http://www.goblinscomic.com/07112005/Guus wrote:The short drow was a man right? I thought it was supposed to be a man at least.
That sounds like something an annoyed DM/GM would do.thinkslogically wrote:These guys don't seem to be engaging in quite so much meta - chat as the the new players have done to this point. They could be learning how to rp better of course, but being obvious players is their defining trait so far... I'm not convinced yet, but it would be pretty cool if it turns out to be them. Maybe the cursewalk was designed just for them to get the hang of the game before they broke any more of the real campaign
I've thought about that. It would probably be a real pain in the ass to keep track of about ten different negatives (how many patches are there anyway?), even if they all share the same positive (say Forgaths blood). We've seen with Klik (I guess we need a name for the bugger now... Klikriginal?) and Junior just how much a negative hurts. With a random distribution of weaknesses Forgath's arm will probably fall apart when he is hit by moonlight (but at least the gauntlet is loose now) and his brain will become exposed when his head touches a frog (imagine trying to figure out that weakness before the DM springs it on you). If they all have different positives it gets even worse. What do you mean, I need to dip my face in acid every now and then? Or maybe one has moonlight as a positive. But remember, don't let it hit your arm!Restomak wrote:do you think each of Forgath's "patches" have their own strengths and/or weaknesses, much like the Kliks or Kloks that gave them to him? I'm curious if he's going to have to start being careful around certain things (or if that's how he'll be able to un-"glue" the gauntlet to his hand).
Possibly not Herbert's table, but a different GM in the same universe. One which got the "stay in character" message much better transported to the players. And when that GM gave Herbert a positive opinion on the learning progress of the three players, Herbert allowed their characters to be transferred to his table.Sessine wrote:(The Cursewalk wouldn't have to have been played out at the gaming table. It doesn't sound like the sort of thing that would be much fun. It could have been, I suppose. If we start getting really long detailed multi-page flashbacks to it, then it probably was. Otherwise, it could just be backstory to explain why the Bowst and Idle characters, at least, are starting at 3rd level with a whole lot of disadvamtages they have to RP -- that is, it's Herbert handing the characters a page of pre-made background to help them out.)
applaudsLiquidmark wrote:Ok then, this situation is like someone leaving a cake full of poison sitting on a table next to a cup of tea full of antidote inside of a locked room. You break into the room and eat the cake that was sitting next to a cup of tea and see that there's a letter under the cake telling you that the cake had poison in it and the antidote is in the cup of tea sitting next to it. Nobody is forcing you to drink the tea. You must pick the cup of tea up and drink it for the antidote yourself. It doesn't matter if you want the tea, you already consented to eating the cake and now you need to drink the tea for an antidote because you couldn't leave the cake alone.
Drinking the tea is the price you have to pay for eating the cake that you purposefully gobbled down. But nobody is actually forcing you to drink the tea. You have to pick it up with your own hands and put it to your own lips and drink. There's nobody else in the room. This situation is no different from any other where an adventurer trips a trap and has to pay the consequences. Sex doesn't get to be off-limits in a world where people have all kinds of body horrors and messed up situations happen to them for less.
Some find the content of literary works distasteful and do not want to read those books, but they can still be objectively great books, and their authors objectively great writers - all the more so BECAUSE they have the power to disturb the reader, or otherwise affect their emotion with words alone. We for one (or many? our own pronouns confuse us here) would be happy to see other players leave, so that we could demonstrate our fealty to Liquidmark's superior DMing skills by markedly remaining at the table, in contrast to those who got squicked and walked away.mustache_man wrote:As for not being off-limits, maybe you have a point there. Doesn't mean everybody has to like it. If this were a tabletop game, that would be the point I'd get up and never play with that DM again. Ever. It's that distasteful for a game that should be played for fun.
sings and dances The person you were quoting is wrong, clapping doesn't make that any different.thesilence wrote:applaudsLiquidmark wrote:Ok then, this situation is like someone leaving a cake full of poison sitting on a table next to a cup of tea full of antidote inside of a locked room. You break into the room and eat the cake that was sitting next to a cup of tea and see that there's a letter under the cake telling you that the cake had poison in it and the antidote is in the cup of tea sitting next to it. Nobody is forcing you to drink the tea. You must pick the cup of tea up and drink it for the antidote yourself. It doesn't matter if you want the tea, you already consented to eating the cake and now you need to drink the tea for an antidote because you couldn't leave the cake alone.
Drinking the tea is the price you have to pay for eating the cake that you purposefully gobbled down. But nobody is actually forcing you to drink the tea. You have to pick it up with your own hands and put it to your own lips and drink. There's nobody else in the room. This situation is no different from any other where an adventurer trips a trap and has to pay the consequences. Sex doesn't get to be off-limits in a world where people have all kinds of body horrors and messed up situations happen to them for less.
Yeah, exactly! The analogy squicks me out largely for this reason. Very victim-blaming. And the idea that the cake-eater isn't really being "forced" to drink the tea because they could just die instead...That's got some pretty striking real-world parallels too. Think of how many rape survivors are told they weren't actually raped because they went along with it to avoid being hurt. Like it only "counts" if they physically fought back the entire time, risking that they'd be hurt much more seriously or even killed in the process.nikohl wrote: I mean really, given that you're using tea and cake as an analogy for sexual assault, let's revert those sentences back to being about sexual assault for a sec: "It doesn't matter if you want this sex, you already consented to entering my home...", "having this sex is the price you pay for drinking the drink I paid for"...
You don't get to rape someone for breaking into your house.thinkslogically wrote:I do think in the current context though, it's less "having sex is the price you pay for entering my house" and more along the lines of "this is a possible consequence for attempting a robbery / tresspass". As distasteful as the "sex every day" curse is, is it any better or worse than incarceration, corporal or capital punishment, or the right of the landowner to protect their property.
Unfortunately, in some areas of the world *cough*Texas*cough* shooting trespassers on private property can be absolutely legal. Of course that still doesn't allow you to commit any crimes against that person, like extended imprisonment, torture, rape, or anything else. Also, not even the government is allowed to commit any crimes against that person. It is also bound by laws governing what is appropriate punishment for a certain crime, and rape is not on that list (well, not on the punishment part of the list, at least, it certainly is on the crime side).Krulle wrote:You don't get to do anything with someone breaking into your house. You can file charges, and that's it.
Everything else is handled by the state, who has a monopoly on using force (for most parts of the world).
Putting up big warning signs outside "trespassers will be shot" does not change that (at least here in Europe).
But Goblinscomic and The Cursewalk are a game world, real world ethics do only marginally apply.
And while I disagree to adding sexual topics to every story, I'll wait for how this specific curse will fit into the story later on.► Show Spoiler
), but I don't think we can help comparing those ethics to our own eventually. It's a big part of the often-cited message of a story, to either cast doubt on or confirm the established ethics of the audience. Whether it works or not is dependent on many factors (especially the skill of the writer and the individual ethics and beliefs of the reader), but just dismissing something as "it's okay because it's not our world" is somewhat short-sighted.It's not really consensual. They're both under some kind of duress, even if Idle doesn't mind.Krulle wrote:► Show Spoiler
This is absolutely beautiful.Wolfie wrote:That sounds like something an annoyed DM/GM would do.
GM - "Fine, you want to F*** around? Cakewalk the Cursewalk. Roll a D20 every 20 feet."
[Two hours and countless beatings/curses later]
Players - "Yield! Yield! We give up.... we'll behave."
GM - "Good. You still have to deal with the consequences of this session though. Sorry about the random curses you got from the book, but think of all the Roleplaying experience you're going to get!"
It's not that hard to affect people's emotions. If I take a toy from a child and then give it back I've gotten two pretty strong reactions out of the kid, and probably out of the entire room we're in. The trick is to weave the emotions into a story.thesilence wrote:Some find the content of literary works distasteful and do not want to read those books, but they can still be objectively great books, and their authors objectively great writers - all the more so BECAUSE they have the power to disturb the reader, or otherwise affect their emotion with words alone. We for one (or many? our own pronouns confuse us here) would be happy to see other players leave, so that we could demonstrate our fealty to Liquidmark's superior DMing skills by markedly remaining at the table, in contrast to those who got squicked and walked away.
"Fun" is hardly the only possible word to describe the point of gaming. It can be something much grander. But even if "fun" is all you're looking for, some people enjoy "wrong" and "bad" kinds of fun. So long as everyone involved is onboard, that is absolutely fine. When those who cannot appreciate the more rarefied pleasures of life have recused themselves from involvement, the rest of us can get down to business.
I never said that "whatever I find distasteful is bad and nobody may like it". I said that I (meaning myself only) would not enjoy that in a game and would leave. The other would be free to gon on playing or leave on their own. Also, disturbing someone is hardly the hallmark of a great artist. Crappy writers can disturb people too. It's not that hard.thesilence wrote: Some find the content of literary works distasteful and do not want to read those books, but they can still be objectively great books, and their authors objectively great writers - all the more so BECAUSE they have the power to disturb the reader, or otherwise affect their emotion with words alone. We for one (or many? our own pronouns confuse us here) would be happy to see other players leave, so that we could demonstrate our fealty to Liquidmark's superior DMing skills by markedly remaining at the table, in contrast to those who got squicked and walked away.
Unless you're some sort of professional that plays DnD for money (is that even a thing?), or you force yourself to do things you hate on your free time, you do it for fun. Doesn't matter if you get your pleasure from the story, from the interaction with the other players or just from goofing around with your friends. That said, I'd hardly count representations of sexual abuse as "one the the"rare pleasures of life".thesilence wrote: "Fun" is hardly the only possible word to describe the point of gaming. It can be something much grander. But even if "fun" is all you're looking for, some people enjoy "wrong" and "bad" kinds of fun. So long as everyone involved is onboard, that is absolutely fine. When those who cannot appreciate the more rarefied pleasures of life have recused themselves from involvement, the rest of us can get down to business.
We disagree. Poor writers, or poor communicators of any sort, have no power to affect an audience in a way of their choice. Affecting the audience in the way of an audience's choice is easy. If you're in the mood to take offense at something, then everything anyone says to you starts to sound more like an insult; if you're in a cheerful and well-centered mood, flush with self-esteem, exactly the same words will not promote the same reaction in you. For someone to provoke anger in you when you're feeling more mellow than Bob Marley, or to provoke mellowness which brings you down from a rage-bender, they must be very talented in the skills of verbal manipulation.mustache_man wrote:Also, disturbing someone is hardly the hallmark of a great artist. Crappy writers can disturb people too. It's not that hard.
"Fun" connotes frivolity; we play D&D the way many people (for whatever reason) follow football, as a lifestyle-consuming passion which eclipses nearly everything else of importance in their job. Those people encourage the spending of public tax moneys on football stadiums, and campaign to have their workplaces hold office tailgate parties. Saying they do all this for "fun" is a clear understatement. This poster regards roleplaying games (of which D&D is by no means the best, but it's good enough to hold our interest) as being a transformative experience akin to psychotherapy (we have experienced both, and obviously they are different, but they are not AS different as either one of them is from, say, playing Tetris; the latter is indeed simply "fun", and there's nothing wrong with that, but a game as sophisticated as D&D can be FAR, far more).Unless you're some sort of professional that plays DnD for money (is that even a thing?), or you force yourself to do things you hate on your free time, you do it for fun.
"Rare" and "rarefied" mean somewhat different things, but that aside...we do not seek to see "sexual abuse" depicted, but rather we are much less eager to label things as "sexual abuse" than many others are. To us, what has happened to Bowst seems entirely reasonable within a fictional context (since curses do not exist outside said context); we understand that many on this board disagree. That was entirely our point. Many readers who are posting on this forum are, in my not-that-humble opinion, far too quick to find a work "insufficiently PC" or "creepy" or any other such designation, both in terms of their personal feelings AND their publicly stated opinions. (These descriptions CANNOT be objective, any more than a spider can be considered objectively disgusting - a statistical majority of humans may find it so, but other humans may disagree, and other spiders certainly would, if they possessed enough intelligence to form an opinion.) When those readers have flounced away in a huff, we will remain, glad to appreciate the genius with which Thunt tells a story that many do not have the stomach to listen to.That said, I'd hardly count representations of sexual abuse as "one the the"rare pleasures of life".