Morning!

@Magician morning

Would it be advisable to ask a question on the construction of dwarven sexuality in RPG, its meanings, and whether anyone has used a Naked Mole Rat model for dwarven sexuality?

No.

Thanks. I'll store that thought for dementing my friend who appreciates it.

You want neither the disgust nor the enthusiasm such a question would raise.

Well, that isn't the purpose of my interaction with rpg.se; I'll keep it for the appropriate forums.

...I'm not sure my declaration has site-based limiters.

While others apparently have raised the matter giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-141615.html it was in relation to CO2 physiology

Carbon dioxide?

Well, physiology that primarily uses CO2 would be more sluggish, lethargic with slow reaction times.

[N]aked mole-rats are an exception: they have an altered ion channel in their pain receptors that is inactivated by acid and makes the animals insensitive to this type of pain. Dr. Ewan St. John Smith and Professor Gary Lewin conclude that this pain insensitivity is due to the African mole-rats' adaptation to their extreme habitat over the course of evolution (Science , Vol. 334, Dec.16, 2011, 1557-1560)*.

(re CO2 in Mole Rat burrows)

Arthur C. Clarke explored CO2 physiology in 3001.

I only got as far as 2010, and only via the film.

I like Ursula Vernon's canon that underground societies like dwarves and wombats cultivate a wide variety of moles for meat, fur, labor, pets, and so forth.

I like either Warhammer or Toady's explanations.

Warhammer being Tolkien with spikes on and 80s hair metal.

None of which are really acceptable politically as explanations of dorf gender. Well unless beating goblins with your battle baby a few ticks after childbirth is an acceptable metaphor for contemporary fantasy gender politics.

I'm sure that argument can be made.

What makes you feel that dwarf gender needs specific attention?

And in what context? Tolkienism, D&D dwarves, Andrew S. Swann dwarves...?

@BESW What makes you feel that dwarf gender does not deserve attention?

@ObliviousSage Specific. Why have they been singled out?

Just because you're a bigot doesn't make Samuel Russel's decision to major in Dwarven Gender Studies any less valid.

I suspect it's largely due to the throw-away gag about dwarven ladies and their beards, giving dwarves a freak-show status that people feel the need to either gawk at or sieze upon to explore their own politics.

Dwarven sexuality and gender politics receive undue sociopolitical attention compared to those of other fantasy species.

There's much more interesting material to analyze in the gnoll paradigm.

Because Dwarves are a metaphor for RPG gamers

Except for David Bowie

And I don't know if he games.

This is, incidentally, talked about at length by "Randy" in Cryptonomicon

In relation to Literary Critics

Who are actually Elves.

I suspect there's also a lot of speciesism in the focus; most other races are given wide scope between fantasy modes, while dwarves remain relatively static between franchises.

So it's just plain easier to say 'dwarf' because we're too lazy to define them carefully.

Of course there are forest dwarves, sea dwarves, plains dwarves, desert dwarves, etc. But rarely are there refined and debaunched effette dwarven civilisations. "Thus fell the dwarves at the height of their power: they critiqued too deep."

If you say "elf," you're liable to get caught up in a Tolkien vs Child's Ballad war as often as not, but say 'dwarf' and everyone just nods sagely. It's rampant generalist speciesism for a diverse spectrum of racial variety.

Dwarves run the gamut from philosopher-king societies to barbarian hordes, democratic to imperial to socialist governments, hyper-conservative to hyper-liberal, hairless to sasquatch.

But we just say "dwarf" and everyone goes "Oh, the underground dudes with the axes and the beards." How dismissive can you get?

Well there is a cartoon out there where a "gnome", "halfling" and "dwarf" are laughing saying, "And they think we're different species."

Refluffing dwarves as Ewok could be quite horrible. Tuckers Kobolds but in a Wilderness.

@SamuelRussell That fits right in with my Origin of Dwarves theory.

Not raised from the marsupial pouch on alcoholmilk of a naked mole dragon?

As I located in google

Dwarves and elves are the original Civilized Races, and humans are just half-dwarf half-elves.

Neither of the Original Races talk about it, because ew.

Urgh, yeah.

But in that context, gnomes and halflings and so forth could simply be similar mixtures of the other races.

The mutability of all archetypal humanoid monsters.

Except for Gnolls

Ursula Vernon did something very interesting with gnolls in Digger.

Something other than a scavenger motiff?

She really went back to basics with the "hyena-people" concept, and then leveraged her degree in anthropology.

So working hyena society and behaviour into sentient society?

Yeah, hunter-gathers with emphasis on the hunter bit. Matriarchal, and strongly exploiting the hyena's unusual sexual characteristics and birth rate anomalies to fuel their religion and social mores.

I mean, 150,000 years later we're pretty weird for our nearest primary relatives, and for hominid fossil records.

WOO!

Actually defensible matriarchy.

Done by an anthro, so it isn't a pastiche of male sexual fears.

(well, I'm assuming competent anthropology)

She's very good about Strong Female Characters Done Right.

It's kind of her default mode.

Well, one Gy. Weatherwax is enough, it dominates the cultural landscape. Diggers may now be the first fantasy I've read in quite some time.

The main character in Digger is female, but many people don't notice because her gender is a total non-issue.

Digger, by Ursula Vernon.

It is so noted.

Also, hmm, there's another issue about "agency"-gendered characters, but I think I'll need to read Vernon's work first before commenting.

It started out as an exercise in a new art style, and turned into a Hugo-winning series of graphic novels which are still available for free online.

UKLG's Left Hand of Darkness obviously covers a fair bit of that.

But right now, I have a mission to drink beers with a mate

Agency-gendered?

Ah, okay, later.

Ta.

Focus-character is an "agent" in the sense of the liberal-democratic subjectivity—does fiction that focuses on strong female characters just import masculine gender via the gendering of the enlightement subject as male and active (agentic)? Etc etc.

I'm sure that Vernon is aware of the issue as a writing problem though. Time to head.

...it really bugs me when I've got a starred typo up.

@Problematic I want to give Zemenar another stunt. Something about flashy magic. Ideas?

Why are all the pictures gone? Or is it just me?

You mean the avatars?

Gravatar goes screwy every now and then; at the moment it's just you, but it could happen to any of us, at any moment. [beat] [flees, screaming]

(Gravatar is the third-party icon host that SE uses.)

@BESW diggercomic.com/?p=658 ... what.

I believe I've mentioned before that anything I can possibly think of to put in a fantasy setting, the real world can easily top.

@BESW yes..

Ursula Vernon seems to feel the same way.

Do you have a problem with vampire squash?

@BESW no, but... it gives me an idea.

...should I ask?

@BESW naah :)

I've got a whole pile of ideas for my games

It's quite fascinating to see what bubbles to the top as I'm running.

We should compare notes some time.

greetigns everyone

Hafa adai.

What's new?

Greetings Internetz

May your cats be fuzzy.

May your dogs fight with the Jiujutsu skills of a 1000 Masters and cleave the lemons of your enemies

I just woke up.

my brains common sense hasnt been activated.

Nor has its punctuation, I see.

no indeed not.

the fuzzier the cat the more mind controll powers it has. the more hairless, the more evil.

I Just woke up and already not a good day.

morning gents

morning.

morning

awake, so painfully awake!

Mentlegen.

Pheasant and precounted oar.

@BESW that took me a moment. wow it's still early, and almost noon...

[grin]

@Trajan hey, I just saw your question on the site. Can I give you a quick pointer? If you want to ask a setting question like that, you've really got to sell why it's important to your game, how it affects game play and tie it to mechanical impact. The problem I have with it right off is your asking without any direct tie to how it affects your gameplay. Because ultimately, the real how and why aren't important. the ultimate importance is "how do I model what would happen in my game"

Hmm it seems the old 1D33 Whip typo has made it into another book.

thx Wax i'll edit right away

@Trajan have you seen Batman Begins?

good evening

@user1810077 Hi!

What brings you to chat, if anything?

i have a question abt Disease

@user1810077 shoot

This isn't the best hour for most of our 4e people (it's about 3am for most of us), but it sounds like @waxeagle is available.

@BESW it's daytime for obvs too :)

9pm here) So Is Cure Disease ritual - only one method to cure disease?

@user1810077 no

you can make the saving throws, your friends can make the heal checks

it's certainly the easiest way

(I assume we're talking 4e disease here right?)

yep. But it's in final stage

@user1810077 do you have a ritual caster in the party?

I'm DM and player in medium DnD project. There a lot of players, of course I can find person with this ritual. But I want to know may be any other ways exist?

@user1810077 at the final stage, checks are ceased, you're now stuck unless you have a power, ritual or "something else". You're the DM, what that "something else" is can be up to you

"unless you have a power" - what is it?

@user1810077 let's see, Holy Cleansing, which appears to be a Battle Cleric feature (don't quote me on that). It's daily a Cleric utility with no level. It improves disease by 2 stages.

Plaguefire Body, a Spellscar utility power. From forgotten realms

and that's it

As a 4e GM, I would've created a skill challenge so the whole party could be involved.

Disease final stages are cured either by 1) the Cure Disease ritual, or 2) some plot-specific action chosen by the DM (bathing in a special fountain, receiving a blessing at a specific holy shrine, drinking the blood of a certain type of dragon, etc)

@user1810077 Where are your players? what's your setting?

Holy Cleansing bumps the disease 2 stages closer to being healed, and is indeed a battle cleric utility.

not so fast... Holy Cleacsing - in which book is it?

@waxeagle I think the most important question is what the effects of the disease final stage are.

Heroes of the Fallen Lands @user1810077

@ObliviousSage we know that, let me find the question he asked

so it's a party infected with final stage fever filth.

and oddly leveled

If it's Filth Fever, then you need to make it fairly easy for them to cure. Being unable to regain HP is a huge problem for those characters, since they're effectively unable to participate in combat without risking actual death (once they go unconscious they can't regain hp to become conscious again).

to be honest, if they are out in the wilderness, the easiest thing for them to do is bump into a tribe of elves/druid who can help them (for a price perhaps)

I'd say go with the Cure Disease ritual; if the party doesn't have a ritual caster capable of casting it, then let them find someone who can in a nearby city (and pay through the nose for his/her services).

if if they do have a caster, just retcon that he has it

Actually it says they have a wizard, so he should have ritual casting (if he's an Arcanist; Mages might get it for free, I don't recall).

At level 2 he'll be too low to have that ritual, though.

So an NPC ritual caster might be the way to go.

@ObliviousSage yeah

again, tribe of elves, druid, local medicine man.

150 gp is sooo expensive =)

@user1810077 more expensive than a res spell?

cuz that's where this is headed if they don't get better

=) Of course no, i just ask abt other ways. So you give it, thx.

If you don't think it's expensive enough, the NPC can always gouge them. I mean, it's not like there's anyone else around who can cast it, and they really want to be cured, right?

also, is no one trained in heal in this group? seems like they should have been able to beat this thing before it got this bad

and Holy Cleansing can't help with Filth Fever - i guess

@user1810077 do you have a 4th level warpriest?

and that will just put them back at stage 1

target must have healing surge for this. Isn't?

ah, yes, Holy Cleansing won't work since it requires the target to spend a healing surge

150g is slightly below half the average amount of gold value (excepting magic items) a PC should be expected to have acquired at the end of level 2.

ah yeah, good point, no Cure disease or a plot monkey is all you've got

and seriously, plot monkey.

On this project life is harder... my 4th lvl Rogue doesn't have no one magic item yet

0_o

@user1810077 ew? why would you do that?

you've already broken the math

You know that's the same as putting a curse on him to have -1 attack, -1 damage, and -1 all defenses, right?

@ObliviousSage should also remind ourselves that this is the party with L2,3,4,5 characters...

true

this is party for one trip

I suppose I could see giving magic gear to the lowbies first to try to smooth out the level differences, but still...

yeeeeah, that's hitting pre-WotC levels of weirdness already.

@user1810077 are you using intrinsic bonuses by any chance?

4e, more than 3.5 ever did, needs everything and everyone to be roughly the same level.

(And well equipped regardless of role.)

no one listen abt it xD I play on chat based site.

If I hadn't just started a chat-based game myself... [/brian] muttermutter [/endbrian]

sometimes you cant find enough players for full party. And roles - no one count. Tank - is good, only 2 good priest's on project. 8 and 2th lvl

Just don't think abt how. Just crazy russian hardcore playing

There's your fundamental problem: the site is trying to run a chat-based paradigm using 4e rules that aren't modified to account for the inevitable chat paradigm contingencies that the tabletop rules aren't designed to handle.

G'night, all. I'm out.

bb

@BESW night

hey all

hey

@Pureferret heya, hows things?

yo

@user1810077 your online game may be interested in Brian's answer here

Anyone know how to get Chummergen to work on Linux?

Or an alternative Shadow run character generator?

@BESW would you mind pinging me when you are available to talk next?

@waxeagle Not bad thanks!

@BESW Happy Birthday

@BESW Oh, it's your birthday? Happy birthday!

@BESW Happy Birthday!

@BESW Happy BESWday