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Axelgear posted:The biggest let-down is that point in your life when you realize that conspiracy theories are rare; not because there aren't powerful and shadowy forces trying to rule the world, but because the elite don't really... Need them. If you can already monopolize political and economic power and enjoy the benefits of a systemic advantage where wealth is self-propagating, why on Earth would you bother going to the owl god blood orgy every new moon? If the Bohemian grove is any indicator, at the high end it's mostly an excuse to get drunk and have sex with hookers in the woods. And to be honest, from personal experience I know a few important fellas join these groups as much to have a place where they don't have to be a big cheese and can relax in relative privacy with likeminded people. So if it takes an owl God blood orgy, bring on the barbed whips and the ceremonial jerkin' plate. As for a good source, I might actually write some stuff up from an impartial - alright, as impartial as a self-deluded wizard Freemason can get - while I dig for stuff for my upcoming conspiracy-themed game.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:56
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That'd be cool. My last internet dive turned up a screed about "Satanic Safaris", and how you can use secret codes and drugs to get street corner tarot readers to hunt you and try and make you join their cult, so it's totally okay to poison them. It just isn't fun to read that kind of stuff.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:03
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Axelgear posted:Yeah, I never really got that, myself. The idea that there's an all-powerful shadowy network that will kill you as a political tool doesn't really strike me as more comforting than the idea that there's a modestly powerful shadowy network that will kill you as a political tool. you solved your first paragraph with the second. satan and the illuminati and similar evil conspiracies are comforting because they propose a single cause for misery that can be understood and opposed and theoretically overcome. misery with no clearly identifiable cause is worse because it is inescapable.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:29
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Fredric Jameson's "Totality as Conspiracy" was a big influence in my understanding of conspiracies and people's belief in them; basically, the comfort in believing there's a conspiracy controlling everything isn't that it makes you safer or gives you something to blame, but the idea that someone can understand all of the complex globalized world enough to control it in the first place. Some sort of order, even if it's malevolent, is preferable to uncontrolled chaos.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:57
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I need to make a correction to my post on my current hunter game. It's not Assassin Yetis It's Assassin Sasquatches, or as they call them "Assassquatches"
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Apr 10, 2017 20:24
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Axelgear posted:Yeah, I never really got that, myself. The idea that there's an all-powerful shadowy network that will kill you as a political tool doesn't really strike me as more comforting than the idea that there's a modestly powerful shadowy network that will kill you as a political tool. In a nut shell, the comfort comes from the idea that the act is part of a large scale, logical plan. If one can understand that logic, they can either see the acts before they happen (and protect themselves from the fallout) or stop the acts completely by defeating the conspiracy. The alternative is the far more terrifying prospect that a random nut job with no real plan other than "kill a bunch of people" can kill you and everyone you love at literally any moment with no real warning.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:45
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Senior Scarybagels posted:I need to make a correction to my post on my current hunter game.  That's amazing.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:45
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Ferrinus posted:If you think a cabal of bloodsucking lizard people rules the world at our expense at twenty, you have no heart. If you don't think a cabal of bloodsucking lizard people rules the world at our expense at thirty, you have no brain.
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Apr 10, 2017 21:19
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RandallODim posted:
I am the one playing Agent Lakewood, the conspiracy nut of VASCU who devised the Assassquatches. And I tell ya, the CIA has been secretly training and rounding up the perfect assassins, SASQUATCHES. Think about it- They're never caught clearly on film, those who witness them are written off as crazy, their footprints are always mistaken for bears. CONNECT THE DOTS SHEEPLE.
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Apr 10, 2017 21:32
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Joan Ocean is the codename of their CIA handler.
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Apr 10, 2017 21:38
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Axelgear posted:The biggest let-down is that point in your life when you realize that conspiracy theories are rare; not because there aren't powerful and shadowy forces trying to rule the world, but because the elite don't really... Need them. If you can already monopolize political and economic power and enjoy the benefits of a systemic advantage where wealth is self-propagating, why on Earth would you bother going to the owl god blood orgy every new moon? Astonishing Legends tends to cover conspiracy theories critically, while not verging into "lots of digs at clearly mentally ill people".
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Apr 10, 2017 21:43
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Quantumfate posted:I am the one playing Agent Lakewood, the conspiracy nut of VASCU who devised the Assassquatches. And I tell ya, the CIA has been secretly training and rounding up the perfect assassins, SASQUATCHES. Think about it- They're never caught clearly on film, those who witness them are written off as crazy, their footprints are always mistaken for bears. CONNECT THE DOTS SHEEPLE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMm1YTd8lHM
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Apr 10, 2017 21:55
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Speaking of conspiracy theories, sometime over the weekend the guy in the apartment next door put stick-on letters on his window that read "MK ULTRA"
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Apr 10, 2017 22:51
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He must be a master at Mortal Kombat Ultra.
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Apr 10, 2017 22:57
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I think the other major lack of lustre on conspiracy theories is that people do bad subterfuge poo poo all the time and mostly nobody cares. In a world where the tuskgee syphilis experiment happened, why'd you need to bring in aliens to make people be monsters?
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Apr 11, 2017 00:04
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I'm the guy who is able to accurately perceive that our current system lets a certain class of people exert incredible power over the politics and the media but is only able to notice that some of them are Jewish rather than the actual common factor all such people really share (they're all rich).
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Apr 11, 2017 00:33
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spectralent posted:I think the other major lack of lustre on conspiracy theories is that people do bad subterfuge poo poo all the time and mostly nobody cares. In a world where the tuskgee syphilis experiment happened, why'd you need to bring in aliens to make people be monsters? It's just the opposite, you externalize and personify evil so that people can be heroes.
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Apr 11, 2017 00:34
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I suppose it depends on if you're looking at them as sincere belief models or as a form of entertainment - the John Oliver 'fairytales adults tell each other on youtube' model. Even within the conspiracy world, there's a lot of people there just because it's fun stuff to shoot the poo poo about, albeit sometimes dangerous if you wind up shooting too much poo poo with a seriously ill person and encouraging their delusions.
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Apr 11, 2017 00:51
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The Unlife Aquatic posted:Astonishing Legends tends to cover conspiracy theories critically, while not verging into "lots of digs at clearly mentally ill people". Looks interesting. I just got done with LORE, so I was needing something new that wasn't waiting for the next Revolutions ep to drop.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:08
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The other day as I was reading up about the early days of the space race where they were sending up animals, it struck me that would be a really good cover for Earth's occultist to get a guardian spirit into Earth orbit to guard against alien spirit entities. So now I'm fixated on a ilthum of lunes that are just spirits from Earth's hisil that went up, saw the monsters out there and decided they were going to stick around and kick rear end. I'm also seriously contemplating working out how to do Werewolves in SPAAACE!!! Also, the fact that some of the Russian dogs survived reentry and later went on to have puppies is another great place to mine things to throw in the path of a pack.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:13
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I understand, conspiracy theories are fascinating because they're the closest thing the United States has developed to it's own unique religion.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:13
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The Unlife Aquatic posted:I understand, conspiracy theories are fascinating because they're the closest thing the United States has developed to it's own unique religion. Um excuse me our unique religion is called Football 
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Apr 11, 2017 01:20
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Slimnoid posted:Um excuse me our unique religion is called Football That's American Football, I think you'll find that the other football religion is much more menacing. Our guys don't tend to riot on the reg compared to theirs.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:49
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This 9/11 conspiracy theory is a good example of when the result of paranoia and paredolia is amazing. From totally unrelated text messages and automated signals, someone assembled a baller heist plot that would be perfectly at home in Demon.  9/11 Truth is one of those broad conspiracy themes I find fairly distasteful, myself, but this is the kind of stuff that's amazing to mine from for games, stories, or poetry.
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Apr 11, 2017 02:22
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If anybody's interested in an nHunter game, we've got two slots open in our Thursday Discord game, around 5-8 PM on Thursdays as it stands. Two slots open, check the OP and applyherein if you're interested.
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Apr 11, 2017 03:15
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Kavak posted:I thought Delta Green leaned more on the "ALIENS!!1!" side of things, which while being extremely outdated wasn't that racist (Except the reptilians stuff). There's also Conspiracy X, which leaned really hard into ALIENS?!?! but also featured the occult and psychic powers as something everybody kind of has at a low level. I always liked their explanation for the Greys. On Greyworld everything is psychic and evolution basically took the course of selecting for psychic powers and not for physical or intellectual strength because the trump card for an organization on Greyworld is psychically dominating a prey organism into walking up to the predator to be eaten. Greys don't give off any of the psychic static human beings do (which manifests as hunches, empathy, etc), but when humans evolved and developed psi, humanity's naturally unfocused psychic powers hosed up Greyworld bad because there is zero attenuation due to distance with psi, even at galactic distances. Every Grey basically has the psychic equivalent of a bunch of people following you around and yelling in your ear all the loving time. They hate humanity but don't really want to wipe us out since it would take massive resources and time they're not sure they have, so instead they're genetically engineering Grey-dolphin-human crossbreeds ("Blues") in hopes of silencing the psychic static and saving their species. There's also the Saurians (Saurials? Are those the D&D guys like Dragonbait?), who are the survivors of an interplanetary dinosaur civilization that got stuck in a time bubble just past Pluto hundreds of millions of years ago and are completely baffled as to where their society and species went and how these primates got here.
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Apr 11, 2017 03:17
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Pope Guilty posted:There's also Conspiracy X, which leaned really hard into ALIENS?!?! but also featured the occult and psychic powers as something everybody kind of has at a low level. I always liked their explanation for the Greys. On Greyworld everything is psychic and evolution basically took the course of selecting for psychic powers and not for physical or intellectual strength because the trump card for an organization on Greyworld is psychically dominating a prey organism into walking up to the predator to be eaten. Greys don't give off any of the psychic static human beings do (which manifests as hunches, empathy, etc), but when humans evolved and developed psi, humanity's naturally unfocused psychic powers hosed up Greyworld bad because there is zero attenuation due to distance with psi, even at galactic distances. Every Grey basically has the psychic equivalent of a bunch of people following you around and yelling in your ear all the loving time. They hate humanity but don't really want to wipe us out since it would take massive resources and time they're not sure they have, so instead they're genetically engineering Grey-dolphin-human crossbreeds ("Blues") in hopes of silencing the psychic static and saving their species. This reminds me of Out of the Violent Planet which is like this but the opposite: Humans are the only alien to have NO psychic ability whatsoever. Which incidentally makes us immune to psychic mind control. In a universe where the be-all-end-all of war is psychically dominating your opponent and where no one ever bothered to develop weaponry or classic war at all, really, humans are now the most effective weapon. They can just walk up to a random psychic alien and shoot them in the face. And since the alien never bothered to develop weaponry or armor or tactics or anything warlike at all, it's really piss easy to do. And since they're aliens, for the most part we humans don't feel much regret about it. So humanity is used as interstellar psychopath mercenaries. The setting was written by Greg Stolze and released free for all after a fundraising Kickstarter: http://www.gregstolze.com/reign/REIGN_ViPlan.zip
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Apr 11, 2017 04:08
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Pope Guilty posted:There's also the Saurians (Saurials? Are those the D&D guys like Dragonbait?), who are the survivors of an interplanetary dinosaur civilization that got stuck in a time bubble just past Pluto hundreds of millions of years ago and are completely baffled as to where their society and species went and how these primates got here. This would actually slot perfectly into Delta Green as well.
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Apr 11, 2017 04:57
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I'm slowly messing around coming up with various mysteries for my players, and goddamn I can't wait for Signs of Sorcery to be released. Every Monday Meeting notes that don't show it moving closer to release are a Monday Meeting notes that make me sad. Edit: I'm also reading Tim Powers' 'Last Call', which is Mage as gently caress. I'm gonna be well prepared for this game even if it kills me or drives me insane. cptn_dr fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 07:59
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Basic Chunnel posted:If anybody's interested in an nHunter game, we've got two slots open in our Thursday Discord game, around 5-8 PM on Thursdays as it stands. Two slots open, check the OP and applyherein if you're interested. This sounds interesting, and something I can probably make if those times are in MST. (I work until 5:30 EST) I have to run to work, but I'll brainstorm a bit and see if I can't come up with something.
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Apr 11, 2017 13:16
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Basic Chunnel posted:If anybody's interested in an nHunter game, we've got two slots open in our Thursday Discord game, around 5-8 PM on Thursdays as it stands. Two slots open, check the OP and applyherein if you're interested. It would be the night I have class, wouldn't it? Oh well.
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Apr 11, 2017 13:29
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Cantorsdust posted:This reminds me of Out of the Violent Planet which is like this but the opposite: Humans are the only alien to have NO psychic ability whatsoever. That setting was actually written by Alan Dean Foster as the Damned trilogy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned_Trilogy
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Apr 11, 2017 15:57
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Basic Chunnel posted:If anybody's interested in an nHunter game, we've got two slots open in our Thursday Discord game, around 5-8 PM on Thursdays as it stands. Two slots open, check the OP and applyherein if you're interested. I am so down.
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Apr 11, 2017 16:04
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I've looked to no avail. Is there an online, editable Hunter sheet so we can hit save and load it onto Slack? There's that one site that lets you store character sheets and edit them online but they're all from 1st ed nWoD.
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Apr 11, 2017 16:14
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So i may be starting a Mage campaign in the vague-timeframe future. Just as a purely hypothetical question, as all my players are staunch, freedom loving Order mage types, does anyone have experience in running a mixed Seer/Order cabal or just campaign? Or any advice for running a game where one party member is an undercover agent of the Exarchs?
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Apr 11, 2017 18:06
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The closest I've come to ever having Seer PCs was a solo mortals game in which the PC was a Sleepwalker assassin, blessed ("blessed") by the Eye, working for a Seer cult. It was actually surprisingly fun. It centred heavily on ideas of faith and the Best of All Possible Worlds argument. Seers don't have to all be douchebags. cptn_dr posted:I'm slowly messing around coming up with various mysteries for my players, and goddamn I can't wait for Signs of Sorcery to be released. Every Monday Meeting notes that don't show it moving closer to release are a Monday Meeting notes that make me sad. You and me both. I totally forgot to even check until you mentioned it because the lack of change makes me sad. (And, yeah, I know it's getting worked on behind the scenes but perceptions, y'know?)
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Apr 11, 2017 18:21
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Pope Guilty posted:
You forgot that a subsect of the Saurian population survived the big rear end Saurian nuclear war and hid on Earth while humanity developed/was created by the alien Atlanteans. Said group of Saurians learned to tap into the Seepage to enter into people's dreams and try to keep the world stable. Con-X had a reaaaaally good setting.
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Apr 12, 2017 01:40
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Tasoth posted:You forgot that a subsect of the Saurian population survived the big rear end Saurian nuclear war and hid on Earth while humanity developed/was created by the alien Atlanteans. Said group of Saurians learned to tap into the Seepage to enter into people's dreams and try to keep the world stable. Con-X had a reaaaaally good setting. I'm always amazed when people know it because I read a bunch of the books but literally nobody I ever tried to get to play it had heard of it.
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Apr 12, 2017 02:17
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Welp, I'm now actually working out a methodology for sorting conspiracy theories into categories of 'realness' (as in, is it actually real, is it outright impossible, is it just very implausible, or is it a blurring of real and possibilities), category (UFOs, NWO, Nazis) and meta-characteristics (Millenialist, Eschatological, Anti-Establishmentarianist, KGB-created, etc) so I guess that once the project is done I'm just going to wind up trying to do for conspiracy theories what Frazer did for their ancestor, and which someone else has probably already done infinitely better (like say, Walker)
Loomer fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Apr 12, 2017 |
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Apr 12, 2017 08:28
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I think i figured out how to run Demon based on reading this thread. Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it appropriate to run it like a heist game, with the added caveat that you can't trust anyone because they might be Cultists, Angels or Integrators? That's the current plan.
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