Death and Taxes

This is the most impressive layout of where our money goes that I've ever seen.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/9410862/

Ask and ye shall get (as long as it's not $24000 ye are asking for)

Well there you have it. Corporate taxes are 10% of the revenue, looks like.

Via: http://www.house.gov/budget/fedgovbuck030905.pdf
which I found from the almighty metafilter:
http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/26704

which also links to the entire 2006 budget if you're curious.

...

EDIT: Nevermind, I see your post now.

Yeah, SF minimum wage is $9.14:

http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/mayor_page.asp?id=46399

Locally regulated min wage is a fine idea. I'm all for towns and states doing what the fed can't and shouldn't do.

Paul

ya know I would really like to see a break down of where our governments gets its revenue and where it spends it. It's silly how hard it is to find out answers to simple things like that.

I do think we would lose a shitload of money if we stopped taxing businesses. The arguement that they are individuals I believe is fundamentally based on them being taxed.

I was thinking about the minimum wage last night because I didn't really post how I felt about it. Well here it is. I think the minimum wage level is very dependant on the region of the country. I think the current federal minimum wage is something near 5.15 an hour. I don't think that the federal wage should be something like 9, but it should probably be higher than 5.15. Oregon has it set to 7.50 and our economy has been doing quite well actually. I think it could support moves to a higher level without much of a problem if done incrementally. I haven't noticed inflation as a result. I would be curious to see a breakdown of corporate profits by region as well to see if all the states that have a 5.15 wage somehow provide the profits for companies enough that they can pay 7.50 in wages someplace else, where they don't really make money. That would be neat to see.

Anyway, nice to have you at the table Rob.

Mark, I've got a few things going on in my head right now, I've been thinking about system stuff and I'm reading what's posted I just don't have the mojo to do guys and spell writeups right now. Long sentansce.es

Hell, I haven't even finished my map or written up the system I've been using for 3 years.

Weapons for a holy warrior

Welcome to the story, Dag. Go ahead and start killing rats on the main page.

As for gods, so far we're sort of running a Greek thing here, oddly. But please go ahead and make up your own. Last game, gods were arbitrarily decided more for humor's sake than anything.

As for two-staff fighting, yeah, strictly speaking you want to fight with two bo sticks or two maces/rods. Maces/rods is probably the best way to go. However, as bo sticks are smaller weapons, only one weap prof is required, and another for spec. They only do 1d6 SM, 1d3 L damage though.

Maces come in on-hand (footman's) and off-hand (horseman's) sizes. The footman's does 1d6+1 SM, 1d6 L, and the horseman's does 1d6/1d4. They're two different weapons though, so if you want spec in both, it's double the WPs. You can't get extra attacks with an off-hand weapon, so you might not want to spec in horseman's. 'Rods' act as 'maces' for proficiency's sake, so you could fight with two iron or wooden short-staves and call them maces/rods.

Make sense?

Of course, if by 'holy warrior' you mean Paladin, well you ain't getting spec in the first place, so it's moot.

EDIT: Er, just keep spec in battle staff. It does 1d6, sure, it's cool.

...

Re: DaVinci Code business.

Yeah, and they're wearing each other's clothes too. The book was schlock but I'll admit a fast, fun read. It was written to be a movie: simple plot, few characters, movie pacing including half-hearted twist towards the end. The whole painting-Mary bride-Jesus-grail thing is a cool idea, although I don't think the idea was originally Brown's.

Time to change the locks.

I touched myself good
I wet the bed over you
I murdered for you

KT

The problem with abolishing corporate taxes, etc. is that the government would be completely broke. It's hard to talk about projects, etc., and then cut funding drastically.

I am a classical conservative. That means I like small government. So I am not so much for free markets/capitalism as I am against letting the government muck about with stuff. Nowadays I'd probably be considered a liberal, but that's looking at it from the wrong point of view--I'm not about allowing individuals liberty, I'm about preventing the government from acting to take away people's liberty, because I want the government to be very small and passive. So, try to look at my posts less with the opinion that I affirmatively support certain things, and more with the opinion that I affirmatively want to prevent government from being active.

On another note, increased legislation (Sarbanes-Oxley) is currently killing the American capital markets. IPO's listing on the NYSE are drastically lower than pre-SarBox; the London and Hong Kong exchanges are getting dramatically more listings (because they dont have SarBox). I can't even imagine how bad the NYSE (and thus, our tax base) would suffer if some of the laws we talked about were enacted.

The problem with all this talk of cutting tax rates, etc. is that we are already running a massive deficit. Now is not the time to cut revenues, now is the time to cut expenses--by preventing goverment from being active. I would support cutting revenues in order to "starve" government, but we would just borrow more money, so I'm sure it wouldn't work.

Four arms?

Two staffs? Aren't staffs a two-handed weapon? I think you want bo sticks or something.

Welcome back, Dag!

Dag the Holy Cannon

I apologize for my delay in joining the game. I have a laundry list of reasons why, but who gives a shit. I'm back.

Please allow me to introduce my new PC.

Dag is the half-breed bastard child of a human sailor and an elvish pub wench. He is a fighter and a holy man. Please be patient with me as I re-learn the cleric stuff. Rob, please feel free to work me into the story when it is convenient for you. Also (maybe offline) could you help me figure out a diety? or can I just make one up? I would like to make one up if that is cool. I would like to fight with two staffs - the ambidextrous thing. How many WP's does it take to do this? I am assuming two WP's per hand for spec. Does it cost me anything for ambidextrousness?

anyway... I am pretty well caught up on the story... see you soon.

Dude looks like a lady.

I just took a good look at the last supper up above. I haven't read or watched the Da Vinci Code, but to me, that person to Jesus' right is a chick.

Anyway, I am always up for Socratic debate. I also feel very strongly about making my position be known, through voting, donations, talking, whatever. If I am not heard, people might assume my position doesn't exist, or doesn't matter.

As for a flat tax, I like it. However, the rich actually don't avoid as many taxes as you might think, Paul. Their taxes actually make up a big chunk of revenue. P. Diddy said something like: "I pay something like 50% taxes, but that's fine with me, because it means I am rich." Also, business taxes provide a lot of revenue. Of course, all these taxes could be worked into a flat tax, but I am not sure where it would even out.

I think a simple graduated income tax, and no other taxes, would be nice. I don't think we should tax folks below the poverty line. -We'll just have to repay it in other ways.

Also, thanks for paying for my funding, Paul. Anything you'd like to see in particular?

BTW: I am still looking for more spell ideas on DiDfactory. -Ed thought Nael's Magical Trace was awesome, Paul.

The wellspring flowth ever still

Re: deleted text.

Well, yeah, I meant what I said, sort of. Of course it wasn't specifically targeted at you Paul, but to all of us. Or mainly to myself. For the others' sake, in essence I said: arguing about politics on DiDTT is sort of useless, as we're old enough now and smart enough to exert force and cause change in the world if we try hard enough. And regardless of what you do, please post on DiD, because I'm liking where things are going and I think this is shaping up to be a cool campaign.

But I deleted it because it occurred to me after posting, that some of my ideas about things become more solidified by DiDTT sparring. Paul and Chris may not have changed my mind, but these discussions certainly caused me to think more about these sorts of issues. It seemed to me that this was an awful waste of brainpower, us yelling at each other, when it's our congress we should be yelling at if we want to effect change. (Pretty sure that's 'effect' there, not 'affect'.)

I've long said that the reason I work on- er, what I work on, is because I'm not smart enough to solve real problems like poverty or racism. But that doesn't excuse intellectual laziness when it's time to vote. Up until very recently I used to shrug at economics, local politics, all that stuff... thought it was 'of the temporal world' and not worth my time. I'm starting to think otherwise. Starting to realize that not caring about the outer world, not voting, not voicing opinions when my fiance's family's dinner guest says that the middle east should be bombed into glass- that all this is laziness that makes the world worse by my inaction.

So if you'll excuse the expression, I thought initially that what all this TT amounted to was intellectual masturbation- solipsistic pointless fun but not proactive or pro-creative. (Bringing out the big metaphors here.) After making that decision, I recanted, as I'm now somewhat more informed. Hell, I know who Milton Friedman was, sort of. Didn't know that last week.

There are problems with our system. I'm unconvinced that a flat tax or flat welfare is the solution. I'm not totally opposed, mainly because they require less bureaucracy, and I think bureaucracy is the world's great evil; Hannah Arendt was right.

But honestly I don't know what to do. Radically changing the system might improve things- but things like this (i.e., anything involving government or corporation) tend towards glut and corruption in any form, so anything you do might be only a short-term fix. Might make things worse though, of course.

Hard hard problems. In the end, I guess that's why I'm a capitalist. If you're poor, it's easier to work to make yourself rich than to make everyone rich. Far fewer variables, it's just an easier problem to solve.

...

Just to clean up, ya I know that Apollo and Manhattan were government projects. My point, poorly made, was: where are our Apollos today? The big government plan is, apparently, reorganization of the middle east. The genome project was partially government, but a private company did it faster and cheaper. Look at space travel: it's had to become private. It's really not feasible to vote for both space exploration and more welfare.

I'd love to have government funding to do my work, but somehow it's never worked out. Gotten lots of private money, and I think that's the way of the future. It's certainly the way of the past. The NIH didn't really even exist- at least not as the major biomed funding source- until after WWI. Before that, science was all private. May be returning to that, unless the general cycle of domestic-foreign-d-f-... continues (withdrawal from Iraq and the glut of veterans might boost up the NIH again).

...

Er, I'm done for now. Oddly, it's more fun to hide behind an NPC and post something like Ezekiel's thing below. Apprentice Steve and potionguild.blogspot.com, RIP.

I saw that!

-You're going to pass laws on all this stuff? Based on what moral or ethical principles, exactly?- heh, we already have, I just don't think they are very good.

Do you think this is a moral question? Well maybe, I don't think our economic system in this country is just. Will it ever be complete and consistant.. Math......Justice...? I don't think so, but that doesn't mean I'm just happy with how things are.

Laws exist on almost all this stuff, on what authority, if you like, were they founded on? I would think we would be able to found new ones on either that authority or invent a better authority. I haven't really said what I would do. I could do that somewhat now.

I am generally for a flat tax. I am generally for the abolishment of business taxes, and thereby their right to political speech. I am for the removal off all tax credits. I like a straight flat tax. I think the number would have to be studied. 15% is commonly talked about. I am against any form of double taxation. If your parents get 100k and pay the taxes on it then they should be able to give it to whomever they want. The recipient should not have to pay taxes on it. So I am for the ending of inheritance taxe, death tax whatever, marriage and child credits. I think that when we stop taxing business, we should continue to use tariffs and excise taxes as political tools internationally.

----But I support having a class of people who are obscenely rich. Why? Because big projects take big money, and the world's ills require big projects to solve. Manhattan, Apollo project-size in scope.----

Those were government projects, silly. A point is big government projects, are in fact paid for more by the poor, than by the rich. Especially the rich who inherited their wealth, who pay for nothing. The rich tend to avoid taxes. Sure, Gates is doing some good things. He got some of that money because Microsoft uses a lot of underpaid engineers. Microsoft also is a near monopoly, and should have had it's corporate charter dissolved.

---think that Steve's exactly right: adding new legislation will create a ton of new lawsuits and people who can successfully 'game' the system. That's how some stockbrokers, accountants, and lawyers do so well- they game the system, exploiting loopholes---

That's the problem with our current system. I like a flat tax because there would be no gaming.

--It's easy to imagine that, despite salary caps, people could have more than one job. Or hire friends and family to pick up extra paychecks. Or just receive lots of great expensive 'gifts'.---

Flat tax. I'm against personally limiting wages. I think that freedom, in a sense, should prevail. I do think that it's bad corporate governance to have large pay disparities within a company, that can hardly be justified at all.

I'm not going to get mad, about what you removed from your post. I read it and you're not the first person to say that to me. I don't think what a lot of people spend their time doing is important either. I did post on the main board BTW. I think it's funny when people are socialists or even communists when it comes to how the government should treat them, just not other people. Universities should be helped by the state, government should fund research and hand away patents to corporations. Rob and Mark want grants that essentially I pay for. They don't pay for it because they get paid by people like me essentially.

Commie.

The rich need hugs too. Plus, ancient machines!

Paul, just to re-iterate, I agree: Pell Grants and the Marshall Plan are fantastic, successful programs.

However, they're both short-term projects with specific goals and spending targets. Quite different from "here's $24,000 a year for life for being American".

(Also, while I don't know much about how much reconstruction funding is going to Iraq and Afganistan, I know that Pell Grant funding has been cut, and funding levels have been capped for quite a while now, regardless of inflation. I think pumping more $$ into this kind of program is a better plan than the Friedman-Godfrey Plan.)

I think it's important that Friedman himself balked at his own suggestion, when it was proposed to congress. He would support his own idea, only if there was also a radical restructuring- a nullification, I think- of the existing welfare system.

Thus *his* idea, which we may or may not be arguing about here, was NOT that everyone should just get some cash. His idea, I think, was that the current welfare system should be replaced with something much simpler. In other words, he was proposing some sort of welfare reform, nothing more, nothing less.

...

Payscales for CEOs mainly reflect responsibility. If you're on the board of a company worth billions of dollars, you want only the best at the helm. So paychecks get high. I think it's more gross that big-league sports stars and actors get paid even more for their dog-and-pony dance routines.

But I support having a class of people who are obscenely rich. Why? Because big projects take big money, and the world's ills require big projects to solve. Manhattan, Apollo project-size in scope. And the very very rich have a long tradition of multi-million dollar philanthropy. Howard Hughes, Bill Gates, and Rockefeller, for example. One of the main reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing today is because Howard Hughes was so rich, that he gave lots of money to make a private medical research funding organization. By all accounts I've heard, the Gates Foundation is a top-notch charity. Mainly because one guy got so rich he could actually afford to help, not the hobo outside the liquor store, but fuckin' Africa.

Governments, it's turning out, might not be the best sources for funding large social projects like this. Look at the stem cell debacle- the states are having to make their own mini-NIHs just to fund stem cell research, which is a fantastic idea. Or at least, a fantastic work-around.

I think that Steve's exactly right: adding new legislation will create a ton of new lawsuits and people who can successfully 'game' the system. That's how some stockbrokers, accountants, and lawyers do so well- they game the system, exploiting loopholes
(because in the absolute limit, no system can be consistent and complete).

It's easy to imagine that, despite salary caps, people could have more than one job. Or hire friends and family to pick up extra paychecks. Or just receive lots of great expensive 'gifts'. You're going to pass laws on all this stuff? Based on what moral or ethical principles, exactly?

...

We've talked at each other for a while now, and it looks like most of us are running out of steam. I know I am.

EDIT: Eh, I had some stuff here that came off kind of bitchy. Deleted. 'Sall good.
...

Normally I say that I'd never want to work on anything different than what I do. But there's a report in this week's Nature on the function of the most ancient mechanical computer, the Antikythera Device. Whoa.

You can see I've got an ancient tech/automata fetish from the game, right? Wish I knew more about the history of ancient automata from pre-Jesus times up to Versailles. Anyone have reading suggestions, please offer.

You can read about it in Nature, or the NY Times, or Wikipedia, or you could just go to Metafilter and browse all three:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/56596

Metafilter provided me with this gem, which is a great example of bizarre tech:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/11/dog_power.html

(There's probably some connection here with all the progressive labor law discussion going on too, I guess.)

Paul has an Axe he is Shy.

It seems like the sum of the idea here I don't like is that somehow the money that Walmart kids get is earned. It seems like the money I get is earned, but If I ask for more.....well, I need to earn it, still. If I got a raise.....if the whole country got a raise, well we are asked what we have done to earn it. How is it so hard for me to earn 40 an hour when its so easy for someone else to earn 5000 an hour. Is it possible that the system that allows this is somehow not a good thing?

All money owned, how equitably it is owned is important. How the people involved with production of a product are treated says a lot about the health of an economy. I liked Marks idea of Ecomentalism, or whatever he called it.

So, Rob

What's the evidence that free money cures poverty? Any precedent at all?

Thats what you said.

You asked for an example, I gave you 2. ¥ou said that they were off subject when I gave you what you asked for. I told you you didn't really want these examples.....and you got mad at me for doing it and said I was second guessing your motives. I have not addressed your motives at all. I have acurately predicted your response to the answer given to your question. An answer you discarded, as not quite right. Ok I'll assume you want to understand....What exactly? I want to understand why some people think that it's ok to allow, or even encourage that one person to be treated worse than another?

If you prefer a meritocracy, how close do you think we are to one? Also what changes could be made in our existing system to get to where you might like it to be. If we are somewhat a meritocracy, how is the merit expressed? I think basically we are a plutocracy, an oligarchy, with a dash of kleptocracy, so it appears to be just.



What are we really talking about. It's a Chorus now with me and you. What are we talking about.
I'm a baritone.

Me, I think people need to be treated more fairly. I think it's unfair that anyone working in a company can be paid more than 100 times, or 1000, what the lowest paid employee makes. Just a number I throw out there and I'm comfortable with that. If the lowest paid employee makes 24k then someone else is limited to 240k. I think that it is well within the domain of our government to enact a law like that or something like it with slightly different numbers. It's basically how Costco works right now, and they seem to do alright.

I think that the rich do not pay enough in taxes. Have you ever seen a rich persons tax form? I haven't, but there must be a reason they pay tax lawyers year after year to help them out, and the rumor is it's so they can avoid just about any taxation, if they have a smart lawyer. So I am for changing tax law, or at least enforcing it.

I think it's sick to say that Sam Walton earned the money his family now controls. He certainly didn't earn it all on his own. It was earned with some other people, and I doubt they got what he got. I bet he earned some of it by making illegal deals, just a bet. I doubt if you were in a party adventuring with sam you'd have let him walk off with almost all the treasure, just because he had the map. Average CEO pay is grotesque in this country. Companies aren't really doing anything about it, I do think it's unhealthy for our economy, as such I think it's our governments responsiblity to act, if someone doesn't make it a more just system, then someone else will. I think that if we wanted to as a country we could make the minimum wage far more equitable. I think it would hurt the pocket books of some poor people to do this , but I think overall it would be for the best. I think it would be possible to do with less inflation that assumed. I think the reason it doesn't get done is because wealthy people oppose it and they to some extant to manage misinformation campaigns. I can't prove this to you. I think it's obvious. What are my motivations....hrm. There's a part of me that wants to say that motivations are needed to deny reality. They are not needed to acknowledge it. Yeah I like that. I might think about that a bit, but I don't think I will really need to because it seems true, understood even. Thats part of my motivation, it's to find out what I really think, and find out a little more truth.

What are my motives for saying this? hrm...I think it's because I hope to make some change in the reader who has followed this whole series of thoughts (from Chris' Start). If no change has been made, then I do think that for the most part it is because they didn't want to change. I believe that understanding leads to change. If I understand something in a new way then I behave in a new way. I don't understand much of what KT says, asserts untruths and hides from truth, I know I don't agree with him. Maybe I don't understand, maybe I don't want to. Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe I should clean this coffee shop. OK.

Ezekiel the demon

Hello gentlemen.

Thought while you were still in the area I'd share my two coppers.

I in fact happen to be a free market capitalist, of the laissez-faire old guard, for a couple reasons.

First, and leastly, the free market promotes and encourages the class struggle, of fighters vs. mages, of adventurers vs. monsters. I am free to hoard my loot as I see fit, or spend it on traps and minions, while you are free to kill me and take my treasure and buy a magic sword. Or commission a painting of yourself killing me.

(I'm sure we'd all nod, "d'accord", when I assert that any PC is, tautologically, a capitalist of this sort. Not once in my long days across the planes have I seen a PC build a poorhouse.)

Second, I am a capitalist for the simple reason that the changes in socioeconomic policies have enacted child labor laws.

And that's a damn shame.

I'm well-aware that it's not the popular opinion, n'est-pas 'P.C.', but in my view, the legislation of child labor laws has ultimately done more harm than good. Need I cite a report showing an increase in child crimes? Or the new data on the increased number of youths finding their way to the Abyss post-mortem? Partially due, no doubt, to the current lack of responsibility and oversight of these young hooligans. Need I mention statistics on the earning power of families with working tots, vs. families where fatty lads and lasses roll around in front of broken television sets complaining about the lack of Fruit Rollups? I think we're all in agreement.

But mainly, child labor makes for good, strong, delicious healthy children. <:)

And that's a fact.

Thanks for listening; fascinating discussion going on here.

Ezekiel 'E-Z' Glabrezu

KT

If you can't even define "the market," how can we measure an impact on it? The definition is actually really important. Because one thing is for certain: WalMart has benefited people who have owned its stock from the beginning.

I think your argument may be something along these lines: Some large companies like WalMart benefit shareholders more than they benefit employees by being low cost providers (and therefore striving to keep costs, like employee salaries, down). This is not necessarily good.

If that is your argument, you are essentially attacking the entire low cost provider industry. Everything from McDonald's to WalMart to CVS and beyond. Because these large chains employ so many people, they have to keep salaries/wages down in order to fulfill their mission. Raising the minimum wage will then raise the cost of goods that are carried at these chains (and grocery stores), since the costs will certainly be passed along.

That's where the inflation argument comes in--I'm not saying that economy-wide inflation will occur, but low cost items will certainly increase in price (that's why I restricted my comment to "goods these people will buy, like bread").

Anyone could have asked that question without the study, you did before you even brought up the study. I still don't know what a Swaminathin (sp?) is.

And in your recent post you discuss "the local economy;" why do local effects take precedence over overall effects? That proposition is also at odds with your earlier concern ("overall health").

I agree that it would be nice if we could have companies that generate no ill effects at all and make everyone happier and wealthier. I'm sure most companies would if it were as simple as checking a box. But business isn't that simple. I would like to do something for the poor as well. But, like Rob said, I think the major causes of poverty are behavioral/mental illness/medical disability, and these problems don't go away just by throwing money at them.

A lot of people who start out at minimum wage are able to climb the ranks if they try, and become middle class--despite having no education. Remember Justin? He was minimum wage, and he is now a manager or buyer or something pretty high up at Poppa John's.

Oh no! My money!

I'd be surprised if that increase in poor folk correlating with Walmarts was due to a decrease in the upper class. But, you never know.

Also, that's kinda harsh to say the study doesn't provide any valuable information. Just being able to ask the question, "Ok, but does it increase the 'overall health' of the country as a whole?" is a valuable result.

Not stock market. The market as a whole. We know that some local businesses can't compete with Walmart. Walmart can dramatically alter the local market economy just by moving in. That's what I mean by market manipulation. Not stock market manipulation, that's for the banks. -They are big, they have resources, thus, they can have a large impact, whatever they do.

Ok, so your not a capitalist, child labor working, polluting radical. Sorry I inferred as much.

KTizzle

New haiku suggestion (7 syllables)
"Kick some bass, behind closed doors"

And "From serene to danger" is 6 syllables, not 5 or 7.

King tut

---Unrestricted Capitalism---
I'm not sure how you could infer that I believe in "unrestricted capitalism." I didn't mention anything about abolishing all labor laws, private rights of actions (lawsuits) for harm caused through pollution, etc. I'm against direct distribution of income and leveling.

Stay away from the academic "extreme to extreme" ping-pong game, I'm for moderation.

---Locke/Free Market---
Locke's property theory is that labor converts public property to private. I don't see how that's relevant, it supports my point but I'm not relying on it, I don't use him as support.

I also don't see why you are implying that I believe "the freer the market the better." There's direct evidence against that assertion (e.g. the above reasons).

---WalMart study---
Increasing/decreasing the number of people above or below the poverty line doesn't provide anything more than anecdotal evidence regarding the number of people in the middle class. You are making an assumption if you are implying that the increase in people below the poverty line was due to WalMart somehow moving people from the middle class to below the poverty line.

I still don't see how this has anything to do with market manipulation--are you referring to the stock market? How is WalMart manipulating the stock market?

I've never heard of that journal. What's a Swaminathan (sp?)? At any rate, even if WalMart somehow increased poverty in the immediate area, the journal does not mention if WalMart increased or decreased the "overall health" of the country, or whatever your test is. Even under your test, it's perfectly possible that WalMart increased the number of people below the poverty line in the immediate areas and increased the overall number of people in the middle class. So the study doesn't really provide any valuable information.

---Wealth---
Regardles of whether or not anyone believes the WalMart children "deserve" any amount of money, Sam Walton (I think that's his name) founded the company and earned the money, and I think that gives him the right to do whatever he wants with it. He could pick a name out of the phonebook and give his entire estate to that person if he wanted. Why should the government, or anyone else, be able to tell him what he can and can't do with his money?

If the goverment can order him, why can't it order us? What about a rule that no one could have more than $5,000 in liquid assets at any time, and $100,000 in total assets? Or how about $2,000 and $50,000? The excess would be given to someone else who is below these limits.

---Haiku---
This one is pretty good:
My brain aches for you
Blood taints the white fallen snow
How satisfying

Sometimes the text doesn't really appear, I have to highlight it to get it to show. Is the font the same color as the background or something?

Then again...

Perhaps we should just heed RH:

I just crapped my pants
Exposed in open country
Live life with gusto

Disclaimer

Don't think I am saying direct distribution is good.

It's just that I believe a good economy is somewhere between communism and capitalism. Some folks need a hand up, for the good of all when times are hard. Similarly, folks also need to be able to aspire to success. this is also for the good of all.

I just wonder if we have any existing businesses that are doing quite well, but maybe at the expense of the whole rather than the good. I believe that this is a real possibility.

It's happened before.

Wassup Locke?

Why should we believe unrestricted capitalism is good? Mining towns? Child Labor? Rivers so polluted they burn?

These are products of unrestricted captialism that were recognized to be problematic and subsequently restrictions were put in place.

Why do you say a minimum wage increase will drive inflation? The majority of literature, as well as the statistics of those states with a higher state minimum wage does not support this.

I think it's strange, how passionately some people think the freeer the market, the better everything will be.

Pure capitalism works just as good as pure communism. -Great on paper.

Why should the Wallmart kids get all that money they didn't earn? I am not saying they shouldn't, but really, ask yourself why? Is it because if they couldn't get 16 billion a piece, Sam Waldon wouldn't have worked so hard? -That's not entirely true. Let's not pretend it is. Let's really ask ourselves, do they really deserve all of it? And, if so, why? If not, why?

Also, can you earn 16 billion? Is anyone's time worth that? No. What you are really saying, is this: "If someone sets events into motion (through hard work or not) that provide them and their heirs any amount of money, they are all entitled to it.

BTW, I am not saying that Walmart has unfettered market manipulation, but they do have very strong market manipulation. Maybe too strong for the good of the market as a whole. Isn't that a possibility?

Oh yeah: Wal-Mart and County-Wide Poverty: Stephan J. Goetz and Hema Swaminathan Social Science Quarterly Volume 87 Page 211 - June 2006 Results: After controlling for other factors determining changes in the poverty rate over time, we find that counties with more initial (1987) Wal-Mart stores and counties with more additions of stores between 1987 and 1998 experienced greater increases (or smaller decreases) in family-poverty rates during the 1990s economic boom period.

Like two shits in the night

Whoa there Paul. Like I said before, attacking 'motives' isn't fruitful here. (In response to your statement 'I don't think you want to understand'.)

Actually, that's a deep issue. Why the hell do people argue? When has anyone ever radically reversed their position on a major issue, after intellectual debate? I don't think it really happens. Mostly what we do here on Table Talk is just yell to make ourselves heard.

It's not just us. I've seen it all my life, and I'd guess you guys have too. See it all the time in science. People take positions, and then do experiments to support their positions. Scientific revolutions don't occur after someone does a great experiment- they occur when the old guard dies, and the younger crowd is able to champion the new great experiments unopposed.

...

Pell Grants are for education. Not sure about Pells, but with most educational grants, you get more money the longer you've successfully stayed in school. This is what I mean by 'merit-based' funding, and it's short-term funding for a particular purpose: education, so that people can support themselves long-term.

This is exactly the kind of program I fully support, and I wish there were more 'free money' programs like it.

This is very different from Friedman's 'give everyone $24000 every year' program obviously, though, so let's stay on topic.

Likewise, I'm not really sure how the Marshall Plan is analogous. The Marshall Plan also was a short-term boost to reconstruct war-torn Europe. I support giving money to Iraq now for the same reasons.

These are SHORT-TERM programs with specific funding targets.

...

What we're talking about is the government giving LONG-TERM support with its eyes shut. That's the core of Friedman's plan as it is on our Table. From what little I've read, it seems that Friedman in particular really just wanted a simplified welfare system- he rejected his 'free money' proposal when it went to congress as it was tacked on to the existing system. That's an important footnote. Friedman wanted a restructuring of the extant system, not just to give extra money away.

...

In response to your question, Steve, I'm a meritocratic capitalist with progressive leanings. I'm sort of a Horatio Alger bootstrapper in that way: "do it yourself, damn it". But I support state welfare for the sick and disabled and I support nationalistic imperialism. I support Science, and whatever brings money to the science lab. I support free public education through undergraduate levels.

But mainly I think that most issues of policy need to be special-cased. Meaning that I really don't just support the state paying everything for anyone who won't work regardless of the reason. I think that labor unions are a good idea for some endeavors, but I didn't join the union when they asked me. (Because I'm happy and well-paid and have a great relationship with my employer already, so union organization seems like unnecessary bureaucracy that, if anything, might foster a less cooperative relationship.)

...

On that note, I think that whatever sum of money you think every American should get just for being American, it's probably better spent siphoned into the school system.

In short, I mostly agree with Steve. There's a reason why the States are the military and scientific world power. There's a reason why the language of Science is English, and not German (like it used to be) or Russian (like it could have been). There's a reason why the car, the lightbulb, the computer, toilet paper, atomic weapons, and goddamn weblogs were all made right here. (I just checked wikipedia for the toilet paper reference. The others I'm pretty sure about.)

King tut

---Walmart---
What is "unfettered market manipulation"? What market is Walmart manipulating and how are they manipulating it? Walmart offers employment, that people can voluntarily take or not take. America is still a capitalistic meritocratic society, which means that capital is accumulated and invested, and the cream rises to the top.

I haven't seen any empirical evidence demonstrating whether or not Walmart increases or decreases the number of people in the middle class, and I would argue that it increases that number due to the positions such as manager, etc.

---Business Regulation---
The government absolutely should NOT legislate a company's ability to do business based upon "[its] effects on the economy as a whole." The sheer cost of such a study (quick, what is Microsoft's effect on the economy as a whole expressed as a single dollar figure?) is staggering. Also, I think the government's meager and already over-extended resources could be better expended elsewhere. How about focusing on crime? Infrastructure? Alternative energy? Medical research? Defense? Another big problem with the concept of the government approving or disproving businesses is that it would lead to lots of litigation; a company could argue each little point in the government's findings over and over. That would be really expensive to litigate.

---Direct Distribution---
All these plans about giving people $XX,XXX dollars don't specify who exactly will pay for it. The government? That means the taxpayers. And since America has a graduated income tax, that primarily means the corporations and the wealthy will fund it. Why on Earth should the Walmart kids, or Microsoft, be forced to pay homeless/unemployed people for being homeless/unemployed? Why should I, a non-wealthy working stiff, have to pay them? Regardless of how much any of you think is "enough" money for someone, it is not illegal to accumulate and conserve wealth, and I don't think it should be. The incentive to do better for yourself prompts a lot of the great inventions and advances we have. Also, where would we set any sort of limit? The already ultra-rich would obviously argue for a very high limit, but to someone making $20,000 a year, any limit over a million might seem unfathomable. Who is right, and who would decide who is right?

Personally, I have serious problems with just about any sort of leveling argument (leveling is the old "take from the rich and give to the poor."). I don't see why someone who has earned the money should be forced to do something with it. If I want to pass on my accumulated wealth to my kids, why shouldn't I be able to? If I can't, it might disincent me to accumulate wealth, which would then force my kids to work for their money, which opens the possibility of creating more homeless (if my kids are unable/unwilling to work). I also don't see why we would take capital from those that have demonstrated they know what to do with it and give it to those who have demonstrated that they don't. That would be like forcing Harvard, etc. to use 1/10th of its admissions spots on people who are not literate...does anyone support that plan?

---Minimum Wage---
The problem with minimum wage is that an increase in it will drive inflation, and provide a possible disincentive to create businesses. Pensions are beautiful in theory, but they are also, in practice, the main reason that the American auto industry (and much of Germany) has so many serious economic problems. I think the pension situation is analogous to a significantly higher minimum wage--great in theory, probably flawed in practice. If the government is regulating a minimum wage to give to people, it is probably because, based on skill alone, they cannot command any higher wage--which means that their labor is worth less than what the company is paying them, which means that the company is losing money on them, which means that the company must charge an artificially higher price for its goods. This makes the company vulnerable to competition, particularly global competition from companies that don't have to deal with regulations.

---Conclusion---
What exactly is your collective (the socialism implication is intentional) economic philosophy? Capitalism paired with forced redistribution of wealth together with a regulatory regime that determines who can and cannot do business?

Save the Middle Class.

I agree whole-heartedly about fair wages. I don't think people often consider that the enormous wage disparities have real consequence. 16 billion dollars for 4 kids. Hmm. Not considering interest, each kid could pay 16000 people 40,000 dollars annually for 25 years. That's 64000 middle class people, paid for life, or 4 kings. Also, you can assume that those 64000 people are going to put that cash back into the economy. -They need to spend most of it.

No doubt there is a use for rich people, just like a use for poor. However, I think the middle class is critical. It provides political stability, and is where 'added value' in an economy really takes place.

I don't think we should talk in terms of helping the poor, so much as growing the middle class. People can get behind that. It doesn't sound like a hand out, and it's good for everyone.

I'd say the number of poor is much more a function of the behavior of the very rich than the behavior of the poor themselves. Guess who makes policy?

I think something around 100 million dollars should be enough for anyone. However, I hate wage caps, as people would just move over seas to avoid it. There needs to be real incentive to drive that huge amount of wealth up top back down. However, I am not sure what that incentive could be.

Still, a company like Wallmart that depresses wages in an area due to unfettered market manipulation, which results in a pooling of money up top, does not grow the middle class. And, likely, reduces economic and political stability.

What we need are reliable scientific measures of a company's effects upon the health of the economy as a whole. Just like pollution controls, we need to institute policy that protects us from unfettered harvesting or waste of the economy's resources, workers and institutions alike. Our economy is very similar to a living thing or ecosystem. We need to treat it as such. -Economentalism.

Paul

We coullllld just put electrodes in people's brains and make them 'like' working. Or hell, make them 'like' being poor. It's cheaper, and you can't beat the happiness Turing test: if someone looks happy and claims to be happy, regardless of the electrode in their head- well, you have to just accept the fact that that person is truly happy.

No, I don't. I might accept that they have an electrode in their head though, which makes them appear happy.

Real problems like poverty are only partially physical, at best. There are physical causes (Katrina in NO, e.g.), but it's mostly behavioral in my view. Meaning that we need behavioral technologies to ameliorate behavioral problems.

I don't understand who's behaviour you are talking about. Behaviour is physical.
One technology used to modify behaviour is the minimum wage, another is are the equal rights amendments, so are labor laws.

As evidence that free money cures poverty I submit the Pell Grant system. I also submit the Marshall Plan. I can give you som more if you'd like.

ah, If you were here I could have some fun.

alas as it is I think we will end up agreeing to disagree.

That Marshall Plan thing is a pretty good example, but I don't think it will really help you understand. I don't think you want to understand.

-I'm still not seeing why a lot of people wouldn't just quit their shit jobs and rake in the $24000 a year. Why work a really crappy job, tons of hours and stress, just to earn an extra $10-20 thousand on top of that? You can live well, really well, on 24k, I know first-hand.

That was the argument given about welfare.

I have never made 24k. When I did DSL shit for quest, they paid the company that employed me $42/hour for me to be there. I got $12.53 per hour. That's the best paying job I've ever had. It's also how a lot of companies work. I quit that job, that was my way of saying that I wasn't going to be exploited like that. Did I work harder at that job than any other? No. Was it more important than working at the grocery store I worked at? No. I think a whole lot of people are underpaid, and a whole lot are overpaid.

Really I think this is all about fair wages. The federal minimum wage is rediculous. The Institute for Fair Economic Policy said sometime around 2002 that the minimum wage should be $12 an hour, and that for it to be fair, that increase would have to be done is such a way to avoid iinflation, and other market adjustments that could make such a raise meaningless. The point is for me that the Walmart kids have something like 16 billion dollars each, there are 4 of them I think. The employee of walmart stores gets paid on average something about $6 probably if they are a clerk. What are they supposed to do again?

Well, I've gone hither and Yon with this post so I hope some of it made some sense, if not too bad. I'm tired of typing.

Map.

If it's too small to see, the new maps on the DiD campaign page. Where is Breeport?

Follow the white star

It's not 100% on, but I don't think it's 100% off.

If I move from a bad environment to a better environment, it doesn't solve THE problem, but it solves A problem: in particular, it solves MY problem.

...

I moved out of the ghetto as soon as I could afford it, because I was sick of getting mugged. But for other reasons too of course- to live closer to school, to live around better restaurants and bookstores, to have a little garden in my backyard.

But yes. If I was unhappy with my choice of habitat, and there was nothing keeping me there, I'd move, and quickly. I think most people do. White flight and all that is an example. What better proof do I need than bloghaiku:

Exhausted, he rests
I should've known by the smell
Follow the white star

Huh.

Like I said, I have no idea if Milton's scheme should work. As I alluded too, it seems too simple for me. Yes, it seems to treat a symptom.

However, I think your analogy about the Texan gay guy, like or unlike mine, is cold. It's nice that you can go to the police. You are a clean-cut white guy. But, what if the police hate clean-cut white guys? That well-established and tested justice system works for you, but not because of your merit.

I agree with many of your points on poverty, but I just think what you said about that guy is pretty harsh. To make my point, read this:

---------
And honestly I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the tortured black guy, because if he'd just moved out Mississippi to say, Canada, he wouldn't have to be tortured anymore. His problem really wasn't that he was black, it was that he didn't know enough to know that black was okay, somewhere else in the world. He was just too lazy to move out of fucking Mississippi.
---------

Is that ok with you?

SRSLY now: the Paris Hilton problem

Mark, your analogy and mine are different. No one comes to an average person's house and takes all their money away violently. If PETA came at me, as they have done to other people here at UCSF, I'd file charges, as some small group of individuals committed acts of violent crime. And we have a well-established and tested justice system to deal with exactly these sorts of things.

But if the US government decided my research was bad and would close my lab just cuz, sure I'd move to China, or anywhere else where I could work.

I'm not sure how your point relates to mine: namely, that if we want to 'fix' poverty, we should treat causes, not symptoms. Meaning we first have to isolate causes. 'Not having any money' seems like a special case of 'bad luck' as a cause. I'm saying that, rather than resort to mysticisim ('these people are poor just because!'), maybe will, drive, motivation and education
are 1) more likely and 2) easier/cheaper/better to remedy.
...

And: no, really. Why not give everyone $50,000 instead? How do you determine the magic dollar amount to hand out every New Year's? And don't you think that we should be doing this, right now, in fuckin' New Orleans?

...

And, also really: people are poor, simply because they are poor? What's the evidence that free money cures poverty? Any precedent at all?

A priori, we can assume Milton Friedman, a Nobelist, was not an idiot. This idea Chris mentions is (reading Wikipedia) called 'negative income tax'. Apparently this almost actually happened (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/NegativeIncomeTax.html).

I'm still not seeing why a lot of people wouldn't just quit their shit jobs and rake in the $24000 a year. Why work a really crappy job, tons of hours and stress, just to earn an extra $10-20 thousand on top of that? You can live well, really well, on 24k, I know first-hand.

Incentive to work is a deep problem, near the order of 'source of consciousness' and 'beginning of the universe' deep.

Read the linked article- apparently there have been some attempts to try this experimentally in Seattle and Denver. Disincentive to work was high but not as bad as feared by critics. There was more family breakup than expected. Doesn't say why, but I'd guess that when people work less, they get bored and do dumb stuff.

Plus, what about Paris Hilton? She doesn't necessarily 'work', but to be fair, this system would still give her $24,000 for earning $0? (Let's assume she only has an off-the-books allowance, like any child, from her parents. Forget her revenue from perfume, her nightclub, and her porn movie.)

...

We coullllld just put electrodes in people's brains and make them 'like' working. Or hell, make them 'like' being poor. It's cheaper, and you can't beat the happiness Turing test: if someone looks happy and claims to be happy, regardless of the electrode in their head- well, you have to just accept the fact that that person is truly happy.

Real problems like poverty are only partially physical, at best. There are physical causes (Katrina in NO, e.g.), but it's mostly behavioral in my view. Meaning that we need behavioral technologies to ameliorate behavioral problems.

Here's a last analogy. Alcoholism is a real problem, and a complicated one at that. So the solution is to make alcohol illegal? Sounded good but it failed. Why it failed, and why alcoholism is a problem in the first place, are fascinating to contemplate, and I think not unrelated to the discussion here on DiDTT.

We's with PETA.

I don't know if SF had a castro district in the 50's. I'm sure some guy in Texas without gay friends wouldn't.

Also, that's kinda a Fucked up analogy, Rob. Just imagine this, PETA hires the mob and they come into your lab with crowbars. Should you just change labs? They don't have PETA in China, maybe you should go there. Would you be lazy not to move?

Oh, wait... beating the fuck out of people is illegal...

Just because you can't work the system to your favor doesn't mean it must be your fault. Sometimes it's the system that's fucked up.

Merit

Okay, I misread Chris's proposition, and thought that it was capped.

...

Well why not give everyone $50,000 instead?

Or a cool million? Or their own money print?

Just from first principles, it seems weird that poverty- a very complicated problem- could be 'solved' by such an easy solution.

Actually I'm not exactly clear on the problem. I think the problem isn't that poor people have no money. That's the obvious empirical symptom, but not necessarily the root cause. Poverty has many causes, from insanity to lack of motivation to no jobs in your town.

Poverty is also contextual. We're all fucking rich, comparitively speaking, because we've all obviously got damn computers.

Knowledge is fucking free, which is amazing. Anyone can learn anything they want here. Poverty is an educational problem and a behavioral problem.

So I didn't see Brokeback Mountain, but I read the New Yorker short story it was based off of. And honestly I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the tortured gay cowboy, because if he'd just moved out of the ranch to say, the Castro District in SF, he wouldn't have to be tortured anymore. His problem really wasn't that he was gay, it was that he didn't know enough to know that gay was okay, somewhere else in the world. He was just too lazy to move off the fucking ranch.

Employment isn't 100% how smart you are though, it's also about CHA and who you know, obviously. Meeting potential employers still isn't a problem that $xx,xxx in the pocket is likely to fix on a wide scale.

Acutally I think the real underlying problem is kids. If you don't have kids, you feel more free to drift around, city to city or country to country until you find work. Once you have kids, not only can you not move, you have a lot more expenses.

I've got another idea that would fix two problems. Draft the poor into the military. Adjust income for age (older people should make more money because they've had more time to invest, more time for education and experience), and if your age-adjusted income is below a certain level- into the Forces with you for a year. Even grampa could be useful somewhere I'm sure. Then, you've got a year grace period to increase your funds, or it's back you go.

...

A private foundation gives me about $40000 a year to do whatever I want. That pays my salary. But they don't just give that money away. You apply for it. And your application is evaluated based on merit, track record, and what you plan on doing with the money. Even just the act of filling out a damn application is a hoop that has to be jumped through to get the money.

And I can't just blow it all off and have a great time. Actually I could do that, but then the next time I apply for such a thing, I wouldn't have much to show for it, and wouldn't get re-funded.

My point is that a competitve, merit-based application process is a fantastic solution. If you're worried about giving money to drug abusers- repeatedly giving them money to fuel their habit- then, just make it so they won't get re-funded. First time's free, then you've got to show what you've done with it.

But... it seems that on a grand scale, the current economic system is sort of a competitive, merit-based application process. (Especially if you factor in unemployment checks and welfare.) Right?

34,000.

By my math, if you make 20k, you would get a check for 14k, or 34,000 a year.

They just don't WANT to work, those poor

Hi guys, just got back from visiting Dave, Paul, and Chris up in Portland, and it was fantastic. All us visitors had a great time.

Anyway, why under the system Chris mentions below, would anyone work for less than $24,000 a year? If you're working a shit job making $20,000, why not just quit entirely and reap in your full $24,000 for a lot less stress and much more free time?

And more free time equals more time to spend money, meaning that $24000 will go faster than if someone was busy doing stuff most of their waking week, and too tired to do things off the clock.

I think it'd be great to run an experiment. Take $10 million, give every person in a 500 adult poor community $20000 for a year. Maybe $30 mil for a three year study. Get some real data on how effective this plan would be on a larger scale. I dunno.

food for thought

assuming a 10k payout average to each of the 300 million americans that is a payout of roughly 3 trillion dollars.

That sounds like a lot of money, but not really that much for our government assuming the elimination of welfare programs, all housing subsidies, etc.

3 Trillion a year our total budget not including amendments, and supplementals was 2.6 trillion dollars in total spending.....

just some numbers to confuse the issue....

Frankly I am not sure if the 2.6 trillion figure includes mandatory spending or not.

The office of Management and Budget doesn't have the best website.

It says that we have a social security deficit currently at 3.7 trillion dollars and that we have an overall deficit of 10.5 Trillion dollars.....

Heh.

Huh.

The premise sounds good. Can't say I know enough about economics to know if it would work. Would it just cause inflation, or would there be some other 'correcting scheme' implemented by the wealthy?

I don't doubt that we can't reduce the number of poor in the US significantly. And, it pisses me off we'd rather cause chaos in the Middle East and write big checks to Israel with little in return.

But, I'd wager that there needs to be some poor for a healthy economy. That might sound sick, but it's just my gut Darwinian instinct. -Much less than we have no doubt. But some.

Anyway, did Freemen write any books you could recommend?

OMG ROFL

I feel great today
A little more to the left
Don't tell anyone

Yeah he was kind of like Justin

He wasn't flaunting his cash or car or anything. It took a while for me to find out about it, and it was only cause I was asking (I was being polite cause he knew the fewest people there and I knew the most).

I don't really know how to explain it, he was a little odd, like he was dancing and "air playing" drums, then a guitar, then something that I couldn't even picture what instrument it was. But instead of being self-conscious about it (you know, looking around to see if he fit in and stuff) he was just ignorant of other people staring at him.

That's what I'm trying to mean when I say he was kind of odd but, but he was like blissfully ignorant of his being odd.

It's not really a big deal, it's just kind of shocking to be hanging out with someone when I was thinking he's just a kind of weird kid, and then it turns out he's crazy rich. I think rich people do that a lot, they are really eccentric because no one ever tells them to stop doing it. For example, he probably never got his ass kicked in high school for being wierd.

Money doesn't buy Porsches, people buy Porsches.

Paul, Steve said he reminded him of Justin. Justin was, for the most part, a cool guy.

Pizza Hut and Pill. -These did impact my life. In a good way, too. However, like everything, I took the good and left the bad.

As for money, as Rob eluded to, it's all about what you do with it. Buying a porsche is impressive, but commissioning a work of art is even cooler. Funding science is my favorite.

And Rob, just say the word. I'll don my PH cap and get all Che on those bourgeoisie asses!

The Truth about Mark!! A Commie Sympathizer!!

ya hear that Mark? Rob thinks you're a salt of the earth Prole ripe for revolution...

But seriously why would Mark or anyone think, from what Steve posted, this guy is really anything? All we know from Steve is that the guy has bleached hair. Well, and he drives a Porsche.

Just because Rob didn't build any character working at Pizza Hut, and that shitty convience store in the south end, doesn't mean that you can't build character at those places kids. Don't give up!!

Comrade OP will lead the glorious revolution of the gobots

Well as usual I'll disagree with Paul. As someone who has worked at Pizza Hut, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it didn't make me a better person at all. It made me a slighter fatter person, which is a totally different thing. Except for Mark, I wouldn't say that my fellow PH comrades were salt-of-the-earth great old proles ripe for the revolution. They just sort of loved Pizza and watching TV.

Actually Paul, the better solution is to turn the gun on the poor.
1) Poor people are easier to shoot.
2) No one will care.
3) When you're done, no more poverty!

Also:
4) I've never been mugged by a rich person.

...

Weird thing about dynasties is that they tend to end in about three generations. Look at the Bush family or the Hiltons... who in the last generation has the business acumen? Whoops.

Look, if a dude wants to be rich and not work, that's cool. Rich people have funded my research every step of the way, for which I'm grateful. I even wrote a letter saying "thanks for being so rich". Personally, I could never do it, because I love working, and I get a little nuts if I haven't done stuff in a week or so.

...

As always, bloghaiku knows what we're up to and wants to share:

What shall we do first?
I'll be your Optimus Prime
Hand me that pistol

I'd get a black one.

That is interesting, Steve. It's not everyday that you meet someone that doesn't need to work for a living.

I wouldn't shoot him. He sounds like a cool guy.

Not the views of Paul it's just something he heard on Fox.

I know I know, the 25,000 people should just go get a job working for Johnson and Johnson. Then they can be wage slaves make a little pocket change, eat Macdonalds, and generations of Johnson and Johnson grandkids can have Porsches. Shoot em.

Paul doesn't really need the FBI attention.

I say shoot the leech, unless he's worked at Pizza hut or the like for over a year, in which case he may be ok.

Why would he tell you all that? If I told you I was leeching off my friends and family, doing a bit of couch surfing I'd be thought rather poorly of. It's weird that when the couch you surf is in a mansion it's ok.

I just don't know what to make of something like that.

If you are reading this ask yourself....
Have I posted on DID yet?
P.S. Steve WWJD?

I thought about having some stickers printed up.
They would be made to go over a gas cap. They would say.

"For the Price of this vehicle you could provide a meal to 25,000 people"

The sad thing is I don't think anyone, even myself, really cares. I didn't print them up.

So a guy walks into a bar...

So tonight I was out with one of my new friends, a guy I just met recently that went to my school. We don't know each other too well, but it's the kind of thing where we really click so I'm hoping he'll turn into a good friend over time.

He brought his girlfriend's friend Dani and her fiance. The fiance was pretty cool, he was tall with bleached blonde hair. He was really quirky and weird, but the kind of weird that no one ever told him he's weird, so it was a non-self-conscious weird, does that make any sense? I talked to him for awhile throughout the night, because I knew the people we were out with and he didn't. He seemed cool, but weird. If you guys remember Justin James, he reminds me of him.

So after talking for awhile (guys night out, we left the girls behind tonight) we decided to head home. During the small talk, he mentioned that his uncle owns some clubs in New York, and that his parents "do nothing." He said he'd tell me what he means when it's not so loud (the bar was really loud).

So we leave, and he goes "Oh, so I was going to tell you about my parents. They don't really do anything. My grandfather founded Johnson & Johnson." Can you fucking believe that? He drives a $120,000 white customized Porsche. He's 23 and worth hundreds of millions, if not billions.

I'm not too into money, but that still kind of hit me when I saw the Porsche for the first time. Up till then, it was all words, I mean I could say that my dad founded Intel or whatever. But then the white Porsche rolled out of the parking garage and I was like wow---he can live wherever he wants, and do whatever he wants.

Like I said, I'm not into money all that much, I'm into happiness. But I just wanted to share that story. He seems pretty happy, but not really any more so than someone who's got a normal life that they are happy with.

Agreed

Okay, sounds good. Imagine those spells used on you as is, pretty shitty.

I agree with your suggestions and was thinking of being a bit more generous even. I'll try to realistically apply the effects of having a swarm of insects or a hot metal object on you. When you get to 2nd/3rd level, try them out, and see if what happens seems fair to you; if not, we'll just iterate until we get it.

Let's nerf 2 spells

Heat Metal and Summon Insects are too powerful. Unconscious for 10-40 rounds?? How about we change it so that if it's a weapon, save v. spell or drop it (lose 1/2 of your attacks per round to pick it back up, can't reduce to 0). If it's armor, lowers AC by 2 (since its melted).

Summon Insects, how about you take 1 round to fend them off and then it gives -2 to hit for melee & ranged, and if you are casting, make an Int or Wis check to not lose spell?

Druid spell descriptions... might want to bookmark this

1ST LEVEL
Entangle: for 10 rounds, every creature in the area (20 yard radius, center of which is up to 80 yards away from you) cannot move. Saving throw lets you move at half. Works with natural plants on the ground, so there needs to be a lot of foliage around.

Animal Friendship: make an animal into a permenent animal pal, that you can teach 3 tricks to (learning a trick takes 1 week). 2 HD of friends per level. A wolf is 2 HD, a shark 8 HD, a bear 4-10 HD, etc.

Shillelagh: 1 round/level, transform a club into a magic club. It's +1 and does 2d4 to small/med, 1d4+1 to large.

Fairie Fire: 4 rnds/level, one guy/level, make em glow, you get +2 to hit them.

Invis to Animals: can't be detected by normal animals for 10 rounds + 1 rnd/level no save.

2ND LEVEL
Barkskin: +1 AC and saves for 4 rnds+1rnd/level, a single creature touched (including yourself).

Charm: one person or mammal, save negates, they're your pal.

CLW: 1d8 healing.

Flame Blade: make a magic flaming sword. Lasts 1 rnd/level, doesn't count as a magic weapon for purposes of hitting demons and the like. No bonus to hit, but does 1d4+4 pts of dmg, or 1d4+6 vs undead (for which it DOES count as a magic weap).

Goodberry: make 2d4 magic berries. They last for 1 day + 1day/level, and cure 1 hp. Anyone can eat them, but only 8 pts of berry healing can be done per day. Better than it sounds, and you can eat a handful (all 8) in one round if you want.

Heat Metal: 7 rounds, one target, no save. Rounds 1,7, it's just hot. Rounds 2,6, it's damn hot, take 1d4 dmg. Rounds 3-5, it's fuckin hot, take 2d4 dmg/round, plus there's disability. I'll give a save for that: hands or feet, useless for 2d4 days. Head (helmet), 10d4 rounds unconscious. Body (armor), 1d4 days disabled (penalties to combat). That's damn good. 8d4 dmg at 2nd level?

Obscurement: make a big mist for 4 rnds/level, 5 foot visibility. Centered on you, 10 yard radius per level!

Produce Flame: you get a flame you can throw once that lights stuff on fire.

Reflecting Pool: scry people on this plane like a crystal ball. You can use Det Magic with 5%/level chance of working. Lasts 1rnd/level. (Crystal Ball scrying depends on how well you know the target. Well known, 100%. Met: 85%. Seen a picture of: 50%. Have heard about: 25%.)

Trip: 10 rnds/level, save negates, you make a tripwire that's 80% undetectable by normal means. If someone's running and they trip, 1d6 dmg + 1d4+1 rounds stunned.

Warp Wood: no save destroy a wood thing (spear, crossbow, arrow, tree). Fifteen inches long and one inch diameter per level.

3RD LEVEL
Call Lightning: must be a storm out, lasts 10 rounds/level, call one Lightning Bolt every 10 rounds. LBolt does 2d8+1d8 per level, save for half, hit one target within sight.

Hold Animal: normal/giant-sized mammals, birds, and reptiles but not monsters. Hold lasts for 2 rnds/level, save negates. Up to 4 targets: one target at save -4, or two targets at save -2, or three targets at save -1, or four targets at no penalty to save. Range 80 yards.

Prot. Fire: affects onee creature. If cast on you: complete immunity to normal fire, 12 hp/level complete shielding from magic fire (fireballs, etc), lasts until you next rest. If cast on another: lasts 10 rounds/level, +4 on saves vs fire, and 50% dmg reduction regardless.

Summon Insects: 70% chance of fliers, 30% walkers. Point to a target, they take 2 hp/rnd for 1 rnd/level and can do nothing but fend off bugs no save??!! If you pick a new target, it takes a full rnd per 12 feet for the guys to head on over. Range 30 yards.

Tree: you turn into a tree for 60 rounds + 10 rnds/level.

Other spells are pretty basic so I won't describe them, and you're welcome. Wow there's some broken stuff there. I guess I should get ready for my Summon Insects NPC killer. Beware: cheese is a double-edged sword.

We ARE playing with spell pre-memorization in the old school way, so please choose a default set of daily spells and notify me when you change them up.

Tizzle's for Rizzle

OK, KT is ready to go. I went with spec bow, spec xbow is just strictly worse than spec bow, so there's no reason to play shotgun. If I can spec shotgun for style reasons but play it like bow, I'd spec shotgun. I don't see why it really matters if we play shotgun as a bow or xbow.

+10% xp ftw. And we'll see how this "heat metal" you speak of works.

Gems

Rasputin hand-job
You know you can't deny it
Dance to its rhythm

God

Yeah, mjyoung is correct in other regards. +2 bonus to fire/lightning saves, 3rd level pass w/o trace, 7th level shapechange for big healing. Druid's really not a bad choice, and since you have the stats to dual-class, you might as well keep Bushi at level 1 so you've got a little better combat ability.

You don't have to be a big hippy nature guy neither if you don't want, I don't care about that. Have lots of animal friends, or none and just Heat Metal the crap outta fighters, however Tut wants to roll.

What you do need, though, is a god. So who's your god? Azoth, the cleric in the party, worships Apollo. Since you get spells from a god, you gotta pick a god.

King Tut

Do druids level per the table listed on MJYoung's site? I thought we were using that reference, but it doesn't look like it, since that site says that druids get cleric spells.

The main point to being a druid is fast leveling (significantly faster than cleric according to Young's site). Is this the case? If so, maybe I'll just tough it out as a fun-loving, useless nature freak for all the NPCs we meet to make fun of.

Not crap.

KT, it's all about Heat Metal.

To be a druid or not to be a druid, that is what you gotta decide right now homes

Druid spells are not too crappy. Come on, did you really think a fun loving nature guy was going to Animate Dead? Sure, no Raise Dead sucks, but they've got some good spells. Warp Wood and Heat Metal. Call Lightning at 3rd freakin' level. Sure you need to be outdoors in a storm, but 1) just try to go on outdoor adventures, and 2) you can summon your own weather with other spells.

Entangle's not bad. Charm Person/Mammal is fantastic. Goodberry is really, really useful, especially since there is going to be a dearth of healing potions this game (you make magic healing berries you can store and give to others). And shit, somehow, amazingly, unexpectedly, Plant Growth was the campaign winning game last time. It wasn't the DM's solution, but it worked nonetheless and saved all y'alls.

...

If you want to dual-class as cleric, or druid, not dual-class at all, up to you. But you gotta decide now, since you've now got xp. You might just buy 1E PH and UA from eBay. I found them serendipituously at a gaming store in the used books section.

When I go home tonight, I'll post the basic rules/mechanics for some of these spells to help you decide.

...

And:

It's been a long day
Not just a thing of the past
You'd best get ready

I know just what you mean.

Druid spellz...crap or not crap?

The druid spells look like utter crap to me. No Animate Dead, no Silence, no PFE...

I thought they had the same spell table as clerics. I like druid cause they advance really fast, but if the spells are crap, what's the point?

Can I get some advice from people with the books? I don't know what the hell the spells do. Druid really does advance fast though...

900!

900th post here, while we're celebrating landmarks.

Nothing constructive to add. Prelude's over, we're about to begin the real module.

Druids

Okay Tut, here's Druid spells and advancement through 6th level. It's pretty fierce, really.

LVL.....1st.....2nd.....3rd.....4th
1: .........2
2: ........2..........1
3: ........3..........2.........1
4: ........4..........2.........2
5: ........4..........3.........2
6: ........4..........3.........2.........1

Yup, circles first through third at the same level. It's fast.

Here are some good spells.

1st: Animal Friendship, Ceremony, Detect Balance, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Detect Snares, Entangle, Faerie Fire, Invis to Animals, Locate Animals, Pass w/out Trace, Precipitation, Predict Weather, Shillelagh, Speak w/ Animals

2nd: Barkskin, Charm Person/Mammal, Create Water, Cure Lt Wnds, Feign Death, Fire Trap, Flame Blade, Goodberry, Heat Metal Locate Plants, Produce Flame, Reflecting Pool, Slow Poison, Trip, Warp Wood

3rd: Call Lightning, Cure Disease, Hold Animal, Know Alignment, Neutralize Poison, Plant Growth, Protect. from Fire, Pyrotechnics, Snare, Spike Growth, Stone Shape, Summon Insects, Water Breathing

4th: Animal Summon I, Call Woodland Beings, Control Temp, Cure Serious Wnds, Dispel Magic, Hold Plant, Plant Door, Produce Fire, Prot. Lightning, Repel Insects, Speak w/ Plants
...

There's really no reason not to stay 1st level Bushi and dual-class into Druid. You've got the stats.

Cheez

Cheesing the system is ridiculously easy if you want to. The problem is that the unwritten rule is that if we can do it, npcs can do it. So if we all roll elves with 18 dex and spec bow, it's just a matter of time before we run into a party of.....elves with 18 dex and spec bow. Ditto re: dual-wielding drow, powerful player-created spells, etc. That's why power gaming works for computer games but not so much for DiD.

I'll have to figure out what to do with Tut. I don't know if the whole bushi thing is even worthwhile.

I thought druids use normal cleric spells? I didn't see anything for druid spells under the reference section. If druid spells suck, I might have to switch back to cleric. I just like druid cause they advance fast and they get some crazy abilities at high levels, even thought I bet we won't get past LV 10 in this campaign.

Uh

Oh right, just read UA, sure enough Drow get to fight two-handed no penalty. They also get +2 to all saves vs magic!

So you don't have to take a NWP to do it. You might want to spend that NWP on some paint thinner though to get rid of the giant target on your armor.

Ettin: Let's see... Gnome illusionist, Drow cavelier with two swords... Gnome, drow... Gnome, drow... That's a toughie.

...

Honestly, though, Threnody is the big target. 14 THACO, 2/round is rough. God, specialization sort of equalized fighters, but it kind of makes combat too nuts. Imagine if all those pirates had spec bow by the initial rules? The game would already be over.

The factory

Yeah, feel free Dave.

That's what the Factory is for. Have a good look at v2.6 if you've got the time. Some flavor is coming through.

Threnody

Yeah, for those of us with the skilz, it's easy to cheeze the system.

I'm pretty sure that most of us have, indeed, those skilz. Yo.

I'll change my character sheet to reflect the no x2 damage. And THACO 14 at first level is crazy. Crazy delicious? No, just crazy. But there it is!

Mark - you want I should post that long rant I sent last night onto the factory? Put it out there for the world to see?

Maybe I'll just summarize it there. Do y'all know Mark's designing a new system? You should get in on the ground floor. In four years, I'll be vested!

Thak

Drow have no penalty for fighting with an offhand weapon. I am curious if I need to take a NWP to be able to take advantage of this.

Du

If you want to take two-weapon fighting as a NWP, it'll reduce your penalties by 1 each. So you'll be -1/-3 and get one bonus attack with the offhand weap. Acceptable weapons are limited for your off-hand to be: horseman's mace, horseman's flail, shortsword, horseman's military pick, and dagger (so you'll have to spend a WP also).

...

Tut2, actually you've gotta do the swap I mentioned below for your stats if you want to dual-class at all. Dual classing requires 17s or 18s in the prime stats.

Um.

Um, tut Druids don't have cure light wounds at first level. But they do get 2nd circle spells at 2nd level, and cure light wounds is one of those. I thought that dual class humans can't use the skills of their first class until their new class is of higher level. That would mean that Tut can use his druid abilities now just not his Bushi ones.

I'm surprised by that light thing....with the Drow though. Looks like I need some sunglasses. Sunglasses are cool in D&D. I don't think Cavaliers are really that great. Barbarians...heheh. They never even get to level with their exp. Paladins have almost all of the skills that Cavaliers have plus spells that's why their exp is higher than Cavaliers. I just feel bad for the poor old fighter class....It's sad to see it be the fighting class of the multiclassed demi-humans.

As to you attacking me about second guessing you. You did have that post titled "Unearthed Arcana can bite me", that's why I thought you didn't like it. Not really a second guessing thing. Don't be so sensitive. I guess we'll do that thing where we agree to disagree again Rob.

Da

...

Who is the hunter?
You're this carbuncle's jewel
You must enter it

...

Or, otters.

http://www.otters.net/pg1.html

LOL

LOL

KT

OH SNIZZAP

The Most Perfect Haiku

Your mom the wizard
Did it with Count Dracula
And an astronaut

True haiku

Actually, by 1E rules, there are really no advantages to crossbows over bows. Slower rate of fire and less damage (the difference in reality is how much strength you need to fire it- a bow, lots, xbow, not so much).

But screw that, for our game, yeah: bows are 2/1, 1d6 dmg. Crossbows 1/1, 1d8 dmg. That's fair.

Druids get +10% xp only if BOTH WIS and CHA are 16 or higher. It's not too late, you could swap your CON into CHA, and your STR into CON as 15 gives +1 hp/level and 17 CON gives only +2 hp/level. Up to you though.

...

And you're wrong. A true haiku references either astronauts, or Count Dracula, a wizard, or your mom.

K Tastic

Haiku:
A true haiku should have 1 seasonal reference per haiku. My favorite one is "summer into fall," 5 syllables. "Winter into spring" is good too. Seasonal references are good too, like "snow falls for you, lightly" 7 syllables. I like the "season into season" ones because they can separate two 7 syllable lines that are related to the relevant seasons. For example, line 1 could be a comment about missing a loved one (cold/sad/distant), "winter into spring," line 3 is about meeting up again (happiness/new start). The first line has the feeling of the season mentioned immediately after, and the third line has the feeling of the sentence immediately preceding it.

DiD:
Ok, so let me see if I have this straight:
Proficiency bow: 2 atks / rd, 1d6
Spec bow: 2 atks / rd, 1d6+2, +2 to hit
Proficiency Xbow: 1 atk / rd, 1d8
Spec Xbow: 3/2, 1d8+2, +2 to hit

Is that correct? I'll nail down Tut's profs in the next couple days. Also, can druids get +10% xp?

Dual classing

Tut, no, your advancement as a druid is not slowed at all, far as I can tell in the rules. You just can't do anything druidic until you've made it to 2nd level, then you're a 2nd level druid with 1st level bushi skills.

Not sure druids can even use bows though. Maybe slings or staff-slings. Seems silly, I guess a bow would be alright. Bows do 1d6 damage, not 1d8.

King Tut

Yeah I'm guessing Thaka is about to charge the named pirate given the Cavs' charging obligation.

I have a couple questions for Tut...does abandoning Bushi slow Tut's advancement in Druid, relative to being only a lv 1 Druid? If so, I'd like to abandon the whole Bushi thing. Also, if proficiency bow gives 2 attacks /rd (at 1d8 right?) and prof xbow only gives 1, I'd rather just take proficiency bow as a druid.

I just want something to do once my 3 CLW are gone, or if I don't need to cast spells.

Symmetry

The astronaughts know
Cold as a December night
Believe me, I know

Almost Symmetrical

The astronauts know
Cold as a December night
Believe me, I know

Genius!

I'm such a cliche
I'll be your Optimus Prime
It gets me going

Propa

Dude all I know, is I had better be seeing some chivalrous shit.

There is that whole "full speed nonconditional charge" thing too.

I love cavaliers, their skills make as much sense as their code. It's a gaming challenge. -I bow to the dark lady.

And don't worry, Rob, UA says "In enforcing this code, the DM may reduce or eliminate experience gained by the cavalier if its gaining violates the spirit or letter of the code."

Back now

"because [I] don't like Unearthed and want more reasons for hating it"

Trying to second-guess your friends or DM is neither polite nor productive. I like Unearthed enough to play with the rules from it. Caveliers are broken because:
-they advance faster than paladins
-they have automatic stat raising
-they essentially have specialization (bonuses to hit, attack as 5 levels higher for attacks/round, extra damage with lance, not to mention said increases of str each level)
-mind spell immunity of 90%
-weapon parry skills
-minimal in-game restrictions on conduct

If the rate of advancement was slowed down to that of barbarians, it'd be okay.

...

Drow elf light penalties are in UA. I know because I just checked, and checked earlier before combat began; mjyoung didn't make them up.

...

Ya the haikus are awesome. Mark is probably still soliciting lines, so if you've got a great phrase in 5 or 7 syllables, email it to him to increase the weirdness.

They just keep getiing better.

Not a soul around
Smooth as a monkey's bottom
Insecure as hell

K Tizzle graces yall with a post

Thx for ruling on bow spec. Ok, the silver shotgun is no more. I'll fix it up in a sec...what is xbow prof/spec like? just like melee weapons?

Bows gets 2x attacks per round for just prof?

Paul 15th level megageek.

drow cavaliers are broken. Cavaliers aren't really that great. Drow...they're great. They just don't dish out the damage, since they can't spec. They're ok.
Rangers are the fighter class mother-fuckers. Spec....spells.....good HP. Abilities. Nice. Mjyoungs stuff kinda takes a bit out of the drow, but it's ok. I believe the light related penalties are his own invention, at least I don't think they are from Unearthed.

Cavaliers....well they can fight ok as far as to hit with a Lance, a sword and a flail or something. They get some anti fear and mind shit, not bad. And Elven Females can ride unicorns as a mount at 4th level!! AWESOME!! Cavaliers only seem so good because you don't like unearthed and want more reasons to hate it. Rangers/Cleric half-elves.....thats a good class. Everyone should be that. Bow spec.....sanctuary, walk away. shoot them. entangle them. whew.
fuck it I shouldn't know this much, or talk this much about this crap. I understand why Rob is scared of outing himself. I on the other hand have a d12 geek pride pin.....fuck there I go again ok bye

NO STARTING SHOTGUN

Oh, hmm. Actually, Unearthed Arcana has a whole bunch of cheesy overpowered shit. Nothing personal Thaka, but cavaliers are just broken.

But yeah, let's scrap the double damage at point blank range. Bows get 2/round attacks even with just proficiency, it's a good enough weapon.

And there's one thing I want to make really clear.

TUT DOES NOT HAVE A SHOTGUN.

...

At a meeting, don't have my power cord for my laptop. Will post tomorrow night on Factory and main page to update combat. Hang in there new heroes.

KT

Thren it's not about you specifically. What if we invented a melee weapon that did base 2d8+2 dmg and allowed 2 attacks / rd right off the bat? How many people would spec longsword, mace, flail, etc? It's bad enough that bow spec allows 2 attacks / rd immediately (instead of lv 7), but default double damage on top of it renders all other weapons pointless. I really can't understand how this rule made it into D&D at all--unless bows are unusable within 30' or something? I didn't understand the range stuff very well.

If bows are useless from 0'-30', deal 2x dmg from 30'-50', and deal normal damage from 50'-100', it would make more sense. But if they deal 2x dmg from 0'-30' and normal dmg from 30'-100', I can't understand it at all.

That point and the fact that I'm mainly worried about facing npc archers are the reasons I'm arguing against it . Right now, 2 level 1 archers could wipe our whole party in 1 round. A CLW isn't going to do anything against (1d8+x)*2 twice a round.

It 's just too powerful. I don't see how it makes any sense at all that a shotgun would do less damage than a bow; even if that seems to make sense, I already posted that I'm taking bow if the 2x dmg rule stays and shotgun is ruled to equal xbow.

I just keep posting because Rob hasn't specifically addressed the question.

Nay

I vote nay on 2x bow damage. -It's kinda cheesy.

Also, with 5 hp and AC:8, I don't want to be on the recieving end.

thats a lot of damage with a str bow

especially for a fighter thief.....

just sayin...
hm thats (2d8+lets say 6)x2is roughly a nice 32 oh times 2 backstab wow look 64 points of damage.....

Threnody

You know what? I'm voting for keeping the x2 damage the way it is. It's only within 30', and you have to spend 3 proficiency slots on it - why not? I say. Tut - maybe shotguns are different. Maybe they are more clumsy and random than my zen techniques. I was fine either way, but now that I've read KT's posting five times about how he wants this to go away, I'm arguing that it stays.

Yeah, there have been some really good ones...

Like these:

I murdered for you
It's just as I imagined
Anticipation

I'm such a cliche
A puppet of unseen hands
My virginity

Erasing my soul
Lost in this vast wilderness
Oh damn I want you

Okay, close your eyes
I don't even want a glimpse
What shall we do first?

Lost in the desert
I am an organ donor
It's a bit sticky

That wasn't yogurt
You insipid little jerk
Yet all is not lost

Penis puppet show
Like a ninja in the dark
Believe me, I know

Paul

It creates a log of haikus right?
I would actually pay for a collection of them.....I have seen some sweet shit on there.

Order shall return.

Recently, I have been very impressed with the profundity of Random Haiku:

Always remember
Like the moon waxes and wanes
Order shall return

I think we should submit these to a literary journal.

KT

Crossbow is a joke compared to bow spec. If shotgun = xbow, and we aren't changing bow spec, I'll just use a bow. Bows get 2 atk/rd and do default 2x dmg, AFAIK xbows get the normal weapon spec rate for attacks and dont do 2x dmg.

Any ruling on whether we are eliminating default double dmg on bow spec? And do xbows get 2 atks / rd like bow?

Azoth, Cleric of Apollo

Ok, woot, I've got my charsheet all done. My new character is Azoth, a scholar/warrior and servant of Apollo. That's really all there is to say about him... lets pwn some pirates.

Turn on the sweat machine

Okay Tut, you're a bushi who'll 'dual class' as druid. This means you *cannot* use druid abilities until you make 2nd level druid! So no spells yet pardner.

Actually what you want is spec in crossbow, not bow. That'll function as shotgun. Yes there are shotguns. There is tech of all sorts, but lots of firearms. Maybe not right here and now though. You can have a crossbow for now.

Your ability score swaps are fine. I dunno if druids get 10% bonus to xp, I think not as they're not a 'canonical' class. (I think only clerics, fighters, magic users, and thiefs get the 10%. Will check when I get back home and look in PH.)

...

Thren, you start with zero healing potions. Don't expect to find a lot of potions this campaign: the Potion Guild got Enronned.

...

Thaka, okay you're upper class. Take what you will. You can have a horse on the boat if you want. The Spanish did it, so that makes it OKAY.

...

Justin, be a priest of whoever you want, Apollo is fine. Character concept can be determined over the course of the game. Some of the characters from the first DiD game never really had a 'concept' in that sense anyway, they were just these dudes.

...

Theodore Koeppel is not officially 'retarded' as his IQ isn't that low. Whether he's functionally retarded remains to be determined.

...

Bon appetit, everyone, let's get this fucker ON.

Theodore Koppel

Hmm. TK thinks KT might be jealous.

K Tizzle

I'm beginning the official countdown to when Mark will get tired of his retarded character.

Clerical Error

I'm working on my character, he's going to be a Neutral Good Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric of... uh, I really don't know.

Rob- Who are the prominent gods of this setting? Aside from Zelba/Grisbane/Odin? I'm thinking maybe Apollo, Isaac of the Jug, or Cthulhu, but can't really decide... any ideas for what specialty priests of those guys might have on their spell lists? I'm leaning towards Apollo right now. Stats are easy and should be done soon, but I'm stalling on the actual character concept.

Thak

upper-lower-class with a 25% If I have to start at -2 lvls that would really be lame. Especially since I doubt if I rolled well I'd start with full plate and a heavy warhorse with full barding and a shitload of cash. Unearthed has a whole list of starting equipment for cavaliers by social class. I just took whats on my profile. Breast plate and a couple of weapons. Light warhorse.....maybe not if we're on a boat.....whatever.....

Threnody

Actually, I rolled two 17s, but as an elf I get a +1 to dex. And yes, I BRed 3d6 6 times, and then assigned the stats where I wanted. I got two 17s, sure, and a 15, but a 4 and a 5 too.

I'm using the rules from that page you linked to, is why - and I dropped my con one point. Everything on my sheet is by the sources I had available, and I know, having a THACO of 14 at first level is egregiously bad - especially when if the target's 30' away, my THACO is 14, I get two shots a around, and I do double damage ((d6+2)x2). But rules are rules, and we play so fast-n-loose that it probably doesn't matter TOO much that I min/maxxed.

Oh - I see that KT2 has a proposal about spec-bow. Yeah, it seems broken, but it only counts within 30'. I'm fine either way; I'm gonna be using my bow pretty much exclusively, though, so that 30' rule is going to come up quite a bit.

My backstory? I come from an elven land far, far away, where I trained in both magic and the fighting arts. But I pissed too many of my kin off - CHA 4 ain't cuz I'm ugly, it's 'cuz I'm a rude bitch - and I had to leave. Ties cut, fresh start, all of that. The only thing I left with were a few pages from my spellbook and my grandfather's sword, but I hated that fucker so I took it, not 'cuz it has a lot of personal value for me or anything. So here I am, bow in hand, looking for treasure and power and ADVENTURE!

Hey - and Theodore, why do your posts say they're from 'Brogg'? Who is this Brogg fellow? He sounds like a crappy half-orc or something.

I'm changing my character a bit, specifically the NWPs (I think I'd rather speak Elven than Spanish, for instance, and maybe 'close combat bow' instead of 'semiotics'.) How many healing potions do we start with? Three?

My other two spells are shield and sleep. It was a tough choice, because PFE and unseen servant are fun, and so is charm person. Maybe later.

King Tut

Here are KT2's rolls: 17, 7, 17, 9, 12, 8.

I want him to be a lvl 1 Bushi, abandon the class, and level as a Druid. All I want from Bushi is the NWPs, same as Tut Sr., and weapon spec. If you read under "Human" race you can see that they can do this.

So, the backstory is that KT2 is Tut's grandson. After being raised as a Bushi, he struck out on his own to love trees, nature, and camping. His spec is in shotgun, which plays as bow.

I want to change the rules: I propose that bow spec does NOT yield default double damage because it is grossly overpowered. 2 attacks a round are enough. I would like his shotgun spec to play as bow so I get 2 attacks per round (double barreled) but NOT default 2x dmg.

According to the rules, I need a 15 str in the "old" class (bushi) and 17 in "new" to abandon. I'd like to put the 17 in STR but lower it to 15 and put the 2 pts into the 7 to make it a 9. I'd like to put the other 17 in wis.

Also, do we play with the +10% experience that some classes get? If so, I'd like to move a 17 into CHA and up one of the low rolls to 15 and put it in STR. STR is useless to me since I'm ranged spec, and CHA is useless as everyone knows...but with 2 17's I'd get +10% xp.

I want KT2 to play the healing and buffing role, but with the ability to do something useful (shoot) if no one needs healing or he's out of spells. His character will not use damaging magical spells unless necessary; he heals and buffs first, and shoots second. He's going to take the Tinker NWP in order to transmute magic items into shotguns (I doubt we'll find any magical shotguns).

Thoughts?