Nepherti's page

Now that we have a player willing to play someone who worships Aaluran, I need to flesh this guy out.

So far, his symbol is the bull. He is a God of Fertility, Deviance, Taboos, and Sexual Liberation. The bulk of his followers come from a very Mediterranean culture.

THE WIVES OF AALURAN: When one prays at the Temple of Aaluran, he in a sense becomes the Bull. At the Temple are clerics/holy women (not always the class Cleric) who are considered to be the Wives of the Bull. During prayer, the devout become their temporary husbands.

THE CHILDREN OF AALURAN: These are the children born of the unions between the Devout and the Wives. Within the Temple and within the Kingdom of Salvana (whose patron is Aaluran) the children are considered sacred, a blessing of the Bull. Elsewhere, their reception is everything from indifference to outright shunning. In the Kingdom of Umeria, they are known as the Bastards and their mothers the Whores of Aaluran. While being raised at the Temple, the Children are given a basic education (what a typical adventurer might have) and then have several choices as to how to spend the rest of their lives. Many stay with the temple, others see military as their only chance at a future. Most take up adventuring at some point. Still others take steps to find their Seed Father, hoping he might give them a better life.

THE CLERICS OF CONSENT: Aaluran has one rule with his deviance. You better be sure whoever you are doing whatever to is okay with what you are doing to them. This is why the Clerics of Consent fight. There is a joke amongst my group of friends that these guys are basically Temple of Aaluran: SVU.

So am I crazy for creating this god? Any suggestions for the Bull?

I dunno, I'm a girl and I am enjoying that npc-bickering into the story for the solo gestalt game Mr. Nepherti runs for me. Basically my character married a prince who slept around a lot. A few of those women sent assassins after Nepherti when she was competing in a long distance horse-race in the hopes Prince Alexei would seek comfort in their arms after losing his wife in an already high-lethality race. I also play a paladin (for our other game with a few friends) who has a damsel he rescues frequently from dragons.

Maybe I'm just weird.

Best examples of this from my gameplay:

Armand the paladin has a good wisdom, but he takes people at their word. Therefore, I didn't put ranks in sense motive until level 8.

Rhoridan the sorcerer had a low wisdom, 7, and one day when my witch was going through some magic books, the teenage low wisdom rhoridan was drawing dicks in the books.

And, my friend didn't feel violated, just kinda pissed and uncomfortable with a decision being made for his character.

I, however, put myself in the situation. I would have felt violated. It would have brought me too close to painful memories not because it was sex in a game, but it was sex that I was forced to make my character go through, even if the character was okay with it.

But it doesn't even have to be sex. I have a friend who is fairly arachnaphobic. I don't introduce drow or the like when he plays in my games. It's only courteous.

I have come to a conclusion.

He and I will still hang out. I am still friends with his girlfriend and I can't avoid him otherwise without giving up most my hobbies, I can't just not be around him.

He is nice when he's not given a position of power. So basically, we just can't GM for each other.

I'm an old wod girl myself, but even our Sabbat LARP knew when to draw the line. We had 15 year old theatre kids in that game. One guy tried to rape an npc in character,and he got his sheet ripped up in front of the whole group if 40 players.

You just don't do that.

I should probably reword that to super manipulative. this guy makes friends easily, is a social butterfly. incredibly charming, I had a crush on him when we first met, he was very likable and funny.

now, I doubt my ability to call him friend.

Thanks everyone, I may watch now. It's funny though, the problems many of you seem to have with it (random sex in every episode) is actually what I would be okay with. Its too many deaths that I mainly worry about. I don't want to get attached to someone and then have them die. I know that people due in this story, so ill just have to tell myself to not get attached.

I am having fun in this game, most of the time. Its just these moments can practically ruin an individual session. I will admit I had a lot more fun before our characters started meeting gods and carrying multiple artifacts around. My main character is pseudo-retired. That's the witch. She runs a potion shop, a tavern, the Wizard's Tower, and is a mother of two small boys. She doesn't have time to adventure. My backup is pure comic relief: a vanara alchemist based on curious George. She got an artifact known as the staff of kings. She gave it away.

I've noticed this recently. When I am surprised by a plot twist, those decisions a character sometimes has to make: "save my loved one or save the world", I will get a knot in my stomach or get a little queasy to the point of wanting to leave the table at times. Now, logically I realize that sometimes these moments are good story structure, they can be exciting to a lot of people. But it's left a lot of recent sessions ending on sour notes for me and I'm getting tired of it.

What do I do? I am really at a loss here. I enjoy gaming, but I find myself thinking of ways that, for instance, my witch can use her prehensile hair to wrangle her twin boys into line, not how she can strangle a demon with it. I find myself wanting that moment my paladin is finally holding his long lost love, not how many badass strikes he gets against the dragon keeping her prisoner.

How do I get past this? No one I've talked to so far seems to have an answer. :-(:-(

Buffy, easy to come back to life.

Dude, relax.

I played in a game with an Apostle of Peace. Vow of Poverty. Buff said.

I agree that the character should not come to expect heroic reward, but it's ok for the player to expect something to put on the sheet other than XP.

I also never game without my bubble bubble bubble...otherwise I'm grumpy.

When I hear the part about the villagers, I am reminded of this:

"Pass the Taters Right Back"

David (Davy) Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) presented a demythologizing description of his 1813 participation in the Creek Indian War (the Battle of Tallusahatchee) with Tennessee militia in Alabama, when burned Indian flesh was combined with potatoes. He reasoned why he was passing on the taters:

The Creeks, uh, boxed up about 400 or 500 people at Fort Mims and, uh, massacred every one of 'em. 'Course this was big news around those parts, so I up and joined the volunteers. I did a little scoutin', but mostly I, I just fetched in venison for the cook fire, things of that nature. Well, we caught up with those redskins at Tallusahatchee, surrounded the village, come in from all directions. Wasn't much of a fight, really. We just shot 'em down like dogs. Finally... what Injuns was left, they crowded into this little cabin. They wanted to surrender, but this squaw, she loosed an arrow and killed one of the fellas, and then we shot her. And then we set the cabin on fire.

We could hear 'em screamin' for their gods in there. We smelled 'em burnin'. We'd had nary to eat but parched corn since October. And the next day, when we dug through the ashes, we found some potaters from the cellar. They'd been cooked by that grease that run off them Indians. And we ate till we nearly burst. Since then, you pass the taters and I pass 'em right back.

Then, that is an incompatible group. They should not be at the table together.

But at the same time, if the gm spent a crap-ton of time creating a holy rollers righteous paladin setting, don't create a party of chaotically incline evil b@st@rds.

I have a blood fetish.
I guiltily watch the twilight movies when I'm home alone. Never when others are around. I refuse to own them, so I borrow them from my upstairs neighbors kid.

I feel unhappy most of the time.
I never feel right enough of the time.
I feel like I don't deserve what good there is in my life.

Has anyone seen "this film is not rated"? Its basically an exposé on the MPAA. It mostly talks about films that get an NC17 for stupid reasons.

Inspired by the "who don't people play heroes" thread.

I've realized just how much trouble I have creating villains. They end up cartoony, or else too quickly redeemed. I have trouble understanding the enjoyment of suffering, and it shows in my GMing. To give you an idea of what sorts of things I think to put in games, here's a rundown of a few world elements:

Teiflings who are the descendants of abyssal/infernal creatures led out of the underworld by an avatar of Iomedae (I've blended core pantheon with my own homebrew). They are the Kuzkoans, the People of the Sun.

Primitive goblins with prehensile tails. They are the bastard descendents of a reptile god and a Hindu-esque monkey creature.

Ratfolk who are Buddhist monks. (tmnt 4thewin!)

Fallen angels whose wings were cut. They are the Husari, Horse Lords. They wear wings on their armor.

A drug war between wizards/alchemists and wild casters (druids and witches and such). Wizards have the market on traditional potions and such to "cure what ails you" and have created a monopoly on the pharmaceutical industry. Druids know what plants will do the same thing. Meanwhile, people fear the sea god ( a farce pulled off by the paid off temples) and thus do not make journeys over the sea in boats. In order to instill this fear, hemp (which cones from the evil druid plant) has been outlawed. Hemp makes good rope, but since the plant has been all but eradicated, no one knows it.

Wow, started to ramble there....
But yeah, need to think more evilly so the party has more to fix...help please?

I see so much bad in the real world. Bad I can do very little to change. It frustrates me, it angers me. Being good in a game, being dangerously good, the kind of good that makes scenes like the rohirim (sp?) galloping towards gondor, the kind of good that makes the avengers gather, that calls brave men to overthrow tyranny and get an article on badass of the week. I'm either too afraid or too weak to do anything like that in reality.

Game is where I can swing in, save the child from the falling building then turn around and stop the bad guy from knocking more buildings down on people.

My man just said "come on apocalypse" at this news.

the ring
Its official as soon as it comes in the mail.
Family can't know yet, but I had to tell someone!

Mr. Nepherti and his friends start shoving each other in WalMart and screaming in Orc voices about who is really mucking a about.

Youse muckin' about!!!
No! YOUSE muckin',about!!!

Like blackbloodtroll has already told you guys, and I have already stated. I had an overreaction. I have cooled down. I am fine now. The gm agreed with my concern. maybe some of the things I said contradicted each other, but I was mad and I apologize. It can happen. I started this thread because I was upset about something I knew was no big deal, something any of the great gamers of paizoland could be totally fine with. But I wasn't, and I knew I was in the wrong, and I needed advice on how to stop this horrible anti-evil problem I have.

To the 95% of responders who helped me get over it, thank you.
edit: realized first sentence didn't fit with theme of post.

A vanara alchemist. Nearly all at the party are gamers, and my whole game group will be there. Not telling them til they see me at the party, BTW.

Ideas include carrying around shots on a bandoleer of test Tubes.

How should I do the face?

The party is me CG, a N fighter with good leanings, a NG dwarf ranger, and a CN sorcerer with good leanings. This guy has played thus far a LG teifling paladin, a CN tengu, a CE orc, and now this LE gnome sorcerer.

He claims he can't play anything good, which is a major bummer for me. I don't like feeling a party member could turn on me at any moment. When it slipped that he was evil OOC, I literally thought "God f-Ing d#&@ it!" luckily I didn't say it out loud. Am I being a baby? This is the first game I've played with awesome party cohesion. We are all actually friends IC.

I can't help but feel uneasy about this whole thing.

I could write like that in high school, its not unheard of.

As a woman reading the OP's post, I took it as a gamer's attempt at flirting. I thought 'awww, how cute, he's hoping she'll read this.'. Then again I am a sucker.

I don't like the idea of fantasy armor. That rule people seem to follow where the less armor it covers on a woman, the higher the AC bonus. I can't stand that pic of the Barbarian in the CRB.

I don't like exotic mounts, except in rare cases, such as an elite squadron of eagle riders that only total a few dozen in the entire world. Never really liked riding dogs either. Get a pony!! I had one when I was a kid, they're great!

While I'm okay with guns in fantasy, there is to be no spaceships, no computers, nothing beyond steam-power. Trains are okay, but not cars (maybe the occasional Model T) and only prop-planes, hot air balloons, and blimps for non-magical air travel.

Not kill...

Maim. If someone fails to use their blinker while driving I have the urge to pass them, slam the brakes thus stopping their car, then dragging them to the bumper and rubbing their nose in it.

He did spend a significant part of the early plot pantsless standing in swamp water.

It's interesting. I don't knit, but several girls who date gamers do. Also, in the SCA link for those who don't know what it is, the women tend to be the ones who help on home-builds of armor. They sew the clothes together, do things like Viking Wire Weaving, a lot of them are into leatherworking...
A good many of them are also gamers. In fact, a vast majority of them have played D&D at some point in their lives.
I told Mr. Nepherti that he could get into 40K simply because I wanted to paint the figures.

I definitely think there is a correlation.

EDIT: Fixed Link

And as expected, his neighbors are saying he was
Quiet
Nerdy
Clean cut
Bookish
seemed intelligent
Kept to himself

Most killers I have read about have this description. So far no talk of a fascination with weaponry. Police stated they will enter the apt today. I want to know what they find.

That it's a fun game I play with my friends. Honestly, if I start learning life lessons from a game, that's when I'm taking it too seriously.

If given the chance, I will lick my plate clean. Literally.

On the contrary, Shiftybob, I've often felt that heated complaining helps me get over something, especially if someone else is on the bandwagon with me. Once they're complaining with me, I hear myself and how stupid and irrational I sound. It puts things into perspective.

Gluttony wrote:

My players now know to begin sudden OoC statements by saying the words "out of character" first.

My group says "oog" first (out-of-game). Though that eventually led to a trend of a particular player saying and/or doing something stupid and then yelling: "Oog! Oog!" afterward while facing the repercussions.

Which is probably why we either cross our fingers or put a fist to the forehead. Consequently, we also hold our fingers in an ASL fingerspelling "L" up to our lips when speaking in a language that not every PC knows, and we place a finger to the temple and point to whoever is receiving our telepathy.

I also don't calculate XP for systems that have levels (like Pathfinder) rather than spent XP (such as WoD). Like Tequila said, I did enough math in school, and I hated it. Players level when they get to certain points in the story.

I have a morbid fascination with blood. When I get a cut or bite, I can't help but poke at it. At the doctor's office or when donating blood, when they tell you to turn your head cause they're gonna put a needle in you and they don't want you to see.....I always look.

I have no problem raising a cow/pig/sheep, giving it a name, playing with it, then slaughtering it for meat. It's just how things are done. I was raised with a very strong sense of what each animal is used for. Cows, goats, sheep, pigs, and wild critters are for eating, horses, mules, and donkeys are for labor, dogs and cats are for companionship.

As a child, I detested pizza. I was the strange one who traded pizza for creamed peas at lunch in elementary school.

I get cranky very easily. I don't know how many times a post on these forums has given me a lasting bad mood.

I also have an inability to lie to someone's face. I also will roll my eyes involuntarily at buffoonery.

Ditto on whoever mentioned Tofu.

Go Steelers!

I would only feel comfortable handing a note like that out at a game where not everyone is friends with each other. I tend to only play with people I'm already friends with/planning on making friends with, so something like that would feel awkwardly formal to me.

Growing up with deaf relatives, I can say that when my uncle wants to get his point across, he does, even if he has to make a fool of himself to do so. I can only finger spell and sign a few words, but most of what I can't say in ASL we pantomime and have a blast talking to each other. He's also teaching me ASL as we're doing this.

I think the RP value of trying to get someone's point across while deaf and/or mute is too good to pass up.

It's okay, most people around here (at least it's true for most rural places I've visited) know how to weather power outages since it happens frequently (albeit not for this length in decades). Half of us country folk have generators.

Today for Lunch: Cheese Tortellini!

Homemade Venison Quesadilla (from the deer Dad shot last fall)

The power outage made us have to cook all the meat that thawed out in our freezer (about 8 pounds), so I cut it all into thin strips and mixed it with taco seasoning. It's been feeding me for the last several days.

Whenever we LARPed, it felt like a replay of that old commercial where the kids are playing street hockey: CAR!!!!

Only with us, we were yelling "MUNDANES!!!!" when drunk college students would walk by.

The funniest one, though was during opening feeding tests for the OWoD Sabbat game. For those who don't know, that game runs off Rock-Paper-Scissors instead of dice. One night, the HST was standing up on this stone porch off one of the campus buildings so everyone could see him. He throws Rock, the rest of the LARPers (about 25 in all) threw Paper, with the exception of maybe 2 people throwing Scissors, but they blended in so it didn't matter much to the eye. Our players, for some reason, always threw their tests so that their hand ended up at about forehead-level or higher (rather than belly high for normal Rock-Paper Scissors challenges). A few people also had a tendency to throw Paper with a stiff arm. Do you have the image yet?

It's at this moment a group of visiting parents/future freshmen walk by on an late evening tour. What they see can only be described as a Gothic-Punk reenactment of a Hitler Speech.

It was after that we house ruled that all tests were to be given at no higher than chest-high.

EDIT: Realized this post wasn't exactly on topic, but you can imagine how playing a Sabbat LARP in semi-public would cause people to react. But, the parents of the High Schoolers (with the exception of 1 father) were cool with it. It kept their geeky unpopular kids from doing other illicit behaviors on Saturday Night.

Well, there's also a big difference between unshowered after a day at the office and unshowered after a day in the mine.

As long as the conversation remains civil, I have no issue.