Planetfurry BBS

[Joshua Fox]

That's right. From the man who brought you "The 9 Naughtiest Console Games" comes an article from this month's issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, admittedly one of my favorite magazines.

In it, he takes a look at some of the "Nerds" to be found in the gaming community, and lists them in a way that many a DnD Geek... er, Nerd will find familiar.

From the Pages of EGM:

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Seanbaby’s Nerd Manual

Classifying Homo sapiens Dorkitus

Instead of talking about games this month, I’m cataloging types of gamers. It’s called Nerd Manual. Nerd Manual will help readers avoid or defeat specific types of nerds. Please note that Nerd Manual is not satirical. It does not use irony or sarcasm ever, for any reason. If you see yourself in Nerd Manual, everything it says about your people is true, nerd.

As research for this article, I spent months studying nerds… the way they raise ferrets, the way they struggle to find their glasses after they fall down, the way they write Doctor-Who-on-Go-Bot fan fiction. Speaking of, here’s an excerpt from one of my own:

“The clanging of his robot hips against my time booth fascinated my Doctor Who brain. Mostly because, wow, that hot robot was a motorcycle like five minutes ago. Suddenly, Cap’n Crunch arrived with breakfast and an erotic surprise.”


Category: “BUDSMOKA_247”

Games Played: These nerds play online games under the names of badly spelled marijuana references. Whether it’s in Halo or SOCOM, they communicate entirely in insults, and the only thing they hate more than n00bs is everything else.

Appearance: This nerd may sound like a bathroom wall that grew a shrieking mouth, but he looks like a suburban kid emulating the style of TV criminals. This creates the fashion statement, “I’m a tiny undercover cop who’s bad at his job.”

Diet: Budsmokas can feed off the same pizza for up to 2d6 days. Also, if their online trash talk is to be taken literally, their own crotch is a viable food source – at least for others.

Special Abilities: Advanced grumpiness. Whether they win or lose a match, they’ll find a reason to be furious with everyone else’s participation in it. Doctors say that after several weeks, this level of rage will cause an artery to burst, so many theorize that these nerds perform an intense hour of kitten snuggling each day to prevent brain explosion.

Weaknesses: Due to the nature of their social rejection, this type of nerd cannot form conventions or website clubs around their hobby and will never be found in colonies larger than 1d4. Because of this, I feel very safe saying that they are all pansies and that, in fact, I had sex with THEIR mothers last night. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.



Category: STARWOID

Games Played: Starwoids will play any Star Wars videogame but can’t devote all of their time to them since that presentation on how a Star Destroyer could beat Knight Rider isn’t going to Powerpoint itself.

Appearance: Plastic armor only comes in size human, so some of the larger Imperial soldiers are forced to disguise themselves as “fat guy in Yoda shirt”. Despite this, jungle teddy bears and Chewbaccas can still sense them and will attack. Some Starwoids occasionally dress in Jedi robes and use Photoshop to put lightsabers into their heads, but new speculation reveals that they might do so only because I think it’s so funny.

Diet: These people will eat whatever trash George Lucas and his movie-generating computer puke into their mouths and like it.

Special Abilities: They’re capable of surviving on a movie theater sidewalk for 3d8 weeks without nourishment, and when they are equipped with a broom handle and a video camera, a roll of a natural 20 will open up a dimension door to the plane of Funniest Internet Video Ever.

Weaknesses: Sand. It, you know, gets everywhere. Not like you, Baby.



Category: NIHONGOLOID

Games Played: These costume-wearing freaks (Japanese game or anime only, thanks) are mostly into role-playing games but may dabble in other genres if a game comes packaged within a story boring or fruity enough. Nihongoloids actually become invested in those cut-scenes none of us watch, and they can be moved to tears when their “Final Fantasy” group encounters an especially emotional plot twist. Away from video games, they enjoy collectable-card games, cartoons, and hiding from predators. Also note: it’s acceptable for a grown male member of their culture to discuss and trade monster cards with 10-year-old strangers. Witnesses to this should not feel obligated to call the authorities, but maybe should anyway.

Appearance: Their clothes and territory are both marked with screaming, adorable creatures. Like space nerds, these can often be found dressing up like their favorite fictional characters. However, Nihongoloids are unique in that it’s not unusual for men in their culture to dress not only as a cartoon character, but as a girl cartoon character. This carries no stigma among their people, as their sex organs have long since been removed and dried. Biochemically, they can still achieve stimulation through animated television, but it requires the indescribable – and tentacles.

Diet: Nihongoloids live mainly on table scraps of Japanese culture. They can eat earth food, but only if it has Voltron on the box.

Special Abilities: Beware of Hob-Nihongoloids. They are smaller in size but have a Dragonball Z fanaticism of +4d20. They are especially dangerous since during an encounter with a character with no interest in their magic karate show, their mind will violently reject this fact. On every successful saving throw against Spaz, a Hob-Nihongoloid can generate 3d4 hate letters to any game magazine without a 30-page DBZ cover feature.

Weaknesses: They take double-damage from any reality-based attacks., such as the realization that no one outside their club knows what the Hell Go Go Panda Detective is.


Category: 4-UM TROLL

Games Played: These vary from nerd to nerd but are always associated with an irrationally extreme emotion. The same game that devastates one message-board 4-Um Troll’s entire life may very well be the true love of another. What these nerds have in common is that their opinions one way or the other causes them to hate everyone else who has ever lived.

Appearance: Due to the 4-Um Troll’s reclusive nature, no one has ever actually seen one. Based on traces found on Message Boards, however, experts speculate their fat asses sound like this when they try to move: “Blglggblargoooo! SLOP SLOP!”

Diet: 4-Um Trolls survive solely on brief acknowledgements that they exist from people who don’t like them. For every forum poster who disagrees with their wildly disagreeable madness, the 4-Um Troll gains 1d6 hit points. If the disagreeing party seems angry at the idiocy of the 4-Um Troll, it gains another1d6 hit points and secretes a fungus from its armpits. This fungus is treated as a level 9 gray pudding with an intelligence of 4d6.

Special Abilities: If the surrounding characters all make their Ignore Dumbass saving throw, a 4-Um Troll has the ability to switch identities and go back into the forum to disagree with themselves under a different name.

Weaknesses: 4-Um Trolls must make a saving throw against suicide if no one on the message board seems to care that they hate Mario Golf. This saving throw is at a -4 penalty if someone points out that they spelled “Golf” with too many inches of exclamation points.

[Tygon]

Not the most hilarious thing I ever saw but funny. Thus I withhold my vote for the poll.

[Jbird]

Freakin' hilarious-- especially the part about Starwoids and natural 20s. I'd bag on the geeks more, except I'll be at GenCon in a week and have little position to talk...

[Elle Femme]

I'm just plain ol' confused, so I don't think that I am going to vote. Some was amusing, but mostly, it was just weird.

[racky raccoon]

i thought it was VERYYYYY funny

must be off i have 2d6 of pizza to eat....


*and so racky was later killed for the lamest joke the world has ever seen*

[Typhun]

Awesome!

just Awesome!

[Henry_Hound]

Ok, I'm not a geek/nerd so I'm confused, what is the whole 2d6 pizza thing?

[Stormwalker]

A d6 is a 6-sided gaming die, right? Well, roll two. That's the number of pieces of pizza.

[DarkeWolf]

Woah, that almoast caused some food on the computer screen, but ended up as food on my shined combat boots >_<

The forgot the EQ nerds and the WoW addicts...(me....)

[Henry_Hound]

[Styx]

Um, the dice in those games are six sided die

[Henry_Hound]

[aryeon]

if you ask my there are a lot more nurd types out there.
whe should go on a expidition to find out..

[Stormwalker]

And for those furs that're wondering what the difference is between a 6-sided gaming die and your usual, run-of-the-mill die, there are a few important features. The first is they cost 5 times as much. The second is... It's got purty colours.