Quote from: Mistwell;1039023Blather

Enjoy the corner. The paint will eventually dry.

Mistwell and Ras - can we keep this at least somewhat focused on games?

Quote from: Mistwell;1039018You are, again, confusing entertainment with reality.

Of course you can Google stuff people have written about sexuality and entertainment.   That doesn't make it "not rare".  I can probably find 200 articles on furries and entertainment for example.

None of that has anything to do with professionals received orders in their ordinary professions. There is no actual gay police. This is mostly just crap people talk about on the internet as their hobby.

Speaking from a liberal enclave - I've heard similar stuff to what Ras refers to from in-person gamers.  So it's not just from the Internet. There have been discussions at some local SF Bay area game conventions about increasing LGBT inclusion within games.  That doesn't mean that non-gay-including creators are banned from the con or whatever, but there are some people who push that. Depending on how they want to go about encouraging that, I don't inherently have any issue with that.

On the other hand, I don't think we're anywhere close to enforcing a requirement that all game modules must have gay characters. Even locally here within the super-gay SF Bay area, that seems very far from reality.  I think even where there are people encouraging more gay characters, it's about having some modules that include gay characters and some that don't.

Quote from: jhkim;1039031Mistwell and Ras - can we keep this at least somewhat focused on games?

From 2014, but here is a CNN article on Nintendo apologizing for not have same sex couples in their life simulation game. I am still bewildered that Black Panther, such a much hailed film, was critiqued for not having gays in it.  When BP II hits, do you think it will have some, even if simple tokenism, to avoid that negative feedback again?

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1039028Enjoy the corner. The paint will eventually dry.

So...despite claiming "Because West Coast America will destroy [creators of movies, tv shows and video games] professionally if [they don't] include [gay characters in their creations]" you have not one shred of evidence to back up that claim you made.

Still waiting dude. Still waiting for you to back up your whackadoo conspiracy theory claim. Note that people complaining is not the same as someone's profession being destroyed due to the complaint. I am complaining about your posts right now, and I seriously doubt it's destroying you because I made this complaint.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1039034From 2014, but here is a CNN article on Nintendo apologizing for not have same sex couples in their life simulation game. I am still bewildered that Black Panther, such a much hailed film, was critiqued for not having gays in it.  When BP II hits, do you think it will have some, even if simple tokenism, to avoid that negative feedback again?

So whose professions were destroyed by that criticism? Was someone at Nintendo fired over that? That's the claim you made, that if you don't do what they want you to do then your profession will be destroyed. Is the creator of Black Panther seeing his career "destroyed" because some didn't think it included gay characters? Show me that article.

Quote from: Mistwell;1039035So...despite claiming "Because West Coast America will destroy [creators of movies, tv shows and video games] professionally if [they don't] include [gay characters in their creations]" you have not one shred of evidence to back up that claim you made.

Still waiting dude. Still waiting for you to back up your whackadoo conspiracy theory claim. Note that people complaining is not the same as someone's profession being destroyed due to the complaint. I am complaining about your posts right now, and I seriously doubt it's destroying you because I made this complaint.

Making up quotes to attribute to me won't get you out of your time out. Sit there and think about what you've done.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1038842But it's not "sexual content". It's about as absurd as claiming any TV show, no matter how tame, is sexual in nature if it has folks in it who are married.

Not "sexual in nature", nor "sexual content", but we live in an age where every choice regarding the sexuality of any characters is political. Even if that sexuality is never consummated or overtly discussed. AKA, Sulu having a husband in Star Trek. Totally non-sexual scene, but clearly a political stance by the film.

Thus, stating "Rod Hammer and Sally Bottom are married" vs. "Rod Hammer and Tod Bottom are married" in an RPG are both political stances in today's world.

Heck, its absolutely political whether any character is male or female, let alone straight or gay.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1038842His claim is that inclusion of non-hertro couples is no biggie as the GM/Players can change whatever they want/need to as they desire. My point is, the same logic applied to not including non-hetro couples should be no biggie as players and GMs can change what they want (including adding in non-hetro couples) would not be supported by him and others of the outrage brigade.

I agree with you, but Jhkim showed proof of relationships being defined in TSR product.  Thus, if GMs could make straight NPCs into gay NPCs in the past, then anyone can change gay NPCs in the present and future. Of course, if a GM did change a gay or trans NPC and posted about it online, I'm sure RPG.net would burn bright from the chained panty explosions.

We live in the "everything is political" age. I expect outrage over everything on the internet. Social media is the bane of humanity.

Personally, I do not know the right answer. Defined relationships between NPCs are normal aspects of drama. And if that relationship is key or important to the drama or module, then it would be weird for that relationship to not be defined. However, if the relationship is not meaningful to the NPC presentation, then I don't see the need to include sexuality and leave it to the GM.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1038929That would allow for the GM and players to have themes they want to explore without being given no choice: after all, issues of class/caste, the rights of women and racial equality are just as important as those of LGBQT rights.

I think your idea has tremendous merit. The variable NPC identities to set the issue at hand is very creative. In some ways, it reminds me of the Traveller adventures in 76 Patrons where you rolled 1D6 to see how certain aspects the base adventure were radically changed.

I wouldn't use your idea ONLY because my table is explicitly about an escape from real world politics.

But its still a rocking idea for publishing an adventure for people who do like to explore political themes in gaming.

Quote from: jhkim;1038995Is this lazy writing unless there is a story-important reason for her to be Rentsch's lover?

Yes.

I hate RPG crap that wastes space on stuff that doesn't matter to the actual game. I hate long dissertations on NPC histories. Give me stuff that I can quickly use to flesh out the NPC to be performed. If the NPC's relationship is meaningful to the adventure, then excellent, I want it defined. Otherwise, its clutter.

Quote from: Mistwell;1039001The real world of the west coast is much like the real world anywhere else. Almost everyone is just doing boring jobs that have no political agendas at all. Heck, most people on the west coast don't even vote! Throw a rock and you're liable to hit someone who doesn't give one crap about politics of any kind out here (though they might sue you for throwing a rock at them). For the most part there is nobody monitoring your profession here to make sure you follow some evil liberal agenda, with extremely rare exception. The entertainment industry has focused almost exclusively on those tiny exceptions, and convinced you that's the generalization here. It's really not. People are pretty ordinary out here, as a generalization.

Silicon Valley is also focused heavily on social politics, as is the California legislature and the entire public education system. As Silicon Valley, the California gov't and the Entertainment Industry are major employers, there is a far greater threat of coercion than in other states, even other blue states.

However, Mistwell is quite right that if you don't live in a heavily SJW neighborhood or work in one of those prominent industries, you can avoid most (perhaps all) of the [usually quiet] coercion.

AKA, if you live inland and work in the agriculture, military or the oil/gas industry (all major employers), you won't hear much SJW nonsense.

Quote from: Phil Slackmeyer;1039040Making up quotes to attribute to me won't get you out of your time out. Sit there and think about what you've done.

"It's okay when I do it, but you'd better not!"

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039043"It's okay when I do it, but you'd better not!"

It's not OK when you do it either.

QuoteWench: Dala, a cutpurse (Level 3 Thief), AC 6 (no armor); hp 15; XP 95
S 11 111 W 10 D 18 Co 15 Ch 13
Thief abilities: PP 70; OL 48; F/RT 35; MS 37; HS 30; HN 15; CW 87. Carried: dagger (concealed), 1-4 pieces of cheap jewelry (total value 2-12 gp). She often picks pockets.
In a small room upstairs, Dala has a philtre of love and a pair of jeweled earrings (worth 700 gp) under a loose floor board, and 87 gp in her mattress. She is Dick Rentsch's lover.

Quote from: jhkim;1038995Is this lazy writing unless there is a story-important reason for her to be Rentsch's lover?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039042Yes.

I hate RPG crap that wastes space on stuff that doesn't matter to the actual game. I hate long dissertations on NPC histories. Give me stuff that I can quickly use to flesh out the NPC to be performed. If the NPC's relationship is meaningful to the adventure, then excellent, I want it defined. Otherwise, its clutter.

I would hardly call this a long dissertation on NPC history.  The descriptive text is shorter than the abbreviated stat block.  Maybe you're thinking this is an excerpt from a long text block?  The above text is everything there is about Dala in the module.

I also feel that brevity is important in NPC descriptions. But I think that this is quite brief. I would be fine with even a little more.  In general I am good with at least (a) a one-sentence physical description, (b) a quick handle or mannerism to portray them with, (c) their top one or two motivations, (d) their top one or two relationships to other NPCs.

As for whether it is important to the adventure, I thought Tod13 described it well earlier -

Quote from: Tod13;1038996It follows the advice I always hear about writing modules: setup situations and problems, not solutions. Maybe it is important, maybe it isn't. It depends on what the players do. Maybe the PCs kill Dala and show up trying to get on Rentsch's good side, while wearing her jewelry. Or maybe they kidnap Rentsch and use that as leverage to get Dala to steal something for them, since the party lost their thief.

I agree with this. I dislike NPCs who exist just for one function, because the PCs could do all sorts of things that aren't part of the expected plot of how the adventure will go.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039042We live in the "everything is political" age. I expect outrage over everything on the internet. Social media is the bane of humanity.

Personally, I do not know the right answer.

I have an idea. It is one that I was alluding to earlier in the thread.

Don't make everything political.

Of interest to the conversation about SJWs harassing published authors, I submit this piece from Larry Correia.

Quote from: Larry Correia on FacebookSo I'm no longer the writer guest of honor at origins. My invitation has been revoked. It was the usual nonsense. Right after I was announced as a guest some people started throwing a temper tantrum about my alleged racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever (of course, with zero proof or actual examples), and the guy in charge (John Ward) immediately folded. He didn't even talk to me first. He just accepted the slander and gave me the boot in an email that talked about how "inclusive" they are. I actually heard about it on facebook before I even saw the email.

Oh well.

They did this to John Ringo at ConCarolinas a little while ago, and took a lesson from it. This is just another new way for bullies to target people who disagree with them. Throw a fit, make up some accusations, and cry about how you feel unsafe. Now that they know it works, it is just another tool in their tool box.

For the record, I'm not any of the things they accuse me of. Despite writing a whole bunch of books, and a ton of political articles, and all of my many personal interactions with fans (I've done up to 15 cons and events in one year), none of these people can ever find any actual examples of me being sexist, racist, or homophobic (and the Guardian looked hard and still came up with nothing).

That's because in reality, I'm a libertarian who does not give a shit who you are, or what you do, and it is none of my business, as long as you stay off my lawn.

This time they kept calling me a "rape apologist". They dug up that classic that John Scalzi created about me several years ago. It's total nonsense. I spent many years teaching self defense to women, and I'm all in favor of every rape attempt ending with the rapist receiving a couple hollow points to the chest. But that just goes to show the power of lies, rumor, and narrative.

So years later, complete strangers come out of the woodwork to talk about how evil I am. Yeah... That does get tiresome. It is wearying.

I'm really sorry for any fans who were planning on seeing me at Origins. Hopefully I'll get to meet you at some other event.

For me personally, meh. I go to enough events. I'll just do something else fun that weekend.
The saddest person in all of this is my son, who was my plus one. He was looking forward to playing a bunch of games, and then we were going to go to the zoo on Sunday. (they have manatees there!).

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1039040Making up quotes to attribute to me won't get you out of your time out. Sit there and think about what you've done.

Oh for F's sake I didn't make up a quote (do you understand what brackets mean in a quote?). That is in fact what you said, it's just that you were doing it with quotes and in three posts so I had to piece it together IN CONTEXT. See, I knew you had lost the thread. You don't even recall what you were replying to.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039042Silicon Valley is also focused heavily on social politics

That's false. Most of it isn't. Most of it is just as boring as every other job and involves no politics at all. That would be my former job by the way, for a decade.

Quote, as is the California legislature

Yes I will grant you that, but it's a minuscule number of people.

Quoteand the entire public education system.

Nope. Most of it is apolitical. And I work in that sector now (and for the past 13 years) by the way and speak from direct knowledge that most don't give two whits about politics.

QuoteHowever, Mistwell is quite right that if you don't live in a heavily SJW neighborhood or work in one of those prominent industries, you can avoid most (perhaps all) of the [usually quiet] coercion.

AKA, if you live inland and work in the agriculture, military or the oil/gas industry (all major employers), you won't hear much SJW nonsense.

I live in Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks. I hear some social justice nonsense, but not typically in any work settings. I hear some libertarian and right leaning nonsense sometimes too...also not at work.

Larry needs to do what Richard Meyer (Diversity & Comics) did when Waid interfered with Meyer's contract negotiations with Antarctic Press: file charges with the state AG and the Federal Trade Commission. Also, where applicable, file criminal defamation charges against the accusers. The SJWs that do this shit will stop once they realize that they will have to face Federal and state law-enforcement agents inquiring about their actions, and one of them doubles-down on the stupid by lying to them (an offense in itself).