Really? Really?!?

Alex, I'm with you.  I never could put into words what I disliked about halflings before I read your take.  My main complaint is that they're supposed to be small/weak, but I started with 3.x and so inevitably the highest damage dealer was some bizarrely kitted out halfling which always bugged me.  I think the last straw for me was the Pathfinder Cavalier, a class built on charging with a lance, where it inevitably made more sense to take the minor strength hit to be a halfling so you could ride a mount that could actually come with you into the dungeon.

[quote="DrPete"] Wicked Witch. Evil Queen. White Witch. The seduction of a "Dark Lord" who is not a military leader is really more of a female thing, is it not? I'd remove much of my objection if this were a "Dark Mistress" class in the Auran Empire and in the book art, since it would be much less an attempt to reflect a real life dude. Can we all get behind that? [/quote]

A dark lord is a well established trope, although I've always assumed it was less about your abilities and more about your state of mind.  Wizards and Clerics can easily be dark lords.  Mechanically, minion masters are a time honored tradition that, alongside heal-over-time spells, have never been able to make a satisfying jump from videogames to pen & paper.  Conceptually, it's fine.  

 

The WEIRD part is how strongly this guy identifies with being a dark overlord.  And not just a sympathetic or dynamic villain, the world is full of pubescant boys with the Joker as their online avatar.  No, everything that came up involved him referring to himself as the dark lord, as well as an unhealthy obsession with a certain political figure he refers to as "God-Emperor".

 

Now I'm going to nip in the bud that, between what I just said and people's objections to the faceless minions eating SJWs the idea that "this liberal has no sense of humor."  To Quote Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force: "I get it. It ain't makin' me laugh but I get it."  I understand that the "joke" is that the "SJWs" consider him so awful that they think they're ACTUALLY being consumed.  

 

I've got some analysis on this topic to make in the form of two points.  

First: Fantasy games and art are full of jokes.  the DCC rulebook features a piece of art of a female warrior in a chainmail bikini next to a fully armored fighter asking "why does your armor give the same AC?".  These are plays on existing tropes that have emerged from play.  The SJW "joke" is inserting humor not largely shared by the tabletop audience, and even for those who get it, I don't think it's unreasonable to say it's a bigger challenge to suspension of disbelief than most jokes.  

Second, I have had the misfortune of sharing hobbies with people like this elsewhere, especially Paradox grand strategy games.  It's all fun and "DEUS VULT" and "0/10 did not Remove Kebab" until someone actually spraypaints "Deus Vult, Saracens Go Home" on a mosque in europe.  There are a few (just a few, I'm not making broad strokes here) who are happy to use the smokescreen of fake awful humor as a way to test out their actually awful beliefs. They know they can retreat into irony if someone responds with "oh god, that's horrible".  I'm not saying we should give up on awful humor, what I'm saying is the people who go "wow, this guy is messed up" are not necessarily overly sensitive or humorless when they're suspicious of guys like him.

 

But as I re-itereated earlier in the thread: I'm not going anywhere.  This is my hobby too. Theodore doesn't get to taint my association with a game I love just because he has a lot of people willing to spend money on his behalf.  I don't think less of my name being in Sinister Stone of Sakkara as compared to my other backer listings because that one happens to share space with him.  If he bought the same car as me, I wouldn't feel compelled to buy a different car (maybe I would if he was being paid to promote the car).  I certainly considered it when I first learned about this guy, though, so I hold no judgement for people who decided to withdraw their pledges, and I hope they won't think less of those of us who choose to stay.

 

Anyway, ranting aside: I'll re-iterate a question.  If I go into the comments and type "For the Chosen One" or "I'm one with the Force, the Force is with me" or whatever, do I have to pledge additional money to contribute to the goal, or does some/all of my existing pledge get put into a bucket?

 

To clarify how I handled this - I tallied up total pledges based on the marginal value (e.g. after cost of billing, goods, and shipping is substracted). That way I ensured that Autarch's needs were met. Everything remaining in the pledge then got "allocated" towards the expense of the tier. It works out to about 70% of pledge for most pledge levels. Last I checked the "Dark Lord" pledge value was at $2,133 or about twice the amount of $1,000 needed. 

I had intended it to be as a way to excite new backers, of course, but I'm perfectly happy to retroactively "assign" a pledge too, and have taken note of those who've pledged For the Light on the KS. After all once we get into bonus goal territory (like we are now) the Kickstarter becomes highly profitable so absorbing the cost of some B&W illustrations and design work in order to make people feel good about the product they receive is A-OK to me.  

The pledge drive idea is actually sufficiently interesting that I might try something in future campaigns, like offering two options "A" and "B" to go in the book and whichever side gets pledged the most is what I'll choose. Preferably something less controversial next time, like a cover design. 

Unrelated: I feel a big reason why heal over time (and damage over time) effects have never made a satisfying jump to tabletop is because of the way time is tracked.

A round is simply too long of a time for it to feel impactful and really be over-time. A Hackmasteresque system, that tracks seconds instead of rounds, or a more abstract version that tracks ‘ticks’ (that I have thought about but never done anything with), I feel would be much more likely to be able to bet DoT and HoT effects to feel good because they would continue to do things at times when the caster could not directly take actions themselves.

[quote="Aryxymaraki"]

Mechanically, minion masters are a time honored tradition that, alongside heal-over-time spells, have never been able to make a satisfying jump from videogames to pen & paper.  Conceptually, it's fine.  

 


-Jard

Unrelated: I feel a big reason why heal over time (and damage over time) effects have never made a satisfying jump to tabletop is because of the way time is tracked. A round is simply too long of a time for it to feel impactful and really be over-time. A Hackmasteresque system, that tracks seconds instead of rounds, or a more abstract version that tracks 'ticks' (that I have thought about but never done anything with), I feel would be much more likely to be able to bet DoT and HoT effects to feel good because they would continue to do things at times when the caster could not directly take actions themselves. [/quote]

Ahhhh, now there's the kind of discussions you expect to see on these boards.  

It's probably my fault, I found an old monkey's paw that granted wishes and I said "I wish there was more posting on the Autarch Forums" while holding it.

[quote="Jard"] Ahhhh, now there's the kind of discussions you expect to see on these boards.  

It's probably my fault, I found an old monkey's paw that granted wishes and I said "I wish there was more posting on the Autarch Forums" while holding it. [/quote]

Monkeys' paws generally aren't too bad, in my experience. Compared to some GMs' wish spells, anyway. I've had players who were so badly burned by wish spells that I could grant them exactly what they wanted and asked for with no side effect, and they'd freak out wondering what the hidden catch is and when it would appear. I remember a guy I knew once handed me a proposed wish spell he'd written up that was intended to get him the Wand of Orcus without side effects... It had so many clauses. And his attempt to protect himself didn't work; The GM siezed on the multiple possible meanings of 'appear' in order to present him with an intangible illusion surrounded by an impenetrible wall of force.

Myself, I cut my GMing chops running Paranoia. It was a great game... And more impotantly for this discussion, it taught me when not to "creatively interpret" a player's wishes. See, Paranoia's robot NPCs are frequently either painfully or malevolently literal, so attempting to command an AI in that game is a minefield... And there's nothing like saturation to teach you when making things hard can be counter-productive.

On an unrelated note, I'm amazed how civil the discussion in this thread has been.

[quote="GMJoe"]

On an unrelated note, I'm amazed how civil the discussion in this thread has been.

[/quote]

I'm not. We're all good Lawful folk 'bout these parts. Neutral at worst. :)

I for one put my vote FOR THE SHIRE.  Nothing says 'old school oddity' quite like a front-rank of heavily armored halfling warriors, cap-a-pie in BX 60gp plate mail, terrorizing enemies in a 10' wide passage with their nigh unhittable armor class (and of course, a 2nd rank of spearmen or pole arm users that strike above the halfling's heads).  "Little killers", we used to call them.  It's high time these doughty warriors take their place as the fearsome combat terrors we love and need.

Kidding aside, this whole episode about the internet-troll supporting ACKS forced me to get some mental distance about what's going on.  You have a project backer (the trollish character) who's bringing dollars to the table and lots of support, and in turn gets direction on an art order.  Our beloved publisher has assured us the book will be apolitical, professional, and the art will be appropriate to the genre.  The thing that got under my skin was 'the dark lord' boasting to his sycophants that the art would depict him or his minions destroying what he calls 'SJW's'.  Whatever.  At the end of the day, I'm confident a cool picture of an evil overlord will end up enhancing the book and fitting the genre, and I'm just going to ignore the drivel.  Gaming can transcend politics and there's a lot of good stuff going on here.  More backers brings us that much closer to The Little Killers.

Besides, I think we're missing the point on who is the real evil genius in all this - he's got sides bidding up their campaigns to back new character classes, he's dangling hard cover books to lure the reticent (I got sucked into King, too).  Your strings are getting pulled and you’re all doing the Kickstarter Dance, people!  I'm on to you, Alex.

[quote="Beedo"]

I for one put my vote FOR THE SHIRE.  Nothing says 'old school oddity' quite like a front-rank of heavily armored halfling warriors, cap-a-pie in BX 60gp plate mail, terrorizing enemies in a 10' wide passage with their nigh unhittable armor class (and of course, a 2nd rank of spearmen or pole arm users that strike above the halfling's heads).  "Little killers", we used to call them.  It's high time these doughty warriors take their place as the fearsome combat terrors we love and need.

Kidding aside, this whole episode about the internet-troll supporting ACKS forced me to get some mental distance about what's going on.  You have a project backer (the trollish character) who's bringing dollars to the table and lots of support, and in turn gets direction on an art order.  Our beloved publisher has assured us the book will be apolitical, professional, and the art will be appropriate to the genre.  The thing that got under my skin was 'the dark lord' boasting to his sycophants that the art would depict him or his minions destroying what he calls 'SJW's'.  Whatever.  At the end of the day, I'm confident a cool picture of an evil overlord will end up enhancing the book and fitting the genre, and I'm just going to ignore the drivel.  Gaming can transcend politics and there's a lot of good stuff going on here.  More backers brings us that much closer to The Little Killers.

Besides, I think we're missing the point on who is the real evil genius in all this - he's got sides bidding up their campaigns to back new character classes, he's dangling hard cover books to lure the reticent (I got sucked into King, too).  Your strings are getting pulled and you’re all doing the Kickstarter Dance, people!  I'm on to you, Alex.

[/quote]

Thanks! This was well put and is a good summation of things. 

The illustration of the Dark Lord class is just going to be a picture of me next to my Kickstarter crowdfunding total. Hehe.

 

[quote="Alex"] The illustration of the Dark Lord class is just going to be a picture of me next to my Kickstarter crowdfunding total. Hehe. [/quote]

"I love the smell of Internet bunfights in the morning. Smells like... victory!"

 

 

[quote="GMJoe"] On an unrelated note, I'm amazed how civil the discussion in this thread has been. [/quote]

I'm not. There aren't any political brownie points to be won in the thread, since Alex is maintaining Glorious Neutrality; more importantly, the numbers of people engaged in the argument seem relatively even to either side, and a number of people have already expressed a desire to not see this descend into a political row. 

End result is that the social status cost/benefit ratio of sticking the boot in is skewed towards cost, and these chimp-brains of ours are really good at making that sort of calculation without conscious input, so people instinctively don't do it.

 

[quote="Alex"] ... As long as you support adventuring and conquest, don't mind a goddess of love and war served by scantily-clad bladedancers, and understand why halflings should not be a default PC race, you are welcome here. [/quote]

 

Seriously though, screw halflings.

Cake-huffing little bastards, the lot of 'em.

Death, reanimation, followed by second death's too good for 'em.

It's late, and doesn't change anything, but I want to say I fully support Alex in this.

Here's where I'm at in general, and it's got nothing to do with Vox specifically, or even with Autarch (which probably doesn't endorse what I'm about to say).  It has to do with seeing gaming forums start to declare opinions and people beyond the pale, and what I've seen is that doesn't stop.  There's a neverending stream of people fed to the alligators of banning, until it's just a circle-jerk of approved opinions.

This isn't a unique feature of gaming forums; it's part of a general social trend that's just copied over into our little niche.  It's part of the trend to exile wrong-thinkers from polite society.  But you're not actually changing minds, you're just training people to shut their mouths and keep their heads down.

For those who don't keep their mouths shut, social ostracization is just the opener.  Step two is to come for their livelihoods.  It's not enough to not hang out with them, they need to be fired, or their business boycotted.  Because making a living is too much to allow a wrong-thinker.

And what I can't help but notice is that today, it's mostly one side of the political divide that's willing to cut off friendships and end peoples' livelihoods.  However politely and reasonably Rhetorical Gamer and Verita express themselves above, that is the game they're playing.  "No association with the extremists, and we get to define who the extremists are."  Well, I'm done with that.  Your side has already spent that currency.  I've seen it too many times before, and I'm fed up with it.  The only people on any side I'm going to boycott or cut off are the people who use boycotts and ostracism.  Anyone else, I don't have to defend them, endorse their positions or excuse myself in order to associate with them in a thing we used to call "civil society."  A civil society that Rhetorical Gamer and Verita above have rejected, however measured the terms they try to express it in here.

With respect… the new thing here is not people shunning racists. It’s the racists asking people to tolerate their “wrongthink”. Abhorrent views are abhorrent. It’s not “brave” it’s just gross. Many people don’t want it here, but they also don’t want to have to argue about whether it’s ok because “please take it somewhere else”

Dave, DrPete - I appreciate that both of you have maintained a respectful tone here.

General question for all of you. Would you prefer that I:

  1. Lock this thread since a plan of action has been established
  2. Leave this thread open but only specifically for THIS issue
  3. Leave this thread open for general (polite) political discussion
  4. Seize power in the White House and institute a new regime that balances stronghold development with urban investment, rural investment, magic research, and festivals.

I'm for #4 but it might need a bigger Kickstarter so we can retain Edward Luttwak

 

I see plusses and minuses to 1-3 and can't say which one I think is the better solution.  Therefore #4 can be the only choice.

[quote="Alex"]

 

  1. Seize power in the White House and institute a new regime that balances stronghold development with urban investment, rural investment, magic research, and festivals.

[/quote]

Change the law that requires a US president to be US-born and you can have Conan the Terminator on the American Throne!

I think we can just agreen that “current host of the Apprentice” should be in the line of succession going forward…

I do want to apologize for my lack of civility on this issue. I’ve been discovering my inner paladin.

As to the thread, I guess I’m neutral. I would be interested in the occasional update on the competition between the two sides, but I don’t need to hear people keep visiting the boards to say “White nationalists are people, too. Please don’t be mad at us.” or “You guys are the intolerant ones for not being cool with it”

[quote="Alex"]

Dave, DrPete - I appreciate that both of you have maintained a respectful tone here.

General question for all of you. Would you prefer that I:

  1. Lock this thread since a plan of action has been established
  2. Leave this thread open but only specifically for THIS issue
  3. Leave this thread open for general (polite) political discussion
  4. Seize power in the White House and institute a new regime that balances stronghold development with urban investment, rural investment, magic research, and festivals.

I'm for #4 but it might need a bigger Kickstarter so we can retain Edward Luttwak

 

[/quote] You forgot 5. Start passing around the ostraka in the finest tradition of Greek democracy. [/sarcasm]