Quote from: RPGPundit;796815"quasi" is the keyword here. If you're playing a game set in actual medieval europe (even if it's a slightly-fantasy version of the same), then I would have an issue with the inaccuracy of portraying 21st-century style homosexual couples accepted by the 'regular society' of the time.

Right, but I'm sure Will's about to come along and tell you how horrible you are for thinking that.

Quote from: RPGPundit;796815If you are setting it on a world that isn't Earth, that doesn't have christian monotheism as its dominant religion, that does have fireball (to say nothing of Change Self) style working magic, and monsters of all variety, then all bets are off. I wouldn't specifically have a problem with a world like that where, for particular and explicitly-understandable reasons, some or all areas persecuted homosexuality, but I also wouldn't have any problem at all with a world like that where you had a homosexual couple with adopted kids as owners of the local tavern.

Yeah, depending on world or culture, as well as class, it differs.  In some places, they don't care who you fuck or how, but if you're noble you'd better make heirs somehow.  It just depends.  In some cases, it makes sense, in some cases it does not, as I said in another post, context matters, and not in the context of 21st century western society.

Quote from: RPGPundit;796815And of course, if you've got a world that's like Classical Greece, or ancient India, or the pre-columbian Maya, then its just silly to be talking about the U.S. 21st century heterosexual-homosexual male-female divides at all.

Yep.

Quote from: RPGPundit;796815In any case, if you are playing in a world called Golarion (or Faerun, or whatever) and you have no problem with Raise Dead and Orc Hordes but running into a gay couple in Waterdeep before entering the mountain-sized mad wizard's dungeon is causing you conniptions of incredulity or outrage, you may have a problem.

I don't have any problem with it, the North is a pretty lenient place and Waterdeep is the most cosmopolitan.  However, saying that not having a homosexual couple in Hommlet is erasure or making a political statement is just crazy talk though.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796891Right, but I'm sure Will's about to come along and tell you how horrible you are for thinking that.

oh hey, yet another thing you are wrong about because you let preconceptions and tribal thinking make you stupid.

Quote from: Will;796890There's a huge middle between 'exact representative populations of every minority' and 'none.'

Quote from: Will;796892oh hey, yet another thing you are wrong about because you let preconceptions and tribal thinking make you stupid.

Says the guy who avoids a large post and replies with a drive-by afraid to engage. :rotfl:

Let's assume if we look that there are no openly gay human couples depicted in
1. Warhammer Fantasy
2. Harnmaster
3. Dark Albion
4. World of Greyhawk

Which of these, if any, are what you would consider Erasure?
Which of these, if any, would you consider making a statement about sexual politics?
Which of these, if any, would you consider "problematic"?

It's called a smartphone. Good for reading stuff and giving short responses, but ever since the last update the autocorrect is like riding a bronco. jeebus.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796894Let's assume if we look that there are no openly gay human couples depicted in
1. Warhammer Fantasy
2. Harnmaster
3. Dark Albion
4. World of Greyhawk

Which of these, if any, are what you would consider Erasure?
Which of these, if any, would you consider making a statement about sexual politics?
Which of these, if any, would you consider "problematic"?

I have no idea, I'm not familiar with any of them.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889Umm, read again, I'm showing ONE soldier going off to war.  If I showed a montage of everyone in his unit, and they were all white couples, then that would be what you're claiming.  If however, I'm showing one couple, in a movie about WWI or WWII, the fact that the couple are white and married simply shows statistically the majority.  If I had a movie about a WWII soldier showing a gay couple waving goodbye, then that might make for a helluva story, but it's an incredible statistic anomaly to the point where now that is part of the story.

Showing one or two hetero couples because statistically the vast majority of couples are hetero is not political, nor is it erasure.

Agreed. It's just when you use that excuse always and have put out a lot of material people have a right to go 'oh really?'

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889Yeah, and I meant it without all the false offense your ilk reads into the word.  At the point in the future when homo or transgendered couples become statistically equal to hetero or cisgenered couples, then the term traditional will no longer correctly apply. As of now, it does, simply being factual, not making judgments.

Your ilk? How about you talk to me, and not all these imagined tribal elders I am working for.

And bullshit. Word choice matters. You could have said straight or heterosexual. Also, in a conversation which is spanning all of fantasy and history, 'traditional' makes you sound particularly ignorant.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889Fixed that for you.

What are you, 12?

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889At some point, you might try reading what people actually write instead of what you assume they are meaning by completely rewriting what they said to fit your narrative of offense.

Pot, meet event horizon.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889I DID NOT SAY 'every couple should be hetero because that's part of the genre'.  What I said was, showing someone to have a heterosexual married parents is not making a political statement or erasure.

Yep, cool

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889I understand your argument.  TSR was probably operating under the common belief that putting a homosexual into place would be making an overtly sexual statement where as putting a heterosexual couple in but not talking about sex at all means there is no sexual context.  You would probably say maybe they weren't thinking about sex at all, but that by showing a heterosexual couple, even though they are in the vast majority, is still making the unconscious "privilege of the majority" decision to show the norm, thus making a sexual statement by passively reinforcing the sexual norm.

Yeah, see, all those bits where you indicate that having a gay couple means you are talking about sex but heterosexual couples don't? That's where you are a fucking bigot.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889That's one of those beliefs that while technically correct is absolutely full of shit when taken to the level where every single possible minority that exists must be depicted in exact proportion or in over-representation in a method to balance out previous erasure via Affirmative Representation.

As I mentioned, there's a world of difference between saying 'hey, maybe we should put in a few non-straight people that aren't played grotesque' and a United Colors of Benetton advert.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889The concept your argument and belief system ignores is context.
A western taking place in Northern California in 1876 without Chinese?  Erasure.
A western taking place in Northern California in 1876 without Mosques?  Not Erasure.

A modern US city with no openly gay couples? Erasure
A quasi medieval rural village with no openly gay couples?  Not Erasure

Yeah, that last? The one with the dragons, immortals, zombies, psychic warriors, and kung fu monks with a very modern gloss on the 'quasi medieval'?

Bullshit.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889Check your Faux-Offense.

The fact that you can't tell radical SJW from regular egalitarianism is very telling.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889Since Transgendered people are like .03% of the population, Paizo should have had a couple hundred iconics before a T showed up.  However, they've also made it pretty clear that Golarion has a much higher incidence of LGBT individuals then our world does, so it may be representative of Golarion, but the LGBT NPCs and characters are in higher percentage then real life.

Well, iconics and adventurers tend to be weird. I mean, I think one can argue that they should be more populated by fringe types mainly because if you are fringe it gives you an extra incentive not to just manage a manorial estate or work in a pig farm.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796889Not that I know of, Lesbian Stripper Ninjas is pretty much it, aside from the homoeroticism you could choose to read into Driz'zt/Entreri.

Mmm. I can't blame them for their earlier whitewashing, considering even without anything really non-mainstream they got the the 80s Satanic panic.

Quote from: Will;796823Brad.

Explain how 'real world has gay people, this fantasy world has none' does not constitute erasure.

Is that simple enough for you?

I play games, I don't explore human sexuality via "role playing". You're welcome to do the latter, but saying people who don't are bigots is certainly taking this whole elfgame nonsense to extreme levels of stupidity.

Also, we're basically saying the same thing, just from different extremes. Consider that...

Well, this was a successful troll.

Actually commenting on the subject, i find objections to the inclusion of minorities in gaming products bizarre. Firstly, from a business standpoint, it makes sense as your audience is likely to include minorities, secondly, it harms no-one and if it makes some people feel good to see themselves portrayed in a product they bought, then that's a plus. Lastly, like all gaming products, they don't survive contact with the gaming group anyway. If you don't want an aspect of the product in your game, don't use it. If you want to add something, add it. If you want to change something, change it.

Discussions like this one are more politically motivated than the content they are discussing.

Quote from: S'mon;796852Yeah, but most of them were wrong.

Thats why I said "I believe" rather than "This is in here."

Also, Erasure isn't about like, a single piece of work.

Its like the Beschdel Test, which is moronic to use as an indictment of an individual movie, but makes sense in context of the entirety of Hollywood.

Or BMI, which on an individual level can be pretty flawed (because yes, Lebron James is so overweight), but on a national level can indicate important trends.

Not every story or adventure or whatever is going to have an LGBT character. That is fine. But when there have been hundreds and hundreds of adventures made and they almost never show up... it gets a bit fishy.

That being said, if you find it too much for a single piece to mention a certain sexuality or gender identity, you are pretty much arguing for erasure.

And as for the "Waa waa, my games don't have any sexuality in them, so its not necessary" stuff... so fucking what? Your games don't have any at all. Good for you. That is fine man, that is how you want to run your game, coolio, no problems. But other people do. And we might like to have adventures with romantic subplots to them. Are we not allowed to play those?

Why flip out because someone wrote something that you aren't the target audience for, unless you have a moral objection to it? And if you have a moral objection to it, then you are a fucking bigot.

On the subject: Can anyone think of a adventure (would probably be in Paizo if there is) with a bisexual male NPC? I always find bi males to be the most underrepresented demographic. (The only two I can think of in fiction period are Jack Harkness and John Constantine)

Hmm. Yeah, I think I can think of more asexuals and intersex than bi males. Heh.

Quote from: Haffrung;796877I came across a review of the Three Musketeers where the reviewer expressed her hatred for the book and for all of its characters. They weren't at all the heroic champions she expected them to be, and who had filtered down into the pop culture pap they are today. And she was right- they aren't likable. But they are interesting, believable, clever, funny, and passionate.

The past is a different country, they do things differently there.

Richard Lester's version got them fairly good... 'interesting scaliwags.'  I toy with the idea of writing a close-medieval fantasy where the knights have knightly ideas about bloodshed and violence.  I think people would be appalled at the behavior of even the good knights.

Quote from: Will;796900I have no idea, I'm not familiar with any of them.

Ok.

Quote from: Will;796900Agreed. It's just when you use that excuse always and have put out a lot of material people have a right to go 'oh really?'

Always?

Quote from: Will;796900Your ilk? How about you talk to me, and not all these imagined tribal elders I am working for.

And bullshit. Word choice matters. You could have said straight or heterosexual. Also, in a conversation which is spanning all of fantasy and history, 'traditional' makes you sound particularly ignorant.

Except we weren't spanning all of history, were we?  We weren't talking about the Sacred Band of Thebes, we were talking about TSR modules which were set mostly in Greyhawk, which is a rough medieval europe analogue, and the word traditional was intended to mean "what you were most likely to see based on that culture's norms." In other words, the statistically probable you agreed to above.  The fact that "traditional" to you means "them's fightin' words because rednecks" isn't my problem.

Quote from: Will;796900Yeah, see, all those bits where you indicate that having a gay couple means you are talking about sex but heterosexual couples don't? That's where you are a fucking bigot.

and that's what makes you an elitist asshole who can't think past the script.

If the majority of Norse Vikings have blond hair, depicting a Viking with blond hair means nothing.  Depicting a Viking with raven black hair is saying something.  Good, Evil or neither, you're still pointing out the hair.

Now in many contexts, like say a modern american or european city, depicting homosexual couples is saying nothing, depicting a few heterosexual couples is saying nothing, and depicting either all heterosexual couples, or a majority of homosexual couples is saying something, you're deliberately pointing to a statistical anomaly, which means you are actively addressing the point.

So, in the World of Greyhawk, which is a quasi medieval Europe, in a small rural village, you decide to list the inhabitants and you merely state who is married, you are saying NOTHING.  However, if you mention an openly homosexual couple, it is such a statistical anomaly that you are deliberately saying something, you are broaching the issue.

Quote from: Will;796900As I mentioned, there's a world of difference between saying 'hey, maybe we should put in a few non-straight people that aren't played grotesque' and a United Colors of Benetton advert.

Unfortunately, you don't seem to realize that if you don't deliberately do that, you're not making a decision not to any more then the Showrunners of the Vikings are making a decision by not including any Japanese in the first two seasons.

The fact that people don't actively consider making a fantasy party out of a one-armed warrior, a mage born without eyes, a fat hermaphroditic thief, and a Bahai cleric means there's a good chance that those things literally never crossed their minds.  Why would it?  The only reason it would is if you were deliberately trying to draw attention to the character, and thus the minority aspect by the attention.

Quote from: Will;796900The fact that you can't tell radical SJW from regular egalitarianism is very telling.

Pot, meet Event Horizon.

When I roll 3d6, the fact that 18 comes up less then 12 doesn't mean 18 is being erased.

I never blamed Paizo for being inclusive, I think they might be over the top or a little heavy handed, but I understand the social justification for what they are doing.  However, WotC by not emulating Paizo, is not erasing anyone.

Quote from: Will;796900Well, iconics and adventurers tend to be weird. I mean, I think one can argue that they should be more populated by fringe types mainly because if you are fringe it gives you an extra incentive not to just manage a manorial estate or work in a pig farm.

I actually thought that Paizo character is pretty interesting, but agreed that take any edge case you want, and adventurers would be a higher percentage.  Rural villagers - not so much.

Quote from: Will;796900Mmm. I can't blame them for their earlier whitewashing, considering even without anything really non-mainstream they got the the 80s Satanic panic.

Context does matter, but a lot of their "whitewashing" was pre-panic.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;796908On the subject: Can anyone think of a adventure (would probably be in Paizo if there is) with a bisexual male NPC? I always find bi males to be the most underrepresented demographic. (The only two I can think of in fiction period are Jack Harkness and John Constantine)

Quote from: Will;796910Hmm. Yeah, I think I can think of more asexuals and intersex than bi males. Heh.

Dude, Zevran, the most dangerous assassin in Dragon Age is a bisexual hedonist of the highest order.

Since we're talking Bioware...

Maybe if the people who would criticize a designer for erasing homosexuals by not including any, wouldn't turn around and criticize them even more vehemently if they do include them, by claiming the depiction was wrong, people might be willing to explore less traditional themes and relationships.

Damned if you don't outright crucified if you do isn't a big incentive to do.

Quote from: CRKrueger;796921Dude, Zevran, the most dangerous assassin in Dragon Age is a bisexual hedonist of the highest order.

Since we're talking Bioware...

Maybe if the people who would criticize a designer for erasing homosexuals by not including any, wouldn't turn around and criticize them even more vehemently if they do include them, by claiming the depiction was wrong, people might be willing to explore less traditional themes and relationships.

Damned if you don't outright crucified if you do isn't a big incentive to do.

I actually agree with that. I've commented on how difficult it is to be inclusive because of White Hatting before. If you do it and people perceive it as having done it "wrong" people will freak out. I'm of the opinion that trying and failing is more admirable than not trying at all, but holy hell is that not how a lot of "activists" see it.

Also, I've never played Dragon Age. I know. Its weird considering I do like Video Games, and do like that genre of video games.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;796924I actually agree with that. I've commented on how difficult it is to be inclusive because of White Hatting before. If you do it and people perceive it as having done it "wrong" people will freak out. I'm of the opinion that trying and failing is more admirable than not trying at all, but holy hell is that not how a lot of "activists" see it.

Also, I've never played Dragon Age. I know. Its weird considering I do like Video Games, and do like that genre of video games.

Actually Isabella is bi as well as really unapologetic about loving sex and fucking whoever she damn well pleases.  Believe it or not, there was criticism that Isabella wasn't exclusively Lesbian.

Quote from: Old Geezer;796836There is a HUGE difference between "Sexuality never comes into my game," and "when sexuality comes into my game it's always straight hetero man on top."

Sexuality has never come into my game in 40 years of D&D.  That said, if somebody said "my character is transgender*," I'd say "Okay."

* or whatever

I agree with you. I don't think anybody sane nor anybody I would want to play with would ever not be okay with someone running a transgender, gay, or whatever character. I just don't think not including it means I'm or my players are erasing it. We have office jobs. We have spouses or partners. We get together to do things we cannot do in real life.

If someone wants to have a game with romance or anything like that and they are having fun. More power to them. I don't believe that someone can have badwrongfun when it comes to D&D.