Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 20, 2023, 01:18:42 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 01:07:06 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 20, 2023, 01:03:51 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 12:48:42 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 20, 2023, 11:44:18 AM
I'm just going to use he just to piss people off.

This is the way.

Whenever anyone tells you that you must do x and y in an elf game always do the opposite. Fook 'em.

Exactly.

Naw, sometimes do the opposite, sometimes do the same, sometimes go off into left field.  Try to always do what you would have done anyway, had they not said anything.  On the negative side, you'll have instance where they think you are caving.  To offset that, though, when you do go opposite, the results are spectacular.

I thought the "Do what you want" was implicit.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 01:29:48 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 20, 2023, 01:18:42 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 01:07:06 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 20, 2023, 01:03:51 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 12:48:42 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 20, 2023, 11:44:18 AM
I'm just going to use he just to piss people off.

This is the way.

Whenever anyone tells you that you must do x and y in an elf game always do the opposite. Fook 'em.

Exactly.

Naw, sometimes do the opposite, sometimes do the same, sometimes go off into left field.  Try to always do what you would have done anyway, had they not said anything.  On the negative side, you'll have instance where they think you are caving.  To offset that, though, when you do go opposite, the results are spectacular.

I thought the "Do what you want" was implicit.

You might be surprised at the number of people who will do something they don't want to do because someone told them not to.  Supposed adults, even.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 12:47:54 PM


If I tell you that to be inclusive the GM will be referred as she and the player as he it doesn't make the SHE pronoun gender neutral, it makes me a pussy.

It's possible someone might do that out of political reasons, although it's more likely for them to go just all in and use she as the default pronoun. Using she for GM and he for player (or vice versa) makes it convenient that any time you read she you know it refers to the GM and he to the player.

Quote
Yes, SOME people started using the singular they to feel like the most special of snowflakes. Now, for a neologism or to resurrect an archaic idiom it needs to be in use by most for a long period of time.

You're wrong. It never stopped being used. It has been in use by everyone for centuries. You had to be educated to pick up the boneheaded idea of a gender neutral 'he'. And even then most great writers didn't take it on. Gender neutral he was the artificial creation that has always been forced on people and despite that never took off. Because everyone realises how stupid it is, some people just lack the balls to tell people to fuck off when they said it should be he.

Quote from: migo on January 20, 2023, 02:15:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 12:47:54 PM


If I tell you that to be inclusive the GM will be referred as she and the player as he it doesn't make the SHE pronoun gender neutral, it makes me a pussy.

It's possible someone might do that out of political reasons, although it's more likely for them to go just all in and use she as the default pronoun. Using she for GM and he for player (or vice versa) makes it convenient that any time you read she you know it refers to the GM and he to the player.

Quote
Yes, SOME people started using the singular they to feel like the most special of snowflakes. Now, for a neologism or to resurrect an archaic idiom it needs to be in use by most for a long period of time.

You're wrong. It never stopped being used. It has been in use by everyone for centuries. You had to be educated to pick up the boneheaded idea of a gender neutral 'he'. And even then most great writers didn't take it on. Gender neutral he was the artificial creation that has always been forced on people and despite that never took off. Because everyone realises how stupid it is, some people just lack the balls to tell people to fuck off when they said it should be he.

I'm not saying it doesn't make it clear, I'm saying she isn't gender neutral because I have to tell you WHY I'm using it.

There's no MAYBE regarding the politics of WHY it was used.

So anybody that went to elementary school on English speaking countries? That makes the vast majority doesn't use it despite your claims. Add to that all of the people that took English as second/third/etc language...

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 12:47:54 PM
If I tell you that to be inclusive the GM will be referred as she and the player as he it doesn't make the SHE pronoun gender neutral, it makes me a pussy.

I've seen that usage but never justified as inclusive. I've seen it justified as easier to understand but making pronoun antecedent clearer for player and GM.

I'm not sure it is very useful, but it seemed to be a minor help.

It might have been a smoke screen to cover inclusion but it was over a decade ago and mixed between companies since openly woke and companies not. Unless otherwise indicated I'll those authors in the second category at least at their word.

Quote from: PulpHerb on January 20, 2023, 03:33:57 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 12:47:54 PM
If I tell you that to be inclusive the GM will be referred as she and the player as he it doesn't make the SHE pronoun gender neutral, it makes me a pussy.

I've seen that usage but never justified as inclusive. I've seen it justified as easier to understand but making pronoun antecedent clearer for player and GM.

I'm not sure it is very useful, but it seemed to be a minor help.

It might have been a smoke screen to cover inclusion but it was over a decade ago and mixed between companies since openly woke and companies not. Unless otherwise indicated I'll those authors in the second category at least at their word.

He for player and she for GM (or the opposite) can work well for text that is primarily a technical reference.  It's slightly more readable than saying "the GM" or "the player" over and over.  Whether a given section of rules should be written primarily as a technical reference is another question.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 19, 2023, 06:34:34 PM
And second-person with the occasional royal "we" when referring to myself as the author in the text (ex. In an explanatory sidebar "we designed this element to allow you...") avoids all these headaches.

It's also the grammatically correct form for addressing an audience, like the readers of a rulebook (the "royal we" isn't, but with all the playtester feedback that shaped the end result, I almost feel that I should be using first person plural anyway and saying its a "royal we" both splits the difference and is mildly amusing).

"Editorial we", is THE grammatically correct choice when it comes to TTRPG rulebooks.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 03:44:28 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2023, 03:00:29 AM
What are you citing here? I have heard some teachers declare such a rule, but it goes against actual usage by talented authors. Some examples:

Jane Austen, Emma: "Who is in love with her? Who makes you their confidant?"

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey: "if I do not know any body, it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I do not want to talk to anybody."

Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad: "I always ask everybody what ship they came over in."

Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass: "But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?"

Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force: "Every one realised afterwards how obvious this was and wondered they had not thought of it before."

George Eliot, Middlemarch: "The fact is, I never loved any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them."

C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "Still, she kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as everybody ought to do who falls into deep water in their clothes."

So classic writers throughout the 19th and 20th century has lots of examples of singular they.

Look! Writers use a long not used by anyone else form of language! This disproves the evolution of the same!

Yes, writers in spanish speaking countries also sometimes use obscure words or forms of words long fallen in disuse by the plebs.

It's completely the opposite. Mark Twain didn't use obscure words. He was famous for using vernacular as people actually talked, rather than the formal writing of other authors. The same goes for children's authors like Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis. All of these were popular authors who wrote the way that people talked.

The rule of gender-neutral "he" has been pushed by English teachers, but singular "they" has always persisted in conversational English. Native speakers reading the examples above don't see it as a flaw.

In historical practice, "he" was often used for predominantly-male (but sometimes female) positions like doctors, lawyers, or police -- but it was never used for predominantly-female (but sometimes male) positions like nurses, kindergarten teachers, or single caregivers. Hence, it was never really gender neutral.

You're arguing for obeying authority, and getting offended at people who ignore authority. But language is democratic in a way. People speak the way they speak, and if communication works, then it gets adopted.

"They" has been ruined by the freaks, marxists and those who bow to them.

Thus, just make your game read as you feel best gets across what you are trying to say using your own authorial voice. Proper grammar is less important than the text being clear and flavored by your voice.

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2023, 07:00:02 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 03:44:28 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2023, 03:00:29 AM
What are you citing here? I have heard some teachers declare such a rule, but it goes against actual usage by talented authors. Some examples:

Jane Austen, Emma: "Who is in love with her? Who makes you their confidant?"

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey: "if I do not know any body, it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I do not want to talk to anybody."

Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad: "I always ask everybody what ship they came over in."

Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass: "But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?"

Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force: "Every one realised afterwards how obvious this was and wondered they had not thought of it before."

George Eliot, Middlemarch: "The fact is, I never loved any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them."

C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "Still, she kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as everybody ought to do who falls into deep water in their clothes."

So classic writers throughout the 19th and 20th century has lots of examples of singular they.

Look! Writers use a long not used by anyone else form of language! This disproves the evolution of the same!

Yes, writers in spanish speaking countries also sometimes use obscure words or forms of words long fallen in disuse by the plebs.

It's completely the opposite. Mark Twain didn't use obscure words. He was famous for using vernacular as people actually talked, rather than the formal writing of other authors. The same goes for children's authors like Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis. All of these were popular authors who wrote the way that people talked.

The rule of gender-neutral "he" has been pushed by English teachers, but singular "they" has always persisted in conversational English. Native speakers reading the examples above don't see it as a flaw.

In historical practice, "he" was often used for predominantly-male (but sometimes female) positions like doctors, lawyers, or police -- but it was never used for predominantly-female (but sometimes male) positions like nurses, kindergarten teachers, or single caregivers. Hence, it was never really gender neutral.

You're arguing for obeying authority, and getting offended at people who ignore authority. But language is democratic in a way. People speak the way they speak, and if communication works, then it gets adopted.

A hundred+ years ago someone wrote using they as singular... Ergo language doesn't evolve, see your last point.

Teachers are there to teach, I doubt they all got together in a conspiracy to drop they as singular, but maybe you do. Funny you're against this but not against teaching CRT in schools.

No shit Sherlock!? Are you telling me that when speaking of people on a male dominated field people used he and if it was a female dominated field they used she? Well who da thunk it!

Language HAS TO be prescriptive, otherwise words have no meaning and we can't understand each other. It's why there's a Spanish Academy that says when words can go into the dictionary, not sure if english has the same.

Yes, I have said that language evolves, hence my point that it evolved outside the singular they as proven by textbooks all around the world BEFORE the woke takeover.

MarkS78 writes in basicfantasy.org thread page 162:

Quote
I think it was a fine way to phrase it at the time, but I think we now have language that's both more inclusive and at the same time more intuitive and handy. I personally know many people who use they/them prnouns [sic], I also do if that matters, and think this would be a very good change and a great way to include more people.

MarkS 78 is an idiot.

I use "him or her" sometimes in my RPG, not to make a statement, but to be 80s (it's an 80s RPG with an 80s feel) and to be  grammatically correct.  "They" to refer to a singular person is not, and slashed pronouns are ideologically based rather than neutral.  As a potentially green company, I will never used slashed pronouns, even if I was NOT trying to give the game an '80s feel.  they/them is not only unacceptable writing, it's a profession of one's denial of basic biological facts.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on January 21, 2023, 12:17:22 AM
MarkS78 writes in basicfantasy.org thread page 162:

Quote
I think it was a fine way to phrase it at the time, but I think we now have language that's both more inclusive and at the same time more intuitive and handy. I personally know many people who use they/them prnouns [sic], I also do if that matters, and think this would be a very good change and a great way to include more people.

MarkS 78 is an idiot.

I use "him or her" sometimes in my RPG, not to make a statement, but to be 80s (it's an 80s RPG with an 80s feel) and to be  grammatically correct.  "They" to refer to a singular person is not, and slashed pronouns are ideologically based rather than neutral.  As a potentially green company, I will never used slashed pronouns, even if I was NOT trying to give the game an '80s feel.  they/them is not only unacceptable writing, it's a profession of one's denial of basic biological facts.

Exactly, it's the bending of the knee to worship at the cults altar. I only kneel before God and my King (The Spanish one).

There seems to be a bit of a US English v UK English difference. I think in UK it's always been pretty normal to use they for singular person of unknown gender. I think this is very different from attempting to use they for a singular person of known gender. I remember trying to work out how to write a sentence on the OGL 1.1 leak referring to Linda Codega as 'they', as per woke demands. It came out incomprehensible gibberish.

Quote from: S'mon on January 21, 2023, 02:30:56 AM
There seems to be a bit of a US English v UK English difference. I think in UK it's always been pretty normal to use they for singular person of unknown gender. I think this is very different from attempting to use they for a singular person of known gender.

Thanks, S'mon. The topic from the original post is use within the Basic Fantasy RPG for persons of unknown gender. I gave a real example before from the lite BFRPG rules:

When a character is injured, he or she loses hit points from his or her current total.

which will presumably be changed to:

When a character is injured, they lose hit points from their current total.

I think the bottom reads fine in US English, just as well as in UK English.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 08:04:48 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2023, 07:00:02 PM
The rule of gender-neutral "he" has been pushed by English teachers, but singular "they" has always persisted in conversational English. Native speakers reading the examples above don't see it as a flaw.

Language HAS TO be prescriptive, otherwise words have no meaning and we can't understand each other. It's why there's a Spanish Academy that says when words can go into the dictionary, not sure if english has the same.

No, English doesn't have a language academy. Many governments like Spain have language academies to try to enforce their official version of the language, but those aren't necessary. Also, there are many Spanish-speaking countries where the language is spoken differently than Spaniards. Many but not all of these joined into an association in 1951, the ASALE. Neither the UK or the US has ever had a government language academy, and there are many regional differences between speech in Canada, Australia, US, UK, etc.

Language always has rules, but they can be formed by usage rather than imposed by the government. There are a number of supposed rules taught by English teachers that aren't actually followed even by educated people, and insisting on them confuses rather than simplifies. Here's an article on it as an example:

https://linguisticsgirl.com/prescriptive-grammar-rules/

As S'mon said, using "they" for a person of unknown gender has always been normal for English, and people have always said it as well as popular authors writing it. There are some teacher who insist that it isn't correct, but it's similar to insisting that "10 items or less" is incorrect.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 20, 2023, 08:04:48 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 20, 2023, 07:00:02 PM
In historical practice, "he" was often used for predominantly-male (but sometimes female) positions like doctors, lawyers, or police -- but it was never used for predominantly-female (but sometimes male) positions like nurses, kindergarten teachers, or single caregivers. Hence, it was never really gender neutral.

No shit Sherlock!? Are you telling me that when speaking of people on a male dominated field people used he and if it was a female dominated field they used she? Well who da thunk it!

That's exactly my point. Using "he" implies male, while using "she" implies female. This is in contradiction to the prescriptivist claim that "he" is the correct gender-neutral pronoun to use, which works as a gender-neutral term without implying that the person is male.

Quote from: jhkim on January 21, 2023, 03:24:15 AM

Quote from: S'mon on January 21, 2023, 02:30:56 AM
There seems to be a bit of a US English v UK English difference. I think in UK it's always been pretty normal to use they for singular person of unknown gender. I think this is very different from attempting to use they for a singular person of known gender.

Thanks, S'mon. The topic from the original post is use within the Basic Fantasy RPG for persons of unknown gender. I gave a real example before from the lite BFRPG rules:

When a character is injured, he or she loses hit points from his or her current total.

which will presumably be changed to:

When a character is injured, they lose hit points from their current total.

I think the bottom reads fine in US English, just as well as in UK English.

It reads ok to me in UK English.

When talking about a Corporation taking action, I'd tend to use 'they' and 'their' likewise, although the Corporations are singular entities, rather than 'it' and 'its'.

My view on BFRPG is that clearly the author is on the left, and is annoyed by people on the right, and so chose to annoy them back. I think if he'd just used 'they' without comment, most people would not have noticed. My impression is that he's on the mainstream left, not the radical left. While I find the whole thing a bit silly and irritating, I have plenty of left wing friends and I'm well used to tolerating them!  And they generally tolerate me back!