So an angry dude wandered into the S**t Reddit Says subreddit recently — one of the few feminist-friendly, largely manbaby-free hideouts on Reddit — and left a pretty amazing rant, attacking the SRSers as, well, see for yourself.
I’m not even going to bother fisking this one. I think it’s probably best experienced in its original wall-of-text form.
In case that image is hard to read, here’s the text:
You’re the most f**ked up group of people currently alive (self.S**tRedditSays)
submitted 1 day ago by LewisExMachina
I’m sure you’re gonna devour this account too, but whatever. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that every time I call you out my account gets spammed and your cronies try to doxx me, but I can’t let you keep doing what you’re doing. The harassment you put people through on a daily basis is way worse than anything /fatpeoplehate was ever accused of. Who knows how many men you’ve driven to suicide just because they have something between their legs. But you don’t fucking care, because they made a rape joke and that makes them worse than Nazis. I guess rape is worse than murder now. And since men can’t be raped any man who says he was raped has to deal with it while a female who says she was raped is instantly believed and rewarded for her bravery. And you think women have it worse? Fuck off, women are treated like little princesses while men are treated like shit. Maybe you have a point with the catcalling thing, but everything else you say is bullshit and based on lies meant to devalue men and increase the value of women. Soon you’ll force the government to add the ability to make more money (27% more) by just checking off a “I’m a woman” box on a job sheet. Us men will just say that we’re transwomen (since that’s also something you support) and get that money too, so you’ll be back to square 1 where men and women make the same salaries. If you want to make the same money then don’t take maternity leave, dipshits.
And what’s with all the hate on video games? You don’t even like video games, and we do. Why is that a problem. If something makes a group of people happy and it doesn’t inherently hurt anyone else then why is that such a bad thing? Women don’t want to play video games, they just want to police the development of video games and its community. !??!?!? Seriously just fuck off. Go fight for unisex bathrooms or showing your tits or something I can get behind rather than video games that you don’t even play. All of the girlfriends I had wanted nothing to do with video games and that was okay. How would you feel if we started policing makeup, saying that makeup led to violence and should be banned? You’d hate it, because it’s a stupid baseless accusation meant only to hurt one gender. Which is exactly what the attack on video games is.
I don’t know what to say here other then you probably all need to get laid, then you’ll calm down.
Indeed, a thing of beauty.
@Alan:
I’ve been … twitchy … in malls since I was 10. Can’t think what that’s about.
@Rhuu:
Oh man, I could talk about it all darn day. What I’ll say is, to really enjoy it you might need to alter your expectations. The modern stuff, really it could be argued everything that came after Dragonlance, tends to emphasize heroism and adventure for altruistic purposes. The stuff that’s older than Dragonlance is focused more on stealing treasure and not getting into fights.
(There’s a real shift in goals in the hobby after about 10 years, and it could be argued that it’s all down to Tracy and Laura Hickman.)
A parralel with the Lone Wolf serie can be drawn too. Early on, in the Lone Wolf, you’re mostly the unlucky acolyte who desesperatly try to stay alive without revealing that you’re not up to the task.
Later on, midway through the second serie, you begin to be an actual hero, who do dangerous things because he is the only one who can do them.
AFAIK, some of the earlies played campaigns were at least as heroic as dragonlance, or more. But the campaign that were actually published were done by Gary Gygax, who like nothing more than kill his player in devious way. Not a bad thing.
Planescape, and to a lesser extent Dark Sun, had another turns, where the campaigns were more about roleplay and exploration than about heroism or survival.
In general, old campaigns feel less outdated than old RPG systems, because how to narrate a story was already decently well know, but how to do a game system that work well with a narration was discovered little by little in the last 30 years.
@Falconer: Considering that the combat is actually my least favourite part of playing the 5e system, that sounds lovely! My rogue character would be all about stealing everything she can get her hands on. My ranger character, not so much.
Which is so haaard to play, because I always take *everything* in every video game I play. My room mate, after watching me play Skyrim, told me that she just thought she robbed everyone blind, but I pretty much did!
*cackles over all of her gold*
That’s a really interesting observation though, thank you! This is why I want to be familiar with the old games, I always feel a bit out of step when I’m talking about the systems, especially when people want me to compare playing 5e with anything else.
I played maaaybe three games of Pathfinder, and a year of Savage Worlds (not the best DM, so not the best intro to the system) and a game that ended in a party wipe in Anima.
I just feel like a newbie when I can’t talk AD&D, haha.
@kupo
You should have worn makeup?! It’s amazing what some people will say. Totally unprofessional. I’m sorry that happened. And I’m glad you brushed him off.
@Falconer
Ooh, there’s going to be a birthday party at your house! Happy birthday to the kidz!
@SFHC if you’re here
Did you catch Alakazam from the new Safari Zone? I’m having zero luck. 🙁
@littleknown
I think that you miss my point here, which isn’t that Muslims have it worse, but rather that Islamophobia is rooted in a context so different than what atheists face here that I find that one cannot make a meaningful analogy between the two. There is a history of colonialism, orientalism on top of a context of current day context of military interventionism and surveilance that simply has no comparable parallel to what atheists experience here and now. Islamophobia has different origins, motivations, and manifestations than hatred of atheists. Islamophobia is used to paper over history and all relevant context. That simply cannot be said vis a vis hatred of atheists.
Because yes, that’s exactly what I wrote.
To me, a movement atheist is someone who makes it a point to actively promote atheism in their day to day life due to some belief that the world will become a better place if religion were to drop off the face of the earth, as opposed to someone who just happens to be atheist and won’t really talk much about it unless the conversation happens to fall on that topic. I’m utterly convinced that if religion were taken out of the equation and every other factor were to remain the same, the world would still be every bit as utterly fucked up as it is right now. A lot of the criticism levelled at religion actually traces back to social, economic and political factors and religion is neither sufficient nor necessary for all these bad things that are attributed it to happen. Therefore, discussing religion is not one of my priorities because I think that its contribution to the bad things that are attributed to it are wildly inflated, which renders making it the focus of one’s strategy to a better world misguided at best.
Who said that other atheists would have to stop calling themselves atheists? What I’m saying is that people should leave Dawkins and the like behind and form their own organizations. They could even take their cue from religious folks, who’ve been branching off based on disagreements with one another for as long as religion has been around. What I’m suggesting is not without precedent. If you think that the Dawkins/Maher branch of atheism can be salvaged, then feel free to try to reform it. To use an analogy, that’s like trying to reform A Voice for Men: is there anything worthwhile in there that’s even worth reforming? Better to start something new altogether.
How would I feel if makeup were policed?
That depends on what you mean by “policed.”
Do you mean man-babies get to decide what I put on my face? I would be enraged.
Also, I would be curious: How will the manosphere attempt to rationalize the “logic” of this policing? (‘Cause you guys always twist yourself into ideological pretzels.)
But overall, having woman haters police makeup would be bad, bad, bad. Which has got nothing to do with a feminist critique of video games.
I don’t write vitriolic letters to the New York Times when a movie critic says that my favorite movie has questionable politics. I don’t demand that the critic stop “policing” my movies. I might disagree with the critic, but I would never confuse that person with a police officer. Or an out-of-control mob, demanding that I be strung up. (Get hold of your emotions, manosphere!)
On the other hand, if you mean, Should experts in chemicals and public health regulate makeup, I say yes! And so does the Environmental Working Group. The government won’t do a reasonable job with this, so the EWG’s Skindeep cosmetics database is there to help us:
http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
@Ohlmann:
Gygax stopped writing adventures so much while he was working on AD&D, and then the putsch happened and he got shuffled off to LA to oversee the cartoon.
The Basic line really only has one Gygax-penned module, THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS, which holds the record for most copies printed.
But yeah, Gygax really preferred the Conan tread-thrones-under-sandals style of play, even though hobbits and balrogs were included in the earliest printings.
@Rhuu: Stealing things is the fastest way to see 2nd level, because you get 1 XP for each GP you, uh, redistribute, and maybe XP for magic items you keep, if you’re playing 1E. Fighting things is the fastest way to never see the light of day again, because you roll for your hit points at first level. One in eight fighters has 8 hit points at first level. Thieves are advised to avoid a fair fight, because they only have a d4 for hit dice. Plus there’s Save Or Die, all over the place.
OT . . . but funny
Real estate model?
I think they mean real estate mogul.
http://www.people.com/article/dakota-meyer-endorses-ted-cruz
@Falconer : the most hilarious shortcut to XP if you play within the litteral rule is in Rolemaster. In Rolemaster, when you travel, you gain XP dependant on the square root of the distance travelled. Hence people stopping every meters to get lvl 2 before the first battle :p
BTW, the GP = XP rule is an optional rule. Check with your GM before relying on it :p
@Falconer: I would have leveled up so fast! It is a neat twist to desperately want to avoid fights at the lower levels, though I imagine it just means you fight more rats. Bleh.
@Ohlmann: Optional?? Nuts! Well, in my hypothetical old school D&D game, I’ll have to talk the DM into it.
@Rhuu : if he trust you to not abuse it, it should be good.
People in a powergaming mood shouldn’t be allowed to that. Having a party member never stopping pickpocketing both friendly and unfriendly PNJs can cause troubles. Doubly so if they start to steal from the other players.
(quite a lot of GM, at least in Europa, use the rule of “everyone gain one level when the story have advanced enough” instead of counting XPs. That avoid a lot of bickering, but before 3.0 it mean rogue hate the GMs, since normally they gain level about twice as fast as the others)
@Ohlmann, @Rhuu, yeah, it’s optional in 2E. It’s expected in everything before then, although apparently a lot of 1E groups didn’t use it and then complained that it takes forever to get to 2nd level.
As for rats? OD&D’s dungeon stocking rules gives a 1/24 chance of giant rats (a 1/3 chance to roll on the only table that includes giant rats, and a 1/8 chance to come up with giant rats on that table). There’s also a 1/6 chance that you’ll encounter something from the 4th level table, including ogres and white apes!
The Moldvay Basic book doesn’t include rats on its level 1 wandering monster table at all.
And yeah, the old-school stuff doesn’t include a lot of mechanics to resolve skill checks and roleplaying stuff, and I think in many cases they didn’t think they needed to, because that stuff would be handled by the DM and how persuasive players could be.
Wait I don’t actually enjoy video games!? Everything I know is a lie! /s
Policing make up? A-holes like you already are.
Wearing makeup- We’re deceiving men
Not wearing make up- we’re ugly
I don’t understand all the “he’s such a baby” and “he must be a kid/teen” comments here so do only babies, children and teens do bad things and grown men are perfect Angels? It also makes it sound we really don’t take misogyny (and other bigotries) seriously.
I also feel very uncomfortable of the term “feminazi” even in used as a joke. Can we please respect the people who were brutally tortured and murdered and are in constant fear for their lives and discriminated against?
@Falconer : I am pretty sure it’s optional before that too. Just expected by a lot of people.
That being said, your knowledge and use of generic encounter table is a sure proof it was played very differently in the 80’s in Europa, where I played. That part was already seen as an optional way to see what can happen, and people expected the GMs to choose in that and not to roll.
@Ohlmann
I’ll grant you AD&D 2e is a bit dated; I’d mostly play it for nostalgia to be honest. This is why I included the qualifier about ‘for what it is’, as I actually don’t think any version of D&D is actually a terribly good Role playing game. The thing about 3rd and 4th is that they don’t emulate difficult battles, they emulate difficult video games. The abstraction of combat is even greater in those editions than it is in 2e, and in a direction that makes it much like CRPGs and MMORPGs, which annoys the hell out of me, because if I wanted to be playing Skyrim or WoW, I would be playing those, not a tabletop RPG. For good simulation of combat in a gameable fashion, I far prefer GURPS (which frankly also covers non-combat stuff a lot better than any version of D&D I’ve seen).
Oh my yes.
@Rhuu
Don’t worry about it; someday you too will be arguing with fellow grognards about games from back in the day that nobody else remembers. 🙂
@Ohlmann, well that is interesting. Randomized wandering monsters have been a part of every edition of the game over here, except 4E — that one pushed encounters over exploration so hard I don’t recall ever seeing a wandering monsters chart in it.
@Dalillama: I look forward to that day!
@Falconer: So… The DM rolled for the opponents for every encounter? DDDDDDD: That is terrifying! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPELc1wEvk"The gods of the RNG don't love me as it is!
Will that just post the video…? Nope! Made it a prettier link.
@Rhuu, and when I say “steal” I guess I ought to clarify that I don’t necessarily mean “pickpocket.” I mean, sneak past the monsters and loot the treasure, if that’s possible. If they’re not sitting on it, and you can get around them, why throw down with them at all?
That’s one reason paladins are pains in the neck. They tend to want to confront evil. Well, let them. While evil is busy being confronted, you can get around and start prying those humongous gems out of the giant stone idol’s eye sockets.
Ktoryx
They’re also the same ones that have bought into the whole “rich alpha male” stuff and proceed to go into debt to look the part. So, who’s defrauding who here?
Yeah, I know; IOKIYAPUA yadda, yadda…
I worked with a guy like this in the 80’s; nice car, clothes, stylish haircut, but he lived in an apartment (2 bedrooms, 1 bath) with three other guys who between them had no furniture other than beds (one bed in one bedroom, 2 sets of bunk beds in the other >.<) and a high-end stereo in the living room. Alpha living at its finest!
I will admit that I went there with less than honorable intentions (as did he) disguised as a friendly ride home from me, but when I saw the living room, (which also had, and I am not kidding, lawn chairs arranged around the stereo) I could barely keep the guffaws at bay! I asked to use the bathroom, but (again, not kidding) it was so disgusting that I just stood there, agog and flushed, without having used the toilet, using a tissue. The bedroom doors had been left open, and that's all I needed to see. I made a flimsy excuse and beat it!
@Rhuu — no, not for every encounter. They’d sit down and decide what to include on the map, to a greater or lesser degree, and then throw the dice for every room they hadn’t stocked.
And then, while the game was on, the random encounter was a cost for time. Sure, you could take a turn to search this apparently empty room, but you risk an encounter. Random encounters don’t carry a lot of treasure, so they’re all risk and little reward, so you want to minimize your random encounters, so you have to decide how to spend your time.
Random encounters generally occurred on a d6 roll of 1 every second turn (a turn meaning 10 minutes of game time in this context), and the exact sort and number of monsters were rolled up by the DM.
@Falconer: Choosing between looting a room and chancing meeting a randomly rolled monster (though a more level appropriate one than what I feared) is…. Interesting… I guess that’s when you need that Paladin! They can take care of monsters while rogues steal all the goodies.
Ho ho ho!
Though the next character I want to make is a melee fighter of some sort, since I always want to get in there and hit things, but I’m never a type of character that can really do that. :S
@Ohlmann: I didn’t realise there were differences depending on your geographical location!
@David N-T:
How does one identify as “not with” the “Dawkins/Maher branch” of atheism? Say, “No, I’m not an atheist. I am an Atheist+?” Would you deny that when people self-identify as atheists, that they have to explain that they are not Dawkinsites? That is entirely analogous to Muslims constantly having to explain that they are not like their worst actors, even if their worst actors are numerous. It is entirely analogous to Muslims saying, “please stop saying that these theocratic bigots are the voice of Islam,” for atheists to say, “please stop saying that Richard Dawkins is the voice of atheism.” It is entirely analogous to progressive Muslims wanting to reform their religion, even in parts of the world where it looks impossible right now.
The problem with letting the Richard Dawkinses of the world remain the voice of “movement atheism” unchallenged is that most people, and especially most journalists in mainstream media, don’t make that distinction. Outside of our bubble, Dawkins, Harris, and Maher aren’t seen as the voice of “movement atheism”; they are seen as the voice of atheism.
You disagree that the world would be a better place if religion disappeared overnight. Reasonable people can disagree on this. I happen to fall somewhere in the middle on that argument. At my heart, I am a co-exister. But I do believe that the world would be a more peaceful place with less religion, especially less patriarchal religion. And I also recognize that the fact that my atheism is unimportant to me is something that does indeed come from a place of privilege.
That bit I wrote about the ex-Muslim woman that you dismissed? I don’t know how to express myself except bluntly: consider how she would feel if you told her how “utterly convinced” you are that if religion had vanished before she was born, her life would have been every bit as bad.
It is a fact that many people would continue to be assholes without religion. But for many people, especially women and sexual minorities, religion is indeed the yoke of their oppression. The women who get stoned or shot for adultery, or have acid thrown in their faces for going to school? That can’t just be chalked up to colonialism, can it? The women who want to escape a culture in which they are required to put bonnets on their heads and can’t protest when their husbands talk about “breeding them” again — surely, we can’t say they are just victims of socioeconomic forces, can we?
Here many of us (but nowhere near all) have the privilege of attending pleasantly liberal houses of worship, or leaving the religion of our birth if it is too oppressive. But for those who feel their only choice is to speak out or shut up and take it, I think we could do better than to say that “making it the focus of one’s strategy to a better world [is] misguided at best”.
What organizations do you propose they form? Ones that don’t promote atheism? Because you disagree that they should want to promote it?
There just seems to be a lot of this idea going around that “wanting to promote atheism as an alternative and a counter to patriarchal religions necessarily means declaring that all religion is bad and contributes to human suffering, throwing your lot in with Dawkins and Harris, and rejecting third-wave / intersectional feminism and social justice”; and it makes me uneasy.
I played the original AD&D as a kid, was out of RPGs for a while during the heyday of AD&D 2nd edition, eventually got hooked on GURPS and Champions, and haven’t really played any of the later D&D editions.
But I’ll give 3e this: a really good expansion/refinement of the Ravenloft setting came out of it. Now I’ve yet to play a Ravenloft-set game (most of my friends are not overly into horror-themed RPGs) but I think it’s a pretty cool game world.
These days, sadly, I’m not playing any RPGs; the busy-ness and distance of gaming friends (who are also now busy parents of small children) and the lack of non-student parking near the college campus where a lot of the RPGs are being held make it kind of tough.
Rather than clutter up the thread any longer with my
http://i.imgur.com/Zug7MgC.jpg
I thought I would provide a couple of links for those who have a lot of time and a burning interest in really early D&D.
For a play by play history of the hobby, its roots and its behind-the-scenes drama, Jon Peterson is doing yeoman’s work at Playing At the World.
Delta is doing a lot of heavy thinking about the original ruleset at Delta’s D&D Hotspot.
There’s an actual play Let’s Play series at Old School Adventures on YouTube.
And there are too many podcasts to list — start with Save or Die.