RPGpundit's Xanga

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:34:13 GMT

Failure To Communicate

You know, over the last few months, as I was debating what the fuck to do with my computer issues, and flirting with the idea of Linux, I must have had dozens of Linux-nerds fucking assure me that Linux had changed quite a lot, that it would be easy to use, and that at the very least I should try out a "Live CD", that would let me try Linux before committing to it, in a quick and simple fashion.

Today, I would like to grab every one of those fucking Linux-Nerds by the back of their utterly socially dysfunctional necks and bash their fucking faces into their own keyboards over and over again screaming "You just don't fucking GET it do you Pointdexter?!"

I mean Jesus fuck, unless I want to believe that all of these guys were intentionally lying to me just to see me have a hard time, the only possible conclusion I can reach is that the typical Linux User is so fucking disconnected from normal humanity that he really believes that his OS has now reached new heights of "user friendliness"!

Let me put it this way: I couldn't even get the fucking LiveCD off the ground.

Now, I've said again and again, when it comes to computers I'm a regular guy. Joe Blow. I can obviously use them, but I know nothing about how they work, nor do I want to. And I resent those who think I should have to in order to be allowed to use their special toys.

This was always how Linux users traditionally struck me, the elitists of the computer world. They were "Your Company's Computer Guy" from the old SNL skit, mocking those of us who were too "stupid" to use anything other than Windows (ie. those of us who didn't want to study the equivalent of a four-year degree in order to get a program running). But I'd really almost bought the snakeoil, come to believe that maybe things really had changed, and there were now people behind the Linux movement that really GOT the idea of user-friendliness.
More fool me.

I realized this was not so this morning, when I decided to run the Kubuntu live CD for the first time. From the moment the thing got going, I realized it was not so. You see, the CD comes with no instruction manual; I took that to be a good sign, but that would only be so if you actually wouldn't NEED an instruction manual to use the fucking thing.

Sadly, that was not so. The second I turn on the LiveCD, I get a menu of several options, most of which make NO sense to me at all. The one that I could actually grok the meaning of was option 1: "install Kubuntu or run LiveCD".

Now see, here is a problem.

NOTE to the braniacs who designed the Kubuntu Live CD: Here's what would have been "user-friendly": if you had given me a menu when I booted up, explaining in straightforward terms what each one did, with option 1 being "run Kubuntu from this CD", and option 2 being "Install Kubuntu into your hard drive". You know, shit like that.
And then after that, maybe presenting a status bar the whole time with a nice graphic telling you how far along the booting process is, and then taking you directly to the fucking windows-like interface and not a GODDAMNED FUCKING COMMAND LINE.

On the other hand, you want to know what is NOT user-friendly? For starters, presenting an option that to the average user says "Pressing this button MIGHT let you run Kubuntu from the CD or it MIGHT just erase your current system and install an OS you don't understand!" is NOT what normal people think of as User-Friendly.
But especially, its NOT user friendly if the next thing that happens after you touch it is 14 fucking minutes of "loading" notices coming on, leaving the average guy not sure if what's "Loading" is the LiveCD or the destruction of everything you value about your computer.
Then its absolutely and utterly NOT fucking user friendly to switch to a blank screen for two minutes, with no sign that anything is happening at all aside from the whirring of the CD, leaving the average user to wonder if something is still going on or the whole process has stalled.
And finally, to top that all off, there NOTHING FUCKING USER-FRIENDLY WHATSOEVER about leaving me with a fucking LINUX command line and no fucking clue what to do next!!!

How the HELL is this in any way "user friendly"??!

These fucking space cadets don't know user friendly because they have no fucking idea what the normal person needs or wants. They FAIL, because even their idea of user-friendliness is (what Im sure to them is) a simpler version of their own way of thinking about things, a world of command-lines and "Loading drivers" and practically no graphical interface being required.

Where was the fucking windows-like interface?! I couldn't even fucking reach it. I had no idea how to! The whole fucking thing was nothing more than an exercise in frustration.

The linux-nerds might be really brilliant at remembering long lines of code or whatever the fuck they do to get their rocks off, but they sure fail en masse at being able to understand how regular people think. I can't help but suspect that this is because they want to believe they're so much better than "regular people".

Clearly, Linux is not ready for the average person, and won't be until someone is behind it that actually behaves like a normal person and can talk to you in something other than Linux-speak.

Oh yes, and why did I bother with the attempt at all? Because this FUCKING COMPUTER has had yet another blue screen of death (9 days after the last one), a bad one this time that left some of my programs fucked up when I rebooted, and no one, not one of you fucking genius-nerdboys has been able to tell me what's wrong with it, or how to fix it. Not the guy who sold it to me, not the guys I've asked around here, not the guys at the various windows-related troubleshooting forums, no one.

So really, what good is all your technological genius if you've lost the will or even the ability to basically communicate with normal people? Fucking wankers.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Egg + Ashton Type 2

(Originally posted June 20, 2007)

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:28:14 GMT

Gnomemurdered: The Best Rules Light RPG Ever!

Lately a lot of people have been crowing on about rules-lite rpgs as if they were somehow the be-all and end-all of great design. "Lately"?! What am I saying?!! That's been going on since as long as I recall.

Now, let me clarify, I have nothing against rules-lite. Two of my favorite RPGs of all time, Over the Edge and Amber, would both qualify for that moniker. However, I really don't think there's anything genius about rules-lite, and it gets particularly stupid when you have people clamouring for increasingly more and more "simple" games, as if that will solve the fact that you are a shitty GM, you can't get laid, and there's a strange fungus growing in your bathroom.

Ok, you want the lightest ruleset ever? Will that shut you the fuck up? Fine! Here it is:

Gnomemurdered: The World's Most Basic RPG

Character Creation: you describe your character as anything you want.
Task resolution: in any action you take that has a significant chance of success or failure, roll a D6:
1-3 You succeed!
4-6 You are murdered by Gnomes! Create a new character.

There you go.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Mario Grandi Oversize Egg + H&H's Beverwyck

Friday, July 10, 2009

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:16:58 GMT

RPGPundit's LSH Campaign Character Profiles: Tellus

Tellus' true name is Ganglios, of the planet Hykraius. His homeworld is an ocean-world rich with methane, a slew that would be toxic to any life from Earth. In turn, Tellus cannot breathe our oxygen, and is required to wear a special breathing helmet at all times that he isn't in his containment tank at Legion HQ.

All native Hykraians are psychics, but Ganglios was a particularly talented example of his species, highly skilled in both empathy and telekinesis. He was also gifted, or cursed, from birth with a profound sense of social conscience and responsibility. He was fascinated by the fact that the universe was full of life beyond Mother Ocean (the Hykraian's term for their world), and the great diversity they held. Hoping to learn and grow from experiencing this diversity, he volunteered to be one of the very few of his race to leave the safe wet darkness of Mother Ocean and live among the air-breathers out in the galaxy and its terrifying dry bright places.

For several years Ganglios offered himself as a subject for study for xenobiologists at Metropolis University on Earth, and while they learned about his species from him, he learned about the culture of the United Planets from them, and was very impressed by some of their values, of tolerance and progress. Even so, he was similarly confused by other values that these humanoids seemed to hold dear, things like individuality, which on his world was not seen as a virtue; or self-interest, which among his people was seen as a serious fault.
And he was particularly disturbed by the fact that these humanoids seemed plagued by criminality and injustice the likes of which his people never experienced. Tellus became determined that if he could, he would help these humanoids with their problems, just because this is the right thing to do; and because he hoped this would create in them a deeper sense of correct values. Realizing that his biology and his powers would not be best suited to the Science Police, he decided instead to enroll in the Legion Academy, hoping that his abilities, which he did not see as anything special but which most humanoids did not have, would allow him to eventually become a "super hero" for the Legion. He noted the irony of joining this group of extremely showy individuals in the hopes of promoting deeper Hykraian values, but it seemed like the best option available to him. And when on Earth, do as the Earthlings do...

Tellus was one of seven legionnaires who joined in the last big recruitment drive, along with fellow Academy-graduates Magnetic Kid, Lamprey, and Comet Queen, as well as Polar Boy, the mysterious Sensor Girl, and Quislet (who was perhaps even more alien than Tellus). As was the case with the Legion Academy, and his time in Met U before that, Tellus quickly showed himself to be competent and helpful, but has not really become very close to any of the people around him. You could say that he is closest in the Legion to his fellow academy-graduates.

In campaign terms, Tellus has become an ally of the PC Magnetic Kid, being part of the same "graduating class". Tellus empathically realizes Magnetic Kid's purity and morality, and looks upon his old classmate as someone he can trust. He also looks to him from time to time for guidance about how to act correctly in circumstances that confuse him about humanoid behaviour.

Tellus has excelled himself competently in Legion missions, and was at first growing increasingly assured that he'd made the right choice in joining up. However, he recently uncovered that there was a conspiracy going on within the Legion, where some members had taken a secret oath and were keeping their plans from the rest of the group (this being the secret plot to destroy the Time Trapper, following the latter's recent interference with the group's personal timeline and attempts to conquer time itself). This anti-collective activity, and what Tellus sees as a corruption of group values, goes against everything he believes in, and has left him extremely upset. Tellus first reported his discovery to his friends Magnetic Kid, Lamprey, and Comet Queen; on their suggestion he went to Legion Leader Tyroc and told him everything he knew. Tyroc in turn asked him to continue spying on the conspirators, which Tellus gladly did though he failed to obtain any more information.

At this time, Tellus is considering his future with the Legion. He waits to see what the fallout will be from this conspiracy. But he finds himself disillusioned with the Legion, and more convinced than ever there is something seriously flawed with humanoid values. He has begun to doubt his original belief that he would be able to learn things valuable for his people from all the other galactic races, though he still holds out some hope that by his quiet example, both the Legion and the galaxy at large may become better. If he ever becomes convinced that there is nothing to learn from the outside galaxy, and that there is no way to help them, then there is no doubt that Tellus will turn his back on the galaxy and return to Mother Ocean and its safe darkness.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Borgo Volcano + H&H's Beverwyck

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:03:00 GMT

The Dark Truth of Scrabble

Did I mention that the Wench is a Scrabble fanatic? She enjoys games in general, which is good, and has tried roleplaying a couple of times with my groups (once in Uruguay and once in Canada, making her one of only two people besides me who's been in both groups), but her main love is Scrabble.

But would she be so enthused, I wonder, if she knew the dark and terrible truth of Scrabble, and its sinister purpose?

I guess we'll find out.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Oversize + H&H's Beverwyck

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:39:30 GMT

The Man Who Would Be King: The Traveller Campaign

I was watching this great and classic movie recently, and I got to thinking, while watching it, how perfectly Traveller would port into a game of Victorian adventurers in the Indian Subcontinent.

I mean shit, all you'd have to do is take out the higher tech levels. That's it. The concept is the same; ex-military types, scouts and traders exploring and trying to make their fortunes in a vast region filled with varying levels of law, technology, and government, regions under direct colonial authority and semi-independent or independent "principalities" ruled by Rajas, and wild regions where no european has ever set foot. Areas of varying and treacherous terrain and population where a man can make his fortune or find a grisly death.

What do you think?

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Mario Grandi Prince + Stockebbye's Proper English

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:46:57 GMT

LSH Character Campaign Profile: Chameleon Boy

Chameleon Boy is a PC, played by Cristian. As such I'm not going to be able to go into as much detail about his "psychology" as I have in previous entries, or about tips on how I play him, since I don't actually play him. What I will do is talk a little bit about how Cristian has chosen to play Chameleon Boy in the campaign.

This campaign is a little different from your standard RPG for a couple of reasons. First of all, the players are not running original characters they made themselves. Instead, they're running canonical characters from the LSH.

But the second thing, which makes it even MORE interesting, is how some of the players don't actually have ANY prior experience with the Legion. Alejo (Colossal Boy) and Federico (Sunboy on theRPGsite, and not coincidentally Sun Boy in the campaign) have actually read quite a few of the Legion comics, but don't know its entire history. On the other hand, Cristian (Chameleon Boy), and Marcel (Ultra Boy) as well as Esteban (played Invisible Kid until this week; Umasama on theRPGsite), Massi (played Lightning Lad) and Toto (occasionally plays Timber Wolf) have little or NO experience with the comics, and thus the characters they play.

But to top it all off, the players didn't get to choose which character they played. So we're really out in crazy-land as far as comparison the usual way RPG campaigns are run here: a player like Cristian had to get a character he didn't choose, and whom he had no prior knowledge of.

Of course, this was something of a risk on my part, but I decided when I framed the campaign that this was a better option than making up "new" legionnaires, certain that whatever ones we tried to "make up" would end up overshadowed by the real ones. What this demanded, though, was that I be prepared for some of the characters to end up being NOTHING like the canonical characters were. I was prepared for that possibility, and thought it'd be an interesting experiment to see if the same character, with the same origins and powers, thrust in the same situations, would end up doing things the same as in the comic even with a player who never read the comics, or would do something totally different.

As it turns out, none of the aforementioned characters ended up unrecognizeable. In some cases, like Marcel's Ultra Boy, it was uncanny just how similar he chose to run the character with how the comic presented him. Of course, it helped that I actually assigned each character to the players I knew well based on what I knew about them: what they liked to play, how they like tended to run characters in my other campaigns, etc.

In Cristian's case, something very interesting happened.

Chameleon Boy is Reep Daggle, from the planet Durla. Durla was once an ultra-advanced civilization, and one of the great powers of the galaxy. But over a thousand years ago, all that came to an end as two rival powers on the planet itself engaged in an apocalyptic war with terrible weapons that made hydrogen bombs look like a child's toy by comparison. The war came to be known by other races that witnessed it as the Five Minute War, because this was all the time it took for 99.8% of all life on Durla to be extinguished and everything that Durlan Civilization represented collapse forever.

The survivors were horrifically mutated. But survive some of them did: the only survivors on that world were the ones who became shapeshifters. The only way to survive on a world as devastated and horrific as Durla had become were those who could change their form in the blink of an eye.

Durla became a world closed off from the rest of the galaxy, and the "society" that slowly emerged on Durla was one barely out of the stone age, even now more than a millenium after the Five Minute War; a society based on tribal units and mere subsistence. The scarcity is such on Durla that strong traditions emerged of ritualized combat to control the population; Reep experienced these traditions firsthand when, to prove his adulthood, he had to fight in a duel to the death with his brother Liggt, by tradition only one of them was allowed to survive.

When a rare ship came to Durla from space, a scientific-anthropological study ship funded by Brande Industries, Reep was one of the first Durlans contacted by the study group. RJ Brande personally arranged for the difficult bureaucratic permissions to allow Reep to leave Durla and be taken under Brande's care. Brande claimed that he wanted to prove that Durlans were ready to be accepted back into the galactic community and that the UP should take a more active role in helping the Durlans, a position that was made very difficult due to the Durlan's own aggression and traditional isolationism, and by the rest of the galaxy's long-held mistrust of the Durlans as "dangerous shapechangers". Wanting a better life than what he could have on Durla, and wanting to try to change the galaxy's ideas about Durlans, Reep agreed to leave with RJ Brande. Eventually, when Brande funded the new Legion of Super Heroes, Reep took on the name of Chameleon Boy, and became the sixth member of that organization.

Reep's appearance above is not the natural form of Durlans. Instead, it is the United Planets-mandated form that Durlans must assume in regular activities when in the UP. Reep has mostly complied with this regulation despite its discriminatory and specie-ist nature, but (Cristian's interpretation of Chameleon Boy) has rebelled in his own little ways making slight alterations to the "official" required form, and making a point of using his shapeshifting powers regularly, showing off just how a Durlan's abilities are not something to be feared, and can be helpful and heroic, and even entertaining.

In their original form, Durlans look something like the guy in the purple cloak:

So, anyone who's read the LSH comics know that Chameleon Boy in the original comics tended to be a fairly serious guy, a pillar of responsibility in the Legion.

Cristian has chosen instead to portray Chameleon as less serious and more light-hearted. He wants to make people feel good, to be happy, and enjoys joking around. He has his serious moments (he's not Matter-Eater Lad or anything) but he tends to be much more comic relief, and is not usually considered by the other PCs or by the NPCs to be one of the stalwart "leader" figures of the Legion.

That said, as the campaign has progressed, Cham has become more serious in his behaviours and more responsible. This in turn has made him gain more responsibility in the Legion, having now replaced Invisible Kid as leader of the Legion's Espionage Squad, a special group within the Legion consisting of the members who's abilities most naturally lend themselves to undercover work (Chameleon Boy, Invisible Kid, Phantom Girl, and Shrinking Violet).

Chameleon Boy in this version also has something of a stubborn streak and issues with authority. He has had serious conflicts with Saturn Girl during her leadership (blaming her for the death of his "pet", Proty) and later with Braniac 5 in his leadership. Most recently, he had an argument with Sun Boy (the current Deputy Leader) where he'd refused to follow Sun Boy's orders when Colossal Boy was unconscious.

Perhaps because of his ability to assume multiple forms, Chameleon Boy has an interest in animals and is the only Legionnaire to own pets. His first pet was the shapechanging creature Proty, who turned out to be more intelligent than Cham had originally believed (indeed, Chameleon boy still doesn't know just how intelligent Proty was, or is). Some time after Proty's apparent death, Chameleon Boy got himself a new pet, a dog he named Snoopy after the historic drawings he saw in the Metropolis Museum.

Chameleon Boy developed a love of Superhero lore from RJ Brande; and this has translated into a general fascination with 20th Century History, a hobby he shares with Cosmic Boy. His closest friend in the Legion is probably Ultra Boy; he also generally gets along well with Colossal Boy, and of course the aforementioned Cosmic Boy.

Chameleon Boy is generally disinterested in non-shapechanging women, understandably finding them rather limited and boring; but this hasn't stopped Triplicate Girl/Duo Damsel's "hedonist" body from having relations with him (which is of course not boring for her). But clearly she was only interested in a carnal relationship with him and nothing more, and even that came to an end after the death of one of Triplicate Girl's bodies. Chameleon Boy clearly feels a close affection to Duo Damsel but it is not romantic as much as it is the closeness of having both known each other before their time as Legionnaires, having both been wards of RJ Brande.

Its clear that Chameleon Boy deeply loves being a superhero, and particularly being a Legionnaire, and what the Legion represents.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Castello Natural Virgin Rhodesian + Comoy's English Mixture

(originally posted June 18, 2007)

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:10:21 GMT

Cowboys And Other Non-Boring Settings

I wouldn't say that the wild-west is my favorite of all settings, but I find it very funny what I've heard recently in a couple of different places, where people have claimed that they would have no idea what to do with a Wild West setting that didn't feature magic or supernatural monsters or some kind of weird elements.

In a way, I think this line of argument can be extended to all historical type games, where people seem to feel that there's an absolute need to add something fantastical.

Now, first, how the hell does this actually solve anything? I mean shit, you're telling me that if its pure historical you have no idea what to do with a setting, but if you, say, add elves, suddenly the place has a richness of possibilities?! What the fuck?

Have you considered that the problem might be psychological?

I think that's one part of the answer, at least. People... well, nerds, anyways, have gotten used to the idea that real life is boring, and that reading or watching or playing in real life would have to be boring. They've created a pavlovian association of reality=boring and conversely fantasy=fun. That's why if you just add zombies to a wild west game, it becomes "awesome", but a game of frontier lawmen in an otherwise lawless land full of criminals and indians would not, for some of these people.

But there is a second part too, I think, and it relates to GMing. You see, I think most players wouldn't judge what they'd play or not by whether there was supernatural elements; their primary concern would be only whether it was fun or not. So as for the GM, when he fears that he'd have "nothing to do" in a straight-cowboy campaign, he's really saying "I wouldn't know how to make it fun".

Why is this? I think its because far too many GMs rely on sensationalism as a supplement for substance. The fantastical draws more attention (in part because of the aforementioned pavlovian response), and so its an easier (one could say lazier) way of making a game "fun".

Yes, in a straight game of cowboys, or any other kind of historical or non-fantastical modern game, you can't rely on the sensation of the unreal for appealing to fun. But this isn't a big deal, if you know what to make the game about instead.

For starters, plot. You're talking about a genre that has had literally thousands of novels and hundreds of films and TV shows made about it, and you're telling me you couldn't find stuff to do? RIP THEM OFF, you dimwit.
Second, and most importantly, characters. A short term game could run on plot alone, but if you want a campaign, you will want to have a "cast of thousands" in a cowboy game, or any historical game for that matter. Create interesting long-term allies, neutrals and opponents. Make sure the players' own characters have complex stories behind them, and appeal to those back stories as a source for both characters and plot materials.
Third, change. Particularly if you want to make a very long campaign, one of the most important themes of the "wild west" is that even at its peak, there is an awareness that things as they are cannot stay that way. That someday, the wildness will be gone, and signs of that change are coming. The PCs themselves might be part of those signs, the forces of law, order, industry, progress coming to the west, be they federal forces, or the railroads, big ranchers, or the big mining concerns. Or the PCs might be among those who are fighting against the tide, wanting for whatever their reasons to struggle to resist the inevitable taming of the west.

I mean seriously, look at something other than bells and whistles, for christ's sake! I mean seriously, dude, if you think that you would be completely bereft of ideas for one of the foremost genres of both modern literature and film, you really probably shouldn't be GMing at all.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Mario Grandi Freehand + H&H's Mt.Marcy

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:06:20 GMT

Who's Out of Touch Now?

In a recent article, Malcolm Sheppard has taken to attacking (and confabulating) older gamers, the old-school movement, and the anti-Swine movement all in one. Well, good for him, points for trying, but he's full of shit.

What's his basic argument?
He says that old-school gamers make three big mistakes that "may have been true when those of us now drifting between 30 and 40 were starting out, but aren’t true for younger people". According to him these three are: "Nerds and Jocks and Never the Twain Shall Meet", "Roleplaying is Mysterious Minority Activity", and "My Scene is Hateful".

Well, let's just examine those three ideas, and see which are held by the regular gamers of a certain age, and which are actually Swine ideas, shall we?
First, "Nerds vs. Jocks". Back when I started playing, there was no such distinction. This is not something we created back in the "bad old days"; back before the Swine made their presence felt, nerds and jocks, and headbangers and preppie girls and countless other types of people played RPGs. I know, because I saw it. In my old gaming groups in junior high and high school we had headbangers, we had the most popular guy in school, we had brainy girls, we had guatemalan immigrants, we had drama geeks, preppies, regular guys, whatever. They all digged D&D.
Its like I said before, back when I first started gaming, I was just about the nerdiest kid who played. But within a few years, I was by far the least nerdy. It wasn't that I had changed all that much (though I do get cooler every year), but that all these disparate people started abandoning the game, and their spaces were filled by geeks, freaks, rejects, hopeless nerds, anime otaku wankers, and eventually outright Lawncrappers. It wasn't in the old-school days that D&D and RPGs weren't inclusive of regular culture. It was afterwards, and the more and more that Swine took over and demanded that RPGs had to be "deep" games requiring a massive commitment of time, money, obsessive-compulsive behaviour, and (often) pretentiousness to enjoy, that normal people left. In other words, your fault, not ours.

Second, "roleplaying is a mysterious minority activity". Well shit, see point the first. It was the Swine, more than anyone, who pushed this. They are the ones who want RPGs to be something not for the "Unwashed Masses". They're the ones who want to pretend to be artistes and intellectuals and beat poets because they play a fucking game about sodomite pirates or sexually degenerate university professors.
Back in the old school days, the "mysteriousness" of RPGs was that it was scary to adults, not to kids. It was forbidden and "satanic", and that made it unbelievably cool and appealing. But making a character took 10 minutes, and you didn't need to spend a fortune to play, or go to special stores, much less have to hang around dingy corners of the internet reading thousands of pages of "theory" invented by some fuckwad expert on bat penises.
RPGs were cool, back when moms were afraid that if you played D&D you'd worship the devil. Today, moms are still afraid; they're afraid that if their son plays D&D he'll end up being a 40 year old virgin who doesn't bathe and will never move out of her basement. And the latter is decidedly NOT appealing, to the kids or anyone else. And again, your fault, not ours.

And the third point? Please, you people INVENTED hate. You're the ones who wished nothing short of D&D's destruction. You were the ones who declared that people who like regular RPGs and don't embrace your theories are "brain damaged" and "child abuse victims". If the scene is hateful today, it is because you made it so, by trying to subvert the hobby and twist it to your civilization-despising humanity-abhorring self-loathing nihilistic psychoses.

So, I rise for the third time to say: your fault, not ours, you fucker.

And Mr. Sheppard's "solutions"? Obviously, to get rid of anything but the Swine. "Play what you hate"; he says, and "stop looking on principles"; implying that we should surrender to the Swine in order to make peace. This is nothing short of Maoist genius at work: destroy the hobby, create war and anarchy, and then insist that if only the other side would stop fighting there'd be "peace". That type of peace, our hobby can not afford. It is the peace of the grave.

He also says "play to the now". Which is fine and good, but its not what he means. He means "stop making games that try to maintain regularity, stop trying to make games that take a stand and refuse to bow to our will, and please please stop making games that end up being more successful than our theories". The Now, and who gets to own it, is what this war is all about, and he knows it. That's why he's pleading for us to surrender. But we won't. We shall stand athwart your Swine revolution, and we will make better and better regular games, old school and new and innovative, that will be founded on regular principles, and you and your kind shall die in the gutter of obscurity.

So take your own advice, Malcolm. Stop making games that don't appeal to the mainstream. Stop making games that try to make our hobby that of a tiny minority of self-styled elites, and stop bringing your hate into my hobby. Embrace the new, and accept that in spite of the best efforts of the Swine for the past two decades, the New is and will continue to be the Regular kind of gaming that you loathe and mainstream gamers love.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Castello Natural Virgin Oversize + H&H's Beverwyck

Saturday, July 04, 2009

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:25:25 GMT

Proof Positive that The Supreme Being is NOT a Woman

I don't want to say that its a man, or a thing, or a force, or whatever; but I can say without the shadow of a doubt that its not a "Goddess".

The proof?
It takes the average man 2 minutes from the onset of sexual activity to achieve orgasm.
It takes the average woman 20 minutes.

Do the math. Either the supreme being isn't a woman, or she's some kind of Margaret Thatcher-esque monstrosity that hates the idea of women having satisfying sex.

Sorry, wiccans.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti tempesta apple + H&H's Beverwyck

Friday, July 03, 2009

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:31:01 GMT

A Couple of Links about International Culture

First, today, we have a product of a culture, comic books, that have in many ways been part of that force that the western world used to co-opt other cultures. I'm not saying that like its a bad thing, but it is a real thing. When you have bollywood musicals featuring spider-man, and superman is a figure known and respected by children throughout the world, its a simple fact that our culture has managed to spread itself throughout the globe via comics.
But now someone from the Muslim world is taking that medium so foreign to his own society and co-opting it right back, with THE 99, the world's first Islamically-inspired comic, the first to be produced in the middle-east, and, with world-wide translation and a new animated film in the works, amazingly THE 99 is on the verge of becoming the first licensed entertainment property to come out of the Islamic world. Here's a letter from the creator of THE 99, to his sons, explaining why he wanted to make this comic.

I think perhaps he's a little too optimistic about it being able to bridge the gap; I haven't been in any north american comic stores in the last year, but I'm going to bet that you won't see THE 99 on any shelves there. Am I wrong? I also doubt that one comic alone will be able to reverse perceptions about Islam and extremism, either in the Islamic world or the rest of the world. But its still an admirable effort, and what it has undoubtedly proven is that you can create a home-grown industry for things like comic books in the "third world". If so, why not RPGs?

Meanwhile, let's go to one country that's been a massive exporter of culture: Japan. For at least the last few decades, everything Japanese has been cool. And yet, I think we don't entirely get their culture, certainly not the average person, and I think that the white-boy otakus out there probably don't either. I'm personally of the opinion that, in the most basic of terms, the Japanese are insane. They spent a little too long in isolation, got bombed a little too hard in WWII, and now they're just batfuck nuts.
Want proof? Ok, but don't say I didn't warn you. This is a real movie trailer, its not something someone made up as a joke. This is a real movie!! The horror!! Geisha... is robot!!

RPGPundit

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