[Ar-list] Re: Ar-list digest, Vol 1 #10 - 6 msgs

[Ira]

> From: Carter Butts <ctb@andrew.cmu.edu>
>
> WARNING: Math-intensive digression follows!!!
<snip>

I wish I knew more math.  since I could only sorta follow all that, I 
wonder if a more layman-oriented explanation is possible.  I need to get 
up to where I can understand all that, but it's a slow process...  I had 
a very math-deprived childhood, unfortunately.

>
> Sounds like fun; I'll be interested in seeing what your group comes up 
> with!

thanks!  it should be interesting, since it's mostly novice gamers...  
makes things a bit more difficult, but oh well.

>> some progress.  I'd love to support anything working with TeX.
>
>
> Actually, the conversion per se is not so hard; getting the result to
> look more like an RPG book and less like an academic text may take some
> doing.  :-)  Still, we shall see....

yes, there is definitely that.

>
> As I mentioned, I like this approach; it's not canonical, but seems to
> make a certain amount of sense...the result can be interpreted as the
> minimum time which would have to have elapsed for your roll to be a
> success.  Initially, I thought it might be a bit cumbersome, but in
> retrospect I am not sure this is so; I'd be interested in hearing about
> how this "plays" in actual use.

I'll let you know.  I'm sure it'll come up pretty quickly, the way we 
play...

this should be interesting overall, because it'll be the first time 
since my discovery of AR that we'll have gotten a group together to play 
it...  I was in a Champions group back then, and it didn't last too 
long.  since then, I haven't had a good opportunity...


> From: mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca
>
> That is what they said in the movie, but it really makes no sense - if 
> you

I never said it made sense.  but, if one is trying to make a "the 
matrix" RG then it stands to reason that one should at least include as 
an option what they said in the movie.

as has been pointed out, the movie didn't make a lot of sense, in many 
ways other than this.  granted, AR is put together in such a way that 
things are supposed to make some kind of sense, at least.  but not 
everything has to.  it's just our collective bias, really...

>
> Fortunately, my friend Quetzalcoatl Bradley thought of a simple answer 
> to
> this question; it's one of those things that as soon as you understand 
> it,
> you see that is must be correct and wonder why you didn't think of it
> yourself.  As he put it, "One word:  orgone."

that would be another way.  but then, why would machines need life-force 
energy like that?  why, if they're alive too, wouldn't they have an 
analogous machine variety?  how would you define it in game terms?  
this, too, needs sense made of it, much like any other approach.  imho, 
"the matrix" wasn't really meant to make too much sense.



Love,
Ira