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As far as immigration, NYC and SF have been centers for immigration for essentially all of their histories, and certainly since the trend of rising immigration since 1965. Yet their homicide rates have gone down over the past few decades. I'm open to being shown otherwise, but it looks to me like the high immigration rates don't correlate to high crime.

People are talking about increasing crime rate from a mass influx of illegal aliens coming over our unsecured Southern border.  They are not talking about the kind of controlled immigration that happened at ports of entry like NYC or SF in previous eras.  Conflating these two things is highly disingenuous.  Are you just deathly allergic to responding to what people have said or addressing the actual issue at hand?  Will you go into anaphylactic shock and die if you do that?  I can't remember a single time I have seen you respond in good faith to the actual substance of what people are saying or the actual issue under discussion.
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Perkins is a doofus but I agree with him on number of classes; 1e AD&D got it about right IMO with classes & subclasses.
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Greetings!

I'm all for roleplaying, and letting Players roleplay and use their own minds to seek to solve problems or whatever is going on. However, having the various attributes and some decent skills are a very important aspect, and also serve as a useful framework for yes, solving issues with a dice roll.

It is not always about "Common Sense" either. Ever had a wife or girlfriend that really loves playing--but doesn't know a fucking thing about any if these game-tangent subjects? Or a guy friend that is an accountant and just doesn't have a brain that thinks too far beyond math-stuff? Whatever. My point is, you can easily have players that will never or are very unlikely to be on your wavelength, or think to figure out some stupid crazy puzzle. Regardless of how "simple" you think it might be. On their own, lots of players will fail dismally, and die horribly every time you do it.

So, to avoid an endless treadmill of stupid and frustration, and not having fun for everyone involved--having Attributes and skill rolls is an absolute joy, and can assist in keeping the game FUN, and progress moving. And avoid having Players look at you will barely concealed disgust, wondering, "WTF is your problem, dude?" Yeah, I have never liked that, so I have always appreciated being able to use Attribute rolls, or skill checks. Such mechanics are great for a keeping a fun campaign going.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

This is exactly why the idea roll exists in Call of Cthulhu and why it's the same as your intelligence stat. 
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The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by yosemitemike on Today at 03:21:34 AM »
The lifetime emissions can range from 20% less to 60% less than a gasoline car, depending on how its made and especially on what source you're charging it from.

So, by only comparing lifetime emissions, you are conveniently leaving out the environmental harm done in the process of strip mining for the minerals needed to make the batteries to make the EVs.  You can't be unaware of this problem since GeekyBugle has brought it up several times in detail.  I can only conclude that you are being deliberately disingenuous and deliberately presenting a false view of the costs.  In short, you are arguing in bad faith again.   
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The dickering over numbers or whatever is just that, genre emulation of having the bad-ass street level guy plow through the goons to get to the 'real' fight.  Sure, you can narrate it, but it's more fun to roll dice.  As we've established, Heroic has that covered. :)

HAHAH true. Dickering about numbers in RPG's is no different than arguing about who would win in a fight between Cap and Batman (We all know it's Cap. Right? RIGHT?)
Since we're going to discuss it at this level nuance, I'm going to chalk it up to the GM making it *feel* right for his players. I don't like to just recite numbers and then lower health scores - I like telling my players when their PC hits for 30-points of damage, describing the feeling of slamming 1-ton's worth of force into the jaw of his opponent. Or better I like letting them tell me where/how they make their attack and I embellish it as needed to really make them feel just how powerful they really are.

I'm with you 100% that a gaggle of thugs *shouldn't* be a problem. I think it's a matter of which system gives you that "perfect" expression in play that sticks with you. A lot of that might be your GM.

We haven't really played MEGS or any other Supers in forever. Just haven't found the right fit. Heroic looks like it addresses a lot of my irritations in this area. Have to read over it more for the other minor things we worked around, but I'm definitely interested in it.

Do it! and let us know how it turns out.

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Media and Inspiration / Re: The Movie Thread Reloaded
« Last post by yosemitemike on Today at 03:04:30 AM »
The crossdressing psycho that Gene Simmons played in Never Too Young to Die was entertainingly bizarre.
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It's hilarious that he think that the community pushes back against UA content because we're just not ready for it or think it doesn't fit this specific game.  I have never encountered a DM that disallowed UA content for either of those reasons.  DM's disallow UA content because it's poorly thought out and imbalanced.  Take the silvery barbs spell for example.  It imposes disadvantage on an opponent of your choice and gives to an ally of your choice advantage on their next attack, save or ability check.  It's castable as a reaction.  This would be quite good for a 3rd level spell.  It's a 1st level spell.  People don't disallow this because they just not ready for that.  They disallow it because it's way too good.  The flipside of this are all the UA options that are just bad but no one wants to take those.
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The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by jhkim on Today at 02:54:02 AM »
I agree that neither pollution should be discounted -- but they should be evaluated fairly. I'm reading through your recent links, but they don't seem to be doing side-by-side comparison. An EV battery is good for 100k to 200k miles -- which is the equivalent of 4000 to 8000 gallons of gasoline, or about 200 to 400 barrels of crude oil. So the question is:

1) What is the damage from drilling, refining, and then burning the gasoline from 300 barrels of crude oil?
2) What is the damage from mining the materials and manufacturing one EV battery?

I don't have exact answers for these. Battery manufacture produces toxic material, but it's a question of how much is produced and how much of that will get into people's bodies -- compared to breathing in output from car exhaust like carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, and particulates.

I do know that around 5 million people a year have early deaths from air pollution. How many would you guess have early deaths every year from battery waste? I'm skeptical that it is anywhere close to 5 million. You can say "battery waste is toxic" but that's like saying "nuclear waste is toxic". It's technically true, but nuclear waste is relatively tiny and extremely well-handled -- particularly when compared to dumping toxins directly into the air that people breath.

So the water pollution from mining the lithium doesn't count? https://media.istockphoto.com/id/1399997488/photo/greenbushes-lithium-mine.webp?b=1&s=170667a&w=0&k=20&c=_pJKX6mjys2DVjDsFz7smuxqiYFHDFXykI4LWfJLBWc=

ALL the air pollution from the mining, shipping the Lithium to China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from the manufacturing of the batteries in China doesn't count?
All the air pollution from shipping those batteries to the US?
What about the air pollution from manufacturing and shipping the EVs to the US?
What about the air pollution from producing the electricity to charge the batteries?

You KNOW I live in México City right?

GeekyBugle, how is this disagreeing with anything I said? Yes, everything should be counted, both for EVs and for gasoline cars. So it counts the pollution from mining for material for the gasoline car, shipping the gasoline car, running the refineries, shipping the gasoline to the gas stations, etc. Here's one analysis of both for several different options for lifetime emissions, for example:

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/2228291

Browsing, most other estimates are similar. The lifetime emissions can range from 20% less to 60% less than a gasoline car, depending on how its made and especially on what source you're charging it from.

Living in México City, I can see that would make you mad about air pollution. From what I read, it does seem to be getting better than in the 1990s, but it's still bad - especially NO2 and particulates. Here's the graph I'm looking at:


Source: https://thecityfix.com/blog/expanding-mexico-citys-air-quality-forecast-to-help-citizens-live-more-healthy-lives/

What do you think should be done to help clean it up further?
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Can’t pick the lock? Maybe it’s rusted shut.

That sounds suspiciously like a variant of quantum ogres.

I am going to clarify here: if the expert player character has a 90+% chance to pick the lock…AND FAILS THE ROLL… Then perhaps IT WAS NOT DUE TO LACK OF EXPERTISE THAT CAUSE THE FAILURE, but rather it was due to some other circumstance that was beyond the control of the character. 

If you fail the roll, you don’t pick the lock.  That’s the exact opposite of “Quantum Ogres”.
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The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by yosemitemike on Today at 01:43:32 AM »
Right, and fracking took place because world conventional production peaked in 2015, which the IEA confirmed in 2010 and King predicted correctly in 1976.

If any, fracking supports what the Club of Rome said. Otherwise, there'd be no need to resort to uncoventional production in the first place.

The same with the Ehrlich wager: they were focusing on price, not diminishing returns, which is what the mining industry has been experiencing for decades:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFyTSiCXWEE

A century ago, you could get lots of high-grade copper with no heavy equipment. Now, you need the latter to get lower amounts of copper and of lower grade. It's the same with oil: you start with an energy return of a hundred barrels for each barrel used, then after several decades it goes down to three, and then you resort to fracking.

No, it proves that the Club of Rome's basic premise is wrong.  We have proved reserve than before, not less.

It's not unconventional production that we are resorting to.  It's a new method of extraction that was invented.

There is a direct connection between supply and prices.  Prices were used as a proxy for supply.

Then you come up with a new technology to access resources that were not previously accessible at an economical cost.  Saying that we are "resorting to" this doesn't change anything.
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