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Kwyndig posted:It's only a few days into the administration and I'm already terrified and (no joke) want to die. I spend at least part of each day crying and/or screaming. Stop posting online and go get therapy
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Jan 26, 2017 20:32
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Evil Mastermind posted:I gotta laugh, otherwise I start screaming. Same and heavy drinking. Although the election didn't change either.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:34
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LongDarkNight posted:Same and heavy drinking. Although the election didn't change either.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:36
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fool_of_sound posted:Stop posting online and go get therapy Most American goons are middle class naturalized or natural born citizens, the only way people's life there would go worse than the normal hell existence on late capitalist USA in the next 4 years is if Pence passes a Gay holocaust law, a war with China starts and conscription follows or something as drastic happens.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:37
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I don't want to sound callous or anything but as a citizen from a third world country that had a loving coup last year and whose economy, social order and welfare is disintegrating increasingly fast ever since, I'm playing a mollecular violin to US liberals who think they are in a lovely situation.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:43
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Things are bad, but you know what isn't? That's right mother fuckers I'm talking elves. You know em, you love em, mother loving elves. What settings got your favorite elf? You like the vanilla plain Jane nothing wrong with that Tolkien elf or are you more of a rude cyber dude rocking that shadow run elf? I like that mad max Dark Sun elf, ready to eat a dude and gladiate some fools. And yo, while we're here, talking about elves, what's up with dark elves? How do you play with dark elves in a way that isn't weirdly racist?
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Jan 26, 2017 21:05
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Ominous Jazz posted:And yo, while we're here, talking about elves, what's up with dark elves? How do you play with dark elves in a way that isn't weirdly racist? Dark Eldar are a purely cultural distinction, right? If they aren't, they should be. Let's go with that.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:06
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It's true, things can be a lot worse, and whether or not we'll have a real crisis, it's hard to say at this point. But that doesn't make being disgusted with things invalid, even in perspective, and it's not like we live in the world where a disaster in a nation somehow magically stops at that nation's borders. I'm probably not going to face any of the true miseries faced by the Third World everyday, it's true. But if, say, America's economy hits another depression or our leadership publicly decides that a certain other country rolling tanks across a border is a-okay, that's not something that's just America's concern anymore. In any case, just being cynical and shrugging probably won't help anyone going forward.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:07
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Dark Eldar are a purely cultural distinction, right? If they aren't, they should be. Let's go with that. 40k isn't one of the things I care about but that's pretty rad. I like the harlequin aesthetic though.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:08
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Ominous Jazz posted:Things are bad, but you know what isn't? That's right mother fuckers I'm talking elves. Sun Elves. Kawaii.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:09
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Sion posted:Sun Elves. Kawaii. What kind of elf are they? What do they got going on under the hood? Edit: how come half elves are always thing in dnd but no other half race and on a scale from one to ten how weirdly racist is it
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Jan 26, 2017 21:11
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Ominous Jazz posted:What kind of elf are they? What do they got going on under the hood? D&D has had half-orcs for a few editions now. (Some of which are far weirder and worse about it than half-elves ever were.)
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Jan 26, 2017 21:16
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:D&D has had half-orcs for a few editions now. (Some of which are far weirder and worse about it than half-elves ever were.) I liked how 13th age made sure everyone knew orcs were smooth like Ken dolls and that half orcs just kind of happen in places that need them, like they're the chosen ones.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:17
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Ominous Jazz posted:I liked how 13th age made sure everyone knew orcs were smooth like Ken dolls and that half orcs just kind of happen in places that need them, like they're the chosen ones.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:19
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Ominous Jazz posted:What kind of elf are they? What do they got going on under the hood? oh come on like anyone would willingly mate with gnomes (they naturally replicate by budding)
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Jan 26, 2017 21:19
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Ominous Jazz posted:What kind of elf are they? What do they got going on under the hood? Half-orcs, man. Sun Elves are basically the default image of elves as haughty aristocrats writ large. They're great to play and even better to GM because you can basically GM them as Mean Girls. They speak their own language even though no one else does, insist that it's the best and will only occasionally decide that adopting the gutter-mouth tongues of other races is acceptable. They can't take a punch though, which means their hugely punchable personality is backed up by a body that is also hugely punchable. Also they're descended from Eladrin / Angelic outsiders so they've got that going for them.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:20
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I think the key issue with dark elves isn't just their skin color alone and more just having a literally demonized matriarchy that - in its most mainstream version - also includes ritualized rape and your standard fantasy vilification of relatively tame sexual fetishes. Having them also be racially evil dark people is pretty much just the later of piss on a dung cake. I don't see why you couldn't just have underground elves, if you have to, just make them a nuanced concept based around that. As for half-elves, my conclusion is that if you can have half-elves and half-orcs then... orcs and elves must just be different varieties of human, or extremely close relatives. But in general I think most fantasy races don't really justify being anything other some weird human offshoot. Of course, there was that Reign mini-setting that got well into fantasy genetics, but dwarves may as well just be "humans adapted to smaller underground spaces" for how different they actually are, in my mind.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:20
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Nuns with Guns posted:oh come on If you think there's something wrong with a short-stack I don't wanna hear it.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:21
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Glorantha elves are pretty great. Basically plant people ranging from green humanoids to treants. Their doomsday plan is to grow a forest really fast. Like, really fast. Cover-half-a-continent-in-a-day fast.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:21
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Ominous Jazz posted:If you think there's something wrong with a short-stack I don't wanna hear it. I.... I'm just jealous that they get to talk to badgers 
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Jan 26, 2017 21:25
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The best dark elves are Mystara Dark Elves, who are basically Fantasy Fallout Vault dwellers who are slowly inching their way out of their weird underground home and abandon their radiation/magic deformed offspring to the elements based on a misinterpretation of their holy text. (Fortunately their god is a softy and sends the kids to live with goblin tribes, which may actually be where Goblins come from in the first place.) The best elves in general are the Hollow Earth elves, who are a preserved cultural enclave of the pre-Fallout scenario Elf civilization, complete with laser pistols, as rescued by a good guy T-rex god who wants to hug everyone and is sad his arms aren't big enough to hold them all. unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 21:26
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Nuns with Guns posted:I.... everyone can talk to badgers tho
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Jan 26, 2017 21:27
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Sion posted:everyone can talk to badgers tho Everyone can talk AT badgers but not everyone can talk WITH badgers.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:29
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I think the main problem with Dark Elves is the skin thing, it's not even realistic. Cave dwelling organisms frequently become albinos because producing melanin is actually a disadvantage when there's no sunlight (it wastes resources). ARB covered the things wrong with the cultural depictions, but making them dark skinned isn't even fantasy racism, it's just straight up racism. Even if they're pinkish-white and you fixed their culture you could still call them Dark Elves, I mean Forest Elves aren't usually forest colored. For every other instance of Elf subrace it's culture and habitat that define them, not skin color (although they do have skin color variations).
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Jan 26, 2017 21:29
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Sion posted:everyone can talk to badgers tho They can but badgers don't give a gently caress, or so I've heard.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:30
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unseenlibrarian posted:The best elves in general are the Hollow Earth elves, who are a preserved cultural enclave of the pre-Fallout scenario Elf civilization, complete with laser pistols, as rescued by a good guy T-rex god who wants to hug everyone and is sad his arms aren't big enough to hold them all. That is an amazing setting pitch.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:31
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Sion posted:everyone can talk to badgers tho Last time I tried to talk to a badger hole all I heard was irate growling, but maybe my problem was it was in fact a skunk hole
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Jan 26, 2017 21:32
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Ominous Jazz posted:Things are bad, but you know what isn't? That's right mother fuckers I'm talking elves. My favorite elves are the Elf class from Basic D&D. I don't know why, but I goddamn love the fact that elves are a class even though it's so loving weird. It basically says that all elves in the implicit setting of Basic D&D are weird warrior mage dudes who kill you with a sword and then kill your friends with a fireball spell. I don't even really know what their culture is like in the official Basic D&D setting Mystara because I never delved too deep into it, but goddamn do I love them. Also at a high enough level they go and live in a forest and suddenly all the surrounding wildlife is like "Yeah, this elf is cool" and become their servants. And then at an even higher level some elf turns up in their forest kingdom and plants a magic tree from which the elves make goddamn solar-powered flying ships. Having said that, I recently bought Red Tide and while I don't like what it's setting does with the demihumans (they're all basically turned into "humans but they were changed into Dwarves/Elves/Halflings by a god/magic/whatever) it introduces an interesting variant for players of the Elf class called the Scion: I'm not going to delve into the setting details of the Scion, but basically they replace their standard Magic-User spells with wyrds, which are actually more akin to Warlock incantations from 3e in the way they work (i.e. they're essentially spell-like abilities but each wyrd has its own set of limitations as to how often it can be cast) but the wyrds are also really weird and cool, being more subtle manipulation of reality than overt stuff like fireballs. My favorite wyrd is Dream Logic: while it's in effect its targets perceive everything the character does as rational, reasonable, and justified, no matter how weird it is. You can even attack someone and while the victim can defend themselves they won't consider the attack a cause for umbrage. Already There is also cool: it allows the character to instantly teleport next to a living creature whom they've seen in the past half an hour, and all onlookers will instantly assume that the character has always been there with the target. It's cool enough to have made me consider that from now on whenever I run Basic D&D I'll just have all elves use the Scion rules to differentiate their magic from standard Magic-User spells. Ratpick fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 21:38
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Kwyndig posted:ARB covered the things wrong with the cultural depictions, but making them dark skinned isn't even fantasy racism, it's just straight up racism. Well, I don't think you can say Gygax, Greenwood, Salvatore et al. ever drew a line between African culture and Drow depictions, but at a certain degree of othering it becomes trivial to draw parallels between real-life racist depictions and fantasy boogeymen.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:41
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Kwyndig posted:I think the main problem with Dark Elves is the skin thing, it's not even realistic. Cave dwelling organisms frequently become albinos because producing melanin is actually a disadvantage when there's no sunlight (it wastes resources). Weird albino elves aren't sexy at all. Frick off.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:44
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Plutonis posted:Weird albino elves aren't sexy at all. You're just not trying hard enough.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:47
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Oh and just wanted to share this, it's really old but I only recently became aware of it when a friend linked it to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoBwKp_J9yg Basically, a bunch of kids told an epic fantasy tale together and then some grown-ups acted it out and it's basically like a D&D story but actually cool as hell.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:51
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The only cool Dark Elves are the Dunmer from The Elder Scrolls.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:51
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Mystara is The Best or, failing that, certainly better than FR and Dragonlance.Sion posted:Half-orcs, man.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:52
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Best Dark Elves are the one in Burning Wheel. None of that pesky racial stuff, just a regular Elf gone bad.quote:The Path of Spite is walked by those Elves who have turned their Grief and sorrow into Spite and bitterness. These dark souls see the world as coming to nothing but ruin and wreckage. There is no good left in it for them, nor will there be for anyone else in the end.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:01
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Kai Tave posted:You're just not trying hard enough. I'm being sincere here for weeks.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:03
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Plutonis posted:I'm being sincere here for weeks. No sorry, I meant that with sufficient effort you can find anything sexy. It's like exercising, you've gotta put in the effort to see the dividends.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:06
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Halloween Jack posted:Mystara is The Best or, failing that, certainly better than FR and Dragonlance.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:08
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Halloween Jack posted:Mystara is The Best or, failing that, certainly better than FR and Dragonlance. For all that Dragonlance has wrong with it, Dark Elves there are just evil Elves. Dalamar is a Dark Elf because he is a Black robed Mage dedicated to evil wizardy, not because of his skin color or a cultural tenancy to bondage and spiders.
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Jan 26, 2017 22:11
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Kai Tave posted:No sorry, I meant that with sufficient effort you can find anything sexy. It's like exercising, you've gotta put in the effort to see the dividends. With sufficent effort you can make your body hotter. Yet you cannot outheat fire, lest the Sun itself!
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Jan 26, 2017 22:12
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