New Testingstan

How do you all do it? I decided to poke my head in over there and saw thread after thread of garbage, punctuated only by the occasional super horrifying thread like that morality one. The sheer mindnumbing inanity of it (social cooperation produces productive societies!!! How profound!) is enough to make me seriously wonder how I could have made over six thousand posts there. Was I bitten by a brain parasite? Did I suffer mass delusions? Did I only recently learn to comprehend the written form? What went wrong with my life to make that seem like a good idea?

How can you stand to watch such a train wreck of thought that produces the same result over and over? I just don't get it.

P. s. Baks, I almost went Foucault/Deleuze on you about the example of the laugh test you gave just to see what would happen. Then I decided it just wasn't worth the time and trouble for either of us.

And Alyrium's post is the worst. I keep waiting for him to see the tautology that is his particularly perverse brand of evo-psych and evo-morality, but it just doesn't seem to ever happen.

I couldn't read their posts fully. The ejaculate from their circle jerk blocked the way.

the gist of it is that Mike seems to think Bakustra is not seeing his actual point, and I'd actually like Baku to get back in there to try and get everything a bit more clear

i'm assuming such a thing is possible but that might just be my youthful naivity

Director of Celestial Intelligence wrote:Number of people surprised Vashon would get booted=0

I'm amazed he lasted as long as he did.

SB falling over due to neglect must have pushed him to spam elsewhere.

starku wrote:and indeed some of his best proper fantasy is actally about people exploring and understanding a world of difference

The vast majority of Lovecraft's works was racist shit over the "horrors" of interacial interactions.

Zablorg wrote:the gist of it is that Mike seems to think Bakustra is not seeing his actual point, and I'd actually like Baku to get back in there to try and get everything a bit more clear

i'm assuming such a thing is possible but that might just be my youthful naivity

I caught that. Mike has a clarity of intention in his writing that would almost be laudable if he wasn't such a complete and utter ass online.

True fact: I interviewed him once on the radio (without letting him know it was me) super polite guy, made very guarded claims, and just seemed very... Reasonable. Nothing like the waste of space (that perhaps would better suit us all in the mines?) that he is online.

Losonti Tokash wrote:man did they ban gands or what

I've made a few posts on HPCA, as to be considered an "Honourable Member."

A few could be considered parody, but I think I was too subtle.

Either way, no banning for me.

Straha wrote:How do you all do it?

i largely don't

according to my history i made about ten posts last month

on average i spend maybe 15 minutes a day at sdn

and recently i've cut down on my hours of redditing in order to watch more pirated television

so that's... progress?

starku wrote:hey shroom are you aware that lovecraft's work includes all kinds of stuff not obsessed over by fatties
and indeed some of his best proper fantasy is actally about people exploring and understanding a world of difference

you just don't hear about it from the kind of jackoffs who think OMG TEH CYTHLULU KILLED BAI BOATZ

intriguing

i did not know that


okay, to amend what i have said, to be more accurate instead of lovecraft himself then maybe i am speaking of the 'lovecraftian' thing that's sprouted in our desolate post-modern times

the popular conception of that aspect of sci-fi, the horror of the unknown, which stems from aside from lovecraft's own personal issues, the personal traits of all the other peoples involved in that kind of sci-fi horror, the other authors, the fans, and the jackoffs (all three may be interchangeable?)

but rly i'm just musing over sci-fi styles, and how it is actually a reflection on the persona aspects of those involved in the science fictioning

Anyhoo, I agree with Stark that stuff like At the Mountains of Madness is much, much better than the stuff people blatantly masturbate over.

Also, virtually every Cthulhu RPG is hilarious in some way, with the possible exception of Cthulhu Dark, which I haven't really read in detail.

starku wrote:The gumshoe one was kinda neat
But it's heavily focused on the YOU SO DOOMED BRO thing
And not the 'a magical boat comes past and takes me to a fantastic world where I choose to stay' thing

yeah

honestly if i were making a cthulhu/lovecraft game, i'd be making it about holding yourself together as you delve into the mysterious and unknown

and if you can keep your head about you while all others are losing theirs

you can reach leng, or uncover the lost secrets of the prehuman valusian civilization, or uncover the way back to yith

but if you don't, well, there's always the sanitarium

Straha wrote:

Zablorg wrote:the gist of it is that Mike seems to think Bakustra is not seeing his actual point, and I'd actually like Baku to get back in there to try and get everything a bit more clear

i'm assuming such a thing is possible but that might just be my youthful naivity

I caught that. Mike has a clarity of intention in his writing that would almost be laudable if he wasn't such a complete and utter ass online.

True fact: I interviewed him once on the radio (without letting him know it was me) super polite guy, made very guarded claims, and just seemed very... Reasonable. Nothing like the waste of space (that perhaps would better suit us all in the mines?) that he is online.

How in the world did that come about?

i don't thik those idiots know the definition of the naturalistic fallacy

Straha wrote:I couldn't read their posts fully. The ejaculate from their circle jerk blocked the way.

I ain't seen any of that shit. Your nine inch penis is blocking the way

adr wrote:i don't thik those idiots know the definition of the naturalistic fallacy

What is it? Cause I don't know it.

it is when you define the word "good" in term of natural things

for example, if you say "what is good is what is pleasant" that hits it cuz our brain feelings don't necessarily reflect that is good to do

arkham horrer is fun

gods i kinda wanna jump in there

but i'm like a week or two behind on work and shouldn't make it worse

...hmmm...

i think I'm in love with starglider
he's like... a master-level troll
it's beautiful to see
he's turned that thread about people not liking british politicians (because british politicians are all scum who should go drink bleach and die) into RAH REPUBLICANS STUPID BOO

talkin' about mah cthulhu game

i think i would split sanity into "sanity", a measure of how much you adhere to the norms of society, which would be linked with a "truth" or "mythos" stat that measures your knowledge of the secret world alongside this one. as one goes up, the other goes down. when sanity hits zero you retreat into the other world entirely

you need a certain level of truth to use magical/psychic powers. some of them (rare ones) will actually knock you down when you use them. you lose sanity as you uncover more about the secret world, and you get it back by either forgetting it (slow recharge between sessions) or else reconciling it with reality (requires difficult stat checks and lowers the other half of it)

stability would be the other half. stability measures how well your character is holding up. characters roll stability to deal with weird, disturbing, or terrifying events. if they lose they can either freak out and be useless for the rest of the scene or else burn a point of stability to hold together. when stability hits zero, they suffer a nervous breakdown or sustained panic attack or lapse into a coma, and require some time of mental care to put back together- they're out for the session, and if this happens in a bad environment, they may end up dying. stability recharges with periods of prolonged rest and recovery from traumas (between-session), or by performing certain tasks in-session. certain things can boost stability temporarily- eg a crucifix or bible for a devout christian. burning that point causes the object to be damaged, destroyed, or lost.

thoughts?

evilsoup wrote:i think I'm in love with starglider
he's like... a master-level troll
it's beautiful to see
he's turned that thread about people not liking british politicians (because british politicians are all scum who should go drink bleach and die) into RAH REPUBLICANS STUPID BOO

on the other hand, he's a confurvative bird furry who wants to fuck ponies, esp. fluttershy

so don't get too close and be wary about fursuits

edit: also i did my best to rerail

Baks-kun wrote:confurvative

I like Lovecraft. He's a product of his times, a white, racist xenophobe. He was also, by all accounts, a very sheltered child with a severe allergy to cold (Seriously, Iirc, he would go into a coma if the temperature dipped below freezing or something like that, stories like 'Cool Air' and 'At the Mountains of Madness' explore some of this). But while a lot of his story had that element of unknowable horror and the follies of reaching too far, too fast, the fact remains that all of his protagonists are scientists, explorers, historians, antiquarians, etc. The man had a huge respect for the pursuit of knowledge and it showed in his work.

To be fair, though, I still like Clark Ashton Smith more. All the eldritch horror with a bit more fantasy, a bit less sexual hangups... and a little less racism.

Baks-kun wrote:talkin' about mah cthulhu game

i think i would split sanity into "sanity", a measure of how much you adhere to the norms of society, which would be linked with a "truth" or "mythos" stat that measures your knowledge of the secret world alongside this one. as one goes up, the other goes down. when sanity hits zero you retreat into the other world entirely

you need a certain level of truth to use magical/psychic powers. some of them (rare ones) will actually knock you down when you use them. you lose sanity as you uncover more about the secret world, and you get it back by either forgetting it (slow recharge between sessions) or else reconciling it with reality (requires difficult stat checks and lowers the other half of it)

stability would be the other half. stability measures how well your character is holding up. characters roll stability to deal with weird, disturbing, or terrifying events. if they lose they can either freak out and be useless for the rest of the scene or else burn a point of stability to hold together. when stability hits zero, they suffer a nervous breakdown or sustained panic attack or lapse into a coma, and require some time of mental care to put back together- they're out for the session, and if this happens in a bad environment, they may end up dying. stability recharges with periods of prolonged rest and recovery from traumas (between-session), or by performing certain tasks in-session. certain things can boost stability temporarily- eg a crucifix or bible for a devout christian. burning that point causes the object to be damaged, destroyed, or lost.

That's actually pretty close to the Call of Cthulhu RPG by Chaosium. The Sanity score measures how well the character's mind is able to cope with scary, unusual, or startling things, whether it's a monster or, for an unstable WWI vet I played in one game, even sudden loud noises or unexpected dead bodies depending on his state of mind.

There are also Sanity points, which more of a measure of the current state of mind, ranging from 0-99 (since most of the system is based on percentiles). Sudden large drops in sanity points makes your character temporarily freak out, black out, go berserk, etc. Hitting zero means your character goes insane and either needs to spend extended time in an asylum or becomes permanently unplayable. Rest, therapy, or accomplishing important tasks in-session restore sanity points. 99 is the max number of sanity points anyone can have, but increasing the Cthulhu Mythos skill, which represents knowledge of the secret world, reduces the maximum number of sanity points. Someone with 40 Cthulhu Mythos, for example, could never have more than 59 Sanity points. Someone who somehow manages to get 99 Cthulhu Mythos would be permanently and irreversibly insane from a human perspective.

It's not the same as your idea, but there are a lot of similarities.

So what do you do in that RPG, is like a fucked up scooby doo investigation?