#GIANTITP

[genderdotcom]

there is no limit to the depths of silliness to which i will sink

(original)

[triviallytrue]

Sorry to pipe up, but I know for online groups of dnd there are websites and forums that dms will post about looking for players.

Admittedly, I got lucky in that a friend into this one dms server because while I may not be with the group I started with (or even the friend who brought me in) I did accidentally join the other dnd group the DM had.... that the dm seems to really like due to the good vibes.

I'm lucky to be a dumbass who basically went in a different channel being set going "owo what this can I join please?" And having an awesome dm who was willing (and still is) to deal with a dummy newbie who still gets super confused

Yeah this type of thing tends to work well - I think the giantitp forums used to have an active scene for people looking for games

It also can be nice to go with a friend, if you know someone else who's interested but don't have enough for a group

[mbg159]

Just read your OOTS essay over on hobby drama about Miko, its a really great read! I recently went back through the comic, but I started from after Roy's death, so I missed all of that arc, and I think you've convinced me to go back and give it another look. I had no idea about the backstory either, around where Giantitp came from, or anything like that. All very interesting, thanks for writing it!

Most of it was taken straight from the intro to Dungeon Crawlin' Fools, down to the rather self-deprecating tone. There was also a bit of fanart that I commissioned while on the kick of writing it.

[ultramaga]

Most webcomic authors burnt out. The business model of free to view meant great entry opportunities but little capacity to actually survive off your work

Plus, I found some long running authors just got sucked into Leftism, and lost the capacity to create. Leftism is anti art - it demands all art be propaganda, in service of the Total State.

Giantitp and oglaf survive on mission. I have no idea how profitable they are. But you could take giant and make an anime out of it. Just keep to the art style. Aesthetics is not the point - it's storytelling. And it works.

I miss erfworld. Maybe the ending would never have been written, but I was always excited for a new edition.

December, 2037

With Hollywood having run even further out of ideas, shooting begins on the live-action Erfworld movie. The earnings for the low-budget film are slightly lower than expected, facing off against the adaptation of Ctrl-Alt-Del and surprise hit Penny Arcade.

[slurmcore]

Divorce Selfie!!

[aerspyder]

No!

[raleighliving]

Let Your Nerd Flag Fly

  Growing up Southern™ I always thought I’d have a hard time actually doing things that interested me.  I didn’t get into Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and tabletop games that weren’t “Cards Against Humanity” until about my Junior year in high school because of southern living stereotypes and my own social awkwardness; coupled with the fact that the way my classmates acted did nothing to dissuade these perceptions.  

   I always, looking back now, regret that I didn’t do more to get into these hobbies earlier than I did.  I could’ve been making new friends, interacting with a variety of peers, and learned about the world a lot sooner than I had now.  On top of that, I shouldn’t have let what other people think dictate my wants and interests.  

   So, little nerd who might be reading this, let me tell you about surviving as a Nerd in the triangle.  To begin with, count your blessings because the genetic lottery could’ve placed you in podunk nowheresville where the only game store closed 10 years ago.  One of the key factors in exploring your hobby will be finding a nice game store to frequent.

   Game stores are one part storefront and one part social club. They’re of course where you go to buy the newest editions of Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, what have you; but they’re also great places to go when you want to meet new people or learn a new game or skillset.  Both major stores in Raleigh are Game Theory and Event Horizon, with Event Horizon being more on the Raleigh/Garner line than actually being in Raleigh.  

  On the Cary side of things we also have Armory Gaming and East Coast Gaming, two wonderful stores in their own right.  There are a few smaller name brand stores as well like Games Workshop, but be warned ahead of time these stores might be niche as hell.  Games Workshop itself, for instance, has a strong community vibe; but the only games played in-store are Warhammer and other GW wargames.  

  Each of the stores mentioned has a strong and healthy nerd community, and the spread of stores means that there’s probably one close to you.  Shops like Game Theory and Event Horizon have sign-ups for weekly events like Pathfinder League and fledgling DnD groups looking for members, snacks and drinks for sale, and a variety of products to look at when considering what game you want to get into.   Some groups lean so heavily into the social aspect that East Coast Gaming has an actual bar set up in their store.  

    Of course, not everyone is good at socializing even in social settings. Signing a list in a crowded store, or asking some strangers if they have room in their group for one more (especially if the group is a different age/gender ratio to you). So what if you want to meet new people before you head to nerd Mecca? There’s meetup.com

   Meetup is a website dedicated to helping people find and discover, or if there’s not one, start their own groups for various activities.  Sure the website has things like 50s/40s hiking groups and Triangle Research Open Source groups, but they also have things like RDU Dungeon Crawlers, fan groups for the various stores, board game groups, anime fans, sci-fi fans, and poker.  As with any group finding website that encourages meeting people IRL, remember to exercise caution when meeting strangers for the first time. 

   Of course, maybe even that’s too much social interaction and exploration.  After all, it’s strangers; and you have to leave the comfort and safety of your home to find wherever the meetup spot for everyone is. That’s gas money, travel commitments, and depending on your family situation maybe you don’t have a car to get there in the first place.

  Thankfully, once again, you’re living in the age of the internet.  An age where anything you could possibly imagine (even the bad stuff) has been taken into account and created. Although if you’re reading this, you probably already know what I’m about to talk about.  

   Websites like The Giant In The Playground, my personal favorite, serve as a kind of nerdy hub online where you can find groups or join play-by-post games to join.  Other forums/webcomics with forums provide similar spaces, but what about actually playing?  For that, we have Roll20.

   Roll20.net is THE place for nerds.  A sort of holy stomping ground for nerds of all walks of life to get together and play some board games over the power of a wireless internet connection. Aside from giving players the tools to host, play, and manage games on an online cloud from any of their devices; it also has forums and game seeking tools built-in so the nerds will come to you.

   Not to mention, with how the site works you can easily meet new people and even learn from them how to play a majority of the games; with in-app tools meaning that if it’s REALLY necessary then someone can jump in and walk you through how to run the program.  It’s one of the best, if not THE best, applications of it’s kind, but it’s not the only one.  

   A lot of the features mentioned above and aspects are being used to develop similar apps, and some like Fantasy Grounds seriously improve the visual appeal at the cost of being a bit more expensive.  

   Hopefully, if you feel like I did so many years ago, these tips and resources will provide some ounce of help to you.  Or maybe you’ll stick with reading random Tumblrs and feel validated in that regard, whatever works for you in the long run.  Just don’t wait to explore potentially interesting hobbies because you’re afraid of social interaction with either new people or the people around you

   These games help individuals express themselves in ways other forms of play can’t.  They encourage creative writing skills, math, reading, and imaginative problem solving all while being a safe way to have some fun. 

P.S.  If anyone wants to play a game or two sometime of CAH or DnD or anything DM me 

[knowlessman]

[summarized img id: chunk copied from the webcomic Order of the Stick, strip 1281: the party meet Mimi, a sentient mimic who has ALMOST perfected a humanoid form, except she has given the form five fingers whereas all humanoid OOTS characters have three (they're stick figures, their hands are basically shaped like pitchforks). Copyright Rich Burlew, giantitp dot com.]

What if you were able to tell mimics apart because they have the same visual flaws as AI art?

The light source on the metal parts are all wrong! The design is unnaturally asymmetrical! I’m not even really sure what I’m looking at!!

[rayjbraz]

Elan e Harley Starshine das tirinhas “The Order of the Stick” |  Commission by Carol Montenegro, Digital, 2017.

[red-dragon-archfiend]

I kinda wonder what forums are like nowadays. Like, I visit them sometimes, particularly Giant in the Playground to read D&D character optimization guides, but I have no idea what they’re like compared to “real��� social media, or if they’re different now than they were in the early 2000′s. Granted, I never used them in the early 2000′s because I was a baby putting far too many hours into Sonic Heroes of all games back then, but I did wonder what they were really like.

[hekateras]

Back in the days of old, when the GiantITP forums and Iron Avatarist contests were thriving and the Soul Splice arc was still fresh, we were desperate for any comic relief, so here’s some stupidity from that era

and here’s some more

[bitterfucked]

worth noting too that a not small amount of the wotc board members are still active on minmax, giantitp, and enworld (and the paizo forums to a lesser degree) under the same forum names. cross-referencing the userbases and sending some messages could yield results that archives and search engines do not

q.q A project I'm working on would benefit from access to the long-defunct WotC 3.5 boards. I found a thread on Web Archive, but none of the links to other posts on the same boards work. As this is an older project, I am now depressed.

(If only an erudite rogue archivist had a solution.)

[stupidstupidratcreatures]

it does make a certain amount of sense that the creator and admin of the giantitp forums would be filled to overflow with the hyperspecific brain poison that otherwise only comes from posting or lurking on the giantitp forums

[lavaeolus]

I needed an avatar for a D&D forum -- well, GiantITP specifically -- so I figured I’d knock up something quick in Order of the Stick style. So here’s Sam Vimes!

I couldn’t decide whether I liked just sticking with the stick-figure legs or making the pants more overt. So have both. I figured the pants and smoking pose were a bit much for the low resolution the avatar had to be at, though:

[bloodyshadow1]

Word of advice for people that like dnd, read order of the stick. It's a great selfaware dnd webcomic written and created by rich burlew, the humor is great, the characters fantastic, and it just feels like the main cast is a dnd party only without the outside players control. The art style is done in stick figure art, which can make it hard to get into initially, but it's actually really good art despite seeming simplistic and it doesn't take away from the heartwarming, heartbreaking, or action scenes.

The only detriment is that their doesn't seem to be a real set schedule for updates, sometimes there could be weeks or even a month between updates. There are over 1100 pages though so it's not like there isn't a lot to get through. The archive length is even more of a plus because the author likes to bring up plot points and chekhov guns like crazy.

In all honesty, most forms of media tend to dip in quality as time moves on, or st least seems to as you change. But order of the stick is something I started reading in middle school,(almost 15 years ago) and has stayed the same level of quality if not gotten better since I started reading. The only other thing I can think of that I can say the same is one piece, one of the best and most popular manga/anime in the world. It can be found on giantitp . Com

It's a very popular webcomic in a lot of circles, but it doesn't seem really popular here and it started over a decade ago so people just getting into dnd might not be aware so I thought I'd recommend it. If you like critical role, the adventure zone, high rollers, relics and rarities, or just dnd in general I think you will like this webcomic

[lmcfly]

And after letting the thousands of "What is V's Gender" threads run unopposed for ages, the Giant in the Playground mods locked the one thread discussing the potential for trans characters existance in the comic.

Not because of the repeated bad faith comments and questions on behalf of transphobic users, mind you, but only once a trans commenter had the nerve to call out one such user.

I am not happy