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Ettin posted:Otisburg making bad posts on the something awful dot com forums Hey Ettin! don't you have a multiforum conspiratorial campaign of electronic terrorism to orchestrate?
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Jan 6, 2015 08:57
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Otisburg posted:I find vintage grog neat since it shows all of this is like poetry: it rhymes. So when is 5e going to get called a casual DOTA clone? 
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Jan 6, 2015 09:02
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I think that's why they who study history must make fun of people for getting in, essentially, the same argument over and over again. It's the only way to combat the crushing existential despair of watching people getting in, essentially, the same argument over and over again.
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Jan 6, 2015 11:16
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inklesspen posted:Luke Crane strapped on his "everyone else is doing it wrong" hat and talked for an hour. lol By this logic, everything Luke Crane has ever designed should be credited to Jordan Weisman because Burning Wheel is just an extensive Shadowrun hack.
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Jan 6, 2015 11:24
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Otisburg posted:Have some vintage usenet grog as recompense: Holy poo poo, this stuff is almost as old as I am. Grog. Grog never changes. Asimo posted:I still love the hell out of that old usenet post. Some things never, ever change. 5E with all of its free rules tests, simple mechanics, and Pay2Win insider content is more like one of those free-to-play Korean MMO's.
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Jan 6, 2015 11:50
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ManMythLegend posted:Holy poo poo, this stuff is almost as old as I am.
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Jan 6, 2015 14:28
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inklesspen posted:That's really only for the core Burning Wheel; you can buy PDFs of Mouse Guard and Torchbearer (and IIRC they're still in print). Isn't that only because different people own those two titles?
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Jan 6, 2015 15:38
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I need a primer on Zak S and why everyone hates him and he is crazy. Generally the grog about him is so trenched in lingo that I can't figure out what the issue is. Something something elfgames transtrash desborough tradgames badwrong.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:27
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theironjef posted:I need a primer on Zak S and why everyone hates him and he is crazy. Generally the grog about him is so trenched in lingo that I can't figure out what the issue is. Something something elfgames transtrash desborough tradgames badwrong. Well, you could look at a picture of him, but be warned- prolonged exposure to Zak S has been known to cause increased aggression in lab rats. Or, well, there's the thing where he anointed himself as the true judge of genuine LGBT people.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:29
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theironjef posted:I need a primer on Zak S and why everyone hates him and he is crazy. Generally the grog about him is so trenched in lingo that I can't figure out what the issue is. Something something elfgames transtrash desborough tradgames badwrong. This should cover it. Link to a tumblr post
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Jan 6, 2015 18:34
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Tulpa posted:lol Speaking of hacks, guess what Crane just released? It's a Torchbearer hack for Alien.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:36
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theironjef posted:I need a primer on Zak S and why everyone hates him and he is crazy. Calling him crazy would be an insult to crazy people. He's a huge douchenozzle rear end in a top hat who can't see past his own fart clouds.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:58
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Okay sure but how is he being wrong about roleplaying games?
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Jan 6, 2015 19:03
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theironjef posted:Okay sure but how is he being wrong about roleplaying games? It's less that he's wrong and more that he's made a career of dehumanizing the people who disagree with his roleplaying game preferences.
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Jan 6, 2015 19:35
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theironjef posted:Okay sure but how is he being wrong about roleplaying games? Let's say that hypothetically you disagree with him on something. That's not very hard to do. Especially if you're Ettin, which in any case all you have to do is exist and you're disagreeing with him on something, be it real or imagined. So you decide to try to trigger some semblance of self-awareness or perhaps expand his horizons with a well-thought out and well-argued discussion. You are immediately branded as wrong, and out of nowhere a bunch of mouth-breathing, window-licking retards start hounding you and telling you that you're wrong. That's putting it lightly, too. Their main modus operandi is harassment in its creepiest forms. At this point, it doesn't matter if he's right about something. How he and the community he's built go about prosecuting people who disagree with them is toxic and bad for the community as a whole.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:11
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Yeah, while his posting/argument style is super annoying to engage with, the really vile thing about him is the doxxing.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:17
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ImpactVector posted:Yeah, while his posting/argument style is super annoying to engage with, the really vile thing about him is the doxxing. The problem is that he's perfectly affable "fellow traveler" if you happen to coincide with his goals or ideals. He just loves loving around with other corners of the internet to the point that even if you agree with him on X, Y or Z- you can't tolerate not bringing up his other behavior. Beer & Pretzels dungeon-crawling is just his vehicle to get to abuse and degrade The Other.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:22
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theironjef posted:Okay sure but how is he being wrong about roleplaying games?  He starts with some more or less reasonable ideas, but bashes random people who make games he doesn't like for no particular reason, and then the moment someone tries to criticize his arguments in the comments it descends into utter madness, including the notion that absolutely everyone who likes John Harper's games is a dickhead  . (Also, of course, people not interpreting what he wrote exactly the way he wanted can't possibly have anything to do with the way he wrote it. No, anyone who doesn't interpret it exactly as intended is clearly morally deficient because shut up do you agree yes/no?!?!?)
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Jan 6, 2015 20:47
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inklesspen posted:Luke Crane strapped on his "everyone else is doing it wrong" hat and talked for an hour. I mean, it depends what you want to see in new games. Mechanics mean things. * World is about high-stakes situations that cascade unexpectedly into one another. FATE is about competent people addressing problems with dramatic action. Mouse Guard is about initially overmatched characters using teamwork and eking out every advantage to bring themselves to parity. And there's a lot of space to explore in the * World and FATE rulesets, a lot of plots that will work with their mechanics adequately enough. Using an analogy to science, it's the difference between people proposing and testing new theories and people exploring the ramifications of an accepted theory. Of course, they do feed on each other. New theories create more places to explore, and exploration can lead to results that are fodder for a new theory.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:53
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This is a very interesting link, and I thank you for sharing it. It also links, at the very beginning, to another article that says that Mike Mearls apparently tried to get folks harrassed by Zak S to send him info about his habits. They would point at the SA forums, but Mears said that they gave him the impression of using race and gender issues to drive personal grudges against people. I wonder what gave him that impression.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:59
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theironjef posted:Okay sure but how is he being wrong about roleplaying games? I seem to recall it mostly started off with him arguing in the defense of some of the creepier grog products out there because a) someone likes them and that justifies the product in and of itself and b) if you're not going out and immediately killing or raping someone after reading or playing then they can't be objectively harmful, mixed in with some other minor grog. Which led to people on this site and this (previous iteration) thread pointing and laughing at him. Then he started getting into arguments with people and, well, it became less about his bad opinions about elfgames and more about his inability to politely disagree taken to vile extremes.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:11
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theironjef posted:Okay sure but how is he being wrong about roleplaying games? He doesn't believe "game design" is a thing. He doesn't see the problem with white people cosplaying Drow. He thinks saying "d&d should have less cheesecake" is terrible. This is because saying you should have less artthing is the same as saying artthing shouldn't exist. You can't say a work of art shouldn't exist ever. That's censorship and censorship of art is the worst thing ever. He thinks there isn't pressure for artists to make cheesecake because Gail Simone once said she never felt pressured to make cheesecake. He thinks that any time you express disapproval of any form of sexual expression, you are exactly as bad as Phyllis Schafly and homophobes. This is on top of a deeply irritating and flawed style of argumentation, no ability to tell the difference between provable fact and opinion, and a total willingness to put others in harms way.
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Jan 6, 2015 23:48
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Also, man, that article Spork posted above is pretty funny for how bad it is. If you went and asked McDaldno or Harper if their games were meant to be universally appealing or bring in the big bucks they'd probably laugh at you.
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Jan 7, 2015 00:13
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Also, remember that Zak's whole problem with this board started because a few people asserted, as a few others just have, that Zak has some good ideas but expresses them in a way that seems hostile to people. This caused Zak to call out Evil Mastermind by name on his blog.
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Jan 7, 2015 00:29
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You've all neglected the most important and damning point: he thinks 2-12 is superior to 2d6.
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Jan 7, 2015 01:42
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Majuju posted:You've all neglected the most important and damning point: he thinks 2-12 is superior to 2d6. What is a 2-12. Like a equal distribution version of 2d6?
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Jan 7, 2015 01:44
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Here's his permaban on RPGnet, which doesn't involve direct quotes but is a good rundown of why he shits up any thread that doesn't agree with him enough. It links to a thread where he is in fine form. It helped solidify Ettin's bogeyman status for the grogs because he was the one who pulled the trigger. With his overuse. Of the enter key. And baldly claiming his anecdotes trump other anecdotes, and also trump research that he simply doesn't like. Screeching over and over "the needle doesn't move." He slags on trans or gay or really any people who disagree with him or criticize the parts of popular culture he likes, making GBS threads up their stuff with the usual brilliant counter "don't presume to speak for everyone" and then immediately proceeds to do so himself. He will totally bust out "my black friend" or "my girlfriend is okay with it" in arguments. He actually got a little (publicly) worse after his ban, when he harrumphed off to the Den and created a giant thread of his dumb un-design vs everyone else. He fixates on these little points in an argument, making GBS threads up dozens of pages with strident demands that particular people answer bizarre questionnaires in strictly yes/no fashion. He alienated everyone there right quick and finally left his smoking ruin of 100+ pages (after like just a week) of circular idiocy for less discerning pastures. Someone once said "maybe featuring D&D with Porn Stars in Maxim isn't really very progressive for either feminism or gaming", and this resulted in him dropping into dozens of unrelated threads to call the lady a sex-hating prude. The thing that really makes him a villain is his plausibly deniable harassment. He compiles lists of names to distribute to his private circles of thousands of followers, posts messages to them like a link to some dude's blog with a one word message of "Destroy", but he never says explicitly "I want you to harass this person" so it's not his fault when these people end up doxxed or just flooded off Twitter/G+/whatever by the incessant hounding of dozens of idiots. That's definitely not enabling harassment, meanwhile quoting him in grogs.txt and laughing at him is definitely harassment. I or someone else might provide more links if you really want, but right now I'm on my tablet. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 01:54
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Plague of Hats posted:Here's his permaban on RPGnet, which doesn't involve direct quotes but is a good rundown of why he shits up any thread that doesn't agree with him enough. It links to a thread where he is in fine form. Nope, all set now. Sometimes the grog celebrities seem to only get reference to by their relation to the other grog celebrities, and as a passing reader, it's easy to get lost in the field of Zak, Tarnowski, Desborough, etc.
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Jan 7, 2015 01:57
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kingcom posted:What is a 2-12. Like a equal distribution version of 2d6? No, you simply write "2-12" instead of "2d6". Zak thinks it superior for reasons I've not quite understood. He reasoned something along the lines of "if you're not good at math, it's easier to work with the lower and higher limits written out than the dice themselves" and used as an example of someone who benefited from this a math-incompetent player of his. (Some people gave him a lot of admitted unfair poo poo over that example.) The obvious issue I have with his reasoning is that if you're not good at math, how the gently caress are you supposed to figure out which dice to roll for "2-12"? (Hint, it's 1d4+1d8. :V ) ((A more common example would be "3-12", which could be either 3d4 or 1d10+2.)) LatwPIAT fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 02:02
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theironjef posted:Nope, all set now. Sometimes the grog celebrities seem to only get reference to by their relation to the other grog celebrities, and as a passing reader, it's easy to get lost in the field of Zak, Tarnowski, Desborough, etc. The thread could really stand to focus more on funnier grog, or just less Pundit and Zak anyway, but they really are bottomless wells of spiteful elfgame poo poo.
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Jan 7, 2015 02:03
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kingcom posted:What is a 2-12. Like a equal distribution version of 2d6? It's just a different way to say 2d6. The problem is, 2-12 doesn't provide an easy way of communicating how you arrive at that number. Do I roll 2d6? Do I roll 100d6 and only keep the best two? It's the THACO of dice notation. See example: 
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Jan 7, 2015 02:03
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LatwPIAT posted:No, you simply write "2-12" instead of "2d6". Zak thinks it superior for reasons I've not quite understood. He reasoned something along the lines of "if you're not good at math, it's easier to work with the lower and higher limits written out than the dice themselves" and used as an example of someone who benefited from this a mentally disabled player of his. (Some people gave him a lot of admitted unfair poo poo over that example.) The obvious issue I have with his reasoning is that if you're not good at math, how the gently caress are you supposed to figure out which dice to roll for "2-12"? This is hilariously dumb. I feel this is a better example of any dumb opinion he may have.
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Jan 7, 2015 02:04
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And frankly, if you're rolling more than one die, the maximum and minimum numbers are actually the least important feature, and if you wanted to have something that implied the result better, you'd be better to focus on, say, the 1/6 chance of a 7 than the 1/36 chance of a 2 or 12.
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Jan 7, 2015 02:16
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Majuju posted:It's just a different way to say 2d6. The problem is, 2-12 doesn't provide an easy way of communicating how you arrive at that number. Do I roll 2d6? Do I roll 100d6 and only keep the best two? It's the THACO of dice notation.  However, nothing surpassed this little bit of number range and dice genius which went into the AD&D PHB, unexplained. I didn't figure it out until many years later...  Because obviously, what you do to get a number from 1-24 is that, first, you roll 1d6 and read it such that a 1-3 = 0 and a 4-6 = 12. You then roll 1d12 and add it to the result of your 0/12 roll. Obviously.
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Jan 7, 2015 02:23
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Plague of Hats posted:Here's his permaban on RPGnet, which doesn't involve direct quotes but is a good rundown of why he shits up any thread that doesn't agree with him enough. It links to a thread where he is in fine form. It helped solidify Ettin's bogeyman status for the grogs because he was the one who pulled the trigger. Ettin, that awesome moderator from RPGnet posted:bringing a hamster wheel keyboard powered by sophistry-flavoured energy drinks 
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Jan 7, 2015 02:26
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point of return posted:And frankly, if you're rolling more than one die, the maximum and minimum numbers are actually the least important feature, and if you wanted to have something that implied the result better, you'd be better to focus on, say, the 1/6 chance of a 7 than the 1/36 chance of a 2 or 12. This seems like the most unhelpful way of describing anything. It seems to be actively trying to trick you that you have even odds of getting between 2-12.
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Jan 7, 2015 02:33
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dwarf74 posted:This is totally a Gygax thing. It got so baffling, you had this masterpiece appearing in the Monster Manual II, which is still my favorite goddamn monster book of all time. My favourites are 3-12*, because it needs to explain that it's different from the other way of getting a 3-12 distribution, 20-180, where only a 10th of the numbers contained therein are rolleable, and 1-2, which asks you to roll a third of a d6. Let me get my saw...
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Jan 7, 2015 02:35
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LatwPIAT posted:and 1-2, which asks you to roll a third of a d6. Let me get my saw... Yeah. Flipping a coin is not Gygaxian enough.
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Jan 7, 2015 03:10
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ManMythLegend posted:Yeah. Flipping a coin is not Gygaxian enough. Rolling a D6 is not that bizzarre. Its probably the most common dice and likely nearby. kingcom fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Jan 7, 2015 |
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Jan 7, 2015 03:54
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Like, no value judgments or anything, but you're just fuckin' awful at math to the point where you're honestly not sure whether or not 3d4+2 is better or worse than 2d6+1, Dungeons and Dragons is probably not the game for you and you'd be better off getting your fantasy fix using a system with considerably less math.
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Jan 7, 2015 04:44
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