Spoony's PnP Tales

[hello friend]

Wow. Counter Monkey has really declined. I'm not exaggerating when I say that video has less than three minutes' worth of content. Spread out over 43 minutes and a half. Good job milking that Patreon, Spoonman.

 

[Havoc]

The second part, the GM fucked up royally. Didn't explain shit. Misread (or Spoony remembered wrong) the setting (it's about declining gifts 3 times, not tea). Also, the players weren't too inviting to the player and since they wanted him there, they should be helping him understand the world.

I wonder if Spoony would liked Wick's Honor & Blood game.

 

[Xathrodox86]

The second part, the GM fucked up royally. Didn't explain shit. Misread (or Spoony remembered wrong) the setting (it's about declining gifts 3 times, not tea). Also, the players weren't too inviting to the player and since they wanted him there, they should be helping him understand the world.

I wonder if Spoony would liked Wick's Honor & Blood game.

I think that Spoony himself is a case of "That GM", albeit a mild one. I'd still like to play with him. Seems like a guy who's passionate about his hobby.

 

[Caim]

The second part, the GM fucked up royally. Didn't explain shit. Misread (or Spoony remembered wrong) the setting (it's about declining gifts 3 times, not tea). Also, the players weren't too inviting to the player and since they wanted him there, they should be helping him understand the world.

I wonder if Spoony would liked Wick's Honor & Blood game.

From what I've read in the comments attacking a Shugenja is a big no-no in Legend of the Five Rings, and going for overkill like that would have earned you your ancestors screaming at you and the shame you brought upon them in your dreams every night for the rest of your life. Also, he could indeed have gone with a different kind of duel, like caligraphy or poetry.

 

[Lhynn]

Ive had similar experiences to his before, enjoyed the video thoroughly because of that.

From what I've read in the comments attacking a Shugenja is a big no-no in Legend of the Five Rings, and going for overkill like that would have earned you your ancestors screaming at you and the shame you brought upon them in your dreams every night for the rest of your life. Also, he could indeed have gone with a different kind of duel, like caligraphy or poetry.

Ignorance mate, he knew nothing of the setting to begin with. He was a 17 year old brat when it happened too if i remember correctly.

 

[Bradylama]

Wow. Counter Monkey has really declined. I'm not exaggerating when I say that video has less than three minutes' worth of content. Spread out over 43 minutes and a half. Good job milking that Patreon, Spoonman.

Whining and exasperated pauses still count.

 

[Ninjerk]

L5R CRPG

 

[Akasen]

You know, it was always a stupid idea for Counter Monkey to be anything more than a blog where Spoony just talks about his RPG experience in the past. There have been some nice videos where he elaborated his thoughts and opinions on how a game can be ran or the ones where he has told some legitimately great stories from past games. But now, it's just petering out since the past only has so much to offer.

It probably would have been great if his one Pathfinder streams didn't die. Heck, I'd love it if LordKat got his shit together and just tried to stream another series of games on his end with his friends.

 

[Echo Mirage]

After Lordkat dropped every nuke in his arsenal on Spoony all for the honour of one fan. I don't think the two will ever cross paths again.

Nor do I think "Forgiveness" is in Lordkats vocabulary. Which is a shame since I watched a couple of there Pathfinder games and the "we were fighting like men!" and the flaming bedroll were quite funny.

 

[Akasen]

No fuck the idea of the two working together. It's apparent that will never happen with the amount of circle jerking he and his companions do on their livestream. I seem to pop in whenever the topic of the day for them is "Fuck TGWTG" or "Fuck Spoony". Funny enough, I very much doubt Spoony is in any way aware of the the guys beef with him at all.

All LordKat needs to do is just succeed his Wyrmwick campaign or something and in theory I'd be listening to that every day.

 

[Xathrodox86]

You know, it was always a stupid idea for Counter Monkey to be anything more than a blog where Spoony just talks about his RPG experience in the past. There have been some nice videos where he elaborated his thoughts and opinions on how a game can be ran or the ones where he has told some legitimately great stories from past games. But now, it's just petering out since the past only has so much to offer.

It probably would have been great if his one Pathfinder streams didn't die. Heck, I'd love it if LordKat got his shit together and just tried to stream another series of games on his end with his friends.

He should make more videos with advice for both players and GM's. I really like the one about Problem Players, mainly because I had one in my group a few years ago.

 

[Caim]

On alignments and roleplaying.



I could not help but notice that the comments are disabled, both on youtube and his website.

 

[Havoc]

Ugh, that Chaotic Neutral arguments... no, no, and again, no.

 

[TheGreatOne]

I could not help but notice that the comments are disabled, both on youtube and his website.

The last 6 months he's been doing nothing more than vlogs and 1 board game review while getting paid 5k+ a month so the criticism has started becoming more and more vocal. Easier way to solve the problem than doing actual work.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

3 years and still no FATAL, fuck this little bobhair tit.

Apparently he won't do it because he considers it a joke.
Still an infamous RPG though.

 

[hello friend]

This one was pretty good, I think. Maybe it's the alchohol.

 

[Shadenuat]

His view on Chaotic Neutral is indeed a bit... eh, noob? It's true some people pick that because they think they will be able to do whatever they want, but I also played with those people when I was 13.
I don't understand why people need a set in stone set of behavioural patterns for every alignment. So you're lawful good, a character who tries to combine respect to some laws and also try and do good in the world. That's it, you can take it into many directions, and use all sorts of archetypes. You can make a lawful good mercenary, or a wizard, you don't have to be Superman.
I really love how PS:T did it. Unlike any other IE game, instead of a whole page of text for every alignment, PS:T had just these short memos for every one in a tooltip. "Neutral good people don't care for law or chaos but tend to do good things", like that. Each of them was very open to interpretation which was also reinforced greatly by things like Chaotic Good dead flying skull or lawful neutral mercykiller whom many would probably concider to be heartless chaotic evil. And by the fact that it could change through the game by your actions.

So it didn't feel like some sort of a stigma you get and have to live with for the whole game, which I think is one type of fear some people have when they don't want to choose an alignment that carries some weight with it - a lawful good is something that feels like will bring more moral dilemmas everywhere you go than, say, TN.

Heck when designing some games, I actually used those tips and, when questions arised, if any, just explained everything to a player in person. Interestingly enough because we did not put so much stress on what every alignment is and only used these PS:T-like very short and loose explanations, we also had little to no problems with alignments. Guess one of the ways to do it is just not overthink it. It really helps.

Dammit, even Bioware did it right. Their lawful good's in BG were sometimes just as human and unreliable (Keldorn forgetting about his family, or attacking Viconia) just as chaotic neutrals loyal and caring (Jan caring for the girl, or Haer'Dalis for his troup).

Well in the end Spoony did make an interesting comparison to paragon playthroughs. It's interesting how in their own game, their own story people often want everything to be perfect. Like a caring mother, they try to make every companion survive, and every quest follow with a positive outcome. But when in another's game they just act like dicks.
I guess the moral is, people are dicks to other people and only care for their own worlds and stories

 

[Lhynn]

Na, hes right, most people play CN to avoid any accountability for their actions, experience has shown him that, in fact ive seen it too many many times, especially in open ended games. CN simply dont need to worry about their alignment, and while yeah, i agree that it is not the most accurate interpretation of said alignment, you really cant argue against that point of view either.
Also on another note, common misconception is that alignment = personality, but you can have stuff like a really calm and collected chaotic evil character. You can have lawful evils that behave generously towards kids, lawful good characters that hate a race and will attack with them little or no provocation, even if it means backstabbing them, etc.

I opted years ago to treat alignment more as a guide of where the character may stand in certain issues than something to enforce, and has worked rather well. no arguments over it, players can be trusted to mostly do what they are supposed to do, and when they dont its because it pertains to something more personal, a conflict in their world views maybe. It creates a more interesting roleplaying experience.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Ugh, that Chaotic Neutral arguments... no, no, and again, no.

No kidding. Wandered into this thread and watched that video as the first I've heard of him or seen him 'cause I'm procrastinating like a motherfucker and 2 minutes in I was losing it. Doubt I'll watch the whole half hour so maybe it improves, but I was with him on being bummed that not many people want to play lawful good, but ragging on playing various neutrals and especially chaotic neutral is kinda shit. Unless you're playing with storyfags (Which I never really have) the neutral alignments generally work better for adventuring parties since you're a group of jerks out to get rich. Having enough gold that you melt it into a ball the size of the moon you leave floating on the astral plane isn't the end goal of pen and paper RPGing but when you're playing for loot and tacticool turn based dice rolling it kinda is. Even evil alignments generally work better with that since you still often play a selfish character you just take it farther.

Ugh. Pressed play on the video to go a little more. Just said chaotic neutral can't (Or generally can't) care about money and are flighty/insane/anarchist. Guy's a boob. Video bad. Thread bad. RPGs bad.

 

[TheGreatOne]

Ugh. Pressed play on the video to go a little more. Just said chaotic neutral can't (Or generally can't) care about money and are flighty/insane/anarchist. Guy's a boob. Video bad. Thread bad. RPGs bad.

That's his gimmick really. He bitches about things and tells his viewers/twitter followers how wrong every one of them is and how he's the only one who's got it right, how their opinions are shit and how they play things the wrong way despite the fact that his own opinions are often uninformed/wrong and that he can't take any kind of criticism, he'll just block any one who calls him out on his BS. His vlog stuff is more about massaging his ego than being informative.

 

[J_C]

His view about CN characters might be arguable, but the video was interesting and fun to watch. In the later parts he is not talking about CNs but about lawful goods, and he is right about them. It is dumb to dismiss his opinion as a whole.

But this is the Codex of course, so if you are wrong about one thing, than you can'T be right about anything in the world.

 

[Havoc]

His view about CN characters might be arguable, but the video was interesting and fun to watch. In the later parts he is not talking about CNs but about lawful goods, and he is right about them. It is dumb to dismiss his opinion as a whole.

But this is the Codex of course, so if you are wrong about one thing, than you can'T be right about anything in the world.

But he is wrong in the latter part, because (from another thread)

I've only watched half of the vid so far, but his "Advantages of being Lawful Good" are actually not really advantages of the alignment but of a specific characters backstory.
Even though they might be more common with LG characters, nevertheless they don't automatically come with it, imho.

Being LG doesn't automatically mean that the city watch will like you, that the ruler will invite you to shit. What he is talking about is backstory, shit even Chaotic PCs can have. You can have a Chaotic character that works with the local city watch. You can have a Chaotic character that will be, because of that, invited by the ruler and be asked to work for him. Bah! Even Chaotic Neutral characters can understand that working with the rulers can give them boons. They may not like it, but they aren't stupid.

He is right in one aspect - people playing Paragon in ME, but don't want to play (with) LG characters. This boils down to one thing - shitty players.

 

[Caim]

He is right in one aspect - people playing Paragon in ME, but don't want to play (with) LG characters. This boils down to one thing - shitty players.

I think his whole "either Paragon or Renegade" point illustrated the whole problem with Mass Effect: you are EITHER a Paragon OR a Renegade. Going Paragade will just mean you get the short end of two shafts. Kind of the problem with Bioware games, really. No nuance: it's an either/or case.

But which came first? Games with the lack of nuance that made players have a black and white worldview? Or players who lack the ability to think in nuance wanted games with more clear-cut morality?

 

[Gord]

Bah! Even Chaotic Neutral characters can understand that working with the rulers can give them boons. They may not like it, but they aren't stupid.

Exactly, he's really mixing up different things there that don't necessarily depend on each other.
I can kinda understand him wanting to see more LG characters, but his examples are largely nonsense. If I roll a lawful-good peasant he's more likely to be invited by the lord than my chaotic good bard of great renown? He can walk up to the city watch and will be given some coffee and donuts, while my neutral good fighter will be driven off?

But which came first? Games with the lack of nuance that made players have a black and white worldview? Or players who lack the ability to think in nuance wanted games with more clear-cut morality?

Black and white worldview is quite common in fiction, be it stories, movies or games. Partly because some genres like fantasy lend itself to it ("good" beautiful elves vs "evil" ugly orcs, etc). Partly maybe because it's alluding to our sense of justice when the good hero character prevails and the evil villain gets punished.

In case of games, I think it's to a good part because it's the easy thing to do. Writing a nuanced story with nuanced choices takes much more effort and it's definitely questionable if most players will appreciate or even recognise it.
That being said, I think not all Bioware games are necessarily all black/white. DA:O had a lot of grey areas and nuanced C&C going on, for example.

 

[Lhynn]

That's his gimmick really. He bitches about things and tells his viewers/twitter followers how wrong every one of them is and how he's the only one who's got it right, how their opinions are shit and how they play things the wrong way despite the fact that his own opinions are often uninformed/wrong and that he can't take any kind of criticism, he'll just block any one who calls him out on his BS. His vlog stuff is more about massaging his ego than being informative.

What? i never felt he was bitching at me, just in general, its a manner of speaking. why the retardedly unjustified hate?