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What is the best version of El? This poll is closed. |
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| Elminster |
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20 | 6.45% |
| Elmara |
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20 | 6.45% |
| Entwine |
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13 | 4.19% |
| GURPS |
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99 | 31.94% |
| El Kabong |
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153 | 49.35% |
| Elves |
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5 | 1.61% |
| Total: | 310 votes | ||
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Having looked up and looked into the Trevor Project, it seems like a good enough place to donate to. Goonrushing a charity out of spite might not be the best intentions, but it does seem to be leading to good results. 
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Aug 11, 2014 08:13
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 13:21 |
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As someone who has little idea what's going on, I can't express how little anything I've seen here has done to reassure me that Zak S is a Horrible Evil Bigot Worthy Of Contempt Who Definitely Deserves This or whatever. Could anyone link something he clearly did that was clearly wrong, and not just him being a boring turd who gets into SJ fights?
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Aug 11, 2014 08:15
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Plague of Hats posted:See? He just wants to ask when you stopped loving pigs! So that we can clear up this whole misunderstanding. About your pigfucking. FTFY
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Aug 11, 2014 08:19
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Well, extensive prior history aside, the very fact that he's holding charitable donations hostage on the grounds of 'do you care about being right, or do you care about ~your cause~?' is some like badly written cartoon villain poo poo.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:21
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neongrey posted:Well, extensive prior history aside, the very fact that he's holding charitable donations hostage on the grounds of 'do you care about being right, or do you care about ~your cause~?' is some like badly written cartoon villain poo poo. I mean, come on, really? Badly written cartoon villain poo poo? What, is this some Golden Age Lex Luthor plot? "Bwahaha, Superman! If you talk to me... I will donate $100 to the charity of your choice!" E: It's kind of... I don't know, crass, maybe? Representative of the kind of personality that fans the flames of any controversy around them because they can't shut up, I guess, but not evil.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:25
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Cycloneman posted:As someone who has little idea what's going on, I can't express how little anything I've seen here has done to reassure me that Zak S is a Horrible Evil Bigot Worthy Of Contempt Who Definitely Deserves This or whatever. Could anyone link something he clearly did that was clearly wrong, and not just him being a boring turd who gets into SJ fights? Someone in this thread linked him using transphobic slurs as an insult, I'm pretty sure several other people could dig up things like him telling people they deserve to die for disagreeing with him, and then there's the stuff I covered here, with bonus seebs and Mandy appearances. Summary of my post if you don't feel like reading it: Zak's done even more transphobic stuff in addition to the aforementioned slurs, has harassed and stalked a bunch of people, and once put together a list of people's real names and gave it to his followers for them to make threats to until they complied with his demands to un-+1 a post on G+. He's also putting together another list of names, this time aimed at people who've liked or forwarded the Fail Forward article linked in my above link. Edit: He's also trying to get someone blacklisted from the industry for having posted about harassment John Tarnowski (aka The RPG Pundit, other awful dude at the center of this) sent her for more or less no reason. That's also linked in my post there. So, yeah. That's not even a comprehensive list, that's what I could think of off the top of my head. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 08:28
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Cycloneman posted:Having read the blog post, I find that to be a ridiculously obviously biased reinterpretation of it, and it honestly makes me less confident in the general "he is so evil" going around. So basically we've settled on the fact that Zak S may not be Hitler reincarnated but he's still kind of a complete loving rear end in a top hat. Great, glad we could clear that up as I'm sure some of the people in this thread may have gotten him confused with actual cartoon supervillains otherwise.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:33
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to be fair, hitler reincarnated with a healthy upbringing could theoretically be far less of an rear end in a top hat than zak s e:  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 11, 2014 08:35
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Cycloneman posted:I mean, come on, really? Badly written cartoon villain poo poo? What, is this some Golden Age Lex Luthor plot? "Bwahaha, Superman! If you talk to me... I will donate $100 to the charity of your choice!" No, I called it that because it's a very specific faux clever double-bind. The 'if you don't go along with what I want you to do, you're responsible for witholding money from this charity' aspect of this attempt to bait people who have literally gone into hiding from him into engaging is very very tired.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:38
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Cycloneman posted:As someone who has little idea what's going on, I can't express how little anything I've seen here has done to reassure me that Zak S is a Horrible Evil Bigot Worthy Of Contempt Who Definitely Deserves This or whatever. Could anyone link something he clearly did that was clearly wrong, and not just him being a boring turd who gets into SJ fights? Here is a pretty long blogpost that isn't just about him. Zak is the Rebellious Artist. He literally created an Enemies List, which led to some pretty predictable harassment. But, you know, he (probably) didn't stalk anyone (off the internet anyway) or creepycall them himself so it's not like he did anything wrong! Here is Zak exploiting his sick girlfriend to win an internet slapfight. He is obsessed with Mikan and grogs.txt, thinking that there's some organized conspiracy of prudery against him and that she's in charge of it. (Although lately he's making noise like this is some edition war from vile 4E-lovers. Seems he's been taking lessons from Pundit I guess.) If you tell him that she doesn't like grogs.txt and that she left SA he will straight up call you a liar and put you on his latest list. EFB like wow That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 08:38
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JDCorley posted:But in the Forgotten Realms, you become an adventurer in hopes of becoming rich and famous and getting to bang divine beings and become literally the most important person in the world. Once you look at FR adventuring as being the faux-medieval version of reality TV, Elminster, the other high level NPCs, and the way the world is constructed makes perfect sense. Of course the world is insanely huge, that's because you need to go far away enough from home that you can exaggerate your exploits when you return and not be easily disproved, and also because once you become famous in one area, but blow through all your money buying drugs and having parties, you need to go to some other distant area and become famous there too. Not only should DMs permit "special snowflake" characters like Drizzt at the table, they should send you back to the drawing board until you come up with one. You know I always felt kinda meh about FR but with this perspective in mind I have an urge to give it a shot again but with the most over the top bullshit hilariously gimmicky character I can come up with. Maybe FR grafted onto Pathfinder...
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Aug 11, 2014 08:39
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Cycloneman posted:I mean, come on, really? Badly written cartoon villain poo poo? What, is this some Golden Age Lex Luthor plot? "Bwahaha, Superman! If you talk to me... I will donate $100 to the charity of your choice!" That is almost exactly what he's doing, and it's loving stupid. http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/118227 This is a good example that isn't spread across a billion other social sites. Dude does this everywhere, to everyone, everytime. He then pulls bullshit stunts like this and gets his fan club to go out and harass people even more. (yes there's plenty of evidence, no you can't see it, you're some random internet person not a cop, nobody owes you an ego stroking) The evidence that does get posted is almost always ignored, the goalposts shifted, and the bullshit continues. if it was literally just two people saying mean poo poo online this would be a non-issue (I mean come the gently caress on we're goons) but these loving guys get their fans to do this poo poo and they're too smart to actually say anything in public like "hurf durf everybody go attack this list of folks." because they are assholes, they are harassers, but they're not stupid. But for fun here's his latest thing: 
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Aug 11, 2014 08:41
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The problem I have with that image is that it lacks the fact that it was literally distributed with an image of Mandy in her hospital bed. That's so nakedly manipulative I don't even know what to say.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:44
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Plague of Hats posted:Here is a pretty long blogpost that isn't just about him. Zak is the Rebellious Artist. He literally created an Enemies List, which led to some pretty predictable harassment. But, you know, he (probably) didn't stalk anyone (off the internet anyway) or creepycall them himself so it's not like he did anything wrong! He did make The Dongion as a way to anonymously (except not really because he made all the same typos of people's names that only he makes) insult and harass people, and as Zeea's post in my link states he's definitely hounded people online after they've "wronged" him, though.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:45
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I never really felt any strong affection for the Forgotten Realms, and as a gaming setting it leaves me kind of cold, but after years and years of seeing people flip out over people wanting to play good drow or Drizzt clones I have to admit that I like it just for providing a basic litmus test as to whether or not someone's going to be insufferable to game with; do they sigh, theatrically roll their eyes, and/or go on a longwinded spiel about Drizzt every time someone wants to play or mentions drow? If the answer is yes then you should probably find someone else to game with.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:45
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I really liked the Forgotten Realms for a while, when I was into D&D3. I bought nearly all the books, including some old box sets. This was one of the steps on my journey to getting really tired of books packed to the brim with minute details about poo poo that probably 99% of gamers never actually use even if they like to read it.Roland Jones posted:He did make The Dongion as a way to anonymously (except not really because he made all the same typos of people's names that only he makes) insult and harass people, and as Zeea's post in my link states he's definitely hounded people online after they've "wronged" him, though. I guess I used poor language there. I didn't mean to imply he wasn't an internet stalker. Lots of people seem to make a big distinction between internet-stalking and hiding in the bushes, and I foolishly fed into that.
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Aug 11, 2014 08:51
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I have an instinctive revulsion to all things Drizzt after playing a text game where there were something like ten different variations of the name running around (Driztzz, Dryzt, Drizzit, Dryzzyt, etc) AND THEY WEREN'T EVEN ALL ELVES. All of them were assholes too. Like on a basic level I find Drizzt kind of boring as a character but harping on about it doesn't really help, and most RPGs sort of invite you to be the exceptional unique hero in one fashion or another and if you can't do poo poo like that there of all places where can you?
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Aug 11, 2014 08:54
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Well sure, how many reality show stars do you respond to by saying "I sure find them sympathetic, well portrayed and compellingly produced"? The fun is in being the guy who throws a bottle of wine at his stuffy elf father in law screaming "don't you know who I am?"
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Aug 11, 2014 08:58
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I've never really had a conceptual problem with Drizzt, at least not the one that so many other people seem to have. But years ago I tried reading the books about him, and they ruined him for me. Not because they were super duper awful, but because they were boring. I got within 50 pages of the end of the third book in his origin story trilogy, like right before he gets his second katana or whatever, and I just stopped. I didn't care about any of this poo poo; I couldn't go on. That was the first time I just gave up on a book, too, and I was so close to the end, but god it was impossible. It pretty much soured me on the character.
That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 09:01
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Anyone who has an issue with Drizzt or moans about DRIZZT FANBOYS has, I guarantee, done something far more stupid or played a dumber, less interesting character in the past. Like oh no not snowflakes, not people playing a game who want to be cool and interesting in it, heavens to betsies whatever shall we do. My first D&D party was a human ranger named Aragorn, an elf fighter named Link, a human wizard named Merlin, and a halfling named Farts Buttkiss.
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Aug 11, 2014 09:02
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Basically if someone has hangups about good drow or dual-wielding rangers or whatever you know that they're the sort of person who'll get shirty about dragonborn or tieflings or warforged or any D&D party that isn't two or more humans, one dwarf, one elf, a halfling, and maybe something as exotic as a half-orc (maybe).
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Aug 11, 2014 09:05
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Roland Jones posted:Someone in this thread linked him using transphobic slurs as an insult, I'm pretty sure several other people could dig up things like him telling people they deserve to die for disagreeing with him, and then there's the stuff I covered here, with bonus seebs and Mandy appearances. Summary of my post if you don't feel like reading it: Zak's done even more transphobic stuff in addition to the aforementioned slurs, has harassed and stalked a bunch of people, and once put together a list of people's real names and gave it to his followers for them to make threats to until they complied with his demands to un-+1 a post on G+. He's also putting together another list of names, this time aimed at people who've liked or forwarded the Fail Forward article linked in my above link. Edit: He's also trying to get someone blacklisted from the industry for having posted about harassment John Tarnowski (aka The RPG Pundit, other awful dude at the center of this) sent her for more or less no reason. That's also linked in my post there. So, again, thank you for taking the time to honestly respond.
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Aug 11, 2014 09:07
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Kai Tave posted:Basically if someone has hangups about good drow or dual-wielding rangers or whatever you know that they're the sort of person who'll get shirty about dragonborn or tieflings or warforged or any D&D party that isn't two or more humans, one dwarf, one elf, a halfling, and maybe something as exotic as a half-orc (maybe). There were people in ENWorld who thought 5e having a half-orc paladin picture was WotC going too far and succumbing to POLITICAL CORRECTNESS so like gently caress 'em.
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Aug 11, 2014 09:08
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Am I too late to get on this train?  
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Aug 11, 2014 09:10
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The issue isn't that Drizzt is a good drow or dual-wielding ranger so much as every representation I've seen of him in fiction has been kind of boring despite all the interesting stuff he allegedly has going on. You can play unique and exceptional stuff but it has to be presented in a way IMO that's interesting to other people at the table, not just you wanking about what a special superstar your own character is without providing I guess hooks for other people to get invested in your character with. And that goes for any kind of character really.
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Aug 11, 2014 09:11
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Cycloneman posted:Thank you for the link. While I wasn't persuaded on every point, there was enough evidence about enough points to make it fairly clear for me. I've seen the whole "plausible deniability" bit where you put up information "just so people know," and then pretend like it wasn't a call for harassment even though you've done it multiple times and it's had the same result every time. The "If any of these people have a problem being named, they can feel free to remove their +1 on Ben's post." line, in particular, is such an obvious signature of that kind of horse poo poo. Yeah, Zak was even worse when called on that; people screenshotted harassment emails for him, and he outright went "well I have no control over what my fans do, but if they don't like it and want their names removed from the list they can still remove their +1". It was completely transparent. (The best email to arise out of that was this one, after someone put up different emails they had received containing threats and such.)
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Aug 11, 2014 09:11
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JDCorley posted:So I wasn't around when the thread started. I, like the other Elminster av guy, like the Forgotten Realms quite a bit. I haven't actually run into The Realms Fan (tm) as a problem when I run my games, nor do I really read the novels (fantasy novels are boring, read good novels instead okay?) I think the thing I like most about FR (and Greyhawk actually) is they really tie in closely to "the D&D experience" - journeys to weird places, tons of dungeons, and so on, and it adds in something few other settings do: a core reason to be an adventurer. Now that's a tricky question to answer. I'm not a planescape scholar, but I've always loved the setting, and I think these are the three things (planescape stuff should always come in threes, yo) that I think are most important about it: -Creating a sense of childlike wonder, bemusement and cosmic awe. It's not a coincidence that Planescape's main artist, the amazing Tony diTerlizzi, later retired to go draw children's books. You can see a similar influence permeating the setting everywhere, with all the tiny, seemingly pointless but just plain cool details about it (like the fact that there's a literal Fountain of Beauty in the Plane of Challenges, or that the Plane of Ultimate Goodness makes it so the amount of time you spend traveling from one place to the next is directly proportional to the amount of people you help on the way). Planescape is The Last Stop. There's nothing bigger in D&D. It's the whole world open for you to wander in, so unique and different that you just lose yourself in it. If you played Planescape Torment, I bet you got that sense of wonder before. Like a good episode of Cosmos or a memory of your childhood, Planescape is supposed to make your eyes POP and fill you with curiosity. -Turning everything into an adventure. In Planescape, everything, from simple things like a lost toothbrush to the fate of the one and only undead god in history, should be the seed of a good adventure. When it came out, settings were stuff like FR, Mystara, Dark Sun or Greyhawk - classically styled "kill mans get loots" setups. If you go read a planescape module, in spite of being filled with archaisms, you'll note that almost all of them assume and provide good backing for players trying to *talk* things out, or puzzle through them. More than any other setting, Planescape was about recapturing the essence of non-D&D fantasy within the game's very unique trappings, taking things from the realm of the dungeon to the heroic story or the fairytale. The best planescape games and modules were never about hack and slash. -Turning your game into the medium of a philosophical debate. This, I think, is the single most important bit of Planescape, and the one that sold so many people on the setting. The game shines brightest when you're constantly interacting with the various sects and factions, which range from Real Life Fascists to Communists to Super Buddhists to people in pursuit of the Wu Wei unity to Stoics to positive nihilists to Knights of Infinite Resignation and everything else inbetween. It's truly Planescape-like when you hold a philosophy talk with an angel and manage to convince him that he's less of a good person than a mortal man, or sit down with a vicious-looking devil and beat it at a game of chess while categorically disproving the need for a social structure similar to Bentham's Panopticon. It's a game where your actions will make you *think*. Playing it won't only let you have tons of fun and excitement, it'll also help you get a sharper, broader view of the world. These three things are what made me love Planescape. There's lots of other stuff, but this is what comes to mind first. Is that a good enough answer to your question?
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Aug 11, 2014 09:14
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ProfessorCirno posted:There were people in ENWorld who thought 5e having a half-orc paladin picture was WotC going too far and succumbing to POLITICAL CORRECTNESS so like I'm not making it up that there have been no hard restrictions on the core race-class spread since 2000, right?
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Aug 11, 2014 09:16
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The problem I have with Drizzt isn't Drizzt, it's the drow as an always-chaotic-evil race of EEEVIL MAAAATRIAAARCHS *spooky ghosts noises*. Essentially, if you just retcon the drow into being a varied and interesting species full of people of all different beliefs, morals, and lifestyles, and Drizzt was only rebelling against a hosed-up family unit instead of the entire goddamned rest of his species... Well, I mean, that'd steal some of Drizzt's thunder, but still.
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Aug 11, 2014 09:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:and a halfling named Farts Buttkiss. Next character found
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Aug 11, 2014 09:25
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Don't stop donating now, it's morning in Europe.
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Aug 11, 2014 09:31
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Yalborap posted:The problem I have with Drizzt isn't Drizzt, it's the drow as an always-chaotic-evil race of EEEVIL MAAAATRIAAARCHS *spooky ghosts noises*. How many always or almost always evil races are also matriarchal in this setting?
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Aug 11, 2014 09:32
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Gonna be honest with you, I don't know. Is it a really low number or a really high number?
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Aug 11, 2014 09:34
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Reene posted:How many always or almost always evil races are also matriarchal in this setting? Almost all of them are buff manly men being savage monsters eating babies. Name a female orc.
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Aug 11, 2014 09:49
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Yalborap posted:The problem I have with Drizzt isn't Drizzt, it's the drow as an always-chaotic-evil race of EEEVIL MAAAATRIAAARCHS *spooky ghosts noises*. Just replace Drow with subversive elven double agents, like Quinn Murphy suggests: https://storify.com/overclicked/stereotypes-in-fantasy-races
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Aug 11, 2014 10:08
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Mystic Mongol posted:Almost all of them are buff manly men being savage monsters eating babies. I'll name her Betty.
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Aug 11, 2014 10:10
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Mystic Mongol posted:Almost all of them are buff manly men being savage monsters eating babies. Therkla 
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Aug 11, 2014 10:15
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Reene posted:How many always or almost always evil races are also matriarchal in this setting? Not many, and theres a ton of Good aligned matriarchies or female lead kingdoms. FR is generally good at being egalitarian.
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Aug 11, 2014 10:16
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Fair enough. My impression of the setting was clearly incorrect, and I apologize.
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Aug 11, 2014 10:20
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 13:21 |
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neongrey posted:"Look, I'm sorry you're feeling impaled by my sword right now, but I was just waving it in front of me. If someone got hurt they should have been watching where they were going."
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Aug 11, 2014 10:30
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