Zenning

So why does disliking the particular brand of humor that Minsc embodies equate to being too cool for jokes? I do like funny characters, but I just don't like Minsc. 'Cause everyone, except hipsters who are too cool for it, likes Minsc. Eh? People are allowed to dislike characters without being hipsters aren't they? I mean sure, they're obviously bad people, but that doesn't make em hipsters. (Twas a joke) Yes! Thats what it was. I kept looking back at the character, and thinking "What was it about Minsc that made him my favorite character?" And that was it. It's also why I loved Keldorn, who was a geniuenly good person, who always put whats good in front of his code (Execpt with Drow). That, and he was hilarious. Although obviously some people disagree with that, but hey, it doesn't make him less funny to me.

I'm just kidding. Its nice to be here.

Blargh, I didn't mean it like that! I know that Obsidian can do amazing characters, and pretty much every party member in all their games (Except arcanum, which was kinda lackluster in that regard) was awesome in their own ways. Hell, Mask of the Betrayer didn't have a single comic character, and it was still amazing. Its just that, I love the comic characters. And I love, as someone else so helpfully phrased it, "bro's", and I want to see an other character like Morte and Minsc who are able to fill both catagories, and maybe more. Capiche? Yeah but if I don't give you a hard time about it, who will? Who indeed. o_0 Great, three days on this board, and people are already lining up to give me a hard time!

Blargh, I didn't mean it like that! I know that Obsidian can do amazing characters, and pretty much every party member in all their games (Except arcanum, which was kinda lackluster in that regard) was awesome in their own ways. Hell, Mask of the Betrayer didn't have a single comic character, and it was still amazing. Its just that, I love the comic characters. And I love, as someone else so helpfully phrased it, "bro's", and I want to see an other character like Morte and Minsc who are able to fill both catagories, and maybe more. Capiche? Edit: Oh, and SIE and Steven Heck from Alpha Protocol. Two other types of characters I was talking about. Both, stupidly fun.

Nahh, Obsidian had two (Almost 3) Godish companions in Mask of the Betrayer, and they were badass. And hey, in Planescape every companion was godlike in their own way, so I don't think they'll suffer from massive mary sue syndrome.

Err, I think people are misunderstanding my original point. I don't necessarily want Minsc or Morte, copied into P:E, I just want a character who isn't so serious all the time (Not that all the characters didn't have their moments). You know, a light hearted character who we all look back on and say "Heh, he was pretty hilarious". Although, I guess Morte wasn't quite as light hearted as we originally think, but what eves.

Sorry Jezz, I just gotta post one more thing. http://afghanistanonmymind.blogspot.com/2011/06/afghanistan-in-60s-and-70s-part-two.html Did those Women look oppressed to you? Because Afghanistan, even in the 60's and 70's, was still very much a Muslim country.

It is exclusive to Muslim countries actually(the acid attacks specifically) I'm not saying other religions/people aren't also horrible, but he brought up Islam so that's what I'm talking about, and these are attacks are specifically inspired by Islam. The testimony of somebody raised in a muslim culture is not really reliable as they've never known anything else. I wouldn't ask somebody with Stockholm syndrome if they thought their kidnapper was a bad guy, either. They may say it's because their family "respects them" or whatever but try going outside without one and you get stoned, that's not respect thats oppression. There are groups of women from these countries fighting this kind of opression now so the fact that some of them claim indifference doesn't really say anything. I'm sure back in the 1800's you would find a few slaves who didn't mind slavery all that much( at least with their masters standing menacingly behind them), but I assure you the vast majority of them were pretty pissed about it. You seem preoccupied with Burkha's but what about stopping women from going to school? Is that respect? Anyway this is getting way off topic, TL;DR you are explosively wrong. First off, like sombody said, it isn't exclusive to Muslim countries, and the news article I just posted literally showed that to be the case, with examples coming from Cambodia, to the UK. Second, the idea that because they're Muslim women their opinions don't count on how they're being treated, is sexist, and is one of the most bat**** insane arguments I've heard. I mean, of course, women don't have brains in the Middle East, and just do what ever men tell them to do, so anything they have to say is just babble right? Third, you know nothing about Muslim Cultures. You don't realize that back in the middle ages when Europe spent its time being oppressive to all classes, and treating women like ****, in the Middle East made sure its women were as educated, or more so (With the Royal Concubines being one of the most well educated people in the country). Islam has never had anything against Women going t school, and no, walking around without a Burkha in Muslim countries outside of exactly 1, will not get you stoned. Hell, in places like Pakistan and Indonesia they're trying to ban the Burkha, and even the standard Hijab (Head scarf), because they feel like it's oppressive to women, with women of the country being the strongest against it. What is; however, causing **** to refuse women from learning, is regular old misogny, and intolerance, something that is not, in anyway, exclusive to the Muslim world. See, thats what Racism is Jez, and you really need to see this. Assuming that obviously you know better than those backwards people, without ever trying to see why they do things, or who they are. Only seeing what you want to, without thinking for a second that those other guys have a lot of other factors that influence what they do. And, once again, making those massive Assumptions. And finally, all those examples of those women going to school, and being attacked for it.. You realize those women are also Muslims? Right? You realize its a MINORITY, yes, a MINORITY, that is against it, and thats making it so dangerous for those women. You realize that after the shooting of that girl in Pakistan asking for schooling by the Taliban, the Taliban lost more influence in Pakistan, to the point that people called for the Pakistani Government to crack down on their remaining supporters. I'm sorry for derailing the topic, but I just felt all this needed to be said. Edit: Finally let me just respond to this line "Muslim is a race?" You're just being pedantic. We don't really have a word that describes what we're talking about, but racism is the closest thing we can think of that describes that form of bigotry. Also, you realize that even without Muslims being a race, his main point still stands right? So why ignore it?

Or maybe, just maybe, we like entertaining characters who are genuinely funny, and straight forward. We don't need everybody moping around because life sucks so much, sometimes we just want a good old fashioned idiot with a heart of gold, who is exactly what he looks like. And please, don't say he's badly designed, because that means absoluetely nothing in this context. I mean, how is he badly designed? Is his character look bad? Is his writing contridictory, or uninteresting? Is he annoying? What exactly makes him "badly designed" It's okay for you to dislike the character, but don't assume anyone else agrees with you.

It's true, the game wasn't very dense for the majority of the game, and it was pretty annoying figuring out which one of the fat bald dudes is the one who might possibly sell something, or have a side quest. Still, I love your idea. It's just that with random encounters, its more difficult for the developers to make the encounters unique, and challenging, which was one of the great parts of the game. Each encounter was hand crafted, and always posed a challenge.

Sure, P:E is going to be a pretty serious most of the time, but what made Baulders Gate, and Planescape awesome was our good friend Minsc, and our great friend the disemboided skull, Murry (Or wait, the other one). So far, I'mma thinkin' Forton is the most likely to run that direction. What do you guys think?

None taken, pick on me all you wan't. I'm not really sure were the "massive assumptions" come in here, the acid attacks thing is not a mashup of two stories, it's many stories of literally women having acid thrown at them for trying to go to school, look it up. I wasn't implying that all Arabic people are sexist or anything like that (nor would I ever) and I don't really consider it a racial issue, unless you consider Islam a race. My main point in that post was that I object to Hormalakh's point that sexism is culturally relative, especially in the example he gave. He's not the only one to think that of course, but I think it's kind of hog-wash. Women are forced to wear burkha's nobody forces women in America to wear bikini's. First off, no, what ever the hell you're talking about does not exist. There is no story involving women being unable to go to school because someones throwing acid at their faces. There are however stories of insane **** from the UK, to Cambodia, Afghanistan, to Ethopia. It is not a reocurring thing in Islamic, or Abrabian cultures. Edit: Whoop, looks like there was one http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/02/world/meast/cnnheroes-jan-afghan-school/index.html Sorry Jez. But still, my point does stand that its not somehow exclusive to the Middleeast, its considered ****ing nuts in the Middleeast, and it isn't really indictive of Muslim culture any more than the West Boro Church protesting funerals of Christians, or Scandinivan church Bombers were of Athesists. Second, have you ever actually asked a woman in Burka why she wears it, or if she feels oppressed? Because I actually have, and funnily enough, she didn't wear it because of her family, with her parents both opposing it. She didn't feel oppressed, and she didn't do it because she felt she was better than those western women she knew, and were friends with. For her, it was a choice she made because of who she wanted to be, simple as that. And there are the massive assumptions I was talking about. Assuming that people who wear those clothes must wear them becaues they are forced to. Assuming that the acid throwing asshats are purely an Eastern thing (its not, its a ****ed up **** thing). Assumptions. See, racism isn't this "Dur durr, I hate black people" thing that its often portrayed as on TV, it's often assumptions made about people you don't know. Racism, Jingoism, Sexism, Bigotry in general, all stems from this assumptions thing. And one of the biggest assumptions is that we're immune to these isms. And thats also why I think Obsidian should avoid these topics unless they want to focus heavily on them. It is impossible to get the subtle ugliness that is racism and bigotry with a few small quips, or off hand comments. It really requires digging into it, which is something that Obsidian is really good at. And if they did it, it would be wonderful, but I'm afraid that it just requires a lot of work, and writing to be able to get it just right, so you can walk away with it thinking "I never thought of it like that" instead of "Woah, those guys were racist!". Yes, that idea can be applied to any topic, but I feel its more important to topics like racism, simply because of its ability to actually offend, and incite people. Its not worth putting it in if you're not focusing on it, simply because it brings up too much of a ****storm. Edit: Oh, also, I don't like Joss Whedon, but do we really need to keep talking about him? Based on the current posts, I don't think we'll be able to reall convince anyone about either side, without going massively off topic. Edit:2 Also, heres' the Acid thingy you were talking about. It's really, REALLY, horrible. NSFW, NOT SAFE FOR EYES either. (Actual news story though) http://freethoughtbl...top-loving-men/ You've been warned.

Heyya, guys, New poster here, just want to go ahead and put in my own two cents. The thing with things like Sexism, Racism, Jingoism, and such, is that if you don't give it the proper amount of gravity it needs, or just handle it badly, you're going to hurt the story. If you just mention it, or just say "Hey, go and make me a sandwich lady!", you're not really using those themes properly, and it just serves to make the players uncomfortable. Now, I don't mean to say that being made to feel uncomfortable is necessarily a bad thing. We all need to feel uncomfortable, or feel offended every once in awhile. It's how we reevaluate our views, and see things from different perspectives. This however only works if you're actually trying to say something, or have a specific feeling you're trying to make the player, or consumer, feel. However, in order to really get that feeling across, you've got to of experienced it in one way or an other. You can't talk about how sexism makes you feel, if you've never really experienced it. You, as a man, might be able to empathize with a woman who feels objectified by a group of **** making cat calls or what ever the hell, but you can't say you understand it like she does, unless you've been there yourself. And, as men, that sort of thing happens a lot less to us, which makes us a lot less sensitive to how someone in that position feels. As for racism, that’s something that’s completely gender neutral, and its a topic that should also be treated with respect. For example, See, the racism here stems from the fact that Jezz (who by the way I've seen make a number of good posts, but that’s not here nor there) has no idea what the hell he's talking about, and makes massive assumptions about a very large group of people who are culturally very different from him. First off, that’s a mashup of two different stories, both of which showcased some complete nutcases, and not the entire region themselves. Jezz may not of meant to of implied that somehow all of the middleeast hates women and wants to dump acid on them, but the fact that this was the first thing he could think of when he saw that previous image shows at least a hint of racism. I don't mean to pick on Jezz in particular; it’s just that the thing about racism is how creeping it really is. If Obsidian managed to get the subtlety in racism that makes it so dangerous down (Which I'm sure they could do), then they should go for it, but if all they manage is "Man, I'm a Dwarf and I hate dem elves!" they're missing the subtlety of the racism, and it will serve as nothing but to belittle the setting. And I think thats the main thing it should come down to. If Obsidian is able to give these themes the attentions they deserve, than they should be in, otherwise leave it out or risk hurting the setting. Err.. My two Cents, also, Sorry again Jezz for picking on you.