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Introduction

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00:55 / 25.10.06

Hey Good Intentions! Welcome aboard! I've been appointed as your "acclimatisation engineer", stick by me and you won't go far wrong. Here, let me take your bags. Yes, I know where they're going.

Couple of pointers to get you on your feet.

Policy and Help is the first stop for whinging about Moderators, which will happen often, as they are evil. And Nazis. If you're not sure of the protocol regarding this, calling everybody a shower of wankers will usually see you right. This can be accompanied by storming off the board in a huff forever and then returning five minutes later. It's not mandatory, but earns brownie points.

Laboratory love wild, unsubstantiated sci-fi flights of fancy. The higher you are when posting, the better. It's a forum characterised by regular, shared moments of lucid comprehension that subsequently collapse into fits of the giggles.

Books and Art, Fashion and Design are rather busy places, and it's best to keep out until you're used to the clamour. Approximately 76% of Barbelith's daily post-rate is attributed to these two fora and you can see up to 400 posters pass through on any given day. Tom's mooted the idea of moving these two to another server to cope with the enormous bandwidth demands.

The "Bodywork" in the Temple description sub-heading means "Masturbation".

Games + Gameplay is rather 733T. Discussion ranges from the latest tit-bounce algorithims to which is teh gehyer, Master Chief of Sam Fisher?

Gathering only says it's there for lawful meetings to make ourselves feel better. That forum is so dangerous it's untrue.

Don't worry if you get a bit lost. A good rule of thumb when feeling adrift is to crack a couple of racist and/or sexist jokes. That'll have people chuckling and greeting you into the fold in no time!

Glad I could help!

Good Intentions

02:29 / 25.10.06

I assure you fellows that I'm quite resilient.

Quantum - I do beat your hobbies, but I'll keep you in suspense about how. Fred's known me for two years or so, and she only discovered about my reading C15 fencing manuals yesterday.

My South African heritage: I was born in Pretoria, grew up in Zululand (in Empangeni) and studied for four years in Pretoria. Afrikaans is my first language.

Good Intentions

02:30 / 25.10.06

And iamus, breast bouncing algorythms are something I've given thought to. It seems to me to be crying for a second order differential equation implementation. I have also experimentally verified that pointing this out does not make you popular with the ladies.

13:22 / 25.10.06

Empangeni? You have family working for the university? I have an uncle who teaches there (Irish poetry specialist).

Good Intentions

00:11 / 26.10.06

My mother lectured music there for a number of years. Left in 2000.

16:03 / 26.10.06

Know Nick Meihuizen?

He left shortly before then, but came back. I like him.

18:25 / 26.10.06

I do beat your hobbies

Sounds more like you stab them in various ways. Okay, how about this- I am making the boardgame 'Supervillain Monopoly', which is the reason I got the Heroclix in the first place. And I play computer games so old they don't have mouse controls. And I am wearing, right now, a red and yellow T-shirt that says SUNNYDALE HIGH SCHOOL, at work.
I could go on...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:34 / 26.10.06

Dr Q- come kick my ass on WoW, THEN tell me you're the geekiest.

(Bonus points if your dwarf or elf or whatever is called Picard).

Mind you, how do the geek points work if you hated Babylon 5, Stargate SG-1 and Star Trek, but love Lexx and sometimes wish you had a child so you could call it Yoda? Hmm. Probably a question best left alone.

18:45 / 26.10.06

Lexx and DS9 fans are the bottom of the geek barrel, man. I'm a Farscape fan meself, and I even liked Angel, but WoW is too cool for me. UFO:Enemy Unknown is more my style.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:58 / 26.10.06

Yeah, I loved UFO. On the Amiga.

Farscape? That was rubbish.

19:20 / 26.10.06

Farscape? That was rubbish.

GET OUT!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:25 / 26.10.06

BABYLON 5'S A BIG PILE OF SHIT!!!

19:34 / 26.10.06

TO ME, STOAT!!!!

we'll fight back to back on this one!

Lexx was a great fucking show.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:36 / 26.10.06

Lexx RULED. AND they did a musical WAY before Buffy did.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:54 / 26.10.06

Oh what? How can you not like Lexx? How can anyone not like Lexx?!

I preferred the 1st Zev though.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:56 / 26.10.06

I'm torn on the Zev/Xev issue. The first one was cooler, but I met the second one.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

22:03 / 26.10.06

(Hi Good Intentions - welcome to Barbelith)

I could like Lexx for half the first series or so, but I think I just didn't have the staying power back then for TV series longer than, oh, 2 episodes. It's certainly stranger than most TV skiffy.

But now that I've got back into reading Icelandic sagas again, and have even watched two whole episodes of Torchwood in a row - maybe I'm reclaiming my attention span, or something? Damn, I'm even posting here again, so something's up.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:08 / 26.10.06

The 2nd one was really really pretty and cool and stuff, but I never got past the fake collagen lips. I hear they go down after a bit, though, so mayber she got better.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:25 / 26.10.06

Yeah, they do and she did.

Had great multicoloured hair in season 4, too, though I still haven't seen most of it.

Millions of little hands eating the universe from the outside in, though... what's not to love about THAT???

Good Intentions

06:53 / 27.10.06

I play WH40k.

I'm still warming up, btw. I've got far worse up my sleeve.

07:35 / 27.10.06

I play WH40k.

Weirdly enough I was walking by the local Games Workshop yesterday and seeing all the kids in there merrily wargaming got me rather nostalgic.

Hell, I remember when it was called Rogue Trader, and Epic was Adeptus Titanicus.

Why didn't they continue Dark Future? That game was (in the parlence of the street) tha' bomb.

I'll geek you all into the ground. I'm a sodding GM and that takes a brand of geekly dedication mere Players can't even approach.

and have even watched two whole episodes of Torchwood in a row

Ah, but did you watch Torchwood De-Classified and take notes? Did you?

Welcome to Barbelith GI, you'll never leave.

pointless & uncalled for

07:41 / 27.10.06

WH40K
Space Hulk, Ultra Marines, Space Crusade, WH40K RPG system, WH Fantasy RPG system.

Yes, I have played them all.

I drew the line at reading any of the associated fiction.

pointless & uncalled for

07:43 / 27.10.06

I'll geek you all into the ground. I'm a sodding GM and that takes a brand of geekly dedication mere Players can't even approach.

We wrote our own system because everything else wasn't good enough. We then devised four seperate scenarios based on that system.

Your turn Evil Scientist.

09:33 / 27.10.06

Why didn't they continue Dark Future?

Probably the same reason they have made any decision since GW was first taken over by Bryan Ansell: "Does it require people to buy tons of overpriced miniatures? No? Well, we don't give a shit about it."

10:05 / 27.10.06

We wrote our own system because everything else wasn't good enough. We then devised four seperate scenarios based on that system.

Your turn Evil Scientist.

I'll see your self-created system and I'll raise you my friends and I doing freeform diceless rpg at school.

I drew the line at reading any of the associated fiction.

The Dark Future stuff was quite passable (well the weird shit with the demonic Mormons and Krokodil and Elvis as a Sanctioned Op anyway).

Yeah they probably dropped Dark Future when they realised everyone was just converting Matchbox cars rather than buying miniatures.

Hey GI, what're the prices like for lead figures these days? They were pretty exhorbitant back when I finally kicked wargaming in the head after a dalliance with the entertaining Necromunda gang war game. Probably a tenner for a single fingure or something now.

pointless & uncalled for

10:09 / 27.10.06

I actually remember the days when you could stroll into a GW and the miniatures used to be crammed at the far end of the shop away from the Gygax vs. Arneson debate. In some of the shops you couldn't even get the paint, you had to go over the road to the hobby shop and elbow the model airplane enthusiasts out of the way whilst they mulled over which shade of olive was most appropriate for their most recent aquisition.

But like that little damp patch down in the corner of the bathroom, the rot set in and remained unchecked until suddenly you realised that the shop no longer stocked those classic modules for the original Dungeons and Dragons (Basic Set - Blue Box). Too late you discovered that the end was nigh and you would have to hang your head in shame as you handed over your money to the cute cashier in Waterstones for The Mountains of Madness. Another hope ruthlessly dashed against the rocks of reality.

Remember kids, there is absolutely no escape from teenage angst, no matter how much escapism your pocket-money can buy you. Save yourself some time now, go and write some ill rhyming poetry and stuff it in your underwear draw where your mum is bound to find it.

Sweet memories.

pointless & uncalled for

10:42 / 27.10.06

I'll see your self-created system and I'll raise you my friends and I doing freeform diceless rpg at school.

Certainly didn't do any of that at school. The phrase freeform diceless roleplay would have elicited a freeform dicethingey beating at my school. Even the music kids would have been inclined to reach for something with a good heft. Nope, we used to head up to the woods above our village and do diceless around an impromptu bonfire instead.

I also used to hang out with a group of kids that won at Knightmare but that's merely reflected geeky.

My piece in fourth year English on the correlation between Lord of the Rings and the Gulf War was well received though.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:43 / 27.10.06

Hang on... isn't diceless freeform role-playing at school just being at school?

pointless & uncalled for

10:57 / 27.10.06

If you're refering to the orchestrated mass beatings that dominated playtime then that's more like propless full-contact LARPing.

11:31 / 27.10.06

Hang on... isn't diceless freeform role-playing at school just being at school?

Only if you're role-playing being at school rather than (for instance) roleplaying being time-travelling superhumans. This was no filthy LARP or running around going "Peow! Peow!"...generally anyway.

11:38 / 27.10.06

I also used to hang out with a group of kids that won at Knightmare but that's merely reflected geeky.

I sympathise. There's a parallel version of me that is currently typing "I was ON Knightmare!". Apparently that universe's Evil Scientist had cohorts who weren't inconvienently on holiday the week they wanted us.

We breezed through the interviews though.

Now I'll never feel Tregard's bristly chin against my cheek.

12:21 / 27.10.06

my friends and I doing freeform diceless rpg at school.

Haw, kid's stuff- at university we had an annual 24-hour roleplay event, allegedly for charity. My 4am games of speed-Paranoia are legendary.
And I helped set up and run the first live action Mage game, at one point making a seven foot Akira-style orbital laser prop as a side arm for a cameo Void Engineer.

I am geek, hear me roar.

12:25 / 27.10.06

I play WH40k. Good Intentions

Come back when you've dressed up as a space marine with a giant laser in public, then we'll see. I didn't get to play the Librarian which was a shame, but I was totally ready to make some big claws.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:28 / 27.10.06

But the Imperial Guard use the lasrifle and laspistol.

HERETIC

12:32 / 27.10.06

Horus is where it's at and you know it.

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