The Gaming Den

I'll take part of the rap for that, I read the link because I had forgotten what that summons. My bad, y'all.

Man, I even went through the trouble of copying the link address and pasting it rather than clicking thru.

Out of curiosity of the sig I clicked to read his post but then was reminded that I have sigs turned off too. Hah.

You know you'd think that Shitmuffin would know better by now, anyway apparently Shitmuffins is also Hitler.

Lord Mistborn wrote:You know you'd think that Shitmuffin would know better by now, anyway apparently Shitmuffins is also Hitler.

I can't even tell if that was posted by someone in support of shitmuffin or against him. It mostly just copypastas random bits from the argument. Of course, it is demonstrable that shitmuffin was making no fucking sense in that argument, but there's no way to know if the person who made the video noticed this fact or not. And it's been up there for like six months, so it's even more puzzling.

-Username17

When you ask people on this forum questions, they don't answer them. FrankTrollman has, in fact, actually advised people not to answer questions as apparently he thinks honesty is some sort of trap.

(That person went ahead and answered questions but eventually refused after a while.)

Once someone doesn't answer questions about their ideas, their ideas don't matter. So there's no reason to trust anyone here or believe them when they claim to want a real debate about genuine ideas.

If anyone reading this does have any questions for me, I'm at dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com.

Zak S wrote:When you ask people on this forum questions, they don't answer them. FrankTrollman has, in fact, actually advised people not to answer questions as apparently he thinks honesty is some sort of trap.

(That person went ahead and answered questions but eventually refused after a while.)

Once someone doesn't answer questions about their ideas, their ideas don't matter. So there's no reason to trust anyone here or believe them when they claim to want a real debate about genuine ideas.

If anyone reading this does have any questions for me, I'm a dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com.

dont post

Zak S wrote:When you ask people on this forum questions, they don't answer them. FrankTrollman has, in fact, actually advised people not to answer questions as apparently he thinks honesty is some sort of trap.

In case you are wondering what this idiots idea of "straight story" is, here he is claiming that Frank advising someone to not start a conversation with him (because every conversation immediately begins as a pile of shit and goes down from there) as an attempt to hide information that is readily available.

Seriously, casual users that see this thread should review the previous two Zak S threads to see how his actions hold up against his words.

Zak S wrote:When you ask people on this forum questions, they don't answer them. FrankTrollman has, in fact, actually advised people not to answer questions as apparently he thinks honesty is some sort of trap.

(That person went ahead and answered questions but eventually refused after a while.)

Once someone doesn't answer questions about their ideas, their ideas don't matter. So there's no reason to trust anyone here or believe them when they claim to want a real debate about genuine ideas.

If anyone reading this does have any questions for me, I'm a dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com.

I have answered every question you've asked me, but you have not done the same for my questions.

Zak S wrote:Once someone doesn't answer questions about their ideas, their ideas don't matter. So there's no reason to trust anyone here or believe them when they claim to want a real debate about genuine ideas.

I have seen several people ask him questions, and he never actually responded to their question(s). So by his own logic, his ideas do not matter in a debate because he cannot be expected to be honest. Is that what you're saying Zak?

Damn it guys, when you quote shitmuffin, people who have him on ignore end up reading his insane ramblings. I mean, aside from the incoherent attacks on me personally, he really said this:

Shitmuffin wrote:Once someone doesn't answer questions about their ideas, their ideas don't matter.

So you know, Plato, Marx, Galileo, Semmelweis, Einstein, all of those peoples' ideas don't matter because we've passed the point where they stopped answering questions about their ideas. This is a stance that's so insane that I can't even respond to it except with dismissive memes. I mean, no one could actually be that fucking retarded, right?


Note: also stopped answering questions about his ideas

-Username17

So zac is hitler?

Krusk wrote:So zac is hitler?

Yes.

Zak wrote:Once someone doesn't answer questions about their ideas, their ideas don't matter. So there's no reason to trust anyone here or believe them when they claim to want a real debate about genuine ideas.

To anyone who might come across this and think it sounds reasonable, I want to point out that the gish gallop is a real technique used by real people during debate in an attempt to make themselves difficult to refute.

The motivation behind the gish gallop is that by constantly spewing out new bullshit arguments, you never have to admit to the weakness of any specific one: when pressed on argument #1, transition to argument #2; when pressed on argument #2, transition to argument #3: when pressed on argument #152, transition back to argument #1 because everyone's forgot about it already. It's used by people like creationists and other people who are almost completely full of shit. It is also, not surprisingly, how Zak argues: whenever he gets backed into a corner, he will completely ignore the person who cornered him there and start arguing with someone else about something else.

Zak is attempting to set standards of debate that 1) he has never lived up to at any time on our forums, and 2) allow him to do his gish galloping bullshit and still be taken seriously. There is a reason people immediately dismiss Fox News: by virtue of near constant deceit, they have shown that they have no credibility and cannot be trusted as a source of news. And so it is with Zak: he moves goal posts, he strawmans, he abandons arguments he's losing by changing the topic. And he does it all the fucking time. He doesn't have any credibility left, and the correct response is to ignore him or force him to stay on one topic. Zak is whining that we don't take his gish gallop seriously. That's all this is.

For fun: see the argument about prior restraint starting on page 10: Zak made bold claims about a real word with a real definition that he did not understand. When people corrected him about the definition of the word, he 1) called everyone a moron, 2) lied about what other people had said, and 3) dodged the argument entirely by refusing to respond and changing the topic. Now, the definition of that word really has nothing to do with TTRPG's. But his conduct during that argument is insightful and a fair example of his conduct during every other debate.

There's also the time (in the other giant fucking thread) Zak made a rules claim about nat 1's on ability checks that was completely false. When someone corrected him, he mocked them for not knowing the rules. When pushed on the fact that he was actually completely fucking wrong, he eventually responded "LOL I meant my house rules, duh." Think about that for a second. There are two possibilities: 1) Zak is so fucking insane he will mock people on the internet for not knowing his personal houserules, or 2) Zak only claimed he was talking about house rules after the fact in order to avoid having been wrong.

Zak really is a genuinely deceitful asshole. He brings nothing to a debate except his willingness to lie in order to protect his over-inflated ego.

I'd like to know why Zak continues to come back here to defend himself. It's should at least be clear to him that we're never going to return whatever measure of his dignity that we have taken from him without some form of contrition on his part. Are his narcissistic delusions really so thick that he thinks he can still win the argument after almost a year of evidence otherwise.

As valid as it is to point out Zak's dishonesty and the weird childish manner in which he argues I still think there's a lot of unnecessary worry about making sure everything he posts comes with a complete debunking. I really don't think there's anyone on the other side of this, it's just Zak. Recall that any time we've argued with 4rries or RPGsite grogs or Somethingawful trolls there was always a surge of defenders that would show up to tell us why we're wrong.

We've now had multiple sessions where Zak shows up to argue, embarrasses himself by shouting that we're all lying swine, gets shit on for being terrible at game design and eventually leaves to post on his blog about how we're jerks and virgins. Not one person has ever defended him in all this time. In no thread has there ever been a single person who showed up to side with Zak's argument. There really is no one out there, his audience is small enough in it's entirety that he notices "spikes" to his website any time we send all of 5 Denners over to peruse his stuff. Reduce that audience down to the percent that's willing to defend him online and that audience by those who are willing to ignore him lying through his teeth and the end result is that there really is no Zak crowd. Zak has made calls on his blog, with links, for people to come and see us being mean to him and that call went to voicemail.

There is no neutral party anyone needs to win over. No one takes Zak seriously and over a year of these arguments not a single person has ever read his dishonest insane screeching and decided that they wanted to back that horse.

If you're here researching Zak, please consider what just happened:

In response to me saying he has a big ego that he can't stand to have bruised, he posted angry insults at me on his blog, laced with superficially good-sounding things like "People who evade questions destroy all rational debate." We all want rational debate, right? Having more of that sounds good, Zak must have his priorities straight, right?

No. Zak is a narcissist who just knows how to get people on his side while being the very thing he claims to detest. By espousing positive things like fairness and rational debate and inviting questions, he creates a good image in his reader. By accusing those he dislikes of lying, arguing in bad faith, and being motivated by entirely petty motivations of hurt pride, he sets himself up as a champion of truth and his enemies as butt-hurt sophists. The opposite is true.

Just read this thread; Zak does everything he says I did, he dodges questions, he refuses to answer, he digs in again and again because of his bruised ego, even as the error of his understanding is increasingly obvious. He changes topics to avoid defending points he realizes are wrong, and claims that he goes unrefuted.

Now he says that Frank Trollman advising others to not engage with trolls who don't contribute anything to rational debate is some kind of act of censorship or bullying. But Zak argues for the exact same thing in his article about Mark Carroll, almost word for word. He calls it weeding out the weak, and he smugly stands by it until the weak means him. Well in this thread he is squarely put into his place as weak, his arguments full of holes, and his conclusions utterly erroneous.

Does he concede? No, he concludes that we just gang up on him because we're jealous of his genius. He outright lies about what he has said and what others have said. But he coats it in the exact opposite paint: they lied about me, they're arguing in bad faith, their arguments don't hold up to my scrutiny.

Reader, stop reading these reports, and go and read the actual arguments. You will plainly see that Zak is and does exactly the things he claims to despise in others. He just knows that people despise those things, and he uses those words--fairness, rational debate, good faith--to generate sympathy for himself and enmity for those who legitimately cornered him in his own bad arguments.

Don't be fooled. Investigate. Read any of the arguments people are citing; Zak is only a noble defender of truth and enemy of error in his own thoughts, when he describes it after-the-fact. In the moment he is a petulant child who resorts to anything in order to make people who challenge him go away. And when nothing works, he just changes the topic, and claims victory afterwards. That's not rational debate. That's not even good faith. Zak is the very thing he claims makes others worthless.

And it is his insistence on using precisely such tactics, and ruining rational debate with his constant manipulations and dodgery, that make some of us seeking real, good faith debate to simply ignore or not engage him. Which is precisely what he said is a good idea. He just can't stand his own philosophy. Don't take my word for it, skim this thread and see for yourself. This is Zak. This is always Zak. He's an enlightened champion only in his own mind and to those he is able to trick into accepting his reports of what happened, which is sadly too many. Stop the cycle. Learn for yourself.

I honestly would like to go to see Zac's arguments on his blog, I really really do. Except whenever I do, he shows up here and thrashes around shitting himself for weeks on end. I don't think a sane person would punish someone for trying to see their words in the way they intended.

Regardless of any of his arguments, actually going to his blog in reading them ends up punishing me because I have to put up with him menstruating all over the goddamn place for weeks afterwards.

@Dean: At least 1 reddit commenter said he came here and read at least part of this thread, so there are exceptions.

Everything went to shit on page 9. That whole escapade was amazing in its tone shift, from equanimity to hubris just like that.

Zak S wrote:Once someone doesn't answer questions about their ideas, their ideas don't matter. So there's no reason to trust anyone here or believe them when they claim to want a real debate about genuine ideas.

Glad to know that I have justification - from the horse's mouth - to completely and utterly ignore anything Shitmuffin ever says again.

On a certain pathfinder forum

Banned archetypes wrote:Summoner - Synthesis (Due to Over Powered builds and complicated rules debates on how it works, not dealing with it.)
Monk - Monk of The Four Winds, Zen archer (Obvious abuse of Flurry of Blows)
Barbarian - Titan Mauler (Abuse of Two-Handed weapons and size bonus.)
Fighter - Unbreakable (Voted on by staff)
Ranger - Trophy Hunter (Fire-Arms)

lolwut?

I can understand Trophy Hunter's ban (if you don't use firearms then that archetype shouldn't be allowed), but all of those are lame.

I thought the Synthesis Summoner was the weaker version because your pet doesn't get a second set of actions.

Lord Mistborn wrote:I thought the Synthesis Summoner was the weaker version because your pet doesn't get a second set of actions.

Yes, but the Synthesis Summoner plays like a power ranger fighter, and is better at melee than fighter. Which makes him totaly OP.