Quote from: Shipyard Locked on December 15, 2023, 01:32:06 PM
When I allow non-humans I actually like tieflings as player races. They produced amazing results in my last Ravenloft campaign (which leaned hard on pseudo-Christian themes) and even outside of that context they actually match nicely with real human mythology.

There are a lot of heroes in our legends who were half god/fairy/spirit/demon/whatever, way way more than elves or dwarves as protagonists.

  When I was doing some thought experiments with 'Ravenlofting 4E', tieflings as a concept were a natural fit--it was the 4E look that I thought needed to be changed to fit the demiplane.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 15, 2023, 03:26:48 PM
--it was the 4E look that I thought needed to be changed to fit the demiplane.

Absolutely, and I did. My players happily went with "you look 95% human but there's one weird satanic thing about you that needs to be concealed in many situations."

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 15, 2023, 12:15:43 AM
There were always gay people playing and making D&D.  The difference is that they didn't insist that the game be all about them and their sexuality.  There was this incessant, narcissistic insistence that the hobby revolve around them.

I guess that is different, because for decades, the cishet males have insisted the game has to be about them and their sexuality. It's the wandering harlot table, not the wandering catboi table.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 22, 2023, 07:02:43 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 15, 2023, 12:15:43 AM
There were always gay people playing and making D&D.  The difference is that they didn't insist that the game be all about them and their sexuality.  There was this incessant, narcissistic insistence that the hobby revolve around them.

I guess that is different, because for decades, the cishet males have insisted the game has to be about them and their sexuality. It's the wandering harlot table, not the wandering catboi table.

What we have now is the focused, intentional pandering to a tiny minority.

What we had was the natural consequence of a game written for, and marketed toward, the vast majority of the actual player base. When you're a small minority in ANY group, you have to settle for the odd bone being tossed your way. Otherwise it's Tyranny Of The Minority.

If a white woman subscribes to an African hair magazine, she's unlikely to get good tips on looking after straight hair. Likewise, an African woman moving to Latvia and subscribing to a hair magazine is also shit out of luck. Of course one of these is now seen as problematic, while the other isn't.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 22, 2023, 07:02:43 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 15, 2023, 12:15:43 AM
There were always gay people playing and making D&D.  The difference is that they didn't insist that the game be all about them and their sexuality.  There was this incessant, narcissistic insistence that the hobby revolve around them.

I guess that is different, because for decades, the cishet males have insisted the game has to be about them and their sexuality. It's the wandering harlot table, not the wandering catboi table.

That is a slur, so I guess, since you're comfortable to throw those around, you wouldn't mind some being thrown your way right?

You're not gonna run crying about istophobes or something right?

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I guess that is different, because for decades, the cishet males have insisted the game has to be about them and their sexuality. It's the wandering harlot table, not the wandering catboi table.

I suppose all those oppressed minorities could just do what the majority do nowadays with Wotzee's sleepwalking material... replace the words printed in the books to cater to their individual tastes, instead of just whinging and cancelling.

"...aaaand, they rolled an 09... looks like you folks have met up with a slovenly catboi, oh my!"

Not too difficult or an impossible stretch of the imagination to include all fetishes, surely?

Quote from: pawsplay on December 22, 2023, 07:02:43 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 15, 2023, 12:15:43 AM
There were always gay people playing and making D&D.  The difference is that they didn't insist that the game be all about them and their sexuality.  There was this incessant, narcissistic insistence that the hobby revolve around them.

I guess that is different, because for decades, the cishet males have insisted the game has to be about them and their sexuality. It's the wandering harlot table, not the wandering catboi table.

First of all, made-up words like "cishet" and "catboi" [sic] have to be trans-splained for us people without gender delusions.   Progressive woke language is a hodgepodge of newly invented and ever-changing terms  used gain a stronghold into normal language to redefine things in terms of oppressed/oppressor, so it would be helpful to regular people like me who have no idea what these mean to provide English definitions for words of this dialect.

Second, I never once, and know anyone who was a GM, who ever insisted that his or her campaign was about the GM and the GM's sexuality.  That would be awful, and I'd never run or participate in such a session.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 22, 2023, 07:40:02 PM
What we have now is the focused, intentional pandering to a tiny minority.

What we had was the natural consequence of a game written for, and marketed toward, the vast majority of the actual player base. When you're a small minority in ANY group, you have to settle for the odd bone being tossed your way. Otherwise it's Tyranny Of The Minority.

I hate to break it to you, but just by the math, being both male (just under 50% of the population) and heterosexual (hard to measure exactly, but certainly less than 100%) makes you a statistical minority. Sure, they may have been overrepresened at certain times, but that has never been inevitable, and certainly is not an overwhelming demographic. I've played in plenty of games that were entirely Latino. I've played in all all-queer games. Well over two decades ago.

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If a white woman subscribes to an African hair magazine, she's unlikely to get good tips on looking after straight hair. Likewise, an African woman moving to Latvia and subscribing to a hair magazine is also shit out of luck. Of course one of these is now seen as problematic, while the other isn't.

Pointing out that hair magazines tend to default to white as the assumption, and black as non-existent, is not the winning argument you think it is. This may be one of the stupidest attempts to bolster an argument I have ever seen.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 07:47:32 PM
That is a slur, so I guess, since you're comfortable to throw those around, you wouldn't mind some being thrown your way right?

Are you suggesting there is something bad about being a cisgender heterosexual human person?

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 23, 2023, 03:00:46 PM
First of all, made-up words like "cishet" and "catboi" [sic] have to be trans-splained for us people without gender delusions.   Progressive woke language is a hodgepodge of newly invented and ever-changing terms  used gain a stronghold into normal language to redefine things in terms of oppressed/oppressor, so it would be helpful to regular people like me who have no idea what these mean to provide English definitions for words of this dialect.

Oh, look, a roleplayer is going to lecture me about using made up words. Why don't you ask your Dungeon Master to provide 1d6 definitions?

Anyway, for those living under a rock, "cishet" is made-up in the sense of being a contraction of cisgender and heterosexual. Cisgender and heterosexual are Latinate words meaning, respectively, of "being the gender of the original side", in contrast to transgender, and "sexual with the different sex," in contrast to homosexual (sexual with the same sex).

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Second, I never once, and know anyone who was a GM, who ever insisted that his or her campaign was about the GM and the GM's sexuality.  That would be awful, and I'd never run or participate in such a session.

Well, people around here claim that happens all the time.

I mean, I didn't really know it was a slur. But to be fair that kind of thing changes all the time. Homo/homosexual is I think a slur, at least according to some folks? Probably be careful with that one. And the n-word (which really probably should be at all times) is unless it isn't based on context and apparently somehow user? Colored or the term Oriental has been a bad way to refer to folks for my entire life, although now POC is considered a good term to use. And eastern/black/white/male/whatever skin color or direction or whatever culture is now something some crazy people think might be a thing? (Recommend not using those terms, I'm pretty sure they're legitimately discriminatory and based in essentialism.) So cishet might actually be a slur, especially if it's likely to offend those within that subcategory or is often used within the context of putting them down? I mean, I don't know, but I'd consider it entirely plausible. Weird thing to chime in on, I guess, but just saying.

Cishet is not a slur.

I'm pretty sure homosexual and queer either are or were slurs, though the latter usually isn't anymore and the former only is in certain audience contexts I think?  None of this language stuff makes much sense. But at the end of the day, we unfortunately don't get to pick whether our intent is recognized or whether it offends folks, either within or outside that category.

Not saying I'm going to police your speech or anything like that, but more recent internet answers on places like quora seem to be mixed on whether it is or isn't. I will obviously individually recognize that you do not consider it to be a slur, and that you probably did not have hostile intent whilst saying it. Still, IDK, looks kinda grey to me in the long run, it may be one that is emerging. And with the weird Musk Twitter thing it might also be considered one in popular contexts now? It's all kinda odd.

Most people probably won't give much of a shit yet, but as a cautionary tale we are also living in a world where a gay person cannot offhandedly call themselves a fag online ironically once in some college digital TTRPG communities without being banned from said site. (Still can't believe that happened even when they knew the dude and that he was both neither discriminatory nor serious, but that's the world we live in.) This is a tale from my college experience within a D&D club discord (I didn't post there, but I saw this happen. It was a good while back, but still.)

Quote from: pawsplay on December 22, 2023, 07:02:43 PM
I guess that is different, because for decades, the cishet males have insisted the game has to be about them and their sexuality. It's the wandering harlot table, not the wandering catboi table.

You keep bringing up one random encounter table among many in one version of the DMG as if it was what the game was about or the result of players insisting it be about that.  This is horseshit.  All that table means is that might encounter a prostitute while in the city.  It's was not what the game was about.  It was a very minor part of the game at most.  It's there because prostitutes exist in cities not because anyone insisted that the game be about that.  If that was the purpose, adding one table in the DMG that may well never be used is an odd way to go about it.  In contrast, quite a few contemporary rpgs, especially of the PbtA variety, are about that and want to male sure you know it.  There isn't one table in one of the books.  They beat you over the head with it.  Citing one table from the DMG from over 40 years ago as what the game was about goes beyond being merely disingenuous.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 23, 2023, 08:01:31 PM
Cishet is not a slur.

It obviously is though.  The way it is used makes it obvious that it is a slur and was always meant to be a slur.  See also str8s.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 09:10:54 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on December 22, 2023, 07:02:43 PM
I guess that is different, because for decades, the cishet males have insisted the game has to be about them and their sexuality. It's the wandering harlot table, not the wandering catboi table.

You keep bringing up one random encounter table among many in one version of the DMG as if it was what the game was about or the result of players insisting it be about that.  This is horseshit.  All that table means is that might encounter a prostitute while in the city.  It's was not what the game was about.  It was a very minor part of the game at most.  It's there because prostitutes exist in cities not because anyone insisted that the game be about that.  If that was the purpose, adding one table in the DMG that may well never be used is an odd way to go about it.  In contrast, quite a few contemporary rpgs, especially of the PbtA variety, are about that and want to male sure you know it.  There isn't one table in one of the books.  They beat you over the head with it.  Citing one table from the DMG from over 40 years ago as what the game was about goes beyond being merely disingenuous.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 23, 2023, 08:01:31 PM
Cishet is not a slur.

It obviously is though.  The way it is used makes it obvious that it is a slur and was always meant to be a slur.  See also str8s.

Of course.  But if he (she? it?) is going to argue that the game is now about themselves, they must argue that the game was always about us in the past.  Except the "us" that it was about was the majority of the gaming public, and not 0.3% of the population that wants to hijack it now.  And the majority didn't demand the game be about us, and were happy to play in those cases when it wasn't.  But the perpetual snowflakes can't stand it if they are not the focus of the game all of the time.  This is called "inclusion"...

I also kind of feel like trans ideology doesn't fit very well with equal rights feminism that doesn't assume sex-based essentialism in psychology. Like, when did preferring whatever color of dress or whatever come to mean more about your gender than your actual sex? I almost feel like it stereotypes the male or female mind in ways that don't make sense. In my opinion there are more differences within groups than between them on stuff like preferences and psychology. Even with different societal norms and training and the like. But this seems to not be the currently acknowledged societal meta.

Not saying I'd want to call someone an it or whatever as anything more than a joke, as I'm sure is the case with most, but sometimes I do feel sexist when I bow to social pressure and just go with whatever folks want themselves called in public. I don't like hurting folks' feelings and I acknowledge it's not often a good time for confrontation, but... Honestly I feel a bit like a coward when I don't speak up, and that happens pretty often (okay, literally always). Like, I kind of feel like it perpetuates stereotyping. As well as playing into a broader system of Woke suppression and opinion exclusion.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 09:10:54 PM
It obviously is though.  The way it is used makes it obvious that it is a slur and was always meant to be a slur.  See also str8s.

I've never used it as a slur. It's not my fault people don't like what they hear about themselves. I say trans all the time, and that's not intended as a slur.