fifth_child, mythusmage has previously expressed sympathy for certain ideas about lowering the age of consent and the like, and claimed that the damage to children who'd had sexual relationships with adults came from the "help" they received from social workers etc, rather than the sexual activities themselves.

This made people susect that he was in thought if not in deed a paedophile, disgusted everyone, and he was given a topic-ban on these issues by RPGPundit, and to my knowledge he has respected that topic-ban.

My feeling is that if someone is topic-banned, and is respecting that topic-ban, then it's unsporting and rude to constantly mention it to them. But J_Arcane is not particularly sporting or polite.

If you dig around the archives you can see if I've given an accurate description of the events; I believe I have. I would have PMed the information, but I think we've enough new members here who'd be unaware of the history of the thing that it'd be likely to derail the thread.

Quote from: fifth_childI didn't feel like I was insulting anyone.  There's no such thing as perfect knowledge.  I have been known to make the occasional error myself - Consonant Dude has been immortalizing one of my more egregious textual ones in his sig for, what, like a year now?  He's free to continue doing so - it's not like he's lying.  (I'm assuming from the "Dude" in "Consonant Dude" that you're a guy.  Apologies if I'm wrong.)

I'm a dude indeed.

Just so you know, I tend to keep sigs for a long time, until something else strikes me as remarkable enough. That hasn't been the case, probably due to a decrease in internet presence for me.

And to clear the matter: I have no way of knowing whether you truly knew about Universalis or not. I'm rather skeptical. I can't imagine myself telling everybody how D&D is an amazing, totally classless system unless I was under heavy medication. But who knows? Still, I have to say I am (sincerely) glad that you aren't flipping over this. Honest mistake or lie, the quote is still amusing to me.

And all I've said so far in this post may seem like off-topic ramblings but it's really not. This sig to me as always been a way of expressing a frustration for me: the fact that so many people like to spout (either condemning or praising) about games they really know fuck all about. And that's really irritating for me, particularly back when I posted on RPG.net. And I see a lot of that behavior on this thread. People passing (positive or negative) judgment on a game based strictly on APs.

So I, for one, will be reading with interest when you report on your experience with Poison'd. I'm really hoping you do have the game and that you will be as objective as possible if you decide to report on it.

Quote from: Kylesnip

Well, since it was mentioned, better to clear it up with that brief explanation than to keep it hanging. Thanks.

I was pretty iffy on the guy when he busted out the "I've been angry enough to kill a man with my hands" comment, so it was pretty clear something was up with him.

Hell, I dunno, maybe people are working off different definitions of "roleplaying". I've played character who've chopped up people, sure, but I've never really sat down and imagined what it would feel like to want to kill somebody. And that's in a fictional game, much less real life.

Wow.

Quote from: Kyle Aaronfifth_child, mythusmage has previously expressed sympathy for certain ideas about lowering the age of consent and the like, and claimed that the damage to children who'd had sexual relationships with adults came from the "help" they received from social workers etc, rather than the sexual activities themselves.

Correction: Are often harmed by overzealous social workers. We forget that 15 year olds are very different from 5 year olds.

I've also realized that I'm too soft-hearted to hurt people. If I were capable I'd be in a prison hospital right now, if not dead. You learn from your errors and you correct them.

Pity the man who cannot change. Pity more the man who will not change.

QuoteUm, am I to take this post to mean that mythusmage is a convicted child molester? Because that's not an accusation to toss around lightly.

He gave me a lecture on how I was a monster because I had not intention of fucking my own children.  

You don't forget a thing like that.  mythusmage sure loves that topic ban though, because it lets him pretend everyone else has forgotten.

It's a stain upon this site that he's even still here, a stain that had seemed to be gone for sometime, until the pirate rape game came out and suddenly he's here again.  Funny that.

Kyle, thanks for the explanation.  [Edit: And mythusmage, while I'm sure that cases of harm done to a child by a social worker exist, you won't find me very receptive to a topic that criticizes workers trying to help victims in any general sense.]

Consonant Dude: it's a bit embarrassing, but I can explain to you the thought process that led to that particular slip-up.  I remember it despite it being so long ago because of how extreme the "What the fuck was I thinking?" feeling was.  See, I had actually just played some Universalis the week before (or maybe it was the week before that, anyway, it was pretty recently), and had a long conversation with a friend about the way its mechanics worked.  Among other things, we'd discussed how what exactly the dice decide is pretty unique, and kind of shifty to describe.  See, I'm sure you're aware that in most games, the dice decide what happens with a task - do you succeed or fail at this action you're trying to do?  A number of Forge games switch this up a bit, and have the dice decide the outcome of a conflict - do you get what you want or not?  Universalis doesn't do either of these.  It doesn't really even tell you who won or who lost.  It just distributes a bunch of points that you can use to say how things went down, to both the winners and the losers.  So we had concluded that Universalis bore many similarities to diceless games, in that the outcome isn't really determined by the dice at all.  The dice just tell you who gets to say how much.

So that's the origin of quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever said on the internet.  And, admittedly, it is pretty amusing.

Quote from: J ArcaneIt's a stain upon his site that he's even still here,

We may not always be in agreement but I will never agree more with you than I do now.

My philosophy with the sick fuck has been to try and ignore him. I'm sure he doesn't mind anyway, since I've reached adulthood a long time ago.

Quote from: fifth_childConsonant Dude: it's a bit embarrassing, but I can explain to you the thought process that led to that particular slip-up.

You didn't have to explain, man.  

As I said, I will appreciate any genuine report/review of Poison'd should you find the time and inclination. Although the moral posturing on both sides is mildly entertaining, I would like to know what's written in the actual game.

Personal experience with the Book of Vile Darkness and other RPG books has taught me that a few APs aren't the be all, end all.

I'm still keeping the quote until something strikes my fancy, though

fifth_child, I can say honestly that I hope you'll be sticking around this site for other threads. Few threads have anything much new and interesting after the first 100 posts, people just continue from sheer stubborness, or are new to the party and re-ignite old subthreads from 200 posts ago.

I've often seen you on rpg.net as an apologist of some pretty dodgy indie gaming. You're smart enough to defend them reasonably well, unlike some of their keener adherents, and unlike most followers of TBM, have obviously actually read it. So that smarts and reading could be a great thing in discussions.

So I'll be most interested to see you talking in a, let's put it nicely, "more rigorous" discussion forum than rpg.net, a place where people can say, "bullshit!" so long as they back it up.

I'd be interested in hearing more of the games you've played, like Universalis. I hope you'll stick around, make threads about those games, and do more than just be an apologist for stuff like this.

Honestly, I think this particular topic is pretty much done.

Thanks for the kind words, Kyle.  I remember that I'd occasionally get kind of ticked off at you over at RPGnet, too.

Honestly, I'm not 100% sure I'm willing to throw myself into a bunch of rigorous theory discussion with a whole bunch of people I know don't agree with me.  Coming over to this thread took a bit of mental steeling, and reminding myself: "If I don't want to answer a question, I can just ignore it.  If it gets too annoying, I can just leave."  I consider myself to have a thick skin, but really, honestly, truthfully, there's a lot of hurtful shit that gets said on this site.

Also, I'm a big fan of using swears as expletives or adjectives - I swear all the fucking time, honestly - but I find actually directing them at people to be in exceptionally poor taste, and try to avoid doing so under even the most extreme circumstances.  So, I'm probably not a terribly good match for this forum.  Plus, I really do enjoy myself at RPGnet and Story-Games, and don't feel that my freedom of speech is at all constrained.  There isn't a single post I've made here that I wouldn't feel comfortable making in Tabletop Open.

Maybe though, in a couple weeks.  Who knows.

P.S.: Can we maybe drop the apologist stuff?  I feel like I explain myself pretty thoroughly and logically, so continuing to be called an apologist makes it seem like you feel it's impossible for anyone to disagree with you unless they're slavishly devoted to a particular ideology.  If it'll make you feel better, I can tell you about all the Forge games I don't much care for.  (Hint: there's more than one.)

I didn't say anything about rigorous theory discussion, though I wasn't perfectly clear - I was talking about rigorous discussion about the game sessions you've had and the games you've played. That's the interesting stuff.

Yes, that's right, I really do want you to tell me about your character. That's just the kind of guy I am.

Sorry, but being an "apologist" is all I recall you doing. That's why I'm expressing the hope that you'll use that eloquence and reading and experience for good instead of evil.* Talking about your game sessions.

I talk about my game sessions (see sig) even though often the discussion falls flat. And once it even got everyone on therpgsite abusing the crap out of me (I had fucked up as a GM and person). J_Arcane and Settembrini especially, but they abuse everyone so I can't claim that as any great achievement.

It's the talk of how people play, the sorts of characters and settings they have, that's the stuff that really interests me. The abstract discussion is just a consolation prize.

* And yes, that was overstatement for ironic purposes.

Quote from: fifth_childHonestly, I'm not 100% sure I'm willing to throw myself into a bunch of rigorous theory discussion with a whole bunch of people I know don't agree with me.

You can always talk about the games and reserve rigorous theory discussion for other websites.

For every guy over here who is fixated with fictional "roleplaying wars involving theories and stuff", there's someone like me who doesn't really give a shit.

Just talking about games will be appreciated. Sure, there are many extremists but you'll find quite a few rational people who enjoy all sorts of games. You're more than welcome to add to the mix!

I'm not terribly big on actual play write ups.  I'm a horrid note keeper, in every aspect of my life, and I don't trust my memory enough to successfully portray important nuances without a written record.  I do have one up on the web, though, at my depressingly neglected blog.  It's for Agon.

I managed to get it done by posting the reports pretty much right after the game sessions ended, but I'm just not regimented enough in my daily life for that to be a common thing.

And before you ask: liberal, feminist, pacifist, poor note taker, not very regimented... no, the military and I were not a perfect fit.  I think intel is the only area of the armed forces that I could have gotten by in.

I think this thread has veered off its original topic so very much at this point that its really time to close it.

People are welcome to start other threads, as long as they're topical to the forum they're started at.

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