The Gaming Den

So, since Gygax (if not before), orcs are basically often treated as "fantasy black people," or rather, orcs are basically "stereotypes about blacks made into a species."

J.R.R. Tolkien. He had Elves as the great old landed/forested aristocracy who die out by marrying into the common Man, Dwarves as having died out and just not noticed yet because they were so isolated, and Halflings as blissfully ignorant country folk full of fine qualities that educated town sorts lack.

Orcs were what an arch-Angel did by fucking with Elves. Literally mixing their fine blood with mud to make ... well, mudbloods, not particularly subtle. Tolkien also has actual Black people, with elephants and whatnot, who are of course on Sauron's side. And mountain-peoples, and sea-peoples, and nomadic horse-peoples, and so on.

It's sort of a British Ur-myth story of Hannibal against the Romans and the old Anglo-Saxon tribes and the horrible threat of miscegenation and how awesome everything was in the past before people had to marry for money and how the Welsh aren't even a thing any more, are they?


Then D&D had Orcs for the same reason it had the Balrog and mighty Wizards and whatnot, because Tolkien fantasy was retro-popular in 1974 thanks to the rush of cheap fantasy pulp and they just stuck it all in there.

Prak wrote: So, since Gygax (if not before), orcs are basically often treated as "fantasy black people," or rather, orcs are basically "stereotypes about blacks made into a species." The other day, while thinking about this, I got the idea to sort of double down on the "orcs are fantasy black people" idea for a setting and set up that they are marginalized, highly discriminated against, and suffer many of the prejudices that blacks do in the real world. This could set up for a sort of "Black Displacer Beasts" or "Green Lives Matter" plot where orcs are fighting for civil rights.

I remember when Obama was running for president some WotC post was about "are we ready for a half orc president?" talking about orc rights movements in games and... I just didn't touch that mess. Forgotten Realms kind of did that with Many-Arrows establishing Orc-City and trade with 'good races'. It felt awkward to read.

Then again I prefer my greenskins spelled with a 'K' as hooligan monster men you can kill without guilt as they don't have mommies or daddies and pop out of the ground as war-ready adults.

If you want to do Black civil rights, how about using Black humans. Even Robert E Howard had a bit where Conan finds out those nasty not-Arabs had enslaved his old crew of not-Africans, so he went and broke their chains in an orgy of liberating violence until "the only White man alive on the boat was Conan!".

MisterDee wrote:I strongly suspect my router is dying on me. It gave me years and years of faithful service with its proud wireless-G components, so I think I will finally let it go to its rest.

Now - obviously, I need a replacement. Ideally one that works well for really cheap.

My main issue is that we now have way more than 4 devices that want connectivty. Old Faithful really had trouble with that - the TV can't connect to Netflix without kicking one of the tablets out of the wifi, and lately it's gotten worse. I was under the impression that the router could only handle four devices (you know, exactly the same amount of potential cabled connections & series of blinking lights - which would made sense since it was bought in the pre-tablet, pre-SmartTV and pre-smartphone era.)

Now, after some reading on the subject, I gather that my cargo-cultist belief in the Holy Truth of Router Holes may be misguided, at least as far a modern routers go.

In other words, can I buy the basic thirty-bucks four-slot router and still manage to have more than four devices connected to it via wi-fi?

I suspect probably so. We have DSL, so our modem and router are the same device, but they've always been able to handle more than four wireless devices.

Right now, we have hooked up three computers and a Roku via cable (4 hard connections). And two Kindle Fires, an iPod, a wifi printer, Ess' laptop, and my mom's phone. When we've had more guests than that, they've all been able to connect, no problem.

Yeah, uh, it had nothing to do with the number of holes on your router. I suspect if you hung an ethernet switch on it, it could handle many more wired connections than the four ports would imply.

The issue you were facing, I'm certain, was with saturation of the radiobands and a low-quality transceiver. This kind of radio pollution is anticipated in newly manufactured devices, and though there is of course a limit to the sort of quality you can get with thirty bucks, failure to handle more than four devices is pretty chickenshit.

In any event, I'd look into running wire to that television. It's not like you're bringing it with you when you leave the house, right?

OgreBattle wrote:

Prak wrote: So, since Gygax (if not before), orcs are basically often treated as "fantasy black people," or rather, orcs are basically "stereotypes about blacks made into a species." The other day, while thinking about this, I got the idea to sort of double down on the "orcs are fantasy black people" idea for a setting and set up that they are marginalized, highly discriminated against, and suffer many of the prejudices that blacks do in the real world. This could set up for a sort of "Black Displacer Beasts" or "Green Lives Matter" plot where orcs are fighting for civil rights.

I remember when Obama was running for president some WotC post was about "are we ready for a half orc president?" talking about orc rights movements in games and... I just didn't touch that mess. Forgotten Realms kind of did that with Many-Arrows establishing Orc-City and trade with 'good races'. It felt awkward to read.

Then again I prefer my greenskins spelled with a 'K' as hooligan monster men you can kill without guilt as they don't have mommies or daddies and pop out of the ground as war-ready adults.

If you want to do Black civil rights, how about using Black humans. Even Robert E Howard had a bit where Conan finds out those nasty not-Arabs had enslaved his old crew of not-Africans, so he went and broke their chains in an orgy of liberating violence until "the only White man alive on the boat was Conan!".

I've never gotten the feeling that D&D world has a lot of people that care much about dark-skinned humans. The closest you get there is the surface elf-drow thing. D&D world has always seemed to take the same stance as Discworld, where dwarves and goblins and such means that people care more about your species than your actual race.

OgreBattle wrote:I remember when Obama was running for president some WotC post was about "are we ready for a half orc president?"

That's hilarious. I regret that there had to be a topic attached to that title for people to post in.

Prak wrote:

OgreBattle wrote:

Prak wrote: So, since Gygax (if not before), orcs are basically often treated as "fantasy black people," or rather, orcs are basically "stereotypes about blacks made into a species." The other day, while thinking about this, I got the idea to sort of double down on the "orcs are fantasy black people" idea for a setting and set up that they are marginalized, highly discriminated against, and suffer many of the prejudices that blacks do in the real world. This could set up for a sort of "Black Displacer Beasts" or "Green Lives Matter" plot where orcs are fighting for civil rights.

I remember when Obama was running for president some WotC post was about "are we ready for a half orc president?" talking about orc rights movements in games and... I just didn't touch that mess. Forgotten Realms kind of did that with Many-Arrows establishing Orc-City and trade with 'good races'. It felt awkward to read.

Then again I prefer my greenskins spelled with a 'K' as hooligan monster men you can kill without guilt as they don't have mommies or daddies and pop out of the ground as war-ready adults.

If you want to do Black civil rights, how about using Black humans. Even Robert E Howard had a bit where Conan finds out those nasty not-Arabs had enslaved his old crew of not-Africans, so he went and broke their chains in an orgy of liberating violence until "the only White man alive on the boat was Conan!".

I've never gotten the feeling that D&D world has a lot of people that care much about dark-skinned humans. The closest you get there is the surface elf-drow thing. D&D world has always seemed to take the same stance as Discworld, where dwarves and goblins and such means that people care more about your species than your actual race.

When the Dominicans discriminate against the Haitians I'm tempted to sarcastically tell them that they're both [EDITED]. I don't because that could be taken the wrong way.

One shouldn't underestimate humanity's ability to divide into camps and hate each other for minuscule differences. If anything, the existence of fantasy races would likely make human racism worse, not better.

We noble elves might see all the humans as the same, but I assumre we that they can divide themselves into a seemingly infinite array of sub-races with differences so subtle that only another human can discern them.

Edit: And apparently I've discovered the auto-filter.

hyzmarca wrote: Edit: And apparently I've discovered the auto-filter.

Yeah, it tends to ping on words like [EDITED], [EDITED], and [EDITED] [EDITED] [EDITED] son of a [EDITED]

*snickers*

*sniggers*

I can see that fbmf is not niggardly when it comes to the auto-filter

Stahlseele wrote:

Was that the actual captioning on the show, or did someone just do that after the fact?

That and a few other things appearantly happen when you watch the series with closed captions according to reddit.
Take it with a grain of salt, i don't watch the series nor netflix and reddit is . . reddit . .

What sort of protective gear with an inch-tall person need to successfully navigate the human digestive system from start to finish without suffering significant injury?

Don't drug mules commonly swallow condoms of cocaine and heroin to transport them and then pass them? I know that they can burst, but that would be a start, wouldn't it?

hyzmarca wrote:What sort of protective gear with an inch-tall person need to successfully navigate the human digestive system from start to finish without suffering significant injury?

If you avoid teeth and don't stick in the stomach for weeks - none. Goggles and some form of oxygen mask would be helpful, but humans aren't xenomorphs, we don't really melt solid objects with our fluids.

I can't imagine hanging out in the stomach for any amount of time would be comfortable.

Prak wrote:I can't imagine hanging out in the stomach for any amount of time would be comfortable.

You'd get a rash, but stomach acid is pretty mild, you wouldn't die or even be seriously injured from bathing in it.

The hypothetical 1-inch person would probably be more vulnerable to the acid, and more susceptible to internal pressures and forces.

Frank: Do you ever not wear orange?



Just curious.

Frank does his shipping exclusively during hunting season.

The one on the far left looks like it might be just over the line into red.

Anyone have any advice on places to stay in Philly? I got some relatives going out there for the Shriner's Hospital and they were wondering.

Eikre wrote:Frank: Do you ever not wear orange?

It's been a while since I saw the pics, but I'm pretty sure they incorporated orange into their wedding.