The Giant Geek Thread. +5 to hit/+6 damage

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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This is the Giant Geek thread, for geeks and geek camp followers to talk about geek entertainments. Acceptable topics include such geek topics as computer games/video games, RPGs(The pen&paper kind, or the playstation kind) comic books/graphic novels/manga, anime and animation, sf and fantasy books/movies/tv, Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell, and martial arts movies. And, if you absolutly must, card games.

While general computer topics and the ineveitable OS comparisons are indeed geeky, they have a certain level of practical value and are thus inapropriate. Same goes for physics and math. Xena and Hurcules are both too mainstream and too crappy to be included.

And please, while in the Giant Geek Thread, if you have a healthy love life, keep it in the closet. Respect your less fortunate geek bretheren. Unless you’re a woman who’s “into” geeks, in which case, we’ll make an exception. :slight_smile:

Now, to start off, a few base topics. Please feel free to add your own.

-Thieves in AD&D really, really suck. Why is that, and how can we fix it?

-Fallout/Fallout 2 are the best computer RPGs ever. Ok , that’s not a discussion, that’s a declaration of love. :slight_smile:

-The Wheel of Time series is just Dune with the serial numbers filed off, and less gay-bashing. “I am the quesach-haderach–Uh, Dragon Reborn!”

-If all the time I put into Civ2 could have been put into, say, the space program, we’d be having this discussion on Europa.

-What’s the best RPG system? Why? Why do you refuse to admit that Hero is better? :slight_smile: (Hey, I’m asking the questions, I get to slant them any way I want)

-When did so many modern fantasy novels get downright kinky? Am I the only one who likes this? Is this anime influence, or something?

-Am I the only one having an orgasm over the fact that Lone Wolf and Cub is being reprinted?

-Is Macross Plus better than Akira/GiTS/Santuary/Perfect Blue? How about Eva/Escaflowne/Cowboy BeBop?

-Have you ever had a dream about a computer game? An RPG? An anime character? An erotic dream about any of the above?

-If an X wing/Tie fighter fought a Valkerie or a Starfury, who would win? How about a B-Wing vs the YF-21?

-Is Chaos Dragon Gaav the coolest villan ever, or what?

-Where the hell is the next Song of Fire and Ice book? Wasn’t that supposed to come out in the middle of summer?

-Am I the only person who’s read Blade of the Immortal? How about Gold Digger?

Damn. List HTML dosen’t work.

–
“I haven’t read Tolken in over a week!”

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I’m one of those girls who loves geeks. I find them far more interesting than the regular Joe Schmoe who parks his ass in front of the tube for the weekend’s sports (not that I’ve ever turned my nose up at a good football game).

Got into playing Cyberpunk for a while, GM’ed a few times when living in Alaska (and had too much time on my hands). Haven’t played in a long time, though, because my ex took all of my books, and I don’t know anyone else who plays the game.

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[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Ura-Maru *
**
-Thieves in AD&D really, really suck. Why is that, and how can we fix it?*

They don’t suck, they were just made to multi-class.

-If all the time I put into Civ2 could have been put into, say, the space program, we’d be having this discussion on Europa.

no kidding.

Remember the little room in the basement of the college, with no windows? And that old beat up couch with the the pocked table that always had like 8 guys around it?

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I guess with civ2 you found that you could change all the gifs and rules and basically make your own new game? I did, it almost cost me my marriage. :slight_smile:

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What if I have a girlfriend who likes geeks?

I agree with your view of Fallout/Fallout II wholeheartedly. I never got much into AD&D (I always associated it with ADD).

Oh damn you! I had almost weened myself from CivII, but I feel it calling to me again…

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Yay, another lover of “geek boys” as AudreyK puts it!

And on to some of the questions:
Yeah, the thieves suck, unless you have a really creative DM (and even then, they’re only good for finding stuff) or if you multi-class and can move up around for a few good backstabs.

Yes, Fallout and Fallout 2 are probably the most fun computer RPGs, though I have to put a vote in for Baldur’s Gate (which I never got to finish due to file corruption of some sort) as well. Betrayal at Krondor was also great - probably had the best actual story - though it was a really quick game to beat. Never picked up the sequel, though… :frowning:

On to the anime… If I watched Macross Plus (the DVDs are on their way - to me, that is - as we speak!), I could answer. As it is, I refer to my usual statement that it’s never fair to compare an anime series to a feature movie, or OAV series, so I’ll probably end up saying Eva, Escaflowne, and Cowboy Bebop is better.

Skipping ahead, the Valkerie and YF-21 would win their respective battles. Battleoid mode’s manueverability combined with a few full loads of missiles should take care of things fairly quickly.

And, um, that’s pretty much all I’m getting into, g’nite.

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I’ve said it before: glasses a plus. :smiley:

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Let me tell you about my coolest Civilization moment.

I was playing as the Vampyres. The last civilization with any power left was the Germans. I had made some inroads onto their island, but the ground war was really bogging down. Ground wars will do that, you know? So I built a whole passel of nukes. I held them while I snuck a transport ship with some troops right next to the heart of their civilization. I blew up their four biggest cities, occupied them with my troops, and quickly set about destroying the Germans. The power graph that is displayed at the end of the game looked terrific – right at about 1940 or so, the Germans’ line dropped like a stone.

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You ain’t seen Geek 'til you’ve been to this thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=23098

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Well, ya know, JavaMaven1, I’ve been meaning to start up a campaign agian . . . :slight_smile:

Back in the closet, Monster. Nobody gets to talk about thier relationship until I get into another one. Anyone who wants to help me out in that regard, knock yourself out. :slight_smile:

I agree. I ment to compare the movies to the movies and the TV shows to the TV shows.

Someone else in north america actually saw Perfect Blue? Wow. :slight_smile:

Yeah, but did you yell I’ll bomb you into the stone age! before you did it?

–
“I’m really sorry about this.”

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After reading the OP, I wrinkled my forehead and was simultaneously perplexed, disgusted, and very amused. Now, I’m somewhat of a geek myself, but jeez, I just don’t get the whole Star Trek thing.

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I’m really suprised no one ever mentions Berserk in any anime discussions I ever see. It’s by far the best anime I have ever seen. Dragonball is also extremely good, although whoever does translations/editing for cartoon network has completely maimed it.

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Was it relesed commercially in the US yet? A lot of anime fans don’t do the whole fansub thing anymore, now that so much anime is commercially available.
DBZ comes in two flavors. The pretty well dubbed but horribly cut original run, and the horribly horribly dubed but less cut Cartoon Network version. Which one do you mean? :slight_smile:

“Something else created by Satan: japanimation!”

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We picked up some star wars ones & Mark (my other half, whom I met while looking at a spiral bookstand with Batman graphic novels on - a geek romance! Oh, his favourite occupation is stripping out his registry & his system directory, & retyping the keys & file names…with his capitals as he likes them - that’s beyond geekdom!) spent ages cleaning up the icons, getting new icons from other sources, adjusting relative hit rates to be more realistic getting screen shots from the star wars games & cleaning them up, & adding the logo to make start screens for each scenario…& I now have SW scenarios for endor, yavin, hoth, galaxy one - I must suggest he tackles Phantom Menace, it can’t be any worse than the film!

Monster - how could you nearly cure yourself of civ? Impossible (& undesirable anyway).

I guess I must be one of those that like nerds/geeks too…

I’ve started playing majesty for light relief recently, but it’s going to have to wait till October now, till I finish my C++ & database courses…& then I’m going to learn vb & javascript before I start the next courses in Feb…but I still go back to Civ, I’m half way down the list of other peoples scenarios again!

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No, I think I was so incredibly excited at the thought of unleashing titanic nuclear destruction that I forgot to think up a slogan. Wish I had.

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I always favored, “I’ll turn your capital into a parking lot” as a slogan for CivII nuking myself. To each their own I suppose.

I may be the luckiest geek on the planet…

Mrs Chance is a wonderful woman.
Mrs Chance is a babe.
Mrs Chance reads Science Fiction and Fantasy
Mrs Chance plays D&D with me and my pals
Mrs Chance thinks thick glasses are da bomb on guys
Mrs Chance is a software developer and network admin

I quote my brothers, the twins (16 years younger than I am and also geeks) when they discovered that some girls like RPGs and computers and dating geeks and that I had managed to marry one:

“That’s SOOOOO cool!”

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The next Song of Ice and Fire book is called A Storm of Swords and will be out in hardback in September.

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That would be cool… I loved those Star Wars mods. The one that consumed me was my “Magic - The Gathering” mod. I divided the units into 6 categories. 5 were for the different colors and the 6th was for common cards/artifacts/instants. Each advance represented a new spell/summoning ability. (I had 5 tech trees- eeesh)

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Okay, here I am. ‘Geek chick.’ NEVER been a time when somebody’s wanted to game and I’ve said no. I will game anytime, anyplace. It’s shameless. Man, I love RPG.

It gets worse…had a dream two weeks ago about opening up a big, beautiful chest (rolled successfully for find and remove traps, apparently) and inside its infinite darkness shone the new 3rd edition D&D. “Ahhhhhhh”
Just call me Pandora.

I’m hopeless.

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Oh, I am sooo a geek. :slight_smile:

I love reading (and writing) Sci-fi/Fantasy stories.
I play RPG and Sim games on the computer and console.
My gaming group experiments with any system we can get our hands on. Plus we generally have two games going at any time. We just launched GURPS Mecha last night (anyone have some battle tips for a Valkerie VS. a Defender?)For our secondary game we’ll be starting AD&D 3rd edition on Labor day weekend.

As for dating geeks, my husband just about fainted when, early in our dating, he found out that not only did I not mind when he would play AD&D on Saturdays but I wanted to join the campaign. :wink:

chrisbar