Best Of
Re: Letting go of games
@Jeroen said:
I’ve been reading my D&D Players Handbook some more, about player backgrounds and stuff that didn’t exist in the original edition when I last played the game. The whole idea of acting and play come through much more strongly in these kinds of elements, and I think that is a really good thing.There still is a thoroughly considered power gaming backbone to the game, so that a certain amount of min-maxing is still possible and almost inevitable, but it makes it possible to do a more realistic assessment of the benefits of a non-combat maximal choice for your play style.
The thing is, if you get an opportunity for something like an extra attack every round, that is a major boost in damage per round, and I think it is a no-brainer that you’d take that option over something which would be fun to roleplay. But for a lot of the less impactful skills it is less clear cut.
In my experience it really comes down to the player and the style of play at any particular table. There's a spectrum between roleplay and combat simulator. The rules are mainly focused on the combat element, but an important element of TTRPGs is that the rules are merely a framework for what you want to make it. Can't remember how many times its said in the player's handbook, but its said right up front in the dungeon master's guide to not let the rules restrain you.
person
Re: East vs West
@federica said:
@person said:
I kind of feel like the attitude that one is superior and one is inferior is itself a western attitude.I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but the Caste system in India, for example, is definitely an Eastern attitude, as is the inherent idea that females are not as valuable to society as males, in the Sino-oriental mind-set. Or am I picking out irrelevant factors, and misunderstanding the discussion? Apologies if this is so, I do not wish to derail the discussion, or create a 'smoke and mirrors' situation.
Think I can contribute to this.
The findings of the World Values Survey are: with increasing (mostly economic) development, values and norms change in a predictable way towards what at least we in the developed countries would call more enlightened values. Culture still plays a role, but its role is limited. In this sense, Karl Marx was right (that economics determines culture) and thr famous sociologist Max Weber was wrong (that culture determines economics).
So, in eg India, the values supporting the caste system and lesser value of women will most likely go away on their own as the country develops.
The same happened in the West: the values supporting eg. slavery and the lesser value of women also naturally went away with development.
marcitko
Re: Artificial Intelligence: Roshi bot answers my "Dogen question" about the "immaterial"
Did not realise that the bot has been programmed to say it is enlightened?
Even a fool like me can say that...
I'll have to question it further 
For now, I just asked a question that a search engine would have done better at...
I'm afraid that AI does not really work as a mentor but for facts may be useful...
lobster
Re: East vs West
The ancient West became Judeo-Christianity, which is inherently intolerant & fundamentalist. Thus even the various Western reactions against or from Judeo-Christianity. such as Colonialism, Marxism, Fascism, Liberalism, Wokeism. etc, are similarly inherently intolerant & fundamentalist.
The Eastern mindsets, even genuine Islam (not Western created Saudi Wahhabism), are characteristically more accepting & pluralistic. The pluralism of the East and Middle-East never ever existed in the West once Judeo-Christianity took over.
Waked
Re: Buddhist quotes
“It is the four Noble Truths, having the wisdom that knows tanha, which is the source of dukkha. Khamatanha, bhavatanha, vibhavatanha (sensual desire, desire for becoming, desire not to be): these are the origination, the source. If you go there, if you are wishing for anything or wanting to be anything, you are nourishing dukkha, bringing dukkha into existence, because this is what gives birth to dukkha. These are the causes.”
— Ajahn Chah
Jeroen
Re: Buddhist quotes
“Give up evil and develop merit – give up the negative and develop what is positive. Developing merit, remain above merit. Remain above merit and demerit, above good and evil. Keep on practicing with a mind that is giving up, letting go and getting free. It’s the same no matter what you are doing: if you do it with a mind of letting go, then it is a cause for realising Nibbana.”
— Ajahn Chah
Jeroen
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
Jeroen
Re: Talking outside the echo chamber
I'm reminded ....
North American archaeology agree that the first humans came to the Western Hemisphere during the Wisconsonian glacial period. Much of what is now Alaska and Canada was covered is thick ice. Traveling over that bare ice would be impossible.
A midwestern Archaeologist I knew proposed that it wasn't bare ice, but that the surface was more like tundra. His reasoning was that the climate was dry and dusty because the glaciers were sucking up all the moisture. Made things really dusty, especially with silts at the bottom of what used to be lakes and ocean. This dust settled on the glacier, which built up for centuries, eventually forming a layer of fertile topsoil. Over time, plants, and then animals, populated the region.
This was the land that the first peoples followed into North America, and it likely took hundreds of years. The followed the food and water. That's what they were there for.
This idea was met with derision, but since has gained a steady following, even though one crucial thing is absent - proof. No one uses words such as "likely".
Re: East vs West
@person said:
I kind of feel like the attitude that one is superior and one is inferior is itself a western attitude.
I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but the Caste system in India, for example, is definitely an Eastern attitude, as is the inherent idea that females are not as valuable to society as males, in the Sino-oriental mind-set. Or am I picking out irrelevant factors, and misunderstanding the discussion? Apologies if this is so, I do not wish to derail the discussion, or create a 'smoke and mirrors' situation.
federica
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“Just as the images in a dream are symbols of inner states and feelings, so our collective reality is largely a symbolic expression of fear and of the heavy layers of negativity that have accumulated in the collective human psyche.”
— Eckhart Tolle
Jeroen