Quote from: Orphan81 on July 26, 2023, 01:04:24 AM
Skipping out on using the terms "He" and "She" in rpg books has been around for more than a couple decades now. I avoided using gendered terms in my own stuff back when I wrote for Gun Metal Games in 2010.

It's just asinine to assume your reader is a dude or a chick right off the bat... and switching between random He and Shes just gets awkward. There are lots of ways around it too, using the term "Player, Character, GM, You," ect.

This is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Using gender neutral words lke that isn't a problem. Using a plural pronoun to refer to a single individual is incorrect and just plain stupid.

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 26, 2023, 01:04:24 AM
This is making a mountain out of a molehill.

The Devil always sends sins in pairs so that when you recoil from one you fall into the other.

This feels like the flipside of the Left's microaggressions nonsense; instead of dealing with real outrages, you focus all your attention on peripheral BS and make that into a point of outrage and purity spiraling.

At this point I fully expect some of the extremists here to label my material as "woke" simply because I choose to write my rule books in the second person it feels more personable and inviting ("you gain a +3 bonus to your roll.") instead of using a dispassionate clinical masculine third person ("he gains a +3 bonus to his roll.") rather than judge by the content.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 26, 2023, 08:50:46 AM
The Devil always sends sins in pairs so that when you recoil from one you fall into the other.

Slippery slope is real...very, very real. We're entering phase two of the Marxist dystopian hellscape because people didn't want to bother saying anything about how stupid "personal pronouns" were. "What does it matter? I doesn't affect you!" Until it does...Which makes it even more laughable that anyone who finally says they've had enough of this nonsense and won't buy products anymore is somehow...a nutjob activist? You're not even allowed to tell a company to fuck off anymore, you MUST continue to buy their products!

I hate this timeline and am looking forward to the Crisis on Infinite Earths finally coming to an end.

Actually, assuming the gender of your reader or their character has been seen as a basic grammar error for decades.  Lots of games written in the 80's when I was a teen were already avoiding this, and we were taught to avoid it as part of the creative writing section of my English class.

But, neither is complaining that men cannot play hot women characters and dress them in Fur Bikinis of +5 distraction.  That's also OK. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on July 26, 2023, 10:29:19 AM
Actually, assuming the gender of your reader or their character has been seen as a basic grammar error for decades.  Lots of games written in the 80's when I was a teen were already avoiding this, and we were taught to avoid it as part of the creative writing section of my English class.

But, neither is complaining that men cannot play hot women characters and dress them in Fur Bikinis of +5 distraction.  That's also OK.

And you somehow think those teaching you that weren't the tip of the spear of the woke.

Game rules are not literature. They are instructions and therefore should be as clear as possible. So, "they" referring to a singular specific person is simply poor writing in the context of rules/instructions. ("They" referring to an indeterminate person is conventional and clear, as others have pointed out.)

There are so many other options that are clear:

- "He" for players and "she" for GM (or vice versa).

- Alternate "he" and "she" by chapter.

- Use only "he" or "she" everywhere and explain that you're not trying to be sexist, but are doing it for clarity, which is what my DCC rule book does.

The only reason to pick a less clear option is virtue signaling. And laziness, as demonstrated by the find-and-replace error in the dedication.

Oh my God, can you imagine the sheer horror if a book with written that used He for all of the examples? I mean, what if a woman read it? I mean, a small minority of the minority of your readers could actually be ever so mildly annoyed, before shrugging and reading on.

Quite the literary minefield that we've been saved from.

I imagine that many of those who are crying out for gender neutral pronouns, also believe that RPGs should be Free to Play, and Player Driven; so they aren't going to be Buying these RPGs, anyway.  Only a fool, would chase after that fan base.

English grammar has fucked up conjugation and weak gender rules. Complaining about singular "they" is no different than complaining about singular "you".

I get it. We all want to find something objectively incorrect about danger-haired 16-25 year old women who have decided they don't want to be women anymore, because women are oppressed by the Patriarchy, but also don't want to be men, because men are toxic, and so have to be some third thing that's simultaneously neither and both. Singular they isn't it. That was being done long before feminism was invented, let alone queer theory.

We have a perfectly good alternative in English to the confusion around singular/plural "you":  it's called Y'ALL and is an entirely legal contraction of "you all," meaning you in the plural sense.

We also have an alternative to the singular/plural "they" conundrum:  a pronoun called IT.  Why a pink-haired libtarded freak would get offended by the pronoun IT as opposed to THEY is beyond me.  Seems like IT is a perfect descriptor for that sort.

And I've not seen any of these defenses of using "They" in the singular sense address the real issue here:  it's confusing to read.  It's especially irritating when trying to read board game rules.  "They now draw a card."  Well, WHO draws a card?  All the players?  The current player?  I have to re-read the sentence I've just read for context, then translate it back in my head using singular pronouns if necessary to understand the rule.  You can get around this to a certain extent using "you" or "Player #1" or whatever, but that language gets old when overused.  And "he or she," while a little clunky, is at least not confusing and yet avoids the hyper-offended sorts from getting the vapors.

And for those of you who are saying that using "they" in the singular is no big deal and nothing to argue over -- then neither is the usage of "he," which can mean either "man" or "man or woman" depending on the context, same as the terms "Man" or "Mankind."  So why did liberals make a big deal of it to begin with, if it's so inconsequential?  It's like you're saying our reaction to it is over-the-top, but their initial "offense" at such an inoffensive term is not.

There's no good argument for using "They" for singular men or women.

Quote from: I on July 26, 2023, 05:28:25 PM
And for those of you who are saying that using "they" in the singular is no big deal and nothing to argue over -- then neither is the usage of "he," which can mean either "man" or "man or woman" depending on the context, same as the terms "Man" or "Mankind."  So why did liberals make a big deal of it to begin with, if it's so inconsequential?  It's like you're saying our reaction to it is over-the-top, but their initial "offense" at such an inoffensive term is not.

Quote from: rytrasmi on July 26, 2023, 11:45:02 AM
Game rules are not literature. They are instructions and therefore should be as clear as possible. So, "they" referring to a singular specific person is simply poor writing in the context of rules/instructions. ("They" referring to an indeterminate person is conventional and clear, as others have pointed out.)

There are so many other options that are clear:

- "He" for players and "she" for GM (or vice versa).

- Alternate "he" and "she" by chapter.

- Use only "he" or "she" everywhere and explain that you're not trying to be sexist, but are doing it for clarity, which is what my DCC rule book does.

The only reason to pick a less clear option is virtue signaling. And laziness, as demonstrated by the find-and-replace error in the dedication.

Or even better yet, use "player" or "character" or "GM", which are way more specific and accurate and easier to interpret than pronouns, which might end up unintentionally separated from their noun during later revisions.

Which is pertinent to what I'm doing. I'm 397 pages into editing our 455 page, 100,578 word novel. Pronouns can be really difficult to debug. Descriptive nouns are way more fun, entertaining, and clear. (YMMV because someone is going to come along and profess a deep-seated affection for pronouns. LOL)

Quote from: I on July 26, 2023, 05:28:25 PM
And for those of you who are saying that using "they" in the singular is no big deal and nothing to argue over -- then neither is the usage of "he," which can mean either "man" or "man or woman" depending on the context, same as the terms "Man" or "Mankind."  So why did liberals make a big deal of it to begin with, if it's so inconsequential?  It's like you're saying our reaction to it is over-the-top, but their initial "offense" at such an inoffensive term is not.

Personally, I am against both of:

1) Liberals who are outraged and make a big deal over standard use of generic "he" in a game book

2) Conservatives who are outraged and make a big deal over standard use of singular "they" in a game book


It's valid for someone to have a preference either way (or to prefer other options). But outrage and declaring DCC "fallen" over either option is over the top.

Quote from: jhkim on July 26, 2023, 07:46:03 PM

Quote from: I on July 26, 2023, 05:28:25 PM
And for those of you who are saying that using "they" in the singular is no big deal and nothing to argue over -- then neither is the usage of "he," which can mean either "man" or "man or woman" depending on the context, same as the terms "Man" or "Mankind."  So why did liberals make a big deal of it to begin with, if it's so inconsequential?  It's like you're saying our reaction to it is over-the-top, but their initial "offense" at such an inoffensive term is not.

Personally, I am against both of:

1) Liberals who are outraged and make a big deal over standard use of generic "he" in a game book

2) Conservatives who are outraged and make a big deal over standard use of singular "they" in a game book


It's valid for someone to have a preference either way (or to prefer other options). But outrage and declaring DCC "fallen" over either option is over the top.

I admit that you have a reasonable take on the issue.  Personally, I don't think they're "fallen" for this either; not serious enough to me.  (I think they fell prior to this when they supported BLM's campaign of arson, theft and murder).  I do think it's especially hypocritical on their part, though, since they've always acted like they're so old-school and hard-edged and politically incorrect.  Mark my words, it will not end here with this little pronoun change.  The people they're pandering to also don't like character death, evil monsters, random results, or danger.  I see many DCC adventures set in coffee shops on the horizon.