Schrödinger wave equation: ĤΨ = iħ ∂Ψ/∂t The left-hand side is the Hamiltonian operator Ĥ applied to the wave function Ψ that describes the quantum state of a system of particles. The action of Ĥ on Ψ tells you the total energy (kinetic plus potential) of the system. Importantly, this left-hand expression only considers how the wave function changes in space, not time. The right-hand side only considers how the wave function changes in time, not space. Wheeler and DeWitt reasoned that if ĤΨ = 0, then there's no conflict between quantum mechanics and relativity. ĤΨ = 0 is called the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. But if the Wheeler-DeWitt equation is true, then nothing ever happens. The universe is static. This is called 'the problem of time.' This problem was solved in October 2013 by the physicist Ekaterina Moreva and co. She setup an experiment described in the paper Time from quantum entanglement: an experimental illustration. The experiment creates a 'toy universe' --- a system consisting of a quantum-entangled pair of photons and an internal clock. There is also an external clock that's not entangled with the system. Quantum entanglement refers to a group of particles that have interacted in such a way that their properties are correlated no matter how spatially separated they become. The experiment showed that from the perspective of the internal clock, the system changed, but from the perspective of the external clock nothing changed. In other words, time is an emergent property of quantum entanglement.( Eternity as pictured on the Marvel Universe Wiki. Eternity was created by Steve Ditko in Strange Tales #138 (Nov 1965). Eternity has no physical body but exists everywhere simultaneously, is immortal, and is unaffected by the passage of time.) Our universe might just be "toy universe" in Eternity's lab experiment. While an internal clock in our universe ticks from 0 to infinity, the clock on Eternity's wall doesn't move at all. Our universe flashes in and out of existence in less than a blink of Eternity's eye. This week, I started reading Time Travel: A History (September 27, 2016) by James Gleick. Chapter 8 is about Eternity. The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy Episode (podcast) #241 (Feb 4, 2017) has an interview with Gleick about this book. The Pilgrim of EternityAs explained in a prior post, even though HPL was an atheist, he was quite well versed in the Bible. There are two beings mentioned in the Bible who can control time--- God and the Devil: (Medieval Finnish art, showing the temptation of Jesus by the Devil. Note that Jesus and the Devil appear in two places at once. Also note the Devil's club foot.) In DWH, HPL links the "Black Man" (Nyarlathotep) to the Devil: In Shelley's poem Adonais, "The Pilgrim of Eternity" is a reference to Lord Byron (George Gordon), comparing him to the Devil, by way of Milton. Lord Byron was born with a club foot. In Milton, that's a mark of the Devil. (At least Lord Byron didn't have pointy ears.) PheonixThere's a Trail of Cthulhu RPG scenario called Hell Fire about the notorious Hell Fire Club. The first meeting of the original Hellfire Club (Sir Francis Dashwood's Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe) was held on Walpurgis Night, 1752. (I need to add this to my list of infamous events that occurred on Walpurgis Night!) The group met twice a month, in a network of caves below Dashwood's estate. It was known for its drinking, prostitution, blasphemy and Black Masses. The Devil was supposedly the president of the club. It ceased in 1766. But it was succeeded by the Phoenix Society at Oxford in 1781 which operated continuously up to modern times. I don't know if Lord Byron was a member of the Phoenix Society, but he was definitely a rake, so it would be well suited to his tastes. It might be interesting to create a Call of Cthulhu RPG scenario set around the Phoenix Society in the early 1800s, in which Lord Byron is The Devil/Nyarlathotep, the Society's president, and Keziah Mason is a "Nun", and Sir Francis Dashwood is a mummy. Perhaps they try to convince some Oxford math student to help them steal an unbaptized baby on Walpurgis Night? The PCs must stop them before they can complete their plans. Even if they stop them, like the phoenix, they will rise again in Miskatonic in 1931! (Sir Francis Dashwood in club dress)
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 31, 2017 18:11:01 GMT -6
Physicists Create World's First Four-Dimensional CrystalBack on September 27 2016, researchers at U. Maryland posted the pre-print of a paper entitled Observation of a Discrete Time Crystal to arxiv.org. There was a little bit of buzz about it in the science press last October, but I guess it got drowned-out by all the fake election news. Now that the election is over, news of the time crystal is just beginning to resurface again. Time will tell if this important news leaps from the science press into the mass media, where they can misinterpret it and maybe even create paranoia (or hysteria) over it, like they did with CERN creating micro blackholes at the LHC. Time crystals (AKA space-time crystals or four-dimensional crystals) were first proposed by Nobel-winning MIT physicist and mathematician Frank Wilczek back in 2012. (I watch BigThink on YouTube, and Prof. Wilczek has appeared there several times.) I find the paper on arxiv.org is too difficult to read, and the coverage in the science press is too fluffy to explain what's really going on. So, originally, I wanted to write an intermediate explanation that does not assume you're an expert in driven quantum systems nor a idiot. The explanation worked out the mathematics of the time crystal, step by step. However, I found that it was getting - Too lengthy
- Too technical: Had to provide background on electron spin and spin matrices, the Pauli equation, Harmonic oscillators, driven quantum systems and subharmonic response, Floquet systems of ODEs, etc., etc.
- Too boring
- Too much time to write
So here is yet another fluffy summary... How I made a time crystal in my spare time, and so can you!Here's some (highly simplified, non-rigorous, but relevant) background that you need to understand what's going on in a time crystal: - Recall from high-school chemistry that in order for an atom or ion to radiate energy, its electrons must jump down to a lower state. Since the ground state is the lowest possible state, atoms and ions in the ground state can't radiate any energy, and therefore they can't do any work.
- Also note that electron spin is what creates the magnetic field around an atom or ion. Magnetism is a two way street: You can spin a magnet around a loop of wire to create an electric current. Conversely, you can run an electric current through a loop of wire to create a magnetic field.
- The electrons in an atom or ion are described by the Schrödinger equation. Usually, electrons behave like waves, not particles, and so they're nonlocalized---there's some probability of finding them anywhere. But in a paramagnetic crystal, ions with localized electronic states exist. In other words, you can find certain electrons in specific spots in a crystal. Furthermore, the electrons in these crystals are "spin-orbit coupled," meaning that flipping the spin state of one of these electrons causes the others to flip too.
The basic idea of a time crystal is this: Create a ring of ytterbium ions and cool them to their ground state. These ions then form a paramegnetic crystal. They have localized electrons. Use a laser beam to flip the spin state of one of these localized electronics with period T. In the paper, this laser is called the "periodic drive." Turns out, since they're coupled, all the localized electrons in this crystal will flip spin state. When you switch off the laser, their spin state oscillates with period 2T, or half the drive frequency. In the paper, this frequency is called the "emergent sub-harmonic response." Now you've got yourself a time crystal. Uses of a time crystalOK, you've made yourself a time crystal. So what's it good for? - Time crystals make the perfect time keeping instrument. Better than your iWatch, better than your Rolex, better than an atomic clock. It keeps perfect time forever.
- By using a set of time crystals that oscillate with different frequencies, you can store information forever. I imagine that one day we'll build a quantum computer that uses time crystals as its main memory system. Given that such a computer could survive the heat death of the universe, it would be godlike, or at least like Galactus, the sole survivor of the universe that existed prior to the current universe.
- By changing the frequency in a time crystal, you could potentially send information back in time. If you've watched the excellent Japanese anime series Steins;Gate (2011) on YouTube, then you've seen how this might work. The protagonist creates a machine -- the phone-microwave -- that works like a time crystal; he can send short text messages -- D-mails -- back in time to himself, but only back to the point where he created the time crystal. Chaos ensues. The story actually uses a lot of big ideas from General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Nonlinear Dynamical Systems and Chaos Theory. I highly recommend it.
- The time crystal allows the user total control over the past, present and future. It gives its user visions of possible futures. It allows time travel, control over the aging process and can also be used as a weapon by trapping enemies in time loops... Just kidding! That's the description of the time gem in Marvel comics, and not the time crystal.
Of course, the experiment at U. Maryland still needs to be replicated by other scientists before we can know for sure if they really created a time crystal or if this is just more #FakeNews.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 31, 2017 17:54:08 GMT -6
Mathematics and WitchcraftMathematics has long been associated with magic. Mathematicians even describe the clever techniques they use to solve difficult problems as 'tricks.' Martin Gardener wrote Mathematics, Magic and Mystery. But the connection between math and magic runs deeper than mere cleverness and party tricks. Throughout history, people considered "maths to be disreputable and allied with witchcraft." HPL illustrates this dark alliance in DWH. Below are some random quotes I've been collecting from sources other than DWH about the connection between mathematics and witchcraft. Enjoy! Sects, witches, and wizards-from Pythagoreans to Kepler(Statue of Katharina Kepler) Prophecy, conjuring, mathematics, witchcraft and fortune-tellingYou can see an early manuscript of the Alexandreis here: (page 38v from Châtillon's Alexandreis showing some marginalia) There are also some English translations of Châtillon's Alexandreis with this gloss, which further explain 'mathematics': (paraphrasing) haruspicy: The study and divination by use of animal entrails, usually the victims of sacrifice. horospicy: Divination according to the grades of the signs and the hours. auspicy: Observation of and divination from the actions of birds. Modern mathematicians do still occasionally kind of study this stuff. For example, Stephen Smale, a Michigan mathematician who does topology and dynamical systems, analyzed bird flocking behavior in his 2006 paper, The Mathematics of Emergence. I guess you could call that 'auspicy.' The maddeningly magical maths of John DeeWitch of AgnesiIn fact, Maria Agnesi (1718-1799) wrote the first ever book that covered both the integral and differential calculus. In recognition for her accomplishment, she was appointed the first woman chair of a university math/physics/natural philosophy department at Bologna; Pope Benedict XIV wrote her a complimentary letter and sent her a gold wreath and a gold medal; and Empress Maria Theresa gave her a diamond ring, a personal letter, and a diamond and crystal case. But she turned downed this appointment, gave her gifts to charity, and instead ran a home for Milan's elderly.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 31, 2017 17:49:06 GMT -6
The hobgoblin of little mindsHere's the basic idea of the article: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there was a gamma ray burst. We've just observed 3 photons from this burst. They all started at the same point in spacetime. Quantum Mechanics says spacetime is quantized. General Relativity says its smooth. Quantized spacetime is like the hexpaper in the image below. Photons of light (shown as yellow dots) move in straight lines, one hex per turn. There are two photons in the hex marked t=0. Even though they start at this same point in spacetime, you can see that they soon spread out, due to the "graininess" of the hexes. Now, in real-life, these "hexes" would be really, really small, something like 10^-35 m in diameter. Nevertheless, if they had to travel 7 billion LY, then they still would have spread out significantly by the time we observed them. But the photons described in the article were not spread out! This means that spacetime is smooth like GR says, and the idea that space is quantized is wrong. (This isn't the first time such a result was observed, either.) This implies that current efforts to reconcile QM and GR by quantizing spacetime and gravity won't pan out. They may be totally irreconcilable. We might live a universe with a fundamental logical inconsistency--a conflict between light (QM) and darkness (GR, spacetime, gravity). Logic and math can tolerate inconsistencies: There are paraconsistent logics that don't blow up--if you get rid of modus ponens, then you can't "prove everything" from a contradiction. And there are inconsistent mathematics. But the human mind is a slave to consistency, and discovering that reality may be fundamentally inconsistent will cause most people to lose SAN points.
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 24, 2017 19:09:10 GMT -6
OK, here is the authoritative answer that I got via email from Wizards of the Coast customer service: SNIP After seeking clarification from WotC, I just received this: So, in sum: If you bought a WotC PDF from DTRPG and it is not print disabled, then you have WotC permission to print a copy for your own personal use. You may take it to FedEx/Kinkos or send it to Lulu.com to print and bind for you, and if they demand to see a Permission to Print letter, then you may get one from either DTRPG or WotC by contacting their customer support, as described in my previous posts.This is a clear, concrete answer, and it should end any further debate on the matter!!!
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Post by krusader74 on Jan 24, 2017 19:00:05 GMT -6
not all but most, corporations are with malice aforethought setup to operate in the most corrupt and unethical manner possible. This is why corporations should not be given the benefit of the doubt in most, not all but most, situations. Your posts contain a lot of cynicism towards government and corporations. I agree with you 100%!
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