A long time ago, I downloaded Fudge from ftp.soda.berkely.edu (I think) and printed out a copy and put it in a binder and got to readin'.

I soon noticed that the author, Steffan O'Sullivan, had set himself a standard for pronouns: references to players would use the male, and references to the GM would be female.  He stuck to it all the way through, so there's that.

Honestly, at first, it was a little weird so see "If the GM wants X, she should Y" and do on, but that was really only because I wasn't used to seeing it.  In time, however, I got over it, because not only did I know female GMs (with varying levels of talent and skill, might I add), but...really...

...Fudge was so cool.

I recognized O'Sullivan's reasoning, it became a non-issue and I started playing.

Quote from: gleichman;223002I know you likely never learned this, but restating someone's view is a wonderful way of doing something called communication.

Your proper response would have been to correct the statement.

I did, in post 127, you ignored it in favour of restating my position for me again.

Quote from: gleichman;223002Yes I made an attack, many anti-pc types are afraid of work- I stand by it

On that, what I actually said was that many anti-PC types blamed their own failures in life on external chimera, rather than working to overcome those failures or simply accepting them (actually, I didn't say simply accepting them, but I'd correct to include it).

I didn't say afraid of work, I was talking about blaming others for one's own failings.  If I'd wanted to talk about fear of work, I'd  have said that.  Your continual recasting it as saying people were frightened of work was part of why I was not willing to sign up to any of your restatements, you were creating arguments I hadn't made.

Someone may be working very hard, but see others succeeding when they are not.  They can accept that, they can choose to work harder or differently, they can retrain, they can do many things, or they can look for some outside factor to blame such as political correctness or racism or class prejudice.  They may even be right about that external factor, but it's still ultimately a cop out because whinging about that will not change their situation.

And for many who complain about political correctness, it is a convenient fiction on which they can blame their own unhappiness with the world.  Now, you can choose to apply that as a personal comment about you, but that's your choice Brian, not mine.

Quote from: Balbinus;223008I did, in post 127, you ignored it in favour of restating my position for me again.

That's because I didn't get even a glimmer of that out of post 127, all I saw (and all I still see) is justification for you saying most people who oppose PC are afraid of work (or your not restated- failing).

And I think it's clear now, given that you've restated it- that such is still your opinion. I think you've finally corrected and restated enough.

My original opinon is unchanged, indeed- increased.

I reject your exception of me. You've used the term "most", and I do not consider myself different from any principled and learned opponent of PC. If you wish to toss out "most", I must include myself covered as well.

I consider such a charge to be the worst misdirection and logic. Ignorant of the facts and a wonderful mirror to all the crimes you wish to place upon others.

QuoteI can't remember exactly what I wrote about the villains, but I don't think I said all the villains were non-white. There are tons of white major antagonists in his books

Glad to see you've come back to reality.  Here's what you said.

QuoteSo in Howard, the bad guys are always black or arabic, with the colour of their skin and their hooked noses used as common indicators of their evilness.

Quote from: walkerp;223004Anyhow, Howard is just one of the writers of the fantasy genre that I know best.  But my overall point is that the genre is dominated by white male power fantasies and often depicts women and other races in stereotypical ways.

By the same logic, does it not also depict white males in totally stereotypical ways? As powerful and independent Alphas?

Are we talking about all stereotypes as a bad thing, or just those stereotypes that don't portray the group the reader belongs to in a shinny, positive light?

Quote from: walkerp;223004All I'm saying is that a movement to reverse that trend is a good thing

Why? I am very weary of "movements" or "causes". Smacks too much of organised religion to me. I say, let whoever wants to write female, gay, asexual or whatever power fantasies do so and leave the rest of the niche alone.

Quote from: walkerp;223004and doesn't harm the existing white males in fiction in any real way that I can see.

Really? So why is it that mostly no-one I have ever met outside the net knows about them?
And why are those "white heroes" hard to find at the local bookstore while the shelves strain under the weight of "reverse-trend" fiction? Like the misanthropic revisionisms of Marion Zimmer Bradley?

Quote from: The_Shadow;222733Reading a bit of the 4e DMG  today brought home something to me. I'm talking about the deliberate alternation of masculine and feminine pronouns, and other forms of "gender-inclusive" language in the written word in gaming culture. Things like, "the DM should say yes or roll the dice. She isn't the most important person in the room...".  It's close to a standard in a lot of gaming material and pretty common on rpg.net.  

I rarely encounter this level of righteous inclusiveness in other circles, even though I work in humanities at a university. It seems even weirder when 80% of gamers are male. So why are gamers at the forefront of feminist practice in this regard? I have my own views, let's hear yours.

I have had four different editors over the years. I did the he/she thing with Tales but dropped it when the play testers pointed out how they were annoyed with it. I then switched to "they" in many cases as a neutral pronoun. My editors told me "Yeah, technically wrong but gaining credibility in some circles. You can use it". I would prefer if English had a non-derogatory neutral pronoun (calling people "it" tends to be bad). So, now, I use they for a neutral reference.

Bill

Quote from: Edsan;223019And why are those "white heroes" hard to find at the local bookstore while the shelves strain under the weight of "reverse-trend" fiction? Like the misanthropic revisionisms of Marion Zimmer Bradley?

Are you sure on that one?  A Song of Ice and Fire has white protagonists.  Most fantasy fiction I read back when I read it (which is a while back, so I may be out of date) had white protagonists.

Romantic fantasy probably has alternative protagonists, but that's really a separate genre to trad fantasy and I wouldn't expect it to follow the same rules.

Is MZB still writing?

Quote from: Balbinus;222996I think Brian's objections come from an unusually comprehensive and IMO overly* consistent political stance which colours his worldview to a greater degree than most people are coloured by theirs, though not having met him I could of course be wrong in that.  

*Overly as I think the world is made up of special cases and exceptions, therefore I distrust too great a consistency in any political stance.

I love the deconstructionism of this statement. Knowing, understanding, and following a consistent world view is a bad thing. Rather inconsistency, ignorance and misapplication are the models for Balbinus.

Wonderful.

I'll carry the flag Balbinus labeled me with, and carry it proudly. But I reject completely his charge of racism.

Quote from: Balbinus;223024Is MZB still writing?

Nope, she's been dead for the past 9 years and both fantasy fiction and good taste are all the richer for it.

Edit: We can only cross our fingers and hope the same happens to J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman soon.

Off topic needs a nice thread...

Quote from: noisms;222831I don't understand the logical leap that says depicting slavery, colonialism and sexual inequality means advocating it. Howard depicted blokes committing mass murder with big broadswords. Does that mean he advocated that as a valid method of problem-solving in the modern world?

To be fair, while claiming that Tolkien was advocating racism or something is tosh and easily disprovable, I think it's pretty hard to deny that Howard was a racist, and promoted racist ideas. Pretty much all of his stories that deal with Africa - like the Solomon Kane ones - push the idea that Africans (and people of African origin) are, by and large, either debased degenerates who need to be violently put down for the good of all, or are weak backward little retards who need a white person to sort out their problems for them. 99% of all the black characters he writes about are caricatures of the worst sort. While I totally agree with you that nasty things can be depicted without being advocated, I think in at least some cases Howard, and Lovecraft for that matter, advocate some pretty nasty views about black people.

This doesn't mean that they aren't incredible authors; it just means that they held views which aren't in fashion today, and which were reflected in their writing. I'm not so blinkered that I point-blank refuse to read great stories by people whose ideas I disagree with, but at the same time I reserve the right to dislike a story on the basis of the ideas it promotes. (I tend to prefer the Conan stories to the Solomon Kane ones for precisely this reason.)

That said, I think this is a blind alley: I think how sensitive issues are depicted in the foundational texts of modern-day fantasy literature has little or nothing to do with what grammatical conventions people use in writing game books. Personally, I think any particular convention is fine so long as people are consistent about it in a particular book; that said, I like the 4E core books' practice of always referring to players as being male and GMs as being female, not for any particular reason but simply because it offers clarity in reading without having to strain to avoid using personal pronouns, which while equally viable and clear can lead to slightly clunky writing.

Quote from: One Horse Town;223043Off topic needs a nice thread...

Yes.

Quote from: One Horse Town;223043Off topic needs a nice thread...

Thought I started one down there earlier today.

 Unless you mean "Nice" as in fluffy bunnies, unicorns, balloons, and peppermint snaps  type of nice....


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;223052Thought I started one down there earlier today.

 Unless you mean "Nice" as in fluffy bunnies, unicorns, balloons, and peppermint snaps  type of nice....


- Ed C.

Nah, i meant nice as a polite way of saying, "Off topic!." Take the hand slapping there.