This one is looooong, and particularly full of stupid. Mostly due to two particular threads that just really pulled out the stupid in folks.
Crafting, what's the point?
I remember exactly
one instance in years of gaming where crafting was anything but a way to reduce
the price of stuff.
Ooh, look, an entire premise based
on negligible experience. That’s new and different.
So I'm curious, if
you enjoy crafting systems, why?
Depends on the system. I am pretty
okay with the system in 3E D&D and the variants in Unearthed Arcana. I was not a fan of the way it was done in 2E
D&D, which was pretty much all GM fiat.
What does it add to
your play experience?
I get to make shit that’s fun and
sometimes even useful.
What is fun about it
or engaging?
There’s nothing fun or particularly
engaging about the mechanics themselves, in any game I’ve played. It’s not
about the journey, it’s all about the destination.
Is the gathering materials
important?
Fuck no. I hate that shit. I hated
it in 2E D&D, I hate it in video games. Hate it. Time, money, bam, magic!
Is there some sort
of element of having to work for stuff?
Uh . . . no?
Is it the same thing
as the thrill people seem to get from inventory management and tracking how
many pieces of string your character has?
See, now you’re showing your true
colors here. You’re not interested in why people do it, you’re interested in
deriding them. Your word choice gives you away. But to answer the question
anyway, no. I craft to see what kind of wacky shit I can build. I track
inventory and ammo and shit for verisimilitude (if the game calls for it; some
do not).
Do you enjoy all the
crunchiness of it or could you get the same thrill of just being able to
describe your equipment?
If I just wanted to describe my
gear, I’d play one of the lighter Fate systems or just write a story.
Do you want your
custom crafted stuff to be mechanically different or give you some advantage
that's not otherwise available? If so, why?
Sometimes, yeah. Why? Because it
allows my character to do something they otherwise couldn’t do. That was a
stupid question.
Is it just a chance
to further characterize the character?
In addition to other factors, yes.
I am NOT looking for
a bunch of reasons why crafting systems suck or explanations of how crafting
systems should be done. If you don't like crafting systems, please keep your
opinions to yourself.
Uh, your join date indicates you’ve
been here for a year which is more than enough time for you to have learned
that you don’t get to tell people how and what to post, because you don’t own
the thread even if you started it.
From the original poster:
What do you want
mechanically from a crafting system?
Customization.
How much detail?
Time, money, BAM!
Would your
characters be interested if it wasn't any cheaper to DIY?
Yes, because it’s really go nothing
to do with cost or economics.
What do you think
crafting has to do with the other economic rules? (i.e. anything can be sold at
1/2 price and anything in the book is available for purchase, how does this
shift the value/experience of crafting for you?)
I don’t give a fuck what it has to
do with the other economic rules.
From Velexia Ombra
Why should
characters be able to make things in an RPG game? Because making things is a
thing that people do. The end.
That’s a pretty decent answer too. A mod later called that post threadcrapping.
That mod is wrong. Threadcrapping is subjective, and the OP isn’t being
genuine, and doesn’t really deserve genuine answers.
And now I’m bored with this one.
TSR Marvel Superheroes RPG Vs. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
Hello all! I have
been looking for a good game to play Marvel characters in. Most of my gaming group
is made up of comic book nerds who enjoy Marvel, and those who are not at least
enjoy the movies. That being said, I am unsure as to which of the two Marvel
RPG's, mentioned as the title to go with. As the GM I like systems that are
rules light and easy to teach while still maintaining diversity between
characters. My intent is to use characters from the Marvel universe
exclusively. As I have not read through both of the games, nor have I played
either of them I would love to hear opinions from those who have on the good
and bad of each of the games.
Hello! Full disclosure up front; I
have not played Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.
I’ve only really scanned it a little bit, so I can speak with no direct
experience on it. I have, however, played a lot of MSHRPG. And I’m a big fan of
the system (with some tweaks).
To answer your question with the
parameters you specified initially, just from what I know of the games, you
might be a bit better off with Marvel
Heroic Roleplaying. From what I understand, it’s a fairly light game
(MSHRPG is light-ish at most).
On the other hand, you can pretty
much get all of MSHRPG for free.
From tanaka84:
Im going against
your own thread to ask if you've checked Worlds in Peril, it's a superhero game
powered by the apocalypse, I haven't played it, but the word is that is really
really good.
Wow, jumping into a thread to talk
about a game that was not mentioned and
that you’ve never even played? Go fuck yourself.
40 year of gaming - what have we learned?
That gamers are people, and like
other people, a lot of them really, truly suck. Also, that despite the
narrative gamers like to craft around themselves, on the whole, they aren’t
actually smarter or more insightful than other people.
Oh, there’s more to your post than
the title. My bad.
I get the feeling
that many people are learning everything from scratch.
I imagine that’s true for a great
many gamers even today.
To make a long story
short –
Too late!
is there any
consensus in GMing and/or game design?
Are you kidding me? Your whole post
is just to ask this stupid question? This tells me I can ignore the rest of
your post. If there was a consensus, you’d know it, because everything would
look an awful fucking lot alike. Well, I think we’ve established that if
anything interesting is going to come from this thread, it’s not going to come
from the OP. So let’s see what else is posted . . .
know your players
Indeed.
No gaming is better
than bad gaming.
Ayup.
The GM can not be a
referee because he playes all the opponents, and creates all the obstacles, and
also has an interest in the players suceeding. He can't be impartial.
Uh, yeah, he can. If you cannot,
that’s your problem to solve. Stop projecting, Yora.
From the OP:
I might have worded
that badly - I actually meant "is there any consensus on terminology/
concepts"?
The answer is still no. You’ve been
on site for 11 years, and I know for a fact you’ve participated in threads
where people were actively arguing about terminology and concepts. Your posts
here seem a bit disingenuous.
Back to the other posters:
sometimes you have
to play loose with the rules in order to make it a better game.
If you’ve learned that, you’ve
learned wrong.
If it is true that
nothing has been learned in 40 years of roleplaying as a hobby, then that truly
is a pity
That would be a pity,
countrysamurai. Luckily, no one has said that. Now carry on responding to shit
that exists only in your head. It’s worked for you for years.
You'll never find a
GM who wants to run the game you want to play in, so try to GM yourself. You'll
never find players for the game you want to run (which you actually wanted to
play instead of running), so settle for something else.
Even if you kinda
dislike a lot of the worldbuilding assumptions, hate the game system, and can't
figure out how to build a character you can still enjoy a game if you have the
right group.
Huh. For once, I actually agree
with Sir Nathan (the Douche)
The problem with
"strong social" mechanics in RPGs is (IMX and IMHO) they tend to have
one of two (and sometimes both) negative side effects:
1. It disincentives
being in character and general role-play. Why bother to try to come up with
good conversational bits or interactions with the NPCs when you can just
"roll the dice" (or use whatever structural social mechanic there
is). This has the additional side effect of strongly promoting the
'directorial' rather than the 'actor' stance, and can (and IMX often does) lead
to effective 'board game' mentalities.
2. It encourages
negative PC vs PC interactions. I should explain this one. In most systems
where the social mechanics are either vague or subject to DM fiat (or both),
there is often an effective rule (in some games it's explicit and in others
it's unwritten but very much there), that PCs can't make other PCs do things by
virtue of their social skills. IIRC in DND 3.X this was explicitly stated, i.e.
PCs can't roll a 'diplomacy check' to make another PC do something [spells were
another matter of course]. If you have a strong and overriding 'mechanical
social system', then you open up a whole can of worms where PC
"Silver-tongue" can make all the other PCs do his (or her) bidding by
using that same social mechanic....and that isn't a lot of fun and IMX can and
often DOES create real strife between players (and not just characters).
Unsurprisingly, Polaris again drops
a tremendous load of horseshit on the forums.
They continue with their habit of misrepresenting and straight up lying
about shit in order to build a big old strawman to tear down. It’s made even
worse by the fact that he doesn’t seem to understand a good 50% of what he
reads.
And after that, the thread gets
boring.
Is Shelly Mazzanoble a comedian? Please discuss.
I have no idea, but it’s a valid
question. Sometimes, it’s not clear what kind of style a writer is going for. And
when I first read the thread, I had no idea who she is. Now I assume she writes
an article or comic for WotC. I still don’t actually care though. But holy
shit, there’s another 115 posts full of amazing stupidity in response to your
question before mods closed the thread. From some of the replies, you’d think
you curb stomped a puppy and uploaded the video to YouTube. The biggest dipshit douchebag moron in reply
to the OP is 2097.
From 2097
"Is [Person's
Name] supposed to be funny? Please discuss"
Do you see why this
could be a problem? It's a human we're talking about. I like her a lot.
On its own, no, it’s not fucking
problematic. But I do appreciate this vaguely new twist on trying to shut down
a discussion. The OP’s question is pretty fucking obvious in its intent, and
you’ve got to do yoga to safely perform the stretches that you’re going to try
and execute.
From medivh, also a pretty well-established douchebag:
You might not be,
but you're making a thread for discussing a person. Every single post here will
either be praise or a personal attack.
Only if you’re going out of your
way to treat it as such. The OP is clear in his question.
From 2097:
Asking "Is
Groucho Marx supposed to be a comedian" or "Is Groucho Marx supposed
to be funny" would be an insult to Groucho Marx. Asking the same of
someone serious is also an insult.
No, it isn’t, you stupid mother fucker.
That’s a fucking
insult.
From Mattholomew Cuppingsworth, someone who has been onsite for all of a
month at the time of posting:
I'm sure mrlost was
not trying to be rude, but asking of someone is 'supposed to be funny' is a
real catch-22 situation. If they ARE supposed to be funny, and you're asking if
that's what they're trying to do, it implies that they're failing at being
funny because the audience isn't sure if it's a joke or not.
Implying that they are failing
isn’t fucking rude, dipshit. Maybe they shouldn’t be failing.
If they are supposed to be serious, however,
it's implying someone is trying to make a serious point and you're off to the
side laughing. It's a bit rude for any performer.
No, it means they need to work on
their presentation.
From JoeNotCharles:
It is certainly
possible to say things about people that aren't praise which are also not
personal attacks.
Yes, it is. And now I’ve had to go
and agree with JoeNotCharles. Which sucks.
This is JoeNotCharles asking 2097 a
question:
Can you explain why?
I find that attitude baffling.
This is 2097’s reply:
She works on the
world's most famous tabletop RPG, Dungeons & Dragons, along with the rest
of Wizards of the Coasts D&D team.
Which is a particularly stupid,
disconnected response. 2097 then goes on to say:
But I think it's
frustrating to see her being reviewed and examined in three threads in a row.
Which, in and of itself, if a
perfectly valid position, especially
taking into consideration previous threads on women in gaming. So why didn’t
2097 start with that instead of spewing the bullshit that they did? Because
2097 has the intellect of an inbred raccoon.
That’s also a fucking insult. Also,
we’re only at post #41 so far. And oh, look,
2097 doubles down:
Why insulting? It's
not the comedy that's the insult, it's the implied failure. Asking that of
someone serious, it's saying they failed at serious and instead is funny.
Asking that of someone funny, it's saying they failed at funny and instead is
boring.
Implied failure isn’t a fucking
insult. Either 2097 is trolling, amazingly stupid, or amazingly thin-skinned,
to the point where going outside might be like getting stabbed in the kidney.
God damn it, JoeNotCharles, stop making sense:
But people fail at
things all the time! How can there be any criticism, or discourse, or even just
conversation if it's always insulting just to approach the subject?
Indeed.
From 2097:
It bugs me to see
her singled out for a type of criticism we try hard to avoid on these boards.
You’re a fucking liar or moron.
Because that type of criticism isn’t avoided on these boards, because it’s
fucking criticism. What 2097 is trying to do is cast a genuine question into a
sexist light in order to shut the discussion down. Now it’s a subject that
could very easily veer off into that territory on its own. Doesn’t need a
moron’s help.
From medivh, also a lying fuckwad:
The title of this
thread is: "Shelly Mazzanoble is bad at her job. Please discuss."
No, it isn’t. But this says volumes
about what you and 2097 are trying to turn it into.
From 2097:
I also see it like
that. It wasn't the OP's intention but it's frustrating to see it.
It wasn’t the OP’s intention. It’s
also not what the OP fucking did you lying sack.
It sucks that geek
women have to be so damn perfect and representative for every presumtive future
geek woman.
Yes, it does. Except that’s not
what’s happening here. No one here is expecting that in any way.
I'm not saying it's
always an insult.
No, you lying fuck, that’s EXACTLY
WHAT YOU’VE BEEN FUCKING SAYING!
From medivh:
Sure is lucky I made
that claim nowhere.
That’s in response to someone
saying that medivh said this:
Furthermore, if
criticism can only exist at the invitation of the criticized it's not really
very useful.
This is what medivh said:
Uninvited by the
designer? Yes, I think I am making that
claim.
Does medivh not understand that we
can literally scroll up a couple of inches and see their words? Or is medivh
being the second most disingenuous poster in the thread? I’ll let you decide.
From 2097:
Maybe not this OP
Then stop trying to treat this thread
like it’s the other discussions you’re thinking of, you fuckwit.
From JoeNotCharles:
Does anyone else
always picture Shelley Mazzanoble as a drow?
Yes. It seems like a Drow sort of
name. Now here’s the reply from 2097:
Drow? She is a human
and I wrote as much in an early post in the thread.
Hol-ee sheeit
Reply from JoeNotCharles:
I, uh, wasn't
literally suggesting she was not human...
Rebuttal from 2097:
Well, she is.
Fuck me. Tell me 2097 isn’t a
fucking troll. Go ahead, try and convince me.
This thread brought the stupid and
brought it hard.
Gish question
OP by 2097:
Is the point to be
just as good at fighting as a fighter and just as good at magic-using as a
magic-user? It seems sometimes gish fans won't be happy until that's the case.
Gee, this in no way reads like
you’ve already got a position staked out and are trying to start a fight. No,
not at all.
From buggritall
they end up with is
something that's not much better than a fighter.
Reply by 2097:
But even if it's 1%
better than a fighter... why would then anyone be a fighter?
Again, convince me 2097 isn’t a
fucking troll.
GO ahead. I’m waiting.
20 posts later, from 2097:
That's why I'm
against gish
Hey, look at that, a position
staked out and ready to fight over. Now here’s where there is a problem with
the boards. Used to be, this kind of inept trolling (and make no mistake, it is
inept) would have been pounced on and shredded by the other posters. But the
moderation has become such that this kind of bullshit flies every fucking day.
"Roll to determine how sexually satisfied the countess
is." Or, how you handle sex.
Well, there’s no way this thread
can go real stupid real fast, is there?
Here’s the OP:
Another point where
I'm curious, as this ranges wide across different groups. How, in the RPGs you
play, do you approach sex and sexuality? I hear the 'fade to black' method
quite a bit. But does that encompass everyone's approach?
I'd like to hear
your take.
On its face, an innocuous question
that could be legit (it’s not; the OP is a troll). And my reply is usually fade
to black. Unless rolling dice would be funnier. Though I do appreciate one
poster’s suggestion that such scenes should be handled by busting out the Jenga
tower.
Sex is a
transitional zone between what really matters
Uh, then you’re not doing the
sexing right.
I guess I had a bad taste in my mouth from dealing with teenagers while running D&D games back in
the day.
That . . . that was on purpose,
right? It had to be. And yet somehow,
no one touched on that line. I am disappoint.
What are the absolute worst examples of racism or sexism you've
seen in published RPG books?
I’m sure this will start as and
remain a completely calm, rational discussion.
No, FATAL and RaHoWa
don't count - we all know about them already.
. . . Why would you ask us to take
a scantron test and then break all of our pencils?
That one is history,
not sexism. Firearms have equalized the situation somewhat but there are no two
ways about it, physical strength matters and men have more of it on average.
Besides that, you need fewer males to sustain a population through reproduction
so they're more expendable. And that's before even getting into cultural mores
which mostly have discouraged (to say the least) the use of women on the front
lines.
Le sigh . . . that’s post #3 ladies
and gentlemen. Brought to you by Luca.
And refuted in post #4.
Two posts from Yora:
The worst thing I
can think of is that the Spears of the Dawn setting uses an African style and
consists of five local groups who have border conflicts after the empire fell
apart in a civil war. I wouldn't personally put an Africa style setting in a
postcolonial discord situation, though the former empire being one of the five
local groups and a native one somewhat mitigates that.
Because civil war is
a contemporary problem of some African countries that directly results from
European meddling and systematic destruction of the local social order. It's in
no way representative of African culture.
Of course they had
situations like that before the colonial empires threw everything into chaos,
just like any other region of the world had. But when you think about a fantasy
setting inspired by medieval Africa, the first thing that comes to mind as a
possible theme should not be "civil war". Now the way everything is
handled in detail is much less problematic and much more diverse. But black
people having civil wars is like having Asians who are criminal masterminds and
eat lots of rice, or Indians with feather headdresses dancing around a totem
pole. Making a rare fringe case the universal archetype is one of the key
elements of racism.
Yora must be a lot of fun at
parties where they try to explain things but are wrong all the time.
The portrayal of
Drow as Caucasians in blackface.
And this simple line spurs
discussion that comes to mostly dominate the thread. And yes, there are some
problems with the written and visual portrayal of the Drow.
Now, I don’t know if I’ll be able
to cover the whole thread. It’s 1348 posts long.
I thought this
thread was more about comforting each other from all of the horrible shit we've
stumbled into,
Again, 2097, that’s because you’re stupid.
I vaguely recall
that the remaining 'pure' white group were basically a pack of racist
arseholes, too.
That’s in reference to the Suloise
in Greyhawk. And yes, a bunch of them are Nazi Kung Fu Monks, grouped as The
Scarlet Brotherhood. But the Suloise are also found in the North with a pretty
pure bloodline, but those are just faux Vikings. So they aren’t all Nazi Kung Fu Monks.
Shoot. Now I want to run a Northern
Greyhawk game based on Vikings . . .
From 2097 (yes, again):
Kevin, for what it's
worth, I don't think Spears of the Dawn belongs on a list of "what's the
absolute worst you've seen". I think it's an interesting game
This reply by 2097 tells us pretty
surely that they are either a troll or just stupid, because they’re either
ignoring or simply don’t understand “worst you've
seen”. In case this isn’t clear, whether or not you think it’s an interesting
game has ZERO bearing on whether or not it contains the worst examples of
racism or sexism that someone else has seen.
1+1=2 for fuck’s sake.
but I recall it
included extra statistics for female NPCs, up to and including breast
measurements.
And they aren’t talking about FATAL
. . . damn.
This is from Greedo, join date April, 2015, 81 posts at the time of posting
this:
Reading through this
thread, it seems like almost every game create is "problematic" if it
includes a whiff of the real-world.
No shit, Sherlock. Says something
about the world, doesn’t it?
No mention of the
1st edition AD&D capping of female strength beneath that of males? I
figured that one would make the top 20.
That’s from a jackass who recently
started a thread about that very subject in order to defend the practice and
got smacked way the fuck down. This is them being petulant losers.
Space Marines can
only be male because of the Geneseed.
...My girlfriend cannot
play a Space Marine.
Sadness.
Uh, yes, she can. She may choose
not to because of the gender restriction (which is a stupid element), but she
absolutely can. Why are you implying that your girlfriend is incapable of
making a choice?
In a surprising development,
I'd just like to
take this opportunity to say that what's been said about CthulhuTech in this
thread is a) absolutely correct, and b) indefensible. My previous statements on
the subject are similarly indefensible.
That’s from one of the people who
worked on CTech. Props, martian_bob.
From MGibster:
It's no worse than
Slayers being restricted to women in Buffy to me.
This isn’t worth addressing,
because he’s being deliberately obtuse and trolling. Being a deliberately
obtuse troll is pretty much all MGibster does. Because he’s a shitstain. In
addition to intentionally missing the point of both Buffy and Warhammer 40K, he’s ignoring BtVS canon.
Still from MGibster:
It's true that
they're not the same but they each have one thing in common: A ridiculous and
arbitrary reason restricting certain abilities to one sex exclusively.
See again how it is deliberately
lying? There is nothing ridiculous or arbitrary about either one.
From Ragitsumitsu, a master at being deliberately obtuse. His entire
posting career is built on it.
Are we ready for a
male Sailor Senshi squad? Oh yes, we most definitely are.
He thinks he’s scored some sort of
“HaH! You’re the real sexists here!” point, because he doesn’t realize that
1. Yes, we are ready
2. Tuxedo Mask is already
From Victim:
A story restriction
created by the author for a work with specific characters seems quite a bit
different from a game where people are expected to create their own characters.
It is quite a bit different. That’s why you can change it for your game.
If you want male Slayers or female Space Marines, literally nothing is stopping you from doing so in
your game. But that doesn’t mean it
should be an option in an official licensed product. Also, don’t think it means
you’re still actually playing BtVS or Warhammer.
Then there’s daniel_ream who spends the next lots of fucking pages trying to
make a point by comparing BtVS and some other unnamed program. He fails.
Completely and utterly.
There’s also a weird tangent about
a throwaway line in one of the X-Men movies, started and continued by Rachel Cartacos, who is painfully
stupid.
Her post in reference to the finale
of BtVS:
Irritated me too,
especially since they'd spent so long describing the Slayer powers as a curse,
forced on innocent women by men without their permission...
And then suddenly
doing the same to thousands of women in the finale is empowering.
That’s a pretty awesome job of
completely failing to understand the media you’ve consumed.
There’s also an argument going on
that combines the X-Men argument and the Warhammer argument, into one about
genetics. We’re only in the 300s of post numbers so far by the way.
And oh goodie, here comes Infinite Pattern, join date January
2014, post count at this time: 157, with this original thought:
If you dislike
gender-based discrimination, the correct answer isn't to create more
discrimination. We should be breaking down all the X Only Clubs.
Wahhh! Talking about racism just
creates more racism! Talking about sexism just creates more sexism! Wah! Why
can’t we approach the problems from my White Cis Male position of never having
to deal with them but knowing what’s best? Wahhh!
Oh, hey, look, here’s oggsmash (who you’ll recall has already
been repeatedly smacked down for his sexism) again:
It would appear not
to be the case in this thread. Warhammer is decried, while Buffy is forgiven.
Wow, it’s like he hasn’t actually
read the thread. Or, more likely, is being deliberately obtuse in order to try
and score reverse sexism points. Those are things that sexist shitheels try to
score. Now he’s less articulate about it than Infinite Pattern is, but make no
mistake, they’re doing the same god damn thing. To wit, from Infinite Pattern:
I don't accept that
privileging any group is a good thing.
That’s not what’s happening. IP
knows this. But he’s using an old, amazingly unoriginal tactic to try and score
points.
I'm surprised that
the thread has gotten this far with no mention of Shadowrun. Orks and Trolls
can be seen as mapping to certain U.S. minorities- at least in the older
editions. I haven't read the newer ones.
Yes, they can. That’s so you can
deal with those themes in games in a way that’s slightly more comfortable than
if your game has all of the black people rounded up in a ghetto.
Holy crap, people are still arguing
Warhammer and genetics and shit. It is producing some nifty 40K pictures
though.
From Cessna, an admin who seems to basically be an alright guy, but
really, really needs to step away from the forums for a while:
Ah, well. It was a
good, productive thread while it lasted.
Spoken like someone who didn’t
start reading the thread at the beginning, but only when 40K came up.
Oh hey look, Rachel Cartacos got a thread ban. I’m not surprised, but I am
surprised she got one before so many others.
The perils of user-reported posts and uneven moderation I suppose. Almost to post #500, and still arguing about 40k and X-Men genetics.
Because I am always
going to look kinda sideways at people who choose to add piles and piles of
ridiculously fantastical elements and introduce entire new societies to a
historical setting while defending the exclusionary elements as sacrosanct- even though nothing else seems to have
received that zealous protection.
In-fucking A-deed. Amazing how
often that seems to be the case.
From oggsmash:
So male slayers and
female space marines are the order of the day? Sounds good to me
I appreciate your dedication to
your shtick of being a deliberately obtuse shithead.
From Monkey to the Fleet Savant:
If a writer wants to
write a strict historical game, then they should also take care on their
research - historical societies were as complex entities as our modern ones,
and they do not map directly to our understanding of roles and prohibitions.
Indeed. That actually goes back to
what someone else said about how people will add all kinds of shit, but then
sexist and racist historical notions are sacrosanct. Not only are some
historical “facts” forbidden to change, those “facts” are often 100% wrong.
It’s a case of the person being both ignorant and hateful.
And now we’ve reached the part of
the thread where it’s 98% about Warhammer, and I’m zoning out because I don’t
know much about, or play 40k. The tech is cool looking. No, wait, now there’s a
tangent forming about the etymology of the words “man” and “woman”.
I literally just facepalmed. And I
mean literally in the literal sense. Face to palm. Why? Because Cessna said:
Because, bluntly,
gender restrictions in a game of pretend are bullshit.
To which, in post # 62-fucking-4, Black Vulmea replied with:
Do you extend this
to games and campaigns set in our own world's history?
Holy fuck, folks. This is why it helps to read a thread,
even if it’s the length of a novella, before you say something. You might just
save yourself from looking like a complete fucking moron. I mean, you might
not, but you improve the odds.
And here’s oggsmash with his special brand of insight (into his own anal
cavity):
I am guessing the
whole space marines as only men thing comes from some sort of attempt to
reflect the populations of the top special forces teams in the world (the
SEALs, SAS, etc) and there are no women in them, and likely, without some
changes to training and standards, never will be.
Uh, you might want to do some
research there, chief. Also, don’t go into a career as a fortune teller. And since, even when someone pointed out hey
females in the Rangers, you went on and on about but never in the SEALS
Oh, Christ, dude, just shut the
fuck up. From oggsmash, yet again:
No, but pull ups are
still pull ups, and are more a product of strength than endurance.
And you know who is likely to have
a superior strength-to-mass ration? A woman who is actually interested in
joining the fucking SEALS. You know, those people you claim to know a few of?
Oh, and there’s the threadban for
oggsmash.
At the time - the
early 80's - the fact that she wasn't clutching a barbarian's leg or chained to
a sacrificial altar was impressive
True dat.
Now, in the 700s, we seem to have
reached the part of the thread where people took the middle and buried it out
in the desert because it was inconveniently in the way.
From Yora, who so far, has proven to be a bit of a dipshit:
I don't think I ever
identified with any fictional character. What does that even mean?
That’s so stupid it makes me wonder
if Yora and 2097 are sockpuppets for the same person.
From MGibster:
I'm not affiliated
with GamerGate
I have my doubts.
Couldn't really see
it either, but agree that the perspective in the shot seems a bit wonky and the
pose is a bit stiff.
That’s because for all his work,
Elmore wasn’t actually very good with people. Though he’s 100 times better than
that one guy who did a shitload of Palladium work. No, no Kevin S. Elmore is
1000 times better than Kevin S. Maybe Kevin Long is who I’m thinking of?
but I really don't
think it makes it "the absolute worst example of ... sexism" in an
RPG book, y'know?
But if the person’s been really
lucky, it just might. Because, again,
we don’t get to decide what the worst example someone else has seen is. Crazy,
I know.
There’s also a multi-part argument
about some German word and umlauts.
From Yora:
As my history
teacher said: "There is no such thing as an american anti-war movie."
Oh. So you learned how to be stupid
from your history teacher then. Okay.
Y'know, I can
certainly say that I like this one less than the one where she's up and kicking
ass with her giant mace, but -- again, this is just my opinion -- but this one
still isn't even in the same ballpark as "absolute worst sexism
ever," to me.
Oh god damn it, Critias, you’re a
smart guy. You more than many should know it might not be to you, but it might
be to someone else. Fuck dude, are you intentionally trying to troll now? I
didn’t even know the character in these pictures had a name.
From JamesCat, a really smart person whose opinion I actually respect,
and an admin:
But racism, unlike
war, isn't inherently awesome on film.
Neither is war, and that’s
officially the most stupid thing you’ve ever said. Also, we’re in the low 900s
now, and while the Warhammer tangent has taken a break, the German word one is
still going pretty strong.
Yay! AilphanG has entered the thread! AilphanG is well-known for saying
deeply stupid shit, but from a more leftist view.
Yes, George Lucas is
racist.
Shine on, you crazy diamond! Nice
to get some new blood up in here.
From Cessna, on same subject:
I think it is fair
to say his choice of characters is staggeringly tone-deaf, to use a bad
analogy. It seems as if he's disconnected from any reality that is not his own,
and doesn't react well when this is pointed out.
Far more accurate, and pretty
common to people who get stupidly rich and successful. Oh, right, by the way,
the topic seems to have shifted to the Star Wars prequels as we enter the 1000s.
From VictorVonDoom, who is, most of the time, an asshole, but to his
credit, he’s sticking with his Doom shtick:
When some people say
"realistic", it seems to mean "how I pictured it in my head when
I was growing up"
Holy shit. That might be the most
correct thing posted in these 1067 posts. I think he might win the thread for
that one.
From Maarzan:
I would be
interested to read what would be the opinion if the school beat up picture would
have been with inverted roles of 2 white bullies hitting on a black geek? Would
it have been better all white or all black? With the general theme violence
would be probably a given. Ok, A mixed group of aggressors would probably be
OK, but what color should the single victim have then to be PC?
. . . It would be more useful to
have a discussion with the shit I dropped this morning than with you.
From Bankuei, a 12 year poster whose name I don’t recognize:
However, my point is
this: you don't get that much racism "by accident". There has to be
intent, either at the top or at the top and all the way through.
Uh, yeah, you actually do. You
should hush up about subjects on which you’re ignorant.
People love to hate.
Ayup. It’s like second nature.
And now we’ve spun back around to
talking about Drow . . .
And now Darrin Kelley, a particularly stupid person, has entered the
thread:
Everything I have
referred to in this thread is actually real comic book industry history
No, no it isn’t. Not even fucking
close, you inbred stain.
Frederick Wertham
was a scapegoat.
Uh, no he wasn’t. See folks? See
what happens when you let brothers and sisters procreate with each other? You
get Darrin.
Awwww, a picture of an adorably surprised
koala!
From Zombo, based on a new tangent in the thread:
Which is fine, and I
don't argue with your right to do so, but do the publishers also have a right
to sell their product, whether or not you, I or the whole of RPG.net like it or
not?
Well of course they do. That’s a
stupid question. But they in no way have the right to sell their product
through any storefront they want to.
I always get nervous
about the restriction of materials, because those restrictions can be taken to
the extreme (and something that someone published is likely going to offend
someone else, somewhere, at some time).
Same old bullshit argument. No one
is restricting the materials, you shit fuck. There is no slippery slope here,
just people deciding what to do with their business.
From Unka Josh, in response to Zombo:
Basically, the
argument that I should consider, even for a moment, not complaining about a
game that's all about rape is a stupid, shitty argument rooted in idiotic false
equivalences, in absurd slippery slopes, in a fucking ludicrous notion that we
must tolerate the very worst of humanity, to encourage it by tolerating it,
because somehow, under some insane circumstances, someone might... might what?
Somehow equate consumers complaining about that pile of festering feces to
license to censor anything anyone dislikes for any reason.
The argument you
have advanced here is shitty and dumb, and I reject it entirely.
Well, there’s really nothing I can
add to that.
From someone else unrelated:
...They still have
Waldenbooks?
Do they? I have no idea. To be
honest, I’m not even sure where I can find an actual bookstore anymore without
googling that shit. No idea if any are around, let alone Waldenbooks, which I
don’t think I’ve seen in 20 years.
From San Dee Jota in response to
this:
“Sure, but private
distributors also have a right to not carry someone else's product, a right
that DriveThru RPG has enacted before, arguably against a much less offensive
product.”
On the flipside, a
person -could- sue DTRPG for discrimination.
Well, San, they could certainly try. The case would never make it
anywhere since “author” isn’t a protected class.
From San:
I don't think a
court could dismiss discrimination out of hand.
You’re wrong. No, I mean it. You’re
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. You’re so wrong, I can’t’ even make a joke out of it.
You have absolutely not one single fucking clue about what you are talking
about. Stop thinking you know things because you watch L&O.
Still from San:
but when you're
refusing to lend someone a megaphone knowing their voice won't be heard without
it, can you still say you truly support free speech?
Uh . . . yeah, you can.
Congratulations to San Dee Jota, who, in a mere handful of posts, has trumped
every other person in this thread in the arena of being deliberately obtuse. I mean in 2, 3 posts, he’s gone from not
understanding law and discrimination to not understanding law, discrimination,
censorship, freedom of speech, possession, obligation, and basic rights.
I mean that shit’s impressive.
If absolutely no one
is willing to let you have a bullhorn, this implies one of two things:
a) Bullhorn
ownership has become concentrated in a very few number of people, in which case
the problem isn't a free speech problem, it's a monopoly problem, or
b) Absolutely no one
wants to listen to you, in which case the problem is probably you.
Heh. Yup. This is in reply to
Strange Visitor, who frequently likes to play Libertarian Slippery Slope
Devil’s Advocate.
Someone else appended:
c) A systemic bias
exists against you.
Also true.
I think what’s going on now is that
Strange Visitor is upset that San Dee Jota yanked the Deliberately Obuse crown
so hard, that he’s determined to take it away.
Annnnd there’s Strange Visitor’s
thread ban.
Which is the last interesting thing
to happen in this long and painfully stupid thread. In which, if you can get
past all of the shitheels, you learn that holy shit, there’s been a lot of racism and sexism in games. Some
of it is subtle, some not. Most of it was probably unintentional, but some of
that shit had to be intentional. And it’s an ongoing issue, but seems to be
slowly getting better.
is there any way to salvage the animated clips from song of the
south?
Heck if I know. I can’t speak to
the movie without doing so from a position that is 98% ignorant.
More interesting to
me is the question of whether Song of the South is really that much more of a
problem than Dumbo.
I don’t know. But where Dumbo is problematic, it’s really problematic.
Concerning the crows in Dumbo, from
Arilou, a complete dipshit:
The interesting
point there is that I suspect that if you didn't know about it, most people
wouldn't be able to tell: The stereotypes of "negro slang" and
accents has just moved on.
Only if you’re both really young
and pretty ignorant.
Something that I ponder every time
it comes up is that even though I spent time as a racist skinhead, when I see
the word “Sambo”, I think of the Russian martial art first.
Does Birth of a Nation actually have good cinematography?
Don’t know. Don’t know enough about
film to really say. I know that it was somehow important technically.
From AlphaWhelp, another moron who frequents the forums:
I've never seen the
film, and have always felt that its success and award is mostly attributable to
racists patting racists on the back and giving racists awards for doing racist
things, but I'm wondering if the movie actually contributed anything to the advancement
of film making in general.
In other words, like me, you’re
completely ignorant on the subject, but unlike me, you’re going to go ahead and
spout some utterly unsupported bullshit. So . . . ignorant spouting. SoP for
you.
And here’s MrDTWX, join date January 2015, being incredibly stupid and dense
on the subject:
I really doubt Birth
Of A Nation holds that much modern cinematic. I can't exactly imagine John
Singleton or Robert Rodriguez sitting down studying it to be frank. I'm sure
there was a time where it was relevant but I don't tjhink ir's now. Hell, I'm
mot even sure Spielberg has seen it or that he enjoyed it if he did.
I’m pretty sure you’re 100% wrong.
And by pretty sure, I mean 99% sure. I’m
100% sure you’re a dumb ass though.
From the same dipshit until I say
otherwise:
I'm really debating
if Robert Rodriguez has seen Birth Of A nation.
No, you’re not. The word you’re
looking for is “doubting” and even then, you’re still most likely to be wrong
wrong wrong.
Like I don't get Birth
Of A Nation vibes from Desperado. .
And this is where I realized that
you’re most likely a troll, because if you were actually this stupid, you’d not
be able to work a keyboard.
I'm a hundred
percent sure Singleton has not seen it though. At least I hope so. That would
be awkward and terrible like real bad.
Yeppers, troll.
As someone not huge
into film but who LOVES Kane, in what possible why?
Because at the end of the day, it’s
not an entertaining film for a lot of people.
To be honest I think
70's films on average are harder to watch than 40's films for pacing reasons
I agree with this, especially
having watched (or rewatched) a lot of 70s flicks over the last year. There is
a consistency to the pacing that must have just been the fashion, and it’s
really fucking slow. It makes several movies that should be awesome and renders
them Eh, that killed a lot of time.
Advice for a new female player
This is from new poster and player,
Ava:
I'm very excited to
be playing Dungeons & Dragons for the first time tonight! I will be playing
with my brother (DM) and his friends.
Hi new female player!
I am a huge fan of
the Godsfall D&D podcasts,
I don’t know what that is. I’m not
a podcast person.
Any advice for a new
player and/or insight into females players in general would be greatly
appreciated.
Fire solves lots of problems, in
game and out. Uh, also, have fun!
Still Ava:
I've been
researching a lot on the internet (about female D&D players) and found it
to be quite a touchy subjects with both female and male players. It's
definitely an interesting debate to follow!
. . . Uh, it’s not really a debate.
Still from Ava:
More like: people who think there's sexism vs people who don't, people who think males are the root cause of said sexism vs. people who think women and/or those who "represent" the female D&D player population (see Shelly Mazzanoble) bring it upon themselves by playing up female stereotypes.
More like: people who think there's sexism vs people who don't, people who think males are the root cause of said sexism vs. people who think women and/or those who "represent" the female D&D player population (see Shelly Mazzanoble) bring it upon themselves by playing up female stereotypes.
Hrmmmm, what’s this faint tingling
at the back of my head?
Oh, for a nice interlude, here is Sir Nathan, a stupid little shit:
Sexism does happen,
but it's not as common as a lot of people would like to believe. And it's not
just men being sexist against women; anyone can be sexist against any sex,
including his own.
There’s nothing for me to say to
that. It really does speak for itself.
And there’s Sir Nathan’s threadban.
And here’s brand new poster (join
date August 2015) Zardnaar. I see a long posting career in his future. Just not
on these boards:
Dont start threads
advertising you are female? I guess you have had some PMs by now?
And that’s his edited post.
I hope Ava is genuine and grows to
enjoy the hobby. But there’s still a tingling in the base of my skull . . .
Help Me Understand: Cthulhu and the RPG Industry
Why? Why, why, why?
Why do people want to cram, remix, and tether Cthulhu into every RPG setting
known to man?
Because the Mythos is like Nazis; bad
guys you can kill with no real moral quandary. Also, a lot of that shit is free
to use.
So now you're canonizing
all this other lore written by an independent author in his own world is part
of your setting? How... tired.
So . . . you’re pretty much 100%
ignorant of the author, the Mythos and everything involved. Gotcha.
Maybe I have a
double standard. For some reason, plugging Cthulhu into settings seems a bigger
crime to me than yanking Tolkien's tall, graceful elves or mythology's
minotaurs, sirens and whatnot. Am I wrong to categorize Cthulhu differently
than those? How so?
Yes, you are. Figure it out
yourself. If you actually care (which
I suspect you do not).
Help me understand.
What's the deal with this industry and wanting to make Cthulhu canon in
otherwise completely original works? Why is this mythos so appealing that
everyone wants to tack it onto their setting?
I’m not going to help you
understand shit. I’m not your parents, I’m not your teacher. Want me to help
you understand something? Hand over the fucking money first.
From neutrondecay:
Lovecraft has his
moments, but he was a deeply parochial, poisonously racist little man with a
wilfully archaic prose style. It's deeply tedious to see such an odious man's
work turn up as soft toys, bobbleheads, and as material for RPGs in fairly
different genres with their own internal mythologies.
Wow, 12 posts before we got here.
New record?
From ninthworld:
I find it really
useful when people criticize the prose of Lovecraft or Tolkien. It tells me
they have absolutely nothing valuable to say about literature.
I find it really useful when you
post. It tells me you have nothing valuable to say. Period.
Oh hey, there’s ninthworld’s
threadban and a three-day ban. A few days later, they’ll pick up a 7 day ban
in a different thread.
Roman Polanski had
sex with an underage girl who said "no" and begged him to stop.
Clearly I missed a post somewhere.
From relatively new poster (join
date July 2015) Tod13:
I sometimes feel the
whole over-concern with any possibility of racism in Lovecraft's writing simply
highlights how good he was at highlighting and creating horror. It's a lot
easier to "deal with" whatever horror his writing brings out by
concentrating on stuff outside the writing, rather than dealing with the
visceral horror he brings out
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahaha.
That’s comedy.
The New Female Player Thread
That's such a great
thread, full of amazing advice.
It's a shame, if
perhaps sadly inevitable, that a few folks post inappropriate stuff, and the
mods are forced to post red text in response.
The posts and the
red text are distracting and dominating, not to mention 'emotion-inducing', to
me at least.
So I'd like to
suggest something radical, this would be a one-off only:
Remove all the
errant posts and resulting red text to a separate thread, maybe in the
Infraction forum. Keep a link to the new thread in the original one.
That’s from Motorskills. Here’s a
tip; if Motorskills suggests it, promotes it, defends it, whatever, you should
ignore him.
In other words, fuck that guy.
Ok I Admit It: I Don't Like Star Wars
Okay, CanoeMan, good for you. You
know that doesn’t make you special , different, or unique, right?
I Want to Like American Horror Story....
I wanted to like it too. I did not.
It might work better if it was only 7 or 8 episodes so that they had to tighten
up their storytelling.
[OSR] What is wrong with commercialization?
This is from poster newish poster crimthan (May 2015), who quickly proved
to be an asshole, and IMO, a sock:
Over in the OSRIC
thread, I was reading where someone was objecting to the
"commercialization" of the OSR. Would someone please explain what is
wrong with someone selling their work? It seems to me that 1) most of the OSR
rule sets are free and 2) that most of the products generated from those rule
sets are free. 3) But even if all of those things were produced to be sold, I
do not understand what the problem is with that. No one has forced me to buy
anything and to the best of my knowledge no one else has been forced to buy
anything either.
So long as they have the legal
right to sell it, I don’t’ see any problem with them doing so. But some folks
(rightly or wrongly) believe in the “purity” of things and think that selling
those things corrupts the purity. Makes no sense, but there it is.
From Airos (Aug 2014):
In a generic sense,
I can think of two situations under which I would object to commercialization.
* If you are
selling, for profit, something that is legally available elsewhere for free and
does not contain a significant portion of original work or is not a compilation
of resources that would otherwise be difficult to obtain in a collected
package.
In early/mid 2001,
there was a formatted, published, hardcover SRD on the shelf of my local FLGS
for ~$20-25. Personally, I felt that was in poor taste. The publisher certainly
was allowed to produce and sell the SRD, but it was a product that made me
shake my head nonetheless.
That’s stupid, Airos. If people want
to buy a faux-leather bound copy of the SRD instead of relying on an
online-only gotta print it yourself copy, and it’s legal for that hardcopy to
be sold, that’s okay.
If the original
author(s) provide a free product, then taking that free product in whole and
turning it into a commercial product, to me, is in bad taste.
That just means you’re stupid, and
surprisingly whiny about the subject.
From 2097:
I don't really
understand jokes.
It’s not just jokes that you don’t
understand. It’s, well, it’s tons of shit.
Still from 2097:
From this reader's
perspective, having the work be freely copyable and remixable is (almost
strictly) better than having it be locked on the page.
From this creator's
perspective, I worry about getting food on the table as I dig myself deeper
into debt. Not meant as a sob story just as a curiosity: that market capitalism
was invented prior to large-scale electronic copying and distribution of
information. And maybe it's time for some patches, or some wholly new way, to
solve how we distribute goods and chores. Or maybe things will sort themselves
out somehow
If you’re a creator, you’re screwed. You don’t have the
intellect for the task at hand.
From keehnelf:
Zak S. particularly
is an attention addict, but he creates some great products.
Zak S is certainly an attention
whore. That half of your statement is correct. So correct, there is no correct
left for the second half of your statement.
I guess I would consider
him the Kenneth Branagh of roleplaying (only with less of a sense of humor
about himself).
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahaha.
From Sleeper:
I don't really care
about creators. Nobody needs them. This is a hobby where I can buy one book and
one book alone and play with it for 30 years.
Ummm, you do grok that someone created that one fucking book,
right? I’ve read some deeply stupid shit today, but so far, this is in the lead
for most fucking stupid.
From Airos again:
And when someone
doesn't have the rights to sell what they are trying to sell, I find it
objectionable. My point wasn't any more complex than that.
Except that they did (and still
have) the right to sell it. That was your
entire fucking complaint, dipshit.
From Crom vs. Arioch:
I think it is
somewhat unethical to charge for a set of rules that is largely just OD&D
or AD&D reheated. These are older games that belong to the community
It is not, and they do not. Both
positions are fucking stupid.
The rest of the thread is basically
long-winded bullshit.
