The Gaming Den

Seriously. I know a lot more people want to be catfolk than the three brand spank-my-ass new loser races that have been in the last three Races book. I know a lot more people who want to be catfolk than even gnomes and half-orcs, yet they go out of their way to screw this race over; in both the promotion, stat blocks, and cultural description.

Is it some childish, douche-like fear of furries? Is it some fear that everyone will want to be a catperson? Do they just not like the flavor of furry humans? Did some game designer play Wizardry and just HATED the felpurr races? Someone help me out here.

What the hell, D&D morons? What the hell?

Supposedly, there's a bunch of fanboys that insist on being cat-girls, and using flawed reasoning to get bonuses to every stat but wisdom (Despite that if I was basing them on house cats, they wouldn't get one single bonus, house cats suck.)

That being said, I have never met someone who actually did that. My guess is that a lot of people say that, and accept it as true.

Lago wrote: Why do they hate the catfolk races?

Lago wrote: I know a lot more people who want to be catfolk

Duh.

Josh, I really don't understand this.

They did a lot of blathering on half-orcs and half-elves in races and destiny and NO ONE likes them.

Is it like the legions of catfolk haters larger than the catfolk lovers? I have no idea whether this is true or not, since catfolk seem to be more popular among fanboys than elves. Elves are still in the game.

Lago wrote:Is it like the legions of catfolk haters larger than the catfolk lovers?

Yes. Next question?

Why?

Let me let you in on a secret: In just about every damned RPG group I've had in the last four years there has been at least one furry or some similar sexual deviant.

Stacy always plays some kind of horse girl. Always. Sometimes its an actual centaur, sometimes it's a girl who rides a horse. I try not to think about it.

Lance always plays a monstrous tauroid freaky thing. Sometimes it's a tauric Lamasu Half-dragon, sometimes it's a fiendish tauric tiger. I try not to think about it.

Alex always plays a dragon of some kind. Always. Sometimes he plays a vampiric dragon, sometimes he plays a genetically enhanced supersoldier with dragon grafts. I try not to think about it.

Daiv always plays a very short and angry man. Sometimes he plays a dwarven sorcerer, sometimes he plays a halfling cossac wolf-riding archer. I try not to think about it.

And all of these people will attempt to have their characters get on-screen sexual activities. Not so much in-spite of the non-human anatomy, but probably because of it. I've had to tell Alex that he can't run a game, because under no circumstances is any character I ever play going to have sex with a full grown dragon.

---

So yeah, that sort of thing makes some people uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. So to speak.

And many people respond to the whole "people want to have sex with my cat" thing by attempting to shut the sexual deviants out of their games. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to simply ban all the animal-folk from being even half-way playable.

Now personally, I don't really give a damn. And sometimes this ends up with a roleplaying session that I'm in involving centaur/air elemental sex and that's basically OK. I'm mature enough to realize that other people want to do different things with the story than I do and under no circumstances am I going to contract brain cooties because someone wants to have his giant space dragon pump himself into a consort robot until it breaks.

But if people were less mature and philosophical about that sort of thing - they'd probably flip out the first time someone seriously started waving around the fact that cat penises have spines on them. And that's why you can't have cat people. Horse penises are simply larger than human penises. And slightly bent. Cat penises have little hooks on them which are intended to draw blood.

-Username17

I... I never thought of it that way before, Frank.

This is why we cannot have nice things; it is because you clowns RUIN IT.

All of you douches are going to die.

All of you douches are going to die PAINFULLY.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1108975827[/unixtime]] Cat penises have little hooks on them which are intended to draw blood.

-Username17

Heh, I'm going to bring that up next time I'm in a converstion with a furry fetishist.

Of course, they might find the idea stimulating,so maybe I shouldn't.

I dislike catfolk simply because of all the furry fanboys.

Oh, the millions of avenues of sexual deviance in D&D...

Well, there has to be a reason for all of the half-species, and if it isn't sexually deviant wizards it must just be sexually deviant players.

But I really must thank all of the freaks out there for the opportunity to Min/Max Half-dragon Half-minotaur Multiheaded Tauric Incarnate construct Warforged Draconic cohorts.

I think Davan of Something Positive said this best:

Please: Spay/Neuter your Cat Girl.

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It really is this simple:

Cat Fetishes are the most common.
Enough people find animal fetishes repulsive to make a substantial "voting block".

It doesn't go any farther than that. Cat People end up being the most common furry icon, and therefore they are the ones that people ban in an attempt to disassociate the D&D community from the furry community. I don't see the point myself, since both are extensions of roleplaying and fantasy, and you can never fully dissociate the two.

That and Lizardmen and Centaurs are in there, so removing catpaople doesn't even protect me from the vivid descriptions of the fantasies of my friends.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Cat penises have little hooks on them which are intended to draw blood.

Why?

It's so the female can't pull away during ejaculation. It helps to ensure that no semen is lost and thus the chances of impregnation are raised.

Animal Planet rocks.

MrWaeseL at [unixtime wrote:1108989717[/unixtime]]I dislike catfolk simply because of all the furry fanboys.

What he said

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
I'm going to leave this open for now, but, um, let's keep this on topic and clean.
[/The Great Fence Builder Speaks]

CAT

Tiny Animal
Hit Dice: 1/2 d8 (2 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 14 (+2 size, +2 Dex), touch 14, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/–12
Attack: Claw +4 melee (1d2–4)
Full Attack: 2 claws +4 melee (1d2–4) and bite –1 melee (1d3–4) and hookshaft (1d4-4) 1
Space/Reach: 2-1/2 ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: —
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +1
Abilities: Str 3, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7
Skills: Balance +10, Climb +6, Hide +14*, Jump +10, Listen +3, Move Silently +6, Spot +3
Feats: Weapon Finesse
Environment: Temperate plains
Organization: Domesticated or solitary
Challenge Rating: 1/4
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
The statistics presented here describe a common housecat.
Combat
Cats prefer to sneak up on their prey.
Skills: Cats have a +4 racial bonus on Climb, Hide, and Move Silently checks and a +8 racial bonus on Jump checks. Cats have a +8 racial bonus on Balance checks. They use their Dexterity modifier instead of their Strength modifier for Climb and Jump checks. *In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus rises to +8
1: Only male cats have this attack.

If I may, I propose more than one different reason for cat folk ignoring.

1) Lord of the fvcking Rings.

Its dumb, its boring, its archaic, but as evident by arguments seen even here abouts some people worship it and its lame ass characters as the be all and end all of the template for fantasy role play and IT HAS NO CAT PEOPLE. (well, unless you count the furry footed lazy glutton hobbits)

Plenty of people have ELF fetishes. Yes, thats right ELF fetishes, they always play elves, they go on and on about how good looking their elf is, they sometimes even want their elf to have sex a bunch. But elf fetishes are OK, and pretty well supported, because elves are in LOTR.

You think elf fetishes are less offensive than spiney penised multi nippled cat fetishes? Maybe, I don't know, certainly elves have this whole sorta under aged teen sex look going on for most of their life spans, including confusion where in player character elves could well be active adventurers at an elf age equivalent to WAY too young to be legal for a human, and they have freaky unnatural possibly even offensive emaciated super model figures. Ear lengths that in some cases could verge on the freakishly phallic, "naturalist" traditions etc...

Hell right there in the god damn forgotten realms the elves have entire dieties that revolve around arranging for elves to dance around naked in the moonlight! (Possibly with swords involved, theres symbolism there)

2) Cat folk are a monster race.

All monster races are screwed. D&D screws cat folk as much as it screws any monster race for the same mixed up reasons they screwed the savage species guide and all it represents.

So you think plenty more people are interested in cat folk than in illuminans or whatever those dumb things were?

Well you are right, but there are other races which could have been in there that would totally walk all over illuminans popularity wise.

Centaurs, Minotaurs, Winged Elves, Pseudo Dragons, Beholders, Mind Flayers, Nymphs, Giants, Fairies. ALL of these would be VERY popular races if some attention were payed to them. With some exceptions you could probably publish a whole damn book on how to play EACH ONE as a character race! (and even for the less popular ones they could probably successfully make a go of it two or three per book).

But they won't do it because there are some loony minority of bastards out there that regard all monster characters as munchkin fodder, and apparently its more important to quel their parranoid fantasies than satisfy everyone else.


So yeah, sure I do believe that the whole fear of cat fetishists is involved in why catfolk are so very much ignored, but I think that LOTR fixations and the persecution of all "monster" races are at least as significant as that factor when it comes to WHY this kind of dumb ass choice of material to publish is occurring.

Lago_AM3P at [unixtime wrote:1108963297[/unixtime]]Is it some childish, douche-like fear of furries? Is it some fear that everyone will want to be a catperson? Do they just not like the flavor of furry humans? Did some game designer play Wizardry and just HATED the felpurr races? Someone help me out here.

There are several possible answers:

1) It's just that the Wizards of the Coast think that furry humans are much more sexier than furry catfolks. Think about bearded ladies.

2) Maybe some game designer had some bad intercourse with his cat, due to the hooked penis. So he went out and cried: 'Damn! We have to nerf those fvckers!!!!'

3) Serious reason: Wiz of the Coast don't give a damn about cat people. They nerfed the drow (with a laughable +2 LA) because they hated all the drow-lovers who could go around with their bitchy female drow (usually devoted to Eilistraee). The evil demoness has turned into a tamed chick...
They want the players to use core races, that's all. It's still a mistery to me why they have to think this way, but they proved their disapproval for more exotic races more than once.

Oberoni at [unixtime wrote:1109031139[/unixtime]]
Full Attack: 2 claws +4 melee (1d2–4) and bite –1 melee (1d3–4) and hookshaft (1d4-4) 1

Well you just created the ultimate humiliating PC death.

The reason that people hate monater-players is simply because monster players will not play monsters for roleplaying purposes. Really. If you said "hey, you can just use the human or elf stats and we'll say that you look like a cat," they would not do it.

If you said "hey, rather than creating a whole new Pixie mechanic why don't we use the halfling as a template and you take Sorcerer levels and get stuff like illusions and charms?," you would not get a willing player.

No one wants to play a mind flayer without high SR and a death tentacle attack.

Nerfing catgirls is both the anti-munchkin voting block and the anti-furry block, and thats a pretty big block.

PS. I'm mature enough to deal with catgirl-fvcking in my game. I just find it distasteful along with other things like people who like talking in goofy "character voices," people who deliberately try to break the game with broken mechanics, and DMs with Gygaxian tendencies.

K wrote:The reason that people hate monater-players is simply because monster players will not play monsters for roleplaying purposes.

No. Thats not at all correct. The reason "people" or rather nerf loving parranoid "real role playas" FEAR monster characters is because they ever so fractionally break the mold of the incredibly narrow view of fantasy fiction that such people have ascribed to.

Should new rule books cater to people with imaginations this small but very vocal block of gamers will use any excuse they can think of to scream bloody murder.

The rather baseless accusation that people want to play monsters for pure power tripping purposes is a favourite among this crowd.

It is as a matter of fact NOT a well founded position to argue from but rather a knee jerk reactionary and entirely false claim.

K wrote: Really. If you said "hey, you can just use the human or elf stats and we'll say that you look like a cat," they would not do it.

And you know why? For the same reason as if you said that to someone who wanted to play a dwarf and they refused.

Because within the current system of how races are handled that is an incredibly sucky way of supporting another race. And no one wants to play a suckily supported race.

If an elf gets different mechanics to a human then sure as heck I would demand that a dwarf or a cat person get different ones too.

K wrote:If you said "hey, rather than creating a whole new Pixie mechanic why don't we use the halfling as a template and you take Sorcerer levels and get stuff like illusions and charms?," you would not get a willing player.

Of course bloody not, because just as cat folk probably shouldn't get elven weapon profs so to you will find that halflings can't fly.

So if I want a fairy as a character then you sure as hell haven't come close to satisfying me, but you know, I really don't need actual game breaking spell likes or massive attribute bonuses to be satisfied, just a moderately balanced small sized humanoid who can fly, they may have stat bonus or special abilities but only enough to balance with those availble to other races while being matched to the theme of the new race, thats all I ask.

Similarly there are absolute piles of people who WOULD be more than satisfied with a cat folk race that was no more powerful than an elf, yet also you know, actually distinct from an elf. Just like the other character races are supposed to be.

Dare I say that in fact the vast majority of people who would be interested in a cat folk type character actually want EXACTLY what I just described.

I cannot fathom why people who claim that those interested in monster characters are somehow interested in them exclusively for broken mechanics think they can get away with it.

Its a lie, outright slander. And failing anything else totally disproven by the one thing people interested in playable monsters keep on demanding, as in actual you know, functional, balanced, playable monsters.

K wrote:Nerfing catgirls is both the anti-munchkin voting block and the anti-furry block, and thats a pretty big block.

Not nerfing, pretty much erasing. And personally I have my doubts about the size of the two blocks you speak of.

And indeed I especially doubt that those are in fact two distinct blocks, I suspect they are mostly the same block, as in the parranoid real role playas block who keep on trying to make everyone elses rpg life hell.

I don't think they are that numerous, just really really vocal and utterly beyond any reasonable argument contrary to their long held faith based approach to what is allowed to be role playing.

(And I'm not saying that there are more reasonable folks out there that can't be uncomfortable with hardcore furry fetish stuff, just that anyone short of a loony would be comfortable with a catlike humanoid race actually potentially existing in some of the countless non core handbooks and understand that that is entirely different to turning the entire hobby into a kinky furry fetish festival)

I hate new races in general, because they just don't fit in anywhere.

If you want to make a new PC race, then by all means they should come with a new setting of some kind. If you have cat people, then there needs to be cat people cities and shit in your campaign world.

One of the biggest problem I have with monster PCs is their total disconnection from anything. At least with a mind flayer or drow PC, there is some kind of society that they come from. People look at them and say "oh yeah, a drow."

All this other new crap, whether it's cat people or Illumians is just a waste of time. If you have no connection to the game world, then you just don't belong.

Okay, if you want a cat-people race, they should have:

1. A Dex bonus
2. Big, see in the dark eyes, like low-light vision and maybe a Spot Bonus
3. Some ability relating to cat-naps, like I dunno, immunity to sleep or something.
4. Big pointed ears which rotate, let's give them a Listen bonus to match their Spot bonus
5. Cats always get into the trash no matter what, so as long as we're handing out perception bonuses, let's give them one to search, and the ability to locate the weak point in the trashbag without making an active search check
6. Personality-wise, cats don't like anybody ever. They should have an aloof demeanor and probably some sort of resistance to enchantment spells.
7. Personality-wise, they should also have rather non-human attitudes toward sex.

Balance wise, I'm just not seeing how you can justify letting a race like that into the game.

***********************************************

Now as to the digs at Tolkien, let's look at the instances of nookie in fantasy literature:

Egyptian Myth: (D&D relevance: Idea of valuables sealed in warded tombs.)
Incest, Necrophilia, Hot-cat girl goddess.

Greek Myth: (D&D relevance: Pegasus, Medusa, Gorgon, Eyrines, Minotaur, Sphinx, more)
Bondage, shower of gold nookie (not to be confused with golden showers), hot Queen-on-Bull action, Narcisistic mastubatory action, Oedipal action, mossy action, and *more*, lion-skinning, but no cat-girls.

Beowulf: (D&D relevance: Damage Reduction)
No nookie. None. At all. No cat girls, although Grendel's Dam is maybe some type of animal.

Shakespeare: (D&D relevance: Love Potions, Sprites, Useless Sorcerers)
Humurous faerie nookie. Lots of cross-dressing, more Syphillis jokes than anyone. No cat girls.

Lord Dunsany: (D&D relevance: Gnoll)
Mild ghost nookie. Fairy Princess + Questing Knight nookie. All safely in wedlock. No cat girls.

Robert E. Howard: (D&D relevance: Barbarian, some oozes, possibly D&D clerics)
Mighty Thews. Manly homoeroticism. Mighty Thews. Heaving Bosoms. Mighty Thews. Random girlfriend of the story nookie. Mighty Thews. Pirate queen nookie. No cat girls.

Cordwainer Smith (D&D relevance: NONE)
Cat/Human lust. Giant flaming Spice producing sheep. Turtle-girl lust. Dog-girl martyrdom. Cat girl nookie.

Tolkien (D&D relevance: Halflings, some other crap)
Elf nookie. Human/Elf nookie, but mostly courtly. No cat girls.

Lieber (D&D relevance: Rogue)
This is where it finally starts getting good. We have menage-a-trois, crazy mad were-rat nookie, flesh ghoul nookie and Odin lechery. No cat girls, the mice and bird girls somehow must keep them away.

Anderson (D&D relevance: Regenerating green big-nosed Troll)
Explicit Faerie Nookie, Swanmay Nookie, and that other book with a spaceman who finds a whole planet of wimmens. No cat girls.

Stan Lee + Bob Kane (D&D relevance: Spider Climb, Robe of Useful Items)
Wanna-be cat girl nookie.

Le Guin
Mad hermaphrodite nookie. No cat girls.

Moorcock (D&D relevance: Law & Chaos axes of allignment)
Albino masturbatory nookie (or so I hear). No cat girls, although they probably would have helped.

Tanith Lee
We get Queen + entire counrty gangbang; undead plague lesbian nookie; Hermaphroditic half demon shapeshifter nookie; elemenal nookie - and all that's in just *one* book. No cat girls.

Zelanzy
Underwater mirror princess nookie. Shapeshifting demon princess nookie. Incest. No cat girls.

Foster
Anthropomorphic Mustelid Lust.

Thundercats/Vision of Escaflowne/FFTA/Blade Kitten/Nuku Nuku/Darkstalkers:
Mad cat girl nookie.

There you have it. There're clearly a number of precedents in fantasy for cat-girl nookie. However, a disturbingly large number of them are very recent and/or disturbingly low-quality.

RandomCasualty wrote:I hate new races in general, because they just don't fit in anywhere.

If you want to make a new PC race, then by all means they should come with a new setting of some kind. If you have cat people, then there needs to be cat people cities and shit in your campaign world.

So in other words... if you are going to have cat people in the world there had better be cat people in the world?

Uh. Well, yeah.

Though I think you are implying because they were'nt in the world in your model of fantasy (which is basically minimalist LOTR) they can't ever be in the new game Joe the gamer starts next week. But maybe you aren't.

So yeah clearly if they are going to be in the game, they need to be in the game, which is another reason they can't just be the page describing half elves with half elf crossed out and "cat girl" written at the top in crayon.

Now if you are going to have new monster type races they should have a whole book dedicated to them to get it right and include those cities and background and junk. Wait, savage species, races of this, races of that, douh!

Isn't the whole complaint here that new races ARE being introduced, and there are book fulls of material being dedicated to race junk and yet major popular races are being overlooked in favour of pages upon pages of idiots with flashing neon signs orbitting their foreheads?