Nerds/Geeks

[The Skarzs]

I'm kind of a Minecraft nerd, but I wouldn't consider myself to be that much of one.

Awesome.


I'm a nerd in some things, like a couple video games, and a geek in others.
My definition of 'geek' is one who is extremely into something that a lot of others aren't, like blacksmithing, Redwall, and Medieval stuff (like weapons, armor, and myths)

[Delthion]

As I said- I usually fit into this category. I'm currently obsessed with tabletop gaming (Mainly D&D 3.5 and Numenera, though 5e seems pretty interesting. And less tabletop-MMO than 4e, good to see...)

Speaking of which, I convinced my friends to play D&D today. I'm not sure if anyone actually cares, but I'm going to tell the story anyway, because I like it and it's funny and if you don't care you can just ignore me. Hah.

So, we started at second level, with a two-person party. I was a Neutral Evil Fighter/Cleric multiclass (God of roads, I'd taken Travel and Luck as my domains) and my party member was a Paladin- Paladins are morally obliged to kill/subdue anyone who commits an evil act. So strange things happened.

We started in a tavern (duh) and I was drinking peach tea. (Sometimes if your DM is a jerk he'll give you penalties for being drunk, at the very least you have to roleplay differently. Easier to stick to peach tea.) I heard a scrabbling noise from the back room of the tavern, so naturally I drew my main gauche (I had specialized for two-weapon fighting and defense, I was playing a fencer-type character) and rolled an Intimidate check. Barkeep was not impressed with my low roll... So I threatened him again, and he opened the door to the back room. Now, I was curious... I used 'Command' in the general direction of the door- "Approach!" and a lizardman walked towards me. A paladin got up from his table (I had downed his dwarven ale when he wasn't looking, I sort of knew who he was) and moved to assist me. We had a brief fight with the lizardmen, most of them escaped. I knocked one of them out cold, and there was a corpse of a lizardman already in the room from before we had even got there. I skinned the corpse (Pelts are valuable! Usually worth taking the few points in Knowledge: Nature for skinning and having your DM tell you stuff you probably shouldn't know) and took its skin, then I moved over to the unconscious one to skin it as well. I prepared for a coup-de-grace (Stab it in the neck) but the lawful-stupid paladin wouldn't let me... So I murdered and skinned it after he left. I got 100 EXP for it as well!

So a wish necklace, a bunch of money, two pelts, and a really OP crossbow later, we went into an abandoned church to find some alchemy stuff for an enchanter. We go in, bypass a trap, kill a couple mobs... And come upon a Rust Monster. The paladin, fearful of rusting his holy sword, threw it down the hallway and fought a losing battle with his spear and shield (Both nonmetal)

But of course, being evil, I cast a Longstrider spell on myself- Stole his sword, left him to die, ran outside, got on my horse, rode back to town. I sold his sword to a shop, used the money to buy passage via ship to another town.

En route, I was assaulted by the ship's operator (Small ship, just the two of us.) He tried to throw me overboard into a whirlpool. After a brief struggle and a failed 'Command: DIE!' spell, he threw me overboard. I managed to stab the side of the boat with my dagger to keep myself from dying, and hung close to the side of the boat. The ranger captain thought I was dead, but his wolf could smell me and kept growling. I prayed to my deity and cast Fear on the wolf, who yipped and yapped and hit its head into the mast, knocking itself out. Then I climbed back up onto the boat (About a billion reflex saves involved here, lucky thing I have +5 to those, with my spell) and wrestled him down... I used my Light spell on his eyelids, and threw him screaming overboard.

And then my DM wanted to 'take a break' because he was frustrated because I completely derailed any semblance of plot, story, or sanity from his campaign and I felt bad.


And no, I'm not a twisted sadistic individual who leaves paladins to die in old churches (Only for the DM to save them by totally cheap methods that shouldn't be used- 'Your god has mercy on you and kills your opponent, also restoring you to half health!') murders and skins semi-innocent lizardmen for their skin, and generally does really awful stuff. I might enjoy playing a character like that, but I'm not him.

Is that a computer game or board game or what? The rolling made it sound like a board game but it also sounded to in depth for that.

[Rusvul]

It's a tabletop RPG. You've got it the wrong way, though- a tabletop RPG can be more in depth than a computer RPG by a long ways- In an RPG, you can do literally anything your DM will let you- 'You walk into the King's royal throne room and-' 'I want to stab him!' 'The king?' 'Yeah.' 'Uhhh... Okay? Roll initiative!'

I'd play D&D over any CRPG any day.

[Delthion]

I assume D&D means Dungeons and Dragons?

[Rusvul]

Yesss...

[Delthion]

And what is a Tabletop RPG?

[Rusvul]

A Role Playing Game that you play (usually with a grid or graph paper) with other people around a table, thus tabletop.

Err, you can play online with a voice chat program and a virtual tabletop, but that isn't the way the game was designed to be played.

[Delthion]

Cool, thanks.

[Delthion]

What classifies a Nerd and a Geek?

[Lutra]

Had the funniest conversation with two students today about Back to the Future and time travel.  Is it geeky to say I knew what they were talking about, and offered decent explanations as to why it would be a bad idea?

[Gwen A. Mouse]

Yes! Hahahahaha, you are one of us! *runs away*

[Delthion]

What classifies a Nerd and a Geek?

[Rusvul]

My theory on time travel: You can't go back and change anything, because the current timeline involves you having done that- So you can't go back and kill someone's ancesters, because if you go back and kill someone then they never would have had children in your timeline.

In other words, you can't mess up the timeline because anything you do is factored into the current timeline.

That is, if time travel were to exist, which is doubtful. Er, backwards time travel, anyway.

[Delthion]

What classifies a Nerd and a Geek?

[The Skarzs]

It's more of something you decide for one's self.

My definition of 'geek' is one who is extremely into something that a lot of others aren't.