Posts made by WTFE

@Lisse24 said in RL Anger:

@Aria Man, I hate to start something, but ...

I'm Christian.

I grew up in the Evangelical community, though in a very small, independent tradition, and not among the Baptist wave.

Although, I left my tradition for a mainline denomination, I'm currently attending a church of that same tradition again, because family.

I disagree a ton with what many Evangelicals preach and believe. I do not believe there is a war on Christians. I do not believe Christians should be able to legislate morality, BUT ...

The argument isn't that they're oppressed because they're no longer able to force their beliefs on people. The argument is that they're oppressed because they feel like they can no longer voice their beliefs outside of their own small circle without having half the country jump down their throat for their backwardness and hate. They feel like their not even given the chance to truly explain what they believe or how it differs from more extreme fundamentalists like Westboro Baptist.

And given the amount of conditionals I felt necessary to put at the beginning of this post to keep people from jumping down my throat, they maybe have a bit of a point ...

You seem like a nice person, so I'll be gentle on you and keep the really bad words I want to use out of the equation. For now.

You're talking to someone who met a girl in university who was in every way the person who would "complete" me. She was smart, funny, and intensely, creatively artistic. (She was in a special degree program that was tailor made for SIX STUDENTS in the faculty of music.)

She was also a Christian.

And one day the inevitable happened: she asked me which church I went to. (Note: not if I went to church, not even what religion was I, which church I went to.) When I explained to her that I was an atheist she went STARK WHITE with fear. She was absolutely convinced that the person she'd been dating with for over a year was a soulless, evil automaton. Because if you weren't Christian, and especially if you didn't believe in God, you must be evil. She dumped me then and there. (Had I said I was a Buddhist or a Muslim I suspect she'd have instead tried to convert me because I was merely "mistaken" instead of "evil".)

You're talking to someone whose hobby (RPGs) was on the receiving end of hate campaigns you had to see to believe. They hunted us out in the school basement in my high school. (Luckily the principal had a backbone and told them to fuck off so they were left with only harassing us with pamphlets.) They (in this case the Campus Crusade for Christ) followed us from room to room in university until we found a place they couldn't reach us (a private attached college's meeting room) trying to get our club shut down.

Throughout the '80s and early '90s they embarked on multiple campaigns of lies and deceit to convince everybody that we gamers were drug addicts, Satanists, murderers, or, worse, ATHEISTS! (See a theme here?)

You're talking to someone who was fired from a job upon the boss finding out that I didn't go to church. (That wasn't the reason cited, of course, but it was the real reason.)

Given all of this, you'll have to excuse me if I'm a bit gunshy whenever I meet someone who self-identifies as a Christian. Especially of the evangelical camp. (The tormentors in high school were Adventists.) And if you think you're oppressed because of people like us being gunshy and suspicious, perhaps it's time for you to reflect on how you (the collective, not you individually) have been treating people for centuries. Perhaps, then, you'll feel a bit of sympathy instead of whining about your oppression.

Things I love? Having a rough day and coming home to my favourite home-cooked meal.

@Aria YOUR high school maybe. Check your privilege.

*eyeshifts*

@surreality said in RL Anger:

@WTFE You are too much of a gentleman to bitchslap her for having such a glaring double-standard, but I will cheerfully volunteer to bitchslap her on your behalf.

This kind of shit is my current biggest peeve across all aspects of life.

Actually I tore her a new one and got blocked. I'm too old and too cranky to put up with this kind of mealy-mouthed self-centeredness these days. Ever since the 300 Swedes incident.

Yesterday someone mentioned something about a "Harvey" and Houston. I had no fucking idea what they were referring to, so I asked. Apparently not knowing about a hurricane half a world away and subsequent flooding in a city that's also half a world away makes me "ignorant" and "insensitive".

So I asked the stupid cunt what her opinion was of the flooding in Assam and Bihar. (You know, places that are by comparison in my back yard.)

Today I find that being aware of massive events that are impacting millions upon millions in a country that's the next door neighbour of the one I'm in, without being aware of an event that's half a world away, apparently makes me an "asshole" on top of everything else.

Strangely, though, her ignorance of massive disruptions (far larger than the Houston thing!) half a world away doesn't make her an ignorant, insensitive asshole.

Gotta love the way people think sometimes, eh?

@SG said in RL things I love:

@WTFE what kind of adventures are you going to go on with those hats? You need machetes, knee socks and khaki short shorts to go with them!

What makes you think I don't have the rest of that?

@Packrat said in High Fantasy:

And the maths aren't the real issue (but contribute to it). The real issue is that action grinds to a halt to slog through game mechanics -- at just the point that the action needs to be ramped up to keep an edge-of-the-seat feel.

I actually found that after the first session and a half of the Exalted 3e campaign I played, combat started to run really fluidly along with being infinitely more interesting that most systems.

I have no opinion whatsoever on 3e. Never saw it.

Also it genuinely lets people function differently in combat and be good at very different, equally valid things hat are all still valid, no just have a linear scale of how badass individuals are. Though it does have issues like 'make sure you have dexterity 5' and similar Storyteller System staples.

But yeah, Storyteller has some nasty artifacts left no matter how streamlined you make procedures. I'd like to see a better game engine used as the basis for Exalted's setting.

When I played Aftermath! the infamous hit location 20 was disproportionately hit when I was shooting people. And not only because I'd walk excess accuracy hits down toward it...

So, I'm getting a CARE package from Canada. It started off life as a call for certain medication but it snowballed out of control to this ultimate step:

I'm getting this hat.

In the meantime my wife's getting this hat.

Family can be god-awful at times, but then shit like this happens and all is forgiven!

@Jennkryst said in High Fantasy:

@WTFE It requires LESS maths, but it is still there.

And the maths aren't the real issue (but contribute to it). The real issue is that action grinds to a halt to slog through game mechanics -- at just the point that the action needs to be ramped up to keep an edge-of-the-seat feel.

@Jennkryst said in High Fantasy:

@WTFE Have you perused 3e, for fixes?

No, I haven't. Why? Has it stopped requiring an advanced maths degree specializing in discrete maths with a touch of category theory to perform an action?

It says something about the mechanics when I took the setting, stapled on a tabletop wargame rpg ruleset, and shit was easier.

Yeah, it does. The Exalted setting is just screaming for a streamlined set of rules that actually matches the setting's high-octane action vibe.

I like Exalted the setting. (Sue me. I like it. Fuck you.)

I hate Exalted the game. It removes the fluid joy of high-powered hijinks in favour of menial mindless mechanism.

@WildBaboons said in How low can "low stakes" be and still be compelling for RP?:

Any time you put paganism into a Mu you get trouble I've found. There is a not insubstational number of actual pagans that MU and they want things done right as opposed to pretendy fun times.

Except that "pagans" (neopagans) are doing pretendy fun times for all practical purposes. (And there's nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add.) At issue is their insistence that their practices are the same as historical ones, a claim that rarely passes even a giggle test.

The day we view mental health the same way we view physical health is the day we'll start seeing proper training for dealing with breakdowns in it.

I‘m Super Happy Party Vomit Guy!

Yay! The party is over and you have earned your just reward! There's a secret that only you and Andrew W.K. know, and that is: To live life to the fullest, sometimes you have to end up ass-up, hunched over a terrific toilet-void and barfing sludge while a goodly party nun pulls back your eyelid.

Party on, Super Happy Party Vomit Guy. Possibly the only person having fun in Hell.

It's not the site. It's the people talking. They're so incoherent they're responding to things that haven't been said yet.

I'd play the Hell out of that level of game.

That should be a hint: this game will be as popular as plague. (Nobody likes the things I like.)

@Chet said in Eliminating social stats:

Those can all be beneficial, if you use them the right way.

Pity they're almost never used the right way, eh?

I will not hear anything bad about Ominous, @saosmash! He won that exchange fair and square and put me in my place. I now agree with everything he says anywhere!

@Arkandel said in RL things I love:

@Aria MSB's main exports are snark and judgement.

And pictures of booze.