Roll 3d16 Against Your 4th Amendment Rights

Apparently, those Weapons of Mass Destruction terrorists are so keen to get their hands on include +3 vorpal blades. Or at any rate, that's what you might think based on this guy's surreal encounter getting on the NY Waterway.

Comments

[Mark Draughn]

This could have ended a lot worse. The author of this story was lucky he was dealing with some clueless fool.

If he'd been dealing with someone from an outfit like the TSA, where they have a lot more practice shining their jackboots, he would have been detained and the searcher's statement would have gone like this:

"I found some suspicious materials in his baggage. When I questioned him, he became belligerant and started yelling. He ignored my warnings about safety. He talked about hurting people and made references to firearms, knives, and explosive devices."

I'm not saying you shouldn't tweak these people, but don't give them the rope to hang you.

[Tim Lambert]

Err, 16-sided dice are physically possible. You just glue two octagonal pyramids together. But I don't think anyone actually makes them.

[drf]

[waiting for pro state conservatives to chime in]: "well they have to do this otherwise liberals would get all bothered about the profiling of 'middle eastern-looking' suspects. plus if he done (sic) nuthin' wrong, he got nothin to fear." [/end of waiting]

aren't fridays fun?

[gamer]

Right you are, Tim. How embarassing...

[Paul]

isn't anyone just slightly curious as to what the book was? I'm completely fascinated to know what book would cause such an exchange?

[drf]

maybe this is anne jacobsen's moonlight gig...

you know? for those of us who were willing to go with this story, how did we react to ms jacobsen's breathless tale?

hmmmmm.
drf

[Skeptikos]

Paul,

D & D or one of its ilk.

[Skeptikos]

I believe they just reissued new editions of the classics recently.

And it would be 6d8 in all probality. I seen 6 sided, 8 sided, 10, 12 and 20, but no 16. At least personally.

Actually I was told this was more dangerous than a russian conspiracy when I was a lad.

[Oannes]

The book in question is "Exalted: the Abyssals" from White Wolf Publishing.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1588466655.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Pretty cover.

[Lowen]

To contribute my bit to the silly trivial talk here, saving throws in D&D are almost always made with a single 20 sided die.

So no 3d16 or 6d8 or anything. D&D uses a lot of different kinds of dice, 8, 10, 12, 20, even 100 sided "death stars" in addition to the 6 sided dice everyone is familiar with, though all but the 6, 20 and 100 sided dice are used exclusively for damage and hitpoint calculation.

[Shem]

Err, 16-sided dice are physically possible. You just glue two octagonal pyramids together.

But wouldn't that result in a 14-sided die? Two of the sides would be glued to each other, so unless there's some configuration I can't think of, those two sides would be useless.

[Mo]

Shem,
Naw. An octagonal pyramid has 9 sides, the octagonal base and the 8 triangular sides.

[Bramblyspam]

I'm suspicious of the story. It's simply too convenient that the guy "just happened" to put the ACLU's number on his mobile phone right before the incident.

The tale may well be true. If so, good for him. But the world has plenty of BS artists with fake tales of heroism and woe, and they aren't all on "the other side".

I'll be the first to admit that I'm in no position to prove or disprove anything, but the sniff test leaves me a wee bit skeptical.

[Slag]

Apparently a game designer has whipped out his Morning Star of Justice:

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/08/11/dd_book_reader_on_fe.html

[hilly]

I call shenanigans.

[Highway]

Maybe he should have Rochambeau'd him for it. Sounds like the inspection guy could use a swift kick in the jewels.

[ember]

The ACLU phone number makes sense. In the post he says something about searching bags again, and in a previous post had some trouble before.

a D16 is possable with equal sized faces, but not by using regular polygons, which id traditional for dice, but not required.

[Ghost of a flea]

I question the timing of this announcement.???

[rob]

Guys like that are actually fun to encounter, in my not very humble opinion. It's fun to twist an authoritarian ass-clown's nose and listen to him honk. The ACLU isn't a big enough hammer for guys like that, in my opinion. Oh, the mileage I'd have gotten out of "I feel I need to confiscate" alone...

A-C: "I feel I need to confiscate this book."

Me: "I feel I need to confiscate your wallet, and your entire paycheck, and that you should be castrated to prevent the tragic possibility that you might someday procreate. Good thing I don't have the authority to do that anymore than you have the authority to confiscate my reading material."

OR, if I was feeling a bit more mellow and understanding...

Me: "Well, I suppose that if you can't afford your own masturbatory material, I could let you borrow it. But you have to promise to return it withou any of the pages stuck together."

[Virginia Warren]

What game system uses 16 sided dice?

[thoreau]

Imagine if these guys showed up at the airport:

http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/reno911/mugshots.jhtml?startIndex=6

[gamer]

No system uses 16-sided dice, because they're physically impossible to make. Julian obviously isn't hardcore.

[Mark S.]

And I used to think that it was just the JEEZ-us freaks who hated RPGs.

[Bramblyspam]

Regarding the D16 and regular polygons: The same is true for the very widely used D10 🙂

In today's bit of useless trivia: There are exactly five regular solids: the tetrahedron (d4), cube (d6), octahedron (d8), dodecahedron (d12), and icosahedron (d20). It's mathematically proven that there are no others. (A 'regular solid' is one in which each face has the same number of sides & each side is of the same length).

[Orcdom]

16 sided dice can be used for games workshop's game blood bowl, for randomizing players since your team can be made to no more than 16 players
Steve