Quote from: Mistwell;1038784This does not sound rational to me. I've lived on the West Coast all my life, except for a brief stint when I was ages 1-3. There is no gay police here that patrols your works and makes sure gay people are portrayed in them. Nobody is destroyed if you just don't mention sexuality, or if you only mention heterosexuality. Whatever boogeyman you imagine exists out here, I assure you it's badly exaggerated by whatever entertainment media you've been consuming that apparently poses as factual.

Hush, you're contradicting the "EEEBUL SJW GAYGAYGAYGAY AGENDA" narrative this place clings to with the fervency of a dachshund humping your leg.

Quote from: John Scott;1038741I have no desire to offend anyone f I did then I apologize, the reason I made the comment you see is that I have many personal "horror stories" with gay people (most older than me) hitting on me, some are quite comical. (at least from my perspective) No drama here, we are grown up but they where not "emotionaly" very stable.

Start a #METOO style movement and get them thrown out of their jobs and made unemployable.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1038802Hush, you're contradicting the "EEEBUL SJW GAYGAYGAYGAY AGENDA" narrative this place clings to with the fervency of a dachshund humping your leg.

I agree that this is a narrative that is largely independent from reality: phrases like "gay agenda" and "Cultural Marxsim" are usually more revealing about the person using these terms than what they are describing. That being said, let's not pretend that people on all sides of the political spectrum(s) are not allowing their political beliefs to enter their discourse when discussing gaming or even, for that matter, the writing of gaming material. That's at best naive or at worst disingenuous.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1038785Actually I disagree.  Tabula Rasa stat blocks aren't as useful as fleshed out NPCs.
A tabula rasa stat block I have to fill in - always.
A fleshed out NPC I may have to fill in - only if I don't like what they gave me.

By definition, a fleshed out NPC would be of more utility since simple averages would mean some of them you use as is.

I don't like Rufus & Burne banging each other, I can make them friends, brothers, mentor and student, master and servant, business partners who can't stand each other "off the clock" or anything else I can think of.

OK, I can grok where you are coming from with this. I think that our disagreement is based on personal taste. I prefer there to be some blanks in the information given in a paid product that
allow me to fill in and customize while you prefer there to be fully fleshed out information.

(I'm also now wondering if it is a product of our age because I was remembering why I bought the module - it had hit that sweet spot of information for price. When I first bought Village of Hommlet as a teenager, I had more money than time and now as as a late middle aged adult I have more money than time.)

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1038788I see nothing wrong with building in motivations for NPCs and/or flavor text. The only issue I could see is the reason for doing it. If it was to add to the story or something along those lines, then great. If it is simply virtue signaling, then we have an issue. Folks should tell their stories with their characters and not feel obligated to check box down the list (gay character(s), person of color, etc).

Tell a good story, great. Pander, no so great.

OK, I understand this as well, but how do you determine if it is pandering or not?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1038792It's introducing the two NPCs as a heterosexual couple.

It's different from introducing Queen and her wife the Duchess which would be NPCs introduced as a homosexual couple.

The NPCs may or may not engage in sex, but they do have relationships defined by sexuality.

But it's not "sexual content". It's about as absurd as claiming any TV show, no matter how tame, is sexual in nature if it has folks in it who are married.

QuoteWhy not?

Let's say Paizo publishes the best adventure ever next week and every NPC is non-white and non-hetero, except for the villains who are Redneck Christian Honky Orcs. The entire adventure is a SJW wankfest, but its an amazing adventure and everybody in the hobby wants to run it for their group.

What stops anyone from changing the NPCs to whatever they want?

I don't see this as a worthwhile battle. Modern culture is pro-LGBT & POC inclusion in entertainment, thus we can't expect major publishers to ignore that trend when trying to sell books to the buying public. At best, a smart publisher will make the effort to avoid tokenism and virtue signalling, but I am not holding my breath.

Yet again more reasons to write your own stuff for your own table. Only individual GMs know the political flavor of their table and what works best for the entertainment of those actually seated at the table.

You could get away with your example but reverse it and you have a shit-storm of outrage.

But I think you misunderstood the point.

"According to jhkim no one should be bothered by the orientations of NPCs in a book because no one can force you to play the game a certain way. He kinda of keeps going to that well. But, he is being intellectually dishonest. If a game was written without non-hetro couples, it would be a problem to him. The whole argument of change the game how ever you like (including adding in non-hetro relationships) falls away and is no longer a legitimate "argument"."

His claim is that inclusion of non-hertro couples is no biggie as the GM/Players can change whatever they want/need to as they desire. My point is, the same logic applied to not including non-hetro couples should be no biggie as players and GMs can change what they want (including adding in non-hetro couples) would not be supported by him and others of the outrage brigade.

Quote from: jeff37923;1038821OK, I understand this as well, but how do you determine if it is pandering or not?

If they have to tell you they're doing it they're probably pandering.

Quote from: Mistwell;1038784This does not sound rational to me. I've lived on the West Coast all my life, except for a brief stint when I was ages 1-3. There is no gay police here that patrols your works and makes sure gay people are portrayed in them. Nobody is destroyed if you just don't mention sexuality, or if you only mention heterosexuality. Whatever boogeyman you imagine exists out here, I assure you it's badly exaggerated by whatever entertainment media you've been consuming that apparently poses as factual.

Strawman.  I didn't say legally, I said professionally.  If you don't toe the line, you will be doxed, you're place of work notified and you will be shamed over whatever crime you committed.  And you can find all the lurid details just by doing a search on the interwebs.

If we go back to the original thread--one thing that disappoints me is that ENWorld, being as big as it is and representing a lot of D&D, can be more neutral in tone.  I think by Morrus actually deciding that the terms "Social Justice Warrior" and virtue signalling to be insults and verbotten words is the strongest condemnation of where it's being taken.  

Morrus wants writers, correct.  Well, like any big newspaper we should have different columnists with different opinions.  Imagine if they allowed somebody more conservative or at least with different political leanings to have a column.  Take a columnist who's a little more "old school" (liking only 1e/oD&D era), or a columnist with other ideas like the type of post Grim put in earlier.  

I mean, considering the size of the audience its a big site, it should reflect more views.   (See the link indicating their traffic patterns).

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?5201-Thank-You!-EN-World-Still-Growing-After-20-Years!#comments

I may have lost my rag on him a little.
[video=youtube;xHhMw2Q8QN4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHhMw2Q8QN4[/youtube]

"Enemy of Progress", eh? Congratulations! :cool:

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1038813I agree that this is a narrative that is largely independent from reality: phrases like "gay agenda" and "Cultural Marxsim" are usually more revealing about the person using these terms than what they are describing. That being said, let's not pretend that people on all sides of the political spectrum(s) are not allowing their political beliefs to enter their discourse when discussing gaming or even, for that matter, the writing of gaming material. That's at best naive or at worst disingenuous.

It's a spectrum, and this place is leaping into the abyss of one extreme.  The Mirror Universe version of insisting that orcs are actually black people.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1038870It's a spectrum, and this place is leaping into the abyss of one extreme.  The Mirror Universe version of insisting that orcs are actually black people.

The difference here is that, for the most part*, dissent is allowed. Try telling someone on TBP that one of their sacred cows (Look 'em up on the rules) is wrong. That's a bannable offense over there. Hell, I got red-texted for posting the opinion that women have certain advantages in society. *gasp*

*I know some people will argue that point. Pundit has always been a hot-head. *shrug* Sometimes he's right.

People who insist Orcs are black people exist in places other than RPGnet.

At best, that place is a cautionary tale no matter what your politics may be.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1038870It's a spectrum, and this place is leaping into the abyss of one extreme.  The Mirror Universe version of insisting that orcs are actually black people.

The Mirror Universe version of people insisting that orcs are black people is guys like you and me playing D&D and treating orcs as just normal humanoid monsters to kill for XP in a role-playing game.

I checked out GRIM's video. And frankly, the ecxerpts with Fannon make him come off as a huge hypocrite.

Fannon is not a progressive. He is a predator that uses the veneer of being progressive as a vehicle to continue finding victims to prey on.

Bear in mind. I knew Fannon face to face about 20 years ago. I got a front row seat at how he treated his wife of the time. As well as the bullying behavior he displayed toward me. And his absolute two-faced behavior toward others when they would leave the room.

And to those who pop up and say, "Oh that was 20 years ago!" People don't change unless they face real punishment and consequences for their unacceptable actions. Otherwise they don't progress as people.

Fannon is right about one thing. He's privileged. Which means he cannot relate to the concept of struggle within someone else's life.