Except that photo is of Warhammer 40,000 players, nothing to do with D&D;. 10,000 nerd points for me!

After which, the fantasy artist would sue him for not paying her for use of her design.

Oh, ew.  That’ll teach me to click links you post without checking where they go, Jesse.  Ace of Spades?  I feel all dirty now.  Couldn’t you have just rickrolled me instead?

I think this is a hint that he’s selecting Yocchi as his running mate.

Because a spider-worshipping cloned immortal drow woman is just what McCain needs on the ticket to mop up those independents still on fence.

I think this is a hint that he’s selecting Yocchi as his running mate.

Obama-Drizzt ‘08!

When I read about Goldfarb’s comments over at John Cole’s place, I wondered if he realized that a depressingly huge chunk of roleplayers are, in fact, highly conservative.  Mostly of the libertarian bent, but still reliably Republican.  I’ve instituted the “no politics at my table” rule for my D&D;games, much as I do for Thanksgiving dinners with the family

I see that Ace has his head stuck in the usual place though:

I think he meant to make that crack about Rifts or Vampire or some gay-wad game anyway.

Ah.  “Gay-wad”.  How old is Ace again?  12?

NonyNony, I think it’s residual bitterness over having been left out of the historic Wad treaty.

I’m not reading Ace’s crap. Anyone got a summary?

But remember, it’s not uncivil because he didn’t say the eff-word.

Suddenly it all makes sense.  John McCain is the Lich King!

Scott, it went about like this.

Michael Goldfarb: Obama supporters are D&D;-playing nerds, and therefore unserious and unmanly.
Obama supporters and/or D&D;-playing nerds: Hey!
Goldfarb: Heh heh, I apologize to D&D;players for suggesting they supported Obama, heh heh.
Ace: Heh heh.  D&D;is gay.  Heh heh.

Sadly, I think that the Drizz’t nom would do a lot towards securing the MRA vote.

Oh, was Ace making a distinction between D&D;as non-gay and other RPGs as gay?  I missed that, but whatever.

I think it would’ve been better if I hadn’t asked. Just reading about it has made me stupider. Maybe that’s the strategy.

Goldfarb: “Obama voters play D&D;! They’re nerds! NERRRRDS!”

Voter: “What the fuck does that mean? It makes no sense at all! IQ… draining. Spelling… getting wurse. Must… vote.. for dum… candidite. ME LUV YOU IN MANLY WAYS, JON McMAVARIK!”

One walkabout tour at any gaming con would reveal that yes, most gamers are conservative. I recently returned from Gen Con, and I’m so disappointed that I forgot to pack my I Smell Sexism shirt. Of course, that could barely be detected above the delightful olfactory blessing that comes from a poorly-ventilated building crammed full of approx. 25,000 gamers, perhaps half of whom either have not showered or need another one.
The male pressure on other men to fawn and drool over a booth babe as if it were some well-known porn queen is staggering… and surprisingly reminiscent of such fine media products as The Man Show.
I myself felt no pressure from others to wear some chainmail over my birthday suit, but then again… I am kinda scary. And the suited Italian guy I had in tow probably made most think of Sicilian neck ties before speaking to/gawking at me.

Ace-rolled:  Mr. O’Spades playin’ the invisible accordion.  Always check your links.

um, that ace of spades post is 2 and a half weeks old. why are you suddenly posting about it now? and didn’t goldfarb mock D & D players again yesterday, weeks after his apology as reported by ace?

Obama-Drizzt ‘08!

Think the Republicans would accuse Drizzt of playing the race card?

This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.

Diplomacy check vs Sense motive: DC25
Michael Goldfarb rolls a 1, a critical failure!
The Gamers are not moved by your attempt at “wit” and their mood turns hostile (+5 DC to next Diplomacy or Bluff check).

I suggest Goldfarb takes the Jack of All Trades feat next level so he can get a bonus to untrained skills.

Huh.  What a strange little incident.  And yeah, there are more libertarians among my tribe than I’d like to admit, but it doesn’t stop me from playing. 

The important question is, where do the campaigns stand on Call of Cthulhu?  We’re an important demographic, dammit!

McCain strikes me as a Mi-Go agent, or possibly he’s infested with a Shan.

I’m pretty sure that any perceived conservative bent among gamers is mainly due to its popularity among military folks. I have a gaming group of over thirteen folks, and even the hardcore gun-nut is an Obama supporter, and nearly all of us are atheists.

I chalk it up to one of the core members and best GM I know being an unabashed Socialist.

Suddenly it all makes sense.  John McCain is the Lich King!

Oh shit, you’re so right!  See, John McCain is Ner’zhul, the Orc Shaman who made the initial pact with Kil’jeaden, the demonic leader of the Burning Legion .  He got some cold feet and tried to back out, but KJ found a more evil pawn, Gul’dan (Cheney) who changed the Orcish race into demon blood-drinking savages (aka 9/11 Republicans).  Gul’dan set up a puppet Warchief (Bush) and set about screwing up Azeroth (Earth).  After he fell, Ner’zhul tried to take control of the Orcs; their planet exploded (aka the hilarious primary shenanigans) and KJ (aka Rove) destroyed Ner’zhul’s body, tormented his soul, and threw him into a suit of undead armor with the promises of great power.  Ner’zhul commanded the Scourge (aka the Republicans circa now, with their undead zombie lies) and attempted to take power over Azeroth.

So, maybe Obama is Jaina Proudmore… Thrall is, um… Hagel?  I guess.  And… omg, Joe Lieberman is Arthas!  Of course!  Because Arthas once fought the undead armies, but then succumbed to the Lich King’s control and became his champion.  Which means… at the convention, McCain and Lieberman will merge… “Now, we are ONE”

....... I’m going to go hide in the corner now.

The group I play with runs the political spectrum from blandly moderate Democrats on the right to Anarcho–Communists on the left, so I have been spared the company of these conservative gamers.  For those of you with them in their groups, I have always conjectured that Republicans would play a disproportionate number of paladins, could you confirm this?

It’s one of those “if I offended….” non-apology apolgies.  Try this, Goldfarb:  “I sincerely apologize for my intemperate comments about D&D;players, and going forward I promise to restrict my ignorant generalizations to groups that deserve it, such as homosexuals and blacks.”

A quick Gamer Poltics update for those not in the know:

when RPGs first got big, with D&D;, they were by and large a conservative pastime.  There’s a couple of reasons for this.

First of all, D&D;evolved out of wargames, not as one might assume from acting/storytelling stuff.  It was big at MIT and Caltech, and then more generally among technical types.  Most middle-aged gamers now are the ones who were in engineering school back when it came out, and engineers tend to be pretty conservative. 

D&D;also has a pretty conservative bent as a game, though this is avoidable.  The first few versions were all about tracking down “evil” races, killing them and taking thier stuff.  These days the rules less directly reward genocide, but it’s still a big thing.  Although the polytheistic bent offends some wingnuts, the fact of the matter is that essentially every edition has presented, as a major hero archetype, a crusading cleric of a pseudo-christian sun god.  And weirdly, despite the presence in D&D;of multiple gods, clerics are usually encouraged to send prayers and offerings to only one, and attempt to convert other people ot his faith. 

Plus D&D;has long been associated wiht LotR, which is itself a conservative fantasy.

My understanding is that not until White Wolf published Vampire did anyone realize there was a secondary RPG market among liberal actor/writer types who might come fo rthe storytelling, stay for the violence, rather than the other way around.  Two this day the gaming community is divided long essentially political lines, with the Tough, Manly D&D;players deriding White Wolf and other more free-form, less rules-intense games as pansies, gays, goth chicks who can’t do math, etc., etc.

I actually prefer D&D;, but D&D;players do have a tendency toward anxious wingnuttiness.

And no, Republicans don’t reall yplay paladins IME, maybe because D&D;players are smart enough to know when tyey’re being mocked.  Plus, they’re more likely to play the swords and sorcery version of Jack Bauer..

McCain is out to increase ability scores?

Sounds very big government and liberal. Very suspect and easily could unbalance game play.

Please - PC’s pick yourselves up by your chain greeves, don’t rely on the dungeon master for a handout!

demer:  “McCain is out to increase ability scores?  Sounds very big government and liberal. Very suspect and easily could unbalance game play.”

Yeah, the only fair way to increase an ability score is to gain 3 levels!

Although if McCain were DM, he’d be handing out magic items and XP to his CEO buddies like candy.

The important question is, where do the campaigns stand on Call of Cthulhu?  We’re an important demographic, dammit!

Dr. Locrian, you refer, of course, to Classic Cthulhu in all its arcane, squamous glory, and not the newfangled D20 nonsense?

D&D;is for drama queens.  Real nerds play Advanced Squad Leader.

So let me get this straight, all the other people McCain insults and derides on a daily basis can go pound sand, but he makes a special exception for D&D;. Huh? Though I would fear their response if they rolled a 20 on vindictiveness or snark.

Perhaps I can get tarred next week as being in the “pro-Obama Family Guy crowd” when I note John-boy shaking his fist at a cloud.

http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/

In all its squamous, rugose, and non-Euclidean glory!  Although, to be fair, John Tynes wrote some very good gaming advice in the D20 Edition—anyone who helped create Delta Green (and especially the “Hastur as meme” idea) in all its glory gets a pass from me.

I also need to give a shout-out to Ken Hite’s Trail of Cthulhu, which I’m running right now in a campaign I’ve pitched as Veronica Mars meets HP Lovecraft in Twin Peaks:  the Trail system is the very epitome of the Ace’s “gay-wad” style of gaming.

Ah.  “Gay-wad”.  How old is Ace again?  12?

Twelve or sixty.  The term “Gay-wad” went out of style when I was still in middle school.

My understanding is that not until White Wolf published Vampire did anyone realize there was a secondary RPG market among liberal actor/writer types who might come fo rthe storytelling, stay for the violence, rather than the other way around.  Two this day the gaming community is divided long essentially political lines, with the Tough, Manly D&D;players deriding White Wolf and other more free-form, less rules-intense games as pansies, gays, goth chicks who can’t do math, etc., etc.

I’ve been an avid gamer since I learned to read the rules, and I’ve never really seen this so-called divide.  Some players have varying preferences, and there’s certainly a no-man’s land once you get into things like LARPing, but I’ve seen plenty of conservatives pick up a Werewolf or Vampire and plenty of progressives embrace the smiting hammer of a Pelorian Cleric.  And that’s understandable, because Pelorian clerics were TOTALLY BROKEN!

But yeah, I’m not really seeing this giant cultural divide that you speak of.

What is McCain’s stance on Kobolds?  Are the lovable draconic mutts allowed to stay in the shadows of the country as long as they don’t try to get paying jobs?  Or have they eaten one too many babies, and thus been enemy combatants and rounded up for Gitmo?

Dr. Locrian, I certainly have no beef with Mr. Tynes’s fine work; it’s merely that the foundation on which he built Cthulhu d20 was far too stable for the sort of construction it ought to have been.  I am intrigued by this Trail of Cthulhu of which you speak.

*been designated enemy combatants.  Sheesh.

At first glance this variation on anti-intellectualism would seem to make sense since McCain is trying to court the Xtian fantasist and psychopath ex-jock demographics that make up the Bush voter base. But this former neutral-good ranger is reminded of those cursed wands that backfired on the wielder.

Geeks of Gaming past and present may be a politically diverse bunch (I recall the wargamers and miniatures guys being more right-wing than the pencil-and-paper RPGers) but there appears to be an “attack on one is an attack on all” treaty in place when real dorks like Goldfarb try to smear us.

Just as a quick note, upyernoz is correct—this appears to be an “apology” for the *first* time Goldfarb insulted gamers, based on the date of the article and comments at Ace of Spades. He did, indeed, mock D&D;players again yesterday. Which goes to show just how honest the first apology was…

but there appears to be an “attack on one is an attack on all” treaty in place when real dorks like Goldfarb try to smear us.

Gracchus, I believe I already mentioned the Wad Pact of 1999.  Goldfarb, I think, should not rightly be called a “dork,” which might indicate affinity with the dorkwads; he’s more of a jerkwad or possibly a fuckwad.

Gracchus, I believe I already mentioned the Wad Pact of 1999.  Goldfarb, I think, should not rightly be called a “dork,” which might indicate affinity with the dorkwads; he’s more of a jerkwad or possibly a fuckwad.

My error. Due to my inactive status since 1992 I missed the news that the dorkwads had joined the Geek Treaty, which would exclude Goldfarb. He’s probably better classified as a “bag” or “hole,” and the only alliance that’ll take those dickheads is the Republican Party.

Well, there has been a lot of confusion over the Wad Pact, and I understand there’s been a certain amount of agitation to have dipwads reclassified as a subgroup of dorkwads, thus bringing them into the Pact as well.  Nonetheless, bags and holes are definitely enemies of the Pact signatories.

McCain strikes me as a Shan, too. He’s got that “I’m controlled by incorporeal horseflies from another galaxy” look to him.

Cheney’s definitely a Mi-Go. He seems like the type to disassemble people just to tote their brains around in a jar.

Bush? Avatar of Nyarlathotep.

Keep in mind a ton of gamers are adolescents, which matches the libertarian demographic very well.

In the early 80s, when I first got into The Hobby, the only local store that sold gaming things was the tobacco/gun shop (to this day I associate the scent of pipe tobacco with old D&D;sourcebooks).

Those of us who are no longer adolescent also aren’t libertarian, but not everyone’s chronological age correlates to their emotional.

(and lest anyone from the demographic I care about get the wrong idea, I’m still a gamer - been doing it 31 years and am looking forward to retirement in another 25 when I can game full-time.)

I can’t find an actual apology by Goldfarb anywhere outside of Ace. It’s… flimsy.

I think the political divide on gamers is largely based on region and economic class. I come from a predominantly conservative area, and I’ve gamed with more than my share of Republicans over the years. But, the gamers from outside the area have been a mixed bag - moderate to fairly liberal. Also, the lower economic-class group I game with trends Republican - the upper-crust one trends Democrat. Make of that what you will…

McCain strikes me as a Mi-Go agent, or possibly he’s infested with a Shan.

Not possible. Both the Mi-Go and Shan are highly intelligent interstellar races. None of their puppets would be unable to send e-mail. Maybe he’s some kind of Charles Dexter Ward-ish thing. And no way I am buying Bush as an avatar of Nyarlathotep; Nyarly’s way smarter.

McCain in ‘08! Iä! Iä!

Never noticed the conservative/liberal bent to gaming.  Played plenty of D&D;and it was the various guys in the neighborhood we could get to show up.  Some were serious Xtians, some were pretty straightlaced and conservative, some were libertarian-ish goofs, and some were punks (of the musical bend, not the blow-smoke-in-yer-face whippersnapper jackass Matt Dylan from the 80’s type). 

And the object of the game was mainly to a) not die and b) get drunk.  Which has since become my primary approach to life.  Who knew you could learn so much from RPGs.

I was thinking that, too, mythago.  Aren’t Nyarlathotep’s (human-looking) avatars generally all suave and urbane?

Huh. So it’s just nerds who support the popular (to the point of being called either messianic or pop star-ish) Barack Obama? Wow, I never knew there were so many nerds.

But really, the McCain campaign seems to me to keep rolling 1s on their attacks. This is another thing that makes no sense— it annoys the players, not because they do or don’t support Obama, but because they aren’t going to like being called basement dwellers (even if you do have to move in with mom because of economic woes, it’s not a source of pride, unlike gaming and politics). And I think most people who read political blogs, even on the right, are a little too smart to go, “Hur, hur, nerds! Me no nerd. Me vote McCain.”

Cheetos are a guilty pleasure of mine and I’ve never been bothered by the “Cheeto eating basement dweller” slurs against the right wing bloggers. So I might think this wouldn’t hurt them too much—except one of the pieces has a rating on it and it’s the lowest possible. Critical Fumble charts out!

Smadin:  Ah, the Insects from Shaggai ARE superintelligent, but an infected host is pretty much free to do as they please during the day.  It’s at night when the parasite takes over the body and injects orders and strange visions, while the host slowly goes insane.  Maybe even inexplicably singing “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.”  Or giving constant hallucinatory flashbacks of a Viet Cong prison guard drawing a cross in the dirt.

Plus, the Shan’s main motivations are decadent sadistic pleasure seeking, and seeing what damage they could wreak on the world would certainly amuse them!

Oh, and about Trail of Cthulhu:

http://www.pelgranepress.com/trail/index.html

It works very well for investigative games, mainly by making information gathering skills like Library Use a given—you succeed automatically when you use them, so you never have to scramble to save a scenario if an Investigator misses a roll and doesn’t find the right clue (which happened to me a bunch of times in Call of Cthulhu).  Also, Sanity is divided into 2 attributes: Stability (you’re ability to maintain your cool) and Sanity (your connections with the human world).  Pretty cool stuff!

Nyarlathotep is the Crawling Chaos, and he specializes in bringing madness to all who contact him. He’s also sometimes depicted as a horrific thing waving a tentacle in the air and howling at the sky.

Hence, he’s a perfect fit for Georgie.

If I worked for a candidate with a track record of making up fanciful stories that took place a long time ago in a dungeon far, far away (like the Cross In The Dirt), the last people in the world I’d insult would be D&D;players.

Not that it matters, McCain is about to fail his saving throw against losing elections.

This is why I switched to GURPS - for the respect.

I am all for Drizzt on the ticket.  Going with two minorities on the ticket will really throw them off (Drow are certainly black).

Cannot wait until he drops a globe of darkness on his GOP VP debate opponent and flips into combat with both scimitars spinning in lethal arcs ... 

lol

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Drizzt_Do’Urden

Obama/Do’Urden ‘08   what a dork i am

McCain’s campaign HAD to apologize to the D&D;crowd… who could more easily detect and defeat the undead?

Aaaand BBBB wins the thread. Congratulations.

I have a couple points to make.

1)  When playing Call of Cthulhu make sure your character reads EVERY book you find.

2)  I heartily invite Goldfarb and any other nerd-baiting juveniles to kiss my ass. 

3)  I hereby dedicate tonight’s battle at my Warhammer 40K league to the Obama campaign.

1) When playing Call of Cthulhu make sure your character reads EVERY book you find.

...and is thus driven insane before they even get out into the field…

...and is thus driven insane before they even get out into the field…

No offense, but that’s always been the stupidest part of the Mythos to me. “The universe is a vast and scary place, and if you knew the real truth, your very sanity would be rent asunder!”

“Rent asunder, huh? Hit me.”

“You sure? It’ll drive you insane! INSANE!”

“I’m sure.”

“Uh, ok, well, there’s a bunch of super-powerful alien races, who have been venerated as gods, and what you think of as ‘magic’ is actually their technology, and what you think of as ‘monsters’ are actually their genetically engineered servants.”

“...that’s it? The sanity-shivering truth is the same as the plot of Stargate?”

It’s the most tiresome part of Lovecraftian horror - the idea that concepts regularly (and often campily) featured in science-fiction are somehow horrific mind-benders. Seriously, I get it. Aliens worshipped as gods. No biggie. Still sane.

Also, your picture is indeed of wargaming, not D&D;, Warhammer 40K, to be specific.

Why would you make such a mistake! ^-^

This is hands down the most awesome thread ever.

the political / economic demographics of gaming leading Warhammer folk to be conservative is most likely due to the fact that 1)all gamers have a little voice inside of them where they REALLY ARE that awesome 2) Warhammer is a rich-boy’s sport. Add the two together, and bingo, instant glibertarian.
I’ve never actually observed this in life, though- the only guy I ever met who actually played warhammer was an “anarcho-nihlist”.

Went to a White Wolf release party. It was awesomely fun. It was also for the unlamented flop “Pimp: The Backhanding” which went over like a lead balloon with most people. It didn’t help that it had an actual object card for “crack”, which could be played on one of your “pimp” cards as an instant win in negotiation rounds with other players for “ho” cards.

///I cannot believe I wasted time reading this thread.

No offense, but that’s always been the stupidest part of the Mythos to me. “The universe is a vast and scary place, and if you knew the real truth, your very sanity would be rent asunder!”

Mmm - you may want to give Charlie Stross’s “The Atrocity Archive” and “The Jennifer Morgue” a go.  Or read “A Colder War” online.

Of course, it could be worse.  I’‘ve run games of Paranoia where the players never made it out of the briefing room. They really had to learn to cooperate a bit better…

“a depressingly huge chunk of roleplayers are, in fact, highly conservative.”
Stephen Colbert, for instance. Though he is engaging, sleek and manly rather than a depressingly huge chunk.

The thing i hate about playing against the McCain campaign is that they are all high level clerics. It gets dull pretty quickly.

Chet, it’s all in the execution.  You could describe Alien as “haunted house in space, with a bit of parasitism thrown in.”  And in the wrong hands it could have been horrible.  But, done right, well, that’s a different story . . .

Trust me, I’ve managed to scare the crap out of players on many occasions using only these same tired tropes.  And anyway, you could break down any horror in the way that you have, not just Lovecraftian—some people just aren’t going to respond, similar to how not everyone laughs at the same jokes.

Mmm - you may want to give Charlie Stross’s “The Atrocity Archive” and “The Jennifer Morgue” a go.  Or read “A Colder War” online.

I actually read “A Colder War” in one of Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Sci-Fi compilations, and I really enjoyed it, and it piqued an interest in the Mythos, so imagine my disappointment when there turned out to be no “there” there. “Shadows over Baker Street” - the Mythos-meets-Sherlock-Holmes collection - was enjoyable too, but moreso because it injected a character into the Mythos that wasn’t immediately driven insane by the most mundane of revelations.

But I’ll check out the other two. Stross is really good. Did he write that novella where a dimension-traveling android goes back in time to rescue Alan Turing, who then goes on to kick C.S. Lewis’s ass in a debate on humanity and free will? Good times, good times.

Just my 2 cents ... I don’t think it’s the kind of game you play, it’s how you play the kind of game.  To clarify:

While playing a Call of Cthulu game, we found a creature that was a hybrid of Elder God and human.  Turns out that while the body was monstrous, the mind (such as it was) was that of a human child.  When describing this to some gaming friends who had not participated in this particular game (and who I know to be conservative), they immediately asked, “So how did you kill it?”

“We didn’t,” was my reply.  The horrified response was “So what did you do?!”

The people I was playing with in this particular game were liberal in outlook.  What we did was arrange transportation of said creature to Miskatonic University, where he was set up with his own habitat and a plastic octopus to play with, and the professors there could study him to their heart’s content.

Ooo, I took crap over that.  “It’s a monster!  You’re supposed to kill monsters!” I heard over and over from my conservative gaming friends.  “But only the body was monstrous - the mind was that of a child, calling for its mother!  You don’t just kill a kid!” 

We went round and round over that one.

Stross is really good. Did he write that novella where a dimension-traveling android goes back in time to rescue Alan Turing, who then goes on to kick C.S. Lewis’s ass in a debate on humanity and free will?

Haven’t read one like that.  Watch out for “Saturn’s Children” from him (in shops now - blatant advertisement) if you like androids. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, so I don’t know whether it’s going to be fun or lean towards his too-geeky-to-appreciate side.

There’s an interesting story in “Toast” showing the terrible consequences of a solution to the P=NP problem, and its relation to deities…

Thank you for your well thought and imminently supported theory Indy.

If any liberal D&D;fans are capable at laughing at their own team, I really, really, really strongly recommend Ace Of Spade’s old “Definitive D&D;Guide to the Democratic Presidential Candidates” from back in 2004.  http://ace-o-spades.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_ace-o-spades_archive.html 

Gotta hand it over on this one, it’s pretty funny.

What Toyboat said! 6 geek points to the McCain campaign for the D&D;reference, however.