TheRPGSite

The latest Woke article claims that this is true, but ironically their subject provides the raw factual data that shows it isn't.
#dnd #ttrpg #osr #wotc

I, for one, would love to buy your Far East setting RPG.  I would openly request that you include material inspired by pre-shogunate Japan, pre-unified china, Korea, Indo-China peninsula, and the Maya island peoples. 

No. Question answered. It was very easy.

I for one am hoping for D&D 6E to go full trans.  In fact, the PHB needs to have a trans hotline number emblazoned on the front page and at least one page where WotC lists out its political beliefs all of them.  Put up a transflag, progressive pride flag and BLM flag.  I want WotC to put it all out in print.  It will make it exceptionally easier to cut into WotC's D&D sales.

Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 12:19:24 AM
Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

When you write for a marginalized community that is less than 0.05% of the population, it doesn't connect for sales.  When you put out a product where your selling point is that whites weren't allowed you don't sell books (I see the same Radiant Citadel at my two hobby shops, well the bigger one put them in the bargain bin 30% off).  When you post offensive bullshit on the DMsguild that everything D&D that isn't 5E is mostly racist you lose sales.

I'm a whale, In a 2 1/2 year period, I cleared $750 on D&DBeyond and over $4,000 on miniatures that went towards D&D.  I am money rich and time poor.  In the last 3 years, the only money D&D got from me was Spelljammer AND that was a bad idea.  When I see content that doesn't connect with normies, I walk the fuck away.  Most of the content from WotC lacks verisimilitude and its just toxic.  You have dumb fucks talking about how they can't wait to get rid of whites working at WotC, still employed, books where they deny people the opportunity to write due to race and frankly nutjobs  creating nonsense words.  I've had multiple players react to content I use because its from 1E and 2E, not 5E.  I've got a waiting list now at my hobby shop, while the other 5E group using Phandalin is struggling.  People want something to connect with and that is fun not god damn preaching woke bullshit.  When you hire censors, your art is effectively dead.  Typal is fucking ridiculous.  You go to WotC's official forum and you ask if for the next survey they please ask if players want more sensitivity readers or less as a survey question, that post gets admin locked and you are banned from posting for 5 days.  WotC is ideologically captured and frankly fucked.

WotC if they behaved themselves could be harvesting whales right now, a lot of 50+ year old GenX, the next group with the most money and are coming into their own now financially as the Boomers exit the job market, will not tolerate the shit WotC is shoveling once they see it.  WotC if they behaved themselves and didn't put out meaningless virtue signals to attract millennials who have no job, no spend and leach of the older people with the subscriptions, could be doing a lot better than they are now.    A leftard is more likely to be a waste of flesh than gainfully employed, meanwhile normies have a job and they don't like the race politics WotC is shovelings.

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 12:19:24 AM
Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

Correct. For instance, that's exactly what's happening right now in Hollywood. Only problem is that a number of beloved franchises have been burnt to the ground in the meantime, leaving many people wishing they had listened sooner. In the far smaller RPG scene it looks like D&D will be the game going down with the ship.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidWhen you write for a marginalized community that is less than 0.05% of the population, it doesn't connect for sales.

Do we have any actual statistics on this?

I ask with reference to the RPG industry rather than pulling statistics that, say, deal with the proportion of trans individuals per capita in a given country.

As I type this, I also realise that a part of the reason that I ask the question is that I'm probably not seeing the same kind of issues in the RPG industry--at least in terms of what I buy. I mean, I saw the Unisystem thing that seemed a little bit contrived, but all the other kind of things that I'm seeing--including the oft-lamented "virtual signaling"--is something that is more from commentators rather than producers.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidI'm a whale, In a 2 1/2 year period, I cleared $750 on D&DBeyond and over $4,000 on miniatures that went towards D&D.  I am money rich and time poor.

Yowzers.

I can empathise with the term "time poor", but my bank account clearly does not jive with the notion of "money rich" no matter how much I earn.

<plays a small violin> ;)

Quote from: honeydipperdavidMost of the content from WotC lacks verisimilitude and its just toxic.

If you'll forgive me, if you're talking about D&D verisimilitude has never been high on its list of priorities.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidYou have dumb fucks talking about how they can't wait to get rid of whites working at WotC, still employed, books where they deny people the opportunity to write due to race and frankly nutjobs  creating nonsense words. 

I was just watching a video linked from this site where someone made claims similar to this and backed it up with some evidence, so clearly some of what you say is true. With that said, this dude sounded like a complete nutjob himself.

I am, however, interested by this notion that people are being denied to "write due to race". Do you have any more information on this?

Quote from: honeydipperdavidPeople want something to connect with and that is fun not god damn preaching woke bullshit.

I think that there is some traction with this. For some reason it reminds me of the "D&D is evil" thing that happened back in the day. A bunch of people decided that D&D was "evil" and it led to all types of shenanigans. Silly, really.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidWotC if they behaved themselves could be harvesting whales right now, a lot of 50+ year old GenX, the next group with the most money and are coming into their own now financially as the Boomers exit the job market, will not tolerate the shit WotC is shoveling once they see it.

I'm in the age range, but I generally won't touch D&D because I don't find it a fun game. It's because of that that I probably don't really get why the products that you mention are "virtual signaling" or whatever. My bad on that.

Quote from: TrondIn the far smaller RPG scene it looks like D&D will be the game going down with the ship.

As far as I can tell, the "hobby" is less concerned with some of what is mentioned here and more about the kind of shenangians--sh*tiness, maybe--when corporations squeeze creators and try to own more than they have the right to do?

Verisimilitude:

3.5E and older content had towns that tended to be racially homogenous OR if there was mixed there was a reason for it (trade, near another kingdom, war).  If you go to 5E content now, a village has every racial group present with no good reason to describe why.  It makes no sense.

D&D Racism:

Kyle Brink is the executive producer for D&D, he said this bone headed phrase, never issued an apology still talking to the public.  If I stated that I can't wait for my white coworkers to leave work, I would be reported to HR and fired for cause because my developers would not trust I'd treat them fairly if they are white.

Quote"Guys like me we are leaving the workforce, and we are not the face of the hobby anymore I'm not the majority of this hobby anymore and so its important to me that my team of creators look like my players and have the lived experience that my players do and I think there have been mistakes made in years past where people assumed  that D&D players were all white players in a basement.  Um which is a faulty assumption for a lot of years and more and more false every day.  And so in my viewpoint, guys like me can't  leave soon enough for this hobby.

source: https://youtu.be/mPDc3DVHwKo?t=2898

Radiant Citadel

The twitter marketing and online marketing for the radiant citadel was that no stinky white people wrote the book so buy it bigot.  The book sold very poorly.

Quote
Slated for June 21st (update - I just got a press release which says it's June 21st "in North American stores"; I'm not sure what that means for the rest of us!), it's a 224-page adventure anthology featuring a floating city called the Radiant Citadel. The book is written entirely by people of colour, including Ajit George, who was the first person of Indian heritage to write Indian-inspired material for D&D (in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft). Around 50 POC writers were involved in total in various ways.

Source:  https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-next-d-d-book-is-journeys-through-the-radiant-citadel.686847/

The assholes are now stating that half races are inherently racist, the shit that keeps coming from WotC is just beyond the pale  A lot of people consider themselves half this and that, but you can't do that for 6E because some assholes at D&D drank some racist Kool Aid.  Whatever their sensitivity writers come up with, they nod their heads, go with it, gets lampooned for it and rinse and repeat.  All WotC has to do is remove the slurs against their betters on DMsguild, drop the race pandering and focus on game rules and fun.  The creators who came before them broke new ground and their content was generally pretty damn well thought out and fun.  Don't slur your betters because you can't create the same quality they did.

Quote from: Trond on October 24, 2023, 01:05:19 AM
Correct. For instance, that's exactly what's happening right now in Hollywood. Only problem is that a number of beloved franchises have been burnt to the ground in the meantime, leaving many people wishing they had listened sooner. In the far smaller RPG scene it looks like D&D will be the game going down with the ship.

Among others. WotC is just hellbent on crashing and burning the hardest.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 01:02:26 AM

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 12:19:24 AM
Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

When you write for a marginalized community that is less than 0.05% of the population, it doesn't connect for sales.

Trans is not a marginalized group.  They are a privileged class. 

The actual trans, I'll call them marginalized.  The bros with boobs, full beards died some shade of neon or pastel, not so much.  But we've got those fuckers running around now as well.  A lot of companies are trying to write for those guys and for the most part, they aren't gainfully employed, they don't have spend and their sales tanks.  Rinse and repeat this time pander more and they have even more of a decline.  When the number one book that D&D put out is a cookbook for the last 4 years, you know they have a problem putting out content.

My favorite shit nugget is the upcoming deck of many things books where some chick with some amount of privilege points states she has privilege and the deck was created by a paladin.  Um fuck no, not a god damn paladin.  Go with a wizard and put it in as a 20 page supplement not a full book of a crappy adventure that you know they will put out.  The adventure is going to be full on rails and that paladin of color is going to have so much plot armor she could conquer all of Europe and a nuke won't scratch her.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 07:40:31 AM
My favorite shit nugget is the upcoming deck of many things books where some chick with some amount of privilege points states she has privilege and the deck was created by a paladin.  Um fuck no, not a god damn paladin.  Go with a wizard and put it in as a 20 page supplement not a full book of a crappy adventure that you know they will put out.  The adventure is going to be full on rails and that paladin of color is going to have so much plot armor she could conquer all of Europe and a nuke won't scratch her.

The best part is that it's a self-insert neurodivergent paladin of color

Only if they're marketing to TBP and EN World. But if those sites are any indication, Antichristian Gamers are also WotC's next target audience.  ;) ;D

No and I've gotten to the point where I actively gatekeep those people out of my games. Yes I am discriminating against them. Discrimination is not always a bad thing. Neither is judging a book by it's cover. Some people are exactly as bad as you think they are. And you are right to be wary of them. They're all awful mentally ill people who ruin games. For the sake of my group they can piss off until they get proper mental help and start acting like adults. I don't ask for much. Just don't be a mentally ill person who is difficult to deal with and ruins social situations. If you can't do that, piss off. My group's happiness is more important to me than your individual happiness.

Your math is off, because they aren't marketing to black trans enbies, they're marketing to all the libs who get tingly downstairs if they can think they're being "allies".  The fact that they exist and in great number can be shown by the Kickstarter numbers for the Indian Wakanda RPG.  They'll buy any garbage to warm their shelf and gather dust, which goes hand in hand with the quality of product being put out by literal diversity hires like the radiant citadel.

Let the woke know that Pundit had the first trans on a RPG book cover and they are obviously copying him and watch heads explode.

Quote from: King Tyranno on October 24, 2023, 02:50:14 PM
No and I've gotten to the point where I actively gatekeep those people out of my games. Yes I am discriminating against them. Discrimination is not always a bad thing. Neither is judging a book by it's cover. Some people are exactly as bad as you think they are. And you are right to be wary of them. They're all awful mentally ill people who ruin games. For the sake of my group they can piss off until they get proper mental help and start acting like adults. I don't ask for much. Just don't be a mentally ill person who is difficult to deal with and ruins social situations. If you can't do that, piss off. My group's happiness is more important to me than your individual happiness.

Take in one progressive and gradually show them the evil of their belief system, whether in real life or in game.  A progressive will never change their mind but now they have to sit through 4 hours of potential cognitive dissonance if they want to play a good game.  My token progressive has gotten to deal with a leftist phd grad student who support humanoid monsters. For short hand, I told them to imagine him as a grad student at Harvard supporting Hamas knowing what they did to civilians, that is him.  In a few weeks when they hit the next milestone, they'll be presented with a deal with Communism, I mean the devil.  He'll discuss hells as a selling point the same way the iron rice bowl was sold, but with power and control.  When you as the DM put out obvious digs at their belief system its gotta suck.  But then again, these are characters I've used for years because most people truly hate them.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 06:40:03 PM

Quote from: King Tyranno on October 24, 2023, 02:50:14 PM
No and I've gotten to the point where I actively gatekeep those people out of my games. Yes I am discriminating against them. Discrimination is not always a bad thing. Neither is judging a book by it's cover. Some people are exactly as bad as you think they are. And you are right to be wary of them. They're all awful mentally ill people who ruin games. For the sake of my group they can piss off until they get proper mental help and start acting like adults. I don't ask for much. Just don't be a mentally ill person who is difficult to deal with and ruins social situations. If you can't do that, piss off. My group's happiness is more important to me than your individual happiness.

Take in one progressive and gradually show them the evil of their belief system, whether in real life or in game.  A progressive will never change their mind but now they have to sit through 4 hours of potential cognitive dissonance if they want to play a good game.  My token progressive has gotten to deal with a leftist phd grad student who support humanoid monsters. For short hand, I told them to imagine him as a grad student at Harvard supporting Hamas knowing what they did to civilians, that is him.  In a few weeks when they hit the next milestone, they'll be presented with a deal with Communism, I mean the devil.  He'll discuss hells as a selling point the same way the iron rice bowl was sold, but with power and control.  When you as the DM put out obvious digs at their belief system its gotta suck.  But then again, these are characters I've used for years because most people truly hate them.

That's a lot of work and individualized attention I would need to give to one specific person in my group. I'm not their parent nor their therapist. I expect a respectful conduct of members of my group towards others in the group. I want to run an RPG not an adult nursery. Normally I'd say I'd accept anyone's politics but those people with those politics and that desire to mutilate themselves have no place in my group. They actively make others in the group feel bad so they can feel better about themselves. I don't have the time or inclination to teach them that they are wrong. I just want to run an RPG.

This is the third time running this campaign for the hobby shop, no extra work.  I take leftists and use their behavior and tropes as the villain archetype. 

The annoying PhD Grad student working on his thesis for demihuman studies is a fun one to use as a villain.  Then when the party is going to kill him  he screams out he's the son of merchants, all the while claiming merchants are scum and money changers, and they'll pay for his release.  The party always lets them live not realizing they have now just created a side villain with access to lots and I do mean lots of money.  When assassins start showing up after they are wounded and taking a long rest and they figure out its the idiot they let free its good times, good times.  The party is very, and I do mean very happy to kill the twat when I'm done using him.

Devils want power and abuse the law to get power, hence Lawful Evil or communism/utilitarian.  You can easily ascribe that behavior to communists and implement that in the armies of hell and their behavior and what they want done for their blood war.  Towards the end of chapter 1, the players will be allowed to meet the ruler of the keep, and sitting at his side is the banker, who was always trying to make a deal with people.  Turns out he's a harvester devil, he's got control of the keep and he wants the party to eliminate the evil chaos priest leading to the raids on the merchants and tows for his own power and to help with recruiting more souls for the hells.  Depending on how much they go into it, they'll see the contract is more about an iron rice bowl and the end will be service to the state, I mean asmodeus.  If they are dumb they'll sign.

No do I ever mention left, right, communism, statism, capitalism, nope not once.  I just put in their behaviors and phrases to base the villains and heroes they interact with.

Quote from: BadApple on October 23, 2023, 10:36:39 PM
I, for one, would love to buy your Far East setting RPG.  I would openly request that you include material inspired by pre-shogunate Japan, pre-unified china, Korea, Indo-China peninsula, and the Maya island peoples.

If I make a setting, it will be historically authentic, and probably strictly focused on Southern Song Dynasty China.

Quote from: Ruprecht on October 24, 2023, 06:24:49 PM
Let the woke know that Pundit had the first trans on a RPG book cover and they are obviously copying him and watch heads explode.

Heh. Funny because it's true.

Article title is a question. Answer is always: NO


Catering to a niche of a niche of a niche market is business suicide.  Ask bud light and Target's shareholders.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on October 25, 2023, 01:58:38 PM
Article title is a question. Answer is always: NO


Catering to a niche of a niche of a niche market is business suicide.  Ask bud light and Target's shareholders.

Dude, you get free cases of Bud Light via rebate, its great fertilizer for the garden.  Everyone should use bud light as shit to fertilize the garden, its got electrolytes that plants crave.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 25, 2023, 02:16:30 PM

Quote from: THE_Leopold on October 25, 2023, 01:58:38 PM
Article title is a question. Answer is always: NO


Catering to a niche of a niche of a niche market is business suicide.  Ask bud light and Target's shareholders.

Dude, you get free cases of Bud Light via rebate, its great fertilizer for the garden.  Everyone should use bud light as shit to fertilize the garden, its got electrolytes that plants crave.

LOL

Quote from: THE_Leopold on October 25, 2023, 01:58:38 PM
Article title is a question. Answer is always: NO


Catering to a niche of a niche of a niche market is business suicide.  Ask bud light and Target's shareholders.

I'm going to counter that the answer is actually 'Yes'.

'No' ought to be the answer, but given WOTC's capture by the Woke cult I do believe that their future customers will consists of trans POC and a very few others before the brand completely collapses and fails.

It's well past time for the RPG hobby to diversify beyond official D&D being the dominant gaming superpower. Fortunately we have a lot of creators in the OSR and other independent game game spaces that have built up quite a capacity over the last decade.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 01:02:26 AM

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 12:19:24 AM
Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

When you write for a marginalized community that is less than 0.05% of the population, it doesn't connect for sales.  When you put out a product where your selling point is that whites weren't allowed you don't sell books (I see the same Radiant Citadel at my two hobby shops, well the bigger one put them in the bargain bin 30% off).  When you post offensive bullshit on the DMsguild that everything D&D that isn't 5E is mostly racist you lose sales.

I'm a whale, In a 2 1/2 year period, I cleared $750 on D&DBeyond and over $4,000 on miniatures that went towards D&D.  I am money rich and time poor.  In the last 3 years, the only money D&D got from me was Spelljammer AND that was a bad idea.  When I see content that doesn't connect with normies, I walk the fuck away.  Most of the content from WotC lacks verisimilitude and its just toxic.  You have dumb fucks talking about how they can't wait to get rid of whites working at WotC, still employed, books where they deny people the opportunity to write due to race and frankly nutjobs  creating nonsense words.  I've had multiple players react to content I use because its from 1E and 2E, not 5E.  I've got a waiting list now at my hobby shop, while the other 5E group using Phandalin is struggling.  People want something to connect with and that is fun not god damn preaching woke bullshit.  When you hire censors, your art is effectively dead.  Typal is fucking ridiculous.  You go to WotC's official forum and you ask if for the next survey they please ask if players want more sensitivity readers or less as a survey question, that post gets admin locked and you are banned from posting for 5 days.  WotC is ideologically captured and frankly fucked.

WotC if they behaved themselves could be harvesting whales right now, a lot of 50+ year old GenX, the next group with the most money and are coming into their own now financially as the Boomers exit the job market, will not tolerate the shit WotC is shoveling once they see it.  WotC if they behaved themselves and didn't put out meaningless virtue signals to attract millennials who have no job, no spend and leach of the older people with the subscriptions, could be doing a lot better than they are now.    A leftard is more likely to be a waste of flesh than gainfully employed, meanwhile normies have a job and they don't like the race politics WotC is shovelings.

Well said good sir. Well said.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 01:54:15 AM
Verisimilitude:

3.5E and older content had towns that tended to be racially homogenous OR if there was mixed there was a reason for it (trade, near another kingdom, war).  If you go to 5E content now, a village has every racial group present with no good reason to describe why.  It makes no sense.

D&D Racism:

Kyle Brink is the executive producer for D&D, he said this bone headed phrase, never issued an apology still talking to the public.  If I stated that I can't wait for my white coworkers to leave work, I would be reported to HR and fired for cause because my developers would not trust I'd treat them fairly if they are white.

Quote"Guys like me we are leaving the workforce, and we are not the face of the hobby anymore I'm not the majority of this hobby anymore and so its important to me that my team of creators look like my players and have the lived experience that my players do and I think there have been mistakes made in years past where people assumed  that D&D players were all white players in a basement.  Um which is a faulty assumption for a lot of years and more and more false every day.  And so in my viewpoint, guys like me can't  leave soon enough for this hobby.

source: https://youtu.be/mPDc3DVHwKo?t=2898

Radiant Citadel

The twitter marketing and online marketing for the radiant citadel was that no stinky white people wrote the book so buy it bigot.  The book sold very poorly.

Quote
Slated for June 21st (update - I just got a press release which says it's June 21st "in North American stores"; I'm not sure what that means for the rest of us!), it's a 224-page adventure anthology featuring a floating city called the Radiant Citadel. The book is written entirely by people of colour, including Ajit George, who was the first person of Indian heritage to write Indian-inspired material for D&D (in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft). Around 50 POC writers were involved in total in various ways.

Source:  https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-next-d-d-book-is-journeys-through-the-radiant-citadel.686847/

The assholes are now stating that half races are inherently racist, the shit that keeps coming from WotC is just beyond the pale  A lot of people consider themselves half this and that, but you can't do that for 6E because some assholes at D&D drank some racist Kool Aid.  Whatever their sensitivity writers come up with, they nod their heads, go with it, gets lampooned for it and rinse and repeat.  All WotC has to do is remove the slurs against their betters on DMsguild, drop the race pandering and focus on game rules and fun.  The creators who came before them broke new ground and their content was generally pretty damn well thought out and fun.  Don't slur your betters because you can't create the same quality they did.

I agree about the towns, and on that note with the somehow diverse Baldur's Gate 3 (yes I know that it is a trade town with many people coming in, but even with that taken into account it was never as diverse an area as they are now making it out to be). I mean, fantasy or not, it is still taking place into a medieval european inspired continent (and yes it is, despite what some wokies are saying, as evident by the prevailing culture and classes and basically bloody everything). Back then, 99% of the population was white.

Pathfinder 1st edition (which is essentially D&D 3.5 edition but under a different name, and was still respectful to the fans) had the rot slowly sink in, but at the very least the nations were still homogenous for the most part, and black token characters were from an international organization called the Pathfinders who travelled the world through ships and magic. They respected the logic that people would be landlocked in a medieval setting, even with the presence of magic (Castlevania the anime uses magic as a poor excuse to make europe diverse, except when the humans are doing messed up things then suddenly they are all white for some reason). So despite all the lesbian couples they would shove into your face (who at the very least were hot) it was still largely based on common sense and immersion. Of course, can't say the same for the new Pathfinder 2nd edition they put out, which feels too much like Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition.

I bought all the PF1E books, and have a PF1E group to play with now. Gonna stick to them as much as I can!

Quote from: nielspeterdejong on November 03, 2023, 08:54:47 AM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 01:54:15 AM
Verisimilitude:

3.5E and older content had towns that tended to be racially homogenous OR if there was mixed there was a reason for it (trade, near another kingdom, war).  If you go to 5E content now, a village has every racial group present with no good reason to describe why.  It makes no sense.

D&D Racism:

Kyle Brink is the executive producer for D&D, he said this bone headed phrase, never issued an apology still talking to the public.  If I stated that I can't wait for my white coworkers to leave work, I would be reported to HR and fired for cause because my developers would not trust I'd treat them fairly if they are white.

Quote"Guys like me we are leaving the workforce, and we are not the face of the hobby anymore I'm not the majority of this hobby anymore and so its important to me that my team of creators look like my players and have the lived experience that my players do and I think there have been mistakes made in years past where people assumed  that D&D players were all white players in a basement.  Um which is a faulty assumption for a lot of years and more and more false every day.  And so in my viewpoint, guys like me can't  leave soon enough for this hobby.

source: https://youtu.be/mPDc3DVHwKo?t=2898

Radiant Citadel

The twitter marketing and online marketing for the radiant citadel was that no stinky white people wrote the book so buy it bigot.  The book sold very poorly.

Quote
Slated for June 21st (update - I just got a press release which says it's June 21st "in North American stores"; I'm not sure what that means for the rest of us!), it's a 224-page adventure anthology featuring a floating city called the Radiant Citadel. The book is written entirely by people of colour, including Ajit George, who was the first person of Indian heritage to write Indian-inspired material for D&D (in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft). Around 50 POC writers were involved in total in various ways.

Source:  https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-next-d-d-book-is-journeys-through-the-radiant-citadel.686847/

The assholes are now stating that half races are inherently racist, the shit that keeps coming from WotC is just beyond the pale  A lot of people consider themselves half this and that, but you can't do that for 6E because some assholes at D&D drank some racist Kool Aid.  Whatever their sensitivity writers come up with, they nod their heads, go with it, gets lampooned for it and rinse and repeat.  All WotC has to do is remove the slurs against their betters on DMsguild, drop the race pandering and focus on game rules and fun.  The creators who came before them broke new ground and their content was generally pretty damn well thought out and fun.  Don't slur your betters because you can't create the same quality they did.

I agree about the towns, and on that note with the somehow diverse Baldur's Gate 3 (yes I know that it is a trade town with many people coming in, but even with that taken into account it was never as diverse an area as they are now making it out to be). I mean, fantasy or not, it is still taking place into a medieval european inspired continent (and yes it is, despite what some wokies are saying, as evident by the prevailing culture and classes and basically bloody everything). Back then, 99% of the population was white.

Pathfinder 1st edition (which is essentially D&D 3.5 edition but under a different name, and was still respectful to the fans) had the rot slowly sink in, but at the very least the nations were still homogenous for the most part, and black token characters were from an international organization called the Pathfinders who travelled the world through ships and magic. They respected the logic that people would be landlocked in a medieval setting, even with the presence of magic (Castlevania the anime uses magic as a poor excuse to make europe diverse, except when the humans are doing messed up things then suddenly they are all white for some reason). So despite all the lesbian couples they would shove into your face (who at the very least were hot) it was still largely based on common sense and immersion. Of course, can't say the same for the new Pathfinder 2nd edition they put out, which feels too much like Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition.

I bought all the PF1E books, and have a PF1E group to play with now. Gonna stick to them as much as I can!

Enjoy that PF1E Game.  That's a big playground.

I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

Quote from: BadApple on October 23, 2023, 10:36:39 PM
I, for one, would love to buy your Far East setting RPG.  I would openly request that you include material inspired by pre-shogunate Japan, pre-unified china, Korea, Indo-China peninsula, and the Maya island peoples.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "Pre-Unified China". I can think of a lot of ununified periods so I'm curious as to the specific one you're after (I assume prior to a specific territorial extend, but am curious).

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:18:51 AM
I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

Well, that explains everything about your other positions. You're mentally ill.

Quote from: PulpHerb on November 27, 2023, 10:32:26 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 23, 2023, 10:36:39 PM
I, for one, would love to buy your Far East setting RPG.  I would openly request that you include material inspired by pre-shogunate Japan, pre-unified china, Korea, Indo-China peninsula, and the Maya island peoples.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "Pre-Unified China". I can think of a lot of ununified periods so I'm curious as to the specific one you're after (I assume prior to a specific territorial extend, but am curious).

You're right, I had to look it up.  The part that leaps to mind for me is the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. 

The future of D&D players are the children of those who play D&D and are taught.  Once you mutilate your genitalia your chance at progeny is done short of extremely expensive and unreliable IVF and a surrogate. 

As WotC continues down the path of Disney, it is losing market share, players and cultural relevance.  The guys at my open table are 4 out of 5 GenX and one millennial.  At the big hobby shop in the area, I look at the tables, its the same groups and same people, they aren't bringing in new players that I've gamed with in the past.  The future of D&D is going to be a familial tradition not a cultural tradition as WotC burns itself into the ground.   You know like getting together to play a game of Pinochle or Euchre, families pass those games down, they don't have much cultural relevance now to pass them on.

And pro-tip for those ladies who are going to freeze their eggs for a career, the children born of IVF have higher blood pressure, fertility problems and die earlier.  You don't mess with mother nature and remove mechanisms to ensure the fittest cells procreate without dealing with consequences.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3650450/

Quote from: Chris24601 on November 28, 2023, 09:30:02 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:18:51 AM
I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

Well, that explains everything about your other positions. You're mentally ill.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Doesn't it though? It explains Pawsplay's nonsense and mind-fucked ideology.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:18:51 AM
I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

LOL well you're likely about to add to your collection of colossal disappointments. I'm going to venture it's your natural habitat.

QuoteI, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

My friend you are not even your bloodline's future.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 28, 2023, 03:48:25 PM

QuoteI, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

My friend you are not even your bloodline's future.

With the leftard version of trans, a dude dyes his beard purple so he can use the ladies room and get preference in hiring, its likely his junk is quite present and he'll never split his penis down the middle, remove his testicles and then create a hole in his crotch for gay men to get sexual pleasure.  The trans people I worked with in the past would never do any of the shit the leftards are pretending and they wanted to be treated as the opposite gender and they did not do everything they could to stand out.  No actual trans woman is going to talk about her bulge - see Dylan McVeiny for source.  So he could have children, just saying.

Yeah but you know... you got game, or you got illegal means that seem to proliferate that side of the ideological fence.

And lets not forget Mother Earth is depending on them not procreating in order to save her. The Green movement needs that abstinence!

QuoteWith the leftard version of trans, a dude dyes his beard purple so he can use the ladies room and get preference in hiring, its likely his junk is quite present and he'll never split his penis down the middle, remove his testicles and then create a hole in his crotch for gay men to get sexual pleasure.  The trans people I worked with in the past would never do any of the shit the leftards are pretending and they wanted to be treated as the opposite gender and they did not do everything they could to stand out.  No actual trans woman is going to talk about her bulge - see Dylan McVeiny for source.  So he could have children, just saying.

Thank you for all this bodily horror imagery in utterly unnecessary attempt to explain simple jab,

Apparently several of you would be disappointed to know how many offspring I have.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:17:54 AM
Apparently several of you would be disappointed to know how many offspring I have.

Don't care enough to be disappointed. So are they going to transition too?

As I said above, your viewpoint on whether the hobby has been taken over by Woke leftists really depends on your definitions. I mean, the Pundit, as a supporter of minorities, gender diversity, and women gamers, would be "woke" according to many people.

I have come to give you the word, and the word is good. According to definitions and implications often tossed around this site, it's all true. The RPG hobby has been subsumed into wokeness. As never before, people are talking about race, gender, sexuality, colonization and de-colonization, appropriation, feminism, and various intersectionalities, as never before. Even for people who did not respond with visceral disgust at the hadozee controversy, they can tell which the wind is blowing; even if they don't consider themselves woke, the mainstream gamer, the mainstream person, doesn't want to be thought of as a racist or misogynist. The economics are in favor of wokeness; people pander to the new awareness of all time, and court an image of being sensitive and inclusive. They actively scorn the dollars of reactionaries, because people who complain about "wokeness" and such are a dwindling group with little reach, and increasingly, fewer dollars to spend. People used to cackle, "Get woke, go broke," and the opposite has occurred. If you resist the overall progressive trend, your brand will suffer, your sales will suffer, and you personally will be chased to the ends of the Earth until you recant your heresy. The new social order, like any social order, will be enforced by all the usual tools: scorn, exclusion, and active disconnection in society and the economy. Anti-woke people are increasingly unpopular, in many corners unwelcome, and will ultimately become pariahs and eccentrics on the very fringes of the hobby.

This forum is unlike virtually any other gaming space on the Internet I can think of. It represents a realm where people can openly express disdain for minorities, for feminism, for social justice, for inclusion, and this is treated as within the range of normal opinions a person can have and still be respected in society. Not so, elsewhere. You will be sanctioned and even banned from discussion groups and entire spaces on many, if not most, sites. Here, people call being trans a "mental illness." You know who doesn't? People with actual expertise in mental illness. It's a bizarre phenomenon, people latching onto a pseudo-medical, pseudo-intellectual casting of the issue, when the very opinion indicates being decades behind the times, and increasingly retrograde with respect to the ethics and science of the 21st century. Calling transgender identity a mental illness is not simply politically incorrect or rude, it's just wrong and incorrect, in ways that show someone's lack of sophistication. It's like being a flat earther. It's not just socially repugnant and scientifically ignorant, it's embarrassing. It's like being ones of those guys who stands up in the US Sentate and says something stupid that reveals to the world they don't understand anything about pregnancy, the female orgasm, or what people under the age of 60 think about just about anything.

And it's only going to get worse. The Boomers had their day. They had their leftists and progressives. But ultimately, most of the ones in the US voted for Reagan. They were conservative enough that they liked Clinton, who ran on welfare "reform" and brokered a Devil's bargain in the form of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ... honestly, the best deal we could get at the time. But after them came Gen X. And Gen X listened to Rage Against the Machine and smoked some weed and knew gay people and were fine with it. They wanted healthcare, and they hated cops, and increasingly were cynical about the initiatives the Boomers pushed through because they saw the real reasons. And Gen X grew up playing D&D. And now people are at age where Gen X is a bunch of the people writing, promoting, and publishing RPGs. And what you see, is what you think. By the very loose and open definitions of "wokeness" tossed around, Gen X is woke to its core.

But Gen X is a small generation. A buffer zone. And the ones who came after, the Millennials, have always had the Internet. They've always had gay people on TV. They are so against racism, some of them struggle to sense and understand it, because they think it's something from the Bad Old Days. But the Millennial generation is huge. Even Millennials who vote conservative, overwhelmingly take progressive stances on bread and butter issues of the day. They are going to increasingly replace Gen X as the writers, creators, influencers, and target demographic of RPGs. Increasingly, they will be the target of the next wave of nostalgia gaming. Story games and PbtA and everything is so old now, that people who cut their teeth on it, are going to be coming back to it. Somewhere out there, people are already writing the next generation of "old school" games, inspired by, and a commentary on, D&D 4e, on Pathfinder 1e. Millenials love woke shit. And they are the rulers of social media. If you can't adopt to modern norms, they will hit you with the force of the ocean. You will not survive, financially, socially, demographically. They will bury you.

And the zoomers? Little bitty woke goblins. Some of them are in college now. And they are the wokest little fuckers you've ever met. Sure, the majority are racist, misogynist, homophobic little pukes, but it's the smallest majority in history. And they all know their own wedge, and they protect it. Little woke Asian zoomers making fun of crusty, hilarious Oriental Adventures bullcrap. Woke little gaymers, gay as they want to be. Baby bronies. People who view essentially every Final Fantasy game as vintage, "dad gaming." They watch anime, absolutely the gayest anime, and they don't apologize for it.

The world you knew, is over. Your little harlot tables, and your openly white supremacist, reactionary, misogynist, ignorant ignorsis is going to go the way of the lead miniatures we used to lick our fingers painting back in the day. It's going to fall off a cliff, and no one will miss it. When the last of the Old Guard croaks, and can no longer spend their Social Security checks on Deluxe Gold Embossed Masturbatory Anniversary Editions of AD&D, it will just end one day. These are the last days. Your beards are going gray, your fedoras are older and just a little bit battered, and no one wants to sell anymore, what you want to buy. There are no conventions for you. Very few online spaces. What you, what you sense, is very real.

The world is upside down, now. The people who you used to heap scorn upon, now they heap it upon you. There are more of them than there are of you. And if anyone on the sidelines feels sorry for you, they aren't going to do very much to defend you. You don't have allies. Woke people have allies. All you have is your bitterness, in a world that increasingly can't even see you. This isn't a fight. You're out of men, you're out of ammo. Your lines are being overrun...

If that's what you think, you are correct.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 04:25:29 AM
As I said above, your viewpoint on whether the hobby has been taken over by Woke leftists really depends on your definitions. I mean, the Pundit, as a supporter of minorities, gender diversity, and women gamers, would be "woke" according to many people.

I have come to give you the word, and the word is good. According to definitions and implications often tossed around this site, it's all true. The RPG hobby has been subsumed into wokeness. As never before, people are talking about race, gender, sexuality, colonization and de-colonization, appropriation, feminism, and various intersectionalities, as never before. Even for people who did not respond with visceral disgust at the hadozee controversy, they can tell which the wind is blowing; even if they don't consider themselves woke, the mainstream gamer, the mainstream person, doesn't want to be thought of as a racist or misogynist. The economics are in favor of wokeness; people pander to the new awareness of all time, and court an image of being sensitive and inclusive. They actively scorn the dollars of reactionaries, because people who complain about "wokeness" and such are a dwindling group with little reach, and increasingly, fewer dollars to spend. People used to cackle, "Get woke, go broke," and the opposite has occurred. If you resist the overall progressive trend, your brand will suffer, your sales will suffer, and you personally will be chased to the ends of the Earth until you recant your heresy. The new social order, like any social order, will be enforced by all the usual tools: scorn, exclusion, and active disconnection in society and the economy. Anti-woke people are increasingly unpopular, in many corners unwelcome, and will ultimately become pariahs and eccentrics on the very fringes of the hobby.

This forum is unlike virtually any other gaming space on the Internet I can think of. It represents a realm where people can openly express disdain for minorities, for feminism, for social justice, for inclusion, and this is treated as within the range of normal opinions a person can have and still be respected in society. Not so, elsewhere. You will be sanctioned and even banned from discussion groups and entire spaces on many, if not most, sites. Here, people call being trans a "mental illness." You know who doesn't? People with actual expertise in mental illness. It's a bizarre phenomenon, people latching onto a pseudo-medical, pseudo-intellectual casting of the issue, when the very opinion indicates being decades behind the times, and increasingly retrograde with respect to the ethics and science of the 21st century. Calling transgender identity a mental illness is not simply politically incorrect or rude, it's just wrong and incorrect, in ways that show someone's lack of sophistication. It's like being a flat earther. It's not just socially repugnant and scientifically ignorant, it's embarrassing. It's like being ones of those guys who stands up in the US Sentate and says something stupid that reveals to the world they don't understand anything about pregnancy, the female orgasm, or what people under the age of 60 think about just about anything.

And it's only going to get worse. The Boomers had their day. They had their leftists and progressives. But ultimately, most of the ones in the US voted for Reagan. They were conservative enough that they liked Clinton, who ran on welfare "reform" and brokered a Devil's bargain in the form of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, ... honestly, the best deal we could get at the time. But after them came Gen X. And Gen X listened to Rage Against the Machine and smoked some weed and knew gay people and were fine with it. They wanted healthcare, and they hated cops, and increasingly were cynical about the initiatives the Boomers pushed through because they saw the real reasons. And Gen X grew up playing D&D. And now people are at age where Gen X is a bunch of the people writing, promoting, and publishing RPGs. And what you see, is what you think. By the very loose and open definitions of "wokeness" tossed around, Gen X is woke to its core.

But Gen X is a small generation. A buffer zone. And the ones who came after, the Millennials, have always had the Internet. They've always had gay people on TV. They are so against racism, some of them struggle to sense and understand it, because they think it's something from the Bad Old Days. But the Millennial generation is huge. Even Millennials who vote conservative, overwhelmingly take progressive stances on bread and butter issues of the day. They are going to increasingly replace Gen X as the writers, creators, influencers, and target demographic of RPGs. Increasingly, they will be the target of the next wave of nostalgia gaming. Story games and PbtA and everything is so old now, that people who cut their teeth on it, are going to be coming back to it. Somewhere out there, people are already writing the next generation of "old school" games, inspired by, and a commentary on, D&D 4e, on Pathfinder 1e. Millenials love woke shit. And they are the rulers of social media. If you can't adopt to modern norms, they will hit you with the force of the ocean. You will not survive, financially, socially, demographically. They will bury you.

And the zoomers? Little bitty woke goblins. Some of them are in college now. And they are the wokest little fuckers you've ever met. Sure, the majority are racist, misogynist, homophobic little pukes, but it's the smallest majority in history. And they all know their own wedge, and they protect it. Little woke Asian zoomers making fun of crusty, hilarious Oriental Adventures bullcrap. Woke little gaymers, gay as they want to be. Baby bronies. People who view essentially every Final Fantasy game as vintage, "dad gaming." They watch anime, absolutely the gayest anime, and they don't apologize for it.

The world you knew, is over. Your little harlot tables, and your openly white supremacist, reactionary, misogynist, ignorant ignorsis is going to go the way of the lead miniatures we used to lick our fingers painting back in the day. It's going to fall off a cliff, and no one will miss it. When the last of the Old Guard croaks, and can no longer spend their Social Security checks on Deluxe Gold Embossed Masturbatory Anniversary Editions of AD&D, it will just end one day. These are the last days. Your beards are going gray, your fedoras are older and just a little bit battered, and no one wants to sell anymore, what you want to buy. There are no conventions for you. Very few online spaces. What you, what you sense, is very real.

The world is upside down, now. The people who you used to heap scorn upon, now they heap it upon you. There are more of them than there are of you. And if anyone on the sidelines feels sorry for you, they aren't going to do very much to defend you. You don't have allies. Woke people have allies. All you have is your bitterness, in a world that increasingly can't even see you. This isn't a fight. You're out of men, you're out of ammo. Your lines are being overrun...

If that's what you think, you are correct.

Aw, big feelings.

Also, no one is reading that wall of text.

Well, I got a reaction out of you. You don't even have to read it to know what I said. You know the truth.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 04:40:33 AM
Well, I got a reaction out of you. You don't even have to read it to know what I said. You know the truth.

That says a lot more about you than anything.  You got some attention so your histrionic outburst was worth it.

On a more serious note, this is a real sign of serious mental illness.  You need some proper therapy and then do a deep spiritual journey.  I hope you deal with your feelings of inadequacy, rejection, and frustration and finally find some inner peace. 

Quote from: BadApple on November 29, 2023, 05:13:11 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 04:40:33 AM
Well, I got a reaction out of you. You don't even have to read it to know what I said. You know the truth.

That says a lot more about you than anything.  You got some attention so your histrionic outburst was worth it.

On a more serious note, this is a real sign of serious mental illness.  You need some proper therapy and then do a deep spiritual journey.  I hope you deal with your feelings of inadequacy, rejection, and frustration and finally find some inner peace.

So are you like a psychologist or what?

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 06:02:12 AM
So are you like a psychologist or what?

More like a "or what?"  Used to work with an outpatient mental heath clinic.  Most of my work was with PTSD and Autism but deal with bipolar, schizophrenia, and borderline personality to name a few.  Lots of classes and seminars on how to identify and hand mental health problems in an emergency.

QuoteI have come to give you the word, and the word is good. According to definitions and implications often tossed around this site, it's all true. The RPG hobby has been subsumed into wokeness. As never before, people are talking about race, gender, sexuality, colonization and de-colonization, appropriation, feminism, and various intersectionalities, as never before. Even for people who did not respond with visceral disgust at the hadozee controversy, they can tell which the wind is blowing; even if they don't consider themselves woke, the mainstream gamer, the mainstream person, doesn't want to be thought of as a racist or misogynist. The economics are in favor of wokeness; people pander to the new awareness of all time, and court an image of being sensitive and inclusive. They actively scorn the dollars of reactionaries, because people who complain about "wokeness" and such are a dwindling group with little reach, and increasingly, fewer dollars to spend. People used to cackle, "Get woke, go broke," and the opposite has occurred. If you resist the overall progressive trend, your brand will suffer, your sales will suffer, and you personally will be chased to the ends of the Earth until you recant your heresy. The new social order, like any social order, will be enforced by all the usual tools: scorn, exclusion, and active disconnection in society and the economy. Anti-woke people are increasingly unpopular, in many corners unwelcome, and will ultimately become pariahs and eccentrics on the very fringes of the hobby.

That is correct assessment of modern trend, indeed. However I'm quite afraid this is way less dominant that you would wish. Millenials were pushing it, but zoomers are way more diverse and definitely more cynical towards moral busybodying. Even those quite leftists. And of course world is not merely America - and there situation is even more and more complexly changing with Right-Wing nationalists taking India, China being China, anti-immigrant parties stronger with every years in EU, and insane but arguably right-wing guys winning elections in Latin America.

QuoteThis forum is unlike virtually any other gaming space on the Internet I can think of. It represents a realm where people can openly express disdain for minorities, for feminism, for social justice, for inclusion, and this is treated as within the range of normal opinions a person can have and still be respected in society. Not so, elsewhere. You will be sanctioned and even banned from discussion groups and entire spaces on many, if not most, sites. Here, people call being trans a "mental illness." You know who doesn't? People with actual expertise in mental illness. It's a bizarre phenomenon, people latching onto a pseudo-medical, pseudo-intellectual casting of the issue, when the very opinion indicates being decades behind the times, and increasingly retrograde with respect to the ethics and science of the 21st century. Calling transgender identity a mental illness is not simply politically incorrect or rude, it's just wrong and incorrect, in ways that show someone's lack of sophistication. It's like being a flat earther. It's not just socially repugnant and scientifically ignorant, it's embarrassing. It's like being ones of those guys who stands up in the US Sentate and says something stupid that reveals to the world they don't understand anything about pregnancy, the female orgasm, or what people under the age of 60 think about just about anything.

From philosophical framework however disease and illness are not really biological, scientific terms but philosophical ones - axiological judgement over preconceived notion of individual well-being. (Which of course cannot be scientifically defined - there is not experiment whatsoever that could define good, or bad, or well.) And it frankly cannot be in any other way - most people will ignore it, but while let's say flu infection is solid fact - classifying it as against well-being is not. I mean it is very intuitive - but that's not the same as solid. Science, science proper is fundamentally unethical - and kinda needs to be to fullfil it's methodological principles. Not that most scientists care that much - but then we also do not have to care about authority trying to cross own methodology.

QuoteAnd the zoomers? Little bitty woke goblins. Some of them are in college now. And they are the wokest little fuckers you've ever met. Sure, the majority are racist, misogynist, homophobic little pukes, but it's the smallest majority in history. And they all know their own wedge, and they protect it. Little woke Asian zoomers making fun of crusty, hilarious Oriental Adventures bullcrap. Woke little gaymers, gay as they want to be. Baby bronies. People who view essentially every Final Fantasy game as vintage, "dad gaming." They watch anime, absolutely the gayest anime, and they don't apologize for it.

Yes, but they are also divided being tired of age of moderated internet of millenials, and embracing anarchy in many fields.
Now of course your judgement of zoomer generation as "are racist, misogynist, homophobic little pukes" probably shows generally how far removed you are from reality by any reasonable standards, I'd rather say that zoomer right is not afraid to be edgy offensive and prejudiced mostly in performatory way because Political Corectness is THE MAN of our era. But majority of them. Sounds like clear nonsense. Unless you count whole world. In which case you should not use zoomer term.

Also yeah banana kids making jokes with orientalism are so representative.

QuoteThe world you knew, is over. Your little harlot tables, and your openly white supremacist, reactionary, misogynist, ignorant ignorsis is going to go the way of the lead miniatures we used to lick our fingers painting back in the day. It's going to fall off a cliff, and no one will miss it. When the last of the Old Guard croaks, and can no longer spend their Social Security checks on Deluxe Gold Embossed Masturbatory Anniversary Editions of AD&D, it will just end one day. These are the last days. Your beards are going gray, your fedoras are older and just a little bit battered, and no one wants to sell anymore, what you want to buy. There are no conventions for you. Very few online spaces. What you, what you sense, is very real.

The world is upside down, now. The people who you used to heap scorn upon, now they heap it upon you. There are more of them than there are of you. And if anyone on the sidelines feels sorry for you, they aren't going to do very much to defend you. You don't have allies. Woke people have allies. All you have is your bitterness, in a world that increasingly can't even see you. This isn't a fight. You're out of men, you're out of ammo. Your lines are being overrun...

I mean I kinda admire this boasting. I don't think it's as good seeing social changes in my country and countries around me, but that's fine.
Good luck being good lil vassal of Blackrock and Vanguard for rest of eternity my friend. I'm sure you gonna enjoy it being so proud of allies.

Quote from: BadApple on November 29, 2023, 04:35:08 AM
Also, no one is reading that wall of text.

Oh, I read it. It's well written in fact, amusing, and some of it might be correct.

But not all of it. To me, it was the kind of thing someone writes more to themselves than the audience. As reassurance, to bolster their own optimism in the face of creeping doubt.

After all, this is a world where according to most polling Trump somehow still has a chance at reelection, where the Dutch just elected Geert Wilder, where New Zealand just rejected what Jacinda Ardern stood for.

A world where boomer hippies gave way to Reaganism and 1920s flappers gave way to 1950s housewives. 'Progress', however you define it, is complicated, fragile, not guaranteed. Today's young revolutionary heroes are tomorrow's disappointing pragmatists.

But I can offer some hope PawsPlay. I'm a childfree vegan agnostic pacifist New Yorker with gay players. From where I sit, from what I've seen, you'll probably get 40-60% of what you want, but after some back and forth you'll have to settle for that and become like every other established passionate ideology in this country. People will be polite and sensitive to your face, but roll their eyes behind your back, like they do with Mormons and Vegans like me.

That sounds depressing, but as Obama reminded people, half a loaf is still worth something in a world this brutal.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked on November 29, 2023, 06:48:45 AM
But not all of it. To me, it was the kind of thing someone writes more to themselves than the audience. As reassurance, to bolster their own optimism in the face of creeping doubt.

Isn't that the main product of these forums?

QuoteIsn't that the main product of these forums?

Isn't that main product of any strongly politically aligned forum?
Like I skim sometimes The Big Purple (when I was banned without any political post on my side, because some mod claimed I'm sockpuppet (and didn't even had social courage to say whose)) and how can I read this rampant censorship and anxious purging of anything incorrect, like not creating safe-space for anxious people to believe world is on their side, when they don't really believe it's true.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 28, 2023, 06:38:15 PM

QuoteWith the leftard version of trans, a dude dyes his beard purple so he can use the ladies room and get preference in hiring, its likely his junk is quite present and he'll never split his penis down the middle, remove his testicles and then create a hole in his crotch for gay men to get sexual pleasure.  The trans people I worked with in the past would never do any of the shit the leftards are pretending and they wanted to be treated as the opposite gender and they did not do everything they could to stand out.  No actual trans woman is going to talk about her bulge - see Dylan McVeiny for source.  So he could have children, just saying.

Thank you for all this bodily horror imagery in utterly unnecessary attempt to explain simple jab,

It's what the sex change does and what it is for.  If you have someone in your life deciding to castrate themselves then bring up the above definition and see if they will continue.  Describing exactly what "gender affirming" care will do can wake some people up.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 04:25:29 AM
If that's what you think, you are correct.

  Yes, we've heard it before. "Who is like the Beast? Who can make war against it?"

 

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 07:00:05 AM
Isn't that the main product of these forums?

Probably. So what? Do you think pointing that out immunizes you and your favorite social media hangouts somehow?

QuoteIt's what the sex change does and what it is for.  If you have someone in your life deciding to castrate themselves then bring up the above definition and see if they will continue.  Describing exactly what "gender affirming" care will do can wake some people up.

Dude I did not accused you of lying, but of using over explanation in wrong place.
Being technically correct does not mean you read room correctly.

QuoteYes, we've heard it before. "Who is like the Beast? Who can make war against it?"

TBH - only God can make successful War againt Beast... so this sentiment is half-correct. We are doomed to be smacked by Antichrist till time end.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on October 24, 2023, 02:31:58 PM
Only if they're marketing to TBP and EN World. But if those sites are any indication, Antichristian Gamers are also WotC's next target audience.  ;) ;D

They have been courting that since 3e when they demonified a bunch of stuff in D&D that was not prior to this. 5e they slip in even more.

I started compiling a list of 'old white guys' in the industry who's ages I could determine.  It's quite long, actually:

Jeremy Crawford is at least 44 (together with spouse since 1997)
Chris Perkins is 55
James Wyatt is 55
Bill Slavicsek is 52
Kevin Siembieda is 67
Erik Mona is 49
James Jacobs is 51
Sean K Reynolds is 47
Wolfgang Baur is 55

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 29, 2023, 07:05:31 AM

Like I skim sometimes The Big Purple (when I was banned without any political post on my side, because some mod claimed I'm sockpuppet (and didn't even had social courage to say whose))

To be fair, that's the most common method there for getting rid of "bad people" who never the less follow the rules. It was probably also used to justify permabanning someone else as using your account as a sockpuppet (or multiple people)...that's why they wouldn't name who.

Even pretty lefty people get tossed. Justin Alexander got tossed over a decade ago for that reason and he's a guy who calls Republicans a death cult and wears a rainbow ampersand tee-shirt.  Read about it on his blog discussing why he removed all the reviews he had on the site. He argues the forums replacing threads under reviews and having the tangency forum were the worst ideas on TBP were the worst ideas they had, mainly because tangency mod proud they'd never played RPGs were able to just go on power trips.

Which I think gives a peak behind most wokeness, especially at places like TPB. It's the same moral busibodies who went after D&D and metal music in the 80s and Vampire and goths in the 90s.  Oh, this might be a different generation but it's the same mindset.

If he is relying on them to make him the future, I think pawsplay is in for the same rude awakening a lot of evangelicals suffered circa 2000 when they quit being the hot gravy train and and found out their most public and vocal leaders were after power and money, not their particular cause.  It's an old trend (even James Mitchner used it in his novel Space so it much have been obvious how it worked in the mass media age by the mid-70s).

Quote from: BadApple on November 28, 2023, 10:03:47 AM

Quote from: PulpHerb on November 27, 2023, 10:32:26 PM

Quote from: BadApple on October 23, 2023, 10:36:39 PM
I, for one, would love to buy your Far East setting RPG.  I would openly request that you include material inspired by pre-shogunate Japan, pre-unified china, Korea, Indo-China peninsula, and the Maya island peoples.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "Pre-Unified China". I can think of a lot of ununified periods so I'm curious as to the specific one you're after (I assume prior to a specific territorial extend, but am curious).

You're right, I had to look it up.  The part that leaps to mind for me is the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.

Nice choice. I'm used to people talking about a disunited China meaning the Warring States period which ended with the Qin dynasty.  Nothing wrong with that period, but for gamers it's getting like The Battle of the Bulge got.

Quote from: PulpHerb on November 29, 2023, 06:20:58 PM
If he is relying on them to make him the future, I think pawsplay is in for the same rude awakening a lot of evangelicals suffered circa 2000 when they quit being the hot gravy train and and found out their most public and vocal leaders were after power and money, not their particular cause. 

Every day is a rude awakening. Do you think I'm naive? In my adult life I've watched the goons peel back so many hard-won victories. And the other side range from actual conservatives themselves to tepid to a handful of really progressive people. The idea the Left is in charge is pure fantasy, not one I could believe for a second. What I said was for people who think Biden is left, or even Warren. I don't have saint or heroes. When I want to believe in something, I look for it in myself.

When I say I am the future of gaming, that's not placing a belief in someone else. I'm just telling you what I'm going to do.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 08:35:49 PM
When I say I am the future of gaming, that's not placing a belief in someone else. I'm just telling you what I'm going to do.

I don't think I referenced left or right but activists.

I was going by you list of what you think the future holds and how much is currently based on what modern activists have made acceptable and unacceptable speech. Most of that is less than a generation old and then arguably much of it, especially in the gay rights area and its relatives, by using a mildly random event, AIDS, as a rally point.

History has a nasty habit of reverting to the mean and a big part of that is the oscillating of activists to different moral poles.

I don't think WEIRD views on sexuality or how to treat ethnically different people have a long enough trend line to think they'll last at the current relatively extreme position by historical standards much past my lifetime if that. Especially on sexuality and women if demographic trends continue as they are as either "solution" will probably mean the end of open and exclusive homosexuality being socially acceptable (I'm not even sure I'd bet on euphemistic exclusive homosexuality being socially acceptable...confirmed bachelor, Boston marriage kind of things).

Hell, I'm not convinced we've permanently ended chattel slavery as a socially acceptable thing and at least in the West that has been the norm since before my grandparents were born.

Then again, I have phrases like "the right of side of history" or "the arc of history" (although I've kinda used them once and then couched in "ability to" not "will live").

But, do what you will do. That's all any of us can.

QuoteWhen I say I am the future of gaming, that's not placing a belief in someone else. I'm just telling you what I'm going to do.

Oh, so it's more megalomania variant. OK.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 29, 2023, 09:55:11 PM

QuoteWhen I say I am the future of gaming, that's not placing a belief in someone else. I'm just telling you what I'm going to do.

Oh, so it's more megalomania variant. OK.

Call it megalomania if you want. I just haven't held my breath for anyone else to give me permission to exist since I was like 13 years old. Robert A. Heinlein, one of my favorite authors, really impressed on me that no one else was going to make you good or great, that to lead an honorable and purposeful life was a gift you had to give to yourself. And that mediocre people would never tire in their envy of the little dots of happiness of any us might find in our lives, by being ourselves. When it comes to what you think is good, right, and most desirable in life, no one else gets a vote.

I'm not some God-emperor. For most of my life, wokeness was not, like, a thing. Like there was a girl I was friends with in high school, who was bullied for being bisexual. Really shunned. And then just a few years later, people just slightly younger treated it like that was the coolest thing ever. But the birth of the 1990s was rough, especially in the Bible belt.

So my point, the most important point, is that nothing will be made, nothing new and good, ex nihil, by acting out on some grievance. Typically it's the "woke" crowd who form the circular firing squads, but in this case, it's the opposite. Whatever was good and great about gaming in the past, still is, and there is nothing that should invalidate anyone who wants to kick it "old school." We've simply reached a point where it can't be ignored when certain people just assume they can infringe on others. And yes, there are woke zealots, just as there are extremists in any camp, but the "woke" crowd and the "let's just play and not be political" are mostly unified by a desire to just put something good into the world. It's hard, though, because historically, trans, PoC, other marginalized groups just haven't been given their full due as human beings to sit at the table. That's changed, and some people are having a hard time adjusting. The RPG world, like a lot of male-dominated social milieus, was in a bit of a bubble for a while. But eventually the "real world" seeps in. And there are a lot of older norms in the RPG world that just don't align any more with modern values and customs.

There is this idea, too, that there is An Agenda. But it's just different people's opinions. The accepted opinion, both in the more progressive wing and the solid mainstream crowed, is that including slavery, for instance, is just not conducive to enjoyable play, is insensitive, is easily abused. I personally would say I'm way left on diversity issues. But I don't accept the orthodoxy on slavery. Yes, in a mainstream game, especially something like D&D, it shouldn't be used gratuitously, or left out in the open for kids to create unpleasant situations. But I think it certainly belongs in plenty of adult-oriented entertainment, especially fantasy and historical games; and in fact, slavery still exists today. I just, you know, let it be. Like how back in the day a lot of people wanted everyone to say Afro-American, and I just wasn't into it, and it went its way. And now most people just say African-American or Black, or whatever. And genderqueer has mostly given way to the more neutral nonbinary. I don't love that, but it seems to have some sticking power. And that's what it means to live in civil society. Sometimes the norms shift. That doesn't mean you have to be a different person. But the expectations are different, and depending on your choices, some of your behavior may become coded in ways you didn't intend.

If you don't define yourself as an enemy of progress, or even fashion, there is a future. It's as simple as that.

And coming back around to the original topic, there is a demographic shift. RPGs have penetrated into minority communities, even when they were previously not as readily accessible, simply because of time and friction. And the demographics have changed in a lot of places, especially the USA, but no less drastically in other places to. And indigenous people are being acknowledged as present in their own places. And just as you can say things around, like your friends, because they know you and your intentions, and they know you don't represent a threat to you, there are norms that existed in the past because there was an expectation of safety. but those expectations were based on an assumption of who was at the table, that didn't necessarily hold before, but definitely doesn't hold now. Just, like, imagine my discomfort, when I've had Black gamer friends learn that Tunnels & Trolls used to have a charm spell called, I shit you not, Yassa Massa. And that was still in print in my college days.  The Internet is like this big room now, and everyone can hear you. So yeah, it matters, that not everyone in the RPG community fits your preconceptions.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 30, 2023, 12:17:16 AM

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 29, 2023, 09:55:11 PM

QuoteWhen I say I am the future of gaming, that's not placing a belief in someone else. I'm just telling you what I'm going to do.

Oh, so it's more megalomania variant. OK.

Call it megalomania if you want. I just haven't held my breath for anyone else to give me permission to exist since I was like 13 years old. Robert A. Heinlein, one of my favorite authors, really impressed on me that no one else was going to make you good or great, that to lead an honorable and purposeful life was a gift you had to give to yourself. And that mediocre people would never tire in their envy of the little dots of happiness of any us might find in our lives, by being ourselves. When it comes to what you think is good, right, and most desirable in life, no one else gets a vote.

I'm not some God-emperor. For most of my life, wokeness was not, like, a thing. Like there was a girl I was friends with in high school, who was bullied for being bisexual. Really shunned. And then just a few years later, people just slightly younger treated it like that was the coolest thing ever. But the birth of the 1990s was rough, especially in the Bible belt.

So my point, the most important point, is that nothing will be made, nothing new and good, ex nihil, by acting out on some grievance. Typically it's the "woke" crowd who form the circular firing squads, but in this case, it's the opposite. Whatever was good and great about gaming in the past, still is, and there is nothing that should invalidate anyone who wants to kick it "old school." We've simply reached a point where it can't be ignored when certain people just assume they can infringe on others. And yes, there are woke zealots, just as there are extremists in any camp, but the "woke" crowd and the "let's just play and not be political" are mostly unified by a desire to just put something good into the world. It's hard, though, because historically, trans, PoC, other marginalized groups just haven't been given their full due as human beings to sit at the table. That's changed, and some people are having a hard time adjusting. The RPG world, like a lot of male-dominated social milieus, was in a bit of a bubble for a while. But eventually the "real world" seeps in. And there are a lot of older norms in the RPG world that just don't align any more with modern values and customs.

There is this idea, too, that there is An Agenda. But it's just different people's opinions. The accepted opinion, both in the more progressive wing and the solid mainstream crowed, is that including slavery, for instance, is just not conducive to enjoyable play, is insensitive, is easily abused. I personally would say I'm way left on diversity issues. But I don't accept the orthodoxy on slavery. Yes, in a mainstream game, especially something like D&D, it shouldn't be used gratuitously, or left out in the open for kids to create unpleasant situations. But I think it certainly belongs in plenty of adult-oriented entertainment, especially fantasy and historical games; and in fact, slavery still exists today. I just, you know, let it be. Like how back in the day a lot of people wanted everyone to say Afro-American, and I just wasn't into it, and it went its way. And now most people just say African-American or Black, or whatever. And genderqueer has mostly given way to the more neutral nonbinary. I don't love that, but it seems to have some sticking power. And that's what it means to live in civil society. Sometimes the norms shift. That doesn't mean you have to be a different person. But the expectations are different, and depending on your choices, some of your behavior may become coded in ways you didn't intend.

If you don't define yourself as an enemy of progress, or even fashion, there is a future. It's as simple as that.

And coming back around to the original topic, there is a demographic shift. RPGs have penetrated into minority communities, even when they were previously not as readily accessible, simply because of time and friction. And the demographics have changed in a lot of places, especially the USA, but no less drastically in other places to. And indigenous people are being acknowledged as present in their own places. And just as you can say things around, like your friends, because they know you and your intentions, and they know you don't represent a threat to you, there are norms that existed in the past because there was an expectation of safety. but those expectations were based on an assumption of who was at the table, that didn't necessarily hold before, but definitely doesn't hold now. Just, like, imagine my discomfort, when I've had Black gamer friends learn that Tunnels & Trolls used to have a charm spell called, I shit you not, Yassa Massa. And that was still in print in my college days.  The Internet is like this big room now, and everyone can hear you. So yeah, it matters, that not everyone in the RPG community fits your preconceptions.

Well, congrats. You (the general "you") have lived long enough to see yourself become the villian. There is a strong and vocal majority of "progressives" who are proponents of the most vile ideas and calling anyone who disagrees -ist or -phobe, and a lot of people are now waking up to the reality that the LGBTQ activist community are not satisfied with simply getting along, but that everyone must agree with their most terrible and hurtful ideas.

So enjoy the decline as those who claim to be pro-trans, pro-poc are revealed to be a bunch of assholes who are using, among other things, hobbies like RPGs as ideological battlefields.

QuoteIf you don't define yourself as an enemy of progress, or even fashion, there is a future. It's as simple as that.

Unless progress shall implode with next generation consuming you. Simple as that, mr. Prophet.

QuoteIt's hard, though, because historically, trans, PoC, other marginalized groups just haven't been given their full due as human beings to sit at the table. That's changed, and some people are having a hard time adjusting. The RPG world, like a lot of male-dominated social milieus, was in a bit of a bubble for a while. But eventually the "real world" seeps in. And there are a lot of older norms in the RPG world that just don't align any more with modern values and customs.

I generally call that nonsense - based on vast majority of testimonies from old age of RPG. From what I see women and quirky minorities were not interested in old RPGs because they catered to interests and fiction not popular among them, and they jump in large numbers as soon as more thematic shit appeared like Vampire. But women being more interested in VtM than AD&D does not mean they were en masse excluded from AD&D. This is merely propaganda to promote new designers as some champions.

QuoteAnd that's what it means to live in civil society. Sometimes the norms shift. That doesn't mean you have to be a different person. But the expectations are different, and depending on your choices, some of your behavior may become coded in ways you didn't intend.

This Mr. Future stands in my opinion in clear contradiction (at least in spirit) with

QuoteI just haven't held my breath for anyone else to give me permission to exist since I was like 13 years old. Robert A. Heinlein, one of my favorite authors, really impressed on me that no one else was going to make you good or great, that to lead an honorable and purposeful life was a gift you had to give to yourself.

So what can we say - we will not helding our breth for progressive society permissions to act.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 30, 2023, 12:18:54 PM
I generally call that nonsense - based on vast majority of testimonies from old age of RPG. From what I see women and quirky minorities were not interested in old RPGs because they catered to interests and fiction not popular among them, and they jump in large numbers as soon as more thematic shit appeared like Vampire. But women being more interested in VtM than AD&D does not mean they were en masse excluded from AD&D. This is merely propaganda to promote new designers as some champions.

I've been playing RPGs for forty years, and I've hardly sat at a table since high school that didn't have a woman at it. And I'm talking AD&D, D&D, not Vampire. There have always been women in RPGs. It's just that, firstly, they weren't made welcome, and second, when they joined the hobby, they tended to avoid big social spaces where they would be continually subjected to that attitude. Women have always, since the beginning, had a significant presence.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 30, 2023, 05:14:06 PM
I've been playing RPGs for forty years, and I've hardly sat at a table since high school that didn't have a woman at it. And I'm talking AD&D, D&D, not Vampire. There have always been women in RPGs. [It's just that, firstly, they weren't made welcome, and second, when they joined the hobby, they tended to avoid big social spaces where they would be continually subjected to that attitude. Women have always, since the beginning, had a significant presence.

Well, we've had this argument before. There have always been women in the hobby, but the argument that the hobby was mean to them doesn't hold much water. The most likely explanation is that nerds were looked down on, and young women didn't want to be associated with that unpopularity. As the decades (feels beard greying) went on, and nerd hobbies started to go mainstream, that stigma was lessened and more women joined the hobby.

I question the legitimacy of making any demographic, minority or majority, the one true future of D&D pandering. But Wizards seems very much dedicated to doing that kind of thing anyway. With ESG working the way it does, perhaps their investment future is nevertheless going to profit off of a bad targeting plan, IDK.

Quote from: pawsplay on November 30, 2023, 05:14:06 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 30, 2023, 12:18:54 PM
I generally call that nonsense - based on vast majority of testimonies from old age of RPG. From what I see women and quirky minorities were not interested in old RPGs because they catered to interests and fiction not popular among them, and they jump in large numbers as soon as more thematic shit appeared like Vampire. But women being more interested in VtM than AD&D does not mean they were en masse excluded from AD&D. This is merely propaganda to promote new designers as some champions.

I've been playing RPGs for forty years, and I've hardly sat at a table since high school that didn't have a woman at it. And I'm talking AD&D, D&D, not Vampire. There have always been women in RPGs. It's just that, firstly, they weren't made welcome, and second, when they joined the hobby, they tended to avoid big social spaces where they would be continually subjected to that attitude. Women have always, since the beginning, had a significant presence.

This is a flat out lie.  At no time were tables generally hostile to girls and women.  If anything, we'd invite them and they'd roll their eyes.  45 years of playing all over the US and in several other countries and I never once saw a girl or woman turned away from or abused at a table.  The idea that old school gamers were misogynists is nothing but slander and anyone that perpetuates it is a piece of shit human.

I did see a lot of uncomfortable teen guys with poor social skills fail to communicate effectively and girls leave because they didn't feel the fit in.  If a girl stuck around a few session, the guy would settle down and it would be a better game all around.

What I did see a lot of is teen girls mock and ridicule players for being socially undesirable in various forms and having various learning disabilities.  (Players with autism and ADHD are very common.)  I have seen relentless bullying by "popular" girls to the point where adults had to step in and then the girl would cry victim and get away with it all. 

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:18:51 AM
I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

LOL, I was trying to figure out WTF your deal was. This post tells me everything I need to know.

Quote from: Brad on November 30, 2023, 08:55:05 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:18:51 AM
I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

LOL, I was trying to figure out WTF your deal was. This post tells me everything I need to know.

I know, right?

Quote from: Brad on November 30, 2023, 08:55:05 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:18:51 AM
I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

LOL, I was trying to figure out WTF your deal was. This post tells me everything I need to know.

That and the part about D&D 4E being part of the next round of "old school" games makes me think this is a huge trolling effort. Putting too much work into it, IMO, but it does show dedication to the bit.

Quote from: Brad on November 30, 2023, 08:55:05 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:18:51 AM
I, a trans PoC gamer, am personally the future of the industry. Deal with it.

LOL, I was trying to figure out WTF your deal was. This post tells me everything I need to know.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Damn, Brad! My exact thought as well! *This post tells me everything I need to know."

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Kanyenya on November 30, 2023, 09:54:26 PM
That and the part about D&D 4E being part of the next round of "old school" games makes me think this is a huge trolling effort. Putting too much work into it, IMO, but it does show dedication to the bit.

Don't make me blush. SHARK has been posting here a year longer than I have.

QuoteI've been playing RPGs for forty years, and I've hardly sat at a table since high school that didn't have a woman at it. And I'm talking AD&D, D&D, not Vampire. There have always been women in RPGs. It's just that, firstly, they weren't made welcome, and second, when they joined the hobby, they tended to avoid big social spaces where they would be continually subjected to that attitude. Women have always, since the beginning, had a significant presence.

So it's kinda hard to notice this great exclusion in adult circles at least, if as you say significant presence was constant from very beginning.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 01, 2023, 05:19:25 PM

QuoteI've been playing RPGs for forty years, and I've hardly sat at a table since high school that didn't have a woman at it. And I'm talking AD&D, D&D, not Vampire. There have always been women in RPGs. It's just that, firstly, they weren't made welcome, and second, when they joined the hobby, they tended to avoid big social spaces where they would be continually subjected to that attitude. Women have always, since the beginning, had a significant presence.

So it's kinda hard to notice this great exclusion in adult circles at least, if as you say significant presence was constant from very beginning.

By significant he means about 20% IIRC, that was the number when TSR was runing things.

Even today, with a few exceptions, most RPG spaces/conversations are male dominated, not because we bann women from participating, because they don't want to.

Except of course with 5e that's socially known and VtM that appeals to their libido.

QuoteBy significant he means about 20% IIRC, that was the number when TSR was runing things.

Considering my general experience with old D&D that sounds like naturally predictable numbers, and I'm gonna again repeat claim - numbers grow because different games and settings with more stereotypical female baits were introduced, and that's fine. And of course 5e doing it's FASHION thing and LIFESTYLE thing - but then I could not care less about people going for that.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 01, 2023, 05:19:25 PM

QuoteI've been playing RPGs for forty years, and I've hardly sat at a table since high school that didn't have a woman at it. And I'm talking AD&D, D&D, not Vampire. There have always been women in RPGs. It's just that, firstly, they weren't made welcome, and second, when they joined the hobby, they tended to avoid big social spaces where they would be continually subjected to that attitude. Women have always, since the beginning, had a significant presence.

So it's kinda hard to notice this great exclusion in adult circles at least, if as you say significant presence was constant from very beginning.

You're confusing a relationship between the fact that I was in some all-male groups as a nine-year-old and the observation that Margaret Weis exists.

QuoteYou're confusing a relationship between the fact that I was in some all-male groups as a nine-year-old and the observation that Margaret Weis exists.

As a nine year old... huh, yes boys n girls holding separate circles at this age is truly prove of deep running sexism in DnD circles.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 01, 2023, 06:29:55 PM

QuoteYou're confusing a relationship between the fact that I was in some all-male groups as a nine-year-old and the observation that Margaret Weis exists.

As a nine year old... huh, yes boys n girls holding separate circles at this age is truly prove of deep running sexism in DnD circles.

You mustn't hold it against him, only people with the maturity of a nine year old would fall for the woke cult.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 01, 2023, 06:54:40 PM
You mustn't hold it against him, only people with the maturity of a nine year old would fall for the woke cult.

What is a woke cult, and where do they meet? Are there meetings or something?

I think it's interesting that many folks on the left love to crow about minority statistics for playing whatever game or in whatever corporate or societal context. The numbers are never accused of being too high. But certain demographic categories are the sign of the devil, or at least have no positive value, even if they bring in profit. Indeed, if targeting them brings in profit, this is seen as a systemic failure.

Personally, I think it's fine to have whoever is interested be interested, and for different things to appeal to different people in aggregate. Doesn't mean it will always be as financially viable, but hey, you do you. That said, when people start to single out folks preferentially based on ethnicity or identity, or trying to get categories to leave, rather than focusing on making a solid product and letting chips fall where they may, it can be in a sense discriminatory and suboptimal. If the corporate sway is large enough, it can also be something with discriminatory societal impacts, or major impacts within the hobby or subculture in question.

You can look at the steady downward chart of Disney income to see what happens when you start targeting an audience that doesn't exist.  It sure sounds noble to declare that you've made a project to be inclusive of bi-curious Argentinian teen girls with autism, but the narrower the focus, the fewer the customers.  WotC can only put out but so many gay tiefling proms before the well runs dry, because the number of people who'll go and buy a gay tiefling prom adventure solely on the principle of supporting gay tiefling proms is not equal to the number of people who would buy an actual well-written adventure module, and general consumers can actually tell the difference between a well-rounded product with universal appeal and corporate pandering.  Some better than others, but we've reached the point where it's so blatant it's nearly impossible not to notice.

Roleplaying has always been open to everyone.  Like others in the thread have said, the games I've played in have included women, not-straight and non-white players without any issue over the years; nobody who wanted to play has ever been excluded.  Which is why any company that is wise will not aim their marketing so far to one side or another that the normies start avoiding it.  D&D's gargantuan marketshare has let it coast by in recent years, but the company's shedding goodwill by the minute.  I think the market's ripe for upstarts to grab bigger pieces of the pie thanks in large part to WotC behaving like a stereotypical Seattle corporation.

I think you seriously underestimate the market for gay tieflings.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 02, 2023, 12:24:38 AM
I think you seriously underestimate the market for gay tieflings.

Except we have actual book sales figures to back up our estimates that gay forward material isn't selling as well.  Not just RPGs but comics, video games, movies, and more.  Publishers see less units moved for products that push forward LGBQIALMNOP characters and themes.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 01, 2023, 07:45:09 PM
I think it's interesting that many folks on the left love to crow about minority statistics for playing whatever game or in whatever corporate or societal context.

Sort of.  Their concern over statistical disparities is very selective.  About 80% of the publishing industry is female but no one is wringing their hands about the under-representation of men in the publishing industry.  There is on one claiming that this means that men have been excluded from publishing because of misandry.  About 73% of NBA players are black while only about 17% are white.  No one talking about the need for diversity or proportional representation in the NBA.  Statistical disparities only matter when it suits them.     

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 02, 2023, 04:03:47 AM

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 01, 2023, 07:45:09 PM
I think it's interesting that many folks on the left love to crow about minority statistics for playing whatever game or in whatever corporate or societal context.

Sort of.  Their concern over statistical disparities is very selective.  About 80% of the publishing industry is female but no one is wringing their hands about the under-representation of men in the publishing industry.  There is on one claiming that this means that men have been excluded from publishing because of misandry.  About 73% of NBA players are black while only about 17% are white.  No one talking about the need for diversity or proportional representation in the NBA.  Statistical disparities only matter when it suits them.     

Greetings!

*BOOM*--such a key observation, Yosemitemike!

That is so very true about Leftists. Of course, pointing this fact out to Leftists typically either provokes a response of shrieking, screaming, tears and crying, and or attacking you with an endless litany of slurs and name-calling. Or, they look at you with that wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look, and are rendered speechless. Then, they sulk, and stomp off, still calling you a Nazi, Misogynist, patriarchal tyrant, racist, homophobe, or warmonger.  ;D

I love it though. Such a great observation, sir!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

QuoteI think you seriously underestimate the market for gay tieflings.

I think market for gay tieflings is severly overrepresented because rainbow internet tumblr artists just love painting them, so they are visually all over the place.
But in actual gaming horny tiefling bard is still losing to straight human warrior. Which does not mean we need to exclude any of them - but making actions like BG3 producers whining that players choose normie white human fighter - are kinda clearly against biggest chunk of gamer population.

If you try to grew your industry abandoning previous fans... well you may end with neither old or new ones.

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2023, 07:57:37 PM
I think market for gay tieflings is severly overrepresented because rainbow internet tumblr artists just love painting them, so they are visually all over the place.
But in actual gaming horny tiefling bard is still losing to straight human warrior. Which does not mean we need to exclude any of them - but making actions like BG3 producers whining that players choose normie white human fighter - are kinda clearly against biggest chunk of gamer population.

If you try to grew your industry abandoning previous fans... well you may end with neither old or new ones.

My understanding is that BG3 is a massive success financially, as the most popular release of the year in its category. I don't play any video games, so I'm not endorsing it, but it seems to be selling quite well.

Quote from: jhkim on December 02, 2023, 09:57:31 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2023, 07:57:37 PM
I think market for gay tieflings is severly overrepresented because rainbow internet tumblr artists just love painting them, so they are visually all over the place.
But in actual gaming horny tiefling bard is still losing to straight human warrior. Which does not mean we need to exclude any of them - but making actions like BG3 producers whining that players choose normie white human fighter - are kinda clearly against biggest chunk of gamer population.

If you try to grew your industry abandoning previous fans... well you may end with neither old or new ones.

My understanding is that BG3 is a massive success financially, as the most popular release of the year in its category. I don't play any video games, so I'm not endorsing it, but it seems to be selling quite well.

Are you stupid?  His point was that the highly successful BG3 game has, according to its own statistics, the vast majority of its players roll up white-bread human warriors (so much so that the developers complained publicly that no one was using lots of the options)... which shows the popularity of non-binary tieflings in RPGs like 5e is overblown and artificially inflated by social media. 

Do you just drop in, glance at a topic, and then contradict the last statement you read, or do you actually read all the posts to get context?  Folks, I've just discovered that jhkim is an AI!

Quote from: jhkim on December 02, 2023, 09:57:31 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2023, 07:57:37 PM
I think market for gay tieflings is severly overrepresented because rainbow internet tumblr artists just love painting them, so they are visually all over the place.
But in actual gaming horny tiefling bard is still losing to straight human warrior. Which does not mean we need to exclude any of them - but making actions like BG3 producers whining that players choose normie white human fighter - are kinda clearly against biggest chunk of gamer population.

If you try to grew your industry abandoning previous fans... well you may end with neither old or new ones.

My understanding is that BG3 is a massive success financially, as the most popular release of the year in its category. I don't play any video games, so I'm not endorsing it, but it seems to be selling quite well.

Several video games have been sold with the queer content hidden and only discoverable if you try to pursue various types of relationships.  Jade Empire and Stardew Valley are a couple of examples.  BG3 does this as well, though a couple of the characters strongly hint at it more than other games I've seen.  Most players will miss it.  If they had pushed it forward more, I think sales would have been lower.

The inclusion of sexual trysts in BG3 baffles me altogether.  "We are all slowly dying of brain worms and time is of the essence, let's slow down and have sexy time."  Even as a game experience, it doesn't add anything to the immersion but rather feels like a tacky add on.

The reason we know about the "alternate relationships" available in BG3 is that the publishers advertised in a way that teased the possibility and some hard core gamers dug it out.

Quote from: BadApple on December 03, 2023, 01:33:22 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 02, 2023, 09:57:31 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2023, 07:57:37 PM
I think market for gay tieflings is severly overrepresented because rainbow internet tumblr artists just love painting them, so they are visually all over the place.
But in actual gaming horny tiefling bard is still losing to straight human warrior. Which does not mean we need to exclude any of them - but making actions like BG3 producers whining that players choose normie white human fighter - are kinda clearly against biggest chunk of gamer population.

If you try to grew your industry abandoning previous fans... well you may end with neither old or new ones.

My understanding is that BG3 is a massive success financially, as the most popular release of the year in its category. I don't play any video games, so I'm not endorsing it, but it seems to be selling quite well.

Several video games have been sold with the queer content hidden and only discoverable if you try to pursue various types of relationships.  Jade Empire and Stardew Valley are a couple of examples.  BG3 does this as well, though a couple of the characters strongly hint at it more than other games I've seen.  Most players will miss it.  If they had pushed it forward more, I think sales would have been lower.

The inclusion of sexual trysts in BG3 baffles me altogether.  "We are all slowly dying of brain worms and time is of the essence, let's slow down and have sexy time."  Even as a game experience, it doesn't add anything to the immersion but rather feels like a tacky add on.

The reason we know about the "alternate relationships" available in BG3 is that the publishers advertised in a way that teased the possibility and some hard core gamers dug it out.

Yeah, in general I think BG3 is one of the best games I've ever played, at least recent years. The romance stuff is extremely poorly executed IMO. I somehow, without ever meaning to, suddenly got propositioned by one of the male companions. I really don't care either way, but it was so poorly done, happened very fast without me actually pursuing any romantic relationships at all, and just focusing on the plot and moving ahead with the main quest.

They just threw it in my face with no build up. It was especially jarring as I feel so much of the other content is extremely well made. I think BG3 if not saved, but at least boosted D&D immensely. Unfortunately...

Quote from: jhkim on December 02, 2023, 09:57:31 PM

Quote from: Wrath of God on December 02, 2023, 07:57:37 PM
I think market for gay tieflings is severly overrepresented because rainbow internet tumblr artists just love painting them, so they are visually all over the place.
But in actual gaming horny tiefling bard is still losing to straight human warrior. Which does not mean we need to exclude any of them - but making actions like BG3 producers whining that players choose normie white human fighter - are kinda clearly against biggest chunk of gamer population.

If you try to grew your industry abandoning previous fans... well you may end with neither old or new ones.

My understanding is that BG3 is a massive success financially, as the most popular release of the year in its category. I don't play any video games, so I'm not endorsing it, but it seems to be selling quite well.

From what I have seen there isnt all that many "gay tiefling" art out there compared to the straight or unknown pref ones.

Part of the problem is that you have as usual certain factions pusing things and the actual normal part of the community wishing theyd crawl back under whatever rock they came from.

Quote from: Omega on December 10, 2023, 04:32:13 AM
From what I have seen there isnt all that many "gay tiefling" art out there compared to the straight or unknown pref ones.

I'm on several of the larger FB groups for D&D and Pathfinder. Most of the tiefling art is the gay output of one artist in particular. The work is popular and well-received, the main criticism being that some of the pieces look more like pinups than a real fantasy RPG scene.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 11, 2023, 06:54:23 PM

Quote from: Omega on December 10, 2023, 04:32:13 AM
From what I have seen there isnt all that many "gay tiefling" art out there compared to the straight or unknown pref ones.

I'm on several of the larger FB groups for D&D and Pathfinder. Most of the tiefling art is the gay output of one artist in particular. The work is popular and well-received, the main criticism being that some of the pieces look more like pinups than a real fantasy RPG scene.

If you look at the #dnd hashtag on X, it's full of non-human art of supposed characters, though my impression is that most of these have never actually been played; it's just like, fanfiction or something. There's fucktons of tieflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, furries of various types etc. Anything that moves these people away from both humanity and the traditional fantasy races.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 13, 2023, 03:29:25 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on December 11, 2023, 06:54:23 PM

Quote from: Omega on December 10, 2023, 04:32:13 AM
From what I have seen there isnt all that many "gay tiefling" art out there compared to the straight or unknown pref ones.

I'm on several of the larger FB groups for D&D and Pathfinder. Most of the tiefling art is the gay output of one artist in particular. The work is popular and well-received, the main criticism being that some of the pieces look more like pinups than a real fantasy RPG scene.

If you look at the #dnd hashtag on X, it's full of non-human art of supposed characters, though my impression is that most of these have never actually been played; it's just like, fanfiction or something. There's fucktons of tieflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, furries of various types etc. Anything that moves these people away from both humanity and the traditional fantasy races.

And theres been elves, halflings and halfelves.
For fucks sake Monard was playing freaking BALROG at one point. Someone else was a VAMPIRE, and so on. From what they have described this is old hat even at the get-go.

And its just as old and tired an argument as the morons tho used to bitch about people playing humans.

To both sides of this incessant stupid I say Fuck Off! I'll play a human whenever I fucking want (which is like 80% of my PCs) and I'll play a Gnoll if I fucking feel like it.

Jesus Christ you people bitch piss and moan about how intolerant the other side is and then turn around and are just as intolerant.

Now I'm going back to playing my fucking human in a God Damn Harengon Game.

Quote from: Omega on December 13, 2023, 07:02:11 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 13, 2023, 03:29:25 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on December 11, 2023, 06:54:23 PM

Quote from: Omega on December 10, 2023, 04:32:13 AM
From what I have seen there isnt all that many "gay tiefling" art out there compared to the straight or unknown pref ones.

I'm on several of the larger FB groups for D&D and Pathfinder. Most of the tiefling art is the gay output of one artist in particular. The work is popular and well-received, the main criticism being that some of the pieces look more like pinups than a real fantasy RPG scene.

If you look at the #dnd hashtag on X, it's full of non-human art of supposed characters, though my impression is that most of these have never actually been played; it's just like, fanfiction or something. There's fucktons of tieflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, furries of various types etc. Anything that moves these people away from both humanity and the traditional fantasy races.

And theres been elves, halflings and halfelves.
For fucks sake Monard was playing freaking BALROG at one point. Someone else was a VAMPIRE, and so on. From what they have described this is old hat even at the get-go.

And its just as old and tired an argument as the morons tho used to bitch about people playing humans.

To both sides of this incessant stupid I say Fuck Off! I'll play a human whenever I fucking want (which is like 80% of my PCs) and I'll play a Gnoll if I fucking feel like it.

Jesus Christ you people bitch piss and moan about how intolerant the other side is and then turn around and are just as intolerant.

Now I'm going back to playing my fucking human in a God Damn Harengon Game.

Hear hear! Not just the general point, but being the sole human in a game featuring multiple Harengon PCs (and playing humans and occasionally half-humans in pretty much everything).

The lesson I take from it all is that the main reason people don't play humans in 5e is largely the same reason they didn't in AD&D... human racial features (or the lack thereof) make them mechanically disadvantaged compared to other available races.

Level caps were a crap balance mechanic few campaigns would ever reach back then, +1 to all attributes (when a +2 is needed to actually change the modifier; with an array it only matters for half the attributes, for rolled it might matter to none) when other races give +2 to class critical attributes and other widgets on top is the reason now.

For some, the desire to play a human is sufficient to make taking the disadvantage compared to other PCs, but in general players always gravitate towards better mechanical options when they're apparent and then justify it with RP after the fact.

Ironically, 4E was the only edition of D&D (outside of the race as class editions) that ever made humans good enough to be a first choice for race. When running or playing in that it was the norm to see all human parties (even with the weirder races available) because human was pretty much THE best race option for every class.

Quote from: Omega on December 13, 2023, 07:02:11 AM
...
And theres been elves, halflings and halfelves.
For fucks sake Monard was playing freaking BALROG at one point. Someone else was a VAMPIRE, and so on. From what they have described this is old hat even at the get-go.

And its just as old and tired an argument as the morons tho used to bitch about people playing humans.

....

It is.

People continually bringing up Gygax's early OD&D monster PC's is old and tired. Because it refutes nothing.

Gygax had a lot to say about those experiences on p.21 of the AD&D DMG: 'The Monster as a player character'

If you are going to invoke that fact that he allowed monster PC's in his early games; then you have to acknowledge the opinion he formed of monster PC's based on those early experiences.

Let me give you the cliff notes- The 2nd sentence in paragraph six sums it all up:

"The considered opinion of this writer is that such characters are not beneficial to the game and should be excluded."


This is quite straightforward: Monster PC races were a bad idea back then, and they are still a bad idea almost 50 years later.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 13, 2023, 04:54:28 PM
This is quite straightforward: Monster PC races were a bad idea back then, and they are still a bad idea almost 50 years later.

Yeah, amazing isn't it? They tried things, decided it didn't work so well, and said that. But since Gygax was a WHITE MALE (whatever that even means anymore...white presenting male?) his opinion is obviously total bullshit and it patently absurd and wrong, so gay tieflings it is. God forbid anyone actually want to play a game normally instead of injecting pure stupidity at all possible times.

Quote from: Omega on December 13, 2023, 07:02:11 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 13, 2023, 03:29:25 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on December 11, 2023, 06:54:23 PM

Quote from: Omega on December 10, 2023, 04:32:13 AM
From what I have seen there isnt all that many "gay tiefling" art out there compared to the straight or unknown pref ones.

I'm on several of the larger FB groups for D&D and Pathfinder. Most of the tiefling art is the gay output of one artist in particular. The work is popular and well-received, the main criticism being that some of the pieces look more like pinups than a real fantasy RPG scene.

If you look at the #dnd hashtag on X, it's full of non-human art of supposed characters, though my impression is that most of these have never actually been played; it's just like, fanfiction or something. There's fucktons of tieflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, furries of various types etc. Anything that moves these people away from both humanity and the traditional fantasy races.

And theres been elves, halflings and halfelves.
For fucks sake Monard was playing freaking BALROG at one point. Someone else was a VAMPIRE, and so on. From what they have described this is old hat even at the get-go.

And its just as old and tired an argument as the morons tho used to bitch about people playing humans.

To both sides of this incessant stupid I say Fuck Off! I'll play a human whenever I fucking want (which is like 80% of my PCs) and I'll play a Gnoll if I fucking feel like it.

Jesus Christ you people bitch piss and moan about how intolerant the other side is and then turn around and are just as intolerant.

Now I'm going back to playing my fucking human in a God Damn Harengon Game.

The difference is that the OG gamers (or indeed any gamers between then and around 2014) weren't playing these non-humans as a specific ideological act of anti-humanism or of "queering D&D".

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 13, 2023, 10:12:43 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 13, 2023, 07:02:11 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 13, 2023, 03:29:25 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on December 11, 2023, 06:54:23 PM

Quote from: Omega on December 10, 2023, 04:32:13 AM
From what I have seen there isnt all that many "gay tiefling" art out there compared to the straight or unknown pref ones.

I'm on several of the larger FB groups for D&D and Pathfinder. Most of the tiefling art is the gay output of one artist in particular. The work is popular and well-received, the main criticism being that some of the pieces look more like pinups than a real fantasy RPG scene.

If you look at the #dnd hashtag on X, it's full of non-human art of supposed characters, though my impression is that most of these have never actually been played; it's just like, fanfiction or something. There's fucktons of tieflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, furries of various types etc. Anything that moves these people away from both humanity and the traditional fantasy races.

And theres been elves, halflings and halfelves.
For fucks sake Monard was playing freaking BALROG at one point. Someone else was a VAMPIRE, and so on. From what they have described this is old hat even at the get-go.

And its just as old and tired an argument as the morons tho used to bitch about people playing humans.

To both sides of this incessant stupid I say Fuck Off! I'll play a human whenever I fucking want (which is like 80% of my PCs) and I'll play a Gnoll if I fucking feel like it.

Jesus Christ you people bitch piss and moan about how intolerant the other side is and then turn around and are just as intolerant.

Now I'm going back to playing my fucking human in a God Damn Harengon Game.

Hear hear! Not just the general point, but being the sole human in a game featuring multiple Harengon PCs (and playing humans and occasionally half-humans in pretty much everything).

The lesson I take from it all is that the main reason people don't play humans in 5e is largely the same reason they didn't in AD&D... human racial features (or the lack thereof) make them mechanically disadvantaged compared to other available races.

Except that, very much to WotC's chagrin, and as an example that leftist ideologues on social media don't actually "represent" anyone other than themselves, polls have consistently shown that the most popular gender/race/class combo has for years been "Male Human Cleric".

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2023, 05:27:55 AM
Except that, very much to WotC's chagrin, and as an example that leftist ideologues on social media don't actually "represent" anyone other than themselves, polls have consistently shown that the most popular gender/race/class combo has for years been "Male Human Cleric".

I'd love to see where you found the specifics on the sex of characters and that cleric was most popular; as everything I've found is that Human Fighter is the most popular by a wide margin.

Are you perhaps thinking of BG3 numbers (I remember a comment registering annoyance that despite having all their options available, most players rolled up straight white men)?

Regardless, I am of course speaking anecdotally of a fairly conservative batch of gamers, but outside of myself, playing weird races is extremely common, but the considerations are almost universally mechanical rather than trying to be a furry or represent anything other than being a character option with some mechanical advantage they want their PC to have.

If humans provided better mechanical advantages, you'd see almost all humans among the players I'm familiar with. The lesson for me in my own system design being to give the races I want to be widely played solid mechanical advantages over the other races rather than outright banning them.

Banning makes it a forbidden fruit that certain player types will keep pushing for. Making the option available, but inferior to a baseline human means you almost never see them and no one asks you if you can play them.

ETA: also important to remember is that "most popular" in a group of many options doesn't mean a majority.

Indeed, per that one fivethirtyeight.com poll; Human Fighter is far and away the most popular combo (60% higher than the next highest combo), but overall accounts for less than 5% of PCs.

Humans overall were only 25% of PCs and human/elf/dwarf/halfling combined is only slightly over 50% (reaching about 65% if you also add half-elves).

Dragonborn and Tieflings are both more popular than Halflings (to say nothing of the gnome... you're more likely to find a human fighter than any flavor of gnome).

Essentially, "most popular" on its own with so many potential combos says very little without the actual numbers.

"Human Fighter is the most popular race/class combo" and "Human Fighters account for less than 5% of PCs" are both true statements and bringing up one without the other for context is just trying to push an agenda.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 13, 2023, 04:54:28 PM
This is quite straightforward: Monster PC races were a bad idea back then, and they are still a bad idea almost 50 years later.

One of the 'players played monsters' thing also has to do with what amounts to pvp play, with one player effectively acting as a Co-DM, playing an antagonist role.  I don't think this is what Gary was talking about here, but it was a thing that happened and generally isn't the same as a monster PC would be today.

In OD&D, there's a discussion that pretty much anything can be a player character, as long as it starts weak and gets stronger.  This is not how a monster PC normally works- it usually starts as a monster and then gains class levels, which is a totally different thing.

Finally, there's the lack of distinction between a monster PC and a PC with some monstrous features.  The genderqueer tiefling that looks a lot like a succubus isn't a succubus.  It has darkvision and a couple weak magical powers that are well within the purview of PCs.  Is this creature being played as a deliberate act of rebellion against the human form, does it work really well within the campaign world, is the player trying super hard to be a unique snowflake... or what?

And I think the conflation of all these things muddies the waters of the discussion, because the critiques are aimed in all different directions.


Should you allow a vampire PC as part of your player's team?  Probably not; there are huge power considerations, vampires are always evil, such a creature will dominate early encounters, etc.  But are any of these on topic as regards, say, Pundit's points?  No, not at all.

I just think this topic tends to spray light in all directions like a prism.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2023, 05:26:02 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 13, 2023, 07:02:11 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 13, 2023, 03:29:25 AM
If you look at the #dnd hashtag on X, it's full of non-human art of supposed characters, though my impression is that most of these have never actually been played; it's just like, fanfiction or something. There's fucktons of tieflings, orcs, goblins, kobolds, furries of various types etc. Anything that moves these people away from both humanity and the traditional fantasy races.

To both sides of this incessant stupid I say Fuck Off! I'll play a human whenever I fucking want (which is like 80% of my PCs) and I'll play a Gnoll if I fucking feel like it.

Jesus Christ you people bitch piss and moan about how intolerant the other side is and then turn around and are just as intolerant.

The difference is that the OG gamers (or indeed any gamers between then and around 2014) weren't playing these non-humans as a specific ideological act of anti-humanism or of "queering D&D".

Maybe DMs should have a test, and players allowed to play tieflings and half-orcs and such only if they prove they don't have anti-humanist or queering reasons?

:o

Well, I've been queering RPGs since 1983, I don't see any reason to stop now.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 14, 2023, 04:30:40 PM
Well, I've been queering RPGs since 1983, I don't see any reason to stop now.

Yeah, you and the rest of the 0.01% of the population are going to make Hasbro soooooo many billions they won't need to market to anyone else...

Dumbass.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 08:00:33 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on December 14, 2023, 04:30:40 PM
Well, I've been queering RPGs since 1983, I don't see any reason to stop now.

Yeah, you and the rest of the 0.01% of the population are going to make Hasbro soooooo many billions they won't need to market to anyone else...

Dumbass.

You're off by a factor of 100. For octagenerians. For Zoomers, you're off by a factor of 2000.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/719685/american-adults-who-identify-as-homosexual-bisexual-transgender-by-generation/

Dang. Didn't know that. There is definitely a societal/cultural component. Can't be biology sitting alone on a throne behind that rise, because the numbers would outright not make sense. Maybe WotC is betting on that demographic trend.

That said, still think preferencing specific emerging demographics is a sketchy way to conduct business. Both more generally, and if you're a brand that used to, within the past decade or two, try and appeal to a wide audience. Also just in general, I prefer brands that don't actively want me as an individual or as an identity, out of the hobby, to the point of saying they don't want white males of standard or cis or whatever bent.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 14, 2023, 08:14:05 PM
Dang. Didn't know that. There is definitely a societal/cultural component. Can't be biology sitting alone on a throne behind that rise, because the numbers would outright not make sense. Maybe WotC is betting on that demographic trend.

That said, still think preferencing specific emerging demographics is a sketchy way to conduct business. Both more generally, and if you're a brand that used to, within the past decade or two, try and appeal to a wide audience. Also just in general, I prefer brands that don't actively want me as an individual or as an identity, out of the hobby, to the point of saying they don't want white males of standard or cis or whatever bent.

It's social contagion.

Pretty easy to be trendy and cool when you don't need to actually eat dick or munch carpets to call yourself queer.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 14, 2023, 08:06:35 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 08:00:33 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on December 14, 2023, 04:30:40 PM
Well, I've been queering RPGs since 1983, I don't see any reason to stop now.

Yeah, you and the rest of the 0.01% of the population are going to make Hasbro soooooo many billions they won't need to market to anyone else...

Dumbass.

You're off by a factor of 100. For octagenerians. For Zoomers, you're off by a factor of 2000.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/719685/american-adults-who-identify-as-homosexual-bisexual-transgender-by-generation/

Nice attempt but you fail:

LGBTQ

What does the Q stand for?

Quote from: jhkim on December 14, 2023, 12:08:10 PMMaybe DMs should have a test, and players allowed to play tieflings and half-orcs and such only if they prove they don't have anti-humanist or queering reasons?

If I'm doing checks on a person to see if they're good for my table, my basic sniff test is to see if they'd want to play a tiefling and/or a warlock.

If the answer to either is "yes," they're not a good fit.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 14, 2023, 04:30:40 PMWell, I've been queering RPGs since 1983, I don't see any reason to stop now.

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 08:24:38 PM

It's social contagion.

Pretty easy to be trendy and cool when you don't need to actually eat dick or munch carpets to call yourself queer.

Here's an interesting bit.  The number of people identifying as LGBTQ+ has increased dramatically in recent years but people's reported sexual behavior has not changed.  There are a lot of people saying that they are queer (whatever that means) but no more people actually engaging in same-sex sexual behavior.  Hell, I'm queer.  I have referred to Jason Momoa as Big Sexy.  I declare myself to be queer.  Have I ever had sex with another man?  No but that's not required.  I said I am so I am.  You can't disprove it and aren't even allowed to question it.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 08:34:03 PM
Nice attempt but you fail:

LGBTQ

What does the Q stand for?

Queefing.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 14, 2023, 09:14:56 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 08:34:03 PM
Nice attempt but you fail:

LGBTQ

What does the Q stand for?

Queefing.

Nice to see you admit defeat. Does it taste bitter?

I honestly don't understand where you were going with that. You win, I guess.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 14, 2023, 09:14:12 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 08:24:38 PM

It's social contagion.

Pretty easy to be trendy and cool when you don't need to actually eat dick or munch carpets to call yourself queer.

Here's an interesting bit.  The number of people identifying as LGBTQ+ has increased dramatically in recent years but people's reported sexual behavior has not changed.  There are a lot of people saying that they are queer (whatever that means) but no more people actually engaging in same-sex sexual behavior.  Hell, I'm queer.  I have referred to Jason Momoa as Big Sexy.  I declare myself to be queer.  Have I ever had sex with another man?  No but that's not required.  I said I am so I am.  You can't disprove it and aren't even allowed to question it.

You don't even need to feel attracted to the same sex, just declare yourself Allosexual and bingo you're one of the two gazillion of mental disorders genders.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 09:33:50 PM
You don't even need to feel attracted to the same sex, just declare yourself Allosexual and bingo you're one of the two gazillion of mental disorders genders.

There's a bunch of these that are so ill-defined as to be meaningless (queer) or are just heterosexuality with extra steps (demisexual).  Also, it's easy to declare myself bisexual or pansexual or allosexual or whatever even though my actual behavior is and always has been heterosexual.     

To answer Pundit's question. They have always been a part of D&D. They just didn't raise too much of a stink.

The problem is the corporations politicizing the issue. Trying to virtue signal with the issue.

I'm an old school D&D fan. I preferred the Elmore and Caldwell art far more than what they are putting in the D&D books today.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 14, 2023, 09:46:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 09:33:50 PM
You don't even need to feel attracted to the same sex, just declare yourself Allosexual and bingo you're one of the two gazillion of mental disorders genders.

There's a bunch of these that are so ill-defined as to be meaningless (queer) or are just heterosexuality with extra steps (demisexual).  Also, it's easy to declare myself bisexual or pansexual or allosexual or whatever even though my actual behavior is and always has been heterosexual.     

No one's stopping you.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 14, 2023, 10:52:48 PM
To answer Pundit's question. They have always been a part of D&D. They just didn't raise too much of a stink.

The problem is the corporations politicizing the issue. Trying to virtue signal with the issue.

I'm an old school D&D fan. I preferred the Elmore and Caldwell art far more than what they are putting in the D&D books today.

Of course there were gay people who were always part of D&D. One of the famous players in Arneson's group was gay, literally before the game even came into publication.
But that's not what I said, what I said isn't "now there's GLBT people playing and there wasn't before", I said "now there's ideological queer activists with a propagandistic agenda playing the game". That's the difference.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 14, 2023, 11:37:06 PM
No one's stopping you.

I already did.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2023, 11:53:44 PM
Of course there were gay people who were always part of D&D. One of the famous players in Arneson's group was gay, literally before the game even came into publication.
But that's not what I said, what I said isn't "now there's GLBT people playing and there wasn't before", I said "now there's ideological queer activists with a propagandistic agenda playing the game". That's the difference.

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.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2023, 11:53:44 PM
Of course there were gay people who were always part of D&D. One of the famous players in Arneson's group was gay, literally before the game even came into publication.
But that's not what I said, what I said isn't "now there's GLBT people playing and there wasn't before", I said "now there's ideological queer activists with a propagandistic agenda playing the game". That's the difference.

The problem is that the virtue signalers only latch on to what they think is the hot topic of the moment. When they find something more attractive to them, they move on. And honestly, I don't believe for a second that the virtue signallers actually play the game. Or at least not seriously enough to actually be a part of the hobby.

Trans is just the hot-button topic of the moment. That's why they latched onto it. When they get bored, they will leave it in the dust. Just like they have done with every other topic they have temporarily latched onto.

Non-binary seems to be replacing trans as the flavor of the month fashionable identity.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2023, 05:26:02 AM
The difference is that the OG gamers (or indeed any gamers between then and around 2014) weren't playing these non-humans as a specific ideological act of anti-humanism or of "queering D&D".

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'm not clear exactly what they're doing. So it's OK to be gay. And it's OK to play a half-orc, drow, tiefling, or other monstrous PC.

But somehow playing a monstrous PC after 2014 became an ideological act of anti-humanism and queering?!?

How would I tell what is a bad, anti-humanist tiefling PC vs an acceptable one?

Monstrous PCs were around in 2nd edition AD&D. They had a whole splat book dedicated to them. They didn't make a big deal out of them.

The Tiefling arose with 4th Edition D&D. and it seemed to attract a whole new type of players. Those I don't care much to deal with.

Quote from: jhkim on December 15, 2023, 01:11:26 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2023, 05:26:02 AM
The difference is that the OG gamers (or indeed any gamers between then and around 2014) weren't playing these non-humans as a specific ideological act of anti-humanism or of "queering D&D".

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'm not clear exactly what they're doing. So it's OK to be gay. And it's OK to play a half-orc, drow, tiefling, or other monstrous PC.

But somehow playing a monstrous PC after 2014 became an ideological act of anti-humanism and queering?!?

How would I tell what is a bad, anti-humanist tiefling PC vs an acceptable one?

Because you either have your head firmly under the sand or because you're willingly, blind and deaf, but my bet is it's because you agree with the narcissists.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 15, 2023, 01:29:59 AM
Monstrous PCs were around in 2nd edition AD&D. They had a whole splat book dedicated to them. They didn't make a big deal out of them.

The Tiefling arose with 4th Edition D&D. and it seemed to attract a whole new type of players. Those I don't care much to deal with.

Tieflings arose with Planescape in the 2e era. 4E made them a standard race because they were so popular to play in the 3e era. The only thing 4E did was standardize the look of them, which they stated in the promotional books (D&D Presents: Races & Classes) was entirely a marketing decision to provide a consistent identity for promotional purposes; outside of the Nentir Vale setting (ie. Forgotten Realms, Eberron, homebrew) they were expected to be the same Tieflings they'd been since 2e.

The new race for 4E was the Dragonborn. There was something called a Dragonborn in 3.5e, but they were humans who underwent a ritual to reborn as a dragon-man whereas 4E made them a natural (for a fantasy setting) race.

I know its convenient to just lay all the sins onto 4E which is already loathed, but this particular thing isn't even really a D&D thing; its spillover from the manga/anime cute monster girl fetish that D&D is proximally close to by dint of being fantasy with non-humanoid races. The same freaks fetishized all the WoW monster races too (and arguably moreso than D&D as WoW pretty much made every female of every species sexy even if the male was some hideous beast so it a much smaller jump).

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 15, 2023, 08:33:47 AM
I know its convenient to just lay all the sins onto 4E ...

Well yeah, there's a reason for that. 4E may not have originated all the sins, but it sure did a fine job of collecting them all into a single game.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 15, 2023, 08:33:47 AM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 15, 2023, 01:29:59 AM
Monstrous PCs were around in 2nd edition AD&D. They had a whole splat book dedicated to them. They didn't make a big deal out of them.

The Tiefling arose with 4th Edition D&D. and it seemed to attract a whole new type of players. Those I don't care much to deal with.

Tieflings arose with Planescape in the 2e era. 4E made them a standard race because they were so popular to play in the 3e era. The only thing 4E did was standardize the look of them, which they stated in the promotional books (D&D Presents: Races & Classes) was entirely a marketing decision to provide a consistent identity for promotional purposes; outside of the Nentir Vale setting (ie. Forgotten Realms, Eberron, homebrew) they were expected to be the same Tieflings they'd been since 2e.

The new race for 4E was the Dragonborn. There was something called a Dragonborn in 3.5e, but they were humans who underwent a ritual to reborn as a dragon-man whereas 4E made them a natural (for a fantasy setting) race.

I know its convenient to just lay all the sins onto 4E which is already loathed, but this particular thing isn't even really a D&D thing; its spillover from the manga/anime cute monster girl fetish that D&D is proximally close to by dint of being fantasy with non-humanoid races. The same freaks fetishized all the WoW monster races too (and arguably moreso than D&D as WoW pretty much made every female of every species sexy even if the male was some hideous beast so it a much smaller jump).

To add to this, the few female races in WoW with ugly females have tiny tiny playerbases that ive heard some of the staff from WoW complain about. (Female Tauren is the big one)

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.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 15, 2023, 01:36:27 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 15, 2023, 01:11:26 AM
I'm not clear exactly what they're doing. So it's OK to be gay. And it's OK to play a half-orc, drow, tiefling, or other monstrous PC.

But somehow playing a monstrous PC after 2014 became an ideological act of anti-humanism and queering?!?

How would I tell what is a bad, anti-humanist tiefling PC vs an acceptable one?

Because you either have your head firmly under the sand or because you're willingly, blind and deaf, but my bet is it's because you agree with the narcissists.

Agree with who about what?

From my view, if someone likes playing Vampire: the Masquerade, or playing a tiefling in Planescape, or a warlock in 4E, that's purely a matter of taste. I might not share their taste, but I don't think it's an immoral anti-humanist act for them to play whatever RPG they want. Though, I loved playing a warlock in 5E, and while I don't go in for grimdark, I've loved a lot of monstrous PCs in the vein of various Buffy protagonists and similar.

In general, I don't agree with anyone who wars over how other people should play RPGs. I don't have a problem with OSR fans playing RPGs in whatever way they like, and equally, I don't have a problem with people playing queer tieflings in whatever way they like.

IMHO, it's not anti-Humanist to play one of the increasingly wide range of Races.

However, the MASSIVE rise in players wanting to roleplay a Fursona, Otherkin personality, or otherwise play something non-Human, is a symptom of the rampant misanthropic trend in Millennials and Zoomers.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 15, 2023, 02:58:12 PM
However, the MASSIVE rise in players wanting to roleplay a Fursona, Otherkin personality, or otherwise play something non-Human, is a symptom of the rampant misanthropic trend in Millennials and Zoomers.

You know, I've felt this for decades, but I haven't been able to put my finger on the 'why' of it. It seems to be something more than simple misanthropy, but what exactly is it and what are its origins?

Quote from: jhkim on December 15, 2023, 01:11:26 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 14, 2023, 05:26:02 AM
The difference is that the OG gamers (or indeed any gamers between then and around 2014) weren't playing these non-humans as a specific ideological act of anti-humanism or of "queering D&D".

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'm not clear exactly what they're doing. So it's OK to be gay. And it's OK to play a half-orc, drow, tiefling, or other monstrous PC.

But somehow playing a monstrous PC after 2014 became an ideological act of anti-humanism and queering?!?

How would I tell what is a bad, anti-humanist tiefling PC vs an acceptable one?

You couldn't, and that's how the crazies snuck in.

Once upon a time, the tiefling players were just edgelords trying to be edgy in front of the camera. It was obnoxious, but it was pretty low-key. Over time, tieflings became the poster child for tearing down the cisheteronormative patriarchy. The potential was always there, and every year, they became a little more queer activisty. While that was happening, tieflings became increasingly lame and edgelords stopped wanting to play them.

That brings us to today. Tieflings are too popular with the mainstream queer Tumblr crowd. They're no longer edgy, and so the traditional marginally acceptable edgelord player doesn't want to play a tiefling anymore.

To adapt a turn of phrase from the luminaries of our modern era: Put a tiefling in it, and make they/them lame and gay.

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?

Quote
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.

Quote
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).

Quote
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.

There's a fundamental disconnect between trans ideology and feminist ideology.  Trans ideologues maintain that gender identity is both in-born and immutable.  This is necessary to support the idea of medical transition at a young age without parental approval or involvement.  It must be innate and unchangeable.  They must also pretend that biological sex is unrelated or just doesn't exist.  Second wave and later feminism maintains that gender is entirely a cultural artifact with no biological component at all.  Gender can't be both innate and immutable and entirely a social construct at the same time.  Same-sex attraction becomes meaningless if biological sex is irrelevant or doesn't exist.  Terms like woman and lesbian also become meaningless.  TERFs are just women who refuse to pretend that this can all the true at the same time.   

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 23, 2023, 09:27:15 PM
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"...

The things is that people could always make the game about whatever the hell they wanted it to be about.  I didn't need for something to be "represented" in the book for me to add it to my game.  If you wanted to make your game gay as fuck, you could just do it.  In this setting, being gay is the norm and only a small minority are heterosexual or no is.  Everyone is born as a girl and goes to a shrine when they become adults to choose what gender they will be.  Yeah, I stole that from Simoun.  You can make the game about whatever the hell you want.  People don't need a Pride parade in an official WotC book that do that in their game.  They can just do it.   

Quote from: pawsplay on December 23, 2023, 10:40:54 PM
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.

You have though.  Those cishets made it all about themselves.  You can pretend that this isn't a slur all you want but we can read.  They way you and others like you use it makes it obvious that it is intended as a slur and always was.  It's like str8s or yt people.  You can pretend it's not a slur all you want but the way it's used and the way people who use it talk about those groups make it obvious that it is a slur.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 10:50:11 PM
You have though.  Those cishets made it all about themselves.  You can pretend that this isn't a slur all you want but we can read.  They way you and others like you use it makes it obvious that it is intended as a slur and always was.  It's like str8s or yt people.  You can pretend it's not a slur all you want but the way it's used and the way people who use it talk about those groups make it obvious that it is a slur.

That's not a slur. First of all, it's just a statement about the cishets. It doesn't say anything about the condition of being one.

Second, I was responding directly to the statement of queer people making it about themselves. If you think that kind of language is a slur, you basically just stated that it's fair game here to make slurs about queer people. Because that was the initial claim, which apparently you are comfortable with.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 24, 2023, 12:59:33 AM

That's not a slur. First of all, it's just a statement about the cishets. It doesn't say anything about the condition of being one.

Second, I was responding directly to the statement of queer people making it about themselves. If you think that kind of language is a slur, you basically just stated that it's fair game here to make slurs about queer people. Because that was the initial claim, which apparently you are comfortable with.

It is though no matter how much you pretend otherwise. 

So pointing out that cishet is a slur is saying that it's okay to use slurs about queer people?  These things do not connect in any way.  One does not follow from the other at all.  It's completely incoherent.   

The word "cisgender" is made up. It was invented in 1994. It wasn't in dictionaries until the mid 2010s.

It wasn't just made up, it was made to suggest a kind of equal footing between the vast majority of people (ie. the NORM), and a very tiny minority who deviate from the norm. "Transgender" (another word that was invented in the 20th century and was not in common use, much less any dictionaries, until very recently) is a term that at least has a non-deceptive purpose, because it defines a group who do not fit into the norm.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 24, 2023, 04:08:23 AM
The word "cisgender" is made up. It was invented in 1994. It wasn't in dictionaries until the mid 2010s.

It wasn't just made up, it was made to suggest a kind of equal footing between the vast majority of people (ie. the NORM), and a very tiny minority who deviate from the norm. "Transgender" (another word that was invented in the 20th century and was not in common use, much less any dictionaries, until very recently) is a term that at least has a non-deceptive purpose, because it defines a group who do not fit into the norm.

It's the same for "heterosexual" which didn't enter widespread use until the 1960's (it was used before that in a few scientific journals back to 1893 when it was invented alongside homosexual. Before that it was just sexuality and sexual inversion). The same with renaming the Free Market "Capitalism" in 1854 as the equivalent opposite of "Socialism" (ie. one system only cared about wealth, the other cared about society; because if it was a label it had to be true).

This is what the Marxists always do; rename the normal in order to make it sound equivalent to some tiny minority they favor in order to then throw both into their Hegelian Dialetic blender wherein (according to that insane worldview) the only moral action is to synthesize the normal and abnormal into a new hybrid that is further from the norm and closer to the degeneracy they desire.

In short, they don't want to be called degenerates for coveting the fruits of others' labors nor for their sexual obsessions that require preying on other people's children to have a steady supply of broken lives to exploit.

In their hubris they demand to be worshipped and celebrated for their pride, greed, envy, lust, gluttony (thou must not fat shame). Throw in their sloth and wrath and you have the whole menagerie of civilization destroying forces in a single movement.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 10:44:39 PM
There's a fundamental disconnect between trans ideology and feminist ideology.  Trans ideologues maintain that gender identity is both in-born and immutable.  This is necessary to support the idea of medical transition at a young age without parental approval or involvement.  It must be innate and unchangeable.  They must also pretend that biological sex is unrelated or just doesn't exist.  Second wave and later feminism maintains that gender is entirely a cultural artifact with no biological component at all.  Gender can't be both innate and immutable and entirely a social construct at the same time.  Same-sex attraction becomes meaningless if biological sex is irrelevant or doesn't exist.  Terms like woman and lesbian also become meaningless.  TERFs are just women who refuse to pretend that this can all the true at the same time.   

Quote from: pawsplay on December 24, 2023, 12:59:33 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 10:50:11 PM
You have though.  Those cishets made it all about themselves.  You can pretend that this isn't a slur all you want but we can read.  They way you and others like you use it makes it obvious that it is intended as a slur and always was.  It's like str8s or yt people.  You can pretend it's not a slur all you want but the way it's used and the way people who use it talk about those groups make it obvious that it is a slur.

That's not a slur. First of all, it's just a statement about the cishets. It doesn't say anything about the condition of being one.

Second, I was responding directly to the statement of queer people making it about themselves. If you think that kind of language is a slur, you basically just stated that it's fair game here to make slurs about queer people. Because that was the initial claim, which apparently you are comfortable with.

YOU don't get to decide for us what WE consider a slur, them's the rules you fucktards created.

Did I?

The though act crumbles and you become the usual crybully, pretending to silence others with accusations of istophobia.

Now cry and run snowflake, run.

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

YOU don't get to decide for US what WE consider is a slur.

That's not how this game is played by the rules you fucktards put in place.

Not in my current group...

Tho two of my players are the parents of trans kids/adults....
-Ed C.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 23, 2023, 06:23:28 PM

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).

There's a difference in "made up words" in a role-playing game, played by a circle of people familiar with the terminology, and making up words and pretending the're part of the general language.  There's also a difference between living under a rock and spreading language made by and for people who live in an elist bubble, and utterly useless to everyone outside their sphere of influence, and then think everyone not on board with it, or not versed in the latest woke terms are repressed.  Yeah, we know what heterosexual means, and we had "cisgender" imposed on us regular people, so we know it means someone without delusions about their own gender.

It's best to resist this kind of talk, laugh it away, and not let racists normalize the language with their hate-based terms.

The use of "CisHet" does feel like a slur.

- Ed c.

These terms did not arise naturally as part of the language.  They were invented by political activists to frame the debate in a way that serves their own ends.  Up until the 1950s and 60s, the word gender was a grammatical term.  People did not have gender.  Nouns in Romance languages had gender.  Use of the term gender to apply to people was largely popularized by a fringe crackpot named Dr John Money whose poster child case completely failed to validate his crackpot ideas.  Money largely invented this usage to produce a diagnosis that he could use to bill insurance companies for his fringe treatments.  Activists have been pushing this redefinition of gender for their own purposes ever since.     

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 24, 2023, 11:25:51 PM
These terms did not arise naturally as part of the language.  They were invented by political activists to frame the debate in a way that serves their own ends.  Up until the 1950s and 60s, the word gender was a grammatical term.  People did not have gender.  Nouns in Romance languages had gender.  Use of the term gender to apply to people was largely popularized by a fringe crackpot named Dr John Money whose poster child case completely failed to validate his crackpot ideas.  Money largely invented this usage to produce a diagnosis that he could use to bill insurance companies for his fringe treatments.  Activists have been pushing this redefinition of gender for their own purposes ever since.     

Let's not forget that Money was a groomer who's "research" was done with the intent to legitimize child-molesting.  It made him a hero of homopeds (everyone knows what that is; you gotta be living under a rock to not have heard that term) and celebrated by Hollywood and the woke. 

And yes, like Koltar said, when you use words like "white" and contrived words like "cishet" in a racist and demeaning way, it doesn't "Feel" like a slur... it's a slur!  For Pawsplay to deny what's obvious in front of us is folly.  What that mentality doesn't grasp is that Words Mean Things.

I think the answer to the original question "Are Trans PoC Gamers the Future of D&D?" is a solid MAYBE... However, that specific question leads to the next more general one: "Are Trans PoC Gamers the Future of RPGs?" I think the answer to that question is a solid NO! For two reasons:

1. Everything these people touch they destroy -- so if they end up taking over D&D and other 'mainstream' RPGs they will end up killing them. Then they will abandon RPGs and find something else to destroy.
2. Those who actually like RPGs will continue to do so, and will continue to create, innovate, and restore RPGs to suit their own desires, and thus RPGs will survive despite the depredations of the malicious woke and the fools who follow them.

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 25, 2023, 08:54:39 AM
I think the answer to the original question "Are Trans PoC Gamers the Future of D&D?" is a solid MAYBE... However, that specific question leads to the next more general one: "Are Trans PoC Gamers the Future of RPGs?" I think the answer to that question is a solid NO! For two reasons:

1. Everything these people touch they destroy -- so if they end up taking over D&D and other 'mainstream' RPGs they will end up killing them. Then they will abandon RPGs and find something else to destroy.
2. Those who actually like RPGs will continue to do so, and will continue to create, innovate, and restore RPGs to suit their own desires, and thus RPGs will survive despite the depredations of the malicious woke and the fools who follow them.

3) They have miniscule numbers, and most are genetic dead-ends. I keep hearing how majorities are being 'replaced' and 'going the way of the dinosaur' from people that aren't breeding.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 25, 2023, 10:24:42 AM

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 25, 2023, 08:54:39 AM
I think the answer to the original question "Are Trans PoC Gamers the Future of D&D?" is a solid MAYBE... However, that specific question leads to the next more general one: "Are Trans PoC Gamers the Future of RPGs?" I think the answer to that question is a solid NO! For two reasons:

1. Everything these people touch they destroy -- so if they end up taking over D&D and other 'mainstream' RPGs they will end up killing them. Then they will abandon RPGs and find something else to destroy.
2. Those who actually like RPGs will continue to do so, and will continue to create, innovate, and restore RPGs to suit their own desires, and thus RPGs will survive despite the depredations of the malicious woke and the fools who follow them.

3) They have miniscule numbers, and most are genetic dead-ends. I keep hearing how majorities are being 'replaced' and 'going the way of the dinosaur' from people that aren't breeding.

I didn't say they would 'replace' anyone, although they might very well run everyone else off from D&D. I said that they will destroy it. I won't play D&D unless absolutely forced to, and then I won't buy anything. I don't think they will take over the RPG industry other than to destroy it. And I don't think that will work. They might destroy some companies, but not RPGs. IMHO

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 25, 2023, 10:24:42 AM
3) They have miniscule numbers, and most are genetic dead-ends. I keep hearing how majorities are being 'replaced' and 'going the way of the dinosaur' from people that aren't breeding.

Solid point!

The Alphabet people cannot reproduce in any normal way so the only way they can reproduce is to corrupt children.

 

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 25, 2023, 10:24:42 AMThey have miniscule numbers, and most are genetic dead-ends. I keep hearing how majorities are being 'replaced' and 'going the way of the dinosaur' from people that aren't breeding.

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 25, 2023, 10:43:23 AMI didn't say they would 'replace' anyone, although they might very well run everyone else off from D&D. I said that they will destroy it.

And I didn't specify you as saying it. People like Pawsplay say it.

"You racist Republicans are dinosaurs, you're dying out! Ignore Trump winning 4 years ago, and looking set to win again, you're a dying breed with no relevance!"

He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody ???

The obvious answer is no.  There aren't enough trans Pocs who play D&D to be the future of D&D or much of anything.  We are talking about a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a minority.  D&D would have to shrink down to a tiny, niche activity like all of the PbtA games about queers queerly being queer queerly that very few people have heard of, even fewer own and even fewer actually play.   

You know what? I'm done here.

The people here spewing trans hate and misinformation have nothing to do with the reality of the condition itself. It just spreads bigotry. Which I deal with enough every day. I'm done. I've had enough.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 06:27:28 AM
You know what? I'm done here.

The people here spewing trans hate and misinformation have nothing to do with the reality of the condition itself. It just spreads bigotry. Which I deal with enough every day. I'm done. I've had enough.

It occurs to me that you might have spoken up when pawsplay was riling everyone up, slinging slurs and picking fights. I think most people are live and let live until they get repeatedly provoked. Folks like them hurt your community more than anything else, and your community calling them out would help immensely with your acceptance.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 06:27:28 AM
You know what? I'm done here.

The people here spewing trans hate and misinformation have nothing to do with the reality of the condition itself. It just spreads bigotry. Which I deal with enough every day. I'm done. I've had enough.

I'd say that if anything spread bigotry it is the militant, radical, totalitarian (to the point of wanting to criminalize anyone disagreeing with their ideology) and aggressive (to the point of violence) nature of "trans activism", which has completely hijacked the left, and clearly presents a kind of lifestyle that has nothing to do with sexual dysmorphia itself, but rather the aggressive attempt to garner power and control over society/culture (including families and education).

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 26, 2023, 06:38:53 AM
I'd say that if anything spread bigotry it is the militant, radical, totalitarian (to the point of wanting to criminalize anyone disagreeing with their ideology) and aggressive (to the point of violence) nature of "trans activism", which has completely hijacked the left, and clearly presents a kind of lifestyle that has nothing to do with sexual dysmorphia itself, but rather the aggressive attempt to garner power and control over society/culture (including families and education).

The ideologues have nothing to do with the people who actually have the condition. You would be surprised how different the opinions of real trans people are with those involved in the culture war are. How different and diverse those opinions are.

My personal belief it that being trans is a transitory condition. A purgatory waiting to be corrected. And I sure as heck do not want the whole world to be about that ugly phase.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 26, 2023, 06:35:13 AM
It occurs to me that you might have spoken up when pawsplay was riling everyone up, slinging slurs and picking fights. I think most people are live and let live until they get repeatedly provoked. Folks like them hurt your community more than anything else, and your community calling them out would help immensely with your acceptance.

It was more than him. I've been reading the whole thread since its inception.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 06:46:05 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 26, 2023, 06:38:53 AM
I'd say that if anything spread bigotry it is the militant, radical, totalitarian (to the point of wanting to criminalize anyone disagreeing with their ideology) and aggressive (to the point of violence) nature of "trans activism", which has completely hijacked the left, and clearly presents a kind of lifestyle that has nothing to do with sexual dysmorphia itself, but rather the aggressive attempt to garner power and control over society/culture (including families and education).

The ideologues have nothing to do with the people who actually have the condition. You would be surprised how different the opinions of real trans people are with those involved in the culture war are. How different and diverse those opinions are.

My personal belief it that being trans is a transitory condition. A purgatory waiting to be corrected. And I sure as heck do not want the whole world to be about that ugly phase.

Neither does anyone else. 

I'm sorry that people suffer with what is essentially the inability to accept themselves as they were born and get about the business of living.  My heart goes out to them and I wish each and every one of them finds some inner peace.

My problem and the problem with many of us pushing back is:
1.  The trans themselves are being lied to about chemicals and surgeries being the cure where all the collected data shows that more than half have deep regret about the procedures and nearly all revert to a pre-treatment state of mental and emotional health after a few years.
2.  It's complete lies that the mental health problems that trans suffer is applied externally by society.  Most trans come from fucked up homes but that isn't the fault of society at large.
3.  Trans activists are demanding sweeping and deeply destructive changes to society for the benefit of trans, most of which don't actually offer any real benefit to trans people.
4.  There is an aggressive movement to go after the children of regular people and convince them they are trans and to guide them down the path of transitioning long before they have developed their own personality.
5.  Trans activist are making sexuality and gender issues a center point of every social interaction they can.
6.  Trans activists actively trying to destroy the lives of anyone that offers any form of resistance to their "movement," even if it's to ask if we're doing what is most beneficial to everyone.

Those so-called activists and ideologues don't represent anyone actually with the condition. It's all political hogwash.

The moment I started taking estrogen, was the moment my migraines stopped. Nothing else worked. Nothing else gave such immediate relief. So yes, this chemical helped me. Like no other medicine ever did.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 08:07:47 AM
The moment I started taking estrogen, was the moment my migraines stopped. Nothing else worked. Nothing else gave such immediate relief. So yes, this chemical helped me. Like no other medicine ever did.

Estrogen should not have had that effect.  This is either the symptoms of a deeper issue with your endocrine system or a psychosomatic response.  I strongly suggest you take a deeper look into it.  Get your thyroid and your liver function checked.  Also, if you consume any recreational pharmacology products, stop immediately. 

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 07:30:13 AM
Those so-called activists and ideologues don't represent anyone actually with the condition. It's all political hogwash.

They rarely do for any group.  There's several of us here that have ADD/ADHD and autism and we aren't represented by the activist groups the supposedly speak for us.  A close friend of mine that's Jewish bitches to me from time to time about the ADL as well.

Welcome to the world of being a political football.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 07:30:13 AM
Those so-called activists and ideologues don't represent anyone actually with the condition.

Yes they do. They influence policy in government and academia and media. Ostensibly to represent trans people, but really to represent their demented ideology, and exert social control over people.

QuoteIt's all political hogwash.

Well, that I agree with.

Quote from: BadApple on December 26, 2023, 08:19:48 AM
Also, if you consume any recreational pharmacology products, stop immediately. 

I don't. And I never have. I have always taken so much required medicine that recreational use would be certain suicide due to medication conflicts.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 26, 2023, 08:27:49 AM
Yes they do. They influence policy in government and academia and media. Ostensibly to represent trans people, but really to represent their demented ideology, and exert social control over people.

What they claim they represent has nothing to do with the reality of the condition. That's the bottom line.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 09:12:35 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 26, 2023, 08:27:49 AM
Yes they do. They influence policy in government and academia and media. Ostensibly to represent trans people, but really to represent their demented ideology, and exert social control over people.

What they claim they represent has nothing to do with the reality of the condition. That's the bottom line.

No, the bottom line is that the trans "community" is perfectly happy to be "represented" by those folks when it results in things they want, and only when their extremism results in blowback does there suddenly become a disconnect.  It's like Bad Apple said with the ADL.  While positive attention is being drawn to trans people by activists or anti-semitism being decried by the ADL, no one stands up and says "they don't speak for me!"  When someone has his life destroyed by activists because of a pronoun, actual trans people don't flood the switchboards to defend him, any more than Jewish people push back when the ADL unfairly targets political opponents.  At best, the normal folks think "not my problem."  At worst, they keep silent because they like the benefits and don't care if strangers get hurt occasionally, as long as things get better for themselves.  Either way, it doesn't matter.  By accepting the positives from the "trans-acceptance" movement, you've allowed the negatives... in your name.  The fact that you couldn't be bothered to intervene until your own ox was gored is NOT a point in your favor.

Sadly, trans people get the worst of it, because as the claims of the trans activists have gotten more ridiculous, it just gets easier to dismiss the whole thing.  Men can't become women.  Women can't become men.  Mental illness is not fixed by surgery.  Once the claims of the activists become so divorced from reality and enforced by brutal government and social sanctions, there's no "live and let live" possible any more.  One reality must be dominant.  And most people aren't going to accept the one that seems to be grooming their kids...

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 08:28:46 AM

Quote from: BadApple on December 26, 2023, 08:19:48 AM
Also, if you consume any recreational pharmacology products, stop immediately. 

I don't. And I never have. I have always taken so much required medicine that recreational use would be certain suicide due to medication conflicts.

If you're on a bunch of medications then likely your liver is very stressed.  Talk to a dietitian about liver support and health.  You may get some easy food choice solutions that give you a much better quality of life.

If estrogen is making your migraines go away, it's masking a problem and not fixing it.  I wasn't judging you or assuming anything with the comment about narcotics except they can aggravate serious health problems that the estrogen could be covering up.  I just believe in informed consent.

I don't think transitioning is a good choice for anyone.  At best, you trade one set of life issue for another and at worst it can pile up problems to the point of completely ruining your life.  That said, it's your life and your journey.  I hope you find some serenity and meaning.

If you, like so many of us, have other mental health issues then get them treated directly rather than assuming that transitioning (or any other indirectly connected action) is going to fix it.  I hope you can find a professional that doesn't judge you but does challenge you to face and deal with the heavy problems in your life.

Finally, if you see us talking and complaining about the trans community, we are talking about those who are being asshats.  Many people will be uncomfortable with the idea of being trans but you'll find many more that will be sympathetic to your problems and willing to be on good terms.  No one is fully accepted by everyone and most people are only accepted as who they are by about 20% of those they know. 

You can be our friend and ally and we yours if you're willing to try and share perspectives.

I'm not assuming anything. I have been committed to transitioning for far more than a decade. I know it's the right choice for me. And any second thoughts I did have about it are long in the past. What's done will be done.

There is no room for argument at this stage of my life. I am committed. For the good and the bad of it. It was not a casual decision.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 10:32:35 AM
I'm not assuming anything. I have been committed to transitioning for far more than a decade. I know it's the right choice for me. And any second thoughts I did have about it are long in the past. What's done will be done.

There is no room for argument at this stage of my life. I am committed. For the good and the bad of it. It was not a casual decision.

Good luck to you. But just because you are committed does not mean you are correct.

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 26, 2023, 10:40:01 AM
Good luck to you. But just because you are committed does not mean you are correct.

That's not really your decision. Is it?

Ultimately, what you do with your body past adulthood is your decision, no question. Doesn't mean folks have to agree it's the best choice or that there isn't potentially an objective better or worse that folks can spend time arguing about, but sure.

Personally, for instance, I don't see a problem with what folks call gender expression, or acting against stereotypes and the like. If anything it can be positive at times. Though I do fear mainstream trans ideology promotes those stereotypes and bs oftentimes through associating psychology firmly with sex. If folks want to have expensive cosmetic surgery, I guess that's their own decision, and hopefully they at least get something out of it. But I'm not necessarily going to cheer for it at all times either.

When pronouns are required on the part of other people, while generally I'll go for it out of fear or conflict avoidance, I think it starts pushing into the domain of requiring society and the judgements of others to fit one's own ideology. In Canada and elsewhere, there are actual legal repercussions for speaking your mind on that, which is pretty stupid. There can be retaliations even here within an intra-corporate context.

I think most folks would agree that children shouldn't get to suddenly change their medical choice paradigm within a legal context here and only here to act without parental consent. Likewise, I'd be skeptical of any parent who transitioned their child at a young age or the like. Especially since detransitioning can be as hard socially or biologically as it oftentimes is. And children who cannot even vote or have the mental capacity to have guardianship over themselves seem to me potentially vulnerable within that sort of context.

There's obviously a whole lot more to say and discuss, on both sides of the equation. But at the same time, my point is that people can absolutely have opinions on the issues. And that is arguably their decision and civic duty to try and think things through that impact society, so to speak.

Quote from: Koltar on December 24, 2023, 11:15:40 PM
The use of "CisHet" does feel like a slur.

- Ed c.

I agree, but it only feels like a slur because it is a slur. I just meant that it doesn't fell like a slur but it's not. I always meant that it is a slur.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 06:27:28 AM
You know what? I'm done here.

The people here spewing trans hate and misinformation have nothing to do with the reality of the condition itself. It just spreads bigotry. Which I deal with enough every day. I'm done. I've had enough.

I can handle people like Pawsplay misinforming people with pro-tans-hate and racist bigotry.  It's good to have a free speech forum that lets people's true colors be known.

"Blah, blah trans-hate" Pics or it didn't happen

"The trans activists don't speak for us"

Yes, they do, unless you as a "community" are out there opposing them they are your defacto representatives, it's really easy to stay silent (giving your tacit agreement and support) until you need to throw them under the bus in a private setting only to go back to your original silent position.

I'm done with engaging with hatemongers.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 10:43:43 AM

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 26, 2023, 10:40:01 AM
Good luck to you. But just because you are committed does not mean you are correct.

That's not really your decision. Is it?

You are absolutely correct. It is not my decision to make. And as such, being a live and let live sort of guy (at least I like to think that...) what you believe is none of my business unless you make it my business.

However, when and if your belief system goes beyond that, and you insist that not only you be left to your own beliefs, but that others HAVE to accept them as truth/gospel, and that any failure to do so should be punished, you are making it my business in a very negative way.

I have no idea if you are extending your beliefs in that way (I am using 'you and your' as a grammatical convenience...), but many many many trans activists do just that.

Again, best of luck!

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 11:54:02 AM
I'm done with engaging with hatemongers.

What a pity you are incapable of distinguishing between people who simply disagree with you vs people who hate you. It is just another delusion you suffer from. But it only harms you... for now.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 11:54:02 AM
I'm done with engaging with hatemongers.

I doubt it's hate so much as concern due to many potential negative consequences associated with it (and because when asshats are the main ones shouting about it, it's easy to desire retaliation against those individuals and the causes they claim to be pushing).

I guess what I don't understand is why receiving treatments of estrogen to deal with a medical situation (migraines) requires swapping one's declared gender; particularly given all the complications associated with the surgical procedures of transitioning.

It's not like men don't have estrogen; it's just typically at much lower levels than is found in women of childbearing years; and it has all sorts of body regulatory functions (many of which could be associated with migraines if imbalanced) beyond sex characteristics.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 11:54:02 AM
<snip> hatemongers.

There's a difference between hate speech and speech that you hate.

I'm more inclined to view the militant activist "stab a transphobe" crowd as propagating actual hate speech than the people who are merely voicing disagreement with the opinions of the lettered folk. Last I checked, opinions are not something that people living in America get to stab other people over having.

As far as I am concerned, I don't hate anyone who is a biological male claiming that they are a woman. I can't believe it and affirm it, though. I don't have to respect and buy into anyone's personal worldview anymore than they have to respect and buy into my own. I'm not going to condemn you for thinking you are a woman. That's your own headspace to deal with not mine.

Just don't expect everyone to affirm you or else. That's where the hate speech really comes out.

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 26, 2023, 12:11:15 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 11:54:02 AM
I'm done with engaging with hatemongers.

What a pity you are incapable of distinguishing between people who simply disagree with you vs people who hate you. It is just another delusion you suffer from. But it only harms you... for now.

Thing is I don't hate anyone, I also only kneel before God and my King.

But the "hate-speech, trans-hate, transphobia, hatemongers, bigots, etc" is just a tool they have grown used to employ to silence any and all criticism of the trans-lobby and particular LGBTQWiffipassword people.

It's become almost 100% useles and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 06:27:28 AM
You know what? I'm done here.

The people here spewing trans hate and misinformation have nothing to do with the reality of the condition itself. It just spreads bigotry. Which I deal with enough every day. I'm done. I've had enough.

I naver had any problem with this Gay/Trans shit until they started coming for the children. 

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 26, 2023, 11:29:12 AM
I can handle people like Pawsplay misinforming people with pro-tans-hate and racist bigotry.  It's good to have a free speech forum that lets people's true colors be known.

Well with a name like "pawsplay", I think tranny insanity might be only part of the problem.  Everyone has skeletons in their closet.  Not everyone has a fursona in there ;)

edit: made sure I spelled "fursona" properly

Greetings!

"Yes! Let the Hate flow!"

Trimming the fat from culture, and the degenerates from society is necessary for the normal society to thrive and prosper. If normal people refuse to cleanse society of the degenerates, then the society will be corrupted and destroyed.

The same process needs to be fully embraced to save D&D as a hobby.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 09:12:35 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 26, 2023, 08:27:49 AM
Yes they do. They influence policy in government and academia and media. Ostensibly to represent trans people, but really to represent their demented ideology, and exert social control over people.

What they claim they represent has nothing to do with the reality of the condition. That's the bottom line.

That's not the bottom line. The trans activists have wielded the trans cause like a sledgehammer to smash society and get hurtful ideas into the mainstream. So you see a lot of reactionary and resentful attitudes towards trans topics. I'm sorry for all the trans people who feel like it's personal, who just want to live and let live, but that's what happens when ideologues grab an identity and swing it around like a club.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 26, 2023, 11:22:07 AM
I think most folks would agree that children shouldn't get to suddenly change their medical choice paradigm within a legal context here and only here to act without parental consent. Likewise, I'd be skeptical of any parent who transitioned their child at a young age or the like. Especially since detransitioning can be as hard socially or biologically as it oftentimes is. And children who cannot even vote or have the mental capacity to have guardianship over themselves seem to me potentially vulnerable within that sort of context.

The children factor is one of the big hurtful things the trans activists have been responsible for. The number of detransitioners who have stories about how they were uninformed or misled, and the backlash from the trans activism community towards them for speaking out about the details of their "transition".
In the end, we don't have the medical technology (yet*) to allow someone to change their sex. There are all kinds of bizzare complications and side effects of the cosmetic surgeries and hormone "treatments" that are irreversable, and should not, under any circumstances, be performed on children.

I'm not advocating transition be for anyone but myself. It's a difficult life choice that shouldn't be taken lightly. An adult choice.

I don't support transition for children. Regardless of aspects of transition that would be made easier starting before puberty would be. It's not something a child can truly process.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 04:45:57 PM
I'm not advocating transition be for anyone but myself. It's a difficult life choice that shouldn't be taken lightly. An adult choice.

I don't support transition for children. Regardless of aspects of transition that would be made easier starting before puberty would be. It's not something a child can truly process.

Good for you. But we're talking about the trans activist community who do.

https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-08/gender-affirming-care-young-people.pdf

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 04:45:57 PM
I'm not advocating transition be for anyone but myself. It's a difficult life choice that shouldn't be taken lightly. An adult choice.

I don't support transition for children. Regardless of aspects of transition that would be made easier starting before puberty would be. It's not something a child can truly process.

This is a brave and solid stance, especially for someone in your societal position, where there may potentially be pressure at times to the contrary. (Can't speak for you on that, so consider this an uninformed shot in the dark.)

I don't support hate, and also think people have the right to decide that kind of thing for themselves as adults once they have that degree of learned autonomy. Doesn't mean I buy into mainstream trans ideology or the like, or that people should have to, but live and let live is the name of the game for me politically. I fear when ideologues of either side start repressing speech and the like, and it's unfortunate that this sort of thing seems to be more and more mainstream on both sides of the political spectrum. I fear for our constitutional liberties and freedoms, and I am suspect of corporate power and more to the point related governance and censorship at this point. We seem to be facing a series of related turning points as a nation, and I get that tensions are understandably high as a result. Hopefully it all works out and cooler heads prevail, but I think it's hard for anyone on whatever side to trust folks at the moment, so I get where you too would be a little sensitive to such things.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 04:45:57 PM
I'm not advocating transition be for anyone but myself. It's a difficult life choice that shouldn't be taken lightly. An adult choice.

I don't support transition for children. Regardless of aspects of transition that would be made easier starting before puberty would be. It's not something a child can truly process.

For you as an adult, I support your right to make that decision.  I don't support the decision itself as I've seen too many disasters, but I wish you well.  It's like joining the Hell's Angels or marrying a stripper, it's your life to fuck up any way you see fit.  Being trans won't exclude you from my table or my BBQs, only bad behavior.

Sadly, it seems that trans issues are being shoved into every aspect of daily life now.  As far as gaming goes, there seems to be a lot of products and companies that are pushing the political agenda.  Much of what's being pushed isn't helpful to trans people, it's just ruining the fun we could be having.  I don't like sexual themes at my table, even when they align with my sexuality.  Why would I want to delve into someone else's and why would someone else want me involved in their intimate thoughts on the issue?

Finally, I really wish that more tans people that want more balanced and honest representation would talk to the activists carrying their flag to STFU because they are hurting everyone.

I have enough issues allowing a trans character to exist within my fiction. I don't want to play them in my gaming. It cuts too close to real life. And I play RPGs to escape.

I don't want anyone bringing their political agenda to my table. I just want to run games and escape the real world while I am doing so.

I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I have enough issues allowing a trans character to exist within my fiction. I don't want to play them in my gaming. It cuts too close to real life. And I play RPGs to escape.

I don't want anyone bringing their political agenda to my table. I just want to run games and escape the real world while I am doing so.

I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

All very reasonable positions. Yet again, not talking about you or others like you when talking about the decisions of corporations like WotC to go down a different path. Or when talking about specific parts of the trans movement more broadly who push for that kind of thing.

Kind of get what you're expressing, though. A lot of times folks hear I trend conservative, or take a look at my skin color, outfit, and beard, and assume I support things that I don't. (Such as more authoritarian or overreaching "conservative" policy.) Never fun, that.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I have enough issues allowing a trans character to exist within my fiction. I don't want to play them in my gaming. It cuts too close to real life. And I play RPGs to escape.

I don't want anyone bringing their political agenda to my table. I just want to run games and escape the real world while I am doing so.

I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

So we have common ground.  We have some differences.  That's ok.  We aren't at cross purposes as far as I can see from here. 

Let's make a deal, I won't assume that the activists speak for you and others and you don't take our frustrations with the activist personally.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 26, 2023, 05:52:12 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

All very reasonable positions. Yet again, not talking about you or others like you when talking about the decisions of corporations like WotC to go down a different path. Or when talking about specific parts of the trans movement more broadly who push for that kind of thing.

Kind of get what you're expressing, though. A lot of times folks hear I trend conservative, or take a look at my skin color, outfit, and beard, and assume I support things that I don't. (Such as more authoritarian or overreaching "conservative" policy.) Never fun, that.

I've rarely had a game without sexuality. It's a very central part of human life, so I find it weird to have characters with no sexuality. In my current campaign, the noblewoman fighter went back to her home town - and her mother arranged a courtship with a ranger of an allied house, who has now become an allied NPC. Even if there isn't a romantic subplot, it's normal for some sexuality to be expressed. Heroes like Conan and Aragorn are clear about their sexuality, even if it doesn't impact the adventure. And the harlot subtable is there in AD&D for a reason... :-)

Different tastes for different people, but I've generally found a bit of sexuality or romance adds to the verisimilitude of the setting. Even if not the PCs, NPCs will have marriages and families and so forth.

---

As for LGBT sexuality...  It's also been a part of my games since the late 1990s. I grew up in the cancel culture of the 1980s, when it was common for kids to be beaten up for being gay, and adults to be fired from their jobs and/or ostracized from society. There were no LGBT characters in RPG modules, because of publishing censorship. As I grew up, though, I realized that it's how some people are, and I would have some LGBT PCs and NPCs as a normal aspect of my games.

Quote from: jhkim on December 27, 2023, 03:25:05 AM

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 26, 2023, 05:52:12 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

All very reasonable positions. Yet again, not talking about you or others like you when talking about the decisions of corporations like WotC to go down a different path. Or when talking about specific parts of the trans movement more broadly who push for that kind of thing.

Kind of get what you're expressing, though. A lot of times folks hear I trend conservative, or take a look at my skin color, outfit, and beard, and assume I support things that I don't. (Such as more authoritarian or overreaching "conservative" policy.) Never fun, that.

I've rarely had a game without sexuality. It's a very central part of human life, so I find it weird to have characters with no sexuality.

God, I hate this argument. In this thread, and on this topic, we're talking about a politicized, activist form of "sexuality" that wants to "Smash the cishet patriarchal systems of oppression" by making everything gay and lame.

Quote from: jhkim on December 27, 2023, 03:25:05 AM

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 26, 2023, 05:52:12 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

All very reasonable positions. Yet again, not talking about you or others like you when talking about the decisions of corporations like WotC to go down a different path. Or when talking about specific parts of the trans movement more broadly who push for that kind of thing.

Kind of get what you're expressing, though. A lot of times folks hear I trend conservative, or take a look at my skin color, outfit, and beard, and assume I support things that I don't. (Such as more authoritarian or overreaching "conservative" policy.) Never fun, that.

I've rarely had a game without sexuality. It's a very central part of human life, so I find it weird to have characters with no sexuality. In my current campaign, the noblewoman fighter went back to her home town - and her mother arranged a courtship with a ranger of an allied house, who has now become an allied NPC. Even if there isn't a romantic subplot, it's normal for some sexuality to be expressed. Heroes like Conan and Aragorn are clear about their sexuality, even if it doesn't impact the adventure. And the harlot subtable is there in AD&D for a reason... :-)

Different tastes for different people, but I've generally found a bit of sexuality or romance adds to the verisimilitude of the setting. Even if not the PCs, NPCs will have marriages and families and so forth.

---

As for LGBT sexuality...  It's also been a part of my games since the late 1990s. I grew up in the cancel culture of the 1980s, when it was common for kids to be beaten up for being gay, and adults to be fired from their jobs and/or ostracized from society. There were no LGBT characters in RPG modules, because of publishing censorship. As I grew up, though, I realized that it's how some people are, and I would have some LGBT PCs and NPCs as a normal aspect of my games.

Of course it's the leftoid that can't stop thinking with his dick....

Quote from: BadApple on December 27, 2023, 04:34:15 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 27, 2023, 03:25:05 AM

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 26, 2023, 05:52:12 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

All very reasonable positions. Yet again, not talking about you or others like you when talking about the decisions of corporations like WotC to go down a different path. Or when talking about specific parts of the trans movement more broadly who push for that kind of thing.

Kind of get what you're expressing, though. A lot of times folks hear I trend conservative, or take a look at my skin color, outfit, and beard, and assume I support things that I don't. (Such as more authoritarian or overreaching "conservative" policy.) Never fun, that.

I've rarely had a game without sexuality. It's a very central part of human life, so I find it weird to have characters with no sexuality. In my current campaign, the noblewoman fighter went back to her home town - and her mother arranged a courtship with a ranger of an allied house, who has now become an allied NPC. Even if there isn't a romantic subplot, it's normal for some sexuality to be expressed. Heroes like Conan and Aragorn are clear about their sexuality, even if it doesn't impact the adventure. And the harlot subtable is there in AD&D for a reason... :-)

Different tastes for different people, but I've generally found a bit of sexuality or romance adds to the verisimilitude of the setting. Even if not the PCs, NPCs will have marriages and families and so forth.

---

As for LGBT sexuality...  It's also been a part of my games since the late 1990s. I grew up in the cancel culture of the 1980s, when it was common for kids to be beaten up for being gay, and adults to be fired from their jobs and/or ostracized from society. There were no LGBT characters in RPG modules, because of publishing censorship. As I grew up, though, I realized that it's how some people are, and I would have some LGBT PCs and NPCs as a normal aspect of my games.

Of course it's the leftoid that can't stop thinking with his dick....

It's Adam Koebel syndrome.  A lot of lefty type DM's go for story because they can't run a game of combat to save their purple hair dye collection.  And then when you see it online, oh the cringe, its painful to watch.  That video below is the cringe, but frankly his map making ability creeped me out the most, dude buy dungeonfog or dungeondraft anything but that shit you put up.

Common sense, if you have someone who wants sexy time during play in town, let them role, and state she's interested perhaps a date and let it go at that.  If the player wants to push, now we get to have fun in a medieval fantasy setting.  Warn them about possible consequences and let the moron go ahead.  You don't have to narrate anything from that point on.  Congratulations you have to marry the woman and support her, the father made sure the guards have locked the town down - what do you do or the possible STD.  It's a waste of fucking time, it takes away from other players game time and causes more issues than its worth in the short, mid and long run.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 26, 2023, 04:58:37 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 04:45:57 PM
I'm not advocating transition be for anyone but myself. It's a difficult life choice that shouldn't be taken lightly. An adult choice.

I don't support transition for children. Regardless of aspects of transition that would be made easier starting before puberty would be. It's not something a child can truly process.

Good for you. But we're talking about the trans activist community who do.

https://opa.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-08/gender-affirming-care-young-people.pdf

Not only the trans activist community: an entire US political party, the federal government they control, academia, hollywood, mainstream media, teachers' unions, and many states with extremist governors, together are a Goliath intent on forcing this abuse on our children.

Quote from: BadApple on December 26, 2023, 06:31:18 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I have enough issues allowing a trans character to exist within my fiction. I don't want to play them in my gaming. It cuts too close to real life. And I play RPGs to escape.

I don't want anyone bringing their political agenda to my table. I just want to run games and escape the real world while I am doing so.

I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

So we have common ground.  We have some differences.  That's ok.  We aren't at cross purposes as far as I can see from here. 

Let's make a deal, I won't assume that the activists speak for you and others and you don't take our frustrations with the activist personally.

See, this is great!  Darrin out of nowhere said, "That's it!  I'm done here!" but stayed around to have a meaningful conversation, and we learn about each other and grow when we can have differences, but discuss them maturely.  I'm glad that this happened.  And this is why I love the RPG site.  On other "forums", you're labeled a bigot by fascist admins and all discussion is shut down because you challenged the narrative with accursed independent thinking.  Real, open discussion is how we can learn from each other, and grow, whichever side we ar from.  Once that happens, people can see that we're all not so different.

I also used the Ignore list to block out the worst of the hatemongering.

I have no issue with rational discussion. But when it devolves into people slinging hate left and right, I'm so done with that.

Being trans isn't something I would wish on anybody. It's too painful, has too much risk of suicide. It's not a choice I made for myself. It was a realization of a condition that had been an active issue since childhood. It wasn't a phase to get over. It's not something I could just dismiss. It needs proper treatment. And for me, proper treatment is the transition process. No matter how difficult that is.

My end goal is to be comfortable in my own body. Something I am not now.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 27, 2023, 03:48:22 AM
God, I hate this argument. In this thread, and on this topic, we're talking about a politicized, activist form of "sexuality" that wants to "Smash the cishet patriarchal systems of oppression" by making everything gay and lame.

This is a variation of the same non-argument I see in comics circles when someone objects to super hero comics being turned into soap boxes for the writer to lecture us about their politics or characters being made gay and that becoming the entirety of their character from then on.  This is portrayed as people objecting to politics in some vague sense or any portrayal of non-heterosexual chaaracters.  It ignores what people are actually saying.  It pretends that people are saying that somehow be presented without sexuality at all when people are really jusy saying that they don't want a very activist version of sexuality to be shoe-horned into everything or to be beaten over the head with it constantly.  Most of the time, it doesn't actually mean anything or have any real significance beyond a character who is not heterosexual existing.  Posting that same Captain America cover as every other disingenuous weasel posts does not prove they were.  It's proves that you are regurgitating the same cherry-picked bullshit as the rest. 

There's also that tired, disingenuous bullshit about one table in one version of the DMG somehow proving that the game was always about sexuality.  Comics were always political.  Bullshit.  No, they weren't.  Not in the same way they are now.  Not even close. 

I grew up in a household that was very right-wing. My grandmother was a member of the John Birch Society, and about as racist as one could get. It was really soul-crushing to be in that environment and to be subject to her continual abuse for having a different opinion.

Sexuality I was always taught should be kept in the bedroom. Private. It makes me uncomfortable to have it displayed in public. This is not people in sexy clothing. But the actual sex acts. I was taught they were none of my business. And frankly, I don't want them to be. And honestly, porn movies have always made me uncomfortable.

I don't play games to be made uncomfortable. I don't run games to be made uncomfortable. My solution to sex acts in a game is always to fade to black. Out of sight, out of mind.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 27, 2023, 07:48:19 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 27, 2023, 03:48:22 AM
God, I hate this argument. In this thread, and on this topic, we're talking about a politicized, activist form of "sexuality" that wants to "Smash the cishet patriarchal systems of oppression" by making everything gay and lame.

This is a variation of the same non-argument I see in comics circles when someone objects to super hero comics being turned into soap boxes for the writer to lecture us about their politics or characters being made gay and that becoming the entirety of their character from then on.  This is portrayed as people objecting to politics in some vague sense or any portrayal of non-heterosexual chaaracters.  It ignores what people are actually saying.  It pretends that people are saying that somehow be presented without sexuality at all when people are really jusy saying that they don't want a very activist version of sexuality to be shoe-horned into everything or to be beaten over the head with it constantly.  Most of the time, it doesn't actually mean anything or have any real significance beyond a character who is not heterosexual existing.  Posting that same Captain America cover as every other disingenuous weasel posts does not prove they were.  It's proves that you are regurgitating the same cherry-picked bullshit as the rest. 

There's also that tired, disingenuous bullshit about one table in one version of the DMG somehow proving that the game was always about sexuality.  Comics were always political.  Bullshit.  No, they weren't.  Not in the same way they are now.  Not even close.

Well, guys, you must have missed the thread earlier where I made a startling discovery.  Did you know that jhkim is an AI?  Very sophisticated, very realistic, but limited by his programing.  Look at any response in any thread with controversy in it.  He picks a random post that is slightly off-topic (sexuality in D&D as opposed to trans-gamers as D&D's future), contradicts a premise that was never made, then appeals to his table and "gaming since..." whenever as evidence that his single, personal (and unverifiable) anecdote is a negative example that counteracts all of the possible positive examples you might provide.  Apparently he was programmed with deductive reasoning only, and cannot handle the concept that a single negative does not disprove a trend.  Technology nowadays is amazing, isn't it...

Quote from: Cathode Ray on December 27, 2023, 06:06:47 AM

See, this is great!  Darrin out of nowhere said, "That's it!  I'm done here!" but stayed around to have a meaningful conversation, and we learn about each other and grow when we can have differences, but discuss them maturely.  I'm glad that this happened.  And this is why I love the RPG site.  On other "forums", you're labeled a bigot by fascist admins and all discussion is shut down because you challenged the narrative with accursed independent thinking.  Real, open discussion is how we can learn from each other, and grow, whichever side we ar from.  Once that happens, people can see that we're all not so different.

It is nice to see a contentious issues discussed like adults. We don't have to agree with each other about everything, we just need to respect boundaries. Not so common with people prone to throw accusations and insults around like old cigarette butts. I think Internet also makes courtesy more difficult for everyone.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 27, 2023, 09:22:31 AM
I don't play games to be made uncomfortable. I don't run games to be made uncomfortable. My solution to sex acts in a game is always to fade to black. Out of sight, out of mind.

I totally agree there.  Also, I agree there are perverse people who want to be explicit in their games and play with groups that do.  IF they want  to do that, it's not for me, but live and let live.  Just as long as everyone playing's fine with that.  MY RPG, Radical High, is about teen life in the 80s, and romance is a big part of that.  But in the modules and scenarios, the content is never more explicit that going on dates and kissing.  It's all kept at a wholesome PG level, because that's how I want to play my own RH campaigns, and I also want people who are kind enough to play my system or purchase my RPG to feel comfortable, too.  Nothing is keeping people who own my game (or any RPG) from playing it as a raunchy sex comedy, or erotic journey, if that's what they want.  But those who don't want that kind of material in their games won't miss out on anything in my game by taking that route.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 27, 2023, 09:22:31 AM
I grew up in a household that was very right-wing. My grandmother was a member of the John Birch Society, and about as racist as one could get. It was really soul-crushing to be in that environment and to be subject to her continual abuse for having a different opinion.

Sexuality I was always taught should be kept in the bedroom. Private. It makes me uncomfortable to have it displayed in public. This is not people in sexy clothing. But the actual sex acts. I was taught they were none of my business. And frankly, I don't want them to be. And honestly, porn movies have always made me uncomfortable.

I don't play games to be made uncomfortable. I don't run games to be made uncomfortable. My solution to sex acts in a game is always to fade to black. Out of sight, out of mind.

I'm a firm believer in consent but so many people forget that observers are participants too.  There are things that make me uncomfortable that I can deal with under the right conditions and some that I don't want anything to do with at all.  None of them are things I think should be open to the general public. 

I use the MPAA ratings standards for how I run games.  I don't do anything more than PG in a public setting and nothing more than PG-13 (with the exception of swear words, I'm a sailor by profession) in home games.

If someone wanted to run a spicy rated-R game, I'm not likely to join but I'm not judging them for doing that.  I would only ask that they find a venue that keeps it away from kids.

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 27, 2023, 11:13:10 AM
It is nice to see a contentious issues discussed like adults. We don't have to agree with each other about everything, we just need to respect boundaries. Not so common with people prone to throw accusations and insults around like old cigarette butts. I think Internet also makes courtesy more difficult for everyone.

Honestly, rule zero for the internet should be "Your communication skills suck so speak and read carefully.  Even you, Mr. English major."

I know I'm not always the best at understanding others or conveying my own thoughts.

At this point this thread has meandered all over the place, its serving no function other than to take up the top slot on the forum, lock it down.

Quote from: jhkim on December 27, 2023, 03:25:05 AM
Different tastes for different people, but I've generally found a bit of sexuality or romance adds to the verisimilitude of the setting. Even if not the PCs, NPCs will have marriages and families and so forth.

If you cannot see a distinction between "this is NPC A, who is married to NPC B" and "this is NPC A, here is her two-paragraph monologue about how she cut off her boobs that she is telling the party, who she just met", then I don't much know what to tell you.  There's a difference between sex existing in the world and the author's cause du jour being pushed front and center in an encounter.  Of course NPCs have private lives going on, and that includes whatever percentage of people having weird bedroom shit happening, but there's no reason for that facet to get a spotlight pointed to it in the middle of a game.

And before you say, "Well I've never seen...", my example up there is from an actual Pathfinder adventure where the party encounters a dwarf with chest surgery scars who makes reference to them in conversation with the party.  Never mind that: A: Getting your chest carved up in a setting with no established history of surgical practice and that has magical polymorphing that is safe and inexpensive is insane, and B: Going around pointing out the proof that you've had surgery to people undermines the goal of passing as the sex you had that surgery to pass as.  If the dwarf was just going about their business and the party just believed the dwarf was male (a scenario that the dwarf should probably prefer), the writer and company couldn't say, "LOOK KIDS, IT'S A TRANS!"

Same for D&D's new paladin princess with the assburgers.  Would there be autistic people in the setting?  I'm sure there are.  Is there any point whatsoever to highlight the fact for this particular NPC aside from trying to look good on twitter and churn out some ass-patting news articles on Gawker sites?  No.

Quote from: BadApple on December 27, 2023, 12:09:58 PM

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 27, 2023, 11:13:10 AM
It is nice to see a contentious issues discussed like adults. We don't have to agree with each other about everything, we just need to respect boundaries. Not so common with people prone to throw accusations and insults around like old cigarette butts. I think Internet also makes courtesy more difficult for everyone.

Honestly, rule zero for the internet should be "Your communication skills suck so speak and read carefully.  Even you, Mr. English major."

I know I'm not always the best at understanding others or conveying my own thoughts.

Yeah, I wish I could be better myself. Sometimes I blurt out something that makes no sense, or is just unhelpful. In person, you can explain and think a bit. But the Internet is fast and forever.

Quote from: BadApple on December 27, 2023, 12:09:58 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 27, 2023, 09:22:31 AM
I grew up in a household that was very right-wing. My grandmother was a member of the John Birch Society, and about as racist as one could get. It was really soul-crushing to be in that environment and to be subject to her continual abuse for having a different opinion.

Sexuality I was always taught should be kept in the bedroom. Private. It makes me uncomfortable to have it displayed in public. This is not people in sexy clothing. But the actual sex acts. I was taught they were none of my business. And frankly, I don't want them to be. And honestly, porn movies have always made me uncomfortable.

I don't play games to be made uncomfortable. I don't run games to be made uncomfortable. My solution to sex acts in a game is always to fade to black. Out of sight, out of mind.

I'm a firm believer in consent but so many people forget that observers are participants too.  There are things that make me uncomfortable that I can deal with under the right conditions and some that I don't want anything to do with at all.  None of them are things I think should be open to the general public. 

I use the MPAA ratings standards for how I run games.  I don't do anything more than PG in a public setting and nothing more than PG-13 (with the exception of swear words, I'm a sailor by profession) in home games.

If someone wanted to run a spicy rated-R game, I'm not likely to join but I'm not judging them for doing that.  I would only ask that they find a venue that keeps it away from kids.

Quote from: squirewaldo on December 27, 2023, 11:13:10 AM
It is nice to see a contentious issues discussed like adults. We don't have to agree with each other about everything, we just need to respect boundaries. Not so common with people prone to throw accusations and insults around like old cigarette butts. I think Internet also makes courtesy more difficult for everyone.

Honestly, rule zero for the internet should be "Your communication skills suck so speak and read carefully.  Even you, Mr. English major."

I know I'm not always the best at understanding others or conveying my own thoughts.

This here is why I would never buy ANYTHING from Venger OR Grim Jim, I would need to read the debauchery in order to be able to run a PG/PG13 game using their stuff.

On the other hand adding the lewds (if that's your thing) is pretty simple.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 27, 2023, 07:11:56 AM
Being trans isn't something I would wish on anybody. It's too painful, has too much risk of suicide. It's not a choice I made for myself. It was a realization of a condition that had been an active issue since childhood. It wasn't a phase to get over. It's not something I could just dismiss. It needs proper treatment. And for me, proper treatment is the transition process. No matter how difficult that is.

There is no such thing as "trans" or "transitioning". Males do not become females, nor more than they can become elves, dwarves or magical hamsters. Medical malpractice can only turn a male or female into a butchered and deformed version of who they were.

Homosexuality and this "trans-mania" is mental illness being promoted by the very worst of society for the very worst of reasons.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 27, 2023, 07:11:56 AM
My end goal is to be comfortable in my own body. Something I am not now.

Chopping up yourself won't solve this.

Get real help before the damage can't be reversed.

Quote from: Spinachcat on December 27, 2023, 01:48:56 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 27, 2023, 07:11:56 AM
Being trans isn't something I would wish on anybody. It's too painful, has too much risk of suicide. It's not a choice I made for myself. It was a realization of a condition that had been an active issue since childhood. It wasn't a phase to get over. It's not something I could just dismiss. It needs proper treatment. And for me, proper treatment is the transition process. No matter how difficult that is.

There is no such thing as "trans" or "transitioning". Males do not become females, nor more than they can become elves, dwarves or magical hamsters. Medical malpractice can only turn a male or female into a butchered and deformed version of who they were.

Homosexuality and this "trans-mania" is mental illness being promoted by the very worst of society for the very worst of reasons.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 27, 2023, 07:11:56 AM
My end goal is to be comfortable in my own body. Something I am not now.

Chopping up yourself won't solve this.

Get real help before the damage can't be reversed.

I would suggest that this sub-thread should be taken up on political forum as you've gone beyond pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPG) Discussion.

Quote from: Valatar on December 27, 2023, 12:21:41 PM

Quote from: jhkim on December 27, 2023, 03:25:05 AM
Different tastes for different people, but I've generally found a bit of sexuality or romance adds to the verisimilitude of the setting. Even if not the PCs, NPCs will have marriages and families and so forth.

If you cannot see a distinction between "this is NPC A, who is married to NPC B" and "this is NPC A, here is her two-paragraph monologue about how she cut off her boobs that she is telling the party, who she just met", then I don't much know what to tell you. There's a difference between sex existing in the world and the author's cause du jour being pushed front and center in an encounter.

Quote from: Valatar on December 27, 2023, 12:21:41 PM
And before you say, "Well I've never seen...", my example up there is from an actual Pathfinder adventure where the party encounters a dwarf with chest surgery scars who makes reference to them in conversation with the party. Never mind that: A: Getting your chest carved up in a setting with no established history of surgical practice and that has magical polymorphing that is safe and inexpensive is insane, and B: Going around pointing out the proof that you've had surgery to people undermines the goal of passing as the sex you had that surgery to pass as.

You're bringing in an example that was never mentioned before, and that I've never read. Not having read it, I don't have an opinion on it yet. What's the module and where does the character appear?

For the general points... In my D&D campaigns, it has been normal for there to be scars (magical healing wasn't assumed to eliminate scars), and being permanently polymorphed to a new body isn't commonly available - and certainly not cheap. I've only briefly played Pathfinder, though, and I'm not sure what the setting was.

Transgender characters have been rare in my fantasy campaigns, but when they appear, they typically won't be able to fully pass because bodily transformation isn't easily accessible. For example, I've just been rolling up some characters for Arrows of Indra as I'm learning it, and considered some characters as kliba (third gender) who wouldn't be able to pass as female, but are recognizably kliba and are presumably public about it. Two years ago, I was in a D&D one-shot with a character who could pass via at-will Disguise Self, but he/she was gender fluid - identifying as the gender of the current projected image - so the gender fluidity was obvious to the party who knew him/her.

These RPG games that conform to the zeitgeist are not stupid to do so.
1 the elite are throwing alot of energy and money around to celebrate gender confusion and abnormalities because they dont want to be sued or worse for putting the stuff that creates it into our food and medicine. Its not 1996 anymore its nolonger 0.05% of the population its much higher. Also with this rise even in the cases that its not it also makes sense to pander to these types as these are the new cultural warriors replacing the Christians and the last time D&D did not find a way to conform it did not go well and this time its so much easier, We got a group of people who think of so many identities for themselves even heralding flags for it in daily life even calling themselves DRAGONKIN seems kinda stupid to be on the wrong side of this. Better for them to ingratiate these types instead of being on the wrong end of a satanic panic. This way the game can be played with the whole family in public in mixed company. Anti colonialist, well the culture has been leaning into the colonialists are the bad guys and its not without merit for a long time and white people have not been so prideful that they arent willing to take an L on this. If you are marketing to the whole world you want the whole world at the table and not get them triggered.

Quote from: Korvosa on December 28, 2023, 01:44:20 AMAnti colonialist, well the culture has been leaning into the colonialists are the bad guys and its not without merit for a long time and white people have not been so prideful that they arent willing to take an L on this.

Very emotionally healthy


One group apologizing for simply doing what every other group has done throughout history. Except white people were on top most recently, when they made the unprecedented decision that it was bad.

Imagine Zulus and Māori pointing the finger for being colonialists, it's wild. The Persian Empire, which continued as the Ottoman Empire, thousands of years of conquering and enslaving on unimaginable scale, and their descendants waving the POC victim card.

Quote from: Korvosa on December 28, 2023, 01:44:20 AM
These RPG games that conform to the zeitgeist are not stupid to do so.
1 the elite are throwing alot of energy and money around to celebrate gender confusion and abnormalities because they dont want to be sued or worse for putting the stuff that creates it into our food and medicine. Its not 1996 anymore its nolonger 0.05% of the population its much higher. Also with this rise even in the cases that its not it also makes sense to pander to these types as these are the new cultural warriors replacing the Christians and the last time D&D did not find a way to conform it did not go well and this time its so much easier, We got a group of people who think of so many identities for themselves even heralding flags for it in daily life even calling themselves DRAGONKIN seems kinda stupid to be on the wrong side of this. Better for them to ingratiate these types instead of being on the wrong end of a satanic panic. This way the game can be played with the whole family in public in mixed company. Anti colonialist, well the culture has been leaning into the colonialists are the bad guys and its not without merit for a long time and white people have not been so prideful that they arent willing to take an L on this. If you are marketing to the whole world you want the whole world at the table and not get them triggered.

This assumes the whole world outside of the USA agrees with the woke...

I've got news for you, the woke are 8% of the US population, outside of the first world? Much less, take Latin America for example, we despise the woke.

So, they are pandering to a niche within a niche: The tiny percentage within the 8% that will both pay and play their shit.

On the other hand you could market to the tiny percentage within the 92% of the population that will both pay and play their shit.

Which is a higher number and a better business decision?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 28, 2023, 02:27:48 AM
This assumes the whole world outside of the USA agrees with the woke...

I've got news for you, the woke are 8% of the US population, outside of the first world? Much less, take Latin America for example, we despise the woke.

So, they are pandering to a niche within a niche: The tiny percentage within the 8% that will both pay and play their shit.

On the other hand you could market to the tiny percentage within the 92% of the population that will both pay and play their shit.

Which is a higher number and a better business decision?

well I was talking more about the anti colonialist side. I never hear anything about the the rest of the world trying to talk about the self deprecating behavior of the west is a problem instead I only see the rest of the world encoraging it (publicly). I know the woke stuff isnt popular in the rest of the world. But ttrpgs in general is western culture and if it presents itself in its current zeitgeist then we have these woke rpgs. What group of people in the world are attracted to english language and foreign products? The leftists in most countries while some of the wokeness in these products is infact shocking when you look at the worst of it, the actual products are very palatable and imo a higher quality product. The lore in PF2 imo is better than that of D&D 2e 3e and PF1. Yes some of it is likely not something I want to encourage like the adventure paths as because its so hard coded. Otherwise the wokeness of PF2 in a PF2 game is pretty subtle . All you need to do to remove it is just homebrew it slightly different and spin it the other way. It is an imagination game after all.

Quote from: jhkim on December 27, 2023, 02:22:41 PM
For the general points... In my D&D campaigns, it has been normal for there to be scars (magical healing wasn't assumed to eliminate scars), and being permanently polymorphed to a new body isn't commonly available - and certainly not cheap. I've only briefly played Pathfinder, though, and I'm not sure what the setting was.

That may be the case in your D&D campaign.  It's not the case in Golarion.  In Golarion, it's possible to fully transform into the opposite sex using alchemy with no surgery required.  We know because there is a character called Anevia in Wrath or the Righteous who did just that.  That adventure came out in 2013. 

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 06:46:05 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 26, 2023, 06:38:53 AM
I'd say that if anything spread bigotry it is the militant, radical, totalitarian (to the point of wanting to criminalize anyone disagreeing with their ideology) and aggressive (to the point of violence) nature of "trans activism", which has completely hijacked the left, and clearly presents a kind of lifestyle that has nothing to do with sexual dysmorphia itself, but rather the aggressive attempt to garner power and control over society/culture (including families and education).

The ideologues have nothing to do with the people who actually have the condition. You would be surprised how different the opinions of real trans people are with those involved in the culture war are. How different and diverse those opinions are.

My personal belief it that being trans is a transitory condition. A purgatory waiting to be corrected. And I sure as heck do not want the whole world to be about that ugly phase.

I wouldn't be surprised at all. I know many LGBT people and most of the ones I know are really disgusted at the co-opting of some kind of 'trans culture' (as well as the general LGBT moniker) for the purpose of ideological terrorism.
That was kind of the point of what I said in the post above.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on December 26, 2023, 05:47:53 PM
I have enough issues allowing a trans character to exist within my fiction. I don't want to play them in my gaming. It cuts too close to real life. And I play RPGs to escape.

I don't want anyone bringing their political agenda to my table. I just want to run games and escape the real world while I am doing so.

I got no problems with people playing any character of any sexuality they want. I just don't want it up in my face. The games I run have very little to do with any sexuality. Because I see that as truly a side issue in my adventure design. It's not a prime motivator.

I don't want anyone's sexuality up in my face. No matter what it is.

This should be every gamer's position.

I'm sorry that I wasn't paying enough attention to this thread and allowed it to veer away from the specific topic of the video and into broader off-topic discussion. Given how badly it has gone in that direction, in this case with a mea culpa for not keeping a close eye, I'm closing this topic. While reminding everyone that RPG topics that involve culture war issues MUST stick to the RPG context.