Real Men Don't Play GURPS

[Agemegos]

Real readers recognise irony.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The last time I made a character for AD&D (2e) the DM said "roll dice until you come up with a set you like." I rolled 25 sets of stats and still finished 45 minutes before his wife did. I did have an 18 DEX, 17 ST, 16 Con and no stat below 12.

Do I really need to say that that phenomenally stupid stat-determination method is not what you'd find in the rulebooks?

[Cybren]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do I really need to say that that phenomenally stupid stat-determination method is not what you'd find in the rulebooks?

Sure it is, you just have to get your PC killed if you don't like the stats. They just expedited things.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do I really need to say that that phenomenally stupid stat-determination method is not what you'd find in the rulebooks?

Some Real Man somewhere may claim to play old school D&D exactly by the books but I have not found this to be common. The last time I played AD&D 1e there were even more House Rules.

It was endemic to the games of the era. My college roommate and I spent so much time first deciphering and then patching Chivalry & Sorcery 1e that we'd eventually changed everything and called the game something else.

This si just one of those reasons why I'm not interested in elaborate House Rules for Gurps. I have a hard-won sense of perspective and recognize when the perfect is the enemy of the good enough much less the actual play experience.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Brett

Real readers recognise irony.

It'd be more accurate to label it satire.

[Blood Legend]

• Real men recognize the difference between Irony and Satire.

lol

I also must admit, I was reading quiche terribly wrong until someone elaborated.

Keesh is delicious.

[Raekai]

Real Men think this is one of the funniest threads to come about in quite some time.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Langy

It'd be more accurate to label it satire.

Yes, so it would. I could make an argument that it was both, but satire is the more fitting description.

[jfowler]

This thread reminded me of a document we passed around in our D&D group back in the early 80's in high school. It was called 'Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies & Munchkins'. It was great. And, due to the wonders of the Internets, I find that this document still exists, in many forms - e.g.

http://dragon.facetieux.free.fr/jdr/Munchkin.htm

This one seems to be pretty similar to what I recall from back then. I'm not clear on the details of the origin of this categorization (there is some info on the page above), nor how we came to find it at the time (could it have been in the Dragon or Space Gamer?)

Anyway, I'm sure some of you might have some insight or memories. And is this where the name 'Munchkin' came from for the SJG card game?

Maybe I'm stating the obvious here - Bill Stoddard, at least, seems to be referencing it, earlier in the thread. Anyway, I appreciate this thread for dredging up some fun memories. The list is still pretty darn funny -

[PseudoFenton]

Originally Posted by Brett

Real readers recognise irony.

Yeah, unfortunately though when dealing with subjective opinions like this, it can be hard to distinguish sincere views from satirical ones.

Luckily if you scroll to the bottom and look at the links you can find things like this:

Originally Posted by Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal

• Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTOs.
• Real Programmers can write five page long DO loops without getting confused.
• Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements-- they make the code more interesting.
• Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.
• Real Programmers don't need comments-- the code is obvious.

Which is much easier to identify the intended humour, as it's a less subjective field of interest - ie, there are more 'correct' ways to program. You'd be hard pressed to conclude the same about gaming though, and it can often be the case that people saying such things are being genuine.