Quote from: AsenRG;1039549Late to the party, but I want to note that no NPC relationships are clutter. Even if only because the PCs might murderhobo it, and the GM needs to know who will be after them;).

I enjoy details on relationships (familial, romantic, etc) as well as other details aside from basic stat blocks for similar reason. It both gives me a hook for the NPC in question and how that might react (so how the little side dramas PCs tend to drag with them will play out) but from a creative standpoint it makes the setting seem more fleshed out and 'real' which serves to get my creativity flowing when working with it.

Quote from: jeff37923;1039510If you had bothered to read the article about DragonCon, you would have read the sentence that says, "Kramer, who has not been involved with Atlanta's popular science fiction convention for many years". DragonCon booted Kramer out almost 20 years ago when this shit first happened.

Actually, they didn't boot him when it first happened. There was a huge controversy about that... The board at that time that ran the show tried to sweep it under the rug, and hide it. Just like you are doing now, so I'm going to go dig up the facts and leave them here for you to look at...

It wasn't until 2013 that the board stopped paying Ed Kramer, and finally got around to reorganizing the convention so he didn't have an ownership stake anymore... So, Ten Years after he was indicted by an Atlanta Grand Jury, who found probable cause to charge him with crimes, he's finally officially fired from DragonCon. This is a fact.
https://www.themarysue.com/dragoncon-separates-kramer/

Let's look at some more facts about this, shall we?

Behind the Boycott of DragonCon
http://deadline.com/2013/02/dragoncon-boycott-accused-pedophile-cofounder-jail-434071/

"Collins has long contended that annual DragonCon revenue windfalls have enabled Kramer's defense lawyers to delay trial indefinitely with an array of legal maneuvers. 'No matter what DragonCon does or says,' she wrote when calling for the boycott, "funds from the convention will continue to go to Edward Kramer until either he dies or the corporation that runs the convention dissolves and reincorporates under another name.' With Kramer's recent extradition, Collins believes now is the time to pressure DragonCon to finally take action to cut ties to Kramer."


So DragonCon, was, ...in fact, ...enabling and paying for child pedophelia. Because one of its founders was a significant stockholder on the board, and the rest of the board, up until the call for the boycott, backed him.  They would have continued supporting him too, but the entire show came into the public eye, because of the boycott.

DragonCon Issues statement on it's connection to Ed Kramer (2013)
https://www.cbr.com/dragoncon-issues-statement-on-its-connection-to-ed-kramer/

Note this was a full decade after a grand jury had been convened to investigate him, and they found enough evidence to ask the DA to file charges against him..

Here's an article from 2011 before he was actually convicted in a court of law...

https://pjmedia.com/blog/the-sicko-side-of-the-sci-fi-circuit/?singlepage=true

...About Mike Dillson, DragonCon's Operations and Security Director at the time. (Hopefully he isn't, right now....)

"It should be noted that Dillson didn't alert authorities. In fact, for more than a decade Dragon*Con participants, from the celebrity guests to his fellow founders, witnessed increasingly obvious predatory behavior from Kramer toward young boys. But instead of a scandal, Kramer's peculiarities became an inside joke:"


So he didn't operate in a vacuum, there were people around him that knew what was going on, but did nothing. That's conspiracy to commit the crime he was convicted of, by his own admission.

"There is no way the celebrities and performers who defended him all these years wouldn't have seen Kramer – a man who can't stay away from inappropriate situations while out on bail – indulging in his depravity. They all saw and said nothing because their success was more important than Ed Kramer's victims. The fantasy industry hid the ugly reality of what this man was up to because they needed him, and now that they don't they'll pledge their loyalty to the next Ed Kramer and cover up who knows what for him. All for greed and the promise of fame, which in the world of sci-fi fandom is the mother of all sins."

So yeah... no political controversy at all, because financial success, and being a minority corporate stockholder, is far more important than protecting the rights of young people.

Quote from: jhkim;1039524Haffrung - weren't you all about how game-world society should adhere to what historical medieval society was like?  

It seems strange to not feature NPCs prominently, but for it to be important how succession and repopulation works.

The social system is window dressing that serves to establish a sense of place. So it's important that it feel authentic. I don't go into the family backgrounds and romantic dramas of the innkeepers or lords. But in their scenes with the PCs, they should bear some resemblance to pre-modern humans in their appearance and demeanour, and not act like middle-class 21st century North Americans. If you have an openly gay couple running an inn, you may as well give the inn an espresso machine and free wi-fi.

Quote from: jhkim;1039524Also, you never answered my reply about how medieval society frequently featured monasteries and convents, which runs counter to your idea that everyone in the society had to be reproducing heterosexuals.

I never said everyone had to be reproducing heterosexuals. But you don't think normalized gay marriage among farmers would pose a serious threat to any feudal order, where the peasants are essentially animal labour who their lord needs to breed more farmers and soldiers? And of course aristocracy is about breeding, alliances, and inheritance. How could it not be?

Really, I don't like anything 17th century and later in my fantasy worlds. Pirates wearing tricorn hats in D&D drives me nuts. It ruins my sense of immersion. That's why I can't stand Paizo's settings and artwork - it's a kitchen-sink neverland, a pop-culture contrivance five steps removed from history or myth.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039570Actually, they didn't boot him when it first happened. There was a huge controversy about that... The board at that time that ran the show tried to sweep it under the rug, and hide it. Just like you are doing now, so I'm going to go dig up the facts and leave them here for you to look at...

Add to all that the fact that everyone "in the know" at DC had known for years, long before he was arrested, that Ed was a creep.  I was hearing rumors about that crap in '93 at the first DragonCon I went to.

Quote from: jeff37923;1039459He brings up an interesting point about conventions as a need for authors.

SciFi conventions, maybe, but not gaming conventions.  If I were going to Origins (which I can't due to aforementioned issues), I wouldn't really care who the Guest of Honor is unless they brought back Robert Heinlein or Issac Asimov back from the grave somehow.  If I'm going to all the trouble to travel to Origins, I'm not going to hang out and listen to a Guest of Honor, I'm going to play games.

Admittedly, if Larry was going to be running his Monster Hunter International game, I'd try to sign up for that, but then he's becoming a gaming guest, isn't he?

(Personally, I like some of what Larry does, but think he can be a bit of an asshole at times.  I did back the MHI kickstarter for Savage Worlds, and I've got a copy of the HERO game for MHI as well.  (Although I haven't read that book, because I haven't read that far in the books and don't want to spoil myself.  The Hero book was on clearance.))

Quote from: jhkim;1039480tenbones - a lot of this reads like some kind of academic paper with terms like ego-identification, hetero-normative, contextual, etc.  Could you give some examples of what you consider good handling of gay characters in adventures contrasted with bad handling?

As for your core contrast, you give two possibilities:

1) Someone is gay as part of adventure/story - such as if a seduction is a required goal.
2) Someone is gay to signal people with a wink.

A lot of people (me included) prefer more open-ended  / sandbox adventures - where there aren't specific goals required at all. So a character's sexuality might or might not be relevant, depending on what the PCs do.

 I said specifically that adventures are different than core systems (and settings). But when a designer is writing an adventure they're obviously free to do whatever they want. They can put whatever content they want into the adventure. But the act of putting any content whatsoever into an adventure defines the context of the setting. The problem isn't whether someone is gay or not, or has sex with sheep, or performs rituals to summon demons in their basement - but it speaks to the implications of how its presented to define what is "normal" in the context of the setting. D&D until recently was pretty neutral about those things but this is due to its quasi-historical wargaming roots. SJW's perceive everything as having a cis-white-male-bias and so therefore it's all "problematic", when in reality, this is just normal in-group preference.

So again, it's perfectly fine to create content that is important concerning whatever you think is important, but it needs to be done well. And here is where things get hazy because ultimately SJW's want their concerns to be treated as important as whatever else they feel is antithetical to their ideology - unfortunately this happens to be much of reality itself.

To the degree it's "good" or "bad" is dependent on the audience and the context of the content within the setting. Which leads us to...

Quote from: jhkim;1039480Further, I don't think these are even exclusive. As a specific example, in the Blue Rose sample adventure, "The Curse of Harmony" features a gay NPC (Jan) as central to its plot. Do you think that this means that it *isn't* signaling? It seems to me that a writer can be seen signaling if they make homosexuality central to the plot, because that means they're highlighting homosexuality even more. They can also be seen as signaling if they make homosexuality just a descriptive bit that isn't important.

And here the context of the setting is that homosexuality, transgender-ism, feminism are *part* of the setting conceits. The established norm of Aldis is one where these things are normal regardless of anything else. So it's not signaling at all because there is nothing to signal. Anyone playing Blue Rose should already know this before they even roll the first die. What would be signaling in reverse is having a non-SJW NPC that is virulently opposed to such things running around rabble-rousing with some intent on fixing those conceits within the setting. Or worse, doing so without social cost.

Quote from: jhkim;1039480Personally, I care about the results, not about their motives. If they signal a bunch but also write a good adventure, then I don't care.

Are they, in fact doing that? I'm asking because I don't actually know. Like many older gamers, I don't really do modules. But when I see them adding content into rulebooks or settings that fly in the face of what I consider traditional, I'm pretty much out. Especially if those things are blatant attempts at pushing an ideology that is extraneous to the setting or game.

Otherwise I totally agree. I think there is a way to thread the needle. But you don't do it with a jackhammer.

Quote from: jhkim;1039480With sandbox and other open-ended approaches, what is important and what is window dressing will vary widely.

For that matter, I also don't have a problem with window dressing as long as it is quick and to the point. I like giving quick, flavorful descriptions as if the place is a real place and as if the people are real people. In modules, I like having NPC portraits that I can show to the players - even though plenty of the details of that portrait might not matter. Does it matter that the university librarian is a bearded black man? Probably not, but I'm fine if that's what the picture shows.

I generally agree with you here. Nothing wrong with quick flavor text. The GM can extrapolate as they so please. I take it on a case by case basis.

The issue here - I think - is a side-discussion. Because we're talking about something I don't believe really has anything to do with the larger problem. This whole idea of gender/race/identity representation is really just a cover for an ideology of neo-Marxism. There is PUH-LENTY of evidence these things don't really matter to those that bark the loudest from the left. The goal is to divide and conquer on every group until it's boiled down to a silent constituency where everyone that does not fall into line is censured, othered and ostracized. This is only the tip of a very large shit-burgh that is sailing past our community on RPG-Island. Like the #MeToo movement is co-opted by people that were patting Weinstein on the back, while creating awards for Roman Polanski not more than a couple of years ago. Like the idea that all women need to be listened to - except when they're pointing fingers of accusation at Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Same is true here with Sean Patrick Fannon. It's groupthink activism where they have tried Sean in the court of Social Media, found him guilty, and are giving him the slow execution of banishment by shame, to fulfill their bizarre infantile revenge fantasies while patting themselves on the back and drinking in the attention while pretending it's "justice".

I would rather soberly just say "I don't know what happened. And if something did happen - they should go to the authorities."

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1039529If the author writes an PC as hetero-cis and the GM chooses to re-write the character as gay, bi or lesbian, there would be (these days, fortunately) no recriminations. OTOH, if the author of a module writes an PC as gay or bi or lesbian and the GM chooses to re-write the character as hetero-cis, the GM is open to accusations of "erasure".

Case in point on your own thread.

Quote from: MotorskillsIt is erasure if the players are occupying a mirror-world (OLDWORLD) with thousands or tens or thousands of people, many of whom are identified as being in hetero relationships, and none of whom are LGBT.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1039529That is why i suggested two methods of allowing the GM to make his or her choices without being open to such accusations.

1) A random method of determing an NPCs sexuality if/when it is needed.
2) In the case of major NPC relationship around which a plot is built, supplying the GM with a variety of relationships: platonic, hetero, interacial or across class divides etcetera that the module explicitly offers to the GM. Even going so far as to put numbers down the side so the GM can roll, or pick and say that he/she rolled.

I have yet to see you offer an alternative solution.

My solution is ignore it, because it's not a real problem. The gaming world is not, in fact, overrun with gay police who are forcing publishers to put gay characters in every module, and forcing GMs to include gay characters or suffer.

The vast majority of published modules have no gay characters at all. Even in uber-liberal Silicon Valley - most games I play in and run don't have gay characters.

The oppressed group you're protecting is GMs who are not homophobic, but who are facing false accusations of homophobia solely because they ran a module written with a gay NPC and changed that NPC to not being gay - where if only the module had put in a random roll, then they could have avoided the accusation. I'd want to talk to people in this group to get an idea of what they are going through - but frankly, I have my doubts about whether this group even exists - let alone that we should change the standards of all module-writing to help them.

Quote from: Haffrung;1039571Really, I don't like anything 17th century and later in my fantasy worlds. Pirates wearing tricorn hats in D&D drives me nuts. It ruins my sense of immersion. That's why I can't stand Paizo's settings and artwork - it's a kitchen-sink neverland, a pop-culture contrivance five steps removed from history or myth.

See, I don't know when tricorn hats were a thing, so I really don't care. Like I don't care if Plate Mail was really a thing or not. D&D, for me, has always been a mishmash of inspirations, like Dungeonland or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.  And we can't help but view D&D through a modern lens. I doubt very many of us can relate to the day to day concerns of a medevial pesant. We can imagine it, but we're bound to get a few details wrong. If I ran into an inn with free wi-fi, I'd be more concerned that the country seems to have developed modern computer and cellular technology. That's a fairly big and important detail.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1039596See, I don't know when tricorn hats were a thing, so I really don't care. Like I don't care if Plate Mail was really a thing or not. D&D, for me, has always been a mishmash of inspirations, like Dungeonland or Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.  And we can't help but view D&D through a modern lens. I doubt very many of us can relate to the day to day concerns of a medevial pesant. We can imagine it, but we're bound to get a few details wrong. If I ran into an inn with free wi-fi, I'd be more concerned that the country seems to have developed modern computer and cellular technology. That's a fairly big and important detail.

"Everything plus the kitchen sinks" reminds me of Howard and Conan.  "Mongols vs. Athenians vs. Feudal American Settlers?  WRITE THAT SHIT!"

Quote from: Haffrung;1039571I never said everyone had to be reproducing heterosexuals. But you don't think normalized gay marriage among farmers would pose a serious threat to any feudal order, where the peasants are essentially animal labour who their lord needs to breed more farmers and soldiers? And of course aristocracy is about breeding, alliances, and inheritance. How could it not be?

Neither the peasantry nor the aristocracy were wholly about breeding.  This is proven since aristocratic families would frequently send one of their sons to the church to live a celibate life as a priest, and many commoners would join a monastery or nunnery.  And indeed, the Church was rife with homoerotic bonds among the ostensibly celibate.  Given that neither group was wholly about breeding, I don't think that gay marriage of a small subset is inherently a threat to the social order. Obviously, things would be different from historical Europe if there were open homosexual marriage - but they would also be different if there were polytheistic clerics along with elves, spells, and dragons. D&D in particular is rife with tons of unmedieval features - like how characters have no designated social class, utterly illogical and thoroughly unmedieval gold-piece economics, and lack of slavery/serfdom among mainstream kingdoms.

Quote from: Haffrung;1039571Really, I don't like anything 17th century and later in my fantasy worlds. Pirates wearing tricorn hats in D&D drives me nuts. It ruins my sense of immersion. That's why I can't stand Paizo's settings and artwork - it's a kitchen-sink neverland, a pop-culture contrivance five steps removed from history or myth.

I can sympathize to some degree. I am a fan, say, of Harn and Mythic Europe compared to some other fantasy settings. But it's not like there wasn't any homosexuality in medieval times. Take, for example, this letter from the medieval scholar Alcuin (circa 735-804 A.D.) -

QuoteI think of your love and friendship with such sweet memories, reverend bishop, that I long for that lovely time when I may be able to clutch the neck of your sweetness with the fingers of my desires. Alas, if only it were granted to me, as it was to Habakkuk, to be transported to you, how would I sink into your embraces . . . how would I cover, with tightly pressed lips, not only your eyes, ears, and mouth but also your every finger and your toes, not once but many a time.

Some people have tried to argue that this is just allegorical friendship, but I think that's just stupid. Gay people existed in medieval times. If you want to be authentically medieval, then this will be suppressed by the Church - but people still have their proclivities. If you're playing in a world without a main monotheistic church, then it could still be suppressed - but there's also plenty of possibilities for open homosexual relations.

Quote from: tenbones;1039590...

Same is true here with Sean Patrick Fannon. It's groupthink activism where they have tried Sean in the court of Social Media, found him guilty, and are giving him the slow execution of banishment by shame, to fulfill their bizarre infantile revenge fantasies while patting themselves on the back and drinking in the attention while pretending it's "justice".

...

Exactly.

I might be compelled, as a journalist, to recount the experience of the victims, in their words, to help others empathize with how they feel. This in turn (I would hope) might teach someone that harassment is unwelcome. And perhaps what specific behaviors to avoid (if the generic conceit alludes them).

On the topic of inclusion in adventures:

There are several approaches to GMing. One of the more recent developments is the idea of "no useless rolls". Failure and success should be interesting. Why just roll all the time, with simple failures, if it doesn't further the action/story/adventure? I like this idea. I think it applies to adventure design.

Why are we detailing sexual preferences? Does it serve the adventure? Does it further the story?

Inclusivity should not be focused on the sexuality of the NPCs in an adventure. It SHOULD be focused on game play. If a character is being played as gay, and they approach a same-sex NPC, and try to seduce them, the GM gets to decide at that point, what the reaction is.

Should they be gay? Will it further the story? Will it make the player happy? What are they trying to accomplish? Are you going to facilitate that or shut it down? (either being a valid choice in my mind...)

Here's my major issue with all this hand-wringing about inclusivity; it's fake as fuck. It's why the term "virtue signaling" is so apropos.

Sprinkling your adventure with "the gays" in some pathetic attempt at representation is so insincere and so obviously fake I'm flabbergasted any actual person concerned with representation would be fooled by it.

You want to be inclusive? Don't judge the people at your table on ANY distinctions including religion, race, creed, sexual preferences, gender identity or favorite flavor of Doritos. Don't EXCLUDE people. It's really not hard. Who gives a flying fuck what John Bartender's sexuality is? How many people have you met jump up on the bar and exclaim "I'm so gay it's important to everything!!!" ? I've been at gay bars - that shit doesn't happen there. Why is this important?

It's important because the people who want to make it important NEED to have this hand-wringing moment. It's about drama. It's about attention. It's about expunging feelings of guilt, and shame, and self-loathing. Probably because these same loud hand-wringing dumb-asses WOULDN'T have the gay, or muslim, or Ranch Dorito loving player at THIER table. And now they must repent in order to be accepted into the SJW inquisition club of self-flagellation.

It's fake, insincere bullshit. Go run a fucking game with your gay friends and give them the same goddamn awesome, butt-kicking rollicking good time you would your hetero friends. THAT's inclusion.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039493The writers from the big publishing houses never did bother to attend gaming conventions until gaming conventions got big enough for them to warrant showing up, another words, when they could make more from convention book sales and autograph signings than they could make direct shipping books in a very real $ per hour kind of way.

Did you...

Did you just use the phrase, "another words"?

Well that's a new one.

Quote from: Mistwell;1039624Did you...

Did you just use the phrase, "another words"?

Well that's a new one.

No big deal, mistakes like that are a diamond dozen.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1039570The board at that time that ran the show tried to sweep it under the rug, and hide it. Just like you are doing now

I got my facts wrong from doing too quick research and believing some members of that Con committee. Mea Culpa.

You can take your accusation that I am trying to cover up for a child molester and shove it right up your diseased asshole though.

Quote from: jhkim;1039604Some people have tried to argue that this is just allegorical friendship, but I think that's just stupid. Gay people existed in medieval times.

Of course they did. I'm not claiming otherwise. But it was rarely open. And other than monks, homosexuals still carried on with their social responsibilities to mate and raise a family. Want to ogle the young men at the agora and charm them into your bed? Fine. Whatever. You still have a wife at home to carry out the property and inheritance functions of marriage contracts, provide citizens for the city or king, and provide an heir to carry on the family prestige. How many senators, dukes, chiefs, or kings said "nah, I'm gonna pass on the whole marriage and family thing and live with Marcus here instead."

And that isn't just a Christian thing. Family - necessary for marriage alliances, the stable inheritance of property, generating labour, and carrying on family status - is central to pretty much every culture we know of. Some were more tolerant then Christian Europe of how you got your sexual kicks, but opting out of the basic unit of society was rarely an option.