[HN Gopher] The Most Shameful RPG Dice (2009)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Most Shameful RPG Dice (2009)
        
       Author : ohjeez
       Score  : 118 points
       Date   : 2022-04-30 16:29 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.toplessrobot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.toplessrobot.com)
        
       | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
       | > 10) The D6 Alignment Dice
       | 
       | > However, if you are too lazy to use your imagination to decide
       | what alignment a character might be, then maybe role-playing
       | isn't for you. If you can't make in your choice in your head
       | whether Grongor the Dwarven Fighter likes to save women and
       | children or save women and children for dinner, then I think the
       | whole "story-telling adventure" thing is too taxing for you.
       | 
       | I dunno, I think it's more fun to explore all the options. Maybe
       | Grongor is secretly evil, maybe Grongor is secretly good, maybe
       | Grongor doesn't care and is just in it for the money.
        
         | HelloNurse wrote:
         | People are more biased than a d6. Setting aside multi-
         | generation debates about the notion of moral alignments, a
         | rolled alignment is only "wrong" if it doesn't meet
         | stereotypical expectations.
        
       | HelloNurse wrote:
       | Weak research, I have at least 4 out of 10 in my dice collection,
       | some improved (my "d1000" set has 10 or 11 digits, newer and
       | rarer d100 makes in addition to the old Zocchi patent, both d4
       | numbering schemes...).
        
       | eternityforest wrote:
       | I disagree on the crystal dice. I don't think I would be happy if
       | a game design chose to use them, but at least the idea is cool,
       | because who doesn't love barrels? They're historical! They're
       | fantasy! They're still used today!
       | 
       | Beer? Or gunpowder? Or maybe even a hiding place!
        
       | Semaphor wrote:
       | > The D1000
       | 
       | > This is also insane. Really, the justification for doing this
       | is for very large probability tables.
       | 
       | That's indeed crazy. As every Hackmaster [0] player knows, you
       | need a D10,000 to roll for critical hit locations [1]. The
       | severity range goes up to 24 btw. And there is a table for
       | hacking, crunching and puncturing weapons each. Followed by 4
       | pages of skeletons, muscle structures and organs of a human to
       | explain where all those locations are, exactly.
       | 
       | But what am I saying, maybe you rolled a fumble or mishap, in
       | that case you do indeed need your d1,000 [2].
       | 
       | FWIW, this is a D&D 1st ed based game that has multiple
       | possibilities of dying during character creation ;)
       | 
       | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HackMaster
       | 
       | [1]: https://i.imgur.com/FIljuga.png
       | 
       | [2]: https://i.imgur.com/13xVopQ.png
        
         | mcguire wrote:
         | " _The current 5th edition has removed most of the parody
         | aspects, and contains game mechanics written from scratch in
         | order to avoid any intellectual property problems._ "
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HackMaster)
         | 
         | The holy what?
        
         | hef19898 wrote:
         | It is good to see that DSA, Das Schwarze Auge or The Dark Eye,
         | isn't the most complex system with rolling talents with three
         | D20 against three attributes. Except for talent, which replaces
         | the 3D20 with a single D20 against an average of attributes,
         | different ones for attacks and parries or ranged attacks, and
         | then compares the margins of success between rolls. Don't ask
         | how magic works, I never figured that one out so I stuck with
         | fighting characters.
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | DSA. Hated pretty much everything about it (both 3rd and 4th
           | edition at least). From the rules to the setting (though I
           | did enjoy the video games).
           | 
           | > Don't ask how magic works, I never figured that one out so
           | I stuck with fighting characters.
           | 
           | I was playing a mage. I was also the only one who understood
           | how magic worked. The only time I did something useful was
           | the day I was sick, and they had my character use a
           | quarterstaff to bash someone on their head -.-
        
             | hef19898 wrote:
             | 4th Edition isn't too bad, besides needing a BA degree for
             | the basic rules and a Masters for magic. Not that I ever
             | cared about magic. The setting is nice, as are some of the
             | non-mainstream medieval cultures. It took dive, IMHO, with
             | the start of 5th edition.
             | 
             | Being the only one who gets the magic rules, playing a
             | mage, should be quite power gamer move!
             | 
             | EDIT: The most useful spells I ever encountered were those
             | forcing NPCs to do what you want, burn NPCs or make someone
             | super fast.
        
               | q-big wrote:
               | > 4th Edition isn't too bad, besides needing a BA degree
               | for the basic rules and a Masters for magic.
               | 
               | Which is a requirement that should rather trivially be
               | fulfilled by the HN audience. :-)
        
               | bitexploder wrote:
               | I think you need a degree /in/ the game system.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | We always used scientific notation. A red die was always used
         | to represent the exponent, a white die for the mantissa.
         | 
         | (Sorry, that was just a joke.)
        
         | golem14 wrote:
         | Haven't played Rolemaster much, have you ? :)
        
           | louissan wrote:
           | Character: "I need to wee-wee"
           | 
           | DM: "Roll 1d100, open-ended."
        
             | louissan wrote:
             | 01 "Hu-ho"
             | 
             | Rolls 1d100 on the Plasma Critical hit table.
             | 
             | "you Large or Superlarge?"
             | 
             | "nope"
             | 
             | Rolls 66.
             | 
             | Give me your sheet.
        
           | SubiculumCode wrote:
           | You know, Rolemaster actually might be fun to run in Foundry
           | VTT where a lot of those tables get automated!
        
           | Semaphor wrote:
           | Never, actually. But now that you mention it, the GM who
           | introduced me to Hackmaster also mentioned it as a crazy
           | example :D
        
         | Folcon wrote:
         | I've got to ask, does this sort of thing actually create
         | interesting gameplay decisions?
         | 
         | Does gameplay actually end up feeling fun in practice?
         | 
         | Are the tables interesting themselves to lookup or is that just
         | "the bad bit"?
         | 
         | Do you as a player, or anyone you've played with spend time
         | scrutinising the tables for crafting better characters?
         | 
         | Are there interesting types of actions or manoeuvres that you
         | can perform so you get more interesting strategic play?
         | 
         | Does combat feel like a duel for example?
         | 
         | I'm curious as I do sometimes sit down and write simulators for
         | things like this and I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to source
         | the books and see if this sort of complex branching decision-
         | making actually provides some interesting gameplay =)...
         | 
         | EDIT: Any good crunchy book suggestions of stuff to look at
         | which might be interesting to simulate?
        
           | simonh wrote:
           | Hackmaster dialled this all up to 11 because it's essentially
           | an extended joke in rulebook form. It was original referenced
           | as the game played by the characters in a gaming cartoon
           | strip, and only became an actual thing years later. A lot of
           | the outcomes on the tables are there for laughs.
           | 
           | There are more serious games that had lots of tables, like
           | Rolemaster, and basically the idea is for the game system to
           | generate a wide variety problems and situations for the
           | players to deal with, in combat but also in encounters and
           | such. This takes some load off the GM by providing a lot of
           | variety without preparation, but also because these outcomes
           | are generated by the rules, the players can't claim the GM is
           | picking on them by imposing nasty consequences arbitrarily.
           | It's just one school of game design though.
        
             | Folcon wrote:
             | Ok interesting =), so I guess what you're saying is
             | Rolemaster does create some interesting gameplay decisions,
             | but Hackmaster is unplayable?
             | 
             | Is that fair?
             | 
             | Not sure what your position is on the other questions, if
             | you've played a lot of either I mean.
        
               | Semaphor wrote:
               | HM was absolutely playable (I only know the original 4th
               | edition), but it was created by a company making RPG
               | comics (specifically, it was the, until then, imaginary
               | system the characters in Kights of the Dinner Table
               | played), so it does not take itself super serious.
               | 
               | The super-detailed tables mostly don't matter. It's not
               | as if you'd know the shorter ones by heart, so you either
               | look them up anyway, or you (what we did) have a small
               | program on the GMs laptop.
               | 
               | As with most roleplaying games, almost everything lives
               | and dies with the skill of your GM to make it work and to
               | a lesser part with the skill of your players (and by
               | skill I mean ability to get into a flow with everyone
               | else)
               | 
               | Our first session ended in (Chaotic Neutral with a bit of
               | evil) me accidentally killing the party fighter and him
               | re-rolling a Paladin that did not like me. And I got
               | critically hit by his thrown pebble after clapping at a
               | funeral.
        
               | Folcon wrote:
               | Thanks for the clarification, 100% any roleplaying game
               | is GM skill dependant.
               | 
               | It seems like the nice thing you get here is that some
               | people went and came up with a whole bunch of stuff that
               | could happen which could be good fodder for "fail
               | forward"[0] style outcomes?
               | 
               | - [0]: https://mythcreants.com/blog/why-mouse-guard-
               | handles-failure...
        
               | apocolyps6 wrote:
               | > 100%
               | 
               | There are games that democratize the power of the GM a
               | bit. Very traditional RPGs are into putting pressure on
               | the GM to be a one-man band for the players'
               | entertainment, but the more "modern" ones share the
               | authority, get the players involved in worldbuilding
               | and/or expect the players to be proactive (rather than
               | just respond to the GM)
        
               | platz wrote:
               | > And I got critically hit by his thrown pebble after
               | clapping at a funeral.
               | 
               | That sounds epic.
        
               | plorkyeran wrote:
               | A very important detail about HackMaster 4e was that
               | their license with WotC for the AD&D 1e things allowed
               | them to publish a _parody_ of AD &D 1e. They absolutely
               | set out to create a fun and playable game (and IMO
               | succeeded), but everything was contractually obligated to
               | have an element of ridiculousness. On top of the
               | generally lighthearted and joking prose, a big part of
               | how they did this was to take the convoluted parts of 1e
               | that later editions simplified away and instead make them
               | over the top. 1e had lots and lots of overly specific
               | lookup tables for things which later editions replaced
               | with more general rules, so HM doubled down on that and
               | made the tables even more gratuitously detailed.
               | 
               | If you set aside the humor aspect, HM is a game that
               | plays very similarly to 1e, but more fleshed out and with
               | a lot of assorted improvements.
        
               | simonh wrote:
               | >1e had lots and lots of overly specific lookup tables
               | for things
               | 
               | For example the infamous Harlot table where you could
               | roll for the precise form of loose woman you encounter. A
               | different time, for sure.
        
         | jedimastert wrote:
         | www.reddit.com/r/d100/ is a subreddit devoted to making 100
         | count lookup tables for random events and objects
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | Related to RoleMaster?
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolemaster
        
       | krylon wrote:
       | I used to own a D100, used it about two times. I wouldn't call it
       | "shameful", but it was a silly idea to create one, and it was
       | silly of me to buy one.
        
       | Benanov wrote:
       | Regarding the d34:
       | 
       | 3d34-2 is N(1,100)
       | 
       | Esoteric systems that wanted normal distributions could use that
       | for statistics.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | scelerat wrote:
       | I have one of those Zocchihedrons, a d100. They missed the d30,
       | with diamond-shaped faces, also a completely useless die.
        
       | mturk wrote:
       | I really like the "funky dice" that get used in Dungeon Crawl
       | Classics [1], like the D5 which shows up here. Also, it's
       | probably worth noting that Lou Zocchi had at least four major
       | iterations of the Zocchihedron (d100), with different braking
       | mechanisms, and that they're basically impossible to obtain in
       | the last couple years. He lost a fair bit of his work in a fire
       | [2] and had some major health problems [3] last year as well.
       | 
       | As a sidenote, I'm not sure why a d216 hasn't ever been made --
       | that one feels like a fun (novelty) opportunity to replace 3d6
       | for attribute rolls.
       | 
       | [1]: https://goodman-games.com/dungeon-crawl-classics-rpg/
       | 
       | [2]: https://goodman-games.com/blog/2020/01/06/support-lou-
       | zocchi...
       | 
       | [3]: https://goodman-games.com/blog/2021/09/24/send-lou-
       | zocchi-a-...
        
         | HelloNurse wrote:
         | Do you have more information about Zocchihedron variants?
        
           | koofdoof wrote:
           | Here is a comparison of the braking distance of four D100's,
           | including three models of Zocchihedron:
           | 
           | https://youtu.be/zmB2If4AvG0
        
         | saalweachter wrote:
         | Rather than a d216 you then need a conversion table to use, why
         | not a 16-sided dice numbered 3-18 that has been weighted to
         | roll the appropriate distribution?
        
           | mturk wrote:
           | This is a much better idea than the d216, and probably a lot
           | more fun.
        
         | randomcarbloke wrote:
         | Thanks for this, they are very cool I had a pile of them in the
         | 90s
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | I saw a Mk II once and it definitely would brake well on a soft
         | surface. It was still hard to read though. I always wondered if
         | putting a liquid with a small bubble between the numbers and
         | the outside would yield a cursor for reading the number. Still
         | 2d10 is more practical.
        
       | alkaloid wrote:
       | It's quite disturbing to read how seriously some people around
       | here are taking a silly nerd rant written <checks watch> 13 years
       | ago.
       | 
       | Have we seriously lost all humour? Goodness.
        
         | op00to wrote:
         | Please explain the humor in:
         | 
         | - Calling dice "retarded" because the writer doesn't like those
         | particular dice
         | 
         | - Calling people who own gold dice "retarded", despite there
         | being no evidence of disability that was previously known as
         | "retardation"
         | 
         | Where's the joke? Can you please show me how it was funny in
         | 2009? Can you explain how this humor is somehow notable enough
         | to be highlighted on HN?
        
           | buscoquadnary wrote:
           | Not really the kind of people that tend to be offended by
           | something like this often lack the capacity to appreciate it
           | after it has been explained. As the quote goes "explaining
           | humour is a lot like dissecting a frog. Not very many people
           | like it an either way the frog is dead."
        
       | standardUser wrote:
       | I played D&D the other day for the first time in 20 years (since
       | 2nd edition) and my friend lent me a set of dice. Turns out, I
       | still care about dice because I did not like these ones! The
       | edges were too round and the design made the numbers hard to
       | read. I guess I'll have to dig around for my old dice...
        
       | mproud wrote:
       | Isn't the d34 designed to simulate a roulette wheel?
       | 
       | Edit: Nope, that's 36, plus 0 and 00.
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | Someone else posted this in a toplevel comment, but in case you
         | missed it, 3d34-2 is a binomial distribution from 1-100, which
         | approximates a normal distribution.
        
         | MisterTea wrote:
         | French/European Roulette has no 00. There is apparently a 000
         | version but Ive never seen one and used to work for a company
         | who made them.
        
       | aqme28 wrote:
       | A D34 would be better served by a Roulette table
        
       | DancesWTurtles wrote:
       | The gold ones better not be much gold at all. After a few hundred
       | tumbles they would be so lumpy they'd be more useful as golden
       | nuggets.
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | There's probably a subscription.
        
         | samatman wrote:
         | While dice made of sovereign gold would be ludicrously
         | expensive, it's a 22k alloy which is rigid enough for coin
         | (hence the name).
        
         | baud147258 wrote:
         | I'd guess they're made of a gold alloy, which adds the benefit
         | of being cheaper
        
       | simonh wrote:
       | My favourite dice are my "non euclidean" six siders, a must-have
       | for playing Call of Cthulhu.
       | 
       | https://www.mathartfun.com/d6.html
        
         | HWR_14 wrote:
         | Those are great, thanks!
        
         | bartvk wrote:
         | That's a pretty fun store. I also like this particular vendor
         | on AliExpress that sells bags of randomly assorted dice:
         | https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32831351903.html
         | 
         | They can contain dice that are specifically made for some
         | badlysold or unsold boardgame, which just adds to the fun. A
         | friend of mine has dice with undecipherable symbols on them.
         | 
         | Pre-COVID, I myself got very heavy metal dice. I didn't use
         | them a lot, they're very pointy and I had the feeling they
         | might damage my wooden table.
        
           | evandale wrote:
           | >Pre-COVID, I myself got very heavy metal dice.
           | 
           | Are they tungsten? I nearly bought a pair of them but I
           | figured I'd never roll them because of their weight.
        
           | HWR_14 wrote:
           | Are the ali-dice fair or are they dice that failed quality
           | control?
        
             | simonh wrote:
             | Looks like they're mostly surplus stock, but there could be
             | all sorts of reasons a die ends up in there.
        
       | pavel_lishin wrote:
       | I own a D5, and I love it. It's such a weird shape, and it's fun
       | to show off to people.
       | 
       | One day, I need to build a rig to roll it ten thousand times and
       | determine the output - I want to know how fair it is!
        
         | standardly wrote:
         | Nice. I have a d3 that is shaped like a little jellybean with 3
         | evenly spaced indentions that wrap around, really odd shape.
         | Very satisfying for 33%ers.
        
       | mNovak wrote:
       | I'm just waiting for dice of non-uniform distribution. Gaussian
       | dice anyone? Of course anything can be accomplished with a proper
       | lookup table.
        
         | jedimastert wrote:
         | Don't sums of dice rolls approach normal distribution?
        
       | disembiggen wrote:
       | > However, if you are too lazy to use your imagination to decide
       | what alignment a character might be, then maybe role-playing
       | isn't for you
       | 
       | Using your imagination _around_ the roll of a dice is the _entire
       | point_ of using dice in an rpg, if I just wanted to make this
       | stuff up with no rules and no restrictions then I 'd be writing a
       | novel
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | Always hated "alignment" in D&D. Your character is as they do.
         | I was happy to move over to DragonQuest back in the day, did
         | away with a lot of D&D's baggage to my mind.
        
         | xwdv wrote:
         | Aye, I like dice that randomly generate characters and towns as
         | you never really know what you're gonna get.
        
         | elondaits wrote:
         | Absolutely. But also, "imagination" is biased by what we know.
         | Randomizing things via die is a great way to let go of cliches
         | and prejudice.
        
           | hef19898 wrote:
           | Don't remember were, but I saw someone randomly rolling the
           | sex of NPCs when the sex isn't important to story. A nice
           | touch, which made me realize that a lot of NPCs I came up
           | with weren't randomly distributed. magicians for example
           | tended to majority female...
           | 
           | Once I built a separate Battletech universe using the random
           | event tables from the MW3 RPG. it was centered around one
           | particular merc unit and span like 150 years. Was fun to
           | interpret the random events to put them into context and
           | build story around it.
        
       | clumpthump wrote:
       | I actually quite like the standard d4. Lands with an air of
       | finality without faffing about. Also, I'm clumsy with dice and
       | roll them off the table far too often.
        
       | ag8 wrote:
       | Reminds me of my favorite wikimedia commons page:
       | 
       | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dice_by_number_of_sides
        
       | blagie wrote:
       | I hate pages just designed to make fun of people...
       | 
       | What do you care if someone likes odd dice? Or digging tunnels?
       | Or dressing up in costumes? Or whatever else?
       | 
       | The worst ones are whole communities dedicated to bullying people
       | (e.g. diwhy or cringetopia). We all do stupid things sometimes. I
       | liked the time before someone would try to catch you on camera
       | and internet-shame you for losing your temper, dressing funny,
       | having a different opinion, or whatever else.
        
         | dmichulke wrote:
         | So it's not ok for him to care about people who x
         | 
         | but it's ok for you to care about people who y?
         | 
         | where
         | 
         | x = like odd dice
         | 
         | and
         | 
         | y = makes fun about not further specified people liking odd
         | dice
         | 
         | Serious question - what's the difference?
        
           | Chris2048 wrote:
           | The article doesn't care about people who like odd dice, it's
           | making fun of them.
           | 
           | I'm not sure what y means, but making fun of people for their
           | hobby doesn't itself sound like a hobby, or else you have the
           | tolerance paradox.
        
           | kayodelycaon wrote:
           | There's a massive difference between talking about a thing
           | you don't like verses trashing people who like a thing you
           | don't like.
           | 
           | To sum it up in a meme: Let people enjoy things.
           | 
           | Sportballs is silly? Sure. Compare it to the gladiatorial
           | games in ancient Rome? Sure. Calling people who like American
           | football dumb? Not okay.
           | 
           | Watching football is as dumb as playing D&D, fixing cars,
           | listening to music(1), etc. People get invested in things
           | they like and can get just as "nerdy" about it as any
           | programmer into designing programming languages.
           | 
           | 1: I will make an exception for bagpipes. Pretty sure they
           | were *designed* to be offensive. Which is why I get so much
           | joy listening to them. ;)
        
           | Ensorceled wrote:
           | > Serious question - what's the difference?
           | 
           | One is liking something that harms no one. The other is
           | liking making fun of people who are harming no one, thus, to
           | a minor extent, harming them.
           | 
           | It's a pretty large difference to be completely blind to.
        
             | _Algernon_ wrote:
             | If you don't tolerate this level of being made fun of, you
             | should probably stay in your moms basement. Calling the
             | post harmful to _any_ degree, is disrespectful of people
             | actually experiencing harm.
        
               | Ensorceled wrote:
               | Bullies always fall back to "toughen up" when called out
               | for their bullying.
        
               | _Algernon_ wrote:
               | A satirical blog post is bullying now?
        
             | blagie wrote:
             | Indeed. I'm not sure it's harming them to a minor extent.
             | Getting picked on harms people to a large extent
             | (especially kids).
             | 
             | There's two options:
             | 
             | 1) You did something really dumb, and now you're internet-
             | famous for having done something really dumb. I care about
             | this even if it was something genuinely bad. I'd like that
             | to be handled with a justice system and not a mob justice
             | system.
             | 
             | 2) You do something a lot of people find obnoxious. You're
             | really into some obscure sci-fi show, obsessively like
             | Bulgarian folk music, only wear purple clothing, want Hello
             | Kitty on all of your merchandise, or hold some non-
             | mainstream political view. No one is going to individually
             | ruin your life over it, but collectively, everyone shames
             | you a little bit. That can be super-damaging too.
             | 
             | I think we should be tolerant of most things that don't
             | harm other people (the same goes geopolitically; if a
             | foreign culture has different views on government / gender
             | / religion / etc., we don't need to fix them). I don't
             | think we should be tolerant of bullying (e.g. another
             | country invading their neighbor).
             | 
             | There's also a big difference between condemning _people_
             | and _things_. My comment was that I hate a _page_ and
             | _forum_. I can do that without hate or condemning the
             | person who made the page or the users of those forums. A
             | person isn 't defined by one dumb action. The linked page
             | goes out of their to be mean to _individuals_ who buy dice
             | like those, or design them. I would have no problem with a
             | product review page which said  "These are bad dice." Dice
             | (and web pages) aren't sentient beings.
        
               | Ensorceled wrote:
               | I agree with you in general, but the mockery in this
               | article is pretty undirected and mild. If you actually
               | said this at a gaming table where a new and, especially
               | immature, player was using the dice in question; then
               | this applies in spades.
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | The whole thing is tongue in cheek. Dude probably owns a d33
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | SeanLuke wrote:
       | I got my kids some Math Art Fun dice. These included a rhombic
       | d12, d24, d48, d60, and the mighty d120, plus some assorted
       | skewed dice. Shoulda gotten a d30 too. These are absolutely
       | fabulous dice, even if they have limited use. And they're cheap.
       | 
       | https://www.mathartfun.com/DiceLabDice.html
        
       | Aardwolf wrote:
       | No mention of the amazingly balanced d120 from
       | http://thedicelab.com/ ?
        
       | somedude895 wrote:
       | > then I think the whole "story-telling adventure" thing is too
       | taxing for you. You should just load up your Call of Duty 4 on
       | the Xbox and enjoy not having to worry about coming up with
       | complex narratives. Just shoot and call other people "fagtards."
       | 
       | This part really turned me off at first, but I thankfully kept
       | reading to realize how tongue-in-cheek the whole writing was. I
       | feel that the list could have been ordered better, to more easily
       | establish the tone first.
        
         | op00to wrote:
         | I didn't get "tongue in cheek" from this, but preteen angst.
        
           | nemo44x wrote:
           | You totally missed the point. The author wasn't calling
           | anyone a "fagtard". The author was making fun of the kinds of
           | people who call other people "fagtards" while playing
           | mindless online shooters. There's a lot of people like that.
           | 
           | What is wrong with using a word in this context?
        
             | oneoff786 wrote:
             | Well for one it's a pretty crass generalization of people
             | who like fps games
        
               | nemo44x wrote:
               | I believe anyone who has played FPSs online would agree
               | it doesn't take long to find an individual that fits this
               | profile.
               | 
               | I think you're just word policing and hall monitoring
               | someone. I understand decorum and that there's a time and
               | a place for different types/styles of language but I
               | don't think the context of this article violates that at
               | all in this forum.
        
               | oneoff786 wrote:
               | It doesn't take that long to find a Black individual who
               | has committed a crime. Is that generalization ok?
        
               | Armisael16 wrote:
               | The fps community has exactly the same stereotype of
               | console cod players.
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | The forgotten oppressed.
        
       | joeberon wrote:
        
       | op00to wrote:
       | I'm not sure that calling dice "retarded" or using the term
       | "fagtard" reflects appropriate language for 2022. The article's
       | written in a manner that leads me to believe the author was a 13
       | year old boy. No insight, nothing to actually learn. Just one
       | person complaining about dice. Why is this something worthy of
       | Hacker News today?
        
         | lurquer wrote:
        
         | elevaet wrote:
         | It's interesting to see how far language/norms have come since
         | 2009.
         | 
         | Still pretty damn funny I thought, if you can get past those
         | two terrible and unfunny slips. I like the idea of not throwing
         | out the whole thing when someone says something boneheaded.
        
           | kayodelycaon wrote:
           | Depends on the bubble you're in. Where I was, this was
           | offensive in 2009 and had already start being phased out for
           | over a decade before by my middle and high school experience.
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa%27s_Law
        
             | brimble wrote:
             | I don't think I even saw anyone bother with the euphemism
             | "r-word" until like 2012. It was common in media throughout
             | the '00s and somewhat beyond.
             | 
             | F----t and derivatives, yes, that was on its way out even
             | in my nowhere-near-the-coasts purple-county-in-a-red-state
             | by the early '00s.
        
               | dfxm12 wrote:
               | You can trace use of pre "r-word" euphemisms at least
               | back to the mid aughts and Carlos Mencia.
               | 
               | There are some interesting trends here. Spikes in
               | searches seem to coincide with Mind of Mencia going on
               | the air, Rosa's Law and a tweet from Ann Coulter directed
               | at Obama.
               | 
               | https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&
               | q=%...
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | I vaguely recall "retarded" sticking around a little
               | longer than one might expect in the Northeast. It fits
               | the local accent perfectly (got that ar in the middle to
               | enthusiastically butcher). Of course I 100% agree with
               | getting it out of the language nowadays, it is quite
               | hurtful.
        
           | Chris2048 wrote:
           | The world is more bipartisan, and discourse more vitriolic.
           | Bad faith is more common, and as such, language more guarded.
           | Outside certain bubbles, these words are definitely common.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | I suspect because, despite the lack of sophisticated language,
         | the post definitely strikes a chord with many readers.
         | 
         | Yes, 4-sided dice are crazy in that they simply flop. An
         | 8-sided die with the digits 1 to 4 repeated would be
         | preferable.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | rogual wrote:
       | Content aside, this is a great time capsule into the 2009 nerdy
       | internet vernacular. It really does feel worlds away in tone,
       | style and culture.
        
         | bovermyer wrote:
         | The tone feels very much in keeping with the grognard "get off
         | my terrain" sentiment that has been largely pushed to the
         | fringes these days.
        
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