Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Capsaicin Addict]

I HATE WOTC
I HATE WOTC
I HATE WOTC

Anyway: That art for Krynn is fucking atrocious. I hate everyone on the cover. From the grouchy looking headband wearing Mexican bitch on the cover, to the fucked up looking stretched out kender motherfucker on the right, to the douche on the left who would benefit from being stabbed in the neck.

I hate the turn away from alignment because I've always found the people who gripe about alignment being terrible to be nothing more than useless faggots.

I'm glad I saved all my old books.

I'm glad my Rifts group prefers to shoot at Splugorth slave barges with guns rather than try to reason with them. I'm glad my Rifts group shoots DBs in the face rather than asks them their pronouns, and I'm glad my Pathfinder players believe in good and evil.

My Rifts 'borg named his auto-loading grenade launcher 'Reason', after the micro-minigun in Snow Crash. Everyone listens to Reason.

Considering they misspelled Krynn as 'Kyrnn' -- twice -- I doubt WotC has any idea what they're doing.

 

[Adamska]

I never really liked Krynn as a setting tbh. Something about how too much good being bad and being home of the Kenders killed any desire I'd ever have in bothering with it.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Considering they misspelled Krynn as 'Kyrnn' -- twice -- I doubt WotC has any idea what they're doing.

They only mispelled it once. The title was just a mirror of the body of the text there.

Not that it makes it any better, of course. It's like writing Fraeun instead of Faerun. It's just fucking unprofessional no matter how you slice it.

 

[Ghostse]

My question is this: where do you guys advertise that you’re running a game? I was looking to avoid reddit at first, because >reddit. Then I realized that it’s the best possible option. Since troons don’t shut up about being troons, critical role fans post on critical role subreddits, and coomers that are too far gone won’t even bother to make an alternate account to hornypost on, simply looking at their post history should filter most of them. Making, “Please leave your baggage at the door” a rule should filter the rest. Still, I like to keep my options open, and I want to see if there are better sites to post on before I take the plunge.

I'd second @The Ugly One suggestion of Meet Up as I had some luck there, but its been a number of years since I last used it.

I'd also begrudgingly say maybe facebook, but I don't use Facebook.

Also recommend talking to the LGS you are looking to host at, they might know what the local community uses. Or might even advertise for you.

I wouldn't advertise on Reddit simply because there are normal users of reddit, but any self-indentified redditor is at best a terminally online mutant, and more likely a cred-seeking faggot leaking genderfluid who is using your session as fuel for a post for karma. And if you are advertising your game on reddit, the people who show up will be people willing to publically ID themselves as redditors.

Before I moved, my LGS had a monthly free "Pick up game" where you just set up your one shot and saw who was interested. If you liked the folks you found, you'd have them back next week for another one shot. My recent couple of games have all been an extended circle of friends-of-friends, so its been a while since I'd had to actually search out players.

 

[Snekposter]

Again, there was no need for this. In the AD&D supplement, Fiend Folio, made it clear that there were a few fiends that were able to raise above their evil nature and become agents of good. However, the supplement also made it clear that such fiends were very rare and most of the risen fiends were ruthlessly hunted down by their superiors over shame and fears that they will disrupt the status quo by helping the celestials. Problem now is that WotC is trying to make fiends be like humans. The thing that people loved about D&D was how alien and different the other races were to humans. That was what made them interesting. This is what happens when you let in a bunch of freaks into a hobby who just want to make their cringe Mary-Sue OC's. The D&D fandom is becoming like the Sonic fandom on DeviantArt. I take solace in knowing that WotC is now facing some financial troubles as, because of this economy, people aren't spending a lot of money on D&D products anymore. Plus, people have had it with the woke shit and are spending it on indie and OSR.

Agreed. There's no point playing a human-adoring, ale-chugging, violence-loving elf fighter when the books have removed all mention of them being calm and aloof. Here's what 3.5e says about them:

Plenty of room for growth and development with someone who goes out adventuring to see what those funny-looking not-elves get up to in their spare time and their short and almost certainly meaningless lives.

 

[The Ugly One]

The reason for this latest round of bowlderization is the woke left is saying that a rational, sentient being with an intrinsic moral-psychological orientation is a fundamentally self-contradictory concept, as no such thing exists in the real world (and if you argue otherwise, you'll be banned from the forum), so the idea such a being exists just exposes hidden racist biases in the creator and normalizes racist tropes for the players.

 

[PaladinBoo]

The reason for this latest round of bowlderization is the woke left is saying that a rational, sentient being with an intrinsic moral-psychological orientation is a fundamentally self-contradictory concept, as no such thing exists in the real world (and if you argue otherwise, you'll be banned from the forum), so the idea such a being exists just exposes hidden racist biases in the creator and normalizes racist tropes for the players.

There is another, more sinister reason, why they are also doing this. The woke left believes that their is no such thing as evil. Evil is just subjective. Notice lately how entertainment have been trying to make the bad guys be misunderstood and sympathetic? Rings of Power comes to mind. It is a very nihilistic and post modern way of thinking. Not to mention destructive. My guess is that this is another slam against religion and works of the past. Christianity made it very clear that there is evil in the world and many great writers like Tolkien, C.S Lewis and even Gayax were inspired by the Bible when it came to concepts such as good and evil. In this post-Christian, woke world you can't have that anymore. It is outdated. Evil is subjective, but only when their side does it. Remember, the greatest trick the devil ever did was to convince the world that evil does not exist.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

Evil is just subjective.

There's an scientist NPC in one of the games I'm in who says this a lot. Wears all black and does crimes against nature/humanity. Nice guy.

 

[ZMOT]

There is another, more sinister reason, why they are also doing this. The woke left believes that their is no such thing as evil. Evil is just subjective. Notice lately how entertainment have been trying to make the bad guys be misunderstood and sympathetic? Rings of Power comes to mind. It is a very nihilistic and post modern way of thinking. Not to mention destructive. My guess is that this is another slam against religion and works of the past. Christianity made it very clear that there is evil in the world and many great writers like Tolkien, C.S Lewis and even Gayax were inspired by the Bible when it came to concepts such as good and evil. In this post-Christian, woke world you can't have that anymore. It is outdated. Evil is subjective, but only when their side does it. Remember, the greatest trick the devil ever did was to convince the world that evil does not exist.

lot of time it's also incompetence tho, not malice. doesn't sauron pretty much fit that bill and only turns tru-evil later on (haven't read the silmarillion in ages and forgot most of it)?
that's why you usually see it from hack writers that want to make their villain "deep" or "misunderstood" or some other dumb excuse a la kylo "luke skywalker was looking at me funny" ren. which is worse than have someone go full evil for evil's sake (good luck you turned to world to ash, what you gonna rule now genius?) which even they can understand is kinda stupid, but then lack the proficiency to improve it.

or take everyone's favorite walking grape thanos, who's master plan was "universe is full, I'm gonna zap half of it so everybody left got twice the space and resources - to fill it up again". there are 12 year olds with more longterm thinking.
at least they didn't have him go full lebensraum and settled on the "it's random who gets zapped", so it's "fair", which I think is a much bigger hang-up.

 

[The Ugly One]

There is another, more sinister reason, why they are also doing this. The woke left believes that their is no such thing as evil. Evil is just subjective. Notice lately how entertainment have been trying to make the bad guys be misunderstood and sympathetic? Rings of Power comes to mind. It is a very nihilistic and post modern way of thinking. Not to mention destructive. My guess is that this is another slam against religion and works of the past. Christianity made it very clear that there is evil in the world and many great writers like Tolkien, C.S Lewis and even Gayax were inspired by the Bible when it came to concepts such as good and evil. In this post-Christian, woke world you can't have that anymore. It is outdated. Evil is subjective, but only when their side does it. Remember, the greatest trick the devil ever did was to convince the world that evil does not exist.

They absolutely do believe in evil. Nazis are evil. But they believe that being evil means you're no longer truly human, e.g.

Lately, there's been a creepy trend of media outlets attempting to humanize Nazis and white supremacists; this was evident in the recent brouhaha over a New York Times profile of an avowed white nationalist, which took pains to describe said white nationalist's love of "Seinfeld" and paint a loving portrait of how he "sauté[ed] minced garlic with chili flakes."

source: https://www.salon.com/2017/12/01/why-wolfenstein-is-the-perfect-game-for-this-political-moment-2/

"Nazis" (i.e. everyone to the right of Elizabeth Warren) are so inhuman that trying to "humanize" us is "creepy." We're "ontologically evil." Since we're not human, we don't deserve rights, we don't deserve due process, there's nothing wrong with harming us, and no, we don't deserve to vote. It's why "democracy" has to be "saved" from our vote. We're the nonhuman vote; we're not supposed to even count. When Moviebob calls us "obsoletes" and fantasizes about our mass murder, he's not expressing a sentiment any different from your average Salon Dot Com writer.

Of course, once again, the left accuses us of doing what they do - dehumanizing massive groups of people so they can abuse us with a clear conscience.

 

[PaladinBoo]

They absolutely do believe in evil. Nazis are evil. But they believe that being evil means you're no longer truly human, e.g.



source: https://www.salon.com/2017/12/01/why-wolfenstein-is-the-perfect-game-for-this-political-moment-2/

"Nazis" (i.e. everyone to the right of Elizabeth Warren) are so inhuman that trying to "humanize" us is "creepy." We're "ontologically evil." Since we're not human, we don't deserve rights, we don't deserve due process, there's nothing wrong with harming us, and no, we don't deserve to vote. It's why "democracy" has to be "saved" from our vote. We're the nonhuman vote; we're not supposed to even count. When Moviebob calls us "obsoletes" and fantasizes about our mass murder, he's not expressing a sentiment any different from your average Salon Dot Com writer.

Of course, once again, the left accuses us of doing what they do - dehumanizing massive groups of people so they can abuse us with a clear conscience.

Of course. The problem with the Left is that they say one thing but mean another. I find it funny that most WotC employees and game devs on Twitter believe that all Russians and anybody to the right of AOC are "ontologically evil" and cheer on for a thermonuclear war also are the same people that say "Evil is subjective". It goes to show just how sick the left has become. You can see it in the entertainment they produce. There is a rot that is eating away at their soul. I would pity them if they weren't such a threat to normal everyday people and their children.

 

[Ghostse]

Of course. The problem with the Left is that they say one thing but mean another. I find it funny that most WotC employees and game devs on Twitter believe that all Russians and anybody to the right of AOC are "ontologically evil" and cheer on for a thermonuclear war also are the same people that say "Evil is subjective". It goes to show just how sick the left has become. You can see it in the entertainment they produce. There is a rot that is eating away at their soul. I would pity them if they weren't such a threat to normal everyday people and their children.

Much as we hear about the "silent majority" who aren't left or right but very center, at the core isn't a left or right problem. There is a large number of people who are terrible and just want to be in a lynch mob. They will sign up for whatever cause supports their ability to do that. So its not so much a case of Left politics, its that the sociopaths who used to be on the right have switched to being leftists.
Lefty politics are much more about centralizing power and placing leadership beyond question or reproach, so it definitely lets these terrible people have a much freer reign.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

There's always been this "Alignment is stupid..." camp in AD&D.

Weird thing is, the people that usually argued it were the shittiest people.

They're also big in the camp of "Clerics should need a divine sponsor to cast divine magic, it should come just because they want it that bad, like sorcerers or wizards!"

They also hate the idea of non-human races having non-human motivations, ethos, and morality. They hate the idea of a god saying "All non-orcs should be killed whenever encountered, for they are vermin stopping orcs from existing in paradise" because then they can't say "Oh, orcs are just misunderstood!"

They want evil to be good, so they can feel like they are good.

They're shitty people who don't want anything that reminds them that they are shitty people.

 

[Wormy]

Of course, once again, the left accuses us of doing what they do - dehumanizing massive groups of people so they can abuse us with a clear conscience.

You're both right. You want to dehumanize them, they want to dehumanize you.

They're still jackasses regardless.

There's always been this "Alignment is stupid..." camp in AD&D.

Alignment isn't stupid, but it's still a janky system.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Alignment isn't stupid, but it's still a janky system.

It's not so janky when you realize Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are all proven metaphysical forces in the game universe that transcend even the power of Gods, including having their own planes of existence and creatures made entirely out of those energies, as well as spells and magical effects that interact directly with them.

Sure, player characters are usually deeper than just their alignment, but it makes sense that their actions and beliefs would align them with an alignment or another. Sure, it depends on the GM's discretion (as it should, it's ultimately the GM's world) but so long as it's consistently done there's no issue. Ironically, downplaying alignment as it was done since 4e only made it jankier and jankier.

 

[Wormy]

It's not so janky when you realize Good, Evil, Law and Chaos are all proven metaphysical forces in the game universe that transcend even the power of Gods, including having their own planes of existence and creatures made entirely out of those energies, as well as spells and magical effects that interact directly with them.

Right, that's actually when it's actually a really good system.

It's in the realm of player character behavior that the jank starts to flare up. Sentient behavior is tough to box into just 9 slots.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Right, that's actually when it's actually a really good system.

It's in the realm of player character behavior that the jank starts to flare up. Sentient behavior is tough to box into just 9 slots.

When it comes to player characters from races that don't have set alignments, the philosophy in both groups I'm part of is very simple:

Alignment doesn't define the character or limit their actions in any way. It's a stat, and one the GM is at liberty to change at any time based on the characters' actions. And yeah, we homebrewed old effects that apply specifically to certain alignments. So your Paladin might still think himself bright, shiny, good and righteous in his faith, but if he slaughters too many innocents or goes shopping for unicorn steaks while the party is laying low in the Big Bad's Obviously Evil City, that Sword of Evil-Slaying +2 is going to sting him that much harder anyway.

 

[The Ugly One]

You're both right. You want to dehumanize them, they want to dehumanize you.

That's not true, I want to dehumanize women, not liberals.

 

[Wormy]

That's not true, I want to dehumanize women, not liberals.

I was about to say....

Remind me, are you married or in a relationship of some sort?

 

[The Ugly One]

I was about to say....

Remind me, are you married or in a relationship of some sort?

Look, I said I don't want to dehumanize liberals, not get gay with them.