Quote from: Silas1066;1038416Let me clarify what I said about "family-friendly"

I meant that specifically in regards to D&D, not other games. There are plenty of games with adult themes that I enjoy playing, and I have no issue with people creating stuff that is for a mature audience.

And when I say D&D was family-friendly, I mean Classic D&D, not AD&D. From the brown box, to the Holmes edition, to BECMI, etc., TSR set the age range at 11+. There was no nudity (that I remember), excessive gore, homosexual themes, etc. in those editions. You could play the game with your kids and not have to worry.

Now AD&D was for a somewhat older crowd, but even that was tame compared to modern stuff. There may have been supporting material in Dragon magazine, etc. that was specifically for adults.

Other RPGs from the late 70s and early 80s were pretty family-friendly: Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls, Man, Myth, and Magic, etc.

When the "Book of Vile Darkness" arrived in 3rd edition, things began to change. Now we had incestuous demons who engaged in rape. Later, gay characters were introduced, transgenderism in the rule books, etc. Now we have Crawford declaring he wants to make D&D more queer.

But heaven forbid we have any slave lords! That is going too far!

In other words, a small group of people is steering the game where they want it to go

Homosexuality being an explicit topic is no longer a default assumption.

Now a days, it's presence in a medium is like the presence of witchcraft in the medium, it offends some but is not considered offensive.

The same can be said for gender issues, though to a lesser extent since it's not as widely accepted as Homosexuality.

I personally don't mind this, what I do mind is when it sides from, "some characters are gay" to "this character is more interesting because he is gay". Ummm no, sexuality and gender identity don't make characters more interesting by themselves. It's just a different starting motivation to build a character out of, the interesting parts of a character come from the character arch.

Quote from: jhkim;1038428So how does this square with your complaint that Lamentations of the Flame Princess is desecrating D&D? Is it that you consider Lamentations to be inherently D&D, and thus it shouldn't have adult themes? Or do you not actually have a problem with Lamentations, and take back your complaint?




As far as family-friendly goes - you seem to clearly be saying that gay characters and/or gay themes are not family-friendly. I could accept your saying "I don't want products with any gay characters in them" as a personal preference. However, I and many other families don't think there is anything wrong with gay people. I am happy introducing my children to gay friends, having gay teachers, watching shows with gay characters, etc. Gay themes and gay characters are family-friendly, in my opinion.

And here is the crux. We both play D&D - we both have different things that we want from it. It is up to the owners and the market of D&D to determine what direction it goes in. Over time, it will go in different directions, and it will be up to a small number of people inherently, because there are only so many people who will actually write new official material. The market will have feedback about that, but by many accounts, D&D is doing great right now in the market. I don't think that older players have a moral right to keep D&D gay-free like it used to be, and this is a change that I'm fine with.

As far as the gay issue goes, my stance is that when I sit down with the kids to play D&D, getting into discussions about the gay lifestyle is not on the menu. It isn't the time or place for that.

I don't let gays interject their shit into every facet of life simply because they feel entitled. Likewise, I don't think Christians should be interjecting Biblical messages into the PHB either.

LotFP is derived from old-school D&D, and is technically part of the OSR. Do they mean to desecrate the tradition? I don't know, but some have made this observation.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1038433D&D never was gay-free, or anything like that. Two of the guys in my original gaming group from the 70's were gay. One was a life-long closet gay, and the other, exactly the opposite.

That said, we are having a problem now with a bunch of gay, bi, and transgender guys trying to gatekeep our hobby, and to deliberately exclude people, for no good reason at all... other than they don't like them. Check out all the fun and games this morning over at the LotFP G+ ...

Also I'd appreciate screenshots if anyone here cares to share, as a few of the more vocal slimeballs ID'ed as being witchhunters have actually blocked me, so I can no longer see their posts in that thread, all because I'm making arguments on behalf of Sean Patrick Fannon as well as theRPGPundit... So much for free speech on G+.

https://plus.google.com/112262093672917983853/posts/dgAPkjyTxEs?fscid=z13sd1linpq5t5cqv04cix5zjravjn3z0lo0k.1525969016471360

Is Raggi a member of this group? Why is he putting up my posts on other forums?

Now I stand by what I said about LotFP, but this discussion was for this audience, not for the general public.

Also, let me point out that I did not say Raggi himself is a SJW. He clearly is NOT, and SJWs tend not to like him.

But Zack S ?

LotFP could be a truly great game if it toned down some of the grindcore elements. The artwork and design are excellent (I love the boxed set), the writing is good, rules are pretty streamlined and intuitive.

I just don't think they needed to put in the shocking stuff just to cause controversy or get attention. The game can stand on its own merits.

I'm not saying don't include horror, some gore, etc. --but they went too far.

There was a game years ago called "The World of Necroscope" by West End. Cool system, pretty good writing, interesting game world, but the art in the first module was outright torture-porn (the adventure featured serial killers, etc.). It really turned me off to the game (the art was even worse than that found in LotFP).

Quote from: Silas1066;1038443Is Raggi a member of this group? Why is he putting up my posts on other forums?

Now I stand by what I said about LotFP, but this discussion was for this audience, not for the general public.

Not that I know of. He just just posted about some twit who wasn't a very clear thinker. The Swine/Tangency from Enworld (and probably from the RPG.net as well, That echo chambers there have been dreadfully boring as of late without any new targets, but each other...) jumped in with their torches and pitchforks and actually dragged the RPGSite as well as Zak into the ongoing conversation, whereupon a bunch of losers dogpiled the Pundit. I just stepped in to verify whether these same losers were part of that torch bearing lynch mob that went after Sean Patrick Fannon last week and was rewarded with an unequivocal affirmation of that fact, so I burned a few of the more vocal ones for their stupidity, and then was blocked by a few others that were ashamed of being caught in the company of such a crew of losers.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1038453Not that I know of. He just just posted about some twit who wasn't a very clear thinker. The Swine/Tangency from Enworld (and probably from the RPG.net as well, That echo chambers there have been dreadfully boring as of late without any new targets, but each other...) jumped in with their torches and pitchforks and actually dragged the RPGSite as well as Zak into the ongoing conversation, whereupon a bunch of losers dogpiled the Pundit. I just stepped in to verify whether these same losers were part of that torch bearing lynch mob that went after Sean Patrick Fannon last week and was rewarded with an unequivocal affirmation of that fact, so I burned a few of the more vocal ones for their stupidity, and then was blocked by a few others that were ashamed of being caught in the company of such a crew of losers.

Raggi says that Ennies judges receive product directly and that the staff isn't involved. That's bullshit and he knows it. It says right on the Ennies site:

"If a publisher is submitting electronic products they should fill out the submission form first before sending anything. They should then e-mail their electronic submissions to Hans Cummings, our Submissions Coordinator."

"When the Submissions Coordinator receives an electronic entry, he will also update the spreadsheet. He will then upload the product to a Dropbox to which each judge has access. They can then download it, updating the spreadsheet when they do, and start to review it."

Publishers also drop off physical product to the submissions coordinator at Gencon and other conventions.

Very few submissions bypass the coordinator. So I need to call out that bullshit outright.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1038433D&D never was gay-free, or anything like that. Two of the guys in my original gaming group from the 70's were gay. One was a life-long closet gay, and the other, exactly the opposite.

To clarify - Silas1066 is complaining about the appearance of gay characters in official D&D materials - and in reaction, I was referring to "gay-free" as D&D adventures/sourcebooks being free of gay characters. As far as I know, for a long time there were no gay characters in official published D&D adventures and sourcebooks.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1038433That said, we are having a problem now with a bunch of gay, bi, and transgender guys trying to gatekeep our hobby, and to deliberately exclude people, for no good reason at all... other than they don't like them. Check out all the fun and games this morning over at the LotFP G+

OK, what I see there on James Raggi's channel is mostly him and other people complaining about Silas1066's charge that Lamentations is desecrating D&D.  Who are you saying that James Raggi and Lamentations fans are trying to exclude from the hobby?

Quote from: jhkim;1038456To clarify - Silas1066 is complaining about the appearance of gay characters in official D&D materials - and in reaction, I was referring to "gay-free" as D&D adventures/sourcebooks being free of gay characters. As far as I know, for a long time there were no gay characters in official published D&D adventures and sourcebooks.


OK, what I see there on James Raggi's channel is mostly him and other people complaining about Silas1066's charge that Lamentations is desecrating D&D.  Who are you saying that James Raggi and Lamentations fans are trying to exclude from the hobby?

I'm just wondering why my post found its way over to Raggi's group.

Some dogpile by proxy effort?

He is welcome to come here and discuss LotFP in detail. As I pointed out above, I actually think it is a pretty good game, but I do have a few issues with it.

Quote from: Silas1066;1038452There was a game years ago called "The World of Necroscope" by West End. Cool system, pretty good writing, interesting game world, but the art in the first module was outright torture-porn (the adventure featured serial killers, etc.). It really turned me off to the game (the art was even worse than that found in LotFP).

   I believe that was licensed, so it may have been the source material.

  But all these controversies and varied camps are making me want to stick with dead and abandoned product lines.

Quote from: GRIM;1038371...get fucked.

...I don't want to excise the 'Social Justice Warriors' from the hobby any more than I wanted to excise the religious from the hobby. I just want them to stop trying to dictate to everyone else and to stop passing judgement and establishing purity tests. To stop trying to take control.
...

Bingo! Exactly.

Quote from: GRIM;1038371Let me be abso-fucking-clear here since there are some people who will think I agree with them and some 'enemies' who will use that as ammunition. I know the Drama Llamas and the trolls of YDIS like to cruise here for meat.

If you're seeking to constrict or define what other people can create or play in their games, I'm not on your side.

My objection to the censorious puritanism of the 'SocJus' pseudo-left is the same objection I always had to the censorious puritanism of the evangelical right of the past. I think games - and all other creative endeavours - should be as free as possible to explore ideas and material. After all nobody HAS to play anything. The moment you start to try and control what someone else can publish or play, or what gets awards or gets sold, that's where I start to have issues.

If you think all games need to be family friendly, get fucked.
If you think all games have to have modern-era progressive ideology present in their settings, get fucked.
If you don't think games should have nudity or address adult themes, get fucked.

Basically as soon as you're saying something either must or mustn't be present in someone else's work - get fucked.

I have no objection to grindcore, satanic, cannibalistic, dungeon crawling games existing.
I have no objection to hippy-dippy, narrative focused, borderline ephebophile mecha games existing.

I don't want to excise the 'Social Justice Warriors' from the hobby any more than I wanted to excise the religious from the hobby. I just want them to stop trying to dictate to everyone else and to stop passing judgement and establishing purity tests. To stop trying to take control.

FOAMYOS.
(Fuck off, and make your own shit).

Absolutely agreed. There is room for a wide range of tastes and preferences not just in D and D but rpgs. The urge to 'gatekeep' seems mostly born from either a sense of entitlement or self righteous moral superiority. No one has a play any certain game or setting or has to use every piece of material created for it in their games.

Speaking for myself, I'd rather have material I find questionable, even disturbing or offensive produced from time to time in this hobby than material that is mostly watered down for mass appeal, regardless of the special 'mass' its trying to appeal too. There's a board range of people playing rpgs and, if that number grows, that spectrum is going to get wider and more diverse. I look forward to that as a chance to at least get a look at some other approaches and styles.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1038436Homosexuality being an explicit topic is no longer a default assumption.

Now a days, it's presence in a medium is like the presence of witchcraft in the medium, it offends some but is not considered offensive.

The same can be said for gender issues, though to a lesser extent since it's not as widely accepted as Homosexuality.

I personally don't mind this, what I do mind is when it sides from, "some characters are gay" to "this character is more interesting because he is gay". Ummm no, sexuality and gender identity don't make characters more interesting by themselves. It's just a different starting motivation to build a character out of, the interesting parts of a character come from the character arch.

I feel the same way. Sexual orientation is a facet of a characters, one of the building blocks that can make for an interesting persona not the key to one. John Smith is homosexual is no more innately interesting than John Smith is heterosexual without a full persona around it, even if their orientation is in someway its core.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1038319Yeah, Lamentations gives the impression of just trying too hard.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess has come up repeatedly in this discussion and unfortunately I'm not familiar with it beyond having seen the name around. What are the issues with it?

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1037150Your under reaction is almost as bad as the SJW overreaction.

Hence my repeated statement that this place is turning into the Mirror Universe RPGnet.

Quote from: Silas1066;1038416Later, gay characters were introduced, transgenderism in the rule books, etc. Now we have Crawford declaring he wants to make D&D more queer.

But heaven forbid we have any slave lords! That is going too far!

So gay and transgender people are as bad as slavelords?  You are a walking talking piece of shit.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1038476So gay and transgender people are as bad as slavelords?  You are a walking talking piece of shit.

No, check your reading comprehension skills and take a tranquilizer

I was saying that the guys who write and design D&D have no issues putting gay characters into the books and modules, but raise a shit storm about adventures like "In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords". In other words, they are still policing content, but only the content they personally find objectionable.

Gay and transgender people are just like most people. Some are nice people, and some are complete shit heads. They don't get a pass because of sexual preference or membership in some identity group. No with me anyway.

Quote from: jhkim;1038456To clarify - Silas1066 is complaining about the appearance of gay characters in official D&D materials - and in reaction, I was referring to "gay-free" as D&D adventures/sourcebooks being free of gay characters. As far as I know, for a long time there were no gay characters in official published D&D adventures and sourcebooks.


OK, what I see there on James Raggi's channel is mostly him and other people complaining about Silas1066's charge that Lamentations is desecrating D&D.  Who are you saying that James Raggi and Lamentations fans are trying to exclude from the hobby?

The Pundit and pretty much everyone over here on the RPGSite. For awhile they were busy over on G+ trash talking the Pundit and the RPGSite starting with;

Ramaman: "Your first mistake seems to be reading theRPGSite."

followed by Andy stating

Andy Action: "Wow. This person is almost as unhinged and confused as Pundit."

So instead of talking about how to make better games, which is what we usually do on G+, a bunch of swine gossip hogs just decided to pat each other on the back all the while talk down about something they know next to nothing about, the RPGSite. For instance, they didn't even know I was a frequent poster here. When they did discover it, some of the most egregious of the swine ringleaders blocked me, so I could no longer challenge their obvious fake news mongering and so they could hide their lying ways. I burned a few swine, and called them on their misconduct leaving them very discontent.

Since it seems to be relevant, I'll look through my old TSR gaming modules and see if I can find any openly gay characters, pretty sure there are a few in there, since TSR delighted and took about every opportunity to tweak everyone's misconceptions regarding gender and equality.

For example, even if the writing wasn't, the artwork older gaming material was much more open minded then from contemporary gaming companies other than LotFP, specifically;

OSR Art Friday: The Cover of Eldritch Wizardry
http://saveversusallwands.blogspot.com/2014/09/osr-art-friday-cover-of-eldritch.html

and

The Good, the Bad, and the Clothed;
http://saveversusallwands.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-good-bad-and-clothed.html

In short, old school RPG art is actually more open minded than the majority of our contemporaries now, yet the tards over on G+ are stating for the record, ...exactly the opposite, and were happily bullying and disparaging people to boot. I finished addressing that, by the way, and will look for more examples in my old published modules of characters and npcs of divergent preferences. We were just subtle about expressing these things back then more out of courtesy and respect than in any desire to "suppress" or "minimize" a specific ethnic group or sex, although I will say that there was an awful lot of scantily clad women in early D&D art, but then, that is true of ancient history in general, if our archaeological records are to be believed.

Also, there were actually two gay people and one bisexual guy (he came out in 1982) out of my original gaming group of eleven from the 70's. The flaming gay guy,  ...used to, ...of course, like playing nekkid barbarians, and went to great lengths to make sure we all had an opportunity to see his character drawings. Our whole thing was, ...great! whatever makes you happy! and we just went on with our gaming without any further comments or much ado, ...because, it was the 70's and early 80's and everyone gets to live the groovy lifestyle they envision. That all changed rather abruptly between 1985-1986. We didn't have alot to do with that though.

Kids these days though...