ZOGAR

"Treachery!" I cried as they tightened my ropes.

"God, I can't believe he killed so many people," said gosamyr, doing her best to avoid the gore splattered across the room, and succeeding marginally, at best.

hetros just shrugged, "Well, he thought it was an intervention. You know how he gets when people try to take booze and drugs away from him. Quite frankly, I'm surprised some of you are even alive." She was pointedly looking at vulpes for that last part, but of course he was oblivious to it.

omer333 had just finished dragging the corpses into the other room. The pieces large enough to dignify with being called a corpse anyway. "We told him it wasn't an intervention in the beginning, goddammit!"

"Which is exactly what an interventionalist would say!" I retorted. I had to give up on trying to chew one of my arms off to escape at this point. My skin is just too super tough to chew through, and all I was doing was ruining a good shirt.

Heatherine gave me a comforting right cross. "There, there, zogar, this really isn't an intervention. Well, it sort of is, but it has little to do with the sickening amount of drugs you ingest."

"You see," continued Omer, "the fact of the matter is: we can't stand you. No one can. It's why we all moved away from..."

"Vulpes still lives here," I interrupted, and earned another pummelling from Heather.

"Well, yes, he does," said Omer. "But he's looking to move to Japan. This long lasting exposure to you has driven him to seek refuge in the furthest possible location from you. We're all like that. But he's the only one who speaks Japanese."

"I'm too poor to get further than Atlanta," Gosamyr admittedly tearfully, and they all gathered together into a group hug to console her.

Omer looked up after a few minutes. "Even chrisarrant had to move away because of you."

"I barely talked to Chris!"

"Yes," he acknowledged, "but that bit was still enough to drive him away. The lessened exposure means he can still stomach to be within 200 miles of you, however. Unlike the rest of us."

"The thing is," started Heather, "being around you is physically painful. Even knowing you're anywhere nearby is insufferable. But we all still have friends and family here, who live blissfully unaware of your presence, and we'd like to visit them sometimes."

"So our solution," continued Gosamyr, "is we're going to all chip in and buy you one of those private islands in Dubai. That way you can be the horrible bastard that you are to some other people on the other side of the world, and we can visit our parents occassionally."

They all nodded in agreement. "See how win-win and fair that is?" Omer asked.

Fucking assholes. "I think you better kill me now, while you still got a chance," I replied.

They looked slightly crestfallen, except for Heather who replied, "See? A murder pact. Didn't I say that was what this was gonna be?" She started putting on the real Wolverine claws she bought off Dude, I Want That!

"Not so fast, motherfuckers!" I said, and then started the ancient chant:

Out of the mists of chaos he rides, bike in his crotch and sword at his side!
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider!
Doom Rider.
Na na, na na.
He fights his own war, takes his own track, If he doesn't bail he might make his points back!
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider!
Doom Rider.
Na na, na na.
Son of Slaanesh, full of desire, He does cocaine and his head's on fire!
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider!
Doom rider.
Na na, na na.
Fights with fury of a dozen men, Spends two turns on the field then he's gone again...
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider!
Doom Rider.
Na na, na na.
His bike squeals as it ploughs on through the nearest guard, His skull is flaming as his daemon sword gets hard!
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Rider!
Doom Rider.
Na na, na na.
He's a killer and he's bursting out for fun! Screaming off, now he's gone, someone rolled a one!

"What the shit is that?" asked Omer.

"He's trying to summons his daemonic patron," replied Vulpes smugly, "But it won't work without a summoning circle."

"Which is why I carve one of those into the floor of everywhere I go!" I cried, just as motherfuckin' DOOMRIDER plowed through the wall on his hellcycle.



"FUCK YEEEEEEAH NA NA NA," spake the Doomrider, "DUDE, DUDE! I WAS TOTALLY LIKE DOING LIKE 8 BABES AT THE SAME TIME WITH MY EIGHT DICKS IN A POOL FULL OF HEROIN WHILE ON MY BIKE WHEN YOU CALLED!"

Remembering my Lethal Weapon 2, I quickly dislocated my shoulder to escape my bonds while calling out, "Dude! It's a fucking intervention!" before resetting it by shoulder slamming Heatherine right in the goddam face. The rest of them stood there dumbfounded.

Doomrider expressed his disgust by swallowing a live kitten drenched in LSD, while I jumped into the side car on the bike he normally doesn't have, but fuck that, riding bitch is gay.

"See ya in the Nightosphere, ya sick freaks!" I called out, as we tore out of there and the daemonic portal imploded upon itself, sucking all my so-called LJ friends into an eternity of Chaosy damnation.

"Take me with you!" i thought I heard one, or all, of them scream behind me as we tore off into the night, but for the life of me I'll never know which one of those fucktards said it.

So Star Trek Online is free to play now, which is my usual criteria for MMOs. And vulpes kept whining that he was the only one playing it. So lonely...

I rolled up a Starfleet guy I named Redshirt. I named his ship the U.S.S. Expendable.

Anyway, my whining now. Although strangely enough, the things I like about the game are also the things I dislike about it.

1. There's an OCD level of devotion to Star Trek lore in this game. I like it because it shows the game developers really are Trekkie mega-nerds. Every uniform from any movie or TV series is available in this game, and there's locations that only other Trekkie mega-nerds are going to appreciate, like Memory Alpha. I dislike this because everything that's not TOS or TNG I could not give a fuck about, and they tend to overexplain this shit. If there is a guy named "Captain Sulu" I think I can figure out he's a decendant of TOS's Sulu. Having him explain that to me is bad, and that the explaination includes telling me who the original Sulu was (he was on the Enterprise with Captain Kirk!)... no, fuck that. If there is anyone who doesn't already know that shit, why are they playing this game?

2. Customization. There's alot of it. Even down to lovingly choosing which kinds of struts you want your ship to have, and what kind of black pants you want to wear. I like this because if there's anything, ANYTHING, in Star Trek you want to shoot for, you can do it. Seriously, me and vulpes got the Wrath of Khan uniforms, and there's even an option to have that flap in the front half turned down. I dislike this because nothing is uniform. I mean, okay, most of the players make themselves look like clownish freaks. It's sad, but I was expecting that. But even when you're at a star base, all the wandering NPCs are wearing different shit. They're called uniforms because they're supposed to be uniform, dammit! The only place I've seen where everyone is actually wearing the same uniform is inside my ship, and their uniforms don't match my uniform, or the uniform I set for my bridge crew, which annoys me.

3. Ship combat looks alot like the movies, and is fun. That's the part I like. The group events though either have some way higher level asshole zooming around blowing up all the enemies before you can even get to them, or when you actually think the other players are heading to a group of enemies, no, they're just fucking around, and you find yourself trying to fight 3 ships by yourself, which usually ends badly. Also Borg will fuck your shit up at any level, which is just like the TV show, but is annoying in a game where you know being caught in their tractor beam means you have about 10 seconds before you die, regardless of anything you do.

Wasted entirely too much time browsing DUDE!!! I Want That... this morning, which is like a website full of all that shit your friends send you Thinkgeek links about.

One I particularly liked was Fight Club soap, which isn't really a product I'd want (you know some dipshit friend of yours would use it and rub the FIGHT CLUB right off the front of the bar) because the company who sells is is called Omni Consumer Products. They don't have alot of products, but it's all stuff from movies, like Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator and Stay Puft marshmellows.

I find it oddly amiss that they don't make cyborg police officers or anti-theft systems that electrocute car thieves. Maybe they're working their way up to that.

Apparently I shouldn't make fun of things the day before everyone goes apeshit over them, haha. Slightly disappointed that it's just a bunch of black banner things, and sites aren't really shut down.

Far too distracted now by the /tg/ Mary Sue generator right now though. I am going to use this character for everything!

She appears to be a normal teacher except she dresses like a bloody nurse vampire, her eyes glows like fiery embers and her hair is crimson red and is long and straight, but secretly she is actually a half-vampire.
She is a goddess cast down to earth to become mortal born from a scientific experiment gone wrong and she will fight her enemies with the power to puke flesh eating maggots on her foes or to correct grammar in any language.
Her friends and enemies call her Cancerlips Riverwing!
Her constant companion is a befriended brain washed mecha who is also part of her soul.
Her favored weapon is a magical conscious throwing star which leaves a rainbow trail in it's path.

One of the above is my Steam icon, the other is what vulpes changed his to recently.

Obviously someone is just asking to be locked up in the goddamn moon for another 1000 years.


I really haven't mentioned SOPA before, because it feels like one of those complaints I habitually voice like a fucking broken record, being that, the methuselahs in Congress need to knock off trying to make laws about technical shit.

Although I think Soren Bowie said it better with: "SOPA is poorly designed by people who may or may not have ever seen the Internet in person, and it's written for 50- to 60-year-old congressmen who almost certainly did not receive it by email."

ghostwound has been on a big tear about it, I think he feels put out by the rest of us apathetically not reposting SOPA news stories and changing our profile pictures and liking STOP SOPA links and doing whatever else would put me over the 5 minutes I'm willing to stomach Facebook each morning for (seriously, why can't the default sort be 'most recent'? 'Highlighted stories' is shiiit!!!).

Admittedly my #1 reason for not being concerned isn't laziness, I just know there'll be a work around implimented after they try to SOPA the internet up, and I could give a fuck less if stupid kids can't find Pirate Bay anymore with Google. Everybody knows 4chan controls the internet, not Congress.

But it's all kind of a moot point now anyway since the White House indirectly said 'SOPA is balls', making Congress cry like little bitches and claim they're not going to vote on it.

I kinda hope the big website blackout happens anyway. I just wanna see people screaming, "NOOOO!!! MY FARMVILLE!!! MY CROPS ARE DYING!!!!" or going through adorable kitten video withdrawl. And see fucking Bing crash when people actually start using it, for that 1 day.

Come on, guys, there's still the Protect IP Act(the funny thing is if you're reading this tomorrow, the link won't work). Protest that now! Blackout the internet! Start setting shit on fire! We shall have our revenge! The gasoline internet will be ours!

Someone a good decade+ younger than me asked, "Why are peanuts in glass jars?"

"Because they're traditionalists," I tell em. "Back in the long, long ago, of the 80s, everything was in a glass jar. That was actually a selling point in the commercials when they started making plastic jars. 'Look, you can drop your peanut butter now and not have a floor covered in peanut butter and broken glass!' "

This is what the rest of my life is going to be now. Explaining to kids the relics of a bygone era.

"That blue box with the little silver bit icon they have for 'Save' is a floppy disk. They were used to store files on, like your SD Card, children. So since you were saving to a disk, that's what that icon is, and why it's there."


That garbage isn't as bad though as what new technology has done to me. I'm retarded now without Google. Take my phone away from me and I couldn't tell you anything. ANYTHING!

I'm also really disgruntled against the calendar now. Remember when you only knew about something coming out if you saw an ad for it, or maybe you'd get an advanced peek if you read a specialized magazine?

I don't remember spending alot of time then waiting for shit to come out. Right now:

Ciaphus Cain paperback on Jan. 31st

Johannes Cabal & The Fear Institute in Feb.

2nd Adventure Time DVD in March

6th edition Warhammer 40k sometime this year


... And that's not even going into movies that'll be released this year. It's a curse, I tell you. A CURSE!!!!

I've come to the conclusion that the majority of things I know are things I would be better off not knowing. And I'm not talking about embarrassing things, like how much about Care Bears vulpes remembers (yes, I called you out, bitch!), I mean EVERYTHING.

I have a co-worker who I seldom get to work with, but is an absolute joy to be around. I do not say such things lightly. She'll randomly sing, and can actually sing, and talk about comics and Disney cartoons and has a picture on her phone of a sign she calls "No Zombies", which is that red circle with a slash over a person outline that honest to God looks like a shambling zombie. And this sign is on a creepy wooden fence. No Zombies!

So the other day she says "I am the biggest feminist ever," which actually was referring to how she notices how gender is portrayed in commercials, whereas most people would be oblivious to it, but before that clarification, I was really choking back being an obnoxious dick about it.

I did say, "Oh reeally?", but left out "So you believe that Y is a mutation of the X chromosomes, therefore making all men sub-humans? That heterosexual sex is rape because our patriarchal society has conditioned women to accept it to a point where their agency in the matter is so warped it cannot be considered consent? That R. Buckminster Fuller's theory of the Great Pirates applies to all men being Great Pirates? That 'women' should be spelled with a 'y'? 'No' to any of these? Well, then you're not the biggest feminist ever, are you, Steve*!?"

*Her name isn't actually Steve

And besides it being what I shouldn't say because it'd make me a shitty co-worker, I'm really kind of annoyed with myself that I can actually come up with that much radical feminism off the top of my head. I would be so much happier if I didn't know this shit.

The first game of 1st edition AD&D was last night, and already 2 of the party should of been dead, me being one of them, except for the DM being very lenient with the healing proficiency being applied to fatal poisoning.

We had forgotten how goddam lethal poison was in this game. Although hopefully the solid hour of "You have to suck the venom!" jokes has discouraged the DM from using poisonous monsters EVER AGAIN.

I have to admit, the outright lethality of the game is something I've missed. Sure, in the newer editions it's possible you'll get killed, but for the most part, you never feel like you WILL die. Afterall, the DM has balanced the encounters according to Challenge Rating, and even if something does beat you down, you have until -10 hit points before you die, and even if you do die, buying resurection spells isn't that big of a deal. High level parties can spring for that shit from the dead guy's share of treasure from that adventure alone.

1st edition isn't hearing any of that shit. It will straight up fucking kill you. Not being dead is an accomplishment in that game. And if everyone else genuinely gives enough of a shit to go to the trouble of rezzing you, you still gotta roll resurection survival. Fucking stay dead, asshole!

We were told to roll up back up characters, just in case. I am doing that now. I think I might need a character tree.

I don't mean to make this sound like "Everybody dies, yaay!" The thing I enjoy is that it's a definite possibility. We can't take the party's survival for granted. Which is what newer editions are all about. Because you kids are soft!

The situation we left off with for this session was a giant poking its head out of a cave, and me failing my hide in shadows and move silently rolls. A bit of that new edition entitlement crept in, I was "A goddam giant, for a 6th level group? WTF?" and our DM was "Hey, that's the result from the random chart in the adventure. If I had rolled a bear, you guys would have it easy."

Yes, 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons don't give a fuck. It will put giants in there. Go cry to 3e about level appropriate monsters and CRs.

Admittedly though this is situation that makes me look forward to the next gaming session. Because I know the smart thing to do is run away from this thing. It will fucking kill me in one hit. But we got some of that poison from the wyverns, so if I coat my darts with wyvern poison, tag the giant, and the giant fails his save... dead giant. Of course, if I miss with all my attacks, or the giant makes the saving throws, I'm dead.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to try to take out that giant. Let the dice fall where they may.

vulpes is pouring over the leaked 6th edition 40k rules, and for a game that's already complicated, it sounds like they're complicating it up, EVEN MORE!

My penultimate example is he was saying that units that don't move are considered stationary, and easier to shoot. This rule is absolutely pointless. Players will nudge 1 model in their gunline a fraction of an inch just to make sure it doesn't count as stationary.

I guess it comes into play more with vehicles, but still, I don't like it.

***

My favorite reaction to 5e D&D so far has been "But we're still having flamewars about 3rd & 4th!"

Penny Arcade did a strip today about the input they're going to get for it, and their "crazy" examples still didn't seem quite as bad as some of the shit I've been reading.

"I sure hope they get rid of classes. Those were so dumb."

I can't tell if this is genuinely from some freeform asshole that feels classes are too restrictive, forever denying him his opportunity to roleplay a gravedigger or something, a munchkin min maxxer who just wants to be able to combine different class abilities so he can backstab with fireballs, or a troll. And the last one is the only one of those options I have any respect for. Fucking assholes.


After years of not reading these books and trying to roll up a 1st edition character, I have to grudgingly admit 2nd edition is better than 1st (HERESY!).

Everyone complained that they were basically the same, with 2nd just being more PC (no demons, no assassins) but I think what's better in 2nd edition is the layout.

When I saw fighter/assassin listed as a multi-class combination, I pretty much knew what I was playing then. But the multiclass rules are spread out between the race's description, the section actually called Characters with Multiple Classes, and the rules on hit points. I couldn't even find the section on how many proficiencies you're supposed to get when multiclassing, and just gave up, falling back on what I remember from how it worked in 2nd edition.

And that's the one thing that trips me up, honestly, I don't remember this shit anymore. Yeah, when I knew every 1st edition rule off the top of my head it was the best ever. Now that I have to go back and read them, pain in my ass.

And there's no index in 1st edition books. If you can't find what you're looking for in the table of contents, you're fucked.

Also all the 1st edition supplements would be divided in Players' Sections, and DM Sections. I had forgotten about that. The DM Section has it's own table of contents. FUCK

I will say though that it is still good, after you puzzle your way through it. Although our DM wants us to roll on the social status tables.

So my half orc fighter/assassin is Upper Middle Class, and the 4th child in his family. The fun thing with half orcs is that the modifier on the legitimate/bastard table is so high there's only a 5% chance your parents were married. Which I can't tell whether or not that's too high or too low, considering orcs.

So yeah, my half orc's parents were unmarried, and the table says the father's social standing is one level higher than the bastard's. So his father is Lower Upper Class.

My orc's dad is an orc noble!

The latest news is that 5th edition D&D is being put into playtesting soon. Naturally, my group's reaction is to decide the next RPG we're playing is 1st edition D&D.

Right on the forefront of the hobby, we is!

I'm pretty ambivalent at this point, to be honest. Wizards of the Coast doesn't release their sales figures, so with no metrics to nerd all over, I have to go with personal experience. As imperfect that is. I think 3rd edition sold better than 4th. I think Wizards is bitter and raging that Paizo is their main competitor just by selling a modded version of 3E.

It's still early in the game, so who knows what's what. But the assurances I've heard are not assuring.

Sure, we didn't pay attention to any of the feedback when we were designing 4th edition with our select group of playtesters, but now that we're opening it up to EVERYBODY, we totally will now!

... do I even have to explain how fucked up that sounds? Do I?

It's going to incorporate all previous editions, so if you've ever played D&D, this will be just like that was!

I automatically assume this is a bald faced lie. The only conceivable way this could happen is if they have 4 separate entries for EVERYTHING. Which they just might do. To sell more books. PROFIT!

Don't worry, we'll still support 4th edition!

booo

We're not saying we're going back to the open games license, but we're going back to the open games license.

Ok, that one I actually like. Because then Paizo will make an even better 5th edition D&D!


vulpes says he's cautiously optimistic, that he hopes it'll be good, and I dunno, it's possible 5e will be to Pathfinder what Pathfinder was to 3 and 4e, but at this point it sounds like they'll promise us anything to get us to buy the Player's Handbook, DMG and Monster Manual, AGAIN, and I'm just not going to do it. 5e is definitely gonna have to work to win me over.

I actually am kinda excited about doing some 1st edition though, and not just from nostalgia. Our friend who's running it was going on about the Unearthed Arcana book alot, and I remember it being good but, you know, not this exciting. And then I flipped back through it this morning. Damn, Unearthed Arcana is really good. I can't wait to roll me some Comeliness!


j/k. There is some cool stuff in there. But I am rolling dump stat #2 (Charisma is dump stat #1. Seriously, the only thing the game used it for was a paladin prerequisite). 1st edition is best one there is!