Perhaps this is over-reacting, but it burns me when someone says, "Remember folks; it's just a game."
Let's begin with this often being said on a game blog, often that have more than a thousand posts (JB's has 1,949). Personally I've spent something like 5,000 hours blogging, judging from my 2,500+ posts, which is a mere fraction of the number of hours I've spent designing and playing the game. Telling a dyed-in-the-wool blogger that their time has been spent doing anything that's "just something" is equivalent to interrupting High Mass in a cathedral-sized church to tell them God doesn't exist or driving down to an emergency evacuation shelter to tell the people there who have just lost their homes that, "It's only money."
It should be obvious to twits like this that the game matters to us ... and if we want to fight about it, then the twit can just fuck off. I'm a Canadian. Fighting over a game is a goddamn national sport ...
And in Canada we know what to do about smug little bastards that say otherwise.
But moving on, it takes a fairly obtuse personality to live in the present and not notice that games have consequentially taken over the public discourse. Revenue streams the size of countries have gripped the market, mental health workers are seeing games as a means of restoring quality of life to hundreds of thousands of physically challenged persons, national defense and the military are now wholly run by game theory, while game theory and design is redefining economics, politics and statistics. Without exaggeration, games have started running the world ... and that is a process that is only just beginning. The very phrase, "It's just a game," is the kind of thing that could only be said by someone who's still living in the 1970s, who thinks that "games" are little board things where people push tiny dogs and cars around. It's an ignorance in the extreme.
It amazes me when an adult can gush like an infant child over a game find he stumbled across one second, then piss on the passion and interests of others the next, demonstrating a profound failure to be self-aware of their own condescendence. How such people are allowed to roam free around the internet without handlers baffles me. Once again, I find myself wanting that superpower that lets me punch people through my computer.
This is not "just" a game. Not to me. Not to any of the people I play with. Why don't these people see how far they get dropping into a bar sometime, during the playoffs, to shout at the fans, "It's just a game."
Hospitalization is the least price such maggots should pay.
What are the stats for a hockey helmet and pads?
ReplyDeletePunching is 1d4-3 base damage. Hockey players might be strong, being professional athletes and all, but I doubt they'd benefit from the warrior's strength bonus to damage.
Pads should probably be AC 9. Helmet could act as a guard against critical hits, allowing a saving throw to turn a crit into a normal hit.
. . . just off the top of my head.
Hockey players are incredibly strong; I'd guess a minimum strength of 17 for anyone in the NHL. Remember, they have to have the ankles that will enable them to remain upright on skates during punches.
ReplyDeleteYou never, ever, want to feel a hockey player hit you. They may not be boxers (or to be more precises, they're not weavers), but they'll punch like a freight train.
At first, I thought "a minimum 17 Strength for NHL players is crazy." Then I recalled there are, what, 600ish NHL players at any time, pulled primarily from the United States, Canada, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia (so roughly one billion people)...so that seems pretty on point.
ReplyDeletePadding for professional sports are pretty good these days. For AD&D I'd look to the Gamma World conversion chart in the DMG for "sheath armor" (defined in GW1E as "padded breast plate, helmet, gloves, thigh and shin guards. It provides reasonable protection against primitive weapons.")...that's a solid AC5 in AD&D.
ReplyDeleteUsing the alternative unarmed combat rules from UA (which I prefer to the DMG's original rules), we'd see a hockey player's AC5 provides "semi-exposed" status. Punches would be "small, soft" or "small, hard" depending on whether players went gloves off or on. While damage differential is only 1 point different (1-2 versus 1-3), a high strength still allows for a decent injury...and since small, soft only has half the chance of stunning (and thus knock-outs) I can see an advantage of wanting to throw down the gloves: inflict maximum pain with minimum penalty (I'm doubtful refs take kindly to beating on someone who's already unconscious).
@ Alexis: As is often the case, your post gave me a good chuckle. I can only imagine a person walking into an American sports bar during the an NFL play-off game and telling the losing crowd, hey, it's only a game. Hell, those Cleveland fans were pretty stoked just to get a single win this year after going 0-16 two seasons in a row (and many bars around the city broke open chained coolers of free Bud Lite in celebration of that first win this year!). Yeah, it's only a game, but it's life and death, too.
Sometimes I forget just how Canadian you are, man. I dig these reminders.
: )