I always wondered if there was a way to balance a mechanic where a character gets to pull a certain gp amount of gear per level out of their ass to mimic kender handling without having them be a nuisance. As in, they just happened to pick up a random object that's handy right now (and it is assumed that they grabbed it when it wasn't being watched closely), but it doesn't require them to steal from the party or angry npcs in a disruptive fashion.
Last edited by Wiseman on Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Keys to the Contract: A crossover between Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kingdom Hearts.
RadiantPhoenix wrote:
TheFlatline wrote:Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".
The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".
hyzmarca wrote:Well, Mario Mario comes from a blue collar background. He was a carpenter first, working at a construction site. Then a plumber. Then a demolitionist. Also, I'm not sure how strict Mushroom Kingdom's medical licensing requirements are. I don't think his MD is valid in New York.
Schleiermacher wrote:Straight-up racist miscegenation jokes, if I remember correctly. One of many reasons why I won't touch Dragonlance with the titular silver 10-ft. pole.
Yeah, there was a whole pile of racist wankery with the mountain/hill/gully dwarf divisions, which got glossed over in the novels, as they're in the mountain dwarf kingdom for all of 5 minutes in the second book which time skips over modules 3&4 and goes directly to 6 [5 was little more than a sourcebook in module form]. The short version is the mountain dwarves sealed the Vault when the Cataclysm came, and kept the hill dwarves outside, so they had to deal with the Mutants, including gully dwarves. (Which are apparently bad ass enough off camera to capture and imprison the dwarf hero for an indeterminate time in his backstory. Though these aren't the same gully dwarves as the ones in adventure #1, so maybe they weren't so brain-fried. Or something.).
Of course the elves do the same thing with their savage servants of indeterminant racism in the form of the Kagonesti (who aren't actually described well enough to be anything but Oppressed Noble Savages, but given the background of the writers, are probably native american analogues again.
I met the Hickmans back in 2003. Laura Hickman makes Gully Dwarf jokes in public without prompting. It's super embarrassing and more than a little bit offensive.
FrankTrollman wrote:I met the Hickmans back in 2003. Laura Hickman makes Gully Dwarf jokes in public without prompting. It's super embarrassing and more than a little bit offensive.
What's wrong with gully dwarf jokes? You're talking like they're an actual race in the real world.
Cyberzombie wrote:What's wrong with gully dwarf jokes? You're talking like they're an actual race in the real world.
Are you being dense on purpose? Are you a masochist?
@ @ Nockermensch
Koumei wrote:After all, in Firefox you keep tabs in your browser, but in SovietPutin's Russia, browser keeps tabs on you.
Mord wrote:Chromatic Wolves are massively under-CRed. Its "Dood to stone" spell-like is a TPK waiting to happen if you run into it before anyone in the party has Dance of Sack or Shield of Farts.
Cyberzombie wrote:What's wrong with gully dwarf jokes? You're talking like they're an actual race in the real world.
Gully dwarves are a miscegenation metaphor, they are literally the warped spawn of inbreeding between the races. In the 21st century having them in your fluff is embarrassing the way using H.P L deep ones unaltered is embarrassing. I think they're might also based on some real world group and thus double offensive but IDK.
When Laura Hickman tells Gully Dwarf jokes, she uses an exaggerated Appalachian accent. It's really quite offensive on a number of levels. Also stupid, since the punchline of all of the jokes is that dumb people are dumb.
Voss wrote:The short version is the mountain dwarves sealed the Vault when the Cataclysm came, and kept the hill dwarves outside, so they had to deal with the Mutants, including gully dwarves. (Which are apparently bad ass enough off camera to capture and imprison the dwarf hero for an indeterminate time in his backstory. Though these aren't the same gully dwarves as the ones in adventure #1, so maybe they weren't so brain-fried. Or something.).
Been about 10 years since I read "Flint, the King" but basically he fell into a cavern system with a hot mountain dwarf badass. The two of them were stuck there for a good few years and became the reluctant rulers of the group. At some point a carrion crawler broke in and killed a bunch of them, including the chick. Some point afterward Flint gets the hell out of there, via new openings. Or something like that. Been a while.
Voss wrote:The short version is the mountain dwarves sealed the Vault when the Cataclysm came, and kept the hill dwarves outside, so they had to deal with the Mutants, including gully dwarves. (Which are apparently bad ass enough off camera to capture and imprison the dwarf hero for an indeterminate time in his backstory. Though these aren't the same gully dwarves as the ones in adventure #1, so maybe they weren't so brain-fried. Or something.).
Been about 10 years since I read "Flint, the King" but basically he fell into a cavern system with a hot mountain dwarf badass. The two of them were stuck there for a good few years and became the reluctant rulers of the group. At some point a carrion crawler broke in and killed a bunch of them, including the chick. Some point afterward Flint gets the hell out of there, via new openings. Or something like that. Been a while.
I never actually read that one... most of the side story/backstory later books were pure shit (even to my preteen/teen eyes) and stopped.. I just remember the reference from the first book where Flint flips his shit about trusting gully dwarves, spouting about being held prisoner.
The prequel book where Flint met Tanis was sorta nice. IIRC, it was one of the first Dragonlance books I'd read, after Dragons of Winter Night. Had some weird parts, but yeah. Most of the Preludes, the Sextet series, etc were weird clearly non-canon crap.
Most of the pre-Age of Mortals books are forgettable, but I think the Kang's Regiment series were some of the better stories. Kang lead a regiment of Draconian engineers; a little like Caiphas Cain in theme, I suppose.
They first appeared as a short-story where they were ordered to make a bridge over one of brutal Qualinesti rivers to reach the capital. Accidentally took out a silver dragon and it lead to a promotion. After the War of the Lance they hid in the Khalkists for a few decades and spent their time getting drunk and doing a non-lethal cycle of raids on a nearby dwarf settlement, which was reciprocated. Lead to important stuff afterward.
They did get retconned as the makers of the fake black dragon in Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Apparently they did it to trick newly hatched and arrogant Baaz.
I haven't read Dragonlance since high-school, admittedly. And my experience was shaped by my girlfriend at the time who was such a stereotypical fangirl, all the way to the point where her favorite characters were Raistlin and Dalamar, in that order.
ANYway, my point. I don't recall directly, but didn't they have some sort of thing where you got past the filth and the cowardice and the (Allegedly) funny depictions of mental retardation, the Gully Dwarves are a very purehearted and noble race? Kind of like how beneath their grating ADHD and kelptomania the Kender are a noble and innocent race? Except here it strays uncomfortably close to the mindset that created the "Magical Negro" storytelling device, where it's okay for this black person to have been subjected to grinding poverty and dehumanizing prejudice because their humble origins give them an insight and wisdom they otherwise would not have, which they will turn around and use to help white people.
I might be reading too much into this.
Last edited by Desdan_Mervolam on Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Don't bother trying to impress gamers. They're too busy trying to impress you to care.
souran wrote:
DL1-14 are, for pre-written modules, quite good. While they sometimes can veer into railroad territory, the players are asked to participate in events that clearly matter.
DL1 is incredibly awful and is a painful railroad from start to finish. The players are railroaded into entering a haunted forest where the resident mage is forcibly possessed by an Exposition Ghost who railroads you towards a unicorn who puts you on a pegasus railroad to an abandoned fortress where you fight a dragon who is supposed to be killed by a magic macguffin and not by any abilities of the PCs. I'm not sure how any of that stuff is supposed to "clearly matter" any more than in any other terrible D&D module.
The interesting thing about the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight is that it's a very faithful representation of an awful D&D adventure, complete with a DM saying "you fail, no save" and monsters that lose interest and wander off when the PCs start to lose.
