Quote from: S'mon;1103300I seriously thought you were being sarcastic - and I live in a country where we just had the buses banks & supermarkets covered in rainbow flags for over a month! I guess 'hate' is an ever-broadening concept.

It's the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

People shouldn't act like it's a particular portrayal is the problem when they just think homosexuality is inherently perverted and unacceptable.

Not trying to defend this particular portrayal, but I think most of 5e is trite though. Who am I to really judge if this was tackled correctly.

Aside: I feel like if I'm ever in the position to manage young writers for a project, I'll have to clarify that LGBT status does not make a character interesting. If the story would be boring with straight people, then it's a boring story.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103307It's the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

I'm sitting on my hands here, waiting for Brendan to reply himself. I think you put a lot of words in his mouth with your reply, and were pretty quick to pull out the "Hate speech" card.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103296You know this opinion is considered hate speech?

"Kids can handle the idea of married straight couples without knowing what sex is, but gay couple are inherently perverted and not suitable for children"

That isn't the kind of thing that only SJWs have a problem with. That kind of opinion goes right up there with "they shouldn't be allowed to marry" or "they should keep their gross love life a secret"

It's anti-gay. Just admit that you aren't comfortable with gay people in general and that this has little to do with how it was depicted here for you.

/rant

Just had to nit-pick someone who tipped their hand too much.

I'm currently DMing for my 12 year old son. I will not present him with a male-on-male gnomish romance, kingly or not.

The european fairy [:-) !] tales I love, and which inspire me in my gaming pursuits, do not openly depict gay relationships. I'm not quite sure what to make of that, but I won't change this imaginary and intimate landscape of mine to suit the taste of a Seattle cunt whith a political and social agenda to grind.

I told my son that people can fall in love with all kinds of people - male with female (the vast majority), male with male and female with female - and that it's okay, there's nothing wrong with that.

Having written that, I fully admit it's highly probable my ideal society does not mesh with that of the author of the male gnome-on-gnome romance. Hell, I don't even subscribe to the notion of an ideal society :-p, which probably makes me a Nazi in the eye of the cuntish activist who wrote the scenario we're talking about. Fuck him (or her), if that's the case.

This tale of gay gnomes tries to  establish as normal - in the sense of bland, banal - an openly gay love affair between two kings of yore. There's nothing normal in that, at least to my eyes. The norms of any pre-XXIst century society - or of any Western medieval society, which informs at least a little on my D&D sessions - would not allow it. Heck, I don't even know of ANY male king alive TODAY who is happily married with a male spouse, masturbatory woke fantasy notwithstanding !

So to summarize: gay marriage is still in the minority in today's society. Without hating on gays, that state of affairs suits me just fine. And I won't preach in insidious ways to my son - or relay preachy prose - during our D&D sessions to change his mind about the status of marriage in today's society.

To those who think my rant constitutes hate speech, and who would be inclined to "nitpick," it, I dare say, with tough but loving affection : fuck you very much !

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103296You know this opinion is considered hate speech?

"Kids can handle the idea of married straight couples without knowing what sex is, but gay couple are inherently perverted and not suitable for children"

That isn't the kind of thing that only SJWs have a problem with. That kind of opinion goes right up there with "they shouldn't be allowed to marry" or "they should keep their gross love life a secret"

It's anti-gay. Just admit that you aren't comfortable with gay people in general and that this has little to do with how it was depicted here for you.

/rant

Just had to nit-pick someone who tipped their hand too much.

So I wrote a very long response to this that my browser 'ate' when I tried to submit it.  I don't have the patience to reproduce the whole thing, so I'll stick to the main points.

One, you have no idea who I am, who my friends are, or what I think.  Fuck you and you owe me an apology.

Two, you seem to have completely ignored that I presented options (several put forward by other commentators here) that explicitly embraced the gay gnomes aspect of the adventure, and made it MORE central to the plot, not less.  Only one of the options I presented ignored the issue of gay marriage all together.  This isn't just for parents of young children, who may not want to "go there" with them just yet, but also for young teenage boys playing with other teenage boys (you know, D&Ds main demographic) who may find it distracts from their game.  That is the key difference between your position and my position.  It isn't that you think gay marriage is okay, while I do not.  I am, in fact, pro gay marriage and have been since I was old enough to consider the question (sometime in the late 80s to early 90s).  The difference is that you want to put your political agenda first and I want to put the game first.

One man's hate speech, is another man's poetry.

Quote from: Razor 007;1103317One man's hate speech, is another man's poetry.

Ware, nor of good nor ill, what aim hath act?
Without its climax, death, what savour hath
Life? an impeccable machine, exact
He paces an inane and pointless path
To glut brute appetites, his sole content
How tedious were he fit to comprehend
Himself! More, this our noble element
Of fire in nature, love in spirit, unkenned
Life hath no spring, no axle, and no end.

His body a bloody-ruby radiant
With noble passion, sun-souled Lucifer
Swept through the dawn colossal, swift aslant
On Eden's imbecile perimeter.
He blessed nonentity with every curse
And spiced with sorrow the dull soul of sense,
Breathed life into the sterile universe,
With Love and Knowledge drove out innocence

The Key of Joy is disobedience.

 - Aleister Crowley

Man I was not planning to buy the Essentials kit before this thread...but I think this thread convinced me to buy it. Not for married gnomes (I don't even know if I'd use that) but for all the stuff in the adventure. I am considering starting a D&D club and my daughter's middle school and this sounds like it wouldn't be a bad set for that (again, probably without the gay gnomes - not the kind of waves I want to start with parents).

Quote from: Brendan;1103318Ware, nor of good nor ill, what aim hath act?
Without its climax, death, what savour hath
Life? an impeccable machine, exact
He paces an inane and pointless path
To glut brute appetites, his sole content
How tedious were he fit to comprehend
Himself! More, this our noble element
Of fire in nature, love in spirit, unkenned
Life hath no spring, no axle, and no end.

His body a bloody-ruby radiant
With noble passion, sun-souled Lucifer
Swept through the dawn colossal, swift aslant
On Eden's imbecile perimeter.
He blessed nonentity with every curse
And spiced with sorrow the dull soul of sense,
Breathed life into the sterile universe,
With Love and Knowledge drove out innocence

The Key of Joy is disobedience.

 - Aleister Crowley

"Mr. Crowley......what went on in your head?  Aw Mr. Crowley.........did you talk to the dead?  Your life story to me, seems so tragic; with the thrill of it all.  You fooled all the people with magic.  Yeah you waited on Satan's call..."


An absolutely killer song!!!

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103307It's the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

Are you saying tolerance = hate? :confused:

Quote from: Brendan;1103313So I wrote a very long response to this that my browser 'ate' when I tried to submit it.  I don't have the patience to reproduce the whole thing, so I'll stick to the main points.

One, you have no idea who I am, who my friends are, or what I think.  Fuck you and you owe me an apology.

Two, you seem to have completely ignored that I presented options (several put forward by other commentators here) that explicitly embraced the gay gnomes aspect of the adventure, and made it MORE central to the plot, not less.  Only one of the options I presented ignored the issue of gay marriage all together.  This isn't just for parents of young children, who may not want to "go there" with them just yet, but also for young teenage boys playing with other teenage boys (you know, D&Ds main demographic) who may find it distracts from their game.  That is the key difference between your position and my position.  It isn't that you think gay marriage is okay, while I do not.  I am, in fact, pro gay marriage and have been since I was old enough to consider the question (sometime in the late 80s to early 90s).  The difference is that you want to put your political agenda first and I want to put the game first.

Ooo touched a nerve.

No I'm not going to apologize. One thing this forum let's you do is call people out on their bullshit.

It's one thing to think this was a poorly done portrayal or maybe not wanting to upset parents at a school group (after all you don't control how other people raise their kids). It's another to imply that people in gay relationships are inappropriate for children.

Maybe you need to check yourself and what you really think about them. You may be very tolerant, but that isn't the same thing as accepting, which kind of colors your review of this particular aspect of this product.

There are a lot of people here who don't like sloppy writing. There are people here who just don't like gay people. And then there are people here who think tolerating gay people means you like them but find their inclusion in anything a detraction from the media.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1103062With everything else we accept as being possible in a fantasy world of magic, I could easily grok a magic urn that accepts seed from both kings and then acts as a womb for their child.

Where's the fetus going to gestate? Are they going to put it in a box?

Oh, you just did that one....

Quote from: S'mon;1103324Are you saying tolerance = hate? :confused:

It is! But it's the socially acceptable form of hate that doesn't really hurt anyone except SJWs.

Where you have to be careful is when something that was tolerated slips into being something accepted. It's getting to that point that letting slip that you merely tolerate gay people could be bad for you.

For D&D product reviews, I'm unsurprised that the inclusion of gay gnomes is seen as only a negative by people who only tolerate gay people. Doesn't really help me or anyone else determine if it was well written. Based on other reviews in this thread it seems to have been handled poorly.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you had to tolerate something you found pleasant or didn't bother you at all?

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103329It is! But it's the socially acceptable form of hate that doesn't really hurt anyone except SJWs.

I agree that one 'tolerates' things one at least somewhat dislikes. Like Locke arguing for Tolerance for Catholics. But dislike =/= hate. People don't generally willingly tolerate things they really hate.

I think Tolerance is a fine Classical Liberal value. We shouldn't ban things just because we dislike them. Nor should we Tolerate the truly reprehensible. But there are grey areas too. That's why I Tolerate Islamic headscarves, but I think full burqas should be banned in public. But I will Tolerate them while they are legal. So I guess it's a gradient.

Just because something is legal, or possible, or allowed; doesn't mean that it's normal.  You can crawl around in your front yard and eat dirt, if you like; but that doesn't mean that it's normal to do so.

If 95% of the population does x, and the other 5% does y; the 5% doing y are abnormal, by default.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1103325Ooo touched a nerve.

No I'm not going to apologize. One thing this forum let's you do is call people out on their bullshit.

It's one thing to think this was a poorly done portrayal or maybe not wanting to upset parents at a school group (after all you don't control how other people raise their kids). It's another to imply that people in gay relationships are inappropriate for children.

Maybe you need to check yourself and what you really think about them. You may be very tolerant, but that isn't the same thing as accepting, which kind of colors your review of this particular aspect of this product.

There are a lot of people here who don't like sloppy writing. There are people here who just don't like gay people. And then there are people here who think tolerating gay people means you like them but find their inclusion in anything a detraction from the media.

So we're going to double down on this, are we?  Sigh. Okay, here we go.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

You'll please note that my comment about the maturity of the group was in relation to the idea of a pederastic Gnome "dynasty" of older to younger gay kings, not to the idea of "gay marriage" in general, which I felt didn't make sense in the setting for purely political reasons.  

This option wasn't even originally mine, but that of another poster.  I just thought it was an interesting idea and worth amplifying (weird thing for a homophobe to do, don't you think?).   Although - again - this particular angle would require some sensitivity to handle well and therefore might not be appropriate for all groups.  If this relatively mild suggestion is just BEYOND THE PALE homophobia to you, then YOU have problems and are projecting your own internal drama on me.  

While outside the scope of this forum, I have been slighted here, so I'll tell you a little about me:  

One of my oldest and very best (male) friends has been with the same, much older, man for more than a decade.  He is by no means my only gay friend, but he is one of my very best friends.  I know his whole family and he knows mine.  His boyfriend is a famous fashion photographer, whose name I will not be mentioning here, but if you've seen a picture of the Rolling Stones, in any given year, there's a better than average chance that he shot the pictures.  If you ever watch Drag Race with RuPaul he's a regular.  My friend, while a decent semi-professional photographer with published credit, is a rock star computer geek / hacker and helped me learn to code.  He was one of the groomsman at my wedding.  We've done drugs together, climbed mountains together, drank I don't know many whiskeys together.  Smoked A LOT of dope together.  Yes, we've also rolled dice together.  He's like a brother to me and I would take a bullet for him.  

I realize that you can't collaborate this, so here's something you can.  Years ago, right after I left film school, I took two weeks off of work to help a friend produce a gay romantic comedy.  I am officially credited for it on IMDB:  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3834433/  Do a lot of homophobies volunteer, without pay, to work on gay films, for struggling gay writer/directors, with primarily gay casts?  

Lastly, but perhaps the most interesting.  I spent 13 years in Aleister Crowley's OTO in Southern California.  Not only was Crowley bisexual, at the very least, but the organization has a very strong gay and trans membership.  It also tends to be very "free" bordering on libertine.  I've been at parties where a gay orgy in the next room is "just another Sunday" and Kenneth Anger stops in for tea... with his boyfriend... in short shorts and tanker boots.  I've sat in a hot tub next to a  gay friend WHILE he was getting head.  Don't worry about me junior, I had a girl on my lap at the time.  I've had deep drunken philosophical conversations with a MtF trans person, while naked at a bonfire.  You think I'm not "accepting"?  Bitch, get on my level.