Quote from: Willie the Duck;877040Burning sand. Now that would be a feat. How about we just get it really hot instead? :-P

What, you've never heard of the burning sands of the desert?

Quote from: Ravenswing;876996Yeah.  Oil is frigging expensive -- they sure wouldn't waste whole cauldrons of it at castles.  Burning sand, now ... sand is cheap, and when that shit gets into your armor ...

I care enough to give the very best.

(Boiling water works a treat too)

Quote from: Bren;875158Nope. Never, ever had to deal with anyone even remotely like that in any game I ran or played in.

My experience is very close to yours, with a few exceptions.

(1) A younger player (HS gaming club) who played a sort of "lethal maiden" type, I think because he thought it'd be cool to be a hot chick who kills people. (but that dude, honestly, comes up with weird shit all the time).

(2) Current party has a male playing a female halfling, but gender makes no difference, because he's a very quiet player. I'm not entirely sure why he went with a female, exactly, as if has, to this point, had zero effect on the game at all. Maybe as we continue. Not that it has to make any difference, but I assumed there was a reason. If there is, I haven't seen it yet.

(3) Years ago, a player played a female warrior passing herself off as a man as a means of escaping a horrible past. Great character, especially when the teenaged tagalong caught her undressing. She damn near killed him, but got him to swear secrecy. Made for some interesting moments in the game. That player was pretty awesome with concepts, though. He also one ran a Minotaur "Scholar" named Rosethorn who was based on Ferdinand the Bull.

Quote from: cranebump;877055My experience is very close to yours, with a few exceptions.

(1) A younger player (HS gaming club) who played a sort of "lethal maiden" type, I think because he thought it'd be cool to be a hot chick who kills people. (but that dude, honestly, comes up with weird shit all the time).

(2) Current party has a male playing a female halfling, but gender makes no difference, because he's a very quiet player. I'm not entirely sure why he went with a female, exactly, as if has, to this point, had zero effect on the game at all. Maybe as we continue. Not that it has to make any difference, but I assumed there was a reason. If there is, I haven't seen it yet.

(3) Years ago, a player played a female warrior passing herself off as a man as a means of escaping a horrible past. Great character, especially when the teenaged tagalong caught her undressing. She damn near killed him, but got him to swear secrecy. Made for some interesting moments in the game. That player was pretty awesome with concepts, though. He also one ran a Minotaur "Scholar" named Rosethorn who was based on Ferdinand the Bull.

Those aren't exceptions to what I said.

(1) The "lethal maiden" is extremely common in media these past two decades. (Even longer in Anime.) Heck, the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" franchise was built on that trope. River Tam in Firefly/Serenity would fit the trope even using the more restricted definition of maiden as a virginal young woman. And while this trope may not be older than dirt it has been around at least since the Amazon women warriors of Greek myth and Brunhilda of the Norse Edda poems, the Vǫlsunga saga, and the German Nibelungenlied. Unless the player is using his "lethal maiden" to create squick, that doesn't fit the example. Though it obviously fits what are now fairly common fantasies of young men and women.

(2) A character whose gender not only doesn't matter, but doesn't even common up at all in play is an antithesis to the "lesbian stripper ninja" where gender is key to two out of the three key character elements.

(3) "Great character", "Made for some interesting moments in the game." when said unsarcastically, and "That player was pretty awesome with concepts" all tell me that the player of the female warrior used the common trope of woman dressed as man (which was a staple of 16th and 17th century comedy) for good effect in your game. And that character does sound interesting and would fit in marvelously well in the 17th century Honor+Intrigue campaign that I run. In fact there was an NPC who more or less did that for a time in my game (Chapter III: The Road to Florence).

None of these three characters are examples of a "lesbian stripper ninja" run by "a neckbearded basement dweller" to "squick out the rest of the table with character antics". Nor do they support the claim by jeff39723 that we have all actually encountered such a legendary beast in his bearded flesh. Much less that such encounters are so frequent that they should be a cause of concern to a GM.

Quote from: Bren;877070None of these three characters are examples of a "lesbian stripper ninja" run by "a neckbearded basement dweller" to "squick out the rest of the table with character antics". Nor do they support the claim by jeff39723 that we have all actually encountered such a legendary beast in his bearded flesh. Much less that such encounters are so frequent that they should be a cause of concern to a GM.

You know, your pretentious wankery borders on the idiotic. You have to start picking a better class of coffee shop to be a pseudointellectual at, the one you go to is teaching you bad habits.

I never said that they were frequent (nice obfuscation by you), but you don't need to run into too many of them to become wary. It is a Player type that exists. If you never play in public or have an open table set-up, you will probably never encounter one.

However, I know that disrupts your treasured narrative, so please continue.

Jeff, my use of the word frequent in the phrase "so frequent that they should be a cause of concern to a GM" has confused you. I said that you are claiming the frequency of encounters with neckbearded, basement dwelling lesbian, ninja stripper is sufficient that it causes you concern.

Well doesn't it?

You've said words to that effect on multiple occasions. Here, read the bold part of your reply to my last post.

Quote from: jeff37923;877184I never said that they were frequent (nice obfuscation by you), you don't need to run into too many of them to become wary.

Yes you said that those encounters don't occur often (you used the word "frequent") but then you said that you have run into neckbearded, basement dwelling lesbian, ninja strippers enough times (i.e. sufficiently often or with sufficient frequency) for you to have become wary of them when GMing.

You are, in fact, confirming what I said. Which is that you think neckbearded, basement dwelling lesbian, ninja strippers occur often enough at open tables for the number and frequency of their occurrence to make you wary, i.e. to cause you concern.

Moreover, once you understand what I wrote you will see that what I said about frequency was the same thing you said (albeit using slightly different words). What I said was not at all obfuscated. Anyone with a college reading level ability ought to be able to easily parse the grammar used and arrive at the intended meaning of the word "frequent" in my phrase was frequent enough to cause concern.

Now if the possibility of running into a neckbearded, basement dwelling lesbian, ninja stripper at your gaming table doesn't actually cause you concern, great let's move on to talk about gaming. But if, in fact, it does cause you concern then stop bullshitting about what I said and how confused by it you are and own up to your own fears about the people you choose to game with.

QuoteIt is a Player type that exists. If you never play in public or have an open table set-up, you will probably never encounter one.

Earlier you claimed virtually everyone who GMed must have encountered the neckbearded, basement dwelling lesbian, ninja stripper. Now you are dialing that back to only everyone who has ever gamed in public or had an open table set up. That's some small progress at least.

Now I've personally done both. It's not my favorite style of gaming, but I've run some open game tables at a few cons and clubs. And I've sat in on some open games at cons and clubs. But even so I still haven't encountered these legendary neckbearded, basement dwelling lesbian, ninja strippers whose presence has made you so wary in your GMing. But if it makes you feel better for me to agree with you in part, sure Jeff those guys may be out there somewhere. But see they don't worry me because in my experience they are more rare than serial killers. Now I hope most of us don't spend a lot of energy being wary about whether or not the people we play elf games with are going to drug us, torture us, kill us, cut us up and stick us in garbage bags, and then toss us in the trash or bury us underneath their gaming room. Because I think spending much more than zero energy on that would be kind of crazy.

But maybe I am grossly underestimating the deadly perils of open gaming. Good thing I do it infrequently.

"Too many of them to become wary?"  Oh give me a frigging break.

Over the course of 39 years, I've had exactly one player do a cross-gendered courtesan ninja.  (Not a stripper, and as far as I recall, not a lesbian.)  He wasn't obnoxious or creepy about it.

That was in 1979 through to the next year, and that was the only one out of the 316 PCs in my campaign's history that was.

But even if he HAD been obnoxious about it ... hell, I remember completely obnoxious characters in my campaign, ones that caused problems and where the players were soon turfed out.  One was an assassin.  One was a sailor.  One was a spy.  One was a necromancer.  Two were archers.  Jesus Christ, two archers?  Damn, archers must be trouble!  I should ban them from my table!

See, what I figure is that most GMs have a bit of drama queen in them.  (Hell, if we didn't, we wouldn't be behind the dice in the first place.)  We inflate snarks into incidents, incidents into dramas, dramas into catastrophes, isolated occurrences into syndromes, and rumors into catchphrases.  We revel in turning "Jeez, that guy who did that character for three sessions in 1982 was a pain in the ass" into "OMG LESBIAN STRIPPER NINJAAAAA!!!"

And you'd think we'd have learned by our hobby's own experiences.  How much damage did the Satanic Panic do gaming?  Hell, the Secret Service raid took money out of my own pocket (a book I had in galleys at SJG wound up being delayed for over a year).  All because outsiders had their own unfounded knee-jerk stereotypes.

I've run into one guy who played a Lesbian Stripper Ninja(literally Lesbian, figuratively Ninja, no Stripper) in Shadowrun.  Wasn't a basement dwelling neckfatbeard though, he kinda looked like bald Billy Corgan.  Little creepy.

I've run into one catpissman (as in literally smelled of catpiss).  He was a fatbeard at a LGS.  Didn't play with him, he was at a different table.

Lots of players over the years have had cross-gender characters (tends to be women playing men more than men playing women).

At most gameshops that have tables where people are playing RPGs, I find at every table at least one or two people I would never invite to my home because they are just "weird gamer people".  When I play at gameshops I do so as recon and recruiting.

Hey, I play a "bi-sexual stripper luchadora-with-a-sword" in DCC. I just ended up with her due to the funnel, and mostly modeled her on characters I've seen my female players have been playing:). Her fighting style just flowed naturally from her background and DCC's system, so I actually can claim almost nothing about the character was contributed by me.
I'm pretty sure that she doesn't make people wary by her habit of picking up the nicest-looking ass in the crowd when relaxing. I have been told that some of the guys were weirded out by her being more than ready to go into killing mode on a suspicion;).
That describes an awful lot of the above characters, however, and it just makes sense for her background. So it's a trait that's going to stay.
In fact, this trait would still be there even if she was neither bi-sexual, nor prone to sexual escapades and flaunting her body (which she would gladly use as a distraction). So, why the prejudice towards LSNs:D? Maybe it's better to judge all PCs on a case-by-case basis?

Jacqueline In Detail

And she's managed to get us out of some tight spots so far. Even when she was at 3 HP and 5 Luck, she didn't even hesitate to engage a giant who turned out to be regenerating, and was decimating a crowd of NPCs (who had tried to kill her before, but who were of the same tribe as a late PC she kinda liked - so she sided with them without thinking). She attacked by herself, survived by hit-and-run bolstered by combining terrain and the use of Deeds, and the NPCs managed to run away. Meanwhile, the party managed to use a found magic item on the giant, and then we killed it, and found the source of its regeneration, and exposed it to the sun - which we knew the giant hated - and it stopped the process.
If we don't survive the current encounter, it's going to be too bad, of course!

Then again, maybe we all are simply wary of what brought us negative experiences in the past. Which would also explain why I don't have an issue with LSNs, and do have a problem with totally emotionless characters:D!

Quote from: Ravenswing;877209"Too many of them to become wary?"  Oh give me a frigging break.

Over the course of 39 years, I've had exactly one player do a cross-gendered courtesan ninja.  (Not a stripper, and as far as I recall, not a lesbian.)  He wasn't obnoxious or creepy about it.

That was in 1979 through to the next year, and that was the only one out of the 316 PCs in my campaign's history that was.

But even if he HAD been obnoxious about it ... hell, I remember completely obnoxious characters in my campaign, ones that caused problems and where the players were soon turfed out.  One was an assassin.  One was a sailor.  One was a spy.  One was a necromancer.  Two were archers.  Jesus Christ, two archers?  Damn, archers must be trouble!  I should ban them from my table!

See, what I figure is that most GMs have a bit of drama queen in them.  (Hell, if we didn't, we wouldn't be behind the dice in the first place.)  We inflate snarks into incidents, incidents into dramas, dramas into catastrophes, isolated occurrences into syndromes, and rumors into catchphrases.  We revel in turning "Jeez, that guy who did that character for three sessions in 1982 was a pain in the ass" into "OMG LESBIAN STRIPPER NINJAAAAA!!!"

And you'd think we'd have learned by our hobby's own experiences.  How much damage did the Satanic Panic do gaming?  Hell, the Secret Service raid took money out of my own pocket (a book I had in galleys at SJG wound up being delayed for over a year).  All because outsiders had their own unfounded knee-jerk stereotypes.

I laugh because the "little bit of drama queen" part is so true for most Referees I know, that I should either laugh, or cry. And it's more fun to laugh:D!

Quote from: Bren;877070Those aren't exceptions to what I said.

(1) The "lethal maiden" is extremely common in media these past two decades. (Even longer in Anime.) Heck, the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" franchise was built on that trope. River Tam in Firefly/Serenity would fit the trope even using the more restricted definition of maiden as a virginal young woman. And while this trope may not be older than dirt it has been around at least since the Amazon women warriors of Greek myth and Brunhilda of the Norse Edda poems, the Vǫlsunga saga, and the German Nibelungenlied. Unless the player is using his "lethal maiden" to create squick, that doesn't fit the example. Though it obviously fits what are now fairly common fantasies of young men and women.

(2) A character whose gender not only doesn't matter, but doesn't even common up at all in play is an antithesis to the "lesbian stripper ninja" where gender is key to two out of the three key character elements.

(3) "Great character", "Made for some interesting moments in the game." when said unsarcastically, and "That player was pretty awesome with concepts" all tell me that the player of the female warrior used the common trope of woman dressed as man (which was a staple of 16th and 17th century comedy) for good effect in your game. And that character does sound interesting and would fit in marvelously well in the 17th century Honor+Intrigue campaign that I run. In fact there was an NPC who more or less did that for a time in my game (Chapter III: The Road to Florence).

None of these three characters are examples of a "lesbian stripper ninja" run by "a neckbearded basement dweller" to "squick out the rest of the table with character antics". Nor do they support the claim by jeff39723 that we have all actually encountered such a legendary beast in his bearded flesh. Much less that such encounters are so frequent that they should be a cause of concern to a GM.

I was merely saying that playing against actual gender has been pretty rare in my campaigns. And agreeing I haven't seen much crazy shit. The exceptions were in my campaigns. Wasn't trying to argue with you, so how about you put the kendo stick away?

Honestly?

Anything outside the core genre. Anything "abnormal". I'm just sick to death of anything that reeks of special snowflakes.

Quote from: Ravenswing;877209  
See, what I figure is that most GMs have a bit of drama queen in them.  

Says the guy who only posts in the color "Navy"......

Quote from: jeff37923;877260Says the guy who only posts in the color "Navy"......

Says the asshat who makes an issue of this multiple times in the same thread.

Seriously, do you ever get tired of being a dickweed, or are you like this in real life?

Jeff: "OMG you're signing that check in SOMETHING OTHER THAN BLACK INK!!!!!"
Jeff: "OMG that car you just bought ISN'T IN MY APPROVED COLOOOOOR!!!"

(presses IGN button)

Half-Vampire (umm no such thing imo, you either are or you are not a vamp),
Brooding Loner (why play then?)
Monks/Samurai in a non-Asian setting, umm No.

Quote from: Ravenswing;877209
See, what I figure is that most GMs have a bit of drama queen in them.  (Hell, if we didn't, we wouldn't be behind the dice in the first place.)  We inflate snarks into incidents, incidents into dramas, dramas into catastrophes, isolated occurrences into syndromes, and rumors into catchphrases.  We revel in turning "Jeez, that guy who did that character for three sessions in 1982 was a pain in the ass" into "OMG LESBIAN STRIPPER NINJAAAAA!!!"

Not just referees.

I've seen more than one thread (in various places) of people complaining about stuff that happened in games ten, or fifteen, or twenty years ago or more.

Not, "That was so funny when we fed Ernie to the bag of devouring because we didn't know what it was," but people still genuinely upset, even angry, about things that happened in a silly ass elfgame years ago.