what's a forum troll?
Also, if you haven't heard of it, Slaine the Horned God with art by Simon Bisley is also good stuff--kinda like Conan meets Mists of Avalon.
Here's the Wikipedia definition and a snippet:
In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude or offensive messages designed to annoy and antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion.
Basically a person who is a *word that will be censored on these forums*.
OK OK I get the picture! I'm the only person who hates orcs! :)
It's true that all ideas come from somewhere and every story has been told a thousand times. That's why it's the variations that are important, and what I take issue with is copying someone's varaiation almost exactly, or worse, imagining a slightly different variation and giving it the same name as someone else's specific variation.
My whole point is that dragons and elves and hobgoblins are instantly recognizable to the lay person (not a professor of folklore) as widespread european mythic staples; public domain if you will. "Orcs" on the other hand were NOT recognized as such before Tolkien, or at least hadn't been for several hundred years. It's not the same thing.
Tolkien took a widespread mythical theme (evil ugly humanoid monster) and gave it a specific name and specific characteristics. Then modern fantasy writers and games designers took his specific name and specific characteristics and used them as generic. It's blatant unoriginality and I do not respect it at all. How hard would it have been to think of another name?
While I have great respect for the fathers of the modern fantasy and sword and sorcery genres like Moorcock, Howard, Leiber, etc, you'll notice that none of these great storytellers used Tolkeinian orcs in their stories. It's only the forgettable hacks who did so, and games designers who were not concerned with being original.
Maybe I'm just a snob, but I just can't think of orcs as generic.
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Aw, man. I think my dad is a troll. I always knew he was something, but I didn't know they had a word for it. Thanks.
I'm serious; um, I'm a really sarcastic individual (maybe it's the troll blood) and people often don't know if I'm serious or sarcastic, but I'm serious. Thanx.
You should find a new avatar to fit your Half-troll/Half-spelling-ace self!
;)FH
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Aw, man. I think my dad is a troll. I always knew he was something, but I didn't know they had a word for it. Thanks.
I'm serious; um, I'm a really sarcastic individual (maybe it's the troll blood) and people often don't know if I'm serious or sarcastic, but I'm serious. Thanx.You should find a new avatar to fit your Half-troll/Half-spelling-ace self!
;)
FH
Hey, yerra verry funy innivijul. You should be a commodian.
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw BAM!Don't call this a comeback,
I bin doin' this for YEARS!
Peace out, y'all, hate to diss and run, but I'm gonna catch a plane to Albuquerque for a convention.
See ya next week.
Think I'll read "Rouges in the Howse" by Robert E. Howard on the plane.........
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I cast RE-ANIMATE F**KING THREAD!!!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
I hate eberon! I hate Ebeeron! I hate Ebbooron! I hate Eberroon! I will NOT spell it correctly, it doesn't deserve that honor!
SERENITY NOW!!!!
FH
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My Rant?
I am sick of how optional rules in supplement books make players feel like they have the god given right to take them for their characters. If I as DM disallow a race, class, feat or what-have-you, the player throws a temper tantrum or pouts in the corner the whole game because "its in the book, I should be allowed to take it".
Don't play with people like that you say? That isn't a choice for me. If I kick people out of the group, there is literally no one left to replace them. Gamers are severely limited in my area.
I hate how the old standby, Rule Zero, has been ignored by WotC in favor of pushing character options. New players have no idea that a DM is assumed to be able to pick and choose options for his game. I actually had to show Rule Zero in the 2nd editon books to a couple of people in my 3.5 group before they realized that I was 'allowed' to disallow options. Most new players come to tabletop games from videogames these days. In a videogame, the whole idea is to build the best character possible with all the options available. These are the players that get ticked when someone else makes an 'arbitrary' decision that effects their character options.
The game did a 180 somewhere. Until 3.0, D&D was always much more DM choice than player choice. The DM decided what options were right for his game and the players lived with it. Don't like the way a rule works? Change it, it probably won't affect the rest of the game in a negative way because not much was tied together in the rules. Now, if a DM doesn't like a small aspect of the game, like the default amount of assumed treasure give out, he can't change it without it affecting a bunch of other 'subsystems' within the game.
Experience awards are tied to Assumed Treasure by level, which is tied to character power level, which is tied to the Monster CRs, which is tied back to experience awards. If you raise or lower the amount of treasure that you give out, you just voided the other tools that were put there to make a DM's life easier....
Agreed!!!
Thoth-Amon
I hate people who hate Eberron. Not because they aren't entitled to their opinion(which they are), but because for the most part, they don't hate Eberron. They hate the fact that other people aren't playing their preferred campaign setting. They loudly crow that the industry is small and needs to grow but don't really want to see anything new come out. They want to keep seeing new editions of the same old stuff and fie on anything even remotely different. I hate them because as much as they hate the idea for the setting, for the most part they haven't even read the book, or worse yet, consider spending ten minutes flipping through the book in a bookstore and going home to kvetch on forums about the book with other people who hate the book, reading the book. I hate them because they are aging gracelessly and don't want to see new people come to the game unless they are playing it "their" way, and you cannot play the game "their" way unless you were born before 197X and actively hate any setting that is based in space, in a cruel world where magic tears apart the enviornment, takes place in the "middle" or "far" east, or in some other way questions or ignores the dominance of european culture and history that prevails in the majority of sword and sorcery epics in print and the movies, or came out sometime after 198X. I hate people who hate elves/dwarves/gnomes/halflings/humans/half-dragons because they don't have the stones to regulate them and their abilities in their own games. I hate new base classes because they seem to be trying their darnedest to replace prestige classes which were trying their darnedest to replace kits which were trying their darnest to replace old base classes. I hate people who loudly proclaim that their campaign setting is superior because it stopped being a campaign setting years ago and became a homegrown campaign. I hate the fact that the vast majority of gamers who fall into any of the categories I've mentioned above have the skill, guts and gumption to create their own campaign setting and won't. I hate the fact that the vast majority of people who will read this rant will take it seriously. I hate the fact that the remainder won't. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, I hate the fact that this sounded funny in my head on the way home to post this and that now that it is on paper it makes me sound like an orc with a tusk ache on a bender.
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I don't really care for Eberron - the railways and warforged do nothing for me, and even though I actually prefer the variant jungle Drow to the standard ones, they are still kinda annoying. However, the whole X'endrik (sp?) thing has some promise - but that seems to be primarily rooted in the fact that it contains the smallest amount of Eberron-specific factors possible. Go figure... Still, I do enjoy modifying the Eberron adventures in Dungeon, and I look forward to stealing lots and lots of ideas from the "Secrets of X'endrik" book for yet another doomed attempt at a workable homebrew.
I'm similarly ambivalent about the FG setting. I love the Zhentarim, the Cult of the Dragon and the Red Wizards of Thay, but, for some reason, I have no similar enthusiasm for the Harpers or the other good groups. There are too many Chosen of someone-or-other and too many uber-NPCs, which again leads to overpowered attempts to tweak the setting. Somewhat stodgy setting? Let the gods walk the earth, and kill a few in the process! Then reintroduce Bane when it turned out that killing him was a bad move! Then get a flying city chock-full of archmages to mysteriously appear out of nowhere! But in order to limit this, get another one full of..., um... someone! How 'bout extraplanar Selune worshippers!!?? Make 'em all half-dragon aasimars! And so on and so forth. While I enjoyed playing in the Realms, it is essentially roleplaying in CAPS and with extra exclamation marks.
However, I have no such sympathies, however weak they might be, for Dragonlance. I hate the sub-moronic colour-coding of the arcanists, I hate the tech-gnomes and I absolutely despise the kenders. Furthermore, I resent the last two even more due to their supposedly cute nature. The kenders are the Ewoks of roleplaying, and must be mercilessly and dilligently hunted down and wiped out - actually, the whole Dragonlance setting deserves no better than to be incinerated by rampaging armies of dragons, and then be taken over by gully dwarves.
And finally, someone needs to tell Ed Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore to take a break and refocus. Greenwood is probably unredeemable (anyone other than me here who has read his "Spellfire" novel?), but Salvatore, despite the gawdawful "Cleric's Quintet" and a general overall plunge in quality, is merely in need of some very serious refocusing. The moralising and quasi-philosophy in his intros now make a televangelist look subtle; reading the musings of Drizzt on topics like ethics and the purpose of our existence reminds me of the deep thinking of Vin Diesel's character in The fast and the furious - "When I'm in my car, I feel free". Without some urgent assistance, Salvatore is running the risk of becoming fantasy's Tom Clancy - ponderous, pretentious and generally annoying, all while trying to write what essentially amounts to fun action adventures - if he isn't there already.
I hate the fact that the vast majority of people who will read this rant will take it seriously. I hate the fact that the remainder won't. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, I hate the fact that this sounded funny in my head on the way home to post this and that now that it is on paper it makes me sound like an orc with a tusk ache on a bender.
HAHAHAHAH...I'll finish this thought... "But the game is really just about having fun."
As ever,
ACE
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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However, I have no such sympathies, however weak they might be, for Dragonlance. I hate the sub-moronic colour-coding of the arcanists, I hate the tech-gnomes and I absolutely despise the kenders. Furthermore, I resent the last two even more due to their supposedly cute nature. The kenders are the Ewoks of roleplaying, and must be mercilessly and dilligently hunted down and wiped out - actually, the whole Dragonlance setting deserves no better than to be incinerated by rampaging armies of dragons, and then be taken over by gully dwarves.
You sir, are my hero. I could not agree more. And contrary to popular belief and frequent assertion, it's not that I haven't seen a kender played correctly. I have; and I stand by my opinion that the race consists entirely of mildly retarded kleptomaniacal 10 year olds.
I would also add that I hate the DL books. And Sturm. And particularly Tasselhoff. But not the barmaid with the farrah faucett hair cut (the one that Carmeron marries who's name escapes me). She's okay. Maybe even hot in that we-just-invented-hairspray sorta way.
I hate the fact that the vast majority of people who will read this rant will take it seriously. I hate the fact that the remainder won't. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, I hate the fact that this sounded funny in my head on the way home to post this and that now that it is on paper it makes me sound like an orc with a tusk ache on a bender.HAHAHAHAH...I'll finish this thought... "But the game is really just about having fun."
As ever,
ACE
ROFL!!
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You sir, are my hero. I could not agree more. And contrary to popular belief and frequent assertion, it's not that I haven't seen a kender played correctly. I have; and I stand by my opinion that the race consists entirely of mildly retarded kleptomaniacal 10 year olds.
I would also add that I hate the DL books. And Sturm. And particularly Tasselhoff. But not the barmaid with the farrah faucett hair cut (the one that Carmeron marries who's name escapes me). She's okay. Maybe even hot in that we-just-invented-hairspray sorta way.
Why, thank you! I actually liked the initial DL books quite a bit, but when I think back, I cannot recall liking a single character in any of them... Tanis is a self-pitying annoyance, the elven princess a spoiled and useless brat, Caramon's a dunce and so on... However, your assessment is right, as none of them can hold a candle to the kender guy. Or Sturm. Sturm's probably the worst, come to think of it.
And as if that's not bad enough, the Dragon Highlords are generally incompetent and bumbling - are anyone supposed to feel good about defeating the fat hobgoblin or Kitiara, whose main qualification seems to be her the "charmingly crooked grin"? It is never a good sign when the supposedly high-powered foes are, to a man, underwhelming, and the protagonists area bunch of dolts. And don't get me started on the non-Hickman&Weis DL books - if you think they were bad, try "Riverwind the plainsman"...
My rant:
I like Eberron, but I hate things about it. I like the intuitive application of magic, and the way it has supplanted technology. I like the ways the planes work. I like the deities and I like alot of the places to adventure.
However, I do hate the fact that if I ever say, "Hey, I'm gonna run and Eberron campaign!" I will undoubtedly end up with 6 warforged characters and a shifter/kalashatar/changeling. I like the warforged and all, but they are becoming the new drizzt, the thing everyone wants but no one does right, and its making me sick.
I hate that the really cool dragonmark/house backgrounds could make for a great game, except that every g~~-d&&ned Eberron player wants to play warforged.
So there!
Director of Narrative
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I stayed out of the Eberron debate here until I actually got to spend some time with the books. And yeah, most of ya'll are right.
The one thing that I can't imagine got past the editors was the revamp of the drow. Its not bad enough that the bad guys are black, but now you gotta put them in a freakin' jungle!?! Jeeze, this is a European dominated game isn't it?
*I'm not really super-sensitive and bent out of shape about this, but to me it just looks tacky.
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ROFL!!I hate the fact that the vast majority of people who will read this rant will take it seriously. I hate the fact that the remainder won't. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, I hate the fact that this sounded funny in my head on the way home to post this and that now that it is on paper it makes me sound like an orc with a tusk ache on a bender.HAHAHAHAH...I'll finish this thought... "But the game is really just about having fun."
As ever,
ACE
Agreed!!
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I hate them because they are aging gracelessly and don't want to see new people come to the game unless they are playing it "their" way, and you cannot play the game "their" way unless you were born before 197X and actively hate any setting that is based in space, in a cruel world where magic tears apart the enviornment, takes place in the "middle" or "far" east, or in some other way questions or ignores the dominance of european culture and history that prevails in the majority of sword and sorcery epics in print and the movies, or came out sometime after 198X.
Hey now -- I was born sometime before 197X and I like Eberron and trying new things out that messes with the rules a bit and tries to stretch the gaming "box". (But I might be in the minority of persons born pre-197X.)
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HEY FAKEY!
That's the best job of threadnecromancy I ever seed.
I think I'm gonna chant "I hate ebreon" over and over again when I roll dice or cast spells; I think it focuses the anger in the dark side or whatever.
I'm gonna call you Dr. Fakeystein from now on.
"It's alive!!!!"
P. S.:
Know what burns my butt? A 3-foot tall candle. Bwahwahwa....
I hate that in the defense of other settings, people always feel the need to denigrate the settings that aren't the ones they are defending. Nothing is more infuriating than going out of your way to defend someone else's point of view, then have them tear into YOUR favorite campaign setting, as if in convincing others that YOUR campaign setting sucks, then WOTC MUST ressurect the campaign setting that they are defending. Making your case based on the merits of your own setting is much better than saying, "well, at least we don't do like X does."
I hate it when people get on the "WOTC is evil" bandwagon. Somehow I don't think that the folks at WOTC sit around and say, "lets put out low quality books at high price that no one will like, then FORCE gamers to buy them or else they are out of the clique, bwa ha ha ha." I don't always agree with WOTC's decisions, but there is a lot more going on than some sort of monolithic WOTC decision making process. For one thing, a lot of people have left the gaming hobby to go to MMORPGs, so obviously WOTC is going to explore what does an doesn't work in those games that might draw people back. The game does need younger players to survive. Lets face it, for those of us in our thirties or fourties that play, if the only people we say playing D&D when we started were people like us, would we have gotten into the hobby? And finally, a lot of pressure is on WOTC from its parent company Hasbro. Hasbro puts out a ton of games that cost them X to make and they get Y% back in profits. From a large company point of view, especially if the board doesn't understand the gaming industry, or doesn't care to, how do you explain to the board of directors of Hasbro that all of their other games make Y% of profit, but yours only make .5Y%? It may make sense to others in the industry, and it may seem logical that if you are making money that your division is doing fine, but what if Hasbro thinks your division would be better utilized with its resources makeing, say, collectable minatures games that make Y% like their other board games do?
I don't hate Eberron. I wouldn't leave off of DMing FR to run an Eberron game, but if one of the other guys in the group wanted to play in Eberron when it was his turn to DM, I wouldn't have a problem with it. What I hated about Eberron was the initial marketing campaign behind the setting. Being told that what we "old timers" like is outdated and is, in fact, driving off younger kids, was insulting. Saying that kids that have grown up reading Harry Potter would like a "mass magic steampunk" setting better than a traditional fantasy setting seemed to be a leap for me. Saying that kids didn't want traditional fantasy when, at the time the setting released, LOTR was the biggest movie franchise going was just bizzare to me. I know Keith Baker has said he doesn't get people seeing Eberron as a "kids setting" and he may not have concieved it as such, and the sourcebooks may not be written as such, but that is how it was initially marketed. "We'll snag the Harry Potter generation" was the battlecry sounded across the gaming industry.
I hate people thinking that its because of RAS that anyone thinks of playing Drow as PCs. Whatever you think of his books or characters, drow as playable PCs were introduced in Unearthed Arcana (1st edition). The idea for a drow ranger came from UA. In the begining he was trying to use the rules to support his stories, not tell stories that would drive future rules. That having been said, I also hate it when people think that Drizzt somehow typifies the Realms. If Drizzt dropped off the face of Toril, I would have affected very little in the setting. Nothing against him as a character, but he was meant to be a "small player" in regional stories.
I hate it when people pigeon hole Ed Greenwood as that Forgotten Realms guy. Ed was really part of the second generation of designers that took what the original creators of D&D had done and took it to the next level, even before the Forgotten Realms was published as a setting. What did Ed do beyond the Forgotten Realms? Check out some of the Original D&D rulebooks and gazateers, the inhabitants of the Nine Hells, and to an extent, the extended cosmology of the Planes. He was an uncredited source that Jeff Grubb worked with on the Manual of the Planes (1st edition) to come up with some of the groundbreaking ideas that we take for granted now. Of course, I also hate it when people assume the Realms were created for D&D, and as a result, that Ed "stole" ideas from other D&D sources when he created the Realms. Not that some things didn't originate in other settings, but a lot of what he changed he changed so that the Realms from his short stories would match the D&D game, not because he had any lack of ideas of his own.
Okay . . . I'm spent.
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I hate that people assume that you need to buy and read something to know that you will hate it. I refuse to spend $40 on a wannabe-steampunk sourcebook when I hate the idea of trains, airships, taxicabs, and robots in a D&D setting. If you like Steampunk and similar things, Great! Don't make it into 1 of 2 possibilities for a Fantasy game. 1 of 4 or 6, sure it would have its audience, but to tout it as the new "standard" of D&D and tell me to buy the crap that I have no interest in just to prove that I hate it is assinine. Just because I haven't listened to the new Celine Dion CD doesn't mean I need to buy it to prove to myself that I hate it. That said.... I have read the Ebooring campaign setting book from cover to cover (I borrowed it) and hated almost everything in it. There were some salvagable concepts, but overall I hated every moment I spent reading that piece of crap. I'm sure that there are people who like it. I am also sure that just as many people hate it. I hate it. I refuse to support anything with an Ebboroon mark on it, if it appeals to you, great.
If I go to a restaurant and am offered Liver or Escargot, I start thinking of Chicken Marsala, Tortellinis in a white crab sauce, and a good Ribeye. Then I walk out and try to find a real meal.
I hate that WOTC has 2 items on the menu and flip the finger to those who want more.
FH (damn, now I want some tortellinis!)
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HEY FAKEY!
That's the best job of threadnecromancy I ever seed.
I think I'm gonna chant "I hate ebreon" over and over again when I roll dice or cast spells; I think it focuses the anger in the dark side or whatever.
I'm gonna call you Dr. Fakeystein from now on.
"It's alive!!!!"P. S.:
Know what burns my butt? A 3-foot tall candle. Bwahwahwa....
Thanks, Igor, now get me a proper brain sammich!
FH (and they said I was mad!)
Gee I want to play Ebberon. I like the concept of the game world. But I won't spend my money on it and this point I won't Dm it. But I hope one of my gaming group will step up and run it.
But what I hate is not getting the call when a game is called off. Showing up at my work to open the place of for the game and no one shows up.
I hate the idea that people think Forgotten Realms is the original or difinitive D&D campaign. Greyhawk is the first. My homebrew, The Ganja Forest, (I was thirteen when I named it, forgive me.)the difinitive campaign.
I hate it when player exclaim indignately "What you don't trust me?" When I ask to see a dice reroll. If I trusted you I would not ask to see a reroll.
I hate when a kook drops in on my wave, especially when they stay looking at you coming. I just hate that.
I hate the fact that D&D players feel they are smarter because they play D&D. I know you all on the paizo message boards are smart people (or I would not check it out all the time), but I have played D&D with some dull witted and slow intellects. Still is fun, though.
I hate wizards of the coast marketing strategy for the miniatures, (another damn lemure. But they are fun to stomp on with your three year old nephew. (They are NOT indestructible).
I HATE METHHEADS> WHAT?
I hate when other players give the DM ideas on how the situation could harm other party members.
I like when one of my players give me ideas on how the situation could harm other party members.
I hate when non gamers ask me why I still play paper and pencil D&D with so many computer games out there. They just don't get it.
I hate Morrow Wind. The game is boring and sucks.
I hate DM player characters. They are nye indestructible and are always more important than your PC.
I hate MMORPGs. I did try them, so I know that they aren't for me. Paying $15 a month for what basically amounts to another day job and worse, another day job very similar to working at a factory (kill monsters, take stuff, level up, repeat, get killed by a 13 year old with poor spelling and too much sugar) is not my idea of fun. A supposed RPG with no plot or story elements and no heroes or villains is not my idea of fun. That's why I've played the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series so many times. They're always rewarding and it makes me want to kick puppies to realize that RPGs of this caliber aren't still being made (despite how well the Star Wars RPGs turned out).
I like the major campaign settings when I remind myself that half of the material can and should be trimmed to fit what I want out of the setting. I love D&D when I can play and it ruins my week when we don't get to play now that college isn't keeping everyone separated.
I bought Call of Cthulu books and now I'm upset that I have not only another great campaign I might not get to run but a whole new great rules system I'll never play with.
I really do hate all the new 20 level PC classes that are coming out. Easy enough to avoid for me, since my players don't buy nearly as many books as I do, but it still annoys me. These wouldn't work as prestige classes? Isn't that what they're for? New races are also silly to me, at least when they're tossed in in suppliments and not written right into a new setting.
Psionics will never be played at my table, unless we use the Dark Sun setting where everyone is psionic to a degree. Otherwise, it's just a tacked on piece of nonsense that will slow down my already infringed upon game.
I look forward to Dungeon magazine every month and I think the good folks at Paizo are doing a great job. I'm going to start working on a fantasy portfolio in the hopes of getting art into the magazine, even after not doing any fantasy related pieces for a good few years.
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I hate that people assume that you need to buy and read something to know that you will hate it. I refuse to spend $40 on a wannabe-steampunk sourcebook when I hate the idea of trains, airships, taxicabs, and robots in a D&D setting. If you like Steampunk and similar things, Great! Don't make it into 1 of 2 possibilities for a Fantasy game. 1 of 4 or 6, sure it would have its audience, but to tout it as the new "standard" of D&D and tell me to buy the crap that I have no interest in just to prove that I hate it is assinine. Just because I haven't listened to the new Celine Dion CD doesn't mean I need to buy it to prove to myself that I hate it.
Man, I hate people who dis Eberron. :-)
Your provocatively
Aub
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I bought Call of Cthulu books and now I'm upset that I have not only another great campaign I might not get to run but a whole new great rules system I'll never play with.
Brah: get your crew o' gamers together...around early Oct. Everybody is in a reeeeeeal mood for ALL THINGS Halloweeny about then.
Slip into general conversation...it would be fun to do a CofC one-shot for Halloween. If that doesn't work, I don't know what will.Of course, have a jacked-up, warped, depraved adventure ready to go for Halloween night (or somewhere there around...I remember when I was in my early 20's Halloween was party night like crazy).
Brah...
Have you been watching "Dog: The Bounty Hunter"? :D
My rant o' the day:
I hate it when your Overboss drops a big project in your lap then goes on vacation for three weeks, leaving you in the dust to pick up the pieces.
GRRR!!
Brah...Have you been watching "Dog: The Bounty Hunter"? :D
My rant o' the day:
I hate it when your Overboss drops a big project in your lap then goes on vacation for three weeks, leaving you in the dust to pick up the pieces.
GRRR!!
Its an old rant, but one that still rankles me. When you get back from a big conference in time to find out that the home office will be doing an inspection of the place next week, and you spend the whole weekend telling everyone what will be looked for on the inspection, and you help everyone with their areas so that you pass as much as you possibly can during the inspection . . . then when all is said and done, and you pass the inspection, your boss tells the regional that he is concerned about your management skills since your area is one of the only one that got points taken off in the inspection . . . WHEN IF YOU HADN'T HELPED EVERY OTHER DEPARTMENT THE WHOLE PLACE WOULDN'T HAVE PASSED.
Then again, this is the same man that told me an idea that I had wasn't feasible, then presented it to the regional manager a month later as his idea.
I hate retail. I am glad I left.
Sorry Lilith, your mention of an Overboss reminded me of these apparently unhealed wounds . . .
My homebrew, The Ganja Forest, (I was thirteen when I named it, forgive me.)the difinitive campaign.
Isn't that next to Meth Valley? We NEED a writeup of the ganja forest.
Ganga forest, Meth Valley, Cocao Temple and the Angel Dust Palace are all places visited in my far flung youth. Other places visited in my far flung youth include Elmwood county and Susanville State (not a college).
A bad boy can become a good man.
Brah...Have you been watching "Dog: The Bounty Hunter"? :D
My rant o' the day:
I hate it when your Overboss drops a big project in your lap then goes on vacation for three weeks, leaving you in the dust to pick up the pieces.
GRRR!!
Dogs one of my heroes. He spreads the word "METH is Bad
Sorry Lilith, your mention of an Overboss reminded me of these apparently unhealed wounds . . .
There are Overbosses in every aspect of business - retail seems to be the haven for them. Makes me wish I could put the smackdown on a number of them, a la the methods used in many a video game. "Take my Ultima beee-yotch!!! Oh, you like that, huh! Well, have another one! And another! And another!!"
Dogs one of my heroes. He spreads the word "METH is Bad"
Indeed it is! Oregon has passed legislature that prevents selling of pseudoephedrines without a prescription because they're used in making meth. Which means I can't even buy Sudafed or NyQuil come July without a doctor's note. Because, you know, getting a "Controlled Substance" warning at the checkout when getting NyQuil and Sudafed on sale wasn't enough. Neither was putting aforementioned saviors of my sanity behind the prescription counter and requiring me to give you my Driver's License so you can write down my information in your little notebook.
*sigh*
Allergy and cold season will blow mighty chunks across the sky this winter.
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Disclaimer - I really like the people I play DnD with, and our DM is patient and generally fun.
Now (deep breath):
I hate it when other players in my group cancel at the last minute (for things they knew about weeks ahead of time), postponing the game session by doing this three weeks in a row, and then you finally get together and a different player's girlfriend is in town, so I spend two hours at the last minute creating a 5th level character for her (which was fun -- I love character creation), then when we finally get to play basically NOTHING happens (half a day in-game for the entire session) except the new person and her boyfriend's PC get ambushed while the rest of us are elsewhere getting railroaded by the DM to kill this NPC exactly like its done in a movie (that none of us has ever seen). grrr.
And then, of course, after watching said movie over the weekend and coming up with an elaborate plan to kill the NPC (which I'm very proud of because it makes use of everyone's specialties) and looking forward with eager anticipation to finally moving on in the game, CANCELLED AGAIN just hours before game time.
And there is nothing to be done about this frustrating cycle because we are all good friends and everyone (including the repeat cancellers) enjoys playing and doesn't want to be left out. (Not to mention that our party would be hopeless without their PCs if there's a major fight). And the DM lives 3 hours away on the weekends, so we can only play during the week...so when our normal game time on Thursday gets postponed, tough luck until next week. I haven't thrown a tantrum since I was a very small child, but it doesn't seem like a such a bad idea...
**rant over**
Phew. :-)
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Indeed it is! Oregon has passed legislature that prevents selling of pseudoephedrines without a prescription because they're used in making meth.
That is funny -- In Denver they passed legislation that allows people to smoke pot. In Colorado it is illegal to possess pot. So in Denver, as long as you don't have it, you can smoke it. :)
Indeed it is! Oregon has passed legislature that prevents selling of pseudoephedrines without a prescription because they're used in making meth. Which means I can't even buy Sudafed or NyQuil come July without a doctor's note. Because, you know, getting a "Controlled Substance" warning at the checkout when getting NyQuil and Sudafed on sale wasn't enough. Neither was putting aforementioned saviors of my sanity behind the prescription counter and requiring me to give you my Driver's License so you can write down my information in your little notebook.*sigh*
Allergy and cold season will blow mighty chunks across the sky this winter.
I would go to my legislator's house and sneeze on them until they caught my cold/flu or changed the law. That's just ridiculous.
...I hate it when other players in my group cancel at the last minute (for things they knew about weeks ahead of time)...
*rant rave foam-at-mouth*
One of my pet peeves...actually it's more than a peeve. It's a dire peeve. With claws. And sharp pointy teeth. If you say you're gonna be somewhere, ya be there. If you can't be there, you call and say "I'm sorry, but something has come up and I can't make it." If you don't want to play anymore, just get your cajones/ovarios together and say "I'm just not interested in playing anymore" rather than wasting my damn time.Grr!! Rahr! *lets loose inner kaiju*
One of my pet peeves...actually it's more than a peeve. It's a dire peeve. With claws. And sharp pointy teeth. If you say you're gonna be somewhere, ya be there. If you can't be there, you call and say "I'm sorry, but something has come up and I can't make it." If you don't want to play anymore, just get your cajones/ovarios together and say "I'm just not interested in playing anymore" rather than wasting my damn time.
Grr!! Rahr! *lets loose inner kaiju*
Once again I agree with the all-wise Lilith.
This SO drives me to drink too.I play with two dear friends, but both are prone to last-minute cancelling -- actually worse than last minute, sometimes everyone is around the table and they call a half hour after they should be there to say they cannot show (after telling me twice during the week they can). It's taking being inconsiderate to a new level, frankly.
Arrrrrrgh!! We hates it forever!
SUMMON RAGE!!
Base Classes: I too despise all the new base classes, and I wrote a review on RPG Net to that effect. At the introduction of 3.0 at Gen Con, I heard "you won't need new base classes, and you can do everything with feats, skills and PrCs. We don't want the kit thing to happen again." Yet, here we are with infinity new classes. I didn't mind the first wave, things like the Marshal and Hexblade that actually did something different. Or Oriental classes. But now, with PHB II, we get the Duskblade(a bladesinger, I swear) the Dragon Shaman (why?) and the Beguiler and what not. I don't need all that crap. The base classes pretty much cover everything, and now we are fragmenting the classes into super-specific crap. The problem is design, either. The classes are well balanced and playable. They are just too specific and unneccessary.
Ed Greenwood is a nice guy. He wrote some good stuff. He did alot of innovation. But we must remember that while he did do alot, he also borrowed alot from people like Tolkien. So don't be too quick to say he didn't take stuff from anyone. It's not bad, because unless Gygax hadn't ripped off Tolkien, Moorcock, Lieber and Vance we wouldn't have our damn game today.
That being said, I don't enjoy FR like I used too. I have a ton of the regional supplements, and it seems like everyone one has a secret society and a high level wizard in every town and what not. It makes the game seem real crowded to me, and stifles my creativity in the area.
At the same time, all of the best D&D novels coming out anymore are FR. It is a great setting for writing.
BTW, my favorite accessory for FR: Sea of Fallen Stars. It rocked. And I liked War of the Spider-Queen.
Yeah, Drow existed before RAS, but no drow was ever so popular. Face it, while Drow are cool, one of my favorite villainous races, Drizzt is the guy who made everyone want to play drow. And the Dark Elf trilogy rocked also.
I am a big fan of the Samurai and medieval Japan. So I get irked when the Samurai class is a two-weapon fighting class. The Samurai predominantly used the Katana two handed, watch a kendo class. There was a school that did it, but it does not merit the class being based on that ryu.
Eberron is a cool setting. As I said, the "warforged phenomena" pisses me off. But I like it. And I think that if you don't like it, super for you, don't buy it. And we can all go on our merry way.
I must concur with the irritation of people acting like WotC is trying to destroy gaming. They put out an assload of good supplements, and they obviously want the game to succeed. Just because they won't produce the setting you like doesn't make them evil. So give it a rest.
And there is nothing to be done about this frustrating cycle because we are all good friends and everyone (including the repeat cancellers) enjoys playing and doesn't want to be left out. (Not to mention that our party would be hopeless without their PCs if there's a major fight). And the DM lives 3 hours away on the weekends, so we can only play during the week...so when our normal game time on Thursday gets postponed, tough luck until next week. I haven't thrown a tantrum since I was a very small child, but it doesn't seem like a such a bad idea
AMEN! I ran an evil campaign that my PCs loved. One, my friend, had a hard time making it, so we played at his house. When he kept cancelling we moved it somewhere else. Then he complained. So we got him in. But he didn't like the evil campaign. So I change it. For him.
He couldn't make it. Something always came up, usually a half hour before he was supposed to be there.
So we swtiched to every other week to accomadate him, because he wanted to play.
He has missed 5 of our 8 last sessions since then.
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO PLAY, JUST SAY IT!
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Director of Narrative
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I hate it when other players in my group cancel at the last minute (for things they knew about weeks ahead of time)...........
One thing that I have found over the years that works to make the less dedicated players a bit more reluctant to miss a session is when people don't show, get the ones who DO want to play to play one-shots or even start a new small-scale campaign ( a great chance to try weird character concepts or game concepts). After a month or so of the 'wayward' players hearing about the fun the dedicated players have been having they will make more of an effort, if not to play at least to let you know that they will not be in on the fun. I've found that players who feel like "if I'm not there, then the game won't be on so I'm not missing anything" change their tune when they realize that everyone else is having fun at the appointed time. I've even had players call in from out of town visiting inlaws just to see what we were up to.
Dogs one of my heroes. He spreads the word "METH is Bad"Indeed it is! Oregon has passed legislature that prevents selling of pseudoephedrines without a prescription because they're used in making meth. Which means I can't even buy Sudafed or NyQuil come July without a doctor's note. Because, you know, getting a "Controlled Substance" warning at the checkout when getting NyQuil and Sudafed on sale wasn't enough. Neither was putting aforementioned saviors of my sanity behind the prescription counter and requiring me to give you my Driver's License so you can write down my information in your little notebook.
*sigh*
Allergy and cold season will blow mighty chunks across the sky this winter.
Thats ridicules you would need a lot of Sudafed to make even a low grade snortable meth much less a smokable form and very difficult. From what I understand people are always blowing themselves up making meth.
There are small communities where an entire graduating classes male population have been in rhab and or jail for meth.Meth is bad people got know. It will ruin whole families. Dad mom teen son and middle school daughter addicted to meth.
Meth bad.
I hate it when a program you thought was really really really cool corrupts the file you've been arduosly working on for the last two weeks and borks all that work...RAHRRRRR!!!
And I was almost done with it...*cries*
My Rant
Here's what I hate lately:
The fact that you can dodge the effects of insideous effects, not with brains or good roleplaying, but with a high save bonus. So much stuff is just game mechanics. Here's what I'm talking about: a character in my game ran into an archdevil in his underdark court attended by a throng of Kytons, and as the kytons moved in on the character they parted the veils of chains over their faces and made themselves to appear as old theives guild friends of hers who were killed horribly by an old archnemesis--and causing her to believe that they're souls were now the property of this fiend. She was staggered and demoralized. I didn't even roll the DC, I just let the roleplay determine it's effectiveness.
On the other hand I see spells in the Compendium that I love, like Awaken Sin that are these great flavor spells but the DC on them is so low its unlikely the characters would even be aware of what the spell that just harmlessly plinked off their uber-high saves just was. Oh well, kill the spellcaster. YARG! So now most of my spellcasters have to either be worthless (which a fair bit of them just do worthless spells that fail and then try to adapt or die anyhow--no cheesemonkey DM I) or they need these pretty straightforward no save + 1d8 per caster level spells even to create noticable damage (yeah, most characters now are over 100 hit points, one in particular I think has broken 300) so spells that max out at 5d8 damage just don't cut it.
Oh that magic could just do what it says it does without bowing and scraping to the 5' square-hoppers. How cool would things like Fear or Wrack be--if what they did was cause intense fear or intense pain that the characters had to deal with and they just DID--but no, instead they impose some stupid and relatively worthless penalty (usually a -4 max, big deal!)
So yeah, that's pretty much what I hate right now. Thanks guys, this is therapeutic.
Reading back in this weighty post I like the gripe lists people have been making. Here's mine.
I hate that 3.5's attempt to re-balance things really just weakened and watered down every class and feat that I like and took extra pains to remove wiggle room that allows people to use the abilities creatively.
I hate R.A. Salvatore. His stories are impenetrable and overwraught and he has no respect for the game. His characters make my skin crawl (or did, until salvaged by the writers of the FRCS).
I hate that of the hundreds of thousands of campaign settings offered by roleplayers (four of which were mine...erhem) that the one that wins is from an industry guy rather than a fan, that it's touted as Maltese Falcon meets Raiders of the Lost Arc, and features some really derivative and undercooked ideas, but that it becomes the new huge campaign setting.
That said, I hate people dismissing it out of hand rather than trying to figure it out and find a way to love it for all its infuriating features.
I HATE game-mechanickiness or really any time that an unrealistic rule gets in the way of a good story.
I hate people who respond to this with "it's just a game" or "yeah but dragons don't really exist" or "the play's the thing man, you worry too much".
I hate anyone who prefers game balance to reflecting a world the way it is.
I hate the little 5' squares and all the goofy wargamey rules that have tried to crush the soul out of the game I love and turn it into a wargame (which was then published with little rubbery figures so people could square hop around on a bunch of postcard tiles and chop up little rubbery monsters).
I hate people who turn D&D into a beer and pretzals party game and just a way to hang out whilst chopping down doors and hewing through orcs standing around for no good reason because there's a chest full of gold in the corner of the room, again for no good reason...or in other words dungeon crawling and the people who participate in it.
I hate being told that this is because I'm somehow old and intolerant, but that really people should be able to play the game however they want. Everybody peace...and...love! The real reason however, is that the industry creates product for what people want to buy, and so long as my way of playing is so much of a minority, the vast bulk of products will be made for the nork-norkers.
I hate the fact that Greyhawk, as the default setting, is getting filled up with every new thing that comes along--that it was apparently once the sane, small scale setting that reflected the historical, rational side of things but that now its full of every wierd thing to come out in a monster manual and every new magic system, class, race, prestige class or whatever else comes out. That's irony for you.
I hate that people feel the need to take sides between fluff and crunch. Like more class and feat options somehow doesn't add detail and depth to the worlds? And how do you hate fluff? I mean without the descriptive details, histories, etc. the world becomes a wacky game of Diablo where all you do is chase monsters around with swords. Whee that sounds fun.
I hate that it's called fluff. It makes it sound as though its somehow meaningless or irrelevant. Hence I try to push the term flavor.
Hmmm...that was cathartic.
I hate it when people in my group see a new class/feat/race/WHATEVER and immediately look at the damned rules to try and figure out what it is, rather than reading the flavor description first. THAT WILL TELL YOU WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW. I hate it when I have to do the same thing since I don't own the book and have to do a quick perusal of the rules while five different people are telling me what they are about, how they're balanced, yet how powerful they are because of ability X, etc., WHILE I'M TRYING TO READ THE DAMNED THING!!!!!!!!!!
I loathe, despise, and HATE new races in alllll forms. What the HELL gives? Where the hell were these guys before? Where were their cities, where was their culture as far as world influence goes? I don't care if they are presented as a new mosnter and happen to have a LA (not that I care for such things, but it's a better alternative), but nope, here they are, apprently in numbers big enough to constitute a new player race, though they still have no cities/countries/big back yards. Unless the DM gives in to the pressure to make them (which I don't, since I just don't allow the pieces of crap).
I hate pointless PrCs (which is most of them) that could have been accomplished with a previously existing feat/class combo, perhaps with the introduction of one or two new feats, but instead, you get a whole 10-level PrC! Now, you're not a cavalier if you happen to be a fighter or paladin on a horse with a lance! You have to be at LEAST 8th level and take the PrC! BULL!!!
I hate the Frenzied Berserker! Where is the drawback? This monstrosity only takes a barbaian's natural abilities and makes them doubly strong, if not more, and the only "drawback" is the possibility of attacking party members, which isn't as frightening as it sounds, since everytime I've played in a group with one or DMed for one, the rest of the party gave just a moment's thought to this and came up with very basic strageties/equipment lists that completely negated the ability, leaving the FB as an atomic bomb to be dropped on the enemies that CANNOT be taken down in an encounter short of death effects, which it won't fail because of the insane Fort save! AARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! No more Frenzied Berserkers allowed, EVER!!!!!
I hate the knight class in the PHB II for the same reason I hate the cavalier. Uhm... any paladin/fighter can be a knight- it's a roleplaying term. Nope, not anymore! It's a set of rules! A warrior-type with a poor Fortitude save that's focused on defense!
What?
I loved the DragonLance books when I read them many years ago (well, relative to an 18-year old; 7th grade was when I read them). They're what got me on the track to eventually play D&D, and inspired me to make my own homebrew world (which I'm proud to say that most of the Greyhawkers here would most likely appreciate, since I despise the magical Wal-Mart atmosphere of current D&D, even though I've never played 1st or 2nd edition, save Baldur's Gate and that was heavily modified rules; the history and story are whaty I try and make different about my world, not rules, though that can be fun too).
But it is most likely one of the worst worlds to set a D&D game in. The continent is TINY!!!! Where the hell are you supposed to put things? I suppose it's good for short campaigns or really getting the party to see the whole world in a single campaign. War campaigns are good there, too, since anytime a single country goes to war, there goes a quarter of the continent! Woo-hoo! Grrr.....
I hate that most poisons are laughable in their DCs. I hate that most environmental conditions are also weak. I hate that a fighter can survive a 200 foot fall, or even a 1,500 foot fall because the damage cap is at 20d6! I hate when someone counters, "Well, they're supposed to be tough and take inhuman amounts of damage." If I described a sword as going straight through their hearts, you would still say they die, wouldn't you? Some things should kill a human being, period. Save or die, mother f****er.
I hate that there are no good D&D computer games anymore. Say what you will, Baldur's Gate II was awesome. Neverwinter Nights wasn't bad in the long run, either, and hopefully the new one will fill my need for electronic immersion in a world where I can atually see the D&D play out in all it's goodness..... Oh, yeah, and Temple of Elemental Evil was one of the worst games I ever played.
I am driven out of my mind when the rules trump reality for game balance. See: Fighter can survive 1,500 foot drop. How is that even game balance? You just die, no one would question the lethality of that kind of fall! Or when a creature is given an extraordinary ability that still has heavy limitations on its effectiveness simply so it isn't too powerful, even though something producing that effect would be much stronger in the real world. If it's magic, I can deal with it, because it's just "the way the magic works." But don't tone down physics itself just because you think it's too lethal!
I hate that every class must be the equal of every other in overall combat effectiveness in 3.x D&D. A wizard's fireball does, on average, less damage than a fighter's sword, and the potential for more is not that good since the sheer number of dice pulls the actual result closer and closer towards the middle as you go up in level. The only advantage they have in damage dealing is area effects and the fact they can spread that damage out, not that it's really all that much overall.
Let the mages be pathetic weaklings at low levels and be gods at high levels! It makes sense! Most forms of lore feature them that way. They still do trump every other class in overall power merely because of all the effects they can produce, in and out of combat, given time, but DAMN 3.x seems to have made them weak from everything I've heard about older editions. I want sorcerers and wizards, and yes, clerics and druids, who can wade on the field of battle with spells to devastate armies, cities, even whole nations. Sure, I can do it with the old "NPC found a strange artifact/spell/whatever", but that seems cheap because the players have no chance to do the same. I'm a strong proponent of the "If the players can do it, so can the enemy, and vice versa." (That is, when using opponenets with class levels).
And rename meteor swarm! It's just a big vaulted fireball spell; powerful, but not a meteor! That should call down lots of fireballs from the heavens over a wide area, or something other than what the spell currently does.
Going along the lines that combat magic is too weak, I hate it when I have a creature like a powerful demon, and his vaunted spell-like abilities are actually far less effective than just smacking his foes.
And give us some more non-combat magic! What about spells to help the harvest, feed livestock, etc., or spells that take many days or even weeks to cast. Sure, there are a few, but they are extremely limited. Let's see what some ritual magic can do, the out-of-combat stuff that's really powerful in more subtle ways, like in the books all this D&D stuff is supposed to draw it's ideas from!
I hate that killing orcs somehow improves one's knowledge of the arcane arts, the skills of diplomacy, or whatever. Come up with an alternate XP system already, so I don't have to anymore!
I hate how healing magic is such a story breaker. I was playing Forsaken Arch, and the guard who survived the kenku attack stumbles into town, wounded and dying, and collapses. The cleric stabilizes him, and when he doesn't immediately regain consciousness and spring back up with a bounce in his step, the party starts volunteering their potions. That's great and all, but the adventure calls for him to be down and out for a while. That's not so much the issue, sticking to the adventure, as the fact that there are no rules for being "down and out for a while." If you're incapacitated, you're unconscious. If you're capable of moving, your fine in all performance, just make sure you don't get bumped again or you might go unconscious. There's no healing time, or wounds that will leave pain and scars for life. It's one of three things: Fine, Unconscious and Dying, or Dead. No middle ground.
You have no idea how much that galls me. It's all okay so long as the players understand that I might use more realistic wound descriptions for NPCs and such, but they either miss the point, or it's obvious to everyone at the table that it's all just really tacky and the hp system is amazingly unrealistic.
What about the possibility of getting hit and bleeding out slowly over time? Nope, doesn't happen, unless you make up your own bulky, awkward, and still somewhat unrealistic Crtical Hit chart, or use one of the myriad murky ones floating around the internet.
For that matter, how in the world are you supposed to put cure light wounds into an in-game perspective versus cure moderate, serious, and critical? Cure light can bring a commoner back from the brink of death to near full functionality, but wouldn't do hardly anything to close a gash on a fighter of mid level or higher.
Now, I know I've just used a lot of terms about realism in regards to fantasy. Bur that's in mico-level details that are part of basic physics and the world we live in. Maintaining those things help suspend disbelief. But I hate when people run around trying to make their games medieval Europe. That's dull and boring. While I personally don't like the number of archmages and magic running around Forgotten Realms and Eberron, I still use plenty of fantastic elements in my games, and it still has a very believable, lore-like feel to it (I think), without sinking to the bleak picture that was the dark ages in Europe.
I also hate it when people say that the terms "realistic" and fantasy can't be used together. YOU F***ING DUNCES!!!!!!! Of course they can! Realism is an attention to detail that allows you to maintain verisimilitude in a game, that stops everyone from not knowing what to expect just because the game is made up. Fantasy are those elements that break from reality, but shouldn't do so to a point that the players sit there thinking of this as a "game" or such. So stop telling me that doesn't make sense! GGGAAARRRR!!!!!