The Gaming Den

Old-school oWoD enthusiast and new user chiming in! I was mainly a Werewolf/Garou player, of the five original games, although I haven't played any book-and-paper RPGs for quite some time.

I had no idea that an oWoD 'board like this was still going strong; the White Wolf 'Forums' aren't a very welcoming place (and hadn't been for a while now, at least for me). I was doing a web search for 'Teuwynn Woodruff', one of the writers for the oWoD many years past, and whose name I saw regularly in White Wolf Magazine prior to it becoming 'Inphobia' and soon after cancelled, and this board came up in the results. Curious, then, I took a peek at The Gaming Den's forums prior to registering, and thought I'd give this place a try.

I hope you'll all find my presence acceptable and worthwhile! ^_^

-Boe.

I think you're lost. This isn't really an oWoD forum.

We hate oWoD less than we hate nWoD, and we accept that oWoD is "the game that got goth girls sleeping with gamer nerds". That's as close as you're going to get, in this new era of nobody giving a fuck what White Wolf are doing (which is nothing because they went bankrupt and got bought out by an Icelandic company and then Iceland went bankrupt).

That said, even if WoD is just a small part of the discussion here and you're not interested in the rest of the discussion, welcome aboard. But I'd appreciate it if you didn't have a giant fucking banner graphic for a signature.

And i'd appreciate it, if the german in it was not so wrong.

Stahlseele wrote:And i'd appreciate it, if the german in it was not so wrong.

Google Translate didn't seem to have any problem with it...

@Prak
Yeah, THAT THING is the main proof why googles: "Don't be evil" is a lie <.<

All I'm saying is that the guideline isn't, "don't be incompetent."

Hey there!

I appreciate your filling me in that I did misunderstand what The Gaming Den was about (or at least was not). My interest in the oWoD was werewolves and other werecritters; I've never really been involved with the goth or protogoth biz that screamed 'Vampire is D&D for popular people', and I understand where you're coming from about it.

As for my signature: I speak very little German; the text resulted from a Google Translate and not from any practical fluency I have in said language.

I'd like to at least be able to lurk and read through the Forums here if that would be acceptable to the folks running TGD, even if I'm not posting much or at all.

-Boe.

TGD's stance on weres and furries is in general "Sure. Whatever." There have been a few reviews of Ironclaw and World Tree and such. Interest is pretty much 100% on the various systems' mechanical failings and not on any particular fur-bashing. I don't think anyone here minds or cares if you self-identify as a jackal.

oWoD Werewolf, otoh, gets a lot of flack here. Not because of fur bashing but because of actual bestiality. No one minds people having relationships with magical talking dogs, but that game revolves around people having sex with actual normal not-talking dogs, and that is a bridge too far.

Similarly, nobody minds that in Vampire you have sexual relationships with people who are seven hundred years old and look like they are children. But Changeling: the Dreaming gets mad dissing because it involves sexual relations with people who are actually children. No one minds if something looks like bestiality or pedophilia, because it's a fantasy and there can be extenuating circumstances. But Werewolf and Changeling presented things that actually were bestiality and pedophilia, and that's just gross.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:TGD's stance on weres and furries is in general "Sure. Whatever." There have been a few reviews of Ironclaw and World Tree and such. Interest is pretty much 100% on the various systems' mechanical failings and not on any particular fur-bashing. I don't think anyone here minds or cares if you self-identify as a jackal.

I see. I don't self-identify as a werewolf as much as the character I've sat behind is one (or hypothetically is one, given the fictional nature of him). I'm not here as a Furry (while I do consider myself one) or a Were, a Therian or an Otherkin. I appreciate your being frank about how such things are seen here, but I'm not at all here to break any rules or make anyone uncomfortable.

I think I know what you mean by 'mechanical failings' in regards to game systems, but would you do me the kindness of telling me how that term is defined here in terms of TGD's application of it?

FrankTrollman wrote:oWoD Werewolf, otoh, gets a lot of flack here. Not because of fur bashing but because of actual bestiality. No one minds people having relationships with magical talking dogs, but that game revolves around people having sex with actual normal not-talking dogs, and that is a bridge too far.

I assure you that I have no interest in having sex either IC or OOC with members of a species other than the one I actually am. I'm a little disturbed by your (apparent) focus on this as to why any and all folks along my line of interest would fall into the category of wanting or needing to have sexual relations with non-human animals; I know there are aspects of that in Furry (and of course, the whole 'Garou does not mate with Garou' biz IC in Werewolf) but I hope you'll accept my saying that is in no way how I swing personally.

FrankTrollman wrote:Similarly, nobody minds that in Vampire you have sexual relationships with people who are seven hundred years old and look like they are children. But Changeling: the Dreaming gets mad dissing because it involves sexual relations with people who are actually children. No one minds if something looks like bestiality or pedophilia, because it's a fantasy and there can be extenuating circumstances. But Werewolf and Changeling presented things that actually were bestiality and pedophilia, and that's just gross.

I completely agree. I'm not sure why this is relevant to my asking whether or not I'd be welcome to stick around, but I accept and agree that these topics were present in Werewolf (I have a copy of Changeling but aside from the basic 'modern fantasy' conceptuals, I'm not familiar with it and I haven't myself played in a session of the RPG) and I have no intention of fostering any of them here.

Again, I appreciate your frankness about how things work here on TGD.

-Boe.

You have a furry avatar and introduced yourself with a furry slogan. You are bleeding your kink from every pore. We don't really care anyway, so own it or change it.

Chamomile wrote:You have a furry avatar and introduced yourself with a furry slogan. You are bleeding your kink from every pore. We don't really care anyway, so own it or change it.

I beg your pardon? My participation in Furry is not a 'kink' and why you feel it appropriate to tell me quite rudely to 'own it or change it' I'm not really understanding here. Why the hostility simply because of that?

-Boe.

Koumei wrote:But I'd appreciate it if you didn't have a giant fucking banner graphic for a signature.

I'll remove it; I didn't see your posting about it until I checked through this thread again a couple of minutes ago. Are signatures here preferably not detailed graphics and small, text-based ones instead?

-Boe.

Boethermsbrukan wrote: I completely agree. I'm not sure why this is relevant to my asking whether or not I'd be welcome to stick around, but I accept and agree that these topics were present in Werewolf (I have a copy of Changeling but aside from the basic 'modern fantasy' conceptuals, I'm not familiar with it and I haven't myself played in a session of the RPG) and I have no intention of fostering any of them here.

I don't think it was all about you. It was addressing some reasons why we give oWoD a hard time as a game. Not a reflection upon yourself.

As for Chamomile, he's just kinda being a douche there. You don't need anybody's permission to join or lurk or whatever. There aren't many rules. You may be disappointed to learn that the board isn't that oWoD centric, and there are harsh opinions on mechanical and writing decisions taken, but maybe not. Afterall we (mostly Frank) wrote After Sundown on here, and it is a decent stab at making a WoD that works.

[edit: I cannot speak to the banner stuff since I have signatures blocked just to prevent that kind of crap]

Erik, good evening!

erik wrote:I don't think it was all about you. It was addressing some reasons why we give oWoD a hard time as a game. Not a reflection upon yourself.

It started out that way in the thread earlier on, and I appreciate your saying that. If it means anything, I apologize for getting defensive after Chamomile's response a short while ago (and to him as well).

erik wrote:You don't need anybody's permission to join or lurk or whatever. There aren't many rules. You may be disappointed to learn that the board isn't that oWoD centric, and there are harsh opinions on mechanical and writing decisions taken, but maybe not. Afterall we (mostly Frank) wrote After Sundown on here, and it is a decent stab at making a WoD that works.]

Thanks for saying so, chum. I suspected that conversations here would be along those lines after the first couple of replies to me in this thread, and that's why I asked if my lurking here would be acceptable per my being a user here; I'd be quite happy to be a listener, mostly, until and unless I could offer something worth offerring to a given discussion. I'm more of a concept/writing person when it comes to gaming as opposed to working (for the most part) with specific game mechanics and homebrewing.

Again, I appreciate you posting me about it. For the time being, I've removed my signature, since it would seem to be more of an irritant than anything else.

-Boe.

As a warning, TGD is mostly self-selected for A] the sort of people who argue for contrarian ideas in ways that would get you banned for being an abrasive asshole on other forums, and B] the sort of people who are willing to tolerate the abrasive asshole contingent in order to hear said contrarian ideas. Expect harsh language, rude people, bad faith arguments and the occasional airing of perplexing grudges from the 2000s.

Boethermsbrukan wrote:I think I know what you mean by 'mechanical failings' in regards to game systems, but would you do me the kindness of telling me how that term is defined here in terms of TGD's application of it?

The people here care most about whether the math you put in your game supports what you say you're trying to do with your game. You should probably start off by reading a few OSSR (Old School Sourcebook Review) or Anatomy of Failed Design threads to get a feel for the type of analysis that is in vogue here. This here thread is a reasonably complete index of such threads.

For you personally, I think you should start with Anatomy of Failed Design: Vampire. If the contents of that thread make you upset because you feel like you personally are being attacked because you like the thing, that's normal. That's the feeling of stupidity leaving your brain.

Mord, good afternoon!

Mord wrote:The people here care most about whether the math you put in your game supports what you say you're trying to do with your game. You should probably start off by reading a few OSSR (Old School Sourcebook Review) or Anatomy of Failed Design threads to get a feel for the type of analysis that is in vogue here. This here thread is a reasonably complete index of such threads.

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of that thread; it'll be a good general starting point for me, and even if I don't really add much to other discussions for the time being (if at all) I can at least properly inform myself.

Mord wrote:For you personally, I think you should start with Anatomy of Failed Design: Vampire. If the contents of that thread make you upset because you feel like you personally are being attacked because you like the thing, that's normal. That's the feeling of stupidity leaving your brain.

I don't think I'll feel attacked at all, but I'll take your word for it; I'd much rather have less stupidity than more between my ears, at least. I appreciate you and Erik for being as diplomatic about this as you have.

-Boe.