Results 271 to 300 of 355
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2024-05-01, 11:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Anyone want to speculate on what AJ's full name is? I'm going to go with "Ass Jack," myself.
My Perpetually-Unfinished Homebrew: Tier-3 Class Suite, Homestuck Races for Pathfinder, Homestuck Races for 5e, Psionic Class Redux
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2024-05-02, 05:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
I think Andrew Jackson is the usual value of AJ, at least in the US.
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2024-05-02, 05:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Location
- NJ
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Abraham Joshuah.
Alexander Justinian.
Archibald James
It could also just be Aj. and schools not knowing better teachers called him A.J. and it stuck.Last edited by Beelzebub1111; 2024-05-02 at 06:00 AM.
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2024-05-02, 10:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2020
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2024-05-03, 09:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
- Location
- The Land of Angles
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
What an absolutely useless spell.
Sure, it lets you cheat in sealed tournaments and Friday Night Magic tournies that aren't taken very seriously, but deck lists are public information in any high end, officially sanctioned tournament.
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2024-05-03, 10:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Location
- England. Ish.
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Functionally useless it may be, but it does appear to be exactly how spells get "assigned" - especially if he is one of Pandora's protegees. It seems to be completely based around his interests and his nature.
Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
"Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee
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2024-05-03, 10:31 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
- Location
- Imagination Land
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
I have to assume that it does more than reveal someone's deck of cards, that's probably just what he's most comfortable using it for.
The first thing I thought of was actually that he had Seer eyes....
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2024-05-03, 11:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
- Location
- The Land of Angles
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
If it works on any deck of cards, or even better card games in general, it's actually a very good spell (because it lets you cheat at blackjack and/or poker). But if it's just specifically to read the contents of Magical Gatherings decks... wow, that's an incredibly niche spell.
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2024-05-03, 11:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
I find it hilarious how the spell presents the relevant data in the form of an anthropomorphized representation instead of like, just showing him the deck. It's such a terrible way of presenting the information that I kind of love it? It seems like AJ intuitively understands what it means, but I'm imagining a character getting a spell like this and having no idea what the actual language is and becoming extremely frustrated.
Like that'd be a great low level D&D spell, being able to scan something and get potentially useful information in an extremely vague abstract representation.
I would assume it works on any hand of cards. EGS has some pretty niche spells but nothing that comes close to being that niche.Last edited by Errorname; 2024-05-03 at 11:13 AM.
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2024-05-03, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Indianapolis
- Gender
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2024-05-03, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2024-05-03, 05:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
That is so totally not how initials work. (If it was, you'd be Daniel Smith.)
If Dan was a different kind of author, I'd expect AJ to walk away from the tournament a winner as a setup for a nasty comedown later, probably involving his magic being stolen by the uryuom revolutionaries. But he's not so I will be amazed if he hasn't been stopped from doing what he's doing before the end of the third game.Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2024-05-03, 07:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
- Location
- Earth and/or not-Earth
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Last edited by InvisibleBison; 2024-05-03 at 07:12 PM.
I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.
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2024-05-03, 11:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
AJ would probably just fail to glean any information about Tedd from his spell. We already know Tedd has enough magic resistance to just "nope" some types of magical snoopery, like that magic detector his parents tried to use on him as a baby. I'd actually be a little concerned that AJ might hurt himself trying to push his spell too hard, while Tedd might not even notice the magic glancing harmlessly off him.
My Perpetually-Unfinished Homebrew: Tier-3 Class Suite, Homestuck Races for Pathfinder, Homestuck Races for 5e, Psionic Class Redux
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2024-05-04, 12:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- In my library
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
An alternative theory: it's not going to matter because it'll turn out that even with his spell AJ is just really bad at Magickal Gatherings.
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2024-05-04, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Location
- England. Ish.
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
I suspect that Tedd will be facing him much later - while he can ignore the spell when it is used on him, he is the one person in the playlist who will be able to identify it when it is used on him. On the other hand, him as an early opponent could bring the "he's using magic" message to Justin, at which point the various magic-aware players (at least, the ones Tedd knows) can start working together.
I don't know what will happen if he tries it on Hope, but even newly reset, Hope likely has more magic knowledge that anyone in the room.Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
"Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee
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2024-05-04, 12:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Indianapolis
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Also that, at least as of currently shown, he hasn't gained any knowledge you wouldn't get by just knowing what the card pool is like and asking somebody what deck archetype they're playing or paying attention to like the first three cards they play. It's certainly possible his spell has other applications that are more egregious cheating, such as if it allows him to gain knowledge of his opponent's current hand. At the moment I actually kind of struggle to call this kind of general 'this is what the deck contains' knowledge "cheating".
(That is, assuming the player's decks are locked/they were required to submit a deck list. If they're permitted to sideboard/change cards or even entire decks before games then yeah AJ could get a significant advantage in being able to tailor his deck with specific answer cards to whatever his opponents are running.)
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2024-05-04, 06:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Given Justin's Beta Ox of Smelly Calamity warning, I'm pretty sure there's no submitted deck lists or anything like that.
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2024-05-05, 11:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Huh. I was assuming that rather than explicitly being a cheat-at-cards spell, it was a shortcut-around-having-to-actually-understand-people-by-seeing-them-as-reductive-stereotypes spell, and then he was just cold-reading from there. Like the sort of thing you see in Yugioh or Pokemon, where you've got pretty good odds of being able to guess someone's deck/team from their name, appearance, and personality.
But also, yeah – knowing what cards someone else has in their deck is only going to help you so much.Last edited by Qwertystop; 2024-05-05 at 11:41 AM.
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2024-05-05, 10:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
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2024-05-05, 10:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2010
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Or not! Bleh. Guess it makes a point about Pandora, but I'm not sure it's one that needed making.
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2024-05-06, 03:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2020
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2024-05-06, 07:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- In my library
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
In my experience 'frustrated at losing card games' and 'really likes anime women' would make this a shockingly common spell.
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2024-05-06, 08:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
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2024-05-06, 09:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2014
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2024-05-06, 11:13 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2018
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
My Perpetually-Unfinished Homebrew: Tier-3 Class Suite, Homestuck Races for Pathfinder, Homestuck Races for 5e, Psionic Class Redux
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2024-05-06, 01:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2015
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2024-05-06, 02:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Canterlot, Equestria
- Gender
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
I'm sure the spell also works on hands, not just decks.
Princess Celestia's Homebrew Corner
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2024-05-06, 06:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2024-05-07, 01:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad
I think there is another angle of "Pandora marked some bad people who are going to cause problems". AJ's pretty small time, but he was a guy who wanted magic so he could cheat the rules for petty selfish reasons and Pandora's main objection was that he wasn't going to cause important enough problems. What happens if Pandora (who considered the possibility of Justin killing someone with magic desirable) ran into someone with some higher ambitions for wrongdoing? Really good odds that evil business guy who is about to run into the hybrid trio was marked by her, for example.