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rohirwine

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  14. Sayings

    in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion

    Posted

    Ad astra per aspera", which means "to the stars through difficulties

    Should be "ad astras per asperis" if you want it to mean that.

    Hem, it should be: "Per aspera, ad astra"...

    Anyway "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes", that litterally means "i fear the greeks, especially when they bring presents for me", wich means: when someone comes to you with an unexpected present, think that there should be something behind...

    Repetita iuvant, it helps to repeat things already said. :wine:

    "The war of the ring" By Nexus

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    Yes, the game is nice, and quite easy even if not enough for family play (no "i had to buy it for the children" excuses, Bernd... ;)).

    Illustrations are by John Howe, and the artwork not done by him is of excellent quality.

    the perfect "audience" for this one could be a group of friends bored to frag themselves in LAN games, a club with some neophites to make them feeling confortable, or a group of friends (with favorably disposed fiancees) that like to meet in the evening for play. But do not despair: eventually children grow as well, so maybe the right excuse is: "i have to buy it for future years family evenings"... :P;)

    Thanks for the appreciation, folks, i have played yesterday and i'm still quite satisfied by the experience, i liked the idea of sharing my thought with you fellas... ;)

    "The war of the ring" By Nexus

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    Well, maybe someone has heard something about it, if you want to check go to:

    http://www.kaosonline.it/kaos.asp?s=40&k=1&id=640

    It's a boardgame wich mixes three genres: Risk, Roleplay games and Card Games (well, sort of). In fact it is heavily in debt with the omonimous title from SPI (1977), wich was quite more complicated in warfare management (you had to calculate the percent of losses...). It was a good game indeed and i must say that the Italian guys have done a great job in restyling it (lemme be proud of my country, from time to time... :P).

    Me and my two friends had few hours spare, so we decided to go for an introductory rules game. The rules take 4 pages and are sufficently well explained (but there are some holes here and there: nothing that you cannot settle with logic, though). The playing pieces (playing board, plastic miniatures, cardboard chits, dices and playing cards) are very well designed (hey, there's John Howe behind them, dudes!), but i would have preferred a less soft plastic for miniatures (even if it maybe lengths their lifetime). Mind out that, even if influenced by the PJ movies (the artist behind worked on them, after all), the design is quite different.

    The game mechanics are simple, but not to be overlooked. You have a number of "action dices" that tell you wich kind of actions (and how many) you can take during a Turn (character action, army action, mobilization, card action, plus jolly). Every time you do something, you put one dice apart, then it's your adversary turn to do the same and so on, till the dices are finished (the Shadow player gets more dices and thus more actions in general).

    The military is fairy simple, you have few modifiers and some chances to reroll (with leaders/nazguls): that's it. One victory option sees the Shadow player conquering 5 enemy'e fortresses, while the Free People's needs to capture two.

    The Shadow player military force is overhelming and with no limits on reserves (every army destroyed goes back to the reserves pool), the FP player has fewer armies, more leaders, but no "recycling" bonus: when an army is gone, is gone.

    The company play is much simple @ introductory level: the company moves, the Shadow player conducts a chase, and if succesful, he can move back (or in another region) the Company. Stop. If the company gets to Mount Doom, the game ends with the FP player victory.

    Complete rules modify Company play by great extent, but i'll write on this after playing with them only. Army combat is less touched, if not for some tasty add ons and special rules. Characters in general play a greater role.

    Game is for 2 to 4 players (3 and 4 players do it in teams).

    My experience.

    We played in two with the FP side, while Ruvarac (yes, our Ruvarac) had the Shadow side.

    We managed to conquer Moria (!) to be driven off two turns later, then all our military plans went astride and Bojan won a military victory, with the company in the middle of Gorgoroth, striving to climb the asheous sides of Mount Doom.

    It was quite entertaining, next Thursday (TLA work permitting ;)) we'll try to reverse sides and then go on with the complete rules. I hope this will bring some inspiration for TLA work (at least the illustrations are great!).

    ;)

    Cheers

    Matteo

    Banning Smoking In Public Places

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    As you said, no need to have cars to be petrol driven...

    ...no needs to have things manufactured by polluting processes, when there are alternative techs (just for istance: on a past issue of Scientific American i read that VHS players could be manufactured with less polluting processes, but that companies do not want to do that because they want to cut costs and maximize profits. The questin is: are VHS players so "needed"? Is it justifyable this behaivour from manufacturers?).

    Even excessive computing (i.e. videogaming) in't needed, but it's allowed, even if it's probably at the base of serious sight and comportamental problems.

    And you are right: smoke isn't needed, but the same is for alchool. Do you remember what happened with proibitionism? That's the only outcome we'd get by banning cigarettes entirely... ^_^

    What i say is that we need to live with these things in a moderate way.

    Today we are far from moderate or respectful. We "want it all", with no regard to other's needs, rights and to our safety as well. But i'm fairly sure that by banning such things we won't solve the problem, we'd rather aggravate it, with the questionably nice bonus of feeding the mafias pockets.

    So, all i say is: moderation. We smokers must respect non-smokers (and others in general) and learn not to indulge into smoking. But it's also desireable that non-smokers show a bit of tolerance towards smokers (i.e. let them smoke in open air or separated areas). Since humans are social beings, i'm sure this way of thinking could solve the problem in the end (i.e. near extintion of the smoking habit). Persuasion is better than enforcing. :wine:

    Banning Smoking In Public Places

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    I don't see why you're trying to make this an all or nothing debate... Just because I'm for banning smoking doesn't mean I'm for banning everything that's a health risk.

    My point is: wy banning smoke only and first (even if in a gradual way)?

    It's not the most important factor in a series of health problems/damages. Why not starting from the most influencing causes?

    When someone proposes laws, he must be consequential, imho. If smoke does health damage, and i ban it for this reason, then i must take an action for all causes at once (even if in a gradual manner): petrol working engines, air (and soil and water) polluting industries, dangerous (if not toxic) materials usage in everyday objects and so on...

    ...diseases are almost never the effect of one cause lonely. If you take away a factor, then it may be that the incidence of that disease drop a bit. But' you'll never be sure and prolly you'll never get this slight statistical drop. Do you want to eradicate lung cancer? Then stop smoking, hidrocarbydes burning, air pollution, Asbesthum cohibentation, and a bunch of other things.

    I agree that forcing someone to inhalate some other's smoke it's not a good thing, and must be banned, but as long as smokers do not do this (i.e. smoke outside or in a separated area), they should be let free to smoke, if they want. I think that the mere fact of beyng "separated" in the act of smoking is the greatest deterrent in keeping on with this habit (no one likes to live in a ghetto). Most of all, we should try to realize that smoking very mildly is much less dangerous (to everyone) than inhalating benzene or hydrocarbides oxidation byproducts every day (and you can bet that everybody here does it in a consistent amount).

    So, i was truly going for a none or all point, but for good (and logical) reasons. Otherwise we're only going to conduct a demagogic campaign that could get us some smoking bans, but will not eradicate the factors for numerous diseases...

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