Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039462Politics aside I'd be happy to see most cons get much, much smaller.  300 to 500 is the sweet spot; GaryCon at 2000 or so is hitting the limits of what's too big.

I'd drink to that. At that size - no one gives a shit about Guests of Honor or their politics because everyone is a Guest of Honor for just showing up and GAMING.

Quote from: jeff37923;1039458How so?

In the way they are mistreating him. In how they didn't even ask him about the allegations before booting him. In how they don't ask for any friggen evidence at all before deciding to eject him. In how people portray him as all these awful things essentially based on thinking "He's conservative" as opposed to him ever expressing any of the views they accuse him of.

It's just frustrating.

Quote from: Mistwell;1039469In the way they are mistreating him. In how they didn't even ask him about the allegations before booting him. In how they don't ask for any friggen evidence at all before deciding to eject him. In how people portray him as all these awful things essentially based on thinking "He's conservative" as opposed to him ever expressing any of the views they accuse him of.

It's just frustrating.

Correia is a founder of the Sad Puppies right?  They've probably been classified as a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1039474Correia is a founder of the Sad Puppies right?  They've probably been classified as a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I've probably been classified as a Hate Group by the SPLC.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1039475I've probably been classified as a Hate Group by the SPLC.

Just posting here should be enough to make that distinction.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039462Politics aside I'd be happy to see most cons get much, much smaller.  300 to 500 is the sweet spot; GaryCon at 2000 or so is hitting the limits of what's too big.

That happened here with the Comic Expo. It's ridiculously huge now. I remember years ago being being able to actually talk to guest. One year I chatted with Jeremy Bulloch about Doctor Who and Calgary weather for nearly an hour, as well as another nice chat with Larry Niven. The last time I went was 2014, and the highlight was when you asked Sylvester McCoy a question, he would walk right up to you through the crowd. Now, you have to pay to pay to pay to pay for everything. The cost of the con is now just an entry fee.

As for gaming conventions, my dream is to attend one in a venue with ventilation.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1039474Correia is a founder of the Sad Puppies right?  They've probably been classified as a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;1039475I've probably been classified as a Hate Group by the SPLC.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1039476Just posting here should be enough to make that distinction.

Man, I hope they don't find out that in dentistry, white and straight is considered the norm (for teeth that is!). Hell, I'd expect Gronades to post how half his playing group has brown, positionaly fluid teeth just so he can revel in his wokness!

Quote from: tenbones;1039420But having a gay character in a module, much like having a gay character in a work of fiction is not the issue. The issue in both cases are - is it meaningful? In other words is the point of highlighting someone's sexual preference there for the purposes of the adventure/story? Or is it simply there to signal to people with a wink "Hey look! I'm thinking about you too" (which is not meaningful to the game or the fiction).

This goes with any form of ego-identification. If you're doing an adventure where having *sex* is part of the adventure, say around a brothel, or there are specific goals required like seduction, then great! It's meaningful to the game. Otherwise it should be up to the GM to decide what an NPC *is* and what that NPC's proclivities are in game. Or anything else the GM wants to tack on to the NPC in order to customize it to their game.

Quote from: tenbones;1039447It's "okay" because contextually no one cares or thinks twice about hetero-normative relationships. It's there to give a prompt to the GM, if they care, to use it as a possible plot device or actionable item for roleplaying purposes. Can you do this with gay characters? Sure.

The passive issue is setting conceits. *Is* it normal in village life for there to be openly gay, inter-species, relationships? The mere fact those words and their meaning exist *mean* something. The fact that they're open about it or not *means* something. In the context of one's adventure - the designer is implicitly saying something about the setting. That's fine too. But this is the conflation of the non-normative to being something it's not: normal.

tenbones - a lot of this reads like some kind of academic paper with terms like ego-identification, hetero-normative, contextual, etc.  Could you give some examples of what you consider good handling of gay characters in adventures contrasted with bad handling?

As for your core contrast, you give two possibilities:

1) Someone is gay as part of adventure/story - such as if a seduction is a required goal.
2) Someone is gay to signal people with a wink.

A lot of people (me included) prefer more open-ended  / sandbox adventures - where there aren't specific goals required at all. So a character's sexuality might or might not be relevant, depending on what the PCs do.

Further, I don't think these are even exclusive. As a specific example, in the Blue Rose sample adventure, "The Curse of Harmony" features a gay NPC (Jan) as central to its plot. Do you think that this means that it *isn't* signaling? It seems to me that a writer can be seen signaling if they make homosexuality central to the plot, because that means they're highlighting homosexuality even more. They can also be seen as signaling if they make homosexuality just a descriptive bit that isn't important.

Personally, I care about the results, not about their motives. If they signal a bunch but also write a good adventure, then I don't care.

Quote from: tenbones;1039420Just like I'll have LGBT NPC's all over the place, and to the degree that it even comes out depends greatly on the context.

Just saying an NPC is gay, or a specific race or whatever means little if you, as a GM, aren't going to do anything with it. Otherwise it's just pandering and window-dressing (or worse as others put it - virtue signalling).

With sandbox and other open-ended approaches, what is important and what is window dressing will vary widely.

For that matter, I also don't have a problem with window dressing as long as it is quick and to the point. I like giving quick, flavorful descriptions as if the place is a real place and as if the people are real people. In modules, I like having NPC portraits that I can show to the players - even though plenty of the details of that portrait might not matter. Does it matter that the university librarian is a bearded black man? Probably not, but I'm fine if that's what the picture shows.

Quote from: jeff37923;1039459....New developments from John Ringo...

"The exceptions to this are LibertyCon and Dragon Con. They're both professionally run cons run by professional people who don't play the SJW game. They're TRULY apolitical."

He brings up an interesting point about conventions as a need for authors.

That is a moot point only. The writers from the big publishing houses never did bother to attend gaming conventions until gaming conventions got big enough for them to warrant showing up, another words, when they could make more from convention book sales and autograph signings than they could make direct shipping books in a very real $ per hour kind of way.

They wouldn't even look at RPG conventions until at least ten years after RPG conventions really took off in the eighties... Before like about 1983 or so, ...only gamers, grognards, and geeks showed up for an RPG convention.

I also have news for John Ringo, I don't know much about LibertyCon but DragonCon is not apolitical, at all...

From the Atlanta Journal, this year, no less... so the saga isn't over... another one of the sjw's sicko's outed, caught, and convicted in a Court of Law. They actually did finally get around to kicking him off the Board of Directors there. That only actually happened a long time after his conviction though... never mind that a grand jury investigation found cause to issue an indictment for him, ...anyways, all the news that is fit to print for these ignorant young kids here who just assume because they haven't heard any bad press about it, that like DragonnCon is Apolitical (not!);
https://www.myajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/dragoncon-founder-fights-new-label-sexually-dangerous-predator/afMgCpotl5Z76jQkazfesL/

It is the largest gaming convention except for San Diego Comic-Con, although I think that maybe GenCon actually regained the lead as far as annual attendance, the last year or two.... and they have worked hard down there in Atlanta to cleanup their reputation in recent years.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039493I also have news for John Ringo, I don't know much about LibertyCon but DragonCon is not apolitical, at all...

From the Atlanta Journal, this year, no less... so the saga isn't over... another one of the sjw's sicko's outed, caught, and convicted in a Court of Law. They actually did finally get around to kicking him off the Board of Directors there. That only actually happened a long time after his conviction though... never mind that a grand jury investigation found cause to issue an indictment for him, ...anyways, all the news that is fit to print for these ignorant young kids here who just assume because they haven't heard any bad press about it, that like DragonnCon is Apolitical (not!);
https://www.myajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/dragoncon-founder-fights-new-label-sexually-dangerous-predator/afMgCpotl5Z76jQkazfesL/

If you had bothered to read the article about DragonCon, you would have read the sentence that says, "Kramer, who has not been involved with Atlanta's popular science fiction convention for many years". DragonCon booted Kramer out almost 20 years ago when this shit first happened.

I've attended LibertyCon and will attend again. I've been privileged to play in Clement Sector games there run by John Watts the owner of Gypsy Knights Games. Now that I think about it, John Ringo was in one of those games. Hell, last time I attended, Steve Jackson came on by and played with my dice. It is a good convention to attend.

Quote from: jcfialaNo Kings and Queens sitting on their thrones? No romance subplots driving assassination attempts? My goodness.

Half of all mystery plots seem to be based on lust and romance (the other half being driven by money and inheritance). You should try it sometime.

Quote from: Haffrung;1039443Put me in the camp that has never had any of that stuff in 38 years of D&D. Exploration, delving, machinations of evil sorcerors, invasions, etc. But no romantic stories, and maybe one or two mysteries. Really, NPCs don't figure especially prominently in my campaigns, which are much more about places.

Haffrung - weren't you all about how game-world society should adhere to what historical medieval society was like?  Your earlier reaction on the subject was -

Quote from: HaffrungI use historical medieval society as the baseline for my fantasy worlds. So yeah, farmers will be heterosexuals because they need to raise children to help on the farm. And kings will have queens because they live in hereditary aristocracies. Could some NPCs have illicit same-sex lovers? Sure. But I can't even get my head around an entire pre-modern society abandoning sex roles and hetero mating and child-rearing. How does succession work? How does the king get more farmers for the fields and soldiers for his armies?

It seems strange to not feature NPCs prominently, but for it to be important how succession and repopulation works.

Also, you never answered my reply about how medieval society frequently featured monasteries and convents, which runs counter to your idea that everyone in the society had to be reproducing heterosexuals.

Quote from: jhkim;1039433But seriously, sure one could substitute "She is Dick Rentsch's friend." instead of "She is Dick Rentsch's lover."  But what's the point?  It's not like it saves space or is clearer.  I don't get what the problem is.  Would it be OK if they were married or engaged?

All of the above.

Quote from: jhkim;1039433I think you're clearly misreading the Kirk/Spock relationship.  :-)  

Oh I am quite well aware of the K/S speculation and how the original creators insisted that their relationship was platonic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk/Spock

The point is that the K/S relationship can be interpreted as romantic if the viewer chooses to do so, because, as the poet says "Never trust the teller, trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.", i.e once you have created a work of fiction, it no longer belongs to you and you are not an authority on its meaning.

In other words, you are free to imagine Kirk and Spock as lovers. Just as one could argue that Rowling is not an authority on Dumbledore's sexuality: i.e. Since she never depicted his homosexuality in the texts, readers are free to dismiss her comments.

Here's the choice:

Either Roddenberry and Gerrold are right and K/S is platonic and Dumbledore is gay because Rowling said so, or Kirk and Spock are lovers if the viewer says so and the reader is free to dismiss Rowling's ad hoc edit of Dumbledore.

It will all depend on your school of literary thought. Or at least it should. Unfortunately, unlike the idea that K/S are lovers, the merest suggestion that Dumbledore is not gay is open to the accusation or "erasure".
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/02/01/harry-potter-fantastic-beasts-2-jk-rowling-dumbledore-not-gay-straightwashing/
http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/entertainment/dumbledores-sexuality-575655

So it is with NPCs who are LGBTQ in modules. If the author writes an PC as hetero-cis and the GM chooses to re-write the character as gay, bi or lesbian, there would be (these days, fortunately) no recriminations. OTOH, if the author of a module writes an PC as gay or bi or lesbian and the GM chooses to re-write the character as hetero-cis, the GM is open to accusations of "erasure".

Case in point on your own thread.

Quote from: Motorskills;1039147It is erasure if the players are occupying a mirror-world (OLDWORLD) with thousands or tens or thousands of people, many of whom are identified as being in hetero relationships, and none of whom are LGBT.

That is why i suggested two methods of allowing the GM to make his or her choices without being open to such accusations.

1) A random method of determing an NPCs sexuality if/when it is needed.
2) In the case of major NPC relationship around which a plot is built, supplying the GM with a variety of relationships: platonic, hetero, interacial or across class divides etcetera that the module explicitly offers to the GM. Even going so far as to put numbers down the side so the GM can roll, or pick and say that he/she rolled.

I have yet to see you offer an alternative solution.

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.

Late to the party, but I want to note that no NPC relationships are clutter. Even if only because the PCs might murderhobo it, and the GM needs to know who will be after them;).

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039432he actually gave John Ward no graceful opportunity to fix the developing situation

I am not sure what the vetting process was for the decision to invite him, but 30 seconds of googling and joining his public Facebook page would have shown it.

Larry works for a fairly big publisher now, but he started off by self publishing. He also has written game universe novels and sole rpg content (Kickstarter ended a littlle while ago for a Savage Worlds setiting for one of his series.

He is mainly a miniatures wargamer now (into painting miniatures), but if you read his blog page you will see he has been playing RPG for ages.

So Origins landed a reasonably well known author who happens to be a gamer.

I also don't know why Larry was supposed to warn John Ward of anything. His views and past actions are well known and public.

No, this is 100% a screw up by John Ward.

Quote from: jcfiala;1039417Which, y'know, Origins.  Most people just show up to game and shop, and don't even notice who the guests of honor are.

The best Guests of Honor at game cons are the ones who run a full schedule of events. Play with the Creator events are great for cons.

Quote from: tenbones;1039420If I had a GM suddenly started making random NPC's look like feudal-Japanese folks while I'm adventuring in Cormyr or Furyondy just to make me feel "included" my first assumption is "Oh there might be some reason there are Japanese-stuff going on!" and I might pursue checking it out if my character is so inclined. But if I found out it was just there for window-dressing then I'd be annoyed.

The sheer presence of katanas and ninjas are enough justification!

In the 80s, I played dozens of D&D games where samurai and ninjas appeared for no reason...and it was good.

I would joke we fought more ninjas in D&D than Bushido.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039432While Larry has done nothing "wrong" as far as I can tell, he probably didn't tell John about his past with the organization known as Sad Puppy who pretty much wrecked the Hugo Awards.

The Hugos were a shitshow long before there was organized pushback. I worked in publishing in the 90s (and had my idealism about writing and writers ground out of me) and even back then the Hugos (and other awards) had more bullshit drama than sororities choosing a Homecoming Queen.

Back then, it wasn't political or culture war drama, but it was drama lama.

However, I get the divide between GAMA and Baen (though its a rather outdated fight). It just seems insanely counterproductive to alienate a popular author who actually plays games when you are trying to sell a gaming convention.

Quote from: jeff37923;1039459He brings up an interesting point about conventions as a need for authors.

True.

But I would argue that gaming cons should be about gaming.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039462Politics aside I'd be happy to see most cons get much, much smaller.  300 to 500 is the sweet spot; GaryCon at 2000 or so is hitting the limits of what's too big.

I absolutely agree. PolyCon, the best convention in California, has had 250-300 attendees for 30+ years and it rocks hard.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039493The writers from the big publishing houses never did bother to attend gaming conventions until gaming conventions got big enough for them to warrant showing up, another words, when they could make more from convention book sales and autograph signings than they could make direct shipping books in a very real $ per hour kind of way.

That makes sense to me and I can't blame them.

All authors, except for the best seller list regulars, need to do whatever they can to maximize their sales.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039493It is the largest gaming convention except for San Diego Comic-Con, although I think that maybe GenCon actually regained the lead as far as annual attendance, the last year or two.... and they have worked hard down there in Atlanta to cleanup their reputation in recent years.

San Diego Comic Con isn't much of a game con. AL and PFS has a presence, as RPGA used to.  The badge costs are too high and there are just too many long lines to wait in to justify hours of gaming. There is a decent amount of informal after hours gaming.  I know a couple GMs who run stuff for friends sleeping outside in line.

Yes, people wait in 14 hour lines, sometimes through the night, to watch movie trailers that will appear online the next day.