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It came up in the Exalted thread, and it was politely suggested to me that I start a new thread about it if I wanted to talk about it.

And I do... or at least, I want to hear about it. B:tP is one of those games I keep hearing about but none of what I hear ever seem to add up to a coherent picture. You play a monster, apparently? Which is... different from playing a vampire, werewolf, mummy, demon or Frankenstein's monster, somehow? It just sounds so vague and generic that I have a hard time getting a grip on it. And now I'm told it's some sort of mean-spirited Take That against GamerGaters, which just confuses me even more.

So educate me, anyone who feels inclined. Tell me the positive and the negative and above all just what the hell it's all about.

I haven't read the final book, so I can't help you too much with understanding the finished product. You might find this helpful for information, though: http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Beast:_The_Primordial (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Beast:_The_Primordial). I'm pretty sure some of the relevant outrage eventually got posted in the Exalted thread here, so if you've read through that monster you should have seen plenty of links about the Kickstarter fiasco. In particular, this is the entry on Heroes that got people riled up over Gamergate: http://i.imgur.com/nCBmvIb.png (http://i.imgur.com/nCBmvIb.png)

In a nutshell, though, you play a human with the soul of a monster. You might have a dragon's soul and want to hoard stuff, for example, or you might have an urge to kill people. Regardless, you have to deal with Heroes which are people determined to kill Beasts. Some are good people (and many NPCs shown are, from what I've read) but most are supposed to be pretty awful people out more for glory than the desire to do what's right.

Personally, the game wouldn't appeal to me much even if it wasn't using the newest World of Darkness ruleset, which I am not a fan of. I guess I'm too much of a werewolf fan to care more about Beasts or their bizarre relationship with Heroes.

Quote from: Brand55;947997I haven't read the final book, so I can't help you too much with understanding the finished product. You might find this helpful for information, though: http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Beast:_The_Primordial (http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Beast:_The_Primordial). I'm pretty sure some of the relevant outrage eventually got posted in the Exalted thread here, so if you've read through that monster you should have seen plenty of links about the Kickstarter fiasco. In particular, this is the entry on Heroes that got people riled up over Gamergate: http://i.imgur.com/nCBmvIb.png (http://i.imgur.com/nCBmvIb.png)

In a nutshell, though, you play a human with the soul of a monster. You might have a dragon's soul and want to hoard stuff, for example, or you might have an urge to kill people. Regardless, you have to deal with Heroes which are people determined to kill Beasts. Some are good people (and many NPCs shown are, from what I've read) but most are supposed to be pretty awful people out more for glory than the desire to do what's right.

Personally, the game wouldn't appeal to me much even if it wasn't using the newest World of Darkness ruleset, which I am not a fan of. I guess I'm too much of a werewolf fan to care more about Beasts or their bizarre relationship with Heroes.

It's a bad attempt to have a Mary Sue type monster be the way and game to do crossover in a system that only uses the same system but isn't meant for actual true crossover like Unsystem for example. Seriously, so Beowulf is evil and Grendal is good? Ridiculous and unworkable just like said game. And a unapologetic swipe at anybody not SJW or a full supporter of LGBC or whatever. The term of the antagonists was purposely chosen and twisted to offensive levels that only mean jealousy or revenge fantasy by anyone with a normal outlook.

I thought Twilight was just preteen fantasy what I didn't know is that these losers have an issue with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or anyone else that is trying to right the wrongs of monsters that PURPOSELY screw with everything to gain power.

Quote from: Baeraad;947992So educate me, anyone who feels inclined. Tell me the positive and the negative and above all just what the hell it's all about.

I was once told to read this about it, and now you will too! *points finger and casts evil spell*

http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-the-primordial/

Let me short.  Think of a concept created by SJWs that pretty much is everyone's best friend with super snowflake powers.  They prey on mortals to feed their hunger which makes them no different from vampires.  

Oh, but those deplorable heroes hunt us down.  Never mind the fact we had to stalk them and torture them to the point that they snap in order to become heroes.  Heroes are just evil worthless people who choose to hunt us beast for simply feeding off people.  Plus just ignore that cheer leader who followed us to our primordial dream to hunt us down like some utter badass.  No we swear she is not Buffy the teenage vampire slayer.  We swear!

Seriously this is just SJW vampires getting pissy that gamergate hunters are kicking their sorry asses.  Meanwhile the real vampires are busy snorting up blood soak crack, drinking blood from virgins, and having sex with luxury class hookers.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;948001I was once told to read this about it, and now you will too! *points finger and casts evil spell*

http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-the-primordial/

Nyoooooooo! :(
*flung into the link, enslaved to read it in total.*

Here we go again.

Based on the previews essentially you play someone who is more or less the re-incarnation of some legendary monster archetype. These thingies eventually need to feed or they flip out. They feed on fear and by entering dreams and causing fear. If they dont feed then sooner or later they go on a dream rampage and thats likely to cause people to flip out. Or cause someone to express as the Hero destined to slay the monster.

Trick is that some monsters are being selective of their targets and have family to take care of when not monstering. Others see it as teaching people to face their fears. And the rest just do it to be dicks. Just like all the other WD settings. The Hero is a problem in that they believe they can do no wrong and they can and will do questionable things like harming innocent bystanders or torturing the monsters friends and family.

How much has changed from the preview to the print is an interesting list as there was a bitchfest over various elements. What else is new?

I am looking at the link and it is still a treasure trove of SJW stupidity.  Oh god some one should give this to Internet Aristocrat so we can give this shit of a book a proper burning it deserves.  By burning I mean roasting.  I am also talking about the "fixed" version.

Edit:  OMG!  Fucker fix shit all.  All the writer did was hidden his kickstarter version at places most people don't even bother to look.  "the Devouring is more of a homecoming.", quote says it all.

Did they actually fix it? I hope so because the first version was really bad.

Quote from: Marleycat;948023Did they actually fix it? I hope so because the first version was really bad.

No.  They just hide the things people hated about the kickstarter.

Reading over that Fatal and Friends link it actually sounds like there is a core of an interesting idea there... a mix of Dexter and Nephilim... but the authors shit it up by chaining it to identity politics and trying to teach somebody a lesson.
Even without those flaws, I'm skeptical it works as a game... as a fun thing to play.

I've got the final version, read most of it, and....

Divorced from itself it's an interesting approach to monsters for a Hunter the Vigil game.  See, there's these people who lose their souls to a nightmare-darkness-concept-monster, and in the process they get powers based on fears and such.  You could easily base an entire campaign world around Hunters going out and dealing with Beasts exclusively.  Alternatively, it provides some interesting rivals in a Changeling the Lost campaign; Beasts are those Changelings who escaped the Hedge and Gentry, but they did so "too late".  As a supplement to one of those games, with Beasts being used as NPCs, it's kinda' cool.

But that's not what this.

The first iteration was a kind of game about people discovering they were born wrong, and they're really special folk with super powers and a serious business destiny.  And people glommed onto it as "Otherkin: the Game We Wish Was Real".  Parallels with transgenderism were also drawn.  And of course, your existence creates mean people who want to hurt you just because you're a special snowflake who wants it to be Halloween all year long.  Boo hoo!

Problem being, this was meant to be a game of personal horror where you played monsters who thrived on fear.  

So the Otherkin stuff got chunked, and the thing turned into a metaphor for bullies and the cycle of abuse as near as I can figure out (which actually could be interesting, if better focused).  But people lost their shit over the idea of playing something unpleasant.  This wasn't Transfolk: the List of K3w| P0w3rz anymore, but a game where you were a jerk!  So -that- got scaled back too, and the end result was a theme that was about scaring people to various degrees.  And while I -do- respect the idea of encouraging players to come up with their own interpretations and approaches to their characters' struggles, this basically neuters the concept of "personal horror" in the game.  

And then there's the Heroes....  You have these monsters going around terrorizing people, but Beasts need to invent a whole new caste of people that exist to persecute them and promote their martyr complex, because the Hunters every other splat has to hide from isn't good enough.  Beasts are just -that- awesome at hiding their effects.  (yawn)  

And -then- there's the piss-poor Mary Sue approach to the rest of the WoD.  Even though it's written in character, it's grating as -fuck-.  And this game -begs- to be used as part of a crossover, at which point you get back to all the awful crossover metaphysics bullshit the oWoD was bogged down in (although, to be fair, the nWoD is still vastly superior for crossovers than the oWoD.  In part because it doesn't care if your precious widdle wampire gets smeared into paste by a rookie mage, and in part because it was built to have a shared metaphysics you could ignore from the start).

And -then- -then- there's the realization that the game... kinda' sucks even on its own merits.  For all the in-setting talk about how relevant and important and special the Beasts are, they're none of the above.  Vampire does the whole "feeding on humans because I'm a monster" shtick better.  Changeling handles absolute dread and survivor group themes better.  Promethean has "the people want to beat me up and run me out of town because I'm different" motif covered much better.  Mage has got the power trip fantasy down pat.  And despite trying to cover all these themes anyway, Beast isn't a Jack of All Trades but more of a deuce.  (pun intended)  

tl;dr - as a game it sucks and is redundant and insulting, as a DIY Monster Manual alternative for the WoD it isn't entirely worthless.

How can you tell the differences in versions of the KS preview then?

I just read that review and it made me respect Demon even more.  Mainly demon does not put up with beast's stupidity and is immune to friendship powers.  Of course this triggers beasts which is why the don't like demons.  Seriously the writer wrote demon, but he sure as fuck have these beasts hate them like the plague.

Which I find it odd that changeling would even like beasts.  I mean some scary monster dragged the changeling away and torment the poor fuck.  Beasts by their nature do the same shit as the true fae.  If any thing changelings should be the instant allies with heroes.

Quote from: Omega;948088How can you tell the differences in versions of the KS preview then?

The reviewer tells you the changes after each section.  Serious it is a good review and the man points out the bullshit.

I'm pretty much with san dee jota, it's basically useful as a DIY Monster Manual. Maybe on the outside as a "Some (Vampire|Mage|Gentry|Mad Scientist) fucked up a magical experiment and you guys get to play the fucked up results and interact with the setting as an outsider/pariah type. You have interesting abilities, but socially and politically...this is going to suck ass for you". But only if you cut a majority of the fluff.

If any thing and thid is after giving some thought into this.  It should be called Dreamer: The Infected.  You get a nightmare and some weird supernatural phenomenon changes your mind and soul.  Good news is that you have powers, but bad news is that your fuck up in more ways than one.

In short there is a danger of you spreading that infection on to others which would fuck them up.  The antagonists are people who manage to fight off the infection, but it changes them too.  Like being aware of a dream plague and they are the only ones that can stop it due to their new found immunities.

Everyone knows that WoD and NWoD, etc, are ok RPGs. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the books to get role-play, campaign, and one-shot ideas from. The problems with those games, since the first release, are the sexual perverts and deviants sitting around the WoD game tables. But once you find normal role-players to start a group with, pretty much any of the Chronicle-style games are good. Players just have to decide what characters to be and what their motives are. Too many choices sometimes leads players to think that vampires, werewolves, ghosts, will all work well in the same game session together. That all depends on how good the role-players are.

But when the company tries to cater to those same perverts and deviants?  I mean at some point you got to put your foot down and say no.

Also the find good players is a shit argument.  Good players work on every thing.  With good players you can make FATAL be fun.  The question is should they be playing FATAL when they can play D&D.

So I read that link. And I have come to the conclusion that they are tripping over themselves trying to maintain White Wolf's subversive anti-hero as hero theme. They could have easily broken their contrarian stereotype by reveling in a totally evil splat, like AD&D Reverse Dungeon, or video game Dungeon Keeper, etc.

It'd at least be honest without trying to jump through hoops.

In fact, since almost all of their lines are some derivation of "monster I am, lest monster I become," this was a lost opportunity to tie the splats together with a 'fallen' variant of each. What happens to your character when it succumbs to temptation and becomes unplayable by the old splat morality? It secretly turns into a Beast splat, an [old splat]+, a mole in the party, a rotten apple in the barrel, threatening all and sundry.

It would flip the script of the game line's theme, yes, but it'd expand what happens to the 'fallen' of each splat. Then tables could use it for PCs who desire table subversion or a continuation of a fallen PC as more powerful NPC.

This product is meh as is. In fact the dudebro heroes are one of the few sympathetic spots as a kinda goofy send up of the trenchcoat katana shtick. (Seriously, that hero lexicon is pretty fucking funny.)

Quote from: Snowman0147;948154But when the company tries to cater to those same perverts and deviants?  I mean at some point you got to put your foot down and say no.

Except WOD had adult subject material in it from pretty much the start. They werent so much catering to a fanbase as just doing their own thing which was counter to the squeeky-clean 2e D&D.

I am not talking about WoD.  I am talking about CoD which has a difference.  I am talking about a different staff, different company, and different fanbase.

Paradox Interactive is going off its own direction with the new White Wolf WoD.  This about Onyx Path CoD.  As in this is what Onyx Path is about.  Beast is completely Onyx Path's creation.  

You can't drag 90's White Wolf WoD into this.  Mostly because that White Wolf would never serve any SJW because that company would be mocking them.  Gotta remember White Wolf fans were very pro free speech back then because they were the counter culture.  Onyx Path caters those that want to shut down any game they don't like.

Omega. I think you need to replace "adult" in that first sentence with "pandering". Because I honestly would counter that what were doing was anything but adult.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;948001I was once told to read this about it, and now you will too! *points finger and casts evil spell*

http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kurieg/beast-the-primordial/

Holy crap, that is even worse than I expected. I am super okay with monsters-as-metaphors, or games-as-metaphors for that matter, but a lighter touch is required. There are such things as stretching metaphors too thin and shoving them on readers' faces; B:tP seems to be guilty of both.

And to think I once joked that Promethean: the Created was a game about venturing outside of your bedroom. Man, I did not see this coming.

Quote from: san dee jota;948056tl;dr - as a game it sucks and is redundant and insulting, as a DIY Monster Manual alternative for the WoD it isn't entirely worthless.

Book of Spirits did it first and better. Humans hollowed out by idealized monsters? Sound like the Spirit-Claimed to me. Boom, done. Sic your werewolf and/or hunter PCs on them.

CoD-wise I dig Requiem, Forsaken, Awakening, Lost and Vigil. Jury's still out on Created, Sin-Eaters and Descent. But Primordial gets a solid "pass".

Quote from: Omega;948172Except WOD had adult subject material in it from pretty much the start. They werent so much catering to a fanbase as just doing their own thing which was counter to the squeeky-clean 2e D&D.

People are quick to bitch about the Bowdlerization of AD&D2 and just as quick to forget it when it's time to contextualize the pull WW games had when they first came out.

Hell, pre-Lorraine Williams D&D was pretty edgy. Greg Fucking Irons (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/greg-irons-mn0001745256) drew a fucking coloring book (http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com.br/2011/10/greg-irons-advanced-dungeons-and.html) for it, 30+ years before The Secret Garden was a twinkle in some publishing exec's eye.

I'm reading the links posted, and... holy shit. :eek: This is bad. There are some cool bits in here - I can kinda-sorta get behind the idea of playing the embodiment of a primal fear - but turning the howling terrors from the dawn of time into poor abused woobies who are persecuted by mean people who don't understand that they only torture and traumatise innocent people for their own good? No, no, no, no, no!

I will say this, I do think that the reports of SJW-hood have been exaggerated. Yes, that writer guy did reference GamerGate, but I don't think he meant for there to be a direct one-to-one relationship between them and the Heroes. I think it's pretty clear that he just used GamerGate as one example of many of people who he thinks are Wrong On The Internet.

Having that said, that doesn't actually make it much better. The Heroes are apparently supposed to be people who are single-minded certain of their own correctness in defiance of any reason, logic or evidence - in contrast to the Beasts, who are nuanced and diverse and reasonable. And what doesn't seem to have crossed this guy's mind is that everyone sees their own side as being like the Beasts and the opposite side as being like the Heroes. That, in fact, seeing the opposition as inherently unreasonable and dedicated only to your destruction is exactly what makes people become unreasonable and dedicate to said opposition's destruction.

In other words, the Heroes are strawmen. They're not even strawmen of anything in particular. They're all-purpose strawmen. They're the one-dimensional, hate-filled fanatics that every foaming-at-the-mouth idealogue imagines himself to be persecuted by. And this guy is so certain that they are objectively real that he wrote a whole game based on the assumption that people would love to fantasise about beating them up.

Wow. Just... wow.

Quote from: Baeraad;948183I'm reading the links posted, and... holy shit. :eek: This is bad. There are some cool bits in here - I can kinda-sorta get behind the idea of playing the embodiment of a primal fear - but turning the howling terrors from the dawn of time into poor abused woobies who are persecuted by mean people who don't understand that they only torture and traumatise innocent people for their own good? No, no, no, no, no!

I will say this, I do think that the reports of SJW-hood have been exaggerated. Yes, that writer guy did reference GamerGate, but I don't think he meant for there to be a direct one-to-one relationship between them and the Heroes. I think it's pretty clear that he just used GamerGate as one example of many of people who he thinks are Wrong On The Internet.

Having that said, that doesn't actually make it much better. The Heroes are apparently supposed to be people who are single-minded certain of their own correctness in defiance of any reason, logic or evidence - in contrast to the Beasts, who are nuanced and diverse and reasonable. And what doesn't seem to have crossed this guy's mind is that everyone sees their own side as being like the Beasts and the opposite side as being like the Heroes. That, in fact, seeing the opposition as inherently unreasonable and dedicated only to your destruction is exactly what makes people become unreasonable and dedicate to said opposition's destruction.

In other words, the Heroes are strawmen. They're not even strawmen of anything in particular. They're all-purpose strawmen. They're the one-dimensional, hate-filled fanatics that every foaming-at-the-mouth idealogue imagines himself to be persecuted by. And this guy is so certain that they are objectively real that he wrote a whole game based on the assumption that people would love to fantasise about beating them up.

Wow. Just... wow.

You got it. Matt McFarland is a pretty decent guy. But that game is based on a horrible and wrong premise. It missed it's intention in my opinion. I don't think Matt is a hater. Enough said I'm out.

Quote from: Snowman0147;948173I am not talking about WoD.  I am talking about CoD which has a difference.  I am talking about a different staff, different company, and different fanbase.

Paradox Interactive is going off its own direction with the new White Wolf WoD.  This about Onyx Path CoD.  As in this is what Onyx Path is about.  Beast is completely Onyx Path's creation.  

You can't drag 90's White Wolf WoD into this.  Mostly because that White Wolf would never serve any SJW because that company would be mocking them.  Gotta remember White Wolf fans were very pro free speech back then because they were the counter culture.  Onyx Path caters those that want to shut down any game they don't like.

Incorrect. Only Trinity/Scion and Scarred Lands are Onyx Path. CroD/WoD20 is pure White Wolf old and new. I just happen to like the basic CroD rules especially when applied to Mage. Otherwise screw both of them.

Paradox may own CoD, but you have to admit that Oynx Path has free reign with it.

Quote from: Snowman0147;948201Paradox may own CoD, but you have to admit that Oynx Path has free reign with it.

In fact they don't unless it's Scarred Lands, Scion or Trinity. For example they wanted to do CroD with a different system but that wasn't going to happen. It will happen with Scion and Trinity and other games OP owns outright and can both leave the WW d10 thing and modernize the whole thing legally.

You play someone whose very existence causes suffering, but that's OK because it's teaching people lessons for their own good. In the meantime the people you abuse are unreasonably obsessed with destroying you because they refuse to learn what you're trying to teach. The #Beasts are justified, the #Heroes are taking things too far. The #Beasts are individuals, the #Heroes are an unthinking mob.

And none of them have any choice in the matter.

Problem is this replicated abusive political relationships so well that it managed to offend everyone. Because one man's #Beast is another man's #Hero. The ultimate irony is that the book showed just how toxic hate driven zealotry and unthinking obsession can be, and yet all people saw was the face of their enemy. The book failed to teach its lesson, and created 'heroes' as a result.

Quote from: Baeraad;948183The Heroes are apparently supposed to be people who are single-minded certain of their own correctness in defiance of any reason, logic or evidence - in contrast to the Beasts, who are nuanced and diverse and reasonable. And what doesn't seem to have crossed this guy's mind is that everyone sees their own side as being like the Beasts and the opposite side as being like the Heroes. That, in fact, seeing the opposition as inherently unreasonable and dedicated only to your destruction is exactly what makes people become unreasonable and dedicate to said opposition's destruction.

In other words, the Heroes are strawmen. They're not even strawmen of anything in particular. They're all-purpose strawmen. They're the one-dimensional, hate-filled fanatics that every foaming-at-the-mouth idealogue imagines himself to be persecuted by.

Also this.

Another problem is that the game seems to go out of its way to make the Heroes seem pathetic - to the point where they don't even seem to be a viable threat most of the time. They're clueless morons who can't cooperate and can't plan and are painfully outmatched by the superpowered monsters they're hunting. And the thing is, "pathetic" is dangerously close to "sympathetic." People end up rooting for the Heroes just because, well, the poor sorry bastards just seem like they could use a win. :p

Now, what would be cool would be if the sides got treated more equally. After all, Beasts and Heroes are both just following their nature - it just so happens that their nature brings them inevitably into conflict. That's the stuff of tragedy right there, two larger-than-life characters being driven into a confrontation that neither wants but neither can avoid. Every Hero knows that one day, they'll die at the hands of a Beast, and every Beast knows that one day, they'll die at the hands of a Hero. And still both have to do what feels right to them, playing the part they were given. They could both be pathetic, and both be glorious at the same time.

Alas.

Quote from: Marleycat;948196You got it. Matt McFarland is a pretty decent guy. But that game is based on a horrible and wrong premise. It missed it's intention in my opinion. I don't think Matt is a hater. Enough said I'm out.

Quote from: Baeraad;948222Another problem is that the game seems to go out of its way to make the Heroes seem pathetic - to the point where they don't even seem to be a viable threat most of the time. They're clueless morons who can't cooperate and can't plan and are painfully outmatched by the superpowered monsters they're hunting. And the thing is, "pathetic" is dangerously close to "sympathetic." People end up rooting for the Heroes just because, well, the poor sorry bastards just seem like they could use a win. :p

Now, what would be cool would be if the sides got treated more equally. After all, Beasts and Heroes are both just following their nature - it just so happens that their nature brings them inevitably into conflict. That's the stuff of tragedy right there, two larger-than-life characters being driven into a confrontation that neither wants but neither can avoid. Every Hero knows that one day, they'll die at the hands of a Beast, and every Beast knows that one day, they'll die at the hands of a Hero. And still both have to do what feels right to them, playing the part they were given. They could both be pathetic, and both be glorious at the same time.

Alas.

But that makes sense and isn't about gender/sex/loathing or hate? In my personal opinion I don't think Matt was going for hate. He was trying to make a statement about gender/sex/loathing. Which is his business and I have no call to hate even if I completely disagree with his view.

Hatred takes actual and real effort. Just like magic in Mage the Awakening. You have to mean it in your mind and soul and be able to focus it at the same time to make it real. Matt wasn't doing that he was just explaining a point of view I find abhorrent badly.

Quote from: Marleycat;948223But that makes sense and isn't about gender/sex/loathing or hate?

Yeah. And we can't have that, I guess. :(

Quote from: Baeraad;948225Yeah. And we can't have that, I guess. :(

Read my edit. I'm the type that takes awhile to type out her complete thoughts.

Quote from: BaeraadNow, what would be cool would be if the sides got treated more equally. After all, Beasts and Heroes are both just following their nature - it just so happens that their nature brings them inevitably into conflict. That's the stuff of tragedy right there, two larger-than-life characters being driven into a confrontation that neither wants but neither can avoid. Every Hero knows that one day, they'll die at the hands of a Beast, and every Beast knows that one day, they'll die at the hands of a Hero. And still both have to do what feels right to them, playing the part they were given. They could both be pathetic, and both be glorious at the same time.

Alas.

Honestly the whole premise is basic enough that you can whip up an imitation in two pages of fluff that exclude the worst parts of this game, two pages of rules, slap it onto your generic system of choice and run it interchangeably for a group of heroes or monsters depending on what your group wants.

Personally, I find the whole extra-dimensional "lair" thing very interesting, as I'm always looking for ways to slip weird locations into modern setting games.

Quote from: Anon AdderlanProblem is this replicated abusive political relationships so well that it managed to offend everyone. Because one man's #Beast is another man's #Hero. The ultimate irony is that the book showed just how toxic hate driven zealotry and unthinking obsession can be, and yet all people saw was the face of their enemy. The book failed to teach its lesson, and created 'heroes' as a result.

Clever observation.

Quote from: Marleycat;948223In my personal opinion I don't think Matt was going for hate. He was trying to make a statement about gender/sex/loathing. Which is his business and I have no call to hate even if I completely disagree with his view.

Well, I don't hate the game, I promise. I guess I'm a little annoyed by it and think it comes with a great deal of point-missing? But I promise that I'm not going to go on any crusades over it. ;)

But as for the statement... as near as I can tell, it amounts to "haterz hate 'cause they're hateful!" And I think that's a very bad statement in all sorts of ways.

Quote from: Baeraad;948229Well, I don't hate the game, I promise. I guess I'm a little annoyed by it and think it comes with a great deal of point-missing? But I promise that I'm not going to go on any crusades over it. ;)

But as for the statement... as near as I can tell, it amounts to "haterz hate 'cause they're hateful!" And I think that's a very bad statement in all sorts of ways.

I'm with you but Lairs are cool and awesome to use in Blue Line or Mage the Awakening games. They are just off enough to do X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or straight Mage the Awakening.

Quote from: Marleycat;948230I'm with you but Lairs are cool and awesome in Blue Line or Mage the Awakening games.

I'll grant you that I really liked the idea of Lairs. In fact, the whole idea of primal fears in human form hanging out in interconnected systems of nightmare scenes is pretty cool. :) If they just had something sensible to do with themselves - the whole "scare people shitless because that will improve them, somehow" thing just doesn't sound very compelling to me.

I dislike dishonesty. And that's my issue with the makers of this game and those related to it.

What they claim as being adult content. I see as nothing more than immature pandering aimed right between the eyes of adolescents.

Quote from: Baeraad;948232I'll grant you that I really liked the idea of Lairs. In fact, the whole idea of primal fears in human form hanging out in interconnected systems of nightmare scenes is pretty cool. :) If they just had something sensible to do with themselves - the whole "scare people shitless because that will improve them, somehow" thing just doesn't sound very compelling to me.

You're correct but as a ST you know you can have a much better reason. Hell, I'm usually just a player unless it's Palladium Fantasy and I can come up with 5-10 reasons right now while drinking a serious amount.:)

How weird is it that I only will ST Palladium Fantasy or Mage either version yet won't even try something like DnD ever?

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;948233I dislike dishonesty. And that's my issue with the makers of this game and those related to it.

What they claim as being adult content. I see as nothing more than immature pandering aimed right between the eyes of adolescents.

That is a valid complaint. Could you explain or expound more? I don't want it to be about politics though.

Quote from: Marleycat;948235That is a valid complaint. Could you explain or expound more? I don't want it to be about politics though.

I'm curious as well. How would you revamp Beast's premise to be actually 'mature'?

Quote from: Baeraad;948232I'll grant you that I really liked the idea of Lairs. In fact, the whole idea of primal fears in human form hanging out in interconnected systems of nightmare scenes is pretty cool. :)

It reminds me, just a bit, of The Whispering Vault. Scary heroes living in their own self-styled Shadowlands/bat caves, till they get the bat signal and have to go thump big bads.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;948238I'm curious as well. How would you revamp Beast's premise to be actually 'mature'?

I don't know about 'mature', but I'd basically make it a Hunter+ game.

You have Vigil, which is mostly normal humans fighting the good fight; then you have Beast where the things that go bump in the night get bumped back. I mean, Beasts are supposed to be from the Primordial Dream right? Which is humanity's collective consciousness wisdom bullshit thing. So why would Beasts be not 'human'? They are very human and they are empowered by the Dream|Dark Mother|Whatever to fight against all the shitty not human things out there. Or maybe they're a sacrifice, you don't get to be human anymore...but your job is to protect them. Angst it up.

Instead of all the other supernaturals being woobie love friends with them flip the script; all the other supes HATE them. Because they bump back. Because they often do your shtick BETTER than you and use it to fuck your world up. Because you are a blight on humanity and that aggression will not stand.

Give the Hero mechanics to the other supernaturals, have the fail state/biggest morality hit be that they start preying on humans instead of monsters, have the Incarnates be like archmages or something. Just turn it all around completely.

That's what I would do.

Quote from: Marleycat;948235That is a valid complaint. Could you explain or expound more? I don't want it to be about politics though.

I would be glad to.

Every game they put out has some sort of twist meant to be shocking. From the parallels between Vampires and drug addicts, to the supremesist movement basis in Werewolf. They do it deliberately to get attention and controversy. Every bit of it. From the fetishized art, to the fetish communities that they appeal to. It's all about getting a reaction.

The fetish communities they appeal to get glamorized as being forbidden. Which draws rebelling adolescents like flies to fresh manure. The more forbidden the subjects seem, the greater the appeal to adolescents. It's something the company has been pushing hard since their very genesis. Their mature audiences labeling they had back in the day, it was just a magnet drawing in the rebelling adolescents. The more forbidden they made their games seem, the greater appeal it had to their true target audience. Adolescents.

It's really the same sort of marketing that draws kids in droves to pornography. booze, and illegal drugs. The fact it is forbidden legally to them draws them in. And it gives them the illusion that they are resisting "the man". When in reality, they are being stupid and self destructive. Poisoning themselves.

I tried not to get too political with this. As you had asked. I hope I made my point without going too far over the line for your comfort. I wasn't trying to actively offend.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;948263The more forbidden the subjects seem, the greater the appeal to adolescents.It's something the company has been pushing hard since their very genesis.

Heh, too bad for Onyx Path that the forbidden subjects these days are true freedom of speech, dissent from coastal elite platitudes, and right-leaning pushback against leftist culture war excesses.

Quote from: Marleycat;948234You're correct but as a ST you know you can have a much better reason. Hell, I'm usually just a player unless it's Palladium Fantasy and I can come up with 5-10 reasons right now while drinking a serious amount.:)

To be sure. Something in the vein of Eva Ibbotson, perhaps? But I'd still want to make some alterations so that enacting elaborate revenge-fantasies wasn't something the game actively pushed the players towards doing. That sort of thing leaves me very uncomfortable very quickly. :p

Quote from: Marleycat;948234How weird is it that I only will ST Palladium Fantasy or Mage either version yet won't even try something like DnD ever?

Not weird at all, I won't GM DnD either. I'll play it happily enough, but it's just simultaneously too weird and too generic for me to figure out where to start with it. Oddly enough, I think I could get interested in running some sort of early-edition DnD, which seems to have been more weird and less generic - but I've never really gotten around to checking any of those editions out.

Having read that awful review (which, seriously, is as bad as the game, if for wildly different reasons), I honestly can't think of a single way that Beast could be salvaged other than simply starting over from complete fucking scratch, starting with the core conceit.

I suppose there are some decent ideas in there. People seemed to like the Lairs, but to me the review at least seemed to make them out as complete waffly conceptual garbage. Maybe it was the hoity toitey jargoning that ruined it for me, though to be honest I'm not shocked to find that the same guy did Demon: the Decent.  Full of conceptual ideas that are mechanically... wtf, or utterly losing me when one of the 'awesome' demonic powers is essentially weaponized punning.

Nope, the whole goddamn book is tainted with smug, arrogant stupidity from the ground up. Burn it down and start over, maybe with... I dunno... a foundation maybe?  .  Maybe find a writer who isn't interested in sucking his own dick?  Wait, that wasn't inclusive enough of me: Find a writer who isn't interested in sucking zir's own non-specific external appendages... if they can be bothered to even have those. Maybe they identify as amoeba.... I can take this sucker all the way down that inclusivity rabbit hole.

Im reading through the KS version. Not sure what iteration. But yeah can see where things went a little wonky here.

I think part of the problem is that the writer cant seem to stay on one track. Im reading the Hero section and in one sentence they are being painted as cowards and in the next as victims. And then back to painting them as wretched and back again to victims and then around to being locked in a role they didnt ask for, and then... you get the idea.

I like the idea of the monster creating the hero and how each hero created is based on the beasts personal theme.

I want to expand on my criticism from last night. There is a bad idea that these game lines seem to have picked up like a case of the Clap from, as near as I can tell, Borgstrom (Exalted's first Fae Folk supplement), that keeps coming back even though, again as far as I can tell, the Borg moved on to spread his/her personal brand of Disappear-Up-My-Own-Ass writing to other things.  Hang on, because I'm going to get at least a little deep...

In language we use Metaphors to help explain difficult or complex concepts... in a more abstract sense to help us understand the world
Stories are really nothing more than really fancy metaphors.
Ergo: Stories as metaphors help us simplify, and understand the world around us.

Seems a bit high minded and even a bit pretentious, but only because in order to see it you have to naval gaze the story to get that laid out... but in this case it's crucial to understand where Beast runs right the fuck off the rails even before you get into the Mary Sue special snowflake murder-monsters part of it.

Now, for a moment we're gonna go back to the Borg here.  I won't lie, Borgstrom is a talented writer, gifted in constructing evocative and poetic assemblages of words that can draw readers in. But Borgstrom is not any sort of storyteller, which is undoubtedly why most of the fiction in Noblis and on Hitherby Dragons was constructed in short snippets, loosely collected, forcing the reader to fill in the gaps... but that's an inference. I know Borgstrom isn't a gifted storyteller for another, more blatant reason.

Borgstrom consistently mistakes the rules of telling a story, the metaphor of the story, for the story itself.  This is nowhere so blatant as the Fair Folk supplement, where creatures of the unfathomable Chaos that exist outside of reality live according to... the rules of a three act play. They literally travel at the speed of plot, among other many, many terrible ideas.    The rules, or rather Techniques, of telling a story, or using language, become the story itself. The Metaphor becomes a means of explaining another Metaphor, and we get caught in a recursive loop of metaphors like some twisted oroboros.

Which brings us back to Beast: The Fuckening.

Sure, I could point out examples across the White Wolf line, such as the Pun Power from Demon (which, when you include the example in the book winds up being an onion of bad ideas. Each time you think you've peeled away the bad ideas, another one underneath is found...), but Beast can stand on its own here.

Now, as I've already admitted, I'm more familiar with the reviews of Beast, but in my favor that linked review contains an absurd amount of quoting and detail.

Beast may not be as blatant as Fair Folk was, but the festering sores of the Borgstrom Clap stand out to even casual inspection, taken second hand at that.  Consider the constant refrain regarding the links between the Beasts and Heroes, how the presence of a Beast creates heroes. By itself, relatively harmless fun, but then you see how Heroes and Beasts are more firmly linked through the metaphor (which is, I will point out, already inside a metaphor of the 'story' being told through the medium of an RPG) of Stories. Heroes are caught up in the 'fictive' idea that they are, well, heroes, and the Beasts are, well, beasts.

As a deconstruction of the idea of heroes, it could be clever if we didn't constantly get the message that this is a nerdlinger power-revenge fantasy.  Heroes draw their power from the use of the metaphor of a story, draw allies from the idea that they are storybook heroes, and force weaknesses on Beasts based on the story-metaphor that beasts have to have weaknesses.

And therein lies one problem, one example of where the game breaks down because it's busy crawling up its metaphorical ass.  The Beasts don't have weaknesses in the rules, because the Beasts are... what? Not part of the Story? More Real?  The Hero applies a weakness they make up in their own mind and somehow make it real, because Story, motherfucker!

But, as the reviewer points out, this doesn't work because the Hero can't actually exploit those weaknesses, because the Beast can go away and shed the vulnerability before the Hero can use it.

Over and over again we see rules being written so very loosely, or with so little thought to mechanics, because the writers are more interested in telling their recursive subversion (which, I'm sure they think it incredibly clever... never mind that its some two decades old now even for WW) than they are in making sure their 'Story'... in this case 'game'... works As A Story/Game.

Now, don't get me wrong: In the right hands, and the right medium, this sort of recursive story idea, the deconstruction of story using story ad infinitum, can work.  I'd let Phillip K. Dick run wild with it on an LSD bender any day of the week and I'm not even a fan.

But in a game? A game where the players should be creating the 'story' such as it is, organically through play? Not the medium, my friend, and clearly the writers of Beast aren't the right hands... though we could trace it farther back to the Borg, they learned their craft from the wrong person, which can't be helping.

And the hell of it? Unlike Demon:the Descent, Beasts... in their interpretation as creatures of Nightmares and bad dreams.... have far more excuses for these sorts of metaphorical 'story' powers than almost any sort of monster you could imagine.  

Of course, that leads to another problem: No clear conceptual idea of what Beasts are supposed to be. Are they mythic monsters like Grendel or Leviathan, or are they Bad Dreams? Bad Dreams don't call for Heroes, now do they?

Its like they couldn't decide if they wanted to make a cake or do laundry, so they decided to make the cake in the washing machine....






Because how else to end this post, but with a seriously bad metaphor?

Spike, I don't know if you've stopped taking the meds, or finally found the right ones, but you're on a roll lately.

Kudos.

Quote from: Spike;948521Of course, that leads to another problem: No clear conceptual idea of what Beasts are supposed to be.

One of the neat things about the nWoD is that they map onto metaphors for different aspects of human life, and as a set of horror games those metaphors and aspects are generally "unpleasant" (but in a good, fun way!).  Vampire is about predators (rapists, exploiters, etc.), Changeling is about abuse survivors, Promethean is about being isolated, etc.  There's overlap to be sure, but even then there's (usually) some new twist that makes the overlap worthwhile.  You can have Hunters who have been isolated, or Mages who are predators for example.  

Beast tries sooo hard to be everything for everybody ("they're monsters, but they're made that way so they're victims, but they terrorize people so they're monsters, but they don't -have- to terrorize too much, but..."), it ends up as not much of anything.

Quote from: Spike;948521Are they mythic monsters like Grendel or Leviathan, or are they Bad Dreams? Bad Dreams don't call for Heroes, now do they?

I can hear the response now: "Both and neither.  Make it your own.  Player empowerment.  Blah blah blah."

As I said before Spike.  Dreamer: the Infection.  Just a horrible dream plague that only Nurgle can dream of.

Quote from: Spike;948521Now, for a moment we're gonna go back to the Borg here.

I see her rule sets as the Rube Goldberg machines of the gaming world. Do they do what they're intended to do? Yes, and often quite competently. But they're also overly complex and poorly communicated, especially when compounded by her love of flowery language. She's also good at writing non-mechanical bits that, while also overly flowery, do have their own internal consistency. Other people who don't have her skill(assuming they even overlap with her skill set in the first place) try to copy her, and we get this. Done well, what she does is often annoying and obtuse. Done poorly, well, . . .

Quote from: CRKrueger;948526Spike, I don't know if you've stopped taking the meds, or finally found the right ones, but you're on a roll lately.

Kudos.

A bit of both... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XcKBmdfpWs)

Quote from: Spike;948521Of course, that leads to another problem: No clear conceptual idea of what Beasts are supposed to be. Are they mythic monsters like Grendel or Leviathan, or are they Bad Dreams? Bad Dreams don't call for Heroes, now do they?

Its like they couldn't decide if they wanted to make a cake or do laundry, so they decided to make the cake in the washing machine....

1: The manuscript makes it more clear that the Beasts are sometimes manifestations or re-incarnations of legendary monsters. But others seem to be more recent births as it were. Legends made semi-real. In a way they are an outgrowth of WODs old concept of collective belief imposes reality.

2: Thats the impression I get too. They keep swinging back and fourth that in the end theres hardly any sense to it. Maybe that was intentional. But for fucks sake Changeling at least made some sense.

Quote from: san dee jota;948528One of the neat things about the nWoD is that they map onto metaphors for different aspects of human life, and as a set of horror games those metaphors and aspects are generally "unpleasant" (but in a good, fun way!).  Vampire is about predators (rapists, exploiters, etc.), Changeling is about abuse survivors, Promethean is about being isolated, etc.

Been thinking about the same things lately. My quick list...

• Vampire: Selfishness
• Werewolf: Prejudice
• Mage: Arrogance
• Wraith: Despair
• Changeling: Trauma
• Promethean: Lonelyness
• Hunter: Fanaticism
• Demon: Obedience
• Beast: Fear

Let me just say this....

Fuck Beast: The Primordial.

And while we're on that, Fuck Demon: The Descent and the entirety of Onyx Path's contributions for New World of Darkness.

nWoD 1e was cool, but this 2e Chronicles bullshit is just awful.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;948613Fuck (snip) the entirety of Onyx Path's contributions for New World of Darkness.

nWoD 1e was cool, but this 2e Chronicles bullshit is just awful.

I keep seeing people saying this, or variations on it ("they went all SJW and hate free speech!") from multiple people.  Could someone elaborate (I ask from a place of ignorance, not debate)?

Quote from: san dee jotaI keep seeing people saying this, or variations on it ("they went all SJW and hate free speech!") from multiple people. Could someone elaborate (I ask from a place of ignorance, not debate)?

I'll second this request, but with a focus on the mechanics, because I've also heard those were handled poorly and I can't find the detailed post about the problem with 2e combat that was once posted on this forum.

Oh, and a very specific game request: did 2e Promethean really remove the tricks for allowing some powers to transfer to the created's human form after the transformation?

Quote from: Doc Sammy;948613Let me just say this....

Fuck Beast: The Primordial.

And while we're on that, Fuck Demon: The Descent and the entirety of Onyx Path's contributions for New World of Darkness.

nWoD 1e was cool, but this 2e Chronicles bullshit is just awful.

The God-Machine idea from the WoD book was awesome, the God-Machine Chronicles was pretty good.  Demon: The Descent isn't a very good expression of that idea I didn't think.

Quote from: san dee jota;948615I keep seeing people saying this, or variations on it ("they went all SJW and hate free speech!") from multiple people.  Could someone elaborate (I ask from a place of ignorance, not debate)?

The last couple of hate mobs flowing through the rpg sewer that is the internet have had OP freelancers which also happen to be Purple mods leading the charge.

Quote from: CRKrueger;948636The God-Machine idea from the WoD book was awesome, the God-Machine Chronicles was pretty good.  Demon: The Descent isn't a very good expression of that idea I didn't think.

It seems to me like somewhere along the line DtD lost track of the God-Machine as being this really weird, seemingly disjointed and mismatched collection of... stuff, and instead it's just The Matrix.  I mean, I don't hate it, but it feels like a case where a narrowing of focus made the game worse (Beast meanwhile -needed- it focus narrowed in).

Quote from: Warboss Squee;948641The last couple of hate mobs flowing through the rpg sewer that is the internet have had OP freelancers which also happen to be Purple mods leading the charge.

So it's not so much the games, as "these guys wrote these games over here, and they mod over there, so the games are reflections of their modding"?

No, its more than that. Its stuff like their portrayals of Heroes in Beast as the worst sorts of sociopathic narcissists... and also every person that they've ever hated in real life, up to an including gamergaters.

Or, as I mentioned before, the example use of the Pun Power in Demon, where some random schmuck approaches a couple of women to ask them out and dies because.... asking pretty women out is evil?  I mean, I guess that's what internet feminists say, so I guess he deserves to die for being a misogynist?

Or the vast overemphasis on virtue signalling (often badly handled) through the overuse of various queer archetypes... as mentioned in the Beast Review about the gay Beast duo who pair up their feeding techniques to be even bigger murder assholes than most Beasts, or how something like 80% of the Aberrants (ok, only 80% of the COOL abberrants) were part of the special Queer Superhuman Alliance.


Most folks don't play RPGs to dish out pop culture politics, but White Wolf games and writers seem to specialize in ham-handedly hammering home just how enlightened they are, and you should too... and all to often (Beast really, REALLY seems to be the prime example here) their 'enlightened' is really just the worst sort of 'we are so very precious, and everyone we've ever hated deserved to die in horrible, horrible ways... because we're good and they're bad!'... without actually managing to justify the rage except, again, through ham handed writing.

The very first example that struck me in that massive Review was the Leviathan Beast (whatever their called in game) getting jostled in the cafeteria by some random Jock and how eager he was to fight her.

I've been a teenage boy, and unless things have drastically changed in the last twenty odd years, no teenage boy wants to get into a fight with a girl for any reason. Not even if she's not popular or sexy or whatever.  I doubt any of them could articulate why, but I seriously doubt I can find a teenage boy today who wants to FIGHT a teenage girl.

But "Antonio" has to deserve getting attacked by the Beast and whatever torments they want to give him, so he acts like a bigger asshole in real life than any real life asshole would.


Now some of that is their enlightened virtue signalling: Some dude (named Matt, I'm guessing) tried to write a girl character to prove how even and balanced his murder-torture-monster game is, and wrote her like a social outcast teenage boy.  Matt is also signalling that Girls and Boys aren't just equal, they are identical, so its socialization and misogyny that keeps the Antionios of the world from wanting to FIGHT girls. (I sorta doubt it, but its possible).  Of course real girls (or murder monsters) should fight boys, because, you know, only the Patriarchy keeps girls from winning fights alla time against football players in highschool, or something.

I'm mostly betting on the first one, with flavors of the rest seeping in and convincing them it is good, enlightened game fiction instead of reading as 'what the fuck reality is this murder-monster game set in?', or as we in the writing biz (I wish...) say: One too many macguffins, bub.

Am I the only one who thinks is vaguely racist that they made the villain of that piece an 'Antonio' instead of, I dunno, a Jake or something?  I mean: I don't actually care, I just thought it was curious, given how very enlightened they clearly want to be.

Quote from: san dee jota;948644So it's not so much the games, as "these guys wrote these games over here, and they mod over there, so the games are reflections of their modding"?

Kinda? More a general interest in pandering that led to this point.

It would be cool if the FASERIP game (Humanish) was more of a toolkit. Is love to import all of the best ideas from CoD into it.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;948654It would be cool if the FASERIP game (Humanish) was more of a toolkit. Is love to import all of the best ideas from CoD into it.

Let me introduce you to a little friend of mine. It's called Icons. It's basically a simplified FASERIP combined with FATE.

You very well could do with it what you suggest above.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;948657Let me introduce you to a little friend of mine. It's called Icons. It's basically a simplified FASERIP combined with FATE.

You very well could do with it what you suggest above.

ICONS is to FASERIP as Pong is to PC Gaming.

Okay, that's an exaggeration, but I suspect that people who enjoy the depth and granularity of FASERIP will balk at the simplicity ICONS.

Out of curiosity, if they're really that SJW-y these days, what's the second edition of Promethean like?

I mean, I've only read the first edition, but there the protagonists were a bunch of socially maladjusted science geeks who got blamed for everything that went wrong because they were so inherently Creepy. That seems to be at odds with the SJW mission statement of purging all forms of non-approved deviance. Is the second edition full of snotty rants about how the Prometheans could totally complete the Pilgrimage in two seconds flat if they weren't clinging so hard to their sense of white male entitlement, or something? :p

That I can't tell you. I realized with my purchase of Demon:The Descent that I was throwing my money away buying any more WW products.  The sheer... badness... of the game made that an easier realization than it might have otherwise been had, say, its quality been on par with the first edition Prometheans... a game I bought but will never play and one that really should have convinced me it was time to move on...

Shipyard my issue with the mechanics of CoD is they took a nearly perfect streamlined system (nWoD) and made it more unreasonably complex.

For instance two xp systems called xp and beats.  Beats are 1/5th of a xp.  To get beats you need to complete goals (something that makes sense), or suffer conditions to get those beats (hey it is FATE dick sucking time again).  So not only are you keeping track of two xps, but constantly losing immersion because these meta points favor the player over the pc.

Secondly they added more useless bulk into the game with conditions, tilts, and even more merit bulk.  Once you start doing crossover you will have too many rules to remember and that is not okay.

Then there are the weird rules that make no sense.  Changeling for example.  Servants of the true fae aka hunters (not Hunter: the Vigil which that will make some confusion) need points to get a pc changling.  Why?  Is this the game designer efforts to prevent the ST from making a horror game?  I can understand the court protections as it forces hunters to hunt in a certain way, but a point system.  Come on.

Quote from: Spike;948648Of course real girls (or murder monsters) should fight boys, because, you know, only the Patriarchy keeps girls from winning fights alla time against football players in highschool, or something.

Lol - I actually saw someone on a different RPG site (not RPG.net actually) claim that the only reason that males were generally physically stronger was because of social engineering led boys being more physically active etc.  They claimed that estrogen was somehow better for muscle stamina than testosterone and a couple other crazy-town theories.

It was both frustrating and funny.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;948666Lol - I actually saw someone on a different RPG site (not RPG.net actually) claim that the only reason that males were generally physically stronger was because of social engineering led boys being more physically active etc.  They claimed that estrogen was somehow better for muscle stamina than testosterone and a couple other crazy-town theories.

It was both frustrating and funny.

I find those stories increasingly horrifying, actually. There are too many instances of young women picking fights with men because they've been told all their lives that they should win and then getting mauled or even killed when the men finally, and often incredibly reluctantly, fight back.  I find that sort of myth spreading to be actual misogyny, rather than the presumptive misogyny that causes so many virtue signallers to chimp out.

Quote from: Spike;948670I find those stories increasingly horrifying, actually. There are too many instances of young women picking fights with men because they've been told all their lives that they should win and then getting mauled or even killed when the men finally, and often incredibly reluctantly, fight back.

Even if they somehow think that women are somehow naturally of equal strength - would that really make them think that they personally are magically stronger?  *shakes head in bewilderment*

The person in question in this case seemed to have other issues.  And I will say - on that site (Order of the Stick's I believe) I wasn't the only one telling them that they were being foolish just because they could mention a couple of power-lifter females who were stronger than most men.  (and were likely on roids)

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;948672And I will say - on that site (Order of the Stick's I believe) I wasn't the only one telling them that they were being foolish just because they could mention a couple of power-lifter females who were stronger than most men.  (and were likely on roids)

I haven't been there in a while, but the Order of the Stick crowd used to strike me as much more reasonable than a lot of other gaming forums of a similar nature.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;948684I haven't been there in a while, but the Order of the Stick crowd used to strike me as much more reasonable than a lot of other gaming forums of a similar nature.

Spent very little time there but it struck me as ENWorld Lite.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;948684I haven't been there in a while, but the Order of the Stick crowd used to strike me as much more reasonable than a lot of other gaming forums of a similar nature.

If nothing else - they actually don't get offended by sarcasm.  They even have a code for it - just stick the text in blue and they know you're being sarcastic.

Quote from: Spike;948663That I can't tell you. I realized with my purchase of Demon:The Descent that I was throwing my money away buying any more WW products.  The sheer... badness... of the game made that an easier realization than it might have otherwise been had, say, its quality been on par with the first edition Prometheans... a game I bought but will never play and one that really should have convinced me it was time to move on...

Awww, I liked Promethean. It's the only nWoD game I might seriously consider playing... though it's true that I expect it would be very difficult to run properly. That just makes me itch to meet the challenge, though! :D

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;948666Lol - I actually saw someone on a different RPG site (not RPG.net actually) claim that the only reason that males were generally physically stronger was because of social engineering led boys being more physically active etc.  They claimed that estrogen was somehow better for muscle stamina than testosterone and a couple other crazy-town theories.

It was both frustrating and funny.

I am sorry to say that I have heard that bandied about as a truism, too.

Quote from: Spike;948670I find those stories increasingly horrifying, actually. There are too many instances of young women picking fights with men because they've been told all their lives that they should win and then getting mauled or even killed when the men finally, and often incredibly reluctantly, fight back.  I find that sort of myth spreading to be actual misogyny, rather than the presumptive misogyny that causes so many virtue signallers to chimp out.

That, on the other hand, is news to me. Does that actually happen very often? It seems... atypical. 0_o

I've seen a few stand out examples on youtube. It doesn't end well for the young ladies in question, or the young men who immediately git swarmed afterwards.