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Oh, right ... I think I have found some that may actually get me shunned at last (well, more than I am already).
I do not believe in happy endings. Hollywood movies, by and large, grate my nerves for this reason. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the occasional happy ending, once in a blue moon and when the stars are in conjunction, but I prefer most books and movies I watch to avoid it.
I love dystopias. I do not believe in the goodness of humanity ... I think if there's one thing we've comprehensively proven over the course of written history, it is that we're really not very nice as a species considered and consequently, I do not see us moving towards a Gene Roddenberry'esque version of Space Communism ... although his utopian vision for the future is attractive in almost every way ... but more towards a "1984"/"V for Vendetta"-style society, where fear is the primary driving force behind our actions.
I like computer games that do not have happy endings for the same reason. I actually believe that the gripe against ME3's ending, where tens of thousands of people moaned about how it wasn't a happy ending and that's what they wanted, based on all their hundreds of "good" choices throughout the trilogy, fully legitimized the choice made by the game designers and writers. Grow up. War isn't pretty. People die horribly, alone and abandoned, even after doing everything right. So good on the game designers and the writers for daring to stick it to everyone's expectations of Captain Awesome standing on a pile of enemy corpses waving a flag over his or her head while the world cheers. I think I would have lost my lunch if that had happened.
I think the Game of Thrones television series stinks. I think the alterations from the books are so destructive that I can't bear to watch it any longer. It literally gives me a headache.
Despite my strong affection for grim, dark and grimdark, I thought Breaking Bad was just about the worst pile of television fecal matter I had ever had to endure. I wanted to take Walter White out back after about fifteen minutes of the show and give him the Ol'e Yeller-treatment to spare the world the indignity of his continued existence. If he had been a real person, his death would have elevated the world's average decency-level by a small but measurable amount.
I ... can't ... stand ... musicals! May the person who invented the idea rot forever in a dark, dank, stinking pit of misery and horror! But I love the opera. I think it's the difference in music styles. "Tosca" makes me weep with the beauty of the music, whereas "Phantom of the Opera" makes me want to pick up something heavy and hit people with it. Repeatedly.
I believe that the old saying warning us that the best ways of losing friends is to discuss religion or politics with them, or to lend them money, is a load of hooey. I strongly believe it's a manner of common courtesy and that only people with a distinct lack of manners can't talk politics or religion with their friends, since differences of opinions should not be an automatic disqualifier in terms of forming friendships. If I wanted to live in an echo-chamber where I only ever heard my own opinions repeated ad nauseam, I'd stagnate as a human being. I like being challenged on my beliefs. I may not change them in the end ... but I can at least listen and hey, if the argument is good enough, I might even change my stance. It's happened before and will doubtlessly happen again.
There ... now shun me, dammit! What does it take to get some decent shunning around here?
You missed a perfectly good opportunity to toss his own turn of phrase back in his face. For shame.
I don't like 98.956% of whats on television, I don't like 98.99% of what comes out of Hollywood. I hate remakes, re-does, and the attitude of "Lets throw money at it, have explosions, and sensless nudity as well as dumb stoner type humor" to make a good show/movie.
I don't like "my way is the only way to play" type attitude. I have allready mentioned my dislike for multi-dipping classes to get that numerically superior pc. I think role play and roll play can work.
If the masses praise something as being super cool prior to me seeing, reading, or listenimg to it then 98% of the time I will dismiss it as dung. If someone likes something a lot then I would love to hear why they love versus "OMG, you gotta llike this because well the other sheeple do."
Okay enough of my rant sorry folks
Grow up.This is the point at which you lose me: The implication that those who don't enjoy what you do are somehow less mature.
+1
I'm an admitted cynic and that's WHY I want happy endings in my fiction. BECAUSE it's antithetical to the way things work in real life. I've had a lot of opportunities in my Kingmaker campaign to be significantly bastardly that I've deliberately avoided because I don't want to make my group's campaign setting into a world that's as bitter, cynical, and soul-crushing as real-life Earth.
That's why I hate the SoIaF books. They're TOO realistic, despite all the magic, dragons, zombies, and everything else fantastical about them. That and the excessive sex and violence.
I'm curious, Alk... does this carry over to your PF/D&D/etc. games as well? Is the best your PCs can expect, most of the time, to just scrape by barely alive and simply be happy that they survived and maybe, only just maybe, beat the villain? Cause I can see enjoying that from time to time, but if every campaign I played in was like that, I'd be looking for a new GM pretty soonish. But if your players are on that same wavelength, more power to 'em I suppose.
I am extremely unhappy with the absurd limits in the race builder. I have a setting with intelligent octopi and intelligent quadrupeds (with wings but no arms) and a race with a snake body with arms but no legs, none of which is buildable due to tbe requirement of all races to have a minimum of two arms, two hands, a head, and two legs, and all the magic item slots.
I have PC harpies (the armless variety, rather than the six-limbed one PF has) and nagas (the human-torso-snake-legs variety, not the human-head-snake-body one D&D/PF seems to love) in my homebrew world and haven't noticed much trouble with getting them built; granted I'm also pretty happy to toss the race builder aside after using it to get a basic framework or mine ideas from.
That said when it comes to magic item slots I'm usually up for re-skinning something to fit the creature's body type as needed, doubly so since most magic items are specified to reshape to fit the wearer. So nagas wear their boot-slot items as rings or legwarmer-type wraps around their tails, harpies wear gloves as sheaths or tassels or similar things on their wings, etc.
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I don't like 98.956% of whats on television, I don't like 98.99% of what comes out of Hollywood. I hate remakes, re-does, and the attitude of "Lets throw money at it, have explosions, and sensless nudity as well as dumb stoner type humor" to make a good show/movie.
I don't like "my way is the only way to play" type attitude. I have allready mentioned my dislike for multi-dipping classes to get that numerically superior pc. I think role play and roll play can work.
If the masses praise something as being super cool prior to me seeing, reading, or listenimg to it then 98% of the time I will dismiss it as dung. If someone likes something a lot then I would love to hear why they love versus "OMG, you gotta llike this because well the other sheeple do."
Okay enough of my rant sorry folks
You could have saved a whole lot of space by just writing "I'm a hipster", you know.
Grow up.This is the point at which you lose me: The implication that those who don't enjoy what you do are somehow less mature.+1
I'm an admitted cynic and that's WHY I want happy endings in my fiction. BECAUSE it's antithetical to the way things work in real life. I've had a lot of opportunities in my Kingmaker campaign to be significantly bastardly that I've deliberately avoided because I don't want to make my group's campaign setting into a world that's as bitter, cynical, and soul-crushing as real-life Earth.
That's why I hate the SoIaF books. They're TOO realistic, despite all the magic, dragons, zombies, and everything else fantastical about them. That and the excessive sex and violence.
I'm curious, Alk... does this carry over to your PF/D&D/etc. games as well? Is the best your PCs can expect, most of the time, to just scrape by barely alive and simply be happy that they survived and maybe, only just maybe, beat the villain? Cause I can see enjoying that from time to time, but if every campaign I played in was like that, I'd be looking for a new GM pretty soonish. But if your players are on that same wavelength, more power to 'em I suppose.
No, they can expect to do as well as their actions allow them to do. I do not believe in holding them back artificially just because of my own preferences in literature and movies.
A lot of my campaigns end up with a distinctly humorous element to them ... not quite sure how but it always happens ... but I draw back before crossing into "silly" (though admittedly, this past sunday, the gnomish Shaman in my group who turned up with a talking chicken as his totem animal gave me an early yuletide present, giftwrapped and bundled ... drunk chickens are fun to RP). I also believe that if the heroes genuinely did an amazing job, then who am I to rain on their parade? However, I don't carry them on hands and knees. If the dice fall in a way that means one of them will die, then that character dies. I don't protect them either and as I've said elsewhere, causality is a thing ... so if they screw up, they pay for it accordingly.
Also, I agree on excessive sex, though excessive violence is a term with somewhat fluid definitions for me. If I am to see a battle-scene or read about one, I want to be nauseated by the graphic details, or I end up with a feeling that someone is trying to gloss it over and make it "pretty". However, I am not in favour of gratuitous violence for its own sake. It needs to serve a definite purpose.
You missed a perfectly good opportunity to toss his own turn of phrase back in his face. For shame.
It's "her", Rynjin. Female. You can tell HER to grow up. I'd take it on the chin. I don't take male pronouns on the chin, however.
The Alkenstarian wrote:
Grow up.This is the point at which you lose me: The implication that those who don't enjoy what you do are somehow less mature.
To quote the immortal Cris Carter: "Come on, man."
(Or "woman." I don't know which applies, here.)
I admit that was a poor choice of words. What does annoy me, is that the argument made in that specific instance usually was, that the complainer was upset that the ending wasn't a happy one because that was explicitly what they wanted, and yes ... I read numerous complaints about that ending where one of the bones of contention was something along the lines of "I want to see a happy ending. I paid for this game. Now do as I want!"
No major software company ever made a game for the benefit of the players. Not once. Small, indie-companies may do that, but the large, traded companies do not. They make games exclusively for the benefit of their stockholders, and they know perfectly well that they'll sell enough to make their stockholders happy even if a few are displeased with the ending. They may then boost their favourability ratings with the public, by "listening to the consumers" for the next installment of the game. Having worked for a major software company, I can say that the idea that the products are made for the benefit of the ordinary user, is literally laughed at ... loudly and very haughtily. Bottom lines matter. Opinions don't, unless they impact bottom lines, and in this case, the game sold in record numbers.
The stockholders were very happy.
When I said "grow up", what I mean to say is that those who made the above-mentioned kind of argument, that they should get what they want because they paid for the product, that genuinely and in my absolute opinion is an immature attitude. It's the behaviour of someone so spoiled, they think that the world should accomodate them, every time and in every way, and especially when there's money involved. Except obviously, that's not how the world actually functions. Such people really do need a crash course in market economics and a wakeup-call. If you want to be sure you'll like the content of a game, wait with buying it until you can read some reviews and you can talk to some of those friends of yours who took the chance and bought it. Don't buy it because of hype, but if you do and it then fails to live up to your expectations, don't complain that you want your money back (people did) because the game was bad (people said that) because it wasn't what they wanted it to be (people said this too).
So yes, I genuinely think that attitude is immature. But let me highlight this in bold, so it's absolutely clear:
I'm not saying that because they like something else than what I enoy, they're immature. I'm saying that their selfish attitudes where everything had to conform to their exacting specifications and wishes, and their "give-me-my-money-back"-attitude were.
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I'm not a fan of Numeria. I think it's great for its many fans that the nation exists, but I'm seriously contemplating removing Numeria in Heinelarion.
I don't fudge dice rolls. At all.
I like the fighter.
I play the Pathfinder RPG by the book. Seriously, my house rule document is half a page long, and not a single change has been made to the game. I like it that much.
Like The Alkenstarian, I really really really REALLY dislike musicals. I cannot stand that form of entertainment.
I think that the more feats we have, the more people believe they need a specific feat to be able to do anything.
I wonder if a little extra text would remove this perception, in the case of feats which cover actions which would normally require a DM call. For example, if someone at Paizo (or whatever company) writes a Trick Shot feat which allows a character to ricochet arrows off of objects at a -1 to hit per object, how would fans' perceptions change if the feat text included the entry "Normal: Without this feat, ricocheting arrows off of objects imposes a -5 to hit per object." Would this make fans happy, or would they then start complaining that "Ugh, this is camouflaged game errata! Now I need to buy new splatbooks to have all the game rules! This is a travesty!!!"?
If the masses praise something as being super cool prior to me seeing, reading, or listenimg to it then 98% of the time I will dismiss it as dung. If someone likes something a lot then I would love to hear why they love versus "OMG, you gotta llike this because well the other sheeple do."
This kinda happened to me with Lovecraft. I read rave reviews and references to his fiction for years before reading it, and when I finally did, it was a huge letdown. I don't think I would have loved his fiction if I had never heard anything about it before, but all the talk just made me go "This is what all the hype was over?!"
(Let the shunning of TS now continue!)
The sun'll come out...tomorrow
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I think that Pathfinder Unchained was unnecessary.
I think that Pathfinder Unchained was unnecessary.
Shunned! The Rogues of the world declare you outcast unclean!
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I think the Advanced Class Guide is unnecessary, I even know where I can get it cheaper than Amazon and I still haven't gotten it, every time I look at it I think "there's better stuff to spend my 30 bucks on" and then I do :-)
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I like musicals-except for all that singing and dancing.
No major software company ever made a game for the benefit of the players. Not once. Small, indie-companies may do that, but the large, traded companies do not.
This is probably the main reason I don't tend to play games made by large traded companies in recent years. There are a few exceptions - off the top of my head, I've been playing the two latest Pokemon games, Bravely Default, Zelda Link Between Worlds, and some of the Mario & Luigi games - but lately, most large-company-created games are lacking something that they had back in the 90s and early 2000s, when I first got into video gaming.
Those listed games are more the exceptions than the rule. Most of what I play are old games from the NES/SNES/Sega/N64/PS1/early PS2 eras, indie or low-budget company Steam games, Kickstarter projects, and player-made hacks and RPG Maker-style homemade games. The stuff that IS made for the players, with the players in mind, with less (or no) attention paid to the potential profits and priority on making something more as a work of art than as a moneymaker.
There has been a definite shift in mindset and/or practices in most large companies in the past 10-15 years, and it's strongly reflected in the product they make. Now it's more like an accident when something turns out really good by a large company, unless they happen to have someone on staff for whom the project is a major labor of love, or something else that makes the difference.
I admit that was a poor choice of words. What does annoy me, is that the argument made in that specific instance usually was, that the complainer was upset that the ending wasn't a happy one because that was explicitly what they wanted, and yes ... I read numerous complaints about that ending where one of the bones of contention was something along the lines of "I want to see a happy ending. I paid for this game. Now do as I want!"Is, perhaps, "get real" a better fit than "grow up"?
It probably would be.
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My adventuring wizards do not wear robes, but the appropriate outfit for the climate and situation.
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I think we all get used to creating characters in a certain way after a while, and stick to it. But one thing I do see an awful lot of with your method, is dithering. A player comes up with what they think is an amazing character concept, based on mechanics and class features with bells and whistles on. Two days later, after declaring that THIS is the character that player is going to make, and everyone else in the group starts preparing for playing with such a character, the same player comes back with a NEW character with bells and whistles on, that he or she wants to play because wow, awesome. And two days after that, it's a NEW character ... and ... so ... on.
Oh yeah, I've totally seen that too. I believe I've avoided doing that myself, but I can think of folks in my group that didn't figure out what they were actually playing until the day the campaign was starting.
Which can be really annoying when you're the GM and trying to integrate them into the plot.
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My group and our game style is pretty laid back, but damn. I wish they'd update their damned characters before they get here for the game. They could at least think about the campaign that much.
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I'm guilty of the "revolving door" character thing myself. AND I also GM! Which is part of "why." I rarely get to just PLAY, and when I do I have so many ideas I want to try out it's hard to pick. And if the one I started with doesn't work, or isn't doing it for me (or the group) then I want to change. Except, usually, that means my window to play is up and I'm back to GMing for months before I have another chance.
Vicious cycle.
Its not the industry that changed over the last 10 to 15 years, it's you.
I'm curious what leads you to that conclusion. If someone accused me of living in nostalgia I'd probably agree with them, preferring an older style to where the industry has moved on to in recent years, but I'm curious how you believe the opposite.
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Lessee...
I like the variety of options on classes, races, and everything else that we've been provided, and hope it only expands.
I like elves, gnomes, and oddball races.
I tinker with and sometimes entirely rewrite everything, and have a couple hardcovers' worth of such material, most of which I'm using in the game I GM.
I detest WBL and the "resource-management game", and provide opportunities for characters to get much more or less money than expected.
Except by seizing such opportunities, an adventurer in one of my games will never match the wealth of a successful merchant, let alone a noble.
I like high-magic settings and mixed technology levels, and enjoy plotting out the origins and social consequences of them.
I prefer sentient, civilized adversaries, and like running a crowded world that isn't just the PCs' playground.
I dislike mechanical optimization that doesn't fit character concept or a reasonable character's decision who doesn't know the mechanics behind the scenes. A good deal of my tinkering actually punishes hyperspecialisation.
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Golarion needs more Lovecraftian eldritch horrors.
I'd be fine with no skill system in Pathfinder.
SHUN!
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It's "her", Rynjin. Female. You can tell HER to grow up. I'd take it on the chin. I don't take male pronouns on the chin, however.
Of course not. Likening insults to a punch is already an awkward analogy, it doesn't work at all for words that aren't.
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My adventuring wizards do not wear robes, but the appropriate outfit for the climate and situation.
I quit a game once because for the 15th time I had the following exchange:
GM: the archer targets you because you look like the caster.
ME: I'm dressed the same as everyone else in the group. We all look like traveling sell-swords. Cause that's what is appropriate for us to dress like. I'm even carrying a sword. I don't look like a Mage.
GM: You aren't wearing armor.
ME: 1, neither is the monk who is dressed exactly like me, and 2, I've been dealing with ASF% for the last 3 sessions from this stupid chain shirt I bought the last time we had this conversation.
GM: Well, you get shot.
ME: RAWR!!!
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That would've deserved a choke-slam.
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Oh, right ... I think I have found some that may actually get me shunned at last (well, more than I am already).
Despite my strong affection for grim, dark and grimdark,
I ... can't ... stand ... musicals! May the person who invented the idea rot forever in a dark, dank, stinking pit of misery and horror! But I love the opera. I think it's the difference in music styles. "Tosca" makes me weep with the beauty of the music, whereas "Phantom of the Opera" makes me want to pick up something heavy and hit people with it. Repeatedly.
There ... now shun me, dammit! What does it take to get some decent shunning around here?
I can shun you for two things here (in an otherwise excellent post): I am sooooo darn tired of dark and gritty. It's been overdone.
Next- a GOOD musical is a thing of wonder. They are rare, and you have to go back a bit: The Music Man. Hello Dolly. Wizard of Oz- 1939. Guys & Dolls.
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I'm pretty fed up with people getting offended by inoffensive things.
I don't understand people who "self identify" as things. Everyone has the right to be who they want to be, I get that, it just baffles me that apparently so many people aren't happy with who they are.
Go ahead, shun away (and do it quick, this might get deleted).
I'm pretty fed up with people getting offended by inoffensive things.
I don't understand people who "self identify" as things. Everyone has the right to be who they want to be, I get that, it just baffles me that apparently so many people aren't happy with who they are.
Go ahead, shun away (and do it quick, this might get deleted).
It is even worse when they get offended on behalf of someone else who isn't offended. I.E. I'm autistic, and some of the things that people say are offensive to autistics are so crazy I want to smack them.
===
Also, my favorite book ever is Fallout Equestria. I'm even currently adapting my system to handle that setting.
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Everyone has the right to be who they want to be, I get that, it just baffles me that apparently so many people aren't happy with who they are.Imagine if someone told you that you can only be a Pathfinder fan, you can't be a 5E fan. Because that's how you were born.
Could I become a PF-to-5e transgamer? Maybe a bigamer? Would I constantly have to correct people in an obnoxious way when they call me a PF fan?
Because it's not as obvious as, say, body type or skin color. But maybe I could use that fact to get really pissed when people use the wrong system. Oh, if only game system preferences were anything like biological construction.
Additionally--I actually play a Catfolk (sometimes, a swapout character) in one of my friends' games. He's actually the sober, responsible one in the party, a grumpy-ass jeweler who got involuntarily respecced as an Oracle in the big magical explosion that kicked off the plot.
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I'm buy-curious about 5e.
I don't like it when people get angry at me because I can't tell what gender their character is just from their name (especially since most people use fantasy names. I have no idea what names imply which gender in made up cultures.).
This is copy/pasted from Special Discoveries.
86. amulet of defensive spells
This stores 3 spell levels (Such as 3 shield spells) that activate defensively(Spells must come from the wearer). Construction costs will be posted when I get them.
Hook: The emblem of a family of magic users is engraved on the back as well as a password that a secret society of do gooders will respond to.
If anybody wants arcane casters to die from one arrow at first level because they could not cast mage armor or shield, I want you to shun me.