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Author Topic: Shamdemic year 2 begins, you clowns still gaming from behind computer screens?  (Read 8897 times)

Shasarak

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Most of our gaming crew still believe gamers as a whole are a smarter, savvier and more independent bunch. Yes, I have endeavored to disabuse them of this notion. I also suffered from that same delusion pre-internet, but that's long cured after a decade of increasingly laughably idiocy overtaking our hobby like "RPGs are unsafe", "orcs are black people", "dungeon wheelchairs", etc.

Dungeon wheelchairs are pretty old school if your DM uses the critical hit tables.

Ah, Critical Hit tables.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Shawn Driscoll

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Or have you graduated to double-masking at a table? Maybe your group is excitedly planning a campaign, but only after everyone gets the experimental vax and an anal swab.

Our group tried killing everybody we know with the CoronaChan, but after a year of gaming as usual, sadly I must report a total lack of fatalities. Alas, the best we could do was a couple people got the sniffles.  O Chinese bat soup, how thou hath failed us.

So, how many of you have returned to gaming with your friends in reach of the pizza?

The mitigated masquerade never effected our gaming because we were already role-playing online years before there was a mandate.

Brad

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I particularly enjoyed the crying in fauci responses, but it was also very nice to hear not everyone has forgotten that math and science works and has chosen to live as free men in a world of broken slaves.

What's particularly amazing to me is that some people who are such staunch "FOLLOW THE SCIENCE" types are so fucking anti-science it's not even funny. Confirmation bias? Surely you jest! I am just listening to the experts!
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Kyle Aaron

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What's particularly amazing to me is that some people who are such staunch "FOLLOW THE SCIENCE" types are -
I don't believe in following the science. Follow the dice. The dice are always right.

I want an rpg with no explanatory text, no reasoning or justification for the way it does things, it's nothing but random charts. 96 saddle-stitched pages of random charts.
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
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Reckall

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I particularly enjoyed the crying in fauci responses, but it was also very nice to hear not everyone has forgotten that math and science works and has chosen to live as free men in a world of broken slaves.

What's particularly amazing to me is that some people who are such staunch "FOLLOW THE SCIENCE" types are so fucking anti-science it's not even funny. Confirmation bias? Surely you jest! I am just listening to the experts!

We all sane people know that every time an airplane takes off it is a toss-up if it will land safely or fall from the sky. Don't be fooled by mind-controlling propaganda: aerospace engineers are only a bunch of delusional people locked up in the nearest asylum.
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

Brad

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We all sane people know that every time an airplane takes off it is a toss-up if it will land safely or fall from the sky. Don't be fooled by mind-controlling propaganda: aerospace engineers are only a bunch of delusional people locked up in the nearest asylum.

Imagine posting this and thinking it applies to masks...
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Reckall

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We all sane people know that every time an airplane takes off it is a toss-up if it will land safely or fall from the sky. Don't be fooled by mind-controlling propaganda: aerospace engineers are only a bunch of delusional people locked up in the nearest asylum.

Imagine posting this and thinking it applies to masks...

« Last Edit: March 16, 2021, 12:31:25 PM by Reckall »
For every idiot who denounces Ayn Rand as "intellectualism" there is an excellent DM who creates a "Bioshock" adventure.

Samsquantch

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I knew from the start the masks were useless as there are so many vectors of infection that the masks don't address (in addition to not being fine enough to stop a virus anyhow) and I've seen people freak out due to fear and utter ignorance while having a t shirt over their noses. And don't get me started on the face shields... So many, many, sheep we live among... I got infected right around the time I had eye surgery so it was most likely at a hospital with everyone wearing masks anyhow.

On Facemasks during gaming:
Facemasks reduce the radius you spread the virus around yourself, because it's not a single particle which infects you but an issue of quantity. The higher quantity of virus you spread through your saliva, the higher the chance someone else gets it from you. The more of an object is in front of your nose and mouth able to absorb liquid coming from you, the lower the quantity of virus you spread to those around you. It was never meant to be a shield which blocks all vectors of infection to you. It's meant to be a reduction in you spreading it, with some more minor benefits to reducing the amount you can breath in as well.

Which means if you wear a facemask at your game table, you will reduce the likelihood you will infect your other gamers with the virus if you happen to have the virus and not know it. Similarly, if your fellow gamers have the virus and don't know it, them wearing a facemask will reduce the chance you will get it from them.

Plus, there are some RPG related facemasks. If you want me to make YOU one, I'd be happy to do so. In fact, I'd be happy to make a TheRPGSite facemask with a logo, if people were interested in that.

I could do something like this? Or better probably, since the mask itself in this picture is pretty meh:



Our design is more similar to this (which I find to be a lot more comfortable, better fitting, and with adjustments on the nose and ears), so imagine this with a D20 or an TheRPGSite logo on it :)



First off, the following rant is not directed solely to you Mistwell nor is it meant to be an attack.

I am aware how proper masks work clinically and I should have added that the vast majority of people I see in real life and on video do not wear them even remotely as intended. Having your nose hanging out, the mask on your chin, no pinch and the bridge of your nose, or a t-shirt or sheet of clear plastic over your face is ludicrous. For surgery for instance if you touch your face while wearing your mask the mask is now contaminated and you need a new one. If this virus is as deadly to healthy as they make it out to be then stricter mask protocols apply just like in a surgery suite.

Same deal in bio-warfare environment. You touch your mask/gasmask like when eating or drinking, even with drinking tubes, you decon before and after the process. Half assed measures to safety protocols do more damage than good because it creates a false sense of security and leads to complacency. It's like continuing to drive drunk because you have never had an accident or been pulled over so therefore there's no problem. To me it's like waving your loaded weapon around without regard to where the barrel is pointing and it drives me nuts. And you don't normally go around wearing your NBCW gear in top high (all gear worn) without an actual need to.

If there's an outbreak in your area then take precautions. if you have pre-existing respiratory conditions then take precautions. If you are obese or have other issues cited as comorbidities then take precautions as well. The point is to do it properly or you may as well not do it at all.


Also, that D20 mask is pretty cool. Let's chat.

Samsquantch

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To put things in context, as late as May going to the hospital was still the highway to get COVID.

Exactly, and that's where I caught it. And I am sorry for your loss. My mom had half a lung removed due to cancer. I made sure she took every precaution she could because of that and because she's almost 80.

Samsquantch

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Although, y'know, if you wanted to run an Omega Man like RPG, this could be a great launching point for it.

That's an excellent idea!

Krugus

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We took a break for a few months and went right back to playing like we always do after our break.   Its a friends and family group that have been together for 30+ years.
Common sense isn't common; if it were, everyone would have it.

Slipshot762

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Actually went to walmart yesterday, only about half the people were masked, discovered walmart sells polyhedral dice, got 3 sets for 7 bucks. We wore masks because I had thought it was required to enter but it seems that is no longer the case. Bought a kick ass varnished walking stick too for 15 bucks, i have several but this is like quarter staff quality and armpit height with a wrist strap and rubber stopper on the end, very thick and heavy, might modify it further and make it gandalf like, i'm into resin craft and have severl molds, maybe adorn it with blue-purple glitter dolphins. Bought some styrofoam balls paper clips and beads to make a beholder mini out of, as per this vid:


Saw a lot of adults maskless but their kids were masked, that checks out with the local mindset we have "yeah i'm boned but no reason to bone the youngins" sort of mindset.

Jame Rowe

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I'm doing it by computer for a couple of my games.
One is because the guy who runs it asked me to - and pandemic or not, I'll happily respect my crew's wishes, because that's how we keep the group.
Here for the games, not for it being woke or not.

Wiseblood

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The pandemic hit we took a brief break to find out what was what. When lies and propaganda started flying around we resumed FTF at that time.

We figured, if you gotta pad your numbers, your numbers are weak.

Everything that catches the fancy of corporate entertainers and activists only information that serves an agenda is promoted. Information that runs counter to the agenda is discredited and maligned if it can’t be suppressed.

I have an anti media bias. I figured out the game in the late 1990’s. I don’t know if I got better at seeing through the bullshit or they got stupid. I figure it’s the latter.

I don’t wear masks Except to get into establishments then it comes off. None of my group have gotten anything to my knowledge. Oh wait, food poisoning a few times. I guess some establishments are lax on hygiene when the public can’t watch.

Nobby-W

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The best guide is the elevated all-cause mortality data, which is not susceptible to mis-recording non Covid deaths as Covid. It does show noticeable spikes in several countries, mostly around March-April 2020.
I earlier mentioned the town of Bergamo and its surroundings. The local newspaper usually prints a page of obituaries every day. At the height of the pandemic they were printing ten pages of obituaries every day (https://tinyurl.com/u74u3v4s). That notion alone sobered up a lot of people who were babbling about "just a bad flu".

Coffins were stacked everywhere inside the hospitals. At night the Army vehicles collected the dead and brought them to the crematory (this is still today one of the most enduring images from the pandemic https://tinyurl.com/3xvrt59p). Relatives got a ticket with a number. After a week you got a phone call and you could go to collect the urn with the ashes. Of course any bureaucratic error meant that you ended up with someone else's ashes - but you will never know.

And yet no other region or city in Italy was as ravaged as Bergamo was. Why this happened is still a mystery. Was Bergamo hit before anyone else and so no one knew about prevention? Was there a genetic factor at work? Here in Milan, after seeing what was happening only half-an hour away by car, they built a COVID hospital wing from the ground up in a week. It remained (and still is) mostly empty. We Milanese were hit hard but we managed (even if barely). I guess that how this virus managed to be so unpredictable will be the subject of studies for years.
Bergamo is a pretty town as well, with its old medieval-era walled town, and its funny local accent with all the glottals.  Some years ago I used to holiday in the area on a semi-regular basis (my ex used to play bridge with a chap who lives in Lecco) and fly through Orio al Serio. 

To give an idea how badly Lombardia got hit, the region has the highest per-capita number of doctors and medical professionals of anywhere in the world.  Something like 40% of Italy's GDP is centred around Lombardia; the majority of Italy's GDP comes out of the Po Valley and surrounding area.  Lombardia is wealthy, industrialised and highly developed; it has some of the best medical infrastructure on the planet - but was completely overloaded by the rate of COVID cases in the first wave.

I got COVID around the end of last year - fortunately asymptomatic as I am in a cohort with elevated mortality risk if I did get symptoms and I've bubbled up to the top of the NHS's priorities and had the first of two COVID shots a few weeks ago. 

My neighbour's mother in Brazil just died from COVID.  Someone on another forum I have an account on is a doctor there and described his experiences quite graphically a few days ago.

There's a joke about Stanley Kubrick that goes something to the effect that if he was asked to fake the moon landing he would have insisted on flying to the moon to do location shots there for authenticity.  The three-ring circus COVID has created is far too big to be hoax.  I can't look at this thread as anything but a graphic demonstration of the pathology behind conspiracy theorists.  It's quite sad really.

My IRL game moved online about a year ago and has worked fine on Roll20.



« Last Edit: April 07, 2021, 08:22:15 PM by Nobby-W »
My imaginary component makes me complex.  This also means I'm allowed to eat quiche.