Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

[Crissa]

...And most game developers are not Japanese. The Japanese, Korean, and Chinese markets are all very healthy, but while their sales dwarf the west, their development budgets and staffs do not.

-Crissa

[shirak]

1188358115[/unixtime]]It's because of our hair colours. They only have two, we have, like what? 50?

I think it has more to do with the fact that we beat the crap out of them and destroyed their culture and way of life. Twice!

Or it might be the hair colors. That works too.

[Koumei]

Shirak's post makes me laugh. Therefore, this thread now qualifies for itself. So:

This thread

[Draco_Argentum]

WoW forums link Read until the first post from a Blizzard employee. (In blue text) Win.

[tzor]

1188356772[/unixtime]]Actually, Japanese people want to be white. They have a really weird psychological hang up regarding the West.

Actually I recall hearing that in Japan the sterotpye is not per se on skin color as it is on nose type. That is why all "good" characters have small noses and all "evil" villians have large foreigner noses.

I think there is also a flair for the foreign and in Japan's case that would be the psudo-mythical European Middleages, just as the west has a bizzare fascination with the prodo-mythical Eastern martial arts ages.

The influces are probably better seen in anime than in video games but they do have an influence in video games since even western designers are probably anime fans.

[technomancer]

I don't think fascination with a culture that is not your own is bizare. In fact, I think it's quite natural. I grew up with western stories and myths, so I know them. When a story is just a derrivative of a western myth or cultural story, I can usually spot it and start predicting. However, I am (or was) unfamiliar with easter stories and myths, making it's derivatives original and less predictable to me. Plus, ninjas are cool, the closest we have are people who got hopped up on hashish and went into a bloody rampage.

[Cielingcat]

Technomancer, in what way are ninjas cooler than drugged up religious zealots who are the origin of the word "assassin"?

[NineInchNall]

Because ninjas are t3h 1337 f4I74r2!!!11!!1!one!

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Me, I think ninjas are overplayed. Hashshashin are much cooler.

[Koumei]

Personally, I'd like to see more Nordic stuff. I don't know why, but Barbarian doesn't say to me "Norse Berserker", it says "Uneducated lunatic who lives in the desert, hence wearing only a loincloth, and who possibly wields seven scimitars at once."

It might help that I was never interested in Conan the Barbarian, thus only looked at the cover of a book and saw people in the desert. So I'm assuming it's very un-Norse.

Anyway, more Nordic stuff for the win. I like ninjas (assuming we're talking Shinobi: wearing white and bright read, stabbing people in the face and summoning blasts of fire to scorch enemies, or Karakuri Ninja Girl: awesome ninja lesbian sex magic), but I'm honestly a bit over the entire ancient Japanese thing and want me some Norse awesomeness.

[shirak]

1188447601[/unixtime]]Personally, I'd like to see more Nordic stuff.

How about Norse ninjas?

[Cielingcat]

Personally, I like Warhammer stuff, and as such the only ninjas I like are:

Drug crazed zealots who are dropped into enemy bases, pumped full of stimulants, and left to kill everyone until the die, at which point the drugs in their bodies explode.

Shape-shifting assassin chicks with long braids and swords made of Necron living metal. They're not as cool as Eversor assassins.

[Koumei]

I can picture Norse ninjas. That's pretty cool, and the opposite of stealthy.

As for the 40K assassins, they are indeed awesome. Back when I collected, I had a Callidus, and was going to get the full set of them.

[MrWaeseL]

Personally, I'd like to see a norse-drawn carriage *rimshot*

[cthulhu]

1188464216[/unixtime]]Personally, I like Warhammer stuff, and as such the only ninjas I like are:

Drug crazed zealots who are dropped into enemy bases, pumped full of stimulants, and left to kill everyone until the die, at which point the drugs in their bodies explode.

Yeah.. they are fan dabby dabulous. And emulateable in shadowrun, which is also cool.

[tzor]

Well for me "Barbarian" says "some guy from the north who doesn't speak the civilized language of the Roman Empire."

"Etymology: Latin barbarus + English -ian -- more at BARBAROUS ... from Greek barbaros foreign, rude, ignorant; perhaps akin to Sanskrit barbara stammering, non-Aryan"

Then again considering the common prayer, "from the fury of the Norsemen, deliver us, O Lord," I can really see barbarians as being norse, only faux norse with the horn helmits, boldly going into battle because it's safer than staying at home where they get abused by their wives. (Yes Hagar the Horrible
is my role model!)

[Cielingcat]

1188472940[/unixtime]]Yeah.. they are fan dabby dabulous. And emulateable in shadowrun, which is also cool.

Space Marines can also be emulated in Shadowrun.

[Koumei]

Thinking very quickly about older Shadowrun stuff (I can't remember, shall we call it second edition?), I'm having trouble thinking of many things from 40K that can't be emulated in it.

[endersdouble]

Am I missing how you do kickass power armor?

[cthulhu]

1188534408[/unixtime]]Am I missing how you do kickass power armor?

Yeh that is kinda tricky because there is no exoskeleton. The full body armour provides a not unreasonable facsimile though.

[Koumei]

Not so much a thread in particular, because they're still wetting themselves over what may or may not be in 4Ed, but just general bitching about WotC instead.

There are a few catchphrases on there that really shit me up the wall. Let's ignore for a moment their use of terms like "strawman", "fallacy", "ad hominem" and the rest without knowing what they mean. When I first joined the boards, I felt stupid for not knowing what they were talking about. So I did some research. Turns out they didn't understand either.

No, the things that really piss me off are:

1. Psionics changes everything. For the better.

Psionics are what started the "I bought a splat book so you have to incorporate it into your game!" attitude, and despite it working as poorly as ever (okay, I imagine the old "roll to see if you are psychic on top of everything you normally get" thing sucked. And some systems still use it. Like Rifts. And we know how THAT is a paragon of game balance ), they still feel everyone HAS to put it in their game. Heck, some want to replace regular magic with it. Psionics are just another reason why I picked Eberron to be my least-liked system. And there's more or less nothing that I hate more than fanboys. Elves don't piss me off per se, but elf fanboys do. I like dragons, dragon fanboys annoy the hell out of me. I do hate Warforged, but the fanboys are at least as bad. Then psionics. The fans manage to be even more annoying than the system.

2. The stupid "Strict Game, Loose Game, Power Game, Your Mum's Game" bullshit. I think that one speaks for itself.

I can't be bothered looking for individual threads, but really, those things both tend to show up everywhere, so you could just say the entire WotC boards domain qualifies.

[Fuzzy_logic]

In fairness, compared to the devastation wrought by D&D spellcasting on unprepared campaigns, psionics *is* better. The fundamental mechanics of the system might be worse, but the implementation is better, because there aren't so many totally ridiculous thigns you can.

[Koumei]

That's largely just because magic has /more/ options. Besides, I'll be honest here. I'ven't ever played in a game where the super-crazy magic shit would actually work. If you get around the DM's perception of how the game should work, he says "No" and it doesn't happen.

So while your mileage may vary, in my experience the really stupid stuff doesn't happen with magic, whereas the "doesn't shift the axis of the world, but does auto-win encounters and piss the group off in general" stuff that both magic and psionics have does happen. Except for one DM, who basically ignores stats and rules, and actually won't let BBEGs die until a few rounds are up.

Which I won't actually complain about, it leads for a more climactic battle, but still, just because you can ignore a rule doesn't mean it isn't annoying.

But I do see your point. They can argue "At least we don't hold the world down and fuck it with a rake." and that's largely true.

[Bigode]

First off, I think the "strict/power game" idiocy never was upheld by many people (or, at least, not in the threads I follow); which makes it sort of good news considering all that getting rid of it takes is putting tarkin on the ignore list.

For the "catchphrases", I happen to think that:
- "ad hominem" is a good shorthand for "you're flinging insults instead of reasoning" - see, the advantage for me is just having to type less words;
- and at least 2 fallacies merit mention: Oberoni ("you can't say something isn't wrong because you can't fix it - using the word 'fix' implicitly means it's wrong") and Stormwind ("roleplaying and optimization can exist on the same person") - again, it's just something that takes less time to write (and, yes, there are idiots who don't know either fact and need the fallacy definitions - and proofs - shoved into them).

As someone who plays with psionics (as well as magic; no "fanboyism" here, I'd say): I can say, at least, that it's better in the sense that a) it has Bruce Cordell instead of Ed Stark and b) the psion and the psychic warrior are much better balanced than any full spellcaster and any warrior you could find in the PHB, so it's a much better handling of the warrior-mage problem. Therefore, yes, I do say that psionics changes everything in a WotC-only game for the better (as does blade magic); comparing a ToB/psionics game to a Tome game, on the other hand, is a much more tricky issue (and I have no problem in understanding people saying "Tome's better" without doubt).

Edit: I forgot to say that psionics, IIRC, was one of the first things to consistently have PrCs that gave things instead of other things (namely, ML) instead of something for nothing (which is ridiculous at face value with the classes that get things for nothing - spellcasters - not needing any extra power in the first place).

[Neeek]

1188647197[/unixtime]]

2. The stupid "Strict Game, Loose Game, Power Game, Your Mum's Game" bullshit. I think that one speaks for itself.

Has this spread beyond the one idiot?