Cheeseweasel's page

"I don't always play a Paladin...

... but when I do, s/he's an obnoxious prig."

145. Because you want an undead donkey.

In other news, had lunch with my ex this last Monday; managed to not go all fanboy on him, lol. Had a good time hanging out, catching up on my medical cr@p and his new job, etc. All in all, a nice break from my medical cr@p.

XD

This has been terribly good information to be receiving; just found out a close friend of mine is on the trans* spectrum (somewhere -- we haven't really had a lot of time to hang out lately, so we haven't had more than the bare exposition).

But I feel like I'm much better-prepped to hear about it, grasp what I'm told, and ask questions that don't make me sound like a dweeb when I need clarification. So, thanks again, guys, gals, and others!

Best description of the attraction I've ever found was in the Guardians of the Flame series (by Joel Rosenberg).

In the opening chapter of the first book, a player is reflecting on his gaming habit, and his take is something on the order of,

"You can say, 'I heft my axe, stride across the room, and bash an orc' and everyone reacts exactly as if you had done it."

Drifting off-topic for a moment...

Bought a heart-shaped box of chocolates today; first Saint Valentine's Day in a number of years I've had cause. Feeling warm and fuzzy about it (and him) and just delighted, generally, with the buzz of romantic inclinations.

[/starry-eyed Badger mode]

Take care when you argue with trolls, lest a troll you become, and remember that as you gaze upon the internet, it gazes back at you.

Sutekh, there are mornings when you are just too many things.

:)

Perhaps kobolds have a clean genome: no nasty recessives to worry about.

Or possibly they eat their young.

;)

Given that it's nearly impossible to get any two handsfuls of people to agree what are "modern values" -- in the Postmodern era, it seems (to me) a little ridiculous to try to decide whether or not they have a place in fantasy gaming. YMMV.

How about just deciding what values are in place and not nitpicking about whether they're suitably "fantastic."

And go pick up a Dresden Files novel: "modern" and "fantasy" aren't mutually exclusive...

There are [established] races which I enjoy playing, and others I wouldn't play with someone else's dice. Likewise, tinkering with the cultural "norms" of said races can produce either intriguing or repulsive results.

But I'm failing to see the problem, especially now that the ARG is out; if you can't stand standard races, spend a half an hour statting out a new race and then a day or two cobbling a history and culture together (or skip that if you're in an RP-lite campaign).

Eh.

Simple twists on old stuff can be fun:

Elves are fascist bastards who think being the last people to have had face-to-face conversations with the gods makes them inherently-better-suited to run the world than everyone else, and should let them tell everyone what magic they can and cannot use.

Dwarves are still in the midst of a race-wide migration, nomads, thanks to an elven intervention that sank their homeland beneath the sea. Still gruff, bitter -- like standard dwarf stereotypes -- but now they actually have a good reason to be that way.

Gnomes and halflings are subspecies of each other, essentially. Best entertainment ever, watching a gnome and a halfling try to one-up each other in any field. They will band together to deal with threats from the Tall Folk when needful, but generally try to avoid having to deal with each other, while convincing the other races that THEIR branch of the family is best, and the others' is full of inbred halfwits.

...and so on.

I tend to nix the half-breeds. Though Orcs are a perfectly acceptible race, so the Orcish genome is still available. (REPRESENT!)

And humans, well... it's all a matter of cultures, since they're kinda the baseline by which other races get measured. And that's fine, imo.

You ought always to avoid using "never," and it's never a good idea to use "always."

:)

How many eeps for taming a gazebo?

Hey everybody:

Just wanted to mention how glad I am to have this thread, and all of you in it, as a part of my virtual life. It's really great to be able to come here, with news, or when I'm bored -- or when I need a break from the relentless pace of life. I always get what I need here. So thanks.

Sincerely,

Cheeseweasel

Cheeseweasel: It is not okay for him to treat you, or anyone that way. Talk is becoming necessary. I would say you are right in assuming that he is gay, but for some reason doesn't want to accept that. Now, sexuality is not something we can control. Not to any large degree. So, in you, a friend, he found the perfect solution. He probably regards himself as a man who has sex with other men - this is a very common situation, common enough that you need to specify this in STD awareness campaigns and such, just to reach people. In essence, he gets the sex, but doesn't need to come out or deal with any of the hassles of being gay socially, where he has a clear identity already.

Perfect, right? Well, to him. I would say the driving force of this is fear. Fear, despite the fact that admitting he's gay probably would solve a lot of the stuff he sees as problems.

Just be aware that he is desperate for a simple reason: You are probably a necessary part of it. Without you, he has no other options. Be prepared, because his reactions could get stronger than you think. Okay?

Of course, this could just be me rambling...

Eh, if you're rambling, you manage to ramble around the point rather well. Yeah, conversation will be needful. >bleah< Why can't things just work right without having to talk about them?! [/male cowardice]

On the... well, not really plus side... but "easy," we haven't seen each other since my initial post on the subject, so I haven't had to have the confrontation yet. I think he finally "got" that the intial weeks post-surgery just aren't a good time for rabid weasel sex.

:/

BRIEF THREADJACKING

Hi all; just got back home from a couple weeks in hospital -- heart attack/bypass surgery -- all went very well!

WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY-SCHEDULED DISCUSSION!

:)

The True Path to following the First Rule ("don't be a jerk") is to always, always take it with a grain of Lot's wife.

(Those of you from other threads may have noticed I use that line quite a bit. It makes me chuckle every time I do.)

Uh, let's see... as I have, to date, spent thiry-two years -- the vast majority of my life -- playing various tabletop role-playing games, the answer, for me, is a resounding "yes, it's serious business! -- You gonna roll that initiative, or were you just gonna stand there?"

:)

OK, so maybe "serious" isn't quite the proper word. But gaming is a significant business in my life. And, yeah, I'd be annoyed with the "just a game" comment. But I'm easily annoyed, so take it with a grain of Lot's wife and consider the source.

I took 'em fair and square! I'm keeping them!

Go, Bob!

File off the serial numbers and no one will ever know!

On cartoons:

Baccano.

Go get it, watch it, love it.

[The last 3 episodes are kinda "filler." Skipable, as the story wraps up in episode 10.]

Oh, Hell...

For BACON!

...aaand a big, fat "oops" for forgetting the alias.

How's this one?

A witch can have a crab for a familiar.

A witch can't cast create water, in order to keep her crab happy during adverse conditions.

Now, there's a compelling reason to add a cantrip.

"Two witches isn't a coven; two witches is an argument."

And it seems that you ought to also pay heed to the humorist opinions of people named Blueluck. I mean, obviously a perspicacious sort...

:)

But seriously -- Lawfuls make the BEST "straight (wo)men" for TEAM HUMOR -- which is an inherently lawful approach to being funny. TEAMWORK!

"We at the FBI have no sense of humor of which we are aware."

Can't argue with MiB: there is no Lawful/Funny.

O.o

There is no justice, and labeling any act "unjust" displays your bias.

Evil is a form of power, readily available -- in death as much as in life. Those who grow strong in its practice, naturally, become more powerful, as like calls to like and power to power...

Walking is ALWAYS an "in the right" option if sitting means dealing with some thing/PC/build/player/GM/whatever with which you don't wish to play.

... it would also be really nice if I didn't have to manually find my place in THIS thread every time I click the (x new messages) link from the thread menu. Why exactly is that not working?

As a very casual board-skimmer, I've been mildly irritated by reading through a thread -- waiting to post anything until I reach the current end, just in case what I was going to say has already been said -- only to reach the end and find out it's a locked thread.

>sigh<

If maybe there were a board to which a locked thread gets moved? Or at least a color shift in the thread title? SOMETHING to let people know that the thread in question has Joined The Choir Invisible? I don't know.

Aside from the fact that it's really easy to miss that a thread is locked, I don't personally have any complaints about the moderation here. The conspiracy theories flying around make me chuckle...

A thread for tabletop-vs.-video that ALSO qualifies as an alignment thread? Ai, Di mio...

Except that, by virtue of accepting someone as GM, the Players have, ipso facto, granted the GM arbitration "powers" over the game; it goes with the job.

...

Speaking of confrontational manner...

See? SEE?!

Next time, WAIT IN THE ALLEY UNTIL I OPEN THE BACK DOOR!

THD:

I've got no beef with encouraging single-classed progression... but I really dislike it when it spreads to discouraging multi-classed progression, which it really seems that PF does.

I like multi-classing to end-run the "god-wizard effect:" if you stop progressing at the 11th-14th level zone, you chop off the worst offenders in the spell lists (8th and 9th level spells). At which point, well, you have several levels to fill, if you're running a full 20-level adventuring career.

While I like my gaming groups, I have far to much animus against Paladins. There's challenging and then there's Sysiphian efforts for very little return. Too much time wasted in hoodwinking the Pally, not enough time to manage my schemes.

[ohmigod, reasoned discourse, wtf?]

Heh.

Crusader,

My dealings with the other PCs are based in our joint Rise To Power[tm]. This is especially easy in a campaign that starts at 1st-level: we're all too busy surviving to do anything but cooperate... and we learn to rely on each other through that process. [This is sort of meta, given that even when we start a new campaign, it's still the same boys and girls around the table. But if we're discussing rationale and underpinning logic for the behavior differences between party and non-party persons, it's worth starting at the beginning.]

Once we've managed to climb out of the "Crap! Ogres!" level pit, and can start gathering influence and/or power to begin modifying our society -- or at least, our place in that society, we usually have established a good working social dynamic in the party. And my evil character has had time to size up how blatant he can be viz-a-viz the other characters -- and how reliably they might help him obfuscate the fact of his villainy from outsiders.

7th level is really the crucial point, because of the availability of Leadership; cohorts aside, one's FOLLOWERS allow the beginnings of organized efforts, as well as providing incentive to build that stronghold...

Anyway... I never assume PC tolerance, so I keep my own budding organization sub rosa from them. Yeah, I've got a small farming community where I've built my manor house. [I.e., I have a small pharming community where I harvest and process drugs and poisons.]

As far as NPCs; I expend quite a bit of time and resources on cultivating NPCs (depending on how much the GM really uses them; some of my GMs build/play up NPC involvement more than others). And the ones with whom I build a relationship, I attempt to foster and subtly direct to divert other NPC attentions away from my activities.

Note that a corrupt NPC may be more useful... but if I can engage some personal loyalty, I'll take more care with a loyal NPC than a useful one.

One of the things about being a SUCCESSFUL villain is combining good PR with obfuscation; you want the power you do wield to be as invisible as possible. You want the locals in the region surrounding your operations to be pleased with and grateful for your presence. I "waste" a lot of loot on charity and infrastructure projects to cover my tracks.

If a "friendly" NPC takes issue with something -- finds out something he shouldn't have, or just notices that I'm manipulating the nobility and merchants, whatever -- I'll do my best, first, to convince him he's missing something (Bluff is always a max-rank skill, regardless of my class skill list).

If said NPC is keen enough to pierce my prevarications, I will grumble and find a scapegoat to frame, adopting a "let me look into this matter" approach. Conducting an "investigation" into my organization and providing a reasonable "not MY fault" scenario. And looking into HOW the NPC got through my layers of security in the first place.

Now, if none of this works, and depending on level (do I HAVE access to Geas/Quest?), I may begin acting against that NPC in the shadows, giving him problems OTHER than me to pursue, and setting the groundwork for possible "extreme prejudice" solutions IF I CAN'T REDIRECT HIM...

Now, if I have problems with an NPC with whom I've had no cooperation ab initio, I'm not likely to start off with these "nice" tactics. The prior posts apply to "opponent-designate" NPCs.

Anyway... the PCs DO get a better deal from me, due to the fact that they kept those monsters from eating me, not because they have a glowing PC sign over their head. But I want the locals to gather their torches and pitchforks against the nosy Inquisitors who assault me, rather than in support of same. So I do my best to be SEEN to be an upstanding member of the community, which means keeping my enthusiasm for expedient butchery in check.

Again... I like to think that Evil=/=Chaotic OR Stupid, and do my best to play that way, being a charming and helpful guy.

OK Mal...

Since there are plenty of opportunities to have non-RPG fun with my friends, I am not going to seize the chance to have RPG non-fun with them.

Your stance seems to be that I ought to suck it up and spend hours a week at a table at which I am having minimal, if not no, fun.

I don't insist that everyone, or anyone else, at the table play an evil character with me, but I'm not going to (a) play a good character or (b) play in a party with a Paladin. "A" is boring, "B" puts a level-cap of 4 on the campaign life, since once I hit 5th level I start pinging on Paladin radar, leading to in-party conflict and having to pay for atonements we can't afford on a regular basis.

If it makes you happy to label this "selfish," "manipulative," etc., etc., GREAT. I will even go so far as to say YES, when it comes to my leisure time, I AM SELFISHLY GOING TO ENGAGE ONLY IN FUN THINGS.

Once more, since the thread isn't dead yet...

"You brought him on; you pay him."

Can't believe I'm still here... but I am. So-o-o...

As a player, when a GM invites me to his/her game, I ask first about the setting -- are there standard races/classes not allowed and/or are there any nonstandard items of that sort on the table?

As a GM, when I have FINISHED setting the world up, and go on to invite players, I give them the Official Campaign House Rules. I don't try to construct a game setting around the nebulous set of possibilities that make up Schroedinger's Party.

My opinion, thusly, is that it is far easier and less taxing for a player to adapt their character to fit the setting than for a GM to have to re-write their game world.

And, not surprisingly, I tend to be MUCH less-flexible when I'm on the GMming side of the table. THIS [insert OCHR mentioned above] is the game I'm willing to run: my opening stance is largely take-it-or-leave-it.

On occasion, a player surprises me with a well-thought-out and non-argumentative discussion about changing this-or-that to let them run something that doesn't quite fit the setting I've created. I have, a few times, been persuaded. But not often -- either the pleasant manner of presenting the case for deviation, nor the persuading. The things I've disallowed generally are disallowed because they don't fit.

When I'm running for a group with whom I've gamed regularly, we rarely have any dispute; "Oh, no guns, huh? Well, I'll just play that Sorcerer Bloodline I've been lookin' at..." and characters get made up.

... this is one of those things that is pretty alien to me.

99% of the games I've played in, 100% of those I've run, have been in game settings designed by the GM.

Sometimes there have been GM restrictions that I would rather weren't part of the game -- but I've ALWAYS been able to find something fun to play regardless of those restrictions.

Often, players don't like MY restrictions when I set up a world. Some of my restrictions are negotiable... some of them are ironclad. Usually, I discourage debate over them in either case. [E-mail discussion is usually fine, but I won't have possible game time wasted with an argument over whether or not I'm going to allow (x).]

I lay out my changes and house rules ahead of time, when people are starting to think on character concepts, before actually getting down to generating the stats. So everyone knows what they're looking at.

I've had a couple players balk, and opt out. I've had, oh, I think three (over a gaming lifespan of 32 years) start playing and be so disruptive that I've uninvited them.

I guess my point here is that, when I'm a player, I do my best to adapt to what the GM wants to run -- and I do expect a similar courtesy from players in my games. If someone is willing to waste a lot of time arguing that I should allow (x) in my game when (x) is called out before hand as not allowed... I probably don't want them at my table anyway, not because they want to have (x), but because they're being argumentative and detracting from everyone else's fun by wasting time we could be playing.

I've had VERY FEW occasions of a player being unwilling to adapt; I agree that the forums aren't a good example of real life gaming that way. I appreciate the guys who decided to not play (and they did come back to other campaigns, with different settings, and play just fine). It's much less disruptive to deal with than the guys who said "ok, let's play" and spent their time trying to end the campaign.

Anyway... been following along for a while now and just thought I'd try contributing. Though I think most of what I've had to say is echoing earlier posts. So, eh, my two filed-down cp worth.

:)

If there's a Paladin in the party, I'm not.

Seriously, I'll find another game.

The Paladin won't like me, I won't like the Paladin. There's <no point to trying to run a game with me _and_ someone playing one of those.

Am I a pyromaniac murder-hobo? No.

But I also don't have any problem selling sentients to mind flayers, if the price is right. I manufacture and distribute cripplingly-addictive substances. I smuggle. I don't pay taxes. Yes, that is poison on my knife. Etc.

At my very BEST I'm only antiheroic.

Most of my groups know and accept this, so I don't get faced with playing with Paladins often...

TCG,

The negative and positive material planes intersect across the prime material. All three planes are, by definition, natural. Undeath is supported by negative energies, which are and inherent part of the natural world.

The concentration of negative energy to the point of making a once-living creature undead is only unusual. Entropy is natural...

Undead are just concentrated packets of entropy; from any truly long-term perspective (in which druids are contenders for Most Patient Class) their evasion of death is only temporary. They're like a planar fusebox, siphoning positive energy out of the living in a process of diffusion: high concentrations of positive energy flow from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. Until the fuse (vampire) burns out (is destroyed by sunlight, or running water, or high-level positive channeling).

Nothing made up, powered by, one of the three cornerstones of natural existence (in-game) can be justly called unnatural.

NOT saying all druids would like a vampire in their ranks, but the druid class doesn't build in solidarity among druids: they fight each other when and as their natures dictate. So it's perfectly fine for some to take issue with an undead druid and try to exterminate it.

But "Nature" isn't going to kick the vampiric druid out of the fuzzy-happy-you-get-divine-powers circle just for being a vampire.

People seem to be ignoring, or forgetting, that the Negative Material Plane is, inherently, part of the greater nature of the planes.

Yes, your soul is now running entirely on negative energy.

No, this doesn't make you anything other than preternatural. Not unnatural, from a druidic perspective.

You are now an even-more-apex predator, that's all. As long as one isn't suddenly setting fire to forests or slaughtering animals for sport, there really isn't much of an adjustment you need to make.

Is it an odd pairing? Sure. But there isn't anything about vampirism that prohibits the requisite reverence for nature.

The blood is the life.

If you (moderators) are going to lock a thread, it would be nice if there were some indicator on the thread title. There is little more irritating than reading through 70+ posts on an issue one finds interesting, with an eye towards contributing to the conversation, only to reach the end and find that "the end" is one of you locking the thread.

I could have spent my time elsewhere -- and would have, had I known.

It would be MUCH preferable to have the thread ENTIRELY REMOVED rather than still dangling there with the new posts listed.

Your current methods waste your members' time; a fix for this would be awfully nice.

This isn't a challenge, this is a penance for some horrible sin in a past campaign.

I admit it: I'm lazy. I kind of hate slogging through low levels. It's boring to me as a GM, it's frustrating to players who want to get on with the heroics...

So my typical campaign starts at 5th level, and usually runs through about 15th. My players are informed of this (or know it already for the die-hards who keep joining my campaigns).

This means that (a) PCs may start the game multiclassed or (b) there's plenty of "time in grade" in the backstory to justify most choices for multiclassing later in the game.

I do talk with each player about what they want to run, and will have an idea of what their progression plan is, from the start. Sometimes plans change, but usually I get heads up from a player who's concept is shifting. And if I don't, well, it's not the end of the world.

TL;DR: Sense is what you make it in a fictional setting. "But... dragons" is just the tip of the iceberg.

Hate Ninja.

[/ -- nope, my Ninja hate is neverending]

I agree with those who are saying you both messed up.

She failed in her responsibility to make a PC that doesn't force the other PCs to wonder "Why do we let this jackhole hang around with us, anyways?"

You failed in your responsibility to avoid non-consensual player-vs.-player conflict.

That latter "responsibility" isn't one, in my opinion.

It isn't the GM's job to micromanage the PC interactions so that everyone is happy; folks can put on their Big Player pants and work together, or not. The fallout from "not" isn't up to the GM to clean up.

And, given the actual example/events of the OP, the response to the obnoxious PC (I'm tempted to say 'obnoxious player') was pretty mild.

I'd have to research the Dominate spells (I haven't used 'em) -- I have issues with the target not knowing who's doing the Dominating; I wouldn't think that's concealable. I've been wrong before...

But honestly; if a player has a problem conforming to the campaign, my typical response is to invite them to leave. Since that doesn't seem to be an option, someone else putting the brakes on the problem behavior is a mild response. Imo.

Dr. Scott to Frankenfurter:

"You did right."