Bay 12 Games Forum

It's been stated previously that those four "schools" are for big-time, ritual-type spells; (comparatively) large scale, large cost, large setup. There is (or was, anyway) a second way of doing magic intended, which was mentioned as being more free-form and combat-centered. I'd imagine various status-inflicting spells (Which most illusion-type things would fit under, in some sense) would fall easily under the latter style.

This has come up a few times in the thread already, heh.

Because society. Mostly. There's a long history of gender roles pretty much everywhere. Gods only know how they came about (and they vary and at-times invert depending on the culture, which basically equates as hard proof they've no or little inherent weight.), but they're there, and most people can't be arsed to go beyond them, or have had the roles so heavily hammered into them by their culture that it's basically ingrained. Fighting that kind of training is an absolute vicious conflict.

Plus it's a lot harder to be just human. Male, female, that sort of thing gives you certain set behavior patterns, certain set goals, etc. They basically allow you to fit yourself into a mold and autopilot large amounts of your behavioral patterns, and do so in a way that interaction with other people is much more reliable (You're working from similar axioms, basically.).

"Just human" takes a lot more of a personal, existential, laying of groundwork to get functioning, and a lot more effort to maintain, at least until other sorts of axioms come into play or are laid down between people. Self-identifying as human instead of "Male, female, <insert other role>" takes a great deal of training, really, and immense self-reflection if it's not something taught from a young age (Which, again, gender roles are massively prevalent in most cultures, so it's generally not.). It's not helped by our biological focus on (relatively) small groups and in/out group recognition.

And... and... ... and it's one o'clock, this is a massively complicated subject, and I really need sleep. I'm leaving the ramble as is, I think. Just human would be a lot better. We can find meaningful things to draw in/out group distinction around and establish regular social norms in relation to, not stuff as damned pointless as (lack of) dangly bits. Biggest hurdle is getting the majority of the human species to actually realize how damned pointless it is. Most (absolute majority, here) don't.

Aw, don't worry. They're waiting for you to go to sleep

You'll be fine until then.

.... wait, Mechwarrior 3 was on the Xbox? What? Color me confused... it is pretty ancient, though.

In other news, you do know MW4's free on the PC, right? Could probably drum up some folks to play that one pretty easily.

Sidin' with the golem-makers. Puppy Midget power!

Wait, wait. There was a Romancing SaGa game for the PSX? Or...

Oh. The SaGa Frontier stuff? Yeah, they're alright. The SNES ones felt a lot more coherent to me, which is troubling considering how patchy the fantranses are and how nonlinear th'bloody things were. Iirc, 3's mostly playable, but I don't think 2 ever got anything really shoved through for it. Few things in the works, but...

Anyway, my obligatory mention is for Black Sigil, on the NDS. It's surprisingly decent, and very much old-school.

Thaat'd be because the majority of homosexual resistance tends to come from heterosexual members of the own gender, rather than the opposite*. Given that males still have a greater overall power bloc in most of the world, it's not surprising there's a heavier cultural lashout against male homosexuality than female.

*Everything anecdotal I've seen point to a general trend toward finding homosexual relationships in the opposite gender to be kinda' sexy. I've met exactly one man in my life that didn't find lesbian relationships to be arousing, personally. As for the opposite, I just kinda' wave vaguely toward fanfiction (absolutely infested with females writing stories heavily involving male homosexual relationships) and shounen ai/yaoi manga. My personal, completely unsupported, theory is that if you find something attractive (read: The opposite gender.), then multiplying that can't help but be better.