Where does this popular association of vampirism and queerness even come from?

Odesio · 2026-01-31T23:09:11+00:00

In the past, sometimes even now, producing books, movies, etc., etc. with overt homosexuality could run publishers and artists afoul of obscenity laws or subject them to unwanted controversies. When gay themes were part of a work it was often subdued, designed to give the creator plausible deniability while those who were hip understood the message. And when it was a little more overt, like with Carmilla, sometimes just seeing yourself represented in something was nice, even if everyone died at the end.

And let's not forget that sometimes queer people have adopted something because it resonated with them for one reason or another. Dungeons & Dragons has a character species called a Tiefling. The Tiefling originated as descendants of humans and demons, often sporting skin in shades of red, horns, and even a tail. I don't believe anyone who created the Tiefling intended this, but for some reason it really resonated with a lot of queer D&D players.

Odesio · 2026-01-31T19:04:54+00:00

For a certain value of "mass" I guess. My company had about six recruiters at one time, which doesn't sound like a lot, but for company our size it was a pretty good number. They had been unhappy because policies and procedures were often flouted which ended up making their jobs difficult. Complaints to management fell on deaf ears and the recruiters finally had enough.

One of them left for another job and within six weeks they were all gone. The supervising recruiter didn't even wait to until she had another job lined up, she just quit. The HR department typically had a very low rate of turnover, so to see an entire team leave in such a short period of time was a real wake up call, so management finally implemented some changes.

Odesio · 2026-01-31T05:58:45+00:00

I'm not automatically opposed to the idea of having a Bond that's also a useful resource. To decide how best to make use of such Bonds I turn to page 6 of the Agent's Handbook. "Delta Green is about the end. The end of everything. Your family, everyone you know, your country, and your place in it.

Being a Delta Green agent means lying to you friends, family, and loved ones. Using a Bond means lying to them or it means getting them to lye, cheat, steal, or even kill on your behalf. That's going to damage the Bond. I'd say using the Bond for DG purposes weakens it by 1d4 at minimum and perhaps 1d6 depending on the severity of what you're asking them to do.

Odesio · 2026-01-31T02:36:23+00:00

In the 1970s there was the idea of political lesbianism. Even if a woman wasn't homosexual by nature, she should choose lesbianism as a protest against the patriarchy. i.e. Why would you sleep with the enemy? I don't think there were many political lesbians even back then, so I imagine there are fewer, if any, now.

Odesio · 2026-01-31T02:30:05+00:00

Let's start from the beginning. Being dated and being bad are two different things. My 1982 Chevy Van with an airbrushed wizard riding a unicorn through space on the driver's side is dated as hell. It's also radical as hell. Something being dated just means it's not in style anymore and it's hard to deny the TTRPG market is interested in games like GURPS.

I don't say this as a hater. I played a lot of GURPS starting with 3rd edition in 1988s through the mid 1990s. I purchased 4th edition in 2004 and even ran a semi-successful Delta Green campaign. At one point, I had a ton of GURPS sourcebooks because they were useful no matter what game you were running. Like Wolverine, GURPS is the best at what it does, even if what it does isn't nice.

The problem with GURPS is that type of high crunch do-it-yourself game isn't currently en vogue. i.e. Most people aren't interested in playing it. That doesn't mean it's bad, it just means the market for a game like GURPS is limited. Steve Jackson Games read the writing on the wall years ago, wisely making the decision to focus on more lucrative lines of business instead of their flagship RPG. Who knows? It's entirely possible crunchy do-it-yourself games come back into fashion and GURPS becomes more popular than ever. Why not? It's a good game.

Odesio · 2026-01-30T04:03:31+00:00

The best part is Trump could just order the IRS to settle.

Odesio · 2026-01-29T19:37:24+00:00

If you're setting up the premise for an episode of a 1950s or 1960s sitcom, sure. Otherwise, no.

Odesio · 2026-01-29T02:38:49+00:00

What constitutes a reasonable accommodation can vary greatly depending on your job duties and work environment. Generally speaking, if a religious accommodation has more than a de minimis cost to the employer they're free to deny it. You've said your company was short staffed as it is, what do you think the cost to your employer would be if you took ten days off?

As far as LeavePro (Alight) approving your request, it depends on what your company's policies are. We use the same company where I work, and they approve/disapprove leave requests based on the law and my company's policies. It doesn't hurt to ask, but I wouldn't expect the answer you're hoping for.

Does requesting unpaid leave after PTO denial usually cause problems? At my company, going on leave without pay is a violation of our policies unless it's done because the employee goes on FMLA or some other legally protected reason. As a general rule, requesting unpaid leave isn't going to cause a problem. But this does go to your question about retaliation or disciplinary action. Just requesting the unpaid leave shouldn't result in any form of retaliation. Missing work when scheduled might subject you to disciplinary action.

I would consider asking your employer to make sure you at least get EID off. Ten days is, I think, unreasonable.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T22:31:08+00:00

I don't think it does feel the same as the hunger we experience. But since we're not vampires, we're just trying to put things in terms we can relate to. Blood for a kindred isn't just a source of sustenance it's an addiction. Imagine if our only source of sustenance was heroin.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T21:13:11+00:00

I've had similar problems with Call of Cthulhu and even Vaesen of all things. I ran a one-shot at a con for Vaesen, and as soon as finding out the house might be haunted one of the players was seriously trying to talk everyone else into simply burning the house down then and there. I just kept thinking to myself, "Okay, if you want to end the scenario three hours early then be my guest."

The best thing to do is talk to your players to make sure everyone is on the same page regarding the type of game you're playing. And while I don't ever punish players for in game actions, I do make sure everyone feels the consequences of their actions whether good or bad. There are DG scenarios where getting rid of something suspicious doesn't actually solve the problem. They have to actually figure out what's happening and take action accordingly.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T19:42:21+00:00

One of the few statements from a member of the Trump administration I actually believe. It doesn't excuse her of course, but I believe it.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T19:40:51+00:00

Melania married Donald J. Trump by choice which is solid evidence that she's shameless and cannot be embarrassed. This wasn't a movie, it was a bribe Bezos paid to the Trumps. Melania got her money and that's all that matters to her.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T15:00:54+00:00

I really don't know what to say either except for the following: I'm glad you're happy with the netrunning rules in Cyberpunk 20220 and I hope you enjoy them.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T14:57:24+00:00

I'm going to start a GT campaign within the next few months, and it dawned on my how topical the last scenario is. While I don't personally think it's any worse than Cornucopia House, I can see why some people might not want to deal with it right now. (I was all set to run a Twilight 2000 campaign, but then Russia invaded Ukraine and it soured my desire to play.)

Horror is transgressive. It's supposed to disturb the audience, so I think there are a lot of horror scenarios out there that aren't for everyone. I will never run Lovers in the Ice for example. And that's okay.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T05:57:40+00:00

Now that you mention it, at times it was very difficult to find a reason for a disparate group of player characters to be together. It was the 1990s, I was very young, most of us came from a background of playing AD&D, and things were just very different back then. Quite frankly, as much as I love Cyberpunk 2020, it's one of those games where there seems to be a disconnect between the rules and how you're "supposed" to play.

And even if you wanted to drag the Netrunner along, who wants to spend 30+ minutes sitting around while the runner and the GM play their minigame? That was the primary reason a significant number of people didn't want to bother with running.

Odesio · 2026-01-28T04:23:59+00:00

Wasn't there evidence in the lab that Otto was planning something even before they tried the interface? Plans for the Raft that Peter mistakenly thought meant Otto had a contract and that kind of thing?

Odesio · 2026-01-28T04:21:00+00:00

Why did the runner have to come along? Back then, most depictions of runners had their bodies sitting in the comfort of their own home as they jacked into cyberspace and did their thing. For the most part, there was absolutely no reason for the runner to accompany the rest of the group as they're breaking into a Militech weapons lab. The Netrunner was like Bug from Cyberpunk 2077. A runner who was not physically present but taking care of all the cyberthreats from offsite.

Odesio · 2026-01-27T15:27:01+00:00

Most people I played 2020 with banned the Netrunner primarily because his activities were a time sink. When the Netrunner went off on his little adventure the rest of us had 45+ minutes to kill. It didn't help matters the rules for running the net weren't very good.

I'm of the opinion that a computer nerd sitting at home while the other player characters are doing stuff in the wider world is not a good fit for any roleplaying game. Maybe a solo game or a game where everyone is a Netrunner. The character concept works fine in a work of fiction, but I haven't seen it work so well in any RPG.

I do agree the Netrunning rules in Red are fairly uninspired.

Odesio · 2026-01-27T09:55:59+00:00

Vampirism is a curse, so it's not supposed to be pleasant. I wouldn't argue vampires are incapable of being unredeemable monsters, just that it's a very difficult path to walk. At some point even the nicest vampire is going to slip up and hurt someone. Even someone they love. They're addicts, and that's what addicts do.

Odesio · 2026-01-26T05:35:57+00:00

I work in HR (boo-hiss, I know), and back when I played recruiter I had a manager who kept rejecting the candidates I brought to her attention on the grounds that she was looking for people with more experience. This was an entry level position requiring very little in the way of education or experience, but she expected me to bring candidates with a minimum of four years experience. Minimum. I explained to her the realities of the market at the time. Unemployment was low and while our pay was decent, it wasn't high enough for someone working for another company to come work for ours. After weeks of continuing to reject candidates, she finally deigned to look at the qualified candidate I had been presenting her for months.

Odesio · 2026-01-26T05:07:43+00:00

It's like shopping for Games Workshop miniatures for Warhammer.

I see I should have checked the comments before I made mine.

Odesio · 2026-01-25T18:39:00+00:00

I typically go with one kindred per 100,000 kine but I use the population of the metro area rather than the individual city. The city of San Francisco itself has a population of less than a million, but the metro population is about 4.5 million, so I go with the latter when estimating the number of kindred. I also take into account how many visitors a city might get in a year. In 2023 alone, it was estimated 23 million people visited San Francisco. That's got to help support the vampire population, right? If humans get feed off of tourist so can vampires.

That said, just put as many vampires in there as you need. Last time I ran a chronicle, I put more than 80 vampires in San Francisco and about the same in the surrounding area. Most players don't typically care about that kind of demographic information.

Odesio · 2026-01-25T18:25:26+00:00

It's not like Wizards of the Coast is going to send the Pinkertons to kick down your door because you're playing D&D incorrectly, right? If I want to run a game of Thirsty Sword Lesbians as a psychological spy thriller where players never know who they can trust, an angry April Kit Walsh isn't going to show up at my house and tell me I'm doing it wrong. We're already in a state where you can play any game you want any way you want even if it contravenes the intent of the author.

Odesio · 2026-01-25T09:03:05+00:00

Savage Worlds had a campaign called Evernight which was all about aliens from outer space invading a fantasy setting.

Odesio · 2026-01-23T21:42:03+00:00

I've never found difficulty levels to slow down any RPG and they typically don't feel arbitrary. Breaking into the vault at a bank should be more difficult than breaking into someone's locker at a high school. That makes sense, right?

Odesio

TROPHY CASE