Plague of Hats posted:

Yeah. He's got some interesting informational/critical videos on his channel, but "I punished my players for thinking we were here to have X fun when I wanted to have Y fun" is pretty His whole premise for this very video was even pretty good: Who the gently caress farts from their mouth about ~realism~ when you're fighting a dragon with a boar spear? Tricking your players into making GBS threads themselves is not the answer to that question.

Angrymog posted:

He's got a point with that video - weapons as we know them are specialised tools designed for attacking specific defences - a fantasy adventurer would also have specialised tools. It could be a fun game if your players know from the start that they're supposed to research and engineer a way to defeat the monster rather than just lay into it with their standard swords and stuff. It's enough of a difference from how players would expect to go that they need to be forwarned that you want to try running a diffierent sort of monster hunting game rather than spring it on them.

Angrymog posted:

Break monsters up into challenges or to use video game parlance, turn them into puzzle bosses?

Using his house sized Turtle

- Hard shell, either impervious to normal weapons/standard damage spells. Need specialised tools, be able to apply damage over a long time (give it a seperate HP total from the turtle?), or specific damage types?

- Runs away. Needs to be immobilised, or you need a way to follow it underwater. - hidden pits (dug with magic or peasents), the mentioned draggable logs, nets you pull up to ensnare it, called shots to the flippers?

- Dealing actual damage to it. Called shots to the head, damage to the body once the shell has been cracked, drowning it by finding a way to stop it surfacing?

It turns monster fighting into a much more brutal and mechanical affair than the expected norm.

ZeeToo posted:

I'm pretty sure this qualifies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CfyU1mOZ1E

Omnicrom posted:

I could get behind Monster Hunter RPG, but only if the players knew and agreed that this is what they should be doing. One of the most classic types of Grog is the players expecting one thing and the GM punishing them for not psychically intuiting what they wanted to run instead.

ProfessorCirno posted:

If they aren't writing equally as sexist and/or racist and/or stereotype driven, in many cases, they've left the genre, or at least, become a separate subgenre, from the older works.

Lightning Lord posted:

Interesting post from someone who hates something they profess to love, subconsciously or otherwise.

Angrymog posted:

Break monsters up into challenges or to use video game parlance, turn them into puzzle bosses?

Using his house sized Turtle

- Hard shell, either impervious to normal weapons/standard damage spells. Need specialised tools, be able to apply damage over a long time (give it a seperate HP total from the turtle?), or specific damage types?

- Runs away. Needs to be immobilised, or you need a way to follow it underwater. - hidden pits (dug with magic or peasents), the mentioned draggable logs, nets you pull up to ensnare it, called shots to the flippers?

- Dealing actual damage to it. Called shots to the head, damage to the body once the shell has been cracked, drowning it by finding a way to stop it surfacing?

It turns monster fighting into a much more brutal and mechanical affair than the expected norm.

Bendigeidfran posted:

Have you seen the Sword of Truth or Xanth threads? Self-deprecation is preeetty necessary to be a fan of Fantasy sometimes.

paradoxGentleman posted:

Don't people just... TALK before starting a campaign? Why isn't this the standard procedure?
I mean, if you're playing in a setting everyone's familiar with, then alright, I guess you can have an idea of what you should expect -a roleplaying game set in the Warhammer 40K universe is probably not going to be about cloak and dagger court politics- but what sort of GM doesn't explain to his players what are they getting into before starting, if nothing else so they can create appropriate characters?

Lightning Lord posted:

I've never really been a fan of judging something by it's worst examples. But that's besides the point. We'd have to assume this guy is being self-depreciating, and I don't think that's the case. This really sounds like a veiled "fantasy is required to be on mighty thews otherwise it's pandering to SJWs" comment. It's the strangest thing, it's like the inverse of the classic "if it's good it's not REALLY sci-fi/fantasy" statement.

quote:

I've been reading this thread for a while now and I think its high time to throw in my own spores for thought.
I've played AD&D, 3.5 and am currently running a pathfinder game and have played 4e once (Hated it but I'll get to that later) and I've GMed for almost all the games I've been in, so i have working knowlage of every system.
The thing is, there is no best system. There are however things I like from each system. AD&D has my favorite lore and setting as well as flavor. I love the customization of 3.5 the streamlining of pathfinder and heck I'd even admit to liking the combat/daily/whenever powers and items from 4e. I've never been a stickler for rules, so what I've been doing is slowly frankenstiening the my favorite parts from every system into my own personal one with the same group.
I use AD&Ds lore and campaign setting including some of the restrictions e.g. Clerics can only use crushing weapons, the gods and goddesses, setting ect. I hate playing AD&Ds system though, I never get THAC0, I think the saves are contrived and stupid, The class restrictions are just infuriating as well as multiclassing. It was groundbreaking for its time but now I think its just plain outdated and really shows its age.
I love how 3.5 can allow you to literally create any character you come up with. How in the games systems there is literally nothing limiting you but your imagination. The system is designed to allow for absolute freedom, Feats are an easy way to develop your character and weapon proficiency have been replaced with combat feats. I also like how it added Combat maneuvers which add a whole new level of play to combat if used right, I like how skills handle Out of combat proficiencies because you can have a lot of fun with them with some imagination. Like hurting the player or really throwing a cog into the players plans with a botched diplomacy check. I do think however there are way to many skills that aren't differentiated enough e.g. Search and Spot; Balance and Tumble; Hide and Move Silently . The customization also allows for huge amounts of abuse. I've seen on a optimization sight that if you use every splat book officially published that you can turn a druid into a greater god by level 4. Also the dead levels really suck.
I'm in a love hate relationship with Pathfinder. Its DnD 3.75, it streamlines so much of 3.5 but at the same time breaks so much. The first game I had ran with a Paladin that was so good in and out of combat that I had to create challenges for her, and challenges for the rest of the party and it really bogged everything down. I love the skills in pathfinders, they make so much more sense than in 3.5 and are a lot easier to manage, I also love what they did with Combat maneuvers with Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense, it saves so much time. Pathfinder would have been my ideal system if it weren't for 1 thing. The feats, dear lord, the feats. So many of the feats in pathfinder are so overpowered and so gamebreaking that I downright require a player to tell me what each feat does. If I have to do that, then you have made a terrible design choice.
I won't lie, I hate 4e, I really do. It feels like World of Warcraft, hell it was probably designed that way to draw in the WoW crowd. 4e is too balanced, there's hardly any difference in classes outside the meta roles that each class subscribes to, which the players guide outright tells you about, the Controller, Striker, Leader and Defender. DnD took a huge step back with this. Instead of allowing you to choose a class and slowly work it to what role you want it to be. The class you take is forced into the role that WotC gave it. Sure classes before hand were suited to specific roles but they weren't bound to them like in 4e. There is incredibly little imagination or variation on what you can do with those classes. If you are a fighter, you are a tank, that is it. If you are a ranger, you are a damage dealer, that is it. If you are a mage, you are a controller that is it. If you are a leader class, you are a buff giver, that is it. Its boring, its contrived, and it stifles creativity. I do like however, some of the the encounter/daily/whenever powers that players get, and I downright love a lot of the items and special enchantments that 4e came up with.

So now that I've created a wall of text that the Night's Watch would be proud to call home I guess I'll tell you how I Frankenstein it all together. I use AD&D's setting before spell plague, before Time of Troubles, before all of that rot. Then I start with 3.5's system. I replace the 3.5 skills with Pathfinders and Fill out some of the dead levels with Pathfinders levels and I'll allow players to take some of 4e's powers converted to 3.5 as feats . I outright refuse Pathfinders feats in favor of 3.5's. I then allow players to use 4e's equipment 3.5-ized and if any problem arise I take them case by case and rule accordingly.

quote:

I think those criticizing those of us (old timers) who are critical of 4th edition, on principle, may be doing more of a dis-service than they realize. It is taking a higher ground to shut down a debate without ability to reason, yet those of use who played and loved the earlier editions of the game feel that our game *has* been taken away from us. Yes, we can continue to play with our aging books, and our aging gaming groups, but we cannot easily introduce the love of our game to a new generation of gamers.

I am not saying that 4th Edition is a bad game. It is not a game that appeals to me, but it clearly does appeal to a large group of gamers, which suggests it is probably a very good game. For my sins, I tend to reach for Advanced HeroQuest when I want to game in that style, so I know it can be very enjoyable. But it is more than a just a different take on the existing game - 3rd Ed was very different to what came before, but it retained much of the distinctive character of the previous 2 or 3 decades of gaming - all the familiar classes and races from the original game were present, with just a couple of additions (sorcerers, and bards moved up from an optional appendix). The magic system was retained, essentially identically. The spells from the original player's handbook were for the most part all there, at the same levels, and had the same effect. Not just magic missile and fireball, but hundreds of spells, this is a deep and cherished lore.

Another defining characteristic of D&D is that balance was entirely the responsibility of the DM - the character classes advanced at very different rates, and power levels would fluctuate around the party accordingly. There are many other games I can play if I want a relentless balance, but D&D has traditionally not been that, and that is something distinctive that draws us back again and again.

I have no grudge against 4th Edition as a game system. I would have no grudge if it had been branded a parallel 'basic' D&D game, as existed in the early years of the game (if fact 'basic' is the original D&D, and while I know folks who played it, it (just) predates even my gaming). The problem is that it has replaced 30 years of shared history of many gamers. Not just the shared history of *a* game, but the shared history of *the* game. D&D is special in another way, as it is the grand-daddy of all RPGs, it is the first, the original. Messing with D&D goes beyond just messing with one game, it has an emotional appeal that you are messing with the whole hobby, that has been an important part of many of its fans for a disturbingly large part of their lives.

So yes, I do resent 4th edition (but not its players) and it has nothing to do with the quality of the game system itself, and is entirely to do with its attempt to rewrite out of history 30 years of gaming as if it did not matter. (For the company looking to pull in money from consumers today, it probably really did not matter - for the folks who work for the company making that game, I suspect it mattered a whole lot more, but understand the need to keep drawing a paycheck for doing something that you love, which ultimately means satisfying those that pay your bills.)

quote:

And here I was thinking the photo illustrated a clear sense of redundancy.

4e is a lot like pushing a baby stroller while riding on a Segway. Segways, like 4e, are well developed and fulfill their design function. However, they're expensive (like "upgrading" to 4e and buying miniatures), require less effort (replacing narrative-based RPing with combat-oriented RPing), and transform an activity that wasn't broken to begin with. I think Segways and the artwork of 4e look pretty ridiculous, too.

I don't like 4e. The OP doesn't like 1e or 2e. Big whoop.

Lightning Lord posted:

"fantasy is required to be on mighty thews otherwise it's pandering to SJWs" comment

quote:

I'd like to take a moment to discuss my opinions on what I see are the fundamental shifts in the dungeons & dragons and D&D style games over the last 40 years.

Role-play to Roll-play

The first, and perhaps most obvious change. In the early days of D&D (the 1970's and 1980's) D&D was, in my opinion 50% narrativistic and 50% gamist. That is to say, half the time you spent describing in detail the who, what, why, where, when and how of what your player character was doing. If you were the game master you were even more busy narrating what the characters could see, hear, smell, touch and perhaps even taste. The idea was to have a loose framework (the game system) as a guide to collaboratively writing a story full of adventure and danger. The other 50% of the game, the part that was born out of war games, counted distances and ranges, rolled dice, compared AC and THAC0, added +1's to weapons and armor, and so on.

Today, however, the game (specifically pathfinder, 4E and 5E) are almost completely gamist. Each of the games plays lip service to the idea and concepts of role playing, but in fact, their emphasis and focus is on rolling dice and comparing or adding stats. In this sense, modern D&D isn't so much 50% roleplaying, but rather mostly a hybrid somewhere between a board game and a wargame with role playing as the frosting on the cake.

Power Shift from GM to Rulebook

It used to be that the game master had all the power. They were not only a narrator and referee, but often the very creators of the world and universe the character's resided in. More over, the GM was the sole proprietor of the actual game rules themselves. Player characters had rules of their own of course, but the clock-work system was meant to be kept a closely guarded secret.

This meant a lot of GM fiat, sure, but that didn't mean the GM didn't have rules, guidelines or a framework to follow. But it did mean the game master was the one responsible for keeping track of all the behind-the-scenes information and presenting a colorful and vibrant description of the world the players resided in. In times of conflict or misunderstanding the GM was the supreme authority.

Today, everyone knows the rules (including the players), and the rules are ever growing. In basic D&D, which can be argued a complete stand-alone book, the page count comes out to be just shy of 70 pages. In pathfinder you have over 500 pages; not including all the supplements.

What this means is now any rules lawyer of a player can turn to the rulebook for answers rather than the GM. When a character wishes to irk out every last point of damage or modifier they can use the rules as a basis for argument against the game master. This in turn means the game master is helpless against the rulebook since the answer is so clearly written in black and white.

The game master now is as much at the mercy to the rules as the players are to the game master. To be a GM requires extensive knowledge in many facets and special corner cases of the rulebook. If the game master tries to change the rules or add a home rule they will find it difficult due to the rules being so intricately linked together like a game of pick-up-sticks.

The things you own end up owning you

It used to be that roleplaying games were for the imagination. GMs would sound more like orators or narrators reading a book or describing the opening act of a scene. In many cases the game master would describe in detail the dimensions of the rooms characters explored as well as their spatial relation to one another. A room wasn't just a square drawn on a battle mat; it was a 10 space by 20 space above-ground kennel that held the king's hounds with mortar and hand-chiseled stone with large vaulted ceilings being held high with cedar beams and an iron wrought chandelier hanging in the center with iron chains.

Then along came visuals. First it was innocent enough such as graph paper and pewter figures. Then dioramas, battle mats and pre-printed "areas" for store-bought campaigns. Now there's virtual tabletops and computer-assisted projections of the areas onto a table.

So you may ask what it is I have a problem with visuals? Nothing, in theory. In theory they add a great touch to the scene unfolding. In practice, however, they take time to set up. I've watched several you tube videos of game sessions where they use rolld20 and spend copious amounts of time explaining how to use the program, rather than just playing the game.

What's worse, GMs grow lazy, taking advantage of these tools of convenience. It's no longer a detailed explanation of the character's senses, it's the GM pointing to the drawing of some simple shapes and saying "there's a passage that leads to the west and down some stairs, or a passage that leads to the east." Have we really fallen this far?

The realm of D&D and D&D-styled games has been transported from the playground of the imagination to the table, whether it be in pen, marker or pencil, or virtual images, we no longer give a drat as much because the visuals are "good enough".

We're losing touch with reality

If you look at the cover of 5E you see a gargantuan monster facing off with one player character as they battle to the death. In the background is fire, destruction and some kind of hell dogs that look equally intimidating. This is the fantasy we're being sold. Ever bigger enemies, ever larger challenges all being conquered by our super heros--er I mean player characters. But that's what they are, now, the PCs--super heroes. More HP, faster healing, faster leveling up. By the time you hit max level you're a god (or goddess) among men.

Compare that to early versions of D&D where a wizard had the chance of starting with 1 HP, or many characters could die from one hit by a kobold. Healing took DAYS to achieve. No short rests, no long rests, no second winds. You had to rest for days or hope you had a cleric at the 2nd level, bought healing potions or hired a retainer who could help. Even then player characters were dying left and right. It was dark, it was gritty, it was dangerous as hell...but most of all it was realistic.

paradoxGentleman posted:

-a roleplaying game set in the Warhammer 40K universe is probably not going to be about cloak and dagger court politics-

quote:

Today, however, the game (specifically pathfinder, 4E and 5E) are almost completely gamist. Each of the games plays lip service to the idea and concepts of role playing, but in fact, their emphasis and focus is on rolling dice and comparing or adding stats. In this sense, modern D&D isn't so much 50% roleplaying, but rather mostly a hybrid somewhere between a board game and a wargame with role playing as the frosting on the cake.

quote:

I'm a devout Catholic, and a social conservative. I won't react positively to characters or table-talk that is hostile to Catholic doctrine or social stances.

quote:

Characters?

I myself am a hardline libertarian. At least eight of my players in my two upcoming campaigns are liberal/progressive/sort of leftish. I would consider it bad GMing practice to penalize them for playing characters who shared those views, if they put the views on the character sheet in the first place (rather than defining the character as something else and then playing them as progressives).

I agree with the film director who said, "If you gotta message, call Western Union."

Bill Stoddard

quote:

Really, the issue is that a few players have wanted me to endorse their homosexual lifestyles by approving characters in my game who were active homosexuals, in settings where that didn't fit, and then trying to make issue that they never got any romantic scenes.

I don't care if someone has same-sex attraction - literally, I don't care - but I object to people expecting me to GM romance for homosexuals. Or bestiality. Or demon pacts as good. Such things are the character level.

As far as table-chatter goes, again, I don't care if Joe's a homosexual or a lech - but DADT is definitely in force in my home or if my kids are playing in the game. If joe starts going on about his trysts (be they male, female or other), I'm likely to get offended.

I had one guy who wanted me to run a game at his place - but kept making lewd comments about his roommate. I killed the game, because I was uncomfortable, and he wasn't paying me to GM.

quote:

This. At the end of the Day, if its your house, you make the rules.
No one forces you to play ANY game. It's a voluntary choice.

One of the things that people dont always understand is that the GM has to be all the NPCs. That means that if you want a Gay lover in the game, I have to npc that. And I dont wanna.

This is also the same reason I refuse most of my charachters intellignet pets. I dont wanna pretend to be your dolphin or dog or dragon. I have enough things to do on my side of the screen with out propping up your charachter with a sidekick or gay lover.

Table chatter? Same goes. I, as a person, am periodically vulgar and almost compulsively profane. But its my house. If you are one of my children or a peer of my children you will be governed by those rules which means you will refrain from profanity or I will jump both feet smooth into your nether regions. I dont care that you are 18+. You will respect me and you will respect my home by respecting my wishes in my home or you will be shown the door.

My house. My Rules. Period. Think of it as the Metagame rule zero.

As to being at someone elses house, its perfectly acceptable to say 'Hey I cant work like this' and punt. You are not a prisoner there. You are free to leave whenever. Its not your place to change or set the rules in someone elses home, but you are well within your rights to leave.


Nymdok

quote:

I'll grant you your argument. I actually agree with you in certain respects. If something truly is sexist or racist (I'm thinking of some Conan stories) then we should call it what it is, as you mentioned with your Lovecraft example. What I'm talking about is the modern tendency to take something that isn't sexist/racist and claim that it is, and then usually change it and justify the change based on said perceived sexism/racism/whateverism.

I mentioned a knight rescuing a damsel in distress. Modern people think this is sexist. I was called a sexist on this thread because I had the audacity to defend it as a good stereotype.

This does not mean that women cannot be heroes or that all women are in distress. As I mentioned, Merida in the movie Brave is a phenomenal example. The creators of Brave didn't take an old story and PC it up. They made a new story, created a new stereotype/symbol that contained their own unspoken values and it succeeds overwhelmingly as Fantasy.

Elves create beautiful things. Orcs create nothing. They can only desecrate. They take the old and beautiful and twist it for their own purposes. In Fantasy, when a good stereotype/symbol is turned on its ear for the purposes of being politically correct, you have orc mischief.

Real sexism/racism is wrong and should be fought against, no matter what time or place it is derived (btw, when and where exactly was it when time and place became enlightened and no longer were racist or sexist in and of themselves?). But we have the Perceived -Ism's Police running about following up on everyone's hurt feelings and it's muddied the waters.

Point is, when Political Correctness invades Fantasy, far from it being expanded, Fantasy has actually lost ground to the real world.

quote:

I'm a devout Catholic, and a social conservative. I won't react positively to characters or table-talk that is hostile to Catholic doctrine or social stances.

Antivehicular posted:

I know in practice this dude appears to mean "no homo," but I really want there to be a story here about an argument about the finer points of Papal infallibility or the 12th-century papal bulls establishing the Knights Templar. I want this guy's group to be getting into fistfights over Vatican II. I want Catholigrog.

Heliotrope posted:

In a thread on "GM Manifestos"

Antivehicular posted:

I want Catholigrog.

Bruce Newman posted:

Saving Dwarfs From Forlorn Encystment

03/03/07

Iucounu held up his hand. “The offense is far too serious for flippant disclaimers. I have stated my abhorrence for plunderers and thieves, and now I must visit upon you justice in its most unmitigated rigor – unless, of course, you can suggest an adequate requital.”

“Some such requital surely exists,” Cugel averred. “This cord however rasps upon my skin, so that I find cogitation impossible.”

“No matter, I have decided to apply the Charm of Forlorn Encystment, which constricts the subject in a pore some forty-five miles below the surface of the earth.”

- from The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

Cugel the Clever was a thief and a knave, a character conjured up by the magnificent imagination of science-fiction writer Jack Vance. In this instance Cugel had been bound by Iucounu the Laughing Magician, having been caught stealing from Iucounu’s manse. The penalty laid on him would be the Charm of Forlorn Encystment, from which you can gather the nature of in the above dialogue. Imprisonment in a pore forty-five miles below the earth’s surface would indeed be a forlorn encystment.

Don’t simply read. Feel and taste this bitter word forlorn. It speaks of silent suffering without remedy; of despair and hopelessness. It is a word for our time, which if we really understood our hearts would be better soil for hope. And let us not distance ourselves in arrogance, envisioning starving infants and war torn cities. Yes, those are the obvious places where forlorn is the unchallenged landlord charging whatever spirit crushing rent he desires. But here in the West, in what we call civilization, forlorn often has a designer look and a ready explanation to scratch every itching ear. It has friends in high places who mute its effect with elaborate sophistries that never change its nature but redirect its force, ensuring only that its withering strength is ignored through illusion until it overwhelms. Its victims are then forgotten with an appropriate shaking of the head and relegated to outer darkness to become cold cases awaiting artificial resurrection through more intricately developed deceptions such as you’ll find in the DSM (psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and the common man’s implicit DSM – political correctness. These things and much more make us far more pathetic than Third world countries and inhabitants of terrorized and bombed out cities who at least have some excuse. But we, in the midst of plenty, on the tail end of history recorded on film and page, enjoying comforts unmatched, are a snapshot of the forlorn man of the tombs.

And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:

Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. – Mark 5:2-5

There are young people these days who cut themselves. They call themselves, appropriately, cutters, thus showing they still retain some simple honesty that would no doubt be mutilated in the hands of therapists who avoid forlorn reality and send their patients away with joyless smiles painted on with medication’s dead brush. Cutting is the cry of forlorn spirits but only one cry in a mass wailing out of our many avant-garde tombs. I don’t have to be able to see through walls to know that in ghettos, mansions, workplaces, nightclubs, hotels and, yes, churches all across this country the forlorn cry out in deafening silence. They walk around in forlorn encystment in broad daylight, inwardly imploded upon themselves like stars that become black holes. And like a black hole light that comes to them is swallowed up by the forlorn heaviness of their gravity. They dwell in the tombs, which is anyplace they are since they carry desolation with them, cutting themselves on the jagged edges of the innate knowledge that the tempter’s original message that they shall be as gods (Gen.3:5) was the most costly scam ever run, but, like being electrocuted, they can’t seem to let go of the instrument of death.

Unlike the man in the tombs those entrapped in forlorn encystment today don’t break their chains. No way! Maybe you didn’t know this but they’ve developed some perverse (another word for our time) sophistication since their forefather racked up chill time in cold biblical tombs. With sophistication comes fashion sense. Chains are part of the image now. Forget the chopper riders who wore a few chains on black leather jackets. That was a fad. Fads come and go. Nobody goes into forlorn encystment without a strong sense of self-righteousness. Above all else self-righteousness calls attention to itself.

But all their works they do to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments… Mat.23:5

See? The self-righteous have always had a fashion sense. Who do you think came up with hair shirts but people doing public penance? With the self-righteous the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing (Mat.6:3). That’s another symptom of this disease. Who thinks about their hands? That’s a part of your body you usually move on impulse. Thought and act are almost one. But with the self-righteous what used to be simple becomes complicated. That’s why Judas tried to make a big deal out of Mary pouring expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet (Jn.12:5). Nobody else tightened up over it except him because nobody else was as self-righteous as he was. When it comes down to it “self-righteousness” is just another way of saying self-centeredness raised a few degrees hotter. And whether you’re trapped in a pore forty-five miles beneath the earth or the even stronger one within called futility of mind (Eph.4:17) there is no greater self-hatred than to cook in futility’s grease within a forlorn encystment, generating a white hot resentment and rage. The French have a word for this special kind of resentment: Ressentiment.

res•sen•ti•ment (rə-säɴ'tē-mäɴ')
n. A generalized feeling of resentment and often hostility harbored by one individual or group against another, especially chronically and with no means of direct expression.

Note the words “chronically and with no other means of expression”. This is the attitude we nurse in this country from noxious seedling to poisonous tree. How? Please permit me a little story as explanation. Dwarves were much prized as servants and entertainers in ancient China and Rome. Eventually, the population of "natural" dwarves was exhausted, so techniques were developed to manufacture dwarves from normal children. In China, children were placed in a topless and bottomless vase. The vase was constructed to prevent the shoulders and legs of the growing child from emerging from it. Month after month, the children's bodies grew inside the vase, but with no room to grow up or down, they expanded outward to fill the space inside the vase. Eventually, the vase was cracked open and, voila! A dwarf is born.

We do the same thing but as usual we do it the way people abuse credit cards. The ease of using the card short circuits the caution we might use if actual dollars left our fingers so we don’t see the immediate results of spending money. As long as we don’t see the immediate results of stuffing people into the topless and bottomless vases of institutions and philosophies that treat human beings as if sensual and material concerns are all that matter (and we don’t even do that well because healthy spirituality alone makes for a healthy material outlook) then it should be no surprise that the dwarf population metastasizes. We like to wait until the negative results of our stupidity fill our prisons and dominate headlines. Then we enact, or we trust other manufactured dwarfs to enact, harsh rules that not only never solves the problem but makes life harder for those in the non-dwarf population.

All this because we set the stage for evil very early on. Because since human beings in reality have a spiritual capacity that is meant to control all other considerations (and it matters greatly how you interpret “spiritual”) when they are forced to live in the spiritual torture vases we stuff them in, the negative energy of what we ignore and abuse eventually expresses itself in a destructive madness. This is the logical result of legions of human spirits living “chronically and with no other means of expression” for the central part of who they are because from the beginning they are stuffed in a vase by packers with a full measure of religious faith in Dwarfism.

Pretty depressing stuff, is it not? Well, it’s supposed to be. We spend a lot of time trying to escape the effects of these truths because of the sheer magnitude of the problems. That’s understandable to a degree. Nobody wants to hear depressing things all the time. Hope deferred makes the heart sick…Pro.13:12. Yes, it does. But the rest of that verse says but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. This can mean many desires but there is one desire we all share as created creatures. If we fight it we aid and abet the creation of dwarfs in forlorn encystment. If we acknowledge it we have hope in its fulfillment.

For the earnest expectation of the creature waits for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. – Rom.8:19-21

While this refers to the final unveiling of the sons of God I believe it would be a mistake to relegate this to the future only, disfiguring the meaning the same way we’ve done with end times foolishness. When Christians act with a sincere and conscious desire to glorify Christ instead of churchy moralities and sub-cultural pathologies the sons of God are revealed to some degree then. This is the hope that can release dwarfs from their forlorn encystment. When they hear of other dwarfs released from captivity (Luk.4:18) the Holy Spirit applies this to their hearts and they begin to desire freedom. So as depressing as the whole scene is from our limited vision we have only one choice if we ever seriously intend to not only release the dwarfs from forlorn encystment but prevent their creation in the first place.

And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, you know. Again he said to me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say to them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. – Eze.37:3-4

quote:

Go for the emotional trauma, do not be squeamish about sexual issues or other political incorrect plot lines. Remember, demons are EVIL, they do not respect limits. So have them torture a victim for no particular reason then frame the heroes for it. Have a succubus possess an under age victim then use the body to seduce a PC only to leave in the middle of sex. Turn the hero into a villain against his will. Seduce, corrupt, humiliate, and degrade...

Halloween Jack posted:

FORLORN ENCYSTMENT OF THE VANCIAN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS DWARVES

Halloween Jack posted:

Saving Dwarfs From Forlorn Encystment

Antivehicular posted:

I guess you could say that.. we are all now sons of liches.

ProfessorCirno posted:

I typically don't simply because I often have them quoting others and I don't think you can nest quotes.

Nessus posted:

I remember something that went into one of the earlier versions of the thread, but I don't know where it was... it was a quote from some White Wolf writer, I don't remember which, saying that they had learned from Mage that they had to relentlessly oppose variant thoughts on the metaplot of their game lines, or else fanon would leak in through new writers eventually.

Gerdalti posted:

I may be a bit more technical than the average person (seasoned IT person), and I love RPG video games and MMO's, so I have some experience with the subject matter. Until this week I had literally never even heard of most of these other systems (Fate, Dungeon World, etc).

I'm sure the barrier for entry when you have little cognitive thinking skills or only a 5th grade reading level is complicated. Most people trying to play a tabletop RPG will be of that ilk though. This is a nerdy hobby, for nerds right? We pride ourselves on being smart right?

Gerdalti posted:

I mean hell, I learned and implemented site-to-site ipsec vpn on a totally unfamiliar system in 3 hours this morning. I am clearly not the average scenario, nor am I even close to bordering on the nerd-curious.

FMguru posted:

How long have you been sitting on this?

quote:

Unfashionable games from the past, abandoned by the free world in favor of the digital, have survived in prison. Men still like cribbage (which requires pegs), horseshoes, and Dungeons and Dragons. Although some prisons actually forbid the latter out of a belief that it spurs nerds to violence, inmates own the books, draw the fields of play, and hold elaborate campaigns. It's like the '80s all over again: What flourishes as a nostalgic novelty in the free world serves as a present-day necessity inside.

ProfessorCirno posted:

FMguru posted:

From an article at Deadspin, of all places, on what people in prison do fill up their endless, endless days:

Lightning Lord posted:

Actually, aren't RPGs also popular in the military because of all the waiting around too?