Poll of the Day > Mobile Suit Geekdam: Geek vs Zeta Geek

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I_Abibde
09/02/18 8:16:21 AM
#101:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
I feel like I'd go out of my way to push him back, and actively point out that the game is a group effort. Then if he still keeps pushing that way, then just murder his PC and/or boot him from the game.


In response to your whole post (because I generally quote a line to indicate that I am responding to you in particular): As tempting as that is, I have already had to eject one player for being intolerable in a different way (i.e. always going off from the group to do his own thing, actively screwing with the other players, continually trying to munchkin via D&D Beyond, constant metagaming, etc.). If I keep doing that, the group will be too small to continue play. ... Hell, the original DM had to leave because of a new job. I un-retired myself to act as a replacement.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/02/18 11:56:16 AM
#102:


Zeus posted...
the concept of good motives vs bad ones -- ie, a selfish motive negates a good deed -- which is something that's occasionally been discussed during the usual alignment talks

In a universe where morality is objective, and omniscient powers can know exactly what you were thinking when you did something, intent absolutely trumps results. And even in the real world, "evil" people can do good things for "evil" reasons.

Some people divide the alignment axis between morals (Good/Evil) and ethics (Law/Chaos), but I prefer to think of it more as Motive (Good/Evil) and Method (Law/Chaos). Motive is why you do what you do - Method is how you do what you do.

In that sense, intent vs outcome can be reflected in Alignment (ie, your evil intent makes your Alignment Evil, but achieving your ends via legal and beneficial means makes you Lawful instead of Chaotic). In the same way, if you're willing to do "bad" things in order to accomplish noble goals, you're pushing towards Chaotic Good (unless you're just using noble motives as an excuse to be a shitty person, in which case you're into Knight Templar or Well-Intentioned Extremist territory, and "Good" starts shifting towards "Neutral", or even potentially "Evil").

As I've mentioned in the past, I also tend to see the Good/Evil axis as a question of selfless/selfish/sadistic, but when combined with the above, it also has elements of "the ends justify the means" (the more Evil outlook) versus "the means determine the ends" (the Good outlook).


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Zeus
09/02/18 1:06:51 PM
#103:


Oh, when I was wiki'ing Tiya Sircar (who plays a kinda spoiler character on the show), I learned that she VA'd Sabine Wren in SW: Rebels and SW: Forces of Destiny so now I'm kinda more looking forward to eventually watching those.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
In a universe where morality is objective, and omniscient powers can know exactly what you were thinking when you did something, intent absolutely trumps results. And even in the real world, "evil" people can do good things for "evil" reasons.


Well, the kinda problem there is that the universe has *multiple* morality systems running at once, including consequentialism, which is tied into another major plot twist where good intentions aren't enough. I think it's more a matter of the creators just playing around with moral philosophy for humor.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/02/18 1:19:22 PM
#104:


Zeus posted...
Well, the kinda problem there is that the universe has *multiple* morality systems running at once, including consequentialism, which is tied into another major plot twist where good intentions aren't enough. I think it's more a matter of the creators just playing around with moral philosophy for humor.

Not really. In a universe where some power or force exists to define objective morality, there's only ONE moral system, and by definition it's both true and all-encompassing.

In the real world, the problem is subjectivity - because no absolute principle exists (at least as far as we can prove or agree on), no absolute morality exists. Morality is thus a social contract, and different social groups/cultures form different social contracts, and thus, different (often conflicting) morality systems come into being, with no overarching authority to say that one is more "correct" than another (apart from ethnocentrism, which is how humans usually solve that particular problem).

In D&D though, it's explicitly spelled out that "THIS IS HOW THINGS WORK, AND FUCK YOU IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE." So Alignment is pretty much a fundamental and non-arbitrary force within the universe itself.


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The Wave Master
09/02/18 4:38:49 PM
#105:


Veronica Mars looking old, no way. She married Dax Shepherd, has two kids, and is pushing 40. Of course she is going to show a little age, come on sir. I assume marrying Dax Shepherd would add +15 to every category, including Stress and Age, which go hand in hand.

But I do like The Good Place.

Sorry about the "Amoral" "Inmoral" fiasco. At least it's not about puddles.
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Zeus
09/02/18 10:22:40 PM
#106:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
Zeus posted...
Well, the kinda problem there is that the universe has *multiple* morality systems running at once, including consequentialism, which is tied into another major plot twist where good intentions aren't enough. I think it's more a matter of the creators just playing around with moral philosophy for humor.

Not really. In a universe where some power or force exists to define objective morality, there's only ONE moral system, and by definition it's both true and all-encompassing.

In the real world, the problem is subjectivity - because no absolute principle exists (at least as far as we can prove or agree on), no absolute morality exists. Morality is thus a social contract, and different social groups/cultures form different social contracts, and thus, different (often conflicting) morality systems come into being, with no overarching authority to say that one is more "correct" than another (apart from ethnocentrism, which is how humans usually solve that particular problem).

In D&D though, it's explicitly spelled out that "THIS IS HOW THINGS WORK, AND FUCK YOU IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE." So Alignment is pretty much a fundamental and non-arbitrary force within the universe itself.



I'm specifically referring to the universe of the show where there *is* a higher power, peoples' lives are evaluated, and the the kind of evaluation is oddly selective and can vary.

The Wave Master posted...
Veronica Mars looking old, no way.


She's definitely getting up there.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/03/18 1:50:39 AM
#107:


Zeus posted...
I'm specifically referring to the universe of the show where there *is* a higher power, peoples' lives are evaluated, and the the kind of evaluation is oddly selective and can vary.

Yes, and I was mostly talking about D&D since you brought up alignment.

But even in a system where evaluation is oddly selective and can vary, the presumption is that there is still an objective force making those decisions, and which acts as the ultimate arbiter. That's not really competing systems as much as it is one system that has a whimsical judge.

There's also the argument that said judgements aren't really arbitrary at all, and that they're just being judged by standards far beyond human understanding, but that's an entirely different discussion.


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The Wave Master
09/03/18 10:02:55 AM
#108:


Under a damn tropical Storm warning. Tropical storm Gordon formed in the Gulf last night, and it seems as if we are going to get a direct hit sometime tomorrow.

I have dialysis in the morning. Super early as usual, six thirty central time, and so that isn't an issue at all. The real concern is Scarlett has to be af work at 12:15 and gets off at 8:15, right when the weather is supposed to be at its worse. This creates 2 scenarios...

1. I am going to be home alone with all the kitty cats during the storm, and she is going to be stuck at work and unable to get back to me because of road flooding and 60mph winds and rain.

2. She is able to leave early and able to be here with the cats and I, and we ride the storm out together.

Now the problem with scenario 2 is that she works at a casino. The Mississippi gaming commission has to shut down the casino, and not the casino itself. This is good and bad because the Gaming Commission doesn't care about money, but only the safety of the people working at the casino. It's bad because the casino doesn't care about anything but making money, meaning they will stay open until the very last minute risking the lives and well being of people for a profit.

Believe it or not morons love to gamble, and some even like to gamble during hurricanes. People are dumb, and because people are weak and dumb, my family suffers.

I hope eveeurging turns out fine, but who knows, but I will keep you updated.
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Zeus
09/03/18 3:07:33 PM
#109:


The Wave Master posted...
Under a damn tropical Storm warning. Tropical storm Gordon formed in the Gulf last night, and it seems as if we are going to get a direct hit sometime tomorrow.


tbh, this year has had a relatively quiet hurricane season for the NE (although we got a tornado which more than made up for it)
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ifnsman
09/03/18 3:09:02 PM
#110:


This thread's title just makes me think of the trend of Gundam protagonists usually being either engineering geeks or talented pilots.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/03/18 3:32:58 PM
#111:


Zeus posted...
tbh, this year has had a relatively quiet hurricane season for the NE (although we got a tornado which more than made up for it)

We usually get our hurricanes later, though. Sandy hit NJ in October, and the one we had hit a while back landed in South Jersey towards the end of September (I know because I was in Wildwood at the time).

But we usually don't have as much trouble with hurricanes here anyway as much as we do Nor'easters, and those tend to happen in Fall/Winter as well.


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WhiskeyDisk
09/03/18 5:32:07 PM
#112:


Zeus posted...
tbh, this year has had a relatively quiet hurricane season for the NE (although we got a tornado which more than made up for it)


Up here in Orange county, NY it was like living in a third world country for 3 days. I have enough camping gear to weather the storm for a week if needs be but keeping my mother's oxygen concentrator running is a juggling exercise when the power goes out.
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The Wave Master
09/04/18 1:02:41 AM
#113:


No change in my ststatus from when I posted earlier. However, the storm has gotten stronger much quicker, which is the norm for tropical storms this time of the year.

I have early blood filtering so I'm off to bed. I'm sure there will be no more good news tomorrow.

I might lose power and internet for the next few days going into the weekend, so if the storm is worse than expected please make sure to keep posting, and keep the purge monster away.
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Zeus
09/04/18 1:44:28 AM
#114:


The Wave Master posted...
I might lose power and internet for the next few days going into the weekend, so if the storm is worse than expected please make sure to keep posting, and keep the purge monster away.


Well, I'm pretty much out of stuff to talk about.... although I recently watched Coco and, while the universe was interesting, was kinda left with a parting thought (kinda major spoilers) -- if an entertainer *had* murdered a creative partner and took at least some of his ideas to build a career upon, would I still like that entertainer for his work or would I resent the fact he robbed the world of his more creative partner? Granted, stuff like that is always partly subjective, but I think I'd kinda appreciate the entertainer's work regardless -- especially if he was cheeky enough to reenact a murder he committed in a film

Oh, plus the other thing I was thinking about -- and comes to mind occasionally -- is how I wonder if I'm better at spotting twists these days (or, at the very least, identifying foreshadowing) or whether my mind just instinctively hunts for twists and tries to predict what's coming next (based at least partly on prior experience). Some of the bigger reveals in Coco I spotted right away (especially that Hector was the real great-grandfather) although I guess I also overlooked a few clues so I didn't spot another major reveal that De la Cruz murdered Hector -- something that had enough breadcrumbs that I ought have expected it
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ParanoidObsessive
09/04/18 2:56:13 AM
#115:


Zeus posted...
is how I wonder if I'm better at spotting twists these days (or, at the very least, identifying foreshadowing) or whether my mind just instinctively hunts for twists and tries to predict what's coming next (based at least partly on prior experience).

I've watched my nephew play video games with heavy narrative, and he's pretty damned good at predicting SHOCKING TWISTS before they happen, which has on multiple occasions prompted me to go "You play too many video games."

It's definitely a thing, though. Tropes exist, and we as a culture are more tuned in to tropes in general, so we start noticing trends and predicting them almost by reflex. Doubly so for tropes that get endlessly repeated and copied, because we see enough examples to build a predictive model around very quickly.

Which reminds me of an occasion about 15 years ago or so, when I was talking to a girl I know about LotR, and she mentioned that the moment she heard them mention that there was a prophecy that no man would ever kill the Witch-King, she instantly knew he was going to get killed by a woman, and mentioned that it was a super-cliche premise in a lot of fantasy. I pointed out that it was only really a common cliche because most of the stories that used the idea stole the idea from Tolkien in the first place. A lot of LotR feels super-cliched, because 50+ years of fantasy writers stole nearly every idea and concept he ever had and used it in their stories, even before D&D got into the mix, and in turn basically passed most of those cliches on into video game RPGs.

Of course, Tolkien himself may have stolen the idea from Macbeth, with the Weird Sisters and their prophecy to Macbeth about how no man could kill him, even if the "GOTCHA!" moment was different there.

I also pointed out to her that part of why she was so quick to assume a woman would kill him was because a) she was a woman, and b) because more modern fantasy tends to push a more gender-balanced view where women can be just as skilled warriors as men can. But when Tolkien was writing, and when the original audience was reading the books, it was a lot more culturally unthinkable that a woman could be bad-ass enough to kill an evil ghost monster. Even if shieldmaidens already DID exist in the Norse/Germanic myths he was stealing a lot of his ideas from.

Which also perhaps made it telling that she DIDN'T really notice that Eowyn had help - from Merry, who ALSO wasn't a "Man", because he was a Hobbit.



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ParanoidObsessive
09/04/18 9:02:32 AM
#116:


Seems like Insomniac just released details on how they're handling DLC for Spider-Man.... aannnnnnd like most games that start talking about DLC before the game is even released, I now have no interest in buying the game at launch, or for the foreseeable future. Now I just want to wait like a year for the presumably inevitable GotY edition with all of the DLC bundled in.


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I_Abibde
09/04/18 9:31:23 AM
#117:


I am in a similar situation, PO. The director of Dead Or Alive 6 admitted that not all characters are going to be ready by the launch date for the game (because the DOA5 physics engine got scrapped in favor of the one used by Dynasty Warriors 9), so the ones who do not make it are going to be released as DLC instead. Granted, DOA has a long history of DLC, especially for costumes, but not including core characters at launch feels like a big misstep to me. ... I miss the old Team Ninja.
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Metalsonic66
09/04/18 12:36:55 PM
#118:


Still getting Spider-Man day-one, but I'll probably hold off on the DLC until I either beat the game entirely or there's a sale.
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The Wave Master
09/04/18 1:07:52 PM
#119:


Netflix just cast Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivea in The Withcher Series.

These things tend to fall apart as creative teams are put into place, budgets and scripts are finalized, etc, etc, etc...

Personally I do not think he is the right person to play this character, but I am not a Waitcher expert. I have not read the books, which is what they are basing the show off of.

What do you all think?

Also, the cloud are starting to roll in from the storm.
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ifnsman
09/04/18 1:56:54 PM
#120:


@The_Wave_Master Are they consulting the original author of the books, Andrzej Sapkowski?
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Zeus
09/04/18 4:16:15 PM
#121:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
Which reminds me of an occasion about 15 years ago or so, when I was talking to a girl I know about LotR, and she mentioned that the moment she heard them mention that there was a prophecy that no man would ever kill the Witch-King, she instantly knew he was going to get killed by a woman, and mentioned that it was a super-cliche premise in a lot of fantasy. I pointed out that it was only really a common cliche because most of the stories that used the idea stole the idea from Tolkien in the first place. A lot of LotR feels super-cliched, because 50+ years of fantasy writers stole nearly every idea and concept he ever had and used it in their stories, even before D&D got into the mix, and in turn basically passed most of those cliches on into video game RPGs.


That was a terrible twist for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that man colloquially refers to women as well (an aspect which I suppose factored into the deceit). But yes, the fact that it's overused in fantasy -- and I think mythology as well -- certainly contributes to the lameness, although it probably suffer to some extent from the same phenomena as the Twilight Zone.

Of course, the general prophecy was completely underwhelming since it specified "man" in a universe with elves, dwarfs (or dwarves? idk), hobbits, ents, dragons, and all manner of non-human threats. Hell, they could have even forced him to accidentally hit himself with his own weapon since he was a wraith not a man.


ParanoidObsessive posted...
when the original audience was reading the books, it was a lot more culturally unthinkable that a woman could be bad-ass enough to kill an evil ghost monster.


Because geeks were sexist? =p Granted, the LOTR books came out *after* Wonder Woman was a thing so the idea that women can kick ass shouldn't have been wholly alien to his readers.
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The Wave Master
09/04/18 6:29:00 PM
#122:


Doesn't it go, "To the victor goes the spoils?" Or "He has the gold makes rhe rules?"

Well, Sony isn't budging on this whole cross platform play issue, and I don't blame them at all. Opening up cross play for Fortnite on the PS4 does absolutely nothing for Sony, it only helps Nintendo, Microsoft, and Epic games, but not Sony, so why do it?

However, the best part of this whole internet drama is Sony's response to all of this.

"Playstation is the best place to play."

Damn, that's cold blooded.

http://m.ign.com/articles/2018/09/04/sony-is-blocking-cross-play-because-playstation-is-the-best-place-to-play
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Zeus
09/04/18 6:34:51 PM
#123:


It might hurt them in the long run. I'm curious to see how this plays out. #PunIntended #OwningIT
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The Wave Master
09/04/18 8:11:00 PM
#124:


My wife made it home safe, and she is making cornbread for the red beans and rice. They ended up closing the casino gambling floor at 3, and she got to leave work at six central time. However, the hotel is still open, and they are letting people stay in the hotel on the upper floors.

The weather still hasn't gotten bad yet, not even a drop of rain, but the doom is coming, and we are preparing for the worst as we are going to get a direct hit here in Jackson county. The wind has really started picking up and the sky is really dark in the background as our house faces south.

Hopefully it will pass quickly and safely. You geek stay safe too.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/05/18 12:01:19 AM
#125:


Zeus posted...
That was a terrible twist for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that man colloquially refers to women as well (an aspect which I suppose factored into the deceit). But yes, the fact that it's overused in fantasy -- and I think mythology as well -- certainly contributes to the lameness, although it probably suffer to some extent from the same phenomena as the Twilight Zone.

Made even more complex (or justifiable) by the fact that, in-universe, "man" means something entirely different from "Man". "Man" means "the race of Men", ie, humans - but "man" means "male human" (and presumably COULD be used to describe male elves, dwarves, etc, but you'd probably piss them off if you did.

In the end he was basically killed by some who wasn't a "man" AND someone who wasn't a "Man" at the same time.




Zeus posted...
Of course, the general prophecy was completely underwhelming since it specified "man" in a universe with elves, dwarfs (or dwarves? idk), hobbits, ents, dragons, and all manner of non-human threats. Hell, they could have even forced him to accidentally hit himself with his own weapon since he was a wraith not a man.

Ehh, to be fair, the only time we ever really see him sort of fall back on it as an ego-driven "Hah hah, fucker, can't kill me!" sort of moment of hubris, it's when he's fighting someone he firmly believes to be both human and male. So the prophecy WOULD apply.

It kind of makes even more sense when you realize that most elves would never try to fight him in the first place because they're smart enough to know they'd probably lose (because he's still just bad-ass in general), while most dwarves whouldn't fight him because there's no profit in it. Most other non-human monsters are basically on his side by default, the ents hide out in the woods and aren't really a direct threat. So male humans are probably the only people he's ever going to be fighting in the first place.

The REAL head-scratching moment is when you realize that hobbits are explicitly descended from humans in the setting, meaning that, even if people in the setting consider them a different race, they SHOULD still count as "Man". Though in theory, you COULD also argue that Merry doesn't actually KILL him, as much as he just sort of hamstrings him as a distraction, so it doesn't violate things regardless.


Man, there's too much spoiler tagging in this topic now. These posts are starting to look like Cold War era government documents.


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ParanoidObsessive
09/05/18 12:02:31 AM
#126:


Zeus posted...
Because geeks were sexist? =p Granted, the LOTR books came out *after* Wonder Woman was a thing so the idea that women can kick ass shouldn't have been wholly alien to his readers.

The only geeks that existed in the 1940s were the ones biting heads off chickens in circuses.

And it's more like "because everyone was sexist", at least when judged by today's standards. That's the problem with trying to judge people in the past - we have a bad tendency to use modern morality to weigh their actions and beliefs, which can make even people who were the most progressive people of their era seem like terrible bigots (like when people get pissy about Mark Twain naming a character N***** Jim, in spite of the fact that Twain was a huge abolitionist and repeatedly complained about how blacks, Asians, and Native Americans were treated in the US, called bullshit on how whites tended to exploit the hell out of "savages" around the world, and was one of the stronger advocates for women's suffrage in the era - but Tumblrites today would probably just bitch about how "problematic" he was).

But it's definitely worth remembering that, when Wonder Woman first debuted, she was mostly just an excuse for her creator to indulge in his bondage fetish and boast about his contributions to creating the polygraph. She stood out precisely BECAUSE she was an anomaly in what people expected a woman's role to actually be (and the appeal of Amazons in general throughout history has always been that there's something WRONG with them for eschewing traditional female roles in favor of acting like men). And that, in most of the Justice Society stories of the era, she wasn't actually allowed to go on missions with the male members most of the time. In fact, they explicitly recruit her in the first place to be their secretary. She definitely wasn't presented as anything even remotely resembling an equal of her male counterparts.

The idea that Wonder Woman was some sort of feminist icon was very much the PR fiction of later eras, not really true at the time. As was the idea that she somehow forms the third corner of a mythical DC "trinity" with Superman and Batman (and the fact that she was shoehorned into that role is why she's always felt a bit out of place there).

There WAS at least some positive movement towards the idea that women could potentially do the same sort of things men do because of WWII and the Rosie the Riveter sort of situations, but that faded a LOT post-war, and the 50s were definitely a return to more traditional assumptions. It wasn't really until the 60s and 70s that the pendulum sort of swung back again.

When Tolkien wrote the books, it was the 1930s, in conservative England, and he was an older man who had a lot of his attitudes formed when he was a younger man in the WWI years. It's part of why, as modern readers occasionally complain about, 99.8% of all characters in LotR are male (and why the bad guys are "from the East", and why there are racist undertones in the work, and blahblahblahTumblr).

Ironically, Tolkien probably saw the likelihood of a female warrior being more of an obvious thing than his original readers would have, considering he was drawing on a lot of prior Norse/Germanic myth when writing, and shieldmaidens WERE a thing in those stories (but even there, half the time a shieldmaiden only showed up so a male hero could rescue her, or so that she could die horribly and provide an unsubtle moral that women should stick to their roles).


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Zeus
09/05/18 1:24:16 AM
#127:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
Man, there's too much spoiler tagging in this topic now. These posts are starting to look like Cold War era government documents.


Redacted documents tend to be more selective than that =p

ParanoidObsessive posted...
The only geeks that existed in the 1940s were the ones biting heads off chickens in circuses.


Would a geek by any other name smell as sweet? But yeah, the carnie origins -- and the fact that carnies still employ geeks (who eat more than just chicken heads) -- is why I've never been that big on the name.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
(like when people get pissy about Mark Twain naming a character N***** Jim, in spite of the fact that Twain was a huge abolitionist and repeatedly complained about how blacks, Asians, and Native Americans were treated in the US, called bullshit on how whites tended to exploit the hell out of "savages" around the world, and was one of the stronger advocates for women's suffrage in the era - but Tumblrites today would probably just bitch about how "problematic" he was).


More importantly it was something Twain was likely doing to criticize the attitudes of the time, the same as his characters' responses to the news that a black man got run over.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
When Tolkien wrote the books, it was the 1930s, in conservative England, and he was an older man who had a lot of his attitudes formed when he was a younger man in the WWI years. It's part of why, as modern readers occasionally complain about, 99.8% of all characters in LotR are male (and why the bad guys are "from the East", and why there are racist undertones in the work, and blahblahblahTumblr).

Ironically, Tolkien probably saw the likelihood of a female warrior being more of an obvious thing than his original readers would have, considering he was drawing on a lot of prior Norse/Germanic myth when writing, and shieldmaidens WERE a thing in those stories (but even there, half the time a shieldmaiden only showed up so a male hero could rescue her, or so that she could die horribly and provide an unsubtle moral that women should stick to their roles).


My comment was in regards to your remark about how Tolkien's *readers* would perceive the possibility, though. And I'm not really seeing much to support the idea it would be shocking by that point in time.
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The Wave Master
09/05/18 3:56:25 PM
#128:


Tropical Storm Gordon veered east at the last minute, and crushed Mobile and Pensacola, and spared us along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In the last hours before it was scheduled to hit us directly it started turning north and stayed east. No one knows why, and it makes little to no sense, but that's what happened. These darn storms are so unpredictable.

I guess the best part was not losing satellite, Internet, or power at all. Plus we now have hurricane snacks leftover that will now become football snacks for tomorrow night and Sunday.
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The Wave Master
09/05/18 7:47:24 PM
#129:


Considering that Geoffrey Owen's has been in the news lately I thought that this video was appropriate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_2sCsipYM0" data-time="&start=10


Plus the 13th season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Is premiering tonight.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/05/18 11:02:33 PM
#130:


The Wave Master posted...
In the last hours before it was scheduled to hit us directly it started turning north and stayed east. No one knows why, and it makes little to no sense

You're welcome.

>_>

<_<

>_>



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Zeus
09/06/18 2:41:38 AM
#131:


This weekend I might catalog my DVDs and games just to figure out what I have at this point. Up until a few years ago, I had a pretty small DVD collection but I've kinda gone overboard in recent years.

Oh, plus I glanced at a copy of Runaways vol 2 today. The concept and characters had previously interested me (enough to read part of a TPB and to do a wiki walk), but the early run looks a little rough.
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I_Abibde
09/06/18 9:08:32 AM
#132:


Good to hear that the Wave Master did not get hit by any actual waves.

*insert joke about Wonder Woman losing her powers any time she gets tied up*

D&D day today. The party is trying to recruit a (more or less) disposable crew for their spelljamming ship before they head to the city of the cloud giants. Going to have fun with that.
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shadowsword87
09/06/18 12:17:08 PM
#133:


I'm gonna start up a Traveller game soon!

Rules are simple enough, and I love space stuff.
The only question is what we will be doing.
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Zeus
09/06/18 1:39:36 PM
#134:


I_Abibde posted...
D&D day today. The party is trying to recruit a (more or less) disposable crew for their spelljamming ship before they head to the city of the cloud giants. Going to have fun with that.


Going to have them be actual red-shirts or just one time characters? Also, from a practicality standpoint, wouldn't it be easier for a party to charter a spelljamming ship instead of crewing their own?

Always loved the designs in Spelljammer. Given that it's a neat setting, it's disappointing that it didn't get more in the way of videogames.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/06/18 2:11:16 PM
#135:


Zeus posted...
Going to have them be actual red-shirts or just one time characters? Also, from a practicality standpoint, wouldn't it be easier for a party to charter a spelljamming ship instead of crewing their own?

Always loved the designs in Spelljammer. Given that it's a neat setting, it's disappointing that it didn't get more in the way of videogames.

It was basically a setting designed to fail. The fact that it and Planescape exist at all is pretty much a miracle, and it's kind of obvious that Planescape has taken over whatever niche Spelljammer might have found for itself.

That being said, I sort of prefer Spelljammer of the two, because it's more fantasy. Planescape's more like steampunk sci-fi (similar to the route Eberron went down).



I_Abibde posted...
D&D day today. The party is trying to recruit a (more or less) disposable crew for their spelljamming ship before they head to the city of the cloud giants. Going to have fun with that.

I actually just spun out a crew for two different ships (one more pirate-y, one more merchant trader ship). In both cases, I just assumed the ships had about 40 or so nameless/faceless crew, but about a dozen "command officers".

I went with a model where it basically used Captain, First Mate, Second Mate (Navigator/Helmsman), Third Mate (Bo'sun/Boatswain), plus roles like Quartermaster, Master-at-Arms, Surgeon, Carpenter, Cook, and Master Gunner (though gunpower isn't really isn't a thing in Faerun, so I'm assuming ships with a ballista/crossbow/harpoon gun sort of set up).

Most of the positions are based on real world roles on board ships of the era, with their duties mostly obvious from the title itself (it's kind of obvious what the Cook or Surgeon does, for example). Some of them are somewhat combined versions of multiple jobs (ie, the Navigator is a helmsman as well as a navigator, and the Carpenter also combined elements of a ship's cooper), and some of them are a bit less obvious (the Bo'sun is sort of in charge of commanding the crew in day-to-say operations, while the Master-at-Arms is technically in command of military operations, and roughly corresponds to a "Striker" on a pirate ship). Plus I threw in a gypsy Bard on the pirate ship as a musician, so they can have sea shanties. About half the named command characters are lvl 1 in one class or another, the rest are all just vanilla NPCs.

In a game where the PCs are deliberately recruiting a new crew for their own Spelljammer ship, I'd assume they're going to assume the main command roles (either they're all co-captains, or Captain/First Mate/Second Mate/Third Mate/etc), unless they want to delegate responsibilities (maybe no player wants to deal with the logistics of stock and resupply as Quartermaster, maybe none of them are really qualified to navigate or steer a ship, etc). You should definitely thresh out something resembling a command structure for the crew, otherwise they're probably more likely to panic or mutiny under high-stress situations (especially if multiple co-captains are giving them conflicting orders, or not giving them orders at all).

Also, speaking of mutiny, you could do some sort of loyalty/morale mechanic, where the shittier the PCs are to their crew, the more likely the crew is to abandon or betray them at some point.


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Zeus
09/06/18 6:20:06 PM
#136:


TIL: Scooby Doo Apocalypse is a thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby_Apocalypse

Will probably read once the series concludes its run (it's listed as still going, although it's a concept better-suited for a mini-series). Scrappy's characterization seems pretty neat, although it's not the first time he's been used as an antagonist.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
It was basically a setting designed to fail.


tbh, it's probably kind of a fringe thing. I remember a lot of people being annoyed by the flying boat in the Mummy 2 as well.
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ifnsman
09/06/18 6:55:20 PM
#137:


Zeus posted...
TIL: Scooby Doo Apocalypse is a thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby_Apocalypse

Will probably read once the series concludes its run (it's listed as still going, although it's a concept better-suited for a mini-series). Scrappy's characterization seems pretty neat, although it's not the first time he's been used as an antagonist.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
It was basically a setting designed to fail.


tbh, it's probably kind of a fringe thing. I remember a lot of people being annoyed by the flying boat in the Mummy 2 as well.


Well, you've got me interested.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/06/18 7:36:30 PM
#138:


Zeus posted...
TIL: Scooby Doo Apocalypse is a thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby_Apocalypse

If you find that interesting/surprising, you probably didn't know about this either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacky_Raceland

Basically, Jim Lee is apparently way high on crack at all times, and DC just gave him unlimited power to do whatever the fuck he wants. Because they learned absolutely nothing from the 90s.


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I_Abibde
09/06/18 8:32:49 PM
#139:


shadowsword87 posted...
I'm gonna start up a Traveller game soon!


Let us know how that goes. I have been weighing my sci-fi options, and Traveller is certainly one of the most appealing. (Others include White Star and Stars Without Number, plus oddities like the sci-fi version of the One Dice system.) Also: Is Mongoose Publishing still handling Traveller these days? I remember that being their big deal.

Zeus posted...
Going to have them be actual red-shirts or just one time characters? Also, from a practicality standpoint, wouldn't it be easier for a party to charter a spelljamming ship instead of crewing their own?


1. One-off characters. The rogue in charge of recruiting them said he had Pirates of the Caribbean (i.e. when Captain Jack is recruiting people strictly to sacrifice them to Davy Jones) in mind, so I intend to throw several oddballs at him and play that scene for laughs.

2. The current ship was hijacked from Neogi slavers, and the helm the party is using is stolen. One of the sub-plots involves returning that helm to the Arcane who originally owned it after they use the ship in their attempt to take down the cloud giant king. The characters are groundlings on a planet (Oerth, because this is Greyhawk) where the general population is supposed to remain unaware that space travel is a thing. ... I get the feeling that the party is going to renege on their deal with the Arcane, but that works for me.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
It was basically a setting designed to fail. The fact that it and Planescape exist at all is pretty much a miracle, and it's kind of obvious that Planescape has taken over whatever niche Spelljammer might have found for itself.

That being said, I sort of prefer Spelljammer of the two, because it's more fantasy. Planescape's more like steampunk sci-fi (similar to the route Eberron went down).


I enjoy both settings, and their DNA seems to have made its way into 5th Edition (e.g. the Giff are featured in the Mordenkainen book). I thought it would be fun to incorporate spelljamming into the campaign, since it already involves elements from other worlds (e.g. magic going awry because a Forgotten Realms god has been stranded in the Greyhawk setting). And the players have been having a lot of fun with the ability to fly a ship (see: the Dwarves in the party figuring out how to use aerial shipping to boost brewery profits).

As for your advice on running a ship and crew (thank you), I doubt we are going to be that in-depth about it. The ship is a means to the end. The question is whether or not the trip to the city in the clouds will be one-way or not.

That will have to wait until next week, though. Had players unable to attend today. *shrugs* More time to stock events and monsters in the city.
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Zeus
09/06/18 8:43:31 PM
#140:


ParanoidObsessive posted...
Zeus posted...
TIL: Scooby Doo Apocalypse is a thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby_Apocalypse

If you find that interesting/surprising, you probably didn't know about this either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacky_Raceland

Basically, Jim Lee is apparently way high on crack at all times, and DC just gave him unlimited power to do whatever the fuck he wants. Because they learned absolutely nothing from the 90s.


Huh. Hadn't heard of that, although it looks interesting (albeit not as exciting as Scooby Apocalypse).
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Metalsonic66
09/06/18 9:04:30 PM
#141:


I heard the Scooby Doo book was actually pretty good. Never read it but I do think the character designs are, like, groovy, man.
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ParanoidObsessive
09/06/18 9:19:23 PM
#142:


I_Abibde posted...
Let us know how that goes. I have been weighing my sci-fi options, and Traveller is certainly one of the most appealing. (Others include White Star and Stars Without Number, plus oddities like the sci-fi version of the One Dice system.) Also: Is Mongoose Publishing still handling Traveller these days? I remember that being their big deal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfinder_Roleplaying_Game ?



I_Abibde posted...
As for your advice on running a ship and crew (thank you), I doubt we are going to be that in-depth about it. The ship is a means to the end. The question is whether or not the trip to the city in the clouds will be one-way or not.

I was mostly bringing it up so you can have a touch of flavor if you want. Give a couple NPCs names, or describe one as "the guy with the eyepatch" or "the weird halfling who spends all her time up in the rigging", and players are far more likely to engage with them. Then, if they do, you suddenly have useful NPCs for future flavor (and who the PCs will be far more likely to care about when you eventually kidnap or murder them all, or have them betray them).

Plus, even if you're only looking for the "recruiting a bunch of weirdos" scene, thinking about ship roles can help flesh out the humor of that scene. Like having a completely unhygienic half-orc apply for the job of ship's cook (up to you if the food he cooks is surprisingly good or outright terrible). Or the incredibly nebbish navigator who has all the maps, charts, and tools but has apparently never actually set foot on a ship before (and who is totally going to get seasick for humorous effect once they sail). Or the grizzled dwarf who's blind in one eye and has a stump leg, but who is a brilliant woodworker (which means he's going to be vital for patching the ship and making barrels when necessary). Or the snarky elf merchant they recruit to handle Quartermaster duties, who always criticizes or snarkily insults anyone who ever requests any of his stock for any reason whatsoever (which is why his store went bankrupt and he needs a new job). Or the shifty rogue who clearly seems like they want to get out of the current port city as quickly as possible for some reason, but who is incredibly evasive about why. Or the cackling and possibly deranged Druid who also has coastal/sea magic and who can potentially create fresh water or subdue storms, but who also creeps you the fuck out. And so on.

Sure, you can just go "Yeah, you recruit enough crew to run the ship effectively" and never describe any of them, and it's good enough to just ferry the PCs from adventure to adventure, but if you've got a Spelljamming ship, it's a good opportunity to use the ship as a rest/resupply hub, and having NPC personalities to interact with during downtime helps make it a more interesting setting.


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shadowsword87
09/07/18 1:45:04 AM
#143:


I_Abibde posted...
Let us know how that goes. I have been weighing my sci-fi options, and Traveller is certainly one of the most appealing. (Others include White Star and Stars Without Number, plus oddities like the sci-fi version of the One Dice system.) Also: Is Mongoose Publishing still handling Traveller these days? I remember that being their big deal.


I don't think that DnD and DnD-derivatives actually work too well with scifi with anything even slightly complicated.
It works fine for a space ship being a strict vehicle from planet A to planet B and there isn't significant technological changes (or it is, it's just +1/+2/whatever), with psionics/magic being pretty regular, no genetics/cybernetics, and absolutely no transhumanism. So basically space opera with humans dressed up in alien suits.

I've played in a oneshot of Traveller 2e, and honestly it's not too complicated. Character generation is a blast, the same way watching a plinko puck falling down a table is fun. Then mechanically it's the standard straightforward, with just a flat 8 DC on 2d6+ skill + stat +/- circumstances (getting the modifiers to be over a +4 can be real hard). And ship combat exists where everyone can do something! Not just gunners and pilots, the captain can improve morale, telecommunications can disrupt the enemy signal, and the engineers can boost the energy output of the engine.
Also, you can be a psionic, it's just rare on rare. There are two ways, the first being you need to make an ~8.3% on a check if you go to college, and if you don't, you have a natural ~.12% chance every round thereafter to test your psionic abilities (i.e. roll your psi stat to see where your life takes you).

It honestly feels the good oldschool, with charts on charts, but you need to only pay attention to a few of them.
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I_Abibde
09/07/18 9:23:49 PM
#144:


Starfinder has a potentially high entry cost, like most things Pathfinder. I have been a bit wary of that one.

ParanoidObsessive posted...
Sure, you can just go "Yeah, you recruit enough crew to run the ship effectively" and never describe any of them, and it's good enough to just ferry the PCs from adventure to adventure, but if you've got a Spelljamming ship, it's a good opportunity to use the ship as a rest/resupply hub, and having NPC personalities to interact with during downtime helps make it a more interesting setting.


Well, yeah, I wasn't going to have it be that simple. I'm sure there'll be some keepers in this batch of NPCs, but we'll see who sticks around. The party has surprised me more than once on who they talk to and keep.

shadowsword87 posted...
I don't think that DnD and DnD-derivatives actually work too well with scifi with anything even slightly complicated.


I recommend looking up Strange Stars by Hydra Cooperative (at Drive Thru RPG, most likely), as that addresses transhuman ideas and is an add-on that can be used with multiple systems.

Your description of Traveller reminds me of ... something. Can't quite put my finger on it.
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Zeus
09/08/18 1:37:35 AM
#145:


Started Iron Fist s2. Midway through the first episode, Joy Meachum shows up and wants to be bought out of the company. Danny immediately agrees over Ward's (?) objections. The problem is that whole scene felt a *lot* like when Shades was warning Mariah not to sell her guns in LC2

Otherwise the season started with a neat action sequence so I'm pretty happy. While I like how s1 handled the unveiling of his powers, when I'm watching a superhero show or movie I *want* to see them use their powers.

And... just like in season 1, Danny and Colleen make an amazingly cute couple. I loved the scene where they were fighting over a piece of shrimp.

EDIT: Watch out for about 45:45 into the first episode. There's this one moment with laughably bad choreography where you have a series of reversals and then Colleen "throws" the guy into a rack of trays where it looks like he just jumps backwards. They waaaaaay oversold that shit.
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The Wave Master
09/08/18 4:28:03 AM
#146:


From all the reviews season 2 of Iron Fist is a lot better than season 1. Considering that season 1 was a giant turd, and they 86'd Scott Buck (Thank Goodness) that is not a surprise.

I've been having trouble sleeping the last few pre dialysis mornings, and so I've been scouring the streaming services, and on Amazon Prime streaming I found the one and only season of Dilbert the cartoon.

The show was pretty good, and a lot more clever and cynical than I remember. Daniel Stern and Chris Elliott provide the voices of Dilbert and Dogbert respectively, and they do a solid job.

.I suggest if you're having trouble sleeping, like I am, to put this on for a few laughs.

Normally I would watch a little Twitch, but everyone is streaming Spider-Man, and I am not trying to spoil that game for myself.
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Zeus
09/08/18 4:34:23 AM
#147:


The Wave Master posted...
Considering that season 1 was a giant turd,


No, it seriously wasn't. It was my second-favorite after DD1.

The Wave Master posted...
I've been having trouble sleeping the last few pre dialysis mornings, and so I've been scouring the streaming services, and on Amazon Prime streaming I found the one and only season of Dilbert the cartoon.

The show was pretty good, and a lot more clever and cynical than I remember. Daniel Stern and Chris Elliott provide the voices of Dilbert and Dogbert respectively, and they do a solid job.

.I suggest if you're having trouble sleeping, like I am, to put this on for a few laughs.


I remember it being okay, but it didn't strike me as being as funny as the comics.
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The Wave Master
09/08/18 2:09:53 PM
#148:


The current trend of horrible horror movies baffles me. I bring this up because of The Nun being number 1 at the box office this weekend.

The Conjuring, Anabelle, Anabelle 2: It's still a ******* Doll, Paranormal Craptivity etc, my goodness. Now this mess, granted real nuns are scarier than anything Hollywood could make up.

I guess I'm old and remember when horror movies had blood and guts and boobies, lots and lots of boobies. They had scary main characters, interesting premises, blood, boobs, and young people making stupid decisions because they were either drunk or high...pr bpth, Not because they bought a house, and moving would be too expensive.

I'm getting old and bitter. Young whippersnappers.
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Metalsonic66
09/08/18 2:12:27 PM
#149:


The Conjuring was actually pretty good. I haven't seen any of the other ones.

Also, I think the abundance of boobs in older horror movies was a negative. I love boobs, of course, but awkward sex scenes never added anything of value to those movies other than fap material for 14 year-olds.
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Zeus
09/09/18 1:39:24 AM
#150:


The Wave Master posted...
The current trend of horrible horror movies baffles me. I bring this up because of The Nun being number 1 at the box office this weekend.


As in popular movies you personally dislike? =p

The Wave Master posted...
The Conjuring, Anabelle, Anabelle 2: It's still a ******* Doll, Paranormal Craptivity etc, my goodness. Now this mess, granted real nuns are scarier than anything Hollywood could make up.


You know you just listed three things from the same franchise, right? >_> That's like saying all shark movies suck then highlighting Sharknado 1, 2, and 3. (Granted, not a perfect example because Sharknado 2 was pretty damn fun.)

The Warrens are conmen who built a career on being fake paranormal investigators and until Lorraine Warren is dead & buried I wouldn't even stream one of those movies for risk of giving her a dime. As for Paranormal Activity, the franchise has been losing steam for ages. That'd be liking judging the Friday the 13th films solely on Jason Goes to Hell (or Jason X for that matter)

The Wave Master posted...
I guess I'm old and remember when horror movies had blood and guts and boobies, lots and lots of boobies. They had scary main characters, interesting premises, blood, boobs, and young people making stupid decisions because they were either drunk or high...pr bpth, Not because they bought a house, and moving would be too expensive.


That must be the nostalgia talking considering there were a LOT of movies in the 70s and 80s where people bought a haunted house and decided moving was too expensive, etc. One of the most famous examples is The Amityville Horror which, again, stars hucksters Lorraine and Ed Warren (seriously, fuck those guys). So if you think it's a new phenomenon, you've blocked it out.

Otherwise you still have campy slasher flicks with tits-n-gore. That never really ended. There was another Hatchet film just last year (although iirc those are a bit lighter on nudity)
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