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Covok posted:So, I'm listening to a podcast called "372 Pages we'll never get back" that talks about books. They're talking about Armada from the creator of Ready Player One. And I think it has the dumbest line I've ever read: "So, you're telling me the government spent millions of dollars making Star Wars as anti-alien propaganda." I highly doubt that's the dumbest line to be found in an Ernest Cline novel.
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Apr 27, 2018 08:04
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Kai Tave posted:I highly doubt that's the dumbest line to be found in an Ernest Cline novel. i smell a contest.
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Apr 27, 2018 10:08
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Independence Day would at least make sense. Hell, in retrospect that would make the movie make way more sense.
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Apr 27, 2018 10:11
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As profoundly stupid as Ready Player One is and as horribly offputting as Ernest Cline is as a person I had fun at the RPO movie. I went into it expecting to loathe it and the premise is still balls-out stupid but it cuts out like 95% of the endless fellating of the mid-80s and replaces it with goofy action sequences.
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Apr 27, 2018 15:45
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Kai Tave posted:I highly doubt that's the dumbest line to be found in an Ernest Cline novel. Try to remember to Star Wars. If you're not as big of a fan, you may not pick up on the inherent stupidness of the line. Not trying to sound like a jerk, just most people don't waste time thinking about Star Wars alot. Do you remember the villains? What were they? The answer is they were Nazis. Space Nazis. They were old white British men in ships. I don't know why they weren't German now that I said this out loud, but he probably thought British accent sound better. Who were the good guys? You might be thinking Han, Leia, and Luke. You'd be right. And they are all human. But who are their friends? Well they're friends of Chewbacca. Han even gave up his job and risked his life in Legends to save Chewbacca when he realized how Wookies were being treated. They're also quite a few aliens in the Alliance. Basically, the good guys treat aliens like equals. And actually that's a specific plot point in the movies and in the expanded universe that the Empire is anti-alien and the Alliance to Restore the Republic wants equality. Basically, claiming it was made to make people anti-alien is loving stupid when the entire movie is about Humanity coming together with the other species of the Galaxy to hand-in-hand defeat a bunch of Space Nazis, with the Space Nazis being all humans.
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Apr 27, 2018 15:52
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Elfgames posted:i smell a contest. A contest that can only be won by someone reading an Ernest Cline novel is a contest with no winners.
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Apr 27, 2018 16:12
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Covok posted:
A bad of rebels fighting a massive empire of British sounding people and somehow winning? I wonder where in history that may have come from? It's on of the few times "Rebel" is a good term for a force, it normally has bad conutations, even Americans refer to thier side as Patriots rather than the more apt term of rebel.
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Apr 27, 2018 16:35
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Rebels in fiction are probably the good guys more often than not.
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Apr 27, 2018 16:57
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Alien Rope Burn posted:It just felt relentlessly grim from every summary I've heard of it. Just a world that didn't feel worth living in. I guess it's grim in that it's a post-apocalypse and the game doesn't expect most player crews to care about fixing that, but there's nothing to stop you from playing vigilantes, bravos, or cultists that are hoping to improve everyone's lot. Scum and Villainy is Firefly set in a Star Wars/Mass Effect mashup setting and does have a slightly less dark tone.
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Apr 27, 2018 17:15
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Grey Hunter posted:A bad of rebels fighting a massive empire of British sounding people and somehow winning? I wonder where in history that may have come from? You must not read a lot of American fiction if you think Rebels are often viewed as the bad guys
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Apr 27, 2018 17:34
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What are some boardgame tutorial channels on YouTube people would recommend? So far I've only regularly watched videos from Gaming Rules! and The Cardboard Stacker, both seem decent. So many of the ones I've tried to watch go overboard with that YT personality thing where they talk and talk and no one cares just get to the goddamn game already.
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Apr 27, 2018 18:59
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Covok posted:So, I'm listening to a podcast called "372 Pages we'll never get back" that talks about books. They're talking about Armada from the creator of Ready Player One. And I think it has the dumbest line I've ever read: "So, you're telling me the government spent millions of dollars making Star Wars as anti-alien propaganda." It says a lot about Cline and his relationship with fiction, I think. It's the same thing you see in RPO; he's fascinated by the trappings of the cultural touchstones he adores, but he doesn't really engage with them beyond that. He loves light sabers and X-Wings and the Death Star, but he doesn't really think about the story they're attached to. He doesn't think about why these properties are cultural touchstones, or why people remember them beyond "They had cool toys." Which was part of it, sure, but there were other properties with cool toys that never had anything like the staying power, and it's clear Kline has no idea why.
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Apr 27, 2018 19:55
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JackMann posted:It says a lot about Cline and his relationship with fiction, I think. It's the same thing you see in RPO; he's fascinated by the trappings of the cultural touchstones he adores, but he doesn't really engage with them beyond that. He loves light sabers and X-Wings and the Death Star, but he doesn't really think about the story they're attached to. He doesn't think about why these properties are cultural touchstones, or why people remember them beyond "They had cool toys." Which was part of it, sure, but there were other properties with cool toys that never had anything like the staying power, and it's clear Kline has no idea why. To bring it back to tabletop games, I think Cline would be the kind of guy who could tell you everything about Warhammer 40K from its setting details to it's lore to its creation, but never pick up on the fact that it's actually a criticism of theocracy and fascism and was kind of meant as a lark: he just think the armor is really cool, take it all really seriously, and never think about it beyond the surface level.
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Apr 27, 2018 19:59
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Covok posted:To bring it back to tabletop games, I think Cline would be the kind of guy who could tell you everything about Warhammer 40K from its setting details to it's lore to its creation, but never pick up on the fact that it's actually a criticism of theocracy and fascism and was kind of meant as a lark: he just think the armor is really cool, take it all really seriously, and never think about it beyond the surface level. so like everyone who's been involved in making 40k for the last three decades
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Apr 27, 2018 20:04
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:so like everyone who's been involved in making 40k for the last three decades Exactly. 
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Apr 27, 2018 20:07
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Covok posted:Exactly. It’s just a Dune pastiche that riffed on Warhammer Fantasy and Pop Culture, my dude. Sometimes it’s just goofy space knights tossing Holy Hand Grenades. Other times it’s me running a Deathwatch campaign and having a Night Lord antagonist based on Bane tell the Raven Guard PC that he only adopted the dark.
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Apr 27, 2018 22:00
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:so like everyone who's been involved in making 40k for the last three decades I mean, it's nerd culture at large. Like, there's a reason there's the old stereotype of nerds loving trivia, and that's because trivia is just lists of things that happened divorced from context. Trivia not only doesn't involve critical thinking, it's the opposite of it. TV Tropes came from somewhere.
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Apr 27, 2018 22:00
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ProfessorCirno posted:I mean, it's nerd culture at large. Nerds ironically know the most about something without ever understanding what any of it means. The definition of parroting something. The genius nerd is an oxymoron and a stereotype born from ignorance of ignorance.
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Apr 27, 2018 22:04
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ProfessorCirno posted:I mean, it's nerd culture at large. It's because the autism spectrum has systematization as one of the symptoms, not because of nerds being subhumans. (well it might be considering the goon consensus on people on the spectrum)
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Apr 27, 2018 23:14
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JackMann posted:It says a lot about Cline and his relationship with fiction, I think. It's the same thing you see in RPO; he's fascinated by the trappings of the cultural touchstones he adores, but he doesn't really engage with them beyond that. He loves light sabers and X-Wings and the Death Star, but he doesn't really think about the story they're attached to. He doesn't think about why these properties are cultural touchstones, or why people remember them beyond "They had cool toys." Which was part of it, sure, but there were other properties with cool toys that never had anything like the staying power, and it's clear Kline has no idea why. Back in the early 2000s, I knew this guy in college who was exactly this, and even tried to write a book with the same sort of sort of hollow adoration of the 80s stuff he grew up with. It was awful of course, and plenty of that was the writing (no editor, after a few rejections he went vanity press and so never really tried to learn how to get better). But the few chapters I managed to stomach were especially banal because of that unconsidered fawning over the veneer of 80s culture. Now I feel doubly bad for the guy. If he had stuck with it until the teens, he might have a movie coming out.
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Apr 27, 2018 23:17
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gently caress all the way off, Plutonis.
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Apr 27, 2018 23:17
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Mr. Maltose posted:gently caress all the way off, Plutonis. Agreed
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Apr 27, 2018 23:23
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Bedlamdan posted:It’s just a Dune pastiche that riffed on Warhammer Fantasy and Pop Culture, my dude. Hey, you're that guy who told me that Pink Floyd's The Wall was about "getting really high and not thinking about the imagery" when I was in high school! How've you been?
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Apr 27, 2018 23:51
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Lurdiak posted:Hey, you're that guy who told me that Pink Floyd's The Wall was about "getting really high and not thinking about the imagery" when I was in high school! How've you been? It sounds like, in the end, he was just another brick in the wall.
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Apr 27, 2018 23:58
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Covok posted:It sounds like, in the end, he was just another brick in the wall. All in all, I'd say you're right.
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Apr 28, 2018 00:00
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Can I be unbanned from the discord server?
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Apr 28, 2018 00:17
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Skutter posted:What are some boardgame tutorial channels on YouTube people would recommend? So far I've only regularly watched videos from Gaming Rules! and The Cardboard Stacker, both seem decent. So many of the ones I've tried to watch go overboard with that YT personality thing where they talk and talk and no one cares just get to the goddamn game already. Watch It Played is good, clear, and chill.
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Apr 28, 2018 00:18
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Covok posted:Can I be unbanned from the discord server? what did you do to get banned
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Apr 28, 2018 00:31
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Sion posted:what did you do to get banned Made an admittedly over-the-line joke about Mike Mearls.
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Apr 28, 2018 00:31
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Covok posted:Can I be unbanned from the discord server? which one
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Apr 28, 2018 00:34
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fool_of_sound posted:which one I think the Fuego Fish one was the one who banned me. I forget if Arvia banned me to.
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Apr 28, 2018 00:36
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Evil Mastermind posted:Watch It Played is good, clear, and chill. Watch it Played, Gaming Rules!, and Heavy Cardboard are definitely my favorites
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Apr 28, 2018 00:40
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Lurdiak posted:Hey, you're that guy who told me that Pink Floyd's The Wall was about "getting really high and not thinking about the imagery" when I was in high school! How've you been? You got me man, Warhammer 40,000 is actually really deep and super meaningful, not a science fantasy pastiche selling plastic figures to grown rear end men. I’d definitely put it on the same level as Pink Floyd in terms of meaning.
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Apr 28, 2018 02:05
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Covok posted:Made an admittedly over-the-line joke about Mike Mearls. Can you tell me the joke
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Apr 28, 2018 02:05
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Bedlamdan posted:Can you tell me the joke I actually don't remember the joke.
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Apr 28, 2018 02:11
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Do we have a thread to post in-progress kickstarters to get opinions on it?
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Apr 28, 2018 02:12
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Bedlamdan posted:You got me man, Warhammer 40,000 is actually really deep and super meaningful, not a science fantasy pastiche selling plastic figures to grown rear end men. Like, no one is saying this poo poo is subtle. It's not subtext that the fascist military dictatorship is what makes humanity so weak and vulnerable to chaos. It's straight up text in the early 40K stuff. It wasn't meant as, like, a deep treatise on politics and human nature, it was a joke about how over the top and horrible it was. The gameline repeatedly hit people over the head with how hilarious that the space marines, the inquisition, and the imperium in general was self-defeating and its own biggest enemy. It continually elbowed you in the ribs while saying "Hah! Aren't fascists stupid? Look at how idiotic the whole thing is!" We're not amazed people missed the joke because of how clever and oblique it was, but because of how blatant it was. JackMann fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Apr 28, 2018 |
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Apr 28, 2018 02:20
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Covok posted:I actually don't remember the joke. Was it funnier than the one where you said Mike Mearls looked like a sex offender, or less funny Covok posted:Do we have a thread to post in-progress kickstarters to get opinions on it? Yes https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3777631&pagenumber=207#lastpost
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Apr 28, 2018 02:21
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Bedlamdan posted:Was it funnier than the one where you said Mike Mearls looked like a sex offender, or less funny That was the comment, yeah.
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Apr 28, 2018 02:22
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JackMann posted:Like, no one is saying this poo poo is subtle. It's not subtext that the fascist military dictatorship is what makes humanity so weak and vulnerable to chaos. It's straight up text in the early 40K stuff. It wasn't meant as, like, a deep treatise on politics and human nature, it was a joke about how over the top and horrible it was. The gameline repeatedly hit people over the head with how hilarious that the space marines, the inquisition, and the imperium in general was self-defeating and its own biggest enemy. It continually elbowed you in the ribs while saying "Hah! Aren't fascists stupid? Look at how idiotic the whole thing is!" We're now amazed people missed the joke because of how clever and oblique it was, but because of how blatant it was. Some people find humor with how dysfunctional the Imperium is. Some people find the individuals living within it to at least be more sympathetic than the faction that is basically four different kinds of Satan, one of whom will kill you quickly, one of whom will kill you slowly, one of whom screws with your head and one of whom simply screws you to death. It’s less that people don’t understand the Imperium is a bad thing, and more that people can find it an interesting or funny thing despite also being a bad thing, is what you’re missing here. Like intellectually I understand Darth Vader is a self loathing quadriplegic who is his own worst enemy, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking the airlock scene in Rogue One was probably the best thing Star Wars ever did. I’m sorry to say that sometimes bad people still make for good characters, and quite a few people find the Empire in Star Wars cool without also buying into National Socialism.
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Apr 28, 2018 02:37
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