Sarcasmancer's page

Start a thread to complain about over-moderation in the thread complaining about over-moderation.

Sarcasmancy!

But how are people supposed to register their unrelenting irrational hatred of a person they've never met?

EDITED thanks for the catch, Kryzbyn

@OP if it wasn't intended to be pointless nationalistic pissing contest, why bother to identify the athletes by their nationality at all?

RE: usage of "queer" and whether it is or is not derogatory- that's the problem with the heckler's veto, different people have different values and different standards, and it would be unfair to hold everyone to the strictest possible standards because of the one person who purports to hold them. It shouldn't be possible to shut down a reasonable discussion just on the basis of concern trolling.

I don't envy Paizo moderators for having to wade through a sea of posts trying to find a reasonable compromise for what's unnecessarily rude and what isn't.

Oh brother, Werebat, if you want to learn more about religion you can take a course or read a book. This is a forum for Pathfinder; the fact that some people obsessively bring up politics or religion in every conversation, on every subject, is their damage.

It's like saying you don't think people should be allowed to charge for food so you just steal.

I LOL'd. They just dine-n-dash. Then hop on internet messageboards to tell everybody how they justify it to themselves because the farmers are underpaid. They're stickin' it to the man!

@Buri "voting with your wallet" in this case would be not going to restaurants, rather than going and paying for the food but refusing to pay the gratuity. The only person that hurts is not the person in charge of the perceived injustice.

@Buri I'm sure they appreciate that they are being stiffed because of political ideology and not out of mere rudeness or cheapness.

Maybe your player could incorporate this annoying habit into his RP. Like the character is a scholar of bestiaries and monster lore. That would at least give some kind of in-game justification.

You guys must be using a different definition of "cheesy" than me.

Oh wait...

re: Free actions: Who's able to do as you describe for free? I thought all the rage cycling depended on at least dropping out of rage for a round (letting each of your opponents get a turn before you're able to get the pilot re-lit and start raging again).

And further, if you've got the spell slots and/or metamagic rods you can use multiple quicken spells in a round. That's rough but is it cheesy? You're still expending resources.

I found that tweenagers inspire 'because I said so' more. One question leads to another leads to another because they see 'rational discussion' as leading to you having their view, and anything else means you aren't listening to them.

Adults are the same way. Except instead of "because I said so" it becomes "there ought to be a law."

Yes, but what if a group's teachings are false but are also politically convenient to those in power?

Oh, no, see, we just have to get the right people in power and that won't happen.

Given the existence of ifrit, undines, oreads, sylphs, janni, tieflings, aasimar, dhampirs(!), and all the "half" races (in which the half is always understood to be humans), maybe they are right.

Maybe humans are just unusually sex-crazed and therefore low hanging fruit for the "look like a female to lure males to their doom" terato-ecological niche.

Maybe that's one of the racial stereotypes dwarves, elves, etc have about humans - they're dumb, lazy, and awkward, but with a high sex drive.

@master_marshmallow You've gotten a lot of guff but the thing is, sandbox style play goes in and out of vogue. When I learned how to play, highly scripted stories were all the rage. The pendulum's swung back the other way now. But back then you would have been regarded as a little immature and "not getting it" if you ran dungeon crawls, and now you're regarded as a little regressive and "not getting it" for including a more scripted or railroady type of interlude.

Of course I was putting peanuts in my coke when Country wasn't cool, but I'm just awesome like that.

In nearly ever culture we know of, the concept of marriage or wedding is "officiated" by some sort of spiritual figure, from a priest to an elder/shaman/medicine worker/etc.

You're wrong. I have the dictionary right here, it defines "wedding" as, "the process of removing weeds from one's garden."

The acronyms of DMPC and GMPC get thrown around a lot but it is a huge misnomer.

I think it's an important distinction to make. Your run of the mill NPC either (a) isn't present every session (b) doesn't go along on adventures / get a share of treasure and xp (c) doesn't get a significant part of the game table spotlight (d) doesn't get a full character build with the care and attention that a player gives a PC.

PCs might have hirelings that meet those requirements but those are (mostly) under the control of the (non-DM) player (with a DM veto, most of the time, for out-of-character or suicidal actions, etc). Putting a character in the game who is basically filling the role of a PC, but is played by the DM with all the rule-bending and narrative-altering power that implies = DMPC. I think it's aptly named.

I often "roleplay" being uncharismatic and homely, but it's unintentional.

The platypus skull already resembles a Lovecraftian horror.

Actually in that situation, why not just hold the bow in your mouth while you swing the scimitar?

And sometimes one side is BAD.

Now, to be fair: if the topic under discussion is something along the lines of "I know this seems intuitively bad / is generally considered by society to be bad, but here's why it really is good", this is a good way to quash discussion. After all, a lot of the things that we take for granted were once considered bad, socially unacceptable, or at least, the sort of thing you don't discuss in polite company.

I agree that the Paizo boards are not necessarily the best place for controversial discussion (they're the best place for Pathfinder discussion) but just wanted to point out that sword's sharp on both sides.

(Plus I think having an "off topic" board is a necessary inconvenience, because otherwise all those things would get injected into discussion where they are not relevant or wanted, just because there is no better place to put them)

Yeah I've never seen the entertainment in "Oregon Trail: RPG Edition" myself. To each their own I guess.

And I would totally play an Oregon Trail RPG!

/Odd Couple theme plays

People of the present would look pretty stupid if they traveled back to the middle ages. Most don't know how to ride a horse, can't name more than a couple Saint's days, only speak one language, can't plow a field, spin wool, start a fire, etc. etc.

Completely incompetent!

If you run published adventures they assume a certain baseline, which is not "optimized" but, I think, slightly above the level of "just thrown together." If you run your own stuff (or heavily modify published stuff) I don't think you run into this problem, as long as there is a mechanism for the PCs to choose the level of challenge they are comfortable with.

This article explains what I mean better than I could. ;)

So I think the game encourages system mastery & optimization a bit but not to the extent of, say, higher-tier WoW raiding or similar.

Well so are we going to see a guide to optimizing swarm-users? Somebody get busy! Busy as a ... BEE???

This is a lesson for us all. There's no necromancy from posts that have been disintegrated.

EDIT: 350th post. ;)

Speaking of racial issues, that's another area where there's dissonance between "modern" values and RPGs - racism is abhorrent to us, but it makes a lot more sense in which there are actually multiple intelligent species with objective, observable differences.

You know... PPs could be introduced as an alternate casting system... Wizard spend it when they prepare their spells, and Sorcerers spend it as they cast...That would be a fun variant, wouldn't force anyone to learn a new system if they are not interested and would make it far easier to introduce new players to the game, since most people are at least somewhat familiar with one mana system or another.

I like Vancian casting because it's pretty ingrained, and also I just like Vance, but I agree a power point system would be fun to play around with, even if just for a change of pace.

I was hoping not to indulge in this derail, but I just couldn't stop myself :(

Emily Post said, "Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.” I take that to mean that you should try to be empathetic and assume good faith on the part of other people rather than being dogmatic about some script of "rules" about who is allowed to say what and under which circumstances.

Part of good manners is trying not to offend other people, and part of it is forgiving them the slight offenses they inadvertently cause you.

Nobody should be given carte blanche to speak derisively or insultingly, but at the same time you can't go around berating people because they can't read your mind and divine that your cultural expectations differ from their own.

Traps are a legacy mechanic being phased out of published adventures

???

Radiation Radiation Radiation

@Kazumetsa Raijin: Subdomains

Further precedent for witch-as-psionicist: "The Bene Gesserit witch must leave."

dot.

While we're on the subject - what does PFS intend to do about its blatant favoring of elves and prejudice against non-elves? Non-elves' unusual vulnerability to Sleep effects and susceptibility to ghoul paralysis - combined with my inability to roleplay a non-elf as a treehugger - indicates a pattern of persecution against an entire class of players. If you take into account both the mechanical and roleplaying disadvantages, it becomes obvious that some scenarios, such as

are nearly unplayable for a non-elf.

I intend to investigate the feasibility of a class action suit against Paizo for violation of my civil rights. This is the greatest injustice since Hayes stole the 1876 election.

Sarcasmancer wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Sarcasmancer wrote:

there is a difference between a disadvantage and lack of an advantage.

The difference is only in the semantics. The end result is the same ergo there is no real difference.

If I give you no advantage, you are no better off; if I give you a disadvantage, you are worse off than before I interceded. That's not semantics. I don't mean to belabor this point, but there it is.

A black man and a white man both apply for a job with me. I am a racist SOB so I hire the white man. The black man is no worse of that before, i.e. he is still unemployed, so the only thing I have done is give advantage to a white man. That makes it okay, right?

I don't see where bringing race into it does anything except to obfuscate and add irrelevant, politically and emotionally-charged dimensions to the discussion.

You do not disadvantage a person by not hiring them; by that logic you are disadvantaging everybody in the world that you could employ, but do not.

You disadvantage a person by firing them, or otherwise costing them a job they already have.

the systematic persecution of an entire group of role-players

Some of your perceived disadvantages are self-imposed. And some of them equate lack of privileges / special treatment with being "punished" / "persecuted".

Agree with Marthkus. If you avoid stepping on the schtick of other players I doubt anyone will notice but if you are constantly out-Charismaing the social monkey (assuming it's not you), out-fighting the combat monkey (again, assuming), or out-knowledging the knowledge monkey, people are going to get resentful of your super stats.

Out of curiosity are you also rolling for hp?

Nitpick: Sorcerers already get Eschew Materials for free. And one could easily construct a bloodline (and in fact it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually do) that gives Still Spell and Silent Spell as bonus feats.

Plus nobody says the "verbal component" can't be you screaming as your head almost explodes, or the "somatic component" standing there with your arms at your sides.

Additional Nitpick:

Not to point any kind of accusing finger at anybody, by if I was GMing for Ashiel, I wouldn't stop her from saying her egoist/shaper combo was a witch, but she would at best be considered a bit eccentric, actual most people would consider her loony, and a true witch would find her claim to be insulting. Of course at her game table that may be just fine.

Then how do you explain "Escape to Witch Mountain"?

dot.

I see the dungeon crawling adventure to tabletop RPGs as the sonnet is to poetry.

In D&D/PF, some people try to "solve" it by appointing Billy the sole authority on hits and misses and their effects, but that just changes the game to Billy-May-I; it still has no actual rules. You might love Billy, and always trust his ruling to make a fun story, but it's not really a game with rules at that point, and it's dishonest to pretend like it is.

I think this is the appeal of the game to Billy - unearned authority. I'm sure we all know that GM, yes?

Except that this is simply not true; the paladin is a classic example. One of the key features of a paladin is that there are certain actions that are simply out of bounds for a paladin; he must, for example, refrain from lying. A cavalier similarly has his code, and a cleric is beholden to his god. ("A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by her god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons.")

Yeah but in general you don't play a Paladin if you intend to get around by lying. Clerics are even easier, you just pick the god of "whatever I was going to do anyway." (or for Cavaliers, the order of "do what I was going to do anyway.")

@Kirth agree very strongly that "role-playing" penalties should not be used to balance "mechanical" advantages. (cf. 2nd edition kits).

This business about how you can hit a man but not a woman, etc., derives, in my opinion, not just from the idea that women are physically weaker, but also that they don't really have mental autonomy and so (like children, or animals) can't be held responsible for their actions.

cf. issues pertaining to spousal abuse; sexual consent.

@ Alzrius thanks. "You're meant to come out here and defend me against these characters, and the only one I've got on my side is the blood-sucking lawyer!"

Wow, I've only encountered heavily houseruled psionics, then. Thanks for showing me.

That's the way it happens a lot of the time, isn't it?

DM: "This is so obviously broken that I'll heavily houserule it before I allow it into my game!"

/writes poorly-thought-out and untested house rules

---doodly-doodly-doop!---

Player: "Wow, this system is terribly broken!"
DM: "I knew it all along! I was a fool to allow this horribly broken subsystem into my game!"

I'm of the philosophy that if no one in the party has the ability to deal with traps, you put in a trap to teach them why it's not a good idea to have no ability to deal with them.

Creative problem-solving with limited resources = essential component of tabletop RPG, as far as I'm concerned.

According to some military people I've talked to who've seen actual combat, tactics have very little to do with intelligence. They're mostly a combination of instinct and training.

Hate to "pull rank" (har, har) but my academic training was in history with a concentration in military history. So insofar as anybody cares about my opinion or credentials, I concur with MagusJanus's statement here.