Quote from: Mistwell;10588142. My grandfather, a holocaust escapee, loved the music of Wagner, a deeply anti-semitic man. His response to those who challenged his tastes based on that issue was simple: the art is not the artist. I've followed that example all my life. I don't care if the artist is a bad person - I care about the art, separate from the artist, and I have no issue separating art from artist.

Plus, you know the man died in 1883. Wagner's antisemitism would probably never have been an issue if some asshat's hadn't appropriated his music to use as the soundtrack to their attempt at world domination.


Kind of like if the Vietnamese hated Wagner because of the helicopter scene in Apocalypse Now. The man had nothing to do with the movie (as mentioned he was long dead at that point).

I can certainly understand someone who survived German concentration camps being unable to enjoy the music because the association is too strong (trying to relax keeps flashing back to horrible times). My wife hates the Beatles music because her mom would play Beatles albums while cleaning the house, and house cleaning days were not pleasant affairs. Simply hating Wagner because teh Nazis seems pretty weak, the man did write some epic music. Every time I hear Siegfried's Funeral March it makes me want to have a watery tart fling a sword at me.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1058819Plus, you know the man died in 1883. Wagner's antisemitism would probably never have been an issue if some asshat's hadn't appropriated his music to use as the soundtrack to their attempt at world domination.

Grandpa was an orchestral member and conductor in Vienna in the 1920s-1930s, and studied music prior to that there. Wagner's pamphlet, "Judaism in Music" made the Vienna coffee houses he frequented, along with other antisemetic writings of Wagner he wrote as late as 1883. Grandpa was well aware of it, prior to Hitler.  There were even some protests of Wagner in Vienna, before Hitler rose to power.

Quote from: Mistwell;1058839Grandpa was an orchestral member and conductor in Vienna in the 1920s-1930s, and studied music prior to that there. Wagner's pamphlet, "Judaism in Music" made the Vienna coffee houses he frequented, along with other antisemetic writings of Wagner he wrote as late as 1883. Grandpa was well aware of it, prior to Hitler.  There were even some protests of Wagner in Vienna, before Hitler rose to power.

So it sounds similar to Mike Mearls and his virtue signalling tweets poisoning the well of D&D 5E.....

Quote from: Mistwell;1058814My grandfather, a holocaust escapee, loved the music of Wagner, a deeply anti-semitic man. His response to those who challenged his tastes based on that issue was simple: the art is not the artist. I've followed that example all my life. I don't care if the artist is a bad person - I care about the art, separate from the artist, and I have no issue separating art from artist.

Quote from: Mistwell;1058839Grandpa was an orchestral member and conductor in Vienna in the 1920s-1930s, and studied music prior to that there. Wagner's pamphlet, "Judaism in Music" made the Vienna coffee houses he frequented, along with other antisemetic writings of Wagner he wrote as late as 1883. Grandpa was well aware of it, prior to Hitler.  There were even some protests of Wagner in Vienna, before Hitler rose to power.

Quote from: jeff37923;1058841So it sounds similar to Mike Mearls and his virtue signalling tweets poisoning the well of D&D 5E.....

Mistwell's point is that the well was not poisoned in the case of Wagner. His grandfather was still able to enjoy his music.

On the topic of Wagner, Stephen Fry made a great documentary on Wagner and Anti-Semitism called Wagner and Me that is worth checking out.

You know there's "Separate the art from the artist" and all but at the end of the day I'm not going to make life easier on someone who hates me, or would take violent action (or promote violent action) against me or the people I care about.  Mike Mearls called me a terrorist.  Why the fuck should I move the line graph up 1/10000th of a pixel for him?  I won't.  A little more extrapolated: someone mentioned upthread that Varg Vierkennes was a violent terrorist (and he is, and has admitted so, and is also a murderer and a violent homophobe).  Well, once he got out of prison for burning down churches, he and his girlfriend were pulled over and searched, and guess what?  They found multiple weapons he shouldn't have had, and incendiary devices.  When asked what it was for, he said "I'm going to go burn down more churches."

What do I do when Mr. Vierkennes decides a more direct route, such as bombings and shootings, are the way forward?  For HS graduation, my kids are touring Europe with their grandparents.  What happens when he makes his political statement somewhere they're visiting?  I'm not fucking giving him money to shoot or bomb anyone, but especially my own kids.

I won't support game creators who are pro-Antifa.  If they're contributing to those groups, they're contributing to shitheads like Eric Clanton, who was found guilty of one and perpetrated several other violent assaults.  Why should I help make life easier on Eric Clanton?

It's not just a matter of saying, "Well, whatever they have their opinions..."  Some of these people pour money into groups or, in the case of VV, is that group of dangerous, violent people.  There's the line, for me.  A games creator wants to talk about how much they hate the sitting president, Donald Trump?  Hey, they can knock themselves out.  I start to see shit like "attack Trump supporters"?  Thanks but no thanks, you can keep your products to yourself, I'm not funding your BS.  I don't care how allegedly good it is.

Quote from: jhkim;1058845Mistwell's point is that the well was not poisoned in the case of Wagner. His grandfather was still able to enjoy his music.

Thank you, Captain Obvious....

It's not as if this goes only one way.  I can separate some of the artist from the art, if the artist can also separate some of the consumer from the art.  The artist being the primary person involved, it is hardly a 50/50 affair, but it isn't infinitely stacked on the artist's side, either.  "Don't be a complete raving, highly vocal, loon" is not, one would think, a stiff test, but yet so many can't clear even that minimal bar.

Quote from: jeff37923;1058841So it sounds similar to Mike Mearls and his virtue signalling tweets poisoning the well of D&D 5E.....

What was virtue signalling in the Wagner discussion?

I don't feel personally attacked. Maybe I should. Problem is, Mearls' attempts to be relevant to Team Woke just come off as pathetic to me. I feel kind of embarrassed for him. With respect to D&D, my reaction is less "Jew listening to Wagner" and more "normal person getting really tired of his enthusiastic evangelical friend trying to get him to listen to crappy Christian rock." The need of Mearls & Crawford to use the product they've been entrusted with to preach and evangelize is degrading its quality. To use another example, that now-infamous "how to RPG" block of text in the PF2 playtest didn't elicit any anger or outrage for me at all. I was instead embarrassed and put off by what a cringey display of hamfisted preaching it was.

I play palladium pretty much exclusively these days. Clearly I am able to separate content from copyright holder.  I don't play 5e because the system mechanics dont interest me, not because of the social stances of the writers and editors.

Quote from: Lurtch;1058595Here is where I'm at: I like 5E just fine but when the head guy is so upfront about hating me and people like me, it's hard to be excited about playing.

You are wrong and stupid. And several of the rest of you are being precious and pretentious.

For all you know the car you drive, the guy who put the last nut on the last wheel before it left the assembly line - that guy beats his wife. The kid who put your burger together at the drivethru - that kid embezzles money from the place to buy meth. The guy who wrote your calculus textbook used his maths skills to cheat on his taxes. You'd better stop driving your car, eating burgers and learning about maths - just in case.

If it does not matter for cars, burgers and maths books, it does not matter for rpgs, either.

The writer could have raped, killed and eaten babies, and it would not make a good game less good. The writer could have given their entire fortune and dedicated their life to saving sickly orphan babies, and it would not make a crap game less crap. The text stands or falls on its own merits.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1058866You are wrong and stupid. And several of the rest of you are being precious and pretentious.

For all you know the car you drive, the guy who put the last nut on the last wheel before it left the assembly line - that guy beats his wife. The kid who put your burger together at the drivethru - that kid embezzles money from the place to buy meth. The guy who wrote your calculus textbook used his maths skills to cheat on his taxes. You'd better stop driving your car, eating burgers and learning about maths - just in case.

If it does not matter for cars, burgers and maths books, it does not matter for rpgs, either.

The writer could have raped, killed and eaten babies, and it would not make a good game less good. The writer could have given their entire fortune and dedicated their life to saving sickly orphan babies, and it would not make a crap game less crap. The text stands or falls on its own merits.

Now you are just being deliberately disingenuous.  You can't possibly be that stupid for real.

If the guy making your burger or your car or whatever has his name on it, and is a public face of the company, and then uses that platform to poke at people--it goes both ways. He gets to say what he wants.  If he says it enough, strong enough, and/or is responsible for something you don't agree with, eventually a person will say, "alright then, if it means that much to you, fine, I'm out."  That's people voting with their wallets.  Each person has to draw the line where it works for them, one work at a time.

"The work stands or falls on its own merits" is propaganda.  It's crap.  It's always been crap that artist keep saying over and over to convince others why they are the only judges of whether they get paid or not.  They keep doing it because it often has worked.  However, go to the well too many times, eventually people writing the checks stop writing them.  This is real life.  Deal with it.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1058848You know there's "Separate the art from the artist" and all but at the end of the day I'm not going to make life easier on someone who hates me, or would take violent action (or promote violent action) against me or the people I care about.  Mike Mearls called me a terrorist.  Why the fuck should I move the line graph up 1/10000th of a pixel for him?  I won't.  A little more extrapolated: someone mentioned upthread that Varg Vierkennes was a violent terrorist (and he is, and has admitted so, and is also a murderer and a violent homophobe).  Well, once he got out of prison for burning down churches, he and his girlfriend were pulled over and searched, and guess what?  They found multiple weapons he shouldn't have had, and incendiary devices.  When asked what it was for, he said "I'm going to go burn down more churches."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1058848It's not just a matter of saying, "Well, whatever they have their opinions..."  Some of these people pour money into groups or, in the case of VV, is that group of dangerous, violent people.  There's the line, for me.  A games creator wants to talk about how much they hate the sitting president, Donald Trump?  Hey, they can knock themselves out.  I start to see shit like "attack Trump supporters"?  Thanks but no thanks, you can keep your products to yourself, I'm not funding your BS.  I don't care how allegedly good it is.

In the latter paragraph, you draw a distinction in the end between hating and actually contributing to violence. But your example from the beginning of Mearls calling you a terrorist isn't being violent or contributing to violence, is it?

I also think people can be pretty broad in what they consider condoning or supporting violence. There are people who say that supporting Planned Parenthood is supporting violence because they consider abortion to be murder, for example. Conversely, there are those who have a problem with anti-abortion groups because of terrorist acts. I think there's a big difference between someone like Vierkennes and just someone who supports Planned Parenthood.

Quote from: Mistwell;1058851What was virtue signalling in the Wagner discussion?

The anti-jew pamphlets and narrative. Don't worry, my point was too obtuse. Mea culpa.