Nobody loves me,
Everybody hates me,
I might as well eat worms.
I hear the Kyussian Kind are the best for that kinda thing
..............................................................
On a Darker note, I hate the Uncanny Elvish Ability to find secret doors. Makes Secret doors near useless. You ever go through Jzadirune with 2 Elves (one of which has a 1st level +10 bonus to search?). Nigh impossible to hide a damned door! A rogue and an artificer make short work of traps! *sigh*...
Y'know what else I hate? Hit Points, I can't begin to tell ya how glad I'll be when my players finally accept the Toughness save as the greatest measure of combat survivability. Oh I'll give them their precious HPs now... but just they wait BWAHA HAHAHAHAHA BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I hate that my "regular" gaming group hasn't had full attendance from members in over a year.
I hate Elves. All of 'em.
I hate the guy who after I've come up with a sweet character concept tells me that it sucks be cause "XXX" is more efficient. I don't; want efficient I want cool fluff. I STAB YOU.
I hate the fact my house reaks of sweat and fat people for hours after the session is over.
Ah finally, a thread for me. Where to start? Oh so much anger...
rant rant rant... I'm doing discussions on the writings of Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx with university students at Philosophy .I CAN F&%(ING UNDERSTAND ANY OF THE DAMN TERMS THEY THROW AT ME, BUT THE DAMN SYSTEM GIVES ME A DETENTION IF I EVEN TRY TO CHALLENGE THEIR VAUNTED INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY!
If you are so smart, you would know that the plural of Colloquium is Colloquia. And you would spell colloquium right in the first place.
I hate Elves. All of 'em.
QFT
:)
I'm new here, and I'd just like to say that I made an account because of this thread, as the giggling they induce in me cause me to declare (once again) that Rant Threads Rock^{tm}.
Plus, y'all make me appreciate the group of eight year olds I GM, who have basically none of the problems you folk complain about - they don't power game, they couldn't care less about gaining levels or getting magic items (unless one person gets one, then of course they all need to get one and fight over them like a swarm of starving kobolds...), they love my riddles and are young enough to take "Because I SAID SO" as a reason to accept my rulings.
Of course, eventually they'll understand the game mechanics better, and feel the lure of munchkinism (as I once felt the lure of Monty Haulism as a DM), and I'll have reason to come here and rant about it. Or else by then one of them will have backstabbed (or "sneak-attacked" if I'm not to date myself) me to assume the mantle of DMhood, and my job of enticing them to the dark side of roleplaying gaming will be complete.
So sorry for not ranting enough, I'll finish with a mini-rant:
*begin channelling inner eight year old*
Waaaah! I wanna have the time/energy/patience/money/space to put together the cool overhead Digital Map Projection
( http://www.d20srd.org/extras/mapProjection.htm ) setup too! No fair!!!!!
*end channelling*
Bards are cowards and dilettantes. And jerks. There, I said it. "Oh, you guys go ahead and risk bodily harm doing my dirty work for me. I'll just sit back here and play a little song, maybe use my magic to make myself invisible." "Man, I've failed completely as a fighter, a rogue, and a sorcerer. All I've ever been good at is playing the guitar. But I'm still qualified to take an entire share of the treasure and xp and then soak up healing potions and spells when I get a hangnail from sitting at the back of the party during a major fight." Personally, I don't find anything fun about sitting myself out of combat for all intents and purposes just to provide small bonuses for my fellows. Sure, bards may be useful when they have a whole mess of low-level minions working for them, but that just means they're also lazy on top of being cowards, jerks and dilettantes.
At least rogues will expend the actual physical effort to stab someone in the back themselves.
And elves? Psh! Pointy-eared freaks with a penchant for aloof, superior attitudes. If there were any justice, the elves' low constitutions would have ensured their destruction during the great Darwinian struggle.
Gnomes and halflings. Let's just roll them together into one race and call them 'the vertically challenged' and be done with it. Oh, right, one group is supposed to be kooky inventors and crap and the other is supposed to be sneaky little jerks dressed like Adam Ant. Halflings aren't even fat anymore. What gives? No hairy feet? Is this supposed to make me take them seriously? They're still 3 foot tall people. Giving them leather pants and the rest of the cheesey faux biker get-up really doesn't help matters at all. It just caters to the fetishists. And now that gnomes have bard (BARD?!) as a favored class, they have even less reason to exist. An entire race that specializes in NOT BEING SPECIALIZED. What genius thought of that one?
And don't get me started on a certain belt buckle obsessed iconic character.
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I'm new here, and I'd just like to say
You can only change your user name BEFORE you post 10 times! You may wanna consider that or forever be "PeaBrain" on these boards.
FH
P.S. James Jacobs is rumored to be a Dwarf.
P.S.S on subject... I hate people who spell ROGUE as ROUGE. It makes them look less-intelligent.
I'm new here, and I'd just like to sayYou can only change your user name BEFORE you post 10 times! You may wanna consider that or forever be "PeaBrain" on these boards.
I noticed mention of that "10 posts" cutoff elsewhere, but thanks for the heads-up.
As for worrying about being stuck with PeaBrain as my username, it's all good (as the kids say) - it's a dorky pun on a bit of physics jargon (google search: D-pbrane), I can handle any ribbing I get on account of it by now - I've been using variations of that name online for five years or so at this point. But thanks for your concern. :)
If you want to fix him but good, youse oughtta change your name to Fake Rouge.
Ha!
I hate Orcs. They come from Tolkien, they don't belong!
I can't stand it that they are considered a staple of fantasy just like elves, dragons, etc when they don't even come from myth. Some guy made them up for HIS fantasy setting, THEY DON'T BELONG ANYWHERE OUTSIDE MIDDLE EARTH.
At least change the bloody name. If you're going to have Orcs you may as well have Balrogs and Ringwraiths running around Forgotten Realms or whatever too.
Bah. I hate Half-Orcs too, for obvious reasons. All of my campaign worlds use hobgoblins to fit the niche Orcs do in the mainstream settings. They are ACTUALLY generic fantasy.
What I can't work out is why the descendants of Tolkien (or whatever multi-conglomerate probably owns all his stuff now) don't sue WotC for copyright infringement. I would. In fact I would have threatened Gary Gygax back in the 70s and then we never would have had the ill-fitting greenskins infesting our game in the first place. Everyone would be using hobgoblins. Or maybe Gygax would have actually thought of his own evil humanoid race. The only reason I can see this didn't happen is that Tolkien's publisher in the early days of RPGs wasn't aware of them and Gygax was able to copyright "Orc" before Tolkien could.
And it's not just WotC it's fantasy games in general. Why are there Orcs in warhammer for god's sake? The other races in that world are pretty original, or at least come from widespread european mythology. I have actually seen fantasy books not connected with D&D OR Tolkien that feature Orcs. Are they written by morons or what? AARRGH!!
I always imagine Orcs outside Tolkien as sort of bemused and lost, wandering around like a Draconian on Oerth.
I hate Orcs. They come from Tolkien, they don't belong!
I can't stand it that they are considered a staple of fantasy just like elves, dragons, etc when they don't even come from myth. Some guy made them up for HIS fantasy setting, THEY DON'T BELONG ANYWHERE OUTSIDE MIDDLE EARTH.
Well if its just a rant fine.
But if you actually believe Tolkien "invented" orcs, well you can search on google and find out that orcs were around well before Tolkien reintroduced them to the lexicon. Granted he is the one who made them famous and gave them there current look. But he didn't event them. If you don't believe me you can check wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc
If they are good enough for Beowulf they are good enough for me.
supposed to be sneaky little jerks dressed like Adam Ant.
....and they don't drink, don't smoke, what do they do??? Must be something inside....
I hate Orcs. They come from Tolkien, they don't belong!
I can't stand it that they are considered a staple of fantasy just like elves, dragons, etc when they don't even come from myth. Some guy made them up for HIS fantasy setting, THEY DON'T BELONG ANYWHERE OUTSIDE MIDDLE EARTH.
Well if its just a rant fine.
But if you actually believe Tolkien "invented" orcs, well you can search on google and find out that orcs were around well before Tolkien reintroduced them to the lexicon. Granted he is the one who made them famous and gave them there current look. But he didn't event them. If you don't believe me you can check wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc
If they are good enough for Beowulf they are good enough for me.
Considering that the "orcs" of Beowulf were walking dead, if even that (there's like one reference), it's really hardly the same argument. It's more like one word with the same spelling in two different languages being used to describe two different things.
I hate the fact that they've boosted the security level of the computers where I work, so I can't work AND check these messageboards at the same time. The computer only allows access on the lunch hour. That's the reason I haven't posted as often.
Funny though, I thought I worked BETTER when I had access to the message boards. Maybe because I was happy... DO YOU HEAR THAT, ALL YOU BOSSES OUT THERE!!! HAPPY EMPLOYEES = MORE WORK DONE!
Ultradan
The Tomb of Horrors 3.5 conversion at the WotC site. I know it's a killer dungeon but they could at least get the challenge ratings right so my players get enough XP. I didn't mind the gargoyle being made more deadly by the addition of two extra arms, nor the advancement rules being broken for the sake of historical accuracy, but somehow each claw found itself ramped up to 2d8 (2d8! On a Large creature's CLAW!). The resulting creature termed CR14 was remarkably close to the CR14 elder earth elemental in statistics, except that it dealt something like two and a half times as much damage in a round!
I don't mind a killer dungeon, but they could at least have given a proper estimate of the toughness of that creature.
ADDENDUM:
I hate that I don't know what QFT stands for. I need to know if Jeremy is on my side or if he just made "the list."
Stupid acronyms.
ADDENDUM:
I hate that I don't know what QFT stands for. I need to know if Jeremy is on my side or if he just made "the list."
Stupid acronyms.
QFT = Quoted For Truth. Meaning the person who quoted X agrees with you. :-D
Well if its just a rant fine.
But if you actually believe Tolkien "invented" orcs, well you can search on google and find out that orcs were around well before Tolkien reintroduced them to the lexicon. Granted he is the one who made them famous and gave them there current look. But he didn't event them. If you don't believe me you can check wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc
If they are good enough for Beowulf they are good enough for me.
Um, the wikipedia reference you gave proves my point. Here is the first line:
"The modern use of the English word "orc" to denote a fantasy race of evil, humanoid creatures begins with J.R.R. Tolkien."Whenever I use words I use them under the assumption that they denote the currently accepted meaning of the word. Thus "gay" does not mean "happy" and "wicked" does not mean "wise."
Languages change and evolve along with thier people, and when a person in 2006 says "orc" they mean "evil humanoids invented by Tolkien." The fact that Tolkien invented them is part of the definition. They don't mean "a word descended from the a word meaning "a walking corpse" that appears in the old english epic Beowulf."
But yes it was just a rant ;) I must admit I didn't expect my rant to be argued with.
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I hate every "nonstandard" household item in existance.
I had to replace my kitchen faucet (just bought house 3 monthes ago) it is non standard. I had to run back to Home Depot to buy extension lines to get it working.
My downstairs toilet inner valve broke. I bought a replacement assembly. But my American Standard toilet is not F**KING STANDARD!!!!!! It's a special order assembly that would take 10 day to ship. 10 days of running a newly potty-trained 3 yr. old (who is doing great at it) up and down the stairs everytime she needs to go potty. F.U. American Standard. I bought a Kohler toilet and replaced the whole F**king toilet. Guess that General contracting background was worth the effort.
I hate companies who produce non-standard items that are inferior and cost more to fix than replace.
And I hate Delaware Drivers, they are all **Sholes. If the speed limit is 50, they do 40. If it is 65 they do 90. Idiots.
How can you pull out in front of with 75 ft of clearance when I am doing 50(5mph over the speed limit) and then flip me off when I beep at you. Its a good thing I want to watch my kids grow up or you would never be able to drive again, **shole!
I hate, I hate, I hate!!!!
AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
FH
Languages change and evolve along with thier people, and when a person in 2006 says "orc" they mean "evil humanoids invented by Tolkien." The fact that Tolkien invented them is part of the definition. They don't mean "a word descended from the a word meaning "a walking corpse" that appears in the old english epic Beowulf."But yes it was just a rant ;) I must admit I didn't expect my rant to be argued with.
I pretty sure walking corpse is WHY Tolkien chose the word - it seems pretty clear that is exctly the association he was going for.
Orcs in the Lord of the Rings are agents of death, despoilers, representatives of a violent souless industrial society (thus the walking dead),and are specifically set out as the opposite of elves - the agents of life, immortal - blah, blah, blah. He didn't write to create races for a game he was writing to make a point about war, the impact of industrial society on men, and the power of individuals to take a stand.
I guess my rant is the assumption that literature is written to stock game worlds with creatures rather than as a way to reveal the writers thoughts on specific themes ;)
I pretty sure walking corpse is WHY Tolkien chose the word - it seems pretty clear that is exctly the association he was going for.
I wouldn't want to speculate on Tolkien's motivations, though if I did I would say he probably chose it assuming no-one would know or really care where he got the word from. He used existing and dead languages as the bases for his imagined languages in order to give them consistency. But you could be right.
I guess my rant is the assumption that literature is written to stock game worlds with creatures rather than as a way to reveal the writers thoughts on specific themes ;)
I'm not quite sure what you mean, but it sounds as if you are ranting against exactly the same thing I am!
What I'm saying is that Tolkien invented orcs (as you say perhaps using a word from a dead language to name them) specifically for his imagined world of Middle Earth, the whole of which was constructed by him for the purposes of story telling and allegory.
Then game designers came along, sucked the orcs out of Tolkien's mythos and used them to populate a game world, thinking that because they were memorable and effective in Tolkien's work it was a good idea to just nab them and insert them into D&D as stock villains, as though they were universal and hadn't been invented by a particular person for a particular reason and to use in particular setting.
It just annoys me. It would be totally ridicuolus to make a sect of sorcerous monks with laser swords for D&D and call them "Jedi". Using "Orcs" as though they are generic is equally ridiculous, but people just don't seem to notice.
I think it ruins suspension of disbelief and it's my rant so there! (heh heh)
Orcs are teh suXX0rs. Kobolds über alles! All will bow down at the feet of the kobold empire!
Speaking of which, since this is a rant thread... what the hell is up with changing them from their cool original appearance (the pinnacle of which is DiTerlizzi's drawing in the 2E Monstrous Manual) to the "little lizardmen" of 3E? :P
I think that my biggest pet peeve is in the skewed perception on what it means to be "Evil" in D&D, really. The general opinion seems to be "Evil PCs should be universally disallowed because we're here to play Heroes." This has always irked me on a number of counts. Obviously, not everyone is going to want to play heroes at all, and I'd imagine that most of us would love an occasional opportunity to tell the villagers that they can go kill their own dragon if it's such a problem.
More annoying, though, is the attitude that an evil character (or party of evil characters) can't fit into a campaign. I think this is because the general assumption is that an evil character is universally malicious; even if we go with the stereotypical self serving, mass-murdering model for the evil character, though, I don't really see much problem in terms of motivation. Good saves the village from the dragon because it's the right thing to do. Evil kills the dragon to gain power. Good saves the kidnapped child from bandits out of altruism. Evil kills the bandits for intruding on their turf, and returns the kid more or less intact to maintain their cover. Or maybe they kill the kid as well. Or maybe they ignore the bandits until their favorite bartender goes missing. One way or another, they still have the adventure, it just has a different tone. That's ok, that's the entire point to playing evil.
And Evil doesn't even have to mean "person who hates the world." A Blacksmith who is also a model husband and father of two who is involved in his children's lives, takes them camping, and so on and so forth is a nice guy and all... but if he responds to every insult to his wife's honor by removing one of the offender's fingers for every word in the insult, he's still evil. Completely playable (so long as there're no paladins in the party), and generally even a likeable and friendly guy, but unnegotiably evil. The same goes for the kind-hearted halfling who would risk his life to save a random guy who's being mugged, and then take his new compatriot out for a round of drinks, but runs every cripple out of town and threatens to beat them to death with their own canes if they return.
But it's not just regarding PCs that evil is handled in an annoying way. Even in the case of NPCs and villains, it seems like blatant, overt, and stupid evil is the only variety that people recognize. Now, a vampire who uses his dominating gaze to attract victims to feed on is evil, sure. But the vampire who uses his gaze to force the bartender to poison the PC's ale is not only evil, but effective. A horde of orcs (or whatever the evil humanoid of the day is) poised to attack the city is potentially evil, but a troupe of bards wandering through the city in a variety of disguises, spreading rumors that the orcs have allies within the castle who are going to let them walk into the city and take over is much more interesting.
And Liches? The whole phylactery thing is cool and all, but most liches aren't played with the common sense that god gave the average turnip. The most common variety seems to be wizards, who have absolutely no excuse for not having Nystul's Magic Aura in their spellbook. All it takes is 2,000 gp a pop to make a Decoy Phylactery that radiates the appropriate aura and whatnot. Most players won't waste their time identifying the thing, knowing that they just killed a lich. Meanwhile, the aforementioned lich is regenerating his body in a room accessible only via Phase Door.
I guess that my whole rant is basically that there's more than just one face to Evil... and if you're going to use that one face anyway, at least put a couple of brain cells behind it. It gets really boring working with lobotomized villains.
Oh. And I absolutely loathe rouges and villians. :P
Well, hobgoblins, dragons, and elves weren't invinted for D&D either, and then the designers stole them for the game. Lord of the Rings is the "new" mythology. There are numerous interviews with Tolkien where he says that this was his intent, to give a mythology to a new age that was their own, not to write a societal allegory. So, why do so many people think that in order for something used in D&D to be "good" it has to come from mythology, and that mythology stopped being created hundreds or thousands of years ago? Someone eventually has to do something new to add to the collection and have other things based upon them later. Let's all just accept that new things happen, they can be good, and that orcs are one of them. They've been around long enough I think it's safe to say that they have officially become standard, generic fantasty. That's my rant of the day, and god, did it feel good!
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Who rote wutt?Oh. And I absolutely loathe rouges and villians. :P
Please tell me you spelled ROGUE that way to be funny. r-o-g-u-e not rouge(make-up or a color). Please say you were kidding.
FH
who rote wutt? Hey, this grey box aint workin!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That makes me mad!!!!!!!!!!!!! Darr!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh. And I absolutely loathe rouges and villians. :PPlease tell me you spelled ROGUE that way to be funny. r-o-g-u-e not rouge(make-up or a color). Please say you were kidding.
FH
Oh, I did. Villians, too. Saw an interesting thread on another board once. "Help, the rouge is too strong!" "You know, I hate it when that happens. Makes the girl look cheap."
Well, hobgoblins, dragons, and elves weren't invinted for D&D either, and then the designers stole them for the game. ... Let's all just accept that new things happen, they can be good, and that orcs are one of them. They've been around long enough I think it's safe to say that they have officially become standard, generic fantasty.
Actually, if anyone cares to read literary theory, every single story that has ever been told throughout the course of human history can be boiled down to (can't remember the exact number) like 6 or 8 different scinarios based on what characters are involved and with what/who they are interacting with. So, pretty much, no new stories can ever be told...only new ways of telling those same stories. The same holds true with the characters and events within those scinarios.
As ever,
ACE
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Oh, I did. Villians, too. Saw an interesting thread on another board once. "Help, the rouge is too strong!" "You know, I hate it when that happens. Makes the girl look cheap."Oh. And I absolutely loathe rouges and villians. :PPlease tell me you spelled ROGUE that way to be funny. r-o-g-u-e not rouge(make-up or a color). Please say you were kidding.
FH
Oh, I know, I was just messing with that Healer cat cos he is always jackin with me saying I don't know how to spell big words like "rouge" and "theif" and "Saskatchewan." But it backfired on me; I rolled a 1 and I couldn't make the grey box work. Rave on, sister.
I think that my biggest pet peeve is in the skewed perception on what it means to be "Evil" in D&D, really. The general opinion seems to be "Evil PCs should be universally disallowed because we're here to play Heroes." This has always irked me on a number of counts. Obviously, not everyone is going to want to play heroes at all, and I'd imagine that most of us would love an occasional opportunity to tell the villagers that they can go kill their own dragon if it's such a problem.
More annoying, though, is the attitude that an evil character (or party of evil characters) can't fit into a campaign. I think this is because the general assumption is that an evil character is universally malicious; even if we go with the stereotypical self serving, mass-murdering model for the evil character, though, I don't really see much problem in terms of motivation. Good saves the village from the dragon because it's the right thing to do. Evil kills the dragon to gain power. Good saves the kidnapped child from bandits out of altruism. Evil kills the bandits for intruding on their turf, and returns the kid more or less intact to maintain their cover. Or maybe they kill the kid as well. Or maybe they ignore the bandits until their favorite bartender goes missing. One way or another, they still have the adventure, it just has a different tone. That's ok, that's the entire point to playing evil.
I agree.
There's Chaotic Evil, and then there's Chaotic Stupid and Chaotic Insane.
I've been in many situations where the evil party member is constantly working against his own self interest, displaying an intelligence of about 4. They'll get into srapes and loose plot hooks and potential allies just to make sure that some random 1st level commoner KNOWS they're a badass. They're desperate that absolutely nothing of value gets paid for legally, including drinks, mundane equipment, etc. They'll steal from party members, and play a little game hoping they won't get caught. Honestly, petty stealing from a party of PCs that's been risking their lives for your safetly is just downright dumb. Why risk giving up the means to a mound of gold and power, just to feed your ego through a few extra table scraps out of the fighter's pocket?
PCs who kill for fun or burn down a village "for the hell of it" are not good or evil, they're just insane. It's possible to have an evil alignemnt and never actually commit an evil act. You can still be brave, you can still care about other people, and you can realize that creepy actions have creepy consequences. Comments like "Let's just cut their heads off and mount them on the wall!" generally come from the minds of an completely unstable and unreliable mind that no other PCs would realistically tolerate. I also feel strongly that insanity and illnesses like Kleptomania, Pyromania, Sadism, Megalomania, Alcoholism (in addition to any one of the endless steams of negativity stemming from horribly tortured and haunted pasts) are alignment nuetral afflictions that don't reflect anything. They are tools used by weak gamers to make-up for their lack of real role-playing skill.
Fortuately, I'm with a mature group of players who can handle both evil and chaotic alignments. The chaotic evil member of the party has been nothing but kind and self-effacing to his fellow party members as well as to any NPCs they meet. So far, I don't think he's ever initiated a single evil act in front of anyone.
I think he's playing it brilliantly.
Well, hobgoblins, dragons, and elves weren't invinted for D&D either, and then the designers stole them for the game. ... Let's all just accept that new things happen, they can be good, and that orcs are one of them. They've been around long enough I think it's safe to say that they have officially become standard, generic fantasty.Actually, if anyone cares to read literary theory, every single story that has ever been told throughout the course of human history can be boiled down to (can't remember the exact number) like 6 or 8 different scinarios based on what characters are involved and with what/who they are interacting with. So, pretty much, no new stories can ever be told...only new ways of telling those same stories. The same holds true with the characters and events within those scinarios.
As ever,
ACE
According to the French writer George Polti, there are 36 dramatic scenarios. I've also seen theories that suggesst there is only 1 story, but I think that's just lazy.
I guess it all depends. I dont' really care to read literary theory because it's boring.
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Oh, I know, I was just messing with that Healer cat cos he is always jackin with me saying I don't know how to spell big words like "rouge" and "theif" and "Saskatchewan." But it backfired on me; I rolled a 1 and I couldn't make the grey box work. Rave on, sister.Oh, I did. Villians, too. Saw an interesting thread on another board once. "Help, the rouge is too strong!" "You know, I hate it when that happens. Makes the girl look cheap."Oh. And I absolutely loathe rouges and villians. :PPlease tell me you spelled ROGUE that way to be funny. r-o-g-u-e not rouge(make-up or a color). Please say you were kidding.
FH
Bwaaaaaahaaaaaa haaaa hhhaaa! Naa-Naa! That "gray box", as you refer to it, is really a gelatinous cube. You are now lunch. BBWWWAAAAAAAa,HHHAAAAAAA HHHaaaa HHHaaalunchAAAAA!
FH
My rant.
I hate that I don't usually get any time to post...so I'm a lurker extrordinaire.
I hate feats. I hate skills. I hate all the templates and prestige classes. I hate the supplements that keep adding to the whole awful mess. Why not have every DC based on an attribute, and be done with it. Nothing like seeing a bunch of educated adults unable to calculate out skills because of synergies etc. I realized this when I began relying on DM genie for help.
I hate that WotC will ignore the fact that many people feel as I do above, and will make DnD 4.0 even MORE feat/skill/magic heavy.
I hate the overabundance of magic. I love grittier semi-realistic settings where magic is a rare thing, and the PCs are some of the very few heroes around.
I hate when a G.P. orders a whole body MRI to "rule out anything wrong". Back to med school for you!
I hate that all my players are to busy with family, jobs, or trips to vegas to play (though I am guilty of at least 2 of those myself...hate when real life interrupts family).
I hate that world-of-warcraft has made me a widower at home. Damn my wife and her 60 level raid addicted warlock. I'm lucky if the kids are fed when I get home. I hate that my job prevents me from participating in any high level stuff in WoW, as I don't have the ridiculous 6 hours a night to spare.
I love these boards. I love the paizo staff. I love that I was forced to dig up all my old greyhawk stuff from the 80's to play AoW.
I hate the WoC miniature marketing strategy. Like someone who posted above, I'm embarassed that I actually bought 2 boosters when they came out. Not ever doing that again. Back to Reaper and actually buying the ones I want.
I hate that mortgage interest in Canada isn't tax deductible.
I hate these damn migraines....
I hate some of the cartoony artwork (especially the PBM ads) in Dungeon. Can't bring the magazine to work. It's too embarassing.
I love this message thread.
I greatly admire PAIZO.
There. All done. Whew....Feel better.
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According to the French writer George Polti, there are 36 dramatic scenarios.
Not to take the lycanthropic echinoderm out of context but...this is cool. I'm gonna just write 36 standard adventures and just plug and switch monsters /treasures /traps /whatnot. That saves me a lot of work, and who cares, there's nothing new under the sun any damn way. Thanx, George Polti!!!!!
Well, hobgoblins, dragons, and elves weren't invinted for D&D either, and then the designers stole them for the game. ... Let's all just accept that new things happen, they can be good, and that orcs are one of them. They've been around long enough I think it's safe to say that they have officially become standard, generic fantasty.Actually, if anyone cares to read literary theory, every single story that has ever been told throughout the course of human history can be boiled down to (can't remember the exact number) like 6 or 8 different scinarios based on what characters are involved and with what/who they are interacting with. So, pretty much, no new stories can ever be told...only new ways of telling those same stories. The same holds true with the characters and events within those scinarios.
As ever,
ACEAccording to the French writer George Polti, there are 36 dramatic scenarios. I've also seen theories that suggesst there is only 1 story, but I think that's just lazy.
I guess it all depends. I dont' really care to read literary theory because it's boring.
I know there's a book out there called "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" (the author's name escapes me) that addresses this very subject. The idea is that a lot of the great heroes of literature keep a certain degree of vagueness about them (Odysseus rarely has more of an emotional reaction than to get angry or miss his home, Hamlet could very easily be anyone that has gone through adolescence, the list goes on) in order to allow the reader to "play the role" of that hero. It's a tactic used in Japanese RPGs a lot; the main character is often silent to let the player insert themselves into that role.
The fact that Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings remain so relevant is because it has all of Carl Jung's archetypes (Hero, Maiden, Old Man/Mentor, Villain) and they are reinterpretations of classic stories that speak to everyone. The Odyssey is about a guy trying to go home. You can boil it down to that, keep the spirit of the narrative and then set it in space, in the burroghs of New York (The Warriors), the southern United States, or in Greyhawk and it will still resonate.
The idea is that over millions of years the experience of being human still hasn't changed that much and telling stories (LIKE IN D&D OH MY GOD THERE'S SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT GOING ON HERE WE'RE AWESOME I THINK MY HEAD EXPLODED) has always been part of that tradition. So cliches aren't a bad thing; they're just a jumping off point.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces could very easily be a changeling or a doppleganger, though. So be careful.
Joseph Campbell wrote Hero with 1000 Faces. Good stuff.
Excellent. Thanks.
Joseph Campbell wrote Hero with 1000 Faces. Good stuff.Excellent. Thanks.
Has a prized place on my bookshelf, along with "The Power of Myth".
Since this is a rant topic...
I hate forum trolls. (There aren't any on this board, but I can think of another place that has them in spades. Grrr...)