teh bunneh

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities When I go to cons with lots of cosplayers, I always politely ask if I can take their picture. If they say yes, great! Some polite chit-chat, "Your costume is really great, did you make it yourself? I love that show, she's my favorite character, etc." Once the pic is taken, I thank them for their time, wish them a happy con, and give them a friendly smile. If they want to talk more or hang out (hey, it happens sometimes!) that's great! There's no touching, there's no getting all up in their space, nothing like that. I don't stare at their boobs, leer at them, or say rude things. Costuming is an art form, another type of geekery, and I appreciate the effort they put into it. If they say no, I thank them for their time and move on. The only time I wouldn't ask permission first is if they're in the costume contest. But I figure if they're up on stage then they won't mind too much (assuming pictures are allowed, which they usually are).

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? Thanks. It was a fun game.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: The cranky thread My sympathies, man.

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. Co-worker 1: You ever driven through Kansas? Co-worker 2: Yeah, I broke down in Kansas once. Me: No, you probably just thought you broke down. You were still travelling, but you couldn't tell. Because it's Kansas. Co-worker 1: Point.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? No, of course not (and don't worry, I didn't take is as an accusation). All people are individuals. While something might be a-typical of the Elvish race, adventurers in general are a-typical people (it takes a strange sort to leave home and family to run off and kill monsters for a living). Besides, what you described isn't that unusual among Elves in my world. If you put that info into his background -- how he tends to behave and why -- I don't think I'd have any problem.

Re: Creepy Pics. Story: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/11/162740104/softball-sized-eyeball-washes-up-in-florida-can-you-i-d-it

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat?

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? I've got a lot of fantasy races in my FH game (as mentioned before), and I do my best to make them unique but still playable. A lot of the flavor for their cultures comes from their genetics. Elves can live for hundreds of years. What would that be like? How would just that simple fact effect the culture and personality of a people? Pretty drastically, IMHO, so in my world the Elves have some odd idiosyncracies that humans find simply baffling. Some big, some little, but all with a reason behind them. That said, each individual is different, and PCs by their very nature tend to be unique. So if someone wants to play a different race, they will still infuse that character with his own personality. But I do encourage my players to think about the differences between races ("Imagine these people that you're adventuring with -- your friends -- will be dead and buried in just a few short years, while you'll be still just as strong and vital as you are today. How does that affect the way you view them, and the way you view yourself?"). And near-immortality is just one of the many physical things that makes them different. They can see in the dark. They tend to be more physically graceful, but less muscular than humans. And so on. The other things have an effect on their culture (and their personalities) as well. Now, an Elf who grows up among humans is not going to pick up on all of the things that make Elvish culture different, but they most likely still aren't going to just be a human-with-pointy-ears. And the other races have their own physical, cultural, linguistic, and personal idiosyncracies as well. Some of them are pretty well-developed, others are just placeholders for rough ideas, until a player wants to actually play one in a game and I have to come up with something.

Re: Today's Dumb Criminal Story ... I guarantee this is what was going through his mind... "Hey, there's a huge box of quarters here in the garage, buried under a bunch of other crap, with a half-inch of dust on it. They don't even know it's here! Because if they did, they wouldn't just leave it sitting out here in storage. There's gotta be at least 30 or 40 dollars worth in here, and they don't even know it! ...Dude, if I took it, they wouldn't even realize it was gone. How cool is that?"

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... To quote Shakespeare: "Though she be but little, she is FIERCE!"

Re: And now, for your daily dose of cute... I love that pic. Twin girls, daddy plays guitar for them and they dance. My little girl loves to dance to music too.

Re: The cranky thread See, I think you should take this as an opportunity to create a great story out of it. Pick up a hitchhiker and say something like, "Oh, don't worry about the bloodstains. They're from someone else. I never kill you college kids; I'm more into nurses."

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? I've got a ton of different (player) races in my long-running Fantasy Hero game. In the West (where most campaigns take place), you've got pretty much the standard Tolkien-esque races: - Humans - Hobbits (3 varieties) - Elves (5 varieties) - Dwarves (3 varieties) - Godstouched (with either divine or demonic blood) In the South, you've got: - Humans - Saurians (lizard men, 2 varieties) - Wemic (lion men) - Osirans (egyptian demi-gods, sorta) - Godstouched (with elemental blood -- fire, sea, wind, sand) In the South-East, I have: - Humans - Bengali (tiger-men) - Punjabi (kinda like elves, kinda) - Tamili (tiny flying bear-like critters) - Urdu (kinda like dwarves, kinda) - Vanara (monkey men) In the Far East, I have: - Humans - Hengeyokai (animal shape-shifters) - Korobokuru (kinda like dwarves) - Nezumi (rat-men) - Godstouched (5 varieties -- sea, sky, mountain, forest, and sun) So depending on where the game takes place, there's all sorts of varieties (even enough to keep Crosshair Collie happy, I'd wager). There's a logical explanation for the wide variety of sapient races, but it's not particularly important to the players so it's never really come up. They all just assume "it's magic!" and are happy with that.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I put myself in the "love 'em" column. The thing about Covenant that folks should understand is...

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Pretty much you either love the Covenant books or you hate 'em.

Re: I have a dream. (and MAN was it wierd!) We had set up a "Cabin in the Woods" thing, in which a handful of young men and women would be sacrificed in gruesome ways to appease the elder gods. But during the night, the young folks had scattered into the woods and we had lost track of them. When morning came, we found one of the women who had apparently tried to hide in a hollow tree. She was dead. We sent a team of soldiers and helicopters in to retrieve the body, but it was a trap! The girl was not dead, and her friends were lying in ambush around the area. One of them shot down our chopper. The others attacked our troops. One of the girls had managed to catch one of our monsters (a dinosaur) and was riding it around, crunching our vehicles and soldiers. One of our tanks fled from the chaos, chased by the dinosaur. I was running along with the tank, fleeing the destruction of our forces. Part of me felt proud that these kids had managed to subvert the whole thing, and I was thinking that the Elder Gods would be pleased by the carnage, even if it wasn't what we had planned. The tank and I, still chased by the dinosaur, fled up into the mountains along a narrow, rutted trail. I was getting tired, and the tank was running low on gas. I was thinking, "There's no way the dinosaur could still be chasing us, it must be exhausted as well!" But it was still there on our tail, and gaining! The dino made a heroic leap and landed on the ridge ahead of us. I immediately turned around and ran the other way, hoping that destroying the tank would slow it down enough that I could get away. I ran back down the mountain until I found a place to hide. I crawled up under a boulder and hoped when the dino came back it would continue along the path and miss me. I didn't count on the girl's other friends though, who had been following us up the mountain more slowly. They spotted me, pointed their weapons, and told me to come out. I had no other choice, so I raised my hands and came out. I said that I would tell them everything about what was going on...

Re: "Neat" Pictures Giant Praying Mantis just outside my front door. I took this pic in July. That sucker was huge!

Re: "Neat" Pictures About 20 minutes outside of Denver...

Re: Creepy Pics. That is my backside.

Re: Creepy Pics. Nice pic. They captured my good side.

Re: Fantasy Race Bloat? ::waves::

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... GM: This is a hospital for patients with serious mental illnesses. PC#1: Can we talk with them? GM: They're suffering from all sorts of delusions. They hear voices. They'll talk to you whether you're there or not. Me: Great! That should save us from having to make the trip down there!

Re: Jokes

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life. Him: What am I, an idiot? Me: Yeah, kind of. Him: Dude! You just called me an idiot! Me: No, YOU called you an idiot. I only agreed with you!