Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Username17]

What is the actual origin? All I have ever thought of was Lillian Gish.

It's a term from the in-game lore of the Githyanki. It's a title that their Fighter/Magic Users had in AD&D. It's from the Fiend Folio, 1979. What I do not recall is whether the title had any reference or meaning in The Dying of the Light, a George R R Martin story from which the Githyanki were copied into AD&D by a young Charles Stross.

-Username17

[echoVanguard]

What I do not recall is whether the title had any reference or meaning in The Dying of the Light, a George R R Martin story from which the Githyanki were copied into AD&D by a young Charles Stross.

Wait, what?! Charlie Stross worked on AD&D?!

I'm sorry, I need to go sit down.

echo

[Emerald]

What I do not recall is whether the title had any reference or meaning in The Dying of the Light, a George R R Martin story from which the Githyanki were copied into AD&D by a young Charles Stross.

-Username17

A quick search through a PDF copy shows that "gish" doesn't show up anywhere in the book, so that's a no.

Wait, what?! Charlie Stross worked on AD&D?!

I'm sorry, I need to go sit down.

Indeed he did!



(Note that the term "gish" isn't used yet; as Frank noted, that didn't show up until the 1e FF.)

Even better, Stross didn't just write for AD&D, he got in on the ground floor. The Githyanki debuted in issue #12 of White Dwarf Magazine, published in April 1979, and the 1e DMG wasn't published until August of that year.

[OgreBattle]

Been pondering a tabletop skirmish system with movement and attack phases, like fantasy flight’s xwing which does ‘low initiative moves first, attacks last’

I’ve been thinking of doing something similar but the players place a token indicating which phase (movement or attack) they want priority on

So an armored tough dude chooses ‘Advance’ and will move at higher priority. A sniper chooses ‘Ready’ and will move only after everyone’s that advanced , then attack at higher priority than those who advanced.

Any existing games do this?

[Username17]

A quick search through a PDF copy shows that "gish" doesn't show up anywhere in the book, so that's a no.

Fair enough. Although it wouldn't surprise me if 'gish' is actually a typo and the intention was some similar word that was used in The Dying of the Light. The word 'gish' is on Page 43 of the AD&D Fiend Folio in the lower right corner when it tells you about the various ranks of Githyanki that appear in Githyanki lairs. A Fighter/Magic User of 4th/4th level is a gish. Also Githyanki 'knights' are 8th level Anti-Paladins.

That last bit is especially interesting, because of course at the time of its printing, there were no rules for Anti-Paladins in AD&D. Also, due to the absolutely terrible way AD&D handled multiclassing, it was against the rules for any race to allow a character to be a Paladin and allow a character to be a Fighter/Magic User. Also Gith the Lich Queen is a 24th level Magic User despite the fact that AD&D did not in fact have rules for level 21+ Magic Users. Basically, much of the Githyanki writeup references Charles Stross' unpublished house rules for AD&D, and it was genuinely unplayable in a Rules As Written kind of way. But it was AD&D and no one cared, it's all mind caulk all the way down anyway.

In related news, a Githzerai Fighter/Magic User is called a 'zerth.'

Even better, Stross didn't just write for AD&D, he got in on the ground floor. The Githyanki debuted in issue #12 of White Dwarf Magazine, published in April 1979, and the 1e DMG wasn't published until August of that year.

The best part of this is that in 1979, Charles Stross was fifteen. Back then TSR literally let an enthusiastic highschool student write up his rant about his campaign world based on some then-current science fiction he got at the library. And that rant was published as-is in fucking hardback, and became a focal point of iconic D&D lore.

And to make this even more mental, the only reason they got away with this is that George Martin is an actual crazy person who believes in a very aggressive form of adverse possession in intellectual property. That is to say, the AD&D Githyanki are a trademark violation and have been since their first publication upon being written up by said enthusiastic highschool student. But D&D gets to keep using them because George Martin thinks that D&D successfully stole the name from him in the 70s. It's been more than forty years, so D&D can't be sued now, but there were literal decades when Martin could have done something about it and didn't because he is wrong about how copyrights work.

-Username17

[Neeeek]

What is the actual origin? All I have ever thought of was Lillian Gish.

It's a term from the in-game lore of the Githyanki. It's a title that their Fighter/Magic Users had in AD&D. It's from the Fiend Folio, 1979. What I do not recall is whether the title had any reference or meaning in The Dying of the Light, a George R R Martin story from which the Githyanki were copied into AD&D by a young Charles Stross.

-Username17

That might be the first D&D reference to the term, but that's not where it comes from. It's an old school surfing term for a surfer girl. Half-girl, half-fish: Gish.

[Username17]

That might be the first D&D reference to the term, but that's not where it comes from. It's an old school surfing term for a surfer girl. Half-girl, half-fish: Gish.

The D&D word was written in 1978 by a 14 year old boy from Leeds, England. I am one hundred percent convinced that the terms are unrelated. I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that it's a reference to the Nuristani war god, but that seems unlikely.

Genuinely, Gish is just a Saxon surname. Goes back centuries. If it's a reference to anything at all, it would be something dumb like one of the guys in Charles Stross' D&D campaigns being named Gish and always wanting to play a Fighter/Magic User.

-Username17

[Emerald]

Also Gith the Lich Queen is a 24th level Magic User despite the fact that AD&D did not in fact have rules for level 21+ Magic Users.

1e does, actually, It's 2e that standardized everything to the 1-20 progression. The 1e class table only goes up to 18th level, but the note below says it requires "375,000 experience points per level for each additional level beyond the 18th," the spell tables go up to level 29, and the DMG combat tables have "21+" entries for the magic-user and illusionist.

[OgreBattle]

Been reading about brainwaves, from highest frequency to lowest the stuff I tried to understand says...

Gamma- "Sense of self"? Some meditative state, laughter, it's vague what this one 'does' and a lot of articles are pop science selling stuff.

Beta- 'Normal' wakefulness. Taking in surroundings, making decisions, calculating. Can also cause greater sensitivity to pain as one's taking in information. It's suppressed when doing an athletic action like...

Alpha- "Calm yet alert, ready" Seems to be strongest when doing 'muscle memory' stuff. Some say it's the athletic 'flow' state, but it can also be idleness and 'autopilot' without conscious decision processing. Seems like you have to train in the 'instinctual' responses or you'll just instinctively respond with mediocrity.

Theta- Deep meditation, relaxed but conscious, hypnotic suggestive state? REM sleep? Associated with learning new things?

Delta- Unconscious, deep dreamless sleep, associated with bodily healing. Read that babies and little kids can have these waves be pretty active when awake.

I read that "explicit learning", like memorizing a book, formula, solving a puzzle tends to use higher frequency brain activity, while "implicit learning" like running technique uses more Alpha or Theta brainwaves.

is this an OK approximation of what we know about brainwaves? Is there a lot of stuff we just guess at because we can't legally crack open human coconuts and stick in electrodes? I figure only one brainwave is prominent at a time but the others are still happening.

[Username17]

The very most important fact about brain waves is that they do not do anything. Brainwaves are an incidental byproduct of your brain doing stuff. Your brain does not use the gamma wave to learn, the act of learn generates a stronger gamma wave. The brainwaves are waste energy, and the frequencies of that waste energy have a modest correlation with the dominant activities of the brain at any given moment.

You can put a magnet next to your head and it will disrupt the fuck out of the brain waves emanating from your skull. But nothing happens to you because the brainwaves are not the thoughts. Your brain is like dropping stones into a pond. The brainwaves are like the ripples in the surface of that pond. You can measure those ripples or disrupt those ripples, and the stone doesn't give a fuck either way.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

Ah that helps greatly, like looking at car exhaust instead of the engine and everything else

[Trill]

Or listening to the engine sounds.

[Orca]

A sufficiently strong magnetic field can mess with your brain, but that may not have anything at all to do with brain waves.

Anti-paladins were in one of the first issues of Dragon magazine. They weren't invented by Stross.[/i]

[Thaluikhain]

Ok, looking back into old 2nd ed 40k.

Not quite sure how the Hand to Hand rules are supposed to work. Ok, for models in base to base contact it's pretty clear, but what about the models that aren't?

Specifically, if you were to have a genestealer brood that hat been shot to bits and only have 2 stealers left when it charged a IG squad. They should expect to kill the IG they are in base to base with, and then get to make a 2" follow up to get into contact with more...but what about the rest of the IG squad? You've got some IG in base to base and so they are stuck there, what about the others? The rules don't say anything about them moving into combat, do they just stand there and wait for the stealers to kill someone and move into them, or can they act normally because they aren't in base to base?

[Username17]

Anti-paladins were in one of the first issues of Dragon magazine. They weren't invented by Stross.[/i]

The Anti-Paladin is introduced in Dragon Magazine #39, in July 1980. As far as I know there is no previous official or semi-official Anti-Paladin writeup. The Fiend Folio was actually published in 1981, but it was written in 1978 and 1979 and held up due to publishing weirdness in the UK.

The book definitely refers to a character class that did not exist in any published form at the time it was written.

-Username17

[GnomeWorks]

The Anti-Paladin is introduced in Dragon Magazine #39, in July 1980.

After perusing that, I have to say: that was a bizarre read.

[Username17]

The Anti-Paladin is introduced in Dragon Magazine #39, in July 1980.

After perusing that, I have to say: that was a bizarre read.

"Should we stop being so amazingly sexist all the time? Experts disagree."

-Username17

[GnomeWorks]

"Should we stop being so amazingly sexist all the time? Experts disagree."

For an example, in case some folks don't have access...

Another reader wrote of being penalized by her DM because she was a Cleric and had the misfortune (as it turned out) to become pregnant. The DM said that Lawful Good Clerics didn’t do that sort of thing, he forced the character to undergo a change of alignment, and the player eventually had to roll up a new character.

I just... I mean, this document is 40 years old, sure, but it sounds like it came out of an entirely different world.

I guess the notion of "the past is a foreign country" really does hold.

[Whipstitch]

Things were definitely more openly sexist back then but I wouldn't say another world, sadly. I am very confident I know at least one dude who would float the concept "ironically" and then double down and power trip if the player seemed annoyed rather than amused by the suggestion. The big difference is that apparently you could share the anecdote back then and get that shit published rather than have people pump the brakes and ask what the fuck is wrong with you.

[Blade]

Ok, looking back into old 2nd ed 40k.

Not quite sure how the Hand to Hand rules are supposed to work. Ok, for models in base to base contact it's pretty clear, but what about the models that aren't?

Specifically, if you were to have a genestealer brood that hat been shot to bits and only have 2 stealers left when it charged a IG squad. They should expect to kill the IG they are in base to base with, and then get to make a 2" follow up to get into contact with more...but what about the rest of the IG squad? You've got some IG in base to base and so they are stuck there, what about the others? The rules don't say anything about them moving into combat, do they just stand there and wait for the stealers to kill someone and move into them, or can they act normally because they aren't in base to base?

If I remember correctly, the rest of the squad just stands there and wait, but during their next movement phase (if there are any survivors) the ones who aren't in contact can move to get in contact.
At least that's how we played it.

[Thaluikhain]

Ok, looking back into old 2nd ed 40k.

Not quite sure how the Hand to Hand rules are supposed to work. Ok, for models in base to base contact it's pretty clear, but what about the models that aren't?

Specifically, if you were to have a genestealer brood that hat been shot to bits and only have 2 stealers left when it charged a IG squad. They should expect to kill the IG they are in base to base with, and then get to make a 2" follow up to get into contact with more...but what about the rest of the IG squad? You've got some IG in base to base and so they are stuck there, what about the others? The rules don't say anything about them moving into combat, do they just stand there and wait for the stealers to kill someone and move into them, or can they act normally because they aren't in base to base?

If I remember correctly, the rest of the squad just stands there and wait, but during their next movement phase (if there are any survivors) the ones who aren't in contact can move to get in contact.
At least that's how we played it.

That makes sense, thanks. Do the survivors moving in count as charging?

[Blade]

I think there was a minimum distance before it could be considered as charging, but this might come from another game.

[Iduno]

For an example, in case some folks don't have access...

Another reader wrote of being penalized by her DM because she was a Cleric and had the misfortune (as it turned out) to become pregnant. The DM said that Lawful Good Clerics didn’t do that sort of thing, he forced the character to undergo a change of alignment, and the player eventually had to roll up a new character.

I just... I mean, this document is 40 years old, sure, but it sounds like it came out of an entirely different world.

I guess the notion of "the past is a foreign country" really does hold.

It sounds like the sort of power trip far too many GMs would still get into today, except people are finally getting over alignment as a serious concept that should be used.

[Trill]

Shadowrun 4 Movement rules:
With normal people it's simple: When walking you use the speed on the left of the slash, when running you use the speed on the right of the slash, sprinting increases the right number.
But how does it work with Vehicles? They got an Acceleration of X/Y and a Speed of Z. Does this mean that a vehicle moves at a speed of X or Z? Or is X the change of the current speed? And if Y is far less than Z, why have Z at all?

The context was that a player asked me how fast his modded Doberman could drive. Its Acceleration is 8/20 and its Speed is 60. What speed does it actually move at?
I ruled that the Acceleration was, well, the change of Speed (so if you walk you get faster by 8m/CT, if you sprint you gain 20m/CT), up to 60m/CT.

[Iduno]

Shadowrun 4 Movement rules:
With normal people it's simple: When walking you use the speed on the left of the slash, when running you use the speed on the right of the slash, sprinting increases the right number.
But how does it work with Vehicles? They got an Acceleration of X/Y and a Speed of Z. Does this mean that a vehicle moves at a speed of X or Z? Or is X the change of the current speed? And if Y is far less than Z, why have Z at all?

The context was that a player asked me how fast his modded Doberman could drive. Its Acceleration is 8/20 and its Speed is 60. What speed does it actually move at?
I ruled that the Acceleration was, well, the change of Speed (so if you walk you get faster by 8m/CT, if you sprint you gain 20m/CT), up to 60m/CT.

Speed is maximum speed when running and also making a vehicle test to add 5 to the running acceleration rate. Acceleration is the speed, because words don't have meanings. The acceleration is walking (normal driving)/running (trying to drive fast).

So for your example, the vehicle normally moves 8m/ct and can go up to 20 without really pushing it. If the driver is very skilled, they can get 8 hits and get the speed acceleration up to 60 m/ct.