The Gaming Den

Hate to do the bare link drop, but I think Cards Against Humanity fans among the Den will find this very amusing: http://yarukizero.files.wordpress.com/2 ... gnards.pdf

It is rare to see something so fitting the gaming den come from somewhere outside the gaming den.

I recognize the sources of several of those phrases. I can sadly confirm that the "Cultural Marxism" label has been used against RPG games and game designers, of all things.

Communism, it's everywhere!

P.S. The Maid RPG's a card; the RPG itself was created by Ewen Cluney, the host of the linked website. You know what they say, if you can't laugh at yourself...

I really need to find people to play CAH with...

So uh, how does it work? It looks like it's either a mad-libs thing* or an actual "There are correctly matching cards here" quiz.

*I also don't really know what mad-libs is, just trying to guess based on context I've seen it used in.

It's kinda like apples to apples, if you've ever played that. The gist is that a black card is read and then everyone contributes a white card from their hand into a pile. The words from the white cards are used to finish the sentence on the black card and whoever has the best/funniest/stupidest/whatever combo is the winner. I like making it a drinking game.

Edited because in a moment of stupidity I explained Apples to Apples instead.

Ah, okay. I could see that making a good drinking game, yeah. I should print it out for the next time I go to Melbourne, what with my friends there being the sort who will get the jokes. And being the sort to like any game that ends with "and then we were drunk".

Ah, okay. I could see that making a good drinking game, yeah. I should print it out for the next time I go to Melbourne, what with my friends there being the sort who will get the jokes. And being the sort to like any game that ends with "and then we were drunk".

The basic version of Cards Against Humanity is also free to print out, and makes a good general-purpose game. It's a bit heavy on american politicians, though--you'd likely want to make some more australian-specific cards to substitute.

Apples to Apples is a lot more fun than it sounds, especially if you keep it short.

This look awesome. My regular group is probably going to play CAH next time since one of our players can't make it, and these are shoe-ins.

Koumei wrote: *I also don't really know what mad-libs is, just trying to guess based on context I've seen it used in.

While we're explaining stuff: Mad-libs is kind of like the single-player version. You get a list of words to fill in, like the mad-lib asks you to fill in an adjective and so you write in "red" or "big" or "voluptuous" or whatever. Then you read through a short story which will occasionally prompt you to fill in that adjective. Usually the story is two or three paragraphs and there'll be at least one each of an adjective, verb, and noun to fill in, resulting in bizarre and mostly random stories. This can keep kids entertained for hours, but hoping to chance upon a genuinely entertaining combo by spitting out words at random is probably not going to be terribly entertaining for an adult. Mostly it's just a good way of making fun of people who seem to be shoving words into their sentences at random.

Oh right, I've seen those things before, in fact someone made a Flash "game" where you put the words down and then it spits the story out.

Actually I once used HTML/javascript to make a little "David Eddings Trilogy Generator" where you have to name the Evil God, Reluctant Hero and Big Blue Gem.

So, I played this game with my regular group tonight, interspersing the cards throughout a regular CAH deck, and it was a lot of fun. My last submission, which was the best, was "Elminster casts a [White Privilege] spell and has sex with [Historically black colleges], which I thought was pretty good. Admittedly, three out of the five people don't know RPG's that well and I was the only person who knew what a Fishmalk was (thanks to you guys!), so I had to explain a few of the cards, but it still went pretty well. "[Dragon boobs], there's an app for that!" wasn't half-bad either.

There's an online CAH. This version could probably be ported to it pretty easily.

Chamomile wrote:

Koumei wrote: *I also don't really know what mad-libs is, just trying to guess based on context I've seen it used in.

This can keep kids entertained for hours, but hoping to chance upon a genuinely entertaining combo by spitting out words at random is probably not going to be terribly entertaining for an adult.

A sober one, perhaps.

Juton wrote:It is rare to see something so fitting the gaming den come from somewhere outside the gaming den.

Indeed!

Could someone explain these references within the context of TTRPGs? I mean, I know what a Lesbian Stripper Ninja is, I just want to know what meaning that particular phrasing has within grognardville.

• Gygaxian naturalism
• A ratcatcher with a small but vicious dog
• Githyanki therapy
• Splugorth blind warrior women
• Lesbian stripper ninjas
• Oozemaster
• Cheetoism
• Fun Tyrant
• Dildo of Enlightenment +2
• Drow blackface
• Owlbear’s tears
• The Crisis of Treachery™
• Rapenards
• Cultural Marxism
• Ron Edwards’ brain damage

Dildo of Enlightenment +2: Part of the name of a recent D&D adventure, where the characters venture into a dungeon where all the monsters want to have sex with them.

Lesbian Stripper Ninja: A common character archetype created by teenage male gamers. Is most often an elf or drow in D&D settings.

Gygaxian Naturalism: Comes from an old school term, where monster abilities and treasure were based off of the environment and campaign setting to not be "out of place" in a dungeon. For example, putting a fire elemental in the boiler room of a gnome-designed dungeon. He powers the furnace.

Rapenards: There are a few infamous RPG products and game designers which trivialize rape and depict it in lurid ways. CthulhuTech has not one, not two, but three adventures involving rail-road plots and sexual assault accompanied by artwork meant to be "sexy" (including one adventure where furries mind-control the PCs to have sex with them). There's also James Desborough, who uses the "Rape as Comedy" shtick a lot in his work, and ending up creating a nasty flame war on rpg.net. When one of his critics started receiving rape threats, Desborough blew it off as "attention whoring."

Cheetoism: Cheetos and Mountain Dew were favorite snacks in Gary Gygax's gaming circle. Beyond that I have no idea if the phrase has any deeper meaning.

Cultural Marxism: It's common for more right-wing gamers to view "liberal attitudes" in Table-Top RPGs as signs of anti-white, anti-male, anti-heterosexual influence. Some of the more conspiratorial ones insist that RPGs which ditch historical racism, sexism, and portray capitalism in a negative light are being negatively influenced by Political Correctness.

Is most often used by gamers who apply the Marxist label to anything they don't like, given that blatant Communist rhetoric is incredibly rare in the Table-Top industry.

Cultural Marxism is not just in the RPG community, and is used for similar ends by right-wing groups in real life. Most worrisome is that I notice it used an awful lot by European white supremacist groups, which sets alarm bells off in my brain whenever I see it used by a gamer on a message board.

Ron Edwards’ brain damage: Ron Edwards once wrote a controversial article where he compared players who stick to one RPG system as brain-damaged rape victims, and it still unapologetic about his use of words.

Oozemaster: A 3.0 Prestige Class in Masters of the Wild. You become a humanoid with ooze-like qualities. Used on /tg/ and elsewhere to replicate "goo girl" characters from anime.

And here I thought rapenards was some reference to giant horny monster testicles. You know, a portmanteau of 'nards' (testicles) and 'rape'. But no, the actual use is even creepier.

Added more to my previous post, including the "Lesbian Stripper Ninja."

Also, Githyanki Therapy. Not seeing what's groggy about it, but I'm sure there's more to it.

Oozemaster: A 3.0 Prestige Class in Masters of the Wild. You become a humanoid with ooze-like qualities. Used on /tg/ and elsewhere to replicate "goo girl" characters from anime.

I thought the formal term for Lesbian Stripper Ninja was Elfbian Mafia.

Dildo of Enlightenment +2: Part of the name of a recent D&D adventure, where the characters venture into a dungeon where all the monsters want to have sex with them.

Also, cultural Marxism is sometimes used, as in the link in tzor's or shadzar's sig (I can't remember which), by 2e and 1e grognards to posit a culture of permissiveness or something which led to people being sissies and not appreciating labyrinthine initiative systems, rolling your stats in order, and no-save fuck-you's.

Splugorth Warrior Women is probably a reference to RIFTS, which I've never played. Apparently, Splugorths are beholder-esque tentacled intergalactic slavers, or something.

Oozemaster is, I think, a reference to the PrC, which is both pretty bad and makes you an ooze.

The ratcatcher card is a reference to WHFRP 2e, where you can play as a ratcatcher, who automatically starts with a small but vicious dog.

The Dildo of Enlightment +2 is an book that is a metafictional parody of ADnD and its players, where the characters know they're characters and try to resist being controlled by their players.

The Crisis of Treachery was when one of Palladium's employees embezzled a bunch of money: it's on wikipedia.

Drow blackface is just that.

Korgan0 wrote:Also, cultural Marxism is sometimes used, as in the link in tzor's or shadzar's sig (I can't remember which), by 2e and 1e grognards to posit a culture of permissiveness or something which led to people being sissies and not appreciating labyrinthine initiative systems, rolling your stats in order, and no-save fuck-you's.

I'm sick and tired of getting red-baited in political discussions, does it really have to ooze into RPG debates as well?

Seriously, how did anyone make a link between this and Communist principles?