Grognards.txt NEXT: Goodnight, Sweet Wince

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Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Welcome to the new Mustard Smuggling:
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While killing an ogre for the local Baron for a quick pickup of 100gp, the party offs the ogre�s buddy, a nasty little goblin. This guy was a real jerk. Once he was good and dead � the fighter stabbed the goblin extra for good measure � the party did what adventuring parties do. They rolled the bodies. Among the handfuls of copper pieces, a few unusable weapons and a convenient cache of crossbow bolts, the party discovers the goblin was wearing a pair of Boots of Striding and Springing.

For whatever reason, the party decides it doesn�t want to keep the boots. Perhaps it is a matter of taste. The style is out of fashion. The size is too small. Also, as magic items go, boots of striding and springing are on the low-end of the interesting scale. Regardless, the party takes the boots to the nearby peaceful peasant market town to unload them as one does with unused magic items.

The local cordwainer won�t accept the boots of striding and springing. The cordwainer, a member of the local shoemaker�s guild in good standing, doesn�t recognize the boots as magic but he does recognize them as a different make than other boots made in the region. Good quality, good make, but they�re not his nor one of his fellow guildmates so he cannot resell them. He is not authorized to buy and sell foreign goods and if they�re left in his shop, he�ll get found out by the guild for hoarding strange makes of highly unauthorized footwear. There�s a price list. He likes being part of the guild, see. They help him and his family out when he�s down. His father was part of this guild. His grandfather was a grandmaster of the cordwainers of the peaceful peasant village. And he doesn�t want any trouble. Besides, he only pays in script and not in coinage. The party needs to move along.

The local merchant doesn�t recognize the boots, either, but he recognizes them as magic immediately on inspecting them on the counter in his small shop. The wizard�s craft mark is on the inner sole. See that right there? These are wizarding shoes. Great magic in wizarding shoes. The merchant�s guild in this region isn�t permitted in its charter to resell strange, foreign wizarding shoes. They banged this charter out so the merchant can sell commodity goods here and the Baron stays over there where the town would like them and the Baron, well, he takes interest in these sorts of things. Maybe the party took them off a wizard? That�s a problem right there, too. The merchant can�t pay for strange foreign wizarding things in his shop. Brings nothing but trouble. Besides, the town mostly works on script, ledgers, loaning and mutual debt. The merchant can only pay in Bob the Baker�s bread. Do you like bread? Bob�s bread? Fantastic.

Forcing the merchant to accept the boots unearths the hard reality that the Merchant�s Guild of the town is also the Judge�s Guild, the local Mafioso Guild, and the Government Guild. This merchant? He�s also the Mayor. And the Head Judge. The merchant will call in his friends and his friends will make sure the party doesn�t sell no weird, foreign, and possibly evil wizarding shoes in this town. We won�t kill you right here and now because of the ogre business but maybe it�s time to go. The locals are not much when it comes to fighting but leaving an entire town murdered over a pair of boots � there�s a slippery slope to neutral evilhood. The party�s cleric might be irked.
Getting the local Baron involved brings up all kinds of ugly questions like: �Why are the lower folk walking around with a pair of magic boots?� And then the magic boots will belong to the Baron because he needs to go on campaign and he doesn�t have magic boots. Now he does. Yours. Not a great plan. Great guy until someone shows up with some magic items and then not such a nice guy any more.
Barding up the merchant or pulling out some merchant background can get a bit of �I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.� Maybe there�s something the merchant needs for a bit of favor. Besides, the guy trades in favors all day. The local merchant is not of any help but there might be an upstream reseller. Here�s a bit of a written introduction and a rough schedule for a Faire that moves around a number of cities. Nomenally that faire sells cloth but an entrepreneaur can unload a pair of boots if the buyer is right and the place is right and the money is right.
Calling down on God or Gods is a thing that works because if there is anything a merchant needs, it�s a blessing to help him move those more mundane items in his shop. But he still doesn�t handle foreign magic goods and he can only pay in what he owes to other townspeople.
Cutting the inner soles out of the boots to remove the wizard�s mark and leaving them with the local non-guild affiliated peddler with his jingle jangle wagon of assorted goods for a few copper will get rid of them quick but these boots are worth some serious scratch. Always an option but no adventuring party is going to get rich off filing the serial numbers off magic items and unloading them on movable consignment stores.

No one in the town is going to buy the boots the local head cleric explains to the party on their way (hopefully) out of town. And no one wants them. These are good people. Godly people. People who tithe regularly to their local Temple. What the local head cleric, who is one of those nice guys affiliated with one of the local Gods of home and hearth, wants is the party to take the boots and leave. They will bring nothing but instability to this nice little community. If there�s anything the Gods want, its stability.

A group of towns who want to become cities situated on ancient trade roads hold a rotating open market. What it is, who hosts, and where it is held depends on the time of year. The external appearance of the Faire is selling well-known commodity goods: one week is cloth, another is spices, another leather and other durable goods. Merchants travel over incredible distances marked with the occasional Random Encounter to make it here to unload from all over the known world and over it all a rich and powerful Lord who makes it happen with the guarantees of security and law. It�s his Law but his Law is he gets his tax. As long as no one sets the entire town on fire and brings the Lord into it, he�s fine with whatever nonsense happens.

No one sells magic items in the open here, either, but the party can lay hands on some seriously upgraded pieces of mundane equipment if necessary. At night, behind the tents and in the bars, people settle their accounts and the interesting goods exchange hands.

By knowing a guy, having a letter of introduction, getting the right people drunk, surviving a few fist fights, and generally running around depraved, it�s possible to find the magic items broker. The party will bump into a bunch of other guys, too. Nothing is ever simple on the quest to unload a pair of slightly magical boots:

Someone from one of the Wizard Craft Guilds is attending the Faire looking for the same sets of background deal brokers to unload their magic items into circulation. (How else do they make their way into dungeons and random treasure tables?) The Wizard Craft Guilds aren�t like a small peaceful peasant village Shoemaker�s Guild. These are guys with money, muscle, and agents to move their merchandise. And these aren�t the Wizards themselves, of course � no self-respecting Wizard is going to come out of his tower to sell at some Faire. That would mean getting dirty. This is a broker�s broker with his own set of thugs. And they want to know why this party is selling strange, foreign magic boots with a different wizard�s mark than their Guild into circulation.

Is the party now magic boot-making competition?
Is there a collect and resell effort from foreign points going on to dilute the list prices of magic items?
Are the local wizards of the Wizard Craft Guild being scammed?

Maybe what the party needs is a visit from the broker�s local group of armed friends, in the cover of darkness, behind the bar. Because while the party may not have to go, the boots certainly do.

The black market gets whiff there�s some action in the magic items area and, unlike the rubes back home, these are guys who know how to move magic items and get them into the hands of discerning dealers. Sure the party might be running from the thugs behind the Wizards Craft Guild but here�s a friend � really! a friend! � who only wants to get the best price for the boots for his quiet, discerning client. This is safe. This is clean. No Guilds involved at all except for Ours but you don�t need to know about that. This will move the boots and sell them to a discrete buyer. The Necromatic Arch Lich and his Legions of Terrifying Evil who simply need high quality footwear as they trample on the necks of the local populance. You know how it is.

Running amok away from the thieves�s guild and the wizard craft guild, the party draws the attention of the local Merchant�s Guild who both try to turn a blind eye to all sorts of shenanigans but if inns start getting burnt to the ground, they�re both going to get wary. Luckily for the party, the local Merchant�s Guild is on a whole different playing field than the local Merchant�s Guild of the small town. These guys finance entire armies for rich patrons. They have their own set of mercantile laws that have nothing whatsoever to do with local Law, or the Lord�s Law, or laws from the local Temple. These guys are judge, jury, executioner, and the entire local government. We leave that for now, because the Merchant�s Guild wants to see if the party lives. If they do, there might be something in it for them.

And after lighting some bar on fire while running out, the party hooks up with their guy. They have wizard guild thugs after them. Black market mafia thugs after them after breaking their deal to sell the boots. They got beer all over their new leathers. Letters of introduction are exchanged. In a room in quite another inn across town, the magic item broker looks at the boots, looks at the wizards mark in the sole, and he tells you his fee for moving the boots is 37%. At a list price of 5500gp, he�s going to take a little over 2000gp from the party for the price of taking those boots off the party�s hands. Good magic item laundering service is expensive.

In a time of craft guilds, merchant guilds, organizational guilds, nobility, and wizards in towers protected by armies of thugs, it�s hard to move foreign merchandise. No one wants to accept the risk of explaining where the item came from. And all the rich guilds have their form of muscle and protection. This is all to say, one can get mileage out of a pair of boots rolled off a dead goblin. And maybe in the end it is easiest just to pull the soles and unload them on the peddler. It�s cheaper that way.

# ? Feb 5, 2015 23:26

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 12:22

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Frankly I can't tell which of these I like the most. :spergin:

Its like the most masturbatory, groggy railroading I have ever seen. The fawning comments section though is what seals the deal.

http://projectmultiplexer.com/2015/02/01/murder-hobos-and-the-supply-curve-of-evil/ posted:

A party of more or less good-aligned murder hobos gets wind of some organized slavery going on in a far off land � something vague about fish people, industrialized farming and pearls. The slavery operation aims are relatively immaterial to the party. Slavers are over there and smashing them in the face is a generally good-alignment thing to do. The party hops on the first boat to guaranteed adventure and loot. Zoom!

For this adventure, the GM (who is also an economist and is, therefore, unbelievably sadistic and evil) assumes the demand for the pearls remains a relative constant � it does not suddenly dip or climb. Whoever is buying pearls will continue to buy pearls at the same pace. Those farming pearls will have a constant demand for slaves to farm and fill that constant supply of pearl buyers. She also assumes the price for fish people slaves into the industrialized pearl farming operation is elastic. Either a sudden change in supply or an increase in demand will see a rapid delta upward in slave prices.

She writes these facts on a convenient 3�5 note card.

Once landed in the far off land after an exciting encounter with pirates (required by law), the party debates how to deal with the massive slavery operation going on. They come up with three options: kill slavers, slave redemption, or kill master slave dealers. They try the first one since it is the most straight forward and level comparable.

Killing the slavers, who are largely hobgoblins to reflect parity with the party�s level, is, for a while, a satisfying experience with party-level XP and treasure. The party jumps slavers with advantage, they have exciting fights, slavers die, and the murder hobos roll the bodies for loot. A couple of fish people slaves go running off into the waste � free-ish for now. Total victory, right?

These slavers are only feeding slaves into the greater system of slave-run farm ownership a handful at a time. These guys are small fries. And, whenever the party kills one slaver it gives another entrepreneurial hobgoblin a new day job. The party back of the napkin calculates they need to exhaust the entire hobgoblin race before killing slavers one at a time is an economical slave-ending practice in this corner of the world. This activity is too small and localized to have impact on supply or demand. It does, however, line the party�s pockets with some small magical trinkets and a magic pair of boots they will somehow unload.

Several levels later, the bard gets a better idea. The party will find the slave dealers and exchange some of their hard earned loot from rolling slavers and set slaves free. What is better than directly freeing slaves from the penury of pearl farming slavery? And with minimal combat? Guys, the bard says, this plan is awesome.

The party exercises their now established contacts and has some interesting adventures with the local underground and Thieves� Guild (hope the party Thief isn�t operating without a local license or they�re going to have words�). They fight some interesting monsters in some sewers because why wouldn�t the exotic city in the far off land have sewers, and finally discovers a hidden slave market. The party bids on as many slaves as they can afford, buys them, and then releases them into the fish people slave Underground Railroad.

Look! A great heroic deed! Slaves freed! Slavery solved! Someone buy the bard a drink! They�ll just roll slavers, buy back any other slaves, and drain the supply from the farmers!

Except now the party has introduced a new strong thread of demand into a system with an otherwise constant and predictable slave demand. Slave prices are inherently elastic (says the GM) and until the system reaches a new murder hobo induced equilibrium, slave prices shoot up and up and up. Incentivized by the climbing worth of their kidnapped victims, more hobgoblins become slavers to fill demand at a nearly 2-to-1 rate. Entire fish people villages are torched and their populations forced into captivity. The problem becomes immeasurably worse.

Good news, though � it might be possible to kill the whole hobgoblin race!

Slave dealers send happy fliers for slave auctions direct to their murder hobo inn! The more the murder hobos buy slaves to set them free, the more the lower echelon of the economy blows out trying to meet that demand. And those original pearl farmers still need their replacement slaves at the same rates as before so they buy their replacements at the higher prices and then adjust their prices upward. The entire economy of this small country reacts to more money washing around by hiking prices on staples. Behold, the murder hobos are living agents of inflation!

(This causes a knock-on effect of passing this price down to the pearls which angers the traders who pass the price hikes to their customers but screw those guys. They�re just wizards. Right? Angry wizards don�t have any future bad political effects, right?)

Now slavery is more lucrative than ever before. More evil humans and humanoids are participating in the wider economy. Everyone is charging a bit more for everything. Good going there, bard. Why do we even listen to this guy? All his plans are bad.

While waiting for the slavery economy to level out, the murder hobos go to work on their third, and best plan: killing the slave dealers and choke off supply. If the pearl farmers cannot buy their slaves from slave markets then surely this whole land will come to its senses, right?

These slave dealer guys, the murder hobos discover in the course of the adventure, are like taking down Mafia bosses � they have enough scratch to hire themselves some serious protection and they�re not afraid to use it. They�ve built themselves little empires on the backs of slaves and their clients, the farmers. As prices shoot up, the percentage of take the dealers extract from the sales is going up. The slave dealers are making serious bank on the murder hobos.

The GM runs the party through a pretty thrilling adventure. Suddenly, the party has a mysterious benefactor who sends them directions to a slave dealer stronghold � a big, heavily armed manor house. The party makes plans. They ready spells. They break into the house in the dead of night and they take down a slave dealer in a serious boss fight with tons of cinematics. And that guy, he has major loot in his basement. Magic scrolls up to here.

It�s when the murder hobos leave with their arms full of slave dealer loot they discover their mysterious benefactor was another slave dealer wanting to consolidate his position*. The slave market is now making so much money the dealers are incentivized to gank each other through their favorite weapon of choice � the ANSI standard good aligned, heroic wandering murder hobo. Now the mysterious benefactor picks up all the dead dealer�s clients and slave supply. Maybe he�ll hire all these new slaver Hobgoblins to fill out his ranks, too.

Better yet, because supply will take a momentary hit while the slave dealers adjust to the new reality on the ground, slaves will now become even more expensive until the economy, once again, hits equilibrium.

Murder hobos are agents of economic chaos.

The supply curve and the base elasticity of the price of slave fish people screws everyone equally. Looking at the tally, the murder hobos have:

Killed some slavers and taken their stuff (good)
Killed a slave dealer who was totally evil (super good)
Set some slaves free (good)
Incentivized more slavers to re-capture all those slaves set free (bad)
Pushed up the value of slaves (pretty bad)
Helped to consolidate possibly warring slave dealers (really bad)
And walked off with armloads of loot (the best part!)
Remember the note about the GM being evil, above? The GM is evil. Someone give her a cookie.

What�s actually the solution here? Killing the low level slavers is fun but long-term ineffective. Buying slaves and setting them free makes things worse. Killing slave dealers feels effective but makes the remaining slave dealers even stronger.

Clearly, the rot is at the top. The problem is the local government who allows all this evil to flourish with its tacit and ineffectual approval. We need an armed military solution says the Paladin of Vengeance. Only applied force at the top and a strong hand of wise guidance will free the fish people from their chains of slavery.

And the murder hobos return to this blighted inflation-riddled land 10 levels later with their army and their enormous magic items. The local government never has a chance. Vengeance is meted out with a black armored fist. Those government officials not executed by the good murder hobo party are torn apart by the citizens in the streets. The party declares themselves the Just and Wise Rulers of this Blighted Land. Now, dammit, there will be freedom.

The murder hobos outlaw slavery. They free the fish people. The murder hobo�s army and police force round up the slave dealers, throws some into horrible dungeons and chase others out of the country. The pearl farmers must now provide the fish people a wage of some sort or face the same fate. They tax the pearls to pay for their righteousness. Freedom is imposed. You, people, will be free.

The price for pearls shoots up astronomically.

Sure, now, the murder hobos have to contend with an angry enemy navy made of pearl buyers on their coast, pearl price wars from other neighboring countries who allow slavery, and internal uprising from both the farmers and the private armies of the ex-slave dealers operating under ground. Oh yes, and remember those pissed off wizards? Well, here they are. Pissed off. The bill came due.

This will work itself out with a little heavy handed dictatorship, military occupation, unlawful price controls, and a ruthless smothering of discontent. This is nothing a Paladin as the new head of Government cannot handle. Paladin�s are Good. This is for the good of this terrible land. Someone get that bard out of here.

And the fish people? They live forever in horrible apartheid poverty. But at least they have their freedom.

The party totally prevails over the tyranny of the Supply Curve of Evil. Level up!

# ? Feb 5, 2015 23:39

MalcolmSheppard: Jun 24, 2012; MATTHEW 7:20

Hipster Occultist posted:

paladins and grogs are like ice cream and pizza

Yeah . . . if that's true, that's someone being sexually harassed by their DM. The genders make it different from the usual story but that is some bad poo poo.

# ? Feb 5, 2015 23:54

Impermanent: Apr 1, 2010

That part of you that gets uncomfortable about the BDSM quality of calling someone a dungeon master is right.

# ? Feb 5, 2015 23:59

DigitalRaven: Oct 9, 2012

Impermanent posted:

That part of you that gets uncomfortable about the BDSM quality of calling someone a dungeon master is right.

The safe word is "caster superiority".

# ? Feb 6, 2015 01:13

Orange Fluffy Sheep: Jul 26, 2008; Bad EXP received

About being asked to not play comedy cards:

quote:

It seems no more right to shoot a black guy just cuz you don't like it, yet some people accept it anyways as ok.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 01:25

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

Laphroaig posted:

Frankly I can't tell which of these I like the most.

Its like the most masturbatory, groggy railroading I have ever seen. The fawning comments section though is what seals the deal.

Oh yeah and I forgot to point out but if you word replace "Fish people" with "blacks" and "pearls" with "cotton" you get a wonderful crazy racist diatribe about how Supply Side economics means the Civil War was actually the War of Murder Hobo Aggression.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 01:40

BrainParasite: Jan 24, 2003

This is actually a really good object lesson in the benefits of fiat currency

# ? Feb 6, 2015 02:24

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

The pearl farmers must now hire either fishmen or divers, but they can afford to pay them since the price for pearls is so high. As the economy restabilizes in a new equilibrium, more money is circulating and there's no slaves anymore. A suitable end to a heroic campaign. Well done, all!

# ? Feb 6, 2015 07:50

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

The worst part of all this grog is, I can see how a lot of this stuff would be fun with the right group and a better spin on it. Like, say you wanna be black market magic item smugglers in a low fantasy world. That's the campaign you and your players agreed on. Now you get to deal with hoity toity wizard assholes and local businesses who want their cut and crime and above all, you've still gotta go adventuring to pick up crazy raw materials to trade to the wizards in the first place. Zany adventures and close scrapes as you try to get rich doing shady but cool stuff is basically the core ingredient of many fantasy RPGs! But they just do it in such a smug, joyless way, without any kind of player consent.

Or the pearl crap. A story where, as well as fighting slavers and freeing slaves you also find ways to help overturn the society that allows for the slaving and help reconcile peoples who have been at each other's throats while building a booming economy and becoming the heroes of a whole society? That would be cool as all hell. But nooooo.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 07:55

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

Night10194 posted:

The worst part of all this grog is, I can see how a lot of this stuff would be fun with the right group and a better spin on it. Like, say you wanna be black market magic item smugglers in a low fantasy world. That's the campaign you and your players agreed on. Now you get to deal with hoity toity wizard assholes and local businesses who want their cut and crime and above all, you've still gotta go adventuring to pick up crazy raw materials to trade to the wizards in the first place. Zany adventures and close scrapes as you try to get rich doing shady but cool stuff is basically the core ingredient of many fantasy RPGs! But they just do it in such a smug, joyless way, without any kind of player consent.

Or the pearl crap. A story where, as well as fighting slavers and freeing slaves you also find ways to help overturn the society that allows for the slaving and help reconcile peoples who have been at each other's throats while building a booming economy and becoming the heroes of a whole society? That would be cool as all hell. But nooooo.

The whole point for these people is that there is no player consent.

For some people the GM position exists to express your creativity and guide friends through characters and story ideas.

For others it's a big smug abusive throne.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 08:02

Saguaro PI: Mar 11, 2013; Totally legit tree

This entire thread is a pretty rich vein of grog.

-----------------------

I hate the singular term "Game Mechanic". The correct English term is Game Mechanism. People think because there's a term like Game Mechanics, a single instance must be a Mechanic. Wrong. Game Mechanics is a collective term, sort of like Electronics. Have you ever seen an Electronic?

Another is "Low Fantasy". High Fantasy does not imply Low Fantasy. High Fantasy to me refers to Fantasy where Magic is common and there are several humanoid races, usually all interfertile, full of quests, like Tolkein or Arthurian legends, or even Wagner's operas. It's like the term High Adventure. There are other types of Fantasy, more gritty where Magic is rare or only used by evil sorcerors, like Conan, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (yes, I know that the Mouser used some minor Magic, but only a few low-powered bits). It's not "low", it has its own name - Swords and Sorcery.

Both are signs of lazy thinking and the debasement of the language. A very common non-gaming example is the singular noun "Graphic". Graphics is a plural noun, and the singular form is an adjective, not a noun. The Singular noun is Graphic Image.

Herendethelesson.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 08:16

Four Score: Feb 27, 2014; by zen death robot; Lipstick Apathy

Error 404 posted:

And its such a wonderful and succint term.

It's a really dumb comic though because it failed to convey how the sea lion was arguing in bad faith? I mean I read D&D (the subforum, not the game, but that too) all the time, and I get the terminology, by if you replaced the sea lion with a minority I don't think as twee a phrase as "sealioning" would be getting thrown around.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 08:51

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

First Bass posted:

It's a really dumb comic though because it failed to convey how the sea lion was arguing in bad faith? I mean I read D&D (the subforum, not the game, but that too) all the time, and I get the terminology, by if you replaced the sea lion with a minority I don't think as twee a phrase as "sealioning" would be getting thrown around.

The lion is constantly harassing the woman and acting like it has the right to her time, 24/7. It also is obviously only interested in debating to prove her wrong and be the masterful victor.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 08:59

Four Score: Feb 27, 2014; by zen death robot; Lipstick Apathy

Lightning Lord posted:

The lion is constantly harassing the woman and acting like it has the right to her time, 24/7. It also is obviously only interested in debating to prove her wrong and be the masterful victor.

I see. I just parsed it as her not answering any of the sea lion's questions, and having said a really dumb anti-sea lion thing out loud sort of invited a challenge to her idiot anti-sea lion opinion. I concede though that after she clammed up for being called out on her bullshit, the sea lion really didn't have any reason to further harass her.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 09:04

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

First Bass posted:

It's a really dumb comic though because it failed to convey how the sea lion was arguing in bad faith? I mean I read D&D (the subforum, not the game, but that too) all the time, and I get the terminology, by if you replaced the sea lion with a minority I don't think as twee a phrase as "sealioning" would be getting thrown around.

What the everloving gently caress are you even arguing here?
Concern trolling (as it's also been called since forever) and the calling out thereof, has nothing to do with minorities. It's just a dumb comic that came up with a dumb and amusing way of referring to a dumb and depressingly common derailment tactic.
Observe:
http://simplikation.com/why-sealioning-is-bad/
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions

# ? Feb 6, 2015 09:07

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

First Bass posted:

I see. I just parsed it as her not answering any of the sea lion's questions, and having said a really dumb anti-sea lion thing out loud sort of invited a challenge to her idiot anti-sea lion opinion. I concede though that after she clammed up for being called out on her bullshit, the sea lion really didn't have any reason to further harass her.

The whole point of the comic is that the sea lion is a huge harassing, bloviating rear end in a top hat eager to employ the rhetorical equivalent of a DDoS attack which, presumably, is the woman's reason for disliking them in the first place. Seriously, this isn't subtext, it's text. It's not a hard comic to parse.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 09:10

Four Score: Feb 27, 2014; by zen death robot; Lipstick Apathy

Hey chill out you grogs, I'm just asking questions :shrug:

# ? Feb 6, 2015 09:18

Mormon Star Wars: Aug 13, 2005; It's a minotaur race...

I haven't yet an opinion about the plural of simulacrum since it's an English-assimilated Latin word. Thus, it could be ruled by English grammar... or not. Concerning the main purpose of this discussion I see no obstacle to procede by merging Variant Dungeons & Dragons games into Dungeons & Dragons simulacrums... (talk) 06:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

# ? Feb 6, 2015 09:42

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

Really, the whole insistence on artificial politeness is what makes it clear to me that the comic is about the sea lion being a bad faith bigot of some variety. If you've ever observed them in action, that is the standard MO.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 09:47

Mormon Star Wars: Aug 13, 2005; It's a minotaur race...

Lightning Lord posted:

Really, the whole insistence on artificial politeness is what makes it clear to me that the comic is about the sea lion being a bad faith bigot of some variety. If you've ever observed them in action, that is the standard MO.

I thought the standard MO of a Sea Lion is dancing back and forth to a pop song and then catching the fish the trainer throws at them

# ? Feb 6, 2015 10:02

Bendigeidfran: Dec 17, 2013; Wait a minute...

Oh hey they're discussing Jennifer Clarke-Wilkes' layoff on EN World! No wait they're discussing her layoff on EN World

quote:

Yep. I'm out. I'm tired of feeling bad about being white and male because of things I've never done or perpetuated. I've never met another white male gamer who was any different than I am on that point. I loathe this perspective of discrimination that keeps getting perpetuated. Not once have I or anyone I know told a woman who was interested in gaming with us to hit the bricks. Isn't it possible that due to its subject matter the hobby might actually appeal more to males in general? That doesn't mean it discriminates. Plumbers are mostly male. Graphic designers tend to be female by the numbers. Some hobbies and careers attract more of one gender than the other. Why is this perceived as something that needs to be "corrected"?

I don't care who writes or illustrates my books. Just be good. I want quality and equality but not if one sacrifices the other so we can all pat ourselves on the back and tell people how progressive we are.

quote:

Being pleased with diversity is a nice side effect of fair hiring. Pushing diversity for the sake of diversity is not only stupid, but discriminatory.

Transphobic is a fear of trans... what? Transmissions, transportation, transporters (Dr. McCoy), transcendence, transvestites, transcontinental railroads? Not agreeing with accepting that someone is actually "Napolean Bonaparte of the Third Terran Intergalactic Empire" just because they claim to be, regardless of facts, does not mean that someone is afraid of something.

"Pushing" artificial diversity and acceptance of irrational ignorance of facts is very much SJW politics, which is why I don't want to be having this discussion on a table top gaming site.

quote:

Can I just state something I've observed? This will also show why it is I am an anti-SJW despite believing in the essential goals of equality.

Take a look at what ad_hoc said: "Feeling that gender does not matter is a privilege." Okay, that's nice... and isn't that same feeling, one backed by social mechanisms, the goal of gender equality? And given that it is a privilege, doesn't that mean that gender equality is not out to destroy privilege, but to gain it for those who do not have it? After all, if it were out to destroy privilege and what ad_hoc says is true, then one of the things gender equality movements would be out to destroy is the feeling that gender does not matter. And, it doesn't take a genius to see that destroying that feeling utterly would create even more injustice and oppression than currently exists.

That and replying to someone pointing out they are raising their daughter to feel that gender doesn't matter (another stated goal of gender equality) and that she shouldn't feel victimized (another stated goal of gender equality) is a marginalization of an whole group's problems with how society treats them kinda suggests the real goal of the SJW side of gender equality is the marginalization of the very groups they are fighting for. Is it, perhaps, no coincidence that the first President in history who treats women's issues seriously and is very much a gender equality SJW is also the one who coincides with a downturn in women's rights within law, then?

I am not saying gender equality is not an issue that should not be fought for. I'm saying that, in a way, you and ad_hoc are almost coming across as saying that the very goals of the gender equality movement are inherently discriminatory towards the people that movement is fighting for. I don't necessarily agree, but it's hard to side with you when you're undermining your own argument.

Not saying that equality is not deserved or that you are actually wrong. What I am doing is tossing this out there so you have an idea of an essential logic weakness within your stance.

quote:

Why is it a male dominated hobby? Simple. It has a lot of things guys like. Swords, dragons, magic, etc. A lot of us got in to this hobby as teens and for a teenage guy that's all pretty cool stuff. Do girls like this stuff? Sure, and that's why we're seeing a growing female player base. But the way you are couching your comments make it sound like we males are going out of our way to tell female players to stay out. We're not. Some might, but the majority of us are simply not that uptight.

Another simple answer, and the one I feel a lot of people overlook is guys and girls like different things. On occasion those interests cross over. I know guys who like the Twilight movies and girls who like Godzilla movies but that isn't the societal norm. I also have a daughter and a son who are free to play with whatever toys they want. They gravitated towards the things that are made for their respective genders. Was this foisted on them? No. Even at a very early age, before peer pressure would even play a factor, my son loved trucks and my daughter loved dolls. Cliche' true, but as parents we never told them what to play with.

If a majority of women like one thing and a majority of men like another thing this isn't a problem that needs correcting.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 16:08

Laphroaig: Feb 6, 2004; Drinking Smoke; Dinosaur Gum

At a young age, dragons will just naturally gravitate towards amassing huge piles of gold.

I don't see what the problem is. Look at Orcs. It says "Mostly Evil" right there on the stat-block. In the same manner, a Graphics Designer (someone who makes a series of Graphic Images) is going to be "Mostly Female".

Interior designers you say? Oh, I wouldn't know, I designed the rooms of my house using entirely 10 foot measurements, its an architectural style I call Gygaxian Naturalism.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 16:22

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Bendigeidfran posted:

Oh hey they're discussing Jennifer Clarke-Wilkes' layoff on EN World! No wait they're discussing her layoff on EN World

The site didn't used to be that bad.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 17:15

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

Laphroaig posted:

Frankly I can't tell which of these I like the most.

Its like the most masturbatory, groggy railroading I have ever seen. The fawning comments section though is what seals the deal.

All that effort just to go "You can't defeat my super special villains because the demand for slave pearls is endless and unchangeable."

dwarf74 posted:

The site didn't used to be that bad.

I wonder what could have happened???

# ? Feb 6, 2015 18:24

Tulul: Oct 23, 2013; THAT SOUND WILL FOLLOW ME TO HELL.

Laphroaig posted:

At a young age, dragons will just naturally gravitate towards amassing huge piles of gold.

I don't see what the problem is. Look at Orcs. It says "Mostly Evil" right there on the stat-block. In the same manner, a Graphics Designer (someone who makes a series of Graphic Images) is going to be "Mostly Female".

Interior designers you say? Oh, I wouldn't know, I designed the rooms of my house using entirely 10 foot measurements, its an architectural style I call Gygaxian Naturalism.

An Actual Nazi posted:

From reading and posting on the Opposing Views section of the forum, I read a lot of foolish comments from the anti's. Statements like "I know a black person who is really smart, therefore everything you say about racial intelligence differences is wrong." Well, of course, the lack of understanding of statistics this statement shows is staggering. I try to recall when in my life when I could have fallen for such a foolish statement and I can't think of when I would have.

I completely understood how there could be smart blacks and yet blacks be less intelligent than whites as a whole when I was a child. When was the first time I thought about an idea like that? When I got into Dungeons and Dragons at the age of nine or ten. I knew that elves were more agile than humans. I knew that because they had a +1 bonus (back when I started playing, now its +2) to Dexterity, I knew they were more dexterous even though the average elf had a Dexterity of 11.5 and humans could have a Dexterity of 18.

These days, orcs have an average Intelligence of 8.5 (10.5 average for 3d6, -2) and since IQ roughly corresponds to D&D Intelligence times ten, then that puts your typical orc at an average IQ of about 85 . . . who does that remind you of? Of course, even as a child (long before I was racially aware) I would have known you were a fool if you said that orcs were as smart as humans just because you had an orc character with an Intelligence of 16. So when I was ten, I apparently knew more about statistics than your typical anti does.

And this point may seem a bit silly, but it introduces an important idea that most white people are conditioned not to believe in - racial essentialism. The idea that race determines certain characteristics or tendencies. We knew that elves we dexterous, that dwarves were tough, that orcs were mean and nasty. We also knew that there were exceptions and that exceptions didn't mean that general trends didn't still apply.

D&D also has a lot about racial loyalty. Elves band together in protection of their forests. Orcs raid human villages and have to be stopped by the hero. In D&D, you have loyalty to your people and you know that sometimes a race in general can be a threat to your's.

As I've grown older over the years I've continued to enjoy role playing games and my though the games I've played have advanced beyond just fighting orcs and finding magic items - but I think that some of those ideas I was exposed to as a child were good lessons that maybe helped me come to terms with ideas that are part of beings a White Nationalist.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 19:15

paradoxGentleman: Dec 10, 2013; wheres the jester, I could do with some pointless nonsense right about now

Is that person seriously using D&D modifiers to justify his racism
Is that person seriously saying that he believes the real world works just like D&D
Is that really what is happenning right now

# ? Feb 6, 2015 19:32

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

paradoxGentleman posted:

Is that person seriously using D&D modifiers to justify his racism
Is that person seriously saying that he believes the real world works just like D&D
Is that really what is happenning right now

Clearly an elf getting +2 Dexterity is just like how black people have a -2 intelligence in the PHB.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 19:37

AmiYumi: Oct 10, 2005; I FORGOT TO HAIL KING TORG

paradoxGentleman posted:

Is that person seriously using D&D modifiers to justify his racism
Is that person seriously saying that he believes the real world works just like D&D
Is that really what is happenning right now

I have been using that quote as a test of new players in my TRPG groups for a while now. If their reaction is dawning horror and "oh no :ohdear:

", we cool.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 19:42

Serf: May 5, 2011

Anyone who uses the phrase "racial essentialism" and doesn't proceed to bash the hell out of it really isn't worth talking to about anything, ever.

AmiYumi posted:

I have been using that quote as a test of new players in my TRPG groups for a while now. If their reaction is dawning horror and "oh no", we cool.

I'm going to steal this policy. I could've avoided some very unpleasant people that way.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 20:15

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

Someone casts baleful polymorph on a paladin. The paladin makes their save immediately, the spell ends just as it begins, and the paladin attributes it to the Raven Queen watching over him.

Did you know that statement was actually a secret plot to kill roleplaying?

quote:

The game rules stipulate that, at the end of the NPC's next turn, the Baleful Polymorph ends. The rules do not stipulate why this occurs. (Thus, the mechanic is similar to the War Devil's mechanic that The Alexandrian lambasts in his essay.)

In the fiction, why did the curse on the paladin end? The answer - because the Raven Queen turned him back. And that answer was authored by the player.

quote:

I have two responses:

A) This would make them no different from faithful people IRL. (after all, they can't all be right.) That is, in a D&D style gameworld, things happen...weird things that aren't mundane like people turning into frogs. However (in games like D&D) these supernatural events and powers have durations, etc. that end up functioning like a kind of physics (even if a poor one).* Your character's assertion isn't even comparable to a Priestess of the Goddess of Momentum praising her for the bowling ball making it to the end of the lane. Why did the Baleful Polymorph end?-because effects like Baleful Polymorph do that.**

B)...except that there are (or can be) mechanics (bonuses, etc.) that do (or can) reflect a deity's intervention. So if we know that the Priests of the Goddess of Momentum are immune to immobilizing effects...then a PC can legitimately give her credit for that. The same for spellcasting abilities, etc.

*There are other games and mechanics, even some within D&D, for which this is not the case or at least not necessarily so, as the character's experiences would not correspond 1-to-1 with the operation of the mechanics.

**And I apologize for skirting the community guidelines.

EDIT:
Also, are characters in your game never wrong when they make assertions outloud? I mean, this reminds me of folks in various fandoms taking quotes from characters as gospel truth....forgetting that characters can be mistaken. So one character asserts "the Raven Queen did it" and is automatically presumed to be speaking the truth, what if another character asserts "I am invulnerable!" is he not automatically afforded the same consideration or do faithful characters receive some special benefit for declaring things in fiction?

quote:

I think it certainly is variable how tables can handle it. However, at least IME, allowing a player to assert the truth of the Raven Queen's intercession by default would be pushing it. Although, I don't think any table I've been at would balk at the Cleric making the claim as a reflection of the character's faith.

...

...I mean, hopefully the players don't go around asserting divine intervention for every single successful save and the end of every effect's duration. The game could quickly degenerate into a geometrically expanding divine obligations and tangled debts to various deities. Forcing the DM into downplaying what it actually means, and thus rendering the declaration of faith less interesting or complicating. Plus, what if there's multiple clerics of different deities?

quote:

That's why I as a player in that group would feel uncomfortable with the fiction of the Raven Queen ending the spell. Because I know that spells are formulas for discrete expressions of magic, with duration being a component of that discrete predictable effect. My imagination would naturally and automatically consider the ramifications of the player's authorship. That bit of Raven Queen fiction starts a major domino effect that intrudes on my immersion. If the other players and DM aren't equally willing to factor that domino effect into the worldbuilding, then I'm left holding the shattered pieces of my presumptions and trying to patch it back together [play the air violin here].

D&D kills your imagination.

# ? Feb 6, 2015 23:30

ocrumsprug: Sep 23, 2010; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

ProfessorCirno posted:

Someone casts baleful polymorph on a paladin. The paladin makes their save immediately, the spell ends just as it begins, and the paladin attributes it to the Raven Queen watching over him.

Did you know that statement was actually a secret plot to kill roleplaying?

D&D kills your imagination.

It's roll playing not role-playing (I heard somewhere.)

# ? Feb 7, 2015 00:04

canti32: Apr 27, 2008; Fearless in Devotion, Rising to Promotion,
Rising to the ranks of mighty heroes, Fighting foes in every land,

History only tells a story, We are to see your glory,
Stand aside the Reds are coming,
WREXHAM IS THE NAME

ProfessorCirno posted:

Someone casts baleful polymorph on a paladin. The paladin makes their save immediately, the spell ends just as it begins, and the paladin attributes it to the Raven Queen watching over him.

Did you know that statement was actually a secret plot to kill roleplaying?

D&D kills your imagination.

What is it specifically about paladins that sets off grogs? He even points it out himself that had a cleric said it it would be taken as a proclamation of faith.

Grog donation: From a thread asking for advice on what to do about a player missing sessions due to their job. Mostly people just saying who cares, but then this guy shows up and well

quote:

I hand out XP for achievement, not for just showing up. (And really especially truly NOT for not showing up.) I see no reason why I should screw the creative problem-solvers, the brilliant roleplayers and the skilled tacticians by proclaiming their contributions no different from the wallflowers who limit their involvement to rolling dice when it's their round in combat.

Folks who've openly demonstrated that they've felt slighted by not getting every benny everyone else gets have been, historically, invited to either step up their game, live with getting less XP, or seek a gaming group more likely to give them what they want.

As far as attendance goes, a player who misses as much as a third of my sessions is on thin ice, and the only exception I've ever made was for my oldest friend, who was dying of diabetes and missed sessions for things like "Bob? Dave won't be able to make it this weekend. He had a heart attack during his procedure day before yesterday, died on the table, and is still in ICU." � For anyone else, chronic and frequent absences provoke me to invite the player to give me a call when he or she can commit to regular attendance again.

That being said ... really, is the level disparity THAT bad? Jhkim suggests that a 15-pt gap in GURPS is nothing much, and it isn't: the largest gap there's ever been in my GURPS campaign is over a hundred points, which at the rate I hand out XP represents roughly two years' worth of sessions. (Players switch groups, they come, they go, they retire characters, they ask to play old characters from decades ago.) And I've no problem with that ... the nature of GURPS means that the grizzled veteran and the untried rookie can compete without either one feeling hard done by.

� - Wish I was making that up. I'm not. Thank heaven for the wild success of his double transplant.

gently caress you Dave, shouldn't have gotten diabetes if you wanted to be a level 5 wizard in my game!

# ? Feb 7, 2015 00:15

paradoxGentleman: Dec 10, 2013; wheres the jester, I could do with some pointless nonsense right about now

I don't think his problem is with the fact that it's a paladin doing this; it's the fact that the player took control of the narrative, thus stealing the DM's sacred duty in an act of sacrilegious hubris that fills his heart with dread.

If we allow players to do that, then what's next? Letting them come up with their own classes? Letting them dictate the result of dice rolls? It's a slippery slope'

# ? Feb 7, 2015 00:29

LightWarden: Mar 18, 2007; Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

The DM wasn't even mad about it or anything, the paladin in-character said that he believed it was the Raven Queen looking out for him even though it was just an End-of-Next-Turn ability. Which strikes me as no more unusual than someone attributing their good test results to divine favor.

Others are less than thrilled.

quote:

If I acted the paladin character, I might wonder after the battle:
1) Whenever an evil caster turns me into a frog, will the Raven Queen always turn me back to normal a minute later?
2) When an evil caster turns someone else into a frog, will the Raven Queen always turn them back to normal a minute later?
3) If an evil caster affects me with another foul spell, will the Raven Queen save me too, or does she only help with frog-related spells?
4) If (gods forbid!) I ever fell out of the Queen's favor, will she still save me? Would I be a frog forever? Or would I revert to normal after a minute whether or not I have the Queen's favor?
5) If I seek a wizard for advice, will he laugh and sing: What's the Raven Queen got to do with, got to do with it...?

The player's narration was nice for that moment, but it's still 'disassociated' from the big picture.

I DO respect players contributing to the narrative and making it more interesting and imaginative world. I just don't know that ad hoc narratives make the entire story plausible and consistent enough that resolves concerns of 'disassociation' for everyone else, except to those who are already on board.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 00:41

canti32: Apr 27, 2008; Fearless in Devotion, Rising to Promotion,
Rising to the ranks of mighty heroes, Fighting foes in every land,

History only tells a story, We are to see your glory,
Stand aside the Reds are coming,
WREXHAM IS THE NAME

LightWarden posted:

The DM wasn't even mad about it or anything, the paladin in-character said that he believed it was the Raven Queen looking out for him even though it was just an End-of-Next-Turn ability. Which strikes me as no more unusual than someone attributing their good test results to divine favor.

Others are less than thrilled.

Wow, after reading the original post all the way the only thing I can think is that dm is either autistic or a mustardgrog.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 01:41

The Bee: Nov 25, 2012; Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

canti32 posted:

Wow, after reading the original post all the way the only thing I can think is that dm is either autistic or a mustardgrog.

The only things the Raven Queen protects are the mustard industry and the slave trade. How dare you assume otherwise, in or out of character?

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:18

Orange Fluffy Sheep: Jul 26, 2008; Bad EXP received

LightWarden posted:

Others are less than thrilled.

I just cannot loving understand why this situation is so hard to grasp. Paladin gets frogged, unfrogs due to making save, and attributes this good thing to their deity. Can these people just not understand it was the paladin attributing the good thing to their deity, or maybe a statement like "I have become strong with Her blessings" but think it's a literal statement on how they unfrogged?

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:33

Mr Fahrenheit: Dec 10, 2010; Travelin' at the speed of light.

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

I just cannot loving understand why this situation is so hard to grasp. Paladin gets frogged, unfrogs due to making save, and attributes this good thing to their deity. Can these people just not understand it was the paladin attributing the good thing to their deity, or maybe a statement like "I have become strong with Her blessings" but think it's a literal statement on how they unfrogged?

If I was DMing that game, I'd say a prayer of thanks to anything that listens that someone came up with a decent gimmick I could use as a plot hook later that isn't cornball, Mary Sue bullshit.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 02:41

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 12:22

palecur: Nov 3, 2002; not too simple and not too kind; Fallen Rib

Mr Fahrenheit posted:

If I was DMing that game, I'd say a prayer of thanks to anything that listens that someone came up with a decent gimmick I could use as a plot hook later that isn't cornball, Mary Sue bullshit.

By doing that, you involve anything that listens in a web of obligations and precedent (what if you thank them later for narrowly averting a stubbed toe? Do they only help with GM situations?) that destroys verisimilitude IRL, thereby breaking physics everywhere. Thanks.

# ? Feb 7, 2015 03:01

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