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Mike Mearls has been on a tear the last few weeks. He has now called people in the NRA terrorists on the level of ISIS members, said that if you like complexity in games that you're a gate keeping women hating evil person (igoring the irony that the game he is responsible for has a lot of complexity in it), and this week if you believe in due process that you're a rape apologist. This is in addition to firing people that he disagrees with politically from D&D.

Here 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.

My choices are a consumer because as a right of center person I have no cultural power to use against the white leftists in Seattle is either not to purchase the products or ise my rights as a shareholder in HASBRO to go after Mearls job.

I'm almost to the point that he needs to lose his job over his lack of professionalism. I'm not big on mobs going after people's jobs but if #DnDGate wants to make something materially better, writing to the CEO of HASBRO with the evidence of how Mearls has been acting will do just that.

Stop what? Stop buying or using their products?

When their products no longer entertain, aren't useful, or otherwise start to suck.

Quote from: Lurtch;1058595I like 5E just fine

Sounds like it's not yet time for you to stop buying or using their products.

Vote with your wallet. It's the best thing you can do.

I'm left of center. But honestly? I don't like real world politics intruding in my hobbies. My hobbies are escapism.

My GM for my game on saturdays is politically on the right. But we both get along because we don't bring it to the table.

I've not interested in following or looking into the politics of people who make my RPGs, Games, Books, movies etc...

Politics are a very nuanced thing. Reporting on people's views are often skewed by the reporter's POV, so it's hard for me to really have an opinion on these things.

So no, as long as the game itself is enjoyable to me, then I'll still buy into it.
Of course if the game itself has all sorts of unpleasant politics (or whatever ) in it, then I'll not buy it.

If I say you're as evil as a member of ISIS would you still want to give me money?

I draw it in two places, either one is sufficient:

1. When the author injects the politics in the game to the point that you really can't ignore it when using/reading the work.  At that point, the product quality has deteriorated, as much as if something else was wrong with it.

2. More rarely, when the author can't seem to stop to such a degree and volume that when I attempt to use the product, I'm hampered by nagging thoughts of, "the guy responsible for this is a frothing idiot."  That is, the product might have been enjoyable once, but now it's enjoyment has been compromised.  

So far, the latter one hasn't happened with an author.  It has pinged on a few musicians and actors, but those are a little harder to ignore when using their products.

For both reasons, I try to avoid creator opinions outside their creations until they make it impossible for me to ignore them.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1058603I've not interested in following or looking into the politics of people who make my RPGs, Games, Books, movies etc...

Politics are a very nuanced thing. Reporting on people's views are often skewed by the reporter's POV, so it's hard for me to really have an opinion on these things.

So no, as long as the game itself is enjoyable to me, then I'll still buy into it.
Of course if the game itself has all sorts of unpleasant politics (or whatever ) in it, then I'll not buy it.

Agreed on all counts. I can admire a creation without feeling any need whatsoever to admire or agree with the creator on whatever unrelated opinions they might hold.

But as you say, if preaching creeps into the content itself, then...even if I happen to hold the same views, I'll start turning away. Don't like to be preached at.

Yeah, like others, I don't care about authors' politics. If an author doesn't like me or people like me, I don't give a damn.

If the author has done stuff that is actually criminal - or stuff that I think should be criminal - that's the point I'll have a problem with buying it. If the author has committed major fraud or murder, say, then I'll likely given them a pass. (The only example that comes to mind offhand for me is Varg Vikernes.)

I'm leftist as well... Generally, I don't care too much about poeple's politics or religion, etc. outside the hobby. As long as they don't shove it down my throat...

However, I'd not buy anything from a militant SJW if they were bleating all over the place trying to tell other people what they can and can't play. I just would hate the idea of giving them money....

Or a prawn like Matt Loter who assaults people because he doesn't 'like' their attitude. And I wouldn't buy anything from a Neo-Nazi (obviously).

I draw the line at where the company is the problem and or the designer is going really off the rails.

There are a couple of publishers I'll never buy another product from because they are dirty or their designers are, or both. And thats everything from treating their workers like slaves and worse, to dirty business practices like running game shops out of business, to designers ripping people off, attacking people, or going so far overboard it marrs the games they made.

The other line is when agendas start becoming blatantly rampant in the product itself or are using the product to virtue signal.

So far Mearls has been acting up on his own dime rather than WOTCs. Though WOTCs antics on other fronts are starting to creep up there. I think it is important to not blame the company for one of its members being a creep unless the company then backs or empowers the bad behavior. But there are other companies with skeletons in their closets that I know of personally and I am not putting money in their pockets.

"I dont care who the designer murdered. I just want my pwecious game!" is never an excuse.

My tolerance for games as political statements has become pretty much zero over the last year or two.  I'm okay with authors having political views and expressing them, but if I feel like the given work has become part of their effort to promote their politics, I'm out.

Strangely enough I don't find the smell test to be failed more by politics I disagree with.  I have absolutely no issue with games that contain all sorts of ideas I disagree with.  And it doesn't give me the eye roll inducing sensation.  So maybe the smell test is more about the goal being something other than gaming?  Maybe I'm smelling an agenda?  Just like those RPGs and video games that have popped up over the years meant to be explicitly Christian?  They just smell forced and seem cringe-worthy regardless of my personal thoughts on the matter.

I don't let the writer's politics affect my enjoyment of a product (unless they are actively advocating genicide or something). I separate the art from the artist. Many of my favorite books, movies and songs were made by people who were deeply flawed or even terrible (I think sometimes those two things go hand in hand with being creative). I'd rather buy an interesting book or game from a person who isn't wholesome than a bland product by someone who I just happen to agree with politically.

When it starts to bleed into their product and is written as if it's a 'truth'.  Green Ronin pissed me off when it came to the Freedom City and the stupidity of their Lady Liberty newest incarnation.  You're going to give a spirit of hope and justice (as I stay with the original Superman quote of 'Truth, Justice and the American Way') to a person who is likely mentally ill, commonly beset with depression and violent mood swings.  Right.  No.

Strike One.

Quote from: Lurtch;1058595At what point do you decide that a RPG writer's/ publishers actions make you stop

Democrat customers don't care about such things, since Democrats control the industry. In the meantime, voting with your wallet is all you can do pretty much. What's happened with comic books is starting to happen with RPGs.

When it comes to comics? I've spoken with my wallet. If the books get too political? I don't buy them. At all.

I was already gone from Marvel when they started getting really stupid. And defiled one of my favorite characters with their idiocy.

I currently don't buy any Marvel or DC comics at all.

With the idiocy starting to infect gaming. It will likely just result in the same. Me buying less products period.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1058615When it starts to bleed into their product and is written as if it's a 'truth'.  Green Ronin pissed me off when it came to the Freedom City and the stupidity of their Lady Liberty newest incarnation.  You're going to give a spirit of hope and justice (as I stay with the original Superman quote of 'Truth, Justice and the American Way') to a person who is likely mentally ill, commonly beset with depression and violent mood swings.  Right.  No.

Strike One.

Wait..what. I gave up pn Green Ronin with their hypocrisy of how they pointed fingers at others. Yet don't you dare accuse anyone of their own of wrongdoing. I found M&M 3E damage roll too swingy for my taste. Talk about ruining a Iconic chatacter of a rpg franchise  how the mighty have fallen indeed.

The hispanic transgender illegal version of Lady Liberty is something I will completely ignore. And if I ever use the setting, I will just put up the Lady Liberty mantle up as an available character origin. if someone would like to have it.

The character? It isn't a character. It isn't a person. It's a political statement that does as much damage to the transgender cause and condition as those who hate trans people do. It's not a help. It's a hurt.

Quote from: Lurtch;1058595Mike Mearls has been on a tear the last few weeks. He has now called people in the NRA terrorists on the level of ISIS members, said that if you like complexity in games that you're a gate keeping women hating evil person (igoring the irony that the game he is responsible for has a lot of complexity in it), and this week if you believe in due process that you're a rape apologist. This is in addition to firing people that he disagrees with politically from D&D.

Do you have a link? Not that I doubt you, I'd just like to read Mearl's latest. My guess is he is terrified, because he knows they are coming for him next.

I made a really long post on this subject, but ended up deleting it.  I had no idea I had a strong opinion on this.

 Basically, gaming is more important to me than politics.  People can say what they like, but when the game becomes hostile to the people who play it, I take issue with it and dont blame anyone for not wanting to be involved with it.

I'm glad I'm not on Twitter.

I'll normally ignore a game author's politics if it is not in their games. I make an exception for murderers & terrorists, as Kim says (Varg Vikernes didn't just murder a Satanist fellow band member, he also was part of a Satanist-paganist terrorist campaign burning Christian churches across Norway). I guess I'm leaning to not buying from supporters of terrorism either, which unfortunately includes a good swathe of the Left these days, plus the part of the Alt-Right that thinks Anders Breivik was a great guy (Vox Day is the one that comes to mind). I don't care if Mike Mearls hates the NRA and wants to ban members from playing D&D, unless he actually implemented that via the AL or something. If he was to tweet support for attacking Trump supporters ("Nazis"), then I guess I would avoid buying future products with his name on them. I wouldn't knowingly buy something written by an RPGnet moderator.

I separate Creator from Creation. Otherwise, I'd go nuts. I don't have the time or energy to figure out the sins of every author, director, singer that I enjoy.

However, I agree that EVERYONE should vote with their wallet for what you want to support. Though, I understand the conflict between buying something you love and giving money to someone who hates you. My solution for that is easy - buy it used.

That said, I haven't seen anything worthwhile created by the SJW brigade. Nothing WotC is publishing is worth my time, so its easy for me to skip giving them any money.

But FUCK MEARLS for his constant drive to cause division in the hobby and FUCK WOTC for supporting his antics.

I don't give a toss what an author's politics are or what they bleat about on social media. The only thing I care about is whether or not they write good products; if it's good I might buy it regardless of anything else, if it's bad I won't buy it. Forcibly inserting their politics into the game, regardless of where on the compass it falls, qualifies as "bad" in my view.

I stop buying them when they're shit (like d20 derived games) anything else is just white noise.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1058621The hispanic transgender illegal version of Lady Liberty is something I will completely ignore. And if I ever use the setting, I will just put up the Lady Liberty mantle up as an available character origin. if someone would like to have it.

The character? It isn't a character. It isn't a person. It's a political statement that does as much damage to the transgender cause and condition as those who hate trans people do. It's not a help. It's a hurt.

Agreed and seconded. Maybe it's just me yet I always figured Lady Liberty to be well a clone of Wonder Woman. Imagine if DC ever did the same turn WW into a mentally ill, suffers with depression and violent mood swings character. They would have a huge backlash against them from the fans imo. I guess the devs don't have a clue to what a character who is supposed to be a spirit of hope and justice really means.

I was already turned off by the mechanics of Pathfinder 2E. As well as becoming tired of the rpg edition wheel that keeps going on and on. I'm not stupid that will never end yet neither do I have to like or keep buying it. What I REALLY don't appreciate from Paizo is their get woke two page statement in the playtest core. Which essentially says I'm a terrible person for not being inclusive, diverse, and a full time psychiatrist at the game table. Written in such a antagonistic way imo. Picture a rpg dev taking down to a fan with plenty of finger poking and wagging and talking down to the fans not at the fans. Did I mention the whole thing is written in such a way that you WILL follow the advice on those two pages or else. I'm not against said advice. All they needed to do was essentially say " don't be a jerk, don't discriminate against players no matter their age, gender or race and make sure everyone is comfortable at your table and having fun". Instead not only do I have to be a expert on mental health I'm supposed to turn my table into a "safe space". To be fair many rpgs were always political to so extent. The devs had enough sense to be subtle about it most of the time without trying to alienate fans.

With Green Ronin, the text for the Blue Rose 2nd Edition Kickstarter campaign.

With Pelgrane Press, the publication of the #Feminism anthology.

I tend to not have to worry about this since extremist politics seem to eventually cause the work itself to be garbage.

5e's weird. The general construction isn't so much the issue as all the little execution faults. It's like someone knew how to make a good framework, but the line writers were barely competent.

When a creator's sociopolitical ideology is considered by them to be more important than their creation.

I had no problem with GenCon until they decided to involve themselves in local politics. I had no problem with Mike Mearls until he decided to claim that he could pick and choose who could play D&D based on his own sociopolitical identity. I had no problem with WotC and Organized Play until the sociopolitical identity of those in charge created a culture hostile to any interested gamer who was not woke with social justice.

I use to care more than I do today.  If you make a game I can enjoy with my friends then I'll give you money for that.  It's the same with my comics, books, music, movies, etc.  The minute your politics start to make the product less enjoyable (forcing it in, lecturing, whatever) is when I just go find something else.

That doesn't mean I don't buy products that have politics I disagree with in them.  If that's what the product is about or was in there from the beginning, then that's fine.  SIGMATA and Blue Rose are good examples of that in RPGs.  China Miéville also comes to mind for fiction I like.

The problem is when a product changes to accommodate the politics later on.  Marvel comics, Paizo, TBP are a great examples of that.  That's when I start spending elsewhere.  But it's not an all or nothing.  There are some Marvel comics I like that avoid the politics and I'll buy those.  If some mod at TBP makes a good RPG, instead of subverting an existing one, I might check it out.

Quote from: Lurtch;1058595said that if you like complexity in games that you're a gate keeping women hating evil person (igoring the irony that the game he is responsible for has a lot of complexity in it)

"It's bad that D&D is too complex for women."

I'm highly suspicious that wasn't what was said.  (EDIT: I mean, I'd laugh my ass off it was)

Nothing good has come from Twitter. I don't follow it unless it comes up somewhere else, so I don't particularly care what kind of dumb stuff people post on it. If Varg Vikernes or Hillary Clinton wrote a good RPG, I would buy them. However, I have no interest in games focused on pushing a particular brand of politics (even mine), and I am finding that blind ideologues have little useful to say on gaming. All those games with their identikit woke politics look boring as hell, and the assumed worlds behind the INCLOOOSIVE disclaimers display a poverty of imagination. I am fairly sure the same would apply to the hypothetical /pol/ RPG, if it existed.

Quote from: Melan;1058669Nothing good has come from Twitter. I don't follow it unless it comes up somewhere else, so I don't particularly care what kind of dumb stuff people post on it. If Varg Vikernes or Hillary Clinton wrote a good RPG, I would buy them. However, I have no interest in games focused on pushing a particular brand of politics (even mine), and I am finding that blind ideologues have little useful to say on gaming. All those games with their identikit woke politics look boring as hell, and the assumed worlds behind the INCLOOOSIVE disclaimers display a poverty of imagination. I am fairly sure the same would apply to the hypothetical /pol/ RPG, if it existed.

I think Hillary Clinton could* write an excellent political thriller RPG.

Also compared to the average SJW, she is a saint.

*Depends on her lawyers and if she was writing it to be a good RPG as opposed to a political statement.

Quote from: san dee jota;1058668"It's bad that D&D is too complex for women."

I'm highly suspicious that wasn't what was said.  (EDIT: I mean, I'd laugh my ass off it was)

He said, paraphrasing, that guys that hold on to rules complexity and lore complexity are gatekeepers trying to keep women out.

Also it's impossible to gate keeping or keep people from playing games. Nobody at Amazon is going to ask a question before anybody buys the books and nobody at any convention or basement will make people take a rules or lore quiz.

Quote from: Lurtch;1058672He said, paraphrasing, that guys that hold on to rules complexity and lore complexity are gatekeepers trying to keep women out.

wait now, so he's saying not only that guys may game in ways that happen to turn women away, but they do it with the GOAL of turning women away?

Okay, now I'm interested, can we have links please?

Quote from: Lurtch;1058673Also it's impossible to gate keeping or keep people from playing games. Nobody at Amazon is going to ask a question before anybody buys the books and nobody at any convention or basement will make people take a rules or lore quiz.

No argument here.  

It's basically the same argument a woman had about guys liking D&D and Monty Python was driving women out of STEM fields, and how men needed to modify things to make the fields more appealing to women.  An argument another -woman- shot down as sexist (to both genders) and domineering (what hobbies and interests -are- to be permitted?).  

I'd still love a direct quote though.

Quote from: sureshot;1058657Agreed and seconded. Maybe it's just me yet I always figured Lady Liberty to be well a clone of Wonder Woman. Imagine if DC ever did the same turn WW into a mentally ill, suffers with depression and violent mood swings character. They would have a huge backlash against them from the fans imo. I guess the devs don't have a clue to what a character who is supposed to be a spirit of hope and justice really means.

Well to be honest. DC hasn't known how to write for Wonder Woman for more than a decade.

They keep trying to turn her into a sword weilding Xena clone. Instead of letting her be the character it was at her most iconic take.

Quote from: Zirunel;1058674wait now, so he's saying not only that guys may game in ways that happen to turn women away, but they do it with the GOAL of turning women away?

It measures up though.  As a male, I enjoy complex mathematics and pedantic arguments over decades worth of obscure lore in my elf games.  Best not let any of "them" in on the Truth though, right bros?

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1058677Well to be honest. DC hasn't known how to write for Wonder Woman for more than a decade.

They keep trying to turn her into a sword weilding Xena clone. Instead of letting her be the character it was at her most iconic take.

A woman who exclaims "suffering Sappho" and is rendered helpless when tied up and spanked?

Personally speaking:

I play exactly one RPG, D&D. I play D&D because I'm a mainstream kinda guy, and I can't really be bothered to pay attention to niche products. Plus, it's easier to find games for D&D than the niche stuff.

That's changing soon. I'm switching everything over to ACKS because Jeremy Crawford's sexual obsessions are seeping into official WotC product. See, my big problem is that I'm really lazy. I don't care to draw up dungeons or world lore. I'm a busy man with more money than time, and what I want to do is pay creative people money so I can use their ideas instead of coming up with my own. It's not just WotC's product. 5e culture in general is becoming increasingly Seattle-sexual, and I'm just sick of it. Where WotC goes, the D&D world follows, and WotC is increasingly circling the SJW drain with its content.

Pretty much everything I buy now is either old TSR content or OSR content, because that's the only material that is reliably focused on slaying giants and raiding dragon hoards without sidebars about how to hook up with a gender-swapping elf at a Waterdeep bathhouse. You know what's easier than converting Against the Giants to 5e? Converting it to ACKS. Besides, I want to give my money to people who don't hate me.

TL; DR - I quit buying stuff when the politics of the producers start significantly affecting the product.

for me it was when Kevin Siembieda sent me a C&D letter about my website, without saying what it was I was infringing on (nothing BTW), so I removed all of it.

but for me, its not the publishers/authors views or actions (most of the time) it's their players...

Quote from: san dee jota;1058678It measures up though.  As a male, I enjoy complex mathematics and pedantic arguments over decades worth of obscure lore in my elf games.  Best not let any of "them" in on the Truth though, right bros?

Ha! Seriously though I'd like to see the source for Mearls extrapolating from your second sentence to your third.

Quote from: Lurtch;1058672He said, paraphrasing, that guys that hold on to rules complexity and lore complexity are gatekeepers trying to keep women out.

I don't think it works very well. Most of the 4e D&D fans I knew were women gear-head types (some lesbian, some not) who loved the crunch.

Of course, 5e's rejection of rules crunch could be Mearls-Crawford's sinister plot to drive lesbians out of the hobby, replacing them with gay men and voice actresses...

Quote from: Lurtch;1058672He said, paraphrasing, that guys that hold on to rules complexity and lore complexity are gatekeepers trying to keep women out.

So according to him women can't deal with complexity in a rpg and need everything dumbed down? How misogynistic of him.

Okay so it looks like this isn't from the last few weeks after all. I found some tweets that may be what we are talking about. The NRA/terrorist one was a year ago.

The gatekeeping one was back in January and reads:

QuoteFunny how many of the same "fans" who insist on gatekeeping via rules complexity and lore density also have a problem with women in tabletop gaming.

Hey guys! You're all fired from D&D. Find another game.

I typically separate the art from the artist, so I will typically not boycott a product unless the product itself has been politicized.
The one exception to this would be if it is a person who has actively and personally spread lies about me in particular. Then I will not support their work, simply because I won't fund my own enemies. This is a short list.

QuoteFunny how many of the same "fans" who insist on gatekeeping via rules complexity and lore density also have a problem with women in tabletop gaming.

That's just "I don't like the folks who fixate on minutia" and... I agree.  But that second part...  it's just a generalized attack trying to establish guilt by association, which could be flipped right?  "People who don't care about rules complexity and lore density -don't- also have a problem with women."

For those that care.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/914857581549457408

Whatever. These kooks live in their bubble. They own the license. They will wipe back-to-front with it as they please.

Someone can feel and believe as they want. The moment they start politicizing their product by putting their beliefs ahead of the product, then my money diverts elsewhere. Easy peasy.

I expect creatives to be a little crazy and socially isolated so when they get older and start ranting about certain populations I sort of just shrug it off. The problem is when they move a company in their direction and the material starts to go into crazy la la land. At that point I just don't want to deal with them anymore.

I think that's a pretty broad viewpoint too, when it comes to the people that were historically fans of a product. Fans have been complaining for awhile now about Marvel comics, Star Wars movies, ESPN, and so on because the people who have real lives(aka have money because they work for a living) don't want to be preached to when sitting down to relax for their favorite hobby.

Quote from: san dee jota;1058694That's just "I don't like the folks who fixate on minutia" and... I agree.  But that second part...  it's just a generalized attack trying to establish guilt by association, which could be flipped right?  "People who don't care about rules complexity and lore density -don't- also have a problem with women."

Yeah absolutely. Looks to be just a straw man constructed of unsubstantiated guilt-by-association.

Quote from: Joey2k;1058691So according to him women can't deal with complexity in a rpg and need everything dumbed down? How misogynistic of him.

Mearls is just following in the footsteps of the great Jeff Freeman, who said it all more than twenty years ago, and he said it on RPGNet of all places (https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/acksep97.html)!

QuoteChicks In Gaming
By Jeff Freeman
c/o ack@rpg.net

Chicks in gaming is a hot topic right now. It has been ever since the first generation of role playing gamers were old enough to become interested in chicks. Someone looked around the gaming table and thought, "Man, I wish some chicks would hang out with us." Game publishers also took note, thinking, "Man, I wish twice as many people were buying my games."

Two basic strategies were developed: One, add things chicks like to the games. Two, remove what they don't like.

If they knew what chicks liked, they wouldn't have spent their youths hanging out with a bunch of geeks pretending to be elves. So they had to stick with the remove-what-they-don't-like approach. That's unfortunate, because what chicks don't like about role-playing games are, to be specific, the gamers.

I mean honestly, if hunky Brad, captain of the football team, were playing role playing games, chicks would be interested. Instead, it's not-so-hunky Norman, captain of the chess team. Chicks hate being hit-on by Norman every time they try to play a game, and rest assured, Norman does hit-on them. They call it `sexual harassment', on account of Norman being such a dork.

Norman: "If you're hurt, my Paladin can heal you by laying-hands on--"

Chick: "Don't even think about it, dweeb."

And so it went. The game publishers sought to remove game fans from the role-playing hobby.

To their credit, they did a pretty good job. They also discovered some other things along the way that chicks don't like about gaming, but possibly this was coincidental. In removing things from games that the game fans liked, they did indeed remove some other elements that chicks weren't comfortable with.

The word `chicks', for instance. Chicks hate that. Not many game rules use the word `chick' to refer to chicks any more. Not that there ever were that many games literally using the word `chick', but figuratively, the tone was the same. Also, games don't make so many generalizations about chicks. Chicks don't like to be generalized. Art that featured chainmail bikinis on big-breasted warrior chicks, to site another example, was disliked by most chicks and, at the same time, was one of the big draws for chess-captain Norman, who was also disliked by most chicks. Anyone that ever played 1st edition AD&D remembers the succubus drawing in The Monster Manual. Sure, she would drain hard-won experience levels, had fangs, little horns and bat-wings, but just look at those hooters! Woo-hoo!

The DM would threaten, "She's going to suck the life out of you," to which Norman would respond, "Bring it on, baby!"

Math was another sticking point. Chicks are terrible at math, or at the very least they don't enjoy it, whereas people like Norman love crunching numbers. Now most new chick-friendly games are `rules-lite', low-math, sorts of things. Chicks dig that, Norman doesn't. As a bonus, Hunky Brad, captain of the football team, isn't very keen on math either. Rules-light, low-math games are comprehensible by Hunky Brad, so that if someone read the rules to him, he could actually play. Getting Brad to play and getting Norman to go away is the key to getting chicks into the hobby.

(...)

In any case, getting Norman out of the hobby was only the first step. Now they needed to get chicks into the hobby.

Vampire and vampire-type games accomplished a bit of both. They were introduced because people like Norman hate them. Norman wants to be a warrior-hero, using complex mathematically equations to blast big-breasted monsters into oblivion. Gothic games feature none of that. They feature a rules-light, no-math, romantic angle that Norman can't even comprehend, let alone enjoy. Chicks on the other hand, like all that romance stuff, and vampires in particular appeal to the perverse sexual rape-fantasy that all chicks deny having.

So now the Storyteller says, "He's going to suck the life out of you," and the female player responds, "Bring it on, baby!"

And so on and so forth. :D 1997, people! 1997!

I try to separate the author from the works.  I still have boundaries:

• The author tries to blacklist other authors over minor differences in opinion.  This happens.  This loses my money.  This is my first boundary for a reason.
• The author's rants about my immutable identity become too frequent and too similar to the gay-beaters who ruined my foot.  I'll sing a happy song and spend my money somewhere else.  It's not worth getting mad over. I'll be happy somewhere else.  

I am currently attempting a "trial separation" phase, in which overly political or abrasive developers are unfollowed on social media.   The fighting, posturing, and demonizing is exhausting.  The trick is to find the balance between leaving that bad behavior or accidentally joining it.  If the work is good and relevant then I try to support it. Staying blind to an author's petulance helps.

Quote from: Melan;1058702Mearls is just following in the footsteps of the great Jeff Freeman, who said it all more than twenty years ago, and he said it on RPGNet of all places (https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/acksep97.html)!


And so on and so forth. :D 1997, people! 1997!

You have proven that I can cringe and laugh at the same time. Well done.

Quote from: Melan;1058702Mearls is just following in the footsteps of the great Jeff Freeman, who said it all more than twenty years ago, and he said it on RPGNet of all places (https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/acksep97.html)!


And so on and so forth. :D 1997, people! 1997!

This reads like a 1d4chan entry.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1058707This reads like a 1d4chan entry.

I was thinking this is like The Colbert Report for TTRPGs or something.

If I read something to the effect of "I don't want consumer type X to buy my stuff", and I'm consumer type X, then I'll respect their request.

Otherwise, I'm a DM: I steal from everybody.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1058602Vote with your wallet. It's the best thing you can do.

I'm left of center. But honestly? I don't like real world politics intruding in my hobbies. My hobbies are escapism.

My GM for my game on saturdays is politically on the right. But we both get along because we don't bring it to the table.

This person here gets it!

Yeah, I am pretty much done with supporting WOTC and 5E, although I may buy their POD versions of old TSR stuff from DTRPG, but only because buying a second-hand hard copy of Boot Hill and AD&D 1E products off of Amazon is prohibitively expensive.

When will people such as Mike Mearls and other important people, both right and left, stop bringing real-world politics into gaming?

Someone needs to figure out how to deal with the Catch-22 that just mentioning your game system isn't political is effectively inserting politics into promoting the game system... because knowing going in that a system isn't going to be beating you over the head with the author's politics would actually be a strong selling point.

Quote from: Melan;1058702Mearls is just following in the footsteps of the great Jeff Freeman, who said it all more than twenty years ago, and he said it on RPGNet of all places (https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/acksep97.html)!


And so on and so forth. :D 1997, people! 1997!

I'm surprised they haven't purged this from the website.

Now that it's been brought to light, I'm sure it will be deleted shortly, so posted here for posterity in its entirety.

Quote from: Jeff FreemanChicks in Gaming
Chicks in gaming is a hot topic right now. It has been ever since the first generation of role playing gamers were old enough to become interested in chicks. Someone looked around the gaming table and thought, "Man, I wish some chicks would hang out with us." Game publishers also took note, thinking, "Man, I wish twice as many people were buying my games."

Two basic strategies were developed: One, add things chicks like to the games. Two, remove what they don't like.

If they knew what chicks liked, they wouldn't have spent their youths hanging out with a bunch of geeks pretending to be elves. So they had to stick with the remove-what-they-don't-like approach. That's unfortunate, because what chicks don't like about role-playing games are, to be specific, the gamers.

I mean honestly, if hunky Brad, captain of the football team, were playing role playing games, chicks would be interested. Instead, it's not-so-hunky Norman, captain of the chess team. Chicks hate being hit-on by Norman every time they try to play a game, and rest assured, Norman does hit-on them. They call it `sexual harassment', on account of Norman being such a dork.

Norman: "If you're hurt, my Paladin can heal you by laying-hands on--"

Chick: "Don't even think about it, dweeb."

And so it went. The game publishers sought to remove game fans from the role-playing hobby.

To their credit, they did a pretty good job. They also discovered some other things along the way that chicks don't like about gaming, but possibly this was coincidental. In removing things from games that the game fans liked, they did indeed remove some other elements that chicks weren't comfortable with.

The word `chicks', for instance. Chicks hate that. Not many game rules use the word `chick' to refer to chicks any more. Not that there ever were that many games literally using the word `chick', but figuratively, the tone was the same. Also, games don't make so many generalizations about chicks. Chicks don't like to be generalized. Art that featured chainmail bikinis on big-breasted warrior chicks, to site another example, was disliked by most chicks and, at the same time, was one of the big draws for chess-captain Norman, who was also disliked by most chicks. Anyone that ever played 1st edition AD&D remembers the succubus drawing in The Monster Manual. Sure, she would drain hard-won experience levels, had fangs, little horns and bat-wings, but just look at those hooters! Woo-hoo!

The DM would threaten, "She's going to suck the life out of you," to which Norman would respond, "Bring it on, baby!"

Math was another sticking point. Chicks are terrible at math, or at the very least they don't enjoy it, whereas people like Norman love crunching numbers. Now most new chick-friendly games are `rules-lite', low-math, sorts of things. Chicks dig that, Norman doesn't. As a bonus, Hunky Brad, captain of the football team, isn't very keen on math either. Rules-light, low-math games are comprehensible by Hunky Brad, so that if someone read the rules to him, he could actually play. Getting Brad to play and getting Norman to go away is the key to getting chicks into the hobby.

A lot of games started using the pronoun `she' in place of the neuter pronoun `he'. This was meant to make the games exclusive - specifically to exclude people like Norman. No danger of excluding people like Brad, remember, because Brad can't read. The pronoun `he' is inclusive because, as it is generally understood in the English language, the word `he' applies to either males or females. For example: "The game-master runs the game. He rolls dice for all the monsters."

In that context, "He rolls dice" means "He or she rolls dice." It's inclusive, and it makes people like Norman feel free to play the game. `Can't have that.

New rules say "She rolls dice..." Now Norman understands that this isn't his game, he needs to go hang with the math club.

The few chicks already in gaming are doing their part to exclude Norman, too. Possibly the game-publishers are just following their lead. Women In Gaming, or `WIG' is a chick-only group. Norman couldn't join if he wanted to (and believe me, he wants to). Now, I know `WIG' sounds sexist, since associating women with wigs is stereotypical, and I am not at all sexist, but those chicks came up with the acronym on their own. Personally, I would have gone for Broads In Gaming, or `BIG'. They didn't ask me.

Among other things, WIG is promoting a "Chicks only" day, so Norman can be told point-blank on at least one day a year that he isn't welcome. I think they're going to call it, `I like you, just not that way, you have a sweet personality, let's just be friends'-day. And maybe they want to breast-feed infants in mid-game, which isn't as much of a turn-on as you might think.

TSR, Inc. adopted a different strategy to get gamers out of the hobby that was even more spectacularly successful: They wrote the game for twelve-year-olds. This is sheer brilliance, because even twelve-year-olds aren't interested in anything written for twelve-year-olds. For example, 1st edition AD&D was written for adults, the vocabulary alone insisted on a college reading level. Game modules, the monster manuals and so on, contained adult themes and pictures of bare breasts, sans suckling infants. Naturally, lots of twelve-year-olds were attracted to it.

As illustrations of this principle, take `teen' magazines. Who reads them? Not teenagers. Pre-teens read them, because they deal with issues that are inappropriate for pre-teens. For example, sex. The surest way to get youngsters disinterested in anything is to write-down to them. TSR, Inc. realized it, did just that, and young boys, along with everyone else, stayed away from the game. School game clubs followed chain-mail bikinis right out of the hobby. TSR's strategy was so successful that they nearly went out of business and had to sell-out to a card-game company.

The not-using-sex-to-sell strategy was adopted universally by all the game publishers. Sex sells, most especially to the types of people they didn't want to sell to (i.e. gamers), so they all took the moral high road to bankruptcy and quit doing it. Young boys are attracted to young girls, and a naked elfin princess is basically a naked fifteen-year-old with pointy ears. Game publishers could answer inquiries from the Justice Department with, "Kiddie-porn? Goodness, no... look! Pointy-ears!" Anyway, it is difficult to understand the arguments against using sex to sell, because if it weren't for sex, none of us would be here. And of course, by `here' I mean `on the internet'.

In any case, getting Norman out of the hobby was only the first step. Now they needed to get chicks into the hobby.

Vampire and vampire-type games accomplished a bit of both. They were introduced because people like Norman hate them. Norman wants to be a warrior-hero, using complex mathematically equations to blast big-breasted monsters into oblivion. Gothic games feature none of that. They feature a rules-light, no-math, romantic angle that Norman can't even comprehend, let alone enjoy. Chicks on the other hand, like all that romance stuff, and vampires in particular appeal to the perverse sexual rape-fantasy that all chicks deny having.

So now the Storyteller says, "He's going to suck the life out of you," and the female player responds, "Bring it on, baby!"

Of course, the vampire thing is only the beginning. `Deadlands' is popular now and it's a horror sort of western. The `horror' part provides a good transition from vampire games, and chicks like cowboys. In fact, you could probably predict what sorts of RPGs will come out next year by going to a male strip club and looking at the costumes. There's always at least one "Bronco Billy" dancer who comes out wearing spurs, chaps, boots and a hat. The g-string isn't really part of the cowboy costume, but it's required by law.

This is not to say that women can't be attracted to swords-and-sorcery type RPGs. I played in a campaign for a while that many of the players' girlfriends joined. The GM began running adventures that the chicks would like, so of course all the real players ultimately quit. Eventually the party consisted entirely of chicks. This will be much more common as people like Norman give up the hobby and chicks get into it. If you plan on being a GM to an all-chick group, you'll need to adapt.

There are several things a GM must do in order to keep the game interesting for the chicks. They aren't going to want to do the same sorts of things that guys want to do. They don't want to use complex mathematically equations to blast big-breasted monsters, for example.

Men like hunting. They like being given a target/goal and then pursuing that target with single-minded fanaticism. That's why so many fantasy adventures are of the `quest' or rescue variety. Actually, a `rescue the princess' adventure is just a quest in which the goal has breasts. It isn't really a different type of adventure so much as a variation on the theme. It's the medieval fantasy equivalent of surfing the net.

Chicks, on the other hand, like shopping. They like going out to see what they can find, versus knowing what they are looking for right off the bat. Also, female adventurers will stop and ask for directions if they get lost, so you won't need either random encounters or `getting lost in the wilderness' charts. The chicks will seek-out encounters on their own. "Excuse me, Mr. Orc? Can you tell us if this is the way to the Dark Forest?" Mind you, they aren't going to the Dark Forest for anything in particular, they're just going to see what they can find there.

Don't think you can get away with just having the Orc attack them, either. Men will kill the Orc, rifle the corpse and be on their way, even though they are totally lost and haven't any idea which way that is. Chicks will want to form an interpersonal relationship with the Orc. They won't kill him at all, but they might capture him and then bitch until he wishes he were dead. "Look at what you're wearing! I mean honestly, how could you leave the cave looking like that? Don't you have any respect for your mother?" and "Why are you being so hostile anyway? I'm not going to untie you until you learn to express yourself in a non-confrontational manner."

Also, `questing to recover something of great value' isn't as appealing to chicks as `finding a real bargain.' That is, a sale. Let them hear a rumor that broadswords are on sale in the next town and next thing you know, they're off. Of course, they'll have to outfit for the journey, which for them means actually buying an outfit for the journey. You'll have to role-play all of that, so it's best to develop some game-mechanics to handle the situation. Get used to saying things like, "Okay, you try-on the outfit... now roll d20 to make a saving-throw versus it-makes-your-butt-look-fat."

You can throw out the character sheets that you've been using for the past ten years. They'll need to be redesigned to account for the increased detail in equipment descriptions. Whereas men write "clothes, worn" on their character sheets (if that), a chick will list the type of clothing, designer, color, washing instructions and where she bought it. Instead of recording the cost of any particular piece of equipment, chicks will write down how much they saved by purchasing it. "Sword, long, elven-styling, gray steel with mauve handle featuring Krados High-Elf designer insignia, saved 10 gold coins at the Sword Warehouse in Morgorim City." It might be best to use a separate page.

Game snacks are going to change a whole lot, too. Forget the Cheetos, Brand-X budget cola and pizza. Welcome to the world of hors d'oeuvres, fat-free cookies, dry popcorn, diet coke and wine coolers. An `hors d'oeuvre' is going to be a pretty bite of food on the end of a toothpick and if the group is meeting at your house then "stay out of the it, it's for company" (you'll hear that a lot). Get used to eating with toothpicks, or for that matter, silverware. There are also small square bits of paper or cloth, called `napkins', which you will be expected to use. This assumes that you're even invited.

Ultimately, game publishers will have just swapped audiences. Instead of expanding, selling to both men and chicks, they'll be selling all-chick games to chicks only. This is still a better financial situation for publishers. They will eventually be paying chicks to do the design, art and authoring of games. That means real savings, because they'll only have to pay the chicks 75-cents on the dollar compared to what they pay men.

Now, you might be thinking that you enjoy role-playing games and you don't want to hand the hobby over to chicks. You might feel as though this is not at all fair. Well, stop crying, sissy-boy, there's nothing you can do about it. Men should have thought of that before they let chicks vote. Now they feel empowered to take whatever they want, the way we used to feel. There's no stopping them.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1058711When will people such as Mike Mearls and other important people, both right and left, stop bringing real-world politics into gaming?

Because everything is "politics".  Look at all the threads here devoted to politics in gaming.

Quote from: JeffUltimately, game publishers will have just swapped audiences. Instead of expanding, selling to both men and chicks, they'll be selling all-chick games to chicks only. This is still a better financial situation for publishers. They will eventually be paying chicks to do the design, art and authoring of games. That means real savings, because they'll only have to pay the chicks 75-cents on the dollar compared to what they pay men.

rofl

Just for the record, I am not Jeff Freeman.

Quote from: jeff37923;1058724Just for the record, I am not Jeff Freeman.

Your loss!

Quote from: jeff37923;1058724Just for the record, I am not Jeff Freeman.

Exactly what Jeff Freeman would say!:p

Quote from: CRKrueger;1058719Now that it's been brought to light, I'm sure it will be deleted shortly, so posted here for posterity in its entirety.

Okay, well the full post has, for me, a much lower laughs-to-cringes ratio (excellent editing, Melan!), but whatever, at least it is saved for posterity so thanks for that.

If it's the same Jeff Freeman who worked on SWG, he took his own life about ten years ago.

I hope it wasn't him (there are many Jeff Freemans out there, and I am not even sure it was his real name). I liked the entire column, and loved his review of FUDGE (https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_104.phtml), which may be my favourite piece of RPG satire ever.

Rest in Peace if it was him.

Quote from: Melan;1058702Mearls is just following in the footsteps of the great Jeff Freeman...

And so on and so forth. :D 1997, people! 1997!

That was hilarious. Thanks for digging that up!

If a product looks fantastic, and nothing about it ticks me off; I may just buy it.  I never research the creators; I just examine the product.


If I have stumbled across information about the creators prior to seeing the product; I'm human, so of course it's on my mind.

I guess it really depends on how much they piss me off.

QuoteAnyone that ever played 1st edition AD&D remembers the succubus drawing in The Monster Manual. Sure, she would drain hard-won experience levels, had fangs, little horns and bat-wings, but just look at those hooters! Woo-hoo!

Gets 1st ed AD&D Monster Manual, blows dust off. Oh yeah still works for me.

I wonder if I can get my wife to dress up like that for Halloween, just need the wings she came with the rest (including the horns and fangs :p ).

You all know that that illustration was based on a Playboy Playmate?  Miss May 1977, IIRC.  

To the question:  When they bloat the game.  Or annoy me with sanctimony or anything else.

According to the web page that review is on, the review was edited just last year.  Why would anyone need to edit a 20 year old review?  What did they edit?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1058681Personally speaking:

I play exactly one RPG, D&D. I play D&D because I'm a mainstream kinda guy, and I can't really be bothered to pay attention to niche products. Plus, it's easier to find games for D&D than the niche stuff.

That's changing soon. I'm switching everything over to ACKS because Jeremy Crawford's sexual obsessions are seeping into official WotC product. See, my big problem is that I'm really lazy. I don't care to draw up dungeons or world lore. I'm a busy man with more money than time, and what I want to do is pay creative people money so I can use their ideas instead of coming up with my own. It's not just WotC's product. 5e culture in general is becoming increasingly Seattle-sexual, and I'm just sick of it. Where WotC goes, the D&D world follows, and WotC is increasingly circling the SJW drain with its content.

Pretty much everything I buy now is either old TSR content or OSR content, because that's the only material that is reliably focused on slaying giants and raiding dragon hoards without sidebars about how to hook up with a gender-swapping elf at a Waterdeep bathhouse. You know what's easier than converting Against the Giants to 5e? Converting it to ACKS. Besides, I want to give my money to people who don't hate me.

TL; DR - I quit buying stuff when the politics of the producers start significantly affecting the product.

This is pretty much where I'm at as well.  I play 5e on occasion, but I've become less enthusiastic with WOTC and more interested in the OSR.  I may introduce Basic Fantasy or White Box FMAG to my players, along with something like Barrowmaze.

Honestly I don't get the problem.  Whether it's a throw away sentence in a random NPC write-up or a five page spread in V5ed, it's easy enough for me to ignore the parts I don't like or feel are unnecessary.  Of the stuff mentioned here, Lady Liberty is probably the closest thing to annoying me (simply because I doubt the character has to meaningfully deal with issues relevant to illegals and transgendered folk, being a super-powered fantasy trip.  And no, beating up Ku Klux Kangaroo or Cyber-Nazis doesn't count as 'meaningful'), but even that is something I can just ignore.  The 5-page spread of sensitivity training in V5ed?  I'm honestly more bothered by the photos of people just standing around in their Saturday night goth costumes (I've hated that in -every- version of -every- White Wolf book).

Quote from: Lurtch;1058595Mike Mearls has been on a tear the last few weeks. He has now called people in the NRA terrorists on the level of ISIS members, said that if you like complexity in games that you're a gate keeping women hating evil person (igoring the irony that the game he is responsible for has a lot of complexity in it), and this week if you believe in due process that you're a rape apologist. This is in addition to firing people that he disagrees with politically from D&D.

Here 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.

My choices are a consumer because as a right of center person I have no cultural power to use against the white leftists in Seattle is either not to purchase the products or ise my rights as a shareholder in HASBRO to go after Mearls job.

I'm almost to the point that he needs to lose his job over his lack of professionalism. I'm not big on mobs going after people's jobs but if #DnDGate wants to make something materially better, writing to the CEO of HASBRO with the evidence of how Mearls has been acting will do just that.

1. Your characterizations of what Mearls said is wildly inaccurate exaggerations which, I assume, are based on a biased agenda;
2. 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.

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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik)" 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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik)" 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 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik)" 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.

Lets get real here... Everybody knows the best game designers eat babies.

Quote from: jhkim;1058868I 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.

Hey look, disingenuous whataboutism!

RPGs are a form or art which requires you to interact with others, so the politics surrounding them are harder to avoid, especially online. And given their growing influence over platforms and conventions I'm actually far more concerned with writers and publishers making it impossible for me to play their games or participate in the surrounding communities.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1058716I'm surprised they haven't purged this from the website.

Yay, fearsomepirate is back!

Quote from: CRKrueger;1058719Now that it's been brought to light, I'm sure it will be deleted shortly, so posted here for posterity in its entirety.

Don't forget the archive (https://archive.is/zYjSa).

Quote from: Toadmaster;1058752I guess it really depends on how much they piss me off.

Yeah, this is pretty much the same for me...

Quote from: Mistwell;10588141. Your characterizations of what Mearls said is wildly inaccurate exaggerations which, I assume, are based on a biased agenda;

Please post Mearls' tweets you feel are being misrepresented. I've seen the shitbag's previous statements so I've got no reason to be surprised if Mearls doubled down on another heaping plate of stupid. But maybe he didn't. I open to reading what you post.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1058848Mike Mearls called me a terrorist.

I'm assuming that's what Mistwell is referring to.

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.

I can respect that and its something I've been thinking about recently.

I was reading HPL and REH recently and both stories had shitty references to Africans. I'm pretty sure that would have affected my enjoyment of HPL and REH if I was African. We can argue about "writers and their era" and I get that, but from a visceral level, I understand refusing any support to an author who hates you.

Quote from: VincentTakeda;1058862I play palladium pretty much exclusively these days. Clearly I am able to separate content from copyright holder.

LOL! Launch a thread about whatever Palladium stuff you play! Also, tell us why you only play PB games!

FYI, this is a PB friendly forum. A bunch of us play or have played PB games.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1058866The text stands or falls on its own merits.

Agreed 100%, but that's not what the WotC Walk Aways are saying. They are saying, even if 5e is good, I'm walking away. The argument isn't that the product is bad, its about not buying a product even if its good because the author / publisher is a douchenozzle.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1058867That's people voting with their wallets.  Each person has to draw the line where it works for them, one work at a time.

Exactly! Vote with your wallets and vote with your play time. Play games you want to support.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1058883I'm actually far more concerned with writers and publishers making it impossible for me to play their games or participate in the surrounding communities.

Explain.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the OP: I supported all of the early Autarch kickstarters at above the minimum level.
But, frankly, that wasn't purely because I had a use for the stuff. I *liked* the stuff, the author comes across as a nice guy, bought me lunch once, is a friend-of-a-friend, lived in the same town just a few neighborhoods over, and I'd budgeted some discretionary money for "random RPG & computer game kickstarters".

Sadly, my players only want to play things that say D&D on the cover, whether it's 3e, 4e, or 5e, so it's been more about mining for ideas and background worldbuilding than actual table play. After Milo, and the Gamergate stuff at Escapist, though, I'm now back on "buy his stuff only if I like it and have a likely use for it at the table".

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1058867"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.

No, you festering knobjockey, the audience decides if the work has merit, and whether the artist should get paid. If it's good people will buy it, if it's crap they won't.

I am not interested in D&D5e not because Mike Mearls is a cocksmock, or because he thinks I am a child molester or Nazi or vegan, or whatever dumb shit he's said this week, but because in the almost four decades since AD&D1e came out all that's improved in later editions of D&D is the artwork. The rest they got as right as they ever got it in 1e. The work fails on its own merits, or lack thereof, without having to bother considering who wrote it or is speaking for it or whatever it is.

Contrariwise, Marc Miller seems like a thoroughly decent guy, but Traveller 5e is an unholy mess. Kevin Siembieda is obviously a lunatic, but Recon was awesome. Mike Pondsmith seems like a mellow guy, and CP2020 is munchkiny fun. Byron Hall is a hateful puddle of spineless goo, and FATAL was awful. There's no correlation between how good or bad a person is and how good or bad their rpg is. And I don't care, since their vileness or decency is between them and the people they actually know and meet in everyday life.

I need friends and family to be decent people who like me. I do not need the people who make my burgers, car or roleplaying games to be decent people who like me. Anything else is virtue signalling, and virtue signalling is the refuge of the worthless.

I don't care if the creators are virtuous or orthodox; I only start caring if the material or the corporate organization as a whole is starting to promote ideas I consider not just wrong-headed, but hostile to the common good.

Note that this is not even solely a question of politics or other hot button topics.  

Some guy makes a game.  Does a fairly good job of it.  Most everyone agrees it is well done.  However, he builds a theme around something that you are not at all interested in.  Let's say, you aren't a dog person, but the game is built around that.  You can maybe objectively look at the game, know that it is a really good game the would appeal to dog people, and still not want anything to do with it.  Not many people would have a problem with that.

Now assume the game isn't about dogs at all (or isn't necessarily geared to them in any particular way), but this is what the guy talks about all the time.  For whatever reason, fans of the game have run with that.  So you can run it at your own table, ignore the dogs, and make it about whatever you want.  At least, many people can, much of the time.  Sometimes, it's like that piece of music that you can't stop humming even though you hate it.  Now that the idea has been put in your head, you can't get it out.  And the guy and the fans simply, will ... not ... shut up.  Everywhere you go in public someone is playing that damn song about dogs.  

Now imagine that it isn't merely that guy's game and his fans, but many games, and a huge swath of vocal fans--many of them with logic and reading comprehension issues.  Then they start demanding fealty from everyone.  You must pretend to like that damn song about dogs, or they'll dog you constantly.  But for some reason, they are supposed to get the same treatment as the first guy?  The only adult answer to that is, "Hell no!"

Quote from: Naburimannu;1058902At the opposite end of the spectrum from the OP: I supported all of the early Autarch kickstarters at above the minimum level.
But, frankly, that wasn't purely because I had a use for the stuff. I *liked* the stuff, the author comes across as a nice guy, bought me lunch once, is a friend-of-a-friend, lived in the same town just a few neighborhoods over, and I'd budgeted some discretionary money for "random RPG & computer game kickstarters".

Sadly, my players only want to play things that say D&D on the cover, whether it's 3e, 4e, or 5e, so it's been more about mining for ideas and background worldbuilding than actual table play. After Milo, and the Gamergate stuff at Escapist, though, I'm now back on "buy his stuff only if I like it and have a likely use for it at the table".

Hey! I think I know who this is. Hope you've been well. :-)

"Buy my stuff only if you like it and have use for it at the table" is the only criteria any creator can ask of someone. It's very kind of you, thank you.

I will note that Varg Vikernes has recently posted a great video on his channel where he speaks about his admiration for old-school Basic D&D, and is entirely reasonable about it.

[video=youtube;uI03Q4mlXXc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI03Q4mlXXc[/youtube]

I will also note that no, I don't follow his channel otherwise, and was referred to it by friends. (What it does say about the people I associate with is, I suppose, sufficient for an indictment. :D)

Some great posts here by dungeondelver and fearsompirate.

In the end we all have to think for ourselves and make our own choices on this. We are not rpgnet; we are not sheep; we are men. Yes I have had too much Bruccladdich.

For me, Mike Mearls and even Jeremy "dickweed" Crawford have not yet crossed the line. Of course I am biased - I like their game. Their antics do make me think twice about buying new WoTC 5e stuff though.

Varg  Vikernes for me crosses the line a couple times over. A poster here recommended MYFAROG to me some time ago, and normally I would have checked it out; but I just can't in good conscience support a church burning Nazi murderer financially and I can't imagine asking other people to play his game, no matter how good it might be.

So, there's me. Slainte. :)

If anything Steve Mitchell points out the one drawback to being a palladium fan.  I can love his games, but MOST of the time when i mention palladium there's a legion of Kevin Haterz pouncing on my comment with bile and ire and downvotes.  Its these rare places where I can talk about palladium gaming where (perfectly understandable and well deserved by the way) anti-Kevin sentiment doesn't just pounds the conversation into the ground.  That's why I'm here.  I'm down to basically 2 and a half game forum websites that don't have a standing anti Kevin lynch mob at the ready.  There are simply some sites where anti Kevin sentiment arrives with immediate and fervent abandon any time the game is mentioned, but often not even in the context of the actual conversation at hand.

So if there IS a point where I start caring about the behaviors of the publisher making me stop, its that.  I stop going to forums where fervent anti Kevin posters are allowed to wantonly crap on palladium posters... I totally agree with them that Kevin deserves every ounce of Ire they have.  But lynching the fans of his game for it is going a little too far and makes it hard to have discussions about the game in all but about 3 game forums these days.  I don't even necessarily blame Kevin for that.  Not only can I disassociate kevins game from kevins well deserved mob of angry gamers, I can also disassociate the behavior of kevins mob of angry gamers with kevin, because even if you don't like what kevin's done, there's no reason to show  up on every forum where people who like palladium games chat about it and drop an anti kevin bomb.  Trust me. If there's one thing palladium fans know already, its how much of an ass Kevin is.  But if you don't like talking about palladium games, better to just move on and avoid the thread.

I may not like the sjw stance and direction mearls and crawford are taking with 5e, but I don't go to the 5e threads and shart on those fans for it.  Even if I also don't like 5e.  If I dont like 5e and I don't like sjw game design... I just don't show up to the conversation in the first place.  Sometimes knowing when not to join the conversation is the thing.  Better Angels and all that.  Save it for the 'why I dont like the games I don't like' threads where such comments are appropriate and important for game designers to know about.

There are three general cases regarding creator/publisher behavior:

1. creator or publisher publicly "takes a side" in general political matters.
2. creator or publisher publicly "takes no side" in general political matters. (ex. "a pox on both their houses")
3. creator or publisher publicly says nothing about general political matters.

I will respond to each case according to the creator or publisher's choices.

There is a fourth general case, that of the creator or publisher clearly injecting 1. or 2. above into their product. I will respond to those cases as if they had made a public stand corresponding to 1. or 2., because injecting it into their product is a public stand.

Quote from: S'mon;1058941church burning Nazi murderer

SJWs made me forget that sometimes, these terms really can legitimately be applied to a person.

Quote from: Melan;1058940I will note that Varg Vikernes has recently posted a great video on his channel where he speaks about his admiration for old-school Basic D&D, and is entirely reasonable about it.

[video=youtube;uI03Q4mlXXc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI03Q4mlXXc[/youtube]

I will also note that no, I don't follow his channel otherwise, and was referred to it by friends. (What it does say about the people I associate with is, I suppose, sufficient for an indictment. :D)

You might want to look at the very next video in his queue. He is using D&D and roleplaying as vessels to promote racist ideas (and not racist in vague sense, but in the Nazi sense). And his game is also an expression of those ideas.

Actually I just remembered the case of Catalyst Game Labs and embezzlement.  That got me to stop buying their games.

Like when Pundit is so desperately flailing for attention that he attacks a gay DM who teaches at an all girls school who runs an all girls (8-11) game at said school... and the gay DM teacher has had zero communication with Pundit: https://twitter.com/kasimirurbanski/status/1047988621859536897?s=21

Does that qualify?

Quote from: KingCheops;1058968Actually I just remembered the case of Catalyst Game Labs and embezzlement.  That got me to stop buying their games.

I could deal with the embezzlement cause we have laws to deal with that stuff. I could even deal with Critias and the rest of the writers saying I'm a monster cause I supported Trump over Clinton.

But SR5 is a bad game. Combat is a mess, gear is a mess, and there's a massive amount of "3rd Edition was my fav, so let's regress".

Factor in that every supplement had less content than the previous edition's just so they could sell you a $20 pdf?

Fuck 'em. Not one DIME more.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1058971I could deal with the embezzlement cause we have laws to deal with that stuff. I could even deal with Critias and the rest of the writers saying I'm a monster cause I supported Trump over Clinton.

But SR5 is a bad game. Combat is a mess, gear is a mess, and there's a massive amount of "3rd Edition was my fav, so let's regress".

Factor in that every supplement had less content than the previous edition's just so they could sell you a $20 pdf?

Fuck 'em. Not one DIME more.

Ouch. I stopped following SR5 in the early days when the game first came out and, among other things, it was shown that having a literal red laser showing where your bullet was going to hit gave you no benefit at all unless you made your weapon hackable. I'm kinda glad to hear that the line turned out to be a mess after all the condescending remarks the devs made toward anyone who questioned their decisions with the new edition.

Quote from: Brand55;1058973Ouch. I stopped following SR5 in the early days when the game first came out and, among other things, it was shown that having a literal red laser showing where your bullet was going to hit gave you no benefit at all unless you made your weapon hackable. I'm kinda glad to hear that the line turned out to be a mess after all the condescending remarks the devs made toward anyone who questioned their decisions with the new edition.

I really should follow Pundit and Sammy and do a video on it for my channel. Because I coukd rant at length.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1058958You might want to look at the very next video in his queue. He is using D&D and roleplaying as vessels to promote racist ideas (and not racist in vague sense, but in the Nazi sense). And his game is also an expression of those ideas.

I know. He is beyond the pale, which is why he has a following, and a roguish appeal. In the world of increasing thought policing, he is slowly becoming a rebel icon of sorts because he just speaks his mind and doesn't give a hoot. That's a big failure on part of society. It is also hilarious, because the thought police getting mud on xir face is always going to be funny.

Fortunately for people who dislike hard decisions, MYFAROG is junk even without the racism, so everyone can sleep easily. But what if it really was a work of creative genius? That would be inconvenient.

It really shows the danger of calling everyone a racist, Nazi, etc, because when someone comes along who actually is one, the words have lost all power.

Quote from: JeremyR;1058983It really shows the danger of calling everyone a racist, Nazi, etc, because when someone comes along who actually is one, the words have lost all power.

I wouldn't even had heard of the bastard if he wasn't constantly used as an example of why gaming is problematic.

Quote from: Melan;1058981I know. He is beyond the pale, which is why he has a following, and a roguish appeal. In the world of increasing thought policing, he is slowly becoming a rebel icon of sorts because he just speaks his mind and doesn't give a hoot. That's a big failure on part of society. It is also hilarious, because the thought police getting mud on xir face is always going to be funny.

Fortunately for people who dislike hard decisions, MYFAROG is junk even without the racism, so everyone can sleep easily. But what if it really was a work of creative genius? That would be inconvenient.

I think it is still possible to let people think for themselves and trust they will reach sane conclusions about a guy like Varg. Again, we are not talking about someone who has been painted with a broad brush. Nor are we talking about someone who has simply taken an unpopular political position in the hobby or made a game that people think is problematic in some convoluted way. I get there are rushes to judgment about things in the current climate and a lot of people are defensive because of that. But this is something where free thinking people should have an easy time understanding that Varg is talking about the kind of racism that has led to things like genocide in the past. And while I am all for people being able to turn over a new leaf, his extremely violent history and the fact that he has doubled down on this kind of ideology, should make it an easy case for people to judge. I think there are distinctions here people are losing the ability to make, and they are distinctions that matter.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1058971I supported Trump over Clinton.

Wait...WHAT?!

Quote from: JeremyR;1058983It really shows the danger of calling everyone a racist, Nazi, etc, because when someone comes along who actually is one, the words have lost all power.

Yes - eg if you look at Brendan's post above about Vikernes #115, it is entirely reasonable when applied to someone like Vikernes. But very similar language gets used all the time about people who are nothing like Vikernes. This makes it easy for the wolves to hide among the sheep, when the hunters can't distinguish the two.

Quote from: S'mon;1059008Yes - eg if you look at Brendan's post above about Vikernes #115, it is entirely reasonable when applied to someone like Vikernes. But very similar language gets used all the time about people who are nothing like Vikernes. This makes it easy for the wolves to hide among the sheep, when the hunters can't distinguish the two.

There is still another problem though. Varg isn't the only kind of bad racism that still exist. Maybe some people have broadened the spectrum too much, or place too much weigh on the lighter side of the spectrum. But there are still bad racist ideas people can embrace before they get to the level of Varg, and some people use Varg as cover for that.

Quote from: JeremyR;1058983It really shows the danger of calling everyone a racist, Nazi, etc, because when someone comes along who actually is one, the words have lost all power.

When someone says some else is a Nazi, I guess we should ask, "Do you mean in the 'heil-Hitler-kill-all-Jews' sense, or in the 'makes Rachel Maddow throw on-air tantrums' sense?"

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1058969Like when Pundit is so desperately flailing for attention that he attacks a gay DM who teaches at an all girls school who runs an all girls (8-11) game at said school... and the gay DM teacher has had zero communication with Pundit: https://twitter.com/kasimirurbanski/status/1047988621859536897?s=21

Does that qualify?

Are you trolling? The chain shows him asking if boys were being excluded not that he was attacking him for being gay.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1059009There is still another problem though. Varg isn't the only kind of bad racism that still exist. Maybe some people have broadened the spectrum too much, or place too much weigh on the lighter side of the spectrum. But there are still bad racist ideas people can embrace before they get to the level of Varg, and some people use Varg as cover for that.

Even if that is true - I think it has some truth - treating it as a continuum or slippery slope is very much to the benefit of actual Nazis. It makes it easy for them to say "You see; I'm just like you. They hate us both and call us the same names."

Quote from: Rhedyn;1059012Are you trolling? The chain shows him asking if boys were being excluded not that he was attacking him for being gay.

All FeloniousMonk does is troll here.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1059009There is still another problem though. Varg isn't the only kind of bad racism that still exist. Maybe some people have broadened the spectrum too much, or place too much weigh on the lighter side of the spectrum. But there are still bad racist ideas people can embrace before they get to the level of Varg, and some people use Varg as cover for that.

Well, that is what happens when a term used to describe a vile set of behaviors gets overused, it loses its impact and meaning. Rapist, racist, homophobe,Nazi, all of those words have gotten overused by leftists trying to smear people when they are losing an argument. So now, they have been rendered ineffectual thanks to those same leftists who have overused them.

Varg Vikernes is an asshole and as both a Pagan and a Gamer, he really pisses me off.

He recently made a video about D&D and the Satanic Panic, and it contains his usual racist lunacy.

So I just now posted a video in response to his bullshit, arguing for reconciliation between Christians and Pagans, and that we should put ideologies and extremism aside and just play the damn game!

Extremism has no place at the gaming table, and the RPG community should be about games and not political ideologies or extremism.

[video=youtube;hdoW-G4XDg0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdoW-G4XDg0[/youtube]

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1059025Extremism has no place

FTFY

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1058971I could deal with the embezzlement cause we have laws to deal with that stuff. I could even deal with Critias and the rest of the writers saying I'm a monster cause I supported Trump over Clinton.

But SR5 is a bad game. Combat is a mess, gear is a mess, and there's a massive amount of "3rd Edition was my fav, so let's regress".

Factor in that every supplement had less content than the previous edition's just so they could sell you a $20 pdf?

Fuck 'em. Not one DIME more.

Yeah they sure made it easy didn't they?

Quote from: S'mon;1059008Yes - eg if you look at Brendan's post above about Vikernes #115, it is entirely reasonable when applied to someone like Vikernes. But very similar language gets used all the time about people who are nothing like Vikernes. This makes it easy for the wolves to hide among the sheep, when the hunters can't distinguish the two.

In my opinion, any hunter who thinks that Vikernes is difficult to distinguish from an innocent sheep is either (1) utterly mentally defective, (2) a fucking racist shithead, or more likely, both. He is a convicted murderer who openly espouses neo-nazism.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1059025Varg Vikernes is an asshole and as both a Pagan and a Gamer, he really pisses me off.

He recently made a video about D&D and the Satanic Panic, and it contains his usual racist lunacy.

So I just now posted a video in response to his bullshit, arguing for reconciliation between Christians and Pagans, and that we should put ideologies and extremism aside and just play the damn game!

Extremism has no place at the gaming table, and the RPG community should be about games and not political ideologies or extremism.

I agree that Vikernes is an asshole, and I also don't want him in the gaming community. But the key line for me is that he is a frickin violent murderer. (Not that murder is the only line to cross - but it is certainly is way past the line.)

If people want to peacefully run games with political ideologies in them - of whatever stripe - then I think that's fine. There should be room for non-political games, moderate political games, and extreme political games.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1059031FTFY

Extremism is the way to shift the Overton Window. Having a few screaming maniacs on your side makes your more moderate members seem comparatively reasonable, and because the rest of the world would rather deal with the relatively normal folks than the freaks, when used adroitly that can lead to incremental political and policy gains. The left has used this very successfully in their push for gay rights, for instance. In fact, the general leftward tendency over the last 60 years on social issues has been led by extremists, whose ideas have been progressively normalized, and replaced with new views even further to the left.

The problem now is both sides have picked up on the tactic, both are pushing toward undesirable extremes, and both mainstreams are adopting the tactics of extremists, so there's little distinction between the norms and the freaks. The left traditionally has the edge, which is why they've been dominating the culture wars despite losing nearly all the political wars, but with the loss of the middle and the extremists tugging from both sides, it seems like the Overton Window isn't moving so much as fracturing into a zillion little pieces that are being scattered around the fringe.

That's why politics should be kept from non-niche games, now more than ever. Because there's no relatively safe, generic middle any more. Everyone sees everyone else as screaming freaks.

Quote from: jhkim;1059044In my opinion, any hunter who thinks that Vikernes is difficult to distinguish from an innocent sheep is either (1) utterly mentally defective, (2) a fucking racist shithead, or more likely, both. He is a convicted murderer who openly espouses neo-nazism.

They don't see the sheep as innocent. Some of those sheep voted for Trump!

I guess some of the hunters are fucking racist shitheads - the sheep are white, the wolves have white fur, they're all white so they all need shooting... but I kinda think you missed the point of my analogy. :D

Quote from: S'mon;1059054They don't see the sheep as innocent. Some of those sheep voted for Trump!

I guess some of the hunters are fucking racist shitheads - the sheep are white, the wolves have white fur, they're all white so they all need shooting... but I kinda think you missed the point of my analogy. :D

Trumps a cunt?

Quote from: HorusArisen;1059056Trumps a cunt?

I love both cunts and my President! Win-win!

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;1059068I love both cunts and my President! Win-win!

Just make sure you grab him.

Giving credit where credit is due, at least WotC is supporting a good cause here:

https://www.customink.com/fundraising/wotcdndoperationgratitude2018

Anyone else find Varg Vikernes strangely soothing to listen to? He's like some white supremacist Bob Ross.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1058898Explain.

Everything is moving to digital, and the Ministry of Right Think have demonstrated they're fully capable of deplatforming anyone they don't like. They can ban you from #Twitter, suspend your #Patreon, prevent you from using #Kickstarter, disable your #MasterCard, take your videos down on #YouTube, deindex you on #Google, and even take the domain name you paid for away. And when they can't do this through legal means they resort to #Doxxing, #DDOS, and extortion. Their ultimate aim is to prevent anyone they don't like from accessing financial services or using the internet entirely.

Increasingly games (like #Overwatch) depend on having an account to play, so being suspended means you cannot play the game you paid for! Companies (like #Blizzard) are increasingly banning users based on off-site behavior and political opinions, so you have to watch what you say even in private. Corporations are pushing to stream games rather than sell them, so this is only going to get worse. And even if I only wanted to play tabletop RPGs in meatspace, I still have to buy them online, so if my #DriveThruRPG account were suspended I'd be screwed.

Meanwhile in the real world they're taking positions of authority and instituting vaguely worded codes of conduct which allow them to prevent anyone they don't like from participating in conventions, LARPs, and other events. They can declare guilt when it suits them and then find reasons for it afterwards. And the architects of these policies rarely follow them themselves! It's purely authoritarian.

The situation with #Roll20 was the final nail for me. Nolan T Jones banned someone for having a similar name to someone already banned, just because that user had the audacity to criticize his product. And then when the mistake was realized, he kept that user banned because of how they reacted to being falsely accused. And when this shitstorm finally made it to r/all, Nolan's response became the second most downvoted comment in #Reddit history (not counting the Thanos one which asked to be downvoted), which led to all the #Roll20 employees abandoning ship and handing the mess off to the folks at r/lfg to mod, and their first action was to declared a 48 hour meme war.

But that's not the worst of it, because is was later revealed (and corroborated by at least four people involved) that Nolan decided who to sponsor based not on reach or passion, but on race and gender, and how diverse they'd make the platform seem, which is completely counter to the ethos presented in #Roll20's own Code of Conduct (https://archive.is/mxTJL#selection-1069.1-1069.12). And I'd love to link you to the #Reddit threads where that's discussed, but I can't because the new mods removed them all.

So as a #Roll20 user, how confident would you be in using their service after all this? How much money would you actually invest in it when you might be suspended on a false accusation and lose it all?

Quote from: RandyB;1058950There are three general cases regarding creator/publisher behavior:

1. creator or publisher publicly "takes a side" in general political matters.
2. creator or publisher publicly "takes no side" in general political matters. (ex. "a pox on both their houses")
3. creator or publisher publicly says nothing about general political matters.

you forgot #4: Actively gatekeeps people they consider bad or don't share their ideology.

This includes people like Zak S and Whitney Strix Beltrán who have both taken action against specific people in an effort to prevent them from participating. And yet their work is still some of the best in the industry.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;1058974I really should follow Pundit and Sammy and do a video on it for my channel. Because I coukd rant at length.

Please don't, because then they'll make reaction videos to your rant until the whole thing becomes inception.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1058969Like when Pundit is so desperately flailing for attention that he attacks a gay DM who teaches at an all girls school who runs an all girls (8-11) game at said school... and the gay DM teacher has had zero communication with Pundit: https://twitter.com/kasimirurbanski/status/1047988621859536897?s=21

Does that qualify?

Quote from: Rhedyn;1059012Are you trolling? The chain shows him asking if boys were being excluded not that he was attacking him for being gay.

Gotta agree with Rhedyn.

FeloniousMonk raised a valid point regarding the all girls thing, as the school is listed in the teacher's bio, so that's absolutely an example of the RPGPundit being lazy and unnecessarily provocative. But then they go on to overstate their case by bringing up the gay thing. Because that was never a point of contention, and the teacher didn't even list that in their bio, so it might not be something they consider important enough to draw attention to.

What both of these folks have in common though is that they're far more concerned with making someone else look bad than pursuing actual social justice. In the meantime I hope Ethan Schoonover's game went well.

Quote from: JeremyR;1058983It really shows the danger of calling everyone a racist, Nazi, etc, because when someone comes along who actually is one, the words have lost all power.

Quote from: S'mon;1059018treating it as a continuum or slippery slope is very much to the benefit of actual Nazis. It makes it easy for them to say "You see; I'm just like you. They hate us both and call us the same names."

This is so obviously the case that I sometimes wonder if this hasn't been the goal all along.

Quote from: jhkim;1059044In my opinion, any hunter who thinks that Vikernes is difficult to distinguish from an innocent sheep is either (1) utterly mentally defective, (2) a fucking racist shithead, or more likely, both.

I don't think you're far off, considering how many of the #CtrlLeft can't.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1059083Anyone else find Varg Vikernes strangely soothing to listen to? He's like some white supremacist Bob Ross.

I am content to leave that an unknown.

Quote from: HorusArisen;1059078Just make sure you grab him.

Touché, pussycat!

Quote from: Crusader X;1059079Giving credit where credit is due, at least WotC is supporting a good cause here:

https://www.customink.com/fundraising/wotcdndoperationgratitude2018

I'd like to know how much of the t-shirt sales goes to the charity. This could be just a PR stunt.

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."

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.

I think this sums it up for me. I won't put money in the pocket of people like this.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1059083Everything is moving to digital, and the Ministry of Right Think have demonstrated they're fully capable of deplatforming anyone they don't like. They can ban you from #Twitter, suspend your #Patreon, prevent you from using #Kickstarter, disable your #MasterCard, take your videos down on #YouTube, deindex you on #Google, and even take the domain name you paid for away. And when they can't do this through legal means they resort to #Doxxing, #DDOS, and extortion. Their ultimate aim is to prevent anyone they don't like from accessing financial services or using the internet entirely.

They also get you blacklisted from good jobs. And if they could have you blocked from buying groceries, get your lease terminated, or have your loans foreclosed on, they'd do that, too. What you're describing is social terrorism, which is using a fear of significant harm to your ability to participate in society, not your physical body, to enforce political conformity. That's not okay. It isn't murder, but it's not a whole lot different from burning down somebody's church in my book. Mearls is increasingly throwing his lot in with those people.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1058969Like when Pundit is so desperately flailing for attention that he attacks a gay DM who teaches at an all girls school who runs an all girls (8-11) game at said school... and the gay DM teacher has had zero communication with Pundit: https://twitter.com/kasimirurbanski/status/1047988621859536897?s=21

Does that qualify?

Sexuality (of any flavor) is never a shield against questioning or criticism.

Kinda the whole point of equality.

Quote from: JeremyR;1058983It really shows the danger of calling everyone a racist, Nazi, etc, because when someone comes along who actually is one, the words have lost all power.

All the -ists are dead.

Quote from: Melan;1058981Fortunately for people who dislike hard decisions, MYFAROG is junk even without the racism, so everyone can sleep easily. But what if it really was a work of creative genius? That would be inconvenient.

There's a 1000 of D&D heartbreakers on DriveThruRPG and without Varg's name and all the free publicity the imbeciles give him, nobody would have known about MYFROG.

But you're right. It's easy to say nope to crap, but what about awesome work by asshats?

I've thought about it and I know I'd buy it. I love Polanski movies. If the dude makes another flick, he's got my dollar and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did the nasty with a minor back in the day and that wasn't his only creepy underage sexy time. But I think the dude is a genius of film.

I've wondered about what would happen if Iron Maiden was caught eating babies. What would I do with my dozen Maiden shirts? I know myself and I'd not deny myself what I enjoy, regardless if people freaked the fuck out about it. To me, my enjoyment of something trumps pretty much any other concern.

Fuck it. Up the Irons! Eat the tasty babies!

That's the thing. FATAL would never have been anything more than a nasty wank fantasy tucked away on the website of some university's Faculty of Philosophy (really!) if RPGNet didn't latch onto it as the Great Outrage of Gaming. Same with MYFAROG, which lives on for the one and only reason that Varg is Internet-infamous. That's fairly easy stuff.

I also love The Fearless Vampire Killers, a Polanski movie. I also think he is a monster who should have been put away in the 1970s to serve his time. Unfortunately, my favourite film director, Fritz Lang, was a Harvey Weinstein-level dirtbag and all around bad man. And also a genius filmmaker. There are easy answers here, but I don't think they are good ones.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1059491Sexuality (of any flavor) is never a shield against questioning or criticism.

Kinda the whole point of equality.




All the -ists are dead.




There's a 1000 of D&D heartbreakers on DriveThruRPG and without Varg's name and all the free publicity the imbeciles give him, nobody would have known about MYFROG.

But you're right. It's easy to say nope to crap, but what about awesome work by asshats?

I've thought about it and I know I'd buy it. I love Polanski movies. If the dude makes another flick, he's got my dollar and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did the nasty with a minor back in the day and that wasn't his only creepy underage sexy time. But I think the dude is a genius of film.

I've wondered about what would happen if Iron Maiden was caught eating babies. What would I do with my dozen Maiden shirts? I know myself and I'd not deny myself what I enjoy, regardless if people freaked the fuck out about it. To me, my enjoyment of something trumps pretty much any other concern.

Fuck it. Up the Irons! Eat the tasty babies!

Greetings!

You know, Spinachcat, your post made me laugh. UP THE IRONS!!!! (I confess. I'm a long-time fan of Iron Maiden. I've seen them in concert numerous times; I have most of their albums. I got the T-shirt, too bro. LOL)

But, your commentary reminds me of something I learned when I was in college, with my literature class. The huge revelation?

About 80% or more of all of your artistic folks--artists, painters, authors, poets, actors, musicians, whatever--are in some way, fucked up. In what I've read and discussed with my professor, many of them have weird sexual kinks; they're gay or lesbian; they're polygamists, into "polyamoury" group orgies, incest, underage sex, dungeon sex, and on and on. Many of them have weird political ideas; ferocious religious views--both for religion, authoritarian types, as well as anti-religion, free-love hippies. Economically, they are all over the map, too. Oh, and lots of smoking, alcohol, and drugs, as well. Disfunctional fucked up childhoods, disasterous marriages, abortions, kids out of wedlock. The drama train is all over the place.

I asked my professor why all of these brilliant people--these great artists that have given society so much--why are so many of them fucked up with so many problems? He said to me,

"That's a very good observation. It is true. Many artists of all kinds throughout the years have been plagued with numerous problems, relationships, religion, alcohol, drugs, and many more. It's a tragedy, for sure. I suspect that it has something to do with exactly that drama, that pain, that struggle with whatever demons they have suffered from in their lives, it is that struggle that has inspired within them, with their artistic passion, as an expression and a pursuit that helps them in some way in dealing with their lives of struggle and tragedy."

So, right or left, don't be surprised that any artist--even the best and most noble--is somehow at least partially driven by some kind of pain and drama in their lives.

The worst ones? Yeah, expect a lot of them to be deep freaks of one flavour or another. lol.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

For me, the line has been just ripping off their customers.  There are a few things from Adamant Entertainment I'd pick up in pdf, but not until Far West shows up (knowing full well that may be never).  There's some old Palladium stuff I'd like to go back to (ya, I know), but I just can't with the way they've completely scammed people on the Robotech Kickstarter.  I wasn't even in on that one.

I guess if someone got to the point of legitimately calling for violence because of someone's religion/politics/lifestyle, that would do it.  Apart from this Varg guy, I haven't seen that yet.

Quote from: Melan;1059495That's the thing. FATAL would never have been anything more than a nasty wank fantasy tucked away on the website of some university's Faculty of Philosophy (really!) if RPGNet didn't latch onto it as the Great Outrage of Gaming. Same with MYFAROG, which lives on for the one and only reason that Varg is Internet-infamous. That's fairly easy stuff.

It is completely incomprehensible to me that people were upset by FATAL. It's the funniest thing to ever happen on the internet, and what makes it even funnier is the guy who made it was serious.

Quote from: SHARK;1059506About 80% or more of all of your artistic folks--artists, painters, authors, poets, actors, musicians, whatever--are in some way, fucked up. In what I've read and discussed with my professor, many of them have weird sexual kinks; they're gay or lesbian; they're polygamists, into "polyamoury" group orgies, incest, underage sex, dungeon sex, and on and on. Many of them have weird political ideas; ferocious religious views--both for religion, authoritarian types, as well as anti-religion, free-love hippies. Economically, they are all over the map, too. Oh, and lots of smoking, alcohol, and drugs, as well. Disfunctional fucked up childhoods, disasterous marriages, abortions, kids out of wedlock. The drama train is all over the place.

A large fraction of everyone is fucked up in some way when you dig down - though they don't always wear it on their sleeve. More, I don't agree that many of these really qualify as being fucked up. For example, smoking, drinking, or being gay or lesbian - or strong religious views...  None of those are being fucked up - they're generally part of normal, healthy lives.

Getting past made-up statistics, there are some studies that top artists in their field have a higher rate of mood disorders and suicide - but that's often based on very limited statistics of a few hundred celebrities. People at the top of their field are often highly driven and under tremendous pressure, and can have a higher rate of suicide - regardless of what field it is. When looking at a higher statistics sample, recent studies suggest that creative people are more often related to those with schizophrenia and, bipolar disorder, and anorexia nervosa - but don't have mental illness themselves.

cf. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-real-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness/

Quote from: jhkim;1059543A large fraction of everyone is fucked up in some way when you dig down - though they don't always wear it on their sleeve. More, I don't agree that many of these really qualify as being fucked up. For example, smoking, drinking, or being gay or lesbian - or strong religious views...  None of those are being fucked up - they're generally part of normal, healthy lives.

Getting past made-up statistics, there are some studies that top artists in their field have a higher rate of mood disorders and suicide - but that's often based on very limited statistics of a few hundred celebrities. People at the top of their field are often highly driven and under tremendous pressure, and can have a higher rate of suicide - regardless of what field it is. When looking at a higher statistics sample, recent studies suggest that creative people are more often related to those with schizophrenia and, bipolar disorder, and anorexia nervosa - but don't have mental illness themselves.

cf. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-real-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness/

Greetings!

Perhaps I should have been more specific. Across time--many of these characteristics were considered strange or aberrant to one degree or another. Depending on the society and the time frame of course. Women smoking cigarettes for example; people smoking weed; different artists being gay or lesbian in the 1700 or 1800's; holding unusual religious or political views during *their* time, that kind of thing. In the many examples I was thinking of--so many of them did not seem to just have a normal, happy life. I was struck by the numerous pathologies and trauma which so many seemed to grapple with. Also including things like suicide and insanity, as well. That was my point. Their lives seemed to have far more trauma and problems--of whatever kind--than normal, "non-artistic" types.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1059523It is completely incomprehensible to me that people were upset by FATAL. It's the funniest thing to ever happen on the internet, and what makes it even funnier is the guy who made it was serious.

Not only was he serious, he seemed slightly dismayed that people didn't understand that he was serious.  Rather like "John Norman" did about his Gor novels.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1059662Not only was he serious, he seemed slightly dismayed that people didn't understand that he was serious.  Rather like "John Norman" did about his Gor novels.

I feel like you've got to be about as dumb as a bag of hammers, or socialize with the most unhumorous bunch of church ladies this side of Prohibition, if you didn't bust a gut laughing when you first heard the words, "Anal circumference table."

Quote from: jhkimA large fraction of everyone is fucked up in some way when you dig down - though they don't always wear it on their sleeve. More, I don't agree that many of these really qualify as being fucked up. For example, smoking, drinking, or being gay or lesbian - or strong religious views... None of those are being fucked up - they're generally part of normal, healthy lives.

Quote from: SHARK;1059555Perhaps I should have been more specific. Across time--many of these characteristics were considered strange or aberrant to one degree or another. Depending on the society and the time frame of course. Women smoking cigarettes for example; people smoking weed; different artists being gay or lesbian in the 1700 or 1800's; holding unusual religious or political views during *their* time, that kind of thing. In the many examples I was thinking of--so many of them did not seem to just have a normal, happy life. I was struck by the numerous pathologies and trauma which so many seemed to grapple with. Also including things like suicide and insanity, as well. That was my point. Their lives seemed to have far more trauma and problems--of whatever kind--than normal, "non-artistic" types.

I suspect there is a perception bias in that people with ordinary, happy lives don't sell biographies as well. Further, I think both in history and today, normal lives often aren't happy. Particularly once you get outside of plutocrats and kings, many people in history have a lot of trauma and problems. I'm not sure that artists have had more trauma - versus their stories of trauma being told more.

In any case, regarding modern-day RPG writers, my impression is that they aren't especially problem-laden or trauma-filled, except for being poor - since writing RPGs isn't very lucrative.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1059665I feel like you've got to be about as dumb as a bag of hammers, or socialize with the most humorous bunch of church ladies this side of Prohibition, if you didn't bust a gut laughing when you first heard the words, "Anal circumference table."

It's long disappeared from the internet, and my copy was about three computers ago, but back in the old days of rpg.net some guy put out "A Man And His Pet Flea Spot" which was not, as you might have expected, an rpg about pets or fleas. Its cover page was a crude line drawing of the back of a guy with his pants down looking at some giant breasts, jerking off and ejaculating all over them. It was about a dozen pages, and all I remember of the rules was the authour saying, "the funniest things in the world are Nazis, midgets, and anal rape, so every adventure must include at least one of those three, ideally in every campaign there'll be at least one scene where the PCs are being anally raped by Nazi midgets."

Basically it was FATAL Lite, though the authour seemed not to be taking himself seriously. I say that if you really have to make your rpg offensive, at least do it with a low page count.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1059665I feel like you've got to be about as dumb as a bag of hammers, or socialize with the most humorous bunch of church ladies this side of Prohibition, if you didn't bust a gut laughing when you first heard the words, "Anal circumference table."

Whereas I feel like anyone who finds that humorous has to be at least somewhat socially maladjusted.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1059679It's long disappeared from the internet, and my copy was about three computers ago, but back in the old days of rpg.net some guy put out "A Man And His Pet Flea Spot" which was not, as you might have expected, an rpg about pets or fleas. Its cover page was a crude line drawing of the back of a guy with his pants down looking at some giant breasts, jerking off and ejaculating all over them. It was about a dozen pages, and all I remember of the rules was the authour saying, "the funniest things in the world are Nazis, midgets, and anal rape, so every adventure must include at least one of those three, ideally in every campaign there'll be at least one scene where the PCs are being anally raped by Nazi midgets."

Basically it was FATAL Lite, though the authour seemed not to be taking himself seriously. I say that if you really have to make your rpg offensive, at least do it with a low page count.

Yeah, see, that's not funny. FATAL is funny because the author was a self-humiliating lolcow who was dead serious about the whole thing. It's not funny as a 12-page joke RPG. It's funny as a >1000-page serious RPG by a clueless goober who can't understand why nobody wants to play it.

If a guy locked himself in his basement for two years to write the most comprehensive work of philosophy of all time, and he came out, bearded, haggard, and half-starved, with a 500-page treatise about his dick, would you be offended that someone wrote 500 pages about his dick? I mean, I guess some people would be. Me, I'd laugh when it happened, and I'd laugh every time I told somebody else about it, and I'd laugh every time I remembered how some idiot locked himself in his basement and actually thought a 500-page book about his dick would solve mankind's problems.

That's what FATAL is.

Edit: Except FATAL is over a thousand pages. :D :D :D

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1059689Yeah, see, that's not funny.

You don't think the "bring out the gimp" scene in Pulp Fiction would be funnier if the gimp were a Nazi midget?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1059718You don't think the "bring out the gimp" scene in Pulp Fiction would be funnier if the gimp were a Nazi midget?

I thought it was funny anyway.

I'm not a particularly good person though.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1059718You don't think the "bring out the gimp" scene in Pulp Fiction would be funnier if the gimp were a Nazi midget?

Sure. But not funny the way The Room is funny. FATAL is funny the way The Room is funny. Would The Room be funnier with a Nazi midget? Maybe. But only if it was clear that Tommy Wiseau was not trying to be funny by putting one in there.

Quote from: Joey2k;1059681Whereas I feel like anyone who finds that humorous has to be at least somewhat socially maladjusted.

Depends on the society they want to keep.

I didn't find FATAL funny, just... bizarre.  I mean, it's basically a bog-standard hyper-detailed RPG... that also has things like an anal circumference table because detailed rape is important (and omnipresent) in the game.  "Magical kingdom" doesn't begin to describe this puppy.  

But people finding the awkwardly unsettling funny isn't new.  "Shock comedy" thrives on it, and lots of people love (and lots more hate it).  That this was meant to be taken as a serious (or if you prefer, "historically accurate") gaming experience just adds to the shock comedy value.  But since the comedy is unintentional, people are very much laughing "at" and not "with", and that just opens the target for more abuse.

Quote from: Joey2k;1059681Whereas I feel like anyone who finds that humorous has to be at least somewhat socially maladjusted.

As I wear "toxic sociopath" as a badge of honor so I can confirm Joey2k's right! :eek:

Dark comedy (like laughing at FATAL or Anthony Jeselnik jokes) isn't for everyone and it does draw a certain audience.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1059777As I wear "toxic sociopath" as a badge of honor so I can confirm Joey2k's right! :eek:

Dark comedy (like laughing at FATAL or Anthony Jeselnik jokes) isn't for everyone and it does draw a certain audience.

As long as we're on the same page :D

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1058958You might want to look at the very next video in his queue. He is using D&D and roleplaying as vessels to promote racist ideas (and not racist in vague sense, but in the Nazi sense). And his game is also an expression of those ideas.

Yeah. Vikernes is an absolute piece of shit. And his game is an openly racist game. And in the old-fashion real sense of what that word used to mean before the SJWs reduced it to meaninglessness.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1058969Like when Pundit is so desperately flailing for attention that he attacks a gay DM who teaches at an all girls school who runs an all girls (8-11) game at said school... and the gay DM teacher has had zero communication with Pundit: https://twitter.com/kasimirurbanski/status/1047988621859536897?s=21

Does that qualify?

Don't be an ass. I didn't 'attack' anyone. The first thing I asked was whether he taught at a girl's school, and he refused to answer.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1059012Are you trolling? The chain shows him asking if boys were being excluded not that he was attacking him for being gay.

I think the answer to your first question is totally obvious.