The Five Questions meme...
My five questions from virtualdragon:
1) Are you still using your home-brewed version of AD&D 2nd Ed. for your campaigns or have you moved on to 3/3.5 and will you move on to 4th edition?
I long ago abandoned 2.0 rules for 3.5...hell you were there for that. I really only retained the elements of 2.0 in college that weren't covered in 3.0 (like psionics for Al-Quaban at that time). These days I'm pretty much 3.5, with the only vestige of 2.0 rules in my system being weapon proficiency slots, albeit in heavily modified form. I have houseruled extensively, however, mostly adding new skills, feats, and some minor class abilities.
As for 4E rules, I just got the books from Amazon today and am still going through them. Current plans call for fully converting one of my three regular campaigns to 4E, although I'm going to need to create a lot of new material to do it (the campaign heavily emphasizes enchantment, necromancy, and conjuration magic, which are not really covered well in the new edition as far as I can tell). My other campaigns are staying in 3.5 for the time being, largely because of characters that simply cannot be converted to the new edition in any meaningful way with the available material (one party, for instance, includes a multiclassed barbarian/bard, a goblin shaman using Oriental Adventures rules, and a gnome conjurer)...that, and I feel there's a lot of good material in 3.5 I haven't milked yet, and I want to do so in the 3.5 games I've already got underway, although I'm open to 'porting some useful mechanics from the new system (like minions) into my 3.5 games. Any new games I start, though, will likely be under 4E rules, but given the sheer number of campaigns I've got running, some of them will need to be seen through to a natural conclusion before that occurs, and that's apt to be awhile (measured in years, likely). Perhaps as additional supplemental material comes out conversion of some of my other games will become more practical without forcing me to redesign several classes from scratch.
2) How many unreported artifacts do you have?
Not all that many, actually. I have some fossils I personally recovered from some nonprofessional digs/poking around in streambeds and cliffs I've done, not a one of which is paleontologically meaningful and very few of which are of good quality. I've been given artifacts and fossils by site directors and other individuals I've worked for, but those were, under the circumstances, known and authorized. I have a half-dozen or so patent medicine bottles I unearthed from a buried trash pit as a child in the woods behind my house, and a few Native American tools and points I've found in the woods over the years, which I suppose qualify as "unreported artifacts," but I know very well that the sort of agencies I'd report them to wouldn't even regard them as worth bothering with. I've never kept anything from a site I've worked on unless it was given to me by those in charge of it; that said, I do own a few cool things I have legitimately received, such as a premolar tooth from an extinct Spanish deer given to me by my site director when I did my summer dig in Spain a few years back.
The one serious artifactual violation in my collection wasn't my doing: it's a fragment of marble from the Parthenon, brought back for me by my grandfather from a trip to Greece. He found it lying near a column (it's from said column; you can see the smooth curve on part of it) and it's about half the size of my thumb. At the time I thought it was cool; now I'm horrified by it, although at some level an evil corner of my soul thinks it's cool to have a piece of such a famous temple on my bookshelf. My intention is to take it to Greece one day and personally return it to the Acropolis.
3) If you could go back in time and place one piece of fake archaeological evidence, what would it be?
I think it would be hilarious to find out a site I know Dr. Adovasio was going to be working on, go back to the time period he'd be investigating, and leave a "Hi, Doc!" inscription or note for him to find there. I've also long thought it'd be amusing to produce some fake coins, dated to about fifty years from now, and plant them in the past at some ancient site being currently investigated to make it look like time travelers had been there.
4) Have you ever lied during a tarot reading?
Absolutely not, never have, never will. That would be a violation of a sacred trust placed in me by those who seek me for readings, and something of a heresy in my personal religion, since I view my role as a Tarot reader as something of a holy office. What I do is done for the benefit of the person I read for, and I wouldn't sully that by misrepresenting what I saw. Gods know there are times when I wish I could have because I knew they wouldn't like what I showed them, but I could never live with myself if I lied about what I saw. Besides, I strive to avoid lying in life in general anyway, truth and trust being things I value above almost all else; lying during a Tarot reading would be that, but must worse, since I was being relied upon for insight.
5) If the apocalypse came and you had to form an adventuring party to survive, what would you name it?
It would all depend on the kinds of apocalypse. Alien invasion? Probably something hearkening to Earth...the Blue-Green Hill Defenders or suchlike. Zombie apocalypse? Likely some ridiculous pun like the Dead Wringers. Nuclear Holocaust? Maybe the Half-Lifers. Individual circumstances might demand something different, depending on what menace was threatening humanity, but it's likely be a pun, given my nature.
I'm pretty sure the way this works is that, if you want five questions; comment and ask for them; you'll get them. Post the answers on your LJ, and open the invitation for others to ask you for five questions as well.
1) Are you still using your home-brewed version of AD&D 2nd Ed. for your campaigns or have you moved on to 3/3.5 and will you move on to 4th edition?
I long ago abandoned 2.0 rules for 3.5...hell you were there for that. I really only retained the elements of 2.0 in college that weren't covered in 3.0 (like psionics for Al-Quaban at that time). These days I'm pretty much 3.5, with the only vestige of 2.0 rules in my system being weapon proficiency slots, albeit in heavily modified form. I have houseruled extensively, however, mostly adding new skills, feats, and some minor class abilities.
As for 4E rules, I just got the books from Amazon today and am still going through them. Current plans call for fully converting one of my three regular campaigns to 4E, although I'm going to need to create a lot of new material to do it (the campaign heavily emphasizes enchantment, necromancy, and conjuration magic, which are not really covered well in the new edition as far as I can tell). My other campaigns are staying in 3.5 for the time being, largely because of characters that simply cannot be converted to the new edition in any meaningful way with the available material (one party, for instance, includes a multiclassed barbarian/bard, a goblin shaman using Oriental Adventures rules, and a gnome conjurer)...that, and I feel there's a lot of good material in 3.5 I haven't milked yet, and I want to do so in the 3.5 games I've already got underway, although I'm open to 'porting some useful mechanics from the new system (like minions) into my 3.5 games. Any new games I start, though, will likely be under 4E rules, but given the sheer number of campaigns I've got running, some of them will need to be seen through to a natural conclusion before that occurs, and that's apt to be awhile (measured in years, likely). Perhaps as additional supplemental material comes out conversion of some of my other games will become more practical without forcing me to redesign several classes from scratch.
2) How many unreported artifacts do you have?
Not all that many, actually. I have some fossils I personally recovered from some nonprofessional digs/poking around in streambeds and cliffs I've done, not a one of which is paleontologically meaningful and very few of which are of good quality. I've been given artifacts and fossils by site directors and other individuals I've worked for, but those were, under the circumstances, known and authorized. I have a half-dozen or so patent medicine bottles I unearthed from a buried trash pit as a child in the woods behind my house, and a few Native American tools and points I've found in the woods over the years, which I suppose qualify as "unreported artifacts," but I know very well that the sort of agencies I'd report them to wouldn't even regard them as worth bothering with. I've never kept anything from a site I've worked on unless it was given to me by those in charge of it; that said, I do own a few cool things I have legitimately received, such as a premolar tooth from an extinct Spanish deer given to me by my site director when I did my summer dig in Spain a few years back.
The one serious artifactual violation in my collection wasn't my doing: it's a fragment of marble from the Parthenon, brought back for me by my grandfather from a trip to Greece. He found it lying near a column (it's from said column; you can see the smooth curve on part of it) and it's about half the size of my thumb. At the time I thought it was cool; now I'm horrified by it, although at some level an evil corner of my soul thinks it's cool to have a piece of such a famous temple on my bookshelf. My intention is to take it to Greece one day and personally return it to the Acropolis.
3) If you could go back in time and place one piece of fake archaeological evidence, what would it be?
I think it would be hilarious to find out a site I know Dr. Adovasio was going to be working on, go back to the time period he'd be investigating, and leave a "Hi, Doc!" inscription or note for him to find there. I've also long thought it'd be amusing to produce some fake coins, dated to about fifty years from now, and plant them in the past at some ancient site being currently investigated to make it look like time travelers had been there.
4) Have you ever lied during a tarot reading?
Absolutely not, never have, never will. That would be a violation of a sacred trust placed in me by those who seek me for readings, and something of a heresy in my personal religion, since I view my role as a Tarot reader as something of a holy office. What I do is done for the benefit of the person I read for, and I wouldn't sully that by misrepresenting what I saw. Gods know there are times when I wish I could have because I knew they wouldn't like what I showed them, but I could never live with myself if I lied about what I saw. Besides, I strive to avoid lying in life in general anyway, truth and trust being things I value above almost all else; lying during a Tarot reading would be that, but must worse, since I was being relied upon for insight.
5) If the apocalypse came and you had to form an adventuring party to survive, what would you name it?
It would all depend on the kinds of apocalypse. Alien invasion? Probably something hearkening to Earth...the Blue-Green Hill Defenders or suchlike. Zombie apocalypse? Likely some ridiculous pun like the Dead Wringers. Nuclear Holocaust? Maybe the Half-Lifers. Individual circumstances might demand something different, depending on what menace was threatening humanity, but it's likely be a pun, given my nature.
I'm pretty sure the way this works is that, if you want five questions; comment and ask for them; you'll get them. Post the answers on your LJ, and open the invitation for others to ask you for five questions as well.