Results 301 to 330 of 1485
Thread: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
-
2019-04-15, 04:54 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Ok, what would be helpful for me to review the radio show or scripts to look at, specifically?
It's a creature that shows up in a single scene in episode 6 of the radio show, so it's not something we have a lot of long-term information on. Like a lot of Hitchhikers' Guide, it's a species idea that doesn't really stand up to serious analysis, because that's not the kind of show it was.
A brief summary of what happens is that the regular characters steal a spaceship while leaving The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (in the books this is replaced with the Disaster Area sun-dive ship) that turns out to belong to the Hagunnemon fleet commander, and it travels back in time to where it's supposed to be, which is at the head of the Haunnemon fleet. The main characters don't initially realize the ship has anyone else on it, because the Hagunnemon in their ship are all being inanimate objects at that moment. There's a series of video calls between the rest of the fleet and the main characters, which a different one of the characters takes each time and which they report as being with a different-looking thing claiming to be the same creature each time (one was an animal and the other was a pair of boots), and then they eventually realize that the chair they'd been sitting in was actually the captain and various objects on the ship shifted into creatures that then attacked them. (Ford and Arthur then escape in a life pod and end up in the B Ark crashing into Earth plot.) The explanation for the species havinig this shifting ability is that they are "hyper-evolvers" that constantly evolve throughout their lives rather than generationaly, which does not actually make any sense but Hitchhikers' Guide isn't particularly big on sensible worldbuilding.
The main reasons it doesn't feel like a good fit to me are:
- The Hagunnemon are specifically called out as not having a lot of control over the specifics of what they shift into - the example given is of one that isn't able to reach a teacup changing forms into something with much longer arms, but incapable of drinking tea. This makes it fit poorly with the various arguments about why a shape-shifting MITD always has two eyes.
- Tended to change size as well as shape pretty wildly, which MITD is not seen to do.
- Narrative reveal would land like a thud: even most fans of Hitchhikers' Guide wouldn't notice the reference, and it's not a particularly interesting way to reference that work, or a world-building idea that would make sense to introduce into OotS on its own merits.
-
2019-04-15, 08:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
If it has a big banner at the top of the page that says "Homebrew Page," it's homebrew. If it says "5e Race" in the URL, it's 5ed.
I think most non-D&D players would have recognized both of those, especially the former.
I also think following Grey Wolf's link to the protean from the start of the thread would have been a substantially more comprehensible approach to "what's the creature being debated, specifically in the context of other people claiming it does not have specified traits I think it does?" than plugging "protean" into Google and brushing past "Homebrew Page" and "5e Race."Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
-
2019-04-15, 08:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
We've seen MITD read. Either a) Blindsight is in addition to "normal" sight and thus not a useful detail, b) the Giant ignored/forgot that, or c) this eliminates Uvudaam entirely.
And not for nothing, I don't have a problem with multiple votes so much as for multiple votes for things that were voted on already, especially recently. That may be just me, but there it is.
-
2019-04-15, 08:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
But it's not a beak. It's a spike. And I agree with everyone that says that is not an eye but a spotlight.
Google other uvuudaum images and you will see no such eye. For example, here.
(It's slightly scary how many of those search results lead me back to pictures in the MitD threads. I may have to start using incognito search to remove biases)
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
-
2019-04-15, 09:35 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-04-15, 09:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
-
2019-04-15, 09:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
-
2019-04-15, 09:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2018
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
I am a programmer. Whenever I use a search engine to understand a compiler or runtime error, the first dozen results are Stack Overflow or bulletin board posts by people asking about the same error, with replies asking for context. If there is an answer it's usually "do something else". (Compiler errors are usually obtuse and poorly documented so the manual is not much help in explaining the nature of the error. That's software for you.)
Search engines: the blind leading the blind.Last edited by Aveline; 2019-04-15 at 09:46 AM.
-
2019-04-15, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
-
2019-04-15, 09:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2014
- Location
- A Michigan Far, Far Away
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
-
2019-04-15, 11:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Should there be any remaining lack of clarity, I formally withdraw my proposal for a vote, to be re-submitted on July 1st.
Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
-
2019-04-15, 12:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Mangholi Dask
-
2019-04-15, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-04-15, 12:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
No, but there has been a significant uptick on changing to a voting method that would had made them win - like the idea that you shouldn't be allowed to vote for both no change and some individual changes, or the idea that anyone voting for any kind of change is automatically voting for all changes. Or that I should limit the voting to only what they want voted on, rather than open the floor for people to actually vote on what they want (like lio45's ludicrous "you should only allow votes on A&B&C, even if people clearly might prefer A or B or C", and declaring this a "substantial improvement" that would "obviously improve the FBS" when in reality is Tarquin-like restriction of options)
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
-
2019-04-15, 12:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2018
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
So in lieu of information that may or may not be helpful, you chose not to see it at all? It's kind of a weird philosophy to have.
"This thing has the same name and similar traits to this other thing I'm doing research about, better not look into at all."
I agree that Rich probably used a dnd monster, and that he is more likely to use the dnd version of a monster if it exists, but that doesn't mean that if there is a fact about that monster's origin that supports it as a pick that we should ignore it.
Information is what helps us learn to make better informed guesses. Seems kinda obvious but that's why I'm in favor of hearing as much as I can.Peelee's Lurker Lotsey Leader
-
2019-04-15, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
- Location
- Earth and/or not-Earth
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
No, I'm saying that information about a non-D&D creature is automatically not helpful for evaluating a D&D creature. The D&D creature's description would either agree with, disagree with, or omit any information gained about the non-D&D creature. In the first case, the information about the non-D&D creature is redundant. In the second case, the D&D creature's description takes precedence. In the third case, by not including a detail about the non-D&D creature in the D&D description the detail has been implicitly discarded.
-
2019-04-15, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Just because D&D borrowed (or outright stole) the name and some characteristics from the classic source that doesn't make them similar. Take a look at how much they changed Greek mythology monsters. Centaurs and fauns look the same, but behave nothing like their original counterparts. Unique creatures became species, like the Medusa or the Chimera.
And specially in this particular case, the parallels between the H2GttG Haggunenons and the Hagunemnon protean are practically non-existent beyond the name steal (and note that not even that is 1-1). Heck, the mutability, which is central to both, doesn't match at all, making them just two separate types of transforming creatures that happen to have similar names.
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
-
2019-04-15, 12:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2018
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Well put.
Also well put. But the dissonance between mythological creatures and D&D creatures is still in the reader's periphery, and it's something Rich could plausibly acknowledge/lampshade/handwave in his self-aware fantasy parody. Like, Protean-MITD shapeshifting into "Chimera, but like, the actual one." I'm sure there is a better example a D&D player (i.e. not me) could come up with.This signature was written by me, Aveline, to indicate that this message was written by me, Aveline.
-
2019-04-15, 01:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
And Medusas aren't Gorgons.
FeytouchedBanana eldritch disciple avatar by...me!
The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas
-
2019-04-15, 03:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2019
- Location
- Magrathea
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.
See my extended signature here! May contain wit, candor, and somewhere from 52 to 8127 walruses.
Purple is humorous descriptions made up on the fly
Green is serious talk about hypothetical
Blue is irony and sarcasm
"I think, therefore I am,
I walk, therefore I stand,
I sleep, therefore I dream;
I joke, therefore I meme."
-Squire Doodad
-
2019-04-15, 04:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2019
- Location
- Magrathea
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Last edited by Squire Doodad; 2019-04-15 at 04:00 PM.
An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.
See my extended signature here! May contain wit, candor, and somewhere from 52 to 8127 walruses.
Purple is humorous descriptions made up on the fly
Green is serious talk about hypothetical
Blue is irony and sarcasm
"I think, therefore I am,
I walk, therefore I stand,
I sleep, therefore I dream;
I joke, therefore I meme."
-Squire Doodad
-
2019-04-15, 05:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2019
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Wait, have we? We've seen him watching Teevo, and pick up paper with writing on it, but I don't recall him ever actually reading something. There's no indication that he read the letter Miko had on her before eating it, and likewise the ritual page. I don't have the time to go through all his appearances, though, so maybe I'm missing something?
feed the crows
-
2019-04-15, 05:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-04-15, 05:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
- Location
- Forest Grove, Oregon
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
Panel one. He is definitely reading the textbook.
-
2019-04-15, 07:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
-
2019-04-15, 08:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008
-
2019-04-15, 09:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2015
- Gender
-
2019-04-15, 09:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
That one, I confess I never heard of.
Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
-
2019-04-15, 09:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2018
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
This signature was written by me, Aveline, to indicate that this message was written by me, Aveline.
-
2019-04-15, 10:05 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: MitD XIII: Learning is happening
I feel like just recently I saw a comic where Wienersmith commented he was surprised PBF hadn't done already, or something along those linew.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2