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Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
Wow, look at that.

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Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
@Evil Mastermind

(We're doing this on the blog if you're ok with that, I just figured I'd pop in and say hello just to see if this account worked)

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
@Evil Mastermind

Please say whether it is ok if we do this on my blog or whether we have to do it here.

It is up to you.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
@Rulebook

I never said I was insulted.

I'm just trying to start with things we can agree on.

Relax, pony.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
Sometimes

It's fun

To pretend

You're tweeting

@PhilipLarkin

buddy

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
For the record, I don't think any entire forum is a bunch of dickheads.

I also don't think I've ever seen a forum devoid of dickheads.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Armani posted:

I really loved the part where he assumed that all her drinking buddies are sluts thats my favorite!!

Yeah, anytime I hear "all (gender) does is TALK" its usually a red flag that they (the complainer) actually mean they can't carry more than a sentence in public and will full shut into a zone and never actually interject, thus letting the person talk for a while.
Actually those were her words.
But you guys seem to be having a lot of fun with this so carry on.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Armani posted:

Because he'd rather Grog about bullshit rather than actually play a loving game

Would it bother you if I told you about all the games I played this week and it turned out
to be a lot or would you just be like "Hey, its the internet, I make up facts and type them,
don't get mad about it." ?

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Armani posted:

You're right.

Tell me more about how this woman being overly social means you're terrified of her having a position of power over military-grade weapons.

Either you missed the point or I did not write well enough to explain how obviously conflicted and confused and angry this girl obviously was in a way that had nothing to do with gender or you decided I was a jerk before you even read that thing and assumed it means something it does not mean.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Assumethisisreal posted:

I can vouch for this. Zak talks about games he is in on G+ all the time. He plays more than anyone I know, in a variety of systems.

Just because he's too much of a Grog morphodite to play in person.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Zak S posted:

Just because he's too much of a Grog morphodite to play in person.
Wow, you're right guys, this IS fun.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Dr Nick posted:

Actually, I can attest that what you wrote was confusing. Either the quote didn't catch the context or you made some sort of stylistic choice in how you told the story that didn't really convey how crazy this girl was. We were left with: "She was a young woman and I was annoyed that she was talking to me/scared that she was in charge of bombs and personnel". The things you quoted her saying didn't seem that angry or crazy.

Well then Dr Nick, we have once again discovered that when you read what I write your takeaway is completely different than what I meant or actually think. It is apparently an insoluble problem unless next time you think I just said something cuh-rayyyyzy like "Oh noes a girl talks a lot to me!" you just ask me what I meant.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Dr Nick posted:

No need to get defensive. I'm not the one who said that I'm just giving you a heads up that it's a valid interpretation of the words you wrote. If it's not what you meant you may want to think about that. If you don't care then don't but just understand that people reading it might get confused.

If I had cared more about the things you wrote I might have asked you for clarification. As it is, I don't read your blog so the only exposure I have to you is here (however unfortunate that may be for you)

if you actually care what I think about women or games or anything: please ask, I am always eager to talk about games with anyone. If you don't care: then please stop talking about me altogether since you don't care but maybe realize I'm an actual person and so are the girls in my group. Is that a reasonable thing to ask?

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Mikan posted:

Why did you do the morphodite thing as an insult, transphobia is Not Cool

I was making fun of the kind of person who would take some tiny snippet of something someone said out of context and turn it into a personal attack. That person would use the word "morphodite" as an insult because that person is not a good person.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

mllaneza posted:

Let's go back to the thing about the commas. I think you're missing at least two in that paragraph.

I am a terrible writer--everyone knows that already. Also, I totally delete peoples' comments when the person making them is personally abusive because otherwise the comments become boring real fast as people snark back and forth. If you think that's unfair, tell me what you think I should do instead and we'll talk about it, but don't assume it's for some petty reason.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Assumethisisreal posted:

Hey Zak, why do you prefer old school D&D over 4e?

I don't really. I played 4e last week and had a blast. System doesn't matter very much to me--GM and GM style is way more important. I have never had the kinds of divisive difficult gaming experiences it sounds like a lot of people on this forum have had that made them upset about whole systems.

As a GM, I just run my weird ad&d/3.5 hack because it's the one that I knew already when I re-started gaming and it works well and we all have a lot of fun when we roll and I can pretty much cram new ideas into it at will. So: it ain't broke and is malleable so I haven't bothered to retool my campaign to a different system. If I already knew 4e (or any other system) backwards and forwards instead of AD&D/3.5 when I started I probably would've played that instead. And hacked it all up.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

mandrake776 posted:

You're not just bad at writing, you're bad at communicating with people in general. You deleted his posts because he had been mean to you here in grognards.txt before that conversation even started.
Yes--as I just said "I delete people's posts when that person is personally abusive". I don't care where they are abusive. Those people are not people I want to talk about games with.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Dr Nick posted:

Serious question: Are you projecting, is this a persecution complex or are you genuinely confusing me with someone else? I've been nothing but polite to you.

I'm not talking about the conversation we're having now, I'm talking about things you said before I popped up.
Earlier in this forum you implied some very nasty things about me and the business I am in. Maybe I am confusing you with someone else. I am not bored enough to Google it.

Though for the short and less egregious version, there's you being less than charitable on page 1726 post 18:01.

quote:

It begs the question, though: why did you start a blog if you have trouble with writing?
You know how it says in elementary school writing class how you are supposed to write "For the assigned audience"? This particular audience I am talking to now--I am horrible at communicating with it. Many other audiences, however, we get along very well and many productive fun things have come out of writing my blog and being read by those audiences, so I keep doing it. It is an unfortunate side effect that this particular audience here also reads my blog since I am so bad at making myself understood to it.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Dr Nick posted:

I assure you that you are.


Clarity is one of those writing skills that really transcends audience. Your target audience may understand you because they're willing to take the time to fill in the blanks. Some people aren't. I have another question for you: How hard do you think a reader should have to work in order to discover a writer's intent? You've alredy made it clear you expect the reader to contact you directly if they misunderstand something (though honestly I have a hard time understanding how someone would even know that they had misunderstood something). What if you don't answer right away. Should the reader be required to follow up?

When it comes to something genuinely serious like sexism and misogyny? That's a very serious issue. Like I said earlier Nick: either you care what I actually think or you don't. If you don't, move on to someone else. If you do: ask. It's no harder to write me a comment asking what I meant than to leave a comment snarking at me and assuming I meant something dumb.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
Wow. What a weird place. Now I have a completely insane avatar and tag that I did not put there.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Triple-Kan posted:

The Beetlejuice avatar would seem to be mocking him for googling his own name and appearing wherever mentioned, so I vote mean.

It's cute how you assumed I ended up here because I googled my name. I guess the unsubstantiated personal attack thing is just sort of par for the course. But, actually, people write to me and go "Hey, they're on about you over on g.txt again". Also, the girls read other parts of SA a lot because SA talks about them a lot because they do porn--so sometimes they notice.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Mystic Mongol posted:

Is that... better?

Hey, if you're going to be despised by people for stuff they themselves made up about you, you might as well enjoy it.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Liesmith posted:

Actually I despise him, because his posts are dull as heck and he apparently refuses to engage with people who have ever been impolite. I dunno who you are Zac S but you bore me
Then you should probably not have posted that because it prompted me to respond which I'm sure is boring you even more. So your life is getting worse even as I type this. Like, with every single solitary extra word I put in here. I guess I could just keep typing and making you suffer more but you've probably had enough.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Evil Mastermind posted:

Hey, uh, Zak?

Remember last time when you asked me to tell you when you were saying something stupid.

Yeah...
Thanks, EM--what is the preferred method of addressing internally inconsistent and misspelled personal attacks on SA?

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Dr Pepper posted:

You laugh at them.

Even if it's just sad? I mean, isn't that kind of cruel? The poor guy is so bored by me but complaining about it just makes everyone talk about me more. It's like he's caught in this cruel Sissyphean paradox.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Dr Pepper posted:

The internet ladies and gentlemen.

BTW you're my favorite drink.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Evil Mastermind posted:

Kinky.

I could be completely honest and say how my favorite drink is actually Cherry Dr Pepper with whiskey but that sounds even kinkier.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Assumethisisreal posted:

I fixed that for you. Dr. Pepper is horrible swill.

Well it's better than that anime emo bullshit Mr Pibb, that's for sure. Every time I see someone drinking it I just want to go "Don't you get it? We don't care if the sodium phosphate completely overbalances the malic acid because we're Old School like that!"

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Assumethisisreal posted:

Sodium phosphate ruins my VERISIMILITUDE.

It's like they don't get that the drink is supposed to be about pepper. It's right there in the name. What even is a "Pibb" anyway?

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Quality_Guaranteed posted:

You know, this whole situation reminds me of a certain scene of my fantasy novel that I'm writing and hoping to get published and make a movie out of.
I just quoted that because I thought it was funny. Anyway, my seeking the "validation of others" is a thing you made up. I already said what I was doing here. If you don't believe me then you say that and then I'll explain it to you.

What this situation reminds me of, on the other hand, is that time it came out that the real reason BT was so angry with me wasn't anything I said or did but because he was a self-described "prude" and hates hearing about people who aren't. So I posted a few dozen paragraphs of true porn stories--and then everybody else started doing it, too. That was fun.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Red_Mage posted:

Hey Zak S, you're alright. But don't delete comments that aren't spam, its less like a judge striking things from the court record and more like photoshopping your ex out of your vacation photos if you get what I'm saying

Hey, I got my policy for a reason. When one person starts personal attacks, then some other poster argues back and then (if you have a blog with a lot of readers) instead of getting to read about game stuff in the comments you read about who doesn't like who and backbiting and it's boring.

I have comments on the blog so we can have a conversation about games and I very deliberately want to exclude people who make unwarranted personal attacks from that conversation. If you don't do that on a blog and you have hundreds of regular readers you soon get a comments section that looks like RPGsite on a bad day and its no fun to read (and impossible to follow) and I don't learn anything new and it makes the hobby not fun anymore just a bunch of petty BS. I don't want to host people who do that. They have the whole rest of the internet to talk smack on, it's not like I'm getting in the way of their freedom of speech.

On blogs with less readers, it's not a big deal, but if you have a lot, you need to either regulate or just sign up for a twice a month snarkfest. It's not like I'm pretending I didn't do it: I fully admit it. Attack me or anybody else and you're gone along with all trace of how not-useful you are to a conversation about games.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

mandrake776 posted:

Right, but you were deleting comments because someone had said something about you on a different site like a month before that. That's not the same thing.

To me it is. A poster who starts with a personal attack--period--is not someone I want in a conversation. Ever. That is a sign that they are not going to be someone who is going to produce fun new game stuff. If they come and go "Look, I was a jerk, that was bad, I'm sorry" then ok--maybe.

But seriously--I get like 20 messages a week that say "LOL gurls cant play DnD cos all they kno how 2 do is suck dik". I do not have infinite patience and I don't have time to talk to every single person who wants to talk about games with me or debate with them about all the hairs they want to split. I have to draw the line somewhere. I draw it starting with people who do the ad hominem thing. No matter where they do it.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Red_Mage posted:

Nah I get you about Signal to Noise, but like your blog is not really a forum, it is a blog. It kind of comes with a different set of expectations
Yeah, I expect forums to be mostly useless and full of personal attacks. That's why I have a blog, so I don't have to read "Pron stars dont play D&D they just pertend to doo it". I get to delete that guy. And I get to delete the guy who says Satine is a whore and I get to delete the guy who says Jesus hates Kimberly and I get to delete the paranoid guy who assumes every word out of my mouth is some hackneyed attack on whatever game he plays. And then talk about some useful stuff instead. Or at least tell some jokes.

So on DNDWPS--expect that.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
Found some awesome grog.

quote:

Ha ha, she knows her loving audience: she links to her wish list down the right hand side of her blog!

"Hi, I'm Mandy, thanks for checking out my wishlist...

quote:

i find it more interesting that she wants size 10 1/2 men's boots myself
(Obviously, they were for me.)

Laex posted:

What about those 5 Indoor/Outdoor 25-Foot orange general purpose grounded extension cords?
Because why would a girl need an extension cord, right? Girls don't know how to use machines.

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Drox posted:

Are you assuming that we will act as one and rush to the defense of Goon Brothers saying stupid crap two years ago?

Because what's going to happen is that you're going to get more poo poo for searching your own name and looking like a big whiny jerk in general.

No kitten, Mandy was just trying to remember where the first heard about this forum so she was looking at links. She says hi, BTW. Since nobody bought her an account she said "Hey Zak, post this".

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Drox posted:

Okay? What I'm saying, vis a vis your apparently continuing quest to understand basic human communication, is that regardless of your motive or intent you look like an idiot calling people out (most of whom are no longer present or banned, at first blush) for stupid things they said two years ago.

I have relayed your comment on what Mandy asked me to post to Mandy: "I get it, that kitten's idea of misogyny is more important than mine. It's ok, I'm just a girl."

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012
Mandy: "Are there any girls who post in that thread?"

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

mandrake776 posted:

To be fair, that kitten is adorable.

"The confusing thing is our pup is named Drax The Destroyer and that kitten is named Drox and my eyesight isn't very good so I keep thinking the dog got an account on a website and is yelling at my boyfriend."

Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Red_Mage posted:

Out of morbid curiosity, since you seem to be in the loop on this, are wishlists really just "appreciate what I am doing? Buy me this thing."

Mandy: "Yep. Like tipping a stripper. People do it. Some people are into 'Financial Domination' too. It's a fetish. You can Google it. I was amazed at how much people send. Somebody just gave me this amazing electric wheelchair after I announced I needed one."

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Zak S
Mar 1, 2012

Drox posted:

You're a dunce.
Mandy: "Kitten calls porn actress dunce! I love that. That's going in a Call of Cthulhu game."