Divergent

Hey kids.  Did you like The Hunger Games but felt it needed less action, fewer love triangles, more religion, more sexism, more inception, and 100 more pages of un-realized plot potential?  Then you’re going to love Divergent!

On Character Flaws

Hey folks!  I didn’t get a post out last Sunday because I was too busy finishing my first and very rough draft of my novel.  Hooray!  But I still wanted to post something for this week.  So I figured I’d share with you something I learned from the very early phases of my writing process.  Something that was very difficult to learn because so much advice I read actually pushed me away from the realization.

Things Zaq and Company are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 540-590

541: Not allowed to use explosive bombs while fighting onboard a wooden ship

542: Not allowed to take Favored Enemy: Party Member.

543: Not allowed to accidentally summon a hydra during an alchemy experiment

544: When accidentally summoning a hydra during an alchemy experiment, I am not allowed to shunt the blame onto an innocent bystander.

545: I have not been hired to assassinate another party member

Get Your Crossover Fix

That's right, it's time for yet another horrible crossover fanfiction challenge!  Here are your suggested crossovers:

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 451-490

Hey guys.  I fell a little ill this weekend, so here's some filler.

451: Not allowed to railroad the DM

452: If I find a Gygax module uninteresting, making it interesting should not involve making it harder
453: 22 Orcs is an inappropriate response to powergaming
454: “Tender Loin” is not an appropriate name for my loincloth-wearing barbarian.
455: Monsters do not regularly line their pockets with mousetraps

So I Voted for Obama...

Probably not much of a surprise for you guys.  But seeing as Election Day is fast approaching (for us Americans, at least), I decided I’d interrupt my current series to make a political post.  I am not going to talk about any of the congressional candidates, as I have only investigated those candidates running in my state/district.  And since very few of my readers will be voting in those races I don’t think it’s worth the effort.  So in this post, I will explain the various reasons I voted for Obama.

Hospitals

You know you've spent too much time in the hospital when:

Your health insurance cards (yes, plural) get promoted to the front pocket of your wallet.

You have questions about the workings of living wills and medical power of attorney that the hospital’s representative can’t answer.

You learn how to shut off the heart-monitoring-device to keep it from beeping at you.

Your little sister easily finds your hospital room because it’s the same one you were in last time.

You know a good joke involving a cardiologist talking to a neurologist.

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 401-450

401: Our party’s power level is not measured in terms of the number of Elder Dragons required for an effective ambush.

402: Not allowed to include factorials in my skill check DCs
403: Unless the DM explicitly states otherwise, I am to assume that the curvature of the planet we occupy is not substantially different from that of Earth.
404: The Mage template is hereby banned.
405: My superiors’ level is fixed at “Party Level + 10.”

D&D Next

I've been running a D&D 4e campaign for some time now.  However, I've just recently begun some medical procedures that have inhibited my productivity, so that campaign is on hiatus.  In lieu of that campaign, a friend of mine is running the group through a playtest of D&D Next (In case you are half asleep, that's the next edition of Dungeons and Dragons).  We've played a few sessions and have managed to hit level two.  While I'm not allowed to give out specific information about the playtest material, I figured I'd give my general impressions about what works, what doesn't work, and what fixes are needed.  I'm going to going to start with the good stuff, and then list the stuff that still needs fixing.

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 351-400

351: Not allowed to incorporate sound bites into my campaign
352: “Get mauled by bears” is not a part of my plan
353: Not allowed to pretend my slavemate is my child
354: I have not seen more imposing towers in my pants

355: My minion character is not allowed to get the jump on the Tarrasque

A Complete and Exhaustive List of Questions Science is not Allowed to Ask

This Week's Assignment

So you guys will have to bear with one or two more filler posts as I finish up the quarter.  This week, I have an assignment for my readers.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write one of the following terrible crossover fics.  The winner, of course, is the one who manages to make the best puns.  Your options are:

Things Zaq and Co. are no Longer Allowed to do in an RPG: 301-350

Back

301: Kobolds do not reproduce by fission

302: Zombies do not give run time errors during the speak with dead ritual
303: I AM wearing pants
304: Not allowed to use my opponents’ genitalia as a shield
305: Not allowed to sneak phallic imagery onto the overworld map

Sweet Zombie Jesus!

You know, I was going to finish up that piece on the first cause argument I started a while back.  Then I realized it was Easter.  So rest assured that I will finish the first cause piece, despite delays from both April Fool’s day and Easter.  But this week, I believe it is in my readers’ best interest that I share the story of Easter, which is also known as the story of the Zombie Apocalypse.  I tell you this as an active member of the resistance group SKEPTIC, so that you may be aware the dangers of associating with the necromancer Yahweh, and with his zombie son.

Quiz Time

Here's a little quiz to see how clever you are this April.

Things Zaq and Co. May No Longer do in an RPG: 251-300

Back

251: There is no such thing as thermite-doped blood

252: Not allowed to devolve the session into a debate over the definition of chemical castration
253: There are no rules for making seduction checks while comatose
254: When I ask if we’ll need to bring weapons and the NPC tells me my weapons will be checked at the door, I am not to take this as advice to bring concealed weapons.
255: Not allowed to ragequit

Affirmative Action

I’ve spent plenty of time talking about how different groups of people are, well, different while also arguing that differences in capabilities do not need to be seen as a justification for oppression.  It is perfectly consistent to believe that women tend to have less mathematical ability than men on average while still allowing women to apply to your mathematics program, just like it’s perfectly consistent to allow men to apply for a job in primary education even if you think they tend to have less child-interaction ability than women on average.  The fact that a person is a member of a group who tends to have a lower capability does not make them automatically unqualified.  In a more clear-cut example, we can recognize that asthma tends to make one less athletically capable while still recognizing some great asthmatic athletes.

So I’m going to move on to the topic of affirmative action.  But before I do, I need to make one more point of clarification.  Before I can explain why we need to be much more careful about affirmative action policies than we currently are, I want to differentiate between three different things we call discrimination.  The differences are important because I’ve found that most arguments in support of affirmative action treat all discrimination as if it were essentially the same kind of thing.

Inequality

Some time ago I said I was going to start doing a grab bag stint on my blog, never staying on one topic for too long.  Then I went off and made a series on discrimination.  Oops.  Sorry if it bored anybody, but this is going to be the second-to-last post on discrimination for at least a while.  After this post, I’ll make one more post on discrimination, and then I’ll talk about something else (probably the idea that religion serves as a source of morality).

Happy New Year

No post this week.  New Year celebrations, travel, and starting a new quarter really conspired to kill my free time.  Don't forget to check the quotables page.

The Parable of the Gnomes

Off in a faraway land named Gnomeville there lies a flourishing society of gnomes.  The gnomes of Gnomeville come in two different colors, Reds and Blues.  But unlike humans, whose racial differences are fairly slight, the two types of gnomes are as different as night and day.  This, of course, has caused a lengthy history of discrimination.