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Young Freud posted:You'd think that, but I belong to a cyberpunk genre FB group and deeply regret it. Not do I have to deal with ongoing purity wars that seems to follow the fandom, but I have run into some hardcore MRA, transphobic Trumpers on that group and don't get why it appeals to them. The first time I heard somebody being called a "loving human being" with sincerity at a gaming table was during a game of Cyberpunk 2020, but that was back when that kind of thing was... more expected? Ugh, that's a really bad gaming memory that's scarred into my psyche. In any case there are always lovely regressive idiots with no concept of self-awareness. There are homophobic Jojo's Bizarre Adventure readers. Try and work that one out, because they certainly haven't.
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Mar 16, 2017 17:25
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Alien Rope Burn posted:In any case there are always lovely regressive idiots with no concept of self-awareness. There are homophobic Jojo's Bizarre Adventure readers. Try and work that one out, because they certainly haven't. Come on man, are you really going to suggest that it's gay to watch a bro's shirt explode off from his glistening muscles while he poses dramatically and pouts at you with his full, colourful lips? Clearly the liberal agenda has gone too far, if I'm going to be labelled as a homosexual just for enjoying staring at someone's throbbing, sweat-covered pecs. But yeah, Cyberpunk has generally always been about how utterly hosed we are if the big corporations and other capitalist power poles get enough money and power to override everyone else. The big difference is that usually there are many shitheads among the guys with mohawks as there are among the guys with the pressed suits, while Eclipse Phase doesn't even make the faintest pretense of who it supports.
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Mar 16, 2017 17:34
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Young Freud posted:You'd think that, but I belong to a cyberpunk genre FB group and deeply regret it. Not do I have to deal with ongoing purity wars that seems to follow the fandom, but I have run into some hardcore MRA, transphobic Trumpers on that group and don't get why it appeals to them. The Eclipse Phase publisher had to do a big ban of Gaters and MRA types from their company forums because they were using an RPG when anyone can sleeve into a body of whatever gender they can imagine to push try and push 
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Mar 16, 2017 17:58
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PurpleXVI posted:Come on man, are you really going to suggest that it's gay to watch a bro's shirt explode off from his glistening muscles while he poses dramatically and pouts at you with his full, colourful lips? Clearly the liberal agenda has gone too far, if I'm going to be labelled as a homosexual just for enjoying staring at someone's throbbing, sweat-covered pecs. Controversial opinion: I have never understood the appeal of overly muscled men.
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Mar 16, 2017 18:07
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Covok posted:Controversial opinion: I have never understood the appeal of overly muscled men. Different strokes for different folks. Literally in some cases.
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Mar 16, 2017 18:26
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 Update 7 (Aftermath of the Awakening) While the blatantly supernatural effects of the Awakening may be tapering off (no more spontaneous forests or standing circles for now), the world still struggles to recover in the years following. At the end of the last supplement we talked about two German dragons, Feuerschwinge and Lofwyr, and the former’s death at the hands of the German military. We’ll pick up this segment with the other half of that story. Lofwyr, after convincing the military cordon that he was not a threat, reclaimed his draconic horde, and made his way to the German centers of business. There, he started converting gold coins to deutschmarks and investing them as seed currency for a new corporate player. Just as years ago the Miroyama incident made it clear that there was a new ‘normal’ culture around work, around the corporation as this grand and immortal entity, this made new facets of the changing world clear: people were absolutely willing to work for and with a giant fire-breathing reptile the size of an aeroplane, as long as he paid well. Lofwyr started insinuating himself into the boardrooms of Germany, despite the fact that his true form wouldn’t fit in any one of them.  Imagine going past the portraits of the board of directors at your company and this is one of them. Across the world, the new Japanese Imperial State makes their own moves for corporate power. The Diet passes the Yamato Act, which deregulates Japanese corporations, restricts foreign business interests from operating in the company, and tweaks their monetary system, creating the ‘Nuyen’ as the new official state currency. Japanese megacorporations prospered in their newfound power, the nuyen spreading across the world. But in 2011, the world saw its first shoving match between Corps. The rapid expansion of these business giants had finally lead to crowding enough that violent confrontation burst forth. Keruba International (an extraterritorial power with Slovenian roots as a consortium of military manufacturers that branched out into heavy industry, telecommunications, and computers) had begun an armed conflict with BMW (the German automotive and motorcycle manufacturer, since grown to megacorporate stature). In response to this corporate warfare, the seven largest corporations came together, tentatively ceding some small measure of the authority they’d won in the second Shiawase decision to create a sort of Corporate United Nations, the Inter-Corporate Council. The founding members where BMW, Ares Industries, Shiawase, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, ORO, Keruba, and JRJ International, most of which are very important names that will shape the future of the Sixth World, though not all of them are recognizable in their current state. BMW, historically owned by the Quandt family, had had the company wrested from them in 2010 by a man named Michel Beloit. The squabbling between BMW and Keruba had been an ongoing distraction. When hostilities increased to the point that Keruba hired a mercenary team to invade a private wedding in Munich and assassinate several members of the family, Beloit took the opportunity to seize power, and rapidly diversified and expanded the company. Mergers were made with Fatima Petrochemicals, Saeder Munitions, and the German industrial conglomerate Thyssen-Krupp. With Subsidiaries running subsidiaries, BMW was now a conglomerate of over 600 businesses, with reach all across europe and well into Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, an enormous business powerhouse that let them claim extraterritorial status and a seat on the Inter-Corporate Council.  Ares Industries, based out of Detroit, is an all-American corporation and brainchild of Nicholas Aurelius, a board member of General Motors and outright owner of countless other smaller companies. In the wake of the second Shiawase decision, the lure of extraterritoriality was enough for him to consolidate his assets into one megacorporation, (which he named Ares Industries) absorbing General Motors and taking his place as CEO and Chairman of the Board. Ares would continue a meteoric rise for the next ten years, including acquiring NASA when a struggling American government sold the space program off to the highest bidder.  Shiawase (シアワセ) means ‘Happiness’. You know these guys if you’ve been reading along, they got the two Shiawase decisions passed, which lead to Extraterritoriality even being a thing. They’re a Japanese zaibatsu, or business conglomeration, based out of Osaka. The entire Corp is controlled by the Shiawase clan, with every employee being ‘extended family’. They’re vast, diversified into a hundred thousand different areas of business, and Emori Shiawase, their current CEO, has been leading the company since 1989. Emori is getting old, and is practically worshipped for leading the company into it’s current golden age and for creating the megacorporation as a ‘thing’ in universe. It hasn’t happened yet, but upon his death in 2019, he’s named the Patron Spirit of the Shiawase Corporation, his ancestor spirit believed to be guiding the family and corporation to prosperity. Considering the Shinto magicians that the Corp hires, this may be more literal than initially assumed. JRJ International, Keruba International: Spoilers: These guys do not survive to become long term corporate players. They’re variously crushed and absorbed by the other corporations for their legacy seats on the Corporate Council. This is fine, because I’m more than happy to devote their page-count to Mitsuhama and ORO, which are much more tangled, interesting stories of rags-to-riches, criminals-to-businessmen.  Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, headed out of Kyoto, was born out of the economic recession of the 90s that created the Seretech and later Shiawase decision. A man named Taiga Mitsuhama, aged 55, saw business after business collapse around him. Owning a construction company himself, Taiga had a simple solution to the troubling economic times: united we stand, divided we fall. Taiga approached business after business proposing partnership and conglomeration, but he was turned down again and again. Some organizations had such faith in their CEOs and Presidents that they declined him out of hand, some were unwilling to risk tying their fates to an outsider, and some simply do not have the capital left to invest with banking regulations tightening and the nigh-impossibility of getting a loan. With no legitimate business left to turn to, Taiga turns to illegitimate business: the Yakuza. Taiga had the guts to call together the four Oyabun (bosses) of the most powerful, profitable Gumi (criminal organizations) in Japan: Samba Oi, Shin Yuruyasu, Saigusa Oguramaro, and Uehara Akae. He presented his plan, and the four Yakuza bosses agreed. Money was funneled through Mitsuhama to launder it, and the influx of legal and illegal tender was enough to allow Mitsuhama to grow, buying up those businesses that had spurned him against their wishes. The Corp was already a powerhouse in the fields of computer technology, robotics, and heavy industry, a hugely powerful business conglomerate even before the year of the Shiawase Decision. With extraterritoriality a possibility, Taiga and his son and vice-president, Toshiro, made a bid to increase their power further: Designing and building state of the art R&D labs, they offered the best and brightest in the world the fanciest toys and an unlimited research budget to come work for them. Soon, Mitsuhama was a research powerhouse, and with the Awakening happening soon after, they repeated the same plan: unlimited budget and support for Mages and Shamans who came to work for them. Mitsuhama soared ahead in the fields of magic, technology, industry, computers and entertainment.  Pictured, a Legitimate Businessmen. ORO. ORO will require going back a bit. Mexico, pre-Awakening, was in a seriously deteriorating state. The government was struggling to contain the growing power of the drug cartels with the corruptible governors facing scandal for bribery and incorruptible governors assassinated. Behind everyone’s backs, three of the main cartels, the Medellín, David, and Masaya cartels had been working together as a united front against the authorities. And they worked well together, so well that the three heads, Juan Ortega, Julio Ramos, and Diego Oriz, chose to buy out a resource development in Villahermosa and rename it ORO, as a double joke: It stood for both ‘Gold’ and ‘Ortega-Ramos-Oriz’. ORO proceeded to grow by legal and illegal means but on March 4th, 2008 ORO revealed it had discovered Molybdenum deposits off the coast of Panama. With their influence they’d bought up all the required infrastructure to exploit the find months beforehand and now had a near monopoly on the tens-of-billions of dollar find. With their increased wealth came increased clout, buying politicians or installing their own and creating a strong base of computer technology before nudging the Central American countries they operated in to withdraw from international copyright treaties. Again, ORO was in a position to make immediate use of the new development, becoming the heads of the emerging techno piracy industry. When VITAS struck, it broke the back of the struggling Mexican government. With the government in shambles, ORO was seen as a savior and the most prominent face of the humanitarian aid. ORO was the one that rebuilt Mexico and expanded into Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, and Honduras. They installed a new, democratic government, with a wireless computer-based voting system. They are heavily involved in the 2015 election, where Francisco Pavón of the Aztlan party rose to power on his push toward the floundering nation’s shared heritage, a cultural identity separate from the centuries of turmoil and chaos that had rocked the country. Mexico was reborn as the nation of Aztlan, and ORO, not long after, moved to Tenochtitlán (formerly Mexico City), and rebranded themselves as Aztechnology   The Aztlan flag, in ‘original recipe’ and ‘Whoops salsa accident’ versions. The latter is apparently ‘canonical’, as it’s presented as the Aztlan flag in the Sixth World Almanac, but I suspect that’s probably a mistake on the editor’s part. And so, seven corporations, two Japanese, one Balkan, one German, one American, one Central American and one unknown (there is a weird deficiency of info on JRJ before 2038 in the timeline, I swear), come together to form a ruling corporate body, mediating between Keruba International and BMW, and between Keruba and ORO not long after. A corporate United Nations is formed to keep the power between this collection of criminals and businessmen, a council stronger than most nations.
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Mar 16, 2017 18:53
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As a tech-heavy genre where STEM-stuff makes you cooler, that embellishes the rich and white, and draws on the individualist, Objectivist, dog-eat-dog attitudes of American punk, it's not really that surprising that cyberpunk has a lot of fans who are your stereotypical bigoted STEMlord. And then there's Nicknumbers, but that's a story for grognards.txt.
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Mar 16, 2017 18:54
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LatwPIAT posted:As a tech-heavy genre where STEM-stuff makes you cooler, that embellishes the rich and white, and draws on the individualist, Objectivist, dog-eat-dog attitudes of American punk, it's not really that surprising that cyberpunk has a lot of fans who are your stereotypical bigoted STEMlord. And the common fetishization of Asian culture, which I suspect appeals to many alt-righters because of how conservative many Asian cultures tend to be, particularly regarding their treatment of women, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals.
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Mar 16, 2017 19:00
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LatwPIAT posted:As a tech-heavy genre where STEM-stuff makes you cooler, that embellishes the rich and white, and draws on the individualist, Objectivist, dog-eat-dog attitudes of American punk, it's not really that surprising that cyberpunk has a lot of fans who are your stereotypical bigoted STEMlord. Coming at it from the other direction, there's also the fact that the stereotypical villains in cyberpunk-land are shadowy transnational companies probably owned by Asian people, and the protagonist punks may or may not have been pushed out of their jobs by cheap automation from the aforementioned Asian people.
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Mar 16, 2017 19:06
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 Godlike, Chapter V, Part X The last update included the bloodiest battles of the war, as the Axis cause was now lost in Europe and the Pacific. Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Dresden, and the push through Germany inflicted high casualties. So here it is, the last update from Godlike's chronology chapter. The next chapter is a brief overview of life in the United States in the '40s, life in the Army, and how people reacted to Talents. 4/2/1945, the End of Army Group B: U.S. Generals Simpson and Hodges linked their 9th and 1st Armies at Lippstadt, encircling the 350,000 Germans of Army Group B. Their commander, Generalfeldmarschall Model, would eventually commit suicide on the 21st when he realized there was no hope of a breakout. Army Group B surrendered the next day. 4/12/1945, Roosevelt Dies: In poor health and suffering from exhaustion, President Roosevelt took a brief vacation in Warm Springs, Georgia. Parahuman attempts to stabilize his failing health, by Talents such as the British Nightingale, had failed. On the morning of the 12th, Lloyd “Bulldog” Feit went to fetch the president some aspirin for a headache, and returned to find him dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. VP Harry Truman was sworn in as President immediately, while news of Roosevelt’s death reached even the front lines of the war in a matter of hours. The longest-serving president of the United States had died, just weeks before the end of the war in Europe. 4/10/1945, the Final Push in Italy: The harsh winter of ‘44/’45 had ground combat in Italy to a standstill. Now the Allies prepared for the final push. They seized Bologna and swept around the Axis to encircle them. They repelled attacks by the Legionari Della Patria, the pro-Nazi Italian Talents, forcing them to disperse back into the mountains. Immortale and his fellow Free Italian Talents launched attacks on the German rear while American and British forces advanced on Brescia and Venice, trapping the remains of the Reichskommisariat Norditalien against the Alps. Defying orders from Berlin, General Vietinghoff surrendered to Field Marshal Alexander at Caserta on May 2. The few Italian fascist Talents, holding out in the mountains, were now the only Axis force left in Italy. 4/17/1945, Revenge in Leipzig: Three Übermenschen, surrounded by the 1st Army in the ruins of Leipzig, were attacked by an Allied Talent squad after negotiations for surrender failed. Vogel, Misfire, Smasher, and the Indestructible Man fought Krieg, Tyr, and Nacht in a six-hour battle. Smasher and Tyr fought hand-to-hand, throwing wrecked tanks around like toys. That fight was ended with a single shot by Misfire on sniper duty. Moments later, Krieg killed Smasher and injured Misfire with a flamethrower, forcing Misfire to retreat. Vogel and the Indestructible Man charged Krieg’s position without waiting for reinforcements. Due to Nacht’s darkness powers, only Talents could see the battle, giving conflicting reports of what happened next. The official report claims that Vogel charged Krieg, immune to his Hyper-accurate gunfire. Nacht hurled an incendiary grenade, hoping that fire could hurt the bullet-immune Vogel, but Moreland snuffed it out with his own body. Krieg leapt at the Indestructible Man with a knife, and Vogel then hurled a grenade, killing Nacht. As the darkness receded, with dozens more witnesses, reports varied even more wildly. Some claimed Krieg was killed in action, others that he surrendered and was murdered in cold blood. Some claimed that Krieg lunged, but the ranking British officer claims that the Indestructible Man shouldered a bazooka, said “This is for Piotr,” and fired into Krieg’s face. The Nazi was decapitated, and Moreland was blown clear. The two Talents walked away from the fight holding three ruined Iron Crosses. In the end, a brief military trial cleared Moreland of all wrongdoing thanks to Vogel’s testimony. “He got what he deserved,” was all Vogel would say after the trial. 4/29/1945, the Liberation of Dachau: The U.S. 7th Army seized the Dachau Concentration Camp, discovering a sea of emaciated corpses and 46,000 starved and traumatized survivors, still guarded by the SS. It was one of the Army’s first glimpses into the “Final Solution,” and even the most hardened veterans were shattered by what they saw. Many SS guards tried to surrender peacefully as if Dachau was just another POW camp, but U.S. commanders looked the other way as troops carried out vigilante justice. Some reports implied that soldiers assisted survivors in executing “Death’s Head” guards. Captain Rudolph “Concrete” Reisenberg executed Sturmbannführer Adam Grünewald by turning him to stone, having witnessed the deputy commandant shoot a prisoner during negotiations for surrender. “Incidents” claimed the lives of 26 more SS Nazis during the liberation, and no charges were ever filed. Despite the Army’s best efforts, 27,000 survivors died within weeks of liberation due to dysentery and other diseases. 4/23/1945, the Battle of Berlin: After three days of relentless shelling, the 1st Bellorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts attacked Berlin. The German defense was hopeless, made up of depleted units and supplemented by Volkssturm (“People’s Army”) units of teenage boys and old men. Their only advantages were desperation, and over 1,500 Übermenschen scattered through the city. The Soviet advance was slowed by high casualties and Übermenschen attacks. In response, Marshal Zhukov deployed the 4th Soviet Shock Army on the 25th. Three days of combat with the Übermenschen resistance destroyed landmarks around the city, including an earthquake that destroyed the Reichstag. Führerprotektor Null lead a counterattack that killed 35 Soviet Talents, but with no escape route, the attack folded. By the 29th, Soviet Talents had reached the Führerbunker while the two Soviet Fronts linked up at the Brandenburg gate behind them. Nearly 200,000 Germans and Russians died in the Battle of Berlin. 4/30/1945, the Suicide of the Reich: Even as the Allies approached Berlin, Hitler refused to leave his Führerbunker, a large high-security underground bunker. He spent his last days reminiscing, writing, pointlessly examining maps and plans, and issuing deranged orders concerning the future of the Reich. “The end of Germany has come,” he told Bormann, “and I too must end with it.” Grossadmiral Dönitz was appointed the new Führer, while Himmler and Göring were sentenced to death for parlaying with the Allies. (Both committed suicide in Allied custody.) Hitler refused to leave Berlin even though Der Reisende (“The Traveler”), Germany’s greatest teleporter, was available to evacuate him. On April 30, Hitler prepared a final statement, married his longtime girlfriend Eva Braun, then shot her and himself. His body was supposedly destroyed by Der Tragheit, but Soviet troops claimed to have recovered the remains. Der Tragheit, Null, Herkules, and 62 other Übermenschen defending the Führerbunker followed Hitler in committing suicide. Meanwhile Der Reisende gathered over 100 Nazi officials, using his powers to take them all...somewhere. They were never seen again. 5/6/1945, Germany Surrenders!: After weeks of sporadic fighting, the remnants of the German military unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. Generaloberst Jodl, acting as Dönitz’s agent, formally surrendered in Reims, France along with 27 other high officials including the Übermensch Der Archiv. The Thousand-Year Reich was over after 12 years of violence and horror, and Germany would be divided by the Allies. Der Archiv posted:Albert Speer gave Der Archiv access to top-secret files, hoping to “preserve what good can be found amidst the awfulness.” In the last months of the war, Der Archiv memorized over a million pages of records including rocket designs, Swiss bank accounts, and all of RuSHA SA’s files. quote:In 1944, the six-man Überkommandogruppe Sektion Gelb (“Yellow Section”) managed to capture Sheol, killing 13 Nephilim in the operation. She was taken to Berlin and held there for almost a year. 6/28/1945, Victory in the Philippines: General MacArthur announced the surrender of Japanese forces in the Philippine islands. Clean-up operations against fanatical holdouts continued for 2 years, and one lone Japanese infantryman would emerge from the jungle in 1972. 7/15/1945, Mass Defection of the Severch Loodi: Near Wismar, Germany, almost 2,000 Soviet Talents of the 16th Shock Army surrendered to the 2nd British Army as political refugees. The Talents, many of whom were Jewish, Polish, or Ukrainian, were afraid to go home. They described the brutal policies of the NKVD toward Talents in the Soviet Union, and the British commander tentatively accepted. PM Churchill, already fed up with Stalin, accepted their plea for asylum. This triggered a mass defection among Soviet Talents in Western Europe, and almost 5,000 of them fled to British and American territories before the end of July. Stalin was furious, and Truman and Churchill refused his demands to return the refugees. The defection set off further purges and defections in the Red Army, and some Soviet Talents were suddenly decorated and promoted while others were executed for treason. 7/16/1945: Potsdam, a ruined suburb of Berlin, hosted the conference that would decide the fate of postwar Germany and of the entire world. Truman had succeeded Roosevelt and Clement Attlee had defeated Churchill in election, leaving Stalin the only remaining member of the original Big Three. Truman and Attlee met first and agreed that Stalin would not be allowed to absorb Greece, nor to recover his Talent refugees. (The mass defection had created tension on the borders of the various occupation zones.) The conference itself did not go well. Stalin made vague threats of another war in Europe. Having received notice of a successful atomic bomb test, a confident Truman informed Stalin of this, but got no reaction--thanks to his spies, Stalin was already aware of it. For 6 days, the conference centered on the Talent refugees rather than the reconstruction of Europe. On the 22nd, Stalin finally agreed to the borders drawn at the Yalta conference and promptly left. After the conference, all Soviet cooperation ceased outside agreed-upon sectors of Berlin. A brief memo from the Kremlin informed the Allies that the Soviet Union would not join the war against Japan. Rudolph Hess posted:Rudolph Hess’ bizarre attempt to defect to the Allies in 1941 remained a mystery to the Axis and the Allies. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes and imprisoned in Berlin’s Spandau Prison for the rest of his life. For over 2 decades, after Albert Speer’s release, he was the prison’s only inmate. 8/6/1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: To break the morale of the Japanese people and prevent the need for an invasion of Japan, President Truman authorized the use of two atomic weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, and “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki on the 9th. The bombs killed over 210,000 people, most civilians, and created 3,500 Japanese Talents. The Japanese Talent population was instantly elevated to normal levels.  9/2/1945, Japan Surrenders: After months of bombings and the incredible death toll of atomic weapons, the Japanese Diet and the Emperor had no choice but to accept an Allied offer for surrender. Emperor Hirohito made his first-ever radio address to announce the surrender on August 15, and on September 2, he signed the agreement on the deck of the battleship Missouri, in front of General MacArthur. Within days, Japanese forces in China and Korea surrendered to the Allies. The war in the Pacific was won. 9/6/1945, the Legion of Five Thousand: At a refugee camp at Cologne, the Legion of Five Thousand--a Jewish force of well over 6,000 Talents--made formal demands for a Jewish homeland in Israel, or else “Europe would burn again.” Stalin offered to “deal with the upstart Jews,” but the British and Americans preferred to contain both the situation and the Red Army. Truman convinced Attlee to withdraw his troops in the Palestine to a partition, cutting the region in two. The Hagganah seized the territory as the British left it, and the Legion migrated there over a five-month period. On May 14, 1946, the United States and Britain recognized the sovereign nation of Israel. With a population of about 780,000 Jews, almost 5% of them Talents, Israel had the highest Talent population per capita of any nation in the world. 1/1/1946, the Cold War Begins: It began when two railroad cars, full of supplies for American-occupied Berlin, were denied entry at the border of East Germany. It escalated from there. On the 4th, all traffic from West to East Germany was officially forbidden. American, British, and French zones in Berlin were cut off and surrounded by Soviet troops, who made no move to enter. The Cold War had begun. Next time on Godlike: I kept in touch with those guys over the years, and I found out that Hoshi’s parents shipped him off to military school. After the army, he became one of the pioneering developers of bungee jumping. Of course, we all know why. Vevel, well, Vevel got really into the ‘60s, and no one ever saw him again. F-SAM and the Professor became an architect and a contractor. They started out small, designing playground equipment...and prefabricated tree houses. But they became multimillionaires when they invented mini-malls. Lord Yama grew up and married Alias. They have nine kids. They bought India, and they still own it to this day. L’Invocateur became a professional wrestler. You know him as the Ghost of the Fourteenth. Super Swabby played AAA ball, but he never got to the majors. He owns his own business now, and he coaches a little league team that his sons play on, called the Bulldogs. Mr. Mitts lived to be 99 years old--uh, in dragon years. I was the last one to move away. But when I did, Baba Yaga was still there.
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Mar 16, 2017 19:33
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unseenlibrarian posted:The Eclipse Phase publisher had to do a big ban of Gaters and MRA types from their company forums because they were using an RPG when anyone can sleeve into a body of whatever gender they can imagine to push try and push Turns out a number of those types seriously believe that the Singularity is going to happen in their lifetimes. Edit: VVV Precisely that in this case, too. Bieeanshee fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Mar 16, 2017 |
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Mar 16, 2017 21:34
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Young Freud posted:You'd think that, but I belong to a cyberpunk genre FB group and deeply regret it. Not do I have to deal with ongoing purity wars that seems to follow the fandom, but I have run into some hardcore MRA, transphobic Trumpers on that group and don't get why it appeals to them.
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Mar 16, 2017 21:47
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Bieeardo posted:Turns out a number of those types seriously believe that the Singularity is going to happen in their lifetimes. I can't remember who, but I remember seeing a study that showed on average every futurist tends to predict immortality will be coming around the time they're 60, personally.
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Mar 16, 2017 21:49
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Bieeardo posted:Turns out a number of those types seriously believe that the Singularity is going to happen in their lifetimes. Singularity-seekers in general tend to be incredibly weird people, often with horrifying beliefs. See also, Roko's Basilisk.
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Mar 16, 2017 21:49
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Singularity-Seekers are often people who desperately want to believe in something religious but consider themselves too smart for religion, and so create a 'secular' eschatology.
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Mar 16, 2017 21:50
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The Lemondrop Dandy posted:Fixed that for ya. For the ten thousandth time, "gypsy" is considered a lifestyle and aesthetic choice in America. When an american writes on his online dating account that he's into "gypsy chicks," he in no way means Roma. It's also usually used in a positive sense, the gypsy life being a desirable one to people trapped in the office world. Ya'll folks who are reviewing RPGs need to keep that in mind every time you are about to get offended.
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Mar 16, 2017 22:35
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Speleothing posted:When an american writes on his online dating account that he's into "gypsy chicks,"
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Mar 16, 2017 22:39
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Speleothing posted:For the ten thousandth time, "gypsy" is considered a lifestyle and aesthetic choice in America. When an american writes on his online dating account that he's into "gypsy chicks," he in no way means Roma. It's also usually used in a positive sense, the gypsy life being a desirable one to people trapped in the office world. So are you aware how incredibly racist you are to reduce an entire culture and race to a lifestyle and look and making got others doing so? How about you keep in mind how that poo poo is horrifically offensive instead of saying others shouldn't mention it. You are literally defending people stereotyping a people with a history of abuse and oppression and calling nomadic lifestyle they had to adopt to try to escape that a good thing. What other oppressed people do you think it is OK to do that to? This would be like if someone said they liked the Jap lifestyle or Chink lifestyle. You are essentially saying because a lot of Americans don't know its a slur for the Roma its ok and no one should bring up what's wrong with it, what is wrong with you? Fantastic Alice fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Mar 16, 2017 |
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Mar 16, 2017 22:47
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Mors Rattus posted:Singularity-seekers in general tend to be incredibly weird people, often with horrifying beliefs. See also, Roko's Basilisk. Roko's Basilisk is the most hilarious conceit to come out of "Dark Enlightenment" pseudo-science.
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Mar 16, 2017 22:51
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It definitely is. It always makes me smile, along with those idiots recreating early Christian philosophy from first principles.
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Mar 16, 2017 23:19
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Halloween Jack posted:Who would do that. Someone you should never date.
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Mar 16, 2017 23:25
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Speleothing posted:"gypsy" is considered a lifestyle and aesthetic choice in America. Gonna say that's a problem with America. In catching up on the thread I realized I don't actually understand what people mean by "fantasy heartbreaker" and the like as much as I thought I did. I'd always just assumed it was shorthand for 'indie homebrew/revamp that's gonna finally be the one to do it right, and inevitably falls short' but I feel like that's not totally accurate.
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Mar 16, 2017 23:42
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Speleothing posted:For the ten thousandth time, "gypsy" is considered a lifestyle and aesthetic choice in America. When an american writes on his online dating account that he's into "gypsy chicks," he in no way means Roma. It's also usually used in a positive sense, the gypsy life being a desirable one to people trapped in the office world. That's still really offensive. You're sounding like Dutch people defending Zwarte Piet as not racist, because the Dutch context of blackface is different to the American one. It's still racist, and so is using the word "gypsy" like that.
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Mar 16, 2017 23:45
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Speleothing posted:Ya'll folks who are reviewing RPGs need to keep that in mind every time you are about to get offended. Perhaps you haven't been properly traumatized by the surprising number of RPGs that delight in having magically superior lawbreaking exotics that are either literally or figuratively Romani. It's a thing and it's dumb.
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Mar 16, 2017 23:48
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RandallODim posted:Gonna say that's a problem with America. Generally you should be able to tell in the first few pages what game line the author decided to finally fix as well but you've got the gist.
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Mar 16, 2017 23:55
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"Heartbreaker" is used often enough to describe just any bad idea that it is becoming as meaningless as Mary Sue.
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Mar 17, 2017 00:02
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Yeah, the original essay was all about "there are a lot of games that try to D&D but better but the really sad ones are the ones that have this one really fantastic idea buried in the cruft that will never see recognition because it's in a D&D but better game." These days it's pretty much used without the "One good idea" part. Or people self-describing their stuff as a heartbreaker as a selling point.
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Mar 17, 2017 00:06
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Perhaps you haven't been properly traumatized by the surprising number of RPGs that delight in having magically superior lawbreaking exotics that are either literally or figuratively Romani. Even Blue Rose had them. I respect that the pun name 'Roamer' it's very clever but it's never tactful.
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Mar 17, 2017 00:10
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RandallODim posted:In catching up on the thread I realized I don't actually understand what people mean by "fantasy heartbreaker" and the like as much as I thought I did. I'd always just assumed it was shorthand for 'indie homebrew/revamp that's gonna finally be the one to do it right, and inevitably falls short' but I feel like that's not totally accurate. The colloquial definition is usually a game produced by somebody who's only played one (or a few) games and so develops a game that's has some new idea they've had that will change gaming as we know it!... except if they'd played other games, they'd know "D&D without classes" ain't a new notion. Or alternately, they have some idea that's generally kind of cool tacked onto a bunch of outdated or flawed mechanics. A big part of the "heartbreaker feel" to me is the writer's belief that they're doing something revolutionary and groundbreaking no matter how well-tread, pedestrian, or mistaken their design actually is.
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Mar 17, 2017 00:26
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The Sin of Onan posted:That's still really offensive. You're sounding like Dutch people defending Zwarte Piet as not racist, because the Dutch context of blackface is different to the American one. It's still racist, and so is using the word "gypsy" like that. American cultural hegemony wins again.
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Mar 17, 2017 00:27
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Night10194 posted:Singularity-Seekers are often people who desperately want to believe in something religious but consider themselves too smart for religion, and so create a 'secular' eschatology. People without plans for the weekend expecting to live forever.
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Mar 17, 2017 00:42
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The colloquial definition is usually a game produced by somebody who's only played one (or a few) games and so develops a game that's has some new idea they've had that will change gaming as we know it!... except if they'd played other games, they'd know "D&D without classes" ain't a new notion. Or alternately, they have some idea that's generally kind of cool tacked onto a bunch of outdated or flawed mechanics. This is more how I perceive 'heartbreaker', like I recall the original essay stating that these broke the writer's heart because they clearly were such a labor of misguided, myopic, poorly-researched love...the creators were obviously very enthused about the hobby and dropped a decent chunk of change on printings (those writings having all predated POD by several years at least) and hoping to gain fame and recognition as pro-tier RPG writers or whatever. In that sense, it broke the original essayists's heart to read them, and probably the creators' as well to see their babies ignored, maligned and forgotten. They don't even have the infamy of FATAL.
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Mar 17, 2017 01:24
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theironjef posted:Same issue I have every time with the Tolkien races. It's obvious they aren't part of the initial plan. Each race has one picture each, then there are about a hundred generic human pieces in the book. There's one country for each race, 35 for humans. Humans come in every color, Neolli come in Neolli color. It's an imaginative world with some basic races tacked on later. Authors should either think about their races or think about why they are including them at all, basically.
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Mar 17, 2017 05:09
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Speleothing posted:For the ten thousandth time, "gypsy" is considered a lifestyle and aesthetic choice in America. When an american writes on his online dating account that he's into "gypsy chicks," he in no way means Roma. It's also usually used in a positive sense, the gypsy life being a desirable one to people trapped in the office world. Seriously dude. Gypsy is considered an ethnic slur, and the Roma and other traveling people are still subjected to horrific treatment, including having their own children stolen from them because so many people still believe that they're roaming bands of child snatchers and murderers, that otherwise self-described progressive people gleefully call for their deaths. You have the Vistani, the Roamers, Ravnos, the entire loving Gypsy book, this is not a one-off 'white dude uses Gypsy when he should've used Bohemian or Hippie', it's a ugly pattern that needs to be called out. Sorry if it raised your hackles that your pet game is being called out, but you're literally the only person who wants to argue semantics when the intended comparison is crystal clear.
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Mar 17, 2017 06:35
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As I got reminded today Mr. Talsonian is/was working on the Witcher tabletop RPG, I thought of giving the original a FATAL & Friends treatment. Gonna have to give it a proper skim to see if bad mechanics and nice art is enough to make it worth everyone's time. (Yes, it was supposed to be a tie-in to the utterly terrible movie/series)
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Mar 17, 2017 14:35
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Lichtenstein posted:As I got reminded today Mr. Talsonian is/was working on the Witcher tabletop RPG, I thought of giving the original Hell yeah. Really appreciating how that dude's helmet flew off after he was already on the ground. Also Geralt really capturing that murderhobo aesthetic. No comment on the dragon's weirdly tiny head.
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Mar 17, 2017 14:44
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Lichtenstein posted:As I got reminded today Mr. Talsonian is/was working on the Witcher tabletop RPG, I thought of giving the original That dragon cgi. Holy loving poo poo. If you're CGI looks THAT bad, just do a practical effect, FFS!
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Mar 17, 2017 15:36
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There was a practical effect rubber baby dragon, that was somehow even worse, but I couldn't find it before PTSD from watching the whole thing back in the day kicked in.
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Mar 17, 2017 15:46
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Alien Rope Burn posted:The colloquial definition is usually a game produced by somebody who's only played one (or a few) games and so develops a game that's has some new idea they've had that will change gaming as we know it!... except if they'd played other games, they'd know "D&D without classes" ain't a new notion. Or alternately, they have some idea that's generally kind of cool tacked onto a bunch of outdated or flawed mechanics. About a decade or so ago a friend and I were going to totally blow the collective minds of the RPG community with a game we were developing. Long (and boring) story short we had managed to reinvent GURPS only with a Shadowrun dice pool (using d12's) and only discovered what we had done when we hit a design snag and decided to look at some other games to see how they had solved the issue. It was quietly shelved after discovering we weren't brilliant trailblazers. In my defense I'd only played 3.5 at that point.
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Mar 17, 2017 17:01
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8one6 posted:About a decade or so ago a friend and I were going to totally blow the collective minds of the RPG community with a game we were developing. Long (and boring) story short we had managed to reinvent GURPS only with a Shadowrun dice pool (using d12's) and only discovered what we had done when we hit a design snag and decided to look at some other games to see how they had solved the issue. Somewhere I still have my horrid fusion of GURPS, Champions, and Rifts lying around. It had... lots of numbers. About the only thing clever about it was that powerful races actually got more "points" than other character types due to their templates, but radically reduced customization. But that's pretty much how Savage Rifts went and did dragons, as it turns out. So it goes.
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Mar 17, 2017 17:14
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